Daniel O’Connell; half a dozen Ponsonbys of different ranks, and several pictures of Burke, one of which especially (said to be by Angelica Kauffmann) is, to my mind, quite invaluable. Burke stands upright, his side-face towards you, sublime, as he looked, I am sure, when he was making his immortal speech at Bristol. By his side, at right angles, so that you get his full face, is Charles Fox, one hand on Burke’s shoulder, the other on a table on which he is leaning. You can hear him saying as plainly as if you were there one hundred years ago, “Now, my dear Edmund, if you say that in the House, you’ll upset the coach.” Fox has evidently dined well, and Burke is fasting from all but indignation. The portraits of women are as interesting, such as Miss Farren, afterwards Lady Derby; Mrs. Norton, by Watts, which is worth a visit to Dublin to see, etc. But I must not run on, and will only note one lesson I carried away. There are two portraits, and three engravings from portraits, by N. Hone, R.A., an Irishman, but one of our original Royal Academicians. You will remember what Peter Pindar says of that painter in his _Odes to the Royal Academicians_”:-- And as for Mr. Nathan Hone, In portraits he’s as much alone As in his landscape stands the unrivalled Claude. Of pictures I have seen enough, Vile, tawdry, execrable stuff, But none so bad as thine, I vow to God. I have always till now maintained that Peter, with all his cynicism, was the best art critic, the Ruskin, shall we say, of his time. Now I give him up. N. Hone was no doubt quarrelsome and disagreeable, but he was a very considerable portrait-painter.