In its outward manipulation of charm and beauty, the work of Romney is all that an amateur need ask of it, and considerations of mere elegance have probably advanced his popularity in the sale room as much as others more really important. But charm and beauty of this sort are delusive guides and, unless backed by some more enduring test of excellence, will lead us downwards only, through the scale of Hoppner, Lawrence, Harlow, and Shee, till we find ourselves in the company of the simpering beauties of the early and mid-Victorian age, with their sloping shoulders and curling ringlets. With Romney we are perfectly safe. No twinge of conscience warns us to withstand the allurements of _Lady Hamilton_, or the fascination of the _Parson’s Daughter_. We may flirt as long and as desperately as we please--in an artistic sense--with _Mrs. Mark Currie_, without the slightest stain on our æsthetic morals. There is nothing technically meretricious about any of these beauties, and the virtue of our taste is only strengthened by the pleasurable enjoyment of their society. And why? One of the first reasons that occur to me is one that may possibly be challenged as being merely paradoxical; namely, that Romney, like Reynolds and Gainsborough, was not primarily a portrait painter. That all three of them became painters of portraits, and will go down to posterity as such, was not because they wished to, but by the accident of circumstance. Reynolds was an humble and assiduous disciple of Michel Angelo, an earnest seeker after conquests in “the grand style.” Of Gainsborough, it was said that music was his pleasure and painting his profession; while in that profession, as we know, it was landscape which chiefly occupied his mind and most delighted him. And Romney actually writes to his friend Hayley, “This cursed portrait-painting. How I am shackled with it!” To explain the paradox we must look back a little into the history of painting in England, with a glance [Illustration: THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER National Gallery]