SIR 
 
 JOSHUA REYNOLDS 
 
 BY 
 
 CLAUDE PHILLIPS 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS 
 

 <j£r- 
 
Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 by 
 
 CLAUDE PHILLIPS 
 
 With Nine Illustrations from Pictures by the Master 
 
 “ Invention is one of the greatest marks of genius ; but if we consult experience, 
 we shall find that it is by being conversant with the inventions of others 
 that we learn to invent ; or by reading the thoughts of others we learn 
 to think ." — Sixth Discourse. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED 
 
 Essex Street, Strand 
 
 1894 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 The following are some of the chief authorities 
 which have been consulted and utilised in con- 
 nection with the present volume : — 
 
 Leslie and Taylor’s “Life and Times of Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds.” 
 
 Malone’s “ Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” with Prefatory 
 Memoir. 
 
 Northcote’s “ Life of Reynolds.” 
 
 Farington’s “ Life of Reynolds.” 
 
 Foster’s “ Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith.” 
 
 J. T. Smith’s “ Nollekens and his Times.” 
 
 The Historical Notes by F. G. Stephens to the Catalogues 
 of the Reynolds and Gainsborough Exhibitions at the Grosvenor 
 Gallery. 
 
 The Catalogues of the Winter Exhibitions at the Royal 
 Academy, 1870-1893. 
 
 The Catalogue of the Guelph Exhibition. 
 
 Cotton’s Catalogue of the Portraits painted by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds. 
 
 Hamilton’s Catalogue Raisonn£ of the engraved works of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 “ Mrs Piozzi’s Memoirs.” 
 
 “ Horace Walpole’s Letters.” 
 
 Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.” 
 
 “ The Beginnings of the Royal Academy,” by H. V. Barnett 
 (Magazine of Art). 
 
 “ The Dictionary of National Biography.” 
 
 “ The Life of Angelica Kauffmann,” by Frances Gerard. 
 
 October , 1893. 
 
 C. P. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Birth — Parentage — Samuel Reynolds — Joshua’s Education — Richardson’s 
 Treatise on Painting — Apprenticeship to Hudson — Meeting with Pope 
 — Abrupt Dismissal by Hudson — Return to Devonshire — Is again in 
 London, and recalled Home by Death of his Father — Influence on 
 his Style of Gandy of Exeter — Introduction to Commodore Keppel, 
 and Expedition with him to the Mediterranean — Lands at Minorca — 
 Paints Portraits there — Meets with an Accident — Arrives at Rome — 
 Letter to Lord Edgcumbe — Mode and Direction of Study during two 
 years’ Residence there — Makes some stay at Florence — Visits Bologna, 
 Modena, Parma, Mantua, Ferrara and Venice — Venetian Notes — 
 Returns to England through France — Low Estimate of Contemporary 
 French Art, I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Reynolds sets up House in St Martin’s Street — Frances Reynolds — Portrait 
 of Giuseppe Marchi in a Turban — Sensation excited among Artists — 
 He removes to Newport Street and raises his Prices — Full-length of 
 Commodore Keppel in 1752 — Dramatic Portraiture — Le peintre turc — 
 First Meeting with Dr Johnson — Influence of latter on Reynolds’s 
 Mode of Thought and Literary Style — His First Portrait by Reynolds — 
 The Duke of Richmond’s Private Academy for Students — Kitty Fisher 
 in several Portraits — Portraits of Horace Walpole, Master Jacob 
 Bouverie, Elizabeth Gunning Duchess of Hamilton, Anne, Countess of 
 Albemarle, etc. — Authentic Signatures on several Early Portraits — 
 Three Letters to Johnson’s Idler — The Foundling Hospital — Exhibition 
 in the Strand — Removal to Leicester Fields — The Gilt Coach — Portrait 
 of Laurence Sterne — Reynolds as a Painter of Men — Power to present 
 True Individuality of Sitters, - - - - - - 3 1 
 
VI 
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Marriage of the King, and Coronation Portraits — “ Garrick between Tragedy 
 and Comedy ” — Other Portraits of Garrick by Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough — Ramsay appointed Painter to the King — Tour in West of 
 England with Dr Johnson — Northcote for the first time meets 
 Reynolds — Exhibition of 1764 — “The Club” established — Johnson’s 
 Letter to Reynolds on his Illness — Carle Van Loo — Oliver Goldsmith 
 — Edmund Burke — Exhibition of 1765 — Lady Sarah Bunbury 
 sacrificing to the Graces — Mythological and Allegorical Portraiture — 
 Intimacy with Wilkes — Angelica Kauffmann — Her Career and 
 Relation to Reynolds — Unfortunate Marriage with Horn — Reynolds 
 accused Abroad of Complicity in Plot — Absurdity of the Accusation 
 shown, ----------- 70 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Exhibition of 1766 — Mrs Hale as “ Euphrosyne ” — Portraits of the Marquis of 
 Granby — West’s “Orestes and Pylades” — Reynolds elected to Dilet- 
 tanti Society — Thursday Night Club — Samuel Foote — Contributes No- 
 thing to Exhibition of 1767 — Goldsmith’s “Good-Natured Man” — 
 Portrait of Goldsmith — “ Crossing the Brook ” — Journey to Paris in 
 Autumn of 1768 — Notes on Journey — Goldsmith’s Humorous Lines on 
 Reynolds and Angelica Kauffmann — Internecine Feuds of Incorporated 
 Society — Negotiations for P'oundation of Royal Academy — Part played 
 by the King — Attitude of Reynolds — Constitution of New Body — First 
 Members — Baretti — First Exhibition of the Royal Academy — “ Mrs 
 Bouverie and Mrs Crewe” — “Mrs Bouverie with Her Child” — Sir 
 Joshua’s Social Engagements — Dinner ai Boswell’s Lodgings — Mrs 
 Montagu on Shakespeare — Baretti’s Trial for Murder — Portrait of 
 Baretti — Mrs Thrale’s Verses on it — Sir Joshua’s Negro robbed — 
 Obtains Mitigation of Sentence, ------ 104 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Opposite Politics represented in The Club — Origin of the “Ugolino” — 
 Second Exhibition of Royal Academy, 1770 — “The Archers” — 
 “ Children in the Wood ” — Goldsmith’s “ Deserted Village ” dedicated 
 to Sir Joshua — The Master again visits Devonshire — Extracts from 
 Diary — Field Sports — Theophila and Mary Palmer — Dilettanti Portrait 
 of Reynolds — The Academy occupies New Apartments at Somerset 
 House — Sir Joshua’s Dinner-Parties at Leicester Fields — Courtenay’s 
 and Malone’s Accounts — Falsely accused of Parsimony — More Excur- 
 
Contents 
 
 Vll 
 
 sions into the Great World — Polly Kennedy — Death of Francis Cotes 
 — Exhibition of 1771 — “Nymph and Bacchus” — “Resignation” — 
 Benjamin West’s “Death of Wolfe” — It makes a Revolution in Histori- 
 cal Art — Sir Joshua again in Paris — Northcote describes Reynolds 
 working up Draperies — Portrait of Joseph Banks — Dunning — Exhibi- 
 tion of 1772 — Zoffany’s “Portraits of Royal Academicians” — De 
 Loutherbourg — The Thrales — The Streatham Circle — Mrs Thrale’s 
 Lines on Sir Joshua — He is elected Alderman of Plympton — She Stoops 
 to Conquer produced — Goldsmith and Northcote — Exhibition of 1773 — 
 Sir Joshua’s Twelve Pictures — “ Strawberry Girl ” — “ Count Ugolino 
 and his Children” — Reynolds and Imaginative Art — Dr Beattie’s 
 Allegorical Portrait — Reynolds elected Mayor of Plympton, - 139 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Proposals to decorate St Paul’s — Opposition of the Bishop of London— 
 “ Lady Cockburn and her Children ” — Signed Pictures of Sir Joshua 
 — “Three Ladies decorating a Term of Hymen” — The Streatham 
 Gallery of Portraits — The Dean of Derry and Dr Johnson — Society of 
 Arts — Barry and Burke — Battle of Epitaphs between Garrick and 
 Goldsmith — “ Retaliation ” — Death of Goldsmith — Exhibition of 1774 
 — Sir Joshua’s Contributions to it — Gainsborough established in 
 London — Comparison and Contrast between Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough — The Sheridans — “ Mrs Sheridan as St Cecilia” — Nathaniel 
 Hone’s “Pictorial Conjurer” — Satirises Sir Joshua and Angelica 
 Kauffmann — Horace Walpole as a Critic — Exhibition of 1775 — “ Miss 
 Bowles” — Sir Joshua’s Children — Romney established in London — 
 His Previous Career — Northcote leaves Sir Joshua — Last Portrait of 
 Garrick — Enumeration of the Streatham Sir Joshuas, - - 183 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Dr Johnson reproved by Sir Joshua — Academy Dinner of 1776 — Exhibition 
 of 1776 — Sir Joshua’s Pictures — The Otaheitan Omiah — Sir Joshuas 
 Portrait of Himself for Florence — Baretti again- -The Blue Stockings 
 Comparison with French Prototypes — The Art of holding a Salon — 
 Mrs Montagu’s Prose — Walpole on the Blues — More Social Gaieties 
 Barry and the Society of Arts — Exhibition of 1877 — Lady Caroline 
 Montagu, in the Portrait called “Winter” — “A Fortune-Teller” 
 The Dilettanti Portrait-groups — Portraits of Sir William Hamilton — 
 Great Portrait-group of the Marlborough Family — Its Defects Miss 
 
Vlll 
 
 Contents 
 
 Burney — First Visit to Sir Joshua at Leicester Fields — Allan Ramsay — 
 Boswell and Johnson — Exhibition of 1778 — Gainsborough’s Display — 
 Seven Discourses published, with Dedication to the King — Malone — 
 Eighth Discourse and Gainsborough’s “ Blue Boy” — Window of New 
 College Chapel, Oxford — Its Component Farts, - - - 224 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Court-Martial on Admiral Keppel — Commemorative Portraits painted by 
 Sir Joshua — Fresented to Dunning, Lee, Burke and Erskine — Death 
 of Garrick — Exhibition of 1779—“ Viscountess Crosbie ” — Sir Joshua’s 
 Momentariness — The Oxford Window as carried out — Portrait of 
 Gibbon — His Personal Appearance — Sir Joshua’s Serenity — “ Col- 
 lina” and “ Sylvia ’’—Death of Topham Beauclerk — Lady Diana 
 Beauclerk — The Royal Academy in its New Quarters at Somerset 
 House — First Exhibition there (1780) — Attractive Display by Mem- 
 bers — Walpole on Reynolds — Mrs Thrale’s Portrait — Dr Burney’s 
 Portrait — Offie’s Marriage — Johnson’s Lives of the Poets — His 
 Estrangement from Mrs Montagu — Walpole on the Quarrel — Mrs 
 Thrale in Grosvenor Square — Miss Emily Bertie as “ Thais ” — “ The 
 Ladies Waldegrave ” — Walpole on the Picture — Death of Thrale — 
 Exhibition of 1781 — “Master Bunbury ” — Tour in Flanders and 
 Holland — Notes on the Pictures — Opie the “Cornish Wonder” — 
 His Rapid Success, 266 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Portraits of this Time — “ Perdita”— William Beckford —Colonel Tarleton — 
 “The Fair Greek ” — Sir Joshua’s Annotations to Du Fresnoy’s “ Art 
 of Painting ’’—Exhibition of 1782— Sir Joshua’s Pictures — Gains- 
 borough’s “Colonel St Leger,” and “Girl with Pigs”— Peter 
 Pindar— Death of Wilson— Fuseli— “ Lady Catherine Pelham-Clinton 
 feeding her Chickens” — Sir Joshua’s Illness— Barry’s Pictures at the 
 Society of Arts— His Explanatory Pamphlet— Exhibition of 1783 — 
 Influence of Rubens — Mrs Siddons — Her Portrait as the Tragic Muse 
 —Origin of the Pose— Its Place among Sir Joshua’s Works— Miss 
 Fanny Kemble— Miss Burney on Mrs Siddons— “The Infant 
 Academy ” — Portrait of Fox — Gainsborough’s Quarrel with the 
 Academy— Exhibition of 1784— Sir Joshua’s Seventeen Pictures— 
 “ Muscipula ”—“ Countess Spencer and her Child ’’—Reynolds ap- 
 pointed King s Painter — Dr Johnson’s Illness — Italian Journey pro- 
 posed for Him— His Death— Reynolds’s Estimate of Johnson, 301 
 
Contents 
 
 ix 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Exhibition of 1785 — Portrait of Joshua Sharpe — Portrait of John Hunter — 
 Boswell — Walpole and Sir Joshua — Portrait of the Due d’Orleans 
 (Philippe Egalite) — “The Infant Hercules” — Exhibition of 1786 — 
 Triumphant Display by the Master — “Duchess of Devonshire with 
 her Child” — Mrs Montagu again — Malone and the Discourses — 
 “Lady Caroline Price” — Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery — The 
 Grand Style in English Art — Reynolds’s “Macbeth” — Exhibi- 
 tion of 1787 — “Heads of Angels” — Mrs Fitzherbert — Macklin as a 
 Rival to Boydell — Exhibition of 1788 — Lady Elizabeth Foster 
 — Portrait of Lord Heathfield — Reynolds summoned to Gains- 
 borough’s Death-bed — “Mrs Billington as St Cecilia” — Boydell 
 honoured at Academy Dinner — Exhibition of 1789 — “Simplicity” — 
 “ Lord Lifford ” — “ Mrs Braddyll ” — Reynolds’s Partial Blindness — 
 The Quarrel with the Royal Academy — The President resigns his 
 Office and Membership — His Defence of his Action — Is induced to 
 resume Office — Exhibition of 1790 — Last Portrait of Himself — Last 
 Discourse — Dr Johnson’s Monument — Sir Joshua’s Last Illness — 
 Miss Burney’s Account — Burke’s Account — Death on 23d February 
 1792 — Burke’s Obituary Notice — Funeral — Will, Legacies, and 
 Bequests — Sales of Pictures, Drawings, etc. , - - - - 336 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Technique of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Art in the Earlier and Later Time — 
 Causes of Premature Fading and Decay — In the Earlier Period — 
 In the Later Period — Best Preserved Canvases — Reynolds as a Man 
 of Letters — His Development and Literary Style — His Theory not 
 in agreement with his Practice — Notes to Mason’s Translation of Du 
 Fresnoy’s Art of Painting — Journey to Flanders and Holland 
 — Analysis of the Fifteen Discourses delivered at the Royal 
 Academy, 383 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 From Pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 Portrait of Himself. Engraved by Caroline Watson , frontispiece 
 Charles James Fox, Lady Susan Strangeways, and page 
 Lady Sarah Lenox. Engraved by T . Watson, . 7 2 
 
 Angelica Kauffmann. Engraved by F. Bartolozzi, . 98 
 
 Sir Joseph Banks. Engraved by W. Dickenson, . 162 
 
 Cupid as a Link Boy. Engraved by J . Dean, . .228 
 
 The Viscountess Crosbie. Engraved by W. Dickenson, 272 
 Master Bunbury. Engraved by F Haiuard, . . 296 
 
 Lady Catherine Pelham Clinton. Engraved by J . 
 
 R . Smith, . . . . . .314 
 
 Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse. Engraved by F 
 
 Haward, ...... 324 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Birth — Parentage — Samuel Reynolds — Joshua’s Education — Richardson’s 
 Treatise on Painting — Apprenticeship to Hudson — Meeting with Pope 
 — Abrupt Dismissal by Hudson — Return to Devonshire — Is again in 
 London, and recalled Home by Death of his Father — Influence on 
 his Style of Gandy of Exeter — Introduction to Commodore Keppel, 
 and Expedition with him to the Mediterranean — Lands at Minorca — 
 Paints Portraits there — Meets with an Accident — Arrives at Rome — 
 Letter to Lord Edgcumbe — Mode and Direction of Study during Two 
 Years’ Residence there — Makes some stay at Florence — Visits Bologna, 
 Modena, Parma, Mantua, Ferrara and Venice — Venetian Notes — 
 Returns to England through France — Low Estimate of Contemporary 
 French Art. 
 
 In that admirable and practically exhaustive biography 
 of the Life and Times of Sir foshaa Reynolds commenced 
 by Charles Robert Leslie, R.A., and concluded by Tom 
 Taylor, particular stress is laid on the fact that their hero 
 was, like many other men of high distinction, on every 
 side connected with the church — his father and grand- 
 father being clergymen, his mother and her mother the 
 daughters of clergymen, and two of his father’s brothers 
 being in holy orders. The fact certainly has its signifi- 
 cance, and should be borne in mind in considering the 
 social and literary, rather than the purely artistic, phases 
 of the master’s great and perfectly rounded career. More 
 
 A 
 
2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 especially is it important as explaining the ease with which 
 after a short apprenticeship, he took his place in the most 
 polished and cultivated society of the time, and the lean- 
 ing, in his social relations, rather towards politics, litera- 
 ture and the stage than towards art proper. Some few 
 who could otherwise find little to cavil at in the brilliant, 
 evenly-sustained, and flawless career of the first President 
 of the Royal Academy, have expressed surprise that while 
 he befriended his fellow-artists with a kindness as discern- 
 ing as it was unfailing, he consorted but little with them, if 
 we except Allan Ramsay the Scotchman and Benjamin 
 West the Pennsylvanian, both of them Court favourites 
 and personages of some social importance. It is from 
 this point of view then that Sir Joshua’s birth and early 
 surroundings should be underlined by the biographer, 
 and contrasted with those of Hogarth, Romney, Opie, 
 Northcote, Barry, and many another painter of the 
 early prime of the English art. Against these names, 
 and the inferences to be drawn from them, must, however, 
 in fairness, be set that of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who, 
 although the son of an innkeeper of Devizes, achieved, in 
 virtue no less of unsurpassed personal charm than of a 
 kind of artistic excellence exactly fitting the taste of his 
 time, an official and social position only second to that of 
 Sir Joshua himself. Yet the latter had shone throughout 
 his career with a lustre unequalled since Rubens held 
 court at Antwerp, surrounded by friends and pupils, and 
 filled up the intervals of his artistic labours with diplomatic 
 missions to Philip IV. of Spain and Charles I. of England. 
 It is certainly in a great measure to his social and literary 
 ability, to his power of assimilating what was best, not 
 less in his social surroundings than in the artistic ex- 
 amples which he constantly set before himself, that 
 Reynolds owed a position unique among the artists of 
 
3 
 
 Birth and Parentage 
 
 his time, and as gracefully held as worthily won. It is 
 curious that his personality has become a kind of type, to 
 which successive presidents of the august institution of 
 which he was the most brilliant ornament have, by some 
 unwritten law, been expected more or less to conform 
 — and have, indeed, so far as their mental and artistic 
 equipment has permitted, conformed. 
 
 Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton in Devon- 
 shire, on the 16th of July 1723, the son of Samuel 
 Reynolds and Theophila Potter. His father was master 
 of the grammar school founded and 'endowed there by 
 the celebrated Serjeant Maynard in 1658 ; his mother 
 was the only child of the Rev. Thomas Baker, vicar of 
 Bishop’s Nymmet, near South Molton, Devonshire, and 
 married, against her father’s will, his curate or chaplain 
 Mr Potter, which disobedience he resented by completely 
 disinheriting her. 
 
 Samuel Reynolds would appear to have been one 
 of those amiable, absent scholars, ignorant of the ways 
 of the world, and but ill provided with its goods, 
 types of whom are not uncommon in the literature of the 
 eighteenth century. By his friends he was likened, we are 
 told, to Fielding’s Parson Adams, but he had also some 
 traits which suggest Goldsmith’s immortal Dr Primrose. 
 It is supposed that Samuel Reynolds received £120 per 
 annum as master of the school — a sum then by no means 
 so inconsiderable as it now appears — but this cannot, 
 even at its then value, have enabled him to do much for 
 the advancement of six children, the survivors of a family 
 of eleven, of whom Joshua was the tenth. Malone, the 
 literary friend of Sir Joshua’s latest years, and one of his 
 executors, has stated that the somewhat uncommon 
 Christian name was given to him by his father with 
 the fantastic notion that it would perhaps recommend 
 
4 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 him to the attention and kindness of some person 
 bearing it also, who might possibly be led, even by 
 so slight a circumstance, to become a benefactor. A 
 much more satisfactory explanation is, however, Leslie 
 and Taylor’s plain statement that he received his name 
 from his father’s brother, the Rev. Joshua Reynolds, 
 Rector of Stoke Charity, Hants, who was his godfather 
 by proxy. 
 
 Joshua must have obtained at his father’s grammar 
 school a fair, if not a very elaborate, training in the classics, 
 seeing that both his Discourses and his conversation con- 
 tain examples of the then obligatory Latin quotations, 
 so well understood and applied, that they could not always 
 have been suggested by others. Such knowledge in that 
 direction as he possessed can scarcely have been carried 
 much further by actual study during his practically 
 uninterrupted career as a painter. Allan Cunningham 
 infers that the education of the future painter must 
 have been neglected by his father, but there seems no 
 reason for accepting this gratuitous conjecture, save the 
 very insufficient one that some few orthographical and 
 grammatical faults have been detected in the letters and 
 papers of his maturity, 
 
 Though, like the majority of those who have achieved 
 renown in art, he exhibited considerable precocity in 
 youth, and with sufficient clearness indicated the true 
 bent of his genius, this precocity was nothing like that 
 exhibited, for instance, by Opie, the Cornish Wonder, or 
 by the youthful Thomas Lawrence, who, at the age of ten, 
 had already become a professional draughtsman in 
 crayons. The young artist’s first attempts are said to 
 have been made in copying several little things done by 
 two of his sisters. His sister Elizabeth related that, as 
 pencils and paper were not provided for the youthful 
 
5 
 
 Books of his Boyhood 
 
 enthusiasts, they were allowed to draw on the white- 
 washed walls of a long passage with burnt sticks, and that 
 Joshua’s productions were by no means the most remark- 
 able of the primitive essays in design, he being nick- 
 named The Clown. He himself informed Malone in later 
 years that he had eagerly copied such prints as he met 
 with in his father’s books, especially those given in 
 Dryden’s edition of Plutarch's Lives. But his greatest 
 source of delight was Jacob Cats’s Book of Emblems, which 
 his grandmother by his father’s side, Mary Ainsworth, 
 brought with her from Holland. 
 
 A famous relic of Joshua’s boyhood is the original 
 pen - and - ink sketch drawn by him on the back 
 of a Latin exercise, with a note by his father, in 
 which the pedagogue peeps out : “ This is drawn by 
 Joshua in school out of pure idleness.” This sketch, 
 together with a pen-and-ink drawing of the interior 
 of a library, and another sketch, annotated by Reynolds 
 pere as “drawn not from another picture but from life,” 
 were in the memorable exhibition of the works of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, brought together in 1883-4 at the 
 Grosvenor Gallery. 
 
 When but eight years old he eagerly studied and 
 absorbed The Jesuit's Perspective , a treatise in his father’s 
 possession which he had accidentally lighted upon, and 
 so fairly mastered its contents that he was able to 
 draw in perspective the schoolhouse at Plympton with 
 a correctness sufficient to call forth from his father 
 the admiring remark, “ Now, this exemplifies what the 
 author of the perspective asserts in his preface, that, by 
 observing the rules laid down in his book, a man may do 
 wonders — for this is wonderful.” 
 
 At the age of twelve years he painted, as his first 
 attempt in oils, a portrait of the Rev. Thomas Smart, a 
 
6 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 tutor in the family of Richard Edgcumbe, afterwards the 
 first Lord Edgcumbe. This picture was painted in a 
 boat-house at Cremyll Beach, under Mount Edgcumbe, on 
 a canvas which was part of a boat-sail, and with the 
 common paint used in shipwrights’ painting sheds. 
 
 A deep impression was made on young Joshua by the 
 perusal of the Treatise on Painting written by Richardson, 
 the father-in-law of his future master, Hudson. We are 
 told, indeed, that Johnson, who would hardly be likely to 
 originate any remark with regard to an art of which he 
 professed absolute ignorance, attributed the first fondness 
 of Reynolds for painting to his perusal of this treatise. It 
 seems much more likely, however, that in its grandiloquent 
 paragraphs — of which Leslie and Taylor give some typical 
 excerpts — may be found the first source and inspiration of 
 the President’s theories on “ high art ” and the “ grand 
 style,” as worked out in those famous Discourses , with the 
 precepts of which, luckily for the world, his practice was 
 so little in agreement. We have Malone’s authority for 
 the statement that “the perusal of the Treatise so de- 
 lighted and inflamed his mind that Raffaele appeared to 
 him superior to the most illustrious names of ancient or 
 modern time.” If we substitute for the name of Raphael 
 that of Michelangelo, or, as Reynolds wrote it, “Michael 
 Angelo,” this view is the one that he continued to proclaim 
 — at any rate in words, if not by example — all through 
 the years of his rise and maturity, down to the very day 
 of his dignified exit from the Royal Academy and from 
 public life. 
 
 It was not until Joshua was seventeen years of age 
 that it was decided to apprentice him to Hudson, then, in 
 the dearth of a better, the most fashionable portrait- 
 painter of his time. This was accomplished through the 
 intervention of Mr Cutclifle, an attorney at Bideford, the 
 
Portraiture before Reynolds 7 
 
 required premium of £120 being in part furnished by 
 Samuel Reynolds, in part by his eldest daughter, Mrs 
 Palmer. Thomas Hudson, himself a native of Devon- 
 shire, was the pupil as well as the son-in-law of Richard- 
 son, and may be counted as the last and not the best of 
 the school of which the creator and protagonist was Sir 
 Godfrey Kneller, a master still so highly esteemed at this 
 period that, as Reynolds himself afterwards stated, none 
 would have ventured to compare even Van Dyck with him 
 on equal terms. Hudson’s hard, conscientious, and not 
 a little wooden presentments of his contemporaries have 
 the redeeming quality of a certain straightforwardness 
 and sincerity, due to his simplicity and naivete of stand- 
 point. Much of the costume and accessories in them 
 was painted by his favourite drapery-man, Van Haaken, 
 according to a convenient custom initiated over here 
 by Van Dyck when, in his third and final period he 
 became, not without injury to his art, the supreme 
 fashion in England. 
 
 Nowhere can the gulf which separates Hudson from 
 Reynolds, Gainsborough and the school created by them, 
 be better appreciated that in the series of portraits ar- 
 ranged in the dining-room at Longford Castle, Salisbury, 
 the seat of the Earl of Radnor. There some half-dozen 
 of Hudson’s kitcats and three-quarter lengths of person- 
 ages belonging to the Bouverie family hang face to face 
 with the similar performances of Sir Joshua and Gains- 
 borough ; other members of the same family being depicted 
 by Vanloo, Dahl, Raphael Mengs, and two of the most 
 fascinating of female artists — Angelica Kauffmann, whose 
 career rather than whose work interests us, and the really 
 brilliant, if not a little cold and superficial, Madame Vigee- 
 Lebrun. 
 
 It is, perhaps, worth while to correct here an error 
 
8 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 perpetuated in Leslie and Taylor’s generally very accurate 
 work. They quote Mason without comment when he 
 speaks of the Vanloo (or, more properly, Van Loo), who 
 painted with considerable success in England between 
 1737 and 1742, as a Dutchman, whereas he was none 
 other than the well-known French painter, Jean-Baptiste 
 Van Loo, Dutch in name only, but in birth, education, and 
 style, distinctively French (Vol. I. p. 104). This is the 
 more curious because the misdescribed artist was the elder 
 brother, and the master of the more famous Carle Van 
 Loo, whose acquaintance Reynolds made later on, and 
 whom the biographers then correctly describe. 
 
 In the National Portrait Gallery there are, by J. B. 
 Van Loo, portraits of Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Hervey, 
 and Pope’s patron and friend, Richard Temple, Viscount 
 Cobham. 
 
 It was while young Reynolds was apprenticed to Hud- 
 son that he had an adventure which, slight as it was, gave 
 him inexpressible delight. He had been sent one day to 
 make a purchase for Hudson at a sale of pictures, and 
 found himself in the midst of the crowd gathered in the 
 auction-room, when all at once he heard “Mr Pope, Mr 
 Pope,” whispered about. The crowd opened a passage 
 for the author of the Rape of the Lock — as we should to- 
 day do for a royal personage or a prominent statesman, 
 but not, it is feared, for a great poet — and hands were 
 held out right and left to touch him as he passed 
 along, bowing to the bystanders. Joshua, being in the 
 second rank only, put out his hand under the arm of 
 the person standing immediately in front of him, and 
 grasped that of the great satirist. Thus, for the first and 
 only time, the future painter of Sterne, of Johnson, of 
 Goldsmith, of Gibbon, of Burke, the future great master 
 whose star had not then as much as begun to twinkle 
 
9 
 
 Jealousies betiveen Master and Pupil 
 
 above the horizon, came in contact with the most 
 brilliant figure of an age which had then almost passed 
 away — himself destined to endure but a very few years 
 longer. 
 
 Reynolds had been bound to his master for four 
 years, but he remained with him only between two and 
 three. The accounts as to the real cause of disagreement 
 between Hudson and himself are so conflicting that it is 
 almost impossible to sift the true from the false. Jealousy 
 is stated to have been the cause, that jealousy of higher 
 gifts and already more perfect achievement which crops 
 up in the dealings between so many great pupils and their 
 masters, and on the tales accumulated round which we 
 must always look with a certain amount of wholesome 
 suspicion, while stopping short of absolute disbelief. 
 Who is not acquainted with the legend that has grown 
 up round the beautiful figure of an angel inserted by 
 Leonardo da Vinci in Verrocchio’s famous “Baptism” 
 (now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti of Florence); and 
 with its alleged effect on the elder master’s career? To 
 whom is the apparently well-founded story of Tintoret’s 
 expulsion from Titian’s studio not familiar ? Less known, 
 but resting on at least as broad a basis of truth, is 
 the pathetic tale of Watteau’s jealousy of Jean-Baptiste 
 Pater, which we cannot disregard, little as we can con- 
 ceive any cause for such jealousy. Here Watteau him- 
 self furnishes incontrovertible evidence of the truth of 
 the story, when he summons the dismissed pupil to his 
 side during his final illness, and gives practical effect 
 to a death - bed repentance by employing the last 
 month of his prematurely worn-out life in seeking 
 to impart to him the secrets of his subtle, brilliant 
 palette. 
 
 The current story in the present instance, as given by 
 
io Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Farington, and quoted by Leslie and Taylor, is that 
 Reynolds excited the jealousy of his teacher by the 
 striking portrait which he painted of an elderly female 
 servant in the house. Hudson appears to have ordered 
 him one evening to carry a portrait to his drapery -painter, 
 Van Haaken, for completion, and to have picked a quarrel 
 with him for having, on account of a rain-shower, put off 
 taking it until the morning. The teacher, according to this 
 same authority, ordered his too promising pupil forthwith 
 to leave his house, refusing him even the delay necessary 
 for communicating with his father. 
 
 Reynolds went on the day of his dismissal by 
 Hudson to his uncle’s chambers in the Temple, and 
 thence, at his uncle’s direction, returned to Devon- 
 shire. No great ire can well have been aroused in the 
 breast of any of the disputants, seeing that Samuel 
 Reynolds, in a letter dated August 19th, 1743, addressed 
 to Mr Cutcliffe, writes, — “ I shall only say there is no 
 controversy I was ever let into wherein I was so little 
 offended with either party. In the meantime I bless 
 God, and Mr Hudson, and you for the extreme success 
 that has attended Joshua hitherto. . . .” Here we have, 
 by inference, evidence of that calm, unruffled tempera- 
 ment which was not the least precious gift among those 
 lavished by nature on our painter, and proof, too, that 
 this quality must have been inherited from an even 
 calmer and mere benign father. Whatever may have 
 been the master’s motive at the time — and it can 
 scarcely have been a worthy one — the pupil certainly 
 neither felt nor showed any rancour, since we find him 
 soon afterwards resuming friendly relations with his 
 ex-teacher, and keeping up those relations until the 
 close of Hudson’s life. Whether any part of the 
 premium paid by the Reynoldses was returned does 
 
First Portraits 
 
 1 1 
 
 not appear ; should this have been the case, it would 
 be easier to understand the singular placability of the 
 family. 
 
 The young artist now spent three further years in 
 Devonshire, obtaining naturally but little opportunity of 
 perfecting himself in his art, but, as we learn from his 
 father’s letters, getting plenty of occupation as a portrait- 
 painter. He told Malone in later years that he always 
 looked upon this period of his life as so much time thrown 
 away, both as regards his career as an artist and his 
 progress in the knowledge of the world and mankind. 
 All the same, he never looked upon the dispute with 
 Hudson which brought his Lehrjahre to an abrupt end 
 otherwise than as a fortunate circumstance, compelling 
 him, as it did, to break away from the tameness and 
 wooden conventionality of his master, and setting him 
 free to develop from noble models an original manner 
 of his own. 
 
 The first performance of his which attracted notice, 
 was the portrait of Captain Hamilton, father of the 
 Marquis of Abercorn, painted in the year 1746. When, 
 at a late period of his life — as Malone records — he saw 
 this painting, he was surprised to find it so well done, and 
 lamented that in such a length of time he should not 
 have made a greater progress in his art. A portrait- 
 group, dating from about the same period, represents, in 
 the fashion of the day, the same gentleman, together 
 with Lord Eliot, his wife and their children ; this is 
 in the collection of the Earl of St Germans at Port 
 Eliot. A “ Study of a Boy reading,” formerly in the 
 possession of Sir Henry Englefield, and now in that of 
 the Earl of Normanton, shows the half-length figure 
 of a youth seated at a table, holding a book in both 
 hands. It is signed and dated on the book — “ 1747, Jo. 
 
1 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Reynolds, pinxit Novr.” (Old Masters’ Exhibition at the 
 Royal Academy in 1882). 
 
 Leslie and Taylor give a list of several other portraits 
 painted about this time, the most remarkable of these 
 being that of Miss Chudleigh, afterwards notorious as 
 Duchess of Kingston, and then in the first flush of the 
 youth and beauty. To this period must belong also 
 the first portrait painted by Reynolds of himself — be- 
 queathed by him to his niece, Miss Palmer, afterwards 
 Marchioness of Thomond ; by her left to her sister, Mrs 
 Theophila Gwatkin ; given by the latter to her grand- 
 son, J. R. Gwatkin, and by Mrs Gwatkin sent to the 
 Grosvenor Gallery in 1884. From the same source was 
 contributed, on the same occasion, the famous half-length 
 in spectacles done in 1788 ; the last portrait that Sir 
 Joshua — in the repeated portrayal of his own physiog- 
 nomy, as in many other things the emulator of Rem- 
 brandt, — painted of himself. 
 
 Reynolds was recalled to Devonshire by the illness of 
 his gentle, lovable father, which terminated fatally on 
 Christmas Day, 1746. This necessitated the removal of the 
 family from the schoolmaster’s residence at Plympton, 
 and the young artist then set up house with his two 
 unmarried sisters in a house at Plymouth Dock. 
 
 The painter’s chief biographers attribute a great 
 influence on his style at this stage of his career to the 
 works of William Gandy of Exeter, and as the present 
 writer has not had a recent opportunity of making him- 
 self acquainted with the performances of this remarkable 
 provincial painter, they shall, on this point, be allowed to 
 speak for themselves : — 
 
 “ The father of William Gandy was a pupil of Van- 
 dyke, and was much employed by the Duke of Ormond 
 
Commodore Keppel 1 3 
 
 in Ireland, on which account his works are elsewhere 
 unknown. It is said the elder Gandy painted so much in 
 Vandyke’s style, that some of his pictures have passed for 
 works of his master. The style of his son, however it is 
 to be accounted for, was different. Northcote speaks of 
 a portrait by the younger Gandy that might be mistaken 
 for a work of Rembrandt, and Farington describes the 
 effects of his pictures as ‘ peculiar, solemn and forcible.’ 
 I have myself seen a head of a boy by Gandy, which 
 looked very like an early work of Sir Joshua.” 
 
 To this pre-Italian period of the painter’s career must 
 belong a remarkable portrait of himself by himself, which, 
 since 1858, has been in the National Portrait Gallery. It 
 shows the youthful Reynolds in half-length, wearing a 
 yellow-brown coat, blue waistcoat, and plain white neck- 
 cloth, with large linen ruffles at the wrists. He has his 
 palette and mahl stick in his right hand, and holds his 
 left in front of his forehead, gazing the while intently at the 
 spectator (or at himself in the mirror) — an attitude which 
 may possibly have been borrowed from some seventeenth- 
 century Bolognese painter limning himself. This was 
 engraved in stipple (the reverse way) in 1818 by R. 
 Cooper as a frontispiece to Northcote’s Life of Reynolds , 
 and also in mezzotint by S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 It was in 1749 that there came to our painter the oppor- 
 tunity which, grasped at, proved to be the turning-point 
 of his career, and enabled him to metamorphose, with the 
 directing influence of the acknowledged masterpieces of 
 Italian art, a method that might, under other circum- 
 stances, have remained undeveloped, into the style which 
 has made him one of the chief glories of English art, and, 
 in portraiture a master of the first rank. 
 
 The gallant young Commodore Keppel, although then 
 
H Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 only in his twenty-fourth year, had already achieved cele- 
 brity, first by his voyage round the world at the age of 
 eighteen, under Anson, and again by the adventure which 
 befell him, when, at the age of twenty-one he was in com- 
 mand of His Majesty’s fifty-one gun ship Maidstone. 
 Having lost his ship off the coast of France when in hot 
 pursuit of a French vessel, he nevertheless, by great exer- 
 tion, succeeded in saving most of his crew, and was after- 
 wards, by unanimous verdict of a court-martial, honourably 
 acquitted of all blame. This incident, was later on, com- 
 memorated by Reynolds in a memorable full-length — 
 his first sensational success — to which reference will be 
 made in its proper place. Admiral Anson was himself 
 depicted by Reynolds in 1755 in a half-length, of which 
 the original is at Hardwicke, and a copy in the National 
 Portrait Gallery. Keppel had, early in 1749, been ap- 
 pointed to the command in the Mediterranean, with the 
 rank of commodore, and entrusted with a mission to the 
 States of Barbary. He sailed from Spithead in the Cen- 
 turion, but the ship springing both her topmasts, he was 
 compelled to put into Plymouth for repairs, and while there 
 visited Lord Edgcumbe at his seat, and made acquaint- 
 ance with Reynolds, in whom he became so much in- 
 terested, that he offered him a passage in the Centurion , 
 an offer which the young painter gladly accepted. 
 
 Thus was laid the foundation of a friendship which 
 was to endure and ripen during the whole lives of 
 these two strangely dissimilar Englishmen, both of 
 them destined, in widely diverging paths, to earn the 
 highest fame, to command the praise and the rewards 
 of their grateful country. The particulars of the voyage, 
 the romantic incident of the defiance by the “ beard- 
 less boy ” of the redoubtable Dey of Algiers, belong 
 to history and need not be further dwelt upon here. 
 
5 
 
 Letter to Lord Edgcumbe 
 
 It was while young Keppel’s long-drawn-out pourparlers 
 with the Algerines were going on, that Reynolds found 
 himself frequently at Minorca, where, going ashore at Port 
 Mahon, he successively painted the portraits of almost all 
 the officers of the garrison. It was there that, while out 
 riding, he fell with his horse down a precipice, and was so 
 cut about the face that he remained slightly disfigured, 
 a scar being ever afterwards visible on his upper lip. 
 He soon after travelled to Rome, by way of Leghorn, 
 and thence addressed to his patron, Lord Edgcumbe, the 
 following curious letter : — 
 
 “My Lord, — I am now (thanks to your Lordship) at 
 the height of my wishes, in the midst of the greatest works 
 of art that the world has produced. I had a very long 
 passage, though a very pleasant one. I am at last in 
 Rome, having seen many places and sights which 1 never 
 thought of seeing. I have been at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, 
 Algiers, and Mahon. 
 
 “ The Commodore stayed at Lisbon a week, in which 
 time there happened two of the greatest sights that could 
 be seen had he stayed there a whole year, — a bull feast, 
 and the procession of Corpus Christi. Your Lordship 
 will excuse me if I say that, from the kind treatment and 
 great civilities I have received from the Commodore, I 
 fear I have even laid your Lordship under obligations to 
 him on my account ; since from nothing but your Lord- 
 ship’s recommendation I could possibly expect to meet 
 with that polite behaviour with which I have always been 
 treated. I had the use of his cabin and his study of 
 books as if they had been my own, and when he went 
 ashore he generally took me with him, so that I not only 
 had an opportunity of seeing a great deal, but I saw it 
 with all the advantages as if I had travelled as his equal. 
 
1 6 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 At Cadiz, I saw another bull feast. I ask your Lordship’s 
 pardon for being guilty of that usual piece of ill-manners 
 in speaking so much of myself ; I should not have com- 
 mitted it after such favours. Impute my not writing to 
 the true reason — I thought it impertinent to write to your 
 Lordship without a proper reason — to let you know where 
 I am, if your Lordship should have any commands here 
 that I am capable of executing. Since I have been in 
 Rome I have been looking about the palaces for a fit 
 picture of which I might take a copy to present your 
 Lordship with, though it would have been much more 
 genteel to have sent the picture without any previous 
 intimation of it. Any one you choose, the larger 
 the better, as it will have a more grand effect when 
 hung up, and a kind of painting I like more 
 than little. Though perhaps it will be too great a 
 presumption to expect it, I must needs own I most 
 impatiently wait for this order from your Lordship. 
 — I am, etc., etc., Joshua Reynolds.” 
 
 This is the only occasion on which we find Reynolds, in 
 those relations with the mighty of the land which were 
 afterwards to become so constant, over-genteel, and a 
 trifle what we should to-day call snobbish. Considering 
 a certain awkwardness in the position, his lack of the 
 usage which he afterwards so easily acquired, and his 
 youth at the time, the false note here struck, but never, 
 it may be safely stated, sounded again, may be readily 
 excused. 
 
 No further correspondence belonging to the two years 
 which the young painter passed with such “ measure- 
 less content,” and such fruitfulness, as regard his later 
 career, at Rome, has been preserved, although it is 
 conjectured that he must have written much to his two 
 
i7 
 
 First Impressions of Raphael 
 
 married sisters, Mrs Palmer and Mrs Johnson, who had 
 jointly advanced the necessary funds for his journey to 
 Italy, for which he had given them a bond, still preserved 
 by the descendants of Mrs Palmer. In a fragment 
 preserved in Malone’s Account of the Life and Writings 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds , which serves to introduce the 
 Literary Works edited by him, the following interesting 
 account is given of the painter’s first sensations on visiting 
 the Vatican ; in estimating which, however, it should be 
 borne in mind that it was not written until long after the 
 youthful period to which reference is made, and that though 
 there may be, and undoubtedly is, more of Wahrheit than 
 Dichtung in its particulars, it yet unconsciously mingles 
 the more mature judgments of later years with the 
 ingenuous impressions of youth : — 
 
 “ It has frequently happened ” (says this great painter), 
 “ as I was informed by the keeper of the Vatican, that many 
 of those whom he had conducted through the various 
 apartments of that edifice, when about to be dismissed, 
 have asked for the works of Raffaelle, and would not 
 believe that they had already passed through the rooms 
 where they are preserved, so little impression had those 
 performances made on them. One of the first painters 
 now in France told me that this circumstance happened to 
 himself, though he now looks on Raffaelle with that venera- 
 tion which he deserves from all painters and lovers of 
 the art. I remember very well my own disappoint- 
 ment when I first visited the Vatican ; but, on confessing 
 my feelings to a brother-student, of whose ingenuous- 
 ness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the 
 works of Raffaelle had the same effect on him, or rather, 
 that they did not produce the effect which he expected. 
 This was a great relief to my mind ; and on inquir- 
 
 B 
 
1 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 ing further of other students, I found that those per- 
 sons only who, from natural imbecility, appeared to be 
 incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, 
 made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first be- 
 holding them. 
 
 “ In justice to myself, however, I must add that, though 
 disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured 
 with the works of this great master, I did not for a 
 moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raffaelle, 
 and those admirable paintings in particular, owed their 
 reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind ; 
 on the contrary, my not relishing them as I was conscious 
 I ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating 
 circumstances that ever happened to me. I found myself 
 in the midst of works executed upon principles with which 
 I was unacquainted. I felt my ignorance, and stood 
 abashed. All the indigested notions of paintings which I 
 had brought with me from England, where the art was in 
 the lowest state it had ever been in (it could not indeed be 
 lower), were to be totally done away and eradicated 
 from my mind. 
 
 “ It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very solemn 
 occasion, that I should become as a little child. Notwith- 
 standing my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of 
 those excellent works. I viewed them again and again ; 
 
 I even affected to feel their merit, and to admire them 
 more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and 
 new perceptions began to dawn upon me ; and I was 
 convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion 
 of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was 
 well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the 
 estimation of the world. The truth is, that if these 
 works had really been what I had expected, they would 
 have contained beauties superficial and alluring, but 
 
Raphael and Michelangelo 1 9 
 
 by no means such as would have entitled them to the 
 great reputation which they have so long and so justly 
 obtained. 
 
 “ Having since that period frequently revolved this 
 subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion that a 
 relish for the higher excellencies of art is an acquired taste, 
 which no man ever possessed without long cultivation and 
 great labour and attention. 
 
 “ On such occasions as that which I have mentioned, we 
 are often ashamed of our apparent dulness, as if it were 
 to be expected that our minds, like tinder, should instantly 
 catch fire from the divine spark of Raffaelle’s genius. 
 
 “ I flatter myself that noiv it would be so, and that I 
 have a just and lively perception of his great powers ; but 
 let it be always remembered that the excellence of his 
 style is not on the surface, but lies deep, and at the first 
 view is seen but mistily. 
 
 “It is the florid style wfyich strikes at once, and cap- 
 tivates the eye for a time, without ever satisfying the 
 judgment. Nor does painting in this respect differ from 
 other arts. A just, poetical taste, and the acquisition of 
 a nice, discriminative musical ear, are equally the work of 
 time. Even the eye, however perfect in itself, is often 
 unable to distinguish between the brilliancy of two 
 diamonds, though the experienced jeweller will be amazed 
 at its blindness, not considering that there was a time 
 when he himself could not have been able to pronounce 
 which of the two was the most perfect, and that his own 
 power of discrimination was acquired by slow and imper- 
 ceptible degrees.” 
 
 A note in one of the Roman note-books, headed “ Copies 
 of Pictures I made in Rome ,” gives a selection of works of 
 various styles and schools, not, however, so distinctively 
 
20 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 illustrating either the painter’s subsequent practice or his 
 theory, that it need be here quoted in full. 
 
 More characteristic is the statement, “ I was let into 
 the Cappella Sistina in the morning, and remained there 
 the whole day, a great part of which I spent in walking up 
 and down it with great self-importance. Passing through, 
 on my return, the rooms of Raphael, they appeared 
 of an inferior order.” This is especially interesting as 
 giving at once, in a nutshell, Reynolds’s view — at any 
 rate, his theoretical view — of the giant of art. The 
 
 man of calm, benignant temperament, the painter who 
 was to excel in depicting high-bred female loveliness, 
 was less moved by the balance, the rhythmical grace, 
 the divine suavity of Raphael, than by the terribilita , the 
 overwhelming power of Michelangelo, his hero, yet the 
 one master whose unique qualities he could never hope to 
 assimilate, or even superficially to imitate. 
 
 And yet there is no valid reason to doubt the sincerity 
 of Sir Joshua’s admiration for the mighty Buonarroti, or 
 the attitude of admiring awe which he affected in speak- 
 ing of, and in contemplating, his works. Still more did our 
 painter, as evidenced over and over again in his Discourses , 
 deem Michelangelo — with what propriety we will not here 
 stay to discuss — the proper exemplar and model of young 
 artists, and the master, the contemplation of whose works 
 was best calculated to supply in their training those de- 
 ficiencies of which he was only too painfully conscious in 
 his own. Leslie and Taylor’s often quoted, and often to be 
 quoted, biography, generally so significant in its comment, 
 contains, on the subject of Reynolds’s preference of Michel- 
 angelo over Raphael, the following passage, the first part of 
 which is as unexceptionable as the latter is utterly inex- 
 plicable : — “ And yet it would seem that there is the most 
 in common between Reynolds, so pre-eminently happy in 
 
The “ Caricaturas ” 
 
 2 I 
 
 his representations of feminine and infantine grace, and 
 the gentle Raphael. I imagine, however, that the superior 
 powers of Michelangelo in colour (!), and in breadth of 
 chiaroscuro, combined as they are with so many other 
 noble qualities, commanded his homage at first sight, and 
 retained it ever after.” 
 
 Inferior as Raphael must be held to Titian, Tintoret, 
 and the great Venetians in the special qualities of “ colour 
 and breadth of chiaroscuro,” nevertheless he, the painter 
 of the Incendio del Borgo” the “ Deliverance of St Peter,” 
 the “ Miracle of Bolsena,” the “ Heliodorus chased from 
 the Temple,” must be held to have surpassed his over- 
 whelming Florentine rival as entirely in chiaroscuro as 
 he does in colour — that is, when we estimate him, as 
 a colourist, apart from those works in which the dark 
 brush and leathery textures of Giulio Romano, translating 
 his masters conceptions, rob them of half their charm. 
 Michelangelo, who, even in the sublimest creation of a 
 time when so much was great and aspiring — the vault of 
 the Sistine Chapel — mainly preserves the standpoint of 
 the sculptor, never so much aimed at making the fullest 
 use of colour proper, that legitimate weapon, not less of 
 the frescante undertaking monumental decorations than of 
 the painter in tempera or oils. He would doubtless have 
 applauded the famous dictum of Ingres — “ Le dessin dest 
 la probitd de Part ; ” but scarcely with consistency the 
 corollary of Theophile Thore (Burger) — “ Si le dessin est la 
 probite de Part , la couleur en est la vied 
 
 A word must be said as to those so-called Caricaturas 
 done by Reynolds in Rome, and of which Northcote re- 
 marks : — “ I have heard Sir Joshua say that although 
 it was universally allowed he executed such subjects with 
 much humour and spirit, he yet held it absolutely necessary 
 to abandon the practice, since it must corrupt his taste as 
 
22 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 a portrait-painter, whose duty it becomes to aim at dis- 
 covering the perfections only of those whom he is to 
 represent.” 
 
 This is but an insipid and imperfect theory of the great 
 art of portraiture, and one which, if followed to the letter, 
 would result in the production of lifeless and deplorable 
 platitudes. We must take leave to doubt — Northcote 
 notwithstanding — whether, in the narrow and truncated 
 form here given, it is that of the painter of Sterne, John- 
 son, Gibbon, and Garrick. 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, to whom we owe the most famous 
 of the world’s portraits, the Monna Lisa del Giocondo of 
 the Louvre, was also the greatest among the heroic cari- 
 caturists, and indeed, in a sense, the inventor of the style. 
 
 To return, however, to these particular caricaturas , 
 the most celebrated is that in which Reynolds more or 
 less humorously portrayed, on the lines and in the pos- 
 tures of Raphael’s “ School of Athens,” a number of 
 those travelling Englishmen of fashion with whom the 
 grand tour was then an obligation, and Rome the central 
 point of their wanderings. Another similar group of 
 satirical portraits, like the foregoing, painted in 1751, is 
 that contributed by the then Duke of Devonshire to the 
 Reynolds Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery, and which 
 had, in 1831, been shown at the British Institution, under 
 the designation : “ Portraits of distinguished connoisseurs 
 painted at Rome.” 
 
 It was while making studies after Raphael in the 
 Stanze of the Vatican, that Reynolds caught so severe a 
 cold that, as its result, he remained deaf for the rest of his 
 life, and was thenceforth condemned to the use of the ear- 
 trumpet which came to be considered one of the chief of 
 his outward attributes. Those who are acquainted with 
 Italian galleries in mid-winter, and especially with the 
 
Theoretical Views on Sculpture 23 
 
 icy halls of the Vatican, will not find much difficulty in 
 crediting this statement, insufficient as the cause assigned 
 may at first appear. 
 
 Reynolds, if he worshipped prostrate the master works 
 of Buonarroti in the Sixtine, did not, so far as can be 
 ascertained, venture upon any copies — confining his atten- 
 tion to Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, and noting 
 admiringly, with the widest catholicity of taste, not only 
 those masters, but Correggio, Barroccio, Van Dyck, Poussin, 
 Borgognone, and Claude Lorrain. Equal with these in 
 attraction for him, were seemingly the chief luminaries of 
 the Bolognese school, the Carracci themselves, Guido, Dom- 
 enichino, Guercino — then still at the apogee of their fame, 
 and perhaps more genuinely admired by the connoisseurs 
 of the day than the great prototypes of the rival schools, 
 whose united excellences they strove to assimilate and give 
 forth anew, but only succeeded in superficially imitating. 
 It is significant and not a liUle amusing to find Reynolds, 
 the worshipper of Michelangelo and Raphael, captivated by 
 the decorative brilliancy and the agitated naturalism of 
 Bernini as exemplified in a bust of Montoja then in the 
 Church of S. Jacopo degli Spa.gnuo[i,3indintheAmmaBeata 
 and Anima Damnata in the sacristy of the same church. 
 
 For antique sculpture, indeed, even those wonders 
 of the Vatican, then exercising an unrivalled attrac- 
 tion, but since, by modern research and modern ap- 
 preciation, or rather depreciation, shorn of half their 
 glory, Reynolds would appear to have had but little 
 sympathy. He could, on occasion, express the obligatory 
 enthusiasm for the great sister art, as is shown in the 
 Tenth Discourse , in which, however, his vague and frigid 
 generalisations proves how narrow and confined is his 
 view of its scope, and how imperfectly he under- 
 stands, outside his own branch, the grand style to which, 
 
24 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 according to his precepts, sculpture should exclusively 
 adhere. 
 
 The following is a typical passage from the Discourse 
 in question : — 
 
 “ Sculpture is an art of much more simplicity and uni- 
 formity than painting ; it cannot with propriety, and the 
 best effect, be applied to many subjects. 
 
 “ The object of its pursuit may be comprised in two 
 words — Form and Character ; and those qualities are 
 presented to us but in one manner, or in one style only ; 
 whereas the powers of painting, as they are more various 
 and extensive, so they are exhibited in as great a variety 
 of manners. 
 
 “ The Roman, Lombard, Florentine, Venetian, and 
 Flemish schools all pursue the same end by different 
 means. But sculpture having but one style, can only to 
 one style of painting have any relation ; and to this (which 
 is indeed the highest and most dignified that painting 
 can boast) it has a relation so close, that it may be said 
 to be almost the same art operating on different materials.” 
 
 No doubt, Donatello, and the great Quattrocento 
 schools of Tuscany which radiated from him, may have 
 appeared hard, abrupt, and unideal, at a time when the 
 plastic art was deemed to be in an inchoate stage until 
 it reached, in the first years of the sixteenth century, 
 that climax so soon to be followed by a rapid descent. 
 Still, that his mighty personality, and the art upon which 
 he has left his stamp should apparently make no im- 
 pression whatever on Reynolds, is not a little strange. He 
 could elsewhere own, though grudgingly and with many re- 
 servations, that ‘‘simplicity and truth, of which we are now 
 speaking, is oftener found in the old masters that preceded 
 the great age of painting than it ever was in that age, 
 
25 
 
 Ignores the Fourteenth Century 
 
 and certainly much less since. We may instance Albert 
 Diirer and Masaccio, from the latter of whom Raphael 
 borrowed his figure of St Paul * preaching.” Still more is 
 one led to doubt Reynolds’s power of truly appreciating 
 the various degrees of excellence in the art of the statuary, 
 when one finds him, even where his chief divinity is in 
 question, making the following confession in the journal 
 kept at Florence : — 
 
 “ Capella di S. Lorenzo I 
 
 “ The four recumbent figures by Michael Angelo, with 
 a Great Duke (// Pensieroso ? ) by him. 
 
 “ When I am here I think M. Angelo superior to the 
 whole world for greatness of taste ; when I look on the 
 figures of the fountains in the Boboli, of which I have 
 seen the models, I think him (Giovanni Bologna) greater 
 than M. A., and I believe it would be a difficult thing to 
 determine who was the greatest sculptor. The same 
 doubt in regard to the Vatican and the Capella Sistina.” 
 
 It is less surprising that the travelling artist’s ap- 
 preciation of the Trecento should have amounted to nil ; 
 that he should have passed through Assisi without any 
 remark on that treasure-house of the infinitely noble art 
 of Giotto, Simone Martino, Pietro Lorenzetti, and their 
 following ; that Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella in 
 Florence, even with their then more than half- hidden 
 glories, should have left him unmoved. It is not given 
 even to the greatest genius to break away entirely from its 
 environment, to stand completely clear from the age in 
 which it has its being ; and Reynolds’s genius, undoubted 
 as it was, had not that peculiar quality which the German 
 so appositely styles path-breaking ( bahnbrechend ). That 
 * The figure in question is really by Filippino Lippi. 
 
26 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the painter should have been enraptured with Correggio’s 
 “Holy Family with St Jerome,” at Parma, and should 
 say, “It gave me as great a pleasure as ever I received 
 from looking on any picture” is natural enough. This 
 recalls the raptures of Annibale Carracci, to whom, in com- 
 parison with the St Jerome, even the magnificent St Paul 
 in the “ St Cecilia ” of Raphael appeared hard and cold. 
 
 It is interesting, as bearing upon practice in the future, 
 to note at this period the admiration for isolated examples 
 of Rembrandt, even when seen in the midst of their 
 dazzling surroundings. Rooted in Reynolds’s artistic 
 nature, from the beginning — as some of the early per- 
 formances enable us to surmise — this admiration for the 
 forcefulness of the Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro did but 
 grow as the English master’s art matured. 
 
 His stay in Venice, which was not, however, prolonged 
 much beyond the period of three weeks, is of peculiar 
 interest to the student interested in the technical develop- 
 ment of his very composite art. The following passage 
 is of especial value as showing the practical fashion in 
 which the young painter went to work to get at the 
 Venetian method of distributing light, half-light, and 
 shade. 
 
 “ The method I took to avail myself of their principles 
 was this. When I observed an extraordinary effect of 
 light and shade in any picture, I took a leaf out of my 
 pocket-book, and darkened every part of it in the same 
 gradation of light and shade as the picture, leaving the 
 white paper untouched to represent the light, and this 
 without any attention to the subject, or to the drawing of 
 the figures. A few trials of this kind will be sufficient to 
 give their conduct in the management of their lights. After 
 a few experiments I found the paper blotted nearly alike. 
 
Venetian Notes 
 
 27 
 
 Their general practice appeared to be, to allow not above 
 a quarter of the picture for the light, including in this 
 portion both the principal and secondary lights ; another 
 quarter to be kept as dark as possible ; and the remain- 
 ing half kept in mezzotint or half-shadow. 
 
 “ Rubens appears to have admitted rather more light 
 than a quarter, and Rembrandt much less, scarcely an 
 eighth. By this conduct Rembrandt’s light is extremely 
 brilliant, but it costs too much ; the rest of the picture is 
 sacrificed to this one object. That light will certainly 
 appear the brightest which is surrounded with the greatest 
 quantity of shade, supposing equal skill in the artist. 
 
 “ By this means you may likewise remark the various 
 forms and shapes of those lights, as well as the objects on 
 which they are flung ; whether a figure, or the sky, a white 
 napkin, animals, or utensils, often introduced for this 
 purpose only. 
 
 “ It may be observed, likewise, what portion is strongly 
 relieved, and how much is united with its ground, for it is 
 necessary that some part (though a small one is sufficient) 
 should be sharp and cutting against its ground, whether 
 it be light on a dark, or dark on a light ground, in order to 
 give firmness and distinctness to the work ; if, on the other 
 hand, it is relieved on every side, it will appear as if inlaid 
 on its ground. 
 
 “ Such a blotted paper, held at a distance from the eye, 
 will strike the spectator as something excellent for the 
 disposition of light and shadow, though it does not dis- 
 tinguish whether it is a history, a portrait, a landscape, 
 dead game, or anything else, for the same principles extend 
 to every branch of the art.” 
 
 It is impossible here to analyse the Venetian Notes, 
 but they will be found printed, in extenso , in Leslie and 
 
28 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Taylor’s Life . Reynolds’s extraordinary assiduity in 
 
 noting — with especial reference to local colour, relative 
 values, and technique generally — the finest pictures then 
 to be seen in Venice, proves, if any proof were necessary, 
 that his whole heart went out to them, however 
 much he might deem it necessary, in the interest of art, 
 to generalise about Michelangelo, and to class the in- 
 comparable masters of Venice in the second rank — that 
 of what he calls, in the Discourses , “ Ornamental Art” 
 Sir Joshua, the president of a great official institu- 
 tion, the lecturer feeling the responsibility of guiding 
 artistic youth in the path in which it should wander, may, 
 with absolute sincerity, have reasoned himself into the 
 temporary belief that the Bolognese more truly represented 
 the grand style, and therefore, on theoretical grounds, 
 deserved to be put forward into the first rank. It is 
 impossible, however, to believe that Reynolds the painter, 
 Reynolds the colourist, Reynolds the brilliant and facile 
 executant, could place the great sixteenth-century masters 
 of Venice below, or, at any rate, in a category inferior to, 
 the seventeenth-century eclectics of the Bolognese school. 
 
 Pretty, and, on intrinsic grounds, quite believable, is 
 Northcote’s anecdote — communicated, he says, by Sir 
 Joshua himself — that, while at Venice, being at the opera 
 with some other English gentlemen, a ballad was played 
 or sung which had been heard in every street in London 
 when he was last there, and that it brought tears into his 
 eyes, as well as into those of his countrymen present with 
 him. 
 
 Reynolds journeyed home by Padua, Brescia, Bergamo, 
 Milan, and Turin, meeting a little beyond the last-men- 
 tioned 'place his old master, Hudson, on his way to Rome 
 with the sculptor Roubiliac. At Paris, where the artist 
 spent a month, he painted a portrait of Mrs Chambers, 
 
Low Estimate of Contemporary French Art 29 
 
 wife of the notable architect, William Chambers, with 
 whom, as Sir William Chambers, Reynolds was afterwards 
 to be so closely associated at the Royal Academy. The 
 lady, who was of considerable beauty, was depicted with 
 a large straw hat overshadowing the upper part of her 
 face. 
 
 Even fresh from contact with the frigid and utterly de- 
 crepit style of the Italy of the eighteenth century, Reynolds 
 appears to have looked down with unmeasured scorn on 
 the French art of the Louis Quatorze and Louis Quinze 
 periods, enveloping everything alike in one common 
 condemnation. What he understood by French art was 
 evidently that of Le Brun, Rigaud, Largilliere, Lemoyne, 
 Boucher, Jouvenet, Subleyras, the Coypels, Van Loos, 
 and their kind. Later on, he has sympathetically and 
 learnedly criticised the genuinely classical, if occasionally 
 dry, performances of Nicholas Poussin, and has appreciated, 
 with a due sense of its true worth, if not with complete 
 sympathy, the exquisite art of that greatest of French 
 colourists, Antoine Watteau. Not a little curious is it, 
 under the circumstances just mentioned, that one of the 
 favourite pictures of the master in his late time was 
 Sebastian Bourdon’s “ Return of the Ark,” a work which, 
 although deemed worthy of special eulogy in the Dis- 
 courses, now passes comparatively unnoticed at the 
 National Gallery, where it has found a final resting-place. 
 
 In the France of the eighteenth century, Sir Joshua 
 all his life knows nothing of those most admirable 
 and most distinctive of its artists (other than Watteau), 
 Maurice-Quentin de La Tour — greatest among portraitists 
 of the time, from the French standpoint ; Chardin — the 
 delineator of the lower bourgeoisie, from its wholesomest, 
 its most pathetic aspect, and, above all, the king of all 
 still-life painters; and Jean- Antoine Houdon — the im- 
 
30 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 mortal sculptor who, in the later art of the century, 
 was to produce the famous “Voltaire,” the “Diane,” and 
 masterpieces in portraiture too numerous for mention. 
 There is little excuse, however, for the slap-dash statement 
 of Leslie and Taylor’s Life , in justification of the master’s 
 view : — “Watteau had been dead more than thirty years, 
 and all that was excellent in French art, indeed, in the 
 art of the whole Continent, had died with him.” 
 
 Reynolds arrived in London on October 16th, 1752, 
 but did not long remain stationary there. According to 
 Northcote, “on his return he found his health in such an 
 indifferent state, as to judge it prudent to pay a visit to 
 his native air.” It would appear that he remained about 
 three months absent in Devonshire, painting, while at 
 Plymouth, a portrait of Dr John Mudge, an eminent 
 physician, the son of the Rev. Zachariah Mudge, Preben- 
 dary of Exeter, and the friend of Johnson and Burke. 
 The young painter being very strongly advised by his 
 patron, Lord Edgcumbe, to establish himself permanently 
 in London, proceeded with as little delay as possible to 
 take apartments in St Martin’s Street, Leicester Fields, 
 not then the dingy, squalid thoroughfare that it so long 
 has been, but a fashionable street, sacred to artists, in 
 which Thornhill, Hayman, and Roubiliac had resided, 
 and the Burneys, some twenty years later on (in 1773), 
 were to take up their abode. 
 
Reynolds sets up House 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Reynolds sets up House in St Martin’s Street — Frances Reynolds — Portrait 
 of Giuseppe Marchi in a Turban — Sensation excited among Artists — 
 He removes to Newport Street and raises his Prices — Full-length of 
 Commodore Keppel in 1752 — Dramatic Portraiture — Le peintre tare — 
 First Meeting with Dr Johnson — Influence of latter on Reynolds’s 
 Mode of Thought and Literary Style — His First Portrait by Reynolds 
 — The Duke of Richmond’s Private Academy for Students — Kitty 
 Fisher in several Portraits — Portraits of Horace Walpole, Master 
 Jacob Bouverie, Elizabeth Gunning Duchess of Hamilton, Anne, 
 Countess of Albemarle, etc. — Authentic Signatures on several Early 
 Portraits — Three Letters to Johnson’s Idler — The Foundling Hospital 
 — Exhibition in the Strand — Removal to Leicester Fields — The Gilt 
 Coach — Portrait of Laurence Sterne — Reynolds as a Painter of Men 
 — Power to present True Individuality of Sitters. 
 
 The bachelor household was presided over by the 
 painter’s youngest sister, Miss Frances Reynolds, a lady 
 who must have possessed many estimable qualities, since 
 she was the “dearest dear” of Dr Johnson, and one of 
 the persons to whom he was most devotedly and respect- 
 fully attached. Unfortunately she was about the last per- 
 son in the world who should have been selected to live, in 
 the close proximity necessitated by daily life, with her 
 brother. Her qualities as a painter are summed up in 
 the famous anecdote which makes Reynolds, speaking of 
 the copies which she made of his pictures, say : “ They 
 make other people laugh, and me cry.” This would 
 indeed appear to have been the effect on him, not only of 
 
 31 
 
32 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 her art but her entire personality, during the long period 
 over which her reign in his household extended. If we 
 accept as accurate Madame d’Arblay’s estimate of her 
 character, formed, it is true, many years after the period 
 with which we are dealing, it is easy to see that the 
 constant nervous irritability, the perplexity of mind, the 
 general fidgetiness of Miss Reynolds, must have been even 
 heightened by being brought in contact with the imper- 
 turbable serenity, the deliberation, the kindness a little 
 chill but unvarying, and the strong sense of natural equity 
 of her brother. Her temperament and that of the often 
 estimable, but thoroughly impracticable, persons of her 
 class may perhaps be best described by the homely ad- 
 jective maddening. Tom Taylor’s note to page 92, Vol. I., 
 of the Life , gives an excellent summary of the restless 
 lady’s character in relation to that of our master. 
 
 The first picture that Reynolds painted on thus estab- 
 lishing himself in London is assumed to have been the 
 portrait-study of his pupil, Giuseppe Marchi, whom he had 
 brought with him from Rome. In connection with this 
 painting (now the property of the Royal Academy), 
 Northcote, who, as the Vasari of Reynolds, appears to 
 have nourished a special spite against Hudson, tells the 
 anecdote that the latter, calling to inspect the performance 
 while in progress, exclaimed, “ By G — , Reynolds, you 
 don’t paint as well as when you left England ! ” Ellis, a 
 painter of a certain repute, and a believer in the unbounded 
 supremacy of Kneller, came also to see this same head, 
 which was creating some little sensation in artistic circles, 
 and was horror-struck at the audacious departure from the 
 consecrated style in portraiture. He remonstrated with the 
 young innovator, and when the latter attempted to defend 
 himself and argue the point, burst into a great rage, and, 
 flinging at him “ Shakespeare in poetry and Kneller in 
 
Frances Reynolds 33 
 
 painting, damme,” bounces out of the room. The picture 
 now hangs in the little-frequented Diploma Gallery at 
 Burlington House, where its undimmed brilliancy and 
 relatively advanced style quite justify the excitement it 
 created at the time of its inception. The young Roman 
 model is dressed up, much as Rembrandt dressed up the 
 sitters of his own immediate circle, in a brilliant, outlandish 
 costume which, notwithstanding the turban head-dress, 
 inclines rather to the Hungarian than the Oriental. 
 Indeed, there is a singularly strong flavour of Rem- 
 brandt about the whole, considering the severe train- 
 ing recently undergone by the painter in Italy. The 
 scheme of colour is richer and hotter, the mere painting 
 more brilliant than in many canvases dating from the 
 sixties, and altogether the performance must rank as an 
 exceptional one for its time. 
 
 Reynolds in 1753 already found his prospects so good, 
 and his horizon so rapidly opening out, that he removed 
 to a large and handsome house on the north side of Great 
 Newport Street, where he set up housekeeping, and raised 
 his prices to a level with those of his former master, 
 Hudson, whose practice was as yet unimpaired — that is, 
 he charged twelve guineas for a head, twenty-four for a 
 half-length, and forty-eight for a whole length. 
 
 We are told by Mason that “his (Reynolds’s) early 
 friend, Lord Edgcumbe, persuaded many of the first no- 
 bility to sit to him for their pictures ; and he very judi- 
 ciously applied to such of them as had the strongest fea- 
 tures, and whose likeness, therefore, it was the easiest to 
 hit. Most of them also had, but a little time before, sat 
 to Vanloo,* a Dutchman, who, while he remained in 
 
 * No Dutchman, but, as has been already pointed out, the noted French 
 painter, Jean-Baptiste Van Loo. 
 
 C 
 
34 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 England, was in high fashion, though a dirty colourist, 
 and whose only merit was that of taking a true but tame 
 resemblance of features. Amongst those personages were 
 the oid Dukes of Devonshire and Grafton ; and of these the 
 young artist made portraits, not only expressive of their 
 countenances, but of their figures, and this in a manner so 
 novel, simple and natural, yet withal so dignified, as pro- 
 cured him general applause, and set him, in a moment, 
 above his old master, Hudson, and that masters rival, 
 Vanloo. But the portrait which tended most to establish 
 his reputation was a whole-length of Captain Keppel 
 (afterwards Admiral) on a sandy beach, the background a 
 tempestuous sea. A figure so animated, so well drawn, 
 and all its accompaniments so perfectly in unison with it, 
 I believe never was produced before by an English pencil.” 
 Painted in 1753, this famous picture — an epoch-mak- 
 ing one in the artistic career of Reynolds, just as the first 
 meeting with the original had made a veritable epoch in 
 his life — is based on an incident in the career of the heroic 
 young Captain (or, as he afterwards became, Commodore) 
 Keppel, to which reference has already been made. It 
 show r s him at the moment when the Maidstone , of which 
 he was the commander, was shipwrecked on the French 
 coast while in pursuit of a large French vessel. Alone 
 on a rocky sea-shore, with frothing breakers curling to 
 his very feet, he is stepping forward in a statuesque and 
 somewhat conventional attitude, presumably in the act 
 of giving those orders which secured the safety of his 
 crew, and subsequently caused him to be honourably 
 acquitted by the unanimous resolution of the court- 
 martial. This is essentially a dramatic portrait, and, as 
 such, it is not surprising that, following upon a century of 
 Lely, Kneller, and their less worthy followers, it should 
 have made an unbounded sensation. 
 
Portrait of Commodore Keppel 35 
 
 The dramatic portrait, in which to permanence of 
 characterisation and pictorial charm must be superadded 
 the suggestion, rather than the representation, of a charac- 
 teristic episode of the sitter’s career, must necessarily en- 
 tail a considerable amount of risk ; the ridiculous is so 
 near to the sublime. Nevertheless, the few pictures of this 
 class in which absolute success has been achieved are 
 counted among the notable canvases of the world. Such 
 are Titian’s great equestrian portrait, at Madrid, of Charles 
 V. at the battle of Miihlberg ; Moretto’s splendid “ Count 
 Sciarra Martinengo” in our own National Gallery; such, 
 too, the tragic “ Lucrezia,” by Lorenzo Lotto, in the 
 gallery at Dorchester House ; such Sir Joshua’s own “ Mrs 
 Siddons as the Tragic Muse,” and the “ Lord Heathfield ” 
 in the national collection ; and — to descend to a lower 
 platform — the “ Marshal Prim ” of Henri Regnault, in 
 the Louvre. 
 
 It cannot in honesty be said that the “ Commodore 
 Keppel,” quite apart from the question of technical bril- 
 liancy of execution, in which it has, of course, been 
 greatly surpassed by Reynolds’s subsequent productions, 
 is entitled to rank among the complete successes of dra- 
 matic portraiture. It has vigorous dramatic action — a 
 little too much suggesting, perhaps, “ King Canute com- 
 manding the waves to retire” — but hardly, in the esti- 
 mation of the writer, the true dramatic suggestiveness, 
 which alone can justify such a conception. Nevertheless, 
 it represented, in its way, a bold and original breaking away 
 from an accumulation of tradition, and as such it was, what 
 it has already been styled, an “ epoch-making ” work, and 
 deserved the notice which it attracted, and the sudden and 
 vast increase of reputation which it brought to its author. 
 The picture was engraved in 1759 by Edward Fisher. It 
 was No. 181 in the exhibition of Sir Joshua’s works at the 
 
36 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Grosvenor Gallery, to which it was contributed by the 
 Earl of Albemarle. 
 
 Just about the time of our painter’s first great success, 
 that is 1753, there came to London the Swiss painter, 
 Liotard, who had achieved reputation in various quarters 
 of Europe, and especially in Austria, mainly as a por- 
 traitist in pastels and water-colours, but also as a minia- 
 ture painter in enamel. Le Peintre turc * as he was called 
 from his assumption of the Levantine garb, with a long 
 beard, which lent to it an additional vraisemblance , ob- 
 tained, during his two years’ stay in London, the same 
 vogue that he had enjoyed elsewhere. For once the imper- 
 turbable, the consistently amiable and just Reynolds shows 
 unmistakable temper, in his depreciation of an artist who, 
 even though he could not in Paris hold his own against La 
 Tour and Perronneau, nevertheless, on occasion, showed 
 conspicuous ability. “The only merit,” said Reynolds, 
 “in Liotard’s pictures is neatness, which, as a general rule, 
 is the characteristic of a low genius, or, rather, no genius at 
 all. His pictures are just what ladies do when they paint 
 for amusement ; nor is there any person, how poor soever 
 their (sic) talents may be, but in a very few years, by dint 
 of practice, may possess themselves of every qualification 
 in the art which this great man has got.” This is rather 
 extravagant dispraise as applied to the favourite limner 
 of Maria Theresa, the painter of the popular “ Belle 
 Chocolatiere ” of the Dresden Gallery, and of the charm - 
 ing “ Madame d'Epinay ” in the Museum of Geneva. 
 
 It was while Reynolds lived in Newport Street that 
 he made another of those acquaintances destined to 
 exercise so strong and permanent influence on his life 
 and mode of thought — this time the most important of 
 
 * His portrait in pastels, by himself, is in the gallery of the Uffizi ; it 
 shows him in this semi*Oriental garb. 
 
37 
 
 Dr Johnson 
 
 all, since it was that of Samuel Johnson himself. It is 
 best to let Boswell give his own account of this memorable 
 meeting. 
 
 “ When Johnson lived in Castle Street, Cavendish 
 Square, he used frequently to visit two ladies who lived 
 opposite to him (Mr Reynolds), Miss Cotterells, daughters 
 of Admiral Cotterell. Reynolds used also to visit there, 
 and thus they met. Mr Reynolds, as I observed above, 
 had, from the first reading of his Life of Savage, conceived 
 a very high admiration of Johnson’s powers of writing. 
 His conversation no less delighted him, and he cultivated 
 his acquaintance with the laudable zeal of one who was 
 ambitious of general improvement. Sir Joshua, indeed, 
 was lucky enough, at their very first meeting, to make 
 a remark which was so much above the common-place 
 style of conversation, that Johnson at once perceived that 
 Reynolds had the habit of thinking for himself. The 
 ladies were regretting the death of a friend, to whom they 
 owed great obligations, upon which Reynolds observed : 
 ‘ You have, however, the comfort of being relieved from 
 the burthen of gratitude.’ 
 
 “ They were shocked a little at this alleviating suggestion 
 as too selfish, but Johnson defended it in his clear and 
 forcible manner, and was much pleased with the mind, the 
 fair view of human nature, which it exhibited, like some of 
 the Reflections of Rochefoucault. The consequence was 
 that he went home with Reynolds, and supped with him. 
 
 “ Sir Joshua told me a pleasant, characteristic anecdote 
 of Johnson about thetime of their first acquaintance When 
 they were one evening together at Miss Cotterells’, the then 
 Duchess of Argyll and another lady of high rank came in. 
 Johnson, thinking that the Miss Cotterells were too much en- 
 grossed by them, and that he and his friend were neglected 
 as low company, of whom they were somewhat ashamed, 
 
3 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 grew angry, and resolved to shock their supposed pride by 
 making their great visitors imagine they were low indeed. 
 He addressed himself in a loud tone to Mr Reynolds, 
 saying : 4 How much do you think you and I could get in 
 a week if we were to work as hard as we could ? *■ — as 
 if they had been common mechanics.” 
 
 Here one’s first surprise is less that Dr Johnson should 
 have undertaken to defend and develop a paradox, than 
 that the kindly, if unemotional, Reynolds should have made 
 himself responsible for a reflection so worldly-wise in its 
 arid selfishness, so cheap in its cynicism. Did we seriously 
 take this remark, so admired by Johnson, as the key-note of 
 our master’s character, we should indeed be compelled al- 
 together to reconsider it, and to look underneath the even 
 benignancy of the great artist and the generous man — best 
 described by the untranslatable epithet “ serviable ” — for 
 another and a more sinister intrepretation of a character, 
 well understood, as we pardonably imagined, by most of us. 
 Of the singular clumsiness and witlessness of Dr Johnson’s 
 own sally just quoted, there can hardly be two opinions. 
 From such errors of taste Reynolds’s natural amiability 
 and innate good-breeding would always have protected him. 
 
 This is certainly not the place to estimate over again 
 the character of the mighty lexicographer ; to describe 
 once more his lumbering, uncouth person, his strange dress 
 and habits, his sledge-hammer onslaughts on friend and 
 foe alike, his pleasantries, the salt and savour of which 
 have somehow evaporated, leaving only their aggressive, 
 their pugilistic quality behind. All this is ground a 
 hundred occasions trodden before, and repetition of the 
 time-worn anecdotes of Reynolds’s sincere but a little 
 patronising, friend can serve no useful purpose in the 
 present volume. Appreciation of the great writer’s 
 
39 
 
 Dr Johnson 
 
 literary merits and demerits, as of his personal character, 
 will always be, to a certain extent, a subjective matter. 
 Some will still take Horace Walpole’s depreciatory view, 
 and speak of him as “ a lumber of learning and some strong 
 parts ; ” will stigmatise his manners as sordid, supercilious, 
 and brutal, his style as pedantic, bombastic, and vicious ; 
 others with take more seriously his role as literary dicta- 
 tor during the greater part of the latter half of the century, 
 and will esteem the influence exercised during that period, 
 on men and things, a beneficent one. 
 
 One thing, however, is clear, and that is, that there 
 must have been about the man, to neutralise and over- 
 come the terrible drawbacks to personal intercourse with 
 him, a magnetic force of personal influence altogether 
 apart from the greatest of his achievements in letters, 
 and such as none of the many who have written about 
 him — not even the faithful and sympathetic Boswell 
 himself — has quite adequately placed before us. Innate 
 kindliness, making itself felt through domineering brutality, 
 and an almost child-like craving to obtain forgiveness 
 for injury — to heal on the spot the wounds ruthlessly 
 inflicted — made up one side, and that the most attractive, 
 of the big personality which imposed itself for good or for 
 evil on all those with whom it came in contact. But even 
 this does not fully account for the influence exercised over, 
 and more or less willingly, as the case may be, submitted 
 to, by almost all with whom Johnson came into perma- 
 nent contact ; notwithstanding that, among his friends, 
 dependents, and admirers, there were men far more ex- 
 quisitely gifted in various ways than himself, and destined 
 to leave a far more permanent impress on art, literature, 
 and politics. Of the part played by Johnson in developing 
 Reynolds’s literary style, in crystallising his mode of 
 thought, in inducing, by force of example, a higher degree 
 
40 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 of concentration, it may be necessary to say something 
 more hereafter. 
 
 Reynolds himself, in the fragment of a supplementary 
 Discourse that never saw the light — quoted by Malone — 
 best describes how his personality was overshadowed by 
 that of his famous friend and mentor when he says, speak- 
 ing of the Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy : — 
 “ Whatever merit they have, must be imputed, in a great 
 measure, to the education which I may be said to have 
 had under Dr Johnson. I do not mean to say, though it 
 would certainly be to the credit of these Discourses if I 
 could say it with truth, that he contributed even a single 
 sentiment to them ; but he qualified my mind to think 
 justly. No man had, like him, the faculty of teaching 
 inferior minds the art of thinking.” 
 
 The great difficulty in dealing, even in the merest out- 
 line, with the biography of Reynolds, is the circumstance 
 that his life is inextricably woven together with those of 
 the giants — in war, in politics, in letters, in art — of his time, 
 and that one is for ever being tempted, nay, constantly 
 compelled, to step aside from the direct path, in order to 
 say a word, however diffidently, about his friends and 
 surroundings. 
 
 The master’s Pocket-Books, commencing with the one 
 for the year 1755, are the main authorities which serve to 
 guide us with regard to the professional routine of his now 
 busy life; to identify his sitters and patrons, his friends and 
 associates. These are nineteen in number, commencing 
 with 1755, and continuing, with some lacunae — attributable, 
 no doubt, to accidental, loss and not to interruption in the 
 painter’s practice of making entries — down to 1790; that 
 is, down to within two years before his death. They 
 are headed “The Gentleman’s new Memorandum Book, 
 Improved, printed for R. and T. Dodsley, Pall Mall,” and 
 
Relations with Brother A rtists 4 1 
 
 were long in the possession of successive members of 
 the Gwatkin family of Plymouth. They were sold at 
 Christie’s on April 28th, 1873, and bought by a Mr Pocock 
 for twenty-eight guineas. Their final resting-place should, 
 unquestionably, have been the British or the South Ken- 
 sington Museum. 
 
 The Pocket-Books are not to be confounded with Sir 
 Joshua’s Account Book, in which were entered, in the 
 majority of instances, the payments for pictures, both on 
 account and final. 
 
 It is necessary to think of our painter, even at this 
 early period, when he was but little more than thirty years 
 of age, as suffering from deafness, brought from those 
 glacial halls of the Vatican, the recollection of which, never- 
 theless, called up ever afterwards, throughout his career, 
 a genuine thrill of enthusiasm. To bear in mind this fact, 
 is to be even more struck than before with the unaffected 
 charm, the unforced amiability which, overcoming such an 
 obstacle, could, in so short a time, captivate sitters and 
 turn them into valuable friends, forming rapidly round 
 him the nucleus of the circle that, with many additions, 
 and the inevitable losses occasioned by the encroach- 
 ments of time, was to endure to the end of his life. 
 
 Among the intimes of these years time were numbered 
 the members of the Albemarle family — including, of course, 
 his original friend, the fiery young hero Commodore 
 Keppel — Lord Cardigan, Lord Scarborough, his patron 
 Lord Edgcumbe, the Bastards, the Molesworths. In 
 Leslie and Taylor’s Life is mentioned, as of great beauty 
 and in fine preservation, the portrait of a Devonshire 
 beauty, Mrs Bonfoy, daughter of the first Lord Eliot, 
 whom he had already painted as a child in 1746, and 
 now painted again as a woman in 1753. He would 
 appear at this time to have kept up a more sustained 
 
42 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 intercourse with his brother artists than later on in 
 his career, when his social engagements became more 
 numerous, and his leanings towards the worlds of litera- 
 ture, politics, and fashion more pronounced. Thus we find 
 in the pocket-books at this time numerous engagements 
 with Wilton, Hayman, Hudson, Ramsay, and Cotes. 
 
 Allan Ramsay, son of the author of the Gentle 
 Shepherd , after a prolonged course of study in England, 
 had settled in London, where he was now approaching 
 the zenith of his popularity, and was shortly, on the 
 accession to the throne of his patron, George, Prince of 
 Wales, to be appointed Court painter — a post which 
 he filled honourably, if not with especial brilliancy, until 
 his death. Francis Cotes, an artist whose delicacy and 
 distinction have not, of late years, met with quite the 
 recognition they deserve, was just two years younger than 
 Reynolds. He worked in pastels (French fashion) as 
 well as in oils, and it is said that Hogarth — perhaps a 
 not altogether unprejudiced critic in this particular case 
 — preferred his portraits to those of our master himself, 
 while Horace Walpole likened his pastels to those of 
 the famous Venetian, La Rosalba. 
 
 While Reynolds, as will be seen, was, from the 
 moment of his first definitive success, throughout his 
 long career, the protector, the adviser, and the generous 
 patron of artists, he never, curiously enough, counted 
 among the friends nearest to his heart any brother 
 painter. Whether the cause was that, in the moments 
 when he paused from the laborious and never-ending 
 practice of his art, he thirsted for the elegancies and 
 amenities of social intercourse, and found, between him- 
 self and confreres born and bred among different sur- 
 roundings, insufficient points of contact apart from the 
 technicalities of their common art, can only be surmised. 
 

 The French Academy 43 
 
 We know that in certain instances less than cordial 
 relations arose, either, as in the cases of Gainsborough 
 and Barry, from incidents for which Reynolds certainly had 
 no cause to reproach himself, or, as in that of Hogarth, 
 from an original want of mutual sympathy and mutual 
 comprehension. The fact, however, remains that our 
 painter was never in those relations of friendship, or even 
 intimate good fellowship, with any artist, which he main- 
 tained with Keppel, with Johnson, with Garrick, with 
 Goldsmith, with Baretti, with Burke, with Gibbon, and, in 
 later years, with Malone. 
 
 In the year 1755, a second attempt was made — a first 
 abortive meeting of artists having been held in 1753 — to 
 evolve out of the drawing-school in St Peter’s Court, 
 Martin’s Lane, an Academy of Arts to “ provide for the 
 teaching of students, and otherwise act in setting on 
 foot a public academy for the improvement of the arts 
 of painting, sculpture, and architecture.” 
 
 The model before the artists so aspiring to enrol them- 
 selves as, and to exercise the privileges of, a corporate 
 body was doubtless the French Academy of Painting and 
 Sculpture, established with the sanction of the French 
 crown in 1648, in order to repel the excessive pretensions 
 of the maitrise or guild of peintres-yniagiers. 
 
 The French Academy received further privileges from 
 Cardinal Mazarin in 1655, and constituted him its pro- 
 tector ; in 1663 obtaining from the crown a pension or 
 allowance of 4000 livres, and in the following year having 
 its newly-elaborated statutes and regulations confirmed 
 by the Parliament of Paris — an event in the history of the 
 Academie de Peinture generally designated as the Grande 
 Restauration. It is useful to bear in mind these few facts 
 in considering the initial struggles of our own Academy — 
 its incubation, as it were — before it burst full-fledged upon 
 
44 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the astonished public and the still more astonished artists 
 not included in its numbers. The Academie consisted of 
 a protector, a vice-protector, a director, a chancellor, 
 four rectors, adjoints to the rectors, a treasurer, four pro- 
 fessors, one of whom was professor of anatomy and 
 another of geometry ; other adjoints and councillors, a 
 historiographer, a secretary, and two ushers. 
 
 The first director (or, as we should say, president) of 
 the then fully and definitively constituted Academie was 
 the famous Le Brun, the representative, par excellence , of 
 the Louis Quatorze style in all branches of fine and in- 
 dustrial art. Under his autocratic yet beneficent authority 
 the administration of the royal galleries and collections, 
 of the royal manufactories connected with industrial art, 
 and of all provincial academies and schools, was concen- 
 trated under the direction of the Academie , and prac- 
 tically under the control of its director. 
 
 At this point the Dilettanti Society, a body founded 
 in 1732 for the encouragement of studies in antiquity 
 and the arts, steps upon the scene. In its beginnings, 
 and, indeed, more or less throughout its duration, a 
 fashionable exclusiveness and a conviviality marked by 
 a certain exquisiteness were, quite as much as the pro- 
 motion of art and the study of antiquity, the aims of 
 the Dilettanti, who were thus faithful to the truest inter- 
 pretation of their name. 
 
 On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the 
 Society has, from time to time, rendered, as it still at 
 rarer intervals renders, valuable services to art, and 
 more especially to archaeology, by the publication of 
 such serious works as Stuart’s Athenian Antiquities , the 
 Roman Antiquities , the Select Specimens of Ancient Sculp- 
 ture, and T. C. Penrose’s elaborate Principles of Athenian 
 Architecture; to say nothing of the purchase of the 
 
45 
 
 The Dilettanti Society 
 
 splendid Siris bronzes, given to the British Museum in 
 1833. It will never, however, as an authority on art, 
 recover the prestige lost by the determined opposition 
 which it offered to the purchase of the marbles of the 
 Parthenon by the nation, and the extraordinary pro- 
 nouncement that these were not really works of the age 
 of Pheidias, but productions of the Graeco-Roman style, 
 dating from the first or second century A.D. Among 
 the members of the Society were many fashionables, 
 who counted among the friends, and were, some of 
 them, the sitters, of Reynolds ; prominent among these 
 being the Earl of Holderness, Lord Gowran, afterwards 
 Earl of Upper Ossory, Sir Everard Fawkener, the 
 Marquess of Granby, Lord Eglinton, Lord Anson, Sir 
 Charles Bunbury, Lord Euston, the Marquis of Hart- 
 ington, “ Dick ” Edgcumbe, Captain George Edgcumbe, 
 and “ Athenian ” Stuart. 
 
