attitude of the little princesses, while a ridiculously artificial style of dressing the hair completed the absurdity of a costume which was the laughing-stock of Europe.

Van Dyck was in this respect far more fortunate in his surroundings, and the full, lustrous folds of satin in which the English royal children were arrayed, gave him ample scope for an exquisite disposition of light and shade.

Independently of purely artistic principles, we should be sorry to lose from the pictures of either artist that element of interest and fascination which the costumes of an earlier epoch always arouse. The Princess Maria Theresa would be less interesting without her big hoop, and the Princess Mary less dignified without her voluminous satin; Charles would scarcely be the prince that he is, if lacking his broad lace collar, and Prince Balthasar would lose much of his charm, deprived of his red and green bravery. There is, in fact, no detail in any of these pictures which does not throw light upon the phase of life which they portray.

Other great masters besides Van Dyck and Velasquez have been called to the portraiture of royalty,—Titian,[5] Holbein,[6] Rubens,—but for various reasons they painted but few pictures of royal children, and these are by no means notable when compared with their other works.

Van Dyck and Velasquez, therefore, stand out the more prominently for this unique class of court portraits, and so long as their works endure, they will take first rank as a revelation of the peculiar grace and charm of the life of children born to the purple.

III.

THE CHILDREN OF FIELD AND VILLAGE.