letters we are told that Madame de Boufflers informed Lord Onslow of the birth of Lord Salisbury two hours after his mother had come from the Opera House, and that from Lord Onslow Walpole himself heard the news. Of E. W. Thompson, an Englishman, who spent very much of his time in France, and is regarded by the French critics almost as one of themselves, we know very little, but the _Princess de Lieven_, whose portrait he painted (Plate XLIII.), was one of the great ladies of Europe in the nineteenth century. She was a personal friend of Count Metternich and afterwards of Guizot, and Madame de Lieven kept up a steady correspondence with both these statesmen, and exercised, without doubt, a very considerable influence upon European politics. Two artists of Italian parentage deserve mention, especially as we are able to illustrate, by the permission of their owner, Mr. Ward Usher, delightfully signed examples of their work. By Costa we show an interesting portrait of _Marie Antoinette_ (Plate XLVI.) which came from the Bentinck-Hawkins collection; and by Anguissola, the favourite miniature painter to the court of the great Napoleon, we illustrate, in reduced size, a fine portrait of the Emperor's sister, _Princess Pauline Borghese_ (Plate XLVII.). Special attention has been given in our illustrations to the work of the great Viennese miniature painter Füger, because very little is known of his work in England, and there are so few examples of it to be found in English collections. The Viennese collectors seem determined that all the finest works by Füger shall remain in their own city, and they are prepared to give high prices in order that they may carry out this desire. One of the chief collectors in Vienna is Dr. Figdor, and he has been exceedingly kind in allowing many miniatures from his collection to be illustrated for the purpose of this essay, amongst them, five by Füger, perhaps a rather large proportion; but it has been felt that, as the work of the painter is so little known in England, it was well in our illustrations to err on the right side, and give several examples of his delightful workmanship. For a long time the details of his life were buried in obscurity, and all sorts of mistakes were made respecting his work, which was confused with that of other painters, and in some instances not recognised at all. It was not until 1905, when Herr Doktor Ferdinand Laban published a very important article upon him, that Füger's true position was apparent, and Dr. Laban was able from family records to set right the errors of those writers, amongst whom we must include ourselves, who had gone astray from lack of the very material Dr. Laban was able to discover. Since then, Herr Eduard Leisching has added considerably to our information in a splendid book he published on Austrian miniature painters, and he has discovered many more examples of Füger's work, who can now be justly recognised as the greatest of the