portraits are Mrs. Pattison, Sir David Stewart, and Sir Walter Gilbey.

Orchardson's famous picture of four royal generations (called "Windsor Castle, 1897,") was finished in April, 1900, for that year's Academy. I went one afternoon a week before to have a look at it. The painter and his wife were having tea in the splendid diningroom at Portland Place, and he was thoroughly enjoying his buttered toast after a hard day.

"I like sitting at a table for my tea," he said, "especially since my arm became troublesome, for even now I really cannot balance a cup. Congratulate me, however, for I have discarded my sling to-day after two years."

Poor man, what he had suffered during those two years in his left arm. Yet the man who could not hold a cup could paint a picture.

son.

The canvas was enormous-simple and striking. The quiet dignity of Queen Victoria on the left, and the happy little family group of the Prince of Wales, Duke of York, and baby Prince Edward, was very charming. "A difficult subject," sighed Orchard"It took me months to make up my mind how to tackle it at all. Two black frock-coats and a lady in black seemed impossible, till I insisted on having the child and his white frock to introduce the human interest. For days and days I wandered about Windsor to find a suitable room to paint the group in, and nothing took my fancy till I came to this long corridor. This is a corner just as it stands. The dark cabinet throws out the Queen's head. The carpet gives warmth. The settee is good color."

"How very like that chair the Prince has his hand on is to one of your old Empire chairs," I exclaimed. The great painter laughed.

"It is mine. I lent it, you see. They had nothing quite so suitable as mine

there, so I just painted in one of my own."

It was only five days before the picture was to go to Burlington House. The Prince of Wales (alas, the only portrait he painted of King Edward VII.) was unfinished; one of the three busts was not even touched, besides many other minor details.

"Will you ever be ready?"

"Oh, dear, yes! I once painted half my Academy picture in the last week. I take a long while thinking and planning, but only a short time actually painting. I shall be ready all right. At any time I rarely paint more than four hours a day, often only two; so you see I can accomplish a fair amount with an eight hours' day."

In 1887 the Orchardsons moved from Victoria to Portland Place. The new house offered all the room required for his large family, but there was no studio. Nothing daunted, the artist designed a studio out of the stable at the back, and made one of the finest ateliers in London, where stables and loose-boxes had once stood. He was not the first artist to do this, for Turner, the great landscape painter, who lived in Queen Anne Street, close by, had his studio in the stable which later adjoined my father's house in Harley Street, where I was born. It was in that stable-studio Turner painted some of his finest pictures, and it was in a stable-studio a hundred years later that Orchardson painted his most fa

mous canvases.

Rich tapestries hung upon the walls. Old chairs of the Directoire and Empire periods stood about on parquet floors, on which was reflected the red glow from a huge blazing fire.

The upstairs rooms, with their pillars and conservatory, formed the background of such pictures as "Her Mother's Voice," "Reflections," "Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates in the Memory," and "A Tender Chord,"

and bits of the studio often served as backgrounds, just as his Adams satinwood chairs, his clocks and candelabra, glass and old Sheffield plate, stood as models.

Orchardson was a man of wide interests. He was always liberal in his outlook. Anything new, no matter by whom or what form it took, interested him, and he was particularly good to young men. For instance, a portrait of Professor Lorimer, of Edinburgh, was sent by his son to the Academy. No one had then heard of young Lorimer, but the picture was accepted and hung on the line. Two or three years after, when the artist was in London, he was introduced to Orchardson, who at once exclaimed:

"J. H. Lorimer'! Ah, yes! I remember. I hung a picture of yours on the line at the Academy a few years ago, because it showed promise." And thus began a delightful friendship.

That was his way. Whenever he could do a young artist a good turn, he did so; whenever he could say a word of encouragement, he was always willing; and endless are the visits he paid to the studios of youthful aspirants, and many the kindly words of advice and encouragement he left be hind.

He thought it one of the crying shames of the day that more was not done for painters and sculptors. He considered our public buildings and open spaces should be adorned by sculpture, that our public libraries and edifices should be decorated by paintings. "There is just as good talent as ever there was," he would say, "if these millionaires would only encourage it, and not pay vast sums for spurious old masters. You have only to call a thing old, and it will be bought, but call the same thing new, and no one will even look at it."

Speaking to him once about a fellowartist's death, I said what a pity it

was a man should live to over-paint himself, just as men lived to over-write themselves-paint until their eye has lost all idea of form and color.

He did not agree to this. "Once a painter, always a painter," he declared. "Our individual taste improves, our life becomes more educated, until we look upon work as bad that years before we thought good. In fact," he maintained, "if the early pictures of an artist were put with his later work, you would probably find that he had not deteriorated at all." He gave as an illustration the works in the Manchester Exhibition-where one man had, perhaps, twenty pictures, painted in different years, hung side by side; and these, he maintained, one and all reached a certain standard, and did not deteriorate or improve very much with years.

