JOSHUA REYNOLDS IN HIS YOUTH.
(From a medallion portrait by Falconnot.)

LIFE AND TIMES

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS:

WITH NOTICES OF SOME OF HIS COTEMPORARIES.

COMMENCED

Bt CHAELES EOBEET LESLIE, E.A.
CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED
By TOM TAYLOE, M.A.

IN TWO VOLUMES.— Vol. I.

WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:
JOHN MUEEAT, ALBEMAELE STEEET.
1865.
ITie rigit of Translation it retened.

LONDON! PRINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AKL> CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.

In order to understand the part I have had in this
book, and the circumstances under which I undertook
it, it is necessary that I should inform my readers that
it had been a cherished object of the late excellent and
much-regretted painter, C. E. Leslie, E.A., for several
years before his death, to do justice to the memory of
Sir Joshua Eeynolds, which he believed had suffered
from the tone of Allan Cunningham's Biography of
that great painfer, contained in his ' Lives of the Most
Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.'
In the unfinished draft of a preface to his (unfor
tunately) unfinished work — written on his death-bed — I
find this statement of Mr. Leslie's main object in writing
a new Life of Eeynolds :—
" As the impression made on my mind by all I have
read and heard of Eeynolds is very different from the
estimate formed of his character by Allan Cunningham,
I have endeavoured to show that he did not deserve
the imputations that are dispersed through the most
popular account that has yet been published of him,
nor the aspersions on his character to be found in
that author's Lives of Hogarth, Wilson, and Gains
borough. "To this end," he continues, "I have arranged in
a 2

IT

PEEFACE.

this volume many more particulars than have hitherto
been published in any one account of Sir Joshua
Eeynolds. " Among these are some anecdotes which were
related to me, or to others from whom I received them,
by Sir George Beaumont, the Earl of Egremont, Sir
William Beechy, Mr. Stothard, Mr. Eogers, Lord Hol
land, and Sir Martin Shee ; all of whom were personally
acquainted with Eeynolds.
" Of the materials I have used, which have appeared
in print, though not in any Life of Sir Joshua, the
accounts given of him in Madame. d'Arblay's Memoirsj
and in the Memoirs of her father^ Dr. Burney, are
extremely interesting. That lady carries us into his
town and country house, places us at his table, in
his own drawing-room, or in the drawing-rooms of
his friends, — where, we see and hear him, with Johnson,
Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, Jackson of Exeter, and other
people of eminence."
Mr. Leslie then refers to the Collections illustrating
the Life of Sir Joshua, published by the late W. Cotton,
Esq.,1 an enthusiast on the subject, to which he had
devoted many years of research, crowned by his bequest
to Plymouth of the Cottonian Library. For the pur
pose of these works Mr. Cotton had had placed in his
hands most of the papers left by Sir Joshua, and then
in the possession of his grand-niece, Miss Gwatkin, of

1 'Sir Joshua Reynolds and his
Works. Gleanings from his Diary,
unpublished Manuscripts, and from
other Sources.' London, Longman, Col-
riaghi, and Co. ; and Plymouth, Roger
Lidstone, 1856. And ' Sir Joshua
Reynolds's Notes and Observations on

Pictures, &c. &c. ; also the Rev. W.
Mason's Observations on Sir Joslma's
Method of Colouring, unpublished
Letters of Johnson, Malone, and others ¦
with an Appendix containing a tran
script of Sir Joshua's Account-book.'
London, John Russell Smith, 1859.

PREFACE.

Plymouth, and now in that of her nephew, Mr. Eey
nolds Gwatkin. To Mr. Cotton's extracts and tran
scripts Mr. Leslie was indebted for all he knew of these
remains of Sir Joshua, except in the case of his account
of his rupture with the Academy.
But Mr. Leslie did not live to complete his labour of
love. It soothed him under his last great grief — the
loss of a beloved daughter — and it continued to occupy
him till the last moment of his life. He wrote in
pencil, -or dictated parts of it from his death-bed ; but
with all his efforts, had only completed a small part of
the biography for printing, and sketched out, or out
lined, the remainder.
After his death I was asked by Mr. Murray to take
up and complete Mr. Leslie's fragment. I then found
that it would be necessary to make a thorough exami
nation and exhaustive use of the Gwatkin papers and
memorials. I found that Mr. Cotton had in no case
given full lists of the sitters, as recorded in the pocket-
books ; that he had, unfortunately, trusted a most in
accurate (so-called) transcript of Sir Joshua's Venetian
notes, and had made no use of the Note-books in the
Soane and British Museums ; tha,t the series of the
pocket-books had since his publication been made much
completer by the discovery of missing volumes ; and that
a second account-book had been discovered. I had,
besides this, access given to all in the possession of
the Gwatkin family that Sir Joshua had left behind
him of written memoranda, letters, &c. I owed other
unpublished letters of his, or papers of value in con
nection with him, to the kindness of Lord Lyveden,
Sir C. T. F. Bunbury, Mr. Sheridan, the Hon. G.

Ti PREFACE.

Barrington, Mr. John Forster, Mrs. St. John, Mr. Price
of Torrington, &c. ; and I had placed in my hands for
reference (by Sir W. Knighton) an unpublished auto
biography of Northcote's, (by the Eev. T. Holme) a
record of Northcote's conversations with Mr. Ward,
a north-country painter, and (by Master Skardon) a
commonplace-book of Sir Joshua's, formerly in the
possession of the Gwatkin family. I have also been
permitted access to the Archives of the Eoyal Aca
demy, to Horace Walpole's Catalogues of the Eoyal
Academy Exhibitions, containing his notes and names,1
to the Note-books of Sir Joshua in the British Mu
seum and the Soane Museum, to the books of " the
Club," and the records of the Dilettante Society.
I have used, besides these original materials, all the
printed sources of information or illustration which
could help me . in placing my subject vividly before the
reader. By the use of these materials I have attempted to
carry out Mr. Leslie's intention of presenting Sir Joshua
in his true character, as the genial centre of a most
various and brilliant society, as well as the transmitter
of its chief figures to our time by his potent art. I
have given, year by year (with a gap here and there),
a complete list of his sitters, — a work not yet even
attempted by any of his biographers, but of great
interest and importance, as a means of affixing the dates
to pictures for family purposes, and of throwing light
on changes of style and method. Information from
these lists communicated by me while my MS. was

1 In the Sheepshanks Library.

PREFACE. Til

going through the press, has already, to my knowledge,
led to several discoveries of portraits which had been
lost sight of, or whose existence was unknown, and to
the identification of others with the originals.
I have preserved all of Mr. Leslie's work that was
sufficiently finished and continuous for use. My own
additions are included in brackets, thus [ ].
My notion of what biography should be may be mis
taken, and is certain to be contested. I am prepared to
be told that I have lugged in irrelevant matter, accu
mulated trivial details, and told a great many things
bearing so indirectly on Sir Joshua that they have no
business in a book even with the elastic title of a Life
and Times.
I can only say that I have exercised the best judg
ment I could, and told my story in my own way. It
seems to me that a life can only be told by the facts out
of which it is made up, and by which it is environed and
influenced ; and that, as we can but imperfectly estimate
the relative importance of facts, it is unsafe to disregard
any that can be ascertained with reasonable certainty.
Again, the life of a painter, more than most men, as a
rule, derives its interest from his work, and from the
people he paints. When his sitters are the chief men
and women of his time,- for beauty, genius, rank, power,
wit, goodness, or even fashion and folly, this interest
is heightened. It culminates when the painter is the
equal and honoured associate of his sitters. All these
conditions concur in the case of Eeynolds. It is im
possible to write a Life and Times of the painter without
passing in review — hasty and brief as it must be — the

Tin PREFACE.

great facts of politics, literature, and manners during
his busy life, which touched — often very closely — the
chief actors in a drama taking in the most stirring
events of the last century, and containing the germs of
many things that have materially operated to shape our
arts, manners, and institutions.
Mr. Cotton has published the fullest list yet printed
of Sir Joshua's portraits. But it is both incomplete and
inaccurate, defects hardly to be avoided in the first
edition of such a work.
I soon found that, if my labours in connection with
Sir Joshua were to be complete, it would . be necessary
to compile the fullest possible catalogue of his pictures.
But when their number was taken into account (I am
satisfied I do not overestimate them at between two and
three thousand, and I rather think the latter figure will
be passed before my work is done), it became evident that
a volume would be required for the catalogue alone. I
have compiled — with the aid of my friend, C. Franks,
Esq. — the fullest fist I could of proprietors of Sir
Joshua's pictures, and have asked of them all the latest
and exactest information as to the subjects and states of
these pictures. I have received, in the great majority
of instances, ready and careful replies. I have made a
point, for some years past, of examining all Sir Joshua's
pictures that I could get access to, and facilities for
such examinations have been granted me as obligingly
in every instance, as information has been supplied, in
almost all, in answer to my letters.
I hope that this volume, now in the press, will con
tain something as near a full catalogue raisonne'e of Sir

PREFACE.

IX

Joshua's pictures as is to be hoped for at present.
Future editions must be waited for to fill up gaps and
correct errors.
In sending to the printer the last sheet of l The Life
and Times of Sir Joshua Eeynolds,' I lay down a task
which would have been delightful had I not felt so
painfully my own inadequacy to complete Leslie's un
finished work, and had I not been hampered by the
sense that much which I was attempting could only be
well done by a painter. I may have erred in my con
ception of the way in which the work ought to be done,
but I can conscientiously say I have not spared on it
either time or trouble. I love and honour both my
subject and the man to whose unfinished labours I suc-

ceeded too much not to do my best for the sake of one
;as much as the other. /

TOM TAYLOE.,

Lavender Sweep, Wandsworth.
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The Reynolds Family.

( x )

THE REYNOLDS FAMILY.
(Pages 3-6.)
After this Tolume was worked off I received from Master J.
Skardon, of Laira, near Plymouth (into whose hands it came
from a servant of Miss Gwatkin's'). a commonplace-book of Sir
Joshua's (the gift of his father), kept on Locke's principle, and
containing, inter alia, a family record, evidently copied by Sir
Joshua from the family Bible. This settles the disputed point
as to the number of children (in favour of eleven), and shows
" Offy " to have been about fourteen months, instead of five
f years old, as stated in the text, when she died by a fall from a
"window. It also fixes the spelling of the Plympton surgeon's
name as Ruport, and gives us, for the first time, the date of the
marriage of Sir Joshua's parents, and his own attack of small
pox, which left its marks in his face for life : —
1609, Aug. 20. — My Great Grandmother Margaret Eeynolds was
born.
1609-10, Jan. 2. — My Great Grandfather Joshua Eeynolds was born.
1641, Aug. 14. — My Grandfather John Eeynolds was born.
1644, Oct. 24. — My Grandmother Mary Eeynolds was born.
1680-1, Jan. 31. — Monday, about i after 8 in the morning, my Father
Samuel Eeynolds was born.
1688, Jun. 4.— Whitsunday, my Mother Theophila Eeynolds was
born.
„ Jun. 5.— My Great Grandmother Margaret Eeynolds died,
aged 79.
1692, July 16.— Died my Grandfather John Eeynolds, between 9 and
10 at night.
1693, Sep. 25. — 'Squire Parker and his man were hang'd.1
1711, Aug. 30.— Thursday night, betwixt 11 and 12, my Great Aunt
Potter died.
„ Dec. 9.— My Father was married to Mrs. Theophila Potter, at
Monkley, by the old Mr. Ley.
?   — _
> Why? This was a time of great Jacobite excitement. Had Squire
Parker been plotting against William ?

THE REYNOLDS FAMILY. xi
1713, Feb. 2. — Monday, my brother Humphrey was born, about i of
an hour before 9 in the morning.
„ Feb. 24. — Humphrey was baptiz'd by Mr. Luke Glub.
1714, May 29. — Saturday, my Brother Eobert was born i after 2 in
the afternoon, or somewhat better.
„ June 2. — Tuesday, he was baptiz'd.
„ July 6. — About & after 3 in the morning, my Grandmother
died.
1715, June 20. — My Father came to Plymton.
„ July 13. — My Father begun the school at Plympton.
1716, Feb. 9. — Thursday, exactly at two in the afternoon, my sister
Molly was born.
„ Mar. 7. — Wednesday, she was christen'd.
1718, Mar. 3. — Munday, betwixt one and two in the morning (almost 2),
my mother was brought to bed of a daughter.
„ Mar. 9. — She was baptiz'd by the name of Ann.
1720, Jan. 14. — Thursday, at a quarter after 6 in the morning, my
sister Jenny was born.
„ Feb. 10. — She was baptiz'd.
„ April 7. — Thursday, a quarter before 9 in the morning, my
sister Ann died.
1721, Jul. 8. — Saturday, a quarter before 6 in the morning, or some
what better, my sister Betty was born.

1723, July 16. — Thursday, about £ an hour after 9 in the morning, I,
Joshua Eeynolds, was born. Godfathers, Uncle
Joshua (Mr. Aldwyn, Proxy), Mr. Joie; God
mother, Aunt Eeynolds of Exeter (Mrs. Darby,
Proxy).

1725, Feb. 4. — Bells rung for Mr. Treby's wedding.
„ Aug 14. — Saturday morning, just after the Clock had struck 9,
my mother was brought to bed of a Daughter
(Theophila).
1726, Not. 8. — Tuesday morning, about 7 o'clock, Offy fell out of the
window, and died between 6 and 7 at night.
1727, Aug. 7. — Munday, at a quarter past two in the afternoon, my
Brother Samuel was born.
„ Sep. 1. — Friday, he was baptized.

xii THE REYNOLDS FAMILY.

1729, May 10. — Saturday, just before 10 in the morning, my sister
Frances was born.
„ June 6. — Friday, she was baptized.
1731, July 5.— Munday, J before 7 in the morning, my brother
Martyn was born.
„ July 29. — Thursday, he was baptized.
1733, Jan. 4. — I was ill of the measles. This day the measles came
out ; I went to bed.
„ Jan. 7. — I was in a manner Well.
„ Jan. 11. — I took Physick.
1734-5, Mar. 5. — I was seiz'd with the small-pox.
„ Mar. 10. — Munday, the 6th day of the Distemper, nothing
amiss in my Eegimen hitherto. I had a blister
at 4 this morning.
„ Mar. 11. — Tuesday, the 7th day, perhaps the 8th, seems to
haTe been the worst day : then most outragious.
„ Mar. 12. — Wednesday, the 8th day, extremely low.
„ Mar. 13. — Thursday, the 9th day, being low, and somewhat
hungry, I had broth at night, tho' contrary to
Mr. Euport's express order.
„ Mar. 14. — Friday, the 10th day, haTing slept well, I was
braTe.
„ Mar. 15. — Saturday, the 11th, rather the 12th day, taken out
of bed.
„ Mar. 16.— Sunday, the 13th day, I sat up.
„ Mar. 17. — I Tentured down stairs.
„ Mar. 18. — I staid down a long time.
„ Mar. 19. — Wednesday, the 16th day, I took physic.
„ Mar. 22. — Betty first seiz'd with the Small Pox.

CONTENTS OF YOL. L

CHAPTEE I.
1723—1748. iETAT. 1—25.
Parentage and birth of Reynolds — His father's character — Joshua's educa
tion — He studies 'The Jesuit's Perspective' — Draws likenesses of several
of his friends — Richardson's ' Treatise on Painting' — Its probable effect
on young Reynolds — He is bound apprentice to Hudson — His progress
under his master — Hudson dismisses him suddenly — He returns to
Devonshire, where he is much employed in portraits — Is soon again in
London, and on good terms with Hudson — Is recalled to Devonshire by
the illness of his father — His father's death — Reynolds takes a house at
Plymouth Dock — His style formed on that of Gandy of Exeter. Page 1
CHAPTEE II.
1749—1752. jstat. 26—29.
Reynolds is introduced to Commodore Keppel — Sails with him to the Medi
terranean — ¦ They arrive at Lisbon — Cadiz — Gibraltar — Algiers —
Reynolds lands at Minorca — Is kindly received there by Governor
Blakeney — Paints many portraits — Meets with an accident — Proceeds
to Leghorn — Arrives at Rome — Remains there two years — His studies
and employments there — Leaves Rome for Florence, where he spends
two months — -Visits Bologna — Modena — Parma — Mantua — Ferrara,
and Venice — His studies there — Notes on pictures in Venice — Returns
through France to England, stopping for a month at Paris .. .. 35
CHAPTEE III.
1753—1764. jetat. 30—41.
The health of Reynolds impaired — He spends three months in Devonshire
— Dr. John Mudge — Return of Reynolds to London — Takes apart
ments in St. Martin's Lane — The first drawing academy after Sir J.
Thornhill's — His sister Frances — Her character — Sketch of the times
— Reynolds paints a portrait of Marchi — Hudson's observation on it —
Portrait-painters of the time — He removes to Newport Street — His
prices — His great industry — Lord Edgcumbe obtains much employment

Xiv CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

for Reynolds — His whole-length of Keppel — Liotard — Mason's descrip
tion of Reynolds's mode of painting — The author's remarks on his drawing
and colouring, and on his use of nostrums — Account by Reynolds of
t his own practice — He becomes acquainted with Johnson — Introduction of
Roubiliac to Johnson — Johnson's fondness for tea and Miss Reynolds —
Public events from 1754 to 1760 — His circle in 1755 — Negotiations
with the Dilettanti for the establishment of an Academy of Arts — His
practice in 1755 — Sitters for 1755 — (1756) First portrait of Johnson —
Portrait of young Mudge — Events of 1756 and 1757 — Byng's execu
tion — Popularity of Italian and neglect of English art by patrons —
Sitters for 1757 — Increasing practice — His visiting list — Events and
engagements in 1758 — Sitters for 1758 — The Duke of Richmond's
statue gallery opened for the use of art students — Reynolds paints the
Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. — He paints Kitty Fisher —
Portraits of Woodward, Barry, and Garrick — Of Horace Walpole —
Contributions to the 'Idler' — Entries in pocket-book for 1759 —
Mason's account of Reynolds painting his Venus — Sitters for 1759
— Exhibition of pictures at the Foundling Hospital — First Exhibition
in the Strand, 1760 — Reynolds removes to Leicester Square — His
carriage — Events of the year — Accession of George III. — Sitters for
1760 — Portraits of Lord Ligonier and of Sterne — The coronation
and marriage of the King, and its beauties painted by Reynolds
— Literary acquaintances : Goldsmith, M'Pherson — Entries in the
pocket-book for 1761 — Sitters for 1761 — Exhibition of 1762— His
portraits of Lady Elizabeth Keppel, and of Garrick between Tragedy
and Comedy — Capture of the Havannah — The glories of the Keppels —
Reynolds's dining-houses at this time — Ramsay appointed court painter —
The King of the Cherokees — Reynolds visits Devonshire in company with
Johnson — Northcote, for the first time, sees Reynolds — (1763) Boswell's
introduction to Johnson — Portrait of Lord Bute — Wilkes's committal to
the Tower — Fire at Lady Molesworth's — Exhibition of the year —
(1764) Political agitations of the time — Reynolds's studio a neutral
ground — Exhibition of 1764 — The Literary Club established — Reynolds
dangerously ill — Johnson writes to him — Visit to -Blenheim — Death
of Hogarth — Entries in the pocket-book for 1764 — Sitters of the year
Page 88

CHAPTEE IV.
1765—1768. jetat. 42—45.
Political aspect of the year — Burke's entry into public life — Barry— Gold
smith—Notes contributed by Reynolds to Johnson's edition of Shakespear
— A paper by him, probably intended for the ' Idler' — Pictures exhibited
by Reynolds in 1765 — Barry's commendation of him — His management of
costume— Exhibition of 1765 —West — Vanloo — Wilson — G. Hamilton
— Zoffany — Mortimer — Wright, of Derby — Dinner-engagements of the
year — Sitters for 1765 —(1766) Rockingham Administration — Burke's
advance in public life — The Club — 'The Vicar of Wakefield' —'The

CONTENTS OF VOL. I. xv

Clandestine Marriage ' — Mrs. Abington sitting to Reynolds — Isaac
Barre1 — Wilkes — Angelica Kauffman — Makes acquaintance with the
Thrales — At the play — Pictures exhibited this year — West's ' Py lades
and Orestes' — The Misses Horneck — Dinner-engagements and sitters of
the year — Fall of the Rockingham Administration — (1767) Death of
Lord Tavistock — Contrasted character of Reynolds's sitters — ' La
Gecchina ' — The gay side of Reynolds's habits and associates — His political
bent and its consequences — Interview between the King and Dr. Johnson —
Reading of ' The Good-Natured Man' at Burke's — Mr. Bott — Portrait of
the Speaker ; his wig — Foote — Dinner-engagements of the year — Quota
tions from letters by Burke — Portrait of Dr. Zachariah Mudge by Reynolds
— Reynolds does not exhibit in 1767 — The Exhibition of that year — List
of sitters for 1767 —(1768) ' The Good-Natured Man ' produced — Portrait
by him of Miss Ann Cholmondely — Dissensions in the Incorporated
Society of Artists — Reynolds visits Paris — His diary on the road and at
Paris — Formation of the Royal Academy — Earlier attempts made to
establish an Academy — Claims of the Royal Academy to the gratitude
of the country — Reynolds knighted by George III. — His exertions to
render the Exhibitions of the Academy attractive — Four Honorary
Members of the Academy appointed at the suggestion of Reynolds — He
suggests the annual dinner — List of sitters for 1768 ,. .. Page 242

CHAPTEE V.
1769— 1772. iETAT.. 46—49.
Sketch of Royal Academy in Annual Register — Site, &c, of the Academy —
Francklin's Ode — The President's First Discourse — Dinner at the St.
Albans — Arrangement of the course of study — The President knighted
— The first Exhibition — Its chief attractions — West's 'Regulus' — Sir
Joshua's pictures — Mrs. Bouverie and Mrs. Crewe — Dinner with the
Hornecks at Dr. Baker's — His circle — At the masquerade — At Vaux-
hall — The Stratford Jubilee — Dinner at Boswell's — Baretti's trial — First
distribution of prizes at the Academy — The Second Discourse analysed —
Sir Joshua's tenderness to a robber — A letter to Barry — Sitters for 1769
— Notes of his practice at this time — (1770) Politics of the year — Resig
nation of the Grafton Administration — The authorship of ' Junius ' —
Sitters — Mrs. Trecothick — The ' Ugolino ' begun — Death of the Marquis
of Granby, Lord Ligonier, and Sir John Oust — The President in
society — The Thursday night Club's masquerade — The Exhibition —
Walpole on the arirexhibition mania of the day — Sir Joshua's pictures for
the year — ' The Babes in the Wood ' — Mary Moser's critique on the Exhi-
bi tion — Portrait of Goldsmith — Reynolds's regard for him — The ' Deserted
Village' — Paints the King — Visits York and Devonshire — Brings his
niece " Offy" to London — Election of Associates — Distribution of prizes
— Third Discourse analysed — The Grand Style — Sitters and practice of
1770. — (1771) Decrease of sitters — Romney — Political events and con
nections — The Academy installed at Somerset House — The President at
the Club — Walpole and Masaccio — Sir Joshua's dinners — Fancy pictures

XVI CONTENTS OF VOL. L
¦ — Beggar-boys — Old White — Sir Joshua's society — Sir T. Mills — •
Cumberland — Struggles in Parliament — Sir Joshua's clubs — Gambling
• — Mrs. Cornely's masquerades — Mrs. Abington — Mrs. Baddeley — Lady
Waldegrave — The Duchess of Cumberland — Miss Polly Kennedy — Her
story — The first Academy dinner — The Exhibition — Sir Joshua's pic
tures — Barry's return from Rome — His 'Adam and Eve' — Earlom's
picture of the Exhibition — West's ' Death of Wolfe ' — Northcote comes up
to London — Johnson's thanks for his portrait — Installation of the Knights
of the Garter at Windsor — Sir Joshua robbed of his hat and watch — Visit
to Paris — Northcote's life at Sir Joshua's — Analysis of the Fourth Dis
course — Generality the characteristic of great art — Sitters for 1771. —
(1772) Ugolino — • Hebe — Portrait of Bankes — Opening of the Pantheon
— Mrs. Baddeley and her escort — A Pantheon masquerade — Election of
Academicians — Garrick and Mrs. Garrick sit to him — Northcote's over-
hearings — His introduction to Goldsmith — Interesting sitters — Dunning
— Mrs. Crewe — The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland — The Royal
Marriage Act — The Exhibitions — Sir Joshua's pictures at the Academy
— Zoffany's picture of the Academicians — Sir Joshua at the installation
of the Knights of the Bath — The Fordyce failure — Mrs. Yates sits —
Mrs. Montague and the Blues — Burke offered an Indian appointment —
Care-clouds at Streatham — Colonel Dow's tragedies — Sir Joshua at
Marylebone Gardens — Elected an Alderman of Plympton — A party
to see the Puppets — His visiting-circle — Analysis of the Fifth Dis
course  '  Page 313
Appendix .. .. ,  4g7
Index  43^

ILLUSTEATIONS TO VOLUME I.

Sir Joshua when Young — Medallion  .. .. Frontispiece
The School-house at Plympton  to face page 1
Colonnade under the School-house, Plympton .... 8
Admiral Keppel  -,/w
Kitty Fisher  165
Oliver Goldsmith  og0

( xvii )

ERRATA, VOL. I.

Page 29, lines 4, 5, 6, 7. The persons here described as Richard first Lord Eliot
and Harriet Lady Eliot, are so described in error. This Richard Eliot, who
died in 1748, was not created a Peer. His son Edward was the first Lord
Eliot, and he was so created in 1784.
„ 92, note, for " Dr. Hoole " read " Mr. Hoole."
„ 95, line 14, for " Sir George " read " Sir John."
„ '„ for " Mountford " read " Montford."
„ 206, line 23, for " Charlotte " read " Catherine."
„ 223, line 6, for " the other " read " another."
„ 284, note, for " Beasley's " read " Bensley's."
„ 291, line 28, for " capias ultagatum " read " capias utlagatum."
„ 342, line 2, for " Eyen " read " Even."-
„ 360, line 3, for " Coates " read " Cotes."
line 4, for " Dancer " read " Dance."
„ 390, line 8, for " Lord Buckingham's " read " Lord Buckinghamshire's."
„ 399, note, col. 1, last line, for " Miss " read " Mrs."
„ 437, note, for " Grizzell " read " Grissell,"

VOL. I.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S SCHOOL.
l-'r,,m n akt-fli by the ]ntr> C. R T>n1ie R.A

LIFE

OP

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

CHAPTER I.
1723—1748. ^Etat. 1—25.

Parentage and birth of Reynolds — His father's character — Joshua's educa
tion — He studies The Jesuit's Perspective — Draws likenesses of several
of his friends — Richardson's Treatise on Painting — Its probable effect
on young Reynolds- — He is bound apprentice to Hudson — His progress
under his master — Hudson dismisses him suddenly — He returns to
Devonshire, where he is much employed in portraits ¦ — ¦ Is soon again in
London, and on good terms with Hudson — Is recalled to Devonshire by
the illness of his father — His father's death' — Reynolds takes a house at
Plymouth Dock — His style formed on that of Gandy of Exeter.
Itf his Argument against abolishing Christianity, Swift
asks " whether it may not be thought necessary that,
in certain tracts of country which we call parishes,
there should be one man, at least, of abilities to read
and write." He goes on to show, from the temperate
habits of these educated men, that their children are
likely to prove healthy ; — and he might have said
something more.
Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Hobbes, Andrew Marvell,
Otway, Addison, Young, Thomson, Armstrong, Gold
smith, Churchill," Cowper, and Coleridge were the
sons of clergymen. So were John Wesley, Paley, and
Eobert Hall, Sir Francis Drake and Lord Nelson,
Sir Christopher Wren, Eichard Wilson, and Sir David
Wilkie; and among gifted women who were the
VOL. I. »

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

daughters of clergymen, Miss Austen, I believe, de
serves the first place.
To this list might be added many names of eminence
in the Church. The names too of some of the most
distinguished lawyers, physicians, and soldiers belong
to it ; but the pre-eminent are sufficient, and I will con
clude it, therefore, with that of Sir Joshua Eeynolds,
who was on every side connected with the Church.
His father and grandfather were clergymen, — his
mother and her mother were daughters of clergymen, —
and two of his father's brothers were in holy orders.
He was born at Plympton Earl,1 in Devonshire,
on the 16th of July, 1723, where his father, Samuel
Eeynolds, son of John Eeynolds, vicar of St. Thomas
the Apostle, Exeter, was master of the grammar school,
founded and endowed by the celebrated Serjeant
Maynard, in 1658.
Samuel Eeynolds married Theophila Potter, the
history of whose parents is a melancholy one. Her
mother, Theophila, was the only child of the Eev.
Thomas Baker, vicar of Bishop's Nymmet (or Nymp-
ton), near South Molton, Devonshire, who was highly
distinguished as a mathematician. She became attached
to Mr. Potter, her father's chaplain (it is said), but
probably his curate, and they married without Mr.
Baker's consent, who never forgave his daughter, and
left her nothing. Her husband died in a few years,
leaving her, a young widow, with a son and two

1 For a very full and careful de
scription of Plympton, and all that
concerns Reynolds in his connection
with it, see Mr. Cotton's work, ' Some

Account of the ancient Borough of
Plympton St. Maurice,' &c. J. Rus
sell Smith, Soho Square. 1859. —
Ed.

1723-1748. HIS FATHER'S CHARACTER. 3
daughters ; and the tradition is that she wept herself
blind for his death, though she did not long survive
him. Her daughter Theophila was very young when
Samuel Eeynolds married her. All that I have been
able to learn of her character is by incidental remarks
found in letters, from which it appears she had her
full share of intellect.
Of the father of Sir Joshua somewhat more is
known. He was a scholar, guileless as a child, and
as ignorant of the world.1 He had obtained a fel
lowship of Balliol College, Oxford, and was known
to Young, the author of the Night Thoughts. From
the innocence of his heart and the simplicity of his
manners, and from his being withal so absent, that,
riding on horseback, in a pair of gambados, he dropped
one by the way without missing it, he was likened, by
his friends, to Fielding's Parson Adams.
Fielding tells us that Mr. Abraham Adams ''was
provided with a handsome income of twenty-three
pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any
great figure with, because he lived in a dear country,
and was a little encumbered with a wife and six
children." Mr. Eeynolds had the advantage of that excellent
person in the number of his children ; Northcote
speaks of eleven, Mr. Cotton of ten or eleven, while

1 The portrait of him, painted by
his illustrious son, now in the Cot-
tonian Library at Plymouth, repre
sents a ruddy, round-faced, smooth-
visaged man, almost bald, with a
placid and sweet expression. The

picture is of interest, not merely as
the only portrait of Samuel Reynolds,
but as an example of the style of
Sir Joshua before 1746, when his
father died.— Ed.
B 2

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

another account makes it twelve. All, however, agree
in stating it as reduced by death to six, while the
father still lived.1 He had also the advantage of Mr.
Adams in a more handsome income. It is supposed
he received 1201. a year, as master of the school, the
dwelling-house attached to which was rent free.
Northcote and other biographers of Eeynolds speak
of his father as the Incumbent of Plympton, but Mr.
Cotton has shown this to be a mistake. It does not
appear that the grammar school was at " any time
annexed to the living of Plympton, and an inspection
of the parish register proves that there is no founda
tion for the statement that Samuel Eeynolds was ever
the Incumbent."
Joshua received his name from his father's brother,
the Eev. Joshua Eeynolds, Eector of Stoke Charity,
Hants, who was his godfather by proxy.
All accounts of Samuel Eeynolds agree as to the
goodness of his heart. His daughter Elizabeth (Mrs.

1 The following is the longest ac
count of his children, in which I have
adopted the dates of the baptisms
of such as are registered at Plympton,
from Mr. Cotton's statements : —
Humphrey, born 1713, not regis
tered at Plympton. He was a lieu
tenant in the navy, and was drowned
on the Voyage from India, 1741.
Robert, born 1714, not registered
at Plympton. He was an ironmonger
at Exeter, and died unmarried.
Mary, baptized March 7th, 1715,
married John Palmer, Esq., of Tor-
rington, died 1787.
Ann, baptized March 9th, 1717,
died 1720.
Jane, baptized February 9th, 1719,
died unmarried,

Elizabeth, born 1721, not regis
tered at Plympton, married William
Johnson, Esq., died 1792.
Joshua, registered by mistake Joseph,
baptized July 30th, 1723.
Samuel, baptized September 1st,
1727. Frances, June 6th, 1729," died un
married 1807.
Theophila (no date, and not in
Plympton register).
Martin, baptized July 29th, 1731 ;
and another child who died in infancy,
and is not registered at Plympton.

* In the list furnished by the Johnson
branch of the family her birth is stated in
1722.

1723-1748. HIS FATHER'S CHARACTER. 5
Johnson) remembered his giving half a guinea to the
famous Bampfylde Moore Carew, when it was all the
money he had in hand. This seems scarcely credible ;
but the King of the Gipsies, was a man of genius. He
could assume the character of a shattered sailor, a dis
abled soldier, a ruined tradesman, or an unfortunate
clergyman, with equal success. He did not, of course,
present himself to Mr. Eeynolds in his own character,
for that was too well known.
Mr. Eeynolds was addicted to a variety of studies,
among which that of medicine occupied much of his
time. It was his custom to instruct his children by
giving them lectures on different subjects, and it was
remembered by Mrs. Johnson, that, at one of these,
he produced a human skull. Among the little else that
is known of him, we are told that he said to his wife,
for whose name there was a choice of diminutives — ¦
" When I say The,
You must make tea ;
But when I say Offy,
You must make coffee."
Northcote relates this as an instance of his economy
of words ; but the rhymes are proofs rather of fondness
than taciturnity ; and, considering how very little we
know of Mrs. Eeynolds, they form no unimportant part
of her history.1
Mr. Cotton tells me, on the authority of a lady

1 This doggrel, I believe, on the

authority of Miss Gwatkin, belongs to
Sir Joshua, instead of his father, and

was part of an effusion of playful fond

ness addressed to his niece, " Offy,"
which, complete, runs thus : —
When I drink tea, I think of my ' The,'
And when I drink coffee, I think of my ' Offy ; '
So whether I drink my tea or my coffee,
1 always am thinking of thee, my Theoffy." Ed.

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.

living at Ivybridge, whose mother had a female ser
vant who had lived with the mother of Sir Joshua,
that Samuel Eeynolds was an astrologer, and spent
many hours on the top of the old castle at Plympton,
studying the stars. The old servant said he used to
cast nativities ; and, having calculated the horoscope
of one of his children, he found that, at its fifth year,
very great danger was impending over its life. The
child was not allowed even to leave the house, and
every precaution was taken for its safety; but at the
very time predicted by its father, it fell out of an up
stairs window and was killed.
The least extraordinary part of this story is corro
borated by Northcote, who says, " Of that part of the
family who died in infancy, one child, named Theophila,
lost her life by falling out of a window from the arms
of a careless nurse."
Allan Cunningham supposes the education of young
Eeynolds to have been neglected by his father. Joshua
must, however, have acquired a tolerable amount of
Latin ; for we know that he was the first person to
whom Dr. Johnson submitted his epitaph on Goldsmith,
desiring him, if he approved of it, to show it to the
club ; and, when. Johnson found that Eeynolds had
mislaid it, he wrote to him for as much of it as he
could recollect, haviiag no other copy. Eeynolds had
no time to pay much (if any) attention to the study of
Latin in after life, and whatever he may have known
of that language must have been acquired at his
father's school.1

1 Mr. R. Gwatkin has his school I mythological, but some etymological,
Ovid, well thumbed, with notes, chiefly | in Reynolds's hand. — Ed.

1723-1748.

HIS EDUCATION.

The notion that his education was neglected seems
to have arisen from the misspelling of a few words in
his letters ; and I shall have occasion to quote some
of his papers in which there are grammatical as well
as orthographical errors. These papers were all, how
ever, written in extreme haste ; and with respect to
the errors of orthography, it may be mentioned that
the same words are more often correctly than incor
rectly spelt; a proof that the mistakes are those of
carelessness, and not of ignorance, — to say nothing
of the prevailing looseness of orthography in his
day. He was certainly fond of literary composition, and,
had not his love of art predominated, it is probable he
would have become an author. The earliest accounts
we have of him prove that he was a thinker. In his
boyhood he composed rules of conduct for himself, one
of which was, that " the great principle of being happy
in this world is, not to mind or be affected with small
things." 1
There seems, indeed, to be no good reason to charge
the memory of his father with negligence. The future
painter was no doubt, at times, an inattentive scholar,
for the good old man wrote under a perspective drawing
of a wall perforated by a window, and which was made
on the back of a Latin exercise " De labore," " This is

1 Miss Reynolds, however, in one of
her letters to her nephew, William
•Palmer, quotes this as a maxim of her
father's. He had transmitted the lesson
to Joshua — in the blood. Frances, on
the other hand, was a sad fidget about
trifles. Another of S. Reynolds's wise

saws, which he quoted to his daughter,
as " a noble maxim out of Mr. Mudge's
mouth," was, " If you take too much
care of yourself, Nature will cease to
take care of you." Sir J. Reynolds
had much of the wise negligence thus
recommended. — Ed.

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

drawn by Joshua in school out of pure idleness." 1 To
such account, however, was this idleness turned, that
when but eight years old he had made himself suffi- ^
ciently master of perspective, from the Jesuit's treatise,
to draw the schoolhouse according to rule: no easy
matter, as the upper part is half supported by a range
of pillars. " Now this," said his father, '" exemplifies
what the author of the Perspective asserts in his preface,
that, by observing the rules laid down in this book, a
man may do wonders ; for this is wonderful."
It has been supposed that the love of art was excited
in Joshua by the example of his elder sisters, who
were fond of drawing; but this, I think, proves only
that it was in the blood. It is related on the authority
of his sister Elizabeth that, as pencils and paper could
not be afforded to the young artists, they were allowed
to draw on the whitewashed walls of a long passage,
with burnt sticks ; z and it is added that Joshua's pro
ductions were the least promising of the set, and he

1 Mr. Cotton, in his Gleanings, gives
a fac-simile of this drawing.
2 In the autumn of 1818 I visited
Plympton, and was charmed with the
beauty of the scenery that surrounds
it. I thought it no wonder that,
born in such a spot, Reynolds had
shown so much taste in landscape.
I was very politely received. by Mr.
Phillips, who then occupied the house
in which Sir Joshua was born, and
learned that, not many years before
that time, there were some paintings
on its walls (probably they were only
the charcoal drawings) supposed to be
his early efforts. They had, however,
been barbarously destroyed in the
rage for whitewashing so prevalent
in Devonshire. Mr. Phillips told me

that Joshua had written his name with
a glazier's diamond on a pane of glass
in the great window of the schoolroom,
but that a previous master had carried
it away. He sent a boy with me to
the Guildhall, where I saw the por
trait of Reynolds, which he presented
to the corporation on his being elected
Mayor of Plympton, and which, to
the utter disgrace pf the corporation,
has since been sold ! ! (L.) (But see
my explanation post.)
I visited Plympton in August, 1861.
The schoolhouse was then closed, being
under repairs. The house has been*
transmogrified, but the arcade under
the schoolhouse is still as when the
boy Reynolds drew it. {See Frontis
piece.) — Ed.

Dayk SatLLuif stoiiie Quesi

COLONNADE UNDER THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL,
AT PlYMPTON"-

1723-1748. RICHARDSON'S TREATISE. U
was nicknamed the clown. ^Mrs. Parker, of the family
of which the Earl of Morley is now the head, gave
these children the first pencil they ever possessed ; this
lady was on intimate terms with the mother of Joshua,
who little thought how amply her son was destined to
repay the gift . to the family, by his splendid whole
length of Mrs. Parker's successor at Saltram.
Johnson attributed the first fondness of Eeynolds for
his art to the perusal of Eichardson's Treatise. But
he had drawn likenesses of some of his friends and
relations with tolerable success before that book was
put into his hands, and he would have been a painter
if Eichardson had never written. Yet his heart must
have burned within him when he read such passages
as the following : —
" No nation under heaven so nearly resembles the
ancient Greeks and Romans as we. There is a haughty
courage, an elevation of thought, a greatness of taste,
a love of liberty, a simplicity and honesty amongst us
which we inherit from our ancestors, and which belong
to us as Englishmen ; and 'tis in these this resemblance
consists." .....
" A time may come when future writers may be able
to add the name of an English painter." 
" I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet ; but
considering the necessary connection of causes and
effects, and upon seeing some links of that. fatal chain,
I will venture to pronounce (as exceedingly probable)
that if ever the ancient, great, and beautiful taste in
painting revives, it will be in England; but not 'till
English painters, conscious of the dignity of their
country and of their profession, resolve to do honour to

10

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

both by Piety, Virtue, Magnanimity, Benevolence, and a
contempt of everything that is really unworthy of them."
" And now I cannot forbear wishing that some
younger painter than myself, and one who has had
greater and more early advantages, would practise
the magnanimity I have recommended, in this single
instance of attempting and hoping only to equal the
greatest masters of whatsoever age or nation. What
were they which we are not or may not be ? What
helps had any of them which we have not ? Nay, we
have several some of them were destitute of : I will
only mention one ; 'tis our religion, which has opened
a new and noble, scene of things ; we have more just
and enlarged notions of the Deity, and more excellent
ones of human nature, than the ancients could possibly
have : and as there are some fine characters peculiar to
the Christian religion, it moreover affords some of the
noblest subjects that ever were thought of for a picture." 1

1 I cannot resist quoting the fol
lowing passage also from a later work
of the patriotic old painter : — " I have
said it heretofore, and will venture to
repeat it, notwithstanding the national
vanity of some of our neighbours and
our own false modesty and partiality
to foreigners, — if ever the great taste
in painting, if ever that delightful,
useful, and noble art does revive in
the world, 'tis probable 'twill he in
England  In ancient times we
have frequently been subdued by fo
reigners ; the Romans, Saxons, Danes,
and Normans have all done it in theirs :
those days are at an end long since ;
and we are by various steps carried
to the height of military glory by sea
and land. Nor are we less eminent
for learning, philosophy, mathematics,

poetry, strong and clear reasoning, and
a greatness and delicacy of taste. In
a word, in many of the liberal and
mechanical arts we are equal to any
other people, ancients or moderns, and
in some perhaps superior. We are not
yet come to that maturity in the arts
of Design; our neighbours, those of
nations not remarkable for excelling
in this way, as well as those that are,
have made frequent and successful in
roads upon us, and have lorded it over
our natives here in their own country.
Let us at length disdain as much to
be in subjection in this respect as in
any other ; let us put forth our
strength and employ our national vir
tue, that haughty impatience of sub
jection and inferiority which seems to
be characteristic of our nation, in this

1723-1748.

HIS ADMIRATION OF RAPHAEL.

11

The most ardent hope, perhaps a firm belief, that
he was destined to fulfil this prediction must have been
kindled in the mind of the ambitious boy. He knew
not that the exertions of a great and original painter
had already been stimulated by such passages in
Eichardson's book. This was Hogarth ; who, when he
painted the Pool of Bethesda, and the Good Samaritan,
for St. Bartholomew's Hospital, hoped to succeed " in
what," as he said, " the puffers in books call the great
style of History painting." l Eeynolds was but thirteen
when these pictures were painted and presented to the
hospital ; and if he had even heard of Hogarth, it was in
all probability as a clever painter of familiar life only.
Eichardson could not have looked for the accom
plishment of his prediction to a painter either of
familiar life or of portraits. But what is called a
revival of art is more correctly a new birth, impressed
always with the character of the age and the country
in ^ich it occurs ; and, for Hogarth and Eeynolds to
be the first great English painters, it was not essential
that they should tread in the steps of Michael Angelo
and Eaphael, but it was essential that their art should
be thoroughly British. Eichardson no doubt expected
the appearance of an English Eaphael ; and Eeynolds?
no doubt, hoped, and resolved, if possible, to fulfil
such an expectation. He told Malone that Eichard
son's treatise so delighted and inflamed his mind,
" that Eaphael appeared to him superior to the most
illustrious names of ancient or modern time." That

as on many other illustrious occasions,
and the thing will be effected: the
English school mill rise and flourish ! "

1 Although Hogarth undervalued
Richardson, there can be no doubt that
his ambition was excited by his books.

12 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.
this was natural the reader will see from such excla
mations of the old painter as these : —
" Oh the pleasure ! when a connoisseur and lover of
art has before him a picture or drawing of which he
can truly say, This is the hand, these are the thoughts
of him who was one of the politest, best-natured gentle
men that ever was; and beloved and assisted by the
greatest wits and the greatest men then at Eome :
of him who lived in great honour and magnificence,
and died extremely lamented." Eead " London " for
" Eome," and how exactly does every word of this
passage apply to Eeynolds, when he had risen to the
top of his art !
Again : " When a man enters into that awful gallery
at Hampton Court, he finds himself among a sort of
people superior to what he has ever seen, and very
probably to what those really were. Indeed this is
the principal excellence of those wonderful pictures,
as it must be allowed to be that part of painting \?§hicli
is preferable to all others." 
" Hampton Court is the great school of Eaphael ;
and God be praised that we have such an invaluable
blessing! May the Cartoons continue in that place,
and always to be seen ; unhurt and undecayed so long
as the nature of the materials of which they are com
posed will possibly allow! May even a miracle be
wrought in their favour, as themselves are some of the
greatest instances of the Divine Power which endued
a mortal man with abilities to perform such stupendous
works of art !" 1

1 11

" Sir J. Reynolds, when he called I looking over the elder Richardson's
on me yesterday (July 10, 1789), on | drawings, said he understood his art

1723-1748.

EARLY, IMPRESSIONS.

13

The father of Eeynolds possessed a few prints, and
Joshua copied such illustrations as he found in his
books, particularly the engravings in Dryden's edition
of Plutarch's Lives. But Jacob Cats' Book of Emblems,
which his grandmother by his father's side, it has been
said, brought with her from Holland, delighted him the
most.1 Terrific subjects make a strong impression on young
minds ; and one of the prints in this book, a shepherd
consulting a witch in her cave, where she sits sur
rounded by hideous objects, remained so long in his
memory as to suggest the picture he painted for
Boydell's Shakespear Gallery, of the caldron scene in
Macbeth. Another plate, of a sorceress sitting at
supper on a chair composed of a skeleton, no doubt
suggested to him the similar chair on which his Hecate
sits in that picture ; and his portrait of Kitty Fisher,
as Cleopatra dissolving the pearl, seems also to have
had its origin from the same book.
When he was not more than twelve years old he
painted a portrait of the Eev. Thomas Smart, who was
a tutor in the family of Eichard Edgcumbe, afterwards

very well scientifically, but that his
manner was cold and hard. He was Sir
Joshua's pictorial grandfather, being
Hudson's master. He was always
drawing either himself or Pope, whom
he scarcely ever visited without taking
some sketch of his face. His son was
intended for a painter; but, being
very near-sighted, soon gave up all
thoughts of that profession. He was
a great news and anecdote monger,
and in the latter part of his life spent
much of his time in gathering and com

municating intelligence concerning the
King of Prussia, and other topics of the
day, as Dr. Burney, who knew him very
well, informs me. His Sichardsoniana
are not uninteresting." — Prior's Life
of Malone, p. 403. — Ed.
' Northcote speaks of her as a Dutch
woman, and the family pedigrees state
that John Reynolds married her at
Antwerp. Her name, however, was
English (Mary Ainsworth); and her
marriage is registered at Exeter, in
1673.

14

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

the first Lord Edgcumbe. This picture, we are told,
was painted in a boat-house at Cremyll beach, under
Mount Edgcumbe, on a canvas which was part of a
boat-sail, and with the common paint used in ship
wrights' painting-sheds. He had no doubt made many
drawings before this, which is supposed to be his first
attempt in oil ; and considering the youth of the artist,
and the means at his command, it is not surprising that
it had little artistic merit. x
More than four years elapsed after the painting of
this picture before the profession of Joshua was deter
mined. A series of letters from Samuel Eeynolds to
Mr. Cutcliffe, an attorney at Bideford, carries on the
narrative, and brings us more intimately acquainted-
than we have yet been with the father of so extra
ordinary a son.
I trust these letters will -riot be found to occupy too
much space. The peculiar characters of the father and
mother of a man of genius interest us on his account,
if not on their own ; and where there is genius of so
high an order as that of Eeynolds, it seems not in
nature that the parents, certainly not that both parents,

1 The picture is now in the posses
sion of Dehle Boger, Esq., of Anthony,
near Plymouth, where I saw it lately.
The local tradition, which carries in
ternal evidence in its favour, is, that
this jolly, moon-faced tutor and parson,
was a butt of young Dick Edgcumbe's,
a humorist from boyhood, and that
Dick put young Reynolds (with whom
he may well have been acquainted,
owing to the family connection with
the borough of Plympton) up to paint
ing Smart's likeness, from a surrep
titious sketch taken in church. The

boys, so runs the story, ran down
from Smart's church at Maker (the
tower of which peeps from the trees
above Cremyll beach, which borders
the Mount Edgcumbe grounds on the
sea-side), to the boat-house, and there
Reynolds perpetrated the portrait. It
is, as described, on a rough canvas,
roughly painted, but is not without
character, and a certain broad clever
ness. Mr. Boger has still a silver
tankard given by Lord Edgcumbe to
Mr. Smart.— -Ed.

1723-1748.

CHOICE OF A PROFESSION.

15

should be ordinary persons. Theophila Eeynolds may
not have been living at the time at which we have
arrived. The registers of her children's births prove,
however, that she had lived long enough to exercise
some influence on the character of Joshua ; but what
that was, or how much of his mind may have been an
inheritance from his mother, we have no means of
knowing. The first letter to Mr. Cutcliffe is a long one, in
which Mr. Eeynolds begins by telling his correspondent
that he had been reading six political pamphlets and
the sermons of Dr. Mudge. It goes far to prove that
the writer was not, as he has been called, an indolent
man. I shall quote only the portions of it that relate
to Joshua.

. " Plympton, March 17th, 1740.
"  I was last night with Mr. Craunch,1 as he
was asking me what I designed to do with Joshua, who
is now drawing near to seventeen. I told him I was
divided between two things : one was, making him an
apothecary, as to which I should make no account of
the qualifications of his master, as not doubting, if it

1 A gentleman of small independent
fortune, who resided at Plympton.
He was probably the first to predict
the future eminence of Joshua ; who,
in grateful remembrance of his early
kind offices, had a handsome silver
cup made to present to him, but Mr.
Craunch died before it was ready. He
advanced Reynolds money for his visit
to Italy, and the young painter brought
him a set of four landscapes on his
return from abroad, chosen, no doubt,
to suit Mr. Craunch's tastes, rather

than his own. Three of them are
now in possession of Deble Boger,
Esq. Reynolds painted his picture
and his wife's. The former is now
at Glynn, in Cornwall, the seat of
Lord Vivian, whose ancestor, John
Vivian, married Betsy Craunch, Mr.
Craunch's daughter, and an old sweet
heart of Dr. Wolcot's (Peter Pindar),
who used to describe her as " a pretty
creature." She too sat to Sir Joshua
in 1762— Ed.

16 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.
please God I live, but he should be sufficiently in
structed another way : besides that, he has spent a
great deal of time and pains with that view already,
and to that purpose I do intend to make a proposal to
Mr. Eaport x of our town, so that I shall have an
opportunity of instructing him on the spot; and if
Mr. Eaport is not inclined, then to make the proposal
to my wife's kinsman, Mr. Baker, of Bideford. The
other is, that Joshua has a very great genius for
drawing, and lately, on his own head, has begun even
painting ; so that Mr. Warmell, who is both a painter
and a player, having lately seen but his first per
formances, said, if he had his hands full of business, he
would rather take Joshua for nothing than another
with 501. Mr. Craunch told me, as to this latter, he
could put me in a way. Mr. Hudson (who is Mr.
Eichardson's son-in-law) used to be down at Bideford,
and would be so, he believed, within these two months ;
he persuaded me to propose the matter to you, and
that you should propose it to Mr. Hudson, that Joshua
might show him some of his performances in drawing,
and, if the matter was likely to take effect, should take
a journey to Bideford himself. I mentioned this to
Joshua, who said he would rather be an apothecary
than an ordinary painter ; but if he could be bound to
an eminent master, he should choose the latter; that
he had seen a print from Mr. Hudson's painting which
he had been very much pleased with. Now here I
have given you a naked account of the matter, upon

1 In a copy of this letter by North- j this name is spelt Ruport, and the
cote, but which he did not publish, | name of Warmell is spelt Warwell.

1723-1748. CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 17
which I must desire your judgment and advice. I
must only add that what Joshua had principally em
ployed himself in has been perspective, of which,
perhaps, there is not much in face painting : his
pictures strike off wonderfully, if they be look'd on
with a due regard to the point of sight and the point
of distance. You see how free I make with you.
" I am,
" Your most affectionate Friend and Servant,
" S. Eeynolds."
A country apothecary, it must be remembered, was in
those days a general practitioner, and Samuel Eeynolds
possessed a few anatomical drawings, from which Joshua
had made some progress (it could not be much) in the
knowledge of anatomy ; and, as Mr. Eeynolds no doubt
dabbled in pharmacy, it is not unlikely that, by initiating
his son into some of its mysteries, he may have led to
his love of nostrums in art, which occasioned the injury
of many, — and the destruction of some, — of the finest
pictures that ever man painted.
A letter, dated June 20th, 1740, begins with an
account of a treatise on gout which Mr. Eeynolds had
been reading, and on which subject it appears he had
himself written. He speaks also of Pope's Essay on
Man, and of a Theological Chronology of his own com
position. He says, "I shall send on Monday next to
my daughter at Torrington,1 to be transmitted to you,
a specimen of Joshua's performances in painting, which
I think is his first in colours : that which Mr. Warmel

1 His eldest daughter, Mrs. Palmer.
VOL. I.

18 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.

saw was only in chalk and charcoal ; his colours hap
pened to be brought when Mr. Warmel was with me."
In this letter there is a passage which reminds us of
the sound sense of Sir Joshua. " It is a good thing to
avoid bigotry, but a man must not therefore throw up
his religion."
The next, dated August 1st, 1740, is full of medicine
and metaphysics, and Joshua only comes in at the end,
thus — " I give you a great many thanks for what you
intend to do on behalf of Joshua." On the 7th of
October he writes : —
" Dear Sir,
" As my son is come to wait on you and to obey
orders, I have nothing to do but to thank you for your
management and trouble in this affair. Everything
that is necessary to be said, my son will be better
able to say by word of mouth. Only one thing, lest
it should be forgot, which your son may be best able
to determine, whether Joshua may suffer any prejudice
hereafter by being bound for four years (which un
doubtedly in itself is preferable), instead of seven ; if
so, then I suppose alterations may be made without any
additional charge, for Joshua's work will then be worth
his diet. I am apt to think it otherwise by my brother
Potter's qase, who did not serve but a few years in
London. Things are much better as they are without
any alteration, unless there be a real inconvenience
therein, as that he will not be able to practise his trade
in London without molestation, or enjoy any other
privileges which se"ven years 'prentices do.
" I am, with my humble service to your son, Mr.

1723-1748. APPRENTICED TO HUDSON. 19
Thomas Cutcliffe, .... and to Mr. Lantrow (though
unknown), Joshua's fellow traveller for a great part
of the way (Joshua will tell you what I mean by these
last words), " Your most obliged, humble Servant,
" S. Eeynolds."
" DEAR SlR, " Plympton, October 26th, 1740.
" I think myself obliged to let you know "that
Joshua arrived in London with your son and Mr. Lan
trow on Saturday, October 13th, which gives me the
same pleasure as when you carried your son thither. He
had a most prosperous journey (which is a most pro
sperous beginning of this affair, and I pray God it may
be as happily accomplished). His master as yet is not
at home, he is at the Bath. ' We see his wife ' (says
Joshua) ; ' she says she will write to him about it, but
I am at present at my uncle's.' 1 When it is ended I
shall tell you you have ended one of the most important
affairs of my life, that which I have look'd upon to be
my main interest some way or other to bring about.
And you have not (only) almost brought it about, but,
as if Providence had breathed upon what you have
done, everything hitherto has jumped out in a strange
unexpected manner to a miracle. Nor can I see, that if
Mr. Treby2 had many children, an apprenticeship under
such a master would have been below some one of his
sons. As if a piece of good fortune had already actually
befallen my family, it seems to me I see the good effects

1 The Rev. John Reynolds, Fellow of Eton.
2 The great man of Plympton. — Ed.
c 2

20 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.
of it already in some persons' behaviour. This is my
letter of thanks to you for what you have done, and
my request of the continuance of your oversight and
endeavours 'till the matter is completely ended.
" I am, &c, '
" S. Eeynolds.
" P.S. I do not see what is further necessary to be
done, but for Joshua to wait Mr. Hudson's coming, and
by your son's assistance, according to your directions
and to Mr. Hudson's liking, that proper measures be
taken about the indentures. Upon notice I shall take
care that the necessary charges shall come to his hands.
At present he has enough for his pocket-money. He
has behaved himself mighty well in this affair, and
done his duty on his part, which gives me much more
concern in his behalf than I should otherwise have had.
You have hitherto done for him, as if it was your own
son, and you see you must continue to do so a little
longer. You have found out a means how my family
will always be united to yours."
Thomas Hudson was a native of Devonshire. He
was the pupil of Eichardson, whose daughter he
married ; and after the death of his father-in-law, to
whom he was much inferior in ability, he became (for
want of a better) the principal portrait painter in
England. He lived in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's'
Inn, in a house now divided into Nos. 55 and
56. He was to receive 120/. as a premium with his
pupil.

1723-1748. APPRENTICED TO HUDSON. 21
To Me. Cutcliffe.
" DEAR SlR, " Plympton, December 30th, 1740.
" In answer to yours, I accept Mr. Hudson's
proposals, and shall be always his humble servant, with
abundance of thanks, as I should be yours if I could be
more so than I am already, for the share you have had
in this affair. Joshua is very sensible of his happiness
in being under such a master, in such a family, in
such a city, and in such an employment, and all by
your means. As I have in a manner one half of the
money ready provided, if it please God I live so long
as to the end of those four years, I have writ this post
to my daughter, to desire her to furnish Joshua with
the other half, 'till he is able to repay herf and to write
to you to that purpose, and I doubt not she will do so,
because it is in a manner her own proposal ; for he said
in a former letter to me that she would much rather
furnish Joshua with 60Z. than he should be put to a
calling at which he would get 50/. a year less than he
might at another that was better. I am with my hearty
thanks, and hearty wishes that you may enjoy many
Christmases and many happy New Years,
"Your most obliged and affectionate humble Servant,
" S. Eeynolds."
"  " January 1st, 1741.
' " I ought surely to have writ to you upon account
of the character which Mr. Hudson was pleased to give
of my son, not to inform you of anything, but to tell
you that your favours were beyond thanks, and beyond
expression. I ought to have informed you of my son

22

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

Humphrey's death,1 which stuck by me very much —
till it was drowned, if I may say so, in a still greater
sorrow, and that was the death of my youngest son
Martin, whom I cannot yet write about without hurting
myself. I cannot write this little without great agita
tion of mind 
" My study of physic is very much dampt by the
death of my last son. And yet his mother has cured a
hundred as bad as he. But there was a strange in
fatuation in his management. A series of blunders —
and all occasioned by acting with precipitation.2
"Mr. Warmel, the painter, was at my house on
Sunday last ; he look'd upon two or three of Joshua's
drawings about the room ; he said not one of Mr.
Treby's rooms had furniture equal to this, that they all
deserved frames and glasses. You may see some of
them at Molly's. Just now I had a letter from Joshua,
wherein he tells me, ' On Thursday next Sir Eobert

1 He was a lieutenant in the navy,
and was drowned on his return home
from India. His conduct had given
great satisfaction to his father.
2 Mr. William Russell possesses a
small pen sketch by Reynolds, washed
with Indian ink, of a child leaning on
the slab of a tomb, and pointing down
to a scroll which lies at his feet, on
which is written " Humphry. Samuel.
Martin, all. all. are gone." (L.) It
is in reference to this bereavement
that the father wrote to a friend, him
self in need of comfort under affliction,
the following passage, which bespeaks
sweetness and tenderness of disposi
tion : — " I shall offer no arguments of
consolation to you, who wanted them
so much myself, and should still want
them, if I did not consider that it is too

apparent that all grief in these cases
is to no purpose. But one thing I
comfort myself with, which is perhaps
an argument that you have^omitted —
that I have enjoyed them for some time,
which, notwithstanding the grief of
parting with them, is much better
than not to have enjoyed them at all.
And I think with pleasure upon some
of their actions, which our Saviour
points out in children, and which 'tis
good always to have before our eyes.
They are little preachers of righteous
ness which grown persons may listen
to with pleasure. Actions are more
powerful than words; and I cannot
hut thank God sometimes for the
benefit of their example. This is a
subject I find still too tendu to dwell
upon." — Ed.

1723-1748. HIS PROGRESS UNDER HUDSON. 23
Walpole sits for his picture ; master says he has had a
great longing to draw his picture, because so many
have been drawn, and none like.' Joshua writ me
some time ago that many had drawn Judge Willis'
picture, but that by his master was most approved of. I
am glad I am able in this manner to express my thanks
to you for what you have done for Joshua. You have
done me a favour fit for a man of a thousand a year.
" And so I wish you and yours a merry Christmas
and a happy New Year, " And am,
" Your most affectionate and obliged, humble Servant,
" S. Eeynolds."
"April 20th, 1742.
"Joshua goes on very well, which I must always
acquaint you with. Dr. Huxham, who saw Laocoon, a
drawing of his, said, that he who drew that would be
the first hand in England. Mr. Tucker, a painter in
Plymouth, who saw that and three or four more, and
admired them exceedingly, as I had it from Mr.
Craunch ; yet when he saw some later drawings of
Joshua's in his second year he still saw an improve
ment. I had forgot to tell you that Mr. Hudson had
finished the head of the Earl of Orford 1 entirely to his
satisfaction, and likewise to his own. Many gentlemen
admired it, and have bespoken copies. Sir Eobert
asked where he lived, who was his master, and won
dered he had heard no more of him, and acknowledges
no other picture to be his likeness but this. ....,"

Sir Robert Walpole had been raised to the peerage.

24 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.

" August 3rd, 1742.
" As for Joshua, nobody, by his letters to me, was
ever better pleased in his employment, in his master,
in everything — ' While I am doing this I am the
happiest creature alive,' is his expression. How he
goes on ('tis plain he thinks he goes on very well)
you '11 be better able to inform me. I do not forget
to whom I owe all this happiness, and I hope he will
not either."
While with Hudson, the happy boy met with an
unexpected delight. He was sent, one day, to make
a purchase for his master at a sale of pictures. The
auction room was crowded, and he was at the upper
end of it, close to the auctioneer. There was a bustle
near the door, and he presently heard " Mr. Pope,
Mr. Pope," whispered through the room. The crowd
opened a passage for the poet, and the hands of all
were held out to touch him as he passed along, bowing
to the company on either side, Eeynolds, though not
in the front row, put out his hand under the arm of a
person who stood before him, and the hand that had
penned the Rape of the Lock was shaken by that which
was to immortalize on canvas the Belindas of the
coming age, as well as all Pope's successors in genius.*
In relating this incident to Malone in after life,
Eeynolds described Pope as " about four feet six inches
high ; very hump-backed and deformed. He wore a
black coat, and, according to the fashion of that time,
had on a little sword. He had a large and very fine
eye, and a long handsome nose : his mouth had those
peculiar marks which are always found in the mouths

1723-1748. HIS PROGRESS UNDER HUDSON. 25
of crooked persons, and the muscles which run across
the cheek were so strongly marked that they seemed
like small cords." "
Long after this occurrence Eeynolds possessed him
self of the fan that Pope presented to Martha Blount,
and on which the poet had painted a design of his
own, from the story of Cephalus and Procris, with the
motto " Aura Veni." On being asked his opinion of it,
Eeynolds said it was " such as might be expected from
one who painted for his amusement alone ; like the
performance of a child. This must always be the case
when the work is only taken up from idleness, and laid
aside when it ceases to amuse. But those who are
determined to excel must go to .their work whether
willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night, and
they will find it to be no play, but on the contrary
very hard labour."
Eeynolds, by his master's recommendation, copied
some drawings by Guercino, from which he no doubt
learned much more than he could learn from Hudson's
pictures. Northcote tells us that these copies were so
good as to be preserved in the cabinets of the curious,
most of them passing for originals.
Though bound to Hudson for four years, he did not
remain with him quite two. He is supposed to have
excited the jealousy of his master by an admirable por
trait he painted of an elderly female servant in the
house. Hudson, one evening, ordered him to take a
picture to Yan Haaken, the drapery painter ; but the
weather being wet, he deferred it till the next morning.

1 This peculiarity is strongly marked i Roubilliac, formerly in the possession
in the terra-cotta head of Pope by I of the late Samuel Rogers. — Ed.

26

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

At breakfast, Hudson asked why he did not take the
picture the evening before ? He replied that he delayed
it on account of the rain ; but that the picture was
delivered that morning before Van Haaken rose from
bed. Hudson said, " You have not obeyed my orders,
and shall not stay in my house." Eeynolds asked for
time to write to his father, who might otherwise think
he had committed some crime ; but Hudson, though
reproached by his own servant for his unreasonable
conduct, persisted in his determination, and Eeynolds
went that day from his house to his uncle's chambers
in the Temple, and wrote to his father, who, after
consulting his friend Lord Edgcumbe, directed him to
return to Devonshire.
I have taken Farington's account of the dismissal of
Eeynolds by Hudson, as the most circumstantial ; but
without certainty of its truth. His father, in a letter
to Mr. Cutcliffe, dated August 19th, 1743, says ....
"As to Joshua's affair, he will give you a full account
of it when he waits upon you, as he designs to do, and
will-s be glad to present you with your picture,1 who
have been so good a benefactor to him. I do not know
any painter who is capable of doing you justice. I
don't speak out of compliment, for a painter must have
sharp eyes to see one half of that which is in you ; but
I believe Mr. Mudge, who has been here this morning

1 Was this picture ever painted?
Mr. Cotton writes : — " I have made
inquiries about the portrait of Mr.
Cutcliffe. His great-grandchildren say
they have no knowledge of it ; but
they had possession at one time of the
pen-and-ink sketches, which old Mr.

Reynolds brought to Mr. Cutcliffe when
he came to consult him about binding
his son apprentice to a painter. They
were got out of their hands in some
way or other, and are supposed to be
at Bicton, seat of the late Lord Rolle.''
—Ed.

1723-1748.

DISMISSED BY HUDSON.

27

and has seen Joshua's performances, will agree with
me, that he is likely to do you justice if any other
painter can't. .1 have not meddled with Joshua's affair
hitherto, any otherwise than by writing a letter to
Joshua, which never came to hand, and which I in
tended as an answer both to his letter and his master's.
This resolution of mine I shall persevere in, not to
meddle in it ; if I had I should have taken wrong steps.
I shall only say, there is no controversy I was ever let
into, wherein I was so little offended with either party.
In the mean time I bless God, and Mr. Hudson, and
you, for the extreme success that has attended Joshua
hitherto  Joshua shall lay open the whole to
you as to a father, as I know he may." ....
This letter throws great doubt on the accuracy of
Farington's account of the dismissal of Eeynolds from
Hudson's house.
The young painter returned to Devonshire, and
commenced painting at Plymouth Dock, where he was
much employed. In a letter to Mr. Cutcliffe, dated
January 3rd, 1744,- his father speaks of his having
painted twenty portraits, among them that of "the
greatest man of the place, the commissioner of the
dockyard," 1 and of his having ten more bespoke.2

i Philip Vanbrugh, Esq., was the
Commissioner from 1739 to 1753.
2 Six, if not seven, portraits of this
period, bearing the date 1744, are in
possession of Mr. Kendal, of Pelyn;
M.P. for East Cornwall. I have not
seen them, but I am informed by Mr.
Kendal that they are in excellent
condition. They represent his great
grandfather, great-grandmother (the
latter twice over), his grandfather,

and his great-uncle, and have on the
back, "Joshua Reynolds pinxit (iEtatis
sua? 21) 1744." By his receipt he had
11. for the two pictures of Mrs. Kendal.
A portrait of G. Gibbon, Esq., Lieu
tenant-Governor of Plymouth (who
died in 1745), belonging to the Rev.
W. C. Evans (vicar of Campsall, near
Doncaster), is ascribed to Reynolds at
this period.

28

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

He was, however, soon in London again, and on the
best terms with Hudson, as we learn by the following.
passages from his father's letters. " Plympton, December 7th, 1744.
" I understand that Joshua by his master's means is
introduced into a club composed of the most famous
men in their profession.1 That was . the word in
Bob's 2 letter, who had it from Molly, which is exceed
ing generous in his master." " Plympton, May 24th, 1745.
. . . . " Joshua's master is very kind to him •; he comes
to visit him pretty often, and freely tells him where
his pictures are faulty, which is a great advantage ;
and when he has finished anything of his own, he
is pleased to ask Joshua's judgment, which is a great
honour." 
In 1746 Eeynolds painted the portrait of Captain
Hamilton, father of the Marquis of Abercorn, which,
it is said, was the first of his pictures at this period
which brought him into notice. When later in life
he again saw it he was surprised to find it so well
done, and, comparing it with his subsequent works,
lamented that in such a series of years he should not
have made a greater progress in his art. This portrait
is now in the possession of the Marquis of Aberconu

1 Very probably the club that met at
Old Slaughter's in St. Martin's Lane,
of which an account will be found in
Smith's 'Life of Nollekens,' vol. ii. p.
209. It included Gravelot, Sullivan
(the etcher of Hogarth's March to
Finchley), Hogarth, McArdell (the

great mezzotint engraver), Hudson,
Roubilliac, Gardell (afterwards hanged
for murder), old Moser, Ware, and
Gwynn (the architect), &c. — Ed.
2 Robert Reynolds, Sir Joshua's
brother, who lived at Exeter. — Ed.

1723-1748.

RECONCILED TO HUDSON.

2i>

Captain Hamilton is also introduced in a small family
piece, painted by Eeynolds about the same time, in the
collection of the Earl of St. Germans, at Port Eliot.
It represents Eichard, the first Lord Eliot, with Harriet
his wife, and their children, together with Mrs. Golds-
worthy. Captain Hamilton, who married Lady Eliot
after Lord Eliot's death in 1748, is carrying one of the
younger children on his back.1
This was Eeynolds's first composition of several
figures in a group.
[It is engraved in S. W. Eeynolds's collection, and
bears a strong impress of Hudson's manner. The com
position is. scattered and unskilful, the colour in no way
remarkable; but there is something more unconven
tional and life-like than Hudson would have ventured
upon in the young man who is carrying the child
pick-a-back. At Port Eliot, also of this period, are a
portrait of Eichard, the first Lord Eliot, in a red waist
coat, with a favourite dog (engraved by S. Eeynolds),
and a half-length of Harriet his wife, in white satin,
with blue bows. Both are in the Hudsonian manner.

i "This Captain Hamilton was a
very uncommon character ; very ob
stinate, very whimsical, very pious, a
rigid disciplinarian, yet very kind to
his men. He lost his life as he was
proceeding from his ship to land at
Plymouth. The wind and sea were
extremely high ; and his officers re
monstrated against the imprudence of
venturing in a boat where the danger
seemed imminent. But he was impa
tient to see his wife, and would not be
persuaded. In a few minutes after he
left the ship the boat was upset and
turned keel upwards. The captain,

being a good swimmer, trusted to his
skill, and would not accept a place on
the keel, in order to make room for
others, and then clung to the edge of
the boat. Unluckily he had kept on
his great-coat. At length, seeming
exhausted, those on the keel exhorted
him to take a place beside them, and
he attempted to throw off the coat ;
but finding his strength fail, told the
men he must yield to his fate, and
soon afterwards sank, while singing a
psalm." (From Lord Eliot.) — Prior's
Life ofMalone, p. 404.— Ed.

30 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. I.
So is a portrait of Commodore Edgcumbe, also of this
date, which used to hang in the corporation dining-
room at Plympton, and is now in the possession of
Deble Boger, Esq., of Anthony,, near Plymouth, the
last Eecorder of the borough of Plympton.]
Another of his pictures, and novel in its treatment,
of a boy reading in a reflected light, dates from this
period.1 [Portraits of Mrs. Field, now at Torrington ; of Mr.
and Mrs. Craunch, lately in the possession of Miss Clift,
ax Kingsbridge, Devonshire, the former of which is
now at Glynn (Lord Yivian's) ; of Captain Chaundy,
E.N., and his wife, in the possession of Mrs. Duins, at
Plymouth ; 2 of Councillor Bury and his wife ; 3 of
Alderman Facey, in the Plymouth Athenaeum; and
the engraved portrait of the notorious Miss Chudleigh,
afterwards better known as the Duchess of Kingston,
are of this date. Miss Chudleigh was of a Devonshire
family. Of the portrait of Mrs. Field Mr. Cotton
remarks : " The carnations are of great delicacy and
clearness, and the features well defined, though not so
strongly pronounced by means of that depth of shadow,
which he afterwards adopted from the works of Titian
and other Italian masters." I have seen a copy of this
picture, which bears out this description. To this date

1 It is in the gallery of Lord Nor-
manton, so rich in Reynolds's works.
This picture was formerly in the pos
session of Sir H. Englefield, and is not
surpassed for force and delicacy, par
ticularly in the admirable management
of the reflected lights on the face, and
the painting of the books on the table,

by any picture of Reynolds's which I
know. The picture bears his name,
and the date 1747. — Ed.
2 See Catalogue.
3 The Burys belonged to Exeter.
The portraits were formerly in the
possession of the Cutcliffe family.

1723-1748.

DEATH OF HIS FATHER.

31

also must be referred the beautiful head of himself, now
in the possession of his grand-niece, Miss Gwatkin, in
whose dining-room at Plymouth this, the earliest por
trait of the painter, hangs side by side with the latest
which he painted of himself. It is masterly in hand
ling, and powerful — almost Eembrantesque — in chiaro
scuro. The hair flows, without powder, in long ringlets
over the shoulders. The white collar and ruffled front
of the shirt are thrown open. A dark cloak is flung
over the shoulders. There is not a trace of Hudson in
the picture.]
He was summoned back to Devonshire by the illness
of his father, which terminated in his death on Christ
mas-day 1746.1
Joshua was no doubt a great favourite of his father,
perhaps the favourite son ; and the good old man had
the happiness of living to know that, in so critical a
matter as the choice of a profession for him, he had
done wisely. Of the distinction that awaited him even
a parent could scarcely dream, though he probably
expected him to be at the head of his art, for Jervas2
and Eichardson had occupied that place, and Hudson
now held it. But Hogarth, and Wilson who began as
a portrait painter, had come into the field, and Gains
borough was about to enter it, and it was from such

* There was no record at Plympton
of this excellent and amiable man, in
whom I seem to trace some of the
most loveable characteristics of his
placid, placable, sweet*tempered son,
till Mr. Cotton, who has done so much
to throw light on the history of the
painter, his family, and his birth
place, erected a tablet to him in the

church of Plympton, with an inscrip
tion, which will be found printed in
his work on Plympton already referred
to on p. 2.— Ed.
"¦ When Miss Fanny Reynolds asked
her brother how it happened that no
pictures of Jervas were to be seen, he
said, " Because they are all up in the
garret."

32

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

rivals as these that Eeynolds was to win the crown
and keep it.1
On the death of Samuel Eeynolds the family was
obliged to remove from the schoolmaster's residence at
Plympton. Joshua took . a house at Plymouth Dock,
where he resided with his two unmarried sisters.
In after life he told Malone that, in Devonshire,. " he
passed about three years in company from whom little
improvement could be got ; and when he recollected
this period of his life, he always spoke of it as so much-
time thrown away — so far at least as related to a
knowledge of the world and of mankind, of which he
ever afterwards lamented the loss. However," con
tinues Malone, " after some little dissipation, he sat
down seriously to the study and practice of his art;
and he always considered the disagreement which
induced him to leave Mr. Hudson as a very fortunate
circumstance, since by this means he was led to deviate
from the tameness and insipidity of his master, and to
form a manner of his own."
This temporary neglect of his art2 was the only
instance of such neglect in the whole course of his life ;
and when he did sit down again seriously to its study,
it was most fortunate that he was in Devonshire ; for
there, and there only, he had opportunities of seeing
pictures by William Gandy of Exeter, from which,
unquestionably, he first caught the hint of that broad

' I cannot but consider Reynolds
superior to Hogarth as a painter,
though certainly not as a poet. In
the originality of his genius Hogarth
is not only before Reynolds, but it
would be difficult to name the painter

of any age or country who is before
Hogarth. *
2 I do not understand ReynokW
remark to Malone to imply neglect of
his art. — Ed.

1723-1 74S. HIS STYLE FORMED ON GANDY'S. 33
and noble style of treating portrait which became his
great distinction.
The father of William Gandy was a pupil of Yan-
dyke, and was much employed by the Duke of Ormond
in Ireland, on which account his works are elsewhere
unknown. It is said the elder Gandy painted so much
in Yandyke's style, that some of his pictures have passed
for works of his master. The style of his son, how
ever it is to be accounted for, was different. Northcote
speaks of a portrait by the younger Gandy that might
be mistaken for a work of Eembrandt, and Farington
describes the effects of his pictures as " peculiar, solemn,
and forcible." I have myself seen a head of a boy by
Gandy, which looked very like an early work of Sir
Joshua.1 The little that Hudson could teach Eeynolds had
been more than long enough in his house to learn.
It was quite sufficient to enable a mind like his to profit
by the sight of such pictures as Gandy' s ; and a tradi
tional observation of this painter was remembered by
him to good purpose throughout the whole of his sub
sequent practice ; namely, that " a picture ought to
have a richness in its texture, as if the colours had
been composed of cream or cheese, and the reverse of
a hard and husky or dry manner." A single precept
like this falling into an ear fitted to receive it, is suffi-

' I have examined the portraits
by Gandy at Exeter. That of Tobias
Langdon, in the College Hall, of which
Sir Godfrey Kneller is said to have ex
pressed his admiration, is a broadly
and forcibly painted picture. The

portrait of John Patch, in the hospital,
is less above Hudson's level. The
portrait of Sir E. Seaward will not
be found in the Chapel of St. Anne
(where it is placed in Murray's Hand
book), but in the Poor-house. — Ed.

VOL. I. D

34

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. I.

cient to create a style ; while upon the inapt, all the
best instruction that can be given is wasted.
It has been supposed that, soon after his return to
Devonshire, Eeynolds painted the portrait of himself
formerly in the possession of Mr. Lane, of Coffleet,
which represents him as a young man, with pencils
and palette in one hand, shading the light from his
eyes with the other. This very fine picture is now in
the National Portrait Gallery, and there is a mastery in
its execution that creates a difficulty in referring it to so
early a period of his practice. The face is youthful, but
Mr. Wm. Carpenter, who attributes it to a later time,
noticed to me that the mouth is exactly as it appears in
all the portraits of him painted after the accident in
1749, by which the form of his upper lip was injured.
It may be mentioned that, among the advantages of
his residence at this time of his life in Devonshire, he
did not altogether neglect the study of landscape, where
it might be studied to such excellent purpose. At Port
Eliot there is a long narrow view of Plymouth and the
adjoining scenery, from the hill called Catdown, painted
by him in 1748.1

1 Minutely painted — in complete
contrast with his later landscape style.
Three pictures go far to satisfy me
that the qualities in which Reynolds
surpassed Hudson had become appa
rent in his work before he visited
Italy. These are, the Coffleet portrait,
the picture with reflected lights at
Lord Normanton's, and Miss Gwatkin's
portrait of the painter in youth.
At Eastnor Castle is a portrait of
Elizabeth, first wife of Charles Lord
Somers. She was a sister of the first

Lord Eliot, and after her marriage-
resided at Ince Castle, in the St.
Germain's River. Here, about 1746,
she was painted by Reynolds. The
picture represents a young bright-eyed
woman, in a turban of white flowered
stuff, and a black dress, with a tucker
of flowered satin, and pearl orna
ments. It is rather timidly painted;
the face has little chiaroscuro or round
ness. He must have improved won
derfully in those three years at
Devonport. — Ed.

CHAPTEE II.
1749—1752. JEtat. 26— 29.
Reynolds is introduced to Commodore Keppel — Sails with him to the Medi
terranean ¦ — • They arrive at Lisbon — Cadiz — Gibraltar — Algiers —
, Reynolds lands at Minorca — Is kindly received there by Governor
Blakeney — Paints many portraits — Meets with an accident — Proceeds
to Leghorn — Arrives at Rome — Remains there two years — His studies
and employments there — Leaves Rome for Florence, where he spends
two months — -Visits Bologna — Modena — Parma — Mantua — Ferrara,
and Venice — His studies there — Notes on pictures in Venice — Returns
through France to England, stopping for a month at Paris.
Early in the year 1749, the gallant Keppel, though
he had not completed his twenty-fourth year, was
entrusted with a diplomatic mission to the states of
Barbary, and appointed to the command in the Medi
terranean, with the rank of Commodore. He sailed
from Spithead.in the Centurion, on the 25th of April;
but the ship springing both her topmasts, he was
obliged to put into Plymouth for repairs, and to this
accident Eeynolds owed one of those many valuable
friendships he was destined to form. Keppel, while de
tained at Plymouth, visited his friend Lord Edgcumbe,
at whose seat he became acquainted with the young
painter, and was so much pleased with him that he
offered him a passage on board the Centurion.
The invitation was gladly accepted ; and Keppel
and Eeynolds, destined alike to rise to the highest
eminence in their professions, sailed together on the
11th of May for Lisbon, which they reached on the
d 2

36 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
24th. Here Eeynolds saw, for the first time, some of
the splendid ceremonies of the Church of Eome.
In a week Keppel proceeded to Cadiz, and from
thence to Tetuan, having heard that the British Consul
there had been confined in his own house, by the
Moorish governor of the town, in consequence of the
non-payment of some ransom money, while several
British captives had been thrown into a dungeon ; and
though Keppel had no instructions relating to the
State of Morocco, he thought the appearance of his
squadron might assist in redressing these grievances.
He arrived in the Bay of Tetuan on the 13th of June,
leaving Eeynolds at Gibraltar. The Commodore suc
ceeded in obtaining a more comfortable state of things
for the Consul and prisoners at Tetuan, and, accom
panied by Eeynolds, proceeded to Algiers, where he
anchored on the 29th of June. On the 30th he had
an audience of the Dey, at which Eeynolds was j>resent.
Keppel's object was* to prevent the depredations of the
Algerine corsairs upon English vessels ; but so many
obstacles were thrown in his way by the chicanery of
the Dey, that two years elapsed before his negotiations
were brought to a close.
Northcote has told us that in the course of these
negotiations the Dey became so much incensed that
he called the Commodore " a beardless boy," and
threatened him with the bowstring. Keppel heard the
threat with the utmost calmness, and being near a
window from which his ships could be seen, he pointed
to them, and said to the Dey that, if it was his pleasure. ;
to put him to death, there were Englishmen enough 4
in those ships to make for him a glorious funeral pile, -j

1749, jetat. 26. HIS STAY AT MINORCA. 37
Keppel has not mentioned this in any account of his
interviews with the Dey. But other incidents, re
lating to himself only, and which are recorded by eye
witnesses, are omitted, even in his private journals ;
for self was never uppermost in his mind. The story,
therefore, may be true, and Northcote may have heard
it from Eeynolds.
During the progress, or rather the no-progress of the
Commodore's mission, he was frequently at Minorca,
where Eeynolds went on shore at Port Mahon, on the
23rd of August, and was most kindly received by the
governor, General Blakeney, who would not allow him
to be at any expense for quarters, and invited him,
also, to a constant seat at his own table. While he
remained in this hospitable place Eeynolds painted
portraits of almost all the officers1 in the garrison
and on the station, equally to the advantage of his
practice and his purse.
He was indeed obliged to prolong his stay much
beyond his first intention by a serious accident.
Though he had probably been from his boyhood a
practised horseman, yet, from some chance, a horse he
was riding fell with him down a precipice, by which
his face was so much cut as to confine him to his room,
and the effect of this fall was visible ever after in a
scar on his upper lip. On his recovery he proceeded
to Leghorn, and from Leghorn to Eome, whence he
addressed the following letter to Lord Edgcumbe : —

1 How little some of them really I very officers in after life, recorded by
appreciated the painter appears from Miss Burne'y, and quoted post.— Ed.
an amusing outburst of one of these I

38 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
" My Lord, " I am now (thanks to your Lordshdp) at the
height of my wishes, in the midst of the greatest
works of art that the world has produced. I had a
very long passage, though a very pleasant one. I am
at last in Eome, having seen many places and sights
which I never thought of seeing. I have been at
Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Algiers, and Mahon. The
Commodore staid at Lisbon a week, in which time
there happened two of the greatest sights that could be
seen had he staid there a whole year, — a bull feast, and
the procession of Corpus Christi. Your Lordship will
excuse me if I say that, from the kind treatment and
great civilities I have received from the Commodore, I
fear I have even laid your Lordship under obligations
to him on my account ; since from nothing but your
Lordship's recommendation I could possibly expect to
meet with that polite behaviour with which I have
always been treated : I had the use of his cabin and his
study of books as if they had been my own, and when
he went ashore he generally took me with him, so that
I not only had an opportunity of seeing a great deal,
but I saw it with all the advantages as if I had travelled
as his equal. At Cadiz I saw another bull-feast. I
ask your Lordship's pardon for being guilty of that
usual piece of ill-manners in speaking so much of
myself; I should not have committed it after such
favours. Impute my not writing to the true reason;
I thought it impertinent to write to your Lordship
without a proper reason ; to let you know where I am, "
if your Lordship should have any commands here that
I am capable of executing. Since I have been in Eome

1749, .etat. 26.

IN ROME.

39

I have been looking about the palaces for a fit picture
of which I might take a copy to present your Lordship
with, though it would have been much more genteel
to have sent the picture without any previous intima
tion of it. Any one you choose, the larger the better,
as it will have a more grand effect when hung up, and
a kind of painting I like more than little. Though
perhaps it will be too great a presumption to expect it,
I must needs own I most impatiently wait for this order
from your Lordship.
" I am, &c. &c,
" Joshua Eeynolds."

Eeynolds spent two years, and there can be little
doubt " with measureless content" at Eome. Though he
was always too much devoted to his art to be a
frequent letter-writer, he must, in those two years,
have written at least a dozen or two of letters to Mrs.
Palmer and Mrs. Johnson ; for they had not only the
claim upon him of sisters, but they had advanced
money for his expenses in Italy, for which he had
given them a bond, still in the possession of the
descendants of Mrs. Palmer. It will be recollected
that she had, also, lent half the money that had been
paid as the premium on his being bound to Hudson. I
cannot learn, however, that any letter written by him
from Italy, excepting that to Lord Edgcumbe, has been
preserved ; x and all that we know of him while there

1 In a literary periodical, formerly
published by Mr. Willis, under the
title, ' Willis's Current Notes ' (No.
82, Oct. 1857), will be found, under

the heading ' Sir Joshua Reynolds's
Love Letters,' three letters, purport
ing to be written by Sir Joshua, while
abroad, to a Miss Weston, of Great

40

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

is from the memoranda written in his sketch-books, and
from some of his papers, written at later periods of
his life.
In one of his Eoman note-books, now in possession
of Eeynolds Gwatkin, Esq., is the following list,1
headed — " Copies of Pictures I made at Rome.
In the Villa Medici.
The vase of the ' Sacrifice of Iphigenia.'
In tlie Oorsini Palace. — April 16, in the afternoon, 1750,
anno Jubilei.
1. A study of an ' Old Man's Head, reading,' by Rubens.
2. April 17 to 19. — A portrait of Philip II., King of Spain, by
Titian.
3. April 20. — Rembrandt's portrait by himself.2
4. April 21 to 23. — 'St. Martino on horseback, giving the
Devil, who appeared to him in the shape of a Beggar,
part of his Cloak.'
Captain Blackquier's P.
An ' Old Beggar Man.'

Queen Street. Being unable either to
vouch for or verify the authenticity
of the letters, I do not insert them.
Even if genuine, they throw no addi
tional light on Reynolds's occupations
abroad, beyond mentioniag Mr.
Astley, one of his former fellow-
pupils at Hudson's, as his companion
in an intended detour on his way
home by Venice and Germany. There
is no love in the letters, unless there
be any tenderness insinuated in the
remark that his lips are spoiled for
kissing by the accident at Minorca.
Miss Weston is described as a lady
with an unrequited attachment for

Sir Joshua, who had preserved these
letters, and, dying in poverty, soon
after the death of Sir Joshua, in 1792,
gave them to a family which' had
befriended her. The story sounds very
apocryphal, but there is nothing in the
letters themselves to stamp them as
forgeries. — Ed.
1 These extracts have been already
printed from a very incorrect and im
perfect transcript made by, or for, the
late Mr. Gwatkin. I have restored '
the original text from the note-books
themselves. 2 The copy is in the possession of
11. L. Gwatkin, Esq.

1750, ;etat. 27

REMARKS ON RAPHAEL.

41

My own picture. Jacamo's (Giacomo's) picture.
Began May 30, finished June 10, in the Church of the
Capuchins, ' St. Michael,' * by Guido.
A foot from my own.
June 13_ — The ' Aurora ' of Guido, a sketch.
1*— "V

June

-Went to Tivoli.

August 15. — Worked in the Vatican.
" I was let into the Capella Sistina in the morning,
and remained there the whole day, a great part of
which I spent in walking up and down it with great
self-importance. Passing through, on my return, the
rooms of Eaphael,2 they appeared of an inferior order."
The " self-importance" Eeynolds felt in the Sistine
Chapel looks like excessive vanity: but it was no
doubt the feeling he described more clearly forty years
later — a self-congratulation in knowing himself capable
of such sensations as Michael Angelo intended to
excite. " Eaphael," he continues, " in many books on
Painting, is praised to the skies for being natural, and
because silks and velvets are so naturally painted (by
him) that they would deceive any man. This is so
far from being true, that they are further from it than
the draperies of any other painter ; nor ought they to
be so natural as to deceive one, except in portraits, as
in that of Leo X., at Florence,3 where the drapery is

1 This copy came into the possession
of George IV., and is now placed over
the altar in the Chapel of Hampton
Court Palace.
2 Spelt " Eaffaele," and sometimes
"Raffaelle," by Reynolds. I have
adopted the more modern spelling.

3 From the mention of this picture
it seems probable that Reynolds had
stopped at Florence on his way to
Rome. — (L.) It is certain that he
had, from many comparisons in his
notes on the Roman pictures. — Ed.

42 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.

natural to the last degree, but in none of his history
pictures. " Those pretenders to Painting think the whole art
lies in making things natural. If that were the case,
how many Eaphaels has not Holland produced ? What
I would endeavour to settle is the point to which the
painter is to direct his attention, to give him an idea
of what art is by the example of the Great Masters ;
for young painters, as well as connoisseurs, are some
times puzzled in seeing a picture, in which there is
nothing of what we call natural, preferred to another
where there are satins, silks, jugs, &c, which deceive
the sight."
In a paper published by Malone, Eeynolds says, " It
has frequently happened, as I was informed by the
keeper of the Yatican, that many of those whom he
had conducted through the various apartments of that
edifice, when about to be dismissed, have asked for the
works of Eaphael, and would not believe that they had
already passed through the rooms where they are pre
served ; so little impression had those performances •
made on them. One of the first painters now in
France told me that this circumstance happened to
himself, though he now looks on Eaphael with that
veneration which he deserves from all painters and
lovers of art. I remember very well my own dis
appointment when I first visited the Yatican ; but on
confessing my feelings to a brother student, of whose
ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged
that the works of Eaphael had the same effect on him ;
or rather, that they did not produce the effect which
he expected. This was a great relief to my mind;

1750, 2etat. 27. DISAPPOINTMENT AT THE VATICAN. 43
and, on inquiring farther of other students, I found
that those persons only who from natural imbecility
appeared to be incapable of ever relishing these divine
performances, made pretensions to instantaneous rap
tures on first beholding them. In justice to myself,
however, I must add, that, though disappointed and
mortified at not finding myself enraptured with the
works of this great master, I did not for a moment
conceive or suppose that the name of Eaphael, and
those admirable paintings in particular, owed their re
putation to the ignorance and the prejudice of mankind ;
on the contrary, my not relishing them as I was
conscious I ought to have done was one of the most
humiliating things that ever happened to me. I found
myself in the midst of works executed upon principles
with which I was unacquainted. — I felt my ignorance
and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of
painting which I had brought with me from England,
where the art was at the lowest ebb,' — it could not,
indeed, be lower,1 — were to be totally done away with
and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as
it is expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should
become as a little child. Notwithstanding my disap
pointment, I proceeded to copy some of those excellent
works. I viewed them again and again ; I even
affected to feel their merits, and to admire them more
than I really did. In a short time a new taste and
new perceptions began to dawn upon me, and I was
convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion
of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was
1 The matchless dramatic powers of Hogarth had evidently, at that time,
made no impression on Reynolds.

44

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the
estimation of the world. The truth is, that if these
works had really been what I expected, they would
have contained beauties superficial and alluring, but
by no means such as would have entitled them to the
great reputation which they have so long and so justly
obtained." " Having since that period frequently revolved the
subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion that
a relish for the higher excellences of the art is an
acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without
long cultivation and great labour and attention.1 On
such occasions as that which I have mentioned, we are
often ashamed of our apparent dulness ; as if it were
expected that our minds, like tinder, should instantly
catch fire from the divine spark of Eaphael' s genius. I
flatter myself that now it would be so, and that I have
a just and lively perception of his great powers ; but
let it be always remembered that the excellence of his
style is not on the surface, but lies deep, and at the
first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style
which strikes at once, and captivates the eye, for a
time, without ever satisfying the judgment. Nor does
painting in this respect differ from other arts. A just
and poetical taste and the acquisition of a nice dis
criminative musical ear are equally the work of time.

1 I believe it would be more cor
rect to say " a developed taste, which
no man ever displayed," &c. Rey
nolds speaks of the necessity of culti
vation ; but there must be something
native in the mind to cultivate. Can
we believe that any training would
have made a poet of Sir Isaac Newton,

or a musician, or even a lover of
music, of Dr. Johnson? Had they
been men less honest than they were,
they might have been led by fashion
to express, the one a fondness of
poetry, and the other of music, as
thousands do who, in reality, have no
taste for either.

1750, iETAT. 27.

HIS CARICATURES IN ROME.

45

Even the eye, however perfect in itself, is often unable
to distinguish between the brilliancy of two diamonds,
though the experienced jeweller will be amazed at its
blindness ; not considering that there was a time when
he himself could not have been able to pronounce which
of the two was the most perfect, and that his own
power of discrimination was acquired by slow and im
perceptible degrees."
Students in Italy were much employed in copying
pictures for gentlemen travellers ; alluding to whom,
Eeynolds at a later period said, in a letter to Barry,
" Whilst I was at Eome, I was very little employed by
them, and that little I always considered as so much
time lost."
' He made studies in the Yatican for himself only ;
one of these I have seen, a group of heads from 'the
Coronation of Charlemagne. He also painted two or
three caricatures. One, which I have also seen, is a
parody on the School of Athens, in which are grouped
caricature likenesses of most of the English gentlemen
then at Eome, in the attitudes of Eaphael's philo
sophers, but dressed in the coats, hats, and wigs they
wore.1- Northcote, speaking of these caricatures, says, " I
have heard Sir Joshua say, that although it was univer
sally allowed he executed such subjects with much

1 Another of these caricatures,
which I saw at the British Institution
in 1853, represents Viscount Wicklow
getting into his carriage, while his
tutor, Dr. Benson, calls his attention
to a quarrel between the courier and
innkeeper. A third, still in the pos

session of Mr. Woodyeare, of Crook-
hill, Yorkshire, contains portraits of
his grandfather, and his tutor Dr.
Drake, with Sir Charles Turner and
Mr. Cooke. It was painted in 1751.
—Ed.

46

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

humour and spirit, he yet held it absolutely necessary '
to abandon the practice, since it must corrupt his taste
as a portrait painter, whose duty it becomes to aim at
discovering the perfections only of those whom he is
to represent."
The only mention of these pictures, in the note-book
of Eeynolds, runs thus : —
" Caricaturas which I did at Rome, 1751.
Lord Charlemont. Lord Bruce.
Sir Thomas' Kennedy. Mr. Ward.
Mr. Ward. Mr. Leeson, Jun.
Mr. Phelps. Mr. Henry.

Sir W. A. Lowther.
Mr. Leeson, Jun.
Mr. Turner.
Mr. Huet.

Mr. Cook.
Mr. Woodyer.
Mr. Turner (ancora).
Mr. Drake.

P. in the Caricatura of the School of Athens.1
Abbate De Bois.
Mr. Bretengam (Brettingham).
Mr. Murfey.
Mr. Sterling.
Mr. Ironmonger.
Mr. Dawson.
Sir Matthew Featherstone.
Lord Charlemont.
Mr. Phelps.
Sir Thomas Kennedy.
Four idea figures."

Mr. Henry.
Lord Bruce.
Mr. Leeson, Sen.
Mr. Maxwell.
Mr. Leeson, Jun.
Mr. Barret.
Mr. Patch.
Mr. Virepile.
Sir William Lowther
Dr. Erwin.
Mr. Bagot.

Different motives have been imagined for the pro
duction of these caricatures, while that mentioned by
Farington (no doubt the true one) has been overlooked.

1 This picture is in the possession of •
Ireland.

Henry, Esq., of Straffan, in

1751, iETAT. 28.

CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN ART.

47

It was simply that some of the persons caricatured
commissioned Eeynolds to paint them.
It is scarcely an Irishism to say that the last great
Italian painters were Frenchmen ; for Claude and
Nicolo Poussin were so entirely Italian in their hearts,
and passed so great a portion of their lives in Eome,
that the French school has no more right to their
names than the Architectural School of Sweden has to
the name of Sir William Chambers, who was born at
Stockholm. When Eeynolds visited Italy, the history,
of her art, for more than half a century, had presented
nothing but unredeemed mediocrity ; and the foremost
of living Italian painters were Pompeo Battoni and
Francesco Zuccherelli.
As we are told that, if the sun were to be annihilated,
he would still appear, unchanged, to us for a brief space
of time, so the vision of the past glories of Italy still
lingered with the connoisseurs of the day ; and English
men {especially) could not then, nor indeed long after,
believe in any other than the Italian faith in matters
of taste.1 Within my own recollection, Canova received

1 The belief in the everlasting art
of Italy prevailed, indeed, wherever
the English language was spoken.
Some forty years ago I knew a painter
who made a little fortune by painting
portraits of the principal people in
many of the small towns of America.
It was his custom, wherever he set
up his easel, to announce himself as
Mr.  from Philadelphia, New
York, or Boston, as either of those
cities happened to be the nearest. At
one of his halting-places he hired a
room in the house of a butcher ; and
his window being open, he heard his

landlord, on the day after his arrival,
recommending him to one of his own
customers as a great painter from
 . " Let him paint your pic
ture," said the butcher, "and he'll
give you the true ftalian touch."
Another proof of the existence of
the Italian mania in America may
be cited. The friends of West sent
him to Italy to study. Had they sent
him first to England, I cannot help
thinking that the influence of Ho
garth, of Reynolds, of Wilson, and of
Gainsborough, would have told on
his practice much more to his future

48

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

more commissions than he could find time to execute
from the English nobility, who, with one or two
exceptions, did not seem to know that such a man as
Flaxman existed. Canova did, however, know there
was a Flaxman ; and, while generously recommending
him to the notice of his countrymen, he said, " You
English see with your ears."
Lord Edgcumbe was one of the most valuable of the
friends of Eeynolds ; and yet so little did he know of
Jhe acquirements of his protege, and so much was he
infected with the Italian mania, that, before the young
painter left England, he had strongly urged him to
become, while at Eome, the pupil of Pompeo Battoni.
Eeynolds, however, knew himself, and Battoni, too well
to follow such advice. Having served a short appren
ticeship to a commonplace English painter, he was
now too wise to place himself in the hands of a com
monplace foreigner ; and, while at Eome, the masters
he chiefly studied under were Michael Angelo and
Eaphael. Allan Cunningham's accusation of Eeynolds, that he
recommended in his Discourses the masters he did not
study, and said little or nothing of those he did study,
is wholly groundless. He felt that, whatever might be
his future career, from the frescos of these great painters
he could learn best that which would most elevate his
style ; and the course he pursued himself he recom-

advantage than did the study of the
old masters under the direction of
Mengs. It is certain that when he
arrived in England his works dis
played nothing beyond the learned

mediocrity of his teacher, from which
the example of the living English >
painters, in a great degree, enabled ,
him to release himself.

1751, jetat. 28. HIS STUDIES AT ROME. 49
mended to others. The notion that he was incapable
of appreciating Eoman art sprung from that fallacy
in criticism, still prevailing, which classes painting
according to its subject, and not according to its own
intrinsic greatness entirely apart from its subject, and
from the vulgar error of supposing that a great artist
cannot appreciate conceptions very unlike his own.
Eeynolds, in the Sistine Chapel, or in the chambers of
the Yatican, though he had never seen such art before,1
could not but feel that he, " also, was a painter."
Paul Yeronese studied Michael Angelo and Eaphael,
and learned much from them, unlike as he was to
either ; and Eembrandt possessed pictures by Eaphael,
and was by no means unacquainted with Italian art, or
with the Antique. It may be urged that the genius
of Eeynolds was confined to portrait more exclusively
than theirs ; but even so, what could he do better than
study the frescoes of Eaphael, full as they are of the
highest order of portraiture ? To say nothing of the
portrait groups in the Attila and the Heliodorus, the
School of Athens and the Miracle at Bolsena, the Oath
of Leo X. is entirely a portrait composition ; and, in
the lower half of the Dispute of the Sacrament, every
head is a portrait.
I shall not here speak of what will be noticed in
other pages, namely, the conceptions adopted by

1 It is here assumed that he had
left England without having seen the
Cartoons of Raphael. It will be re
membered that he had passed very
little time in London while not with
Hudson; and during his apprentice
ship he was probably too much em
ployed by his master to pay a visit
VOL. I.

to Hampton Court, then an affair of
much more time and expense than it
now is. Had he seen the Cartoons,
he would surely have been better
prepared to appreciate the Stanze of
Raphael than, by his own account, he
was.

50 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
Eeynolds from the Sistine Chapel ; but I must remark
that every one of Michael Angelo's Prophets and Sibyls
has the individuality of portrait ; the grandest style of
portrait, but still of portrait. The spaces between these
majestic figures are filled with domestic compositions,
exquisitely simple, which have an effect something like
that produced by the prose passages which Shakespear
so often alternates with his verse.
Was the time of Eeynolds misspent, then, in the
Sistine Chapel ? The results have proved that it was
not ; and have proved also the sincerity with which, in
his Discourses, he dwells again and again on the genius
of Michael Angelo. And yet it would seem that there
was the most in common between Eeynolds, so pre
eminently happy in his representations of feminine and
infantine grace, and the gentle Eaphael. I imagine,
however, that the superior powers of Michael Angelo
in colour and in breadth of chiaroscuro, combined as
they are with so many other noble qualities, commanded
his homage at first sight, and retained it ever after.
That he made no copies from Michael Angelo may be
owing to the inconvenience of copying pictures from a
ceiling, and it was the eiling of the Sistine Chapel
that most delighted him. In the picture he painted
for Alderman Boydell, from Macbeth, he has, however,
taken the attitude of one of the witches from that of a
fiend in the Last Judgment.
For the studies he made from Eaphael he paid
dearly ; for he caught so severe a cold in the chambers
of the Yatican as to occasion a deafness which obliged
him to use an ear-trumpet for the remainder of his life.
Few artists, I apprehend, ever visited Italy more to

1751, jetat. 28. HIS STUDIES AT ROME. 51
their own advantage than did Eeynolds. Of the
English Dilettanti whom he met there, he gave the fol
lowing account : — " Instead of examining the beauties
of the works of fame, and why they are esteemed, they
only inquire the subject of the picture and the name of
the painter, the history of a statue and where it is
found, and write that down. Some Englishmen, while
I was in the Yatican, came there, and spent above six
hours in writing down whatever the antiquary dictated
to them. They scarcely ever looked at the paintings
the whole time."
[There are two of his Italian note-books1 in the
British Museum : the largest a small quarto, in parch
ment; the other a duodecimo. They are filled with
notes in pencil, and sketches both of figures and land
scapes : the former are chiefly memoranda of pictures ;
the latter, rough jottings from pictures, or slight sketches
from nature, evidently taken as his chaise halted on the
road, or at his stopping-places for sleep or meals. More
than one of the memoranda from pictures he afterwards
turned to account : for example, an angel playing on
the harpsichord seems to have suggested his portrait
of Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia ; and a female figure, in
an attitude of contemplation, has evidently furnished
the idea for the picture of Mrs. Crewe as St. Gene
vieve. Mr. E. Gwatkin has his Eoman Note-book,
which also contains many slight sketches. Two, with
notes on Eome and Bologna, are in the Soane Museum.2
It is interesting to note, from his memoranda made

1 Some others, which belonged to
Mr. S. Rogers, passed at the sale of
his works of art into the hands of Col.

Lenox of New York. — Ed.
3 See Appendix.
E 2

52 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
at the time, what pictures in Eome he copied, studied,
and admired. His selection for copies seems to have
been quite catholic, including, between April and Au
gust, 1750, Eubens, Titian, Eembrandt, Guido, and
Eaphael. The pictures he notes are — in the Palazzo
del Secretario, Yandyke's Portrait of Pontius the en
graver, " the best portrait I ever yet " (saw of his) ; an
Angel's Head, by Correggio, " the best likewise I ever
yet saw of him ; " and an Ecce Homo, by Guido. In
the Palazzo Falconiere, three Heads, by Guido, on one
cloth ; two Borgognones, " fine ; " a Holy Family, by
Poussin, "his very best manner, the Yirgin a noble
figure ;" two Conversations, over each door, by P.
Yeronese, the Yirgin giving Suck, by Guido, an angel
playing on an organ ; St. Cecilia, by Guido. In the
Palazzo Borghese, iEneas and Anchises, by Baroccio ;
Domenichino's Diana ; Titian's Last Supper ; Titian's
Borgia and Machiavel ; Eaphael' s St. Catherine (now in
our National Gallery) ; M. Angelo's Crucifix, " of which
the story, that a porter (or malefactor) was killed to model
from ;" Titian's Schoolmaster, " admirable ;" Titian's own
portrait; a Magdalen, by A. Caracci; St. Cecilia, by
Domenichino, of whose colouring he notes most truly,
that it is very bright, but wants the clearness and trans
parency of Correggio and Titian. Of an anonymous
"Figure drinking, a young man, only the head and
breast, in profile, as big as the life," he says, " This, and
the profile in the Cardinal Secretary's collection in the
Pope's palace, are the two best coloured pictures that I
have seen of any master " — owing to the changes in the
Eoman galleries I am unable to identify this picture by
aid of any accessible catalogue ; — Petrarch's portrait;

1751, iETAT. 28. HIS STUDIES AT ROME. 53
Titian's Yenus Hoodwinking Cupid (engraved by
Strange) ; two Yenuses, by Titian, pronounced, " like
all others in Eome, not equal to that at Florence ;
lady's portrait, in small, excellent for its colouring ;
Titian and his Mistress ; the Prodigal returned, — all
three by Titian ; Nymph and Swain, a delicate picture
by Yeronese ; and some drawings by Eaphael.
It would be rash to infer much as to the painter's
judgments of pictures from the character of this selection.
Wonder at the omission of all reference to such pictures,
now in the Borghese Gallery, as the Entombment, by
Eaphael ; the Danae, of Correggio ; the Sacred and Pro
fane Love, of Titian — is checked by a question, whether
these pictures were then in the gallery ? Again, the
painter was not bound to note the things he most ad
mired. We see he sometimes mentions only to condemn.
Thus, in the Palazzo Yerospi, he writes of a Yault, by
Albano, " extremely hard, as usual ; " but goes on, " over
the famous harpsichord, a landscape of Poussin, in his
very best manner ; and indeed it is painted in the
grandest style that can be conceived. 'Tis finished up
at once, except the trees that have the sky for their
ground; a large, light pencil, no outline throughout;
the leaves touched in Bassano's manner."
In the Campidoglio, he says, " You must by no means
neglect to look at the two Lions of Egyptian marble,
who spout water out of their mouths. They screw up
their mouths for that purpose, as a man does when he
whistles : among the best antiques of their kind in
Eome." There is a careful enumeration of the objects
in and about the Campidoglio.
In the Palazzo Altieri he praises two Claudes, as

54 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.

" much the best I have seen by this master, or indeed
any other." In the Palazzo Spada, after noticing the
Statue of Pompey, "at the foot of which Caesar fell,''
he passes to Guido's Eape of Helen : " the airs of the
heads of the women wonderfully fine." Of " Dido
Transfixed with the Sword of iEneas," he says, " She
is fallen upon a pile of wood on her face, with a long
sword through her body — no very agreeable picture.
A woman on the left side of the picture, with her hand
kerchief to*her eyes, is a wonderful genteel figure ; by
its side a Portrait, by Titian, the face wonderfully
coloured." As Eeynolds himself afterwards painted the
same subject, his remarks on this Dido have special
interest. In the Eospigliosi he notes (besides portraits by
Eubens, Yasari, Maratti, Yandyke, Yeronese, and Da
Yinci) the famous Aurora of Guido, and Domenichino's
David, Samson, and Adam and Eve.
In the Church of S. Jacopo delli Spagnuoli he is
carried away by the clever naturalism of Bernini's
bust of Montoja. "The marble is so wonderfully
managed that it appears flesh itself : the upper lip,
which is covered with hair, has all the lightness of
nature. . . . This bust certainly yields in no respect to
the best in the antique. Indeed, I know none that, in
my opinion, are equal to it. 'Twas said to be so won
derfully like (and, indeed, from that strong character of
nature which it has one easily believes it to have been
like) that those who knew him used to say it was Mon
toja petrified." He notices, also with strong praise, the
Anima beata and Anima damnata of the same sculptor in
the sacristy of the same church.

1751, jetat. 28. HIS STUDIES AT ROME. 55
Eeynolds's stay at Eome included the jubilee year,
1750, when the concourse of travellers to the Eternal
City was greater even than usual. His list of caricatures1
gives us the best insight we are likely to get into his
Eoman circle. We may safely conceive of it as made up
of young noblemen and gentlemen of fortune, with their
bear-leaders ; [some painters, engravers, doctors, virtuosi,
and antiquarians ; and of his brother-students, conspicu
ous among whom are the dashing, reckless, out>at-elbows
Astley ;2 Nathaniel Hone, afterwards his bitter assailant ;
Dalton/ a protege of the Prince of Wales, and Lord
Charlemont. Eichard Wilson, too, was in Eome at this
time ; and the French painter Doyen, in a letter written
many years after, alludes to the vows of friendship inter
changed between him and his young friend " Eeinols "
in the presence of the statue of Marcus Aurelius. Among
the men of rank at Eome with Eeynolds were several who
were afterwards his friends and patrons, as Lord Charle
mont, Sir W. Lowther, Lord Downe, and Lord Bruce.
If in the note-books of Eeynolds at this time undue
space appears to be given to painters of the class of
Baroccio and Guercino, it should be remembered that
Eeynolds was still young, and that his taste was still
dominated by the fashions of his day ; but even at this
stage of his progress his remarks on pictures are emi
nently to the purpose. He seems always to observe
them with an eye to the leading sources of effect, — com
position, balance of light and shade, and relief. He
seldom notices sentiment or expression, or positive
qualities of colour.
1 See ante, p. 46.
2 Who probably accompanied him on his return. — Ed.

56

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

Eeynolds left Eome for Naples on April 5, 1752, by
way of Marino and Castel Gandolfo ; lay at Yelletri
that night ; on the 6th slept at Piperno, noting in his
ride the desolation of the Pontine Marshes ; and on the
7th passed Sezza.1
On the 3rd of May, 1752, at eleven o'clock, he left
Eome, and proceeded by short and easy stages to Flo
rence. He slept the first night at Castel- Nuovo,
eighteen miles from Eome, and the second at Narni,
where, as his journal tells us, he saw the Augustan
Bridge. That day's dining place had been Castellano,
where he notes the fine fortress. On the 5th of May
he dined at Terni, saw the Cascade, and lay at Spoleto,
where he saw the aqueduct. On the 6th he dined at
Fuligno, and " saw the picture by Eaphael, representing
the Yirgin. and Bambino." It is singular that Eeynolds
makes no remark on this beautiful early work, beyond
a description of the arrangement of the figures in the
composition. He reached Perugia on the 7th, after visiting the
church of the Madonna delli Angeli, on the plain below
Assisi, where he notes the picture of St. Francis in
Glory, and Baroccio's Salutation. He stopped at Assisi
and sketched one of the gates. Not a word is given to

1 In his short note on Naples he
notices the works of L. Giordano,
Domenichino, Lanfranco, and Vasari,
in the Duomo, and the fresco of
Heliodorus, by Solimene, in the Gesu
Nuovo (Soane MS.).
In all the extracts here given I
have corrected the many inaccuracies
of the published extracts (so called)
from Reynolds's Journals, which, in
some cases, quite reverse the sense of
the MS. Thus, at p. 29, in the re

marks on the Marriage of St. Cather
rine, in the church of that saint,
Reynolds writes : " 'Tis not in his very
best taste of colouring," where the
transcript has, " this is his very best,''
&c. So in page 34, on the ' Conviti d1
Paolo Veronese,' in SS. Giovanni e
Paolo, for " the flesh of none of the
figures lighter than its ground," the
transcript reads, " the flesh of one of
the figures lighter than the ground.','—
Ed.

1752, j3tat. 20. AT PERUGIA— AREZZO— FLORENCE. 57
the early works of Cimabue, Giotto, and their scholars,
in the Church of St. Francis, which however he men
tions as containing the body of the saint. He describes,
too, the antique temple of Minerva, in the Piazza, as
" fine taste." The only pictures he notices at Perugia
are Baroccio's Descent from the Cross, in San Lorenzo,
Perugino's Marriage of the Yirgin — adding, " an infinite
number of his pictures about Perugia " — and a Eiposo
of Baroccio.
On the 9th he was at Arezzo, where he dined, and
notices as the best of Baroccio's works, his Yirgin Inter
ceding, " some angels and women wonderfully genteel,
the Yirgin a fine figure ;" and praises, as extremely
well painted, and with good keeping in them, some of
Yasari's works in the Church of Sta. Maria della Pieve
and the Scuola of the Confraternity of St. Eoch. Cross
ing the Arno, or rather its confluent the Ambra, he
spent the night of the 9th at Levano, and thence, jour
neying by Monte Yarchi, Figline, and Incisa, and
dining at Pian-del-Fonte, arrived late on the 10th at
Florence. Santa Croce is the first church noticed in the journal,
and the pictures observed in it are a Descent from the
Cross by Salviati (? Bronzino), a Christ delivering souls
out of Limbo — probably an early picture — and a work
in sculpture by Settignano. Without knowing if the
fine frescoes by Giotto, lately laid bare of whitewash in
the chapels at the east end of Santa Croce, were visible
in 1752, it would be unfair to express surprise that
Eeynolds says nothing about them. But, even if they
had been visible, it is quite intelligible that the journal
should be silent about works the interest of which is

58 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
derived rather from their sentiment and historical bear
ing, than from their technical qualities. Eeynolds notes
everywhere chiefly that which was likely to be useful
to himself — as hint of expression or effect, as rule or
warning. He had. now set his face homewards.]
His Florentine journal contains, among its remarks
on pictures, part of the draft of a letter, in which he
mentions the probability of his getting " a considerable
sum of money at (Weissenbourg ?) ;" and " if so," he
writes, " I shall have that to lay out at Brussels for my
sisters." Some of his friends were extremely anxious that
he should stay a month longer at Florence than he
had purposed; and to this he alludes in the same
draft : —
" I remember, whenever my father discoursed on edu
cation, it was his constant practice to give this piece
of advice — ' never to be in too great a hurry to show
yourself to the world ; but lay in first of all as strong
a foundation of learning and knowledge as possible.'
This may very well be applied to my present affairs,
as, by being in too great a hurry, I shall perhaps
ruin all, and arrive in London without reputation, and
without anybody's having heard of me ; when, by
staying a month longer, my fame will arrive before
me, and, as I said before, nobody will dare to find
fault with me, since my conduct will have had the
approbation of the greatest living painters. Then
again, on the other hand, there are such pressing
reasons for my returning home, that I stand as between
two people pulling me different ways ; so I stand still
and do nothing. For the moment I take a resolution

1752, jEtat. 29.

HIS STAY AT FLORENCE.

59

to set out, and in a manner take leave of my friends,
they call me a madman for missing those advantages I
have mentioned." 1
We have seen that Eeynolds, at this time, considered
(however erroneously) the art of his own country to
be in the lowest possible condition. He speaks, there
fore, of the Italian painters as the greatest alive ; and
though he no doubt valued them at no more than
their true worth, he was fully sensible how much
their approbation would conduce to his advantage on
his return to England, where the opinions of native
talent were in conformity with his own.
While at Florence2 he painted a portrait of Joseph
Wilton, an English sculptor, who afterwards became
keeper of the Eoyal Academy. This picture, Faring-
ton says, was much admired as " a brilliant display
of those qualities in which he so eminently excelled."

1 On the verso of folios 9 to 17,
forming part of his Florentine journal,
are the most finished pencil sketches
to be found in Reynolds's note-books.
On folio 14, a lady seated, with a
very graceful turn of the head; her
bosom covered ; one foot displayed,
partly out of the slipper ; a nosegay
at the breast. (15.) A lady in un
dress, tying her garter, the foot raised
on a cushioned stool. (16.) A lady
reclining with uncovered bosom, appa
rently the same as on folio 15. (17.)
A slightly draped figure. — Ed.
2 His note-books show that he had
examined the pictures in thei Pitti
Palace ; but he contents himself with
a mere mention of certain pictures —
including works of Raphael, Titian,
Del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, Rubens,
M. Angelo (the Fates), Correggio,

Annibale Carracci, Guido, Baroccio,
Cigoli, Rossi, Farini, Borgognone, Cas-
tiglione, Carlo Dolce, and Salvator
Rosa. In the Painters' Room he
notices Rembrandt's portrait as the
best coloured ; Vandyke's as " green
ish ; " and Rubens's, " two, both fine."
He had gone the round of the churches.
In that of San Marco he notices two
altar-pieces by the Frate (Fra Barto
lomeo) ; but I find no mention of the
works of Fra Angelico in the Convent.
In Santa Maria Novella, he notes " the
first picture ever Cimabue painted in
colours," and adds, "in the cloister
the works of the Grecian painters " —
referring, doubtless, to the pictures
of Gaddi and Memmi in the Capella
delli Spagnuoli. But not a word of
the Paradise of Orcagna, or the fres
coes of Ghirlandajo. — Ed.

(30

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

At Florence too he was on very intimate terms with
Nathaniel Hone, destined, like Wilton, to be one of
the members of the future Academy, but who is now
only remembered for the jealous malignity he dis
played towards Sir Joshua in later life. 1
The concluding passage of the Journal kept by
Eeynolds at Florence, as is fitting, concerns Michael
Angelo : — ¦ " Capella di S. Lorenzo.
" The four recumbent figures by Michael Angelo,
with a Great Duke likewise by him.
" When I am here, I think M. Angelo superior to
the whole world for greatness of taste — when I look on
the figures of the fountains in the Boboli, of which I
have seen the models, I think him (John di Bologna) 2
greater than M. A., and I believe it would be a difficult
thing to determine who was the greatest sculptor. The
same doubt in regard to the Yatican and the Capella
Sistina." 3

1 At the end of the smaller note
book I find a malicious little sketch
of a pair of knock-kneed, splay-footed
legs, surmounted by a large sketching-
board and a cocked hat, and opposite
written, " Master Hone." By the side
of it I find the rule for painting heads,
which Reynolds followed in a great
measure, at least in his earlier practice.
" The ground colour, blue-black and
white. Light : first sitting the features,
marked firm with red : next sitting the
red colours. Blue-black, vermilion,
lake, carmine, white, drying oil." In
this scale I remark the absence of
yellows and the presence of ver
milion, which he afterwards,' though
for a time only, rejected, telling North

cote he could not see any in flesh.
Here, too, is a mention of the frescoes
in the Annunziata ; but, strange to
say, the indifferent frescoes of Pocetti,
Salimbeni, Roselli, and Masoagni, are
dwelt upon more than those of Andrea
del Sarto. Pocetti, especially, is highly
praised. — Ed.
2 He says of him in another note,
after mentioning that the ancients
seldom observed grouping, — " John of
Bologna has been superior to the whole
world, ancient and modern, in that
respect at least, as well in statues as in
basso-relievos. " — Ed.
3 He means, evidently, a doubt
as to the relative greatness of Michael
Angelo and Raphael.

1752, ,-etat. 29. HIS FLORENTINE JOURNAL. 61
[The only laudatory mention of any work in
Florence earlier than Eaphael relates to the frescoes
in the Brancacci Chapel. It is remarkable that he
does not here notice the resemblance of Lippi's (or
Masaccio's) St. Paul to the Paul preaching of Eaphael's
Cartoon. This tends to confirm the notion that he had
not seen the Cartoons before leaving England.]
" Church of the Carmine.
" A Chapel (the Brancacci) painted by Masaccio.
Eaphael has taken his ' Adam and Eve driven out of
Paradise ' from hence. The heads, according to the
ancient custom, are portraits, and have a wonderful
character of nature."
That Eeynolds could appreciate one leading merit of
the earlier painters, notwithstanding his rare mention
of them, appears from such passages of his writing as
the following : —
" It must be confessed that simplicity and truth, of
which we are now speaking, is oftener found in the
old Masters that preceded the great age of painting,
than it was ever in that age, and certainly much less
since. We may instance Albert Durer and Masaccio,
from the latter of whom Eaphael borrowed his figure
of St. Paul preaching.
" The old Gothic artists, as we call them, deserve
the attention of a student much more than many later
artists. In other words, the painters before the age of
Eaphael are better than the painters since the time of
Carlo Marratti. The reason is, -the former have nothing
but truth in view ; whereas the others do not even

62

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

endeavour to see for themselves, but receive, by report
.only, what has before passed through many hands,
and consequently acquired the tinge of a mannerist,
or, as a poet would say, mixed with fable, having no
longer the simplicity of truth. As we say of wine, it
has lost its raciness." J
From Florence,2 Eeynolds proceeded, on the 4t^ of
July, to Bologna, where he remained till about the
16th.3 By aid of his note-books we trace him to Modena
— where he upraises as " admirable " a Circumcision by
Guido in the Duomo — Eeggio, and Parma.
His notes on the master (among all the Italian
painters) with whose style his own had the most
affinity, are these : —
" The Duomo. — ' The Cupola,' by Correggio, and
Angels in stone colour by ditto."
" You must ask to see the ' Holy Family with
St. Jerome.' It gave me as great a pleasure as ever
I received from looking on any picture. The airs of

1 Cotton's ' Reynolds and his
Works,' pp. 228, 229.
2 It helps us to a notion of the
living Reynolds, to read on the last
leaf of the book containing his Flo
rentine notes (the smaller of the two
in the British Museum), the jottings
and memoranda of the young tra
veller, now on the wing for Venice.
Thus :—
" Buy chalk. — Chest. — Voyages and
maps (Struck out, when bought, or he
had found them unnecessary). — Take
the flowers from Dogana and the por
traits. (That of Wilton?) — Ultra
marine. — Send for my things from
Piti (sic). (No doubt his sketching
or painting materials.) — Pay Wilton
for Gallery. (Some fee for permission

to make studies ?) — Ultramarine (re
peated). — Receive from Hone. (Had
Hone been borrowing ?) — Breeches
made. — Not forget sheet. — Breeches
mended. — Pay washerwoman. — Pay
Wilton for Verpili. (Virtuoso in Eome '
had paid Eeynolds some debt he owed
Wilton at Florence?) — Hat. — Spada.
— Capella. — Bianta Scatola. — Stivali.
— Canistra. — Umbrella. — Fabry, per-
ruquiere in Piazza di San Marco,
Venice. (No doubt a hairdresser re
commended from Florence.) — 4 shirts;
1 pair of stockings ; handkerchiefs ; 2
stocks." And opposite is a sketch
of four men in cloaks and cocked
hats, at a table with bottles and
glasses. — Ed.
3 Soane MS.

1752, 2ETAT. 29. HIS APPRECIATION OF OLD MASTERS.

63

the heads, expression, and colouring, are in the utmost
perfection. 'Tis very highly finished : no giallo in
the flesh. The shadows seem to be added afterwards,
with a thin colour made of oil, ultramarine, and
sometimes oil and red. Outline to the face, especially
the Yirgin's, the lips, &c, not seen. The red mixed
with the white of the face imperceptibly — all broad."
In a paper among the Palmer MSS. he says,
" Well-coloured pictures are in more esteem, and
sell for higher prices than in reason they appear to
deserve, as colouring is an excellence acknowledged to
be of a lower rank than the qualities of correctness,
grace, and greatness of character. But in this in
stance, as in many others, the partial view of reason
is corrected by the general practice of the world : and
among other reasons which may be brought forward
for this conduct is the consideration, that colouring is
an excellence which cannot be transferred by prints
or drawings, and but very faintly by copies.
" The justly celebrated picture of the ' Holy Family,'
by Correggio, at Parma, was offered to Lord Orford
for 3000?. ; but judging only from the print, which
was shown him at the time, he declined the purchase ;
although I, who have seen the picture, am far from
thinking the price unreasonable. Yet Lord Orford
cannot be blamed for refusing to give such a price
for a composition which promised so little from the
appearance of the print, though it was engraved by
no less a man than Agostino Caracci." x

1 Further references to the pictures
at Parma are, — " St. Joanna (Gio

vanni). In- this chapel on the righ
hand, a Pieta by Correggio. Opposite,

64

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

Eeynolds appears to have visited Genoa,1 by some
quotations printed by Northcote from his papers ;
among which are the following : —
" In the Palazzo Durazzo I saw an admirable portrait
of a man by Eembrandt, his hands one in the other ; a
prodigious force of colouring.
" But the picture which should be first mentioned
is very large, and the most capital one I have seen by
Paul Yeronese, of Mary Magdalen washing the Feet of
Christ, containing about ten figures as large as life,
admirably finished.
" July 21 (1752). Arrived at Mantua.
"22. Departed from Mantua, and arrived at Ferrara 2
same day.
" 23. Departed thence.

the Martyrdom of two Saints, the ex
pression of the woman as that of an
angel in bliss. The colouring divine,
white and oil transparent, shadows
greyish. A copy of the Notte, better
than that in the Palace at Modena.
A fine copy of the Holy Family and
St. Jerome, by Correggio. The cupola :
Angles (? angels.) Friese quite round
the church is by Correggio 's scholars.
In the cupola, Christ crowning the
Virgin. St. John Baptist (of which
a copy in the Palazzo Pitti), St. John
Evangelist, with many angels, all by
Parmigiano. A St. John over the door
by Correggio, with the eagle picking
his wings." On the following page a
sketch — The Eagle of St. John clean
ing his feathers. — Ed.
1 It is probable that this was on his
way to Rome. The references to pic
tures at Bologna are contained in one

of the note-books in the Soane Mu
seum (see Appendix). — Ed.
2 At Ferrara there is no mention
of Garofalo, Dossi, Bonone, or any of
the Ferrarese school. He notes Guer-
cino's Martyrdom of St. George, in
the Church of that Saint, and his
St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, in
San Spirito ; and an Interment of
Christ, by Caravaggio : " the lowest
ideas of character possible to imagine,
otherwise not ill-executed." In the
large Piazza he mentions the bronze
statue of Pope Alexander VII., seated
in a chair raised on a pillar of
the Corinthian order, which was re
moved in 1796, to make room for a
statue of Napoleon, whose name the
Piazza bore till 1814, when the statue
was removed, and the square christened
Piazza d'Ariosto. — Ed.

1752," 2BTAT. 29.

HIS STAY AT VENICE.

65

" 24. Arrived at Yenice.
" 25. Entered my lodgings.
"26. The boy (? Giuseppe Marchi) began to eat at
my lodgings."
It was his custom to procure the usual printed
descriptions of every city he passed through, on which
he made memoranda of what was best worth seeing,
and he repeated his visits to such objects at times most
convenient for close examination.
At Yenice he remained from the 24th of July to the
16th of August. It is probable that the low state of
his finances prevented his longer stay in a city which
had so many and such peculiar attractions for him. 1
Speaking of the Yenetian painters, he says,
" The method I took to avail myself of their
principles was this : — When I observed an extra
ordinary effect of light and shade in any picture, I
to( k a leaf out of my pocketbook, and darkened every
part of it in the same gradation of light and shade
as the picture, leaving the white paper untouched to
represent the light, and this without any attention to
the subject, or to the drawing of the figures. A few
trials of this kind will be sufficient to give their conduct

1 It is quite evident that, whatever
might have been the influence of
Michael Angelo's grandeur and Ra
phael's grace and dignity, on the ma-
turer mind of Reynolds, the Bolognese
and Venetian masters were those from
whom he gathered most enjoyment
and instruction in the material part of
his art. While Roman and Florentine
pictures are merely noted in his Italian
memorandum books, the observations
on pictures in Venice are full and
detailed, and all of the strictly prac-
VOL. I.

tical kind ; notes of their balance of
light and shade, warm and cold colour,
methods of laying-in and finishing,
leaving the ground, scumbling, glaz
ing, &c. &c. ; in a word, the remarks
of an observant workman upon per
fect workmanship. But he made no
finished copies in Venice ; no sketches,
even in colour. He has himself told
us how he studied these mighty masters
of the art. For the notes on Bolognese
pictures, see Appendix. — Ed.

F

66

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap-. II.

in the management of their lights. After a few experi
ments I found the paper blotted nearly alike.1 Their
general practice appeared to be, to allow not above
a quarter of the picture for the light, including in
this portion both the principal and secondary lights ;
another quarter to be kept as dark as possible; and
the remaining half kept in mezzotint or half shadow.
Eubens appears to have admitted rather more light
than a quarter, and Eembrandt much less, scarcely an
eighth ; by this conduct Eembrandt' s light is extremely
brilliant ; but it costs too much ; the rest of the picture
is sacrificed to this one object. That light will certainly
appear the brightest which is surrounded with the
greatest quantity of shade, supposing equal skill in the
artist. " By this means you may likewise remark the various
forms and shapes of those lights, as well as the objects
on which they are flung ; whether a figure, or the sky,
a white napkin, animals, or utensils, often introduced
for this purpose only. It may be observed, likewise,
what portion is strongly relieved, and how much is
united with its ground ; for it is necessary that some
part (though a small one is sufficient) should be sharp
and cutting against its ground, whether it be light on
a dark, or dark on a light ground, in order to give
firmness and distinctness to the work ; if, on the other
hand, it is relieved on every side, it will appear as if
inlaid on its ground.
" Such a blotted paper, held at a distance from the

1 In this passage we should, no
doubt, read papers. He means to say
he found nearly the same quantity

of dark and middle tint in all ; and
not that the forms of the darks were
the same in any two.

1752, 2etat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 67
eye, will strike the spectator as something excellent
for the disposition of light and shadow, though it does
not distinguish whether it is a history, a portrait, a
landscape, dead game, or anything else ; for the same
principles extend to every branch of the art."
[His Yenetian notes are here printed in full, as they
may be of use to future painters who may wish to follow
in Sir Joshua's footsteps, to compare his observations
with the pictures to which they refer, or to see how
and for ivhat Eeynolds looked at pictures.]
Chiesa dei Carmelitani.
' The Last Supper,' by Tintoret.
The napkin the principal light, divided by a dark figure. A
figure at one end of the table in white satin divided from the
white principal mass by a dark figure ; a light figure at each
end of the picture. A dog sitting on his tail, as begging. A
fine picture.
Opposite, 'Washing the Feet.' Ditto. The ground and
background white.
In the Carmelitani Scalzi at Venice an artificial light that is
let in at the top of an altar, and rays made of yellow tubes,
have an extraordinary effect. Qtregorio.
'Presentation of Virgin,' by Jordano.
Another, where an Angel awaking an Old Man.
' The Descent,' by Titian.
A figure dressed in white, flowered with gold lightly; a
fine effect. 1. ' The Descent,' of Titian : all the colours broken
— no strong ones, the three Maries make the principal light.—
Sacristy: 'Supper.' The woman that leans over the table
strong drapery, rough form : but her handk : (erchief) shadows
strong blue, lights quite white to harmonise with the tablecloth.
San Giovanni e. Paolo. (Larger book, folio 5 b.)
Observations on the ' Pietro Martire,' di Titiano.
The trees harmonise with the sky, that is, are lost in it some
F 2

68 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
place, at other places relieved smartly by means of white
clouds. The angels' hair, wings, and the dark parts of then-
shadows, being the same colour as the trees, harmonise — the
trees of a brown tint. The shadows of the white drapery the
colour of the light ground. The light the colour of the face
of the saint. The landscape dark. Trees opposed to campo
(i.e. expanse) of light ; behind that, dark trees ; behind that
again, blue scumbled mountains.
The drawing, in general, noble, particularly of the right leg
of him that flyes — His head, &c, the shadows of his eyes and
nostrils determined, and a beautiful shape.
Church of S. G-eorgio Maggiore. (Polio 7 a.)
By the great altar, two pictures of Tintoretto: one 'Last
Supper,' and the other ' The Manna.'
On the right hand, as you enter, ' The Nativity,' by Bassan.
The Child painted in the great style. It seems to be painted
first without shadows at all, and after the shadows are made
by washing lake, made very thin with oil. The colour of the
Child is lakey and oily.
In the Kefettorio is the famous ' Banquet,' by Paolo, repre
senting the Marriage of Cana in Galilee. Among the musicians,
the principal is Paolo himself, with a viola ; the second, with a
violonone, is Titian ; the third, with a violine, is Tintoret ; he
with the flute, Bassan Vecchio.
In the Kefettorio Vecchio, the famous ' Banquet ' of Paolo.
The master of the feast, in red, under the middle arch, looking
at the figure drawn from Vecellius. He on the left, using his
knife and fork, is the father which employed Paolo. A print.
(Larger note-book, folio 6, verso.) Observations on the
'Marriage of Cana,' by Paolo. — The principal light in the
middle Paolo himself,, dressed in white, and light yellow
stockings, and playing on a violino; the next is his brother
going to taste the liquor : he is dressed in white, but flowered
in various colours. The table-cloth, the end on the other side,
with the lady, makes a large mass of light. Almost all the
other figures seem to be in mezzotint ; here and there a little
brightness to hinder it from looking heavy, all the banisters are
mezzotint ; between some of them, on the right side, is seen the

1752, iETAT. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 69

light building to hinder the line of shadow, so as to make the
picture look half shadow and half light. The sky blue, with
white clouds. The tower in the middle, white as the clouds ;
and so all the distant architecture, which grows darker and
darker as it approaches the fore figures; between the dark
architecture in the foreground and the light behind, are placed
figures to join them, as it were, together.
St. Maria delta Salute.
The 'Descent of the Holy Ghost,' by Titian.
In the soffitto of the high altar, three fine pictures by Salviati.
The middle one the ' Manna in the Desert,' the other repre
sents the Angel which conducts Abaduch to help Daniel in
the den, the other the ' Angel giving succour to Elias ;'. prints
by Lovisa.
Around these are the Evangelists, in Tondo (i.e. circular
compartments), by Titian.
Three pictures by Luca Jordano, the ' Birth,' ' Presentation,'
and ' Assumption of the Virgin.'
In the Sagristy, the ' Marriage of Cana in Galilee,' by Tin
toretto : a print by Odoardo Fialotti, painter and disciple of
Tintoret. On each side is one of three pictures, which ought to make
but one : ' Saul throwing the lance at David,' by Salviati ; other
works of Salviati, as ' David with Goliah's head in triumph met
by young men playing on musical instruments.' Ditto.
The ' Supper of Christ.' Ditto.
' Samson and Jonas,' by Palma.
' Aaron and Giosue,' by Salviati.
'St. Mark,' and below, 'St. Sebastian, Eocko (St. Eoch),
Cosmo, and Damiano,' by Titian.
In soffito, three most admirable pictures of Titian, the ' Death
of Abel,' the ' Sacrifice of Abraham,' and 'David cutting off the
head of Goliah.' All three in print by Febre.
Scuola di S. G-irolamo, near St. Faustino.
Above stairs the altar, Virgin above and Angels below.
'St. Jerome looking up,' by Tintoret: a print by Agostino
Carracci.

