Portraits Illustrating Character 255 



on Francis I. : " There is, I believe, no good portrait of 

 Francis in his manhood. The face so familiar to us is of a 

 later date ; a dreadful face, with its sly and carnal look, the 

 long, coarse nose, and full, voluptuous mouth. It seems as if 

 some pressure of blood on the brain weighed down the eye- 

 lids over those small and narrow eyes, and inflamed those 

 florid cheeks over which the coarse dark hair falls down. A 

 dreadful face truly ; apoplectic, sensual, indifferent and 

 cunning. But from the frequent contemporary representa- 

 tions of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, we can believe that 

 in 1520 the king looked different from this. Still slender, tall 

 and elegant in figure, he rode his horse gracefully and was 

 first in every pastime. His long face with small eyes is not 

 yet swollen and reddened by indulgence and disease. It has, 

 indeed, a gentle, benevolent and royal expression, an air of 

 kind knightliness ; and this was the pose which Francis 

 affected. He was to be the Amadis of kings. He was brave 

 to folly ; ideally rash in love and in war ; he was fantastically 

 honourable. A story in the 'Heptameron' relates how, 

 having discovered in his court a stranger who had conspired 

 to murder him, Francis gave a great hunt, and leading the 

 traitor aside to a lonely glade, he offered to cross swords with 

 him in fair fight, and then sent him pardoned away " (p. 15). 



Our readers must judge for themselves whether our 

 authoress' appreciation of Francis' portrait be not some- 

 what too severe. A good estimation of his character (Dean 

 Kitchin) may be read at p. 557 of vol. ix. of the " Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica." 



We do not know any face more like that of Milton than 

 John Selden's. The portrait of Selden given in Lodge is 

 the one to which we refer. There was also a great similarity 

 in the character of the two men. Both were singularly 

 honest and unselfish. Both were fearless of consequences 

 in the avowal of their opinions, Both were learned; both 

 wrote most excellent prose ; both also wrote good poetry. 



