fire-light effects are _The Hermit_, _The Gladiator_, _The Indian Widow_, _The Orrery_, and, already mentioned, the _Air-Pump_. Like Hogarth and Copley, he painted in that solid old English method which insured the preservation of his works. "On the whole it cannot be said that Wright's pictures have added much to the reputation of the British school. As a portrait painter he is hardly in the second rank." His portraits have a heavy look; of his landscapes it has been averred that "they are large and simple in manner, but heavy and empty." THE SUCCESSORS OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Portrait-painting, always popular in England, continued to flourish after the deaths of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Although the magic touches of these masters cannot be found in the art of their immediate followers, their influence produced several original and independent artists, who, though successors, were not imitators. NATHANIEL DANCE (1734--1811) studied art under Frank Hayman, R.A., and visited Italy with Angelica Kauffman. Returning to England he achieved success as a painter, both of portraits and historic pieces. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy, from which he retired in 1790, on marrying a wealthy widow: he took the name of Holland and was made a baronet ten years later. His best-known works are the _Death of Virginia_, _Garrick as Richard III._, _Timon of Athens_ (Royal Collection) and _Captain Cook_ (Greenwich Hospital). JAMES NORTHCOTE (1746--1831), the son of a watchmaker of Plymouth, spent seven years as an apprentice to his father's craft, all the while longing to be a painter. He was a man of indefatigable industry, who, in spite of a defective education and few opportunities for improvement, made his mark both as an artist and a writer on art. He was the favourite pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds and his first biographer. Leaving Reynolds in 1775, Northcote returned to Devonshire, and for two years successfully painted portraits. From 1777 to 1780 he was in Italy studying the old masters, especially Titian. He settled in London on returning home, and maintained himself by portrait-painting. He was, however, ambitious to succeed with historic pictures, though compelled to confine himself to more saleable subjects, such as _A Visit to Grandmamma_, and similar domestic scenes. Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery gave Northcote a new opening in the line he yearned to practise. Among nine pictures produced for this series, that of the _Murder of the Young Princes in the Tower_, painted in 1786, brought the artist prominently into notice. The _Death of Wat Tyler_, now in Guildhall, London, is one of his best works. His _Diligent and Dissipated Servants_, a series suggested by Hogarth's _Idle and Industrious Apprentices_, falls very far below the standard of the original series. Noteworthy facts in Northcote's historic pictures are the incongruity of the dresses, and frequent gross anachronisms. Thus we have Sisera lying on a feather bed