"Such are thy pictures, Kneller! such thy skill, That nature seems obedient to thy will; Comes out and meets thy pencil in the draught, Lives there, and wants but words to speak the thought."
[Illustration: GRINLING GIBBONS, THE SCULPTOR. _By_ GODFREY KNELLER.]
The popularity of allegoric painting did much to hinder the progress of English art. Nature gave place to naked gods and impossible shepherdesses, who were painted on walls and ceilings at so much a square foot. Charles II. had probably acquired a taste for such painting abroad, and it retained its popularity for a considerable period. Fuseli said: "Charles II., with the Cartoons in his possession and the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, suffered Verrio to contaminate the walls of his palaces, or degraded Lely to paint the Cymons and Iphigenias of his Court, while the manner of Kneller swept completely away what might be left of taste among his successors. It was reserved for the German Lely and his successor Kneller to lay the foundation of a manner which, by pretending to unite portrait with history, gave a retrograde direction for nearly a century to both; a mob of shepherds and shepherdesses in flowing wigs and dressed curls, ruffled Endymions, humble Junos, withered Hebes, surly Allegros, and smirking Pensierosos usurp the place of propriety and character." We can see the triumphs of allegory over nature fully illustrated in Hampton Court Palace. Chief among painters of this class of art was ANTONIO VERRIO (1634--1707), who received from Charles II. £10,000 for the decoration of Windsor Castle. LOUIS LAGUERRE (1663--1721) was associated with Verrio, and carried on similar work after Verrio's death. His best works are at Blenheim. In his later years Laguerre found a coadjutor in SIR JAMES THORNHILL (1676--1734), whose decorations are superior to those of Verrio or Laguerre. His chief productions are in the cupola of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Great Hall of Greenwich Hospital, an apartment at Hampton Court, and a saloon in Blenheim Palace. Thornhill was knighted by George I., being the first English artist who received that honour, and he sat in Parliament for his native place, Melcombe Regis. Perhaps the most enduring fact about him is that he was the father-in-law of Hogarth. Walpole said of the reign of George I.:--"No reign since the arts have been in any estimation produced fewer works that will deserve the attention of posterity." It was not only in England that art slumbered. The Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish schools had passed from the brilliance of their seventeenth-century period. In Italy art had shrivelled with the last of the Bolognese school. France possessed some original painters, but not of the highest order.