SijflS PHIBGEDBJ!® 
 
J3 
 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Getty Research Institute 
 
 https://archive.org/details/englishchildrenaOOstep 
 

 
 
 # 
 
 THE INFANT JOHNSON. 
 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN 
 
 AS PAINTED BY 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 g,u (fesair 
 
 ON SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF REYNOLDS AS A PAINTER, WITH 
 ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS PORTRAITURE OF CHILDREN. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC G. STEPHENS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF ‘ FLEMISH RELICS,’ ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH FIFTEEN PHOTOGRAPHS BY A. AND E. SEELEY. 
 
 SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, 54 FLEET STREET, 
 LONDON. MDCCCLXVII. 
 
 {The right of Translation is reserved .] 
 

 
 
THIS ESSAY 
 
 gdicatd 
 
 DOROTHY MARY STEPHENS 
 
 BY 
 
 HER SON. 
 
 Halwyn, St. Paul’s, 
 
 Penzance. 
 
 September 15 th, 1866 . 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It must have occurred to the minds of many among my readers that 
 Reynolds, of all artists, painted children best—that the childless man knew 
 most of childhood, depicted its appearances in the truest and happiest spirit 
 of comedy, entered into its changeful soul with the tenderest, heartiest sym¬ 
 pathy, played with the playful, sighed with the sorrowful, and mastered all 
 the craft of infancy. Fra Angelico had purer visions than his inheritor 
 —Raphael—but the monk made his children cherubic or seraphic, as the 
 case might be, rarely, if ever, left them sons of men ; Raphael himself, in 
 representing them as mentally powerful, did so with an after-thought to 
 make them more than babies, other than youths. In the * Cartoons ’ the 
 children have suffered from the ‘ restorer/ more even than the men, and 
 have but the remains of loveliness. Murillo, with the highest of aims, 
 painted some babies, and, with aims more prosaic, many children. With rare 
 exceptions he failed in the first, and was of the earth, earthy in the last. 
 His ‘ Saviours ’ are too often mere children ; his children almost invariably 
 elfish. Velasquez was great indeed with the few he produced. Rubens, 
 I think, stands highest among the old masters as a painter of childhood 
 proper; it does not appear, however, that he can be compared with Reynolds, 
 either with regard to the refined quality r or the number of the pictures 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 that are recorded in the Appendix to this Essay, which, let it be borne in 
 mind, comprises only engraved works. This extraordinary exuberance, and 
 the almost universally admirable quality of the Englishman’s studies, have 
 never been matched in art. Some of the early Italian painters produced 
 fascinating pictures of children, but they were so few that we may, as 
 concerns them, set apart all technical considerations, all comparisons of exe¬ 
 cution, and let Sir Joshua rely upon his scores of successes. The technical 
 difficulties under which these great Italians wrought make us marvel nt what 
 they did so exquisitely, honour the valour they displayed, and applaud their 
 aims to the highest. 
 
 Thus convinced of the value of his works, I have endeavoured to set 
 forth, so far as the limits of an essay permitted, the characteristics of Rey¬ 
 nolds as a painter, with special reference to his portraiture of children, and 
 have hoped to introduce some readers to a new thing, also to refresh the 
 memories of others among the already informed. This attempt has been a 
 very pleasant one to me, and rendered still more so by the kindness of many 
 students, among whom I cannot forbear to name Mr. William Smith; 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Cunningham; Messrs. D. Colnaghi, and others of the 
 house which bears this name, especially Mr. T. L. Caley; the Rev. G. Patey, 
 Master of the Grammar School, successor to Reynolds’s father at Plympton, 
 St. Maurice, Devonshire; G. Frederic Jackson, Esq., of the same town; and 
 G. Barker, Esq. 
 
 FREDERIC G. STEPHENS. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE INFANT JOHNSON. Frontispiece. 
 
 THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD.14 
 
 THE SLEEPING CHILD.16 
 
 MASTER CREWE (in the Costume of Henry VIII.) ... 18 
 
 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE.20 
 
 ANGELS’ HEADS (Miss Frances Isabella Ker Gordon in Five Positions) 26 
 
 THE STRAWBERRY GIRL.32 
 
 LORD MORPETH ........ 44 
 
 CORNELIA (Lady Cockburn and Her Children) .... 46 
 
 A GIPSY BOY.50 
 
 A BOY WITH CABBAGE-NETS.52 
 
 PICK-A-BACK (Mrs. Payne Galwey and her Daughter) ... 54 
 
 MASTER C. J. BUNBURY.56 
 
 SIMPLICITY (Miss Theophila Gwatkin) ..... 58 
 
 MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES.60 
 

ENGLISH CHILDREN 
 
 AS 
 
 PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 Apart from his powers in portraiture, Reynolds had eminent ability to deal 
 with the expressions of emotion and mental energy. This must he under¬ 
 stood without reference to what are called the mythologic and tragic subjects 
 of his production, wherein he, as a rule, failed as completely as he succeeded 
 in those themes which were supplied by childish life, and formed in every 
 respect antitheses to his quasi-poetic studies. In proof of this alleged 
 failure it will suffice for the present to name two pictures,—‘The Death of 
 Cardinal Beaufort,’ of which an inferior version is in the Dulwich Gallery, 
 wherein the passionate expression approaches caricature; and the ‘ Thais,’ 
 (Miss Emily Pott) ‘In haste to destroy,’—that remarkably theatrical repre¬ 
 sentation of a young lady of the later half of the eighteenth century, her 
 
 * Mason, the poet, in his ‘ Anecdotes of Rey¬ 
 nolds,’ as published by Mr. Cotton, gives an ac¬ 
 count of the painting of this picture, ■which recals 
 the old story of Guido and his Magdalens, de¬ 
 picted after a street porter, and serves as a key to 
 its exaggerations :—‘ I happened to call upon him 
 when he was painting the “ Death of Cardinal 
 Beaufort.” .... He had merely scumbled in 
 his positions of the several figures, and was now 
 upon the head of the dying Cardinal. He had 
 now got for his model a porter, or coal-heaver, 
 between fifty and sixty years of age, whose black 
 and bushy beard he had paid him for letting 
 grow. He was stripped naked to the waist, and 
 with his profile turned to him, sat with a fixed 
 grin showing his teeth. I could not help laughing 
 
 at the strange figure, and, recollecting why he 
 ordered the poor fellow so to grin, on account of 
 Shakespeare’s line,— 
 
 “Mark how the pangs of death do make him grin,” 
 
 I told him that, in my opinion, Shakespeare 
 would never have used the word “ grin ” in that 
 place if he could readily have found a better— 
 that it always conveyed to me a ludicrous idea 
 .... He did not agree with me on this point, 
 so the fellow sat grinning for upwards of one 
 hour, during which time he sometimes gave a 
 touch to the face, sometimes scumbled on the 
 bed-clothes.’ 
 
 ‘ Reynolds afterwards did better,’ says Mason, 
 with this subject. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 face unaffected by Greek feeling, and her attitude unclassical in every 
 respect. The ‘Cardinal Beaufort’ was most happily caricatured by Gilray 
 in a large print called ‘ Shakespeare Sacrificed, or the Offering to Avarice.’ 
 
 Even in ‘ Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse,’ now in the Grosvenor 
 Collection, of which there is also a version at Dulwich, we have what is pecu¬ 
 liarly dramatic in the modem taste, what is ‘ theatrical ’ rather than impressive, 
 affected rather than grand, in short, an English actress with a boarding-school 
 girl’s notion of the character; not a Muse such as the Goddess was imagined 
 when Muses were believed in, worshipped, expected to become visible. 
 
 The slightest comparison made by the least-taught eye, between this 
 ‘ Muse’ of Reynolds’s and any antique figure, will show the immeasurable 
 difference that exists between the ruling ideas of such works as these. On 
 the other hand, our artist’s notion of the subject in question was devoid of 
 that splendid falsehood which accompanies what is styled rococo design, and 
 was English of his own time, and characterizes Reynolds,—this, as we shall 
 proceed to show, was almost invariably the case with like efforts on his 
 part,—as an admirable portrait-painter dealing with a quasi-heroic ideal. If 
 we would see how ineffably great is the distance between this ideal and what 
 was present in the mind of a Greek, or even a Roman artist when regarding 
 this subject, we must turn from the picture of the lady-actress in the act of 
 ‘striking an attitude,’ and the absurd attendants of her chair,— one of 
 whom makes mouths, over a bowl, while the other looks miserable, not sad. 
 We must turn from these to any one of those copies in marble from antique 
 masks, as worn by ancient tragedians, which are in so many modern 
 museums. The profound difference between the ideal of Reynolds, and that 
 of the ancient sculptors, will be obvious at a glance to the student who is 
 not already informed on the subject. The ‘ Muse Melpomene,’ of which statue 
 there is a cast in the lower hall of the Royal Academy, London, is repre¬ 
 sented in marble (No. 499) in the Hall of the Muses in the Vatican, one 
 of the figures found in the Villa of Cassius, in the olive grove near Tivoli; 
 she is fully draped, has her right foot placed upon a large stone, so that 
 the elbow of that side rests upon the thigh, and the hand is quiescent with 
 a dagger in its grasp. In the other hand, she bears an enormous Herculean 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 3 
 
 mask, the set horror upon the features of which is probably familiar enough 
 in our readers’ memories. Melpomene’s own visage is perhaps more in point 
 for comparison with Beynolds’s and Mrs. Siddons’s notions of the tragic 
 expression. Although not of the best style in antique art, this face of the 
 Muse has no air of presumption ; there is nothing demonstrative in her 
 manner; she hardly regards the accidents of the time that is present with 
 her, although they might be called tragic; but instead of that she looks 
 beyond upon what was to come, anticipates the result, the long-enduring 
 woe, the indomitable evil which broods over all the future in her ken, Muse 
 as she is. A settled dignity, meet to the grave and measured nature of the 
 classic drama, pervades her features and controls her attitude; the eyes are 
 full of sorrow rather than of rage. On the other hand, the Mrs. Siddons looks 
 like a lady-housewife, who, having quarrelled with her servants, is too well 
 bred to be loud in her rage, yet has sunk into the porter’s hall-chair, clenches 
 her little fist (Walpole wrote to Lady Ossory* that Mrs. Siddons’s arms 
 were c not genteel’), and looks unutterable things. My lady’s footmen are 
 
 * This Lady Ossory was mother to the pretty 
 little Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick, whom Reynolds 
 painted as ‘ Collina,’ and her sister, Lady Anne, 
 who was the ‘ Sylvia ’ of another picture by our 
 master. Lady Ossory, who is so well known to 
 readers of Walpole’s ‘ Letters,’ was one of the 
 most charmingly intelligent women of her time. 
 Reynolds painted her in March, 1776. Lady 
 Gertrude sat as ‘ The Girl with Grapes,’ a year 
 or two before the production of ‘ Collina.’ Ac¬ 
 cording to his ‘ Ledger,’ as published by Mr. 
 Cotton, Reynolds was paid for these pictures thus: 
 — ‘June 10, 1775. Lord Ossory, for Lady 
 Anne Fitzpatrick, 52 1. 10s.’ In the next line 
 appears, ‘ Paid 25 (? guineas) more. 2 61. 15s.’ 
 Again: ‘May, 1780. Lord Ossory, for Lady 
 Gertrude, 52 l. 10s.’ The latter is probably the 
 picture which is entitled ‘ Collina,’ a name de¬ 
 rived, as we cannot doubt, from the circumstance 
 that the child is represented as walking over a 
 hillock, in French colline. Collina was a god¬ 
 dess of little hills. Parnassus was styled ‘ La 
 
 double Colline.' This picture was engraved by 
 J. Dean and J. Jones, 1792. The latter artist 
 engraved that of Lady Anne Fitzpatrick, ‘ Sylvia.’ 
 S. W. Reynolds engraved ‘ The Girl with the 
 Bunch of Grapes.’ A larger print than this, the 
 production of J. R. Smith, is one of his finest 
 works. ‘ Collina ’ is 4 feet 7 inches high, by 
 3 feet 4 inches wide, and, like ‘ Sylvia,’ in the 
 possession of R. W. Fitzpatrick, Esq. The 
 former was exhibited at the British Institution 
 in 1813, the general gathering of Reynolds’ 
 works, in 1845 and 1865. The mother of these 
 children was the Hon. Anne Liddell, daughter 
 and sole heir of Henry, Lord Ravensworth, mar¬ 
 ried, in 1756, to Augustus Henry, third Duke of 
 Grafton, from whom she was divorced by act of 
 Parliament in 1769 ; the eldest son of this mar¬ 
 riage became George Henry, fourth Duke of 
 Grafton. The lady died in 1804. To the Earl 
 of Ossory Reynolds willed the first choice from 
 any of his pictures. He was one of the pall¬ 
 bearers at the funeral of Sir Joshua. 
 
4 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 behind the chair, the one sympathetic, the other lugubrious. Reynolds is 
 said to have painted the last-mentioned head from his own. 
 
 The ideal of the Greeks was of course peculiar to the mind of that race, 
 and had its foundation in that expectation of long-continued suffering which 
 was so much in accord with their ideas of life and destiny, had its roots deep 
 in the mythologic faith they held; on the other hand, the tragic ideal of 
 Reynolds comes before us like an antithesis to this, and was essentially a 
 shallow one, emotional rather than meditative, and derived, it would seem, 
 from the affectation of Domenichino, the false ‘ airs’ of Guido, the heartless¬ 
 ness of the seventeenth-century painters in Italy, from whom the artist drew 
 as much of the would-be graver manner of his art, as to the blander feelings 
 of Guercino he owed so much of the more amiable aspects of his pictures. 
 
 The history of ‘Mrs. Sid dons as the Tragic Muse,’ which indicates the 
 nature of Reynolds’s inspiration, may as well be given here as elsewhere. 
 It was painted in 1783. There is something almost comic in the account 
 which Mrs. Jameson repeated of the origin of the design, as given by 
 Mrs. Siddons herself. Sir Joshua took the actress by the hand, and led her 
 to the sitters’ platform in the Leicester-Square studio, whereon was placed 
 the chair of sacrifice, and, with the action, said, ‘Ascend to your undisputed 
 throne ; bestow on me some idea of the Tragic Muse.’ What could the lady 
 do whose histrionic performances were then accepted as the ‘purest classic,’ 
 but strike an attitude ? ‘ I walked up the steps,’ added this new goddess, 
 
 ‘and instantly seated myself in the attitude in which the Tragic Muse ap¬ 
 pears.’* So thoroughly theatrical is this position, that one cannot doubt the 
 
 * The chair in which she sat, or in which 
 she is presumed to have done so, was the property 
 of Barry, a gift from Lord Inchiquin (who mar¬ 
 ried Reynolds’s niece), and afterwards that of his 
 biographer, Dr. Fryer, then of Sir Thomas Law¬ 
 rence, next of Sir Martin Shee, at the sale of 
 whose effects it descended, for 5 1. 10s. 6 d., to 
 Sir Charles Eastlake, and is now in the pos¬ 
 session of his widow. The chair is a very simple 
 seat—an arm-chair, with leather seat and cush¬ 
 ions. (See Smith’s ‘ Life of Nollekens,’ vol. ii. 
 
 p. 164.) The chair is a relic of the highest in¬ 
 terest, and ought to be in the possession of the 
 Royal Academy, which institution possesses one 
 of Reynolds’s palettes; not, however, that one 
 which Turner gave to Shee, and is inscribed ac¬ 
 cordingly, as Mr. Taylor says. (‘ Life and Times 
 of Sir J. Reynolds,’ vol. i. p. 182, note.). 
 Turner’s gift to Shee was sold at Christie’s, with 
 other effects of Mr. Grundy, of Liverpool, to 
 Mr. J. Lilley, of Sandgate, Kent—the price was 
 217.10s. (‘ Athenaeum,’ No. 1995.) 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 5 
 
 lady practised it in front of her mirror for hours on the day before she sat. 
 The sequel is worthy of this excessively effective beginning. Sir Joshua, 
 with the thorough-going complimentary fashion in good society of his day, 
 pretended to be at the tragediennes feet during the sitting; and, when all 
 else was done, added, with a splendid flourish, which is really pitiful, ‘ I 
 cannot resist the opportunity of going down to posterity on the hem of your 
 garment.’ There, accordingly, he wrote his name, and the date, 1784, when 
 the picture was exhibited and probably finished. It has been engraved by 
 Francis Haward, S. W. Reynolds, and H. Dawe.'* In every sense it is an 
 unfortunate example of the artist’s notions of the ‘ grand style.’ 
 
 Reynolds talked and wrote a great deal in admiring terms of Michael 
 Angelo, and wore his head upon his signet. No one in this country did 
 more for the glory of this great sculptor, or praised him with greater dis¬ 
 crimination ; nevertheless, whether from defect of nature, weakness, or a wiser 
 internal judgment, he left the practice of his own counsel to others, and 
 rarely attempted to imitate the great master, even in that grandiose sort of 
 magnificence which was so popular one hundred years ago, and which so 
 many mistake for vigour, and wherein not a few recognise all they can of the 
 glory of the Sistine. Of course this grandiosity was really the bane of Michael 
 Angelo—the mildew, so to say, of his fame, and destruction to the fortunes 
 of the men who came after him in Italy, and mistook the excess for the 
 triumph, the attitudinizing for the effort it really masked, and the power 
 it degraded. Reynolds, although more powerfully influenced by these un¬ 
 fortunates than he admitted, or probably believed himself to be, knew and 
 avoided their error, and did not aim at imitating Michael Angelo, however 
 freely he might commend his example to others. He rather based his ideal 
 upon the level of Correggio—that master of chiaroscuro—and upon the 
 
 * There were several copies, or versions, of 
 this picture. The one at Dulwich was painted 
 by Mr. Score, so Northcote tells us, probably 
 with but partial truth. M. de Calonne gave Sir 
 Joshua 800 guineas for the original — the largest 
 price he had received for a picture with so few 
 figures. It was sold in 1795 for 100 guineas 
 
 less than that sum to Mr. Smith, of Norwich, 
 and again to Mr. Watson Taylor, of Liverpool, 
 for 900 guineas ; lastly, in 1822, to the Marquis 
 of Westminster, with whose family it remains, for 
 1760 guineas, or much more than double the 
 original price. Malone says the Dulwich picture 
 was sold for 700 guineas to Mr. Desenfans. 
 
6 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 practice of the Venetians, those unapproachable colourists. The wonder is 
 where he studied these schools, for the note-books of his journeys in Italy 
 give comparatively small intelligence about the direction of his mind to the 
 quarter towards which, as his after practice would lead us to suppose, his 
 attention had been wholly directed. Our wonder may be dissipated, to some 
 extent, by recollecting that a man’s feelings, or instincts, lead him right 
 according to his power, and in many cases do so effectually, where education, 
 ‘taste,’ and imagination would inevitably set him astray; thus, infinitely the 
 larger portion of Reynolds’s life was spent in giving what one may call a 
 pictorial immortality to the domesticities and person ahties of his own day, 
 with but occasional reference to grander aims. To these we shall soon call 
 the reader’s attention. 
 
 His favourite theme was Michael Angelo; his practice, with independent 
 power, reproduced the glorious craft in chiaroscuro and colour of the master 
 of Parma, Correggio ; to it he united the genuine homeliness of some of the 
 best Dutch masters in characterization ; refined upon these, and added elegance 
 of his own. To Rembrandt he owed an enormous debt; to Vandyck something 
 both of good and evil, that was derived, no doubt, in a stronger measure than 
 is suspected, from early impressions of those numerous portraits by Gandy 
 of Exeter that are scattered about Devonshire and Cornwall, and exist in 
 unusual profusion in the neighbourhood of the President’s birth-place in the 
 former county. These impressions of Vandyck seem to be of very early date 
 in Reynolds’s career, and are certainly most palpable in such portraits as 
 that of Keppel, painted in 1753, styled the ‘Wrecked Keppel,’ which brought 
 him into fashionable notice, and, so far as pictorial immortality could do, 
 returned the kindness of his affectionate friend the sitter. Mr. Cotton’s list 
 of Reynolds’s portraits enumerates no fewer than nine pictures of the 
 Admiral; probably, many of them are repetitions by copyists from originals 
 by Sir Joshua. The design is evidently adapted from that of the Apollo, or 
 some other antique statue. It is noteworthy that this picture did much for 
 Reynolds’s reputation, yet, except occasionally, when we may attribute the fact 
 to the influence of certain sitters upon his mind, he avoided the stilted and 
 unfortunate characteristics of this work in productions which followed it: he 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 7 
 
 was not to be corrupted even by success to work in a theatrical vein: his 
 im pressio ns from the antique must have been very deep. These impressions 
 appeared again and again in his practice,—as, for example, in the portrait of 
 the fifth Duke of Beaufort,* which was this year in the British Institution, 
 and belongs to the present Duke of Beaufort: this, in some important respects, 
 reproduces that of Keppel more closely even than the latter did the attitude 
 of the Apollo Belvedere, or another later and less original antique which 
 supplied so much of the design for the first of Reynolds’s famous pictures. 
 
 We wish that these impressions had been but occasional in our subject’s 
 mind; our belief is that they were for the most part obtained through 
 study of Yandyck, who, as his age did, delighted in somewhat demonstrative 
 and affected attitudes and expressions for portraits,—thought that to be 
 ‘ fine ’ which we now reject as fit only for the stage, where all sorts of 
 vulgarities are appealed to. Reynolds owed much to Yandyck, both of good 
 in the way of execution, and evil in respect to the manner of conception,— 
 which, so active and sound was his native taste, might have been escaped, 
 had he not early conceived delight in such models as were primarily supplied 
 to him by Gandy and his master, no less than by traditions from the same 
 source that lingered in the school of Hudson, and were found there when 
 Reynolds came to London. The peculiar strut and otherwise attitudinizing 
 gait which are remarkable in the ‘ Captain Keppel ’ just now referred to 
 are obvious in several of Yandyck’s portraits,—too many for mention here : 
 take, for example, only that picture — lately at the National Portrait 
 Exhibition, No. 728—of the Earls of Bristol and Bedford, young nobles 
 who strut like young cocks. This picture belongs to Earl Spencer. The 
 attitudinizing of the ‘ Wrecked Keppel ’ is most unworthy of the man. It 
 is said that the effect of study from Gandy’s portraits is plain on such works 
 as Reynolds produced ere he went to Italy, and during his short intermediate 
 sojourn in Plymouth, before he came to settle in London; the traces of 
 such studies were by no means effaced by that journey and that practice 
 
 * This picture was exhibited in the Spring 
 Gardens’ Room, with the Society of Artists, at 
 their second exhibition, in 1761. The Hon. 
 
 Mr. Greville paid Reynolds, June 1786,157 1. 10s. 
 for this and his own picture. 
 