70 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
In the sacristy, ' The Marriage of Cana in Galilee,' by Tinto
retto. One sees by this picture the great use Tintoretto made of his
pasteboard houses and wax figures for the distribution of his
masses. This picture has the most natural light and shadow
that can be imagined. All the light comes from the several
windows over the table. The woman, who stands and leans
forward to have a glass of liquor, is of great service : she
covers part of the table-cloth, so that there is not too much
white in the picture, and by means of her strong shadows
she throws back the table, and makes the perspective more
agreeable. But, that her figure might not appear hke a dark
inlaid figure on a light ground, her face is light, her hair
masses with the ground, and the light of her handkerchief is
whiter than the table-cloth. The shadows blue ultr. strong.
Shadows of the table-cloth, blueish; all the other colours of
the draperies are like those of a washed drawing. One sees
indeed a little lake drapery here and there, and one strong
yellow, he that receives the light. This picture has nothing of
mistiness : the floor is light, and oily grey ; the table-cloth in
comparison is blue; and the figures are relieved from it
strongly, by being dark ; but of no colour scarce. The figure
of the woman who pours out liquor, though her shadows are
very dark, her lights, particularly on the knee, are lighter than
the ground. All the women at the table make one mass of
light. The Last Supper, of him [Tintoretto] in S. Georgio, is managed
something in the same, only the Apostles are all on one side.
The light is behind them, and throws their shadows on the
table. Scuola di S. Marco.
(P. 70 MS. reversed.) Ob : Scola of St. Marco.
Obs. — Where S. Marco relieves one of his followers — the
hands of some of the figures fine. The buildings behind quite
light ; the shadows oily yellow scumbled on it. The upper part
of the sky dark, the lower white, to mass with the building.
Trees by the side pretty dark, to mass with the figures, which
are dark; but little lights here and there. The dead figure

1752, jetat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 71
principal light, being in the middle of this darkish mass.
Some of the draperies painted black and white, and then oil is
scumbled on it, has a rich effect. Hatchet, and other thing-
lying on the ground, are only scumbled, as it were, and
sometimes only outlines. A light pedestal and pillar, but
broke by a figure on the left ; behind them darker pillars ;
and then the distant light ones. Every here and there the
mezzotint mass enters into the light ground, by means of
white turbans strip'd, flesh, light reds, &c. No mistiness. The
light buildings at a distance have likewise some dark doors, so
as to mass with the foreground. The dark building! on the
left hand, the upper part lost in as dark a sky. The tyrant's
drapery on the other side the same.
Sometimes on a dark dead colour white scumbled, and the
ground left here and there for the partitions between stone,
bricks, &c. Flesh, the whole laid in soft and broad in the dead
colour, and then the shadows added by scumbling.
(At p. 69 of MS.) Observations. — That (of) the carrying
away the body of S. Marco, lightish ground — a group of
mezzotinto figure, a camel, &c, which indeed receive ;a light
on one side, but in the middle is the body, light, all soft
against the ground. The camel, oil. The body of the figure
recovering himself, fine. This light body issues out of a
mezzotint mass, which masses with the ground at the bottom,
which is dark; the ground to separate upper part of the
figure is light. In painting architecture, &c, after having
dead-coloured it blue, when you would have it shine, scumble
white and much oil. ,'
S. Zaccheria, not far from St. Mark.
In the sacristy, a most admirable picture, of Paolo Veronese,
' The Virgin and Bambino, with St. John Baptist,' on a
pedestal ; below SS. Jerome, Francis, and Catherine. A print
by Ant. Luciani, drawn by Tiepolo.
The V. (Virgin) and B. (Bambino) make one mass, St. John
another. The pedestal is light, and the fluted pillar. This
picture is painted in a very large manner ; large bold features,
and wonderfully well coloured. It looks very much as if it

72 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
were painted on a Jess priming (i.e. gesso — priming of gypsum),
and then smoothed with the finger. 'Tis the best preserved of
any picture I know of his. The flesh of an Indian red, purply.
A print, by Wagner.
A fine- picture, by Salviati, representing a ' Miracle of SS.
Cosmo and Damiano.' St. Maria Guibenicco.
Christ in the air, below, St. Giustina and Francesco di Paolo,
Tintoret ; over the door, ' Conversion of St. Paul,' Tintoret ; the
' Soffito,' and many others, by Palma.
II Pedemtore.
' Ascension of Christ,' Tintoretto ; and another by F. Bassan.
The Christ of the latter has a fine sweep.
' Christ carrying to the Sepulchre,' a fine picture by Palma.
' Scourging of Christ,' by Tintoret ; the ' Baptism of Christ,'
begun by Palma, finished by somebody else.
St. Anna, Monache.
A ' St. Francis,' by Guido ; the same as that in the Colonna,
and at Bologna in the Public Palace.
School of St. Pock, by Tintoret.
In the ground floor, ' The Annunciation.' A print of it by
Sadeler. The angel has just entered in at the window; a
whole troop of boy-angels are likewise just entered. 'The
Magi,' 'Flight.'
Near seventy pictures by Tintoret.
' The Salutation,' where a whole string of angels are rushing
in at the window. Fine effect.
' St. Agnes,' of Tintoretto, in Madonna del Orto. She in the
middle, in white. The lamb's head on the white. This mass
is surrounded by figures in dark colours, but on each side
towards the edges is a little light. A white cap or a shoulder
with a bit of linen ; and, that the bottom of the picture may
not be heavy, the legs of the figure lying are lightish. Two
women's heads and breasts over St. Agnes are light, to join
the architecture behind, which is light on a light sky. A

1752, iETAT. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 73
mass of dark architecture on one side near the eye. The
angels above are dressed only in sky blue; lights white, the
same as the sky, which is white and blue. On the ' Presenta
tion of the Virgin ' she is dressed in a dark colour on a light
ground; but her flesh, and some lights on the drapery,
harmonise. The ground she stands on harmonises with the
dark drapery ; as the upper part, being light, harmonises with
the light ground ! A General Pule. — Ven.
A figure or figures on a hght ground ; the upper "part should
be as Hght if not lighter than the ground, the lower part
dark, having lights here and there. The ground (properly)
dark. When the second mass of light is too great, interpose some
dark figure, to divide it in two.
A white drapery edged and striped, or flowered with blue,
as the bride in the ' Marriage of Cana,' or the Venus in the
Colonna, on a mellow oily ground. Goddiliers (so I read
it — (?) ' Cordeliers,' referring to some picture in a church of that
fraternity) are so.
Zuccarelli (sic) says Paolo and Tintoret painted on a gess
ground. He does not think Titian did. I am firmly of opinion
they all did.
A portrait — putting on a morning gown, one sleeve on only,
the figure of Paolo in the Library at Venice — the figure reheved
on one side only. If dark figures on a light ground, not relieved
quite all round.
Obs. — 'Venice on the Throne,' &c. Her face, &c, in
mezzotint shadow with reflections. The white petticoat with
gold flowers, and a piece of white ermine, make the white
mass against a light blue sky with flesh-colour clouds. The
figure under Peace (has) her upper garments very dark, the
under light being flesh-colour heightened with yellow. The
curtain soft against the ground. No strong shadows at all.
Justice rather darkish; hands, linen, and head, lighter than-
the ground. Some touches of the drapery ditto, hght on dark.
The hght drapery of Venice (is) darker towards the edges than
the ground.

74 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
A General Pule.
A light sky of angels, the light by means of clouds, &c, and
goes off by degrees ; but on one side a dark figure must come
smart against the light, to give the picture a spirit. Titian's
'Salutation.' If two figures, one overshadowed on a hght
ground, the other must be light on a dark ground.
Laky garments, the lake scumbled on the gess ground,
warm the lights, and if need be, glazed afterwards.
'Ascension of the Virgin,' in Giesu, by Tintoret. The
sepulchre white marble surrounded with dark figures, tints,
flesh, &c, little lights here and there, the Virgin above. A
dark mass on light ground, her head, hands, and some of the
angels, hght to mass with the ground.
S. Catarina.
' The Marriage of St. Katherine in her Church.'
A gay, light picture. The upper part of the figures, light
on a light ground ; pillar light, St. Catherine rather hght ; the
angel light under the light pillars. 'Tis not in his very best
taste of colouring. Pefettorio of St. Sebastian.
Obs. — ' The Woman washing Christ's Feet,' (by) Paolo (Vero
nese). The table-cloth, the principal light, divided by means
of dark figures into many compartments. The nearer pillars
oiled 'till they are yellow. Dogs painted, &c, on a gess ground.
The ' Purification.' Ditto, on the organ (in the Church of
S. Sebastian).
This principal light is a changeable piece of silk, flesh colour,
heightened with yellow ; a boy with a yellow drapery on his
breast comes on it. No other light but what the flesh makes,
and indeed a dog, which is inclinable to flesh colour. A square
pillar, light.
The principal light of the picture, where the two saints are
going down steps to be martyred, is the same colour on a
woman kneeling. This is a very good manner ; it makes the
principal (light) of the flesh. If the drapery was flesh colour,
like that in the ' Transfiguration,' it might be still better. The
buildings of this last picture are all white.

1752, 2etat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 75

Obs. — 'St. Sebastian before the Tyrant.' All dark figures
on a light ground (a pretty building), except him who holds a
horse : he is pink-colour, sleeves of the same tone as the ground ;
the sky originally was blue with white clouds ; the blue is now
turned black. The St. Sebastian a fine figure. The buildings
are only two tones, one lightish, the other a degree lower to
smart (i.e. give vivacity to) shadows.
Chiesa dell' TJmilta.
Pieta, with the three Maries, angels by Tintoret, large Car-
racesco. A print by Sadeler.
St. Peter and Paul ; admirable picture by Bassan, superior to
anything I ever saw of his ; more grace ; the background and
the whole enlightened, and the feet of the figure are seen.
The soffito is all painted by Paulo. ' The Assumption of the
Virgin,' with (Step?) the 'Adoration of the Shepherds,' with
the ' Annunziata.' Ornaments likewise by him.
Chiesa de' Frari.
On the right as you enter the great door, after you are past
the altar of the Crucifix, is the 'Presentation,' with many
saints ; below, an admirable picture of Salviati, as fine as Titian
or Paulo ; 'tis in their style.
The ' Martyrdom of St. Katherine,' by Palma.
The great altar, ' The Assumption of the Virgin,' by Titian.
Most terribly dark ; I saw it near ; 'tis nobly painted.
The Virgin, with Christ, on a pedestal, below St. Peter and
St. Francis directly under, and under him many portraits,
profile most, incomparably well painted, without shadow. On
the side (where) St. Peter is, lower is a warrior with a standard,
perhaps St. George. This picture is very dark, except the heads
of the portraits, and those are almost covered with pots of arti
ficial flowers and candles. A print by Fevre.
S. Agostino.
' Ecce Homo,' with Pilate and others, a good picture, by Paris
Bordone, in the style of Titian.
Chiesa di San Nicolo de' Frari.
High Altar — The Virgin with Angels above; below, St.

76 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
Nicholas, Catherine, Anthony of Padua, Francis, and St. Sebas
tian. 'Tis so dark that you see nothing but the body of the St.
Sebastian ; and he looks as if he had lost his head, 'tis so dark.
No doubt it was painted so a little at first, to preserve the mass
of his body [interlined] of a beautiful shape. S. Nicolo is said to
be from the head of Laocoon, which Titian much admired. A
print by Febre ; and another in wood by Titian himself, a httle
different from this picture.
On the right hand of this chapel is the ' Last Supper,' by
Benedetto Caliari, according to Boschini. Kidolfi says 'tis Paolo.
Under the ' Baptism of Christ,' and at a distance, the ' Tempta
tion,' by Paolo. The other side, the ' Eesurrection,' by Carlotto.
Eidolfi says Paulo. Under, ' Christ in Limbo,' by Palma. Two
Profets and two Sibils by Paulo. The 'Eesurrection,' and
' Christ before Pilate,' by Benedetto. Kidolfi says Paulo.
' Christ on the Cross,' Paulo.
Soffitto, all by Paolo. In the middle the 'Visit of the Wise
Kings,' St. Nicolas, St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, a print
by Lovisa. In the corners the four Evangelists : two of which,
Matthew and Luke, prints by Febre.
St. Maria Formosa.
The door of the church pretty architecture; an Altar, by
Palma Vecchio, divided into many compartments ; in the middle,
Sta. Barbara, a very good figure.
St. Francesco delta Vigna.
' The Virgin and Bambino,' with many saints below, as St.
Joseph, John, Catherine, and Ant. Abbate, by Paolo. A print
by Agostino Caracci.
In the sacristy, painted in oil on the wall, the colours scaled
off in several places, and otherwise much damaged, ' The Virgin
and Christ,' and two angels below playing on musical instru
ments. St. J. Baptist and Girolamo, by Paulo.
Opposite is a copy, in little, of the ' Supper,' of Paolo, where
the woman is drying Christ's feet, and a man offers a napkin.
The original is in France.

1752, 2etat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 77
Obs. ' The Panquet of Paolo,' a little Copy in the Sacristy at
S. Francesco delta Vigna.
The distant building, white on a blue sky, with white clouds.
The shadows of the buildings the same tone as the blue sky,
the lights the same as the white clouds. The figures, in strong
colours, encompass the two table-cloths ; that on the right side
(is) the principal, and is enlarged by some of the furthermost
figures at the table being clothed in white, and another in light
yellow. A man with a table-cloth, the white cloth hinders the
two table-cloths from appearing spots. The hne of the other
table is broke by a boy, which comes very soft upon it.
Another figure light towards the cloth, to make the light go
off by degrees. The near pillar light, a woman's head and
back light on it ; lower part, red darkish.
The ' Christ in the White Sheet,' in the School of St. Mark,
will serve extremely well for the apparition that comes to Brutus ;
the upper part may be kept in shadow, like those fryars at the
Church at San Gregorio. The Brutus, the man holding the
possessed child in the ' Transfiguration.'
Obs. on the ' Conviti ' di Paolo, in John and Paul.
The mass of light is the table-cloth in the middle, the Christ
with the figures on each side tender. The whole distant build
ing and sky light, as usual. The building on the foreground,
light and dark. Two pedestals on each side the table-cloth, a
little distant, light. The flesh of none of the figures lighter
than its ground ; at the most 'tis only the same tone, sometimes
darker. No broad hght, but this middle tablecloth, unless you
will except the two pedestals before mentioned.
Seola delta Carita.
Adam and Eve (after Tintoretto).
His back a mass of light, his thigh lost in the ground ; the
shadows in general of all the pictures are the colour of the
ground, sometimes a little greyer, sometimes warmer. The?
landscapes all mellow, except a little blue, distant hills and
sky ; black trees ; on others more yellow. The nearer hills are
painted slap-dash with white, and grey, and flesh tints. The
leaves of the trees ditto, then scumbled over with a mellow

78 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
colour. The shadow of Eve grey, a mellow colour scumbled
over, or oil.
' Cain and Abel.' The shadows of Abel a grey colour, without
white, scumbled. The shadows^painted last.
Old Man's Portrait. All the shadows, the marking of the
nose, the eyes, and mouth, entirely painted af (after) the flesh
was dry.
They ah appear to be painted on a gess priming, at least a
white one.
A very light figure on a light ground, with dark hair, &c,
and other little strengths, must have a fine effect.
' The Presentation,' by Titian.
Principal light (is) the profile woman in the middle. The old
woman underneath has nothing light but the linen on her head
and breast. The woman holding the child, light.
Santa Maria Mater Pomini.
The ' Finding the Cross,' by Tintoret. A print by Giuseppe
Maria Metelli ; commonly on red paper.
Saint Salvatore.
High Altar — The ' Transfiguration,' by Titian.
Christ in white, only, on the same-coloured ground, relieved
by his hair being black, and a shadow on thigh, which goes
off by degrees. The figures on each side enlightened.
The 'Salutation,' ditto. On it is writ, Titianus pinxit.
The angel a mass of light. The glory, dove, and angels, the
principal. The white of the angel seems to be painted grey,
and then run over with very yellow oily white in the lights.
On the Virgin, nothing hght, but head, breast, and hands.
Twtti li Santi.
The ' Salutation of Mary and Elizabeth,' by Cavalier Eidolfi.
An imitation of Paolo.
v A large ' Crucifixion,' by Pietro Vecchia.
An admirable picture ; the whole is well composed, and the
particularities are nobly painted, a large, broad manner. There
are heads in this picture equal to any masters whatsoever. Over
Christ on the cross is the Padre Eterno. An angel directs the

1752, 2etat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 79
good thief to Christ, whilst devils are very busy with the other.
A figure on a white horse, on the fore-ground, leans forward
and looks up with great expression. The horse's head light,
darker and darker towards his breast. A dark boy covers his
legs. A whole-length figure another mass of hght ; dark figures
about them; some have breeches and stockings all in one,
striped with red — slashes in sleeves.
S. Gervaso (S. Trovaso).
The 'Last Supper,' by Tintoret; fine picture. Prints by
Sadeler and Lovisa.
Opposite is N. S. (our Saviour) washing his disciples' feet,
dark manner. A print by Lovisa.
'St. Anthony tempted by the Devil and some handsome
Women; N. S. (our Saviour) descending to succour him.' A
good picture, by Tintoret. The upper part of the saint, the
same colour (as) the ground.* Christ descending comes dark on
the light ground ; his legs, &c, lost in the dark sky.
The Great Altar — A most pompous ' Slaughter of the Inno
cents.' A deal of merit, but the subject does not require so
much magnificence. In the sacristy a Madonna. Portrait, life,
in crayons, by Eosalva.
Near this church is ' Casa Toffetti,' painted in fresco by Tinto
ret, with friezes of boys and naked figures, admirably drawn and
coloured. Below, Aurora and Titan ; on the other side, ' Cybele
in a Car.' Prints of these two last by Lovisa. This is esteemed
the best fresco in Venice ; much decayed.
S. Maria Maggiore.
A large picture : a woman who is delivered in the sea. A
woman on horseback, a fine picture. A Boy with a Dog. I
have seen a drawing in England. Varottari.
Altar maggiore— An ' Assumption,' by Paolo.
The principal hght is very strong. A kneeling figure in the
middle of the picture, his back towards you— a white loose dra
pery on him.
On the sides are the ' Visit of the Wise Kings,' by Tintoret.
The two opposite by Domenico Tintoret.

80 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
The chapel, on the left, the fine ' St. John Baptist, by Titian.'
In perfect preservation, admirably drawn and coloured.
The flesh on a blue sky, with white clouds ; the breast forms
the principal mass of light ; the mass of the face separated by
a black beard ; the thigh, by the skin he holds in his hand ; the
legs of a low tint ; the right thigh quite lost ; shadow of drapery
ditto ; veins marked, but not blue, have the same effect as those
in the Laocoon. The whole finely drawn. The lamb another
mass; the white clouds, another; waterfall, another; scarce
anything seen but the white of the waterfall; three or four
trees; those behind the gess ground oiled, with touches of
shadow ; those before dotted dark : the back, the light gess.
Hung up in the church, a picture of Noah's Ark. The
4 Seasons, and others, by Bassan. ' Christ in the Garden,' httle,
by Paulo ; fine clair-oscure. An ' Ecce Homo,' by Paris Bor-
done. A ' Madonna,' on board, with cherubims and angels ; a
picture of much merit, by Giovanni Bellini.
(Chiesa di S.) PantaUone.
St. Pantaleone, that recovers a boy supported by a priest ;
and a portrait, by Paolo.
The soffitto of all the church is by (J. Ant.) Fumiani.
* St. (Bernardino) curing in a Hospital,' by Paolo (in bis old
age). ' St. Bernardino and Paolo,' ditto.
Scuola delta Carita, by the Salute.
Thirteen pictures by Tintoret.
' Padre Eterno creating the World.'
The 'Formation of Eve,' a fine picture. As is also 'Eve
tempting Adam,' and 'Cain and Abel:' all finely drawn, and
coloured, and composed. Prints by Lovisa.
The ' Coronation of the Madonna,' and the ' Trinity ' are not
by him.
Two fine portraits by Tintoret.
Giovanne Memosinario, di Rialto.
The altar- (piece), representing ' St. Gio. Elemosinario giving
Alms to the Poor,' is a fine picture of Titian,

1752, jstat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 81
Obs. — The white rochet shadow dark to mass with the ground,
the short cloak being dark, the upper part of the rochet is like
wise so, to mass with it. The left arm in shadow.
The Cupola is by Pordenone, but damaged so as scarce any
thing to be seen. S. Polo.
The ' Marriage of the Virgin ' (on the left), by Paolo.
The lower part of St. Joseph catches a little light, otherwise
they are both in a mezzotint on a light sky.
High Altar — The ' Conversion of St. Paul,' but half covered
by things before it, by Palma.
Four pictures on the sides of the altar, by Palma.
The chapel on the left, four pictures by Salviati, the history
of Christ.
' Assumption,' by Tintoretto, covered by a jointed baby.
On the left of the principal door, is the 'Last Supper,' of
Tintoret, where there is a figure leaning back, reaching bread
to a beggar, who lies along. Christ, with both hands, giving
bread to the Apostles. In the middle isle (aisle) the two
middle pictures above are very good ones of Cav. Bambini. On
one side the ' Conversion of St. Paul,' pn the other the ' Preach
ing at Athens.' There are many other good pictures dispersed
about it. S. Sebastiano.
Paolo's monument in this Church.
The soffitto is painted by Paolo, in three compartments, and
some long slips with boys and festoons of fruit. The first com
partment is Easter (Esther) in the presence of King Ahasuerus,
and Mordecai by : in the middle, the same queen : in the third,
the 'Triumph of Mordecai;' with subjects from the history of
Esther. The High Altar — the 'Virgin and Bambino,' above; below,
St. Sebastian, St. Catherine, John Baptist, Pietro, and St. Fran
cis ; and a Padre, a countryman of Paolo, and promoter of this
work, by Paolo.
A print by Alessandro della Via.
On each side (of the high altar) is a fine picture by Paolo,
on the right St. Mark and Marcelhano condemned, and going to
VOL. I. CI

82 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
suffer death. They are met by their father, who is sustained by
servants, who prays them to live. The mother follows in tears.
The wife (of Marcelliano) meets him with his httle Children ;
St. Sebastian, on their side, encourages them, showing them an
angel with the book of life. This is one of Paolo's best pictures.
On the other side is St. Sebastian about being (fastened) to a
piece of wood to be martyred with clubs. There are many
heathen priests about him, endeavouring (to persuade him) to
idolatry. A print by Metelli.
Over the pulpit, a small ' Holy Family,' by Paolo.
On the organ, outside, the ' Purification ;' a print by Febre.
Within, the 'Paralytic healed,' by ditto.
On the Pergolato (on the body of the organ)— The ' Nativity,'
ditto. In the Sacristy — Some of his first works, a ceiling, but indif
ferent; Moses, serpent, &c.
In the Coro — ' St. Sebastian before the Tyrant.' Fine, ditto.
Opposite, in fresco, his martyrdom ; no dogs ; fine ornaments,
columns, &c, about these. Isola Murano.
Pietro Martire.
The High Altar— A most capital picture of Salviati, the
' Descent from the Cross.' As well as I remember, the Christ
is a good deal the same as that (in St. Croce, I think it is) in
Florence. The Christ crosses the picture. The Virgin swoons,
and in as fine an attitude as was ever invented; the figures
around her are all fine.
Four pictures by Paolo, two on each side the door.
Purano.
St. Mauro Monache.
The High Altar— The Martyrdom of that Saint, by Paolo.
Torcello St. Antonio.
The right side of the church, looking towards the high altar,
is all painted by Paolo. The high altar, three saints sitting, by
ditto.

1752, ^etat. 29. HIS VENETIAN NOTES. 83
The organ is the best part of this work ; inside is a fine
'Salutation ;' on the outside, the 'Adoration of the Magi;' and
all the little ornaments in chiaroscuro are likewise of him.
St. Angelo.
On the right of the high altar, a Pieta, with St. John Evange
list, St. Jerom, two statues, a sepulchre in the middle. This
was began by Titian and finished by Palma. The statues are
entirely of Titian, and are very fine and mellow. The lightest
part is httle more than the colour of Jess (gesso).
S. Stefano.
The Cloister, by Pordenone, much decayed.
St. Cassiano.
Saints John Baptist, Jerom, Mark, Peter, and Paul ; the best
picture I ever saw of old Palma.
The organ, by Tintoret.
Capella Maggiore, all by Tintoret. The altar, ' Resurrection ;'
one side the ' Crucifixion ;' other, ' Limbo.'
In the Eefettorio, the 'Banquet of Simon Leproso.' This
is the second picture he made in Venice on this subject. The
woman washing Christ's feet, at the end of the picture, the right
side. 'Tis much decayed. A print, in two sheets, by Metelli.
Padri Gesuiti.
The ' Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo at Night,' by Titian.
'Tis so very dark a picture, that, at first casting my eyes
on it, I thought there was a black curtain before it. He painted
this same subject for Philip King of Spain, but somewhat dif
ferent from this : this (picture) having in the background archi
tecture, and figures, particularly one with a torch coming out
from between the pillars; the other has smoke clouds, and
two boys above. Of this latter is a print (by) Corn. Cort.
The ' Assumption of the Virgin,' by Tintoret. A print by
Lovisa. St. Frmagora, detto S. Marcuola.
The High Altar — On one side, the ' Last Supper,' by Tintoret.
Opposite, ' Washing the Feet,' ditto.
G 2

84 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. II.
Obs. on the 'Last Supper,' of Tintoret. — The table-cloth, as
usual, the principal light, but divided by a dark figure, so as to
make a secondary light ; then comes a dark figure which covers
entirely the end of the table. Then comes a figure in white
satin. At the other end of the table there is likewise another
light (on) one of the figures, in this manner (a sketch), and a
light figure on each end of the picture.
On the steps, a dog sitting on his tail, as begging.
Obs. on 'Washing the Feet.' — The ground and back white;
a dark colonnade, with banisters, runs across the picture.
Corpus Pomini.
'St. Domenico throwing the Book in the Fire.' A good
picture of Seb. Eicci. S. Marcilian.
In the sacristy is an admirable picture, by Titian, well pre
served, only too yellow, of ' Tobias and the Angel.' The heads
are remarkably fine. A print by Lovisa.
S. Fustacio.
The ' Flagellation of Christ,' by Giorgione.
[ Another picture joined to it of another hand.
St. Lucia ; the architect Palladio.
After so long an absence Eeynolds, no doubt, longed
to be at home again. Northcote tells us, as on Sir
Joshua's own authority, in illustration of his yearning
for England, that while at Yenice, being at the opera
with some other English gentlemen, a ballad was
played or sung which had been popular in London
when he was last there, and that it brought tears into
his eyes and the eyes of his companions.
[On the 1 6th of August he left Yenice, and the same
day arrived at Padua; on the 19th he slept at Torre
Confini ; on the 20th he passed Peschiera and Lago di
Garda, slept at Osteria del Papa, and on the 21st

1752, iETAT. 29.

HIS ADMIRATION OF HUDSON.

85

arrived at Brescia ; on the 22nd at Bergamo ; on the
23 rd at Milan ; and on the 27th he left Milan on his
journey home. No remarks on any of the pictures in
these places are to be found in his note-books. ]
Between Turin and the foot of the Alps he met his
old master Hudson, who, in company with Eoubiliac,
was hurrying to Eome merely to say he had been there.
Hudson travelled, indeed, so rapidly, that he met Eey
nolds again in Paris, and they returned to England
together. Eeynolds seems never to have entirely lost his early
admiration of Hudson ; and, indeed, the feeling of a
modest mind towards its first instructor is not to be
eradicated. We know with what respect Eaphael,
when commissioned by the Pope to cover the entire
walls of the Yatican with his works, treated those of
Perugino, a man with whose sordid nature his own
had nothing in common ; and we know, also, that
Hogarth always spoke in much higher terms than we
should confirm of Sir James Thornhill, notwithstanding
the harsh treatment he received from him when he did
Sir James the honour to marry his daughter.1
That Eeynolds and Hudson should have travelled
from Paris to London together, could scarcely have
been a matter of necessity; and we may, therefore,
suppose they found it agreeable to do so. Many years
later, when Eeynolds had built a house on Eichmond
Hill, and Hudson .occupied one on the opposite side of
the Thames, the latter made some remark on the cir-

1 The reader may perhaps smile at
finding Hogarth classed with modest
painters. But I am not inclined to

retract the classification, of which I
shall have something to say in a future
page. »

86

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. II.

cumstance, and Sir Joshua replied, " I never expected
that I should look down on you, Sir."
At Eome Eeynolds had taken under his care a young
Italian, Giuseppe Marchi, his first pupil. In his future
career Marchi did not succeed as a painter, but he
became a very good engraver. He was a man of sense
and integrity, of an excellent temper, and great sim
plicity of character.
On reaching Lyons, Eeynolds found his purse nearly
empty. He had only six louis left,1 two of which he
gave to Marchi with orders to proceed as he could and
meet him in Paris. When he had been eight days
there, Marchi joined him, having walked from Lyons.
Eeynolds saw everything most remarkable in Paris,
and found time also to paint portraits of Mr. Gauthier,2
and of Mrs. Chambers, whom he met there with her
husband, the distinguished architect, afterwards Sir
William Chambers. She was a beautiful woman, and
he made a beautiful picture of her. He painted her in
a straw hat shading the upper part of her face.
He did not form a high opinion of the existing state
of the French school. Watteau had been dead more
than thirty years, and all that was excellent in French
art, indeed in the art of the whole Continent, had died
with him.
He observed of French art, — " The French cannot
boast of above one painter3 of a truly just and correct

1 This was evidently only a tem
porary embarrassment. He had pro
bably no letter of credit ou Lyons,
and was unable to replenish his purse
till he reached Paris. Besides Rey
nolds's own Devonport savings, he had

been assisted with loans by his old
friend Mr. Craunch, and his sisters Mrs.
Palmer and Mrs. Johnson. — Ed.
2 Engraved in an oval. — Ed.
3 Le Sueur doubtless. — Ed.

1752, iETAT. 29. HIS OPINION OF FRENCH ART. 87
taste, free of any mixture of affectation or bombast, and
he was always proud to own from what models he had
formed his style — to wit, Eaffaelle and the Antique ;
but all the others of that nation seem to have taken
their ideas of grandeur from romances, instead of the
Eoman or Grecian histories. Thus their heroes are
decked out so nice and fine, that they look like knights-
errant just entering the lists at a tournament, in gilt
armour, and loaded most unmercifully with silk, satin,
velvet, gold, jewels, &c, and hold up their heads, and
carry themselves with an air like a petit-rnaitre with
his dancing-master at his elbow ;. thus corrupting the
true taste, and leading it astray from the pure, the
simple, and grand style, by a mock majesty and false
magnificence. Even the rude uncultivated manner of
Caravaggio is still a better extreme than those affected
turns of the head, fluttering draperies, contrasts of
attitude, and distortions of passion."
These remarks are just as true of French sculpture :
Eoubiliac, who was a thoroughly honest man, told
Eeynolds, that when he went to look at his own works
in Westminster Abbey, on his return from Eome, " By
God ! my own work looked to me meagre and starved,
as if made of nothing but tobacco-pipes."
After spending a month in Paris, Eeynolds arrived
in London October 16, 1752.

CHAPTEE III.
1753—1764. ^Etat. 30—41.
The health of Reynolds impaired — He spends three months in Devonshire
— Dr. John Mudge — -Return of Reynolds to London — Takes apart
ments in St. Martin's Lane — The first drawing academy after Sir J.
Thornhill's — His sister Frances — Her character — Sketch of the times
— Reynolds paints a portrait of Marchi — Hudson's observation on it —
Portrait painters of the time — He removes to Newport Street — His
prices — His great industry — Lord Edgcumbe obtains much employment
for Reynolds — His whole-length of Keppel — Liotard — Mason's descrip
tion of Reynolds's mode of painting — The author's remarks on his drawing
and colouring, and on his use of nostrums — Account by Reynolds of
his own practice — He becomes acquainted with Johnson — Introduction of
Roubiliac to Johnson — Johnson's fondness for tea and Miss Reynolds —
Public events from 1754 to 1760 — His circle in 1755 — Negotiations
with the Dilettanti for the establishment of an Academy of Arts — His
practice in 1755 — Sitters for 1755 — (1756) : First portrait of Johnson —
Portrait of young Mudge — Events of 1756 and 1757 — Byng's execu-
¦ tion — Popularity of Italian and neglect of English art by patrons —
Sitters for 1757 — Increasing practice — His visiting list — Events and
engagements in 1758 — Sitters for 1758 — The Duke of Richmond's
statue gallery opened for the use of art students — Reynolds paints the
Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. — He paints Kitty Fisher —
Portraits of Woodward, Barry, and Garrick — Of Horace Walpole —
Contributions to the Idler — Entries in pocket-book for 1759 —
Mason's account of Reynolds painting his Venus — Sitters for 1759
— Exhibition of pictures at the Foundling Hospital — First Exhibition
in the Strand, 1760 — Reynolds removes to Leicester Square — His
carriage — Events of the year — Accession of George III. — Sitters for
1760 — Portraits of Lord Ligonier and of Sterne — The coronation
and marriage of the King, and its beauties painted by Reynolds
— Literary acquaintances ; Goldsmith, M'Pherson — Entries in the
pocket-book for 1761 — Sitters for 1761 — Exhibition of 1762 — His
portraits of Lady Elizabeth Keppel, and of Garrick between Tragedy
and Comedy — Capture of the Havannah — The glories of the Keppels —
Reynolds's dining-houses at this time — Ramsay appointed Court painter —
The King of the Cherokees — Reynolds visits Devonshire in company with
Johnson — Northcote, for the first time, sees Reynolds — 1763 : Boswell's
introduction to Johnson — Portrait of Lord Bute — Wilkes's committal to
the Tower — Fire at Lady Molcsworth's — Exhibition of the year —
1764 : Political agitations of the time — Reynolds's studio a neutral ground

1753, .2ETAT. 30.

HIS HEALTH IMPAIRED.

89

— Exhibition of 1764 — The Literary Club established — Reynolds dan
gerously ill — Johnson writes to him — Visit to Blenheim — Death of
Hogarth — Entries in the pocket-book for 1764 — Sitters of the year.
The time spent by Eeynolds abroad was no doubt
passed in much enjoyment. He had, however, his
anxieties for the future, of which a portion of his
Florence journal has given us a glimpse, and he had
no doubt worked hard. Northcote tells us that, on
his return, " he found his health in such an indifferent
state as to judge it prudent to pay a visit to his native
air ;" but this he would naturally do, whether well or
ill. He remained three months in Devonshire ; and
while at Plymouth painted' a portrait of Dr. John
Mudge,1 an eminent physician ; a man of great
abilities, and not more esteemed for- the variety of his
knowledge than loved for his amiable manners. He
was a son of the Bev. Zachariah Mudge, Prebendary
of Exeter, to whose eloquence, learning, and virtues,
we have the testimony of Johnson and Burke. He told
Burke that he owed to Zachariah Mudge his first
disposition to generalize and to view things in the
abstract. His price for a head was at this time but five guineas,
and the portrait of Dr. Mudge, and one of a young

1 This portrait is now at the resi
dence of Mr. Mudge, at Buckland, not
far from Plympton. It represents.
Dr. Mudge almost in profile, he wears
a reading cap, and is turning over the
leaves of a folio. The head is a very
noble one, with marked and regular
leatures. But owing, I have no doubt,
to an injudicious removal of the var
nish which locked up the glazing

colours, the carnations have utterly
disappeared, leaving the head as
modelled in the first stage of painting
in little more than tones of black and
white. Both the doctor's portrait —
still in possession of the family — and
two of his father, have been engraved ;
the former by Grozier, Dickenson, and
S. W. Reynolds, the latter by Watson.
—Ed.

90 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap: III.

lady, were all that he undertook while at Plymouth,
being strongly urged by Lord Edgcumbe to establish
himself as soon as possible in the metropolis. In com
pliance with this advice he returned to London, and
took handsome apartments in St. Martin's Lane, at
that time the fashionable residence of artists. Here
he was joined by his youngest sister, Frances, who
took charge of his household.
[The house was No. 104, 'and had been successively
occupied by Thornhill, Yan Nost the sculptor, and
the friend of Hogarth, Hayman, now painting his
torical pictures and portraits in London. " Just behind
the house," says Smith, " upon the site of the present
meeting-house for Friends, vulgarly called Quakers, in
St. Peter's-court, stood the first studio of Eoubiliac.
There, among other works, he executed that famous
statue of Handel for Yauxhall Gardens. Upon his
leaving this studio it was fitted up as a drawing-
academy, supported by a subscription raised by numer
ous artists, Mr. Michael Moser being unanimously
chosen as their keeper. Hogarth was much against
this establishment, though he presented to it several
casts and other articles which had been the property
of his father-in-law Sir James Thornhill. He declared
that it was the surest way to bring artists to beggary,
by rendering their education so easy as one guinea
and a half and two guineas per quarter ; since it
would induce hundreds of foolish parents to send
their boys to keep them out of the streets, whether
the y had talent or not. However, the school com
menced. Eeynolds, Mortimer, M-'Ardell, Nollekens,
Spang, Taylor, so frequently mentioned in this work,

1753, jetat. 30. CHARACTER OF MISS REYNOLDS. 91
and my father, with numerous others, became mem
bers."] J
Frances Eeynolds, though she lived with her brother
many years, was certainly not his favourite sister.
Madame d'Arblay, who became acquainted with her
at a much later period, may enable us to understand
why. She describes Miss Eeynolds as " a woman of
worth and understanding, but of a singular character ;
who, unfortunately for herself, made, throughout life,
the great mistake of nourishing a singularity which
was her bane, as if it had been her greatest blessing
 It was that of living in an habitual perplexity
of mind, and irresolution of conduct, which to herself
was restlessly tormenting, and to all around her was
teasingly wearisome.
" Whatever she suggested or planned one day, was
reversed the next ; though resorted to on the third, as
if merely to be again rejected on the fourth ; and so on
almost endlessly ; for she rang not the changes on her
opinions and designs in order to bring them into har
mony and practice, but wavering to stir up new com
binations and difficulties ; till she found herself in the
midst of such chaotic obstructions as could chime in
with no given purpose, but must needs be left to ring
their own peal, and to begin again just where they
began at first."
This lady painted miniatures, and copied her brother's
pictures. Of these 'copies he said, " They make other
people laugh, and me cry." 2
1 Life of Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 230. I that the brother and sister were evi-
2 It' may be as well to say here | dently unsui ted to each other. Madame

92

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

[A few words may be given to the state of England
and the capital at the moment of Eeynolds's return.

d'Arblay's character of Miss R. enables
us to see clearly enough how antago
nistic she must have been to her placid,
even-tempered brother, whose leading
principle of life was to overlook petty
annoyances, and never to worry him
self about anything in which regret
was unavailing and remedy out of the
question. Miss Reynolds, after pre
siding over her brother's house for
many years, left it, and, after trying
Devonshire, which she seems to have
found intolerable, with her experience
of London and the society of her
brother's circle, and Paris, where she
was in the autumn of 1768, finally
established herself as a lodger in the
house of Dr. Hoole, the translator
of ' Ariosto,' whoso portrait, prefixed
to the first edition of his transla
tion, she painted. She seems from
her letters, and from verses and
passages in a commonplace book of
hers in possession of Miss Gwatkin,
to have suffered from an unrequited
attachment, and to have considered
herself hardly used by her brother.
Thus I find her lamenting the stag
nation of her powers in the country.
" I am incapable of painting ; my
faculties are all becalmed in the
dead region of Torrington. I want
some grateful gale of praise to push
my bark to sea, some incentive to
emulation to awake my slumbering
powers. I thank my God who put
it in my head to acquire this de
lightful art, and in a manner called
my light out of darkness, for necessity
struck the hot spark, that as the world
recedes I may have something to fill
up the vacancies in my heart made
by ungrateful returns to the most
unfeigned fraternal love and purest
friendship." Again, in a rough draft

of one of her letters, without date or
address, we may read the perplexed,
self-tormenting, and painfully consci
entious character, which perfectly bears
out what Madame d'Arblay says of
the writer : — "As the mind must
have some pursuit, and I unhappily
have none that is so satisfactory, or
that appears to me so praiseworthy,
as painting, and having been thrown
out of the path nature had in a
peculiar manner fitted me for," — poor
woman ! she means that of ministering
to her brother, — ¦" and as it is natural
to endeavour to excel in something, I
confess I can't help pleasing myself
with the hope that I might arrive at a
tolerable degree of perfection in these
little pictures [fancy subjects of chil
dren and landscapes], could I refresh
imagination and improve my ideas by
the sight of pictures of that sort, and
by the judgment of connoisseurs. But
I must beg you to believe that nothing
but the greatest necessity should
prompt me to make any advantage
of them in a manner unsuitable to the
character of a gentlewoman, both for
my own sake, as well as for my
brother's." She then adverts to the
income allowed her by her brother, as
sufficient to keep her within the sphere
of gentility, " without pecuniary
schemes to raise it higher." She con
cludes, " The height of my desire is
to be able to spend a few months in
the year near the arts and sciences,
but if you think that it will rather
bring my character in question, for
my brother to be in London, and I
not at his house, I will content myself
with residing at Windsor. It would
give me the sincerest satisfaction to
have his opinions and advice in this,
as well as in every action of my life ;

1753, 2ETAT. 30.

SKETCH OF THE TIMES.

It is true that the painter's connection with the public
life of his time is indirect. We only catch glimpses
of the outer world as it is given back to us from the
looking-glass of his painting-room. But the yearly
list of Sir Joshua's sitters, from 1753 to 1789, supplies,
to those who can read it aright, at once a running
commentary and an index to the history of the period .
The leading actors in the dramas of politics, fashion,
and literature saunter into the fashionable studio, sit
down, rest themselves, chat over the incidents of the
performance, the look of the house, the gossip of the
green-room, and, before they quit the place, have left
their faces reflected for all time in the faithful mirror
of Sir Joshua's canvas.
So numerous are these visitors that it is hardly
possible in the limits of this Life even, to record their
names. To label them, — to give the distinctive anec
dote, or incident, or point of celebrity to each, — would
of itself require another volume as large as this.
We have no lists of sitters for 1753-4. But the
loss is the less to be regretted, since the time was a
singularly dull one. There was, as Horace Walpole
writes in 1753, — " no war, no politics, no parties, no
madness, and no scandal. In the memory of England
there never was so inanimate an age : it is more
fashionable to go to church than to either House of
Parliament. Even the era of the Gunnings is over :
both sisters have lain in, and have scarce made one

hut he is so much engaged in busi
ness, that I fear I should receive no
answer. However, I should not think

it right to draw so near to him as
Windsor, without first acquainting
him of it."— Ed.

94 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.

paragraph in the newspapers, though their names
were grown so renowned that in Ireland the beggar-
women bless you with, ' The luck of the Gunnings
attend you ! ' " In fact, no public event of the time
filled half as much space in the mouth, eye, and ear
of London as those lovely Irish sisters who had been
married at the beginning of 1752, the younger to the
Duke of Hamilton, " hot, debauched, extravagant, and
equally damaged in his fortune and his person ;" and
the elder to Lord Coventry, " a grave young lord, of
the remains of the patriot breed," as Walpole describes
him, who seems to have been a pedant, but passionately
attached to his beautiful young wife. Lady Coventry
died in 1759, and had the seeds of death in her when
she married. Eeynolds painted them both, in the year
in which the elder and lovelier sister died of consump
tion. Walpole is our great authority for the strange
furore excited by their surpassing loveliness. He tells
us how even the noble mob in the drawing-room clam
bered upon chairs and tables to look at them; how
their doors were mobbed by crowds eager to see them
get into their chairs, and places taken early at the
theatres when they were expected ; how seven hundred .
people sat up all night, in and about a Yorkshire inn,
to see the Duchess of Hamilton get into her post-chaise
in the morning; while a Worcester shoemaker made
money by showing the shoe he was making for the
Countess of Coventry.
These reigning beauties had a rival in Lady Caroline
Petersham, who, with the Yiscountess Townshend and
the Duchess of Devonshire, kept the town in talk;

1753, 2etat. 30. «6KETCH OF THE TIMES. 95
the first by her beauty and oddity; the second by
her cleverness ; and the third by her meanness and
vulgarity. The manners of the town at that time are best
reflected in the letters of Walpole and in the pictures
of Hogarth. They were coarse, rollicking, hearty
times, with strongly-marked demarcations of classes;
times of great relish for material pleasures, eating,
drinking, talking, and merry-making at clubs, taverns,
and tea-gardens.
Faro and hazard flourished at White's and the other
fashionable clubs in St. James's street and Pall-Mail.
George Selwyn was the reigning wit, and Lord March,
Sir George Bland, and Lord Mountford the boldest
punters. The grand tour was still a part of every gentle
man's education ; a varnish of connoisseurship was thus
acquired by the few, and it was thought an absolute
canon of good taste to profess the most sovereign con
tempt for native art. The pretentiousness and utter
hollowness of this connoisseurship was of course intole
rable to such a genuine man as Hogarth ; and Eeynolds,
in his heart, must have laughed at it, though he " shifted
his trumpet," and " only took snuff " instead of doing
fierce battle with the connoisseurs, like his more pugna
cious contemporary. He painted down the sneerers,
instead of writing and talking at them. The Dilettanti
Society included the best of the connoisseurs, and their
Sunday dinners were a favourite resort of Eeynolds,
after he became a member of the Society, in 1767.
Murders and crimes abounded, and the law still
resorted to the gallows as the great means of repression.

96 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
Highwaymen infested our roads, and cried " Stand and
deliver ! " even in the streets of London. Seventeen
wretches were turned off in a morning at Newgate,
where gaol-fever decimated prisoners and counsel. Miss
Jefferies, murderess of the uncle who had debauched
her, and Miss Blandy, poisoner of the father whose dying
efforts were all to save the life of his destroyer, were
almost as great nine-days' wonders as the Gunnings.
Politics this year, as a witty woman of the time said,
took rank after the two young ladies who were married,
and the two young ladies who were hanged. Henry
Pelham, and his brother the Duke of Newcastle, still
retained, as Ministers, that absolute empire which the
Government owed mainly to its successful suppression
of the Jacobite attempt of the '45, and to Hawke's
naval successes. The power of the Pelhams had been
consolidated by the withdrawal of the Bedford section
of the ministry in 1751. The 4 per cents, had been
reduced in 1750. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, con
cluded in 1748, inglorious as it was, was not yet
unpopular. Pitt and Fox were both muzzled by office.
The death of the Prince of Wales, in March, 1751, had
greatly checked the hopes and intrigues of the Oppo
sition, which had made its head-quarters in Leicester
House. The only stir on the languid surface of public
affairs was in Ireland, where the Duke of Dorset, as
Lord Lieutenant, was at loggerheads with the Irish
Parliament ; x and at Kew, where a struggle was going
on between the contending elements of Jacobitism and
Whiggery, in the persons of the governors and tutors

Walpole to Maun, May 13, 1752.

1753, iETAT. 30. CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH PAINTERS. 97
of the young Prince of Wales, afterwards George III.,
now eleven years 'old. That struggle ended in the
resignation of Lord Harcourt, and the substitution of
Lord Waldegrave as chief governor.
The field of arts and letters was as dull as that of
politics. Hogarth had touched his highest point of art
some years before. He now rarely worked at portraits.
He had lately attempted the " grand style " in his
' Paul before Felix,' and was on the eve of publishing
his ' Analysis of Beauty.' Of all his great satirical
pictures only the Election series dates after this year.
Eamsay, it is probable, was still in Scotland. Hudson
was the fashionable face-painter. Cotes came nearest
to him. Wilson, if employed at all, had now given up
portrait-painting for landscape. He had probably left
Eome at about the same period as Eeynolds. Such
artists as Ellis, Hayman, Highmore, and Pine scarcely
deserve mention. They are mere shadows of names
to us ; all memory of their works has perished. Astley,
who had been one of Eeynolds's fellow-students at
Eome, a clever, conceited, out-at-elbows, and reckless
fellow, came to London this year, and by his first per
formances greatly delighted Walpole, for whom he had
painted, while at Florence with Eeynolds, a portrait of
Walpole's friend and correspondent, Mr. Horace Mann,
then our Minister at that capital ; but marriage with
a rich wife1 soon removed him from the practice of
the art.

1 Lady Duckenfield Daniel, who
fell in love with the flashy, handsome
young painter at the Knutsford As-

while painting his way up to London
from Dublin, where he had made a
large sum in three years of portrait

semhly, at which Astley was figuring, . painting, on his return from Italy.
VOL. I. H

98

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

All these portrait-painters were following a dull
routine at the heels of Hudson. Even the elder
Eichardson, with all his fire and jDassion as a writer on
art, had not lifted the portrait-painter's practice out of
the dead level, from which people looked up to Sir
Godfrey Kneller as a great painter. Everybody who
is conversant with English country houses knows
Hudson's style — his inanimate, wooden men, in velvet
and embroidery, and periwig or bob, one hand on the
hip, the other in the waistcoat; the ladies almost as
unvarying, generally half-lengths, in white satin, with
coloured bows and breast-knots, or in flounced brocades,
with deep lace ruffles. Hudson painted solidly and
simply, however, and his men and women, if tame, are
correctly drawn.1 Good examples of Eichardson's work
may be seen in the hall of Trinity College, Cambridge.
It, too, is tame ; and both he and Hudson were utterly
devoid of that life which Eeynolds gave to portraiture
by availing himself of all such accidents of light, pose,
and gesture, as helped out character and gave indivi
duality to his work. It is this which, with his intense

He married in 1760, hut his wife, and
her only daughter by Sir William
Daniel, dying soon after, Astley in
herited a Cheshire estate and 5000Z.
a year. He purchased Schomberg
House, Pail-Mall, and occupied the
centre compartment himself. He was
a gasconading spendthrift, and a beau
of the flashiest order. When the
Dublin ladies sat to him, he is said,
by way of flourish, to have used his
unsheathed sword as a maulstick.
The story of his unguardedly taking
off his coat at a picnic near Rome,
and displaying a waistcoat-back made
up of one of his own canvases, with a

magnificent waterfall, has often been
reprinted. Sir Joshua Reynolds might
have been of the party. — Ed.
1 The best works of Hudson's I
have seen are a portrait of Lady Mary
Coke, in the Bute collection, a not
unworthy version of its beautiful sub
ject ; a portrait of J Charles Duke of
Marlborough at Blenheim ; and a ,
vigorous full-length of one of the
Parker family at Saltram, a lady
with a feather in her hand. He was
certainly a good mechanical painter,
but had not a spark of genius, fire, or
invention. — Ed.

1753, 2etat. 30. HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES. 99
sentiment of grace, and his fine feeling for colour,
crowns him — probably for all time — king of English
portrait-painters, and certainly the founder of a new
dynasty. Eoubiliac was the great sculptor of the day. His
monument of John Duke of Argyle was already erected.
His Newton, at Cambridge, had not yet set the crown
upon his fame. After him came Wilton, Scheemakers,
and Eysbrack.
Garrick was in the zenith of his immense popularity.
Burke was at the Middle Temple, nominally reading
for the bar, but already contributing to the newspapers
and periodicals of the day, and casting about for settled
employment ; at one moment meditating emigration,
at another entering the lists for a consulship at Madrid.
Goldsmith, in disgrace at home, was leaving his uncle
Contarine's, to study medicine at Edinburgh. Johnson
was drowning his grief for the death of his wife in hard
labour on his Dictionary, and putting the finishing touch
to the ' Eambler,' of which the last paper appeared in
the March of this year. Eichardson was on the pinnacle
of his fame : ' Clarissa Harlowe ' had been finished for
two years ; and ' Sir Charles Grandison ' was on the eve
of publication. Fielding had produced his 'Amelia'
the year before, and was now beginning to sink under
the complication of ailments which carried him off in
1754. Smollett was resting his pen after the publica
tion of ' Peregrine Pickle,' and trying, without success,
the experiment of a return to practice. Gray was en
joying the reputation of his 'Elegy,' published in 1749,
and on the point of breaking into what Walpole called
his " three years of flower." H 2

100

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Such were the salient features of the London world
of politics, fashion, arts, and letters when Eeynolds
appeared on the scene.]
The first picture Eeynolds painted, after his establish
ment in London, was a head of Marchi in a turban.1
Hudson, on seeing it, said, " Eeynolds, you do not paint
so well as you did before you went to Italy." For
this Hudson has been accused of jealousy. The world
is prone to attribute every uncomplimentary remark
of an artist on a contemporary (and sometimes even his
compliments), to that passion. What Hudson said
was, at any rate, not expressed behind the back of his
former pupil, of whose previous practice, if Hudson
was right, it was great praise.
Eeynolds found, as Constable did on coming to
London, that " there was room enough for a natural
painter." He thus described the portrait-painters of
the time : — " They have got a set of postures which
they apply to all persons indiscriminately : the conse
quence of which is that all their pictures look like so
many sign-post paintings ; and if they have a history
or family piece to paint, the first thing they do is to
look over their commonplace book, containing sketches
which they have stolen from various pictures;2 then
they search their prints over, and pilfer one figure from
one print and another from a second ; but never take
the trouble to think for themselves." Hogarth, to

1 This head belongs to the Royal
Academy. The Earl of Leven has a
duplicate. 2 Sir Joshua himself, it is well
known, freely resorted to this practice.
I have already noticed the sketches in

one of his Italian note-books which
have suggested his charming pictures
of Mrs. Crewe as a shepherdess, and of
Mrs. Sheridan as Saint Cecilia, to say
nothing of other instances mentioned
by Leslie. — Ed.

1753, iETAT. 30.

REMOVES TO NEWPORT STREET.

101

whom these remarks could never apply, had long ago
relinquished portraiture for the subjects he Was born
to paint.
The reputation of Kneller was then higher in Eng
land than that of Yandyke ; and the wide departure of
Eeynolds from the style of Sir Godfrey could not but
meet with opposition. Ellis, a portrait-painter, eminent
at that time, said " Ah ! Eeynolds, this will never
answer. Why, you don't paint, in the least like
Kneller." The innovator attempted to defend himself;
but Ellis would not stay to hear him, and exclaiming
" Shakespear in poetry, and Kneller in painting,
damme ! " walked out of the room.
Eeynolds soon, however, triumphed over all rivals.
Among the portraits he painted shortly after his
return to London were those of Sir James Colebrooke,1
Sir George Colebrooke, their wives, Lord Godolphin,
and Lady Anna Dawson (Lord Pomfret's sister) as
Diana. From St. Martin's Lane he removed to No. 5, Great
Newport Street, where he commenced housekeeping,
and raised his prices to a level with Hudson's. These
prices were, for a head twelve2 guineas, for a half-
length twenty-four, and for a whole-length forty-eight.
A few years afterwards they both raised them to fifteen,
thirty, and sixty guineas; by which it would appear

1 Then Mr. Colebrooke. It appears
from the pocket-books that this was in
October, 1755. George Colebrooke was
painted in November, 1759, and his
wife in February, 1761. She appears
in the picture as a very lovely woman,
of an elevated and contemplative cast
of countenance — " with looks com

muning with the skies." The Cole
brooke pictures are now, or were lately,
in the possession of Lady Littler, at
Bigadon, Devon. — Ed.
2 While at Devonport, before his
visit to Italy, his price had been three
guineas a head. — Ed.

102

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

that Hudson's business was not destroyed even by the
immensely superior powers of his pupil.
The industry of Eeynolds was extraordinary, and
his success rapid, and long unchecked by the caprices
of fashion. He received, says Farington, five, six, or
seven sitters daily, and some of these as early as six or
seven o'clock in the morning. [This is an exaggeration.
The entries in his pocket-books (the series of which
begins in 1755) give in 1755 and 1760 about 120 sitters ;
in 1759, 148 ; and in 1758 as many as 150 ; the greatest
number in any one year ; but very few appointments
are for ah earlier hour than nine o'clock.1] His niece,
Mrs. Gwatkin, told Haydon that he often took a walk
round the Park before breakfast.
Among the pictures he painted in Newport Street, a
whole-length of the Duchess of Hamilton (formerly the
beautiful Miss E. Gunning),2 and a smaller picture of
her sister, the Countess of Coventry, are mentioned by
Farington, who says, " He also began a portrait of
Charles Duke of Marlborough, but the head only was
finished when the Duke was ordered to join the army
in Germany, whence he never returned."
He now employed an assistant, Peter Toms,3 an

1 There is one with Garrick, in
1761, at eight, and another in 1766,
at half-past eight ; and others with
other sitters at nine, but the usual
hour is ten or eleven. — Ed.
2 Her portrait was painted in 1759,
and exhibited in 1760. He painted
her again in 1764, and again in a red
habit and hat, on horseback, with the
Duke standing near her, in a fine pic
ture now at Hadzor, near Droitwich.
Lord Coventry's name occurs in the

pocket-book for 1760, and the Coun
tess's in that for 1759 (January). —
Ed.
3 Toms had been a pupil of Hud
son, and worked as " drapery man,"
not only for Reynolds, but for Cotes
and West. Edwards mentions, among
whole-lengths of Sir Joshua's to which
Toms had painted the draperies, the
Woburn whole-length of the March
ioness of Tavistock, when Lady Eliza
beth Keppel, in her dress as one of

1753, 2ETAT. 30.

HIS GREAT INDUSTRY.

103

artist of much ability, in addition to Marchi ; and about
the same time he received Thomas Beach and Hugh
Barron J as pupils. Yet he did not in the least become,
like Hudson, a manufacturer of portraits.
" The evident desire which he had," wrote North
cote, " to render his pictures perfect to the utmost of
his ability, and in each succeeding instance to surpass
the former, occasioned his frequently making them
inferior to what they had been in the course of the
process ; and when it was observed to him, ' that
probably he had never sent out to the world any one
of his paintings in as perfect a state as it had been,'
he answered, ' that he believed the remark was very
just; but that, notwithstanding, he certainly gained
ground by it on the whole, and improved himself by
the experiment ;' adding, 'if you are not bold enough
to run the risk of losing, you can never hope to gain.'
" With the same wish of advancing himself in the

Queen Charlotte's bridesmaids. For
this Toms only received, says Edwards,
twelve guineas. The drapery and ac
cessories are certainly very finely
painted. Toms fell into drink, and
died by his own hand in 1776. He
was one of the original members of
the Royal Academy, and Port-Cullis
Pursuivant in the Heralds' College. —
Ed. 1 Of all Sir Joshua's pupils North
cote was the only one who ever attained
any distinction. Yet Barron had con
siderable success at Rome, as we learn
from a letter written thence by Bankes,
the sculptor, in July, 1773 : — " Little
Wickstead has had most of the por
traits to paint last season, owing to
the endeavours of Messrs. Norton and
Byres to carry every gentleman they ,

could get hold of to see him; but
Barron, arriving here the beginning of
the season, and having great merit in
the portrait way, and a good corre
spondence with the gentlemen, got so
many portraits to paint as proved no
small mortification to the aforesaid
gentleman, as well as his helpers. Bar
ron is a young man of very con
spicuous merit ; has the most of Sir
Joshua's fine manner of any of his
pupils ; and it is beyond a doubt that
when he returns to England he will
cut a great figure in his way." After
spending five years in Rome, Barron set
up in London, where he died in 1791.
He was considered the best amateur
violinist of his time, but was a feeble
painter. — Ed.

104 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
art," continues Northcote, " I have heard him say that
whenever a new sitter came to him for a portrait, he
always began it with a full determination to make it
the best picture he had ever painted ; neither would
he allow it to be an excuse for his failure to say ' the
subject was a bad one for a picture ;' there was always
nature, he would observe, which, if well treated, was
fully sufficient for the purpose."
His early friend, Lord Edgcumbe, we are told by
Mason, " persuaded many of the first nobility to sit to
him for their pictures ; and he very judiciously applied
to such of them as had the strongest features, and
whose likeness, therefore, it was the easiest to hit.
Most of them also had, but a little time before, sat to
Yanloo, a Dutchman, who, while he remained in Eng
land, was in high • fashion, though a dirty colourist,
and whose only merit was that of taking a true but tame
resemblance of features. Amongst those personages
were the old Dukes of Devonshire l and Grafton ;2 and
of these the young artist made portraits, not only
expressive of their countenances, but of their figures,
and this in a manner so novel, simple, and natural, yet
withal so dignified, as procured him general applause,
and set him in a moment above his old master,
Hudson, and that master's rival, Yanloo. But the
portrait which tended most to establish his reputation
was a whole-length of Captain Keppel (afterwards Ad
miral) on a sandy beach, the background a tempestuous
sea. A figure so animated, so well drawn, and all
its accompaniments so perfectly in unison with it,
1 Engraved in 1755. — Ed.
2 Npw in the picture-gallery at Oxford. — Ed.

ADMIRAL KEPPEL.
(The first picture of him p;nnieH by Sir Joshua

1753, «tat. 30.

HIS WHOLE-LENGTH OF KEPPEL.

105

I believe never was produced before by an English
pencil." J
In the conception of this fine picture he availed
himself of an event that had occurred before the com
mencement of his acquaintance with the Commodore.
Keppel, when but twenty-one years of age, had been
appointed to the command of the Maidstone, a fifty-
gun ship,2 and in the following year was wrecked in
her on the coast of France, while in the pursuit of a
large French vessel. By great exertion he saved most
of his crew; and, on his return to England, was
honourably acquitted of all blame by the unanimous
resolution of a court-martial, that " the loss of his
Majesty's ship Maidstone was in no manner owing to
Captain Keppel or any of his officers, but to the thick
ness of the weather at the time the Maidstone was
chasing in with the land, and the ledge of rocks she
struck upon being under water, and therefore not
perceived, and trusting to the ship the Maidstone was
chasing, which had the appearance of being a large
one, and drawing near as much water as the Maid
stone." In the picture Keppel appears on a rocky shore ; the
breakers are around him, and he is stepping forward

1 It was painted in 1753. — Ed.
2 Family influence would suffi
ciently account for the early promotion
of the son of an Earl ; but Keppel
earned his position. He entered the
navy at the age of ten years, and at
eighteen he had been round the world
with Anson, on that voyage, so re
markable for its perils, as well as for
the energy and endurance with which
they were surmounted by the officers

and men of a squadron which the Go
vernment of the country had done
everything it could do to render in
efficient, except in its appointment of
those officers.
Keppel's first promotion to the
rank of a lieutenant came from Anson,
who had witnessed his gallantry dur
ing a successful action with a Spanish
galleon.

106

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

to give his orders with an energy and an expression
that tell the story, though no other figure is seen.
Light, spare, and active, and with a quick eye of great
intelligence, he looks the very beau ideal of a sailor.
When the Maidstone was wrecked there was no such
thing as a naval uniform. Every officer wore what he
pleased ; and Keppel, while with Anson, had part of a
jockey cap shot away from his head in the attack on
Payta. When the picture was painted, however, uni
forms were worn, and Eeynolds committed the justi
fiable anachronism of dressing his friend as he then
dressed.1 Keppel was the first of many heroes painted by Eey
nolds, who was never excelled, even by Yelasquez, in
the expression of heroism. So anxious was he to do
all possible justice to his gallant friend, and so difficult
did he find it to please himself, that after several
sittings he effaced all he had done, and began the
picture again.
And yet, in this admirable portrait, which cost him
so much pains, the attitude is taken from that of a statue,
of which a drawing by Eeynolds is in the possession
of Mr. William Eussell ; and of which he again made
use in a whole-length of the Earl of Carlisle, making
the picture very unlike that of Keppel, not only by
its background, but by dressing the Peer in the robes
of the Thistle. I have been unable to ascertain the
subject of the statue, or to what period it belongs. The

1 There are not fewer than nine
portraits of Admiral Keppel claiming
to be from the hand of Reynolds ; and
there are, no doubt, many more from
those of his pupils and copyists. The

finest picture of his life-long friend,
above referred to, in fine preservation,
is now with the other Keppel portraits
at Quiddenham. — Ed.

1753, 2etat. 30. ADOPTION OF HINTS FROM PREVIOUS ART. 107
figure is youthful, and Apollo-like, and seems to hold a
lyre in the left hand, or it may be a fiddle, for Eeynolds's
sketch is very slight.
He condemned, as we have seen, other painters for
pilfering " one figure from one print and another from
another ;" but no artist more often adopted hints from
previous art, and in his Twelfth Discourse he not only
excuses but recommends the practice. " A readiness,"
he says, " in taking such hints, which escape the dull
and ignorant, makes, in my opinion, no inconsiderable
part of that faculty of the mind which is called genius."
The remarks of Fuseli on this, as on most subjects
connected with art, are conclusive. He says : — " An
adopted idea or figure in a work of genius is a foil or
companion of the rest ; but an idea of genius borrowed
by mediocrity, tears all associate shreds ; it is the giant's
thumb by which the pigmy offered the measure of his
own littleness. We stamp the plagiary on the borrower,
who, without fit materials or adequate conceptions of
his own, seeks to shelter impotence under purloined
vigour ; we leave him with the full praise of invention,
who, by the harmony of the whole, proves that what
he adopted might have been his own offspring, though
anticipated by another. If he take now, he soon may
give." The most lovely of all the early works of Eaphael,
the Graces, in the collection of Lord Ward, is from an
antique group ; but Eaphael has made it entirely his
own, and we cannot be sufficiently grateful for a trans
lation so far above the original.1 So with respect to
i At Siena. There is a photograph I graved ; and though the photograph
of it, and Raphael's little gem is en- | may not adequately represent the an-

108

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

the statue, the attitude of which Eeynolds adopted, but
much improved in energy, for his sailor hero : to judge
from his drawing, it would scarcely attract notice in a
gallery of sculpture, while the portrait of Keppel would
command attention among the finest Yandykes.
Having triumphed over his English competitors,
Eeynolds was now to have a short contest with a
foreigner. Liotard, a native of Geneva, who had been
to Constantinople, and had adopted the Levantine dress,
came to England,1 where he attracted as much notice
by the singularity of his costume and habits as by his
skill in painting, which consisted in what was con
sidered high finish. He was immediately much em
ployed. " The only merit," said Eeynolds, " in Liotard's
pictures is neatness, which as a general rule is the
characteristic of a low genius, or rather no genius at all.
His pictures are just what ladies do when they paint
for amusement ; nor is there any person,, how poor
soever their talents may be, but in a very few years,
by dint of practice, may possess themselves of every
qualification in the art which this great man has got."
The reign of " The Turk," as Liotard was called,
was short, and that of Eeynolds was again completely
established. Mason,2 speaking of the impression the

tique group, as the print certainly does
not (for no print can) express all the
charm of Raphael, yet a comparison
even of these will show that the
modern painter has far exceeded the
ancient sculptor in grace and senti
ment. 1 He came to London in 1753, and
stayed two years on his first visit to
England, returning in 1772 for the
same period. According to Walpole

(March 4, 1753) he exacted extrava
gant prices, and was " avaricious be
yond imagination." He worked in
crayons, water-colours, and enamel.
—Ed.
2 In his ' Observations on Sir
Joshua Reynolds's Method of Colour
ing,' published by Mr. Cotton in 1859.
Mason was himself an amateur painter,
and was always admitted, he says, to
Sir Joshua's painting-room, unless he

1754, 2Etat. 31. EFFECT OF HIS PORTRAIT OF KEPPEL.

109

portrait of Keppel made in his favour, says, " His
business increased rapidly upon it, and chiefly among
persons of the first rank. The young Lords Hunting
don and Stormont,1 just arrived from their travels, sat
to him for two whole-lengths on one canvas ; and here
his merit in drawing complete figures and setting them
well on their legs, in the attitude most natural to them,
was equally conspicuous.
" It was upon seeing this picture that Lord Holder-
ness 2 was induced to sit for his portrait, which he was
afterwards pleased to make me a present of, on which
occasion he employed me to go to the painter, and fix
with him his Lordship's time of sitting. Here our
acquaintance commenced ; and, as he permitted me to
attend every sitting, I shall here set down the observa
tions I made upon his manner of painting at this early
time, which, to the best of my remembrance, was in the
year 1754.3
" On his light-coloured canvas he had already laid a
ground of white, where he meant to place the head,
and which was still wet. He had nothing upon his

had a lady or gentleman sitting for
a portrait. When not so occupied,
Mason says Reynolds was always either
retouching an old master, or had some
beggar or poor child sitting to him,
" because he always chose to have
nature before his eyes." This whole
paper of Mason's is worth reading. — Ed.
1 " There are new young lords, fresh
and fresh : two of them are much in
vogue, Lord Huntingdon and Lord
Stormont. I supped with them t'other
night at Lady Caroline Petersham's.
The latter is most cried up ; but he is
the more reserved, seems shy, and to

have sense, hut I should not think
extreme ; yet it is not fair to judge
a silent man at first. The other is
very lively and very agreeable." —
Walpole to Montague, Dec. 6, 1753.
Lord Stormont was nephew of the great
Lord Mansfield. His distinguished
parliamentary career is familiar to all
students of the history of George III.'s
reign.— Ed.
2 At this time holding the office of
Home Secretary. — Ed.
3 Mr. Cotton says 1755, hut the
first sitting may have been in 1754.

110 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
palette but flake-white, lake, and black ; and, without
making any previous sketch or outline, he began with
much celerity to scumble these pigments together, till
he had produced, in less than an hour, a likeness suffi
ciently intelligible, yet withal, as might be expected,
cold and pallid to the last degree. At the second
sitting, he added, I believe, to the three other colours,
a little Naples yellow ; but I do not remember that he
used any vermilion, neither then nor at the third trial ;
but it is to be noted that his Lordship had a countenance
much heightened by scorbutic eruption. Lake alone
might produce the carnation required. However this
be, the portrait turned out a striking likeness, and the
attitude, so far as a three-quarters canvas would admit,
perfectly natural and peculiar to his person, which at
all times bespoke a fashioned gentleman. His drapery
was crimson velvet, copied from a coat he then wore,
and apparently not only painted but glazed with lake,
which has stood to this hour perfectly well, though the
face, which, as well as the whole picture, was highly
varnished before he sent it home, very soon faded, and
soon after the forehead particularly cracked, almost to
peeling off, which it would have done long since, had
not his pupil Doughty repaired it."
We see by this account that from an early period
Eeynolds adopted what he strongly recommended in
his Discourses, the practice of drawing with the hair
pencil instead of the port-crayon ; and this constant
use of the brush gave him a command of the instru
ment, if ever equalled, certainly never exceeded; for
there are marvels of delicacy and of finish in his
execution, combined with a facility and a spirit unlike

1754, iETAT. 31.

HIS DRAWING AND COLOURING.

Ill

anything upon the canvases of any other painter. I
am far from meaning that in the works'of other great
masters there are not many excellences which Eeynolds
did not possess ; but what I would note is, that though
he was all his life studying the works of other artists,
he could not, and it was fortunate that he could not,
escape from his own manner into theirs. No original
painter, indeed, can do this ; while many, without
originality, and with but little perception of the beauties
of nature, have often mimicked the art of their betters
in a manner to delight judges of their own order.
There have been " English Claudes " and " English
Cuyps," as they were called by way of commendation,
but they are now forgotten.
In the colouring of Eeynolds it must be admitted
that his experiments in vehicles,1 and his use of fugitive
pigments — however the consequences may generally be
lamented — have, in many instances, produced effects so
singularly beautiful as in a degree to atone for the
ruin they have caused in other cases.2
At a much later- period of his practice he said to
Northcote, " There is not a man on earth who has the

1 In painters' language, the oils,
compounds of oils and varnishes, or
whatever fluids they mix with their
colours, are called vehicles.
3 Opie used to say that the faded
pictures of Reynolds were finer than
those of most other painters in a per
fect condition. From an anecdote pre
served by J. T. Smith, in his amusing
' Life of Nollekens ' (vol. ii. p. 294), it
seems that in one instance, at least,
this fading had maintained a curious
parallelism between the fate of the pic

ture and its original : — " The Marquis
of Drogheda was painted in early life
(Jantuuy, 1761) by Sir Joshua Rey
nolds. His lordship shortly after went
abroad, and remained there between
twenty and thirty years, during which
time he ran into excesses, became
bilious, and returned to Ireland with
a shattered constitution. He found
that the portrait and the original had
faded together, and corresponded, per
haps, as well as when first painted.''
—Ed.

112 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
least notion of colouring ; we all of us have it equally
to seek for and find out, as at present it is totally lost
to the art." He could hardly mean that the power of
producing true and beautiful effects of colour was lost ;
for, even if his modesty prevented a just estimate of
his own excellence, he could not be blind to the excel
lence of Wilson and of Gainsborough as colourists.
What he meant was, most likely, that the art of pre
paring the palette, and mixing the colours with such
oils, varnishes, &c, as would produce brilliant and at
the same time lasting effects, was lost.
He believed as confidently in the Venetian secret as
ever alchymist did in the philosopher's stone; and so
intense was his love of colour, that he would always
hazard the durability of his works rather than give up
any chance of attaining its truth and beauty. He
would not, however, allow his pupils and assistants to
work with any other than the ordinary materials ;
and he condemned in others that which he practised
himself. He said of a young painter who had been
trying experiments, " That boy will never do any good
if they do not take away from him all his gallipots of
varnish and foolish mixtures."
When Northcote recommended to him the use of
vermilion instead of such fleeting preparations as lake
and carmine, he said, looking on his hand, " I can see
no vermilion in flesh." — "But did not Sir Godfrey
Kneller always use vermilion ?" — to which he answered
rather sharply, " What signifies what a man used who
could not colour ? But you may use it if you will."
He once said to Sir George Beaumont (who amused
himself with painting), " Mix a little wax with your

1754, jstat. 31.

HIS DRAWING AND COLOURING.

n;

colours, but don't tell anybody ;" and at another time,
when Sir George observed that some vehicle he recom
mended would crack, he said, " All good pictures
crack." x
It was not from any narrowness of mind that he
kept his experiments secret. Could he have become
certain that he had discovered a process by which the
closest possible imitation of the beauty of Nature's
colour might be united with durability, he would, no
doubt, have given it as readily to other painters as he
gave to them, in his Discourses, the result of all his
thinking on art.
His great excellence as a colourist, though not fully
admitted while he lived, will not be disputed now.
Whatever portion of this may be attributed to " well-
directed industry," there can be no question that he was
gifted by nature with what is called a fine eye ; and not
for colour only, for his natural perception of shapes
seems to have been as accurate, and the power he had
acquired of drawing them as enviable, as his power of
colouring. The occasional incorrectness of his human
forms is simply the result of his ignorance of anatomy,
for nobody can draw truly the varying forms of an

1 I think it will ~be found generally
true that Reynolds's pictures during
the eight or ten years after 1752 are
more simply and safely painted than
his later ones. In many of his portraits
of this period which I have examined
the impasto is thin, the finish smooth,
and where the varnish has remained
untouched by the cleaner, the colour,
even of the fleeting carnations, is well
preserved, with no breaking of the
surface. In other portraits of this
vor,. i.

period said to have escaped the cleaner,
the carnations have flown, and left
little more than the black, or blue, and
white of the first painting. As among
the finest examples of this period which
I know, I should select the portrait of
the Countess of Albemarle and her two
lovely daughters, the Ladies Caroline
and Elizabeth Keppel, at Quiddenham,
Norfolk, the seat of the Earl of Albe
marle. — Ed.

114

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

elaborately constructed machine without a competent
knowledge of its contrivance.1 He was never sur
passed in the drawing of the face ; in which an ac
quaintance with anatomy may be dispensed with, as
the muscles that move the features, unlike those that
cause expression and the varieties of form in other
parts of the figure, are not seen in their own shapes,
but in the lines and forms of the surface, the shape
of which is generally the reverse of that of the actual
muscles. The following remarks of Eeynolds on some of the
peculiarities of his practice will not be out of place
here : —
" Not having the advantage of an early academical
education, I never had that facility of drawing the
naked figure which an artist ought to have. It
appeared to me too late, when I went to Italy and
began to feel my own deficiencies, to endeavour to
acquire that readiness of invention which I observed
others to possess. I consoled myself, however, by
remarking that these ready inventors are extremely apt
to acquiesce in imperfections ; and that, if I had not
their facility, I should, for this very reason, be more

1 Constable said, and I believe it,
that no painters excepting Rembrandt
and himself (who were both the sons
of millers) ever drew a windmill cor
rectly. It is certain that no painter
ever drew a ship rightly who had not
been much at sea; and even though
Turner had been often at sea, the ships
in his Battle of Trafalgar at Green
wich Afford a constant topic of ridi
cule to the old pensioners.
In justice to Turner, however, I

must add— and I do so on the highest
authority, that of Mr. Stanfield— that
the class to which the vessels in his
pictures belong is always admirably
characterised, even when they are re
presented as far distant, and that
British ships are always to be distin
guished in his pictures from foreign
ones. So with Reynolds ; in the occa
sional inaccuracy of his drawing cha
racter is never lost.

1754, iETAT. 31. HIS REMARKS ON HIS OWN PRACTICE. 115

likely to avoid the defect which too often accompanies
it, — a trite and commonplace mode of invention."
In another part of the same paper he says : —
" I considered myself as playing a great game ; and,
instead of beginning to save money, I laid it out faster
than I got it, in purchasing the best examples of art
that could be procured ; for I even borrowed money for
this purpose. The possession of pictures by Titian,
Yandyck, Eembrandt, &c, I considered as the best
kind of wealth. By carefully studying the works of
great masters, this advantage is obtained ; we find that
certain niceties of expression are capable of being
executed, which otherwise we might suppose beyond
the reach of art. This gives us a confidence in our
selves ; and we are thus invited to endeavour at not
only the same happiness of execution, but also at other
congenial excellences. Study, indeed, consists in learn
ing to see nature, and may be called the art of using
other men's minds. By this kind of contemplation and
exercise we are taught to think in their way, and
sometimes to attain their excellence. Thus, for instance,
if I had never seen any of the works of Correggio, I
should never, perhaps, have remarked in nature the
. expression which I find in one of his pieces ; or, if I
had remarked it, I might have thought it too difficult,
or, perhaps, impossible to be executed.1

1 The use of other men's minds is
of little worth unless made by those
who have minds of their own, and even
by such may be carried too far. That
simpering expression which Reynolds
adopted from Correggio is, if I mistake
not, the only instance of affected ex
pression in his pictures. It occurs in

some of his fancy subjects of children,
in which the lips are pinched by a smile
into something of the shape of the letter
V. It is conspicuous in two of the
child angels that bend over the Infant
in his Nativity, a work entirely founded
on Correggio ; but I do not recollect it
in any of his portraits of children.
i 2

116 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
" My success, and continual improvement in my art,
if I may be allowed that expression, may be ascribed
in a good measure to a principle which I will boldly
recommend to imitation ; I mean a principle of honesty ;
which, in this, as in all other instances, is, according to
the vulgar proverb, certainly the best policy, — I always
endeavoured to do my best. Great or vulgar, good
subjects or bad, all had nature ; by the exact repre
sentation of which, or even by the endeavour to give
such a representation, the painter cannot but improve
in his art.
" My principal labour was employed on the whole
together ; and I was never weary of changing, and
trying different modes and different effects. I had
always some scheme in my mind, and a perpetual desire
to advance. By constantly endeavouring to do my
best, I acquired a power of doing that with spontaneous
facility, which was, at first, the whole effort of my
mind ; and my reward was threefold : the satisfaction
resulting from acting on this just principle, improve
ment in my art, and the pleasure derived from a con
stant pursuit after excellence.
" I was always willing to believe that my uncer
tainty of proceeding in my works — that is, my never
being sure of my hand, and my frequent alterations-
arose from a refined taste, which could not acquiesce in
anything short of a high degree of excellence. I had
not an opportunity of being early initiated in' the
principles of colouring: no man, indeed, could teach
me. If I have never been settled with respect to
colouring, let it at the same time be remembered that
my unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an

1754, jetat. 31. HIS REMARKS ON HIS OWN PRACTICE.

117

inordinate desire to possess every kind of excellence
that I saw in the works of others ; without considering
that there is in colouring, as in style, excellences which
are incompatible with each other : x however, this pur
suit, or, indeed, any similar pursuit, prevents the artist
from being tired of his art. We all know how often
those masters who sought after colouring changed
their manners ; while others, merely from not seeing
various modes, acquiesced all their lives in that with
which they set out. On the contrary, I tried every
effect of colour ; and leaving out every colour in its
turn, showed every colour that I could do without it.
As I alternately left out every colour, I tried every
new colour ; and often, it is well known, failed. The
former practice, I am aware, may be compared, by
those whose chief object is ridicule, to that of the poet
mentioned in the Spectator, who, in a poem of twenty-
four books, contrived in each book to leave out a letter.
But I was influenced by no such idle or foolish affecta
tion. My fickleness in the mode of colouring arose
from an eager desire to attain the highest excellence.
This is the only merit I assume to myself from my
conduct in that respect."
When other painters complained of the unfitness of

1 Certain combinations of colour
may be incompatible, as the grave
with the gay ; but excellences of colour
can never be so ; and Reynolds could
not help admitting, when he visited
Holland, that the colour of Jan Steen
might become the design of Raphael.
On this subject he often expresses
his doubt of a previous conclusion.
At one time he thinks that, if Julio
Romano had painted his Horses of the

Sun as naturally as Rubens painted
horses, he would have brought them
down from their " celestial state ;"
but he adds, " In these things, how
ever, there will always be a degree
of uncertainty. Who knows that
Julio Romano, if he had possessed the
art and practice of colouring of Rubens,
would not have given to it some
taste of poetical grandeur not yet at
tained ? "

118

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

the dresses of the time, — the coats, wigs, hats, bonnets,
&c, — for pictorial effect, Eeynolds answered, " Never
mind ; they have all light and shadow." In these few
words he expressed one great secret of his art, which
no other portrait painter of his time excepting Gains
borough fully comprehended, namely, the management
of chiaroscuro. It was by this secret that Eembrandt
and the best of the Dutch painters of the 17th century
gave beauty to the most homely objects ; and in this
secret lay the charm of Correggio.
It was while Eeynolds lived in Newport Street that
he became acquainted with Johnson,1 who then lived
in Gough Square. They met for the first time at the
house of two ladies, who lived opposite to Eeynolds in
Newport Street, the daughters of Admiral Cotterell.
Eeynolds had been prepared to admire Johnson from
having read his Life of Savage ; and Johnson, at their
first interview, was struck with a remark of Eeynolds
which showed a knowledge of nature and a degree of
courage above the average. The ladies were regretting
the death of a friend to whom they were under great
obligations, on which Eeynolds observed, — " You have,
however, the comfort of being relieved from the
burthen of gratitude." They were shocked at the sug
gestion of comfort in so selfish a form, but Johnson
defended the feeling as natural ; he was pleased with
the close observation of life it discovered, and compared

1 Reynolds is mentioned by Barber,
Dr. Johnson's black servant, as one of
his master's intimates, soon after Mrs.
Johnson's death, which occurred in
March, 1752. (See Boswell, sub anno.)

This cannot be exact. It was in 1753
that Reynolds removed to Newport
Street ; and his acquaintance with
Johnson probably dates from that year.
—Ed.

1754, J3TAT. 31. INTRODUCES ROUBILIAC TO JOHNSON. 119
it to some of the reflections of Eochefoucault. He went
home with Eeynolds, and supped with him. At another
meeting in the same house it was Johnson's turn to
shock the ladies. The Duchess of Argyle, with another
lady of rank, came in. Johnson, thinking that their
hostesses paid too much attention to the great ladies,
and neglected Eeynolds and himself as low company of
whom they were rather ashamed, grew angry, and
assuming the suspected imputation, said to Eeynolds,
in a loud tone, " How much do you think you and I
could get in a week if we were to work as hard as we
could ? "
[He soon became a frequent visitor at the house of
his new friend, and Eeynolds returned his visits in
Gough Square. He once brought Eoubiliac with him,
the sculptor wishing to be introduced to Johnson —
already the great master of stately dedications, whether
of books or tombstones — that he might get from him an
epitaph for a montiment he was executing for West-
• minster Abbey. Johnson received the sculptor with
civility, and took his visitor into what Northcote
describes as " a garret, which he considered his library."
Probably it was the room he had fitted up for his
dictionary copyists, where the two Macbeans, Shiels,
W. Stewart, Maitland, and Peyton —Scotchmen all but
one— had transcribed and extracted, under the eye of
the lexicographer. Besides the books, all covered with
dust, there was a crazy deal table, and a still crazier
elbow-chair with only three legs. Johnson, seating
himself in this with a dexterity showing practice, took
pen in hand, and asked what the sculptor would have
him write. Eoubiliac began in his full-blown French

120 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III..
style. " Come, come, Sir," sternly broke in the awful
dictator on the three-legged throne, " let us have no
more of this bombastic ridiculous rodomontade, but
let me know in simple language the name, character,
and quality of the person whose epitaph you intend
to have me write."]
Johnson was no respecter of time in his visits. The
dinner hour of Eeynolds was four o'clock, and imme
diately after dinner tea was brought in. Tea was
also served later, and again after supper. Johnson
partook plentifully of it every time, and generally
prolonged his visits far into the night. However
desirous of cultivating the friendship of so extraor
dinary a man, Eeynolds could not give up all other
society for that object ; and, as Johnson's visits were
often without invitation, on one of those occasions
Eeynolds unceremoniously walked out of the room.
We are not told, however, that Johnson was offended
with this. Miss Eeynolds, who was one of his greatest
favourites, was, no doubt, at home ; and he was content
to be left at her tea-table.
The reader will recollect his Touchstonean parody on
Percy's Ballads.
" I therefore pray thee, Renny dear,
That thou wilt give to me,
With cream and sugar soften'd well,
Another dish of tea.
" Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,
Shall long detain the cup,
When once unto the bottom I
Have drunk the liquor up.
" Yet hear, alas ! this mournful truth,
Nor hear it with a frown,
Thou canst not make the tea so fast
As I can gulp it down."

1754, jEtat. 31.

JOHNSON AND MISS REYNOLDS.

121

He always spoke and wrote to Miss Eeynolds in
the most endearing manner. He considered her, indeed,
as a being " very near to purity itself." The only
severe thing he is recorded to have said to her was
occasioned by a portrait she painted of him. He
called it " Johnson's grimly ghost ;" and, as the picture
was to be engraved, he recommended for a motto the
line in which such an expression occurs, from the old
ballad of William and Margaret.
Northcote tells us that Miss Eeynolds, fancying her
brother had treated her unkindly, thought of writing
him a letter of expostulation. She consulted Johnson,
who either wrote the letter for her, or transformed it
so entirely into his own style, that she could not send
it to her brother, well knowing that he would instantly
detect Johnson's hand in it.
This lady seems to have written better than she
painted ; r for, of an Essay on Taste, which she printed
privately, Johnson wrote, " There are in these few
pages or remarks such a depth of penetration, such
nicety of observation, as Locke or Pascal might be
proud of."
The following is a favourable specimen of the little
book so highly praised by him : —
"A. family reared in indigence is often rich in
reciprocal affections; but affluence gives to hirelings
those tender offices which endear parents, children,
brothers, and sisters to each other." 2

1 And yet her engraved portraits
are very characteristic, and anything
but the sort of works either to laugh
or cry over. I would instance the
engraved portrait of Johnson's blind

friend and dependent, Mrs. Williams, v
and that of Hoole, prefixed to his
' Ariosto.' — Ed.
2 Frances Reynolds affected the sen
tentious style, which rather possessed

122

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Among the names of sitters entered in the pocket-
books of Eeynolds, that of his sister occurs at intervals
from May, 1755, to April, 1759. Once only he calls
her " Sister Fanny," the other entries are all " Miss
Eeynolds." The result of these sittings was probably
a portrait I remember to have seen in the collection
of Mr. Phillips the Academician. It is a head and bust
only, the face in profile, and, excepting the cheek,
entirely in shadow. She is in black, and wears a gipsy
hat. Her face is round, the features small, and the
resemblance to her brother striking. As a Avork of
art the picture is beautiful and original.1
[Few periods of our history of the same length
embrace more stirring incidents — parliamentary, social,
and national — than the interval between 1754 and

the whole Johnsonian circle. Thus,
among other extracts from her com
monplace book already referred to, I
find— " The first step to be despised is to
be pitied."
" Cheap and humble blessings I have
always found to be the sweetest and
sincerest, being in unison, as it were,
with the sober sense of the soul."
" The cord breaketh at last by the
weakest pull."
" Dr. Johnson was leaving a family
where he had been made very welcome
at dinner, and on his friend saying that
he liked to be often in such company
with plain people, better than with
greater geniuses, I said, Yes, in the
same maimer that you like for a con
stancy meat rather than sauce." — Ed.
1 Now in the possession of Mr.
Monro. Northcote quotes from Sir
Joshua's memoranda for December of
this year the following notes on his
practice at this time : —

" For painting the flesh : black,
blue-black, white, lake, carmine, orpi-
ment, yellow-ochre, ultramarine, and
varnish. " To lay the pallet : first lay carmine
and white, in different degrees ; second
lay orpiment, and white ditto ; third
lay blue-black and white ditto.
" The first sitting : for expedition,
make a mixture on the pallet as near
the sitter's complexion as you can.
" On colouring : to preserve the
colours fresh and clean in painting, it
must be done by laying en more
colours, and not by rubbing them in
when they are once laid ; and, if it can
be done, they should be laid in their
proper places at first, and not any more
be touched, because the freshness of
the colours is tarnished and lost by
mixing and jumbling them together;
for there are certain colours which de
stroy each other, by the motion of the
pencil, when mixed to excess." — Ed.

1755, jstat. 32. PUBLIC EVENTS. 123
1760. A brief enumeration of the leading occurrences
of the time is necessary to connect the painter and his
works with the out-door world. These incidents com
prise the death of Pelham, in 1754, after an unexampled
lease of power; the Duke of Newcastle's impotent
attempt to conduct affairs against the opposition of
Pitt and Fox, both still holding office under him, the
former as Paymaster of the Forces, the latter as Secre
tary at War ; Fox's elevation to the Secretaryship of
State and the lead of the House of Commons in the
next year ; Pitt's appearance as leader of opposition in
November, 1755 ; his resistance to the system of sub
sidies, and dismissal from office ; the declaration of war
against France, speedily followed by the loss of Minorca ;
the subsequent popular discontents, and the resignation
of the Duke of Newcastle in November, 1756; the
short-lived Devonshire administration, with Pitt for its
Secretary of State and leader of the Commons, and— as
the leading event of its brief tenure of office— the
execution of Admiral Byng, in spite of Pitt's resistance
and the court-martial' s unanimous recommendation to
mercy, in March, 1757; the interregnum of eleven
weeks following the break-up of the Devonshire
administration in April, closed by the return of Pitt to
office in July, with the Duke of Newcastle at the Trea
sury, and with the adhesion of Fox purchased by the
lucrative office of Paymaster of the Forces ; the inau
spicious inauguration of the new Cabinet by the defeat
of the Duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck, and the
ignominious capitulation of Kloster Severn, in Sep
tember ; the turn of the tide, by the taking of Louis-
burg and the islands of Cape Breton and St. John, in

124 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
July, 1758, and the defeat of the French fleet by
Boscawen ; the still more brilliant exploits, by sea and
land, of 1759, including the conquest of Goree, the
capture of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Ticonderoga, Ma
jorca ; the defeat of the Toulon squadron, off Cape
Lagos, by Boscawen ; Wolfe's glorious victory and
death at Quebec ; the defeat of the Brest fleet, under
Conflans, by Hawke, and the conquests of our ally, the
King of Prussia, aided actively by the Minister both
with men and money ; the still unchequered successes
of the following year ; the subjugation of Canada, the
crowning. of our East Indian triumphs of the last three
years by the King's gracious reception of Clive at
Kensington ; and, lastly, the sudden death of George IL,
at the pinnacle of all this glory, on the 25th of
October, 1760.
The distinguished part borne in these achievements
by the three Keppels, both on sea and land, must
have given Eeynolds even a deeper interest in the
marvellous tidings of our successes — as victory followed
victory, acquisition acquisition — than he Avould have
felt as a patriotic Englishman merely.
We may now turn to the details of the painter's pro
fessional life during this eventful period. To those
who are familiar with the public and private history of
the time — for the latter of which we have the invalu
able letters of Horace Walpole as our guide, besides
other collections only second in interest to Walpole's,
of which the Selwyn correspondence may stand as the
type— the list of Eeynolds's sitters will a have special
interest ; for they will find there the names of the
men most distinguished in Parliament or in war, the

1755, iETAT. 32. HIS CIRCLE IN 1755. 125
heroes of fashion, the popular authors, doctors, actresses
and actors, the beauties, the queens of society, the blue
stockings, and the demireps. of the day. Indeed, to
insure the full enjoyment of a collection of Eeynolds's
pictures, there is nothing like a diligent course of
Horace Walpole, and the other letter and memoir
writers of his time, as Wraxall, Selwyn, Cumberland,
Cradock, Lord Auckland, Lord Malmesbury, and others.
For all this period, it may be added, Eeynolds's sitters
cannot be said to belong to any one party. The words
Whig and Tory did not then mark the same sharply-
drawn party-divisions which they designate during the
reign of George III. Eeynolds was from the first
thrown among the Whigs by his friendship for the
Keppels ; but the Whiggishness of his connection is far
more distinctly traceable from the period of Burke's rise
in public life, than at the time now under consideration.
The pocket-book for 1755 — the first of the series —
throws considerable light, here and there, on the painter's
private life and associates. Of acquaintance with Burke
— who in March this year was only debarred from
accepting a colonial appointment by his father's rage on
hearing of his intention — I find no trace. It would
have been pleasant to have been authorised by the
pocket-book to infer that Eeynolds and Burke had been
acquainted in these years of Burke's early studies and first
literary achievements ; that the enthusiastic law-student,
historical inquirer, Eobin-Hood-orator, metaphysician, of
twenty-seven, and the successful painter of thirty-two
had discussed together those theories of the beautiful
which Burke gave the world next year, within a few
months of his admirable imitation of Bolingbroke, ' The

126 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
Yindication of Natural Society.' One would like to think
of Burke interesting Eeynolds in the fate of Emin, the
friendless Armenian wanderer, whom he had with such
tender humanity rescued from starvation and despair.1
It is likely enough that Burke and Eeynolds may
have met, either this year or next, through the intro
duction of Johnson ; with whom I should think either
Dodsley or Garrick musk have made Burke acquainted.
The absence of Burke's name in Eeynolds's engage
ments would not be incompatible with acquaintance ; for
Burke's dinners at this time would be at a tavern. The
poor rooms over the bookseller's shop, at the entrance of
the Temple, were not suited for giving dinners in, even
had the slender purse allowed of such entertaining.
The acquaintance of whom traces first appear in the
pocket-book are Eeynolds's fellow-apprentice at Hudson's,
and fellow-student at Eome — John Astley, and the three
brothers, Israel, John, and Heaton Wilkes. Astley was
now in London, and seems to have been drawing from
time to time on Eeynolds's purse, better filled now than
in the old days of their dinners at the Cafe Inglese,
and their picnics at Tivoli. I find this note on the
first page for January, 1775, as if Eeynolds had been
posting up his card accounts for 1754 : — £. s. d.
Mr. Ashley (debtor)  7 7 0
Do., cards at Mr. Wilkes's  016 0
Do., cards at Mr. E. (Heaton) Wilkes's .. 2 0 0
Ashley at Charlton  220
Do., at my house  0 10 6
£12 15 6

1 See MacKnight's ' Life of Burke,' I Burke's noble and self-sacrificing virtue
pp. 77-86, for this episode, showing | in so clear a light.— Ed.

1755, iETAT. 32. HIS INTIMACY WITH WILKES. 127
The acquaintance with the Wilkes family — if Miss
Weston's letters can be trusted — had dated from the
days of apprenticeship with Hudson. I observe that
even thus early, in writing the names of the brothers,
he gives' Israel, though the eldest, and Heaton, the
youngest brother, their Christian names. John is entered
as Mr. Wilkes ; it is to be presumed he had already
shown his metal. The elder brother was a thriving
London merchant, who married a fortune and never
meddled' with politics. John Wilkes was not yet in
Parliament, but had contested Berwick unsuccessfully at
the last general election. In 1749 he had married Miss
Mead, a Buckinghamshire heiress, who was now sitting
to Eeynolds. The union was not a happy one ; but,
thanks to the fortune and position brought him by his
wife, Wilkes had been high sheriff of Buckinghamshire
in 1754, and was now an active county magistrate and
model country gentleman. This intimacy between
Eeynolds and Wilkes at first surprised me, and will
probably surprise others ; the more so as it will be found
to have been closely kept up through all the fierce
political heats of the time, when Wilkes was to the one
side a martyr, a patriot, and an idol, to the other a
swindler, a satyr, a traitor, and a blasphemer. It fits
in so ill with our preconceptions to find a man so placid,
sensible, and measured as Eeynolds, intimate with one
so much the opposite of all this as Wilkes, that we
must be prepared to admit in the demagogue more than
merely the wit and good humour which all allowed him,
and in the painter to bate something from our estimate
of his placidity and political poco-curantism. Other rea
sons for this abatement will appear as the Life goes on.

128 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
It is striking at this early period of the painter's life
to find how his sitters become his friends. His modesty,
unaffectedness, information, and intelligence must have
so showed themselves in the painting-room, in spite of
his deafness, that the painter was soon invited by the
sitter, and, if the acquaintance were mutually agreeable,
grew to be a regular guest and family friend.
In this way I account for his frequent engagements
this year at the houses of Lord Cardigan and Lord
Scarborough, and others of his sitters. But the Keppels,
with all of whom he dined often, and several of whom
sat to him at this time, were already old friends. So
were his special Devonshire circle — Lord Edgcumbe,
the Bastards, and the Molesworths ; at all of whose
houses he is a very frequent guest. His portrait of
a Devonshire beauty, Mrs. Bonfoy — daughter of the
first Lord Eliot — whom he had painted as a young girl
in 1746, and whose name occurs in the pocket-book for
this year as having sat, not as sitting — was, I have
little doubt, painted in 1754. It is one of his most
beautiful female portraits, and in perfect presentation.
The lady is painted as a half-length, in a green dress,
with one hand on her hip, and the head turned, with
that inimitable ease and highbred grace of which
Eeynolds was master beyond all the painters who ever
painted women.1
Then there are frequent engagements with brother-
artists — Wilton, Hayman, Hudson, Eamsay, and Cotes.
These might have been visits of business as well as
good-fellowship ; for the project of an Academy was iioav
again under discussion.
1 The picture, which is at Port-Eliot, bears a wrong date on the frame.

1755, jetat. 32. EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH AN ACADEMY. 129
During the first year of Eeynolds's establishment in
London, an effort had been made to develope into an
Academy of Arts the drawing-school in Peter's Court,
St. Martin's Lane, immediately behind the house first
occupied by Eeynolds. It is probable that he took part
in' this project ; which seems, however, never to have
got further than a meeting of artists at the Turk's Head
in Gerrard Street — a house destined to become classical
eleven years later as the first quarters of the Club.
Francis Milner Newton, afterwards the first Secretary of
the Eoyal Academy, signed the circular calling this
meeting for the 13th of November, 1753, at five in the
evening, " to proceed to the choice of thirteen painters,
three sculptors, one chaser, two engravers, and two
architects (twenty-four in all), to make regulations, take
in subscriptions, erect a building, provide for the teach
ing of students, and otherwise act in setting on foot a
public academy for the improvement of the arts of paint
ing, sculpture, and architecture."
The election of this committee or directorate was to
be by marked lists, including all the artists of repute
in London. Not' one of these lists has survived. Paul
Sandby's copy of the circular convening the meeting,
from which Edwards printed, was in 1808 supposed to
be unique.
Of course the name of Eeynolds was included in the
list, and stood high in it, young as he was. He had
already painted several distinguished people, and his
style had a vigour and freshness which, — when it did
not disgust, as it disgusted the Kneller-worshippers —
must have attracted.
The meeting was held, but the project dropped for the
VOL. i. K

130 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
time. It was revived again this year (1755), under
fashionable auspices. Connoisseurship stepped in to
help struggling Art. The Dilettanti Society had been
founded some twenty years before this by a set of young
noblenlen and gentlemen, hot from the grand tour,
who had brought back from Italy a more durable and
deep-seated relish for art and virtu than such travel,
in most cases, left behind it. Good-fellowship was at
first as much their object as high art, and for a long
time the Sunday dinners of the Society, with their arch-
master of the ceremonies in crimson taffeta robe, rich
hussar Gap, and Toledo rapier, and their secretary in
the grave garb of Machiavelli, together with certain
mysterious rites, round a box crowned with a figure of
Bacchus — which some people whispered were political,
and others shook their heads over as profane — were
more conspicuous than their patronage of the Arts.
Still from time to time the Dilettanti have nobly
asserted the higher purpose of their Society by their
promotion of the artistic and archaeological inquiries of
Chandler and Gell in the East, and their outlay on such
publications as Stuart's ' Athenian Antiquities,' the
'Eoman Antiquities,' and the 'Select Specimens of
Ancient Sculpture,' and their purchase of the bronzes
of Siris for the British Museum in 1833. Their first
effort in Art had been in the cause of music. They had
attempted in 1743 to get up subscriptions for carrying
on operas, but the scheme fell through. Eeynolds at
this time had many friends and acquaintances among
the Dilettanti — the Earl of Holderness ; Lord Gowran,
afterwards Earl of Upper Ossory ; Sir Everard
Fawkener, father of the beautiful Mrs. Bouverie ; the

1755, jetat. 32. THE DILETTANTI. " 131
Marquess of Granby, Lord Eglinton, Lord Anson ;
Stuart the painter, who had been with Eeynolds during
the latter part of his stay at Eome ; Sir Charles Bun-
bury, Lord Euston, the Marquis of Harrington; and,
above all, a friend of his boyhood — now divided between
the studio and the hazard-room at White's — Dick Edg
cumbe, with whom he had bird's-nested in Maker Woods,
and who stood by as Eeynolds, a boy between twelve
and thirteen, painted the broad face of Parson Smart
in Cremyll boat-house. Captain George Edgcumbe,
another of the Dilettanti, had been one of the painter's
first Devonshire sitters, on his settlement at Plymouth
Dock, after leaving Hudson.
The Dilettanti " kept a painter." It was a rule that
every member of the Society should present his portrait,
done by the painter of the Society, or forfeit what was
called " face money " every year till the neglect was
repaired. Knapton was at present painter to the Society
— to be succeeded by Athenian Stuart, and, later still,
by Eeynolds and Lawrence.
Already in 1748 the Dilettanti had had under con
sideration a scheme, drawn up by one of the members,
Mr. Dingley — afterwards an intimate of Eeynolds's— for
the establishment of an Academy. When, in 1755,
the Artists were at the same work, it was natural that
they should communicate their design to the Dilettanti.
They did so this year, in a paper which I believe to
have been the composition of Eeynolds. The introduc
tion is marked by that generalisation which Burke
considered the peculiar characteristic of Eeynolds.
The writer professes to take for granted the utility of
the Arts, but " as they have hitherto been more admired
k 2

132 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
than cultivated amongst us, as there is something
ridiculous in sharpening the appetite and refining the
taste without showing any regard to the means of grati
fying the one or the other," he recapitulates briefly the
reasons why the Arts are to the full of as much import
ance to society as they have been represented to be.
He goes on to show how the Arts gratify our natural
love of pleasure, and our curiosity ; how, as the sphere
of the operations of this faculty is enlarged, the opera
tions themselves will enlarge with it, till gradually
from architecture, painting, sculpture, graving and
chasing, planting and gardening, down to utensils, plate
and cabinet work, patterns of silk, jewellery, garniture,
carriage-building, toys and trinkets, cultivated taste will
exercise its influence, and the employment of industry
and ingenuity will thus be extended, till all England
becomes hi some degree " self-supplying " in Art and its
pleasures. And here the paper touches on that silly,
shallow connoisseurship which more than any errors in
theory had hitherto dwarfed our native Art : —
" The prodigious sum England has laid out at foreign
markets for paintings, is but a trifle to the more pro
digious sums expended by English travellers for the
bare sight of such things as they despaired of ever seeing
at home. But the loss in point of money is not so much
to be regretted, perhaps, as the loss in point of character ;
for in this one particular, at least, we voluntarily yield
the palm to every petty state that has happened to
produce a painter ; and by the language generally used
on this subject by our own countrymen, as well as others,
one would think this was the only country in the world
incapable of producing one : as if the genius of a painter

1755, jet at. 32. SCHEME FOR AN ACADEMY.

was one kind of essence, and the genius of a poet
another ; and as if the air and soil which had given
birth to a Shakspere and a Bacon, a Milton and a
Newton — names which the proudest writers of the Con
tinent dare not mention without a note of admiration —
would be deficient in any species of excellency what
soever. " Whereas the whole secret lies in this : when princes
for their grandeur, or priests for their profit, have had
recourse to painting, the encouragement given to the
profession gave spirit to the art, and others thought it
worth their while to distinguish themselves in hopes of
obtaining the like reward.
"On the contrary, those who set their hearts on
making collections only, instead of advancing the art J
they profess to love, or animating the professors of it, '
have actually helped to create the very deficiency they
complain of ; for, in order to justify the excessive prices
they have been artificially induced to give for names
and characters, they are insensibly led to decry and
undervalue every modern performance. And as a
collection alone is, too often, sufficient to create a taste
less connoisseur, — and connoisseurs are received in the
gross as the only competent judges, — it will necessarily
follow that it must be with a painter as with the Eoman
Catholic saints, who are never beatified till a hundred
years after they are dead, nor canonised till after a
hundred years more : a consideration, which in the pre
sent undervalued, if not derided, state of fame or glory,
cannot be esteemed a very powerful incentive.
" If thus a national character is a matter of any
concern to individuals, and if to be complete it ought

134 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
o be sound, consistent, and of a piece, the present
: leglected state of the Arts, and of painting in particular,
: s worthy both of attention and concern."
The~4esign™of"a'jra%^ then broached.
'he good done by the private Academy, supportec
the private subscriptions" of the artists "and students, had
Iready produced in a few years so many able draughts-
en, and had so improved the arts of design, as to
justify the best hopes from a more extended scheme.
The plan proposed is very much that afterwards realised
in the Eoyal Academy Schools, for working from casts
and from the life, collections of examples, professors,
lectures, instruction in drawing from the model, the
presentation of one of his works to the Academy by
every professor, annual medals, travelling fellowships.
The scheme comprehended, besides, some features of a
national School of Design, as professorships of orna
mental and other branches of study inferior to that of
the figure; the appointment, under the seal of the
Academy, of masters for provincial schools of design ;
the purchase of specimens of tasteful and elegant manu
factures, and giving premiums for such productions;
and last, but not least, an annual exhibition of pictures,
statues, models, and architectural designs by the Fellows
of the Academy.
The abstract of the proposed charter follows. The
King was to be patron. The Society was to consist of
a President, Yice-President, Directors, Fellows, and
Scholars ; the Directors to be thirty in number, includ
ing the President, Yice-President, Secretary, and Trea
surer, who were to choose the Fellows ; the President to
be for life, the Directors to be in office for three years.

1755, iETAT. 32. SCHEME FOR AN ACADEMY. 135

Francis Hayman was the Chairman of the Committee
of Artists, "from whom the scheme emanated, consisting
of Moser, chaser, medallist, and enameller ; Eoubiliac ;
Hudson ; George Lambert, scene and landscape painter ;
James Paine, architect ; Francis Milner Newton,
painter ; Joshua Eeynolds ; Wale, historical painter
and book illustrator ; Samuel Scott, marine and land
scape painter ; Eobert Strange, engraver ; John
Shackleton, Court painter ; William Hoare, portrait
painter ; Grignion, chaser, engra\Ter, and watchmaker ;
Ellys, portrait painter ; Cheere, sculptor and lead-figure
maker ; Ware, architect ; Dalton, landscape painter and
topographical draughtsman ; Gavin Hamilton, historical
painter ; John Gwynn, architect ; Eobert Taylor, en
graver ; Sandby (Thos.), landscape painter ; Eichard
Yeo, medallist and modeller ; Thomas Carter, engraver ;
Ashley, portrait painter ; and John Pine, engraver.
The Society of Dilettanti approved the project and
promised assistance, and at a meeting in May, 1755,
resolved, as a condition of their participation in the
scheme, 1st. — That the President of the Academy be
always chosen from the Dilettanti Society. 2nd. — That
all the Society of Dilettanti be members of the Academy,
but only the twelve seniors present at any meeting to
have votes. 3rd. — That any artist may be chosen a
member of the Academy ; but only twelve, to be chosen j
annually, to have votes.
The Artists' Committee had been prepared before- '
hand for the swamping of the painters by the patrons,
and had given a modified consent to it by a letter of the
2nd of April, in which they profess their willingness
to enlarge their plan so as to include non-professional

136 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
members, declare they will think themselves highly
honoured and extremely happy in receiving the number
which may be proposed from the Society ; and submit
to the Society the nomination of their first President.
Colonel Gray, who was directed to procure the opinion
of the Artists on the Society's resolutions of May, does
not seem to have obtained that opinion ; at least he
never reported it to the Society. The Committee of
Artists wrote again on the last day of the year, begging
to know the determination of the Society as to their
plan. But whether it had been ascertained that the
claims of the painters and patrons to authority and
influence in the proposed Academy were incompatible,
or for whatever reasons, certain it is that no further
trace appears in the Society's records of any progress
Avith the design of an Academy of Arts.
Hayman, the Chairman of the Artists' Committee,
had one special claim on Eeynolds's regard which was
always honoured by him. He was a Devonshire man ;
of no great note as a historical or portrait painter, but
more famous for the conversation pieces in the manner
of Hogarth, with which he ornamented the alcoves
and supper-boxes of Yauxhall. He was the Master
of Gainsborough, and the intimate friend and associate
of Hogarth and Quin ; had often made one with the
former at the Cockpit, or Southwark Fair, and " beaten
the rounds" of Covent Garden in his company. It
was at Moll King's " Finish " that Hogarth, in
company with Hayman, saw the incident he has intro
duced into the bagnio scene of the Eake's Progress,
of the woman squirting a mouthful of wine into
the face of the sister drab she is quarrelling with.

1755, *tat. 32. HIS PRACTICE IN 1755. 137
Hayman was a straightforward John Bull, rough in
his manners, blunt in speech, more at home over his
bottle and pipe at the Artists' Club, at Slaughter's,
than in more refined haunts and more highly bred
company. Smith tells a story of him rolling drunk in
a Covent Garden kennel with Quin. Hayman kicked.
" What are you at now ?" asked Quin : " Trying to
get up," stuttered Hayman." "Pooh!" was Quin's
rejoinder, " lie still : the watch will be round shortly ;
they'll take us both up."
I find, in this year's pocket-book, one entry " Slaugh
ter's," which probably refers to a rendezvous given to
Eeynolds at that famous coffee-house in St. Martin's
Lane, where was held the club to which Eeynolds had
been introduced <by Hudson, and of which Eoubiliac,
Hogarth, and Hayman, McArdell, Gravelot, and
Sullivan, the engravers, Ware and Gwynn the archi
tects, with other artists of the time, were members.
Among Sir Joshua's sitters and entertainers this year,
besides men remarkable for social and official rank, and
ladies distinguished for fashion and beauty, occur two
names at that time of literary and controversial note,
Archibald Bower and Dr. Armstrong.
Bower's had been a strange life. Born at Dundee,
of Scotch parents, he had left Scotland for Italy, while
a child : had been educated by the Jesuits, had become
a priest, Professor of the Humanities, and finally Coun
cillor to the Inquisition at Macerata, where becoming
convinced of the errors of the Church of Eome, and
being suspected and imprisoned on a charge of heresy,
he made his escape to England, and made public pro
fession of Protestantism. In this country he supported

138 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
himself as an antiquarian and historical writer for the
booksellers ; for whom he wrote the Eoman portion of
the ' Universal History,' and a ' Historia literaria,' in
four volumes. In 1748 he was made librarian to Queen
Caroline. HaAdng, while a priest, been intrusted with
materials for a Eomanist 'History of the Popes,' he
turned them to use for a Protestant one ; and was
fiercely attacked by the Eomanists as a rogue and
renegade. The truth of his narrative was fiercely
contested ; and as late as February, 1756, the town
was stirred, even amid the terrors of the expected
earthquake and invasion, by news that Bower had been
discovered and arrested in the act of treasonable cor
respondence with the Jesuits. When Eeynolds knew
and painted him, he was the object of interest and admi
ration to the Protestant and antigallican Whigs, of
suspicion and denunciation to the Eomanising Jacobites,
who were still a party.
Dr. Armstrong, who ten years before had won a
reputation by his dull didactic poem on the ' Art of
Preserving Health,' was now husbanding a small
practice and a narrow income with Scotch frugality in
London. At his house Eeynolds met some of the best
literary society of the time ; but I observe the Doctor's
invitations are always for evening parties, never for
dinners. In June I find Eeynolds in company with Mr. Knight,
an original member of the Dilettanti Society, visiting
James, afterwards better known as Athenian, Stuart,
now newly returned with his companion Eevett from a
three years' residence in Attica, with the drawings,
which subsequently appeared in his trustworthy and

1755, 2etat. 32. HIS FONDNESS FOR CARDS. 139
valuable work, ' The Antiquities of Athens.' In Stuart
Eeynolds found a man after his own heart. By the
most determined energy and industry he had raised
himself first from destitute orphanhood, to employment
as a fan-painter under Goupy, thence to sufficient
occupation as a painter to amass the means of travelling
to Eome. There he worked and studied for years,
mastering Latin and Greek, writing an archaeological
dissertation, which had the honour of publication at the
Pope's expense, and finally breaking ground as an
accurate archseologist and architectural antiquary, in
his investigations, measurements, and drawings at Pola,
and Athens.
Besides dinners and evening assemblies, there are re
peated notes of suppers and card-parties, with families
unknown to fame, the Misses Smyth, Mr. Willson, Mr.
Nesbitt, and others. Eeynolds was fond of cards to the
last, and, after the Academy was founded, on council
nights used to hurry his guests from their wine to snatch
a rubber before he was obliged to leave for Somerset
House. He passed for a bad player in later years among
his fashionable friends of the Pall Mall clubs and choco
late-houses in St. James's Street, where play never ran
higher or was the cause of more startling tragedies than
this year. The Lord Montford, who sat to Eeynolds in
June, came into the title in consequence of the suicide
in January of the greatest gambler of his time, Henry
Bromley, Lord Montford of Horseheath, in Cambridge
shire. He had reduced life to a calculation of chances.1
Looking over his hand at the end of the year, he found
1 Walpole says that being asked soon I was with child, he answered, " I really
after his daughter's marriage if she I don't know, I have no bet upon it."

140 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
the odds so dead against him that he determined to
throw up the cards for good and all. He went about
suicide like a man of business ; inquired the easiest
mode of death; and ordered a supper at White's,
where he played whist till one on the New Year's
morning. Lord Eobert Bertie drank " a happy New
Year " to him. His guests observed him put his hand
strangely to his eyes. In the morning he had a
lawyer and three witnesses ; executed his will and
made them read it over twice, paragraph by paragraph,
asked the lawyer if that will would stand good, though
the testator were to shoot himself; being assured it
would, he said " Pray stay till I step into the next room,"
went into the next room and shot himself.
One proximate cause of Lord Montford's suicide had
been the loss of twelve hundred a year consequent on a
death, which at once bereaved and well-nigh beggared
Eeynolds's staunch friends the Keppels. Their father,
the second Lord Albemarle, was the most magnificent
spendthrift in his time. He stood high in the favour of
the King. His public employments brought him in
(says Walpole) 15,0001. a year ; he had inherited a noble
landed estate and 90,000^. in the funds ; and had married
a daughter of the Duke of Eichmond with 25,000£.
Yet at his death (while ambassador in Paris), thanks to
high play and profusion of all kinds, he left vast debts,
deeply mortgaged estates, and a family without a
shilling. Two of his beautiful young daughters were sitting
to Eeynolds within a month of their father's death.
Eeynolds was on intimate terms with the three eldest
brothers; the new Lord, who was the most trusted

1755, jetat. 32. NECESSITIES OF JOHNSON. 141
friend and Lord of the Bedchamber to the Duke of
Cumberland, Augustus, the naval Captain, and William,
Colonel of the Guards and aide-de-camp to the Duke.
Through them Eeynolds was introduced to the Duke of
Cumberland, whom he soon afterwards painted.
Another mad gambler of the time Avas Sir John
Bland, a Yorkshire baronet, who after flirting away the
Avhole of his large fortune at hazard — losing two-and-
thirty thousand pounds in one night to Captain Scott, —
blew his brains out, in a post-chaise between Calais and
Paris, in September of this year.
But though Eeynolds — with Shafto and the Yernons,
General Guise, and Sir John Ligonier, among his sitters,
and Wilkes and the Keppels among his friends — must
have heard enough of the play at White's and the fate
of its victims, it is pleasanter to think of him in
company with McArdell and Hogarth, Gravelot and
Eoubiliac, Hayman and Hudson, discussing the estab
lishment of an Academy of Arts at Slaughter's Coffee
house, or dining in company with lords and wits,
with Garrick in his neAV villa at Hampton, or in
Gough Square, receiving the modest hospitalities of
Johnson, who had launched his Dictionary in April,
and was now resting from his great labour of years,
poorly repaid by the 1575/. which had been advanced
to him during its progress. He was still obliged to
meet the day's wants with the day's work. Within less
than a year of the publication of the ' Dictionary,' he
was applying to Eichardson to relieve him from an
arrest for 51. 18s. ; and there is reason to believe that
Eeynolds's purse was opened to him in more than one
difficulty of the same kind.

142 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
The politics of the year were personal ; their interest
centering in the rivalry of Pitt and Fox for the lead
of the Commons, under the Duke of Newcastle, and
in the bitter opposition of the country to the King's
Prussian and Hessian subsidies for the defence of his
Hanoverian dominions, which he visited this year, in
spite of the French war and threats of invasion. War
with France, though not yet formally proclaimed, had
already begun in North America with the capture of two
French men-of-war by two of Boscawen's captains off
Cape Eace. A French invasion was generally expected
during the autumn, when the defeat of Braddock, at
Fort Duquesne, had depressed English spirits and
proportionably elated the enemy. The news of this
defeat was brought home by Commodore Keppel, who
had been superseded in the naval command of the
North American Station by Admiral Boscawen. The
pious prophesied judgments upon the godless town,
which, in defiance of threatened invasions and earth
quake, danced, masqued, played, and squandered its
money on kept mistresses.
Eeynolds's pictures of this period which I have seen are
carefully and smoothly painted, with no great body of
colour, and are, as a rule, in good preservation, where
the cleaner has not been allowed to tamper with them.
In most, however, the lights have darkened, owing to
the use of orpiment with the white, and the carnations,
made with lake and carmine, have too often flown,
especially where the varnish has been interfered with.
We know from one of Eeynolds's notes published by
Northcote, that the colours he used for flesh-painting
at this time were black, blue-black, lake, carmine,

1755, jetat. 32.

HIS MODE OF PAINTING.

143

orpiment, yellow ochre, ultramarine, and varnish : for
laying the palette his rule was, first lay carmine and
white in different degrees ; second, lay orpiment and
white ditto ; third, lay blue, black, and white ditto.
At the first sitting, for expedition, his practice was
to make a mixture as near the sitter's complexion as
possible. His pictures were laid in with white,
black, and cool red, and over this dead-colouring the
richer and warmer colours were applied with varnish.
To the use of orpiment, lake, and carmine, there are
grave objections, as the first destroys other colours by
intermixture, and the others are highly fugitive. But
in other respects his practice at this time appears to
have been safe and cautious. His use of varnish with
his colour was in accordance with the practice of the
Flemish school, and gives that mixture of substance and
transparency which Eeynolds especially aimed at and
generally attained.
From entries in the pocket-book for 1755 it appears
that not fewer than 120 persons sat to Eeynolds in
the course of that year.
He had been only two years established in London,
but already his list of sitters includes persons of the
highest distinction for station, beauty, literary and
political eminence, wealth, and prowess by sea and
land. The sitters enumerated 1 are, —

1 In this and all the lists of sitters
I put down the name under the month
of the first sitting, and enter every
name of a sitter that occurs in each
year. Names will thus appear in
successive years, when the pictures

were long in hand. The number of
sittings for a portrait varies exceed
ingly, from five or six to sixteen or
eighteen ; evidence, I think, of an un
certain and tentative practice. — Ed.

144

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

January.
Mrs. and Master Woollery ; '
Mrs. Wilkes;2 Captain Hale
(probably a sitter of 1754) ; Mr.
Brett;3 Mr. Shaftoe;4 Lady
Juliana Penn ; 5 Dr. Ohauncey ; e
Ladies C. and E. Keppel ; 7 Lord
Stormont;8 Mrs. Morris.9
February.1''
Mr. Haywood; Lord Holder-
ness ; " Lord Anson ; 12 Lord

Euston ; " Mr. and Mrs. Douglas ;
the Duchess of Norfolk; Mr.
Mangles; Mr. Philip Yorke;14
Mr. Plumer; Mr. Ludlow (and
his dog) ; Mr. and Mrs. Cadogan ;
Lady 15 and Miss Cathcart.
March.
Colonel Prideaux ; Mr. Knight
(probably a sitter of 1754) ; Mr.
and Mrs. Ayre; Admiral Bos^
cawen (had probably been sitting
in 1754); Lord Hillsborough ; u

1 There is an engraving from a
picture of a mother and child, called
Mrs. Woolridge. Is it from this pic
ture? Sir Joshua's names are often
imperfectly caught and carelessly spelt.
2 The wife of John Wilkes, the
demagogue, already one of the painter's
intimates. — Ed.
3 Charles Brett, Esq., of the Navy
Office, a Lord of the Admiralty under
Howe, and Member for Sandwich in
the parliaments of 1776 and 1784.
His wife was a Miss Hooker, of
Crome Hall, Greenwich, one of the
painter's intimates. — Ed.
4 Of the county of Durham; one
of the most determined turfites of his
time. — Ed.
6 Fourth daughter of Lady Pomfret,
married in 1751, to Thomas Penn,
Esq., of Stoke Pogis, " the wealthy sove
reign of Pennsylvania." (Walpole.) Rey
nolds afterwards painted her children
in the famous Penn family picture.— Ed.
6 Nathaniel, brother of Charles
Chauncey, M.D. and F.R.S., an able
scholar and bibliomaniac. He died in
1799, and his library was sold by
Leigh and Sotheby in April of that year.
7 Sisters of his fast friend, the Cap
tain. These pictures are still at Quid-
denham — Lord Albemarle's seat —
exquisite in beauty and perfect in
preservation. See post sub ann. 1762,
1764, 1768.— Ed.

8 Nephew to the great Lord Mans
field ; afterwards ambassador to Vienna
and Paris; Secretary of State (1779),
and President of the Council (1783).
He succeeded to the Earldom of
Mansfield in 1793.— Ed.
9 Perhaps the wife of Valentine
Morris, Esq., of Piercefield, Mon
mouth. For the fall of the family
fortunes, and her daughter's sad end,
see post 1770. — Ed. Perhaps the
mother of the Misses Morris, of Swan
sea, one of whom afterwards married
Mr. Des Enfans.
10 " Mem. — Send home Miss Fen-
wick." 4th Feb.
11 Secretary of State in 1751. — Ed.
12 The circumnavigator, now First
Lord of the Admiralty. — Ed.
13 The Duke of Grafton of the
Grafton administration.
14 Afterwards second Earl of Hard-
wicke. — Ed.
15 Daughter of Lord A. Hamilton.
An engraved picture, rather Hudson-
esque in character, now in the collec
tion of Lord Cathcart. She died at
St. Petersburgh in 1771, while Lord
Cathcart was ambassador. The child
in this picture was afterwards the
lovely Mrs. Grahame, painted so ex
quisitely by Gainsborough.
16 Made Treasurer of the Chambers
this year. Afterwards Secretary of
State under Lord North. — Ed.

1755, iETAT. 32.

SITTERS, 1755.

145

Mr.1 and Mrs. Bastard;2- Mr.
and Mrs. Molesworth ; 2 Lord
Scarborough; Miss St. Leger;
Mr. Westley ; Lord Kilwalm ;
Miss Freeman ; Mr. Charles
Townshend ; 3 Mr. Fleming (pro
bably a sitter of 1754).
April.
Sir E. Atkins ; Master Nicol ;

Lady Scarborough; Lady Car
digan; Lady Harriet and Mrs.
Vernon; Mr. Churchill;4 Mrs.
Eoss; Miss S. Stanley; Miss
Wynyard ; ° Miss Eussell ; Miss
Compton ; Lord Eglinton ; °
Colonel Haldane ; ; Lord Har-
court ; s Lord Malpas ; 9 Sir
Ealph10 and Lady Milbanke ;
Lady Strange.11

1 The member for Devon, after
wards prominent in the House of
Commons. — Ed.
2 Devonshire and Cornish couples.
The Bastard pictures are at Kitley,
South Devon. Mrs. Bastard is painted
(three-quarters) as a beautiful young
woman, with rather a long face,
dressed in a sacque and stomacher
edged with ribbons.
The Molesworth pictures are at
Pencarrow, in Cornwall. Mrs. Moles
worth, a young and lovely brunette
(half-length), in one of the quaint,
every-day dresses of the time, closely
copied, without the least attempt at
" idealizing " or " generalizing," with
flowers in her hand, a little cap on
her head, a prim apron and a lawn
kerchief closely covering her shoulders.
It is one of the most attractive of his
female portraits, and especially valu
able for its literalness. It has been
engraved by S. W. Reynolds. — Ed.
3 The wit and statesman, to whom
we owe the resolutions that lost us
America ; at this time a Lord of the
Admiralty. He this year married the
Countess of Dalkeith. — Ed.
4 Colonel Charles Churchill, M.P.
for Great Marlow, was a natural son
of General Charles Churchill, by Mrs.
OldBeld, the actress. He married Lady
Mary Walpole, a natural daughter of
Sir Robert Walpole, by Maria Skerrett,
whom Sir Robert subsequently married.
When Sir Robert was created Earl of
VOL. I.

Orford, Lady Mary was allowed to take
precedence as an earl's daughter. From
the identity of the name, it has some
times been supposed that Sir Joshua
painted a portrait of Charles Churchill,
the satirist ; and in the collection of en
gravings after Sir Joshua, in the British
Museum, there is a small one of the
satirist, which is erroneously ascribed to
him by the engraver or publisher. — Ed.
5 As a sibyl wearing a turban, and
holding an inscribed scroll.
6 Shot in 1770 by Mungo Campbell,
an excise officer, whom he attempted
to disarm of his gun, as a poacher.
7 M.P. for the Stirling Burghs, and
highly distinguished for his services
in the West Indies in 1759. — Ed.
8 Late Governor to the Prince of
Wales, a marvel of pomposity and
propriety. " Sir, pray hold up your
head ! Sir, for God's sake turn out
your toes ! " Such, says Walpole, are
Mentor's precepts to the Prince. — Ed.
9 M.P. for Bramber, and Treasurer
of Ireland. A note in the pocket-book,
apropos of the sending off his picture,
will show the sort of perils pictures
must have run in their transit in those
days : — " To the Right Honourable
Viscount Malpas : to go by Goswell,
the Walton bargeman, from the Globe,
Hungerford Market." The waggon is
the most common mode of transport.
—Ed.
10 M.P. for Scarborough.
11 Wife of Lord Strange, M.P.
L

146

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

May.
Lord Cardigan ; Mrs. Curedill ;
Mrs. Harris; Miss Dashwood;
Mr. Butler; Miss Stuart; Mr.
Medlicot;1 Mr. Eamsden; Dr.
Armstrong;2 Mrs. Quane; Colonel
Elliot ; Colonel Geakle (? Jekyll) ;
Lady F. Ludlow. June?
The Duke of Grafton; Lady
Ejldare;" Lord Monford;8
Colonel Griffin;6 General Guise;7
Mrs. Boscawen ; " Mrs. Trevor ; 9
Miss Shepherd ; Miss Cartwright.

July.
Captain Blackwood; Col. or
Mr. (?) Witchell.10 August.
Lord Bath ; u Colonel Pearson ;
Mr. and Mrs. Groves ; Captain
Smelt ; 12 Mr. Clerk ; Miss Jones.
September.
Sir John Ligonier ; 13 Lady
Ann Hamilton; Dr. Lucas;14
Colonel Sandford. October.
Mr. and Mrs. (afterwards Sir

for Lancashire, son of the Earl of
Derby. 1 M.P. for Milborn Port, Somerset
shire (probably a sitter of 1754).
2 The Scotch physician, and author
of ' The Art of Preserving Health,'
Satires, &c. — Ed.
3 "Mem. — A case to be made for
Lord Greville." He had probably
been sitting in 1754.
4 Afterwards Duchess of Leinster,
sister of the Duke of Richmond, Lady
Holland, and Lady Sarah Bunbury,
and one of the loveliest women of her
time. — Ed.
5 Of Horseheath, Cambridgeshire.
The successor of the coolest and cle
verest gambler of his time, who shot
himself in the early part of this year.
(See in Walpole, the curious account
of his suicide.) — Ed.
6 M.P. for Andover. He esta
blished his claim to the Barony of
Howard-de-Walden in 1784, and in
1788 was created Lord Braybrooke.
Died in 1797.— Ed.
7 Celebrated for drawing the long
bow ; an eccentric, but very brave
officer, who served in the disastrous
expedition to Carthagena. He was
a picture collector, and left a collection
of what is now sad rubbish, whatever

it may once have been, to Christ-
church, Oxford. (See, for anecdotes
of him, Walpole to Mann, July, 1742.)
—Ed.
3 Anne, wife of General Boscawen.
—Ed.
9 Of Glynd, in Sussex ; mother of
Mrs. Boscawen and Mrs. Rice. Her
husband was son of Lord Trevor, the
descendant of Hampden. — Ed.
10 " Mem. — Mrs. Yorke's picture to
be finished."
11 The retired minister. This pic
ture is now in the National Portrait
Gallery. It was painted for a great
friend of Lord Bath, good old Mr.
Tolcher, a Plymouth alderman, the
friend of Reynolds and of Northcote,
whom he introduced to Reynolds, and
always befriended in the kindest
manner. — Ed.
12 Leonard Smelt, Esq., afterwards
sub-governor to the sons of George III.
13 Commander-in-Chief. — Ed.
14 A man of note at this moment.
He was an Irishman; originally an
apothecary, became a physician (an
honour of which he shows himself
proud by making Reynolds put into
his hand in this portrait the thesis for
his doctor's degree); distinguished him
self by his vehement opposition to the

1756, iETAT. 33.

SITTERS, 1755.

147

George and Lady) Colebrook ;
Lady C. Murray ; Mr. Bridgman ;
Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Hopkins
jun. November.
Mr. Seymour ; Mrs. Hope ;
Mrs. and Miss Macartney ; Lord
Brooke ; Mr.1 and Mrs. Whitshed.

December.
Miss Crook; Mr. Compton;
Miss Deck, or Degg; Alderman
Beckford,2 and his Wife; Cap
tain Whitwell ; Miss Gardiner ;
Mrs. Sloper; the Countess of
Essex.]

In 1756 Eeynolds painted the half-length of Johnson,
with a pen in his hand, sitting at a table, on which are
books, ink, and paper.3 Employed as he was by people

Government and the Duke of Dorset,
the Viceroy; was accused, and com
pelled to leave Ireland, and was now
regarded by the opponents of the Ad
ministration as a martyr to liberty.
Johnson, in a review of his Essay on
Waters in 1756, says of Lucas : —
" The Irish ministers drove him from
his native country by a proclamation
in which they charge him with crimes
of which they never intended to be
called to the proof, and oppressed him
by methods equally irresistible by
guilt and innocence. Let the man
thus driven into exile for having been
the friend of his country be received
in every other place as a confessor of
liberty ; and let the tools of power be
taught in time that they may rob, but
cannot impoverish." In 1758 Lucas
edited ' Swift's History of the Last
Four Years of Queen Anne;' went
back to Ireland, where he was re
turned member for Dublin; died in
1771, and was honoured by a statue
in the Dublin Exchange. His portrait
represents a young and handsome
man, but with an unmistakeable ex
pression of vanity.
1 M.P. for St. Ives.
2 Now one of the members for
London — already a determined ad
herent of Pitt, but not yet arrived at
the height of his popularity as a

demagogue. His noble seat at Font-
hill was burnt in February this year,
with pictures and furniture of great
value. " He says, ' Oh, I have an odd
5O,O00Z. in a drawer; I will build it
up again. It won't be above 1000Z.
apiece difference to my thirty chil
dren ' " (Walpole to Bentley, March,
1755).— Ed.
3 The first portrait of Johnson,
now in Mr. Morrison's gallery, at
Basildon. Another, without a wig,
and with the hands raised, was painted
about 1770, and is now in the Duke of
Sutherland's gallery. The Knole pic
ture is a repetition of this. A third is
of the date 1773. It has the hand on
the waistcoat, was originally painted for
Bennet Langton, and was several times
repeated. The original was in the
possession of P. Massingberd, Esq., but
was removed from his house by Sir G.
Lewin for cleaning, and by some acci
dent was sold at Sir G. Lewin's sale
in May, 1846, at Christie's, where it was
bought by Mr. Norton for 41 guineas.
Sir Robert Peel has the repetition
painted for the Streatham Gallery.
A fourth bears date 1778. Johnson
holds a book close to his eyes ; it was
painted originally for Malone, but re
peated. There is, besides, the curious
little Scherzo at Bowood — the infant
I Johnson— in which, for a joke, Rey-
L 2

148

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

of the highest fashion, this portrait must have been
painted by Eeynolds for himself, for he afterwards
gave it to Boswell, who published an engraving from
it, with his Life of its illustrious subject.
But it was not only to indulge himself with the
portrait of a friend that he could spare time. A young
lad, the son of Dr. Mudge, the physician, then employed
in the Navy Office in London, was very anxious to
visit his father on his sixteenth birthday ; but unfor
tunately he was confined to his room by illness. He
expressed his disappointment to Eeynolds, who said,
" Never mind, / will send you to your father," and
accordingly sent a portrait of the youth, in which he
represented him as peeping from behind a curtain.
This portrait was, of course, a gift ; though the painter
was somewhat chary of making presents of his pictures.
He used to say he found they were seldom highly
valued unless paid for.1
[The pocket-book for 1756 is lost. But it could
hardly have been a profitable year for the Arts.
Through the winter and spring political and fashion
able heads were filled with the dread of a French inva
sion, with the earthquake, to which even masquerades
were sacrificed, and the recruiting, in which all the
young lords, who furnished so important a part of the
painter's sitters, were actively engaged. But even

nolds painted Johnson as he supposed
him to have been at two years old —
a preternaturally heavy-headed child,
with a brow bent forward, " prone
with its weight of mind." This little
picture is beautiful in colour, and in
fine preservation. — Ed.
1 Mr. Cotton points out the pro

bability that the arrangement of the
picture was suggested by a mezzotint
by B. Lens. Master Mudge's portrait
was painted in February, 1758. (See
list of sitters for that year, post.)
Mr. Tom Mudge was painted in the
same year. — Ed.

1756, 2ktat. 33. DEATH OF SIR W. LOWTHER. 149
among these fears and occupations, both Houses of
Parliament, and the leaders of fashionable society, were
fighting hard over the Bill for the construction of the
New Eoad, which the Duke of Bedford and his faction
opposed, because it would raise a dust before Bedford
House and spoil the prospect, and the Duke of Grafton
and his followers as fiercely supported. At this dead
time Eeynolds had a singular stroke of good fortune, in
consequence of the death of Sir William Lowther. This
amiable and accomplished young millionaire had known
Eeynolds at Eome, and had sat to him soon after his first
settlement in London. In April this year he died of a
fever, at twenty-six, leaving 20,000£. a year in land, of
which the bulk descended to his imperious and morose
cousin Sir James, afterwards the first Earl of Lonsdale,
already enormously rich, and the tyrant of Cumberland
and Westmoreland. But Sir William, generous in death
as he had been in life, left out of his personal estate
thirteen legacies of 5000^. each to as many friends. Most
of the legatees commissioned Eeynolds for copies of Sir
William's portrait, and for two years afterwards he was
busy with these profitable commissions, executed under
his own eye, but principally painted no doubt by Marchi,
Barron, and Berridge, his pupils, or by his drapery-men.
The original picture belongs to Mr. G\ Bentinck.
In June all England was convulsed with news of
the loss of Minorca, and of Byng's having retreated
from the French squadron. The popular feeling in
London was raised to madness. The shops were filled
with caricatures — " Hang Byng, or take care of your
King," the walls covered with placards, demanding
vengeance on the coward and traitor who had disgraced

150 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
the British flag. The counties sent up addresses to the
throne ; the towns instructed their rejoresentatives to stop
the supplies till inquiry was granted. We know now
how unjust this fury was — that Byng was at worst
guilty of an error of judgment in adhering too closely
to the fighting instructions then in force ; but for the
moment all fair consideration of the case was drowned
in the blindness of public rage.
Eeynolds had many special motives for interest in
this startling news. He knew Minorca well ; had
been the guest of its garrison, and had painted the old
General, Blakeney, now besieged by the Marechal de
Eichelieu. His early acquaintance Commodore Edg
cumbe brought the tidings to England. His friends
Keppel and Saunders were among the officers designated
by the public voice to retrieve the tarnished honour of
our flag.
The winter was as distracted by political disarrange
ments as the spring and summer by the fear of invasion
and the disastrous news from the Mediterranean. The
King had managed to patch up a ministry by means of
the Duke of Devonshire and Pitt, to the exclusion of
the Duke of Newcastle and Fox. This administration
lasted for five months, 'of which the principal event
was the execution of Admiral Byng in March, 1757.
As Eeynolds's intimate friend, Captain Keppel, was
on the court-martial, and exerted himself earnestly,
both in and out of Parliament, to save the life of this
unfortunate victim to Draconian articles of war and a
popular cry, Eeynolds must have been warmly inter
ested in the event, independently of any part he might
have taken in the passionate public excitement about

1756, iETAT. 33. PUBLIC EVENTS. 151
Byng. His friend, Captain Edgcumbe, moreover (whom
he painted in 1758), had borne a command under Byng
in the squadron of Minorca, and, as I have said before,
brought home the news of the Admiral's retreat. Other
names connected with the event occur among the
painter's sitters about this date, as that of James O'Hara,
Lord Tyrawley, the blunt, outspoken veteran, and in
veterate enemy of Lord George Sackville. He super
seded General Fowke in the command of Gibraltar,
when the latter was dismissed in consequence of his
slackness in supplying Byng with men.
In April, Pitt — racked by gout, hated by the King,
without credit at Court, without influence in the House
of Commons, undermined everywhere (except in the
estimation of the pubhc) — was dismissed, and the Duke of
Newcastle recalled to power. The popularity of the
dismissed minister at once manifested itself in the fall
of the stocks and the rain of gold-boxes and addresses
from the city and principal boroughs, upon him and
Legge his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pamphlets,
caricatures, lampoons, swarmed again. The House of
Commons commenced its ineffectual inquiry into the
causes of the late disasters, in the midst of which the
Duke of Cumberland, with Lord Albemarle and Colonel
Keppel in his suite, left England to assume the chief
command of the army defending Hanover.
At the height of these complications, Eeynolds had
the mortification of seeing another added to the many
evidences of the exclusive faith of the nobility of that
day in Italian painters. The Earl of Northumberland
opened his great gallery in Northumberland House,

152 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
which he had adorned, to his own great contentment,
with second-rate works on a large scale and at large
prices, by Mengs and Battoni. There had been no
thought of employing an English painter or decorator
in the work, from first to last.
After a two months' interregnum, filled by vain efforts
on the King's part to avert the recall of Pitt to office,
the Duke of Newcastle and the Great Commoner con
cluded the terms of a coalition, with Lord Holderness as
Secretary of State and Fox as Paymaster.
In August came the ill news of the Duke of Cumber
land's defeat by the Marechal d'Estrees at Hastenbeck,
followed by the Convention of Kloster Severn, which
must have been especially mortifying to one on such
riendly terms as Eeynolds with the Keppels, the
principal members of the Duke's "family." This
disgrace was but poorly compensated in September by
Sir Edward Hawke's abortive raid on the French coast,
in which Commodore Keppel bore a distinguished part.
Here the gallantry of the sailors was neutralised by the
blunders and irresolution of Sir John Mordaunt, who
commanded the troops.
The country was disaffected and depressed ; the exe
cution of Byng had whetted the appetite for blood : the
mob would fain have had Sir John Mordaunt treated in
the same way, and with better reason.
To add to the public despondency, with the winter
came our losses in America, the capture of Fort William
Henry, the resignation of the Duke of Cumberland,
the dearness of corn, and the unpopularity of the ballot
for the militia.

1756, mtai. 33. PREFERENCE FOR ITALIAN PICTURES. 153
Still through all this unlucky year Eeynolds was
closely employed, and, if general popularity and large
earnings had been all he sought from his calling, they
flowed in upon him in an ever-increasing tide. But
with his aspirations after an English school of Art,
he must have been deeply mortified by the scorn of
the patrons and connoisseurs of the time for every
form of painting and sculpture, in English hands,
except portraiture. While Hogarth was reduced to
engraving for a livelihood, and Wilson was starving,
Italian pictures, especially of the later and weaker
schools, were eagerly bought at high prices. It was
about this time that many of the great English galleries
were begun.
" At Henry Furnese's auction," says Walpole, " a
very small Gaspar sold for seventy-six guineas, and
a Carlo Maratti, which I am persuaded was a
Guiseppe Chiari, Lord Egremont bought at the sale for
260Z., and Spencer l gave no less than 2000£. for the
Andrea Sacchi and the Guido from the same collection.
The latter is of very dubious originalty. . . . There
is a pewterer, one Cleeve, who some time ago gave
one thousand pounds for four very small Dutch
pictures." At Sir Luke Schaub's sale, a collection not worth
4000/., in Walpole's opinion, went for double the money.
The Duchess of Portland paid 7001. for a copy after
Eaphael. A Sigismunda, by Farini, to the wrath of
Hogarth, fetched 400/. " In short," says Walpole,

Afterwards first Earl Spencer.

154 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
" there is a Sir James Lowther, Mr. Spencer, Sir Eichard
Grosvenor, boys with twenty and thirty thousand a
year, and the Duchess of Portland, Lord Ashburnham,
Lord Egremont, with nearly as much, who care not
what they give."
Walpole admits, as a set-off, that the publication of
the 'Palmyra' and 'Baalbec,' by Mr. Eobert Wood,
Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Dawkins, and Mr.
Bouverie, the husband of Eeynolds's beautiful sitter,
are noble works to be carried out by private men. He
also praises the establishment of the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Sciences, and Commerce, which
was now about to give premiums for pictures — and the
grand seigneural design of the Duke of Eichmond, more
fully described hereafter.
But all this could not, in the opinion of Eeynolds,
make up for the advantages to be hoped from a well-
regulated Academy of Arts — such as he lived to preside
over eleven years later. For this he was still labouring
through this year, and the frequent engagements with
his brother painters, recorded in the pocket-book, I have
no doubt were connected with this object.
The only conspicuous person added this year to the
painter's circle was Lord Charlemont, now newly
returned from his . travels, and already one of the
very few enlightened patrons who appreciated the
thoroughly English art of Hogarth.
To the names in the list of sitters for this year I
have appended the number of sittings, as an illustration
of the extraordinary amount of work got through by
Eeynolds.

1757, ^etat. 34.

SITTERS, 1757.

155

List of Sitters for 1757.

