children he should never have had them. Her remark, which was couched in very strong language, was carried by someone to the Court. The poor woman's annuity was at once stopped, and she never again received it. Following Isaac and Peter Oliver in chronological survey, and necessarily omitting reference to some of the less important painters, we come to the name of a man of considerable eminence in his profession, John Hoskins. To a certain extent he has been overshadowed by the extraordinary merit of his nephew and pupil, Samuel Cooper, but Hoskins was a very great painter himself, and his work marks the beginning of the broader and more powerful English miniature portraiture, as distinguished from the minute work of the men who had been trained under the influence of illuminators, and whose miniatures were too full of detail to be entirely satisfactory. There is no doubt that, as Walpole says, the carnations used in the faces painted by Hoskins are too bricky in colour, but the whole effect of the portrait is simple and dignified, and there is, for the first time in English miniature portraiture, a nobility of treatment and a sober grandeur of effect, extraordinarily impressive. The portrait of the _Duke of Buckingham_ (Plate V.) from a well-known collection, illustrated in colour, well sets forth the dignity of Hoskins' works. It is an exceedingly fine miniature, quiet in colouring, and entirely satisfactory in composition. It is signed and dated, and, with respect to the signatures on miniatures by Hoskins, a few words must be said. It is well also to mark that in the works of Hoskins appears for the first time the division of the background, which is rather a notable feature in the portraits of Cooper, who evidently derived the idea from his uncle. The effect of this division on the lighting of the portrait is excellent, the sitter being placed near to a window, by which hangs a curtain, and the window commanding a view which in many cases was adapted by the artist to some event in the history of the sitter. As regards the signatures Hoskins adopted several methods of signing his miniatures, combining his two initials in different forms of monogram, or separating them with or without the addition of the abbreviation "fc." Until quite recently the statement made by Vertue that Hoskins had a son, was incapable of proof; although the fact that the contemporary inscriptions on some of the miniatures at Ham House speak of "Old Hoskins," implies that there must have been a younger man of the same name, and it was thought that the variety of signatures might help clear up the doubtful question, and that perhaps the father adopted a certain method of signing his portraits, and the son another form of signature. Fortunately, however, in the collection of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, there appears a portrait of the Duke of Berwick, signed with conjoined initials, and bearing upon it an inscription,