Painting

The name of Mrs. Siddons is one of the most distinguished in the history of English dramatic art. For thirty years she was unsurpassed in her impersonation of the tragic heroines of Shakespeare. Her first great success was in the season of 1782, when she appeared for the second time on the London stage. She was then about twenty-seven years of age, and had devoted years of arduous study to her profession. Though gifted by nature with strong dramatic instincts inherited from generations of players, her powers developed slowly.

• Peter Toms.
• Giuseppe Marchi.
• Thomas Beach or Beech.
• Hugh Barron.
• Berridge.
• Parry.
• James Northcote.
• Score.

Our thoughts of angels are naturally connected with thoughts of children. Jesus once spoke of the little ones as those whose angels always behold the face of the heavenly Father. Their innocence is the best type we have on earth of the purity of beings of a higher sphere. Often when we try to describe the beauty of some little child, we use the word angelic.

• William Chambers.
• George Michael Moser.
• Francis Milner Newton.
• Edward Penny.
• Thomas Sandby.
• Samuel Wade.
• William Hunter.
• *Francis Hayman.
• George Barrett.
• Francesco Bartolozzi.
• Edward Burch.
• *Agostino Carlini.
• *Charles Catton.
• Mason Chamberlin.
• *J. Baptist Cipriani.
• Richard Cosway.
• John Gwynn.
• William Hoare.
• Nathaniel Hone.
• Mrs. Angelica Kauffmann.
• Jeremiah Meyer.
• Mrs.
  

Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most celebrated beauties of her time. She was the daughter of the Earl of Spencer, and was married[12] at the age of seventeen to William, Duke of Devonshire, "the first match in England".

We have naturally come to think of Reynolds as chiefly a portrait painter. It was, indeed, by his work in portraiture that his name ranks among the great masters. Yet he made various interesting excursions into other fields. We may see what charming fancy pictures he sometimes painted in Cupid as Link Boy and The Strawberry Girl. Historical pictures he also attempted, but not so successfully. Religious and allegorical subjects he tried occasionally, and it is to illustrate his work of this kind that our picture of Hope is chosen.

• Earl of Holderness.
• Lord Gowran.
• Sir Everard Fawkener.
• The Marquis of Granby.
• Lord Eglinton.
• Lord Anson.
• Stuart, the painter.
• Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Lord Euston.
• The Marquis of Hartington.
• Dick Edgcumbe.
• Captain George Edgcumbe.

Lord Heathfield, the original of this portrait by Reynolds, is famous in English history as the hero of the siege of Gibraltar. Gibraltar, as is well known, is that great rock on the coast of Spain, overlooking the narrow strait which forms the passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

• Reynolds.
• Johnson.
• Goldsmith.
• Dr. Nugent.
• Dr. Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore.
• Sir Robert Chambers.
• Sir John Hawkins.
• Burke.
• Bennet Langton.
• Chamier.
• Dyer.
• Hon. Topham Beauclerk.

Pickaback is one of the old, old games which no one is so foolish as to try to trace to its origin. We may well believe that there was never a time when mothers did not trot their children on their knees and carry them on their backs. The very names we give these childish games were used in England more than a century ago.