8 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 in Italy, which one would consider all powerful to such an end. It is probable 
 that the youthful master had not then fairly assimilated to his intellect those 
 glorious lessons of Correggio and Venice, to which he was indebted for the 
 most potent of his means for succeeding in this effort for that greatness he 
 ultimately won. 
 
 It is needful to clear our subject of these extraneous matters, and dispose 
 beforehand of what may be called the theatrical manner of Reynolds. His 
 affectations and whims were, as it appears to us, really independent of the 
 man,—the outcome of early impressions, inestimable in other respects, but 
 unfortunate in this one. Half his mythological subjects, even when merely 
 masks for portraiture, were laborious mistakes, and would be offensive to 
 our eyes but for the supreme skill by which they were conveyed to the 
 canvass,—that is to say, the mere painting is sometimes powerful enough in 
 effect on the mind to overcome all considerations of mere fitness and taste 
 in design. Thus it is with regard to that well-known picture of ‘ The 
 Graces adorning a Term of Hymen/—portraits of the daughters of Sir 
 William Montgomery, who respectively became Marchioness of Townshend, 
 Hon. Mrs. Gardiner, and Hon. Mrs. Beresford,—a singularly whimsical design, 
 on a large canvass, now in the National Gallery, the puerile conceit of 
 which strikes nine observers out of ten, and rebukes admiration for the 
 many admirable qualities it exhibits. There the ladies skip with most absurdly 
 affected airs of grace and gracefulness; they charm no one now ; the picture 
 is as dead to the world as they are ; its interest could not have outlasted 
 even the brief duration of their beauty. The patron of our artist, Mr. Gar¬ 
 diner (afterwards Lord Mountjoy, father of the first Earl of Blessington, and 
 grandfather of the Lady Blessington whose daughter married the once well- 
 known and fashionable Count D’Orsay), desired to have their portraits repre¬ 
 senting some historical or allegorical subject. As the whole three were about 
 to be married, there was some aptitude to that circumstance in the subject 
 of the picture. What concerns us here is the fact that the primary idea 
 of an allegory is due to the employer, not to the painter. There is an even 
 more ambitious picture by Sir Joshua of the same class with this in its 
 would-be dramatic order: it is the well-known ‘ Portraits of the Russell 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 9 
 
 Family/—a work .only less puerile in conception than those wonderful wall- 
 paintings by Yerrio and La Guerre, which illustrate the utter degradation of 
 Art in this country during the early part of the eighteenth century, and 
 were far more frequently before Reynolds’s eyes—at least, more obnoxious to 
 his mind—than they are now to us. 
 
 This picture of the ‘Russell Family/ which was painted in 1777, displays 
 the then reigning Duke fleshing what must have been a maiden sword upon 
 the carcass of a prostrate dragon, and, while he brandishes aloft a gleaming 
 buckler, showing the elegance of his form as it appeared in what was then, 
 and long before, called ‘ a Roman habit/—that is to say, buskins are bound 
 about his legs, a kilt falls upon his thighs, his body is encased in that tightly- 
 fitting vest, or armour, which has puzzled so many painters to decide whether 
 it was made of silk or of steel—whether it would bend, or not rather act 
 as a sort of strait-waistcoat to the wearer, and, if it kept him unhurt, would 
 also make him harmless to others, according to the well-known saying by 
 King James of armour in generaL A young lady, Miss Vernon, the Princess 
 Saba of this picture, interposes (so we read the design) for the vanquished 
 dragon, or, as it may truly be, expresses the intensity of her gratitude at 
 being delivered from the * nasty thing/ which now lies prostrate at her feet. 
 By way of enhancing the terrific effect of the incident there is placed, as 
 if crouching in the corner, the figure of a youth, also in a sort of ‘ Roman ’ 
 costume. Another youth attends the magnanimous victor, and looks over 
 his shoulder, to no apparent purpose beyond that of showing his own face : 
 as this was the principal end and aim of the whole picture, he is probably 
 the best employed of . the group. The crouching boy was Lord William 
 Russell,—Courvoisiers victim. The Duke, or St. George, is well known to the 
 inhabitants of Russell Square by means of his bronze statue and its attendant 
 boys. The greatest folly of the picture is in the action of the young lady, 
 who is in a costume that unhappily combines the Roman toga and the 
 British bed-gown, which figured in so many of his portraits, and became so 
 commonly accepted that it is really ‘ classical ’ in English portraiture. 
 
 The best portion of this picture was derived from an incident which 
 shows as well as such a thing can do, the advantages Reynolds derived from 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 fidelity to nature in real life; that portion is the attitude of the crouching 
 boy, little Lord William Russell. Lord William, like many other boys of his 
 age, (he was born in 1767, so could have been hardly ten years old at this 
 time), had a great disgust at the notion of being painted; and when com¬ 
 pelled to come to the room where Sir Joshua was waiting, huddled himself 
 against the wall in sulky anger and distrust. 
 
 Reynolds, who knew how to deal with children, and could manage them 
 so perfectly that he contrived to paint more of them and better than any 
 one else, cried out, £ Ah, my little man, keep where you are/ whence the 
 incident we now see. The boy who looks over the Dukes shoulder, is John 
 the sixth Duke of Bedford, who, after his brother’s death in 1802, succeeded 
 to the dignity, and was the father of Earl Russell. The Miss Vernon be¬ 
 came Countess of Warwick, second wife of the Earl then in possession of 
 that title, and died in 1838, a very old woman; she was married in the 
 year of sitting for this picture, and had been a protegee of the Lady Ossory 
 before mentioned here as mother of ‘Sylvia and Collina.’ It was this 
 Miss Vernon who wrote complimentary verses to Horace Walpole associating 
 him as a bard with that one whom the witty letter-writer styled his ‘ heathen 
 predecessor/—an honour Walpole declined, by asserting that he owed the 
 name only to his godfathers and godmothers, and that it would only be 
 allowed on that ‘ puppet-show Parnassus ’ Bath-Easton, a place the whimsical 
 ways of which Madame D’Arblay so well described. 
 
 Lady Warwick was the eldest of the ‘ Three Vernons/ as celebrated by 
 Walpole in verse. She was the subject of much writing by him to Lady 
 Ossory. Of the group, he wrote, ‘ I have seen the picture of “ St. George,” 
 and approve the Duke of Bedford’s head, and the exact likeness of Miss 
 Vernon, but the attitude is mean and foolish, and expresses silly wonderment’ 
 (Lord Orford to Lady Ossory, December 17, 1776). A note by Mr. R. V. 
 Smith to Mr. P. Cunningham’s edition of ‘Walpole’s Letters/ says that the 
 picture was made for Mr. Rigby, Paymaster of the Forces, a great friend of 
 the Bedford family, who intended to bequeath it to them, and beforehand 
 told the Duke he might send for it. This was never done, either from 
 modesty or indifference,—as the would-be donor fancied ; probably he was 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 11 
 
 right,—one can understand that the very kindly and highly sensible Duke 
 of Bedford would not care to possess a composition representing himself in 
 youth so absurdly. It is now the property of the Earl of Jersey at Middleton 
 Park. Thus, as with the picture before named of an allegorical subject— 
 i.e. the Misses Montgomery, now No. 79 in the National Gallery—this work 
 has passed out of the hands of those who were most concerned in its subject. 
 It seems as if no one cares to have an allegorical picture by Reynolds. 
 The Montgomery picture cost Viscount Mountjoy 450 1. (Malone). 
 
 Reynolds painted another large family picture, that of the ‘ Marlborough 
 Family,’ now at Blenheim, which has been lately re-engraved, and is deservedly 
 popular. It shows four children, and, according to the tale, illustrates what 
 we said before of Reynolds’s power in dealing with the youngsters. The 
 principal incident in this composition is that of Lady Charlotte Spencer, a 
 child of five years old (who, by the way, married no less ponderous a person 
 than Dr. Nares of Oxford), in the act of terrifying her lesser sister Lady 
 Anne, then not more than four years of age, with a huge mask, which she 
 holds before her own face, and so startles the little one that she shrinks 
 back and clutches, with a capitally rendered expression of terror, the dress 
 of an elder sister, Lady Caroline Spencer, afterwards Viscountess Cliefden. 
 Reynolds, who went to Blenheim to paint this picture, between the 13th of 
 August and the 4 th of September, 1777, had considerable difficulty in deciding 
 upon an incident something like action for the design; this was after he 
 had put in the principal and older personages, who, as the picture shows, 
 are doing ‘nothing in particular.’ Coming suddenly into the family sitting- 
 room he saw the little girls at play in this manner, and immediately adopted 
 the hint. It is worth while to note here, as we are writing of Reynolds 
 as a painter of children, that the little Lady Anne, who thus faced the tor¬ 
 mentor, became Countess of Shaftesbury, mother of the present Earl of that 
 name, and died—as we are strongly inclined to believe, the last to survive of 
 Reynolds’s sitters—no longer ago than the 7th of August, 1865, being ther. 
 in her ninety-first year. 
 
 It was of this picture the story is told,* how Reynolds, a prodigious 
 * See Smith’s ‘ Life of Nollekens.’ 
 
12 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 snuff-taker, and, like folks who indulge habits that can he unconsciously 
 performed, apt to exceed therein in moments of mental energy, took so 
 tremendous a quantity of his favourite stimulant while he was painting 
 one of the ladies in this group, that it fell not only on his waistcoat, breeches, 
 and stockings, but was strewn on the carpet, a new one, and the secret pride 
 of the Duchess’s heart, her Grace being, as it is said, a thoroughly ‘ notable * 
 woman of the English sort, who hated ‘ litters/ and trembled to the bottom 
 of her mind for the new piece of furniture. Heroically she bore the thing 
 for a long time ; at last female nature could hold out no more, the bell 
 was rung, and a footman ordered to bring brush and pan, and relieve the 
 carpet. Reynolds, being deaf, of course heard nothing of the order, but 
 when he saw the order about to be obeyed cried out, ‘ Let it be—let it be ! 
 the dust you make will do much more harm to my picture than my snuff 
 will do to your carpet/* Thus it had to remain, but it must have been a 
 hard trial for her Grace of Marlborough, and might probably have had some¬ 
 thing to do with the dissatisfaction she afterwards expressed about the 
 likeness of one of her daughters when the picture was finished, and she went 
 to see it in Leicester Square. ‘ I don’t think it a bit like/ said she. Sir 
 Joshua took advantage of his hardness of hearing, pretended (so Beechey 
 told Leslie) to accept the remark in the contrary sense, and bowed to 
 return the imaginary compliment, c I am glad you are pleased with it; 
 everybody thinks it the best likeness I have ever painted/ ‘But I don’t 
 think it like/ cried her Grace, again. Still Sir Joshua did not hear, or would 
 not do so, until some gentleman, urged by the lady, bawled into his ear. 
 ‘ Not like !’ said Reynolds ; * then we will make it like/ The price of the 
 picture was 73 5 1. 
 
 Reynolds’s mind was so entirely bent in that direction which was ob¬ 
 viously best suited to its action and training, that failure might be expected 
 whenever he diverged from portraiture. He was by no means indifferent 
 to, or unsuccessful in, attaining poetic expression for his pictures, either by 
 
 * ‘ I saw him at an Academy dinner, when his waistcoat was absolutely powdered with it 
 (snuff).’ So said Rogers. See ‘ Table Talk,’ p. 21; also Goldsmith’s line,— 
 
 ‘ He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.’ 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 13 
 
 means of their faces, actions, chiaroscuro, or backgrounds. What he did 
 with the latter is at present in question here. The remark that Reynolds 
 never safely left portraiture holds good, as we believe, with universal 
 effect. In truth, his landscapes are really aptly chosen portraits of Nature : 
 in them he was fortunate,—had poetry and magnificence at his hand; no 
 artificial habits were to be mastered there,—no traditions were prepared to 
 hamper him ; his natural feeling did all he needed and all he aimed 
 to do. 
 
 It may be worth while, for the sake of those who are not accustomed to 
 recognise Reynolds as a landscape-painter, to state his eminent success in 
 a few works of that class, wherein the rural subject accompanies, rather 
 than is subordinate to the portrait or the story proper. Those who re¬ 
 member the extraordinary felicity with which accessorial landscapes were 
 introduced by Reynolds, will not need to be reminded on that subject. How 
 Reynolds stood in this matter in comparison with his great rival, Gains¬ 
 borough, is another interesting part of this question, which, so far, proposes 
 to decide on their respective merits ; it has been said, and not without good 
 reason, that Gainsborough surpassed Reynolds as a landscape-painter proper, 
 and was decidedly inferior to him whenever that branch of art was applied 
 to portraiture; the backgrounds of Reynolds’ portraits are better than those 
 by Gainsborough, the landscapes of Reynolds are not equal to those by his 
 rival. Much may be said for the work of the latter in both respects; 
 Gainsborough is not our subject here, yet comes incidentally in comparison 
 with the painter of whom we are treating, because of this noteworthy contrast 
 between them. Let us, however, see what Reynolds did in a development 
 of design, which is not reckoned among those whereof he was master; it 
 cannot but be to his honour that we select a few examples from among 
 many, they come almost without the act of choice. Thus, to this end, note 
 the open landscape in the background of that charming portrait of Master 
 P. Yorke, a picture probably referred to in the artist’s ledger as follows, 
 ‘March 1788, Mr. York, for Master York,* 105 1.’ and representing a rosy 
 
 * Master Philip Yorke (Viscount Royston), son of the third Earl of Hardwicke, was drowned 
 at sea in a storm off Lubeck, 1808. 
 
14 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 boy playfully teaching a dog to * beg/ and, with the prettiest action imaginable, 
 admonishing his canine friend. The landscape here, to be in keeping with 
 so cheerful and light-hearted a subject, has a bright aspect, and varied, s milin g 
 surface; there are well lighted, distant, not too lofty mountains, and wealth 
 of near herbage. The close landscape in ‘ The Children in the Wood/ where 
 are deep vistas under gloomy boughs, and sparse gleams of lig ht that lead 
 the eye into the hopeless mazes of the forest, where all darkens in distance, 
 is most apt to the theme. There are two pictures of this subject, one of 
 them, that to which we refer here, has been engraved by Watson, is the 
 property of Viscountess Palmerston, and now at Broadlands, and is 3 feet 
 3 inches by 3 feet 1 inch. The other work of this subject by Reynolds is 
 smaller than the last, the figures are differently composed, closer together, 
 and represent an earlier part of the story to the above, which shows the 
 babes asleep; here they are prattling, one lying in the arms of the 
 other, unconscious of their peril. This work was engraved by Caldwell 
 and S. W. Reynolds, and is doubtless that referred to in the ledger 
 we have before quoted thus, ‘Nov. 1785, Mr. Vander Gutch,* for two 
 children, 36?. 15s.’ Caldwell’s print describes it as in the possession of 
 the last-named person. Viscountess Palmerston’s ‘Children in the Wood’ 
 was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1772, and at the British Institution 
 in 1813. 
 
 The very small piece of landscape in that charming picture and painted 
 poem ‘ A Child Sleeping/ so finely engraved by W. Doughty, although com¬ 
 prising only three or four tall park elms, as seen from a window, with a 
 large somnolent-looking mass of cumulus behind them, backed further by a 
 calm and deep space of firmament, is so perfectly in keeping with the subject 
 of the picture that, as the child sleeps in the chamber, so, in all their boughs, 
 the tall elms sleep without. This is no accidental result of grouping, as 
 the student may see, who will note that one of the elms bows downwards 
 in a soft incline, so as not only by its stooping to sustain the composition 
 
 * This was Vandergutch, the picture-dealer, 
 who was drowned at Chiswick in 1794, thirty- 
 second child of Gerard Vandergutch, the last of 
 
 that line of famous engravers. At his house in 
 Brook Street the first exhibition of the Society of 
 Painters in Water Colours was held. 
 
THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. 
 

 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 15 
 
 with reference to the reclining child, a vital quality in design, but to suggest 
 the idea of universal repose.* 
 
 How admirably is the mass of rainy cloud and wind-swept drift adapted 
 to the subject of ‘ The Young Shepherd/ what ineffable value to the chiaroscuro 
 of the picture is that light which glances on the leaning birch-stem, in the 
 exquisite painting ‘The Bird!’ In ‘The Infant Academy’ how felicitously 
 applied to the halcyon story of children at play in a palace, is that glowing 
 wealth of summer cloud which, with all the light of afternoon beaming upon 
 it, as on a platform of pearl, fills the opening between the columns in the 
 picture, looks down upon high-heaped and dense foliage, from the bulk of 
 which, like stridulous accents in pompous music, arise the sharp, sword¬ 
 shaped pinnacles of a poplar or two. This was the picture chosen in pursuance 
 to Sir Joshua’s bequest to his friend the second Viscount Palmerston, father 
 of the late minister, that he should have the second choice of any of the 
 works by the painter remaining in his studio. It is now at Broadlands. 
 The chief figure in this picture, known as ‘ The Mob-Cap,’ was bought at 
 the Bogers’ sale, May 2nd, 1856, for Miss Burdett Coutts, for 780 guineas ; 
 it has been engraved separately. Lord Palmerston, father of the minister, 
 was one of the pall-bearers at Reynolds’s funeral. 
 
 The same admirable adaptation of landscape background to the varied 
 subjects and portraits he produced, is observable in what Reynolds did of 
 masculine as well as feminine and infantine themes. Thus, the ‘ Lord Heath- 
 field,’ defender of Gibraltar, now in the National Gallery, has a stormy sky 
 behind the figure, which is as apt to the man and his history as the 
 emblematical great key his hands hold, with a chain doubly twisted round 
 the wrist,—an intensely expressive action. This picture was fervently com- 
 
 * It is worth while to note, as an example of 
 faithlessness, or lack of insight, on the part of 
 a copyist, that there exists an engraving in line 
 from this picture, which is otherwise well exe¬ 
 cuted, but totally innocent of the pathetic effect 
 of the landscape. The student of Reynolds will 
 do well to place the mezzotint by Doughty next 
 to this line work by J. Summerfield; the con¬ 
 trast is instructive. 
 
 There is another engraving in mixed line and 
 mezzotint, which is less unsatisfactory than that 
 by Summerfield. The small print by S. W. 
 Reynolds is by no means good. This picture 
 was at the British Institution in 1813, 1823, 
 1843 ; it was the property of the Earl of 
 Aylesford, to whom Reynolds sold it for 
 50 guineas. 
 
16 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 mended by Constable in his ‘ Lectures.’ The landscape with sheep that 
 is proper to the seated portrait of Mrs. Frances Crewe, a lady as a shepherdess 
 reading by the side of a rocky bank, is perfectly suited to the nature of 
 the picture. 
 
 Nothing shows more powerfully the strange medley that has been made 
 of Reynolds’s subjects by ignorant engravers and publishers than the fact 
 that this charming picture—it goes beyond the merit and scope of portrait¬ 
 ure—has been variously named ‘Mrs. F. Crewe (which should be Frances 
 Anne, bom Greville, see after), as a Shepherdess, reading “ Clarissa Harlowe,” ’ 
 and ‘St. Genevieve reading, and attending her sheep.’ This difference will 
 be more obvious to the reader when we remind him that St. Genevieve was 
 the patron saint of Paris, bom a peasant of Nanterre, early in the fifth 
 century, who, at fifteen years of age, made, or renewed, a vow of perpetual 
 chastity, and, by the force of her holiness, influenced Childeric to spare the 
 city of Paris many of those inflictions which befell other places when captured 
 by him. She is more generally represented in the way Reynolds adopted— 
 reading in a landscape; of old, however, she had a distaff, and other emblems 
 of her career. The picture was exhibited in 1772, when Walpole noted in 
 his ‘ Catalogue ’ that it was ‘ one of his best ’ works. It is, indeed, a lovely 
 painting. Reynolds painted the lady many times; first, in 1760, with her 
 brother, Master Greville, as ‘ Hebe and Cupid,’ the latter figure was cut out 
 of the canvas, and its place supplied by a tripod, when the wrathful father 
 of the pair quarrelled with his son. Our artist again painted her, when 
 Miss Greville, in 1768, with her tender friend, Lady R. Spencer,* a picture 
 this year shown at the British Institution, wherein the ladies are reading an 
 inscription on a tomb, that inscription being ‘ Et in Arcadia Ego /’ the moral 
 consisting in the warning conveyed to the two youthful beauties who were then 
 at the head of the fashion. There are clear indications of melancholy whims 
 as entertained by the ladies at the time this picture was painted. Generally 
 speaking, Mrs. Crewe was one of the liveliest of ladies. She went balloon 
 
 * Lady Robert Spencer, born Henrietta Fawke- 
 ner, daughter of Sir E. Fawkener, K.B., married, 
 first, the Hon. E. Bouyerie; secondly, Lord 
 
 Robert Spencer, third son of Charles, second 
 Duke of Marlborough, K.'G. 
 
THE SLEEPING CHILD. 
 
' ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 1 
 
 mad, like the rest of the world, when Blanchard went up in 1784— 
 Mr. Taylor tells us that she sent her glove up in the car, and that 
 the Duchess of Devonshire, one of Reynolds’s sitters, cut the rope. Mrs. 
 Crewe was one of the ‘ women of the time/ She was a great friend of 
 Fanny Burney’s, often appearing in Madame D’Arblay’s ‘ Diary/ where that 
 authoress drew several charming portraits of her; hut none better than that 
 latest—of 1792 (June 10th)—which refers to her beauty as still splendid, 
 although a quarter of a century after the sentimental Lady R. Spencer and 
 she were thus depicted by Reynolds. ‘ She uglifies everything near her/ 
 wrote Madame D’Arblay, in her daring English* She was one of the 
 beauties and toasts of her time—energetic in electioneering; the heroine 
 of that supper which commemorated the election of C. J. Fox for West¬ 
 minster in 1784, when the toast, ‘True blue, and Mrs. Crewe/ was given, 
 and she, with audacity that would shock a modern lady to death, returned 
 it, her glass in hand, with ‘True blue, and all of you!’ Both Sheridan 
 and Fox addressed her in verse. Mr. Cunningham, in his edition of 
 Walpole’s ‘Letters/ quotes four lines by the former ‘To Mrs. Crewe/ which 
 have, as Walpole wrote, June 12, l774,t when he enclosed them to 
 Mason, ‘ one line about squeezing that is delightful/ To the best of our 
 belief this is the sole happy case of employment for that term in the 
 language,— 
 
 * Madame D’Arblay went with her father, Dr. 
 Burney, for a three-days’ visit to Mrs. Crewe 
 (not yet Lady Crewe), at her villa at Hampstead, 
 and then records the meeting with her very old 
 friend:—‘We were received by Mrs. Crewe with 
 much kindness. The room was rather dark, and 
 she had a veil to her bonnet, half down, and with 
 this aid she looked still in a full blaze of beauty. 
 I was wholly astonished. Her bloom, perfectly 
 natural, is as high as that of Augusta Lock 
 when in her best looks, and the form of her 
 face is so exquisitely perfect, that my eye never 
 met it without fresh admiration. She is cer¬ 
 tainly, in my eyes, the most completely a beauty 
 of any woman I ever saw. I do not, even now, 
 
 know any female, in her first youth, who could 
 bear the comparison. She uglifies everything 
 near her. Her son is with her. He is just of 
 age, and looks like her elder brother! He is a 
 heavy, old-looking young man. He is going to 
 China with Lord Macartney.’ Burke was of this 
 party at the Hampstead villa, also Erskine 
 and Lord Loughborough; they read together 
 Rogers's ‘ Pleasures of Memory,’ a book of the 
 year, and stirring all the cognoscenti to their 
 depths. 
 
 | There must be a mistake in these dates. 
 According to Burke’s ‘ Peerage ’ the lady was 
 Miss Greville until 1776. 
 
