PORTRAITS AND PRINTS AT ETON.

UBLIC LIBRARY.

NEW YORK

515

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

said to be by Hoppner, represents him at about twenty-five, when he was
in Parliament, with a smile which is the epitome of the "Anti-Jacobin" sarcas
which made him enemies in the "Republican party." How these names have
passed away, like the days of the dandies! The style of portraiture, too,—
Mr. Canning's curling lip, Mr. Gladstone's toga! This last picture was painted
when Mr. Gladstone was thirty-two.

To call up an Eton boy's look and dress in the eighteenth century we have in the Small Drawing-room the picture of Sir William Young, of the family of North Dean, Bucks (Sir George Young of Cookham, Berks, painted by Calderon. 1S amongst Dr.

Goodford's pupils).

Our boy is in a brown cloth suit and ruffles, his hair is drawn back from the brow, and falls in a pigtail; it is curling above the ears. 'Mr. Wigram' is a delightful boy in the early thirties in Dr. Keate's collection. He has gone into tails' with brass buttons, and has a flower in his buttonhole. Mr. Stanley' in the Drawing-room, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, wears his hair long and flowing, and just touched. with powder, the ail de poudre lingering into Our century. He is in boyish but faultlessly sporting boy attire, as becomes the son of the founder of the Derby

and of the Oaks.

Earl Grey at seventeen, afterwards Prime Minister.
(BY ROMNEY.)

This is the father of the Prime Minister. Both portraits of young Lord Derbys are masterpieces of Lawrence.

But the earliest known portrait of an Eton boy is that of Thomas Gray, aged fourteen. He is in a gold-laced coat, waistcoat, breeches, and silk stockings (by the way, how came the son of Mary Antrobus, the mantle-maker, sent to Eton by his uncle the country rector of Everdon, to be such a fine gentleman at fourteen ?) He is no poor scholar: he wears scarlet slippers. The hair falls straight on temples and cheek, as boys wore it when their elders were hardly distinguishable from each other in befrizzed wigs. The nose is retroussé and the jaw a little underhung; he is recognisable as the odd-featured Gray whose lineaments, in his manhood's

contradict all sentimentality, pensive English poet as he was. But this portrait is not amongst the oil paintings. The original is in the FitzWilliam at Cambridge, there is only the engraving with the later likenesses in the gallery. Here beside Gray is Horace Walpole, his chum; here are the worthies who start to life, as it were, for us in the pages of Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte's clear and artistic history of the College. Here, among more or less insignificant modern prints, are the statesmen, "Eton boys grown heavy," as Praed wrote; here is Praed himself, a witty

and diffident-thoroughly Eton-genius; and here is Shelley in an excellent autotype by Henry Cameron from a drawing in the possession of Lady Shelley. His portrait, alas! was not one of those requested at his leaving by Dr. Keate. But there should be no mistiness about our vision of Shelley, so minute are the descriptions of his friend Hogg, so like are the descriptions to the dress and fashion of hair of boy-portraits at the Lodge. Shelley's "expensive clothes, cut in the fashion but untidily worn," and his long locks as "he shoulders his gun for hours at Field Place," must have been those of the boy Lord Derby in the portrait by Lawrence. Other likenesses in the Gallery should be studied side by side with younger portraits at the Lodge. Earl Grey's characteristic is still grace and amenity, after many a parliamentary fight, as in the youthful profile by Gainsborough. Hallam the historian's portrait in later life bears witness to the veracity of Sir William Beechey's picturesque and lively picture in the Lodge. These and others give a gravity to the motto Noblesse oblige, too lightly, often, taken to be the motto of our public schools. But at any rate the gallery of Eton statesmen and writers is stamped with it; the promise of nobility is here seen in fulfilment.

BLANCHE WARRE CORNISH.

The photographs in this article are by Messrs. Hills & Saunders, Eton.

L

CLIEFDEN, ROYAL OAK DAY 1690.

OOKING lately through the Tudor Presse, I came upon the Duke of

Buckingham's Alchemical Bottles and conjuring books, in the same confusion wherein they were so oft spread out before him. And I remember the perception I once overheard him expound from them, that when the interest in life abates, its duration, curiously enough, is drawing to an end. Which may be true, albeit as unavailing as the portrait of my Lord Duke himself, when he was an innocent fayre visaged chylde, which by a sarcasticall fate hung at his bed's head when he lay dead-a wrecked and shattered man. Likewise came it back to me, traversing the hall, how one evening shortly before my Lady of Shrewsbury's cheerless going hence, her love having become as a stone, she idled in the chimney corner, drawing from her Lute its subtle Chords, when behold, the clock chime struck athwart her musique with a curious tinklinge ecstasie, as of Memories wild and sweete. Could any Memories have been more tragical, however romantique, than hers? And her song was that the Chesseplayers sang so beautifully:

Or ever the silver cord be loosed,

Or the golden Bowl be broken.