 One of the most important offices in connection 
 with the Dilettanti Society was that of its painter-in- 
 ordinary, it being the rule that every member should 
 present his portrait, done by the Society’s painter, 
 or, as a penalty, pay “ face money” from year to 
 year, until the omission should have been made good. 
 The then painter to the Society was Knapton, to be 
 followed by Athenian Stuart, upon whose demise 
 Reynolds succeeded to the agreeable duties of the office, 
 and immortalised the chief members of the Society in the 
 two famous portrait-groups (1778-1779), of which it will 
 be necessary to speak at length hereafter. The artists 
 at work on the Academy Scheme revived in 1755 
 made a formal communication to the Dilettanti Society 
 in a document which Leslie believes to have been the 
 composition of Reynolds. After some generalities on 
 the state of art and connoisseurship in England, and 
 
46 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 some remarks on the excessive worship of the old 
 masters, and the corresponding depreciation of modern 
 performances, comes the following remarkable, if rather 
 grandiloquent, passage : — 
 
 “ Whereas the whole secret lies in this ; when princes 
 for their grandeur, or priests for their profit, have had 
 recourse to painting, the encouragement given to the 
 profession gave spirit to the art, and others thought it 
 worth their while to distinguish themselves, in hopes of 
 obtaining the like reward. 
 
 “ On the contrary, those who set their hearts on making 
 collections only , instead of advancing the art they profess 
 to love, or animating the professors of it, have actually 
 helped to create the very deficiency they complain of ; 
 for, in order to justify the excessive prices they have been 
 artificially induced to give for names and characters, they 
 are insensibly led to decry and undervalue every modern 
 performance. And as a collection alone is too often 
 sufficient to create a tasteless connoisseur — and connois- 
 seurs are received in the gross as the only competent 
 judges — it will necessarily follow that it must be with a 
 painter as with the Roman Catholic saints, who are never 
 beatified till a hundred years after they are dead, nor 
 canonised till after a hundred years more ; a consideration 
 which, in the present undervalued, if not derided, state of 
 fame or glory, cannot be esteemed a very powerful incen- 
 tive. If thus a national character is a matter of any con- 
 cern to individuals, and, if to be complete, it ought to be 
 sound, consistent, and of a piece, the present neglected 
 state of the Arts, and of painting in particular, is worthy 
 both of attention and concern.” 
 
 The abstract of the proposed charter followed the pre- 
 amble just quoted, there being strong internal evidence in 
 
A Plea for an English Academy 47 
 
 the scheme propounded that the promoters had before 
 them the rules and constitution of the French Academy 
 just referred to. The King was to be patron. The 
 Society was to consist of a president, vice-president, 
 directors, fellows, and scholars ; the directors to be thirty 
 in number, including the president, vice-president, secre- 
 tary, and treasurer, who were to choose the fellows ; the 
 president to be for life, the directors to be in office for 
 three years. 
 
 It is not a little diverting to note the conditions on 
 which the modish Society of Dilettanti signified its ap- 
 proval of the project and promised their co-operation : — 
 1st, The president of the Academy to be always chosen 
 from the Dilettanti Society. 2d, All the Society of Dilet- 
 tanti to be members of the Academy, but only the twelve 
 seniors present at any meeting to have votes. 3d, Any 
 artist to be eligible as a member of the Academy ; but 
 only twelve, to be chosen annually, to have votes. 
 
 Although the committee of artists would appear to 
 have expressed their approval of the terms dictated 
 by the Society in even over-civil and eager fashion, 
 the scheme, nevertheless, came to nothing for the moment 
 — it was, indeed, impracticable under such strange condi- 
 tions — and no further trace of any such promotion of an 
 Academy of Arts appears in the records of the Society. 
 
 Among the notabilities who, in the years 1754 and 
 1 7 5 5, were painted by Reynolds, may be picked out Lord 
 Holderness, Lord Anson, Lord Euston, the Earl and 
 Countess of Kildare, Mr Philip Yorke, Mr and Mrs 
 Molesworth of Pencarrow in Cornwall, Mr Charles Towns- 
 hend, the Duke of Grafton, Sir John Ligonier, Com- 
 mander-in-chief and afterwards Lord Ligonier, and the 
 millionaire Alderman Beckford, afterwards to become 
 famous as a demagogue and the out-and-out supporter of 
 
48 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Wilkes. It is to the year 1756 that belongs the first por- 
 trait of Samuel Johnson, who is represented, pen in hand, 
 sitting at a table on which are writing materials; this 
 Reynolds afterwards gave to Boswell, who had it en- 
 graved for his Life of Johnson. 
 
 To the master’s kindliness of heart we owe the portrait 
 of a youth, son of Dr Mudge, the physician, painted in 
 or about 1758. The boy had been very anxious to be 
 with his father on his sixteenth birthday, but had been 
 prevented by illness, whereupon Reynolds executed and 
 sent to the father, as a consolation for the absence of the 
 boy himself, his counterfeit presentment peeping from 
 behind a curtain. 
 
 At this period, popular as English art was becoming, 
 as exercised in portraiture — considered by the age, and, 
 indeed, by Reynolds himself, as a lower branch than 
 monumental and so-called high art — the connoisseurship 
 of the day still placed beyond everything English, and, 
 above all, beyond everything modern, the productions 
 of the Bolognese artists of the 17th century, and even 
 the empty freezing platitudes of their followers and 
 fellow-countrymen in Reynolds’s own 18th century. It is 
 instructive to consult on this point the letters of Horace 
 Walpole, the typical, and, no doubt, of his class, the 
 best dilettante connoisseur of his time, and to collate 
 with them, as to prices, some of the sale catalogues of 
 the time. Here we find the art of the Carracci, of 
 Guido, Domenichino, and Albano exalted to a position 
 of equality with the masterpieces of all time produced 
 by the Renaissance at the great period of its climax ; 
 and, indeed, we find our painter himself, in his Discourses , 
 taking much the same view of Bolognese art and, theoreti- 
 cally, at any rate, placing it actually on a higher level 
 than that of the golden prime of the Venetians them- 
 
English Connoisseurship 49 
 
 selves. Look, too, with these indications at the admirable 
 backgrounds to Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode series, as 
 showing how the saloons of the aristocratic society of 
 the time were covered with Bolognese pictures, with 
 copies of Michelangelo’s and Correggio’s least present- 
 able designs, with Luca Giordanos, etc. And again, look 
 at the stinging caricature, “Taste in High Life,” in 
 which the English Juvenal of the pencil seizes the 
 occasion afforded by an opportune commission to lash, 
 with such grotesque effect, the empty dilettantism of the 
 polite world. Here is enough, and more than enough, 
 to account for the irritation of Hogarth with the worship- 
 pers, quand m$me> of second and third-rate exotic art, 
 and to account for his only half serious pronouncements 
 on the subject of the old masters. Enough, too, to 
 account for the despondency of Reynolds and for the 
 eloquent plea in support of contemporary art contained in 
 the passages above quoted. An apposite instance of the 
 direction in which the taste of aristocratic connoisseurs 
 still lay, is given by Leslie and Taylor in the Life. At 
 about this period — they note — the Earl of Northumber- 
 land opened his great gallery in Northumberland House, 
 which he had adorned to his great contentment, with 
 second-rate works on a large scale and at large prices, 
 by Raphael Mengs and Pompeo Battoni. There had 
 been no thought of employing an English painter or 
 decorator in the work, from first to last. 
 
 That the formation of some sort of academy was in 
 the air, that the want of public institutions for the authori- 
 tative teaching of the fine arts was distinctly felt at this 
 period, is shown by the public-spirited action of the Duke 
 of Richmond who, in 1758, erected and opened his gallery 
 of casts in Spring Gardens under the superintendence 
 of Wilton and Cipriani. 
 
 D 
 
50 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 The gallery contained about thirty casts from the 
 best antiques. All “settled” artists were admitted to 
 draw or model, and students above twelve, upon a recom- 
 mendation from any artist known to Mr Wilton. Wilton 
 and Cipriani attended on Saturdays to correct the draw- 
 ings and give instruction. Premiums were promised at 
 Christmas and midsummer — two silver medals for figures 
 and two for bas-reliefs. Here, then, was already in 
 embryo one branch of a private academy, from which 
 some benefit might have been expected. Unfortunately 
 the matter seems to have been muddled, and the would- 
 be Maecenas apparently took insufficient pains to fulfil 
 his promises. Going abroad to join his regiment in 
 Germany, he left no order for the premiums to be paid, 
 and finding, on his return, uncomplimentary notices and 
 epigrams posted up by some Pasquin on the door, he 
 closed the gallery in disgust, and ultimately transferred 
 its contents to the Society of Artists, on its incorpora- 
 tion in 1765. Some of the casts afterwards became the 
 property of the Royal Academy. 
 
 These years of 1757, 1758, and 1759 were practically 
 the busiest, though, of course, not the most lucrative of 
 our painter’s life, and the extraordinary lists of sitters fur- 
 nished by the Pocket-Books for these periods respectively 
 are the best possible evidence of the unexampled vogue 
 achieved by Reynolds at the comparatively early age of 
 thirty-five years — at a time, that is, when his technical, 
 as well as his mental powers had yet to attain their full 
 development. It was an age, nevertheless, at which the 
 radiant career of Raphael was nearly complete, which 
 Giorgione never attained, and which that latter-day 
 Giorgione of France, the ill-starred Watteau, but little 
 overpassed. Van Dyck, too, was in the very zenith of 
 his third, or English manner, at the age of thirty-five. 
 
Reynolds's Busiest Years 51 
 
 Some few portraits, which are to be placed within the 
 period now dealt with, may be chosen for remark, as typical 
 of Reynolds’s style at this stage of his practice, although 
 it is not intended to put them forth as precisely the 
 best specimens of his art at that time. His modelling 
 was then careful and solid — it might almost be said, 
 sculptural — to a degree not paralleled in what may, for 
 the sake of convenience, be styled the middle and final 
 phases of his style. His colouring was more timid than 
 that of the later and more florid manner — silver rather 
 than gold. The execution of the details of costume, 
 such as lace and filmy white draperies, still retained traces 
 of the hardness of style which obtained before his rise, 
 and which was to be noted, not only in the works of such 
 painters as Hudson, but even to the last in the portraits 
 of the great Hogarth himself, masterly as was the ease 
 and directness with which the mighty satirist could wield 
 the brush, when he happened to be in the pure painter- 
 mood. Still, in many of these comparatively early works 
 there is to be found an absence of self-consciousness, a 
 high-bred dignity and simplicity which even the master- 
 pieces of the epoch of maturity do not always reach. 
 
 Horace Walpole sat to our painter in 1756, and the 
 picture, when finished, was handed over to M‘Ardell for 
 engraving, the arbiter of all the elegances characteristic- 
 ally fussing because the mezzotinter had told people of 
 the print, with the perhaps not undesired result of calling 
 further attention to it. The portrait is in the possession 
 of the Marquis of Hertford, and an original repetition 
 belongs to the Marquis of Lansdowne. 
 
 A charming piece of the same time is the full-length 
 “ Master Jacob Bouverie,” aged seven years, now at Long- 
 ford Castle, Salisbury. One of the first in the series of 
 portraits of children, it is simpler and less ad captandum 
 
52 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 than most of these, but in its unadorned naivete hardly 
 less attractive. A cleaning this year (1893) revealed the 
 authentic signature, “ 1757, J. Reynolds , pinx t ,” and at 
 the same time there was discovered on Lord Hertford’s 
 “Horace Walpole,” then in the hands of the same 
 noted picture-restorer, the practically identical signature, 
 
 Reynolds, pinxit, 1757.” 
 
 In the full-length of Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of 
 Hamilton (and afterwards of Argyll), painted in 1758, and 
 No. 26 in the often-to-be-cited exhibition of the Grosvenor 
 Gallery, it is difficult to trace any of the fascination that 
 this, the less perfectly lovely of the two lovely sisters, must 
 have possessed, to charm into matrimony the Duke of 
 Hamilton — tersely described by Horace Walpole as “hot, 
 debauched, extravagant, and equally damaged in his 
 fortune and person ; ” and, moreover, to have the refusal, 
 after his death, of the Duke of Bridgwater, whose alliance 
 she declined in favour of that of Colonel John Campbell — 
 only a temporary sacrifice of position after all, seeing that 
 the last-named gentleman duly matured into the Duke of 
 Argyll. 
 
 It is surely unnecessary to repeat once more the uni- 
 versally known and ever-popular tales of the fabulous 
 success which attended the “ Gunning girls ” on their first 
 appearance in London in 1751 — a success by the side of 
 which the vogue of even the most brilliant among the 
 professional beauties of this time must appear pale and 
 insignificant. Who among these fair ones of to-day has 
 had to submit to such pleasant mobbings in the park and 
 at the playhouse as caused the Countess of Coventry to 
 pretend fright, and to desire the assistance of the officers 
 of the guard, which being accorded to her, she was, of 
 course, more delightfully mobbed than ever? This same 
 Countess of Coventry (Maria Gunning) sat to Reynolds 
 
53 
 
 The Grinning s 
 
 in June 1759, when she had already the seeds of death in 
 her, and her lord also appears as a sitter, in the July of 
 the same year. 
 
 The beautiful Elizabeth, in the full-length now in 
 question (the property of the Duke of Hamilton, and 
 No. 26 at the Reynolds Exhibition), is timidly depicted, 
 with little of the modish charm, the consciousness of 
 supreme loveliness which Reynolds, in the later days 
 when his artistic personality was full blown, his hand 
 freer and more conscious of its cunning, would have re- 
 velled in interpreting to the beholder. This portrait was 
 exhibited in 1760, in the Great Room of the Society of 
 Arts in the Adelphi — the same which, later on, was 
 decorated with Barry’s much-discussed pictures. 
 
 Reynolds is, however, all himself in the “ Lady Eliza- 
 beth Keppel ” (Marchioness of Tavistock), one of the sisters 
 of his great friend, Commodore Keppel, and afterwards 
 the adored wife of young Francis Russell, Marquis of 
 Tavistock, who was killed by a fall from his horse while 
 out hunting in 1767. In this half-length, painted in 1759, 
 the young lady appears simply dressed in white, with a 
 pink rose in her bosom — the dress and the flower painted 
 with a measure of that timidity which has just been noted 
 as a characteristic of this period of the artist’s practice, but 
 the face admirable in its serene and high-bred simplicity. 
 This work, lent to the Reynolds Exhibition by the then 
 Earl of Albemarle, has since passed into the possession 
 of Mr E. L. Raphael, by whom it was contributed to the 
 Royal Academy Exhibition of Old Masters in 1893. 
 
 Still finer is the “ Anne, Countess of Albemarle,” 
 happily secured for the nation on the dispersal of the 
 Keppel pictures, and now No. 1259 in the National 
 Gallery. It should, perhaps, have been mentioned before 
 the preceding example, seeing that it would appear to 
 
54 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 belong to the year 1758. The mother of the Ladies 
 Keppel, and of the heroic Commodore, is depicted in three- 
 quarter length, seated at a table on which is a work- 
 basket ; the delicate hands with their pointed fingers are 
 half-mechanically doing some work, while the pale, refined 
 face, absolutely simple and absolutely thoroughbred, gazes 
 half-abstractedly at the beholder. Here the reticence of 
 the execution, the moderation of the colour, perfectly suit 
 the reticence of the conception, and, of its kind, Reynolds 
 has done nothing better than this pathetic portrait. In 
 1758, William, Duke of Cumberland, of Culloden memories, 
 and Prince Edward, had sat to him, and now he first 
 painted George, Prince of Wales, whose favour, as King 
 George III., he never fully succeeded in securing — le<s 
 lucky in this, and in this alone, than Allan Ramsay, 
 Gainsborough, Benjamin West, Zoffany, Copley, and others 
 among his contemporaries. 
 
 The celebrated courtesan, Kitty Fisher, whose 
 acquisitiveness Reynolds has allusively commemorated 
 by painting her as Danae, while her money-spending 
 capacities are no less delicately hinted at in the famous 
 portrait in which she appears as “ Cleopatra dissolving 
 the Pearl,” first sat to her friend and limner-in-ordinary 
 in 1759. Our conception of that sprightly elegance 
 and infinite variety which went some way towards re- 
 deeming her frailty — notorious even in those times when 
 Aspasia had an all but recognised position, not exactly in, 
 but close upon, the heels of the w r orld, and shone at public 
 ball and masquerade side by side with the blue-blooded 
 beauties of the aristocracy — is just a little diminished 
 when we learn that she was the daughter of a German 
 stay-maker, and that her name would properly have 
 been, and, indeed, was often spelt “ Fischer.” 
 
 The loveliest of the series of portraits painted by 
 
55 
 
 Kitty Fisher 
 
 Reynolds of the celebrated beauty is, perhaps, that in 
 which she is depicted seated in an arm-chair, nursing 
 a dove, while another drops down into her lap. The 
 picture, doubtless ordered of our painter by the admirer 
 whose medallion portrait is so ostentatiously displayed on 
 her bosom, contains a manifest allusion to the Goddess 
 of Love. But here the divinity looks so pure, so inno- 
 cent, that it is the Urania and not the Pandemos of whom 
 we are led to think. Original versions of this painting 
 are, or were, in the possession of Lord Crewe, Mr Munro, 
 and Mr Lenox of New York. The earlier picture, which 
 was the outcome of the 1759 sittings, is probably that 
 which is in the collection of Lord Leconfield at Petworth. 
 
 Almost the first imaginative work of importance of 
 which we hear, is the “Venus” — mentioned in the 1759 
 Pocket-Book under the month of December — first of a 
 numerous series of undraped goddesses and nymphs, mani- 
 festly the outcome of our painter’s study of the glowing, 
 realistic nudities of Venetian art. The type thus evolved 
 is just a little tempered and conventionalised by the 
 influence exercised over him by the Bolognese, with 
 whom semi-nude Magdalens and saints occupied, as a 
 result of the Catholic Revival, the place of the Venetian 
 dames and courtesans. This particular Venus is shown 
 reclining in a landscape, wholly undraped — her charms 
 set off only by an armlet ; Cupid gazes at her through 
 the boughs. 
 
 Very soon after — in 1760 — we find the painter depicting 
 Miss Greville and Master Greville as Venus and Cupid. 
 
 A brief reference must be made here to the three 
 papers contributed by Reynolds in 1759 to Dr Johnson’s 
 Idler — Nos. 76, 79 and 82 — although these will be dealt 
 with in a separate chapter, together with the rest of the 
 his literary works. 
 
56 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Northcote tells us : — “ I have heard Sir Joshua say 
 that Johnson required them of him in a sudden emer- 
 gency, and on that account he sat up the whole night 
 to complete them in time ; and by it he was so much 
 disordered that it produced a vertigo in his head. I may 
 here add that, at the time when he contributed to the 
 Idler, he also committed to paper a variety of remarks 
 which afterwards served him as hints for his Discourses.” 
 Here we have already, in embryo, the Reynolds of the 
 Discourses, only, as might have been imagined, less mature 
 and more paradoxical. Here is already to be found the 
 overpowering theoretical admiration for Michelangelo 
 which was the key-note of his aesthetic preferences ; 
 here are the hard-and-fast principles laid down as to the 
 necessity for generalisation and the danger of realistic 
 mitation, in the grand style ; here is also the beginning 
 of that theoretical depreciation of Venetian art as “the 
 Dutch part of the Italian genius,” which yet, as the 
 painter’s Venetian note-books conclusively prove, was 
 accompanied by a profound admiration for, and a strenu- 
 ous desire to imitate, its technical qualities. 
 
 It was indirectly to Hogarth’s munificence towards 
 the Foundling Hospital, and to the consequent founda- 
 tion of a gallery of works of art there — with the result of 
 making a visit to its historical treasures the most fashion- 
 able lounge in the reign of George II. — that we owe the 
 foundation, after many changes, vicissitudes and develop- 
 ments of the Royal Academy, which only became a 
 reality some years after Hogarth’s death. He had in 
 1740 painted and presented to the institution, mainly pro- 
 moted and established by the indefatigable philanthropist, 
 Captain Coram, that famous likeness of the founder which 
 he, the painter, some twenty years afterwards, pronounced 
 to be the best of his single portraits ; at the same time 
 
The Foundling Hospital 57 
 
 declaring, with an outspoken frankness which was not 
 exactly arrogance, that the popular verdict had set it above 
 all other works of art which had subsequently found their 
 way into the hospital. And yet, among the authors of 
 these were Reynolds himself (with a portrait of Lord 
 Dartmouth), Ramsay, and Cotes ; to say nothing of such 
 minor luminaries as Hudson, Shackleton, Highmore, and 
 Wilson (as a portrait-painter). 
 
 When in December, 1746, the west wing was completed, 
 all those artists who, following Hogarth’s example, had 
 contributed, or promised to contribute, works to the 
 institution, were, at a general court of the hospital, 
 elected governors, with power to meet once a year for 
 the purpose of considering “ what further ornaments 
 could be added to the building without expense to the 
 charity.” The natural, if not precisely necessary, con- 
 sequence of this arrangement was an annual dinner on 
 the 5th of November, at which, regarding “ Liberty as 
 the Parent and Friend of the Fine Arts,” the assembled 
 painters were accustomed to commemorate the landing 
 of William III. ; using for their pious libations a fine old 
 white-and-blue dragon china punch-bowl, generally de- 
 scribed as Hogarth’s, which is still carefully preserved 
 in one of the cases of the Court-Room. * 
 
 The general eagerness shown to inspect the group of 
 works thus brought together, and displayed in the gallery 
 of the Hospital, gave a great impetus to the curiosity of 
 the outside public in such matters, one result being the 
 organisation of the public exhibition of pictures by living 
 artists, opened on the 21st of April 1760 at a large room 
 in the Strand, opposite to Beaufort Buildings, belonging 
 to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manu- 
 factures and Commerce. Among the notable things ex- 
 
 * William Hogarth , by Austin Dobson, pp. 76*77- 
 
58 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 hibited on this occasion were Richard Wilson’s “ Niobe” 
 (the best of the three versions of which is No. no in the 
 National Gallery); Hayman’s portrait of Garrick as 
 Richard III.; and Roubiliac’s “Shakespeare” (executed 
 for Garrick’s villa at Hampton, and bequeathed by him to 
 the British Museum). Reynolds contributed to this dis- 
 play the “ Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton ” and “ Lady 
 Elizabeth Keppel,” which have been recently described, 
 besides two male portraits. 
 
 It appears convenient, while dealing with this particular 
 branch of the subject, to anticipate matters a little, and to 
 state shortly that a second exhibition took place in 1761 
 at the Society of Artists’ rooms in Spring Gardens ; a 
 third in 1762 at the same place, the preface to this last 
 being written by Dr. Johnson, of all people, who never 
 even professed to know one end of a picture from the 
 other, but whose name, for all that, lent an additional 
 attractiveness to the show. The exhibitions of the 
 Society of Arts, in the above-mentioned room in the 
 Strand, proceeded simultaneously with those in Spring 
 Gardens until 1764. 
 
 In 1765 the Spring Gardens Society was incorporated 
 by Royal Charter under the name of the Society 
 of Artists of Great Britain, with twenty-four directors, 
 including a president, vice-president, treasurer, and secre- 
 tary, to be elected annually. Among the original directors 
 were Hay man, George Barrett, William Chambers the 
 architect, James M‘Ardell the engraver, Francis Cotes, 
 Nathaniel Hone, George Michael Moser, Edward Rooker, 
 Paul Sandby, Richard Wilson, and some others ; but 
 neither Reynolds, although he had contributed liberally to 
 the exhibitions of the Society, nor Allan Ramsay. It 
 will be seen, later on, how the Royal Academy, from the 
 very year of its foundation, took the wind out of the 
 
Reynolds removes to Leicester Fields 59 
 
 Society’s sails, and by degrees reduced it to a state of 
 inanition. 
 
 It is at this juncture — that is to say, in 1760 — that Rey- 
 nolds removed to the handsome house, No. 47 Leicester 
 Fields (or, as it is now styled, Leicester Square), which 
 was to be his definitive studio and residence until his 
 death, and whence were to issue those masterpieces of his 
 maturity by which he is best known to the world. To the 
 house as it stood he added a gallery, together with paint- 
 ing-rooms for his pupils proper, and for his drapery-men, 
 of whom he had already, according to Northcote, engaged 
 several as far back as 1758, saying that no man ever 
 acquired a fortune by the work of his own hands only. 
 
 Reynolds is stated to have given £1650 for a forty- 
 seven years’ lease of the house, and to have laid out an 
 additional ^1500 on his improvements, thus boldly but 
 not improvidently investing all his savings, with the happy 
 result that in three years’ time he was in receipt of £6000 
 a year — an unprecedented sum to be earned at that period 
 by an English artist. He had already, before making his 
 final migration, raised his prices to twenty-five^ fifty, and 
 one hundred guineas for bust, half-length, and full-length 
 portraits respectively. 
 
 The story related by Northcote of the splendid gilt 
 and painted coach set up by the now celebrated painter 
 at this particular juncture is at first not a little discon- 
 certing, as showing an aspect of Reynolds’s many-sided 
 character which is not the one that we are most ac- 
 customed to contemplate. This imposing and not a 
 little gaudy vehicle is described as “a chariot, on the 
 panels of which were curiously painted the four seasons 
 of the year in allegorical figures. The wheels were orna- 
 mented with carved foliage and gilding ; the liveries also 
 of his servants were laced with silver. . . .” These panels 
 
6o 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 were painted by Charles Catton, afterwards R.A., and 
 esteemed the best coach-painter of the time ; but our 
 admiration and astonishment receive a slight check when 
 we learn, from the same informant : “ I have been told 
 that it was an old chariot of a Sheriff of London, newly 
 done up.” 
 
 No doubt, in this Reynolds displayed an unexpected 
 knowledge of the ways of the world, and a boldness 
 in self-advertisement which would have done honour to 
 any shoddy speculator of to-day ; but all the same it 
 pains us to think of him, the gentle, the polished, the 
 “ natures gentleman,” going about in the rechauffe of a 
 Sheriff s official chariot, like some quack-doctor advertis- 
 ing his nostrums. Indeed, we learn without surprise that 
 the painter, being indeed better occupied, did not over- 
 much make use of his gilded advertisement on wheels, 
 but, with a refinement of cruelty which for once gave 
 Miss Reynolds a legitimate grievance, compelled her to 
 ride in it as much as possible, and “ let it be seen in the 
 public streets so as to make a show.” That it was too 
 fine for a painter, even of Reynolds’s established vogue, 
 and that its fineness was not altogether usual or in good 
 taste, we may take for granted, by the hubbub it created 
 when it passed. And the more we consider, the more 
 we wonder! 
 
 Is it, perhaps, that the naturally reticent and refined, 
 when, striving to overcome a constitutional aversion 
 to outward display and the grosse caisse generally, they 
 determine to assert themselves, do so with such grotesque 
 excess of emphasis as to overshoot the mark? Or 
 must we believe that Reynolds’s gentle breeding was 
 not the natural thing we have assumed it to be, but an 
 artificial product matured by degrees with practice and 
 from outside ; and that at this period it was yet so little 
 
The Gilt Coach 
 
 61 
 
 to be depended upon as to play the genial artist such a 
 trick as this? The former hypothesis is the one which 
 the writer prefers, as being most in consonance with the 
 vast body of evidence which we possess, not only as to 
 the artistic personality of Reynolds, but as to his whole 
 character and surroundings. 
 
 To the year 1760, the Pocket-Book for which contains 
 the names of as many as 120 sitters, belong some of 
 Reynolds’s most solid and artistic performances, showing 
 him already a master in virtue of distinctiveness of style 
 and intellectual power, even though his palette may not 
 yet have acquired all the richness, the melting tints, or the 
 powerful chiaroscuro, to attain which he sacrificed so much 
 in later years. The large equestrian portrait of Lord 
 Ligonier, — now No. 143 in the National Gallery, to which 
 it was presented by William IV. in 1836, — is certainly 
 not, in its present state, and, indeed, can never have 
 been, an imposing or effective work. The head of 
 the veteran is heavily modelled and lifeless, the charger 
 most unconvincing in its action, and the relation 
 between man and beast a purely conventional one. 
 To execute such a portrait dapparat as this — a work of 
 the class in which Rubens, Van Dyck, and Velasquez 
 so greatly excelled — higher technical acquirements and 
 firmer draughtsmanship were required than Reynolds 
 was ever able to acquire. 
 
 An able if not a very fascinating performance of 
 the same year is the “Rebecca, Viscountess Folke- 
 stone,” in the collection at Longford Castle. This 
 has, moreover, a superadded interest as helping to 
 disprove the statement, almost universally made and 
 believed, that Reynolds only signed two pictures — the 
 lovely “ Lady Cockburn with her children ” recently 
 bequeathed to the National Gallery, and the famous 
 
62 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse,” of both of which 
 typical works more will be said hereafter. The “ Rebecca 
 Viscountess Folkestone ” bears at the base, on the right 
 hand, the perfectly genuine inscription — recently examined 
 with great care by the writer — “J. Reynolds , pinx 1 1760.’ 
 This lies, half obscured by the darkness of the shadows, 
 under successive coats of varnish, and it is highly probable 
 that a careful examination of other works of the same 
 period might reveal the existence of similar signatures, 
 similarly obscured. Indeed, it has already been shown 
 that, besides the “Boy Reading” of 174 7, the “Horace 
 Walpole” and the “Master Jacob Bouverie” of 1757 
 bear perfectly authentic signatures. 
 
 In the collection of the Earl of Radnor are also two 
 other portraits of the year 1760 — those of the Hon. Mary 
 Bouverie, Countess of Shaftesbury, and her husband, 
 Anthony, fourth Earl of Shaftesbury, in the robes worn 
 by them at the coronation of George III. At the 
 exhibition of 1761, in Spring Gardens, appeared also 
 the whole-length of Captain Orme leaning on his horse, 
 painted for Lord Inchiquin The gentleman portrayed 
 was aide-de-camp (with Washington) to General Brad- 
 dock in America during the campaign of 1755, 
 his manuscript journal of which was presented by 
 George IV. to the British Museum. The concep- 
 
 tion was a great innovation on the consecrated attitudes 
 in vogue when it was painted — being derived from the 
 Rubens - Van Dyck school, and, perhaps, suggested 
 by the great “ Charles I.” now in the Salon Carre 
 of the Louvre, although in the latter the charger of 
 the dismounted king is held by a squire. Military and 
 quasi-military portraiture of this type became after- 
 wards very popular in the English school, prominent 
 examples of success in the style being Reynolds’s own 
 
 
Equestrian and other Portraits 63 
 
 well-known “ Marquis of Granby,” and Gainsborough’s 
 incomparably spirited and charming “ Colonel St Leger ” 
 at Hampton Court, the pendant to which was the like 
 portrait of the Prince of Wales exhibited in the same 
 year (1781) at the Royal Academy. 
 
 The intention in the “Captain Orme” is excellent, 
 and the modelling carefully studied, but there is still 
 something stiff and awkward about the whole ; the painter 
 does not yet wield that pennello volante by which Angelica 
 Kauffmann is so much struck a few years later. Another 
 portrait, painted in 1761, is that of “Lady Elizabeth 
 Spencer, Countess of Pembroke,” with her child (lent by 
 the Earl of Pembroke to the Guelph Exhibition, where it 
 was No. 137). This has been described in somewhat 
 watery fashion as “ one of the purest and sweetest por- 
 traits that even Reynolds ever painted.” The Countess 
 was one of the beautes sages of her time — which was, 
 indeed, in England, one rather of racket, of noisy gaiety 
 uninterruptedly sustained, than of secret intrigue, though 
 the latter element was by no means wanting. Horace 
 Walpole, writing to Montagu on September 4th, 1761, 
 says of her : “ Lady Pembroke alone, at the head of the 
 Countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty.” 
 
 But this is anticipating a little, seeing that the canvas 
 did not appear at the 1761 Exhibition. This was memor- 
 able in more than one respect, since Hogarth, then near 
 the close of his career, contributed the famous “ Sigis- 
 munda,” which was the cause, to him, of so much heart- 
 burn ; the “ Gate of Calais,” or “ Roastbeef of Old 
 England,” as it is sometimes called ; the “ Election 
 Entertainment;” “The Lady’s last Stake” (now the 
 property of Mr Louis Huth, and last seen in public at 
 the Grosvenor Gallery in the “Century of British Art” 
 Exhibition of 1887-1888). For this picture it was the 
 
64 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 custom of Mrs Thrale to assert that she sat when a young 
 girL The lady's veracity has, however, been impugned on 
 this paint, and certainly the apparent age of the beauty, 
 here seen driven to her last entrenchments, does not 
 accord with the extreme youth of Miss Hester Salusbury 
 at the period when the picture was painted. 
 
 Among Revnolds’s contributions was one of his 
 masterpieces — by far the greatest and most distinctive 
 thing done by him up to the date at which we have 
 arrived- This is the famous portrait of Sterne, or, to 
 give him his due styles and titles, the Rev. Laurence 
 Sterne, which is one of our masters most widely-appre- 
 ciated performances, and has been innumerable times 
 popularised by replicas, copies, and engravings. So well 
 known, indeed, is it, that a detailed description appears 
 hardly necessary. Necessarily sober in its general ton- 
 ality, and without bramra , too, in the execution, the por- 
 trait depends for its effect on the extraordinary subtlety 
 of the conception and the felicity of the realisation. 
 Sterne faces the spectator in dark blue gown and wig, 
 leaning forward, propped up on his right hand and arm ; 
 the wig has managed to get itself a little awry’ on the 
 curiously-shaped head, and, say Leslie and Taylor, “ the 
 painter, with that readiness in taking advantage of acci- 
 dent to which we owe so many of the delightful novelties 
 in his works, painted it so, for he must have known that 
 a mitre would not sit long, bishop-fashion, on the head 
 before him, and it is surprising what a Shandean air this 
 venial impropriety of the wig gives to its owner.” 
 
 Reynolds has here conjured up before us, not the 
 mere physical presence, but the very personality of the 
 rare humourist who gave to the world Tristram Shandy 
 and The Sentimental Journey , and not the least of whose 
 distinctions is, that he was in some [happily not in ail. 
 
Portrait of Sterne 65 
 
 respects a precursor of Thackeray. In this ugly and 
 not over trustworthy countenance the sympathetic element 
 is far from being wholly absent ; the humour, the senti- 
 mentality, sadly lacking fresh air and true eighteenth-cen- 
 tury in quality, the latent pruriency appertaining to the 
 man’s peculiar temperament, are all here, and nothing is 
 over accentuated. Sterne, in a letter to a friend, says : — 
 “ You must mention the business to Reynolds yourself ; for 
 I will tell you why I cannot. He has already painted a 
 very excellent portrait of me, which, when I went to pay 
 him for, he desired me to accept as a tribute (to use his 
 own elegant and flattering expression) that his heart 
 wished to pay to my genius ” : with the further delight- 
 fully naive corollary — “ That man’s way of thinking and 
 manners are at least equal to his pencil.” About the 
 veracity of this last assertion, Tom Taylor appears, how- 
 ever, to have some doubts, and it certainly coincides but 
 little with what we know of the painter’s practice in this 
 particular, even with friends to whom he was knit by 
 much closer bonds of amity than ever existed between 
 him and Sterne. 
 
 This portrait was painted for Lord Ossory, then 
 passed to Lord Holland, and, on his death, was purchased 
 by the Marquis of Lansdowne, at whose residence in 
 Berkeley Square it now is. It was lent by its owner to 
 the Guelph Exhibition at the New Gallery in 1791. 
 
 Reynolds’s other contributions to the exhibition were 
 the equestrian portrait of Lord Ligonier ; that of Captain 
 Orme ; a whole-length of the Duke of Beaufort ; and the 
 lovely profile half-length of the Countess Waldegrave, 
 wearing a gauze turban, which has been rendered popular 
 by James M‘Ardell’s mezzotint. There had already 
 been painted, in 1759, a whole-length of this lady (the 
 natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole), in peeress’s 
 
 E 
 
66 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 robis. This was lent by Earl Waldegrave to the 
 Reynolds Exhibition, where it was No. 152; the half- 
 length now in question being contributed on the same 
 occasion by its owner, Lord Carlingford (No. 136). 
 Another delightful portrait of this most faithful of Rey- 
 nolds’s sitters, which it may be convenient to mention 
 here, though a little out of its right place, is the “Countess 
 Waldegrave with her daughter, Lady Elizabeth Laura,” 
 painted in 1761-1762, and exhibited in the latter year as 
 “ Dido embracing Cupid ” ; it is evidently suggested by 
 some Italian “Madonna and Child.” This canvas was 
 bequeathed by the late Countess Waldegrave to the 
 Due d’Aumale, and is now in the chateau of the latter 
 at Chantilly. 
 
 It will perhaps not be inopportune to put forward 
 here an expression of individual opinion which may 
 possibly a little shock and surprise those who look 
 upon Reynolds chiefly as the supreme painter of 
 female loveliness, whether found in the whole or 
 the half world of his time, or in that debateable land 
 between the two, which was the stage. It is quite 
 possible to be amused by the absurdity of Horace 
 Walpole’s paradox — contained in the well-known parallel 
 between our painter and Allan Ramsay — that “ Mr 
 Reynolds seldom succeeds in women : Mr Ramsay is 
 formed to paint them ; ” and yet, to perceive that where 
 Reynolds approached nearest to greatness, and showed a 
 measure of that much-abused word genius, was in the 
 presentment of the great men who were his friends, and 
 for observing whom, in every phase and every mood, he 
 had all through his career opportunities unequalled by 
 those afforded to any artist of his time. The Reynolds 
 of whom we are all proud, but, above all, the Reynolds 
 whom the collector worships and will make any sacrifice 
 
Reynolds s Male Portraits 67 
 
 to possess, is he to whom we owe such splendid and, in the 
 higher sense, decorative portraits, as, for instance, the 
 “Mrs Bouverie with her child,” the “ Georgiana, Duchess 
 of Devonshire,” the “ Ladies Waldegrave,” the “ Lady 
 Cockburn with her Children.” 
 
 There is, however, a Reynolds belonging to an even 
 higher category of art than this consummate master of 
 the brush, this almost too bland and placid delineator of 
 fashionable beauty and charm, appreciable by all be- 
 holders. This is the Reynolds to whom we owe the 
 “Sterne,” and the realistic yet noble “Dr Johnson” 
 (Streatham version), and the audaciously faithful 
 “Gibbon,” and the “ Baretti,” and the “John Hunter,” 
 and so many other masterpieces in which the artist grap- 
 ples with, and makes his own, the strongest and most dis- 
 tinctive personalities of his time. True, the artist himself 
 disclaimed the intention of diving into the inner con- 
 sciousness and seeking for the complete idiosyncrasy of 
 his sitters, when he said — in reply to a critic complimenting 
 him on the perfect individuality, combined with typical 
 truth, to be noted in his pathetic portrait of the venerable 
 Joshua Sharpe (painted in 1785) — that he had no merit 
 in the matter, as his task had only been to make an exact 
 copy of the attitude in which the old man had placed him- 
 self at the time of sitting. “ As he was remarkably still,” 
 he went on, “ it became a matter of no more difficulty than 
 copying a barn, or any object of still-life.” 
 
 In like manner Houdon, the greatest portrait-sculptor 
 of the eighteenth century, the author of the immortal 
 “Voltaire” at the Comedie Franchise, and the artist to whom 
 sat Diderot, Rousseau, Franklin, Washington, Mirabeau, 
 Gluck — names that Reynolds himself can hardly parallel 
 — repudiated a similar panegyric passed upon him by an 
 admiring critic (somewhat unfortunately in the instance 
 
68 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 selected, seeing that the bust was one of Moliere, made 
 up from contemporary portraits) ; professing to seek only 
 for a perfect, plastic rendering of what he saw naturally 
 expressed in the faces of his sitters. 
 
 His words are worth quoting : — 
 
 “ In executing the bust of Moliere I had no other 
 object in view than . . . just to do the portrait of Moliere. 
 If everyone has recognised it, that is very flattering to 
 me, and proves that I have well reproduced the model 
 which I had under my eyes. But I had no intention of 
 presenting the Pere de la Comedie (as you say). If all 
 the world considers the bust like, if my brother artists 
 judge it to be well done, then I must feel very vain. But 
 if it should be held that in the eyes, in the general air of 
 the figure, it is patent that it is he who wrote Tartuffe , 
 Le Misanthrope , and Les Femmes Sav antes, then I feel 
 bound to assure you that I was not aware of it. I accept 
 the praise of the likeness and the workmanship ; but 
 indeed I cannot swallow the praise of the intentions 
 which you attribute to me.” 
 
 Strangely enough, another great portraitist of the 
 eighteenth century, Maurice-Quentin de la Tour — the 
 most popular and the most successful of all with his 
 contemporaries, although pastels, and not oils, were 
 his medium — arrogated to himself this unique power 
 of penetrating into the very souls of his sitters, which 
 was the one quality for which his sprightly, brilliant, 
 and thoroughly living art was least distinguished. 
 
 All this is, however, by no means conclusive ; and 
 if we may not without ridicule interpret a poet against 
 his will, we may certainly be permitted to see more (or, 
 as the case may be, less) in the art of a painter than 
 
Interpretative Portrait 7 ire 69 
 
 he, living on too close terms with his work to judge it 
 objectively, is altogether conscious of. The power of 
 realising an individuality — of suggesting its permanent 
 traits, not less moral than physical, without stepping 
 outside the legitimate limits of portraiture — need not 
 necessarily be exercised with conscious deliberation, but 
 may quite conceivably be intuitive. If this be so, may 
 we not continue to admire in the painter of the 
 “ Garrick,” the “ Sterne,” the “ Gibbon,” and in the 
 sculptor of the “Voltaire,” the “ Mirabeau,” the “Gluck,” 
 those very powers of penetrating below the epidermis, of 
 evolving an individuality from a sitter, which they have 
 appeared so anxious to disclaim? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Marriage of the King, and Coronation Portraits — “ Garrick between Tragedy 
 and Comedy” — Other Portraits of Garrick by Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough — Ramsay appointed Painter to the King — Tgur in West of 
 England with Dr Johnson — Northcote for the first time meets 
 Reynolds — Exhibition of 1764 — “The Club ” established — Johnson’s 
 Letter to Reynolds on his Illness — Carle Van Loo — Oliver Goldsmith 
 — Edmund Burke — Exhibition of 1765 — Lady Sarah Bunbury 
 sacrificing to the Graces — Mythological and Allegorical Portraiture — 
 Intimacy uith Wilkes — Angelica Kauffmann — Her Career and 
 Relation to Reynolds — Unfortunate Marriage with Horn — Reynolds 
 accused Abroad of Complicity in Plot — Absurdity of the Accusation 
 shown. 
 
 The marriage and coronation of young King George, 
 which took place respectively on the 2d and 22d Sep- 
 tember 1761, gave much occupation to Reynolds as 
 the most fashionable master of the hour, and one, too, 
 who at that point had no serious rivals in his par- 
 ticular line. Lady Elizabeth Keppel, whose simple, 
 reposeful half-length has already been described, was 
 portrayed in all the splendours of her royal bridesmaid’s 
 costume, gleaming with white satin and silver, in the act 
 of adorning the obligatory statue of Hymen with heavy 
 wreaths of flowers, which are being handed to her by a 
 negress. This mode of treatment, minus the conventional 
 piece of pseudo-classicism peculiar to the last half of the 
 eighteenth century, is manifestly adapted from Van Dyck, 
 
 70 
 
Portraits of Royal Bridesmaids 7 1 
 
 who, more than once, in full-lengths of high-born dames 
 dressed in satin of silvery sheen, has heightened, by the 
 introduction of a negro boy holding flowers, the delicacy 
 of his tints, and the refinement of his sitters. This full- 
 dress and essentially decorative presentment of the ill- 
 fated Marchioness of Tavistock — as she afterwards 
 became — is in the collection of the Duke of Bedford 
 at Woburn Abbey. 
 
 Two other youthful beauties among the royal brides- 
 maids — Lady Caroline Russell and Lady Sarah Lenox 
 (later on again to be presented by the artist as Lady 
 Sarah Bunbury) — were also painted. There was begun 
 in this year the quasi-dramatic group of portraits at 
 Holland House* (collection of the Earl of Ilchester), 
 showing Lady Sarah Lenox leaning from a low 
 window in the Jacobean mansion to take from the 
 hands of Lady Susan Strangways a dove which 
 the latter holds out to her, while the youthful Charles 
 James Fox, with a paper in his hand, urges his cousins 
 to come in to a rehearsal of Jane Shore. Not- 
 withstanding its undoubted freshness and charm, the 
 picture is not exempt from a certain minauderie , to 
 which Reynolds was often to succumb, especially in his 
 portraits of youthfuL persons and children ; and, more- 
 over, the difficulty of combining portraiture with de- 
 finite dramatic action has not been completely solved. 
 The picture is evidently intended to commemorate the 
 amateur performance of Jane Shore by a company of 
 girls and children, including, as its chief performers, the 
 young people here portrayed, of which Horace Walpole 
 writes with enthusiasm to George Montagu on January 
 22d, 1761, especially praising the beauty and ingenuous- 
 ness of Lady Sarah in the title part. 
 
 * Shown at the Royal Academy Exhibition of Old Masters in 1871. 
 
72 Sir Josfaici Reynolds 
 
 A beautiful and exceptional portrait-study belonging 
 to this period, about which too little has been written and 
 said, is the “Miss Jacobs,” which has been seen both 
 at the Old Masters, and at the Guildhall in 1890; being, 
 on the latter occasion, wrongly catalogued as belonging 
 to the year 1791 (in lieu of 1761). The lady, a lovely 
 and ingenuous blonde, who is supposed to have been a 
 singer, appears seated, dressed entirely in pale, sheeny 
 blue, with a single row of pearls as a necklace, and in 
 her lap a delicate bouquet of flowers, just discreetly 
 giving the requisite fillip to the colour-scheme. Here 
 Reynolds has himself successfully infringed his subse- 
 quently-enunciated precept, contained in the eighth Dis- 
 course to the students of the Royal Academy, delivered 
 December 10th, 1778, and thus worded: — 
 
 “It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed 
 that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm, 
 mellow colour ; yellow, red, or a yellowish-white ; and 
 that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be kept 
 entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support 
 and set off these warm colours.” 
 
 It has been very generally, and on the whole with a 
 great preponderance of probability, assumed that it was 
 to combat or defy this precept that Gainsborough’s famous 
 “ Blue Boy ” was produced ; but a little doubt exists 
 about the chronology of this masterpiece, which may, 
 according to some, though not the better, authorities, 
 have been in existence several years before the Dis- 
 course was delivered. Should this be assumed to be the 
 case, the usually accepted order would have to be reversed, 
 and we should be compelled, unless we would spoil the 
 legend altogether, to assume that the Discourse was 
 
yS////////r^ //ms/. y*u/// ' yy^A 
 
 fiy , / , /fifitfi/y 
 
 fit/fi/Z/fiV/Y/J/. 4 
 
 

 
73 
 
 Portrait of Miss Jacobs 
 
 delivered as a protest against the painting. The “ Blue 
 Boy” is, however, by no means the only instance in 
 which Gainsborough has risen superior to masses of 
 blue in the high lights of a picture. In the “ Miss 
 Jacobs” the problem is frankly attacked, the blue not 
 being unduly warmed or heightened by artifices, but 
 helped by the delicate, subtly-flushed flesh-tints, the 
 genuine blonde colour of the hair, and the not too 
 obtrusive flowers in the lady’s lap. The portrait has been 
 variously described as “A Lady Unknown” (in Roy- 
 dell’s catalogue of prints, which includes J. Spilbury’s 
 print after it), and as “ The Blue Lady.” 
 
 The exhibition of 1762 at the Society of Artists’ 
 rooms in Spring Gardens — the second there, and third 
 of the entire series — was to the full as memorable as its 
 immediate predecessor. Admission was this time a 
 shilling at the door, and an additional sixpence for the 
 catalogue, with its preface written by Dr Johnson. A 
 well-meant but slightly Utopian feature of the scheme 
 was, that the works sent in by artists were to be 
 
 reviewed by the committee conducting the exhibition ; 
 a price to be secretly set on every piece and 
 
 registered by the secretary. If the piece should be 
 sold for more, the whole price to be the artist’s ; 
 
 but if the purchasers should value it at less than the 
 committee, the artist to be paid the deficiency from the 
 profits of the exhibition. It was at this exhibition that 
 Gainsborough, newly established at Bath, where he 
 already occupied a position similar to that achieved 
 by Reynolds in London, made a second appearance 
 
 with a “ Portrait of Mr Poyntz,” described in the 
 catalogue as “a whole-length of a Gentleman with a 
 Gun.” Garrick, the willing prey of all portrait-painters, 
 is depicted by Zoffany in the “ Farmer’s Return,” while 
 
74 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 M‘Ardell and Fisher exhibit mezzotints after Reynolds. 
 The master’s own contributions, three in number, are of 
 high importance : — The full-length of Lady Elizabeth 
 Keppel as one of the Queen’s Bridesmaids, which 
 has just been described ; the fair Maria, Countess 
 Waldegrave, as “ Dido embracing Cupid ” (the Due 
 d’Aumale’s picture already described) ; the ever-popular 
 “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy.” 
 
 The greatest and most versatile English actor of the 
 age had been first painted by Reynolds in 1759, but 
 this celebrated performance was the first authorita- 
 tive presentment of the mobile physiognomy, lighted 
 up by the kindly, yet almost painfully penetrating, 
 glance which all the limners of the tragi-comedian 
 have made the salient feature of their portraits. Rey- 
 nolds, though he painted his friend many times more, 
 has hardly surpassed this rendering, taken apart from 
 its insipid accompaniments ; unless it be in the half- 
 length “Garrick as Kitely,” painted in 1768, and now 
 in the royal collection at Windsor Castle. In this 
 work, the actor appears in a Van Dyck dress, not ab- 
 solutely inappropriate, or more than a little anachron- 
 istic, seeing that the character portrayed is that in Ben 
 Jonson’s “ Every Man in his Humour.” The last-named 
 canvas has much darkened, but the facial expression 
 still appears of exceeding truth and subtlety. In the 
 “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy,” while the 
 main figure is masterly, the Tragedy and Comedy 
 appear rather too much like the rival charmers who, in 
 the Beggars Opera , compete for the affections of Captain 
 Macheath. It has been claimed for the picture that it is 
 not only Reynolds’s finest Garrick, but the finest of all 
 the innumerable canvases in which he is depicted, 
 whether on or off the stage. Certainly neither the smirk- 
 
Garrick painted by Reynolds and Gainsborough 75 
 
 ing, uxorious Garrick in Hogarth’s double portrait, 
 “ David Garrick and Eva Maria Violetti his Wife,” be- 
 longing to Her Majesty the Queen, nor the undoubtedly 
 earnest but terribly forced and grimacing figure in the 
 famous “Garrick as Richard III.,” painted in 1746 by 
 the same master (now the property of the Earl of Fevers- 
 ham), can compete with it. If it were possible to put 
 aside the far from convincing and, indeed, not a little 
 grotesque attendant figures, and the undignified attitude 
 of the great histrion between the two, it would not 
 be difficult to accede to the claim for supremacy among 
 its fellows put forward by the biographers of the 
 master, did one not bear in mind the great full-length 
 painted by Gainsborough, and first shown at Spring 
 Gardens in 1766 (No. 7 at the Gainsborough Exhibition 
 of 1885 at the Grosvenor Gallery, to which it was lent 
 by the Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon). 
 
 In this last canvas, Garrick is portrayed, in a 
 favourite haunt of his villa at Hampton, leaning 
 against a pedestal surmounted by a bust of Shake- 
 speare. It is difficult for those who have once seen 
 this typical Gainsborough to forget the piercing glance, 
 the unconquerable vivacity which he has found means 
 to express, even while leaving to his hero an attitude 
 of complete respose. It is true that it is the vitality 
 rather than the permanent characterisation of the 
 face which has been most completely given, but then 
 this is, after all, the most essential characteristic of the 
 flexible, ever-changing physiognomy. Here we have 
 a perfect realisation of Grimm’s description of Garrick, in 
 the Correspondance avec Diderot , as “of middle height, 
 inclined to be little, of agreeable and spirituel features, 
 and with a prodigious play of eye.” Not less irresistibly 
 suggested, too, is the peculiar temperament which caused 
 
;6 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 George III. to say, with that prosaic good sense which 
 was not infrequently akin to sound criticism : “ He never 
 could stand still ; he was a great fidget.” Fulcher, in his 
 Life of Gainsborough , has told the following anecdote — 
 ben trovato , it may well be, rather than vero — as to Garrick 
 sitting to Reynolds’s great rival : — “ Gainsborough, it 
 has been said, was unable to catch Garrick’s likeness by 
 reason of the constant change in the expression of the 
 artist’s countenance, now squinting like Wilkes, and now 
 appearing handsome as Lord Townshend ; anon his 
 cheeks were dilated and he puffed and gasped like the 
 leviathan Johnson, and then his features wore the 
 pinched aspect of Sir John Hawkins’s, so that the 
 baffled painter was compelled to throw down his brush 
 in despair.” Allan Cunningham gives the same version 
 of the story, with the addition that the painter dashed 
 his brushes on the floor, exclaiming, in a passion, that 
 he believed he was painting “ from a devil rather than 
 a man.” 
 
 Notwithstanding this testimony, it is by no means 
 certain, or even probable, that Gainsborough, of all the 
 artists who sought the honour of reproducing Garrick’s 
 features, was the one meant ; since Northcote, who pro- 
 fesses to have heard the actor himself relate the story to 
 Reynolds, makes him speak of an indifferent painter to 
 whom he was sitting — a description which Gainsborough’s 
 intimate friend Garrick would never have dreamt of apply- 
 ing to him, and which Reynolds, just and generous, if with- 
 out warmth of enthusiasm, would never have permitted to 
 be so applied. Either the tale applies to another and a far 
 inferior painter among the many who depicted the “ Richard 
 III.,” the “Macbeth,” the “Kitely,” the “Abel Drugger,” 
 or the civilian taking his otium cum dignitate in his sub- 
 urban retreat ; or else it has been exaggerated and dis- 
 

 Allan Ramsay , Kings Painter 77 
 
 torted beyond recognition. The latter is the supposition 
 which should most recommend itself, when it is 
 remembered that Garrick could never completely put off 
 the histrion and the mimic ; that even the howls of a 
 negro page-boy, convulsed with delight at the facial dis- 
 tortions executed for his especial delectation by the 
 brightest luminary of the British stage, were to him sweet 
 incense, and an adequate reward. At any rate, Garrick 
 thought so highly of Gainsborough s great full-length 
 that he presented it to the Corporation of Stratford-on- 
 Avon, and we know that Mrs Garrick spoke of it as “ the 
 best portrait ever painted of her Davy.” 
 
 Reynolds’s “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy,” 
 formerly at Knole, has passed into the possession of 
 Lord Rothschild, whose residence in Piccadilly it now 
 adorns. 
 
 The master, we are told by Northcote, purposed to 
 paint a picture of Garrick in his own proper habit, sur- 
 rounded by groups of figures representing him in all the 
 different characters by personifying which he had gained 
 fame on the stage. The pupil opines that the attempt 
 might have ended in failure, and many, even of our 
 master’s most fervent admirers, will be found to echo that 
 opinion. To combine without monotony or grotesque 
 absurdity such a series of “ doubles ” as is here indicated, 
 would have required all the dramatic power, the humour, 
 the audacity of Hogarth. The brush best suited to carry 
 out the notion on a large scale would have been, not that 
 of Reynolds but of Gainsborough. 
 
 There is nothing especially to show that Reynolds 
 aspired at this moment to the vacant post of King’s 
 painter, or that he felt any annoyance at the appoint- 
 ment of his friend, or at any rate, friendly acquaintance, 
 Allan Ramsay. The Scotchman was backed up by the 
 
7 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 resistless influence of his friend and fellow-countryman, 
 Lord Bute, and was indeed a fair painter, in many 
 respects a good man for the place — by no means so 
 exalted a one, either as regards its emoluments or the 
 status which it conferred, as might to-day be imagined. 
 
 Reynolds’s dictum as to his brother portrait-painter 
 is well known : — There’s Ramsay, a very sensible 
 man, but he is not a good painter.” Our master could 
 not, indeed, have had very serious hopes of the post at 
 this moment, seeing that he was already the friend 
 of Wilkes — his pocket-book containing the significant 
 entry for Saturday, November 13th 1862: “With 
 
 the Beefsteak Club at Mr Wilkes’s.” This would account 
 for the laudation of our master by Wilkes’s supporter, 
 Churchill, in that war of the pungent pencil, wielded by 
 Hogarth, with the poisoned pen which was the weapon 
 of Churchill. We have the North Briton (No. 17) char- 
 acterising Hogarth as “ sunk to a level with the miserable 
 tribe of party etchers ; ” then the painter’s famous portrait 
 of “Wilkes as a Patriot;” then Churchill’s castigation of 
 his opponent in the “ Epistle to William Hogarth,” with 
 these lines : — 
 
 “ The greatest genius to this fate may bow, 
 
 Reynolds in time may be like Hogarth now.” 
 
 Then Hogarth’s unsuccessful, because too furious, carica- 
 ture of Churchill as a bear. 
 
 Just about this time, too, Lord Bute conferred the 
 King’s pension of three hundred pounds a year upon Dr 
 Johnson, ostensibly, at any rate, for literary merit only, 
 “ without any stipulation whatever, or even tacit under- 
 standing that he should write for the administration.” 
 Boswell’s account of the transaction may be here 
 quoted, because it shows what importance the arrogant 
 
79 
 
 Dr Johns oris Pension 
 
 writer attached to his much younger friend’s opinion, 
 even on so delicate a point of literary honour as this 
 one : — 
 
 “Sir Joshua Reynolds told me that Johnson called on 
 him after his Majesty’s intention had been notified to him, 
 and said he wished to consult his friends as to the pro- 
 priety of his accepting this mark of the royal favour, after the 
 definitions which he had given in his Dictionary of pension 
 and pensioners. He said he should not have Sir Joshua’s 
 answer till next day, when he would call again, and desired 
 he might think of it. Sir Joshua answered that he was 
 clear to give his opinion then, that there could be no 
 objection to his receiving from the King a reward for 
 literary merit, and that certainly the definitions in his 
 Dictionary were not applicable to him. Johnson, it should 
 seem, was satisfied, for he did not call again till he had 
 accepted the pension, and had waited on Lord Bute to 
 thank him. He then told Sir Joshua that Lord Bute 
 said to him expressly, ‘ It is not given you for anything 
 you are to do, but for what you have done.’ ” 
 
 In August 1762, Reynolds, for the benefit of his health, 
 paid a visit to his native county, Devonshire, in which he 
 was accompanied by Dr Johnson, on this occasion merry 
 and gambolling as an elephant. Several of the finest 
 country seats in the west of England were visited, includ- 
 ing Wilton House and Longford Castle — not then what 
 it afterwards became, a temple of the art of Reynolds him- 
 self — and Plymouth was reached on August 29th. Plymp- 
 ton, the painter’s native place, was, of course, revisited, and 
 the return to London did not take place until September 
 26th. Northcote’s Life contains an amusing anecdote, 
 in connection with this tour, illustrating Dr Johnson’s 
 
So Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 pastoral tastes in food, and unlimited capacity of de- 
 glutition. He is represented as having swallowed in 
 conjunction such portentous quantities of new honey 
 and clouted cream, washed down by new cider, that his 
 host, a courteous Devonshire gentleman, became terribly 
 alarmed for the health of his famous guest, and remained 
 torn between his desire to interfere ere it should be too 
 late, and the fear lest he should appear to infringe the 
 sacred duties of hospitality. 
 
 It was on this occasion that young Northcote, who 
 had never been out of his native county, and was then an 
 apprentice to his father’s business of watchmaking, first 
 saw and came into contact with his already celebrated 
 countryman. 
 
 “ It was about this time,” he says, “ that I first saw Sir 
 J oshua, but I had seen several of his works, which were in 
 Plymouth, and those pictures filled me with wonder and 
 delight, although I was then very young, insomuch that I 
 remember, when Reynolds was pointed out to me at a 
 public meeting, where a great crowd was assembled, I got 
 as near to him as I could, from the pressure of the people, 
 to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did with great 
 satisfaction to my mind.” 
 
 It is about this time that Reynolds still further in- 
 creased the number of his pupils and drapery - painters 
 — the latter a distinct class, and by no means to be con- 
 founded with the former. His first pupil after the Roman 
 model Marchi was Beech, a native of Dorset ; then we 
 have Berridge, a Lincolnshire man ; then Hugh Barron. 
 
 It was in 1763, just before the sitter’s final retirement 
 into private life, that Reynolds painted the great full-length 
 which shows the Earl of Bute, in a suit of blue velvet, 
 
8i 
 
 -A Telly O' B l ien. 
 
 richly laced with gold, receiving papers from his under- 
 secretary, Charles Jenkinson, afterwards first Earl of 
 Liverpool. It would appear, from a note supplied by 
 Tom Taylor, that the King paid for this sumptuous por- 
 trait of the Court favourite. A small study for this picture 
 was contributed by the Earl of Wharncliffe to the 
 Reynolds Exhibition, whither the same owner sent also 
 another sketch — that for the full-length in his own collec- 
 tion of the same personage, which was at the National 
 Portrait Exhibition in 1867. 
 
 To the Spring Gardens Exhibition of 1763 Reynolds 
 sent four examples of his art as a portrait-painter : — 
 “ The Ladies Henrietta and Elizabeth Montagu, Daughters 
 of the Earl of Cardigan ” (lent to the Old Masters by the 
 Duke of Buccleugh in 1875); a half-length “John, Earl 
 of Rothes” (lent to the Reynolds Exhibition by the 
 Countess of Rothes) ; a three-quarters of “A Gentleman ; ” 
 a half-length of “ Nelly O’Brien,” the fascinating hetaira 
 who rivalled Kitty Fisher in beauty and vivacity, as well 
 as in the impartiality with which she distributed her 
 favours among persons of quality. It is difficult to 
 decide whether this is indeed the famous “Nelly O’Brien ” 
 of the Wallace (once Hertford) Collection, or, as appears 
 more probable, one of the less known portraits. In the 
 often-reproduced picture at Manchester House, the light- 
 hearted beauty appears completely fronting the spec- 
 tator, gazing dreamily out of the canvas, as she toys 
 with a pet spaniel. She wears a gown consisting of 
 an under-skirt of quilted pink silk covered with lace, an 
 over-dress of flowered brocade, and a flat Woffington hat, 
 which, half overshadowing her face, renders it still more 
 fascinating by the curious play of light and shadow intro- 
 duced, as a half-discovered land is superior in interest to 
 that which is entirely laid bare. 
 
82 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 The visits of the fair Nelly to Reynolds’s studio were so 
 frequent during these years, so much in excess of the 
 usual number allowed for sittings, as to lead the bio- 
 graphers to the surmise that both she, and, for similar 
 reasons, Kitty Fisher, posed to their painter-in-ordinary, 
 not only as sitters in the ordinary acceptation of the word, 
 but for the necks, busts, hands, and arms of his portraits, 
 as well as for his nymphs and Venuses — a somewhat 
 gratuitous assumption, it may be held, and one in support 
 of which they adduce no other evidence than the fre- 
 quency of these visits. That Nelly was at any rate an 
 especial favourite is evidenced by such appointments noted 
 in the Pocket-Book for 1762 as this: “With Miss Nelly 
 O’Brien in Pall Mall, next door this side the Star and 
 Garter ; ” and the jocose reference to her in the list of 
 sitters for May 1762 as “ My Lady O’Brien.” 
 
 Still, Joshua Reynolds was, it is clear, of a tempera- 
 ment against the imperturbable placidity, not to say the 
 frigidity, of which even the dangerous shafts of these 
 famous ladies, discharged in vain, must have fallen 
 blunted to the ground. It is easy to credit the story 
 that, when much later on, Mr Smelt, the decorous sub- 
 governor of the young princes, expressed to him his 
 wonder how he could resist the allurements of the beauty 
 which daily exhibited itself in his painting-room, with all 
 the enhancement of costume and attitude, he replied that 
 his heart, like the grave-digger’s hand in Hamlet, had 
 grown callous by contact with beauty. 
 
 He was, indeed, as tepid in his bland, deferential 
 courtesy towards women, as chilly in his evenly-diffused 
 kindliness, as winter sunshine ; we should perhaps like him 
 even better could we pick but one little hole in his armour 
 of proof. 
 
 The Pocket-Book for 1763 is not forthcoming, but in 
 
Mrs Abington 83 
 
 the fly-leaf of that for 1764 (as quoted by Leslie and 
 Taylor) we find the following enhanced prices given : — 
 
 The whole-length, 7 ft. 10 in. by 4 ft. 10 in., 150 guineas — 75 
 The half-length, 4 ft. 2 in. by 3 ft. 4 in., - 70 „ 35 
 
 The Kit-Kat, 3 ft. by 2 ft. 4 in., - - 50 „ 25 
 
 * The 3-quarter, 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in., - 35 „ 17^ 
 
 The teller de teste ( tela di testa on canvas 
 including the head only), 2 ft. £ in. by 
 1 ft- 6 ^ in. 30 „ 15 
 
 The second column of figures represents the deposit of 
 one half the price which Reynolds — the first, it is said, to 
 introduce the practice — caused his sitters to pay down in 
 advance. 
 
 It is in this year that the famous Mrs Abington, the 
 typical Thalia of the English stage as Mrs Siddons 
 afterwards became its typical Melpomene, first appears in 
 the Pocket-Book, taking her place in a list which com- 
 prises the highest dignitaries of the church, and the most 
 distinguished personages of the political world, the army, 
 the stage, and the monde galant , to occupy a brilliant 
 position, in which last was, at that time, almost to possess 
 an avowable etat. Mrs Abington was originally called — 
 by what christening appeareth not — Fanny, or Frances 
 Barton, and earned as a flower-seller her nickname of 
 “ Nosegay Fan.” She was the incomparable “ Beatrice ” in 
 Much Ado about Nothing , “Miss Prue” in Congreve’s 
 Love for Love , “ Roxalana ” in The Sultan ; the original 
 and inimitable “Lady Teazle” in the production of the 
 School for Scandal, in 1777; the rebellious lady who, at 
 the last moment, threw up the part especially written for 
 her in Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer ; and the unsuc- 
 
 * Meaning here, of course, the three-quarter aspect, and not the three- 
 quarter-length. 
 
84 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 cessful “Ophelia” whom, when she played the part with 
 Garrick; some wag likened to “a mackerel on a gravel walk.” 
 The Comic Muse must, however, have had refinement 
 as well as verve , and that peculiar power of self-education, 
 in matters of breeding and outward conformity to usage, 
 which a woman acquires so much more easily than a man. 
 Her taste in dress was as sure as it was original, and she 
 actually led the fashion in this particular, giving her name 
 to several among the most fashionable feminine adornments, 
 and among them to the “ Abington Cap.” 
 
 Her modish supremacy is paralleled by that achieved 
 some years later, both in Paris and London, by the famous 
 Terpsichore of the Grand Opera , Mile. Guimard, a lady 
 of an incomparable lightness of foot, well-matched by her 
 morals, or lack of them. This lady describes herself in 
 her correspondence as besieged, almost at the moment of 
 her arrival in London, to fulfil an engagement there, by 
 emissaries from English grandes dames , entreating her 
 criticism and approval of their toilettes. 
 
 Mrs Abington managed to conquer for herself, not- 
 withstanding her origin and antecedents, a pleasant place, 
 not exactly in, but by the side of the great world. In- 
 vitations to her supper and card parties were coveted 
 things, and some ladies as well as men of quality were 
 not above accepting them. The faithful Boswell describes 
 Johnson himself as “a little vain of the solicitations of this 
 elegant and accomplished actress,” and when the great 
 man, supping with Mrs Abington, meets certain persons 
 of high fashion, owns him “ much pleased with having 
 made one in so elegant a circle.” At Streatham, too, 
 Johnson, evidently not averse from recording his social 
 acquaintance with the fashionable actress, teases Mrs 
 Thrale with, “ Mrs Abington’s jelly, my dear lady, is better 
 than yours.” 
 
Mrs Abington as “Miss Prue ” 85 
 
 Reynolds painted her at least five times : — As the 
 “ Comic Muse,” in 1764 (Old Masters in 1873), and again 
 in 1771, as “Miss Prue” in Love for Love; in ordinary- 
 costume with a satin cardinal cape (Old Masters in 1883) 
 — probably the portrait of 1774; as “ Lady Teazle ; ” and, 
 in 1782, as “ Roxalana” putting aside a curtain, which rare 
 example of the Reynolds vivacity was the picture presented 
 to her by the painter, and the undue detention of which, by 
 Sherwin the engraver, she pathetically laments. 
 
 As the “ Comic Muse ” (now or lately at Knole) the 
 lady is shown in full-length, dressed in a flowered gown of 
 contemporary fashion, with the mask of Comedy in her 
 hand, and her face lighted up with a perfectly realised ex- 
 pression of sly humour and espieglerie. 
 
 By far the best of the series, however, and one of the 
 masterpieces of the painter, is the “ Miss Prue ” (formerly 
 at Saltram, and No. 7 at the Reynolds Exhibition of the 
 Grosvenor Gallery, to which it was contributed by Sir 
 Chas. Mills). Here is one of the rare dramatic portraits 
 of the finest quality — dramatic not only because a charac- 
 ter in a comedy has been selected as the suggesting 
 motive, but dramatic also in essence. In it Reynolds has 
 achieved a surprising success, combining the charm of 
 his famed “ momentariness ” with the essentials of perma- 
 nent characterisation. Miss Prue is depicted at the mo- 
 ment when, in Act III., scene 1, of Congreve’s comedy, 
 she is compelled to receive the unwillingly-offered atten- 
 tions of her loutish sailor- lover, Ben, and at his approach 
 exclaims : — “ You need not sit so near ; if you have any- 
 thing to say, I can hear you further off ; I arn’t deaf.” 
 Pouting, she leans her arms on the back of her chair, with 
 her thumb at her lips. T^ere is a happy audacity and 
 perfect fitness in the conception, to which Reynolds has 
 lent his own tone of good company, while infusing into 
 
86 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 it a certain charming mutinerie which is Mrs Abington’s 
 rather than Miss Prue’s, and yet preserving the hoyden- 
 ish awkwardness of manner required by the subject. The 
 canvas was in the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1771, and 
 should perhaps more properly have been described later on. 
 It is clear, bright, and in fine condition, and is executed 
 with a masterly completeness which leaves little or nothing 
 to be desired, though not with the melting autumn tints 
 that the Sir Joshua of later years strove at all risks to 
 attain. 
 
 This mutinerie and charm, by the way, which made the 
 fair actress’s society so captivating to her friends, could be 
 a mutinous spirit of opposition and very devilry in her 
 dealings with her manager, Garrick, whom, by her vagaries, 
 she aggravated to the verge of madness ; asserting all the 
 while — with what amount of truth it is at this period 
 difficult to say — that she had grave causes of complaint, 
 in respect of his conduct towards her. 
 
 To the Spring Gardens Exhibition of this year, Rey- 
 nolds contributed a whole-length of Lady Sarah Bunbury 
 (born Lenox) — described in the catalogue, with a com- 
 mendable reticence which has to-day become obsolete, as 
 “ A Lady” — and a three-quarters length of the fair Coun- 
 tess-Dowager of Waldegrave, in mourning for the still 
 recent death of her husband. 
 
 It was in the early part of 1764, according to Boswell 
 and Malone, that was founded the famous Literary Club, 
 as it has almost universally been called ; although it 
 never officially arrogated to itself this title, being content 
 with the simplicity, in a sense more arrogant still, of The 
 Club. Forster, in his Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith , 
 gives the date of the foundation, however, as “ unquestion- 
 ably 1783,” going on, however, to state that the meetings 
 not did begin until the winter. However this may be, the 
 
The Club 
 
 87 
 
 initiative, as proposer and founder of The Club, belongs as 
 of right to Reynolds, who first broached the subject to Dr 
 Johnson. “ Reynolds was its Romulus,” says Mrs Thrale, 
 attributing the remark to Dr Johnson, whom it does not 
 appear to fit particularly well, seeing that he would not 
 be very ready to attribute so preponderant a position in the 
 transaction to anyone other than himself — not even to his 
 beloved Reynolds. The original scheme, says Malone, 
 was that it should consist of only twelve members, and 
 that they should be men of such talents, and so well 
 known to each other, that any two of them, if they should 
 not happen to be joined by more, might be good company 
 to each other. It will be noticed that, while talent and 
 social charm were presupposed as necessary qualifications 
 of the members, the professional literary element was by 
 no means a sine qua non . 
 
 The most notable of the original members were 
 Reynolds himself, Dr Johnson, Edmund Burke, Dr 
 Nugent, Bennet Langton, Oliver Goldsmith, The Hon. 
 Topham Beauclerk, and Sir John Hawkins. The latter 
 — for whom Johnson coined the inspired epithet “ unclub- 
 able” — having one evening made an unmannerly attack on 
 Burke, was, on his re-appearance, received with such marked 
 coldness that he took the hint, and did not again frequent 
 the meetings of The Club. The original arrangement was 
 that it should meet once a week for supper at the “ Turk’s 
 Head” in Gerrard Street; but about the year 1778, 
 instead of supping together once a week, the members 
 resolved to dine together once a fortnight during the 
 parliamentary session. The Club was afterwards in- 
 creased to thirty-five members, with a maximum limit 
 of forty, and on that footing has ever since continued, 
 and, indeed, lives on, if it cannot be exactly said to 
 flourish, in the present day. Sir John Hawkins, in a 
 
88 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Life of Johnson, gives the following account of the manner 
 in which The Club obtained its popular designation : — 
 
 “A lady, distinguished by her beauty and taste in litera- 
 . ture (Mrs Montagu, Queen of the Blue Stockings), invited 
 us two successive years to a dinner at her house. Curiosity 
 was her motive, and possibly the desire of intermingling 
 with our conversation the charm of her own. She affected 
 to consider us a set of literary men, and perhaps gave the 
 first occasion for distinguishing the society by the name 
 of the Literary Club, a distinction which it never assumed 
 to itself.” 
 
 In the summer of 1764, Reynolds had a severe and 
 even dangerous fit of illness, which called forth from 
 Johnson the following letter, showing to the full, beneath 
 the formality of the wording, that affectionate regard, that 
 high conception of friendship, which are, perhaps, the 
 noblest elements in his character : — 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I did not hear of your sickness until I 
 heard likewise of your recovery, and therefore escape that 
 part of your pain which every man must feel, to whom 
 you are known as you are known to me. 
 
 “ Having had no particular account of your disorder, I 
 know not in what state it has left you. If the amusement 
 of my company can exhilarate the languor of a slow 
 recovery, I will not delay a day to come to you ; for I 
 know not how I can so effectually promote my own 
 pleasure as by pleasing you, or my own interest, as by 
 preserving you ; in whom, if I should lose you, I should 
 lose almost the only man whom I call a friend. Pray let 
 me hear of you from yourself, or from dear Miss Reynolds. 
 Make my compliments to Mr Mudge. — I am, dear Sir, 
 your most affectionate and most humble servant, 
 
 “Sam. Johnson.” 
 
Carle Van Loo 
 
 89 
 
 Another important portrait, which dates from this year, 
 1764, is that of the gallant Anglo-Teutonic General, Count 
 Schaumbourg-Lippe, who is represented in full-length, 
 with those dramatic and suggestive accessories of a 
 martial character by which Reynolds loved to accentuate 
 his male portraits of this class. The picture is in the 
 royal collection, and was, probably, though not certainly, 
 one of the very few royal commissions — another being 
 the “ Earl of Bute with his Secretary, Mr Chas. Jenkinson,” 
 to which reference has already been made. 
 
 It is at the end of 1764, too, that Carle Van Loo — 
 called in Reynolds’s memoranda “Mr Carlo Vanloo” — 
 appears for a moment on the scene. He is now, within 
 a few months of the close of his successful career, and 
 has been first painter of Louis the Well-Beloved since 
 1762. He has, perhaps, come over to England for diver- 
 sion and rest — after preparing elaborate sketches for the 
 cupola of a chapel in the Invalides, which he was not 
 destined himself to carry out ; and also, no doubt, to pay 
 that visit to England which so many French artists of 
 the century, beginning with Watteau and Largilliere, 
 appear to have deemed obligatory. His art, especially 
 in portrait and portrait-genre — of both of which the 
 Louvre contains elaborate and, in their way, admirable 
 specimens — was marked by a modish, artificial elegance, 
 but was, nevertheless, in its way, of great certainty and 
 completeness. It had, however, in its courtly conven- 
 tionality, none of the human charm, the warmth, or 
 the generalising breadth of Reynolds, and it was highly 
 probable that neither painter was in a position properly 
 to appreciate the art of the other. Northcote tells the 
 story that, on the occasion of one of Van Loo’s visits to 
 Reynolds, when the former had been boasting of his 
 knowledge of the old masters, and of the impossibility 
 
90 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 of taking him in with a copy, the latter showed him a 
 copy of his own, after Rembrandt, of an old woman’s 
 head, and smiled in his sleeve when the French court 
 painter pronounced it an undoubted original — a trick, 
 by the way, harmless enough, yet scarcely altogether in 
 accordance with Reynolds’s exquisite courtesy in his 
 dealings with his fellow-men. 
 
 The Chevalier Van Loo appears to have established 
 himself for a few months in Jermyn Street, seeking to 
 rival the vogue of the English painters ; but he died in 
 July of this year (1765), and it would be difficult to point 
 to any work of his executed in England, although we find 
 that the Exhibition of the Incorporated Society in 1764 
 contained four portrait-pieces by him. 
 
 The foundation of The Club must have had the effect 
 of maturing into friendship the acquaintance which had 
 been established some time previously with two men, 
 both destined to attain the highest renown in their 
 different spheres, and both destined to count among the 
 nearest and dearest of that band of male friends who 
 made up Reynolds’s inner circle, and constituted one of 
 his greatest glories. These friends, both of them original 
 members of The Club, were Oliver Goldsmith and 
 Edmund Burke. 
 
 Goldsmith had now somewhat settled down, if he 
 ever can be said to have settled down, after his rest- 
 less beginnings as a jack-of-all-trades — itinerant scholar, 
 usher, would-be medical man, and literary hack, one after 
 the other, and sometimes two in combination. He was 
 at this period just flitting from one set of chambers to 
 another in the Temple ; since the appearance of The 
 Traveller , in December 1764, he had taken serious rank 
 in literature, and the Vicar of Wakefield was to appear in 
 March 1766. To Dr Johnson, Goldsmith certainly owed 
 
Edmund Burke 
 
 9i 
 
 his rapid rise in the literary hierarchy. He had gone to 
 sup at Goldsmith’s lodgings, as far back as May 1761, and 
 had, on that occasion, appeared dressed with scrupulous 
 neatness, having heard that Goldsmith — proverbially fond 
 of fine clothes, but less so of paying for them— had made 
 fun of the slovenliness of his outward appearance. 
 
 Johnson, indeed, in June 1763, tells Boswell that “Dr 
 Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as an 
 author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been 
 loose in his principles, but he is coming right.” It is not, 
 however, until a little later on, that the portraits at Knole 
 and Woburn Abbey, to be referred to presently, were 
 executed. 
 
 With Burke, the irresistible orator, the patriot, the 
 educator of the Whigs, the political philosopher, more 
 far-seeing than any man of his age, we have less concern 
 here than with Burke, the warm and unswerving friend 
 of Reynolds, the man of letters, the enlightened, and, on 
 more than one occasion, the substantial patron of art. 
 He had already published the curious treatise, A Philo- 
 sophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the 
 Sublime and the Beautiful , which had been reviewed 
 in the Monthly Review by Goldsmith. This was held 
 by Johnson to be “an example of true criticism,” and by 
 the arch-critic, Lessing, deemed well worthy of transla- 
 tion. According to Burke’s protege , the painter, Barry, 
 he never ceased to take a warm and discriminating in- 
 terest in artistic matters, and the latter has described 
 him as having “embraced the whole concerns of art, 
 ancient and modern, foreign as well as domestic.” In 
 1763 he had already begun to befriend Barry, and was in- 
 strumental in bringing him back from Dublin to London ; 
 in 1765 — at a moment when he would appear to have been 
 temporarily relieved from his harassing money troubles 
 
92 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 — he undertook to defray the greater part of the expense 
 of sending him abroad. 
 
 It will be seen how Barry, whose strenuous yet frigid 
 art became, in practice, much what Reynolds’s was in the 
 theory of his Discourses, after having received many 
 obligations from the elder painter, developed temporarily 
 into his malignant enemy and detractor ; but afterwards, 
 when the storm of hatred and envy had spent itself, gave, 
 in his writings as in his acts, the most unequivocal signs 
 of repentance for this attitude. 
 
 It was in the October of this year that Johnson com- 
 pleted his long-expected edition of Shakespeare, the 
 proposals for which had been published as far back as 
 1756. Reynolds took a leading part with other friends 
 of the lexicographer in urging him, for the sake of his 
 reputation, to carry to an end a seemingly uncongenial 
 task, and the painter (according to Leslie and Taylor), 
 in order to advance its completion, even offered to 
 contribute some notes of his own. Whether these were 
 actually written, and, if written, were incorporated in 
 the edition, there is nothing to show. In this year the 
 University of Dublin had bestowed on Johnson the 
 honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, whence he derives 
 the title by which he is universally known. 
 
 To the Spring Gardens Exhibition of 1765, Reynolds 
 contributed (1) an anonymous female portrait; (2) the 
 famous portrait of Lady Sarah Bunbury sacrificing to 
 the Graces. 
 
 “ She kneels at a footstool before a flaming tripod ” — 
 say the biographers — “ over which the triad of the Graces 
 look down upon her as she makes a libation in their 
 honour. A kneeling attendant behind, only less beautiful 
 than her mistress, pours wine from a flagon.” 
 
93 
 
 Lady Sarah Bunbury 
 
 The splendid beauty which had, but a few years previ- 
 ously, won the heart, and nearly the hand, of young King 
 George, is well set off by the draperies of the pseudo- 
 Greek costume, and there cannot be denied to the whole 
 a certain imposing aspect. Yet the general effect is heavy, 
 and — an unusal defect in Reynolds — somewhat lacking in 
 refinement. The group of the Graces, put together from 
 acknowledged classic models, is genuinely harmonious, 
 but all the other paraphernalia of a cheap classicality are 
 tawdry and theatrical in the extreme. It is, indeed, one 
 of the many drawbacks to the master’s mythological 
 pieces that his Olympus is too palpably furnished from 
 the properties of Drury Lane and Covent Garden ; and 
 yet there was no lack, even at that time, of better models, 
 especially among the Graeco-Roman and Roman examples 
 with which for two years he had kept company in the 
 Eternal City. 
 
 Perhaps the best thing in connection with the picture 
 is Mrs Thrale’s irresistibly humorous comment : — “ Lady 
 Sarah never did sacrifice to the Graces ; she was a 
 cricket-player and eat beef-steaks upon the Steyne at 
 Brighthelmstone.” The lady, if she did not sacrifice to 
 the Graces, sacrificed, alas ! too liberally to their mistress; 
 for, later on, following a fashion to which the world in 
 her day extended a certain measure of indulgence, she 
 eloped from her spouse. This is an egarement which 
 even the most censorious should surely be inclined to 
 treat leniently, seeing that upon the questionable inter- 
 lude followed the marriage with Major George Napier, 
 from which sprung two of England’s heroes, Sir William 
 and Sir Charles Napier. 
 
 In such performances as this portrait of Lady Sarah, 
 and still more in official and gala portraits, involving the 
 painting of state robes and accessories, Reynolds’s drapery- 
 
94 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 man Peter Toms, and his pupils proper, Giuseppe Marchi, 
 Berridge, and Barron, took what must be characterised 
 as an undue share — inevitably detracting from the enjoy- 
 ment to be derived from the master’s own conception and 
 brush-work. On the other hand it must be owned that 
 the aforesaid drapery-men had, under their master’s 
 tuition and supervision, acquired very considerable ability 
 in performing their part, and that their work, brought 
 subsequently into harmony, no doubt, by Reynolds 
 himself, rarely constituted a blot on the ensemble, though 
 it, of course, lowered its general quality. And then it 
 must be remembered that there were illustrious examples 
 among the painter’s most revered predecessors for this 
 amiable weakness. To all will at once occur the name of 
 Raphael, towards the close of his third period so little 
 able to devote his own brush to the execution even of his 
 most famous masterpieces ; of Reynolds’s much-imitated 
 Rembrandt ; of Rubens, whose great atelier became 
 almost a manufactory ; of Van Dyck, whose third, or 
 fashionable, English period contains so many flagrantly 
 inferior performances. 
 
 It is not possible to defend our master from the well- 
 merited reproaches which have been levelled at him in con- 
 nection with these frigid, empty classicalities, these cheap 
 and unconvincing adjuncts of an impossible mythology, con- 
 ventionalising rather than really enhancing the beauties 
 to which they serve as a setting. Gainsborough, though 
 like Reynolds, if in somewhat different fashion, he 
 manipulated the dress of his time so as to render it less 
 recalcitrant to artistic treatment, never transmogrified 
 his sitters into heathen divinities more suggestive of the 
 ballet and the masquerade than the true Olympus. Rey- 
 nolds, with his “ Lady Sarah Bunbury sacrificing to the 
 Graces,” with his “ Mrs Hale as Euphrosyne,” with his 
 
Mythological Portraits . 95 
 
 “Lady Blake as Venus,” with his “Duchess of Man- 
 chester as Diana,” was the greatest, though by no means 
 the only, sinner in this respect. Classicality, or what 
 people were then pleased to accept as such, was in the 
 air, radiating not so much from France — then metamor- 
 phosing the freer and less formal Louis Quinze into the 
 less free and more classical Louis Seize style — as from 
 Italy, at that time, as in the Elizabethan age, in much 
 closer and more direct connection with England than the 
 nearer country. Was the cause the increased study of the 
 antique, promoted by the famous Winckelmann ? Was it 
 more particularly the revelation of classic art in its smaller, 
 prettier phase, brought about by the unearthing of 
 Pompeii and Herculaneum ? That this peculiar phase of 
 pseudo-classicism, if not born in England, flourished and 
 acquired increased proportions on English soil is un- 
 deniable. To obtain the conviction that this is so, one 
 need only compare what Cipriani, Bartolozzi, and Angelica 
 Kauffmann produced before they came to England with 
 what they did when acclimatised here. 
 
 The Pennsylvanian Quaker, young Benjamin West, 
 who, coming to Europe at the age of twenty-one, had, 
 after spending three years studying in Italy, settled in 
 London in 1763, showed, at this exhibition of 1765, 
 “Jupiter and Europa,” “Venus and Cupid,” and two por- 
 traits. Gainsborough appeared with a full-length eques- 
 trian portrait of General Honeywood — coveted by 
 King — and a portrait of Colonel Nugent. Poor Wilson 
 went on showing those splendid landscapes of his — truly 
 classical not in subject alone, but in conception, and in- 
 spired in equal measure by Claude and by nature — and 
 went on being cold-shouldered by the buyers and the 
 public. 
 
 Somewhat of an enigma is Reynolds’s intimacy with 
 
9 6 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the brilliant, sinister demagogue Wilkes, as revealed by 
 the Pocket-Books. This appears to have been carried on 
 even when the outlaw was lying in hiding near London, 
 or braving the risk of arrest in the town itself, and there- 
 fore at some personal inconvenience to the painter. The 
 latter had, it must be owned, an unequalled power of 
 placing himself in sympathy with all kinds and conditions 
 of men, and appreciated daring and strength of person- 
 ality wherever he found it. Moreover, Wilkes must 
 indeed have been a veritable charmeur to succeed in 
 conquering Dr Johnson, armed at all points and pre- 
 pared to be at his surliest, as we know that he most 
 completely did. By the side of such a conquest as this, 
 that of Reynolds must have appeared easy indeed. 
 
 It is in October 1766, that occurs in the Pocket-Book 
 for that year the first entry of Miss Angelica Kauffmann 
 as a sitter. As “ Miss Angel ” is still popularly supposed 
 to have played an important part in Reynolds’s life — to 
 have been, in fact, the object of the only tender attach- 
 ment to be inferred in this well-rounded life, blessed with 
 unexampled success, with troops of friends such as no 
 man ever had, but not gladdened with love — it is neces- 
 sary to devote a little attention to the circumstances 
 of his connection with a lady for whom he showed an 
 affectionate, nay, it may be, a tender regard, but, so far 
 as the evidence on the point tends to show, nothing 
 more. What the lady’s own views on the subject were, 
 is by no means so clear. She was sentimental rather 
 than passionate, and had withal a keen eye to the 
 main chance in matters matrimonial ; she was, above 
 all things, a coquette — the one who in the amatory 
 duel “ se laisse aimer? but who feels aggrieved if 
 she cannot, everywhere alike, be allowed to occupy 
 that position, so flattering to the vanity, even if not 
 
Angelica Kauffmann 97 
 
 equally satisfying to the heart, of the ambitious 
 fair. 
 
 In a recent biography of Angelica Kauffman by Miss 
 Francis A. Gerard, some interesting information has been 
 collected with regard to this portion of the celebrated 
 artist’s career, and of this, collated with the particulars 
 obtained from other sources, it is proposed to make use. 
 Born at Coire, in the Canton of the Grisons — or, as the 
 more recent authorities have it, at Schwarzenburg, in the 
 Bregenzer Wald — in 1741, she had already, young as she 
 was, attained a certain vogue as a painter both at Rome, 
 Naples, and Venice. In the first-named city she had met 
 Winckelmann, of whom she painted two portraits, now 
 respectively at Frankfort and Zurich. The influence of 
 this famous man, then a kind of art-pontiff in Italy, may 
 well have had something to do with the development of 
 her style in the direction of what was then deemed to be 
 classicism. In 1766, having made great friends with the 
 English envoy at Venice, Lord Wentworth, and his wife, 
 she decided to leave the City of the Lagunes for England, 
 with Lady Wentworth, and, under her wing, was at once 
 introduced into the best English society. 
 
 In 1765, according to Leslie and Taylor, she had 
 appeared for the first time as an exhibitor among the 
 Associated Painters at “ Mr Moreing’s great room in 
 Maiden Lane,” with a somewhat feeble portrait of 
 Garrick. If this be really the case, the year of her coming 
 to England must, however, have been not 1766 but 1765. 
 In 1766 she sent to the same exhibition a “ Shepherd and 
 Shepherdess of Arcadia, moralising at the side of a 
 Sepulchre,” a subject of which the biographers say that 
 it was “used originally by Guercino, and imitated from 
 him by Sir Joshua in his picture of Mrs Bouverie and 
 Mrs Crewe a few years later.” They seem to forget, how- 
 
 G 
 
9 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 ever, the noblest of all the versions of the subject — that of 
 Nicholas Poussin now in the Louvre — in which three 
 shepherds and a young girl, classically-draped, pensively 
 consider a tomb sheltered by trees, one of the youths 
 kneeling as he points to the inscription, “Etin Arcadia 
 ego? These words are textually repeated, too, by Rey- 
 nolds in his picture above named. 
 