 D 
 
18 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 ‘ The faithful hand can unobserved impart 
 The secret feelings of a tender heart; 
 
 And oh ! what bliss when each alike is pleased, 
 
 The hand that squeezes, and the hand that’s squeezed.’ 
 
 Fox’s lines may be read in the same work (voL vi. p. 216). Those by 
 Sheridan were sent to the lady with a presentation copy of £ The School for 
 Scandalso says Mr. Cunningham; they are referred to by Walpole, as 
 above, in a letter dated three years before that play appeared on the stage, 
 which was in 1777, according to the biographer of the 4 English Cyclopaedia,’ 
 article 4 Sheridan, R. B.’ On the elevation of Mr. Crewe to the peerage in 
 1806, she became Lady Crewe. She died in 1818 ; was grandmother to the 
 present Lord Crewe, who contributed to the British Institution, not only the 
 portrait of ‘Master Crewe as Henry VIII.,’ but a still more pleasing one, 
 that of ‘A Child in a black hood, with a Basket on her arm’ (No. 110), which 
 we suppose to be the portrait of Miss Crewe, sister of 4 Henry VIII.,’ who sat 
 to Reynolds in May, 1770. This is a charming little whole-length portrait— 
 one of the fortunately-preserved pictures from Crewe Hall fire; shows a black 
 mantled and hooded damsel of some four years old, trotting, as if to market, 
 with a basket; her little hands, in long, brown mittens ; an under dress of 
 rosy white, a red shoe peeping beneath the petticoat; the innocent face full 
 of sweetness and spirit. The management of so large a mass of black as 
 this picture shows, cannot be too much admired. We are not aware that 
 this picture has been engraved. The landscape is thoroughly in keeping 
 with the subject, and it, on that account alone, deserves a place here with 
 others which are selected to illustrate the ability of Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 in such accessories. 
 
 How thoroughly suited to the look of the lady, ‘ The Hon. Mrs. Darner,’* 
 is the landscape behind the figure ; a calm expanse of water, part of a river 
 flowing through lowlands, shut in, as if against all thought of wrong, by 
 mountains that exclude the world ; a charming portrait. ‘Lady Betty Delme’t 
 
 * ‘ June 17th, 1771. 35 l. 15s.’ So says the 
 painter’s ledger. A single figure, standing, 
 t The price of this picture, June 10th, 1780., 
 
 was 300Z. It is a large group, but shows in this 
 sum the increase of payments to Reynolds since 
 1771, the date of the last item. 
 

MASTER CREWE. 
 
 In the Costume of Henry VIH. 
 
 * 
 
 I 
 
 * 
 

ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 19 
 
 sits with her children in a park, beneath an immemorial tree; behind stretches 
 a lordly park, that is traversed in more than one direction by shallow waters 
 hurrying in cascades, and marked on the banks by sweet-scented limes in 
 bloom,—another little idyll, very full of happiness and peace, of wealth and 
 ease. The number of Reynolds’s portraits of ladies has never been given, 
 probably it cannot be ascertained with precision; it is beyond all question 
 marvellous, but not less so is the variety of the attitudes in which he placed 
 the sitters, that of the ideas he expressed, and of the accessories with which 
 they are surrounded ; to this end, and to show how successfully he fitted 
 things together, background and figure, compare the portrait of ‘ Elizabeth 
 Hamilton, Countess of Derby/ splendidly engraved by W. Dickinson, with 
 that of ‘Lady Betty Delme’ just named. It is the same everywhere. 
 
 We believe that Reynolds, of that English school of portrait-painters of 
 which he was the founder, was the happiest in introducing backgrounds to 
 his works ; to him we are for the most part indebted for that aptitude of 
 one to the other which has so great an effect in putting the eye and mind 
 of the observer into harmonious relationship with what may be called the 
 motive of the portrait, which, indeed, elevates a mere likeness to the character 
 of a picture, and affords a charming field for the display of art in pathos, 
 which is too often neglected, if not utterly ignored, by Reynolds’s successors. 
 We think he exhibited more of this valuable characteristic than any other 
 contemporary artist. Lawrence aimed at it, but with effect only com¬ 
 mensurate to his success in painting. Of old, as before the seventeenth 
 century in Germany and Italy, the art of landscape-painting per se was 
 inefficiently cultivated, at least expressed with irregularity, although occa¬ 
 sionally with force enough to show that the pathos as well as the beauty 
 of nature were by no means unappreciated or neglected to anything like the 
 extent which has been commonly represented by writers on Art. Reynolds 
 probably took the hint, as he did many others of the kind, from Yandyck, 
 and gave apt backgrounds to his figures : between these painters no one 
 did much, or even well in the pathetic part of the achievement. Since 
 Reynolds, none have approached him in success. It will be understood that 
 the object of these remarks is not to suggest for the reader’s consideration who 
 
20 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 painted the best landscape backgrounds as landscapes, but who most happily 
 adapted them to his more important themes. We believe Reynolds did so, 
 and will conclude our remarks by another example. The landscape in the 
 distance of ‘ The Age of Innocence ’ is as thoroughly in keeping with the 
 subject as it can be : thus here are fields easy to traverse, a few village elms, 
 and just seen above their tops the summits of habitations,—the hint is thus 
 given that the child, all innocent as she is, has not gone far from home, or 
 out of sight of the household to which she belongs. This picture—which is 
 now in the National Gallery, and temporarily at South Kensington—was 
 bought at Mr. Jeremiah Harmans sale by Mr. Vernon in 1844 for 1520 guineas. 
 It was exhibited at the British Institution in 1813 and 1843. Another, 
 the property of the Earl of Lonsdale, was also exhibited there in 1833. 
 The former was at the International Exhibition, 1862. The figure has been 
 engraved with a background like that of ‘ The Infant Samuel/—an odd 
 change of sentiment. 
 
 The works in pure landscape by Reynolds may, for convenience sake, 
 be aptly introduced and enumerated here. They are but few, and will not 
 greatly impede our progress with the general subject of this essay. One of 
 the most remarkable works in the Art Treasures’ Exhibition of 1857 at 
 Manchester was a noble engraving by J. Jones, from a picture once in the 
 possession of the Marchioness of Thomond, entitled, ‘ A View of Petersham 
 and Twickenham Meadows from Richmond Hill/* and further described on 
 the margin of the print to be the only landscape painted by Reynolds. This 
 is the well-known view, one of the loveliest in the world, painted by Turner, 
 and nearly every other English artist from the time of Zoffany—who, we 
 
 * Date, 1788; size, 3 feet 2 inches by 2 feet 
 11 inches ; at the British Institution, 1813 and 
 1823. At the sale of Lady Thomond’s pictures, 
 1821, Rogers bought this work for 155 guineas ; 
 at the Rogers’ sale, 1856, it was resold for 430 
 guineas to Mr. F. Baring. ‘ At Port Eliot,’ says 
 Mr. Cotton (‘ Reynolds and his Works,’ p. 64), 
 ‘ is a long, narrow landscape—a view of Ply¬ 
 mouth and the adjoining scenery — taken from 
 the hill called “ Catdown,” painted by Reynolds 
 
 in 1748, the year before he went to Italy.’ 
 This is rather dry and poor in painting. It 
 was exhibited at the British Institution in 1823. 
 Birch’s print of ‘ Richmond Hill ’ was published 
 in the l Delices de la Grande Bretagne.' Rogers 
 reports Fox’s opinion that Sir Joshua never en¬ 
 joyed Richmond Hill, where he lived—that he 
 used to say the Tiuman face was his landscape. 
 Rogers owned the picture painted from this spot. 
 This opinion needs much qualification. 
 

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. 
 

 
 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 21 
 
 believe, did it first—to the present. There 4 * is a smaller print of this picture 
 engraved by W. Birch, of Hampstead Heath, who was also an enamel-painter. 
 This print is styled, * View from Sir J. Reynolds's house on Richmond Hill/ 
 The same engraver reproduced a landscape that was ascribed to Reynolds, 
 entitled ‘ Conway Castle,' and is a faithful representation of the prospect 
 from the east of that fortress, showing Penmaenmawr behind it, and, as we 
 must say, not a little exaggerated in size. It is noteworthy that the same 
 sort of enlargement has been vouchsafed to the hill in the background of 
 the ‘ Richmond,’ and suggested, we suppose, by the ridges near Egham : 
 these are made to be about half as big again as in nature. S. W. 
 Reynolds engraved three other landscapes, all having very effective characters. 
 The first, which is probably that named in the Thomond Catalogue as 
 ‘ A. bold Landscape in the manner of S. Rosa,’ gives a vista through trees 
 that are densely gathered to the front, showing a park-like expanse, with 
 a river in the mid-distance, a meadow beyond, with sheep upon it; 
 further off a round tower appears among foliage ; furthest of all a cliff 
 rises against the sky. The second landscape so engraved represents a space 
 of cultivated land, a few trees growing in a hedge-row; above, a dense 
 cloud fills the whole upper third of the picture ; the centre third is occupied 
 by a mass of light and the before-mentioned trees in nearly equal portions; 
 the lower third is filled by the landscape proper :—an intensely Rembrandtist 
 effect. The third picture of this series shows a storm of rain over a mountain 
 country, that is darkly shadowed by gathering vapours, and lighted imper¬ 
 fectly, but so as to display in the great obscurity rocks, a river, and massed 
 foliage/ 1 ' The first-named of these three landscapes had probably for its 
 original that which was sold at the Marchioness of Thomond’s sale by Messrs. 
 Christie, May 18th, 1821, as ‘ A Woody Landscape,’ Lot 48, to Mr., afterwards 
 Sir George, Philips, for 48 1. 5 s. Another, or the same, was sold at Rogers’s 
 sale, May 2, 1856, as ‘A Grand Woody Landscape,’ for 105 guineas, to 
 Mr. Pearce, of High Holbom, a picture-dealer. 
 
 * It is worth while to note here the price 
 Reynolds received in January, 1785, of Mr. 
 Brook Boothby, ‘for a landskip’—57 1. 10s. (See 
 
 Mr. Cotton’s printed version of Reynolds’s ‘ Led¬ 
 ger.’) Northcote’s list of his master’s works com¬ 
 prises 1 Conway Castle,’ as engraved by Birch. 
 
22 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 It has been alleged that Reynolds never, or rarely, painted the landscape 
 backgrounds to his pictures, and that they were the work of Peter Toms, R.A., 
 one of his ablest assistants, or of others who were more potent with that 
 branch of Art than the President himself. On this account, having a belief 
 to the contrary, we have dwelt somewhat at length on this part of the 
 subject, with the purpose not only to call greater attention to the matter 
 in hand than is generally vouchsafed, but in order that the reader may see how 
 completely and unobtrusively—therein is the wisest exercise of Art—the 
 accessorial portions of the works in question are in accord with the motives 
 of so many portraits by Reynolds. It is hard to deny to the mind which 
 conceived the ruling idea of such pictures that honour which is assuredly 
 due to some one, and to whom more probably than to the painter of the 
 faces and designer of the attitudes, which are in such perfect harmony with 
 the subordinate elements about them as to be completed only when the 
 alliance is made. Without this alliance, this harmony of parts, half the 
 significance of many of Reynolds’s pictures is obscured. When we have 
 noted this the result is at least instructive, if not convincing, that one 
 mind designed, if one hand did not invariably execute, the whole of any 
 important portrait by our subject. 
 
 Our own belief is, that whenever the landscapes or other accessories of 
 his productions are essential to the idea expressed by the work as a whole, 
 then undoubtedly Reynolds wrought these minor parts almost wholly, if not 
 entirely, with his own brushes. The landscapes proper, to which we have 
 referred above, bear every characteristic of the master’s mode of thought: 
 one of them was evidently believed by the Marchioness of Thomond to be 
 his work; another was, as noted before, sold by himself to Mr. Boothby, and 
 described in the ‘ ledger’ in the manner commonly adopted with regard to his 
 own pictures. That evidence which is afforded by a resemblance in the 
 style of these works to the backgrounds previously named, or suggested 
 by the fact that S. W. Reynolds engraved three of them, would, doubtless, 
 not perfectly decide the authorship if taken alone, but when strengthened by 
 collateral indications the result is powerful enough to remove all reasonable 
 doubts of their authenticity from our minds. Of course it might be supposed 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 23 
 
 that the ‘landskip’ sold by Reynolds to Mr. Boothby was not understood 
 as his work, but rather one of his numerous purchases of old pictures,—it 
 was not, however, common with the President to describe sales or exchanges 
 of this sort in his ‘ ledger ’ without particular reference to the nature of the 
 transaction. Again, it may be said that although Reynolds sold the picture 
 in question to Mr. Boothby, it might still have been the work of the painter 
 of his landscape backgrounds,—if such a one, other than himself, existed. 
 It is unfair, however, to accuse Reynolds of such an act as this, which would 
 be of a very different nature to that of selling a picture, the accessorial 
 parts of which were perfectly understood to be the work of another hand 
 inferior to his own. 
 
 Thus far of Reynolds as a poet in painting. What he probably considered 
 ‘ heroic ’ pictures were, generally speaking, works which cannot now be included 
 in any category of grave, much less of sublime Art. We have now to consider 
 him as the artist of what are styled ‘religious’ subjects. That he did nothing 
 of the devotional cast, in the old sense of the term, it is almost needless to 
 say ; nevertheless, the most important of those productions of his which we 
 shall now consider are to all intents, if not to all purposes, devotional pictures, 
 and have been treated as such by the possessors,—in a way, withal, that 
 contrasts strangely with the refusal of the authorities to admit pictures to 
 St. Paul’s, when Reynolds begged to be allowed to paint there, and the 
 whole Royal Academy joined in the request. These productions—that is, 
 the ‘ religious’ pictures by Reynolds—most aptly represent a phase of thought 
 that was sincerely entertained by some of the ablest men of the time : we 
 are thankful now that they were not admitted to St. Paul’s, but their sincerity 
 is palpable by the practice of innumerable designers of considerable ability, as 
 well as by that of many whose genius was unchallengeable in other paths. 
 Men still living attest by the earnestness with which they speak of the 
 pictures of West—which were, apart from technical qualities, far nobler and 
 graver than those of Reynolds—how deep and genuine must have been 
 the conception of better pictorial thoughts than those we now laugh at or 
 sigh over, and are compelled to exclude, so far as it is possible, from con¬ 
 sideration of our subject as an artist. We attempt this exclusion in order 
 
24 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 that, when the trifles are brushed away, the core and masculine strength— 
 the love of beauty—the wealthy fancy of the master, may be more distinct 
 than it would otherwise be. 
 
 The British Institution gave 30001 .—a sum which, even now, would be 
 considered enormous—for ‘ Christ healing the Sick/ by West; and when 
 that cold picture was purchased, and presented to the nation, it was actually 
 believed, not only by the donors, but the public at large, to be a grand work, 
 
 ‘ worthy/ as one effusive reviewer wrote, ‘ to be classed with the productions 
 of any age.’* Honour to West for what he did; it was his best; but now 
 no one cares even to look at the picture, of which so much fuss was made. 
 So sensible a person as Fanny Burney, who not only, as has been most happily 
 said, * lived to be a classic/ but was, in some respects, a link between more 
 than two generations, and has translated the sentiments of the foregoing to 
 the benefit of that which followed, was moved to the very depths of her 
 heart by the appeal of pictures by Reynolds and by West that are now 
 ridiculously ineffective. Thus one can well understand how it happened that 
 the latter was looked upon as a sort of champion of goodness and of art. 
 His personal character had much to do with these sentiments, but was by no 
 means the only apology for feelings so warm as those which compelled a 
 friend of ours, not many days ago, with tears in his eyes, to say, ‘ I stood 
 behind the old man as he painted “ Christ healing the Sick,” and, with all 
 my heart, prayed to God that he might happily complete so noble a work, 
 and thought that, if my life could be the ransom for his success, I would 
 
 * West was offered, and, anticipating a larger 
 sum, refused, 8000Z. for ‘ Christ Rejected he 
 hoped for 10,000Z. This was no sign of greed 
 on the part of the artist, who, although promised 
 3000Z. for 1 Christ healing the Sick,’ would not 
 consent to sell it for that tremendous sum until 
 he was permitted to copy the picture for the 
 benefit of a hospital in Philadelphia, to which 
 the original had been promised in lieu of a sub¬ 
 scription. He did this, and so effectually, that a 
 new wing was added to the hospital, with accom¬ 
 modation for thirty patients. West’s thoughts 
 were grave, solid, not solemn. He had not a 
 
 grain of poetry in him ; poetry alone lives supe¬ 
 rior to the passage of generations, and appeals to 
 all. He is now, if not almost forgotten, unjustly 
 contemned. His fame was ludicrously out of 
 proportion to his merits, but it was better de¬ 
 served, because founded on sincerity and humility 
 in art, than that of Sir Joshua, some of whose 
 religious pictures fetched prices which are abso¬ 
 lutely astounding; such is the case with regard 
 to ‘ The Holy Family,’ now in the National 
 Gallery, ‘ The Adoration of the Shepherds,’ and 
 the rest of the transparency in the window of 
 New College Chapel, Oxford. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 25 
 
 cheerfully lay it down/ Such sentiments as these are now almost in¬ 
 credible with regard to a picture that is being shifted from wall to wall in 
 the public collection, and will he forgotten when it vanishes. It is not 
 very long ago that earnest thoughts prevailed before that large unanimated 
 canvas.* 
 
 If such was the case with regard to ‘ Christ healing the Sick/ we may 
 guess at the ideas of men about Reynolds’s tragic subjects—his mythological 
 absurdities, his trivial sentimentalities in the picture-glass of New College ante- 
 Chapel, with the design of which he was so well satisfied that he introduced 
 his own portrait and that of Jarvis, the glass-painter, among the prominent char¬ 
 acters in that sole portion of the subject which could be made to admit them. 
 They appear as the shepherds in that famous composition, which is now accepted 
 as no better than a peep-show, but which was then hailed as of golden promise 
 for English design, then regarded as an achievement in vitreous art, now 
 rejected as not only an utter failure in that respect, but because it is executed 
 on principles of design which are falsely applied to the art of glass-staining. 
 ‘ The Holy Family/ now in the National Gallery, is of the same stamp as 
 the ‘ Nativity ’ of the ante-Chapel at Oxford—a mere collection of painter’s 
 models, depicted in the sentiment which is supplied by such persons, not by 
 earnest intellects or poetic feelings. 
 
 Thus far we have examined Reynolds’s claim for admiration as a painter 
 of ideal, mythologic, humorous, and dramatic subjects ; that is, those which 
 call for the higher powers of imagination. By the introduction of thought 
 on what he achieved in landscape we have endeavoured to show that he 
 was by no means deficient in feeling for pathos, or devoid of poetic sentiment; 
 that sentiment and that pathos were, however, best conveyed by him to the 
 mind of the student through forms and similitudes of ordinary nature; above 
 this he rarely, if ever, rose. 
 
 The picture of ‘ The Angels/ now in the National Gallery, is a case in 
 point; the face,—for only one is represented,—is as nearly angelic as a human 
 
 * The reception of Mr. Holman Hunt’s ‘ Find¬ 
 ing of the Saviour in the Temple,’ and ‘ The 
 Light of the World,’ by the same artist, attests 
 
 that the change is in the spectators’ knowledge, 
 not the decline of religious feeling in this 
 country. 
 
26 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 portrait can be made, so we think. It is a most exquisite series of likenesses 
 of Miss Frances Isabella Ker Gordon, only child of Lord William Gordon, 
 second son of Cosmo George, third Duke of Gordon, and Deputy-Ranger of 
 St. James’s Park, who married, in 1781, Frances, daughter of Charles, ninth 
 Viscount Irvine. This young lady was, therefore, niece of Lord George 
 Gordon of the 1780 ‘ No-Popery’ riots, and, by descent from her father’s mother, 
 granddaughter of Queen Anne’s and Pope’s Earl of Peterborough, the victor 
 of Valencia and cultivator of peaches. Alexander, second Duke of Gordon, 
 married Lady Henrietta Mordaunt, daughter of the redoubtable Earl. Miss 
 Gordon died, unmarried, at the Ranger’s House, Green Park, Piccadilly, on 
 the 2nd of September, 1831,—a house known, as those of other rangers 
 may be known, by the pair of stags which occupied the piers in front of it. 
 This house was removed when the Green Park—once called Little St. James’s 
 Park—was improved in 1841. It stood at the north-west comer of the Park. 
 After the lady’s death this picture was presented to the National Gallery— 
 where it now is, numbered 182—by Lady William Gordon, her mother, in 
 1841. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1787, and at the British 
 Institution in 1813, being then the property of Lord William Gordon, who 
 died in 1823. The size of the picture is 2 ft. 6 in. high by 2 ft. 1 in. 
 wide. Charming, ineffably sweet as these studies of a head are, there are 
 few who will accept them as apt ideals of what they are called, and evidently 
 intended to express,— i. e. ‘ Angels,’ or ‘ Angels’ heads.’ They are neither 
 seraphic nor cherubic, princely, dominating, or powerful; beautiful, full of 
 grace and innocence,—angelic only in that respect they are; the earth is 
 very sweet and fair, but still it is earthy. Lord W. Gordon gave 100 guineas 
 to Reynolds for this work. 
 
 The poetry of home, of gentleness, refinement, education,—all that civi¬ 
 lisation bestows or strengthens, Reynolds dealt with to perfection, by means 
 of that tact, grace, and skill, of which he was perfect master. What Lawrence 
 did in this way may be seen by comparing the famous portraits of the 
 Calmady children, well known as ‘ The Sisters,’ with ‘ The Angels ’ just named. 
 Of course Reynolds transcended the fine gentleman who succeeded him in 
 the Presidential Chair at the Royal Academy ; nevertheless, we think he was 
 

ANGELS’ HEADS. 
 
 Miss Frances Isabella Ker Gordon, 
 
 IN FIVE POSITIONS. 
 

ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 27 
 
 a long way in the rear of the grand old painters of these essences and their 
 like, Ghirlandajo, Angelico, or Raphael,—whose angels are more earthy than 
 those of his predecessors. Reynolds was honester than Guido, and more refined 
 than Murillo, as a painter of seraphic and cherubic beings, but he had not the 
 strength, vulgar as it was, of the last. In home conditions he was a master : 
 the amenities of the household,— the graces of the drawing-room,—the 
 labours of the study, were by him immeasurably better treated than by 
 others of his time, or since,—one might say of all time, so manly are his 
 men’s, so womanly his ladies’, so fair, sweet, bright, and innocent his children’s 
 portraits. 
 
 Two pictures by Reynolds remain, so to say, in a class by themselves. 
 These are ‘ The Infant Hercules ’ and ‘ Puck,’—works that are not professed 
 portraits, and have the highest, or rather the widest, fame. They have in 
 our minds very different degrees of merit in design : it is to design, as distinct 
 from the inferior qualities of technical execution, that our remarks on all the 
 foregoing works, where not otherwise specified, are directed. ‘ The Infant 
 Hercules ’ is conceived with the greatest vigour and spirit; indeed, so it 
 seems to us, it is the only first-rate example of Reynolds’s success in that 
 direction which is proper to it. The noble action of the child, the thoroughly 
 pervading force of his figure, are perfect in showing how the great snakes 
 that envious Juno sent to the cradle of Alcmena’s gigantic babe were worsted, 
 and spent their power in vain buddings and convulsions. In the clutch of 
 young Hercules their long bodies quiver and double, trembling and shud¬ 
 dering in every scale, their tongues vainly protrude, their starting eyeballs 
 innocuously threaten ; the while the boy thus grasps these monsters, one in 
 the air and in a great knot, the other beating the floor in agony, he is 
 unmoved,—his mighty head bows only with the stress of his grasp,—his 
 brows knit with resolution and force exerted, not with puerile anger. The 
 lower limbs are little moved. A very grand design. 
 
 Thus far it would have been well, we venture to say, if Reynolds had 
 left the design in the state which is represented by the single figure of 
 Hercules, which expressed the original idea, and remained in this country, 
 while the larger and much-talked-of grand composition of many figures went 
 
28 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 to the Empress of Russia, and is now among the glories of St. Petersburg. 
 The smaller picture, according to ‘ The Life and Times of Reynolds/ by 
 Messrs. Leslie and Tom Taylor, vol. ii. p. 484 (which author is responsible 
 for this we cannot say), was designed, as to the attitude of the Hercules, 
 from an old German woodcut in a book in the possession of the writer. 
 From this, as it may be, the picture was made, with Reynolds’s improvements 
 and development of the idea. Earl Fitzwilliam bought a repetition of the 
 principal figure, and, according to Mr. Cotton’s version of the artist’s ledger, 
 paid, ‘June, 1791, for “Hercules in the Cradle,” 175Z. 10s. in full.’ This 
 shows to us that our criticism on the larger work had been anticipated 
 within a few years of its production. That larger picture was produced in 
 pursuance to a commission from the Empress Catherine of Russia, who desired 
 a work by Reynolds, and left the choice of its subject to him. Northcote 
 tells us that his master made choice of this theme as most fit in allusion 
 to the great difficulties the Empress had to encounter in the civilisation of 
 her empire. The work was exhibited at the Academy in 1786, and attracted 
 a storm of admiration : it was placed over the chimney in the Gallery at 
 Somerset House, so that when the visitor entered the room by the opposite 
 door its effect was overpowering. Northcote gives the capital criticism of 
 W. Hodges, the landscape-painter, who went with Captain Cook on his 
 second voyage, a pupil of Wilson, who declared that it looked as if it had 
 been ‘ boiled in brandy/ so glowing was its colour. When the picture was 
 about to leave England after it had been engraved, Reynolds took leave of 
 it, saying to a friend, ‘ There are ten pictures under it,—some better, some 
 worse.’ This shows how earnestly he had worked out his idea. Yet that 
 idea, except so far as regards the central figure, will in these days be accepted 
 by few. 
 
 The point of the story chosen for the picture is that which describes the 
 effect of the uproar caused in the house of Amphitryon by the attack and 
 defeat of the serpents. Tiresias (said to be a portrait of Dr. Johnson, after 
 the Streatham likeness) contemplates the event with that expression which 
 so much delights the galleries of the theatre. The mother, Alcmena, in a 
 wonderfully demonstrative attitude, such as mother never yet assumed, is going 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 29 
 
 to the rescue of her child, spreads out her arms over the infant and his enemies, 
 and does nothing else in point, unless, as was indeed the point desired, it 
 be right for her to make a fine pose. Her figure catches, and spreads the light 
 through the picture, but its action is unapt to the last degree. Other figures 
 fill the composition with well-ordered lines, but to very little aid in respect 
 to the meaning of the design—at least they do so to those who look for 
 something more than fine attitudes and effective expressions. As we should 
 expect, the chiaroscuro of this picture is as fine as it can well be—perfectly 
 apt, and most poetical—a worthy accompaniment to the magnificent design 
 of the central figure. Those subordinate to the last are really only ‘ made 
 figures ’ of the class common in all uninspired pictures ; such, in fact, as 
 Reynolds produced too frequently in those queer paintings, ‘ The Banished 
 Lord ’—a mere model, whose history we know ; ‘ Dionysius Areopagita’—the 
 same old fellow, with an attempt at expression of something it would be 
 hard to describe; ‘ The Study from Nature ’—an honester work in respect to 
 its title—gives the same man without his whiskers, and having his hair 
 brushed & la Brutus, and makes us sorry Reynolds did such things—mere 
 stage-play, which might suit the Victoria Theatre and the gods, or even 
 ‘ Her Majesty’s ’ in an opera, but is, in painting, and by such a hand as his, 
 absolutely and ludicrously puerile. ‘ Ariadne ’ is another, but pleasanter work 
 of this class. It is really Miss Palmer with her back hair loose and blowing 
 in the wind, and a bare bust. Inconceivable such an Ariadne, lorn of Theseus, 
 opening her mouth in that ridiculous way, with no more passion in her eyes 
 than in the painting, with no more energy of grief, or wrath at love betrayed, 
 than led her to turn her neck over her left shoulder in the graceful way of 
 young ladies when they know themselves looked at, or wish to be looked 
 ata trick of the stage again, that great corrupter of art. But what chiaro¬ 
 scuro ! what colour ! 
 
 ‘ Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy ’ is a picture upon the design of 
 which few, we believe, can look with satisfaction. The utter inanity of the 
 ‘ Tragedy ’—fit companion as she is for the evil one behind Mrs. Siddons’s chair 
 in ‘ The Tragic Muse ’ picture—and the mere stage graces of the ‘ Comedy,’ 
 would have made it hard for so sensible a man as Garrick was, when off the 
 
30 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 stage, to decide between them. He, nevertheless, evidently rejects the former, 
 in which, on second thoughts, we must admit him to be right. Garrick proper 
 was several times painted by Reynolds, and with admirable felicity,—best 
 with that very characteristic action of his, having both arms resting on a table, 
 their fingers interlocked, the thumbs erect and pressed together. This work 
 has been finely engraved by Thomas Watson, but is a little flat, as his tran¬ 
 scripts often are. 
 
 The other picture of a child with a dramatic subject, to which we referred 
 above as not perfectly a portrait, and having the widest fame, is ‘Puck.’ 
 No work has attracted more admiration by means of its liveliness, its technical 
 felicity, than this one; the sums that have been given for it are enormous— 
 unparalleled, we believe, for so small a work, in duplicate, if not in triplicate, 
 and of a single figure. It was sold to Boydell, for the Shakespeare Gallery, 
 for 100 guineas, to the same end that the energetic alderman gave 500 guineas 
 to Reynolds for ‘ The Scene in Macbeth/ ‘ not yet begun/ as the often-quoted 
 ‘ledger’ notes, June, 1786. This last amount, it is said, was a sort of bonus 
 for Reynolds’s good-will and aid in the Shakespeare speculations, he having 
 been primarily very indifferent to that bold move, and ever accompanied 
 in such neglect by the sneers of Walpole, who, as it would appear, because 
 perfect success could not be anticipated in illustrating Shakespeare, would 
 have been content to have nothing done. For ‘The Death of Cardinal 
 Beaufort/ which followed in the same track, Boydell paid an equal sum to 
 the above, June, 1789. The history of the ‘Puck’ picture, as related by 
 Mr. Nicol, Secretary to the Directors of the British Institution, to Mr. 
 Cotton (‘Reynolds and his Works/ 1856, p. 174), is instructive to the 
 highest degree :— 
 
 ‘ Alderman Boydell and my grandfather were with Sir Joshua Reynolds when 
 painting the “ Cardinal Beaufort ” for the Shakespeare Gallery. Boydell was much 
 taken with the portrait of a naked child, and wished it could be brought into the Shakes¬ 
 peare. Sir Joshua said it was painted from a little child he found sitting on his steps 
 in Leicester Fields. My grandfather then said, “Well, Mr. Alderman, it can very 
 easily come into the Shakespeare, if Sir Joshua will kindly place him on a mushroom, 
 give him fawn’s ears, and make a ‘Puck’ of him.” Sir Joshua liked the notion, and 
 painted the picture accordingly.’ 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 31 
 
 No wonder Walpole wrote in his Catalogue, when he saw the result of 
 this transmogrification of a lively town baby into the quaintest and strangest 
 of minor goblins, the immemorial £ Robin Goodfellow,’—such was the first 
 title of this ‘Puck’ in the Academy of 1789,— £ An ugly little imp (but 
 some character), sitting on a mushroom as big as a millstone/ According 
 to his wont the critic understated the merit of an admirable picture : the 
 work to which he referred is inexhaustible of character, splendidly spirited 
 as a portrait of a gleeful baby, brimming over with life. Nevertheless, it is 
 not a Puck at all,—as such, indeed, really an absurd picture, probably sug¬ 
 gested by that fruitful parent of artistic dishonour the theatre, the occasion 
 some stage-trick or pantomimic feat with a trap-door, £ Hey, presto !’ and 
 the like, with which the place of wit is supplied, and goes far to prove the 
 source of antithesis. £ Puck ’ here looks as if he had popped up at a prompter’s 
 whistle, with £ Here we are again!’ or whatever might have been the equi¬ 
 valent phrase in the last century. The suggestion of Mr. Nicol may have 
 had its origin in the same source, or was certainly reproduced at the Princess’s 
 Theatre, when £ A Midsummer Night’s Dream ’ was performed not many 
 years ago, and a poor wretch of an infant did its best with the part, which 
 by right belonged to a lithe, sturdy, muscular goblin, such as Mr. Woolner 
 produced in that unsurpassed statuette which appeared in the Royal Academy 
 this year,—the sole satisfactory realisation, to our knowledge, of Shakespeare’s 
 most robust of sprites. 
 
 Earl Fitzwilliam purchased this picture at the sale of Rogers’s effects 
 for 980 guineas. It is said that the boy who sat for it, then lately a porter 
 in Elliott’s brewery, Pimlico, was in the room on this occasion. Rogers, 
 who bought the picture at Boydell’s sale, May 20th, 1805, gave 215?. 55 . 
 for it. £ The Death of Cardinal Beaufort ’ was on the same day sold to 
 the Earl of Egremont for 530?. 5s.; and £ Macbeth and the Witches ’ for 
 378?. to J. Felton, Esq. Time was already pronouncing his verdict in 
 respect to the relative values of these pictures, £ Puck’ being incomparably 
 the best of them. Other claimants have appeared for the honour of sitting in 
 childhood for the bright-eyed, lively baby on a mushroom, which goes by the 
 name of £ Puck.’ This picture was exhibited at the British Institution 
 
32 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 in 1813, 1823, 1843, 1854, and 1860. It has been engraved by Testalini, 
 Schiavonetti, and others. 
 
 According to Malone, a testimony that is amply borne out by Sir Joshua’s 
 practice, * It was one of his favourite maxims that all the postures of children 
 are graceful, and that the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes com¬ 
 mences with the introduction of the dancing-master/ This is unchallengeably 
 true, so we believe ; we have committed the training of our bodies, not to 
 Nature, but to persons who, because of the mere traditions of their practice— 
 dancing being neither an art nor a science—are wilfully ignorant of her 
 ways, and so stultified by convention, that even if they have natural ability 
 to see what is right and graceful they dare not follow its dictates, and 
 soon forget their existence. It is the same with our tailors, dressmakers, 
 bootmakers, and others, who, ignorant of Nature, and untrained and unendowed 
 in Art, take charge of those persons which we are foolish enough to commit 
 to them. The testimony of Reynolds may be said to be conclusive on this 
 point. No one knew better than he what was natural in a child. If ‘ Puck ’ 
 is neither the ‘ Puck ’ of Shakespeare nor the ‘ Robin Goodfellow’ of an older 
 belief, he is one of the most impudent, spirited, hilarious of infants, enshrined 
 on a canvas that is a masterpiece of tone and chiaroscuro in glowing colour. 
 The size of this picture is 3 ft. 5 in. high, by 2 ft. 5 in. wide. 
 
 If anything were needed to prove the mastery—and that entire love for 
 his subject which accompanies it—by Reynolds over childlike themes, the 
 nearly perfect ‘ Strawberry Girl ’ would suffice, without other examples. A 
 little damsel is returning home at twilight, stealing past a rock that hides 
 a comer of her road, and rises behind her above the picture, giving beyond 
 to our right a view of the rest of her road. She has one of those hideous 
 mob-caps* on her head, which none but Reynolds could make acceptable in 
 an equal degree, and which he painted as if they were the most piquant 
 or elegant garments. Upon her right arm hangs a pottle, the handle en¬ 
 circling it, the hand thrust through. Her hands are crossed upon her 
 breast; a breast-knot and shoulder-ribbons decorate her dress. With the 
 fixed, demure smile of childhood, and yet not without some alarm at her 
 * Another version differs from that to which we refer here in respect to this cap. 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE STRAWBERRY GIRL. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 33 
 
 evident loneliness, her eyes—‘great, big’ eyes, of solemnest expression—look 
 out of the picture with anything but a vacant aspect of expectation, not 
 unmixed with terror. The little apron she wears is twisted over her crossed 
 arms. 
 
 For this picture Reynolds received from Lord Carysfort, June 1774, 
 52 1. 10s.,—probably not the whole price. It was exhibited in 1773, when 
 Walpole, as well he might, wrote 4 Charming !’ in his Catalogue with refer¬ 
 ence to it. We are uncertain whether or not this picture that was thus 
 sold to Lord Carysfort is the same as the one which afterwards became 
 the property of Rogers, and at his death was sold to the Marquis of Hert¬ 
 ford for 2100 guineas,—said to be the highest price given for a 4 Sir Joshua’ 
 of this class. 4 Count Ugolino and his Children’—no picture of our loving* 
 —was sold to the Duke of Dorset for 4000 guineas, and is now at Knole, 
 the property of Lady Delawarr. The 4 Strawberry Girl ’ was exhibited at 
 the British Institution in the years 1823, 1833, and 1843. With the 4 Nelly 
 O’Brien ’ and 4 Miss Bowles,’ likewise the property of the Marquis of Hert¬ 
 ford, it was at the Art Treasures’ Exhibition, Manchester, 1857. It has 
 been engraved by Thomas Watson, S. W. Reynolds, and, recently, by Mr. 
 G. Zobel; the last copied the 4 Rogers ’ picture. 
 
 4 Reynolds considered this one of his best works,’ says Mr. Cotton, 4 and 
 told some one that no man could ever produce more than half-a-dozen really 
 original works in his life ; and, he added, pointing to this picture, 44 that is 
 one of mine.’” According to Northcote, he repeated it several times, not 
 for profit, but for improvement. It may have been that this desire for 
 improvement was the primary motive here, but it is nevertheless certain 
 that he did not scruple to sell his essays to that end. 
 
 As we turn over the portfolios of any large collection of portraits by 
 Reynolds, it is with an increasing admiration and wonder at his success 
 with so many subjects, characters, and personages. The time-worn student, 
 
 * Fox did not much admire Sir Joshua’s pic¬ 
 tures in the grand style ; he greatly preferred 
 those of a playful character ; he did not much 
 like even the ‘ Ugolino,’ hut he thought the 
 
 boys in ‘ The Nativity ’ charming. (See Rogers’s 
 1 Table-Talk.’) A host of critics amused them¬ 
 selves at the President’s expense, with regard to 
 such pictures as those ‘ in the grand style.’ 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 as in Dr. Mudge, is fairly represented ; so the hardy soldier, as in Colonel 
 Tarleton; ” r the veteran, as in Lord Heathfield ; the judge in his robes, as 
 Lord Thurlow, or that far finer portrait of Lord Chancellor Camden, seated 
 in his dress of office,—a design as grand as a statue, and as full of repose, 
 yet full of life withal;—there is also a standing figure of this judge, engraved 
 by J. G. Haid, also by Ravenet and by Basire, immensely characteristic of 
 Reynolds’s freedom from affectation in painting portraits: here the judge 
 lounges between a chair and a table, his elbows on the former, his left hand 
 on a book that is sustained by the latter, the face full of expression ;—the 
 peer, in his proper costume, as in the Earl of Bath ; for Reynolds specially 
 enjoyed the spreading and varied masses of heavy, soft, and splendidly-hued 
 velvets,—the contrasts of ermine, lace, silk, and gold. A nobleman in mufti 
 was, however, almost as acceptable to him as when magnificently arrayed. 
 
 Apart from technical matters, Reynolds’s chief aim seems to have been 
 to deal successfully with character; hence what we said at first of his success 
 in representing mental energy and emotion. This power to penetrate, that 
 has been just now alluded to, exercised itself most happily in regard to this 
 aim. Take the portrait of the short-sighted Joseph Baretti, so finely engraved 
 by Watts,—we see at once what a master of character was our artist. The 
 learned man sits in his chair, just as at home, and with perfectly composed 
 features reads from a volume that is held close to his eyes, and grasps, or 
 rather clutches it, with an action that must have been perfectly familiar to his 
 friends : his reading-glasses, out of use when this attitude could be assumed, 
 are pendant by a ribbon from his neck. It is as if, dead although he is 
 long since, we looked at the man and were not seen by him,—so supremely 
 free from observation, so unconscious of himself is the sitter in that roomy 
 arm-chair. The effect of this is wonderful, yet perfectly common with Reynolds, 
 who gave personal peculiarities with a simplicity that dignified them, and 
 was as different in that respect from Lawrence as it was possible to be. 
 
 * This was the — 
 
 ‘ Lo! Tarleton dragging on his boot so tight,’ 
 
 of Peter Pindar, ‘ First Lyric Ode to the Eoyal 
 Academicians.’ Unfortunately the Colonel is 
 
 represented by Reynolds as doing something 
 quite different from this action. Dr. Mudge was 
 Reynolds’s old and much-beloved Plymouth 
 friend, and father of the boy referred to in this 
 book. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 35 
 
 Macaulay describes Wilkie as e gazing with modest admiration on Sir Joshua’s 
 “ Baretti.” ’ 
 
 When he painted Sterne with a forefinger against his temple, how keenly 
 does it show him to have been alive to character! Sterne, the shrewd, witty, 
 shallow sentimentalist, with a twisted vein of poetry in him, and for ever 
 self-conscious, attitudinizing after his wont, with glittering eyes looking at us, 
 and in a position that is more suggestive of a wish to be thought thoughtful, 
 than really indicative of thought. No portrait has been So frequently en¬ 
 graved as this one, although best, probably, by E. Fisher, and well by Ravenet. 
 It will be familiar to all readers, and suggest the intensely powerful perception 
 of Reynolds. ‘ This portrait was painted,’ says Mr. Cotton, ‘ for the Earl 
 of Ossory,’ of whom we wrote before as the father of ‘ Sylvia ’ and £ Collina,’ 
 and, when he died, came into the possession of the late Lord Holland, on 
 whose death it was purchased for the Marquis of Lansdowne, the price being 
 500 guineas. 
 
 The portrait of Mason, Reynolds’s and Walpole’s friend, is much simpler, 
 and, of course, truer. It is note-worthy that Reynolds painted Goldsmith, 
 alone, of all his intimates, with anything like affectation or assumption in 
 the pose of his portrait. Goldsmith possessed not a little of that whimsical 
 self-esteem which is asserted by certain peculiarities of manner, and exhibited 
 just the least dash of attitudinizing.* It would almost seem that the better 
 he liked a man, the more freely did he paint him— e. g. the portrait of 
 Dr. Mudge, with the old velvet cap, more like a cushion, on his head; almost 
 a Rembrandt. He liked Johnson heartily—we know how unceremoniously 
 he treated him; Garrick less so, in both respects; Boswell came off very 
 well indeed; so others in their degree. 
 
 The character of Sir Brook Boothby may be read in his face ; he often 
 appears in the list of Reynolds’s friends and pictures.! Can we doubt that 
 
 * The poet dedicated his most beautiful poem, 
 ‘ The Deserted Village,’ to his friend the painter, 
 and did so soon after this portrait was finished. 
 Miss Reynolds remarked of the picture, that her 
 brother never gave a more striking proof of his 
 excellence in portrait-painting than in giving 
 
 dignity to Goldsmith’s countenance, and at the 
 same time preserving a strong likeness. 
 
 f This baronet is interesting to all students of 
 Reynolds as the father of that demure, shy, soft- 
 eyed little Miss Penelope (No. 70 at the Inter¬ 
 national Exhibition, painted in July, 1789 ), a 
 
36 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 Admiral Lord Boscawen, standing bareheaded on a sea-shore, between a huge 
 conch-shell and a stranded star-fish, is an apt portrait of the man ? The 
 backgromid here is absurd enough; one of the few examples of that sort 
 by Reynolds ; but the expression of the sideway-held face, as if he listened, 
 the shrewd eyes, the closely-set lips, are signs not to be misread. There is 
 another portrait, by Reynolds, of this Admiral, showing him with a hat upon 
 his head, and in the contrast of that circumstance, reminding the observer 
 of Johnson’s well-known lines :— 
 
 ‘ I put my hat upon my head 
 And walked into the Strand, 
 
 And there I met another man 
 Whose hat was in his hand.’ 
 
