tance of Richard Wilson in landscape, and quite equalled Morland in depicting rural life. Sartorius is a name familiar to lovers of racing, as well as Wootton. The example selected in this chapter, by William Mason, is one of a pair of engravings that are not very widely known; and another by the same hand, the subject of which is a coach being driven through the high street of a county town, is quite as rare. All three of these are of a quality and spirit that excite some surprise at Mason's name not being better known, and if the sporting faternity were not so easily pleased with the reproductions of ridiculous coaching and racing prints of the early nineteenth century that now fetch such high prices, it is possible that his work might have a little more of the recognition it undoubtedly deserves. Equestrian portraits were so rarely painted, and so pompously, that the work of George Stubbs is more than usually interesting, especially when it happens to be a conversation piece-or at least a family group -as well as the mere delineation of a horse. One of his most charming pictures is that of Josiah Wedgwood and his family, painted in 1780, now in the possession of Mr. Cecil Wedgwood, who has kindly allowed it to be reproduced. The scene is Etruria Hall, and in the distance may be seen the smoke of the pottery, while at Josiah's elbow is a specimen of its production. The children are Susannah (Mrs. R. W. Darwin), John, Josiah, Tom, Kitty, Marianne, and Sarah-the last-named being the child by the go-cart, who was so little satisfied with her likeness that for many years she had the picture turned with its face to the wall. Another of Stubbs' family pieces, that of Lord Ilchester, Mr. Digby, and Mr. James, who are represented as resting during the enjoyment of partridge-shooting, was exhibited with the National Portraits in 1867; while in the following year were shown two more which he painted for the Duke of Richmond, the one a shooting party with Lord Holland, Lord Albemarle, and others, the other of the Duchess of Richmond and Lady Louisa Lennox on horseback watching a string of racehorses training. These were painted in 1760, and in 1762 he also did a large picture of Lord Albemarle embarking to the Havana expedition; and in the same year a picture at Eaton called "The Grosvenor Hunt," with portraits of Lord Grosvenor, his brother Thomas Grosvenor, Sir Roger Mostyn, and others. His chief occupation, however, was in painting horses, before he devoted himself to the publication of "The Anatomy of the Horse," and his price for an equine portrait was no less than a hundred guineas. A very charming subject, entitled "Refreshment at St. James'," by Charles Ansell, was engraved by his son, George Townley Stubbs, in 1789. Even to mention all of the charming illustrators of various social scenes at the close of the century is hardly possible in so slight a sketch as this must necessarily be, and the examples by Dighton, Russell, M. Haughton, and Edward Dayes which have been selected for reproduction are but a bare indication of the sort of work that was now being accomplished by artists whose names are comparatively unknown; but to Rowlandson, of all his contemporaries, it is only just to pay some passing tribute in taking leave of our subject; for while our two illustrations, taken from a print and a drawing kindly lent by Mr. G. Harland Peck, certainly show him at his best, it would require not two only but a couple of score to give any adequate idea of how wide a field his "best" covered, when he was giving free expression to his wonderful feeling for all he saw around him, and was not working simply for the publisher. His pen never seemed to tire-a reed pen, whose outlines were filled in with the most delicate washes of yellow, pink and blue, that the modern water-colourist seems to know nothing about-and we can follow him as he flits like a bee over the garden of rural England, lighting on a hundred little wild-flowers of country life, that, but for him, we should never have noticed. To the general public, indeed, Rowlandson's work as a caricaturist is too well known to be very dear, and his political and social broad-sheets, though they earned him enough money and fame in the coarse clamour of the Regency, have considerably effaced his real talent for depicting everyday life with a charm and naturalness that have hardly been equalled by any English artist, not even forgetting Gainsborough and Morland. Much of his work belongs, of course, to the nineteenth century, and his influence on coloured illustration, so industriously fostered |