BACCHANTE (Emma, Lady Hamilton) (Plate VI.). Painted in 1784 for Sir William Hamilton, when, of course, there was no thought of the marriage. The price was 50 guineas, just about a fifth of what a brilliant impression of the print in colours would fetch to-day. The Hon. Charles Greville, Sir William’s nephew and Emma’s lover at the time, seems to have negotiated the business, for he wrote, in October 1784 to his uncle, who was then in Naples: “Let me know how the _Bacchante_ is to be paid. The dog was ugly, and I made him paint it again.” Later Greville wrote: “Emma’s picture shall be sent by the first ship. I wish Romney yet to mend the dog.” The picture is said to have been lost at sea, on its way back from Naples, but at Greville’s sale in 1810, the _Bacchante_--in that case a replica of the lost canvas--was catalogued as “Diana, original of the well-known engraved picture,” and bought by Mr. Chamberlayne for 130 guineas.--MRS. JORDAN IN THE CHARACTER OF “THE COUNTRY GIRL” (Plate VII.). It was as Peggy in Garrick’s comedy “The Country Girl,” adapted from Wycherly’s “Country Wife,” that Dorothy Jordan first appeared at Drury Lane in 1785, and immediately bewitched the public with the natural, irresistible joyousness of her acting and the lovable charm of her personality. In the following year she gave Romney thirteen sittings for this picture. At the first he could not satisfy himself as to the best pose for her. After many tries she pretended to be tired of the business, and, jumping up from her chair, in the hoydenish manner and tone of Peggy, she said, “Well, I’m a-going.” “Stay!” cried Romney; “that’s just what I want.” And at once he began to sketch her for this picture. It was bought in 1791 for 70 guineas by the Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV., and thereby, of course, hangs the well-known tale of a twenty years’ love, ten children, and unhappy separation. The print, first published as _The Romp_ at 5s., may now fetch, if fine in colour, like Major Coates’s copy, as much as £200.--HOBBINOL AND GANDERETTA (Plate VIII.). William Somerville’s “Hobbinol” was a mock-heroic poem on rural games, which Mr. Gosse describes as “ridiculous.”--COUNTESS OF OXFORD (Plate IX.). This is in the National Gallery; but Hoppner exhibited an earlier portrait in 1797. Jane Scott, daughter of a Hampshire vicar, married, in her twentieth year, the fifth Earl of Oxford, whom Byron described as “equally contemptible in mind and body”; but then, she and the poet were lovers when she was forty and he about twenty-five. “The autumn of a beauty like hers is preferable to the spring in others,” he said in after years. “I never felt a stronger passion, which,” he did not forget to add, “she returned with equal ardour.” It was on Lady Oxford’s notepaper that Byron wrote his final letter to Lady Caroline Lamb, and this in the very year in which, it now appears, he revived his boyish passion for Mary Chaworth.--VISCOUNTESS ANDOVER (Plate X.).