 What a nervous, irritable, yet powerful face is that of Burke, which recalls 
 the word-portrait Madame D’Arblay made at the Hastings trial: —‘ The man 
 looks full of energy, but not with certainty, swayed by judgment, eager 
 and impassioned, rather peevish and sudden in temper.’ Reynolds did not 
 shrink from painting Lord Cathcart, as at his own request, with the crescent¬ 
 shaped patch upon his cheek, close under the eye, marking a wound received 
 at Fontenoy, because he knew the man was a soldier, and proud of war’s 
 signature. On the other hand, he depicted a certain Prince of the Blood in 
 an ineffable attitude of vanity, and, like a young Apollo of a levde, stepping 
 down a magnificent flight of stairs, his forefinger pointing in an act of 
 quasi-command, the other hand upon the hilt of a court-sword, the whole 
 costume upon the man being such as one sees in vogue at a ‘ drawing-room,’ 
 and the expression of the youth such as might indicate how, in the majesty 
 of serene anger, and with Apollonian grace, he was about to draw the 
 
 darling, quite an angel—and soon to be an 
 angel, probably, for she died soon after the pic¬ 
 ture was painted — in her quaint mob-cap, black 
 sash, and mittens ; her pure, small hands put 
 before her, just as if she felt there was some¬ 
 thing, probably of the house-keeping sort, to be 
 done in this world, and she must consider her 
 share. How tenderly the eyes—pretty eyes — 
 
 smiled from under those gold locks ! Sir Brook 
 Boothby was deep in all the blue-stockingisms of 
 the time — a great friend of Miss Seward, Dr. 
 Darwin, and the Edgeworths. He wrote * Sor¬ 
 rows sacred to the Memory of Penelope,’ folio, 
 1796, with an inspiration that'will be obvious 
 enough to all who see the exquisite likeness of 
 his child. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 37 
 
 princely weapon from his side, and, unmoved, slay a tardy footman at his 
 carriage-steps, and then drive on composedly. 
 
 No design could be prettier, and at the same time simpler, than that 
 capital family group of Lord Clive (the First Lord), Lady Clive, and their 
 child. The first lounges on the back of a chair; the second stands opposite 
 looking out of the picture, or to some spectator, and as she does so chucks 
 the infant under the chin; the latter turns to its mother and looks in 
 the same direction, with an expression of ineffable serenity,—the whole action 
 of the figure of the child being infantine, even to the puerile unsteadiness 
 of its legs. What abundant recognition of humour and wit is in that portrait 
 of George Colman, who sits at a table as if he listened, and was ready with 
 a quaint suggestion or incisive jest to cap the man who speaks to him . 
 One hand is in the breast of his coat; his cheek rests upon the back of 
 the closed fingers of the other; his eyes twinkle with ready thoughts. 
 Here is no ultra-refinement,—the coarseness and the vigour of the sitter are 
 all given. The engraving from this picture by E. Scriven has much more 
 character than the bolder and heavier mezzotint by G. Marchi; the latter 
 shows a coarse, bloated, but powerful face. In the same happy mood for 
 characterising men in pictures Reynolds painted that admirable portrait ot 
 Mr. John Crawford, which was engraved by J. Grozer, and represents him 
 with an air of deliberation pinching his long and pointed chin, and smiling, 
 as if he must soon speak and overset some talker’s paradox. 
 
 The portrait of the Earl of Errol, although one of the finest of its class, 
 and having been magnificently engraved by Thomas Watson, has too much 
 of the quality of a state picture, is too demonstrative in its attitude, too 
 conscious of its robes, to please the thoughtful among those who applaud 
 Reynolds: it puts such as these in mind of those royal portraits that, 
 in the artist’s pocket-book, are so quaintly registered thus,— e In the 
 house, two kings, one queen. At the Academy, five kings, four queens.’ 
 Reynolds kept these things ready for delivery when presentation-pictures 
 of royal personages were required; being Court-painter, he did as others 
 were expected to do, and found a profit in it. Yet there is something 
 ludicrously ignominious in the idea of these pieces of state furniture standing 
 
38 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 with their faces to the walls in Leicester Square or at Somerset House, 
 waiting the time for presentation to some one who placed them on the 
 wall of his house and forgot them, or to any exuberantly loyal town which 
 might he cheaply recompensed with permission to place the royal figure in 
 a municipal chamber, where, ere long, it would soon he as completely unnoticed 
 with the painted side to the light as before when the back of the canvas 
 was seen. 
 
 Reynolds’s portrait of the Marquis of Granby, the sign-board hero, whose 
 right to give a name to inns is now little understood, has a sign-board 
 glory,—which is, after all, a fair immortality, A multitude of swinging 
 hoards yet retain the pose in which our artist placed the hero, though some 
 of the paintings on them are sadly blanched in the sunlight and stained in 
 the rains of three-quarters of a century; others have been restored more 
 severely than true Sir Joshuas. The bald forehead and bluif cheeks that 
 delighted English gazers many years ago, when their owner returned from 
 the wars, the crossed lappels of the coat upon his breast, the aiguillettes 
 on his shoulder, so familiar on the signs, are of Reynolds’s painting in 
 the first case, although multiplied indefinitely. Our artist depicted the 
 Marquis at least three times,—twice bare-headed, once with a military 
 cocked-hat. 
 
 Very few portraits by Reynolds surpass in the breadth of their chiaroscuro 
 or the richness of their tone that admirable ‘ Sir William James, Bart.,’ of 
 the Hon. East India Company’s Service, now at the India Office, and perfectly 
 engraved by John Raphael Smith; an officer with one hand upon his hip— 
 very different in that respect from the ever-recurring pictures of this attitude ; 
 the other hand rests on an anchor, and hears an unrolled drawing, the white 
 of which is most skilfully employed to accompany that of the neckcloth 
 and ruff,—the luminous quality of the face is enhanced rather than depreciated 
 by this arrangement; the large, long-lappelled waistcoat, with its splendid 
 embroideries and wide pockets, passes from the neck to the thigh, and carries 
 a superbly enriched mass of half-tone through the whole picture, which is 
 further supported by the laced cuffs and front of the coat. The face is not 
 less to be admired for its reserve and quietude of expression,—clear, English- 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 93 
 
 looking, yet thoughtful eyes, and precise, well-set lips. Few portraits are 
 richer in tone than that of Soame Jenyns,—none more completely refutes 
 the complaint of inferior artists that modern costume is intractable in painting. 
 The subject sits almost erect, and wears the every-day dress of Reynolds’s time, 
 hut not disposed with the prim regularity of surface that is so much desired by 
 tailors and common painters; on the contrary, it is creased all over. Hence 
 its richness of tone and surface come out perfectly in W. Dickinson’s capital 
 print; the waistcoat looks as if it had been worn for years, so confirmed 
 are the pipe-like folds that follow the buttons and go across the chest of 
 the wearer. Admirable is the disposition of lines in this picture ; the chiaro¬ 
 scuro is wholly different from that in most of its class, and as satisfactory 
 as it is artless. The face is not a handsome one, but very kindly in expression, 
 and highly intelligent; it shows no attempt at sophisticating, no ‘ beautifying,’ 
 —artifices to which even Reynolds condescended when he had to deal with 
 fashionable or vain folks, but never with his friends who were free from 
 those follies. The portrait of Goldsmith is in point on this subject,—seems 
 in its rather pompous superficial aspect, but really subtle and affectionate 
 treatment of the subject, as holding a book, and wrapped in a student’s 
 cloak, to convey a little dry satire on the much-beloved Oliver’s affectation 
 as a learned man, writer of English and natural history, themes treated 
 by none more pleasantly than by him, but by few with less study or less 
 real learning. 
 
 On the other hand, what a perfect portrait is that, among many, of 
 Dr. Johnson, which shows him as short-sighted, heavy - shouldered, and 
 awkwardly holding a book, half the leaves of which are folded back, while 
 he reads from the others which lie flat, and are held close to his eyes! 
 As with that other portrait of a half-blind old man, Baretti, its charm is 
 in the expression of the eyes, which, old, worn, ill-treated friends of the 
 man as they were, differ from each other in that expression. The reader 
 seems to see with the lower part of his eyes,—such is the case with many 
 whose vision has become defective. The peculiar expression of those nearly 
 worn-out eyes of Johnson’s appears again in that likeness which was nobly 
 engraved by William Doughty, and contains one hand only that is placed 
 
40 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 against the lower part of his chest, nearly full-faced, and looks a little down: 
 this is the best-known of several portraits by Reynolds of his rare old 
 friend. 
 
 According to Mrs. Piozzi, Johnson was not pleased with the first-named 
 of these portraits. He told her that Reynolds, who had painted himself 
 for the Streatham Gallery with his ear-trumpet to his ear, as if deaf, ‘might 
 paint himself as deaf as he chooses, but I will not he blinking Sam in the 
 eyes of posterity.’ Thus the story is told by Northcote (vol. ii. p. 3). Malone 
 says the Streatham portrait of Sir Joshua had his hand to his ear (p. lxxvii.). 
 This work sold at the Thrale sale, May 10th, .1816, for 128?. 2s. That of 
 Dr. Johnson, as Fanny Burney recorded with gladness, fetched the highest 
 price, 378Z.,—now in the collection of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 No portrait, imaginary or otherwise, is less known than that which is 
 called ‘ The Infant Johnson.’ This work, which is a small one, now the 
 property of the Marquis of Lansdowne, and preserved in the drawing-room 
 at Bowood, is one of the few repetitions by Reynolds of that practice in 
 caricature in which he indulged while young and at Rome, but, from motives 
 of policy as well as of taste, abandoned at an early period. Dr. Johnson, 
 whom we have seen to be not insensitive with regard to his personal defects, 
 need not have been annoyed by this good jest; and, if he ever saw it, must 
 have laughed with the rest of his friends at the spirit and humour of the 
 little picture of himself as Reynolds imagined him to have been in childhood. 
 There is something of the true nature of wit in the way with which the 
 heavy brow of the adult Doctor is hinted at by that of the meditative babe 
 who sits before us, Brahmin-like and quiescent. The picture tells its own 
 story. It has been engraved, but is comparatively little known. It is in 
 the same room with the ‘ Strawberry Girl,’ ‘ Hope nursing Love,’ ‘ Mrs. Baldwin 
 in a Turkish dress,’ and ‘Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia,’ by Sir Joshua; ‘The 
 Mill,’ by Rembrandt; a magnificent ‘ Storm,’' by Ruysdael; and many other 
 treasures of the highest rank in Art. The colouring of ‘ The Infant Johnson’ 
 is very fine and delicate,—rather unusual in pearliness for a Sir Joshua. 
 The first Marquis of Lansdowne married, secondly, in 1779, Louisa, who was 
 mother of the late Marquis of Lansdowne, and daughter of John, Earl of 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 41 
 
 Upper Ossory, sister to ‘ Colima ’ and ‘ Sylvia.’ The first Marquis was the 
 Earl of Shelburne, who is before mentioned as sitting with Dunning, Lord 
 Ashburton, and Colonel Barre, in Sir Joshua’s picture, which is sometimes 
 called c Junius.’ 
 
 The student will not readily forget the ease of design in that capital 
 portrait of Sir John Lade, Bart., as he sits with a hat in his lap, a spaniel 
 jumping up. The Duke of Leinster’s portrait is another example of freedom 
 in composition—that is, of the mastery of Art, which is above Art—a won¬ 
 derful richly-toned picture, and in the mezzotint from it by Dixon, supplies 
 what Mr. W. Smith is undoubtedly right in believing to be the finest English 
 work of its class. Lord Ligonier on horseback, now in the National Gal¬ 
 lery, is prime in its class. Superbly painted, magnificently rich, the seated 
 portrait of Lord Loughborough, that has been so finely engraved by Grozer, 
 shows how perfectly the master managed a mass of light-toned robes, and 
 how he could impart the aspect of dignity to such an uncouth thing as a 
 judge’s wig; the disposition is perfect of the darker dress, as it appears 
 through the openings of the robes. As we saw before in the ‘ Sir William 
 James,’ Reynolds never feared to introduce a mass of bright white, or even 
 brilliant colour, near his flesh-painting; with him, by means of its wealthy 
 tones, the execution of the latter never failed to remain more luminous, and 
 accordingly more effective with the eye of the spectator, than any other part 
 of a picture : the reverse is common in common portraits, because of the ina¬ 
 bility of their painters to supply that luminous quality of nature in rendering 
 which great artists have shown their ability. Ordinary painters render a 
 sheet of white paper, or piece of linen, and human flesh with equal deadness 
 of colour and opacity of tone : the chiaroscuro of Nature, which was that of 
 Reynolds, differs from theirs ; she relieves and intensifies, not by mere absence 
 of colour, as in white, but by the ineffable variety of the tinting in her 
 most perfect work. Hence,— 
 
 4 The white and red, 
 
 By nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on,—’ 
 
 is invariably more brilliant, or rather more effective with the eye, than the 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 purest unbroken white, which simply reflects, without absorbing any of the 
 tints. Hence the closer we look into a piece of Nature’s colouring, the firma- 
 mental blue or the human face, the more intense does the variety of colour 
 appear, the more exuberant the wealth of tone. 
 
 We fear sooner to exhaust the reader’s patience than the examples of 
 fine art in portraiture of men by Reynolds. Every one of his pictures is 
 a biography,—not with the worst and coarsest feature of the sitter developed, 
 as in a common photograph ; never with the angles smoothed away to inanity, 
 as in that vain panegyric an emasculated likeness. On the contrary, as we 
 said at first, and hope to have shown by examples selected without difficulty, 
 he succeeded when he followed Nature; he failed most completely when 
 anything artificial was introduced. Of the portraits proper he was, probably, 
 least successful in that of the King, who was to him a very artificial being. 
 Yet he certainly did not fail to make something not unpleasant to the eye 
 of the lean form and features of Queen Charlotte,—then, it is true, at her 
 best time of life. It is hard to say where he succeeded best,'—in what class 
 of male portraits he did most fortunately. Yet he painted the most famous 
 of nearly three generations. First, those in old age while he was young; 
 next, his own contemporaries ; lastly, those who followed them, and were, 
 while he was old, to be the masters of their world. Judges, soldiers, sailors, 
 literati,—scores of men who were neither one nor the other, but in whose 
 features he found character, not false dignity,—county gentlemen by the 
 score,—lawyers by the dozen,—statesmen, and those who were merely poli¬ 
 ticians,—a few, very few artists,—scientific men of the highest and lowest 
 standings,—all came and talked, sat to, and were painted by our master,— 
 some, as was the truth, indeed, as if they felt his hand alone conferred 
 immortality. The most noteworthy men of three generations sat to Reynolds 
 in St. Martin’s Lane, in Newport Street, and in Leicester Square : it was 
 the fashion to do so, and many pretended to admire what they did not 
 understand. 
 
 If the men came to the first-named two residences of Reynolds, the women 
 did so even more frequently to Leicester Square, which was destined to be 
 the centre of his success, the haven of his fortune, the field of his distinction, 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 43 
 
 and place of his death. If he succeeded in painting the men finely, his 
 achievement with regard to the ladies was incomparably greater. The pro¬ 
 fusion of successes in this respect which fell to the lot of Reynolds, leaves 
 us very little reason for classifying the subject upon one plan in preference 
 to another; therefore, as most collections of engravings after our artist’s works 
 are arranged alphabetically, it will he convenient to speak of the examples 
 here selected in that order. 
 
 Hardly any whole-length portrait by Sir Joshua surpasses in solidity, 
 chiaroscuro, and grace, that famous one of Lady Mary Broughton, a young 
 woman, who, with a port-crayon and book in her hands, stands close to a 
 marble table, having one foot raised upon the step above the level of the 
 floor. The dress is white, patterned with sprigs of flowers ; as to colour, 
 one of those charmingly fresh-looking robes which seem not to exist in these 
 days of ours. A light scarf is disposed carelessly about the lady’s shoulders ; 
 her hair is turned up from the face it surrounds; a long double-plait comes 
 from behind and falls to the bust in front. There is a little affectation in 
 the action of the right hand with the port-crayon, but none in the superb 
 sweep of the body and noble limbs, which are marked in the fall of the 
 draperies around them; the long folds of these draperies reach to and gather 
 about her feet, exposing the shoes. As Reynolds painted it, Lady Broughton’s 
 dress is as graceful and more reticent of the contour than any Greek robe,— 
 a magnificent piece of drapery. The craft with which this costume has been 
 treated by the painter in respect to form is equalled by that which dealt 
 so ably with the light and shade of the garments, and the more general 
 chiaroscuro of the picture. The figure is absolutely grand in its beauty,— 
 English in character, yet not without a certain Orientalism of luxury in its 
 treatment. 
 
 There is a curious illustration of the spreading of Reynolds’s work over 
 the world for which we are indebted to Mr. Caley, of Messrs. Colnaghi’s 
 establishment. It is worth noting here, not only as connected with the 
 portrait now in hand, but for its own sake. A relative of Lady Broughton, 
 who had then but just returned from the Chinese war, came into the rooms 
 of Messrs. Colnaghi in Pall Mall, bearing in his hand an impression of 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 J. Watson’s superb print from the portrait to which we now refer, on which 
 was written the name of the lady in question. He did not—so strangely had 
 the print come into his hands—believe it was thus truly named ; was even in 
 doubt if it were an English engraving from an English picture, and sought 
 satisfaction on those points. Having bought the print for two pice in a back 
 street of Pekin, he had good reason for scepticism. The inquirer went with 
 the expedition which first set foot in that most imperial of imperial cities, the 
 sacred seat of the Chinese empire, and of all in the world the metropolis 
 where a man could least expect to meet a picture of his ancestress by 
 Reynolds. The surprise of the inquirer may be guessed when he learnt, 
 not only that the work was English, and by Sir Joshua, but an engraving 
 from a portrait of his relative, which he, so it chanced, had never seen. 
 The impression was a very fine one of a plate which is by no means common 
 in any condition, and less so when fairly reproduced on paper. How it got 
 to the imperial city is a mystery hard, indeed, of solution. It may be some 
 Russian traveller, fond of Art, and especially in love, as were so many of 
 his countrymen of the Empress Catherine’s days, with the productions of 
 our master, took it overland to the Chinese frontier, and lost it accidentally 
 or by theft: it is much less likely that some ship was plundered on the 
 Chinese coast, and had this print among its treasures, which so, at last, 
 made its way to utmost Pekin, and was found there by the first captors of 
 the place. One explanation is almost as strange as the other; the reader 
 may choose between them, or devise a third. 
 
 Another beautiful lady’s portrait is that of Lady Carlisle, engraved by 
 James Watson, which shows her in a pensive attitude, with one arm across 
 the bough of a tree; the face looks down with the thoughtful smile of a 
 happy woman; behind, a landscape of rich, park-like country, stretches in 
 belts of trees and barer spaces to the horizon, where a line of hills catches 
 the light of evening. The Countess wears a dark cloak, lined with ermine, 
 a fighter under-robe is wrapt about her form, fair, round, and modestly 
 unconfined as that is; a broad, loose, embroidered belt rests upon her hips; 
 a narrow scarf entwines a heavy mass of plaited tresses, and with it, rests 
 on the shoulder of the lady. The strongest fight centres on one side of the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 LORD MORPETH. 
 

ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 45 
 
 body, yet, as was ever Reynolds’s way, without injuring the quality of the 
 face. The lady’s husband sat to Reynolds while in early youth, and with 
 the title of Lord Morpeth; he was afterwards the fifth Earl of Carlisle, brother 
 to the Lady Betty Delink, whose picture was before named, and father of 
 ‘ the young, gallant Howard,’ of £ Childe Harold,’ i. e. Major Howard, of the 
 Hussars, who was killed at Waterloo. The Lord Morpeth in question is 
 well known to readers of Byron’s satires. 
 
 No female portraits by Reynolds display the fertility of his resources so 
 well as those representing Mrs. Abington. He painted this lady four times, 
 and each time differently. First in a picture that is best known by the fine 
 engraving of James Watson, as leaning against a pedestal, wearing a dress 
 somewhat resembling that of Lady Broughton, and holding a mask in her 
 right hand. There is a wonderful difference between this picture as a portrait 
 of a woman of the stage and that of the magnificent lady just named. This 
 difference is hard to define, but may be seen by all. A second portrait of 
 Mrs. Abington shows her in character as ‘ Roxalana,’ and in the act of 
 drawing back a curtain, her smart and pretty, although anything but refined 
 features, are lighted with the fervours of the stage—the saucy features of 
 a dashing woman. The same impudence, which is, however, not immodest, 
 is in a third picture of this lady; therein she appears seated, and with her 
 arms on the back of a chair ; her chin is pressed on the knuckles of one 
 hand, while with the thumb of the other hand she trifles with her lips—a 
 quaint and free action, such as scarcely any artist but Reynolds would have 
 ventured on; the eyes are full of laughter, the little retrousse nose is piquant 
 in expression—the whole intensely lively and spirited; a sleek dog looks 
 at us through the bars of the chair-back, as he sits by his mistress’s knee. 
 The lady appears again in a closely-fitting morning dress, a prodigious bow, 
 or cravat, about her neck, the little tumed-up nose as before. This has been 
 engraved in an oval by Elizabeth Judkins, and has a very humorous, lively 
 look. 
 
 Mary, Duchess of Ancaster, seems to think and to be alive as we look 
 at her portrait, as engraved after Reynolds by Houston, in a circle,—a very 
 brilliant print, when in fine condition (there is a noble, full-length print of 
 
46 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 this work). Here, as we saw before in ‘ Lady Carlisle * and ‘ Lady Mary 
 Broughton/ is another example of Reynolds’s frequent adoption of that fashion 
 which allowed one long tress or solid plait of hair to cross from the back to 
 the front of the sitter, and hang down, by which means he avoided the 
 cutting line of the massed hair with the flesh, and connected the head-dress 
 with the body-robe of the wearer. ‘ Lady Ancram/ a woman in all the fresh¬ 
 ness of her youth, as engraved by J. Spilsbury, is noteworthy for the wonder¬ 
 fully-rendered candour of its expression, and the charming way in which a 
 twisted scarf is placed about the neck and before the bosom. No lady’s 
 picture surpasses in the breadth and simplicity of its design, its elegance and 
 beauty throughout, the exquisite likeness of the Countess of Aylesford, en¬ 
 graved by Valentine Green. The lady stands clad all in white; at the edges 
 of the upper robe or mantle a line of gold runs, gleaming on either hand, 
 but does not divide the mass of the dress. In broad sweeps, rather than 
 in folds, a body-robe spreads in front from the hips, and catches the light 
 in one large expanse, which is delicately moulded about the torso, and 
 shows yet indicates the form within, and is moulded to perfect grace by that 
 form. 
 