 Miss Angelica was first made acquainted with the 
 English master by Lord Exeter, at a party given by 
 Lord Spencer. Writing in July 1766 to her father, who 
 had not yet joined her in England, she says : — “ I have 
 been to visit several of the studios here, but there is none 
 to compare with that of Mr Reynolds. He is decidedly 
 the first English painter. He has a peculiar method, and 
 his pictures are chiefly historical (sic). He has a light 
 brush (J)ennello volante\ which produces a wonderful effect 
 in light and shade.” In October 1767, she writes again : — 
 “ He is one of my kindest friends, and never ceases prais- 
 ing me to everyone. As a proof of his admiration for me, 
 he has asked me to sit for my picture to him, and in 
 return I am to paint him.” 
 
 This interchange of courtesies between painters recalls 
 the visit of the celebrated Venetian pastelliste, La Rosalba, 
 to Paris, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when 
 in similar fashion she and Watteau painted each the 
 other’s portrait. 
 
 Though a little out of place, as to date, it may be well 
 to give here the information that Reynolds’s portrait of 
 Angelica appeared in the Exhibition of the Society of 
 Incorporated Artists of 1769, and was engraved by Bar- 
 tolozzi. Angelica’s portrait of her brother-artist was 
 painted for the friend of the latter, Mr Parker of Saltram, 
 afterwards created Earl of Morley. Her portraits by her- 
 self are to be found in the National Portrait Gallery, the 
 
Angelica Kauffmann 99 
 
 Berlin Museum, the Alte Pinakothek of Munich, at Inns- 
 bruck, and in the Painters’ Gallery at the Uffizi. 
 
 Not a few foreign writers — to cite most of whom, how- 
 ever, would, in most cases, be to cite the unknown or the 
 forgotten — have, on the one hand, accused Reynolds of an 
 unworthy jealousy of the engaging girl-painter, and, on the 
 other, have striven to make him out hopelessly in love 
 and taking revenge for his rejection by joining in an 
 organised and abominable conspiracy against her. All 
 three statements appear, on the face of them, and doubly 
 so after examination, equally unworthy of credence. 
 The ridiculous assumption of Reynolds’s professional 
 jealousy vanishes into thin air when confronted with the 
 fact that he sent her many sitters, and, among them, per- 
 sonages of the highest position. 
 
 And then as to the supposed love-passages ! How 
 much has been built up on how slender a substructure — not 
 much more than the one word “ Fiori that pretty and 
 even, if you will, tender reminder attached to her name in 
 the Pocket-Book! In considering any graceful courtesies 
 shown, any hyperbolic compliments paid to the charming 
 stranger by Reynolds, who was some eighteen years her 
 senior, it is necessary, moreover, to bear in mind his 
 natural urbanity, and that peculiarly amiable quality, the 
 constant desire to be of service to others. He liked to 
 live in an atmosphere of friendship, not heated beyond 
 a certain point ; to radiate a light which brightened, even 
 if it did not much warm. What his carefully turned and 
 polished compliments, fashioned on the grandiose if rather 
 empty Johnsonian model, meant, may be best appreciated 
 by remembering what he said to others — as when he re- 
 quested to be allowed to go down to posterity on the 
 hem of Mrs Siddons’s garment. And then, though his 
 subsequent relation to Miss Burney was, it must be allowed, 
 
ioo Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 much more parental, and less tender, than that which 
 bound him to Angelica, his friendship for her was, to the 
 full, as solid a one, and was manifested in quite as many 
 acts of kindness and beneficence. 
 
 On the other hand, Nathaniel Dance was undoubtedly 
 in love with Angelica, and was rejected by her, a fate 
 which befel also the passionate, imaginative young Switzer 
 Fuseli, then newly settled in London, as yet a novice 
 in art. J. T. Smith in his Life of Nollekens accuses her 
 of coquetry of a type so vulgar and obvious that it is 
 difficult to accept his account as absolutely veracious, so 
 little does it accord with other contemporary pictures of 
 the sentimental lady. “ Once,” he says, “ she professed to 
 be enamoured of Nathaniel Dance ; to the next visitor she 
 would disclose the secret that she was dying for Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds.” And again, the same blunt personage 
 describes her in a private box at Drury Lane, carrying on 
 a pronounced flirtation with both Dance and Fuseli at one 
 and the same time — suffering, indeed (if the truth must 
 be told), an arm of either round her waist, and herself 
 impartially holding a hand of each of her enterprising 
 lovers. 
 
 Many years later, when she had again settled down in 
 Rome, she carried on a sentimental, middle-aged, and 
 wholly decorous flirtation with Goethe, who read to her 
 his Iphigenia , and sat to her for his portrait, afterwards 
 sending her from Germany the manuscript of Egmont. 
 It was evidently the woman who attracted him, and not 
 the painter, to the limitations and defects of whose art 
 even friendship could not blind him. This is a more 
 pleasing picture than the last, and one which makes us 
 loth to believe Angelica, even some twenty years earlier, 
 capable of the boarding-school coquetries of which she 
 has been accused. 
 
TOI 
 
 Angelica! s Marriage 
 
 It was in 1767 that the lady was, less by love than 
 by social ambition, decoyed into her unfortunate marriage 
 with a showy impostor, calling himself Count Frederick 
 de Horn, but really, so far as can be made out, the valet 
 of the person he undertook to represent. It has been 
 stated that it was at Dr Burney’s in St Martin’s Street that 
 Angelica first met the scoundrel who entrapped her, but this 
 cannot be accurate, seeing that the Burney family did not mi- 
 grate thither until 1773. The ill-matched pair were married 
 at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, and it was three weeks 
 before the enormity of the deception practised on the unfor- 
 tunate girl began to reveal itself. The false Count, after a 
 partial disclosure had become inevitable, attempted to carry 
 off his wife by violence, with the object, as may be sur- 
 mised, of living off her earnings. It was not until the 
 10th of February, 1768, after Angelica had been made 
 to suffer terribly for her imprudence, that a formal deed 
 of separation was drawn up and signed. 
 
 It is here that calumny steps in and endeavours to con- 
 nect Reynolds with his young friend’s misfortune, making 
 out the humiliating union a plot, and the master a partici- 
 pator in it. G. G. de Rossi, in his full biography of the artist 
 (Florence, 1810), has hinted at an unreciprocated passion of 
 Reynolds for Angelica ; but Wtirzbach in his Lexicon says : 
 “ Suspicion in this unpleasant affair fell upon Reynolds.” 
 Steinberg goes further, saying, “ There is not the small- 
 est doubt that this contemptible mystification was planned 
 for the humiliation of the artist, and that Reynolds had a 
 hand in the game. Whether it was he, or a friend of his, 
 an artist, who had proposed for Angelica, and been re- 
 fused (Nathaniel Dance?), it is enough that, out of revenge, 
 these two concocted the plot to disgrace her.” A high 
 modern authority, Herr Dohme, has, in his Kunst and 
 Kiinstler, according to Miss Gerard, made some reference to 
 
 
102 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the matter in the above sense. The new biographer sug- 
 gests that Nathaniel Dance may possibly have suborned 
 the adventurer with the assistance of his friend, Nathaniel 
 Hone, who, some years afterwards, made a notorious 
 attack upon both Reynolds and Angelica, to which it will 
 be necessary to refer later on. But as this hypothesis 
 appears to be altogether unsupported by proof, it must 
 be left to take care of itself. This sensational and, as 
 daily journalism would phrase it, “ romantic ” version of 
 Angelica’s misadventure — one, however, which is fiction 
 not founded on fact — bears a singular resemblance to the 
 discomfiture of Bulwer - Lytton’s heroine, Pauline, in the 
 Lady of Lyons ; and the surmise is surely a fair one, that 
 the story of the plot devised by the disappointed suitor to 
 marry the proud bourgeoise of Lyons to the gardener’s son 
 is derived from the equally romantic “ drama in real life.” 
 
 It is significant that Angelica’s biographer, De Rossi, 
 to whom these facts have come direct from her father, 
 Johann Josef Kauffmann, makes no mention of the so- 
 called Reynolds conspiracy, although, as we have seen, 
 he mentions the supposed attachment. If any disproof 
 of a malevolent and altogether futile legend, such as is 
 the foregoing, were wanted, it would be found in the 
 fact that, a year after the unfortunate mystification, Rey- 
 nolds publicly exhibits her portrait, and that she is, at the 
 close of 1768— doubtless at his suggestion, or, at any rate, 
 with his full approval — chosen as one of the original mem- 
 bers of the new Royal Academy. Moreover, the urbane 
 President remains her fast friend in the succeeding years, 
 and continues to shower favours upon her and her family. 
 
 To those having the least acquaintance with Reynolds, 
 the temperate, the courteous, and, above all, the busy, the 
 idea of his playing the dark, midnight villain is irresistibly 
 ludicrous. 
 
Angelicas Art 1 03 
 
 Still, hearken to the Bazile of Beaumarchais’s Barbier 
 de Seville in his immortal exposition of calumny : — 
 
 “ Croyez qiiil n'y a pas de plate mlchancete, pas 
 d'horreurs , pas de conte absurde , qu'on ne fasse adopter 
 aux oisifs d'une grande ville , en s'y prenant bien . . . .” 
 
 At this stage it is difficult, indeed, to understand the 
 enthusiasm which Angelica Kauffmann’s art excited, not 
 only with the general public, but among artists. Its feeble 
 and vapid sentimentalising of classic subjects and motives 
 happened to hit the popular taste just at a moment when 
 sentiment, or rather what our neighbours more justly style 
 sensiblerie, was still an indispensable adjunct to gentility ; 
 when, at the same time, the love of the antique, as it 
 was then understood, was greatly on the increase. A 
 combination of thin and watery sentiment with a not less 
 superficial and pretty classicality was apparently just the 
 thing wanted, as being well within reach of the majority. 
 And then the fair limner’s neo-classicism was, at least, 
 decorative in aspect, and such as to enhance, while it was 
 enhanced by, the internal architecture, the decoration, and 
 the furniture of her period. The fact remains that, save 
 the graceful Venetian La Rosalba, who began the cen- 
 tury, and the fascinating and capable, if at the same time 
 cold and self-conscious, portrait-painter, Madame Vi g6e- 
 Lebrun, who ended it, no female artist achieved in her 
 day so wide-spread a fame as Angelica Kauffmann. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Exhibition of 1766 — “ Mrs Hale as Euphrosyne” — Portraits of the Marquis 
 of Granby — West’s “Orestes and Pylades” — Reynolds elected to 
 Dilettanti Society — Thursday Night Club — Samuel Foote — Contributes 
 Nothing to Exhibition of 1767 — Goldsmith’s “Good-Natured Man” — 
 Portrait of Goldsmith — “Crossing the Brook” — Journey to Paris in 
 Autumn of 1768 — Notes on Journey — Goldsmith’s Humorous Lines 
 on Reynolds and Angelica Kauflfmann — Internecine Feuds of Incor- 
 porated Society — Negotiations for Foundation of Royal Academy- 
 Part played by the King — Attitude of Reynolds — Constitution of 
 New Body — First Members — Baretti — First Exhibition of the Royal 
 Academy — “Mrs Bouverie and Mrs Crewe” — “Mrs Bouverie with 
 Her Child” — Sir Joshua’s Social Engagements — Dinner at Boswell’s 
 Lodgings — Mrs Montagu on Shakespeare — Baretti’s Trial for Murder 
 — Portrait of Baretti — Mrs Thrale’s Verses on it — Sir Joshua’s Negro 
 robbed — Obtains Mitigation of Sentence. 
 
 Let us now return to the more normal incidents in our 
 master’s career, after this long digression on a subject 
 which cannot fail, nevertheless, to appear important to 
 those who wish to estimate rightly, not only Reynolds the 
 painter, but Reynolds the man. 
 
 He contributed the following four pictures to the 
 exhibition of 1766: — 
 
 “ Mrs Hale as Euphrosyne ” (Milton’s l’Allegro). 
 
 One of his best-known but least successful examples 
 of the mythological-allegorical mood. 
 
 In this the smiling or smirking countenance of the 
 jocund goddess, and her swift advance across the canvas, 
 do not save the picture as a whole from complete failure, 
 so lacking is it in true grace and spontaneity. 
 
 104 
 
Exh ibition of 1 766 105 
 
 A portrait of the Marquis of Granby. 
 
 Another of Sir Geoffrey Amherst. 
 
 The group of Mr Paine, the architect, with his son, 
 now in the Bodleian Collection. 
 
 The portrait of Lord Granby, erroneously described by 
 Leslie and Taylor as a half-length, was, on the contrary, the 
 great full-length, showing the gallant general, who was this 
 very year appointed Commander-in-chief, standing at 
 ease in a military dress, wearing a bright cuirass, over 
 which is flung the loose coat of the Blues ; he rests his left 
 arm on the withers of his horse, on the other side of which 
 stands a negro — the background being a battle scene. 
 The catalogue of the exhibition is pretty conclusive on 
 the point ; it describes the picture in the anonymous fashion 
 of the time as “ A General Officer, whole-length .” The full- 
 length (96 in. by 80 in.) exists in several examples, of which 
 one is at Woburn Abbey ; another belongs to H.M. 
 the Queen, and is preserved at St James’s Palace (No. 56 
 at the Guelph Exhibition of the New Gallery) ; and yet 
 another (of middling quality only) is at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, It has been splendidly mezzotinted by James 
 Watson. 
 
 Leslie and Taylor have, no doubt, confused this version 
 with the half-length in which Lord Granby appears in a cos- 
 tume almost identical, and an attitude very similar, leaning 
 against a column. This last must, however, have been 
 painted some years earlier, since it was mezzotinted in 1760 
 by Richard Houston, and again in the same year by C. 
 Spooner. Both pictures are among the frankest and 
 most unconventional pieces of characterisation that Rey- 
 nolds has left us. The bluff, manly soldier with his bald 
 head produces at first a curious effect on the beholder, 
 so unusual is such a spectacle in the portraiture of the 
 eighteenth century, save in that of artists, authors, and 
 
106 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 philosophers ; but the sympathy of the delineation soon 
 wins its way notwithstanding. 
 
 At the same exhibition, Gainsborough had, among 
 other things, the great portrait of Garrick, to which 
 detailed reference has already been made. Reynolds’s 
 four pupils, Marchi, Barron, Berridge, and Parry, had each 
 of them a portrait. Both Hudson and Cotes were well 
 represented, while John Singleton Copley, the New 
 England painter who was soon to become acclimatised in 
 England, is represented by “ A Boy with a Flying Squirrel/* 
 The great sensation of the year, as Northcote tells us (Vol. 
 I. p. 142) is caused by Benjamin West’s classical pictures — 
 “ The Continence of Scipio ” ; “ Orestes and Pylades ” ; 
 “ Cymon and Iphigenia”; and “Diana and Endymion/* 
 These efforts in the direction of the grand style by an 
 English, or rather an Anglo-American, painter, at a time 
 when such subjects were supposed to be sacred to the 
 Bolognese school and their followers in Italy and France, 
 excited prodigious attention ; the rush to see the “ Orestes 
 and Pylades,” both at the artist’s house and at the ex- 
 hibition, being tremendous. The downfall of this picture 
 from its high estate can only be paralleled by the fate of 
 Guerin’s once famous “ Retour de Marcus- Sextus” which, 
 when shown in Paris in the year 1799, carried all before it, 
 being publicly crowned by the artists who had taken part in 
 the competition. It now hangs neglected or mocked at in 
 the Louvre, as frigid a piece of pseudo-classicality as even 
 the school of David ever produced. The fate of the 
 “ Orestes and Pylades ” is even more humiliating, seeing 
 that it is of, but not in, the National Gallery — belonging 
 to the national collection, but at present neither hung 
 nor catalogued as part of it. 
 
 Reynolds had, in 1766, painted the King’s youngest 
 sister, unhappy Princess Caroline Matilda — of Struensee 
 
Other Pictures of 17 66 107 
 
 memories — just before her miserable marriage with the 
 King of Denmark. The painter told Northcote he could 
 not make a good picture of her, as she was weeping almost 
 all the time she was sitting. 
 
 Sittings up to the close of 1766 had been given by 
 the unfortunate Marquis of Tavistock, husband of Lady 
 Elizabeth Keppel, Reynolds’s valued friend and, as has 
 been seen, one of his favourite sitters. His portraits 
 by our master are : one in the collection of the Duke of 
 Bedford at Woburn, and another which was with the 
 Keppel pictures at Quiddenham (No. 151 in the Reynolds 
 Exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery). Lord Tavistock 
 was killed while out hunting in the early part of 1767, 
 and the fair, gentle Marchioness never recovered the 
 terrible shock which she thus sustained ; she died of 
 decline at Lisbon in November of the same year. 
 
 Reynolds was pretty frequently in the company of 
 Kitty Clive, both in 1766 and at other periods, but it 
 does not appear that he ever painted the great comic 
 actress, who had been portrayed by Hogarth among 
 others. She was at this time mature and florid, nay, 
 much over-blown, and being renowned for her good sense, 
 as well as her vis comica , she may not have cared to have 
 her features — at no period of her life beautiful — perpetuated 
 at this advanced stage of her brilliant career, 
 
 It is in the early part of 1866 that must necessarily 
 be placed the interesting unfinished canvas, “ The Second 
 Marquis of Rockingham and Edmund Burke, his Secretary,” 
 contributed by Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A., to the Rey- 
 nolds Exhibition — a painting doubtless intended to com- 
 memorate the brilliant part played by Burke in the 
 Rockingham Administration, and the loyal service ren- 
 dered to his chief. This work, of an unusually energetic 
 and dramatic character, remained unfinished in the pos- 
 
108 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 session of Sir Joshua at the time of his death, having been 
 put aside either, as has been suggested, on account of 
 the lack of repose in the composition, or perhaps because 
 it represented in politics what turned out to be only 
 an ephemeral state of things. It passed from the 
 collection of the Marchioness of Thomond (Reynolds’s 
 niece, Miss Palmer) into the possession of Thomas 
 Phillips, R.A., and then into that of Sir F. Grant, P.R.A., 
 before being acquired by the actual President of the Royal 
 Academy. Another portrait of Burke, by our master, 
 was (No. 65), lent by Mr William Maxted to the same 
 exhibition, and yet another was contributed to the Guelph 
 Exhibition by the venerable Archdeacon Burney. 
 
 In 1766, or the beginning of 1767, was, in all proba- 
 bility, painted the portrait of the youthful Duke of Devon- 
 shire, shown by the Hon. F. B. Massey Mainwaring at the 
 Guelph Exhibition, in which the head of the Cavendishes 
 is depicted at the age of eighteen, in a three-quarter length, 
 wearing a crimson-slashed Vandyck costume, with a fall- 
 ing lace collar, and powdered hair, en perruque. 
 
 Reynolds had, in May 1766, been elected a member, 
 but not yet the painter-in-ordinary, of the Dilettanti 
 Society — his sponsor being the same Lord Charlemont 
 who was, without sufficient foundation, deemed to be 
 one of the founders of the Literary Club — and he ap- 
 pears to have regularly attended the Sunday dinners, at 
 which by no means art alone was the subject of discus- 
 sion. A club of quite another kind was the “ Thursday 
 Night Club,” which met at the “ Star-and-Garter ” in Pall 
 Mall, and was composed of hard-living fashionables like 
 Gilly Williams, Selwyn, Topham Beauclerk, Lord March, 
 Lord Carlisle, and Roger Mostyn. To this Reynolds, drift- 
 ing more and more into the great world, yet remaining 
 entirely faithful to all his friends in other circles, had also 
 
Other Pictures 0/1776 109 
 
 been elected, and he is, moreover, not infrequently to be 
 heard of at the subscription masquerades given by elegants 
 at Carlisle House and the sumptuously-adorned Pantheon. 
 
 Another striking figure among the sitters of 1767 is the 
 celebrated comedian, Samuel Foote, the Coquelin of his 
 time, and the brilliant, reckless conversationalist in whose 
 presence Garrick himself paused abashed and shorn of all 
 his aplomb. Indeed, his fame as a table wit and a mimic 
 almost exceeded that which he won and maintained on the 
 boards. We find even Dr Johnson, who affected to treat 
 the histrion de haut en bas , and systematically made light 
 of his pretensions, saying, in recounting a meeting at one 
 of those dinners of wits and celebrities so common at that 
 time : “ Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was 
 resolved not to be pleased, and it is very difficult to 
 please a man against his will. I went on eating my 
 dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him. But 
 the dog was so very comical that I was obliged to lay 
 down my knife and fork, throw myself back in my chair, 
 and fairly laugh it out. No, sir, he was irresistible.” 
 
 Reynolds himself is credited — on what authority does 
 not appear — with having said that “ by Foote’s buffoonery 
 and broad-faced merriment public decency and everything 
 estimable among men were trod under foot” — a phrase 
 which sounds rather like Johnson, grave and censorious, 
 coming on the top of Johnson, gay and jovial, and is 
 indeed a judgment more severe than the genial master 
 was apt to pass on his fellow-men, especially his sitters 
 and associates. 
 
 Foote’s masterly and singularly living portrait by our 
 master shows him leaning on a stick with his arms crossed, 
 wearing a white coat, yellow-flowered waistcoat, and wig. 
 It was sent by Lord Sackville from Knole to the Guelph 
 Exhibition ; another likeness is at the Garrick Club. 
 
i io Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Zoffany, who revelled in the humours of the stage, and 
 depicted its comic aspects with a rare mastery and spon- 
 taneity, has given us Foote and Hayes in the character of 
 “ Major Sturgeon ” and “ Sir Jacob Jollup ” in the farce of 
 The Mayor of Garralt (Guelph Exhibition, No. 315) ; and 
 again, Foote and Watson in the characters of “The 
 President ” and “ Dr Last ” in The Devil upon Two Sticks 
 (Guelph Exhibition, No. 317). Both these became the 
 property of the Earl of Carlisle — the same nobleman who 
 purchased the German painter’s “ David Garrick as Abel 
 Drugger,” presently to be mentioned (Guelph Exhibition, 
 No. 316), and all three now belong to the present earl. 
 
 Barry, who was studying in Rome under the aegis of 
 the generous Burke, writes to Dr Sleigh, in November 
 1867, words which show his judgment on the works 
 of the head of the English school, not yet obscured by 
 disappointment and unworthy jealousy : — 
 
 “ I shall, with heartfelt satisfaction, say that Reynolds 
 and our people at home possess, with a very few excep- 
 tions, all that exists of sound art in Europe.” 
 
 This year for the first time Reynolds failed to con- 
 tribute anything to the Spring Gardens Exhibition ; 
 whether because— as Burke, writing to Barry, says — he, 
 though having ready “ some better portraits than he ever 
 before painted, did not think mere heads sufficient,” or, 
 more probably, for the reason that he was disgusted with 
 the internal squabbles of the rival factions in the Incor- 
 porated Society of Artists. On this occasion Gains- 
 borough shone practically without a rival, exhibiting 
 three portraits and a landscape. Among the other 
 contributors were Francis Cotes, John Singleton Cop- 
 ley, Nathaniel Dance, Cosway — exhibiting for the first 
 time ; Benjamin West — more classical than ever — Zoffany, 
 
Portrait of Goldsmith . 1 1 1 
 
 Wright of Derby, Richard Wilson — with English land- 
 scapes and not Italian this time — Zuccarelli, and, among 
 the water-colour painters, Cozens, the brothers Paul and 
 Thomas Sandby, and the Rookers. 
 
 Reynolds had already, in November 1767, made one of 
 the company assembled at Burke’s rooms to hear him 
 read, on the author’s behalf, Goldsmith’s comedy, The 
 Good-Natured Man , which, after many squabbles, had 
 been withdrawn from Garrick, and accepted for produc- 
 tion at Covent Garden. He now, on the 29th of January 
 1768, witnessed the premiere of the play introduced by a 
 ponderous prologue from the pen of Dr Johnson. We 
 know that the production was, on the first night, by no 
 means an unqualified success, the realistic language and 
 demeanour of the bailiffs, in the famous scene with Honey- 
 wood, appearing vulgar to the audience in the galleries, 
 who signified their displeasure by hissing. We know, 
 too, that Goldsmith, although he professed himself well 
 satisfied with the result, when left alone with Johnson 
 burst into tears and vowed he would never write again. 
 H’s portrait was painted by Reynolds as far back 
 as 1766, but was not exhibited until it appeared at the 
 Royal Academy in 1770, as a pendant to that of Johnson, 
 (Nos. 205 and 21 1 at the Guelph Exhibition, to which 
 the pictures were contributed from Knole). The famous 
 canvas is a half-length, showing the poet in a black coat 
 and brown mantle with fur, holding in his left hand a 
 book ; his limner and friend having, with admirable 
 judgment, avoided presenting his sitter in any of those 
 too sumptuous garments for which the naively-con- 
 ceited author was celebrated. It is of this portrait that 
 Leslie and Taylor, who, by the way, somewhat over- 
 estimate its artistic value, have said : — “ Sir Joshua meant 
 to paint the author of the Vicar of Wakefield and of the 
 
 
1 1 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Deserted Village , and not the Goldy who was laughed at 
 by Boswell and Hawkins, and quizzed by Burke.” 
 
 Miss Reynolds, whose judgment was sounder than 
 were her performances as a painter, thought it marvellous 
 that so much dignity could have been given to the poet’s 
 face, while preserving so strong a likeness. “For” — she 
 remarked — “ Dr Goldsmith’s cast of countenance, and, 
 indeed, his whole figure, impressed one at first sight with 
 an idea of his being a low mechanic, particularly, I believe, 
 a journeyman tailor. . . .” 
 
 In 1768 Reynolds exhibited for the last time in the 
 Spring Gardens gallery, sending to it one of his most 
 delightfully natural and humorous performances, “ Cross- 
 ing the Brook,” as it is now called. This is a portrait 
 of Hester Frances Cholmondeley (afterwards Lady Bell- 
 ingham), the child of Peg Woffington’s noisy, brilliant 
 sister, who had married a clergyman, the Hon. Robert 
 Cholmondeley, and was not exactly to be classed among, 
 although she consorted with, the Blue Stockings. It was 
 she who, ten years later, went mad about “ Evelina,” and 
 treated Fanny Burney, at Sir Joshua’s, to the overwhelm- 
 ing and altogether disconcerting reception of which the 
 authoress gives so amusing an account. The little girl is 
 shown, with inimitable naivete , carrying her struggling, 
 kicking dog across a brook ; the momentariness of the 
 motive, that quality for which the painter has been so 
 much praised — perhaps over-praised — being hit to a 
 nicety, without loss of the true characterisation which is 
 so difficult to combine with it. It is not a show piece — 
 the harmonies of the child’s dress being sober green and 
 brown, and the rest of the colouring to match — but in 
 its record of the ways of childhood truthfully and with 
 infinite sympathy observed, it is greatly to be preferred 
 to such studies of children as “ Collina,” “ Muscipula,” 
 
“ Crossing the Brook ” 
 
 1 r 3 
 
 the “ Infant Academy,” “ The Age of Innocence,” etc., in 
 which Reynolds’s admiration for archness has led him 
 into a regrettable minauderie and exaggeration. “ Crossing 
 the Brook” was No. 57 at the Reynolds Exhibition, to 
 which it was contributed by Mrs Buchanan Riddell. 
 
 It would be tedious and unnecessary to enter here upon 
 a discussion of the internal dissensions which rent asunder 
 the Spring Gardens Society, and practically brought it to 
 the ground. Reynolds, like many other artists of repute, 
 had withdrawn himself from its meetings, which he had, 
 indeed, ceased to attend some time before he withdrew 
 his support as a contributor. Some few remarks on the 
 subject must be made a little later on in connection with 
 the incubation and foundation of the Royal Academy. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1768 that Reynolds made a 
 journey to Paris in the company of Edmund Burke’s 
 younger brother, Richard Burke. 
 
 The following notes on the trip are taken from the 
 Pocket-Book (Leslie and Taylor — Vol. I. p. 285) : — 
 
 “ September 9th. Friday. Set out for Paris, arrived 
 at Canterbury. 
 
 “ Saturday. Dover, sailed at eleven in the morning. 
 
 “Sunday the nth, two in the morning, Calais. 
 Boulogne, axletree broke. Beds of mussels. 
 
 “ Monday, dined at Abbeville. Lay at Amiens, saw 
 the Water Tower. 
 
 “ Tuesday, dined at St Just ; the axletree broke. Lay 
 at Chantilly. In the palace are two pictures of Vandyck, 
 a man in armour (of which there is a print by Pontius), 
 and a lady ; and the allegorical portrait of the Prince of 
 Conde, mentioned by the Abbe de Bois, painted by 
 Corneille. Saw Champlatrier at Ecouen. Saw another 
 hotel of Prince Conde. 
 
 H 
 
1 14 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “Saturday, dined at St Denis. In the Cathedral or 
 Domo is an excellent statue of an angel, in the act of writ- 
 ing with his finger, something in the attitude of the slave 
 with the thorn. Lay at Paris. Hotel Platier, Rue Platier. 
 
 “Thursday, dined at Mr Panchaud’s,saw the Palais Royal. 
 Drank tea at Mr Flint’s, after which the Italian Opera. 
 
 “ Saturday, dined with Lord Mulgrave, saw the 
 Luxemburg, and the French comedy, the Misanthrope — 
 Preville, lady ; Physician (?) ; Mol£, Coxcomb. 
 
 “ Sunday, Mr and Mrs Flint dined with us. The 
 Italian comedy. Carlini.” 
 
 “Monday 19th. Saw pictures. 
 
 “ Tuesday, 20th. The collection of Monsieur L’Em- 
 pereur — about six Teniers ; two small sketches of Rubens ; 
 a Boor saying Grace, Rembrandt — at 12, Mr Panchaud. 
 
 “Wednesday, 9. Mr Panchaud. 
 
 “ Thursday, 10. Mr Collins. 
 
 “Friday, 11 . To go with a picture-dealer to see Mr 
 Bernway. 
 
 “ Saturday, 10. Mr Ramee ; 2, Miss Flint ; Versailles. 
 
 “Thursday, 29th. Invalides. Dined in company 
 with a vie . . . 
 
 Friday, 30th. Abbe at the Sulpice ; Hotel de Tou- 
 louse. Gallery. Pietro da Cortona and Guido. 
 
 “ October 2nd, Sunday. Sceaux ; Choisy. 
 
 “ Monday. La Muette; St Cloud ; Bellevue; Meudon ; 
 the extensive banister (?) ; the prospect ; S&vres manu- 
 factory of porcelain. 
 
 “Tuesday. St Benoit; a Pieta of Seb. Bourdon; 
 Enfants Trouvds ; Sorbonne ; Monument of Richelieu. 
 
 “ Wednesday. To breakfast with my sister. 
 
 “ Thursday. Mr Drumgold. 
 
 “ Friday. Baron Tier ; at home. 
 
 “ Saturday, 3. Lord Fitzwilliam ” 
 
Notes on Stay in Pans . t i 5 
 
 Sunday and Monday are blank. 
 
 “ Tuesday. Nelson. 
 
 “ Wednesday the 12th, 10 to 1. Luxembourgh ; Min- 
 erva instructing a Girl, by Tremolie. L’ Hotel de Breton- 
 villiers, en St Louis ; Gallery of Seb. Bourdon. 
 
 “Tuesday, 18th. Set out from Paris, 1 o’clock ; lay at 
 Senlis. 
 
 “ Wednesday. Lay at Peronne. 
 
 “ Thursday. Dined at Arras ; the Cathedral not worth 
 seeing ; lay in the Fauxburg (sic) of Bethune. 
 
 “ Friday. Arrived at Calais at 5 in the afternoon. 
 
 “ Saturday. Set out at 1 o’clock at noon. Arrived 
 at Dover at 5 ; lay at Sittingbourne. 
 
 “Sunday, 23rd, at 10 in the morning, arrived in 
 London. 
 
 “ Monday, 24th. Dined with Dr Goldsmith.” 
 
 When we find Reynolds ignoring altogether, in these 
 notes, the cathedral of Amiens — one of the churches of 
 the world, and the Parthenon of Gothic architecture, both 
 as regards its structure, and its unrivalled sculptural 
 adornments — we might well be a little lenient to Horace 
 Walpole, rotten and fallacious as was the “ Strawberry 
 Hill ” Gothic, which owed its rise to him, and from the 
 same source derived its opprobrious nickname. And 
 again, at St Denis, which, in these last years before the 
 Revolution, was a perfect treasure-house of medieval and 
 Renaissance art (both French and Italian) of the highest 
 class, our master notes only this “ excellent statue of an 
 angel in the act of writing with his finger.” 
 
 This Carlini was Carlo Bertinazzi, the famous Arlec- 
 chino of the Italian comedy then acclimatised in Paris. 
 One is led to wish that Reynolds might have portrayed 
 him, so as to add one more to his great series of histrionic 
 
1 1 6 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 celebrities ; though, perhaps, Gainsborough, the inimitable 
 painter of the dancer, La Bacelli, and of the male soprano, 
 Tenducci, might have succeeded even better with such 
 a subject as this. A portrait-study of this class, and 
 one of the masterpieces of the French school, is Watteau’s 
 famous life-sized “ Gilles,” in the Lacaze section of the 
 Louvre. 
 
 Forster calls attention to the frequency of Reynolds’s 
 engagements at this time with Goldsmith, now living in 
 his new rooms at Brick Court, Temple, showing, as these 
 do, a still further drawing together of the bonds of in- 
 timacy between the two men. On one occasion, our 
 master, no doubt accompanied by Goldy, pays a visit 
 to the Shilling Rubber Club, held at the Devil’s Tavern, 
 whether merely as an onlooker, or to indulge his passion 
 for whist, does not appear. It is a year later — in 1769 
 — that Reynolds’s doctor, Sir George, or, as he then 
 was, Dr Baker, gives a party, to which Goldsmith is 
 invited, apparently as an after-thought, to meet Reynolds 
 and Angelica Kauffmann ; for, affecting a comic anger 
 and disdain at this want of due ceremony, he responds 
 with the following lines : — 
 
 “ But ’tis Reynolds’s way, 
 
 From wisdom to stray, 
 
 And Angelica’s whim, 
 
 To be frolic like him ; 
 
 But alas ! your good worships, how could they be wiser, 
 
 When both have been spoilt in to-day’s Advertiser .” 
 
 With more, to the effect that Goldy is better engaged 
 and does not intend to honour the party. 
 
 The Advertiser' s fulsome, and, in this case, parti- 
 cularly indiscriminate praise — quoted below — was cer- 
 tainly enough to turn an older head than that of the fair 
 
“ Advertiser ” on Reynolds and Angelica 1 17 
 
 and imprudent artist, by this time relieved from the pre- 
 sence of her impostor husband, but not wholly from the 
 evils which she had wilfully drawn down upon herself: — 
 
 “ While fair Angelica with matchless grace 
 Paints Conway’s form and Stanhope’s face, 
 
 Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, 
 
 We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away — 
 
 But when the likeness she hath done for thee, 
 
 O Reynolds ! with astonishment we see, 
 
 Forced to submit, with all our pride we own, 
 
 Such strength, such harmony excelled by none, 
 
 And thou art rivalled by thyself alone.” 
 
 This is, no doubt, the feeble portrait of Reynolds, 
 painted by Angelica for his friend, Mr Parker of Saltram. 
 
 We now come to one of the most important moments 
 in the life of our master — to a turning point in his career, 
 in which his action has been very diversely appreciated. 
 This is the foundation of the Royal Academy, which, 
 to be thoroughly understood, should be considered in con- 
 junction with the negotiations which preceded it and 
 the developments which were its inevitable consequence. 
 Into the details of the fierce and protracted squabbles 
 between the directors and the fellows of the Incorporated 
 Society of Artists, it is not possible here to enter. It must 
 suffice to state that the climax came at the meeting of 
 the 1 8th of October 1768, at which the directors, who had 
 practically had their way for eight years, were signally de- 
 feated and crushed — sixteen of the fellows being elected to 
 take the places of as many of their opponents, with the 
 result that the remaining eight directors, finding them- 
 selves powerless, resigned on the 10th of November. 
 
 A word has already been said as to the neutral atti- 
 tude adopted by Reynolds during the progress of the 
 internecine quarrels, and his ultimate withdrawal from 
 
1 1 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the exhibition. The plot matured, and the storm broke, 
 during his journey to France just referred to; there 
 being, indeed, such a coincidence in point of time that it 
 is difficult to resist the surmise — which no direct evidence, 
 however, warrants us in making — that his departure was 
 timed so as to excuse him from any active participa- 
 tion in the affray. West, who had withdrawn from the 
 Society about the same time, had the ear of the King, 
 and being questioned by His Majesty as to these 
 “ indecent bickerings,” explained the situation, no doubt, 
 from his own point of view ; whereupon the King 
 declared that “ he would patronise any association 
 formed on principles calculated to advance the art.” 
 West communicated this pronouncement to three of the 
 former directors of the Society — William Chambers, the 
 King’s architect, Francis Cotes, and Moser. Chambers was 
 then deputed to wait upon the King, and to submit that 
 “ many artists of reputation, together with himself, were 
 very desirous of establishing a society that should more 
 effectually promote the Arts of Design than any yet estab- 
 lished,” but that they knew that their plan could not be 
 carried into execution without His Majesty’s patronage. 
 The King gave another favourable but vague reply, where- 
 upon a memorial was drawn up in due form and presented, 
 on November 28th, by Cotes, Chambers and Moser, setting 
 forth the objects of the petitioners — namely, “ the estab- 
 lishing a well-regulated school or academy of design 
 for the use of students in the arts, and an annual 
 exhibition, open to all artists of distinguished merit.” 
 The King appears to have replied — and not unwisely or 
 unbecomingly — that the culture of the arts was a 
 national concern, and that they might depend upon his 
 patronage and assistance ; he further desired that he 
 might be placed in possession of their full intentions. 
 
Foundation of the Royal A cademy 1 1 9 
 
 Chambers then prepared the sketch of a plan, which 
 having shown to as many of the gentlemen concerned 
 as the shortness of the time would permit, he presented 
 to His Majesty on December 7th. 
 
 The reason given by Leslie and Taylor for the absence 
 of Reynolds’s name from the proceedings up to the present 
 point — namely, the circumstance that he had never received 
 any personal patronage or notice from George III. — is pro- 
 bably the true one. He might very naturally infer that he 
 was not, as, indeed, he never was, a persona grata at Court, 
 and that his interference would not be likely to help the 
 negotiations forward. The King’s instructor in perspec- 
 tive, Kirby, had, moreover, been recently elected Presi- 
 dent of the Incorporated Society, in the place of Hayman, 
 and he might also very naturally imagine that the royal 
 pupil would be desirous of backing up his professor. 
 That the latter knew nothing of what was going on, is 
 evident from the fact that he assured the doomed Society, 
 in his inaugural address, that the King would not give 
 countenance to the renegades. In a pamphlet published 
 by the Incorporated Society against the Royal Academy, 
 when the foundation of the latter had become an estab- 
 lished fact, it is stated that Reynolds originally disap- 
 proved of the proceedings of the seceders, and declared 
 that he would not act or exhibit with them. There is 
 more than an innuendo in this piece of special pleading 
 that the bait of knighthood held out to the master may 
 have operated to bring about his change of purpose. 
 
 It appears to have been suggested, while the con- 
 stitution of the new academy was under discussion, 
 that among its ex officio members should be some of 
 the nobility, patrons of art ; this proposition being 
 similar to the condition imposed, it will be remem- 
 bered, by the Dilettanti Society when, in 1755, they had 
 
1 20 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 been requested to interest themselves in the foundation 
 of a new academic body, to undertake and advance 
 the “Teaching of the Fine Arts.” It is, we are told, to 
 the good sense of the King that we owe the abandon- 
 ment of any attempt to give effect to this portion of the 
 scheme. 
 
 His Majesty considered the sketch of a plan thus sub- 
 mitted by the triumvirate, made some revision, and directed 
 that the document should be drawn up in proper form. 
 It will be well to give, in the very words of Leslie and 
 Taylor, the account of what immediately followed, since 
 it embodies that furnished by West of the transactions in 
 question, and, it is stated, moreover, by Tom Taylor that 
 he obtained access, for the purpose of giving an accurate 
 version of the proceedings, to the original minute-books 
 of the Royal Academy. 
 
 “ A list was made out of thirty names, including that 
 of Reynolds, to be submitted to the King, with a list of 
 officers. A meeting of the artists was appointed for the 
 9th, to take place at the house of Wilton the sculptor, the 
 King having named the next morning to receive the lists. 
 
 “ Penny and Moser called on Reynolds, but failed in 
 securing his attendance at the meeting. West then went 
 to him immediately, and informed him of the arrange- 
 ments that were in progress for constituting an academy, 
 and that thirty artists named by the King, of the forty 
 members of which it was intended it should consist, were 
 to assemble on that evening at Wilton’s. 
 
 “ Reynolds was still slow of belief. He told West 
 that Kirby had assured him in the most decided manner 
 that there was no truth whatever in the rumour of such a 
 design being in agitation ; and that he thought it would 
 be derogatory to attend a meeting constituted, as Kirby 
 
Foundation of the Royal Academy 1 2 1 
 
 represented it, by persons who had no sanction for doing 
 what they had undertaken. To this West answered, ‘ As 
 you have been told by Mr Kirby that there is no intention 
 of the kind, and by me that there is, that even the rules 
 are framed, and the officers condescended on, yourself to 
 be President, I must insist on your going with me to the 
 meeting, where you will be satisfied which of us deserves 
 to be credited in this business.’ 
 
 “ In the evening, at the usual hour, West went to take 
 tea with Reynolds, before going to the meeting ; but 
 either from design or accident, tea was not served till an 
 hour later than usual — not, indeed, till the time fixed for 
 the artists to assemble at Wilton’s ; so that, when they 
 arrived there, the meeting was on the point of breaking 
 up, conceiving that, as neither Reynolds nor West had 
 come, something extraordinary had happened. But on 
 ‘their appearing, a burst of satisfaction manifested the 
 anxiety that had been felt, and without any further delay 
 the company proceeded to carry into effect the wishes of 
 the King. The code of laws was read, and, the gentlemen 
 recommended by the Sovereign being declared officers, 
 the laws were accepted.” 
 
 It was on the next day, the 10th of November, that the 
 King formally approved and signed the instrument incor- 
 porating the Academy with the royal sanction, and the 
 first general meeting of the newly-constituted body took 
 place on the 14th of November 1768. 
 
 The instrument sets forth that certain painters, sculp- 
 tors, and architects have solicited the King’s assistance in 
 establishing a society for promoting the Arts of Design, 
 and that His Majesty does thereby institute and establish 
 the said society, under the name and title of The Royal 
 Academy of Arts in London. Then follow twenty-seven 
 
122 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 clauses providing for the constitution and government, 
 and nominating the original members. Among the main 
 clauses of the instrument is one expressly declaring 
 that the members of the Royal Academy shall not be 
 members of any other society of artists established in 
 London — a provision palpably directed against the Incor- 
 porated Society and the new directorate which had 
 usurped the place of the old. The effect of this stringent 
 clause is to exclude from the new Academy such men 
 as Romney, the King’s own painter Allan Ramsay, 
 the veteran Hudson, and others of less note, besides the 
 accomplished engravers, Robert Strange and Woollett. 
 Curiously enough, Gainsborough’s name does not appear 
 in the first official list of members ; yet, in the body of 
 the catalogue, the initials R.A. are appended to his 
 name. 
 
 The following is a list of the first members of the' 
 Academy taken from the catalogue to the first exhibi- 
 tion : — 
 
 “Sir Joshua Reynolds, Knt., President; Sir Wm. 
 Chambers, Knight of the Polar Star, Treasurer; George 
 Michael Moser, Keeper ; Francis Milner Newton, Sec- 
 retary ; Edward Penny, Professor of Painting ; Thomas 
 Sandby, Professor of Architecture; Samuel Wale, Pro- 
 fessor of Perspective; William Hunter, M.D., Professor 
 of Anatomy; Francis Hayman, Librarian; (Tan-Chet- 
 Tua, a Chinese modeller, not one of the Academicians*); 
 George Barrett ; Francesco Bartolozzi ; Edward Burch ; 
 Agostino Carlini ; Charles Catton ; Mason Chamberlin ; 
 J. Baptist Cipriani; Richard Cosway; John Gwynn ; 
 William Hoare ; Nathaniel Hone ; Mrs Angelica Kauff- 
 mann ; Jeremiah Meyer; Mrs Mary Moser; Joseph 
 
 * He appears to have held the rank of an Honorary Royal Academician. 
 
123 
 
 List of Original Members 
 
 Nollekens ; John Richards; Paul Sandby ; Domenick 
 Serres ; Peter Toms ; William Tyler ; Benj. West ; 
 Richard Wilson ; Joseph Wilton ; Richard Yeo ; John 
 Zoffanii ; Francesco Zuccarelli.” 
 
 It will be seen that this list, while containing the 
 names of a certain number of painters of eminence, with 
 Sir Joshua, facile princeps, at their head, included also 
 some conspicuously inferior performers. The mere fact 
 that no less than seven foreigners — including the fascinat- 
 ing Angelica, Cipriani, Bartolozzi, Zoffany, and Zuc- 
 carelli — were to be found in it, goes far to prove that 
 there cannot, in the beginning, have been any particular 
 enthusiasm to join the ranks of the new body ; that is to 
 say, outside the nucleus of the promoters, who had not 
 only the stimulus of an undoubted benefit to be conferred 
 on painters, students, and the public, but a vengeance to 
 take, or — if the phrase be preferred — an execution to 
 accomplish on the corporate person of the offending 
 Society. 
 
 Although the instrument prescribes forty as the number 
 of the Royal Academicians — a magic figure which, in 
 imitation of other similarly-constituted academic bodies, 
 has since been adhered to — only thirty-six were named 
 at first, and the list was not completed until 1772. 
 
 Before the opening of the first exhibition, Reynolds 
 must have received from the well-satisfied monarch the 
 honour of knighthood,* seeing that, as we perceive from the 
 list just given, he is entered as “Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 Knt., President.” 
 
 The part played by him in these final negotiations 
 might, perhaps, by the unsympathetic, be severely 
 judged as that of a trimmer willing to reap the benefits 
 
 * He was actually knighted on April 2 1st 1769 at the levee. 
 
124 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 of the situation, without bearing the brunt of the battle, 
 and anxious, up to the last, to leave a back door open 
 for escape. Still it must be remembered, on the other 
 side, that Sir Joshua owed nothing to the Incorporated 
 Society, which, on the contrary, owed mainly to his 
 splendid series of canvases the vogue which its exhibi- 
 tions had in so short a time acquired. And, further, apart 
 from the considerations of dignity and delicacy which 
 may have restrained him from pushing to the front in 
 a matter in which the King was so closely concerned, 
 it should be borne in mind that the master had attained 
 a position, both artistic and social, which was widely 
 different from that occupied by any of his brothers 
 in art 
 
 He might welf hesitate where others were prepared to 
 plunge, he might well decline to risk appearing before the 
 public, before his circle of much-prized friends and sup- 
 porters, as an unsuccessful conspirator in a matter in 
 which he — then by common consent at the head of his 
 profession — had really nothing beyond a high-sounding 
 title and an official status to gain. He might thus very 
 fairly allow himself to be borne along by the force of 
 events towards a desired goal, and yet not care to make 
 any sacrifice, or incur any risk to attain it It was, 
 nevertheless, a great triumph for him, and one which 
 he may have legitimately enjoyed, although we have 
 just seen him making a prudent and genteel resist- 
 ance, pour la fonne . He was acclaimed a little against 
 his outwardly-expressed will, but not against his true 
 inclination ; much as revolutionary cohorts might ac- 
 claim, on their own initiative, a generalissimo of their 
 choice. 
 
 That the King, too, who had always politely cold- 
 shouldered the artist whom his foremost subjects delighted 
 
125 
 
 Sir Joslma s Attitude 
 
 to honour, should, nevertheless, at once perceive, and 
 acquiesce in, the necessity for placing him at the head of 
 an Academy of Arts, brought into sudden existence 
 by royal sanction, and by that alone, must have been 
 an additional gratification. And then Sir Joshua, though 
 he never fell into the pitfall of pomposity, or assumed 
 an attitude of outward dignity, loved the great world, 
 even though he loved its better, wider side, and loved it 
 as an equal, not as a dependent. And this addition of 
 official status, this high and well-defined position, render- 
 ing representation, on behalf of the powerful corporate 
 body of which he was the head, a necessity — this newly- 
 created obligation to direct the destinies of a body 
 of brother-artists — must have appeared to him as a 
 pleasing, if a serious, burden. He would feel himself 
 peculiarly well prepared, both by nature and by acquired 
 usage, to discharge such duties, and their performance 
 would constitute a welcome change from the inevitable 
 strain imposed upon him by the sustained practice of 
 his profession. 
 
 It was in accordance with the suggestion of Sir Joshua, 
 here again following the tradition of foreign academies, 
 that certain distinguished men of letters, for the most 
 part in his immediate circle, were appointed (not all, 
 however, in the first place) to honorary posts of distinc- 
 tion in connection with the Academy. Dr Francklin, the 
 Professor of Greek at Cambridge, was named Chaplain ; 
 Dr Johnson, whom we have already seen acting semi- 
 officially for the Incorporated Society, was Professor of 
 Ancient Literature — a title which must have appeared then 
 much less incongruous in connection with the arts than it 
 does now. Goldsmith was Professor of Ancient History, 
 and, in accepting the barren if honourable post, he evidently 
 thought that he was quite as much conferring as receiving 
 
126 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 a favour. He made characteristically humorous reference 
 to his hand-to-mouth position, too, in saying that honours 
 to a man in his situation were like ruffles to a man who 
 had no shirt. Richard Dalton, the King’s Librarian, was 
 Antiquary to the new Society’, and, as Foreign Secretary 
 or Correspondent, Joseph Baretti afterwards officiated. 
 
 This busy rhymer, satirist, lexicographer, and man of 
 letters generally, had at the period now reached won the 
 friendship, not only of Johnson, with whom he had 
 for some years been connected by close bonds of friend- 
 ship, but of Re\-nolds, Burke, Garrick, and the intellectual 
 elite of their set The curious incident of his trial for 
 murder, presently to be recounted, arousing, as it did, the 
 enthusiastic interest of his friends, furnishes convincing 
 evidence of the high esteem in which he was held 
 
 He had, in the first instance, after a chequered 
 career as a peripatetic man of letters in Italy, found his 
 way to England in 1751, when he opened a school to 
 teach Italian. The work by which he is best known, and 
 which indeed has survived down to our own time, is the 
 Italian and English Dictionary \ published in 1760, w ith a 
 dedication written by Dr Johnson. After another interval 
 of six years, passed in Italy, during which his satirical 
 publication La Frusta Letteraria , published under the 
 pseudonym of Aristarco Scannabue, got him into irre- 
 mediable disgrace, Baretti returned to England in 1766, 
 when he was warmly welcomed by the circle, and especi- 
 ally by Johnson, who had, during his absence, maintained 
 a correspondence with him on a footing of affectionate 
 regard. It is a propos of his Italian friend’s Account 
 of the 3 fan Tiers and Customs of Italy that the Fontifex 
 Maximus of the set says : — 
 
 His account of Italy is a very entertaining book, and, 
 
127 
 
 Joseph Baretti 
 
 sir, I know no man who carries his head higher than 
 Baretti. There are strong powers in his mind. He has 
 not indeed many hooks, but with what hooks he has he 
 grapples very forcibly.” 
 
 Happy as were thus the beginnings of the new Society, 
 and resistless as was its advance under the royal aegis, 
 notwithstanding the very natural hostility of the Incor- 
 porated Society, it will not do to think of it at first as the 
 exalted and awe-inspiring institution that it now is. The 
 first quarters of the Academy were at Dalton’s Print 
 Warehouse, formerly Lamb’s Auction-Rooms, in Pall Mall, 
 immediately adjacent to Old Carlton House. In 1771 
 the King granted to the Academy the use of apartments 
 in Old Somerset Palace, to give lectures and house 
 their library, but the Pall Mall Auction-Rooms continued 
 to hold the annual exhibitions until 1780, when the 
 Academy was definitively installed at Somerset House, 
 a portion of which had for the purpose been practically 
 rebuilt by one of their most prominent members, Sir 
 Wm. Chambers. 
 
 Sir Joshua had, from the beginning, taken his duties 
 very seriously, and had been indefatigable in his efforts 
 to organise the society over which he was called to pre- 
 side. He pronounced, on the 2nd of January 1769, his 
 initial Discourse, addressed to the members of the new 
 Royal Academy on its opening. With this, as with the 
 remaining fourteen of the series, and the literary work 
 of the master generally, it has been found more con- 
 venient to deal in a separate and final chapter of this 
 volume. 
 
 It would appear that the well-rounded Johnsonian 
 periods of the President were much sacrificed in the 
 delivery, which was low and indistinct ; the elocution — a 
 
128 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 strange thing for the friend of Burke and Garrick — being 
 imperfect and monotonous. 
 
 The first exhibition was opened on the 26th of April and 
 closed on the 27th of May, and consisted of 136 works, 
 the appropriate inscription on the catalogue being “ Nova 
 rerum nascitur ordo” first of a long series of singularly 
 well-chosen quotations. There are mentioned among the 
 attractions of the display, apart from the President’s 
 contributions, Gainsborough’s “ Lady Molyneux ” ; Cotes’s 
 “ Hebe,” “ Portrait of the Duke of Gloucester,” and “ Boy 
 playing Cricket ; ” Angelica Kauffmann’s “ Hector and 
 Andromache,” and “ Venus directing ^Eneas and Achates ; ” 
 Nathaniel Dance’s portraits of the King and Queen ; 
 Nathaniel Hone’s ‘‘Piping Boy;” Cipriani’s “Annuncia- 
 tion;” and Benjamin West’s “Venus lamenting the 
 Death of Adonis,” and “ The Departure of Regulus.” 
 
 To this last canvas a certain celebrity attaches, quite 
 independently of its pictorial merits or demerits. The 
 subject was one which the King, not a little proud 
 of his scholarship, had suggested to the lucky Quaker 
 painter ; even condescending himself to read to his 
 favourite the descriptive passage in Livy , of which 
 it was intended to be the illustration. When the 
 picture was brought to the palace for the royal ap- 
 proval, the new President of the Incorporated Society 
 of Artists, Joshua Kirby, who was also, as has been 
 noted, the King’s instructor in perspective, happened 
 to be present. As in duty bound, he followed his 
 royal master in praise of it, expressing the hope that 
 His Majesty would graciously permit the picture to be 
 shown at the exhibition. “ Certainly, certainly,” replied 
 the King. “ The Exhibition of the Incorporated Society 
 of Artists,” added Kirby. “ No, no, no ! ” replied His 
 Majesty, “ the Exhibition of my Royal Academy ! ” We 
 
First Exhibition of the Royal Academy 129 
 
 are told that poor Kirby was thunderstruck, and retired in 
 speechless mortification from the royal presence ; some 
 even going so far as to attribute to the shock which he 
 experienced his death not very long afterwards. In truth, 
 the scene is a high-comedy coup de theatre of the first 
 order, with which it is not a little curious to connect the 
 naive, earnest, and somewhat stolid young King. Not- 
 withstanding the vague promises of equal support given 
 by the royal patron, this is the death-knell of the elder 
 society, which henceforth, struggle as it may, will languish, 
 go on intermittently for another twenty odd years, then 
 flicker out and expire. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s own contribution to the first exhibition 
 consisted of four fanciful portraits, in three of which the 
 mythological element predominated, while to the fourth a 
 sort of elegiac flavour was, by artificial means, imparted. 
 
 The four canvases were: — “The Duchess of Manchester 
 and her Son, as Diana disarming Cupid ; ” “ Mrs Blake 
 ( nee Bunbury) as Juno receiving the Cestus from Venus 
 “ Miss Morris as Hope nursing Love ; ” “ Mrs Bouverie 
 and Mrs Crewe ” (known also as the “Et in Arcadia ego"). 
 
 It must be conceded that the attitude of the Duchess 
 Diana disarming Cupid Mandeville is a very strained and 
 awkward one ; and that Mrs Blake bears herself somewhat 
 stiffly and timidly under the weight of her usurped honours, 
 and appears by no means convinced of her aptitude for 
 the crushing role of the Queen of Heaven. 
 
 In the sickly symbolism — at the moment the high 
 fashion — of these classical allegories, it is permissible to 
 suspect a certain influence exerted, perhaps unconsciously, 
 by Angelica Kauffmann on her staunch friend and admirer; 
 not, indeed, on his immeasurably superior art, but on his 
 mode of conception. The famous portrait of the two 
 beauties and fast friends, Mrs Crewe and Mrs Bouverie, is 
 
 I 
 
1 30 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 one of Sir Joshua’s most fascinating performances, but it 
 would lose nothing by the elimination of the classic tomb 
 with the inscription on its plinth which, strangely enough, 
 puzzled the learned Johnson — as unmeaning and insipid 
 here as it is infinitely pathetic in Poussin’s great pastoral, 
 to which, in its connection with this picture, reference 
 has already been made. Sir Joshua had already painted 
 the lovely Mrs Crewe — that enthusiastic Whig, and friend 
 of Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and the painter himself — with 
 her youthful brother, when she was sixteen and still Miss 
 Greville, in the picture known as “Cupid and Psyche;” 
 he painted her again (in 1772) as St Genevieve, reading, 
 surrounded by her flock. 
 
 To 1769 must belong the execution of the superb 
 “ Mrs Edward Bouverie with her Child,” which was at 
 Delapre Abbey, and is one of the chief ornaments of the 
 Earl of Radnor’s collection at Longford Castle (engraved 
 in mezzotint by James Watson in 1770). The fair sitter 
 appears in the Pocket-Book in April 1767, and again in 
 March 1768, when, however, she was, in all probability, 
 posing for the portrait-group with Mrs Crewe just re- 
 ferred to. We find her posing again in I 7 ebruary 1769 
 — doubtless for this work. The picture, notwithstanding 
 its important dimensions and exceptional beauty does 
 not appear to have found its way into any exhibition 
 more recent than that of the Old Masters in 1876, 
 and therefore does not perhaps enjoy, with the general 
 public, quite as high a reputation as it deserves. It 
 shows the beauty, in clinging, generalised draperies, 
 of more or less classic mould, playing with the child 
 supported on her knee — a motive which Sir Joshua may 
 well have adapted and humanised from some Italian 
 “ Madonna and Child ” of the sixteenth or seventeenth 
 century — thus exercising that royal right of appropria- 
 
“ Mrs B Oliver ie with her Child ” 1 31 
 
 tion which has so often been a characteristic of artists 
 of the highest rank. Still, if he has borrowed, he has 
 completely transformed and made his own the familiar 
 theme of the picture. It is less striking at first sight, 
 with its cool tonality, in which yellow, bluish-grey, 
 and green predominate, than such later works as the 
 “ Lady Cockburn with her Children,” the “ Georgiana, 
 Duchess of Devonshire, with her Child,” or others of 
 the same class that could be named. It has rather 
 the natural daylight colouring than the rich, tawny 
 hues — something between Rembrandt and Rubens 
 — of these last. It possesses, on the other hand, not- 
 withstanding some mannerism, the charm of a greater 
 spontaneity, and is relatively free from that self-conscious- 
 ness which certainly does not lend additional attraction 
 to the charms of the last-named splendid dames, who are 
 a thought too much aware that their maternal duties 
 are being performed to an admiring gallery. The form 
 of the lady is, to satisfy the peculiar taste of the moment, 
 unduly elongated, but the modelling of the two viva- 
 cious heads, and the disposition of the elaborate draperies, 
 is as good as anything that could be pointed to in the 
 work of the master. By the way, the statement that 
 the robe was once a warm rose, and has now become a 
 chilly purple, is erroneous ; * the painting has, on the whole, 
 fairly well maintained its original colouring and tonality, 
 and is, for a Sir Joshua, in unusually good condition. 
 
 More than ever at this happy time, when the 
 master, still in the prime of life, had achieved, with 
 general acclamation, the highest position if not even 
 
 * The actual colour-scheme of the picture as it stands is as follows : — 
 Mrs Bouverie’s inner robe is pale yellow, with a crimson waistband ; the 
 outer robe, or drapery, is bluish-grey ; and the drapery on which she sits, 
 green with a dash of blue in it. 
 
i3 2 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 yet the highest point of maturity in his art, does 
 he appear to have sought relief from his sustained 
 exertions in the practice of his profession, in dinners, 
 routs, and social gatherings of all kinds. Among those 
 whose hospitalities were most frequently accepted were 
 the Hornecks, Goldsmith, and Wilkes, besides many 
 prominent members of learned, artistic and fashionable 
 circles, with whom Sir Joshua’s friendship was of a more 
 formal character. There were dinners, for example, with 
 the brother academicians, Penny, Chambers, Hayman, 
 and Hone, and also — an instance of good feeling on both 
 sides — with the master’s former teacher, Hudson, and 
 with Allan Ramsay, neither of whom had cast his lot 
 with the new and all-encroaching Society. Sir Joshua does 
 not even stop short at such ultra-fashionable diversions as 
 masquerades, at Mrs Cornely’s in Soho Square and at the 
 opera-house, or visits to the Richmond assembly, and 
 to Vauxhall itself, then one of the most brilliant and 
 outwardly decorous places of entertainment in Europe, 
 and resembling rather the sumptuous casinos of the 
 German and French watering-places (with a good dose 
 of fine-art superadded) than its own dubious and dingy 
 successors in London — themselves now long since swept 
 away. 
 
 As a typical instance of the quieter and more intimate 
 social gathering bringing together some members of what 
 may be termed the inner Reynolds circle, may be men- 
 tioned the dinner at Boswell’s lodgings on the 16th of 
 October 1769, at which were present Sir Joshua, Garrick, 
 Goldsmith, Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Tom Davies, the book- 
 seller and critic in a small way. Here the great lexicogra- 
 pher is, for him, in a benignant and little aggressive mood, 
 and Goldsmith with the most naive and childlike vanity 
 struts about, inviting the admiration of the company for 
 
Dr J ohnsoris A ppreciations x 3 3 
 
 his famous bloom-coloured coat, and immortalising by his 
 recommendation his tailor, Mr John Filby, at the Harrow 
 in Water Lane. It is on this occasion that Dr Johnson 
 is led, by his love of paradox and contradiction, to make 
 the most enormous of all his enormous assertions, — the 
 one that Congreve’s description of the temple in the 
 “ Mourning Bride ” is the finest poetical passage he 
 has ever read, and that he recollects none in Shake- 
 speare equal to it. Were there not on record other 
 enormities, hardly less startling, to keep this one in 
 company, one would be inclined to suspect that Bozzy was 
 here treating the conversation of his divinity much as 
 Messieurs de Goncourt, in their reports of the famous 
 dinners at which they periodically met Ste. Beuve and 
 Theophile Gautier — and Renan, treated that of these great 
 literary celebrities ; that is, that he was reporting the 
 conversation as he understood it, or such parts of it only 
 as came within his powers of comprehension. 
 
 It is here, too, that the first evidence of Johnson’s 
 smouldering hostility against Mrs Montagu, the Queen of 
 the Blue Stockings, peeps out — a hostility which was not, 
 however, to burst into open flame until some twelve years 
 later. Reynolds hazards the remark that the learned 
 lady’s Essay on Shakespeare , written to traverse Voltaire’s 
 criticisms, “does her honour;” upon which the literary 
 dictator says : “Yes, sir, it does her honour, but it would 
 do nobody else honour. . . .” “ No, sir, there is no real 
 
 criticism in it. . . .” More scathing is the great man’s 
 rejoinder — on its being related that Mrs Montagu, in an 
 excess of compliment to the author of a modern tragedy, 
 had exclaimed : “ I tremble for Shakespeare.” “ When 
 
 Shakespeare has got for his rival and Mrs Montagu 
 
 for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed ! ” There is, 
 indeed, something inexpressibly ludicrous in this grave pat- 
 
134 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 ting on the back, this rehabilitation of Shakespeare by the 
 fashionable Arthlnice who has, self-crowned, assumed the 
 sovereignty of the British Precieuses ; she calmly puts 
 Monsieur de Voltaire in his place, and, if she achieves 
 nothing more, manages to excite the professional jealousy 
 of Johnson. 
 
 As bearing upon the misadventure of Baretti, next to 
 be related, the turn taken by the conversation, on October 
 19th at Boswell’s lodgings, with regard to our feeling for 
 the distresses of others, is especially interesting : — 
 
 “ Johnson . — ‘Why, sir, there is much noise made about 
 it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No, sir, we have a 
 certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good ; more 
 than that Providence does not intend. It would be 
 misery to no purpose.’ 
 
 “ Boswell . — ‘ But suppose now, sir, that one of your 
 intimate friends was apprehended for an offence for 
 which he might be hanged.’ 
 
 “ Johnson . — ‘ I should do what I could to bail him, 
 and give him any other assistance ; but if he were once 
 fairly hanged, I should not suffer.’ 
 
 “ Boswell. — ‘ Would you eat your dinner that day, sir ? ’ 
 “ Johnson . — ‘Yes, sir, and eat it as if he were eating 
 with me. Why, there’s Baretti, who is to be tried for 
 his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on every 
 side ; yet, if he should be hanged, none of them will eat 
 a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic 
 feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind.’” 
 Which curious mixture of profound truth, seasoned 
 with cynical paradox, is the more surprising, as coming 
 from the man whose overflowing love and tenderness 
 for his friends and dependents is the quality which 
 must secure the pardon, and enforce the respect, of those 
 
i35 
 
 Baretti tried for Murder 
 
 who find themselves insufficiently impressed either by 
 the vastness — rather, perhaps, the weightiness — of his 
 literary power, or by the forceful aggressiveness of his 
 character. 
 
 Baretti had been importuned by a woman of the 
 town, in the Haymarket, on the night of the 6th of 
 October, and brushing her out of the way, was set upon 
 by her bullies, who proceeded to hustle him. Prompt 
 with cold steel, like most of his countrymen, the quick- 
 tempered Italian drew a small knife, and, being further 
 pressed, struck with it two of the ruffians, one of 
 whom afterwards died of his wound. The unfortunate 
 homicide at once submitted to arrest, and Sir Joshua, 
 Fitzherbert, Burke, and Garrick were accepted as his 
 bail; while, in addition to these, Johnson, Goldsmith, 
 and Beauclerk gave testimony in his favour, and 
 especially as to his near-sightedness. According to 
 Mrs Thrale, when Johnson and Burke visited Baretti 
 in his prison, and endeavoured to comfort him, and 
 yet to let it be understood that he stood in great 
 danger of his life — “ What can he fear/’ said the savant, 
 placing himself between them, and grasping one hand 
 of each in his — “ that holds two such hands as I do.” 
 He was acquitted, and must have owed his escape 
 in a large measure to the various and powerful influences 
 brought to bear in his favour, since many a good man 
 was, in those days, hanged for a less matter. 
 
 It was after his acquittal that Baretti obtained, 
 through the influence of Sir Joshua, the post of Foreign 
 Secretary to the Academy, in connection with which 
 his name has already been mentioned. His fam- 
 ous portrait by our master, in the Holland House col- 
 lection, was not painted until 1774 when — again through 
 the kind offices of Sir Joshua — he had been appointed 
 
1 36 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 to the post of private tutor in the Thrale family. It was 
 done for Mr Thrale’s notable collection of the portraits 
 of his friends, and is one of Sir Joshua’s masterpieces — 
 one of those rare pieces of penetrating characterisation 
 which tempt us to prefer his portraiture of men even to his 
 most gracious presentments of female loveliness. 
 
 The author of the Italian Dictionary is quite simply 
 depicted, in an attitude peculiarly appropriate to the man 
 of letters ; he appears seated, holding with a critical air 
 a book very close to his eyes — those short-sighted eyes 
 which did him such good service at the time of his trial. 
 There is absolutely no attempt here to make a dramatic 
 picture, or to step outside the limits of the portrait proper, 
 and yet the peculiar force and unity of the man’s character 
 are revealed with unsurpassed power. Rageur that he was, 
 always tilting at some enemy or rival, always ready to 
 declare war and carry it into the enemy’s camp, it must 
 have been this force, this peculiarly Italian intensity, that 
 nevertheless imposed itself upon the illustrious circle of 
 friends whom we have just seen grouped around him. 
 
 Mrs Thrale, though certainly not to be ranked as a writer 
 of polished or elegant verse, was, as she has conclusively 
 proved in the series of short poems written on the Streat- 
 ham portraits, one of the best judges of character of her 
 time ; and the acidulated flavour of these audacious little 
 effusions, the well-marked tendency to scratch which they 
 reveal, must not blind us to this fact. Not all the gossip 
 of the memoirs in which the time is so prolific, not all the 
 diverting, sour-sweet comment of Horace Walpole’s letters, 
 shows up the personages concerned, as do the dedicatory 
 verses of the Lady of Streatham ; and it will be borne in 
 mind that the parlour of the hospitable brewer, to whom 
 we owe the incomparably interesting series of portraits 
 now scattered in every direction, contained in counterfeit 
 
Mrs Thrale on Baretti 
 
 137 
 
 presentment the intellectual elite of the country and the 
 time. Frances Burney has the freshest, liveliest talent for 
 placing human beings before us in the flesh, for making 
 them live and move as, with a cunning naturalness, she 
 evokes them for our amusement ; but even she could not, 
 or at any rate did not, dive as deep into their essential 
 individuality as her brilliant friend and protectress 
 showed herself able to do. 
 
 Here are Mrs Thrale’s lines to the Baretti portrait : — 
 
 “ Baretti hangs next, by his frowns you may know him, 
 
 He has lately been reading some new published poem ; 
 
 He finds the poor author a blockhead, a beast, 
 
 A fool, without sentiment, judgment, or taste. 
 
 Ever thus let our critic his insolence fling, 
 
 Like the hornet in Homer, impatient to sting, 
 
 Let him rally his friends for their frailties before ’em, 
 
 And scorn the dull praise of that dull king decorum ; 
 
 While tenderness, temper, and truth he despises, 
 
 And only the triumph of victory prizes. 
 
 Yet let us be candid, and where shall we find 
 So active, so able, so ardent a mind ; 
 
 To your children more soft, more polite to your servant, 
 
 More firm in distress, or in friendship more fervent ?” 
 
 It was on the 1 ith of December 1769, on the occasion of 
 the first distribution of prizes to the students of the Royal 
 Academy, that the President’s Second Discourse was de- 
 livered, and thenceforth, to 1772 inclusive, a like Discourse 
 marked and dignified this special occasion ; after which, 
 down to the period of his retirement, these lectures were 
 delivered on alternate years. Mauritius Lowe, Cipriani’s 
 pupil and Johnson’s ne’er-do-well protig^ carried off the 
 gold medal for painting, which, according to Northcote, he 
 owed to the Italian contingent in the Academy, who were 
 determined that a pupil of their fellow-countryman should 
 win. John Bacon took the like medal for sculpture, and 
 
i 38 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Flaxman, then a recently-admitted student, a silver medal 
 only, for a study from the model. 
 
 The often-repeated anecdote, given by Northcote with 
 regard to the robbery committed on the person of Sir 
 Joshua’s black servant, is too significant, as illustrating 
 the peculiar mansuetude and the helpful charity of the 
 master, to be entirely passed over. Reading casually in 
 a newspaper that a man was then in Newgate, condemned 
 to death for a robbery committed on the person of this 
 very negro, he interrogated the latter, and found, to his 
 astonishment, that Miss Anne Williams, Dr Johnson’s old 
 and blind pensioner, having dined at the house with Miss 
 Reynolds, he had been ordered to attend her back to 
 Bolt Court, and on returning had loitered with some com- 
 panions until he was barred out of the house. Giving up 
 the attempt to obtain an entrance, he wandered about the 
 street, and, taking shelter in a watch-house, fell asleep and 
 was robbed of his watch and money. He gave the alarm 
 and the thief was taken with the booty about him, was 
 tried, found guilty, and condemned to be hanged. Sir 
 Joshua, upon hearing this, sent food and clothes to the 
 condemned man awaiting death in his filthy cell ; then, 
 through Burke, procured the capital sentence to be com- 
 muted to one of transportation for life ; and finally, before 
 the convict was shipped off, supplied him with further 
 necessaries. 
 
 The portrait-study of this negro (attributed to the year 
 1767) was No. 1 5 in the Reynolds Exhibition at the Gros- 
 venor Gallery, which also contained (No. 42) a like study, 
 said to be that of Frank Barber, Dr Johnson’s faithful black 
 servant, who attended him down to the last hours of his 
 life, and became his residuary legatee. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Opposite Politics represented in The Club — Origin of the “ Ugolino ” — Second 
 Exhibition of Royal Academy, 1770 — “The Archers” — “ Children 
 in the Wood” — Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village” dedicated to Sir 
 Joshua — The Master again visits Devonshire — Extracts from Diary — 
 Field Sports — Theophila and Mary Palmer — Dilettanti Portrait of 
 Reynolds — The Academy occupies New Apartments at Somerset 
 House — Sir Joshua’s Dinner-Parties at Leicester Fields — Courtenay’s 
 and Malone’s Accounts— Falsely accused of Parsimony — More Excur- 
 sions into the great world — Polly Kennedy — Death of Francis Cotes — 
 Exhibition of 1771 — “Nymph and Bacchus” — “Resignation” — 
 Benjamin West’s “Death of Wolfe” — It makes a Revolution in 
 Historical Art — Sir Joshua again in Paris — Northcote describes 
 Reynolds working up Draperies — Portrait of Joseph Banks — Dunning 
 — Exhibition of 1772 — Zoffany’s “ Portraits of Royal Academicians” 
 — De Loutherbourg — The Thrales — The Streatham Circle — Mrs 
 Thrale’s Lines on Sir Joshua — He is elected Alderman of Plympton 
 — She Stoops to Conquer produced — Goldsmith and Northcote — 
 Exhibition of J773 — Sir Joshua’s Twelve Pictures — “Strawberry 
 Girl ” — “ Count Ugolino and his Children” — Reynolds and Imagina- 
 tive Art — Dr Beattie’s Allegorical Portrait — Reynolds elected Mayor 
 of Plympton. 
 
 This particular time saw most of Sir Joshua’s intimates 
 busily engaged in political matters, and often on opposite 
 sides. It speaks well for the affectionate character of the 
 friendship which united them, that the harmony of The 
 Club does not appear to have been materially disturbed 
 by the diametrically opposite character of the views 
 represented by its members. For one burning question 
 there was the great constitutional one of the Middlesex 
 Election. Wilkes was more than ever the popular 
 
 139 
 
140 
 
 Sir y os lma Reynolds 
 
 hero of the hour, the tribune of the people, whom the 
 City of London, and dauntless William Beckford, its 
 Lord Mayor, especially delighted to honour. Johnson had, 
 in his pamphlet, A False Alarm, given the ministers his 
 out-and-out-support, by maintaining that Wilkes’s expul- 
 sion from the House implied and included incapacity for re- 
 election to the same Parliament which had cast him forth. 
 Burke, as always, on the side of constitutionalism, had 
 published Thoughts on the Present Discontents , in support 
 of the contention of the opposition, and lent the aid of 
 his majestic oratory to the same view in the House of 
 Commons. Still more interesting to The Club must have 
 been the question of the authorship of the Junius Letters. 
 Sir Joshua, who had better opportunities of knowing than 
 most men of his times, disbelieved in the Burke theory, 
 and, as he afterwards told Malone, looked upon Samuel 
 Dyer, whose portrait he painted for Burke, as the veritable 
 author of the Letters — surmising, however, that he had 
 been assisted in their composition by both Edmund and 
 William Burke. 
 
 Leslie and Taylor, in contradiction to Northcote, assert, 
 and go far to prove, that the famous “Ugolino” — the most 
 ambitious and, on the whole, the most successful of Sir 
 Joshua’s high-art compositions — was planned, and in part 
 begun, in this year 1770, although not exhibited until 1773. 
 Northcote has surmised, with some probability, that the first 
 idea of the subject developed itself in Sir Joshua’s mind from 
 an observation of Burke or Goldsmith, that the old model 
 White was exactly suited in expression to the Ugolino 
 of Dante. This may, no doubt, as the more modern 
 biographers appear to hold, have recalled to our master s 
 mind Richardson’s Discourses , containing a translation of 
 this, the most tremendous episode in the Inferno , and a 
 description of what the theorising painter - author and 
 
Pictures at the Royal Academy 141 
 
 the biographers call “ Michael Angelo’s bas-relief of the 
 scene in the dungeon ” * — with the suggestion that a 
 great painter might carry the subject still further. 
 
 For an entertaining account of the famous masquerade 
 given at Mrs Cornely’s room in Soho Square, on the 26th 
 of February 1770, see the elaborate footnote (Vol. I. 
 p. 355) of Leslie and Taylor’s biography. Sir Joshua 
 attended it in company with some of the members of the 
 Dilletanti Society and the Star and Garter Club, and it 
 is by no means improbable that he may have conde- 
 scended to give hints as to their costume to some of the 
 fair masqueraders, such as Her Grace of Ancaster, who 
 appeared as Mandane ; the Duchess of Bolton, who sup- 
 ported the character of Diana ; the Countess of Pomfret, 
 who showed as a Greek Sultana; or the Earl of Upper 
 Ossory, who masqueraded as a Cardinal. 
 
 The Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy was 
 opened to the public on the 24th of April, and was visited 
 by the King on the 20th and 28th of April. 
 
 Sir Joshua showed: — “Lord Sydney and Colonel 
 Acland as Archers ” ; the portrait of Mrs Bouverie of 
 Delapre, already referred to at length ; “ Miss Price,” as a 
 little shepherdess ; a half-length of “ Lady Cornwallis ; ” 
 “The Children in the Wood;” the companion-portraits 
 of Johnson and Goldsmith, already described, and a 
 similar portrait of Colman. 
 
 This fanciful portrait-group, “ The Archers ” (at the 
 Old Masters in 1881), shows the two young men 
 named in the act of shooting at red deer, the former 
 in a green coat edged with gold, and breeches of the 
 same colour, with a scarf round his waist — the latter in 
 a red dress. There is, in the chief motive, a certain 
 
 * This often repeated relief is really by an imitator of the great Floren* 
 tine, Pierino Vinci* 
 
142 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 reminiscence of the famous Michelangelesque design 
 “ Shooting at a Mark,” now in the royal collection of 
 drawings at Windsor, and the fresco adaptation from 
 which (falsely attributed to Raphael) Sir Joshua may have 
 seen at the Roman villa whence it was afterwards removed 
 to the Borghese Gallery. 
 
 This is, apparently, not the version of the “ Babes in 
 the Wood ” exhibited at the Winter Exhibition of the 
 Royal Academy in 1880, in which the children are de- 
 scribed as portraits of the children of Benjamin Van 
 der Gucht, a somewhat later friend of the master. In 
 this last-named canvas the babes are living, and appear, 
 seated in a wood, attired in white frocks. 
 
 In another version, which appeared in the same place 
 in 1871, and is most probably the picture first shown on 
 the occasion now under consideration, the hapless inno- 
 cents are dead, or sleeping the sleep which precedes 
 death ; but even here the painter has not taken his 
 theme too tragically. 
 
 The origin of this last painting is, according to North- 
 cote, as follows : — 
 
 “ One of the pretty beggar children, whom Sir Joshua 
 had, according to his wont, captured in the street, had 
 fallen asleep in sheer exhaustion during a long sitting, and 
 in so natural and beautiful an attitude that the painter 
 put away the study he was engaged upon, and took up 
 a fresh canvas. After he had begun to sketch the little 
 model as it lay, it moved, so as to alter its posture, upon 
 which, the master moved his canvas to make the change 
 greater, and, pursuing the conception which had suddenly 
 suggested itself, sketched the child once more.” 
 
 Gainsborough displayed his powers at the exhibition, 
 
H3 
 
 Goldsmith' s “ Deserted Village " 
 
 both as a portrait and a landscape-painter ; Zoffany showed 
 the admirably characterised “ Garrick as Abel Drugger, 
 with Subtle and Face,” which was contributed by the Earl 
 of Carlisle to the recent Guelph Exhibition. Sir Joshua, 
 ever generous and appreciative to his brother artists, had 
 purchased the reminiscence of his friend’s famous imper- 
 sonation of the “tobacco-man” in Ben Jonson’s Alchemist 
 for a hundred guineas. Lord Carlisle, half an hour after- 
 wards, offered Reynolds twenty to part with it, which 
 the knight generously refused, resigning his intended 
 purchase to the noble lord, and the profit to his brother 
 artist. 
 
 Angelica Kauffmann sent four subjects — all of them 
 the highest of the high — including a subject from Klop- 
 stock’s portentous “ Messiah ” — “ The Demoniac weeping 
 over her Murdered Child.” 
 
 Simultaneously with the appearance of Goldsmith’s 
 portrait at the Academy comes out his poem, “ The 
 Deserted Village,” the dedication of which to Sir Joshua 
 is so touching in its simplicity, so unlike the well-rounded, 
 ceremonious, and meaningless dedications of the time, 
 that to omit it would be to deprive our master of one of 
 the most affecting pieces of testimony in his favour : — 
 
 “ I can have no expectations,” writes the poet, “ in an 
 address of this kind, either to add to your reputation or 
 to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my 
 admiration, as I am ignorant of the art in which you are 
 said to excel, and I may lose much by the severity of 
 your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than 
 you. Setting interest, therefore, aside — to which I never 
 paid much attention — I must be indulged at present in 
 following my affections. The only dedication I ever 
 made was to my brother, because I loved him better than 
 
144 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to in- 
 scribe this poem to you.” 
 
 The poem attained wide and immediate popularity, 
 and, before the end of August, reached a fifth edition. 
 
 The master had sittings at this time of the King and 
 Queen at Buckingham House, in fulfilment of the under- 
 standing that, if he accepted the Presidency of the Royal 
 Academy, he should be allowed to paint their portraits — 
 in making which condition a sine qua non , Sir Joshua 
 with proper moderation and dignity marked his sense of 
 the cold usage he had received from George III., and his 
 appreciation of his own unassailable position in his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 In September and October Sir Joshua was once more 
 among his friends and patrons in Devonshire, enjoying 
 well-earned relaxation, dining at all the pleasant houses 
 in the county, and, what is more, hunting and partridge- 
 shooting with evident zest, though whether in strictly 
 orthodox fashion does not appear. 
 
 Extracts from the Diary. 
 
 “ September 7th. — Five o’clock, set out for Devonshire. 
 
 “ 8th. — Dined with Lord Pembroke ; lay at Blandford. 
 
 “ 9th, Sunday. — Dorchester, fine prospect ; Bridport, 
 Axminster. 
 
 “ 10th. — Saltram, at one. 
 
 “ nth. — Seven, hunting. 
 
 “ 1 2th. — Ride to Plym-bridge; three, Mount Edge- 
 cumbe. 
 
 “ 13th. — Hunting. 
 
 “ 14th. — Partridge-shooting. 
 
 “ 1 5th. — Hunting. 
 
 “ 1 6th. — Sunday. — Church, Plympton St Mary, Bur- 
 ring ton* 
 
Extracts from Diary 145 
 
 “ 17th. — Set out from Saltram, arrived at Torrington. 
 
 “ 20th. — Returned to Saltram. 
 
 “ 2 1 st. — Hunting. 
 
 “ 22d. — Plympton. 
 
 “ 23rd. — Sunday. — The Dock and P.” (Plymouth.) 
 
 The following memorandum is written in lead pencil 
 on a blank leaf of the pocket-book : — 
 
 “ Mr Parker bets Sir Joshua five guineas that he does 
 not beat Mr Robinson ; and ten guineas that Mr Montagu 
 does not beat Mr Parker; to shoot with Mr Treby’s 
 bullet gun at 100 yards distance ; and a sheet of paper 
 to be put up, and the person who shoots nearest the 
 centre wins. 
 
 “ October 5th. — To dine with Mr Mudge. 
 
 “ 6th. — 
 
 “7th. — Set out from Saltram, arrived at Torrington. 
 
 “ 8th. — Dined at Mr Palmer’s. 
 
 “9th. — Dined at Mr Young’s. 
 
 “ 10th. — Left Torrington, arrived at Exeter, and went 
 to Whiteway. 
 
 “ nth. — Dined at Mamhead, Lord Lisburn. 
 
 “ 1 2th. — Set out from Whiteway; dined at Exeter 
 with Bob (his brother) ; arrived at Axminster. 
 
 “ 1 3th. — Salisbury — Andover. 
 
 “ 14th. — Dined in London.” 
 
 What cannot fail to surprise the reader who has fol- 
 lowed Sir Joshua’s career down to this period with any at- 
 tention, is the zest with which the painter whose well-filled 
 life compels him to be a cockney, and leaves no time for 
 exercise or relaxation while there is daylight, enters all of 
 a sudden into the field-sports of his entertainers, and, it 
 may be guessed, acquits himself sufficiently well not to 
 
 K 
 
146 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 appear ridiculous by the side of the men who devote their 
 lives to such amusements. The surmise is a fair and 
 natural one, that in our painter’s early life, before he 
 migrated from Devonshire, there must have been a larger 
 place made for sport than any facts within the knowledge 
 of his biographers authorise them to assume. 
 
 It was on this occasion that, while on a visit to Tor- 
 rington, Sir Joshua conceived the idea of bringing his niece, 
 Theophila — so well-known to those who are familiar with 
 the master’s art and his circle as “ Offie ” — to live with 
 him in London. She and her elder sister, Mary, were the 
 daughters of Reynolds’s widowed sister, Mrs Palmer, to 
 whom, in earlier life, he had been under great obligations. 
 
 Theophila, with the exception of a short interval at the 
 end of 1773, and a longer one later on, remained with her 
 uncle until she married Mr Gwatkin — gladdening his house 
 with the sunshine of her pretty presence, and making 
 herself also infinitely useful as a model on occasions where 
 demureness and naivete were required. It is, perhaps, to 
 her entrance into the household, and her appearance in 
 many shapes, and under many designations on the can- 
 vases of her uncle, that may be traced a certain excessive 
 development of his style in the direction of archness and 
 of a would-be Arcadian simplicity, which, though far in- 
 deed from the false innocence, the insidiousness of the 
 contemporary Greuze, is by no means free from the element 
 of a certain disturbing self-consciousness. Mary Palmer, 
 with the exception of an interval of three years, resided 
 with her uncle from 1773 until his death, and, as will be 
 seen, inherited from him the bulk of his fortune. 
 
 • On the nth of December 1770 the gold and silver 
 medals awarded in the preceding year were distributed 
 by the President, who on this occasion delivered his 
 Third Discourse, 
 
i47 
 
 Sir Joshua by Himself 
 
 To 1770 belongs the admirably personal and spirited 
 portrait of the master, by himself, belonging to the 
 Dilettanti Society, and which has, until quite recently, 
 been lent by its owners to the National Gallery. Sir 
 Joshua has here depicted himself in a loose red robe — not, 
 however, the doctor’s robe in the Uffizi and Royal 
 Academy pictures — and wears his own hair ; the half- 
 tones of the flesh have faded somewhat, but the model- 
 ling is admirable, and the picture on the whole in very 
 good condition — for a Reynolds. The kindly face shows 
 traces of fatigue, yet the aspect is, for the President’s 
 age of forty-seven, one of youthfulness and vigour. 
 It is to be remarked, however, that neither in this nor in 
 any of the other portraits of himself which Sir Joshua, 
 emulating longo intervallo Rembrandt, has given to the 
 world, do we get an adequate suggestion of that tranquil 
 benignity, of that singular equableness of temperament, 
 which those who have sought to solve the problem of 
 his true personality would select as his most striking 
 characteristic. 
 
 Rembrandt, by whose mode of conception and practice 
 in self-portraiture the English master has, throughout his 
 career, proved himself deeply impressed, has shown more 
 penetration, or, at any rate, more revelation of self, in 
 the joyous, ardent presentments of his youth and early 
 manhood, in the vigorous but saddened pictures of his 
 middle age, and in the infinitely pathetic canvases of the 
 last period, in which he reveals himself so faithfully in his 
 solitude, his misery, his physical decadence. 
 
 It was on the 14th of January 1771 that the Royal 
 Academy took possession of the new apartments planned 
 for them by Sir William Chambers in Somerset House. 
 They faced the river, from which they were separated 
 by a garden, and included lodgings for the keeper, a 
 
148 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 well as a library, schools, and a council - room, but 
 the exhibitions were still held at the by no means 
 sumptuous gallery of Pall Mall. 
 
 It is better to think of Chambers as the skilful designer 
 and constructor of this, one of the best English buildings 
 that the latter half of the 18th century has given us, and 
 even as the inventor of the classic temples and oriental 
 fantasies of Kew — though the latter have been irreverently 
 described as “ unmeaning falbalas of Turkish and Chinese 
 chequer- work ” — than as the author of that unfortunate 
 literary venture, the Dissertation on Oriental Gardenbig 
 (with its lovely frontispiece by Cipriani and Bartolozzi). 
 This last, it may be remembered, brought down upon him 
 those flagellations in verse “ An heroic Epistle to Sir 
 W. C.,” and “ An heroic Postscript ” — both now known to 
 be by William Mason, Horace Walpole’s and Reynolds’s 
 friend, and the author of the English Garden. 
 
 The Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy contains 
 an agreeable reminiscence, by Zoffany, of its occupancy of 
 Somerset House, which most probably, however, dates 
 from the more complete taking possession in 1780. This 
 is a representation by night of the Academy’s school of 
 casts and models, with students drawing from famous 
 works, among which we recognise the Apollo Belvedere, 
 the Diskobolos of Naucydes, the so-called Cincinnatus, 
 the Borghese Gladiator, and the Torso, which must ever 
 recall the praise lavished upon it by Michelangelo, and, 
 following him, by Sir Joshua himself. The casts here 
 shown, no doubt, include those presented by the Duke 
 of Richmond when his well-meant but abortive enter- 
 prise came to an end, and especially those obtained by 
 Moser from the old school in St Martin’s Lane (of which 
 he had been director), under circumstances of which the 
 Incorporated Society bitterly complained in their pamphlet 
 
149 
 
 Sir Joshuas Dinner-parties 
 
 published against the Royal Academy. Zoffany’s picture 
 is probably suggested by Hogarth’s night-scene — “ Life 
 Class at the St Martin’s Lane School,” * which, however, 
 far exceeds it, and is indeed nothing short of a master- 
 piece of lighting and arrangement. 
 
 At this moment, too, Sir Joshua’s own dinner-parties, 
 or scrambles, at Leicester Fields, were in full force, 
 and they deserve especial attention, as showing a quite 
 distinct phase of the President’s character. He is here 
 neither Reynolds the courtly painter of all kinds of cele- 
 brities, aristocratic, literary and artistic, — nor Reynolds 
 the presiding genius of an important body of brother 
 artists ; nor Reynolds the fashionable, consorting willingly 
 with what is best and most distinguished in the numerous 
 circles, to all of which he is made equally welcome. He 
 is simply Reynolds the man, enjoying his otium with a 
 certain disregard of conventional dignity, and a certain 
 amount of outward passivity, which does not prevent 
 him from extending to his numerous and distinguished 
 guests a hearty welcome, while leaving to them afterwards 
 the pleasurable excitement of shifting for themselves. 
 
