LOVE'S MEI NIE. 



"II etoit tout couvert d'oisiaulx." 



Romance of the Rose. 



'U" 



LECTURE I. 



THE ROBIN. 



I. A MONG the more splendid pictures in the 

 -^ ■^ Exhibition of the Old Masters, this year, you 

 cannot but remember the Vandyke portraits of the 

 two sons of the Duke of Lennox. I think you cannot 

 but remember it, because it would be difficult to find, 

 even among the works of Vandyke, a more striking 

 representation of the youth of our English noblesse ; 

 nor one in which the painter had more exerted him- 

 self, or with better success, in rendering the decorous 

 pride and natural grace of honourable aristocracy. 



Vandyke is, however, inferior to Titian and Velas- 

 quez, in that his effort to show this noblesse of air 

 and persons may always be detected ; also the aristo- 

 cracy of Vandyke's day were already so far fearful of 

 their own position as to feel anxiety that it should 



