who had long been ailing, died after a short illness which all the leading physicians of the day in vain strove to combat. He was followed to his grave at Westminster Abbey by a company more illustrious, and more various in the completeness with which it represented the aristocracy, the clubs, politics, literature, the church, the medical faculty, the stage, and society generally, than any assemblage that the century had seen under similar circumstances. Even Sir Joshua's own memorable funeral ceremony fell, if anything, just a little short of this, if not in splendour, yet in distinction and representativeness. For any parallel to the great function in our own time we must turn to the recent obsequies of Lord Tennyson in the same consecrated home of British worthies.

To the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1779 Sir Joshua sent, besides the "Nativity," and the "Faith," "Hope,” and "Charity" already referred to, three full-lengths of ladies, including the lovely portrait of Lady Louisa Manners (formerly at Peckforton, and now in the collection of Lord Iveagh), and the altogether exceptional "Viscountess Crosbie," a crowning and extreme example of that much-praised momentariness to which we have already had such frequent occasion to refer. The picture -glowing with colour, though not with colours-shows this vivacious lady standing full face in a landscape, dressed in the painter's favourite yellowish white, with a gold scarf round her waist. With her left hand extended towards the right of the picture, she literally seems to sweep athwart the canvas, so that a kind of uneasiness, lest the view given of her fascinating presence should be only momentary, oppresses the spectator. The attitude and the suggested movement are as audacious as anything the modernity of this end of the nineteenth century—even that of Mr John Sargent himself-has produced.

"Viscountess Crosbie."

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It may well be argued, and it would be difficult to gainsay such an argument, that here is an example of all that it is more dangerous to attempt in portraiture; that to erect into a principle what is here a fascinating exception would be to import into the art which, of all others, should busy itself with the permanent in aspect and characterisation, rather than with the ephemeral in movement and gesture, a disturbing, a detestable element. Yet such is the force of genius, that when, as here, the tour de force is successfully performed as it was, to compare lesser things with greater, in Mr Sargent's much-discussed "Portrait of Mrs Hugh Hammersley," exhibited in 1893 at the New Gallery-the effect is irresistible, and the critic reasoning from unanswerable principles is reduced to silence.

This notable picture was last seen in public at the Old Masters Exhibition of 1891 at Burlington House, at which time it had already passed from the possession of the Crosbie family (of Ardfert Abbey, Kerry) into that of Sir Charles Tennant.

Other contributions made by the President to the exhibition on the same occasion were:-A full-length of a Young Lady; portrait of a Lady and Child; portrait of a Gentleman; portrait of Andrew Stuart.

It is recorded by Mason that Sir Joshua was woefully disappointed with the execution by the glass-painter Jervas of his designs, especially that of the "Nativity." "I had frequently," he said, "pleased myself with reflecting, after I had produced what I thought a brilliant effect of light and shadow on my canvas, how greatly the effect would be heightened by the transparence which the painting on glass would be sure to produce. It turned out quite the reverse." Truth to tell, this was not a period in which decorative art applied to glass painting had any

chance of being understood; the bright, clear tints, the even diffusion of light, which are indispensable elements of a successful glass picture being sacrificed in favour of the fashionable chiaroscuro, with its alternations of yellow light and deep shadow. Sir Joshua's rich sunset harmonies, suggesting now Rembrandt, now Titian, now Rubens, were of all hues, the least suitable for translation into painted glass, and the opaqueness of Jervas's colours did not mend

matters.

Here, again, Horace Walpole showed himself a more acute critic and judge than any of his contemporaries. When the glass paintings were exhibited at Charing Cross, with the rest of the room darkened to heighten their effect -much after the fashion which obtains to-day in New Bond Street, when what are termed sacred works are exhibited -he saw at once, while admiring, that, when they were put up in the place for which they were destined, their appearance would be very different. The light in the chapel of New College could not, he pointed out, be reduced without making it too dark, and with others conflicting the effect would be lost. This was at a moment, too, when all the world was in ecstacies over the beauty and dazzling effect of Sir Joshua's performance as interpreted by his glass-painter.

It was in 1779 that the master painted the famous portrait of Gibbon, reproduced by Hall in 1780, which was to become the type of all the engraved portraits. The brilliant historian was sunning himself in the fame derived from the first volume of his great work, which had appeared in 1776, and was leisurely preparing the two subsequent volumes which were soon to come out. He looks here a much younger man than he is, in a brilliant scarlet coat and waistcoat and white lace tie, wearing his own hair en perruque. The picture is in the very