January.
"Mem.— Send home Sir H. Wil
liams." " Mem. — Send home Mr. Walpole
to Mr. Churchill."
" Mem. — Send Ad. Boscawen."
" Mem. — Send home Gen. Guise."
" Mem. — Copy of Sir Wm. Lowther
and Mr. Grey."
" Mems. — Send home Mr. Bridg-
man. Copy Lady Dartmouth. Send
home Mr. and Mrs. Pelham."
Mr. Pelham1 (6); Lord
North2 (5); Lady North (4)
Miss Day;3 Mrs. Pelham4 (4)
Mr. Colwer (? Calvert) (4) ; Mrs
Walter (4) ; Mr. Hunt ; Sir G.
Lee5 (4); Mr. Charlton (8);
Mr. and Mrs. Grey (10) ; Master
Holbourne" (2); Colonel Mont
gomery (2); Mr. and Mrs.
BuUer 7 (8) ; Mr. Townsend ? (6) ;
Colonel Earl (7); Mr. Halden

(Haldane)8 (7); Mr. Johnson9
(6) ; Lord Bruee (5) ; Miss Ead-
cliff (5) ; Mr. Fitzroy (8) ; Lord
and Lady Dartmouth (6).
February.
"Mem. — Mr. and Mrs. Gray to
finish." ".Mem.— Mr. Reynolds's Sir W.
Lowther." Lord Dalkeith ; Mrs. Hesketh
(7) ; Lord Plymouth (3) ; Duke
of Marlborough10 (6); Colonel
Honeywood (2) ; Lord Grey (12) ;
Mrs. Bouverie u (7) ; Lady Pem
broke (4) ; Master Bouverie (4) ;
Lord E. Manners (2) ; Mr. Bower
(3); Mr. Bouverie; Duke of
Grafton ; Lord Charlemont ; Mr.
Hunt (2) ; Lord Sutherland 12 (8) ;
Mr. MiUbank (3); Mr. James;
Mr. Chartres (?) (5).

1 Thomas, afterwards Lord Pelham
and Earl of Chichester.
2 He had married, in 1756, Anne, the
daughter and heir of G eorge Speke, Esq.
3 Afterwards Lady Fenhouillet. A
pretty woman in a flat Woffington
hat, with her hands in a muff.
4 Wife of Thomas Pelham, daughter
of Charles Frankland, Esq. : married
in 1754.
5 An eminent civilian ; treasurer to
the Princess of Wales ; spoken of this
year for Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He died in 1758.
6 Son of Admiral Holbourne, who
this year commanded a squadron on
the North American station.
' Of King's Nympton, Devon.
s George Haldane, in August this

year made Governor of Jamaica.
9 Dr. Johnson — the first portrait —
with a pen in his hand, in a chair
covered with chequered stuff.
10 Charles Spencer, second duke.
The picture remained unfinished in
consequence of the Duke's taking the
command in Germany, where he died
in 1758.
11 Daughter of Sir Everard Fawk-
ener, lately married to Mr. Edward
Bouverie, a great patron of the arts
and a friend of Reynolds.
12 The Right Hon. William Earl of
Sutherland, Lord Strathnaver, one of
the sixteen peers of Scotland, Lieut.-
Col. Commandant of a battalion of
Highlanders, died the beginning of
June, 1766.

156

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

March.
"Mem.— 6, Society" (*. e. Royal).
" Mem. — Lady Middleton's picture
and child, 3 ft. 5 in. high, by 4 ft.
3| in. wide."
Mrs. West (2); Col. Griffin;
Mr. Darby (5) ; Col. Vernon (3) ;
Mrs. Morris (3); Miss Pelham
(6) ; Mrs. Watson (5) ; Lord E.
Bertie' (9); Duke and Duchess
of Ancaster (9) ; Mrs. Charlton ;
Mr. and Mrs. Jubb (10); Mr.
Hayward; Lord Guildford2 (4);
Lady C. Fox3 (6) ; Capt. Tryal (?)
(3); Lord Middleton (4); Mrs.
Lethulier (4) ; Mrs. Douglas ; *
Lord AbergaVenny (2) ; Mr.
Lloyd (8) ; Mrs. Lloyd (8) ; Sir
J. Ligonier ; 5 Col. Trapaud ; *
Sir H. Grey (2) ; Mrs. Phillips
(4) ; Lord Pembroke (3).
April.
"Mem. — Mrs. Sneyd, in Hart
Street, Bloomsbury Square."
"Mem. — To finish a copy of Sir
W. Lowther for Mr. T. Wilson : to
be finished by the beginning of June."
Lord Middleton (4); Miss
Townsend (4) ; Mr. Thomas (2) ;
Capt. Hamilton; Mr. Wood's
Lady ; Mrs. Sneed (Sneyd) ; Miss

Sneyd (2) ; Mrs. Charlton ; Miss
M. Pelham (5); Mrs. Thorrold
(4) ; Miss Morris " (10) ; Lord
Hyndford ; Mrs. Iremonger (6) ;
Mrs. Maynard (6) ; Miss Thorrold
(5); Mr. Phillips; Lady Hynde-
ford (3) (or 4 ?) ; Lady McDaniel ;
Mr. and Mrs. Wood (11) ; Miss K.
Hunter (13) ; Mr. Thorold (3).
May.
" Mem.— Send home Lord Hynde-
ford in Savil Row with a receipt."
"Mem. — Copy of Lord Dart
mouth." "Mem. — To Mr. Richardson about
Milton's head : to Mr. Ryder about
Pope's." (Sir Joshua had probably
bought these drawings, which had
belonged to Gervais the painter.)
Lady Eortescue (7) ; Mr. King ;
Miss West ; Lord Brook ; Lady
Brook ; Capt. Millbank (3) ; Lady
E. Keppel (5); Mrs. Porter (?)
(7) ; Dog (2) ; • Sir M. Fether-
stone (2) ; Miss Ingram (6) ;
Mr. Jennings (6) ; Miss Ashton
(6) ; Mr. and Mrs. Bastard (10) ;
Master Featherstone (4) ; Lady
Thorrold (6); Sir J. Thorrold
(6) ; Mr. Carter (3) ; Mrs. Panton,
Mr. Panton7 (8); Mrs. North.

1 Brother to the Duke of Ancaster,
a'great cardplayer and turfite. He took
part in the council of war off Minorca
under Byng, and was involved in the
popular discredit of that affair.
2 Father of Lord North.
3 Wife of the great debater, now
Paymaster of the Forces ; daughter of
the Duke of Richmond, afterwards
the first Lady Holland.
4 Wife of Dr. Douglas, afterwards
Bishop of Salisbury.
6 See 1758.

6 The Misses Morris sat this year,
daughters of Mr. Morris, a gentleman
of near Swansea, of whom one was
afterwards Mrs. Des Enfans, the other
died unmarried. A third sister, after
wards Mrs. Lockwood, also sat. The
two pictures of this year are still in the
possession of Colonel Morris, C.B., in
very good preservation : one lady is in
white satin, with rose-coloured ribands;
the other in blue, with pearls.
7 The father and mother of the
Duchess of Ancaster. Walpole calls

1758, .mat. 35.

SITTERS, 1757.

157

June.
"Mem. — Mr. Cambell (sic), in
Hanover Square, to send the copy of
Sir W. Lowther."
" Mem. — Lord Fortescue at Caple
Hill, near South Molton, to deliver
the picture to the porter in town, and
write my Lord word."
"Mem. — A copy of Sir William
Lowther for Major Kinnear to be
ready within six weeks."
Mrs. Turner (6); Sir J. St.
Aubyri (2) ; Mrs. Wetham ; Lady
Granby (5) ; Sir Edward Thomas
(2) ; Mrs. Vaughan (5) ; Miss
WombweU (2); Mr. Luard (?) ;
Master Phipps (5) ; Miss Bishop 1
(4) ; Lady Caroline Keppel (3) ;
Mr. Copin (2); Lady Trevor;
Capt. Banks. July.
Mr. Brudenell (6) ; Capt. Hale ;
Admiral Knowles (3).
August.
Mr. and Mrs. Long (6) ; Cole
Barrington (5) ; Mr. Charlton (8) ;
Dr. Nicols (5) ; Mr. Clark (4) ;
Mrs. Wynyard (4).

Mrs.

(4) ; Mr. Vassall, jun. (5) ; Mrs.
North (2); Miss North; Mrs.
Vassall (5) ; Mr. and Mrs. Jack
son (4); Mr. Vernon (4); Mrs.
Arnold (4) ; Lady Albemarle (3) ;
Mr. Arnold (3) ; Master Heiliger
October.
Col. Sandford (2) ; Mr. Ead-
cliffe (4); Mr. Williams (4);
Dr. Edmond Thomas (2); Mr.
Nugent 2 (3) ; Miss Weston ;
Mrs. Cotterell3 (7); Mr. Clarke.
(N.B. — Here two pages are torn out.)
November.
Mrs. Barrington (4) ; Mr. Brett
(4) ; Lord Northumberland (5) ;
Mr. Edging (2) ; Mr. Delaval (7).
December.
Mr. Pore (3) ; Master Honey-
wood (6) ; Miss Pains (2) ; Mrs.
Hill (4) ; Col. Colleton (4) ; Mr.
HiU; Mr. Andrews (6); Mrs.
Hillison (2) (Ellison?); Mr.
Hope (2) ; Mr. Southern (2 ?) ;
Miss Grimston; Lord Morpeth;
Lady Betty Montague ; * General
Guise; Mr. Boothby; Duchess
of Grafton ; Mr. Elliot (2) ; Mrs.
Grimstone.

September.
North; Mr. Sedgewick
The year 1758, according to Northcote, was the very
busiest time of Eeynolds's whole life, and the pocket-
book completely confirms him. It contains the startling
number of one hundred and fifty sitters.

Panton a " horse-jockey." He was a
gentleman, but a notorious turfite, and
ireeper of the king's running-horses at
Newmarket, a post of 500Z. a year
under the Master of the Horse.
1 One of the pretty daughters of

Sir Cecil Bishop.
2 Afterwards Lord Clare.
3 The widow of Admiral Cotterell,
at whose house he made Johnson's
acquaintance. 4 Afterwards Duchess of Buccleugh.

158 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
The Duke of Bichmond — who sat to Eeynolds in
October — eager to distinguish himself at once in arts
and arms — this year erected and opened his Statue
Gallery in Privy Gardens, under the superintendence
of Wilton the sculptor, and Cipriani, as a place of
study for artists. The gallery contained about thirty
casts from the best antiques. All " settled " artists
were admitted, to draw or model, and students above
twelve, by recommendation from any known artist to
Mr. Wilton. Wilton and Cipriani attended on Satur
days to correct the drawings and give instruction.
Premiums were promised at Christmas and Mid
summer : two silver medals for figures, and two for
bas-reliefs. All this was absolutely gratis, even fees
to the servants in attendance being strictly for
bidden. In consequence of the Duke going abroad to join
his regiment in Germany the premiums were not dis
tributed, when some of the students posted up this
notice on the door : " The Eight Honourable the Duke
of Eichmond, being obliged to join his regiment abroad,
will pay the premiums as soon as he comes home."
When the Duke returned he found, to his disgust,
another paper stuck up, apologizing for his poverty,
and expressing his regret at having offered premiums.
He shut up the gallery for a while in disgust, but
seems to have transferred the contents of it to the
Society of Artists, on their incorporation in 1765.
They sent him a letter of thanks at their last general
meeting on August 9, 1770, by Mr. WooUett, the
engraver, their secretary. Some of the casts after
wards became the property of the Eoyal Academy,

1758, .mat. 35. PUBLIC EVENTS. 159
and may still be in the cast-room there, for students to
draw from in 1861.
The winter had been inactive both in Parliament
and in the field, but by the summer the spirit of Pitt
had made itself felt in the public counsels, and in the
conduct of the war. Before the end of May the painter
had to hurry many portraits to an end, or to turn them
to the wall unfinished. An expedition of eighteen
ships of the line, and fourteen thousand men, was
assembled in Cawsand Bay, for a descent on the French
coast. Many young men of fortune and fashion, then
sitting to Eeynolds, were ordered off on service, or
joined their friends of the army and navy, as volun
teers. Among them were Sir James Lowther, Sir John
Armitage, Lord Downe, and Mr. Delaval. Lord Anson
took the command of the fleet in person, with Com
modore Howe under "his orders. Keppel, not yet well
cured of the wound received in capturing the Godichon,
joined him in the Torbay. The Duke of Marlborough
left his picture unfinished, to put himself at the head
of the land-forces, with Lord George Sackville as his
second in command. Prince Edward, who sat to
Eeynolds on his return, distinguished himself by his
spirit in this his first service afloat, as a midshipman
on board the Essex under Howe. If the expedition
did no real service by its descent on St. Makes, its
burning a few ships at Eochefort, and its destruction
of the basin at Cherbourg, these successes revived the
public spirit of England, and paved the way for the
more solid triumphs which rapidly succeeded — the
capture of Louisburg in July, and the reduction of
Cape Breton in August. The painter must have heard

160 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
every detail of that somewhat farcical and resultless
foray on the French coast, from his many soldier
and sailor-sitters who took part in it. Prince Edward
may have repeated to him, with all the glee of his
frank and joyous temperament, how he had kissed
the ladies all round at the ball he had given them at
St. Helens, or how the Due d'Aiguillon had sent a
cartel-ship after the expedition, with the Duke of
Marlborough's tea-spoons, accidentally left behind.
Eeynolds doubtless saw the French flags borne in
triumph from Kensington Palace to St. Paul's with
military pomp, amid the acclamations of the multitude,
and the cannon of Cherbourg dragged into Hyde Park
to the delight of a crowd who a year ago had been
expecting the arrival of invaders, instead of trophies,
from France.
In 1758 and 1760, as well as in 1759— -"the great
year," the year of victories par excellence — it is worth
pointing out how Eeynolds's lists of sitters reflect the
warlike complexion of the times, by the large propor
tion of naval and military officers included in them.
There are few of the men most distinguished in our
conquests in Africa, North America, and the West
Indies, or in the campaigns under Prince Ferdinand in
Germany, but will be found figuring in the lists for
one of these years. List of Sitters for 1758.

January.
The Duchess of Grafton ; the
Duchess of Hamilton ; Lord Straf
ford ; Mr. Eitzroy ; Mrs. Barring
ton ; Mr. Bower ; Mr. Winyard ;

Mrs. Grey; Colonel Colleton;
Lady Townsend ; Baron Hope ;
Admiral Hughes; Colonel and
Lady Elizabeth Keppel ; Mrs. and
Master Methuen ; Lord Morpeth ;

1758, xtav. 35.

SITTERS, 1758.

161

Mr. Pigott ; Lord Tyrawley ;
Mrs. Moore ; Miss Warren ; the
Duke of Devonshire. February.
Lord Digby ; Lady Aberga
venny and child ; Lady Strafford ;
Miss Hunter; Mr. and Mrs.
Morris; Mrs. Southern; Lady
Mary Coke;1 Master Mudge;
Mr. (afterwards Sir William)
Boothby ; Mrs. Bale ; Mrs. Pitt ;
Miss Delaval ; Miss f'aulet ; Miss
Blackman ; Mr. and Mrs. Chaun-
cey ; Lady Betty Hamilton ; Mr.
and Mrs. Partheridge ; Mr.
Digby; Sir Harry Grey; Miss
Shirley ; Lady Phipps ; the Duke
of Somerset; Lady Plymouth;
Miss Shepherd. March.
The Duke of Cumberland;
Mr. Manley; the Duke of An
caster; Mrs. Shirley; Miss
Payne; Mrs. Southwell; Captain
Otway ; Lord Cardigan ; Captain
Tash; Mr. Thomas; Mrs.
Southern ; Captain Calcraft ;
Captain Vaughan; Lord Wey
mouth ; Lord Dartmouth ; Cap

tain Phillips ; Lady Louisa Gre-
ville. April.
Lord Beauchamp ; Lord Sand
wich ; Lady Caroline Fox ; the
Duke and Duchess of Eichmond ;
Col. Haldane; Miss Watson;
Mr. Shafto ; Lord Brook ; Lady
Ludlow; Mrs. Hunter; Prince
Czartoryski ; Lady Eaymond ;
Miss Thornicroft ; Sir Conyers
D'Arcy ; Captain Walker ; Lady
Scarborough; Miss More; Miss
Clark; Sir Matthew Feather-
stone ; 2 General Howard.
May.
Miss Boothby ; 3 General Dury ;
Mr. and Mrs. Hewgill ; Miss
Orby Hunter ; 4 Lady Stanhope ;
Mr. Wynn ; Lord Eobert Spencer ;
Miss Walker ; Col. Barrington ;
Lady Standish; Lady Betty
Spencer ; Lady Caroline Sey
mour ; Miss Williams ; Mr. Con-
greve ; Mr. Iremonger ; Lady
Lepel Phipps ; Master Moore ;
Lady Charlotte Johnston; Lady
Head. June.
Lady St. Aubyn ; Master Smith ;

1 Daughter of John Duke of Argyle,
sister of the Countess of Dalkeith
(lately married to Charles Townshend),
and wife of an ill-conditioned husband,
Viscount Coke, who died inl759. Lady
Mary survived her husband fifty-eight
years. She was a beautiful and fasci
nating woman, the intimate friend of
Walpole, and was believed to have been
secretly married to the Duke of York,
brother of George III., who died at
VOL. I.

Monaco, in September, 1767. She wore
widow's weeds after his death. — Ed.
2 He, like Mr. Iremonger, had made
Reynolds's acquaintance at Rome.— Ed.
3 Not to be confounded with his
pretty little sitter of 1788, Penelope
Boothby, the delicate child in a large
cap and black ribbon, sitting with
folded arms; now in Lord Ward's
collection. — Ed.
4 Note post. — Ed. M

162

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Mr. Tudway; Lady Granby;
Lady Coventry;1 Miss Turner;
Mr. Meynell; Mr. Wynell; Mrs.
Warren ; Lady Halkerton.
July.
Mr. Barry;2 Sir John St.
Aubyn; Mrs. Johnson; Captain
Smith ; 3 Lord Coventry ; Lord
Granby; Mr. Townsend.
August.
A Stranger three times ; Captain
Torryn ; Commodore Edgcumbe.4
September.
Mrs. Eobinson; Sir Thomas5
and Lady Harrison; Mrs. Hor-
neck.6

October.
Captain (afterwards Admiral
Viscount) Hood; Lord Port-
more ; Captain Skene ; Miss
Owen ; Lord Portland ; the Duke
of Eichmond. November.
Miss Coke; Miss Davis; Mr.
Ellis ; Captain Hamilton.
December.
Mrs. Wajpole; Mr. and Mrs.
Knapp; Miss Cumberland; Mrs.
Smith; Prince Edward; Mr.
Delaval ; 7 the Bishop of Killala
(Dr. Synge).]

In 1759 Eeynolds enjoyed the full favours of
Leicester House. [The Duke of Cumberland — William
of Culloden — and Prince Edward, had sat to him the
year before. The great intimacy and regard which
existed between the Duke and the painter's friend

1 The beautiful Maria Gunning —
then dying.
2 Spranger Barry, the distinguished
actor, who at one moment was the
rival of Garrick in public favour. — Ed.
3 In pencil, " Captain Smith, to be
sent to Lord G. Sackville." This is
the Captain Smith who was aide-de
camp to Lord George at the battle of
Minden, and figured in Lord George's
court martial. He was father of
Admiral Sir Sydney Smith, the hero
of Acre. — Ed.
4 Fresh from the triumphs of Louis-
burg. — Ed.
6 Chamberlain of London. One of
his finest and most characteristic pic
tures. 6 The Plymouth beauty, and

mother of " the Jessamy Bride " and
" Little Comedy," Goldsmith's favour
ites. The portrait is at Barton, Sir C.
Bunbury's. It is a very pretty picture
of a pretty woman. She wears a lawn
veil, from under which her hair flows
down on one side; her arm, which
supports her head, rests on a book.
The likeness to her charming daugh
ters is apparent. — Ed.
7 Afterwards Sir Francis, celebrated
as a Maccaroni now, and later as an
amateur singer and actor. He went
on the expedition to France in May
this year as a volunteer, with other
young men of fashion, and is painted
musket in hand. (Picture at Ford
Castle).— Ed.

1759. JSTAT. 36.

KITTY FISHER.

163

Lord Albemarle was a ready passport to the Duke's
favour. Eeynolds produced many repetitions of this
Duke's portrait. Several copies of it too were executed
under his eye for friends of his Eoyal Highness and
officers who had served under him. J He now first
painted the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III.
In this year also Kitty Fisher1 sat to him for the

1 The most celebrated Traviata of
the time (daughter of a German stay-
maker), who in 1766 married Mr.
Norris, a young gentleman of good
Kentish family, son of the Member for
Rye. There are seven portraits of her
by Sir Joshua. One of these portraits
was painted for Sir Charles Bingham.
Another was bought by Mr. Crewe.
There is a beautiful portrait of her
as Cleopatra dissolving the pearl, at
Saltram. Some one wrote under it : —
" To her famed character how just thy right !
Thy mind as -wanton, and thy form as bright."
Kitty is recorded to have got through
12,000Z. in nine months. She was at
this time about twenty, and under the
protection of Captain Keppel, which
probably accounts for her first sitting
to Reynolds. She afterwards lodged
opposite to him near Cranbourne
Alley. Kitty was a constant sitter
to Reynolds from this year till 1767,
when she appears for the last time, as
Mrs. Norris. She died before Septem
ber, 1771, " a victim to cosmetics,"
says a writer in the ' Town and
Country Magazine.' Lord Ligonier
was one of her many admirers, through
whom also Reynolds might have made
her acquaintance. " There is a fashion
in intrigue as well as in dress ; and a
debauche, upon the bon ton, considers
it as great a disgrace not to have had
an alliance with the prevailing Thais,
as he would to wear a Kevenhuller

hat when the Nivernois are so much
in vogue. To this cause we may
ascribe Lord Ligonier's connexion
with the celebrated Kitty Fisher, at a
time that she was kept by subscription
of the whole club at Arthur's. It
must, however, be acknowledged, in
justice to departed beauty, that Kitty
had many attractions; for, besides a
very agreeable, genteel person, she
was the essence of small-talk, and the
magazine of temporary anecdote : add
to this that she spoke French with
great fluency, and was the mistress of
a most uncommon share of spirits. It
was impossible to be dull in her com
pany, as she would ridicule her own
foibles rather than want a subject for
raillery. Her constant associate, Miss
S — mm — rs, afterwards Mrs. Sk — ne,
whom she introduced into all her
parties, was another great source of
entertainment in Kitty's alliances, as
this lady was not only a professed
satirist, but a woman of learning and
an excellent companion. Lord Ligo
nier frequently made up the trio, and
some of the merriest hours of his life
he acknowledges to have passed with
these two ladies of genuine pleasure.
At this time Kitty was scarce twenty."
(' Town and Country Magazine,' April,
1770.) Kitty protested in 1759, by
advertisement in the ' Public Adver
tiser ' (March 30), against the liberties
taken with her name, in language
M 2

164

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

first time. Of this celebrated beauty I have seen no
fewer than five portraits, which he must have painted
at short intervals of time, as she appears in all to be

that reads like a parody on Dr. John
son. Kitty had been within arm's-
length of the great Doctor. He told
Miss Burney that Bet Flint had once
brought Kitty Fisher to call upon him,
but that he was unluckily not at home.
The advertisement may have been the
composition* of Kitty's accomplished
companion, Miss Summers. Thus
runs this sententious composition : —
" To err is a blemish entailed upon
mortality, and indiscretions seldom or
never escape from censure ; the more
heavy as the character is more re
markable ; and doubled, nay trebled,
by the world, if the progress of that
character be marked with success :
then malice shoots against it all her
stings ; the snakes of envy are let
loose : to the humane and generous
heart, then, must the injured appeal,
and certain relief will be found in
impartial honour. Miss Fisher is
forced to sue to that jurisdiction to
protect her from the baseness of little
scribblers, and scurvy malevolence :
she has been abused in public papers,
exposed in print-shops; and, to wind
up the whole, some wretches, mean,
ignorant, and venal, would impose
upon the public, by daring to pretend
to publish her memoirs. She hopes
to prevent the success of their endea
vours by thus publicly declaring that
nothing of that sort has the slightest
foundation in truth." I find this
anecdote of Kitty and the Great Com
moner : — " Mr. Pitt being one day at
a review in Hyde Park with the
King, some of the courtiers, seeing
the celebrated Kitty Fisher at a dis
tance, whispered his Majesty that it
would be a good joke to introduce

Mr. Pitt to her. The King fell in
with it ; and soon after, looking
towards Miss Fisher, purposely asked
who she was? ' Oh, Sir,' said Lord
Ligouier, ' the Duchess of N  , a
foreign lady that the Secretary should
know.' ' Well, well,' says the King,
' introduce him.' Lord Ligonier in
stantly brought Mr. Pitt up, and
opened the introduction by an
nouncing, ' This is Mr. Secretary
Pitt, — this is Miss Kitty Fisher.'
Mr. Pitt instantly saw the joke, and,
without being the least embarrassed,
politely went up to her, and told her
how sorry - he was he had not the
honour of knowing her when he was
a young man, — ' for then, Madam,'
says he, ' I should have had the hope
of succeeding in your affections ; but
old and infirm as you now see me, I
have no other way of avoiding the
force of such beauty but by flying
from it;' and then instantly hobbled
off. ' So, you soon despatched him,
Kitty ? ' said some of the courtiers,
coming up to her. ' Not I, indeed,'
says she : ' he went off of his own
accord, to my very great regret ; for I
never had such handsome things said
of me by the youngest man I ever
was acquainted with.' " — (' European
Magazine ' for 1793.) Whether the
story be true or not, it illustrates the
times it was written in. If we think
of the rank and functions of the per
sonages, we may measure the differ- .
ence a generation has made in respect
for decorum at least. For more anec
dotes of Kitty, see Walpole's Letters,
in. 227, 252 (Cunningham's Edition).
In her later days she lived at Turnham
Green. — Ed.

KITTY FISHER.

(From trie pn-Limis in fb<? possession of H Monro, Esq., and T ov.i Crewe.)

1759, 2etat. 36. PORTRAITS OF KITTY FISHER.

163

very nearly of the same age. The most interesting is
that in which she holds a dove in her lap, while another
is about to descend to its mate from the back of the
sofa on which she reclines.
Of this composition there are three repetitions ; one
is in the possession of Mr. Munro, another belongs to
Lord Crewe, and the third is in the collection of Mr.
Lenox of New York. They are all very lovely ; and
the lady looks innocent as her doves— as she no doubt
could look. It is very strange that there is no contem
porary engraving of any one of these charming pictures.
Of the two others, the one at Petworth, and that in
which Kitty personates Cleopatra dissolving the pearl,
there are engravings.
The Petworth portrait of Kitty Fisher must have
been the first painted, as the dressing of the hair in
it is of an earlier fashion than in the others. In this
picture a letter lies open on the table on which she
rests her arms; and the date on the letter, which is
very indistinct, looks like " 1759." x
[Among his sitters this year are three actors —
Garrick, Woodward, and Barry.
Both Barry and Woodward were excellent actors,
and the painter has well expressed the characteristic
points of each. Woodward, the best Petruchio, Copper
Captain, Captain Flash, and Bobadil of his day, had
brisk and genuine, if rather brassy humour. In spite

1 There is a charming portrait of
her in Lord Lansdowne's Gallery, in
profile, with a parrot on her fore-finger.
But the loveliest, perhaps, of all the

portraits of Kitty is an unfinished
head in powder, and a fly cap, in
Lord Carysfort's possession.— Ed.

166 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.

of his sense and with the best intentions, he never
could utter a line of tragedy. His face, for all its
regular and handsome features, the moment he spoke
beamed somehow with irresistible mirth, and seemed
to carry a laugh in every line. In Barry, on the
other hand, Eeynolds had to paint a man so gifted
by nature, and so formed by study, for heroes and
lovers, that his charm seemed almost to defy time. On
his last appearance in 1776, he was so infirm that
before the curtain rose it was thought he could not
support himself through the play, but in spite of decay
he played Jaffier with such a glow of love and tender
ness, and such a heroic passion, as thrilled the theatre,
and spread even to the actors on the stage with him,
though he was almost insensible when, after the fall of
the curtain, he was led back to the Green-room. There
was, we are told, in Barry's whole person such a noble
air of command, such elegance in his action, such
regularity and expressiveness in his features, in his
voice such resources of melody, strength, and tender
ness, that the greatest Parliamentary orators used to
study his acting for the charm of its stately grace and
the secret of its pathos.
But in Garrick Reynolds had to express something
far subtler, more impalpable and evanescent than the
bold humour of Woodward or the pathetic dignity of
Barry. He had to light the eyes with that meteoric
sensibility, and to kindle the features with that fire of
life, which could deepen into the passion of Lear,
sparkle in the vivacity of Mercutio, or twinkle in the
fatuousness of Abel Drugger. He had to paint the

1759, jstat. 36. GARRICK. 167
man who of all men that ever lived presents the most
perfect type of the actor : quick in sympathy, vivid in
observation, with a body and mind so plastic that they
could take every mould, and give back the very form
and pressure of every passion, fashion, action ; delighted
to give delight, and spurred to ever higher effort by
the reflection of the effect produced on others, no matter
whether his audience were the crowd of an applauding
theatre, a table full of noblemen and wits, a nursery
group of children, or a solitary black boy in an area ;
of inordinate vanity ; at once the most courteous,
genial, sore, and sensitive of men ; full of kindliness,
yet always quarrelling ; scheming for applause even in
the society of his most intimate friends ; a clever
writer, a wit, and the friend of wits, yet capable of
mutilating ' Hamlet,' and degrading ' The Midsummer
Night's Dream ' into a ballet opera.
There is not so curiously complex a personage as
Garrick in all that half-century, rich as it was in
character. If the man be admitted less worthy of love
than Goldsmith or Eeynolds, of respect than Johnson
or Burke, it is, I suppose, because of his mobility, his
mirror-like, glancing mind, which could reflect and
dazzle, but neither originate nor retain.
Such as he was, Reynolds has painted immeasurably
the best portraits of him. There are seven of them ;
that of this year was the first. To paint Garrick was to
come into direct competition with all the notable portrait-
painters of the time. Everybody painted Garrick —
Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hayman, Dance, Cotes,
Hone, Zoffany, Angelica Kauffman. His London
house in Southampton Street, and afterwards in the

168 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
Adelphi, was full of portraits of himself, gifts or
purchases. But for the world Garrick is immortalised
by the pencil of Reynolds ; and chiefly by that happy
allegory of him between Tragedy and Comedy, painted-
two years after this.
It is pleasant to think what a heavy debt of pleasure
Reynolds was repaying in those pictures. He had, no
doubt, seen and admired Garrick in the actor's primest
days, while himself working under Hudson between
1742 and 1744. Cumberland's vivid account helps us,
better than any other description, to understand what a
revelation Garrick's acting must have been to the young-
men of that day. The play he describes was the Fair
Penitent : Quin was the Horatio, Ryan the Altamont,
Mrs. Cibber the Calista, Mrs. Pritchard the Lavinia,
Garrick the Lothario. " Quin presented himself upon the
rising of the curtain in a green velvet coat embroidered
down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig,
rolled stockings, and high-heeled square-toed shoes.
With very little variation of cadence, and in deep full
tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which
had more of the senate than the stage in it, he rolled out
his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that
seemed to disdain the plaudits bestowed upon him.
Mrs. Cibber, in a key high-pitched but sweet withal,
sung, or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain,
somewhat in the manner of the improvisatoris. It was
so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did
not wound the ear, it wearied it ; when she had once
recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the
manner of every succeeding one : it was like a long-
legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of

1759, iETAT. 36. GARRICK— HORACE WALPOLE. 169
which is sung to the same tune, eternally chiming to
the ear without variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard
was an actress of a different cast, had more nature, and
of course more change of tone, and variety both of
action and expression ; in my opinion the comparison
was decidedly in her favour. But when, after long and
eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then
young and light and alive in every muscle and in every
feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at
the wittol Altamont and heavy-paced Horatio, Heavens,
what a transition ! It • seemed as if a whole century
had been stepped over in the changing of a single
scene ; old things were done away, and a new order at
once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly
destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a taste
less age, too long attached to the prejudices of custom,
and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing-
declamation." Might it not have occurred to both painter and actor
that Reynolds was bringing into his art much of this
very freshness and new natural life which Garrick had
imparted to the stage ?
I cannot ascertain precisely when Sir Joshua painted
the portrait of Horace Walpole, but I think it probable
that he sat in 1756. In May of this year the picture
was in the hands of M'Ardell, the engraver, who was
engraving it privately. Walpole writes to Grosvenor
Bedford, in a huff with the engraver for having told
people of the print, and to request him to bring away
the picture, unless M'Ardell locks up the print, and
denies to everybody that there is any such thing. The
picture was repeated. The Marquis of Hertford has

170

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IIL

the original, and the Marquis of Lansdowne the dupli
cate. The time is gone by when Walpole's judgments
in art carried weight, but it is still interesting to read
his opinion of the comparative merits of Reynolds and
Ramsay, as reflecting the estimate of both by the
guiding connoisseurship of that day. " Mr. Ramsay
and Mr. Reynolds," he writes to Dalrymple, in February
of this year, " are our favourite painters, and two of
the best we ever had. Indeed, the number of good
has been very small, considering the numbers there
are. A very few years ago there were computed two
thousand portrait-painters in London., I do not exag
gerate the computation, but diminish it ; though I think
it must have been exaggerated. Mr.. Reynolds and
Mr. Ramsay can scarce be rivals, their manners are so
different. The former is bold, and has a kind of tem
pestuous colouring, yet" with dignity and grace ; the
latter is all delicacy. Mr. Reynolds seldom succeeds in
women ; Mr. Ramsay is formed to paint them." The
two latter sentences are hardly less startling to the
opinion of the present day, than the enormous exag
geration in the statistics of portrait-painting which
precedes them. l
The painter's intimacy with Johnson now brought
him into close relations with the labours and sorrows of
that remarkable man, who in his turn exulted in his
young friend's success, though he was utterly without
perception of what is good in pictures. " Reynolds,"
lie writes to Langton on January 9th, " has within

1 In Kearsley's 'Gentleman's and
Tradesman's Pocket Ledger ' for 1777
is given a list of the principal portrait

and landscape painters in or near
London, with their places of abode.
The number is 196.— Ed.

1759, jEtat. 36.

JOHNSON.

171

these few days raised his price to twenty guineas a
head, and Miss is much employed in miniatures."
Johnson had lately given up his house in Gough
Square, finding the cost of housekeeping beyond his
means, and had taken chambers, in Staple Inn first,
then in Gray's Inn, and, lastly, in Inner Temple Lane.
Within a fortnight of writing this letter his mother died ;
and in the course of a week, as he told Reynolds, he had
written ' Rasselas ' to pay the expenses of her funeral,
and discharge the few debts she had left. Knowing
this, there is something inexpressibly touching in the
passage where Imlac says, " I have neither mother to
be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to
partake the honours of her husband." The regard of
such men as Reynolds was henceforth the best comfort
of that great solitary heart, and the painter's purse and
house and pen were alike at his friemd's service.] For
example, in this year Reynolds wrote three papers for
the Idler, Numbers 76, 79, and 82.1 " These papers,"
observes Northcote, " may be considered as a kind of
syllabus of all his future Discourses ; and they cer
tainly occasioned him some thinking in their composi
tion. I have heard Sir Joshua say that Johnson
required them from him on a sudden emergency, and
on that account he sat up the whole night to complete
them in time; and by it he was so much disordered,
that it produced a vertigo in his head. I may here
add, that, at the time when he contributed to the Idler,

1 The first, on the extent of Con
noisseurship, and the true place and
use of Rules ; the second, on the Imita
tion of Nature ; the third, on Beauty.

I have examined the theory put for
ward in these papers in my remarks
on Sir Joshua's Discourses. — Ed.

172 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
he also committed to paper a variety of remarks which
afterwards served him as hints for his Discourses."
[From the pocket-book for 1759, besides its list of
sitters, may be gleaned a few particulars worth noting.
There are sundry engagements to cards ; several at
' Club ' on Mondays and Fridays ; and a " dance at the
Crown and Anchor " in January : dinners with the
lovely Lady Coventry, now fast sinking in hopeless
decline, and with La Rena, the Italian mistress of Lord
March, whom Walpole describes as decidedly passee,
but who had at least the art to enchain her sated
admirer for a long time. There are also dinners with
his friends Nesbitt and Wilkes, and the Edgcumbes,
Lord and Commodore. One Sunday's engagements
begin with a breakfast with Wilkes, followed by an
afternoon appointment with Dr. Markham (Master of
Westminster), and* wind up with an evening in the
company of Ramsay the painter. There is a dinner
with one of his sitters, Colonel Owen, at Chelsea, hj
the College, and a reminder to receive Mr. Johnson
and Mr. Clarke at dinner in December. There are
various memoranda as to pictures to be finished and
sent home (as " Mrs. Hunter and Mrs. Fortesque to be
sent to Waverley Abbey, Farnham;" "Dutchess of
Ancaster to be sent home ; " " Mr. Haldane's pictures
to be finished"); others to be framed; others to be
copied (as " Copy Lord Granby, half-length, for Lady
Aylesford ; " " Copy Duke of Richmond, for General
Conway ;" " Send Mrs. Fortescue to be copied ;"
" Send Mrs. Shirley, do. ;" " Duke of Devonshire an
other (3rd) copy;" "Copy Master Pelham"). How
many of these copies may now be passing as originals ?

1759, jetat. 36. LADY WALDEGRAVE— VENUS. 173
Under Kitty Fisher's name, on Sunday, the 9th of
April (the date of her first sitting), is written, " Miss
Fisscher," in Sir Joshua's hand. The entry for her
next sitting is in a different hand (conjectured by
Mr. Cotton to be her own), " Miss Kitty Fisher,"
with an N.B., " Miss Fisher's picture is for Sir Charles
Bingham." Then comes a memorandum : " Call on
Mr. Morin, in Grosvenor Square, to see the picture
of Rubens ;" and a list of pictures, bought of Mr. Seal,
with their prices. The list includes two Hemskirks ;
two Sebastian Concas; an anonymous "Moonlight;"
" Finding of Moses ;" " Hare, &c. ;" " Holy Family ;"
and a Vandevelde, — costing in all 84£. 13s., and showing
the appropriation of some of the money which was now
flowing in so fast.
In the side-pocket of this year's book I found a deli
cate golden-brown tress, in a paper inscribed " Lady
Waldegrave," never disturbed till now, I dare say,
since the painter laid it there, after comparing it, for
the last time, with the colour in his picture of the
beautiful Countess. Has any lock of her hair, I wonder,
been as carefully preserved in a lover's keeping as this
in the painter's ?
The last entry in the pocket-book for December,
1759, is " Venus." This was the first Venus painted
by Sir Joshua. She reclines in a wooded landscape ;
only an armlet breaks the nude beauty of her rounded
form : Cupid peeps in on her through the boughs. A
red curtain overhead interrupts the sun. The picture
has been well engraved by Raimbach. Mason, the
poet, says . of the picture : — " I have said that Sir
Joshua had always a living archetype before him when-

174 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
ever he painted what was not a mere portrait. In this
practice he imitated Guido, of whom, in one of his
excellent notes in Du Fresnoy, he says that he would
make a common porter sit to him while he was painting
a Madonna, merely to have that nature before him
which he might depart from. But Sir Joshua did not
imitate him to this extreme. I remember, however,
an anecdote not quite dissimilar to it. When he was
painting his first Venus, I was frequently near his
easel ; and although before I came to town his picture
was in some forwardness, and the attitude entirely
decided (which, however, I rather believe he designed
from a plate of some Leda, or like subject of some old
master, than from real life), yet I happened to visit
him when he was finishing the head from a beautiful
girl of sixteen, who, as he told me, was his man
Ralph's daughter, and whose flaxen hair, in fine natural
curls, flowed behind her neck very gracefully. But a
second casual visit presented me with a very different
object : he was then painting the body, and in his
sitting-chair a very squalid beggar-woman was placed,
with a child, not above a year old, quite naked upon
her lap. As may be imagined, I could not help testi
fying my surprise at seeing him paint the carnation of
the Goddess of Beauty from that of a little child, which
seemed to have been nourished rather with gin than
with milk, and saying that ' I wondered he had not
taken some more healthy-looking model ;' but he
answered, with his usual naivete, that, ' whatever I
might think, the child's flesh assisted him in giving a
certain morbidezza to his own colouring, which he
thought he should hardly arrive at had he not such

1759, iETAT. 36. THE VENUS. 175
an object, when it was extreme (as it certainly was),
before his eyes.'
" Upon this picture he bestowed much time, in
tending, as I suppose from the subject, to emulate the
Venus of Titian. I have seen it, during its progress,
in a variety of different tones of colouring ; sometimes
rosy beyond nature, and sometimes pallid and' blue,
and these differences throughout the whole form. On
his table I observed at the time there always stood two
large gallipots of colour under water ; one of a deeper,
one of a lighter, tinge, composed of vermilion and
white, which proved to me that hq had now laid aside
his first favourite lake ; and indeed he, about that time,
told me he had done so, preferring Chinese vermilion
to it ; of the durability of which he, however, after
wards doubted, and used in its stead the best he could
find of English manufacture. By repeated glazings
he, as I imagine, brought the figure to that perfection
which it certainly had when finished. Yet, when he
first saw it after it was hung up in the exhibition-room
at the Academy, he told me he felt much surprise, and
a little temporary chagrin, to see its effect so much
lessened from that which it had on his easel. ' But on
reflection,' he said, ' I was soon reconciled with my
work. I concluded that the more fiercely-coloured
paintings which surrounded it made it appear so faint
as it seemed to do ; for I know,' and he might say
so without vanity, ' that it was the precise hue of
nature.' " Lord Coventry purchased the picture.
The pocket-book for 1759 records not fewer than
148 sitters. They are in

176

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

January.
.The Duke of Buccleugh ; Mr.
Eelaval ; the Prince of Wales ; '
Prince Edward; Mrs. Day; Mr.
and Mrs. Cleveland ; Mrs. Angelo ;
the Duchess of Hamilton and
Lady Coventry;2 Mr. Bridges;
Lady M. Coke; Mrs. Moore;
Lady Louisa Greville ;* Duchess
of Grafton; Mr. Winter;* Mr.
Smith; Sir John St. Aubyn;
Lord G. Sackville; Lord Straf
ford; Mrs. Pelham (feeding
chickens); Col. Keppel; Miss
Cumberland ; Duke of Portland ;
Miss Hoare; General Howard;
Mr. Mordaunt. February.
Commodore (afterwards Lord)
Edgcumbe; Mrs. Price; Mr.
Strode; Master Pelham; Lady
Francis Scott ; Mrs. Proby ; Lady
Caroline Seymour; Mr. Gifford;

Col. Townshend; Mr. Smith;
Miss Powis ; Miss Miller ; Lord
Edgeeumbe ; Mr. Astley.
March.
Captain Byron ; 3 Lord Boyle ;
Lord Charlemont ; 4 the Duke of
Grafton;0 Mr. and Miss Thorold
Mrs. Trollope; Mr. Sedgwick
Master Methuen ; Miss Eeynolds
Mr. and Mrs. Knapp ; Mr. Jef
fries ; Duchess of Ancaster ; Lady
M. Bertie; Lady Strafford; Mr.
Haldane ; Mr. Langton ; Admiral
Knowles. April.
Lady Albemarle ; Lady Caro
line Adair ; ° Mrs. Bassett ; Lady
Collier; Mrs. Hewgill; Mrs.
Hewitt; Kitty Fisher;7 General
Whitmore ; Comm. Keppel ; Mrs.
Methuen; Lady Eliz. Keppel;
Lady Thorold;" Mr. Sayer;

1 Afterwards George III.
2 Elizabeth and Maria Gunning, of
whom the former married Colonel
Campbell, in March this" year, and
by that marriage ultimately became
Duchess of Argyle ; the latter died in
October, 1760.— Ed.
* Lady Louisa's picture is in the
possession of Mr. Munro. It is a
Kitcat of a pretty young woman in a
blue dress and pearls, and a close cap,
with a pearl trimming, and is in ex
cellent preservation, with the carna
tion unimpaired. Mr. Winter was a
captain in the Guards. His picture,
less than life-size, and full-length,
standing by his horse, with a battle
in the background, was lately in the
hands of Mr. Bryant, the picture-
dealer of St. James's Street.
3 Foul-weather Jack.

4 The wit and friend of wits,
scholars, and artists, the suggijster of
the Gerrard-Street Club in 1764, and
the patron of Hogarth. — Ed.
5 " D. of G. Copy in an undress
for Mr. Alion"(?Alleyn).
6 Lady Caroline Keppel, now mar
ried to Mr. Adair, a surgeon of emi
nence. 7 Her sittings run over several
months of this year, and are very
frequent. She often sat on a Sunday,
and twice in May sits at half-past eight.
3 "Mem.— Sir John Thorold and
Lady Thorold and Mr. Thorold to be
sent to the Castle in Wood Street,
by the Stamford earner, directed to
Grantham, to be left till called for.
Mr. Ingram, Wakefield, to be sent to
the Swan with Two Necks, in Ladd
Lane."

1759, .mat. 36.

SITTERS, 1759.

it,

Mrs. Ingram; Lady Granby;
Duke of Devonshire ; Mr. and
Mrs. Grey ; Lord Dartmouth ;
Lady Lepel Phipps ; Lady Caro
line Eussell ; Miss Crokatt ; Lady
Fortescue ; Mrs. Woodley ; Miss
Poyntz. May.
Master Cox (as the Young Han
nibal) ; the Duke of Eoxborough ;
Lord Lauderdale ; \ Lord North
ampton; Mr. Selwyn (George);
Miss Car; Mr. Williams ; General
Cholmondeley ; " Duchess of
Eichmond; Mrs. Hugh; Mr.
Phipps ; Duke of Bedford ; Duke
of Marlborough ; Miss Warren ;
Col. Champness; Miss Eolts;
Mrs. Spencer; Mr. Pauncefdrd
(in small for Col. Keppel).

June.3
Lord March ; 4 the Countess
Waldegrave ; ' Lady Maynard
and Dog; Miss Spencer; Sir
Walter Blackett and Dog; Mrs.
Shirley ; Mrs. Hays ; Mrs. Mey-
nell ; Lord C. Spencer ; Mrs.
James (as a Madonna) ; Miss
Dawson ; Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd.
July.
Sir Archer and Lady Croft ;
La Eena ; ° Sir E. Grosvenor ;
Mr. Nesbit; Mr. James; Mrs.
Bathurst. August.
Mrs. Ashley or Astly; David
Garrick; Mr. Townsend; Mr.
Morant; Lady Lyttelton; Capt.
Hale. September.
Harry Woodward ; 7 Mr. Barry

1 In Nov., " Copy of Lord Lauder
dale, 4 ft. i high, by 3 ft, 7 in., 20
guineas." 2 Distinguished for his services in
Flanders in 1744-45, and in the
Scotch campaign against the rebels in
the '45-46.
3 " Mr. Trollope's, Mr. Thorold's,
and Miss Thorold's pictures to be
sent by the Louth waggon, at the
Red Lion, Aldersgate Street, directed
to Mr. Trollope, at Billingborough,
Lincolnshire." 4 Afterwards Duke of Queensbury ;
the " Old Q," of profligate notoriety.
In July, " Rich frame with an earl's
coronet for Lord March." — Ed.
5 Afterwards Duchess of Gloucester.
The Earl, one of the honestest men of
his time, was the most trusted friend
of George IL, and in 1757 had been
for a few days prime minister, much
against his will. The Countess was
Horace Walpole's beautiful niece
VOL. I.

Maria. She was at this time a young
bride, having been married in May.
The Countess Waldegrave was one of
the loveliest women of her time. Wal
pole mentions her being mobbed in the
park one Sunday in this same month
of June, when in company with Lad y
Coventry; the next Sunday Lady
Coventry had two sergeants of the
guards to march before her with their
halberds, and twelve guards behind
her, to keep off the admiring crowd.
(Walpole, June 23, 1759, Cunning
ham's edition.) She sat very often to
Reynolds, and there are at least four
portraits of her from his hand. This
year's portrait of her was the one in a
turban exhibited in 1760. — Ed.
6 An Italian mistress of Lord March.
Is this the picture of a dark woman
in a fly cap and purple dress, with a
sheet of music in her hand, exhibited at
the British Institution in 1862 ? — Ed.
7 The comedian. He gave the por-
N

178

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap.. III.

(the actor) ; Colonel Lindsey ;
Lord Newbattle; Lady Selina
Hastings. October.
Dr. Markham;1 Colonel Co
vering ; 2 Sir Harry Eoklin ; Lord
Milsington ; Master Morant ; Mr.
s Cruttenden ; Lady Berkley ; Mr.
Dawkins ; Mr. Vaughan.
November.3

Colonel Bradshaw; Mr. (after
wards Sir) George Colebrooke;
Mr. Gwilt; Miss Lawson; Miss
Fore (Faure ?) ; Mrs. Morris ;
Lady Charlotte Johnston.
December.
Mrs. Bradshaw ; Mrs. Wilson ;
Lord Beauchamp; Mr. Dyson.
(Lord Sussex to be finished in
three weeks.)]

Lady Ecklin; Mr. Malone;
The first public exhibition of the pictures of living
artists in England originated in charity. Hogarth's
munificent gifts of his fine whole-length portrait of
good old Captain Coram, and of his Moses before
Pharaoh's Daughter, to the Foundling Hospital, and
his presentation to the same* institution of a great
number of tickets in the raffle for the March to Finchley,
— by which means that picture also became the pro
perty of the Hospital, — induced gifts to the same
charity by other painters, and the collection, thus
originated, was thrown open to the public.4

trait to Stacey, an ex-jockey, the land
lord of the Bedford Arms, a famous
whist-player, with whom he lodged.
It is now at Petworth. — Ed.
1 Now head-master of Westminster,
afterwards Bishop of Chester, and
finally Archbishop of York. He was
at this time a warm friend of Burke,
whom he afterwards broke with on
account of his liberal and constitu
tional predilections in politics. The
picture is at Christchurch. — Ed.
2 " Your friend, Colonel Clavering,
is the real hero of Guadaloupe ; he is
come home covered with more laurels
than a boar's head. Indeed he has
done exceedingly well." (Walpole to
Mann, June 22, 1759.)— Ed.

3 " Mr. James, white coat (Bath
cloth), blue lapels, blue waistcoat,
embroidered button-holes." A por
trait, with this dress, is in possession
of William Russell, Esq., Chesham
Place.— Ed.
4 Among the painters who pre
sented pictures may be mentioned
Hayman, Wills, Highmore, Hudson,
Ramsay, Lambert, Wilson, and Pine.
Hogarth first conceived the design of
ornamenting the hospital, by a com
bination of painters, sculptors, and
architects. A committee was formed
for the purpose, to meet annually on
the 5th of November. — The committee-
meeting drew on an annual dinner,
which was, in little, what the Academy

1760, J3TAT. 37.

ARTISTS' ACADEMIES.

179

In consequence of the great interest excited by this
display, a public exhibition of pictures by living

dinner is now. Out of this gathering
grew not only the annual exhibitions,
as mentioned below, but, as a conse
quence of their success, the incorpora
tion of a Society of Artists in 1765,
by secession from which, finally, was
constituted the Royal Academy. As
some perplexity may be caused to
jhose who may_wish_to follow the
successive steps which led to the esta-
blisEmenTToT'the TK>yal Academy, by
the names and exhibitions of the
various Societies of Artists between
1760 and the end of the century, I
subjoin a synopsis of these, compiled
from Edwards, the catalogues, &c.
A.D. 1711. — An academy formed
by several artists, with Sir Godfrey
Kneller at their head, for instruction
in drawing. Vertue the engraver
studied there.
1724 to 1734.— Sir James Thorn
hill formed an Academy for drawing
in his own house, in the Piazza,
Covent Garden.
Between 1734 and 1739. — Life
school held in Greyhound Court,
Arundel Street, under G. M. Moser,
in the house of Mr. Peter Hyde, a
painter, afterwards a Moravian mis
sionary in Philadelphia.
1739 . — The Greyhound - Court
School was augmented by the addi
tion of Hogarth, Wills, Ellis, and
others, and emigrated to Peter's Court,
St. Martin's Lane. Hogarth presented
them with Sir James Thornhill's casts.
An English Academy founded at
Rome, May, 1752, the very month
that Reynolds left it on his return
to England. I find in a letter from
Rome in a contemporaneous perio
dical, " The Lords Bruce, Charle
mont, Tilney, and Kilmore, Sir Thos.
Kennedy, Messrs. Ward, Iremonger,

Lethulier, Bagot, Scroop, Cook, Lypeat,
and Murphy, Esqs., have began a
subscription for an Academy in this
city, in which English students in
painting and sculpture, whose circum
stances will not permit them to pro
secute their studies at their own
expense, will receive all the advan
tages that foreigners, especially the
French, derive fronv such foundations,
— a subscription which it is hoped all
the lovers of polite arts will concur to
promote. Mr. John Parker, history-
painter, is appointed receiver and
director." Most of these founders had
been friends of Reynolds at Rome, and
sat to him in London afterwards.
In October, 1753, a scheme was
started for " Erecting a public Aca
demy for the improvement of the
Arts '; of Painting, Sculpture, and
Architecture, and a meeting con
vened by circular at the Turk's Head,
Greek Street, Soho, for November
13th, "to elect 24—13 painters, 2
sculptors, 1 chaser, 2 engravers, and
2 architects, — for making regulations,
taking subscriptions, erecting a build
ing, instructing the students, and con
certing all such measures as shall after
wards be thought necessary." (F. M.
Newton, Secretary.) Nothing effectual
came of this meeting.
1755. — Abortive consultations on
the foundation of an Academy— among
the painters themselves and with the
Dilettanti Society.
1757. — Removal of the Peter's-
Court School to Pall Mall.
21st April, 1760.— First exhibition
opened at the Great Room of the
Society for the Encouragement of
Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce,
in the Strand. Admission free, Cata
logues 6d.
N 2

180

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

. Chap. III.

painters was opened on the 21st of April, 1760, at a
-large„ropm in,iha. Str*n^-%el€HagiTig__to the Society

9th May, 1761. — Second exhibition
at the Society of Artists' Rooms, in
Spring Gardens. Admission by cata
logue, price Is.
17th May, 1762.— Third exhibition.
Admission Is., catalogue given gratis,
with preface by Dr. Johnson. Plan
for selling pictures sent. " Prices to
be secretly fixed by the committee
and registered : if picture sold for
more than committee's valuation, the
whole price to be the artist's ; if for
less, the deficiency to be made up to
the artist out of the profits of the ex
hibition." The Society of Arts' exhibitions, in
the Great Room in the Strand went on,
simultaneously with those in Spring
Gardens, till 1764.
The artists, chiefly the younger
members of the profession, who had
been accustomed to exhibit in the
Room of the Society of Arts, then
hired a room in Maiden Lane, where
they exhibited in 1765 and 1766,
calling themselves the Free Society
of Artists. They then hired the use
of Mr. Christie's Auction Room, near
Cumberland House, Pall Mall, for a
month every spring, and exhibited
there, feebly, till 1774. In 1775 they
exhibited for the last time in a room
in St. Alban's Street.
26th January, 1765. — The Spring-
Garden Society was incorporated by
Royal Charter, under the name of The
Society of Artists of Great Britain;
with 24 directors, including a presi
dent, vice-president, treasurer, and se
cretary, to be annually elected on St.
Luke's Day, who were to choose fellows.
George Lambert ( principal scene-
painter at Drury Lane, and founder of
the Beefsteak Club ) was the first
president ; Francis Hayman, vice-

president ; Richard Dalton, treasurer ;
and Francis Milner Newton, secretary.
James MacArdell (engraver), George
Barrett, William Chambers (archi
tect), William Collins, Francis Cotes,
Charles Grignion (engraver), John
Gwynne (architect), Nathaniel Hone,
Jeremiah Meyer, George Michael
Moser, James Paine (architect), Ed
ward Penny, Edward Rooker (water-
colour painter), Paul Sandby (water-
colour painter), Christopher Seaton,
William Tyler, Samuel Wale (sign
and historical painter, and book-
illustrator), Richard Wilson, Joseph
Wilton (sculptor), and Richard Yeo,
directors. It is remarkable that Reynolds, who
had exhibited with this society since
1760, and was so distinctly recognised
as the most fashionable, as well as the
best portrait-painter of his time long
before this, does not appear in this
list ; neither does Ramsay, his most
formidable rival.
The charter conferred arms on the
society : Upon a, field azure, a brush,
a chisel, and a pair of compasses, com
posed fretty, or; over them in chief,
a regal crown proper. Supporters, on
the dexter side, Britannia; on the
sinister, Concord. Crest, on a wreath
an oak branch, and a palm-branch in
saltire ; in the centre of which a chap-
let of laurel.
In December, 1768. — Present Royal
Academy constituted by secession from
the Incorporated Society. Their first
quarters were in Tall Mall, at Dalton's
Picture Auction Rooms, next Old
Carlton House. Thence their schools
were removed to old Somerset House
in 1771, by permission of the king,
but their exhibitions were still held in
Pall Mall till the completion of the

1760, iETAT. 37. FIRST EXHIBITION OF PICTURES.

181

for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce. [The Catalogue enumerates seventy-four
pictures, and includes, as its most noticeable works for
£1&l Hayman's portrait of Garrick as Richard the Third ;
Richard Wilson's Niobe, with two other landscapes by
him ; landscapes by the three Smiths, of Chichester ;
and Roubiliac's Shakespeare, executed for Garrick's
villa at Hampton, and by him bequeathed to the British
Museum, where it now is. Hogarth did not contribute
to this exhibition.] Reynolds sent four of his works : —
A whole-length portrait of Elizabeth, Duchess of
Hamilton.1 A three-quarter of Lady Elizabeth Keppel, after
wards Marchioness of Tavistock.2
A three-quarter of a gentleman ; and
Lord Charles (? George) Vernon, in armour, the
attitude (according to Horace Walpole) taken from
Vandvke.

new buildings at Somerset House,
where they first exhibited on May 1st,
1780. The Incorporated Society continued
to exhibit simultaneously with the
Royal Academy, but latterly with
some irregularity, till 1783, viz. : — at
the Spring-Garden Rooms till 1771 ;
at the room they had erected (by Jas.
Payne) on the site of the present
Lyceum Theatre till 1777, in which
year they exhibited at Mr. Phillips's
new great room, near Air Street, Pic
cadilly. From 1777 to 1780 they did
not exhibit, but in the latter year they
exhibited at their old room in Spring
Gardens : again intermitting their ex
hibition till 1783, when they returned
to the Lyceum room. The latest
catalogue of theirs which I have seen
is for 1790-91. The earliest water-

colour exhibitions were held in the
Spring-Garden room. Oil pictures were
occasionally introduced. For instance,
Haydon's Solomon was exhibited there
in 1814.— Ed.
1 The beautiful Elizabeth Gunning,
at this time the wife of General Camp
bell, afterwards fifth Duke of Argyll.
—Ed.
2 A sister of Commodore Keppel.
This picture is now at Lord Albe
marle's, Quiddenham, Norfolk. It is
one of the painter's loveliest and best-
preserved female portraits. The dress
is white, with a rose in the bosom, and
the expression inimitably maidenly
and gentle. Sir Joshua's full-length
of the same lady as Marchioness of
Tavistock (now at Woburn), painted
in 1761-62, is one of his finest pictures
for silvery sweetness.

182

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

His sitters and his gains still increasing, Reynolds
this summer removed to a house in Leicester Square,
where he remained to the end of his life.1 To this
house, which stood in the centre of the west side of the
square, No. 47, he added a gallery, painting-rooms for
himself, his pupils, copyists, and drapery-men — a
considerable staff — and other conveniences.2 [His own
painting-room, Northcote tells us, was octagonal, " about
twenty feet long and sixteen in breadth. The window
which gave the light to the room was square, and not
much larger than one half the size of a common window
in a private house ; whilst the lower part of this
window was nine feet four inches from the floor. The
chair3 for his sitters was raised eighteen inches from

1 The father of Geo. Morland, the
painter, had previously occupied the
house. It is now occupied by the lite
rary auctioneers, Puttick and Simpson.
The passage to Sir Joshua's painting-
room remains intact, but the painting-
room has been transformed. — Ed.
2 In the pocket-book for the year is
recorded, under July 3rd, "' House
bought ;" and under September 11th,
" Paid the remainder of the purchase-
money, 10007."— Ed.
3 His favourite easel, a mahogany
one, handsomely carved, given him
by Mason the poet, is now in posses
sion of the Royal Academy. A chair
with gilt cane back and sides, and
a cushion covered with crimson silk
damask, catalogued as " The state
chair of the late Sir Joshua Reynolds,
in which his distinguished sitters were
placed, and which he bequeathed by
will to Mr. Barry, R.A.," was put up,
but not sold, at Christie's sale of Lord
De Tably's collection, July 7, 1827.
Smith (' Life of Nollekens,' ii. 164)
pronounces this chair an impostor, and

says that, on Sir Thomas Lawrence
telling Christie so, the honest auc
tioneer at once informed the company,
and passed the lot. The true chair
(which was given to Barry by Lord
and Lady Inchiquin, after Sir Joshua's
death), at the sale of the furniture of
Dr. Fryer, Barry's biographer, to whom
it had passed, was on the point of
being knocked down for 10s. 6d., when
Smith entered the room, and secured
it for Sir Thomas Lawrence. This
historic seat, which is a plain mahogany
arm-chair, covered with leather, was
subsequently Sir M. A. Shee's, and
was sold at the sale of the latter's col
lection, March 25, 1851, for 5Z.15s. 6d. ;
when, also, one of Sir Joshua's palettes,
presented to Shee by Turner, was sold
for 4.1. 4s. The chair is now in the
hands of Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A. ;
and this palette (with several others
of Reynolds's — one with the colours
set by himself for the Countess of
Buckingham) is in the possession
of the Royal Academy. Mr. Cribb,
of King Street, Covent Garden, son of

1760, iETAT. 37. REMOVES TO LEICESTER SQUARE.

183

the floor, and turned round on castors. His palettes
were those which are held by a bundle, not those held
on the thumb. The stocks of his pencils were long,
measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that
part of the room nearest to the window, and never
sat down when he worked." This painting-room was
made comfortable with sofas. The gallery leading to
it was adorned with the most important pictures he
had on hand, and in the winter made cheerful by the
blaze of a large fire.] On opening his new mansion to
the public he gave a ball to a numerous and, no doubt,
splendid company.
For a forty-seven years' lease of this house he gave,
according to Farington, 1650/., and his additions to it
cost him 1500?. more. This expenditure swallowed up
nearly all his savings. But these he felt confident of
replacing in no long time, and, indeed, he was soon in
the receipt of 6000/. a year. He had already raised
his prices to twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred guineas
for the three classes of portraits, — head, half-length,
and full-length.
He now set up a carriage, which Northcote, in his
unpublished autobiography, describes as " A chariot on
the panels of which were curiously painted the four
seasons of the year in allegorical figures. The wheels
were ornamented with carved foliage and gilding ; the
liveries also of his servants were laced with silver.
But having no spare time himself to make a display of
this splendour, he insisted on it that his sister Frances

Sir Joshua's frame-maker, has an
other, given to his father by Sir Joshua
in 1790. It has a handle, made by

prolonging one side : others of Sir
Joshua's are spade-shaped, with the
handle in the middle. — Ed.

184

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

should go out with it as much as possible, and let it
be seen in the public streets to make a show, which she
was much averse to, being a person of great shyness of
disposition, as it always attracted the gaze of the popu
lace, and made her quite ashamed to be seen in it.
This anecdote, which I heard from this very sister's
own mouth, serves to show that Sir Joshua Reynolds
knew the use of quackery in the world. He knew that
it would be inquired whose grand chariot this was, and
that, when it was told, it would give a strong indica
tion of his great success, and by that means tend to
increase it."
The panels of this carriage were painted by Catton,
afterwards a Royal Academician ; 1 and it is possible
that Reynolds may have had other motives than those
attributed to him by Northcote ; or other motives in
addition to those, supposing Northcote in the right.
The wish, perhaps, to help Catton to notice, and the
belief that the employment of art in every sort of
decoration might tend to awaken the taste of the
public, may have had something to do with this appa
rent ostentation. When Miss Reynolds complained to
him that the chariot was too fine, he said, " What !
would you have one like an apothecary's carriage ? "
He allowed his coachman to show it.
Northcote adds the following note to his description
of it, and it is very characteristic of himself : — " I have
been told that it was an old chariot of a Sheriff of
London, newly done up."

1 And subsequently Master of the
Paper-stainers' Company, in whose
hall he entertained Reynolds and Bos

well in 1784. There is said to be
some of his work on the panels of the
present city state-coach, built' in 1757.

1760, MTAT. 37

PUBLIC EVENTS.

185

I had noticed a disposition in Northcote to disparage
Reynolds ; never, certainly, as a painter, but sometimes
as a man ; * and this, not so much in anything he has
published, as in what I have heard him say ; and I
think I shall be able, in another page, to account
for it. r
[This year the Society of Arts awarded their
premium of one hundred guineas for the best original
historical picture to Mr. Pine, for his picture of Edward
the Third and the Burghers of Calais ; their second
premium of fifty guineas to Signor Casali for his
picture of Gunhilda ; their premiums of fifty and
twenty-five guineas for landscape to George and John
Smith. The court-martial on Lord G. Sackville, for
his conduct at Minden, the trial and execution of Lord
Ferrers for the murder of his steward, and Clive's
return with fabulous wealth, were the great topics of
town-talk. Thurot's defeat on the coast of Ireland ;
the successes of the Canadian campaign, under Amherst ;
and the gallantry of our force in Germany, crowned
by the heavy losses at Kempen, where more than one
of Reynolds's sitters was killed or wounded ; besides our
numerous successes in individual encounters with the
French at sea, were the leading naval and military
incidents. The death of George the Second, on

1 And yet on the point of excessive
love of money, Northcote does not swell
the cry against Reynolds. Writing
under this date (1759), and referring
to Reynolds's papers in the ' Idler,' he
says, " At that time, indeed, Johnson
was under many obligations, as well
as these literary ones, to Reynolds,
whose generous kindness would never

permit his friends to as7t a pecuniary
favour ; his purse and heart being
always open." I find in the pocket-
book for 1757 an entry in January,
" Bill — Johnson," which may refer to
some money transaction between them,
and Johnson died 30'. in Reynolds's
debt.— Ed.

186

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

October 25, and the accession of George the Third,
mark the year as memorable in our annals. Johnson
drew up — probably at the request of Reynolds — the
address of the painters to the king on his accession .
The pocket-book for 1760 contains the names of not
fewer than 120 sitters.

January.
Colonel Fitzroy ; * Colonel L.
Hall ; Colonel Amherst ; 2 Lady
Caroline Curzon; Lady Juliana
Dawkins; Lady Berkeley; Miss
Day; Mrs. Andrews; Master
Payne ; 3 Mr. Dyson ; 4 Mr. Kyn-
aston; Mr. Garrick.5 February.
The Duchess of Eichmond;

Lord and Lady Shaftesbury
Lady Grey; Lady Gower; Lady
Wharton ; Lady Folkstone ; Miss
Faure; Mrs. Calvert; Mrs.
Boyle; Mrs. Angelo;6 Miss St.
Aubyn ; 7 Miss Hunter ; Colonel
Vernon; General Townson; Mr.
Phipps ; Sir E. Grosvenor ; s Sir
Nathaniel Curzon ; Mr. Walsing-
ham ; Captain Loekhart.9

1 The officer who took the orders of
Prince Ferdinand to Lord G. Sack-
ville at Minden. He was elevated to
the Peerage as Baron Southampton in
1780.— Ed.
2 Brother of the conqueror of Louis-
burg and Montreal, who this year re
ceived the thanks of Parliament and
the Order of the Bath for his services
in the reduction of Canada. — Ed.
3 Son of James Payne, the architect.
—Ed. 4 One of the best known, if not
most respected, officials of his time.
The Mungo of later lampoons, and
one of the leading " King's friends " ;
Secretary of the Treasury under Lord
North — Akenside's patron. — Ed.
5 Several times, and generally on a
Sunday. — Ed.
6 Wife of the celebrated riding and
fencing master. — Ed.
7 Of the St. Aubyns of Clowance
in Cornwall. — Ed.
8 Created Baron Grosvenor, of Eaton,
in the following year, and Earl Gros
venor in 1784. " The now peers Earl

Talbot and Earl of Delawar ; Mr.
Spencer Lord Viscount Spencer ; Sir
Richard Grosvenor, a Viscount or
Baron, I don't know which, nor does
he ; for yesterday, when he should
have kissed hands, he was gone to
Newmarket to see the trial of a horse
race." (Walpole to Mann, March 17,
1761.) Sir Richard combined love of
the arts with his taste for the turf.
He was a picture-buyer— the purchaser
of Sir Luke Schaub's Sigismunda, in
rivalry of which, only_ the year before,
Hogarth had painted his Sigismunda
for Sir Richard, who deeply hurt the
feelings of the painter by declining the
picture. 3 Afterwards Admiral Sir John
Loekhart of Lee, one of the most gal
lant naval officers of the time. His
action with seven French privateers
in the ' Tartar,' in 1757, had been
rewarded with a salver by the mer
chants of London, and 1001. cup by
those of Bristol, in January, 1758. —
Ed.

1760, 2ETAT. 37.

SITTERS, 1760.

187

March.
Admiral Saunders ; 1 Mr. and
Mrs. Buller;2 Lady Hume; Lady
Fortescue; Mrs. Hussey; Miss
Goddard ; Mr. Croft ; Captain
Porter ; Colonel Eobinson ; Cap
tain Duncan ; Mrs. Bouverie ;
General Kingsley ; s Master Cur
zon ; Master Bouverie ; i Lord
Downe ; s the Eev. Lawrence
Sterne ;6 La Eena ; 7 Garrick.8
April.
Lord G. Lenox; Mr. Con

way ; 9 Lord Edgcumbe ; 10 Mr.
Dodsley (the bookseller) ; Lady
Sussex ; Lady Gresley ; Mrs. Ais-
labie ; Mrs. Aston ;u Mrs. Hew-
gill ; Mrs. Hewitt ; Miss Wylde ;
Miss Crokatt; Mr. Bay; Mr.
Jones ; Mr. Vaughan. May.
Lord Granby ; 12 Lord Gower
(Privy Seal) ; Lady Ward ; Lord
Coventry; Mr. and Mrs. Ger
main ; Mr. More ; Mr. Colman ; ls
Sir Walter Blackett;14 Lord

1 " Yellow-Jack," the life-long friend
of Keppel. He carried Wolfe to Quebec
and aided in the capture of that fortress,
and was now commander-in-chief in
the Mediterranean. His picture is at
Quiddenham in excellent preservation,
like most of the uncleaned pictures of
this period which I have seen. — Ed.
2 Of King's Nympton, Devonshire.
—Ed. 3 Of Kingsley's Foot — so distin
guished in the campaign of 1759, and
one of the commanders of the secret
expedition assembled at Portsmouth
this year, but disbanded without ac
tion. — Ed.
4 As a baby in the picture with his
beautiful mother.
5 He must have been painted just
before starting for the campaign on
the Rhine. He was mortally wounded
at the battle of Kempen in October of
this year. — Ed.
c On Sunday the 6th. At this
moment the lion of the town ; engaged
fourteen deep to dinner, " his head
topsy-turvy with his success and fame,"
consequent on the appearance of the
first instalment of his ' Tristram
Shandy.' (See Walpole, April 4, 1760,
and Sterne's own letters.) — Ed.
7 Lord March's cliere amie. — Ed.
3 Another Sunday, the 20th.

9 Horace Walpole's friend and cor
respondent. — Ed.
10 The second baron, who succeeded
to the title in 1750, and died in 1761.
He is Horace Walpole's Dick Edg
cumbe. — Ed.
11 The friend and correspondent of
Dr. Johnson. — Ed.
12 Now in the full flush of his popu
larity and renown — a sign-post hero —
for his brilliant services with the allies
in Germany. His wife died this year.
—Ed. 13 The elder, who produced his first
piece, ' Polly Honey combe,' at Drury
Lane this year. — Ed.
14 M.P. for Newcastle. The fine full-
length of this stalwart baronet is now in
the Infirmary of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
of which city he was mayor as well as
M.P. He wears his civic robe of office
(red and black) over a rich suit of
greenish blue spotted with black. He
has a white wand in his hand. The
balance of the cool underdress and the
rich civic robe is very skilfully managed.
The background is a curtain of reddish
purple, with pillars of cool gray and
warm sun-lighted stone, through which
are glimpses of a hght sky. The picture
is on a gray tempera ground, and is said
to be in good preservation. Sir W.
Trevelyan has a duplicate.

188

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Stirling; Miss Pennyman; Miss
Owen; Miss Roberts ; Mrs.
Brown ; Mrs. Nutt ; Mrs. Thorn
hill ; Mrs. Douglas ; Mrs. Martin;
Miss Anna Germain; Lord and
Lady Waldegrave.1 July.
The Duke of Beaufort; Lord
Ligonier (the veteran) ; Signor
Giardini (the violinist and opera-
manager) ; Mr. Hunter, Miss
Charlotte and Miss B. Hunter ; 2
Mr. Woodward (the actor) ; Mr.
White; Mrs. Brown; Mr. Drum-
mond; Mr. Gifford.

August.
Mr. Foote ;3 Mr. Stewart ; Lady
Lauderdale ; Lady Maynard.4
September.
Miss Greville and Master Gre-
ville ; Lady Charlotte Jonnson ; 5
Miss Hobart. October.
Captain Buckle; Miss Gifford,
&c. November.
Colonel Trapaud;0 Mr. Tal
bot ; Miss O'Brien.7

1 The lovely Maria, Horace Wal
pole's niece, afterwards Duchess of
Gloucester.- — Ed.
2 Were these the father and sisters
of the more celebrated Miss Catherine
Hunter, who eloped with Lord Pem
broke (see post, 1762)?
3 The dramatist, now in full swing
of popularity at the little theatre in
the Haymarket. " The Minor '' was
produced this year.
4 Wife of Sir William Maynard, a
turfite of the time. She was a beauty
and favourite of Prince Edward's.
(Walpole for Jan. 14, 1760.) Not
to be confounded with the more
famous Lady Maynard, who was ori
ginally Nancy Parsons, the Duke of
Grafton's mistress, and a favourite
mark for the satire of Junius. Sir
Joshua painted her too. — Ed.
5 Sister of the Earl of Halifax ;
wife of Col. James Johnston, better
known as Irish Johnston, who was
wounded at the battle of Kempen, this
year. Lady Charlotte died in 1762 ;
when the Colonel married Horace
Walpole's friend, Miss West.— Ed.
5 Col. Trapaud was the officer
whose lucky hand stopped the charger

of George the Second, when, with the
bit in its teeth, it was carrying him
into the French lines at Dettingen.
He was then a friendless subaltern.
The king took charge of young Tra-
paud's military fortunes. He married
a beautiful woman, also painted by
Reynolds, and lived to be a general. —
Ed.
7 Nelly, a rival to Kitty Fisher.
This is not the loveliest portrait of
her, which was painted in 1763, and
is now in Lord Hertford's gallery.
That exquisite picture represents the
frail beauty in full sunlight, in an atti
tude of lazy enjoyment, sitting, her
hands crossed, with a, pet spaniel in
her lap. Her voluptuous face, which
is raised as if at the approach of one
for whom she has been waiting, is lit
np, under the shade of the flat Wof-
fington hat, by the reflected lights
from her dress, a quilted rose-coloured
slip with lace over it, a black lace
apron and mantilla, and a sacque of
blue-striped silk. She was a chere
amie of Lord Bolingbroke, as well as
everybody else. (See Walpole's letter
to George Montague, of March 29,
1766.) A noble duke, lately deceased,

1761, iETAT. 38.

SITTERS, 1760.

189

December.
Master Mayo; Mr. Bennet;
Mrs. Prado;1 Mrs. Brudenell;
Miss Holditch ; Lady Collier and

ber sister Lady J. Dawkins ;
Admiral Boscawen ; 2 Mr. Eobert
Palk;3 General Lawrence.4]

The experiment of a public exhibition having suc
ceeded, the artists determined to repeat it ; 5 but
wishing to be entirely independent in their proceed
ings, they engaged for their next exhibition a room in
Spring Gardens.

told Mr. Monckton Milnes he remem
bered driving to Newmarket, in an open
carriage, between his father and Nelly
O'Brien. She died in Park Street, Gros
venor Square, in 1768, when the mag
nificent full-length portrait of her, now
in Lord Hertford's collection, is said
to have been sold at Christie's for
three guineas. I am unable to verify
this, nor do Christie's books confirm
it. A portrait of her did sell for that
price in the very same , year that
Alderman Boydell paid Sir Joshua
500 guineas for his Puck ; but it may
have been one of the many repetitions
of the sitting half-length now in the
possession of Charles Mills, Esq. — a
picture which when in a perfect state
could only have been surpassed by the
full-length above described. There is
also a more refined portrait of her in
profile, her cheek resting on her hand,
belonging to Lady Dover. — Ed.
1 There was a Mr. Prado, a foreign
merchant, a neighbour of Horace Wal
pole's. *I thought at first this might
be a misprint for ' Prideaux.' Sir
Joshua's spelling of his sitters' names
is very loose. His deafness may have
led to this. — Ed.
2 The conqueror of the French in the
action off Lagos, on the 18th August,
1759. He died in January, 1761.— Ed.
3 Appointed Governor of Madras in
1763.— Ed.

4 One of the fellow-heroes of Clive
in the East Indies, associated with
him and Admiral Pocock in the vote
of thanks by the East India Company,
and presented by them with 500?. a
year for life in September of this year
(1761).— Ed.
5 Johnson composed the preface of
the third catalogue. But though he
did this probably at Reynolds's re
quest, his letter to Baretti on the
subject of the exhibition illustrates
the lexicographer's well-knqwn insen
sibility to the claims of art on the
attention of rational men. " The
artists have instituted a yearly exhi
bition of pictures and statues, in imi
tation, I am told, of foreign academies.
This year was the second exhibition.
They please themselves much with
the multitude of spectators, and ima
gine that the English school will rise
much in reputation. Reynolds is
without a rival, and continues to add
thousands to thousands, which he de
serves, among other excellences, by
retaining his kindness for Baretti. . . .
This exhibition has filled the heads of
the artists and the lovers of art.
Surely life, if it be not long, is
tedious ; since we are forced to call in
the assistance of so many trifles to rid
us of our time, — of that time which
never can return." — Ed.

190 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
[The room was close to the entrance from Charing
Cross to the Park. The second catalogue contains 229
works of art, and bears the significant motto, " Esse
quid hoc dicam — vivis quod fama negatur." Hogarth
contributed a frontispiece — Britannia watering three
young trees, inscribed " Painting," " Sculpture," "Archi
tecture " — the first, a sickly sapling with the branch of
portraiture only flourishing ; the other two luxuriant :
the water flows into her watering-pot from a lion's head,
above which, in a niche, is a bust of George the Third,
surmounted by a crown — and a tailpiece — a monkey, in
a fashionable suit, eye-glass in hand, watering three dead
and naked stumps, set in pots marked " Obit 1502,"
" Obit 1600," " Obit 1604 ; " and by them, on a scroll,
" Exotics." The satire was to the point, and well
deserved, at a time when there was no disposition to do
justice to native art, and an immense amount of empti
ness and ignorance in the pretended admiration of the
Old Masters. Hogarth contributed to this exhibition his
Sigismunda ; the Gate of Calais ; Picquet, or Virtue in
Danger, commonly called " the Lady's last Stake,"
painted in 1755 for Lord Charlemont, and for which
Miss Salusbury, a pretty, forward girl of fourteen —
afterwards Mrs. Thrale — sat to the painter ; his Election
Entertainment ; and three portraits. Portraits form
the staple of the exhibition. Mr. Dance, jun., sends a
Virginia, which is thought remarkable enough to be
headed " an historical picture." V^here are a few sub
jects from Shaksper&£>some landscapes by Lambert,
Smith of Derby, and Paul Sandby ; and six by Richard
"Wilson, including his Rimini, Nemi, and Clitumnus.J
To this exhibition Reynolds sent his large picture of

1761, jstat. 38. PORTRAIT OF LORD LIGONIER. 191
the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Ligonier, on his charger,
now in the National Gallery, and his portrait of Sterne.
With these he exhibited —
A three-quarter portrait of Lady Waldegrave, in a
turban.1 A whole-length of the Duke of Beaufort, in his
college robes ; and
A whole-length of Captain Orme, with a horse.2
Were we to be guided by internal evidence alone,
we should find it difficult to believe that the heads of
Lord Ligonier and of Sterne were by the same hand ;
so inferior, in every respect, is the former to the latter.
The old nobleman is probably represented as at Det-
tingen, where he commanded a division of the army.
In the management of the background, the workman
ship of Reynolds is sufficiently apparent ; but Lord
Ligonier was in his eighty-second year when the picture
was painted, and this may perhaps account for the
inferiority of the head. It was necessary to ante-date
the features, and such a proceeding could not but
intimidate the painter ; for Reynolds seems never to
have been truly himself when he was obliged to depart
from the model before him. He could bring out all
that was finest in what he saw, and could add some
thing to it still finer ; but when it was required that
he should make the head he was- looking at twenty
years younger, and light it up with an imaginary
expression, his confidence in his own power must
have been shaken, and the result that the picture
presents naturally followed. The face is finished
1 At Strawberry Hill.
2 Purchased last year (1862) for the National Gallery.

192

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

with great care, but the genius of the painter is not
seen in it.1
And now for Sterne, who when he sat to Reynolds
had not written the stories of Le Fevre, The Monk, or
The Captive, but was known only as " a fellow of infi
nite jest, of most excellent fancy." 2 In this matchless
portrait, with all its expression of intellect and humour,
there is the sly look for which we are prepared by
the insidious mixture of so many abominations with
the finest wit in Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental
Journey, so different from the openness of Swift's
obscenity, and so much more detestable. Nor is the
position of the figure less characteristic than the expres
sion of the face. • It is easy, but it has not the easiness
of health. Sterne props himself up.
His wig was subject to odd chances from the humour
that was uppermost with its wearer. When by mistake

1 Mr. William Russell possesses the
original sketch of the whole compo
sition, which is much richer in colour
than the large picture. " At this
sale " (of Richardson's drawings) " Mr.
Nollekens was a constant attendant,
and he generally took me with him.
I recollect Sir Joshua Reynolds — who
was present one evening when a
drawing was knocked down to his
pupil and agent, Mr. Score — after he
had expatiated upon the extraordinary
powers of Rembrandt, assuring a gen
tleman with whom he was conversing
that the effect which pleased him most
in all his own pictures was that dis
played in the one of Lord Ligonier
on horseback, of which there is an
engraving by Fisher ; the chiaroscuro
of which he conceived from a rude
woodcut upon a halfpenny ballad
which he purchased from the wall of

St. Anne's church in Prince's Street."
(Smith's ' Life of Nollekens,' vol. i.
p. 35.) Angelo, in his rambling ' Re
miniscences,' says it was the portrait
of Lord Granby for which the ballad-
cut furnished a hint, and this seems
more probable, judging from the pic
tures themselves, though when one
has seen Mr. W. Russell's sketch, the
reference to the Lord Ligonier becomes
intelligible. — Ed.
2 Sterne sat for his portrait in
March, 1760. He had then produced
the first and second volumes only of
' Tristram Shandy.' The portrait was
painted for Lord Ossory, then passed
to Lord Holland, and is now in the
gallery of the Marquis of Lansdowne,
by whom it was purchased on the
death of Lord Holland, in 1840, for
500 guineas. — Ed.

1761, jetat. 38. PORTRAIT OF STERNE. 193
he had thrown a fair sheet of manuscript into the fire
instead of the foul one, he tells us that he snatched
off his wig, " and threw it, perpendicularly, with all
imaginable violence, up to the top of the room."
While he was sitting to Reynolds, this same wig had
contrived to get itself a little on one side ; and the
painter, with that readiness in taking advantage of
accident to which we owe so many of the delightful
novelties in his works, painted it so, for he must have
known that a mitre would not sit long bishop-fashion
on the head before him, and it is surprising what a
Shandean air this venial impropriety of the wig gives
to its owner.
We may look at the picture till we fancy we discover
in it " a hair-brained sentimental trace," and we may
well believe that the face before us does not mask an
ungentle heart ; but any certain indication of Sterne's
mastery over our feelings, of his power of moving us
to tears, was not to be expected. His serious moods
were exceptional ; and Reynolds, in this as in all his
portraits, gave the prevailing character.1
Captain Orme had been aide-de-camp to Braddock,
in America, during the ill-starred campaign of 1755.
The picture excited great attention from the boldness
of the treatment : the captain is preparing to mount his
charger, orders in hand ; he was a hero of fashion-

1 Was Sterne romancing when he
writes to a friend who wished for his
portrait : — " You must mention the
business to Reynolds yourself; for I
will tell you why I cannot. He has
already painted a very excellent por
trait of me, which, when I went to pay
VOL. L 0

him for, he desired me to accept as a
tribute (to use his own elegant and
flattering expression) that his heart
wished to pay to my genius. That
man's way of thinking, and manners,
are at least equal, to his pencil." —
Sterne's Letters. — Ed.

194 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
able gossip, thanks to his runaway match with Audrey,
sister of Lord Townshend.
[The year 1761 was a busy one for the world of
fashion, and for Reynolds, as one of that world's chief
chroniclers. There was the excitement of a new reign,
with its prospects, uncertainties, and possibilities. Even
the artists had their hopes. It was reported that the
young King, unlike his grandfather, loved the arts.
Then, for the larger world outside the narrow pale of
art, there were political and personal ambitions, eager
and hopeful. The King had to choose a policy and
a wife. Before the year was out, Lord Bute was a
Secretary of State, and already labouring under the
first pressure of that unpopularity which culminated
two years later. Reynolds's friends, the Whigs, how
ever, were still really omnipotent in pubhc opinion, in
spite of the influence of the favourite first, and the
parliamentary majority against them afterwards ; and
their reign o.nly ceased on the elevation of Lord North
to the head of the administration in 1770, when the
anti-ministerial and anti-regal excitement out of doors
gradually calmed down, and the Opposition had much
ado to hold together their small minority in the House
of Commons.
But the chief interest of this year for the painter
and his patrons centred in the marriage and coronation
of the King. The first took place on the 2nd of,
September, the second on the 22nd. We have the
ceremonial described in Walpole's letters, and can trace
its reflection, as usual, in Reynolds's painting-room.
Of the ten beautiful bridesmaids — daughters of dukes
and earls — who bore the train of the Princess, three

1761, 2etat. 38. THE QUEENS BRIDESMAIDS. 195
of the most beautiful were painted by Reynolds this
year. One was Lady Elizabeth Keppel (full-length)
in her state costume, decorating the statue of Hymen
with flowers, while a negress, whose dark face serves
as a foil to the delicate carnations of her mistress, holds
up to her the massive wreaths. The picture is of the
pearliest colour, warmed by wreaths of clustering
flowers, the sheen of satin and silver ribbons, the
sparkle of diamonds against the white neck and in
the soft hair and rose-tipped ears • of the beautiful
bridesmaid, the dusky upturned face of the negress,
the crimson awning pendant from the tree that over
hangs the statue, the reflected lights in the bronze
tripod crowned with its flickering flame. Reynolds
had painted Lady Caroline in 1758 in the maiden-
loveliness of seventeen, with her mushn kerchief
crossed close over her graceful shoulders, and no orna
ment but a single rose in her bosom. He seems to
have revelled in the contrast of this year's splendour
with that simplicity, and to have put his heart as well
as his hand to the work ; for he had known his sweet
sitter from a child, and she was as good as beautiful.
The hand of Toms may have wrought upon the acces
sories, but it was under the guidance of Reynolds's
taste and feeling. Lady Caroline Russell, in half-
length, is painted sitting on a garden-seat, in a blue
ermine-bordered robe over a close white satin vest.1
She is very lovely, with a frank, joyous, and inno
cent expression, and has a pet Blenheim-spaniel in
her lap — a love-gift, I presume, from the Duke of
Marlborough, whom she married next year. The
1 Both pictures are at Woburn Abbey. — Ed.
o 2

196

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Holland-House picture of Lady Sarah Lenox (the third
grace of this lovely group) and Lady Susan Strang-
ways, daughter of the Earl of Ilchester, with her cousin
young Charles James Fox, was also begun this year.1
Lady Sarah — whom George the Third had loved, and
would have married, but for the negative put by his
Council upon his proposition of such an alliance — leans,
in a morning neglige, from a low window, in Holland
House, to take a dove which Lady Susan holds up to
her ; while young Fox, with a paper in his hand (the
part of Hastings, perhaps, in ' Jane Shore,' about to be
presented in the Holland House private theatre), urges
his pretty cousins to come to their rehearsal. Horace
Walpole (to Montague, May 22, 1761) tells us how
bewitching the two young beauties were in the play,
Lady Susan dressed from Jane Seymour, and Lady
Sarah in white, on the ground, with her hair about her
ears, looking more lovely than any Magdalen of Cor-
reggio's. The fates of both girls were singular. Lady
Sarah, in June, 1767, married Sir Joshua's friend,
Charles Bunbury, — was subsequently divorced from
him, and, marrying General Napier, became the mother
of two illustrious sons, Sir William and Sir Charles.
Lady Susan, three years after this, eloped with O'Brien,
the actor, a man of good family and education, in
whom she found a kind and worthy husband. Lady
Ann Hamilton, another of the royal bridesmaids, Rey
nolds had painted some years before. He had also
finished in 1760 the stately full-length of the beautiful

1 " The bridesmaids, especially Lady
Caroline Russell, Lady Sarah Lenox,
and Lady Elizabeth Keppel, were beau

tiful figures."
Sep. 9.)— Ed.

(Walpole to Conway,

1761, jetat. 38. NAVAL AND MILITARY EXPLOITS. 197
Mistress of the Robes, the Duchess of Ancaster, and
the picture of her husband, the Lord High Chamberlain,
with the portrait of Lady Selina Hastings, one of the
Earl's daughters who bore her Majesty's train at the
coronation. Among other leading beauties painted by Reynolds
in this year of ceremonial may be mentioned, as the
most distinguished, Lady Northampton, Lady Spencer,
and Lady Pembroke,1 Mrs. Brudenell, Mrs. Fitzroy,
and — loveliest of all — Maria Countess Waldegrave,
whom Reynolds seems never to have been tired of
painting, nor she of sitting to him.
Among the male figures of that stately pageant
painted by Reynolds, the most conspicuous, perhaps, is
the commanding figure of Lord Errol, in his suit of
cloth of gold, to whom Lady Sarah Lenox had just
refused her fair hand. Horace Walpole irreverently com
pared him to one of the giants in Guildhall, new gilt.
Another important figure in the royal solemnities
who this year takes his place in Reynolds's chair is Sir
Septimus Robinson, Usher of the Black Rod. His
unusually early sittings (at half-past eight, nine, and
half-past nine) are, no doubt, to be explained by the
press of business, which one can well conceive that a
royal funeral, a royal marriage, and a coronation, in
quick succession, must have thrown upon Black Rod.
Besides its royal ceremonials, the year was memorable,
too, for our naval exploits at Belleisle, in which Keppel
won conspicuous honours ; for our triumphs in the East
Indies, where Pondicherry fell to our forces under
Coote ; and for the victory gained over Marechal de
1 " Lady Pembroke alone, at the I ture of majestic modesty." (Walpole
head of the Countesses, was the pic- | to Montague, Sep. 4, 1761.)— Ed.

198

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Broglie and De Soubise by Prince Ferdinand and the
Allies at Kirkdenckirk, where the Marquis of Granby,
who had sat to Sir Joshua in 1755, commanded the
cavalry, and one of Sir Joshua's sitters of 1760, Colonel
Townshend, was wounded.
Among the painter's conspicuous sitters of this year
was the grave, sleepy, but genuine humourist and wit,
George Selwyn, probably for the last touches of his
portrait in a group with Gilly Williams and Richard
Edgcumbe,1 begun for Horace Walpole some time
before. Reynolds's friend Burke this year took his
first step towards public life as private secretary to
Single-speech Hamilton, under the lord-lieutenancy of
Halifax.2 In May of this year, Goldsmith, still struggling on
the threshold of literature as a starving essayist, met
Johnson for the first time. Percy brought them toge
ther. It -is certain that the essayist's intimacy with
Reynolds began not long after. Reynolds must have
taken his part in the discussions which followed the
appearance of Macpherson's second instalment of Celtic

1 A small picture in excellent pre
servation, now in Lord Taunton's
collection. Engraved for the Selwyn
Correspondence, and Mr. Cunning
ham's edition of Walpole's Letters.
"I have been my out of town with
Lord Waldegrave, Selwyn, and Wil
liams ; it was melancholy the miss
ing poor Edgcumbe, who was con
stantly of the Christmas and Easter
parties. Did you see the charming
picture Reynolds painted for me of
him, Selwyn, and Gilly Williams ? It
is by far one of the best things he
has executed. He has just finished a
pretty whole-length of Lady Elizabeth
Keppel, in the bridesmaid's habit,

sacrificing to Hymen." (Walpole to
Montague, Dec. 30, 1761.)— Ed.
2 Walpole gives us a glimpse of the
young and still undistinguished Irish
man, " I dined with your secretary
(Hamilton) yesterday. There was
Garrick and a young Mr. Burke, who
wrote a book" ('The Vindication of
Natural Society,' published in 1756)
" in the style of Lord Bolingbroke,
that was muoh admired. He is a
sensible man, but has not worn off his
authorism yet, and thinks there is
nothing so charming as writers and to
be one. He will know better one of
these days" (to Montague, July 22,
1761).

1761, jetat. 38. ENGAGEMENTS IN 1761. 199
poetry, under the title of ' Fingal.' He knew Mac-
pherson, and painted his portrait ten years after this.
Johnson, as is well known, pooh-poohed the pretensions
of these poenrs to a high place, either on the score of
subject or treatment ; but his strong sense seems to
have guided him to the truth of the matter, — that
Macpherson had pieced genuine fragments into a whole,
which as a whole no more belonged to any Celtic bard
than the " junctures" of the Scotch editor. What view
Reynolds took of the question, I know not. He does
not figure in any record of the controversy.
By help of the pockefrd)ook for 1761 we can follow
Sir Joshua to dinner, now and then, at club, public
institution, or private house. I find records of his visits
to a club — it may have been the one held at the Devil
Tavern, the precursor of the club founded at the Turk's
Head three years later ; dinners at the Royal Society
(of which he was already a member and frequent
attendant), the Society of Sons of the Clergy (whose
festivals he attended, and whose funds he subscribed to
every year), and with the artists who gathered every
5th of November at the Foundling Hospital. There
are dinner-engagements, too, with Akenside and Wilkes,
who was this year returned for Aylesbury, and who,
as we have seen, had from the first been intimate with
Reynolds and his circle. Indeed, if the letters to Miss
Weston (see ante) be genuine, Reynolds knew him
while he was studying under Hudson. Writing to that
lady from Rome, he says, " Give my service to Mr.
Charlton and Mr. Wilks, and tell them that if it was
possible to give them an idea of what is to be seen
nere, — the remains of antiquity, the sculptures, paint-

200

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

ings, architecture, — they would think it worth while,
nay, they would break through all obstacles, and set
out immediately for Rome."
An entry, in December, " Hardham, by Fleet Ditch,
37 : snuff," is interesting for its connection with the
anecdote of Garrick 's ingenious device for serving his
friend Old Hardham,1 and illustrative of Reynolds's
inveterate habit of snuff-taking. He had been painting
Garrick just before this, and the actor had, no doubt,
recommended Hardham and his " 37."
List of Sitters for 1761. — (Pocket-book.)

January?
General Lawrence ; 3 Mr. Ben
nett, Sen.; Mr. Hillyard;4 Mr.
Holditch ; the Duke (of Cumber
land) ; Master Curzon ; Lord
Drogheda ; Master Amyand ; s
Captain Tasb; Mrs. Martyn;
Colonel Montgomery ; ° Mrs.
Cocks ; Mr. Stewart ; Mr. Jones ;

Mrs. Lennox ; Mrs. Calvert ; Miss
Eayne ; Mr. Wynn ; Lord Gower ;
Mrs. Crawford; Mr. and Mrs.
Colebrooke ; Miss Vansittart ;
Lady Monson; Lord Strafford;
Lord and Lady Waldegrave ; Miss
Johnson;7 Mr. Chancy (9£) ;
Mrs. Harland; Miss Gifford;
Mrs. (Colonel) Fitzroy; Captain
Duncombe.

1 Hardham was a snuff-seller who
had done Garrick good service as his
under-treasurer and as "numberer,"
i. e. counter of the house, as a
check on the money-takers. For this
purpose he had a circular seat in a
]irojecting box on the gallery tier,
called " the numberer's box." Garrick
promised to bring his shop into
fashion, and, with this intention,
offering a pinch from his box in one
of his favourite parts, he made " a
gag " in praise of the snuff, as " Hard-
ham's 37, the only snuff for a man of
fashion." The vogue of " Hardham's
37 " continued to our own time. —
Ed. 2 Tuesday 20th, club; Thursday
22nd, Royal Society Dinner. Aken-
side, Craven Street; all the Sundays

of January are without appointments.
—Ed. 3 " Captain Martyn, in Harley Street,
Cavendish Square. To measure the
space where General Lawrence's pic
ture is to hang." — p. 6.
4 Afterwards Sir Robert Hildyard.
5 Son of the distinguished capitalist
and M.P. for Barnstaple, who was
this year made Commissioner of the
Customs, and married the Dowager
Lady Northampton, also one of Rey
nolds's sitters this year. — Ed.
c One of the heroes of the Canadian
campaign. — Ed.
7 From the frequency of this lady's
sittings I should think she must have
been a model. She is the girl sketch
ing, sold at Miss Rogers's sale, and now
the property of Miss Burdett Coutts.

1761, .ETAT. 38.

SITTERS, 1761.

201

February.1
Mr. Smith; Mr. Vansittart ;
Mr. (Colonel) Fitzroy;2 Master
Neville ; Mr. Nevil ; Lord Abing-
ton; Mrs. Gosling; Lord Dart
mouth; Dr. Hay;3 Mrs. Herbert;
Captain Foot; Mrs. Forteseue ;
Colonel Vernon ; 4 Mrs. Way ';
Duke of Ancaster ; Mrs. Lee ;
Mr. Digby; Mrs. Nutt; Mrs.
Trapaud ; Mrs. Hodges.
March.
Mr. Garrick (Sunday, 1st;)
Captain Blair ; Duchess of Beau
fort (Sunday, 8th); Mr. Fane;
Lady C. Eussell; Mrs. Talbot;
Lady Pembroke ; Mr. Coning-
ham (at 9£); Miss Eoberts; Sir
John and Lady Anstruther ; Mrs.
Palk; Captain Hood; Duke of
Gordon ; Lord Pulteney (Sunday,
22nd, and his dog, several times) ;

Miss Carr ; Captain Caulfield ;
Mr. Pigot;6 Mr. Clark; Miss
Hunter ; Mr. Franks ; Lady Mary
Somerset; Lady Laura Walde
grave ; Lord Ossulstone ; Colonel
and Mrs. Irwin. April.
Mr. Anderson; Lady North
ampton ; Miss Wyld ; Mr. Slater ;
General Townshend ; Mr. Crew ;
Lord Lauderdale; General Lam
bert; Colonel Maitland; Mr.
Davies ; Mrs. Mills ; Mr. Pawlet ;
Miss Eeddell ; 6 General Knapper
(Gerard Napier); Mr. and Miss
Kelly ; Admiral Eodney ; Captain
or Mr. Crawford ; Mrs. Hunt.
May.
Mr. Mudge; Mr. Gell; Lord
Brome (?) ; Admiral Broderick ;
Mrs. Cholmondeley 7 (Chuinley,
Cholmley ) ; Lady Monoux 8

1 "Lord Sandwich's account to be
sent to Mr. Green, No. 18, New Crown
Court, Bow Street, by to-morrow
morning. Tuesday 12th. — Dine with
the Sons of the Clergy."
2 Brother of the Duke of Grafton,
created Lord Southampton in 1780.
3 A learned civilian, and one of
the Lords of the Admiralty.
4 In Cork Street, 10, on Sunday
(15th). Tuesday 10th.— Mr. Wilks's, dine
at four.
Engagements at Royal Society.
Club (Saturday). Dinners at Lord
Temple's and Mr. Christy's, the
picture-auctioneer. 5 Mem. in June, " to write on Mr.
Bigot's picture ast. 89." This old Mr.
Pigot lived to be ninety-nine, and was
the subject of a celebrated action in
1771, between Lord March plaintiff,
and Mr. Pigot defendant, to recover

500 guineas on a wager whether Sir
W. Codrington or old Mr. Pigot
should first die. Mr. Pigot died of
the gout in his head the morning be
fore the bet was made. The question
was, " Was the bet off? " Lord Mans
field charged for the plaintiff, who
recovered. G In May. — " For Captain Reddell,
at Eversholt, near Woburn, Bedford
shire ; to be sent by Rook, the Woburn
carrier, from the Windmill Inn, in St.
John Street."
7 Sister of Peg Woffmgton. Cele
brated for her humour and originality.
(See Miss Burney's Diary.) — Ed.
8 " Lady Monoux, in Argyle Street,
at five o'clock." " Any time in June,
Lady Moneux — white satin the inner
garment, blue the outside, and blue
ribbons, laced tucker." '
Was this the wife of Sir Capel
Molyneux ?

202

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

(? Molyneux) ; Mr. Selwyn ; Ad
miral Hood ; Mrs. Montgomerie.1
June?
Lord Darnley; (Sat. 13.— To
wait on General Cornwallis in
St. James's Place) ; Lady Cun-
liffe ; Mrs. Gore ; Sir Eoger Mos-
tyn ; Lady Johnstone ; Mrs.
Fleetwood; Mr. Ashley; Mr.
Drummond ; Lord Stirling ;3 Mr.
Halsey ; Lord Cathcart.
July*
Mrs. Wolseley; Mr. Paice;
Lord Coventry ; Mr. Lloyd ; Mr.
Baker. August?
Mr. and Mrs. Grant; Mr.
Durant; Captain and Mrs. For-
dyce ; Lord Charlemont ; Sir
Septimus Bohinson (always very
early) ; Lord Bath ; Miss Fisher.6
September.
Mr. Johnson; Lady and Miss

Spencer; Contessa della Eena;
Lady Mornington; Mr. Nesbit;
Mr. Wood; Lady Elizabeth Kep
pel ; 7 Mr. Langton ; Mr. Wood
ward; Miss Charlotte Fish.
October?
Mr. and Mrs. Hammond ; Lord
and Lady Dartmouth ; Miss
Gresley; Mrs.Collingwood; Lord
Lewisham ; Lord Middleton ;
Master Lee ; Mr. Willoughby ;
Lord and Lady Warwick.
November?
Lord and Lady Pollington ;
Mr. Welby. December.
Miss Clements; Miss Went-
worth; Miss O'Brien; Mrs.
Gould; Mrs. Mordaunt; Lady
Beaucbamp (Peacham) ; Lord
Edgcumb ; Dowager Lady North
ampton ; Captain Faulkner ; 10
Mr. Woodcock.11]

1 The 27th, '28th, 29th, and 30th
of May have very few appointments,
and none in the afternoon. Was
Reynolds at the exhibition ? — Ed.
2 June. — " Mr. Walpole's picture
to be finished.",
3 " Lord Stirling's picture to be sent
to Mr. Drumrnond, Spring Gardens."
4 Friday, July 10. — " Send the
Venus to Lord Coventry.'-
5 Thursday, August 27th. — Dinner
at Mr. Rogers's, in Lawrence Pountney
Lane, Cannon Street. This was the
well-known virtuoso and collector,
who published a set of fac-similes of
drawings from the old masters, and a
part of whose books, prints, and draw
ings, form the Cottonian Library
given to the Plympton Library by
Mr. Cotton, of Ivy bridge, a descendant
of Mr. Rogers.
6 She sits eight days in this month,

and generally on days when no other
sitter comes after her. From a note, it
seems one of her portraits was to be sent
to M. Breitenhagh, in Scotland Yard,
the Secretary of the Dutch Embassy,
" when the print is finished." — Ed.
7 For the noble full-length as one
of the bridesmaids to the Queen. The
negro who sits in December is pro
bably the one in this picture. — Ed.
8 Tuesday, Oct. 13th, 11§, Boy.
9 November 5 (3). — Foundling Hos
pital. One of the annual dinners held
there by the Artists (see ante). — Ed.
Tuesday, 15th, 10, Negro. Friday,
18th, 11, Negro ; 12, Boy.
10 Who, when commander of the
' Bellona,' in August of this year, took
the French 74, Courageux, off Finis-
terre. — Ed.
11 The eminent conveyancer. En
graved.

1761, mtai\ 38. EXHIBITION CATALOGUE. 203
When the artists exhibited their works in the
Strand, no admittance money was required, but six
pence was charged for the first catalogue. The second
year the price of the catalogue, with Hogarth's two
illustrations, was doubled. Encouraged by their extra
ordinary success, they now demanded a shilling at the
door, and sixpence for the catalogue, which had a
preface written by Johnson, to reconcile the public
to the charge.
[" When the terms of admission were low," 1 wrote
Johnson, " our room was thronged with such multitudes
as made access dangerous, and frightened away those
whose approbation was most desired. Yet, because it
is seldom believed that money is got but for the lov%.
of money, we shall tell the use which we intend to
make of our expected profits. Many artists of great
abilities are unable to sell their works for their due
price ; to remove this inconvenience, an annual sale
will be appointed, to which every man may send his
works, and them, if he will, without his name. Those
works will be reviewed by the committee that conduct
the exhibition; a price will be secretly set on every
piece, and registered by the secretary; if the piece is
sold for more, the whole price shall be the artist's ; but
if the purchasers value it at less than the committee,
the artist shall be paid the deficiency from the profits
of the exhibition."
Gainsborough contributed to the exhibition this year,
for the second time. He had removed from Ipswich to

1 The first year admission was free. I remembered, in explanation of this
The smallness of the room and the stress laid on the inconveniences of
novelty of the exhibition must be | over-crowding. — Ed.

204 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
Bath in 1760, and had achieved as rapid a success there
as Reynolds in London ten years before. The picture
now exhibited, from the description in the catalogue —
" a whole length of a gentleman with a gun " — was no
doubt the portrait of Mr. Poyntz. Portrait still claims
the lion's share of the walls of the Spring-Gardens
exhibition. Mr. Dawes sends some of his insipid sub
jects from Shakspere ; Gavin Hamilton one of his cold
classicalities, ' Andromache weeping over the dead body
of Hector ;' and a Chevalier Manini, besides a Boadicea
and a Caractacus, contributes a picture under the odd
title ' The Sun enters Leo.' Mr. Lambert's now for
gotten landscapes, which vied in even the cultivated
estimation of that day with Wilson's, and were more
saleable, are six in number, and Wilson's as many,
including a Tivoli, a View on the Dee, a View on the
Thames near Richmond, and ' a View of a Ruin in
her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager's Garden at
Kew ' ! Besides portraits of actors and actresses — the
only personages whose names, as a rule, appear in these
early catalogues, except here and there a character (e. g.
Sir John Fielding) almost as much public property as
the actor — the times are reflected in Mr. Wright's ' View
of the Storm, when the Queen was on her passage to
England, painted from a sketch drawn on board the
Fubbes yacht,' and in subjects from the battle of Minden,
the action off Lagos, and the taking of the Foudroyant.
Zoffany (Zaffanii in the Catalogue) exhibits Garrick in
' The Farmer's Return ;' MacArdell two mezzotints after
Reynolds ; and Fisher his fine mezzotint from Reynolds's
Garrick.] Reynolds sends three pictures : —

1762, ;etat. 39. HIS PICTURES IN THE EXHIBITION. 205
Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy.1
Lady Elizabeth Keppel2 as one of Her Majesty's
bridemaids adorning a statue of Hymen with flowers,
and Maria, Countess Waldegrave, as Dido embracing
Cupid. The thought of placing Garrick between Tragedy
and Comedy was a happy one. The great actor, who
began his career in the service of the Tragic Muse,
seems unable to resist the allurements of her rival. He
throws an appealing, half-ashamed look towards his
first love, who, it must be confessed, is a very inade
quate personification of Tragedy. Reynolds did not
paint the Tragic Muse till she sat to him, herself, in
the form of Mrs. Siddons.
Mr. Cotton tells us, on the authority of Miss Gwatkin,
that Sir Joshua's niece, Theophila Palmer, sat for the
face of Comedy. It is probable that the playful, child
like attitude of the Comic Muse may have been sug
gested by " Offy," as her uncle called her ; but as she
was only five years old when the picture was painted,
and had not then been in London, she could not have
been his model either for the face or figure.
[The picture of Lady Waldegrave represents her
clasping her own child, as Cupid, to her bosom. It is a
most graceful composition. The mother's head enables
one to understand the Countess's reputation for beauty
better than the turbaned head in profile exhibited in

1 Now at Knole.
2 See 1761 for a description of the
picture. Her pretty sister Caroline,

ham, died in the same year as Lady
Elizabeth (1768). She made a mesal
liance with Mr. Adair, an eminent

not quite two years her senior, whose surgeon, to the horror of the great
portrait hangs with hers at Quidden- I world.— Ed.

206 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
1760. The sly expression of the crouching child is
admirable.1] Reynolds contemplated a group in which every figure
should be a portrait, in a different character, of Garrick,
who was delighted with the notion, and said it was the
only way in which he could be handed down to posterity.
Northcote thought such an attempt would be a failure,
but it might have been a signal triumph. Harlow
succeeded in a little picture of Mathews in three or
four characters ; and as we may be sure that Reynolds
would have painted the subject con amore, his success
can scarcely be doubted. Northcote, when thinking of
such a composition, formed in his mind a group of
unconnected figures; but Reynolds would have found
expedients for giving unity to the subject; and how
thankful to him should we feel, if, instead of the por
traits of scores of people for whom we care nothing,
he had left us such a picture !
[Before the exhibition opened, between Thursday the
18th and 25th of February,' there must have been as
much excitement in the Leicester-fields' studio as was
compatible with the placidity of Reynolds. On the
former day Miss Charlotte Hunter (daughter of Mr.
Orby Hunter, M.P. for Winchelsea, and a Lord of the
Admiralty), a. frequent sitter in 1761, had eloped with
my Lord Pembroke, another of the painter's sitters and
acquaintance. Lady Pembroke had been sitting to him
at the same time that Miss Hunter's portrait was in
progress. Miss Hunter was already in the mouth of
the town, if Walpole is to be trusted. He calls her

1 There is a fine engraving of it by R. Houston. The picture is now at
Strawberry Hill.

1762, jetat. 39.

MISS CHARLOTTE HUNTER.

207

" a miss," and speaks of her as " Kitty Hunter." This
elopement created what Walpole describes as " an
enragement." " In all your reading, true or false," he
asks Montague, " have you ever heard of a young Earl
married to the most beautiful woman in the world, a
lord of the bed-chamber, a general officer, and with a
great estate, quitting everything, resigning wife and
world, and embarking for life in a pacquet-boat with
a miss ? "
Almost as strange as this act was the explanation of
it, according to Walpole, given in Lord Pembroke's
letters, — " having long tried in vain to make his wife
hate and dislike him, he had no way left but this."
Lord Pembroke's face in Reynolds's portraits1 of him
is that of a handsome sensualist ; his wife's, one of the
purest and sweetest that even Reynolds has painted.
They were living together again in less than a year.2
I find an entry of the pocket-book for Thursday, just
a week after the elopement : " Send Miss Hunter, packed
up, to the Admiralty." The picture was going home to
her father, who, if he gave house-room to the picture,
refused it to his daughter, when the runaways were cap
tured on their way to France. This may have been the
fine picture now in Mr. Craufurd's possession, — a seated
half-length of a bright-eyed brunette, with a winning
smile on the lips. She is dressed in blue, and holds a

1 At Wilton, and at Lord Norman-
ton's.— Ed.
2 Walpole to Montague, March 20,
1763 : — " Mr. Hunter would have
taken his daughter too, but upon con
dition she should, give back her set
tlements to Lord Pembroke and her
child. She replied nobly, that she did

not trouble herself about fortune, and
would willingly depend on her father ;
but for her child, she had nothing left
to do but to take care of that, and
would not part with it." This child
was the Colonel Montgomery who was
afterwards shot in a duel by Captain
Macnamara. — Ed.

208

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

mask in her hand. Miss Hunter was afterwards the
wife of a gallant officer, who rose to the rank of field-
marshal. The story, attached to the picture is, that it
was painted after the elopement, and that the mask is
an allusion to the masked-ball at Lord Middleton's, on
the day before the elopement, when the arrangements
for it may have been settled. She is said to have given
the picture to the grandfather of its present possessor.
This she may have done ; but the legend attached to
the picture is not confirmed by the pocket-books. I do
not find Miss Charlotte Hunter's name among Sir
Joshua's sitters after 1762.1 It is true that, as the books
for a year here and there are missing, this is not abso
lutely conclusive.
Besides its scandals, the year had its triumphs, in one
of which Reynolds must have heartily and peculiarly
rejoiced. This was the capture of the Havannah in
August, in which the Keppel family was so singularly
distinguished. Lord Albemarle commanded in chief.
A second brother, General Keppel, directed the siege
of the Moro ; and the third, Commodore Augustus,
Reynolds's intimate friend and old travelling com
panion, shared with Admiral Pococke and Captain
Harvey the honours of the naval services which contri
buted so much to the capture. Colonel Keppel had sat
to Reynolds in February, before the expedition sailed.
''Captain Hervey sits to him, for the first time, on the
10th of October, within a fortnight of his return with

1 There is another picture of the
lady, very beautiful, and the face
younger than in Mr. Craufurd's pic
ture, which may have been the picture

for which a Miss Hunter sat in 1758.
This picture is now (Dec. 1861) in
the possession of Beriah Botfield, Esq.
—Ed.

1762, jbqat. 39. THE KEPPEL FAMILY. 209
the despatches announcing the capture. One can well
conceive what a pleasant sitting that must have been,
how much Harvey must have had to tell Reynolds of
his good friends the Keppels, above all, of the frank
and gallant commodore. May we not follow ihe painter,
in imagination, on his visit to congratulate their Spartan
mother, whose hereditary1 beauty and stateliness we
may still admire in the noble portrait of her at Quidden-
ham ? She is painted sitting upright in her high-backed
chair, her fine face well displayed by the drawing of
the grey hair from the temples, where it is put up
under a fly-cap with a hood of black lace ; her dress is
a rich blue and white brocade, and the shapely hands
are winding silk. She sits, surrounded, as such a
mother should be, by her three brave sons and her
two sweet daughters. She looks brave enough to be
the mother of such sons — beautiful enough to be the
mother of such daughters. One can well understand
the feeling which prompted the outspoken Duke of
Cumberland. (Lord Albemarle's bosom-friend) to say to
her when she first appeared in the presence-chamber,
after the arrival of the glorious tidings of the Havannah,
" By God, my lady, if it wasn't in the drawing-room, I
should kiss you."
Reynolds must indeed have felt a special interest in
all our conquests and campaigns at this time ; in the
recapture of St. John's, the taking of Martinique and
Santa Lucia, the Grenadas and St. Vincent. He had
sitters among the most distinguished of the gallant
soldiers and sailors who did these deeds. Colonel Wm.

1 She was a Lady Anne Lenox. —Ed.
VOL. I.

210 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Qhap. III.
Amherst and Admiral Rodney were still recent occu
pants of his mahogany chair, to say nothing of less
well-known colonels and captains.
As usual, the pocket-book, on a close inspection, yields
scattered evidences of Sir Joshua's goings in and out —
his dinings and sight-seeings. If space and leisure
served, it would be easy to eke out the hints supplied
by names and dates. When I find a dinner at five, on
Saturday the 27th of March, at Tom Davies's, the thea
trical publisher and small critic, I feel tempted to fill
up the table with Johnson, lavish of uncouth attentions
to pretty Mrs. Davies; with Beauclerk and Langton;
and perhaps Goldsmith, awkward and threadbare, not
yet quite at home with Reynolds, who had probably
made his acquaintance this year. " With the Beefsteak
Club at Mr. Wilks's," on Saturday, November 13, is a
very suggestive entry. It is true, the engagement does
not absolutely prove that Sir Joshua was of " The
Steaks," — that noble society, founded by George Lambert
and Rich together, which expanded from a meeting of
casual visitors, admitted to share the scene-painter's
beefsteak in his Covent Garden painting-room, to a
weekly dinner, first in " the thunder -and -lightning
room " at the theatre, then,' — by gradual descent down
wards as the club rose in numbers and consequence, —
in a room level with the two-shilling gallery, afterwards
in an apartment even with the boxes, and, later still, in
a lower room, till the club was burnt out in 1808.
Among all the valuables which perished in that fire,
including Handel's organ and the manuscripts of Sheri
dan's comedies, there are few more to be regretted than
the original archives of the Steaks, in which we might

1762, jetat. 39. THE BEEFSTEAK CLUB. 211
have found recorded, perhaps, this dinner at Wilkes's.
It was, however, not a regular club-dinner, but an en
tertainment given to the members by a leading member,
to which outsiders might have been invited. Lord Sand
wich might have been of the party ; for Jemmy Twitcher
had not yet turned upon his friend. Churchill was
there, no doubt, and very probably Arthur Murphy,
for all the paper war he was carrying on in the
Auditor against Wilkes in the North Briton ; and jolly j
John Beard the singer, and Hayman, and Lambert,
and Garrick, if engagements at the theatre left him
free. Hogarth, once a regular member, must have been
kept away, if not by his declining health, by his quarrel
with Wilkes, which was now at its height. The print
of ' The Times,' with its satire on Pitt and Temple, had
appeared in the spring ; and in May came out the well-
known 'North Briton' (No. 17), attacking Hogarth,
" sunk to a level with the miserable tribe of party
etchers," " in his rapid decline entering into the poor
politics of the day, and descending to low personal
abuse, instead of instructing the world, as he could
once, by manly moral satire." Hogarth retorted with
his inimitable portrait of Wilkes, as " a Patriot," —
Churchill envenomed the dispute by his ' Epistle ' to
Hogarth ; and Hogarth, stung to the quick, put in but
a feeble rejoinder in his caricature of Churchill, as a
bear, with a pot of porter in his paw, and by his side a
knotted club, labelled " Lies, lies, lies."
Then we may trace the painter more than once to the
hospitable table of jolly, loud-voiced, red-faced Mr.
Nugent, afterwards Lord Clare, the friend of Goldsmith
(who addressed to him his famous Epistle, with the
p 2

212

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

story of the Haunch of Venison) ; to Mr. Nesbitt's and
Charles Lloyd's ; to Mrs. Horneck's (the Plymouth
beauty), and Mr. Brett's, at the Navy Office ; and to
Holland House, where he was now painting the lovely
Lady Sarah Lenox and Lady Susan Strangways, as well
as Mr. Fox, and his second son, Charles James, now an
Eton boy of fourteen, but already initiated into the
mysteries of the green table at Paris and Spa, where his
father himself put the rouleaux into the boy's little
hand to punt with. There are frequent entries of
appointments with Johnson, who in July of this year
was pensioned by Lord Bute. Reynolds had to set the
Doctor's pension against his own disappointment when
Ramsay was appointed King's painter. The choice of
Ramsay could hardly be complained of. To say nothing
of the overwhelming influence of Lord Bute, he had no
common merits of his own to stand on. He was a highly
accomplished, indeed a learned man, an admirable
talker, and a considerable writer on politics as well as
on art. Reynolds was on friendly terms with Ramsay,
and used to quote him as a proof that to be a good
painter it was not enough to be a sensible man : —
" There's Ramsay, a very sensible man, but he is not a
good painter." But if not a " good," he was a sensible,
painter, without a spark of genius, it is true, but turning
out faithful likenesses and respectable pictures.1 Besides,
Reynolds already belonged to the opposition. He was
the friend of Wilkes and his circle ; and his connection
lay among the Bedfords and Keppels. These were no

1 One of the most agreeable I have
seen is the Princess of Wales, a full-
length in the Bute collection, which

must be several years earlier than
this. — Ed.

1762, jetat. 39.

ENGAGEMENTS IN 1762.

213

recommendations at Buckingham House, though as yet
the fierce struggle between the Whig families and the
King and the King's friends was but in its infancy. I
find other dinner-engagements : at Mr. Hillier's, in
Pancras Lane, Queen Street, Cheapside ; at Mr. Rogers',
of the Custom House, in Lawrence Pountney Lane —
a well-known collector and dilettante of the day ; and
one (July 17, at six) "with Miss Nelly O'Brien, in Pall
Mall, next door this side the Star and Garter." 1 This
frail beauty was a constant visitor to Reynolds's
painting-room this year, as well as her rival, Kitty
Fisher. I presume — from the frequency of their visits,
which is far greater than can be accounted for, on the
usual allowance of sittings, by the number of portraits
he is known to have painted of either — that they sat
to him as models for the necks, busts, hands, and arms
of his portraits, as well as for his nymphs and Venuses.
Then there are visits to brother artists; dinners with
Rysbrack, Frank Hayman, and Newton : evening parties
at Moser's and Wilton's ; and a dinner one Saturday at
"Twitenham," with his old master, Hudson, who had
built a house in the meadows there. On July the 9th,
Reynolds, like all the rest of the town, pays his respects
to the " King of the Cherokees and his ministers " —
the three deputies from the Red Indians of South
Carolina, who this year arrived to make a lasting peace
with this country. Reynolds visits them on the 1st of
July, and again on the 7th, the very day on which these

1 In October is a list of guests at
a dinner at Mrs. French's, which in
cludes Mrs. French, Mr. and Mrs.
Brady, Captain Vincent, Mr. Johnson,

Miss Williams, Mr. Woblcomb, and
Mr. Brent — old Devonshire friends,
most of them, brought together per
haps to meet Johnson. — Ed.

214

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

blanketed and moccassined braves had been honoured
by an audience of the King. They had a house in
Suffolk Street, where they were visited by the nobility
and gentry, dined, feted, and lionised to their hearts'
content. Unluckily their interpreter had died on the
voyage. His substitute was so confused, on the occasion
of the audience, that the King could ask but few ques
tions ; and in society the distinguished strangers had no
way, we are told, of communicating their sentiments
but by gestures. It is sad to think that these poor
Indians, after all these dinners and royal audiences,
came to sad grief when the first rage for them had
passed away. They fell among thieves, were shown
for money, ill-treated, starved, and finally rescued from
this ignominy by the benevolence of Lord Hillsborough,
who had them taken back to Carolina at the public
expense. Reynolds spent part of this year out of town, which
was rare for him. Besides giving a day to the Duke
of Bedford's portrait at Woburn1 (July the 19th), his
health having suffered from his unremitting occupation,
he paid an ^autumn visit of some weeks to Devonshire,
accompanied by Dr. Johnson. The pocket-book enables
us to follow the travellers stage by stage.
On Monday the 16th of August they set out from
London at two o'clock, and arrived at Winchester that
night, spending Tuesday at Winchester. On Wednesday
they left Winchester at half-past two, and arrived at
Salisbury at half-past seven. Here they visited Harris

1 He went, under pressure, no doubt,
to finish the portrait of the Duke of
Bedford, about to start to Paris as

plenipotentiary for the conclusion of
the peace with France. — Ed.

1762, jjtat. 39. VISIT TO DEVONSHIRE. 215
(the author of ' Hermes '), Wilton (Lord Pembroke's),
and Longford Castle (Lord Folkstone's), with their
magnificent galleries of pictures. At Longford Castle
they slept, and proceeded by Sturminster-Marshall to
Blandford ; thence by Dorchester to Exeter, which they
reach on the 23 rd. The next day they start for Tor
rington, and spend the next two days with Reynolds's
brothers-in-law, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Palmer ; thence
by Okehampton to Plymouth, on the 29th. Monday
the 30th is devoted to Mount Edgcumbe, the next day
they take up their quarters at Plymouth with Mr.
Mudge, the panels of whose parlour in St. Nicholas
Yard are duly measured for future pictures by his
friend. From Mr. Mudge's they make excursions in
the neighbourhood — to Mr. Lloyd's, Mr. Veal's of Cof
fleet, Mr. Bastard's, Mr. Mangles', Mr. Robinson's. On
the 8th of September a party is made for the Eddystone
lighthouse, still a recent wonder, scarce three years
finished. But the sea was so rough that the Commis
sioners' yacht, which had been placed at the disposal of
Reynolds and his illustrious friend, could not land.
Captain Foote, Mr. Woolcomb, Dr. Blackett, Miss Howe,
Mr. Mangles, and Mr. Lloyd, the family at Mount Edg
cumbe, the Parkers at Saltram, fill up every day with
hospitalities. Wednesday the 23rd is devoted to home-
scenes, old haunts, and old friends at Plympton. On
the 24th they start from Plymouth on their return, and
at two o'clock on the 26th have arrived in London.
Either Johnson or Reynolds had been pushing the sub
scription (now in progress) for poor blind Miss Williams
among their friends in Devonshire, and the pocket-book
records donations to her.

216 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
Northcote tells us of Johnson's excesses in new
honey, new cider, and clouted cream, at one of the
hospitable Devonshire tables on this excursion. They
alarmed his entertainer much. He did not know the
strength of his guest's constitution.
Boswell, too, has recorded an anecdote of this
journey, which he says he had from Reynolds. Having
observed that in consequence of the dockyard a new
town had sprung up about two miles off as a rival of
the old one, Johnson, assuming that, if a man hates
at all, he is very likely to hate his next neighbour,
concluded that this new town could not but excite
the jealousy of the old one ; in which conjecture,
it is said, he was very soon confirmed. He asserted
it to be his duty to take the side of the old town,
" the established town, in which his lot was cast ;" and
affecting to enter warmly into its interests, he talked of
the Dockers (as the inhabitants of the new town were
called) as upstarts andN aliens. Plymouth was plenti
fully supplied with water from a river, brought into
it from a great distance, which even ran to waste in its
streets. The Dock, or New-town, being wholly desti
tute of water, petitioned Plymouth that a portion of
the conduit might be allowed to go to' them, and this
was, at that time, under consideration. Johnson, pre
tending to entertain the passions of the place, was
violent in opposition ; and exclaimed, " No, no ! I am
against the Dockers ; I am a Plymouth-man. Rogues !
let them die of thirst. They shall not have a drop ! "
It was to humour old Mr. Tolcher, an early friend of
Reynolds, and an alderman of Plymouth, that the
Doctor thus affected to throw himself into the heat

1762, jetat. 39. VISIT TO DEVONSHIRE. 217
of local squabbles. For himself, he seems to have been
in high good-humour, pleased with everything and
everybody. " Ignorance, Madam, — pure ignorance ! "
was the reason gaily given to a young Devonshire blue,
who ventured to ask him how he had come to define
" pastern " wrongly in his Dictionary.
Miss Reynolds cherished among her recollections of
Johnson on this excursion a queer picture of him joy
ously racing with a young lady on the lawn at one of
the Devonshire houses, kicking off his tight slippers
high into the air as he ran, and, when he had won,
leading the lady back in triumphant delight.]
" It was about this time," says Northcote, " that I
first saw Sir Joshua ; but I had seen several of his
works which were in Plymouth, and those pictures
filled me with wonder and delight, although I was
then very young ; insomuch that I remember when
Reynolds was pointed out to me at a public meeting,
where a great crowd was assembled, I got as near to
him as I could from the pressure of the people, to
touch the skirt of his coat, which I did with great
satisfaction to my mind." [One is irresistibly reminded
by this of Reynolds's own boyish delight, when, in just
such a crowd, he was enabled to touch the hand of
Pope.] In the illustrated copy of Northcote's Life of Reynolds
in the possession of Mr. Edward Foster, an engraving,
from a profile by Falconet, is pasted, under which
Northcote has written with a pencil — " Like Sir J. R.
when I first saw him." The pocket-book gives us the
following list of sitters for 1762 : —

218

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

January.
Mrs. Hunt; Lord Monteagle;
Lord Middleton; Mrs. Martyn;
Miss Fisher; Miss Johnson;
Miss O'Brien (Nelly); Captain
Loekhart, E.N. ; Lady Eliz.
Keppel; Lady Caroline Eussell;
Lady Beaebey; Sir Ellis Cun-
liffe; Mr. Ogleby; Captain Dal-
lison; Princess Amelia; Mr.
Blair ; Lord Pembroke ; Mr. and
Miss Eatcliffe ; Miss Fane.
February.1
Mrs. Eiee; Miss Bain; Miss
Powis; Governor Pownal; Mr.
Drummond ; Mrs. Harland ;
Colonel Keppel ; Colonel Philips ;
Lady Waldegrave ; Mr. Nugent ;
Mrs. Oxendon ; Lord Allan ; Mrs.
Mordaunt. March.
General Howard; Miss Ding-
ley; Lady Northampton; Mr.
Ingram ; Lord Portsmouth ; Mrs.
Gosling ; Lord Errol ; 2 Colonel
Leigh; Mr. Caswell; Lady Pol-
lington ; Mrs. Dingley ; Master
Purcell; Mr. Panton;3 Mr.
Wray; Mr. Paulet; Mr. Wood-
ley; Lord F. Campbell; Miss
Cleaver; Colonel Maitland; Mr.
Hadley ; 4 Mr. Johnson ; General
Napier. April.
Captain Fordyce ; Lord Hches-

ter ; Lady Emma Edgcumbe ;
Lady Sarah Lenox; Admiral
Coates; Lord G. Lennox; Lady
Susan Strangways ; Lord Charles
Spencer ; Duke of Bedford ;
Major Hamilton; Lord Shaftes
bury ; Lord Pulteney ; Lord
Eglintoun. May.
Mr. Cotton; Mrs. and Miss
Brown ; Mrs. Blundell ; " My
Lady O'Brien"6 (14th); Mrs.
Stokes; Mr. Darner; Duke of
Marlborough ; Lady Mary Coke ;
Mr. Smith; Mr. Mudge; Mr.
Wynn ; Mr. Hay ; Mr. Townsend ;
Sir Walter and Lady Barbara
Bagot; Lady Halkerton; Mrs.
Basset.6 June.
Mr. and Mrs. Bagot; Colonel
Montgomery ; Miss Hurrell ; Mrs.
Eyder ; Mr. Langton ; Sir Walter
Blaekett ; Captain Cotton ; Lady
Poynter ; Mr. Major ; the Provost
(of Eton, Dr. Barnard) ; Colonel
Molesworth ; Miss Fordyce ; Mr.
Haldane ; Lady Egremont ; Mrs.
Wilkes ; Lady Colebrook.
July.
Mr. Foot ; Miss Chaloner ; Sir
Philip Musgrave ; Mr. Fox ;7 Miss
Guildford (?) ; Mr. Harenc ; Lady
Guildford; Mrs. Musgrave; Mr.
Charles James Fox.

1 " Mem. — Lady Waldegrave to be
sent to Lord Farnham's, in Hill Street."
2 A magnificent full-length of a
magnificent Colossus, in cloth of gold,
as he appeared at the coronation.
3 Father of the Duchess of Ancaster.

4 March 30, at nine, " children."
6 A playful entry for Nelly.
6 She had sat to Reynolds as Miss
St. Aubyn, and was afterwards Lady
De Dunstanville.
7 Afterwards Lord Holland.

1763, iETAT. 40. BOSWELL INTRODUCED TO JOHNSON.

219

August.
Sir W. Baker ; 1 Mr. Baker.2
September.
Duchess of Douglas; Captain
Hamilton; on 29th, at nine, a
Lady ; and again on

November.
Mr. Woodward; Mr. Moor;
Mrs. Metham; Mr. Coombes;
Master Bradshaw • Mr. Cheap ;
Mrs. Ogilvie; Mr. Collick; Sir
Gerard and Lady Napier; Dr.
Markham.

December.
Mr. Chamier ; * Mr. Brian ;
Miss Davison ; Mr. Conolly ; Mr.
Woodcock; Captain and Mrs.
Pownal ; Mr. Partridge ; Lady
Yarmouth ; Mr. and Mrs. Las-
celles ; Mr. Lane ; Mrs. More.

October.
1st, at nine, a Lady (anony
mous). Miss Craunch ; 3 Mr.
Pennyman ; Mr. Fowke ; Lord
Barrington ; Lord Northumber
land; Miss . Gammon ; Captain
[The year 1763 must always be noteworthy in the
biography of any member of the Johnsonian circle.
In it Boswell achieved the object of his long-cherished
ambition,— an introduction to Johnson. It was on the
16th of May, in Tom Davies's back parlour, in Great
Russell Street, that Boswell, on Davies's stage exclama
tion, " Look, my lord : it comes ! " saw through the
glass door a majestic figure approaching. He knew
it to be Johnson (he tells us) by the portrait of
him painted by Reynolds in 1756, which the painter
afterwards presented to the biographer. Quite uncon
sciously, in the first few sentences of this description,
the biographer has stamped himself and his subject.
" Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully

1 M.P. for Sir Joshua's birthplace,
Plympton, and an Alderman of Lon
don. His son succeeded him in both
dignities. 2 Son of Sir William, afterwards
Sheriff of London.
3 The old sweetheart of Dr. Wolcot,
afterwards Mrs. Vivian. This was the

daughter of his earliest friend and
patron. 4 No doubt, Mr. Chamier, of the
War Office. Reynolds's spelling of
names is of the wildest. Mr. Chamier
for a long time is " Shamee." He
was afterwards Under-Secretary of
State.— Ed.

220

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

introduced me to him. I was much agitated, and
recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which
I had heard much, I said to Davies, ' Don't tell him
where I come from.' ' From Scotland ! ' cried Davies,
roguishly. ' Mr. Johnson,' said- 1, ' I do indeed come
from Scotland ; but I cannot help it.' i" am willing to
flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry, to soothe
and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at
the expense of my country. But, hoivever that might be,
the speech was somewhat unlucky ; for, with that
quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he
seized the expression, ' come from Scotland,' which I
had used in the sense of being of that country, and,
as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left
it, retorted, ' That, Sir, I find, is what a very great
many of your countrymen cannot help ! ' This stroke
stunned me a good deal." x
It should be remembered, to give full effect to
this scene, that it occurred at the height of Lord
Bute's unpopularity, which extended to all Scotch
men. A year before Lord Bute had been appointed
First Lord of the Treasury. In vain he attempted to
support himself against the determined opposition of
the public by a packed and purchased parliamentary
majority and the personal favour of the King. On the

1 It was in this year too that
Madame de Boufflers paid that memo
rable visit to Johnson at his Chambers
in Middle Temple Lane. No one who
has read Beauclerc's account of it, as
given by Boswell, can ever forget the
scene : — The purblind scholar, in his
rusty brown morning suit, old shoes
by way of slippers, a little shrivelled

wig sticking on the top of his head,
the sleeves of his shirt and the knees
of his breeches hanging loose, rolling
down his staircase and rushing be
tween the dainty figures of the English
beau and the French belle to repair
his oversight, in not attending the
lady to her coach. — Ed.

1763, jetat. 40. EVENTS OF THE YEAR. 221
8th of April, 1763, he had suddenly resigned office, and
withdrawn, — for ever as it proved, — into private life.
It must have been before April this year that Reynolds
painted that fine full-length picture, still in the Bute
Gallery, which represents the Earl, in a suit of blue
velvet, richly laced with gold, receiving papers from
one of his under-secretaries, Charles Jenkinson — the
successor to much of Bute's unpopularity, as the wielder
of that influence from behind the throne which was so
telling a force in the great parliamentary fights of which
the Bute administration was the prelude. The picture
is one of the painter's finest works, for its size and style
of subject.1 On the papers which the under-secretary
hands to the Earl is the date 1763. That month of
Lord Bute's resignation was crowded with incidents
which must have ruffled even the tranquil studio-life of
the painter. His friend Wilkes, on the 30th of May, was
arrested as the author of the famous 45th number of
the ' North Briton,' and committed to the Tower under
Lord Halifax's general warrant. On the 6th of June the
house of Lady Molesworth, in Upper Brook Street, was
burnt, and herself, with her brother, two of his five
daughters, a governess, and six servants perished. Of
the other daughters, two, leaping from the windows,
escaped with broken limbs ; the fifth was much burnt.
Dr. Molesworth and his wife, then on a visit to the
house, were saved as by miracle. Members of this
family had been among Reynolds's first patrons.
Colonel Molesworth had sat to him only a few months
before the fire, and the painter must have been on
1 I find, from an entry in the painter's price-list, that the King paid for
the picture. — Ed.

222

LIFE OF. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. HI.

intimate terms with the whole household on which this
terrible visitation. fell.
Besides the picture of Lord Bute and Mr. Charles
Jenkinson, an anecdote in Walpole 1 enables me to refer
to this year a portrait of Lady Bolingbroke, the lovely
sister of the beautiful Lady Pembroke (who was now
reunited to her unfaithful husband), and the portrait of
the Princess Augusta, the King's eldest sister, who
was, in January, 1764, married to the Hereditary
Prince of Brunswick.]
To the Exhibition of this year Reynolds sent four
pictures. The Ladies Henrietta and Elizabeth Montagu,
daughters of the Earl of Cardigan, which Walpole
criticises as too chalky. The sitting sister, however,
is one of the stateliest young beauties ever painted by
Reynolds. John Earl of Rothes, half-length, — a noble picture of
a stern, unbending soldier, with his breastplate under his
laced coat, and his right hand resting on his basket-hilted
broad-sword : an action is going on in the background.
A Gentleman, three-quarters, and a half-length of
Nelly O'Brien,2 noted by Walpole as "a very pretty
picture."

1 " The other sister has been sitting
to Reynolds, who, by her husband's
direction, has made a speaking picture.
Lord Bolingbroke said to him, ' You
must give the eyes something of Nelly
O'Brien, or it will not do.' As he
has given Nelly something of his
wife's, it was but fair to give her
something of Nelly's, and my lady
will not throw away the present."
(Walpole to Montague, March 29,

1763.) When Lord Bolingbroke made
this speech it must be remembered
that the portrait of Nelly O'Brien,
exhibited this year, must have been
standing in the painting-room, and
might have been referred to, without
any impropriety, by way of helping
Lord Bolingbroke in his directions to
the painter about Lady Bolingbroke's
portrait. — Ed.
2 I am unable to determine which

1763, ^3TAT. 40.

THE EXHIBITION.

223

[This year's catalogue indicates an exhibition rather
below the average in interest. Wilson sends only two
landscapes : Phaeton, and a View from Tivoli ; — Gains
borough three portraits : one of Mr. Medlicott, the gay
and gallant cousin of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (also
painted by Reynolds), the other of Quin. The actor
objected to sit. " If you will let me take your like
ness," said the painter, " I shall live for ever." Quin
is sitting in an arm-chair, with a playbook in his hand.
The light from an open window falls full upon his
face.1 Stubbs sends a Horse and a Lion, a Zebra, and
" a Horse belonging to the Right Hon. Lord Grosvenor,
called Bandy, from its crooked leg."
There are the usual number of naval actions ; some
half-dozen drawings by Paul Sandby; three historical
pictures by Mr. Wale — more eminent as a sign-painter
and book-illustrator than in this elevated walk ; four
portraits by Cotes, one of O'Brien the actor ; 2 a ' Peter
Denying Christ,' ^by-Hayman ; Garrick and Mrs. Cibber,
aT3faffier and" ~Belvidera (now in the Garrick Club) ;
two portraits, and a family, piece by Zoffany (spelt
Zaffanii in the catalogues of this time). The pictures
are 140 in number, and all the works exhibited,
including sculpture, architectural and other drawings,
models, and engravings (whether by honorary or pro

of the three or four half-lengths bear
ing her name and Sir Joshua's this is.
It may have been the beautiful front-
face portrait in a brown dress, leaning
forward, with clasped hands, now in
the possession of C. Mills, Esq., Bryan
stone Square. — Ed.
1 Fulcher's Life of Gainsborough.

This picture is now in the possession
of John Wilshire, Esq., of Shocker-
wick, near Bath.
2 The best fine-gentleman of the
stage. Lady Susan Strangways,
daughter of Lord Ilchester, eloped
with him within a year of this time.

