Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/245

 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 235 I before Queen Mary/ — one of the most impossible pictures ever painted by a man of such indubitable genius, including therein, piety, enthusiasm, and vera- city,— in brief the probably intolerablest figure that exists of Knox; and from one of the noblest of Scottish painters the least expected. Such by accident was the honour done to Hondius's impossible Knox ; not to our advantage, but the contrary. All artists agree at once that this of Hondius is nothing other than an improved reproduction of the old Beza Figure-head ; the face is turned to the other side, but the features are pre- served, so far as adding some air at least of animal life would permit ; the costume, carefully including the little patch of ruffles under the jaw, is repro- duced ; and in brief the conclusion is that Hondius or Yerheiden had no doubt but the Beza portrait, though very dead and boiled-looking, had been essen- tially like ; and needed only a little kindling up from its boiled condition to be satisfactory to the reader. Goulart's French Translation of Beza, and the substi- tution of the Tyndale figure there, as we have said, seems to be unknown to Yerheiden and his Hondius ; indeed Yerheiden's library, once furnished with a