Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/314

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302 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. excellent Portrait of Knox, seemingly by some distin- guished Artist of Knox's time ; and had had a copy of it painted, — presumably for his mansion of Drum, near Edinburgh, long years perhaps before it came to Mayfair. Among scrutinizers here, it was early recollected that there hung in the Royal Society's rooms an ex- cellent Portrait of Buchanan, undisputedly painted by Francis Porbus ; that Knox and Buchanan were children of the same year (1505), and that both the Portrait of Buchanan and that of Knox indicated for the sitter an age of about sixty or more. So that one preliminary doubt, Was there in Scotland, about 1565, an artist capable of such a Portrait as this of Knox ? was completely abolished ; and the natural enquiry arose, can any traces of affinity between these two be discovered ? The eminent Sculptor, Mr. J. E. Boehm, whose judgment of painting and knowledge of the history, styles and epochs of it, seemed to my poor laic mind far beyond that of any other I had communed with, directly visited, along with me, the Royal Society's collection ; found in this Buchanan perceptible traces