[Illustration: COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. "SIDNEY'S SISTER, PEMBROKE'S MOTHER." _By_ NICHOLAS HILLIARD (?). _From a rare Engraving._]
More interesting than these foreign artists is the name of NICHOLAS HILLIARD (1547--1619), an Englishman, and the first native artist of importance, whose fame remains to the present time. The "Old Masters" Exhibition of 1879 contained many likenesses said to have been painted by Hilliard; among these was one of _Queen Elizabeth_. Hilliard's skill was specially shown in his miniatures, of which that of Jane Seymour, at Windsor, is a crowning piece. The Duke of Buccleuch has a noble series of Hilliard's and Oliver's paintings of this kind. Dr. Donne says of the former--
"An hand or eye By Hilliard drawn is worth a historye By a worse painter made."
The influence of Holbein is traceable in the works of Hilliard, and in those of his successor, and, probably, pupil, Isaac Oliver. One of the most able painters of this age was SIR NATHANIEL BACON, half-brother to the great Sir Francis Bacon, whose life-size portrait of himself, belonging to the Earl of Verulam, has been engraved in Walpole's "Anecdotes." Sir N. Bacon died in 1615.
[Illustration: SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AT PENSHURST. _By_ ISAAC OLIVER. _From a Miniature in Windsor Castle._]
The miniatures of ISAAC OLIVER (1556--1617) are considered by some critics to rival those of Holbein. Both Isaac and his son PETER OLIVER (1601--1660) painted in the reign of James I., who, if not a great patron of Art, yet encouraged foreign portrait painters to work in England. Most famous among these were DANIEL MYTENS, PAUL VAN SOMER, and CORNELIS JONSON. Van Somer, a Fleming, is specially noted for his fidelity, Mytens for the spirit and dignity of his likenesses and his landscape backgrounds, and Jonson for the accuracy of his portraits. JEAN PETITOT (1607--1691), of Geneva, also came to England and painted portraits in enamel for Charles I. But native art was not altogether unrepresented. _Nicholas Stone_, the sculptor, flourished; and JOHN HOSKINS, who died in 1664, was celebrated as a miniature painter. The special art of miniature painting was at this time lucrative to its professors, as it was the fashion to wear pictures of friends, set in gold and precious stones. There were symptoms of a growing taste for art in England, and men were learning that it was possible to paint a good picture without living on the Continent.
