IV
Scott when he went to Hampton Court said in 1828 very truly of the pictures as a whole, "They are not very excellent, but they are curious, which is as interesting except to connoisseurs." It is impossible here to consider all the pictures of note in any detail. They will, therefore, best be treated in connection with their historical associations. Thus viewed, they fall into four groups. First, are the pictures and portraits which belonged to, or which illustrate, the period of the Tudor sovereigns. Next are the remains of the collection formed by Charles I. Thirdly, the pictures of the age of William III. and of Anne form a group by themselves. And, lastly, come the portraits of the Georgian period. Besides these are the two special collections of "Beauties" already noticed. The ceilings may be rapidly dismissed. Nobody now admires Verrio's "sprawling saints," or is impressed by Thornhill's ridiculous apotheoses. As decorations, the farther off they are seen the better; as works of art, they plead to be forgotten. Very different is the ceiling in the "Confessionary,"[1] which recalls, says Sir J. C. Robinson, "the celebrated ceilings of the apartments of Isabella Gonzaga in the old palace at Mantua . . . and might almost be supposed to have been the work of the same artists." The panel pictures in the same room are, says the same eminent authority,
- ↑ See above, p. 10.
