at that of portrait-painting in other countries besides. Taking the latter view first, we find that the only name, which readily occurs to us, of an artist who painted nothing but portraits, is that of Holbein. In all the greatest schools of painting, since the days of Cimabue, portraiture was, as it were, a “bye-product,” and with a few exceptions like Holbein, Velasquez, or Vandyck, there is no great painter who is as well known for his portraits as for his other works. In England, until the arrival of Reynolds, there was no school of painting at all, and the only reason for any painter coming to England was the business, rather than the art, of making likenesses of its vigorous inhabitants. In England, consequently, when a school of painting was at last established, it is hardly surprising to find that the painting of portraits was the most considerable branch of it, not only in the early days of its commencement, but throughout almost the whole of its development; and it was not until comparatively late in its history that landscape assumed considerable proportions and finally outgrew the other branch. Had Reynolds and Romney, like Gainsborough, been landscape painters at heart, it is probable that such a combination of great talent would have resulted in a much earlier triumph for the landscapist, and that we should not have had to wait for Turner and Constable to restore the balance. For Richard Wilson, the actual founder of the English School of landscape, only failed to establish it from want of recognition, and there were many others who were fit to achieve great works in landscape if it had not been that they were compelled to comply with the popular demand for portraiture without regard to their artistic inclinations. But there was a third branch of the art on which, though unheeded alike by the patron and the public, the minds of Romney and of many more of the most accomplished artists of the time were bent, namely, the historical; and so long as the market was closed to their achievements in this direction, it was impossible for even the greatest among them to exist without making portraiture their regular business.