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news was brought to Henry VIII. that Sir Thomas More was beheaded. And the king fell into a passion at the news, and running to the picture, tore it down and threw it out of the window. And the picture in the fall broke into three pieces; but Pomerantius then coming by, took it up, carried it home, and so put it together and mended the colours, that it is not to be discerned that it was ever broke". I am acquainted with one portrait of Sir Thomas More by Holbein, that could be spoken of in this way, and it is hardly conceivable that Roger North can be referring to any other picture than the supremely magnificent picture exhibited in the Winter Exhibition of 1881, and which, if it be not altogether the most superb one my weak eyes have ever rested on. But is that picture cracked? Is there a flaw anywhere? Is it possible that it was ever thrown out of a window of Whitehall by the king, and then picked up and mended and "restored" by Pomerantius? If all this is true, it must be easily possible to test the truth of the story. However deftly the fractures may have been mended in 1535, it in impossible but that in the lapse of three centuries the back, at least, of the picture should not show the marks of the repairs. But who was this magician whose name I seem to have met with, and yet cannot recall clearly enough to identify him? So wonderful and imconparably adroit a "restorer" ought to be better known that what seems to be his national name alone. Will some Specialist enlighten my darkness, and delight his proud heart by exposing my crass ignorance.

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