 Forster, in his Life of Goldsmith , slyly suggests that, 
 in this assemblage of brilliant wits and men of mark, 
 there may, at times, have been some need of the good 
 humour and gaiety with which the poet now so often 
 enlivened these famous meetings. 
 
 “Well, Sir Joshua,” said lawyer Dunning (afterwards 
 Lord Ashburton), on arriving at one of the dinners, “ and 
 whom have you got to dine with you to-day ? The last 
 time I dined in your house, the company was of such 
 a sort that, by G — , I believe all the rest of the world 
 enjoyed peace for that afternoon.” 
 
 It is possible, when we recall these noisy, brilliant 
 
 * In the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy. 
 
150 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 symposia, to sympathise just a little bit with that foolish 
 nobleman — an intimate friend of Sir Joshua’s — who, 
 according to an anecdote related by the master himself 
 to Northcote, deemed those persons who had gained 
 fame as literary characters so formidable, that he, Sir 
 Joshua, could “no more have prevailed upon him to 
 dine at the same table with Johnson and Goldsmith, 
 than with two tygers ” (sic) (Northcote’s Life of Rey- 
 nolds, Vol. I. p. 329). 
 
 “ They were,” Forster goes on to observe of the 
 Leicester Fields’ entertainments, “ the first great example 
 that had been given in this country of a cordial inter- 
 course between persons of distinguished pretensions of all 
 kinds— poets, physicians, lawyers, deans, historians, actors, 
 temporal and spiritual peers, House of Commons men, 
 men of science, men of letters, painters, philosophers, 
 musicians, and lovers of the arts, meeting on a ground of 
 hearty ease, good-humour and pleasantry.” 
 
 John Courtenay — the Courtenay who praised Bos- 
 well’s fournal of a Tour to the Hebrides in the verses 
 beginning, — 
 
 “With Reynolds’s pencil, vivid, bold, and true, 
 
 So fervent Boswell gives him to our view,” — 
 
 furnishes a graphic description — from parties at which he 
 had been present some years later than this particular 
 period — of the banquets at the President’s. Very often 
 the dinner-table, prepared for seven or eight, had to 
 accommodate itself to fifteen or sixteen ; for the amiable 
 host would, over and over again, on the eve of dinner, 
 tempt visitors with the intimation that Johnson, or Garrick, 
 or Goldsmith, or some star of the first magnitude was to 
 dine there. Not only were the guests closely packed, 
 but, when the dinner began, a want of knives and forks, 
 of plates and glasses, made itself felt. 
 
Sir Joshuas Dinner-parties 1 5 1 
 
 “The two or three occasional domestics were undis- 
 ciplined ; the kitchen had to keep pace with the visitors ; 
 and it was easy to know the guests best acquainted with 
 the house by their never failing to call instantly for beer, 
 bread, or wine, that they might get them before the first 
 course was over, and the worst confusion begun. Once 
 Sir Joshua was prevailed upon to furnish his table more 
 amply with dinner glasses and decanters, and some saving 
 of time they proved ; yet, as these accelerating utensils 
 were demolished in the course of time, he could never be 
 prevailed upon to replace them. But such trifling em- 
 barrassments,” continues Mr Courtenay, “ only served to 
 enhance the hilarity and singular pleasure of the enter- 
 tainment.” 
 
 Malone, who, like Courtenay, could have known these 
 intellectual banquets only at a later period than that at 
 which we have now arrived, gives, in a more courtly and 
 conventional style, such as befits the professional man of 
 letters of the period, an account which does not, if we 
 read between the lines, materially contradict Courtenay’s 
 unvarnished tale : — 
 
 “ The marked character of his table, I think, was, that 
 though there was always an abundant supply of those 
 elegancies which the season afforded, the variety of the 
 courses, the excellence of the dishes, or the flavour of the 
 burgundy, made the least part of the conversation ; though 
 the appetite was gratified by the usual delicacies, and the 
 glass, imperceptibly and without solicitation, was cheer- 
 fully circulated, everything of this kind appeared secondary 
 and subordinate ; and there seemed to be a general, 
 though tacit, agreement among the guests, that mind 
 should predominate over body ; that the honours of the 
 
152 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 turtle and the haunch should give place to the feast of 
 wit, and that for a redundant flow of wine the flow of soul 
 should be substituted. Of a table thus constituted, with 
 such a host, and such guests, who would not wish to 
 participate ? ” 
 
 It is amusing to learn that, on the one hand, Sir Joshua’s 
 dinners were served always precisely at five o’clock, and 
 that “his was not the fashionable ill-breeding which could 
 wait an hour for two or three persons of title, and put the 
 rest of the company out of humour by invidious distinc- 
 tion ; ” while, on the other, we find it noted that the master, 
 when himself a guest, very frequently arrived late for 
 dinner. 
 
 Detractors of the master have a difficult time of it, 
 so truly is he, to those who would criticise his well- 
 rounded life, open on all sides to the light of day, the 
 “invulnerable” man of Johnson — “the man, with whom 
 if you should quarrel, you will find the most difficulty how 
 to abuse.” Some of them have actually laid hold of the 
 harmless little eccentricity just related, concerning the 
 broken dinner-glasses and decanters, to reproach the 
 President with parsimony, and with greed in the accumu- 
 lation of money. He was, no doubt, a good man of busi- 
 ness where his pictures were concerned, and, like Titian 
 and Rubens before him, knew the full market value of his 
 work ; but, like those illustrious predecessors, he spent his 
 artistic gains nobly, as these very festivities, for all their 
 informal character, pretty conclusively prove. Farington 
 estimates the expenses in connection with his house at 
 ^2000 a year — a very considerable sum according to the 
 value of money at that time. Moreover, the artist who 
 purchased at their own prices the pictures of Gainsborough, 
 Zoffany, and others, and was, in his own undemonstrative 
 
Social Gaieties 
 
 153 
 
 fashion, helpful to Johnson and to Goldsmith whenever 
 they needed help, may be considered to have given suffi- 
 cient and convincing proofs of his generosity. 
 
 The modish side of the master’s individuality, his 
 undoubted though not undignified love of smart society, 
 is shown by the number of clubs, literary, social and 
 even sporting, to which he belongs, and the brilliant 
 masquerades and night festivities at the Opera House, at 
 Madame Cornely’s in Soho Square, at Vauxhall, at the 
 Pantheon, and elsewhere, which he does not scruple to 
 attend. In addition to the old clubs, with which he 
 chiefly identifies himself— The (Literary) Club and the 
 Dilettanti — we find the Devonshire, the Eumelian 
 (founded by and named after Dr Ash), and the Thursday 
 Night Club at the Star and Garter. And, not content 
 with these, Sir Joshua is extremely anxious to be a 
 member of Almack’s. 
 
 A masked ball, given by the Thursday-Night Club, 
 on the 10th of February 1771, costs no less than 1000 
 guineas, and at another Sir Joshua’s two lovely sitters, the 
 inseparable friends Mrs Crewe and Mrs Bouverie, appear 
 “ dressed as young fellows, the fierce, smart cock of their 
 hats much admired ” — a practice which even the most 
 audacious of modern llegantes, would now, it is imagined, 
 hesitate to adopt. 
 
 At this time Sir Joshua painted the inimitable “ Mrs 
 Abington as Miss Prue,” which has already been described, 
 and the lovely actress and demi-mondaine , Mrs Baddeley, 
 who is shown caressing one of her pet cats. The sitters 
 also include Lady Waldegrave, now legitimately, but not 
 yet avowedly, Duchess of Gloucester; and Mrs Horton, 
 sister of Wilkes’s opponent, Colonel Luttrell, who was 
 also to take rank shortly among the royal duchesses. 
 
 To this period belongs, too, a rather exceptional 
 
154 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 work, which has, on two occasions — in 1879 and 
 again in 1891 — been lent by its present owner, 
 Sir Edward H. Bunbury, to the Winter Exhibi- 
 tions of the Royal Academy. This is the portrait of 
 “ Polly Kennedy,” a lady whose beauty and charm 
 secured for her a place of her own among the most 
 fashionable Phrynes of her time. She is seen here in a rich 
 and fanciful costume, Oriental, according to the notions of 
 the time. The dress is white and gold, with an outer robe 
 of sumptuous orange brocade, lined with ermine, and a blue 
 sash. An anxious expression gives a peculiar character 
 to the fair face, the apparently high breeding of which 
 it is difficult to associate with a venal beauty of such wide 
 and liberal views as the too popular Miss Kennedy must, 
 according to all accounts, have professed. No doubt Sir 
 Joshua has idealised and generalised, as he was only too 
 prone to do with women, though, luckily for posterity, not 
 with men ; at any rate he has produced a singularly 
 beautiful, distinguished, and, above all, pathetic picture. 
 
 The story told of the sitter’s strenuous and successful 
 efforts to save from execution two ruffianly brothers, who 
 had been condemned to death for participating in a drunken 
 riot, resulting in the death of one Bigby a watchman, has a 
 genuinely tragic intensity — so pathetic is the persistence of 
 the courtesan against tremendous odds, so hardly won her 
 victory against mighty opponents, including Junius him- 
 self, who protests against any grace to a wilful murderer, 
 
 “ because that murderer is the brother of a common 
 prostitute.” The situation has curious points of resem- 
 blance with that in Victor Hugo’s Marion Delorme , 
 where the frail Marion seeks to obtain — at whatever 
 price — the pardon, not of a brother, but of her lover, 
 Didier. 
 
 The letter written by Sir Joshua to the lady’s chief 
 
 
155 
 
 Polly Kennedy 
 
 admirer, Sir Charles Bunbury, is worth transcribing, as 
 showing the enthusiastic interest taken by the master 
 in this portrait, and the conviction — no doubt genuine, 
 although it had been expressed before, and was many 
 times to be expressed again — that the work was to turn 
 out his best : — 
 
 “ September , 1770. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I have finished the face very much to 
 my own satisfaction. It has more grace and dignity than 
 anything I have ever done, and it is the best coloured. 
 As to the dress, I should be glad it might be left un- 
 determined till I return from my fortnight’s tour. When 
 I return, I will try different dresses. The Eastern dresses 
 are very rich, and have one sort of dignity ; but ’tis a 
 mock dignity in comparison of the simplicity of the 
 antique. The impatience I have to finish it will shorten 
 my stay in the country. I shall set out in an hour’s 
 time. — I am, with the greatest respect, your most 
 obliged servant, J. REYNOLDS.” 
 
 In July of this year (1770), there is to be recorded 
 the premature death, at the age of forty-five, of Francis 
 Cotes, a painter whom Hogarth’s antagonism, rather than 
 his true judgment, had preferred, we have seen, to Reynolds 
 himself ; who, nevertheless, deserves a much higher place 
 in English art than has yet been accorded to him. As 
 a pastelliste, though he may possibly have owed much to 
 the example of the Venetian artist La Rosalba, whose cool, 
 silvery colour his own resembles, he certainly succeeded 
 better than any Englishman of his time ; and his portraits 
 in oils, especially of ladies, have a peculiar, discreet 
 harmony of their own, a reposeful distinction, which 
 entitle them to a place beside, if not exactly in the same 
 
156 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 rank with, the work of greater and more widely-known 
 contemporaries. Thus, for instance, his companion 
 oval portraits of the two fair Gunnings, though they 
 preserve a soup^on of pre-Reynoldsian stiffness, realise 
 the historical loveliness of these ladies better than Sir 
 Joshua himself has succeeded in doing. His best per- 
 formances are not to be seen in public places. A portrait 
 of Mary, Duchess of Norfolk, by him, is at Arundel ; the 
 full-length of Lord Hawke, at Greenwich ; the Diploma 
 Gallery of the Royal Academy contains the portrait of 
 his father ; in the possession of Mr Henry Littleton is 
 the group of Mr J. Bates and his wife. The Duke of 
 Northumberland owns the favourite pastel portrait of 
 Queen Charlotte with the Princess Royal asleep on her 
 lap. No work of this painter is more charming, in its 
 unaffected distinction, than the anonymous portrait of a 
 lady — unkindly and erroneously called Kitty Fisher — 
 which was last seen in public at the Guelph Exhibition in 
 1891. 
 
 It was on the 23d of April 1771 that took place, 
 under the presidence of Sir Joshua, the first annual dinner 
 of the Royal Academy, to which, besides the members, 
 twenty-five guests, selected from the great officers of the 
 Court, the ministers, and the most distinguished men of 
 the day, were bidden. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s contributions to the exhibition were: — 
 “Venus chiding Cupid for learning to cast Accounts;” 
 “A Nymph and Bacchus;” “A Portrait of Theophila 
 Palmer reading Clarissa /” “An ‘Old Man,’ being a 
 preliminary Study for the ‘ Ugolino ’ ; ” “A Portrait of 
 a Gentleman ;” “ Mrs Abington as Miss Prue.” 
 
 The “ Nymph and Bacchus,” chiefly remarkable for 
 the lustiness of the infant wine-god, is not to be con- 
 founded with the “Mrs Hartley and her Child” exhibited 
 
i57 
 
 The Royal Academy of 1771 
 
 in 1773. It is the picture engraved as “The Birth of 
 Bacchus,” and belongs to the Hon. W. F. B. Massey 
 Mainwaring, who lent it to the Old Masters in 1884. 
 The “ Old Man ” is the model White, the Ugolino of 
 Reynolds’s picture, and the St Paviarius (the paviour) of 
 ill-natured Nathaniel Hone. This study was engraved 
 as “ Resignation,” and dedicated to Goldsmith, with some 
 lines from the Deserted Village , as a return compliment 
 for the poet’s own exquisite dedication. The Rembrandt- 
 esque “Man’s Head in Profile,” No. 106 in the National 
 Gallery, is also a study from the same model. 
 
 Barry, having completed his artistic education in 
 Rome at the expense of the Burkes, had returned, 
 sternly bent on what he deemed high art, and on nothing 
 else ; and, as embodying his uncompromising view of the 
 subject, sent to the Exhibition this year an “ Adam and 
 Eve,” now in the Sheepshanks Collection at South Ken- 
 sington, where its frigid, impersonal classicality (or what 
 is so called), overwhelms the beholder with an unspeak- 
 able ennui. It is not indeed the sentimental, eighteenth- 
 century classicality of Miss Angelica and Cipriani, but 
 it is something derived in equal parts from Bolognese 
 art and Graeco-Roman sculpture. 
 
 Gainsborough contributes no less than five full- 
 length portraits, and Cosway a portentous allegory. 
 Nathaniel Dance is represented by that altogether 
 grotesque portrait of Garrick as Richard III., in which 
 the despairing monarch appears flourishing a stage 
 sword after the fashion of a walking cane. The result 
 to be derived from a contemplation of this performance 
 is a belief that Hogarth’s only less unfortunate version 
 of the same subject must necessarily be a fine and im- 
 pressive picture. Hayman (of whom, by the way, there 
 is, from the brush of Reynolds, so excellent a portrait- 
 
•58 
 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 sketch in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy) 
 sends “Christ and the Two Disciples at Emmatis;” 
 Angelica Kauflfmann, fancy pictures of the usual pseudo- 
 classic type, and portraits. 
 
 West, besides classical and biblical subjects, con- 
 tributes his famous “ Death of Wolfe,” as to the 
 genesis of which he himself gives so amusing an 
 account. Personages no less than the Archbishop 
 of York, and Sir Joshua himself, endeavoured, it 
 would appear, to dissuade West from so dangerous 
 and revolutionary an innovation as the painting of a 
 contemporary event in the garb and with the accom- 
 paniments of the time. West stood firm against the 
 ministers of the Church and the Academy combined, 
 and painted his picture as he had planned it. Sir 
 Joshua’s signal fairness and candour are once more 
 shown by the fact that, returning when the picture was 
 finished, he seated himself before it, and, after half-an- 
 hour’s examination, said : — 
 
 “ West has conquered ; he has treated the subject as 
 it ought to be treated. I retract my objections. I 
 foresee that this picture will not only become one of the 
 most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art.” 
 
 It undoubtedly was a revolution, so far as the English 
 art of the moment was concerned, and nothing is more 
 curious than that it should have originated in calm, care- 
 ful, conventional West, the favourite purveyor of classic- 
 alities to good King George. Still, it is necessary to 
 qualify Leslie and Taylor’s statement — “Till this pic- 
 ture was painted, no work had been produced, by a 
 painter of high art, which aimed at the literal represen- 
 tation of a contemporary event. History in high art 
 
West's “ Death of Wolfe " 
 
 159 
 
 disdained historical fact.” Le Brun, himself — the courtly, 
 the conventional, the Raphaelesque — has furnished a most 
 striking instance, in contradiction of this last statement, in 
 his great series of designs on the scale of life, representing 
 incidents in the public life of Louis XIV., which were 
 reproduced in Gobelins tapestry by the State manu- 
 factory. Again, if Van der Meulen’s canvases com- 
 memorating the campaigns of the Roi Soleil were 
 not precisely high art, they were certainly history, 
 though the treatment might be genre-like ; and in these 
 accuracy of costume and environment was rigidly 
 observed. 
 
 Later on — in 1776 — that haughty vindicator of the classic 
 proprieties, Barry, in order to re-assert the position and 
 define the privileges of “ high art,” painted another “ Death 
 of Wolfe,” in which the English eighteenth-century hero and 
 his officers were represented entirely naked. This, however, 
 must have seemed as shocking to the awakened sense of 
 realism in matters historical, as did the realistic innovation 
 of contemporary dress to the professors and theorists 
 when first introduced ; for Barry’s protest in paint was 
 so coldly received that he did not again contribute to an 
 exhibition of the Royal Academy. His mode of con- 
 ception, and that of his contemporaries in such matters, 
 was worse even than that of the much-mocked David, who 
 certainly, in his great cartoon for the Serment dn Jeu de 
 Paume (in the Louvre), represented the historic person- 
 ages who swore the famous oath clothed only in their 
 patriotism ; but he did this in the inchoate stage, that 
 he might the better dress and drape them in the defini- 
 tive work. Neo-Roman and rabid classic as he was, 
 when he treated a contemporary subject, as in the mag- 
 nificent Couronnement de 1 Imperatrice Josephine (Louvre), 
 he conformed absolutely to the dresses of the time, down 
 
1 60 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 to their smallest detail, and sought for his classic dig- 
 nity in the bearing and general aspect of the personages 
 represented. 
 
 It is in May 1771 that young Northcote plucks 
 up courage to start from Plymouth for London, and, 
 accomplishing his pleasant pilgrimage on foot, is at the 
 end of it kindly received by Sir Joshua, with offers 
 of assistance and promises to lend any picture in his 
 collection for copying. He receives every facility at the 
 house for such copying and is especially enraptured 
 with the good-nature of Miss Reynolds. To his sur- 
 prise, however, he finds that the pupils are absolute 
 strangers to Sir Joshua’s method of working, and that 
 he makes use of strange colours and vehicles, and 
 works in a room quite apart — never admitting them 
 to the sanctum, save to act on emergency as models. 
 
 Northcote having obtained the means of meeting the 
 necessities of daily life by colouring plates of birds for 
 a printseller on Ludgate Hill, goes regularly every day to 
 Sir Joshua’s, and proceeds ardently with his copying of 
 old masters in the President’s gallery. Soon the latter, 
 evidently struck by his enthusiasm and his power of 
 application, and perceiving, too, that the raw youth may 
 easily be fashioned into a very useful instrument to 
 assist him in the more mechanical part of his profession, 
 proposes to his protege to take up his residence at 
 Leicester Fields for four or five years, and to assist him 
 in the studio on the same footing as the other pupils. 
 How eagerly and gratefully this offer is accepted may be 
 readily imagined, since Northcote is thus brought into 
 immediate and daily contact with the fountain-head of 
 the newer English art, and is, moreover, relieved at the 
 very beginning of his artistic career from the anxieties of 
 a hand-to-mouth existence, such as is the rule rather than 
 
N or thcote at Sir Joshua s 1 6 1 
 
 the exception with youthful artists persistently following 
 their vocation in the teeth of material difficulties. 
 
 From the 13th of August to the 6th of September, Sir 
 Joshua was again in Paris — whether to see or to buy 
 pictures does not clearly appear. A passage in a letter 
 written by Northcote to his brother — cited by Leslie and 
 Taylor — deserves to be considered, as giving, in a few 
 words, a certain insight into the relations between Sir 
 Joshua and Miss Reynolds, and furnishing proof that he 
 was courteous, even where sympathy was completely 
 lacking, which we must unfortunately assume to have 
 been the case in the present instance : — 
 
 “ I received your letter, which much entertained me. 
 It was brought to me while I was at dinner with Miss 
 Reynolds, Miss Ofify Palmer (a niece of Sir Joshua), and 
 Mr Clark. Miss Reynolds also had a letter by the same 
 post, but it was not from Sir Joshua, who is at this time 
 in Paris, for he never writes to her, and, between ourselves, 
 I believe but seldom converses as we used to do in our 
 family, and never instructs her in painting. I found she 
 knew nothing of his having invited me to be his scholar 
 and live in the house, till I told her of it. She has the 
 command of the household and the servants as much 
 as he has. . . 
 
 It is instructive to find Northcote saying: — "It was 
 very provoking, after I had been for hours labouring on the 
 drapery of one of his portraits from a lay-figure, to see 
 him, with a few masterly sweeps of his pencil (pencil 
 meant brush in those days), destroy nearly all my work, 
 and turn it into something much finer ; and yet, but for my 
 work, it would not have been what he made it.” 
 
 We seem to see here the master working, much as we 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 Sir J os Jma Reynolds 
 
 know from Rembrandt’s own indications that he must 
 have worked, on the nearly finished canvases of pupils ; or 
 proceeding to give life, by swift and sure touches, to the 
 dead preparation of a well-trained helper, as some of 
 Rubens’s unfinished performances give evidence that he 
 did. 
 
 Sir Joshua delivered his Fourth Discourse at the 
 distribution of prizes un the ioth of December 1771. 
 
 Among the notabilities painted by the master at this 
 time was the brilliant navigator Joseph (afterwards Sir 
 Joseph) Banks, who had just then returned from the great 
 three years’ voyage round the world with Captain Cook 
 and Dr Solander, and was already then planning a new 
 expedition into the South Seas. This is one of the most 
 masculine and characteristic pieces of portraiture that we 
 owe to the master, and we may concede to it, at least, equal 
 rank with the “Johnson,” the “ Goldsmith,” the “ Baretti,” 
 the “Gibbon,” the “John Hunter” itself. The enthusiastic 
 young naturalist appears seated at a table on which are a 
 globe and some large tomes, on the edge of one of which 
 appears the quotation “ Cras ingens iterabiinus cequor ,” 
 which has, in this case, a more than common significance, 
 since it is the keynote of the conception. Rarely, if ever, 
 has a virile energy, an ardent and generous impatience 
 to be up and doing, been more nobly expressed than in 
 this canvas. This is, indeed, the true counterfeit of the man 
 whom all the lionising of the worlds of science and fashion, 
 all the jargon of the Blues, could not detain from the 
 new scientific enterprises which he burned to accomplish. 
 We may profitably contrast the “Joseph Banks,” as a 
 dramatic portrait, with the “ Commodore Keppel ”of 1753. 
 In the earlier picture — the one, it will be remembered, 
 which constituted the turning point of Reynolds’s career as 
 a painter — the drama suggested is mainly the outward one 
 


Sitters in 1772 163 
 
 of incident, which, unless strongly corrected by the sug- 
 gestion of a strong and permanent individuality, is apt to 
 lend an ephemeral character to portraiture. In the 
 nobler and more mature work, the drama suggested is that 
 of the soul — the expression of an overmastering passion, 
 rather than a typical incident — and this dramatic element, 
 if infinitely harder to grasp and to express, is far more 
 legitimately within the province of portraiture than the 
 other, since it presupposes a passionate concentration and 
 intensification of the whole individuality, and not its 
 partial overshadowing in the accident of momentary 
 action. 
 
 Sir Joseph Banks was again portrayed by our master 
 in one of the two great Dilettanti pictures presently to be 
 mentioned. He achieved in 1 778 that enviable dignity, 
 the Presidency of the Royal Society, which he retained for 
 forty- two years, and was in 1787 made a baronet. 
 
 Garrick and his wife were sitters this year for the 
 portrait-group painted for the Hon. F. Fitzmaurice, in 
 which the ever mercurial, bright-eyed King of the Players 
 appears seated with his still handsome wife on a garden 
 seat in the grounds of their villa at Hampton, he just 
 closing a book from which he has been reading to her. 
 This is stated to be one of the most natural and vigorous 
 of the Garrick series ; it has not been seen by the writer, 
 who has, moreover, been unable to ascertain its history 
 since 1826, when it appears to have been sold at Christie’s. 
 Tom Taylor, in a foot-note, states that it belonged in his 
 time to Mr Grizell. 
 
 Among the sitters early in 1772 appears the Duchess 
 of Buccleugh, who had already, in 1759, been painted by 
 Sir Joshua, when she was still Lady Betty Montagu. 
 She is now depicted in full-length, seated on a bench 
 under a tree, with her left arm encircling her child, 
 
164 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Lady Mary Scott ; the canvas being enlivened by two 
 dogs, one of them affectionately jumping up at her knees. 
 This is the lady called “ the Good Duchess,” because, we 
 are told, she expended in judicious charity £30,000 a 
 year. 
 
 The brilliant lawyer and, as he was deemed, peculiarly 
 ugly man, Dunning — one of the defenders some years after 
 of Admiral Keppel — is also found to be sitting this year. 
 He has been depicted at least twice by our master ; first 
 in a full-bottomed wig and a black gown with long white 
 bands. This portrait has been since i860 in the National 
 Portrait Gallery ; it was engraved in 1787 by Bartolozzi. 
 The second portrait is that in the great group compris- 
 ing, besides Dunning (Lord Ashburton), Colonel Barre in 
 a plain dress, and Lord Shelburne (Marquess of Lans- 
 downe) in peer’s robes. In neither of these portraits do 
 the strong, well-cut features and resolute aspect of the 
 sitter quite justify the great lawyer’s reputation as an 
 unusually ill-favoured man. 
 
 To this time also belongs the picture already referred 
 to of the fashionable beauty, Mrs Crewe, as Ste. Gene- 
 vieve, minding (or rather not minding) her sheep — a 
 masquerading this, which, however lovely the picture, 
 must appear even more distasteful than the tawdry 
 assumption of the paste-board goddess with which 
 Reynolds so often gratified the wishes of his fairest 
 sitters. In April we find at the studio the uncouth Duke 
 of Cumberland, and his lovely, intriguing duchess, Ann 
 Luttrell, formerly Horton, whose inveigling into the bonds 
 of legitimate union of the ungainly, almost half-witted 
 duke was the main cause which led to the passing of the 
 Royal Marriage Act still in force. 
 
 The Incorporated Society now opens its new gallery 
 on the site of the Lyceum Theatre and makes one more 
 
Royal A cademy 0/1772 165 
 
 determined effort to place itself on equal terms with its 
 young yet already overpowering adversary. Its chief 
 contributors are Romney, with the portraits of Ozias 
 Humphreys the miniature painter, and Meyer the en- 
 ameller, Stubbs, Wright of Derby, and Sir Joshua’s former 
 pupils, Barron and Berridge. 
 
 Even apart from the important contribution of its 
 President, the Royal Academy makes a brave show. 
 Gainsborough, still resident at Bath, sends four portraits 
 and no less than ten landscape drawings ; Barry, persever- 
 ing in the vindiction of high art according to his view, sends 
 “ Medea at her Incantation,” “Venus rising from the Sea,” 
 and “The Education of Achilles.” West gives as a pend- 
 ant to the “Death of Wolfe,” “Penn’s Treaty with the 
 Indians,” a piece of highly tempered, yet, for the time, 
 audacious realism of the same type, which has been 
 much popularised by engraving. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s share in the show was as follows : — 
 
 “ Miss Meyer as Hebe,” — the portrait of the fair 
 daughter of Meyer, R.A., the enameller, of which Horace 
 Walpole, with much probability, observes that “ the idea is 
 taken from a print by Goltzius, but far more graceful.” 
 This canvas was lent to the Old Masters in 1873 by Baron 
 Lionel de Rothschild. 
 
 The seated full-length of “ Mrs Crewe as Ste. Gene- 
 vieve ” to which reference has just been made. 
 
 A half-length of Dr Robertson, the Scotch historian. 
 
 The portrait of Hickey, the attorney. 
 
 “ Mrs Quarrington as St Agnes,” — with the obligatory 
 attributes of the saint. 
 
 Another of Sir Joshua’s favourite fancy pictures of 
 models — the old Ugolino (White), as a Captain of 
 Banditti. 
 
 Was it some ephemeral fashion this year which made 
 
1 66 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the beauties prefer the role of the saint to that of the 
 goddess ; or was any influence at work on the master 
 himself at the moment, inclining his thoughts in a new 
 direction ? 
 
 The great sensation of the year appears to have been 
 Zoffany’s picture, “ Academicians gathered about the 
 Model in the Life School of Somerset House ” — now in the 
 Royal Collection. All the prominent members are here, 
 save Gainsborough, whose absence from the canvas well 
 typifies the indifference with which he treated the pro- 
 ceedings of the Academy. It was a pretty thought of 
 the German artist to hang on the walls the portraits of 
 the two female Academicians, Angelica Kauffmann and 
 Mary Moser the flower-painter, since these ladies could 
 not well, under the circumstances, be included in the living 
 group. Sir Joshua is here with the unfailing ear-trumpet, 
 and so are, among others, West, Nathaniel Hone, Cosway, 
 Chambers, Zoffany himself, Wilson, Cipriani, Zuccarelli, 
 and that curious excrescence in the Academy — of which 
 he was an honorary member — Tan-Chet-Qua, the Chinese 
 modeller. 
 
 Attention has been called to the curious fact that 
 several members of the Royal Academy of Painting 
 in Paris, invited, perhaps, by the President on the 
 occasion of his last trip, exhibited on this occasion. 
 Among these are the rather obscure names of Olivier 
 and Pasquier, and with them that of the Alsatian 
 landscapist, De Loutherbourg, a painter who had 
 already achieved great success on the other side as 
 a landscape, marine, and battle painter. He is an 
 almost unique example of the successful transplanta- 
 tion of a full-grown and mature artist from one soil to 
 another. De Loutherbourg, as is well known, became 
 completely acclimatised here, and himself was elected a 
 
Intimacy with the T hr ales 167 
 
 member of the English Academy in 1781. His art, too, 
 acquired quite a national quality, and, what is more, shone 
 in purely national subjects, such as “ The Spanish 
 Armada” and “ Lord Howe’s Victory, 1794.” In this he 
 stands apart from such exotic artists as Angelica Kauff- 
 mann, Cipriani, Zuccarelli, and Bartolozzi, who, although 
 strongly influenced by the English atmosphere and the 
 English mode of thought, can never be said to belong to 
 the English school. Zoffany, on the other hand, notwith- 
 standing his Bohemian blood, his German origin, and his 
 artistic education in Rome, became as thoroughly national 
 in tone as any Englishman of them all, and, indeed, 
 grasped with greater strength and subtlety certain ele- 
 ments of the British character than any artist had done 
 since Hogarth — by whom Zoffany, almost alone in his 
 generation, was evidently much influenced. 
 
 This year, Sir Joshua painted the stately tragic actress, 
 Mrs Yates, the unapproachable Medea, Lady Macbeth, 
 Constance, and Marguerite of Anjou of her day ; the pre- 
 cursor of Mrs Siddons, who at first hardly ventured to risk 
 herself in the parts upon which Mrs Yates had most 
 definitely set her mark. The portrait shows her seated, 
 in an elegant toilette of her own day, looking up from 
 the perusal of a book — doubtless a theatrical part — which 
 she has been studying ; above her is a bust of Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s connection with the Thrales had become 
 a close one at this point, and he was already then at work 
 on some of the portraits for the brewer’s famous gallery 
 of notabilities at Streatham, of which more hereafter. He 
 never was, however, an intimate friend of Thrale or his 
 brilliant wife in the sense that Johnson was an intimate 
 friend, and in their relations there must have always 
 remained an element of ceremonious courtesy, which the 
 
1 68 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 censorious dictionary-maker — seriously and even affection- 
 ately interested both in husband and wife — often thought 
 himself justified in omitting. 
 
 Thrale’s position was in one sense an unique one, 
 and is not clearly indicated by the mere statement 
 that he was a brewer of great means and corresponding 
 liberality. His education had been that of the aristo- 
 cracy and high society of his time, and his early 
 relations with this class were easily and naturally sus- 
 tained through life, though he had the courage to stick to 
 his brewing, in which, indeed, his ambition and effort to 
 o’ertop his brother brewers often asserted itself at the 
 expense of his pocket. Mrs Thrale had birth, good looks, 
 and an admirable natural wit in her favour, and, aided by 
 the opulence and good position of her husband, she was 
 thus able to make the comfortable, well-supplied Streat- 
 ham villa the centre of a brilliant and, what is more, on 
 the whole a friendly circle. Though it had many ups and 
 downs, with which all who know Mrs Piozzi’s autobio- 
 graphy and the memoirs of the time are familiar, its 
 charms were such as could not be paralleled by those of 
 any of the salons of the more fashionable Blue Stockings. 
 The intimacy, the easy intercourse which were the rule 
 at the Streatham gatherings, the opportunities for discus- 
 sion afforded, constituted a much nearer approach to the 
 true French salon of the eighteenth century than did any 
 of the brilliant, formal routs of Mrs Montagu, the chaoses 
 and Babels of her nearest rival, Mrs Vesey, or the imita- 
 tions of any of the inferior aspirants. 
 
 Mrs Thrale’s education, entourage, and genuinely bright 
 and distinctive individuality entitled her to a high place 
 among the sister Blues with whom she consorted. Luckily, 
 too, her overpowering sense of humour preserved her from 
 many of their absurdities, while, on the other hand, her 
 
169 
 
 Mrs T hr ale on Reynolds 
 
 social position, good, or rather substantial, as it was, did 
 not quite enable her to queen it on equal terms with the 
 most prominent of the pompous and well-intentioned ladies 
 in whose circle she moved. The Blue-Stocking set did 
 not, as a whole, reach its apogee until some few years 
 later than the period with which we are for the moment 
 dealing ; and it will therefore be convenient to take 
 another opportunity of dealing with these home-grown 
 Precieuses Ridicules, or, rather Femmes Savantes , who 
 approach so much more nearly to the imitations of the 
 Hotel de Rambouillet satirised by Moliere than to those 
 Parisian divinities of the eighteenth century, whom it 
 is probable that they themselves had more particularly 
 in view. 
 
 With regard to Mrs Thrale herself, if we owed her 
 nothing else, we should be duly grateful to her for what 
 is, notwithstanding a certain sub-acid tone and an 
 evident lack of complete sympathy, one of the best 
 portraits that has been left us of Sir Joshua — the one, 
 indeed, which most nearly combines into a congruous 
 whole the seemingly conflicting accounts supplied from 
 other sources : — 
 
 Here is the familar portrait in words, drawn by the 
 vivacious lady as a commentary to the portrait of the 
 master, painted by himself as one of the Streatham 
 series : — 
 
 “ Of Reynolds all good should be said and no harm, 
 
 Tho’ the heart is too frigid, the pencil too warm ; 
 
 Yet each fault from his converse we still must disclaim, 
 
 As his temper ’tis peaceful, and pure as his fame. 
 
 Nothing in it o’erflows, nothing ever is wanting, 
 
 It nor chills like his kindness nor glows like his painting, 
 When Johnson by strength overpowers our mind, 
 
 When Montagu dazzles, and Burke strikes us blind ; 
 
170 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 To Reynolds well pleased for relief we must run, 
 
 Rejoice in his shadow, and shrink from the sun.” 
 
 In September 1772, Sir Joshua was elected an aider- 
 man of his native town, Plympton, and gratefully accepted 
 the honour thus conferred upon him in a letter containing 
 the promise to appear there next year, in order to return 
 thanks in person. Both Northcote, and Leslie and 
 Taylor, have expressed themselves a little puzzled that 
 he, at the height of his fame, should have thought it 
 worth while to accept the provincial dignity thus offered ; 
 the latter suggesting, however, with obvious probability, as 
 the moving cause, his strong love for his native place, 
 and pleasure at being honoured in his own country. 
 The acceptance of the office by the President of the 
 Academy is really, as it appears to the writer, a very 
 natural and normal incident in his career, showing, as it 
 doubtless does, besides the manly pride in being honoured 
 by his fellow-citizens, that peculiar universality, that love 
 of observing, and playing a part in, all phases of society 
 and of life, which distinguished Reynolds the man even 
 more strongly than it did Reynolds the artist. To this 
 quality he doubtless owed in a great measure the grasp, 
 shown in male portraiture, of individualities so divergent 
 from each other, so entirely removed from his own, upon 
 which comment has already so frequently been made. 
 
 The Fifth Discourse was delivered at the usual 
 ceremony of the distribution of prizes, on the 10th of 
 December 1772. 
 
 It was on the 15th of March 1773 that occurred 
 one of the capital events in the life of Sir Joshua’s 
 friend, Goldsmith ; this was none other than the 
 production, after many vicissitudes, of She Stoops to 
 Conquer at Covent Garden. It had been accepted with 
 
Northcote and Goldsmith 1 7 1 
 
 great hesitation and misgiving by Manager Colman, 
 after much pressure on the part of Johnson ; and some 
 of the actors cast for the chief parts, including Mrs 
 Abington herself, had so completely shared in the 
 misgivings of the manager as, upon one pretext or 
 another, to throw up their parts. Johnson led a body 
 of friends, including Sir Joshua, Steevens, Edmund, and 
 Richard Burke, and others of less note, to the first night, 
 well-prepared to be enthusiastic by a lively dinner at the 
 Shakespeare Tavern near the theatre, at which poor Gold- 
 smith was very naturally the one anxious and perturbed 
 person. We know that the comedy had an unquali- 
 fied success, not d'estime only, but of laughter, bubbling 
 and spontaneous, and that Colman and those autocrats, 
 the actors, found themselves completely disconcerted by 
 the result. The manager must, notwithstanding, have 
 received agreeable balm for this signal proof of his want 
 of judgment in the fact that the play had what was, for 
 those days, an exceptional run, and produced between 
 £400 and £500 profit. Northcote says in the Life : — 
 
 “ I recollect that Dr Goldsmith gave me an order 
 soon after this, with which I went to see the comedy ; 
 and the next time I saw him he inquired of me what 
 my opinion was of it. I told him that I would not pre- 
 sume to be a judge of its merits. He asked : ‘ Did it 
 make you laugh ? ’ I answered : ‘ Exceedingly.’ ‘ Then,’ 
 said the Doctor, ‘ that is all that I require.’ ” 
 
 Northcote’s anecdote of his first introduction to Dr 
 Goldsmith, a few months before this event, is not a 
 little curious, as throwing a side light on the Reynolds’s 
 interior, and displaying the patronising bonhomie with 
 which he treated his best pupil. 
 
172 
 
 Sir Joshtta Reynolds 
 
 “The other day,” he writes to his brother, “Goldsmith 
 dined here. It was the first time I ever saw him. I had 
 before told both Sir Joshua and Miss Reynolds that I 
 had a great curiosity to see him ; and when I came into 
 the room the first word Sir Joshua said to me was : 
 
 ‘ This is Dr Goldsmith, Mr Northcote, whom you so much 
 wished to see. Why did you desire to see him ? ’ The 
 suddenness of the question rather confused me, and I 
 replied: ‘Because he is a notable man.’ This, in one sense 
 of the word, was so unlike his character, that Sir Joshua 
 laughed heartily, and said he should in future always be 
 called ‘ the notable man ; ’ but what I meant was a man 
 of note and eminence. He seems an unaffected and 
 most good-natured man, but knows very little about 
 pictures, as he often confesses with a laugh.” 
 
 This banter, thoroughly good-natured as it is, both of 
 pupil and friend, does not altogether accord with Forster’s 
 enthusiastic praise of Sir Joshua as the one who, alone 
 among the illustrious members of The Club, abstained 
 from quizzing the unfortunate Goldy, so much the butt 
 even of those who loved him — of Burke, of Boswell and 
 Hawkins, of Johnson himself. And yet that the poet sin- 
 cerely loved his friends at The Club is nowhere more 
 happily shown than in the letters which he writes to Sir 
 Joshua in 1770, when he is travelling in France and 
 Flanders with the Hornecks. Here he lets his home- 
 sickness and his longing to be again with them, and 
 especially with Reynolds, undisguisedly appear. The 
 truth is that Goldsmith was of those who would have all 
 the world busied with them, who are perpetually in quest 
 of the sympathy of, and, failing that, of the contact with, 
 their fellow-creatures. The banter, the quizzing is no 
 great suffering, and, indeed, as an evidence of friendliness, 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1 773 173 
 
 expressed somewhat a lenvers , they come to look for it. 
 It is the cold air of neglect and indifference, the austerity 
 of solitude, from which they shrink. 
 
 At the Royal Academy Exhibition of this year, which 
 opened on the 24th of April, the works of Gainsborough, 
 usually so prolific a contributor, were looked for in vain. 
 This was the first of his many quarrels with the Academy, 
 but whether the disagreement was in this case occasioned by 
 some dispute as to the hanging of his pictures, or otherwise, 
 does not clearly appear. Another absentee from the walls 
 was that miserable, neglected, great artist, Wilson, whose 
 unattractive personality appears to have fatally stood in 
 the way of the recognition of his noble art by a public 
 which was taught to reverence Claude, but could not, un- 
 guided, see anything in the work of the painter who, 
 without slavish imitation, .approached, perhaps, most 
 nearly to the great French master. The occasion was 
 also signalised by the first appearance of Reynolds’s pupil, 
 Northcote, with a portrait, and by that of young Morland, 
 then twenty years of age, and not long since a student in 
 the Academy Schools. 
 
 A piquant surprise, too, is the return, after an in- 
 terval of nearly twenty years, of the Peintre turc , Liotard, 
 who, for one brief moment, had divided the attention of 
 the town with Reynolds in his early time, and had, as 
 has been seen, received at the hands of the young painter 
 some unnecessarily bitter criticism. Now the veteran 
 pastelliste reappears, no doubt under the auspices of Sir 
 Joshua, who has shown himself so singularly and, 
 as some have held, unduly tolerant of foreign art, and 
 profits by the custom which admits the members of 
 foreign academies. The indefatigable portraitist had, in 
 the meanwhile, successfully continued his career, passing 
 the greater portion of the interval in Holland, where he had 
 
1 74 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 meanwhile married the daughter of a French merchant 
 established at Amsterdam.* He continued to the end to 
 earn money and popularity, but never entitled himself to 
 take rank with a Quentin de La Tour, or even with a 
 Rosalba or a Perronneau. 
 
 Barry, who in the February of this year had been 
 elected an Academician, was high-classical as usual ; 
 and not less so West, the very titles of whose pictures, 
 and especially that “ Portrait of a Gentleman in the 
 Character of a Roman Tribune,” cause the modern reader 
 of this year’s catalogue to shiver with apprehension. 
 
 The austere classicalities of Jacques-Louis David, the 
 freezing representations of scenes in Roman history and 
 Lempriere which the Revolution and the period im- 
 mediately preceding it called forth, were not as motive- 
 less, with all their sins, as these English productions. 
 They might be, they were, based on a system absolutely 
 false and void of all elements of true classicality ; 
 but from triviality the entire conviction, the intense 
 personal bias of the painter preserved them. And 
 then, David had the one saving grace that he never 
 travestied his portraits ; he displayed, indeed, in these 
 a sturdy, a noble realism, worthy of the Florence of the 
 fifteenth century, and it is for this reason that his “ Pius 
 VII.,” and such tons bourgeois as the “ Mons r P£coul ” and 
 “ Madame Pecoul,” may take rank among the master- 
 pieces of portraiture of the late eighteenth century. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s contributions to the year’s display con- 
 sisted of no less than twelve pictures : — 
 
 The full-length of the Duchess of Buccleugh with her 
 child, already referred to. 
 
 “ Lady Melbourne and Child ” — engraved as “ Maternal 
 
 The Ryks Museum of that city contains a collection of his later and 
 weaker performances, bequeathed by a descendant. 
 
Sir Joshua s Contributions 175 
 
 Affection,” and marked by a certain family likeness to 
 the “ Mrs Bouverie and her Child.” 
 
 A half-length of the Hon. Mrs Seymour Darner, the 
 well-known amateur sculptor, best known by her statue 
 of herself in the hall of the British Museum, and the 
 heads on the bridge at Henley. 
 
 (The lady was a pupil of Ceracchi and the elder Bacon, 
 and herself frequently exhibited later on at the Academy. 
 It was she who, by the bequest of Horace Walpole, 
 her cousin, succeeded to Strawberry Hill, with £ 2000 a 
 year for its maintenance.) 
 
 “ A young lady, whole-length.” 
 
 “ Mr and Mrs Garrick ” — the picture painted for the 
 Hon. F. Fitzmaurice, and already referred to. 
 
 The great portrait of Joseph Banks which has above 
 been described at length. 
 
 “ A Gentleman — three-quarters.” 
 
 “A Nymph with the Infant Bacchus,” being a portrait 
 of the beautiful actress, Mrs Hartley, with her child. 
 Irresistible here is the truthfulness of expression of 
 Master Hartley- Bacchus, perched on the fair, round 
 shoulder of his mother, and undecided whether to 
 whimper or to smile. 
 
 “ A Strawberry Girl ” — the famous original of many 
 replicas and copies, now, with the rest of the Hertford- 
 Wallace pictures, in the collection of Lady Wallace at 
 Manchester House. 
 
 We are told that Sir Joshua considered it one of the 
 “ half-dozen original things ” which, he declared, no man 
 ever exceeded in his life’s work. It is indeed a genuine 
 invention, this timid little mouse-like creature, creeping 
 along with her pottle on her arm, and one which only 
 he who loved children, and had the sympathy of the 
 heart with all their pretty, half animal-like ways, could 
 
176 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 light upon. The execution, too, in its lightness, its half- 
 finish accentuating no detail, is admirably suited to the 
 subject. 
 
 The border-line is here fixed between genuine naivete , 
 such as is in this piece still to be found, and that exces- 
 sive self-consciousness and forced espieglerie which mars 
 such later things at the “ Muscipula,” the “ Robinetta,” 
 and the dainty “ Collina.” It is in these last that 
 Sir Joshua, emulating too much the exquisite, mannered 
 graces of Correggio, overstepped the limits of the health)’ 
 and the genuine in art, and fell into a distasteful artifice, 
 foreign to what is best in his own artistic nature. 
 
 The master’s most important canvas — the one which 
 had cost him so much anxious care and prepartion for two 
 or three years past — was the “ Count Ugolino with his 
 Children in the Dungeon,” which was described in the 
 catalogue by the famous lines in the 33d canto of the 
 Inferno : — 
 
 “ Io non piangeva, si dentro impietrai : 
 
 Piangevan elii, ed Anselmuccio mio 
 Disse, ‘Tu guardi si, Padre ! che hai ?* 
 
 Pero non lagrimai ne rispos 5 io 
 Tutto quel giorno, nb la notte appresso.” 
 
 This even the captious Walpole marks in his marginal 
 notes as “ most admirable,” while Leslie goes so far as to 
 say : “ I can conceive no finer treatment of the subject. 
 Indeed, it seems to me the only treatment.” It is possible, 
 perhaps, to agree with Tom Taylor’s much-qualified praise 
 of it as (with all the drawbacks which he points out) “by 
 far the painter’s finest historical picture ” — since this would 
 only be to place it above such works as “ The Death of 
 Dido,” “The Witches’ Scene in Macbeth,” the “Infant 
 Hercules strangling the Serpents but it is quite impos- 
 
1 77 
 
 The “ Ugolino ” 
 
 sible to-day for even the master’s most unqualified ad- 
 mirers to accept Leslie’s enthusiastic estimate of the 
 work. A Rembrandtesque skill in the impressive light- 
 ing of the whole, an undeniable breadth in the treatment 
 of the chiaroscuro and in the massing of the groups, may 
 be readily conceded ; but there is a terrible artificiality 
 about the conception, which is the outcome, not of the 
 true vision of the painter-poet flashing light upon so 
 tremendous a subject, but of an artificial building up of 
 materials, mechanically elaborated with such technical 
 accomplishment as the master possessed — and that, as he 
 himself was the first to admit, was not sufficient for such 
 a self-imposed task as this. From a merely academic 
 point of view the grouping of the starving children is 
 harmonious and impressive, but it is based on arbitrary 
 notions of the grand style, and not, in the first place, on 
 nature. The main failure of the picture is the Ugolino 
 himself. This is not the woe, beyond speech and beyond 
 movement, of the father whose tears are dried up at their 
 source, whose heart is stone within him ; through it all we 
 still see old White, the model, sitting up, with a more or less 
 appropriate expression, de circonstance. All the unaffected 
 reverence of Michelangelo and Raphael, all the severe 
 “ high-art ” principles, which led our master to think, while 
 he theorised, that he preferred the Bolognese school to 
 the Venetian, cannot get beyond this ; and the unsurpassed 
 portraitist only succeeds, in his most successful historical 
 work, in clearly defining the limits of his talent in a path 
 which it was not given to him to tread. 
 
 It would be unreasonable to ask that the gracious 
 individuality of the great artist should bear a fruit which 
 the stock is not made to produce, or that he should shine 
 with an equal radiance here, where no artist of British 
 blood or origin showed himself capable of shining — 
 
 M 
 
1 78 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 neither West, the frigid and unemotional, nor Barry, the 
 ardent and convinced, nor Northcote, the painstaking, 
 nor any, save perhaps the Cornishman Opie, whose 
 vigour and virile grasp of dramatic subject might, at a 
 more propitious moment, have resulted in great work in 
 this branch of art. 
 
 The note of dramatic and human passion in historical 
 and romantic art was not genuinely struck until the 
 early days of the succeeding century, when Gros — himself 
 a student of Reynolds’s worshipped Buonarroti — produced 
 the famous “ Pestiferes de Jaffa” when Gericault im- 
 mortalised himself with the “ Radeau de la M/duse,” when 
 Delacroix flamed out with the “ Dante et Virgile” and 
 the “ Massacres de Scio” 
 
 Northcote, who, at any rate, on a point like this is 
 entitled to be considered an authority, gives the follow- 
 ing account of the origin of the picture, which bears out 
 curiously a criticism built entirely on the work itself : — 
 
 “ This painting may be said to have been produced, as 
 an historical picture, by accident, for the head of the Count 
 had been painted previous to the year 1773, and finished 
 on what we painters call a ‘ half-length ’ canvas, and was, 
 in point of expression, exactly as it now stands, but with- 
 out any intention on the part of Sir Joshua of making it 
 the subject of an historical composition, or having the 
 story of Count Ugolino in his thoughts. Being exposed 
 in the picture gallery, along with his other works, it was 
 seen either by Mr Edward Burke or Dr Goldsmith — I am 
 not certain which — who immediately explained that it 
 struck him as being the precise person, countenance and 
 expression of the Count Ugolino, as described by Dante 
 in his Inferno. 
 
 “ Sir Joshua immediately had his canvas enlarged, in 
 
179 
 
 Reynolds at Oxford 
 
 order that he might be enabled to add the other figures, 
 and to complete his painting of the impressive description 
 of the Italian poet. This picture, when finished, was 
 bought by the late Duke of Dorset for 400 guineas.” 
 
 It was lent to the Old Masters in 1873 — just a 
 hundred years after its first appearance — by Lord Buck- 
 hurst, and is still, it is believed, at Knole. 
 
 Gainsborough’s supreme good sense, his perfect con- 
 sciousness of the direction in which his powers lay, is 
 nowhere better shown than in his complete absten- 
 tion from a branch of art, which had, during the latter 
 half of the century — in England, at any rate — no real 
 existence. 
 
 This year, 1773, was in every respect one of Sir Joshua’s 
 busiest and most successful, both from an artistic and a 
 social point of view. In July he visited Oxford to receive 
 from the university the honorary degree of D.C.L. — 
 another of those distinctions which he so dearly loved, 
 and so well graced, and one, too, which stood him in 
 good stead in the subsequent official portraits which he 
 painted of himself for the Painters’ Gallery in the Uffizi, 
 for Plympton, and for the Royal Academy itself. 
 
 The honours of the occasion were for Sir Joshua, and 
 for Dr Beattie, the author of an Essay on Truth , and one 
 of the lions of the moment. The painter’s admiration 
 for the Scotch professor and his work found expression 
 in a curious allegorical portrait, memorable because it 
 was the cause of the only disagreement which ever cast 
 a momentary cloud over the affectionate friendship exist- 
 ing between the former and Goldsmith. Dr Beattie is 
 presented with his essay under his arm, while, over- 
 shadowing him, the Angel of Truth tramples under foot 
 the demons of unbelief, — Infidelity, Sophistry, and False- 
 
1 80 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 hood — or rather, as Beattie himself appears to have 
 christened them, Prejudice, Scepticism and Folly. Scep- 
 ticism or Sophistry was avowedly Voltaire, while the 
 other demons were supposed to bear a resemblance to 
 Gibbon and Hume respectively. On this point Sir 
 Joshua himself wrote to Beattie: — 
 
 “There is only a figure covering his face with his 
 hands, which they may call Hume or anybody else ; it 
 is true it has a tolerably broad back. As for Voltaire, I 
 intended he should be one of the group.” 
 
 One’s sympathies must be entirely with Goldsmith, 
 when we find him saying to his much-loved friend and 
 mentor : — 
 
 “ How could you degrade so high a genius as Voltaire 
 before so mean a writer as Beattie? The existence of 
 Dr Beattie and his book together will be forgotten in 
 the space of ten years, but your allegorical picture and 
 the fame of Voltaire will live for ever, to your disgrace 
 as a flatterer.” 
 
 Bold, manly words these of Goldsmith’s, if he really 
 uttered them as they are quoted ; for they show him 
 assuming for once the character, to which he was so fully 
 entitled, of a man of letters of the highest rank, qualified 
 to speak plainly on such a point as this. One cannot 
 help suspecting here — though there is no direct authority 
 for the statement — that the influence of Johnson, an avowed 
 enemy of Voltaire, with an unsatisfied grudge against him, 
 may have been brought to bear to induce Sir Joshua for 
 once to play the high-moral satirist. And then the 
 picture itself, though fine as a portrait of the prosaic 
 Scotch professor, is in other respects an absurdity, so 
 
Allegorical Portrait of Dr Beattie 1 8 1 
 
 grotesque is the incongruity between the realistic and 
 the allegorical elements in the work. The demons are 
 flabby and unconvincing to the last degree, and the victory 
 of Truth over such invertebrate opponents nothing to boast 
 of. This is but one more proof that Sir Joshua’s genius 
 did not lie in the direction of imaginative art ; that he had 
 the imagination which enabled him intuitively to divine 
 the workings of the human soul, but not that other kind 
 which would bear him on its wings into realms where 
 observation and experience, guided by sympathy, are no 
 longer sufficient, unless they be combined with a genuine 
 power of invention. We are inevitably led to compare 
 the “Dr Beattie” with Ingres’s well-known portrait of 
 “ Cherubini crowned by a Muse,” in which the vain 
 attempt to combine incongruous elements which will 
 not coalesce — a white-robed immortal and a realistically 
 habited, nineteenth-century old gentleman of surly aspect 
 — make a work possessing many fine qualities as a whole 
 absolutely ridiculous. 
 
 It was in September that Reynolds, already, we have 
 seen, an Alderman, was elected Mayor of Plympton, and 
 thereupon paid a visit of thanks to his native town. His 
 honest pride in the distinction conferred is placed be- 
 yond question by that portion of the inscription, on the 
 back of the portrait in the Painters’ Gallery at the Ufifizi, 
 which runs : “ Necnon oppidi natalis , dicti Plimpton , comi- 
 tatu Devon : prcefectus , justiciarius , morumque censor.” 
 
 The following anecdote, given by Leslie and Taylor 
 (Vol. II. p. 33), gives further proof of the glow of satis- 
 faction which our master experienced at his election. 
 Were it not that irony so little entered into the 
 ingenuous simplicity and openness of his nature, one 
 might fancy that a touch of it coloured his answer to 
 the compliments of the King on the occasion : — 
 
182 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ Just before his visit to Devonshire, after dining one 
 day with some friends at his house at Richmond, he 
 walked with his party in the gardens there, where he un- 
 expectedly met the King with some of the Royal Family. 
 The King called Sir Joshua to him, and said that he was 
 informed of the office he was soon to be invested with — 
 that of Mayor of his native town. Sir Joshua, surprised 
 that the circumstance should be known so quickly to the 
 King, assured His Majesty of its truth, and said it was an 
 honour which gave him more pleasure than any other he 
 had ever received in his life ; but, recollecting himself, he 
 immediately added : ‘ Except that which Your Majesty 
 was graciously pleased to confer upon me * — alluding to 
 his knighthood.” 
 
 It was on this occasion that Sir Joshua presented to 
 the Corporation his portrait painted by himself, in his 
 doctors robes, and similar in treatment to that in the 
 Painters’ Gallery at Florence. A duplicate of the picture, 
 presented by the master to Northcote, passed from the 
 Vernon Collection into the National Gallery. This, in its 
 present condition, appears a superficial and inferior per- 
 formance, which cannot well be entirely from the hand of 
 Reynolds. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Proposals to decorate St Paul’s — Opposition of the Bishop of London — 
 “ Lady Cockburn and her Children” — Signed Pictures of Sir Joshua 
 — “Three Ladies decorating a Term of Hymen” — The Streatham 
 Gallery of Portraits — The Dean of Derry and Dr Johnson — Society of 
 Arts— Barry and Burke — Battle of Epitaphs between Garrick and 
 Goldsmith — “ Retaliation ” — Death of Goldsmith — Exhibition of 1774 
 — Sir Joshua’s Contributions to it — Gainsborough established in 
 London — Comparison and Contrast between Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough — The Sheridans — “ Mrs Sheridan as St Cecilia” — Nathaniel 
 Hone’s “Pictorial Conjurer” — Satirises Sir Joshua and Angelica 
 Kauffmann — Horace Walpole as a Critic — Exhibition of 1775 — “ Miss 
 Bowles ” — Sir Joshua’s Children — Romney established in London — 
 His Previous Career — Northcote leaves Sir Joshua — Last Portrait of 
 Garrick — Enumeration of the Streatham Sir Joshuas. 
 
 At the general meeting of the Academy, held in the 
 month of August of this year, Sir Joshua proposed that 
 an attempt should be made to decorate St Paul’s Cathedral 
 with pictures — executed not in fresco, but in oils. The 
 suggestion being received with acclamation, he was em- 
 powered to apply to the Dean and Chapter for their 
 approval of the undertaking, which was readily obtained. 
 Sir Joshua himself was to have painted “The Nativity,” 
 West, “Moses with the Tables of the Law;” and the 
 Academy selected with them, to take part in the under- 
 taking, Barry, Dance, Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffmann, 
 four other artists being added by the Society of Arts, 
 
 183 
 
184 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 which joined in promoting the scheme. Unfortunately 
 although the King, the Archbishop of York, and the Lord 
 Mayor gave a willing assent, Dr Terrick, Bishop of London, 
 proved obdurate, and opposed a non possumus to all the 
 most specious arguments — artistic, ritualistic and other 
 — which were brought to bear upon him. On the whole, 
 seeing who were to have been the painters, and what 
 their proved capabilities in the direction of monumental 
 art, it is by no means clear that posterity has suffered 
 much by being deprived of the paintings from biblical 
 history with which the Academy and its President were 
 generously bent on adorning the walls of the metropolitan 
 cathedral. 
 
 It appears that the difficulty in finding worthy re- 
 cipients this year for the three gold medals which the 
 Royal Academy had in 1769 decided to distribute 
 annually, caused the omission, on this occasion, of the 
 Discourse with which Sir Joshua was wont to grace the 
 prize-giving proceedings. 
 
 One of the most important pictures matured during 
 this year is the superb “ Lady Cockburn with her Children/’ 
 which, in 1892, by bequest of the late Marianna Augusta, 
 Lady Hamilton, became the property of the nation, and 
 now stands forth one of the crowning ornaments of the 
 Reynolds and Gainsborough room at the National Gallery. 
 It may be taken as marking the transition from the 
 second to the third, the most splendid and florid phase of 
 the President’s style, and its fine preservation renders it 
 especially worthy of study and analysis. The gracious 
 lady appears seated in a kind of portico screened from the 
 winds of heaven by a fluttering red curtain ; she is play- 
 ing with her three lovely, round-limbed boys, who are 
 nearly as naked as the cupids they might so well stand 
 for — one in her lap, a second at her side, a third, the 
 
“ Lady Cockburn and Her Children ' ’ 185 
 
 rogue of the party, looking over her shoulder. In order 
 still further to balance the composition, Sir Joshua’s 
 favourite macaw — here an improbable and superficially 
 modelled bird, resembling only in its splendour of colour 
 the prototypes of Rubens and Snyders— has been intro- 
 duced, perched near the base of a column. This beauti- 
 ful work was finely engraved in stipple, by Tomkins, under 
 the delightfully absurd title, “ Cornelia and her Children ; ” 
 but for this excursion into the classics Sir Joshua must 
 not be made responsible, since in 1792, when the print 
 was published, he was very near his end. 
 
 The picture is in many respects typical of the 
 master, both in conception and execution. Here we have 
 a gracious, if a slightly cold and impersonal, presentment 
 of fair English womanhood, and a group of lovely boys, 
 depicted with that heartfelt sympathy for the graces 
 of childhood which was the gift of none among the 
 portrait-painters of the century as it was of Reynolds, 
 though his life was all through its course to lack the joys 
 of paternity. It is as if the calm kindliness of his nature 
 had more nearly been warmed into a passionate glow of 
 tenderness when he conjured up these visions of frolic- 
 some, mutinous childhood, than at any other point where 
 he comes into contact with human nature ; save, perhaps, 
 when he depicts manly endeavour and resolve. 
 
 Technically, too, the canvas may be selected as show- 
 ing Reynolds the eclectic in art, but also the master who 
 vindicates his right to borrow where he chooses, since he 
 can assimilate and completely make his own what he takes. 
 The lighting of the picture, and its splendid tawny colour- 
 harmony, formed by the red of the curtain, the warm 
 flesh-tints, the rich orange-yellow of the outer robe of 
 satin bordered with white fur, the gaudy plumage of the 
 macaw, are Rembrandtesque with a difference — with a 
 
1 86 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 more diffused light and a greater variety in harmony. 
 The red quality of the reflected light in the shadows 
 and half-lights recalls Rubens and the Antwerp school ; 
 while the largeness of composition, the decorative con- 
 ception of the whole, suggest the Venetians of the great 
 period. 
 
 The signature of the master is inscribed on the 
 hem of the lady’s yellow robe, in large ornate char- 
 acters resembling golden embroidery, and with it the 
 date 1775* This is curious, seeing that the picture was 
 in the main painted in 1773 and exhibited at the Aca- 
 demy in 1774; and it is thus fair to assume that Sir 
 Joshua took it back after the exhibition, and then added 
 some finishing touches, with the date. 
 
 No statement has been more frequently made in 
 connection with the career of our painter than the one 
 that this canvas and “Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse” 
 were the only works which bore his signature. It has 
 already been shown that the statement is misleading, and 
 that there exist at least four early works quite authentic- 
 ally signed and dated — a number which, it is probable, 
 might be increased, were a careful examination of paint- 
 ings executed up to 1760 to be undertaken. It would be 
 nearer the mark to say that the two great performances in 
 question are the only ones signed during that later period 
 in which, to his contemporaries, Sir Joshua’s manner be- 
 came so familiar, that a signature, except for posterity, 
 may well have been deemed unnecessary. 
 
 Another work of this year is the large portrait-group, 
 “ Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen,” which has for 
 many years been the centre at the National Gallery round 
 which the English pictures of the eighteenth century have 
 been grouped. Three fair Englishwomen, of that refined 
 type of loveliness which Reynolds so happily expressed, 
 
“ Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen ” 187 
 
 — and by his example taught other painters of his time to 
 express — are adorning, with a heavy garland of flowers, a 
 terminal figure of the Marriage God. They are the three 
 daughters of Sir William Montgomery — the Marchioness 
 of Townsend, the Hon. Mrs Gardiner (mother of Lord 
 Blessington, by whom the picture was presented to the 
 nation in 1837), and the Hon. Mrs Beresford. Here, 
 again, we have Reynolds’s peculiar charm and his de- 
 ficiencies balancing each other. His art is not equal — 
 and no one was more fully aware of this than himself — to 
 the correct and adequate rendering of these three figures in 
 rhythmical movement ; but the heads are among the best 
 modelled that Sir Joshua has produced, and the naively 
 revealed consciousness of youth, grace, beauty, in no wise 
 detracts from the peculiar charm that has been aimed at 
 and achieved. The picture has quite recently been 
 cleaned, and very successfully on the whole, so far as the 
 heads and the landscape background go. The looped 
 garland of flowers, which was never, it may be assumed, 
 from Sir Joshua’s own brush, though he may have 
 heightened it with some masterly touches and brilliant 
 glazes, has now, unfortunately, emerged too garish and 
 crude from the superimposed varnishes, and wrongs the 
 beautiful faces with which it is brought in contact. 
 
 The great canvas was a commission from the Hon. Luke 
 Gardiner (afterwards Earl of Blessington), who had himself 
 given sittings to Sir Joshua when he was in London to 
 arrange the details of his marriage with one of the sisters. 
 We find the master writing to Mr Gardiner : “ I have every 
 inducement to exert myself on this occasion, both from 
 the confidence you have placed in me, and from the 
 subjects you have presented to me, which are such as I 
 am never likely to meet with again as long as I live ; 
 and I flatter myself that, however inferior the picture may 
 
1 88 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 be to what I wish it, or what it ought, it will be the best 
 picture I ever painted.” This is one of the well-rounded 
 sonorous compliments in which the urbane master loved 
 to indulge, and yet it is quite possible to believe him 
 sincere, each time he hopes and believes that his last 
 performance will be his best. 
 
 It is not a little curious that the “ Lady Cockburn and 
 her Children” and this ornate portrait of the English 
 Graces having appeared, as we shall see, in company with 
 each other on the walls of the modest Pall Mall Gallery 
 in 1774, should have been reunited — and this time perman- 
 ently — at the National Gallery, where their loveliness, 
 dimmed by time, but not so sensibly impaired as that of 
 so many of Sir Joshua’s beauties, shines forth to charm 
 the end of a century widely indeed removed from that 
 which admired them in their youthful prime. 
 
 The Streatham Gallery, which was Thrale’s pet hobby, 
 was, side by side with the more important productions, 
 making good progress. Among those who had sat 
 already were Thrale’s own early friends, William Henry 
 Lyttleton and Lord Sandys, and the master was working 
 on Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Murphy, and Robert (after- 
 wards Sir Robert) Chambers — one of the intimes of the 
 Streatham circle, whose popularity with the other members 
 of the set the lively hostess always expressed herself un- 
 able to understand. 
 
 The Johnson is that impressive likeness — so character- 
 istically ponderous and argumentative in aspect, and, with 
 all its realistic heaviness, so wonderfully full of vitality 
 — which, with the rest of the Peel Collection, passed, in 
 1871, into the National Gallery. The Streatham picture 
 was, however, itself a replica of the portrait painted in 
 this year 1773 for Bennet Langton. Sir Joshua has per- 
 mitted himself here no embellishment or idealisation, 
 
Dr Johnson and the Dean of Derry 189 
 
 save that, perhaps, he has put the Doctor’s wig on rather 
 straighter than it was worn by the original, and has 
 not shown the shabby brown suit quite as unbrushed as 
 it was. This is the very type of Johnson, the argumen- 
 tative, the irrepressible, the overwhelming, from the Bos- 
 wellian point of view — showing the Jupiter Tonans of the 
 set, at whose nod all but the stoutest, even of the Titans, 
 must quake. It would have been interesting to see the 
 same rough-hewn, powerful features when the Doctor was 
 in one of his terrible fits of hypochondriacal depression, 
 or when at Streatham, and in his correspondence with its 
 mistress, he played the spoilt child, and resented any 
 intermission of the petting which, in that quarter, he 
 exacted as a right. The “ Goldsmith ” was a replica of the 
 picture exhibited at the Academy in 1770, and then 
 purchased by the Duke of Dorset for Knole. This later 
 example passed, on the sale of the Streatham pictures in 
 1816, into the possession of the Duke of Bedford. 
 
 It was at a dinner given by Sir Joshua in the early part of 
 1 773 , a t which were present Garrick, Johnson, Fox, and 
 others, that occurred the famous brush between Johnson 
 and Dr Barnard, Dean of Derry, in which the former was 
 so signally put to shame. The Dean had asserted that after 
 the age of forty-five a man does not improve. “ I differ 
 with you, sir,” said Johnson. “A man may improve; 
 and you yourself have great room for improvement.” 
 The Dean was confounded, and for the instant silent. 
 The company forced another subject, but it went, as such 
 subjects must, heavily. The Dean recovering : — “ On 
 recollection, I see no cause to alter my opinion, except I 
 was to call it improvement for a man to grow (which I 
 allow he may) positive, rude, and insolent, and save 
 arguments by brutality.” * 
 
 * Burke “Correspondence,” 1844, Vol. I. pp. 403-4. 
 
1 90 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 The Dean sent, early next morning, to Reynolds, the 
 following copy of verses, which must be quoted as one 
 more testimony in favour of the master’s proverbial 
 serenity of temper : — 
 
 “ Dear Knight of Plympton, teach me how 
 To suffer, with unclouded brow 
 
 And smile serene as thine, 
 
 The jest uncouth and truth severe ; 
 
 Like thee to turn my deafest ear, 
 
 And calmly drink my wine. 
 
 Thou say’st not only skill is gained, 
 
 But genius, too, may be attained 
 By studious invitation ; 
 
 Thy temper mild, thy genius fine, 
 
 I’ll study till I make them mine 
 By constant meditation. 
 
 If I have thoughts and can’t express ’em, 
 
 Gibbon shall teach me how to dress ’em, 
 
 In terms select and terse ; 
 
 Jones teach me modesty and Greek ; 
 
 Smith how to think ; Burke how to speak ; 
 
 And Beauclerk to converse. 
 
 Let Johnson teach me how to place 
 In fairest light each borrowed grace ; 
 
 From him I’ll learn to write ; 
 
 Copy his free and easy style, 
 
 And from the roughness of his file, 
 
 Grow like himself polite.” 
 
 It would be unfair not to point out that Johnson 
 showed, on this as on some other occasions, the childlike 
 contrition, as of a naughty boy penitent, which disarms 
 resentment. It is just this genuine tenderness of nature, 
 overflowing through the thick upper crust of boundless 
 self-esteem, that enabled the most aggressive man of his 
 
1 9 1 
 
 Society of Arts 
 
 time to retain to the end so many valuable friendships, 
 where another, with less cause, perhaps, would have ac- 
 cumulated hatred around him. It is difficult — the confes- 
 sion has already been made — to account for the mighty 
 lexicographer’s influence on the best minds of his time by 
 any wit, social charm, or wisdom, surviving in the many 
 faithful transcripts which, from the most varied sources — 
 not from the faithful Bozzy or the faithless Piozzi alone — 
 have come down to us of his conversation and correspond- 
 ence. The world loves an oracle, however, and when that 
 oracle has sufficiently established itself, will accept all 
 the paradoxes that fall from its lips, and read into them 
 its own wisdom, much as it has done with the oracles of 
 all time. 
 
 The Society of Arts, with a view to promote the 
 development of monumental art, started this year a plan 
 for the decoration, with a series of paintings in the grand 
 style, of their new room in the Adelphi, the architects of 
 which were the brothers Adam. They proposed the same 
 artists who had been selected by the Academy for the 
 decoration of St Paul’s, with the addition of Wright of 
 Derby, Romney, Mortimer, and Penny ; part of the pro- 
 posal being that the pictures should be exhibited, and the 
 painters paid out of the profits of the exhibition. 
 
 The Academy failed to approve this scheme, possibly 
 not relishing this renewed assertion of its independent 
 position by the Society of Arts, and refusing to be influ- 
 enced by the arguments of Barry, whose deep-seated con- 
 victions as to high art, and natural arrogance of disposi- 
 tion, led him to put himself prominently forward as the 
 ardent suporter of a plan which he deemed would afford 
 a fuller scope to his powers in that direction.* 
 
 * See also his Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to 
 the Acquisition of the Arts in England , published in November 1774 — with 
 
1Q2 Sir Joshua, Reynolds 
 
 The Irish painters inordinate opinion of his abilities 
 and artistic position led him at this time within measurable 
 distance of a quarrel with his most generous friend and 
 patron, Burke ; the artist churlishly and ungratefully object- 
 ing to the practice, indulged in by the busy statesman, of 
 dropping in without a fixed appointment to sit for a por- 
 trait which Barry was painting of him for Dr Brocklesby. 
 “ Why,” says Burke’s protege, “ should I be treated more 
 cavalierly than Sir Joshua Reynolds?” To which Burke, 
 nettled, but temperate and dignified, rejoins that he is 
 sitting to the President for his portrait (one of the Streat- 
 ham series), and that all the sittings have been without 
 notice. The dispute was, however, made up, and Burke’s 
 sittings completed — with or without notice — since the 
 picture appeared at the Academy in 1774. 
 
 Poor Goldsmith was, at this time, fast going down hill, 
 both in health and as regards the state of his affairs. 
 His income, averaging the, for that time, very comfortable 
 sum of between £400 and ^500 a year, should have amply 
 sufficed for his wants, considering the modest scale of his 
 living in the Temple. But the poet knew not the value of 
 money, and was careless of the cost of fine clothes and fine 
 dinners to the set — in which he must, perforce, vie with 
 his more opulent fellows. Matters could not have been 
 helped, either, by Goldsmith’s practice of doctoring him- 
 self ; his skill in medicine being so dubious, notwithstand- 
 ing his pretensions, that, when, on one occasion, he an- 
 nounced his intention of prescribing in the future only for 
 his friends, Beauclerk rejoined: “ Change your resolve, dear 
 doctor, and prescribe only for your enemies.” 
 
 It was at one of the dinners at the St James’s Coffee 
 
 its covert sneers at the lip- worship, by Sir Joshua, of Michelangelo, and its 
 insinuations that he is playing the part of “ dog in the manger,” and throw- 
 ing “blocks and impediments” in the way of serious art. 
 
Goldsmith' s “ Retaliation ” 
 
 193 
 
 House that occurred the famous duel in epigram-writing 
 between the poet and Garrick. Friends had incited Gold- 
 smith to pit himself against the actor in his own particular 
 line, and it was decided that each should write the other’s 
 epitaph. Garrick, the readier of the two, sat down and at 
 once dashed off the immortal distich which, rightly or 
 wrongly, will ever stick to Goldsmith, and mark out for 
 posterity his place in the social life of the time : — 
 
 “Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called ‘ Noll,’ 
 
 Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll.” 
 
 Goldsmith, less ready than his opponent, does not ap- 
 pear to have retorted on the spot ; but he did not resent 
 the palpable hit, and we are told that great good-humour 
 reigned on all sides. The poet, however, at another 
 dinner, a few days afterwards, produced his “ Retaliation.” 
 The epitaph on Garrick, which formed part of it, is one 
 of the most masterly portraits in words to be found 
 in literature. It is one in which the whip of the satirist 
 tells at every stroke, yet love so evidently tempers the 
 hand of the castigator that it must have rendered the 
 chastisement — administered, be it remembered, in self- 
 defence — easy to be borne. 
 
 “ Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, 
 
 An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man ; 
 
 As an actor, confess’d without rival to shine, 
 
 As a wit, if not first, in the very first line ; 
 
 Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 
 
 The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 
 
 Like an ill-judging beauty his colours he spread, 
 
 And beplaster’d with rouge his own natural red. 
 
 On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 
 
 ’Twas only that when he was off he was acting. 
 
 With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
 
 He turn’d and he varied full ten times a day. 
 
 Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick, 
 
 N 
 
194 S/V Joshua Reynolds 
 
 If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 
 
 He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, 
 
 For he knew, when he pleas’d, he could whistle them back. 
 
 Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow’d what came, 
 
 And the puff of a dunce he mistook for fame ; 
 
 Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, 
 
 Who pepper’d the highest was surest to please. 
 
 But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 
 
 If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 
 
 Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 
 
 What a commerce was yours while you got and you gave, 
 How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you rais’d, 
 
 While he was be-Roscius’d, and you were be-prais’d ! 
 
 But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 
 
 To act as an angel, and mix with the skies : 
 
 Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill, 
 
 Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 
 
 Old Shakespeare receive him, with praise, and with love, 
 
 And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above ! ” 
 
 The epitaph on Reynolds, which has remained as 
 popular as that of Garrick on the poet himself, was left 
 unfinished at the time of his death : — 
 
 “ Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
 
 He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
 
 His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand, 
 
 His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
 
 Still born to improve us in every part — 
 
 His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
 
 To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
 
 When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing ; 
 When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 
 He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff. 
 
 By flattery unspoiled. . .” 
 
 Here is a portrait, painted in fair, clear hues by the 
 hand of friendship, which, incomparably better and more 
 
Goldsmith! s Last Moments 
 
 195 
 
 amiably expressed, must be taken as the pendant and the 
 complement of Mrs Thrale’s more sharply bitten outline. 
 It is characteristic of the author that, while the art 
 of our master — of which, indeed, neither Goldsmith, John- 
 son, nor any of the set presumed to be judges — is but 
 vaguely defined, and without special felicity, his character 
 is hit off with an unsurpassable charm, such as only 
 the affectionate regard of friend for friend, shining 
 through the playful humour of the man of letters, could 
 give. 
 
 The epitaph on Reynolds is rendered doubly pathetic 
 when it is remembered that its author was, a few short 
 weeks afterwards, to be laid in his grave in the little 
 churchyard of the Temple. Goldsmith was taken ill on 
 or about the 25th of March, and called in the assistance 
 of the surgeon-apothecary Mr Hawes, who summoned 
 Dr Fordyce. The true cause of his disorder was doubtless 
 that assigned in Dr Johnson’s letter of July 5th to Bennet 
 Langton, in which he says : — “ He died of a fever, exas- 
 perated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had 
 raised money, and squandered it by every artifice of ac- 
 quisition and folly of expense. But let not his frailties 
 be remembered ; he was a very great man.” 
 
 In another letter, addressed to Boswell, he adds: — 
 “ Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than two 
 thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before ? ” 
 
 Horace Walpole has, by innuendo, accused Reynolds 
 and his circle of neglecting Goldsmith in his last mo- 
 ments. In a letter of April 7th, addressed to his friend 
 the Rev. William Mason, he writes : — 
 
 “ Dr Goldsmith is dead of a purple fever, and I think 
 might have been saved if he had continued James’s powders, 
 which had had much effect, but his physicians interposed. 
 His numerous friends neglected him shamefully at last, 
 
1 96 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 as if they had no business with him when it was too 
 serious to laugh. He had lately written epitaphs for them 
 all, some of which hurt, and perhaps made them not sorry 
 that his own was the first necessary. The poor soul had 
 sometimes parts, though never common sense.” 
 
 The value of this malevolent piece of gossip should 
 be estimated by the misrepresentations embedded in the 
 partial truth of the passage. We have seen that Goldsmith 
 was not the attacker, but the attacked, and that his 
 genial “ Retaliation ” contained, on the whole, far more 
 honey than wormwood. Again, though positive disproof 
 of Walpole’s accusation is not forthcoming, all the proba- 
 bilities bid us side with Leslie in his defence of Reynolds, 
 and his repudiation of the cruel insinuation. It is indeed un- 
 likely that Sir Joshua would, throughout his life, have shown 
 for Goldsmith an almost feminine tenderness and regard, 
 only to fail him at the supreme moment. The man who 
 could unhesitatingly obey Gainsborough’s summons to his 
 bed of sickness and death, who could take leave in amity and 
 regret of the great rival who in life had treated him with 
 unmerited distrust and aversion, was little likely to shrink 
 from consoling the last moments of the most dearly 
 beloved of his friends. Northcote’s testimony is that, on 
 the day of Goldsmith’s death, Reynolds forsook his paint- 
 ing-room for a whole day — “ a circumstance,” he goes on 
 to say, “ the most extraordinary for him, who passed no 
 day without a line.” He had not been known thus to 
 indulge his grief on the death of any other friend or 
 relation. 
 
 A funeral in Westminster Abbey had at first been pro- 
 jected, but was abandoned in order that the money it 
 would have cost might be reserved for a monument to be 
 put up there. Such a one was, two years after, carried 
 out at the expense of The Club ; it bears a medallion by 
 
R oyal A cademy E xh ibition of 17 7 4 197 
 
 Nollekens and the well-known epitaph by Dr John- 
 son. 
 
 That which has given some colour to the assertion 
 that Sir Joshua neglected his dying friend is the fact 
 that he was not present at the funeral on the 9th of 
 April, but was represented by his nephew, the Rev. 
 Joseph Palmer, who acted as chief mourner. A sudden 
 and temporary indisposition might well account, however, 
 for this recorded absence, and the assumption of some 
 such cause is the less gratuitous, seeing that the master 
 has just been shown to have given signs of an emotion 
 such as he yielded to on no other occasion. 
 
 The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, which opens 
 as usual in the month of April, counts, this time, 
 364 works. Gainsborough is still in the sulks, so 
 that the gallery contains nothing from his brush. 
 Barry, besides Burke’s portrait, so nearly a cause of 
 rupture between the friends, contributes “ King Lear and 
 Cordelia,” “ Mercury inventing the Lyre,” and “ Anti- 
 ochus and Stratonice.” Cipriani sends several classi- 
 calities ; Nathaniel Dance, a full-length “Orpheus;” 
 and Angelica Kauffmann, six canvases. The veteran 
 Liotard is also represented by two works in oils — a 
 medium in which he never excelled. De Loutherbourg 
 has a “ Portrait of Garrick as Don John,” with a “ Moon- 
 light View of Naples,” which has now found its way into 
 the South Kensington Museum. Northcote shows “St 
 Catherine,” and the portrait of an old gentleman ; West, 
 three sacred subjects ; Vandergucht, “ Woodward as Pe- 
 truchio,” now in the Garrick Club; and Wilson, Italian, 
 Welsh, and English landscapes. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s contributions consist of no less than 
 thirteen pictures : — 
 
 A full-length of Maria Walpole, Duchess of Glou- 
 
198 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 cester, with Princess Sophia of Gloucester (No. 96 at 
 the Guelph Exhibition) — in which the former Coun- 
 tess Waldegrave appears holding with both arms her 
 child, who stands on the arm of a chair, with a pretty 
 movement, caressing her mother’s chin with her right 
 hand. 
 
 A delicious portrait-study of the little Princess 
 Sophia, alone — rolling on the ground, with her arms 
 tightly clasped round the neck of a favourite lap-dog 
 (now in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court). 
 
 The “Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen” 
 (No. 79 in the National Gallery). 
 
 A full-length of “Mrs Tollemache as Miranda” (the 
 lady charming, but the Caliban absurd). It was formerly 
 in Lord Tollemache’s collection at Peckforton Castle. 
 
 Another full-length of a lady. 
 
 “Lady Cockburn and her Children” (No. 1365 in 
 the National Gallery). 
 
 Lord Bellamont in the Robes of the Bath. 
 
 The portrait of Dr Beattie called “The Triumph of 
 Truth” (with the personifications supposed to represent 
 Voltaire, Hume, and Gibbon). 
 
 A half-length of Bishop Newton. 
 
 The portrait of Baretti reading (now at Holland 
 House). 
 
 The full-length of a son of Lord Edgcumbe. 
 
 Another portrait of a gentleman. 
 
 An “ Infant Jupiter” — the precursor in its weightiness 
 of the “ Infant Hercules”). 
 
 It is easy to credit the anecdote that, when the “ Lady 
 Cockburn with her Children ” was brought into the 
 exhibition to be hung, it was saluted by the assembled 
 painters with a general clapping of hands ; so rich are 
 still the tawny splendours of its colour, so fresh and 
 
199 
 
 Sir Joshuas Favourite Birds 
 
 brilliant the flesh-painting, so completely does it show 
 the sumptuous mode of the third and last style, while 
 retaining much of the firmness and solidity of the second. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s favourite birds are, both of them, utilised 
 in the year’s display of pictures. The macaw is, as we 
 have seen, put into the “Lady Cockburn” as an adjunct 
 to the composition and scheme of colour, and is there, 
 alas ! represented as if it were already stuffed ; so little 
 does it suggest the vigorous bird that attacked, with a 
 persistent and relentless enmity, Northcote’s portrait of 
 the Leicester Fields’ housemaid, with whom it did not 
 live on good terms. The eagle, whose eyry in the pre- 
 sidential establishment has been in the back area, is de- 
 picted soaring over the head of the Infant Jupiter. The 
 poor dethroned monarch having perished in its dishonour- 
 able captivity, Northcote hung up its body, with wings 
 extended, and was proceeding to make a study from it 
 when Reynolds came in, and, struck with the effect of 
 the bird, carried away both it and Northcote’s sketch, 
 giving it, says the latter, “ in about a quarter of an hour, 
 such touches of animation as made it truly fine.” 
 
 It was now that Gainsborough, who, since 1760, had 
 enjoyed a career of uninterrupted success at Bath — finally 
 obtaining there, for portraits, forty guineas for a half- 
 length and a hundred guineas for a whole-length — came 
 up to London, in consequence of some disagreement 
 with his patron and friend, Philip Thicknesse, concern- 
 ing that eccentric gentleman’s unfinished portrait. He 
 established himself definitively at Schomberg House, 
 Pall Mall, for a portion of which he paid John Astley, 
 the painter, no less than ^300 a year. Though tem- 
 porarily at feud with the King’s Academy, he was at 
 once on his arrival, summoned to the palace, where he 
 soon established a position in marked contrast with 
 
200 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 that merely official one which was all that Sir Joshua 
 had been able to achieve in this, almost the only circle 
 into which he never succeeded in penetrating. Gains- 
 borough’s unending succession of portraits of the King, 
 the Queen and their family, afford the best testimony of 
 the value that the Court set upon his efforts. 
 
 Often as the parallel between the rival painters has 
 been attempted, little as there may be left to say on the 
 subject, it is difficult to resist the temptation of once 
 more comparing and contrasting, in some salient points, 
 the two most brilliant figures of their day in English art. 
 Under the cover of a superficial similarity, attributable 
 to the time rather than to the men themselves, there is 
 between them so instructive a contrast in essentials, that, 
 the two personalities being juxtaposed, the one causes 
 the other to stand out with additional distinctness. 
 
 As Michelangelo’s genius rather taught Raphael to 
 know his own than otherwise permanently influenced 
 him, so — to parallel the less with the greater — it was 
 Sir Joshua’s example, his revolution in the manner 
 of English portraiture, which must have shown Gains- 
 borough the way over, or through, old-fashioned obstacles; 
 which must have enabled him to shake out his own wings, 
 and fly unaided. But, in other respects, there can be little 
 or no question of an influence exerted by one of the great 
 portraitists on the other. Their technical methods, their 
 colouring, their manner of looking at the humanity they 
 portrayed, were not more widely divergent than the men 
 themselves were dissimilar in all respects. 
 
 Gainsborough was nervous and irritable, but also 
 passionate and loving — just the man to have constant 
 squabbles with his “ kindest and loveliest of wives,” 
 and to make them up again with genuine enjoyment. 
 He had none of Sir Joshua’s love of the great world, 
 
Reynolds and Gainsborough 201 
 
 or capacity for pleasing in it ; none of his exquisite 
 urbanity or his curious and sympathetic observance of 
 humanity in its social aspects. On the contrary, even in 
 London, he remained practically a stay-at-home, a man 
 of few friends, though among these might be numbered 
 Burke, Sheridan, Garrick, and Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 Music was his recreation, where literature was Sir 
 Joshua’s; and his love of nature, his then unsurpassed 
 power of presenting some of her most seductive aspects, 
 opened out for him many vistas which had never more 
 than a subsidiary attraction for his contemporary. 
 
 Gainsborough’s irritability of temperament became, 
 in his art, brilliancy and vivacity. Sir Joshua’s suavity 
 and evenness was reflected in a certain unemotional 
 graciousness which marked much of his female portrai- 
 ture, while the firmness and tenacity which underlay 
 these qualities came out in his virile presentments of the 
 stronger sex. It is amusing to contrast, for instance, 
 the magnificent compliments which, as we shall presently 
 see, were paid by Sir Joshua to Mrs Siddons when she 
 sat to him, with the anecdote — at any rate characteristic 
 and ben trovato — which makes Gainsborough, when paint- 
 ing her, throw down his brushes in a passion, exclaim- 
 ing : — “ D — n the nose, there’s no end to it ! ” 
 
 It is difficult to explain away the fact that, when 
 Reynolds, soon after Gainsborough’s arrival in London, 
 called upon him, the visit was not returned, with the 
 result that, for several years, there was no intercourse 
 between them. Whether the newcomer’s conduct is to be 
 explained by carelessness of usage and lack of sympathy, 
 or by jealousy of the unassailable position, social and 
 artistic, that the President had made for himself in 
 London, we can do no more than surmise. 
 
 Another interesting point of difference between the 
 
202 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 artists is that we possess, from Sir Joshua’s brush, a 
 most complete and varied series of portraits of him- 
 self, while those in which Gainsborough has depicted his 
 own features are few and far between. The best known 
 are that presented to the Royal Academy by his elder 
 daughter (No. I at the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition 
 in 1885), and that which was lent by Mrs William 
 Sharpe to the Guelph Exhibition (No. 271 — purchased 
 in 1840 from the Gainsborough family). 
 
 Sir Joshua was an eclectic, fed on Roman, Bolognese, 
 Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch art, though giving his own 
 personal colouring to all that he imitated and appropri- 
 ated. He would borrow a design or suggestion from 
 Michelangelo, learn much from the lighting and colour- 
 harmonies of Rembrandt, the breadth and decorative 
 splendour of the Venetians, the method of Rubens in 
 some technical particulars. Gainsborough, though in the 
 beginning avowedly influenced in landscape by the 
 Dutch masters, was, in portraiture, entirely himself. In 
 his colouring — save in some important landscapes — he 
 did not seek the aid of bituminous depths of shadow 
 heightening the lights, or affect the sunset glow, the 
 luscious splendours of Reynolds. It was the more natural, 
 the more evenly-diffused daylight, in which he strove to 
 enwrap his figures. His sober exquisiteness of colour, 
 more potent in effect than the richness of his rival, was 
 compounded, like the hue of the opal, of the subtler 
 fresher tints, harmonised and held together with an un- 
 erring intuition, and producing as their general effect 
 the silver sheen for which he is famous. Gainsborough 
 suggests the tender hues of a brilliant morning before the 
 sun has attained its full power, Reynolds the glow of sun- 
 set when it is sinking to the horizon. 
 
 And again, it is curious that, with all his dainty grace, 
 
Reynolds and Gainsborough 203 
 
 his well-tempered realism in depicting the charms of child- 
 hood — and, above all, of rustic childhood — in such famous 
 performances as “ The Cottage Door,” the “ Rustic Chil- 
 dren,” and the “ Girl with Pigs,” Gainsborough shows 
 less sympathy, less heart, than does Sir Joshua, the child- 
 less, in his inimitable urchins masquerading as heathen 
 deities, his Strawberry Girls, his deliciously nai've little 
 ladies gazing at you with timid, mouse-like eyes out of 
 the transparent shadow cast by huge, extinguishing hats. 
 