224

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

fessional exhibitors), 217. They had risen to this total
from 130 in 1760.
The pocket-book for 1763 is wanting.
Reynolds had now once more raised his prices. On
the fly-leaf of the pocket-book for 1764 I find, in his
own hand, the dimensions and prices of his pictures, as
follows : —

The whole length, 7 ft. 10 in. by 4 ft. 10 in.
The half-length, 4 ft. 2 in. by 3 ft. 4 in.
The Kit-Kat, 3 ft. by 2 ft. 4 in 
The 3-quarter, 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 1 in. ..
The teller de teste (tela di testa, or head) —
canvas 2 ft. £ in. by 1 ft. 6 \ in.1 ..

150 guineas — 75 35
, 25
, 17J

70
5035
30

15

Of these prices the half was required to be paid at the
first sitting: a practice said to have been first intro
duced by Sir Joshua.2
This was a period of vehement struggles in Parlia
ment' and strong excitement and unruliness out of
doors. It was the year of the great Wilkes agitation
and of the famous debate on the legality of general
warrants,3 so graphically described by Walpole ; when
the House sat, on successive nights, eleven hours,
seventeen hours, thirteen hours ; when " votes were
brought down in flannels and blankets, till the floor
of the House looked like the Pool of Bethesda ;" when
the " patriotesses " of the anti-Bute party and the great

1 Next year he dropped the dis
tinction of price between three-quarter
and head sizes. — Ed.
2 Angelo's Reminiscences, vol. i.,
355. 3 Under the date of March the 8th
is the entry, " Common Council." Sir
Joshua was doubtless present in the

Council Chamber to hear read Lord
Chief Justice Pratt's acknowledgment
of the freedom of the city, presented
to him the day before by the Cham
berlain Sir Thomas Harrison, and to
receive the order of the corporation
for his Lordship's portrait, still in the
Guildhall Library.

1764, 2etat. 41. EXTREMES OF PARTY-SPIRIT. 225
ladies of the Court faction sat out those protracted
fights night after night till the March daylight peeped
in at the windows ; or, when they came in such shoals
that admission to the pigeon-holes was denied them,
established themselves in one of the Speaker's rooms,
dined, and stayed there till twelve, " playing loo while
their dear country was at stake." We find the leaders
of these Amazonian cohorts, both on the Opposition
and the Court side, among Reynolds's sitters for this
year, or the year immediately preceding — the Duchess
of Richmond, Lady Sandes, Lady Rockingham, and
Mrs. Fitzroy, on the side of the Opposition ; Lady
Mary Coke and Lady Pembroke on that of the Court.
The case is the same with the leading men of the time.
The Leicester Fields painting-room was neutral ground,
where as yet all parties might meet. If Reynolds had
planned his list of sitters for 1764 to illustrate the
catholicity of his own popularity, he could hardly have
chosen them better. To his painting-room comes the
Minister who granted the general warrant, and the
Chief Justice who received the freedom of the City
as a tribute of grateful respect for his judgment de
claring general warrants illegal,1 unconstitutional, and
altogether void ; George Grenville, Lord Bute's Chan
cellor of the Exchequer, crosses Sir W. Baker, the stout
alderman and member for Plympton, who, as Walpole
describes it, " drove the Chancellor of the Exchequer
from his entrenchments ;" witty and versatile Charles
Townshend brings his last bon-mot on the stout heiress
Miss Draycote, who has just left the painting-chair;
1 If Wilkes does not sit to Rey- I once, before and after his flight to
nolds, he has him to dinner more than | Franco.
VOL. I. Q

226

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Lord Granby, gallant, frank, and fearless, half-ashamed
of serving with an administration which takes away
their regiments from his best friends for a vote, may
break his griefs to the Keppels, promoted to General
and Admiral since their exploits at the Havannah,
notwithstanding "fheir- sturdiness in Opposition ; Shel-
burne, still holding office, but chafing against the collar,
may here take counsel about the policy of resigning
with Lord Holland, cynical, but always good-tempered ;
young Charles James Fox, just entered at Oxford, can
find time to sit to Reynolds between play and politics,
which already divide the empire of his vigorous and
versatile mind with art and letters. Here, too, classes
and callings cross each other as oddly as opinions.
The Archbishops of York and Canterbury take the
chair just vacated by Kitty Fisher or Nelly O'Brien ;
and Mrs. Abingdon makes her saucy curtsy to the
painter as the august Chief Justice bows himself in.
This arch and lively actress, so long the petted
favourite of the public, and the torment of Mr. Garrick,
was this year in her flush of London popularity, after
having won all the honours of the Dublin stage, to
which she had retired after her successful London debut
some years before as Miss Barton. Capricious and
wilful as she was,1 she seems to have been a special
favourite with Reynolds. He painted her con amorer
and always brought a strong muster of the Club to her
benefits. • He has never expressed sly archness better
than in her sidelong face, as the Comic Muse ; and

1 For anecdotes of her, see Smith's
' Book for a Rainy Day,' p. 199, edit.
1861. There is also a capital sketch of
her in Lichtenberg's letters on Gar

rick and the leading players of the
time, written from London in 1774,
and published in his works. — Ed.

1764, iETAT. 41. MRS. ABINGDON— LADY WALDEGRAVE. 227'
for hoydenish simplicity, the Saltram portrait of her,
as Miss Prue, with her arms leaning on the back
of her chair, and her thumb at her lips, is a master
piece. Any other painter but Reynolds would have
been in danger of falling into coarseness or ungrace-
fulness in treating such a subject. He has managed
to keep face and figure most attractive, with all their
school-girl wilfulness and gaucherie. It is one of his
most exquisite pictures for colour, and is happily in
perfect preservation.1]
To the Exhibition of this year Reynolds contributed
a Lady, whole-length (Lady Sarah Bunbury), and
A three-quarter portrait of the Countess Dowager of
Waldegrave, in mourning. Her husband had died the
year before.
[Walpole notes the first portrait as " good," and the
second as " one of his highest coloured pictures ;" and
it is, indeed, worthy of its lovely original, whom Sir
Joshua seems to have painted with peculiar enjoyment.
The fair widow leans her head upon her hand and looks
upwards, as if for consolation and strength. Her arm
is supported on her knee. She is in mourning, with a
black veil over her head. The three names that occur
most frequently in his sitters' list for the three years
before this are certainly this lady's, Nelly O'Brien's,
and Kitty Fisher's. Nelly O'Brien had a son born to
her this year. From an allusion in one of Whitehead's
letters to Lord Harcourt, the father (whom I cannot
identify) seems to have been of noble family, and there

1 Sir Joshua presented her with his
picture of her in the part of Roxalana,
and she had great difficulty in reco

vering it from the hands of Sherwin
the engraver. See Smith's ' Book for
a Rainy Day,' p. 205.
Q 2

228

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

were doubts whether or not he had been secretly mar
ried to Nelly. Sir Charles Bunbury, the wit, turfite,
and maccaroni, who had the year before married the
beautiful Lady Sarah Lenox (and who was one of
Reynolds's intimates), was one of the sponsors.]
In this year the Literary Club was formed, at the
suggestion of Reynolds.1 The number of members was
originally limited to twelve.2 They met once a week,
on Monday evenings, at the Turk's Head in Gerrard
Street, until 1775, when, instead of supping together,
they agreed to dine once a fortnight during the sitting
of Parliament ; and the number of members was suc
cessively increased to thirty-five and forty.
The object of Reynolds in the establishment of this

1 " It is rather remarkable that this
celebrated social assemblage of talent
might almost ascribe its origin to the
Irish peer (Lord Charlemont). Some
words had dropped from him on the
subject to Reynolds. The latter men
tioned it to Johnson, proposing his
lordship as one of the first members.
'No,' was the reply, 'we shall be
called Charlemont's Club ; let him
come in afterwards.' " (Prior's ' Life
of Malone,' p. 88.)— Ed.
2 Hawkins says the original inten
tion was to confine it to nine. The
original members were Reynolds, John
son, Burke, Dr. Nugent (his father-
in-law), Topham Beauclerc, Bennet
Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Chamier,
and " unclubbable " Hawkins, who
was soon cold-shouldered out, after a
violent attack on Burke. In 1791 it
numbered thirty-five members, and
now stands at thirty-seven. A list
of the members, from its foundation
to June, 1792, will be found in Bos
well under the year 1764 ; and a list

of the members in 1857, in an article
of the 'National Review' for that
year, p. 322. Soon after the insti
tution of the Club, Sir Joshua was
speaking of it to Garrick. " I like
it much," said Garrick ; " I think
I shall be of you." "He be of
us !" said Johnson, when Reynolds re
peated the actor's phrase to him ;
"how does he know we will permit
him? The first duke in England
has no right if) hold such language."
In fact, Garrick was not elected till
March, 1773. The Society still exists
and bears the proud title of The Club.
From its seat in Soho it migrated
(1783) to Prince's, in Sackville Street ;
to Le Telier's (afterwards Baxter's,
afterwards Thomas's), in Dover Street ;
(1792) to Parsloe's, in St. James's
Street; and (1799) to the Thatched
House in the same street, where it
held its meetings till the tavern was
pulled down a few years ago. It now
meets at the Clarendon. In 1764
Burke lived in Gerrard Street. — Ed.

1764, .mat. 41. . LITERARY CLUB FOUNDED.

229

club was to give Johnson undisturbed opportunities of
talking ; and to procure for himself and his friends such
opportunities of listening to his wisdom and wit, as did
not often occur in the accidental intercourse of mixed
society. " Our evening toast," says Sir John Hawkins, " was
Esto perpetua. A lady distinguished by her beauty and
taste in literature (Mrs. Montague) invited us two suc
cessive years to a dinner at her house. Curiosity was
her motive, and possibly a desire of intermingling with
our conversation the charm of her own. She affected
to consider us a set of literary men, and perhaps gave
the first occasion for distinguishing the society by the
name of the Literary Club, a distinction which it never
assumed to itself."
In the summer of this year Reynolds was attacked
with a dangerous illness,1 which, however, was of short
duration. His recovery was cheered by the following
letter from Dr. Johnson, then on a visit in Northampton
shire : —
" Dear Sir, — I did not hear of your sickness till I
heard likewise of your recovery, and therefore escaped
that part of your pain which every man must feel to
whom you are known as you are known to me. Having
had no particular account of your disorder, I know not
in what state it has left you. If the amusement of my
company can exhilarate the languor of a slow recovery,
I will not delay a day to come to you; for I know
not how I can so effectually promote my own pleasure

1 I do not know whether the un
usual number of blank days in the
sitters' list for the last three months

of the year is to be explained by ill
ness. — Ed.

230

LIEE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

as by pleasing you ; in whom, if I should lose you, I
should lose almost the only man whom I call a friend.
Pray let me hear from yourself, or from dear Miss
Reynolds. Make my compliments to Mr. Mudge.
" I am, dear Sir,
" Your most affectionate and most humble Servant,
" Sam. Johnson.
" August 19, 1764."
The same year in which the life of Reynolds had
been in peril, proved fatal to Hogarth, who died on the
26th of October. He lived on the opposite side of
Leicester Square, but it does not appear that there was
much intercourse between these great contemporaries.1

1 Eeynolds only refers to Hogarth
once in his Discourses. After the
panegyric on Gainsborough, which fills
so much of the 14th Discourse, ap
plauding him for never attempting
that style of historical painting for
which his previous studies had not
prepared him, he goes on : " And here
it naturally occurs to oppose the sen
sible conduct of Gainsborough in this
respect to that of our own excellent
Hogarth, who, with all his extraordi
nary talents, was not blessed with this
knowledge of his own deficiency, or
of the bounds which were set to the
extent of his own powers. After this
admirable artist had spent the greater
part of his life in an active, busy, and,
we may add, successful attention to
the ridicule of life ; after he had in
vented a new species of dramatic
painting, in which probably he will
never be equalled, and had stored his
mind with infinite materials to explain
and illustrate the domestic and fami
liar scenes of common life, which were
generally, and ought to have been
always, the subject of his pencil ; he

very imprudently, or rather presump
tuously, attempted the great historical
style, for which his previous habits
had by no means prepared him : he
was, indeed, so entirely unacquainted
with the principles of this style that
lie was not even aware that any arti
ficial preparation is at all necessary.
It is to be regretted that any part of
the life of such a genius should be
fruitlessly employed. Let his failure
teach us not to indulge in the vain
imagination that by a momentary reso
lution we can give either dexterity to
the hand or a new habit to the mind.
I have, however, but little doubt that
the same sagacity which enabled these
two extraordinary men to discover
their true object,and the peculiar excel
lence of that branch of art which they
cultivated, would have been equally
effectual in discovering the principles
of the higher styles, if they bad inves
tigated those principles with the same
eager industry which they exerted in
their own department." I find two
records of sales of " Hogarth's works,"
in Sir Joshua's price-lists. — Ed.

1764, JETAT. 41.

REYNOLDS AND HOGARTH.

231

Never were two great painters of the same age and
country so unlike each other ; and their unlikeness as
artists was the result of their unlikeness as men ; their
only resemblance consisting in their honesty and ear
nestness of purpose. It was not to be expected that
they should do each other justice, and they did not ;
Hogarth being the most unjust, for he ranked Reynolds
below Cotes, a now forgotten portrait-painter.1 How
much of jealousy may have existed between them it
is impossible to know. Distaste among painters for
the works of their contemporaries is always construed
into a bad passion, and often unjustly. An exact esti
mate of genius is never arrived at till the possessor is
gone from the world. Johnson said, " Tristram Shandy
did not last ;" and Goldsmith noticed the faults of
Sterne only. They may each have looked with some
feeling of envy to the far greater immediate success
than either of themselves had enjoyed ; but it does not
follow that Hogarth, Johnson, or Goldsmith were so
dishonest as to deny the existence of the excellence
they saw. I believe they saw it not.
Mr. Forster thinks Reynolds " overrated the effects
of education, study, and the practice of schools :" he
says, " It is matter of much regret that he should never
have thought of Hogarth but as a moral satirist and a
man of wit,2 or sought a closer alliance with such

1 There cannot fairly be said to be
anything in Sir Joshua's mention of
Hogarth quoted in a former note depre
ciatory of Hogarth's merits within the
limits of his class of subjects. What
Reynolds fails in is just appreciation
of that class of subjects when treated
by such hands as Hogarth's. — Ed.

2 But observe the language of Rey
nolds, already quoted : " Admirable
artist " — " a new species of dramatic
painting, in which, probably, he will
never be equalled." Nowhere is there
any depreciation of Hogarth as a
painter — of common life. — Ed.

232

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

philosophy and genius. But the difficult temper of
Hogarth himself cannot be kept out of view. His
very virtues had a stubbornness and dogmatism that
repelled. What Reynolds most desired, to bring men
of their common calling together, and by consent and
union, by study and co-operation, establish claims to
respect and continuance, Hogarth had been all his life
opposing.1 
" ' Study the. great works of the great masters for
ever,' said Reynolds. ' There is only one school,' cried
Hogarth, 'and that is kept by Nature.'2 What was
uttered on one side of Leicester Square was pretty sure
to be contradicted on the other ; and neither would
make the advance that might have reconciled the
views of both. Be it remembered, at the same time,
that Hogarth, in the daring confidence of his more asto
nishing genius, kept himself at the farthest extreme." 3
If ever pictures could be called books, Hogarth's
were especially such pictures; and the best writers of
the time were consequently his warmest eulogists, as all
the best writers since his time have been. Hogarth
numbered among his friends and admirers, Fielding,
Johnson, Goldsmith, and the Hoadleys. It was impos
sible that a great actor could be insensible to his merit,
and Garrick not only thoroughly appreciated him, but
was the most liberal of his patrons. With the praises

1 And yet he was the main, if in
direct, agent in founding the Society
of United Artists, the precursor of
the Royal Academy. See post. — Ed.
2 They agreed in practice, if not in
theory ; for Reynolds did not neglect
the school of Nature for that of Art ;
and Hogarth studied art as closely as

he studied nature, as his own great
technical excellence proves ; to say
nothing of his Analysis of Beauty,
which displays as much acquaintance
with art as with nature.
3 ' Life and Times of Oliver Gold
smith.'

1764, jetat. 41. HOGARTH. 233
of such men, Hogarth could afford to be considered a
painter of low subjects by most of the aristocracy, who
had another reason for disliking his art : he had exposed
their vices and their follies with a truth not to be
forgiven. The friendship and admiration of literary men were
accorded to Reynolds, not so much for his excellence
as a painter — of which, indeed, Johnson, Goldsmith,
and Burke were no judges — as for the charm of his
manners and his admirable sense. These indeed drew
all classes together round his table ; and as he had
never satirized any class, but had made himself inva
luable to all as a portrait-painter, he had the patronage
of all.
He never spoke of other living artists or of himself.
It was not natural to him to do the last, and he pro
bably would have been silent on his own merits had
they been neglected.
' Hogarth's powers as a painter were not then felt.
He lived by the sale of his engravings. It was natural
to him to speak of his works, and this brought on him
the charge of vanity, which he thus repelled : —
"Vanity, as I understand it, consists in affirming
you have done that which you have not done, not in
frankly asserting what you are convinced is the truth."
" A watchmaker may say, ' The watch I have made
for you is as good as Quare, or Tompion, or any other
man could have made.' If it is really so, he is neither
called vain, nor branded with infamy, but deemed an
honest and fair man for being as good as his word.
Why should not the same privilege be allowed to a
painter ?"

234

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

It is singular that the inaccuracy of the analogy
between a machine and a work of taste should have
escaped his notice. The maker of a watch is as capable
of testing its value as any other person. But the
painter of a picture can never be an exact judge of its
merit. He may indeed underrate it ; and there seems
to me every reason to believe that Hogarth did not rate
his own inimitable representations of life at near the
value that is set on them now that almost a century has
elapsed, during which nothing approaching to his in
ventive power has appeared.1
He was accustomed to say " I never was right until
I had been wrong." These are not the words of a vain
man. • There were (and they may possibly still be seen), in
an alcove at the end of the garden of Hogarth's little
villa at Chiswick, two small graves ; the one of a bull
finch and the other of a dog. The inscription on the
first is, or was, "Alas, poor Dick!" on the second, a
parody of Churchill's epitaph on himself :
" Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies."
Hogarth had substituted the name of Pompey for
Churchill, thus giving the last blow to his powerful
adversary. Soon after my arrival in London, nearly half a cen
tury ago, being at Chiswick, I was struck with the
appearance of the house, and the style of the windows,

1 Northcote, who was, perhaps, the
last of that class of critics who con
sidered him a vulgar painter, tried an
imitation of him. He painted a series
of pictures (the histories of two house

maids), founded on the fndustrious
and fdle Apprentices, and partly on
Pamela. There could not be a more
lamentable failure ; and Northcote
never forgave Hogarth.

1764, iETAT. 41. MRS. HOGARTH— CHURCHILL.

235

so like such objects in his pictures that I almost ex
pected to find the windows and the walks alive with
men in bag-wigs and women in hoops. In the garden
there was a large mulberry-tree. I was told by an old
person who remembered Mrs. Hogarth, that she regu
larly invited the children of the village every summer
to eat the mulberries ; a custom established by her
husband, and probably not discontinued by Mr. Cary>
the translator of Dante, who afterwards occupied the
house for some years.1
It is a curious circumstance that Mrs. Hogarth, for
the two last years of her life, was supported by an
annuity from the Royal Academy, the establishment of
which her husband had always opposed. She had out
lived him so long that the means he had left for her
maintenance were exhausted.
[Within little more than a month of Hogarth's death
his bitter assailant the satirist Churchill died, at the
premature age of 33, worn out with excess and tortured
by remorse. He died at Boulogne, in November, while
on a visit to Wilkes, still an outlaw. From his long
intimacy with Wilkes, Reynolds must have known
Churchill well.]
In November, 1764, as appears by the entries in the
pocket-book, Reynolds painted his whole-length of
Count Lippe-Schaumbourg.2 For a military portrait
he never had a nobler subject. The Count, though

1 Hogarth and his wife loved child
ren. When Hogarth died, in 1764,
they had two of "the little foundlings
from Captain Coram's Hospital, under
their care, at Chiswick; and the
Foundling Hospital still preserves the

bill paid by Hogarth for the nursing
of the little ones from October, 1760,
to October, 1762, and for their shoes
and stockings. — Ed.
2 Lippe-Buckebourg he is called in
the books of the time. — Ed.

236 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. III.
born in London, was the Sovereign of a German Prin
cipality. He was every inch a soldier, and he stands
forward on the canvas of Reynolds —
" No carpet knight so trim,
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage."
To illustrate his entire character, however, would
require another and very different picture, in which
he should be surrounded with books, objects of science,
pictures, and statues; for he cultivated the arts of
peace as well as of war, and not from ostentation, but
from love. At the head of an English army he had
saved Portugal from a combined attack of France and
Spain. As a statesman, also, he had conferred many
political benefits on that country, and these things
done, he turned his attention, as Washington did, to
the improvement of agriculture among his own people.
Such a man must have interested Reynolds greatly,
and in no male portrait is the painter seen to more
advantage. The Count stands on an eminence with a
soldierly erectness, his hands crossed over the head of
his long walking-cane. Near him is a mortar, and
below an orderly reins in his horse. The face is long
and grave, and the pose firm and commanding. The
picture is in the Royal collection. It is to be hoped, for
the credit of George the Third, that it was a Royal
commission. This would do something — but only some
thing—towards relieving the memory of that King
from the reproach of having neglected the greatest of
English painters.
[From the engagements noted in this year's pocket-
book, Sir Joshua seems to have been much in society

1764, jetat. 41. ENGAGEMENTS IN 1764. 237
at this time, except when prevented by the illness
which has left large gaps between his working-
days, not only in June, but in September, October,
and November. There is a blank, too, in July, ac
counted for by his visit to Blenheim, where he was at
the time painting the young Duke and Duchess, and
where he twelve years afterwards painted that noble
family piece which is still one of the chief glories of
the Blenheim Gallery. I note this, as the practice of
painting out of his own studio was quite exceptional
with Reynolds. There are dinners with Mr. Warton
and Dr. Blackett ; with Mrs. Horneck, several times,
and Mr. Chamier ; with Mr. Walpole, Lord Ligonier, Mr.
Nesbitt, Mrs. French, Mr. Rogers (the connoisseur and
collector), Mrs. Clive (the greatest comic actress of her
time, trembling for her laurels now that Mrs. Abingdon
had taken the town by storm), Mr. Nixon (Secretary
of the Beef-steak Club?.), Mr. Brett (of the Navy
Office), and Lady C. Murray.; one, on the 9th of June,
with Sterne, who was in London for a month at this
time between his return from France and his journey
to Italy ; many at Lord Edgcumbe' s — one of them to
meet his old Plymouth friend Mudge; and one, in
September, with Wilkes, which it is impossible to
account for, except by supposing that daring agitator
to have paid a flying visit to London sub rosd, though
he had been outlawed on the 5th of August on account
of his non-appearance to receive the judgment of the
King's Bench for sedition and obscenity, as the author
of the ' North Briton,' No. 45, and the ' Essay on
Woman.' There are frequent records of dinners at
the Turk's Head, as well as of Monday meetings of

238

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

the Club at the same tavern ; of a dinner with Lord
Charlemont in December ; and frequently, throughout
the year, of evening assemblies at great houses. I find
one note of a dinner in Dartmouth Street, Westminster,
on Sunday, March the 11th, when' his host, I have
little doubt, was Dr. Adam Smith,1 then in London,
preparing to start for the Continent as travelling tutor
to the young Duke of Buccleuch. He had been selected
for the post by Charles Townshend, who had married
the Duke's mother. Not less interesting is a note of
a dinner engagement with Mr. Burke, on Friday the
19th of October. Burke had given up his private
secretaryship under Gerard Hamilton the year before,
and was now in London looking for an introduction to
public life, which he obtained next year by his appoint
ment as private secretary to Lord Rockingham.
Among the memoranda is one for November 5th :
" Mr. Carlo Yanloo, at 11," and a little farther down,
" copy Yanloo." Carl Andre Yanloo, the Director of
the French Academy, who two years before this time
had been appointed principal painter to Louis the
Well-beloved, was in England this year, and visited
Reynolds more than once. On one of these visits,
when Yanloo had been boasting of his knowledge of
the great masters, and the impossibility of taking him
in with a copy, Reynolds showed him a study of his
own, after Rembrandt, of an old woman's head, and had
the pleasure of hearing Yanloo pronounce it an un-

1 I arrived at this discovery in an
interesting way. Closely examining
the pocket-book for 1764, I found in
one of the pockets, where it had in all
probability remained undisturbed from

that time to this, a tiny old-fashioned
card, bearing the name of " Mr. Adam
Smith," and the address " at Mrs.
Hill's, Dartmouth Street, Westmin
ster."— Ed.

1764, .etat. 41.

SITTERS, 1764.

239

doubted original. This anecdote is in Northcote, and
may explain the " copy Yanloo " in the pocket-book.]

List of Sitters for 1764.

January.
Duchess of Hamilton ; Duchess
of Ancaster ; Miss Langton ; Mr.
Pitt ; Mr. Payne ; Lady Stanhope
and Child; Mr. Townshend;
Mrs. Hews ; Lady Mary Lesly,
and Lady Jane Lesly ; Mr. Ben-
net ; Miss Montague ; Lady Pem
broke ; Duke of Bolton ; Captain
and Mrs. Brice ; Bishop of Clon-
fort (Dr. Marlay) ; Lord Holland ;
Lord Westmoreland; Miss Dra-
eourt (Dray cote) ; 1 Mrs. Spry ;
Mrs. Gomm; Captain Duff; Mr.
Conolly; Miss Leigb; Miss
Wriotbesley. February.
Lady Shaftesbury; Lady Wil-

loughby ; Mr. and Mrs. Lascelles ;
Mrs. Collyear ; 2 Duchess of Graf
ton ; 3 Mrs. Harland ; Master
Penn; Miss Taylor; Mr. Frank
lin ; Miss Penn ; Duchess of Man
chester; General Keppel; Lady
Guildford; Mr. Hallet; Lady
Juliana Penn ; Lady Eothes ;
Miss Harriet Bouverie ; Lady
Fife; Miss Murray. March.
Archbishop of York ; 4 Lord
Shelburne ; 5 Lord Digby ; Miss
Davies ; Duke of Marlborough ; °
Miss Cox; Lord Chief Justice
Pratt';7 Sir Septimus Bobinson;
Miss Horneck ; 8 Mr. Selwyn ;
Mr. Willson; Lady Tyrconnel;
Mr. Phipps; Miss Phipps; Mr.

1 A great fortune of the day, who
married Lord Pomfret this year.
" Before I have done I must tell you
one of Charles Townshend's admirable
bon-mots. Miss Draycote, the great
fortune, is grown very fat. He says
' her tonnage has become equal to her
poundage.' " (See Walpole to Lord
Hertford, February, 1764.)— Ed.
2 Painted as Lesbia weeping, over
her swallow. The wife of Captain,
afterwards Admiral, Sir George Coll
year, and sister of Colonel Gwynn, who
married the younger Miss Horneck,
Goldsmith's " Jessamy Bride." The
picture, very beautiful in sentiment,
and delicate in colour, passed from
Mrs. Gwynn's possession into Sir W.
Knighton's.— Ed.
3 Horace Walpole's duchess — this
year separated from her husband,
really in consequence of the latter's

infatuation for the notorious Nancy
Parsons, but on the alleged ground of
incompatibility of temper. She after
wards married the Earl of Upper
Ossory, one of Sir Joshua's intimate
friends. — Ed.
4 Dr. Drummond. Both Arch
bishops sat to him this year.
5 Now a Commissioner for Trade.
6 George, the brother of Lady Pem
broke. There is a fine portrait of him
at Blenheim, and another is in Lord
Normanton's Gallery. He was now
Privy Seal.
7 Afterwards Lord Camden. Rey
nolds's picture was painted for the Com
mon Council, in commemoration of the
judgment in the matter of general
warrants. Another and better portrait
is at the Moat, Lord Camden's. — Ed.
8 Goldsmith's " Little Comedy,"
afterwards Mrs. Bunbury.

240

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. III.

Blair; Master Cholmondely; Dr.
Hay.1 April.
Mr. Elliott; Miss Windsor
Mr. Oxenden; Mrs. Ackland
Captain Pownall ; Duke of Leeds
Lady C. Murray; Master Lister
Mrs. Turner ; Sir Wm. Bunbury
Mr. and Mrs. Blake ; Mr. Finch
Mrs. and Miss Adams; Lord
Arundel; Mrs. Boothby; Lord
Warwick; Mr. Digby; Lady
Charlotte Fitzwilliam. May.
Sir Wm. Gage; Mr. Eotbes;
Lord Halifax ; Mr. Lascelles,
sen.; Mrs. North; Mr. South
well ; 2 Lord George Lennox ;
Lord Dudley ; Miss O'Brien ; 3
Miss Dashwood; Lady Sondes;
Lady Pomfret.4 June?
Lord Granby ; 6 Sir Thomas

Wentworth; Mr. Eolls; Lady
Bolingbroke; Mr. Foot; Mrs.
Trapaud;7 Mr. Lane; Mr.
Ogilvie ; Lady Waldegrave.
July?
Mr. Woodcock ; Marquis of
Carmarthen ; Mr. Grenville ; 9
Mr. Haldane ; Miss Kitty Fisher ;
Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr.
Tucker). August.10
Mrs. Hales ; Mrs. Abington ; u
Mrs. Hope ; 12 Lord Fitzwilliam ;
Colonel Hale; Admiral Keppel;
Lady Winterton; Lord Winter-
ton; Mr. Bagot; Mrs. Gosling;
Miss Bichmond. September}3
Miss St. John ; 14 Mr. Cotton ;
General Sandford;15 Miss Keppel;
Mrs. Woodcock. October.
Lord Ossulstone; Mr. Fox;

1 ALord of the Admiralty (engraved).
2 Afterwards corrected into Sothe-
ron. 3 Very often through the summer.
4 She began her sittings in January
as Miss Draycote ; she now continues
them as Lady Pomfret. — Ed.
5 There are blanks in June from
the 16th to the 23rd.
6 Af this time Master General of
the Ordnance.
7 The beautiful wife of Col. Tra
paud. One of his sweetest portraits.
8 Sunday, July 1st, Sir Joshua went
to Blenheim. No entries until July
20th, on which day Miss Fisher sits.
—Ed.
9 George, now head of the adminis
tration. The picture is at Petworth.
10 On August 21st, an entry, " Mr.
Reynolds haspromised Colonel Keppel

to send the Duke of Cumberland's
picture home to-day."
11 The actress. He painted her at
least five times : au naturel in her
cardinal — the picture of this year —
as Roxalana, as Miss Prue, as Lady
Teazle, and as the Comic Muse, now
at Knowle — full-length, with a mask
in the hand, and a sly, sidelong
humour in the expression.
12 Wife of the great capitalist,
money-merchant, and banker.
13 From the 4th to the 11th there
are no appointments. Again the 12th,
14th, and 15th, are blank.
14 She began her sittings as Miss
St. John, but finishes them as Lady
Coventry. 15 " Mem. — General Sandford's mare
at Mr. Doggen's, in North Audley
Street."

1764, 2ETAT. 41.

SITTERS, 1764.

241

Mr. O'Hara; Mr. Macartney;1
Lady Coventry; Sir Samson
Gideon.2 November?
Count Lippe ; * Governor
Boone ; 5 Duchess of Richmond.

December?
Mr. Lowten; Lord Cardross;
Duchess of Marlborough; Miss
Griffin.

1 Afterwards corrected into Sir G.
Successively Russian Minister, Go
vernor of Grenada and Madras, and
Ambassador Extraordinary to China.
2 Afterwards Lord Eardly, son of
the great loan-contractor, the Roths
child of his day, who died in 1762.
3 In November some of the ap
pointments are struck out. I retain

only those which were kept. — Ed.
4 Count of La Lippe-Buekebourg,
commander of the troops sent to Por
tugal to aid that country against the
Spaniards and French in 1762.
5 M.P. for Castle Rising, and Go
vernor of South Carolina.
6 Copy of Mr. Grenville. Copy of
Lord Chief Justice Pratt.

VOL. I.

CHAPTEE IV.
1765—1768. .ZEtat. 42— 45.
Political aspect of the year — Burke's entry into public life — Barry — Gold
smith — Notes contributed by Reynolds to Johnson's edition of Shakespear
— A paper by him, probably intended for the Idler — Pictures exhibited
by Reynolds in 1765 — Barry's commendation of him — His management of
costume — Exhibition of 1765 — West — Vanloo — Wilsou — G. Hamilton
— Zoffany — Mortimer — Wright, of Derby — Dinner-engagements of the
year — Sitters for 1765 — (1766) Rockingham Administration — Burke's
advance in public life — The Club — ' The Vicar of Wakefield '—' The
Clandestine Marriage ' — Mrs. Abingdon sitting to Reynolds — Isaac
Barre" — Wilkes — Angelica Kauffman — Makes acquaintance with the
Thrales — At the play — Pictures exhibited this year — West's ' Pylades
and Orestes' — The Misses Horneck- — Dinner-engagements and sitters of
the year — Fall of the Rockingham Administration — (1767) Death of
Lord Tavistock — Contrasted character of Reynolds's sitters — ' La
Cecchina ' — The gay side of Reynolds's habits and associates — His political
bent and its consequences — Interview between the King and Dr. Johnson —
Reading of ' The Good-Natured Man ' at Burke's — Mr. Bott — Portrait of
the Speaker ; his wig — Foote — Dinner-engagements of the year — Quota
tions from letters by Burke — Portrait of Dr. Zachariah Mudge by Reynolds
— Reynolds does not exhibit in 1767 — The Exhibition of that year — List
of sitters for 1767 — (1768) ' The Good-Natured' Man ' produced — Portrait
by him of Miss Ann Cholmondely — Dissensions in the Incorporated
Society of Artists — Reynolds visits Paris — His diary on the road and at
Paris — Formation of the 'Royal Academy — Earlier attempts made to
establish an Academy — Claims of the Royal Academy to the gratitude
of the country — Reynolds knighted by George III. — His exertions to
render the Exhibitions of the Academy attractive — Four Honorary
Members of the Academy appointed at the suggestion of Reynolds — He
suggests the annual dinner — List of sitters for 1768.

[This year was prolific of public events : some — like
the Colonial Stamp resolution, which was the tocsin of
war in America — hardly noted at the moment ; 1 others,

1 Horace Walpole says, " There
has been nothing of note in Parlia
ment but one slight day on the Ame
rican taxes, which Charles Townshend

supporting, received a pretty hearty
thump from Barre"." (To the Earl of
Hertford, Feb. 12, 1765.) '

1765, 2etat. 42. BURKE'S ENTRY INTO PUBLIC LIFE. 243
— like the Regency Bill — of purely personal and tem
porary interest, but which changed the fates of ministers,
and at the time convulsed the capital. The political
history of the year is chiefly connected with the painter
by the death of his steady patron the Duke of Cumber
land, and the entrance into public life of one of his
dearest, most intimate, and most valued friends, Edmund
Burke. When the Grenville ministry fell, and the
ineffectual combinations which followed its dissolution
were closed by the establishment of the Rockingham
administration, Burke, who had already established a
reputation for singular capacity in public business, as
well as for conversational and literary powers, was, in
July, appointed private secretary to Lord Rockingham,
on the introduction of his friend Fitzherbert, one of the
new Commissioners for Trade. There was an under
standing at the time that the private secretary should
have a borough; but he did not take his seat for
Wendover till the next year. But even in 1765 we
know from his letters that he was a busy, unseen influ
ence in the Cabinet. It is easy to conceive how the
Club must have rejoiced in the opening of this oppor
tunity to their most brilliant member, — the one man
who could contest the supremacy in talk with the great
Johnson. Reynolds was, of all Burke's non-political
associates, the man likeliest to be chosen as his con
fidant and adviser at this turning-point of his fortunes.
Burke had, besides, made a claim about this time upon
Reynolds's professional aid in favour of James Barry,
an uncouth, enthusiastic, passionate young Irish painter,
the son of a Cork coasting skipper, whom Burke had
first befriended in Dublin and now invited to London.
R 2

244 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
Barry was there copying pictures under the direction
of Athenian Stuart, and bringing his work to Reynolds
for his judgment and advice. Another member of the
Club whose fortunes were on the rise was Dr. Gold
smith. The ' Yicar of Wakefield ' was written and sold,
the ' Traveller ' had appeared. Gradually working up
from the squalor of Green- Arbour Court and the com
parative decency of Mrs. Fleming's Islington lodgings
(where however he could not sport his oak against the
bailiffs), Goldsmith had this summer reached his second
stage in the Temple. He had left the shabby chambers
which he shared with Jeffs the butler on the library
staircase, for rooms in 3, King's Bench Walk, where
I find Reynolds engaged to dine with him in July.
Johnson was now fighting off the pressure put upon
him by the publishers for his edition of ' Shakspere.'
He had published proposals for the work in 1756, with
the promise that it should be completed by Christmas,
1757. Three years after that time he was satirized by
Churchill for the delay of a publication for which he
had taken subscriptions. Reynolds and others of his
friends were alarmed for his reputation, and endea
voured by every means to induce him to fulfil his
engagement. They entangled him in a wager for its
performance within a given period, — and Reynolds, as
an additional stimulus, offered to furnish him with some
notes. The edition was published in October this year.
In the preceding July the University of Dublin had
bestowed on Johnson the degree of Doctor of Laws,
but he is " Mr. Johnson " to the last in Reynolds's
pocket-book.] Among the manuscripts of Reynolds that have been

1765, 2etat. 42. NOTES FOR JOHNSON'S SHAKESPEAR.

245

placed in my hands by Miss Gwatkin, are the following
fragments, which he may have intended to shape into
a note on Shakespear, in addition to those which he
actually contributed.
" Whatever is expressed in common words, colloquial
language, is never, nor can be, forcibly expressed to
the imagination. Indeed, a very little reflection will
show this ever must be the case ; the mode of expres
sion which you hear every day and on every occasion
must in its nature be feeble ; that is, from its frequency
must have lost the power of touching and affecting us.
" To express an immense space of uncultivated
country, to call it ' a waste desert,' excites no particular
impression of its being not used for the advantage of
man, for no other reason but because it is a common
expression. Its beauty and excellence is lost in its
familiarity. But when Shakespear,1 instead of ' deserts
waste,' calls them ' deserts idle,' he immediately excites
a fresh (idea) ... of their being useless to mankind."
.... " Does not wit likewise often consist in using
the second word, — not that which first occurs, and has
been worn out ? "
Reynolds liked to exchange the pencil for the pen ;
and it is probable that, when not engaged in company,
he often • spent his evenings in writing. His mind
was one that could not endure inactivity.
Among his manuscripts are two rough draughts,

1 Reynolds always spells the name
thus, making its heroic derivation
plain, according to modern ortho
graphy. Burns was thinking of
Shakespear when he said of Bruce
that he " shook the Carrick spear."

Why then obscure its meaning be
cause the poet wrote it Shakspere?
His editors might as well restore his
orthography throughout, and we
should then have dolphin for dauphin.

246 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
evidently intended to be polished into a letter for some
periodical work, most likely the Idler. The first of
these sketches begins thus :
" I am the daughter of a person of considerable rank
in this country, of rank sufficient to call together the
wits and men of talents in whatever way, and they
were proud of the invitations. Our general dinners
were made up of what I believe were very sensible
men. They were certainly men who had distinguished
themselves either in the House of Lords, Commons, or
at the Bar." 1
The imaginary writer goes on to say, that among
these, a man " not young nor handsome," so captivated
her with his wit, that she conceived no life could be so
happy as to dine every day with such a man. She made
advances which were responded to, and she became his
wife contrary to the advice of her parents and friends.
" I determined," she writes, " to prefer sense (and)
mind to personal accomplishments, and every other ex
ternal consideration. That I do not absolutely repent
yet is certain ; and it is certain my husband is not the
man I took him for. I do not insinuate that he wants
understanding, (and) good nature, or is a bad man in
any respect ; but he is the dullest creature I ever
knew. He talks of news and family affairs as- insipidly,
as clear of all wit and imagination, and is as great a
mopus in his own family, when we have no company,
as my poor old father, or any other honest plain
gentleman." "Now, my question to you is this: — Whether you
1 These two last sentences are ad- I sensible men ; but it is certain they
mirable. She only believes they were | had distinguished themselves, &c.

1765, ^tat. 42.

HIS PICTURES OF 1765.

247

do not think my husband does not in some measure
come under the denomination of a swindler ; from his
having procured a very agreeable wife with a very
good fortune upon false pretences?"
In the other fragment the same story is told with a
difference merely in the language. Reynolds, no doubt,
intended to show that men distinguished for conversa
tional powers are apt to prepare themselves for a din
ner party, to dress their minds as well as their persons,
and to exert all their powers of pleasing; while, in
their families, they take no such trouble. The lady, it
will be observed, accuses her husband of dullness only
when there is no company.
[To the exhibition of 1765 Reynolds contributed
only two pictures : a second one of Lady Sarah Bun
bury, this time represented as sacrificing to the Graces,1
and an anonymous female portrait, Kit-kat size. Lady
Sarah had been one of the painter's favourite sitters
for the last three years. Her name occurs very often
n his pocket-book, and his visits to Holland House,
where she lived, before her marriage, with her sister
and brother-in-law, are frequent. This is the state
liest picture he has painted of her. She kneels at
a footstool before a flaming tripod, over which the
triad of the Graces look down upon her as she makes
a libation in their honour. A kneeling attendant
behind, only less beautiful than her mistress (and
painted, probably, from Lady Susan Strangways), pours
wine from a flagon. Lady Sarah was still in the full

1 " She never did sacrifice to the
Graces," remarks Mrs. Piozzi : " her
face was gloriously handsome, but she

used to play cricket and eat beefsteaks
on the Steyne at Brighton." — Ed.

248 LIFE OP SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
glow of that singular loveliness which, it was whis
pered, had four years ago won the heart of the King,
and all but placed an English queen upon the throne.
Though the colouring has lost much of its richness, the
lakes having faded from Lady Sarah's robes, and left
what was once warm rose-colour a cold faint purple,
the picture takes a high place among the works of its
class — the full-length allegorical. To me these pictures
are indescribably inferior in charm to those in which
Reynolds has painted the women of his time, in the
clothes they usually wore, and engaged in everyday
occupations or amusements, however commonplace —
playing with their babies, feeding their chickens, or
caressing their lapdogs. The most trivial of these occu
pations has at least reality about it, and accommodates
itself to the air and dress of the woman. Not so with
his Junos and Hebes, filling Jove's cup or reaching
down the cestus, his Thaises with their torches, and
Dianas with their crescents and javelins. With all the
painter's feeling for colour and grace of line, he failed
in inventing any costume which satisfies the eye as well
as even the ugliest of the many ugly fashions of his day.
This point of costume gave him great trouble. The late
Duchess Dowager of Rutland told Mr. F. Grant, R. A.,
that Sir Joshua made her try on eleven different dresses
before he painted her " in that bedgown." No doubt
the " bedgown " was the dress with the least marked
character about it, — the nearest to that " generalized "
drapery which Reynolds's theory required him to seek,
though his natural inclination or the happy obstinacy
of the ladies forced him, in so many cases, to paint the
fashions of the time. In the eighteenth century there

1765, 2etat. 42. EXHIBITION OF 1765. 249
is no separating of people from their clothes ; no pos
sibility of successfully "idealising" high tetes and long
stomachers, sacques and cardinals. Another reason
which, to my thinking, greatly impairs the value ot
Reynolds's full-lengths is, that so much of them de
volved on the drapery-man. Peter Toms, and Reynolds's
pupils, Marchi,1 Berridge, and Baron, were now work
ing for him in this capacity. Gainsborough, if I
may judge from what I know of his pictures, painted
his ladies with a certain generalizing management of
their actual dresses, invariably reducing the circum
ference of petticoats, and getting rid of buckram gene
rally, but never mythologizing his sitters. He was an
exhibitor this year of a fine full-length equestrian por
trait of General Honeywood, which the King was
anxious to buy, and which is marked in Walpole's
catalogue as " very good," and of a portrait of Colonel
Nugent (a son of Lord Clare), killed in the West Indies
some time before. West exhibits, for the second time,
a Jupiter and Europa, a Yenus and Cupid, and two
portraits. The Chevalier Yanloo, too, was now living
in Jermyn Street, trying in vain to draw away sitters
by the attraction of his foreign order and his smooth,
characterless pencil. He died this year. Wilson ex
hibits three landscapes. Barry appreciated them, if
the connoisseurs and purchasers turned coldly away.
" The colouring of Wilson," he says in one of his letters
of this date, " is very masterly ; his style of design is
more grand, more consistent, and more poetical than

1 I find in one of Reynolds's MS.
books, " Nov. 22, 1764. Agreed with
Giuseppe Marchi that he should live
in my house and paint for me for one

half-year from this day ; I agreeing
to give him fifty pounds for the same.
Joshua Reynolds. G. Marchi." — Ed.

250

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

any other person's amongst us." But Barry praised
Gavin Hamilton's " Achilles and Patroclus," also exhi
bited this year, and maintained his opinion in its favour
with heat against older painters, — Reynolds, perhaps,
among the number.1 Zoffany exhibits Garrick as Sir
John Brute. Mortimer, and Joseph Wright of Derby,
are among the few other exhibitors whose names have
survived to this day.
By help of the pocket-book of this year we may trace
Sir Joshua in his dinners and card-parties among old
friends and new acquaintance. His visits to the Club
are often noted. We know from Johnson's correspond
ence that he was One of its most regular attendants.
Mr. Anthony Chamier's and the Hornecks' seem still
to have been his favourite dinner-houses. I find several
Sunday engagements with Mr. Walpole and Mr. Wilkes.
I infer, from the very intricate and careful directions as
to the whereabouts of the latter, that Wilkes must,
during the latter part of this year, have secretly run
over from Paris, whither he returned from Naples near
the close of September, and lain perdu at a farm-house
near Teddington.2 There are also Twickenham dinners

1 The passionate young Irish painter,
at this time, was fervent in his admira
tion of Reynolds. He writes to Dr.
Sleigh, this year, " We have had two
exhibitions since I wrote to you : the
pictures that struck me most were
Lady Sarah Bunbury sacrificing to the
Graces, and Lady Waldegrave. They
are some of Mr. Reynolds's best works,
which is the highest praise they can
have." He is struck (he tells the
friendly Doctor) " with the great ad
vance of portrait-painting since it got
into the hands of Mr. Reynolds," and

dwells upon " the greatness and deli
cacy of his style, the propriety of his
characters, his great force of light and
shadow, and taste of colouring."
2 Thus in September occurs, " Mr.
Wilkes : first to go to Teddington
church, and, turning to the right after
passing the church, 2nd house on the
right, Stephen, farmer and maltster,
at Bolston, Hampton- Wick." I refer
these entries to John Wilkes, as the
entries referring to his brothers give
their Christian names, Israel or E. for
Heaton.

1765, .etat. 42. DINNER ENGAGEMENTS. 251
with Hudson and ' ' unclubbable " Hawkins, that pompous
attorney and Middlesex magistrate, who seems to have
held a place of such unaccountable prominence in the
best literary society of the day ; with Owen Cambridge,
in later years the friend of Fanny Burney, one of the
liveliest contributors to ' The World,' a man of great
attainments and universal popularity; with Garrick
and Penny the painter, and Chambers the architect;
with Dr. Markham and the Bishop of Bristol; with
Lord Egremont, Lord Tyrconnel, and Mr. Fitzherbert :
the last within a fortnight of Burke's appointment as
Private Secretary to Lord Rockingham, to which Fitz-
herbert's recommendation had powerfully contributed.
We may conceive how cordially the young Secretary's
health was drunk, what auguries were indulged in, what
friendly wishes reciprocated.
One dinner, at Mrs. Cholmondeley's, is emphasized
by the addition "turtle." I have already mentioned
his dinners with Goldsmith in the Temple. There are
records, too, of engagements at picture auctions, and at
the festival of the Sons of the Clergy, in which society
Sir Joshua always took a warm interest. There is a
Sunday visit to Guildhall, probably to fix a place for
his portrait of Chief Justice Pratt* who, under his new
title of Lord Camden, this year sat for the finishing-
touches of his portrait.
The list of sitters for 1765 is smaller than for any
preceding year, and the gaps in the appointments more
numerous. The lady who sits on Tuesday October 1st,
and who has entered herself under the name of " Cla-
rinda," I am unable positively to identify. The name
may be a playful entry by Kitty Olive, or Mrs. Abingdon,

252

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

both of whom played Clarinda in the ' Suspicious Hus
band ;' or by lively Miss Pope, who, about that date,
had appeared as Clarinda in a comedy long since
forgotten.

January.
Duchess of Ancaster ; Mr.
Parker ; Captain Foot ; Mr. Fox ;
Lady Waldegrave ; Sir W. Booth
by ; x Sir J. and Lady Hodges ;
Lady Coventry ; Captain Pownall;
Lady Sarah Bunbury ; Duchess of
Bichmond ; Lady Bolingbroke ;
Colonel Keppell; Governor Boone;
Mr. O'Hara ; Lady Boynton.
February.
Miss Macgill;2 Mr. Hoggett
(Hagget) ; Lord Kilbrazil (Clan-
brassil) ; Captain (afterwards writ
ten Mr.) Matheson, Mr. Elliot.8
March?
Mr. Blake ; ° Lord Chief Jus

tice Pratt ; Duchess of Marl
borough; Dr. Smith; Miss Bou
verie ; Lady Stanhope ; Lady
Eliz. Lee ; Mrs. Watson.6
April?
Lady Catherine Beauclerk ;
Lady C. Dundas ; Lord Bruce ;
Mr. Greenway; Archbishop of
York ; Lord Dunmore ; Miss
Greenway ; Mr. Sedgwick ; 8 Lord
Herbert ; 9 Mrs. Abingdon.
i!%.10
Dr. Gisbrough ; Miss Murray; 11
Miss O'Brien (Nelly) ; Lady Fife ;
Admiral Keppell ; Mrs. Croft ;
Lord Arundel ; Miss Lister ; Miss

1 A member of the household of the
Duke of York. A leading maccaroni
and man of pleasure.
2 Afterwards Countess of Clan-
william. 3 Copy of Lord Holland for Mr.
Taylor. 4 No sitters from 4th to 10th ; from
11th to 17th only Lord Chief Justice
Pratt. 5 Afterwards Sir Patrick Blake, hus
band of Lady Blake (Annabella Bun
bury). He was a famous Newmarket
man. It was not he, but his brother,
who made a great noise in 1774,
by his bet of 1000 guineas that he
would, find a man to live under water
for 12 hours. The wager came off at
Plymouth : the man was thought to
have gone down in a vessel constructed
for the purpose, and never reappeared ; ]
but there seems to have been some

doubt about the fact of his having
been in the submarine boat at the time
she sunk, and she was never got up to
verify the fact. Mr. Blake's portrait —
a full-length, in a red coat with blue
lapels, white waistcoat, breeches, and
gaiters, and a hawk on his wrist — is
at Barton, the seat of the Bunburys,
in very good condition. — Ed.
6 On a Sunday, and again in April.
? A model.
7 Mem. — Bambino.
8 Solicitor and Clerk of the Reports
to the Commissioners of Trade.
9 Son of the Earl of Pembroke, for
the picture of him standing with his
book at his mother's knee.
10 Mem.— Lord Holland's picture for
Mr. Powel.
11 A little Scotch girl with a dog ;
now in Lord Normanton's gallery.

1766, 2ETAT. 43.

SITTERS, 1765.

253

Popham; Sir Geoffrey Amherst ; *
Capt. Duncombe. June?
Mr. Thompson; Lord Pem
broke ; Mr. Lascelles ; Lord Ca-
rysfort ; Lord Halifax ; Master
and Miss Proby ; Lord Eglinton ;
Mr. Angerstein; Miss Cells.3
July.
Miss Montagu; Lord North;
Mr. Wright ; Mrs. Paine ; Miss
Paine ; Miss PoUy Paine ; Lady
Wordon (Warden). August.
Mrs. Cholmondely ; Lord Tavi-
stoke ; Mrs. Hancock ; 4 Lord
Camden ; Mr. Stuart.
September.
Mr. Fitzroy ; Sir Charles Saun

ders ; Mr. and Mrs. Eoffey ; Miss
Oliver; Archbishop of Canter
bury. October?
Mrs. Cowley; Mr. Mitchell;
Mr. Bourdieu ; Sir Gervase Clif
ton ; Duchess of Douglas ; Mr.
Hopkins ; Mr. Eoffey, jun.
November.
Mr. Bunbury; Captain Hart-
well ; Mr. Townsend ; Mr. Chas.
Price ; Lady Broughton ; Mr.
Bowlby;6 Lord Hardwick; Sir
Bryan Broughton. December.
Lord Erwin (Irwin) ; Miss
Hornecks ; Miss Jones ; Lord
Albemarle ; Mr. Cholmondely ;
Lady Arundel ; Mr. Greville.

The impress of the Rockingham administration is
apparent on the painter's sitters for 1766. Lord Albe
marle and Sir Charles Saunders, the Dukes of Portland
and Devonshire, Lord Hardwicke, General Conway, Mr.
Burke, and Lord Rockingham himself, successively took
their seats in Reynolds's chair — all holders of high
office — some during, and some after the close of, that
briefest, but immeasurably most creditable, administra
tion of the distracted ten years which followed the
accession of George III.

1 Afterwards Lord Amherst, the
conqueror of Canada.
2 Mem. — Lord Granby's horse, on
June 3rd, at 11.
3 Entered as Mrs. Cells on 2nd Sept.
She seems to have been a model.
4 Once entered Miss, but apparently
a mistake.

6 Tuesday, October 1, " Clarinda."
From 21st to 29th October a blank.
6 A protege1 of the Duke of Northum
berland's, held a commissionership of
excise, was a member of the Dilettanti
Club, and married a sister of the first
Duke of Montague.

254 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
This year saw the first commanding strides of Rey
nolds's greatest and closest friend Edmund Burke on
that public career which opened when he took his seat
for Wendover on the 14th of January. He was not
long silent. On the 26th of the same month his maiden
speech in favour of receiving the petition of the Ame
rican Congress extorted from Pitt congratulations on
the acquisition the Ministry had made in such a sup
porter. But it was not till seven days after his de'but
that Burke really showed the power that was in him,
in his speech in support of General Conway's motion
declaring the power of the King and Parliament over
the colonies in all cases whatsoever. A fresh triumph
awaited him in the decisive debate of the 21st of Feb
ruary, which ended in the one great triumph of the first
Rockingham administration — the repeal of the Ame
rican Stamp Act. Throughout all the other struggles
of that brief but most gallant ministry, Burke was the
foremost man — as orator, as writer, as counsellor, and
guide. Never, in all parliamentary experience before
or since, was such a position so taken by storm. The
mutual regard of Reynolds and Burke was so strong
that it is impossible not to believe that every one of
these triumphs had its separate joy for the quiet painter
in Leicester Fields. All his parliamentary sitters must
have been sounding Burke's praises, or grumbling at
his audacity. We may easily conceive how Reynolds
shifted his trumpet when some old courtier or place
man, like Halifax or Carysfort, some thick-and-thin
King's Friend, like Dyson or Selwyn, or some maccaroni,
like Sir Charles Bunbury or Mr. Crewe, took up the
fashionable sneer against " the Irish adventurer." Out-

1766, iETAT. 43. BURKE— GOLDSMITH. 255
side of the studio, the houses Sir Joshua most fre
quented were houses where Burke was known, loved,
and welcomed, — Mrs. Horneck' s, and Chamier' s, Fitz-
herbert's, and Thrale's. At the Clufy Burke's mag
nificent success was a matter of pride and rejoicing even
to Johnson, his bitter political opponent. He laments,
in a letter to Langton,1 " the loss of Burke's company
since he has been engaged in public business ;" and
tells of his two speeches, which have been publicly
commended by Pitt, and have filled the town with
wonder. The same letter gives us a peep into the dingy
little upstairs parlour at the Turk's Head, where Dyer
is constant ; Hawkins remiss (and no great loss) :
Johnson himself not over diligent ; Dr. Nugent, Dr.
Goldsmith, and Reynolds very constant.
There were new glories too this year for other friends
of the painter besides Burke. Goldsmith published the
' Yicar of Wakefield,' that sweetest and freshest of prose
idylls, with conspicuous success. Garrick and Colman —
both intimates of the Leicester Fields circle — obtained
a joint triumph in the ' Clandestine Marriage.' They
afterwards contested their respective contributions to the
play with not a little jealousy ; and Reynolds more than
once acted as peacemaker between them. There are
engagements for dinners with Goldsmith, to provide
which some of Newberry's scanty payments for the
'Vicar' may have been melted. An engagement is
noted for " the play " on Thursday, March 6th, when
the ' Clandestine Marriage ' was commanded by their
Majesties. The comedy was then in the flush of its

1 Of March 9.

256 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
first success, having been produced on the 20th of
February. Mrs. Abingdon was sitting to Reynolds at this time,
and he was, no doubt, destined to hear many a complaint
of the shameful way she had been treated by Garrick
in casting her for the trifling part of Betty in the new
play. " She could not keep her name out of the bills ;
but she would not have it printed in the play, which
Tom Davies was publishing, — and so she had told
Garrick." Mrs. Abingdon was one of those women
who have their way. In the cast prefixed to Tom
Davies's edition of the ' Clandestine Marriage ' there is
a blank opposite the name of Betty. The very day after
his visit to the theatre Reynolds has an engagement
to tea and cards with Mrs. Clive at her lodgings in
Jermyn Street. Here the jovial, ugly, witty, sensible
actress (who by her bustle and humour is recorded to
have saved the fifth act of the new comedy, endan
gered by want of sufficient rehearsal) may have ac
cepted, in her hearty way, a compliment on her acting
of Miss Heidelberg from the courtly painter, who, with
all his blandness, had a keen sense of the humorous :
so keen, indeed, that it is one of the very points in
his character noted by Burke in his remarks on Sir
Joshua, written for Malone, a short time after the
painter's death, in ink blotted as if by the writer's
tears.1 Among the actresses and beauties, Peers, Generals,
and Admirals, members of the House of Commons,
Ministers and maccaroni — whose names make the

This interesting paper is in the possession of Mr. John Forster. — Ed.

1766, jetat. 43. ISAAC BARRE. 257

pocket-book for 1766 (like all the series, indeed) the
most vivid reflector of the time, in which pass before
us, still and quiet as in a camera obscura, the figures of
those who are moving, working, bustling in the outer
world — is the name of an orator little less audacious and
impassioned, if less profound, than Burke himself. This
is Isaac Barre, the son of the Dublin grocer, first a strug
gling soldier of fortune, — one of those who supported the
dying Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, — now the mem
ber for High Wycombe, the fast friend and most trusted
aide-de-camp of Lord Shelburne, a speaker formidable
even to the Great Commoner himself. He sits to Sir
Joshua as " Col. Barry." I suppose Sir Joshua's spelling
is the Dublin grocer's, which the Colonel abandoned for
the more foreign-looking " Barre." We hardly need the
note on the fly-leaf of the pocket-book to tell us that
" Col. Barry's picture is for Lord Shelburne." We
may still see in this picture, now in Lord Camden's '
possession, how vigorously Reynolds's pencil, though
always favouring beauty, has dealt with that strongly-
marked physiognomy which Walpole has painted with
the harsh colours he never failed to apply to any friend
of Lord Shelburne : " A black, robust man, of a military
figure, rather hard-favoured than not ; young, with a
peculiar distortion on one side of his face, which, it seems,
was a bullet lodged loosely in his cheek, and which gave
a savage glare to one eye."
Reynolds painted Barre' again, in a group with

1 Lord Shelburne's pictures were
dispersed at the death of the 1st Mar
quis of LaDsdowne. The late revered
and lamented Marquis had himself
been the acquirer of every picture in
VOL. I.

his noble gallery; and, what is still
rarer in his class, was always his own
buyer, never having surrendered him
self to the dictation of the professional
" Entremetteurs des beaux arts." — Ed.

258

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

Dunning, Lord Ashburton, and his friend Lord Shel
burne (now in Sir Francis Baring's collection). In
both cases he has turned the wounded side of Barre" s
face away from the spectator.
Another conspicuous though sinister figure of the
time comes upon us .in Reynolds's pocket-book, — a fre
quent shifter of his addresses, so that the painter, in
noting his several engagements with him, generally
appends the direction : at one time (Friday, March 21st)
in St. John's Square (at the house probably of his
brother Heaton), at another (Thursday, August 28th)
in an out-of-the way lodging, " the second turning past
Teddington Church." The eyes have a portentous
squint, the lips wear a Mephistophelic grin, and yet
there is a charm in the acuteness and humour of the
physiognomy, in spite of the uneasy, sidelong, glancing
look, as of one who fears pursuers. It is Wilkes : still
an outlaw, but braving the chances of arrest for the
purposes of political intrigue or personal pleasure. We
know from other sources that he was in London this
year, in violation of his promise given to Ministers,
and that he went to see Garrick in Kitely.1 We know,
too, that in November he openly returned and addressed
a letter to the Duke of Grafton, hoping that the rigour
of long, unmerited exile was past, and that he might be
allowed to continue in the land and among the friends of

1 This was early in May. He had
come over with Mr. Lachlan Macleane,
determined either to make his fortune
out of the fears of the Rockingham
Administration, or to annoy it to the
utmost. Burke, at Lord Rockingham's
request, saw him, in company with

Fitzherbert. Wilkes demanded a free
pardon, a sum of money, and a pension
of 1500J. Burke at last induced' him
to compound for a handsome douceur
of 3002. or 4007., from Lord Rocking
ham's private purse, and to return to
Paris.— Ed.

1766, 2etat. 43. WILKES— ANGELICA KAUFFMAN. 259
liberty. I find in the course of this year not fewer
than seven engagements to Wilkes, either for dinner
or the evening.1 Reynolds's attraction to the society
of Wilkes must have been personal, not political. If, as
there is every reason to believe, the painter agreed
in opinions with Burke, he could have felt a very im
perfect political sympathy with the intriguing, though
determined demagogue, whose wit, good humour, and
keen observation of human weaknesses and follies,
were all needed to reconcile his decent friends to his
coarseness and ridicule of most things respectable or
venerable. Still it must not be forgotten, that, besides
being the most agreeable of companions, Wilkes was the
champion of a good fight, and that he could not have
maintained his battle with more unflinching courage,
had his motives been as pure as his cause was sacred.
The pocket-book calls up a pleasanter recollection by
its frequent entries of "Miss Angelica." This is the
pretty and graceful Angelica Kauffman, whose pictures,
feeble as they are, were thought wonderful in her own
time, and procured her a place on the original roll of
Academicians in 1768. Her name in the pocket-book
is sometimes contracted into " Miss Angel," and once
has the suggestive addition " Fiori." Had Reynolds
been reminding himself to buy her flowers ? She had
come to London only the year before, under the pro
tection of Lady Wentworth, and had appeared as an
exhibitor for the first time, in 1765, among the Asso
ciated Painters, at " Mr. Moreing's great room in Maiden
Lane," with that never-failing contribution of this date,
1 They are for January 13, February 2 and 22, March 11 and 21, August 28,
and December 6.
s 2

260 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
a portrait of Garrick. This year she had sent to the
same exhibition a " Shepherd and Shepherdess of Ar
cadia moralizing at the side of a sepulchre, while others
are dancing at a distance :" a subject used originally by
Guercino, and imitated from him by Sir Joshua in his
picture of Mrs. Bouverie and Mrs. Crewe a few years
later.1 Report gave Reynolds out as an admirer of the accom
plished Angelica. He painted her portrait twice ; and
she painted his for his friend Mr. Parker of Saltram.
Smith declares she was a sad coquette. " Once she
professed to be enamoured of Nathaniel Dance ; to the
next visitor she would disclose the great secret that she
was dying for Sir Joshua Reynolds."
This year the names of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale occur hi
the pocket-book for the first time. Johnson had made
their acquaintance the year before, and now their kindness
had cheered him under the fits of despondency which
clouded part of this spring and summer. There are
engagements with the Thrales for Saturday the 12th and
Thursday the 17th of September, when Johnson was at
Streatham, and Reynolds, no doubt, made one of the party.
There are two visits to the play recorded, besides
that of March : one, which I think must have been to
see Garrick in Sir John Brute, and his favourite Mrs.
Abingdon in Lady Fanciful ; another, in December, to-
see his friend Dr. Franklin's dull tragedy of the 'Earl
of Warwick,' in which Mrs. ' Yates then, and Mrs.
Siddons afterwards, showed the town how grand a great
actress can be in a part which in weaker hands would
infallibly betray its own poverty and commonplace. I
1 I find a sketch of Guercino's picture in Reynolds's Roman note-book. — Ed.

1766, .etat. 43.

EXHIBITION OF 1766.

261

have been told by a most competent critic x that, in the
Margaret of Anjou of this feeble and stilted tragedy,
Mrs. Siddons produced even more effect than in Lady
Macbeth. Mrs. Yates, in 1766, was the rage in the same
character, and " drowned the pit," in spite of that " too
much tottering about and too much flumping down"
complained of by Kitty Clive, in one of her most
amusing, oddly-spelt letters.
Sir Joshua contributed four pictures to the year's
exhibition : Mrs. Hale, as Euphrosyne (from ' L' Alle
gro ') ; a half-length of the Marquis of Granby ; another
of Sir Geoffrey Amherst ; and a group of Mr. Paine, the
architect, and his son. Of these, I cannot but class the
Euphrosyne among his few ungraceful pictures.2 When
Reynolds failed, it was always in the allegorical and
mythological ; and in this instance, though dealing with
a beautiful woman, he has not to my mind been at all
fortunate. The disposition of the hair, streaming
upwards, is singularly unlovely, and this is the stranger
with a painter who has made even the yard-high
" tetes " and yard-wide " frisures " of his own time toler
able to us by the exquisite taste of his treatment. Sir
Geoffrey Amherst, in armour, looking up from the study
of his campaign map, is one of his manliest and most
powerful male portraits. The same praise is due to his
well-known Marquis of Granby, so often repeated by
Reynolds and his copyists. Who that knows Reynolds's
pictures at all can fail to remember that shining bald

1 F. Fladgate, Esq., Treasurer of
Drury Lane Theatre, and the most
trustworthy custodian I know of re
miniscences of the great Kemble
family. — Ed.

2 Now at Lord Harewood's. Mrs.
Hale had been Miss Challoner, and
was sister of Anne, Countess of Hare-
wood.

262 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV-
head, that bluff kindly face, with the bright cuirass under
the loose coat of the Blues, and the arm flung across the
withers of his charger ? It adds much to the interest of
this particular picture that it was painted, as I learn
from Horace Walpole's note in the catalogue of this year,
for the Marechal de Broglie, one of the commanders so
handsomely beaten by the Allies at Kirckdenckirk,
when the Marquis of Granby, in command of the
English cavalry, contributed mainly to the defeat of
the Marechal and the Prince de Soubise. The group of
Mr. Paine and his son is now in the Bodleian collection,
and is one of the painter's masterpieces. The father,
in a dark riding-coat, is sitting at a table giving direc
tions about an architectural design, while his son, in a
light satin vest, leans over his father's shoulder, with
an attentive eye fixed on the plan. The light and shade
are singularly effective ; the faces, in the highest degree
manly and expressive, have the look of excellent like
nesses. Gainsborough had four pictures in this year's exhi
bition : portraits of Garrick and Dr. Charlton of Bath,
a family group, and a landscape. Three of Reynolds's
pupils — Mr. Barron, Mr. Berridge, and Mr. Parry —
figure in the catalogue for a portrait apiece. Marchi,
too, who accompanied Reynolds from Rome as a boy,
has a kit-kat ; but he has left his master's house, and is
now lodged at- Mrs. Maberly's, Maiden Lane. Mr.
Hudson sends four portraits, like Reynolds ; Mr. Kettle
as many ; Mr. Robert Pine three ; and Mr. Francis
Cotes six. Mr. William Coply — a self-taught American
painter, afterwards to be better known as John Singleton
Copley — from " Boston, New England," contributes ' A

1766, iETAT. 43. WEST'S PICTURES. 263
Boy with a flying squirrel ;' but the great crowd of
the year is round Mr. West's pictures, ' The Continence
of Scipio,' ' Pylades and Orestes, its companion ;' ' Cymon
and Iphigenia,' ' Diana and Endymion, its companion ;'
and ' Two Young Ladies at Play.' Of the Pylades and
Orestes, Northcote * tells us, " As any attempt in history
was at that period an almost unexampled effort, this
picture became a matter of much surprise. West's
house was soon filled with visitors from all quarters to
see it ; and those amongst the highest rank who were
not able to come to his house to satisfy their curiosity
desired to have his permission to have it sent to them ;
nor did they fail, every time it was returned to him, to
accompany it with compliments of the highest com
mendation on its great merits. But the most wonderful
part of the story is, that, notwithstanding all this vast
bustle and commendation bestowed upon this justly-
admired picture, by which Mr. West's servant gained
upwards of thirty pounds by showing it, yet no one
mortal ever asked the price of the work, or so much
as offered to give him a commission to paint any other
subject. Indeed, there was one gentleman so highly
delighted with the picture, and who spoke of it with
such praise to his father, that he immediately asked him
the reason he did not purchase, as he so much admired
it, when he answered, ' What could I do, if I had it ?
You surely would not have me hang up a modern
English picture in my house unless it was a portrait ? "
Among the prettiest occupants of Reynolds's chair
this year were the two Miss Hornecks, now girls of

Life of Reynolds, vol. i. 142.

264

LIFE OP SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

sixteen and fourteen.1 The eldest — three years after
to become famous as Goldsmith's Little Comedy- — may
have formed an acquaintance this very year through
Reynolds — perhaps even in his painting-room — with
Mr. Henry Bunbury (Sir Charles's younger brother,
who applied to caricature very rare powers as a fantastic
designer), who was now sitting to the painter, and
whom she married a few years later. Goldsmith did not
become acquainted with the Hornecks, in Mr. Forster's
opinion, till three years after this. But Burke had
known them for some years (probably through Rey
nolds, who was one of their Devonshire acquaintances),
and was now trustee for them under their father's will.
Hickey, the " special attorney " of ' Retaliation,' is
another figure of Goldsmith's particular circle who turns
up in this year's pocket-book. Reynolds dined with
him on Saturday the 6th of August. Hickey was Sir
Joshua's legal adviser as well as Burke's, for whom his
portrait was painted. He appears to have been respected
and liked in that circle, and to have been a plain, hearty,
jovial man, of no great polish, or bpretension to culture.2
There are dinners, too, with J. Warton, now in town,
whipping up support as a candidate for the head-mas
tership of Winchester ; with Dr. Markham, still the fast
friend of Burke, and master of Westminster School;

1 The original (and unfinished)
study for the heads of these charming
sisters is at Barton. It is exquisitely
refined in drawing, and delicate in
pearly gray half-tones. There is a
finished replica in Lord Normanton's
gallery.— Ed.
'¦* " Hove Hickey reclines, a most blunt pleasant
creature,
And slander itself must allow him good nature;

He cherislied his friend, and lie relished a bumper,
Yet one fault he had, and that was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask If the man was a miser,
I answer, No, no ; for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse Mm of that.
Perhaps he confided In men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest?— Ah, no !
Then whut was his failing? Come, tell it, and
bum ye —
He was— could he help It?— a special attorney."
Goldsmith's Retaliation.^- Ed.

1766, .etat. 43.

SITTERS, 1766.

265

with Burke himself frequently, and his friend Fitzher-
bert ; with noblemen, — the Duke of Marlborough, Lord
Hillsborough, and the Marquis of Granby ; with wits
and maccaronis, as Selwyn and Sir Charles Bunbury ;
with agreeable and vivacious women, as Mrs. Cholmon-
deley and Mrs. Clive ; with scholars and litterateurs, as Dr.
Lye, the editor of the ' Etymologicon of Junius,' Percy,
the compiler of the ' Reliques,' Johnson and Goldsmith ;
with artists, as Hayman, West, and Nixon ; and, to wind
up the list, with one whose strange experiences of life
were inferior to none of these — Sir John Fielding, the
blind Bow Street magistrate and half-brother of the
author of ' Tom Jones.' I append the list of sitters
for the year, which is less numerous than usual.]

January.
Miss Hornecks:1 Lord Albe
marle ; Mr. Parker ; 2 Lord and
Lady Arundel ; Lady Walde
grave; Mr. Eoffey; Mr. Chol-
mondeley ; Mr. Dallison ; Mr.
Fitzherbert ; 3 Lord Camden; 4 Sir
Charles Bunbury (on a Sunday) ;
Mr. Bunbury. February?
Mrs. Hancock; Lord Tavistock;

Lady Bothes ; Mr. Selwyn ; Col.
Molesworth ; Lord Barrymore ;
Sir Walter Bracket.6 March.
Mr. Hastings ; 7 Miss Wilmot ;
Lord and Lady Downe ; Miss
Crewe ; Master Tufton ; Mrs.
Franks; Miss Franks; Duchess
of Bichmond ; Mrs. SouthweU ;
Miss Montagu ; Mi-. Fane ; Mr.
Pelham.8

1 Two in one picture.
2 Afterwards Lord Boringdon.
3 Burke's friend, now at the Board
of Trade.
4 Late Chief Justice Pratt, ennobled
iu 1765 : now at the Moat.
5 Mem., under Feb. 17. — " Mr. Hop
kins' picture to he sent to the Rev. Dr.
l'lumtree, Queen's College, Cambridge."
6 M.P. for Newcastle and the chief
magnate of that town. The picture is
in the Infirmary there.
7 Warren Hastings. In 1764 he had

returned to England with a moderate
fortune from Calcutta, where he had
been member of council for nearly
three years, after holding the Com
pany's Agency at the Court of Meer
Jaffier, nabob of Bengal. The picture
is at Lord Northwick's.
8 Mr. Pelham, painted with lake
and white, and black and blue, var
nished with green mastic dissolved in
oil, with sal saturni (sugar of lead) and
rock alum ; yellow lake and Naples
black mixed with the varnish, July

266

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

April.
Colonel Barre -1 Lord Coventry ;
Master St. John ; Lord Dudley ;
Mrs. Blake; Master Bunbury;2
Lord Bruce ; Lady Charles Spen
cer ; Lady Egremont ; Lord Hard-
wick ; Sir John Palmer.
May?
Lord Halifax; Mr. Mudge;
Mr. Chambers; Lord Granby;
General Burgoyne ; * Lord Shel
burne ; Mrs. Sparrow ; Miss
O'Brien (? NeUy) ; Mr. Lascelles ;
Sir T. Acland ; Duchess of Man
chester.

Mrs. Luther ; Duke of Port

land ; Lord Herbert ; Mr. Price ;
General Conway ; Mr. Conway.
July?
Mrs. Abingdon; Lady Mary
Fox/

Sir Charles Saunders ; Mr. Hor
neck ; Mr. Boothby ; Beggarman ;
Miss Morrison; Dr. Goldsmith;
Lord Lisburne. September.
Miss l Fisher8., (in Hambleton
Street) ; Miss Morris.
October.
Miss Cells; Miss Angelica
Kauffmann ; Mrs. Martin ; Gene
ral Sandford ; " Duke of Devon-

7th, 1766. Sir C. Eastlake remarks :
"This portrait was therefore laid
in with white and black and blue,
as Sir Joshua supposed Correggio's
' Leda ' and some other pictures which
he saw in Rome were begun. Lake
was the only red admitted in this pre
paration, over which was passed a yel
low varnish. The varnish itself, with
the exception of the dryer (sugar of
lead), corresponds with one described
by Arminini." — (' History of Oil-
Painting,' 539.)
1 Spelt " Barry." Already risen
into distinction as an orator.
2 This was Henry, who afterwards
married Miss Horneck. The picture
has disappeared, but the engraving
exists, as well as a small coloured
drawing at Barton.
3 Mem., under May 26. — " To send
Sir S. Molesworth to Bodmin, in a
Carlo-Maratti frame."
4 Afterwards General : more favour
ably known as dramatist than as
soldier. 5 Mem., under June 30.— "To Duke

of Marlborough, carry the Duchess and
cloths (i. e. canvases) for the two
children." 6 " Copy of Duke of Portland for
Mrs. Price only."
7 This was the beautiful and
amiable Lady Mary Fitzpatrick, the
daughter of the late Earl of Ossory,
who in April of this year had married
Stephen Fox, Lord Holland's eldest son.
8 In Sir Joshua's notes on his own
practice, — " Miss Kitty Fisher : face
cerata (i.e. rubbed with wax), drapery
painted with wax and afterwards var
nished." This refers to the present
picture : from about this time he be
gan to note his experiments, and, I
think, to indulge in more latitude in
making them, choosing for this pur
pose, however, pictures he did not care
much about, as he told Mr. Cribb, his
frame-maker, from whose son I have
the information. — Ed.
9 "Gen. S. to be sent, when finished,
to Mrs. Crawfurd, in Merrion Street,
Dublin. To write to her to know if
she would have it framed."

1767, .etat. 44.

LORD EDGCUMBE.

267

shire ; Miss Wynyard ; Mrs. Hut
chinson ; Mr. Alexander.

Captain

November. Kingswell ;

Colonel

Maitland ; Mr. Hincheliffe ; Lady
Tavistock.

Lord
Craunch. 1

December.
Bockingham ;

Mr.

[The close of 1766 brought to a focus the opposition
to the Ministry which, under the nominal headship of
Lord Chatham, had succeeded to the brilliant but brief
administration of Lord Rockingham. Reynolds had a
special personal interest in the growth of this opposition,
besides that which he must have felt in all political
changes at this moment, as the intimate friend of Burke,
and, through him, of most of the prominent members of
the late administration. Lord Edgcumbe, one of the
most prominent figures at this particular juncture, was
the familiar friend of the painter. Reynolds was born
within visiting distance of Mount Edgcumbe, and in one
of the Edgcumbe boroughs. It was in company with
his playfellow Dick Edgumbe, a boy of twelve, that
he had painted his first head — that of the fat tutor at
Mount Edgcumbe— in the boat-house on Cremyll Beach.
It was the first Lord Edgcumbe who, by introducing
the young painter to Commodore Keppel, had opened
to him the road to Italy. He had painted the three
Lords of the name in their rapid succession, and no
house appears oftener on his Sunday-dinner-list than
Lord Edgcumbe's. Lord Edgcumbe, like many of the
subordinate officeholders in the Rockingham administra-

1 Who first recommended him to
Hudson. Now in Lord Vivian's gallery.
2 In the pocket-book of this year
is the note : " Lake, yellow oker, and
lilt, (ultramarine). Dead col. without

lake. Probatum, Sep. 1766." And
again, with the date of Oct. 9, " Old
Beggarman, yellow oker, lake, and
black and blue. Drapery varnished
with oils. Head, &c, with wax."

'-268 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
tion, had retained his post of Treasurer of the House
hold after the retirement of his chief. In November,
1766, he was summarily and offensively dismissed on
his refusal to exchange his office for a Lordship of the
Bedchamber. This dismissal led to a general resigna
tion of all Lord Rockingham's friends who still remained
in office. The spirit which prompted Lord Chatham to
require or provoke these resignations was but a declara
tion of that hostility between him and Lord Rocking
ham which was apparent during the whole session of
1767, — in the division on the Land-Tax, when Ministers
were defeated on a Money Bill, for the first time since
the Revolution ; in the discussions on the American
Taxation Bill, introduced with unusual levity by Charles
Townshend, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
resisted with such determined eloquence by Burke ; and
in the contest on the Bill restraining the East India
Company from declaring dividends, on which the Cabinet
itself was at variance, and which was most strenuously
opposed in the Commons by Burke and the Rock-
inghams. At the meeting of the Rockingham party, which
preceded the parliamentary campaign, Alderman Sir
W. Baker — an early sitter to Reynolds, and one of the
members for his native place Plympton — and Burke,
were two of the four commoners present. During the
year, Reynolds's friends, Keppel and Admiral Saunders,
resigned their posts at the Admiralty. Reynolds, in all
probability, was the confidant of Burke's political diffi
culties, both at this period and after the conclusion of
the session, when Lord Rockingham's efforts to recon
stitute an administration were foiled by the selfishness

1767, iETAT. 44. LORD TAVISTOCK. 260
of the Bedford party — the Bloomsbury Gang, as they
were called — and by the exigencies of the Grenville
following. Burke was urged by Lord Rockingham to
close with the overtures of the Duke of Grafton, but
declined, and cheerfully condemned himself to years of
opposition with his noble leader.
Lord John Cavendish is another of the leading Rock-
inghams who sits to Reynolds this year, with his nephew
the young Duke of Devonshire. The Bedford family,
if not the Bedford party, has its representative in the
studio in the amiable, gentle, and accomplished Lord
Tavistock, who finished his sittings with the close of
1766. His beautiful wife (Reynolds's early friend as
Lady Elizabeth Keppel) had been sitting at the same
time, probably for the last touches to the full-length of
her as a bridesmaid sacrificing to Hymen. In the
pocket-book for 1767 I find a sitting fixed for her on
the 11th of March: another on the 18th. Both are
struck out — for a sad but sufficient reason. At the end
of the first week of March, Lord Tavistock had left,
for a few days' hunting, his happy home, his beautiful
young bride, with her two infant children and a third
in her bosom, young, strong, rich, amiable, in the en
joyment of great honours, and with the prospect of still
greater- — as happy a man, and with as much happiness
apparently in store for him, as any man in England.
On the 10th the meet was at Dunstable. He had
ridden well forward, as his habit was ; the run was
nearly over : he put his jaded horse at a low fence ; it
fell; as he held the reins, the horse, in. its efforts to
rise struck him repeatedly on the head, and he was
brought home senseless and speechless. Well might

270 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
the Marchioness's sitting for the 11th be put off! Rigby
had probably broken the news to her1 on that very
day. The Marquis lingered till the 17th, when he died
in the 28th year of his age, and in the spring of his
rare promise. His portraits at Quiddenham and at
Woburn represent a young man of gentle, thoughtful
expression, leaning on his arm at a table covered with
books and articles of virtu. His sweet wife never reco
vered the shock of this sudden bereavement. She died
of decline at Lisbon in the following November, in her
29th year. Her beauty, her amiability, her long
acquaintance with Reynolds — who loved all the Keppels
— must have given him a deep sympathy with her in
her great sorrow. So, gloomy or gay, the figures in
the studio-camera pass on in their grotesque contrasts :
the blushing bride, and the hardened demirep, the actor
and the divine, the ministerialist and the member of
Opposition, Nelly O'Brien and the Provost of Eton, the
millionaire Duke of Devonshire and the struggling man
of letters Goldsmith. Reynolds might have heard from
that unwearied intriguer Lord Temple, who was sitting
to him in February, his ideas as to the possibility of an
accommodation, before the year was out, between the
Grenvilles and the Rockinghams. Lord John Cavendish,
who sat a day or two after, might have proved to him
the impossibility of any arrangement with Squire Gawky
- — as his opponents had nicknamed Temple, from his
long ungainly figure. Charles Townshend comes in to
be painted during his brief tenure of the Chancellorship
of the Exchequer, and the picture, in his robes of office,

1 Crawford to Selwyn, March, 1767, ' Selwyn Correspondence.'

1767, jetat. 44. GOLDSMITH AND GARRICK. 271
still attests the height to which wit and intelligence
without wisdom could carry the most reckless and un
principled politician of his time.1 Stout Whig county
members, like Sir Roger Mostyn, Sir Walter Blackett,
and Sir Thomas Acland, might have given the painter,
during their sittings, the country gentleman's reasons in
favour of the reduction of the land-tax from four shil
lings to three, as proposed by Dowdeswell, Lord Rock
ingham's Chancellor of the Exchequer. Garrick had to
confide to him, while sitting, his quarrel with Colman
touching the authorship of the ' Clandestine Marriage,'
which ultimately led to his angry colldborateur 's taking a
share in the lesseeship of Covent Garden with Harris
and Powell. Reynolds, always kindly and disposed to
peacemaking, was the channel of communication be
tween the self-important but kindly manager of Drury
Lane and Goldsmith, who had just finished ' The Good-
natured Man,' and now wished to place it in Garrick's
hands. We know that the interview, at which the
manager strove in vain to make the author feel the
favour he was conferring in accepting his play, and at
which Goldsmith indignantly refused to submit his
comedy to any third judgment, took place this year at
Reynolds's house ; and both Garrick and Goldsmith
figure often in Reynolds's dinner-lists for 1767, as well
as among his sitters. An entry that puzzled me for
some time occurs in April. In a very bad, and evi
dently foreign hand, on two successive mornings, is
written " Cichina." I have no doubt that the Italian
name in such bad writing records the butterfly appari-

In the collection of the Marquess Townshend.

272

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

tion in the painting-room of a pretty little coquettish
wanton of fifteen, La Zamperini, opera singer and
dancer, who was just now the rage as " Cecchina," hi
Piccini's opera ' La Buona Figliola Maritata.' She was
a cliere amie of Lord March's (who was much perplexed,
in the height of this new fancy, by a threatened visit
from La Rena, his old mistress), and either he, Selwyn,
or Gilly Williams may have brought her to Reynolds.
Whether he painted her or not I am not aware. The
engraved portrait of her is by Dance,1 and has just the
wicked, wanton, witching look that should belong to
the heroine of such a history. This appearance of La
Zamperini in Reynolds's painting-room this year, along
with such sitters as Lord Carlisle, Sir Charles Bunbury,
Lord Ossory, Sir John Delaval, and other bloods about
town, introduces us to another side of the painter's life
which his biographers hitherto have kept out of sight.
Reynolds was not merely at home in the literary society
of the 'Turk's Head,' in the Green-room at Drury
Lane, among the politicians of the Opposition at Lord
Edgcumbe's, or in Burke's quiet parlour in St. Anne's
Street. He was a member, too, of the ' Thursday-night
Club,' at the Star-in-Garter, in Pail-Mall, composed of
the men of " wit and pleasure about town," like Gillv
Williams, Selwyn, Topham Beauclerk, Lord March, Lord
Carlisle, Sir Roger Mostyn, old Simon Fanshawe, Cado-
gan, and Lord Bolingbroke, where they played high,
drank hard, and gave subscription masquerades at Car-

1 Those who wish to know more of
her and " the rascally garlicky tribe "
— of father, mother, and brother —
who traded on her beauty, and swelled

the train of her noble protector, on his
visits to Newmarket, may find ample
details in the ' Selwyn Correspond
ence ' for this period, — Ed.

1767, ^t at. 44. HIS SOCIETY. 273
lisle House and the Pantheon. I gather from allusions
in the letters of Gilly Williams and Lord Carlisle that
the painter was famous in this society for his bad
whist-playing, and for a ceremonious politeness little in
keeping with the club manners of the West End at
that day. He is as constant to the Thursday club din
ners at the Star-in-Garter as to the Monday nights at
the club in Gerrard Street. Another haunt, for the
Whig Club perhaps, is the Crown and Anchor. His
election to the Dilettanti dates from May, 1766, when
he was proposed by Lord Charlemont, and there are
regular entries of attendance at the Sunday dinners
of that jovial association of connoisseurship with good
eating and drinking. This year Reynolds has two
engagements at the Queen's house (on July 26th and
28th). These appointments may have been connected
with the portrait of Count La Lippe, who sat to him
again this year, and whose picture seems to have been
a Royal order. He had had no commission at the
palace since the sad one of last year, when he painted
the ill-starred Caroline Matilda, the King's youngest
sister, before her unhappy marriage with the King of
Denmark. He told Northcote he could not make a
good picture of her, as she was in tears almost all the
time she was sitting.
Among the reasons which have been given for the
small share of royal favour enjoyed by Reynolds, I am
surprised that more prominence has not been given to
his political opinions and associations. Though the
appointment of Ramsay to the post of King's painter
was no doubt owing to Lord Bute's desire to help a
brother Scotchman ; and though, as we have seen, Lord
VOL. I. T

274 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
Bute himself sat to Reynolds in 1763, it is impossible
but that by this time the political bent of Reynolds,
his friendship with the leading Rockinghams, no less
than his intimacy with Wilkes, must have been re
marked at Court, and must have tended permanently
to confirm that exclusion which was due in the first
instance to Bute's clannishness. From this time, indeed,
the political character of Reynolds's connexion will be
found more and more marked. He was already rapidly
growing to be what he soon became— rthe Whig or
Opposition painter. Among his literary friends of the
Club, the year is marked principally by that great
incident in Johnson's career, the interview between the
Doctor and the King in the royal library at Bucking
ham House. Boswell has given us at length Johnson's
details of the interview, as he repeated them to a party
at Reynolds's, where Bennet Langton, Joseph Warton,
and Goldsmith, with others, were present.1 The Doc
tor, Boswell tells us, " loved to relate the incident with
all its circumstances." Who that has once read can
ever forget that meeting of two great sovereigns — the
King of Literary Society and the King of Great Britain
and Ireland ? The former — conscious that he too had
his dignity — in spite of all his respect for crowned
heads, never bated his firm manner, or lowered his
sonorous voice before the anointed sovereign in all that
long conversation, ranging over a variety of subjects
which quite inspires one with respect for George III.'s
reading. If the rusty uncouth scholar accepted in silence
the King's compliments on his writing, it was, he said

1 See Boswell's ' Life of Johnson,' sub. an. ,- and Forster's ' Life of Gold
smith,' vol. ii. p. 49.

1767, jetat. 44. HIS SOCIETY. 275
because he felt it was not for him to bandy compliments
with his sovereign, while he protested that, let them
talk as they would, the manners of the King were those
of as fine a gentleman as Louis XIV. or Charles II.
How characteristic of the honest, child-like vanity of
Goldsmith is his remark, after long sitting apart, " Well,
you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I
should have done, for I should have bowed and stam
mered through the whole of it."
Reynolds must have made one in the circle assembled
at Burke's,1 in November, to hear the eloquent young
statesman read his friend Goldsmith's comedy, now
withdrawn from the hands of Garrick, and at length
definitely accepted at Co vent Garden. I find an engage
ment to Burke for Saturday the 21st of November,
which, comparing dates, may have well been the day of
this reading.
Among Reynolds's dinner engagements of this year
is one to Mr. Bott, the barrister, who occupied the
rooms opposite to Goldsmith's, in Brick Court, lent the
needy author money, drove him in his gig to the
"Shoemakers' Paradise," eight miles down the Edge-
ware Road, and occasionally perilled both their necks
in a ditch. Reynolds painted this good-natured barrister,
who runs a better chance of reaching posterity in that
gig of his, alongside of Goldsmith, than by virtue of the
Treatise on the Poor Laws which Goldsmith is said to
have written up for him.
Reynolds this year painted the Speaker, Sir John
Oust, whose short nose was a fertile subject of ridicule

1 Cumberland's Memoirs, i. 364, quoted by Mr. Forster, ' Life of Goldsmith.'
vol. ii. p. 111.
T 2

276

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

to the small wits' of the time. The Speaker's peruke
has the honours of a morning sitting entirely to itself.
As if that gaiety and gravity, in their most solemn
and broadest forms, might be brought into contact in
Leicester Fields, Samuel Foote's sittings closely succeed
the Speaker's.1 Foote was now in the height of his
popularity, and, two months before he sat to Reynolds,
had opened his little theatre in the Haymarket, by vir
tue of the patent granted him in compensation for the
leg broken in a frolic across country with the Duke of
York at Lord Mexborough's.
Though Ramsay was the Court favourite, there does
not seem to have been any coldness between him and
Reynolds. I find one of many appointments with
Ramsay, in August this year, on a Sunday : but whether
for dinner, or for a visit to discuss the position of the
Incorporated Society of Artists and the design for a
Royal Academy, which was now again reviving after
the abortive essay at founding such an institution in
1755, I have no means of knowing.
Reynolds this year dines more than once with Dr.
Markham, still Dean of Westminster ; often with the
Burkes ; and very frequently, as usual, with Wilkes,
who seems now to have made his appearances in Eng
land almost without the affectation of concealment, and
who was only waiting the expiration of the moribund

1 From Sir Joshua's notes on his
practice we learn that in Sir J.'s portrait
the colours of the face were applied in
oil, mixed with magylp, and then a
coat of varnish. The background —
which is important (a hall, with a
table and the Speaker's insignia) — was

painted in magylp, then scumbled over
with colour mixed in the powdered
state with varnish, without oil or ma
gylp. The picture is in possession of
the family, and is in excellent condi
tion. Foote's portrait is at the Garrick
Club, in good condition. — Ed.

1767, jetav. 44. HIS SOCIETY. 277
Parliament to come forward for Middlesex, in defiance
alike of the King's Bench and of the House of Com
mons. Another frequent Sunday-dinner-house is Mr.
Owen Cambridge's pleasant villa at Twickenham, as
favourite a resort of the wits of Reynolds's circle as
Garrick' s neighbouring villa at Hampton itself. Rey
nolds was now meditating the purchase of a villa of his
own. He had already fixed on Richmond, attracted, no
doubt, both by the beauty of the site, and by the neigh
bourhood of his friends Cambridge, Colman, Mrs. Give,
and Horace Walpole. I find an excursion on Sunday,
Nov. 15, to " Richmond to see a h(ouse)," followed by a
dinner with the Duke of Marlborough. There are
several dinners with the Thrales, and one .engagement
on Sunday (December 27th) at Nelly O'Brien's, Park
Lane, near Dover Street ; others with Dr. Hawkesworth,
the imitator of Johnson as an essayist, afterwards author
of the letterpress of Cook's Voyages ; with Dr. Baker,
the physician, an old Devonshire friend; with the
Nesbitts ; the Hornecks ; Bennet Langton ; and Mr.
Chambers, the architect. There is an evening given to
, Mr. Charles Rogers, the virtuoso and connoisseur, in
Lawrence Pountney Lane, where the attraction is noted
as the " drawing-book of Palma," a treasure which I
suppose Mr. Rogers had become possessed of ; and there
are several evening engagements to his fair and witty
favourite Mrs. Cholmondeley, and Mrs. Percy, the gentle
and amiable wife of the editor of the ' Reliques,' now a
King's Chaplain, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore.
Reynolds paid a visit this year to Easton Lodge, the
residence of Lord Maynard, where he spent the last
week of August. Lord Maynard, though now in his

278 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
75th year, was still a bon vivant and connoisseur, fond of
pictures, and himself an amateur animal-painter of con
siderable merit. It was his successor who, a few years
later, made the name, for the time, notorious by his
marriage with Nancy Parsons, the well-known mistress
of the Duke of Grafton, an amiable and accomplished
woman. She was afterwards painted by Sir Joshua,
under her less familiar name of Mrs. Horton. The
Duke was this year outraging the proprieties of a not
very straitlaced time by parading his mistress on his
arm at the Opera and on the driving-box of his chaise
at Newmarket.]
Barry, who was at Rome, and who had not yet begun
to feel jealous of Reynolds, wrote in November, 1767,
to his friend Dr. Sleigh : —
" 1 shall with a heartfelt satisfaction say, that Rey
nolds and our people at home, possess, with a very
few exceptions, all that exists of sound art in Europe."
In this year Reynolds did not send anything to the
exhibition. Burke, writing to Barry, . says : " The
exhibition will be open to-morrow. Reynolds, though he
has, I think, some better portraits than he ever before
painted, does not think mere heads sufficient, and, having
no piece of fancy finished, sends nothing this time."
In the same letter he says : " Jones,1 who used to be
Poet Laureat to the exhibition, is prepared to be a
severe and almost general satirist upon the exhibitors.
His ill behaviour has driven him from all their houses,
and he resolves to take revenge in this manner. He
has endeavoured to find out what pictures they will

1 Was this Griffith Jones, editor of the 'Public Ledger'? — Ed.

1767, iETAT. 44. DR. MUDGE. 279
exhibit, and, upon such information as he has got, has
beforehand given a poetic description of those pictures
which he has not seen. I am told that he goes so far
as to abuse Reynolds, at guess, as an exhibitor- of
several pictures, though he does not put in one."
In a subsequent letter of the same year Burke writes,
— " As to Reynolds, he is perfectly well, and still keeps
that superiority over the rest, which he always had
from his genius, sense, and morals."
Of the heads which Burke speaks of as so fine, one
may have been the portrait of Dr. Zachariah Mudge,
whose name occurs as a sitter in the pocket-book of
Reynolds for 1766.
In a letter written to Malone after the death of Rey
nolds, Burke says, — " I have myself seen Mr. Mudge,
the clergyman, at Sir Joshua's house. He was a learned
and venerable old man; and, as I thought, very con
versant in the Platonic philosophy, and very fond of
that method of philosophizing. He had been originally
a dissenting minister ; a description which at that time
bred very considerable men, both among those who
adhered to it, and those who left. He had entirely
cured himself of the unpleasant narrowness which in
the early part of his life had distinguished those gen
tlemen, and was perfectly free from the ten times more
dangerous enlargement which has since then been
their general characteristic. Sir Joshua had always a
great love for the whole of that family, and took a
Great interest in whatever related to them."
The admiration of Reynolds for Dr. Mudge seems
to have inspired him to surpass himself (if possible)
in the Doctor's portrait. It is a noble head, painted

280 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
with great grandeur, and the most perfect truth of
effect. The chin rests on the hand; and Chantrey,
who carved the whole composition in full relief, told
me that, when the marble was placed in the right light
and shadow, the shape of the light that falls behind
the hand, and on the band and gown, was exactly the
same in his bust as in the picture.
[It, is likely enough that Reynolds's disgust with the
quarrels and intrigues of the two parties in the Incor
porated Society of Artists — the faction of the Directors
and the faction of the Fellows — the " ins " and " outs "
in fact — might have been, in part at least, the cause of
his sending no picture to this year's exhibition. In his
absence the honours of portraiture were carried off by
Gainsborough, who sent up from Bath, where he was
carrying all before him as decidedly as Reynolds in
London, portraits of Lady Grosvenor, the Duke of
Argyle, Mr. Vernon, and a landscape and figures. Mr.
Francis Cotes, too, exhibited his portrait of Her Majesty
with the Princess Royal, which we may still criticize at
Hampton Court, and five other portraits, including one
of Knapton, who had, the year before, been succeeded
by Athenian Stuart as painter to the Dilettanti Club.
Mr. Copley, of Boston, New England, exhibits a
young lady with a bird and dog, whole-length. Other
names of interest are Cosway, who exhibits for the first
time, sending three portraits : Nathaniel Dance, a sub
ject from Timon of Athens : Mr. Barron, Sir Joshua's
late pupil, now established for himself in Panton-street,
two small whole-lengths, and a half-length : Mr. Ber-
ridge, another pupil, still at Mr. Reynolds's, a three-
quarter portrait : Hayman, a Cymon and Iphigenia, and

1767, iETAT. 44.

THE EXHIBITION.

281

an Abraham offering Isaac : Mr. Marchi, first Sir Joshua's
Italian servant, afterwards his friend and pupil, a Kit-
kat of a lady : Mr. Mortimer, an Historical picture, and
a Conversation : Mr. Parry (the son of a famous blind
Welsh harper, and a protege' of Sir Watkin Williams's),
at Mr. Reynolds's, two small whole-lengths in one pic
ture : Mr. West, Castle-street, Leicester Fields, Venus
and Adonis ; Jupiter and Semele ; Pyrrhus, when a
child, brought to Glaucus for protection ; the fright of
Astyanax ; and Elisha restoring to life the Shunamite's
son : Richard Wilson, a view from Moor-Park, towards
Cashiobury and St. Albans, and another " landskip and
figures : " Joseph Wright of Derby, a whole-length, and
two candlelights : Zoffany, a scene from Love in a Vil
lage, and a family piece : and Zuccarelli (his first year
of exhibiting), Macbeth meeting the Witches, and Jacob's
Journey. Wilton exhibits a busto of Lord Camden and one of
Lord Bacon ; Fisher, S. Okey, junr., Watson, and Ra-
venet, send mezzotints after Reynolds ; the Cozenses,
the Rookers, Paul and Thomas Sandby, exhibit draw
ings, chiefly of subjects about London and Windsor.
The number of pictures exhibited continues about the
same — 197 pictures (a large majority of them portraits),
218 works in all.

List of Sitters for 1767.

January?
Miss Horneck; Mr. Cranch;
Mr. Johnson ; Mr. Parker ; the
Primate of Ireland (Dr. Bobin-

son) ; Lord Pembroke ; Duke of
Buccleugh ; Lord and Lady Arun
del ; Lady Tavistoke ; Duke of
Devonshire; Mr. Chamier; Miss
Houghton ; Captain Foot.

1 A blank till Wednesday, 7th.

282

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

February.
Mr. Aufrere ; Master Tuffcon ;
Sir Thomas Acland ; Duchess of
Marlborough; Lord Temple; Lord
Ossory; Miss Cells (? model);
Sir Walter Blackett ; Lady Julia
na Penn ; Lord John Cavendish ;
Mrs. Horton 1 (?) ; Mrs. Abingdon.
March?
Lord Down; Mr. and Mrs.
Blake; Duchess »f Manchester;
Mr. Way ; Miss O'Brien (NeUy) ;
Mrs. Lee ; Dr. and Mrs. Barnard ;
Miss Crewe. April.
Lady Elizabeth Capel and her
brother Lord Maiden; Miss
Smith; Mr. Simpson; Cecchina;
Mrs. Crewe ; Mrs. Bouverie ;
Frank 3 (? Barber, Johnson's black

servant) ; Lady Wray ; 4 Miss T.
Cholmondeley; Mr. Boothby.

Lord Villars; Mrs. Smith;
Mr. Norris;6 Mrs. Merchant;
Mr. Jones; Mr. Lambton; Sir
Boger Mostyn; Mr. Garrick;6
Lord Herbert; Miss Grimston;
Miss Grant. June.
Sir John Chichester; Mr.
Drurnmond; Mr. Amyott; Lord
Carlisle ; Duchess of Bichmond.
July.
Sir W. Maynard ; Lady Brough
ton; the Speaker, Sir J. Cust;7
Mr. Sutton; Mr. Cruttenden.
August?
Count La Lippe ; 9 Miss

1 This may have been either Nancy
Parsons, or the handsome widow who
afterwards became Duchess of Cum
berland. 2 " Mrs. Morris's picture and the
other to be directed to Val. ' Morris,
Esq., Piercefield, Monmouthshire."
" Mr. Hagley's small portrait to be
sent to Mr. Davies, at Highbury, near
Newbury, Berks."
3 There was a head of him exhibited
at the British Institution in 1760.
Mr. Frederick Byng has another.
4 " Lady Wray to be framed in oval,
and sent to Sir Cecil Wray, at Sommer
Castle, near Lincoln, May 18." The
pictures are now at Sleninford, near
Ripon, the seat of Captain Dalton,
whose family intermarried with the
Wrays. In his notes of his methods
at this date, I find, " Lord Villars given
to Dr. Barnard (of Eton), painted with
vernice fatto di cera & Venice turp
(entine), mesticato con gli colori, maci-
nati in olio (i.e., colours were ground

in oil, and applied with wax and
Venice turp. as a medium). Carmine
in vece di lacca. Lady Wray, ditto."
Lady Wray's picture is in fair condi
tion. — Ed.
5 The husband of Kitty Fisher.
6 Once at 8.
7 "July 20-26.— The Speaker's wig
at Theed's, peruke-maker, Middle
Temple." " Mr. Steevens, housekeeper of the
House of Commons, to send a day or
two before for the mace." " Speaker.
The face colori in olio mesticato con
magilp, poi verniciato; telo (back
ground) magilp, e poi per tutto verni
ciato con colore in pulvere senza olio
o magilp " (a dry-scumble). — Ed.
July 26. — At the Queen's House.
8 Aug. 17, at Easton Lodge (Lord
Maynard's). No entries till 22nd,
when " child " entered.
9 In his notes of practice, I find for
1767, — " Coimt Lippe, senza olio ; in
finishing my own, ditto. Mrs. Godde,

1768, .etat. 45.

SITTERS 1767.

283

Godde; Lord Townshend;1 Mr.
Grimston; Mrs. Burke.
September.
Mr. Foot; Mrs. Morris; Sir
Charles Saunders ; Master Burke ;2
Miss Vansittart ; 3 Dr. Arm
strong ;4 Lady Amherst ; Master
Vansittart. October.
Sir George Yonge ; Mr. Towns

hend ; Miss Halsey ; 5 Saturday,
19th, Peruke of the Speaker;
Mr. Burke.
November e and December.
Mr. Walpole; General Law
rence; Sir John Delaval; Mr.
Home (Hume ?) ; Miss Wray ; the
Lord Chancellor ; Mr. Humphrey;
Mr. Vansittart.

On Friday, the 29 th of January, Reynolds has made
the entry — " Dr. Goldsmith." ^This Friday was eventful
in the Doctor's life — the day of the production of his
first comedy, ' The Good-Natured Man,' whose struggles
to the stage have already been referred to. Reynolds
seems to have dined with the anxious author, whom he
was always ready to support and encourage; and we
may be certain that, whether he made one of the first-
night audience or not, he was one of the group
assembled at the ' Turk's Head ' to receive the flurried
author on his return from the theatre ; nor, we may be
equally sure, was his congratulation the least cordial or

ditto. Miss Cholmondeley, con olio e
vernicio di cera, poi verniciato con yeo's
lake e magylp" (i.e., glazed with lake
applied with magylp).— Ed.
1 " Lord Townshend, prima con ma
gylp, poi olio, poi magylp senza olio,
lacca, poi verniciato con vermilion."
The picture seems in good condition.
2 " Master Burke, finito con vernice
senza olio o cera. Nov. 10, carmine."
3 For a family picture, apparently
meant to include husband, wife, and
several children.
4 Dr. Armstrong, painted "1st in
olio, poi verniciato, poi cera solo, poi
cera e vernicio."

5 " At Mendham Hall, near Harls-
don, Norfolk,- 10 o'clock, by the
waggon, from the Saracen's Head,
Snowhill." 6 "Sunday, Nov. 15. — Richmond
to see a h." (? house). I believe this
entry to refer to the house he after
wards bought on Richmond Hill. It
still stands, on the Terrace, next the
Star and Garter, commanding the
beautiful view, which Reynolds
painted, of the Twickenham meadows,
the placid reaches of the Thames, and
the woodland distance, bounded by
the blue Surrey hills.

284

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

comforting. He certainly saw the play on the 3rd of
February, the author's night.1 ]
In 1768 Reynolds exhibited a whole length of Miss
Jessie Cholmondely (one of the daughters of his witty
friend, the sister of Peg Woffington), carrying a dog
over a brook. This fine picture was exhibited at the
British Gallery in 1858, and must be fresh, therefore,
in the recollection of many of my readers. Nothing
can be more natural and childlike than the manner in
which the little girl lugs the dog across the stream.
The colour of the landscape is subdued to set off her
head and figure to the greatest advantage ; and they
well deserve the sacrifice.
This was the last picture he sent to Spring Gardens.2
Concord was one of the supporters of the coat of arms
of the Society. But whatever influence this goddess
may have possessed, at first, in the councils of its
members, was now at an end. The Society was4 indeed,
torn to pieces with dissensions. The most insignificant

1 Of the circumstances attending
the production of the play — Gold
smith's anxiety — Beasley's solemn
delivery of Johnson's somewhat lugu
brious prologue — Powell's tameness
in Honeywood — Shuter's admirable
impersonation of Croaker, which saved
the play, and Goldsmith's passion
ately-expressed gratitude to him — a
very full account will be found in Mr.
Forster's Life of Goldsmith. North
cote has recorded that " the bailiff-
scene was thought to be vulgar by the
company in the galleries, who vio
lently testified their disapprobation of
dialogue so low ; and when the speech
in that scene was uttered, containing
the words ' That 's all my eye,' their

delicacy was so much hurt, that it
was apprehended the comedy (which
in other respects was approved of)
would have been driven from the stage
for ever." Goldsmith's celebrated
" Tyrian-blue satin-grain and Garter-
blue silk breeches" were ordered of
Mr. Filby for the first night, but came
a day too late. — Ed.
2 He contributed, however, to the
extraordinary exhibition which was
got up by the Society of Artists in
September — on the occasion of the
visit of the King of Denmark to Eng
land — his portrait of Lawrence Sterne ;
his group of James Paine, the archi
tect, and James Paine, jun. ; and a
full-length portrait of a lady. — Ed.

1768, .etat. 45.

RICHARD BURKE.

285

men belonging to it, forming a majority, had wrested
the government from the Directorate, which included
the most distinguished members of the Society.1
Reynolds, with most of the other eminent artists, had
gradually withdrawn from its meetings ; 2 from which,
indeed, 'he had absented himself for some time before
he ceased to contribute to its exhibitions.
[In the autumn of this year Reynolds made a trip to
Paris in company with Mr. Richard Burke, Edmund's
younger brother, that most joyous and frolicsome of
companions, immortalised in Goldsmith's picture of
him : — " What spirits were his ! what wit, and what whim !
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb ;
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball ;
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all !
In short, so provoking a devil was Dick,
That we wish'd him full ten times a-day at Old Nick ;
But missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
As often we wish'd to have Dick back again.''
Dick's proverbial ill-luck, in tumbles, did not, it will be
seen, abandon him on this tour. The travellers have
two breakdowns between Calais and Chantilly. But
Dick Burke's whim and frolic, and Reynolds's keen
observation and imperturbable good-humour, must have
made up an excellent travelling duet.
The following memoranda of this journey are tran
scribed from the pocket-book : —
il September 9 th. Friday. Set out for Paris, arrived
at Canterbury.

1 At the same time it should be
remembered that the constitution of
the Society (right or wrong) autho
rised its members to elect their direct
ors annually, and did not authorise

the directors in their attempt to keep
the government to themselves. — Ed.
2 But he had not countenanced the
directors any more than their anta
gonists. — Ed.

286

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

" Saturday. Dover, sailed at eleven in the morning.
" Sunday the 11th, two in the morning, Calais.
Boulogne, axletree broke. Beds of mussels.
"Monday, dined at Abbeville. Lay at Amiens, saw
the Water Tower.1
" Tuesday, dined at St. Just ; the axletree brok'e. Lay
at Chantilly.2 In the palace are two pictures of
Vandyck, a man in armour (of which there is a
print by Pontius), and a lady ; and the allegorical
portrait of the Prince of Conde, mentioned by the
Abbe de Bois, painted by Corneille. Saw Cham-
platrier at Ecouen. Saw another hotel of Prince
Conde.3
" Saturday, dined at St. Denis. In the Cathedral or
Domo is an excellent statue of an angel, in the act
of writing with his finger, something in the attitude
of the slave with the thorn. Lay at Paris. Hotel
Platier, Rue Platier.
" Thursday, dined at Mr. Panchaud's,4 saw the Palais
Royal. Drank tea at Mr. Flint's, after which the
Italian Opera.
" Saturday, dined with Lord Mulgrave, saw the Luxem
burg, and the French comedy, the Misanthrope —
Preville, lady ; Physician, (?) ; Mole, Coxcomb.5

1 Strange that there is no mention
of the cathedral. I remember many
water-wheels but no water-tower at
Amiens ; but I presume it was for
raising the water of the Somme. — Ed.
2 Then still in all its splendour, as
it was when, a hundred years before,
the great Conde' received the great
monarch, and the great Vatel ran
himself through the body because the
fish had not arrived in time. Only

the stables now remain. The Grand
Chateau was destroyed in the Revo
lution. The Petit Chateau, however,
is still inhabited — the present occu
pant is the British Ambassador. — Ed.
3 This must have been the Chateau
de Montmorency. — Ed.
4 The Englishmen's banker at Paris.
5 This must have been in the ' Petit
Piece ' — the farce which succeeded the
comedy. Mole" acted in the 'Misan-

1768, 2ETAT. 45.

VISIT TO PARIS.

287

"Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Flint dined with us. The
Italian comedy. Carlini." 1
Miss Fanny Reynolds was at this time on a visit to
Miss Flint,2 a young lady who translated Johnson's
remarks on Shakespear into French, and who was then
in Paris. We learn from the note-book how works of
art were then to be seen in Paris — not as now, gathered
into great public galleries, but scattered through private
collections, picture-dealers' shops, churches, and hotels of
the noblesse in the Isle St. Louis, the Marais, and the
Faubourg' St. Germain. Everywhere Reynolds would
find traces of the luxury of the Pompadour, who had
so lately been succeeded, by her coarser rival, the Du
Barry. The king was putting down his parliaments,
and struggling with the Jesuits on the one hand, and
the Encyclopaedists on the other. But in outward

thrope :' he was admirable in Alceste,
but " Coxcomb " could never have
been applied to him in that part.
Preville might have been the Celi-
mene, but there is no " physician " in
the ' Misanthrope.' In Madame Pre
ville and Mole" Reynolds saw two of
the best French actors of the time :
Mole, as much the darling of Paris as
Garrick of London, was equally ad
mirable in the younger parts of tragedy
and high comedy ; he might be com
pared at once with Powell and O'Brien ;
Madame Pre'ville with Mrs.Pritchard.
—Ed.
1 This was the celebrated Carlo
Bertinazzi, who for forty-two years
was the delight of Paris as the ' Arlec-
chino' of the Italian comedy in its
French dress. Bertinazzi was a re
markable man. He had been educated
for the Church, and was the seminary-

friend of Ganganelli, with whom he
maintained the kindliest relations,
even when the one was Cardinal and
Pope, and the other stroller and harle
quin. There is a pleasant picture of
' Carlino ' in the bosom of his family,
at Chaillot, in the ' Memoires de
Fleury,' who declares that he was
the original of Florian's ' Bon Pere,'
and Goldoni's ' Borboro Benefice'
His pantomime was so admirable, that
he seemed to put expression, it was
said, even into his black mask. He
had been attacked with a severe illness
a short time before this, and all Paris
was in agitation and concern about
him. — Ed.
2 She married a French nobleman,
M. de Reveral, and was guillotined
with her only son in the Reign of
Terror.— Ed.

288

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

ajjpearance the Paris of this time was quieter and more
loyal than the London the painter had left ; and revo
lution, to superficial observation, must have seemed more
imminent in England than in France. The note-book
continues : —
" Monday, 19th. Saw pictures.
" Tuesday, 20th. The collection of Monsieur L'Em
pereur * — about six Teniers ; two small sketches of
Rubens; a Boor saying grace, Rembrandt — at 12,
Mr. Panchaud.
" Wednesday, 9. Mr. Panchaud.2
" Thursday, 10. Mr. Collins.
"Friday, 11. To go with a picture-dealer to see Mr.
Bernway.3
" Saturday, 10. Mr. Ramee ; 2, Miss Flint ; Versailles.
" Thursday, 29th. Invalides. Dined in company with
a vie . . .
"Friday, 30th. Abbe at the Sulpice;4 Hotel de
Toulouse. Gallery. Pietro da Cortona and Guido.5
" October 2nd, Sunday. Sceaux ; Choisy.6

1 An engraver as well as a col
lector. — Ed.
- Evidently the banker undertook
the task of " lionizing " his distin
guished correspondent. — Ed.
3 This picture-dealer seems to have
been M. Menageot, of the Rue St.
Martin. Reynolds bought a Poussin
of him for 153?. — Ed.
4 A collector, for the purchase of
some of whose pictures Sir Joshua left
a commission with his old friend and
quondam fellow-student at Rome —
Doyen, the painter. I found on a
folded paper, in a pocket of the
pocket-book for this year : — " II Gio
vanni di Guido, 300 ; Parrocell, 50 ;

Due Mole (two pictures by Mola), 80 ;
Paiessi (Paese, landscape) di Rem-
brant, 20. A copy of a paper I gave
to Mr. Doyen to buy those pictures at
the Abbe" Renoux at St. Sulpice." —
Ed.
5 This gallery is described in D'Ar-
genville's ' Voyage Pittoresque.' — Ed.
0 Choisy le Roi. The chateau must
at this time have been as it was when
fitted up by Louis XV. for Madame
de Pompadour, who Was attacked with
her mortal illness there some four
years before. Only a fragment of the
chateau now remains, converted into
a china-manufactory. The splendour
of its interior fittings and the beauty

1768, .etat. 45.

VISIT TO PARIS.

289

Monday. La Muette ; St. Cloud ; Bellevue ; Meudon ;
the extensive banister 1 (?) ; the prospect ; Sevres
manufactory of porcelain.
Tuesday. St. Benoit ; a Pieta of Seb. Bourdon ;
Enfants Trouves ; Sorbonne ; Monument of Richelieu.
Wednesday. To breakfast with my sister.
Thursday. Mr. Drumgold.2
Friday. Baron Tier ; 3 at home.
Saturday, 3. Lord Fitzwilliam."
Sunday and Monday are blank.
Tuesday. Nelson.
Wednesday the 12th, 10 to 1. Luxembourgh ;" (on
opposite page) " Minerva instructing a girl, by Tre-
molie. L'H6tel de Breton villiers,4 en St. Louis;
Gallery of Seb. Bourdon.
Tuesday, 18th. Set out from Paris 1 o'clock ; lay at
Senlis.
Wednesday. Lay at Peronne.

of the view, probably, are referred to
in Sir Joshua's note :—" Table ; the
watered tabby (tabinet) painted ; the
river."— Ed.
1 Can . this be a reference to the
balustraded terrace ?
- I suppose the Colonel must have
been the descendant of a Scotch refugee.
He was soldier, diplomatist, wit, and
poet, and had been secretary to the
Due de Nivernois, when ambassador
in England in 1763. Dr. Johnson
told Boswell, a propos of his visit to
Paris in 1775,—" I was just begin
ning to creep into acquaintance by
means of Colonel Drumgold, a very
high man, Sir, head of l'Ecole Mili-
taire, and a most complete character ;
for he had been first a professor of
VOL. I.

rhetoric, and then became a soldier."
He was the author of ' La GaieteV
a poem, and other pieces. (See Walpole,
Oct. 3, 1765.)— Ed.
3 He was connected with the admi
nistration of the Opera.
4 This is written in a different and
evidently foreign hand, as a direction
for him. This fine old hotel, in the
Isle St. Louis, Bom-don had decorated
with some of his best-known works.
In nine compartments of a roof were
painted the fables of Phaeton and
Phoebus, and in fourteen squares of a
wainscot the Virtues and the Arts.
They have been described and en
graved by De Vaurose, Bourdon's
favourite pupil. The stately hotel
has long since disappeared. U

290

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

" Thursday. Dined at Arras ; the Cathedral not worth
seeing ; lay in the Fauxburg of Bethune.
" Friday. Arrived at Calais at 5 in the afternoon.
" Saturday. Set out at 1 o'clock at noon. Arrived at
Dover at 5 ; lay at Sittingbourne.
" Sunday 23rd, at 10 in the morning, arrived in
London.1
" Monday, 24th. Dined with Dr. Goldsmith."
This dinner with Goldsmith is followed next day
by another ; and during the remainder of the year there
are frequent engagements with the Doctor, now living
in his new rooms in Brick Court, the purchase and
furnishing of which had quickly absorbed most of the
500?. which his comedy had produced him. One of these
engagements for Wednesday, the 23rd of November,
must have been just after Reynolds had been made
President of the new Academy ; and it may have been
at this very party that Dr. Johnson departed from his
vow against wine, to celebrate his friend's accession to
new honour. There is one 6 o'clock engagement, too,
to Mr. Bott, Goldsmith's opposite neighbour in Brick
Court, already mentioned ; and traces — in the shape of
an entry in July, " Devil Tavern " — of a visit, doubt
less with Goldsmith, to the Shilling-Rubber Club, held
at that ancient tavern, once the scene of rare Ben
Jonson's canary-bouts and wit-combats. There are
engagements, too, with Colman, Mrs. Clive, and the
Bastards; with Mr. Hickey, and the Nesbitts;2 the

1 The total outlay on this journey,
from the entries, appears to have been
447?. 10s. Gd., which sum includes
351. to a tailor, 153?. for a Poussin,

and 50?. given to Miss Reynolds.
2 Mr. Nesbitt was brother-in-law to
Thrale.— Ed.

1768, jetat. 45. WILKES IN THE KING'S BENCH. 291
Bunburys, Dr. Baker, Dr. Barnard, and Dr. Percy. He
is often dining with the Thrales at Southwark and
Streatham, with Bennet Langton, and with Burke. It
is highly probable that, in the purchase of his Beacons-
field estate and the house of Gregories made this year,
Burke was indebted for advances to Reynolds, amongst
other friends. It may be to these advances that Barry
refers when he speaks of having made the discovery
that, while Burke was supporting him at Rome, he was
himself under money-obligations to Reynolds. Reynolds
dines with Wilkes on the 2nd of December, when his
entertainer must have been a prisoner in the King's
Bench ; but very likely as good company in prison as
out of it. Why not ? He was now at the very top of
the tide. This was the year of his successive triumphs
over the Crown, the Commons, and the Courts of Law.
He had returned to England openly, in defiance of his
outlawry, at the beginning of March ; had on the 10th
presented himself as a candidate for the City, where he
had the show of hands in his favour, though unsuc
cessful at the poll ; had been elected triumphantly for
Middlesex on the 28th; had appeared in the Court of
King's Bench on the 20th of April, and retired un
molested, on Lord Mansfield's admission that the Court
had no power to commit him on his voluntary appear
ance ; and had finally, on the 5th of September, been
arrested and committed to the King's Bench on a writ
of " capias ultagatum," afterwards reversed, on grounds
well known to Wilkes to be fatal before the motion was
made. His name was chalked on the dead- walls for
fifty miles round London, and his portrait printed on
pocket-handkerchiefs. He was the demigod of the
u 2

292 LIFE OF SIR JOSUHA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
great Beckford, ex-Lord Mayor and millionaire, and the
idol of the mob, who called for illuminations, and broke
heads and windows in his honour on his birthday, the
28th of October. Gifts were showered upon him, City
electors forced twenty-pound notes into his pockets, and
the booksellers offered him his own terms for anything
he chose to write. This was incense to turn a stronger
head than Wilkes's, and never, we may be sure, did
his daring wit burn brighter than in the midst of this
blaze of popularity. By the side of the rampant,
rollicking, sinister satyr-mask of Wilkes — so strikingly
contrasted with the serene face, of the painter, his
guest in the King's Bench — a figure of blended
humour and pain rises to the imagination as we read, in
the old pocket-book, under the dates of February 22
and March 4, the entry "Dr. Sterne." The second
entry is an engagement to a four o'clock dinner. The
hand of death was on the host at that dinner. A fort
night later, to a day, he lay dying, in his lodgings, " at
the Silk-bag Shop, in Old Bond-street," without a friend
to close his eyes. No one but a hired nurse was in the
room, when a footman, sent from a dinner-table where
was gathered a gay and brilliant party — the Dukes of
Roxburgh and Grafton, the Earls of March and Ossory,
David Garrick and David Hume — to inquire how Dr.
Sterne did, was bid to go up stairs by the woman of the
shop. He found Sterne "just a dying. In ten minutes,
' Now it is come,' he said, put up his hand as if to stop
a blow, and died in a minute." x
His laurels — such as they were — were still green.
1 ' The Life of a Footman,' quoted in Forster's ' Life of Goldsmith,' vol.
ii. p. 150.

1768, J5TAT. 45. DEATH OF STERNE. 293
The town was ringing with the success of the ' Senti
mental Journey ' just published. The great and gay,
we see, were concerned about him. He did not choose,
perhaps, that his brilliant London acquaintance should
be with him at that encounter with the grim sum-
moner, whom he had laughed at in his time, as at most
things awful or venerable. Sterne's funeral was as
friendless as his deathbed. Becket, his publisher, was
the only one who followed the body to its undistinguished
grave, in the parish burial-ground of Marylebone, near
Tyburn gallows-stand. Nor was this ungraced funeral
the last indignity of that poor body, over whose in
firmities Sterne had alternately puled and jested. The
graveyard lay far from houses : no watch was kept after
dark ; all shunned the ill-famed neighbourhood. 'Sterne's
grave was . marked down by the body-snatchers, the
corpse dug up and sold to the professor of anatomy at
Cambridge. A student, present at the dissection,
recognised under the scalpel the face — not one easily to
be forgotten, as we know from Reynolds's picture — of the
brilliant wit and London lion of a few seasons before.1
From this year Mr. Reynolds becomes Sir Joshua.
It was the year of the establishment of the Royal
Academy, which was closely followed by his Knighting
as its first President. All honours fell to him, as it
were, naturally, and without effort or solicitation on his
part. As Burke said, his name seemed to be made for
its knightly addition.
The Society of Artists had been long a scene of
precisely such feud, intrigue, and cabal, as were most
repugnant to Reynolds's equable and just character. At
1 Maloniana.

294 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
last the malcontent Fellows had procured the rejection,
at the general meeting, on St. Luke's day, of sixteen of
the twenty-one Directors, and had filled up their places
from the ranks of the outsiders. The eight Directors
who were left resigned on the 10th of November. But
already the best men of the Society had agreed that
its constitution required radical alteration, and that,
failing a reform from within, which they despaired of,
an altogether new body must be established, from whose
constitution the provision for annual election of the
Directorate by the Fellows must be excluded. It was,
in short, determined to substitute an aristocratic scheme
of Art Government for a democratic one.]
During the absence of Reynolds from England, Sir
William Chambers, West, Cotes, and Moser, formed an
outline of the constitution of an academy, and peti
tioned the King to adopt it. [Chambers in person had
waited upon the King towards the end of November, to
explain the design of the proposed institution, and to
present the memorial praying for the sanction of the
King. Reynolds's name was -not appended to this
memorial, though he was then in London.] No doubt
the seceders would have been glad of the co-operation
of Reynolds from the first ; and I think his withholding
it can only be accounted for from the circumstance of
his never having received any personal patronage or
notice from George III. He had painted the King,
it is true, when he was Prince of Wales ; but it does
not appear that the commission was from the Prince ;
and he probably felt that to join the memorialists
might be construed into a wish to attract the attention
of the Sovereign. It will be seen, on another occasion,

1768, 2etat. 45. SCHEME FOR AN ACADEMY.

295

how reluctant he felt to appear as a voluntary candidate
for court favour. The circumstance also of Kirby, who
had been the King's instructor in perspective, having,
at the last St. Luke's day, been elected (in place of
Hayman) President of the incorporated society, might,
probably, have led him to doubt the success of the new
plan, which the King had required of its promoters
should be carried on in the strictest secrecy, fearing (it
is said) that it should be turned to political purposes.1
Before the constitution of the Academy was settled,
the admission, among its members, of some of the
nobility, patrons of art, was suggested ; but to this the
King had the good sense at once to object, foreseeing
that no institution for the instruction of art could ever
be efficiently managed, except by artists solely.2
[On the 7th of December Chambers had a second
interview with the King, at which a definite scheme of
the new Academy was submitted and approved. All
that now remained was the selection of the members and
officers.] A list was made out of thirty names, including that
of Reynolds, to be submitted to the King with a list of
officers. A meeting of the artists was appointed for

1 In the pamphlet containing the
case of the Incorporated Society
against the Academy (see post), it is
suggested that the hope of knighthood
was held out as a bait to Reynolds,
who is represented as having dis
approved of the proceedings of the
seceders, and as having declared that
he would not act or exhibit with them.
The Society's pamphlet complains of
this inconsistency on his part, but
does not venture to attribute it to any

unworthy motive, though there is a
hint that the suggested knighthood
may have had something to do with
his change of purpose. — Ed.
2 The same intention, as we have
seen, had been entertained when in
1755 the question of the constitution
of an Academy was discussed at great
length between the Dilettanti Society
and a Committee of the Society of
Artists (see ante, s. a. 1755).

296

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

the 9th, to take place at the house of Wilton the
sculptor, the King having named the next morning to
receive the lists.1
Penny and Moser called on Reynolds, but failed in
securing his attendance at the meeting. West then
went to him immediately, and informed him of the
arrangements that were in progress for constituting an
academy, and that thirty artists named by the King, of
the forty members of which it was intended it should
consist, were to assemble on that evening at Wilton's.
Reynolds was still slow of belief. He ,told West that
Kirby had assured him in the most decided manner
that there was no truth whatever in the rumour of
such a design being in agitation ; and that he thought
it would be derogatory to attend a meeting constituted,
as Kirby represented it, by persons who had no sanction
for doing what they had undertaken. To this West
answered, " As you have been told by Mr. Kirby that
there is no intention of the kind, and by me that there
is, that even the rules are framed, and the officers con
descended on,2 yourself to be President, I must insist on
your going with me to the meeting, where you will be
satisfied which of us deserves to be credited in this
business." In the evening, at the usual hour, West went to
take tea with Reynolds, before going to the meeting ;
but either from design or accident, tea was not served
till an hour later than usual — not, indeed, till the time

1 The dates of these proceedings I
have taken from the original Minute-
books of the Royal Academy, most
obligingly opened to me by the Council.
find in the pocket-book for the year,

on the 9th, the entry " Mr. Wilton's
at 6."— Ed.
2 I quote the exact words; and con
descended seems to imply that the
King himself had named the officers.

1768, ;etat. 45. FOUNDATION OF THE ACADEMY.

297

fixed for the artists to assemble at Wilton's ; so that,
when they arrived there, the meeting was on the point
of breaking up, conceiving that, as neither Reynolds
nor West had come, something extraordinary had hap
pened. But on their appearing, a burst of satisfaction
manifested the anxiety that had been felt, and without
any farther delay the company proceeded to carry into
effect the wishes of the King. The code of laws was
read, and, the gentlemen recommended by the Sove
reign being declared officers, the laws were accepted.
A report of the proceedings was made to His Majesty
next morning (Saturday the 10th), who gave his sanc
tion to the selection, and the Academy was thus insti
tuted,1 its first general meeting being held on the 14th
of December.
I have made use of the account given by West to
his biographer Gait, of these transaptions ; conceiving

1 List of Academy : — " Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Knt., President ; Sir Wm.
Chambers, Knight of the Polar .Star,
Treasurer ; George Michael Moser,
Keeper ; Francis Milner Newton, Secre
tary; Edward Penny, Professor of
Painting ; Thomas Sandby, Professor
of Architecture ; Samuel Wale, Pro
fessor of Perspective ; William Hunter,
M.D., Professor of Anatomy ; Francis
Hayman, Librarian (Tan-Chet-Tua,
a Chinese modeller, not one of the
Academicians) ; George Barrett ; Fran
cesco Bartolozzi ; Edward Burch ;
Agostino Carlini ; Charles Cotton ;
Mason Chamberlin ; J.Baptist Cipriani;
Richard Cosway ; JohnGwynn ; Wil
liam Hoare; Nathaniel Hone; Mrs.
Angelica Kauffman ; Jeremiah Meyer ;
Mrs. Mary Moser ; Joseph Nollekens ;
John Richards; Paul Sandby; Do-
menick Serres; Peter Toms; William

Tyler ; Benj. West ; Richard Wilson ;
Joseph Wilton; Richard Yeo^; John
Zoffanii ; Francesco Zuccarelli." (Seven
of these are foreigners.) From the
first Catalogue of the R.A. Exhibition.
Of these names,- Burch, Cotton, Cos-
way, Hoare, Nollekens, and Zoffanii,
with the two ladies, were not included
in the list first approved by the King.
It is curious that Gainsborough's name
appears in neither list, though R.A. is
appended to his name in the first cata
logue. It is evident that there was a
determination to secure him for the
new Academy, and that he let him
self be secured, but he seems never to
have taken any part whatever, in the
work of the Academy ; and his mem
bership is hardly traceable in the Aca
demy records, except by a quarrel,
occasionally, about the hanging of his
pictures. — Ed.

298 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
it more likely to be the true one, as it is certainly more
probable than that given by Northcote. The latter,
after telling us that, immediately on the entrance of
Reynolds, the company assembled at Wilton's house
" with one voice hailed him as President," adds, " He
seemed much affected by the compliment, and returned
them his thanks for the high mark of their approba
tion, but declined the honour till such time as he had
consulted with his friends Dr. Johnson and Mr. Edmund
Burke. This demur greatly disappointed the company,
as they were expected to be with the King next day
by appointment ; but Messrs. West and Cotes avoided
going to the King next day, as they could not present
him with a complete list of officers, for the want of a
President; and it was not till a fortnight after that
Reynolds gave his consent."
[This account is inconsistent both with the Academy's
records and the entries in Reynolds's pocket-book.
On Sunday the 18th (better day, better deed) the
President formally submitted to the King the list of
officers, council, visitors, and professors, which was
approved under the sign-manual. At the council meet
ing of the 27th it was decided that the students who
had already been subscribers to the Old Academy (i.e.
the drawing-school, removed in 1757 from St. Martin's
Lane to Pall Mall) should be admitted to draw for the
winter-season in the New Academy, without any test.
The winter-season was fixed from Michaelmas to the
end of April, work to begin at six in the evening ; the
summer-season from May the 26th (then the contem
plated day for closing the exhibition) to the end of
August, work to begin at four.]

1768, jetat. 45. THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 299
The plan of an Academy, as we have seen, had been
suggested in 1753 and 1755 ; and one of its modes of
instruction was to consist in sending students abroad
for the purpose of study, as we learn from Hogarth,
who was opposed to the whole scheme. The delibera
tions which then took place are thus alluded to by
Reynolds in his first Discourse : —
" The numberless and ineffectual consultations which
I have had with many in this assembly to form plans
and concert schemes for an Academy, afford sufficient-
proof of the impossibility of succeeding without the
influence of Majesty."
However opinions may vary as to the usefulness of
the Royal Academy, its establishment was inevitable.
It was proposed by Sir James Thornhill in the reign of
George I. ; and if either that Sovereign or his son had
taken any interest in the Arts, it would not have been
reserved for George III. to place himself at the head
of an institution to which nearly all the British painters,
sculptors, and architects who have since risen to emi
nence are indebted for so much of an artist's education
as it is possible for an Academy to give.
As one of its members, I must here take leave to say
something of the character of an institution of which
the public know very little. I am well aware of the
disadvantages a witness labours under who speaks in
favour of a society to which he belongs ; yet, if he can
obtain credit for honesty, his membership at least enti
tles him to be heard, however partial his evidence may
be considered.
Sir Martin. Shee, when asked if he considered Aca
demies of Art useful, said, " An Academy is a school,

300 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
and I think a school is a good thing." It has often,
however, been triumphantly noticed that our greatest
painters, Hogarth, Wilson, Reynolds, and Gainsborough,
preceded the formation of the Royal Academy. They
did so ; but Hogarth and Gainsborough learned to
draw in the Academy in St. Martin's Lane, where we
have no proof that Wilson did not also study; while
Reynolds lamented that he had not had such an
advantage, and with great reason, for a knowledge
of the human figure, which Hogarth and Gainsborough
had acquired, was the only knowledge of importance
to a painter that he did not possess.
By the constitution of the Royal Academy the
students enjoy the advantage of advice from the
greatest artists of the country. Under no other system
would it be possible to procure the services of such
men as Banks, Fuseli, Opie, Flaxman, Stothard, Law
rence, Smirke, Turner, Wilkie, Chantrey, Constable,
and Etty, hs schoolmasters. It would not indeed be
desirable that a government school, even if it could
secure the services of such artists, should rob the
country of their valuable time ; while, as members of
the Academy, by a division of labour, a month in every
year, with the addition of a few days, perhaps, in the
case of a painter, is the only sacrifice required. The
duties of the Keeper form the one exception ; and he
has the advantage of residing in the Academy.
It has been said that the best artists are generally
not the best teachers ; that they either have not patience
for the drudgery of teaching, or have not the knack of
conveying instruction often possessed by less gifted
men. It is true they are not the most loquacious

1768, ;etat. 45. THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 301
teachers; they have no infallible rules, no certain
methods by which, in a given number of lessons, and
by a certain number of diagrams, they can make their
pupils masters of composition, colouring, and chiaro
scuro. Indeed, it must be owned that the greatest -
artists are too apt, in their own practice, to violate the
most approved principles laid down in the most popu
lar treatises on art. How unsafe then, it may be
thought, to trust the student to guidance so unorthodox !
To speak seriously, however, I have always found
that those among us who undertake to teach everything
in art, or who think that everything may be taught,
are precisely those who know the least ; generally those
who know nothing as it should be known. Though a
great artist may feel there is very little he can teach, a
single word from him is often worth hours of instruction
from a commonplace plausible talker. Indeed, the com
monplace plausible talker not only fails to do good,
but often does much harm. Nothing more frequently
happens than for such guides to object to passages of
the highest excellence in the works of great masters,
and to suggest improvements that would bring them
down to the level of their own conceptions. Those
among my readers who have not given much time to
the study of pictures will understand this, when ^re
minded how Thomson (the Edinburgh publisher) did
what he could to make Burns spoil the noblest of war-
songs, by substituting " Now prepare for honour's bed,"
in place of the heroic " Welcome to your gory bed."

302 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
If the having mixed with artists of all sorts for half
a century gives me any right to an opinion on the
subject, that opinion is entirely in favour of the teaching
of those who have themselves achieved the highest
excellence, and against the teaching of all others, not
only as productive of no good, but as productive of all
that is tame and insipid in practice.
I may be told that Richardson, an indifferent painter,
wrote well on art. But Richardson did not undertake
to teach principles. He wrote generally of the dignity
and value of art, as any man of sense who feels inte
rested in the subject may write without being a painter.
Richardson's object was to call public attention to the
arts, not to furnish rules to students.
An objection has been made, by foreigners, to the
multiplicity of teachers in our Academy, as tending to
confuse the students and hinder them from an early
attainment of fixed principles ; and no doubt, if the
object of such an institution were but the training of
the greatest number of artists in a certain routine of
practice in which the hand is more engaged than the
head, the teaching of one master, who would save the
students the trouble of thinking, might be the best.
But the aim of an Academy of Art should be some
thing very different from this. It should be, not to
make respectable draughtsmen and tolerable colourists
of a large number of young men (and a large number
can never be anything more), but it should be to give
the greatest help to natural abilities. A boy of genius,
though he may at first be somewhat puzzled by the
various opinions he may hear from various authorities,
will sooner be taught to think for himself, or sooner

1768, jetat. 45. THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 303
confirmed in so doing (for I believe genius begins to
think very early), than he can be under a single master.
In the multitude of his counsellors he will quickly dis
cover those whose minds are congenial with his own,
and from these he will gather tha instruction best for
him. That our Academy has worked well may be inferred
from the variety of directions in which British Art has
put forth its branches since its establishment. Stothard,
Opie, Flaxman, Turner, Constable, Wilkie, Haydon,
Chantrey, Etty — how distinctly do such men stand
apart from each other ! yet they all passed through the
schools of the Royal Academy; and were I to give
living names it would be seen that, to the present mo
ment, these schools have not repressed originality.
I am far from saying that the things by which the
reputations of our greatest artists have been made were
found by them in the Academy. I wish only to show
that the Academy did not hinder their attainment of
these things ; while I believe that, in lesser, though not
unimportant matters, all of them (not excepting the
landscape painters) were helped by the early inter
course with other men -of genius opened to them by the
Academy. An Institution that bestows its honours upon sixty
out of the great body of artists must always make
enemies among the many disappointed candidates.
Some of these become writers, and others make friends
among the critics ; hence the frequent animosity of the
press against it — an animosity that may be expected to
continue, as the cause of it must be lasting. When the
removal of the Academy to Trafalgar Square was about

304

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

to take place, a union was effected among its opponents,
who procured the appointment of a Committee of the
House of Commons to hear all that could be said against
its receiving the new rooms in exchange for the old
ones ; and it was before this Committee that Sir Martin
Shee made the answer I have quoted. On that occasion
he triumphantly defended the Academy from an im
mense mass of misrepresentation, and in his defence he
was ably seconded by Hilton, the Keeper, and Howard,
the Secretary.1
Sir Martin was asked whether he thought the num
ber of forty sufficient to represent the Arts in their
present state of advancement.2 He replied, that -the
number had been fixed with a view to the future, that
at first it could by no means be properly filled ; and he
added, " I should be much more proud of my profession
than I am, if I thought that at any time forty artists
could exist who could be sure of transmitting their
names to posterity."
There is, indeed, a sufficient answer to this question
in the causes which led to the formation of the Aca
demy. The incorporated society which preceded it
was destroyed by its unlimited admission of members.
The inferior artists, composing a large majority, took
the power from those who, by their talents, their sense,

1 Among the artists examined by
the Committee the engravers only had
any just reason to complain of the
constitution of the Academy ; and the
cause of their complaint has since been
removed by an alteration of the law
which precluded them from the rank
of Academicians. This exclusion was
the ground of Strange's attack on the

Academy. Engravers had been ad
mitted to the Chartered Society.
2 It is curious that those generally
who are loudest in their condemna
tion of the Academy, as an institution
that has retarded the arts, are loudest
also in proclaiming the immense ad
vance of those arts.