Once asked to paint a picture containing several portraits, he agreed, although the subjects were not handsome ugly, in fact.

"What a trial that must be to you." "Oh, dear, no! I far prefer an ugly face to a beautiful one. It is generally so much more interesting."

"Then you choose their dresses and surroundings, presumably?"

"No; I do not. I like to paint them as they are, and in their own home. Dressing them up and giving them strange surroundings takes away their identity, and makes a picture, but not a portrait. Men paint with their brain, and if they haven't got brains, no amount of teaching will make them artists. They must feel what they do with the mind. Color is in the artist himself, but he must learn for years and years, not to paint, but to draw. Drawing can only be acquired, and is difficult at first. No man can hope to be an artist until drawing is no longer a difficulty. Then, but not till then, he may start to paint. Look how beautifully Frenchmen draw.”

"Art is poorly paid, and a disheartening affair. When I see and hear of the thousands of 'artists' barely earning a living to keep body and soul together, it makes me positively sick."

One day a friend brought a beautiful bunch of roses to Portland Place. Mrs. Orchardson was so delighted with them, she took them into the studio to show her husband.

"Can't you paint them?" she replied. "Well, they are lovely," he replied. And after thinking a moment, he went and fetched a large canvas, on which he had drawn roughly his scheme for the now famous picture of "The Young Duke." Many feet of white canvas and charcoal lines were there. The rest of the scheme and the color was only in the artist's head. He fetched a bowl, placed the roses in it, and there and then painted the flowers upon the great white canvas. So began the picture. He never touched a petal from that day, and painted his picture round the bowl of roses.

Flowers and the country were always attractive to Orchardson, and in 1897 he bought a house near Farningham.

Once settled, they were invited to a large county dinner-party to be introduced to their neighbors. Just before it was time to dress for dinner, it was discovered that Orchardson had not brought his dress clothes from London. Should they send a message that they could not go? No; they decided that would be ridiculous. Had he a frockcoat? No; he had not even that in the country, and a blue serge suit was all that could be produced. Accordingly the artist appeared at the formal county dinner arranged in his special honor, more like an English yachtsman than a dinner-party guest; and, to add to their misery-it had taken so long to hunt for the clothes, and it took much longer to drive than they had anticipated the guests had already sat down

when they were ushered into the dining-room.

That

For many years before this, the Orchardsons lived off and on at Westgate. It was there he built the tennis-courtreal tennis-not lawn tennis-that from first to last cost about £3,000. game was his recreation and his amusement, and round him the painter collected tennis players from all over the world. He called it the "king of games," just as he called fly-fishing the "king of sports."

Speaking to a man who constantly played tennis with Orchardson in the early 'eighties, he remarked:

"I was often amazed how that languid, gentlemanly man could suddenly become so actively energetic as Orchardson was when he played tennis. He was not in the first flight with Sir Edward Gray or Alfred Lyttelton, but he held his own with men like Lord Forrester, Julian Marshall, or even with Heathcote, and he sometimes played with Lambert, the professional. At that time the tennis-courts in England might have been counted on the fingers. There was one at Trinity College, Cambridge, one at the Bedford Hotel, Brighton, and one at Lords; and I doubt if there are many more, even to-day."

Tennis, fishing, and bric-à-brac were certainly Orchardson's hobbies.

When they decided to give up Westgate, the journey being too long for week-ends, he tried to sell the house. That was easy enough, but no one would buy the tennis court. Time went on but no bids of any kind were made. The costly court was an incubus instead of an attraction. Finally, the land on which it stood was sold, and the £3,000 worth of bricks and mortar were lowered to the ground. It is now a garden.

Another hobby besides tennis was old furniture. One of his most prized treasures was an old piano, a Vienna

Flugel of the seventeenth century, containing peals, drums and bells. It was shaped like an ordinary grand, with rounded side-pieces of beautiful rich colored mahogany, and in tone resembled a spinette. One day, walking down Oxford Street, he saw the end of this Flugel piano sticking out of some straw outside an auctioneer's. The wood and form struck him, and he pulled aside the straw to examine it more closely. He had the legs brought out to him, and found they were figures supporting worlds, on which the piano rested. Charmed and delighted

at the whole design, he offered to bid for it and as only two very old musicians, who remembered the piano in their youth, bid against him, it was knocked down to him. This he gave a year or two ago, with a tall harp piano, to the South Kensington Mu seum. Afterwards he found the only other one in England was owned by the Queen, and stood at Windsor.

"Funny things happen sometimes," he once said. "This morning I received a letter from America, many pages long, from a man who is writing a play, and he says, 'I want your gracious permission to use your picture of "Napoleon on the Deck of the Bellepheron." I will have it copied in the best possible style, frame and all, and use it on the hoardings with your name in full underneath.' Frame and all, and my name underneath. What an offer! Evidently he thinks no higher compliment could be paid me."