 Gainsborough, in his best portraits, does not look, for 
 special action, does not attempt special characterisation 
 of dominant idiosyncrasies, or surround his figures with 
 specially significant accessories ; he prefers to render the 
 pulsating life, the suggestion in repose of impending 
 movement. He prefers to give the physical and mental 
 individuality welded into one, asserting itself in a simple 
 conception of no imported dramatic significance, rather 
 than to attempt a complete expression of the intellectual 
 personality and a suggestion of some typical incident in 
 the career of the personage portrayed — an attempt in 
 which Reynolds so admirably succeeds in his best male 
 portraits. It is less “ the mind and music breathing from 
 the face ” — prettily said somewhere to be Gainsborough’s 
 chief characteristic in portraiture — than the intense vitality, 
 the living, breathing presentment of humanity in some of 
 its most gracious and refined, if not its subtlest, phases 
 — the flash of the eye, the life in the flexible lips — that 
 we should note as the essential qualities of a Gains- 
 borough portrait. 
 
 As a painter, as a master of the brush, he certainly, in 
 his happiest achievements — in such canvases as the “ Mrs 
 Portman of Bryanston,” the “ Blue Boy,” the “ Painter’s 
 Two Daughters,” the “Two Sisters” (alas! no longer 
 more than a memory), the “ Mrs Sheridan,” the “ Colonel 
 
204 SYr Joshua Reynolds 
 
 St Leger,” the “ Ferdinando Tenducci,” the “Fisher the 
 Violinist ” — rises superior in power and in technical results 
 to Sir Joshua. His brilliant frankness of execution — when 
 it does not, as too often, degenerate into emptiness and 
 carelessness — his beauty and homogeneity of tone, his 
 force of impression, go to make up a pictorial whole with 
 which even the more sumptuous tints, the richer depths, 
 the more gracious charm of Reynolds can hardly vie. 
 
 On the other hand, our master has — as Gainsborough 
 himself owned — an infinite variety in his conceptions, an 
 inexhaustible inventiveness in pose and attitude, such as 
 make of each of his portraits a distinctive and not easily 
 forgotten picture. Indeed, in this peculiar quality, so 
 precious to the portraitist, he has known only one equal 
 in the whole range of art, and that is Rembrandt him- 
 self. He brings out, with a keenness of grasp and an 
 intuitive sympathy to which his rival can lay no claim, 
 such commanding personalities of his time as Johnson, 
 Gibbon, Baretti, Banks, Hunter, and other men of the 
 same calibre. His female portraiture, if it is marked by a 
 less degree of vitality, has a higher degree of distinction 
 and breeding, as distinguished from mere modish elegance. 
 His portrait-gallery of children is a world of his own, 
 which cannot be exactly paralleled with anything that 
 any other artist, whatever his rank, has produced of the 
 same kind. Its infinite charm and pathos would be sought 
 for in vain in even the loveliest and most engaging of 
 Gainsborough’s picturesquely ragged cottagers and rustics. 
 
 This was the year of Burke’s triumphant return for 
 Bristol in the interest of the Opposition, while Johnson 
 was bringing out his pamphlet, The Patriot , backing up 
 the Ministry in its attempts to coerce the American 
 colonists, and justifying the Ministerialists in their course 
 of action with regard to the Middlesex Election. All the 
 
Mrs Sheridan 
 
 205 
 
 turbulence of Wilkes had subsided, and he had almost, by 
 comparison with the patriot of former times, become a 
 reactionary. Being duly elected to fill the office of Lord 
 Mayor, he is stated to have performed his civic duties with 
 all requisite dignity and geniality, being well seconded 
 by his daughter Mary as Lady Mayoress. Doubtless 
 Reynolds, who had been his fast friend, even when he 
 was an outlaw scaring and successfully defying the 
 Government, now partook of the hospitalities which he 
 freely dispensed in his new representative position. 
 
 It is a little puzzling to note that, although Gains- 
 borough is at this particular moment not contributing to 
 the Academy exhibitions, he is, at the end of the present 
 year, upon the transfer of his household gods to London, 
 elected a member of the council, receiving even, in some 
 inexplicable way, one vote for the office of president. 
 
 On the 10th of December, which was, as usual, the 
 occasion of the distribution of medals to the successful 
 students, Sir Joshua delivered his Sixth Discourse. 
 
 One of Reynolds’s loveliest sitters this year is Eliza 
 Ann Linley, the exquisite young singer and reigning 
 beauty of Bath, who had, in 1772, become, by a runaway 
 match, the wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 
 
 The Linley family, children of the composer Linley, 
 are described as “a nest of nightingales.” Eliza, the 
 beauty, then not more than sixteen, was very much run 
 after by suitors — not all of them actuated by what our 
 neighbours call the bon motif. She was distressed by 
 the importunities of one Mathews, a married man, who 
 actually managed, it would seem, by his persistence, to 
 win the young creature’s affections or, at any rate, to per- 
 suade her that she was interested in him. Sheridan, him- 
 self a boy of nineteen, here intervened — at first only in 
 the character of the confidential friend — and escorted 
 
206 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Miss Linley to a nunnery in France ; but it appears 
 that the youthful couple, in order to protect the lady’s 
 character, went through the form of marriage during their 
 flight. He, on his return, gave a still more romantic 
 seasoning to the adventure by fighting two duels with 
 Mathews. Moreover, he chivalrously abstained from 
 openly claiming his wife, and was even for some time 
 denied access to her by her father, who disapproved of 
 the connection. The Sheridans were, however, at last 
 publicly married in April 1773. 
 
 Before her marriage, Miss Linley had achieved great 
 success as a public singer, appearing in oratorios and 
 concerts, not only at Bath and Oxford, but in London, 
 where, according to Walpole, she even attracted the 
 admiring attention of good King George. Her singularly 
 touching and fragile beauty, her pathetic expression, con- 
 tributed as much to her success as her fresh, lovely voice. 
 
 Sir Joshua first met the handsome young people, as 
 a married couple, at the musical parties given by a Mr 
 Coote, whose little daughters he afterwards introduced 
 as angels attending St Cecilia, in the famous picture 
 upon which he was, in the beginning of 1775, at work. 
 There was thus nothing forced in this, as in not a few 
 of Sir Joshua’s “ high-falutin’ ” personifications; the 
 purity, the supremacy in song, the gentleness of Mrs 
 Sheridan, who had even previously been known as “ the 
 Saint,” would suggest her naturally as the embodiment of 
 the young Roman maiden. The master has depicted her 
 seated at a harpsichord, clothed in a generalised costume 
 — nearly a drapery — of warm white, of no especial fashion 
 or period — well expressing either the saint or the woman. 
 She sings, or is about to sing, and the angel-children in 
 attendance sing with her. The form is but vaguely ex- 
 pressed, the seated figure does not truly sit ; but yet the 
 
Royal Academy Squabbles 207 
 
 wrapt expression of the inspired young face, marred 
 by no insipidity or self-consciousness, the warm, suffused 
 glow of the almost monochromatic colour, are, even in the 
 present injured state of the work, irresistible * 
 
 The picture has passed from the Marquis of Lans- 
 downe’s collection at Bowood into that of Baron Ferdi- 
 nand de Rothschild. The Corporation Gallery of Glasgow 
 contains a charming unfinished sketch by Sir Joshua, 
 showing Mrs Sheridan, in the freshness of her youthful 
 beauty, wearing a simple costume of her own day. This 
 the catalogue of the gallery calls a preliminary study 
 for the “ St Cecilia,” but there is nothing in the pose 
 to suggest any such connection with it. 
 
 Gainsborough has painted the same lady, with her 
 sister Maria (afterwards wife of Sheridan’s friend, Richard 
 Tickell), in a large portrait-group of unsurpassed charm, 
 one of the brightest ornaments of the Dulwich College 
 Gallery. Later on, in 1783, the same artist exhibits 
 another full-length, in which his exquisite sitter appears, 
 still radiant in beauty, seated under a tree — a masterpiece 
 which was formerly at Delapre Abbey, and is now in the 
 collection of Lord Rothschild at Tring Park. 
 
 The artists of that time indulged themselves — almost 
 all of them, save Reynolds himself — in the bickerings, the 
 meannesses, the petty jealousies, which, in England at 
 any rate, they have now had the good sense to cast aside, 
 leaving them to that curious tribe the opera-singers, to 
 whom they as of right belong. More than one storm 
 raged round the exhibition this year, and even Sir 
 
 * Reynolds probably got the first idea of his picture from the full-blown 
 “St Cecilia” of Rubens, now in the Berlin Gallery (engraved by Jean 
 YVitdceck). Here also the saint (Helena Fourment) sits at the harpsichord, 
 attended by angels. Another very similar version of the subject, also by the 
 Antwerp master, was in the Beurnonville Collection, and has been etched 
 by Guillaume Panneels. 
 
208 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Joshua’s proverbial equanimity must have been a little 
 disturbed. 
 
 First the fair Angelica, professing dissatisfaction with 
 the way in which some of her pictures had been hung, ap- 
 pealed, through her friend the President, to the Council, 
 and was then bidden come and see for herself whether they 
 had not been well treated. A more memorable hubbub was 
 that excited by Nathaniel Hone’s picture, “The Pictorial 
 Conjuror displaying the whole Art of Optical Deception.” 
 
 Hone was an old acquaintance of Reynolds, a few 
 years senior to him — since he was born in 1718 — and 
 grounded in the old Hudson style, which he never com- 
 pletely shook off. He had been at Rome in 1750 and 
 1751, and at Florence in 1752, as is shown by Sir 
 Joshua’s note-books, in one of which there is a carica- 
 ture of Hone. Established in St James’s Place as a 
 miniaturist, enameller, and, later on, as a painter in oils, 
 he had been more successful in the former than in the 
 latter branch of his profession. Still, that he had attained 
 a considerable degree of note is shown by the fact that 
 he had been one of the most regular contributors to the 
 Society of Incorporated Artists. He sent to one of its 
 exhibitions, among other things, a portrait of Lord March’s 
 chere amie , the too youthful dancer La Zamperini — as 
 “ Cecchina.” (This vivacious little lady is also noted 
 among Sir Joshua’s visitors, if not actually as one of 
 his sitters.) Other contributions had been a “ Portrait 
 of the Rev. George Whitefield,” and “ Diogenes in search 
 of an Honest Man.” We have seen that he was one 
 of the foundation members of the Royal Academy. In 
 1770 he had already got into some trouble with his 
 picture of Captain Grose and Theophilus Forrest mas- 
 querading as friars, the treatment of which was considered 
 so irreverent that it had to be altered. Now, imprudently 
 
Hone Satirises Reynolds and Angelica 209 
 
 giving vent to the envy of the President’s brilliant success 
 which he had long nourished, he, in this “ Pictorial Con- 
 juror,” presented him in the figure of an old man, with a 
 wand in his hand, and a child leaning on his knee, per- 
 forming incantations, by which a number of prints and 
 designs, from which the master was supposed to have 
 taken hints, were made to float in the air round the wizard. 
 It was not, however, the attack upon Reynolds that im- 
 pelled the Academy to turn out the painted satire before 
 the opening of the exhibition, but the circumstance that a 
 nude figure, resembling Angelica Kauffmann, appeared 
 in one of the floating sketches. If this was indeed the 
 case — and Hone himself strenuously denied it — the notion 
 would, doubtless, have been to wound the President in 
 his tenderest susceptibilities, since, whatever might be 
 the exact nature of his relations with Angelica, an affec- 
 tionate friendship was clearly maintained between them, 
 unclouded by any of those imaginary dramatic incidents 
 woven into the story by later biographers. Hone wrote 
 to Angelica, indignantly denying the charge made against 
 him, and offering to metamorphose the offensive figure by 
 the addition of a beard and man’s attire. She never- 
 theless, maintained an attitude of cold reserve, and the 
 Council of the Academy, unappeased by all these pro- 
 testations, signified to him that the “Pictorial Conjuror” 
 was to be withdrawn, and that the rest of the pictures 
 contributed by him that year would, if sent for, be returned. 
 
 Hone, thereupon, arranged an exhibition of his works, 
 sixty-six in number, with the peccant “Conjuror” as a 
 centre of attraction. In this he had managed, meanwhile, 
 to remove the fair Kauffmann’s cause of complaint, and, 
 at the same time, to barb the satire against Reynolds by 
 putting garments on his nude academic models, and 
 making these resemble well-known portraits by the 
 
 O 
 
2 io Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 master. The rebellious academician had, before open- 
 ing his private show, sworn before a Middlesex magis- 
 trate that he had never introduced any figure reflecting 
 on Mrs Angelica Kauffmann, or any other lady whatever. 
 
 He does not appear to have been otherwise sus- 
 pended from his privileges as a member of the Academy, 
 since he continued to exhibit there down to the date 
 of his death, in 1784. His portrait by himself, 'painted 
 in early years, is in the National Portrait Gallery, 
 and the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy contains 
 another version of his features, belonging to a consider- 
 ably later period. 
 
 It is of the Academy exhibition of 1775 that Horace 
 Walpole writes the following well-known passage of 
 criticism to his friend, Sir Mann : — 
 
 “ I dined to-day at the exhibition of pictures, with the 
 Royal Academicians. We do not beat Titian or Guido 
 yet. Zoffani has sent over a wretched ‘ Holy Family.’ 
 What is he doing ? Does he return, or go to Russia, as 
 they say? He is the Hogarth of Dutch * painting, but, no 
 more than Hogarth, can shine out of his own way. He 
 might have drawn the Holy Family well, if he had seen 
 them in statu quo . Sir Joshua Reynolds is a great painter; 
 but, unfortunately, his colours seldom stand longer than 
 crayons. We have a Swede, one Loutherbourg, who 
 would paint landscape and cattle excellently, if he did 
 not, in every picture, indulge some one colour inordinately. 
 Horses, dogs, and animals we paint admirably, and a 
 few landscapes well. The prices of all are outrageous, and 
 the number of professors still greater. We have an 
 American, West, who deals in high history, and is vastly 
 
 * Zoffany was not Dutch, but a native of Frankfort -on-the- Main. De 
 Loutherbourg was, as had been seen, an Alsatian. 
 
Horace Walpole as a Critic ■ 2 1 1 
 
 admired ; but he is heavier than Guercino, and has 
 still less grace, and is very inferior. We have almost 
 a statuary or two, and very good architects ; but as 
 Vanbrugh dealt in quarries, and Kent in lumber, Adam 
 our most admired, is all gingerbread, filigraine and fan- 
 painting. Wyatt, less fashionable, has as much taste, is 
 grander, and more pure. We have private houses that 
 cost more than the Palace Pitti. Will you never come 
 and see your fine country before it is undone ? ” 
 
 This passage gives pretty fairly the merits and weak- 
 nesses of the arch-dilettante as a critic of art. It is, 
 indeed, too much the fashion just now to pooh-pooh in- 
 discriminately all his utterances in the way of serious 
 criticism, because his name is associated with the con- 
 temptible form of gingerbread Gothic which he promoted, 
 and because he carried to excess that worship of the 
 Carracci, Guido, Domenichino, and the Bolognese gener- 
 ally, which Sir Joshua himself, as his Discourses show, 
 shared to the full. Walpole was certainly not one of 
 those epoch-making critics who are in advance of their 
 time, and assume to lead taste into new channels, but 
 he had, on the whole, a wider and more general artistic 
 culture than any of his English contemporaries. It 
 should be remembered to his credit that he could, at a 
 time when art was very generally deemed to begin with 
 the sixteenth century, appreciate the frescoes of Masolino, 
 Masaccio, and Filippino Lippi in the Carmine chapel, 
 and see deeper into the beauties of the “ hard Flemish 
 manner,” into the art of Holbein and his time, than did 
 any connoisseur of his day who could be mentioned. 
 
 There is often in his remarks, in his annotations 
 to Academy catalogues, the acidity and querulousness, 
 the affectation of superiority so difficult to dissociate 
 
2 1 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 from the critical temperament. On the other hand, a 
 certain aloofness, a certain power of stepping back so as 
 to look at things from a distance, gives to his judg- 
 ments a distinct value, placing them on a footing entirely 
 different from those of such a professional flagellant as 
 the humorous Peter Pindar, or any of the tribe of inferior 
 imitators. And then these last could only judge what 
 they saw from what they saw ; they had, perforce, to take 
 the thing to be judged by itself and without its environ- 
 ment, and pretended not at all to any knowledge of the 
 history of art or of its various schools. 
 
 In this very passage just quoted, Walpole shows his 
 subtlety by likening Zoffany, with his literalness lighted 
 up by humour, to Hogarth, of whose stand-point in art 
 he was, at that period almost the sole representative. 
 And even among his beloved Bolognese he can find it in 
 his heart to blame the heaviness of Guercino, and to cast 
 contempt upon him by the parallel with Benjamin West. 
 
 Of any larger and wider effort than that involved 
 in the criticism of individual works, from the point of 
 view of the practised dilettante, and the man of sense 
 rather than of sensibility, Walpole was not capable; to 
 a mind of his type that wide generalisation in the 
 theoretic discussion of art, for which Sir Joshua has so 
 often been taken to task, would have been entirely 
 foreign and distasteful. 
 
 His was not the sympathetic intuition which could 
 unaided grasp and reveal to others the beauties of such art 
 as that of Wilson, the English Claude — never honoured 
 during his lifetime with more than that patronising kind of 
 semi-approval which is equivalent to almost total neglect. 
 The forlorn great master showed, at this exhibition, 
 both Italian and English subjects : “ The Mont Cenis ,” 
 
 “ A View from Muswell Hill,” “ The Lake of Nemi, 
 
213 
 
 Exhibition 0/1775 
 
 and “ A Hermitage at Marino.” Another of England’s 
 greatest landscapists, the water-colour painter Alexander 
 Cozens, who exhibited drawings on this same occasion, 
 was not appreciated during his lifetime at his true value, 
 perhaps because the medium he had chosen to work in 
 in a certain sense condemned those who practised it to a 
 permanent inferiority of status. In his delicately-tinted, 
 almost monochromatic drawings he expresses the serene 
 beauties of Italian landscape with an unexaggerated truth, 
 with a solemn pathos, such as none of the bright luminaries 
 of water-colour, his successors — not even Turner himself 
 — has been able to exceed if, indeed, to equal. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s contribution to the year’s pictures con- 
 sisted of twelve canvases : — A full-length of the Countess 
 of Dysart (probably the picture at Ham House), and two 
 other full-lengths of ladies ; “ Lord Ferrers ; ” the famous 
 “ Mrs Sheridan as St Cecilia,” to which reference has 
 already been made ; a splendid half-length of Dr Robinson, 
 Primate of Ireland (now at Christchurch, Oxford). 
 
 It is of this last picture that Horace Walpole, writing 
 to William Mason, says : — 
 
 “ Sir Joshua has produced the best portrait he ever 
 painted, that of the Primate of Ireland, whom age has 
 softened into a beauty ; all the painters are begging to 
 draw him, as they did from Reynolds’s beggar man.” 
 
 The other contributions are : — “ The Duke of Lein- 
 ster ; ” “ The Duchess of Gordon ; ” “ The Children of the 
 Duke of Rutland ; ” a three-quarter length of a gentle- 
 man ; a “ Beggar-boy, and his Sister.” (The so-called 
 ‘ Boy with Cabbage Nets,” now at Knole.) 
 
 To this year belongs the still well-preserved “ Portrait 
 of Miss Bowles,” which, as a splendid piece of execution, 
 
214 Sir Joshtta Reynolds 
 
 giving perfect realisation to a conception of charac- 
 teristic spontaneity and freshness, has hardly a superior 
 among the productions of Sir Joshua.* The motive is a 
 simple one, the charm of which owes little or nothing to 
 artifice : a lovely, bright-eyed child, seated on the ground, 
 looks gleefully out of the canvas as she hugs a dog. To 
 Leslie and Taylor the reader must be referred for an 
 amusing anecdote of the fashion in which our master 
 coaxed the little thing, and won her over by a thousand 
 kindly little tricks — until, when she sat to him, it was 
 with a glee the overflow of which he has, with a kind of 
 magic of his own, left on the canvas. Such pictures of 
 children as those of which he, and he alone, had the 
 secret, could only — it had already been repeated, per- 
 haps ad nauseam — be produced by a loving sympathy 
 inspiring a brush perfectly responsive ; and it is thus 
 doubly interesting to meet with an anecdote of this 
 kind, proving that the master was really filled with this 
 love that he so convincingly expressed. 
 
 It is a truism to say that the exterior loveliness of 
 women had no more skilful interpreter than he; but 
 perhaps he succeeded but moderately well in environing 
 them with that imperceptible atmosphere of love and 
 sympathy which gives the unique charm to his children, 
 whether they are the curled darlings of his aristocratic 
 friends and sitters, or the merry, careless ragamuffins 
 of the pavement. The contrary is, we think, the case 
 with Gainsborough, who better understood das ewig 
 Weibliche — the element of sex — in his sitters, and was 
 more closely in touch with all their most distinctive 
 charms and foibles ; while his children, with all their 
 exterior grace, are — be it said without disrespect — but 
 
 * In the collection of Lady Wallace at Manchester House, and by her 
 lent to the Old Masters in 1892. 
 
Romney s Career 2 1 5 
 
 mincing dolls in comparison with those of his great 
 contemporary. 
 
 It was in this year that Romney, newly returned from 
 Italy, definitively set up in London, establishing himself 
 at the house in Cavendish Square which had formerly 
 been tenanted by Cotes. He was at this period already 
 a mature artist of upwards of forty years of age, well- 
 known from previous success in town, and more particu- 
 larly as a contributor to the exhibitions of the Incor- 
 porated Society of Artists ; but his Italian journey had 
 cast a new halo round him, and added a new savour of 
 classicality and sculptural simplicity to his style. 
 
 As far back as 1756, after having impulsively married 
 at Kendal a young woman who had nursed him in a fever, 
 he had started as a painter on his own account, travelling 
 through the northern counties, and painting portraits with 
 much acceptance at a couple of guineas a head. Coming 
 to London on the proceeds of his art-industry, he com- 
 peted for the prizes offered by the Society of Arts, and 
 his “Death of General Wolfe” was by the judges deemed 
 worthy of the second prize. The story is that words of 
 praise from Sir Joshua caused the premium, nevertheless, 
 to be adjudged to Mortimer for his “ Edward the Confessor,” 
 and that Romney had to content himself with a donation 
 of £50 ; whence — so again speaks the legend — a coolness 
 with the elder master, which subsequently prevented the 
 younger from presenting himself at the Royal Academy, 
 or exhibiting there. So much bitterness for so small a 
 matter seems hard to understand, even in those days of 
 constant friction between artists, and we must find other 
 and more normal causes for the standing aloof of Rom- 
 ney — not by any means, as has been seen, the only artist 
 who did so stand aloof — when he finally set up his studio 
 and household in Cavendish Square. 
 
2 1 6 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 In Paris he had been befriended by Joseph Vernet, 
 the noted marine and landscape painter, and founder 
 of the Vernet dynasty of artists. Becoming, in 1766, a 
 member of the Incorporated Society, he set up in the 
 fashionable artists’ quarter of Newport Street, and was 
 soon earning an income estimated at as much as ^1200 a 
 year. 1 1 was then that he painted M rs Y ates as the “ T ragic 
 Muse,” his picture being thus the precursor of Sir Joshua’s, 
 just as this great tragic actress was the precursor of Mrs 
 Siddons, by whom her fame with posterity has been too 
 much eclipsed. Seized in the midst of his success with an 
 irrepressible desire to visit Italy, Romney had in 1773 
 thrown up everything, and departed thither with Ozias 
 Humphrey the miniature-painter ; subsequently, however, 
 severing himself from his travelling companion, in order 
 that be might in solitude undertake serious and prolonged 
 studies in the Vatican, and afterwards at Parma — where the 
 deus loci , Correggio, produced a profound impression upon 
 him. The grand style was the aim that Romney, like so 
 many of his contemporaries, had constantly before him ; 
 and though, luckily for English art, the tide of fashion in 
 his favour as a portraitist was too strong to admit of the 
 full development of his art in other directions, his tardy 
 studies nevertheless left a lasting and, on the whole, a 
 beneficial impression on his manner in portraiture — giving 
 dignity and simplicity, as well as grace and charm, and 
 enabling him to avoid the snare of affectation, into which 
 even his greater contemporaries not infrequently fell. 
 
 Into direct competition with Sir Joshua, on the walls 
 of the Academy, Romney thus never entered ; for, as we 
 have seen, he never exhibited there. This was ostensibly 
 because, as a continuing member of the Incorporated 
 Society of Artists, he was not, according to the rules of the 
 Academy, eligible for membership; but there can be little 
 
21 / 
 
 Romney s Career 
 
 doubt that had he, at any time, entertained the serious 
 desire of making one of the Forty, he would easily have 
 found means, so brilliant was his position, to gratify the 
 wish. 
 
 It would be less than fair to omit pointing out that 
 Romney, whatever his friends and backers might do, never 
 put himself forward as the rival of Reynolds, or would 
 allow any disparagement of the latter in his presence. 
 “No, no,” he declared, “he is the greatest painter that 
 ever lived ; ” for I see in his pictures an exquisite charm 
 which I see in nature, but in no other pictures. None 
 the less was Romney, from this time onwards, a formidable 
 competitor of the President for the favour of the public, 
 who had to pay less dearly for his portraits than for those 
 of the latter, while doubtless the classic simplicity of his 
 designs was peculiarly suited to hit the popular taste in 
 this last quarter of the eighteenth century, during which 
 the neo-classic was to attain a greater and still greater 
 ascendency. 
 
 It was not until some eight years after his permanent 
 establishment in London that he came in contact with the 
 woman to whose celebrity, by his famous series of por- 
 traits and studies, he contributed to the full as much as even 
 Lord Nelson himself. Emma Lyon or Hart, afterwards 
 Lady Hamilton, and Romney’s “Magdalen,” his “Joan of 
 Arc,” his “ Circe,” his “ Bacchante,” his “ Cassandra,” his 
 “Spinning Girl,” was, in this year, 1775, but a child of 
 eleven years. The painter’s fame had long been at its 
 zenith when her beauty blazed upon him, wounding the 
 mature artist beyond recovery, but causing him to infuse 
 so concentrated a passion into his numberless studies of 
 her features and form, that he was paid for his suffering 
 by the gain to his suave and beautiful art. He had, even 
 at the period with which we are now dealing, long since 
 
2 I 8 
 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 cut himself practically adrift from all family ties ; his wife 
 had been left at Kendal in 1762, when he set out to try 
 his fortunes in the capital, and he returned to the patient 
 Griselda only twice in the course of thirty-seven years — 
 the long period of his maturity and success. It was only 
 in 1799 that, miserable and broken in mind and body, 
 he finally abandoned London— or rather Hampstead, 
 where he then resided — and returned to his wife and his 
 old home in the north, only to die there three years later. 
 It is this final episode of Romney’s career that Tenny- 
 son has treated with intense pathos in one of his latest 
 poems, “ Romney’s Remorse,” included in the volume 
 Demeter , and other Poems. 
 
 The following passage, given by the poet as the key- 
 note of his study, is well worth quoting : — 
 
 “How touching is the close of his life! He married 
 at nineteen, and, because Sir Joshua and others had said 
 that ‘ marriage spoilt an artist,’ almost immediately left 
 his wife in the north, and scarce saw her until the end of 
 his life; when old, nearly mad, and quite desolate, he 
 went back to her and she received him, and nursed him 
 till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney’s 
 pictures ! — even as a matter of art, I am sure !” * 
 
 It was at this time, too, that painstaking, plodding, 
 useful Northcote brought to an end his long apprentice- 
 ship with Sir Joshua, thinking, very naturally, that after 
 five years passed with the most highly-esteemed, the most 
 fashionable of English masters, it was’time that, at his age, 
 he should proceed to make a position for himself. It is 
 best to let him give his own account of the parting : — 
 
 Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald , vol. i. 
 
Northcote takes leave of Reynolds 2 1 9 
 
 “ I therefore thought it proper to give Sir Joshua 
 notice of my intentions some months before my departure. 
 This, however, was a task very disagreeable to me, and I 
 deferred it from day to day, but at last determined ; and 
 going to him one morning in the month of December, 
 when he was alone in his painting-room, I began by say- 
 ing that, at the end of May next, it would be five years 
 since I first came to his house. Sir Joshua, with a gentle- 
 ness in his manner, said that he thought that was full 
 sufficient, and that I was now well able to do for myself. 
 I then replied that I was very sensible of the obligation 
 I owed him, and that I would stay any time longer he 
 should think proper, if I could be of any service to him. 
 Sir Joshua said by no means, as I had already done him 
 much service. I answered that I feared I had not been 
 of so much assistance to him as I wished, but that it was 
 solely from want of power, and not inclination. Sir Joshua 
 was so obliging as to say that I had been very useful to 
 him, more so than any scholar that had ever been with 
 him ; and he added : ‘ I hope we shall assist each other as 
 long as we live,’ and that, if I would remain with him till 
 the month of May, he should be very much obliged to me, 
 as I could be very useful to him. I answered that I 
 intended it, and during that time wished to work as much 
 as it was in my power for his service ; and thus the con- 
 versation ended. 
 
 “ On the 1 2th of May (1776), I took my leave of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, to take my chance in the world, and we 
 parted with great cordiality. He said I was perfectly in 
 the right in my intentions, and that he had been fully 
 satisfied with my conduct whilst I had been with him, also 
 that he had no idea that I should have stayed with him 
 so long. But now, added Sir Joshua, to succeed in the 
 art, you are to remember that something more is to be 
 
220 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 done than that which did formerly ; Kneller, Lely, and 
 Hudson will not do now. I was rather surprised to hear 
 him join the former two names with that of Hudson, who 
 was so evidently their inferior as to be out of all compari- 
 son. It was impossible to quit such a residence as Sir 
 Joshua’s without reluctance, a house in which I had spent 
 so many happy hours ; and although perfectly satisfied in 
 my own mind that what I did in this respect was right, and 
 that it was high time for me to be acting for myself on the 
 stage of life, yet to leave that place, which was the con- 
 stant resort of all the eminent in every valuable quality, 
 without an inward regret, was not in my power. It is a 
 melancholy reflection, even at this moment, when one con- 
 siders the ravages a few short years have made in that un- 
 paralleled society which shone at his table, now all gone.” 
 
 Sir Joshua appears here as “invulnerable” as ever; 
 so absolutely proper is everything that is said and done 
 on this occasion, so cordial and even kind is he, so full of 
 good counsel. And yet all this and more one would give 
 for the one touch of nature that moves us, when, for 
 instance, we read Francesco Francia’s simple entry in his 
 diary, on parting from his trusty apprentice Timoteo 
 Viti : — 
 
 “ 1495 , a di 4 Aprile , e partito il mio caro Timoteo , che 
 Dio li dia ogni bene e for tuna!' * 
 
 The Academy records for December 1775 contain, it 
 appears, note of a motion carried in the Council for 
 removing from its lists the name of Gainsborough, he 
 having declined to accept any office in the Academy, and 
 
 * “1495, the 4th of April, my dear Timoteo left me; may God grant 
 him all good luck and fortune.” 
 
22 1 
 
 Streatham Sir Joshuas . 
 
 never attending. The general meeting administered, 
 however, on this occasion, a rebuke to the Council, 
 by restoring to it the name of Sir Joshua’s rival. 
 
 Rancorous spite, envy of colleagues in the Academy, 
 whose artistic and social success is greater than his own, 
 innuendo and hardly-veiled insult, mark the series of self- 
 denying resolutions introduced by Barry before the 
 Council at this time, ostensibly to guard against favourit- 
 ism in the hanging of pictures by artists within the 
 academic body. The only one which there is any need to 
 quote here is the first : — “ That all pictures exceeding half- 
 length should be hung above the line.” Though Barry’s 
 impracticable resolutions were not then adopted, this one, 
 or something not unlike it, subsequently imposed itself, 
 and is law to the present day at Burlington House * — 
 and a very foolish, shortsighted law, too, seeing that the 
 aspect of many of the best full-lengths is hopelessly 
 falsified by such a position as that to which they are 
 of necessity relegated. 
 
 The Thrales’ Streatham Gallery of notabilities was 
 now fast approaching completion, although it was not 
 to receive, until 1781, its crowning decoration — the 
 portrait of Mrs Thrale herself, with her daughter 
 “ Queenie.” It is about this time that Sir Joshua 
 painted for it his own likeness, holding the ear-trumpet 
 — a portrait differing in type from all others in the long 
 list executed of himself. (Lent by Mrs Drummond to the 
 Old Masters in 1877.) It is in connection with this par- 
 ticular picture, and with reference to the portrait painted 
 in 1775 of Johnson holding a book close to his eyes, that 
 the latter characteristically said to Mrs Thrale : “ Reynolds 
 
 * It is only full-lengths, however, which are debarred from taking their 
 place on the line. 
 
222 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 may paint himself as deaf as he chooses, but I will not 
 be Blinking Sam.” 
 
 To the noble series is now added the last, and one of 
 the very best, of the portraits of Garrick, painted when his 
 unexampled career was coming to an end in a succession 
 of cumulated triumphs, more splendid than have been 
 enjoyed before or since by any English performer. 
 Though he is now in his sixtieth year — his constitution 
 undermined and about to fail altogether from a combina- 
 tion of ailments — the brilliant glance, as he appears fac- 
 ing the spectator, sitting easily at a table, upon which 
 he lightly rests his crossed hands, is as wonderful in 
 its vivacity as ever. Though the expression is one of 
 repose, or rather expectancy, though the contours of 
 the face are rounder and heavier than in the earlier 
 portraits, the potentiality of facial expression is as great 
 as ever ; the effect of the eye is just what Dr Burney 
 describes it to be, in speaking of the original : “ Surely 
 equal to all Argus’s hundred.” 
 
 Though the Streatham Gallery was even then not 
 complete, it may be convenient to note shortly here of 
 what it finally consisted. 
 
 The noted picture of Mrs Thrale and her daughter — 
 the only full-length in the collection, all the others being 
 half-lengths or three-quarters — was over the fireplace, but 
 not completed until 1781. It is of this portrait that the 
 lady herself, writing many years after, with her usual 
 exuberance of humour, in reference to a passage in North- 
 cote’s Life of Reynolds — the one in which the biographer 
 states that the beauty of his master’s paintings is often 
 more conspicuous than the accuracy of the likenesses — 
 declares : “In my portrait, above all t there is, no resem- 
 blance, and the character is less like my father’s daughter 
 than Pharoah’s ! ” 
 
Streatham Sir Joslmas. 223 
 
 Mr Thrale’s picture was over the door leading to his 
 study, and on the walls Lord Sandys, Lord Westcote 
 (Lyttleton) — both early friends of the liberal brewer — 
 Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Murphy, Garrick, Baretti, Sir 
 Robert Chambers, and Sir Joshua himself. There was 
 room for one more frame when the acquaintance with 
 Dr Burney began, and this was afterwards filled up by 
 his portrait, completing the set.* 
 
 * 'When the collection was sold by auction in the spring of 1816, some 
 forty years after this time, by Mrs Thrale-Piozzi, then an aged lady, but re- 
 taining all, and more than all, her former vigour and vivacity, the following 
 prices were, according to her marked catalogue, obtained : — “ Lord Sandys,” 
 ^36, 15s. (bought by Lady Downshire) ; “ Lord Lyttleton,” ^43, is. (his son, 
 Mr Lyttleton); “Mrs Piozzi and her Daughter,” £81, 18s. (bought by S. 
 Boddington, Esq. — a rich merchant) ; “ Goldsmith” (a replica of the Knole 
 picture — ^133, 7s. — bought by the Duke of Bedford); “Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds,” ^128, 2s. (bought by R. Sharp, Esq., M.P.) ; “Sir Robert 
 Chambers,” ^84 (bought by his widow); “David Garrick,” ^183, 15s. 
 (bought by Dr Charles Burney); “Baretti,” £$1, ios. (bought by a Mr 
 Stewart) ; “ Dr Burney,” ^84 (bought by his son, Dr Charles Burney) ; 
 “ Edmund Burke,” ^252 (bought by R. Sharp, Esq.) ; “ Dr Johnson,” £y]8 
 (Watson Taylor, Esq. — now at the National Gallery) ; “ Arthur Murphy ” 
 (bought in by Mrs Piozzi for j£io2, 18s.). 
 
 It so happened that in 1780, while some of the Streatham portraits were 
 still in progress, Sir Joshua raised his prices, and Mrs Thrale complains that, 
 after Mr Thrale’s death, she thus had, in more than one instance, to pay more 
 for the pictures than they ultimately fetched. It has just been seen that this 
 complaint is on the whole not well founded, seeing that some of the can- 
 vases fetched enormously enhanced prices. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Dr Johnson reproved by Sir Joshua — Academy Dinner of 1776 — Exhibition 
 of 1 776 — Sir Joshua’s Pictures — The Otaheitan Omiah — Sir Joshua’s 
 Portrait of Himself for Florence — Baretti again — The Blue Stockings — 
 Comparison with French Prototypes — The Art of holding a Salon — 
 Mrs Montagu’s Prose — Walpole on the Blues — More Social Gaieties — 
 Barry and the Society of Arts — Exhibition of 1877 — Lady Caroline 
 Montagu, in the Portrait called “Winter” — “A Fortune-Teller” — 
 The Dilettanti Portrait-groups — Portraits of Sir William Hamilton — 
 Great Portrait-group of the Marlborough Family — Its Defects — Miss 
 Burney — First visit to Sir Joshua at Leicester Fields — Allan Ramsay — 
 Boswell and Johnson — Exhibition of 1778 — Gainsborough’s Display — 
 Seven Discourses published, with Dedication to the King — Malone — 
 Eighth Discourse and Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy ” — Window of New 
 College Chapel, Oxford — Its Component Parts. 
 
 ABOUT this time Johnson appears to have got it into his 
 head that Reynolds indulged rather more in the fashion- 
 able vice of wine-bibbing than was good for him, and 
 thought it necessary to take his friend to task on the 
 delicate subject. 
 
 Reynolds had remarked in excuse of wine-drinking 
 that “to please one’s company (i.e., by taking part in 
 their pleasures) was a strong motive;” when Johnson — 
 the water-drinker — finding no argument handy, blurts 
 out : “ I won’t argue any more with you, sir ; you are too 
 far gone.” Whereto Sir Joshua rejoins with dignity, “I 
 should have thought so indeed, sir, had I made such a 
 speech as you have now done.” Johnson (drawing him- 
 
 224 
 
Dr Johnson reproved by Sir Joshua 225 
 
 self in, and, according to Boswell, actually blushing) : 
 “ Nay, don’t be angry, I did not mean to offend you.” 
 
 It is significant that, on this occasion, even the un- 
 rivalled equanimity of Sir Joshua was not proof against 
 the sledge-hammer brutalities of his friend, and that with 
 a word he found means to recall him to good manners — 
 or as near thereto as he was ever able to get. That John- 
 son, the gross and intemperate eater, the Brobdinagian 
 swiller of innumerable cups of tea, should lay down rules 
 of temperance for the most temperate and self-restrained of 
 mortals, was evidently more than could be borne. As 
 usual, the incorrigible doctor is pulled up at once by the 
 recoil of the antagonist stung beyond endurance, and with 
 a child-like expression of penitence at once disarms all 
 resentment. 
 
 In the spring of this year, Sir Joshua made great use 
 of his villa at Richmond for the purpose of entertaining 
 parties of friends, whose intellectual and social -distinction 
 did not prevent their indulging in the good-natured 
 merriment and give-and-take of unaffected conversation, 
 which wits of an inferior order might have deemed be- 
 neath their dignity. 
 
 At the Academy dinner of 1776, for most of the in- 
 vitations to which we may assume that Sir Joshua was, 
 directly or indirectly, responsible, we find such names, 
 representative of artistic supremacy — as distinguished from 
 official or social position — as those of Garrick, Foote, 
 and the greatest executant of this day, the violin-player 
 Giardini. Sir Joshua’s courage and loyalty, when his 
 friends were concerned, was especially evidenced by the 
 inclusion, on this particular occasion, of Foote among the 
 invited guests, seeing that he was at that very moment 
 under a dark cloud, in consequence of calumnious accusa- 
 tions of the foulest character, brought against him at the 
 
 P 
 
226 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 instigation of the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess 
 of Kingston — a return for his satire of her as “Lady Kitty 
 Crocodile” in his comedy, A Trip to Calais. Altogether, 
 the selection of guests, at this time when rank and official 
 position counted for so much more than they do at the 
 present time, showed a wider and more catholic view of the 
 position and duties of the Royal Academy than that 
 which obtains to-day, when the so-called patron of art — 
 that is, the purchaser of high-priced pictures — occupies a 
 position sui generis , for which there is no exact parallel in 
 the artistic history of the last century. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s contribution to the exhibition of 1776 was 
 as follows : — 
 
 “ Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire ” — the Althorp full- 
 length, in which she appears, en grande toilette , descending 
 a flight of steps. 
 
 “Mrs Lloyd” — a full-length of the lady, in a white, 
 semi-classic dress, with sandals, affectedly inscribing her 
 name on the trunk of a tree The portrait is now in the 
 possession of Lord Rothschild, and was No. 37 at the 
 Old Masters in 1887. 
 
 “Lord Althorp” (full-length, in a black Vandyck dress, 
 leaning on a pedestal, with a book in his right hand). 
 This was George John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, after- 
 wards Earl Spencer, born September 1st, 1758 ; brother 
 of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The picture was 
 No. 69 at the Reynolds Exhibition in 1884. 
 
 A half-length of “Lord Temple” (much praised by 
 Walpole). 
 
 The portrait of Mrs Montagu — showing the Queen of 
 the Blues seated in easy attitude, with a mien of reflection, 
 wearing an elaborately-brocaded and festooned gown. 
 
 “Master Crewe as Henry VIII.” (at Crewe Hall) — a 
 delightful example of youthful exuberance and jollity, 
 
The Otaheitan Omiah 227 
 
 in which Sir Joshua, aided by the naturalness of his model, 
 has risen superior to the masquerading costume imposed 
 for the occasion, and even makes use of it to give added 
 character to his picture. 
 
 A three-quarter-length of the Duke of Devonshire (at 
 Crewe Hall). 
 
 The Thrale portrait of Garrick above described — (now 
 in the Lansdowne Collection). 
 
 “ Master Herbert as Bacchus ” (in Lord Carnarvon’s col- 
 lection at High Clere). 
 
 “The Infant St John” — a portrait of Master Wynn, 
 who sits in orthodox fashion, with a lamb by his side, 
 holding a cup into which water flows from a rock. The 
 picture was No. 18 at the Reynolds Exhibition. 
 
 “The Infant Daniel.” — This would appear to be identi- 
 cal with the picture since known as “ The Infant Samuel,” 
 under which title it has become universally popular. The 
 original “ Samuel ” is, or was, at Knole ; a replica was 
 bequeathed by Lord Farnborough to the National Gallery 
 in 1838 ; a duplicate is at the Dulwich Gallery. This 
 is not to be confounded with a much finer picture, the 
 “Calling of Samuel,” painted about 1782, and now the 
 property of the Earl of Darnley, by whom it was, in 
 1884, lent to the Reynolds Exhibition. 
 
 The full-length of “ Omiah,” now at Castle Howard. 
 
 This was the amiable Otaheitan Omiah, who had been 
 brought over by Captain Furneaux in the Adventure , and 
 at once became the plaything of the frivolous, pleasure- 
 loving society of the time, delighted with the gentle 
 manners and natural good breeding of a “ noble savage ” 
 who might well have been taken as the living proof of 
 Rousseau’s favourite theory of the natural goodness of 
 man ; as a typical example, in its more primitive phase, of 
 riiumanite vertueuse et sensible. 
 
228 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 If not exactly the conventional manners of the Court 
 and society, at any rate innate good manners of his 
 own carried Omiah through all difficulties, and caused 
 his courteous ways to be admired in all the novel and 
 trying positions in which the enthusiasm of the polite 
 world placed him. We hear of his appearance at Streat- 
 ham, where he even captivated the censorious John- 
 son — as critical of bad manners in others as he was un- 
 critical in this matter towards himself. We read of his 
 playing at chess and backgammon with Baretti, and 
 beating him, whereat the fiery Italian lost his temper, as 
 he generally managed to do; MrsThrale remarking here- 
 upon that everybody “ admired the savage’s good breed- 
 ing, and the European’s impatient spirit.” 
 
 Sir Joshua chose for the Otaheitan’s dress, not the too 
 scanty one of his own island home, but a white robe and 
 turban — a kind of fancy dress, which was at any rate 
 better, as being more suggestive of an exotic nationality, 
 than the hybrid suits in which he was generally made 
 to figure in English society. 
 
 To this year, or thereabouts, would appear to belong 
 the “ Mercury ” or “ Mercury as Postman,” and “ Cupid 
 as Link-boy,” perhaps the most admirable examples of 
 humorous characterisation, tempering and transfiguring 
 realism, that the master has given us. The same delight- 
 fully audacious and insouciant young street-arab has posed 
 in both cases, and in the one instance looks as untrust- 
 worthy yet fascinating a postman as in the other he 
 stands forth an impudent and misleading cupid of the 
 pavement. What gives a peculiar attractiveness to these 
 pieces is, that the roguishness is so real and unforced, so 
 entirely devoid of that simpering self-consciousness which 
 has already so often been remarked upon as marring some 
 of Sir Joshua’s prettiest performances in this style. 
 
v/ 
 
 ' /////s/ K/ 
 
 
 
229 
 
 Reynolds s Portrait for Florence 
 
 It was in this year that our master, having been 
 admitted a member of the Florentine Academy, sent his 
 portrait to be hung in the Grand Ducal Gallery, housed 
 at the Ufifizi. This is the well-known picture still to be 
 seen there — in company a good deal more mixed than that 
 in which it found itself at the time of its entrance into 
 the conclave of the immortals. In it we are told by the 
 biographers, that the President appears in the cap and 
 crimson robes of an Oxford Doctor of Laws, standing 
 by a bust of Michelangelo — one hand on his hip, the 
 other holding the roll of his lectures and resting on the 
 pedestal of the bust. The bust of Michelangelo is, 
 however, in the Florentine example, rather like the 
 Spanish Armada in the “ Critic ” — it is not in sight. 
 Moreover, the only hand visible in the picture is that 
 holding the roll of lectures.* The portrait holds its own 
 bravely amid its surroundings, good, bad, and indif- 
 ferent, in the Painters’ Gallery, and emphatically shows 
 the hand of a master of portraiture, not unworthy to 
 come after the giants of Italian and Netherlandish art. 
 Yet it does not reveal the true Sir Joshua, but brings 
 forward only a Reynolds de parade , decked with his 
 finest feathers, and bent on impressing with a sense of 
 splendour and conventional dignity his colleagues of the 
 Florentine Academy. The biographers give, from the 
 Reynolds MSS., an elaborate and courteous communica- 
 tion from Sir Joshua to Signor Pelli, the head of the 
 Academy, embodying in choice Italian his thanks to 
 the Grand Duke and the Academy for the honour done 
 him. The document in question they hold to be entirely 
 of his own composition, and, if this were so, it would prove 
 an altogether unusual proficiency on his part in the formal 
 phraseology of the language. Yet while his private 
 * There has evidently been a confusion here. 
 
230 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 notes on the technique of painting, written for the most 
 part spontaneously in Italian, show him to have retained 
 considerable familiarity with the language which he had 
 acquired during the plastic period of early manhood, one 
 cannot help suspecting in this flowery prose, though it 
 may fall short here and there, the guiding hand of Baretti. 
 Moreover, the single Latin quotation is so appropriate as 
 to suggest Johnson, or some more finished scholar than 
 the President, among the members of The Club. This 
 hypothesis is rendered the more probable, seeing that 
 Baretti was now translating into Italian, for publica- 
 tion in Italy, the six first Discourses of the Presi- 
 dent, a literary job Tor which he obtained twenty-five 
 guineas. 
 
 The Italian professor’s residence with the Thrales 
 at Streatham, as the instructor of their eldest daughter, 
 came to an abrupt termination this year. 
 
 Baretti had always behaved with studied insolence to 
 Mrs Thrale in her own house, his constant effort being 
 to assert independence, and to establish a sort of imperium 
 in imperio . Now, smarting under an accumulation of 
 fancied injuries, which had lashed him into a state of 
 fury, he left the pleasant villa on foot one morning, never 
 to return. It was,* however, a good many years later, after 
 the death of Dr Johnson and the publication of Mrs 
 Piozzi’s Anecdotes , that the smouldering enmity between 
 the lady and the professor burst into open flame, and 
 afforded so much amusement to an eager public. 
 
 Richard Wilson succeeded this year to the librarianship 
 of the Royal Academy, on the death of Hayman, the 
 boon companion of Hogarth and master of Gainsborough, 
 and the small emoluments of the post must have been a 
 great help to the impecunious master. 
 
 It was at the distribution of prizes, on the 10th 
 
231 
 
 The Blue Stockings 
 
 of December of this year, that Sir Joshua delivered his 
 Seventh Discourse. 
 
 In these last years the Blue Stockings were at their 
 height, and in 1777 we find Sir Joshua a constant guest 
 at the houses of Mrs Montagu, Mrs Vesey, Mrs Ord, Mrs 
 Walsingham, Mrs Cholmondeley, and Mrs Boscawen — 
 to say nothing of Mrs Thrale, who, as a suburban hostess, 
 stood upon a somewhat different footing from her sisters. 
 
 On looking back at this circle of highly moral, 
 estimable, and, for the time in which they lived, unusually 
 cultivated ladies, the general impression is one of sur- 
 prise : not alone that they should have taken them- 
 selves so seriously, that they should have exhibited, with 
 so exquisite a naivete and self-satisfaction, their convic- 
 tion of the importance attaching to the part played by 
 them in society and in life, but that they should, with 
 some few exceptions, have been accepted on their own 
 terms by the group of men of altogether exceptional 
 genius and brilliancy with whom they consorted ; that 
 they should have continued to shine, and to cause 
 luminaries, great and small, to revolve round them, 
 until death, old age and natural disintegration at last 
 dissolved the circle. 
 
 For, in truth, among the incomparable charms, the indu- 
 bitable accomplishments of the Englishwoman, there never 
 has been, one is almost tempted to say, there never can 
 be counted that finest of fine arts — Part de tenir un salon . 
 For this her self-consciousness is too great, her tact too 
 small, her desire to shine in her own person too irrepres- 
 sible. The chief effort of the Blues was not so much to 
 place in the best possible setting the bright stars of art, 
 politics, and literature with whom they lit up their routs 
 and assemblies, as themselves to shine forth the central suns 
 of these entertainments ; they must of necessity paraiter , 
 
232 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 pour briller — briller pour paraitre. It was Mrs Montagu’s 
 prose, Mrs Montagu’s conversation, Mrs Montagu’s 
 patronising approval of Shakespeare, that occupied and 
 interested Mrs Montagu more than anything else in the 
 brilliant circle with which, by sheer force of character, 
 ability, and pluck, rather than by any real wit or charm, 
 she had managed to surround herself. The circle — at 
 any rate, the female section of it — would apparently place 
 on the same level, would discuss as seriously, praise as 
 enthusiastically, Miss Hannah More’s washy poetry, Mrs 
 Chapone’s moral essays, Mrs Carter’s scholastic exercises, 
 as the most enduring work by any great writer of them all. 
 
 And here is one among many radical differences 
 between the Blues and the French prototypes whom 
 they strove to imitate, and thought they rivalled. Even 
 Philaminte herself, the superb bourgeoise of Moliere’s 
 comedy, even Belise and Armande, would expend their 
 ecstacies on the bad sonnets of a Trissotin, or the false 
 learning of a Vadius, rather than on the elegant effusions 
 in which, in their own lost moments, they indulged. 
 
 The Hotel de Rambouillet with which, even more 
 appropriately than with the much later salons of a Madame 
 du Deffand, a Mile, de l’Espinasse, a Madame Geoffrin, 
 the Blue Stockings might be paralleled, had, on the whole, 
 notwithstanding its ridiculous side, a purifying influence 
 on the literature and the manners of its contemporaries. 
 And it may be again recalled that what Moli&re ridiculed, 
 in such fashion as to immortalise the thing ridiculed, was 
 not so much the circle of the Marquise de Rambouillet 
 itself, which was, in his day — even when the Prfcieuses 
 Ridicules was produced — long past its prime, but the 
 ridiculous exaggerations of its ultra-refinements practised 
 by the Parisian citizenesses — a Cathos, a Madelon, a Phila- 
 minte, a B 61 ise an Armande, 
 
The Blue Stockings 233 
 
 If the euphuists of the exclusive circle gave undue 
 encouragement to such second-rate men of letters as a 
 Voiture, a Chapelain, a Racan, they could also under- 
 stand and back up Corneille’s “ Cid,” notwithstanding 
 the frowns of a Richelieu, and could bring the great 
 Cardinal, in matters of taste, to recognise their unwritten 
 laws. True, the queen of the circle was the incomparable 
 Arthenice , and the arbitress of all the elegancies, but she 
 was also, in her spare moments, Catherine de Vivonne, 
 Marquise de Rambouillet, a very great, and a very 
 sensible lady. True, the famous Guirlande de Jidie , 
 collected by the Due de Montausier for the divine Julie 
 d’Angennes de Rambouillet, afterwards his wife, con- 
 tained, in its superb setting, madrigals as bad as any- 
 thing the Blues themselves can have produced. But then, 
 the Duchesse de Montausier, upon whom the sceptre of her 
 “ incomparable ” mother had descended, managed, besides 
 exercising undisputed sway over the mannerists of her 
 circle, to fill a noble career, and to show a rare example 
 of constancy and tenderness in the family relations of life, 
 
 Whatever may have been the merits or demerits of 
 Madame du Deffand, we may be sure that, loudly as she 
 might proclaim herself ennuyee with existence, she was 
 never ennuyeuse — being too clear-sighted, indeed, to take 
 either herself or the world absolutely au serieux. We may 
 be sure that Mile, de l’Espinasse did not secure the friend- 
 ship of D’Alembert, and collect in her modest apartments 
 the cream of literary society, to overwhelm her subjects 
 with tall talk and unrestfulness. We know that the 
 grande bourgeoises Madame Geoffrin, did not acquire her 
 reputation for supreme good sense and discernment in 
 matters of taste by making of her salon such a “ Chaos ” 
 as poor Mrs Vesey delighted in ; such a one as Horace 
 Walpole describes, when he says that Mrs Vesey collects 
 
^34 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ all the graduates and candidates for fame, where they vie 
 with one another till they are as unintelligible as the good 
 folks at Babel.” 
 
 How different, too, is this sort of thing from the ex- 
 quisite yet indefinable art with which Madame R£camier 
 in the next century wove into her toils, and kept together 
 at the Abbaye aux Bois, by the magic of her presence, 
 and by a tact so unerring that it was almost genius, such 
 men as Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Tocqueville, Ste. Beuve, 
 Villemain Merimee, Talma! We do not hear that she 
 read to them anything of her composition, or imposed her 
 opinions, or set up “ altar for altar ” in rivalry with any of 
 the great personages upon whom she rained down in- 
 fluence. But we do hear that she possessed to perfection 
 the art of arranging the chairs in her salon, “ so as to 
 separate the Empire from legitimism, the liberals from 
 the ultras, the classic school from the romantic, by little 
 moveable passages, extraordinarily convenient under cer- 
 tain circumstances.” 
 
 Compare this with Hannah More’s account of a small 
 dinner-party at Mrs Montagu’s, consisting of the hostess, 
 the classic Mrs Carter, Dr Johnson, the naturalist Solander, 
 Maty (one of the secretaries of the Royal Society), Mrs 
 Boscawen, Miss Reynolds, and Sir Joshua, “the idol of 
 every company ” — together with “ some other persons of 
 higher rank and less wit.” The party is well summed up, 
 notwithstanding the enthusiastic comments of the young 
 provincial lady, by Mrs Boscawen’s expression of regret 
 “ that so many suns could not possibly shine at one time.” 
 But here would be just the opportunity for the lady with 
 the genius of the salon, bent on making her bright lum- 
 inaries shine, instead of producing her own paler light. 
 Such a one would seek to conciliate opposing influences, 
 and would manage to make her illustrious guests exhibit 
 
235 
 
 Mrs Montagu's Prose 
 
 themselves to their best advantage. Mrs Montagu on 
 this occasion promises her new Blue a smaller party 
 soon, at which “ from fewer luminaries there may emanate 
 a clearer, steadier, and more beneficial light.” 
 
 The surprising seriousness with which this strenuous 
 and admirable lady took her own utterances, and the 
 diluted quality of these, may be pretty well understood, too, 
 from the following passage in a letter to the virtuous Dr 
 Beattie. She writes, with regard to the allegorical portrait 
 of her correspondent, by Reynolds, already described : — 
 
 “I am delighted with Sir Joshua’s plan, and do not 
 doubt he will make a very noble picture of it. I class 
 Sir Joshua with the greatest geniuses that have ever 
 appeared in the art of painting, and I wish he was em- 
 ployed by the public in some great work that would do 
 honour to our country in future ages. He has the spirit 
 of a Grecian artist. The Athenians did not employ such 
 men in painting portraits to place over a chimney or the 
 door of a private cabinet. I long to see the picture he is 
 now designing — virtue and truth are subjects worthy of 
 the artist and the man. He has a most excellent moral 
 character, and is most pleasant and amiable in society, 
 and, with great talents, has uncommon humility and gen- 
 tleness.” 
 
 If much of the talk, as well as the written prose, of 
 the Blues was of this quality — and there is every reason to 
 believe that it was chiefly formed on the Johnsonian model, 
 though not relieved by the Doctor’s thunderbolts, or his 
 common sense flavoured with paradox — with what relief 
 must Sir Joshua and his friends have turned to The Club 
 and their other similar haunts, and with what delight 
 to Sir Joshua’s own hospitable, informal feasts, where, 
 if anywhere, conversation had its elbows on the table ! 
 
236 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 In this respect the hospitalities presided over by Mrs 
 Thrale at Streatham must have compared favourably with 
 those of her more fashionable and ultra-Blue sisters. 
 From most of their follies and absurdities the very 
 genuine humour, the keen sense of the ridiculous, with 
 which the vivacious lady was gifted, saved her. Indeed, 
 hers is a personality that, with all its faults — so severely 
 dissected under the clear, dry light of latter-day criticism 
 — must stand well apart from that of any of the well- 
 meaning ladies to whom reference has just now been 
 made. 
 
 It was Horace Walpole again who, while maintaining 
 a sort of semi-detached relation with all the ladies of the 
 set, and with some of them a genuine friendship, took the 
 humorous view of the Precieuses , whom so many of their 
 contemporaries, well qualified to judge better, elected 
 — following the ladies themselves — to treat seriously. 
 He was guided here, as in his view of life generally, by 
 his critical and constitutionally negative temperament, 
 but it cannot be denied that his estimate, as a con- 
 temporary standing a little aside, is much the one 
 which those who now look back from a distance find 
 themselves adopting. 
 
 In 1775 he writes of that muse de province , Lady 
 (then Mrs) Miller, of Bath celebrity : — 
 
 “ Alas ! Mrs Miller is returned a beauty, a genius, a 
 Sappho, a tenth Muse, as romantic as Mile. Scuderi, and 
 as sophisticated as Mrs Vesey.” 
 
 It is not, however, until a little later on (in 1781), 
 that we find his most piquant accounts of “ Mrs Montagu 
 and her Maenades,” of “ Ashtaroth and Dagon,” a propos 
 of the famous quarrel with Dr Johnson on the subject 
 of the lady’s favourite poet, Lord Lyttleton. 
 
Hannah More 
 
 -37 
 
 It is not a little touching, under the circumstances, 
 to find the critic of the Blue Stockings consoling with 
 his friendship the last years of poor, broken-down, dis- 
 pirited Mrs Vesey, whose pretensions to belles lettres and 
 social leadership he had so agreeably derided. 
 
 On this last point, although entirely out of its chrono- 
 logical order, it appears convenient to quote a touching 
 passage from a letter addressed by Hannah More, in 
 1787, to Walpole himself : — 
 
 “Mr Walpole,” she says, “seldomer presents himself 
 to my mind as the man of wit than as the tender-hearted 
 and humane friend of my dear, infirm, broken-spirited 
 Mrs Vesey. One only admires talents, and admiration is 
 a cold sentiment, with which affection has commonly 
 nothing to do ; but one does more than admire them 
 when they are devoted to such gentle purposes. My very 
 heart is softened when I consider that she is now out of 
 the way of your kind attentions, and I fear that nothing 
 else on earth gives her the smallest pleasure.” 
 
 Sir Joshua’s excursions into the world of fashion are, 
 however, by no means confined to the gatherings of the 
 Blues. He frequents regularly the houses of his friends 
 in the great world, beginning with those of the Dukes of 
 Marlborough and Bedford, and is even found gracing 
 with his presence one of the balls of the Ladies’ Club, 
 which had been started by the most mundane and least 
 blue leaders of fashion pure and simple ; most of them, 
 as may be readily imagined, numbered among the 
 master’s own sitters. Among these divinities of the 
 hour are the fair Duchesses of Devonshire and Rutland 
 — rivals in beauty and elegance ; the Countess of Derby, 
 the Countess of Jersey, Lady Craven, and Mrs Crewe. 
 
 The failure of the attempt made in 1774 by the 
 
238 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Society of Arts to arrange with the Royal Academy for 
 the decoration of their great room in the Adelphi with a 
 continuous scheme of decoration, combining historical and 
 allegorical designs, has already been referred to. Barry, 
 partly inspired by his genuine worship for what he 
 deemed the ideal in art, partly, no doubt, bent on reading 
 the Academy a lesson, after their rejection of his self-deny- 
 ing resolutions, at this stage offered to undertake, single- 
 handed, the gigantic task which their combined forces had 
 been unable or unwilling to assume. He declared himself 
 prepared to execute with his own hand the whole of the 
 proposed decorations, upon a much larger and more com- 
 prehensive plan, and without payment — the Society to 
 find him in canvas, colours, and models. The painter 
 stated his intention to be “ to carry the painting un- 
 interruptedly round the room (as has been done in the 
 great rooms at the Vatican and Farnese galleries), by 
 which the expense of frames will be saved to the Society.” 
 The quixotically generous offer was accepted, and in July 
 1777 he set to work. It will be time enough to speak 
 of the pictures themselves when we come to the year 
 1783, in which they were finished. 
 
 It is impossible, however repellent the personality 
 of the man may appear, to think coldly or without 
 admiration of Barry thus setting to work, without 
 definite prospect of ultimate reward, with only sixteen 
 shillings in his pocket, and by Spartan training so 
 minimising his wants that, during the seven years which, 
 instead of the two originally allotted to the task, he 
 took to perform it, he was able to live chiefly on bread 
 and apples — or, as some say, on oatmeal porridge — being 
 often compelled, in order to make sure even of this bare 
 sustenance, to work at night for the printsellers. “ I 
 thought myself bound,” he says, with reference to his 
 
2 39 
 
 Barry s Decorations at the Adelphi 
 
 proposition to the Society of Arts, — “ in duty to the 
 country, to art, and to my own character, to try whether 
 my abilities would enable me to exhibit the proof as well 
 as the argument.” While feeling respect for Barry’s en- 
 durance, his optimism, his belief quand mime in his own 
 powers, it is not necessary to throw mud at Sir Joshua — 
 an enemy whom he had made for himself through wanton 
 aggression and misrepresentation — because the latter did 
 not interrupt a career of unexampled and well-merited suc- 
 cess in portraiture, to enter upon his share of a task which, 
 for all the theoretical advocacy of high art in his Discourses, 
 he may well have deemed to be beyond his powers. 
 
 The exhibition of the Royal Academy in this year, 1 777, 
 opens on the 24th of April, and includes 423 works. 
 
 Among these, the most attractive performances are 
 portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, Lord 
 Gage, and “Abel playing on the viol di gamba ,” by 
 Gainsborough ; besides a large landscape from the same 
 hand, which Walpole eulogistically, but somewhat vaguely, 
 characterises as “ by far the finest landscape ever painted 
 in England, and equal to the great masters.” 
 
 John Singleton Copley, now an associate, sends por- 
 traits and a “ Nativity.” Benjamin West, newly dignified 
 with the expressly-coined title “ Historical Painter to 
 His Majesty,” contributes, besides portraits of the Queen 
 and Princess Royal, and of the royal children — no doubt 
 the pictures now at Hampton Court — a “ Michael sub- 
 duing Satan,” for Trinity College, Cambridge, and 
 a “ Lazarus,” for Winchester Cathedral. Wilson sends 
 a “Tivoli,” and “The Lake of Nemi.” 
 
 Sir Joshua, becoming more and more copious as time ad- 
 vances, comes forward with no less than thirteen pictures : — 
 Full-length pictures of Lady Frances Marsham, the 
 Countess of Derby, and Lady Bamfylde. 
 
240 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 A “ Portrait of a Nobleman with his Brothers and 
 a Young Lady.” 
 
 The last is the portrait-group of Francis, Duke of Bed- 
 ford, Lord John and Lord William Russell, with their 
 cousin Miss Vernon ; the young Duke being St George 
 vanquishing a property dragon, and Miss Vernon the 
 rescued Princess. This is, it must be owned, one of the 
 master’s most conspicuous failures, and betrays more clearly 
 than almost any other picture from his brush his limita- 
 tions where dramatic action, as apart from dramatic char- 
 acterisation, is to be expressed. Even in his most 
 conspicuous high art failures he has managed to show 
 more energy, more cohesion, than here, where he appears, 
 as only on the rarest occasions, almost ridiculous. 
 
 Walpole’s criticism on this unfortunate performance 
 is both concise and exact. “ I have seen,” he says, “ the 
 picture of ‘ St George/ and approve the Duke of Bed- 
 ford’s head, and the exact likeness of Miss Vernon, but 
 the attitude is mean and foolish, and expresses only silly 
 wonderment.” 
 
 Next we have “ Lady Caroline Montagu, daughter 
 of Charles, the fourth Duke of Buccleugh, in the Snow ” 
 (engraved as “Winter”). This is one of Sir Joshua’s 
 masterpieces among the portraits of children, coming 
 in its inimitable naivete and charm well within the line 
 of demarcation which divides his performances of this 
 kind into two classes. 
 
 Horace Walpole must again be quoted here, since he 
 is not only just in criticism but hearty and sympathetic, 
 as he will not always allow himself to be. 
 
 “ Best of all — delicious — is a picture of a little girl of 
 the Duke of Buccleugh, who is overlaid with a long cloak, 
 bonnet, and muff, in the midst of the snow, and is perishing, 
 blue and red, with cold, but looks so smiling and good- 
 
2 4 I 
 
 The Exhibition of 1777 
 
 humoured that one longs to catch her up in one’s arms, 
 and kiss her till she is in a sweat and squalls.” How 
 natural and how naturally expressed the desire, but, at 
 the same time, how characteristic in its selfishness of the 
 bachelor dilettante ! 
 
 Next in the catalogue — the brackets are Leslie and 
 Taylor’s — come: — “A Lady,” half-length; “A Clergy- 
 man,” three-quarters (Dr Warton or Dr Leyland) ; “A 
 Lady and Child” (Lady Elizabeth Herbert and her 
 son at High Clere ?) ; “A Gentleman ” (Mr Gawler ?) ; 
 “A Child asleep” (the Cupid at High Clere?) ; “ A For- 
 tune-Teller;” “A Young Nobleman ;” “A Boy reading.” 
 
 The “Fortune-Teller” represents two of the Marl- 
 borough children, Lady Charlotte and Lord Henry Spencer. 
 She, dressed as a gipsy, is the fortune-teller, and reads the 
 hand of her young brother, dressed in a Vandyck dress — 
 the favourite wear of the time for youths and boys. 
 
 Here again is a canvas, which, distinguished as it is, 
 even in its present injured state, for melting charm of 
 colour and singular ease and vivacity of execution, must 
 go into the category of the falsely naive, of the much too 
 arch and self-conscious to be true ; while the “ Lady Caro- 
 line Montagu ” stands a strong example on the other side. 
 
 Did Sir Joshua take the more realistic and the in- 
 comparably more pathetic view of English children to 
 please himself, and the more sentimental, the more self- 
 conscious view to please an age in which a vein of 
 sensibility, and often false sensibility, ran through even 
 the healthiest art and the healthiest literature ? Not so 
 strongly was this perceptible, however, with ourselves, 
 as on the other side of the Channel, where the false 
 sentiment which was deemed, during the latter half of 
 the century, a finish to good manners and high breed- 
 ing, found its fitting expression in the false morality, 
 
 Q 
 
 0 
 
242 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the false ingenuousness, the vicious suggestiveness of a 
 Greuze. 
 
 The “ Fortune-Teller,” on the dispersion of the Blen- 
 heim pictures, passed into the possession of Sir Charles 
 Tennant, and was by him lent to the Old Masters at 
 Burlington House in 1891, under the title “The Young 
 Fortune-Tellers.” 
 
 The Marlborough picture is not to be confounded with 
 another canvas, the so-called “Gipsy Fortune-Teller” (at 
 Knole), which has been engraved by J. K. Sherwin. Here 
 we have a girl half-reclining in her lover’s arms while 
 her fortune is being told by a comely gipsy-girl. Where 
 all else is mannered — especially the masquerading gipsy, 
 and the insipid lover wearing an improbable plumed 
 hat — the face and figure of the girl herself, laughing 
 hysterically in her effort to disguise a certain uneasi- 
 ness, are observed with so subtle a truth, with so happy 
 a realisation of a shade of expression almost in£dit y as 
 to be practically unique in the art of Reynolds. 
 
 It was at this period that the two great companion 
 pictures of the members of the Dilettanti Society were 
 commenced. It has been seen that Reynolds accepted 
 the office of painter to the Society in 1 769, in succession 
 to Athenian Stuart, himself the successor of Knapton. It 
 was the rule that each member should present his portrait 
 in oils, executed by the painter-in-ordinary, to the Society, 
 or pay a commutation of one guinea a year for “ face- 
 money.” A whole series of fairly well characterised and, 
 in some instances, even humorous portraits by Knapton re- 
 main to prove that this usage was very generally observed. 
 
 A number of members, desiring to vary the monotony 
 of the single portraits, and to fulfil their obligation to the 
 Society as little disagreeably as might be, resolved to sit 
 to its painter “ either separately or in a group the size 
 
243 
 
 The Dilettanti Portrait- Groups 
 
 to be at the option of Sir Joshua.” Thus were the two 
 famous canvases, which are among the master’s most re- 
 markable and exceptional works, originated. Though the 
 different members included in the two groups commenced 
 their sittings in the early part of this year, the pictures 
 were not completed until 1779, and it was March 1780 
 before they were placed in the Society’s rooms. 
 
 Though Sir Joshua’s task was here similar, on a 
 smaller scale, to that of Frans Hals and Van der Heist, 
 in their great canvases at Haarlem and Amsterdam respec- 
 tively, to that of Rembrandt in the so-called “ Syndics ” 
 of Amsterdam, to that of Rubens in his “ Four Philo- 
 sophers ” at the Pitti, his added difficulty was that he 
 was bound, above all, to suggest in his portraits, both the 
 good taste and the good fellowship which were the raison - 
 d'etre of the Society ; to give discreetly the note of 
 fashionable connoisseurship and dilettantism, and with it 
 the stronger, if less ostensible, bond of conviviality. He 
 could not on such an occasion emulate the boisterous 
 energy, the joie de vivre of Hals, the serious, realistic 
 characterisation of Van der Heist, the solemn pathos of 
 Rembrandt ; or take refuge in the unreal posturing and 
 false naturalness in which he himself sometimes indulged 
 in family portrait-pieces. 
 
 He appears to have aimed, in the present instance, 
 above all, at a semi-decorative, semi-realistic portraiture 
 of subdued splendour, which should avoid the conven- 
 tionality of the avowed portrait d'apparat , yet should 
 not attempt the concentrated individuality of charac- 
 terisation of which he had, on occasion, shown himself 
 so exceptionally capable. If this was indeed his aim, 
 as we may well assume it to have been, he perfectly 
 achieved it in these two sumptuous performances, which, 
 considering the vicissitudes through which they have 
 
244 5 Vr Joshua Reynolds 
 
 passed, have well preserved a silvery, yet, in its depths, 
 glowing splendour, suggestive of Paolo Veronese and 
 Tintoretto rather than the hotter chiaroscuro of Rem- 
 brandt, towards which, in his own fashion, and with 
 his own modifications, Reynolds so much inclined. 
 
 The one group of portraits includes Sir William 
 Watkin Wynn, with one hand extended, the other on 
 a book ; Sir John Taylor standing behind, holding a 
 glass in his right hand, a handkerchief in his left ; Mr 
 (afterwards Sir William) Payne-Gallwey drinking from 
 a wine-glass. Sir William Hamilton, a genuine dilet- 
 tante, and even archaeologist, to whose taste the magni- 
 ficent collection of Greek and Campanian vases, sold by 
 him in 1772 to the Trustees of the British Museum, bore 
 witness — but who will always be best, if not most favour- 
 ably, known as the husband of Nelson’s and Romney’s 
 Lady Hamilton, is seated at a table in the centre of the 
 composition ; Mr Richard Thompson appears standing be- 
 hind, holding up a wine-glass ; Mr W. Spencer-Stanhope 
 is seen in profile, talking to Mr Smyth of Heath. 
 
 In the companion picture we see Lord Mulgrave 
 pointing over his shoulder; Mr (afterwards Lord) Dundas 
 standing up, with a gem between his fingers, which he 
 holds against the light ; the Earl of Seaforth seated at 
 the table ; the Hon. Charles Greville in the middle, behind ; 
 Charles Crowle, a well-known antiquary, next to the last 
 named ; Francis Godolphin, fifth Duke of Leeds, sitting 
 at the table, holding a gem in the one hand and a stick 
 in the other; and Joseph (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, 
 the brilliant navigator and naturalist, to whom detailed 
 reference has already been made, unobtrusively presented 
 in profile. 
 
 The Dilettanti portraits were Nos. 21 and 32 at the 
 Reynolds Exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, and have, 
 
Sir William Hamilton 
 
 245 
 
 until recently, been seen to highest advantage on the 
 walls of the great entrance hall or staircase at the National 
 Gallery. Now, together with the portrait of Sir Joshua by 
 himself, painted as a present to the Society on his being 
 elected a member, they have been removed to a banqueting 
 chamber which forms part of the private apartments be- 
 longing to the new Grafton Galleries, whither the Dilet- 
 tanti have elected to migrate with their household gods. 
 
 The pictures, though fairly well seen by night, are now 
 by day practically invisible, and the change, although, per- 
 haps, under the circumstances, inevitable, is in result a 
 most unfortunate one. 
 
 A portrait of Sir William Hamilton, bearing a general 
 resemblance to that in the Dilettanti group, is now the 
 property of Sir William R. Anson, and was by him con- 
 tributed to the Old Masters Exhibition in 1788. This is 
 the picture of which it is told that Sir Joshua, hearing 
 from Miss Hamilton that her uncle had presented it to 
 her, desired that she should send it to him, “ and he 
 would renovate it with lasting colours .” This was done, 
 and in February 1785 Miss Hamilton saw the portrait 
 in the master’s studio, and described it as “retouched 
 and made a very beautiful picture indeed.” This little 
 incident is of great importance in reference to the im- 
 portant question, which will be shortly dealt with here- 
 after, of Sir Joshua’s technique in his earlier and later 
 periods. It shows pretty clearly that he was as keenly 
 alive to his deficiencies in this respect as were his critics 
 and the art-loving world of his time. It confirms, too, 
 what the pictures themselves prove, that, on the whole, 
 the later and more splendid productions of his maturity 
 have stood the test of time with less disastrous results 
 than the pictures of his earlier, and especially of his 
 middle career. 
 
246 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 A better known and more important portrait, by Sir 
 Joshua, of the British Ambassador to the Two Sicilies is 
 the full-length in which he appears seated, holding on 
 his knee one of D’Hancarville’s four portly volumes on his 
 Greek vases, a number of the original examples themselves, 
 very finely rendered, encumbering both floor and table.* 
 The expression and attitude are here tinged with hauteur 
 and not a little characteristic of the true Dilettante. 
 
 This year Sir Joshua was living in sustained intimacy 
 with Burke and his circle, both in London and at his 
 country seat at Beaconsfield, and in the summer months 
 was much with the Garricks at their Hampton retreat. 
 
 When we read how Hannah More’s tragedy, Percy, in 
 which she had been more or less coached by Garrick, was 
 accepted for Covent Garden, and thereupon furnished 
 with a prologue and epilogue from the facile pen of the 
 great comedian ; when we find this acceptance followed 
 by a great success on the stage, where such a practised 
 man of letters as Walpole’s friend Mason could only 
 command a bare succes d'estime for his “ Caractacus,” we 
 may a little moderate our surprise at the extraordinary 
 vogue attained, a little later, by a work of genuine novelty 
 and charm like Miss Burney’s “ Evelina.” 
 
 In August of this year, Sir Joshua goes to Blenheim, 
 there to complete the great group of the Marlborough 
 Family, for which the Duke and Duchess, with Lord 
 Henry, Lady Elizabeth, and Lady Caroline Spencer had 
 been giving frequent sittings in London. The great 
 canvas, which is one of the few treasures of the famous 
 Blenheim Collection still remaining in Vanbrugh’s palace, 
 shows, as its central feature, the Duchess, standing erect 
 with her hand on the arm of the Duke, who, in his peer’s 
 robes, sits, clasping with one arm Lord Blandford, while 
 * Engraved by H. Hudson in 1787. 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
The Marlborough Family Group 247 
 
 in front of his consort and at her left side appear, woven 
 into one group, Lord Henry Spencer, the hero of the 
 “Young Fortune-Teller,” and his sisters, Lady Caroline, 
 Lady Elizabeth, Lady Charlotte (the little Gipsy in the 
 “Fortune-Teller”), and Lady Anne. 
 
 There is always an anecdote in connection with Sir 
 Joshua’s works of this type, and in the present instance 
 we are told that when Lady Anne, a child of four, was 
 brought into the room to sit, she drew back, clinging 
 to her nurse, and crying out, “ I won’t be painted.” Sir 
 Joshua kept the natural attitude, but, in order to account 
 for it in the picture, employed the rather forced expedient 
 of putting into the hands of little Lady Charlotte a 
 gigantic classic mask. The abandon and playfulness of 
 this incident, breaking in upon the ceremonial pomp of the 
 great full-dress portrait-group, has been much admired. 
 
 The figures which go to make up the ensemble of the 
 vast canvas are, without question, individually admirable, 
 and the colour is rich and appropriate, even though it may 
 not reach Sir Joshua’s high-water mark ; the pompous 
 framing to the personages, made up of baroque twisted 
 column, classic arch, looped curtain, and a Graeco- 
 Roman presentment of the Great Duke carrying, like 
 Augustus, Victory on his palm, is in its very conven- 
 tionality appropriate enough. 
 
 Yet has not the master fallen between two stools, in 
 endeavouring to combine the measured stateliness held to 
 befit the portrait-group of a great family with a natural- 
 ness, a momentariness, such as can only, under the cir- 
 cumstances, appear forced and unnatural, and must thus 
 be disturbing to the repose and dignity of the whole ? 
 
 He may have here had in view a combination of the 
 more intimate and untrammelled family portraiture of 
 the Dutch (as exemplified by Frans Hals and Rembrandt) 
 
248 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 with the ceremonial form of presentment which found 
 favour in Italian, French, and, more or less also, in Flem- 
 ish art. Van Dyck himself failed to give cohesion and 
 dramatic vraiseinblance , in addition to grace of line, to the 
 famous group of the Pembroke t'amily at Wilton House 
 the prototype, no doubt, of all the English pieces of this 
 class; the main motives of this vast canvas being too 
 transparently factitious. Succeeding sometimes admirably 
 in juxtaposing two figures — as in the two distinct versions 
 of the “Lord John and Lord Bernard Stuart” — Sir 
 Anthony fails when he has to combine a greater number, 
 or else takes refuge in the artless simplicity of arrange- 
 ment which marks, for instance, his numerous versions 
 of the “ Children of Charles I.” He shows himself in this 
 special phase of portraiture, to a marked degree, less 
 inventive than were his master Rubens and the Venetians 
 from whom he derived inspiration ; and infinitely less 
 various than Reynolds himself. 
 
 The English master has sought his own way out of 
 the difficulty of uniformity and consequent monotony ; 
 and if he has not achieved complete success, or suc- 
 ceeded in convincing the beholder either, on the one 
 side, of the dignity, or, on the other, of the naturalness of 
 his picture, he has at any rate failed in august company. 
 
 Since it would have been manifestly impossible, in the 
 latter half of the eighteenth century, to do as Rubens did 
 in his great family piece in the Church of St Jacques at 
 Antwerp, in which he represented himself, his two wives, 
 and his family in adoration before the Virgin and Child — 
 a mode of treatment derived by him from Titian, Veronese, 
 and the Venetians of the sixteenth century — a way out 
 of the difficulty would have been to show the Marl- 
 borough family, in various phases of contemplation, 
 before the statue of their illustrious ancestor and founder. 
 
Sir Joshua and Toms 249 
 
 This would certainly have been a somewhat conven- 
 tional, it might be said an affected, motive ; yet, all 
 the same, one sufficiently real for the time, and strong 
 enough to give the great canvas just that cohesion which 
 it lacks. An arrangement much of this kind has enabled 
 a French artist, of by no means the first rank — Jean 
 Dumont, called le Romain — to create a powerful and 
 sufficiently convincing effect in a great portrait-piece of 
 similar motive and dimensions. This work, now in the 
 Louvre, shows Madame Mercier, the nurse of Louis XV., 
 holding a painting of her royal foster-child, and sur- 
 rounded by a numerous progeny of sons and daughters, 
 their wives and husbands. All of them are in more or 
 less attentive and respectful contemplation of the symbolic 
 portrait, and they are thus kept together by an invisible, 
 but none the less real, bond of union. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1777 that Sir Joshua lost his 
 favourite drapery-man, Toms, who, even after he became 
 a full-fledged R.A., continued to live chiefly by that 
 lower branch of his profession in which he had acquired 
 so practised a facility. Toms had become a drunkard, 
 probably under the stress of poverty and disappointment, 
 and he put an end to his own life. 
 
 To Northcote the reader must be referred for some ac- 
 count of occasional squabbles between Sir Joshua and this 
 his favourite assistant. So far from producing a repellent 
 effect, these spots on the sun of his immaculateness serve 
 to enliven the picture by breaking the uniformity of its 
 tone. We happily get, for once, a little away from that too 
 famous equanimity of the master ; for indeed his character, 
 from whatever aspect we look at it, requires little; or not 
 at all, the artificial rounding off, the reducing into a too 
 consistent whole, which is still overmuch deemed a neces- 
 sity of literary portraiture. 
 
250 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 It is in 1778 that Miss Burney first appears on the 
 scene, blazing into an instant celebrity, which she 
 maintains but never exceeds, with Evelina. It is 
 hardly necessary to tell again the thrice-told tale of her 
 sudden rise, of her universal acceptance, and the un- 
 measured adulation with which she was greeted by 
 Burke, by Dictator Johnson himself, by Sheridan, by Sir 
 Joshua, to say nothing of the flattering Blues and literary 
 elegantes , the one more anxious to affirm, by unbounded 
 enthusiasm, her own good taste than the other. Still, the 
 view taken by Miss Burney of Sir Joshua’s character, the 
 apt instances given by her of his blandness and un- 
 affected amiability, are such an important contribution to- 
 wards the formation of a true estimate of him, from the 
 human side, that a return to the subject seems inevitable. 
 The youthful novelist had, beyond most of her con- 
 temporaries, except Mrs Thrale, the intuitive gift of 
 observation and the power of justly interpreting character. 
 She had, too, at that early period of her life, the charm 
 of unaffected and singularly pertinent expression, which 
 she afterwards lost. 
 
 It was Mrs Thrale who first captured the new star, and 
 served her up at a Streatham dinner-party to Sir Joshua, 
 who having, according to the statement of his nieces, 
 confirmed by the more serious authority of Miss Reynolds, 
 sat up all night to finish Evelina , had been heard to 
 declare that he would give fifty pounds to know the author. 
 This is the beginning of a friendship most kindly and 
 even, for Sir Joshua, warmly sustained until the end, with 
 a certain respect and deferential admiration, rather than 
 protection, on the part of the senior, for the young and 
 brilliant writer. Mrs Montagu, in connection with whose 
 awe-inspiring name one hardly ventures to pronounce 
 the word busybody, had gone near to withering it at the 
 
Miss Burney 251 
 
 outset, by actually proposing to make a match between 
 Evelina and the mature President. 
 
 It was in December 1778 that the acquaintance, so 
 auspiciously begun at Streatham between the President 
 and the much-feted, yet still unaffectedly modest, Fanny, 
 was followed up by that first visit to Leicester Fields, 
 so vividly and humorously described in her Memoirs. 
 It may be deemed that the passage has already been 
 sufficiently quoted and re-quoted ; yet it shows Sir 
 Joshua so naturally and sympathetically in his own proper 
 surroundings, and gives such happy peeps at the set 
 when not exactly in representation ; it hits off so admir- 
 ably that most vivacious, if not most refined, of the Blues, 
 Mrs Cholmondeley (Peg Woffington’s sister), that it is 
 impossible to resist the temptation of quoting some por- 
 tion of it yet once again : — 
 
 “ We found the Miss Palmers alone. We were for 
 near an hour quite easy, chatty and comfortable; no 
 pointed speech was made, and no starer entered. 
 
 “ Mrs and Miss Horneck were announced. Mrs Hor- 
 neck seated herself by my mother. Miss Palmer intro- 
 duced me to her and her daughter, who seated herself next 
 me ; but not one word passed between us ! 
 
 “ Mrs Horneck, as I found in the course of the even- 
 ing, is an exceeding sensible, well-bred woman. Her 
 daughter is very beautiful, but was low-spirited and silent 
 during the whole visit. She was indeed very unhappy, 
 as Miss Palmer informed me, upon account of some ill 
 news she had lately heard of the affairs of a gentleman 
 (Colonel Gwynn) to whom she is to be shortly married. 
 
 “ Next came a Mr Gwatkin, of whom I have nothing 
 to say, but that he was very talkative with Miss Offy 
 Palmer, and very silent with everybody else. 
 
252 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ Not long after came a whole troop, consisting of Mr 
 Cholmondeley, Miss Cholmondeley and Miss Fanny Chol- 
 mondeley, his daughters, and Miss Forrest Mrs Cholmon- 
 deley, I found, was engaged elsewhere, but soon expected. 
 
 “ Now here was a trick of Sir Joshua, to make me 
 meet all these people ! 
 
 “ Mr Cholmondeley is a clergyman, nothing shining 
 either in person or manners, but rather somewhat grim 
 in the first, and glum in the last. Yet he appears to 
 have humour himself, and enjoys it in others. 
 
 “ Miss Cholmondeley I saw too little of to mention. 
 
 “ Miss Fanny Cholmondeley is rather a pretty pale girl ; 
 very young and inartificial, and, though tall and grown up, 
 treated by her family as a child, and seemingly well con- 
 tent to really think herself such. She followed me which- 
 soever way I turned ; and though she was too modest to 
 stare, never ceased watching me the whole evening. 
 
 “ Miss Forrest is an immensely tall and not hand- 
 some young woman. Further I know not. 
 
 “ Next came my father, all gaiety and spirits. Then 
 Mr William Burke. 
 
 “Soon after, Sir Joshua returned home. He paid 
 his compliments to everybody ; and then brought a 
 chair next mine, and said, — 
 
 “ ‘ So you were afraid to come among us ? ’ 
 
 “ He went on, saying I might as well fear hobgoblins, 
 and that I had only to hold up my head to be above 
 them all. 
 
 “ After this address his behaviour was exactly what 
 my wishes would have dictated to him for my own ease 
 and quietness ; for he never once even alluded to my 
 book, but conversed rationally, gaily, and serenely; and 
 so I became more comfortable than I had ever been 
 since the first entrance of company. 
 
Miss Burney at Leicester Fields 253 
 
 “ Our confab was interrupted by the entrance of Mr 
 King, a gentleman, who is, it seems, for ever with 
 the Burkes ; and presently Lord Palmerston was an- 
 nounced. . . . 
 
 “A violent rapping bespoke, I was sure, Mrs Chol- 
 mondeley, and I ran from the standers, and, turning 
 my back against the door, looked over Miss Palmer’s 
 cards ; for you may well imagine I was really in a 
 tremor at a meeting which has been so long in agitation, 
 and with the person who, of all persons, has been most 
 warm and enthusiastic for my book. 
 
 “ She had not been in the room half an instant, ere 
 my father came up to me, and, tapping me on the 
 shoulder, said, ‘ Fanny, here’s a lady who wishes to 
 speak to you.’ 
 
 “ I curtsied in silence ; she curtsied too, and fixed 
 her eyes full on my face; and then, tapping me with 
 her fan, she cried, — 
 
 “ ‘ Come, come, you must not look grave at me.’ 
 
 “ Upon this, I te-he’d ; she now looked at me more 
 earnestly, and, after an odd silence, said abruptly, — 
 
 “ ‘ But is it true ? ’ 
 
 “ ‘ What, ma’am ? 1 
 
 “‘It can’t be ! tell me, is it true ? * 
 
 “ I could only simper. 
 
 “‘Why don’t you tell me? but it can’t be — I don’t 
 believe it ! — no, you are an impostor ! ’ 
 
 “Sir Joshua and Lord Palmerston were both at her 
 side — oh, how notably silly must I look ! She again re- 
 peated her question, ‘ Is it true ? ’ and I again affected 
 not to understand her ; and then Sir Joshua, taking hold 
 of her arm, attempted to pull her away, saying, — 
 
 “ ‘ Come, come, Mrs Cholmondeley, I won’t have her 
 overpowered here ! ’ 
 
2 54 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ I love Sir Joshua much for this. But Mrs Chol- 
 mondeley, turning to him, said, with quickness and 
 vehemence, — 
 
 “ ‘ Why, I ain’t going to kill her ! don’t be afraid 
 I sha’n’t compliment her ! I can’t, indeed.’ 
 
 “In this comical, queer, flighty, whimsical manner she 
 ran on till we were summoned to supper; for we were not 
 allowed to break up before; and then, when Sir Joshua 
 and almost everybody had gone downstairs, she changed 
 her tone, and, with a face and voice both grave, said, — 
 
 “ 4 Well, Miss Burney, you must give me leave to say 
 one thing to you ; yet, perhaps you won’t, neither, will you?’ 
 “ ‘ What is it, ma’am ? ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Why, it is that I admire you more than any 
 human being ! and I can’t help it.’ 
 
 “ Then, suddenly rising, she hurried downstairs. 
 
