at the head of the profession on the death of Kneller. His scholar and son-in-law, Hudson, succeeded in the dignity of metropolitan portrait-painter, though opposed for some time by Liotard, a Genevese, and Vanloo, a Frenchman. Hudson was the master of Reynolds, with whom the British school first assumes the dignity of higher art, the elevation commencing with the portraits painted by Sir Joshua on his return from the Continent in 1752-3. Previously, however, had appeared Hogarth, the most original of all painters; but his pictures, from their subjects, were not calculated, in proportion to their merit, to refine the national taste. So early, too, as 1739, the establishment of the old academy in St Martin's Lane had been silently preparing some melioration in a better manner of designing; and the introduction of costume, though poorly executed, was an advance towards truth from the absurd robes of Lely and Kneller. The association just mentioned was afterwards incorporated by his late Majesty; but the members disagreeing, the Royal Academy was founded. Here have presided the three greatest names in the art since the time of Rubens and Vandyke, perhaps since the Caracci--Reynolds, West, and Lawrence. Walpole has with justice remarked, that 'in the commencement of the reign of George I., in 1714, the arts of England were sunk almost to their lowest ebb.' The preceding sketch verifies the observation; and from the singular anomaly of a nation, during the most flourishing period of its literature, possessing a taste absolutely contemptible in the fine arts, evinces the truth of the principles advocated throughout these pages. From the Restoration to the accession of George III., the arts had never once been regarded as adding to national respectability, nor as connected with national feeling. The people crowded to have their portraits taken, without inquiring or conceiving that there was anything to know beyond the mere mechanical art. The sovereign, instead of regarding the progress of elegant taste as an important object of legislation, looked out for a limner merely as a necessary appurtenance of a court. As our monarchs of this period, not even excepting Anne, through the predilections of her husband, were, as regards painting, better acquainted with Continental art, and some more attached to everything foreign, British genius, of course overlooked, was never once called forth. Some stray Italian, Dutchman, or German, was caught hold of, patronised by royalty, supported by the nobility, and never thought of by the nation beyond face-painting in the metropolis. From the middle of the seventeenth to the first forty years of the eighteenth century, when national talent at length began to break forth in its own strength, such was the state of patronage, and the artists who enjoyed its benefits were but little qualified to create a national interest; for their mannerism and foreign modes