George, the second Duke of Buckingham, among whose few good qualities was a loyal adherence to that family to whom his father owed all, after being allowed by the Parliament a period of fifty days to choose between desertion of the Stuarts and outlawry, chose the latter. His estates were seized, but his father’s pictures, many of which still hung on the now gloomy walls of York House, were sent to him in his exile at Antwerp, by an old servant, John Traylinan, who had been left to guard the property. These were now sold for bread. Duart, of Antwerp, purchased some of them, but the greater number became the possession of the Archduke Leopold, and were removed to the Castle of Prague. Amongst them was the “Ecce Homo;” which has been described as embodying the greatest merits of its incomparable painter.[157] Footnote 157: Biographia, Art. “George Villiers,” the second note. Buckingham’s collection contained two hundred and thirty pictures. One may conceive how grandly they must have adorned York House, where in every chamber were emblazoned the arms of the two families, lions and peacocks, the houses of Villiers and Manners, who were for a few brief years united by one common bond under that roof.[158] Neither pains nor money were ever spared by Charles, or by Buckingham, to enrich their collections. Charles, with his own hands, wrote a letter inviting Albano to England. Buckingham endeavoured to attract Carlo Maratti, who had painted for him portraits of a Prince and Princess of Brunswick, to the English Court; but Maratti excused himself on the plea that he was not yet perfect in his art.[159] Little could the King have foretold that his treasures at Whitehall would have been sold, as Horace Walpole expresses it, by “inch of candle;” or the Duke that his son and heir should have parted with his father’s collection to save himself from starvation in a foreign country. Such events seem to confirm Sydney Smith’s counsel to a friend, not to look forward more than to a futurity of two hours’ duration. Footnote 158: See Biographia Britannica. Footnote 159: Walpole. Charles I., less happy than Buckingham, had the chagrin to hear that his favourite’s beloved collection was partially sold, three years before his own death. It seems, as Walpole expresses it, “to have become part of the religion of the time to war on the arts, because they had been countenanced at Court.” In 1645 the Parliament ordered the two collections to be sold; but, lest the public exigencies should not be thought to afford sufficient cause for this step, they passed the following acts to colour their proceedings:-- “Ordered, (July 23, 1635,) that all such pictures and statues there (at York House) as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith sold.”[160] Footnote 160: Dr. Waagen says that some of the Duke’s pictures were not genuine, and many of little worth; but this is not the opinion of Horace Walpole.