The first portrait on the catalogue is that of King Henry IV.; but he has
displaced here, as in life, his predecessor on the throne. Henry VI. and
Richard III. follow in near succession; but it is not till Henry VIII.'s
time that we really enter upon the field of English portraiture. We begin
with the king himself. Here is Holbein's famous picture of him; a picture
that represents a man so gross, so sensual, so disgusting in appearance,
that one recognizes its truth, and wonders that the court-painter did not
lose his head for such a libellous sincerity.

Wolsey is near his master; his face is that of a man "exceeding wise,
fair-spoken, and persuading"; he has a large, full brow, narrow and shrewd
eyes, a delicate nose, and somewhat heavy and sensual cheeks. A little
later the portraits become more numerous. Of Queen Elizabeth there are
seven here, and in them may be traced the great changes of her face,--from
that of the plain, awkward, not altogether unpleasing, red-haired girl, to
that of the hard, bitter, disappointed old woman. Some of her courtiers
surround her;--Leicester, with a treacherous uncertainty of expression;
and Burleigh, riding on a mule, and holding flowers in his hand,--an
odd representation of the great Lord Treasurer. And here, too, is Henry
Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, finding a deserved place among the
chief men of his time,--for he was Shakspeare's friend, and to him the
"Rape of Lucrece" was dedicated, with the words, "What I have done is
yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have devoted yours."
Here is Holbein's portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, with the face of a true
knight. Sidney is not here, but "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," has
an honored place,--and though her portrait is not of so "fair" a woman as
one might desire to have seen her, it has the look of a woman "wise and
good." And here are Shakspeare and Ben Jonson themselves;--the Chandos
portrait of Shakspeare, with which all the world is familiar, more
interesting from its own fame than from its being either an authentic or a