Wherefore since those dayes, when some rapt singer fills the ayre, I sometimes muse what secret and maybe anguished Pulse inspires (for aught we know) that fine Refrain; and how the World, listening to such a Song-bird's gladnesse, would marvel, could it discern through the thrilling cadence, that the minstrel's Harte is breaking.

It was on a May morning in the yeere 1668, fowre months after the duell at Barne Elmes where the Duke of Buckingham ranne that fine Rapier he called his Valenciennes needle through Lord Shrewsbury's Bodye, that Pansie Brighteyes, which was one of her Ladyship's tyring mayds, and as choyce a Baggage as man might wish to meet, came a bustling into my Buttery, with her kissing strings streaming in the wind. On the greensward, in the Duke's garden, my lord and Sir Robert Holmes, which was commonly called the Queen's pawn among the Chesseplayers' fraternitie and which was one of the seconds on our side at Barne Elmes, were recreating themselves with buttoned foyles and masques repeating for an howre together,

Froissez-pointez-dégagez,
Demicercle-battez-à fond.

* See PALL MALL MAGAZINE for March 1894, July 1896, and December 1898.

Now Pansie looked so pretty, with her cheeks afire from running, that as she came in I could not refrain thinking to myself, if thou wert pye, I'd eat thee! I'd have kisst her too, had not my She-Cozen been lurking betwixt the Storeroom and the Buttery. For, knowing it to be my daughter Maudlyn's birthday, she had sett forth towards pudding time from Maydenhead, like the Smell feast she is. So although I can neither forget nor forgive how once she gave me a draught against ague which I afterwards learned was compounded of Beetles and fatt Batts, I ordered Harkaway, the page, to sett her forth in the kitchen a slice of roly-poly with a dishe of hartichokes.

At that moment came Pansie from the Wanton's Bowre, as people afterwards called it, where Lady Shrewsbury was mighty busy listening to Master Beddingfield, telling me I was to bring him refreshments thither-any cag-nag she sayd would do-he being loath to show himself at the house. It did not marvel me that my lady should be gossipping with one whom all the world knows was a Jesuit Go-between of the French King, for in those guerdonlesse times we were used to new-found friends. But as I spread a cold Fricassey with lady-longings and a flask of clarett on a tray, I felt right glad this call upon my Larder came not one day sooner, when for a few howres our provender wagon having chancewise broken a wheel in some ditch-I had nothing better in the house, God forgive me! than a hash of Rabbits.

I found my lady sitting in a cane chair with her Manto thrown back, her pomander ball hung as usual at her waist, her feathered hatt fallen on the ground, and Master Beddingfield talking mighty earnest with quick soft words. But, setting the tray before him, what I chiefly marked, was a great diamond my lady held a glimmering in her hands, as bigg as a Walnutte and sparcling in the sunshine like a little star. Unheeding me he pursued his discourse, whereof I caught the words ".. his Majestie's custom is to wear it in his hatt." To which quoth my lady, ". Sancy! what a commonplace name for the trinket.

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that kings have cherished."

Then turning away, my duty being done, I almost stumbled over Sir Robert Holmes, who doubtless drawn to the spot by the sound of an unfamiliar voice, came striding upon us in a jiffy, looking as bigg as if he had eaten a Bull. At sight of whom my lady picked up her hatt and gathering her Manto about her ruff marched gravely off without a word. But the men spoke up most uncivil berating one another, and both talking together enough to make one suppose they had met and quarrelled afore.

So when Master Beddingfield turned to go back towards the River, whence doubtless he had come, Sir Robert was also going his ways; but suddenly spying the great diamond lying in the grasse, where amongst them it had fallen, he clapt me on the shoulder and bade me run after "that cockapert animallio" and give him his Toy. And when I took that shining stone into my hand, it made me think of those fantastical gems as bigg as eggs and bright as fyre which the Italian Astrologer was for ever prating about and the like whereof he sayd the Caliphs bestowed upon their Wenches. But suddenly Sir Robert stopped me and musing with himself murmured, "Give it me, Deepegrove, that I may deliver it to thy Master"; so having been brought by Beddingfield and bestowed upon my lady, the King of France's great diamond came into my hands, to travel thence by Sir Robert Holmes to the Duke of Buckingham, and all within the Compasse of an howre.

Whom should I presently find in the dining-room but my lady still in her hatt and Manto, a speaking to Harkaway so gentlewise and giving him a florin (he

having had ill news from home) as made me ghesse some mischief must be brewing. For when my lady was vext, she gave those about her pepper to snuff, and that in a rouncifull voice; in which she nowise differed from her fellowes, one of whom at Yule-tide being somewhat whittled with Nectar stampt her little