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TO FINE ARTS UBRAR»
HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
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Unitown wttii Ihto Vctome
GAINSBOROUGH
ADD
HIS PLACE n ENOLISH AKT
SIR VALTER ARHSTROTf G
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THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
Natiinial GatUry
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SIR JOSHUA
REYNOLDS
FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL
ACADEMY * BY SIR WALTER
ARMSTRONG
WITH FIFTY.TWO PLATES
[POPULAR EDITION]
New York: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Lokdoh: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
KDCCCCT
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'A H 1 rn- I. n
/^HARVARD \
" lUNIVERSITYl
I LIBRARY I
AH rigiit Ttttrwd
mated la Oraa Briulit
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
\HE aim of this book is to g^re a con-
' dse account of Sir Joshua's career, as
I recorded in his numerous Mographies
and in the series of his works, and to
I express opinions on his art and writings.
' If my estimate of his character is found
to differ in essential points from that usually accepted, I
can only say that it has been formed after a very careful
weighing of the evidence. It is my conviction that from
the first it has been the custom to r^ard Reynolds
through an atmosphere of idealisation created byenthu^asm
for his art. If this monograph possesses any originality,
it is that I have endeavoured to paint the great artist as
a conMstent human being, even although the result may
be to set him on a plane somewhat difirent from that
chosen by some previous writers.
I have to express my warmest thanks to those pro-
prietors of Sir Joshua's pictures who have given fadlities
for thor reproduction.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
CONTENTS
L 1733-1753 I
II. 1753-1768 34
III. i768-i;;69 59
IV. 1769-1773 78
V. 1773-1778 100
VI. 177S-1783 117
vn. 1784-1799 ist
VIIL Sn JosRDA's CnuucTBK A8 A Kan . - ... 185
IX. Thb Abt or Rbtmolos igi
X. &K JlMHDA AS A WKITBK AMD ThBOSMT . . 313
Ihdsz art
:„Goo<ifc
jyGooi^lc
ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTOGRAVURES
Tbo Age of Innocence
Mrs. Braddyl .
UaaterHare
Admiral Keppel
The HlsMS Horoeck .
Tlte Stnwbetiy Girl .
Portrait of a. Lady .
The In&nt Johnson .
lira. Ablngttm as Roialana
Angels' Heada .
Portraita of two Gentlemei)
NeUto O'Brien .
. NatfOHtU GailMy
. WaOaeeGatUry
. LUmd Pkillipi .
. S»twuU Portrait GiMtry .
. Sir Hmry Bunbitry, Bart.
. Watlaa Galkry
. {Vnlmmn)
. Tht Uarjiutt ^ LtmtdowM
. DiAttfFife .
, NoHomU GatUty
. hariCarytfort.
HALF-TONES
Sr Joehna Reynolds . . Evrl of Cnmt .
UiB. M^ilck .... Oi^ord Uniotrrify GaUery
Edmund Bnrke . . . tin. Kay Mvt Miu Drummond
Penelope Boothby ("Ttn Mob
Cap") ltn.Tkwaita .
Lady Maiy O'Brien ...
Lady Caroline Price . . . Sir JtMta Wtmktr, Bart.
Lavinia, Coonteae fencer , Earl Spotctr, K.G. .
Lavinia, Conntess Spencer, with
her son, Vieconnt Altborp . ,i » - ■ <
Hon. Ann Bingham ... „ » > .
A^sooont Althorp .> » . .
ix b
oyGoo»:^Ic
ILLUSTRATIONS
Hon. LavlnU Blagfaam, after-
wards Couatess Spencei
Visconnt Altborp
William Robert, Second Dnke
ofL^nster ....
White, the Pavioar, with a
beard
The DncheBS of Devoneliite
Ladies Decorating a Term of
HTmen
Study from White the Paviour .
Lady CodcbniQ and her Cbll-
dren . . . ' .
Sit Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. .
Lady Bampfylde
Master Ccewe ....
The Viscountess Crosble .
Uaster Bunbury
The Ladies Waldegrave .
Charles James Fox .
Dr. Jobosoa ....
Nymph (" Venus") and Piping
Boy
Duchess of Devonshire and her
Danghter ....
Mrs. William Hope ,
Emma and Elizabeth- Crewe
Sir Joshua Reynolds . . .
Harchioneas of Tavistock . .
Kitty Fisher . . . .
Nelly O'Brien ....
Lady Sarah Bonbory Sacrificing
to the Graces ....
Laurence Sterne
Portraits of two Gentlemen
Mrs. Hardinge ....
The Duke and Duchess of
Hamilton ....
