and enclosed in a very tight pulpit, denouncing
three individuals gathered round his rostrum,
whose heads alone appear above the edge of the
frame. One of these, an idiotic woman in a
straw hat, is gazing up at the preacher in an
ecstasy. Behind her, is half the countenance
of a feeble personage, much frightened; behind
him, again, is a ferocious ruffian, on whom the
preacher's eloquence is entirely thrown away.
The preacher is George Whitefield, the
coadjutor of Wesley, and one of the founders of the
Methodist persuasion. His appearance is not
in his favour. His arms are stretched out like
a vulture's wings, and he seems to be hovering
over his audience like a bird of prey, glaring
down upon his victims, with a squint and a
smile combined, in a manner calculated to fill
the spectator with dismay. There is no doubt
that George Whitefield, and John Wesley too,
whose portrait is in another room, did a great
deal of good in their generation, but their faces
are not much more prepossessing than those of
the field-preachers of our own day.

The portrait of Cardinal York, the son of the
Pretender, the last descendant of the royal line
of the Stuarts, dead only in 1807, is a lively
neat-featured attentive countenance, and a good
instance of the difference between a handsome
face and a trustworthy face. It is the perfect
embodiment of a worldly priest. Close to it
hangs one of James Watt, the engineer, and it
is curious that as you look at the two together
you cannot help being reminded of that renowned
speech on the government of the mind, made the
other day by Cardinal Wiseman on the occasion
of the opening of a certain literary and scientific
institution, in which a system of repression
and suppression of all the wilder and more
fanciful flights in which the human mind
indulges, was strongly urged. The cardinal even
bids us, when we find one thought, or train
of thought continually returning, and occupying
our minds in undue proportion, to root it out
and cast it ruthlessly away. Advice good and
salutary enough when such thought, or train
of thought, is foolish, wicked, or unwholesome,
but intensely narrow and illiberal, otherwise.
Look at that portrait of Watt; observe the
man's attitude and bearing; mark the utter
distraction shown in the fixed gaze of the eye,
which looks without seeing, and say if the man
is not the victim of a fixed idea. Think of this
Watt pondering over the tea-kettle, and testing
idly and listlessly—as a Cardinal bystander might
think—the condensation of steam against a
polished surface, and say whether it was not a
disproportionate train of thought, fondled in the
imagination night and day, months and years,
that ended in the invention of the steam-condenser?

One is tempted, when visiting a collection
of this kind, to generalise. That strong
tendency to classify which lurks in most minds
comes out with special force in a National
Portrait Gallery, and you try to reduce
the multitude of physiognomies represented,
into something like order. All the heads of
inventors, for instance, should have such and
such characteristics; the martial character,
again, should be represented thus; the artist
type should be of this kind; the poetical of
that—but it will not do. You go round the
rooms, catalogue in hand, and all your favourite
theories are confuted at every turn. Foreheads,
eyes, noses, and chins, set themselves
against you quite malignantly. But if you
were asked what was the leading characteristic,
the pervading peculiarity, of the countenances
of all the most truly notable and distinguished
men portrayed, probably your reply would be,
ENERGY. The indisputable intellectual qualities
of all these men may be difficult to trace
according to rules of physiognomy, or phrenology;
but that other characteristic—energy,
purpose, or whatever else it may be called—is
proclaimed on every face, and written in a
character so legible that no man can mistake it.

The blackened engineers who drop into these
rooms for an hour from the works hard by, and
the other intelligent mechanics who find their
way here on Saturday afternoons, are
probably stimulated by the sight of the self-made
men who have risen to the distinction of
having their portraits hung in a National
Portrait Gallery. There is no doubt that one
of the noblest uses of such a collection is
to foster a rational ambition. "Here," says
the workman, "is a man who began at the very
bottom of the ladder, who placed his foot upon
its lowest round, and looking up with resolute
eye, undaunted by the prospect of a task which
would leave him little time for rest or leisure,
has mounted step by step to the very topmost
place, and got to be associated with those of
whom it may be said that they have done the
State service and given to their fellow-citizens
some boon whose value all men must admit."
And so the man goes away (all the Cardinals on
earth, except the cardinal virtues, notwithstanding)
with one incentive more to active exertion,
and armed a little more than before against the
dangerous seductions of the gin-shop and Saint
Monday.

It has been said that there are portraits even
in this small collection which are wanting in
interest, and which may in time be replaced by
others of greater value in every sense of the
word. Sir Isaac Newton is not represented
here, nor Sir Philip Sydney. There is no
portrait of Johnson, of Burke, of Fielding. Bacon's
father is here, but the great philosopher
himself is not here. Nay, even Arthur, Duke of
Wellington, is not commemorated on the walls
in George-street. No doubt all these deficiencies
will be supplied in time, as well as others which
might be named. And supposing that happy
moment to arrive when this national collection
shall have room to expand in, would it not
be good to negative that second rule of the
institution which declares that no portraits of
living people shall be admitted, and to have a
supplementary room in which there should be a
chosen collection of photographic portraits,
representing such distinguished living persons as