re,
the lines of which were finely varied with the union or expansion of
spiral or cascade folds, composing with or contrasting the outline and
chiaroscuro. Few artists since the fifteenth century have been able to
do so much in so many different branches; for besides his beautiful
compositions and pictures, which have added to the knowledge and
celebrity of the English School, he modelled like a sculptor, carved
ornaments in wood with great delicacy, and could make an architectural
design in a fine taste, as well as construct every part of the
building."

After the death of Reynolds and the retirement of Romney, in the last
decade of the eighteenth century, the field of portraiture was left
vacant--in London at least--for JOHN HOPPNER, whose name is now
generally included with those of Lawrence and Raeburn among the first
six portrait painters of the British

[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.--GEORGE ROMNEY

MRS ROBINSON--"PERDITA"

_Hertford House, London_]

School. His fame in recent years has certainly exceeded his merits, but
it is due to him to say that he was a conscientious artist, and a firm
upholder of the tradition of Reynolds, so far as in him lay. The old
King had always disliked Reynolds, and Hoppner was not well enough
advised to hold his tongue on the subject of the master: worse than
this, he openly accepted the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and by so
doing opened the door for the admission of Lawrence as royal painter
much sooner than was at all necessary. The story of their rivalry is
thus--in substance--sketched by Allan Cunningham, their
contemporary:--The light of the Prince of Wales's countenance was of
itself sufficient to guide the courtly and beautiful to Hoppner's easel.
Suffice it to say that before he was forty years of age (he was born in
1759), he had been enabled to exhibit no less than fifteen ladies of
quality--for so are they named in the catalogues--a score of ladies of
lower degree, and noblemen unnumbered. But by this time another star had
arisen, destined to outshine that of Hoppner; though some at that
period, willing to flatter the older practitioner, called it a meteor
that would but flash and disappear--we allude to Lawrence. Urged upon
the Academy by the King and Queen, and handed up to public notice by
royal favour, this new aspirant rose rapidly in the estimation of the
public; and by the most delicate flattery, both with tongue and pencil,
became a formidable rival to