The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-29
AMONG The PORTRAITS At EeNsINGTOS.

In tnOSo BAll6Ileb WuOAb5 III AoO%j bho hVAA-
day seekers and students Of many nations
gathered for gossip and eating and drinking,
occupations evanescent and jovial, two vast
companies of the ghostly dead have since been
called in succession, and ranked in portraiture
before our eyes. They came from dusty
hooks, from garrets, or high up in rat-infested
closets. of the walls Of long-deserted rooms in
.ouutry mansions which once were all their
own in body or in similitude; they came from
chambers that had been prinoely and full Of
life for five hundred years; from the
dining-halls of colleges which the origi-
mails had founded or benefited, and
left them to be forgotten by those who eat
dead mems feasts. This was painted when
the sitter got the Garter, that when he or she
was married; the next was parting gift from
a mother to her son, that to a wife from hus-
band going to the wars.
Last year, what old memories, old loves, old
hates, old customs thrOnged the fancy or
charmed the sight of the student as he hailed
Chaucer's likeness (9), copy made in former
days of that which Occleve drew from recol-
lections of his "dear masters" person! Here,
in Richard H." Cd was the oldest picture in
England, sadly mauled, but still claim
ing attention by the strange beauty of
the face-that marvellous triptych of Sir
John Donne and his lady QS) Memline
painted in Bruges while Caxton was printing
in Westminster Abbey-here were Hol-
bein's pictures made in the golden age of
Henry Wits prime. These were by admira-
BILE artists, and had been given to Holbein, but
were really due to his equals and forgotten
names: one among these concerns all literary
folks, for it was superb picture of the Earl
of Surrey (l2l) from Knole, painted in the
Italian manner and ascribed to Holbein, but in
&
Englshman of great fame in his day. Surrey,
it is said, died for his ambition. This portrait
is inscribed Sat SupereSt. Had not the words
an afterthoughtl
Here Philip Sidney met Algernon of his own
name: George Buchanan saw James l long
after he was out of his tutelage, and had got
TO strange passes; there was Francis Walsing-
ham face to face with Queen Mary of Scotland;
Mary Beatoun (33l)-a false-looking woman,
and one of "the Queens four Maries" who are
included in the woful rhyme,
"There was Mary Beatoun, and Mary Seton,
And Mary Carmichael and me-"
met at least dozen royal Maries, in fe W of
whom could she possibly recognize her mis-
tress, SO diverse were their features, so strange
their airs. Here was Darnley, with the silliest
face and longest legs that ever mortal saw; and
there (439) the baby King James praying at
Gods altar by his fathers tomb for vengeance
on that fathers murderers. Ten pictures off
hung Hobson, the Cambridge carrier, the hero
Of "Hobson's choice" whose epitaph Milton
made twice over; there Milton there his friend
Henry Lawes, of whom he wrote-
''Thou honor'st verse, and verse must lend his
To honor thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire."
There was Car of Ferniherst and Devereux
Earl of Essex and that abandoned woman
who married both, and may have murdered
Overbury. Gondomar stood there with a
wolfsh laugh-he was a great wit: there Sir
Walter Raleigh. This was the very portrait
of the Infanta Maria which led Prince Charles
on that will-O' -the-wisp dance into Spain;
and not far off hung Henrietta of France,
whom he picked up when the wild light had
been dashed out; Buckingham the first and
Buckingham the second, Arabella Stuart, who
had that tremendously long bill for millinery,
and Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, who
held Buckingham's horse while he killed her
husband, as they say.
In fact, the whole history of England and
Scotland since Richard II-civil, military,
personal, and dOmestic-has been illustrated
on these walls. Last year, the pages of Frois-
Bart, Monstrelet Hollingshed, Hall, Fabyan,
the histories of Elizabeth's times, the
memoirs and diaries of James and
Charles days; Grammont, D'Ewes, Bramston,
Evelyn, and Pepys-this year, Pope Walpole,
Boswell Fanny Burney, and score of others
have had delightful light cast upon their
pages, One might go on enumerating the
men and women of last years show until
another year began. Here were divers
Peers and Charles Knights of the Royal Oak;
these arranged themselves in groups; the cap
tains of Henry and Elizabeth, the traitors of
King James.
In that gathering with which we have now
to do it is captain of King Williams who
leads the line in a much-restored portrait,
being Ginkell, Earl of Athlone (l) with whom
may go Rigaud's snowy picture of Bentinck,
Earl of Portland (5), whom the Duke of
Marlborough delighted to cali ''the wooden
Portland" He certainly looks a good deal
like ships fgure-head, similitude which is
increased by his action of holding out his lead
ing-stah. Marlborough was the last apt man
to do this reticent soldier justice it is told of
him that, being page of honor to William III,
and his young master suffering from small
p0x, the pustules of which did not rise, the
doctor recommended placing the sick child in
bed with another that was healthy, in order,
as il was devised, to carry off the poison of the
disease from the former. Bentinck volun-
teered his life, was accepted, took, and nearly
died of the disease. 1t was ia heroic act,
which William long remembered. It was
Bentinck who, when shown in a French
palace lie Bruins pictures of Louis XIV's
victories, and asked if such could be matched
in England, replied, "No; the monuments of my
masters actions are to be seen anywhere
but in his own house." He acted in the
spirit OF that Roman Catholic of williams
Dutch Guards, who, as Burnet tells ms
when asked how he could aid in the entar
,nrioa or, Rn0land xUhiob 80, -,