By WALTER F. TIFFIN.

Were it not that some few other animals seem, in a small degree, to have somewhat of the same faculty, man might be defined a scraping or collecting animal, for there is scarcely an individual of the genus but manifests this peculiarity; some in scraping or collecting for their own subsistence or that of their offspring; many for the gratification of their senses or intellect, irrespective of physical wants of increase or preservation.

I was shown the other day a neat little cabinet, belonging to a great traveler and naturalist, in which were labelled and described nearly four hundred different species or varieties of bugs! George the Fourth collected saddles. The Princess Charlotte, and many besides, collected shells, of which some of the ugliest, being fortunately the rarest, are very valuable. For a very rare one, Rumfius, a collector of old, though stone blind, is said to have given £1000. Tulips were once a favorite subject with collectors, especially in Holland, where the sums given for new or rare roots were enormous. One root once sold for 4600 florins (about £370) together with a new carriage, a pair of grey horses, and a set of harness. Other flowers have since become favorites in succession, as auriculas, picotees, dahlias, and now, roses.

Of collections of pictures of a general character a long list might be made, and there are in England several fine collections of statues, ancient and modern. I don’t know, however, that we have any such enthusiasts, as antiquaries, as a gentleman mentioned by Evelyn, who, being at Rome in 1644, went “to the house of Hippolite Vitellesco (afterwards Bibliothecary of ye Vatican Library) who show’d us one of the best collections of statues in Rome, to which he frequently talks as if they were living, pronouncing now and then orations, sentences, and verses, sometimes kissing and embracing them. He has a head of Brutus, scarred in the face by order of the Senate for killing Julius; this is much esteemed.” Special collections of portraits do not however seem to have met with much favor. One of the earliest collectors in England was William, Earl of Pembroke, of the time of James the First, who was quite famous as a physiognomist, and who formed a special collection of portraits at Wilton. General Fairfax is said to have collected portraits of warriors; and a few others might be named as having added to their own family portraits those of their friends, or of persons whose position or talents rendered them celebrated. But it was reserved for Lord Chancellor Clarendon to form the first important collection of English worthies. When he built his grand house in Piccadilly, he appears to have arranged a gallery of portraits on a well-considered plan. They were limited to those of eminent men of his own country, but not restricted to any particular class. This collection of portraits was already very extensive when Clarendon went into exile, and he was then getting a long list from Evelyn in order to add to it. In a letter to Pepys, and in his “Numismata,” Evelyn enumerates, from memory, nearly a hundred illustrious Englishmen whose portraits he had seen at Clarendon House, and which were afterwards removed to Cornbury in Oxfordshire.

Next to a gallery of portraits in oil, must be reckoned a cabinet of miniatures, and indeed if these are by masters like Oliver and Cooper and PetitÔt, they are of equal value, both as portraits and pictures, with the larger works. But now, nearly all the works of these celebrated artists are gathered into collections such as that of the Duke of Buccleugh, whence no collector can hope to charm them, charm he never so wisely. The first large collection of miniatures formed was that of Walpole. Until recently few persons sought for more than family portraits, or those of friends, and Walpole was enabled therefore to form his matchless collection of miniatures with comparative ease and at a comparatively moderate expense. At that time, he says, they were “superior to any other collection whatever,” and particularly as regards the works of Peter and Isaac Oliver, “the best extant, and as perfect as when they came from the hand of the painter.”

To collect all the portraits that have ever been engraved is of course a hopeless task, and there would necessarily be so many important hiatuses, that no one probably now-a-days will enter on the undertaking. Yet it was attempted, and it must have been an exciting occupation, too serious for an amusement or recreation, for the several collectors, who then all ran for the same goal, to outdo and outbid each other in forming their collections. It is astonishing how interesting a collection may be made of portraits of a more limited range. Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, or Lodge’s Memoirs, are more readable than the Biographia Britannica, or Bayle’s Dictionary; and two or three folios of portraits of a particular class, or of a particular era, well arranged and annotated may be made much more amusing, recreative, and interesting than dozens of cabinets filled with a miscellaneous assemblage of portraits of people of all sorts who have lived “everywhen” and everywhere. The collector may himself make a book by collecting some series of portraits, as of statesmen, poets, actors, etc., etc., of some particular period, and placing opposite to each a few salient biographical paragraphs. A few dates should be given, as of birth, death, etc., but no attempt need be made to furnish a full biography. It should be endeavored rather to heighten our interest in the portrait by recalling or recording a few anecdotes, than to attempt to vie with a biographical dictionary. Just as in passing along a gallery of portraits, or noticing those in a great house, we pause not only to criticise the figure, or the complexion and expression of the face, but to remark such and such an event in the life of him or her who is before us. What is wanted in these inscriptions is not a serious biography of the individual, but, besides a few special facts and dates, some short characteristic anecdotes not generally met with in biographies, but to be picked up in “Memoires pour servir”—and similar ana.

Almost the first great or systematic collectors of engraved portraits in England were Evelyn and Pepys; the former having the start. It was not till about 1668 that Pepys began collecting portraits, getting many of Nanteuil, etc., from France, and being helped with the advice of Evelyn, as well as with specimens from his collection. In 1669 he went to France, and doubtless collected there many things (which are now in the Pepysian Library) on the recommendation of his friend, who says in one of his letters at this time, printed by Lord Braybrooke, “They will greatly refresh you in your study, and by your fireside, when you are many years returned.”

Yes, they will indeed refresh you! This is one of the great charms of such reminiscences of travel, that when you come home you are constantly traveling again in looking over sketches, pictures, and books. You see an engraving of the Madonna della Sedia, and away you are at once, quicker than the telegraph, to Florence the Fair, and to that sunny day, when crossing the Arno by the Ponte Vecchio, you first came to the Palazzo Pitti, and, passing by wonders and wonders of art, you stopped at last by the Raffaelle and forgot the world, absorbed by that which is indeed “a joy forever.” In the same way you turn over a folio of portraits. Here are Elizabeth, Leicester, Raleigh, Shakspere, Melville, and Mary of Scots—and you walk about London and Greenwich, and visit the world of three hundred years ago! Or you take up a folio of a later period, where are Charles the Second, Buckingham, Rochester, Grammont, Sedley, Killigrew, York, Clarendon, Dryden, Lely, Castlemaine, Stewart, Nelly, and the Queen—and you are dining at one o’clock with the learned Mr. Evelyn and the wondrous Pepys, talking and telling anecdotes (with a good deal of relish) of the bad goings on of those times, A. D. 1666. Or, whisking out another folio, you rush off to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s and laugh and criticise, mourn and moralize with Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, and Garrick, and think of Hogarth “over the way,” and of Chesterfield, Walpole, the Gunnings, Kitty Clive, Nelly O’Brien, and many more who have, unconsciously to themselves and to us, moved the world a step forward. These are among the charms, the pleasures and advantages of collections of portraits.