Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

LELY'S "BEAUTIES" 85
ladies." x If he flattered, he knew how to do it, and
the result is always pleasing. " He could not have
worked at more lovely subjects," says Count Anthony
Hamilton; " each portrait is a masterpiece."
All the ladies — there were eleven originally, of
whom nine or ten now remain here — are painted in
three-quarter length, in "trailing fringes and embroidery
through meadows and purling streams."
Others, such as Mrs. Knott, a pretty, quiet ladv,
and Mrs. Lawson, by Wissing, and the most lovely
little girl— whom we may not now call the Princess
Mary, but who is identified as Miss Jane Kelleway,
a charming child-Diana — do not belong to the series.
There is also the portrait of Anne Hyde herself, who
ordered the painter to immortalise the Beauties — a
comely, pleasant lady enough, " her whole body sitting
in state in a chair in white satin," as Pepys says; and
there is the lovely Lady Bellasys (if she it be) as
S. Catherine, devout and rapt, who is not one of the
Beauties. The Duchess of Portsmouth — Louise de
Querouaille — by Varelst, much spoilt by repainting, is
a pretty picture ofthe "childish,simple baby face."
The " Beauties " themselves were removed from
Windsor Castle, during the reign of George III., to
Hampton Court, where they fitly remain.
The first is MissStewart, the Britannia ofthecoinage.
Bow in hand, dressed in a light yellow satin, with face,
arms, and head uncovered (like all the Beauties), she
is a charming picture. She long resisted all the attrac-
1 " The English School ofPainting,"p.xxxv.