Excerpt
ON PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED ENGLISHMEN.
In submitting to you the following brief observations, it is neither my wish nor intention to undervalue or disparage the labours of Horace Walpole, and Granger, and Pennant, and Lodge, and the numerous writers who have followed in their train, and to whom we are so much indebted for their notices of a great variety of original portraits of distinguished Englishmen, which still adorn the mansions of our aristocracy, and are found in the smaller collections throughout the realm. But I may be permitted to express my surprise and regret that in this age of inquiry no general catalogue of these national treasures should ever have been published. It is true that the portraits, as well as the other objects of attraction in our royal palaces, have been described in print with tolerable accuracy, and some good accounts are to be met with of the pictures at Woburn, and Blenheim, and Althorpe, and many of the residences of the nobility which can boast their local historian. We are, however, in most cases obliged to content ourselves with the meagre information afforded by county topography, or such works as the Beauties of England, Neale's Country Seats, and unsatisfactory guide-books.
No one, then, can doubt that such a compilation as I am advocating would prove a most welcome addition to our increasing stock of historical lore, and greatly assist the biographer in those researches upon which, from no sufficient materials being at hand, too much time is frequently expended without any adequate result. A catalogue would also tend to the preservation of ancient portraits, which, by being brought into notice, would acquire more importance in the estimation of the possessors; and in the event of any old houses falling into decay, the recorded fact of certain pictures having existed there, would cause them to be inquired after, and rescue them from destruction. Opportunities would likewise be afforded of correcting misnomers, and testing the authenticity of reputed likenesses of the same individual; further, the printed lists would survive after all the family traditions had been forgotten, and passed away with the antiquated housekeeper, and her worn-out inventory. The practice, too, of inscribing the names of the artist and person represented on the backs of the frames, would probably be better observed; and I may mention as a proof of this precaution being necessary, the instance of a baronet in our day having inherited an old house full of pictures, which were one and all described, in laconic and most unsatisfactory terms, as "Portraits of Ladies and Gentlemen Unknown." The losses of works of art and interest by the lamentable fires that have occurred so frequently within the memory of man, may furnish a further motive for using every endeavour to preserve those pictures that remain to us; but probably a far greater number have perished from damp or neglect, and a strange combination of mischief and ignorance. Let us hope that in this respect the times are improving....