[Illustration: _Emery Walker Ph. So._ _Lady Dorothy Nevill_ _from a portrait by the Hon. Henry Graves_ ] The Hon. Henry Graves was another popular portrait-painter of the past. I think that in all probability the best thing he ever did was a miniature portrait of myself, which, on account of its beautiful execution, is quite a little gem. For some years Mr. Graves had no success at all, but a portrait of the late Lady Alexandra Lennox being very much admired, he leapt into popularity, and afterwards, I believe, regularly made several thousands every year. Thorburn also painted what I suppose would be called a miniature of me. His particular bent lay in painting portraits rather like miniatures, but covering a very much larger surface. Another fashionable painter was Buckner, who painted my portrait in what may be called the keepsake style (as a matter of fact, an engraving of it actually appeared in a number of the _Keepsake_). Though somewhat artificial in pose, this picture was not at all unpleasing, being far more graceful than any modern effort of the same sort. At the present time, alas, the art of portrait-painting, except in one or two cases, cannot be said to stand at anything but a very moderate level. Buckner, it was said, invariably made his portraits more beautiful than the sitters really were, in order to please people and thus cause their friends to flock to his studio. Lithographs after Count D’Orsay’s drawings of well-known people of his day, which were once so popular, are now seldom to be seen. I well remember Lord Beaconsfield telling me how anxious he was to secure a picture of Napoleon the Third done by D’Orsay; it was coming up for sale at Christie’s, and he feared that it would fetch at least two hundred pounds, a sum which he declared himself ill able to afford. However, when the day came, the bidding was very feeble, and he secured the picture for twenty pounds. I suppose it still hangs at Hughenden. Sir John Millais I used to meet every year at the shooting parties given by that most delightful of hosts, Sir Henry (now Lord) James. I remember that, by a curious fatality, the weather during these shooting parties was always execrable, but the clever and pleasant guests, together with the most excellent of hosts, used to make us all forget the torrents of rain which fell most of the time. Lord Leighton also for many years I regularly saw, for he always formed one of a party which came to us every Easter. Nevertheless I cannot say that I ever really knew Lord Leighton well, for there always seemed to be something mysterious about him—a sort of curious reticence, as it were, which prevented one becoming intimate with him. Perhaps this was but fancy; in any case we always remained the best of friends. A newspaper once mentioned Lord Leighton’s picture of Cimabue finding Giotto at work on his sketches as the “Discovery of Grotto.”