1768, jetat. 45.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

305

and their respectability, were its chief support, and
should have been its directors. Governed by the most
inefficient men, its most distinguished members with
drew from its meetings, and the rest affected to expel
those who had in reality expelled themselves.1 The
parchment roll is still preserved (in the Royal Academy)
with the signatures of the members, and through the
names of Reynolds, West, Gainsborough, Wilson,
Chambers, and indeed of all the most valuable men, a
line is drawn, and " expelled " is written on the margin.2

1 I leave this as Leslie wrote it, but
it is not exactly a fair statement. The
Society was not governed by its " most
inefficient men," but by its best men,
the Directorate of 21, who, unques
tionably, did their utmost to keep in
their own hands the power they had
obtained, and were as unquestionably,
b3r the constitution of the Society,
without legal warrant for so doing. The
fight was taken on a proposed bye-law
for the annual election of 8 out of the
21 directors. This was carried against
the directors, who had, in July, 1768,
submitted a case to the Attorney-
General (Sir W. de Grey) as to the So
ciety's power to make such a bye-law,
and had received an opinion adverse to
their hopes. At the next election (Oct.
18) 16 of the directors were voted out.
The remaining 8, which included
Chambers, West, Wilton, and Moser,
resigned on the 10th of November, and
the 21 at once proceeded to organize
the Royal Academy. — Ed.
2 The case of the Incorporated So
ciety may be seen very fully stated
in a shilling pamphlet, to be found in
the British Museum : ' The Conduct
of the Royal Academicians while Mem
bers of the Incorporated Society of
Artists of Great Britain, viz. from the
year 1760 to their expulsion in the
VOL. I.

year 1769, with some part of their
Transactions since.' 12mo., London,
1771. They complain that "the Jun
to," as they style the seceding direct
ors who founded the Academy, took
this step when they found themselves
defeated in their attempts to monopo
lize the government of the Society,
and that Moser, their agent, and the
associate of Dalton in an unsuccessful
enterprise as a printseller on a large
scale in Pall Mall, got possession of
their casts and other school apparatus,
for the Royal Academy, by representa
tions that members of the Society
would be admitted to draw in the
new Schools without any new condi
tions of admission. They seem to me
to have had very good grounds for this
complaint. The transfer of the casts,
&c, belonging to the old Schools was
thus managed : On the 3rd of June,
1766, on the representation of Moser
(who was director of the old School in
St. Martin's Lane) of the low estate of
the School, it was determined to sup
ply the deficiencies out of the Society's
fund. In March following, the Society
having resolved to establish a public
Academy, the former one (i.e. the St.
Martin's Lane School) being insuffi
cient, Mr. Moser reported that his
Majesty intended to take that parti-

306

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

I have been connected forty-seven years with the
Royal Academy ; first as a student, and afterwards as a
member. As a student, I look back with gratitude to
the advantages I derived from the immediate intro
duction my ticket gave me to the greatest living
artists. As a member, I have witnessed the manner in
which the Academy has been conducted for more than
thirty years ; and though on some questions I have
found myself in the minority (perhaps justly so), I can
bear witness to the zeal which has invariably actuated
the majority of its members in the promotion of the
objects for which it was founded ; and I have wit
nessed, in individual instances, sacrifices of time by
the most eminent painters, sculptors, and architects,
in their endeavours to increase the usefulness of the
Academy, which such men would never make for any
Government school, with paid teachers and dilettante
directors, simply because they must know that their
best exertions would be counteracted by ignorance.
The admirably clear account of the claims of the
Academy to the confidence of the country lately given

cular under his royal protection.
On the 2nd of June, 1767, the reso
lution for establishing a public Aca
demy was rejected by a general meet
ing. Mr. Moser afterwards came to
the joint proprietors of the private Aca
demy in St. Martin's Lane (who,
though distinct from, were members
of, the Incorporated Society), and, ac
quainting them that a Royal Academy
would shortly be opened in Pall Mall,
got. them to sign a paper, empowering
him to carry away the figures, bustos,
statues, lamps, and other effects, to
Pall Mall, where they formed the

nucleus of the present Academy-
Schools. It is clear from the pamphlet
that the Academy arose out of the
baffled attempts of the 21 Directors to
govern the Society independently of
the Fellows, who comprised all the
respectable artists of the time. But
it is equally clear that these Directors
included all the best artists of the
time ; and we may well believe — I do
for one — that, whatever may have been
the faults of Academy rule, it has been
immeasurably better than a govern
ment by the whole body of artists
would be likely to prove. — Ed.

1768, 2ETAT. 45.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

307

by Lord Lyndhurst in the House of Lords, must be
fresh in the remembrance of most of -my readers.1
Many years ago Sir Robert Peel took the trouble to
confute the stereotyped charges against the Academy,
which are always ready for immediate use when a
fitting opportunity of parading them occurs. Speeches
in Parliament, on subjects not of political interest,
even by the greatest orators, are soon forgotten ; but
it will be remembered for the credit of the Academy
that it has had such defenders as Sir Robert Peel and
Lord Lyndhurst, and that both these statesmen took
especial pains to inform themselves as to the character
of an institution the cause of which they espoused.

1 "I have stated," said his Lord
ship, "that the society are self-sup
porting ; that the source from which
they have derived their income is the
annual exhibition. The profits of that
exhibition have advanced by degrees to
their present amount. The average
for the last ten years has reached the
sum of 7000?. a-year. From the very
first they have conducted themselves
in the management of that fund with
great discretion. They have set apart
a sum for accumulation with a view
to the perpetuity of the establishment.
I know some persons suppose that the
members of the Royal Academy may
apply this fund as they think proper.
Some think they have distributed a
portion of it among themselves.
Nothing can be more unfounded.
They have no power whatever over
the fund. They cannot dispose of
any part of it without the consent of
the Crown. Upon one or two oc
casions they advanced large sums
towards the relief of the country. In
1798 they voted 500?. for that purpose
in aid of the Government. They

voted afterwards a similar sum for a
similar object ; but the Crown refused
its consent, and the money was not
advanced. For what purpose is the
fund, then, to be applied? There
are certain officers appointed with the
view to the schools and the instruction
of the students ; among others, a pro
fessor of sculpture, a professor of archi
tecture, and a professor of anatomy, —
all branches of art necessary for an
artist. These and certain other officers
receive stipends, on a very moderate
scale, for the discharge of the duties
devolving upon them. But the great
object of the institution has reference
to the schools. The schools are on a
most liberal establishment. Any of
Her Majesty's subjects have a right
to be gratuitously instructed there.
Nothing more is requisite for that
purpose than the production of a certi
ficate of good moral character and of
a qualification in drawing. With those
qualifications they are admitted to the
schools, and are instructed gratuitously
during as long a period as they think
proper to remain."
x2

308

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

That the Academy is a self-electing body is a pro
minent complaint in every attack upon it, though
no other mode of appointing its members has ever
been suggested with any likelihood of bettering the
choice. Its very existence requires that it should
always include the greatest artists of the country,
and it always has included them. As the number of
members is, however, much more than sufficient for
this,1 its ranks have always contained many men of
inferior powers, and the forgotten Academicians of past
days are pointed out as if they had been the Academy.
That some of these have been inferior to artists out of
the body cannot be denied ; and till the Society can be
composed of forty men of perfect judgment, wholly
above the influences of friendship, nepotism, or any
prejudices whatever, errors in filling up the spaces
left in it by the absence of commanding ability will
occur. In admitting, — what indeed cannot be denied
without denying that Academicians are men, — in
admitting that the influences of friendship and rela
tionship have always existed among them, it must be
remembered that the friends or relations of members
may deserve support on their own account,2 and, when
this is not the case, the best man is not invariably kept
out, though a vote or two may be lost to him from an
unworthy, however natural, feeling of the voter.

1 Take the most splendid condition
of any school of art in any age, and it
will be found that the great living
artists would leave room in the num
ber of forty for many of second and
third rate ability.
2 The late Lord Melbourne asked

how it was that Raphael was employed
to decorate the Vatican. It was sug
gested in reply that he was a great
painter. " But," said Lord Melbourne,
" was not his uncle, Bramante, archi
tect to the Pope ? It was a job."

1768, ;gtat. 45. FALSE PRINCIPLES IN ELECTIONS.

309

The truth is, that the influences of friendship and
nepotism in such a Society, though they must always
exist, are, in a great degree, mere bugbears ; for they
tend to excite an antagonism that keeps them generally
in check. Inferior names have, I believe, more often
been connected with the Academy by the false prin
ciple of voting for men of long standing, in preference
to new and young men of greater ability, than by
the influences of favouritism and nepotism. I have
sometimes heard it said of a young candidate of great
excellence, " He can afford to wait, he is sure to come
in, but so and so is not so sure." 1 I confess this has
always appeared to me an excellent reason for voting
for the younger candidate. But I fear I have wearied
the reader upon this subject, if indeed he has accom
panied me so far.
Reynolds always gave unremitting attention to the
exhibitions of the Academy. Anxious that the display
should be the best possible, he was also desirous that
the exhibitors should be satisfied with the places given
to their works ; and while his own gallery was open,
from which any number of pictures might be taken,2
he expressed no other wish respecting them than that
some should be placed in inferior situations, in order
that other exhibitors might be reconciled to their
necessary lot.

1 Fuseli was asked to vote for an
artist who had waited long, but of
whose talents he did not think highly.
" Why should I vote for him ?" " He
is such a respectable man," was the
answer. " D — n the respectable men !"
exclaimed Fuseli ; " we want the men
of talent. If you wish to elect a re

spectable man, you had better take the
parson of the parish ; I dare say he is
a very respectable man." I fear the
Academy has suffered somewhat from
the feeling Fuseli opposed,
2 At that time there was no limit
to the number of works each artist
might exhibit.

310 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. IV.
Soon after the formation of the Academy he sug
gested the addition of a few honorary members — not
artists, but men distinguished for their genius or learn
ing. To this the King acceded, and Dr. Francklin, the
Greek Professor at Cambridge, was appointed Chaplain,
Dr. Johnson Professor of Ancient Literature, Dr.
Goldsmith of Ancient History,1 and Richard Dalton,
the King's Librarian, Antiquary to the Society.
The annual Academy dinner was also instituted by
Reynolds. He first proposed that the members should
dine together in the exhibition-rooms after the pictures
were arranged, and invited several persons distin
guished for talent or rank. The dinners were talked
of with interest by the guests, invitations were sought
for and became numerous, and the Academy Dinner
grew to be the most remarkable annual assemblage of
men of genius, rank, and political eminence of all
parties, [that occurs in England. Reynolds was at first
the inviter, but this privilege was soon given to the
Council, to whom he earnestly recommended that all
private wishes in the selection of the guests should
be laid aside. To secure the best possible choice, a
law was passed limiting the invitations to " persons
high in rank or official situation, to those distinguished
for talent, and to patrons of art." The Prince of
Wales was often present at these dinners. After his
accession to the throne the Duke of York regularly
attended them, and, when he died, the Duke of Sussex,
as regularly, to the end of his life.

1 Goldsmith said, on this appointment, that honours to a man like him
1 were like ruffles to a man who had no shirt."

1768, iETAT. 45.

SITTERS 1768.

311

[List of Sitters for 1768
January.
Mr. Blake; Miss Morris; Lord
Pembroke ; 1 Mr. Palk ; Mr. and
Mrs. Harrison ; Mr. Dalton; Mr.
Dunning (?) ; Mr. Vansittart ;
Lady Delawar.

February?
Mrs. Abingdon; Mr. Eadcliffe;
Sir Watkin Williams ; Mrs. Mor
daunt ; Sir Thomas Ackland ; s
Mrs. Crewe ; Mrs. Cholmondeley ;
Duchess of Ancaster ; 4 Sir George
Yonge; Duchess of Douglas;
Lady Almeria Carpenter; Sir
Jeffrey Amherst. March.
Lady Broughton ; Mrs. Earle ;
Duke of Buceleugh ; Mrs. Bouve
rie ; Captain Duncombe ; 5 Mr.
Ward; Lady Arundell; Lady
WiUiams ; Mrs. Blake.

April? 7
Mr. and Miss Grimston ; Miss
Williams ; Mr. Hastings ; Lord
Maiden ; Sir William Maynard ; "
Sir Gerard Napier.9

May.
Duchess of Manchester ; Lord
Mandeville; Lady Mary Fox;
the Solicitor-General (Dunning) ;
Mrs. Bromberg; Mr. Meynell;
Duchess of Marlborough; Lord
Eglintoun; Master Watson, Mr.
Montague Parker; Mr. Crut-
tenden. June.10
Lord Bockingham; Mr. Las-
celles; Mrs. Halsey; Mr. Gell;11
Mr. Lethbridge ; Miss Parker.
July?2
Mr. Price ; Duke of Grafton.

1 Mem. March 21.—" Lord and
Lady Pembroke to be finished."
2 Mem. Sat. 13. — "Sir Geoffrey
Amherst to be finished."
3 "Sir Thomas Ackland, at Kil-
lerton, near Exeter " (Mem. In April).
4 " Duchess of Ancaster, sketch "
(Mem. March 24).
5 " To be finished."
6 April. — "Mr. Lambton, Princes'
Street, Hanover Square; to be sent
there, packed up."
7 To draw out an advertisement;
Miller, bookseller; two guineas per
volume, 4 vols, in all ; the impress, of
the first vol. is expected daily. (? The
' Antiquities of Ionia,' published by the
Dilettanti Society.)

8 Mem. — " Lord Maynard to be sent
29th April; Charles Lord Viscount
Maynard, 1767, ast. 76 ; Sir William
Maynard at the back, 1768, 47."
9 Mem. — " Sir Gerard Napier to be
finished, 28th April."
10 All but a blank from June 9 to
end of the month. — Mem. " To inquire
for a man that paints chiaro 'scuro."
11 Mem. — " Phillip Gell, Esq., at
Hopton, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire."
12 Mem. — " Mr. Parry went to
Wales for one month, Wed. 20 July."
— This was Reynolds's Welsh pupil,
son of a famous blind harper. The
young man was now proceeding to Sir
William Wynne's, who afterwards
sent him to Rome. — Ed.

312

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. IV.

August — (almost blank).
Mrs. Philips (to be finished) ;
Mrs. Musgrave (to be finished).
(From September 9 to October 23
Eeynolds was absent on his Pa
risian trip.)

October.
Mr. Gage; Mr. Simmons; Sir
Eobert Fletcher. November. \
Master Whitbread ; Mr. Jones.
December? 3
Captain Bowyer.]

1 Mem. — " Mr. Woodcock's picture
to be sent to Mr. Woodcock's, King's
Row, Bedford Row, Bloomsbury
Square." 2 Mem.— " Sir W. Blackett's pic
ture to be sent directed for Sir John
Trevelyan, Bart., at Nettlecombe, by
Whitemarsh's Taunton waggon."
3 The only references I find to
Academy engagements this year are
for 6 on Saturday the 17th of December,
for 7 on Friday the 23rd,- and for the
same hour on Friday the 30th. There
is a note of letters to be written to the
Palmers and Youngs at Torrington,
and to Mr. Hoare and Gainsborough at
Bath, about the 21st of November,
which no doubt were to announce to
the friends and relatives in Devon
shire the news that the Academy was
instituted and Reynolds appointed its
first President, and to invite the two
Bath artists to join.
Other notes of this year referring to
his practice are — "Duchess of Ancaster,

prima magilp, oho, terza olio.
" Lady Almeria Carpenter, Mrs.
Cholmondeley, con magilp, senza olio.
"Mio proprio (my own portrait)
given to Mrs. Burke. Cera, finito quasi,
poi con mastic ver. finito interamente,
poi cerata senza colori.
" Offe's picture (his niece Theophila),
painted with cera and cop (copaiba),
solo cinnabro (vermilion). Glazing
senza olio, vernice of mastic solo, Yeo's
yellow vern. : blue. Sir Charles Bun
bury, Master Bunbury. Jan. 5, 1768.
" July 29, 1768. In vece di nero si
puo servire di turchino (blue) e cinnabro
e lacca giallo (probatum est, Nov. 20,
1768). Second sitting too yellow.
The glazing di cinnabro e turchino,
Dec. 16, 1768, senza cera."
Here we see him, dissatisfied with
the effect of this mixture of blue, ver
milion, and yellow lake, adopted as a
substitute for black in glazing in July,
by a subsequent note of Dec. omitting
the yellow lake. — Ed.

CHAPTER V.
1769—1772. JEtat. 46-49.
Sketch of Royal Academy in Annual Register — Site, &c, of the Academy —
Francklin's Ode — The President's First Discourse — Dinner at the St.
Albans — Arrangement of the course of study — The President knighted
— The first Exhibition — Its chief attractions — West's ' Regulus ' — Sir
Joshua's pictures — Mrs. Bouverie and Mrs. Crewe — Dinner with the
Hornecks at Dr. Baker's — His circle — At the masquerade — At Vaux-
hall — The Stratford Jubilee — Dinner at Boswell's — Baretti's trial — First
distribution of prizes at the Academy — The Second Discourse analysed — •
Sir Joshua's tenderness to a robber — A letter to Barry — Sitters for 1769
— Notes of his practice at this time (1770) — Politics of the year — Resig
nation of the Grafton Administration — The authorship of 'Junius' —
Sitters — Mrs. Trecothick — The ' Ugolino ' begun — Death of the Marquis
of Granby, Lord Ligonier, and Sir John Oust — The President in
society — The Thursday night Club's masquerade — The Exhibition —
Walpole on the art-exhibition mania of the day — Sir Joshua's pictures for
the year — ' The Babes in the Wood ' — Mary Moser's critique on the Exhi
bition — Portrait of Goldsmith — Reynolds's regard for him — The ' Deserted
Village' — Paints the King — Visits York and Devonshire — Brings his
niece " Offey " to London — Election of Associates — Distribution of prizes
— Third Discourse analysed — The Grand Style — Sitters and practice of
1770. (1771). Decrease of sitters — Romney — Political events and con
nections — The Academy installed at Somerset House — The President at
the Club — Walpole and Masaccio — Sir Joshua's dinners — Fancy pictures
 Beggar-boys — Old White — His society — Sir Thomas Mills —
Cumberland — Struggles in Parliament — Sir Joshua's clubs — Gambling
— Mrs. Comelys's masquerades — Mrs. Abington — Mrs. Baddeley — Lady
Waldegrave — The Duchess of Cumberland — Miss Polly Kennedy — Her
story — The first Academy dinner — The Exhibition — Sir Joshua's pic
tures — Barry's return from Rome — His 'Adam and Eve' — Earlom's
picture of the Exhibition — West's ' Death of Wolfe ' — Northcote comes up
to London — Johnson's thanks for his portrait — Installation of the Knights
of the Garter at Windsor — Sir Joshua robbed of his hat and watch — Visit
to Paris — Northcote's life at Sir Joshua's — Analysis of the Fourth Dis
course — Generality the characteristic of great art — Sitters for 1771.
(1772). Ugolino — Hebe — Portrait of Bankes — Openmg of the Pantheon
 Mrs. Baddeley and her escort — A Pantheon masquerade — Election of
Academicians — Garrick and Mrs. Garrick sit to him — Northcote's over-
hearings — His introduction to Goldsmith — Interesting sitters — Dunning
 jlrs_ Crewe — The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland — The Royal
Marriage Act — The Exhibitions — Sir Joshua's pictures at the Academy
 Zoffany's picture of the Academicians — Sir Joshua at the installation of

314 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
the Knights of the Bath — The Fordyce failure — Mrs. Yates sits — Mrs.
Montague and the Blues — Burke offered an Indian appointment — Care-
Clouds at Streatham — Colonel Dow's tragedies — Sir Joshua at Maryle-
bone Gardens — Elected an Alderman of Plympton — A party to see the
Puppets — His visiting-circle — Analysis of the Fifth Discourse.
1769, astat. 46. — [The Royal Academy was constituted.
Of the general design, aims, and appliances of the
Institution, I know no better summary than that pub
lished in the chronicle of the Annual Register for
December, 1768.
" The principal object of this institution is to be the establish
ment of well-regulated schools of design, where students in the
art may find that instruction which hath so long been wanted,
and so long wished for in this country. For this end, therefore,
there will be a winter academy of living models of different cha
racters to draw after, and a summer academy of living models
of different characters to paint after ; there will also be laymen,
with all sorts of draperies, both ancient and modern, and choice
casts of all the celebrated antique statues, groups, and basso-
relievos. Nine of the ablest academicians, elected annually
from amongst the forty, are to attend these schools by rotation,
to set the figures, to examine the performance of the students,
to advise and instruct them, and to turn their attention towards
that branch of the arts for which they shall seem to have the
aptest disposition.
" And in order to instruct the students in the principles and
laws of composition, to strengthen their judgment, to form their
taste of design and colouring, to point out to them the beauties
and imperfections of celebrated performances, and the particular
excellences and defects of great masters, to fit them for an
unprejudiced study of books, and to lead them into the readiest
and most efficacious paths of study, there are appointed a pro
fessor of painting, a professor of architecture, one of anatomy,
and one of perspective, who are annually to read a certain
number of public lectures in the schools, calculated for the
purposes above recited.
" Furthermore, there will be a library of books of architecture,
sculpture, painting, and all the sciences relating thereto ; also

1769, jetat. 46. THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 315
of prints of bas-reliefs, vases, trophies, ornaments, ancient and
modern dresses, customs and ceremonies, instruments of war
and arts, utensils of sacrifice, and all other things useful to stu
dents in the arts.
" The admission of all these establishments will be free to all
students properly qualified to reap advantage from such studies
as are there cultivated. The professors and academicians, who
instruct in the schools, have each of them proper salaries annexed
to their employment ; as have also the treasurer, the keeper of
the Eoyal Academy, the secretary, and all other persons em
ployed in the management of the said institution ; and his Ma
jesty hath, for the present, allotted a large house in Pall Mall
for the purpose of the schools, &c.
" And that the effects of this truly royal institution may be
conspicuous to the world, there will be an annual exhibition
of paintings, sculptures, and designs, open to all artists of dis
tinguished merit, where they may offer their performances to
public view, and acquire that degree of fame and encourage
ment which they shall be deemed to deserve.
" But as all men who enter the career of the arts are not
equally successful, and as some unhappily never acquire either
fame or encouragement, but, after many years of painful study,
at a time of life when it is too late to think of other pursuits,
find themselves destitute of every means of subsistence; and
as others are, by various infirmities incident to man, rendered
incapable of exerting their talents, and others are cut off in the
bloom of hfe, before it could be possible to provide for their
families, his Majesty, whose benevolence and generosity over
flow in every action of his life, hath allotted a considerable sum,
annually to be distributed, for the relief of indigent artists and
their distressed families."
From the time the Academy was established the
President took the most active part in its organization
and guidance, both in the council and the schools.
The pocket-book for 1769 bears evidence to Sir
Joshua's constant attendance at the seat of the institu
tion. The new Academy was not magnificently lodged.
Its first quarters were in Dalton's print-warehouse, for-

316

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

merly Lamb's auction-rooms, in Pall Mall,1 immediately
adjacent to Old Carlton House, afterwards occupied by
Christie, the picture-auctioneer. It was not till 1771
that the King granted to the Academy the use of
apartments in Old Somerset Palace for the lectures and
library. In 1773 the keeper was lodged there, but the
exhibitions continued to be held in Pall Mall till 1780,
when the installation of the Academy in Chambers's
renovated Somerset House was completed.
One of the charges, as we have seen, brought by the
Incorporated Society against the Academy, was that of
having, by some sharp practice on Moser 's part, tricked
the Society out of the casts that had belonged to the
St. Martin's Lane Drawing-school, which included those
belonging to Sir James Thornhill, from which Hogarth
and his contemporaries had studied. The new, or
Royal Academy, was thus at once engrafted, as it were,
on the old, or Private one. The casts belonging to
the Duke of Richmond also found their way to the
Academy schools. In vain the Society complained and
protested ; charged the Academicians — whom they refer
to as " the Junto" — with intriguing, caballing, and de
ception ; and went through the form of expelling them
from their body after they had left it.2 In vain they
opened a private Academy of their own,3 and petitioned

1 A print of the exterior, from a
drawing in the British Museum, ap
peared in ' The Illustrated London
News ' for May 1, 1861. Dalton was
the King's librarian and print-keeper.
He had been educated as an artist, was
patronized by Lord Charlemont, with
whom he travelled in Greece, and had
been in Rome with Sir Joshua in 1751.
He had bought the lease of these rooms
for a print-warehouse, but is said in

the Society's pamphlet to have found
the speculation " heavy on his hands,"
and thereupon, after in vain offering
his rooms to the Society for their ex
hibition, to have joined the seceders,
and disposed of his premises to them.
—Ed.
2 In June, 1769. See their pamphlet
referred to in a former note. — Ed.
3 In rooms over the Cider Cellar,
Maiden Lane.

1769, iETAT. 46. DR. T. FRANCKLIN'S ODE. 317

the King for his protection and patronage. The King-
replied that he did not mean to encourage one set of
men more than another ; that his royal favour should
be extended to both the Society and the Academy ; and
that he would visit the exhibitions of both, which he
did. The new Institution carried off the brains from
the old one, and thrived as that decayed. The first
visitors — i. e. artists taking it in turns to visit schools,
and overlook the performances of the students — were
Carlini, Cotton, Cipriani, N. Dance, Hayman, Toms,
"West, Wilson, and Zuccarelli.1
The new year and the opening Academy were saluted
with a fire of good old lyric commonplaces from Dr.
Thomas Francklin, now King's Chaplain, the dull trans
lator of Sophocles, and the author of tragedies — one of
which, ' The Earl of Warwick,' we have seen Reynolds
patronizing in 1766 — and even a comedy — now for
gotten. Quarrelsome and touchy among his literary
rivals, he was an intimate of the President's ; and
this tribute — " among modern odes," says Northcote,
stimulated into a pun, " not the most odious " — was
due, no doubt, as much to the writer's friendship for
Reynolds as to his feeling for the Arts. Alecto, Britan
nia, Chaos, George, the Augustan age, and the Muse,
are duly trotted out ; and the latter, rapturous and
prophetic,
" Her country's opening glories views ;
Already sees with wond'ring eyes
Our Titians and our Guidos rise :
Sees new Palladios grace the historic page,
And British Raffaelles charm a future age."
More to the purpose was the President's first Dis-

1 He is called Zuccares in the first list of the R.A.

318 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
course, delivered on the 2nd of January. That love
of generalizing and systematizing which Burke noted as
the leading tendency of Reynolds's mind had now full,
if not dangerous scope ; and we may well believe that the
President considered his own Discourses as not the least
important element in the teaching of the new Academy.
He was right in this, for, apart from the soundness or
unsoundness of their positive teaching, these Discourses
all tend to do what was then most needed for Art —
to liberalise the theory of it, at once to make and
prove it a matter fit to occupy cultivated and serious
minds. The" Discourses should be considered quite as
much pleas. for the intellectual claims of Art, urged
before audiences which included many of the most
distinguished men of the time, as lectures for the
instruction of students. Such pleading was eminently
required at a time when the tone and habits of painters,
and the shallow affectations and coxcombries of connois
seurs, were little calculated to prepossess intelligent or
refined minds in favour of the Arts. Whatever we
may think of the road into which the President's Dis
courses directed the student, there can be no doubt it
led upwards.
The first Discourse was introductory. It enumerates
the advantages to be hoped from the institution of a
Royal Academy, which, besides furnishing able men to
direct the student, would be a repository for great
examples of the art. To the objection that Raffaelle
never studied in an academy, it is answered that all
Rome was an academy. One advantage the lecturer
claims for an Academy in this country — that our artists
had nothing to unlearn. Then he recommends (as
hints to the professors and visitors of the new schools)

1769, jetat. 46. HIS FIRST 'DISCOURSE.' 319
certain principles, — the first of them, the enforcing of
implicit obedience on the part of the young students to
the rules of Art as established by the practice of the
great masters. Rules, he remarks, are not the fetters
of genius ; they are fetters only to men of no genius.
When the pupil becomes a master he may consider what
liberties he will take with the rules which he has heard
inculcated. The stage when the student is passing
into the painter is the one, in the President's view, most
carefully to be watched. Then, more than ever, the
importance of " scrupulous labour " above " fallacious
mastery " is to be impressed upon the aspirant. He is
to be told again and again that labour is the only price
of solid fame. But his industry must be rightly directed.
He must be taught to strive for purity of outline rather
than readiness of hand — to think more of the disposi
tion of drapery than of the imitation of its texture :
above all, absolute exactness in drawing the model
must be insisted on. The lecture closes with the ex
pression of a wish and hope that the present age may
vie in Arts with that of Leo X., and that the dignity
of the dying art (quoting from Pliny) may be revived
under the reign of George III.
That the substance of these thoughts was the Presi
dent's, I have no doubt. That he may have submitted
his drafts to the criticism and correction of such friends
as Burke, Johnson, William Jones, or even Dr. Franck-
lin, I think very probable. We have indeed his letter
of a later date so submitting one of them to Malone.
But this in no way diminishes his claim to property
in the ideas expressed, and in the conception and con
duct of the whole argument.

320 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
This graceful and practical introduction to the work
of the new Academy — for which the body voted its
thanks to the President at its general meeting on the
17th of January — did not derive any great advantage
from the mode of its delivery. The President's voice
was indistinct. His horror of affectation, and his "deaf
ness combined, led him — as men who have heard him
lecture have told us — into tameness and slovenliness
of elocution, in the desire to avoid anything that might
seem like an over-emphatic or oratorical manner. Sir
Martin Archer Shee used to ascribe much of Sir
Joshua's indistinctness to the mutilation of his lip by
the accident at Minorca.
The delivery of the President's first Discourse was
followed by a dinner at the St. Albans tavern, at
which Sir Joshua presided. The curious in festive
lyrics may find in Northcote's Life of Sir Joshua the
song written in honour of the occasion, by " the good
old Mr. Hull, the comedian," and sung by Mr. Vernon,
celebrated as a Macheath in his time. Each verse
rings the changes on a burden, —
" The Arts unrivalled shall remain,
While George protects the polished train."
The Academy lost no time in beginning its labours.
At the council meeting on the 30th of January, the
subscribers to the old Drawing-school were admitted to
the new one, without subscription or probationary test,
till the end of the winter-season. New students were
required to prove their proficiency by a drawing. The
course of lectures — on painting, on architecture, and on
perspective — was fixed to begin in October. Arrange-

1769, jltat. 46. THE EXHIBITION. 321
ments were made for preparing the Catalogue, with a
preface, to be drawn up by the President. On the 20th
of April a list was made out of distinguished patrons,
and great officers of state, to whom tickets were sent
for the opening of the exhibition. On Friday the 21st
the President was knighted at the levee.1 He left
a sitter to go to St. James's, and came back to a
sitter after receiving the accolade. He was the first
painter who had been thus honoured since Sir James
Thornhill. The Exhibition was opened on the 26th of April,
and closed on the 27th of May. The King visited the
rooms on the 25th. The catalogue bears the appro
priate motto — " Nova rerum nascitur ordo.". In all,
136 works were exhibited; and it may be interesting
to know that the receipts at the door were 699Z. 17s. Qd.
The most attractive pictures, besides Sir Joshua's, were,
according to Northcote, West's Regulus, and Venus
lamenting the death of Adonis ; Angelica Kauffmann's
Hector and Andromache, and Venus directing !2Eneas
and Achates ; Dance's portraits of the King and Queen ;
Gainsborough's Lady Molyneux ; Hone's Piping Boy ;
Cipriani's Annunciation ; Cotes's Hebe, Duke of Glou
cester, and Boy playing Cricket ; Penny's ' Smith swal
lowing a Tailor's news ' (from King John) ; and
Barett's Penton Lynn. West's ' Regulus ' was not only
a Royal commission, but a Royal subject. The Bishops
were always zealous patrons of West's from the first.
They liked the piety and purity of the young painter,

1 In the pocket-book is entered—
" 12i, King's Levee. Knighted at St.
VOL. I.

James's. 11, Miss Norcliffe. 2, Mr.
Simons."— Ed.

322 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
and the classicality of his subjects. Drummond, the
Archbishop of York (whom we have seen sitting to Sir
Joshua in 1764), had commissioned the rising Pennsyl-
vanian artist to paint him a picture from Tacitus, of
Agrippina landing with the ashes of Germanicus. When
the sketch was brought to him, the Archbishop not only
encouraged the artist to proceed with the picture, but
gallantly set on foot and headed a subscription to raise
3000£, in order that the painter might be enabled to
devote himself to history. The subscription failed ;
but the Archbishop, foiled in his appeal to the patrons,
determined to approach the throne ; and accordingly,
at his next audience, brought before his Majesty the
story of jthe devout young Quaker painter, of so mar
vellous a genius, and such lofty aspirations. The
Bishop was not singular in his belief in West's genius,
though the word reads to us like satire in its applica
tion to that painter. George III. was interested in
the Archbishop's account, and bade him send the painter
and his 'Agrippina' to the Queen's House. West
arrived with his picture, was presented to the King,
who called in the Queen, admired the picture, told her
the subject, and then suggested another fine subject
from the Roman history — Regulus ; adding, " You
shall paint it for me." And then, not sorry to dis
play his knowledge of Latin to the Queen, he went
on : — " The Archbishop made one of his sons read
Tacitus to Mr. West, but I will read Livy to him
myself — the part where he describes the departure of
Regulus :" and so read the passage very gracefully.
Hence the picture, which was one of the attractions
of- the first Academy exhibition; and we may be sure

1769, jetat. 46. GEORGE III. AND WEST.

323

the story of the King's reading of Livy was not for
gotten in the room.1]
To this first exhibition of the Royal Academy Rey
nolds contributed four pictures : —
The Duchess of Manchester and her son, as Diana
disarming Cupid.
Mrs. Blake (the sister of his friends Sir Charles and
H. Bunbury) as Juno receiving the cestus from Venus.2
Miss Morris as Hope nursing Love.3

1 Joshua Kirby, the director of the
Society of Artists, and the King's
teacher of perspective, was at the
palace when the picture had been
brought there. He heard and echoed
the King's praises of it, complimented
the young painter, and expressed his
hope that his Majesty would graciously
allow his subjects to see the picture at
the exhibition. " Certainly, certainly,"
said the King. "The exhibition of
the Incorporated Society of Artists,"
added Kirby. " No, no, no ! " ex
plained his Majesty, " the exhibition
of my own Academy." Kirby was
thunderstruck, and is said never to
have got over the mortification. He
died soon after, blighted, it was whis
pered, by this dreadful withdrawal of
the royal countenance from the So
ciety. — Ed.
2 Both pictures are in his mytholo
gical manner. Horace Walpole (though
I hardly know why his criticisms de
serve to be recorded) has put down, in
his catalogue, a, propos of the former,
" bad attitude," and of the latter, " very
bad." I am afraid I must agree with
him as to the Duchess of Manchester,
who is painted as she stoops to disarm
the sleeping Cupid. Mrs. Blake's atti
tude is well enough, if we can admit
the treatment of the subject. But this
is evidently a mistake. Portraiture is

not to be dignified by transforming
ladies of the eighteenth century into
heathen goddesses, and investing them
with the attributes of the Pantheon,
as is done in this case. -Mrs. Blake
had been a Miss Bunbury, and was
the wife of a wealthy, sporting gen
tleman of Irish family, and large
West India and Suffolk property, Mr.
(afterwards .Sir Patrick) Blake. The
marriage was an unhappy one. The
picture, irreparably injured I am sorry
to say, is at Ashfield, near Barton, in
Suffolk, the seat of Sir Henry Blake.
3 This young lady's history was a
very touching one. She was the
daughter of Valentine Morris, governor
of one of our West India islands, on
whose death his widow returned to
this country in impoverished circum
stances, with a son and two daughters.
Miss Morris, the eldest, was very beau
tiful, and, having shown a talent for
acting, was induced, by the advice of
friends, to try the profession of the
stage. In November, 1768, she ap
peared as Juliet at Covent Garden, but
was so overpowered by timidity, and
probably by bodily weakness, that she
fainted on entering the stage, and with
difficulty got through the part. It was
her first and last appearance ; for she
fell into a rapid decline, and died on
May-day, 1769. The picture at Bowood
Y 2

324

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

Two ladies (half-length), Mrs. Bouverie and Mrs.
Crewe. [Mrs. Crewe, the lovelier of these two lovely ladies,
was the daughter of Fulke Greville, already noted for
her amiability and fascination, as well as her Opposition
principles. By and bye she grew to be the Whig toast
— not inferior in charm, or in the stanchness of her
political attachments, to the famous Duchess of Devon
shire herself. Like her, she did not shrink from ex
erting her charms to witch butchers and bakers out of
votes for Fox at the Westminster elections. It was at
her house in Lower Grosvenor Street that the great
Whig triumph at the Westminster election of 1784 was
celebrated by a splendid entertainment, at which, on
the Prince of Wales giving the toast " True blue, and
Mrs. Crewe," the lady in reply gave " True blue, and
all of you." Amiable, pure, and good as she was beau
tiful, Mrs. Crewe was the fast friend of Reynolds, as
of Burke, Fox, and Sheridan. She cheered the later
years of the former, and the two latter wrote verses in
her honour.1 She was united with Mrs. Bouverie,
daughter of Sir Everard Fawkener, by a romantic
friendship. Sir Joshua had painted her as a girl of sixteen,
grouped with her infant brother, as Cupid and Psyche ;
and three years after this painted another and perhaps
more beautiful picture of her, as St. Genevieve reading

indicates the delicate character of
her beauty. Reynolds had painted
mother and daughter in the days of
their splendour. Johnson, Reynolds,
and others of their society, took a
great interest in the family. Corbyn

Morris, this young lady's uncle, was
a Commissioner of Customs. — Ed.
1 Fox's lines may be found in Wal
pole's Letters, vol. vi. p. 498 : Sheri
dan's accompanied a presentation-copy
of the ' School for Scandal.'

1769, ;etat. 46. DINNER-PARTY AT DR. BAKER'S.

325

in the midst of her flock. All three pictures :are at
Crewe-Hall.1 On a tomb in this year's picture of the two beautiful
friends was written, •' Et in Arcadia ego." When the
Exhibition was arranging, the members and their
friends went and lookecl the works over. " What can
this mean ? " said Dr. Johnson ; " it seems very non
sensical — I am in Arcadia." " Well, what of that ?
The King could have told you," replied the painter.
" He saw it yesterday, and said at once, ' Oh, there is
a tombstone in the background. Ay, ay, Death is
even in Arcadia ! ' ' The thought is borrowed from
Guercino, where the gay frolickers stumble over a
death's-head, with a scroll proceeding from his mouth,
inscribed, " Et in Arcadia ego."]
We get a pleasant glimpse of Reynolds in social life
about this date,2 at a dinner-party given by his phy
sician, Dr. Baker, in honour of the beautiful Devon
shire sisters, the Hornecks, who, inviting Goldsmith at
the last minute, received his merry doggrel answer : —
" Your mandate I got ;
You may all go to pot :
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night. . . _,
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,

1 That of the two friends is exqui
site for the delicacy of the sentiment
and the beauty of the heads, to which
the engraving does very imperfect jus
tice. Its carnations have flown, but
otherwise it "is in-good condition. The
St. Genevieve has kept its colour bet
ter, but is cracked in the darks, where
asphalt has been too freely used. Mr.

Greville, in consequence of a quarrel
with his son, had the Cupid cut out of
Sir Joshua's picture of his children,
and a tripod stands where the Cupid
originally stood. — Ed.
2 Forster's ' Life of Goldsmith,'
vol. ii. p. 174. The original letter is
at Barton.

326

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

And Kauffmann beside,
And the Jessamy bride : L
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses too,
Little Comedy's face,2
And the Captain in lace. . . 3
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state ;
But 'tis Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim
To be frolic like him ;
But, alas ! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Advertiser ? " 4
There are several engagements with Dr. Baker this
year, which, indeed, seems to have been one of unusual
gaiety with the diligent painter. His sitters are less
numerous. His dinners more frequent with old friends
and new : the Hornecks, Dr. Goldsmith and Wilkes very
often ; the Nesbitts, Dr. Francklin (at the King's Chap
lain's table, then kept at St. James's), the Bastards,
Lord Charlemont, Mr. Hoole, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Percy,
Bickerstaffe (the dramatist and essayist), Mr. Nugent

1 Miss Mary Horneck, afterwards
Mrs. Gwyn.
2 Miss Catherine Horneck, after
wards Mrs. Bunbury.
3 Charles Horneck.
4 An allusion to lines on Reynolds
and Angelica Kauffmann, in the Ad
vertiser newspaper. She had just
painted Sir Joshua's portrait. The
picture, now at Saltram, is likely to
be pronounced weak and uncharacter
istic by most critics now-a-days ; but
the poet of the Advertiser sings of it —
" When the likeness she hath done for thee,
0 Reynolds, with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own,
Such strength, such harmony, excelled by none,
And theu outrivall'd by thyself alone,"

— meaning, I suppose, that Sir Joshua's
portrait by Angelica could be equalled
only by Sir Joshua himself. The
report was, that Reynolds, who had
placed her on the list of Academi
cians, admired the woman as well as
the artist. He was her steady friend,
and had lately aided her in procuring
the dissolution of her marriage with
a swindler — the valet of Count Home,
who, arriving in London with his mas
ter's stolen wardrobe and credentials,
had figured successfully for a time in
the character of the Count, and as
such had wooed and won the fair An
gelica. — Ed.

1769, jetat. 46.

HIS SOCIETY.

327

(Burke's father-in-law), Mr. Brett, the Burkes, Lord
Ossory, the Duke of Grafton, the Dean of Christchurch
(Dr. Markham), the Master of Trinity (Dr. Hinch-
cliffe, who had married one of Mr. Crewe's sisters),1 Dr.
Hawkesworth, and Lprd Robert Spencer. There are
frequent dinners, too, at the houses of his brother Aca
demicians, Penny, Chambers, Hayman, and Hone — and
with Hudson and Ramsay, who had held aloof from the
Academy, but had not ceased their friendly intercourse
with the President. All this dining out was, no doubt,
compatible with many club and tavern entertainments,
and frequent engagements at his own house. Then
there are ventures into new scenes of gaiety — of
which I have found no trace in the pocket-books till
-e.g. a masquerade in February, perhaps at Mrs.

now-

Cornely's in Soho Square, whose rooms were now
in all their splendour, and frequented by the best
company, perhaps at the Opera-house ; visits to the
Richmond Assembly, Avhere, I imagine, Sir Joshua
had now purchased his villa;2 and three parties to
Vauxhall — at this time a very different place from
the smoky, sooty, dilapidated combination of leafless
trees, tumble-down sheds, dripping canvas, and disreput
able entertainments which the pleasure-seekers of our
own time have known it.3 Its decoration had employed

1 The fine picture of the two sisters,
grouped in a sisterly caress, is at Crewe-
Hall. Unluckily the carnations have
faded.— Ed.
2 Some entries in the pocket-book
of "Noverre" may perhaps refer to
dancing lessons for these occasions.
Noverre was the great dancer and
dancing-master of the time. — Ed.

15 A contemporary description (ab
breviated) will help us to see Vauxhall
as Sir Joshua saw it in 1769 ': —
" As you enter the great gate is a
noble gravel- walk about 900 feet in
length, bordered with a row of stately
trees, which form a fine vista, termi
nated by a landscape of the country,
a beautiful lawn of meadow-ground,

328

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

the pencils of Hogarth and Hayman, the scenic art of
Lambert and De Loutherbourg, and the chisel of Rou-

and a grand Gothic obelisk, all which
so forcibly strike the imagination that
a mind scarce tinctured with any sen
sibility of order and grandeur cannot
but feel inexpressible pleasure in
viewing it. At the corners are painted
a number of slaves chained, and over
them this inscription :—
' SPECTATOR
FASTIDIOSVS
SIBI MOLESTVS.'
" Advancing a few steps within the
garden, we behold, to the right, the
grove ; in the middle of it is a superb
orchestra, of Gothic construction, cu
riously ornamented with carvings,
niches, &c, the dome of which is sur
mounted with a plume of feathers,
the crest of the Prince of Wales. The
concert is opened with instrumental
music at 6 o'clock, which having con
tinued about half an hour, the com
pany are entertained with songs, with
sonatos or concertos between each, till
the close of the entertainment, which
is generally about ten o'clock.
" In a hollow on the left hand,
about half-way up the walk already
described, by drawing up a curtain is
shown a most beautiful landscape in
perspective, of a fine open hilly country,
with a miller's house and a watermill,
all illuminated by concealed lights;
but the principal object that strikes
the eye is a cascade or waterfall.
About nine o'clock the curtain is
drawn up, and at the expiration of ten
or fifteen- minutes let down again, and
the company return to*hear the re
maining part of the concert ; the last
song is always a duet or trio, accom
panied with a 'chorus.
" Fronting the orchestra a consider
able number of tables and benches are

placed for the company, and at a small
distance from them (fronting the or
chestra) is a large pavilion, of the
composite order, built for his late Royal
Highness Frederick Prince of Wales,
who frequently visited these gardens.
There are put up in it four large paint
ings, done by the ingenious Mr. Hay
man, from the historical plays of
Shakespeare. " The first, the storm in King Lear.
" The second, the play in Hamlet.
" The next, a scene in Henry the
Fifth, before Henry's tent, where
Mountjoy, the French herald, attended
by a trumpeter, demands of Henry
whether he will compound for his
ransom. " The last is a scene in the Tem
pest : Miranda startled at the sight of
Ferdinand ; Prospero, with great ex
pression in his countenance of sternness
and affected anger, is represented in
his magic robes.
" The space between this pavilion
and the orchestra may be termed the
grand rendezvous of the company, who
constantly assemble in this part, if the
weather be fine, to hear the vocal per
formers. " The grove is beautifully illumi
nated in the evening with above 2000
glass lamps ; in the front of the
orchestra they are contrived to form
three triumphal arches, and are all
lighted as it were in a moment, to the
no small surprise of the spectator.
" In cold or rainy weather the musi
cal performance is in a great room 70
feet in diameter, where an elegant
orchestra is erected. In the roof are
two little cupolas, adorned with paint
ings ; Apollo, Pan, and the Muses in
one, and Neptune with the Sea Nymphs
in the other. Above each cupola is

1769, jetat. 46.

VAUXHALL IN 1769.

329

biliac. In its orchestra Mrs. Billington did not disdain
to sing, nor Arne to conduct. The most brilliant

an arch divided into compartments ;
from the centre of each, which is a
rich Gothic frame, descends a large
chandelier, in the form of a basket of
flowers. " Between the columns supporting
the roof are four elegant frames and
panels, wherein the ingenious Mr. Hay
man was employed in 1760 to celebrate
some of the most glorious transactions
of the late war. The first picture repre
sents the surrender of Montreal. On
a commemorating stone, at one corner
of the piece, is this inscription : —
' POWER EXERTED,
CONQUEST OBTAINED,
MERCY SHOWN !
MDCOLX.'
"The second represents Britannia,
holding in her hand a medallion of his
present Majesty, and sitting on the
right hand of Neptune in his chariot
drawn by sea-horses, who seem to par
take in the triumph for the defeat of
the French fleet (represented on the
background) by Sir Edward Hawke,
Nov. 10, 1759. The third represents
Lord Clive receiving the homage of
the Nabob ; and the fourth, Britannia
distributing laurels to Lord Granby,
Lord Albemarle, Lord Townshend, and
the Colonels Monckton, Coote, &c.
" The entrance into this saloon from
the gardens is through a Gothic portal,
on each side of which, on the inside,
are the pictures of their Majesties in
their coronation robes.
" The first walk, as far as the great
room, is paved with Flanders bricks or
Dutch clinkers. In all other places
the grove is bounded by gravel-walks,
and alcoves, with tables, ornamented
with paintings from the designs of Mr.
Hayman and Mr. Hogarth.

" 1. Two Mahometans, gazing in
wonder and astonishment at the many
beauties of the place.
" 2. A shepherd playing on his pipe
and decoying a shepherdess into a
wood. "3. New River-head at Islington,
with a family going a- walking, a cow
milking, and the horns archly fixed
over the husband's head.
"4. The game of quadrille, and the
tea-equipage. "5. Music and singing.
" 6. Children building houses with
cards. " 7. A scene in the Mock Doctor.
" 8. An archer, and a landscape.
" 9. The country dancers round the
maypole. " 10. Thread my needle.
" 11. Flying the kite.
"12. A story in Pamela, who reveals
to the housekeeper her wishes of re
turning home, while Mr. B., behind a
curtain, overhears her sentiments.
" 13. A scene in the Devil to Pay;
the characters are Jobson, Nell, and
the Conjuror.
"14. Children playing at shuttle
cock. " 15. Hunting the whistle.
"16. Another story in Pamela —
Pamela flying to the coach.
" 17. A scene in the Merry Wives
of Windsor, where Sir John Falstaff is
put into the buck-basket.
"18. A sea - engagement between
the Spaniards and the African Moors.
"Here the paintings end; but the
pavilions continue in a sweep which
leads to a beautiful piazza and a co
lonnade, 500 feet in length, in the
form of a semicircle, of Gothic archi
tecture, embellished with rays. In
this semicircle of pavilions are three

330

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

beauties and the leaders of ton were not too proud to
eat cold chicken, and drink rack punch and Frontiniac,

large ones, called temples, the middle
one decorated with a piece of painting
in the Chinese taste representing Vul
can catching Mars and Venus in a
net; that on the right represents the
entrance into Vauxhall, with a gentle
man and lady coming to it ; and that
on the left friendship on the grass
drinking. "Having traversed this semicircle,
we come to a sweep of pavilions that
leads us into the great walk ; the last
of these is ornamented with a painting
representing Black -Eyed Susan re
turning to shore, having been taking
leave of her Sweet William, who is on
board one of the fleet in the Downs.
" Returning to the grove, the pa
vilions are decorated with the follow
ing pieces : —
" 1. Difficult to please.
" 2. Sliding on the ice.
" 3. Players on bagpipes and haut
boys. "4. A bonfire at Charing Cross,
and other rejoicings; the Salisbury
stage overturned, &c.
" 5. The play of blindman's buff.
" 6. The play of leap-frog.
" 7. The Wapping landlady and the
tars who are just come ashore.
"8. The play of skittles, and the
husband upbraided by the wife, wbo
breaks his shin with one of the pins.
" Proceeding forward, we see an
other range of pavilions, in a different
style, adorned with paintings, forming
another side of the quadrangle. In the
first pavilion is, —
"1. The taking of Portobello, in
1740, by the late Admiral Vernon.
"2. Mademoiselle Catherina, the
famous dwarf.
" 3. Ladies angling.
" 4. Bird-nesting.
" 5. The play at bob-cherry.

" 6. Falstaffs cowardice detected.
" 7. The bad family ; with the par
son coming in to make peace ; the
husband has the tongs ready lifted up
to strike his wife, who is at his feet
kneeling and supplicating mercy, and
their three children are crying.
"8. The good family ; the husband
is reading, the wife with an infant in
her arms, and the other children arc-
listening ; the rest are spinning, and
the maid is washing the dishes.
" 9. The taking of the St. Joseph, a
Spanish register-ship, in 1742, by Cap
tain Tucker, in the Fowey man-of-war.
" Next is a piazza of five arches,
which open into a semicircle of pa
vilions, with a temple and dome at
each end, and the space in front deco
rated with trees. Under the centre
arch, on a pedestal, is a marble statue
of the famous Mr. Handel, as Orpheus
playing on his lyre, done by the cele
brated Mr. Roubiliac.
"In the pediment above is repre
sented St. Cecilia, playing on the vio
loncello, which is supported by a
Cupid, while another holds before her
a piece of music. The remainder of
the paintings in this range are : —
" 1. Bird-catching, by a decoy with
a whistle and net.
"2. The play of see-saw.
" 3. The fairies dancing on the green
by moonlight.
"4. The milkmaid's garland, with
its usual attendants.
" 5. The kiss stolen,
"Here ends the boundary of the
grove on this side ; but, turning on
the left, we come to a wralk that runs
along the bottom of the gardens ; on
each side of this walk are pavilions,
those on the left hand are decorated
with the following paintings : —
" A northern chief, with his princess

1769, 2ETAT. 46.

VAUXHALL IN 1769.

331

in its supper-boxes; while Blue Ribbons and Royal
Dukes delighted to figure in its balls and ridottos.

and her favourite swan, placed in a
sledge, and drawn on the ice by a
horse. "2. The play of hot cockles.
"3. An old gipsy telling fortunes
by the coffee-cups.
" 4. The cutting of flour, a Christ
mas gambol (which is by placing a
little ball at the top of a cone of flour,
into which all are to cut with a knife,
and whoever causes the ball to fall
from the summit must take it out with
their teeth, which is represented in
the painting).
" 5. The play of cricket.
" On the opposite side is a row of
pavilions, with a Gothic railing in
front of them ; and at the extremity
of this walk is another entrance into
the gardens from the road. At the
other end of the walk, adjoining to
the Prince's pavilion, is a small semi
circle of pavilions.
" We will now take a survey of the
other parts of the garden.
" From the upper end of the walk
last described, where we concluded the
list of the paintings, we may see a
long narrow vista that runs to the top
of the garden ; this is called the
Druid's or Lovers' walk, and on both
sides of it are rows of lofty trees,
which, meeting at the top and inter
changing their boughs, form a delight
ful verdant canopy. Among these trees
build a number of fine singing-birds,
such as nightingales, blackbirds,
thrushes, &c, whose sweet harmony
adds a peculiar pleasure to this rural
scene. ' Here simple Nature's hand, with noble grace,
Diffuses artless beauties o'er the place.'
" This walk, in the evening, is dark,
which renders it more agreeable to

those minds who love to enjoy the full
scope of imagination, to listen to the
distant music in the orchestra, and
view the lamps glittering through the
trees. " Returning to the grove, and placing
ourselves near the statue of Handel,
we may, by looking up the garden,
behold a noble vista, formed by lofty
trees on each side ; but a peculiar air
of grandeur is added to it by three
splendid triumphal arches. The pros
pect is terminated by a large and fine
painting of the ruins of Palmyra.
" Near the centre of the garden is a
cross gravel-walk, formed by stately
trees on each side. On the right hand
it is terminated by the trees which
shade the Lovers' walk ; and at the
extremity, on the left, is a beautiful
landscape-painting of ruins and run
ning water, which, with great justice
to the artist, is reckoned a master
piece. "From our situation to view this
painting is another gravel-walk that
leads up the garden, formed on the
right side by a wilderness, and on the
left by rural downs, as they are termed,
in the form of a long square, fenced
by a net, with several little eminences
in it after the manner of a Roman
camp. There are likewise several
bushes, from under which a few years
ago subterraneous musical sounds were
heard, called by some fairy music ; but
the natural damp of the earth being
found prejudicial to the instruments,
this romantic entertainment has ceased.
The downs are covered with turf, and
pleasingly interspersed with cypress,
fir, yew, cedar, and tulip trees. On
one of the eminences is a statue of
our great poet Milton, nearly sur
rounded with bushes, and seated on a

332

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

On the 6th, 7th, and 8th September, Garrick, who
had in vain tried to induce Sir Joshua to quit his easel
for the pleasure of hearing him recite an Ode of his
own composition in honour of Shakespere, and seeing
stage-faces and stage-finery in a daylight procession,
celebrated his ill-advised Jubilee at Stratford-upon-
Avon. Gray was more justified than those who affix
satirical nicknames generally are, when he called it
' Vanity Fair ;' and Footers pointed description of the
failure was hardly a caricature. " A Jubilee, as it hath
lately appeared, is a public invitation circulated and
urged by puffing, to go post without horses to an obscure
borough without representatives, governed by a mayor

rock, in an attitude listening to soft
music. " At the upper end of these clowns
is a gravel-walk, formed on each side
by lofty trees, which runs across the
gardens, and terminates them this way.
" In this walk is a beautiful prospect
of a fine meadow, iu which the obelisk
stands. This prospect is made by the
trees being opposite the grand walk
(which runs from the entrance into the
gardens), and a ha-ha is formed in the
ditch to prevent the company going
into the field. At each end of this
walk is a beautiful painting ; one is a
building, with a scaffold and a ladder
before it, which has often deceived the
eye very agreeably ; the other is a view
in a Chinese garden.
"The principal part of all these
charming walks form the boundaries
of wildernesses composed of trees which
shoot to a great height, and are all
enclosed with a beautiful espalier,
somewhat in the Chinese taste.
" When the music is finished, great
numbers of the company retire to the

pavilions to supper, and some are at
tended with French horns and other
music. A curious and contemplative
spectator may at this time enjoy a par
ticular pleasure in walking round the
grove and surveying the brilliant
guests ; the multitude of groups vary
ing in figure, age, dress, attitude, "and
the visible disparity of their humours,
might form an excellent school of
painting : and so many of our lovely
countrywomen visit these blissful
bowers that, were Zeuxis again to
attempt the picture of Venus, it is
from hence, and not from Greece, that
he would borrow his image of perfect
beauty. Nothing is wanting that can
contribute towards the convenience of
this entertainment ; everything is
served in the best manner, and with
the greatest readiness."
In excuse of so long a note on such
a subject, I would plead the place
Vauxhall filled among the amusements
of that day, and the degradation into
which it had fallen long before our
own time. — Ed.

1769, 2etat. 46. THE STRATFORD JUBILEE. 333
and aldermen who are no magistrates, to celebrate a
great poet whose own works have made him immortal,
by an ode without poetry, music without melody, dinners
without victuals, and lodgings without beds ; a mas
querade where half the people appeared bare-faced, a
horse-race up to the knees in water, fireworks extin
guished as soon as they were lighted, a gingerbread
amphitheatre, which, like a house of cards, tumbled to
pieces as soon as it was finished."
Sir Joshua, at the Turk's Head Monday evenings,
had doubtless his sly quiet laugh at the Jubilee, which
Boswell, now in the height of his Corsican fever, had
attended in full Corsican costume, with Paoli and
Liberty in gold letters in front of his cap. But the
only actual member of the club who appeared at the
Stratford mumming was Colman, who had been this
year elected, with Percy, Chambers, and Topham Beau-
clerk (whose membership had lapsed from'non-attend-
ance, since his intrigue and subsequent marriage with
Lady Bolingbroke after her divorce in 1768). Johnson,
like Reynolds, had declined to attend the Jubilee, greatly
to Boswell' s regret.
On the 16th of October his pocket-book has the
entries, "4 Mr. Boswell, 5 J Academy, 8 Club." This
was the dinner at Boswell's lodgings, in Old Bond-street,
of which the host has left us a detailed record in his
Life of Johnson. The party included, besides Sir Joshua,
Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Murphy, Bickerstaff, and
Tom Davies. Boswell was still a-flutter with the delight
of lionizing his hero, Paoli, who had arrived in London
on the 21st of September. On the 29th he had been
presented to the King ; on the 10th of October Boswell

334 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
had been able to gratify his cherished hope, by present
ing his Corsican to his English idol. Johnson had
exchanged compliments in English against the General's
compliments in Italian, while Bozzy eagerly interpreted
between them, comparing himself the while, "to an
isthmus that joins two great continents."
At Boswell's dinner, six days after this memorable
interview, Sir Joshua figures in the recorded conver
sation only once, and then as lion's provider to John
son. He is made to praise Mrs. Montague's Essay on
Shakspere, that Johnson may give the Queen of the
Bluestockings a royal setting down, and, in this case, a
well-deserved one — " I will venture to say there is not
one sentence of true criticism in the book." But when
we remember that, in the same after-dinner conversation,
the great dictator maintains that the description of the
temple in Congreve's ' Mourning Bride ' is finer than.
any passagS in Shakspere, we feel forcibly how much
better he was fitted to pass sentence on Mrs. Montague
than to judge Shakspere, and may fairly question
whether the Johnsonian contribution to Shaksperian
criticism be worth more than that of the learned lady.
At this dinner, for which Sir Joshua seems to have
done what he seldom did — sacrificed an Academy lecture
— Goldsmith — now breaking out into great gorgeousness
of feather — made his appearance (to be playfully roasted
by Garrick) in the never-to-be-forgotten bloom-coloured
rateen suit, with satin lining, by which Mr. John
Filby, at the Harrow in Water-lane, not in vain hoped
to make his name widely known. There is no hint in
Boswell that reference was made in the lively talk
round his table either to the Jubilee, or to Baretti's

1769, ;etat. 46. BARETTI'S TRIAL. 335
committal for trial at the Old Bailey on a charge of
murder, though the startling incident was then but ten
days old.
But three days later, at Boswell' s lodgings, the
Doctor, then under subpoena to attend Baretti's trial,
declared, in talking of our feeling for the distresses of
others, that, though friends had risen up for Baretti on
every side, not one of them would eat a slice of pudding
the less if he should be hanged. The day after, Sir
Joshua attended the sessions at the Old Bailey,
with Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Burke, and
Beauclerk, to give evidence to the character of
Baretti. The studious and sober Italian, who was
hot and hasty, being accosted in a rude and indecent
manner by a prostitute in the Haymarket on the
night of the 6th, pushed the woman away. She called
her bullies, who hustled the foreigner ; on which he
drew a small knife, in self-defence, and warned them
to keep off ; but as they pressed on him, he struck two
of them, and one afterwards died of his wound.
Baretti at once submitted to the constables, and was
taken before Sir John Fielding. Goldsmith, who was
the first of his acquaintance to learn the catastrophe,
hurried to the magistrate's office, with characteristic
kindliness, to press his purse on the man who had
always treated him with studied rudeness, and to accom
pany him to Tothill Fields Bridewell. Reynolds, Fitz-
herbert, Burke, and Garrick, were accepted as his bail,
a few days later, by Lord Mansfield.
Malone tells us that, when the party went to Lord
Mansfield's house for this purpose, his Lordship, without
paying much attention to the business, immediately and

336

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

abruptly began with some very flimsy and boyish obser
vations on the contested passage in ' Othello,' " Put out
the light," &c. " This " (says Malone) " was by way of
showing off to Garrick, whose opinion of him, however,
was not much raised by this impotent and untimely
endeavour to shine on a subject with which he was little
acquainted. Sir J. Reynolds, who had never seen him
before (and who told me the story), was grievously dis
appointed in finding this great lawyer so little at the same
time." x
Baretti, it is hardly necessary to add, was acquitted.
He was very short-sighted, as may be seen in Reynolds's
well-known portrait of him, holding a book close to
his eyes. Johnson's emphatic evidence to Baretti's
character will be found in a note to Croker's ' Boswell,'
under the date of this year. 2 It was after his acquittal
that Sir Joshua obtained for him the honorary post of
foreign secretary to the Royal Academy, and that John
son procured his appointment to the place of resident
tutor in the Thrale family.
On the 11th of December came the first distribution
of prizes at the Royal Academy — silver medals for
academic studies from the living model and architec
tural drawings ; gold medals for the best picture, bas-

1 Prior's ' Life of Malone,' p. 381.
2 Mrs. Piozzi records two anecdotes
on this subject : —
" When Johnson and Burke went
to see Baretti in Newgate, they had
small comfort to give him, and bid
him not hope too strongly. ' What
can he fear,' says Baretti, placing him
self between 'em, ' that holds two such
hands as I do ? ' "

" An Italian came one day to Ba
retti, when he was in Newgate for
murder, to desire a letter of recom
mendation for the teaching of his
scholars, when he (Baretti) should be
hanged. 'You rascal,' replies Baretti,
in a rage, ' if I were not in my own
apartment, I would kick you down
stairs directly." — Autobiography of
Mrs. Piozzi, vol. i. p. 338.— Ed.

1769, jetat. 46. HIS SECOND 'DISCOURSE.' 337

relief, and architectural design from given subjects.
Mr. Mauritius Lowe l won the gold medal for painting ;
Mr. John Bacon that for sculpture. Flaxman (who had
been admitted a student in October) carried off a silver
medal only for a study from the model. The President's
second Discourse was delivered at this ceremony, and
is as appropriate to its occasion as the first. In it he
proposes to direct the student in his course of study,
with a just and modest deprecation of the charge of
vanity, on the score of his long experience and constant
assiduity. Much of that experience had been purchased,
he says, by a series of mistakes ; ' but " the history of
error, properly managed, often shortens the road to
truth." The chief object of his precepts is " to prevent
the misapplication of industry." He divides the
student's career into three epochs. In the first he has
to acquire " the language of his art " — the power of
drawing, modelling, and using colours with some degree
of correctness. In the second, he is to endeavour " to
collect subjects for expression — to amass a stock of
ideas." The whole of preceding art is now to be his
master ; but he must still be afraid of trusting his own
judgment, and of deviating into any track in which
he cannot find the footsteps of some former master.
In the third epoch he is to trust his own judgment,

1 He was a natural son of Lord
Southwell ; Johnson took an interest
in him, and stood godfather to one of
his children, but he seems to have been
worthless both as a man and an artist.
He was the first student sent to Rome
out of the royal grant, but painted no
picture, and lost the pension from non-
fulfilment of the conditions. He had
VOL. I.

been a pupil of Cipriani, and Northcote
says he owed the medal to the Italians
in the Academy, who were determined
the prize should go to the pupil of their
countryman. Lowe died in misery, at a
poor lodging-house in Westminster, in
September, 1793. Altogether the in
auguration of the prizes with such a
winner was not auspicious.

338 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
to consider and separate the principles of different
modes of beauty. As, in the preceding stage, he ought
to know and combine all excellences ; in this he is " to
. learn to discriminate incompatible perfections." From
this stage onwards he is a master. Instead of compar
ing works of art with each other, he is to test art itself
by nature, and may now first try the power of his
imagination. Here I may pause to ask the question, how the com
bination of excellences can be prior to the discrimination
of incompatible perfections ? It seems to me that the
second process involves the third : nor can I see how
the student is to understand excellences and defects in
art at all, except by use of that test of nature which
he is only to employ, according to Sir Joshua, after
passing his third stage.
We now return to the second stage — to show the
readiest path that leads to distant excellence.
" A great part of every man's life," Sir Joshua insists,
" must be spent in collecting materials for the exercise
of genius. Invention is little but new combination.
Nothing can come of nothing. Hence the necessity for
acquaintance with the works of your predecessors."
But of these, who are to be models — the guides ? The
answer is, " Those great masters who have travelled
with success the same road."
Here again I would pause to point out that this
course implies the need of a long study of previous
masters, before nature is ventured upon. But no
account is taken of those varieties of character and
temperament, which must make the masters, whose
study is invaluable to one man, comparatively valueless

1769, tetat. 46. HIS SECOND ' DISCOURSE.' 339
to another. How is the nature, attuned to Teniers and
Ostade, to profit by Raphael and Michael Angelo ?
Perhaps Reynolds would have answered such an objec
tion by giving permission to the student to choose his
masters and models according to his bent — on condition
that he chose those of long established excellence in the
particular line. But I do not think any sufficient recog
nition of this right will be found in the Discourses.
The President goes on, in his considerations of modes
of study, very wisely to condemn the practice of general
and finished copying. Even colouring, he points out,
may be better learned by close observation than by
attempts at imitating. To acquire the art of colouring-
he sends the student to nature, but only " after he has
clearly and distinctly learned (from pictures) in what
good colouring consists."
Then follow suggestions as to the really useful way of
copying ; to select the best parts and characteristic excel
lences of the picture copied ; instead of copying touches,
to copy conceptions (he means modes of conception) ;
instead of treading in other men's footsteps, to labour
only to keep in the same road. " Try to imagine how a
Michael Angelo or a Raffaele would have conducted
themselves, and work yourself into a belief that your pic
ture is to be seen and observed by them. Even enter
into a kind of competition with these great masters ;
paint a subject like theirs; a companion to any work
you think a model. Test your own work with the
model." I cannot but think that there reigns through all these
recommendations a characteristic fear of leaving the
student enough to himself; an exaggerated respect for
z 2

340 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. - Chap. V.
the old ways of conception and treatment ; a failure to
recognise the truth that art is multiform, but that the
Muse, while ever renascent, never reappears in the body
she has once worn and outgrown.
Sir Joshua goes on to recommend a master in style,
which he considers the same in painting as in writing ;
and his choice settles on Ludovico Caracci. He thinks
the choice justified by his breadth of light and shadow,
his simplicity of colouring, and the solemn effect of his
diffused twilight, which he considers better adapted to
grave and dignified subjects than " the more artificial "
brilliancy of sunshine which enlightens the pictures of
Titian. Here I must say I am stopped short by my inability
to understand how " sunshine " can be more artificial
than " twilight"- — how a habitual dimness is less a trick
than a habitual brilliancy — and, trick for trick, why
the gloomier and sadder should be supposed better suited
to dignified subjects than the brighter and more cheer
ing. Is Titian's Cornaro Family less dignified than L.
Caracci's St. Jerome — the Assumption of Venice than the
Transfiguration of Bologna ?
At the risk of the gravest charges of presumption,
had I been a hearer of Sir Joshua's I must have pro
tested alike against his choice of a model of style, and
his reasons for it. I see in this excessive glorification
of the Caracci style the influence of the taste of the time
upon the speaker, rather than the conclusion of his
genuine judgment ; and I appeal from the Pall-mall
Discourse to the Venetian Notes. I am sure that, what
ever Sir Joshua's pen might maintain, his whole artistic
heart leapt to Titian and Tintoret and Veronese, and

1769, jstat. 46. HIS SECOND ' DISCOURSE.' 341
flung to the winds, in its enjoyment of their splendour,
all the "gravity" and "dignity" of Caraccesque
twilight. To return to the Discourse. No exception can be
taken to all that Sir Joshua says of the need of labour
to the student. It holds true of the greatest genius, as
of the humblest plodder, that " excellence is granted to
no man but as the reward of labour." Continual appli
cation is the thing. " Let your portcrayon be never
out of your hands. Draw till you draw as mechanically
as you write. But, on every opportunity, paint your
studies instead of drawing them. Painting comprises
both drawing and colouring. The Venetians knew this,
and have left few sketches on paper."
Even the crowning lesson of the lecture, — often
excepted against, and not altogether true, — if considered
quoad hoc, as advice given to students, is sound :
" Have no dependence on your own genius : if you
have great talents, industry will improve them ; if you
have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their
deficiency. ^Nothing is denied to well-directed labour — ¦
nothing is to be obtained without it." This is whole
some doctrine for hearers, whose real powers are still
latent or in the germ.
The peroration is admirable. " I cannot help imagin
ing that I see a promising young painter equally vigilant
whether at home or abroad, in the streets or in the
fields. Every object that presents itself is to him a
lesson. He regards all nature with a view to his pro
fession, and combines her beauties, or corrects her de
fects. He examines the countenances of men under
the influence of passion, and often catches the most

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

' Chap. V.

pleasing hints from subjects of turbulence or deformity.
Eyen bad pictures themselves supply him with useful
documents, and, as Leonardo da Vinci has observed, he
improves upon the fanciful images that are sometimes
seen in the fire, or are accidentally sketched upon a
coloured wall."
A most true and exhilarating description ; enough to
kindle the young listeners on the benches before the
speaker into a glow of wholesome determination and
passionate eagerness for work. But it shows us the
student in constant perusal of the book of nature. Could
the lecturer have produced any such effect by describing
the student poring over pictures ? Did Reynolds him
self get his marvellous facility, his grace, his life, his
happiness of attitude, his truth of character, from study
of pictures, or from constantly applied natural powers
of keenest observation ? Did he not bring to the profit
able study of pictures — even at twenty-nine — long and
trained habits of observing faces and forms ? Was not
his study of pictures, in point of fact, only the comple
tion and accompaniment of his study of life, instead of
a distinct and preliminary stage of his labour, such as
he would make it for all these young men ? I fear we
must answer, in the affirmative, with Reynolds the
painter against Reynolds the discourser on painting.
To about this date 1 Northcote refers a story which
shows Sir Joshua's active humanity. Reading the
newspaper report of the Old Bailey sessions one morn
ing, he learned, to his astonishment, that a prisoner

1 I have little doubt, however, that
the circumstance occurred three years
before this, during the first Rocking

ham administration, when Burke was
in office. — Ed.

1769, jeha.1. 46. ADVICE TO BARRY. 343
had been condemned to death for robbing his own
negro servant, who had served the Morris family, and
whom he has painted holding the Marquis of Granby's
horse. The man, being questioned, told Sir Joshua
that, having been sent by his master one night to
accompany Miss Anne Williams (Johnson's blind pen
sioner) to Bolt-court, he had found the doors locked on
his return to Leicester-square, and had been driven to
take shelter in a neighbouring watch-house, where he
was robbed of his watch and money. He gave the
alarm, and the thief was taken with the articles in his
possession, committed, tried, and sentenced to death,
in the rapid and stern fashion of the criminal justice
of that time. Sir Joshua at once sent his confidential
man, Ralph Kirkley, to Newgate, who found the poor
wretch, in the filth and horror of the condemned cell,
awaiting his execution. Sir Joshua sent him clothes
and food, and, by Mr. Burke's interest, got his sentence
commuted to transportation for life.]
In the course of this year Reynolds threw away
some admirable advice on Barry, in a letter which, like
Burke's letters to the same intractable man, has doubt
less been of service to others, though it was of none
to him. Barry was at Rome when Sir Joshua wrote to
him : —
" Dear Sir,
" I am very much obliged to you for your
remembrance of me in your letter to Mr. Burke,
which though I have read with great pleasure as a
composition, I cannot help saying, with some regret to
find that so great a portion of your attention has been

344 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
engaged upon temporary matters, which might have
been so much more profitably employed upon what
would stick by you through your whole life.
" Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed
in any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon
that one object, from the moment he rises till he goes
to bed. The effect of every object that meets the
painter's eye may give him a lesson, provided his mind
is calm, unembarrassed with other objects, and open to
instruction. This general attention, with other studies
connected with the art, which must employ the artist
in his closet, will be found sufficient to fill up life, if
it were much longer than it is. Were I in your place,
I should consider myself playing a great game, and
never suffer the little malice and envy of my rivals to
draw off. my attention from the main object ; which if
you pursue with a steady eye, it will not be in the
power of all the cicerones in the world to hurt you.
While they are endeavouring to prevent the gentlemen
from employing the young artists, instead of injuring
them, they are, in my opinion, doing them the greatest
service. Whilst I was at Rome I was very little em
ployed by them, and that I always considered as so
much time lost : copying those ornamental pictures
which the travelling gentlemen always bring home
with them as furniture for their houses, is far from
being the most profitable manner of a student spending
his time.
" Whoever has great views, I would recommend to
him, whilst at Rome, rather to live on bread and water
than lose those advantages which he can never hoj>e
to enjoy a second time, and which he will find only in

1769, 2etat. 46. ADVICE TO BARRY. 345
the Vatican, where, I will engage, no cavalier sends
his students to copy for him. I do not mean this as
any reproach to the gentlemen : the works in that place,
though they are the proper study of an artist, make
but an awkward figure painted in oil and reduced to
the size of easel pictures. The Capella Sistina is the
production of the greatest genius that was ever em
ployed in the arts ; it is worth considering by what
principles that stupendous greatness of style is pro
duced, and endeavouring to produce something of your
own on those principles will be a more advantageous
method of study than copying the St. Cecilia in the
Borghese, or the Herodias of Guido, which may be
copied to eternity without contributing one jot towards
making a man a more able painter.
" If you neglect visiting the Vatican often, and par
ticularly the Capella Sistina, you will neglect receiving
that peculiar advantage which Rome can give above
all other cities in the world. In other places you will
find casts from the antique and capital pictures of the
great masters, but it is there only that you can form an
idea of the dignity of the art, as it is there only that
you can see the works of Michel Angelo and Raffaelle.
If you should not relish them at first, which may pro
bably be the case, as they have none of those qualities
which are captivating at first sight, never cease looking
till you feel something like inspiration come over you,
till you think every other painter insipid in comparison,
and to be admired only for petty excellences.
" I suppose you have heard of the establishment of
a Royal Academy here ; the first opportunity I have,
I will send you the Discourse I delivered at its opening,

346

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

which was the 1st of January. As I hope you will be
hereafter one of our body, I wish you would, as oppor
tunity offers, make memorandums of the regulations of
the academies that you may visit in your travels, to
be engrafted on our own, if they should be found
useful. " I am, with the greatest esteem, yours,
" J. Reynolds.
" On reading my letter over, I think it requires
some apology for the blunt appearance of a dictatorial
style, in which I have obtruded my advice. I am
forced to write in a great hurry, and have little time
for polishing my style." 1

[List of Sitters for 1769
January?
Lady Almeria Carpenter ;
Master Floyer (Fludyer ?) ; Miss
Whitbread; Miss Harriet Whit-

bread; Miss Emma Whitbread;
Miss Morris; Captain Bowyer;
Mr. W. Grimston ; 3 Mr. Blake ; 4
Sir W. Blackett; Mr. Acland;

1 Among Barry's papers was found
an anonymous letter, which Northcote
believed to be a joint production of
Burke and Reynolds. Barry, to his
cost, despised portraiture, on which
there can scarcely be a doubt Reynolds
in this letter thus wrote to him : —
"Portrait-painting may be to the
painter what the practical knowledge
of the world is to the poet, provided
ho considers it as a school by which
he is to acquire the means of perfection
in his art, and not as the object of that
perfection. It was practical knowledge
of the world which gave the poetry of
Homer and Shakspeare that supe
riority which still exists over all other
works of the same kind ; and it was a
philosophic attention to the imitation

of common nature, which portrait-
painting ought to be, that gave the
Roman and Bolognese schools their
superiority over the Florentine, which
excelled so much in the theory of the
art." 2 Opposite Monday, January 2nd, —
" Opening of the Royal Academy ;" the
first Discourse ; Tuesday, 7, Academy ;
Thursday, 7, Academy ; Monday, 30th,
Academy, 6.
3 To be finished, framed, and packed
up. * Afterwards Sir Patrick, of Irish
family, and large property in the West
Indies and Suffolk, and a neighbour
of Sir Charles Bunbury, whose sister
Arabella he married. His picture is
at Barton Hall ; a full-length; in red,

1769, ^btat. 46.

SITTERS 1769.

347

Mr. Cruttenden; Mrs. Blake;
Mrs. Horton. February?
Mr. Jones ; Mr. Yonge ; Mrs.
Bouverie ; * Miss Grimston ; Mr.
Garrick; Mr. Croft; Mrs. Croft;
Miss Newnham ; Miss Price ;
Mrs. Earl; Lady Molyneux;
Lady Mary Fox; Miss Hickey;
Sir Watkin Williams Wynne ;
Lady Ancram. March.
Miss Harriet (Bouverie) ; Mr.
Hope ; Lady Delawar ; 3 Mr.

Conway ; Mr. Cox ; Lady Harriet
Somerset ; 4 Mrs. Wilson ; Mrs.
Crewe; Mr. Jones; Miss Fox;
Miss Harriet Powell.5 April?
Mr. Burke;7 Miss Norcliffe;
the Duke of Dorset ; the Duchess
of Douglas ; ° Miss Gell (model) ;
Lady Innis ; Mrs. Pownall ; Cap
tain PownaU ; Miss Luttrell ; '
Mr. Simmons (Simmonds).
May.10
Sir James Norcliffe (and dog) ;
Lady Norcliffe ; u Lady Gideon ;
Lord Carlisle ; Mrs. Burke.

with a hawk on his wrist, and the
picture is well preserved.
1 Tuesday, 14th, 7, Academy. Sun
day, 19th, Preface (of his first Dis
course) or the catalogue. Saturday,
25th, Academy, 7. Tuesday, 28th,
Academy. 2 For the full-length picture of her
tossing her child, still at Delapre
Abbey. The robe, which was once
warm rose, is now chilly purple. In
other respects the picture is in good
condition. It has been well engraved.
It is graceful in composition, though
the mother's figure is unnaturally
long. 3 Mem. — " Mr. Tomkins, landscape-
painter, in Margaret Street, Cavendish
Square. Lord Delawar's lodge in the
New Forest." Was this for a picture
of the lodge to be copied into the back
ground of her ladyship's picture ?
4 Now on the point of marriage with
Sir W. W. Wynne. She is repre
sented with Sir Watkin in a full-
length group. They both wear Italian
costumes with masks in their hands.
The picture is rather feebly painted,
or may have suffered in the fire at
Wynnstay. It looked flat and in

effective when I saw it in January,
1862. 5 The actress, with a bird on her
hand, as Leonora in the ' Padlock.'
0 Tuesday, 4th, 7, Academy. Satur
day, 13th, 7, Academy. Sunday, 23rd,
(9) King?
7 On a Saturday, and at one.
8 Mem. — " To be sent to Leith by
sea, care of Mr. Foot, directed to Mr.
Charles Brown, writer, at Edinburgh.
9 " When Miss Luttrell is finished,
to write Mr. Luttrell, Dunster Castle,
Somersetshire." Miss Luttrell was the
sister of Mrs. Horton, afterwards
Duchess of Cumberland. They were
sisters of Col. Luttrell, who at the
time Miss Luttrell was sitting was in
the full flush of his notoriety as the
opponent of Wilkes at the Middlesex
election on the 13 th of April. Their
father was Simon Luttrell, Lord Car-
hampton, an Irish peer.
10 Monday, 15th, 7, Academy. Opp.
Monday, May 22nd, premium, — 1st for
pictures ; 2nd for Academys ; 3rd for
plaster study. (Arrangements mak
ing for prizes at the Academy.)
11 The copy of Lady Norcliffe is to
be kept till called for.

348

LIFE OF SJ.R JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

June?
Mr. Colman ; Mr. Vansittart ; 2
Mr. Chambers ; Mr. Eoffey ; Miss
Toms ; Miss Gell (models ?).
July.
Lady Broughton ; Lady Corn-
wallis ; Mr. Whetham.

Archers ; * Mr. Crawford ; Sir
Watkin Williams Wynne.5
September.
Lady Kerry ; Miss Godde
Miss Storr ; Dr. Hawkesworth.
October?
Mr. Professor Watson.7

1 " Wednesday, June 19, Foot, Dr.
Last." A visit to the Haymarket
to enjoy Foote's play of ' The Devil on
Two Sticks,' brought out in May, 1768,
but repeated this season.
2 Who sits to him at the India
House. Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Scrafton,
and Col. Ford were this month ap
pointed by the East India Company
Supervisors of their establishments in
India, with very large authority to
examine, remodel, and rectify what
ever they found amiss. They sailed
in the Aurora frigate. She was
wrecked off the Azores, when all on
board perished.
3 Captain Torryn's picture by the
Kingston carrier in Oxford Street,
that calls at the Green Man and
Still, Oxford-Road; to be directed to
him at Radnage, by High Wycombe,
Bucks. 4 Several times. Models for his
picture of Lord Sidney and Mr. Acland
as archers. Now at High Clere, the
Earl of Carnarvon's. These gentle
men, when thus painted, were close
friends. They had made the grand
tour together, and wished to have their
intimacy recorded by being thus
painted on one canvas. Alas for mor
tal friendships ! They quarrelled be
fore the picture was well "finished, and
each declined paying for it and taking
it home. Thus it came into the hands
of the Earl of Carnarvon.
5 At this time a disconsolate
widower. He had married on April

13th of this year Henrietta, daughter
of the Duke of Beaufort, and had lost
her' on July the 24th. Sir W. W.
was now in his 20th year, a gay, ac
complished bon -vivant, loving the
arts, the friend of Garrick and Eey
nolds, and a king in his own county.
He came of age in 1770, and in the
' Annual Register ' for that year (April)
will be found the bill of fare for the
Gargantuesque banquet at Wynnstay
that celebrated the event, when 15,000
people were feasted in the park. He
married again in 1771, Charlotte
daughter of the Hon. George Grenville,
a beautiful and accomplished woman,
twice painted by Sir Joshua.
6 The following* engagements, ex
tending over three months, show how
much time Sir Joshua was now devot
ing to the Academy : — Monday, Oc
tober 2nd, 3, opening of the lectures.
Wednesday, 4th, 7, Academy. Mon
day, 9th, 5J, lectures at the Academy.
Friday, 13th, 7, Council. Monday,
16th, 5J, Academy. Monday, 23rd,
5&, lecture; 7, Council. Monday,
Nov. 27th, Council. Wednesday, 29th,
7, Academy. December 1st, 1, pre
miums. Monday, December 4th, the
King, I have'little doubt on Academy
business ; 5£, lecture. Tuesday, 5th,
Council. Saturday, 9th, Council. Mon
day, 11th, 5J, lecture (his second Dis
course) ; 7, election ; 9, student, to give
the medal. Friday, 15th, 7i, Council.
7 Watson, afterwards Bishop of
Llandaff, now Professor of Chemistry

1769, xiat. 46.

SITTERS 1769.

349

November.
Lord Eobert Spencer ;
Lethbridge ; Mr. Parker.

Mr.

December.
Miss Hunter; Miss Angelica
(Kauffman) ; Lord Hardwick.1

1770*, astat. 47. — The political agitations of this
year affected many of Sir Joshua's friends too closely

at Cambridge ; to which chair he had
been unanimously elected in 1764,
when he knew nothing whatever of the
science. He was now in London, a
newly elected Fellow of the Royal
Society. The picture is in possession
of his descendant, Mr. Watson, Sec.
of the Antiquarian Society.
1 The following notes on Sir Joshua's
practice belong to this year : —
" April 3rd, 1769.— Per gli colori
cinabro (vermilion) biacca, ultramarin
e nero, senza giallo. Prima in olio ;
ultima con vernice solo e giallo."
" The colours just named," remarks
Sir C. Eastlake, "(without yellow)
were mixed with oil for the first sit
ting^) ; yellow afterwards added with
mastic varnish alone."
On May 17 he gives what seems a
minuter description of this method : —
" On a grey ground : First sitting,
vermilion, lake, white, black ; second,
ditto; third, ditto, ultramarine; last,
senza olio, yellow ochre, black, lake,
vermilion, touched upon with white."
" Senza olio," says Eastlake, " is
equivalent to with varnish only." This
last painting was a glaze.
" Mrs. Bouverie " (finished this year).
The face senza olio, and the boy's
head ; the rest painted con olio, and
afterwards glazed with varnish and
colour, except the green, which was
glazed with oil, and then varnished.
The vail (sic) and white linnen (sic)
painted senza .(olio).
The lake in the draperies of this
picture has flown, and the heads have
lost most of their carnation. But it is
impossible to say whether this is due

altogether to internal decay.
" " July 10, 1769. My own picture,
painted first with oil, aft(erwards)
glazed, without white, with capivi (co
paiba), yellow ochre, and lake — no
varnish." Part of this, after " oil," is
struck through with the pen, and the
memorandum runs, " painted with
lake, yellow ochre, blue and black, capi
(copaiba), and cera vem."
The " wax varnish " was made by
dissolving wax in spirit of turpentine,
and then used with the colours ground
in oil. The correction was necessary,
as he had added this varnish with blue
and black.
This is the head given to Mrs.
Burke, and was the same, I believe, as
the head at the Dilettanti, and the one
in the Cottonian Library, Plymouth,
which belonged to his nephew the Dean
of Cashel.
" Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith : first,
olio ; after, capivi with colour, but
without white ; the hand of Gold
smith with copaiba and white."
This is the head of Johnson without
his wig in the Duke of Sutherland's
collection, of which there is a duplicate
at Knole. The carnations have gone.
The Goldsmith is at Knole, and has
stood well.
Mrs. Horton, con copaiba senza
giallo : giallo quando era finito de pin-
gere, con lacca, e giallo quasi solo, e
poi glaze with ultramarine.
Here successive glazings had been
employed, first with yellow alone,
then with lake, then yellow again,
then ultramarine.

350 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
for him to have remained indifferent to what was
passing in Parliament and in the streets, even if we
suppose his constitutional moderation to have extended,
as it probably did, to his political opinions.
Long before January the Grafton administration had
begun to totter under the effect of dissensions within
and assaults from without. Rockingham addresses and
petitions, promoted and presented in almost every case
by friends and sitters of Sir Joshua's, praying for a dis
solution of Parliament, kept pouring in from the
counties ; London mobs ran riot to the cry of " Wilkes
and Liberty;" the debts of Wilkes were paid by the
Society of the Bill of Rights and by public subscription ;
he was elected alderman for the ward of Farringdon
Without in April, and entered upon his functions on
his release from the King's Bench the same month. On
the 23rd of May William Beckford, the Lord Mayor,
another of the painter's early acquaintances and patrons,
had startled the Court from its propriety by presuming
to answer the King, after the monarch had replied to
the address of the City praying for a dissolution. The
terrible pen of Junius, from lacerating the minister,
had in December of the preceding year been turned,
for the first time, against the King in person.
Most of Sir Joshua's friends in the Grafton adminis
tration were included in the resignations of January
— the Duke of Beaufort, the Earl of Coventry, the
Marquis of Granby, the Duke of Manchester, Camden
the Lord Chancellor, and Dunning the Solicitor-General.
This defection was followed by the resignation of the
Duke of Grafton before the close of the month, and the
installation of Lord North in his place.

1770, 2etat. 47. POLITICAL EVENTS. 351
The session was memorable for the reconciliation
of the Rockinghams, Chathams, and Grenvilles, in a
united opposition against the King, his subservient
Cabinet, and their venal majority, on the great consti
tutional question of the Middlesex election. The very
decided preponderance of the Opposition — both in Lords
and Commons — among Sir Joshua's patrons, is curiously
proved by comparing with his lists of sitters the signa
tures to the famous Peers' protest of this year, and the
names of the guests at the Lord Mayor's Opposition
balls and banquets in Guildhall. Sir Joshua could not
have escaped from the question of the day, however
indisposed to face political heats or to take part in
political quarrels. He was the intimate, and frequent
guest, as well as host, of Wilkes, the hero of the strife.
At the Club he sat between Johnson and Burke. The
former had lately turned pamphleteer, and in his ' False
Alarm,' published this year, maintained the soundness
of the doctrine held by Ministers and their majority,
— that Wilkes's expulsion from the house carried with
it incapacity for re-election to the same Parliament.
Burke was the champion of the opposite view in the
House of Commons, and the author of the ' Thoughts
on the present Discontents,' which, after careful cor
rection and revision at the hands of the leaders of his
party, saw the light in April this year.
Then, too, the authorship of Junius was a question in
which " The Club " was especially interested, and which
its members must, almost perforce, have frequently
discussed at their meetings. Sir Joshua was too inti
mate with Burke to share the very prevalent belief
which identified him with the masked assailant of the

352

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

King and the King's friends in the ' Public Advertiser.'
But he himself told Malone * that he believed the author
of the famous letters was a member of the Club —
Samuel Dyer (whose portrait he painted2) — and that
he was assisted by both Edmund and William Burke
in the composition of his letters. Sir Joshua was dili
gent, as usual, at the Councils of the Academy from the
beginning of the year. At the meeting on the 9th of
January, Johnson was elected Professor of Ancient
Literature, Goldsmith Professor of Ancient History, and
Dalton Antiquarian. On the 15th the subjects for the
gold medals were selected.3 Whether or not the poli
tical bitterness of the period had anything to do with
the absence of politicians of mark from Sir Joshua's
painting-room this year, it is certain that the number'
of such sitters in 1770 is unusually small. Ladies and
children principally occupied his pencil. Among them
was Mrs. Trecothick, wife of the intrepid alderman who
succeeded Beckford, at his death on the 21st of June
in this year, during his second Mayoralty. A statue
was voted in Beckford's honour, which still stands in
Guildhall, with his memorable answer to the King —
spoken less than a month before his death — engraved
on the pedestal. The design was by Carlini, member
of the Royal Academy. We know that long before

1 Prior's ' Life of Malone,' pp. 418-
419. 2 It was painted for Burke. There
is a mezzotinto from it, which has
been copied for the ' Lives of the
Poets,' by mistake, for the portrait of
John Dyer, author of ' The Fleece.'
Samuel Dyer was a man of mark even
among such men as Burke, JohnsoD,

and Reynolds. Educated for the dis
senting ministry, he was an excellent
scholar and mathematician. He died
in 1772.— Ed.
3 For oil painting, iEneas stopped
on the threshold by Creusa ; for bas-
relief, the Rape of Proserpine; for
architectural design, a nobleman's
villa.

1770, ;etat. 47. THE ' UGOLINO.'

the close of the year Sir Joshua was already at work
on his Ugolino, and the public was informed of the
great work in hand. The ' Annual Register ' of
this year contains a statement to that effect, and
a translation of the passage from the ' Inferno ' on
which the picture is founded. But -there is, further,
the direct evidence of the pocket-book, which con
tains numerous entries, beginning in June, and
running to the end of the year, referring to the subject
by name, — sometimes " Beggar, Hugolino," sometimes
" Hugolino " alone. Northcote is therefore certainly
wrong in stating that the picture had been begun as
a historical composition not long before it was exhibited
in 1773. It may be true that the choice of the subject
was determined, as Northcote says, by an observation
of Burke or Goldsmith, that the head of the old model,
White, which Sir Joshua had painted on a half-length
canvas, was exactly suited, in expression, to the Ugolino
of Dante. But I should be inclined to think that Sir
Joshua had long meditated a picture on this subject,
and that the idea may have been first suggested by a
passage in Richardson's ' Discourses,' the perusal of
which, he used to say, made him a painter. In this pas
sage, Richardson, after giving a translation of Dante's
terrible episode and a description of Michael Angelo's
bas-relief of the scene in the dungeon, suggests that a
great painter might carry the subject still further, and
expatiates eloquently on its sources of effect.1
Death was busy this year among Sir Joshua's kindest
1 See his 'Discourse on the Dignity, I the Science of a Connoisseur,' p. 263
Certainty, Pleasure, and Advantage of | (edition of 1773).— Ed.
VOL. I. 2 A

354 LIFE OP SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
and earliest patrons. Besides Alderman Beckford, who
had sat to him in 1758, the Marquis of Granby, who
had abandoned all his posts and even his colonelcy of
the Blues on his resignation of the Ordnance in January,
died on the 11th of October; Lord Ligonier had pre
ceded him to the grave in April, light-hearted to the
last moment of his long life. The same month was
fatal to Sir John Cust, whom Sir Joshua had so lately
painted in all the pomp and pride of the Speaker
ship ; the Duke of Argyle and George Grenville died
in November.
From a society vexed with political heats and
struggles Sir Joshua must have been glad to with
draw to harmless gallantry and pleasant tea-table hours
with the Hornecks, or Mrs. Cholmondeley, or to
shilling whist and literary discussion with Colman and
Goldsmith, whose portraits, as well as Johnson's, he
exhibited this year
It was probably either in company with Goldsmith,
or with Sir Charles Bunbury, Topham Beauclerc, Lord
Robert Spencer, and others of his gayer associates of
the Dilettanti Society and the Star and Garter Club,
that Sir Joshua showed himself at Mrs. Cornely's
brilliant rooms in Soho Square, for which I find him
noting an engagement on Friday the 30th of March ;
and again for the masquerade of April 26th. On
the 26th of February the Thursday Night Club, of
which Sir Joshua was the most constant of members,
had given a masquerade at the same rooms, which was
the town's talk for the splendour of the dresses and the
beauty and distinction of the company ; but Sir Joshua

1770, jetat. 47. MASQUERADE AT MRS. CORNELY'S.

355

has not entered in his pocket-book any engagement for
that night.1

1 Here is the account of the prin
cipal characters from a magazine of the
time : —
" The masquerade at Mrs. Cornely's
on Monday night, the 26th of Feb.,
was perhaps the most brilliant and
characteristic of any ever known in
this kingdom, arising from the tickets
not being made transferable. The
populace were so anxious to see the
persons that appeared there, that
several people of some credit, under the
stale pretence of ' Wilkes and 45,'
made a point of there exhibiting them
selves in their carriages. Though the
newspapers had it that their Majesties
were present, we can assure the pubhc
they were not.
" The Duke of Cumberland in the
character of Henry VIII.
" Lord Carlisle in the Running
Footman. " Mr. Garrick in the character of a
celebrated doctor at the Maccaroni.
" Mrs. Garrick in an Italian shep
herdess. " Lady G  in the character of
Night. " A Highlander, Mr. J. R. Conway.
" A double man, half miller, half
chimney-sweeper, Sir R. Philips.
" A political Bedlamite, run mad for
Wilkes and Liberty, and No. 45.
" A Druid, Sir W. W. Wynne.
" A figure of Somebody.
" Ditto of Nobody.
" His Royal Highness the Duke of
Gloucester in the old English habit,
with a star on the cloak.
" Midas, Mr. Jones the painter.
" A gentleman and lady in the cha
racters of Tancred and Sigismunda ;
their dresses were allowed to be the
most elegant ever seen on a similar
occasion, and said to have cost twenty
thousand pounds.

" The Countess Dowager of Walde
grave, in the character of Jane Shore,
wore a dress richly trimmed with
beads and pearls, and was truly elegant.
(A mistake : the costume, Walpole
tells us, was Elizabeth Woodville's.)
" Her Grace of Ancaster, whose
taste for dress and elegance of pjerson
claimed the attention of all the com
pany, in the dress of Mandane.
" The Countess of Pomfret, in the
character of a Greek Sultana, and the
two Miss Frederics, who accompanied
her as Greek slaves, made a complete
group. " The Duchess of Bolton, in the
character of Diana, was no less than
captivating. " Lord Edgecumbe, in the character
of an Old Woman, was full as lovely as
his lady in that of a Nun.
" Lady Stanhope, as Melpomene, was
a striking fine figure.
" Lady Augusta Stuart, as a Vestal,
and Lady Caroline, as a Fille de Pat-
mos, showed that true elegance may
be ¦ expressed without gold and dia
monds. " The Chimney-sweeper, Quack-
Doctor, Jockey, a Friar, and Mungo,
acquitted themselves with much enter
tainment to the company.
" The Earl of Upper Ossory, in the
character of a Cardinal.
" The Hon. Mr. Butler, in Don
Felix. " Earl of M  1 (Mountstuart), in
the pontifical habit of the Pope.
" There was one gentleman in the
character of the Devil. Another was
in a domino entirely made of court
cards ; which made a mask in the cha
racter of Harlequin observe, 'there
was a knave in the dress,' which the
company could not see. Several ap
peared in the characters of conjurors
2 a2

356

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

The Exhibition was opened to the King on the 20th
and 28th of April, — to the public on the 24th. Before
the opening, a resolution had been passed, " that no
needle-work, artificial flowers, cut paper, shell-work, or
any such baubles, should be admitted." The Incor
porated Society of Artists, as also that still exhibiting
in Maiden Lane, admitted such "baubles" freely.
Walpole writes to Mann in May, " We have at present
three Exhibitions. One West, who paints history in the
taste of Poussin, gets three hundred pounds for a piece
not too large to hang over a chimney. He has merit,
but is hard and heavy, and far unworthy of such prices.
The rage to see these exhibitions is so great, that some
times one cannot pass through the streets where they
are. But it is incredible what sums are raised by mere

and witches ; particularly the Duchess
of Buccleugh, in the Witch of Endor.
" Captain Watson, of the Guards,
who appeared in the character of
Adam, had his dress fitted so close,
and painted so natural, that most of
the masks, on his first approach,
started, imagining him to be really
naked. He personated his part with
great propriety and drollery. Being
asked by a mask whether he knew
him, on his answering No, — ' What !
not know your own son?' says the
mask. ' What is there extraordinary
in that ?' replied Adam ; ' 'tis a wise
man that knows his own child.'
" The gentleman who played the
patriotic Bedlamite had his mask
painted so like Mr, Wilkes, that he
would have passed for that gentleman
in propria persona, but for the recol
lection of his present confinement.
" What added greatly to the enter
tainment was a duet, sung by Mrs.
Crew and Lady Almeria Carpenter, in

the characters of ballad-singers, which
so entertained the whole company,
that they were encored several times,
which they very obligingly acquiesced
in. This song was as follows : —
' What a motley generation,
Sprung from Fancy's teeming brain,
Shifting age, and sex, and station,
Swarm within this magic plain !
Sport, ye children of delusion,
In the beams of mimic fun ;
Well its brilliant, gay effusion
May supply the absent sun.
Sport, nor call it Masquerade,
Where, from ail detection free,
Ev'ry heart is disarray'd,
Whose complexion none can see.
May those who (habits used to borrow)
Cannot prove to-night sincere,
Be, when dress'd for life to-morrow,
Perfectly what they appear.'
"About two o'clock the company
began to depart, in effecting which
there was a great difficulty, and at six
in the morning three or four hundred
remained in the rooms. Notwith
standing the interdiction of dominos,
expressed in the tickets, some few ap
peared among the company."

1770, iETAT. 47.

THE EXHIBITION.

357

exhibition of anything, a new fashion, and to enter at
which you pay a shilling or half-a-crown. Another
rage is for prints of English portraits. I have been col
lecting them for thirty years, and originally never gave
for a mezzotinto above one or two shillings. The lowest
are now a crown ; most from half a guinea to a guinea.
Then we have Etrurian vases, made of earthenware in
Staffordshire by Wedgwood, from two to five guineas, and
ormoulu, never made here before, which succeeds so well,
that a teakettle, which the inventor offered for one hun
dred guineas, sold by auction for one hundred and thirty.
In short, we are at the height of extravagance and im
provement, for we improve rapidly in taste, as well as
in the former. I cannot say so much for our genius."!
In 1770 Sir Joshua exhibited eight pictures : —
Lord Sidney and Colonel Acland, as archers.
Mrs. Bouverie.
Miss Price, the daughter of Uvedale Price, as a
little shepherdess.1
Lady Cornwallis, half length.
The Children in the Wood ; and
Three-quarter portraits of Johnson, Goldsmith, and
Colman.2 He painted two. pictures of the Children in the

1 Now in the Marquis of Salisbury's
gallery. 2 The two former portraits are those
now at Knole : the latter was painted
for the Earl of Mulgrave in 1767,
though not exhibited till this year.
This picture having been placed by Sir
Joshua near the fire in order to hasten
its drying, a gust of wind, rushing
down the chimney, covered the canvas
with soot while the colours were still

moist. Hence, says Northcote, its dark
tone. This may have been the picture
and occasion of the incident men
tioned to Jackson by Sir George Beau
mont — of Sir Joshua taking a picture
on which soot had accidentally fallen,
and, with the remark, " a fine, cool
tint," scumbling it beautifully into the
flesh (Haydon, ' Autobiography,' iii.
p. 390).— Ed.

358 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
Wood. In one the babes are still living, and one is
feeding the other with blackberries. Nothing can be
more natural and innocent than their expressions. In
the other they are dead ; or, rather, he appears to have
supposed that before death they had fallen asleep, for
sleep it is that he has painted, not death.
The origin of this last picture was, like that of many
of his conceptions, accidental. I have heard from
Northcote that it was his custom on meeting a pic
turesque beggar in the street,^ — man, woman, or child, —
to send him or her to his house, to wait his leisure in a
lower apartment : and in the intervals between his
appointments he would order one of them into his
painting-room to sit for a fancy picture. It would
sometimes happen that, while his throne was thus occu
pied, a thundering peal at the street-door would be
heard ; the beggar hurried away, and some full-dressed
Duchess would sail in, and seat herself in the vacated
chair. " If she could but have known," said North
cote, " who had just left it !"
Reynolds sometimes had no other sitters than his
beggars. Northcote, who sat at work in the next room,
would often hear the voice of a child, " Sir, — Sir,—
I'm tired." There would be a little movement, another
half-hour would pass, and then the plaintive repetition,
" Sir ! — I'm tired." It happened once, as it probably
often did, that one of these little sitters fell asleep, and
in so beautiful an attitude that Sir Joshua instantly put
away the picture he was at work on, and took up a
fresh canvas. After sketching the little model as it
lay, a change took place in its position ; he moved his
canvas to make the change greater, and, to suit the

1770, 2etat. 47. CRITICISM ON THE EXHIBITION.

359

purpose he had conceived, sketched the child again.
The result was the picture of the Babes in the Wood
now in the possession of Viscount Palmerston.1
[The Exhibition closed to the public on Saturday,
May 26th; but it was kept open on the following
Monday, at the King's express wish, for a last visit of
the Royal Family. The amount received at the door
was 971Z. 6s. We have a contemporary criticism of the
pictures in a letter which Mary Moser, one of the two
lady Academicians (a very clever flower-painter), wrote
to Fuseli, who was now studying at Rome : —
" I suppose there has been a million of letters sent
to Italy with an account of our Exhibition, so it will be
only telling you what you know already to say Reynolds
was like himself in pictures which you have seen ;
Gainsborough beyond himself in a portrait of a gen
tleman in a Yandyke habit ; 2 and Zoffany superior to
everybody in a portrait of Garrick in the character of
Abel Drugger, with two other figures, Subtle and Face.
Sir Joshua agreed to give a hundred guineas for the
picture ; Lord Carlisle half an hour afterwards offered
Reynolds twenty to part with it, which the Knight
generously refused, resigned his intended purchase to
the Lord, and the emolument to his brother artist. (He
is a gentleman ! 3) Angelica i made a very great addi-

1 It is much faded; but the ex
pression of repose in the principal
figure is admirable. — Ed.
2 One of Gainsborough's five por
traits this year was a three-quarters
of Garrick, which Walpole notes as
" very like.'; He contributed, besides, a
landscape and " a book of drawings."
3 See for traits of like generosity
and kindliness the story of Ozias

Humphrey (Northcote's Life, vol. ii.,
177).— Ed.
* She sent — Vortigem grows en
amoured of Rowena at Hengist's ban
quet; Hector upbraiding Paris ; Cleo
patra adorning Marc Antony's tomb;
a subject from Klopstock's ' Messiah ' —
the Demoniac weeping over her mur
dered Child.— Ed.

360

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

tion to the show ; and Mr. Hamilton's picture, of Briseis
parting from Achilles was very much admired : the
Briseis, in taste a Vantique, elegant and simple. Coates,
Dancer, Wilson, &c, as usual. Mr. West1 had no
large picture finished .... Some of the literati of the
Royal Academy were very much disappointed, as they
could not obtain diplomas : but the Secretary,2 who is
above trifles, has since made a very flattering compli
ment to the Academy in the preface to his Travels :
the Professor of History is comforted with the success
of his ' Deserted Village,' which is a very pretty poem,
and has lately put himself under the conduct of Mrs.
Horneck and her fair daughters, and is gone to France ;
and Dr. Johnson sips his tea, and cares not for the
vanity of the world.
" Sir Joshua a few days ago entertained the Council
and Visitors3 with Calipash and Calipee."]
I have seen nothing on canvas more touching — not
even by that master of pathos, Gainsborough — than
Reynolds's portrait of Goldsmith. It recalls all that is
known of the sufferings of the tenderest and warmest
of hearts. In that thoughtful, patient, face the traces
of a life of endurance, and the consciousness of being
misunderstood and undervalued, are as unmistakable as
the benevolence that is meditating how to amuse and
make better a world by which it was considered a
vulgar face, and which had treated the owner of it so
scurvily. But Reynolds, not being one of the vulgar,

1 He showed two, — Leonidas and
Cleombrotus, and a portrait of a
Mother and Child. — Ed.
2 Baretti.

3 The Visitors are those Acade
micians who are appointed to teach in
the Life School. — Ed.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

1770, .etat. 47. PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH. 361
saw no vulgarity in the head of Goldsmith ; and we
may be sure he did not agree with many of his friends
in considering him " very like a journeyman tailor,"
or with Miss Reynolds, in thinking him " the ugliest of
men." An inferior painter might have easily succeeded
in giving a vulgar look to Goldsmith, by dressing him
in his plum-coloured coat, and hiding his honest,
open forehead under a well-powdered wig. So painted,
the portrait might have seemed to the acquaintances
of Goldsmith more like than that of Reynolds. But
Sir Joshua meant 'to paint the author of the ' Vicar of
Wakefield ' and of the ' Deserted Village,' and not the
Goldy who was laughed at by Boswell and Hawkins,
and quizzed by Burke. It may be noticed that the
ideal drapery of this portrait and the view of the face
almost exactly correspond to the painter's treatment
of his very early portrait of his own father.
This head of Goldsmith is to me the most pathetic
picture Reynolds ever painted: not only because, in
looking at it, I think of the ' Deserted Village,' but far
more because the sufferings of a whole life and of the
tenderest of hearts are written in it. The Ugolino of
Reynolds is agonizing ; but the portrait of Oliver
Goldsmith displays a gentler, yet a rarer power, than
was required to delineate the sufferings of the dying
family in the terrible Tower.
[The portrait of Goldsmith must have been an object
of special attraction in the Exhibition just before its
doors were closed.
On May 26th, after many postponements and prema
ture advertisements, had appeared his poem of 'The
Deserted Village,' with a dedication to Sir Joshua.

362 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
"I can have no expectations," writes the poet, "in
an address of this kind, either to add to your reputa
tion or to establish my own. You can gain nothing
from my admiration, as I am ignorant of the art in
which you are said to excel, and I may lose much by
the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste
in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside —
to which I never paid much attention — I must' be
indulged at present in following my affections. The
only dedication I ever made was to my brother, be
cause I loved him better than most other men. He
is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you."
The poem attained wide and immediate popularity, and
before the end of August reached a fifth edition.
Whatever Reynolds might think of the political
economy of Goldsmith's exquisite Idyll — which the
Doctor maintained to be his own honest deduction from
observation — he deserved the honour of this dedica
tion by his fellow-feeling for the subject, as well as
his thorough appreciation of the poet. In every loving
reminiscence of a humble country birthplace ; in every
touch descriptive of village character, sports, and enjoy
ments ; in every trait of that unrivalled picture of
the good pastor " passing rich with forty pounds a
year," the painter's heart must have gone along with
the poet's.
In none of the great men of the Club could Goldsmith
have found a stronger, stancher, more enduring attach
ment to the scenes and associations of his youth than
in Reynolds, who loved, he used to say, every stone in
Plympton ; who valued the mayoralty of his little
native borough beyond all the distinctions that his

1770, iETAT. 47. HIS AFFECTION FOR GOLDSMITH. 363
own Sovereign, or that English or foreign universities
and academies could bestow, and whose heart warmed
to Northcote for his broad Devonshire dialect. His
own good father, Samuel Reynolds, might have sat
for the original of Goldsmith's pastor : —
" Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wish'd to change, his place :
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour ;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise ;
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd,
Their welfare pleas'd him,' and their cares distress'd ;
To them his heart, his love, his smiles were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven."
Few points in the life of Reynolds are calculated to
give his biographer more pleasure than the constant
evidence he finds of the intimacy and mutual affec
tion subsisting between the painter and Goldsmith.
Reynolds, at all events, appreciated the beautiful, tender
genius which worked below that crust of awkwardness,
uncouthness, and childish vanity. He never started the
laugh against poor Goldy's innocent pleasure in his
fine clothes, or snubbed his sometimes ineffectual joke ;
never " smoked," or " hummed," or " bit " him, as the
slang of the time ran. He seems at this time to have
dined oftener with Goldsmith than any one else. They
were often seen together at Vauxhall and Ranelagh ;
the thickset little poet in butterfly brilliancy of colours,

364

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

and the quiet painter in sober black or brown. Sir
Joshua would leave the high play and high-life jokes
and scandal of the wits and beaux at the Star and
Garter to enjoy the shilling rubbers and the homely
company at the Devil or the Globe in Goldsmith's
society. Whenever the names of Reynolds and Gold
smith are coupled, it is for some act of kindness, some
service, some word of appreciation, some deprecation
of a sneer or a rebuke, on the part of Reynolds, for
some expression or act of affectionate regard on the
part of Goldsmith. The Doctor dedicates his poem to
Sir Joshua in language speaking a sincerity of affection
which dedications speak but seldom. The painter was
now at work on the poet's portrait, ennobled by such
an expression of dignity and tenderness as few but him
self ever contrived to see in that oddly-compounded
but most touching face. The year after this he painted
his ' Resignation :' a subject suggested by the ' Deserted
Village,' and, when engraved, dedicated to the poet
by the painter, with a quotation from the poem.
Goldsmith was to have been Reynolds's companion this
year in the visit to his native Devonshire which was
the relaxation of the President's autumn. One has a
pleasure in thinking how naturally such a project might
have taken shape. While Goldsmith was sitting for
the last touches to his portrait for this year's Ex
hibition,1 the two might have been talking over the

1 Goldsmith was proud of the popu
larity which made his face a matter of
public interest at this time, and shows
this feeling, with his usual affectionate
naivete, in a letter to his brother
Maurice (Feb. 4th, 1770): "I have

sent my cousin Mary a miniature pic
ture of myself, and I believe it is the
most acceptable present I can offer. I
have ordered it to be left for her at
George Faulkner's, folded in a letter.
The face, you well know, is ugly

1770, iETAT. 47. HIS AFFECTION FOR GOLDSMITH.

365

new poem, which had been for some time in print, and
was now on the eve of publication, their kind, gentle
hearts warming with the fire of early recollections, and
glowing in the rosy memories of childhood and school
boy days. " You must come and see my native village,
Doctor," — one can fancy Reynolds saying. " Come
with me this September ; we will hunt and shoot, and
be merry among my old friends. I will show you there,
at Plympton —
' The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that tops the neighbouring hill.' —
We will climb the castle-knoll together, where often —
' As I pass'd with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below,
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school.' "
Unluckily, when the time came for this pleasant
excursion, Goldsmith was in France with the Hornecks,
and Sir Joshua had to go alone. But it is Reynolds
whom Goldsmith chooses as his correspondent ; to him
he gossips and prattles artlessly and pleasantly, as one
who knows he is safe in being natural, easy, and un
affected. His pleasant gossiping letters of their adventures
in France and Flanders will be found both in Prior's
and in Forster's Life of the poet. They are certainly
not such letters as Goldsmith would have addressed to

enough, but it is finely painted. I
will shortly, also, send my friends over
the Shannon some mezzotinto prints of
myself, and some more of my friends
here, such as Burke, Johnson, Rey

nolds, and Colman." This refers to
Marchi's print from Sir Joshua's pic
ture of the Doctor, then in progress.
—Ed.

366 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
a cold, ungenial man, such as many of his critics and
some of his biographers would fain make out Sir Joshua
to have been. Among all Goldy's longings to be back
with his friends at " the Club," there is nothing more
strongly expressed than his eagerness to enjoy once
more Sir Joshua's kindly and social humour. The
news of his mother's death reached Goldsmith in Paris
on his way home.
The great Academy dinner to noble and distinguished
guests was not instituted till the year after this, but I
find that the Academicians met by themselves for a
dinner on the 27th of July.
Sir Joshua had made it a condition of his acceptance
of the Presidentship that he should be allowed to paint
portraits of the King and Queen. He seems to have
been working at the pictures this year. It is a curious
circumstance that on the 2nd of August he has a sitting
from the Lady Mayoress, Mrs. Trecothick, at one, and
leaves her to attend the King at Buckingham House.
Trecothick was at this time in flagrant opposition —
had been little less prominent and daring in his defi
ance of monarch and ministers than Beckford himself,
or Brass Grosby, Trecothick's successor, who, the year
after this, carried his defiance as far as the Tower.
Had George III. known who was the President's
last sitter on that Thursday, before his visit to Buck
ingham House, it would not have tended to further
"him in the royal favour.
In August Sir Joshua visited York, leaving town
on the 7th and returning on the 15th. He had many
friends in and about the venerable city, from the Arch
bishop downwards, including the Cholmondeleys of

1770, jetat. 47. VISIT TO YORK. 367
Howsham, the Crofts of Stillington, and the Listers,
for whom he had painted many portraits. His visit
may have had some connection with the hanging or
retouching of some of these York portraits. It is pro
bable that he was the guest of Mason, at this time
in residence at York, where he was Precentor and Canon
Residentiary. Between September and October, as we
find from the following extracts from his diary, Sir
Joshua was in Devonshire, with his relations and old
county friends, hunting, shooting, and enjoying him
self. "
Sir Joshua was not one of those men whom honours
alter. We may be sure that, whether in the quiet
country circle of the Palmers at Torrington, or in the
more aristocratic but still jovial society at Saltram and
Mount Edgcumbe, Sir Joshua was just what Mr.
Reynolds had been — kindly, genial, sagacious, and un
pretending. What we do find new and unexpected
in him, while on his Devonshire visits, is a taste for
country sports and pastimes.
Extracts from the Diary.
" September 7th. — Five o'clock, set out for Devon
shire. " 8th. — Dined with Lord Pembroke ; r lay at Bland-
ford. " 9th, Sunday. — Dorchester, fine prospect ; Bridport,
Axminster. " 10th. — Saltram, at one.
" 11th. — Seven, hunting.2

1 At Wilton.
2 What would our easy-going sportsmen think of a meet at seven ? — Ed.

368

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

" 12th.— Ride to Plym-bridge ; three, Mount Edg
cumbe. " 13th. — Hunting.
" 14th. — Partridge-shooting.
" 15th.— Hunting.
" 16th, Sunday. — Church, Plympton St. Mary, Bur-
rington.1 " 17th. — Set out from Saltram, arrived at Torrington.
" 20th. — Returned to Saltram.
" 21st.' — Hunting.
" 22nd.— Plympton.
" 23rd, Sunday.— The Dock and P." 2
" The following memorandum is written with lead
pencil on a blank leaf of the pocket-book : —
" Mr. Parker 3 bets Sir Joshua five guineas that he
does not beat Mr. Robinson ; and ten guineas that
Mr. Montagu 4 does not beat Mr. Parker ; to shoot with
Mr. Treby's5 bullet gun at 100 yards distance ; and a
sheet of paper to be put up, and the person who shoots
nearest the centre wins.
" October 5th. — To dine with Mr. Mudge.
" 6th —
" 7th. — Set out from Saltram, arrived at Torrington.
" 8th.— Dined at Mr. Palmer's.6
" 9th. — Dined at Mr. Young's.
" 10th. — Left Torrington, arrived at Exeter, and
went to Whiteway.

1 Boringdon, the seat of the Parkers.
—Ed. 2 That is, visited Plymouth Dock
and Plymouth. — Ed.
3 Afterwards Lord Boringdon. — Ed.
* i. e. Mr. Montagu Parker, Mr. John

Parker's brother. — Ed.
5 Mr. Treby was the leading man at
Plympton, and had probably been Sir
Joshua's schoolfellow and friend from
boyhood. — Ed.
6 His brother-in-law. — Ed.

1770, 2etat. 47. HIS HOUSEHOLD. 369
" 11th. — Dined at Mamhead, Lord Lisburn.
" 12th. — Set out from Whiteway ; dined at Exeter
with Bob ; 1 arrived at Axminster.
" 13th. — Salisbury — Andover.
<• 14th.— Dined in London."]
It was during this excursion to Devonshire, while on
a visit at Torrington to his lately widowed sister Mrs.
Palmer, 2 that Sir Joshua requested her to let him take
her second daughter, Theophila, then thirteen years of
age, with him to London. The request was complied
with : and his niece remained with him till the end
of January, 1773, when she returned to Devonshire on
account of ill health. In eight months she was suf
ficiently recovered to revisit her uncle, which she did,
with her sister Mary ; 3 and, from that time, with the
exception of a year and a half, she remained in his
house till her marriage with Mr. Gwatkin.
Her eldest sister Mary became also a resident in
Leicester Square from October, 1773, to the end of Sir
Joshua's life, with the exception of three years,4 during
which a daughter of Mrs. Johnson lived with him.
" The Miss Palmers," Miss Burney tells us, " added
to the grace of his table and of his evening circles,
by their pleasing manners and the beauty of their per-
" 5
sons. [On the 1st of October W. Pars (landscape and
figures), J. Wyatt (architect), E. Burch (modeller),
1 His brother. — Ed. 4 Between September 1774 and
2 Her husband had died in the ! 1777.— Ed.
•autumn of 1770. — Ed. I 5 Theophila sat for a great many of
3 Afterwards Countess of Inchiquin, ' his fancy subjects, more particularly
and subsequently Marchioness of Tho- j for those in which girlish archness is
mond. — Ed. \ the dominant expression. — Ed.
VOL. I. 2 B

370

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

R. Cosway (portrait), E. Garvey (landscape), E. Stevens
(architect), Geo. James (portrait and figure), Elias
Martin (landscape and figure), Antonio Zucchi — who
afterwards married Angelica Kauffmann (classical
landscape and figures), John Bacon (sculptor), and
M. A. Rooker (watercolour-landscape), were elected
Associates. On the 11th of December the Gold and Silver
Medals adjudged in 1769 by the Council of the Royal
Academy were distributed.1 Cipriani was the author
of the design for the medal, and the winners were —
Gold Medals. — Mr. James Gandy, for the best design in archi
tecture ; Mr. Mauritius Lowe, for the best historical picture ; Mr.
John Bacon, for the best model of a bas-relief.
Silver Medals. — Mr. Matthew Liart, Mr. John Grassi, Mr. John
Kitchingman, and Mr. Joseph Strutt, for the best drawings of
an Academy figure ; Mr. Thomas Hardwicke, for a drawing of
architecture; Mr. John Flaxman, jun., and Mr. P. M. Van
Gilder, for the best models of an Academy figure.
Against the names in this list which oblivion has
swallowed may be set those of Bacon and Flaxman.
The greatest English master of design in sculpture —
the son of a humble modeller in the Strand — was a
lad of fifteen when he won this honour. It is pleasant
to think that, of the first Academy medals distributed
by Reynolds, one, though but of silver, should have
fallen to Flaxman. The President's third Discourse
was delivered on occasion of this distribution.2 This

1 Those for 1770 were won by Mr.
J. Strutt (oil painting); Mr. Thos.
Bankes (bas-relief). No medal was
awarded for architecture. — Ed.
3 It was not till the Council meeting

of Jan. 10, 1771, that twelve chairs
were formally allotted to strangers of
distinction at the lectures of the
Academy. — Ed.

1770, jetat. 47. HIS THIRD 'DISCOURSE.' 371
lecture is an expansion of one of his early papers in
the ' Idler,' on the grand style and the right imitation
of nature. In it he warns the student that the mere
copying of nature will never produce anything great ;
that there is something higher than mere imitation ;
that the great style must be the aim of the painter who
would raise and enlarge the conception and warm the
heart. Then he' attempts to define in what this great
style consists, and his conclusion is that " the whole
beauty and grandeur of the art consists in being able
to get above all singular forms, local customs, particu
larities, and details of every kind."
So far as this definition means that the painter is
to correct nature by herself ; to distinguish and reject
accidental deficiencies, excrescences, and blemishes from
the perfect and normal forms of objects, no exception
can fairly be taken to it.
But the President goes further. He maintains that
there is a general perfection of beauty which combines
all the special perfections of particular types; " The
perfection of form is not to be found in the HercUles,
the Gladiator, or, the Apollo, but in a figure that par
takes equally of the' activity of the Gladiator, the deli
cacy of the Apollo, and the strength of the Hercules."
But where, the critic is compelled to ask, is such a
figure to be found ? If found, must it not of necessity
be something characterless, insipid, and essentially de
void of vitality ?
I venture to think that this notion of a central type
of form, to combine all the various graces and per
fections of the most opposite characters, is an imagina-
2 B 2

372 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
tion of the President's generalizing brain,1 and cannot
be practically sought after by the student without risk
of falling into that vice which is called " academicism,"
for want of a better word.
The President goes on to insist upon the necessity of
separating the accidental from the essential, " of disre
garding all local and temporary ornaments, and looking
only on those general habits which are everywhere and
always the same." The thoughtful reader again must
ask, What habits are these ? where are they to be
found ?
Sir Joshua illustrates his theory of " the neglect of
separating modern fashions from the habits of nature,"
by referring to the absurd effect of pictures which give
to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised in the
Court of Louis XIV.
But this is not enough. His argument requires for its
support that we should find some means of representing
Grecian heroes without the attributes and accidents of
Grecian heroic life ; that we should paint Achilles, not
as Homer describes him, complete in accoutrements and
dress, in habits, accomplishments, and ways of life, but
in some " general " dress and with some " general "
accompaniments and belongings which belong to no
time in particular and to all times alike. I confess
that such an abstract Achilles is to me just as difficult
of comprehension as Martinus Scriblerus's abstract
Lord Mayor.
I think it must be admitted by all unprejudiced

1 We shall find him contradicting himself on this point ia a later Dis
course. — Ed.

1770, iETAT. 47. , THE " GRAND " STYLE. 373
minds that Mr. Ruskin's criticism1 on this theory of
Sir Joshua's, — which makes the essential characteristic
of the grand style to be the avoidance of temporary
and local circumstances and precise details — is sound
and searching, and that his own definition of the grand
style is as much superior to that of Sir Joshua in com
prehensiveness and sound philosophy as it is in the
eloquence of its expression.
Mr. Ruskin defines the grand style by four charac
teristics : —
1st. Choice of noble subject.
2nd. Introduction into the conception of the subject
of as much beauty as is consistent with truth.
3rd. Inclusion of the largest possible quantity of
truth in the most perfect possible harmony.
4th. Inventiveness : that is, the work must be pro
duced by the imagination.
The direction of the President's reasoning may how
ever be at once explained, and in some degree justified,
by the fact that he was speaking at a time when
very low and unworthy ideas on art prevailed, and
when there was a tendency to prize works of minute
and puerile imitation far beyond their true value.
Sir Joshua's third Discourse, if read as a protest
against the undue exaltation of the petty and trivial
in detail, is full of useful warning and guidance to the
student. He expressly guards himself against the charge of
depreciating good works in styles below the highest.
" None of them," he admits, " are without their merit,

1 In his ' Modern Painters,' vol. iii. chap, i.— Ed.

374 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
though none enter into competition with this universal
presiding idea of the art.1 The painters who have
applied themselves more particularly to low and vul
gar characters, and who express with precision the
various shades of passion as they are exhibited by
vulgar minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth),
deserve great praise ; but as their genius has been em
ployed on low and confined subjects, the praise which
we give must be as confined as its object. The merry
makings or quarrellings of the boors of Teniers, the
same sort of productions of Brouwer or Ostade, are
excellent in their kind, and the excellence and its
praise will be in proportion as in their limited subjects
and peculiar forms they introduce more or less of the
expression of those passions as they appear in general
and more enlarged nature. This principle may be ap
plied to the battle-pieces of Bourgognone, the French
gallantries of Watteau, and, even beyond the exhibition
of animal life, to the landscapes of Claude Lorraine
and the sea-views of Vandevelde. All these painters
have, in general, the same right, in different degrees,
to the name of a painter which a satirist, an epigram
matist, a sonnetteer, a writer of pastorals or descriptive
poetry, has to that of a poet."
We may surely ask, on this, what would be the worth
of any definition of poetry which should exclude from the
rank of poet Horace, Juvenal, Dryden, Theocritus, Thom
son, and Wordsworth ? Sir Joshua, in fact, throughout
his Discourse, confines the name of painter to the

1 Observe the looseness of this Ian- 1 competition with " a universal pre-
guage — a school or style brought into I siding idea." — Ed.

1770, 2ETAT. 47.

SITTERS 1770.

375

painter of one class of subjects only — the high histori
cal and religious : or what he calls " the great mode of
painting." To hold this up as an object of pursuit to
all students alike, whatever their bent or calibre, may
be in a certain sense the best mode of dignifying the
art ; but I must be excused for doubting if it be the
most profitable and soundest teaching.

List of Sitters for 1770.

January?
Lady Barrymore ; Mr. Lee ;
Mr. Luther; Dr. Hawkesworth ;
Mr. Norris ; Lord Eobert Spencer;
Miss Price. February.
Sir Watkin Williams Wynne ;
Lady Thanet (Tenet) ; Lady Tyr-
rel ; Lord Eomney ; Mrs. Baker ;
Duke of Buccleugh ; Lord Abing-
ton. March.
Mr. Selwyn; Beggar Child
(often) ; Master Conway ; Miss
Fox ; Mr. Angelo ; Duke of Glou
cester; Mrs. O'Hara.

Lady Molineux ; Lady Carlisle;
Lady Ossory; Lady Norcliffe;
Mrs. Parker ; Sir Samson Gideon.

Lord Westmoreland ; Mrs.

Crewe ; Mr. Dyer ; Master Wat
son; Miss Crewe. June.
Ugolino (George White) ; Beg
gar (often). July.
Beggar (often) ; Miss Aufrere ;
Mr. Pelham; Lady Mayoress
(Mrs. Trecothick) ; the King.
August.
From 7th to 15th absent at
York; 18th, Master Conway (to
be finished); Mr. Brudenell; Child
(very often) ; Miss Ball.
September.
From 7th to October 14th, Sir
Joshua was absent in the west.
November and December.
Lady Melbourne ; Lady Walde
grave; Miss Kennedy; Master
Melbourne ; Miss Vansittart ;
Child (St. John); Miss Barry-
more.2]

1 To send Miss Godde's picture to
Mr. Smith, Park Street, Grosvenor
Square. 2 "Jan. 22, 1770. Sono stabilito
in maniera di dipingere. Primo e
secondo o con olio o capivi ; gli colori,

solo nero ultram. e biacca;' Secondo
medesimo. Ultimo, con giallo o nero
e lacca, e nero e ultram. senza biacca,
ritoccato con poca biacca e gli altri
colori. My own given to Mrs. Burke."
This is the portrait of himself already

376

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

1771, setat. 48. — [The vehement political passions of
the time continued still unfavourable to the arts, if I

referred to in the note on the practice
of 1769.
Haydon remarks of this method,
" Fine proceeding ;" and Beechey re
marks, " This, it seems, was his most
approved method — no yellow till the
last colouring."
Another note, of Feb. 6th, is descrip
tive of the same mode, with some
alteration :
" Olio. 1st. Biacca e nero.
" 2nd. Biacca e lacca.
" 3rd. Lacca e giallo e nero, senza
biacca, in capivi."
" These are all glazing colours," says
Beechey. The method, in whiph Sir
Joshua, when he made the first me
morandum on the 22nd of January,
thought himself confirmed, but which
he had already modified by the 6th of
February, is very distinctly indicated.
1st painting, A modelling up of the
head in black and white and ultra
marine (which last disappears in Feb
ruary). 2nd, The same colours (with
lake, in February). 3rd, Application
of lake, yellow, black, and ultramarine
(the last abandoned in February) as a
glaze, in copaiba varnish, without
white, and a final re-touching with
white and the other colours.
Beechoy observes on the first me
morandum :
" His vehicle was oil or balsam of
copaiba. His colours were only black,
ultramarine, and white, so that he
finished his picture entirely in black
and white, all but glazing — no red or
' yellow till the last, which was used in
glazing, and that was mixed with
Venice turpentine (the resin of the
larch) and wax as a varnish. Take off
that, and his pictures return to black
and white."
In which latter state we may be

pretty sure we shall find every Sir
Joshua which has passed through the
hands of an ordinary cleaner. But
restorers of experience and principle
are well acquainted with Sir Joshua's
method, and never use spirits or sol
vents on his pictures. They content
themselves with restoring the surface,
where it has cracked, or is flaking off.
"May, 1770. My own picture. Can
vas unprimed, cera finito con vernice."
The Dilettanti picture. In fine con
dition. " The Nissean nymph with Bacchus,
principiato con cera sola, finita con
cera e capivi, per causa it cracked.
Do. St. John. Offe fatta interamenti
con cap. e cera. Testa sopra un fondo
preparato con oho e biacca.
" Lady Melbourne. Do. sopra una
tela di fondo" (on unprimed cloth).
Sir Charles Eastlake remarks on this
note, —
" When wax alone was used under
neath, a more 'resinous medium being
employed above, the surface was liable
to crack. With this example ' Offe's
picture ' (already described as ' painted
with cera e copaiba solo, cinabro,' i. e.
finally glazed with vermilion) appears
to be contrasted, that work having
been painted with wax and copaiba
from the first."
But though the surface would not
crack from unequal drying, Beechey
remarks that a picture " painted in
balsam of copaiba and wax, upon an
oil-ground, must crack and peel off in
no time." And so it would, as the
colours, with this waxy-resinous vehicle,
would not incorporate with the oil-
ground. The colouring matter lies in
a dry film or coat on the ground, and
is liable to be detached by the slightest
accident. I have seen many of Sir

1771, ;etat. 48.

FALLING OFF OF SITTERS.

377

may judge by the list of Sir Joshua's sitters, which is as
scanty this year as last. Probably the great rush of
sitters in earlier years had something to do with the
falling off apparent about this time. Success and fortune,
too, may have indisposed the painter to the intense labour
of former times. He might also, as is suggested by
Barry, be himself desirous, at this period, of giving less
time to portraits, and more to imaginative designs.
Romney had, perhaps, already risen into something
more like rivalry than Reynolds had yet been destined

Joshua's pictures which have suffered
from this cause ; and when so injured,
it is common to have them re-lined, in
which process, if the utmost care be
not employed, the use of hot irons be
hind to reunite the new and old can
vases affects the wax vehicle, and
destroys all the sharpness and brilliancy
of the handling. Mr. Barker, of Wel
lington Terrace, St. John's Wood, has
in his possession the canvases on which
Sir Joshua has tried various combina
tions of colours and vehicles, with dates
of their application. Mr. Barker pos
sesses a hereditary knowledge of Sir
Joshua's methods, and I believe may
safely be trusted with his pictures.
Mr. Haines is another highly trust
worthy cleaner. Mr. Morell has re-
lined with perfect success Lady
Elizabeth Herbert and her son (at
Highclere), having detached the
painted surface entirely from the
original canvas, to which it had hardly
the slightest adhesion. Mr. Farrer's
restoration of the portrait of John
Hunter, however, is perhaps the
greatest triumph of care and skill in
this kind. — Ed.
" June 12, 1770. Paese, senza rosso,
con giallo, nero, e turchino (Prussian
blue), e biacca."

" This," says Beechey, " is a land
scape of his, in possession of Sir George
Phillips (now of Mr. Baring), which
appears to be painted without red — I
suppose from Richmond Hill."
With reference to the cracking of
the Nisasan nymph — which is only an
example of what too often occurred with
Sir Joshua's pictures — Sir C. Eastlake
quotes from Merimee (De la Peinture
a l'Huile, p. 102) :—
" Cracks take place whenever the
inner colours of the painting remain
soft when the external layer is dry.
Let drying-oil, for example, be thickly
spread on a canvas : it will be very
soon dry on its surface. Let white
lead be painted upon this : the colour
will sink in, and will dry the sooner,
because a portion of the oil which it
contained quits it to combine with the
drying-oil of the inner layer. In this
state of things, if the atmosphere be
warm enough for the materials to ex
pand, the layer of white will crack.
The expansive tendency of the oil un
derneath is greater than that of the
white. When these conditions are re
versed, when the softer layer is upper
most, it will, if it contain much oil,
become wrinkled or shrivelled on the
surface." — Eb.

378 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA .REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
to encounter. Ten years before that time this remark
able painter had quitted Westmoreland and a growing-
country popularity for London, leaving behind him a
young wife and two children. His career had been
one of uninterrupted success, from painting four-guinea
heads in the City to a daily-increasing fashionable con
nection at the West End, and a handsome house in
Great Newport Street, within a few doors of Sir
Joshua's former abode. But it was not till Romney's
return from Italy, where he spent two years between
1773 and 1775, that he fairly divided the town with Rey
nolds. It is possible, however, that he was already
drawing off sitters from his greater rival. He was a
new man ; his prices were lower ; he was not the friend
of Wilkes and Burke, and those terrible City Aldermen,
who were now defying King, Lords, and Commons, till
this year two of them — Brass Crosby the Lord Mayor,
and Alderman Oliver — got themselves committed to
the Tower for discharging the printers — who had
daringly reported the debates — from arrest under the
Speaker's warrant.
The great struggle of last year had been against
the right claimed by the House of Commons to decide,
single handed, on the capacity of membership. Two
of Sir Joshua's most intimate friends were in the front
of the battle. Wilkes had risen to popularity as the
hero of the conflict out of doors. In the House of
Commons Burke had been its Achilles. The contest of
the present year was for publicity of Parliamentary
proceedings, and again Burke was foremost in the hard
fight, on that memorable night which won for the
press the right of reporting the debates in Parliament.

1771, jstat. 48. HIS " OPPOSITION " FRIENDS. 379
Wilkes was still as popular as ever, and only missed
sharing the honours of martyrdom with the Lord
Mayor and Alderman Oliver, by the unwillingness of
ministers again to tackle so tough an adversary.
Mrs. Trecothick — the Lady Mayoress of the year
before — was sitting to Sir Joshua the very day that
the printers of the Morning and St. James's Chronicle,
the London, Whitehall, and General Evening Posts,
and the London Packet, were ordered to the Bar of
the House of Commons. Even an ex-liadj Mayoress
must, one may suppose, have led the conversation to
this subject, when the committal of a Lord Mayor to
the Tower loomed in the background of that resistance
which had already been determined on in Guildhall.
Mr. Baker, the steady opposition member for Plymp
ton, was one of the sheriffs of the year, and not only
defended his civic brethren in the House of Commons,
but visited them in the Tower, with the leaders of the
Opposition — all stanch friends and patrons of Sir
Joshua's be it remarked — the Dukes of Manchester
and Portland, the Marquis of Rockingham, Earl Fitz
william, Lord King, Admiral Saunders, Admiral Kep
pel, Mr. Dowdeswell, and Mr. Edmund Burke. It was
the lawyers whom Sir Joshua visited, entertained, and
painted — Glynn, and Lee, and Dunning — who moved
for the Habeas Corpora of the imprisoned Aldermen,
when the legality of their detention was argued before
Lord Chief Justice De Grey. It was Alderman Wilkes,
his old friend, who took the leading place in the civic
councils while the Lord Mayor was in the Tower, and
helped to swear in the grand jury who found true
bills against the messengers of the House of Commons

380

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

for arresting the printers on the Speaker's warrant.
Is it to be wondered at, if in such a time, and standing
in such intimate and friendly relations t6 all the pro
minent members of Opposition, Sir Joshua's Court
sitters should have become fewer, and that his recep^
tion at Buckingham House should have been a chilling
one ? It is true he was, at last, admitted there. This
very year he was painting the King and Queen, as
well as Alderman Baker and Mrs. Trecothick. He was
dining with Lord Palmer ston of the Admiralty, and
Lord Pembroke of the Bedchamber, as well as with
Wilkes the demagogue, and Burke the orator of the
Opposition. But the commission for the royal portraits
had not been graciously offered. It had been granted
on the special request of the painter,1 and with the
understanding that, if it was refused, he could not con
tinue to hold the Presidency of the Academy. It was
probably at the Palace, and in the inner circle of the
King's Friends, that the President's political connec
tions told most against him. Outside that circle he
was widely welcomed in a society which included as
wide divergencies of opinion as of rank and habits, —
the bons vivants and connoisseurs of the Dilettanti, the
wits, opera-managers, and masquerade-givers of the

1 " The arts and sciences, I find, are
at variance, as we prophesied they
soon would be. The President Rey
nolds, I am told, has desired to resign ;
that the King sent to him, and in
sisted on his continuing. Eeynolds
returned that he owed his Majesty the
duty of a subject, but no more ; and
that, as his Majesty had never sat to
him, as he had to many others, he

desired to adhere to his resolution.
The King then said he would sit to
him " (J. Sharp to Garrick, 1769). I
have no doubt that this anecdote con
tains much misrepresentation ; but
that the substantial fact that Reynolds
made the King's sitting to him a sine
qua non of his holding the Presidency
is true. — Ed.

1771, jetat. 48. REMOVAL OF THE ACADEMY. 381
Thursday-night Club, the blues in Mayfair, and the
men of letters at the ' Turk's Head.'
On the 14th of January the Royal Academy met
for the first time at their new apartments in Somerset
House. They were in the part added to the old man
sion of the Protector by Inigo Jones, and faced the river,
from which they were separated by a garden. The
Duke of Cumberland,1 the dullest and least reputable
of the King's brothers, just now in great disgrace,
owing to his scandalous intrigue with Lady Grosvenor,
was present, with several of the nobility. The new
apartments included lodgings for the keeper, as well as
the library, schools, and council-room of the Academy.
But their exhibitions were still held in Pall Mall. Sir
Joshua still continued to give the most regular attend
ance both at the lectures and the council. A very
frequently recurring employment of his Monday even
ings, about this time, is a dinner at four, often with
Goldsmith ; then the Academy lecture at half-past five,
followed by a council meeting at seven, and after that
an adjournment to the Club ; at which he seems to
have continued the most constant of members. It is
an evidence of his equanimity and inoffensiveness, as
well as of his kindly nature, that we never hear of any
cloud or coldness between Sir Joshua and any other
member of the club, like those which gathered in turn
between Johnson and Garrick, Johnson and Warton,
Johnson and Burke, Goldsmith and Garrick, Garrick
and Colman. In all these quarrels, whether more or
less serious, Reynolds was the peacemaker ; "and his
1 He had probably become acquaint- | still cense'e Mrs. Horton, of whom more
ed with Sir Joshua through his Duchess, | hereafter.— Ed.

