we are fortunate to have so good
an example of Lawrence's work in this country.]

Lawrence died in his beautiful house on Russell Square in London,
surrounded by rare works of art which he had collected, on January
7, 1830. Nine years later Sir William Beechey, born at Burford in
Oxfordshire in 1753, died in London at the age of eighty-six. He had
come to London in 1772; and in 1798, having acquired consideration and
a lucrative practice as a portrait painter, and after having painted a
picture, now at Hampton Court, representing the king, George III., the
Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York at a review, he was knighted.
The same year saw his election to the Academy, of which he had been an
associate since 1793.

One of Beechey's distinctions is to have outnumbered even Lawrence in
his contributions to the Academy, as three hundred and sixty-two
of his works appeared on its walls. Of hasty execution or too great
dependence on a dangerous facility, there is, however, little trace
in his work. He was occupied exclusively with painting; he lived more
than twenty years longer than Lawrence, and was never diverted by
the claims of society upon his time. With his healthy, English color,
recalling Reynolds, a sober style not devoid of charm, he is fairly
typical of his time; and may fitly close this brief review of the
earlier English portraitists. Their task has never been taken up by
their successors in art, English portraiture to-day having much the
same qualities and defects which mark the contemporaneous painters of
all nations.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A BROTHER AND SISTER. FROM A PAINTING BY
SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY.

The original painting is now in the museum of the Louvre, and is a
picture charming in color--the warm white of the dress, and the rich
surroundings, in the manner of Reynolds, making an admirable foil to
the children's heads.]

The exclusive choice of feminine portraits in this article has been
dictated by a desire to show, in the space at command, the painting
most typical of the time and people. While all these painters produced
portraits of men, their work in this field was, as a rule, inferior to
the art of France. Lawrence is perhaps an exception; as it would
seem that occasionally in the presence of a masculine sitter he rose
superior to his manner and, painting with all sincerity, gave his
remarkable gifts full play. The lack, however, of serious training in
drawing, the over-reliance on ch