Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/436

 in the parish church. By his will, made shortly before his death, he bequeathed 20s. to the poor of his parish, divided the arrears of his pension between his two sisters, and left the residue of his estate to his son, Laurence Hilliard, who appears to have followed the same profession as his father, although no work by him is known. Laurence was alive in 1634.

Hilliard was the first English painter of miniatures, and his works were highly esteemed in his own day. Dr. Donne, in his poem on ‘The Storm,’ written in 1597, testified that a hand or eye By Hilliard drawn is worth a history By a coarse painter made. He was, however, surpassed by his pupil, Isaac Oliver [q. v.], to whom many of his more highly finished miniatures have been attributed. Hilliard's miniatures are usually on card or vellum, and sometimes on the backs of playing cards. They are executed with much care and fidelity and great accuracy of detail in costume, and are painted with opaque colours, heightened with gold, but the faces are pale and shadowless. Thirteen were in the cabinet of Charles I, who purchased from Hilliard's son a remarkable jewel, containing the portraits of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Queen Jane Seymour, and having on the top an enamelled representation of the battle of Bosworth, and on the reverse the red and white roses. The portraits are now, with other works by Hilliard, at Windsor Castle, but the jewel has long since disappeared.

Many of Hilliard's best miniatures are in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, who contributed twenty-three to the exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1879. They include portraits of Queen Elizabeth (four), Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, Edward Vere, earl of Oxford, Richard Clifford, earl of Cumberland, Lady Arabella Stuart, Sir Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney, countess of Pembroke, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Francis Walsingham, Richard Hilliard, his father; his own portrait, dated 1574, ‘ætatis suæ 37,’ and that of his wife Alice, daughter of John Brandon, chamberlain of London, dated 1578, ‘ætatis suæ 22.’ Mr. Jeffery Whitehead possesses a little book of prayers written on vellum by Queen Elizabeth in six different languages, which has miniatures by Hilliard of the Duke of Alençon at the beginning, and of Elizabeth at the end. It was formerly in the collection of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill. Mr. Whitehead owns likewise the fine portrait of Hilliard by himself, which was formerly at Penshurst, and that of Mary Queen of Scots, painted in 1579, formerly in the Bale collection. Other miniatures by Hilliard are in the collections of the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Carlisle, Major-general Sotheby, Mr. R. S. Holford, and Mr. J. Lumsden Propert. Miniatures of Queen Elizabeth by him are in the National Portrait Gallery and the Jones collection, South Kensington Museum.

There are engraved portraits of Hilliard in the Strawberry Hill and later editions of Walpole's ‘Anecdotes of Painting.’

 HILLIER, CHARLES PARKER (1838–1880), actor. [See .] HILLIER, GEORGE (1815–1866), antiquary, eldest son of William Hillier, commander R.N., born at Kennington in 1815, was educated at Place Street House, near Ryde, Isle of Wight. He was long engaged in the preparation of the ‘History and Antiquities of the Isle of Wight.’ He projected it on a comprehensive plan, and collected materials for two volumes, but he received little support, and the parts appeared at long and uncertain intervals. The plates he engraved with his own hand, and to diminish the cost he latterly undertook the printing at his own house. Although incomplete, it is an admirable work. He was also employed in illustrating C. Warne's ‘Dorsetshire,’ and travelled with the author throughout the county in order to prepare the map, which exhibits much artistic skill and is of great antiquarian value. The discovery of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Chessel Down in the Isle of Wight, and the excavation of the graves, was one of Hillier's most valuable contributions to archæology. He died at Ryde on 1 April 1866, and was buried at Binstead.

His works are: 1. ‘The Topography of the Isle of Wight. To which is appended, a Voyage round the Island,’ Ryde, 1850, 12mo. 2. ‘A Narrative of the attempted Escapes of Charles the First from Carisbrook Castle, and of his detention in the Isle of Wight. Including the letters of the King to Colonel Titus, now first decyphered and printed from the originals,’ Lond. 1852, 8vo. 3. ‘The Sieges of Arundel Castle, by Sir Ralph 