382 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
house was chosen as the neutral ground for the belli
gerents to draw up their treaties of peace. It is
amusing to find Walpole, about this time, taking in
hand to teach Sir Joshua. Mr. Coxe had just brought
him Patch's engravings from Masaccio's designs. Wal
pole did not remember the originals. He was tran
sported with the nature, dignity, and truth of this
precursor of Raphael. Enamoured of his treasure, he
tells Mann he is expecting Sir Joshua (" our best
painter "), whom he has sent for, to see some wonderful
miniatures he has just bought, and these heads of
Masaccio. He thinks they may give Reynolds such
lights as may raise him prodigiously. He did not
know that Reynolds, unlike himself, did remember the
originals ; that he had noted and admired them, nine
teen years before, on his way back from Rome.
As sitters were less numerous this year, dinners, and
other engagements both at home and abroad, seem to
have been more frequent. It is a pity that Sir Joshua
never records the names of his own guests ; but his
parties were so much swelled by invitations given on
the spur of the moment, that it would have been im
possible for him to have set down beforehand more
than the nucleus of his scrambling and unceremonious,
but most enjoyable dinners. We are so accustomed to
read and think of Sir Joshua as a man of courtly, nay,
studiously polite, manners, that we are hardly prepared
for the description given of his dinners — a few years
later than this — by one who had often partaken of
them — John Courtenay,1 the member for Tamworth.

1 A protege" of Sir Joshua's friends I who brought him into parliament for
Lord Thanet and Lord Townshend, | Tamworth in 1780. He was a man

1771,. .etat. 48.

HIS DINNERS.

383

The table prepared for seven or eight was often made
to hold twice the number. When the guests were at
last packed, the deficiency of knives, fork's, plates, and
glasses made itself felt. Every one called as he wanted
for bread, wine, or beer, and lustily, or there was little
chance of being served. Courtenay's experience, it
must be remembered, dates after the careful days of
Miss Reynolds. There had once, he says, been sets of
decanters and glasses provided to furnish the table,
and enable the guests to help themselves. These had
gone- the way of all glass, and had not been replaced.
But though the dinner might be careless and inelegant,
and the servants awkward and too few, Courtenay
admits that these shortcomings only enhanced the
singular pleasure of the entertainment. " The wine,
cookSry, and dishes were but little attended to, nor
was the fish or venison ever talked of or recom
mended." Amidst the convivial animated bustle of
his guests, Sir Joshua sat perfectly composed ; pro
tected partly by his deafness, partly by his equanimity ;
always attentive — by help of his trumpet — to what
was said, never minding what was eaten or drunk,
but leaving every one at liberty to scramble for him
self. Peers temporal and spiritual, statesmen, physi
cians, lawyers, actors, men of letters-, painters, musicians,
made up the motley group, and played their parts, says
Courtenay, " without dissonance or discord." Dinner

of reading, wit, and ready oratory;
was successively Secretary and Sur
veyor of the Ordnance, and a Lord of
the Treasury. His sarcastic and un
scrupulous style was very telling in
the House of Commons. He lived

with the wits and literati, and gave
this description of Sir Joshua's dinners
to Sir James Macintosh, by whom it
was published in a preface to Courte
nay's 'Poetical Review of Dr. Johnson's
Character, Moral and Literary.' — Ed.

384 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.

was served precisely at five, whether all the company
had arrived or not. Sir Joshua never kept many
guests waiting for one, whatever his rank or conse
quence. " His friends and intimate acquaintance,"
concludes Courtenay, " will ever love his memory, and
will long regret those social hours, and the cheerful
ness of that irregular convivial table, which no one
has attempted to revive or imitate, or was indeed quali
fied to supply."
Is it possible to believe that the man who thus
entertained was a cold and ungenial being, equable,
chiefly because he felt nothing and cared for nobody ?
I think we may take Goldsmith's affection, and the
Leicester Square dinners, if we had no other evidence,
as conclusive against this theory of Sir Joshua's
character. But it is easy to conceive the constant worry which
a man with these ideas of a dinner-party, and a
fidgety, notable, anxious woman like his sister Frances,
must have caused to each other. And we may readily
understand — without reflection on either brother or
sister — that coldness in their way of living with each
other which so struck Northcote, fresh from a narrow
but most cordial family circle at the fireside of his
father, the honest watchmaker of Plymouth. For, as
Courtenay has opened the door of the Leicester Fields
dining-room on a company day, Northcote about this
time introduces us to the regular life of master and
pupils at 54, Leicester Fields.
During the spring Sir Joshua, when sitters were
unfrequent, seems to have occupied himself much in
painting fancy subjects. There are many entries in

1771, ;etat. 48. HIS MODELS. 385
the pocket-book of " boy," and " beggar," and " child,"
which it is not always easy to refer to the extant pic
ture in which such sittings resulted. He was certainly
at work on some of his many boy-subjects engraved
between this year and 1777 : as the boy with a port
folio, at Warwick Castle ; the Cupid as a link-boy, and
the boy Mercury with a purse in his hand, at Knole.
His favourite boy-model — from whom he painted his
infant Samuel, the reading boy in crimson, the boy with
a portfolio, and others — was a lad, Mason tells us,1 of
about fourteen, " not handsome, but with an expression
in his eye so very forcible, and indicating so much good
sense, that he was certainly a most excellent subject for
the pencil." The lad had been left an orphan, with
three or four brothers and sisters, whom he taught in
succession, as they were able, to make cabbage-nets, by
the sale of which the little family gained a livelihood.
Sir Joshua's love of nature led him to seek for models
constantly — -where Flaxman sought them — among the
ragged vagrants of the streets. The painter found in
these as fine suggestions of colour as the sculptor of
grace ; and for the same reason — they looked at what
they saw with the appreciative eye. It was thus Sir
Joshua had picked up his famous original of Ugolino —
George White, an Irishman, once a paviour, then a
beggar, converted by Sir Joshua into a professional
model. All the painters were soon fighting for him,
but none turned him to such account as Sir Joshua.
He exhibited White's head this year for the first time
 \
1 In his ' Anecdotes of Sir Joshua,' I Aston Rectory (J. Russell Smith,
published by Cotton, from a MS. at I 1859).— Ed.
VOL. I. 2 C

386 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
— probably the very study which Burke or Goldsmith
declared so suitable for Ugolino.
Besides dinner engagements with his old friends
Goldsmith, Burke, Dr. Warton from Winchester (who
never failed to visit London at Christmas time), Mr.
Payne, Mr. Lock (the son of William Lock, Esq., of
Norbury Park, himself a painter of no mean ability,
and the patron of painters), Mrs. Cholmondeley, Lord
Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Parker, Lord Dela-
war, Colman, Garrick, Mr. Fitzherbert, Mr. Pigot, &c,
I find frequent appointments with a new acquaintance
of this year, Major Mills, whom Cumberland, in his
sardonic way, describes as " collecting about him a
considerable resort of men of wit and learning, at no
other expense on his part than of the meat and drink
which they consumed. Having been town-major of
Quebec, he took the title of a field officer ; and having
been squire to a Knight of the Bath on the ceremony
of an installation, he became Sir Thomas and a Knight
of the Bath himself." This sneer is characteristic, con
sidering that Cumberland — as he acknowledges himself
— owed to the gentleman thus described his first intro
duction to the very pleasant society which used to
dine on stated days — sometimes at the British, some
times at the St. James's, Coffee-house, and which in
cluded Foote, Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Goldsmith, Gar
rick, Macpherson, Doctors Carlisle, Robertson, and
Beattie (during their visits to London), Caleb White-
foord, and Edmund and William Burke. This society
was a sort of succursale to the Gerrard Street Club,
less limited in numbers, and admitting new guests from
time to time. It was out of an occurrence at one of

1771, jetat. 48. DR. JOHNSON'S TEA-DRINKING. 387
their meetings, a little after this time, that Goldsmith's
delightful poem of ' Retaliation' took its rise. There is
a dinner engagement at Mrs. Cumberland's, in May,
which may have been the very occasion, recorded by
the tetchy dramatist, when Sir Joshua, venturing to
remind Johnson that he had had eleven cups of tea,
drew down on himself the reprimand, " Sir, I did not
count your glasses of wine, why should you number
up my cups of tea ? " and then laughing in perfect
good humour, he added, " Sir, I should have released
the lady from any further trouble, if it had not been
for your remark ; but you have reminded me that I
want one of the dozen, and I must request Mrs. Cum
berland to round up my number." " When he saw
the readiness and complacency with which my wife
obeyed his call, he turned a kind and cheerful look
upon her, and said, ' Madam, I must tell you, for your
comfort, you have escaped much better than a certain
lady did awhile ago, upon whose patience I intruded
greatly more than I have done upon yours ; but the
lady asked me for no other purpose but to make a zany
of me, and set me .gabbling to a parcel of people I
knew nothing of. So, Madam, I had my revenge of
her, for I swallowed five-and-twenty cups of her tea, and
did not treat her with as many words.' '"
" I can only say," concludes Cumberland, " my wife
would have made tea for him as long as the New
River could have supplied her with water."
From the opening of Parliament in January, till its
prorogation in May, the struggle both in Lords and
Commons, and the excitement out of doors, never
ceased. It was fed by the discussions as to the pro-
2 c2

388 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
vince of juries in trials for libel, the arrest of the
newspaper printers for publishing the debates, and the
defiance by the civic magistrates of both Royal pro
clamation and Speaker's warrant. It culminated in the
committal of Crosby and Oliver to the Tower, after
riots in which Charles Fox and his father narrowly
escaped being torn in pieces, and Lord North was only
saved from the mob by Sir William Meredith and
another Opposition member. Sir Joshua took refuge
as he best might from this war of parties in private
society, and in his many clubs — the Turk's Head (which
still met on Mondays, but was soon after this changed to
Fridays), the Devonshire (generally on Thursdays), the
Eumelian (founded by Dr. Ash, its eponymus, and held
at the Blenheim, in Bond Street), the Thursday night
at the Star and Garter, and (on alternate Sundays) the
Dilettanti. Nay, he was not satisfied even with all
these clubs. Beauclerk, writing to Lord Charlemont
two years after this, declares " that Sir Joshua is ex
tremely anxious to be a member of Almack's." This
may have been the club of both sexes founded in 1770,1
on the model of the men's club at White's. If so, Sir
Joshua's anxiety to be a member may be explained by
the fact that the patronesses were all sitters and
acquaintance of his, some of them his very intimate
friends as well as the most charming women of their
time, — as Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Fitzroy, Mrs. Meynell,
Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Lloyd. High
play, and very late hours, were as much the fashion at
the Ladies' Club as at the gaming club in the same
1 Walpole to Montagu, May 6, 1770. I find Sir Joshua attending the
Ladies' Club in 1777.— Ed.

1771, 2ETAT. 48.

HIS CLUBS.

389

house, which had taken the pas of White's, and at which
the maccaronis were now losing their five, ten, fifteen,
and twenty thousand a night at faro and hazard. Wal
pole tells us of Lord Stavordale losing eleven thousand
there, then winning it back by one great hand, and
swearing a great oath, " Now, if I had been playing
deep, I might have won millions." Charles Fox, — now
a Lord of the Admiralty, and one of the fiercest oppo
nents of Burke, and most strenuous upholders of the
right of the Commons against the Lords — shone as
much at Almack's hazard-table as in the House of
Commons.1 Here Gibbon spent much of the leisure
left him by his books and the Board of Trade. It may
have been to this club that Sir Joshua was anxious to
belong. It was not exclusively composed of idlers and
gamblers, and many of his intimates were among its
members. When not at his almost nightly clubs, or in
private society, Sir Joshua might be met at Mrs. Cor-
nely's or the Opera House masquerades, at Vauxhall,
or at the new winter Ranelagh, after the opening of the
Pantheon, in Oxford-street.2 These places of amuse-

1 " The young Cub has won near
20,000Z. at Newmarket races (Oct.
1771). The Grand Defaulter's cele
brated cub spent, not long ago, a whole
week at the gaming-table. He allowed
himself no respite but when he went
home to get a clean shirt. What a
hopeful legislator! He is a worthy
companion to his friend and confidant
— S(andwich), who administered, with
all the forms of religious ceremony,
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to
a dog. Such are the men who contend
for undefined privileges, and send the
magistrates of London to the Tower ! "

('Oxford Mag.,' April 1771.) The
Grand Defaulter is Henry Fox, Lord
Holland ; his " Cub," C. J. Fox.— Ed.
2 The wonder of the time. " Ima
gine Baalbec in all its glory," exclaims
Walpole. " The pillars are of arti
ficial giallo antico : the ceilings, even
of the passages, are of the most beau
tiful stuccos, in the best taste of gro
tesque : the ceilings of the ball-rooms
and the panels painted like Raphael's
Loggie in the Vatican : a dome like
the Pantheon, glazed. It is to cost
50,0002."— Ed.

390 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
ment were never more thronged than during this stormy
time, till they scandalised straitlaced people and inter
fered with each other's profits. Even fashionable Mrs.
Comely was attacked by the informers, and quite a
little war now raged round Carlisle House, into the
secret springs of which Horace Walpole, as usual, gives
us a peep.
Mr. Hobart, Lord Buckingham's brother, was at this
time manager of the Opera. Last year he had affronted
the singer Guadagni, by preferring the Zamperini, his
own mistress — whom we have seen entering herself in
Sir Joshua's pocket-book as Cicchina — to the singing
hero's sister. The Duchess of Northumberland, Lady
Harrington, and some other great ladies, espoused the
cause of the singer, and without a licence set up an
opera for him at Madame Cornely's. This lady had
commenced her career as a singer by the name of the
Pompeiati. She then became the " Heidegger of the
age," and presided over the diversions of the ton. Her
taste and invention in pleasures and decorations are
described as singular. She took Carlisle House in Soho-
square, enlarged it, and established assemblies and balls
by subscription. At first they scandalised, but soon
drew in both righteous and ungodly. She went on
building, and made her house a fairy palace, for balls,
concerts, and masquerades. Her operas, which she
called " Harmonic Meetings," were splendid and charm
ing. Mr. Hobart's subscription began to fall off, and
the managers of the theatres were alarmed. To elude
the law, she pretended to take no money, and had the
assurance to advertise that the subscription was to jpro-
vide coals for the poor, for she had always courted the

1771, jstat. 48. MRS. CORNELY'S MASQUERADES. 391
mob with success. She then declared her masquerades
were for the benefit of commerce. At last Mr. Hobart
informed against her, and the Bench of Justices, " less
soothable by music than Orpheus's beasts," pronounced
against her. Her opera was quashed, and Guadagni,
" who governed," says Walpole, " so haughtily at Vienna,
that, to pique some man of quality there, he named a
minister to Venice," was not only fined, but was threat
ened with Bridewell ; " which chilled the blood of all
the Caesars and Alexanders he had ever represented ;
nor could any promises of his lady-patronesses rehabili
tate his courage." " So for once," concludes Walpole,
" an Act of Parliament goes for something." In spite
of informations, however, Mrs. Cornely's masquerades
went gaily on, in February, April, and May — so long-
indeed as the sitting of Parliament kept people of
fashion in town. For these amusements were fashion
able in the highest degree. When we read of Sir
Joshua and Goldsmith frequenting them, we should
remember that even stern Doctor Johnson defended
Vauxhall and went there ; and that, as he told Boswell,
he neither thought a masquerade evil in itself, nor very
likely to be the occasion of evil, though he admitted
that, as the world considered it a very licentious relaxa
tion of manners, he would not have been (as Bozzy had
been in Edinburgh) " one of the first masquers in a
country where no masquerades had been before."
And not only were masquerades in those days fre
quented by the best company, but they were really
amusing.1 The masquers kept up their characters, and

1 The wit might be coarse some- | seems rather ghastly. At one of the
times, and the humoui- occasionally | April masquerades this year, one

392

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

the loveliest women of the court — and the Phrynes who
rivalled them in splendour and profusion — displayed
themselves in the most brilliant and ingenious costumes.
A painter was especially excusable for going where he
could study such living and moving pictures. One
masqued ball given by Sir Joshua's Thursday-night
club, on the 11th of February this year, cost one thou
sand guineas. At others, at Carlisle House or the
Opera House, in April, I find among the belles Sir
Joshua's pretty sitters, the inseparable friends Mrs.
Crewe and Mrs. Bouverie, dressed as young fellows,
the fierce smart cock of their hats much admired ; the
Hornecks, " sasurs charmantes, alike in dress, grace, and
beauty ; " while Mrs. Cholmondeley,1 " dressed as a
fortune-telling gipsy with great propriety, supported
her character with infinite wit and spirit."
Sir Joshua now painted his best portrait of Mrs.
Abington, who had pretensions to the character of bel
esprit, as well as pretty woman and charming actress ;
and who, in the former character, used to keep front
places for the club on her benefit nights. . Another
queen of the theatre who this year sat to him was

masque, we are told, gave very high
offence to the ladies. He appeared
as a corpse, in a shroud and walking
coffin, decorated with all its solemn
ornaments. On the front was pasted
the following printed inscription : —
" Mortals, attend I this pale, unseemly spectre
Three moons ago -was plump and stout as
Hector :
Cornely's, Almack's, and the COterie,
Caus'd in the bloom of life the change you see.
Oh. shun harmonic routs and midnight revel,
Or you and I shall soon he on a level."
" The coffin was cut behind in such a

manner that he could sit down, which
he did from half-past eleven to three ;
soon after which he retired, leaving
the coffin — which was made of paste
board, with papier-mache nails and
ornaments — in the outer room, where
the bear left his skin." — Ed.
1 Wife of the Hon. and Rev. George
Cholmondeley — Peg Woffington's sis
ter — the witty, vivacious, rattling,
good-hearted woman, whose parties
Sir Joshua seems to have relished more
than stately Mrs. Montague's, or scat
terbrained Mrs. Vesey's. — Ed.

1771, jetat. 48. LADY WALDEGRAVE— MRS. HORTON. 393
Mrs. Baddeley, more celebrated for her beauty and
gallantry than for her wit or professional skill. Her
picture represents the most voluptuous of faces, with
large melting dark eyes and full rosy lips. The beauty
is caressing a cat ; the cat plays with a tress of soft
hair which has fallen over the white shoulder. Cats
were Mrs. Baddeley's favourite pets, and the one in her
picture is no doubt a portrait. This beautiful woman
took to laudanum, and died in misery at Edinburgh in
1784. Lady Waldegrave, an old friend and sitter, re
appears this year in unfaded loveliness. Rumour was
now busy with her name. She was living in an equi
vocal relation with the Duke of Gloucester ; scandal
mongers said, as his mistress ; those who knew her best
maintained, as his wife. And so it was ; they had been
married since September, 1766 ; though the marriage
was not notified to the King till September, 1772 ;
and their eldest child, the Princess Sophia-Matilda —
so beautifully painted by Sir Joshua — was born in
May, 1773.
The Duchess probably sat to Sir Joshua this year
for the finishing touches of a portrait intended for the
Duke. Another lady of whom Sir Joshua had lately
painted a beautiful portrait also took rank this year
among the Royal Duchesses. This was Mrs. Horton,
the widow of a Staffordshire gentleman, and sister of
Colonel Luttrell, notorious as the opponent of Wilkes
for Middlesex. The Duke of Cumberland, — at this
time as odious as his successor in the title, and for
very similar reasons, — had fallen in love with the
fascinating young widow of twenty-four.- " She had
the most amorous eyes in the world," says Walpole,

394 LIFE. OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.

" and eyelashes a yard long, was coquette beyond mea
sure, artful as Cleopatra, and completely mistress of all
her passions and projects." The Duke went off with
her to Calais in November, and from there informed
the King of his marriage.
Among the rich collection of pictures by Reynolds at
Barton is one representing a young and handsome
woman, with aquiline features, marked by the tension of
anxiety. One hand is raised and holds a handkerchief.
The dress is a rich robe of flowered scarlet and silver
brocade, worn over an inner vest of bright colours,
with a shawl of green and gold round the waist.
It looks like the portrait of an actress-; but the
veiled look of pain does not belong to the stage; It
is meant, I believe, to tell a tale of real and prolongued
suffering. The picture was finished this year, and is con
nected with a curious and sad story. Miss, or Mrs., or
Polly Kennedy, — for the lady was notorious by all three
names, — was one of the Phrynes of that debauched
time. She was of Irish family, and had two brothers,
Matthew and Patrick, young men who had risen, by
their sister's help, from low estate — a contemporary
magazine says they began life as alehouse waiters — to
something sufficiently like gentility to give them ac
quaintances in the set to which their sister's admirers
belonged — Sir Charles Bunbury, the St. Johns, Lord
March, Lord Robert Spencer, Gilly Williams, Lord
Palmerston, George Selwyn, and others of Sir Joshua's
gayer intimates. The Kennedys were mixed up in a
drunken riot . in Westminster, which resulted in the
death of one Bigby, a watchman ; the brothers were
recognised, taken up, and on the 23rd of February,

1771, iETAT. 48. THE KENNEDYS. 395
1770, tried, found guilty of the murder, and sentenced
to execution. The evidence that fixed the fatal blow on
the Kennedys seems to have been weak ; and though,
legally, all who were taking part in the riot were parti
cipating in the death of the watchman, and liable to the
charge of murder, one cannot but feel sympathy with
the efforts which Miss Kennedy at once set about making
among her titled admirers to save her brothers. There
was no time to be lost; sentence had been passed on
Friday, an'd execution was ordered for Monday, as the
usage then was. Lord Robert Spencer, Lord Carlisle,
Henry St. John, Horace Walpole, were all appealed to,
and all went to work in behalf of the Kennedys ; the
King was petitioned ; the ladies of the court set in
motion about the Queen ; the secretary of state, Lord
Rochford, was besieged by friends and acquaintance.
A respite was obtained during his Majesty's pleasure.
On the 22nd of March it was announced that the Ken
nedys had received the King's pardon, on condition of
being transported for life ; but this was premature, for
on April the 12th, when the report was made to his
Majesty of the prisoners under sentence of death in
Newgate, we find that Patrick Kennedy was ordered for
execution, while the other brother was sent on board
the convict ship for Maryland. Here the Earl of Fife
tells Selwyn1 he found him on the 28th of April,
" chained to a board, in a hole not above sixteen feet
long, more than fifty with him, a collar and padlock
about his neck, and chained to five of the most dreadful
creatures I ever looked on." Even with one brother

1 ' Selwyn Correspondence,' vol. ii. p. 389.

396 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
ordered for execution, and the other in this plight, Miss
Kennedy did not despair.
The ship sailed with its miserable freight, but in the
Downs was brought to by the officers with a Secretary
of State's warrant demanding the body of Matthew Ken
nedy. This warrant had been issued on an appeal of
murder by Ann Bigby, widow of the murdered man.
The case had by this time become almost political — a
struggle between the "City and the Bill of Rights Club
to hang the men, and the Court friends of their sister
to save them.
On the 29th of May Matthew Kennedy again stood
at the bar of the King's Bench, and, on evidence given
of the widow's declaration, was committed to the King's
Bench prison, pending the argument on the appeal. He
appeared — says a contemporary account — in double
chains, in a blue coat with a handkerchief about his
neck, and looked greatly dejected. The declaration was
against both brothers. The widow was present with
one of her principal witnesses, a waterman's boy, who
deposed at the trial that he had been offered 1001. to
keep out of the way. Lord Spencer, Lord Palmerston,
George Selwyn, and several persons of distinction,
friends of the unhappy prisoners, were likewise present.
The Bill of Rights Society clamoured for the blood of
the brothers ; Junius thundered about the mercy of a
chaste and pious prince extended cheerfully to a wilful
murderer, because that murderer was the brother of a
common prostitute. But the " common prostitute" was
a sister, and persevered. On June the 15th, the first
day of term, the Kennedys wore brought before Lord
Mansfield, to take their trial for murder, a second time,

1771, jetat. 48. THE KENNEDYS. 397
on the appeal of the widow Bigby ; but an omission
of form in the pleadings led to an adjournment of the
case. The City and the Bill of Rights Society cla
moured louder than ever. Still the indefatigable sister
strove and wept; and gave or refused her favours, as
influence on her brothers' behalf was promised or with
held. On the 6th of November the brothers were once
more brought to the bar to plead to the widow's appeal
of murder. But the woman did not appear, and suffered
nonsuit. She had been bought off. An evening paper
of the time says "that when she went to receive the
money [350/.] she wept bitterly, and at first refused to
touch the coin that was to be the price of her husband's
blood; but being told that nobody else could receive
it for her, she held up her apron and bid the attorney
who was to pay it sweep it into her lap."
The proceedings by appeal had probably been
managed by Miss Kennedy's advisers with a view to
this upshot. We hear nothing more of the brothers
till the 11th of April in the present year, when they
were placed at the bar and informed that his Majesty
had extended his mercy to them on condition that
Matthew should be transported for life ; and Patrick,
who had been twice ordered for execution, for fourteen
years. Miss Kennedy appears twice in Sir Joshua's
pocket-book as a sitter during this year, for her so full .
of suspense and agony. The entry of 1770 is on the
14th of November, a week after the widow had accepted
her hush-money; that of 1771, on the 16th of January,
when her brothers were still in prison, but when she
knew the shadow of the gallows no longer hung over
them. Her picture was painted for Sir Charles Bun-

398

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

bury, and I cannot but think that there is a designed
trace of the suffering and struggle of these years in the
expression of the handsome features. With reference
to this picture Sir Joshua wrote to Sir Charles Bun
bury : —
" Dear Sir, « Sept. 1770.
" I have finished the face very much' to my own
satisfaction. It has more grace and dignity than any
thing I have ever done, and it is the best coloured. As
to the dress, I should be glad it might be left un
determined till I return from my fortnight's tour.
When I return I will try different dresses. The
Eastern dresses are very rich, and have one sort of
dignity ; but 'tis a mock dignity in comparison of the
simplicity of the antique. The impatience I have to
finish it will shorten my stay in the country. I shall
set out in an hour's time.
" I am, with the greatest respect,
" Your most obliged servant,
" J. Reynolds." j
On St. George's day (23rd April) the first annual
dinner of the Royal Academy was presided over by
Sir Joshua. The company comprised the Professors
of the Academy, and twenty-five guests invited from
the great officers of the Court, the Ministers, and the
most distinguished men of the day. Walpole has

1 I owe this letter to the courtesy of
Sir Charles Bunbury, whose house at
Barton, besides its wealth of pictures
by Sir Joshua, abounds in records and

relics of his time, and is associated
with some of his most interesting
friends and contemporaries. — Ed.

1771, jet at. 48. THE EXHIBITION CATALOGUE.

399

recorded one recollection of the conversation, — Gold
smith's praises of the Rowley poems, then exciting the
wonder of the town, for which he was laughed at by
Johnson. It was in the course of this conversation
that Walpole first learnt, to his equal surprise and
concern, that Chatterton had committed suicide.
The Exhibition Catalogue of this year is headed with
an excellently chosen motto from Pliny : — -" Sum ex iis
qui mirer antiquos ; non tamen, ut quidam, temporum
nostrorum ingenia despicio. Neque enim quasi lassa
et effseta natura, ut nihil jam laudabile pariat." Con
tempt of contemporary English artists was the great
stumbling-block in the way of our art at this time ; and
Reynolds deserves his place in our school by nothing
more than by the blow he struck at this prejudice,
both by his life, his pictures, and his discourses.]
Sir Joshua this year exhibited six pictures : —
Venus chiding Cupid for learning to cast accounts.1
A Nymph and Bacchus.2

1 " Charming, but the drawing faulty:
better coloured than usual," says Wal
pole. Cupid snivels, with the back of
one hand to his eye, while in the other
he has a scroll inscribed with " £. s. d."
and " Pinmoney." A brother Cupid
laughingly contrasts the point of one
of his own arrows with the blunt gold-
tipped shaft of his little brother, whom
Venus is scolding. The picture is at
Lord Charlemont's, in Dublin. — Ed.
Cupid never did learn to cast ac
counts. Venus must have been de
ceived by one of the many impostors
who so frequently appear in the shape
of her son.
2 Not the Nymph painted from Miss
Hartley, the actress. That was ex

hibited in 1773. The present picture
is the one sold at the dispersion of Mr.
Allnut's gallery at Clapham this year.
The nymph sits at the mouth of a cave
overgrown with vine-leaves and clus
ters, one of which she squeezes into the
mouth of the laughing, crowing, kick
ing infant Bacchus. The goat Amal-
thea stands by, and a cup and thyrsus
lie in the foreground. The colour is
rich and glowing, the light and shade
effective, and the composition graceful,
but the head of the nymph is less
happy than usual, or has suffered. The
child is beautiful in colour, and full of
life. The picture, which had cracked
even in Sir Joshua's time, has been
carefully restored. — Ed.

400

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap.V.

A Girl reading,1 a portrait of his niece, Theophila
Palmer, absorbed in ' Clarissa ' (deservedly marked by
Walpole as " charming " ).
An Old Man, studied from the beggar who was now
sitting for Ugolino.
A portrait of a Gentleman ; and
A portrait of Mrs. Abington.2
Sir Joshua dedicated the engraving of the Old Man
to Goldsmith, with the title of ' Resignation,' and some
lines from the ' Deserted Village.' 3
[Barry had now returned from Rome, where he had
been supported for five years by the noble benevolence
of Edmund and William Burke, his passionate nature
absorbed in the worship of the highest ideal of art,
prophesying nothing but starvation and failure for
himself in England, where ideal art, by living English
painters, was at a discount. " Oh ! " he writes in one
of his letters, " I could be so happy on my going home
to find some corner where I could sit down in the
middle of my studies, books and casts after the antique,
to paint this work [the Adam and Eve] and others ;
where I might have models of nature when necessary,
bread and soup, and a coat to cover me ! I should care
not what became of my work when it was done ; but I

1 Miss Offy, now about 14, was
highly offended at the title of the
picture in the catalogue. " I think,"
she said, " they might have put ' A
Young Lady.' " The picture is still in
possession of the Gwatkin family. —
Ed.
2 " Easy and very like " (Walpole).
She is painted as Miss Prue (the beau
tiful picture is now at Saltram). She
is sitting with her arms leaning on the

chair-back, her finger at her mouth,
and a mutine expression. — Ed.
3 " How blest is he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labour with an age of ease ;
Sinks to the grave with unperceiv'd decay.
While Resignation gently slopes the way ;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past."
The picture was sold at the dispersion
of Mr. Allnutt's gallery, May, 1863.
—Ed.

1771, jetat. 48. BARRY. 401
reflect with horror upon such a fellow as I am, and
with such a kind of art in London, with house-rent to
pay, duns to follow me, and employers to look for.
Had I studied art in a manner more accommodated to
the nation, there would be no dread of this."
Barry, of all the young painters, had most steadily
and courageously followed the road pointed out by Sir
Joshua in his lectures. He had striven, exclusively,
after the grand style. " Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke,
Teniers, and Schalken," he says, looking round the
Dutch pictures in the Turin Gallery on his way from
Rome, " are without the pale of my church ; and though
I will not condemn them, yet I must hold no inter
course with them." This was quite in the spirit of Sir
Joshua's Discourses. 'It would have been well, perhaps,
if both had borne in mind that the painter's life has
material conditions which cannot be defied. Barry
dreaded the coming contest with these hard conditions.
" God help you, Barry ! said I ; where is the use of
your hairbreadth niceties and your antiques ? Behold
the handwritmg on the wall against you. In the
country to which you are going, pictures of lemon-peel,
oysters, and tricks of colour, are in as much request as
they are here." It is true that Barry's fierceness and
combativeness, his scorn of the proprieties and decencies,
as well as the conventionalities, of life, made him an
unfair exemplar of Sir Joshua's ideal artist. There
was no man whom, in later years, the kindly Presi
dent came so near hating as his savage and- scornful
disciple. West was a fairer example of devotion to the
ideal. He had a royal patron ; his manners were un
exceptionable ; his character blameless. He might be
vol. i. 2d

402 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
called fortunate ; yet West could not have lived, simple
as his way of living was, but for his pension from the
King. But then West had no genius. To realise Sir
Joshua's ideal, the manners and disposition of West
should have been joined to the fervour of Barry, and to
a larger share of artistic gifts than Barry had. But
West supplies a good example of the insufficiency of
the highest and purest aims in art without genius. The
results will satisfy just such patrons as West satisfied — -
the bishops, who only tasted the classicality ' of his
subjects, and George the Third, whose simple religious
aspirations they exactly embodied. I am afraid the
tendency of Sir Joshua's teaching was rather to make
Wests and Barrys — to engender respectable mediocrities
and passionate failures. Real geniuses sure to find the
upward path without pointing, and to sustain itself at
the height to which it soars.
Barry this year exhibited his first picture, ' Adam and
Eve.' x It was well hung, but coldly received. There
is an engraving by Earlom, from a picture by Brandoin,
of this year's Exhibition. Barry's picture occupies the
place of honour in the centre of the principal wall of
the modest little room. The President's ' Venus and
Cupid' hangs on the line of the right wall; Mrs.
Abington as Miss Prue, I think, on the left— the only
two of his contributions seen in the picture. Barry's
picture is flanked by two full-lengths — one I suppose
to be Gainsborough's portrait of Captain Wade, the
master of the ceremonies at Bath; the other I am

1 His address in the catalogue is at
Mrs. GrindaU's, Orange Street, Lei
cester Fields. He had brought the

picture with him from Italy, and had
founded on it high hopes, destined to
be disappointed. — Ed.

1771, 2etat. 48. THE EXHIBITION. 403
unable to identify. The centre of the foreground is
occupied by a noble couple ; my lord, in his blue
riband, is examining the pictures through an eye-glass.
In some descriptions of the picture this is called the
King ; but the spectators do not seem enough occupied
about him for this. Besides, the President would surely
be in attendance on the King, and Sir Joshua does not
appear in the picture. There is a burly figure on the
left, very like Johnson ; and two on the right, meant,
I think, for Nathaniel Hone and William Hunter.
To this Exhibition honest Mr. Wilshire's waggon
brought up from Bath no fewer than seven pictures of
Gainsborough's, five whole-length portraits, and two
landscapes — Lady Sussex and her child, Lady Ligonier
in a fancy dress, Lord Ligonier on horseback, the master
of the ceremonies at Bath, and Mr. Nuthall.
; Charles Catton sends a picture which marks the time,
' The filling up of Rosamond's Pond in St. James's
Park ;' Mason Chamberlin, whole-lengths of two of the
royal children — the Princess Augusta and Prince
Edward. Richard Cosway, now an Associate — the
dapperest and dandiest of men, and already surnamed
the "Maccaroni Painter" — sends 'A Lady and her
Daughters in the character of Virtue' and Beauty,
directed by Wisdom to sacrifice at the Altar of Diana.'
Sir Joshua's allegories are merciful in comparison with
this. Nathaniel Dance exhibits a whole-length of
Garrick — that most bepainted of men — as Richard the
Third, and four other portraits. Hayman, now in his
decline, sends an almost solitary sacred picture, ' Christ
and the two Disciples at Emmaus;' Hone, no less
than nine portraits ; Angelica Kauffmann, subjects from
2d2

404 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
Anglo-Saxon history, from Ovid, from the Odyssey,
from Tasso, and two portraits ; Nollekens, a portrait
bust, a Bacchus, and a group of Psetus and Arria ;
William Pars, another Associate, eight landscapes in
the mountains of Savoy and in Switzerland ; Paul
Sandby, a batch of water-colours ; Michael Angelo
Rooker, also an Associate, views of Merton College and
Lillishall and Wenlock Abbeys ; Samuel Scott, a view
of the Tower of London ; Dominick Serres, some half-
dozen sea and shipping pieces ; Samuel Wale, professor
of perspective to the Academy, sends a stained drawing
of King Alfred making a code of laws, dividing the
kingdom into counties, and encouraging the arts and
sciences; Benjamin West, Hannibal, the Death of
Wolfe, Pharaoh's Daughter, Hector and Andromache,
the Continence of Scipio (its companion), the Death of
Procris, the Prodigal Son, Tobias curing his father's
blindness (its companion) ; Richard Wilson, a view
near Wynnstay, Crow Castle near Llangollen, and
Houghton, the seat of the late Marquis of Tavistock.
There are 276 works exhibited, all included; and of
these 100 are portraits. With the exception of Hay-
man's ' Christ at Emmaus,' Barry's ' Adam and Eve,'
Mr. Wale's comprehensive 'Alfred,' the pictures of
West and Angelica Kauffmann, and two classical sub
jects— ' Pompey corrected by Cratippus,' and 'Cleopatra
weeping over the ashes of .Antony' — by Allen, a
student at Rome, there is no work of an ideal, epic, or
historical kind in the collection ; — none in which there
is any attempt to tell a story by means of form and
colour. The Exhibition closed as usual at the end of May.

1771, 2etat. 48. WEST'S ' DEATH OF WOLFE.' 405
It had produced 1125/. It takes special rank among
Academy Exhibitions by reason of one picture, which
marks an epoch in English art, West's ' Death of Wolfe.'
Till this picture was painted, no work had been pro
duced by a painter of "high art" which aimed at the
literal representation of a contemporary event. History,
in high art, disdained historical fact. Reynolds told
the students that historical truth and local circumstance
were incompatible with the grand style. West has
himself recorded the consternation which his unheard-of
intention produced.
" When it was understood that I intended to paint
the characters as they had actually appeared on the
scene, the Archbishop of York called on Reynolds and
asked his opinion ; they both came to my house to
dissuade me from running so great a risk. Reynolds
began a very ingenious and elegant dissertation on the
state of the public taste in this country, and the danger
which every innovation incurred of contempt and ridi
cule, and concluded by urging me earnestly to adopt
the costume of antiquity, as more becoming the great
ness of my subject than the modern garb of European
warriors. I answered that the event to be commemo
rated happened in the year 1758, in a region of the
world unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and at a
period of time when no warriors who wore such
costume existed. ' The subject I have to represent is a
great battle fought and won, and the same truth which
gives law to the historian should rule the painter. If,
instead of the facts of the action, I introduce fiction, how
shall I be understood by posterity ? The classic dress is
certainly picturesque; but by using it I shall lose in

406 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
sentiment what I gain in external grace. I want to
mark the place, the time, and the people, and to do this
I must abide by truth.' They went away then, and
returned when I had the picture finished. Reynolds
seated himself before the picture, examined it with deep
and minute attention for half an hour, then rising said
to Drummond, ' West has conquered ; he has treated
the subject as it ought to be treated. I retract my
objections. I foresee that this picture will not only
become one of the most popular, but will occasion a
revolution in art.' " " I wish," said the King, when
West told him the story, " that I had known all this
before, for the objection has been the means of Lord
Grosvenor's getting the picture, but you shall make a
copy for me." And so he did ; and another,1 on a
larger scale, for General Monckton, who is the wounded
officer looking on the dying hero.
As if to clench by actual experiment on the public
the sound sense of West's reasoning, Barry in 1776
painted a high-art " Death of Wolfe," in which the
personages were represented naked. He was so dis
gusted by the coldness with which it was received, that
he never exhibited at the Academy afterwards.]
This year Sir Joshua received into his house the
only one of his pupils whose name, as a painter, has
survived to our time — James Northcote. [The son of
an honest watchmaker at Plymouth, he was now twenty-
five years old, and had from his early boyhood felt a
hankering for the arts. A kind friend, Mr. Tolcher,
a Plymouth Alderman, who knew and had sat to Sir
1 Now at Fineshado Abbey, North- I is immeasurably the best of the three.
amptonshire. The Grosvenor picture | — Ed.

1771, jetat. 48. NORTHCOTE. 407
Joshua on his visits to London, had sounded both
Reynolds, and the engravers Fisher and McArdell, as
to the feasibility of apprenticing Northcote to learn
their art. But the father feared the venture and threw
cold water on the proposals and efforts of the worthy
Mr. Tolcher. The youth sighed and suffered, but he
was timid, and had never been twenty miles from
Plymouth. His father insisted on his sticking to the
shop, and allowed him no money. He was many
years in saving five guineas, and at length was able
to make the five ten by the produce of a print after
one of his Indian ink drawings of a new assembly-
room and bathing-place at Plymouth. Ten guineas
was a fortune. James secretly planned with his elder
brother Samuel a journey to London. He broke his
design to Dr. John Mudge and Mr. Tolcher. They
gave him letters to Sir Joshua. The two young men
left Plymouth on Whit-Sunday, at five in the morning
of a beautiful day. " When they arrived at the hill
which gave them the last view of the town," says
Northcote, in his unpublished autobiography now before
me, " the elder brother looked back on it as he left, and
expressed some regret ; but the other lost sight of its
spires with a pleasure inexpressible." It was May ;
the weather was warm and bright; they had deter
mined to husband their money, and make the journey
to London on foot. And so they did, sleeping at hedge
alehouses and in haylofts, and, for the last stage only
of their five days' journey, getting a cast on the top
of the stage-coach. The day after his arrival North
cote waited on Sir Joshua, was received with kindness
and offers of assistance, and of the use of any picture

408

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

in his gallery for copying. He at once set to work on
a Ruysdael. In a week the elder brother returned to
Plymouth. But Northcote remained to become, first
the pupil and copyist of Sir Joshua, then a successful
painter, and finally the best biographer of his master,
and the most interesting living relic of his time.]
" I fear," he writes, before May is over, to Mr. (after
wards Sir William) Elford, " I shall not be able to
make many copies of pictures, because I intend to do
them with much care, and consequently slow ; for the
quantity which Sir Joshua has in his collection is in
numerable, some of them by the most famous masters
and fine beyond imagination. His house is to me
a very paradise. All the family behave with great
good-nature to me, and particularly Sir .Joshua's
two pupils.1
" Miss Reynolds has promised to show me her
paintings, for she paints very fine, both history and
portrait. " I think you must remember the drawing in water-
colours which I took to London with me of a drake,
and another of the Eddy stone Lighthouse. I showed
both these to Sir Joshua ; the drake he seemed much
pleased with, but said the great difficulty was to colour
so clearly with oil-colours. The Eddystone Lighthouse
he found but small fault with ; and when I told him
my intention of selling it to a printseller or engraver,
he was so kind as to say he would speak to one about
it, and said he thought a print from it might sell. He

1 Clarke, an Irishman, whom Sir
Joshua had received as a pupil at the
request uf Goldsmith (a reckless dog,

according to Northcote), and Gill, the
son of a famous Bath pastrycook. —
Ed.

1771, 2etat. 48. NORTHCOTE'S LETTERS. 409
then showed me the landskip by Ruysdael which I
might copy first, and gave me the liberty of painting
it in his house, which I have since done. The place
allotted me to paint in is a kind of hall or parlour
which is not made much use of by the family.
" The first day I went to paint there I saw one. of
Sir Joshua's pupils, and on conversing with him was
much surprised to find that his scholars were absolute
strangers to Sir Joshua's manner of working ; and that
he made use of colours and varnishes which they knew
nothing of, and always painted in a room distant from
them ; that they never saw him unless he wanted to
paint a hand or a piece of drapery from them, and then
they were always dismissed as soon as he had done with
them. "•He has but two young gentlemen with him at this
time, and they both behave to me with great good
nature, and are very willing to assist me, but one of
them tells me that a man must become a great proficient
in the art to make a figure in London, as England is
now become the seat of painting.
"I find Sir Joshua is so entirely occupied all clay
with business or company that I have seldom an oppor
tunity of seeing him. But at some time, when he has
seen more of my work, I shall speak particularly to
him, and desire to know if he thinks it possible that I
could live in London, at any rate, by the practice of
the art." ....
[In the same letter Northcote mentions a case like his
own, which illustrates, besides, the effect on enthusiastic
minds at the time of Sir Joshua's second Discourse,
with its glowing description of the painter's vocation

410 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.

and career. " In the same house where I lodge there
lodges also a young man who is very nearly in the
same predicament with myself. He is about twenty
years of age, is called James, and was bred a clock-
maker in the city of Norwich, but always had the most
violent desire to be a painter, and used to get up at
all hours in the morning to practise the art. At last
his master, seeing how strong an inclination he had
for painting, allowed him two hours every day out of
his working time to employ in it. This continued for
a short time ; but when the young man saw and read
Sir Joshua's Discourse, which was the second given to
the Royal Academy, he could no longer suffer the
confinement of his business ; and without having any,
the least, personal knowledge of Sir Joshua, he sent
him a letter, for, as he told me, he thought that a man
so fired with the art as Sir Joshua seemed to be by
his Discourses would surely have a pleasure in assisting
all lovers of it. He received an answer which I have
not seen, but in consequence of it his master gave him
up the remaining part of his time, and he immediately
came to London, where he copied some of Sir Joshua's
pictures ; but afterwards, by means of an old woman-
servant, he got admission into the house of Mr. Lock,
a man of large fortune, who has a vast collection of
paintings and sculpture, and a great judge of both.
Here he copied some of the best pictures without the
knowledge of Mr. Lock, apprehending his displeasure ;
but so much on the contrary did it turn out, that when
Mr. Lock discovered it he immediately invited him to
his house to copy any pictures he chose, and also, when
he found so violent a desire in him for the art, he told

1771, 7^tat. 48. NORTHCOTE'S LETTERS. 411
him he should make the house as his own, and very
soon after placed him with Mr. Cipriani, whom Mr.
Lock had brought over from Italy, and who is one of
the greatest history painters in England ; he also
allows pocket-money to the young man, whose name
is Brunton." In a letter to his brother, Northcote (who had found
means of immediate support as a colourer of prints of
birds for Hooper, a printseller on Ludgate Hill) says,
" I go regularly to Sir Joshua Reynolds' every day,
and copy from the pictures in his collection. He is
very kind to me, and often invites me to dine with
him, and Miss Reynolds is the most good-natured
woman I ever met with 
" Sir Joshua behaves to me just as he does to his
other pupils, or rather with more friendship."
At this time Northcote was copying in Leicester-
fields, from nine in the morning till dark. Before nine
he had earned, by colouring a sheet of birds, the
shilling on which he lived for the day. His present
engagement, he tells his brother, would render almost
any state agreeable ; for the art is to him beyond every
amusement on earth.]
In the unpublished autobiography of which these
letters form portions, Northcote says, " Sir Joshua
Reynolds, now perceiving my evident fondness for the
art, and also knowing that he could soon make me
useful to him in his profession, seeing me one evening
late in .the gallery, looking with much attention at
the pictures, spoke to me, and asked if I would come
and live in the house four or five years, and assist him
in the same manner as his other scholars.

412 LIFE. OF SIR JOSH 0" A REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
" This offer was immediately accepted by me with
the extremest degree of pleasure ; being by this means
provided with my first wants, viz. board and lodging ;
besides being situated, as may be said, in the very
centre of Art."
Sir Joshua had presented the picture of Johnson,
exhibited in 1770, or a duplicate of it, to Johnson's
stepdaughter, Lucy Porter. At her house Johnson
found the picture on his visit to Lichfield this year.
In July he wrote to Reynolds from Ashbourne : —
"Dear Sir, — When I came to Lichfield, I found
that my portrait1 had been much visited and much
admired. Every man has a lurking wish to appear
considerable in his native - place, and I was pleased
with the dignity conferred by such a testimony of your
regard. " Be pleased therefore to accept the thanks of,
" Sir, your most obliged and humble Servant,
" Sam. Johnson.
" Compliments to Miss Reynolds.
"July 17, 1771."
[On the 25th of July Sir Joshua was in attendance
at Windsor, by desire of the King, as one of the
spectators of an august ceremonial, in which His
Majesty no doubt wished the President to see him take
part, for the purposes of the royal portrait on which
Reynolds was now engaged.2 On that day. His Royal
Highness the 'Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburg
(Duke of York), the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of

1 It is now in the Gallery of the
Duke of Sutherland. — Ed.
- A sketch of the King's head in

chalk at Barton may be a record of
this day's work. — Ed.

1771, iETAT. 48. KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 413
Mecklenburg, the Prince of Brunswick, the Earl of
Albemarle, the Dukes of Marlborough and Grafton,
and the Earl Gower, were installed Knights of the
Garter in the presence of the Sovereign. After the
procession and four hours' ceremony in the chapel, the
company returned to St. George's Hall, where the
King dined under a rich canopy, and the knights at
a long table on the royal right hand ; the Queen and
her younger children witnessing the show from a
gallery opposite. Under the gallery were seats for
persons of distinction to see the dinner ; and here, no
doubt, Sir Joshua was placed. The dinner was suc
ceeded by a ball, in the great Guard Room, opened
with a minuet by the Duke of Gloucester and the
Duchess of Grafton ; his Royal Highness danced the
second minuet with the Duchess of Marlborough. At
eleven the country dances began ; three only were
called when their Majesties retired, and the company
dispersed before twelve. It is striking that every
English knight installed on this occasion had sat to Sir
Joshua. In the crowd assembled on the occasion,
Northcote tells us, the President lost his laced hat and
gold watch. But such losses were among the chances
on which men calculated in those days. It was but a
month before that a party of gentlemen and ladies
returning from Vauxhall by water had had their boat
boarded by six silent highwaymen in black masks, two
hundred yards above Westminster Bridge, who eased
them of above 20/. and two watches. The maskers
returning from the Pantheon had pistols clapped to
their breasts by mounted knights of the road and
footpads, in Oxford Street. Highway robberies were

414 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
perpetrated in every suburb of London ; and the com
pany coming in from the Marylebone and Islington
tea-gardens used to make the journey under escort of
a horse-patrol. From the 13th of August to the 6th of September
Sir Joshua was in Paris. His pocket-book contains no
entry for this trip, except the date of his arrival hi
London. I presume he went to see the exhibition of
the French Academy, which at this time was biennial.
But his friend Doyen, a very considerable person among
the French Academicians, complains, in a letter written
many years after this, that he had not seen Sir Joshua
on this visit. He was not without English companions
in Paris, however, for Walpole was there just now, and
Mrs. Abington. It is pleasant to think of Sir Joshua
escorting the piquant actress to the Colisee, the last
new Parisian whimsy — a chalk and pasteboard imitation
of our Ranelagh, " gilt, painted, and becupided like an
opera " — or attending her to the theatre to enjoy the
finished high comedy of Preville and Mole, or to laugh
over the pantomime of the inimitable Carlin.
Sir Joshua must have found France drifting imper
ceptibly towards the great Maelstrom which was to
engulf her a few years later : Paris poverty-stricken and
disaffected, the court penniless and full of cabals, stagna
tion in trade, bankruptcy in the exchequer, the Encyclo
paedists paramount in the press, and dancers and
demireps giving the tone to the salons ; the Du Barry
installed instead of the Pompadour ; and the once well-
beloved Louis XV. wallowing in the filth of the Pare
aux Cerfs, suppressing his parliaments, and waging vain
war against epigrams and vaudevilles. Art was as ill-

1771, 2etat. 48. VISIT TO PARTS. 415
cared for as all around it. The rain poured in through
the ceilings of the Louvre, over Le Brun's battles and
triumphs. The shutters of the galleries would not close,
the doors would not bolt ; Raphaels and Correggios,
Guidos and Rubenses, were stacked about the neglected
rooms. Such care as there was was worse even than
neglect. The Orleans pictures had fallen into the
hands of the cleaners, had been varnished, transferred
from panel to canvas, and the seams, says Walpole,
filled up with colour.1
Nor would Reynolds find much in modern French
art to console him for the neglect of that of earlier and
greater times. The mannerism of Vernet, the mingled
minauderie and indecency of Boucher, the prurient
sentimentalism of Greuze, the cold classicality of Pierre
and his old friend Doyen, would leave him nothing to
envy Paris. Whatever might be the weakness of nascent
English art, it was already a more vigorous tree than
that which had its root in the apartments of the old
Louvre devoted to the Academie de la Peinture.
This visit to Paris interfered with what should have
been a pleasant English visit — to Bennet Langton, in
Lincolnshire, who the year before had married the
widow of the Earl of Rothes, painted by Sir Joshua in
1763. Goldsmith was to have been of the party, and
Johnson. But Goldsmith was now at Mr. Selby's farm-house at
Hyde, working hard on his new comedy. Here, living
memory, till very lately, preserved records of the visits
of Johnson and Reynolds and Sir William Chambers

Walpole to the Earl of Strafford, from Paris, Aug. 25, 1771.— Ed.

416 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
to the farmer's eccentric lodger, who used to read in
bed and put out the candle by flinging his slipper at
it ; who occasionally came home leaving his shoes stuck
in the mud ; and who, in his fits of abstraction, used to
wander into the farmer's kitchen by mistake for his own
sitting-room. Goldsmith writes to Langton, after excusing himself
from the proposed visit on the score of his new comedy,
that " Reynolds is just returned from Paris, and finds
himself now in the case of a truant that must make
up for his idle time by diligence." Johnson too excused
himself. He had been visiting about the Peak ; but,
when Goldsmith writes, had returned to Ms old haunt
at Mrs. Thrale's. And Burke, Goldsmith adds, "is a
farmer, en attendant a better place, but visiting about
too. Every soul is merry and visiting about but myself,
and that is hard too, as I have been trying these three
months to do something to make people laugh."
In a letter to his brother, written in August, North
cote says, —
" I received your letter, which much entertained me.
It was brought to me while I was at dinner with Miss
Reynolds, Miss Offy Palmer (a niece of Sir Joshua), and
Mr. Clark. Miss Reynolds also had a letter by the
same post, but it was not from Sir Joshua, who, is at
this time in Paris, for he never writes to her, and,
between ourselves, I believe but seldom converses as
we used to dp in our family, and never instructs her
in painting. 1 found she knew nothing of his having
invited me to be his scholar and live in the house till
I told her of it. She has the command of the house
hold and the servants as much as he has." . . . .]

1771, iETAT. 48. NORTHCOTE'S LETTERS. 417
The room in which Northcote worked while with Sir
Joshua was, he tells us, a small one " next to his own
painting room. There were" (in it) " a great number
of those portraits which had been rejected and left on
his hands : l round the sides of the room were shelves,
on which were placed large heads, casts from the
antique, and at a great height, for the room was lofty ;
and over these hung some old portraits by Lely and
others. In this room, as I was one day busily em
ployed in painting a drapery to one of his portraits,
I suddenly heard a noise as if something had fallen,
when, looking up to the place, I saw that one of these
pictures by Lely had dropt from its nail, and falling
on the shelf threw down two or three very large plaster
heads. I had but a moment to get up in the corner of
this little room, when the whole fell down on the floor,
just where I had been at work, with a violence that
would have certainly proved fatal to me had I not got
out of the way, as a moment would have been too late.
The easel was knocked down, together with the picture
on which I was at work, and driven with violence
through five or six of those unfortunate rejected
portraits, as they happened to be placed one before
the other, whilst the floor was covered with the frag
ments of the broken plaster heads. The great noise
that this made alarmed even Sir Joshua, although
deaf, and brought him into the room in a hurry to
know what was the matter."

1 Not only portraits, but some of
his finest poetic subjects, were often
in this room. I have heard Lord
Egremont say he bought a picture
from it containing portraits of two
VOL. I. * 2 E

children of Nelly O'Brien, with a dog ;
and he regretted that he had not
bought others, for the prices asked by
Sir Joshua were not high.

418 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
In speaking of the work Reynolds gave him to do,
Northcote says, "It was very provoking, after I had
been for hours labouring on the drapery of one of his
portraits from a lay-figure, to see him, with a few
masterly sweeps of his pencil, destroy nearly all my
work, and turn it into something much finer ; — and
yet, but for my work, it would not have been what he
made it."
"I remember once when I was disposing the folds
of drapery with great care on the lay-figure, irv order
to paint from it into one of his pictures, he remarked
that it would not make good drapery if set so arti
ficially, and that, whenever it did not fall into such
folds as were agreeable, I should try to get it better,
by taking the chance of another toss of the drapery
stuff, and by that means I should get Nature, which is
always superior to Art."
And yet Northcote, after recording this, said to
Hazlitt, " If I had any fault to find with Sir Joshua,
it would be that he was a very bad master in Art.
It was like the boy teaching the other to swim. L How
do you do when you want to turn ?' ' How must you
do when you turn ?' ' Why, you must look that way !'
Sir Joshua's teaching amounted to little more."
But the truth is, that little more can be taught in Art,
though everything may be learned, by an apt scholar.
Vandyke soon equalled Rubens in execution, because
he was Vandyke ; but Northcote was not a Vandyke ;
and, therefore, though not without ability, he remained
for ever at an infinite distance from the great painter
in whose house he lived five years, and whose works
he saw daily in every stage of progress. Opie, without

1771, jetat. 48. HIS FOURTH 'DISCOURSE.' 419
any such advantages, came from Cornwall to London,
already an artist of great power ; and Northcote after
wards became, in a great degree, his imitator; in
which he succeeded to some extent, because it was
much easier to imitate the force of Opie than the re
finement of Reynolds.
[At the sale of the prints and original drawings
collected by Richardson the painter, and his son, which
took place this year at Old Langford's room, under the
piazza, Covent Garden, Northcote attended, he tells us,
by Sir Joshua's direction, to bid for the lots which Sir
Joshua had marked — " a vast number of extraordinary
fine drawings and prints by and from old masters."
The fourth Discourse was delivered, as usual, at the
distribution of premiums,1 on the 10th of December.
Its main purpose is to show that generality ennobles
art; particularity debases it. The concluding para
graph sums up the argument. " On the whole," con
cludes the President, "it seems to me that there is
but one presiding principle which regulates and gives
stability to every art. The works, whether of poets,
painters, moralists, or historians, which are built upon
general nature, live for ever ; while those which depend
for their existence on particular customs and habits, a
partial view of nature, or the fluctuations of fashion,
can only be coeval with that which first raised them
from obscurity. Present time and future may be con-

1 The gold medal for painting
(Venus entreating Vulcan to forge
the armour of Achilles) was won by
Mr. W. Ball; that for a bas-relief
(the Choice of Hercules), by P. M.

Vangelder ; that for architectural de
sign (a nobleman's villa), by Mr. John
Yenn, afterwards an Academician, and
successor to Sir W. Chambers as trea
surer of the Academy. — Ed.
2 e 2

420 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.

sidered as rivals, and he who solicits the one must
expect to be discountenanced by the other."
A consolatory reflection this for unsuccessful men, —
a sentence which has given comfort to many a baffled
and hungry votary of High Art. It seems to me, how
ever, that this doctrine of the President's, like many of
the doctrines in his Discourses, is inexactly stated.
The truth of the matter is that the greatness of Art does
not depend on expressing general ideas and neglecting
personal, local, and minute ones, — for by this road we
only get to Martinus Scriblerus's abstract Lord Mayor —
but on expressing the largest possible amount of en-,
during truth and beauty in the particular form or
subject chosen.
Thus limited, Sir Joshua's doctrine is sound; taken,
as he expresses it, it is utterly inconsistent with the
facts of the case. Is not Homer minute, local, and
personal ? Does he " generalize " the armour, the dress,
the meals, the battles of his heroes, — he who paints
every figure on the shield of Achilles ; who shows us
his warriors arming, and dressing, garment by garment,
piece by piece, from the triple cone of horsehair to the
burnished greaves, not sparing us a fold, a thong, or
a buckle ; who gives us the very dishes of Achilles's
bill of fare ; the ingredients in Machaon's medicine for
flesh wounds ; the name of every ship in the fleet ; the
force of every contingent in the hosts ; the order and
names of the fruit-trees and beds of Alcinous's garden ;
the particulars of Nausicaa's family-wash, and the game
at romps that followed it ; every detail of the foot-bath
of Odysseus ? Why, Homer is full of the most trivial
details. But they are animated by a truth and life

1771, jetat. 48. HIS FOURTH 'DISCOURSE.' 421
which make them immortal, and give the work its
greatness. What shall we say of Dante ? What can
be so minutely local and personal as the scenery and
personages of the ' Divina Commedia ; ' so homely and
precise as his images and illustrations ? Take History.
Is Thucydides a generalizer, in Sir Joshua's sense ?
Does he omit a circumstance in the intrigues of the
Agora at Athens, the minutest fact of the operations
before Syracuse, the nicest detail of fortification in the
siege of Platsea, the subtlest quirk or quibble in the
argument between the Athenian and Melian negotiators ?
The History of Thucydides is as minute, as stamped
with the character of its time, place, and people, as the
Chronicles of Villani or Froissart. What makes it a
great work is not its generalization, but the penetration,
precision, and insight with which the minutest facts of
the particular history have been looked into, the force
with which they have been grasped, the vigour and life
with which they have been reproduced. The lessons
of the history may be useful and applicable to the end
of time, but this in no way affects the fact that they are
involved in deductions from a special set of occurrences
transacted on a narrow theatre, and most minutely
recorded. The certain effect of this holding up of "general
ideas" as the test and " differentia," or special charac
teristic, of High Art, was to make " High Art " empty,
academic, and lifeless ; to kill it, far more certainly than
it could be killed by any amount of Dutch literalness or
Venetian ornament.
So far as the tendency of this part of his teaching
goes, or has gone, I- cannot but think Sir Joshua's

422 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
Discourses among the .unsafest of all guides to the
student. I should like to see an appendix of lunitations
and cautions bound up with every copy of the book
given away by the Academy to the winners of its
medals. The best thing to be said for it is that the
President's teaching, however misdirected, tends, as I
have said already, undeniably upwards.
Take the opening passage of his fourth Lecture :
" The value and rank of every art is in proportion to
the mental labour employed on it, or the mental pleasure
produced by it." Such a doctrine was of inestimable
value in those days of rising effort among painters, of
hollow taste and shallow connoisseurship among patrons.
But when Sir Joshua pitches upon " exertion of mind "
as the great distinction between the Roman and Vene
tian schools, the judgment declines to follow him — even
though he afterwards explains, that in speaking of the
Venetian school he excepts Titian. What right has
he to except Titian? If Titian could conciliate with
splendour of colour the gravest senatorial dignity in
portraiture, the most fervent ecstacy, the loftiest faith,
the most earnest reverence and tenderness in religious
painting, how can it be contended, as Sir Joshua con
tends, that Venetian colour is not only " too brilliant,
but too harmonious to produce that solidity, steadiness,
and simplicity of effect, which heroic subjects require " ?
Does the glory of Venetian colour impair the ecstatic
majesty of the Assumption, the grandeur of the Peter
Martyr, the intensity of worship in the Magdalen who
creeps on her knees to Christ in the Garden ? Or —
to take painters whom Sir Joshua does not except from
the Venetian school,— is their Venetian colour out of

1771, jetat. 48. HIS FOURTH ' DISCOURSE.' 423
keeping with the awfulness of Tintoret' s Christ before
Pilate, or the dignity of Veronese's Darius? Here,
again, Sir Joshua is led away by too great eagerness
for generalization, and fails to guard himself by proper
limitations. Because much of the Venetian painting-
was decorative, he extends to the whole school argu
ments and considerations which apply to the purely
decorative examples of the school only — if even to
these; and lands himself in difficulties which force
him to such expedients as the excepting of Titian, in
speaking of that school of which Titian is the greatest
master. Nor can I agree with him when he argues that " the
same reasons which have been urged to show that a
mixture of the Venetian school cannot improve the
great style, will hold good in regard to the Flemish and
Dutch schools."
The reasons are certainly not the same in the two
cases. It is not the intense grasp of local circumstance
in the Dutch pictures which sinks them into the lower
regions of art, but the singular coarseness, grossness, or
unloveliness of the local circumstances which make up
Dutch life, and are reflected by Dutch art. But Dutch
art was nevertheless the best art possible in the Low
Countries, by virtue of its truth. If the Dutch school
had striven after " general ideas," we may be sure they
would have given us something immeasurably more
worthless than the lowest " droll " of Jan Steen, or
the most abject scullery-piece of Maes, Teniers, and
Ostade. By Venetian artists — with the partial exception
of the Bassans — local life and circumstance has rarely

424 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
been presented, except in the shape of portrait, and
there it has lifted portrait-painting into the region of
the ideal by beauty of feature, nobleness of air, dignity
of deportment, and splendour of attire.
The judgments of Sir Joshua as a painter constantly
correct his statements as a theorist on painting, just as
his practice did. He admits the right of the Dutch
painters to their meed of humbler praise. " The painters
of this school are excellent in their own way ; they are
only ridiculous when they attempt general history on
their own narrow principles, and debase great events
by the meanness of their characters." Quite true ; but
this is, not, as Sir Joshua argues, because the Dutch
painter is minute, and even local, but because he is
coarse and low in his forms, foul in the life he paints,
hoggish in his conception of pleasure, ignoble in his
types of man and womanhood. Yet Rembrandt could
be grand in spite of all the outward crust of these
deformities, because underneath them worked the imagi
nation of a great poet.
A httle further on Sir Joshua is compelled to claim
for " the lower exercises of the art " — among which he
modestly includes portrait-painting — "all the little
ornamental helps," — such as harmonious and brilliant
colour artfully distributed, light and shadow, and
handling, — which he refuses to the unhappy student of
the grand style. He had already been forbidden indi
vidual character in his heads, and adherence to historical
truth in his facts. He now learns that he is to be
confined either to a penitential regimen of simple black
and white — a " reduction of the colours to little more

1771, ^tat. 48. HIS FOURTH ' DISCOURSE.' 425
than chiar' oscura — which was often the practice of
the Bolognian schools," or to those " very distinct
and forcible reds, blues, and yellows, which are seen
in the draperies of the Roman and Florentine schools."
Then the historical painter is never to discriminate
textures of drapery ; he is to paint neither silk, nor
satin, nor woollen — but drapery, no more. Had the
President limited the latter rule to this — that the texture
must never be obtruded so as to interfere with some
more important truth in the picture, his teaching would
have been sound. As stated, I believe the rule defies
observance. A second example of reductio ad absurdum is to be
found in this part of the same Discourse. After refusing
to the student of the grand style the resources of
individuality in expression, fidelity to historic fact,
splendour or harmony of colour, subtlety of light and
shade, it is hardly to be wondered at that he should
end by classing the French school — Le Sueur, Poussin,
and Le Brun — above the Venetian.
In short, I find myself protesting, with the most
thorough heartiness of conviction, against almost every
deduction of this fourth Discourse. I am satisfied, and
I believe every intelligent person conversant with the
facts of art will be satisfied, by a careful and unbiassed
reading of it, that Sir Joshua was led away by his
adhesion to the untenable theory that the Grand style
of art is to be attained by seeking the " general," and
sinking the " individual ; " the truth — which had served
as the germ of this theory — being, that " the Grand
style" in art depends on the degree in which its pro-

426

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

ductions embody dignity, truth, beauty, and invention,
consistently with their subjects.1
List of Sitters for 1771.

January.
Mr. King; Miss Kennedy;
Mr. Baker ; Sir Watkin Williams
Wynne ; Lady Melbourne ; Lady
Ancram ; Master Lambe.
February.
Lady Ligonier ; Lady Thanet ;
Lady Harriet Acland; Lord
Ossory ; Miss Hill.
March.
Mrs. Abington; Child; Miss
Koper; Mrs. Trecothick; Mr.
and Mrs. Forrest ; Mrs. Buller.
April.
Lady Lucy Strangeways ; Mrs.
Pelham; Mr. Wilkinson; Mrs.
and Miss Smith; Miss Dutens;
Mr. Acland.

¦y-
Dr. Bobinson; Mr. and Mrs.
Bayly; Mrs. Payler; Lady Car
lisle; Egyptian; Duke of Buc-
cleugh; Mr. Pelham. June.
Lord Trevor; Mr. Hanger;
Mr. Humphrey; Mrs. Baddeley;

Mrs. Demar; Lady Barrimore ;
Sir Charles Bunbury; Lady
Waldegrave; Child; Bartolozzi.
July.
Lord Irwin ; Boy ; Mrs.
Eichardson; Mr. Nixon; Mrs.
Hartley; Old Man; Mrs. Quar-
rington (for a St. Agnes) ; Miss
Foley. August.
Miss Meyer ; Beggar child.
September.
George White (Ugolino) ; Miss
Simmons; Mr. Hickey.
October.

Madame
Phillips.

Blankart

Miss

November.

Mrs. Yates ; Lady Lisburne ;
Lady Anderson ; Mrs. Bott ; Mrs.
Coutts. December?
Mr. Banks; Miss Knapper
(Napier).

1 On this subject I think it impos
sible to put sounder reasoning into
better words than Mr. Ruskin has
done in his first three chapters of the
third volume of his 'Modern Painters.'
His argument seems to defy refutation.
Leslie, in his excellent ' Handbook for
Young Painters,' nowhere devotes him

self to detailed refutation of Sir
Joshua's theory. But the same view
of its unsoundness which is here put
forward will be found underlying
Leslie's reasoning throughout. — Ed.
2 In this month is recorded a visit
from Mrs. Delany and her noble old
friend the Duchess of Portland.

1772, iETAT. 49.

SIR JOSEPH BANKS.

427

1772, setat. 49. — Sir Joshua began this year's work
with his Ugolino, and some of his fancy subjects of
children, as I infer from the frequent sittings of his child-
model. He was also working, during January, on his
picture of Hebe, from Miss Meyer, the pretty daughter
of a brother Academician — Meyer, the enameller and
miniature-painter.1 He had about the same time many
sittings from Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, that
ardent young student whose singular passion for natural
history had survived an education at Eton and Oxford,
and, resisting the temptations held out to rank and
fortune by that dissipated and pleasure-loving time, had
carried him, first, to the fogs and icebergs of Newfound
land with Lieutenant Phipps, and afterwards round the
world with Captain Cook. The ' Endeavour ' had re
turned from her three years' circumnavigation in June,
1771 ; and her Captain, Banks, and Solander (the
botanist of the expedition), had been the lions of the
scientific and pseudo-scientific world ever since. Bankes
was already urging forward a second voyage to the
South Seas, and, till the arrangements for it should
be completed, spurred on by his restless eagerness to
know, was now planning a voyage to Iceland with his
friend Solander, which he accomplished during this year.
Sir Joshua was a constant attendant at the meetings of

1 There is a noble study for the eagle,
which he has introduced into this pic
ture, in Lord Lyveden's gallery at
Farming Woods. This eagle died
while Northcote was in Sir Joshua's
house ; and Northcote in his ' Life '
tells how, after he had set up the dead
bird to make a study of it for himself,

Sir Joshua, coming into the room later
than his wont — having been at a mas
querade the night before — carried off
the bird and canvas into his studio,
and there completed a study which
astonished his pupil. This may be the
very study now at Farming Woods. —
Ed.

428 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
the Royal Society, which had suggested the first voyage
to Otaheite for the observation of the transit of Venus.
His pocket-books show that he had been a frequent
visitor to Banks and his companion Solander at the
British Museum, where their curiosities were arranged,
and he had no doubt taken the keen interest of a close
and curious observer in their collections of plants,
animals, weapons, and dresses, in their drawings and
descriptions of new countries, races, and manners.
Johnson, after one of these dinners with Banks (this
year), on February 26, sends, under cover to Sir Joshua
— as not himself knowing Mr. Banks's address — his
thanks to Banks and Solander for the pleasure received
in the conversation of the day before. He encloses a
motto for Banks's goat, which had accomplished one
circumnavigation of the globe, and was now preparing
for a second — " Perpetua ambita bis terra prasmia lactis
Ha;c habet altrici capra secunda Jovis."
Sir Joshua's portrait of Banks, painted at this time, is
an excellent illustration of the importance of intelligent
and intimate relations between painter and sitter. The
painter has thoroughly understood his subject. There. is
visible in every point and trait of the picture a complete
grasp of the fact that the business is to represent an
ardent inquirer into nature, a man of an intense mind
concentrated on discovery. The burning eyes are
focussed by the will that knits the brow, and gives their
tension to the hands — one of which grasps the arm of
the chair, while the other is clenched on the papers
which strew the table. The energy of the man seems
to be lifting him out of his seat by an irrepressible force.

1772, 2ktat. 49. DR. HAWKESWORTH. 429
The globe at his side, the wide stretch of sea visible
from the window, are significant of voyages past and
to come. No painter could have so expressed the
" hungry heart " of a man smitten with the passion of
exploring and inquiring, unless he had felt a deep and
intelligent sympathy with his sitter. And it is this
after all which gives the crowning interest and chief
value to Sir Joshua's portraits ; this power of grasping
the dominant characteristic of his subject, whether it be
thirst of knowledge and passion for travel in a Banks,
or lazy voluptuousness in a Sophia Baddeley or a Nelly
O'Brien. Dr. Hawkesworth, Sir Joshua's old acquaint
ance, was now engaged in preparing for the press the
account of Cook's voyage, with the earlier voyages of
Byron, Wallis, and Carteret — at the price of 6000£. —
then considered startling, and which is still larger, pro
bably, than any ever paid to a literary hack, however
respectable. Dr. Hawkesworth sat to Sir Joshua this
year, and was still sitting a short time before his death.
He was so elated with his good fortune that he is said
to have died of it ; though others attribute his death
to some disparaging criticisms on his heavy quartos,
when published next year.
Reynolds was still painting pretty, silly, self-indulg
ing, self-destroying Mrs. Baddeley, when the fashionable
world was all expectation of the opening of the Pan
theon,— lately built on the stately plan and with the
magnificent decorations of Wyatt, — which was fixed for
Wednesday, the 22nd of January.
Mrs. Abington was sitting to Sir Joshua at the same
time as Mrs. Baddeley. Both, though women of very
different reputations, had their anxieties about the

430 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
reception they were likely to meet with at the new
place of entertainment. At Almack's, or Madame
Cornely's, or the Opera House masquerades, none
were so welcome as the demireps, the mistresses, and
the players. But the proprietors and managers of the
Pantheon, it was whispered, had set up as censors,
and determined to exclude all " women of slight cha
racter," and all the players. Considering the manners
of that day, the scandals either winked at or paraded
in the highest society, the powerful protection enjoyed
by the Kitty Fishers, Nelly O'Briens, Miss Kennedys,
Nancy Parsonses, and Mrs. Baddeleys — to say nothing
of their more decorous sisters like Mrs. Abington, Miss
Powell, and Miss Nancy Reynolds— it was to be ex
pected that the proposed exclusion would be ridiculed as
a piece of prudish injustice, and resisted as an impertinent
interference with fashionable pleasures. Sir Joshua
was as little of a prude as he was of a libertine. When
Mr. Smelt, the decorous sub-governor of the young
princes, expressed to him his wonder how he could
resist the allurements of the beauty which daily exhibited
itself in his painting-room with all the enhancement of
costume and attitude, he replied that his heart, like the
gravedigger's hand in ' Hamlet,' had grown callous by
contact with beauty. But he frequented, as we have
seen, both the society of men of pleasure and their
places of amusement. His younger friends of the
Thursday-night Club— men like Lord Palmerston, Lord
Carlisle, Lord March, and Sir Charles Bunbury — we
may be sure, would be no partisans of the Pantheon
Catos. Lord Melbourne, indeed, was at this moment
the protector of pretty Mrs. Baddeley. Those who are

1772, jetav. 49. OPENING OF THE PANTHEON. 431
so inclined may read his ill-spelt, ungrammatical, and
fulsome love-letters to her in the Life of her published
by her worthy companion Mrs. Steele. In one of these
letters he tells her he has been to see her picture at
Reynolds's, and thinks it will be well done ; in another
he rejoices that, as there is no " Rannela " (where she
was then singing) that night, he can enjoy the felicity
of a visit to her whom he loves " every minnitt " of
his life, " Satterday, Sunday, and every day." Mr.
William Hanger, afterwards Lord Coleraine, Mrs. Bad
deley 's first aristocratic lover, brought her to Sir Joshua,
to whom he was sitting himself while his mistress's
portrait was in progress, and paid for the picture.
These young bloods had vowed that, whoever was
excluded from the Pantheon, Sophia Baddeley should
be let in. Sir Joshua, as I find from the pocket-book,
was at the Pantheon on the opening night. He may
have seen the triumphal entry of his beautiful sitter.
Twenty gentlemen, headed by Mr. Hanger and Mr.
Conway, son of the Earl of Hertford, met at Almack's
and bound themselves to escort her and stand by her
chair. When she was set down under the portico — the
same that still stands, for it escaped the fire in 1792 —
her escort had swelled, says Mrs. Steele, to nearly fifty
gentlemen. The constables allowed Mrs. Steele to pass,
but when Mrs. Baddeley followed they crossed their
staves, and civilly, but resolutely, said their orders were
to admit no players. They put it in the politest way,
for Mrs. Baddeley would have been excluded by her
reputation had her profession been unexceptionable.
On this, the gallant escort drew, compelled the con
stables to give way at the sword's point, and, raising

432 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
their chivalrous blades, protected Mrs. Baddeley as she
passed proudly into the Rotunda, blazing with lights,
and surrounded, between its ranges of pillars, with
all the gods and goddesses of Olympus, in strange com
panionship with decorous George the Third and his
equally decorous Queen, for whose especial society,
however, a Britannia was provided.
But the difficulty was not yet at an end. The
outraged gentlemen refused to sheath their swords, or
to allow the music to proceed, till the managers came
forward and humbly apologised to Mrs. Baddeley and
her escort. Mrs. Steele adds — what I do not believe,
though it shows what she thought would be credited
by her readers — that, when the managers had apologised,
the Duchess of Argyle and the Duchess of Ancaster
stepped forward and expressed the pleasure it gave
them to receive such an ornament to their assembly
as Mrs. Baddeley. A messenger was in waiting to
inform Mrs. Abington of the result of Mrs. Baddeley 's
charge at the head of her guards. She now made her
entree, and from that night the attempt to draw the
line between degrees of vice was practically relin
quished. An advertisement appeared in the morning
papers, on Monday the 27th, that, "as it was not
convenient for ladies always to carry the certificates
of their marriages about them, the subscribers were
resolved, in opposition to the managers, to protect the
ladies to whom they gave their tickets." Even so sad
and stern a moralist as Johnson did not scruple to
attend the Pantheon. The admission was half-a-guinea.
When Boswell remarked there was not half-a-guinea's
worth of pleasure in seeing the place, " But, sir," replied

1772, jstat. 49. MASQUERADE AT THE TANTHEON. 433
Johnson, " there is half-a-guinea's worth of inferiority
to other people in not having seen it." Boswell : "I
doubt whether there are many happy people here."
Johnson : " Yes, sir, there are many happy people here ;
there are many people here who are watching hundreds,
and who think hundreds are watching them."
Concerts were given there, as well as assemblies and
masquerades. For one of the latter, on the 30th of
April, I find Sir Joshua recording an engagement, and
his name figures in the list of the company present.1
He went in domino. Goldsmith was there with his
friend Mr. Cradock, in old English dresses. Near two
thousand persons, were present. The fourteen rooms
were blazing with light and decorations. The suppers
and wine on these occasions were in keeping with the
rank of the best part of the company. To people these
rooms we have to call up many of the most beautiful
and best known of Sir Joshua's sitters. On this par
ticular occasion a great many of the ladies, we are told,
chose to adopt male dominoes, and " appeared as mas
culine as many of the delicate maccaroni things we
see everywhere— the 'Billy Whiffles' of the present
age." Among the most distinguished of these " pretty
fellows" were the Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Mel
bourne, and Mrs. Darner. The Duchess of Richmond
was dressed after Mrs. Yates as Zobeide; Lady
Margaret Fordyce as Queen Elizabeth. She little
dreamed of the catastrophe impending over the house
of which her husband, the great city banker, was the
head; the fall of which, a month after, shook the whole

1 ' Town and Country Magazine.'
VOL. I. 2 F

434 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.

commercial world of London to its centre. There were
the Horneck family — watched over no doubt by Gold
smith and Sir Joshua — a charming group, the two
beautiful sisters and their smart young brother, " the
captain in lace," all in French dancers' dresses of the
same cut and fashion; looking, says the Magazine
chronicler, " notwithstanding the sex of one of the
group, like the three graces." There was Lady Villars
as a Sultana, ablaze with thirty thousand pounds' worth
of diamonds; and Lady Gideon as a spinning-girl.
Perhaps Mrs. Bouverie and Mrs. Crewe — who first
appeared as a Spanish nun — might have changed their
costumes for those of the two Merry Wives of Windsor,
who so plagued fat Stephen Fox, fastening on him as
their Falstaff ; while facetious Mr. Sbuthcote, in the
character of a Smithfield butcher, kept feeling his ribs
from time to time, and estimating his weight and value
at the then high price of butcher's meat. There were
many of the handsomest of the players present too :
Mrs. Mattocks as the Fornarina, Mrs. Fisher — late Mrs.
Powell — as a Columbine, and not a few of the ladies
of " slight reputation," whom the managers had vainly
tried to exclude. Then, for the humours of the night,
— there were female conjurors who told fortunes ; Mr.
Reinhold and Mr. Du Bellamy, the singers, from the
Haymarket, with a humorous duet, comparing the
sculptured gods and goddesses around the room with
the living gods and goddesses who filled the floor ;
Captain Rice as a Billingsgate fishwoman ; Mr. Talbot,
of Lincoln's Inn, as a dancing Stockwell clock ; a
Highlander, Mr. McDonald, in full tartans, and armed
to the teeth, whose pistol, dirk, and broadsword had

1772, 2etat. 49. MASQUERADE AT THE PANTHEON. 435
been, after much ado, admitted, not as arms — which
were forbidden at these entertainments — but as part of
his dress. There was a group dressed as the bearers
and attendants of a May-day garland ; conspicuous
among whom shone Sir Joshua's merry fat sitter and
brother Dilettante, Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, with
his young bride. Sir Joshua we may be sure retired
early ; but one does not feel quite so certain about
Goldsmith. After seeing the Jessamy Bride and Little'
Comedy to their carriages, he may have been one of the
determined visitors who breakfasted on the remains of
the supper, astonishing the early dealers in Oxford
Market as they trooped to their chairs and coaches in
the May dawn ; and rivalling the May-day milk
maids, their fiddlers, and their zanies, already stirring
in the streets.
Sir Joshua, I find from his pocket-book, attended at
the drawing-room on the Queen's birthday, which was
kept on the 18th of January. He was now in frequent
consultations with Sir W, Chambers, no doubt about the
arrangements for the permanent accommodation of the
Academy at Somerset House, for the reconstruction of
which Chambers was now preparing those plans which
he began to execute in 1774. The President is a
regular attendant, as usual, at the councils and lectures
of the Academy ; at the Monday nights of the Club in
Gerrard Street ; the dinners at the British Coffee House
on Wednesdays ; the Thursday nights at the Star and
Garter ; and the alternate Sunday dinners of the Dilet
tanti. There are several " at homes " too, noted in the
pocket-book during the winter.
On the 1st of February the Academy met to elect an
2f2

436 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS Chap. V.
Academician, when the choice fell on Nollekens. The
number of associates had been fixed in December, 1769,
at not more than twenty. Between the exhibition of
last and that of this year, Cosway and Burch had been
chosen Academicians. Nollekens the sculptor, Biagio
Rebecca the decorator, Peters the historical painter, and
Dall and Tomkins the landscape-painters, were elected
Associates in October of the preceding year. Academic
advancement was rapid in those days. Every man who
displayed the least ability was certain of election. In
February Sir Joshua was at work for the picture of
Johnson, intended for Thrale's gallery at Streatham.
Mr. and Mrs. Garrick too sat this year for the picture
of them painted for the Hon. F. Fitzmaurice, Lord
Shelburne's brother. The great actor and his wife are
represented together on a garden seat, in their grounds
at Hampton, he just closing the book from which he
has been reading to her. It is a very vigorous picture ;
the characteristic vivacity of Garrick' s face and action
are expressed with the same mastery which I have
noticed in the picture of Sir Joseph Banks. Mrs.
Garrick, though always the delight and charm of Gar-
rick's house, was now no longer the lovely, light-
limbed, laughing Eva Maria Violette, for love of whom
Garrick, twenty-five years before, had dressed in
woman's clothes that he might slip a letter into her
chair, without compromising her or offending her
watchful protectress Lady Burlington, and who had
witched the world as a dancer, while she won friends
among the titled and the great by her grace, good
humour, and modest sweetness. of disposition. In Lord
Normanton's gallery is a most fascinating sketch of her,

1772, jetat. 49. NORTHCOTE'S REM lMSCENCES. 437
which must have been painted in the first years of Sir
Joshua's acquaintance with her. Slight as it is, those
who have seen will not easily forget it. In the picture
of her sitting with her husband, painted this year, she
appears of matronly character, with a handsome, sen
sible, kindly face : the dress is painted with singular
force and freedom.1
It must have been while Sir Joshua was painting on
this portrait of Garrick, that Northcote, hard at work
on his copying in the next room, but with open ears,
was much amused, as he tells us in his unpublished
autobiography, by the actor's lively conversation.
Among other of his over hearings was Garrick' s abuse
of Cumberland, " D — n his dishclout face ! His plays
would never do for the stage, if I did not work 'em up,
and make epilogues and prologues too for him, and so
they go down with the public." Then he added, " He
hates you, Sir Joshua, because you do not admire his
Correggio." " What Correggio ? " asked Sir Joshua.
" Why, his Correggio," replied Garrick, " is Romney."
Northcote, — all eagerness to pick up the crumbs that
fell from Sir Joshua's richly-covered table, — heard Mrs.
Garrick, too, in one of her sittings this year, making a
bitter complaint of Foote, for his perpetual abuse and
satire of her husband, both in the papers and hi
company ; and Sir Joshua's wise consolation, that " This
need not give her pain, as it clearly proved Foote her
husband's hiferior ; it is always the smaller man who
envies and abuses."
These sittings were not always tete-a-tSte. I find Sir
1 The picture was sold last year -at Christie's for 850 guineas, and now
belongs to Mr. Grizzell.

438

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

Joshua's lively friend Fitzmaurice writing to Garrick
about this time to beg the actor to let him know when
he sits to Sir Joshua, that he may have the pleasure of
keeping him company. Mr. Fitzmaurice thought his
own portrait, painted in September of this year, a
failure, for the want of that animation which company
during the sittings would have given it.]
It was about this time that Northcote first made
Goldsmith's acquaintance. " The other day," he writes
to his brother,1 " Goldsmith dined here. It was the
first time I ever saw him. I had before told both Sir
Joshua and Miss Reynolds that I had a great curiosity
to see him ; and when I came into the room, the first
word Sir Joshua said to me was, ' This is Dr. Gold
smith, Mr. Northcote, whom you so much wished to
see. Why did you desire to see him ? ' The sudden
ness of the question rather confused me, and I replied,
' Because he is a notable man.' This, in one sense
of the word,2 was so unlike his character, that Sir
Joshua laughed heartily, and said he should in future
always be called ' the notable man ; ' but what I meant
was a man of note or eminence. He seems an un
affected and most good-natured man, but knows very
little about pictures, as he often confesses with a
laugh." [Among the sitters of February and March were
many old and charming acquaintances of the painter's.
One who had sat to him as a beautiful girl — Lady
Betty Montague — was now sitting as a young mother,

1 The letter is undated, but, from
its place in the autobiography, must
belong to this year. — Ed.

2 In the sense, i.e., of economical,
managing, and shrewd.

1772, jetat. 49. HIS SITTERS. 439"'
by her new title of Duchess of Buccleugh, with her
baby boy. The child whom he had painted at seven,
standing at the knee . of her mother Lady Ilchester
was now his sitter as Lady Harriet Acland, the wife
of a Devonshire gentleman, an old acquaintance of Sir
Joshua's, and an officer of promise. Another sitter of
the year was his warm friend, the successful Devonshire
barrister, the portly, positive, black-browed Dunning ;
whose peculiar ugliness, as Wraxall tells us, can
only be understood from Reynolds's picture of him.
He brought his daughter to sit at the same time.
The travelled and eccentric Mrs. Buller, from King's
Nympton, is another sitter who carries with her
pleasant memories of Devonshire, as well as stranger
and rarer experiences of foreign countries then rarely
visited by women. Mrs. Crewe, now one of the
reigning toasts of the time, the painter had followed in
the growth of her beauty and bewitching grace — from
the time when he first painted her, twelve years ago,
at sixteen, as Miss Greville, with the lamp of Psyche, —
to the present year, when he idealized her in that
loveliest of his many lovely portraits of this sweet
woman — as Saint Genevieve, with her pensive head
upon her hand, reading a saintly legend, her sheep
feeding about her. In April the Leicester Fields
studio was visited by a strangely contrasted pair — the
Duke of Cumberland, and his new Duchess, late Mrs.
Horton. They were still under Royal ban ; the Duke's
seat in St. George's and Henry the Seventh's Chapels
was vacant at installations of the Garter and the
Bath ; his name was not included in invitations to the
Court festivities, his ungainly person never seen at

440 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
birthday balls or levees. The Royal Marriage Act had
passed both Houses of Parliament in March, after de
termined but useless opposition. It declared all the
descendants of the late king incapable of contracting
marriage without the Royal consent under the Great
Seal. Such descendants, if above twenty-five, however,
on giving the Privy Council twelve months' notice of
their intention, might marry without the Royal consent,
unless both Houses of Parliament disapproved within
the twelve months. All persons solemnizing or assist
ing at the celebration of such marriages were declared
subject to the mysterious pains and penalties of the
statute of premunire. This Bill had been suggested
by the recently declared marriage of the Duke of
Cumberland ; and by the union, equally well known,
though not yet officially declared, of the Duke of
Gloucester and the beautiful Maria Countess Walde
grave. Sir Joshua had painted both the ladies ; the
latter indeed, as we have seen, was for many years one
of his favourite and most frequent sitters. And now
the fascinating, wily widow Horton, with the quarter-
of-a-yard long eyelashes, brings the gawky, lumbering-
Royal Duke, whom she has netted in those eye-lashes,
to be painted. What the Duke was in manners and
deportment the curious may read in the depositions
given the year before in Lord Grosvenor's action of
crim. con. against him. At an obscure country inn,
where he was used to put up for the purposes of his
amour with Lady Grosvenor, the Duke was thought to
be an idiotic country squire, and christened " the Fool."
He comported himself in the painter's studio as might
be expected from one with such a nickname. When,

1772, jetat. 49. THE ROYAL MARRIAGE ACT. 441
after he had been some time blundering and swearing,
and stumbling over easels and stretchers, the Duchess
insisted, sotto voce, that he should say something to the
painter, the only remark he could muster up, as he
stared at the canvas on which his pretty wife's face was
laid in, was, " What, eh ! so you always begin with the
head, do you ? "
For all his Royal blood and Ducal coronet, Mrs.
Horton must have had but a hard bargain of it. In
the case of the Duchess of Gloucester, the Royal
husband was at least faithful as well as fond, and as
decorous as his brother of Cumberland was disreputable.
The working of the Royal Marriage Act since 1772 is
the best justification of some of the chief objections
urged to it by the Opposition, and above all by Burke,
in the debates of this year. Whatever may be the
dangers of intermarriage between the Royal line and
subjects, those dangers, under the prohibitions still in
force, have to be set against a heavy score of half-
tolerated immoralities, of connections which confuse
the limits of licit and illicit union, in a way equally
unhappy for the subjects and for the issue of such
marriages. There is no need to dwell on the more
obvious mischiefs of limiting the choice of the Royal
line within a circle so narrow as to risk the healthiness
of offspring not less than the happiness of wedlock.
To the Academy dinner of this year, the Lord
Chamberlain, Dr. Francklin, Garrick, Johnson, Foote,
and twenty-two gentlemen were invited.
The catalogue of this year's Exhibition includes 324
works, considerably more than double the number
of the first Exhibition three years ago. The new

442 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. CnAr. V.
Academy had already taken the wind out of the sails
of the Incorporated Society ; which, however, was this
year making its stoutest push to outstrip its rival.
Payne, the architect, had built for the society a hand
some room, on the site of the present Lyceum ; and
here, this year for the first time, their exhibition was
held. They sent an invitation to the officers of the
Royal Academy to [attend the opening of their new
room with an Ode, but the invitation was declined by
the Committee on the 7th of May. The most desperate
exertions had evidently been made to outnumber the
Academy exhibitors, and the result is a catalogue of
427 works. But to make up this total, besides a great
number of engravings, are such contributions as " a
landscape in needlework, with human hair ;" " a festoon
of natural flowers preserved ; " "a flower-piece made of
tin, inlaid with the white part of the horse-muscle
shell ; " and " the arms of His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales, in human hair" — precisely the
" baubles " which the Council of the Academy had by
formal resolution excluded from its exhibitions. Sir
Joshua's pupils — Barron (still at Rome) and Berridge
¦ — exhibit portraits with the Incorporated Society. So
does Romney — portraits of Ozias . Humphreys the
miniature-painter, and of Meyer the enameller. But
with the exception of Romney, Mortimer (who sends
a number of his clever drawings of banditti, soldiers,
fishermen, &c), Stubbs (who contributes eight pictures
of horses, dogs, lions, the Centaur Nessus and Dejanira,
and a Hope nursing Love), and Wright of Derby,
there is no painter of this Society's exhibitors whose
name can fairly be said to have escaped oblivion.

1772, jetat. 49. BARRY'S PICTURES. 443
With the Academy the case is very different. In
their catalogue, besides Sir Joshua, we find this year
such names as Barry and Gainsborough, Barrett and
Wilson, Flaxman and Nollekens, Hayman and Gavin
Hamilton, Hoare, Hone, and Zoffany, Angelica Kauff
mann and Benjamin West.
Barry, though depressed by the coldness with which
his Adam and Eve had been received the year before,
gallantly makes a new assault on the degraded taste
of the town, with the high classical ' Venus rising from
the Sea,' ' Medea at her Incantation,' and ' The Educa
tion of Achilles.' He sold the latter picture to Mr.
Palmer " at twenty guineas a figure." Walpole, in
his catalogue, has marked the Venus as " extravagant,
but with some genius ; " the Medea, as " wild and
ill-drawn." Barry overheard him laughing at the
picture, and, as Walpole thought, resented it by an
allusion in his 'Inquiry into the real and imaginary
Obstructions to the Progress of Art in England.'
" As to the Dutch school, I leave it to the researches
of the Hon. Horace Walpole, or any other such learned
gentleman, if such another can be found." His Venus,
if not otherwise successful, elicited an ardent copy of
verses, reprinted in the 'Annual Register ' for the year,
by the friendly partiality of Burke : —
" Such was the goddess of the Cyprian grove,
Such Homer thought her when he dreamed of love :
The heaven-wrapt bard has but in vision shown _
What Barry's genius into life has thrown."
Gainsborough contributes ten landscape drawings,
with four portraits. West, encouraged by the great
success of his General Wolfe the year before, now

444 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.

followed up that daring experiment by its companion
but not rival picture, of 'Penn's Treaty with the
Indians ; ' besides a ' Simeon with the child Jesus,' a
' Juno receiving the Cestus,' — in rivalry with Sir
Joshua's ' Mrs. Blake,' — a ' Una ' from Spenser, and a
'Death of Hyacinthus.' The King, still hankering
after the classical, had commissioned the ' Death of
Epaminondas ' as a companion to the Wolfe. West
was now in high favour in and out of the palace.
Lord Grosvenor had bought his Wolfe, the King had
overwhelmed 'him with commissions, and was even
now listening to his suggestions for embodying the
leading events of our national history in a magnificent
series for the adornment of St. George's Hall.]
Sir Joshua himself sent six pictures : Miss Meyer, as
Hebe ; the whole-length of Mrs. Crewe, as St. Gene
vieve ; a half-length of Dr. Robertson, the historian ;
Goldsmith's old friend Hickey the attorney, painted
for Burke ; Mrs. Quarrington,- with lamb and palm-
branch, as St. Agnes ; and a study from White, as a
Captain of Banditti. Sir Joshua had rarely been
stronger than this year. Walpole remarks in his
catalogue that the idea of the Hebe1 was borrowed
from a print of Fortune by Goltzius, but " far more
easy and graceful." [She moves up a pathway of rain
bow, guided by the eagle, his claws filled with thunder
bolts. The action of the figure is serene and graceful.
The head is that of a healthy, comely girl, but has no
ideal beauty. The eagle is nobly painted ; full of life

1 Still in the possession of the Delafields of Bath, descendants of the Meyer
family.

1772, iETAT. 49. HIS PICTURES IN THE EXHIBITION. 445
and spirit — a study, no doubt, from that unlucky bird
which, Northcote tells us, Sir Joshua kept in the back
yard at Leicester Fields, and which must have needed
some severe poking-up before his eyes blazed, and his
feathers ruffled and stood out, as they do in this
picture. The Mrs. Crewe I should class as one of his
loveliest pictures — most touching and pathetic in the
expression given by the attitude rather than the face ;
for the eyes are cast down on the book, and the
features are nearly hidden by the hand which supports
the head. The landscape is beautiful in colour, and
powerfully relieves the figure, clothed in a simple white
dress, the light of which is distributed through the
picture by the sheep feeding or resting about their
pretty shepherdess. Walpole notes the harmony and
simplicity of the picture, and calls it, not unjustly,
" one of his best." The St. Agnes is a beautiful
woman, with a Guido-like expression of ecstasy in the
upturned face and swimming eyes. But I prefer to
these secondhand Guido graces the sensible head of Dr.
Robertson, or the robust and jovial Hickey. The robber
head has been well engraved with the absurd title of
' Cartouche,' x and is a grimy, haggard version of those
strongly marked features which stood Sir Joshua in
such stead, and had already brought the old beggar
into a thriving business as a model: Walpole notes
that there were in this year's exhibition several pictures
from him. A peculiar feature in this exhibition is
the appearance among our English painters of several
members of the Royal Academy of Painting at Paris ;

1 It is at Crewe Hall, in Cheshire.

446 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
invited perhaps by Reynolds during his last year's
visit to Paris, or tempted by the report of Sir Joshua's
fortune and West's favour. A special resolution, in
their favour, had been passed at the last Council in
1771 — that they should have admittance, without pro
bation or fee, to the Drawing Academy and the
lectures, by ticket from the President. They include
De Loutherbourg, who had for some years divided the
honour of landscape art in France with Vernet. He
sends two landscapes in oil and five drawings. He
was soon after his arrival engaged as scene-painter at
the Opera House, became a member of the Academy,
and spent the rest of his life in this country. Another
of these immigrants is M. Olivier, who, besides a
' Massacre of the Innocents,' and a ' Death of Cleopatra,'
sends four characteristic conversation pieces, an English,
a Scotch, a Spanish, and a French family. I find that
Sir Joshua called on him on his arrival in England.
He probably brought a letter from Sir Joshua's friend
Doyen. M. Pasquier is a third French Academician
now seeking fame and profit in London. He was an
excellent enameller.
But the canvas which drew the densest crowd about
it this year, and had almost as much success as West's
' Death of Wolfe ' of the year before, was Zoffany' s
picture of the ' Academicians gathered about the model
in the Life School at Somerset House.' The picture is
in the Royal Collection, and is invaluable as a collection
of characteristic figures and faces. Moser is setting
the figure, while Zuccarelli and Yeo study the pose of
the model, and Dr. William Hunter, a little behind
them, with his hand on his chin, scans the action of

1*2, iETAT. 49. ZOFFANY'S 'ACADEMICIANS.' 447
the muscles, on which he has lately been lecturing.
Nathaniel Hone, with an expression and attitude of
swaggering self-importance, leans on the screen which
backs the model. Cosway, the maccaroni miniaturist,
displays his clouded cane and gold lace at full-length
in the left-hand corner. He is the only one present,
besides Sir Joshua, who wears a sword. Zoffany him
self, sitting palette on thumb, in the right-hand corner
of the composition, is the pendant to Cosway ; behind
him, West leans on the rail — with more abandonment
of action than we should expect in the formal and cere
monious young Quaker — in coijy-ersation with Cipriani
and Gwynne the architec^T^lO-n- his left, seated on a
drawing-box — his figure set square, his legs apart, and
his hands firmly planted on his knees — is the burly
Hogarthian figure of Friuak^Hayinan, looking like an
incarnation of British sturdiness and straightforward
manhood/^ Just beyond him Sir Joshua, the centre
figure ©i the composition, directs his . ear-trumpet to
the talk of Wilton and Chambers. The less conspicuous
members of the Academy are ranged in a second line.
Even Tan-Chet-Qua, the ingenious Chinese modeller, is
not forgotten. Wilson leans moodily in a corner near
the ecorche, his hand thrust into his waistcoat, looking
gloomy and unsuccessful ; W. Hoare is seen in profile
behind Cosway, but Gainsborough is absent. He lived
in Bath, and never troubled himself with the meetings
or, business of the Academy, which had, in fact, taken
him into its bosom in spite of the most manifest
evidences of indifference to that honour on his part.
On the wall of the room are the portraits of the two
lady Academicians — Miss Mary Moser, the flower-

448 LTFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap.*/.
painter (Fuseli's correspondent), and Miss Angelica
Kauffmann, painted by Sir Joshua the year before.
Zoffany, when he painted this picture, had deter
mined to accompany Banks and Solander 'on their
second voyage ; the arrangements for which were
marred by the shameful neglect of the Navy Board,
in providing a ship utterly unfit for the voyage, if not
actually unseaworthy. Banks had expended several
thousand pounds for instruments, &c, when the conduct
of the Navy Board compelled him to relinquish his
undertaking ; and even Zoffany was said to have been
a loser of nearlv 1000^ worth of outfit.
The King visited the Exhibition on the 21st of May,
when Sir Joshua attended him, at five in the afternoon.
On the 15th of June I find Sir Joshua present at
the installation of the Knights of the Bath. On this
occasion Sir Joshua did not attend to study the King
in his robes, as he did at the installation of the Knights
of the Garter the year before. Their Majesties were
in the Abbey, but incognito. His Royal Highness
Prince Frederick was one of the Knights installed;
and as Sir Joshua painted him in his robes he might
have attended on this occasion to see him wearing them.
Among other friends and sitters of the President's
among the Knights who now took their stalls in
Henry the Seventh's Chapel, were Lord Clive, Sir
Ralph Payne, and Sir George Macartney. Sir William
Hamilton— another friend and brother Dilettanter-
was represented by a proxy, being absent'' at his post
in Naples. Sir Joshua was present at the supper and
ball given by the newly installed Knights at the
Opera House; when Sir Charles Hotham and Lady

1772, jetat. 49. FAILURE OF FORDYCE'S HOUSE. 449
Bridget Lane opened the dance ; after which Miss
Hotham and Miss Keppel, the Hon. H. Hobart and
Capt. Corbet, danced a minuet and Allemand It quatre
— composed for the occasion — so gracefully that it was
repeated again and again at the desire of the company.
Supper was over at half-past two, but country dances
were kept up three hours after, and it was seven
o'clock of the summer's morning before the last guests
had departed. How little the tired dancers thought of
the news that awaited them on their waking ! Next
morning came the crash of the first banking firm in
the City — Neal, James, Fordyce, and Downs. The
ruin that followed the catastrophe was wide-spread —
the panic wider still. At one time it was thought
every bank would be brought down by their fall ; but
the Bank of England stepped in to prop up the
shakiest firms ; and the calamity, though it spread
awfully wide, and for the time swallowed up all other
topics, paralyzed trade, and checked amusement, was
gradually forgotten. Sir Joshua had painted members
of the Fordyce family ; and when the failure was the
theme of every shaving-shop, coffee-house, and club,
we may be sure it echoed loud enough in the studio
at Leicester Fields ; and very likely served as the
excuse for deferring many a payment, or even for
draughts upon the painter's well-filled and readily-
opened purse. Mr. Thrale narrowly escaped bank
ruptcy. Even the poor actors and actresses who had
invested their savings with the great firm, and held
their bonds, felt the ruin, and had to resort to benefits,
at which the good-nature of Mrs. Abington and Mrs.
Baddeley was laid under contribution. Besides these
VOL. I. 2 G

450 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
light and laughing ladies of the theatre, Sir Joshua
this year painted the Melpomene of her day, Mrs.
Yates. Northcote — who, while Garrick was sitting
to Sir Joshua this year, overheard him telling the
painter, with great glee, how he had bothered an in
different painter to whom he was sitting, by perpetual
changes of expression and contortions of feature, till
the artist dashed down the pencils in despair — notes
the contrast in Mrs. Yates, who, while sitting to Sir
Joshua, told him that she always tried to keep her
mind fixed on the same kind of subjects, that her
expression might remain in keeping throughout the
progress of the picture, which was painted for the
artist's friend and patroness, Lady Scarsdale.1
The story is in keeping with Mrs. Yates's style of
art. She had no more comedy in her than Mrs. Siddons ;
and her greatest parts were those in which Mrs. Siddons
was most distinguished — Lady Macbeth, Constance,
Marguerite of Anjou, and Jane Shore. Medea was a
part which no actress — not even Mrs. Siddons — ventured
upon after Mrs. Yates had made it her own.
We have seen Sir Joshua at the Pantheon masque
rades and the Opera House balls. The pocket-book of
this year for the first time furnishes evidence of his
appearance in a very different scene, not less charac
teristic of the society of that day — at the famous Mrs.
Montague's, - in Hill Street. Between 1770 and the
outbreak of the French Revolution, for the first and
last time in English social life, there was a successful
attempt by a knot of distinguished Englishwomen to
1 The picture belongs to Mr. Gillott of Birmingham. She sits, book in
hand, under a bust of Shakspeare.

1772, jetat. 49. THE "BLUE-STOCKINGS." 451
rival the Marquise de Rambouillet and the Comtesse de
la Seze, in the days of Louis the Fourteenth ; or the
less stately Madame du Deffand and Mademoiselle de
l'Espinasse of a later reign. They were already known
as the Blue-Stockings — a name due either to their ne
glect of fashion or their supremacy in it, as we refer the
origin of the name to Mr. Stillingfleet's unceremonious
blue-worsted stockings or Madame de Polignac's super-
fashionable blue-silk ones.1
At the head of these grave ladies - — the precieuses of
the reign of George the Third — was Mrs. Montague,
now in her fifty-sixth year. Educated by Conyers
Middleton, — married to the Hon. Edward Montague,
grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich, a scholar and
mathematician much older than his wife, — Mrs. Mon
tague united high social position and wealth to great
culture and vivacity, and the determination to gather
about her the most distinguished men and women of
her time. Her husband was still alive, but seems to
have been totally eclipsed during the latter years of
his life by his brilliant and ambitious wife. At her
house in Hill Street— for she had not yet moved into
her palace in Portman Square — I find Sir Joshua
entering an engagement this year, on the 10th of April.
By help of Miss Burney's 'Diary,' and Wraxall's
' Memoirs,' it is not difficult to repeople Mrs. Montague's
rooms, or those of her rivals, Mrs. Vesey, Mrs. Ord,

1 See Mrs. Piozzi. Hayward, vol. i.
p. 27. According to some, the name
came from Mrs. Vesey's inviting Stil-
lingfleet, and cutting short his excuses
on the score of dress by " Pooh, pooh !

como in your blue stockings." Ac
cording to Mrs. Crewe, it was from
Madame de Polignac's appearing at
Mrs. Montague's in blue silk stockings,
then the mode in Paris.
2 g2

452 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
Mrs. Walsingham, Mrs. Thrale, Lady Lucan, Mrs.
Cholmondeley, or Miss Monckton. There was a rivalry
between all these ladies for the possession of the wits,
scholars, and dilettanti ; but Mrs. Montague bore away
the bell, thanks as much to her name, her diamonds,
her dinners, and her determination, as to her agree-
ableness or learning. Sir Joshua's picture 1 represents
her some eight years after this date ; but the thin,
keen, intelligent face has that " grand air " which Miss
Burney noticed, — "that look and manner of a woman
accustomed to being distinguished, and of great parts."
She knew all the value of her diamonds and her
money; and used them, both in London and Paris, to
confirm her title as Queen of the Blues: There are
quantities of her correspondence to be read — letters to
Beattie and Garrick, often fulsome, florid, and apprete,
but kind ; — to Mrs. Carter, the learned translator
of ' Epictetus ; ' — to Mrs. Chapone, that Sir Charles
Grandison in petticoats^ who, as Hester Mulso, had
sat at the feet of Richardson, swinging her censer of
womanly incense, and writing ' Ramblers ' at twenty-
three ; — to Hannah More and a host of other less
distinguished correspondents. They all exchange their
ideas in high Johnsonese, all affect a style so elaborate,
artificial, and full-dress, that we wonder how they can
keep it up, just as we wonder how they endured those
"tetes," which had often to be dressed three days in
advance, and required the wearers to sleep in a chair.
Mrs. Montague's parties were pleasant, no doubt, for
she got together the people best worth knowing; and
1 Still at Montague House.

1772, iETAT. 49. MRS. MONTAGUE AND HER CIRCLE. 453
though she liked flattery, and loved to drape and pose
herself as the chief Muse of a new British Parnassus,
she was essentially a gentlewoman, full of kindness and
benevolence, standing stoutly up for her friends, and
always ready to help unknown and struggling people
with her patronage, her advice, and her money. If
she quarrelled with Johnson when in his ' Lives of the
Poets ' he decried one of her idols, Lyttelton, she not the
less kept up her annuity to poor blind Miss Williams.
If her ' Essay on Shakspere ' is not very profound, it
shows at least sounder appreciation of the great dra
matist than the criticisms of Johnson, who abused it.
As we 2:0 on we shall often have occasion to look in
with Sir Joshua at Hill Street and Portman Square;
and at Mrs. Vesey's Babels, or Chaoses, as Walpole
calls them, in Clarges Street. For the present we will
leave him at Mrs. Montague's door.
Parliament was at this period prorogued almost at
the time at which the Academy closed. The present
year was, politically, a quiet one at home. The Oppo
sition — partly hopeless, partly weary — had sunk into
a dull languor. A fillip was, however, given to
debates that would otherwise have been spiritless, by
the Royal Marriage Bill, the Bill for relief from
subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, and the dis
cussions relative to the affairs of the East India Com
pany. As usual, Burke was the prominent figure in
debate on two at least of the three measures. His
indomitable spirit bore up against defection and despair.
Besides his sympathy with Burke, Sir Joshua was,
perforce, interested in the first of these measures by
his lono- friendship for the Duchess of Gloucester, and

454 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
his more recent acquaintance with the fascinating
Duchess of Cumberland, whom we have seen bringing
her Duke to sit in Leicester Fields the month after
the Royal Marriage Bill had passed. The question
whether the East India Company were to be allowed
to appoint supervisors to overhaul their Indian esta
blishments, and to make necessary reforms and re
trenchments, was doubly interesting to Reynolds as a
large proprietor of India Stock,1 and as a friend of
Burke's. Burke's cousin William had a considerable
personal interest in the dividends of the Company,
having speculated largely in their stock. Hearing that
Richard Burke was implicated in William's transactions,
Edmund had before this publicly declared that he had
himself no pecuniary interest in the funds of the
Company, but he had for years taken an active part
in all debates touching its affairs, and had made a
special study of the history of India, and the relations
of its people, its courts, and commerce, to its English
conquerors. On the occasion of bringing in a Bill for enlarging
the Company's power over its servants in India, the
Government of the Company was assailed by the
Ministerial party, and a Select Committee of thirty
members was appointed, on the motion of Colonel
Burgoyne, to inquire into the constitution of the Com
pany and the state of affairs in the East Indies. Burke
opposed the appointment of this Committee, and warmly
defended the Company, charging ministers as the real
authors of the worst evils that prevailed in India by
1 The pocket-book contains notes of the days and hours for receipt of
dividends at the India House.

1772, jetat. 49. BURKE OFFERED INDIAN APPOINTMENT. 455
their refusal to give the Company power over its own
servants. Anxious to conjure the coming conflict with Par
liament, the Directors, through Sir George Colebrooke,
their deputy-chairman, offered to Burke an appointment
as chief of a board of supervisorship, similar to that
over which Sir Joshua's friend Mr. Vansittart had been
placed three years before ; the members of which had
perished in the wreck, near the Azores, of the ' Aurora '
frigate, which was conveying them, to the scene of their
labours. The proposer of the present appointment was
an old friend of Sir Joshua's, a member with him of
the Devonshire Club, and associated in business with
his intimate friend Nesbitt, Thrale's brother-in-law.
We may be sure that the offer, and the reasons for
and against acceptance, were eagerly canvassed in
Leicester Fields, as well as at Gregories, and in St.
Anne's Street. The offer was a tempting one — high
pay, great power, the opportunity of at once benefiting
the Company and doing good service to humanity.
Then at home the Opposition seemed to be paralyzed ;
the majority of the ministers was apparently irresistible,
or at least too compact to be assailed with any hope of
success. In the City the friends of the Opposition had
split into the rival factions of Home and Wilkes. The
late unpopularity of the King had strangely and sud
denly subsided. But Burke declined the appointment
after consultation with his family and friends, first in the
rank of whom stood Sir Joshua. Before the year was
out, Parliament, on its reassembling in November, had
re-nominated Burgoyne's Select Committee; had ap
pointed besides a Secret Committee of thirteen to sit at

456 ' LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
the same time. A Bill was simultaneously introduced,
and pushed rapidly through all its stages, to prevent the
Company from appointing supervisors. Burke, with all
his activity, was able to muster no more than twenty-
eight in the decisive division on this Bill ; and after
this defeat withdrew, weary and disgusted, to spend the
recess with his son Richard in France.
Sir Joshua was dining with William Burke at the
end of June, when the question of Edmund's acceptance
of the offer of the Directors was under consideration.
But I find no entries of the usual merry Midsummer or
Christmas visits to Beaconsfield, at which the statesman
laid aside his public cares to prune his trees, weigh his
hogs, or calculate the produce of his carrot-crop, and
where Sir Joshua was always one of his most welcome
guests. He was often at Streatham during the summer and
autumn, and was already at work on the portraits for
that gallery in which Mrs. Thrale took such pride;
though she owns that it was often with a heavy heart
that she now watched the progress of* the pictures.
For unwonted cares were at this time gathering heavily
under the gay and smiling surface of the Streatham
life. Thrale had always lived handsomely; had kept
up his mansion in town, besides his costly villa. When
he gave up his pack of hounds at Croydon, it was to
spend money in contesting Southwark. He was besides
in the hands of a projector, one Humphrey Jackson,
who had laid him under heavy contributions for his
schemes of a composition for sheathing ships' bottoms,
and of processes in brewing which were to produce
better beer with less malt and hops. He was already

1772, ^tat. 49. COLONEL DOW'S TRAGEDY. 457
in difficulties, under which, but for the energetic sup
port and help of his wife, he would very probably
have sunk. He neglected his business — which was
held together by his chief clerk, Perkins — for fashion
able life and its pleasures. The failure of Fordyce's
house in May added to his difficulties. To make
matters worse, Mrs. Thrale' s mother was on her death
bed. Mrs. Thrale was herself in bad health, and on
the point of bringing into the world a child which
hardly survived its birth. It is impossible to read Sir
Joshua's many notes of engagements to the Thrales
this summer without thinking of the contrast between
the real feelings and fears of the host and hostess, and
the pleasant show they made to their guests.
The society who dined at the British Coffee House
interested themselves this summer to promote the re
ception by Garrick of a second tragedy by a worthy,
well-intentioned, but utterly unpoetical Scotchman and
Indian officer, Colonel Dow. He had some years before,
by dint of high protection, 'got Garrick to produce his
' Zinghis,' a stilted Tartar tragedy. His present ven
ture was ' Sethona,' an Ossianic rhapsody in five acts.
Garrick did bring it out two years after this, against his
better judgment, when it met with the fate it deserved,
in spite of strenuous support from the countrymen of
the author, who made a national and Ossianic question
of the merits of the play. Colonel Dow was sitting to
Sir Joshua in June and July, while the negotiations
about his tragedy were in progress. He had the
happiest, most unquestioning faith in himself and his
genius ; and there are few stronger evidences of the
degree to which pomposity, solemnity, and dullness im-

458 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
posed on the judgments of that time, than the fact
that such rubbish as Colonel Dow's actually found its
way to the stage. In fact, heavy rubbish seems to
have had very much the same chances in its favour
then, that light rubbish has now. Another literary
sitter of this date — of greater note then than now — is
Macpherson the editor of the Ossianic poems.
I find Sir Joshua at Marylebone Gardens on the
10th of July. This was the Cremorne of that day.
The entrance to the gardens was in High Street, Mary
lebone ; between which and Tottenham Court Road all
was open fields. The garden had existed as a place of
amusement from the days of Pepys ; the entertainment
was music and singing, fireworks, and eating and
drinking — the fruit tarts and almond cheesecakes of
the gardens being especially famous. Sir Joshua's
attraction this year was no doubt the fireworks of La
Torre, a genius in the pyrotechnic way, who had been
brought over originally by Garrick from Paris. But
the music was not contemptible ; Bannister and Rein-
hold sang,. and Giordani, Hook (the father of Theodore),
arid Arnold, were the musical composers and directors
of this part of the entertainment. Sir John Fielding
had Mr. Arnold indicted on account of the fireworks ;
and there is a letter of Garrick's remonstrating with
the worthy magistrate on the subject.]
In September this year Sir Joshua was elected an
Alderman of Plympton. [I was at first puzzled, as
Samuel Northcote was, to account for Sir Joshua's
aiming at or accepting such a humble municipal
honour. But on reflection it strikes me as a mark of
his strong love for his native place — always one of the

1772, jetat. 49. ELECTED AN ALDERMAN OF PLYMPTON. 459
healthiest symptoms of a kind and feeling nature. Sir
Joshua liked to be " honoured in his own country," if
only by being made a Plympton alderman.] In refer
ence to this subject Northcote's brother Samuel writes
to him : — "Plymouth, September 9th, 1772.
.... "I was much surprised when I first heard
from you that Sir Joshua was coming, down do be made
an alderman of Plympton : I had heard of this indeed
from Mr. Mudge, but I gave not the least credit to the
information, looking upon the foul transactions of a
dirty borough as things quite foreign to Sir Joshua
Reynolds's pursuits; indeed, the only way I can
account for this is by supposing that Sir Joshua's
mind has been so much engaged in the pursuit of
knowledge in the art that he has not looked about to
observe the villany and corruption in those affairs :
but, on the contrary, he perhaps retains somewhat of
the ideas he had of a Plympton alderman when he
was a boy, looking up to them all as persons of dignity."
He then relates an incident too gross to be tran
scribed; but which proves that there is not the
slightest exaggeration of the corruption of borough
towns in Hogarth's election pictures.
[Sir Joshua received intelligence of this municipal
honour in a letter from Lord Mount Edgcumbe, on the
25th of September. He wrote in reply to Captain
Ourry : —
" DEAR SlR " London» September 20th, 1772.
"Yesterday I was informed by a letter from
Lord Edgcumbe that I have had the honour of being

460

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

elected an alderman of Plympton, for which I beg leave
to return, to you in particular, my most hearty thanks,
and must likewise beg the favour of troubling you to
make my acknowledgments to the rest of the Bench.
I am sorry it was not in my power to pay my respects
to you this year, and return my thanks in person ;
however, next year I hope to do myself that honour.
" I beg my compliments to Mrs. Ourry, Miss, and all
your family, and am
" With the greatest respect, Sir,
" Your most humble and obliged servant,
"Joshua Reynolds."1
This winter the puppet-show — the vogue of which
half a century before had filled the pockets of the in
genious Mr. Powell — was revived, under the name of
" Fantoccini," by an Italian, in Panton Street. Johnson,
Sir Joshua, and Goldsmith, with Cradock, Dr. Ludlam
of St. John's, and a merry party, went to see these
clever wooden performers, and cracked their jokes
freely, as Cradock remembered, during the performance,
It was Murphy and Davies who gave to one circum
stance of the evening the colour it still wears to
Goldsmith's disadvantage. After the show was over
the party supped together, when, as Sir Joshua and
Johnson were praising the puppets, one in particular
who had tossed a spontoon, Goldsmith jumped up im
patiently and cried, " Pooh ! pooh ! there's nothing in
it. Give me a spontoon, and I'll do it as well myself."

1 This letter is now in the possession
of Henry Hill Treby, Esq., Gooda-
moor, and a facsimile of it is given

in Mr. Cotton's ' Sir Joshua Reynolds
and his Works.'

1772, jetat. 49. GOLDSMITH AND THE PUPPETS. 461
Boswell tells the same story in another form — how the
Doctor went home to supper with Burke, and broke his
shins in trying to show the company how much better
he could jump over a stick than the puppet they had
been applauding. Cradock's interpretation is more
probable — that, when all were cracking their jokes
about the performance, Goldsmith cracked his too, and
that the form it took was this challenge of the puppet
pikeman.J Reynolds had not forgotten his obligations to his
sisters, Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Johnson. He proposed
that a son of the latter who bore the name of his
grandfather — Samuel, and who was now about eighteen
years of age, should live with him ; and, as the young-
man had shown some talent in drawing, it is supposed,
with a view to his becoming an artist. Mrs. Johnson,
however, declined her brother's offer, fearing the temp
tations to which her son would be exposed in London.
She had earnestly remonstrated with Sir Joshua against
his habit of painting on Sundays, and it was natural
she should fear that in his house her son might become
inattentive to his religious duties. The young man
afterwards went into the church, and died young. He
had a brother who settled in India, in whose welfare
Sir Joshua took great interest, and of whom he enter
tained a very high opinion. At a later period two
daughters of Mrs. Johnson became inmates of their
uncle's house.
[Sir Joshua's visiting-circle continues much the same,
but with a tendency to widen. Besides engagements
with the old intimates, the Thrales, the Hornecks,
Burkes, Garricks, Dr. Percy, Dr. Goldsmith, Dr. John-

462 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
son, Francklin, Mr. Parker, Sir Charles Bunbury,
Admiral Keppel, Dr. Brocklesby, George Colman, Cum
berland, &c, there is an unusual number of dinners
at Lord Shelburne's, the Earl of Ossory's (to whose
pleasant seat at Ampthill Sir Joshua makes an excur
sion in July), Lord Palmerston's, Lord Spencer's, Lord
Cathcart's, Lord Charlemont's, Lord Edgcumbe's, the
Hon. E. Eliot's, and at the great moneyed magnate,
Sir George Colebrooke's, in May, when Burke's accept
ance of the Indian supervisorship must have been under
consideration. Then there are many dinners with and
to his brother Academicians, and receptions of the
Council at his house " to spend the evening," as well
as frequent attendances at the meetings of the Royal
Society, and his clubs — the Literary, the Devonshire,
the Thursday-night, and the Society that met from time
to time at the British Coffee House.
His Fifth Discourse was delivered, as usual, at the
Distribution of Premiums on the 10th of December.
Inasmuch as it involves less sweeping theory than the
fourth, it is sounder and safer. He begins by insisting
on the great circumspection necessary in any attempt
to unite excellences, lest they should prove mutually
destructive. And here he refutes one of the unsound
deductions of his own Third Discourse. There he told
the student that the perfection of human form was " not
to be found in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor
in the Apollo ; but in that form which is taken from
all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the
Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the
muscular strength of the Hercules." In this Fifth
Discourse he warns the student that " the attempt to

1772, jetat. 49. HIS FIFTH 'DISCOURSE.' , 463
unite contrary excellences — of form for instance — in a
single figure, can never escape degenerating into the
monstrous but by sinking into the insipid, by taking
away its marked character, and weakening its ex
pression." So, instead of now telling the students to aim only at
the highest, to set themselves to trial measurements of
their conceptions against Raphael and Michael Angelo,
they are recommended "to try themselves, whenever
they are capable of that trial, what they can, what they
cannot do ; and instead of dissipating their natural
faculties over the immense field of possible excellence,
to choose each some particular walk in which he may
exercise all his powers, so as to become each the first in
his way." Now, too, it seems to have occurred to Sir
Joshua on reflection that in his last year's Discourse he
had too harshly severed the ornamental from the grand
style. He admits that "the principles of the orna
mental style may be cautiously employed in soften
ing the harshness and mitigating the rigour of the
grand style as it was employed by Ludovico Caracci."
Sir Joshua then proceeds to point out that the greater
excellency of the great masters will be found in their
frescoes. His teaching on this point only needs the
fuller illustration it would have derived from a closer
acquaintance with the frescoes of the century before
Raphael, and a recognition, which is not to be found in
the Discourses, of the double function, decorative and
instructional, of those noble works which clothed the
churches, and chapels, the cloisters, and cemeteries of
Northern and Central Italy with the purest splendours

464 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Chap. V.
of colour and the most vivid representations of God's
dealing with mankind.
Then follows an elaborate and often-quo k:d com
parison of Raphael and Michael Angelo ; and then,
from the grand style, of which they are the highest
exemplars, the lecturer passes' to what he calls the
" original " or characteristical style, i. e. the style im
pressed less with elevated character than with the
special spirit of the master ; exemplified by opposite^
in Salvator Rosa and Carlo Maratti, in Rubens and
Poussin. Lastly, the student is warned to be as select
in those whom he endeavours to please as in those
whom he endeavours to imitate. " Without the love
of fame," the President tells his hearers, " you can
never do anything excellent ; but by an excessive and
undistinguishing thirst after it you will come to have
vulgar views ; you will degrade your style, and your
taste will be entirely corrupted. It is certain that the
lowest style will be the most popular, as it falls within
the compass of: ignorance itself; and the vulgar will
always be pleased with what is natural, in the confined
and misunderstood sense of the word." " I mention
this," he concludes, " because our exhibitions, while they
produce such admirable effects by nourishing emulation
and calling out genius, have also a mischievous ten
dency by seducing the painter to an ambition of pleasing
indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who
resort to them."
If this caution was needed in 1772, within four years
of the foundation of the Academy, the need of it has
more than centupled in 1862.

1772, 2ETAT. 49.

SITTERS 1772.

465

List of Sitters for 1772.

January.
Boy (frequently, for TJgolino,
&c.) ; Mrs. Abington ; Mrs. Bad
deley ; Mr. Bankes ; Duchess of
Buccleugh ; Lady Mary Scott (the
Duchess's infant daughter) ; Mrs.
Scott ; Miss Meyer (for Hebe).
February.
Mr. Sedgwick ; Boy (often) ;
Old Man (Ugolino); Mrs. Cal-
thorpe ; 1 Lady Carlisle ; Mr.
Dunning ; Mrs. Parker.
March.
Dr. Johnson (the Streatham
picture); Miss Dutens ; Dog;
Lady Harriet Acland; Mrs
Crewe; Miss Dunning; Mrs!
Buller; Boy and Child (oftenV
April.
Duke and Duchess of Cumber
land; Mrs. Mead;2 Mrs. Bun
bury ; Lady Spencer ; Mrs.
Orchard; Dog. May.
Mrs. Abington ; Mr. Adam (one
of the architects of the Adelphi) ;

/

Lady Pembroke ; Lady Lisburn ;
Miss Child ; Mr. Child.3
June?
Mrs. Yates (the tragic actress) ;
Sir Thomas Ackland; Mr.
McPherson (editor of 'Ossian');
Mr. Lyttleton ; Lady Broughton ;
Col. Dow; the Primate (Dr.
Eobinson).6 July?
Boy, and Boy and Girl (often) ;
Mrs. CaUender ; Sir Thomas
Mills. August.
Boy, and Boy and Girl ..(very
^often^; Sir Watkin Williams
Wynn; Mrs. Horton (Nancy
Parsons) ;' CJnld (often).
September.
Mr. Fitzmaurice.7 October.
Mrs. Darner ; Mr. and Mrs.
Garrick ; Dr. Hawkesworth.
December.
Mr. Coutts ;8 Lord Graham.9 10]

1 " Mem. — In Pall Mall, over against
Marlborough Gate."
" "Mrs. Mead's picture to be sent to
New Ormond Street. Captain May
nard. No. 1."
, 3 The great banker. Both Child and
Coutts sat to Sir Joshua in this year.
4 " Mem. — On the 9th Mrs. Armi-
stead, at Mr. Mitchell's, Upper John
Street, Golden Square." This lady was
C. Fox's mistress, afterwards his wife.
6 24. " Lord Irwin, Temple New-
sham, near Leeds, Yorkshire. His
VOL. I.

lordship's picture and the Shepherd-
boy to be sent."
6 29. " Mrs. Boothby, at Mrs. Field's,
Church Street, next door to the cheese
monger. Model for neck."
7 The brother of Lord Shelburne-
8 See Appendix, p. 479.
9 Afterwards 3rd Duke of Montrose.
10 Notes of practice for this year :—
"April 27, 1772.— My own: 1st,
aqua et gomma dragone, vermilion,
lake, black, without yellow ; varnish'd
with egg after Venice turpentine."
2 H Haydon

466

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Chap. V.

Haydon remarks upon this, —
" Heavens — murder ! murder ! It must
have cracked under the brush."
Beechey says he thinks the gomma
dragone here mentioned "must have
been gum tragacanth," for that is a
gum which mixes well with water,
and makes a mucilage. That and
powdered mastic dry hard.
On Sir Joshua's favourite wax me
dium (brought into vogue by Count
Caylus's investigations of the practice
of the Greek painters), which he had
now taken to using in almost all his
works, Beechey remarks, " This wax
was thus prepared : pure white wax
scraped into very thin slices, and co
vered with spirit of turpentine, cold.
In twelve hours it becomes a paste.
With this and sugar-of-lead he mixed
Venice turpentine or copaiva, or any
balsam. His egg- varnish alone would in
a short time tear any picture to pieces
painted with such materials as he
made use of."
On this Haydon gives his verdict :
" Indisputably true."
It may be well to mention that,

where this wax and Venice turpentine
have been used on an unprimed cloth,
such as Sir Joshua occasionally em
ployed, and without other vehicles of
different drying-rates, the pictures have
often stood well, the raw cloth allowing
the vehicles to become adhesive. But
where there is an oil-priming, adhesion
of the picture to its ground is im
possible. The gypsum, too, exten
sively used by Sir Joshua in his prim
ings, is now said to be dangerous, not
only owing to its liability to scale off
from the canvas, but to its tendency
to contract a yellow tint from the car
bonic gas of the atmosphere, and to
blacken under other gases.
"Oct. 2, 1772. — Miss Kirkman,
gum dr(agon) et whiting, poi cerata,
poi ovata, poi verniciata e ritoccata.
Cracks." Haydon notes on this : —
" Beechey says, ' This manner is the
most extraordinary.' It is insanity —
he had at his elbow a mocking fiend !
— Gum and whiting ! then waxed,
then egged, then varnished, and then
retouched." No wonder it cracked.

APPENDIX.

Eeynolds's Early Beading. — (P. 6.)
As to Eeynolds's knowledge of Latin and early reading, I
have some little evidence in his school ' Ovid,' well thumbed
in parts, and in the commonplace-book mentioned at p. x. It
is inscribed in a stiff but neat hand, "Joshua Eeynolds, ejus
Hber ex dono Pat^ri meiue." Evidently his first " cast " for a
genitive for pater was pateri, and he rests content with patri.
But the extracts show a varied and very intelligently directed
course of reading ; and it is worth noting that the great majority
of them indicate a decided turn for the calm, sensible, equable,
and kindly, in life and manners. The extracts are (on life and
morals) from Theophrastus, Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Antoninus ;
(on criticism and for poetry) Pope (a great favourite, especially
in his letters), Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, the ' Spectator ' and
' Tatler,' Cats's ' Book of Emblems,' and even Afra Behn ; (in
art) Leonardo da Vinci, Du Fresnoy, and Eichardson ; and (in
religious matters) Nelson and the Bible, Ecclesiasticus chiefly.

The Eev. Samuel Eeynolds. — (P. 24.)
Since this volume was printed off I have come upon some
very characteristic letters of Samuel Eeynolds, showing both his
intelligence and gentleness, from which I extract.
Speaking of his eldest sons, March 3, 1742 : —
" I have disposed of my eldest sons entirely to my satis
faction, because it is to theirs. In relation to my elder son,
among my other studies and amusements, I : have ordered
matters so that I believe there is no admiral's son better put in
hand for the sea than he is. He has by my means the whole
2h2

468 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. App.
foundation for the theory of navigation, so that there is nothing
that he need take upon trust, nothing but that he may have
demonstration for if he pleases, it having been my way to fill up
the intervals of his coming home by going on just where we left
off last ; and thus I have gone through with him the first six
books of Euclid (and) half the eleventh (which was all that was
necessary) ; plane trigonometry, the last of which was very
fiddling, and which I was forced to write out of several authors
to make clear work. I was entering into astronomy when he
was last called off. " S. Eeynolds."
In another letter, January 11, 1730, he says : —
" I cannot forbear adding that the mathematical educa
tion I have given my eldest son has been hitherto attended with
success vastly beyond my expectations, from the kindness and
character he has received from those officers under whom he has
served, and likewise from the facility he has found, even in
these times, in obtaining such a post as is proper for him to
pretend to.
" S. Eeynolds."
Writing in affliction for the death of a son, he says : —
" That Providence orders all things for the best I do verily
believe, and I presume upon it in the conduct of my life. But
still I should be glad to make it out free from all clouds of
objections more clearly than I can. But still that argument
does not come to the point in our grief for persons deceased ; in
other afflictions it does. When Job loses his sons, would it have
been a proper consolation to say, ' You shall have as lovely in
their room ' ? That argument would do for his sheep and
oxen well enough, but not for his children. But in submitting
to the will of God, I allow there is a pleasure which I never yet
attempted to decipher, any more than the love which we bear
to those persons who are dear to us, for I am in doubt whether
all these things are not better left undeciphered. It may seem
an extravagant thought of the Archbishop of Cambray, speaking
of the death of the Prince of Burgundy, but I admire it, ' If
there needed no more than the moving of a straw to bring him

App. NOTES ON PICTURES. 469
to life again, I would not do it, since the Divine pleasure is
otherwise.' I doubt whether Tully can say anything more
noble. Thoughts that impress themselves so strongly on the
mind I have no wish to criticise upon."

His Notes on Pictures at Eome and Bologna. — (P. 64.)
The following are Sir Joshua's notes on the pictures at
Bologna, from one of the Note-books in the Soane Museum. It
contains besides some notes on pictures at Eome, at Naples, and
at Florence, and the heads and date of his journey from Eome
to Naples, already used in the text.
Eeynolds's notes on the works of the Bolognese School are
only second in interest to his notes on the Venetian pictures.
It is instructive to see how completely he ignores the earlier
schools of Bologna, and how even the beautiful frescoes of
Francia are passed unnoticed. He probably never saw them.
On the other hand, we may well wonder, not at the praise given
to the Caracci, or even Guido and Guercino, but at the respect
with which men like Tiarini are here treated, and the notice
taken at Eome of the works of painters now held in even less
repute than Tiarini. The perusal of these notes should impress
on us the useful lesson of toleration and distrust of our own
judgments and those of our generation, by the evidence they
afford in so many places of the degree to which, according to the
present estimate of painters and schools, even Eeynolds was
blinded and misled by the conventional taste of his time.
The fashionable judgment of our day is probably as unfair to
the later Bolognese painters in the way of depreciating, as that
of Eeynolds's time was in exaggerating, their merits. The
early schools and painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen
turies now run nearly the same risk of being extravagantly
over-praised and over-studied as they ran of being unjustly
overlooked and undervalued a hundred years ago.
Besides these notes, this note-book — as well as its com
panion in the Soane Museum— is full of slight but expressive
sketches, most of them from pictures or statues, a few of land-

470 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. App.
scape, animals, and figures from life. The former are chiefly
from pictures of the Caracci and Tiarini, and include studies of
light and shade and composition, as well as single figures or
detached groups-. There is evidence here and there of inten
tion to appropriate. Thus, after a sketch by Pasinelli of an
angel flying, in St. Francesco, Bologna, is written underneath
— " Drapery in sweeps, and light at the wings. This figure
will serve for a Fame." Another sketch, of a bishop in his
mitre, with his hand on a large open book, may have been the
suggestion for the fine portrait of Primate Eobinson, now at
Christ Church. Notes at Eome.
St. Peter's Church. — Here were many capital pictures, which are
now moved on account of the dampness, and mosaics put in their
place, viz. St. Sebastian, by Domenichino ; John Baptizing Christ
by Carlo Maratti ; the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, by
Bomanelli ; the Death of Sapphira, by Pomerancio : all now in the
Chartreux. The Navicella, by Lan Franc, removed in the Loggia del
Benedictina ; the upper part only preserved.
S. Marta, just behind St. Peter's. — On the right hand as you enter
is a St. Jerom, by Mutiano.
The great altar, St. Margaret, in a Greek style, by Gio. de Vecchi
del Borgo San Sepolcro.
The opposite side, San Giacomo and Antonio Abbate, by Lanfrank ;
well painted.
St. Orsola, by ditto.
The crucifix of terracotta is said to be [by] Algardi.
Sta. Maria in Campo Santo. — The monument of one Hase of
Anversa is a Boy Weeping, by Fiamingo, in the utmost perfection.
In this church is the monument of Torquato Tasso, he being buried
on the right side of the great altar ; his monument is on your left
hand just as you enter the church. There is a very good painted
portrait on the monument.
St. Honofrio. — Going from St. Peter's towards the Lungara, on the
left hand, on the top of the hill, is this church and monastery. In
the Lunetta of the Portico on the front of the church are three His
tories of Domenichino in fresco.
In the Cloisters upstairs is a Virgin Mary with Christ ; the Virgin
has a wonderful sweetness in her countenance. This is that so much
praised by Vasari. The figures, which make a kind of cornish
(cornice), the upper ones are of Ber°- Penturecchio.

App. NOTES ON BOLOGNESE PICTURES. 471 0
On the right hand the middle altar is painted by Annibal Caracci :
the Virgin and Christ of Loretto, sitting in an. ordinary church,
supported by three angels below and two above.
S. Croce in Gerusalemme. — The vault is painted by a living master,
Corrado. On the right hand is the Schism of P. Leone, by Carlo
Maratti. The next altar has a picture by the Cav. Varini, San Roberto, when
a child, carried by Angels to the Virgin Mary and Christ.
On the other side, St. Silvester showing the portraits of Peter and
Paul to Constantine is by Luigi Gardi, and St. Thomas's Incredulity
by Giuseppe Passari.
St. Pietro Montorio. — The great altar has the famous Transfiguration,
by Baffaele. Near the altar on the right hand of the great altar are
two statues, St. Peter and St. Paul, by Daniele di Volterra. The
picture representing John Baptizing Christ is by N. Fiorentino.
The next chapel has the Judgment of our Saviour, with the whole
chapel painted by Caravaggio.
The Flagellation of Christ, near the door on the right hand as you
enter, is painted by Fra Sebastiano, from a design of Michael Angelo.
The round Cappelletta which is in the middle of the cloister is of
the architecture of Bramante, in imitation of the Sibyl's Temple at
Tivoli. Bologna. — (Written in Pencil.)
Ch. S. Sdkatore.— Assumption of the Virgin, by Agos. Caracci ; in
a bad light, and being a dark picture one cannot well see it, but 'tis
. noble. Christ with the Cross, in little : better coloured than drawn
by Guido.
Presepe, Tiarini.
In the Sagristy, St. Sebastian, a bozzo (abozzo, sketch) by Guido.
Corpus Domini.— Christ taking the Virgin out of Limbo, and the
Assumption of the Virgin, both by Lud. Caracci: the latter is an
admirable picture. The whole-length figure in red has a fine expres
sion, and force used by the Apostles to lift up the stone of the Sepulchre
is finely expressed.
The Eesurrection of Christ, by Annibale, in a bad Hght, and the
picture being dark and small one cannot well judge; what is seen
appears to be admirable.
St. Agnese.—Rei Martyrdom, by Domenichino. Perhaps the very
best picture he ever painted. The saint and the executioner are
grouped so as to make a fine principal light; which is enlarged by
dead figures below, and the head of the saint. The other, second,
group is made of a young woman who turns from the disagreeable
sight towards an old woman, whose attention is entirely engaged on

472 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. App.
o
the martyrdom. Under them a young woman and a child are in a
fright. On the other side the judge with officers make a 3rd light.
St. Agnese is drest in white with gold flowers (a sketch of her oppo
site), her loose drapery pink, the lights very white. Above, God,
Christ in chorus of Angels.
A good picture by Tiarini.
St. Petronio. — St. Eocco, by Parmigianino, with the portrait of the
master of the picture, admirably painted, as is the grey-haired head
of St. Eocco. Bassi relievi over the right gate.
Palazzo Bolognini. — The front adorned with heads in bronze, some
of them admirable, by Alphonso Ferrara.
St. Giovanni in Monte. — The Madonna del Eosario (Domenichino).
The Angel flying down is very fine.
St. Cecilia, the best of Eaffaele.
St. Francis wringing his hands and looking down on a crucifix, by
Guercino, a book before him.
Monastero de' Servi. — Some good frescoes outside by Cignani, his
scholars, and others.
St. Andrew adoring the Cross, by Albani, softer than any I ever
saw of him : it looks like a picture of Paul Veronese. The angel
that sits on the rock at a distance too strong, and does not enter or
harmonize with the ground : horse well painted : all badly drawn.
Noli me tangere (do.) : more in his usual manner, but admirably
painted. Certosa. — In the Spezeria, a figure of Justice, with sword in one
hand, and the real scales of the shop in the other.
The altar on the right, St. Bruno kneeling : the V(irgin), C(hrist),
and angels above, by Guercino : the Christ looks down prettily.
Within the iron rails, the Crowning with Thorns and the Flagella
tion of Christ, a divine work by Lodovico; 'tis turned intollerably
black : nothing can be more moving than the patience and resign-
ment expressed in Christ, and the diabolical manner in which he is
treated by both executioners.
The Communion of S. Girolamo, by Agostino Caracci : 'tis very
fine, but in my opinion much inferior to that in Eome of Domeni-
c(h)ino. In one of the secret chapels within is St. John preaching by the
river Jordan, a figure in a boat in the foreground to show it,1 by
Ludovico : this was made on Agostino receiving so much honour for
the above-mentioned picture : 'tis a fine picture, very much in the
Venetian stile.
St. Franceso. — On right side the great altar, a little behind, the
1 There is a sketch of the picture on the opposite page. f

App.

