Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/617

] number of orders here, amongst them a series of representations of national costume for the Earl of Lincoln; and Cornelius Vroom, who designed the defeat of the Spanish Armada, for the tapestry which adorned the walls of the House of Lords, and which was destroyed by the fire in 1831. In this reign also, two native artists distinguished themselves: Nicolas Hilliard, a miniature-painter; and Isaac Oliver, his pupil, who surpassed his master in portraits, and also produced historical works of merit.



Amongst the sculptors were Pietro Torregiano, from Florence, who, assisted by a number of Englishmen, executed the bronze monument of Henry VII., and is supposed also to be the author of the tomb of Henry's mother in his chapel. John Hales, who executed the tomb of the Earl of Derby at Ormskirk, was one of Torregiano's English assistants. Benedetto Rovezzano designed the splendid bronze tomb of Henry VIII., which was to have exhibited himself and Jane Seymour, as large as life, in effigy, an equestrian statue, figures of the saints and prophets, the history of St. George, amounting to 133 statues and forty bas-reliefs. This monument of Henry's egotism none of his children or successors respected him enough to complete; and the Parliament, in 1646, ordered the portion already completed to be melted down.

In Scotland during this period the arts were still less cultivated. The only monarch who had evinced a taste for their patronage was James V., who improved and adorned the royal palaces, by the aid of French architects, painters, and sculptors whom he procured from France, with which he was connected by marriage and alliance. His chief interest and expenditure were, however, devoted to the palace at Linlithgow, which he left by far the noblest palace of Scotland, and worthy of any country in Europe.



The furniture of noble houses in the sixteenth century was still quaint; but in many instances rich and picturesque. The walls retained their hangings of tapestry, on which glowed hunting-scenes, with their woodlands, dogs, horsemen, and tlying stags, or resisting boars or lions; scenes mythological or historical. In one of the finest preserved houses of that age, Hardwick, in Derbyshire, the state-room is hung with tapestry representing the story of Ulysses; and above this are figures, rudely executed in plaster, of Diana and her nymphs. The hall is hung with very curious tapestry, of the fifteenth century, representing a boar-hunt and an otter-hunt. The chapel in this house gives a very vivid idea of the furniture of domestic chapels of that age; with its brocaded seats and cushions, and its very curious altar-cloth, thirty feet long, hung round the rails of the altar, with figures of saints, under canopies, wrought in needle-work. You are greatly struck as you pass along this noble old hall, which has had its internal decorations and furniture carefully retained as they were, with the air of rude abundance, and what looks now to us nakedness and incompleteness, mingled with old baronial state, and