In the Corridor hangs an important and striking portrait of Lord
Godolphin, probably from the hand of William Aikman, a work doubtless
acquired by the Baron as representing an eminent English statesman with
whom he had been brought into contact about the time of the Union. The
figure is seen to below the waist, turned in three-quarters to the
right; and the face is more individual and characteristic, if less
dignified and well conditioned, than that which appears in Houbraken’s
line-engraving, or in Smith’s mezzotint after Kneller. The nose is
small and clear-cut, the mouth has a thin upper lip drawn inwards a
little, the eyebrows are straight, slight, and of a dark brown colour,
and there are strong lines on the cheeks curving downwards from the
nostrils. A long grey curling wig is worn, and a claret-coloured coat,
with a plain cravat falling in front; and a ruddy cloak is wrapped
round the waist, and passed over the left arm. His right hand rests
against his side, and his left is laid gracefully over a parapet.
In the same Corridor, hung over a door in an exceedingly bad light, is
a bust-portrait titled on the back, in an old hand, “Calderwood the
Historian by Jamesone.” The costume is a small black cap and a black
doublet with a round ruff. The face, seen in three-quarters to the
right, against a dark background, is full of intelligence; the features
small, the eyes grey, the moustache and beard of a moderate length,
yellowish-brown in colour. The flesh-tints are ruddy, inclining,
indeed, to an unduly hot tone, but the picture has evidently been much
repainted. It is undoubtedly a production of the period indicated
in the inscription, and resembles works that have been attributed
to Jamesone; but we are not acquainted with any duly authenticated
portrait of the historian of the Kirk of Scotland with which it might
be compared.
The excellent bust-portrait in the Drawing-room, attributed to Holbein,
is certainly incorrectly titled as representing Sir Thomas More. This
vigorous, ruddy, bearded countenance is quite unlike the worn, shaven,
student’s face which appears in the Chancellor’s authentic portraits by
Holbein,—in his two drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor, and
in the pen sketch, for the lost oil picture of the Family of Sir Thomas
More, which he himself sent to his friend Erasmus, by the hand of the
painter, when Holbein returned to the Continent in 1529, a sketch still
preserved in the Museum of Basle.
Again, the curious, but much injured, panel picture in the smaller
Drawing-room, of a lady wearing a white pipe-frilled cap, with a bowed
veil over it, titled “Mary of Guise,” shows no resemblance to such
authentic portraits of the Queen as that at Hardwick, in which she
appears with her husband King James V.; and the impaled lozenge on the
background bears no trace of the arms of either Lorraine or Scotland.