NOTES ON BOLOGNESE PICTURES.

473

Conversion ,of St. Paul, by Ludovico ; great spirit, and admirably
drawn (hands and feet) and coloured : this is one of the best pictures I
have seen of him in Bologna : they say Guercino took his manner from
this picture ; 'tis certainly much like Guercino's manner, but superior.
The Assumption of the Virgin, by Annibale ; like Venetian.
Titian's portrait in the middle.
St. Pietro. — In the inner Sacristy the vault is painted in oil by
Ludovico Caracci. The subject is the Virgin Mary sitting melan
choly, St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles condoling with her ; St.
Peter seems to be spokesman, but he is crying, with a handkerchief
to his eyes.
The Annuneiata in fresco over the great altar is said to be the best
of Ludovico's, and which cost him his life : 'tis but indifferent.1
St. Bartolomeo di Porta. — The first chapel on the right has an
angel showing St. Carlo a sepulchre, by Ludovico. A Salutation, by
Albani; the head beautiful. On each side is a picture of Albani's
likewise; one the Birth of Christ, the other the Angel advising
Giuseppe to fly into Egypt.
Madonna with Christ, heads in a little oval, by Guido.2
St. Bartolomeo di Beno. — The Nativity, by Agostino, painted at
27 years, as likewise the two Prophets in the vault : the Isaiah is a
noble figure. The two lateral pictures are, one the Adoration of Magi,
the other the Circumcision, which in the prints are attributed unjustly
to Annibale and Ludovico.
Mendicanti. — Mathew called, by Ludovico. The background com
posed of vast large parts, and transient. The high altar has two pic
tures in one, by Guido : the upper part is Christ stretched out short,
one hand hanging down over the bier, the other on his belly. The
Virgin, &c. , At the bottom is St. Carlo, St. George kneeling, and
other saints.3 Florence lies on the ground before them at a little
distance, and looks like a real view of Florence and the figures in the
air. 'Tis finely painted. St. Giobbe enthroned, and presented by aU
sorts of persons, is a most admirable picture by Guido. There is a
certain softness in Guido that is wonderfully pleasing; this is his

1 On page opposite to this are the
sketches of a boy St. John, with cross
and leopard-skin, from Tiarini, and of
a Bolognese knocker, in the form of a
ring depending from the mouth of
a draped bull's head.
2 Opposite this a sketch of " the sky,
in the picture by Ludovico Caracci
of the fall (Conversion) of St. Paul."

3 Opposite this page is a, sketch of
a frame, supported by amorini, thus
inscribed : " A frame painted yellow
and heightened with gold, the curtain
purple heightened with blue, the bor
der fringed with gold and purple
mixed, and three lines of gold over
the fringe." Three similar sketches
follow it.

474 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. App.
very best manner : the sheep and the other parts of the picture which
I could reach to has the genteelest pencilling I ever saw.
S. Domenico. — Murdering the Innocents, by Guido. It seems to
me to be the same as Eaffaele's in the Tapestry.
The Apparition of the Virgin to St. Giacinto, by Lodovico.
St. Thomas Acquinas writing on the Eucharist, Guercino. — N.B.
Guido was buried in the Chapel of the Giudotti.
St. Eaimond treading the sea on his mantle, by Ludovico. (Note :
In a room of Giuseppe Luigi, inquisitore, may be seen the noble
Charity of Ludovico, the most truly noble style that is possible to
imagine : Domenic(h)ino studied after this much.
Palazzo Magnani. — The Servants' Hall : the frieze with Cariatides,
painted by the Caracci — the history of Eomulus and Eemus, finely
drawn, as are the Cariatides, at least equal to those in the Farnese.
First Boom. — Apollo sitting on a kind of chair, placed on circular-
seated pyramid, with the four elements before him in vessels he is
opening : that of fire and air he has under his feet, on his lap is that
of earth, which is seen through : by Agostino.
A young man, warlike figure, with a helmet, bow and arrows in his
hand : by Spagnuolo.
A figure with a torch in the hand, perhaps the morning star ; the
companion is Bacchus asleep : by Agostino.
A figure of a young woman looking up, representing human life :
in her right hand she has a flower and what we call in Devon tell-a-
clocks,1 the serpent encircled over her head, Death's head on a bench ;
said (to be) by Lud. Caracci.
Cupid striving with a Satyr, by Agostino : the head of the Cupid
seems much too little.
Palazzo Tanari. — Opposite one of the doors in the street is a Hercules
killing the Hydra, by Guercino, in.Chiaro Oscuro.
First Boom. — Good copies after the two frescos of Guido and
Domenie(h)ino in St. Gregorio at Eome.
Second Boom. — The Assumption, a capital picture by Guercino ;
the Virgin is sitting on the clouds, and not flying upwards.
St. Agostino, by do.
The Negation, by Ludovico.
Madonna, Christ, and St. John, twice as large as life, by Guido.
A good copy of Madonna della Eosa, by Parniegiano. The original
is sent to Polonia, which was in the Palace Zani.
Venus dressed by the Graces, a Cupid at the bottom looking for the
beads in a casket : Annibale.

A seeded dandelion flower ?

App. NOTES ON BOLOGNESE PICTURES. 475
His painting-room : many naked women about him : an old woman
telling a model, who seems to be ashamed, how to behave, and points
with her thumb to Annibale, who is painting and looking back at
her. Death of Diana, with Actseon, by Annibale.
Christ betrayed, Ludovico.
Church, Madonna di Qaliera. — Christ, when a boy, standing by him
self between St. Joseph and the Virgin, looking up at the Instruments
of the Passion shown him by angels ; God the Father, &c. ; by Albani,
his best.
Adam and Eve, one on each side the window, by do.
St. Philip Neri between two angels, by Guercino.
In the Oratorio, Christ shown to the people, and Pontius washing
his hands, painted on a wall in fresco, and transported here at a vast
expense. In Sacristy are some good pictures : a Salutation divided in two
pieces, by Annibale.
St. Thomas de Villa Nova, by Guido ; not finished.
Herodias, by Guido ; the same as that in Pal. Corsini at Eome, but
this is only a kitcat or less.
A Madonna's head, by Guido.
St. Margherita— The Virgin and Christ, with St. Katherine, &c, by
Parmegiano ; the same as that in the Colonna Gallery. This seems
to be the best ; it has not that greenish tint in the flesh as that in the
Colonna has.
Instituto Publico.— A vast collection, animals, fishes, birds, &c.
A ground floor, the ceiling painted by Pellegrino Tibaldi in a great
taste. They are single figures. A Polyphemus, &c. This work and
the two other frescoes by him in the Church of St. Giacomo Maggiore
give one, a high opinion of him ('tis in Capella Poggio).
St. Giacomo Maggiore.— St. Eocco and an angel, Ludovico.
The Virgin and Bambino on a throne : Michael treading on the
Devil and holding a scale with souls in it in his right hand ; engraved
by Agostino.
Two large Histories in Fresco in a chapel on the left side the
great altar, just with(in) the rail, by Pellegrino Tibaldi; some admir
able drawn figures : the Caracci are said to have studied after these
frescos. The Presentation to the Temple, by Orazion Sammachini, not very
considerable, but Agostino has made it so by doing it the honour to
engrave it. „,
Capuchins without the Walls (beyond St. Michaele in Bosco).— Ihe
great altar, a crucifix, by Guido, prodigiously fine; the Virgin on

476 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. App.
one side, St. John on the other, and Mary Magdalen embracing the
feet of Christ.
St. Antonio. — (Ask to see this church from the Palace adjoining.)
The great altar, representing St. Antony preaching amidst his fol
lowers, is the noblest picture I ever yet saw of Ludovico ; the charac
ters of the heads, the hands, legs, and feet, the nobleness of the
drapery, in short, the whole is in perfection.
The Virgin holding Dead Christ ; St. John in the foreground,
stooping, his hand stretcht forward touching the crown of thorns;
Nicodemus looks at the Virgin, and points towards the sepulchre.
Tiarini. St. Tommaso di Strada Maggiore. — St. Andrea and St. Francesco,
with Christ above ; Guido : dark.
The Flight : the Virgin resting on Giuseppe to mount the ass, who
is looking gently on Christ, whom he has in his arms : Christ in the
mean time seems impatient to be in the Virgin's arms : by Tiarini,
who has always something new in his pictures.
Palazzo Zambeccari. — Four pictures of Caracci. The three angels
with Jacob at table ; the wife behind, under a tent.
Jacob's ladder, the idea taken from Eaffaele's Bible, and the Golden
Calf. The Interment of Christ, by P. Veronese ; fine keeping.
Madonna di Strada Maggiore. — The Virgin on the Crescent, below
St. Francis and St. Girolamo; a most divine picture by Ludovico.
When one considers the vast simplicity there is in the air of the
figure in comparison of that of Carlo Marat or Lanfranc, we shall not
longer wonder at the great reputation of its author, and of this picture
in particular.
St. Gregorio. — Baptism of Christ ; Annibale : one of his first.
St. George with the Dragon at his feet, the lady flying as if a little
afraid ; delicately expressed, mixt with a certain pleasure in looking
at the monster dead. Above is St. Michael driving the rebel angels
out of heaven. Above that again, in the entablature of the frame,
God the Father with angels. A noble figure.
St. William (Guglielmo), by Guercino : his very best stile. The
Virgin and Christ above is the same as that at the Palazzo Pitti at
Florence. St. Leonardo. — The Martyrdom of Sta. Orsola, in the Venetian stile :
Ludovico Caracci.
The Virgin appearing to St. Catharine in Prison before she was
martyred : Ludovico. A little hard.
St. Benedetto. — St. Antonio Abbate plagued by the Devil and sup
ported by Christ, by Cavedone : as also the side pictures ; that repre-

App. NOTES ON BOLOGNESE PICTURES. 477
senting Charity is a sweet figure. God the Father above is also by
him. He was scholar of Caracci, and a faithful imitator.
The Virgin sitting melancholy, with the crown of thorns in her
hand, and discoursing with M. Magdalen on the death of her son,
by Tiarini. The Prophets and Angels are likewise by him, and
fine. Palazzo Banuzzi. — St. Francis, an angel playing on musick in the
air : Guercino. His best stile.
Opposite, St. John Baptist, when a boy ; ditto.
St. Jerome : Ludovico Caracci.
Joseph's Chastity, by Guido. The same as that at Eome, in the
palace where Dsedalus and Icarus is.
Palazzo Zancini.— St. Eocco bestowing Charity, by Guido, in little;
after Ludovico at Dresden.
The fine cartoon of the living and dead : Carlo Cignani.
Casa Cortl— Tarquin and Lucrece, by Guido Cagnaeci, finely
painted : the flesh and linnen make a fine mass ; she without any
expression. Tarquin's head is admirably painted.
Jupiter destroying the Giants, by Guido. Finely drawn and
painted : suffered a little.
Virgin and Bambino — a bozza (sketch) : ditto.
Dio Padre ; ditto. A noble figure ; thin colour ; painted on a
dark ground laid in broad, and then toucht smart lights and shadows.
A noble figure.
The Virgin kissing the forehead of Christ, he with his finger in his
mouth. A finely-painted picture, and has a fine mass of light.
Fortune playing over a globe ; a Cupid seems to detain her.
St. Bernardo.— St. Carlo adoring the Bambino, the Virgin, and St.
Joseph : Ludovico.
St. Francesca Eomana, who restores to life a dead child : Tiarini.
St. Martino Maggiore.— St. Girolamo, his left hand stretcht out on
a book, his right holds a pen. A most miraculous picture in the
greatest Greek stile, if you wiU aUow the expression, for I look on
this figure, as weU as some others of Ludovico's best, to be m painting
what the Laocoon is in sculpture. _
St John Battista.-A most noble picture of St. John, by Ludovico.
The chiaro' oscuro is noble. A vast broad light in the middle of the
picture, but not strong, or not stronger than the dove-colour drapery
of the mother of St. John. The red drapery of the young woman
that sits on his right hand noble in perfection, very large folds, no
catching lights, only two colours, one for the lights, another for the
shadows. . .
Capuccini —The Bambino leaves sucking to contemplate the instru
ments of the Passion, which are held by weeping angels in the air.

478 LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. App.
Convertiti. — A noble picture by Ludovico ; the Virgin, with the
Bambino, Magdalen, other saints, angels, &c.
Madonna del Piombo. — In the Oratorio, the Birth of the Virgin, by
Albani. A Crucifix, Virgin, and St. John ; she is discoursing with St. John
about taking him down from the Cross.
Palazzo Monti. — A noble whole-length of St. Girolamo, larger than
life, by Ludovico : his greatest stile.
Ceres, Venus, and Bacchus, by Albani. Venus is in the middle
with Cupid's bow in her hand ; on the side Ceres is are Cupids weep
ing, &c. ; on that Bacchus is they are gathering grapes.
Apollo and Dap*hne with a river god in a landskip : ditto.
Bath of nymphs ; Diana above, with a crescent light above her head :
ditto. Venus and Adonis ; ditto.
All these are in his worst manner.
Poverty and Eiches, by Guido, or his school.
St. Stephen stoned, and the Slaughter of the Innocents ; said to be
Salvator Eosa : not at all like the manner I know him by.
St. Sebastian, by Giordano ; in the Venetian tint.
Judith going to take Holofernes his head to show it to the army :
she is on a scaffold in the foreground. By Eliz.Sirani.
Palazzo Batta. — A history, by Calabrese.
Eepose, by Leonello Spada. It looks like a picture of Ludovico :
he was, I think, his scholar.
Eneas and Anchises, fresco, by Ludovico.
Prodigal returned, Guercino.
Virgin, Christ, St. John : Albani. St. John is mounting a chair to
come at Christ. St. Joseph is at his work, shaving.1
A Joseph, with the Bambino in his arms, Guido.
Three figures naked, two men and a woman, chained to rocks,
Guido. A Sibyl, by Domenichino. The very same figure as our St. Cecilia
in the Borghese at Eome, only instead of music this has tablets.
Palazzo Caprara. — Some good by Borgognone.
A circle of boys : the same as those in Palazzo Samprere. Venus
and Cupid in the air, the three Graces holding drapery over them by
way of tent. Albani.
Minerva, with another figure, flying away, as angry.
A Saint recommending one to the Virgin : small, fine. Annibale
Caracci.

1 I presume he means planing.

App. NOTES ON BOLOGNESE PICTURES. 479

Virgin going to feed the Bambino with pap. Small : by Guercino.
Also fine.
Sleeping Cupid : Guido.
Virgin and Christ, the same as Hudson's copy, by Voet.
Marriage of St. Catherine, by Vandyke.
Palazzo Favio. — The exploits of Jason, in a frieze, by the three
Caraccis. In the Sola picciola, the Voyage of iEneas, in 12 pieces ; Poly
phemus, that attacks the fleet of iEneas, and the troublesome Harpies,
are coloured after his designs by Annibale.
The next room, by Albani, History of .ZEneas.

Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy. — (P. 205.)
The ' Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy ' is at General
Angerstein's — not at Knole. Sir D. Neave has a beautiful repe
tition of the Comedy, called ' Euphrosyne,' which in silvery
sweetness of colour and in archness of expression is superior,
I think, to the ' Comedy.'

Portrait of Garrick and his Wife in a Garden. — (P. 437.)
I am wrong here and in another place in mentioning Mr.
Grissell as the purchaser of Mr. Fitzmaurice's ' Garrick and his
Wife.' That picture was bough? by Captain Phelips, of Mon-
tacute House, Somerset. Mr. Grissell has a picture called
' Garrick and his Wife,' which came from Wanstead House, but
the lady has an infant in her lap ; whereas it is certain Mrs.
G. never had a child.

Portrait of Mr. Coutts. — (P. 465.)
I was in error in supposing the Mr. Coutts whose sittings are
recorded this year to have been the great banker. It was his
elder brother ; and the portrait, a very fine one, has now passed
from the possession of Lady Stewart of AUanbank to that of
Miss Burdett Coutts.

INDEX.

Eoman numerals indicate the volumes, Arabic numerals the pages. Names printed in
Italics are those of Sir Joshua's sitters ; and dates of sittings, as far as they can be
ascertained from his pocketbooks, are enclosed between brackets. For the pages on
which these pocketbook lists are printed, see page 521, under "Keynolds, Sir Joshua,"
Lists of Sitters.

ABERGAVENNY.

Abergavenny, Earl of [i 75 7 March]
Abergavenny, Lady and child [175 7 Feb]
Abingdon, Earl of [1761 Feb. 1770 Feb]
Abington, Mrs, actress [1764 Aug. 176;
April. 1766 July. 1767 Feb. 1768
Feb. 1 7 71 March. 1772 Jan. and
May. 1773 Jan. 1781 June. 1782
June] Her attitude towards, and
squabbles with Garrick, i, 226. 256. ii,
114, 115. 149. 437- In Paris, i, 414.
At the Pantheon, 432. Refuses to
play in Goldsmith's comedy, ii, 1 3. In
Sheridan's new play, 179. Gall and
wormwood cto her, 489. Playing
" Scrub," 490. Seei, 226 note. 237. 260.
430.449. ii, 41. 379. 530,531.
Academies of Art. See Art. Royal
Academy.
Adand, Sir Thomas [1766 May. 1767
Feb. 1768 Feb. 1772 June]
Acland, Colonel, i, 357.
Adand, Lady Harriet [1771 Feb. 1772
March] See i, 439.
Acland, Mr [1769 Jan. 1771 April] A
fast friendship soon ruptured, i. 348 note.
Acland, Mrs [1764 April]
Adair, Lady Caroline [1759 April]
Adair, Mr, surgeon, mesalliance of Lady
C. Keppel with, i, 205 note.
Adam, Mr, architect [1772 May] " all
gingerbread," ii, 125. See 4S7.
Adams, Mrs and Miss [1 764 April]
Aiguillon, Due d', his politeness to Marl
borough, i, 160.
Ailesbui-y, Earl of. See Bruce, Lord.
Ailesbury, Lady, ii, 302.
AislaUe, Mrs [1760 April]
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, i, 96.
Akenside, the poet, i, 199.
Albemarle, William Anne 2nd Earl of, a
magnificent spendthrift, i, 14°.
Albemarle, George third Earl of, bed
chamber lord to the Duke of Cumber
land [1765 Dec. 1766 Jan. 1782
VOL. I.

ANDERSON.
Deo. 1783 Nov] At the capture of
the Havannah, i, 208. See i, 141. 151.
163. 253. 413."
Albemarle, William Charles 4th Earl of,
ii, 407.
Atbemarle,lia,dj [1757 Sept. 1759 April]
Albemarle, Dowager Lady, robbed, ii, 303.
Alexander, Mr [1 766 Oct]
Allan, or Allen, David, pictures by, i,
404.
Allan, Lord [1762 Feb]
Allnutt Gallery, Reynolds pictures at the
sale of the, i, 399, 400 notes.
Almack's and its lady gamblers, balls,
&c, i, 388, 389. 430,431. ii, 176. 178
note. 272.
Altamont, Lord [1786 Deo]
Althorpe, George John Lord, afterwards
second Earl Spencer [1783 Dec] Por
trait exhibited, ii, 155. Elected into
" the Club," 268 note. See ii, 307. 323.
Althorpe, John Charles Lord, afterwards
3rd Earl Spencer [1784 Jan. 1786
April, Sept] ii, 444.
Althorpe, Lady [1781 March. 1782
March] ii, 323. 361.
Althorpe, Lord and Lady. See SpencEr.
Amelia, Princess [1762 Jan]
Amherst, Colonel [1760 Jan]
Amherst, Lady [1767 Sept]
Amherst, Sir jeffery, afterwards Lord
[1765 May. 1768 ,Feb] i, 185. 261.
Result of his prompt action, ii, 302.
Amsterdam, Sir Joshua at, ii, 336, 337.
Amyand, Master [1761 Jan]
Amyott, Mr [1767 June]
Ancaster, Peregrine second Duke of [1 75 7
March. 1 75 8 March. i76iFeb] i, 197.
Ancaster, Robert fourth Duke of, in the
watohhouse, ii, 233. His death, 296.
Ancaster, Duchess of [1 75 7 March. 1 75 9
March. 1764 Jan. 1765 Jan. 1768
Feb] i, 172. 197- 432. A "pretty
fellow," 433-
Ancram, Lady [1769 Feb. 1771 Jan]
Anderson, Lady [1771 Nov] 2 1

482

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Anderson, Mr. [1761 April]
Andrews, Mr and Mrs [1757 Dec. 1 760 Jan]
Angelo, Michael. See Michael Angslo.
Ange&o, Mr [1770 March] i, 192 note.
Angelo, Mrs [1759 Jan. 1760 Feb]
Angerslein, Mr [1765 June. Mrs. A, 1773
March. Mrs and Miss A, 1782 July.
Two children, 1783 June]
Anson, Lord, circumnavigator [1755 Feb]
i, 105. 131. 151.
Anstruther, Sir John and Lady [1761
March]
Arabin, Major, in private theatricals, ii,
508.
Argyle, John second Duke of, his monu
ment, i, 99.
Argyle, John fourth Duke of, painted by
Gainsborough, 280. His death, 35 4.
Argyle, Duchess of, and Dr Johnson,
i, 119. Mrs. Steele's story, 432.
Armitage, Sir John, i, 159.
Armstead, Mrs [1779 Dee. 1781 May.
1784 Jan. 1789 Mar], ii, 281 note 2.
Nursing Fox, 528.
Armstrong, Dr [1755 May. 1767 Sept]
i, 1. His poem and evening parties,
138. His death, ii, 260.
Arne, Dr, i, 329.
Arnold, Matthew, idea developed by, ii,
593 note.
Arnold, Mr, indicted by Sir John Field
ing, i, 458.
Arnold, Mr and Mrs [1757 Sept]
Art and Artists : Naturalness in Art,
i, 42. Preliminaries to a relish for
higher excellences, 44. A qualifying
remark, 44 note. Last true Italian
painters, 47. Mania for Italian pic
tures, 47 note, 48. 15 1. Prices given for
them, 153, 154. Efforts towards the
establishment of Art Academies in
, England, 90. 129. 141. Chronological
list, 179 note. Artists' Club at
Slaughter's, 137. First exhibition of
living artists, 178. Alleged jealousies
among artists, 231. Premiums offered
by various clubs, &c, ii, 15, 16. Legis
lative disregard of Art, 533 note. See
Dilettanti Society. Incorporated So
ciety. Royal Academy. Society of Arts.
Artaud, W, medal awarded to, ii. 497 note.
Arthur's Club, a mistress kept by, i,-i63
note, col. 2.
Arundel, Earl of [1 764 April. 1765 May.
1766 Jan. 1767 Jau]
Arundel, Lady [1765 Dec. 1766 Jan.
1767 Jan. 1768 March]
Ash, Dr [1788 April] club founded by
him, i, 388. ii, 514.
Ashburnham, Lord, i, 154. Warning sent
to him, ii, 304.

Ashburnham, Master [1786 May]
Ashburton, Lord [1782 July] See Dun
ning.
Ashley, or AsUey, Mrs [1759 August,
1 76 1 June]
Ashton, Miss [1757 May]
Astley (or Ashley) John, Reynolds's fel
low-pupil, i, 40 note. 55. 97. 126. 135.
His rich wife, 97 note. His Pali-Mall
mansion and canvas-backed waistcoat,
98 note. See ii, 83.
Aston, Mrs [1:760 April]
Atkins, Sir R [1755 April]
Aubrey, Sir J [1788 July]
Auckland, W. Eden Lord, i, 125. ii. 544.
Aufrere, Mr [1767 Feb]
Aufrere, Miss [1 7 70 July]
Augusta, Princess, i, 222.
Aurora frigate, wreck of the, i, 346 note.
Aylesford, Earl of [1 780 July. 1786 May]
ii, 175. 216. His protegfi, see Bonomi. •
Aylesford, Lady [1782 Feb] i, 172. ii, 350.
361.
Ayre, Mr and Mrs [1755 March]

B.
BacelK, La [1782 June. 1783 Feb]
Bacon, Francis Lord, bust of, i, 281.
Bacon, John, sculptor, rnqdals adjudged
to, i, 337. 370. Elected RA, ii, 225.
Commissions for statues given to him,
442. 547. 603. See 584.
Baddeley, Mrs [1771 June. 1772 Jan]
her beauty and sad end, i, 393. Triumph
achieved by her admirers, 431. An
admiral's guest, ii, 26. See i. 429, 430.
432. 449-
Bagot, Mr and Mrs [1762 June. 1764
August]
Bagot, Sir Walter and Lady Barbara
[1762 May]
Bain, Miss [1762 Feb]
Baker family, Reynolds's kinsmen *
Thomas Baker's daughter, i, 2. Mr
Baker of Bideford, 16. Dr Baker's
dinner-parties, 326, 327.
Baker, Aid. Sir William [1761 July. 1762
August] M.P. for Plympton, discom
fiting Grenville, i, 2 25 . At a Rocking
ham meeting, 268. A stanch Oppo
sitionist, 379. See 380.
Baiter, Mr, son of above [1762 Aug.
1 771 Jan] resisting Lord North, ii, 99.
Baker, Mrs [1770 Feb]
Baldwin, Mrs, the " fair Smyrniote " [1782
Feb] a " lioness," ii, 35 o, 35 1. Her por
trait described, 362.
Bale, Mrs [1758 Feb]
Ball, W, medal adjudged to, i, 419 note.

INDEX.

483

BALLOONING.
Ballooning, rage for, ii, 451. 478.
Bampfylde, Lady [1777 April]
Bampfylde, Mr [1779 January]
Banks, Captain [1 75 7 June]
Banks, Charles, medal awarded to, ii, 91.
Nominated for a travelling student
ship, in. Same refused, 112.
Banks, Mr, afterwards Sir Joseph [1771
Dec. 1772 Jan. 1773 March. 1777
May] His scientific ardour and voy
ages, i, 42 7. Sir Joshua's famous por-
traitofhim, 428. 436.U, 20.41. Govern
ment injustice towards him, i, 448. See
ii, 175, 176. 267.
Banks, Thomas, sculptor, reporting from
Rome on art matters, i, 103 note. Medal
awarded to him, 370. Sculpture ex
hibited, ii, 127. 437. Academy ques
tion on which he opposed Sir Joshua,
573.578. See i, 300. ii, 609.
Bannister the vocalist, i, 458.
Barber, Dr Johnson's black servant, recol-
¦ lections of, i, 1 1 8 note.
Baretti, Joseph, charged with murder :
exertions of Ms friends, i, 334-336.
Two anecdotes, 336 note. Criticism on
his portrait, ii, 76. Losing his temper,
105. Characterizing Sir Joshua, 141.
Earning 25 guineas, 168. His death,
539. - See ii, 31. 53. 80. 113.
Baring, Mr, ancestor of the present Lord
Ashburton, ii, 178.
Barlcer, Mr [1786 Feb. 1787 May]
Barker, Mr, his experience in connexion
with Sir Joshua Reynolds's pictures,
i. 377 note. See ii, 97.
Barnard, Dr, Provost of Eton, Dean
of Derry and Bishop of Killaloe,
and Mrs Barnard [1762 June. 1767
March. 1773 Dec. 1774] ii, 49. Cha-
- racterizing Reynolds and humbling
Johnson, 50, 51. His present to the
Club, 207. Chaplain to the Academy,
and letter to Sir Joshua thereon, 622-
•624. See ii, 7. 65, 66. 163.
Barre, Col. Isaac [1766 April. 1788
April] a hearty thump from him, i, 242
note. His origin and career, 25 7. Rey
nolds's portrait of him, 25 7, 258.
Barrett, George, artist, i, 180 note. 321.
» 443. ii, 182. 371. Pensioned by the
¦ Academy, 441.
Barrington, Admiral [1779 Nov] ii, 279.
Sir Joshua's colour-blunder in his por
trait, 280 note. His naval victory, 378.
Barrington, Colonel [1757 Aug. 1758
May]
Barrington, Lord [1762 October]
Barrington, Mrs [1757 Nov. 1 75 8 Jan].
'Barron, Hugh, received as pupil by Rey
nolds, i, 103. His success in Rome and

subsequent career, 103 note. Working
as " drapery-man," 149. 249. Exhibit
ing, 262. 280. 442. See ii, 126. 371.
Barry, James, i, 45- 3 77- 443. Reynolds's
alleged bequest to him, 182 note. True
Reynolds relic given to him, ibid.
Introduced to Reynolds, 243, 244. On
pictures by Wilson and Gavin Hamil
ton, 249, 250. His feelings towards
Reynolds, 250 note. 278. ii, 399. 401.
404-407. 463. Advice, thrown away
upon him, i, 343. Letter found among
his papers, 346 note. His enthusiastic
art-confessions, 400-402. His " high
art" Death- of Wolfe, 406. ii, 312.
Elected R.A; his diploma-picture, ii,
23. On the scheme for decorating St.
Paul's, 59. His ungracious conduct
towards Burke, 60-63. Contrast be
tween the two, 64. Pictures exhibited
by him, 73, 125. On genius, 92. His
self-denying resolutions, 145. Their
fate, 169. His paintings at the Society
of Arts, and circumstances at the time,
179, 180. Exhibition and description
of same, 397, 398. 411. His objections
to portraiture, 18 1. 400-402. 467.
Effect of his temper and habits, 208.
His claim for the Academy, 442. His
enthusiasm on an occasion, 462 note.
Why he delayed his professorial Lec
ture, 473. His sentiments on the
Bonomi quarrel, 572. His last days
and death, 572, 573 notes. Protest
joined in by him, 582,583. His burial-
place, 634.
Barry, Mrs, actress, saving Home's dull
tragedy, ii, 8.
Barry, Spranger, actor [1 75 8 July. 1759
Sept] i, 165. His figure, style of act
ing, &c, 166. Rivalry with- Garrick,
ii, 248.
Barrymore, Lady [1 770 Jan. 1 771 June]
Barrymore, Lord [1766 Feb]
Barrymore, Miss [1770 Nov]
Bartolozzi [1771 June. 1773 Oct] ii, 216.
520.
Barton, Mr [1786 May] .
Barwell, Mr and Master [1 780 Oct. 1 781
Jan] ii, 316.
Bassett, Mr [1776 May. 1777 March]
Bassett, Mrs [1759 April. 1762 May.
1776 July]
Bastard, Mr and Mrs [1755 March. 1757
May]
Bastard family and Reynolds, i, 128. 215.
Bate, Rev Henry, afterwards Sir Henry
Bate-Dudley, championing a lady and
bruising a bully, ii, 43, 44. Uproarious,
247.
Bath, Earl of [1 75 5 Aug. 1 76 1 Aug]
2l2

484

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

BATHCBST.
Bathurst, Mrs [1759 July]
Battoni, Pompeo, i, 47, 48. Locale of
some of his pictures, 152.
Bayham, Lord and Lady [1786 May.
1787 Feb]
Bayly, Mr and Mrs [1 771 May]
Beach or Beech, Thomas, Reynolds's pupil,
i, 103. ii, 371. 505.
Beard, John, vocalist, i, 211.
Beattie, Dr,. i, 386. 452. Oxford degree
conferred on him, ii, 27 note. His ad
mirers : an exception thereto, 29, 30.
Sir Joshua's portrait of him with its
allegorical accessories, 30. 58. 76. 78.
His own account of Sir Joshua and the
picture, 31, 32. 56. His character, 56,
57. See ii, 161, 162. 215. 328. 444-
Beauchamp, Lady (Miss Ingram) written
"Beachy" and "Peachum" by Sir
Joshua [176 1 Dec. i762Jan. i777May.
1781 Sept. 1789 July] ii, 287. 539 note.
540 note. 550 note.
Beauchamp, Francis Lord, afterwards
second Marquis of Hertford [1758
April. 1759 Dec]
Beauclerk, Lady Catherine [1765 April]
Beauclerk, Lady Di, previously Lady
Bolingbroke, portrait painted by her,
ii, 216. See 377. 488. See Bolingbroke,
Lady.
Beauclerk, Miss, afterwards Lady Pem
broke [1777 Dec] painted as Una,
ii, 286-293.
Beauclerk, Topham [1773 May] Anec
dote of Johnson told by, i, 220 note.
"Acid,"ii, 119. Aquarrel with Johnson,
267-269. The reconciliation dinner,
270. Characterised, 285. His death,
286. See i, 210. 228 note. 272.333. 335.
388. ii, 12. 117. 175. 224.
Beaufort, Duchess of [1761 March]
Beaufort, Duke of [1760 July] i, 191.
35°-
Beaumont, Lady [1778. 1779 March. 1780
March] ii, 224. 280. 287. 293.
Beaumont, Sir George [1787 June] art-
hint from Reynolds to, i, 1 1 2 . Anecdote
told by Mm, 357 note. Sir Joshua's
bequest to him, ii, 636. See ii, 134. 216.
419. 487- 5l6-
Becket, Sterne's only mourner, i, 293.
Beckford, Mrs [1755 Dec. 1782 Feb]
Beekford, William, Alderman [1755 Dec]
i, 292. Startling the Court, 350.
Honours conferred on Mm, 352. Epis
copal objection to a monument to Mm,
ii, 38.
Beckford, William, son of above [1782
Feb] ii, 344. 361. 428. Wealth in
herited by Mm : his tastes, exclusive-
ness, &c, 348-350.

Bedford, Duchess of, Sir Joshua parry
ing the criticisms of, ii, 199.
Bedford, Duke of [1759 May. 1762
April] New Road Bill why opposed
by Mm, i, 149. Visited by Reynolds,
214. Family portraits, 182-184.
Beechey, Sir William, on a picture by Sir
Joshua, i, 377 note. See 466 note. Con
versation reported by him, ii, 199. De
fending Sir Joshua against the King,
449 and note. See ii, 182. 371. 535.
Beefsteak Club and its founder, i, 180 note.
210.
Belgioioso, Count [1777 Oct]
Bella/mont, Lord and Lady [1773 August,
1778]. Lord B.'s duel with Lord
Townshend, ii, 46, 47. See 76.
Belvoir Castle, destruction by fire of pic
tures at, ii, 283.
Bennett, Mr [1760 Dec. 1761 Jan. 1764
Jan]
Bensley (not Beasley) the actor, i, Ji^note.
Bentley, Mr, Sir Thomas Lawrence's ad
vice to, ii, 20 note. '
Beresford, Hon Mrs, ii, 29.
Berkeley, Lady [1 75 9 October]
Berridge, Sir Joshua's pupil, £, 149. 249.
ii, 371. ExMbitmg, i, 262. 280. 442. ii,
126.
Bertie, Colonel [1787 Nov] ii, 516.
Bertie, Lady M. [1759 March]
Bertie, Lord Robert [175 7 March] i, 140.
Bertinazzi, Carlo, " Cariini," i, 287. His
remarkable career, 287 note.
Bessborough, Lord, why afraid of Sir
Joshua's dinner parties, ii, 143.
Bigby, watchman, killed, i, 394. Resist
of Ms widow's appeal, 396, 397.
Bigg, W. R, elected A. R. A, ii, 505.
Billington, Mrs, the vocalist [1786 May.
1789 March] i, 329. Painted as St.
Cecilia, ii, 5 29. Her brilliant debut, ibid.
See 588.
Bingham, Mr [1786 July]
Bingham, Miss [1786 Jan] See ii, 485.
Bingham, Sir Charles, i, 163 note. 173.
Binning, Lord [1777 March] ii, 212,
Bisshopp, Miss [1 75 7 June]
Blackett, Dr, i, 215. 237.
BlackeU, Sir Walter [1 75 9 June. 1 760 May.
1762 June. 1766 Feb. 1767 Feb. 1769
Jan. 1777 Jan. 1778] i, 187 note. ii.
175-
Blackman, Miss [1758 Feb]
Blackstone, Judge, quarrel relative to a
charge of, ii, 267.
Blackwood, Capt [1755 July]
Blagdon, Dr, on Sir Joshua's fatal illness,
ii, 627.
Blair, Captain [1761 March]
Blair, Mr [1 76 2 Jan. 1764 March]

INDEX.

485

Blake, Mr, afterwards Sir Patrick [1764
April. 1765 March. 1767 March.
1768 Jan. 1769 Jan] ii, 13. His
brother's extraordinary wager, i, 25
note 5.
Blake, Mrs [1764 April. 1766 April.
1767 March. 1768 March. 1769 Jan]
painted as Juno, i, 323. A rival Juno,
444. Her origm and marriage, 323 note.
Blakeney, General, Ms hospitality to
Reynolds, i, 37. Defending Minorca,
150.
Blanchard, the aeronaut, ii, 45 1. 478.
Bland, Sir John, noted "punter," i, 95.
His mad play and sad end, 141.
Blandy, Miss, the murderess, i, 96. ii, 267.
Blankart, Madame [1771 Oct]
Blessington, Lord. See Gardiner.
Bligh, Mr [1787 July]
Blount, Martha, fan painted by Pope for,
i, 25.
"Bluestocking" parties, 1,450-453, ii,
9, 10. 175. 487.
Blundell, Mrs [1762 May]
Bolingbroke, Lady, afterwards Lady Di
Beauclerk [1764 June. 1765 Jan] i,
222. Anecdote of her portrait, ibid.
note. Her intrigue, divorce, and subse
quent marriage, 333. See Beauclerk,
Lady Di.
Bolingbroke, Lord, and Nelly O'Brien,
Walpole's fling at, i, 222 note.
Bolton, Duke of [1764 Jan]
Bond, J. Lmnell, medal awarded to, ii,
49 7 note.
Bonfoy, Mrs, Reynolds's early portrait of,
i, 128.
Bonomi, arcMtect, Academy quarrel rela
tive to the candidature and election of,
ii, 521. 548, 549. 553-577. 582, 583.
Boone, Governor [1 764 Nov. 1765 Jan]
Boone, Mrs [1 7 74. 1776 March]
Boothby, Mr [1 75 7 Dec. 1 75 8 Feb. 1 766
Aug. 1767 April. 1784 Nov. His
lady, 1783 Jan. 1784 Dec]
Boothby, Mrs [1764 April]
Boothby, Miss [1 75 8 May. 1788 July]
Boothby, Sir William [1765 Jan]
Boringdon, Lord. See Parker, John.
Borulaski, the dwarf, ii, 492. His longe
vity, ibid. note.
Boscawen, Admiral [1755 March. 1760
Dec]. His victory, 1,124. Superseding
Keppel, 142.
Boscawen, Mr [1 7 7 7 Nov. 1778]-
Boscawen, Mrs [1755 June] ii, 108, 109.
175. 212.
Boswell, James, portrait given by Srr
Joshua to, i, 148. His introduction to
Johnson, 219, 220. A dinner at Ms
lodgings, 333, 334. Sponsors for his

"clubable" qualities, ii, 12.25. Baited
by Johnson, 22 note. 212. His habit of
drinking to excess, 106. 271. 529. On
Johnson's visit to the theatre, 114. 116.
Disputing on patriotism, 118. On good
humour, 119. On Johnson's prompti
tude, 120. Bringing Wilkes and
Johnson together, 160, 161. Reporting
club conversations, 206-210. 267-269.
On Sir Joshua's bearing towards
Johnson, 213. Lecturing the Doctor,
324. His efforts towards sending
Johnson to Italy, 445, 446. 451 note.
His ' Tour to the Hebrides,' 476. Pro-
posmg terms for Ms portrait, 477. A
" Jackanapes," 497. Weighed down with
debt, difficulty, and remorse, 529, 530.
545, 546. Bringing Sir Joshua to a.
public execution, 588. His honorary
R. A. office, 620. On Sir Joshua's
last illness, 624. Sir Joshua's bequest
to Mm, 636. See i, 184 note. 216. 274.
335. 361. 432. ii, 53. 158. 175. 547. 623.
Boswell, Miss [1773 May. 1774. 1776
June].
Bott, Mr, barrister, Ms gig and Ms treatise,
i. 275.
Bott, Mrs [1771 Nov]
Boucher, Francis, French painter, i, 415.
Boufflers, Madame de, and Dr Johnson, i,
220 note.
Bourdieu, Mr [1765 Oct]
Bourgeois, P. F, elected A. R. A, ii, 505.
Bourke, Dr, Archbishop of Tuam, portrait
of, ii, 435-
Bouverie,Mr [1757 Feb] art publication
aided by Mm, i, 154. See ii, 14.
Bouverie, Mrs [1757 Feb. 1760 March.
1767 April. 1768 March. 1769 Feb]
In Sir Joshua's pictures and at mas
querades, i, 260. 324. 357. 392. 434.
Bouverie, Miss [1765 March]
Bouverie, Miss Harriet [1764 Feb]
Bouverie, Master [1 75 7 Feb. 1 760 March]
Bower, ArcMbald [1757 Feb. 1 75 8 Jan]
His literary and controversial career, i,
137, 138. Detector of Ms lies, ii, 65 .
BowThy, Mr. [1765 Nov]
Bowles, Miss [1775. 1776 June] anecdote
relative to her portrait, ii, 134.
Bowyer, Captain [1768 Dec. 1769 Jan]
Boydell, Alderman, i, 5 o. His Shakspeare
Gallery, ii, 501. Overcoming Sir
Joshua's scruples, 502. Paintings by
the latter for him, ii, 502-504. His
title to an honour paid to Mm, 532,533.
Idea in -which Ms project originated,
and causes of its imperfect realisation,
534, 535. A suggestion of his worked
out by Sir Joshua, 536 note. His art-
suggestion relative to Lord Mayors, and

486

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

misunderstanding caused by it, 597-
601.
Boyle, Lord [1759 March]
Boyle, Mrs [1 760 Feb]
Boynton, Lady [1765 Jan]
Braddock's defeat, i, 142. His aide-de
camp, 193.
Braddyll, Master [1789 April] portrait
exhibited, ii, 436.
Braddyll, Mr [1788 Feb] portrait ex
hibited, ii, 5 16.
Braddyll, Mrs [1 788 Jan. 1 789 Feb]
Bradshaw, Colonel [1759 Nov]
Bradshaw, Master [1762 Nov]
Bradshaw, Mrs [1759 Dec]
Brahmins and Parsees, lionized in London,
ii, 323.
Braithwaite [1787 June and Aug]
Bramante's " job," i, 308 note.
Brandoin's picture of the 1771 R.A. Ex
hibition, i, 402.
Breda, Swedish painter, Sir Joshua sitting
to, ii, 615, 616.
Brett, Mr, one of Sir Joshua's hosts [1755
Jan. 1757 Nov] i, 212. 237.
Brewer's copper, dmnerin a, ii, 53.
Brian, Mr [1762 Dec]
Brice, Mr [1762 Dec]
Bridges, Mr [1 75 9 Jan]
Bridgman, Mr [1755 Oct]
Broeklesby, Dr, ii, 61. 63. His generous
offer to Johnson, 446, 447.
Broderick, Admiral [1761 May]
Broglie, Marechal de, beaten by Lord
Granby,i, 198. Portrait of Ms conqueror
painted for Mm, 262.
Bromberg, Mrs [1 768]
Brooke, Lady [1757 May]
Brooke, Lord [1755 Nov. 1757 May.
1758 April]
Brookes' s Club, ii, 470.
Broome, Lord [1761 May. 1778]
Broughton, Lady [1765 Nov. 1767 July.
1768 March. 1769 July. 1772 June]
Broughton, Sir Bryan [1765 Nov]
Brown, Mather, painter, ii, 534.
Brown, Mrs [1760 May. July]
Brown, Mrs and. Miss [1762 May]
Bruce, Lord, afterwards first Earl of
Ailesbury [1757 Jan. 1765 April.
1766 April] i, 46. 55. 179 note. Re
commending Mrs Siddons to Garrick,
ii, 15 7.
Brace, Mrs, M private theatricals, ii, 508
and note.
Brudenell, Mr [1 75 7 July. 1 7 70 Aug]
Bntdenell, Mrs [1760 Dec] a leading
beauty, i, 197.
Brummell, Master, afterwards "Beau, " and
Ms brother [1781 Dec. 1782 Jan. 1783
July] ii, 343 note 10. 344. 347. 407.

Brummell, or Bromel, Mr, father of the
Beau, a lucky official, ii, 347.
Brunton," called James," an art enthusiast,
and Ms patron, i, 410.
Buccleuch, Duchess of [1772 Jan] i, 238.
439. Her portrait exhibited, ii, 19.
Buccleuch, Duke of [1759 Jan. 1767 Jan.
1768 March. 1770 Feb. 1771 May.
1773 Feb. His children, 1783 Aug]
Buchan, Lord and Lady [1 784 Feb]
Buckle, Captain [1760 October]
Buckinghamshire, Lady, Sir Joshua's
courtesies to, ii, 384. Palette set for
her by Mm, ibid, note. See 488.
Buller, Mr and Mrs [1757 Jan. 1760
March. 1771 March. 1772 March]
The lady's fame as a traveller, i, 439.
Bunbury, Sir Charles [1766 Jan. 1771
June] i, 131. 254. 430. His divorced
wife, 196. 228. Polly Kennedy painted
for Mm, 397. Reynolds's letter to him
thereon, 398. See ii, 13. 68. 444.
Bunbury, Henry, the caricaturist [1765
Nov. 1766 Jan] i, 264. His Coxheatn
sketches, ii, 218. Exhibiting his
sketches, 292.
Bunbury, Master, son of Henry [1766
April], merit of the portrait, ii, 157.
Exhibited, 326.
Bunbury, Mrs [1772 April. 1773 April]
Sir Joshua's bequest to her, ii, 636.
Bunbury, Lady Sarah, ne'e Lenox [1765
Jan] See Lenox.
Bunbury, Sir William [1764 April]
Burch, E, elected A. R. A, i, 369. R. A,
436.
Burghersh, Lord [1787 Feb] portrait ex-
Mbited, ii, 505.
Burgoyne, General [1766 May]. Com
mittee nominated on the motion of, i,
454, 455. His ' Maid of the Oaks,' ii,
82. Sir Joshua's intercourse with him,
99. His surrender at Saratoga, 191,
192. A repentant postscript, 587.
Burke, Edmund [1767 Oct. 1769 April.
1773 Sept. -1774. 1780 July. 1782
May. 1786 Dec] casting about for em
ployment, i, 99. Early career: first
meetings with Reynolds, 125, 126.
His protege Emin, 126. First step
towards public life, 198. Sketched by
Walpole, 198 note. Attacked by
HawMns, 228 note. Secretary to Lord
Rockingham, 243. 251. Befriending
Barry, 243. 443. Sitting to Reynolds,
253. Ejected M.P; parliamentary
triumphs, 254. Negotiating with
Wilkes, 258 note. Conferences with
Ms party, 268. Refusing overtures,
269. Reading Goldsmith's comedy,
275. Characterising Reynolds, 279.

INDEX.

487

293. 318. Letter ascribed to Mm
and Sir Joshua, 346 note. Advocating
the right of reporting debates, 378. A
" farmer," 416. His conduct on the
Royal Marriage Act and East Indian
Affairs, 441. 453-456. Supporting
Goldsmith's new play, ii, 13. 17. His
rejomders to Barry's churlish com
plaints, 60-64. Designated by Hannah
More, 80. His triumph at Bristol, 89.
Robbed by highwaymen, 90. His
views relative to the revolted colonies,
100. 112. 130. 190. Suspected to be
'Junius,' 113. In hopeless Opposition,
121. Sitting to Romney, 134. At
Garrick's Farewell, 150. Signing a
round robin, 164. Punning and coun-
terpunning with Johnson, 206-208.
His colonial arguments bearing fruit,
. 217. Clouds clearing away, 219, 220.
Keppel's gift to him, and Ms acknow
ledgment of it, and subsequent eulogium
on its donor, 235-238. In danger
from the Gordon mob, 300, 301. His
economic reform plans, 305. Ingrati
tude of his Bristol constituents, 306.
Eulogium on Dunning, 307. Loses Ms
seat, 308. Congratulating " Offy " on
her marriage, 318, 319. Triumph of
his party: office given to him, 353,
¦ 354. Carrying Ms schemes into effect,
374> 375- Sketched by Miss Burney,
376, 377. His chief's testamentary
remembrance of Mm, 378. Throws up
Ms office, 379. His recogMtion of
and generosity to Crabbe, 393-395.
Anxieties : an imprudent act, 415.
Sole blots in his political career, ibid.
A simile of his, 476. His charges
against Warren Hastings, 491- 513.
Anticipations and disappointments on
the Regency question, 527, 528. 538,
539. His happy thought relative to
Boydell, 532. His apt quotation on Sir
Joshua's farewell Discourse, 5 94- His
obituary notices of Sir Joshua, 629, 630.
634,635. Sir Joshua's bequest to Mm,
636. His character of Sir Joshua, 638-
bt&notes. Seei, 131. 167. 233.255,256.
259. 264. 267. 278. 291. 298. 319. 324.
335- 351-353- 381. 386. 444- 461. ii,
21.48. 52,53. 100. 137, 138. 143- 192.
195. 204. 207. 210, 211. 230. 273, 274.
308. 379. 448. 47°- 483- 544. 546.
Burke, Master [1767 Sept]
Burke, Mrs [1767 August. 1769 May]
Burke, Richard [1782 May] Goldsmith's
Mies on him, i, 285. Stock specula
tions, 454. Home on leave, ii, 7. His
letter on a dinner at Sir Joshua's, 49,
. jo. Treasury Secretary, 375. 416.

CAJ1BKIDGE.
Burke, William, i, 352. 386. 456. India
Stock speculations, 454.
Burlington, Lady, outwitted, i, 436.
Burney, Dr, ii, 209. Sir Joshua's portrait
of him, 313. 325. Characterized by
Lord Macaulay, 625.
Burney, Miss, afterwards Madame D Ar-
blay, i, 37 note. Characterising Miss
Reynolds, 92 note. On Mrs Montague,
452. Her novel of 'Evelina,' ii, 203-
205. In agonies, 224. Match proposed
for her by Mrs Montague, 239. Her
pen and ink sketch of the Leicester
Square circle, 239-245. Her descrip
tion of Burke, 376, 377. Her Mter-
course with Sir Joshua, 381, 382. 384,
385. At Hastings's impeachment, 513.
Released from Court slavery, 625. On
Sir Joshua's last illness and death, 625.
628. See i, 164 note. 251. 369. 451. ii,
109. 210. 276-278. 320. 328.
Burns, Robert, i, 245 note. A would-be
mender of his verse, 301. His reference
to Elliott, Lord Heathfield, ii, 517.
Bury, Councillor, and wife, early Rey
nolds portraits of, i, 30 and note.
Bury Saint Edmunds, famine riots at, ii,
13, 14.
Bute, John Earl of [1773 Oct] Ms State
appointments, i, 194. 220. Pensioning
JoMison, 212. Reynolds's portrait of Mm,
221, 222. 274. Pamter Ramsay's obliga
tion to Mm, 273. Reappearance at Court,
ii, 53. Mob attack on Ms house, 233.
2?M«e, Lady [1777 Dec. 1779 Nov] cha
racter of her portrait, ii, 279.
Butler, Mr [1755 May]
Byng, Admiral, Ms Minorca retreat, court-
martial and execution, i, 123. 149-152.
Byron, Captain, afterwards Admiral [1 759
March] Ms action with D'Estaing, ii,
281 note.
Byron, Lord, the poet, ii, 374.

Cadogan, Lady [1786 Aug] portrait ex-
¦ Mbited, ii, 505.
Cadogan, Mr and Mrs [1755 Feb]
Cagliostro, Count, in London, ii, 496.
Calcraft, Captain [1758 March]
CaMender, Mrs [1772 July]
Calonne, M. de, Ms picture collection, ii,
505. His reverses, ibid, note,
Calthorpe, Mr [1773 Feb]
Galthorpe, Mrs [1772 Feb]
Calvert, Mrs [1760 Feb. 1761 Jan]
Cambridge, Owen, Ms social and literary
eminence, i, 25 1. Sir Joshua and John
son at Ms house, ii, 119-122,

488

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

CAMDEN.
Camden, CMef Justice Pratt, Lord [1764
March. 1765 Aug. 1 766 Jan] receiving
city honours, i, 224 note. Sitting to
Reynolds, 226. 251. Wilton's bust of
him, 281. Resigns Ms office, 350.
Campbell, Colonel, baseless boast of, ii,
132.
Campbell, Colonel Fletcher [1781 Feb]
Campbell, Dr, discovery of the diary of,
ii, 112. His portraiture of Johnson,
113-115. On TMale's dinners, 116.
Campbell, Lady William, taken prisoner
by the French, ii, 2 74.
Campbell, Lord F. [1762 March. 1781
Feb]
Campbell, Miss [1778] portrait exhibited,
ii, 213. Its character, 224.
Campbell, Mr, Ms portrait, ii, 213. In
private theatricals, 508.
Camping out, ii, 218.
Canada, subjugation of, i, 124.
Canova's commissions from, and rebuke
to, his English patrons, i, 47, 48.
Cape Breton captured, i, 123. 159.
Capel, Lady E. and Lord Maiden [1767
April]
Cardigan, Eari of [1755 May. 1758
March] i, 128. 222.
Cardigan, Lady [1767 June. 1769 May]
Cardross, Lord [1764 Dec]
Carew, Bampfylde Moore, and Sir Joshua's
father, i, 5.
Caricatures, by Reynolds, i, 45, 46. 55.
CarliM, Pantomimist. See Bertinazzi.
Carlini, Royal Academician, i, 3 1 7. Statue
designed by Mm, 352. His bust of the
king, ii, 289. Made keeper, 388 note.
See 442.
Carlisle, Dr, i, 386.
Carlisle, Earl of [1767 June. 1769 May]
i, 106. 272, 273. 359. 395. 430. Verses
by Mm : to the Duchess of Devonshire,
ii, 101 note: to Sir Joshua, 557.
Carlisle, Lady [1770 April. 1771 May.
1772 Feb]
Carlisle House. See Comely.
Carlyle, Thomas, ii, 302,
Carmarthen, Marquis of [1764 July]
Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark, i,
273.
Carpenter, Lady Almeria [1768 Feb.
1769 Jan]
Carr, Miss [1759 May. 1761 March]
Carter, Mr [1 75 7 May]
Carter, Mrs, translator of Epictetus, i,
452. ii, 10. 108. "A fright," 109.
Carter, Thomas, engraver, i, 135.
Cartwright, Miss [1755 June]
Cary, translator of Dante, i, 235.
Carysfort, Lady [1774]
Carysfort, Lord [1765 June. 1773 May.

1777 May. 1 781 June] i, 165 note. 254.
ii, 20 note. 53. 175. .
Casali, Signor, medal awarded to, i, 185.
Castiglione, Marchesa [1776 Sept] at a
famous trial, ii, 154.
Caswell, Mr [i762jMarch]
Cater, Mr [1777 April]
Cathcart, Lady and Miss [1755 Feb]
Cathcart, Lord [1761 June. 1773 March]
his pride M Ms Fontenoy scar, ii, 13.
Catherine, Empress of Russia, her ex-
confidant, ii, 303, 304. Her commis
sions to Sir Joshua, 482, 483. 501.
Price paid and gift added by her, 5 16.
Cats, Jacob, Sir- Joshua's pictorial recol
lections of, i, 13.
Catton, Charles, R.A, Reynolds's coach
painted by, i, 184. h, 80. Picture by
Mm, i, 403. His share in the decora
tion of the Academy rooms, ii, 290,
His city dignity, 452. See ii, 371.
Caulfidd, Captain [1761 March]
Cavendish, Lady G. H. (Betty Compton)
her portrait exhibited, ii, 361.
Cavendish, Lady Georgma [1784 July]
Cavendish, Lady Harriet [1786 April]
Cavendish, Lord John [1767 Feb] in
Reynolds's painting-room, i, 269, 270.
Throws up office with Ms party, ii, 3 79.
Cavendish, Lord Richard [1780 June] ii,
300. Character of Mmself and Ms por
trait, 305. 312. 326, 327. 387.
Cavendish, Master [1784 May]
Cawardine, Miss [1777 Jan]
" Ceechina " [1 76 7 April] See Zam
perini.
Cells, Miss [1765 June. 1766 Oct. 1767
Feb]
Chaloner, Miss [1762 July] See Hale,
Mrs.
Chamberlain, Mason, pictures by, i, 403.
ii, 23. His portrait of Dr. W. Hunter,
290. Characterized by the critics, 438.
Chambers, Mr [1766 May. 1769 June.
1773 July] Ms Indian appointment, ii,
55 note 2.
Chambers, Mr, afterwards Sir William, his
nationality, i, 47. 86. His share in
originating the Royal Academy, 294,
295. " Expelled " from the Incorporated
Society, 305. Plarming the R.A. rooms
at Somerset House, 435. ii, 10. 169.
288. His portrait, 290. Acts ascribed to
him, and Sir Joshua's confession there-
anent, 439, 440. Peter Pindar's fling at
him, 473. His share in an Academy
election dispute, 556. 559. 562-570.
Effect of his conduct on, and letters to
Mm from Sir Joshua, 578-582. His
conduct on the proposal for a monument
to Johnson, 609-612. Seei, 180 note. 25 1.

INDEX.

489

316. 331. 333- 415- 419 "°*e. 447- u> 52>
209. 367. 520.
Chambers, Mrs, afterwards Lady, wife of
above, character of Sir Joshua's portrait
of, i, 86.
Chamier, Antony [1762 Dec. 1767 Jan.
1777 Nov] his intercourse with Rey
nolds, 228 note. 237. 250. 255. His
death, 286.
Champness, Colonel [1759 May]
Chancy, Mr [1761 Jan] See Ohauncey.
Chandler the traveller, ii, 112.
Chantry, Sir Francis, i, 300. 303.
Chapone, Mrs, " Grandison in petticoats,"
i, 452. ii, 10.
Charlemont, Lord [1 75 7 Feb. 1759 March.
1 76 1 Aug] His appreciation of English
art, i. 154. Picture pamted for him by
Hogarth, 190. Club almost originated
by Mm, 228 note. His protege' Dalton,
316 note. Acting in a duel, ii, 46. Put
ting Dr Johnson to the question, 322.
See i, 46. 55. 179 note. 238. 273. ii, 22
note. 177.
Charles 1 at Charing Cross, ii, 312.
Charlotte, Queen of George ni[i779 Dec]
her marriage, i, 194. Her portraits :
by Cotes, 280. by Reynolds, 366. by
Zoffany, ii, 24.
.Charlton, Mr and Mrs [1757 Jan, March,
April, Aug]
Charteris, Colonel, ii, 486.
Chartres, Mr, Treasurer to the Princess of
Wales [1757 Feb] i, 155 note.
Chatham, Lord, and the RocMngbam
' party,i,267,268.35i. See Pitt, William,
senr.
Chatterton's suicide, i, 399.
Chauncey, Dr [1755 Jan] portrait ex-
Mbited, ii, 435.
Chauncey,Mi and Mrs [1758 Feb. 1784
Jan] See Chancy.
Chaundy, Captain, and wife, early sitters
to Reynolds, i, 30.
Cheap, Mr [1762 Nov]
Cheere, sculptor, i, 135.
Chenu, P. F, medal awarded to, ii, 497
note. _ .
Cherbourg harbour destroyed, i, 159.
Cherokee Indians in London, i, 213. Feted
and neglected, 214.
Chesterfield, Lord, picture-buying, ii, 54.
His description of Johnson, 113.
CMchester, Lord. See Pelham, Thomas.
Chichester, Sir John [1767 June]
Child, Miss [1772 May. 1773 March]
Child, Mr [1 7 7 2 May. 1 7 7 3 April]
Cholmondeley, General [1759 MayJ
Cholmondeley, Lord [1780 Feb] Ms por
trait exhibited, ii, 293.
fiholmondeley, Master [1764 March]

Cholmondeley, Miss F. [1767 April]
Cholmondeley, Mr [1765 Dec. 1766. Jan]
Cholmondeley, Mrs, sister of Peg Woffing
ton [1761 May. 1765 Aug. 1768 Feb]
i, 251. 386. 392 note. 452. At a mas
querade, 392. Reynolds's fancy picture
of her daughter, 284. Her beauty, ii,
10. Her obligations to her sister, 11.
Figuring in a conversation, 240-245.
Her portrait exhibited, 588. See ii, 67.
175. 209,. 210.
Christie's auctiou-room hired for exhi
bitions, 1 80 note. See 182 note. 316.
Chudleigh, Elizabeth, afterwards Duchess
of Kingston, an early sitter to Rey
nolds, i, 30. See Kingston.
Churchill, Charles, satirist, Ms quarrel
with Hogarth, i, 211. His epitaph on
himself, 234. His death, 235. Satiriz
ing Johnson, 244. See i, 1. 145 note 4.
Churchill, Colonel Charles [1755 April]
his origin and marriage, i, 145 note 4.
Cibber, Mrs, the actress, i, 168. 223.
Cipriam, ii, 3 7. Subjects painted by Mm,
74. His share in the decoration of the
Academy's rooms, 289, 290. Dead, 487.
Clanbrassil, Lord, written by Sir Joshua
Kilbrazil[i765 Feb]
Clare, Lord, Goldsmith's friend, i, 211.
See Nugent.
Clarke, Major-General, afterwards Field-
Marshal, ii, 216. His wife, ibid. note.
Clarke, Mr [1 75 7 Aug, Oct. 1 76 1 March]
Clarke, Miss [1758 April]
Clarke, Reynolds's pupil, i, 408 note.
Claude Lorraine, more Italian than
French, i, 47, See 3 74.
Clavering, Colonel- [1759 Oct] Walpole
on his heroism, i, 178 note.
Cleaver, Miss [1762 March]
Cleaver, Mr [1777 March]
Cleeve, the pewterer, and his picture pur
chases, i, 153.
Clements, Miss [1761 Dec]
Clergymen, famous sons of i, 1.
Clerk, Mr [1755 Aug]
Clermont, Lady [1782 Jan] ber royal
French guest, ii, 479.
Cleveland, Mr and Mrs [1 75 9 Jan. 1782
March]
Cleveley, John, marine painter, ii, 74.
Clifford, Lady [1786 March]
Clifton, Sir Gervase [1765 Oct]
Clive, Lady [1786 May]
Olive, Mrs, actress, trembling for her
laurels, i, 237. Reynolds at tea and
cards with her, 256. Her criticism on
Mrs Yates, 261.
Clive, Robert Lord, and Ms East India
triumphs, i, T24. 185. K.B, 445.
Club, The, called also the Literary and

490

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

the Turk's .Head Club, i, 129. 229. 272.
ii, 12, 13. 19, 194. 206, 207. 268 note.
269. 285. 452. Rejecting a lord, ii, 414.
Clubs : Artists', at Slaughter's, i, 28 note.
137. 141. Devonshire, i, 455. ii, 514.
Eumelian, ii, 5 14. 5 26. Shilling Rubber,
i, 290. Sour-crout, ii, 193. Thursday-
Mght, i. 272. 430. See also Almack's.
Arthur's.- Beef-steak. Ladies' Club.
. Scavoir-faire. White's.
Coates, Admiral [1762 April]
Cobham, Lord [1781 April. 1782 July]
Cockburn, Lady [1773 Sept] Sir Joshua
setting Ms seal on Ms painting of her
self and cMldren, ii, 47. Same exhi
bited, 76. Its enthusiastic reception
by the painters, 77. See ii, 500.
Cockburn, Master [1773 Sept]
Cocks, or Cox, Miss, ii, 539 note. 540 note.
550 note.
Cocks, Mrs [176 1 Jan]
Coke, Lady Mary [1758 Feb. 1759 Jan.
1762 May] painted by Hudson, i, 98
note. Sitting to Reynolds, 225.
Coke, Miss [1758 Nov]
Colebrooke, Mr, afterwards Sir George,
and Lady [1755 Oct. 1759 Nov. 1761
Jan. 1 762 June] remarks on the lady's
portrait, i, 10 1 note. Sir George tempt
ing Burke, 45 5 . Failure of his house
and sale of his pictures, ii, 8 1.
' Colebrooke, Mr, afterwards Sir James, and
Lady, i, 101.
Coleraine, William Hanger Lord, i, 431.
Colleton, Colonel [1 75 7 Dec. 1 75 8 Jan]
Collide, Mr [1 762 Nov]
Collier, Lady [1 75 9 April. 1760 Dec]
Collier, Mrs [1 764 Feb]
Cottingwood, Mrs [1761 Oct]
Collins, William, artist, i, 180.
Coilyer, J, associate engraver, R.A, ii,
487.
Colman, George [1760 May. 1769 June]
jealousies between himself and Garrick,
i, 25 5. 2.71. At the Stratford mumming,
333. His fears about Goldsmith's
comedy, ii, 12, 13. 17, 18. Baited and
roasted, 19. Takes Foote's theatre,
73. i55«oie. See i, 357. 365 note. 386.
ii, 2. 163. 175. 216.
Colonial Stamp resolution, its effect on
North America, i, 242. Act repealed,
254.
Colwer (? Calvert) Mr [1 75 7 Jan]
Compton, Lady Elizabeth [i78r May]
her marriage, ii, 343 note 6. See Caven
dish, Lady G. H.
Compton, Miss [1 75 5 Dec]
Compton, Mr [1755 Dec]
Congreve the dramatist, Johnson's extra
vagant praise of, i, 334.

Congreve, Mr [1758 May]
Coningham, Mr [1 76 1 March]
Conolly, Mr [1762 Dec. 1764 Jan]
Constable, John, R.A, i, 100. 300. 303.
His dictum on windmill drawing, 114
note. His eulogium on Sir Joshua's
Lord Heathfield, 517. On GaMsborough,
Reynolds, and Hogarth, 520.
Conversation in Sir Joshua's days and
ours, ii, 208, 209.
Conway, General [1766 June] i, 172. 253.
His motion in parliament, 254.
Conway, Lady Elizabeth [1781 June]
Conway, Master [1770 March]
Conway, Mr [1760 April. 1766 June.
1769 March] heading the gallants at
the Pantheon, i, 431.
Cook, Captain, circumnavigator, i, 427.
Cook, Mrs [1774]
Coombes, Mr [175 7 June]
Cooper, Samuel, miniature-painter, Ms
portrait of Milton bought by Sir Joshua,
ii, 440, 441. His portrait of Cromwell,
495, 496 notes. Sir Joshua's bequest
of the two, 636.
Coote, Sir Eyre, his Indian victory, i, 197.
Coote, Mr, and his little daughters, ii, 103,
Copin, .Mr [1757 June]
Copley, John Singleton, pictures exM-
bitedby, i,262. 2 8o.ii, 182. 293. Elected
A.R.A, ii, 169. His Samuel and Eli,
289. . His Death of Chatham, 293.
Opposmg Sir Joshua, 573. Resolution
moved by Mm, 5 84.
Coram, Captain, founder of the Foundling
Hospital, Hogarth's portrait of, i, 178.
Corbet, Captain, i, 449.
Cork, Lady. See Monckton, Miss.
Comely, Mrs, her Assembly Rooms, Soho
Square, i, 327. 354. 389. Contemporary
account of a famous masquerade there,
355 mote. Character of her "harmonic
meetings," 390. Prosecutions against
her, 391. Forced to sell Carlisle House,
ii, 25.
CornewaU, Lady [1779 April. 1780
March] ii, 287. 297.
Cornwallis, General [1761 June]
Cornwallis, Lady, portrait of, i, 357.
Cornwallis, Lord [1782 Oct] painted also
by Gainsborough, ii, 408. Statue voted
to Mm, 443 note.
Correggio's Danae, i, 53. His Holy Fa
mily, 63. Peculiarity of his imitated
by Reynolds, 115 note. Secret of Ms
charm, 118.
Cosway, Mrs, ii, 159.
Cosway, Richard, first pictures exMbited
by, i, 280. His Mckname, 403. See i,
370. 436. 447. ii, 371. 438. 439- 584.
Cotes, Francis, i, 97. 128. 167. 180 note.

INDEX.

491

COTES.
231. 294. 298. Pictures exhibited, 223.
262. 280. 321. 360. Dead, ii, 158.
Cotes, Samuel, at Gainsborough's funeral,
ii, 520.
Cotterell, Mrs [1757 Oct]
Cotton, Captain [1762 June]
Cotton, Mr [1762 May. 1 764 Sept]
Cotton, Mr, Ms account of Reynolds's
birthplace, i, 2 note. His Reynolds
memorabilia, 3, 4, 5. 8 note. 26 note. 30,
31 note. 109 note.
Cotton, Royal Academy visitor, i, 317.
Courtenay, John, M.P. [1782 March] bis
patrons and career, i, 382, 383 notes.
His description of Sir Joshua's (tinners,
383, 384-
Courtenay, Mrs and Master [1782 Feb]
Coussmaker, Mr [1782 Feb]
Coutts, Mr [1 7 72 Dec. 17 73 April]
Coutts, Mrs [1 771 Nov]
Coventry, Lady, one of "the beautiful
Gunnings" '[r 75 8 June- 1 75 9 June.
1764 Oct. 1765 Jan] her notoriety and
early death, i, 94. See i, 96. 102. 172.
Coventry, Lord [1758 July. 1764 Oct.
.1765 Jan] characterised by Walpole,
i, 94. See i, 102 note. 175.
Cowdray House, Sussex, and its ancient
pictures, ii, 542. Johnson's wish, 543.
Cowley, Mrs [1765 Oct] her new comedy,
ii, 157.
Cox, Master [1759 May]
Cox, Miss [1 764 March. 1789 July]
Cox, Mr [1769 March. 1777 April]
Cozens, Alexander, water-colour painter,
his unrecogmsed merits, ii, 126.
Crabbe, George, poet, m search of a patron,
,ii, 393. His generous reception by
Burke, 393-395- . ., .
Cradock, Joseph, the memoir-writer, 1,
125. 433. His story of Goldsmith and
the puppets, 460. 461. See ii, 17.
¦Craunch ov Cranch, Mr [1766 Dec. 1767
Jan], Reynolds's early friend, i, 15 note.
23. 86 note. Hhnself and wife pamted
by Reynolds, 30. See ii, 267 note 1,
Craunch, Miss {1762 Oct]
Craven, Lady, and cMld [1781 March]
Crawford, Captam [1761 April]
Crawford, Mr [1769 August. 1789 Jan]
Crawford, Mrs [1761 Jan]
Crewe, Master, Reynolds's character por
trait of, ii, 156. Merits of the picture,
156, 157. ,
Crewe, Miss [1766 March. 1767 March.
1770 May]
Crewe, Mr [1760 March. 1769 Feb. 1776
April] i, 163 note. 254.
¦Crewe, Mrs, nee Greville [1767 April.
, 1768 Feb. 1769 March. 1770 May.
j 772 March] Reynolds's fancy portraits

of her, i, 5 1. 100 note. 260. 439. 444, 445 .
" True blue," 324. Her masquerade
characters, 392. 434. On the origin of
the " Blue Stockings," 45 1 note. Elec
tioneering, ii, 43 2 note, 433. See ii, 176.
45 1-
Cribb, Mr., the elder, Sir Joshua's frame-
maker, i, 183 note. Story of Sir Joshua
told by Mm, ii, 488 note.
Cribb, Mr, Reynolds relic possessed by,
i, 183 note. Sat to Sir Joshua as
" Puck," ii, 484. 504.
Crisp, " Daddy," Miss Bumey's friend, ii,
320. 351.
Croft, Sir Archer, and Lady [1759 July].
Croft, Mr [1760 March. 1769 Feb. 1776
April]
Croft, Mrs [1765 May. 1769 Feb]
Crofts, Captam, and Ms quarrel with Mr
Bate, ii, 43.
Crokatt, Miss [1759 April. 1760 April].
Croker, John Wilson, a characteristic sug
gestion of, ii, 45 1 note.
Cromwell, Oliver, Cooper's miniature of,
ii, 495, 496 notes. 636.
Crook, Miss [1755 Dec].
Crosbie, Lady, portrait of, ii, 262. Her
origin, marriage, &c, ibid, note 2.
Crosby, Brass, popular alderman, com
mitted to the Tower, i, 366. 378. 388.
Crowle, Mr [1777 May] ii, 216.
Cruikshank, the surgeon, ii, 447. Hts
treatment of Sir Joshua in Ms last ill
ness, 626.
Cruttenden, Mr [1759 Oct. 1767 July.
1768 May. 1769 Jan]
Cumberland, Miss [1 75 8 Dec. 1 75 9 Jan]
Cumberland, Richard, dramatist, on the
stage revolution wrought by Garrick, i,
168, 169. His sneer at Major Mills,
386. On Johnson's tea-drinking, 387.
His edmiration for Ms "Correggio,"
437. ii, 158. See ii, 17. 65. 156.
Cumberland, William Augustus Duke of
[1758 March. 1761 Jan] defeated at
Hastenbeck, i, 123. Taking command
in Hanover, 151. His resignation, 152.
Reynolds's portraits of him, 162, 163.
His speech to Lady Albemarle, 209.
His death, 243. His statue, ii, 312.
Cumberland, Henry Frederick Duke of
[1772 April. 1773 Feb] Ms character
and amour?, i, 3Sl- 393- 44°, 44i-
With Ms new Duchess in Reynolds's
studio, 439. Statute due to his mar
riage, 440. Portraits of him and his
Duchess, by Reynolds and Gainsbo
rough, exhibited, ii, 19. 181. At
Keppel's trial, 230. His Duchess. Sea
Horton, Mrs.
Cmliffe, Sir Ellis [1762 Jan]

492

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Cunliffe, Lady [1761 June]
Cunliffe, Miss [1786 June]
Cunningham, Allan; comments on state
ments of Ms relative to Sir Joshua, i, 6.
48. ii, 84. 133. 137 note. 364. 486.
CuredUl, Mrs [1755 May]
Curzon, Lady Caroline [1760 Jan]
Curzon, Master [1760 March. 1761 Jan]
Curzon, Sir Nathaniel [1760 Feb]
Gust, Sir John [1767 July] Ms short nose
and Ms wig, i, 275, 276. Dead, 354.
Cutcliffe, Mr, friend of the Reynolds
family, i, 14. Letters from Sir Joshua's
father to him, 15-24. 26. See 30 note 3.
Czwtoryski, Prince [1758 April]

D.
Dalkeith, Lord [1 75 7' Feb]
Dall, Nicholas Thomas, A.R.A, i, 436.
Dallison, Captain [1762 Jan]
Dallison, Mr [1 768 Jan]
Dalton, Mr [1768 Jan]
Dalton, Richard, art student at Rome, i,
55. Joimng in Academy schemes, 135.
180 note. Charge against Mm: Ms
venture as a printseller, 305 note. 316
note. King's Librarian and R.A. Anti
quary, 310. 352.
Darner, Mr [1762 May]
Darner, Mrs [1772 Oct], one of the " pretty
fellows," i, 433. Her portrait exhibited,
ii, rg. Taken by the French, 2 74. Works
exhibited by her, 43 7. See ii, 488. 508.
Dance, George, R.A, ii, 609.
Dance, Nathamel, afterwards Sir N. Hol
land, i, 167. 260. 317. His portrait of
La Zamperini, 272. Exhibiting, 190.
280. 321. 360. 403. His 'Orpheus,' 74.
See ii, 19. 235.
Daniel, Lady Duckenfield, and Astley the
artist, i, 97, 98 notes.
Dante's ' Ugolino,' how suggested to Sir
Joshua, i, 353. ii, 21, 22. See Ugohno.
Darby, Mr [1757 March]
Darcy, Sir Conyers [1758 April]
Darley, Mr [1776 August]
Darnley, John third Earl of [1761 June]
Darnley, John fourth Earl of [1787 Aug]
portrait exhibited, ii, 5 16.
Dartmouth, Lord and Lady [1757 Jan.
1758 March, 1759 April. 1761 Feb,
June]
Daschkaw, Russian Princess, accusation
against : her intercourse with literary
celebrities, ii, 303, 304. See 482.
Dashwood, Lady, and son [1784 Feb,
¦ March] ii, 431. Portraits exMbited,
436.
Dashwood, Miss [1755 May. 1764 May]

DEVONSHIRE.
Davers, Sir Charles [1773 March. 1776
Aug] putting down an English Jac
querie, ii, 13, 14.
David, French painter, ii, 467.
Davidson, Mr [1781 June. 1782 March]
Davies, Miss [1764 March]
Davies, Mr [1761 April]
Davies, Thomas, bookseller, Sir Joshua at
Ms table, i, 210. Introducing Boswell
to Johnson, 219, 220. A bankrupt, ii,
215. Annuity allowed Mm, 216. See
i, 256. 460. ii, 447.
Davis, Miss [1758 Nov]
Davison, Miss [1762 Deo]
Dawes, Philip, pictures exMbited by,i,204.
Dawkins, Lady Juliana [1 760 Jan, Dec]
Dawkins, Mr [1 75 9 Oct] Art publication
assisted by Mm, i, 154.
Dawson, Lady Anna, Reynolds's fancy
portrait of, i, 101.
Dawson, Miss [1 75 9 June]
Day, Miss [1 75 7 Jan. 1 760 Jan]
Day, Mrs [1 75 9 Jan]
Dayes, Edward, assistance rendered by
Reynolds to, ii, 531 note.
Deare, T, medal awarded to, ii, 3 10 note.
Deck, or Degg, Miss [1755 Dec]
De Glifford,liat& and Lady [1789 March]
Defoe's ' Carleton Memoirs,' ii, 444.
Delany, Mrs, i, 426 note, ii, 381.
Delaval, Sir John [1767 Nov, Dec]
Delaval, Lady [1768 Jan. 1 769 March]
Ddaval,Miss [1758 Feb]
Delaval, Mr [1 75 7 Nov. 1758 Dec. 1759
Jan] called away by war, i, 15 9.
Delawar, Lady [1768 Jan. 1769 March]
Delawar, Lord, i, 386.
Delme, Lady Betty [1777 April] ii, 302,
Demar, Mr [17 71 June]
D'Mon, ChevaUere, ii, 496. Alleged por
trait of ber by Sir Joshua, 497. Its
owner, 497 note.
Derby, Earl of, M private theatricals, ii,
508. Criticism on Mm, ibid. note.
Derby, Lady [1777 Jan] brilliant and
beautiful, ii, 175. A star, 176. Her
portrait exhibited, 182. Where is it
now ? ibid. note.
Desenfans, Noel, tricked by Sir Joshua,
ii, 488 note. Misunderstanding in wMch
he had a part, 5 98, 5 99.
Devonshire, Charlotte Duchess of, i, 94.
Devonshire, Georgiana Duchess of [1775.
1784 July] i, 324. Characterised by
Walpole, ii, 82. 100. Queen of tern, 100,
101. Hesitating on a point of social
etiquette, 103. Her portraits by Sir
Joshua, 155. 485. By Gamsborough,
215. 408. By Lady Di Beauclerk, 216.
Canvassing for Fox, 432, 433. See ii,
176.451.

INDEX.

493

DEVONSHIRE.
Devonshire, Duke of [1758 Jan. 1759
April] i, 104. 123. 150. 172.
Devonshire, William fifth Duke of [1766
Oct. 1767 Jan. 1782 May] i, 253. 269.
Married, ii, 82. His portrait exMbited,
156. Seeii, 14.
Digby, Lord [1758 Feb. 1764 March]
Digby, Mr [1758 Feb. 1 761 Feb. 1764
April]
Dilettanti Society, its founders, objects,
ceremonies, services to art, &c, i, 130.
"Kept a painter," 131. Its scheme for
an Academy and fate thereof, 131-136,
Reynolds elected a member, 273. Its
Sunday dinners, ii, 14, 15. Its project
for sending students to Italy, 16. 64.
Students selected, 91. 1 11, 112. Sir
Joshua's portrait-groups of its members,
186-189. See i, 295 note. 311 note 7.
435. ii, 143. 442 note.
Dingley, Miss [1762 March]
Dingley, Mr [1762 March] Art-academy
scheme drawn up by Mm, i, 131.
Dodd, Rev. Dr, ii, 194. 267.
Dodsley, Mr [1 760 April]
Dorset, Lionel first Duke of, and the Irish
Parliament, i, 96.
Dorset, John Frederick third Duke of
[1769 April. 1776 June. 1780 July]
Doughty, William, Reynolds's pupil, pic
ture of Ms master repaired by, i, 1 10.
Exhibiting, ii, 1 8 2 . 2 1 5 . His fame as an
engraver, 356.
Douglas, Dr, detector of literary forgeries,
ii, 65.
Douglas, Duchess of [1762 Sept. 1765
Oct. 1768 Feb. 1769 April]
Dow, Colonel [1772 June] and Ms tra-
' gedies, i, 45 7- ,_
Dowdeswell, Mr, of the Rockingham party,
¦ ii, 271. 479.
Downe, Lord and Lady [1760 March.
1766 March. 1767 March] 1,55.159.
Downman, paMter, ii, 5 34.
Doyen, Gabriel Francis, French painter,
Sir Joshua's friend, i, 55. 288 note, 414,
415. 446.
D'Oyley, Sir J [1788 May]
Drayeote, Miss [1 764 Jan] the stout heir
ess, i, 225.
Drogheda, Marquis of [176 1 Jan] keepmg
pace with his portrait, i, 1 1 1 mote.
Drumgold, Colonel, "a very high man,
sir," i, 289 note.
Drummond, Adam, ii, 7. Why an Mva-
luable man for a new comedy, 1 7.
Drummond, Dr, Archbishop of York [1 764
March. 1 765 Apr] West's active patron,
i,322. His invitation to Beattie, ii, 57.
Drummond, Mr [1760 July. 1 761 June.
1762 Feb. 1767 June. 1776 Aug]

EDGCUMBE.
Duane, Matthew, virtuoso, ii, 73.
Dudley, Lord [1 764 May. 1 766 April]
Duel, a fatal, i, 207 note.
Duff, Captain [1764 Jan]
Du Fresnoy, Reynolds's notes on, i, 174.
Duncan, Captam [i 760 March]
Duncombe, Captain [1 761 Jan. 1 765 Mav
1768 March] ''
Dundas, Henry, Lord Advocate [1777
April, May. 1782 June. 1783 Oct] ii,
297- 379-5°9-
Dundas, Lady C [1 765 April]
Dunmore, Lord [1765 April]
Dunning, Miss [1772 March. 1773 Feb]
Dunning, John, afterwards Lord Ashburton
[1768 Jan,May. 1772 Feb. 1773 July]
i. 258. 379. Resigrung office, 350. His
" peculiar ugliness," 43 9. Returning his
fee, ii, 234. His client's recognition of
his services, 235. His great speech and
memorable resolution, 306. Burke's
eulogium on Mm, 307. His last con
ference, 416. See ii, 153. 220. 230. 234.
305.308.355.379.415.
Durant, Mr [1 76 1 August]
Durer, Albert, Reynolds on, i, 6r.
Durno, painter, ii, 5 34.
Dury, General [1758 May]
Dutens, Miss [17 71 April. 1772 March]
Dyer, Samuel [1770 May] 1,255. Engraver
by mistake for John Dyer, 352 note. His
attainments, ibid.
Dysart, Countess of, portrait of, ii, 127.
Dyson, Mr [1 75 9 Dec. 1760 Jan]

E.
Earl, Colonel [175 7 Jan]
Earl, Mrs [1768 March. 1769 Feb. 1773
Aug.]
Earlom's engravmg of Lord Heathfield,
ii, 516.
East India Company's offer to Burke,
i. 454-
Eastlake, Sir Charles, Reynolds relic pos
sessed by, i, 182 mote. On cracks in
paintings, 377 note.
Eckersal, Mrs [1775. 1777 May]
Ecklin, Sir H. and Lady [1759 Oct, Nov]
Eddystone Lighthouse, i, 215.
Edgcumbe, Captain George, afterwards
Admiral and third Lord [1758 Aug.
1 75 9 Feb. 1761 Dec] one of Reynolds s
earliest sitters, i, 30. 131. 150, 151. 172.
237. ii, 25-27. 36 mote. 47. 76. 175.
Edgcumbe, Lady Emma [1762 April]
Edgbumbe, Richard, afterwards second
Lord, Reynolds's early friend [1760
April] i, 13. Humour of Ms carried
out by Reynolds, 14 note. 131. 267.

494

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

EDGCUMBE.
Reynolds's letter to Mm from Rome, 38.
Instances of Ms Mterest m Reynolds's
welfare, 48. 90. 104. See i, 26. 35. 37.
128.
Edgcumbe, Richard, son of George Lord
[1773 Deo] excellences of the portrait,
ii, 47. Same exhibited, 76, 77. In pri
vate theatricals, 508.
Edging, Mr [1 75 7 Nov]
Edward, Prmce, afterwards Duke of York
[1758 Dec. 1759 Jan] his first service
afloat, i, 159. Kissing the ladies, 160.
Sitting to Reynolds, 162. See 276.
Edwards, Edward, A.R.A, engagement of
the Royal Academy with, ii, 521. Dis
pute on Ms candidature for the pro
fessorship of perspective, 560-5 78.
Effingham, Earl of, ii, 230. 450 note.
Egerton, Mr, portrait of, ii, 408.
Eglintoun, Lady [1777 April] a full-length
at her harp, ii, 202.
Eglintoun, Alexander tenth earl of [1 75 5
April. 1762 April. 1765 June. 1768
May] murdered, i, 145 mote.
Eglintoun, Archibald eleventh Earl of
[1783 Nov. 1784 March] Sir Joshua's
preparations for bis portrait, ii, 43 2.
Egremont, Lady [1762 June. 1766 April]
Egremont, Lord, picture-buying, i, 153,
154.417 mote.
Elford, Sir William, priding himself on Ms
picture-hanging, ii, 36.
Eliot, Edward [1781 March. 1782 Jan]
created a peer, ii, 431. See ii, 444.
Eliot, Lady [1786 Jan] portrait exhi
bited, ii, 505.
EHot, Richard, Esq [not Lord, as stated in
the text] and family, Reynolds's early
picture of, i, 29.
Elliot, Colonel [1755 May]
Elliot, Miss [1784 March]
Elliot, Mr [1757 Dec. 1764 April. 1765
Feb] Mr Elliot jun. [1 783 Aug]
Ellis, Mr [1758 Nov]
Ellis, or Ellys, portrait-painter, i, 97. 135.
179 note. Laying down art-law to
Reynolds, 101.
Elmer, R.A, animal-painter, ii, 126.
Elwin, Master [1786 Jan]
Emin, Burke's generosity to, i, 126.
Englefield, Sir Harry [1787 Jan] ii, 488.
Walpole's eulogium on Ms portrait, 5 05 .
In private theatricals, 508.
Errol, James thirteenth Earl of [1762
March] Walpole's fling at bim, i, 197.
Errol, George fourteenth Earl of, and
Lady [1783 Nov]
Erskine, Thomas, afterwards Lord [1786
Jan] counsel for Keppel, ii, 230. An
example he was too poor to follow, 234,
235. Keppel's gift to Mm, 235. His

letter to Reynolds on Ms Eleventh Dis
course, 390. His portrait, 484, 485.
Esdaile, Sir James [1789 June] ii, 588,
Essex, Countess of [1 75 5 . Dec]
Etty, William, R.A, i, 300. 303.
EumeHan Club, ii. 514. 526.
Euston, Lord, afterwards Duke of Grafton
[1755 Feb]
Exhibitions of pictures by riving artists,
occasion of the first, i, 1 78. Subsequent
exhibitions, see Incorporated Society.
Royal Academy. Society of Arts.

Facey, Alderman, an early sitter to
Reynolds, i, 30.
Fagniani, Maria, afterwards Lady Hert
ford [1777 Sept] her two fathers,
inherited wealth, &c, ii, 202 mote.
Falconer, or Faulkner, Miss, afterwards
the Hon Mrs Stanhope [1782 June] a
fashionable beauty, ii, 388 note.
Falconet, Pierre, Ms profile of Reynolds,
i; 217.
Fane, Miss [1762 Jan]
Fame, Mr [176 1 March. 1766 March]
Fanshawe, Miss, on Mrs Siddons 's recol
lections of Sir Joshua, ii. 636.
Farington, G, medal awarded to, ii, 310
mote.
Farington, J, on Reynolds's dismissal by
Hudson, i, 26, 27. On Gandy's paint
ing, 33. On Reynolds's caricatures and
some of his portraits, 46. 59. 102. Ob
ject of, and statements in, Ms ' Life of
Reynolds,' ii. 553-557. See 584.
Farrer, Henry, Ms skilful restoration of a
Reynolds portrait, i, 377 mote, ii, 475.
Faulkner, Captain [1 761 Dec] See Fal
coner.
Faure, or Fore, Miss [1759 Nov. 1760
Feb] Mr Faure [1 75 7 Dec]
Fawcett, General [1784 Jan]
Fazdkerly, Mr [1 786 March]
Featlierstone, Master [1757 May]
Featherstone, Sir Matthew [1757 May..
1758 April]
Ferguson, Dr Adam [1782 Feb] bis pro
phecies fulfilled, ii, 351, 352.
Ferrars, Lord [1773 Nov] portrait exM
bited, ii, 1 2 7.
Ferrers, Earl, the murderer, i, 185.
Field, Mrs, an early sitter to Reynolds,
i, 30.
Fielding, Henry, a parallel to the Parson
Adams of, i, 3. See i, 99. 232. ii, 203.
Fielding, Sir John, i, 204. 265. 335. In
dicting a pyrotechnist, 458. See ii, 7.
Fielding, Mrs, ii, 491.

INDEX.

495

Fife, Earl of, on the state in which he
found Patrick Kennedy, i, 395.
Fife, Lady [1 764 Feb. 1 765 May]
Filby, John, tailor, Goldsmith's grand
order to, i, 284 mote. 334.
Finch, Lady [1781 Oct. 1782 March]
Finch, Mr [1764 April].
Fish, Miss Charlotte [1761 Sept]
Fisher the engraver, i, 281. 407.
Fisher, Kitty [1759 April. 1761 Aug.
1762 Jan. 1764 July. 1766 Sept]
Reynolds's many portraits of her, i, 163-
' 165. 173. 213. 226. 227. Her extra
vagance, death, accomplishments, &c,
163 note. Anecdote of herself and the
elder Pitt, 164 note. See 430.
Fitzgerald, George Robert ("Fighting
Fitzgerald") Ms quarrel with Parson
Bate, ii, 43, 44. His duel with Sea wen,
- 45, 46. 69. His deserved end, 496.
Fitzgerald, Lord Henry, M private theatri
cals, ii, 508. Walpole's criticism, 509.
His portrait, 535.
Fitzherbert, Mr [1766 Jan. 1772 Sept] i,
243. 251. 255. 258 mote. 386. Bailing
Baretti, 335.
Fitzherbert, Mrs [1786 Nov. 1788 Jan]
.her connexion with the Prince of Wales,
11,507.527,528. His disgraceful repu
diation of their marriage, 510.
¦Fitzmaurice, Hon F [1772 Sept] picture
painted for him, i, 436, 43 7 mote. 471. ii,
19 mote. His opiMon of his own por
trait, i, 438. Reynolds's visit to him,
ii, 26.
Fitzpatrick, Colonel or Mr, ii, 14. 478.
Fitzpatrick, Lady Ann [1775] engraved
as " Collina," ii, 146 mote.
Fitzpatrick, Lady Gertrude [1779 April.
1787 May] painted as " Sylvia," ii, 146
note. See ii, 271. 275. 297.
Fitzroy, Colonel [1760 Jan. 1761 Feb]
Fitzroy, Mr [1757 Jan. 1758 Jan. 1765
Sept]
Fitzroy, Mrs, a leading beauty [1761 Jan]
i, 197. 225. 388.
Fitzwilliam, Earl [1764 Aug] i, 289. 379.
Fitzwilliam, Lady [1784 June] ii, 444.
Fitzwilliam, Lady Charlotte [1764 April]
Fladgate, Francis, i, 261 note.
Flaxman, John, R.A, recommended by a
foreign sculptor, i, 48. Medals awarded
to Mm, 337. 370. Where he sought bis
models, 385. His Ugolino, ii, 20. Ex
hibiting, 23. 126. 182. 215. First critical
notice of bis works, 293. His monu
ment to Lady Milton, 43 7. See i, 300.
303. 443. ii, 299.
Fleetwood, Mrs [176 1 June]
'Fleming, Miss [1775]
Fleming, Mr [1755 March]

Fleming, Sir J. [1789 April]
Fletcher, Sir Robert [1768 Oct. 1774]
Flint, Miss, translator of Johnson's
'Shakespeare Comments,' i, 287. Her
fate, ibid, note 2.
Florence, Reynolds's notes on pictures at,
i, 6o, 61.
Florian's ' Bon Pere,' original of, i, 287.
Floyer, or Fludyer, Master [1769 Jan]
Foley, Miss [1771 July. 1774]
Folkestone, Lady [1760 Feb]
Folkestone, Lord, Ms picture gallery,
i, 215.
Fooden, Mr [1781 Sept]
Foote, Captam [1761 Feb. 1765 Jan.
1767 Jan]
Foote, Samuel [1760 Aug. 1762 July.
1764 June. 1767 Sept] Ms popularity
at its height, i, 276. Compensation for
Ms broken leg, ibid. His caricature of
the Stratford jubilee, 332. His abuse
of Garrick, 437. At R.A. dinners,
441. ii, 124. 154. Retiring from Ms
theatre, ii, 73 . His ' Maid of Bath,'
102. Attempts of the Duchess of
Kingston and ber crew to ruin Mm,
154, 155. Culmination of their designs,
155 mote. Criticised M Sir Joshua's
Johnsonian Dialogues, 254,255. Con
trasted with Reynolds, 453.
Forbes, Sir William [1776 May. 1786
June] on Dr Beattie's portrait, ii, 30.
See 158. 163.
Fordyce and Co.'s bankruptcy, distress
caused by, i, 449. 45 7.
Fordyce, Capt [176 r Aug. 1762 April]
Fordyce, Dr George, elected into the
Club, ii, 68. Attending dying Gold
smith, 69.
Fordyce, Lady Margaret, banker's wife,
queening it at a masquerade, i, 433.
Fordyce, Miss [1762 June]
Fordyce, Mrs [1761 Aug]
Fore. See Faure.
Forrest, Mr and Mrs [1771 March]
Forster, John, on Reynolds and Hogarth,
i, 23 r. Partly unpublished paper con
tributed by him, ii, 63 7-640 motes. See
i, 256 note. 264. ii, 67 mote. 558.
Forteseue, Lady [1757 May. 1 75 9 April.
1760 March]
Forteseue, Mrs [1761 Feb] i, 172.
Foster, Edward, portrait of Reynolds pos
sessed by, i, 217.
Foster, Lady Elizabeth [1787 April] por
trait exMbited, ii, 5 16.
Foundling Hospital, Hogarth's gifts to
the, i, 1 78. Artists' anMversary there,
199. Its Hogarth memoranda, 235.
Fowke, General, why dismissed from his
command, i, 151.

496

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Fowke, Mr [1762 Oct]
Fox, Charles James [1762 July. 1764
' Oct. 1765 Jan. 1782 July. 1788
June] as a youth in Reynolds's Hol
land House group, i, 196. Early gam-
bhng experiences, 212. His aristocratic
lady canvassers, 324. ii, 433. Escape
from mob fury, i, 388. Shining in two
centres, 389. His enormous debts, ii,
14. Ranking himself with Burke, 68.
112. 121. His mot on Lord Thurlow,
132. Why afraid of Johnson, 143 note.
On the American difficulty, 178.
"Knocked on the head," 210. His
bold motion, 267. Canvassing West
minster, 306, 307. His coalition with
Lord North, 415. Same at an end,
429. Point insisted on by Mm in Ms
portrait, 429, 430. "Fox's Martyrs,"
431. His portrait exhibited, 436.
Winning Ms seat, 470. Lie put in Ms
mouth by the Prince, 5 10. Last male
portrait painted by Sir Joshua, 586.
See i, 226. 324 note, ii, 118. 150. 192.
195. 219. 230. 352. 488. 528.
Fox, Henry, afterwards Lord Holland
[1762 July. 1764 Jan] muzzled by
office, i, 96. Price of Ms adhesion to
the Newcastle rmnistry, 123. Object of
Ms rivalry with the elder Pitt, 142.
Shelved, 150. Recalled, 152. Initiating
bis son in a bad school, 212. His per
sonal characteristics, 226. In danger
from a mob, 388. What be was tbmkmg
of, ii, 14.
Fox, Lady Caroline [1757 March. 1758
April]
Fox, Lady Mary [1766 July. 1768 May.
1769 Feb]
Fox, Miss [1769 March. 1770 March]
Fox, Stephen, afterwards second Lord
Holland, and Ms masquerade plagues,
i, 434-
Francklin, Mr, afterwards Dr Thomas
[1 764 Feb] supporters of a tragedy of,
i, 260. His Royal Academy offices, 310.
ii, 73. Pun on and specimen of his ode,
317. See i, 319. 441. ii, 162.
Franklin, Dr Benjamin, in London, ii, 99.
At Versailles, 191. Burke's eulogy, 377.
Franks, Mr [1761 March]
Franks, Mrs and Miss [1766 March]
Frederick Prince of Wales, political result
of the death of, i, 96.
Frederick, Prince, afterwards Duke of
York [17*87 Nov. 1788 Jan.] i, 310. 412.
448. Portrait exMbited, ii, 516.
Freeman, Miss [1755 March]
French Revolution, ii, 543-545.
Fresnoy, Du, Reynolds's notes on, ii, 352.
355-357- 392-

Furneaux, Captain, and his Otaheitan
friend, ii, 104, 105.
Fuseli, Henry, on pictorial plagiarism,
i, 107. "D— n the respectable men ! "
309 mote. His ' Satan and Ithuriel,' ii,
293. His estimate of Wilson, 364. His
' Nightmare ' and its engraver's profits,
365. His 'Weird Sisters,' 409. His
' GDdipus,' 437. Elected an Associate,
521. Full R.A. and dispute relative
thereto, 554, 555. 573. 573, 574 notes.
His last resting-place, 634. See i, 300.
359. ii, 299.467.535-

G-
Gagarin, Princess [1 784 Sept]
Gage, General, ii, 99.
Gage, Lord, Gainsborough's portrait of,
ii, i8r.
Gage, Mr [1768 Oct]
Gage, Sir William [1764 May]
Gainsborough, Thomas, bis teacher, i,
136. Pictures exMbited by him, i, 203.
223. 262. 280.321. 359. 443. ii, 181. 215.
291, 292. 363. 408. His management
in costume matters, i, 249. Always
touchy, ii, 19. Setting up Ms easel in
London, 82, 83. Rivalry between him
self and Reynolds: their estimate of
each other, 83. Where he was superior
to Reynolds, 83, 84. Questionable
story of Garrick bewildering Mm, 84.
Elected on the R.A. Council, 91. His
name expunged and restored, 145. A
King's pamter, 219. 408. His 'Blue
Boy,' 226, 227 mote. Anecdote a propos
of Reynolds's praise of Mm, 364. Wol-
cofs tines on him, 368. 409, 410. Sir
Joshua's interrupted sitting to Mm, 379,
380. His portrait of Mrs. Siddons, 384.
Quarrel with the Academy, 432, 433.
His ' Girl and Pigs,' 493, 494. Cause
of Ms fatal illness, 514. His death:
Sir Joshua's tribute to his merits, and
' Discourse ' on Ms character as an artist,
519, 520. 522-524. Contrasted with
Reynolds and Hogarth, 520, 521. See
i, 31. 47 mote. 112. 167. 230 mote. 300.
305. 360.402. 447.U, 168. 208.216.310.
383. 410 mote. 532. 534. 548. 644.
Gallwey, Mr Payne [1772 Nov] a Dilet
tanti picture, ii, 203.
Gallwey, Mrs Payne, and child [1778]
character of the picture, ii, 224.
Gal way, Dowager Lady, ii, 278. A sketch
of her, 381.
Gambhng and noted gamblers, i, 95. 141.
389.
Gammon, Miss [1762 Oct]

INDEX.

497

Gaudy, James, medal awarded to, i, 3 70.
Gandy, Joseph, medal awarded to, i, 589
note. His abilities and character, ibid.
Gandy, W, hints derived by Reynolds
from, i, 32, 33. See i, 33 mote, ii, 35.
Gardell, artist, bis end, i, 28 note.
Gardiner, Hon. Luke, afterwards first Earl
of Blessington [1773 Feb. 1784 Nov]
Allegorical portrait group commissioned
by him, ii, 5, 6. Sir Joshua's explana
tory letter to him, 28, 29. See 15. no.
Gardiner, Hon. Mrs, nee Montgomery, ii,
5. 29. In private theatricals, no.
Garrick, David [1759 Aug. 1760 Jan.
March. 1761 March. 1767 May. 1769
Feb. 1772 Oct. 1773 April] Ms his
trionic versatility, i, r66, 167. His
numerous portraits and their painters,
167. 260. 262. 359. Reynolds's por
traits of him, 168, 205. ii, 149. 156. 224.
His acting contrasted with that of other
players, i, 169. Point of similarity be
tween Mm and Reynolds, ibid. Snuff-
maker Hai'dham's obligation to him,
200. ' Between Tragedy and Comedy,'
205. Mrs. Abington's conduct towards
Mm, 226. 256. ii, 114. 149. His appre
ciation of Hogarth, i, 232. Reception
of his and Colman's ' Clandestine Mar
riage,' 255. Quarrel between them,
255. 271. Effect of Ms patronizing airs
on Goldsmith, 271. RidicMe excited
by his Stratford Shakespeare Festival,
332, 333. Himself and wife at a mas
querade, 355 mote. Both sitting to
Eeynolds : a tete-a-tete on the occasion,
436,437. Bothering an " indifferent "
painter, 450. Another version of the
' story, ii, 84. Tragedies forced upon
him, i, 457. His pyrotechnist, 458.
Gainsborough's esteem for him, ii, 84.
:. Half-angry correspondence with Rey
nolds, 85-87. Various kmdnesses to
Hannah More, 111. 149. 193, 194. Quit
ting the stage : his distinguished guests,
149. Farewell performances, 150, 151.
Honour paid to him by the House of
V Commons, 192. Origin of the phrase
"as deep as Garrick," 219. His death,
funeral, Mtimacy with Reynolds, &c,
246, 247. His influence on Ms art, 248.
Sir Joshua's JohnsoMan dialogues on
his oharacter, 249-257. See i, 277.
298. 380 mote. 381. 386. 437 note. 471.
ii, 51. 53. no. 157. 420.
Garrick, Mrs (Eva Maria Violette)[i772
Oct. 1773 April] Garrick outwitting
her protectress, i, 436. Re-opemng her
house, ii, 324. A rejected suitor, 361.
See i, 471. ii, 19.
Garrick, George, ii, 42 note. 73. 82.
VOL. I. •

Garvey, E, elected A.R.A, i, 3 70.
Gauthier, Mr, painted in Paris by Rey
nolds, i, 86.
Gawler, Mr and Master [1 7 76 Dec. 1777
Feb, Nov]
Geakle, or Jekyll, Colonel [1755 May]
Gell, Captain [1786 Jan]
Gell, Miss (a model?) [1769 April, June]
Gell, Mr [1761 May. 1768 June]
Genoa, Reynolds on pictures at, i, 64.
Genlis, Madame de, her twofold vocation,
ii, 479-
George II, death of, i, 124. 185.
George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George
III [1 75 9 Jan. 1770 July. 1779 May]
sitting to Reynolds, i, 163. 366. 380.
His accession, 186. Art prospects at
the period, 194. Effect of state con
siderations on Ms love, 196. His small
liking for Reynolds, 236. 380 note. His
interview with Johnson, 274, 275. His
connexion with the scheme for a Royal
Academy, 294, 295. 310. 316, 317. His
visits to its ExMbitions, 321. 325. 448.
ii, 25. 325. 361. 505. 588. Patronizing
West, i, 322. 402. 444. Rebuffing Kirby,
323 note. Opposition to Mm and his
caMnet, 351. Installing Knights of the
Garter, 412, 413. Reviewing the Fleet,
ii, 25-27. A chance gossip with Sir
Joshua, 33. Ogling an oratorio singer,
102 mote. Shaking hands with Omiah,
104. His favourite painters, 219. Gains
borough and West's portraits of him,
with Walpole's comments, 408, 409.
Beechey s reply to his disparaging re
marks on Sir Joshua, 449. Regency
dispute on occasion of Ms illness, 526-
528. His thanksgiving visit to St.
Paul's, 531. See i, 97. 190. 432. ii, 37.
39.450. 578-580. 585.
George, Prince of Wales, afterwards
George IV. [1779 Dec. 1786 April.
1 789 May] A lady's reply to Ms toast,
i, 324. What he and Northcote knew
of each other, ii, 141, 142. Portraits
exhibited, 472. 505. His debts and
connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert, 507.
His heartless commission to Fox, 509,
510. His right-hand man, 527. Story
of a Reynolds given to him by Lady
Thomond, 536, 537. See i, 310. 412.
ii, 281 note. 435.
George, Miss [1777 June]
Germain, Mr, Mrs, and Miss [1760 May]
Giardini, the violinist [1 760 July], at the
R.A. dinner, ii, 124. 154. 216.
Gibbon, Edward [1779 May, July] At
Almack's, i, 389. Studying at Ms ease,
ii, 177, 178. MissMg Ms club-mates,
195. Goldsmith's successor as Sir
2 K

498

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Joshua's compamon, 273. His charac
teristic indolence, 280 note. His por
trait, 293, 294, Devouring 'Evetina,'
382. See ii, 30. 116. 118. 120. 150. 163.
173.204. 376. 377.
Gibbon, G, Lieut.-Gov. of Plymouth, al
leged portrait by Reynolds of, i, 2 7 note.
Gideon, Lady [1769 May] masquerading,
i, 434-
Gideon, Miss [1786 Sept. 1787 April.
1788 Feb].
Gideon, Sir S [1764 Oct. 1770 April]
Gifford, Miss [1760 Oct. 1 761 Jan]
Gifford, Mr [1 75 9 Feb. 1760 July]
Gill, Charles, Sir Joshua's pupil, i, 408
mote. Exhibiting, ii, 75. 126.
Gilpm, Sawrey, a casting vote against,
ii,548. 553-563.
Gilpin, Rev William, Ms 'Essay on the
Picturesque,' commented on by Sir
Joshua, ii, 604-608.
Gisbrough, Dr [1765 May]
Gloucester, William Henry Duke of [1770
March] married to Lady Waldegrave,
i, 393. 440, 441. See i, 413. ii, 230. His
son, see William Frederick, Prince.
Gloucester, Duchess of. See Waldegrave,
Countess of.
Glynn, Serjeant, popular lawyer, i, 379.
Goddard, Miss [1 760 March]
Goddard, Mr [1782 Oct]
Godde, Miss [1767 Aug]
Godwin, William, ii, 141.
Goldom's ' Borboro Benefico,' original of,
i, 287 mote.
Goldsmith, Oliver [1766 Aug] bis parent
age, i, 1. Migrating to, Edinburgh, 99.
Introduced to Johnson, 198. and to
Reynolds, 210. His estimate of Sterne,
231. His fortunes on the rise, 244.
His ' Vicar ' published, 255. His ' Little
Comedy,' 264. Resisting Garrick's pa
tronizing airs, 271. A naive confession,
2 75 . First representation of Ms ' Good
Natured Man,' 283. 284 mote. His tines
on Dick Burke, 285 . Dining Ms friends
in his new rooms, 290. His R.A. office,
310. 352. Witticism thereon, 310 mote.
Doggrel reply to a too late invitation,
325, 326. In Ms bloom-coloured sMt,
334. Reynolds's portrait of him, 357.
Its. merits, 360, 361. Dedication to Ms
' Deserted Village,' 362. Lines appli
cable to Reynolds's father, 363. Affec
tionate - intercourse between Mm and
Reynolds; their joint dissipations, 363-
366. Reynolds's dedication to Mm,
400 and mote 3. Working on a new
comedy, 415, 416. At a masquerade,
433. Characterized by Northcote, 438.
, Various versions of the " Puppet " story,

460, 461. His anxieties concerning his
' She stoops to Conquer,' ii, 12, 13. Its
production and triumph, 16-19. An
anecdote, 18 note. Johnson on Ms little
knowledge, 22 note. His disparaging
opimon of Beattie, 30. Breaking down :
Ms dinners : Johnson's rebuke of Ms
extravagance, 65, 66. Garrick's epitaph
on Mm, 66. His 'Retaliation,' 67.
Lines on Reynolds, 67 note. His end
approaching, 68. Death, 69. His
worst complamt: Walpole's accusation
against Ms friends, 70. His character,
ibid. Sir Joshua's grief: the funeral,
71, 72. His censors silenced by John
son, 72. Debate upon Ms epitaph : the
famous round robin, 161-164. See
i, 6. 99. 167. 232, 233. 251. 333. 335.
353. 381. 386. 408 note. 434. ii, 21. 29.
30 note. 64. 78. 210. 273. 378.
Goldsworthy, Mrs, early sitter to Reynolds,
i, 29.
Goltzius, idea borrowed by Reynolds from,
i, 444-
Gomm, Mrs [1764 Jan]
Gordon, Duchess of, ii, 128.
Gordon, Duke of [1761 March]
Gordon, Lady W. [1786 June]
Gordon, Lord George, and Ms " No
Popery" mobs, ii, 300-302.
Gordon, Miss [1786 July. 1787 March]
Gordon, Mr [1776. 1777 March]
Gore, Mrs [1783 April]
Goree taken, i, 124.
Gosling, Mrs [1761 Feb. 1762 March.
1764 Aug. 1782 Aug. 1783 April]
portrait exMbited, ii, 407.
Gould, Mrs [1761 Dec]
Gower, Earl [1760 May. 1761 Jan.
1786 May]
Gower, Lady [1 760 Feb]
Gower, Earl, i, 413.
Gower, Leveson [1782 Dec]
Grafton, Duchess of [1757 Dec. 1758
Jan. 1759 Jan. 1764 Feb]
Grafton, Charles 2nd Duke of [1755
June. 1757 Feb] merit of the portrait,
i, 104.
Grafton, Augustus Henry third Duke of
[1759 March. 1768 July. 1773 March]
outraging propriety, 278. Downfall of
Ms administration, 350. KG. 413.
Lord Privy Seal, ii, 14. His mfatuation
for bis mistress, 41.
Graham, Lord [1770 Dec, 1773 Jan]
Graham, Mr [1784 Dec]
Granb'y, MarcMoness of [1 75 7 June. 1758
June. 1759 April]
Granby, Charles Marquis of, afterwards
4th Duke of Rutland [1776 Feb, April]
See Rutland, Charles 4th Duke of.

INDEX.

499

Granby, John Marquis of, famous general
[1758 July. 1760 May. 1764 June.
1766 May] i, 131. 172. 192 note. 198.
343. Why half-ashamed of the adntinis-
tration, 226. Merits of Sir Joshua's
portrait of him, 261, 262. TMowing up
office, 350. 354.
Granby, John Henry Marquis of, after-
¦ wards fifth Duke of Rutland [1 780 Oct]
Grant, Francis, R.A, story of Reynolds
¦•preserved by, i, 248.
Grant, Miss [1767 May]
Grant, Mr and Mrs [1 761 Aug]
¦Grantham, Lord [1788 Jan] portrait ex
hibited, ii, 516.
Grassi, John, medal awarded to, i, 3 70.
Gravelot, engraver, i, 28 note. 137. 141.
Gray, Colonel, mission intrusted by the
.. Artists' Society to, i, 136.
Gray, Thomas, breaking into Ms " three
years of flower," i, 99. Apposite Mck-
name bestowed by him, 332. Mason's
Life of him, ii, 78.
Green, Mr and Miss [1765 April]
Green, engraver, his offensive conduct,
ii, 424-426.
Skenvilk, George [1764 July] "driven
from Ms entrenchments," i, 225. His
. death, 354. See 240 mote 9. 243. 269.
.Greimlle, Lady Mary and Master [1779
Jan]
.Gretley, Lady [1760 April]
Gresley, Miss [1761 Oct]
Greuze, characteristics of, i, 415.
Greville, Hon. C, ii, 216. 321.
Greville, Fulke, Mrs Crewe's father, i, 324.
Why he cut Cupid out of a picture,
32; note.
GredUe, Lady Louisa [1 75 8 March. 1759
, Jan]
Greville, Miss and Master [1760 Sept]
Gremlle, Mr [1765 Dec. 1777 May]
Grey, Lady [1760 Feb. 1789 May]
Grey, Lord [1757 Feb]
Grey, Sir Harry [1757 March. 1758 Feb]
Grey, Mr and Mrs [1757 Jan. 1 75 8 Jan.
. 1759 April]
Griffin, Colonel [1 75 5 June, 1757 March]
Griffin, Miss [1764 Dec]
Grignon, Charles, engraver, i, 135. 180
note. Medal awarded to him, ii, 169
I note. Dead, 487.
Grimstone, Miss [1757 Dec. 1767 May.
1768 April. 1769 Feb]
Grimstone, Mr [1767 Aug. 1786 April.
1769 Jan]
¦. tinstone, Mrs [1757 Dec]
Grissell, Mr, Reynolds pictures bought by,
f"*' '1 437 note. 471. ii, 19 note.
Groivmor, Lady, sitting to Reynolds, i, 280.
Intrigue with a royal Duke, 3 81. 440.

HALKERTON.
Grosvenor, Sir Richard, afterwards first
Lord [1759 July. 1760 Feb] picture-
buying, i, 154, 444. ii, 54. His horse
"Bandy," i, 223. His crim. con. action,
440.
Grote, Mr and Mrs [1784 March] ii, 432.
Groves, Mr and Mrs [1 755 Aug]
Guadagni, Italian singer, affronted, i, 390.
In danger of Bridewell, 391.
Guadaloupe, capture of, i, 124. Real
hero on the occasion, 178 mote.
Guercino, Reynolds's liking for, i, 25. 55.
Guernsey, Lord [1776 July]
Guildford, Lady [1 760 July. 1 764 Feb]
Guildford, Lord [1 75 7 March]
Guildford, Miss (? North) [1762 July]
Guise, General [1755 June. 1757 Dec]
Gunnings, the, i, 93, 94. See Coventry,
Lady ; Hamilton, Duchess of.
Gwatkin, Miss, Sir Joshua's grandniece,
portraits of hhn in her possession, i, 31.
34 mote. Reynolds's memorabilia com
municated by her, 205. 245. ii, 558.
Her portrait, ii, 536.
Gwatkin, Reynolds, nephew of above,
relics of Sir Joshua possessed by, i, 6
mote. 40. 40 mote. 51.
Gwatkin, Richard Lovell [1781 Nov]
soldiering, ii, 274. Married to Sir
Joshua's niece " Offy," 317. SeePahner,
Theophila.
Gwilt, Mr [1759 Nov]
Gwynn, John, architect, i, 135. 137. 180
mote. 447.
Gwynn, Mrs, Goldsmith relic preserved
by, ii, 71. Sir Joshua's bequest to her,
636.

H.
Hackman, the murderer, a Johnsonian
discussion on, ii, 267-269.
Hadfleld, George, medal awarded to, ii,
462 mote.
Hadley, Mr [1762 March]
Haines, Mr, picture-cleaner, i, 377.
Haldane, Col. [1755" April. 1 75 8 April]
Haldane, Mr [1757 Jan. 1759 March.
1762 June. 1764 July]
Haldiman, Gen. [1778]
Hale, Captain [1755 Jan. 1757 'w
1759 Aug]
Hale, Colonel [1764 Aug]
Hale, Mrs, painted as Euphrosyne, 1, 261.
Character of the picture, ib id.
Hales, Mrs [1764]
Halifax, Lord [1764 May. 1765 June.
1766 May] His warrant against
Wilkes»,i, 221. See 254.
Halkerton, Lady [1 75 8 June. 1762 May]
2 k 2 v

500

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Hall, Colonel L. [i 760 Jan]
Hall, Sir James [1783 June]
Hallet, Mr [1764 Feb]
Halliday, Lady Jane [1779 Feb]
Halsey, Mr [1761 June] Miss Halsey
[1767 Oct] Mrs Halsey [1768 June]
Hamilton, Captain [1757 April. 1758
Nov. 1762 Sept] Reynolds's portraits
of, i, 28, 29. His eccentric character
and sad end, 29 mote.
Hamilton, Elizabeth (GunMng) Duchess
of [1758 Jan. 1759 Jan. 1764 Jan]
afterwards Duchess of Argyll, furore
excited by her loveliness, i, 94. Her
portrait exhibited, 181. See 102. 102
note. 181 mote.
Hamilton, James 6th Duke of, charac
terized by Walpole, i, 94.
Hamilton, Douglas 8th Duke of, and his
Duchess [1779 June]
JHamiJton, Lady Ann [1755 Sept] a royal
bridesmaid, i, 196.
Hamilton, Lady Betty [1758 Feb] her
marriage, ii, 82.
Hamilton, Gavin, historical pamter, i, 135.
ii, 5 . Pictures exMbited by him, i, 204.
250. 360. 443.. See i, 135: ii, 447. 534.
548.609.
Hamilton, Gerard, "Single speech," i, 198.
238. ii, 82. 287.
Hamilton, Major [1762 April].
Hamilton, Mr [1782 April]
Hamilton, Sir William [1777 June. 1784
March] i, 448.
Hammond, Mr and Mrs [1761 Oct]
Hampton Court, the Raphaels at, i, 12.
Hanbury, Miss [1779 Feb]
Hanbury, Mrs [1777 March. 1783 Sept]
Hancock, Mrs [1765 Aug. 1766 Feb]
Handel, Roubiliac's statue of, i, 90. De
struction of Ms organ, 210.
Hanger, William, afterwards Lord Cole-
raine [1771 June] carrying bis point,
i, 43 1.
Hammer, Sir Walden [1 784 June] ii, 444.
Hanway, Jonas, giving a guinea for a
shilling, ii, 411.
Harbord, Sir Harbord, ii, 408.
Harcourt, Simon first Earl [1755 April]
resigMng his governorsMp of the
Prince, i, 97. Walpole's fling at him,
145 mote 8. Lord-Lieutenant of Ire
land, ii, 5. His artistic skill, 417.
See 417 mote.
Harcourt, George Simon second Earl
[1780 May] ii, 313 note 1.
Harcourt, Lady [1781 May]
Harcourt, Mrs [1780 March] an amateur
painter, ii, 41 7. See 287. 297.
Hardham's " 37 " and Garrick,*, 200.
Hardinge, Mr and Mrs [1778]

HAWKESWOKTH.
Hardwicke,liOid [1765 Nov. 1766 April.
1769 Dec] i, 253.
Hardwicke, T, medal awarded to, i, 3 70.
Hare, Master [1788 May. 1 789 March]
Hare, Mr, friend of Charles Fox [1774.
1775]
Harenc, Mr [1762 July]
Hargreave, Mr F. [1787 Nov]
Har'land, Mrs [1761 Jan. 1762 Feb.
1 764 Feb]
Harlow's portraits of Mathews, i, 206.
Harrington, Lady [1782 Oct. 1784
March. 1786 June. 1787 Dec] ii, 431.
500.
Harrington, Lord [1782 June] portrait
exMbited, ii. 408. His son [1787 Dec]
Harris, James, author of 'Hermes,' ii,
120. 124. 209. 216.
Harris, Lady [1788 Feb] portrait exM
bited, ii, 516.
Harris, Miss [1789 May]
Harris, Mrs [1755 May]
Harrison, Mr and Mrs [1768 Jan]
Harrison, Sir Thomas and Lady [1758
Sept]
Hartley, Mrs, actress [1771 July. 1773
Aug] painted as a nymph, i, 399 note.
ii, 7. 20. Turning heads by her beauty,
41, 42. Moody's judgment on her act
ing, 42 «ofe. Duel on her account,
43-45. Fabulous story of her early
death, 46. See ii, 20 note. 55 mote. 192.
496-
Harvey. See Hervey.
Hartwell, Captain [1 765 Nov]
Hastenbeck, defeat at, i, 123. 152.
Hastings, Lady Selina [1759 Sept] a
coronation beauty, i, 197.
Hastings, Mrs Warren (Marian ImhofP)
her " unlasMonable good taste " and ite
effect, ii, 49°-
Hastings, Warren [1766 March. 1768
April] picture painted for, ii, 313 note.
316. His portrait in it, 316 note.
Arrival in England,' 491. Opening of
the charges agamst him, 491. 509. 512-
5 14. One of a " trio of culprits," 496.
Dining with Sir Joshua, 515.
Haswell, Captain [1773 Oct]
Hatton, Mr [1 789 May]
Hatton, Mrs [1777 April]
Havannah, capture of the, i, 208.
Haward, Francis, pictures of Sir Joshua's
engraved by, ii, 424. 5 37.
Hawes, Mr, founder of the Humane So
ciety, ii, 69.
Hawke, Admiral, victories of, i, 96. 124.
An abortive raid, 15 2.
Hawkesworth, Dr [1769 Sept. 1770 Jan.
1772 Oct. 1773 July] Alleged fatal
result of Ms good fortune, i, 429.

INDEX.

501

Hawkins, Sir John, " unclubbable,'' why
unclubbed, i, 228 mote. On the " Lite
rary Club," 229. Predatory design in
which he was detected, ii, 45 3 mote. See
i, 251. 255. 361. ii, 434- 447- 476-
Bay, Colonel [1784 May]
Bay, Dr [1761 Feb. 1764 March]
Bay, Mr [1762 May]
Haydon, B.R, i, 102. 303. On Sir Joshua's
raBaas .-,' colours, 357 mote, 376 mote. On the
New College wmdow pictures, ii, 266.
Hayley, William, poet, ii, 15 6. On Boy-
dell's Shakspeare Gallery project, 501.
Hayman, Francis, his house, i, 90. Chair
man of Artists' Committee, 135. His
claim on Reynolds's regard, 136. Drunk
with Qmn in a kennel, 137. His cha
racter-portrait of Garrick, 181. Other
pictures exMbited, 223. 280. 403. Con
temporary description of his paintings
in Vauxhall Gardens, 328, 329 notes.
His death, ii, 168. See i, 97. 128. 141.
167. 178 mote. 180 mote. 211. 213. 295.
, 317- 443- 447- ii, 84-
Says, Mrs [1759 June]
'Eayward, Mr [1757 March]
'Maywood, Mr [1755 Feb]
Bazlitt, WiMam, ii, 141.
Bead, Lady [1758 May]
Eeathfeld, George Augustas Etiott Lord
[1787 Aug] his career and crowning
exploit, ii, 5 10, 5 n. Sir Joshua's por
trait of Mm. Constable's estimate of
it, 516, 517. See 586.
. . Heberden, Dr, ii, 447. His view of Sir
Joshua's last illness, ii, 627.
EeUiger, Master [1737 Sept]
Henderson, the actor, ii, 34. Qum's only
successor m Falstaff, 248 note.
Eermiker, Sir John [1780 Nov]
"Eerbert, Lady [1777 Sept]
Eerbert, Lady Elizabeth [1775. 1777
Feb] successful restoration of the por
trait, i, 377 mote.
Eerbert, Lord [1765 April. 1766 June.
1767 May]
Eerbert, Master, allegorical portrait of,
ii, 156.
Eerbert, Mrs [1761 Feb]
Heischel's planetary discoveries, effect
of, ii, 478.
Hertford, Lord [1781 May] Reynolds's
pictures in the Hertford Collection :
'Strawberry Girl,' ii, 3. Price paid for
it, 20 mote 3. Miss Bowles and her
dog, 134.
Eervey, Captam [1762 Oct] despatches
¦•- brought home by, i, 208, 209.
Eervey, Master and Miss [1789 March,
May]
Eeslteih, Mrs [1757 Feb]

Hewgill, Mr [1758 May]. Mrs Hewgill
[1758 May. 1759 April. 1760 April]
Hewitt, Mrs [1759 April. 1760 April]
Hews, Mrs. [1764 Jan]
Hickey, J, Academy medal awarded to,
ii, 225 note.
Hickey, Joseph, Sir Joshua's attorney
[1771 Sept. 1773 May] Ms character,
i, 264. Goldsmith's ' Retaliation ' lines
on him, 264 note. His portrait exM
bited, 444, 445. Burke's "Joe," ii, 91.
Hickey, Miss [1769 Feb. 1773 Aug]
Highmore, Joseph, painter, i, 9 7. Bene
factor to the Foundling, 1 78 mote.
Highwaymen and their exploits, i, 413,
414. Political and other celebrities
attacked, ii, 89, 90 and notes. 303.
Hill, Miss [1770 Aug. 17 71 Feb. 1773
March, Oct]
Hill, Mr. and Mrs [1757 Dec]
Hillison (? Ellison), Mrs [175 7 Dec]
Hillsborough, Lord [1755 March] Ms
benevolence to the Cherokees, i, 214.
Hillyard, Mr [1761 Jan], i, 200 note 5.
Hilton, William, Royal Academy defended
by, i, 3°4-
Hinchcliffe, Mr [1766 Nov]
Hoare, Master [1788 May] Miss Hoare,
[1759 Jan. 1782 Oct. 1783 Jan]
Hoare, William, portrait-pamter, i, 135.
443. 447. ii, 23.
Hobart, Hon. H, opera manager, Ms sub
scriptions failing, i, 390. Prosecuting
Ms competitor, 391. Encored in a
rrrinuet, 449.
Hobart, Miss [1 760 Sept]
Hobart, Mrs, M private theatricals, ii,
508 and mote.
Hodges, elected A.R.A, ii, 48 7- P-- A, 505.
Hodges, Mrs [1761 Feb]
Hodges, Sir J. and Lady [1765 Jan]
Hodgson, Miss [1787 Nov]
Hoggett, or Hagget, Mr [1765 Feb]
Hogarth, William, Ms attempts in the
" grand style," i, 11.97. Point in which
Reynolds excelled Mm, 32 note. Ori
ginality of bis, genius, ibid. 43 mote.
His opinion of Sir James ThornMU,
85. His gift to the Society of Artists,
90. 179 mote. Value of his pictures as
reflecting the manners of the town, 95.
Scene of an incident in one of Ms pic
tures, 136. What the taste of the times
reduced Mm to, 153. An enlightened
patron, 154. His gifts to the Foundling
Hospital, 178. 235 mote. Design con
ceived by Mm, 178 mote. Illustrating
a catalogue, 203. His retaliatory cari
catures of Wilkes and Churchill, 211.
234. Opposite views of himself and
Reynolds, 231, 232. PoMt of agree-

502

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

HOLBOUBNE.
ment between them, 232 mote. Why
the aristocracy disliked Mm, 233. His
reply to charges of vanity, 233, 234.
Local remiMscences of his and his
wife's goodnatured acts, 235. Opposed
to an Academy, 299. His own obliga
tions to one, 300. Style founded by
him, ii, 46 7. What he would have done
in a certaM case, 521. A legitimate
regret, 523. See i, 11 mote. 28 mote. 85
mote. 100. 141. 181. 190. 316. 328. 374.
459- ". 142. 151- 168.534.
Holbourne, Master [1 75 7 Jan]
Holderness, Lady [1780 April]
Holdemess, Lord [1765 Feb] how induced
to sit, i, 109. See 130. 152.
Holditch, Mr and Miss [1761 Jan]
Holland, Lords. See Fox, Henry. Fox,
Stephen.
Holland House, i, 196. 212.
Holman, marine pamter, ii, 74.
Home, John, Ms tragedy of ' Alonzo,' ii,
7, 8. His 'Alfred,' 193.
Home, or Hume, Mr [1767 Nov, Dec.
1787 Sept. 1789 Feb]
Homer's attention to details, i, 420.
Hone, Nathaniel, early intimacy of Rey
nolds with, i, 55. 60. His pictorial
libel on Reynolds, 122, 123. 129. See
i, 60 mote. 167. 180 mote. 321. 403.443.
447. ii, 4. 23. 91. 126. 208.
Honeywood, Colonel, afterwards General
[1757 Feb] Pamted also by Gams-
borough, i, 249.
Honeywood, Master [1 75 7 Dec]
Honywood, Miss [1784 April]
Honywood, Sir John and Lady [1784
Feb] ii, 431. 435, 436.
Hood, Captain, afterwards Admiral Lord
[1758 Oct. 1761 March, May. 1783
July] Mob attack on his bouse, ii,
233-
Hook, the musical composer, i, 45 8.
Hoole, translator of Tasso [1777 January]
i, 92 mote. 121 note, ii, 213, 447.
Hope, Baron [1758 Jan]
Hope, Mr [1757 Dec. i769March. 1787
Feb]
Hope, Mrs [1755 Nov. 1764 Aug, 1787
Feb], portrait exhibited, ii, 505.
Hopkins, Mr [1755 Oct. 1765 Oct], Mr.
Hopkins, jun. [175 5 Oct]
Hoppner, John, Walpole's judgment on,
ii, 438. See 371. 535.
Horneck, Capt, his wife's elopement, ii, 69.
Horneck, the Misses [1764 March. 1765
Dec. 1766 Jan. 1767 Jan] Dinner
in their honour, i, 325. Goldsmith's
poetic allusions to them, 326. See i,
264. 360. 365. ii, 17. 239.
Horneck, Mr [1766 Aug]

Horneck, Mrs [1758 Sept] i, 212, 237. 250.
255.360.11,239.
Horton, Mrs, afterwards Duchess of Cum
berland [1 76 7 Feb. 1769 Jan] Sitting
to Sir Joshua, 393, ii, 41. 142. Her
marriage with the Duke, 439-441. 454.
Portrait exMbited, ii, 19. See i, 381
mote, ii, 7.
Horwell, C, medal awarded to, ii, 522
mote.
Hotham, Sir Charles and Miss, i, 448,
449-
Houghton, Miss [1767 Jan]
Howard, General [1758 April. 1759
Jan. 1762 March]
Howard, Henry, R. A, and subsequently
Secretary to the Academy, medal
awarded to, ii, 589 mote. See i, 304.
Howard, John, philanthropist, ii, 609, 613.
Howard, Lady CarolMe [1783 July]
Howe, Commodore, afterwards Lord, i,
159-
Huddesford, Mr, painter and satirist [1 777
Oct. 1778] ii, 126. His satire of
'Warley' 224. 243.
Huddesford, Mrs [1778]
Hudson, Thomas, Reynolds placed as
pupil with, i, 19. His origin, posi
tion among painters, &c, 20. 31. 97.
Story of his dismissal of Reynolds,
26, 27. Their reconciliation, 28. Tra
velling and associating together, 85.
128. 137. 141. 213. 251. ii, 2. Best
specimens of Ms work, i, 98 mote.
Criticising Reynolds, 100. Still in
good practice, 101, 102. Eclipsed by
Ms pupil, 104. ExMbiting, 262. His
death, ii, 260. See ii, 84. 136.
Hugh, Mrs [1759 May]
Hughes, Admiral [1758 Jan]
Hughes, Sir E [1786 March. 1787 Feb]
ii, 474. See Hews.
Hull, comedian, celebrating lyrically Sir
Joshua's First Discourse, i, 320.
Hume, Sir Abraham [1783 April. 1786
Feb. 1789 Feb] Sir Joshua's bequest
to Mm, ii, 636.
Hume, David, and Sir Joshua's portrait
of Beattie, ii, 30. 58.
Hume, Lady [1760 March] portrait ex
hibited, ii, 472.
Hume, Miss [1787 June. 1788 Jan.
1789 Feb]
Hume. See Home.
Humphrey, Mr [1767 Nov, Dec. 1771
June]
Humphrey, Ozias, i, 359 mote. 442. His
portrait group of the Ladies Walde
grave, ii, 294. His thoughtful kindness
to Sir Joshua, 540.
Hunt, Mr [175 7 Jan, Feb]

INDEX.

503

Bunt, Mrs [1761 Aug. 1762 Jan]
Eunter, John, eminent surgeon [1 786 Feb,
Sept. 1788 June. 1789 May] Cha
racter of the portrait, ii, 474, 475 . 485 .
Seei, 377 mote.
Eunter, Catherine [1757 April. 1758
Feb, May] i, 188 mote. 206. Her elope
ment with Lord Pembroke, 206-208.
Her husband, ii, 216 mote.
Eunter, Miss [1760 Feb. 1761 March.
1769 Dec] Misses Charlotte and B.
Hunter [1760 July]
Eunter, Mr [1 760 July]
Sumter, Mrs. [1758 April]
Hunter, Dr William, i, 403. 446.
Huntingdon, Lord, sitting to Reynolds, i,
109. Remarks by Walpole, ibid. note.
Hurrell, Miss [1 762 June]
Hussey, Mrs [1760 March]
Hutchinson, Mrs [1766 Oct]
Huxham, Dr, predicting Reynolds's future
eminence, i, 23.
Hyde, Peter, pamter and missionary, i,
179 note.
Hyndford, Lord and Lady [1 75 7 April]

I.
Bchester, Lord [1762 April]
IMiester, Lady [1779 March]
InchiquM, Lord and Lady, Reynolds
S* relic given to Barry by, i, 182 mote.
Bee 369 mote.
Incorporated Society of Artists, models
and casts given to the, i, 158. Its con
stitution and officers, 180 mote. Its
successive exMbitions, 181 note. 189-
191. 203. 222, 223. 227. 247. 261-263.
278. 280, 281. 442. ii, 16. 126. 185, 186.
Intrigues and feuds, 280. 284, 285.
Extinguished, 293, 294. Its pamphlet
and case against the Academy, 295
note. 305 mote. 316. Cause of its break
up, 304, 305. King's reply to its peti
tion, 317. Its director dumbfounded
by the king, 323 mote. Attempts to
outstrip the Academy, 442.
Ingram, Miss, afterwards Lady Beau
champ [1757 May. 1780 March] ii,
287. 297.
Ingram, Mr [1762 March]
Ingram, Mrs [1759 April]
Innis, Lady [1769 April]
Ireland, Primate of. See Robinson, Dr.
Iremonger, Mr [1758 May]
Iremonger, Mrs [1 75 7 April]
Irwin, Col. and Mrs [1761 March]
Irwin, Lord [1765 Dec. 1771 July]
Italian Art and Artists. See Art. Correggio.
Raphael. Reynolds, Sir Joshua. Titian.

JOHNSON.

Jackson, of Exeter, and Miss Burney, ii,
385. Painted by Opie, 408. 410.
Jackson, Dr, vile office undertaken by, ii,
154. His awful end, ibid. note.
Jackson, Mr and Mrs [1757 Sept]
James, George, elected A. R. A, i, 370.
James, Mr [1 75 7 Feb. 1 75 9 July]
James, Mis, as a Madonna [1759 June]
James, Sir W [1780 April] his military
exploit, ii, 297.
Jefferies, Dr, balloon feat of, ii, 478.
Jeffreys, James, medal awarded to, ii, 91.
Jeffries, Miss, murderess, i, 96.
Jeffries, Mr [1759 March]
Jenkinson, Charles, painted by Reynolds,
i, 221.
Jennings, Mr [175 7 May]
Jephson, Captam, dramatic author, Ms
new tragedy, ii, 87. Its reception, 109,
no. See 177.
Jersey, Lady [1774 Dec. 1786 Dec.
1787 Jan] ii, 176.
Jervas, Charles, why none of his pictures
are seen, i, 3 1 mote.
Jervas, glass-painter, and Ms copy of Sir
Joshua's painting in New CoUege
. window, ii, 263-265. 372, 373.
Jervis, Captain, afterwards Earl SaMt
Vincent, naval victory of, ii, 378.
Joddrell, Mrs and Mr [1774. 1775. 1776
Feb]
Johnson, Miss [1761 Jan. 1762 Jan]
Johnson, Mrs [1758 July]
Johnson, Mrs Elizabeth (Reynolds's sister),
i, 4 mote. Her recoUections of her father
and brother, 5. 8. Pecuniary help to
ber brother, 39. Why she declined a
proposal of Ms, 461.
Johnson, Samuel, LL.D. [1757 Jan. 1761
Sept. 1762 March. 1767 Jan. 1772
March] his confidence in Reynolds's
scholarsMp, i, 6. Accounting for Rey
nolds's first fondness for art, 9. His
first meeting with Reynolds, 118.
Shocking the ladies, 119. His retort to
Roubiliac, and parody on the Percy
ballads, 1 20. His fondness for tea, and
estimate of Miss Reynolds, 120, 121.
His pecuniary necessities, 141- Kitty
Fisher within arm's length of him, 164
note. His motive for writing ' Rasselas,'
171. Assistance from Reynolds, 171.
185 mote. Literary offices performed for
the painters, 186. 189 mote. First
meeting with Goldsmith, 198. His
preface to the Artists' Catalogue, 203.
To Devonshire with Reynolds, 214, 215.
His excesses in Devon damties and

504

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

gallantries with Devon damsels, 216,
217. First meetiug with and retort on
Boswell, 219, 220. Repairing an over
sight in Ms manners, 220 note. His
letter on Reynolds's illness, 229. His
judgment on 'Tristram Shandy,' 231.
An admirer of Hogarth, 232. Wagered
mto a completion of Ms Shakespeare,
244. Missing Burke, 255. His inter
view with George rn, 274, 275. His
Royal Academy office, 310. 352. Taking
Reynolds to task, 325. Setting down a
bluestocking queen, and trippmg him
self, 334. On sympathy for the dis
tresses of others, 335. His services to
Baretti, 336. His mterest in and ap
peals for Maurice Lowe, 337 mote. ii.
328. 396, 397. 441 mote. Portraits of
Mm by Reynolds, 1,357. ii, 143. 223.
Letter of thanks for one, i, 412. An
inordmate tea-drinlting, 387. His no
tion of masquerades and the like, 391.
432, 433. Leading his forces to Gold
smith's new comedy, ii, 17. Rebuffing
an Oxford don, 28 mote. A Roland for
Ms Oliver from Dean Burnard; his
penitence, 49-51. His high estimate of
Reynolds, 52. Introduction to, and
intercourse with Hannah More, 79-81.
1 09-1 1 1 . At Beaconsfield : his politics,
90. 121. Characterizing an Otaheitan
chief, 105. TaMng Reynolds to task
for wine-drinking, 106, 107. 158. His
'Taxation no Tyranny,' 112. 119. An
unflattering sketch of Mm, 113. Fas
cinated by an actress, 114-116. Dis
posing of Macpherson's threats, 117
mote. A grumble about bears, 117,
118. Defending Ms apophthegm on
Patriotism, 118. On women artists,
good humour, himself, and book-backs,
119, 120. Will not be "Blinking
Sam," 143. On Charles Fox's silence,
143 note. Discussing Goldsmith's epi
taph, 161-164. Round-robin to Mm
thereon, 164 note. Effect of his 'Life
of Lord Lyttelton' on the "Blues,"
194. "A dying parson and a dead
staymaker," ibid. Proposing Sheridan
to the Club : Ms reason, 194, 195. A
night's conversation at the Club, 206,
207. On the company at Sir Joshua's,
208. Occasional rudenesses to Sir J,
210-213. Taking a lesson in military
matters, 218. At Garrick's funeral,
247. His "property" in, and pane
gyrics on Garrick, 249. 270, 271. Dia
logues in Ms style by Sir Joshua, 249-
257. A letter to Miss Reynolds, 261.
Bandying words with Beauclerk, 267-
269. On claret and brandy, 270. Be-

KATJEFMANN.
wailing Beauclerk's death, 286. "How
do you think I live?" 287. A grave
question, 322. Loses his friend Thrale,
323. Dining with bishops in Passion
Week, 324. Letter on Reynolds's re
covery, 380. Sulky, 382. Visibly fail
ing, 391. His judgment on Mason's
' Du Fresnoy,' 392. Criticising Crabbe's
'Village,' 395. On the R.A. dinner
and Barry's great pictures, 397. Forti
tude in sickness, 412-414. His regard
for Levett, 41 7. Last Academy dinner,
club revivals, &c, 433-435. On Defoe's
'Carleton,' 444. Project for sending
him to Italy : his gratitude, 445, 446.
45 o, 45 1. His element : mounting lost
friends, 447. His death, 452. Dying
requests to Reynolds, 453. His cha
racter drawn by Sir Joshua, 454-462.
A wish, 543. Proceedings relative to
Ms monument, 547. 603. 609, 610-615.
617-620. See i, 381. 416. ii, 39. 48, 49.
58. 85. 87. 108. 168. 224. 260. 290. 320.
361. 416. 448. 476. 488. 497. 542.
Johnson, Wiliiam, Sir Joshua's nephew,
ii, 482. 491. Sir Joshua's bequest to
him, 636.
Johnston, Lady Charlotte [1758 May.
1759 Nov. 1760 Sept]
Johnstone, Lady [1 76 1 June]
Johnstone, Mrs and Master [1786 Feb] 1
Jones, Inigo, buildings by, i, 381.
Jbmes, Miss [1755 Aug. 1765 Dec. 1784
Nov. 1 786 Oct]
Jones, Mr [1 760 April. 1 761 Jan. 1767
May. 1768 Nov. 1769 Feb, March]
Jones, Paul, daring acts of, ii, 218.
Jones, Sir William, i, 319. ii, 268 mote.
307. His Indian appomtment, 41 7. His
statue, 443 mote.
Jordan, Mrs, actress, bewitcMng the pub
lic, ii, 489. 5 28. Romney's portrait of
ber, 529.
Joseph H, Emperor, dispersal of works of
art by, ii, 41 9. 480.
Jubb, Mr and Mrs [175 7 March]
" Junius " attacking the King, i, 350. In-
veigMng against clemency to a mur
derer, 396.

