en whitewashed over or otherwise hidden and damaged.

Even worse than the Reformation in 1530, was the Puritan outburst a
century later, which not only destroyed works of art, but extinguished
all hope of their being created. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the
foundation of the English School of painting should have been postponed
for a century more?

At the same time it is interesting to note that the little painting
which did creep into England in the sixteenth century, was of the very
kind that formed the chief feature of the English School when it was
finally established, namely portraiture. Here again we see the influence
of religion; for to the reformed church, at least as interpreted by the
English temperament, the second commandment was and is still second only
in number, not in importance. To Protestant or Puritan the idea of a
picture in a church was anathema. As late as 1766, when Benjamin West
offered to decorate St. Paul's Cathedral with a painting of Moses
receiving the tables of the law on Mount Sinai, the Bishop exclaimed, "I
have heard of the proposition, and as I am head of the Cathedral of the
Metropolis, I will not suffer the doors to be opened to introduce
popery."

The painting of a portrait, however, was a very different matter, and
from the earliest times appears to have appealed with peculiar strength
to the vanity of Britons. Loudly as they protested against the iniquity
of bowing down to and worshipping the likeness of anything in heaven
above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth, they
were never averse to giving others an opportunity of bowing down to and
worshipping the likenesses of themselves; and while religion fostered
the arts in other countries, self-importance kept them alive in this.
The portrait of Richard II. in Westminster Abbey, if not actually an
instance of this, certainly happens to seem like one.

With the exception of Jan de Mabuse, who is said to have been in England
for a short time during the reign of Henry VII., the first painter of
any importance in this country was Hans Holbein. Hearing that money was
to be made by painting portraits at the English Court, he forsook his
native town, his religious art, and his wife, and came to stay with Sir
Thomas More at Chelsea, with an introduction from Erasmus. Arriving in
1527, he started business by making a sketch in pen and ink of More's
entire family, with which marvellous work, still preserved in t