02), a pupil of Steele, was often quite as masterful a
portrait-painter as either Reynolds or Gainsborough. He was never an
artist elaborate in composition, and his best works are bust-portraits
with a plain background. These he did with much dash and vivacity of
manner. His women, particularly, are fine in life-like pose and
winsomeness of mood. He was a very cunning observer, and knew how to
arrange for grace of line and charm of color.

After Romney came Beechey (1753-1839), Raeburn (1756-1823), Opie
(1761-1807), and John Hoppner (1759-1810). Then followed Lawrence
(1769-1830), a mixture of vivacious style and rather meretricious
method. He was the most celebrated painter of his time, largely
because he painted nobility to look more noble and grace to look more
gracious. Fond of fine types, garments, draperies, colors, he was
always seeking the sparkling rather than the true, and forcing
artificial effects for the sake of startling one rather than stating
facts simply and frankly. He was facile with the brush, clever in line
and color, brilliant to the last degree, but lacking in that
simplicity of view and method which marks the great mind. His
composition was rather fine in its decorative effect, and, though his
lights were often faulty when compared with nature, they were no less
telling from the stand-point of picture-making. He is much admired by
artists to-day, and, as a technician, he certainly had more than
average ability. He was hardly an artist like Reynolds or
Gainsborough, but among the mediocre painters of his day he shone like
a star. It is not worth while to say much about his contemporaries.
Etty (1787-1849) was one of the best of the figure men, but his Greek
types and classic aspirations grow wearisome on acquaintance; and Sir
Charles Eastlake (1793-1865), though a learned man in art and doing
great service to painting as a writer, never was a painter of
importance.

William Blake (1757-1827) was hardly a painter at all, though he drew
and colored the strange figures of his fancy and cannot be passed over
in any history of English art. He was perhaps the most imaginative
artist of English birth, though that imagination was often disordered
and almost incoherent. He was not a correct draughtsman, a man with no
great color-sense, and a workman without technical training; and yet,
in spite of all this, he drew some figures that are almost sublime in
their sweep of power. His decorative sense in fill