 Few, if any, of Reynolds’s family groups equals in beauty, variety, and 
 spirit, the famous ‘ Cornelia and her Children,’ or rather, ‘ Lady Cockburn 
 and her three Infants,’—a work so charming, that we can well conceive the 
 feelings of the Royal Academicians of 1774, that long-past time, when 
 it was brought to be hung in the Exhibition, and received with clapping 
 of hands, as men applaud a successful musical performance, or the fine reading 
 of a poem. Every Royal Academician then present—the scene must have 
 been a very curious one—stepped forward, and in this manner saluted the 
 work of the President: they did so, not because it was his, but on account 
 of its charming qualities. Conceive the painters, each in his swallow-tailed 
 coat, his ruffles and broad cuffs, his knee-breeches, buckles, long waistcoat, 
 and the rest of the garments of those days, thus uniting in one acclaim. 
 The reader may judge whether or not such applause was deserved by the 
 picture, which tells its own story. The parrot in the back-ground was occa¬ 
 sionally used by Reynolds ; see the portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Derby, 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 47 
 
 and the engraving from it by W. Dickinson.*”' It has been said that the only 
 example of Reynolds’s practice in signing pictures on the border of the robes 
 of his sitters appears in ‘ Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse/ before alluded 
 to ; nevertheless, this picture of ‘ Cornelia ’ shows at least one exception to 
 that asserted rule. The border of Lady Cockbum’s dress in the original is 
 inscribed in a similar manner, thus :—* 1775, Reynolds joinxt.’ The picture 
 was begun in 1773, and is now in the possession of Sir James Hamilton, of 
 Portman Square, who married the daughter of General Sir James Cockbum, 
 one of the boys in the picture. It is noteworthy that all these children 
 successively inherited the baronetcy : one of them—the hoy who looks over 
 his mother’s shoulder—was Admiral Sir George Cockburn, Bart., on board 
 whose ship, the Northumberland, Napoleon was conveyed to St. Helena. 
 Sir James, the eldest brother, was afterwards seventh baronet; Sir William, 
 the third brother, was eighth baronet of the name, was Dean of York, and 
 married a daughter of Sir R. Peel. The lady was Augusta Anne, daughter 
 of the Rev. Francis Ascough, D.D., Dean of Bristol, married, in 1769, the 
 second wife of Sir James Cockbum, sixth baronet, of Langton, in the county 
 of Berwick, M.P. She was niece of Lord Lyttleton. For this picture, in 
 March l774,t Reynolds received 183?. 15s. This was probably the whole 
 price, and for a work of no great size, hut wealthy in matter, the amount 
 was small indeed. It includes four portraits. After comparison of the facts 
 that the engravings, by C. W. Wilkin, in stipple, and by S. W. Reynolds, 
 mezzotint, are dated, on the robe as aforesaid, * 1775/ and its exhibition in 
 1774, the year in which it was paid for, we may guess that the signature 
 and date were added by the painter after exhibiting it, and probably while 
 he worked on it, with the advantage of having compared the painting with 
 others in the Royal Academy. The landscape recalls that glimpse of halcyon 
 
 * Rather, we should say, see the engraving 
 only. The picture is one of the very few prime 
 works by Reynolds, which has disappeared with¬ 
 out record of its loss. No end of inquiries have 
 been made, but, as yet, no account of its where¬ 
 abouts or fate has been gained. Mr. G. Barker, 
 who possesses the actual canvasses on which Sir 
 
 Joshua tried his tints (by means of which it 
 appears that we may know one, at least, of the 
 painter’s secrets in colouring), has vainly sought 
 for this picture. 
 
 f See Mr. Cotton’s version of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds’s ‘ Ledger,’ J. R. Smith. Longmans, 
 1860. 
 
48 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 country of which we caught sight in ‘The Infant Academy:’ its trees, its 
 glowing sky, are equally adaptable to both subjects. The picture was exhibited 
 at the British Institution in 1843, and was then the property of Sir James 
 Cockbum, Bart., whose portrait it contains. 
 
 Another lady’s portrait, which includes that of a child—the Duchess of 
 Manchester and her son—is noteworthy here as one of the pictures sent 
 by Reynolds to the first Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1769 : there, 
 also, was the picture ‘ Hope nursing Love.’ ‘ Mrs. Bouverie and her Child ’ 
 (see our Catalogue of Engraved Portraits by Reynolds) was included in the 
 Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy, together with the ‘ Children in 
 the Wood.’ With regard to the ‘ Hope nursing Love,’ Mr. Cotton tells us 
 that it does not contain a portrait of Miss Palmer, as was once believed, 
 but more truly that of Miss Morris, one of Reynolds’s models. The sketch 
 for t hi s picture was sold with the effects of Sir Joshua’s niece, the Marchioness 
 of Thomond, together with that of the ‘ Snake in the Grass ’ (which is likewise 
 styled ‘Cupid Importunate’), to Sir George Philips, for 5 1. 15s. 
 
 Reynolds’s power of dealing with female features was never more richly 
 exemplified than by that portrait of Queen Charlotte which is now at Windsor, 
 and represents her seated in coronation robes; he made something pleasant 
 to look at even in her features, and gave to them a girlish vivacity and 
 expression of sensibility that go as oddly with our ideas of her character as 
 the lavish, not to say slavish, encomiums of poor Fanny Burney on her ‘ royal 
 mistress,’ do with the sickening details which, as the ‘ Bemai ’ of that female 
 fiend Madame Schwellenberg, she also recorded. It is wonderful to contrast 
 this picture of Reynolds’s with the later one of the same Charlotte, that is 
 also at Windsor, the work of West, as engraved by Valentine Green, who, 
 after his vast experience with Sir Joshua’s pictures, must have suffered hor¬ 
 ribly before the prose of West, which was as void of art as of beauty, and 
 had only the Chinese merit of fidelity : to this we may add something of 
 that unconscious satire which often appears in Chinese work. Green must 
 have had a hard time of it before this picture of the cat-faced woman, with 
 the wide nostrils and pug-nose, big-lipped and spread mouth, and the bush 
 of hair above, that suggests another thing of which it was, probably, 
 

 
CORNELIA. 
 
 Lady Cookbukn and Hee Children. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 49 
 
 the only original, to wit, the bearskin now worn by the Royal Guards,—at 
 once a head-dress the most costly, inconvenient, ludicrous, and uncouth, even 
 among military costumes, such as have been devised by princely tailors. The 
 Queen in West’s picture sits on a couch, and, thus bedizened, is a far 
 more comical figure than any savage female. She holds a purse in her hand, 
 and with it points to a bust of Minerva (it was the fashion to compare this 
 lady with that goddess). Through the open window appear the twin towers 
 of Westminster Abbey. The Princess Royal—the ‘most sweet princess’ of 
 Madame D’Arblay, a purer, kinder model of her mother, as improved by 
 English breeding—stands at her feet, with a creaming smile upon her face, 
 as if unconscious of the difference between her mother and Minerva. West, 
 oddly enough, represents her Majesty after the fashion so freely commented 
 on with regard to Queen Charlotte’s predecessor, Catherine of Braganza, of 
 whom it was said that when she stood up it was to look as if she had no 
 legs. These examples show what was done with the same subject by Reynolds 
 and by West. 
 
 For the sake of a relative of this royal lady, the Duchess of York, the 
 face of the superb plate of the whole-length standing portrait by Reynolds 
 of Mary Isabella, Duchess of Rutland, was punched out, and H.R.H.’s sub¬ 
 stituted for it; thus the altered plate has a royal face on a ducal body. 
 This same Duchess deserved a better fate for her portrait: she told the pre¬ 
 sent President of the Royal Academy that his predecessor had made her try 
 eleven different dresses before he painted her £ in that bedgown.’ This is 
 Mr. Taylor’s version of the story. Reynolds painted two, if not three, 
 portraits of this lady: the one in question here is upright, standing in a 
 park, engraved, besides the above-named plate, in small by S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 A story is told which connects the ladies of Reynolds’s painting, as they 
 
 became antiquities, with their portraits when children. Lady-, a venerable 
 
 toast, an indomitable belle who retained pretensions to that beauty which 
 had made her famous in youth, and that grace which, sixty years before, 
 had charmed many; a lady by no means negligent of her immemorial right 
 to be admired at eighty, met a portrait of herself as a c hil d in a famous 
 printseller’s. It caught her eye at the moment of leaving the place ; she 
 
 H 
 
50 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 halted with an eager face, an octogenarian sigh, an upraised, still tightly- 
 gloved, though trembling finger. c Ah ! ’ said she, ‘ you would not think that 
 pretty thing could ever become a wrinkled old hag like me/ The apt com¬ 
 pliment that might have been expected was promptly paid, and the lady 
 went her way, less displeased than most persons would be after a rencontre 
 with the picture of their youth. 
 
 The lady who is seated in the extreme left of Reynolds’s ‘ Cottagers/ 
 engraved by Bartolozzi, with a dog beside her, became, we believe, Sir Edwin 
 Landseer’s mother. The young couple who are receiving the counsels and 
 admonitions of a gipsy in Reynolds’s ‘Fortune-teller,’ were the young Duke 
 and Duchess of Dorset. There are two pictures by Reynolds bearing the 
 title of ‘ The Fortune-Teller.’ The one contains two figures, and represents 
 Lord H. and Lady C. Spencer; the other is here referred to, and displays 
 three figures. Some of Reynolds’s pictures had startling fates; that which 
 befell the fine plate from his ‘ Mary Isabella, Duchess of Rutland,’ was what 
 may be called a second-hand evil; far other was the severer lot of his 
 whole-length picture of Miss Greville and her brother, in the characters 
 of ‘Hebe and Cupid,’ the lady holding a vase, the boy naked, and clinging 
 to her. The father of the pair was Fulke Greville, Minister Plenipotentiary 
 to the Court of Bavaria. He quarrelled with this son, the ‘ Cupid ’ of the 
 picture, and was so bitterly angry with him, that he had the figure cut out 
 of Reynolds’s canvas, and its place supplied by a tripod : so it is now. It 
 was engraved by M‘Ardell before this alteration : the print retains the former 
 arrangement, and shows the boy at about seven years of age. It was pirated 
 in half-length by R. Corbutt, with the name spelt ‘ Miss Gravill,’ for obvious 
 reasons. 
 
 Miss Greville of this picture became Mrs. Crewe, and may serve to in¬ 
 troduce the portrait of ‘ Master Crewe as Henry VIII.,’ of which we give 
 a copy. The design for this character-portrait is a reminiscence of Holbein’s 
 pictures of the monarch, representing him standing with his feet apart and 
 hands against his hips. The original painting was doubtless that splendid 
 work in which Holbein depicted Henry VIII., his wife, and his father and 
 mother, Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, on the wall of the palace of 
 


 
 A GIPSY BOY. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 51 
 
 Whitehall,—a work that, with many other treasures, was destroyed by fire 
 in the time of Charles II., of which a small copy, made by order of James II., 
 was recently shown at the National Portrait Exhibition, together with that 
 invaluable cartoon for part of the original picture, a life-sized drawing of 
 two figures on paper, which was found not long since at Chatsworth, and is 
 the property of the Duke of Devonshire. The notion of painting child¬ 
 likenesses in this manner, and after the fashion of Holbein, is not unknown 
 in our own time. Mr. Holman Hunt painted a little portrait of exquisite 
 quality, representing his nephew, Edward Wilson, in masquerade costume 
 thus : this was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1863, as ‘The King of 
 Hearts.’ 
 
 ‘ Master Crewe as Henry VIII. ’ was painted in 1775, and exhibited at the 
 Royal Academy in 1776 ; also at the British Institution in 1813—a general 
 Exhibition of Reynolds’s works, 1833, 1843, 1852, and in the present year. 
 The condition of this portrait is perfect: it looks a little dark, and may have 
 been over-varnished. Being then fifty-three years of age, Reynolds was in 
 the prime of his professional life when it was painted. The size of the picture 
 is 4 ft. 8 in. by 3 ft. 9 in. It is the property of the present Lord Crewe, and 
 is remarkable for its vitality, spirit of expression, and attitude : see the 
 cleverly introduced incident of the dog smelling in canine want of faith at 
 the little sturdy leg of his master, the boy’s gleeful grin and bold stride. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive a greater contrast than is afforded between this 
 picture of ‘ Master Crewe ’ in the luxurious habit of a masquerade, and that 
 of ‘ The Gipsy Boy. Of this picture it is said that the head only was 
 produced by Sir Joshua, apparently from the same model as that of the 
 well-known £ Blackguard Mercury:’ the body was added, we are told, by 
 R. WestaJl, R.A. ; his brother, W. Westall, A.R.A., then a boy, sat for 
 this figure. It represents a boy grinning in a singularly well-expressed 
 way, full of life, his hands clasped in front of his ragged garments. An¬ 
 other picture of this contrasted class is the well-known £ Boy with the 
 Cabbage-nets,’ about which the story is told that the principal model was 
 picked up by Sir Joshua in the streets, and found to be a little hero in his 
 way. Being an orphan, with brothers or sisters solely depending on him, 
 
52 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 he, as each grew old enough to work, trained them to make nets at home, 
 for which he found a market in the public ways. Thus Sir Joshua painted 
 him, with one of his sisters looking over his shoulder, and with precisely 
 the expression which one must expect on the face of such a valiant little 
 fellow. 
 
 Reynolds painted scores of portraits of ladies with their children, and 
 did none better than those in which his exquisite sense of beauty and power 
 in characterisation were employed in depicting the maternal instinct at its 
 most lovely phase. Of such compositions none is more simple and beautiful 
 than the well-known ‘.Pickaback.’ He depicted Lady Cockbum, with a triad 
 of rollicking babies ; Lady Dashwood and her child, repentant after naughti¬ 
 ness, with pretty, blubbered face, and fondest gesture, embracing the maternal 
 cheek, which from the lips to the eyes ripples to a smile ; pretty Lady Betty 
 Delme, with her shy daughter and bolder son. The Duchess of Devonshire, 
 a buxom dame, dances the crowing Lady Georgiana Cavendish upon her 
 knee, and enjoys the child’s delight, as it watches her hand waving to the 
 tune of,— 
 
 ‘ Ride a cock-horse 
 To Banbury Cross.’ 
 
 The same tune seems to be sung in that other portrait, Caroline, Duchess 
 of Marlborough, whose baby, wild with fun, capers on her knee. Lady Har¬ 
 rington’s ‘ big baby ’ is by its mother held up to be seen. Mrs. Hartley 
 carries her child as a Bacchus minor, and crowned with vine-leaves, astride 
 of her shoulder, as she dashes along and sings aloud/" Lady Herbert’s naked 
 infant—a mischief-loving imp—chucks its pleased mother under the chin. 
 Mrs. Lascelles’ strapping boy sits in his mother’s lap, and bending back pulls 
 down her face to his, using hands that are all fists. There are at least a score 
 
 * Many of Reynolds’s sitters died tragically, 
 of this we have already given one or two ex¬ 
 amples ; to these may be added a note of the 
 unfortunate death of this famous actress, and the 
 infant who is represented in this picture :—A 
 vessel, in which she was going to America, was 
 Nvrecked, and the bodies of the mother and this 
 
 infant were washed on shore, the infant still 
 clinging to its mother. Miss Morris, who is 
 said to have been the original of the female in 
 ‘ Hope nursing Love,’ a child-picture, died miser¬ 
 ably of consumption under very painful circum¬ 
 stances. 
 
A BO'S WITH CABBAGH NETS. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 53 
 
 of these charming compositions. The only foolish one among them is that 
 of the Duchess of Manchester, as ‘ Diana stealing the how of Cupid.’ This 
 was probably produced under similar inspiration to that which dictated to 
 the painter the sentimental ‘ Ladies with the Term of Hymen,’ in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 As we said just now, no work of this class is sweeter than ‘ Pickaback, 
 Mrs. Payne Gallwey and Child,’ the young mother with her little one upon 
 her shoulders, as if they were thus in a park together; the child wears a 
 broad-brimmed hat that scarcely holds to its head, looks over the lady’s 
 shoulder with a pair of dove-like eyes, and clings with a fairy arm, that is 
 stayed in its place by one of the mother’s hands, while the other* holds up 
 the little burden behind. The companionship thus simply indicated was not 
 destined to last. This picture was painted by Reynolds about 1779,— at 
 any rate he received 70?. in the December of that year. The lady was 
 Philadelphia, daughter of General De Lancey, and wife of Stephen Payne— 
 who afterwards took the name of Gallwey—of Toft’s Hall, Norfolk : she 
 died in 1785, aged twenty-seven. Her husband was a well-known virtuoso, 
 whose portrait Reynolds painted in one of the Dilettante pictures, which 
 are now at Willis’s Rooms, St. James’s. He is the man who appears seated, 
 and in the act of drinking from a glass, which thus shows a ring across his 
 face. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Payne Gallwey was Charlotte, who, 
 in 1797, married John Moseley, Esq., of Glemham House, Suffolk. ‘ Pick¬ 
 aback ’ was exhibited at the International Exhibition, and is the property 
 of Lord Monson. 
 
 Without having exhausted the inexhaustible subject of Reynolds as a 
 painter of men and ladies, space warns us to turn to what he did in that 
 field of his genius which, as was said before, was his beyond all others, 
 wherein he still reigns without a visible rival. Holbein painted, or is said 
 to have painted, children’s portraits, but, even if we accept all that are 
 attributed to him, their number is few, their variety not greater. Vandyck 
 painted some children, and with enviable 'success in such works as that 
 admirable group of the family of Charles I., which is now at Windsor, and 
 shows them with small dogs in the picture (No. 556 at the National Portrait 
 
54 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 Exhibition of 1866); also that other group of the same subject, where 
 Charles (afterwards the Second) and James (his successor) with their sisters, 
 are seen ■ standing, with a big Spanish bloodhound as tall as they are 
 (No. 591 at the National Portrait Exhibition of 1866). Rubens’s portraits 
 of children are, as were those of Yandyck, and one or two other painters 
 of Flanders and Italy, as perfect as those of Reynolds ; the number of 
 their works is, however, insignificant in comparison with that of those by 
 our master. A reference to the list which follows this text will not 
 only demonstrate the extent of his labours in this one department, and 
 with it the astounding activity and fertility of his mind and hand, but 
 establish the comparison in his favour with which our consideration of this 
 branch of the subject opens. Two hundred photographs would not fully 
 illustrate this Catalogue , which comprises only engraved pictures, and pro¬ 
 bably not the whole of those transcripts. Examination of the artist’s 
 pocket-books shows that many young folks sat to him whose portraits are 
 either unknown to us, or have never been reproduced on metal, stone, or wood. 
 
 ‘ The Sleeping Child,’ ‘ The Children in the Wood,’ Lady Gertrude 
 Fitzpatrick (‘ Collina ’), ‘ Master Crewe,’ ‘ Pickaback,’ and ‘ Cornelia ’ (Lady 
 Cockbum and Children), have been already described. We will now, as in a 
 former section of the subject, select examples to show how varied was his 
 work, how wealthy his genius in this respect.' 5 '' We have little Lord Burghersh, 
 in a white dress and a large dark sash, a broad-brimmed hat on his head, 
 running, and with the right hand beckoning to some one to follow him. 
 The care with which Reynolds designed such figures as this may be shown 
 to those who care to notice how exquisitely natural is the action of the 
 little girl-clad boy with the left arm and hand, which, although showing the 
 energy imparted by the gambolling spirit to his whole body, is, of the 
 
 * The enormous number of Reynolds’s works 
 is startling, and will probably never be tho¬ 
 roughly known ; nevertheless, the fact that 
 Richardson’s 1 Catalogue of Portraits ’ engraved 
 after these pictures, although published so long 
 ago as 1794, and of course without reference 
 to the very considerable number that have, since 
 
 this date, been engraved for the first time, names 
 nearly seven hundred prints. Some of these 
 are duplicates, and most of them in mezzotint— 
 a manner specially adapted to render with suc¬ 
 cess the power of Sir Joshua in chiaroscuro; 
 no other method of engraving approaches this, 
 with regard to that quality of his works. 
 
PICK-A-BACK. 
 
 Mbs. Payne Gadwey and her Daughter. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 55 
 
 four limbs, alone not in action; hence its vitality is cunningly expressed 
 by the artist, who used the arm also to balance the figure by bringing it 
 close to the side, and—this is a perfect piece of character—making its 
 chubby little fingers stick out all apart, the palm open, and the thumb set 
 back. The face, with its sunny, bright, yet soft eyes, is charming. Master 
 Leicester Stanhope beats his drum with childlike glee. 
 
 The portrait of the young Lord Morpeth gives us a good example of 
 Reynolds’s simplest manner of treating children in painting ; it displays in 
 a striking manner those features which have descended to recent members 
 of his family. It represents Frederick, eldest son of Henry, fourth Earl of 
 Carlisle, brother of the Lady Betty Delmd, whom we saw sitting with her 
 children in the garden, as painted so charmingly by our artist. Lord Mor¬ 
 peth was bom on the 28th of May, 1748, and as he sat for this picture 
 in December 1757 and January 1758, was then about ten years of age. He 
 became fifth Earl of Carlisle, and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and died in 
 1825, September 4th. ( See note before.) 
 
 Master Bunbury is among the foremost and most admirable of Reynolds’s 
 pictures of children. The little chap sits upon a bank, the beau-ideal of 
 childish contentment, his chubby hands upon his thighs,—no doubt an action 
 derived from that of some older person; his mouth is a little open; the 
 eyes with a pleasant expression of a resolution to be good and sit well to 
 the great artist, who was his mother’s friend,—the kindly, child-loving Sir 
 Joshua. Accordingly, he sits in broad-skirted coat, that is secured by one 
 button about his chest, little waistcoat and trousers £ all in one,’ the fashion 
 of a day much later than his, but now superseded by that old Puritan 
 costume of England in the seventeenth century. On its recent revival this 
 costume has been ridiculously styled the ‘ Knickerbocker,’ although it was 
 a dress constantly in use centuries before Washington Irving wrote his novel, 
 and made the old Dutch name so well known in New York, whence we 
 reimported the garments of the children of the * Pilgrim Fathers,’ to which, 
 as ‘ old-fashioned ’ and quaint in the eyes of their descendants, have been 
 given the name of Irving’s wonderful Dutchman. Master Bunbury’s shirt- 
 front—if that is indeed a shirt which is next his skin—is set wide open, 
 
56 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 showing his plump, white chest; he is a sturdy urchin, ringleted about the 
 ears, resolute and honest, full of fun withal. Francis Haward’s mezzotint 
 from this picture is one of the finest translations of Reynolds into black 
 and white. Walpole wrote on the margim of his Academy Catalogue for 
 1781, when this picture was exhibited, ‘A little boy; charming/ He was 
 right. It was exhibited at the British Institution in 1813,—the general 
 gathering of Reynolds’s pictures, 1851, and 1861. It is 2 ft. 5 in. high, 
 by 2 ft. wide. 
 
