After the death of Reynolds and the retirement of Romney, in the last decade of the eighteenth century, the field of portraiture was left vacant--in London at least--for JOHN HOPPNER, whose name is now generally included with those of Lawrence and Raeburn among the first six portrait painters of the British [Illustration: PLATE XLIII.--GEORGE ROMNEY MRS ROBINSON--"PERDITA" _Hertford House, London_] School. His fame in recent years has certainly exceeded his merits, but it is due to him to say that he was a conscientious artist, and a firm upholder of the tradition of Reynolds, so far as in him lay. The old King had always disliked Reynolds, and Hoppner was not well enough advised to hold his tongue on the subject of the master: worse than this, he openly accepted the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and by so doing opened the door for the admission of Lawrence as royal painter much sooner than was at all necessary. The story of their rivalry is thus--in substance--sketched by Allan Cunningham, their contemporary:--The light of the Prince of Wales's countenance was of itself sufficient to guide the courtly and beautiful to Hoppner's easel. Suffice it to say that before he was forty years of age (he was born in 1759), he had been enabled to exhibit no less than fifteen ladies of quality--for so are they named in the catalogues--a score of ladies of lower degree, and noblemen unnumbered. But by this time another star had arisen, destined to outshine that of Hoppner; though some at that period, willing to flatter the older practitioner, called it a meteor that would but flash and disappear--we allude to Lawrence. Urged upon the Academy by the King and Queen, and handed up to public notice by royal favour, this new aspirant rose rapidly in the estimation of the public; and by the most delicate flattery, both with tongue and pencil, became a formidable rival to the painter whom it was the Prince's pleasure to befriend. The factions of Reynolds and Romney seemed revived in those of Hoppner and Lawrence. If Hoppner resided in Charles Street, at the gates of Carlton House, and wrote himself "portrait painter to the Prince of Wales," Lawrence likewise had his residence in the Court end of the town, and proudly styled himself--and that when only twenty-three years old--"portrait painter in ordinary to His Majesty." In other respects, too, were honours equally balanced between them; they were both made Royal Academicians, but in this, youth had the start of age--Lawrence obtained that distinction first. Nature, too, had been kind--some have said prodigal--to both; they were men of fine address, and polished by early intercourse with the world and by their trade of portrait painting could practise all the delicate courtesies of drawing-room and boudoir; but in that most fascinating of all flattery, the art of persuading, with brushes and fine colours, very ordinary mortals that beauty and fine expression were their portions, Lawrence