For one thing, which is apart altogether from talent or genius, Holbein's method was never followed in later times, namely, the practice of making carefully finished drawings in crayon before painting a portrait in oils. He was a wonderful draughtsman, and in the series of over eighty drawings at Windsor we have even more life-like images of the persons represented than their finished portraits. I am not aware that any portrait drawings exists of Holbein's contemporaries or successors in England earlier than one or two by Van Dyck. There are a good many belonging to the seventeenth century, but with one or two exceptions they are little more than sketches. And though sketches have only survived by accident, as it were, not being intended for anything more than the artist's own purposes, finished drawings would have been kept, like Holbein's, with much greater care. In a word, then, Holbein's first and chief business was in rendering the likeness of the sitter. Being a [Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.--HANS HOLBEIN ANNE OF CLEVES _Louvre, Paris_] born genius, he accomplished far more than this; but it is important in tracing the development of the English School of painting to remember that its origin was not in the idealization of religious sentiment, but in the realization of the human features. From the time of the first great genius to that of the next, exactly a century later, there is hardly a portrait in existence that is valued for anything but its historic or personal interest. Between Holbein and Van Dyck is a great gap, in which the only names of Englishmen are those of the miniaturists, Hilliard and Oliver, who were veritably of the seed of Holbein, but only in little. Van Dyck struck deeper into the English soil, and loosened it sufficiently for the growth of larger stuff, if still somewhat coarse, like the work of William Dobson and Robert Walker. To Van Dyck succeeded Peter Lely, who boldly and worthily assumed the mantle of Van Dyck, and kept English portraiture alive throughout the dismal period of the Commonwealth. After the Restoration he was still in power, and under him flourished one or two painters of English birth, like Greenhill and Riley, who in turn gave way to others under Kneller without ceding the monopoly to foreigners. From these came Jervas, Richardson, and, most important, Hudson, who was Reynolds's master, and so we arrive at the beginning of what is now generally known as the English School.