174< The Exhibition of Miniatures at South Kensington. 



1598, Lord High Treasurer and Secretary of State to Queen 

 Elizabeth. He is said to have had a principal share in the 

 administration for upwards of forty years/' " Horace Walpole, 

 the well-known literary character of the last century." Nos. 

 1859 — 60 are recklessly catalogued as " Earl and Countess of 

 Kildare, 1734. Oil. Ascribed to Hans Holbein;" whereas 

 the costume is about one hundred years later than the date of 

 Holbein's death, 1543. " George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, a 

 distinguished military and naval commander in the Civil Wars 

 during the reign of King Charles II." (!) Titian, who died 

 in 1576, is credited with a portrait, at a mature age, termed 

 Galileo, who was born in 1564, and which presents very little 

 resemblance to that philosopher. " H.R.H. the Princess Marie 

 Amalie, sister of Louis Philippe," should be "Madame 

 Adelaide," the name given in the catalogue being that of 

 Louis Philippe's wife, the venerable ex-Queen of the French, 

 still surviving. 



The Empress Catharine II. of Russia, given by herself to 

 W. Fawkener, when on a mission to Russia in 1791, is one of 

 the best portraits of the Empress, apparently about the age of 

 thirty-two : a face as of marble that would yield to the touch. 

 — In Boit's enamel, somewhere about the same age, the 

 Empress is represented with her brown hair unpowdered, and 

 with a somewhat jolly and vulgar look. — She reappears " in 

 the dress (a semi-masculine one) she wore in the Crimea in 

 1787," — and again, " a great likeness," towards the age of 

 sixty-five. 



The Emperor Paul of Russia presents one of the most 

 grotesque faces ever invented by the arch- caricaturist nature ; 

 something between the popular idea of Robespierre and a 

 skull, simpering. 



The Chevalier d'Eon. " A notorious character in the last 

 century," says the catalogue, "who for many years passed 

 himself off for a woman." We are not aware whether many 

 people in England know that the most elaborate of the Cheva- 

 lier's biographers declares him to have been the father of our 

 late beloved sovereign George IV. ! Let us add that the 

 evidence adduced to sustain this astounding hypothesis is no 

 evidence at all, and scarcely, even supposing it to be accurate, 

 amounts to a faint suggestion or suspicion. In this portrait 

 the Chevalier appears in his female garb, and, without being 

 handsome, makes a good-looking woman enough. 



PORTRAITS ILLUSTRATIVE OP THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND FIRST 



EMPIRE. 



Marie Antoinette. Among various portraits of this Queen, 

 the most interesting, from its associations, is one by Strohling 