The Marquess of Bath, K.G. .
Earl SPtmtr, K.G.
EarlofCrtme .
Earl Spenctr, K.G.
Natimtii GaUtry
Earl <if Crtme .
Alfrti Btit, Eiq.
The Royal Academy
A^ed de Rothschild,
EarlofCnw .
Sir Charla Ttnnaiil,
Sir Henry Bunbury
Mrt. Thvaitet .
Earl of Leicester, K.G.
Mrs. Kay and Miss Drummond
Sir CiOhlmt QuUter, Bart., M.P.
Dili* of Devonshire, K.G.
Esq.
Bart.
Earl of Crewe .
Mrs. Kay and Miss Drummond,
L. Raphael, Esq.
Earl of Crewe .
WaOace CoUtclion .
Sir Henry Bttnbnry, Bart.
Marqii*u of Lrnnsiowne, K.G.
National Gallery
Marquess of CUmrikarde .
The Lord Iveagh, K.P. .
National Portrait Galltty .
:„Gooq^\c
Dtar Knight of Pfymfltm teach me how
To tufftr with unclouded brow
And smile tertne at thint.
The jest uncouth and truth sever*;
ZJke thee to iuru my dea/ett ear,
And calmly drini my wine.
Thou io^st not only thill isgaiwd.
But gutius too may be attained
By ttudiovt invitation ;
Thy temper mild, fl^ genius fine,
rU ttudy till I make them mine
By oOTUfaiit meditation.
DsAN Baknard.
Of Remolds all good should be tatd, and no harm,
Though the heart is too frigid, the pencil too tearm;
Yet each fault from his converse we still mutt disclaim.
At his temper 'tit peaceful, and pure at his fame.
Nothing in it o'erjlowt, nothing ever is wanting;
It nor chillt lihe hit kindnett, nor glows like his painting,
WhenJt^Hton by tlrength overpowers our mind.
When Montagu daixUs, and Burke strikes us bUnd,
To Reynoldt well pleased for reli^ we must run,
tt^oice in his shadow, and shrink from the sun.
Mrs. Thkai^
Here Reynolds m laid, and, to tell you my mind.
He hat not left a wtter or better behind.
His pencil was striking, resiiflest, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ;
Smi bom to improve us in every Part,
His pencil our faces, kis marmert our heart.
To coxcombs avtru, yet most civilly steering ;
When tk^ judged without skill he was stiil hard of hearing;
When thty talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff.
He shifted hit trumpet, and only look sn^ff.
By flattery unspoiled. . . .
GOLMUtTH.
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jyGooi^lc
CHAPTER I
1723—1752
^IR JOSHUA REYNOLDS was born at
Plympton Eail, in DevonsMre, on the
6lh of July, 1723. His father, the Rev.
Samuel Reynolds, was the Master of
Plympton Grammar School, an institu-
tion founded in the last years of the
Commonwealth by the famous and long-lived Sergeant
Maynard, who may, in one important particular, be
considered a prototype of Sir Joshua himself. Samuel
Reynolds was a scholar of a kind by no means rare in
pre-railway days. He was educated at Oxford, where
he matriculated at Exeter CoU^ in 1698. He after-
wards became a scholar of Corpus, froni which Collc^
he took his B.A. degree in 1702 ; white in 1705 he was
elected Chaplain-fellow — Socius perpetuus sacerdotalU —
of Balliol. He was, we are told with perhaps a alight
touch of exa^eration, as guileless and ignorant of the
world as a child, and so absent-minded that he was likened
by his friends to Fielding's "Parson Adams." The few
letters and anecdotes which have come down to us all
show him in the same light, as a Idndly, simple-hearted
man, with very good bnuns nevertheless. His wife was
one Theophila Potter, daughter of a parson and another
Theophila, nie Baker. The history of this latter couple
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
is somewhat of 3 tragedy. They married ^'inst the
will of the lady's father, the Rev. Thomas Baker, who
held a living at South Moulton, and had woa distinction
as a mathematician. Mr. Baker never forgave his daughter,
and forgot her in his will ; her husband died after a few
years of marriage, when, says tradition, she literally cned
her eyes out^ and then crept after him into the grave.
The younger Theophila was almost a child when she be-
came the wife of Samuel Reynolds. Nothing is known
of her beyond a few incidental mentions in letters, which
seem to indicate that she was a woman of some ability.*
From Sir Joshua himself we derive scarcely any knowledge
of his &mily. He was one of those people who do not
occupy themselves much with the absent, although affec-
tionate to those about them. We have therefore to depend
for nearly all our information upon anecdotes collected by
his admirers after he had become famous. From such
evidence it is that we know the home at Plympton to
have been happy, and the life of Sir Joshua to have begun
with the placidity which marked it to the end. His
father's means were not small for his day and station.
