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ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

In the year 1790, when the late Mr. William Richardson first projected his publication of a series of Portraits to illustrate Granger's "Biographical History of England;" it was his intention to bring out an enlarged and improved edition of the work itself. For that purpose he had several copies of the editions of 1775 and 1779 interleaved with blank paper, which he forwarded to the most distinguished Collectors of English Portraits, requesting their assistance in the undertaking, by giving him information of such Portraits as had escaped the Author's notice, which might happen to be in their own possession, or have come within their knowledge.

Among others to whom these interleaved copies were sent, was David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, of New Hailes, near Edinburgh; the Honourable Horace Walpole, afterward earl of Orford; Sir James Winter Lake, bart.; James Bindley, esq. first commissioner of the Stamp Office; and Benjamin Way, esq.

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of Denham Court, near Uxbridge. All of these gentlemen (since deceased) most liberally furnished Mr. Richardson with accounts of such heads as had escaped Mr. Granger's notice, during his laborious research; and among many others of the greatest rarity, was that of John Felton, who stabbed the Duke of Buckingham at Portsmouth, a small quarto print in Glover's style of engraving, but without any artist's name affixed to it; and the fine head of Sir Henry Englefield, bart. a half-sheet print by W. Faithorne, which was bought at the sale of Sir James Winter Lake's portraits, by Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, at the high price of seventy guineas. This was the greatest sum ever known to be given for a single print, until the sale of the late Mr. Bindley's collection, in which the portrait of Barbara Villiers, dutchess of Cleveland, by Faithorne, sold for seventy-eight pounds: but this has very lately been surpassed in price, by the portraits of James the First, and his queen, Anne of Denmark, by Renold Elstrake, in one plate, which was purchased by Mrs. Sutherland, of Gower-street, Bedford-square, for eighty guineas, to add to the almost invaluable illustrated copy of Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," collected at an expense of nearly ten thousand pounds, by the late Alexander Hendras Sutherland, esq.

Previously to the publication of the first Edition of this Work in 1769, five shillings was considered a liberal price by Collectors for any English portrait; and the late Lord Orford, Sir William Musgrave, and Richard Bull, esq. have declared to several persons

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