This record must necessarily be of a chronological character, and can only take note of those whose works have actual value and interest, historical or other.  Edward Luttrell (1650-1710) did some excellent work in crayon or pastel, while Garrett Murphy (fl. 1650-1716), Stephen Slaughter (d. 1765), Francis Bindon (d. 1765), and James Latham (1696-1747), have each left us notable portraits of the great Irish personages of their day.  To fellow countrymen in London, Charles Jervas (1675?-1739), Thomas Hickey (d. 1816?), and Francis Cotes, R.A. (1725-1770), we owe presentments of other famous people.  George Barrett, R.A. (1728-1784), one of the greatest landscapists of his time; Nathaniel Hone, R.A. (1718-1784), an eccentric but gifted painter, with an individuality displayed in all his portraits; James Barry, R.A. (1741-1806), still more eccentric, with grand conceptions imperfectly carried out in his great historical and allegorical pictures:—­these, with Henry Tresham, R.A. (1749?-1814), and Matthew Peters, R.A. (1742-1814), historical painters of considerable merit, upheld the Irish claim to a high place in English eighteenth century art.  A little later, miniaturists such as Horace Hone, A.R.A. (1756-1825), George Chinnery (1774-1852), and Adam Buck (1759-1844), also worked with remarkable success in London.  Among resident Irish artists, the highest praise can be given to the miniature painters, John Comerford (1770?-1832) and Charles Robertson (1760-1821), and to the portrait-painters, Robert Hunter (fl. 1750-1803) and (especially) Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739-1808), of whose work Ireland possesses many distinguished examples.  Some day Hamilton’s pictures will appeal to a far wider public than his countrymen can provide.  One must omit the names of many clever Irish artists like the Wests, Francis and Robert, who were the most successful teachers of perhaps any time in Ireland, and come at once to that branch of art in which Ireland stands second to none—­mezzotint-engraving.

One of the earliest engravers in this style was Edward Luttrell, already named as a painter, but it was John Brooks (fl. 1730-1756) who is justly considered the real founder of that remarkable group of Irish engravers whose work may be more correctly described as belonging to a school than any other of the period.  For many years in Dublin, and afterwards in London, a succession of first-rate artists of Irish birth produced work which remains and always must remain one of the glories of Ireland.  Limits of space allow only the bare mention of the names of James McArdell (1728?-1765), Charles Spooner (d. 1767), Thomas Beard (fl. 1728), Thomas Frye (1710-1762), Edward Fisher (1722-1785?), Michael Ford (d. 1765), John Dixon (1740?-1811), Richard Purcell (fl. 1746-1766), Richard Houston (1721?-1775), John Murphy (1748?-1820), Thomas Burke (1749-1815), Charles Exshaw (fl. 1747-1771), and Luke Sullivan (1705-1771)—­artists of whom any country might be proud, and whose works have in most cases