He is s^d to have had a stipend of ;£i30 per annum and
a free house, which would go as far, perhaps, as j£5oo a
year would now. His family, indeed, was large. Accounts
differ as to the exact number of children with which his
union with Theophila was blessed : Northcote says eleven ;
Cotton " ten or eleven," but gives a list of eleven ; while
another authority makes it twelve. But all accounts agree
that the number had been reduced to six during the
father's lifetime, and there is no reason to suppose that
the modest amMdons with which these six began life were
ever thwarted for want of means. Only three were sons ; one
became a lieutenant in the navy, the second an iron-monger
* tiCtlk and Taylor.
oyGoO»:^Ic
PARENTAGE
in Exeter, the third stepped practically withont a struggle
into the front rank of the most hazardous of all professions.
According to one authority, Samuel Reynolds dabbled
in astrology, and used to spend '* many hours on the top
of the old castle at Flympton studying the stars." He
amused himself— let us say — with casting nativities, and
on one occasion lit upon the starding discovery that the
tife of a newly-born child was menaced by a great danger
in its fifth year. The child, a girl, was guarded with the
greatest solicitude, and as the fateful hour approached
was not even allowed to leave the house. But the ^ars
were inexorable. When the foretold date arrived, the
little girl — another Theopbila — was dropped out of an up-
stairs window from the arms of a careless nurse, and
killed. This latter part of the story is corroborated by
Northcote. Whether true or not, these astrological asper-
uons are consistent with what we know of the painter's
father. We may assert, without much diffidence, that bis
children spent a happy youth, with parents who exerdsed
the Idnd of supervision wluch means leadership rather thui
control, and that the worst reproach they could have
brought agunst Samuel Reynolds was for a certain slack-
ness in stirring up their youthful ambitions.
The blame cast upon him by one at least of Sir Joshua's
biographers for neglecting his son's education, does not
seem to have been deserved. Reynolds had little oppor-
tunity for self'Culture after his career in art had once
b^un. And yet he was, at least, a fair Latin scholar ; he
could write his own language agreeably, and \nth some
approach to correctness ; and the whole tenour of his inter-
course in af^r years with the most brilliant men of his
time, goes to show that he met them as an equal in matters
of the intellect. Various stories are told by his bit^raphers
to illustrate his father's aspect towards the nascent artistic
3
:„Goo<ifc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
feeling. Undo* a drawing m perspective, still extant, of
a wall pierced by a window, made on the back of a Latin
exerdse, Samuel Reynolds has written, " This is drawn by
Joshua in school out of pure idleness." But it gradually
dawned upon the good dominie that pure idleness was an
insufficient explanation, and to a later drawing, in which,
mth the help of the "Jesuit's Perspective," Joshua
wrestled successfully with the difficulties of the colonnade,
or cloister, on which Plympton school-house was supported,
he appended this note : " Now this exempUfies what the
author of the ' Per^>ective * asserts in his preface, that,
by observing the rules laid down in this book, a man may
do wonders ; f<x this is wonderful" His tolerance, too,
of " art " is shown in the leave granted to Joshua and his
usters to draw with burnt sticks on the whitewashed
passages of the house. On the whole, it is reasonable to
conclude that Samuel Reynolds gave his children such an
education as befitted his class and means ; it is cerbun that
he kept an open mind as to their bestowal in life, and did
not fidl into the common parental error of fixing on a hole
before he knew the shape of the peg.
It was not until Joshua was seventeen that his dthex
todc steps to find him a profesuon. He was then ofiered
his choice between art and medicine, between becoming a
painter or a country apothecary. Characteristically enough,
he said he would rather follow medicine than become an
" ordinary " painter, but that his choice would be reversed
if his feet could be set upon a path which might lead to
excellence. To us the phrase " ordinary punter " seems a
strange one to use. We are accustomed to think of punting
in either a very humble or a very high portion, as devoted
either to the protection of wood and iron, or to the pro-
duction of pictures which may turn out candidates for
immortality. But in the days of Reynolds, and for a
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Eakl of Ckbwb
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
EDUCATION
century aftermu'ds, there was an intermediate industry^
busied with the countless demands now fulfilled by the
processes depending on the camera. Even in 1740 Ply-
mouth could, no doubt, afFord such an education as one
of these " ordinary painters '* would require. But Joshua's
ambitions would by no means be satisfied with thaL He
would go to London and be trained under the best master
to be found, or he would be content with the status of a
coiutry leech. His ideas had been enlarged, we are told,
by reading the works of Jonathan Richardson, a writer and
punter whose doings with pen and brush are even now
too little esteemed. A horizon which Joshua's unas>
sbted vision could never have discovered from Ptympton
was opened to him by Richardson, and from the moment
that the book fdl into his hands his hncy was no doubt at
work on the possibilities of an artist in the great world
outside. His father, more impressed, probably, by the
trompe Coil qualities of his "perspectives" than by his
kindling enthuuasm, does not seem to have been difficult
to persuade. He took measures to have the boy ^pren-
ticed to the most successful portnut punter of the moment,
Thomas Hudson. The choice of Hudson, when Hogarth
was in his prime, requires, perhaps, a word of justification.