K.
Kauffmann, Angelica [1766 Oct. 1769
Dec. 1777 Oct] Pictures exMbited by
her, i, 259, 260.321. 359 mote. 403, 404.
443. ii, 74. 126. 182. Her love-pangs, i,
260. Her portrait of Reynolds, and fines
upon it, 3 26 mote. Her divorce, ibid. Her
second husband, 3 70. In Zoffany 's pic
ture of the Academicians, 448. Work

INDEX.

505

for which she was selected, ii, 3 7. Try
ing Sir Joshua's placidity, 121, 122.
Hone's pictorial satire upon her, 122,
123. Her share in the decoration of
the Academy's rooms, 289. See i, 167.
u,37i-487-
Kelly, Hugh, "a dead staymaker," ii,
194.
Kelly, Mr and Miss [1761 April]
Kemble, John and Stephen, their obliga
tions to Mrs Siddons, ii, 426. 489.
Kemble, Miss, afterwards Mrs Twiss, cha
racter of Sir Joshua's portrait of.ii, 426.
436. Benefited by her sister's popu
larity, 440.
Kendal family, early portraits by Rey
nolds of the, i, 27 note.
Kennedy, Polly [1770 Nov, Dec. 1771
Jan] ber origin, i, 394- Savmg her
brothers from the gallows, 394-397- Her
portrait by, and letter thereon from, Sir
Joshua, 398.
Kent, Lady [1786 June]
Kent, Mrs [1777 Jan]
Keppel, Commodore Augustus, afterwards
Admiral and Lord [1759 April. 1764
Aug. 1765 May. 1779 May, July,
Sept. 1780 Jan] occasion of Reynolds's
introduction to, i, 3 5 . Carries Reynolds
abroad with him, 35, 36. His cou
rageous reply to an Algerian threat,
36, 37. Reynolds's famous portrait of
1 Mm, 104-106. 108. His conduct at the
wreck of the 'Maidstone,' 105. His
services and successes, 124. 142. 152.
159. 197. 208. 226. Exerting himself
for Byng, 150. His ehere amie, 163
note. Resigns office, 268. At the head
of the Channel fleet, ii, 220, 221. En
countering the French fleet: Palliser's
neglect of Ms orders and accusations
against Mm, 221, 222. Court martial
on Mm, 229, 230. Popular enthusiasm
and outbreaks on his acqMttal, 230-
234. Conduct of Ms counsel relative
to their fees, 234. Return made to
them by Mm, 235. Burke's letter on
receiving Ms portrait, and subsequent
* ' eulogium on Mm, 235-238. Full of
apprehensions, 274. Sitting anew to
Sir Joshua, 283. Seei, 128. 141- 267.
379. ii, 267. 273. 279. 3°5-355-
Keppel, Colonel, afterwards General Wil
liam [1 75 8 Jan. 1759 Jan. 1762 Feb.
1764 Feb. 1765 Jan] 1, 141- His
military services, 208. 226.
Keppel, Ladies Carotine and Etizabeth
[1755 Jan. 1757 May, June. 1758
Jan. 1759 April. 1761 Sept. 1762
Jan] Their portraits, i, H3- 181 mote.
' 195. 198 mote. 205 note. Lady Elizabeth s

marriage and its fatal termination, 269,
270.
Keppel, Miss [1764 Sept. 1782 May]
encored in a minuet, i, 449.
Kerry, Lady [1769 Sept]
Kettle, Tilly, pictures exMbited by, i, 262.
Kildare, Lady [1755 Jan]
Killala, Bishop of. See Robinson, Dr.
Kilwalin, Lord [1755 March]
King, Mr [1757 May. 1771 Jan]
Kingsley, General [1760 March]
Kingsmill, Captain [1776 July]
Kingston, Etizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess
of, an early sitter to Reynolds, i, 30.
Her trial for bigamy, ii, 152, 153. Her
attempts to crush Foote : Ms reprisals,
154, 155-
Kingswell, Captain [1766 Nov]
Kippis, Dr, ii, 65 .
Kirby, John Joshua, President of the In
corporated Society, i, 295. His assur
ance to Reynolds, 296. Dumbfounded
by the King, 323 note.
Kirkley, Ralph, Sir Joshua's man, ii, 7.
18 note. 214. Exhibition of pictures for
his benefit, 604. His master's bequest
to Mm, 636.
KitcMngman, John, medal awarded to, i,
370.
Kloster Severn, capitulation and conven
tion of, i, 123. 152.
Knapp, Mr and Mrs [1758 Dec. 1759
March. 1773 March, Dec]
Knapton, George, painter to the Dilettanti
Society, i, 131. 280. His successor, ii,
186.
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, i, 33 mote. 98. 101.
112. 179 mote, ii, 35. 136.
Knight, Mr [1755 March]
Knowles, Admiral [1757 July. 1759
March]
Kynaston, Mr. [1760 Jan]

Lade, Sir John, ii, 472.
Ladies at the House of Commons, 1, 225.
Their outrageous head-dresses, ii, 273.
Ladies' Club, i, 388. ii, 101. 176.
Lambe, Master [1771 Jan]
Lambert, General [1761 April] .
Lambert, George, landscape and scene-
painter, i, 135. 178 mote. 180 mote. 211.
Exhibiting, 190. 204. Founder of the
Beefsteak Club, 210. Painter of some
of the Vauxhall pictures, 328.
Lambton, Mr [1767 May]
Lane, Mr [i 762 Dec. 1 764 June]
Langdon, Tobias, Gandy 's portrait of, i,
33 mote.

506

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Langton, Bennet [1759 March. 1761
Sept. 1762 June] i, 210. 228 note.
274. 416. His marriage, 415. Silent
and shy, ii, 17. In talk with Reynolds,
117. Muddy, 119. At Warley with
the militia, 218. See ti, 158. 175. 208.
210. 211. 268 mote. 447.
Langton, Miss [1764 Jan]
Lansdowne, Henry third Marquis of,
pictures by Reynolds in his Gallery, i.
165 mote. 170. 192 mote, ii, 3 mote. 20
note. 553. His picture-buying practice,
i, 25 7 mote. Living with Ms " Rey-
noldses," ii, 315 mote.
Lansdowne, William Lord Shelburne,
first Marquis of [1788 April. 1789
July] See Shelburne.
La Sena, Lord March's mistress [1759
July. 1 760 March. 1 761 Sept] i, 172.
Perplexing his lordship, 272.
Lascelles, Mr [1762 Dec. 1764 Feb,
May. 1765 June. 1766 May. 1768
June]
Lascelles, Mrs [1762 Dec. 1764 Feb]
La Torre, famous pyrotechnist, i, 45 8.
Lauder, literary forger, ii, 65.
Lauderdale, Lady [1 760 Aug]
Lauderdale, Lord [1759 May. 1761
April]
Lawrence, Dr, a Reynolds rermniscence
of, ii, 483.
Lawrence, General [1760 Dec. 1761
Jan. 1767 Nov, Dec]
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, Dilettanti office
held by, i, 131. Exposing a spurious
and identifying >• true Reynolds relic,
182 note. Giving timely caution, ii, 20
note. On Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy,'
227 mote. An mutator of Reynolds:
results of imitations of himself, 371.
Interest taken by Sir Joshua m Mm,
602. Elected A.R.A, 622. His last
resting-place, 634. See i, 300. ii, 535.
598, 599-
Lawson, Miss [1757 Jan]
Lee, Charles, American General, Ms
career, ii, 99. Captured, 191. His
character as a strategist, ibid. note.
Lee, Sir George [1757 Jan] Office held
by Mm, i, 155 note 5.
Lee, Henry, "Light-horse Harry," ii, 348.
Lee, Mr, afterwards Sir John, popular
advocate [1786 Jan] i, 379. ii, 230.
Returning his fee, ii, 234. His request
to Ms client, 235. Portrait exhibited,
485. See i, 379. ii, 230. 273, 274. 416.
Lee, Lady Elizabeth [1765 March]
Xee, Master [1761 Oct]
Lee, Mr [1770 Jan]
Lee, Mrs [1761 Feb. 1767 March]
Leeds, Duke of [1764 April]

Legge, dismissed minister, popular recog-
Mtions of, i, 151.
Leicester, Sir John [1789 May] portrait
exMbited, ii, 588.
Leicester Fields in 1773, ii, 7.
Leigh, Colonel [1762 March]
Leigh, Miss [1 764 Jan]
Leinster, Duchess of [1779 May] Re
marks on the portrait, ii, 137. Cap
tured by the French, 2 74.
Leinster, Duke of, Ms portrait, ii, 128.
Lely, Sir Peter, ii, 136.
Lennox, Mrs, authoress [1761 Jan] in
distress, ii, 10.
Xemoa; (or Bunbury), Lady Sarah [1762
April] forbidden love of George ni.
for her, i, 196. 248. Her famous sons,
196. A rejected smtor, 197. Rey
nolds's portraits of her, 196. 212. 227.
247, 248. 250 note. Her first (divorced)
husband, 228. Her "sacrifices to the
Graces," 247 note. '
Lenox, Lord George [1760 April. 1762
April. 1764 May]
Leslie, C. R, on Gainsborough's 'Blue
Boy,' ii, 227 note.
Lesly, Ladies Mary and Jane [1 764 Jan]
Lethbridge, Mr [1768 June. 1769 Nov].
Lethulier, Mrs [1 75 7 March]
Leveson, Lord [1784 Feb] portrait ex
hibited, ii, 436.
Levett, apothecary, Johnson's friend,
dead, ii, 417, 434.
Lewes, Lee, comedian, Shuter's commen
dation of, ii, 1 7.
Lewisham, Lord [1761 Oct]
Liart, Matthew, medal awarded to, i, 370.
Lichtenberg his criticism on Garrick,
ii, 149-151.
Lifford, Lord [1788 Aug] portrait exhi
bited, ii, 535.
Ligonier, Lady [1771 Feb]
Ligonier, Sir John, afterwards Lord [1755
Sept. 1757 March. 1760 July] i,
141. 237. His chere amie, 163 note.
Putting a joke on the elder Pitt, 164
mote. Reynolds's portrait of him, 191.
Anecdote of same, 192 note. Dead, 354.
See ii, 46.
Lincoln, Lady [1781 May. 1782 March.
1784 April]
Lindsey, Colonel [1759 Sept]
LMley, Miss. See Sheridan, Mrs.
Liotard, John Stephen, his career : Rey
nolds's criticism on him, i, 108. Exhi
biting, ii, 23. Waning, 74.
IAppe-Schaumburg, Count [1764 Nov.
1767 Aug] one of Reynolds's great pic
tures, i, 235, 236. 273.
Lisburn, Lady [1771 Nov. 1772 May.
1777 May]

INDEX.

507

LISBUEN.
Lisburn, Lord [ 1766 Aug]
Lister, Master and Miss [1764 April.
1765 May]
Literary Club established, i, 228. Its
early history, ibid. note.
Lloyd, Mr [1757 March. 1759 June.
1 761 July]
Lloyd, Mrs [1757 March. 1759 June.
1777 May] portrait exhibited, ii, 155.
Her subsequent marriage, ibid. note.
Lock, Mr, pamter and patron of pamters,
i, 386. His generosity to a young art-
student, 410.
Loekhart, Captain [1760 Feb. 1762
Jan]
London in Reynolds's early days, i, 92.
Reigmng beauties, 94. Gambling
clubs, murders, and politics, 95, 96.
Leading artists, 97, 98. Actors and
authors, 99. See Public Events. Mas
querades.
Long, Mr and Mrs [1757 Aug]
Long, Miss [1777 Sept]
Long, Richard Walter, the Wiltshire
miser, rejected and satirised, ii, 102.
Longford Castle Gallery, i, 215.
Lonsdale, Earl. See Lowther, Sir James.
Lothian, Lord [1776 July. 1777 March]
Louis XV. in 1771, i, 414.
Louisburg, capture of, i, 123. 159.
Louth, Lord, ii, 71.
Loutherbourg, P. J. de, scene-painter, i,
328. Exhibiting, 446. ii, 23. 74. 126.
Criticised by Walpole, 125. 437, 438.
Elected A. R. A, 310. Satirized by
Peter Pindar, 368.
Louvre, the, its dilapidated gallery and
decaying pictures, i, 415.
Lovaine, Lady [1789 June]
Lowe, Mauritius, medal awarded to, i,
337- 37°- His character: Dr John
son's repeated efforts in Ms behalf, 33 7
note, ii, 211. 328. 396. 441 mote. A
"high-art" picture of his, 396. Aca
demy benefaction to him, 441. His
death, 396 note.
Lowten, Mr [1764 Dec]
Lowther, Sir James, afterwards Lord
,, Lonsdale, his character, i, 149. Picture-
buying, 154. Ordered on service, 159.
. Boswell's hopes from him, ii, 529. 546.
Lowther, Sir William, Ms wealth, gene
rosity, and death, i, 149-
Luard, Mr [175 7 June]
Lucan, Lady, portraits of cMldren of, ii,
484. One of the artistic ladies, 488.
i Lucan, Lord [1778. 1780 Aug] ii, 175.
..; -. , 216. 224.
!' Lucas, Dr [1755 Sept]
,Ludlow, Lady [1 75 5 May. 1 75 8 April]
Ludlow, Mr, and Ma dog [175 5 Feb]

Lunardi, the aeronaut, ii, 451.
Luther, Mrs and Mr [1766 June. 1770
Jan]
Luttrell, Colonel, Wilkes's opponent, i,
347 mote 9. 393.
Luttrell, Miss, sister of above [1769
April]
Lyndhurst, Lord [a Royal Academician's
son] his defence of the Academy, i,
307 mote.
Lyttelton, Lady [1759 Aug]
Lyttelton, Lord, decried by Johnson, i,
453.
Lyttelton Mr [1772 June]
Lyveden, Lord, letters contributed by, ii,
275 mote.

M.
MacArdell, mezzotint engraver, i, 28 mote.
90. 137. 141. 180 mote. 204. 407. Wal
pole M a huff with him, 169.
Macartney, Sir George, afterwards Lord
[1764 Oct. 1789 July] i, 448. ii, 540
note.
Macartney, Mrs and Miss [1755 Nov]
Maccaroms, the, ii, 15.
MacDanid, Lady [1757 April]
Macdonald, Sir A. [1787 Nov]
Macgill, Miss [1765 Feb]
Mackintosh, Sir James, Reynolds remi
niscence published by, i, 383 note.
Macktin, Charles, the first natural Shy-
lock, ii, 248.
Macktin, printseller, Ms Bible scheme,
ii, 518 note.
Macklin, Mrs and Miss [1 788 Aug], fancy
picture, ii, 518.
Macnamara, Captain, fatal duel fought
by, i, 207 note.
Macpherson, James [1772 June] his edi
tion of Ossian's poems, i, 198, 199. 458.
Johnson's answer to his threats, ii, 117.
Macpherson, Mr, afterwards Sir John
[1779 Nov. 1781 Jan] Sketch of his
career, ii, 316 mote.
Maguire, Master Gideon [1786 Oct. 1787
June, Aug]
' Maidstone,' Keppel and the wreck of
the, i, 105.
Maitland, Colonel [1761 April. 1762
March. 1766 Nov]
Major, Mr [1762 June]
Majorca captured, i, 124.
Maiden, Lord [1767 April. 1768 April]
ilfotone, Edmond [1759 Nov. 1774. 1778.
1779 July. 1786 Aug] Ms reminis
cences of Reynolds, i, n. 24. 32. 42.
256. 3r9- 335- 352. ti, 139. 553. 637.
Sir Joshua asking Ms critical help,

508

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

_499. His own observation thereon,
ibidTnote. On Sir Joshua's last ill
ness, 626. Sir Joshua's executor, 630.
See ii, 224. 488.
Malpas, Lord [1755 April]
Malton, T. ii, 74. Malton, T. jun, ii, 549.
Manchester, Duchess of [1764 Feb. 1766
May. 1767 March. 1768 May] Rey
nolds's allegorical picture of her, i, 323.
Manchester, Duke of, i, 350. 379.
Mandeville, Lord [1768 May]
Mangles, Mr [1755 Feb]
Manim, Chevalier, pictures by, i, 204.
Manley, Mr [1758 March]
Mann, Horace, Astley 's portrait of, i, 9 7.
Manners, Lady Catherine [1784 Feb]
Manners, Lady E. [1 780 Oct]
Manners, Lady Louisa [1779 Feb] ii, 262.
279. 322.
Manners, Lord R. [1757 Feb. 1782 Oct.
1 784 May] Died, of wounds, ii, 3 79.
Mansfield, Lord, his admission in re
Wilkes, i, 291. Impression made by
him on Reynolds, 335, 336. Mob-
destruction of' his house, ii, 302. Pamted
by Copley, 408.
Maquignon's picture rejected, ii, 587.
March, William Lord, afterwards third
Duke of Queensberry [1759 June] i,
95. 430. His Italian chere amie, 172.
272. See Queensberry.
Marchi, G, Reynolds's pupil, i, 65. 103.
His ultimate vocation and character, 86.
Reynolds's portrait of Mm, 100. Work
ing for Reynolds, 149. 249. Their
agreement, 249 note. ExMbiting, 262.
281. See i, 365 note, ii, 488 note.
Marie Antoinette, ii, 48. 100, 101.
Markham, Dr, Master of Westminster,
afterwards Archbishop of York [1 75 9
Oct. 1762 Nov. 1777 April] i, 172.
251. 264.
Marlborough, Carotine (Russell) Duchess
of [1764 Dec. 1765 March. 1767
Feb. 1768 May. 1777 April] i, 237.
413. Her theatre, ii, 507. See Russell,
Lady Carotine.
Marlborough, Charles second Duke of
[1757 Feb] Hudson's portrait of, i, 98
note. Leaving Ms Reynolds portrait
unfimshed, 102. 159. Courtesies of an
enemy, 160.
Marlborough, George tMrd Duke of
[1759 May. 1762 May. 1764 March]
i, 195. 413. Sitting to Reynolds, 237.
Resenting Reynolds's neglect of eti
quette, ii, 28 mote. Sir Joshua's great
family picture, 196-198. Anecdote of
it, 213, 214. See ii, 53. 175.
Marsham, Lady Frances [1776 Nov] Por
trait exhibited, ii, 182.

Martin, Elias, elected A.R.A, i, 3 70.
Martin, or Martyn, Mrs [1760 May. 1761
Jan. 1762 Jan. 1766 Oct]
Martinique, capture of, i, 124. 209.
Marylebone Gardens, i, 45 8.
Mason, Rev. William, poet [1774] on
Reynolds's progress, manner of paint
ing, &c, i, 104. 108-110. 173-175. 385.
Him self a pamter, 108 mote. Easel given
by him to Reynolds, 182 note, ii, 356.,
His descriptive fragment on the New
College window design, ii, 263-266. His
translation of Du Fresnoy, with Sir
Joshua's notes, 352. 355. 356. Dr
Johnson's fling at Mm, 392. His new
method of painting, 418. Criticising
Sir Joshua's 'Cardinal Beaufort,' 503,
504. See ii, 78. 175, 215.
Masquerades : a famous one described,
i, 35 5 , 3 5 6 motes. Defended by Johnson,
391. Their attractions and costliness,
392. An outrageous masque, 392 note.
At the Pantheon, 433-435- ii, 130. An
aquatic one, ii, 130-132. See ii, 25, 272.
Matheson, Captain [1765 Feb]
Mathews, Charles, semor, Harlow's com
posite picture of, i, 206.
Mathews, Mrs [1 777 July]
Matthews, Captain, cause of Ms duels
with Sheridan, ii, 102.
Mattocks, Mrs, at a masquerade, i, 434.
Maynard, Charles first Viscount, Rey
nolds's friend; Ms character, i, 277,
278.
Maynard, Charles second Viscount, wife
chosen by, i, 278. ii, 41.
Maynard, Lady [1759 June. 1760 Aug]
Maynard, Mrs [1 75 7 April]
Maynard, Serjeant, school endowed by,
i, 2.
Maynard, Sir William [1767 July. 1768
April]
Mayo, Master [1760 Dec]
Mead, Miss, married to John Wilkes, i,
127.
Mead, Mrs [1772 April]
Medlicott, Mr [1755 May] Gainsborough's
portrait of Mm, i, 223.
Melbourne, Lady [1770 Nov, Dec. 1771
Jan. 1773 Jan. 1776]
Melbourne, Pemston first Lord, i, 386.
His love and Ms spelling, 430, 431.
Melbourne, William second Lord, ac
counting for Raphael's employment at
the Vatican, i, 308 note.
Melbourne, Master [1770 Nov, Deo]
Merchant, Mrs [1767 May]
Merchant, Nathaniel, elected A.R.A, ii,
622.
Meredith, Sir William, saving Lord North,
i, 388.

.OBTBAlx OffAHlCHARD MoLESWOBTH
with white vest and white stock
29 in. by 24 in. &c*~ r/2y,

Esq.:

in green coat,

'fz6

METCALFE.

at,

Metcalfe, PMlip, Sir Joshua's executor,
ii, 630. 633.
Metham, Mrs [1762 Nov]
Methuen, Mrs and Master [1758 Jan.
1759 March, April]
Meyer, Jeremiah, enameller, i, 180 mote.
442. His death, ii, 548. 571.
Meyer, Miss, daughter of above [1771
Aug. 1772 Jan] Painted as Hebe,
i, 427. The picture described, 444.
Meynell, Mr [1758 June. 1768 May]
Meynell, Mrs [1759 June]
Midleton, Lord [1 75 7 March, April. 1 76 1
Oct. 1762 Jan]
Milbanke, Captein [1757 May]
Milbanke, Mr [1 75 7 Feb. 1779 March]
Milbanke, Sir R. and Lady [1755 April]
Michael Angelo, i, 41. 48. 49. ii, 311. 502.
His prophets and sibyls, 50. A mur
derous story, 52. Reynolds's estimate
of him, 50, 60. Last word of Sir
Joshua's last Discourse, ii, 594.
Miles, the sham Captam, ii, 43, 44.
Miller, Miss [1759 Feb]
Miller, Mrs [1761 April]
Muls, Lady [1774. 1776. 1777 March]
Mills, Major, Cumberland's sneer
i, 386.
Mills, Sir Thomas [1772 July. 1773 Dec.
1776 Sept. 1778]. See ii, 7. 17. 52. 175.
MiMes, Monckton, Lord Houghton, ii,
3 note. 215 note.
Milsington, Lord [1759 Oct]
Milton, John, Cooper's mMiature of, ii,
440, 441. 636.
Milton, Lord [1789 May]
Mmorca, popular fury on the loss of,
i, 123. I49-I51-
Mitchell, marine painter,
ii, 74.
Mitchell. Mr [1^5 Oct]
Molesworth, Col [1762 June.
Molesworth, Miss [1777 June]
riage, ii, 499 mote.
Molesworth, Mr and Mrs [1755 March]
Molesworth, Sir William [1780 March]
ii, 287.
Molesworth family, Reynolds's acquamt-
ance with the, i, 128. Fatal fire at
their house, 221.
Molyneux, or Monoux, Lady [1761 May.
1769 Feb. 1770 April] her costume,
ii, 201 note 8.
Monboddo, Lord, an unsuccessful wooer,
ii, 361.
Monckton, General, in West's ' Death of
Wolfe,' i, 406.
Monckton, Miss, afterwards Lady Cork
[1777 March. 1778] sketched by Miss
Burney, ii. 278. Her way of receiving
her guests, 381.

exMbiting,

1766 Feb]
Her mar-

MORE.
Monoux. See Molyneux.
Monro, or Munro, Mr, Reynolds pictures
possessed by, 122 mote. 165.
Monson, Lady [1761 Jan]
Montacutes, the, and their ancient glories,
". 542, 543-
Montagu, Lady Carotine, portrait of, ii,
183.
Montagu, Ladies Elizabeth and Henrietta
[1757 Dec] Their portraits exhibited,
i, 222. Lady Betty as Duchess of
Buccleuch, 438, 439.
Montagu, Miss [1764 Jan. 1765 July.
1766 March]
Montague, Admiral, Ma emotion at
Keppel's trial, ii, 231.
Montague, Mrs, "Queen of the Blue-
StockMgs," and her literary parties,
i, 229. 450. Her comments on Shake
speare, 334. Her social position, asso
ciates, portrait by Sir Joshua, &c, 45 1,
452. Cause of quarrel with Johnson,
453. ii, 194. Her personal appearance
ii, 9. Characterising Sir Joshua, 57.
Her character sketched by Hannah
More, 108, 109. Proposing a match,
239. Her new palace, 487. See ii, 4.
52. 78. no. 148. 156. 175. 193. 320.
381.
Momteagle, Lord [1762 Jan]
Montford, or Mountford, Henry Bromley
Lord, famous gamester, i, 95 . His pre
meditated suicide, 139, 140.
Montford, Thomas Lord [1755 June] i,
139-
Montgomerie, Mrs [1761 May]
Montgomery, Colonel, Miss Hunter's son,
bis parentage and end, i, 207 note.
Montgomery, Major, afterwards Colonel
[1757 Jan. 1 761 Jan. 1762 June]
Ms military exploit, ii, 293.
Montgomery, the Misses [1773 June]
allegorical picture of, ii, 5 . 41.
Moor, Mr [1762 Nov]
Moore, Master [1758 May]
Moore, Mrs [1758 Jan. 1759 Jan] story
attached to the portrait, ii, 35 1 note.
Morant, Mr and Master [1 75 9 Aug. Oct]
Mordaunt, Sir John, consequence of the
military misconduct of, i, 152.
Mordaunt, Mr [1759 Jan]
Mordaunt, Mrs [1761 Dec. 1762 Feb.
1768 Feb]
Mordaunt, Mrs, Sir Philip Musgrave's
daughter [1774. 1775]
More, Hannah, i, 45 2. Her character and
attainments, ii, 79. First interview' with
Johnson and Reynolds, 80, 81. Dress-
Mg a-la-mode, 108. On Mrs Mon
tague and other noted ladies, 109. At
a new tragedy, 109, no. Taking a

510

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

lesson from Garrick, nr. Her romance
, and poem, 147. Guest of Reynolds
and Garrick, 148, 149. 209, 210. Her
successful tragedy, 192, 193. On Sir
Joshua's Johnsonian Dialogues, 259,
260. Rebuking Boswell, 324. Object
ing to Sir Joshua's Hercules, 483. A
complaint, 497. See 203. 491.
More, Miss [1 75 8 April] Mr More [1 760
May] Mrs More [1762 Dec]
Morell, Mr,bi3 skilful picture restorations,
i, 377. ii, 215 note.
Morgan, or Morden, Colonel [1776 Sept.
1787 Jan. 1788 Feb] portrait exhi
bited, ii, 5 16. See also 516 mote.
Morland, George, i, 182 mote. Exhibiting,
ii, 24. 186. Character of his art, 467.
Mornington, Lady [1761 Sept]
Morpeth, Lord [1757 Dec. 1758 Jan.
1 786 Jan]
Morris, Miss, daughter of Governor Morris
[1766 Sept. 1768 Jan. 1769 Jan] in
an allegorical picture, i, 323. Her sad
history, ibid. note.
Morris, Misses, daughters of Mr Morris of
Swansea [175 7 April] See i, 156 note 6.
Morris, Mr and Mrs [1758 Feb]
Morris, Mrs [1755 Jan. 1757 March.
1 75 9 Nov. 1767 Sept]
Morris, Mrs, Sir Philip Musgrave's
daughter [1774. 1775]
Morrison, Miss [1 766 Aug]
Mortimer, John Hamilton, exhibiting, i,
281. 442. Elected A. R. A, ii, 225.
See i, 90. 250. ii, 4. 58. 293.
Moser, George Michael, Art office held by,
i, 90. 135. 179 note. 180 mote. 294. In
corporated Society's charge against Mm,
305 note. 316. His death, Sir Joshua's
obituary notice, ii, 388-390. See i, 213.
296. 446. ii, 53.
Moser, Mary, Royal Academician, art
criticisms by, i, 359. Her portrait, 447.
Moss, W., medal awarded to, ii, 225 note.
Mostyn, Sir Roger [1761 June. 1767
May]
Mountstuart, Lord [1775. 1776 July.
1779 June. 1786 May] at the Aca
demy dinner, ii, 216.
Mudge family, Reynolds's intercourse
with, the, i, 7 note. 15. 26. 215. 230. 237.
368. 459.
Mudge, Dr John, Reynolds's portrait of,
i, 89 note. Incident connected with Sir
Joshua's gift portrait of Ms son, 148.
Givmg Northcote a start, 407.
Mudge, Rev Dr Zachariah, Reynolds's
esteem for, i, 89. 279. Burke's recol
lections of Mm, and Chantrey on his
portrait by Sir Joshua, 279, 280,
Mudge, Master [1758 Feb]

NICOL.
Mudge, Mr [1761 May. 1762 May. 1766
May]
Mulgrave, Lord [1777 May] side by side
with a savage, ii, 105. Mob attack on
Ms house, 233. See 14. 175.
Munroe, Sir H, exhibited portrait of, ii,
472. Its present locale, ibid, note 2.
Murphy, Arthur [1773 Sept. 1779 Feb]
Talebearing to Goldsmith's disadvan- -
tage, i, 460. See i, 211. 333. ii, 17. 48.
Murray, Lady C. [1755 Oct. 1764 April]
Murray, Miss [1764 Feb. 1765 May]
Musgrave, Dr, ii, 210.
Musgrave, Mrs [1762 July. 1768 Aug]
Musgrave, Sir Philip [1762 July]
Musters, Mr and Mrs [1777 Nov. 1778.
1780 May. 1782 May] The lady
beautiful and unhappy, ii, 297. 374.
Characterised by Miss Burney, 374 note.
A heart-ache anecdote, ibid. Her por
trait exMbited, 472.

N.
Nairne, Mr, afterwards Lord Dunsinan, ii,
158.
Napier, written "Knapper " by Sir Joshua,
General Sir Gerard [1 761 April. 1762
March, Nov. 1768 April]
Napier, Generals Sir Charles and Sir
William, i, 196.
Napier, Lady (nee Lenox) [1762 Nov]
See Lenox, Lady Sarah.
Napier, Miss [1771 Dec]
Navy Board, culpable neglect of the, i, 448.
Nesbitt, Thrale's brother-in-law and Sir
Joshua's friend [1759 July. 1761 Sept]
i, 139. 172. 212. 237. 290 mote. 455;
Hitched into a rhyme by Goldsmith,
325-
Neville, Mr and Master [1761 Feb]
Newbattle, Lord [1759 Sept]
Newcastle, Thomas Pelham, Duke of,
Prime Mimster to George H. i, 96. 142.
Out of and back to office, 123. 150-152.
Newnham, Miss [1769 Feb]
Newton, Francis Milner, first R. A.
Secretary.i, 129. 135. 179 note. 180 note.
213, ii, 521, 560, 632.
Newton, Sir Isaac, i, 44 note. Roubiliac's
statue, 99.
Newton, Dr Thomas, Bishop of Bristol
[1773 April] At Garrick's perform
ances, ii, 9. Sharing in the project for
decorating St. Paul's, 34. 37, 38. 52.
Refused a monument there, 39. Por
trait exMbited, 76.
Nichols, John, ii, 447.
Nicol, Mr (not Nichols) of the British In
stitution, anecdote related by, ii, 536:

INDEX.

511

NICOL.
Nicol, G, ii, 447.
Nicol, Master [1755 April]
Nicols, Dr [1757 August]
Nisbdt, Mrs [1781 April]
Nixon, Mr [1771 July]
Nixon, Mr, elected A. R. A, ii, 225.
Nollekens, Joseph, sculptor, i, 90. 404. 436.
443. A model's complaint against him,
ii, 4. His share in the decoration of
the Academy's rooms, 289. His 'Mer
cury,' 409. See ii, 442. 583. 609.
Nordiffe, Sir James [1769 May]
Nordiffe, Lady [1769 May. 1770 April]
Nordiffe, Miss [1769 April]
Norfolk, Duchess of [1755 Feb]
Normanton, Lord, his collection of pic
tures by Reynolds, i, 30 mote. 34 note.
264 note. His great purchase of, and
answer to royal offers for, the ' Nativity '
' pictures, ii, 264 note.
Norris, Mr [1767 May. 1770 Jan]
North, Lady [1 75 7 Jan]
North, Lord [1757 Jan. 1765 July] i,
194. Prime Minister, 350. In danger
from Gordon-mob violence, 388. Chan
cellor of Oxford Umversity, ii, 27 note.
His anti-colonial measures, 8 9 . Robbed
by highwaymen, 89, 90. Over-ridMg
the Opposition, 207. Keppel-mob at
tack on Ms house, 230. 233. Mortified,
306. His private secretary, 347. End
of Ms ministry, 352, 353. His and
Fox's coalition mimstry, 4J5- See i,
194. ii, 68. 118. 121. 232.307. 379-491-
North, Miss [1757 Sept]
North, Mrs [1 75 7 May, Sept. 1 764 May]
North American Colonies, war with the, i,
142. 152. ii, 89. 98, 99. 130. 132. 138.
190,191. Proposed conciliation, 217.
Northampton, Dowager Lady [1761 Dec]
¦ Northampton, Lady [1761 April. 1762
March]
Northampton, Lord [1759 May]
" North Briton,' The, attacking Hogarth,
i, 2 1 1. Number Forty-five, 221.
Northcote, James, R. A, his recollections
of Reynolds, i, 3-6. 25. 45. 64. i°3- *12-
183. 185 mote. 216. 298. 353- 358- 413-
417-419, ii, 21. 30. 71. 133- I37. r38,
139,140. 142, 143.159, 160.201. 206.
214. 370. 448. 541. 594- On Gandy's
style of painting, i, 33. His animus
towards Reynolds, 185. His enthu
siasm on first seemg him, 217. His
polite plagiary on Hogarth, 234 mote.
Making a pun, 317. His walk from
Plympton to London, and advent as Sir
Joshua's pupil, 406-412. Reminiscences
of Garrick and Goldsmith, 437, 438- u<
18 mote. On the Ugolino picture, 21.
Himself a figure therein, 22. Ex

hibiting, 24, 75. 126. His picture and
Sir Joshua's macaw, 80 mote. A cha
racter from Ms master, 88. End of
their engagement, 135, 136. Himself
and the Prince, 141, 142. On Opie's
debut, 342. Elected A.R.A, 487. On
Sir Joshua's 'Macbeth,' 502. Elected
R. A, 505. Discomforting effect of a
dinner gossip with a Lord Mayor, 597-
601. His final judgment on Sir Joshua,
641. See ii, 35, 36. 84. 198. 215. 299.
321.371.467.506.535.583.
Northington, Lord [1782 Dec. 1783 Jan.
1784 June] ii, 444. Portrait exhibited,
472.
Northumberland, Hugh Earl and after
wards Duke of [1757 Nov. 1762 Oct]
Ms choice of pictures for Ms gallery, i,
1 j 1, 152. Pamted by Gamsborough,
ii, 408.
Nourse, Miss [1774]
Nugent, Colonel, i, 249.
Nugent, Dr, Burke's father-in-law, i, 228
note. 255. Painted by Barry, ii, 61. His
death, 144.
Nugent, Robert, afterwards Lord Clare
[1757 Oct. 1762 Feb] Goldsmith's
epistle to him, i, 211.
Nutt, Mrs [1 760 May. 1 761 Feb]

0.
O'Brien the actor, elopement of Lady S.
Strangways with, i, 196. His portrait
by Cotes, 223.
O'Brien, Nelly [1760 Nov. 1761 Dec.
1762 Jan, May. 1764 May. 1765
May. 1766 May. 1767 March] de
scriptions of her portraits, i, 188 mote.
222. 222, 223 notes. Sir Joshua diMng
with her, 213. Her son and (supposed)
husband, 227, 228. See 226. 429.
Ogilvie, or Ogleby, Mr [1762 Jan. 1764
June]
Ogilvie, Mrs [1762 Nov]
Oglethorpe, General [1780 March] Ms
noteworthy career, ii, 2 8 4, 2 85 . Settling
a prince, 2 84 mote. See ii, 22 mote. 287.
297.
O'Hara, James, Lord Tyrawley, 1, 151.
O'Hara, Mr [1 764 Oct. 1 765 Jan]
0'Hara, Mrs [1770 March]
Okey, S, jun, painter, i, 281.
Oliver, Alderman, committed to
Tower, i, 378, 379- 388.
Oliver, Isaac, miniatures by, ii, 542.
Oliver, Miss [1765 Sept]
Olivier, French painter, exhibiting in
London, i, 446.
Omiah, the Otaheitan chief brought over

the

512

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

' by Captain Furneaux [1775] interest
taken m Mm, Ms demeanour, &c, ii,
104-106. Portrait exhibited, 156.
Opera managers and singers, their squab
bles, &c, i, 390, 391.
Opie, John, R.A, why easier to imitate
than Reynolds, i, 419. His arrival in
London.ii, 341. His patron and puffer,
342. Their commercial agreement, 366.
ExMbiting, 408. 437. Wolcot's pane
gyric on him, 410. Judgment of another
critic, 438. Elected A.R.A, 487. R.A,
505. His burial-place, 634. See i, 300.
303. 418. ii, 467. 506. 535- 583- 599-
Orchard, Mrs [1772 April]
Ord, Mrs, a leading Blue-stocking, her
conversaziones, &c, ii, 8, 9, 10. 175.
Orford, Robert Walpole, Lord, i, 23. Re
fusing a Correggio, 63.
Orleans, Philippe Duke of, " Egalite," an
unflattering sketch of, ii, 479. His
portrait by Sir Joshua, 484. Its fate,
485. His manner, pose, &c, 486.
Orloff ii, 482 mote.
Orme, Captain, Reynolds's' portrait of,
i, 191. 193. His runaway match, 194.
Osbaldeston, Bishop, against monuments
in churches, ii, 38.
Ossianic controversy, best judgment on
the, ii, 1 1 7 mote. An Ossianic rhapsody,
45 7. See Macpherson, James.
Ossory, Lady [1770 April], ber theatre,
ii, 507.
Ossory, or Upper Ossory, Lord [1767
Feb. 1 771 Feb] his character : Rey
nolds's intercourse vftth him, ii, 275.
His impressions of Garrick and Sir
Joshua, 276. Sir Joshua's letters to Mm
on art matters, 493-496.
Ossulstone, Lord [1761 March. 1764 Oct]
Ostade's pictures, i, 374. 423.
Otway, Captain [1758 March]
Ourry, Captain, letter from Sir Joshua to,
i, 459. 460.
Ourry, Paul Henry, early portrait by Sir
Joshua of, i, 36 mote 3.
Oieem, Miss [1 75 8 Oct. 1 760 May]
Oxendon, Mr [1764 April]
Oxendon, Mrs [1762 Feb]
P.
Paice, Mr [1 76 1 July]
Paine, James, architect,!, 135. 180 mote.
Sir Joshua's portraits of Mm and his
son, 261, 262. 284 note.
Paine, Mrs and the Misses [1765 July]
Pains, Miss [1757 Dec]
Polk, Mr Robert [1760 Dec]
Polk, Mr [1768 Jan] Mrs Polk [1761
March]

Palliser, Sir Hugh, occasion of his accu
sations against Keppel, ii, 222. Mob
vengeance against him, 233. Court-
martial on him, 267.
Palmer, Sir John [1766 April]
Pabner, Rev Joseph, Sir Joshua's nephew,
at Goldsmith's funeral, ii, 72. 138.
Church advancement obtained by Ms
uncle for him, 85 . Warm correspond
ence about Ms tragedy, 85-87.
Palmer, Mary, Sir Joshua's sister, her
marriage and death, i, 4 mote. Aid ren
dered by her to her brother, 39. 86. 461.
Widowed, 369.
Pabner, Mary, Sir Joshua's Mece, on her
uncle's fondness for Ms labours, ii, 482.
Her objection to one of his pictures, 537.
On his loss of an eye, 5 39-543. On his
quarrel with the Academy, 557. His
bequests to her, 635, 636. See i, 369. ii,
6. 239. 634. See also Thomond, Lady.
Palmer, TheopMla, Sir Joshua's mece
" Offy," afterwards Mrs Gwatkin, hu
morous verses addressed to her, i, 5 note.
A recollection of hers, 102. A probable
error regarding her, 20; . Herself and
sister's residence with their uncle, 369.
416. In his fancy pictures, 369 mote.
As ' A Girl Reading,' 400. In what
way she felt her dignity wounded, 400
note. Painted as the ' Strawberry Girl,'
ii, 7. Her happy marriage and long
life, 317-319. Sitting with her husband
to Sir Josbua^342. His bequest to her,
636. See ii, 6.239. 634. ~"
Palmerston, Henry second Lord, taking
part in a conversation, ii, 243. Black
balled, 414. Sir Joshua's bequest to him,
636. Seei, 380.386.396.430.11,14.53.
175. 219. 241, 242. 491.
Palmerston, Henry tMrd Lord, Reynolds
picture possessed by, i, 359.
Pantheon, Oxford Street, " the wonder of
the time," i, 389 mote. Opening, 429.
Result of attempts to exclude equivocal
characters, 430-432. See ii, 12.
Panton, Mrs and Mr [1757 May. 1762
March] epithet bestowed by Walpole
on Mr Panton, i, 1 5 6 mote 7.
Paoli, General, at the Stratford Jubilee,
i, 333. See ii, 211.
Paris in 1771, i, 414, 415.
Parker Children of Saltram, their por
traits, ii, 224. Parker family of Saltram
and the Reynoldses, Sir Joshua's ample
recognition of an early kindness, i, 9.
See 215. 386.
Parker, John, Mstory painter, i, 179 note.
Parker, John, of Saltram, afterwards Lord
Boringdon [1765 Jan. 1766 Jan. 1767
Jan. 1 769 Nov] portrait of Sir Joshua

INDEX.

513

PARKER,
painted for him, i, 260. His bet with
Sir Joshua, 368. Their close intimacy,
ii, 11. Raised to the peerage, 440.
Parker, Master and Miss [1773 May.
1778. 1779 Feb]
Parker, Miss [1768 June. 1787 May]
Parker, Mr Montague [1768 May] i, 368
note.
Parker, Mrs Theresa, wife of John Parker
of Saltram [1770 April. 1772 Feb.
1773 April] character of the portraits,
i, 9. ii, 12. Her death: Sir Joshua's
obituary notice of her, 144.
Parr, Dr Samuel, Ms letters on Johnson's
epitaph, ii, 616-620.
Parry, William, Reynolds's pupil, exhi
biting, i, 262. 281. ii, 182. Elected
A.R.A, ii, 169. See 37L
Pars, W, elected A.R.A, i, 369. Exhibit
ing, 404. Sent to Rome, ii, 91. 112.
Parsons, Nancy, alias Mrs Horton or
Haughton [1773 Jan] mistress to the
Duke of Grafton, i, 278. 430. Bewitch
ing a peer into marriage, ii, 41.
Partlieridge, Mr and Mrs [1758 Feb]
Partridge, Mr [1762 Dec]
Pasquier, French artist, i, 446.
Paterson the book auctioneer, and Ms son
Samuel, art student, ii, 168.
Paterson, Mr [1776 June]
Paidet, Lady Catherine [1777 April.
1778]
Paulet, Miss [1 75 8 Feb]
Paulet, Mr [1761 April. 1762 March]
Paunceford, Mr [1759 May]
Payler, Mrs [1771 May]
Payne, Master [1760 Jan]
Payne, Miss [1758 March]
Payne, Mr [1 764 Jan]
Pearson, Colonel [1755 August]
Peel, Sir Robert, i, 307.
Pelham, Henry, Minister of Stats, i, 96.
Dead, 123.
Pellwm, Lady Catherine [1781 May]
Pelham, Master [1 75 9 Feb]
Pelham, Miss [1757 March. April]
Pelham, Mrs [1757 Jan. 1759 Jan.
1770 July. 1771 May]
Pelham, Thomas, afterwards Earl of CM-
chester [1 75 7 Jan. 1766 March. 1771
April] i, 155 mote. 265 mote.
Pembroke, Lady [175 7 Feb. 1 761 March.
.1764 Jan. 1772 May] characterised
by Walpole, i, 197 mote. Character of
her portrait, 206, 207. See 285. 388.
Pembroke, Lord [1 75 7 March. 1762 Jan.
1765 June. 1767 Jan. 1768 Jan._ 1783
June] his singular elopement, i, 206.
Walpole's comments, 207. Re-united
\ ¦¦ with Ms wife, 222. His intercourse with
Sir Joshua, i, 215. 367. 380. ii, 6. 216.
i VOL. I.

PLYMOUTH.
Penn, Lady Juliana [175; Jan. 1764
Feb. 1767 Feb]
Penm, Master and Miss [1764 Feb]
Penny, Edward, painter, pictures exhi
bited by him, i, 321. ii, 75. See i, 180
mote. 251. 296. ii, 6. 58.
Pennyman, Miss [1 760 May]
Pennyman, Mr [1762 Oct]
Pepys, Sir Lucas, a great light among the
"Blues," ii. 527.
Percy, Dr Thomas, Bishop of Dromore
[1773 May] bringing Reynolds and
Goldsmith together, i, 198. See i, 277.
333. ii, 80. 116. 209.
Perugino, Raphael's treatment of, i, 85.
Peters, William, historical painter, i, 436.
ii, 37'- 534-
Peter's Court School of Art, i, 90. 109.
Petersham, Lady Carotine, a reigMng
beauty, i, 94. 109 note.
Philips, Captain [1 75 8 March]
Philips, Colonel [1762 Feb]
Phillips, Miss [1771 Oct]
Phillips, Mr [1757 April]
Phillips, Mrs [1757 March. 1768 Aug]
Phipps, Lady [1758 Feb, May. '1759
April]
Phipps, Master [175 7 June]
Phipps, Miss [1764 March]
Phipps, Mr [1 75 9 May. 1760 Feb. 1764
March]
Picture copying, its advantage to the
painter copied from, ii, 214.
Pigoft, Mr [1758 Jan. 1761 March]
almost a centenarian : wager-litigation
concerning him, 1/201, note 5.
Pindar, Peter. See Wolcot.
Pine, John, engraver, i, 135.
PMe, Robert Edge, painter, i, 97. 178
note. 262. Premium awarded, 185,
Piozzi, Mrs. See Thrale, Mrs.
Pitcaim, Dr [1777 Nov]
Pitt, Mr,[i764 Jan]
Pitt, Mrs [1758 Feb]
Pitt, William, afterwards Earl of Chat
ham, i, 96. System resisted by Mm,
123. His rivalry with Henry Fox, 142.
Dismissed from office, 151. Recalled,
152. Effect of Ms counsels, 159. Joke
put upon him by the King, 164 note.
Satirized by Hogarth, 211. Commend-
Mg Burke, 254, 255. His death, ii,
220.
Pitt, William, son of above, bis resolute
conduct, ii, 430. Advances a friend of
Sir Joshua to the peerage, 43 1.^
Play-writing activity M Garrick's days,
ii, 8 7 mote.
Plumer, Mr [1755 Feb]
Plymouth, Lady [1758 Feb]
Plymouth, Lord [175 7 Feb]
2 L

514

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Plympton - Earl, Devon, Sir Joshua's
birthplace, i, 2. Its grammar-school,
2. 4. 8 mote. Its castle, 6. Mumcipal
honours conferred by the town on Sir
Joshua, 458-460. ii, 33, 34.
Pocock, N, art suggestions by Sir Joshua
to, ii, 297-299.
Polignac, Madame de, and her blue
stockings, i, 451.
Pollington, Lord and Lady [1761 Nov.
1762 March]
Pomfret, Lady [1764 May]
Pompadour, Mad. de,i, 287, 288 note. 414.
Pope, Alexander, Reynolds's youthful
handshake with, i, 24. Painting by
him on a fan, 25. See 217.
Pope, Miss, actress, i, 252.
Popham, Miss [1765 May]
Porter, Captain [1760 March]
Porter, Lucy, Sir Joshua's gift to, i, 412.
Porter, Mrs [1757 May]
Porteus, Beilby, Bishop of London, Ms
letter to Sir Joshua, ii, 595.
Portland, Margaret Harley, Duchess of,
picture-buying, i, 153, 154. Her famous
vase, ii, 492. See i, 426 mote, ii, 381.
Portland, William second Duke of [1 75 8
Oct. 1759 Jan]
Portland, William Henry third Duke of
[1766 June. 1786 May] Overtures
to Mm, ii, 220. His ministry, 416.
Reynolds his art adviser, 492. See
i. 253. 379.
Portmore, Lord [1758 Oct]
Portsmouth, Lord [1762 March]
Pott, Mr, eminent surgeon [1784 March]
ii, 432. Portrait exhibited 435.
Potter, Theophila, married to Samuel
Reynolds, i, 2. Story of her parents,
2, 3. Her character, 3. Verse-play
upon her name, 5. Her influence on
her son, 15.
Potts, Miss [1788 Aug] in a fancy pic
ture, ii, 518. Her eminent son, ibid.
Poussin, N, his real art-nationality, i, 47.
His ' Seven Sacraments,' ii, 495. 498.
Powell and Ms FantocciM, i, 460.
Powell, picture copyist, ii, 213. His un
lucky adventures with Sir Joshua's
pictures, 214, 215.
Powell, Miss Harriet [1769 March]
Powis, Miss [1759 Feb. 1762 Feb]
Powis, or Powys, Mrs and Miss [1777
June. 1778]
PownaU, Captam and Mrs [1762 Dec.
1764 April. 1765 Jan. 1769 April]
PownaU, Governor [1762 Feb]
Poynter, Lady [1762 June]
Poyntz, Miss [1759 April]
Fmjntz, Mr, his portrait exhibited, i, 204.
Prado, Mrs [1760 Dec]

Pratt, Lord Chief Justice. See Camden.
Pratt, Mr and Mrs [1786 April, May]
Preville, Mad., French actress, 287 note.
Price, Lady Carotine [1787 Nov]
Price, Miss [1769 Feb. 1770 Jan] a
fancy portrait, i, 357.
Price, Mr [1765 Nov. 1766 June. 1768
July] Mrs Price [1759 Feb]
Prideaux, Colonel [1755 March]
Pringle, Sir John [1774] an Academy
guest, ii, 73. 154. 216. See 99.
Pritobard, Mrs, famous actress, i, 168.
Her style of acting, 169. Her French
parallel, 287 mote.
Proby, Mrs [1759 Feb]
Proby, Master and Miss [1765 June]
Proctor, T, medal awarded to, ii, 462 note.
Public events, fashionable and political
parties in Reynolds's time, i, 123-125.
142. 150, 151, 152. 159, 160. 185. 194-
198. 224. 242. 349-351. 376. 378-380.
ii, 25-27. 217, 218. 352-355. 415- 429-
431. See Masquerades.
Pulteney, Lord [1 76 1 March. 1762 April]
Purcell, Master [1762 March]
Pye, Admiral, ii, 25. President at Kep-
pel's trial, 230.

Quane, Mrs [1755 May]
Quarrington, Mrs [1771 July] pamted as
St. Agnes, i, 444, 445-
Quebec, capture of, i, 124.
Queensberry, Duke of, paternity claimed
by, ii, 202, 203 motes.
Quick, the first Tony LumpMn, ii, 1 7.
Quin, James, famous actor, i, 136. His
tipsy wit, 137. His manner of acting,
168. Gainsborough's portrait of him,
223. Character in which he was pre-
ennnent, ii, 248 note. See ii, 168.

R.
Radclif, Miss [1757 January]
Radcliffe, Mr [1757 Oct. 1758'Feb]
Radnor, Lady [1786 June]
Raimbach, picture of Sir Joshua en
graved by, i, 173.
Raniberg, Ms picture of an Academy
exhibition, ii, 505, 506. See 534.
Ramsay, Allan, court painter ; relative
position of himself and Reynolds, their
intercourse, &c, 170. 172. 180 mote. 276.
ii, 208. Appointed King's painter, ii,
212. 273. His death moralized on by
Johnson, ii, 447. His successor, 448.
See i, 97. 128. 178 note, ii, 212. 271.

INDEX.

515

RAMSDEN.
Bamsden, Mr [1755 May]
Eanelagh, Parisian imitation of, i, 414.
Eaphael, comments of Reynolds on, i, 11,
12. 41-44- His treatment of Perugino's
works, 85. The loveliest of his early
works, 107. Contrasted with Reynolds,
ii, 266. His borrowings, 464, 465.
Baphoe, Dean of [1781 Dec]
Batdiffe, Mr and Miss [1762 Jan]
Eavenet, engraver, i, 281.
Rawdon, Lord, afterwards Marquis of
Hastings [1789 June] portrait exhi
bited, ii, 588.
Rawlins, Thomas, architectural design by,
yet unexecuted, ii, 75.
Kay, Miss, murdered, ii, 267.
Bay, Mr [1760 April]
Raymond, Lady [1758 April]
Payne, Miss [1761 Jan]
Eebecca, Biaggio, elected A. R. A, i, 436.
His ornamental paintings at Somerset
House, ii. 289.
Bedded, Miss [1761 April]
Eeddish, the actor, ii, 8. no.
Eegency dispute, ii, 526-528.
»BeinaigIe, Philip, elected A. R. A, ii, 505.
Eembrandt, an English imitator of, i, 33.
His acquaintance with Italian art, 49.
#, Reynolds on Ms practice, 66. 115. 118.
414. Point in art proficiency peculiar
to him, 114 note. See ii, 314 mote.
Bena. See La Rena.
•Revett, the Dilettanti traveller, ii, 112.
Reynolds, Frances, Sir Joshua's sister
[1759 March] keeping house for her
brother, i, 90. Defect in her character :
her artistic abilities, 91, 92. Dr John
son's high estimate 'of her, 120, 121.
Sir Joshua's portrait of her, 122. Her
literary effusions, 122 note. "Much
^employed in mtitiatures," 171. Pomt
• insisted on by her brother, 183, 184.
RemiMscences of Johnson, 217. ii, 51.
161. Solving a mystery, 28 mote.
Johnson's legacy, 453. Her brother's
bequest, 636. See i, 4 mote. 287. 361.
383. 408. 438. ii, 80. 108. 119.
Eeynolds, Sir Joshua :
Birth and parentage, i, 2. Tradition
relative to his maternal grand
mother, 3 . Proof that bis education
was not neglected, 6. Early fondness
for literature, 7.
First achievement in perspective, 8.
Supposed' influence of Richardson's
' treatise, 9-12. Pictures inspired by
a recollection of Jacob Cats, 1 3 . First
portrait in oil, 13, 14.
' Apothecary or Painter? 16. Conse
quences of youthful dabblings in
pharmacy, 17.

Apprenticed and in London, 19-21.
The " happiest creature alive," 24.
A hand-shake with, and word-portrait
of Pope, 24, 25.
His canon for the attainment of excel
lence, 25.
His premature dismissal by Hudson, 25 ,
26. Their reconciliation, 28.
In Devonshire pamting portraits, 27.
Again in town, 28.
First picture which brought him into
notice, ibid. Subjects and style of Ms
pictures at this time, 29-31.
Death of his father, 31.
Keeping house at Plymouth Dock : re
grets connected therewith, 32.
Result of his acquamtance with Gandy,
32, 33. His landscape studies, 34.
Outstripping his master, ibid. note.
Introduction to and voyage with Kep-
Pel» 35 1 36. Accident at Minorca : its
consequence, 37. At Cadiz and
Rome, 38.
Obligations to his sisters, 39. 86 mote.
Alleged love-letters, 39 note.
Notes of Ms doings in Rome, 40, 41.
His confession of " self-hnportance "
explained, 41.
On Raphael's so-called naturalness, 41,
42. On the effect of a first sight of
Raphael's Vatican paintings, 42-44.
On a taste for the Arts, 44.
His Roman caricatures, 45, 46.
Lord Edgcumbe's advice to him, 48.
And zeal M his behalf, 104.
As to his alleged incapacity of appre
ciating Roman Art, 49.
Cause of his deafness, 50.
On English Dilettanti at Rome, 51.
Comments on paintings there, 5 1-5 5.
At Naples, Perugia, Arezzo, 56, 57.
On works of Art at Florence, 5 7-61.
His appreciation of the old masters,
61-63.
A notion of the living Reynolds, 62
mote.
On pictures at Genoa, 64.
Arrival at Venice, 65. On the method
of the Venetian artists, 65-67. His
Venetian notes' verbatim, 67-84.
Home-yearnings : a chord struck, 84.
Meets his old master : his feeling to
wards Mm, 85. His first pupil, 86.
On the French painters, 86, 87.
Health trip to Devonshire : portraits
painted there, 89.
His prices at various dates, 89. 101.
171. 224. ii, 228 note. 277 note.
His lodging in St. Martin's Lane : its
previous famous tenants, i, 90.
His attitude towards the connoisseur-

516

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

REYNOLDS,
ship of his day, 95. On the style
of portraiture then in vogue, 100.
Removal to Newport-street, 10 1. His
great industry, 102. Striving after
perfection, 103, 104.
His full-length of Keppel, 104-106.
Sitters brought by it, 109.
His estimate of his rival Liotard, 108.
His way of setting to work, drawMg,
arrangement of colours, &c, at suc
cessive periods, 109-114. 122 mote.
142, 143. 276 mote. 310 note. 375-377
motes, ii, 97, 98. 146 mote. 172, 173.
227. His remarks on Ms own prac
tice, i, 1 14-1 1 7.
Anecdote of his portrait of Lord Drog-
heda, i, 111 mote.
His belief in the Venetian secret, 112.
His reason for buying pictures by the
old masters, 115.
Reply as to the nnpicturesqueness of
the costume of his time, 117, 118.
First meeting with Johnson, 118-120.
His portrait of his sister, 122.
Proper literary accompaniments to a
collection of Ms pictures, 125.
Political leanings of his friends : bis
association with John Wilkes, 125,
126,127.198.210.250.380. ii, 161.
[See Wilkes]
His aristocratic friends : Mrs Bonfoy's
portrait, i, 1 28. His Dilettanti friends,
130, 131. [See Dilettanti Club]
His paper advocating an Academy of
Art, 131-134.
At Slaughter's, 137. 141.
His intimacy with Bower, Armstrong,
and " AtheMan Stuart," 137-139.
His fondness for cards, 139. His hete
rodoxy at wMst, ii, 586.
His first and subsequent portraits of
Johnson, i, 147, 148. 357. 412. ii,
143. 223. Imaginary portrait of
Johnson as an infant, i, 147 mote.
His portrait of young Mudge, and re
mark on gift-portraits, 148.
Commissions brought by Sir W.
Lowther 's death, 149.
Busiest year of Ms life, 15 7.
Effect of war on his work and on the
aspect of Ms pictures, 159, 160.
Accession of royal sitters, 160, 161.
His seven portraits of Kitty Fisher,
163. 165.
Portraits of actors : Woodward and
Barry, 165, 166.
Pre-eminence of Ms Garrick portraits,
166-168. Revolution effected by him
and Garrick in their respective arts,
169.
Painting Walpole : Walpole's compari

son between Mm and Ramsay, 169,
170.
His portraits of Lady Waldegrave,
afterwards Duchess of Gloucester,
173. 188. 227. 393. 453, 454.
Helping Johnson : papers contributed
by him to the ' Idler,' 171. 185 note.
Dinners and social engagements; 172.
199. 210-213. 237, 238. 250, 251. 264,
265. 275, 276, 277. 290, 291. 325-327.
386. 461, 462. ii, 51-53. 279. 285.
287. 322, 323. 429. 432 note. 487.
489-492. 506. 526. 549.
His first ' Venus : ' story of its execu
tion, i, 173-175.
Pictures exMbited at the Society of
Arts, 181.
Removal to Leicester-square, 182. Fes
tival on the occasion, 183.
His easel, chair, palettes, pencils, &c,
182 mote. 183. His grand chariot,
and alleged motive m parading it,
183, 184. '
Remarks on his portrait of Lord
Ligonier, 191, 192 note.
His head of Sterne : vagaries of Ms
sitter, 192, 193. Comptimentary
gift to Sterne, 193 mote.
Pamting court beauties and other
notables at coronation and marriage
of Geouge III, 195-197.
His ' Garrick between Tragedy and
Comedy,' 205 . Garrick ' group con
templated by Mm, 206.
Scandal attaching to one of his sitters,
206-208.
War triumphs in which be was spe
cially interested, 208-2 10.
Kitty Fisher and Nelly O'Brien's fre
quent visits to Mm, 213.-227.
To Devonshire with Johnson : halting-
places on the road, 214, 215. A
parallel to his own glance at Pope,
217.
Portraits of Lord Bute and Lady
Bolingbroke, 221, 222.
His studio neutral ground, 22;, 226.
LikMg for, and pictures of, Mrs Abing
ton, 226, 227. 240 note. 392. 400.
429. ii, 41. 114, 115. 379. 437. 490.
His object in founding the Literary
Club, i, 228, 229.
Dangerous illness : Johnson's cheering
letter, 229.
His only reference to Hogarth, 230
note. Their relative position, alleged
jealousies, &c, 230-232.
Why esteemed by literary men, 233.
Excellences of his portrait of Count
Lippe-Schaumbourg, 235, 236.
Neglected by George HI, 236. Pro-

INDEX.

517

REYNOLDS.
bable cause of his unacceptability to
the King, 273, 274.
At Blenhehn: Ms great picture, 237.
Coldly received there, ii, 28 note.
History of the picture, 196-199. 213,
214.
: Testing the judgment of self-styled con
noisseurs, 238. ii, 488 mote.
Loses a royal patron, i, 243.
Friendship between himself and Burke,
244. 254. 268. [See Burke]
Barry introduced to him, 243, 244.
Shakspearian and other fragments from
Ms pen, 245, 246.
His allegorical portrait of Lady Sarah
Bunbury, 247. Weak pomts in Ms
mythological pictures, 248, 261.
His " drapery-men, v 249. Death of one
of them, ii, 201.
.Rockingham Administration sitters,
253. 269.
. At tea and cards with Kitty Clive, 256.
"Portraits of Col. Barre, 25 7, 258.
His mtercourse with, Angelica Kauff
mann, 259, 260. 326.
Introduced to the Thrales, 260.
His portraits of Sir Jeffery Amherst
and Lord Granby, 261, 262.
His wards the Miss Hornecks, 263.
.Painting Attorney Hickey, 264.
Why interested M the opposition to
Lord Chatham's Government, 267.
Sad end of a noble sitter and his wife,
1 269, 270.
Political leaders in Ms studio, 270, 271.
[©ringing Garrick and Goldsmith to-
1.1 gether, 271.
A " butterfly apparition " in his studio,
271, 272.
His Thursday Club sitters and asso-
¦ dates, 272, 273.
Elected into the Dilettanti Club, 273.
Paints Barrister Bott, Speaker Oust,
¦ and Sam. Foote, 275, 276.
Relations towards Court-painter Ram
say, 276. ii, 208.
His love for the Mudge family, and
head of Dr Mudge, i, 2 79. Cbantiey
on the latter, 280.
Why absent from the 1767 Artists' Ex
hibition, 280.
Comforting Goldsmith on his first
comedy, 283.
Last picture sent to Spring Gardens,
284.
Trip to Paris with Richard Burke:
Note-book entries, 285-290.
Burke's remark on his fitness for
knighthood, 293.
Why not a petitioner for Crown sanction
to the Royal- Academy scheme, 294,

295; His share in subsequent pre
liminary proceedings, 296, 297. 309,
310. 310 mote. 315.
His elocutionary defects and their
causes, 320. Knighted, 321.
His allegorical picture of Mrs Crewe
and Mrs Bouverie, 324, 325.
At masquerades: Vauxhall, the Pan
theon, Almack's, the Opera, &c, 327.
354- 389- 39i- 427 mote. 431. 433,
434- 11,25.176.272.322.508.
Lion's provider to Johnson, i, 334.
KMd offices towards Baretti, 335, 336.
Saves a man from hanging, 342, 343.
Art advice thrown away on Barry, 343-
346. 346 mote.
Preponderance of Opposition partizans
among his sitters, 351.
His notion as to the authorsMp of
'Junius,' 351, 352.
At work upon Ms ' Ugolino,' 353.
Model for the cMef figure, -3 85. 400.
History of the picture, ii, 20, 21.
Editorial comments, 21 mote. 387.
Deaths of patrons and friends, i, 353,
354- ii. 325.
His 'Children in the Wood,' i. 358.
Generous conduct towards Zoffany, 359.
Excellences of Ms portrait of Goldsmith,
360,361. Goldsmith's dedication to
Mm, 362. Mutual affection between
the two ; their joint ramblings, &c,
362-366. ii, 65. 70. 72.
Conditions on which he became R.A.
president, i, 366. 380. 380 mote.
Rusticating in Yorkshire and Devon
shire, 366-369.
Positions in Ms Third Discourse contro
verted by Mr RusMn, 3 73.
Effect of his friendship with Opposi-
tkmists on bis relations with the
Court, 380.
Evidences of the kmdtiness of Ms na
ture, 381.
His " irregular convivial table " de
scribed by an eyewitness, 383, 384.
His studio habits : class from wMcb he
took his models, 385. ii, 4.
Tea-table reprimand by Johnson, i,
387.
His fondness for clubs : why anxious to
join Almack's, 388, 389.
New portraits of famous ladies, 392-
394. His letter on Polly Kennedy's
portrait, 398.
Presiding at the first R.A. dinner, 398.
A follower in the road pointed out by
him, 401. What was needed to realize
his ideal of a paMter, 402.
'His judgment on West's 'Death of
Wolfe,' 404.

518

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

His reception of Northcote and treat
ment of pupils, 408-412. 418. ii, 201.
At Installations of Knights of the
Garter, i, 412, 413. 448. Fate of Ms
hat and watch at one of them, 413.
Another trip to Paris and bis probable
experiences there, 414, 415.
A paMting-room catastrophe, 417.
His eagle and use made of it, 42 7 mote.
445- H, 77, 78.
His Mtercourse with Sir Joseph Banks,
i, 427, 428. Secret of the mastery of
his portrait of Banks and of his por
traits generally, 428, 429.
How steeled against beauty, 430.
Painting Garrick and wife : character
of the picture, 436, 437. 471.
Notable sitters in 1772, 438-441.
At " Blue-stocking " gatherings, 450. ii,
108. 487. His portrait of their
" Queen," i, 452.
His interest in the Royal Marriage and
India bills, 45 3 , 45 4.
At Streatham with the Thrales, 456.
Why be became a Plympton alderman :
Ms letter of thanks, 45 8-460.
With Johnson and Goldsmith at the
Fantoccini, 460.
His sister's remonstrances, 461.
Memoranda from bis commonplace-
book : his early reading, 467-470.
iEtat 50 : settled routine of his life,
ii, 1 . Falling off of sitters : fancy-
subject pictures, 2-4.
Allegorical picture of the Misses Mont
gomery, 5. 28, 29. 76, 77.
A week's engagements : sitters, Acad
emy lectures ; club, " Blue-stocking,"
and home gatherings, 5-15.
Helping forward Goldsmith's new
comedy and comforting its author,
17-19.
Trip to the Isle of Wight, 25-27. His
diary, 2 7 mote.
Honour conferred on him by Oxford
University, 27.
His gift-portrait of Beattie: criticisms
on its allegorical accompamments,
29-30. 78, 79. Beattie's memoranda
of its progress, 31, 32. 56. Writing
to Beattie thereon, 5 7, 58.
Elected Mayor of Plympton : presents
Ms portrait to the town, 33-36.
His proposal for the decoration ot St.
Paul's, and address to the King
thereon, 37-40. Further on same
subject, 5 7.
Portraits painted in 1773 : adventures
of some of Ms sitters, 41-47. Progress
of pictures for Thrale's Gallery, 48.
Estimates of his character : by Mrs

/

Thrale, 49. by Dr Barnard, 50. by
Johnson, 52. 345. by Goldsmith, 67
note. Dining in a brewer's copper, 5 3.
Goldsmith's death, how marked by
him, 71. His delight at hearing
Goldsmith praised, 72. 210.
Becomes acquainted with Hannah More ;
introduces her to Johnson, 79, 80.
His macaw, its antipathies, 80 mote.
Pictures of the Duchess of Devonshire,
82. 101.
Disagreements with Gainsborough :
their estimate of each other, 83.
Almost angry with Garrick: mutual
explanations, 85-87.
Giving Northcote a character, 88.
At a Plympton election, 88, 90.
" Our Knight " at Beaconsfield, 91.
Direction of his sympathies in the North
American struggle, 98-100. 190, 191.
His pliilo-American wager, 138.
Picture of Mrs Sheridan as St. Cecilia,
101-103. 121. 128. 128 note.
His portrait of-Omiah, 106.
Defending his wine-drinking • habits,
106,107. Presenting students at the
Dilettanti Club, 111.
Hone's pictorial libel on him, 122, 123.
Wolcot's eulogium on Mm, 129, 130.
Rivalry with Romney, 132. Apropos
anecdotes, 133.
Put to the question by Northcote, 133.
His picture of Miss Bowles, 134.
Notice to quit from, and parting coun
sel to, Northcote, 135, 136.
His view of his own efforts, 137. Dis
paraging comments- thereon and on
Ms habits, 137 note. 142.
His enthusiasm for Titian, 139. Old
masters restored by Mm, 139, 140.
His portraits of himself: for TMale
and the Dilettanti, 1 43 . For Florence
Academy, 165.
Deaths of old friends : Ms eulogy on
one, 143-145.
Amenities to Hannah More, 147, 148.
192, 193. His 'Samuel' and 'St.
John,' 148. Dinners to Garrick,
Burke, and other celebrities at Rich
mond, 151. 161. 375-377.
His eariy portrait of the Duchess of
Kingston, 152.
First sight of Mrs Siddons, 157. Ad
vising her on points of costume, 383,
384. His picture of her as the
'Tragic Muse,' 421-424. 436. 438.
Present possessors of the original and
replicas, 424 mote. Her recollection
of her sittings to Mm, 646.
His criticism on Cumberland's ode, 158.
Northcote on his equanimity, 159.

INDEX.

519

KETTfOLDS.
His character as an art-teacher, 160.
A scolding letter from Johnson, 162.
His Italian letter on the reception of
Ms portrait by the Grand Duke of
Florence 165-167. Translation of
Ms first Discourses into Italian, 168.
With Warton, his Irish friends, and
Gibbon, 175-178.
At Sheridan's new plays, 178, 179.
Criticisms on bis fancy picture of the
Bedford family, 183-185.
His portrait groups of the Dilettanti,
186-189. 284.
Trying the " Detineator," 199, 200.
His design for New College Chapel
window : Criticisms thereon, &c, 200.
225.228.261-266. Price realized in
1821 for the paintings, 264 mote.
Same executed. in glass; Walpole's
comments and Ms own confession,
411, 412.
j i Miss Bumey's liking for and anecdotes
of him, 204, 205. 320. 381, 382. 384,
385. Talk of a marriage between
'-., them, 224. 239. Figure made by Mm
i in conversation : holding his own
agamst Johnson, 206, 207. 210-213.
A camp visit to Bennet Langton, 218.
Publishes Ms seven Discourses: ex
cellence of his dedication, 222, 223.
His sympathy with, and joy on the
acquittal of Keppel, 220-222. 229-
233. His Keppel spoons and table
cloths, 234. . His Keppel portraits,
235. 235 mote. 283.
Conversations at his house and else
where : Miss Burney reporter, 2.39-
245.
At Garrick's funeral, 246. Length of
their intimacy, 247. Influence of
¦ each on his art, 248. His Johnsonian
dialogues on Garrick, 249-257. Han
nah More thereon, 259, 260.
Death of his old master, 260.
A bedside visit to Boswell, 271.
His Mtimacy with Gibbon, 273.
Letter to and intercourse with Lord
Ossory, 275, 276.
An Irish ex-commissary's appraisement
of Mm, 276, 277.
A pen and ink pendant to his portrait
of Miss Monckton, 278.
Increasing excellence of his work, 279.
Painting a green sky, 280 mote.
His Belvoir pictures : their fate, 283.
His ceiling-paintings at Somerset
House, 288.
His group portraits of Horace Walpole's
nieces: Walpole's criticisms, 294-296.
328. Work on Ms bands in seven-
teen-eighty, 297. 302, 303.

REYNOLDS.
Letter of advice to a young marine-
pairiter 298. His conduct towards
students, 299, 300.
Among his Devonshire friends again
3°5. 306. e
Walpole's eulogium on him, 308, 309
His address on Art as essential to na
tional dignity, 309, 310.
His portrait of Dr Burney: result of
Ms conviction that whatever he had
in hand would be the best of its kind
a 3I3"315-
Advice to his nephew in India, 316.
Marriage of his niece "Offy," 317.
Letters to her, 317 note. 3 18.
Controversy as to the original of his
'Thais,' 321, 322. 325 mote.
His 'Death of Dido,' 326. Remi
niscences of and criticism on same,
326, 327. 327 mote. Model who sat
for it, 343 mote 3.
Diary of Ms tour in Flanders and Hol
land, 329-334. His letter to Burke
thereon, 645. His description of
the Hague and Amsterdam, 334-337.
On the Dusseldof Collection, 338.
On appreciation of art by painters and
non-painters, 339.
Artist preferred by him before Rem
brandt, 340.
Effect of Ms criticisms on Vanderwerf,
341. Befriending a poor Antwerp
artist, ibid.
Seeing Opie and frighteMng North
cote, 342.
Variety of life he came Mto contact with,
and position commanded by him,
344, 345. Noted sitters in 1782 :
"Perdita," 345, 346. An incipient
beau, 347. Col. Tarleton, .347, 348.
Beckford the seeond, 348-350. "The
Fair Greek," 350.
Rejoicing in the accession of his friends
to power, 353-355.
Samples of his notes on Du Fresnoy's
'Art of Painting,' 355-360.
His alleged jealousy, of Gainsborough,
and "malignity" towards Wilson,
363, 364. 369, 370.
Wolcot's verses on him and his imita
tors, 367. 370. 473. His own feelings
with regard to the latter, 370, 371.
Warton's verses on his Oxford wMdow,
and.his thanks therefor, 372, 373.
An interrupted sitting to Gainsborough,
3 80. Paralytic attack and recovery :
congratulatory letter from Johnson,
ibid.
His practice and Ms theory, 389.
His obituary notice of Moser, first R.A.
keeper, 388-390.

520

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

A complimentary letter from Erskine,
and a characteristic one from John
son, 390-392.
Device on Ms seal, 392.
Introduction to and intercourse with
Crabbe, 393-395.
Fears be hates Barry, 399. Barry's
attacks upon him and subsequent
amende, 399-407.
His attacks of palsy, 414. Miss Bur-
ney's allusion thereto, ibid. note.
Division among political friends, 415.
Visits to Belvoir, Nuneham, and Port
Eliot, 416-418. Crayon-portrait of
himself at Nuneham, 417 mote.
Query as to Ms alleged 1783 visit to
the Low Countries, 419 mote.
Silencmg Engraver Green, 425.
Letter to Astle with an etymological
P.S, 428.
His portrait of Fox : inscriptions m-
sisted on by Fox, 429, 430.
Occasion for thankfulness, 430. Voting
for Fox, 433.
Acquiring a Milton relic, and defending
its authenticity, 440, 441.
Interceding for means to send Johnson
to Italy, 445, 446.
Appointed Royal Painter, 448. Its
pecuniary value, 449 mote. Contem
plated resignation of the R.A. Presi
dency, 448. Beecbey's defence of
Mm to the kmg, 449.
An illnatured fling at Mm, 45 1 mote.
Loses Johnson : foundation of their
friendsMp : Johnson's dying counsel
to him, 452, 453. His character of
Johnson, 454-462.
Sitting to an American painter, 468
note. Helping Warton in the laure-
ateship vacancy, 471.
Two of his best portraits, 474-476.
His portrait of Boswell : Boswell's pro
posal, 477. 506.
A tittle tiff with Walpole, 478.
His portrait of the Duke of Orleans,
479. 484. 486. Its fate, 485.
At Brussels picture-buying, 480.
His power at its acme, 481.
His Infant Hercules, 483, 484. 500. 5 16.
Walpole's criticism, 511.
At theatrical benefits of Ms favourites,
489,490.507.515.530.
His interest in the Warren Hastings
case, 490, 491. 509. 513.
Letters to Lord Ossory on picture topics,
493-495- Letter to Malone, 498.
Superiority of Ms groups of actual per
sonages to Ms imaginative pictures,
500. His pictures in Boydell's
Shakespeare Gallery, their subjects

and character : original of the Puck,
501-504.
Painting Lord Heathfield, 510. 516.
Constable's eulogium 517.
His portrait of Rodney, 518.-
His address on Gainsborough's death,
519. Direction in which the latter
excelled him, 5 20.
Impending rupture with the Academy,
521. 532. Official duties on the
King's restoration to saMty,53i, 532.
Kindness to Dayes, 531 mote.
His ' Macbeth : ' Fuseli's criticism, 535.
Pictures at St. Petersburg, 538 note.
Loses the sight of an eye : Ozias
HumpMey's thoughtful kindness,
539> 54°- Cause of the infirmity;
the lost canary, 541.
Beaconsfield visits, and Sussex excur
sions, 542, 543- 546.
His view of the French Revolution and
Paris experiences, 544, 545.
Busy about Johnson's monument, 547.
603. 609. His paper on the propriety
of the Academy subscribing to it,
610-615. Dr. Parr's letters to him
on the Mscription for it, 617-620.
" Failures " and " Remainders," 551.
His letter on the 'St. Cecilia,' 552.
His quarrel and subsequent reconcilia
tion with the Academy, 553-585.
His last male portrait, ibid. Last pic
tures exhibited, 588.
At an execution, 588, 589.
Burke's apt quotation at the close of
his Farewell Discourse, 594.
Acknowledging a peeress's gift and m-
vitation, 596, 597.
A misunderstanding with Northcote :
correctives of Northcote's suspicions,
597-602.
Exhibiting Ms collection of old
masters : Ms object, &c, 603, 604.
His letter on the beautiful and the
picturesque; consideration on same
subject, 604-608.
Last portrait for wMch he sat; its
occasion, 615, 616.
Doing duty by deputy, 621, 622.
Break-up of Ms health, 621. 624, 625.
Last illness and death, 626-628.
Obituary notice by Burke, 629, 630.
Honours paid by the Academy : the
funeral, 630-635. His will and lega
tees, 635, 636. Sum realized by sale
of his collection, 635 mote. His epi
taph, 637 note. Burke's observations
on Ms character, 638-640 notes.
Concluding remarks : Northcote's cri
ticism : characteristics of Ms works,
641-644.

INDEX.

521

His Discourses to the Royal Academy —
The First: Introductory, i, 317-319.
Second : Course of study, 33 7.
Third : Grand style and right imita
tion of nature, 3 70-3 74. Fourth :
Generalization, 419-426. Fifth:
Qualifying some of Ms earlier injunc
tions, 462-464. Sixth : Pictorial Mu
tation : plea for catholicity of study,
ii, 91-96. Seventh : Standard of taste,
169-172. Eighth : Principles of art,
whence origmating, 225-227. Ninth :
Opemng the schools in new Somerset
House, 309, 310. Tenth: Sculpture,
310-312. Eleventh: Pictorial geMus,
386. Twelfth: Education of the
artist, 463-467. Thirteenth: Art,
nature, and imagination, 497-498.
Fourteenth .- Character of Gains
borough, 522-525. Fifteenth : Object
of an Academy, 589-594.
Pictures sent to the several Royal Aca
demy Exhibitions, viz. —
1769, i, 323, 324, four pictures.— 1770,
i, 357, eight,— 1771, 399, 4°o, six.—
1772, i, 444, six.— 1773, ii, 19, 20,
twelve.— 1774, ii, 75, 76, thirteen.
—1775, ii, 127, 128, twelve.— 1776,
ii, 155, 156, twelve.— 1777, ii, 182,
183, tMrteen.— 1778, ii, 213, four —
1779, ii, 261, 262, eleven. — 1780, ii,
293, 294, seven.— 1781, ti, 325, 326,
fourteen.— 1782, ii, 361, 362, fifteen.
—1783, ii, 407, 408, ten.— 1784, ii,
435, 436, sixteen.— 1785, ii, 472, six
teen.— 1786, ii, 484, 485, tMrteen.—
1787, ti. 505, tMrteen.— 1788, ii, 516,
seventeen.— 1789, ti, 5 35, 5 36, twelve.
— 1799, ii, 588, six.
Lists of Sitters from Sir Joshua's
pocket-books —
1755, i, 144-147.— 1756, no list— 1757,
i, 155-157— 1758, i, 161, 162.— 1759,
i, 176-178— 1760, i, 186-189.— 1761,
i, 200-202.— 1762, i, 218, 219.— 1763,
no list.— 1764, i, 239-241.— 1765, i,
252, 253-— 1766, i, 265-267.— 1767,
i, 281-283.— 1768, i, 311, 312.— 1769,
i, 346-349. 1770, i, 375.— 1771, 1,
426— 1772, i, 465.— 1773, ii, 54, 55-
1774, ii, 96 (imperfect). — 1775, n,
146 (price-book).— 1776, ii, 173, 174
(price-book).— 1777, ii 202, 203.—
1778, ii, 228, 229—1779, ii, 280, -281.
-1780, ii, 312, 3 13- -1781. "- 342,
343.-1782, ii, 387. 388.-1783, n,
426, 427 (price-book).-1784, u, 467,
468— 1785, ii, 480, 481 (price-book).
—1786, ii, 499- — 1787, ii, 512.—
1788, ii, 525.— 1789, ii, 55°-

Reynolds, Samuel, father of Sir Joshua,
his occupation, marriage, &c, i, 2. His
prototype in a famous novel, income,
&c, 3, 4. List of Ms children, 4 mote.
His simplicity of character, studies,
astrological fancies, 5, 6. His letters
on the placing out and progress of
his son, 15-24. 26, 27, 28. His death,
31. Poetic portrait applicable to him,
363. Further specimen of his letters,
47°. 47 1-
Rice, Mrs [1762 Feb]
Rich, co-founder of the Beef-steak Club,
i, 210.
Richards, John, appointed Sec. R.A, ii,
522. See 549- 559-
Ricbardson, Jonathan, bis treatise on art,
and its alleged mfluence on Reynolds,
i, 9-12. 302. 353. Contrast between
bis theory and his practice, 98. Sale
of his drawings, 192 mote. See i, 20.
31. 419-
Richardson, Mrs [17 71 July]
Richardson, Samuel, novelist, helping
Johnson, i, 141. See i, 99- 45 2- u> 8l-
203.
Richmond, Charles third Duke of [1758
April, Oct] Ms Art Academy scheme
and its upshot, i, 154. 158. What be
came of bis casts, 316. Sitting to Rey
nolds, 158. 172. Barry's letter to him,
ti, 59. Patronismg Romney, 134. His
theatre, 507. See 495 mote.
Richmond, Mary Duchess of [1758 April.
1759 May. 1760 Feb. 1764N0V. 1765
Jan. 1766 March. 1 76 7 June] sitting
to Sir Joshua, i, 225 . Her masquerade
character, 433.
Richmond, Miss [1764 Aug]
Ridge, Goldsmith's friend, ii, 67.
Ridge, Miss [1773 Dec] _
Rigaud, J. F, A.R.A, Ms singularly
entitled picture, ii, 24. His style pithily
characterised, 225. Elected R.A, 433.
See 534- 583- , . ^ . . , „ ..
Rigby, the jovial, picture painted lor, 11,
183. See also 183 note.
Rigby, Mrs [1788 July]
Robberies. See Highwaymen.
.Roberts, Miss [1760 May. 1761 March.
1789 Feb] .
Robertson, Dr, historian, portrait exhibited,
i, 444, 445. His charge relative to
Johnson, ii, 212.
Robinson, Colonel [1760 March]
Robinson, Dr, Primate of Ireland, after
wards Lord Rokeby [1767 Jan. 1771
May. 1772 June. 1775. 1779 Feb]
merits of Sir Joshua's two portraits of
Archbishop of Armagh, and Mm, ii,
128, 129. 279 mote 2.

522

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Robinson, Hons. F. and P. [1788 Jan]
Robinson, Mrs [1758 Sept]
Robinson, Mrs, " Perdita " [1782 Jan.
1784 Feb] taMng the town by storm,
ii, 179. Her amour with the prince,
and consolatory annuity, 345, 346. Her
portrait, 361. See 490.
Robinson, Sir Septimus, Black Rod [1761
Aug. 1764 March] his need for early
sittings, i, 197.
Rochester, Bishop of. See Thomas, Dr.
Rochester, Lady, fragment of a picture of,
ii, 215 mote.
Bockingham, Lady, sitting to Sir Joshua,
i, 225.
Rockingham, Charles second MarqMs of
[1766 Dec. 1768 June] his share in
the management of public affairs, &c, i,
238. 243. 251. 253. 258 mote. 267, 268,
269. 350, 351. 379. ii, 89. 220. 230. 301.
352-355 . His death and last act, 378.
Rodney, Admiral, Lord [1761 April.
1784 April. 1788 May. 1789 March]
i, 210. His victory over Count de
Grasse, ii, 378. Statue voted to him,
442. His pecuniary difficMties : points
in common between him and Nelson,
518,519. See ii, 432. 528.
Roffey, Mr [1765 Sept, Oct. 1766 Jan.
1769 June] Sir Joshua's intercourse
with him, ii, 14. Mr Roffey jun [1765
Oct] Mrs Roffey [1765 Sept]
Rogers, Charles, connoisseur and collector,
i, 213. 237. 277.
Rogers, Mr [1777 July]
Rogers, Samuel, pictures by Reynolds in
Ms collection, ii, 20 note. 518. 536. His
share in the Keppel rejoicings, 233.
Anecdote told by Mm, 483. His remi
niscence of Sir Joshua's last Discourse,
594-
Rohan, Cardinal de, ii, 496.
Rokeby, Lord. See Robinson, Dr.
Rolle, Mr, and the ' Rolliad,' ii, 470, 471.
RoUeston., Mr and Mrs [1774. 1776 July]
Rolls, Mr [1 764 June]
Rolts, Miss [1759 May]
Romain, M. de, his fatal balloon ascent,
ii, 478.
Rome and its art treasures, 39-41. 45.
Jubilee year : Englishmen there, 55.
Romney, George, dividing the town with
Reynolds, i, 377, 378. ii, 132. Cum
berland's " Correggio," i, 43 7. Exbibit-
Mg, 442. His estimate of Reynolds, ii,
133. Painting Burke, 134. His new
house, 158. His temperament, 208.
How classed by Walpole, 409. How
Boydell offended Mm, 501. His por
trait of Mrs Btibngton, 5 29. See ii, 58.
157-479-

BOTAL ACADEMY.
Romney, Lord [1770 Feb. 1773 Feb]
Rooker, Edward, and Michael Angelo
Rooker, water-colourists, i, 180 note. 281.
370. 404. ii, 126. 549.
Roper, Miss [1771 March]
Rosiere, Pilatre de, Ms fatal balloon ascent,
ti, 478, 479-
Ross, Mrs [1755 April]
Rossi, C, medal awarded to, ii, 462 mote.
Rothes, John Earl of, Sir Joshua's fine
portrait of, i, 222.
Rothes, Lady [1764 Feb. 1766 Feb] her
second husband, i, 415.
Rothes, Mr [1764 May]
Roubitiac, Louis Francis, sculptor, head '
of Pope by, i, 25 mote. His club, 28
note. 137. 141. What he thought of his
own works after visiting Rome, 87. His
first studio, 90. His crowning work, 99.
An interview with Johnson, 119, 120.
His Shakespeare, 181. Reynolds's fear
of his Mfluence, ii, 311. See i, 135.
328.
Round-robin sent to Dr Johnson, ii, 164.
Roxburgh, Duke of [1 75 9 May]
Royal Academy, i, 1 79 note. Its first and
subsequent quarters, 180 mote. 315, 316.
History of its establishment : its value
as a school of art, 294-307. Charges
against its founders, 305 mote.. 316.
First officers and members, 297 mote.
Constitution and mode of election, 308,
309. First honorary officers: rule re
garding annual dinners, 310. 'Annual
Register' account of its establishment,
314, 315. Chaplam's ode on its forma
tion, 317. Discourses of the President
[See Reynolds, Sir Joshua]. Exhibitors
at, and receipts of the first Exhibition,
321-323. The like of the second Exhi
bition: Mary Moser's criticisms, 356-360.
Subsequent ExMbitions and receipts
thereat, 399. 402-404. 443-448.11,19-25.
73-77. 124-128. 155, 156. 181-185. 213-
215. 261. 291-294. 325, 326. 361-366.
407-410. 435-440. 472. 484. 486. 505,
506.516.518.535.588. Distributions
of prize medals, &c. i, 336, 337. 370. 419
note, ii, 40, 41. 91. 169 note. 225 note.
310 note. 462 mote. 497 note. 522 mote,
589 mote. Installed at Somerset House,
i, 381. Description of its rooms at the
first Exhibition there, 11,288-290. First
annual dmner, i, 398. Subsequent
dinners and chief guests thereat, 441.
ii, 72. 124. 154, 216. 290. 325. 361. 397,
433-435- 484-5°5. Noteworthy Mcident
at the I789dinner, 532, 533. Resenting
an insult to its President, ii, 122. Money
matters (1776), 164, 165. Death of its
first keeper, 388. Gainsborough's se-

INDEX.

523

EOYAL MAKKIAGE.
cession, 432. Its honours not coveted,
433- Bestowing charities and pensions,
441. Early attempts to identify it with
public works of art, and their result, 442,
443- 443 n°te. Need for a more liberal
constitution, 443, 444. Quarrel and
subsequent reconciliation with Sir
Joshua, 553-585. Its share M Ms
funeral, 630-632.
Royal Marriage Act, i, 440, 441. 453, 454.
Rubens, Ms management of light, i, 66.
Sir Joshua's remarks on Mm, ii, 341.
419. See 480.
Rumbold, Miss and Mrs [1777 March,
,. April]
¦Rumbold, Sir Thomas and Mr [1788 July]
Runciman, picture exhibited by, ii, 75.
Rwneham, Lord [1773 May]
RusMn, John, on art-points insisted on by
Sir Joshua, i, 373. 426 mote.
Russell, Lady Carotine, afterwards Duchess
of Marlborough [1759 April. 1761
March. 1762 Jan] i, 195. See Marl
borough, Duchess of.
Russell, Lord William, Courvoisier's vic
tim, ii, 183 note. His attitude in the
Bedford family picture, 184.
Russell, Miss [1755 April] ii, 539. 540
note. 550 mote.
Russell, elected R.A, ii, 521.
Russell, William, Reynolds sketches pos
sessed by, i, 22. 106. 192 mote.
Rutland, John third Duke of [1773 July]
preferment given to Sir Joshua's
nephew by, ti, 85.
Rutland, Charles Marquis of Granby,
afterwards fourth Duke of [1776 Feb,
April] giving Sir Joshua a liberal price,
ii, 263. . Succeeding to his dukedom,
279. 283. Poussin bought for him by
Sir Joshua, 495 mote. 498. See. ii, 230.
379-
. Rutland, Mary Isabella Duchess, wife of
Charles fourth Duke of [1780 March.
1782 Aug. 1784 March. 1787 Aug]
trouble Sir Joshua gave her about her
dress, i, 248. Her position M the world
of fashion and politics, ii, 176. 379.
43 2. Sir Joshua's portraits of her, and
their fate, 283. 326. See 287.
Ryder, Mrs [1762 June]
Ryley, C. Rubens, medal awarded to, ii,
225 mote.
Rysbrach, John Michael, sculptor, i, 99.
213.

s.
Saekville, Lord George [1759 Jan] i, 151.
159. Court-martial on Mm, 185.

SCAVOIK-VTVRE.
Saekville, Miss, afterwards Lady Crosbie
[1777 Sept]
Sadler, the aeronaut, ii, 478.
Saint Asaph, Lady, and Master Ashburn
ham [1786 May] picture exMbited, ii,
505.
Saint Aubyn, Sir John [1757 June. 1758
July. 1 75 9 Jan. 1786 March]
Saimt Aubyn, Lady [1 75 8 June]
Saimt Aubyn, Miss [1760 Feb]
Saimt Cecilia, Sir Joshua's paintings of,
See Billington, Mrs. Sheridan, Mis.
Weddell, Mrs.
Saint John, Master [1766 April]
Saint John, Miss [1764 Sept]
Saint Leger, Miss, [175 5 March]
Saint Paul's Cathedral, scheme for its
decoration, and episcopal frustration of
same, ti, 37-39. 57. 59.
Salisbury, Lady [1780 Nov. 1781 Jan.
1787 April] portrait exMbited, ii, 326.
Sandby, Paul, water-colourist, i, 129. 180
note.' Exhibiting, 190. 223. 281.404.
ii, 126. See ii, 520. 559.
Sandby, Thomas, landscape-painter, i, 135,
281. ii, 549. 560. 571. 583, 584.
Sanders, T, medal awarded to, ii, 522
note.
Sandford, Col, afterwards Gen [1755 Sept.
1757 Oct. 1764 Sept. 1766 Oct.
1780 Jan]
Sandwich, John fourth Earl of, " Jemmy
Twitcber " [1758 April] at a dmner
at Wilkes's, i, 211. Sacrilegious act
of Ms, 389 mote. Entertaining Omiah,
ii, 104, 105. Mob attack on Ms house,
233. Murder of Ms mistress, 267.
Onslaughts of Fox, 352. Pamted by
GaMsborough, 408.
Sandys, Lady, sitting to Sir Joshua, i,
225.
Sandys, Lord [1773 April. 1774] for
Thrale's Gallery, ii, 48.
Saunders, ^Admiral Sir Charles [1760
March. * 1765 Sept. 1766 Aug. 1767
Sept] i, 150. 253. ResigMng office,
268. His death, ii, 143.
Savage, Richard, revival of a tragedy of,
ii. 195-
Savile, Sir George, Barry's application to,
ii, 180. At. Chatham's funeral, 220.
Illuminating, 233. Gordon-mob attack
on Ms house, 300, 301.
Sayer, Mr [1759 April]
Scarborough, Lady [1755 April. 1758
April]
Scarborough, Lord [1755 March] Sir
Joshua Ms guest, i, 128.
Scavoir-vivre Club, encouragement of
fered to artists by the, ii, 15, 16. Its
aquatic masquerade, 130-132,

524

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Scawen, Captain, his duel with " Fight
ing" Fitzgerald, ii, 42. 45. Eloping
with Capt. Horneck's wife, 69.
Schaub, Sir Luke, sale of his pictures, i,
153.
Schinderlin, Madame, the " coquette " at
Knowle [1775]
Score, Reynolds picture alleged to be
painted by, ii, 215.
Scott, Captam, his winmngs, i, 141.
Scott, Lady Francis [1759 Feb]
Scott, Lady Mary [1772 Jan]
Scott, Mrs [1772 Jan. 1786 April]
Scott, Samuel, painter, i, 135.
Scott, Sir William, afterwards Lord
Stowell, ii, 268 note.
Seaforth, Lord [1777 April, May] re
pulsing French invaders from Jersey,
ii, 771, 272.
Seaforth, Mrs, and child [1 786 Jan. 1787
June]
Seaward, Sir Edward, Gandy's portrait
of, i, 33 mote.
Seeker, Dr Thomas, Archbishop of Canter
bury [1764 JMy. 1765 Sept]
Sedgwick, Mr [1 75 7 Sept. 1 75 9 March.
1765 April. 1772 Feb]
Seguier, having Ms way with a King and
saving a Reynolds, ii, 536, 537.
Selkirk, Lord, plunder of Ms house,- ii,
218.
Selwyn, George [1759 May. 1761 May.
1764 March. 1766 Feb. 1770 March]
i, 95. 124. 254. 272. 395, 396. Pamted
in a group for Walpole, i, 198. Wal
pole's judgment on the picture, ibid.
note. His affection for and relationship
to Miss Fagniani, ii, 202 note. DrawMg
out an original, 277.
Serres, DomiMck, marine-pamter, i, 404.
ii, 74. 290. 371.
Seymour, Lady Caroline [1758 May. 1759
Feb]
Seymour, Mr [1 75 5 Nov]
Shackleton, John, court-pamter, i, 135.
Shaftesbury, Lord and Lady [1760 Feb.
1762 April. 1 764 Feb]
Shafto, Mr [1755 Jan. 1758 April]
Shakespear, Johnson's edition of, i, 244.
Shakespearian note by Reynolds, 245.
Derivation of the name, 245 note.
Sharp, William, engraver, Ms ' John
Hunter,' after Reynolds, ii, 475. His
'Lear,' after West, 533.
Sharpe, Joshua, Reynolds portrait of, ii,
474. Merits of the picture, 475, 476.
ExMbited, 485.
Shee, Sir Martin Archer, P.R.A, i, 182
note. On the use of an Academy, 299.
As to the Royal Academy, 304. On
Sir Joshua's elocution, 320.

Lord [1788 March] portrait ex
hibited, ii, 516.
Shelburne, William Lord, afterwards first
Marquis of Lansdowne [1 764 March.
1766 May. 1788 April. 1789 July]
chafing against the collar, i, 226. His
aide-de-camp, 257. See 257 mote, -258.
ii, 27 mote. 34. 53. 71. 175. 354- 379-
415-
Sheldon, Mr [1777 Jan]
Shepherd, Miss [1755 June. 1758 Feb.
1784 June]ii, 444.
Slieridan, Mrs (Miss LMley) [1775]
painted as St. Cecilia, i, 51. 100 mote.
ii, 128. Her youthful occupation, ii,
101. Her miser wooer, 102. Her run
away match, 102. 120. Her title to
saintship, 103. Figures M Sir Joshua's
'Nativity,' for which she sat, 261, 262.
265. Gainsborough's portrait of her,
408.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley [1788 Dec,
1789 March] bunting of his manu
scripts, i, 210. His gift to Mrs Crewe,
324 mote. His runaway marriage with
Miss LiMey, ii, 101, 102. His ' Rivals,'
102, 103. His resolve relative to Ms
wife, 120, 121. His stage compositions
and their success, 178, 179. 195. Com-
plimenting Johnson, 195. A possible
lady rival, 204. Urging her to rivalry,
244,245. Elected M.P, 307. In office,
416. His great speech, 509. Right-
hand man of the Prince, 527.537. His
portrait : Walpole's high encomium on
it, 535, 536- Sir Joshua's liberal offer
to him relative to the ' St. Cecilia,' 552.
Seeii, 150. 163.175. 194. 206. 217.230.
268 mote. 269. 513. 518. 520. 528.
Sherwm, Mrs Siddons pamted by, ii, 382.
Shipley, Dr, Bishop of Saint Asaph,
"knowing and conversable," ii, 161.
Himself and daughter characterised,
376. See 273.
Shirley, Miss [1758 Feb]
Shirley, Mrs [1758 March. 1759 June]
Shuter, comedian, Goldsmith's gratitude
to, i, 284 mote. A good word for a
brother player, ii, 1 7.
Shylock, the first natural, ii, 248.
Siddons, Mrs, ennobling a dull tragedy, i,
260, 261. Her debut M London, ii, 15 7.
Her success, personal appearance, cha
racter, demeanour, &c, 382, 383. 420.
Consulting Sir Joshua on costume, 383,
384. Gainsborough's portrait of her,
384. Sitting for the 'Tragic Muse,'
388. Progress, original idea, and ex
cellences of the picture, 421-424. Same
exhibited, 436. Influence of her success
on the fortunes of her family, 426. As

INDEX.

525

Lady Macbeth, 489. See i, 205. 450. ii,
47- 424, 425- 490. 507. 528. 530. 646.
Sidney, Lord [1783 April] result of a fall
out between himself and friend, i, 348
mote. Portrait exMbited, 357.
Simmons, Miss [17 71 Sept]
Simmons, Mr [1768 Oct. 1769 April]
Simpson, Mr [1767 April]
Smgleton, H, medal awarded to, ii, 522
mote.
Skeffington, Sir Lumley, his peculiarities,
love for the theatre, &c, ii, 5 30.
Skene, Captain [1758 Oct]
Skipwith, Lady [1787 May]
Slater, Mr [1761 April]
Slaughter's Coffee-bouse, Artists' Club at,
i, 28 note.
Sloper, Mrs [1755 Dec]
Smart, Rev Thomas, Boy-Reynolds's
portrait of, i, 13, 14. 131. Present
. owner of it, 14 note.
Smelt, Captain [1755 Aug]
Smirke, Robert, R.A, i, 300. Elected
A.R.A, ii, 622.
Smith, actor, refusmg a part, ii, 12. Re-
callmg Garrick, no. As Shylock, 489.
Smith, Adam, i, 238 mote, ii, 194 mote. 195.
Smith*, Captain [1758 July]
Smith, Dr [1765 March]
Smith, Mr Drummond [1786 Aug. 1787
Aug. 1789 June]
Smith, Mrs Drummond [1787 Feb] por
trait exMbited, ii, 516.
Smith, John Raphael, his mezzotint of
PMlippe Egalite, ii, 479.
Smith, John Thomas, artist recollections
of, i, 28 mote, in note. A drunken
anecdote, 137. On Reynolds's chair,
182 mote. Earning a kiss, ii, 346.
Smith, Lady [1777 Feb] See Smyth.
Smith, Master [1758 June]
¦Smith, Miss [1767 April]
Smith, Mr [1759 Jan, Feb. 1761 Feb.
1762 May]
Smith, Mrs [1758 Dec. 1767 May. 1776
Feb]
Smith, Mrs, Sir John Lade's lady, portrait
exMbited, ii, 472.
Smith, Mrs and Miss [1771 April]
Smith, Thomas, of Derby, landscape-
painter, i, 190.
Smith, William, George, and John, of
Chichester, exhibiting, i, 181. Pre
miums awarded, 185.
Smollett, the novelist, i, 99- ii. 2°3-
Smyth, Lady, and children [1787 Feb]
character of the picture, ii, 500. Same
exhibited, 505.
Smyth Mr, Dilettanti picture [1779 Seb]
Sneyd, Mrs and Miss [175 7 April] __
Soane, John, medal awarded to, n, 169

STANHOPE.
note. Taking credit for another man's
drawings, 5 89 note.
Society of Arts established, i, 154. Exhi
bition at its rooms, 181. Premiated
artists, 185. Proposal for decorating its
new room, ii, 58. Barry's offer accepted,
179. Exhibiting Ms paintings, 397,398.
Solander, Dr, scientific fellow-voyager with
Banks, i, 427, 428. 448.
Somers, Elizabeth Lady, Reynolds's early
portrait of, i, 34 mote.
Somerset, Duke of [1 75 8 Feb]
Somerset, Lady Elizabeth [1777 April]
Somerset, Lady Harriet [1769 March]
Somerset, Lady Mary [1761 March. 1778]
Sondes, Lady [1764 May]
Sophia, Princess, portrait exMbited, ii, 76.
Sotheron. See Southwell, Mr.
Sour-Crout Club, ii, 193.
Southby, Miss [1777 April]
Southcote, Mr, at a masquerade, i, 434.
Southern, Mr [1 75 7 Dec]
Southern, Mrs [1758 Feb. March]
Southwell, Lady [1786 March]
Southioell, Mr (afterwards corrected Mto
Sotheron) [1764 May]
Southwell, Mrs [1758 March. 1766
March]
Sparrow, Mrs [1766 May]
Spencer children, for the Marlborough
picture [1777 May, Nov]
Spencer, John, afterwards first Earl, pic
ture-buying, i, 153, 154. ii, 15. 54. See
i, 396. ii, 246.
Spencer, George John second Earl, and
(Ms sister) Georgiana Duchess of Devon
shire [1783 Dec]
Spencer, Earls. See Althorpe, Lord.
Spencer, Lady, wife of John first Earl
[176 1 Sept. 1772 April] i, 197.
Spencer, Lady, wife of George John
second Earl [1 784 Jan. 1 786 April] ii,
444. Portrait exMbited, 485. See Al
thorpe, Lady.
Spencer, Lady Betty [1 75 8 May]
Spencer, Lady Charles [1766 April. 1775]
Spencer, Lady G. See DevonsMre, Geor
giana Duchess of.
Spencer, Lord Charles [1759 June. 1762
April. 1 775]
Spencer, Lord Robert [1758 May. 1769
Nov. 1770 Jan]
Spencer, Mrs and Miss [ 1 75 9 May. June]
Spottiswoode, Mr, ii, 211.
Spry, Admiral, ii, 25 .
Spry, Mrs [1764 Jan]
Standish, Lady [1758 May]
Stanfield, Clarkson, R.A, on Turner's
sMps, i, 1 14 note.
Stanhope, Lady [1758 May. 1764 Jan.
1765 March]

526

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Stanhope, Lady A. M. [1777 May]
Stanhope, Lincoln, Lord Harrington's son
[1787 Dec. 1788 Sept]
Stanhope, Master [1784 March. 1788
Sept] portrait exMbited, ii, 516.
Stanhope, Hon Mrs [1786 October] por
traits exhibited, ii, 472, 472 mote. 505.
StaMey, Lord, his ante-nuptial fete cham-
petre, ii, 82.
Stanley, Miss S. [1755 April]
Statues, Sir Joshua on the costume of, ii,
311,312.
Stavordale, Lord, Ms great oath, i, 389.
Steele, Mrs, on the opening of the Pan
theon, i, 431. Exaggerating, 432.
Steevens, George, elected into the Club,
ii, 68. His mission from Boydell to
Reynolds, 501. See 17. 117. 267.
Sterne, Laurence [1760 March] "topsy
turvy with success," i, 1 8 7 note 6 . His wig
and Ms portrait, 192, 193. Reynolds's
complimentary gift to Mm, 193 mote.
Contemporary judgments on his ' Tris
tram Shandy,' 231. His last dinner
party and last moments, 292. Desecra
tion of Ms remams, 293. One of Ms
imitators, ii, 168.
Stevens, E, arcMtect, elected A.R.A, i,
370.
Stewart, Colonel [1787 Sept]
Stewart, Mr [1760 Aug. 1761 Jan]
Stiltingfleet, Mr, and Ms blue stockMgs,
i, 45 1-
Stokes, Mis [1762 May]
Stoneliewer, Mr (Gray s executor) [1775]
Storer, Anthony, Ms social eminence, ii,
124. On Tarieton's wager, 348 mote.
Stormont, Lord [1755 Jan] painted with
Lord Huntingdon, i, 109. His after
career, ,109 note. Recalled from Ms
embassy, ti, 217.
Storr, Miss [1769 Sept]
Stothard, Thomas, R.A, exhibiting, ii, 186.
215. 293. Elected A.R.A, 622. At
Reynolds's funeral, 633 note. See i,
300. 303. ii, 129 mote. 299.
Stowell, Lord, ii, 268 note.
Strafford, Lady [1 75 8 Feb. 1759 March]
Strafford, Lord [1758 Jan. 1759 Jan.
1761 Jan]
Strahan, Mr, the printer [1 780 May. 1783
June] ii, 297. 302.
Strange, Lady [1755 April]
Strange, Sir Robert, engraver, i, 135.
Ground of his attack on the Royal
Academy, 304 note.
Strangways, Lady Lucy [1771 April]
Strangways, Lady Susan [1762 April] 212.
* 247. Her elopement with O'Brien the
actor, i, 196. 223 note. See 212. 247.
Strawberry Girl, Sir Joshua's famous pic

ture of the, ii, 3. 20. See also 20
note.
Strode, Mr [1759 Feb]
Strutt, Joseph, medal awarded to, i, 3 70.
Stuart, American painter, Sir Joshua
sitting to, ii, 468 note.
Stuart, Andrew, Ms portrait exMbited, ii,
262. See also 262 mote 3.
Stuart, Colonel [1781 May]
Stuart, James, " AtheMan Stuart," i, 130.
244. 280. His great work and ante
cedents, 138, 139. His Dilettanti office,
ii, 186.
Stuart, Miss [1755 May]
Stuart, Mr [1765 Aug]
Stubbs, George, animal-painter, exMbit-
ing, i, 442. ii, 126. A.R.A, ii, 310.
Why superseded, 433. See ii, 371.
Sullivan, the engraver, i, 28 mote. 137.
Summers, Miss, Kitty Fisher's compaMon,
her accomplishments, i, 163 mote. Ad
vertisement written by her, 164 note.
Sunderlin, Lady [1788 June]
Sussex, Lady [1760 April] also painted by
Gainsborough, i, 403.
Sussex, Lord [1759 Dec]
Sutherland, Lady [1786 Jan]
Sutherland, Lord [175 7 Feb]
Sutton, Mr, afterwards Sir Richard [1767
JMy. 1773 Nov. 1774]
Swift, Jonathan, on the value of country
parsons, i, 1.

Taconet, A, medal awarded to, ii, 589 note.
Talbot, Lady Charlotte [1781 June. 1782
June] portrait exMbited, ii, 361.
Talbot, Mr [1760 Nov] his masquerade
character, i, 434.
Talbot, Mrs [1761 March]
Tan-Cbet-Qua, CMuese modeller, i, 447.
Tarleton, Colonel [1782 Jan] bis cam
paigning capabilities and exploits, ii,
347, 348. His wager, 348 mote. His
portrait exhibited, 358.361. Its merits,
362.
Tash, Captam [1 75 8 March. 1 76 1 Jan]
Tate, Nullum, Shakespeare mutilated by,
ii, 73-
Tattersall, the famous, ii, 506.
Tavistock, Lady [1766 Nov. 1777 Jan]
See Keppel, Lady E.
Tavistock, Lord [1765 Aug. 1766 Feb]
his unfortunate end, i, 269, 270.
Taylor, Miss [1764 Feb]
Taylor, Mr, Dilettanti picture [1777 June]
Taylor, Mrs, afterwards Lady [1777 Dec.
1781 Nov. 1782 Jan. 1784 Dec] por
trait exhibited, ii, 485.

INDEX.

527

TAYLOB.
Taylor, Sir John [i 784 Nov]
Taylor, Robert, engraver, i, 90. 135.
Taylor, Johnson's friend, ti, 447.
Temple, Richard first Earl [1767 Feb]
satirized by Hogarth, i, 211. His nick
name, 270.
Temple, George second Earl [1775. 1776
June. 1780 March. 1781 March. 1782
March. 1 784 June] portrait exhibited :
Walpole's encomium on it, ii, 155, 157.
Again sitting, 287. 444.
Temple, Mary Nugent, Lady [1780 Feb]
Tennyson's ' Palace of Art ' realised, ii,
350.
Terrick, Dr Richard, Bishop of London,
art project snuffed out by, ii, 38. 58.
'Thais,' Sir Joshua's picture of, contro
versy raised by it, ii, 321, 322. 325
mote 2.
Tlianet, Lady [1770 Feb. 1771 Feb]
with Master Tufton [1777 Feb]
Thomas, Dr John, Bishop of Rochester
[1781 May. 1782 March] portrait
exhibited, ii, 361.
Thomas, Dr Edmond [1757 Oct]
Thomas, Sir Edward [175 7 June]
Thomas, Mr [ 1 75 7 April. 1 75 8 March]
Thomond, Lady (Reynolds's Mece Mary
Palmer), ii, 7 mote. 249 note. 259. 264
note. Her present to George IV. 536.
Value of her Mheritance under Sir
Joshua's will, 635 mote. See Palmer,
Mary.
Thompson or Thomson, Mr [1765 June.
1786 Aug. 1787 July. 1789 June]
Thompson, Mr R, Dilettanti picture [1777
June]
Thomson, publisher, a woMd-be improver
of Burns, i, 301.
Thornbury, Walter, on Sir Joshua's pic
tures in Russia, ii, 5 3 8 mote.
Thornhill, Sir James, i, 85, 321. Ho
garth's gift of his easts, &c, 90. 179
note. 316. His Academy proposal, 299.
His monochromes in St PaM's ii, 39.
Thornhill, Mrs [1 760 May. 1788 Feb]
Thornicroft, Miss [1758 April]
Thorold, Sir J. and Lady [1757 May.
1 7? 9 April]
Thorold, Mr, Mrs, and Miss [1757 April.
1759 March]
Thoroton, Mr [1781 Feb] portrait exhi
bited, ii, 326. His horsemanship feat
and melancholy end, ibid. note.
Tlirale, Mr [1775- *777 Sept] in com
mercial jeopardy, i, 449- 45 6, 45.7- A
dinner in one of his coppers, 11, 53.
On Johnson's pamphlet, 113. One of
his dinners, 116. Letting out a secret,
205. His death, 323. See i, 225. 260.
436.

TOWNSHEND.
Thrale, Mrs, afterwards Mrs Piozzi, a
youthful sitter to Hogarth, i, 190. On
Lady S. Bunbury's 'sacrifice to the
Graces,' 247 mote. Her anxieties, 45 7.
ii, 48. Her wit and personal appear
ance, ii, 10. Her esteem for Beattie,
29 mote. Her verses on Reynolds, 49.
Sale of her Streatham Gallery : prices
realized, 55 note. Sir Joshua's por
trait of her, 313. Her new house and
gay assemblies, 319. 322. Her doors
closed to Johnson, 391. Engaged to
Piozzi : the Doctor's emotion, 446.
Her anecdotes of Johnson, 497. One
of her servants hanged, 588. See i,
260. 336 note. 451 note. 452. ii, 105.
115. 205.
Thurlow, Lord Chancellor [1767 Nov,
Deo. 1 78 1 Oct] bis rival portrait-
painters : Fox's saying on Mm, ti, 132.
Portrait exhibited, 362. Rebuffing
Crabbe, 393. His efforts to obtain
royal aid for Johnson, 445, 446. 450,
451. See 352. 354.
Thursday-night Club, i, 272. 430.
Thynne, Miss [1 781 Oct]
Titian, style adopted by Reynolds from,
i, 30. See 115. 422, 423. ii, 139. 493.
Toicher, Mr, humoured by Dr Johnson, i,
216. Givmg Northcote a start, 406,
407.
ToUemache, Mrs [1773 May. 1774]
painted as Miranda, ii, 76. Beauty of
the picture, 77. Its present state,
ibid. note.
TomMns, landscape-painter, elected
A.R.A, i, 436.
Tomkins, the great caligrapber of his
day [1789 May] ii, 531 note.
Toms, Miss [1769 June]
Toms, Peter, Hudson's pupil and Rey
nolds's " drapery-man," i, 102 note.
195. 249. 317. His suicide, ti, 201.
Torryn, Captain [1758 Aug]
Townsend, Miss [1757 April]
Townsend, or Townshend, Mr [1757 Jan.
1758 July. 1759 Aug. 1762 May.
1765 Nov. 1767 Oct]
Townshend, Audrey, ber runaway match,
i. 194.
Townshend, Charles [1755 March. 1764
Jan] "witty and versatile," i, 225. 238.
242 note. 268. His character as indi
cated by his portrait, 270, 271. See ii,
192. 220.
Townshend, George (also written Townson
by Sir Joshua) Col. and Gen. and after
wards Lord [1759 Feb. 1760 Feb.
1761 April. 1767 Aug. 1779 May]
wounded, i, 198. His bride, ii, 5 . His
duel with Lord Bellamont, 46. Ad-

528

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

TOWNSHEND,
vancmg Sir Joshua's nephew, 85. 138.
See i, 194. 382 note.
Townshend, Charlotte Compton, Viscount
ess [1758 Jan] a reigMng beauty,
i, 94-
Townshend, Anne Montgomery, Lady
[1773 June. 1779 June] ti, 5. 29. 41.
See Montgomery.
Townshend, Lord John [1788 Aug]
Townshend, Lord Mayor, ii, 52. 90.
Townson, Gen. See Townshend, George.
Towry, Miss [1789 March]
Trapaud, Col. [1 75 7 March. 1 760 Nov]
Trapaud, Mrs [1761 Feb. 1764 June]
Treby, Mr, the great man of Plympton, i,
19. 22. 368, 368 note.
TrecotMck, popular alderman and Lord
Mayor, i, 352. 366.
Trecothick, Mrs [1 770- July. 1771 March]
See i, 352. 366. 379, 380.
Tresham, H, elected. A.R.A, ii, 622.
Trevor, Mrs [1 75 5 June]
Trevor, Lady [1757 June]
Trevor, Lord [1771 June]
Tryal, Captain [1 75 7 March]
Tucker, Dean, Miss More's friend, ii, in.
Tucker, Mr, "a painter in Plymouth,"
on Sir Joshua's youthful efforts, i, 23.
Tudway, Mr [1758 June]
Tufton, Master [1766 March. 1767 Feb.
1777 Feb]
Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, first quar
ters of the Club, i, 129. 228. 237. 255.
ii, 323.
Turner, Charles, Sir Joshua's friend, mob
outrage on, ii, 301.
Turner, Charles, engraver, anecdote pre
served by , ii, 2 14 note.
Turner, J. M. W, R.A ; criticisms from
opposite quarters on his ships, i, 114
mote. See 300. 303. Silent on art cri
ticism, ii, 129 note. His last resting-
place, 634. See i, 300. 303. ii, 299.
Turner, Miss [1758 June]
Turner, Mrs [1 75 7 June. 1 764 April]
Tyler, sculptor, ii, 442. A prime mover
in the Academy's dispute with Sir
Joshua, 572. 574, 575 motes.
Tyrcuwley, James O'Hara Lord [1758 Jan]
command given to Mm, i. 151.
Tyrconnel, Lady [1764 March. 1774.
1776 Sept]
Tyrconnel, Lord, i, 251.
Tyrrel, Lady [1770 Feb]

u.
Udney, Mr [1 77 3 Jan]
Ugolino, Sir Joshua's painting of, its
origin, &c, i, 353. ii, 20, 21.

Vanbrugh, PMlip, an early sitter to Rey
nolds, i, 27 note.
Vandergucht, Benjamin, his portrait of
Woodward, ii, 75. Dramatic scenes,
127. A picture-cleaner, 495 .
Vanderwerf, effect of Sir Joshua's cen
sures on the fame of, ii, 341.
Vandyke, Antony, an English pupil of, i,
'33. His burial-place, ii, 634. See
i, 418. ii, 543-
Vangelder, P. M, medals awarded to, i,
370. 419 note.
Vanloo, C. A, i, 104. Tricked by Rey
nolds, 238. 'Dead, 249.
Vanneek, Sir- J. [1778]
Vansittart, Dr, eulogizmg Sir Joshua at
Oxford, ii, 27 mote. Johnson's retort
a propos of the fleas, 28 mote.
Vansittart, Henry [1761 Feb. 1767 Nov
and Dec. 1768 Jan. 1769 June] See
ti, 28 note.
Vansittart, Master [1 76 7 Sept]
Vansittart, Miss [1761 Jan. 1767 Sept.
1770 Nov and Dec]
Vassall, Mrs and Mr jun. [1767 Sept]
Vatel's sMcide, i, 286 note.
Vatican paintings, i, 42. 45. 49-51.
Vaughan, Captain [1 75 8 March.]
Vaughan, Lord [1778]
Vaughan, Mr [1759 Oct. 1760 April]
Vaughan, Mrs [1 75 7 June]
MVauxhall Gardens in 1769, a contempo
rary description, i, 327-332 motes.
Velasquez, restoration by Sir Joshua of
two pictures of, ii, 139, 140.
VeMce, Reynolds's notes on the pictures
at, i, 67-84.
Vernon, Colonel [1757 March. 1760 Feb.
1 76 1 Feb]
Vernon, Lady Harriet and Mrs [1755
April]
Vernon, Lord [1789 March], portrait ex
Mbited, ii, 53;.
Vernon, Lord Charles, Sir Joshua's por
trait of, i, 181.
VeroccMo's statue of Colleoni, ii, 312.
Veronese, Paul, great picture of, i, 64.
Vesey, Mrs, and the " blue-stocMngs,"
i,45i note. Her "Babels," 453. Her
Irish bulls, ii, 10. Deaf and Mfirm,
487. See ii, 9. 175. 275.
Villars, Lord [1767 May]
Villars, Mrs, and her diamonds, i, 434.
Violette, Eva Maria. See Garrick; Mrs.
Vivian, Lord, early Reynolds portraits
possessed by, i, 15 mote. 30.
Voltaire gibbeted by Sir Joshua, ii, 20.

INDEX.

529

WAAGEJT.

w.

Waagen, Dr, on Sir Joshua's pictures at
St Petersburg, ii, 538 note.
Wagers of a notable character. See
Blake. Parker. Pigot. Tarleton.
WasMngton.
Waldegrave, James Earl of, and Lady
[1760 May. 1 761 Jan] governor to
fine Prince, i, 97. Dead, 227.
Waldegrave, Maria Lady, wife of above,
afterwards Duchess of Gloucester [1759
June. 1762 Feb. 1764 June. 1765
Jan. 1766 Jan. 1770 Nov and Deo.
1771 June] A lock of her hair, i, 173.
Reynolds's portraits of her, 191. 197.
227. 250 mote. As Dido, 205, 206.
Married to the Duke, 393. 440. 453.
Portraits of ber as Duchess, with ber
daughter, ii, 76, 7 7. Her gift to Omiah,
105. See ii, 219. Herson. See William
Frederick.
Waldegrave, Ladies Laura, Maria, and
Horatia, daughters of above [1761
March. 1780 May. 1 781 March] painted
also by Ozias Humphrey, ii, 294. Wal
pole's criticisms, 294, 295. 326. Their
love disappomtments, 296. Their sub
sequent marriages, 296 note. At Rane-
lagb, 302. Lady Laura's view of the
Gordon mob ravages, 303. Sir Joshua's
picture exMbited, 326,327. See ii, 3 1 2 .
321.387..
Wale, Samuel, historical painter, i, 135.
180 note. 404, Art- M wMch be was
most eminent, ii, 223. Academy gra
tuity, 441. Dead, 487. See 559.
Wales, Princess of, mother of Geo. Ill,
painted by Ramsay, i, 2 1 2 mote.
Walker, of the ' Pronouncmg Dictionary,'
ii, 247.
Walker, Captam and Miss [175 8 April.
May]
Wallace, Coalition Attorney-General, his
last interview with Dunmng, ii, 416.
WaUis, Albany, Garrick's executor [1783
Jan] portrait exMbited, ii, 408.
Walpole, Horace, on the state of England
in 1753, and the beauty of the Gun-
Mngs, i, 93, 94. On Liotard the
painter, 108 mote. Sarcastic flings : at
Lord Harcourt, i, 145 note 8. At Lord
Errol, 197. At Col. Barre-, 257. At
Princess Daschkaw, ii, 304. At the
Shakespeare Gallery project, 502. On
the mama for Italian pictures, i, 153,
154. In a huff with an engraver, 169.
On Ramsay and Reynolds, 170. On
Kitty Hunter's liaison, 206, 207. 207
VOL. I.

mote. On the rage for print collecting,
&c, 357. On " the wonder of the time,"
389 note. On Opera squabbles, 391.
On Mrs Horton's fascinations, 393.
On rich men's picture-buyings, ii, 54,
81. His assertion relative to Gold
smith's dymg moments, 70. On Lord
Stanley's ante-nuptial fete champeti-e,
82. On highway robberies, 89 note.
On the follies and amusements of the
day, 100. 130. 132. 176 note. On a
"solemn farce," 153. Anewtoy,i99. On
portraits of Ms grand-Meces, 294-296.
326. His tribute, in Ms ' Anecdotes of
Painting,' to Sir Joshua, 308, 309, On
Barry's paintings at the Society of Arts,
411. On Sir Joshua's New College
wMdow, 411, 412. Gall and worm
wood to Mm, 478. On Philippe
Egalite, 479. On Emperor Josephs
sale of convent valuables, 480 mote.
His " trio of culprits," 496. On private
theatricals, 508, 509. Critical remarks
on Reynolds and other artists, i, 170.
198 mote. 222. 222 note. 227. 262. 323
mote. 356. 443-445. ii, 19, 20. 73. 124-
128. 157. 181. 183 note. 184, 185 note
215 mote. 265, 266 notes. 291. 293. 305.
365,366. 386, 387. 408,409.435.437.
511. See i, 95. 97. 99. 109 mote. 124,
125. 139 mote. 172. 194. 196. 198.224,
225. 242 mote. 390. 395. 399. 453. ii, 53
mote. 102 note. no. 216, 217. 383. 483.
492 mote. 495, 496 motes. 516.
Walpole, Mr [1767 Nov and Dec]
Walpole, Mrs [1758 Dec]
Walpole, Sir Robert. See Orford.
Walsingham, Captain, supporting Keppel,
ii. 234.
Walsingham, Mr [1760 Feb]
Walsingham, Mrs, her conversaziones, ii,
234. Characterised by Miss Burney,
234 mote. An artist, 488.
Walter, Mrs [175 7 Jan]
Wandesford, Lord [1 780 Oct]_
Warburton, and bad novels, ii, 204.
Ward, Lady [1760 May]
Ward, Miss, and her dog [1787 March]
picture exhibited, ii, 505.
Ward, Mr [1768 March]
Ware, architect, i, 28 note. 135, 137.
Warley Camp and its Olustrious visitors,
ti, 218, 219.
' Warley, a Satire,' 224. 243.
Warmel, pamter, on Reynolds's youthful
drawmgs.i, 22.
Warren, Sir George, robberies on, ii, 177.
Warren, Miss [1 75 8 Jan. 1759 May]
Warren, Mrs [1758 June]
Warton, Dr Joseph, i, 237. 264. 274. 381.
2 M

530

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

ii. 162. 218, 219. Johnson's grunt at
him, ii, 164. His character, 175, 176.
His biographer's style, 219 mote. His
portraits by Sir Joshua, 436 note.
Warton, Thomas [1784 Jan]- His verses
on Sir Joshua's New College window,
and the latter's letter thereon, ii, 372,
373. His portrait, 436 note. Poet
Laureate : letter of thanks to Sir
Joshua, 471.
Warwick, Lord and Lady [1 761 Oct. 1764
April]
Washington, George, Sir Joshua's wager
about, ii, 138.
Wateridge, Miss [1781 March]
Watson, Hon Mrs, portrait exMbited, ii,
536-
Watson, Master [1768 May. 1770 May]
Tfatson, Miss [1758 April]
Watson, Mrs [175 7 March. 1765 March]
Watson, Professor [1769 Oct]
Watteau, French art at the death of, i, 86.
See i, 374. ii, 139 mote.
Way, Mr [1767 March]
Way, Mrs [1761 Feb]
Webber, H, medal awarded, ii, 169 mote.
Weddell, Mr [1789 March]
Weddell, Mrs [1775] as St Cecilia, a pla
giarism from DomemcMno, ii, 146 mote.
Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Lough
borough, his opinion acted on, ii, 301.
Wedgwood, Josiah, and wife [1782 May]
demand for his wares, i, 357. His
liberal treatment of artists, ii, 373, 374.
Welhy, Mr [176 1 Nov]
Wells, Mrs, actress [1787 Sept, Oct]
Wentworth, Miss [1761 Dec]
Wentworth, Sir Thomas [1764 June]
Wentworth, Thomas Lord (not Edward, as
stated m note 3," ii, 280) [1779 March,
July. 1787 April]
West, Benjamin, beginMng at the wrong
end, i, 47, 48 motes. Pictures exMbited
by him, 249. 281. 321. 404. 443, 444.
ii, 23. 75. 127. 182. 292. 366. 408, 409
PopMarity of some of them, i, 263.
Talting part in the Royal Academy
scheme, 294.. 296, 297, 298. 305. His
episcopal patrons, 321. 402. Likmg of
Geo. HI. for -Mm, 322. 401. 444. ii, 308.
Criticised by Walpole, i, 356. ii, 125.
408, 409. Art-revolution effected by
his 'Death of Wolfe,' i, 405, 406. ii,
311, 312. 366. On picture copymg, ii,
214. His share in the decorations of
the Academy's rooms, 289. His habit
with Ms pupils, 299. Satirized by
Peter Pindar, 367. 439. 473, 474.
Characterised by Miss Burney, 385.
Sharp's engraving of bis 'Lear,' 533.
Sir Joshua's locum tenens, 622. His

last resting-place, 634. See i, 317. 360.
446, 447. ii, 4. 37- 219- 467- 5°i. 520-
532. 584. 602. 609.
West, Miss [1757 May]
West, Mrs [1757 March. 1777 Feb]
West, Richard, friend of Gray and Wal
pole, sale of his collection, ii, 5 3 note.
Westcote, Lord. See Lyttelton, William
Henry.
Westley, Mr [1755 March]
Westmoreland, Lord [1764 Jan. 1770 •
May]
TTestom, Miss [1757 Oct] ber alleged
attachment to Sir Joshua, i, 39, 40 motes.
See 127. 199.
Wetham, Mrs [1757 June]
Weyland, Mr [1774] Mrs Weyland [1776 •
March]
Weymouth, Lord [1758 March] ii, 220.
Wharton, Lady [1 760 Feb]
Whetham, Mr [1769 July]
Wheatley, Francis, elected A.R.A, ii, 602.
Whitbread, Master [1768 Nov]
Whitbread, Misses [1769 Jan]
Whitbread, Mr [1786 June. 1787 Feb]
White, George, Sir Joshua's Ugolino
model, i, 353. 385. 444. His objection
to Nollekens, ii, 4.
White, Mr [1760 July]
White, Mrs, Dr Johnson's legacy to, ii,
45 3 mote.
White's Club and its gamblers i, 95. 141.
ii, 178 note.
Whitefoord, Caleb, wit and wine merchant
[1773 Nov. 1774] i, 386. ii, 7- J7-
His literary mvention, 55 note 7. Work-
mg a joke, 66, 67.
Whitmore, General [1759 April]
Whitshed, Mr and Mrs [1755 Nov]
Whitwell, CaptaM [1755 Dec]
Wicklow, Viscount, caricatured by Rey
nolds, i, 45 note.
Wickstead, patronage bestowed at Rome
on, i, 103 mote.
Wilkes, John, Ms intercouse -with Rey
nolds, i, 126. 141. 172. 210. 212. 237.
250. 259. 274. 351. ii, 488. 507. In
fluence of Ms marriage on Ms fortunes,
i, 127. His quarrel with Hogarth, 211.
His arrest and imprisonment, and
Mterest excited thereby, 221. 224. Out
lawed, 235. His secret return, 237.
250. Bribed back to Paris, 258 mote.
Bravmg his prosecutors, 258. 276. At
the top of the tide, 291. His extra
ordinary popularity, 292. 350. 378, 379.
An alderman, ii, 52. Lord Mayor, 90,
91. His notion about Garrick, 270,
City Chamberlam : Ms patriotism cooled
down, 365. See ii, 112. 118.
Wilkes, Miss, daughter of above, Lady

INDEX.

531

Mayoress, ii, 91. In Zoffany's picture
with her father, 365. See 479. 489.
Wilkes, Mrs [1755 Jan. 1762 June]
Wilkie, David, i, 300. 303. ii, 467.
Wilkinson, Mr [1771 April]
Willet, Mrs [1776 Sept]
William Frederick, Prince [1780 March]
ii, 287. His portrait exhibited, 293.
Williams, Lady [1768 March]
Williams, Miss [1758 May. 1768 April]
Williams, Miss, Dr Johnson's blind pen
sioner, painted by Miss Reynolds, i,
121 note. Mrs Montague's kmdness to
her, 453. See 215. 343. ii, 81. 434-
Williams, Mr [1 75 7 Oct. 1 75 9 May]
Williams, Sir Watkin. See Wynn.
Willis's 'Current Notes,' alleged love-
letters of Reynolds in, i, 39 mote.
Willis, clergyman and mad-doctor, ii, 5 27.
Willoughby, Lady [1764 Feb]
Willoughby, Mr [176 1 Oct]
Willson, Mr [1764 March]
Wilmot, Miss [1766 March]
Wilmot, Sir Eardley [1 7 84 Nov]
Wilson, Miss, as a Nymph with Cupid,
ii, 436.
Wilson, Mrs [1 75 9 Dec. 1769 March]
Wilson, Richard, landscape-painter, i,3i.
In Rome, 55- 97- Neglected, 153.
ExMbiting, 181. 204. 223. 249. 281.
360. 404. 443. ii, 75. 127. 182. Barry's
sense of bis merits, i, 249- lu Zoffany s
picture of the Academicians, 447. Ap
pointed R.A. librarian, 168. His
death : alleged maligMty of Sir Joshua
towards htin, 364, 365. 369, 370. Wol-
cot's prose and poetic judgment on
Mm, 364 note. 368, 369. His last days,
sources of income, 369. See i> II2-
178 note. 180 mote. 300. 305. 317. ii, 23.
534.
Wilton, Joseph, sculptor, pamted by Rey
nolds, i, 59. Statue-gallery under Ms
superintendence, 158. Exhibiting, 281.
Pre-Academy meetings at Ms house,
296-298. Librarian R.A, ii, 487. See
60. 62 note. 99. 128. 3°5- 447- fi> 442,
443 note.
Windham, Colonel, portrait of, ii, 361.
Windham, William [1789 July] halloon-
ing, ii, 478. His attentions to dying
Johnson, 488. Portrait exMbited, 516.
Windsor, Miss [1764 April]
Winter, Mr [1759 Jan]
Winlerton, Lady [1764 Aug- J 7 7» J
Ifimterton, Lord [1764 Aug. 1766 April]
Witchell, Colonel [1755 «?] , , „
Woffington, Margaret, her care for ber
sister and friendless death-bed, u, 10, 11
Wolcot, Dr John, "Peter Pindai ^ Ms
old sweetheart, i. 15 »ote- Cliara0"

terizing Reynolds, ii, 129, 130. 300.
His discovery of and original kind of
agreement with Opie, 366. Extracts
from Ms satires on painters, 367-372.
409, 410. 439. 473, 474. His'Bozzy
and Piozzi,' 497. His purchase from
Sir Joshua, and Shakespeare lines on
it, 517, 518.
Wolfe, General, victory and death of,
i, 124. 257. In West's great picture,
405, 406.
Wolseley, Mrs [1761 July]
Wombwell, Miss [1757 June]
Wood, Mr and Mrs [1757 April]
Wood, Mr [176 1 Sept]
Wood, Robert, his ' Palmyra ' and ' Baal-
bec,' i, 154-
Woodburn, Mr, picture-dealer, bis youth-
ful freedom with Sir Joshua, ii, 359.
Woodcock, Mr [1761 Dec. 1762 Dec.
1764 July]
Woodcock, Mrs [1764 Sept]
Woodley, Mr [ 1762 March]
Woodley, Mrs [1759 April]
Woodward, Harry, actor [1759 Sept-
1760 July. 1761 Sept. 1762 Nov]
Ms forte, i, 165, 166. Refusing a part
in Goldsmith's comedy, ii, 12.
Wool, Rev John, Warton's Mographer, ii,
219 mote.
Woollery, Mrs and Master [1755 Jan]
Woronzow, ill used by the Gordon mob,
Worsley', Lady [1776 June. 1777 March.
1779 June] her costume, ii, 218.
Worsley, Sir Richard [1776 April]
Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, his memoirs, 1,
125. 439. 45i- A witness to the Gor-
donriots,ti, 302. Story told by Mm, 416.
Wray, Lady [1767 April]
Wray, Mr [1762 March]
Wray, Miss [1767 Nov, Dec]
Wren, Sir CMistopher, 1, 1. M.P. for
Plympton, ii, 34. His decorative inten
tions M St Paul's, 38. His tomb, 632.
Wright, Joseph, of Derby, the times re
flected in the pictures of, ii2°4-
Honour dectined by him, 11, 433- Peter
Pmdar's tines on Mm, 474- See 250.
281.442.11,58.215.
Wright, Mr [1765 July]
Wriothesley, Miss [1764 JanJ A . ,
Wyatt, J, architect, electedA.R.A,i, 369.
Wyld, Miss [1 760 April. 1 761 April]
JVVBeZZ,Mr[i758 June]
Wynn, Master [1778]
Wynn, Mr [1758 May. 1 761 Jan. 1762
Wynn, Sir Watkin Williams [1768 Feb.
1769 Feb, Aug. 1770 Feb. i77iJan.
1772 Aug. 1777 June] Painted with

532

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

WYNYARD.
Ms bride, i, 347 mote 4. An early
widower : Ma Gargantuesque banquet,
348 mote 5. At masquerades, 43 5. Cha
racter assumed at one, ti, 12. See ii,
74. 148. 284.
Wynyard, Miss [1755 April. 1766 Oct]
Wynyard, Mr [1758 June]
Wynyard, Mrs [1757 Aug]

Yarmouth, Lady [1762 Dec]
Yates, Mrs, actress [1771 Nov. 1772
June] i, 260. Characterised by Kitty
Clive, 261. Sitting to Sir Joshua, 450.
In Jephson's tragedy, ii, no.
Yenn, J, medal awarded to, i, 419 mote.
Yeo, R, artist, i, 135. 180 mote. 446.
Yonge, Mr [1769 Feb]
Yonge, Sir Geo [1767 Oct. 1768 Feb]
York, Archbishops of. See Drummond.
Markham.
York, Dukes of. See Edward, Prince.
Frederick, Prince.

Yorke, Master [1787 Jan], portrait exM
bited, ii, 505.
Yorke, Philip [1755 Feb]
Young, Edw, author of ' Night Thoughts,'
i, 1.3.

Zamperini, La, opera-singer, " CeccMna,"
sitting to Reynolds, i, 271, 272. Her
" rascally garlicky tribe," 272 mote.
Zoffany, Johan, i, 167. His character
portraits of Garrick, 204. 223. 250. 359.
His picture of the Academicians, 446,
447. Occasion of a great loss to Mm,
448. A favourite with the king, ii,
24. 219. 308. Criticized by Walpole,
124. 127. Subject of Ms 'Tribune of
Florence,' 292. A critical sneer, 438.
See i, 443. ti, 363. 371. 409.
Zuccarelli, Francesco, Italian pamter, i,
47. Settled M England, 281. 317. 446.
Dead, 548.
ZuccM, Antomo, elected A.R.A, i, 370.

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