 This Master Bunbury was named Charles John, elder son of Henry William 
 Bunbury, the celebrated caricaturist, born in November, 1772 ; so he must have 
 been between nine and ten years of age when he sat for this portrait in 1781. 
 The boy is doubly interesting to all lovers of Sir Joshua and Goldsmith, 
 insomuch as he was the son of Miss Homeck, the ‘ little Comedy ’ of the 
 poet. Reynolds bequeathed this picture to ‘ Mrs. Bunbury, her son’s portrait.’ 
 The lad became a general officer in the army, and died at the Cape of Good 
 Hope in 1798. Reynolds painted also a portrait of Henry William Bunbury, 
 a young man, in the dress of the time, holding a portfolio under his left arm. 
 This well-known personage was the youngest son of the Rev. Sir William 
 Bunbury. Another portrait represented Miss Annabella Bunbury, sister of 
 the caricaturist (who married Sir Patrick Blake, Bart., and ultimately became 
 Mrs. Boscawen), in character, with the emblems of Juno. This picture has 
 been engraved by J. Dixon and S. W. Reynolds. He also painted ‘ Lady 
 Sarah Bunbury sacrificing to the Graces.’ This lady was bom Lennox and 
 sister of the fourth Duke of Richmond, 1745. Reynolds left to her his Portrait 
 of her son. On a second marriage, she became the mother of the Napiers. 
 He also painted her when seventeen years of age in the Holland-House 
 picture, with Lady Susan Strangways and Charles James Fox, the last being 
 then but fourteen years of age,—the portrait the earliest taken, we believe, 
 of the man who afterwards became so famous and influential. In this picture, 
 which has been engraved by James Watson, the younger lady holds up a 
 dove, and stands on the ground with the boy, while their senior looks down 
 from a window,—a composition not of the happiest kind. The Lady Sarah 
 Bunbury before spoken of is said to have been beloved by George III. 
 
MASTER C. J. BUNBURY. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 The picture called ‘ Simplicity ’ is a portrait of Miss Gwatkin, the daughter 
 of c Offy,’ Sir Joshua’s niece. Its extreme innocence and purity of expression 
 speak for it as one of the most famous of Reynolds’s works. There are at 
 least two versions of it. One of these holds a few—now sadly faded, indeed 
 almost vanished—flowers in the child’s palms. For a difference these flowers 
 serve well, but they do not improve the idea that is so charmingly expressed 
 by the little one’s knit fingers, whose rosy, upturned tips have been absurdly 
 compared to prawns placed in a dish. ‘ Simplicity,’ which belongs to Miss 
 Gwatkin, has been repeatedly engraved. The owner is in possession of many 
 relics of her grand-uncle, who painted this picture in 1789 : it was at the 
 Royal Academy Exhibition of that year. The second version was at the 
 International Exhibition of 1862, the property of B. Gibbons, Esq. £ Lesbia,’ 
 — which is another work of the charming idyllic class, that includes ‘The 
 Age of Innocence,’ ‘The Sleeping Child,’ ‘The Strawberry Girl,’ and ‘Sim¬ 
 plicity,’—was paid for by the Duke of Dorset, October 26th, 1786, the price 
 being 75 guineas. Such prosaic details as these are often antithetical to 
 the subject of pictures ; when, however, they have no other history, and the 
 meaning needs no light from anecdote, these trivial facts serve as milestones 
 to record the progress of the master, and are contributions towards his own 
 biography. 
 
 We have not said much to illustrate the ways and manners of Sir Joshua’s 
 boy-sitters ; there are, however, some rather amusing stories told of them. 
 One of them displays Reynolds’s kindly consideration and knowledge of the 
 nature of lads. A picture by Reynolds was exhibited in J758, entitled, 
 ‘ Master Mudge,’ a portrait of the younger son of Dr. Mudge, whom the 
 artist also painted. This boy was taken ill during a residence in London, 
 and, with that natural longing to go home which is anything but wholly 
 selfish, fretted with desire to see his father on his sixteenth birthday. Going 
 was out of the question, so Reynolds, moved by the boy’s distress, and glad 
 of an opportunity to please his own old friend the doctor, said, ‘ Never mind, 
 I will send you to your father.’ And he accordingly, says Mr. Cotton (‘Rey¬ 
 nolds and his Works,’ p. 83), so painted his portrait, that when the case 
 containing it was opened, the doctor should be agreeably surprised by seeing 
 
 i 
 
58 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 his son looking at him, with a boyish and glad smile, from behind the 
 heavy folds of a curtain. The portrait thus produced has been engraved 
 by S. W. Reynolds. There is another tale of a youth’s after-gratitude to 
 Reynolds himself, which, for the sake of human kindness, we will relate here. 
 Ozias Humphrey, when quite young, had received some good offices from the 
 great President of the Royal Academy, and during the rest of his life cher¬ 
 ished a thankful remembrance of them. An opportunity came at last, such as 
 the grateful do not seek in vain. When Reynolds lost the use of one of his 
 eyes, and feared total blindness, Ozias, who remarked how much his master 
 had formerly enjoyed reading a newspaper in the morning, took advantage of 
 the opportunity, and by quietly dropping in at the breakfast-hour became, 
 during the absence of Miss Palmer, the means of giving him the pleasure 
 without that fatigue which must otherwise have attended Sir Joshua’s use of 
 his eyes in reading. Ozias read to him, and was gratified to observe that, 
 although Reynolds made no formal thanks for the attention, he was evidently 
 observant and appreciative : each morning two pictures by the master were 
 placed in the breakfast-room, as the means of further instruction. (Mr. 
 Taylor’s * Life and Times of Sir J. Reynolds,’ vol. ii. p. 540.) 
 
 Among other anecdotes of children in connexion with the painter take 
 this. The Master Wynn who sat to Reynolds for ‘ St. John at the Spring,’ 
 grew up and had a grandson, who sat to Lawrence while yet a boy. In 
 the middle of the operation this lad, with the most evident gravity, and as 
 if after long meditation, suddenly demanded of that President who above 
 all things dreaded a blunder in tact, and was not a little sensitive about his 
 own age and appearance, { Are you the man who painted my grandfather V 
 
 One of the most fascinating portraits of boys by Reynolds, is that superb 
 half-length of the Hon. George Seymour Conway, a chubby lad in a Yandyck 
 dress, that has been perfectly engraved, about two-thirds the size of life, by 
 E. Fisher. This print is among the triumphs of skill in mezzotint, and 
 shows the face looking a little down, full cheeks, and parted lips,—the copy 
 of a most ingenuous, charming picture, without any pretence to be expressive 
 beyond the simplest forms of nature, yet startlingly full of vitality and 
 pathos, not sadness. The contrast that such a simple picture as this affords* 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 SIMPLICITY. 
 
 Miss Theophila Gwatkin. 
 
60 
 
 ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 The picture of ‘Moses in the Bulrushes’ has quite different qualities, 
 aiming at nothing of the awe-inspiring sort; invoking no terrible imagery 
 to the imagination, its theme has been for centimes one of the simplest and 
 most popular of all. The deeper symbolism that has been imparted by 
 poets and other writers to our ideas of the subject, the asserted parallelism 
 between the ark of Noah and the cradle wherein Moses lay, does not 
 obtrude itself here. The elements of the theme are not needfully other than 
 dramatic, and may without offence come into the category of domestic sub¬ 
 jects, of the homeliest, sweetest kind. When, therefore, Reynolds painted 
 this charming picture of a babe struggling with its own weight, and glee¬ 
 fully stretching forth its arms, we are delighted with the beauty of the 
 workmanship; the truth of representation, the innocence of the infant, the 
 ureadth and vigour of the chiaroscuro of the picture, at once charm and 
 soothe the eye; so that one does not fail to enjoy them, even if the secret 
 of their power is unknown to us, and only its effect perceived. It is one 
 of the most beautiful of his works, vivacious, yet sober, broad, yet intense. 
 Malone (‘ Some Account of Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ p. lxvii.) says the price of 
 this picture was one hundred and twenty-five pounds, and that it was sold 
 to the Duke of Leeds. 
 
ENGLISH CHILDREN AS PAINTED BY REYNOLDS. 
 
 59 
 
 with that of one like the so-called ‘ Infant Samuel/ suffices to show how 
 great was Reynolds’s mistake when he took up what must be called ‘ a fancy 
 subject/ and styled it ‘religious art/ ‘The Infant Samuel’ was more unfor¬ 
 tunate in this respect than many of our master’s works, and has nothing to 
 do with ‘ Samuel; ’ no characteristics exist to give the kneeling boy aptitude 
 to the subject, no incident beyond that which is imported in the cheapest 
 manner by a gathered ray of light in the background; the artist succeeded 
 in spoiling a pretty picture of a child kneeling in prayer by the absurd 
 ambition of the title, and the insufficient illustration of the theme that the 
 rays of light supply. There was undoubtedly some feeling for this when 
 the picture was pirated in engraving, and all sorts of fancy titles were 
 given to it. The ‘ Infant Samuel ’ turns up everywhere in England, has 
 been engraved under more names than any of Reynolds’s pictures, and 
 is to be seen in every country,—tawdry coloured lithographs from Berlin; 
 steel-plate impressions from Vienna; Parisian etchings of the commonest 
 order; English wood-cuts, lithographs, copper-plate engravings, and every 
 other means of reproduction, have been employed for it: it has appeared 
 even on anchovy and jam pots. Its extensive diffusion under the false title 
 of ‘ The Infant Samuel ’ proves, either the utter incapacity of the buyers 
 who may accept it as such, or, what is more likely, their recognition of the 
 simpler genuine qualities of the picture. S. W. Reynolds gave the true 
 title, when he engraved the picture and called it ‘ The Orphan’s Prayer/ 
 
 ‘ Thy will be done/ was a favourite title for this work; also ‘ Hallowed be 
 Thy name.’ Like the so-called ‘ St. John and the Lamb/ by Murillo, now 
 in the National Gallery, another picture of the same class, it has been more 
 happily re-named than named. Reynolds painted several versions of this 
 picture with diverse names. ‘ The Calling of Samuel ’ was hardly more aptly 
 named than this picture; it is, however, just to Reynolds to say, with regard 
 to the former, that it appeared at the Academy with the title ‘ Daniel.’ This 
 original style was hardly more apt to the picture than that which Miss 
 Hannah More (let us hope inadvertently) bestowed, and by which it is now 
 best known. The figure of the ‘ Age of Innocence ’ has been engraved 
 with a background, like those of ‘ Samuel.’ 
 
MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES. 
 
A CATALOGUE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ENGEAVED PICTUEES OF CHILDEEN 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 [The Names in Italics are those of Engravers ; the dates in the first column are those of the execution 
 of the pictures.*] 
 
 1783* Academy, The Infant. - F. Harvard, S. W. Reynolds (twice), W. J. Fry, W. Walker, 
 and many others. ‘The Mob-Cap,’ the central figure from this picture, 
 S. W. Reynolds, and others. 
 
 1781 Adoration of the Shepherds, The Angels in the (Oxford picture- glass). 
 
 J. Jones, G. S. and J. G. Facius, R. Earlom. 
 
 1766 Allegro, L’. ‘Euphrosyne’ (Mrs. Hale, with Children). J. Watson, Lambertini, 
 8. W. Reynolds, C. Corbutt. 
 
 1776 Althorpe, Viscount, in a Vandyck dress. G. Kellaway, W. J. Fry. 
 
 1786 Angels, The Guardian. E. H. Hodges. 
 
 1787 Angels’ Heads (Miss Frances Isabella Ker Gordon). S. W. Reynolds, P. Simon, 
 
 and others. 
 
 1782 Angerstein, Mrs., and Child. Small half-length. Ridley, J. Scott. 
 
 1783 Angerstein, The Children of Mrs. J. Scott. 
 
 1786 Annetta (The Hon. Miss Anne Bingham). F. Bartolozzi, P. Bonato. 
 
 1761 Artist, A Female (Miss Johnson). ‘Design,’ ‘A Girl Drawing.’ J. Grozer, 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 * It is believed that this Catalogue will be found 
 nearly complete, both as regards the titles of the 
 pictures referred to and the engravers’ names ; the 
 dates of the engravings are not given, because the}' 
 have no bearing on those of the paintings. The 
 dates in the first column, are as numerous as it 
 was practicable to make them, but, owing to the 
 many changes of titles to Reynolds’ pictures, it has 
 
 been impossible to identify the whole: many are 
 not, to our knowledge, recorded. The dates which 
 are marked with the star must be regarded as un¬ 
 certain. The difficulty of identifying pictures is 
 exemplified by the case of ‘Master Brown,’ which 
 has four names, and many more engravers in divers 
 styles. Hence it is by no means improbable that 
 repetitions may occur in this list. 
 
62 
 
 Catalogue of Engraved Pictures of Children 
 
 1773 Bacchante carrying a Child (Mrs. Elizabeth Hartley and Child). S. W. 
 
 Reynolds, J. R. Smith, G. Marchi, W. Nutter. 
 
 1770 Bacchus, The Birth of. Sailliar. 
 
 1776 Bacchus, The Infant (Master Henry Herbert). E. H. Hodges, J. R. Smith, and 
 
 others. 
 
 1766* Bambino, Madonna col. J. R. Smith, Blackmore ?■ 
 
 1781 Barwell, Mr., and Son. W. Dickinson. . 
 
 1780 Beauclerk, Miss Elizabeth, as ‘IJna and the Lion.’ T. Watson. In a circle by 
 
 W. Dickinson. 
 
 1777 Bedford Family, The. ‘ The Russell Family’ (Francis, Duke of Bedford, as St. 
 
 George; Lords John and William Russell; and Miss Vernon). V. Green. 
 1789 Billington, Mrs., as ‘ St. Cecilia,’ with Angels. J. Ward, B. Pastorini, 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1786 Bingham, The Hon. Miss Anne, called ‘ Annetta.’ F. Bartolozzi, P. Bonato. 
 
 ‘ Bird, The.’ ‘ A Boy.’ J. Dean. 
 
 1788 Boothby, Miss Penelope, as ‘ Penelope.’ T. Park, T. Kirk. 
 
 1772 Boringdon, Lady (Mrs. Parker), and Son. Half-length. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1765 Bouverie, Master Jacob Pleydell, called ‘ Jacob,’ (The Second Earl of Radnor), 
 in a Vandyck dress. J. M‘Ardell (twice), R. Brookshaw (half-length), 
 S. W Reynolds. 
 
 1760 Bouverie, Mrs., and Child, sitting. J. Watson. 
 
 1775 Bowles, Miss. * Girl with Dog,’ and ‘ Juvenile Amusement.’ W. Ward, W. Fry, 
 C. Turner, J. Grozer. 
 
 Boy, A. ‘ The Bird.’ J. Dean. 
 
 Boy, An Anonymous Portrait of a. In oval. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1781 Boy with a Bag and Stick (Oxford picture- glass). J. Jones, G. S. and J. G. 
 
 Facius, R. Farlom, H. Blundell. 
 
 1772 Boy, The Beggar-. E. H. Hodges. 
 
 Boy with a Bunch of Grapes. J. Young. 
 
 1775 Boy with Cabbage-nets. C. Hardy, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 Boy with a Dog. V. Green. 
 
 Boy, The Gipsy. R. Pym. 
 
 Boy, The Good. E. H. Hodges. 
 
 1784 Boy Reading. G. Keating. 
 
 Boy, The School-. J. Dean. 
 
 1780 Boy, The Shepherd. J. S. Agar, J. Barnard, I. Spilsbury. 
 
 Boy, The Shepherd. I. Spilsbury, S. W. Reynolds, and others. 
 
 1784 Boy, The Studious. J. Dean, J. R. Smith. 
 
 1778 Boy in a Venetian Dress. ‘ The Venetian Boy’ (Sir W. Wynn ?). J. Dean. 
 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 63 
 
 1776 Boys, The School- (Masters Henry and John Gawler). J. R. Smith, S. W. 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1784 Bkaddyll, Master, leaning on a Yase. J. Grozer. 
 
 1771* Brothers, The Affectionate (Peniston, William and Francis Lamb, sons of Lord 
 Melbourne). S. W. Reynolds, J. Cheesman, F. Rartolozzi. 
 
 1762 Brown, Master. ‘ The Contemplative Youth,’ ‘ The Studious Youth,’ * The 
 Student.’ S. W. Reynolds, E. H. Hodges, C. Turner, J. R. Smith, H. Wallis. 
 1772 Buccleuch, Duchess of, and her Daughter, Lady Mary Scott, in a Landscape. 
 J. Watson. 
 
 1781 Bunbury, Master Charles, seated. F. Haward, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1787 Burghersh, Lord, running and beckoning. F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1783* Cap, The Mob (central figure in ‘The Infant Academy’). S. W. Reynolds, and 
 others. 
 
 1767 Capel, Lady E., and Viscount Malden (fifth Earl of Essex). C. Turner. 
 Cartouche. J. Bean. 
 
 1755 Cathcart, Jane, Lady, and Child, with Greyhound. J. M l Ardell, R. Houston, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1784 Cavendish, Lady Georgiana, and Georgiana, Duchess of 'Devonshire. G. 
 
 Keating, Lightfoot, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1784 Cavendish, The Hon. William. J. Scott. 
 
 1789 Cecilia, St. (Mrs. Billington), with Angels. J. Ward, B. Pastorini, S. W. Reynolds. 
 1775 Cecilia, St. (Mrs. Sheridan), with Angels (The Misses Purdon). W. Bickinson, 
 
 T. Watson. 
 
 ‘ Ccelia’ (Girl with a dead Bird). ‘Chloe.’ R. Houston, J. Graham, F. Bartolozzi, 
 and others. 
 
 1771* ‘ Charity’ (Lady Melbourne, William, Peniston and Francis Lamb). J. Watson. 
 1781 ‘ Charity ’ (Oxford picture-glass). J. Jones, G. S. and J. G. Facius, and R. Earlom. 
 
 1787 Child with the Dog (Master Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston when a Child). 
 S. W. Reynolds, F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1758* Child with a Dog and Bird (Miss Cole). * Fanny and her Friends.’ E. Every. 
 
 Child, The Sleeping. W. Boughty, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1781 Child, The Sleeping. J. Summerfield (in line), J. Jones. 
 
 1791* Child, in ‘ The Virgin and Child.’ 
 
 1781 Children, in ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’ (Oxford picture-glass). J. Jones, 
 G. S. and J. G. Facius, R. Earlom. 
 
 Children, Mother with. An unique impression of a plate in the Duke of Buc- 
 cleuch’s collection, baby on its mother’s knee, another child looking in her face. 
 1767 Children, in the Witch Scene in ‘ Macbeth.’ R. Thew. 
 
64 
 
 Catalogue of Engraved Pictures of Children 
 
 1772 Children in the Wood. J. Caldwell , S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1770 Children in the Wood. J. Watson. 
 
 Chloe. ‘ Girl and Dead Bird,’ ‘ Coclia.’ F. Bartolozzi, R. Houston, J. Graham, and 
 others. 
 
 1768 Cholmondeley, Miss Anne (Lady Mulgrave), carrying a Dog over a Brook. 
 ‘ Crossing the Brook.’ G. Mar chi. 
 
 1781 Christ, Infant, in ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’ (Oxford picture-glass). 
 
 J. Jones, G. 8. and J. G. Facius, R. Earlom. 
 
 1781 Clinton, Lady Catherine Pelham (feeding Chickens). J. R. Smith. 
 
 1786 Clive, The First Lord, Lady, and Child. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1773 Cockburn, Lady, and her Children. ‘ Cornelia and her Children.’ C. Within, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1758* Cole, Miss (A Child with a Dog and Bird). ‘ Fanny and her Friends.’ E. Every. 
 1779 Collina (Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick). J. Dean, J. Jones, and others. 
 
 Composition, A. ‘Girl with Flowers.’ I. Spilsbury.. 
 
 Contemplation. ‘ Meditation.’ J. Dean, W. Ward. 
 
 1759 ‘ Contemplation’ (The Hon. Mrs. Spencer and Child). E. Fisher, F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1770 Conway, The Hon. George Seymour, in a Vandyck dress. E. Fisher (large), 
 
 8. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1773 Cornelia and her Children (Lady Cockburn and her Children). C. Wilkin, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1788 Cottagers, The (Mrs. Macklin, her Daughters, and Miss Potts). ‘The Gleaners.’ 
 F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1759 Cox, Master. ‘ The Young Hannibal.’ C. Townley. 
 
 1766 Crewe, Miss Emma, and her Sister Elizabeth. J. Dixon, R. Brookshaw. 
 
 1760 Crewe, Mrs., and her Brother (rightly, ‘ Miss Greville and her Brother ’), as 
 
 ‘ Hebe and Cupid.’ J. M l Ardell, J. Watson. 
 
 1775 Crewe, Master, in the Character of Henry VIII. J. R. Smith, 8. Paul, 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1768 Crossing the Brook (Miss Anne Cholmondeley, Lady Mulgrave, carrying a Dog 
 over a Brook). G. Marchi. 
 
 Cupid with a Bow and Arrow. C. Moore, W. Say. 
 
 1771 Cupid, The Chiding of. ‘Venus chiding Cupid.’ F. Bartolozzi. The figure of 
 
 Cupid separate also. 
 
 1766 Cupid, Diana disarming (Duchess of Manchester and her Son, Viscount Mandeville). 
 V. Green, J. Watson. 
 
 1762 Cupid, Dido embracing (Maria, Countess Waldegrave, and her Son). R. Houston. 
 There is a piratical copy of this print. 
 
 1760 Cupid and Hebe (Greville, Miss, and her Brother). ‘Hebe and Cupid’ (Mrs. 
 Crewe and her Brother). J. M‘Ardell, J. Watson. 
 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 65 
 
 1766 Cupid, Hope nursing (Miss Palmer—or Miss Morris—nursing Love). F. Bartoloszi, 
 8. W. Reynolds, J. R. Smith, E. Fisher. 
 
 1785 Cupid Importunate. ‘ The Snake in the Grass.’ J. R. Smith, W. Ward, T. Watson. 
 
 The Drawing for this Picture fac-similed by Day and Co. 
 
 1771 Cupid as a Link-boy. J. Dean. 
 
 Cupid Sleeping. J. Dean (twice), S. W. Reynolds, 
 
 1759 Cupid and Yenus. ‘ Yenus and Cupid.’ J. Collyer, A. Raimbach. 
 
 1788 Cymon and Iphigenia, Cupid looking on. F. Haward, and others. 
 
 1757 Dalkeith, Charles, Earl of, in a Yandyck dress, his hand upon an Owl. 
 V. Green, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1776 Daniel, The Infant. ‘ The Calling of Samuel.’ J. R. Smith, S. W. Reynolds. 
 1784 Dashwood, Lady, and Child. C. H. Hodges. 
 
 1762 Davidson, Miss Jane, holding a Lamb. J. Dixon. 
 
 1780 Delm£, Lady Betty, and her two Children. V. Green, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1761 * Design’ (Miss Johnson). ‘ A Female Artist,’ * A Girl Drawing.’ J. Grozcr, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1784 Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, with her Daughter, Lady G. Cavendish 
 (sixth Countess of Carlisle). G. Keating, Lightfoot, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1766 Diana disarming Cupid (Duchess of Manchester, with her Son, Yiscount Mandeville). 
 J. Watson, V. Green. 
 
 1762 Dido embracing Cupid (Maria, Countess Waldegrave, and her Son). R, Houston. 
 
 There is a piratical copy of this print. 
 
