admiration as one enters the grounds. There is no great picture
gallery in the Hall, for that is at Grosvenor House in London, but the
family portraits are here. Let into panels of the dining-room are
portraits from the time of the first Earl, who was painted by
Gainsborough. The Viscount Belgrave and his lady were painted by
Pickersgill, in 1825,--this picture of the latter being much inferior
to Lawrence's,--while the present generation was painted almost wholly
by Millais,--that of Constance, the Duke's first wife, being
especially fine. Leslie, in 1833, executed a group of the Grosvenor
family.

Lawrence and Hoppner were to the regency what Reynolds, Gainsborough,
and Romney were to the early days of the reign of George III., as
painters of the patrician beauties. What a marvellous mass of records
of fair women these five have left us!--Reynolds, supreme in style,
painting the character as seen through the fair mask of the flesh;
Gainsborough, superbly picturesque, and a faithful limner withal;
Romney, impressively picturesque, too, a fine colorist, imaginative,
and but now, a century later, coming into his proper meed of praise;
Lawrence, elegant, charming,--a courtier indeed; Hoppner, through many
years a close rival of Lawrence. To Hoppner we are indebted for the
visible evidence of the beauty of many who had repute as fair women.
There is that piquant Jane Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, who greets
us in the National Gallery. Then that dark-eyed and winsome Lady
Kenyon, who was one of the reigning belles, on canvas, at the Grafton
Gallery show in London this year. In this exhibit, too, was his
"Mademoiselle Hillsberg,"--a tall and dark dancing woman, which he
regarded as his best work. Then there is that group of noble dames by
him, which were engraved by Charles Wilkin and published under the
title "Bygone Beauties,"--Lady Charlotte Duncombe; Viscountess St.