 “Sir Joshua made me sit next him at supper; Mr 
 William Burke was on my other side ; though afterwards 
 I lost the Knight of Plympton, who, as he eats no suppers, 
 made way for Mr Gwatkin, and, as the table was crowded, 
 stood at the fire himself. He was extremely polite and 
 flattering in his manners towards me, and entirely avoided 
 all mention or hint at Evelina the whole evening : indeed, 
 I think I have met with more scrupulous delicacy from 
 Sir Joshua than from anybody, although I have heard 
 more of his approbation than of almost any other person’s.” 
 Mrs Cholmondeley continues to persecute her. “ Pray, 
 Miss Burney, is there anything new coming out?” and 
 “ Well, I wish people who can entertain me would 
 entertain me.” 
 
 “To the last of these speeches I made no answer, but 
 Sir Joshua very good-naturedly turned it from me by 
 saying, ‘ Well, let every one do what they can in their 
 different ways ; do you begin yourself.’ 
 
Miss Burney at Leicester Fields 255 
 
 “ * Oh, I can’t/ cried she ; ‘ I have tried, but I can’t.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Do you think, then/ answered he, ‘ that all the 
 world is made only to entertain you ? ’ ” 
 
 The veteran painter, Allan Ramsay, at this period 
 some sixty-five years of age, was Sir Joshua’s only 
 rival in social distinction among the artists, and with 
 him our master, although he did not pretend to any 
 great sympathy for his art — then already a little old- 
 fashioned — maintained a cordial interchange of civilities. 
 From no fault of his own, but for reasons which have 
 already been made sufficiently clear, he was unable to keep 
 up a like degree of intimacy with Gainsborough, Romney, 
 or any of his more serious competitors for public favour. 
 
 Boswell records a dinner on April 29th (1778) at the 
 house of the King’s Painter, at which Lord Binning (the 
 Earl of Haddington’s son), Dr Robertson the historian, 
 Sir Joshua, and Mrs Boscawen, one of the most amiable 
 of the Blues, were present. Here, before Johnson arrives, 
 we find the conversation turning upon the spoiling of him 
 by his friends — a spoiling, by the way, which is not a little 
 like the obsequiousness of the school-boy towards the 
 man who wields the rod. Boswell manfully defends his 
 hero-worship against the good-natured strictures of Dr 
 Robertson. The fidus Achates remarks: “His power of 
 reasoning is very strong, and he has a peculiar art of 
 drawing characters, which is as rare as good portrait- 
 painting.” And to this Sir Joshua replies, with his usual 
 dispassionate fairness, on a point with regard to which he 
 is peculiarly capable of pronouncing : “ He is undoubtedly 
 admirable in this; but in order to mark the characters 
 which' he draws, he overcharges them, and gives people 
 more than they really have, whether of good or bad.” 
 We note in Allan Ramsay’s conversation, even when as 
 
256 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 here it is barely recorded in outline, a certain width of 
 general culture to which Reynolds, with all his natural 
 urbanity and quiet humour, with all his comprehensive in- 
 terest in things many and various, can hardly pretend. 
 
 Next day, Johnson, in a good humour with the feast, 
 and satisfied no doubt with the preponderant part that he 
 has taken in the conversation, says to his unwearying 
 admirer : “ Well, sir, Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner. 
 I love Ramsay. You will not find a man in whose con- 
 versation there is more instruction, more information, 
 and more elegance than in Ramsay’s.” It is at the dinner 
 on the following May 2d, at Sir Joshua’s, that, the 
 Doctor’s overfed vanity having apparently been wounded 
 by the comparative lack of attention with which he 
 has been treated by certain guests, not precisely of the 
 Johnsonian school, he once again turns publicly upon 
 the unfortunate Boswell. 
 
 “ He attacked me ” — says the biographer — “ with such 
 rudeness that I was vexed and angry, because it gave 
 those persons an opportunity of enlarging upon his 
 supposed ferocity and ill-treatment of his best friends. I 
 was so much hurt, and had my pride so much roused, that 
 I kept away from him for a week ; and perhaps might 
 have kept away much longer, nay, gone to Scotland 
 without seeing him again, had not we fortunately met and 
 been reconciled.” 
 
 In the naive scene of reconciliation which ensues, Bos- 
 well, remonstrating with the penitent doctor, shows an 
 unexpected fineness of feeling when he explains : “ I said 
 to-day to Sir Joshua, when he observed that you tossed 
 me sometimes, I don’t care how often or how high he 
 tosses me when only friends are present, for then I fall 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition 0/1778 257 
 
 upon soft ground ; but I do not like falling upon stones, 
 which is the case when enemies are present.” We may 
 agree with his amusing piece of self-commendation, 
 “ I think this is a pretty image, sir,” without going 
 quite so far as Johnson’s soothing rejoinder, “Sir, it is 
 one of the happiest I have ever heard.” 
 
 At the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in 
 1778, the vast “Marlborough Family” was the piece de 
 resistance of Sir Joshua’s display. 
 
 His other contributions, fewer in number than usual, 
 perhaps on account of the unusual labour involved in 
 working up the great canvas upon which he had been en- 
 gaged, were : — A half-length of Dr Markham, Archbishop 
 of York — (now at Christchurch) ; full-lengths of Miss 
 Sarah Campbell, and of Mr Campbell, with a Dog. 
 
 In connection with the “ Marlborough Family,” North- 
 cote tells an anecdote of his master, which is significant 
 as showing Reynolds’s singular lack of arrogance in con- 
 nection with his art, and his willingness to take a hint, 
 from whatever quarter it might come. 
 
 “ A young artist, named Powell, was much employed 
 in making small copies of Sir Joshuas pictures, which he 
 executed with much accuracy and taste. Having brought 
 a copy of the Marlborough Family to Reynolds for his 
 inspection, he was surprised at his finding much fault with 
 the effect of the background. Powell protested that he 
 could not make it better ; when Sir Joshua comforted him 
 by the assurance that it was his own picture with which 
 he was offended, and not with the copy. He afterwards 
 altered the background of the original. I can easily 
 believe this story. I remember that West once said to 
 me, ‘ Employ somebody to copy your pictures, if you 
 want to know their faults.’ ” 
 
 R 
 
258 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Gainsborough outnumbers his President this year, 
 sending no less than ten contributions, among them being 
 the full-length “ Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire,” now 
 at Althorp, and which was lent by Earl Spencer in 
 1885 to the Gainsborough Exhibition at the Grosvenor 
 Gallery. It is this picture that Horace Walpole marked 
 in his catalogue as “ bad and washy,” a description 
 which, it must be owned, this great master of the brush 
 was sometimes careless and superficial enough to deserve. 
 Its design has nothing in common with that of the too 
 famous “ Duchess of Devonshire ” in the big hat, of which 
 all that remains is the spirited monochrome sketch — 
 or perhaps rather reduction — lent by Viscount Clifden 
 to the Gainsborough Exhibition. Among the other por- 
 traits shown by the same painter on this occasion, were 
 those of the Earl of Chesterfield, Mrs Dalrymple, and 
 Mr Christie. 
 
 Wright of Derby, for the first time unfaithful to the 
 Incorporated Society, sends, not his powerful portraits — 
 such as the downright “ Richard Arkwright ” — but an 
 “ Eruption of Vesuvius,” the outcome, like some similar 
 pictures of his visit to Italy in 1773; “Edwin” (from 
 Dr Beattie’s “ Minstrel ”) ; and “ Sterne’s Captive.” The 
 “ Edwin ” was at Burlington House in 1886, when the Old 
 Masters Exhibition included a selection from the works 
 of the English Honthorst. Stothard also makes his debut 
 on this occasion with a “ Holy Family.” 
 
 This year Sir Joshua published the Seven Discourses 
 pronounced, up to that date, at the Royal Academy, with 
 a dedication to the King, which has been much and not 
 undeservedly commended as a model of dignified eulogy 
 never descending to fulsomeness. In this again it is 
 difficult to avoid suspecting the finishing touches of 
 Johnson or another of Reynolds’s many literary friends; 
 
Dedication of the Discourses 259 
 
 indeed, the artificial equilibrium of the Johnsonian 
 periods is most noticeable. 
 
 “ By your illustrious predecessors/’ writes the Presi- 
 dent, “were established marts for manufactures, and 
 colleges for science ; but for the arts of design, those arts 
 by which manufactures are embellished and science is re- 
 fined, to found an Academy was reserved for your Majesty. 
 Had such patronage been without effect, there had been 
 reason to believe that Nature had, by some insurmount- 
 able impediment, obstructed our proficiency ; but the 
 annual improvement of the Exhibitions, which your 
 Majesty has been pleased to encourage, shows that only 
 encouragement had been wanting. To give advice to 
 those who are contending for royal liberality has been for 
 some years the duty of my station in the Academy ; and 
 these Discourses hope for your Majesty’s acceptance, as 
 well-intended endeavours to incite that emulation which 
 your notice has kindled, and direct those studies which 
 your bounty has rewarded.” 
 
 Among the portraits upon which Sir Joshua worked 
 about this time was the half-length of Lady Beaumont, 
 wife of the noted connoisseur and less admirable dilet- 
 tante, to whose generous initiative the National Gallery 
 in its infancy owes so much. So great is, indeed, its 
 indebtedness, that pardon may be extended to him even 
 for his pernicious heresy regarding “ brown trees,” and 
 its corollary that all works which respected themselves 
 must be saturated with a bituminous sauce. The lady 
 was famed for the exquisite courtesy and tact with 
 which she dispensed her husband’s liberal hospitalities 
 to artists, and for the genuine kindness which, carrying 
 out his chief aim, she was wont to extend to the 
 
260 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 younger and less firmly-established members of the 
 fraternity. The portrait, which would appear to have 
 been completed in 1779, was not exhibited at the Royal 
 Academy until 1780, where it was shown, after the modest 
 fashion of that day, merely as “ Portrait of a Lady.” It 
 was, by Sir George Beaumont, contributed to the Rey- 
 nolds Exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884. 
 Another portrait of this time is the well-known one of Mrs 
 Payne-Gallwey, carrying her little boy pickapack — one 
 of the most popular and representative, if not precisely 
 one of the most thorough of the artist’s performances 
 of this class. It gives just that pretty presentment of 
 maternity and childhood, with a dash of self-conscious- 
 ness and elegant affectation, which is perhaps for the 
 larger public the most attractive phase of Sir Joshua’s 
 art, although, in the eyes of the judicious, it may not 
 constitute his most lasting claim to immortality. The 
 lady was Philadelphia, daughter of James Delancey, 
 Lieutenant-Governor of New York, and married Stephen 
 Payne-Gallwey of Tofts, Norfolk ; the picture was, in 1886, 
 lent by Lord Monson to the Old Masters Exhibition at 
 Burlington House. 
 
 To 1778 belongs also the group, “Master and Miss 
 Parker,” a delightfully fresh and charming portrait of the 
 children of Reynolds’s friend, Mr Parker of Saltram (after- 
 wards Lord Boringdon), in which the little boy, dressed in 
 a red coat, has his arms round the waist of his sister, who 
 sits demurely, decked in a mob cap and pink ribbons. This 
 was No. 145 at the Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was 
 lent by the Earl of Morley, a descendant of this pretty 
 boy, who was himself afterwards the first earl.* 
 
 * Judging by a reproduction in that useful publication, the Bilderschatz , 
 the picture — or its double — must have recently crossed the Channel, and 
 found its way into the Feuillet de Conches Collection. 
 
26 i 
 
 The Eighth Discourse 
 
 Among the names of sitters in 1778 is found that of 
 Edmund Malone, who was then fast obtaining a place 
 in Sir Joshua’s inner circle of friends. He was, in 1780, 
 to make his first appearance as an author, with two 
 volumes supplementary to Steevens’s edition of Shake - 
 speare. Later on, he added to his literary reputation by 
 the part taken in exposing the splendid forgeries of 
 Chatterton. His well - known edition of Shakespeare , 
 which met with very general acceptance, and long main- 
 tained itself, did not appear until 1790. It was in 1797 
 that, assuming unto himself the pious office of literary 
 as well as testamentary executor of his dead friend, he 
 published, with a preliminary Memoir to which frequent 
 reference has already been made, his first edition of the 
 Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The portrait painted at 
 this time is not that presented to the National Portrait 
 Gallery by Mr William Agnew after it had appeared at 
 the Reynolds Exhibition in 1884; this last was done 
 in 1786, and engraved by Bartolozzi in 1787. 
 
 It is in Sir Joshua’s Eighth Discourse, delivered as 
 usual at the distribution of prizes on the 10th of December, 
 that occurs the famous dictum that the masses of light in 
 a picture must always be of a warm, mellow colour, yellow, 
 red, or yellowish white, and that the blue, the grey, or the 
 green colours are to be kept almost entirely out of these 
 masses, and to be used only to support and set off the 
 warm colours. This technical precept has been dealt 
 with in a preceding section of the volume, in connection 
 with Sir Joshua’s own earlier portrait of Miss Jacobs. 
 Certainly, however surprising Gainsborough’s success in 
 the famous “ Blue Boy ” — his practical protest, as has 
 been almost universally assumed against the too absolute 
 acceptance of Sir Joshua’s theory — it appears so much 
 a successful tour de force as fairly to constitute the excep- 
 
262 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 tion which proves the rule. And then, are not the white 
 lights of the sheeny blue satin in which the handsome 
 youth of the picture is dressed just that “ warm, mellow 
 colour,” that “yellowish white,” which is Sir Joshua’s 
 desideratum ? * 
 
 The commencement of the year 1779 finds the master 
 busily engaged on the great design, or rather series of 
 designs, in oils, for the West Window of New College 
 Chapel, Oxford, among which, indeed, as is proved by 
 the painter’s own notes on their method of execution, 
 the “Hope” and the “Justice” must have been com- 
 pleted by the end of the year 1 778. 
 
 The original intention had been to prepare only car- 
 toons for the several compartments of the great window, 
 but, as Reynolds himself informed Mason, he found it 
 so much easier to use the brush than the crayon, that 
 he resolved to execute paintings where he had planned 
 drawings. Pretty obviously he shrank from the severe 
 ordeal of preparing designs deprived of the glamour 
 with which his fascinating brush would know how to 
 surround them, and his estimate of the limitations of 
 his powers in this direction was manifestly the right one. 
 
 The original scheme for the window had been to dis- 
 tribute the various figures in different places in the chapel, 
 but, on Sir Joshua’s suggestion, this plan was abandoned, 
 and the stone mullions were altered, so as to leave in the 
 centre one large compartment for the main composition, 
 at the base and sides of which the subsidiary subjects 
 were to be grouped. 
 
 * Among the greatest artists whose works furnish argument against the 
 unqualified acceptance of Reynolds’s precepts, as here laid down, are : — 
 Paolo Veronese; Rubens, in several altar-pieces, with the “Assumption of 
 the Virgin;” Van Dyck, both in religious works and portraits; and, above 
 all, Vermeer of Delft, in more than one of his wonderful studies of colour and 
 light. 
 
The New College Window 263 
 
 Malone gives extracts from two letters addressed by 
 the master to a fellow of New College, the latter of which 
 (dated January 9th, 1778) is important as giving in full 
 his preliminary scheme for the great decoration, in which 
 he evidently had in view from the beginning an amalgam 
 of the styles of Raphael and Correggio, both so closely 
 and enthusiastically studied by him in his early Italian 
 days, yet hitherto not very seriously emulated in practice. 
 
 “ Supposing,” he says, “ this scheme to take place ” 
 (meaning the alteration in the window just mentioned), 
 “my idea is to paint, in the great space in the centre, 
 Christ in the manger, on the principle that Correggio 
 has done it, in the famous picture called the Notte ; mak- 
 ing all the light proceed from Christ. 
 
 “ These tricks of the art, as they may be called, seem 
 to be more properly adapted to glass-painting than any 
 other kind. This middle space will be filled with the 
 Virgin, Christ, Joseph, and angels; the two smaller 
 spaces on each side I shall fill with the shepherds coming 
 to worship ; and the seven divisions below with the figures 
 of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the Four Cardinal 
 Virtues ; which will make a proper rustic base or founda- 
 tion for the support of the Christian Religion. 
 
 “ Upon the whole, it appears to me that chance has 
 presented to us materials so well adapted to our pur- 
 pose that, if we had the whole window of our own in- 
 vention and contrivance, we should not probably have 
 succeeded better.” 
 
 This scheme is the one adhered to in the finished 
 composition and its definitive interpretation in stained 
 glass. The design is, as to the general distribution and 
 the combination into one coherent whole of the com- 
 
264 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 ponent parts, a very fine one ; the suave harmony in the 
 main lines, and the homogeneity of the various sections be- 
 ing, indeed, remarkable, when it is taken into consideration 
 that Reynolds was here attempting an untried branch of 
 his art. In the figures of the Christian and the Cardinal 
 Virtues, which, as the master points out, constitute the 
 base of the composition, though there is no plagiarism 
 in the narrower sense of the term, the influence has 
 manifestly been that of Raphael’s great symbolical figures 
 in the Stanze, and more especially of those two which, 
 shortly after his death, were painted in oils by his scholars, 
 on the walls of the Sala di Costan tino* In the great central 
 compartment of the “Nativity,” the method of illumination, 
 the exaggerated grace and sweetness of the design, are 
 avowedly those of Correggio, and, as such, hardly suited, 
 either in line or colour, to the style of decorative art upon 
 which the President had now, for the first time, embarked. 
 The shepherds are depicted in two side-lights on either 
 side of the central composition, resembling the wings of 
 an altar-piece ; on the one side, two shepherd-children 
 seen by torchlight ; on the other, two older shepherds 
 adoring the star in the East, in whom, after the classical 
 Italian fashion, Reynolds has portrayed himself and the 
 glass-painter Jervas. This happy arrangement is to be 
 found in some of the great altar-pieces of Titian, but 
 more especially in those of Rubens. For the Virgin in 
 the “ Nativity,” and the “ Charity ” in the lower section 
 of the window, the fair Mrs Sheridan had favoured Sir 
 Joshua with sittings. 
 
 The “Nativity,” together with the three separate 
 figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, appeared at the 
 exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1779, but Sir 
 
 * It is clear, too, that the master has not forgotten Andrea del Sarto’s 
 chiaroscuro virtues in the cloisters of the Scalzo, at Florence. 
 
The New College Window 265 
 
 Joshua, dissatisfied with the hurried execution of the 
 first-named piece, took it back at the close of the 
 exhibition, and continued to work upon it during the rest 
 of the year. It was purchased by the Duke of Rutland for 
 the then unparalleled price of £1200, and perished in the 
 great fire at Belvoir Castle which engulphed so many 
 important works by the master. The “ Angel resting on 
 a Cloud ” belongs, it is believed, to the Duke of Portland ; 
 the compartment with Sir Joshua and Jervas as shepherds, 
 to Earl Fitzwilliam. The whole window, with its mullions, 
 has been well engraved in stipple by G. S. and J. G. Facius, 
 who also produced large reproductions, executed separ- 
 ately, of all the component parts. 
 
 Haydon has written enthusiastically of the Oxford 
 window : — “ I have gained immense knowledge from the 
 examination of these pictures. I prefer the Charity — it 
 may take its place of any Correggio on earth.” 
 
 An interesting note in Leslie and Taylor’s biography 
 informs us that, at the great sale of paintings belonging 
 to the Marchioness of Thomond, the seven Virtues, being 
 put up separately, were all, one after the other, bought by 
 the Earl of Normanton, at prices amounting in the aggre- 
 gate to no less than £5565. He had previously made an 
 offer to the executors to purchase them by private con- 
 tract. The same authority states that, seven years after, 
 Seguier, acting on behalf of the King, offered Lord Nor- 
 manton double the purchase-money, which was refused ; 
 and then again, returning after a similar interval — this 
 time on behalf of the National Gallery — offered treble the 
 amount originally paid, but with the like negative result. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Court-Martial on Admiral Keppel — Commemorative Portraits painted by 
 Sir Joshua — Presented to Dunning, Lee, Burke, and Erskine — Death 
 of Garrick — Exhibition of 1779 — “Viscountess Crosbie” — Sir Joshua’s 
 Momentariness — The Oxford Window as carried out — Portrait of 
 Gibbon — His Personal Appearance — Sir Joshua’s Serenity — “Col- 
 lina” and “Sylvia” — Death of Topham Beauclerk — Lady Diana 
 Beauclerk — The Royal Academy in its New Quarters at Somerset 
 House — First Exhibition there (1780) — Attractive Display by Mem- 
 bers — Walpole on Reynolds — Mrs Thrale’s Portrait — Dr Burney’s 
 Portrait — Offie’s Marriage — Johnson’s Lives of the Poets — His 
 Estrangement from Mrs Montagu — Walpole on the Quarrel — Mrs 
 Thrale in Grosvenor Square — Miss Emily Bertie as “Thais” — “The 
 Ladies Waldegrave ” — Walpole on the Picture — Death of Thrale — 
 Exhibition of 1781 — “Master B unbury ” — Tour in Flanders and 
 Holland — Notes on the Pictures — Opie the “Cornish Wonder” — 
 His rapid Success. 
 
 Some short reference is necessary to one of the most 
 stirring incidents of the time, the trial by court-martial of 
 Reynolds’s lifelong friend, Admiral Keppel, since one of 
 its results was the commission given to our master to 
 paint the Admiral’s portrait, and from it three (perhaps 
 four) similar originals, to be presented to the illustrious 
 lawyers and friends who, aided by the irresistible popular 
 feeling, had so triumphantly conducted his defence. 
 
 At a moment of great national anxiety he had been 
 entrusted with the command of the Channel Fleet, with 
 Sir Hugh Palliser as second in command. After some 
 
 266 
 
The Keppel Court-Martial 267 
 
 initial successes, Keppel, finding himself overmatched 
 in numbers, had the courage, though he knew the 
 ministerial press hostile to him, to put back to St 
 Helens ; but, being subsequently reinforced, he challenged 
 the French fleet off Ushant on the 12th of July 1778. A 
 signal given by the Admiral to renew the attack upon 
 the enemy, after a pause to repair damage, was obeyed 
 by his own ships, but ignored or misunderstood by 
 Sir Hugh Palliser, who was in command of the rear, 
 the result of this hesitation being that the French 
 succeeded in escaping to their own coast. Keppel en- 
 deavoured at first to screen his second in command, but 
 Palliser having been attacked in the newspapers, and 
 having the effrontery to demand from Keppel a denial 
 of the charges made against him, the latter found him- 
 self compelled to refuse this testimony in favour of his 
 subordinate, whereupon the latter made formal charges 
 against his commander, to answer which he was brought 
 to court-martial in the beginning of 1779. 
 
 A more inspiringly national, a more conspicuously 
 British episode cannot well be imagined than that fur- 
 nished by this trial, at which Keppel was professionally 
 supported by Dunning, Lee, and Erskine — the foremost 
 counsel of the day — and surrounded by friends, among 
 whom were the Royal Dukes and many of the most 
 brilliant personalities in the aristocracy and the world of 
 politics. A passionate enthusiasm for Keppel coloured 
 the whole proceedings, affecting the very admirals who 
 were sitting in judgment upon him; culminating after his 
 triumphant acquittal, and the censure passed upon Sir 
 Hugh Palliser, in a scene of delirious joy in court, and 
 of riotous vengeance on his official and other detractors 
 taken by the mob outside, for which it would be difficult 
 to find a parallel even at this moment of national effer- 
 
268 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 vescence. Keppel cockades, Keppel sign-posts, Keppel 
 table-cloths and spoons became the rage, and ladies wore 
 Keppel caps, much as their sisters on the other side 
 of the water added the “Belle Poule’ to their already 
 overpowering coiffures. 
 
 Sir Joshua, in a characteristic letter of felicitation ad- 
 dressed to his old friend, formulates with perfect hearti- 
 ness and sincerity his own congratulations and those of 
 the circle of friends ; giving, without much comment, yet 
 with a sly glee, an account of the depredations com- 
 mitted by the rioters at the Admiralty, and in the houses 
 of ministers and Admiralty lords, and of the complete 
 gutting of Sir Hugh Palliser’s house in Pall Mall. No- 
 thing could be truer or simpler than these felicitations 
 addressed to the friend and patron of his early days ; yet 
 somehow the note of passion in friendship, of a heart- 
 stirring affection, is wanting. Once more we see that 
 the emotional element, whether in love or friendship, is 
 not in the serene and noble nature of our master, and 
 this must be accepted as the keynote of his character, 
 yet without reproach. 
 
 The grateful Admiral had presented to Lee, Dunning, 
 and Erskine, for their professional assistance, bank notes 
 for ^iooo each; but Lee and Dunning had returned 
 their fees, an example which, it appears, the res angusta 
 dorni prevented Erskine from following. Lee having asked 
 Keppel for his picture, and over-modestly proposing 
 Dance as the painter, the Admiral made up his mind 
 to sit to Sir Joshua, and ordered four repetitions of the 
 portrait to be executed. One of these canvases was, 
 until lately, with the family portraits at Quiddenham, 
 while the others went respectively to Lee, Dunning, and 
 Burke, the completion of the repetition destined for 
 Erskine being delayed until some four years from this 
 
“ Viscountess Crosbie 
 
 269 
 
 date. That presented to Dunning (afterwards Lord Ash- 
 burton) has, since 1864, been in the National Portrait 
 Gallery. It shows the old hero overblown, yet still 
 vigorous notwithstanding all the vicissitudes through 
 which he had passed, and with an aspect which, notwith- 
 standing his Dutch descent, is thoroughly British, in the 
 best sense of the word. He wears a plain naval uniform, 
 a dark blue coat, faced with white and gold, without 
 epaulettes, and a white waistcoat trimmed with gold. It 
 is of the example of the portrait presented to Burke * 
 that, writing in after years to Keppel’s nephew the Duke 
 of Bedford, the great statesman says: — 
 
 “ It was painted by an artist worthy of the subject — the 
 excellent friend of that excellent man from their earliest 
 youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we 
 lived for many years without a moment of coldness, of 
 peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to the day of our final 
 separation.” 
 
 Here, then, as in the whole context from which the 
 quotation is selected, rings forth that passionate note, that 
 affectionateness in friendship, which was wanting in Sir 
 Joshua’s own nature, faithful, true, and full of service to 
 his friends as he ever was. 
 
 The “Admiral Keppel” painted in 1780, and which, 
 with the remaining pictures forming the Peel Collection, 
 passed in 1871 into the National Gallery, cannot well 
 be one of this series of portraits. The Admiral here 
 appears out of uniform, dressed in a plain claret-coloured 
 suit ; he rests one hand on his sheathed sword, the other 
 on his hip, the background being a view of the sea. 
 
 It was this year (20th January 1779) that Garrick 
 
 * Bequeathed by his widow to Earl Fitzwilliam. 
 
270 Sir Joshtia Reynolds 
 
 who had long been ailing, died after a short illness which 
 all the leading physicians of the day in vain strove to 
 combat He was followed to his grave at Westminster 
 Abbey by a company more illustrious, and more various 
 in the completeness with which it represented the aris- 
 tocracy, the clubs, politics, literature, the church, the 
 medical faculty, the stage, and society generally, than any 
 assemblage that the century had seen under similar cir- 
 cumstances. Even Sir Joshua’s own memorable funeral 
 ceremony fell, if anything, just a little short of this, if not 
 in splendour, yet in distinction and representativeness. 
 For any parallel to the great function in our own time 
 we must turn to the recent obsequies of Lord Tennyson 
 in the same consecrated home of British worthies. 
 
 To the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1779 Sir Joshua 
 sent, besides the “ Nativity,” and the “ Faith,” “ Hope,” 
 and “Charity” already referred to, three full-lengths of 
 ladies, including the lovely portrait of Lady Louisa 
 Manners (formerly at Peckforton, and now in the collec- 
 tion of Lord Iveagh), and the altogether exceptional 
 “ Viscountess Crosbie,” a crowning and extreme example 
 of that much-praised momentariness to which we have 
 already had such frequent occasion to refer. The picture 
 — glowing with colour, though not with colours — shows 
 this vivacious lady standing full face in a landscape, 
 dressed in the painter’s favourite yellowish white, with a 
 gold scarf round her waist. With her left hand extended 
 towards the right of the picture, she literally seems to sweep 
 athwart the canvas, so that a kind of uneasiness, lest the 
 view given of her fascinating presence should be only mo- 
 mentary, oppresses the spectator. The attitude and the 
 suggested movement are as audacious as anything the 
 modernity of this end of the nineteenth century — even 
 that of Mr John Sargent himself — has produced. 
 
“ Viscountess Crosbie .” 
 
 271 
 
 It may well be argued, and it would be difficult to 
 gainsay such an argument, that here is an example of all 
 that it is more dangerous to attempt in portraiture ; that 
 to erect into a principle what is here a fascinating ex- 
 ception would be to import into the art which, of all 
 others, should busy itself with the permanent in aspect 
 and characterisation, rather than with the ephemeral in 
 movement and gesture, a disturbing, a detestable element. 
 Yet such is the force of genius, that when, as here, the 
 tour de force is successfully performed — as it was, to 
 compare lesser things with greater, in Mr Sargent’s 
 much-discussed “ Portrait of Mrs Hugh Hammersley,” 
 exhibited in 1893 the New Gallery— the effect is 
 irresistible, and the critic reasoning from unanswerable 
 principles is reduced to silence. 
 
 This notable picture was last seen in public at the 
 Old Masters Exhibition of 1891 at Burlington House, 
 at which time it had already passed from the possession 
 of the Crosbie family (of Ardfert Abbey, Kerry) into 
 that of Sir Charles Tennant. 
 
 Other contributions made by the President to the 
 exhibition on the same occasion were: — A full-length 
 of a Young Lady; portrait of a Lady and Child; por- 
 trait of a Gentleman ; portrait of Andrew Stuart. 
 
 It is recorded by Mason that Sir Joshua was woefully 
 disappointed with the execution by the glass-painter 
 Jervas of his designs, especially that of the “Nativity.” 
 “ I had frequently,” he said, “ pleased myself with reflecting, 
 after I had produced what I thought a brilliant effect of 
 light and shadow on my canvas, how greatly the effect 
 would be heightened by the transparence which the paint- 
 ing on glass would be sure to produce. It turned out 
 quite the reverse.” Truth to tell, this was not a period in 
 which decorative art applied to glass painting had any 
 
272 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 chance of being understood ; the bright, clear tints, the 
 even diffusion of light, which are indispensable elements 
 of a successful glass picture being sacrificed in favour of 
 the fashionable chiaroscuro, with its alternations of yellow 
 light and deep shadow. Sir Joshua's rich sunset harmonies, 
 suggesting now Rembrandt, now Titian, now Rubens, were 
 of all hues, the least suitable for translation into painted 
 glass, and the opaqueness of Jervass colours did not mend 
 matters. 
 
 Here, again, Horace Walpole showed himself a more 
 acute critic and judge than any of his contemporaries. 
 When the glass paintings were exhibited at Charing Cross, 
 with the rest of the room darkened to heighten their effect 
 — much after the fashion which obtains to-day in New Bond 
 Street, when what are termed sacred works are exhibited 
 — he saw at once, while admiring, that, when they were 
 put up in the place for which they were destined, their 
 appearance would be very different. The light in the 
 chapel of New College could not, he pointed out, be re- 
 duced without making it too dark, and with others con- 
 flicting the effect would be lost This was at a moment, 
 too, when all the world was in ecstacies over the beauty 
 and dazzling effect of Sir Joshuas performance as inter- 
 preted by his glass-painter. 
 
 It was in 1779 that the master painted the famous 
 portrait of Gibbon, reproduced by Hall in 1780, which was 
 to become the type of all the engraved portraits. The 
 brilliant historian was sunning himself in the fame derived 
 from the first volume of his great work, which had ap- 
 peared in 1776, and was leisurely preparing the two 
 subsequent volumes which were soon to come out He 
 looks here a much younger man than he is, in a brilliant 
 scarlet coat and waistcoat and white lace tie, wearing 
 his own hair en perruque. The picture is in the very 
 
- y/ r />// //y^ 
 
1 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Portrait of Gibbon 273 
 
 front rank of Reynolds’s character-portraits, and is, above 
 all, remarkable for the audacious realism with which he 
 preserves the embonpoint of his friend, whose type, with 
 its insignificant nose and abnormally heavy chin, would 
 be frankly comic, were it not that the expression of 
 genuine power and intellectuality dominates and sobers 
 the spectator, who might, on the first glance, find himself 
 on the highroad to a smile. Still, the personal appearance, 
 and the aplomb with which it is carried off, quite bear 
 out Horace Walpole’s statement (made, be it remem- 
 bered, during a temporary hiatus in their acquaintance) 
 that “ the great writer is vain, even as to his ridiculous 
 face and person.” Who was it, by the way, who said of 
 Gibbon, “ His mouth, mellifluous as Plato’s, was a round 
 hole, almost in the centre of his visage ” ? 
 
 Walpole is too good a judge of what is excellent in 
 style, if not in matter, not to have the highest admiration 
 for his literary friend’s comprehensive grasp and power. 
 At the same time, there appears to mix with his admira- 
 tion a certain physical repulsion, and with it a desire to 
 assume the master-critic, and to maintain in their relations 
 —notwithstanding his assumed humility — a footing of 
 literary equality which he is very far from feeling. What 
 his real feeling in the matter is, we gather when we find 
 him writing, with reference to Gibbon’s answer “to the 
 monks who have attacked his two famous chapters ” 
 
 “ It is the quintessence of argument, wit, temper, spirit, 
 and, consequently, of victory. I did not expect anything 
 so luminous in this age of darkness.” 
 
 The portrait in the red coat, with its frank reproduction 
 of the sitter’s facial peculiarities, gives added vraisemb lance 
 to the famous story of his presentation to the blind 
 
 S 
 
274 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Madame du Deffand — a story which, harmless as it is, la 
 pruderie ' anglaise forbids us to transcribe in these pages 
 The picture, which belongs to the Earl of Sheffield, was 
 at the Old Masters in 1884, and subsequently appeared at 
 the Guelph Exhibition of the New Gallery. 
 
 Caricatural portraits of Gibbon, both by the accom- 
 plished Lady Diana Beauclerk and by J. Walpole (be- 
 lieved to have been a cousin of Horace Walpole), are in 
 the Collection of Prints and Drawings at the British 
 Museum. The one and the other appear to be based 
 on Reynolds’s realistic portrait, which they do not over 
 much exaggerate. 
 
 In this year of 1779, a general agitation and fear of 
 invasion by the French possessed society and the country 
 generally. Moreover, with a French and Spanish fleet 
 blockading Plymouth, as it did in the autumn of the year, 
 and a French frigate capturing the Dover and Ostend 
 packet, with the Duchess of Leinster, Mrs Darner, and 
 Lady William Campbell on board, the fear was by no 
 means as groundless as it may now appear. That, amidst 
 this general agitation, and the feverish social gaiety by 
 which it was accompanied, Sir Joshua maintained — as 
 some may think to an excessive degree — his wonted 
 serenity, is conclusively shown by an interesting letter 
 to his friend and patron, the Earl of Upper Ossory, 
 preserved in Leslie and Taylor’s pages. Part of it de- 
 serves transcription, as being peculiarly significant of his 
 enviable equanimity under all circumstances : — 
 
 “ I have been as busy this summer, in my little way, 
 as the rest of the world have been in preparing against the 
 invasion. From the emptiness of the town I have been able 
 to do more work than, I think, I ever did in any summer 
 before. My mind has been so much occupied with my busi- 
 
“ Co llina ” and u Sylvia ” 
 
 275 
 
 ness that I have escaped feeling those terrors that seem to 
 have possessed all the rest of mankind. It is to be hoped 
 that it is now all over, at least for this year.” 
 
 The evidence at first hand of this frame of mind in 
 the artist, wrapped up in his work and happily incapable 
 of concentrating his attention upon anything else, inclines 
 us to give greater credence than before to such stories as 
 that of Protogenes tranquilly painting on while Demetrius 
 Poliorcetes battered and stormed his native Rhodes ; and 
 that similar one of Parmegianino busily putting the finish- 
 ing touches to his great “Vision of St Jerome” (now in 
 the National Gallery), when the walls of Rome had actually 
 been scaled, the city stormed, and the Imperialists of the 
 Connetable de Bourbon were running from house to house 
 intent on spoil. 
 
 It was this year that 'Sir Joshua painted Lady 
 Gertrude Fitzpatrick, the little daughter of Lord Upper 
 Ossory and his Countess, as “ Collina,” — a title derived, 
 no doubt, from the gently sloping eminence on which 
 the child is placed. It is but a foolish one, like most 
 of those with which the master’s studies of children were 
 tricked out. Sir Joshua was, however, in many cases, 
 guilty only of consent; the offending names being tacked 
 on by the engravers. Notwithstanding a strong admix- 
 ture of affectation, the picture is one of the loveliest of 
 its class — that intermediate one between the absolute 
 sincerity of the “ Crossing the Brook ” and “ Cupid as a 
 Link-boy,” and the absolute mannerism of the “ Muscipula ” 
 and “ Robinetta.” It is in error that Leslie and Taylor 
 describe this picture on two occasions, in footnotes, as 
 having been engraved as “Sylvia, the Mountain Maid.” 
 The picture to which they refer is the companion one 
 of Collina’s sister, Lady Anne Fitzpatrick, a not less 
 
276 Sir J osh ua Reynolds 
 
 charming invention, showing the little maid (“ Sylvia ”) 
 in a wooded landscape. “ Collina ” belongs to the 
 Dowager Lady Castletown of Upper Ossory, and was 
 No. 153 at the Reynolds Exhibition in 1884; “Sylvia” 
 was No. 132 at the Old Masters in 1871, to which 
 exhibition it was lent by Lady Lyveden. 
 
 Among the sitters of this year, other than those who 
 have already been mentioned, were Miss Monckton, one 
 of the most noted precieuses among the Blues, and after- 
 wards, as the Countess of Cork, still more conspicuous 
 for her social eccentricities ; the Duchess of Hamilton ; 
 the Countess of Bute, walking in a garden, umbrella in 
 hand ; Lady William Gordon, mother of the beautiful 
 child who sat later on for the much-copied “ Angels’ 
 Heads” in the National Gallery. The likeness of the 
 last-named lady is a very pleasing and simple bust 
 portrait, in which, rather exceptionally for Reynolds, the 
 sitter is seen quite full face, wearing a black mantilla, 
 with a white cap on her powdered locks. This is the 
 picture now in the possession of the Hon. Mrs Meynell- 
 Ingram at Temple Newsam ; * one apparently identical 
 with it in design and arrangement was lent to the 
 Reynolds Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery by the 
 Marquis of Hertford. 
 
 Among the male portraits is that one of Admiral 
 Barrington at Greenwich Hospital, the sky of which, it 
 appears, being painted with blue verditer instead of ultra- 
 marine — the colour Sir Joshua imagined he was using — 
 turned from blue to green, so that when it was returned 
 to the master for repairs, he owned that he could scarce 
 believe it to be the picture he had painted. 
 
 The gaiety of The Club was temporarily eclipsed — to 
 use the Johnsonian phrase — by the death this spring of 
 * Engraved by J. Raphael Smith, 1780. 
 
277 
 
 Lady Diana Beauclerk 
 
 one of the most prominent and agreeable members, Topham 
 Beauclerk, a fine gentleman and a brilliant wit, for whom 
 Dr Johnson himself — to say nothing of the other mem- 
 bers — professed the greatest admiration and affection. 
 They bickered occasionally, as did most of the members, 
 except the unruffled Sir Joshua, who was generally the 
 spectator of the affray, and the opportune peace-maker, 
 rather than the participant in its sword-play. Johnson 
 now and then felt himself a little nonplussed by the 
 extreme readiness of Beauclerk, as well as overshadowed 
 by his superior breeding and air of the great world. Still, 
 the Doctor loved his friend, and when Lord Althorp, 
 meeting him at Mrs Vesey’s very soon after the death, 
 observed : “ Our Club has had a great loss since we met 
 last ” — could reply in all sincerity : “ A loss that perhaps 
 the whole nation could not repair!” Speaking of the 
 wonderful ease with which the deceased wit uttered good 
 things, he went on to say: “No man was ever so free, 
 when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that 
 expressed that it was coming ; or when he had said it, 
 from a look that expressed that it had come.” An ex- 
 quisite compliment, in truth, and one expressed with a 
 neatness and simplicity in refreshing contrast to the usual 
 Johnsonian sententiousness ! 
 
 Beauclerk’s wife was the accomplished amateur painter, 
 Lady Diana Beauclerk, for whose art Horace Walpole 
 professed so extravagant an admiration. We find him, 
 when he writes to William Mason in 1778 — to explain 
 that he is not going to attend the Academy Dinner, 
 “ only to figure the next day in the newspapers, in the 
 list of the geniuses of the age ” — praising, in the most 
 enthusiastic fashion, the lady’s portrait of the Duchess of 
 Devonshire, just engraved by Bartolozzi, and winding up 
 by asking, “What should I go to the Academy for? 
 
278 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 I shall see no such chef s-d oeuvre there.” And again we 
 find him contrasting — rather a propos de bottes — Gibbon’s 
 “good sense and polished art” in the great History with 
 what he is pleased to call “the great original genius” 
 of Lady Di in the seven large drawings in “ sut-water,” 
 made by the lady to illustrate scenes in Walpole’s 
 Mysterious Mother . Here the panegyric is so enor- 
 
 mous that one could not but suspect that the critic — by 
 no means inclined to give way to indiscriminate en- 
 thusiasms where persons other than his own particular 
 friends are concerned — had his tongue a little in his 
 cheek; were it not that, in his laudations of the lady-artist, 
 he almost invariably gushed in this hyperbolic fashion. 
 
 Moreover, the sincerity of his admiration is further 
 proved by the fact that he constructed a special closet for 
 the exhibition of these drawings at Strawberry Hill, and 
 christened it the Beauclerk Closet — hanging them there in 
 state, on Indian-blue damask. In another passage he spoke 
 of the same designs as “seven scenes that would be fully 
 worthy of the best of Shakespeare’s plays — such drawings, 
 that Salvator Rosa and Guido could not surpass their ex- 
 pression and beauty.” Lady Di, among many other 
 things, did, in 1796, a set of illustrations (engraved by 
 Bartolozzi) for the Hon. W. R. Spencer’s translation of 
 Burger’s “ Lenore.” Reynolds had himself painted her as 
 far back as 1763, when she was still Lady Bolingbroke. 
 He is stated to have thought highly of her artistic abilities, 
 and to have said, in his own courteous fashion, that “ many 
 of her ladyship’s drawings might be studied as models.” 
 
 On the occasion of the Exhibition of 1780, the Royal 
 Academy, which had since 1771 had its private apart- 
 ments and its school at Somerset House, definitively 
 transferred its domicile thither, giving up the exhibition- 
 rooms in Pall Mall, and inaugurating the great saloon 
 
The Royal Academy at Somerset House 279 
 
 with a top-light, which had been specially constructed 
 in the right wing of the new building, fronting the 
 Strand. 
 
 The Library ceiling was decorated with a Raphaelesque 
 figure, by Sir Joshua, of Theory, seated on clouds — the two 
 points of a compass issuing from her head like rays — hold- 
 ing a scroll, on which is inscribed “ Theory is the knowledge 
 of what is truly nature:” it is almost his only attempt in 
 this difficult and ungrateful branch of his art, so much 
 valued in Italy and France. This is now to be found, 
 with some other remains of the Somerset House decora- 
 tions, in the Diploma Gallery at the Royal Academy. 
 
 The Library had further, in the coves, four figures 
 by Cipriani, symbolising “ Design,” “ Character,” “ Com- 
 merce,” and “ Plenty,” and casts from Ghiberti’s great 
 central gates to the Baptistery of Florence, the first 
 works of the Quattrocento to find general acceptance in 
 England. In the Lecture Room, the ceiling of which 
 was decorated by West, Angelica Kauffman n had figures 
 of “Genius,” “Design,” “Composition,” and “Painting,” 
 of which the “ Design ” is now to be found in the Diploma 
 Gallery. It is a charming figure, in which for once the 
 facile artist has not taken the classical ity of her art too 
 seriously, but has agreeably chiffonnl her draperies, some- 
 what after the fashion of Sebastiano Ricci and Tiepolo. 
 Here appeared for the first time Sir Joshua’s full-lengths 
 of the King and Queen, the only pictures, it is said, 
 for which he actually had sittings from Their Majesties. 
 That the task was not precisely a labour of love is pretty 
 evident from the result, for the portraits, though char- 
 acteristically rich in colour, are among the most per- 
 functory and spiritless that Sir Joshua, in his maturity, 
 produced. They contrast greatly to his disadvantage 
 with the brilliant presentments by his preferred rival, 
 
280 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Gainsborough, of the royal couple and their family. 
 Especially does one call to mind that spirited and charming 
 full-length of Queen Charlotte, which appeared at the 
 Academy in 1781, and is now at Buckingham Palace. 
 Here the magic ease and frankness of the painter’s brush 
 have almost vivified into sprightly elegance the kindly, 
 stolid countenance of King George’s consort, while repro- 
 ducing its main characteristics ; the gala dress of white, 
 embroidered with gold, worn by the Queen, is a master- 
 piece of execution. Gainsborough’s portrait was last seen 
 in public at the Guelph Exhibition of the New Gallery, 
 where it was No. 57 in the catalogue. 
 
 In the same chamber at Somerset House was, among 
 other portraits, that of Sir Joshua himself, in his academic 
 robes, a repetition, but not absolutely a duplicate of the 
 picture painted some years previously for the Painters’ 
 Gallery of the Ufifizi.* This new version was, accord- 
 ing to the mezzotint of Valentine Green, “ Painted by 
 himself for the Royal Academy, 1780.” It was in the 
 first Old Masters Exhibition at Burlington House in 1870, 
 and again at the Reynolds Exhibition of the Grosvenor 
 Gallery, and now usually hangs in the Council Chamber 
 of the Royal Academy. Next to it, in the Lecture Room 
 at Somerset House, appeared Sir Joshua’s well-known 
 portrait of Sir William Chambers, in which his friend and 
 colleague is depicted in a crimson velvet coat, looking out 
 at the spectator as he momentarily ceases from drawing. 
 The background shows a portion of his newest and most 
 important creation, Somerset House itself. 
 
 The first exhibition in the fine new quarters of the 
 Academy was memorable for more reasons than one, but 
 chiefly because the members had evidently made excep- 
 
 * In this portrait appears as an adjunct the bust of Michelangelo, which, 
 as has been seen, is not to be found in the earlier Florence version. 
 
First Exhibition at Somerset Hoitse 281 
 
 tional efforts to lend an additional attractiveness to their 
 initial show. It was then that the catalogue first took the 
 form to which it has ever since, with but little variation, 
 adhered. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s own display was perhaps, as a whole, not 
 so imposing as on some previous occasions. He sent the 
 “ Lady Beaumont,” and the portrait of Gibbon, to which 
 reference has already been made ; a portrait of the Earl of 
 Cholmondeley ; a full-length of Lady Worsley in Hants 
 militia uniform ; Miss Elizabeth Beauclerk, daughter of 
 the lately deceased Topham Beauclerk and Lady Diana, 
 as Spenser’s Una (lent by Lord Normanton to the Old 
 Masters in 1883); the popular, much-engraved full-length 
 of little Prince William Frederick, son of the Duke and 
 Duchess of Gloucester, in a Vandyck dress, holding a hat 
 and stick.* This last is that charming and exceptional 
 thing, a blonde Sir Joshua : blonde not only in the colour 
 of the pretty boy’s hair, but in the whole tonality, the 
 balance of which has been well preserved. Lastly came 
 the finished design of Justice for the Oxford window. 
 
 The contribution of Gainsborough on this occasion 
 was, on the other hand, of overwhelming attraction. 
 Besides six landscapes, including, “ Horses drinking at a 
 Trough ” and “ A Review on Warley Common,” there 
 were a whole series of portraits, among which those of 
 General Conway, and of that notorious swashbuckler, the 
 semi-clerical editor of the Morning Post , “ Parson Bate,” 
 otherwise the Rev. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart. West 
 had, besides some royal portraits, the “ Battle of the 
 Boyne,” the “ La Hogue,” an “ Aigisthus,” and a 
 “ Raising of Lazarus.” Richard Wilson showed, among 
 other things, a “ Review on Wimbledon Common,” 
 a “View in St James’s Park, with Gipsies,” and “Apollo 
 
 * Now at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 
28 2 Sir J osh na Reynolds 
 
 and the Seasons.” Somewhat after the fashion of 
 Teniers, painting, with all its treasures in situ, the 
 
 Brussels collection of Archduke Leopold William, 
 
 Zoffany contributed, as the fruits of a stay in Italy, 
 
 his “Tribuna of the Uffizi,” with paintings in minia- 
 ture of the pictures and sculpture brought together 
 in this famous saloon of the Florentine Gallery ; 
 
 Fuseli exhibited “ Satan starting from the Touch of 
 Ithuriel’s Spear;” Copley, a “Portrait of Major Mont- 
 gomery ; ” P'laxman, the sketch for a monument to Chat- 
 terton, showing the poet dying in the arms of one Muse 
 while another looks on lamenting. 
 
 It was during the terrible week between Friday the 
 2d and Friday the 9th of June that London was given 
 over to the No Popery riots of Lord George Gordon’s 
 frenzied mob, and on this occasion even the President’s 
 serenity would appear to have been ruffled. Not more than 
 in reason, however, considering that Somerset House, with 
 the brand-new Academy, was one of the buildings which 
 had been marked out for attack, and that Sir George 
 Savile’s mansion in his own Leicester Fields was gutted 
 under his very eyes, and a bonfire made of the furniture. 
 
 In the autumn Sir Joshua paid another visit to Devon- 
 shire, halting at Bagshot as the guest of his lifelong friend 
 Admiral Keppel, and then proceeding to Spitchwick, in 
 one of the wildest valleys of Dartmoor, on a visit to the 
 illustrious lawyer and politician Dunning, soon to be 
 Lord Ashburton. 
 
 In the last volume of Horace Walpole’s Anecdotes of 
 Painting, published this year, occur two significant pas- 
 sages with regard to our master, which must be once 
 more quoted : — 
 
 “ How painting has rekindled from its embers, the 
 
So-called Plagiarisms of Reynolds 283 
 
 works of many living artists demonstrate. The prints 
 after the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds have spread his 
 fame to Italy, where they have not at present a single 
 painter that can pretend to rival an imagination so fertile 
 that the attitudes of his portraits are as various as those 
 of history.” 
 
 And again : — 
 
 “ Sir J. Reynolds has been accused of plagiarism for 
 having borrowed attitudes from ancient masters. Not 
 only candour but criticism must deny the force of the 
 charge. When a single posture is imitated from an 
 historic picture, and applied to a portrait, in a different 
 dress, and with new attitudes, this is not plagiarism but 
 quotation ; and a quotation from a great author, with a 
 novel application of the sense, has always been allowed 
 to be an instance of parts and taste, and may have more 
 merit than the original. Is there not humour and satire 
 in Sir Joshua’s reducing Holbein’s swaggering and 
 colossal haughtiness of Henry VIII. to the boyish jollity 
 of Master Crewe ? One prophecy I will venture to make : 
 Sir Joshua is not a plagiary, but will beget a thousand. 
 The exuberance of his invention will be the grammar of 
 future painters of portraits.” 
 
 It would be difficult, indeed, to put the case better for Sir 
 Joshua, or more entirely from his own point of view, than 
 Walpole here does. If the master does borrow an attitude 
 or a motive from a great predecessor, he borrows, as a 
 rule, only to develop and metamorphose ; making his own 
 the material so appropriated, and infusing into it a new 
 life and a new intention. In so doing he is in the best 
 possible artistic company — in that of Raphael, who does 
 
284 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 not scruple to borrow from Masaccio and Filippino Lippi 
 in the Carmine Chapel — taking motives, too, even from 
 the prints of Schongauer and Dtirer — to say nothing of his 
 progressive assimilations from Timoteo Viti, Perugino and 
 Pinturicchio, Leonardo, Fra Bartolommeo, and Michel- 
 angelo. He finds himself, too, in the company of 
 Michelangelo himself, who makes his own the motives of 
 Donatello — compare the “St George” of the latter with 
 the “David” of the former — and, above all, appropriates 
 the reliefs of Giacomo della Quercia in the central portal 
 of S. Petronio at Bologna, some of which re-appear 
 without disguise in the great ceiling compartments of the 
 Sixtine Chapel. 
 
 A kind of preliminary harangue (counting as the 
 Ninth Discourse) is made by the President on the 16th 
 of October 1780, on the opening for the first time of the 
 Academy Schools in the new building; and on the 10th 
 of December, on the occasion of the usual distribution of 
 prizes, he delivers his Tenth Discourse. 
 
 In 1781 was finished the well-known “ Mrs Thrale with 
 her Daughter Queenie ” (afterwards Viscountess Keith), 
 intended as the crowning decoration to the Streatham 
 library, but which, we are informed, Thrale himself did not 
 like, while Mrs Thrale, in after years, declared it — her 
 opinion has already been quoted — to be “ less like my 
 father’s daughter than Pharoah’s.” The two figures are 
 framed in a landscape ; to the right appears Mrs Thrale 
 seated on a stone bench, her head resting on her 
 left hand, while Queenie kneels beside her. The picture, 
 of which repetitions exist, was not apparently in any 
 contemporaneous exhibition. It appeared at the Royal 
 Academy in the winter of 1871 ; being again shown at 
 the Reynolds Exhibition, and yet again in the “ Century 
 of British Art ” Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery, in 
 
Dr Johnson and the Blues 285 
 
 1888. It was, until recently, in the collection of Louisa, 
 Lady Ashburton, at Kent House, Knightsbridge. 
 
 Dr Chas. Burney’s portrait — the last of the series — 
 destined to be engraved in stipple by Bartolozzi for the 
 Doctor’s History of Music > was also painted about this time. 
 Sir Joshua, who portrayed his friend in the crimson robes 
 of a Doctor of Music, appears to have approached the work 
 with more than common zest, prophesying, with his usual 
 optimism (or had the phrase by this time become common 
 formula?) that it would be the best of the Streatham 
 group of portraits. When exhibited in 1781 at the 
 Academy, it was noted by Walpole as excellent, and Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence ranked it very high among the works 
 of his illustrious predecessor. The portrait is now in the 
 possession of the Ven. Archdeacon Burney; a repetition 
 belongs to the University of Oxford, by which it was 
 contributed to the Guelph Exhibition at the New Gallery. 
 
 It is worth while to peruse, in Leslie and Taylor’s 
 biography, the letters which passed between the kindly 
 President and his favourite niece, Offie, on her engage- 
 ment to Richard Lovell Gwatkin, a Cornish gentleman of 
 fortune. The kindness is here again perfectly genuine, 
 the good wishes expressed with perfect sincerity, yet, of 
 any thrill of emotion, natural to such an occasion, there is 
 hardly a trace. And let it not be alleged, as a complete 
 answer to such an observation, that the language of the time 
 in correspondence was too formal to admit of any such 
 expression. For does not Johnson himself, with all his 
 sententiousness and formality, often express intensity of 
 friendship and affection with a passion as strong almost 
 as that of love itself ? 
 
 It was in March 1781 that the Doctor at last com- 
 pleted his Lives of the Poets , which, he says, “ I wrote in 
 my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, 
 
286 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 and working with vigour and haste.” It is the con- 
 temptuous tone adopted by the autocrat in the Life of 
 Lord Lyttleton that gave such offence to Mrs Montagu 
 and the attendant precieuses , and produced the tragi-comic 
 rupture between the rival powers. Johnson especially 
 censured his lordship because he returned thanks to the 
 “ Critical Reviewers ” for having “ kindly commended ” his 
 Dialogues of the Dead , and overwhelmed him with the 
 crushing “ poor Lyttleton” — the epithet which more especi- 
 ally ruffled the crests and arched the backs of the Blues. 
 “ Dieu! que les her os out de terrihles faiblesses ! ” For does 
 not Mrs Thrale suggest that a rivalry of Johnson and 
 the aristocratic poet in the good graces of Miss Hill 
 Boothby (not as Boswell erroneously has it, that other 
 flame of Johnson’s, Molly Aston) was the cause of all 
 this depreciation ? And for such an assumption, little 
 worthy as it may seem, there would appear to be con- 
 siderable foundation. 
 
 This year the Blues were more en evidence than ever, 
 and Walpole who, as has been seen, was almost alone in 
 taking the humorous view of their learning, their judg- 
 ment and their extreme pretensions, gives many an 
 amusing peep at their conversaziones and routs. Writing 
 on January 14th of this year to the Countess of Ossory, 
 he says : — 
 
 “ I was much diverted with your setting Mrs Montagu 
 on her head, which, indeed, she does herself, without the aid 
 of Hermes. She is one of my principal entertainments at 
 Mrs Vesey’s, who collects all the graduates and candidates 
 for fame, where they vie with one another till they are as 
 unintelligible as the good folks at Babel. . . .” 
 
 And again — writing later in the same month to his 
 
Dr Johnson and Mrs Montagu 287 
 
 confidant, William Mason (apparently before the final 
 publication of the Lives , but when, as we gather from 
 results, that of Lyttleton must, at any rate, have been 
 before the public) : — 
 
 “ Mrs Montagu and all her Maenades intend to tear 
 him (Dr Johnson) limb from limb for despising their 
 moppet, Lord Lyttleton.” 
 
 And yet again in February, to the same : — 
 
 “ I think I shall soon compass a transcript at least of 
 Gray's Life by Demogorgon (Dr Johnson) for you. I saw 
 him last night at Lady Lucan’s, who had assembled a 
 Blue - Stocking meeting in imitation of Mrs Vesey’s 
 Babels. It was so blue, it was quite Mazarine blue. 
 Mrs Montagu kept aloof from Johnson, like the west 
 from the east.” 
 
 And once more, in March of the same year, to the 
 same correspondent, on the subject of the quarrel : — 
 
 “ A propos , ‘ Poor Lyttleton ’ were the words of offence. 
 Mrs Vesey sounded the trumpet. It has not, I believe, 
 produced any altercation, but, at a Blue-Stocking meeting 
 held by Lady Lucan, Mrs Montagu and Dr Johnson kept 
 at different ends of the chamber, and set up altar 
 against altar there. There she told me, as a mark of 
 her displeasure, that she would never ask him to dinner 
 again.” 
 
 Mason rejoins, on March 29th, still on the same en- 
 grossing topic : — 
 
 “ I have a great mind to weave it into a mock epic 
 
288 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 (a certain monologue previously half written), could I get 
 the least hint of a squabble between Queen Ashtaroth 
 (Mrs Montagu) and Dagon (Johnson). If that matter 
 goes further, pray give me early intelligence. A grave 
 answer would do him too much honour, and to whip 
 him on the back of his patrons would suit my fancy 
 best.” 
 
 Johnson himself naively remarks of the quarrel : — “ Mrs 
 Montagu has dropped me. Now, sir, there are people 
 whom one should like very well to drop, but would not 
 wish to be dropped by.” Whereupon his faithful bio- 
 grapher goes on to observe that he certainly was vain 
 of the society of ladies, and could make himself very 
 agreeable to them when he chose it. “Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds agreed with me,” he says, “ that he could. 
 Mr Gibbon, with his usual sneer, controverted it, per- 
 haps in resentment of Johnsons having talked with 
 some disgust of his ugliness, which one would think a 
 Philosopher would not mind.” 
 
 Bearing in mind Reynolds’s two masterpieces, por- 
 traying the two great men, one cannot but think this a 
 case of “ pot and kettle ” with a vengeance. 
 
 The alarming disturbances in Southwark, which had 
 formed part of the Gordon Riots in the preceding year, 
 had given Mrs Thrale an added disgust for the house 
 attached to the Southwark brewery, and this season 
 she induced her husband to become the tenant of an 
 imposing mansion in Grosvenor Square. She thus came 
 in more direct competition with the sister Blues than 
 heretofore, and held her own, as she, the most gifted of 
 them all, and the only true wit among them, was surely 
 entitled to do. The following is, however, much too 
 
Emily Bertie as Thais 289 
 
 studied, too mechanical in its sparkle, to show her at her 
 best : — 
 
 “Yesterday I had a conversazione. Mrs Montagu was 
 brilliant in diamonds, solid in judgment, critical in talk, 
 Sophy (Streatfield) smiled, Piozzi sung, Pepys panted 
 with admiration, Johnson was good-humoured, Lord John 
 Clinton attentive, Dr Bowdler lame, and my master 
 (Thrale) not asleep. Mrs Ord looked elegant, Lady 
 Rothes dainty, Mrs Davenant dapper, and Sir Philip’s * 
 curls were all blown about by the wind.” 
 
 Some of Sir Joshua’s most famous performances date 
 from this year, and a good many of them, as will 
 presently be seen, went to make up his memorable show 
 at the Academy in the spring. First the “ Thai's,” f for 
 which, according to Miss Burney, Miss Emily, a celebrated 
 courtesan (variously known as Emily Bertie, Emily Pott, 
 Emily Coventry), sat, at the desire of the Hon. Charles 
 Greville. A scandalous story was current, at the time the 
 picture appeared at the Exhibition, to the effect that the 
 fair and frail lady had commissioned the portrait, and then, 
 for lack of funds, left it on the master’s hands ; and that 
 he had thereupon, as a vengeance, converted it into a 
 Thais. It appears, however, much more in consonance 
 with the fashion of the time that Charles Greville should 
 have commissioned and paid for the portrait, and himself 
 have selected the impersonation. The presentment of a 
 fashionable courtesan in such a character as that of 
 Alexander’s lovely mistress would probably have been 
 regarded as complimentary rather than offensive. 
 
 * Sir Philip Jennings Clerk, a dressy but old-fashioned beau. 
 
 t Formerly at Peckforton, and now in the collection of Baron Ferdinand 
 de Rothschild. 
 
 T 
 
290 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Have we not seen Sir Joshua, at an earlier stage, 
 portraying Kitty Fisher as Cleopatra and then as Danae ; 
 and, at this very time, too, painting another of his most 
 famous fancy portraits, the “ Mrs Nesbitt as Circe ” ? This 
 shows the mistress of Augustus John, third Earl of Bristol 
 — the putative husband of Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess 
 of Kingston — as the baleful, irresistible sorceress, and is 
 one of the most attractive pictures of its special class, which 
 is assuredly not that in virtue of which Sir Joshua will 
 deserve the highest rank. The date generally assigned to 
 the work is the year 1781, but Mr F. G. Stephens has 
 controverted this view in his Historical Notes to the 
 Catalogue of the Reynolds Exhibition. It was lent by its 
 owner, the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderney, to the Old 
 Masters in 1876, and again to the Reynolds Exhibition 
 in 1884. Another portrait, showing the same lady in a 
 white dress with a dove, is now in the Wallace Collection 
 at Manchester House. 
 
 Still — to return for a moment, after this digression, 
 to Miss Emily Bertie — it may be said that Circe is a 
 goddess, Danae the beloved of Jove, Cleopatra, if only 
 the beloved of Jove’s representatives on earth, yet, in 
 her own right, a queen ; and that Thais only occupies 
 the throne of love. The nearest approach to such a 
 portrayal is the famous portrait in the Bale Museum, in 
 which Holbein exhibits, with an almost Leonardesque 
 fascination and skill, Dorothea Offenburg — a beauty of the 
 Swiss city, more remarkable for vivacity and variousness 
 than for a close adherence to the convenances — as Lais 
 Corinthiaca , and again, in more complimentary fashion, as 
 Venus herself. 
 
 To this year belongs, also, the picture which, if not the 
 most thorough or the most masterly, is, on the whole, the 
 most popular and the most fascinating of all Sir Joshua’s 
 
“ The Ladies Waldegrave ” 291 
 
 portrait-groups ; unless, indeed, it be deemed that it has a 
 rival in these respects in the later “ Georgiana, Duchess of 
 Devonshire, with her Child.” It is, as may be guessed, the 
 celebrated picture of Horace Walpole’s great-nieces, the 
 Ladies Waldegrave ,* to which reference is here made. 
 These are Lady Elizabeth Laura, afterwards Viscountess 
 Chewton and Countess Waldegrave; Lady Charlotte Maria, 
 afterwards Countess of Euston ; and Lady Anna Horatia, 
 afterwards Lady Hugh Seymour. It has been often told, 
 but may be once more repeated, that each of the beautiful 
 Ladies Waldegrave was, at the time the picture was being 
 painted, suffering under a matrimonial disappointment, 
 and that each of them was supposed to have “ behaved 
 well ” under the circumstances. Walpole, writing to 
 William Mason, says : — 
 
 “You will be charmed, I flatter myself, with poor 
 Horatia, who is not at all well, but has behaved with a 
 gentleness, sweetness, and moderation that are lovely. 
 She has had no romantic conduct, concealed all she could, 
 and discovered nothing she felt, but by her looks. She is 
 now more pleasing, though she looks ill, by her silent 
 softness, than before by her youthful vivacity. Maria, 
 almost as much wounded and to be pitied, carries off 
 another kind of misfortune with a noble spirit. These 
 three charming girls inherit more of their mother’s beauty 
 than her fortune. Each has missed one of the first 
 matches in the country. Lady Laura, Lord Carmarthen ; 
 Lady Maria, Lord Egremont ; and Lady Horatia the 
 Duke of Ancaster ; after each had proposed and been 
 accepted.” 
 
 Writing to the same correspondent about the picture, 
 he says : — 
 
 * Formerly in the possession of Lord Carlingford, and now belonging to 
 Mrs Thwaites. 
 
292 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “Sir Joshua began a charming picture of my three 
 fair nieces, the Waldegraves, and very like. They are 
 embroidering and winding silk ; I rather wished to have 
 them drawn like the Graces adorning a bust of the 
 Duchess as the Magna Mater ; but my ideas are not 
 adopted. However, I intend to have the Duchess (of 
 Gloucester) and her two other children as Latona, for 
 myself.” 
 
 As Walpole’s ideas would have resulted in something- 
 like the “ Three Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen,” at the 
 National Gallery, in which the beautiful heads are almost 
 overwhelmed by the mannered, pseudo-classic accessories of 
 the design, it is well for Sir Joshua, and well for the world, 
 that they were not adopted. We should then have been 
 the poorer by a work in which studied elegance of line and 
 arrangement are not dragged in quand meme, but naturally 
 evolved from a simple and charming motive, thoroughly 
 well adapted to express the beauty and the character of 
 the sitters. 
 
 Walpole, who had praised while the work was in pro- 
 gress, waxed somewhat less enthusiastic when the time for 
 final payment arrived. “Sir Joshua Reynolds gets avari- 
 cious in his old age. My picture of the young Ladies 
 Waldegrave is no doubt very fine and graceful, but it 
 cost me 800 guineas.” It is only fair to add that the 
 correctness of this statement has been controverted, it 
 being alleged that the true figure was not 800 but 300 
 guineas. The former sum is vastly in excess of any price 
 otherwise paid by an individual to the President for a 
 canvas of the like dimensions, the Duke of Marlborough 
 having been charged the year before, for the vast family 
 picture which has been described, only 700 guineas, though 
 this comprised no less than eight elaborately-grouped 
 
293 
 
 “ The Ladies Wai degrave ” 
 
 figures. Two years later, writing to Mason, Walpole is in 
 a very bad temper indeed, and ruthlessly critical of Sir 
 Joshua : — 
 
 “ Sir Joshua’s (hands) are seldom even tolerably drawn. 
 I saw t’other day one of, if not the best of, his works, the 
 portrait of Lord Richard Cavendish. Little is distinguished 
 but the head and hand, yet the latter, though nearest to 
 the spectator, is abominably bad. So are those of my 
 three nieces, and though the effect of the whole is charming, 
 the details are slovenly, the faces only red and white ; 
 and his journeyman, as if to distinguish himself, has 
 finished the lock and key of the table like a Dutch 
 flower-painter.” 
 
 Making his own private notes on the Academy Ex- 
 hibition of this year, Walpole is more unreservedly 
 complimentary. He speaks of the picture as “ a most 
 beautiful composition, the features very like, and the 
 attitudes natural and easy ! He did another of them 
 with variations, and I think still finer.” Of this still 
 finer repetition, as to which one would imagine Wal- 
 pole to be well instructed, there appears, neverthe- 
 less, to exist no trace. It is perfectly true that the 
 technique of the finely-poised girlish heads appears slight 
 as compared with such works as the “ Lady Cockburn ” of 
 1 773-5, and still more so when contrasted with the more 
 thoroughly - modelled productions of the earlier time. 
 The execution here much resembles that of the lovely 
 “ Mrs Braddyll ” which dates a few years later, and will 
 be noticed in its proper place. Still, the grace and charm, 
 the comparative naturalness with which the group of fair 
 English gentlewomen is placed before the spectator, the 
 ease with which they wear their lofty, powdered tetes and 
 
294 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 white dresses, the felicity of the motive which unites them 
 round the same tambour-frame, the richness and variety 
 of the harmony which has been obtained from the ele- 
 ments of what is practically a white picture, go far to jus- 
 tify the praise bestowed upon it, and to explain its 
 universal popularity. 
 
 Thrale had, in the early part of the preceding year, 
 had an apoplectic stroke, from which he recovered be- 
 yond the expectation of his physicians ; yet he kept his 
 family and friends in a constant state of alarm from his 
 inability to check his indulgence in the pleasures of the 
 table. Mrs Thrale, indeed, writes of him in that year to 
 Dr Johnson : “He will eat, I think, and, if he does eat, I 
 know he will not live ; it makes me very unhappy, but I 
 must bear it” On the 4th of April of this year, the very 
 day which had been fixed for one of his wife’s brilliant, 
 Blue-with-a-difference assemblies in Grosvenor Square, 
 the brewer died of a stroke of apoplexy. The loss must 
 have been sensibly felt by Reynolds, who had enjoyed 
 the hospitality of the Thrales for fourteen years, and 
 between whom and the Streatham household the paint- 
 ing of the long series of Streatham portraits had estab- 
 lished strong bonds of intimacy. Still, the loss was far 
 from being as essential a one to the opulent and uni- 
 versally acceptable Sir Joshua as it was to Dr Johnson. 
 The latter, though he was appointed one of the executors, 
 with a legacy of two hundred pounds, and not merely 
 with resolution, but even with some zest, set about his 
 onerous duties in that capacity, must have had from the 
 beginning misgivings that the comforts which the brewer’s 
 home had afforded him would now cease. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s contribution to the year’s Academy con- 
 sisted of no less than fourteen pictures, many of which 
 have been already described : — 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1781 295 
 
 “ Thafs ” (heavy, unconvincing in attitude and gesture). 
 
 Portrait of Dr Burney (the Streatham picture). 
 
 Portrait of Mr Thoroton (painted for the Duke of 
 Rutland). 
 
 The Duke of Rutland’s children. 
 
 “ Master Bunbury.” 
 
 This last is one of the loveliest and most famous of all 
 Sir Joshua’s portraits of children, and it fully deserves 
 its reputation. With inimitable truth and sympathy the 
 master places the beautiful boy before us, fronting the 
 spectator without self-consciousness, as he sits in his simple 
 jacket and open shirt, bright-eyed, panting, and eager as 
 a little animal. 
 
 “The Death of Dido” (now in the Royal Collection 
 of Buckingham Palace, and contributed by H. M. the 
 Queen to the Old Masters in 1882). This important 
 painting stands relatively high among the so-called 
 inaginative works, but no more than its fellows is one 
 of the performances upon which the admirers of Sir 
 Joshua, and especially those among them who claim for 
 him a place in the very first rank of painters, can look 
 with any pleasure. It is rhetorical and pure Bolognese 
 in sentiment, and, indeed, vaguely recalls not only Guido, 
 the caposcuola of the later time, but in lighting and 
 manner, Guercino, whose representation of the same 
 object Reynolds had years before seen in the Spada 
 Palace at Rome. 
 
 “ Lord Richard Cavendish ” (the portrait referred to by 
 Horace Walpole). It depicts the sitter with his right arm 
 extended, resting on a stone, his left hand on his hip ; in 
 the background is indicated the Egyptian desert with the 
 head of the Sphinx. This background has, in the engrav- 
 ing of the picture, been exchanged for a rocky, desolate 
 prospect of undefined character. 
 
296 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Full -lengths of the Duchess of Rutland, and the 
 Countess of Salisbury — the former, notwithstanding the 
 portentous height, the ultra-fashionableness of the lady’s 
 head-gear, being one of the most charming of the full- 
 length beauty portraits. 
 
 “Temperance” (one of the figures for the Oxford 
 window) ; “ Fortitude” (another of the same series) : — 
 
 “ A Child Asleep.” 
 
 “ A Listening (or Laughing) Boy.” 
 
 “ A Lady and Child.” 
 
 In July, Reynolds undertook that journey to Flanders 
 and Holland, the results of which are embodied in the 
 series of elaborate notes on the pictures seen, which 
 have their place, together with the concluding essay on 
 the Character of Rubens , in his collected literary works. 
 The curious in such matters may profitably compare 
 them with that exquisite example of the higher criticism, 
 and of literary perfection, the Mattres d Autrefois of 
 Eugene Fromentin, who, something less than a century 
 afterwards, went over much the same ground, and, like 
 Reynolds, had a double right to be heard — both as painter 
 and as man of letters. 
 
 Our master, accompanied by his friend, Philip Met- 
 calfe, left London on Tuesday, July 24th, 1781, went to 
 Margate, and embarked there for Ostend ; proceeded 
 thence to Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Dort, The Hague, 
 Leyden, Amsterdam* Dusseldorf, Aix-la-Chapelle, and 
 Liege. He then retraced his steps to Brussels, and 
 went on to Ostend, landed at Margate, and arrived in 
 London on Sunday, September 16th. Further reference 
 will be made to these notes, and to the Character of 
 Rubens , with which they wind up, in the final chapter. 
 
 * Haarlem is honoured only with the passing mention, — “Saw Harlem 
 Church and Town House, where are three or four pictures by F. Hals.” 
 
Opie, “ The Cornish Wonder " 297 
 
 Towards the end of the year Offie Palmer, now 
 Mrs R. L. Gwatkin, and her husband were sitting to Sir 
 Joshua for companion portraits, of which pair the lady's 
 picture was contributed by Mrs Gwatkin to the Reynolds 
 Exhibition. This shows the master’s favourite niece in a 
 black mantilla worn on a white dress, and is said to have 
 been painted over another portrait of Offie, begun before 
 her marriage : at any rate, almost all the work done at 
 that time was painted out and replaced by the extant 
 portrait 
 
 Opie, “ The Cornish Wonder,” now appears upon the 
 scene as a youth of some twenty years, bringing with him. 
 out of his province, rugged, powerful heads of “Old Men, 
 
 “ Beggars,” and naturalistic studies, which cause him to 
 be likened at once to Rembrandt, though his manner — 
 definitively marked out even thus early — is, with its 
 harsh black shadows and powerful, sculptural model- 
 ling, much more nearly akin to that of Caravaggio, 
 Ribera, and the Tenebrosi generally. He had exhibited 
 at the Incorporated Society in 1780, as “ Master 
 Oppey,” a boy's head, entered in the catalogue of the 
 exhibition in a fashion so amusing as to deserve com- 
 memoration : — 
 
 “ Master Oppey, Penryn, Cornwall. An instance of 
 genius — not having ever seen a picture.” 
 
 It is true that in Redgrave’s Century of Painters of 
 the British School , and in the latest edition of Biyan’s 
 Dictionary of Painters , this “ Master Oppey " is made 
 into a separate person, and dies in 1785. It is difficult, 
 nevertheless, to believe that Master Oppey and Opie are 
 two distinct individuals. It would be too singular a 
 coincidence that there should have issued from the remote 
 
298 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 province, at one and the same time, two Cornish Wonders 
 of the same name, both painting more or less by inspira- 
 tion. It appears far more likely, on the contrary, that 
 this initial appearance of the youthful artist was the coup 
 (T essai of his astute protector and Barnum, Dr Wolcott, 
 afterwards celebrated under the pseudonym of Peter 
 Pindar.* 
 
 The two, about the time of Opie’s first appearance 
 in London, had entered into a kind of partnership, 
 under which Wolcott was to pay all expenses, and 
 receive half the entire profits of Opie’s artistic pro- 
 duction. From this kind of exploitation the youthful 
 artist, after less than twelve months’ trial, abruptly shook 
 himself free, declaring that he could shift for himself ; and 
 it is to the credit of Wolcott that he continued to push his 
 protege after this semi-rupture as ardently as before — partly 
 from genuine admiration of his talent, and partly, also, to 
 back his own opinion. Shortly after his arrival, the young 
 provincial, practically self-taught, save for the counsel which 
 he had received from Wolcott while the latter was residing 
 in Cornwall, was introduced to Sir Joshua, and by him re- 
 ceived with his wonted encouraging kindness. The studies 
 submitted to the President were a “Jew” and a “Cornish 
 Beggar,” and we have evidence that he avowed himself 
 astonished at the power and precocity of the Cornish 
 Wonder. 
 
 Xorthcote tells the story that, having lately returned 
 from the obligatory artistic tour in Italy, he paid a visit 
 to his old master, whereupon the latter, in that teasing 
 tone which he adopted towards his pupil and towards 
 him alone, said : — 
 
 * It would appear that there ivas, in truth, another artist prodigy in the 
 family, but not a contemporary of Opie. This was Edward Opie, the great- 
 nephew of our painter (R. Polwhele’s “ Biographical Sketches of Cornwall ”) 
 
Opie, “ The Cornish Wonder ” 299 
 
 “ Ah ! you may go back now, you have no chance here. 
 There is such a young man come out of Cornwall !” 
 
 “ Good ! Sir Joshua, what is he like ? ” 
 
 “ Like ! — like Caravaggio, only finer ! ” 
 
 “ I was ready to sink into the earth,” adds poor North- 
 cote, who was quite conscious of his own limitations, and 
 began to fear that all his pains had been taken, all his 
 money spent to no avail. This fear of rivalry did not 
 prevent him, however, later on, from doing full justice to 
 the powerful art of his young competitor. 
 
 Here we find Reynolds striking the right note, and 
 drawing the parallel with Caravaggio, not with Rem- 
 brandt, whom our master, his admirer and imitator, was 
 bound to understand better than the dilettanti who pro- 
 nounced his name in connection with the new chiaroscurist. 
 
 Opie’s first great vogue was obtained through the 
 commission given to him to paint old Mrs Delany, the 
 favourite of King George III. and his consort, and their 
 close companion at Windsor. It was through Mrs Bos- 
 cawen, on the premature death of whose son Wolcott had 
 written a touching elegy — or, at any rate, an elegy which 
 she found touching — that Opie was selected to paint the 
 aged lady who was, as it were, a link between the poets 
 and wits of the earlier half of the century, whom she had 
 known, and the Blue circle, by the members of which she 
 was surrounded in its concluding years. The portrait, 
 which, notwithstanding a certain Ribera-like aspect, hardly 
 justifies the reputation that it obtained at the time of its 
 production, remained for a long time in the royal bed- 
 chamber at Windsor, and was thence transferred to 
 Hampton Court, where it now remains. 
 
 Mrs Delany arranged that her young Cornish limner 
 should be presented to Their Majesties, and should sub- 
 mit to them some of his works. Wolcott has described 
 
300 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 in amusing fashion how he spent half the night preced- 
 ing the momentous interview in putting his young friend 
 through his paces, and ensuring that the salutes to be 
 made to royalty should be of the indispensable number 
 and quality. We know that the presentation, at which 
 West, in his capacity of artistic friend and confidant of 
 the King, assisted, was a success, and that the royal 
 patron purchased two of Opie’s studies. Thereupon com- 
 missions to paint members of the royal family, great 
 ladies, and beauties rained in, and the world of fashion, so 
 prompt at that moment to take fire and to exaggerate in 
 the one direction or the other, made up its mind for a 
 short period that it must be painted by Opie, to the tem- 
 porary eclipse even of the masters of the most assured 
 vogue and position. This is, however, anticipating events 
 a little. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Portraits of this Time — “ Perdita ” — William Beckford — Colonel Tarleton — 
 “ The Fair Greek ” — Sir Joshua’s Annotations to Du Fresnoy’s “ Art of 
 Painting ” — Exhibition of 1 782 — Sir J oshua’s Pictures — Gainsborough’s 
 “Colonel St Leger,” and “Girl with Pigs” — Peter Pindar — Death 
 of Wilson — Fuseli — “ Lady Catherine Pelham-Clinton feeding her 
 Chickens ” — Sir Joshua’s Illness — Barry’s Pictures at the Society of 
 Arts — His Explanatory Pamphlet — Exhibition of 1783 — Influence of 
 Rubens — Mrs Siddons — Her Portrait as the Tragic Muse — Origin 
 of the Pose — Its Place among Sir Joshua’s Works — Miss Fanny 
 Kemble — Miss Burney on Mrs Siddons — “The Infant Academy” — 
 Portrait of Fox — Gainsborough’s Quarrel with the Academy — Exhi- 
 bition of 1784 — Sir Joshua’s Seventeen Pictures — “Muscipula” — 
 “Countess Spencer and her Child” — Reynolds appointed King’s 
 Painter — Dr Johnson’s Illness — Italian Journey proposed for him — 
 His Death — Reynolds’s Estimate of Johnson. 
 
 Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor of the Rockingham 
 Administration, had sat to Reynolds in the course of 1781 
 for the three-quarter length in which he appears seated, 
 in his official robes, with the mace on the table to his 
 right. This now belongs to the Marquis of Bath, and 
 was by him contributed to the Reynolds Exhibition, 
 where it was No. 64. To about this period, also, must 
 belong two brilliant half-lengths, the companion portraits 
 of two lovely sisters, Lady Elizabeth Seymour and the 
 Countess of Lincoln, daughters of Francis, second Mar- 
 quis of Hertford, which are at Manchester House, and 
 were, by Lady Wallace, contributed to the Old Masters 
 Exhibition of 1893. Here, though the modelling is not 
 
 301 
 
302 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 much more searching than in the picture of the Ladies 
 Waldegrave, the colour shows almost intact that melting 
 splendour, that homogeneous richness which he sacri- 
 ficed so much to obtain. In these and in some other in- 
 stances he did obtain what he sought for so completely, 
 and with so unusual a permanence, that we must try to 
 forgive him — if many of his unfortunate sitters very 
 naturally could not — that dangerous restlessness and 
 tentativeness in technique of which his works contain so 
 many and such disastrous examples. 
 
 Another lovely and unusually well-preserved piece of 
 colour is the portrait of the Countess of Harcourt (ex- 
 hibited at the British Institution in 1813, and engraved by 
 S. W. Reynolds), which has recently reappeared after a 
 long seclusion. The young and blooming lady, with her 
 hair unpowdered and lightly veiled with an apology for a 
 scarf, sits under a tree in a park, dreamily gazing upwards. 
 Her beauty is of that impersonal and consequently cold 
 type which is not unusual in Sir Joshua’s presentments of 
 female loveliness, and in contemplating it one understands 
 the not infrequent complaints of his sitters, that there is 
 more of pictorial charm than of truth to nature in their 
 portraits. The flesh-tints of the face and arms are seen 
 in almost unimpaired beauty and freshness, and are well 
 set-off by the dress, the hue of which is that favourite 
 orange-tawny, a richer variation of which is seen in the 
 “ Lady Cockburn,” a deeper in the “ Mrs Siddons as the 
 Tragic Muse.” 
 
 In the beginning of 1782, the beautiful, ill-starred 
 “ Perdita,” otherwise Mrs Mary Robinson, sat to Sir Joshua 
 for the well-known half-length in which she appears with 
 her hair powdered, wearing a black dress, a white stomacher, 
 a glare, black hat with feathers, and a black band round the 
 neck. The Prince of Wales’s fair and much pitied victim 
 
William Beckford 
 
 3°3 
 
 had then already left the stage, and her subsequent liaison 
 with her royal lover had also for some months ceased to 
 exist; but if the portrait did not unduly flatter — and in 
 this case we have evidence that it did not — she was still 
 in the flower of her youth and loveliness. Sir Joshua 
 painted at least one other portrait of her ; besides which, 
 of this same picture, more than one repetition exists. The 
 original — glowing, and somewhat tawny in harmony, and 
 belonging to the category of the master’s better preserved 
 canvases — was last seen in public at the Guelph Exhibi- 
 tion, to which it was contributed by the Duchess of St 
 Albans. 
 
 A still more interesting sitter was William Beckford, 
 then a very young man, in the first bloom of manhood, and 
 only later on to develop into the literary recluse whose 
 eccentricities and deliberate waste of the rarest natural 
 gifts, whose strange, semi-oriental mode of life amid the 
 mysterious splendours of Fonthill, caused the most 
 sinister legends to accumulate round his name. Educated, 
 like a little sovereign or demi-god, in complete isolation, 
 and without the wholesome discipline of a public school, 
 he had in his boyhood received musical instruction from 
 Mozart, he had even been noticed by Chatham. At the age 
 of seventeen, he had given rein to the wilfulness of his talent 
 by writing a burlesque History of Extraordinary Painters , 
 intended as a satire on the style of the Vies des Peintres 
 flaniands. A delightful mixture of boyish fun and true 
 humour was shown in his mystifications of the house- 
 keeper at Fonthill, whom he incited, when going her 
 rounds with visitors to exhibit her master’s pictures as 
 by “ Watersouchy,” “ Og of Basan,” etc. 
 
 When he sat to Reynolds, Beckford, young as he 
 was, had already accomplished the literary feat which 
 remained, after all, his greatest claim to distinction. He 
 
304 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 had written in French the extraordinary romance of 
 Vathek * dashing it off at white heat, in a single sitting 
 of three days and two nights, without taking his clothes 
 off the whole time. Composed in 1781, Vathek was not, 
 however, published until 1787, when it came out at 
 Lausanne, having been forestalled in 1784 by an un- 
 authorised English translation. 
 
 Beckford is here represented by Sir Joshua as a 
 singularly handsome young man of sensitive and vol- 
 uptuous temperament, in all the freshness of his twenty- 
 three years ; he is dressed with much simplicity in a 
 plain black coat. The picture, which appeared this same 
 year, 1782, at the Royal Academy, was last seen at the 
 Guelph Exhibition of the New Gallery, to which it was 
 contributed by the Duke of Hamilton. 
 
 Another sitter at this time was a chubby boy of 
 some four or five years, the second son of Mr W. Brum- 
 mell, who had come to the front as treasury clerk and 
 then as private secretary to Lord North. This little boy, 
 whom Sir Joshua portrayed with his elder brother, at play 
 with their dogs, was afterwards that pinchbeck celebrity, 
 Beau Brummell. 
 
 Yet another canvas belonging to this same period 
 is the curious portrait of the brilliant cavalry officer 
 Colonel Tarleton, whose romantic feats as a commander 
 of irregular horse are among the few consolations upon 
 which it is possible to look back amid the depressing 
 records of the American Campaign at its close.f This 
 picture, we are told, he had done for his mother, and 
 in it Reynolds has triumphed over the many difficulties 
 of the absurd, unseemly uniform, and the complicated 
 
 * Vathek has this year been republished in Paris in the original French, 
 with a preface by the arch-priest of modern symbolism, M. Stephane Mallarm£. 
 
 t No. 160 at the Old Masters in 1871. 
 
Annotations to Du Fresnoy 305 
 
 accessories introduced. Indeed, as many instances have 
 proved, when the subject was such as to stimulate his 
 intelligence or his artistic enthusiasm, he rarely fell below 
 the height of the argument. 
 
 The sitter in whom the public, and especially the 
 hunters and huntresses of lions and lionesses, were most 
 interested for the moment, was Mrs Baldwin, wife of the 
 English Consul at Smyrna — known as “ The Fair Greek.” 
 The portrait, which belongs to the same fantastic class as 
 the “ Polly Kennedy ” (though the lady herself has of 
 course. nothing in common with that celebrity), shows the 
 beauty of the hour in the piquancy of her semi-oriental 
 loveliness. She is seated in Eastern fashion cross-legged 
 on a divan, robed in striped silk of a rich green hue, and 
 wears an oriental turban or head-dress of doubtful authen- 
 ticity. The picture, which is finely preserved, was contri- 
 buted to the Old Masters in 1884 by the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne. 
 
 Sir Joshua was in the spring of this year putting 
 the finishing touches to the Annotations which were 
 to appear as an adjunct to William Mason’s transla- 
 tion of Charles Alphonse Du P'resnoy’s Latin poem, 
 De Arte Graphica. Du Fresnoy had been first the 
 atelier companion, and then, in Rome, the inseparable 
 friend of the more celebrated Mignard. He was an 
 accomplished theorist, a fair practician of his art, and, 
 moreover, a scholar and a mathematician. That his 
 powers of execution were respectable, and nothing more, 
 is shown by two pictures from his brush, which are still 
 preserved in the Louvre — a “ Ste. Marguerite,” and “ Les 
 Naiades.” This Latin poem on the art of painting, the 
 result of his studies, wanderings, and meditations in Italy, 
 was not matured until his return to France, and not 
 actually published until 1 668, three years after the 
 
 U 
 
306 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 painter-critic’s death, when it was issued with a French 
 translation by De Piles. Dryden had attempted a trans- 
 lation, taken from the French version ; it was, however, 
 void of all interest, since declining to endow it with 
 the charm of his versification, he had written in prose. 
 It is difficult to understand what tempted Mason to under- 
 take the rhymed translation upwards of a hundred years 
 after the original had appeared, unless it were the desire 
 to work in collaboration with Sir Joshua, whose Notes, 
 though they run parallel with the Discourses, are, never- 
 theless, unquestionably the jam which sweetens the pill 
 of boredom. Prefixed to Mason’s translation appears a 
 dedicatory epistle to Sir Joshua, which shows the verse 
 of the eighteenth century at its worst, and is too flat and 
 uninteresting to require quotation. Mason although, as 
 his correspondence with Horace Walpole shows, an out- 
 and-out hater of Dr Johnson, was yet a good if not 
 exactly an intimate friend of Reynolds, and, as has been 
 seen, a sedulous frequenter of his painting-room. 
 
 At the exhibition of 1782, Sir Joshua, who increases 
 from year to year the number of his contributions, is re- 
 presented by no less than fifteen canvases : — 
 
 The “ William Beckford ” ; the “ Mrs Mary Robinson ; ” 
 the “ Fair Greek.” 
 
 “ Lavinia, Viscountess Althorp ”* (afterwards Countess 
 Spencer). 
 
 “ Lady Aylesford ” ; “ Lady G. H. Cavendish ” (Lady 
 Betty Compton); Portraits of Children. 
 
 “ Dr Thomas, Bishop of Rochester ” (as Dean of the 
 Order of the Bath); the “Colonel Tarleton;” “Colonel 
 Windham ; ” “ Lord Chancellor Thurlow.” 
 
 * Not the portrait of the lady lent by Earl Spencer to the Reynolds 
 Exhibition (No. 124) ; perhaps the quite different portrait lent by Dr 
 Hamilton on the same occasion (No. 118). 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1782 307 
 
 The “ Angel seated on a Cloud, contemplating the 
 Cross” — a design for the figure in the central compart- 
 ment of the Oxford Window. 
 