 1773 Edgcumbe, The Hon, Master Richard. W. Dickinson, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 Edwin (from Beattie’s ‘Minstrel’). 
 
 1746 Eliot, Mr. Richard, and Family. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1766 Euphrosyne (Mrs. Hale, with Children). ‘L’Allegro.’ J. Watson, Lambertini, 
 S. W. Reynolds, C. Corbutt. 
 
 Family, The Holy. G. Presbury (for Macklin’s Bible), W. Sha>'p (twice), W. 
 Carloss, W. H. Worthington. The head of Christ as a gem, W. Humphreys. 
 1758* Fanny and her Friends (Miss Cole). ‘ Child with a Dog and Bird.’ E. Every. 
 1787 ‘ Felina.’ ‘ Girl with a Kitten.’ J. Collyer, F. Bartolozsi, J. Jehner. 
 
 1779 Fitzpatrick, Lady Gertrude. ‘ Collina.’ J. Dean, J. Jones, and others. 
 
 1775 Fitzpatrick, Lady Gertrude, with a Bunch of Grapes. ‘ The Girl with Grapes.’ 
 
 S. W. Reynolds, J. R. Smith. Lithographed by J. D. Harding. 
 
 1775 Fitzpatrick, Lady Anne. * Sylvia.’ Sister to the last. J. Jones. 
 
 1762 Fordyce, Miss (Mrs. Greenwood). J. Watson, S. W. Reynolds, P. Corbutt. 
 
 K 
 
66 
 
 Catalogue of Engraved Pictures of Children 
 
 1777 Fortune-Teller, The (Lord Henry and Lady Charlotte Spencer). J. K. Sherwin, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds, J. Jones, H. Rawe, C. Turner. 
 
 1762 Fox, Master Charles James, at Fourteen years of age. In the Holland-house 
 Picture. J. Watson. 
 
 1778 Gallwey, Mrs. Payne, and Child, Charlotte. ‘Pick-a-back.’ J. R. Smith, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds, and others. 
 
 Gallwey, Master. 
 
 1784 Gargarin, Prince Sergius (Commandant of Moscow), his Princess, and their 
 
 Son. C. Watson. 
 
 1776 Gawler, Masters Henry and John. ‘The School-boys.’ J. R. Smith, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 Girl with raised Arms. Fac-simile of a Drawing lithographed by Ray and Co. 
 
 1786 Girl with a Bird on her Shoulder. ‘ Robinetta.’ J. Jones, S. W. Reynolds, 
 
 and others. 
 
 1787 Girl at a Cottage. F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 Girl and Dead Bird, ‘ Coelia,’ ‘ Chloe.’ F. Rartolozzi, R. Houston, J. Graham, 
 and others. 
 
 1789 Girl and Dog (The Hon. Miss Frances Harris). J. Grozer, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1775 Girl with Dog (Miss Bowles). ‘Juvenile Amusement.’ C. Turner, W. Fry, 
 W. Ward, J. Grozer. 
 
 1761 Girl Drawing, A (Miss Johnson). ‘A Female Artist,’ ‘Design.’ J. Grozer, 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 Girl with Flowers. ‘A Composition.’ I. Spilsbury. 
 
 1775 Girl with Grapes (Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick with a Bunch of Grapes). S. W. 
 Reynolds, J. R. Smith. Lithographed by J. R. Harding. 
 
 Girl with a Kitten. 
 
 1787 Girl with a Kitten. ‘ Felina.’ J. Collyer, F. Bartolozzi, J. Jehner. 
 
 Girl with a Lamb (Miss Searle). S. W. Reynolds, G. Rawe. 
 
 1785 Girl, The Laughing. Singleton, W. Bond, J. F. Bause, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1785 Girl Leaning on her Arms. J. F. Bause, Baldry. 
 
 1787 Girl with a Mousetrap. ‘ Muscipula.’ F. Bartolozzi, C. Watson, S. W. Reynolds, 
 J. Jones. 
 
 1771 Girl with a Muff (Miss Theophila Palmer). J. R. Smith, J. Jehner, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1771 Girl Reading, Basket beside her, seated (Miss Theophila Palmer, reading 
 ‘Clarissa’). Scorodonmow. 
 
 1783 Girl, The Sleeping. J. Jones. 
 
 Girl with a Spaniel. W. Greatbatch. 
 
 1773 Girl, The Strawberry (Miss Theophila Palmer). J. Watson, G. Zobel, and others. 
 Photograph published by Colnaghi. 
 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 67 
 
 1788 Gleaners, The (Mrs. Macklin, her Daughters, and Miss Potts). ‘ The Cottagers. 
 F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1780 Gloucester, Prince William of, in a Vandyck dress. C. Watson. 
 
 1774 Gloucester, Princess Sophia of (An Infant with a Dog). T. Watson, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1787 Gordon, Lady, and Son. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1787 Gordon, Miss Frances Isabella Ker. ‘Angels’ Heads.’ P. Simon, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds, and others. 
 
 Granby, The Marquis of, and Lady E. Manners. J. Scott. 
 
 1788 Grantham, John, Lord, with the Hons. Frederick and Philip Robinson. 
 
 J. Cheesman. 
 
 1760 Greville, Miss, and her Brother, as ‘Hebe and Cupid.’ ‘Mrs. Crewe and 
 her Brother.’ J. M'Ardell, J. Watson. (The Boy was cut out of the 
 picture, a tripod substituted, and the work re-engraved in octavo by 
 
 R. BrooJcshaw.) 
 
 1760 Gravill, Miss. A piracy by C. Corbutt of Miss Greville’s figure from the picture 
 of ‘ Hebe and Cupid,’ which see. 
 
 Gunning, Miss, and her Brother. 
 
 1789 Gwatkin, Miss Theophila, called ‘Simplicity.’ F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds, 
 
 and others. 
 
 1789 Gwatkin, Miss Theophila. Oval. 8 . W. Reynolds. 
 
 1766 Hale, Mrs., with Children. ‘ Euphrosyne,’ ‘ L’Allegro.’ J. Watson, Lambertini, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds, C. Corbutt. 
 
 1777* Hamilton, Alexander, The Tenth Duke of, when a Boy. F. Bromley. 
 
 1759 Hannibal, The Young (Master Cox). C. Townley, S. W. Reynolds, J. Egan. 
 
 1789* Hardinge, Miss Lucy, feeding a Dog. J. Watson, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1766* Hardwicke, Lady Mary. ‘ Protection,’ ‘Lady and Children.’ E. Fisher, J. Ogborne. 
 
 1788 Hare, Master. R. Thew, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1787 Harrington, Jane, Countess of, with her Sons, Viscount Petersham and 
 Lincoln Stanhope. F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds, V. Green. 
 
 1789 Harris, The Hon. Miss Frances. ‘ Girl and Dog.’ J. Grozer, S. W. Reynolds. 
 1789 Hart, Miss Emma, with Puck. J. Grozer. 
 
 1773 Hartley, Mrs. Elizabeth, and Child. ‘ A Bacchante.’ G. Marchi, W. Nutter, 
 S. W. Reynolds, J. R. Smith. 
 
 1760 Hebe and Cupid (Miss Greville and her Brother). ‘Mrs. Crewe and her 
 
 Brother.’ J. M‘Ardell, J. Watson. 
 
 1775 ‘ Henry VIII.,’ Master Crewe in the character of. J. R. Smith, S. Paul, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1777 Herbert, Lady Elizabeth, and Son. J. Lean, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
68 Catalogue of Engraved Pictures of Children 
 
 1776 Herbert, Master Henry. ‘Infant Bacchus.’ E. P. Podges, J. R. Smith, 8 fc . 
 
 1788 Hercules, The Infant. J. Walker, E. IT. Podges, W. J. Ward. The centre figure 
 
 by the latter two. 
 
 1789 Hervey, Master. 
 
 1788 Ho are. Master Henry. ‘ Infancy.’ C. Wilkin. 
 
 1757 Holbourne, Master (Son of Admiral Holbourne). 
 
 Holy Family, The. G. Presbury (for Macklin’s Bible), W. Sharp (twice), 
 W. Carloss, W. P. Worthington. The head of Christ as a gem, W. Pumphreys. 
 1784 Honeywood, Lady, and Child. C. Townley, J. Egan. 
 
 1766 Hope nursing Love (Miss Palmer—or Miss Morris — nursing Love). S. W. 
 Reynolds, F. Bartolozzi, J. R. Smith, E. Fisher. 
 
 1788 ‘Infancy’ (Master Henry Hoare). C. Wilkin. 
 
 Innocence, The Age of. J. Grozer, F. Joubert, C. Turner . 
 
 1788 Iphigenia, Cymon and, Cupid looking on. F. Paward, and others. 
 
 1757 ‘ Jacob,’ Master Jacob Pleydell Bouverie (the second Earl of Radnor), in a Van- 
 
 dyck dress. J. M‘Ardell (twice), S. W. Reynolds, R. Brookshaw (half-length). 
 1778 John, St., at the Spring (Master Wynn). S. W. Reynolds, J. Dean, J. Grozer, 
 T. Doney. 
 
 1770 John, St., with the Lamb. 
 
 1761 Johnson, Miss. ‘A Girl Drawing,’ ‘A Female Artist,’ ‘Design.’ J. Grozer, 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 Johnson, The Infant. Boy naked, seated, looking down. G. Zobel. 
 
 1774 Jupiter, The Infant. J. R. Smith , and others. 
 
 1775 ‘Juvenile Amusement’ (Miss Bowles). ‘Girl with Dog.’ W. Ward, W. Pry, 
 
 C. Turner, J. Grozer. 
 
 1787 Lady and Child (Mrs. Seaforth and her Child). J. Grozer, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1766* Lady and Children (Lady Mary Hardwicke). ‘Protection.’ E. Fisher, J. 
 
 Ogborne . 
 
 1771* Lamb, The Hon. W., P., and Francis (Sons of Lord Melbourne). ‘ The Affectionate 
 Brothers.’ F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds, J. Cheesman. 
 
 1771* Lamb, The Hon W., P., and F., with Lady Melbourne. ‘Charity.’ J. Watson. 
 
 1771 Lamb, Master. F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1759 La Nymphe indifferente. ‘ Venus,’ ‘Venus and Cupid.’ W. Dickinson, J. Colly er, 
 A. Raimbach. 
 
 1764 Lascelles, Mrs. Anne, and Child. J. Watson, S. W. Reynolds, C. Corbutt. 
 
 Legge, The Hon. W. (Second Son of Lord Dartmouth), in a Vandyck dress. 
 
 I. Spilsbury. 
 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 69 
 
 Lesbia and her Sparrow. F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1764 Leslie, Lady Mary (youngest daughter of the Earl of Rothes). I. Salisbury. 
 
 1761 Lewisham, George, Yiscount. Oval. I . Spilsbury. 
 
 1766 Love, Hope nursing. ‘ Hope nursing Cupid’ (Miss Palmer—or Miss Morris- 
 
 nursing Love). F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds, J. R. Smith, E. Fisher. 
 
 1787 ‘ Macbeth,’ Witch Scene in, The Children in the. R. Thew. 
 
 1788 Macklin, Mrs., her Daughters, and Miss Potts. ‘ The Gleaners,’ ‘ The 
 
 Cottagers.’ F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1766* Madonna col Bambino. J. R. Smith, Blackmore ? 
 
 1767 Malden, George, Yiscount, and Lady E. Capel (Lady Monson). C . Turner. 
 
 1766 Manchester, The Duchess of (‘ Diana disarming Cupid’), with her Son, Yiscount 
 
 Mandeville. V. Green, J. Watson. 
 
 1766 Mandeville, Yiscount (The Duchess of Manchester and her Son). ‘Diana 
 disarming Cupid.’ V. Green, J. Watson. 
 
 1784 Manners, Lady C. A Child’s Head. T. Gaugain. 
 
 Marlborough, The Duchess of, and her Daughter, Lady C. Spencer. J. Wat¬ 
 son, S. W. Reynolds, R. Houston. 
 
 Marlborough, The Duchess of, and her Son. H. Fowler. 
 
 1778 Marlborough Family, The. C. Turner (twice) different sizes), W. Say, S. W. 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1778 ‘ Mask, The.’ A portion of the last. C. Turner, L . Schiavonetti. 
 
 1771 Maternal Affection (Lady Elizabeth Melbourne taking her Son, Peniston Lamb, 
 from a Cradle). W. Dickinson (in a circle), T. Watson, S. W. Reynolds. 
 Maternal Love. J. Scott. 
 
 Meditation, otherwise ‘ Contemplation.’ J. Dean, W. Ward. 
 
 1771 Melbourne, Lady Elizabeth, taking her Son, Peniston Lamb, from a Cradle. 
 
 T. Watson, W. Dickinson (in a circle, as ‘Maternal Affection’), S. W. Reynolds. 
 1774 Mercury with the Purse. ‘ The Blackguard Mercury.’ J. Dean. 
 
 1759 Methuen, Mrs., and Master. 
 
 1759 Methuen, Master Paul, and his Sister. J. Scott. 
 
 1759 Methuen, Master Thomas. R. B. Parkes. 
 
 Mexborough, The Countess (Lady Pollington), and Child. F. Bromley. 
 
 1789 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A (‘Puck,’ from Boydell’s ‘Shakespeare’). C. Heath, 
 
 F. Schiavonetti, Testalini. 
 
 1777 Montagu, Lady Caroline (daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of Buccleuch), in 
 a Snow-scene. J. R. Smith. 
 
 1762 Moore, John Henry and Susan Jane, of New York. J. G. Schumann. 
 
 ‘ Morning Amusement,’ A Child in. Seven Girls seated, working and reading. 
 J. Grozer. 
 
70 Catalogue of Engraved Pictures of Children 
 
 1758 Morpeth, Viscount (fifth Earl of Carlisle). T. Trotter. 
 
 1766 Morris, Miss (or Miss Palmer), as ‘ Hope nursing Love.’ E. Fisher, J. R. Smith, 
 S. W. Reynolds, F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 Moses in the Bulrushes. J. Dean, E. II. Hodges. 
 
 1758 Mudge, Master, drawing back a Curtain. S. W. Reijnolds. 
 
 1787 ‘ Muscipula.’ ‘ Girl with a Mouse-trap.’ C. Watson, J. Jones, F. Bartolozzi, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1784 Nymph, The Wood, and Child (Miss Wilson?). 
 
 Otway, Lady, and Child. J. Scott. 
 
 1766 Palmer, Miss (or Miss Morris), as ‘ Hope nursing Love.’ E. Fisher, F. Bartolozzi, 
 J. R. Smith, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1771 Palmer, Miss Theophila. * Girl with a Muff.’ J. R. Smith, J. Jehner, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1771 Palmer, Miss Theophila, reading ‘Clarissa.’ ‘Girl Reading,’ with a basket 
 beside her, seated. Scorodonmow. 
 
 1771 Palmer, Miss Theophila, with Cloak over her right shoulder, gloved. J. R. Smith. 
 1773 Palmer, Miss Theophila. ‘The Strawberry Girl.’ J. Watson, and others. 
 
 Photograph published by Colnaghi. 
 
 1779 Parker, Master and Miss. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1772 Parker, The Hon. Mrs., and her Son. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1772 Parker, Mrs. and Son (Lady Boringdon). S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1759 Pelham, Master. S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1759 Pelham, Miss. W. Dickinson. 
 
 Pembroke, Henry, Earl of, and his Family. J. Watson, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1761 Pembroke, Elizabeth, Countess of, and George, Lord Herbert, her Son. 
 J. Dixon. 
 
 1788 ‘ Penelope ’ (Miss Boothby). T. Park, T. Kirk. 
 
 1764 Penn Family, The. C. Turner. 
 
 1787 Petersham, Viscount, The Hon. Lincoln Stanhope, with their Mother, Jane, 
 Countess of Harrington. F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds, V. Green. 
 
 1779 ‘Pick-a-Back’ (Mrs. Payne Gallwey and Child, Charlotte). J. R. Smith, 
 S. W. Reynolds, and others. 
 
 1777 Powlett, Lady C. (Daughter of the Duke of Bolton). J. R. Smith. 
 
 1770 Price, Miss. ‘The Shepherdess with Three Lambs’ (daughter of XJvedale Price), 
 in a Landscape with Lambs. J. Watson, J. Grozer. 
 
 1766* ‘Protection’ (Lady Mary Hardwicke). ‘Lady and Children.’ J. Ogborne, 
 E. Fisher. 
 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 71 
 
 1789 ‘Puck’ (from Boydell’s ‘Shakespeare’). C. Heath, F. Schiavonetti, Testalini. 
 
 1789 Puck. ‘ Miss Emma Hartwith.’ J. Grozer. 
 
 1757 Radnor, Jacob Pleydell Bouverie, Second Earl of, when a Boy, in a Vandyck 
 
 dress. ‘ Master Bouverie,’ ‘ Jacob.’ J. M‘Ardell (twice), R. Brookshaw (half- 
 length), S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1786 ‘ Robinetta.’ ‘ Girl with Bird on her Shoulder.’ J. Jones, S. W. Reynolds, and others. 
 
 1788 Robinson, The Hons. P. and F., with John, Lord Grantham. J. Cheesman. 
 
 1787 Royston, Yiscount, when a Child. ‘ Master P. Yorke, with a Dog,’ ‘ Child with 
 
 a Dog.’ F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1777 Russell Family, The. ‘The Bedford Family’ (Francis, Duke of Bedford, as 
 St,. George; Lords John and William Russell; and Miss Vernon). V. Green. 
 
 1776 Samuel, The Calling of. ‘ The Infant Daniel.’ J. R. Smith, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 Samuel, The Infant. Many times engraved, under many titles. F. H. Hodges. 
 Bust by J. Bean and S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1758 Scarborough, Lady, and her Son. J. Watson. 
 
 Scarsdale, Lady Caroline, and her Son. J. Watson, S. Paul, Eliza Judkins. 
 School-boy, The. J. Bean. 
 
 1776 School-boys, The. ‘ The Masters Henry and John Gawler.’ J. R. Smith, S. W. 
 
 Reynolds. . 
 
 1787 Seaforth, Mrs., and her Child. ‘ Lady and Child.’ J. Grozer, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 Searle, Miss, with a Lamb. ‘ Girl with a Lamb.’ G. Bawe, S. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1780 Shepherd-boy, The. I. Spilsbury, J. S. Agar, J. Barnard. 
 
 1773 Shepherd, The Piping, with a Dog. W. H. Worthington. 
 
 1770 Shepherdess, The, with Three Lambs (Miss Price, daughter of Uvedale Price). 
 J. Grozer, J. Watson. 
 
 Shepherdess, The Careful, hugging a Lamb. S. W. Reynolds, E. Judkins. 
 
 1775 Sheridan, Mrs., as ‘ St. Cecilia,’ with Angels (The Misses Purdon). T. Watson, 
 W. Bickinson. 
 
 1789 ‘Simplicity’ (Miss Theophila Gwatkin). F. Bartolozzi, S. W. Reynolds, and others. 
 1787 Smith, Lady, and Three Children. F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1785 Snake in the Grass, The. ‘ Cupid Importunate.’ J. R. Smith, W. Ward, T. Watson. 
 
 The Drawing for this Picture fac-similed by Bay and Co. 
 
 1761 Spencer, Margaret Georgiana, Countess, and her Daughter, Georgiana 
 (Duchess of Devonshire). J. Watson, S. Paul (twice), V. Green. 
 
 1784 Spencer, Lavinia, Countess, and her Son (third Earl Spencer). F. Bromley. 
 
 1777 Spencer, Lord H. and Lady C., as the ‘ Fortune-teller.’ J. K. Sherwin, 
 
 S. W. Reynolds, J. Jones, H. Bawe, C. Turner. 
 
Catalogue of Engraved Pictures of Children 
 
 72 
 
 1759 Spencer, The Hon. Mrs., and Child. * Contemplation.’ E. Fisher, F. Bartolozzi. 
 
 1786 Spencer, Viscountess, and Child, with a Spaniel. J. Fisher, J. Finlayson, 
 
 J. Watson. 
 
 1787 St. Asaph, Lady Sophia, and Son. J. Grozer, 8. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1784 Stanhope, The Hon.* Master Leicester, with a Drum. F. Bartolozzi, 8. W. 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 1787 Stanhope, The Hon. Lincoln, holding a Drawing. T. Park. 
 
 1787 Stanhope, The Hon. Lincoln, Viscount Petersham, with their Mother, Jane, 
 Countess of Harrington. F. Bartolozzi, 8. W. Reynolds, V. Green. 
 
 1773 Strawberry-Girl, The (Miss Theophila Palmer). T. Watson, G. Zobel, and others. 
 Photograph published by Colnaghi. 
 
 1762 Student, The. ‘Master Brown,’ ‘The Studious Youth,’ ‘The Contemplative 
 Youth.’ E. II. Hodges, H. Wallis, C. Turner, J. R. Smith, 8. W. Reynolds. 
 1775 Sylvia (Lady Anne Fitzpatrick). J. Jones. 
 
 1759 Titchfield, The Marquis of (The Duke of Portland). J. Jehner, W. Walker. 
 
 1773 Ugolino, The Count, and his Sons. J. Dixon, A. Raimbach, and others. 
 
 1780 Una and the Lion (Miss Elizabeth Beauclerk). J. Watson, W. Dickinson. 
 
 1768 Vansittart, Master Henry. 8. W. Reynolds. 
 
 1778 Venetian Boy. ‘Boy in a Venetian dress’ (Sir W. Wynn?). J. Dean. 
 
 1759 Venus. ‘La Nymphe indifferente,’ ‘Venus and Cupid.’ W. Dickinson, F. Collyer, 
 A. Raimbach. 
 
 1759 Venus and Cupid. ‘La Nymphe indifferente,’ ‘Venus.’ J. Collyer, A. Raimbach, 
 
 W. Dickinson. 
 
 1771 Venus chiding Cupid. ‘The Chiding of Cupid.’ F. Bartolozzi. The figure of 
 Cupid separate also. 
 
 1791* Virgin and Child, The. 
 
 1762 Waldegrave, Maria, Countess, and her Son. ‘ Dido embracing Cupid.’ 
 R. Houston. There is a piratical copy of this print. 
 
 Warwick, George, Second Earl of. A. Sanders. 
 
 1787 Witch Scene in ‘Macbeth,’ Children in the. R. Thew. 
 
 Wynn Family, The. G. H. Every. 
 
 1778 Wynn, Master. ‘St. John at the Spring.’ J. Dean, S. W. Reynolds, J. Grozer, 
 T. Doney. 
 
 1787 Yorke, Master Philip. ‘ Child with the Dog,’ ‘ Viscount Boyston when a Child.’ 
 8. W. Reynolds, F. Bartolozzi, 
 
 London : —Printed by Stranoeways & Walden, Castlo Street, Leicester Square.