Framed Etonians

In a stately hall of London's Tate Gallery, paintings of 52 proud and pink-cheeked youths went on display last week. On loan from Eton, they were pictures of senior boys done by the best British portraitists of the 18th and early igth Centuries.

It was customary in those days (until the practice was abolished in the 1860s) for boys leaving Eton to slip -L-10 or -L-15 to the headmaster. But seniors deemed Most Likely to Succeed were invited to give portraits of themselves instead.

Painted in lace jabots, powdered wigs and colorful velvet jackets, the 52 on display at the Tate looked boyishly innocent, boyishly arrogant. Their number included four future First Lords of the Treasury, and 21 future earls and dukes. One of history's most famed old Etonians, William Ewart Gladstone, was not present; he was not enough of a standout at Eton. Among those who were:

P: Charles Manners, Marquess of Granby and later fourth Duke of Rutland, grew up to be described as "an amiable and extravagant peer, without any particular talent except for conviviality." He did have sense enough to protest the policy of taxing the American Colonies in 1775, observing that it was "commenced in iniquity, is pursued with resentment, and can terminate in nothing but blood." Thomas Gainsborough's portrait makes Manners look dull and mannered, though no one knew better than Gainsborough how to paint the freshness of youth (as his famed Blue Boy demonstrates).

P:Charles James Fox justified his schoolboy reputation. He grew up to be the greatest orator of his day, supported both the American and French Revolutions, urged abolition of the slave trade and self-government for Ireland. Sir Joshua Reynolds was experimenting with carmines when he painted him; they faded and left Fox jaundiced.

P: Charles Grey was to win a place in history as "the very type of old Whig nobleman, punctiliously honorable and high-minded." As Prime Minister, to the gnashing of Tory teeth, he pushed through the Reform Bill of 1832, set Parliament on its modern course as a democratic house. George Romney's portrait of him almost succeeds in characterizing a sitter whose character was not yet evident. He caught Charles Grey's idealism as well as his pride, conveyed both in the open brow, direct glance and faint curl of the lips.

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