By WALTER F. TIFFIN.
Were it not that some few other animals seem, in a small degree, to
have somewhat of the same faculty, man might be defined a scraping or
collecting animal, for there is scarcely an individual of the genus but
manifests this peculiarity; some in scraping or collecting for their
own subsistence or that of their offspring; many for the gratification
of their senses or intellect, irrespective of physical wants of
increase or preservation.
I was shown the other day a neat little cabinet, belonging to a great
traveler and naturalist, in which were labelled and described nearly
four hundred different species or varieties of bugs! George the Fourth
collected saddles. The Princess Charlotte, and many besides, collected
shells, of which some of the ugliest, being fortunately the rarest,
are very valuable. For a very rare one, Rumfius, a collector of old,
though stone blind, is said to have given £1000. Tulips were once a
favorite subject with collectors, especially in Holland, where the
sums given for new or rare roots were enormous. One root once sold for
4600 florins (about £370) together with a new carriage, a pair of grey
horses, and a set of harness. Other flowers have since become favorites
in succession, as auriculas, picotees, dahlias, and now, roses.
Of collections of pictures of a general character a long list might be
made, and there are in England several fine collections of statues,
ancient and modern. I don’t know, however, that we have any such
enthusiasts, as antiquaries, as a gentleman mentioned by Evelyn, who,
being at Rome in 1644, went “to the house of Hippolite Vitellesco
(afterwards Bibliothecary of ye Vatican Library) who show’d us one of
the best collections of statues in Rome, to which he frequently talks
as if they were living, pronouncing now and then orations, sentences,
and verses, sometimes kissing and embracing them. He has a head of
Brutus, scarred in the face by order of the Senate for killing Julius;
this is much esteemed.” Special collections of portraits do not however
seem to have met with much favor. One of the earliest collectors in
England was William, Earl of Pembroke, of the time of James the First,
who was quite famous as a physiognomist, and who formed a special
collection of portraits at Wilton. General Fairfax is said to have
collected portraits of warriors; and a few others might be named as
having added to their own family portraits those of their friends,
or of persons whose position or talents rendered them celebrated.
But it was reserved for Lord Chancellor Clarendon to form the first
important collection of English worthies. When he built his grand house
in Piccadilly, he appears to have arranged a gallery of portraits on
a well-considered plan. They were limited to those of eminent men of
his own country, but not restricted to any particular class. This
collection of portraits was already very extensive when Clarendon went
into exile, and he was then getting a long list from Evelyn in order
to add to it. In a letter to Pepys, and in his “Numismata,” Evelyn
enumerates, from memory, nearly a hundred illustrious Englishmen whose
portraits he had seen at Clarendon House, and which were afterwards
removed to Cornbury in Oxfordshire.
Next to a gallery of portraits in oil, must be reckoned a cabinet
of miniatures, and indeed if these are by masters like Oliver and
Cooper and Petitôt, they are of equal value, both as portraits and
pictures, with the larger works. But now, nearly all the works of these
celebrated artists are gathered into collections such as that of the
Duke of Buccleugh, whence no collector can hope to charm them, charm he
never so wisely. The first large collection of miniatures formed was
that of Walpole. Until recently few persons sought for more than family
portraits, or those of friends, and Walpole was enabled therefore to
form his matchless collection of miniatures with comparative ease
and at a comparatively moderate expense. At that time, he says, they
were “superior to any other collection whatever,” and particularly as
regards the works of Peter and Isaac Oliver, “the best extant, and as
perfect as when they came from the hand of the painter.”
To collect all the portraits that have ever been engraved is of
course a hopeless task, and there would necessarily be so many
important hiatuses, that no one probably now-a-days will enter on the
undertaking. Yet it was attempted, and it must have been an exciting
occupation, too serious for an amusement or recreation, for the
several collectors, who then all ran for the same goal, to outdo and
outbid each other in forming their collections. It is astonishing how
interesting a collection may be made of portraits of a more limited
range. Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, or Lodge’s Memoirs, are more
readable than the Biographia Britannica, or Bayle’s Dictionary; and two
or three folios of portraits of a particular class, or of a particular
era, well arranged and annotated may be made much more amusing,
recreative, and interesting than dozens of cabinets filled with a
miscellaneous assemblage of portraits of people of all sorts who have
lived “everywhen” and everywhere. The collector may himself make a book
by collecting some series of portraits, as of statesmen, poets, actors,
etc., etc., of some particular period, and placing opposite to each a
few salient biographical paragraphs. A few dates should be given, as
of birth, death, etc., but no attempt need be made to furnish a full
biography. It should be endeavored rather to heighten our interest
in the portrait by recalling or recording a few anecdotes, than to
attempt to vie with a biographical dictionary. Just as in passing along
a gallery of portraits, or noticing those in a great house, we pause
not only to criticise the figure, or the complexion and expression of
the face, but to remark such and such an event in the life of him or
her who is before us. What is wanted in these inscriptions is not a
serious biography of the individual, but, besides a few special facts
and dates, some short characteristic anecdotes not generally met with
in biographies, but to be picked up in “_Memoires pour servir_”—and
similar ana.
Almost the first great or systematic collectors of engraved portraits
in England were Evelyn and Pepys; the former having the start. It was
not till about 1668 that Pepys began collecting portraits, getting many
of Nanteuil, etc., from France, and being helped with the advice of
Evelyn, as well as with specimens from his collection. In 1669 he went
to France, and doubtless collected there many things (which are now in
the Pepysian Library) on the recommendation of his friend, who says in
one of his letters at this time, printed by Lord Braybrooke, “They will
greatly refresh you in your study, and by your fireside, when you are
many years returned.”
Yes, they will indeed refresh you! This is one of the great charms
of such reminiscences of travel, that when you come home you are
constantly traveling again in looking over sketches, pictures, and
books. You see an engraving of the Madonna della Sedia, and away you
are at once, quicker than the telegraph, to Florence the Fair, and
to that sunny day, when crossing the Arno by the Ponte Vecchio, you
first came to the Palazzo Pitti, and, passing by wonders and wonders
of art, you stopped at last by _the_ Raffaelle and forgot the world,
absorbed by that which is indeed “a joy forever.” In the same way you
turn over a folio of portraits. Here are Elizabeth, Leicester, Raleigh,
Shakspere, Melville, and Mary of Scots—and you walk about London and
Greenwich, and visit the world of three hundred years ago! Or you
take up a folio of a later period, where are Charles the Second,
Buckingham, Rochester, Grammont, Sedley, Killigrew, York, Clarendon,
Dryden, Lely, Castlemaine, Stewart, Nelly, and the Queen—and you are
dining at one o’clock with the learned Mr. Evelyn and the wondrous
Pepys, talking and telling anecdotes (with a good deal of relish) of
the bad goings on of those times, A. D. 1666. Or, whisking out another
folio, you rush off to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s and laugh and criticise,
mourn and moralize with Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, and Garrick,
and think of Hogarth “over the way,” and of Chesterfield, Walpole,
the Gunnings, Kitty Clive, Nelly O’Brien, and many more who have,
unconsciously to themselves and to us, moved the world a step forward.
These are among the charms, the pleasures and advantages of collections
of portraits.