 Portrait of a Girl. 
 
 This was a great year, too, for Gainsborough, who, in 
 more or less friendly competition, shows himself at least 
 the equal of the President ; less, perhaps, in the full- 
 length of Colonel Tarleton with a horse, than in the por- 
 trait-study of La Bacelli, dancing in a flutter of blue and 
 white skirts — as audacious in its vivacity and momen- 
 tariness as anything of Sir Joshua’s; and in the famous 
 “ Colonel St Leger.” 
 
 The “ Bacelli ” was formerly at Knole, but has now, it 
 is believed, passed into the collection of Baron Alphonse 
 de Rothschild of Paris. 
 
 The “Colonel St Leger” shows the Prince of Wales’s 
 boon companion in the scarlet uniform of the Guards, 
 standing against his horse, in an attitude which owes its 
 origin to the invention of Sir Joshua himself. Supreme 
 elegance, the consciousness of supreme fashion, are the 
 characteristics of the portrait, which reveals, in “ Hand- 
 some Jack Sellinger,” a natural distinction such as must 
 have gone far to render palatable his dashing vivacity 
 and absurdity, and the wild pranks of his hot youth. 
 
 This picture was painted as a pendant to the very 
 similar one by Gainsborough of the Prince of Wales, 
 exhibited on the walls of the Academy at the same time ; 
 the two portraits being destined to be exchanged as 
 tokens of friendship. According to this and many other 
 portraits of the period, Florizel’s comeliness was then, in 
 its way, scarcely less remarkable than that of his wild 
 friend, whose high-bred ease and genuine charm he 
 could not, however, rival. The portrait of Colonel St 
 Leger is one of the chief ornaments of the Hampton 
 
308 Sir Jos foia Reynolds 
 
 Court Gallery, whence it was, in 1885, lent to the 
 Grosvenor Exhibition.* 
 
 But no works of Gainsborough’s exhibited this year, 
 attracted so much attention as the popular “ Girl with 
 Pigs.” This was purchased by Sir Joshua at the price of 
 sixty guineas, and re-sold by him to M. de Calonne, the 
 enhanced price being, however, handed over by the 
 President to the brother artist — a heaping on his head of 
 coals of fire, seeing how slightingly he had repelled Sir 
 Joshua’s advances towards a more intimate acquaintance. 
 The passage on the Gainsborough pictures of the year, 
 from Peter Pindar’s Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians , 
 deserves quotation, as showing Wolcott in his less virul- 
 ent mode of criticism, and proving that he possessed, if 
 not melody or variety of versification, a keen eye, and, 
 when his judgment was not biassed by prejudice or self- 
 interest, a measure of the true critical sense. 
 
 “And now, O Muse, with song so big, 
 
 Turn round to Gainsborough’s Girl and Pig, 
 
 Or Pig and Girl, I rather should have said : 
 
 The pig in white, I must allow, 
 
 Is really a well-painted sow : 
 
 I wish to say the same thing of the maid. 
 
 As for poor St Leger and Prince, 
 
 Had I their places I should wince, 
 
 Thus to be gibbeted for weeks on high ; 
 
 Just like your felons after death 
 On Bagshot, or on Hounslow Heath, 
 
 That force from travellers the pitying sigh. 
 
 Yet Gainsborough has great merit, too, 
 
 Would he his charming/<?r/ subdue, 
 
 To mind his landscapes have the modest grace ; 
 
 * A full-length of Colonel St Leger by Sir Joshua Reynolds was at the 
 Old Masters in 1884, lent by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. 
 
Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians 309 
 
 Yet there, sometimes, are Nature’s tints despis’d, 
 
 I wish them more attended to and priz’d, 
 
 Instead of trump’ry that usurps their place.” 
 
 As scathing and as personally vituperative as a 
 modern French journalist, when he comes to the detested 
 Northcote, Peter Pindar does not leave untouched even 
 Reynolds himself, yet, on the whole, shows for his art 
 an unfeigned, and it may be assumed, a disinterested 
 admiration : — 
 
 “ Yet, Reynolds, let me fairly say, 
 
 With pride I pour the lyric lay 
 
 To most things by thy able hand exprest — 
 
 Compared to other painting men, 
 
 Thou art an angel to a wren ! — ” 
 
 Of Wilson he says : — 
 
 . old red-nosed Wilson’s art 
 
 Will hold its empire o’er my heart, 
 
 By Britain left in poverty to pine. 
 
 But, honest Wilson, never mind ; 
 
 Immortal praises thou shalt find, 
 
 And for a dinner have no cause to fear. 
 
 Thou start’st at my prophetic rhymes ; 
 
 Don’t be impatient for those times, 
 
 Wait till thou hast been dead a hundred year.” 
 
 At this very time Wilson was dying at the village of 
 Llanberry in Denbighshire, in a cottage to which he had 
 succeeded on the death of a brother, just in time to find 
 in it a peaceful refuge for the few remaining months of 
 his miserable life of constantly-renewed struggle and 
 privation. 
 
 His noble art had never succeeded in conquering for 
 itself an assured place in the estimation even of the 
 
310 Sir J oshua Reynolds 
 
 art-lovers of the time, and he was misunderstood, or 
 under-estimated, even by gentle, equitable Sir Joshua; 
 not out of hostility, of which he has been foolishly 
 accused, but manifestly out of lack of sympathy. 
 Though, since the exhibition of the “Niobe” in Spring 
 Gardens, in 1760, his position in the front rank of land- 
 scape painters had not been seriously denied, liberal 
 patrons were few and far between, his canvases exhibited 
 at the Royal Academy remained as often as not unsold, 
 and he was compelled to hawk about his sketches to 
 dealers at prices so trifling that one must blush to quote 
 them. The best proof of his failure to win popular favour 
 is to be found in the circumstance that, although one 
 of the original members of the Royal Academy, he 
 exhibited there in all only thirty-one pictures — from 1769 
 to 1780 inclusive. 
 
 Yet, while his landscapes lack, to a certain extent, the 
 witching colour, the easy breadth, the seductive charm 
 of Gainsborough’s, the best of them stand on a level 
 far above that on which we must place the per- 
 formances, in this branch, of the more popular artist. 
 Notwithstanding the Claude-like classicality of Wilson’s 
 conceptions, and his generalised treatment of nature, he 
 showed an incomparably deeper knowledge of her secrets, 
 a far more serious skill in dealing with problems of light 
 and atmospheric effect, than did the more superficial 
 if, to the casual observer, more attractive artist, to whom 
 has somewhat too lightly been accorded the first place 
 among the English landscape-painters of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 Northcote relates that at a meeting of the Artists’ Club, 
 Sir Joshua arrived, having just seen a fine landscape by 
 Gainsborough, and in describing it with enthusiasm to 
 the members, wound up by saying : “ Gainsborough is 
 
Fuseli s Art 
 
 o 
 
 certainly the first landscape-painter now in Europe.” 
 Whereupon Wilson, who, unnoticed by Sir Joshua, was 
 present, burst out irefully : “Well, Sir Joshua, and it is 
 my opinion that he is also the greatest portrait-painter at 
 this time in Europe.” Sir Joshua, thus rebuked, would 
 appear to have felt, not anger, but regret, and to have 
 frankly apologised, as was the fashion in those days, for 
 making the observation in Wilson’s presence. 
 
 Fuseli, who had come to the front in 1780 with “ Satan 
 starting from the Touch of Ithuriel’s Spear” and “Jason 
 appearing before Pelias,” achieved his first popular success 
 at this exhibition of 1782 with “ The Nightmare,” rendered 
 so familiar by J. R. Smith’s mezzotint. This portentous 
 composition was the unfortunate result, like most of the 
 Swiss painter’s most characteristic productions, of his un- 
 tiring study of Michelangelo, for whom he professed a 
 passionate worship in excess even of Sir Joshua’s platonic 
 love. Even here, however, as well as later on in the con- 
 tributions to Boydell’s Shakespeare’s Gallery, and later 
 still, in the ill-starred Milton Gallery — the canvases mak- 
 ing up which were entirely furnished by Fuseli — the painter 
 exhibits imaginativeness of a quality not exactly common 
 in the terre-a-terre eighteenth century. This has, unfor- 
 tunately, to force its way to the surface through the 
 grotesque exaggerations of his style and the livid mono- 
 tony of his colouring, now practically reduced by time 
 to a monochrome, but which must always have been un- 
 inviting in the extreme. 
 
 No better example of his genuine powers of invention, 
 marred as are their results by grotesqueness and over- 
 reaching ambition, is at present to be found than the 
 fanciful “ Titania and Bottom,” once in the Boydell 
 Gallery, and now on the great staircase of the National 
 Gallery. 
 
3 1 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 It would be Interesting to make out the exact artistic 
 relations existing between the three men who, at this 
 period, possessed the largest measure of this peculiar 
 imaginativeness — Fuseli, Flaxman, and Blake; to show 
 the influences exercised over each other by these friends 
 and fellow-workers in fields of art contiguous, if not 
 absolutely identical. 
 
 Other sitters at this time were Wedgwood, the head of 
 the great potteries at Etruria ; the Burkes, father and son, 
 and the fashionable beauty, Mrs Musters. Sir Joshua 
 had already painted her in 1777, shortly after her mar- 
 riage, in a full-length which is at Petworth ; and again in 
 the celebrated full-length in which she personates Hebe, 
 the date for which in the pocket-book is May 1780. The 
 picture now painted may possibly have been the half- 
 length, in which the “reigning toast of the day” — as Miss 
 Burney describes her — appears in a low-necked dress of 
 light-coloured satin, with her hair dressed high and some 
 curls falling over her shoulders. This is now in the collec- 
 tion of Sir Charles Tennant, and was by him contributed 
 to the Old Masters in 1793. 
 
 Miss Burney, whose vogue in the worlds of literature 
 and fashion is very shortly to be enhanced by the 
 publication — in July of this year (1782) — of her second 
 novel, Cecilia , or the Memoirs of an Heiress , has left a 
 lively account of one of Sir Joshua’s June dinner-parties 
 at his Richmond villa. Here she meets Gibbon, the Dean 
 of St Asaph’s and his daughter, the handsome self- 
 possessed Miss Shipley, young Mr Burke, and, more 
 interesting to her than any of them, Burke himself, whom 
 she belauds in such romantic, young-lady fashion, that 
 she does not succeed in characterising him with all her 
 usual felicity of touch. 
 
 Among other sitters was the naval hero, Captain 
 
Sir Joshua sits to Gainsborough 3 1 3 
 
 Jervis, and there was also a commission from the Duke 
 of Rutland to paint a posthumous portrait of his brother, 
 Lord Robert Manners, who commanded the Resolution 
 in Rodney’s action, and died of his wounds on his way 
 home. Among the politicians were Dunning — now 
 metamorphosed into Lord Ashburton — Fox, and Dundas. 
 Mrs Abington reappeared, too, after a long interval, and 
 the lovely Duchess of Rutland posed for a portrait, which 
 is most probably the one burnt in the great fire at Belvoir 
 Castle. 
 
 To this or the preceding year must belong one of the 
 most universally popular of the Reynolds portraits of 
 children — and deservedly so, in virtue of its genuine 
 naivete, its spontaneity and truth of movement, and its 
 high-bred grace — the “ Lady Catherine Pelham-Clinton 
 feeding Chickens,” now in the collection of Lord Radnor 
 at Longford Castle. There is no trace of the picture 
 having been exhibited, unless it be the anonymous “ A 
 Girl” which Walpole admired in the Academy of this 
 year, but it was in 1782 mezzotinted by J. R. Smith. It 
 should by no means be confounded with the equally 
 well-known “ Mrs Pelham feeding her Chickens,” painted 
 as far back as 1770, and which the Earl of Yarborough 
 lent to the Reynolds Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery, 
 where its reappearance, after undergoing a too drastic pro- 
 cess of cleaning, excited dismay even among those most 
 accustomed to note the progressive ravages of time — and 
 time’s ally, the picture-restorer — in Sir Joshua’s canvases. 
 
 On Sunday, the 3rd of November, Sir Joshua actually 
 gave a sitting to Gainsborough for a portrait, which, had it 
 been completed, it would have been infinitely interesting to 
 compare with the President’s numerous versions of his 
 own physiognomy. But it never was completed, for, after 
 this sitting, which was to have been followed by another 
 
3 1 4 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 on the next Sunday, Sir Joshua was seized with his second 
 paralytic attack — a sufficiently severe one to cause his 
 friends great anxiety, although he nevertheless quickly 
 recovered from it. Thus vanished the most favourable 
 opportunity that could have presented itself for bringing 
 into closer relations the two great masters, and it does 
 not appear that Gainsborough sought, after Sir Joshua’s 
 recovery, to resume work upon the portrait, or again 
 made any effort to enter into relations with his rival, 
 until he was on his death-bed. 
 
 Dr Johnson writes from Brighthelmstone on Nov- 
 ember 14th. 1782, in terms, the studied elegance of which 
 rather swamp the affectionate solicitude that pierces 
 through them : — 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — I heard yesterday of your late disorder, 
 and should think ill of myself if I had heard of it without 
 alarm. I heard likewise of your recovery, which I sin- 
 cerely wish to be complete and permanent. Your country 
 has been in danger of losing one of its brightest ornaments, 
 and I of losing one of my oldest and kindest friends ; but 
 I hope you will still live long, for the honour of the 
 nation ; and that more enjoyment of your elegance, your 
 intelligence, and your benevolence is still reserved for, 
 — Dear Sir, your most affectionate, Sam JOHNSON.” 
 
 Sir Joshua was sent to Bath by his physician to recruit, 
 but returned home and resumed his routine of professional 
 life towards the end of November. He was well enough, 
 at the annual distribution of prizes on the 10th of De- 
 cember, to deliver his Eleventh Discourse. 
 
 Barry had, in 1782, been appointed Professor of Painting 
 at the Academy, but overwhelmed, no doubt, with his yet 
 unfinished labours at the Adelphi, he did not deliver his 
 first lecture until March 1784. The friction between him 
 
I 
 
Barry s Decorations for the Society of A rts 3 1 5 
 
 and the President was growing greater and greater, and 
 Barry is stated — it is not known on what authority — to have 
 replied to some observations of Sir Joshua’s on the delay 
 in preparing his discourses as professor: “ If I had no 
 more to do in the course of my lectures than produce such 
 poor mistaken stuff as your discourses, I should soon have 
 them ready for reading.” 
 
 In the spring of 1783, the frieze-like decoration for 
 the great room of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi, 
 which he looked upon as his magnum opus , being far ad- 
 vanced towards completion, he displayed it to the public, 
 in its place, at an exhibition which, with a rare and charac- 
 teristic arrogance, he opened on the very day upon which 
 the Academy admitted the public to its galleries. In the 
 notorious pamphlet published by Barry to elucidate his 
 show is contained the following explanation of the scope 
 of his work, in which he adopts the moral and didactic 
 standpoint to the almost entire exclusion of the aesthetic 
 and technical : — 
 
 “ In this series I have endeavoured to illustrate one 
 great maxim of moral truth, viz., that the obtaining of 
 happiness, as well individual as public, depends upon 
 cultivating the human faculties. We begin with man in 
 a savage state, full of inconvenience, imperfection, and 
 misery, and we follow him through several gradations of 
 culture and happiness, which, after our probationary state 
 here, are finally attended with beatitude or misery. The 
 first is the story of Orpheus ; the second, a Harvest-Home, 
 or, Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus ; the third, the 
 Victors at Olympia ; the fourth, Navigation, or the 
 Triumphs of the Thames ; the fifth, the Distribution of 
 Premiums in the Society of Arts, etc. ; and the sixth 
 Elysium, or the State of Final Retribution.’ 
 
3 1 6 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 There is a humour in the progression from the fifth 
 to the sixth state of beatitude (on the reverse) which is 
 not the less exquisite because Barry, terribly and en- 
 thusiastically in earnest as he was, must have been 
 wholly unconscious of the bathos of his programme. 
 
 It was just such a one, both in imagination and ex- 
 pression, as was calculated to win the admiration of Dr 
 Johnson, and we are, accordingly, not surprised to find 
 him, when he writes to Mrs Thrale, passing over, without 
 great wrath, the strictures on Sir Joshua, and the hit at 
 himself, and saying: — “You must, however, think with 
 some estimation of Barry for the comprehension of his 
 design.” 
 
 It is not necessary on the present occasion to quote 
 verbatim the accusations of studied and persistent male- 
 volence made, with the thinnest possible veil, against Sir 
 Joshua, and still less the altogether vile and inconceivable 
 insinuation — a calumny not invented, however, by Barry 
 alone — that he allowed his house to be made use of by 
 sitters for purposes of assignation. Here was enough, and 
 more than enough, to excite the enmity of even the most 
 placid, the least resentful of mortals ; and, accordingly, one 
 is but little surprised to find Sir Joshua confessing, long 
 after this, to Northcote, “that he feared he hated Barry.” 
 There is no evidence that he, on any occasion, conde- 
 scends to give effect, by inimical action, to this so-called 
 hatred — a passion so foreign to his nature, that he naively 
 confesses it as a new and half-understood thing. It is 
 the bottled-up venom, the passion of envy, generated by 
 a life of strenuous endeavour uncrowned with success, by 
 bitter disappointment, by physical privation, that here 
 finds vent in accusations which the attacker not more than 
 half believes even while he makes them. It is satisfactory 
 to find Barry, later on, outgrowing this causeless suspicion 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1 783 317 
 
 and hatred of Sir Joshua ; supporting him in his unfortu- 
 nate struggles with the opposite faction in the Academy ; 
 and incorporating in one of his professional Discourses, 
 pronounced shortly after the death of the great master, 
 an eloquent and discerning panegyric on his life-work. 
 The strangest thing is to find him in his pamphlet so 
 pre-determined to have his thrust, qnand vieine , at the 
 enemy, so eager to depreciate the art of portraiture — or, as 
 he contemptuously phrases it, “ the trade of portraits” — 
 as to forget that, with the exception of his own fancied 
 prototype Michelangelo, there is no painter of the highest 
 rank in sacred and imaginative art who has not also 
 achieved marked distinction as a portraitist. Even if 
 Giovanni Bellini, Diirer, Holbein, Titian, Tintoret, Rubens, 
 Van Dyck were unconvincing to the passionate student of 
 what alone he deemed high art — that is, the Florentine, 
 the Roman, the Bolognese — he might have remembered 
 the “ Monna Lisa” of Leonardo, the “Maddalena Doni,” 
 the “ Leo X.,” the “ Baldassare Castiglione ” of Raphael, 
 the splendid performances in this branch of Andrea del 
 Sarto and Bronzino. 
 
 The number of Sir Joshua’s contributions to the 
 Academy fell this year to ten, and among them were not 
 to be found any of his more popular masterpieces. 
 
 They were : — Portrait of Mrs Gosling ; a Lady ; Miss 
 Faulkner (by moonlight) ; a Young Nobleman — variously 
 called Lord Albemarle and Lord Cobham ; The Duke of 
 Buccleugh’s children ; Mr Brummell’s children (already 
 referred to) ; Mr Albany Wallis (Garrick’s lawyer and 
 executor) ; Mr Strahan (the printer) ; Mr Egerton (or 
 *Sir Abraham Hume) ; Lord Harrington. 
 
 * The often-engraved portrait of the young dilettante, which is in the 
 National Gallery (?). 
 
3 1 8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Gainsborough shone, both absolutely and by com- 
 parison, with subjects of great variety ; among them being 
 the “Shepherd Boys fighting their Dogs,” in which the 
 animals are as living and vigorous as the boys are feeble 
 and unconvincing ; and the beautiful full-length, “ Mrs 
 Sheridan,” in which the gentle, diaphanous beauty is 
 shown in greyish-white satin, seated under a tree. This 
 is the famous picture to which reference has already been 
 made as formerly at Delapre Abbey, and now in the col- 
 lection of Lord Rothschild. Other Gainsborough por- 
 traits of the year were those of the Duchess of Devon- 
 shire, the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Cornwallis, the 
 King’s favourite page, “ Billy Ramus ” — and, in one frame, 
 heads of the King and thirteen of the royal children. A 
 sea-piece and a landscape furnished further proof of the 
 variousness of the President’s most dangerous competitor. 
 
 Peter Pindar notes the temporary decline in Sir 
 Joshua’s work, and is rather hard on Gainsborough, but 
 seizes the opportunity of crying up thus the portrait of 
 J ackson, the composer, by his young friend, Opie : — 
 
 “ Speak, Muse, who formed that matchless head ? 
 
 The Cornish boy in tin-mines bred, 
 
 Whose native genius like their diamonds shone 
 In secret till chance gave him to the sun.” 
 
 Concurrently with these two main displays, at the 
 Academy and the Adelphi, Jervas, the glass-painter, 
 opened in Pall Mall the exhibition of his completed 
 window for New College, after Sir Joshua’s designs, to 
 which some allusion has been made in a former chapter. 
 
 We have it, on the authority of Malone, that the sale 
 of many of the pictures of Rubens being announced in 
 1783, in consequence of the suppression, by the Emperor 
 Joseph, of certain religious houses, Sir Joshua again in that 
 
Sir Joshua in Flanders 3 1 9 
 
 year visited Antwerp and Brussels, and devoted several 
 days to contemplating the productions of the great Flemish 
 master. He is said to have remarked to his travelling 
 companion, Metcalfe, on his return from his first tour in 
 1781, that his own pieces seemed to him to want force. 
 However this may be — and certainly the influence of 
 Rubens, competing as it did with many others, dates 
 from a considerably earlier period — it is beyond question 
 that the pictures of the last eight or nine years of Sir 
 Joshua’s practice have a greater bloom and splendour 
 than their predecessors, and while they are marked as 
 a rule by less solidity and finish, give evidence of as 
 genuine a force and vitality as any of the productions of 
 his earlier maturity. Sir George Beaumont communi- 
 cated to Malone Sir Joshua’s impression, on the occasion 
 of his second tour in Flanders, that the Rubenses ap- 
 peared to him much less brilliant than they had done 
 at the former inspection. 
 
 “ He could not for some time account for this circum- 
 stance, but when he recollected that when he first saw 
 them he had his note-book in his hand, for the purpose 
 of writing down short remarks, he perceived what had 
 occasioned their now making a less impression in this 
 respect than they had done formerly. By the eye passing 
 immediately from the white paper to the picture, the 
 colours derived uncommon richness and warmth. For want 
 of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold.” 
 
 This is what the modern art-critic would call the 
 value of the white in intensifying the local colours and 
 toning down the lights with which the eye compares it ; 
 a little too much allowing himself to imagine that, be- 
 cause the very term was not in use, the Venetians, and the 
 
320 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 great colourists whose art was akin to theirs, did not 
 recognise the thing itself. 
 
 It was in this year that Sir Joshua first came into a 
 closer intimacy with Mrs Siddons, and painted that famous 
 portrait of the actress as the “Tragic Muse,” which, if 
 possible, enhanced his own reputation with his contem- 
 poraries, and certainly conferred a new immortality on 
 the great performer whose features and aspect it per- 
 petuated. 
 
 As far back as 1775, she had appeared in London, in 
 Garrick’s last season, as Portia in The Merchant of 
 Venice , and as Lady Anne to his Richard III., but made 
 then no particular mark, either because she was over- 
 powered by the sunset radiance of the sinking luminary 
 of tragedy, or, more probably, because her powers were 
 not yet mature. Returning to town in 1782, when there 
 was none to divide the public favour with her, she 
 carried all before her in such parts as Almeria in 
 Congreve’s Mourning Bride , Jane Shore, Calista, Bel- 
 videra, and Mrs Beverley; and, a little later on, in 
 those mightier ones of Isabella in Measure for Measure , 
 and Constance in King John . Not yet, undisputed 
 queen of tragedy as she was, had she ventured upon 
 parts so tremendous as that of Lady Macbeth — then 
 sacred to the memory of her predecessor, Mrs Yates, 
 whom, it may be remembered, Romney had already, some 
 ten years previously, painted as the “Tragic Muse.” Under 
 this title, too, Russell, the author of a History of Modern 
 Europe , had sung Mrs Siddons in verse ; and his panegy- 
 ric may very probably have suggested to Reynolds the 
 subject, or, at any rate, the name of his picture. There is 
 some doubt as to the exact time in 1783 when the great 
 actress began her sittings, but, on the whole, the most 
 probable period would appear to be the autumn of that 
 
Mrs Siddons as the “ Tragic Muse ” 321 
 
 year. The history of the picture is given by Mrs Jameson, 
 on the authority of Mrs Siddons herself. We can imagine 
 Sir Joshua, in his courtly fashion, taking the stately woman 
 by the hand, and leading her to the sitter’s chair, with the 
 sonorous Johnsonian compliment : “ Ascend your undis- 
 puted throne; bestow on me some idea of the Tragic 
 Muse.” “ Upon which ” she added, “ I walked up the steps, 
 and instantly seated myself in the attitude in which the 
 ‘Tragic Muse’ now appears.” There is little reason to 
 doubt the authenticity of the anecdote, and the less when 
 we reflect that Melpomene, somewhat staid and stolid in 
 private life, was not inventive enough to have devised or 
 elaborated the compliment just quoted, or that further 
 and still more splendid one which he laid at her feet 
 when he was putting the last finishing touches to the 
 work. “ I cannot,” he said, “ resist the opportunity for 
 going down to posterity on the edge of your garment.” 
 Whereupon he then and there painted his name in ornate 
 letters, together with the date, 1784, along the Muse’s 
 skirt, so that it did duty as a decorative adornment — 
 much as he had done in the case of the “ Lady Cockburn 
 with her Children.” 
 
 With regard to the influence that the beautiful sitter 
 herself exercised, or deemed that she exercised on the 
 evolution of the design — one of the most carefully elabor- 
 ated of all Sir Joshua’s — there seems to have been some 
 unconscious exaggeration on her part, such as is often 
 generated by successive repetitions of a story at a certain 
 distance of time. Thus, she said to Mrs Jameson that she 
 at once seated herself in the attitude in which the Muse 
 now appears. But she told Thomas Phillips, R.A., “that 
 it was the production of pure accident; Sir Joshua had 
 begun the head and figure in a different view, but while 
 he was occupied in the preparation of some colour, she 
 
 x 
 
322 Sir y oshua Reynolds 
 
 changed her position to look at a picture hanging on the 
 wall of the room. When he again looked at her and saw 
 the action she had assumed, he requested her not to 
 move ; and thus arose the beautiful and expressive figure 
 we now see in the picture.” And again she told Sir 
 Martin Archer Shee that “ Sir Joshua would have tricked 
 her out in all the colours of the rainbow had she not pre- 
 vented him.” No doubt the great tragedienne was un- 
 familiar with the first states of an oil picture, and the 
 courtly Sir Joshua may have allowed her to run on un- 
 contradicted, content to receive her reclamations with a 
 seeming acquiescence. 
 
 It must be pointed out, however, that the master’s 
 Twelfth Discourse, delivered only a few months after the 
 completion of the picture, contains, in the following 
 passage, a striking though indirect corroboration of Mrs 
 Siddons’s statement that she had suggested the attitude 
 of the Muse : — 
 
 “ And here I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance 
 in placing the model, though to some it may appear 
 trifling. It is better to possess the model with the atti- 
 tude you require, than to place him with your own hands : 
 by this means it happens often that the model puts him- 
 self in an action superior to your own imagination. It is 
 a great matter to be in the way of accident, and to be 
 watchful and ready to take advantage of it : besides, when 
 you fix the position of a model there is danger of putting 
 him in an attitude into which no man would naturally fall.” 
 
 It may be alleged that Mrs Siddons’s story in its 
 entirety cannot altogether be reconciled with the un- 
 doubted fact that the general conception of the “Tragic 
 Muse” is coloured with a strong reminiscence of Michel- 
 
Mrs Siddons as the “ Tragic Muse ” 323 
 
 angelo’s “ Isaiah,” in the ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel — a 
 fact the less difficult to accept when it is remembered how 
 Sir Joshua had saturated himself with the master in the 
 contemplation of the frescoes in the Cappella Sistina, and 
 had throughout his career maintained his enthusiasm for 
 him at its original high level. 
 
 Still, the two versions of the genesis of the picture are 
 by no means radically irreconcilable. 
 
 It is not in the least likely that so great an artist, and 
 one so various in portraiture as Sir Joshua, would have 
 hampered himself, and handicapped his sitter, by a pre- 
 meditated adherence to all the lines of a figure of which 
 the guiding motive was one essentially different from that 
 of his idealised portrait. There is little doubt that he had 
 generally in view Buonarroti’s great invention ; yet, to 
 obtain a pose correct and natural in all particulars, and, 
 above all, to infuse true significance and true dramatic 
 characterisation into the outlines of the composition as 
 conceived by him, it is easy to believe that he may have 
 relied, to a great extent, on the heroic instincts of the 
 greatest tragic actress of her time. He may — as we know 
 that he did in many cases — have even taken inspiration 
 from her changes of posture, and revised his conception 
 accordingly. 
 
 A detailed description of the composition is rendered 
 unnecessary by the reproduction here given. It is in fine 
 preservation, the sombre magnificence of the colouring 
 being much less due to darkening in this instance than to 
 premeditation on the part of the painter. There can be 
 little doubt that the unity of tone obtained by the deep 
 purple and the tawny brownish-yellow of Melpomene’s 
 robes gives a greater ideality, a more unbroken repose to 
 the general aspect of the work than could have been ob- 
 tained by a higher key, a more varied splendour in the 
 
324 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 hues of the draperies. For once Sir Joshua attains to 
 his ideal, and achieves what all through his life he has 
 sighed for and written about — high, or shall we not rather 
 say great, art. As great art, and, to say the least, on a 
 level with the work now discussed, must rank several of 
 the finest male portraits. But those were great in virtue of 
 a certain heroic realism, of a certain informing enthusiasm, 
 while greatness is here attained in the more accepted 
 fashion, by splendid dignity of conception, by majesty 
 and rhythmical grace of outward aspect, by impressive- 
 ness and significance of colouring. 
 
 The least touch of bathos would have brought the 
 picture down from its high level, and placed it on that of 
 the “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy” and the 
 numerous portraits of some one irrelevantly masquerading 
 as some one else, which cannot be unreservedly accepted, 
 even by the master’s most fervent admirers. But even the 
 attendant figures, variously described as “ Pity and Terror,” 
 “ Pity and Remorse,” and with more probability as “ Crime 
 and Remorse,” are sufficiently impressive, especially the one 
 which the master studied from his own features. The 
 figure of Mrs Siddons herself is unique in the life-work of 
 the master, as combining a more portrait-like fidelity 
 than Reynolds often achieved in female portraiture with 
 a genuinely tragic ideality of mien and gesture, due, it 
 must be owned, as much to the natural personality of 
 the sitter as to the conceiving power of the artist. 
 
 The original work was bought by the noted amateur, 
 M. de Calonne, for the then very considerable sum of 800 
 guineas, and, after some intermediate sales, was finally 
 acquired by the first Marquis of Westminster for 1760 
 guineas. It remains one of the chief ornaments of the 
 Duke of Westminster’s rich collection, and has by him 
 been lent on several occasions to public exhibitions — to 
 
3 2 5 
 
 Miss Bzirney on Mrs Siddons 
 
 the Old Masters in 1870 ; then, for a considerable space of 
 time, to the South Kensington Museum ; then to the 
 Reynolds Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery ; and, 
 lastly, to the Guelph Exhibition. The inferior replica at 
 the Dulwich Gallery was painted by Score, one of Sir 
 Joshua’s assistants, in 1789, and sold to M. Desenfans for 
 700 guineas ; but, for all its inferiority, it had, as Sir 
 Joshua’s own note and the price show, the imprimatur of 
 the Reynolds studio. The best replica would appear to 
 be that at Langley Park, Stowe, given by Sir Joshua to Mr 
 Harvey, in exchange for a boar-hunt by Snyders which 
 the painter much admired. Another repetition, of the 
 upper part of the figure only, is, or was, in the posses- 
 sion of Mrs Combe of Edinburgh ; and yet another one — of 
 the complete picture — in the gallery of Lord Normanton. 
 
 As by Sir Joshua was exhibited at the Guelph 
 Exhibition an imposing full-length, belonging to the 
 Earl of Warwick, showing Mrs Siddons in a black satin 
 gown, with a white scarf wrapped turban-wise round her 
 head, holding in one hand a mask, in the other a dagger. 
 This, however, has, on the high authority of Mr George 
 Scharf, the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, 
 been restored to Sir William Beechey. 
 
 It was in 1784 that Gainsborough painted his famous 
 “ Mrs Siddons,” en toilette de ville , now in the National 
 Gallery, and, though the conditions of the two pictures 
 are as absolutely different as they could possibly be, the 
 same serious and a little ponderous personality makes 
 itself felt, even as interpreted by Gainsborough’s sprightly 
 brush. 
 
 No better description has been left us of the Tragic 
 Muse, as she appeared in private life, preserving, in a 
 lower, quieter key, all the idiosyncrasies of her stage in- 
 dividuality, than that one of Miss Burney’s, which so per- 
 
326 Sir Jos foia Reynolds 
 
 fectly comments and explains the painted portraits as to 
 deserve quotation in its entirety : — 
 
 “ I found her, the Heroine of a Tragedy — sublime, 
 elevated, and solemn. In face and person, truly noble and 
 commanding; in manners, quiet and stiff ; in voice, deep 
 and dragging ; and in conversation, formal, sententious, 
 calm, and dry. I expected her to have been all that is 
 interesting ; the delicacy and sweetness with which she 
 seizes every opportunity to strike and to captivate upon 
 the stage had persuaded me that her mind was formed 
 with that peculiar susceptibility which, in different modes, 
 must give equal powers to attract and to delight in 
 common life. But I was very much mistaken. As a 
 stranger, I must have admired her noble appearance and 
 beautiful countenance, and have regretted that nothing in 
 her conversation kept pace with their promise ; and, as 
 a celebrated actress, I had still only to do the same. 
 Whether fame and success have spoiled her, or whether 
 she only possesses the skill of represeniing and embellish- 
 ing materials with which she is furnished by others, I 
 know not ; but still I remain disappointed.” 
 
 At about the same time the master was painting the 
 stage divinity’s less imperial, but hardly less lovely, sister, 
 Miss Fanny Kemble (afterwards Mrs Twiss) — herself an 
 actress, until she married Mr Francis Twiss and retired 
 from the stage. She is described in Northcote’s Life as 
 “ Reserved, though mingling with the loud, the vain, and 
 unseduced when syren pleasures reign.” This portrait 
 was No. 142 at the Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was 
 contributed by the late Mr George Cavendish-Bentinck. 
 
 Within this year, too, comes the popular “Infant 
 Academy,” than which hardly any among the master’s works 
 
The “ Infant Academy 
 
 327 
 
 have been more frequently engraved. It perhaps hardly 
 needs to be said that it represents a caricature, by nude, 
 chubby children, of the airs and graces of a fashionable 
 atelier. The painter, a nude boy, sits before his easel, 
 about to transfer to an oval canvas the features of a baby 
 beauty, nude also, but for the large cap and feathers which 
 she wears ; yet another child — the obsequious friend or 
 handmaiden — arranges the feather in her cap ; while stand- 
 ing by is a companion beauty, her entire form, save the 
 head, wrapped in a diaphanous veil. The rich Rubens- 
 like colour, the easy and, of its kind, masterly execution, 
 the charm of the landscape background, account suffi- 
 ciently for the popularity of the work. And yet it must 
 surely, with the more serious students of Sir Joshua’s art, 
 rank with the most striking examples of that distressingly 
 exaggerated archness, which mars some of his most 
 delicate inventions of this class. It is, in a special 
 phase, the artificiality of the eighteenth century, over- 
 coming, for the time being, with its too studied charm 
 and its deliberate affectation, the artist’s natural virility 
 and high-bred grace. The picture was No. 62 at the 
 Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was contributed by Lord 
 Mount Temple. A repetition of the baby sitter’s figure 
 alone, known as “ The Mob Cap,” belongs to the Baroness 
 Burdett-Coutts, and was No. 46 at the Old Masters in 
 1893. 
 
 Charles James Fox was one of the sitters early in the 
 year 1784, at what, for him, was the crucial moment of 
 his political life. He had been Foreign Secretary in 1782, 
 in the ministry of Lord Rockingham, had resigned this 
 office on the death of his chief, and in 1783 formed the 
 famous coalition with Lord North, accepting once more his 
 office of Foreign Secretary. The India Bill, planned with 
 all the enthusiasm, all the commanding energy of which 
 
328 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Burke was capable, and supported by the transcendent 
 oratorical powers of Fox, had been introduced at the 
 time the latter was sitting for his portrait, and Sir Joshua, 
 at his request, introduced the Bill on the table, with the 
 finger of the great statesman, its chief sponsor, pointing to 
 the title. Before the picture was finished the coalition 
 ministry collapsed, on the rejection of the Bill by the 
 House of Lords under the direct influence of ‘-he King, and 
 Reynolds, with that tact which might have been expected 
 from the man of the world under the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the case, omitted the heading on the document. 
 
 Fox, however, saw things in a different light, and 
 insisted on the permanent commemoration of this 
 overwhelming event in his political career. In an in- 
 teresting letter to the master, quoted in full by Leslie 
 and Taylor, he earnestly requests that the complete 
 title of the Bill be inserted, with the addition, on another 
 paper, of the heading, “ Representation of the Commons 
 to the King, March 15, 1784.” This was done, as the 
 canvas, now in the possession of the Earl of Leicester 
 at Holkham, proves. It must be owned that, for all the 
 resolute dignity of the attitude, the portrait is not one of 
 the most distinctive that the master has produced, con- 
 sidering that the circumstances were such as to stimulate 
 him to do his best. The same collection also contains the 
 great full-length of Fox, painted towards the close of his 
 career, some twenty years later, by Opie. 
 
 The portrait of Fox which is at Eton College and 
 was at the Guelph Exhibition as a Reynolds (as which 
 it is catalogued by William Cotton), does not, in its present 
 state at any rate, suggest the master, or even his immediate 
 surroundings. It is of Opie that one would think, were 
 it not that he did not come into personal contact with 
 the great orator until a much later period. 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1 784 329 
 
 Reynolds was in 1784 — the year which marks, perhaps 
 the highest point of his maturity — to find none to com- 
 pete with him at the Royal Academy. Gainsborough, 
 whose relations with the corporate body as a whole, and 
 its members in particular, had never been of the most 
 cordial, took offence because his full-length group of the 
 Princess Royal, Princess Augusta, and Princess Eliza- 
 beth had been hung on what was called the full-length 
 line, according to the rule then already established, if not 
 absolute law, at the Academy. Having, as he says, painted 
 the picture “in a tender light/’ he pressed rather un- 
 reasonably to have it placed lower, and failing to carry his 
 point, wrote to the council asking to have it, and all his 
 other pictures, returned — a request with which the govern- 
 ing body, with a singular lack of effort to retain so extraor- 
 dinarily brilliant a member, forthwith complied. The result 
 of the squabble was that Gainsborough during the remain- 
 ing years of his life sent nothing to Somerset House. 
 
 Stubbs had this year been superseded, in consequence 
 of his failure to present his diploma work, and Wright of 
 Derby, who had to a considerable extent identified him- 
 self with the old Incorporated Society of Artists, having 
 been elected an associate, declined the honour. 
 
 What would those who to-day hold the special 
 privileges accorded, as regards the number of works 
 exhibited, to the members of the Royal Academy, to be 
 excessive and injurious to art, say to Sir Joshua’s con- 
 tribution of no less than sixteen pictures ? 
 
 These were : — “Dr Chauncy ; ” “ Mr Pott ” (the 
 eminent surgeon); “Dr Bourke, Archbishop, of Tuam;” 
 “Lady Honywood and Child;” a portrait of the Prince 
 of Wales with his horse, painted for Lord Melbourne. 
 
 The portrait of Charles James Fox already referred 
 to ; “ Lady Dashwood and Child ; ” “ Master Braddyll ” 
 
330 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 (a full-length, life-size, one of the best of Sir Joshua’s 
 portraits of children). 
 
 “ Sir John Honywood ; ” “ Lord Leveson ;” “ A Nymph 
 and Cupid ; ” the Portrait of Miss Frances Kemble, already 
 referred to. 
 
 “Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse;” Mrs Abington 
 as “Roxalana” in The Sultan — a presentment of the 
 brilliant actress which, for true vivaciousness, for the 
 irresistible buoyancy which must have been her most 
 marked characteristic, is little behind the “Miss Prue” 
 painted some years before. 
 
 “Mr VVarton;” a “Boy reading” (formerly in Lord 
 de Tabley’s collection), and (?) at the Reynolds Exhibition 
 as “ The Studious Boy.” 
 
 One of the best pictures in the exhibition, outside the 
 unsurpassed group of Reynoldses, must have been Opie’s 
 “ The School,” in which the youthful Cornishman depicted 
 an aged but vigorous and upright dame surrounded by 
 her pupils. What is chiefly remarkable here is the 
 Rembrandtesque power and pathos of the old woman — 
 a figure Rembrandtesque, however, only in conception, 
 for the colour is marked by the livid flesh-tints and 
 strong, black shadows which we are accustomed to asso- 
 ciate with Caravaggio and the Italo-Spanish school. 
 Here a stern, an almost excessive, gravity take the place 
 of that playfulness and espieglerie which almost any other 
 painter of the day would have imported into the sub- 
 ject. “ The School ” was, under the title “ The School- 
 mistress,” lent by Lord Wantage to the “Century of 
 British Art” Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1888. 
 
 Among other productions belonging to this time 
 is the meretricious “ Snake in the Grass,” or “ Love un- 
 binding the Zone of Beauty,” in the National Gallery — 
 apparently the “ Venus ” exhibited in 1785 at the Royal 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1 784 33 1 
 
 Academy. (Duplicates in the Soane Museum, in Baron F. 
 de Rothschild’s Collection, and at St Petersburg, in the 
 Hermitage.) Another is that much-admired, much-re- 
 produced “ Muscipula,” or “ Girl with the Mouse-trap,” in 
 the Holland House Collection (Earl of Ilchester), in which 
 that self-conscious, Correggiesque archness and manner- 
 ism so often referred to reaches its climax and gives a 
 result closely bordering on the ridiculous. (No. 29 in the 
 Reynolds Exhibition — a repetition in the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne’s Collection.) 
 
 Belonging to this year, but not, it would seem, in- 
 cluded at the time in a public exhibition, is the well- 
 known portrait-group, “Lavinia, Countess Spencer, with 
 her Child, Viscount Althorp,” which must count among 
 the President’s most gracious and most popular realisa- 
 tions of his favourite type — the beauty presented in her 
 maternal aspect. (This canvas was No. 60 at the Rey- 
 nolds Exhibition, to which it was lent by Earl Spencer). 
 
 On the death of Allan Ramsay this year, shortly after 
 his return from the last journey undertaken to his beloved 
 Italy, Sir Joshua succeeded, almost as a matter of course, 
 to the office of Painter to the King, so long held by the 
 genial Scotchman. Knowing that he was not, and never 
 could become a favourite in the immediate royal circle, he 
 had at first been unwilling to solicit an office which had 
 not been spontaneously offered to him. Having, however, 
 consented — no doubt on the advice of his friends — to 
 comply with the usual routine in the matter, he received 
 the appointment, which, since the reformation of the 
 household by his friend Burke, had been reduced from 
 £ 200 to £50 per annum. It must have been felt that it 
 could not with any decency be offered to a painter inferior 
 to the President in merit and social standing. Yet his 
 position, with respect to the King and the royal family, 
 
33 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 was not materially improved in consequence of this 
 nominal accession of dignity. 
 
 Since the paralytic stroke which had momentarily 
 disabled him in the summer of 1783, Dr Johnson’s health 
 had steadily declined, and the fits of black gloom and 
 depression from which he had always suffered over- 
 whelmed him more and more. Yet suffering, instead of 
 aggravating his most offensive attributes — the overweening 
 arrogance, the impatience of contradiction, the brutality 
 in argument — softened these asperities, and allowed the 
 intense human side of his character, the love of his 
 friends and dependents, to appear unclouded. He had 
 expressed a dread of passing the winter in England, 
 and a wish to go to Italy. Boswell had been in 
 communication with Lord Chancellor Thurlow as to 
 approaching the King on the subject, and the latter 
 had replied in very obliging fashion, suggesting a con- 
 versation with Sir Joshua on the sum to be asked for, 
 and concluding: “It would be a reflection on us all, 
 if such a man should perish for want of the means to 
 take care of his health.” 
 
 Boswell gives an affecting account of his preliminary 
 interview with the doctor on the subject, which was 
 also the last he was to have with his venerated friend 
 under his own roof. The next day Johnson and Boswell 
 dined alone with Sir Joshua, at the house of the latter, 
 to have the question of the journey out. They en- 
 deavoured to flatter the sick man’s imagination with 
 agreeable prospects of happiness in Italy, and expressed 
 themselves sanguine that liberal provision would be made 
 for him in one form or another. He himself said he 
 would rather have his pension doubled than a grant 
 of a thousand pounds. There must have been some 
 further delay in the matter, since, in September, Johnson 
 
Dr Johnsons Death 333 
 
 writes to Boswell a little querulously : “ They that have 
 your kindness may lack your ardour,” — a reference, 
 evidently, to Sir Joshua. 
 
 As to the exact course which the negotiation after- 
 wards took, there was shown to have been some little mis- 
 understanding. Sir Joshua understood from Lord Thurlow 
 that the application to the King had not been successful, 
 but that Dr Johnson might draw on him (the Chancellor), 
 personally, to the extent of five or six hundred pounds, 
 which he might, if he pleased, treat as a mortgage on the 
 government pension. Johnson, thinking that his health 
 had meanwhile improved, gratefully declined the Chan- 
 cellor’s offer, in a letter enclosed in one addressed in a 
 tone of affectionate regard to Sir Joshua himself. It 
 came out afterwards that Thurlow had not thought the 
 moment opportune to make an official application to the 
 King, but had generously made the offer to Johnson on 
 his own account. 
 
 After some further fluctuations in the health of the 
 great writer the end came on the afternoon of December 
 13th. Though unattended in his last moments by the 
 faithful Boswell, then absent in Scotland, he enjoyed the 
 consolation of seeing round him, in the intervals of his 
 last illness, many of his most attached friends — Burke, 
 Bennet Langton, Sir John Hawkins, Reynolds himself 
 — besides being gratuitously attended, to the last, by 
 some of the most eminent medical and surgical authorities 
 of the time, including Dr Brockelsby and Mr Cruik- 
 shank. Sir Joshua was appointed executor, jointly with 
 Sir John Hawkins and Dr William Scott of Doctors 
 Commons, and received as a legacy the testator’s great 
 French dictionary by Martiniere, and his own copy of the 
 folio English dictionary of the last revision. 
 
 It is stated by his biographers that, on his death- 
 
334 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 bed, Johnson made three requests to Sir Joshua: never 
 to use his pencil on a Sunday ; to read the Bible when- 
 ever possible, and always on Sundays ; and to forgive him 
 thirty pounds which he had borrowed of him, as he wished 
 to leave the money to a poor family. Sir Joshua very 
 naturally promised, but found himself apparently unable 
 to adhere strictly to that part of the promise which 
 referred to Sunday painting. A few days before his 
 death, Johnson had asked Sir John Hawkins, as one of 
 his executors, where he would be buried ; and on receiv- 
 ing the answer, “ Doubtless in Westminster Abbey,” 
 he seemed, as Boswell says, to feel a satisfaction very 
 natural to a poet. His funeral on December 20th was 
 attended by a respectable number of his friends, in- 
 cluding Sir Joshua, Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Bennet 
 Langton, Windham, Sir Charles Bunbury, and other 
 members of The Club ; but it made in other respects a 
 singular contrast to the splendour of that accorded to 
 Garrick, and to the hardly less imposing obsequies with 
 which Reynolds himself was, a few years later, honoured. 
 
 The biographers further quote, from a document com- 
 municated by Miss Gwatkin, a paper by Sir Joshua on the 
 character of the friend whom he had known intimately 
 and without interruption for a period of upwards of thirty 
 years. This was no doubt written entirely apart from, 
 and without cognisance of, the materials collected by Bos- 
 well for his biography, which, be it remembered, did not 
 appear until within a year of Sir Joshua’s death. It 
 completely agrees in the main points with the portrait to 
 be evolved from the ever-popular work of the never 
 popular or remarkable biographer, and might almost 
 serve as a synthesis of its main facts and opinions. Sir 
 Joshua’s powers of generalisation here serve him admir- 
 ably, and in truth, are used with a more telling effect, 
 
Reynolds s Estimate of Johnson 335 
 
 with a more convincing power, than in many of the Dis- 
 courses, treating with literary methods of his own art. 
 One passage, as having a very important bearing upon 
 the origin of Sir Joshua’s style in literature, and also, to 
 a certain extent, in conversation, must be quoted : — 
 
 “ We” (Reynolds and the friend to whom the Memoir 
 is addressed) “ are both of Dr Johnson’s school. For my 
 own part, I acknowledge the highest obligations to him. 
 He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have 
 brushed from it a great deal of rubbish. Those very people 
 whom he has brought to think rightly will occasionally 
 criticise the opinions of their master when he nods. But 
 we should always recollect that it is he himself who 
 taught us and enabled us to do it.” 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Exhibition of 1785 — Portrait of Joshua Sharpe — Portrait of John Hunter 
 — Boswell — Walpole and Sir Joshua — Portrait of the Due 
 d’Orleans (Philippe Egalite) — The “Infant Hercules” — Exhibition 
 of 1786 — Triumphant Display by the Master — “Duchess of Devon- 
 shire with her Child” — Mrs Montagu again — Malone and the Dis- 
 courses — “Lady Caroline Price” — Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery — 
 The Grand Style in English Art — Reynolds’s “ Macbeth ” — Exhibi- 
 tion of 1787 — “Heads of Angels” — Mrs Fitzherbert — Macklin as a 
 Rival to Boydell — Exhibition of 1788 — Lady Elizabeth Foster — 
 Portrait of Lord Heathfield — Reynolds summoned to Gainsborough’s 
 Death-bed — “ Mrs Billington as St Cecilia ” — Boydell honoured at 
 Academy Dinner — Exhibition of 1789 — “Simplicity” — “Lord Lif- 
 ford ” — “ Mrs Braddyll ” — Reynolds’s Partial Blindness — The Quarrel 
 with the Royal Academy — The President resigns his Office and Mem- 
 bership — His Defence of his Action — Is induced to resume Office — 
 Exhibition of 1790 — Last Portrait of Himself — Last Discourse — 
 Dr Johnson’s Monument — Sir Joshua’s Last Illness — Miss Burney’s 
 Account — Burke’s Account — Death on 23d February 1792 — Burke’s 
 Obituary Notice — Funeral — Will, Legacies, and Bequests — Sales of 
 Pictures, Drawings, etc. 
 
 On the 10th of December 1784, Sir Joshua delivered, at 
 the distribution of the prizes, his Twelfth Discourse. 
 
 The sixteen pictures exhibited by the President at the 
 Academy in 1785 did not include any of his more popular 
 masterpieces, and the year may be described as rather 
 a dull one for him. 
 
 Among them were : — “ The Snake in the Grass,” 
 shown as “A Venus;” a group of “Three Children 
 
 336 
 
Royal A caclemy Exh ibition 0/1785 337 
 
 of the Duke of Rutland,” afterwards burnt in the great 
 fire at Belvoir. 
 
 The Hon. Mrs Stanhope as “ Melancholy.” 
 
 A portrait of the Prince of Wales, which may possibly 
 be that which passed with the Peel Collection into the 
 National Gallery. 
 
 A portrait of Mrs Smith, the chere amie of Sir John 
 Lade — (formerly at Peckforton ; lent as “Lady Lade” to 
 the Old Masters in 1884 by Baron F. de Rothschild). 
 
 A half-length of Lady Hume,* wife of Sir Abraham 
 Hume, holding a spaniel in her lap — (lent by Earl Brown- 
 low to the Reynolds Exhibition in 1884). 
 
 Painted in this year, and shown at the exhibition of 
 the next, are two of the most notable among Sir Joshua’s 
 male portraits — those happy occasional inspirations in 
 which, presenting with a veritable genius the finest 
 aspects of humanity, he rose to heights upon which 
 even the most fascinating of his female portraits do not 
 sustain him. One is the likeness of the eminent con- 
 veyancer, Joshua Sharpe, the other is that of John 
 Hunter. The former half-length, in which the venerable 
 gentleman portrayed appears seated at a table, prominent 
 upon which is a draft conveyance, was No. 168 in the 
 Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was contributed by 
 the late Mr John Malcolm of Poltalloch.f 
 
 The famous “John Hunter” is, or rather was, among 
 Reynolds’s masterpieces, and must take rank, as a noble, 
 heart-stirring conception, with the “ Sir Joseph Banks.” 
 Leslie saw it nearly thirty years ago, when it had just 
 been cleaned, repaired and relined, and states that it 
 
 * Painted on panel, at the particular request of the lady’s husband, 
 t This portrait had already been referred to in connection with Reynolds’s 
 disclaimer of certain praise given to him by the critics for its intellectual 
 qualities. 
 
33 & Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 then looked as it might have looked when fresh from the 
 painter’s easel. Alas ! if this was then so, it is so no longer, 
 for the canvas has relapsed into a Rembrandtesque gloom, 
 from which not much more than the head and shoulders 
 of the sitter emerge. Those anatomical preparations on 
 the walls, those anatomical plates on the table — here, of 
 the very essence of the subject, and in William Sharp’s 
 fine line-engraving almost too clearly depicted — are, in the 
 present state of the picture, rather imagined than seen ; so 
 little do they stand out in the Cimmerian darkness which 
 environs the figure. It is from this notable engraving, 
 which admirably conveys, if not the colour and handling 
 of the picture, yet the spirit of the design — it is from the 
 copy painted by John Jackson, R.A., in 1816, and now in 
 the National Portrait Gallery — that we can best appreci- 
 ate what the “John Hunter” was when first painted. 
 
 Still, we must by no means fail to examine the 
 canvas itself, as it hangs at the Royal College of 
 Surgeons, in the company, inter alios minor es, of a 
 “William Hunter,” by Zoffany — playing for once at Sir 
 Joshua — and a superb, if a little conventional, “ Sir 
 Astley Cooper,” by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 
 In this unexaggerated presentment of the great 
 Scotch surgeon and physiologist without flourish or pre- 
 tence — his homely features in nowise beautified, his small 
 figure not a whit broadened or idealised — Sir Joshua has, 
 for once, almost attained to the sublime, and that by the 
 simplest means, with no violence to the realism appro- 
 priate to the subject, with as little of the Michelangel- 
 esque in the exterior aspect of his figure as could well be. 
 As John Hunter sits thus quietly musing in his study, in 
 a moment of suspense which may have as its outcome 
 the recognition of some great connecting link, the revela- 
 tion of some unrecognised truth, we seem to see a modern 
 
339 
 
 Portrait of John Hunter 
 
 prophet — the Prophet of Science ; and the epithet “ sub- 
 lime,” in connection with the homely portrait of a Scotch 
 doctor, appears not too greatly to offend the modesty 
 of truth. Retaining nothing of the contours of those 
 vast creations in the Sixtine Chapel, Reynolds has yet 
 altogether naturally given his quiet figure a pose which 
 suggests, less in design than in spirit, the prophets 
 of Buonarroti, and of Raphael following him ; and in so 
 doing, aided by nature, and inspired by an intuitive if not 
 a wholly conscious insight, he has produced a great work 
 — as great in its simplicity as his attempts at the conven- 
 tionally heroic and the conventionally ideal are inflated 
 and empty. 
 
 We find Boswell, in a letter addressed to Sir Joshua, 
 proposing in flattering terms that his friend should paint 
 his picture for the family place at Auchinleck ; but adding 
 the less enticing condition that it was to be paid for “ out 
 of the first fees which I receive as barrister in Westminster 
 Hall ; or, if that fund should fail, it shall be paid, at any 
 rate, five years hence, by myself or my representatives.” 
 The outcome of this arrangement was the often-repro- 
 duced but not very notable portrait now in the Peel 
 Collection at the National Gallery. 
 
 Walpole writes, on June 20th, 1788, to the Countess of 
 Ossory : — 
 
 “ I am not quite in charity with Sir Joshua ; he 
 desired to come and see my marvellous ‘Henry VII. 
 when he saw it he said : ‘It is in the old, hard, Flemish 
 manner.’ For hard, it is so bold that it is one of the 
 great reasons for doubting its antiquity ; and for Flemish 
 there is nothing Flemish in it, except a chiaroscuro as 
 masterly as Rubens ; but it is not surprising that Sir 
 Joshua should dislike colouring that has lasted so long.” 
 
340 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Between the painter’s blame and the dilettante’s praise 
 it is a little difficult to gather what manner of picture the 
 “marvellous Henry VII.” may have been. If it was 
 genuine, it must have been, as Sir Joshua surmised, a 
 Netherlandish, or perhaps a German, work of the late 
 fifteenth or early sixteenth century ; and for this type 
 of art, Horace Walpole — in this respect in advance 
 of a time which recognised little perfection before the 
 maturity of the sixteenth century — had far greater sym- 
 pathy, if not a more accurate knowledge, than the accom- 
 plished President pretended to. 
 
 The Due d’Orleans, this year paying one of his 
 numerous visits to England, sat to Sir Joshua for a 
 full-length, destined for the Prince of Wales, and for 
 which he paid 250 guineas. He was then chiefly known 
 as an Anglomane , an imitator of what was least attrac- 
 tive in the habits and manners of the sporting section of 
 English society. He was afterwards to mature into the 
 Philippe Egalite of 1793 ; the traitor and renegade who 
 helped to do to death the hapless king, his cousin, with 
 the infamous “ La mort !” pronounced in the Convention 
 during the fatal sitting at which Louis XVI. was con- 
 demned ; who, a few months afterwards, was himself 
 swallowed, an unpitied victim, by the all-devouring maw 
 of the Terror. 
 
 Sir Joshua painted Monseigneur in a hussar uniform, 
 cap in hand, with a servant holding his horse, as may be 
 seen in John Raphael Smith’s mezzotint, now the best 
 record of the original, which was burnt in the fire at 
 Carlton House. It does not appear to be very generally 
 known that the original portrait, restored as well as might 
 be, considering the irreparable nature of its injuries, 
 now hangs in an obscure closet in the Hampton Court 
 Gallery. The master, with a realism doubly commendable 
 
The “ Infant Hercules " 
 
 341 
 
 under the circumstances, did not scruple to portray the 
 princely sitter with the bloated face which he owed to his 
 worship of la dive bouteille ; but made his picture attrac- 
 tive, nevertheless, by the ease and natural stateliness of the 
 attitude — qualities which, according to the painter, he 
 owed to the Orleans prince himself, whose manner of 
 posing he especially commended. It is on record that 
 the Duke was one of the guests at the Academy dinner 
 of 1786, and on that occasion sat under his own 
 portrait. 
 
 This year we again hear of Sir Joshua in Flanders, 
 laying out no less than ^1000 on pictures publicly sold at 
 Brussels by order of the Emperor Joseph. This would 
 make in all no less than three excursions to the Low 
 Countries ; but Tom Taylor has conjectured, not without 
 reason, that the journey in 1783 did not really take place, 
 but may have been duplicated by mistake out of this 
 well-authenticated one of 1785. 
 
 In this year, Sir Joshua, no doubt through the good 
 graces of the Princess Dashkoff, whom he had known in 
 England at the time of her exile, had obtained a splendid 
 commission from the Empress Catherine of Russia. This 
 was an order to paint a historical picture, the subject to be 
 left to his own choice ; and he had at first been undeter- 
 mined what theme to choose that should be worthy of the 
 occasion. That ultimately decided upon — it must surely 
 have been suggested to Sir Joshua by some of his literary 
 or learned friends — was the legend (after Theocritus) of the 
 Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents — an allusion, we 
 are told, to the already preponderant strength of the 
 youthful empire, and its proved ability to crush all con- 
 spiracies against it. The great Empress must have been 
 well pleased with the subject and its execution, since she 
 not only paid for her picture the then unparalleled price of 
 
34 2 5zV Joshua Reynolds 
 
 1500 guineas, but presented to Sir Joshua a golden snuff- 
 box, with her cipher in brilliants. 
 
 The central figure of the Infant Hercules, bedded on 
 wolf-skins in a cradle of classic mould, lusty in aspect, 
 exuberant already in strength, is a conception of unde- 
 niable power ; but the work, as a whole, adds, it must 
 be owned, but one more to the ambitious failures of the 
 master in the domain of the grand style, though it ranks, 
 after the “ Ugolino,” as one of the more honourable among 
 these. The composition, if fairly well balanced and put 
 together, and both thought out and wrought out with evi- 
 dent care, is, to the last degree, artificial, forced and 
 rhetorical in its passion — pure Bolognese in fact, and 
 Bolognese not of the best quality. As a model for 
 the blind Teiresias, Reynolds took, it is said, the head 
 of Johnson, without the wig — that which was at the 
 Academy in 1770, and is now at Knole. 
 
 If Horace Walpole indeed suggested to Sir Joshua, 
 as an historical subject, in lieu of that actually carried 
 out, the Czar Peter at Deptford, putting on the ship- 
 carpenter’s dress before setting to work in the dockyard, 
 he showed himself, in this particular, able to take up a 
 standpoint other than that of his time. But such a sub- 
 ject could according to no then accepted canon of art be 
 deemed an historical one ; and it is more than likely 
 that the Empress, notwithstanding her vigorous good 
 sense and lack of conventionality, would have declined 
 to accept it as a fulfilment of her commission. More- 
 over, genre-like treatment would, to a certain extent, 
 have been indispensable, and Reynolds could not have 
 supplied this ; nor could West, for all his unconventional 
 “ Death of Wolfe.” Perhaps the Hogarthian Zoffany 
 might have done so ; but would his humorous, unflattering 
 realism have been acceptable ? 
 
The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1 786 343 
 
 An original repetition of part of the “ Infant Her- 
 cules” — the central motive only' with the rotund hero 
 en herbe — belongs to Earl Fitzwilliam, and was by him 
 contributed to the Reynolds Exhibition. Yet another 
 similar repetition appeared at the same gathering of the 
 master’s works as the property of Lord Northwick. 
 
 The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1786 must have 
 been a triumph for Sir Joshua, since among the thirteen 
 pictures with which he once more asserted his supremacy 
 were the “Duke of Orleans;” the “John Hunter;” the 
 “Joshua Sharpe;” and the ever-popular “Duchess of 
 Devonshire playing with her Infant Daughter,” than 
 which hardly any work of the artist enjoys a larger 
 measure of public favour. 
 
 The fashionable beauty, still charming, though the 
 fulness of her form verges already upon embonpoint \ sits, 
 dressed in black satin, on a sofa, engaged in a vigorous 
 game of play with the little Georgina Dorothy (after- 
 wards Countess of Carlisle). There is some questionable 
 drawing in the upraised arms of the infant, and the action 
 of the mother is superficially effective, rather than really 
 suggestive or truthful. To these defects, however, the 
 vivacity of the conception, the richness of the colour, 
 the brilliant facility of the execution, blind the spectator, 
 who is content to abide by the first general impression. 
 The picture was lent by the Duke of Devonshire to the 
 Reynolds Exhibition, and was again seen by the public 
 in 1892 at the Guildhall. 
 
 Other contributions made by the President to the 
 exhibition were : — 
 
 A portrait of a Young Gentleman. 
 
 A portrait of Mr Erskine. 
 
 Two Children of Lady Lucan. 
 
 Lady Taylor. 
 
344 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 John Lee, in his robes as Solicitor-General. 
 
 Lavinia, Countess Spencer ;* the charming portrait in 
 a large straw hat shading the upper part of her face- 
 engraved by Bartolozzi in 1787 — a true and a most fas- 
 cinating Sir Joshua. 
 
 A full-length of a Gentleman. 
 
 Miss Anne Bingham,' f sister of Lady Spencer — in a 
 large straw hat like that worn by her sister. 
 
 “ The Guardian Angel,” showing an infant asleep in 
 the arms of an elder child (or angel ?) ; while an angel 
 encircles both of them with his arms and protecting 
 plumes, (lent by the Duke of Leeds to the Reynolds 
 Exhibition, where it was No. 36). 
 
 Disintegration and decay had been at work diminish- 
 ing the circle of the Blue Stockings, from whom the 
 social supremacy, so long maintained, was now slipping 
 away. Age and infirmity had disabled Mrs Vesey; the 
 marriage of Mrs Thrale, in 1784, to the singing-master 
 Piozzi had caused her ostracism, amid a chorus of general 
 execration ; but Mrs Montagu, veteran ruler of the set, 
 was, as Walpole wrote to the Miss Berrys a little later on, 
 toujours sur la breche. Always inclined to estimate at 
 their proper value the intellectualities of the sisterhood, 
 he had written in the September of the preceding year to 
 the Countess of Ossory : — 
 
 “ Dr Burney and his daughter, Evelina Cecilia, have 
 passed a day and a half with me ; she half-and-half sense 
 and modesty, which possesses her so entirely that not a 
 cranny is left for affectation or pretension. Oh ! Mrs 
 Montagu, you are not above half as accomplished.” 
 
 * No. 124, at the Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was lent by Earl 
 Spencer. 
 
 + No. 1 12 at the Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was lent by the same 
 
 owner. 
 
345 
 
 Mrs Montagu again 
 
 The indefatigable lady had, however, besides her 
 energy, her great wealth to support her, as well as the 
 attractions, a few years later, of the splendid mansion, 
 constructed for her by Adams in Portman Square, and 
 decorated with the aid of Cipriani and Angelica Kaufif- 
 mann.* This she inaugurated, in 1791, with a mighty 
 breakfast to 700 persons, the great novelty being the 
 opening of the room with feather hangings — an idea 
 borrowed from the South Sea Islands, which was greeted 
 with much applause. We are left to wonder whether, 
 after all, in this primitive mode of decoration is uncon- 
 sciously revealed the true taste of the sententious Queen 
 Blue? 
 
 Mrs Piozzi was this year before the public with her 
 Anecdotes and Letters of Johnson , ruthlessly commented 
 upon by her old enemy Baretti, and in a few years to be 
 obliterated by the world-famous biography of the man 
 whom, in a letter to Mrs Montagu, she is pleased to style 
 “ a jackanapes who has lately made a noise here, one 
 Boswell, by anecdotes of Dr Johnson.” To her book we 
 owe, at any rate, Peter Pindar’s amusing Town Eclogues , 
 in which the rival Johnsonians, Bozzy and Piozzi, 
 contend, in a sort of Sangerkampf, for the palm of anec- 
 dote. 
 
 In connection with the President’s Thirteenth Dis- 
 course, delivered on the 10th of December, it is in- 
 teresting to read the letter addressed by him to 
 Malone — first made public in Cotton’s Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds — since it enables us to estimate the nature and 
 extent of the help which the master may have re- 
 ceived in elaborating his lectures into their actual literary 
 form : — 
 
 * This is the tradition ; but Angelica Kauflfmann was not in England at the 
 time, and could at the most have contributed the designs. 
 
3 4 6 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 December 15///, 1786. 
 
 “ My dear Sir, — I wish you would just run your eye 
 over my Discourse, if you are not too much busied in what 
 you have made your own employment. I wish that you 
 would do more than merely look at it — that you would 
 examine it with a critical eye in regard to grammatical 
 correctness, the propriety of expression and the truth of 
 the observations. J. REYNOLDS.” 
 
 Above all, it is important to note here that the help of 
 Malone is sought after the Discourse has been delivered, 
 and, therefore, only to perfect its literary shape, to 
 clear away any obvious discrepancies before publication. 
 Malone himself owns that he revised in this fashion four 
 Discourses — presumably the four last. 
 
 It may be recollected that Dr Johnson had indignantly 
 denied any serious participation in them, strenuously 
 affirming the matter to be all Sir Joshua’s own; but it is 
 not unfair or derogatory to our master to imagine the 
 lexicographer, in similar fashion, making some verbal 
 re-touches in the already Johnsonian periods of his friend 
 and admirer. 
 
 One of the last pictures painted by Reynolds, in 1786, 
 was the striking and somewhat unusual portrait of Lady 
 Caroline Price (wife of Sir T. Uvedale Price, and daughter 
 of the Earl of Tyrconnel), which reappeared in 1893 in the 
 Price sale at Christie’s, so brilliantly fresh in colour as a 
 little to disconcert the admirers of the classic, smoked 
 and darkened Reynolds, with its tawny shadows and 
 bituminous depths. 
 
 On a ground of scarlet, broken with a deeper red, the 
 vivacious lady stands out, dressed in black satin, with 
 freshly-powdered hair and a knot of brightest azure in 
 her waistband, seeming to pass swiftly by the spectator, so 
 momentary and full of life is the design. That a master in 
 
Boy dell s Shakespeare Gallery 347 
 
 the sedate maturity of sixty-three years should paint so 
 superbly is perhaps not surprising, but that he should 
 paint with so unquenched, nay, even enhanced, a vivacity 
 is certainly a subject for wonder. 
 
 His future biographer, Edmund Malone, was also 
 painted, by Sir Joshua in 1786, and this simply-con- 
 ceived half-length, painted with rich brown shadows, 
 in a golden tone, is quite typical of its period in the 
 master’s practice. Having been bequeathed by Malone 
 himself to his elder brother, Lord Sunderlin, it finally 
 passed into the possession of Mr William Agnew, and, 
 after having been shown at the Reynolds Exhibition 
 (where it was No. 148), was presented by him, with 
 other portraits by Sir Joshua, to the National Portrait 
 Gallery. 
 
 It was in November 1786 that Alderman Boydell, the 
 print-publisher, started the project for his celebrated 
 Shakespeare Gallery, undertaken not more from the 
 hope of profit than with the genuine desire to develop 
 English art in the neglected and misunderstood branches 
 of the historical and the ideal. The plan was that com- 
 missions should be given to all the prominent artists of the 
 day to paint a series of pictures illustrating the most im- 
 portant scenes and characters in the plays, and that these 
 should be reproduced, by the best engravers, for a grand 
 edition of the poet, to be brought out in numbers spaced 
 over a period of twelve years. The gallery built in Pall 
 Mall to exhibit the pictures was that which afterwards 
 became celebrated as the British Institution. 
 
 The attempt to create — one cannot say to resuscitate 
 — national art of this type was, no doubt, a generous, high- 
 hearted one, but it had, from the first, no reasonable hope 
 of success. Monumental, decorative, and historical art, 
 unlike portraiture and genre, had never risen from a 
 
348 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 permanent basis, or obtained a firm hold in England, 
 where the decorations of Verrio at Hampton Court and 
 Windsor, of Sir James Thornhill in the dome of St 
 Paul’s and at Greenwich, remained as models of what to 
 avoid rather than to imitate. 
 
 The art of the seventeenth century in France might be 
 conventional, and freezing cold in its adaptation of Italian 
 formulae; that which the succeeding centurydeveloped there 
 might, with all its decorative brilliancy, be too superficial and 
 too frivolous to be held forth as an example. But, at 
 any rate, both were consummate of their kind, perfectly 
 suited to the constructions which they were devised to 
 adorn, and elaborated according to certain well-understood 
 if, indeed by our present standard, unduly conventional 
 methods. 
 
 Well might Walpole, though he must have seemed 
 to his more optimistic contemporaries to overact the part 
 of “ Der Geist der stets verneint ,” cry out : — 
 
 “ Mercy on us, our painters to design from Shake- 
 speare ! His commentators have not been more inade- 
 quate. Pray, who is to give an idea of Falstaff, now Quin 
 is dead ? And then Bartolozzi, who is only fit to engrave 
 for the Pastor Fido , will be to give a pretty enamelled fan- 
 mount of a Macbeth ! Salvator Rosa might; and Piranesi 
 might dash out Duncan’s Castle ; but Lord help Aider- 
 man Boydell and the Royal Academy ! ” 
 
 This is only another way of putting the unquestion- 
 able truth that the art of the period lacked not only the 
 experience adequately to realise its conceptions in the 
 grand style, but imagination — such as, later on, cannot 
 be denied to the Romantics — to conceive anew the great 
 subjects attempted. It is quite possible to admire the 
 
349 
 
 Boy del? s Shakespeare Gallery 
 
 pluck and generosity of Boydell, and yet to deplore that 
 his enterprise, besides bringing him to the verge of ruin, 
 served, not to develop English art in the desired direc- 
 tion — since the basis for such a development was wholly 
 lacking — but to show too convincingly the bareness of 
 the land. 
 
 To Romney, his biographer, Hayley, ascribes the 
 credit of having, in the course of a conversation with 
 Alderman Boydell at his house in Cavendish Square 
 made the first suggestion out of which grew the vast 
 and costly enterprise. We learn that the imagination 
 had been fired by the Empress Catherine’s commission 
 to Reynolds to paint an historical picture, and that he 
 named to the enterprising print-seller a rate of payment 
 for his co-operation, so low, that the latter did not dare to 
 propose it to West, Copley, or Sir Joshua. 
 
 Not much is to be gained by analysing Reynolds’s 
 “ Macbeth,” well known through more than one reproduc- 
 tion ; there is an element of fustian in the passion, of 
 cheapness in the sublimity, a general failure to hit the 
 mark, which, apart from technical shortcomings, places the 
 work on an infinitely lower level than his portraiture, and 
 gives it no higher rank, indeed, than that of the mediocrities 
 which made up the major part of Boydell’s commissioned 
 work. Less impressive still is the “ Death of Cardinal 
 Beaufort ” (now with the “ Macbeth ” at Petworth), if we 
 except the head of the Cardinal himself, grinning a 
 ghastly grin as he bites his pillows in the agonies of 
 dissolution. Here Reynolds has manifestly been inspired 
 by the figures of the damned in the “Last Judgment” 
 of his Michelangelo. With the “ Puck ” — the ever- 
 popular figure seated on the toadstool, which is so 
 universally known that any description of it would be 
 superfluous — Sir Joshua, of course, succeeded better. 
 
350 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 With a humorous fantasy such as this — a worthy suc- 
 cessor to the “ Mercury ” and “ Cupid as a Link-boy” 
 — he was thoroughly at home, and, moreover, in harmony 
 with the master-spirit whom it was his pleasing task 
 to interpret ; and this time to interpret adequately. 
 
 Of the many artists selected by Alderman Boydell 
 for his great enterprise — included among whom were, 
 besides Sir Joshua himself, Romney, Opie, West, Fuseli, 
 Barry, Stothard, Smirke, Wright of Derby, Angelica 
 Kauffmann, Westall, and Hamilton — perhaps the most 
 successful was Opie, whose work, with all its over- 
 accentuation and exaggeration, had genuine dramatic 
 qualities, together with a certain element of weighty 
 dignity and style, which were lacking in the perform- 
 ances of his brother Shakespearians. 
 
 The President’s contribution of thirteen pictures to the 
 Royal Academy Exhibition of 1787 showed him still at 
 the zenith of his powers, especially as the painter of 
 children. Of his unapproached supremacy in this branch 
 of his practice, several pictures in the exhibition afforded 
 conclusive evidence. 
 
 The “ Lady Smyth and her Children ” almost rivals 
 in charm the “ Lady Cockburn and her Children,” but 
 is less well grouped. Then we have “ Lady St Asaph 
 and her Child ; ” and the engaging, but too self-consciously 
 arcadian, “Lord Burghersh” — a pretty child chasing a 
 butterfly, hat in hand. 
 
 Superior to all these in popularity is the famous “ Heads 
 of Angels,” then called “A Cherub-head in different Views ” 
 — in reality a group of studies from the head of a little girl, 
 Frances Isabella, the daughter of Lord and Lady William 
 Gordon. This is a work the loveliness of which has been 
 not a little cheapened and obscured by frequent copies 
 and reproductions, in which the delicate essence of the 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1787 351 
 
 original has been allowed to evaporate ; but a glance at 
 the picture itself, as it hangs in the National Gallery (to 
 which it was presented in 1841 by Lady William Gordon), 
 dispels the ennui with which we approach it, and renews 
 the magic spell of the master. 
 
 Hardly less beautiful, or less popular, is the “ Master 
 Philip Yorke” — the full-length of a curly-haired child in 
 a white frock, with a robin perched on its arm, begging 
 for which a pet dog looks up beseechingly into its baby- 
 master’s face.* This is just on the boundary between the 
 thoroughly sincere and unaffected pictures of children, of 
 which many examples have been furnished, and those of 
 more questionable and artificial fascination, such as the 
 “ Muscipula,” the “ Robinetta,” etc. This last-named 
 study of a red-haired girl with a robin resting on her 
 shoulder, may very probably belong to about this time, 
 since its fellow — but slightly varied — was engraved by T. 
 Jones in 1787. There is no note, it would seem, of its 
 exhibition until it passed, with the Peel Collection, into 
 the National Gallery. 
 
 Even more foolishly named than this is so-called 
 “ Felina,” exhibited in 1788 at the Academy as “ Girl with 
 a Kitten,” so that we may, in this case, as in many others, 
 absolve Sir Joshua, and make his publisher or engraver 
 answerable for the grotesque affectation and the misfit 
 of the title. It is, by a slip, described by Leslie and 
 Taylor (Vol. II. p. 516) as having been engraved as 
 “ Muscipula.” The version of this picture, belonging to 
 Lord Feversham, was No. 92 at the Reynolds Exhibition ; 
 another version belongs to Lord Normanton. 
 
 The other canvases exhibited by the President in 1787 
 were : — The full-length of the Prince of Wales in Garter 
 robes, with a black servant arranging his dress — a motive 
 * Now in the collection of Lord Iveagh. 
 
35 2 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 suggested, no doubt, by these portraits of Van Dyck in 
 which the copper-skinned page forms an important 
 element of colour. 
 
 Portraits of Mrs Hope, the Hon. Mrs Stanhope, Lady 
 Cadogan, and Lady Elliot. 
 
 The portrait of one of Sir Joshua’s new friends, the 
 youthful dilettante, Sir Harry Englefield — much admired 
 by Horace Walpole. 
 
 The unfortunate Mrs Fitzherbert had given sittings to 
 Sir Joshua in 1786, at the time when her royal lover, the 
 Prince of Wales, was also being painted, and she sat to 
 him again in 1788. Her portrait was not, however, ex- 
 hibited. It was in 1787 that the Prince, with charac- 
 teristic meanness, authorised Fox to give an explicit 
 denial in the House to his marriage with the lady — a 
 denial which she is said to have been induced, under 
 pressure, to authorise. Gillray’s characteristic sledge- 
 hammer caricatures on the delicate subject are well 
 known. The one shows the Prince’s mistress — or wife — 
 as “ Dido Forsaken ” — her crown and royal insignia blown 
 from her head by a blast from the lips of Fox. The other 
 — “ Wife and no Wife ” — depicts in grotesque fashion the 
 wedding ceremony. 
 
 The charming unfinished half-length by Sir Joshua, 
 in which Mrs Fitzherbert appears in a white dress with 
 a black band on her sleeve, must belong to one of these 
 two years. It was contributed by Lord Portarlington 
 to the Guelph Exhibition, at which also appeared Gains- 
 borough’s better known and, perhaps, more charac- 
 teristic portrait, lent by Lord Fortescue. Lord Portar- 
 lington also showed on the same occasion a singularly 
 beautiful collection of miniatures, once the property of 
 the lady, and including several of herself and of the 
 Prince of Wales. 
 
Macklin s “ Illustrated Bible ” 
 
 353 
 
 Fired by the distinction achieved by Alderman Boy- 
 dell with his new and sumptuous edition of Shake- 
 speare, and the Shakespeare gallery connected with it, 
 Macklin, a rival publisher, planned an Illustrated Bible , 
 intended to be on an even more imposing scale than 
 the Shakespeare of the enterprising Alderman. Under 
 these circumstances he, as a matter of course, deemed 
 the prestige conferred by the President’s name indis- 
 pensable to his undertaking, and proceeded to make terms 
 with him, as the results show, not for sacred works only. 
 
 Of Sir Joshua Macklin accordingly obtained “ Tuccia 
 the Vestal Virgin,” an illustration to Gregory’s “ Ode to 
 Meditation,” and the “ Holy Family,” now in the National 
 Gallery * This is a well-grouped and not unpleasing piece, 
 giving an adaptation of the suave style by which Raphael 
 replaced the intenser and more natural pathos of the 
 fifteenth century, but it has about it also a flavour of the 
 Bolognese manner, which not infrequently coloured the 
 master’s attempts in the direction of religious and ideal 
 art. The most expensive canvas acquired by Macklin 
 was that variously known as “ Macklin’s Family Picture,” 
 “ The Gleaners,” and “ The Cottagers ” — a pseudo- 
 idyllic piece, in which the publisher’s wife and daughter 
 are depicted seated, while a Miss Potts (after Mrs 
 Landseer) appears standing with a sheaf of corn on 
 her head. It is altogether an unconvincing scene of 
 Arcadian bliss, suggestive rather of Gainsborough, with- 
 out his vivacity, or of a Morland magnified, than of Sir 
 Joshua himself. This painting was last seen in public 
 at the Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was contri- 
 buted by Mr Robert Gosling. 
 
 Walpole writing, a couple of years later (September 21st, 
 1790), to Sir David Dalrymple of the two galleries, says : — 
 
 * Presented by the Directors of the British Institution. 
 
 Z 
 
354 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ I am entirely of your opinion, Sir, that two of North- 
 cote's pictures, from King John and Richard III. are 
 at the head of the collection. In Macklin’s Gallery of 
 Poets and Scripture there are much better pictures than 
 at Boydell’s. Opie’s ‘Jephthah’s Vow/ is a truly fine 
 performance, and would be so in any assemblage of paint- 
 ings as Sir Joshua’s ‘Death of Beaufort’ (at Boydell’s) 
 is worthy of none ” 
 
 To the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1788, Reynolds 
 sent no less than eighteen pictures, among which are 
 several of his best known works : — 
 
 The “ Infant Hercules,” for the Empress Catherine, 
 which has been discussed at an earlier stage. 
 
 The “Girl with a Kitten” (“Felina”). 
 
 A “ Girl Sleeping.” 
 
 Portrait of “ Lady Elizabeth Foster ” — showing the 
 future Duchess of Devonshire with lightly powdered hair, 
 in a white muslin dress and blue sash. This has a distinc- 
 tion and charm unsurpassed by any similar performance 
 of the artist ; it is, moreover, exceptional, as approaching 
 somewhat nearly, in its silveriness of tone and peculiarity 
 of handling, to Gainsborough’s style. Here we have the 
 too attractive widow of whom Gibbon said “ that no man 
 could withstand her, and that, if she chose to beckon 
 the Lord Chancellor from his woolsack, in full sight of 
 the world, he could not refuse obedience.” She was the 
 intimate, but scarcely in the true construction of the 
 word, the friend of the brilliant Georgiana, and after 
 her death became Duchess of Devonshire in her stead. 
 There exists a crayon drawing by that most piquant 
 and Reynolds - like of draughtsmen, Downman, show- 
 ing the two famous ladies together. Of the exuber- 
 ant physical charm of the first Duchess Lady Elizabeth 
 
355 
 
 Portrait of Lord Heathfield 
 
 had little, but she more than replaced it by a subtle 
 fascination, the potency of which, by way of contrast, it 
 is easy to understand. 
 
 The noble “ Portrait of Lord Heathfield ” * is still one 
 of Reynolds’s greatest glories, although a comparison with 
 Earlom’s fine mezzotint shows how much it has lost in 
 firmness of accent since it was engraved. The picture has 
 formed part of the National Collection ever since it was 
 purchased, with the rest of the Angerstein pictures, in 1824. 
 
 No mere exhibition of dramatic gesticulation, no 
 martial fire and fury, could convey with so intense a 
 dramatic force as do the simple, steadfast attitude, the 
 composed and thoroughly British expression of the hero, 
 what was the true personality of the man, the true 
 character of the heroic resistance by which he immor- 
 talised himself. He grasps the great key of the fortress 
 of Gibraltar with a quiet resolution that nothing can 
 shake ; the view of the rock in the background, half- 
 obscured by the smoke of artillery, just sufficiently 
 marks the moment, and the environment in which Sir 
 Joshua has chosen to represent his hero. This is the 
 last, and certainly not the least, of those virile and 
 intellectually powerful portraits of notable men which 
 are — whatever the picture-dealer and the millionaire 
 connoisseur may think of it — Reynolds’s highest achieve- 
 ment and his greatest glory. It has been maintained 
 more than once in these pages, but it cannot be too often 
 repeated, that those who demand for Sir Joshua the 
 first place among the portrait-painters of England should 
 support their claim with the aid of the “ Garrick,” the 
 “ Johnson,” the “ Gibbon,” the “ Baretti,” the " Sir Joseph 
 Banks,” the “John Hunter,” the “Lord Heathfield,” 
 in preference even to such works as the “ Lady Cock- 
 * Painted in 1787 for Alderman Boydell. 
 
356 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 burn,” the “ Ladies Waldegrave,” the “ Mrs Braddyll,” 
 nay, the very “ Tragic Muse ” herself. 
 
 The other pictures making up Sir Joshua’s display in 
 1788 were: — The portraits of Lord Sheffield, Mr Wynd- 
 ham of Felbridge, the Duke of York (now in St James’s 
 Palace); Sir George Beaumont (No. 8 in the Reynolds 
 Exhibition) ; Mrs Drummond Smith, Master Stanhope, 
 Colonel Morgan, Colonel Bertie, Lord Grantham and 
 his brothers, Lady Harris, Lord Darnley, Miss Gideon 
 and her brother, Mr Braddyll. 
 
 There are few more touching incidents in the whole 
 history of art and artists than the final meeting of Gains- 
 borough and Reynolds at the death-bed of the former. 
 Gainsborough was dying of some ailment then called 
 a cancer, but which may perhaps have been a carbuncle 
 on the neck — developed, as he imagined, from a chill 
 caught while he stood in a draught on the great occasion 
 of the impeachment of Warren Hastings. It has been 
 seen that no further intercourse had taken place between 
 the great competitors, whom we must not call brother- 
 artists, since the abortive attempt made by Gainsborough 
 to paint the President’s portrait. What we know of the 
 final interview is derived from Sir Joshua’s Fourteenth 
 Discourse, delivered, according to custom, in the month 
 December of the year, and mainly devoted to a just and 
 discriminating, if not absolutely an enthusiastic pane- 
 gyric of Gainsborough’s art : — 
 
 “ A few days before he died,” says Reynolds, “ he 
 wrote me a letter to express his acknowledgments for the 
 good opinion I entertained of his abilities, and the 
 manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke of 
 him ; and desired he might see me once more before he 
 died. I am aware how flattering it is to myself to be 
 
Reynolds and Gainsborough 357 
 
 thus connected with the dying testimony which this ex- 
 cellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot prevail on 
 myself to suppress that I was not connected with him by 
 any habits of familiarity ; if any little jealousies had sub- 
 sisted between us, they were forgotten in those moments 
 of sincerity, and he turned towards me as one who was 
 engrossed by the same pursuits, and who deserved 
 his good opinion by being sensible of his excellence. 
 
 “ Without entering into a detail of what passed at 
 this interview, the impression of it upon my mind was 
 that his regret at losing life was principally the regret of 
 leaving his art ; and more especially as he now began, he 
 said, to see what his deficiencies were ; which, he said, he 
 flattered himself in his last works were in some measure 
 supplied.” 
 
 It is surely permissible to read here a little between 
 the lines, and to imagine for ourselves how it was that 
 Gainsborough, often passionate, wrong-headed, jealous 
 — as his dealings with the Academy and with Reynolds 
 himself show — but yet thoroughly human in the finest 
 sense of the word, came at this supreme moment to 
 review and repent his attitude towards the serene, the 
 invulnerable Sir Joshua, whose conduct towards him had 
 been throughout absolutely correct — nay, even generous. 
 
 More must have passed at this final interview than 
 Reynolds, true to his gentlemanly instincts, has chosen 
 to reveal to the world in the carefully-balanced, if some- 
 what faintly-coloured, phraseology of his Discourse. We 
 admire the absolute fairness, the irreproachable attitude 
 of our master in so trying a situation, and the unex- 
 aggerated, the perfectly sincere praise bestowed upon 
 his deceased rival. Yet, as usual, the note of true 
 emotion is not struck, and Sir Joshua does not — if it 
 
358 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 is fair to form an estimate from the materials before 
 us — appear, even from the merely dramatic point of 
 view, to have been fully alive to the pathos of the 
 situation. Our heart goes out to the repentant Gains- 
 borough, who must surely have whispered (or wished 
 to whisper) other things into the ear of excellent, 
 forgiving Sir Joshua than the - polite speeches, the 
 admirable generalities about art which are all that the 
 latter thought himself at liberty to repeat. Our love 
 and sympathy go to the prodigal returned, rather than to 
 the just man who has deviated not a hair’s-breadth 
 from the straight path. 
 
 At the funeral, which took place at Kew, Sir Joshua 
 was one of the pall-bearers, the others being Sir William 
 Chambers, West, Bartolozzi, Paul Sandby, and Samuel 
 Cotes. 
 
 The following year, 1789, saw the furious, unseemly 
 battle of the Regency over the pcor, distraught King, 
 which, perhaps, more than any other contemporary 
 question, divided not only professional politicians but 
 society in general. Sir Joshua, however much, notwith- 
 standing the whig proclivities which had coloured his 
 whole career, he may have chosen to remain neutral, must 
 have heard all around him — in the clubs, the drawing- 
 rooms, even in his own painting-room — the din of combat. 
 
 Two brilliant luminaries of the stage — the one, Mrs 
 Jordon, the bright, particular star of comedy, the other, 
 Mrs Billington, the most renowned of English operatic 
 singers — are mentioned as visitors to Leicester Fields in 
 the early part of this year. Mrs Jordan, as vivacious, as 
 bewitching as Mrs Abington herself had been in the 
 earlier stage of her career, does not appear to have been 
 painted by Sir Joshua, but only to have paid him a flying 
 visit. She is almost as much associated with Romney as 
 
“ Mrs Billington as St Cecilia ” 
 
 359 
 
 Lady Hamilton herself ; and no more fascinating record 
 of her vivacious beauty could be desired than the half- 
 length by that painter, showing her as “ Peggy,” in 
 the “ Country Girl,” the original of which is in the 
 collection of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. Mrs 
 Billington, whom we claim as English, although her 
 maiden name, Weichsel, betokens a foreign origin, 
 was, perhaps, the only prima donna of home growth 
 who, in the palmiest days of Italian opera, victoriously 
 competed with Italian singers on their own ground, 
 and in their own theatres. Sir Joshua has presented 
 her as Saint Cecilia, environed by a bevy of angels who 
 accompany her singing — a conception very different from 
 that of Raphael, who makes the Saint herself hush her 
 voice and sink her instrument as she listens, rapt, to the 
 heavenly choir. There could not well be here the same 
 intimate connection between model and subject as there 
 was in the great “ Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse ; ” and 
 so Mrs Billington remains Mrs Billington, the fair, the 
 rather exuberant mortal, posing with a decorative accom- 
 paniment of angels, while Mrs Siddons naturally becomes, 
 what Sir Joshua bade her be, the Tragic Muse. 
 
