(like Scott's) more conspicuous for its height
than its breadth, with long hair curling rather
behind the ears, with a small moustache and a
pointed beard, is our nearest approach to exactness.

If we had only such a portrait of Shakespeare
as that of John Hunter, standing so provokingly
near the Chandos picture, we might be satisfied.
Even this copy by Jackson of the original
Reynolds is a glorious study, and puts the sharp
clear-headed healthy-minded surgeon before one
marvellously.

There is in this room, in which the Chandos
picture holds the place of honour, a remarkable
arrangement of three portraits one above another.
These are pictures of Wolsey, of Richard the
Third, and of Henry the Eighth. The portrait of
Wolsey is well known—a profile with regular
features, and with a keen eager eye, which
entirely counteracts the heaviness of the lower
part of the face. There is no such redeeming
feature to do as much for the gross heavy
countenance of Henry, and the impressions left on
the mind by the two fat men are, consequently,
widely different. But it is the third portrait,
which divides these two, that seizes the attention
most forcibly. The picture may or may
not be genuine. The internal evidence is strong
in favour of its authenticity. The restless misery
of this face of Richard absolutely excites a feeling
of pity. There is almost deformity in the
features of this great criminal; the eye and the
mouth are drawn up on the left side, all the
parts of the face are contracted in an excess of
peevish irritability, which is also expressed with
remarkable force in the very peculiar action of
the small woman-like hands—tell-tale extremities
always. The king has screwed the ring nearly off
his right little finger, working the trinket
backwards and forwards in nervous anguish with the
forefinger and thumb of his left hand.

There is a noble contrast to this painful
picture, close beside it. The portrait of the
Lord Keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon, father of
the illustrious philosopher. There is no
fidgety uneasiness about this Sir Nicholas Bacon.
He is considerably fatter than Henry the
Eighth; his face is of a kind of clay colour
all over, lips—which are turned inside out—
included; and his little eyes have a twinkle in
them which makes it easy to believe "that he
was remarkable for his apt sayings and his ready
wit." It is, moreover, said of this jolly old
gentleman, that because of his fat he walked with
difficulty, and that, "after taking his seat upon
the bench, he used to give three taps with his
staff on the floor, as a sign that he had
recovered his breath, and that business might
proceed." The artist has represented Sir Nicholas
with his staff in his hand, lifted as in the act of
administering the three taps to the floor. Take
the staff away, and change the costume, and
the lord keeper would look not unlike one of
the three fat men, who always appear like a jury
seated behind a counter in the entrance of a
French theatre.

In this same Shakespeare-room is a portrait of
Sir Walter Raleigh, which, if it be a good likeness,
shows that he had a very sly and
unprepossessing expression about the eyes. Indeed,
in the account given of this picture in the
authorised catalogue, there is a quotation from
an old writer, who, describing it, says of
Raleigh, that "he had a most remarkable aspect,
an exceeding high forehead, long-faced, and sour
eie-lidded, a kind of pigge-eie." It would be
difficult to give a better description of the hero
of the velvet cloak, as he is here represented.

Are there not a few pictures admitted into
the collection which are hardly needed in a
National Portrait Gallery? As the numbers
of the really valuable portraits increase, it
will be advantageous to weed the collection a
little, removing certain pictures, which neither
as works of art, nor because of any public
interest attaching to the originals, are in the
slightest degree interesting. No doubt the
trustees have plenty of difficulties to
contend with, first in acquiring good and
authentic likenesses of illustrious men, and
afterwards in keeping clear of pictures that are
not good, and which represent gentlemen
who are by no means illustrious. When Miss
Blenkinsop, of Clapham-rise, sends to the
National Portrait Gallery a bad portrait of her
father, the distinguished philanthropist who had
so large a share in the establishment of the
Picklington Mechanics' Institute, and who took
the chair and delivered an able speech on
the occasion of its inauguration, the trustees
cannot but feel considerable embarrassment in
declining the tempting offer, and sending the
work of art back to Clapham to adorn once
more that commanding situation over the
sideboard in the dining-room, of which it has been
the glory for years. The fourth rule of the
institution, which provides that "no portrait
shall be admitted by donation unless three-
fourths at least of the trustees present at a
meeting shall approve it," has clearly not been
introduced into the code without reason.

It is to be supposed that one ought, after a
visit to this collection, to be able to arrive
at certain physiognomical conclusions of some
value. Yet this is, in reality, not the case. What a
blow, for instance, is administered to the science
of physiognomy—considered as a science—by
the well-known profile-portrait of Wolfe
exhibited in this gallery. What would Camper,
the Dutch physiognomist, have said to this
facial angle? From the extreme tip of a little
mean turn-up nose, the line of the profile
recedes, at full gallop, to where the still retreating
forehead is lost in the cocked-hat: while the
lower part of the face falls away almost more
violently from that same point of departure,
the end of the nose. The upper-lip recedes
from the nose, the under-lip recedes from the
upper-lip, and the chin is so small and so
retreating, that it is, as a feature, almost wanting;
it might be one of the folds of skin
about the neck. And this is Wolfe—Wolfe
the heroic, the wise—the man whose judgment
and discretion were so early proved, that he