Continuing, he told another story:"Lately a man from Scotland wrote to say he had been left a very valuable collection of paintings by his father, amongst them one of mine which was not signed-would I kindly tell him when it was painted. I had no recollection of the picture, and asked him to send it up. It came-and-well -it was not mine; never in my life have I seen anything so awful. Poor

man! If all his 'very valuable collection' was like that, I pity him.

"Another time, much the same thing happened, and the picture was nearly as bad; but alas! it was mine; an early indiscretion; so I replied regretting extremely to own it had come from my brush, and five minutes of its company had made me so ill I returned it at once."

SO

Funnily enough, he who had himself painted many portraits, disliked nothing in the world so much as sitting himself.

"I am a fidget," he said, "and it worries me to keep still. When Charlie (that is his son) asked me to sit to him in the autumn of '98, I said, 'My dear boy, I would rather do anything else in the world for you than sit.' However, his mother persuaded me that it would be to Charlie's advantage, and therefore, like a weak man-for man is always weak in the hands of woman -I gave in. The boy painted it very cleverly, and people tell me it is a good portrait. Not that I know much about that, for no one knows what he really looks like. His style is so utterly different from mine I am, unfortunately, of no help to him at all, and I think he is perfectly right in trying to avoid copying my method, and striking out a line of his own." Mr. Charles Orchardson, R.B.A., is now head of the St. John's Wood Art Schools, and is well represented in this year's Academy by his much talked of picture "If? "

In spite of this dislike of being painted or photographed, Orchardson did a portrait of himself for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence in 1890, where it now hangs.

Before closing these few stray reminiscences, it may interest readers to know that Orchardson's settling in London was a matter of pure chance. Sitting in his little studio in Edinburgh, he read long accounts of the great Ex

hibition of 1862. "By Jove, I'll go and have a look at it," he said. No sooner said than done. With a small handbag he came to London. The die was cast. He never returned to Edinburgh to live. He did not even go up to fetch his things, although he always retained his love of Scotland and his accent. He was just twenty-nine when he came to London, full of enthusiasm, but not overblessed with the world's goods. Those early days in this great city were days of work and struggle for John Pettie, Peter Graham, John MacWhirter, and William Quiller Orchardson, who all came together, and lived together in Pimlico, and then in Fitzroy Square. They all worked in black and white to keep the pot boiling, and right merry they were in those long ago days. All attained success. Orchardson's first stroke of luck came three years after his arrival in London, when he won £100 prize for "The Challenge," and for the next forty-five years he continued to work steadily, and climbed the ladder of fame rung by rung. He was made an A.R.A. in 1868, R.A. in 1883, and D.C.L. of Oxford in 1907, when he was also given a knighthood.

My last personal recollection of Sir William was only a few weeks ago-I was sitting to Herbert Hampton, the famous sculptor. One day we were talking about Orchardson, and Mr. Hampton was eulogistic in speaking of his work, and regretted Sir William had never been to his studio.

Το

ercise, so I suggested fetching him in a taxi the next time I was to sit. this he replied a few days later:Dear Mrs. Tweedie,

So do I (this refers to a remark that I wished I was the sitter). I should have loved the taxi, and your presentment at the hands of Herbert Hampton. It must be worth seeing-but that I have promised to be at the meeting to-morrow of the Fine Art Section of the White City, of which I am Chairman-Horrid, is it not? With many thanks and more regrets, Yours,

W. Q. Orchardson.

That funeral service at the quaint little church standing back from the rush and turmoil of Piccadilly, gath ered together many representative men and women to do honor to the grand old Scotchman. The congregation included Miss Orchardson (granddaughter), Lord Swaythling, Sir Edward Poynter, the President of the Royal Academy, and the following Royal Academicians: Mr. George Clausen, Mr. Ernest Crofts, Mr. Frank Dicksee, Sir Luke Fildes, Mr. A. C. Gow, Mr. W. Goscombe John, Mr. J. MacWhirter, Mr. Briton Riviere, Mr. J. S. Sargent, Mr. J. J. Shannon, Mr. Solomon J. Solomon, Mr. Marcus Stone, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir E. A. Waterlow, Mr. J. W. Waterhouse, and Mr. Henry Woods, with Mr. Alfred East, A.R.A., Mr. Joseph Farquharson, A. R. A., Mr. G. A. Storey, A.R.A., and Mr. Fred A. Eaton (secretary of the Royal Academy); Mr. A. Bruce-Joy, Sir James Dewar, F.R.S., Sir Isidore Spielmann, Mr. H. Spielmann, the Chairman of the London County Council, and Mr. Robinson (the late Chairman), Sir George and Lady Reid, Lady Younghusband, Sir Squire Bancroft, Lady Macmillan, Lady Fildes, Mr. H. A. Olivier, secretary, Mr. Harold Speed, and other members of the Society of Portrait Painters, Mr. T. B. Kenning-. ton (vice-president of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters), Mr. George Alex