 The “ Mrs Billington as St Cecilia ” now adorns the 
 New York Museum. A head of the famous cant a trice, 
 painted somewhere about 1786, was lent by the Earl of 
 Normanton in 1885 to the Old Masters Exhibition. 
 
 On the 23d of April, Sir Joshua had to attend, as 
 President of the Royal Academy, the great Thanksgiving 
 Service for the restoration of King George to health. 
 Congratulatory addresses to the King and Queen, drawn 
 up by the President, had been adopted, and were most 
 fairly written out by the renowned calligrapher of the 
 day, Mr Tomkins, who was paid fifty guineas for his 
 pains : the addresses were duly presented and graciously 
 
360 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 received. It was this same year that the “ famous Mr 
 Tomkins” was portrayed by Sir Joshua. 
 
 An inspiriting scene marks the Academy dinner of 
 1789, and shows Burke as noble and passionate in 
 enthusiasm, as genuinely anxious to promote the interests 
 of art as when, years before, he had, in such disinterested 
 fashion, helped on Barry in the initial steps of his career. 
 Seeing Alderman Boydell, then prominently before the 
 public in connection with the newly-launched Shakespeare 
 Gallery, at one of the tables, Burke writes on a slip of 
 paper, which he sends up to the President : “ This end of 
 the table, at which, as there are many admirers of the art 
 there are many friends of yours, wish to drink an English 
 tradesman who patronizes the art better than the Grand 
 Monarque of France — Alderman Boydell, the Commercial 
 Maecenas ! ” The toast was proposed and duly honoured 
 amid great applause, and the high-hearted publisher may 
 well to his dying day have treasured up the memory of 
 the tribute of enthusiastic recognition thus paid him. 
 To-day, though social demarcations are far fainter and 
 less difficult for merit to overpass them then, such a toast, 
 coming straight from the heart of the proposer, and 
 going as straight to that of the listeners, would, amid 
 the conventional and highly - studied oratorical graces, 
 which are the rule, surprise and perhaps a little disconcert 
 the brilliant company by which the Academy loves 
 to surround itself on this special occasion. 
 
 This was the last exhibition at which Sir Joshua ex- 
 hibited in full strength, and the group of works then 
 brought forward by him was curiously representative, as 
 well of his transcendent merits as of his weaknesses and 
 mannerisms. At any rate, not from any one of the can- 
 vases shown could be inferred a falling-off from the painter’s 
 standard in work of the class to which it belonged. 
 
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1789 361 
 
 Among the works of the imagination are : — 
 
 The “Robin Goodfellow” (Puck), already described 
 in connection with the Shakespeare Gallery. 
 
 “ Cupid and Psyche ” * — the scene in which the im- 
 prudent mortal, holding a lamp, gazes at the unveiled 
 form of her immortal lover. This is, not so much in 
 design as in general conception, a reminiscence of 
 Correggio, but a reminiscence such as a Bolognese 
 eclectic might have produced. It is difficult, darkened 
 and obscured as it now is, to conceive that it could 
 ever have appeared “ glaring ” to Horace Walpole. 
 
 The “ Continence of Scipio ” is another of those 
 “high-art” subjects, in which the weakness rather than 
 the strength of the master is displayed. It was pur- 
 chased by the Empress Catherine, and is now in the 
 imperial gallery of the Hermitage with the “ Infant 
 Hercules,” and one of the repetitions of the “ Snake in 
 the Grass” in the National Gallery.t 
 
 The “ Cymon and Iphigenia” — afterwards presented 
 by Sir Joshua’s niece, the Marchioness of Thomond, to 
 George IV., and now in the royal collection. This hovers 
 in treatment midway between the Venetians and Rubens, 
 and is not devoid of a touch of the coarseness of the 
 latter. 
 
 Most popular among the master’s contributions to the 
 year’s pictures has remained, however, the lovely “ Sim- 
 plicity ” £ — a portrait of the little Theophila Gwatkin, 
 
 * Lent by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to the Old Masters in 1893. 
 t The only other public galleries on the Continent which possess ex- 
 amples of Sir Joshua’s art are the National (formerly Esterhazy) Gallery of 
 Buda-Pesth, and the Uffizi of Florence. The private Czernin Gallery in 
 Vienna includes a “General Abercrombie” attributed to Sir Joshua, and the 
 Konigswarter collection in the same city one of the numerous portraits of the 
 master by himself, in academic robes, and a “Countess of Carnarvon.” 
 
 I One version is now in the collection of Baron F. de Rothschild. 
 
362 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 daughter of “ Offie,” and great-niece of the painter. This, 
 for tenderness and beauty, may rank with the “ Angels’ 
 Heads” in the National Collection. The original version 
 shown on this occasion was painted for the family. The 
 writer is unable to state whether this was the picture 
 contributed to the Old Masters in 1880 by Mrs F. C. 
 Aylmer, or whether the latter was the repetition men- 
 tioned by Leslie and Taylor as being in the possession of 
 Mrs Lane, who, it appears, claimed for it, as the altered 
 version, the exclusive right to the title “Simplicity.” * 
 
 Among the other portraits was the splendid one ot 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan — one of the most striking 
 achievements of the master in male portraiture, and 
 deserving of the unstinted praise which Walpole, putting 
 aside his critical mood, lavished upon it. 
 
 Besides these canvases should be mentioned portraits 
 of Lord Rodney, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, Lord Vernon, 
 and the Hon. Mrs Watson. 
 
 Sir Joshua has not produced a more audaciously 
 realistic piece of portraiture than the full-length of Lord 
 Lifford, Chancellor of Ireland, seated, portentously be- 
 wigged, in his gold-laced official robes, with the great seal 
 beside him. The robes and accessories are painted with un- 
 usual force and brilliancy, and were most probably worked 
 upon by the painter himself after they had been laid in by 
 the brush of an assistant. It is, however, in presenting 
 the far from engaging physiognomy and the profoundly 
 bored expression of his sitter that the master has dared 
 most, and most succeeded. He indulges here in an 
 almost cruel adherence to truth, as even the gentle Van 
 Dyck, when left to himself, would on some rare occa- 
 sions do. 
 
 * With, though after, the “ Simplicity ” may be classed the charming 
 and hardly less popular “ Penelope Boothby,” painted in 1788, 
 
‘ Mrs Braddyll ” 
 
 363 
 
 One of the very last and one of the loveliest pro- 
 ductions of our master’s brush is the “ Mrs Braddyll,” 
 which was not exhibited at the Academy, where, a 
 5 r ear before, her husband’s picture had appeared — in all 
 probability because it was not sufficiently finished to 
 be shown. More than one reproduction has made 
 familiar the fair, high-bred face of the lady, who sits, 
 wearing her hair most elaborately curled and powdered, 
 in a white dress and black mantle, supporting her head on 
 her hand with a composure which, by its serenity, just 
 escapes being disdainful. The picture, which now belongs 
 to Lady Wallace, and is in the collection at Manchester 
 House, was lent by its owner to the Old Masters in 1892. 
 It reveals, even more completely, what has already been 
 noted in connection with the “Ladies Waldegrave” — in 
 what slightness of modelling and handling the veteran 
 master can, at the close of his great career, permit himself 
 to indulge, without materially impairing the effects aimed 
 at. Lovers of a Vandyck-like thoroughness of draughts- 
 manship and modelling may, perhaps, feel inclined to 
 reproach him with a lack of solidity, coming near to, yet 
 not reaching, flimsiness; but his mastery in this, his latest 
 style, must be manifest to all. 
 
 Save that the sunshine of the royal favour never, even 
 at this the official period of Sir Joshua’s career, shone 
 full upon him, he had, up to this advanced period of his 
 life, sailed the voyage of life on fair seas, and enjoyed a 
 prosperity so unbroken that he might well, like the Greek 
 tyrant, have sacrificed his most precious possession to 
 appease the jealous anger of the divinities. But now 
 came the decline into the vale of tears, the gradual lower- 
 ing of the heavy canopy of cloud which was in the end to 
 overshadow, with its load of physical suffering and mental 
 depression, the sympathetic personality of the man, and 
 
364 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 to quench that splendid pictorial power which had been 
 the pride of successive generations. 
 
 If Sir Joshua had not the ardent, simple faith which 
 upheld Johnson, and prevented him from falling utterly a 
 defenceless prey to his black despairs, he had, to sustain 
 him, the unfailing serenity, the power of momentarily shak- 
 ing off trouble, which had been his main characteristic 
 through life. This was the cause that the last years of his 
 life were not, after all, except at the very close, as uniformly 
 sad as they might well have been, seeing that the affliction 
 most terrible of all to the master of the brush was to visit 
 him. 
 
 In July of this year, while he was painting — according 
 to Leslie and Taylor, Miss Russell, according to Malone, 
 Lady Beauchamp — the sight of his left eye became sud- 
 denly so much obscured that he was obliged to leave off 
 work, and, within ten weeks, the sight of that eye was 
 entirely gone. Still, though condemned by his misfortune 
 to what was, no doubt, at first deemed a temporary, but 
 was really a permanent abandonment of his art, Sir Joshua 
 did not at first give up his social engagements. We find 
 him spending time at his Richmond villa, and visiting his 
 warm-hearted friend Burke at Beaconsfield, in company 
 with Malone, Wyndham, and others ; after which he goes 
 for a time to Brighthelmstone for the sea-air. 
 
 About this time his faithful niece, Miss Palmer, writes 
 to a cousin : — 
 
 “ . . . I may say, without vanity, that my presence is 
 now very necessary to my uncle, as he never reads himself, 
 and his evenings are principally passed in playing at cards, 
 which might possibly not always be the case, if I did not 
 always make up his parties ; and I could not bear the 
 thought of his spending much of his time alone.” 
 
Quarrel with the Royal Academy 365 
 
 Well might Boswell write in October of this year : — 
 
 “Sir Joshua Reynolds’s loss of the sight of one eye, 
 and weakness of the other, you may believe must affect 
 him deeply ; he is another instance of did beatus ante 
 obitum nemo!' 
 
 The career of Reynolds as a painter was practically at 
 an end, as he found himself compelled to acknowledge ; 
 and the Pocket-Book for 1790 — the last of the series — is a 
 sad record, containing no note of any sitters, but only a 
 quantity of social engagements, destined, no doubt, to fill 
 the void so suddenly left in the well-filled life. It is in a 
 touching letter to Sheridan, with regard to the making over 
 to him, at a reduced price, of the beautiful “ Mrs Sheridan 
 as St Cecilia,” which he had never yet been in a position 
 to claim, that Sir Joshua, repeating for the last time, with 
 a touching naivety his favourite phrase, writes : — 
 
 “ It is with great regret I part with the best picture I 
 ever painted ; for though I have every year hoped to paint 
 better and better, and may truly say Nil actum reputans 
 dum quid superesset agendum , it has not always been the 
 case. However, there is now an end of the pursuit ; 
 the race is over, whether it is won or lost.” 
 
 It was then, at a moment when the master was, under 
 the altered circumstances of his life, perhaps all the more 
 tenacious of his authority, and more inclined to assert the 
 pre-eminence which none had hitherto sought to dispute, 
 that came an unfortunate, and, on neither side, very digni- 
 fied, disagreement with the Academy, or rather with a 
 powerful section of it. This culminated in the temporary 
 resignation by Sir Joshua of the presidential chair, and 
 even of his membership in the body which owed so much 
 
366 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 to the paramount attraction of his work, and the lustre 
 of his name. 
 
 The versions of both sides — the plaidoyer for the 
 Academy given in Farington’s Life of Reynolds , and the 
 President’s own account of the matter, set forth in some 
 manuscript notes furnished to Leslie by his great-niece 
 Miss Gwatkin — are given at length in Leslie and Taylor’s 
 biography, to which those curious as to the details of the 
 fight must be referred. 
 
 The hero of the occasion, round whom raged the battle 
 of the opposing factions, was Joseph Bonomi the elder, 
 a distinguished architect who had come to England as far 
 back as 1767, at the invitation of the brothers Adam, by 
 whom he was for some time retained. He was frequently 
 employed in England by noblemen and gentlemen to 
 design their country seats, and his great knowledge of 
 perspective gave him an unquestionable pre-eminence as 
 an architectural draughtsman. 
 
 Sir Joshua had long expressed his concern that the 
 Professorship of Perspective in the Academy should re- 
 main permanently vacant, deeming such a state of things 
 discreditable to the teaching body. 
 
 Farington’s statement that the President by his cast- 
 ing vote secured the election of Bonomi as Associate, with 
 the view of procuring him to be subsequently made a full 
 Academician and appointed to the vacant Professorship, 
 is substantially correct. He thinks fit, however, to couple 
 with it the unworthy insinuation that Reynolds acted as 
 he did out of respect for Lord Aylesford and Bonomi’s 
 other avowed patrons. 
 
 After this preliminary struggle, in which the President 
 carried his candidate, was to come the real battle between 
 the new Associate, Bonomi, on the one hand, and a Mr 
 Edwards, also an Associate, on the other. A large and 
 
3 6 7 
 
 Quarrel with the Royal Academy 
 
 influential section of the Academicians had resolved that 
 the latter should be the new Professor of Perspective. It 
 is at this point that the cabal evidently existing within 
 the Academy against the President alleged, on his part, 
 an improper mode of procedure and an undue attempt to 
 influence their choice. Sir Joshua had notified to Bonomi 
 to send in some specimens of his architectural drawings on 
 the day appointed for the next meeting (February ioth), 
 to be placed in the council-room for inspection ; but 
 it was alleged by the cabal that the choice being be- 
 tween artists who were already Associates, and, there- 
 fore, presumably well-known to the Academy, this was 
 an offensive and unnecessary novelty, and the drawings 
 were accordingly, by a vote of the members assembled, 
 ordered to be removed. A ballot was thereupon taken, 
 not yet for the choice of the Professor of Perspective, 
 but for the election of a Royal Academician, to fill the 
 existing vacancy; and Fuseli, no candidate for the vacant 
 Professorship, was elected by a large majority, against 
 Bonomi. 
 
 The next step in the conflict was the formal resignation 
 by Sir Joshua, not only of the Presidency but of this 
 membership in the Royal Academy, this being addressed 
 to the secretary, without further allusion to the causes 
 which had brought it about. The master persisting in 
 his resignation, notwithstanding the King’s desire, ex- 
 pressed through Sir William Chambers, that he should 
 continue in the President’s chair, the general meeting of 
 the Academicians, assembled on the 3d of March 1790, 
 accepted that resignation, and determined upon shortly 
 taking steps to fill up the vacancy. 
 
 There is something inexpressibly mean and unworthy 
 in the slighting terms of the vote unanimously passed : 
 “ That the thanks of the Academy be given to Sir Joshua 
 
368 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Reynolds for the able and attentive manner in which he 
 had so many years discharged his duty as President of the 
 Society.” Even adopting the version furnished by the 
 cabal, we may, by reading between the lines, convince 
 ourselves of the feeling against Reynolds which coloured 
 the action of the majority, and made them seize upon a 
 plausible excuse for defying his authority. Decidedly the 
 infant Academy was not generous to its greatest members. 
 It had accepted, without any effort at appeasement, the 
 quarrel fastened upon it by hot-headed Gainsborough ; 
 and now, making no allowance for the inestimable services 
 rendered by the great leader, or his present misfortunes, 
 it elbowed him, on an insufficient pretext, out of the presi- 
 dential chair, and rewarded his services with a minute of 
 thanks more applicable to a subordinate clerk or officer in 
 some commercial concern than to Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 One can scarcely believe that the Academy is here 
 dealing with the painter whom, at the moment, there is 
 no longer any one to rival in England ; with the member 
 of the Academy whose unrivalled powers of attraction 
 for the public have, in a short time, placed the Society in 
 a position beyond the reach of competition. 
 
 This rough and unmannerly assertion of the letter of 
 the law by the majority was not, however, allowed to pass 
 without condemnation by the minority who had backed 
 up Reynolds in his action with regard to the vacant 
 Professorship. Thomas Sandby, Barry, Opie, Northcote, 
 Rigaud, Nollekens, Zoffany — that is, some of the most 
 distinguished members — signed an emphatic and even 
 violent protest, recording their approval of Sir Joshua’s 
 action on the occasion, and stigmatising as “an unpro- 
 voked and unmerited personal insult to the President, 
 from whose performances the Arts have received so much 
 honour, and from whose services the Academy has re- 
 
Quarrel with the Royal Academy 369 
 
 ceived so many important benefits, the ordering the speci- 
 mens of Mr Bonomi to be sent out of the room.” 
 
 Sir Joshua, in his own manuscript account of the 
 proceedings, dwells especially on the ardent desire he has 
 nourished, during the preceding five years, that the vacant 
 professorship be filled up. He quotes his eloquent plead- 
 ing to the Academicians in favour of Bonomi, including a 
 monition — as unpalatable, no doubt, then as it would be if 
 addressed to the Royal Academicians of our own day — 
 that “ no private friendship, or even near relation, should 
 outweigh the duty and obligation which they owed to 
 the Society ; that friendship, however valuable, was likely, 
 from what he had observed, to be the bane of the 
 Academy . . 
 
 His account of the already-mentioned sitting of the 
 10th of February, coloured as it evidently is with the 
 natural indignation aroused by the insulting treatment to 
 which he has been subjected, proves conclusively the ex- 
 istence of an overpowering faction, having already made 
 up its mind on the subject to be brought before the meet- 
 ing, and determined, with as little respect as possible, to 
 ride rough-shod over the President, and annihilate his 
 authority. 
 
 He, having — as he states — with great difficulty ob- 
 tained that the obnoxious drawings shall be placed in 
 a position where they can be seen, proceeds to make a 
 final appeal to the assembled members in favour of 
 Bonomi’s election as Academician. This is contemptu- 
 ously met by the curt motion, that the drawings be sent 
 out of the room, which is passed by a great majority. 
 Here it is interesting to find Barry — as passionate and 
 excessive in what he writes and says, as he is frigid and 
 calculating in what he paints — supporting Sir Joshua in 
 terms so unmeasured as the following : “ Nobody can be 
 
 2 A 
 
370 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 found so lost to all shame as to dare to second so in- 
 famous a motion.” 
 
 The election of Fuseli and the consequent resignation 
 of the President, have already been recorded. From the 
 final fragment of our master’s manuscript, it is evident 
 that he is not unconscious of the weak points in his own 
 case ; that he has a dramatic instinct sufficiently strong 
 to enable him to divine the view which, outside the sacred 
 walls, may be taken of the “ Battle of the Painters” by 
 those inclined to favour the enemy. 
 
 Without discussing the rights and wrongs of the 
 matter from the standpoint of pure routine, we may, 
 from the facts, as given by the respective parties — and 
 these do not, after all, show very material discrepancies — 
 draw certain inferences. It is pretty clear that the 
 question of filling the vacant Professorship of Perspective 
 was not the one which in reality so passionately interested 
 the Academicians : they chose it as a convenient casus 
 belli. The design of the majority, as Reynolds clearly 
 perceived, was to shake off the benignant, if a little too 
 fatherly, rule of their President, to rebel against the influ- 
 ence which his character and his social power, no less than 
 his artistic supremacy, caused him to exercise. It may be 
 that Sir Joshua’s long and successful reign had a little 
 too much led him to identify the Academy with himself ; 
 to dispense, according to his inclinations, and with refer- 
 ence to his social relations, its official hospitalities ; to take 
 too little count of the views of the other members. Still, 
 there can be no reasonable doubt of his absolute single- 
 mindedness, of the entire disinterestedness of his desire to 
 serve the best interests of the body over which he presided. 
 
 It will not be questioned that the rebellion against his 
 authority was carried out with unnecessary brutality, and 
 that it rested on insufficient grounds ; though, if the master 
 
Last Exhibited Works of Reynolds 37 1 
 
 had been in his usual health, and in the enjoyment of the 
 practice of his art, it is doubtful whether his resentment 
 would have taken the extreme form of a resignation, not 
 only of the office of President, but of the membership of 
 the Academy. 
 
 Now, however, the inimical Academicians apparently 
 perceived that they had gone too far, and that to sever 
 Reynolds’s connection with the Society, while he lived, was 
 to sever the head from the body. A meeting was held, at 
 which a resolution was passed, in terms calculated to ap- 
 pease the President’s resentment, and a committee ap- 
 pointed to wait upon him, requesting that, “in obedience 
 to the gracious desires of His Majesty, and in compliance 
 with the wishes of the Academy, he would withdraw his 
 letter of resignation.” Sir Joshua, to whom these overtures 
 for peace soon restored his wonted serenity, received the 
 deputation from the Academy with great civility, in- 
 vited them to dine, and having acceded to their wishes 
 by withdrawing his resignation, resumed the presidential 
 chair on the 16th of March — the gracious permission of 
 the King having been previously received. 
 
 The veteran master had still continued to paint at 
 intervals less for gain than amusement : sometimes 
 touching up old paintings in his possession, sometimes 
 working upon such of his own canvases as had re- 
 mained in the studio; not absolutely ceasing to toy 
 with the brush until November 1791. Leslie and 
 Taylor mention, dubitatively, as his last male portrait, 
 a fine one of Fox at Holland House. 
 
 The Exhibition of the Academy in 1790 was the last 
 which was adorned with Sir Joshua’s paintings; and 
 those shown on this occasion had, in most cases, been 
 completed, or carried to the verge of completion, before 
 the first signs of his misfortune appeared in July 1789. 
 
372 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Among the works exhibited was a portrait of the 
 master, by himself — evidently that famous and often- 
 repeated likeness of Sir Joshua in spectacles, which is 
 the best record of his vigorous old age, and has infinitely 
 more interest, in its simple truth, than the portrait dap- 
 parat painted, as we have seen, for Florence, and re- 
 peated with some variation for the Academy. The 
 canvas shown was, no doubt, the first of the type, and the 
 picture which passed to his niece, Miss Palmer, after the 
 master’s death. We have it, indeed, on Northcote’s 
 authority that this last-named portrait was the original. 
 It was No. 106 at the Reynolds Exhibition, to which it was 
 lent by Mrs Gwatkin. The same comprehensive display 
 of the President’s works contained two original repeti- 
 tions of the picture : one, the portrait belonging to the Duke 
 of Leeds (also mentioned by Northcote), the other, the 
 similar picture contributed by Mr Louis Huth — all three 
 canvases being of exactly the same dimensions. The 
 Marchioness of Thomond presented a copy of the same 
 likeness, in memory of her uncle, to The Club, in whose 
 possession it still remains. 
 
 The other works exhibited at the Academy on the 
 same occasion were : — The full-lengths of Lord Rawden, 
 and of “ Mrs Billington as St Cecilia ; ” and the half-lengths 
 of Sir John Leicester, Mrs Cholmondeley, and Sir James 
 Esdaile. 
 
 Miss Burney writes, in May 1790: — 
 
 “ My dear Mrs Ord was so good as to come to me 
 one morning at nine o’clock to take me to the exhibition, 
 where I saw, I fear, the last works of the first of our 
 painters — Sir Joshua Reynolds. The thought, and his 
 unhappy loss of eyesight, made the view of his pictures 
 very melancholy to me.” 
 
The Farewell Discourse 
 
 373 
 
 On the ioth of December 1790, the President delivers 
 his Fifteenth and farewell Discourse to the students of 
 the Academy, and in it, with perfect fairness and 
 characteristic tact, he makes some general reference to 
 the differences which have so nearly deprived him of the 
 right to address them again ex cathedra. While taking 
 care not to re-open in any way the controversy just 
 closed, he manages to record his satisfaction that the 
 Professorships have hitherto been filled by men of dis- 
 tinguished abilities, “who have so well acquitted them- 
 selves of their duty in their several departments. I look 
 upon it to be of importance,” he adds, “ that none of 
 them should be ever left unfilled : a neglect to provide for 
 qualified persons is to produce a neglect of qualifications.” 
 
 The Discourse winds up with the notable panegyric 
 of Michelangelo, the mighty figure whom he has con- 
 sistently and without affectation worshipped through his 
 career — introducing, as has been seen, his bust in his official 
 portrait, wearing his effigy as a talisman on his signet- 
 ring, building his artistic theories upon the practice of his 
 idol, so diametrically opposed to his own — but luckily 
 not indulging, save on the exceptional occasions to which 
 reference has been made, in an imitation for which he 
 has recognised himself to be too imperfectly equipped. 
 
 The concluding passage is as follows : — 
 
 “ I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses 
 bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine 
 man ; and I should desire that the last words I should 
 pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might 
 be the name of Michael Angelo .” 
 
 Leslie recounts, on the authority of Rogers, who, as a 
 young man, was present at the farewell, that, upon Rey- 
 nolds descending from the lecturer’s chair, Burke stepped 
 
374 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 forward, and taking his hand, held it while he addressed 
 him in the words of Milton : — 
 
 “ The angel ended, and in Adam’s ear 
 So charming left his voice, that he awhile 
 Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.” 
 
 This was one of Burke’s splendid theatricalities, of 
 which more memorable and historical instances will at 
 once occur to the reader. The compliment, though 
 magnificent, was not altogether well placed, seeing that, 
 however enthralling the matter of the Discourse might be, 
 the manner was anything but attractive. We have the 
 testimony of Northcote that the delivery of the Academy 
 Discourses was monotonous and ineffective, perhaps be- 
 cause the deafness of the lecturer stood in the way of an 
 expressive modulation of his voice. On one of the even- 
 ings, the audience consisting not only of artists, but of 
 
 “the learned and the great,” the Earl of C , coming 
 
 up to Reynolds at the end of his lecture, thus addressed 
 him : — “Sir Joshua, you read your Discourse in so low a 
 tone that I did not distinguish one word you said.” 
 To whom the President, with an exquisite urbanity 
 which should have been a lesson to the discourteous 
 interlocutor, replied : “ That was to my advantage.” 
 
 It would be a mistake to think of our master at this 
 moment (1791) as wholly giving way to depression, and 
 secluding himself from society, because he was half blind, 
 and thus for ever deprived of his life’s occupation. On the 
 contrary, we find him dining out, frequenting routs, paying 
 visits to great houses in the country as assiduously as 
 before — to Beaconsfield, to Ampthill, to Woburn Abbey 
 — and enthusiastically working to obtain subscriptions for 
 the monument to be erected to Dr Johnson in St Paul’s 
 
Decline of General Health 375 
 
 Cathedral. Moreover, he still continued to take an 
 active part in the direction of the Royal Academy, 
 and with great adroitness, notwithstanding the alleged 
 disapprobation of the King and the open opposition of Sir 
 William Chambers, succeeding in extracting from that 
 body a vote of £100 towards the monument of his friend. 
 The carrying of the vote was, above all, a victory over 
 Chambers, a friend whose action had now ceased to be 
 friendly. His plausible objection had been that the 
 monument was a business with which they had no con- 
 cern, the Doctor having no connection with the Academy 
 but the nominal one of deriving from it an empty title — 
 that of Professor of Ancient Literature. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s speech on the occasion is a vigorous and 
 even, for him, passionate piece of pleading, in a style more 
 direct, more full of point that anything to be found in the 
 formal Discourses. It proves not only his loyalty to his 
 dead companion, but his capacity for putting a dubious 
 case in the most convincing way, and gives evidence of 
 that pertinacity which, in his duel with the Academy, had 
 caused him, in the face of the most violent opposition, to 
 win in the long run. 
 
 Another instance of his desire and capacity to serve 
 the interests of his friends is the election of Boswell, in 
 July 1791, as Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to 
 the Academy, in succession to Baretti. It must be 
 owned that here friendship went a little too far, for, 
 although Bozzy had now, in virtue of his famous Life , 
 brought out in the April of this year) with a dedication to 
 Sir Joshua), become a man of letters entitled to be taken 
 seriously, yet there was nothing, either in his position or 
 in his special acquirements, entitling him to step into 
 the shoes of the accomplished though cantankerous per- 
 sonage who had been the first to hold the office. 
 
376 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 We have now arrived at the last sad stage of Sir 
 Joshua’s life-journey, in which, in addition to the partial 
 deprivation of eyesight which had already befallen him, 
 came the sudden and, to the physicians, so puzzling 
 breakdown of general health, bringing with it loss of 
 appetite and a depression of spirits from which he had 
 never before suffered. 
 
 On the ioth of November 1791, we find him writing 
 to West, expressing his intention to resign the office of 
 President, the duties of which he felt himself incapable of 
 performing during the ensuing year. The Academy, 
 desirous no doubt of making the amende honorable for the 
 ingratitude and the lack of common courtesy shown in 
 the war which had raged round the Professorship of Per- 
 spective, sent a deputation to assure the President of their 
 regret at his determination, and to request that he would 
 at least nominally retain the dignity, choosing a deputy 
 to act when necessary. Sir Joshua acquiesced, and was 
 re-elected President at the meeting of the ioth of Decem- 
 ber 1791, Benjamin West being appointed as his deputy. 
 It appears, however, that he was never again able to 
 perform any of the duties of the office which he had 
 filled with such unaffected dignity and such efficacious 
 zeal for the best interests of the Academy. In letting the 
 sceptre drop from his enfeebled hands he gave the surest 
 sign that he felt the end approaching. 
 
 Boswell writes to Temple in November 1791 : — 
 
 “ My spirits have been still more sunk by seeing 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds almost as low as myself. He has, 
 for more than two months past, had a pain in his blind 
 eye, the effect of which has been to occasion a weakness 
 in the other, and he broods over the dismal apprehen- 
 sion of becoming quite blind. He has been kept so 
 
377 
 
 Miss Burney s Account 
 
 low, as to diet, that he is quite relaxed and desponding. 
 He who used to be looked upon as, perhaps, the most 
 happy man in the world, is now as I tell you. I force 
 myself to be a great deal s with him, to do what is in my 
 power to amuse him. Your friend Miss Palmer’s assiduity 
 and attention to him, in every respect, is truly charming.’ ’ 
 
 Sir Joshua had been among those who worked most 
 zealously to obtain Miss Burney’s release from the Court 
 duties which had been undermining her health and wast- 
 ing her life, and which, it must be owned, she performed 
 so indifferently. She had finally quitted the Court on 
 July 7th, 1791, and in the month of September of that 
 year wrote : — 
 
 “ I dined with Sir Joshua last week, and met Mr 
 Burke and his brother, Mr Malone, the venerable Bishop 
 of St Pol de Leon, and a French abbe or chevalier.” 
 
 In October of the same year we find the following 
 record : — 
 
 “ Another evening .... my father took me to Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. I had long languished to see that 
 kindly, zealous friend, but his ill-health had intimidated 
 me from making the attempt ; and now my dear father 
 went upstairs alone, and inquired of Miss Palmer if her 
 uncle was well enough to admit me. He returned for me 
 immediately. I felt the utmost pleasure in again mount- 
 ing his staircase. I then shook hands with Sir Joshua. 
 He had a bandage over one eye, and the other shaded 
 with a green half-bonnet. He seemed serious even to 
 sadness, though extremely kind. 1 1 am very glad/ he 
 said, in a weak voice and dejected accent, ‘to see you 
 again, and I wish I could see you better, but I have only 
 
3/8 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 one eye now, and hardly that.’ I was really quite touched. 
 The expectation of total blindness depresses him inex- 
 pressibly, not, however, inconceivably (!). I hardly knew 
 how to express either my concern for his altered situation 
 since our meeting, or my joy on again being with him ; 
 but my difficulty was short. Miss Palmer eagerly drew 
 me to herself, and recommended to Sir Joshua to go on 
 with his cards. He had no spirit to oppose ; probably, 
 indeed, no inclination. 
 
 “ One other time we called again in a morning. Sir 
 Joshua and his niece were alone, and that invaluable man 
 was even more dejected than before.” 
 
 What Reynolds and his friends chiefly feared was the 
 humour which had gathered over the lost eye, and defied 
 all remedies. The depression and general physical decline 
 came, however, from a much more dangerous disease, 
 which Sir George Baker and Dr Warren, the two eminent 
 physicians attending him, showed themselves quite unable 
 to diagnose. They evidently held the mysterious dis- 
 order to be, in a great measure, the result of imagination, 
 and strove to stimulate their illustrious patient with the 
 usual commonplace, “ What can we do for a man who will 
 do nothing for himself? ” 
 
 It was only within a fortnight of his death that a 
 serious consultation of doctors and surgeons was held, 
 and it was discovered, too late, that the patient’s malady 
 was a grave affection of the liver — an inordinate growth 
 of the organ, which had incommoded all the bodily 
 functions. Malone states, indeed, that, on the body being 
 opened after death, the liver, which ought to have 
 weighed about five pounds, was found to have increased 
 to an extraordinary size, and to weigh nearly eleven. 
 Sir Joshua, wiser in this than his physicians, had from 
 
Burke s Account 
 
 379 
 
 the commencement of his final illness, a presenti- 
 ment of its fatal termination. When he had made 
 up his mind that there was no hope, he, indeed, dis- 
 played a serenity, an unaffected resignation, well worthy 
 of one whose life had been so well filled, so pure and 
 blameless as his. 
 
 Burke writes, on the 26th of January 1792, to his son 
 Richard : — 
 
 “Our poor friend Sir Joshua declines daily. For 
 some time past he has kept his bed. At times he has 
 pain, but, for the most part, is tolerably easy. Nothing 
 can equal the tranquillity with which he views his end. 
 He congratulates himself on it as a happy conclusion of a 
 happy life. He spoke of you in a style that was affecting. 
 I don’t believe there are any persons he values more 
 sincerely than you and your mother.” 
 
 It was on Thursday evening, the 23d of February 1792, 
 that Sir Joshua Reynolds expired, quietly and without 
 suffering, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. 
 
 It is not proposed to quote once again in full Burke’s 
 well-known obituary notice, written in his friend’s own 
 house, and a few hours after his death. It is the less 
 necessary to do so, because, while its splendid generalities 
 apply well enough to the master’s character, and fittingly 
 record the noble serenity of his life, they fail to 
 characterise his art with any degree of definiteness. The 
 sounding periods, rhetorically effective as they are, 
 leave, in this respect, but a vague and colourless im- 
 pression behind them. With much felicity he says, 
 however — and here we may surely agree with him, 
 although Sir Joshua himself would certainly have de- 
 precated such an assertion : — 
 
380 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “To be such a painter, he was a profound and pene- 
 trating philosopher.” 
 
 “ In full affluence of foreign and domestic fame, ad- 
 mired by the expert in art and by the learned in science, 
 courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and 
 celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, 
 modesty, and candour never forsook him, even on surprise 
 or provocation ; nor was the least degree of arrogance or 
 assumption visible to the most scrutinising eye in any 
 part of his conduct or discourse.” 
 
 On Saturday, the 3d of March 1792, the body, which 
 had, on the night previous to the funeral, been removed to 
 the Royal Academy, where it had lain in state in the 
 Model-Room, was interred in the crypt of St Paul’s 
 Cathedral, near the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren. The 
 funeral was the most imposing, the most remarkable for 
 the celebrated, the variously-distinguished personages who 
 attended it, that the eighteenth century had seen, with the 
 sole exception of that of Garrick, which, at least, equalled 
 it in these respects, and, indeed, included among the 
 mourners more than one illustrious man whose star had 
 gone under before that of Reynolds himself. 
 
 The pall-bearers at the solemn function in honour of 
 the deceased great master were the Dukes of Dorset, 
 Leeds and Portland, the Marquis Townshend, the Marquis 
 of Abercorn, the Earls of Carlisle, Inchiquin, and Upper 
 Ossory, Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Elliot. Edmund 
 Burke, Malone, and Metcalfe attended as executors ; after 
 these came the Royal Academy in a body, and the 
 students ; Bennet Langton, as Professor of Ancient Litera- 
 ture (in succession to Johnson) ; Boswell, as Secretary for 
 
The Funeral 
 
 381 
 
 Foreign Correspondence. The church was represented by 
 the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, and the 
 Dean of Norwich ; medicine by John Hunter, Dr For- 
 dyce, Dr Brocklesby, Dr Ash, etc. ; dilettantism and the 
 patronage of art by Sir George Beaumont, Sir Abraham 
 Hume, Charles Townley, John Julius Angerstein, Aider- 
 man Boydell ; the dramatic art by John Philip Kemble. 
 Solemn dignity, rather than more exterior pomp, marked 
 the memorable procession, the first carriage of which 
 had reached St Paul’s before the last had left Somerset 
 House. Well might Burke, writing to his son, say : — 
 “ Everything, I think, was just as our deceased friend 
 would, if living, have wished it to be, for he was, as you 
 know, not altogether indifferent to this kind of observ- 
 ances . . .” 
 
 As a memorial of the ceremony was presented a print, 
 engraved by Bartolozzi, showing a female mourner clasp- 
 ing an urn, accompanied by the Genius of Painting, 
 who holds in one hand an extinguished torch and points 
 with the other to a sarcophagus. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s will had been written entirely by himself, 
 and somewhat hurriedly, at a moment when he feared 
 that total blindness was imminent. By it he bequeathed 
 the great bulk of his considerable fortune to his niece, 
 Mary Palmer (afterwards Countess of Inchiquin, and 
 Marchioness of Thomond) — a just requital of her unre- 
 mitting care of him in later years, and one proof the more 
 of the perfect balance and equity of his character. His 
 favourite niece was unquestionably Offie (Theophila 
 Gwatkin) ; and yet she came off only second best, 
 although he left her the very substantial legacy of 
 £10,000 in the Three per Cents. The sister, Miss 
 Frances Reynolds, got £2500 in the funds for life, 
 with reversion to Miss Palmer. To Edmund Burke 
 
382 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 he left £ 2000 , besides cancelling a bond for the like 
 amount. 
 
 Among the legacies were : — 
 
 To the Earl of Upper Ossory, any picture of his own 
 painting, remaining undisposed of at his death, that he 
 might choose. (The picture chosen was the “ Nymph and 
 Boy,” or “ Venus and Cupid,” contributed by the 
 Dowager Lady Castletown of Upper Ossory to the Rey- 
 nolds Exhibition in 1884.) 
 
 To Lord Palmerston, the second choice. (The picture 
 actually chosen was the “ Infant Academy.”) 
 
 To Sir Abraham Hume, “the choice of his Claude 
 Lorraines.” 
 
 To Sir George Beaumont, Sebastian Bourdon’s “Re- 
 turn of the Ark ” (now No. 64 in the National Gallery). 
 
 William Mason obtained the miniature of Milton by 
 Samuel Cooper, and Richard Burke, junior, the Cromwell 
 by the same famous artist. 
 
 The fine cabinet of drawings, including many which 
 have since found their way into the national and other great 
 collections, was sold in 1794. In March 1795 the carefully- 
 chosen collection of pictures by old masters, which had 
 been offered to the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua during 
 his lifetime at a very low price, but declined by them, was 
 sold by auction for £1 0,3 19, 2s. 6d. In 1796 the con- 
 tents of the studio, including various historical and fancy 
 pieces of the master’s own painting, together with some 
 unclaimed portraits (failures, or canvases never paid for ?), 
 were sold, and fetched ^4535, 18s. The sale in 1821 of 
 the pictures which had been retained by Lady Thomond, 
 including the “Virtues” for the New College window, 
 brought no less than 15,040 — a notable proof of the 
 
 rapid increase in value of Sir Joshua’s works after his 
 death. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Technique of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Art in the Earlier and Later Time — Causes 
 of Prematuie Fading and Decay — In the Earlier Period — In the Later 
 Period — Best Preserved Canvases — Reynolds as a Man of Letters — Plis 
 Development and Literary Style — His Theory not in agreement with 
 his Practice — Notes to Mason’s Translation of Du Fresnoy’s Art of 
 Painting — Journey to Flanders and Holland — Analysis of the Fifteen 
 Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy. 
 
 THIS is not the place for an elaborate disquisition on 
 the technical methods of Sir Joshua Reynolds, even did 
 the writer deem himself competent to undertake an ex- 
 amination of them. It is necessary, all the same, to say 
 a few words on the subject, seeing that the ephemeral 
 character of his colouring was proverbial in his own 
 day, even as it is in ours, and that his sitters had fully 
 as much ground for complaint, in this respect, as the 
 special class of Reynolds amateurs have had, and still 
 have, for fear and misgiving in our own. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable than the continued 
 vogue of the master, the artistic and popular supremacy 
 maintained by him, practically without a break, through- 
 out his lengthy career, notwithstanding this terrible 
 uncertainty, of which his sitters must, after a time, have 
 been perfectly well aware. Knowing the risks they 
 ran, and what a lottery it was whether the glow of Sir 
 Joshua’s colour would endure, or prove as evanescent as 
 
 383 
 
3^4 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 the vapours of morning, the majority of them must yet 
 have been of the opinion expressed by Opie, “that the 
 faded pictures of Reynolds were finer than those of most 
 other painters in a perfect condition.” 
 
 The contemporary records are full of allusions to 
 the fleeting character of his pigments ; as when 
 Horace Walpole suggests that he ought to be paid for 
 his pictures by annuities, to endure as long as the 
 canvases themselves. On another occasion, because the 
 master will not go into raptures over his famous “ Henry 
 VII.,” and declares it to be in the old Flemish manner, 
 he suggests ill-naturedly (in a passage already quoted) 
 that Sir Joshua is loth to admire paint that has lasted so 
 long. It has been quaintly said, too, from the bad state 
 of his pictures even in his own time, that his portraits 
 perished sooner than the men they represented. The 
 occasion has already been referred to on which Sir 
 Joshua took back of his own accord, in after years, 
 and renovated with “ fast colours,” the portrait of Sir 
 William Hamilton. He has himself said, in the course 
 of some remarks on his practice : — 
 
 “ I was always willing to believe that my uncertainty 
 of proceeding in my works — that is, my never being sure 
 of my hand, and my frequent alterations — arose from a 
 refined taste, which could not acquiesce in anything short 
 of a high degree of excellence. I had not an opportunity 
 of being early initiated in the principles of colouring ; no 
 man, indeed, could teach me. If I have never been 
 settled with respect to colouring, let it, at the same time, 
 be remembered that my unsteadiness in this respect pro- 
 ceeded from an inordinate desire to possess every kind 
 of excellence that I saw in the work of others, without 
 considering that there are, in colouring, as in style, 
 
Causes of Fading and Decay 38 5 
 
 excellences which are incompatible with each other. 
 However, this pursuit, or, indeed, any similar pursuit, 
 prevents the artist from being tired of his art. We all 
 know how often those masters who sought after colouring 
 changed their manners ; while others, merely from not 
 seeing various modes, acquiesced all their lives in that with 
 which they set out. On the contrary, I tried every effect 
 of colour, and, leaving out every colour in its turn, showed 
 every colour that I could do without it. As I alter- 
 nately left out every colour, I tried every new colour, and 
 often, it is well known, failed. The former practice, I am 
 aware, may be compared, by those whose chief object is 
 ridicule, to that of the poet mentioned in the Spectator, 
 who, in a poem of twenty-four books, contrived in each 
 book to leave out a letter. But I was influenced by no 
 such idle or foolish affectation. My fickleness in the mode 
 of colouring arose from an eager desire to attain the 
 highest excellence. This is the only merit I assume to 
 myself from my conduct in that respect. . . 
 
 Of the constant fidgetiness of his practice, of the 
 tentative variations and experiments in which he indulged 
 during the whole of the earlier half of his career — and, 
 indeed, in a greater or less degree, throughout his life — 
 those curious, technical notes are the best evidence, which, 
 jotted down in a strange jargon of Italian interlarded with 
 English, are to be found scattered through the Pocket- 
 Books. There is, of course, nothing unusual in the pro- 
 gressive and legitimate development of an artist’s technical 
 methods as his career advances, as his style widens and 
 changes. There are, on the other hand, but few instances 
 of a master arrived at maturity so varying his practice as 
 Reynolds did, from picture to picture, and almost from day 
 to day, in the search after more brilliant and yet more 
 
386 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 brilliant effects of colour ; or showing so light-hearted a 
 disregard as he did of the dangers involved in such a 
 method. In the English school almost the only parallel 
 instance is to be found in Turner’s experimental tech- 
 nique, more particularly in his third and most dazzling 
 manner ; and of this the disastrous results are only too 
 convincingly shown in many a magnificent ruin in the 
 National Gallery and elsewhere. 
 
 Two main causes have been at work to account for 
 that decay and disintegration, of which no one who has 
 even a passing acquaintance with Sir Joshua’s canvases 
 can remain unaware. The first is the use, or rather the 
 abuse, by him of such ephemeral colours as lake and 
 carmine, in the glazings which were the finish and the 
 chief beauty of his paintings ; the result being that these 
 semi-transparent tints evaporated, leaving exposed, in the 
 firm modelling of the earlier time, the pallid forms of Sir 
 J oshua’s sitters — ghosts of their former selves. As examples, 
 but very mitigated ones, of this kind of metamorphosis, 
 may be cited the half-length “Lady Elizabeth Keppel,” 
 and the beautiful “ Countess of Albemarle ” in the National 
 Gallery, the latter of which, faded as it is, still remains a 
 work of exquisite distinction. This practice, which dis- 
 tinguishes chiefly the earlier half of the master’s career, 
 is shown, nevertheless, to have endured, in a greater 
 or less degree, down to, and even beyond, 1770. As we 
 gather from the notes that lake and vermilion were being 
 used almost contemporaneously on different canvases about 
 this period, it may be assumed that he weaned himself, by 
 degrees, and with difficulty, from the dangerous practice. 
 
 In Mason’s Observations on Sir Joshua Reynolds s 
 Method of Colouring , published by Cotton in 1859, ^ ie 
 amateur painter and professional poet gives, according to 
 his lights, an account of the painter’s method in the year 
 
Causes of Fading and Decay 387 
 
 1754, when he saw him lay in and work upon a portrait of 
 Lord Holderness. He notes here that, even for the too 
 rubicund countenance of the sitter, no vermilion was used, 
 but, as he imagined, lake. The picture appears to have 
 been, when just finished, a brilliant performance ; but while 
 the crimson coat stood well, the flesh tints very soon faded , 
 and soon after the forehead in particular cracked, and would 
 have peeled off, had it not been repaired by Reynolds’s 
 pupil Doughty. Northcote, later on, ventures to remon- 
 strate with his master, and to recommend the use of ver- 
 milion in lieu of lake and carmine. To whom he replies, 
 looking at his hand, “ I can see no vermilion in flesh.” 
 
 In the later works the chief causes of decay have been 
 the abuse of bitumen, or asphaltum, in the backgrounds and 
 shadows, causing a sort of semi-liquefa ction in the pigments, 
 and then corrugation, cracking, and opacity. And again, 
 the vehicle employed is often a waxy-resinous one, the 
 result being that the colours mixed with it rise up in 
 blisters or cracks, and are liable to be detached from the 
 surface, with the result that the process of re-lining, or, 
 more properly, back-lining, becomes necessary. The ap- 
 plication of hot irons, in order by force to unite the new 
 with the old canvas, often obliterates the sharpness, the 
 accentuations of touch, of the picture in its more pastose 
 portions, and even — when, as is often the case, wax has 
 entered into the composition of the pigments — melts them, 
 and gives a blurred and confused appearance to the whole. 
 
 Yet another cause of decay and ruin has been the ignor- 
 ance and lack of care of many picture-cleaners. Regard- 
 less of Sir Joshua’s subtle glazes underlying the coats 
 of darkened varnish which it is sought to remove, they 
 have treated the latter with solvents, not only removing 
 the offending outer surface which has discoloured and 
 obscured the work, but with it the finishing glazes them- 
 
388 Sir y oshua Reynolds 
 
 selves — thus flaying and ruining the canvas under treat- 
 ment. If the peculiarity of Sir Joshuas technique has 
 caused him to suffer, perhaps more than any other artist 
 of his time, from the process, he is certainly not alone 
 in so suffering. Many of Gainsborough’s canvases have 
 been seen — especially at the Old Masters Exhibitions of 
 the Royal Academy — transformed into chalky, anaemic 
 shadows by some similar process ; though, as a rule, his 
 paste is of a more resisting character, and can somewhat 
 better withstand the onslaughts of the picture-cleaner, than 
 that of his great contemporary. 
 
 It is not possible to concede more than a limited acqui- 
 escence to Tom Taylor’s dictum that, as a rule, “ Reynolds’s 
 pictures, during the eight or ten years after 1752, are more 
 simply and safely painted than his later ones.” They are 
 certainly the former, but are they the latter ? The majority 
 of pictures in the “ ghost ” condition unquestionably belong 
 to the earlier half of the master’s career — so much so, 
 indeed, that this pallid, exsangue aspect is one of the 
 denoting marks by which productions of this period may 
 be assigned to their proper places in the life-work of the 
 master. On the other hand, we are all familiar with 
 terrible ruins belonging to the later phases of his career — 
 ruins in which the splendid glow, emulating now that of 
 Venice, now that of Rembrandt, is obscured to blackness by 
 dirty, irremovable varnish ; or fused into a hardly distin- 
 guishable mass of pigments, of loose, blurred contours, by 
 some of the processes which have just been shortly indicated. 
 
 Still, if we are asked to single out the best pre- 
 served canvases of the master — those in which his power 
 and brilliancy appear least impaired, those, in fact, in which 
 the typical Sir Joshua still most unmistakably shines forth 
 — we must select such works as the “ Lady Cockburn and 
 her Children” (1773-5); the “Miss Bowles” (1775) 5 the two 
 
Development of Literary Ability 389 
 
 “ Dilettanti” portrait-groups ( 1777-1780); the “Countess of 
 Lincoln,” and “Lady Elizabeth Seymour” (both between 
 1781-4) ; the “Ladies Waldegrave ” (1781) ; the “Mrs Mary 
 Robinson” (1782); the “Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse” 
 (1784); the “Lady Caroline Price” (1786); the “Lady 
 Elizabeth Poster ” (1787) ; the “ Heads of Angels” at the 
 National Gallery (1787) ; the “ Mrs Braddyll” (1789). 
 
 Malone, though he naturally views Reynolds and his art 
 chiefly from the literary side, finds space to record that he 
 was “so anxious to discover the method used by the 
 Venetian painters that he destroyed some valuable ancient 
 pictures by rubbing out the various layers of colour, in order 
 to investigate and ascertain it.” As Sir Joshua has been 
 found on all other occasions showing an extreme reverence 
 for the works of the old masters — save that he is, on occa- 
 sion, a little too confident in his own powers of restoration — 
 we need not seriously infer from this passage that he ever 
 actually destroyed or irreparably injured any ancient work 
 of value. He may well have experimented on the corpus 
 vile of some inferior school work, but for any such ruthless 
 destruction as here hinted at he was far too enthusiastic 
 a student — and also, be it remembered, too keen a man of 
 business. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in the great career of our 
 master than the genuine literary ability which he developed 
 by degrees, side by side with, yet quite independently of, 
 his artistic capacity. And we must wonder the more 
 when we remember that he received not more than the 
 education of the average school-boy of his time, and in 
 the course of his well-filled and practically uninterrupted 
 career was unable to supplement early deficiencies by any 
 sustained course of reading or study. We have before us 
 the instance of a mind developed and a talent matured as 
 it were from without, by constant contact with the noblest 
 
390 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 intellects of the time ; with all that was most brilliant and 
 most weighty in the world of literature ; most able and 
 most aspiring in the world of statesmanship and politics ; 
 most sprightly and most distinguished in the worlds of 
 aristocratic and literary fashion ; most fascinating in that 
 world within a world — the stage. The intellect of the great 
 painter was, as we have seen, a singularly receptive, a singu- 
 larly clear and unbiassed one ; the opportunities afforded 
 to him for cultivation, by uninterrupted intercourse with 
 the various circles in which his sympathetic personality 
 found and maintained a prominent place, v/ere unique ; 
 and the result was the singular progressive development 
 that may be traced no less in the man than in the artist. 
 
 It may not be useless to repeat that this evident desire 
 for mental development in every direction, this far-reach- 
 ing interest in things not immediately connected with the 
 technical side of art, must account in a great measure for 
 the fact already commented upon, that Sir Joshua sought 
 somewhat less than might have been expected the society 
 of his brother-artists and his own kind. He by no means 
 shunned or slighted them, but he evidently preferred the 
 invigorating companionship of the brilliant contemporaries 
 with whom we have seen him associating in loving intimacy 
 throughout the forty years of his great career. 
 
 This development in the direction of synthesis, of that 
 wide and not infrequently felicitous generalisation which 
 has been so often and so justly noted as the most distin- 
 guishing feature of his literary work, may be seen gradually 
 growing ; the views of the master, on the theory even 
 more than the practice of art, may be seen enfolding them- 
 selves with greater authority and with less dogmatism as 
 he goes along. The kernel of his theories may, no doubt, 
 be found in those three short letters to the Idler, written in 
 1759, at the instance of Dr Johnson ; but here the writer is 
 
39i 
 
 Notes on Masons Du Fresnoy 
 
 at once more absolute and less felicitous in his generalisa- 
 tions, more inclined to paradox in his enunciations, both 
 of theory and of fact, than he becomes later on in the Dis- 
 courses. Moreover, as we pass from the earlier to the later 
 of these, we perceive a marked increase in their literary 
 and didactic value. There becomes evident a very notable 
 desire to correct the occasional excess and exaggeration 
 of statement into which the President of the Royal 
 Academy, addressing its students ex cathedra , and seeking 
 to underline as strongly as he can the theories and 
 precepts which he inculcates, has been betrayed. 
 
 Sir Joshua, as the man of letters, as the theorist and 
 preceptor in the art of which he is, in his own peculiar 
 way, so brilliant a practician, need not be looked for far 
 beyond the Fifteen Discourses. 
 
 The notes to William Mason’s translation of Alphonse 
 Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting constitute, however, an 
 excellent supplement to these, with here and there a 
 practical piece of advice to the artist, or a pithy condensa- 
 tion of artistic experience strikingly put ; but in general they 
 are at one with the principles more elaborately and with 
 more of oratorical dignity enunciated in the Discourses. 
 
 So masterly a passage as the following piece of satire, 
 veiled in precept — contained in the painter’s note* on the 
 line, 
 
 “ ’Twas not by words Apelles charm’d mankind,” 
 cannot be passed over in silence : — 
 
 “ As Fresnoy has condescended to give advice of a 
 prudential kind, let me be permitted here to recommend 
 to the artist to talk as little as possible of his own works, 
 much less to praise them ; and this not so much for the 
 sake of avoiding the character of vanity, as for keeping 
 * Note IX., verse 89. 
 
392 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 clear of a real detriment ; of a real productive cause 
 which prevents his progress in his art, and dulls the edge 
 of enterprise. 
 
 “ He who has the habit of insinuating his own excel- 
 lence to the little circle of his friends, with whom he comes 
 into contact, will grow languid in his exertions to fill 
 a larger space of reputation. He will fall into the habit 
 of acquiescing in the partial opinions of a few ; he will 
 grow restive in his own ; by admiring himself he will 
 come to repeat himself, and then there is an end of im- 
 provement. In a painter it is particularly dangerous to 
 be too good a speaker ; it lessens the necessary endeavours 
 to make himself master of the language which properly 
 belongs to his art — that of his pencil. This circle of self- 
 applause and reflected admiration is to him the world, 
 which he vainly imagines he has engaged in his party, 
 and therefore supposes that further enterprise becomes 
 less necessary.” 
 
 This state of things obtains to a far greater extent in 
 our own day than it could possibly have done in Sir 
 Joshua’s. His words of wisdom conjure up for us, as 
 vividly as may be, the many little pontiffs, each of a 
 separate artistic religion, complacently snuffing up the 
 fumes of the incense offered them by disciple and imitator, 
 and letting genius pale and wither by too carefully shroud- 
 ing it from the keen blast of public opinion. 
 
 The “Journey to Flanders and Holland in the year 
 1781 ” is chiefly remarkable as containing much valuable 
 appreciation and criticism, by an artist of eminence, of his 
 great predecessors among the Flemish masters, and chiefly 
 of Rubens and Van Dyck. It is in the form, not of a 
 sustained work, but of notes on the individual pictures, 
 very many of them still to be found in the same places in 
 
Opinions on Flemish Art 393 
 
 which Reynolds inspected them. A word has already 
 been said about the remarkable “ Character of Rubens,” 
 with which the notes conclude. It is an excellent sum- 
 ming up of the merits and defects of the mighty 
 Antwerper, whom he had avowedly learnt to love and 
 to understand better since he had studied him at his 
 proper home in the churches of Flanders, and in the 
 Dusseldorf Gallery, then enriched with the famous series 
 of pictures by the Flemish master which are now one 
 of the chief glories of the Alte Pinakothek of Munich. 
 
 There is much here that serves as a corrective to 
 the too extreme pronouncements of the Sir Joshua of the 
 Discourses on the “ grand style,” on the sublimities 
 of Michelangelo, and the rare perfections of the 
 “ Bolognian ” school, the praises of which he therein so 
 often finds occasion to sing, with an eloquence and an 
 enthusiasm that cannot be other than genuine. Much 
 earlier — at the close of his Italian tour — we find him, with 
 an intuitive sympathy, analysing and commenting on 
 the masterpieces of sixteenth-century Venetian art, with 
 an attention to the relative proportions of light and shade, 
 and to technique generally, such as he had hardly paid, 
 even to the much-worshipped productions of Buonarroti 
 and Sanzio in the Vatican. Now, again, notwithstanding 
 the strictures and criticisms with which he deems it neces- 
 sary to qualify his admiration, we see how spontaneous, 
 how ardent is his sympathy with the great Venetian of 
 Flanders. 
 
 He loves, and almost fears to love too well, the painter 
 of whom he says, “ the effect of his pictures may be not 
 improperly compared to clusters of flowers ; ” whom, in 
 those final words of his, he appears to be defending, not 
 only against the strictures of others, but against his own 
 in another place : — 
 
394 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ Those who cannot see the extraordinary merit of 
 this great painter, either have a narrow conception of 
 the variety of art, or are led away by the affectation 
 of approving nothing but what comes from the Italian 
 school.” 
 
 How strangely contrasts with this enthusiasm the curt, 
 dry paragraph devoted by the master to the description 
 of one of the world’s noblest works — the “ Adoration 
 of the Lamb” of Hubert and Jan van Eyck at Ghent; 
 then seen there in its entirety, and not, as now, despoiled 
 of the wings, which we have to seek out at Berlin and 
 Brussels : — 
 
 “In a chapel is a work of the brothers Van Eyck, 
 representing the Adoration of the Lamb, a story from the 
 Apocalypse. It contains a great number of figures in a 
 hard manner, but there is a great character of truth and 
 nature in the heads, and the landskip is well coloured.” 
 
 This is the “hard, Flemish manner,” of which Sir 
 Joshua, even in praise, speaks disprezzando, and which 
 Horace Walpole — let it always be remembered to his 
 credit — could appreciate at a moment when in England 
 he was almost alone in so doing. 
 
 But it is, after all, to the Discourses that we must look 
 for the authoritative statement of Sir Joshua’s view\s on 
 the theory and practice of his art ; and none was more 
 keenly aware than himself how little his life-work, 
 supremely successful as it was, conformed to, or illus- 
 trated, those views. At the same time it must be borne 
 in mind that the lectures in question were all — with the 
 exception of the First and the Ninth — prepared for and 
 delivered to the students of the Royal Academy ; that the 
 lecturer accordingly felt bound to enunciate for their 
 
The First and Second Discourses 
 
 395 
 
 benefit, as strongly and definitely as possible, those prin- 
 ciples which he judged best calculated to guide and 
 strengthen the pupil in the beginnings of an artistic 
 career. The keynote is to be found in the First Dis- 
 course, addressed to the Members on the opening of the 
 Royal Academy : — 
 
 “ I would chiefly recommend,” he says, “ that an 
 implicit obedience to the rules of art , as established by 
 the practice of the great masters, should be exacted from 
 the young students. That those models which have 
 passed through the approbation of ages should be con- 
 sidered by them as perfect and infallible guides, as sub- 
 jects for their imitation — not their criticism.” 
 
 And again : — 
 
 “ The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow 
 approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere 
 impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They 
 wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to 
 obtain the reward of eminence by other means than those 
 which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed.” 
 
 The Second Discourse — the first of the series addressed 
 to the students — deals with the three distinct stages which 
 the President marks out in the study of painting, and with 
 the models which the students are to place before them- 
 selves as an aid to their self-development. “ Instead of 
 copying the touches of those great masters, ” he wisely 
 observes, “copy only their conceptions. Instead of 
 treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the 
 same road. Labour to invent on their general principles 
 and way of thinking. Possess yourself with their spirit.” 
 He later goes on — in strong contradiction with the spirit 
 
396 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 if not with the letter of this most excellent precept, to 
 propose as a model for style in painting the head of the 
 Bolognese eclectics, Ludovico Carracci. This strange 
 proposition is supported by the statement that : “ His 
 
 unaffected breadth of light and shadow, the simplicity of 
 colouring, which, holding its proper rank, does not draw 
 aside the least part of the attention from the subject, and 
 the solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused 
 over his pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave and 
 dignified subjects better than the more artificial brilliancy 
 of sunshine (!) which enlightens the pictures of Titian.” 
 We had imagined, with all due respect to Sir 
 Joshua, that the principles of the eclectic school of 
 Bologna, as practised by the Carracci, and especially by 
 Ludovico and Agostino — the effort to combine into an 
 artificial whole the power of Michelangelo, the suavity of 
 Raphael, the seductive graces of the Parmese School, and 
 the splendours of the Venetians — were calculated to kill 
 all true self-development from within. Is not the result 
 of their teaching and example to substitute for that in- 
 vention which Reynolds felicitously characterises as “a 
 new combination of those images which have been previ- 
 ously gathered and deposited in the memory,” an arbitrary 
 juxtaposition, in which the warring elements do not and 
 cannot coalesce so as to acquire a renewed vitality? In- 
 deed, throughout, one cannot help feeling that Sir Joshua 
 is schooling himself into this admiration of the Bolognese 
 School, so universal in his time, and that it is not the 
 artist but the generalising theorist who is attracted by 
 this phase of Italian art — who thinks himself compelled by 
 reason to admire, where the painter, genuinely awed though 
 he undoubtedly is by the superhuman majesty of Michel- 
 angelo, is naturally drawn towards Venice, towards 
 Antwerp, towards Amsterdam. 
 
The Third Discourse 
 
 397 
 
 In the Third Discourse, Sir Joshua applies himself to 
 define the “great style,” and to point out how the perfect 
 ideal of beauty is to be evolved by a process of selection, 
 by an elimination from the beautiful forms of nature of 
 the accidental blemishes which obscure them. Going 
 beyond the process by which the Greeks, starting on a 
 basis of realism and never departing from natural truth, 
 attained to their genuine ideality, the master — the theor- 
 ist again dominating the artist — proceeds to set up the 
 following canon, the following invariable law of beauty : — 
 
 “ Though the most perfect forms of each of the general 
 divisions of the human figure are ideal, and superior to 
 any individual form of that class, yet the highest perfec- 
 tion of the human figure is not to be found in any one of 
 them. It is not in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor 
 in the Apollo, but in that form which is taken from them 
 all, which partakes equally of the activity of the Gladiator, 
 of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength 
 of the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must 
 combine all the characters which are beautiful in that 
 species. It cannot consist of any one to the exclusion of 
 the rest : no one, therefore, must be predominant, that 
 no one may be deficient.” 
 
 But is this not reducing beauty in the human form to 
 a cold, meaningless abstraction, almost to a mathematical 
 combination ? Is it not eliminating not only the acci- 
 dental blemishes which obscure the type in the imperfect 
 individual, but also the inherent character, which is of the 
 essence not less of the type than of the individual ; with- 
 out which art, as the exponent, the interpreter of nature 
 to the eyes which unaided would fail to take in her 
 comprehensiveness, can have no existence. Diametri- 
 cally opposed to such a theory is the practice of the 
 
398 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 Greeks in the most representative works which have 
 come down to us : — in the “ Theseus (Olympos ?) ” and 
 the “Cephisos” of the Parthenon, in the “Hermes” of 
 Praxiteles, in the “ Demeter ” of Cnidos ; and, hardly 
 less contrary to it, the practice of Michelangelo. Luckily, 
 too, Reynolds himself had neither the power nor the in- 
 clination to put so negative a theory into practice. 
 
 In the Fourth Discourse, the President proceeds to 
 develop his ideas on the grand style, as applied to inven- 
 tion. to composition, to expression, and even to colouring 
 and drapery. In some passages of this lecture, we seem 
 to hear not Reynolds but the rhetorical, the ultra-classic 
 David himself. So persistent is the elimination of the 
 particular, the exclusion of the “vulgarism of ordinary 
 life in any country,” the limitation of the choice of sub- 
 ject to “ instances of heroic action or heroic sufferings,” 
 or, “ the capital subjects of Scripture history.” Here 
 again is continued the plaidoyer , so strange as coming 
 from our master, in favour of the Roman, the Florentine, 
 the Bolognese Schools — “ the three great schools of the 
 world in the epic style,” — after these being made to rank, 
 in a lower category, the Venetian, the Flemish and Dutch 
 Schools, “ all professing to depart from the great purposes 
 of painting and catching at applause by inferior qualities.” 
 This deliberate depreciation of Venetian art, in favour of 
 what may be termed the more Academic schools, may, 
 perhaps, to a certain extent be explained and excused 
 as coming from the head of an Academy addressing its 
 students. Not so the apparent misapprehension of the 
 scope and intention of the great Venetian art, contained 
 in such sentences as the following : — 
 
 “ Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian 
 school, seem to have painted with no other purpose than 
 
The Fourth Discourse 
 
 399 
 
 to 'be admired for their skill and expertness in the 
 mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that 
 art which, as I before observed, the high style still 
 requires its followers to conceal.” 
 
 It is difficult to believe that, under any conceivable 
 circumstances, the following astonishing sentence can ever 
 have represented Sir Joshua’s true views with regard 
 to Venetian colouring : — 
 
 “ Even in colouring, if we compare the quietness and 
 chastity of the Bolognese pencil to the bustle and tumult 
 that fills every part of a Venetian picture, without the 
 least attempt to interest the passions, their boasted art 
 will appear a mere struggle without effect : a tale told by 
 an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .” 
 
 It is only fair to our master to point out that, in a 
 subsequent section of the same Discourse, he thus exempts 
 from his sweeping censure the works of Titian : — 
 
 “Though his style is not so pure as that of many 
 others of the Italian schools, yet there is a sort of senato- 
 rial dignity about him which, however awkward in his 
 imitators, seems to become him exceedingly. His por- 
 traits alone, from the nobleness and simplicity of char- 
 acter which he always gave them, will entitle him to the 
 greatest respect, as he undoubtedly stands in the first 
 rank in this branch of the art.” 
 
 He sums up with the conclusion — a fatally erroneous 
 and destructive one, as we deem it — that there must neces- 
 sarily exist two distinct styles in history-painting : the 
 grand, and the splendid or ornamental. It is against 
 
400 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 such a conclusion, as extended to art generally, that 
 the whole life-work of Mr Ruskin has been directed, and 
 if he had done nothing beyond contributing to overthrow 
 it, the English-speaking world would owe him a debt of 
 gratitude, the magnitude of which it would be difficult 
 to exaggerate. 
 
 In the Fifth Discourse the President strives to mitigate 
 to a certain extent the extreme rigour of the conclusions 
 arrived at in the preceding one. He opines, “that the 
 ornamental style which, in my Discourse of last year, I 
 cautioned you against, considering it as a principal may 
 not be wholly unworthy the attention even of those who 
 aim at the grand style, when it is properly placed and pro- 
 perly reduced.” Sir Joshua’s paragon, Ludovico Caracci, is 
 put forward once more — this time as mitigating the severity 
 of the great with the graces of the ornamental style. 
 
 Into the disquisition on the genius of Michelangelo 
 and Raphael, and the main points of contrast between 
 the two, it is impossible here to enter, interesting as it is. 
 Sir Joshua goes evidently too far in attributing to his 
 fetish even the existence of Raphael ; but few, even 
 among the most ardent worshippers of the divine Urbinate, 
 will object to the following conclusion : — 
 
 “ His genius, however formed to blaze and to shine, 
 might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever have 
 lain dormant, if it had not caught a spark by its contact 
 with Michael Angelo ; and though it never burst out with 
 his extraordinary heat and vehemence, yet it must be 
 acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and chaste 
 flame.” 
 
 The subject of the Sixth Discourse is, as the President 
 himself states, Imitation ; and here he takes and defends, 
 
The Sixth Discourse 
 
 401 
 
 with singular ability and good sense, the position that 
 the painter must, of necessity, be an imitator, not only 
 of the works of nature, but of those of other painters. 
 
 “Invention,” he says, “is one of the great marks of 
 genius ; but if we consult experience, we shall find that 
 it is by being conversant with the inventions of others 
 that we learn to invent ; as by reading the thoughts of 
 others we learn to think.” 
 
 He goes on to point out that imitation ought not to be 
 confined to any one great master — be he Raphael him- 
 self — but should be enlarged so as to include all worthy 
 of the name. 
 
 Such imitation as he advocates must not, however, be 
 accepted as extending to an imitation of mannerisms and 
 defects — in which sense it results in the deplorable school 
 left behind by Michelangelo ; or an artificial grouping 
 together of perfections difficult to reconcile the one 
 with the other — in which case it becomes the frigid 
 eclecticism of the Carracci, so persistently put for- 
 ward as an example by our master. The imitation 
 should address itself, as Reynolds himself points out, 
 even more to the methods and standpoint of the great 
 masters in approaching and interpreting nature, than 
 to their individual works. Yet, experience teaches that 
 there is hardly a great artist but who, in his beginnings, 
 has been grafted on, has sprung from, another great 
 artist ; and to enumerate instances would but be to give 
 the greatest names in art, and not only in so-called 
 fine-art, but pre-eminently in music : for nothing can 
 come of nothing ! 
 
 Of peculiar interest is that section of the Discourse 
 which deals with imitation of another kind, with the bor- 
 
 2 C 
 
402 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 rowing of a particular thought, an action, attitude, or 
 figure, and the transplanting of it into your own work ; 
 since this process has often been performed with rare feli- 
 city by Sir Joshua himself, and his defence is the more 
 able and convincing for being a personal one. He lays it 
 down that : — 
 
 “ He who borrows an idea from an antient, or even 
 from a modern artist, not his contemporary, and so 
 accomodates it to his own work that it makes a part 
 of it, with no seam or joining appearing, can hardly be 
 charged with plagiarism. . . . Borrowing or stealing, with 
 such art and caution, will have a right to the same lenity 
 as was used by the Lacedaemonians, who did not punish 
 theft, but the want of artifice to conceal it” 
 
 How much truer is the following of the Italian artists 
 of to-day than it could have been even of those of Sir 
 Joshua’s time : — 
 
 “ It is difficult to conceive how the present Italian 
 painters, who live in the midst of the treasures of art, 
 should be contented with their own style. They proceed 
 in their common-place inventions, and never think it 
 worth while to visit the works of those great artists with 
 which they are surrounded.” 
 
 In the Seventh Discourse, Sir Joshua’s chief theme is 
 Genius and Taste, and he strives to demonstrate that 
 those who are to judge of the merit and defects of 
 art must have settled principles by which to regulate 
 their decisions, and must not let these be determined by 
 unguided fancy. He proceeds to lay down that the 
 general terms beauty and nature, and the conceptions 
 
The Seventh and Eighth Discotirses 403 
 
 attaching to them — in which he includes not only outward 
 form but the nature, internal fabric, and organisation of 
 the human mind and imagination — are but different 
 modes of expressing the same thing. In other words, he 
 holds that the general, the ideal, which is nature with the 
 individual eliminated, should alone be called nature, and 
 that the individual has no right to the name. It is evi- 
 dently by reasoning a priori on these “ settled prin- 
 ciples — ” by assuming that they are, or should be, those 
 proper to all mankind, and by neglecting or disdaining 
 to place himself at the true standpoint of those whom he 
 assumes to judge — that Sir Joshua arrives in perfect good 
 faith at the judgments on art and artists which have 
 already been noted as so strangely at variance with his 
 own artistic temperament and practice. His position is 
 very clearly stated thus in the peroration to the Dis- 
 course : — 
 
 “ It has been the main scope and principal end of this 
 Discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in 
 taste, as well as in corporeal beauty ; that a false or de- 
 praved taste is a thing as well known, as easily discovered, 
 as anything that is deformed, misshapen, or wrong in our 
 form or outward make ; and that this knowledge is derived 
 from the uniformity of sentiments among mankind, from 
 whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general 
 habits of nature ; the result of which is an idea of perfect 
 beauty.” 
 
 In the Eighth Discourse, the argument is of simplicity, 
 repose, and unity in art, and their contraries ; of modera- 
 tion in ornament, and the degree, varying according to 
 the professed style of the work, to which this is admissible. 
 Pointing out that simplicity, when so very inartificial as 
 
404 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 to seem to evade the difficulties of art, is a very suspicious 
 virtue, Sir Joshua goes on to say, speaking most forcibly 
 of a defect from which he must know himself, as a man of 
 his time, not wholly exempt : — 
 
 “ I do not, however, wish to degrade simplicity from 
 the high estimation in which it has been ever justly held. 
 It is our barrier against that great enemy to truth and 
 nature, Affectation, which is ever clinging to the pencil, 
 and ready to drop in and poison everything it touches.” 
 
 The lecture contains yet another interestin gpentimento 
 of Sir Joshua’s, with reference to his too absolute pro- 
 nouncements in previous Discourses on the subject of the 
 “ sublime ” and the “ ornamental ” styles in painting : — 
 
 “ I thought it necessary, in a former Discourse, speaking 
 of the difference of the sublime and ornamental style of 
 painting — in order to excite your attention to the more 
 manly, noble, and dignified manner, to leave, perhaps, an 
 impression too contemptuous of those ornamental parts 
 of our Art for which many have valued themselves, and 
 many works are much valued and esteemed. 
 
 “ I said then, what I thought it was right at that time 
 to say : I supposed the disposition of young men more 
 inclinable to splendid negligence than perseverance in 
 laborious application to acquire correctness ; and therefore 
 did as we do in making what is crooked straight, by bend- 
 ing it the contrary way, in order that it may remain 
 straight at last. 
 
 “For this purpose, then, and to correct excess or neglect 
 of any kind, we may here add, that it is not enough that 
 a work be learned — it must be pleasing : the painter must 
 add grace to strength, if he desires to secure the first im- 
 
The Ninth and Tenth Discourse 405 
 
 pression in his favour. Our taste has a kind of sensuality 
 about it, as well as a love of the sublime ; both these 
 qualities of the mind are to have their proper consequence, 
 as far as they do not counteract each other ; for that is 
 the grand error which much care ought to be taken to 
 avoid.” 
 
 The Ninth Discourse, delivered at the opening of the 
 new buildings of the Academy at Somerset House, is a 
 short harangue, de circonstance , in which the President 
 uses the well-rounded and rather insipid periods of the 
 Johnsonian manner to express his beloved large gener- 
 alisations, and seeks overmuch to confuse the boundaries 
 of art and morals. In the peroration we hear the disciple 
 of the mighty lexicographer, rather than the true Sir 
 Joshua, treating art as mainly a discipline apt to raise 
 the thoughts and extend the views of the beholder ; and 
 more than ever does the moralist appear to usurp the 
 place of the artist and the aesthetician when, in his con- 
 cluding sentence, he rises in an artificial crescendo from 
 Taste to Virtue. 
 
 The Tenth Discourse deals with Sculpture, a branch 
 of art with which Sir Joshua had but a superficial ac- 
 quaintance, and it is, accordingly, the weakest of the series. 
 The finest treasures of Greek sculpture were either un- 
 familiar to the student of that day, or had not yet been 
 unearthed. Classical art then meant either the rhetorical 
 passion and the studied graces of the later Greek schools, 
 or the frozen conventionalities of the Graeco-Roman style. 
 That the great schools of the Middle Ages and the unique 
 Italian art of the Quattrocento were alike ignored or 
 misapprehended by our master results pretty clearly from 
 the already quoted statement that “the Roman, Lom- 
 bard, Florentine, Venetian, and Flemish schools (of 
 
406 Sir J os hua Reynolds 
 
 painting) all pursue the same end by different means ; 
 but sculpture, having but one style, can only to one style 
 of painting have any relation ; and to this (which is, 
 indeed, the highest and most dignified that painting can 
 boast) it has a relation so close, that it may be said to 
 be almost the same art operating upon different materials.” 
 We could not expect that Sir Joshua should be wiser 
 than his generation on the still much-debated subject of 
 polychromy in sculpture, and it is accordingly without 
 surprise that we find him speaking with undisguised con- 
 tempt of this adjunct to the statuary’s art. He is inevi- 
 tably ignorant of the fact that it has been a more or 
 less important factor in all the greatest and most re- 
 presentative style : in the Assyrian, no less than the 
 Egyptian ; in the noblest phases of the Greek ; in the 
 noblest phases of the Gothic ; in the earlier and finer 
 stages of the Renaissance. 
 
 This is well put, and indisputably true : — 
 
 “ Imitation is the means, and not the end, of art ; it is 
 employed by the sculptor as the language by which his 
 ideas are presented to the mind of the spectator. Poetry 
 and elocution of every sort make use of signs, but those 
 signs are arbitrary and conventional. The sculptor em- 
 ploys the representation of the thing itself ; but still, as 
 a means to a higher end, as a gradual ascent, always 
 advancing towards faultless form and perfect beauty.” 
 
 But it is not without astonishment that we come upon 
 the following from Michelangelo’s devoutest, if not on all 
 occasions most discerning, worshipper : — 
 
 “As a proof of the high value we set on the mere 
 excellence of form, we may produce the greatest part of 
 the works of Michael Angelo, both in painting and sculp- 
 
The Eleventh Discourse 
 
 407 
 
 ture, as well as most of the antique statues, which are 
 justly esteemed in a very high degree, though no very 
 marked or striking character or expression of any kind 
 is represented.” 
 
 Surely, overpowering in their physical strength and 
 majesty as are the creations of the terrible Florentine, the 
 outward form in them — even more entirely than in the 
 works of any other artist — is but the symbol of the con- 
 ception in its intellectual and emotional aspects ; and, 
 through it, of the vast sombre personality of the poet- 
 painter himself, self sustained without effort at heights 
 where the spirit cannot even in contemplation follow, 
 without a dismayed sense of its feebleness. 
 
 Thoroughly in accordance with the canons and practice 
 of the finest Greek art is, on the other hand, the precept 
 that, “ as the general figure presents itself in a more con- 
 spicuous manner than the features, it is there we must 
 principally look for expression or character — patuit in 
 corpore vultus” .... It is the failure to appreciate the 
 aim of classical, and especially of Greek, art in this respect, 
 that causes some to look upon it — Sir Joshua himself does 
 so occasionally — as monotonous and expressionless. 
 
 In the Eleventh Discourse our master applies himself 
 to defining the genius of the plastic artist, which he some- 
 what awkwardly, yet truly, sums up as “ the genius of 
 mechanical performance.” We take his meaning to be, that 
 the power of giving plastic form and complete outward 
 expression to the vision of the artist is an inherent and prin- 
 cipal part of genius. Is it not, indeed, this power of com- 
 plete and personal expression which serves to distinguish 
 genius — whether that of the poet or the painter — from the 
 hazy and imperfect vision of lesser mortals? It is surely, 
 however, a half-truth — that is very nearly a fallacy — to say 
 
408 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 that the power which enables the artist to conceive his 
 subject with dignity may be said to belong to general 
 education ; for the true vision of the artist is not as that 
 of the poet. Manifestly, on the other hand, “ Whatever 
 sublime ideas may fill his mind, he is a painter only as he 
 can put in practice what he knows, and communicate 
 those ideas by visible representation.” 
 
 More and more, as Sir Joshua goes on, do we find him 
 receding from the standpoint so arbitrarily taken up in the 
 earlier lectures with regard to Venetian art, and seeking 
 to qualify the position therein assumed. Titian he had 
 always more or less exempted from his strictures ; and 
 now he says : “ Raffaelle and Titian are two names 
 which stand the highest in our art ; one for drawing, the 
 other for painting.” On the latter he lavishes praise 
 at once splendid and discerning, deeming, perhaps, that 
 the time has come when the students may be safely 
 allowed to come within the circle of his magic influence. 
 “ What was said of Virgil, that he threw even the dung 
 about the ground with an air of dignity, may be applied 
 to Titian : whatever he touched, however naturally mean 
 and habitually familiar, by a kind of magic he invested 
 with grandeur and importance.” And again, in parallel- 
 ing the technical styles of Raphael and Titian : “ But if 
 he (Raphael) had expressed his ideas with the facility 
 and eloquence, as it may be called, of Titian, his works 
 would certainly not have been less excellent ; and that 
 praise, which age and nations have poured out upon him, 
 for possessing genius in the higher attainments of art, 
 would have been extended to them all.” 
 
 Sir Joshua winds up this lecture with a warning 
 against misdirected labour, as employed upon unessential 
 and distracting detail : — “ There is nothing in our art,” he 
 says, “ which enforces such continual exertion and 
 
409 
 
 The Twelfth Discourse 
 
 circumspection as an attention to the general effect of the 
 whole. It requires much study and much practice; it 
 requires the painter’s entire mind.” 
 
 In the Twelfth Discourse the chief theme is the 
 method of study to be pursued by the young students 
 who intend to spend — as did the painter himself, and 
 most of his contemporaries — some years in Italy. He 
 mainly addresses those who, after their Lehrjahre at the 
 Academy, are about to start upon their Wanderjahre 
 in the golden land which then exercised an irresis- 
 tible fascination over artistic youth. From the earlier 
 Discourses we might have imagined that a course of 
 strenuous study of the Roman, Florentine, and Bolognese 
 schools would be imperatively laid down. But no; the 
 practical artist, and not the theorist on stilts, here speaks 
 forth, and expresses the wish that the student on going 
 abroad should employ himself upon whatever subject 
 he may have been drawn to by a genuine impulse, rather 
 than that he should go sluggishly about a prescribed task. 
 The President’s monitions are directed against the tend- 
 ency to lean unduly on the teaching, as apart from the 
 example, of other men ; and he then proceeds to inveigh 
 against the fatal facility of the Pittori improvisatori , with 
 their conceptions only remotely established on the solid 
 basis of nature. With their method he contrasts that of 
 Raphael, borrowing from Masaccio, in the Brancacci 
 Chapel (really — in the instance cited by Reynolds of the 
 figure of St Paul — from Filippino Lippi painting after- 
 wards in the same chapel). This subject of the borrow- 
 ing by great master from great master is one upon which, 
 as touching himself, Reynolds dwells with singular 
 insistence, and he must, it is maintained, be held to have 
 taken the bold and the true view of a question which 
 must always be surrounded with great difficulty. Raphael’s 
 
410 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 wealth, he holds was so great that he might borrow where 
 he pleased without loss of credit ; while, on the other hand, 
 “ those who steal from mere poverty — who, having no- 
 thing of their own, cannot exist a minute without making 
 such depredations ; who are so poor that they have no place 
 in which they can even deposit what they have taken : to 
 men of this description nothing can be said. . . . Men of 
 superior talents alone ” he goes on to assert “ are capable 
 of thus using and adapting other men’s minds to their own 
 purposes, or are able to make out and finish what was 
 only in the original a hint or imperfect conception. A 
 readiness in taking such hints, which escape the dull and 
 ignorant, makes, in my opinion, no inconsiderable part of 
 that faculty of the mind which is called genius.” 
 
 In the Thirteenth Discourse Sir Joshua addresses him- 
 self to a discussion of criticism, and points out that, to 
 enlarge the boundaries of the art of painting, as well as 
 to fix its principles, it becomes necessary that that art 
 and those principles should be considered in their corre- 
 spondence with the principles of other arts which, like 
 this, address themselves primarily and principally to the 
 imagination. Here it is interesting to find the master 
 — in this almost alone among practising painters — having 
 the clear-sightedness to perceive and the courage to state 
 that : “ Perhaps the most perfect criticism requires habits 
 of speculation and abstraction not very consistent with 
 the employment which ought to occupy, and the habits 
 of mind which ought to prevail in, a practical artist.” 
 He recognises, notwithstanding his a priori theories, 
 a kind of sagacity, in art as in life, which does not 
 wait for the slow process of deduction, but goes at once, 
 by what appears a kind of intuition, to the conclusion. 
 Arguing, as it were, against himself and the arbitrary 
 nature of his generalisations in some of the former Dis- 
 
Thirteenth Discourse 
 
 4i 1 
 
 courses, he lays down the importance of impressions 
 which are the result of the accumulated experience of a 
 whole life, and warns his hearers against “ an unfounded 
 distrust of the imagination and feeling, in favour of 
 narrow,* partial, confined, argumentative theories.” 
 
 Proceeding on the basis of a parallel between Paint- 
 ing and Poetry — such as, however, must obviously be, 
 to a great extent, fallacious — our master goes on to 
 argue against the necessity for servile imitation in either 
 art. In the sense that mere mirror-like reproduction of 
 nature, of la chose vue , is neither necessary, nor, indeed, 
 possible, none will now, it is imagined, be found to 
 gainsay him. But when he lays down that whatever 
 is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we 
 see and hear every day, perhaps does not belong 
 to the higher provinces of art, either in poetry or 
 painting ; that “ the mind is to be transported, as 
 Shakespeare expresses it, beyond the ignorant present , to 
 ages past ” ; then we must part company with him. 
 Such a fencing in, such a narrowing of the “ higher 
 provinces of art,” would leave outside these some of the 
 greatest, some of the most genuinely ideal work that man 
 has brought forth. What is the incomparable Panathenaic 
 frieze of the Parthenon but a generalised and idealised, 
 yet an unfalsified, version of what was absolutely familiar 
 to all Athenians of the age of Pericles ? What, to take a 
 modern instance, are the noble and, in the truest sense 
 of the word, ideal pastorals of Jean-Frant^ois Millet but 
 generalisations of the most characteristic and most 
 essential elements in the life with which we are all 
 familiar ; and yet, where are we to place them, if not 
 within the “higher provinces of art”? 
 
 To constitute art, “ ideal,” “ great,” or “ high ” — as we 
 may choose to call it — is it, indeed, indispensable that 
 
4 i 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 “ another and a higher order of beings be supposed, and 
 that to those beings everything introduced into the 
 work must correspond”? Is it not sufficient that the 
 truth — be it that of to-day or of another day — be pre- 
 sented in its largest and most synthetic form, stripped 
 of the accidental elements which obscure its essence, 
 but still firmly based on, and rooted in, that nature 
 from which only a false imagination, a trivial fancy, 
 strives to escape — in the vain hope of replacing it by 
 some rootless, unsubstantial thing of its own ? 
 
 The Fourteenth Discourse is wholly taken up with the 
 interesting exposition of the art of Gainsborough which 
 has been summarily dealt with in a previous section. It 
 is just the well-balanced, judicious, perfectly fair tribute 
 to the memory of a great rival that might have been 
 expected from Reynolds. He is nothing moved by the 
 marked ungraciousness shown by that rival during his 
 lifetime, but he is little moved, either, by the pathos 
 of the death-bed repentance and reconciliation. Just in 
 so far as the panegyric, thoroughly fair and judicial as 
 it is, lacks the glow of enthusiasm which a still higher 
 generosity might have communicated to it, does it fall 
 short of perfect felicity and perfect discernment in praise. 
 
 The Fifteenth and last Discourse is avowedly a retro- 
 spect, a summing up of what has gone before, and a 
 kind of defence and reiteration of the theories advanced, of 
 the opinions enunciated, in the previous Discourses. It 
 derives an added significance from the fact that the 
 master clearly knows himself within sight of the ultimate 
 limit, not only of his artistic but of his human career. It 
 is necessary to bear in mind, in perusing the sentences 
 in which the President, usually so mild, so averse from 
 self-assertion, appears a little to step out of his usual 
 character, that he has recently emerged victorious, yet not 
 
Fifteenth Discourse 4 1 3 
 
 completely restored to his proverbial equanimity, from 
 his contest for supremacy with the hostile majority of 
 the Academy. The following is in curious contrast to 
 a previously-quoted sentence, with regard to the inher- 
 ent want of fitness of the artistic temperament to deal 
 with questions of criticism requiring habits of speculation 
 and abstraction : — 
 
 “To develop the latent excellencies, and draw out 
 the interior principles, of our art, requires more skill 
 and practice in writing than is likely to be possessed by 
 a man perpetually occupied in the use of the pencil and 
 the palette.” 
 
 “ But still, such difficulties ought not to deter artists 
 who are not prevented by other engagements from 
 putting their thoughts in order as well as they can, and 
 from giving to the public the result of their experience. 
 The knowledge which an artist has of his subject will 
 more than compensate for any want of elegance in the 
 manner of treating it, or even of perspicuity, which is 
 still more essential ; and I am convinced that one short 
 essay, written by a painter will contribute more to ad- 
 vance the theory of our art than a thousand volumes such 
 as we sometimes see. . . .” 
 
 The whole of the latter part of the final Discourse is 
 taken up with the memorable panegyric of Michelangelo, 
 to which, as an emphatic re-statement of the President’s 
 theoretical views — of his artistic religion, if not of his 
 artistic practice, throughout his career — some reference 
 has already been made. 
 
 Throughout the periods dealing with his favourite 
 subject there is diffused a warmth of enthusiasm such 
 
4 H Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 
 as rarely thrills either in the written or the spoken word 
 of Sir Joshua. In the peroration we have not only 
 an appropriate rhetorical climax, but the eloquent out- 
 burst of one who, with the certainty that his voice is to 
 be heard no more in the place from which he speaks, 
 raises it once again, with a passionate sincerity that none 
 will question, in a final confession of faith. 
 
 It would be difficult to conclude these remarks on 
 the master’s labours in the field of philosophical and 
 practical criticism more appropriately than by quoting 
 the final paragraphs of the Twelfth Discourse, which 
 contain the wholesomest, if, perhaps, not the most palat- 
 able, of his many valuable precepts : — 
 
 “ Those artists who have quitted the service of nature, 
 whose service, when well understood, is perfect freedom , 
 and have put themselves under the direction of I know 
 not what capricious, fantastical mistress, who fascinates 
 and overpowers their whole mind, and from whose 
 dominion there are no hopes of their being ever reclaimed, 
 (since they appear perfectly satisfied, and not at all 
 conscious of their forlorn situation), like the transformed 
 followers of Comus, — 
 
 ‘ Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, 
 
 But boast themselves more comely than before.’ 
 
 “ Methinks such men, who have found out so short a 
 path, have no reason to complain of the shortness of life, 
 and the extent of art ; since life is so much longer than 
 is wanted for their improvement, or, indeed, is necessary 
 for the accomplishment of their idea of perfection. On 
 the contrary, he who recurs to nature, at every recurrence 
 renews his strength. The rules of art he is never likely 
 to forget ; they are few and simple ; but nature is refined, 
 
Quotation from Twelfth Discourse 415 
 
 subtle, and infinitely various, beyond the power and 
 retention of memory; it is necessary, therefore, to have 
 continual recourse to her. In this intercourse there is 
 no end of his improvement ; the longer he lives, the 
 nearer he approaches to the true and perfect idea of 
 art.” 
 
 THE END. 
 
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