It was mainly due, no doubt, to the mere fact that
Hudson was a Devon man and introduction therefore
easy, but we must not fo^t that Joshua had already shown
a real capacity for portr^ture. While still scarcely in his
teens he had contrived, under great difficulties, to fx-oduce
a portrait of a certun Rev. Thomas Smart, a tutor tn the
Edgciunbe family. It was panted on an old sail, with
ship's paint, and is still in existence. Rough as it is, it
has character and vitality. Probably, too, it was like
the sitter, and so we need feel no surprise that its hint of
a vocation was preferred to that given by the more
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
** terrific subjects " which the boy used to extract from the
Book of Emblems of Jacob Cats, brought from Holland hj
his great^randmotber, a Dutchwoman.
Thomas Hudson used to pay periodical vi^ts to
Bideford. In that town Samuel Reynolds had a friend,
an attorney called CutcUff«. Leslie and Taylor print a
series of letters from Reynolds to CutcUfie, from which it
appears that through the latter's good offices, Hudson and
young Joshua were brought tc^ether. In the end the
painter agreed to take the lad as his i^>prentice for four
years in consideration of a premium of ^^ito. Joshtu
arrived in London on the 13th October, 1740, and pending
the return of Hudson from '* the Bath," took up his abode
with his own uncle, the Rev. John Reynolds, who, by the
way, was a fellow of Eton, The whole affiur, judg^g by
the letters printed by Leslie and Taylor, was conducted
with a good feeling on the part of Cutclifie and Hudson,
and with a amplidty of gratitude on the side of Reynolds,
senior, which is full of charm. In a letter dated 26th
October, 1 740, the latter says to Cutdifle : ** 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, uneiqiected manner to a
miracle. Nor can I see that if Mr. Treby* had many
children, an apprendceship under such a master would
have been below some one of his sons. As if a piece of
good fortune had already actually be&llen my ^ily, it
seems to me I see the good eflfects of it already in scHoe
persons* behaviour. This is my letter of thanks to you
for what you have done .... (Joshua) has behaved him-
self mighty well in this afikir, and done lus duty on his
part, which gives me much more concem in his behalf
than I should otherwise have had. Sec." As for the
• " Tie great man of Plympton," lay Leilie ind Taylor.
6
oyGoO»:^Ic
APPRENTICESHIP
premium of j^i20 : "I have," says Samuel Reynolds m a
letter to Cutdiffe at the end of 1740, " in a manner one
half of the money already provided, if it please God I live
so [ong as to the end of these four years " ; the other ;^6o
was advanced by his eldest married daughter, Mary
Palmer, until Joshua himself should be able to repay it
Fornearlytwoyears Joshua worked under Hudson. In
a letter to Cutclific, dated 3rd August, 1742, his father
writes : *' As for Joshua, nobody, by his letter to me, was
ever better pleased in lus employment, in his master, in
everything — * While I am doing this I am the hap^Hcst
creature alive ' is lus expression. How he goes on ('tis
[dun he tlunks he goes on very well) you'll be better able
to inform me. I do not forget to whom I owe all this
happiness, and I hope he will not ^ther." Besides the
ordinary services which it was usual for an apprentice
to render to a master, Joshua worked, by Hudson's
advice, at copying such " old masters " as he could reach.
Among these were certain drawings by Guercino, which
be is said to have reproduced with such skill that most
of his copies afterwards passed as originals into the cabinets
of collectors, and no doubt still so figure in many s
modern museum.
The tnographers of Reynolds have been unjust to his
first master. They have spoken of his art with a contempt
which it scarcely deserves, and have assumed that his
teaching could have had no value for his pupil. The fact
is that Hudson, in common with every English painter of
the last century, except perhaps Hogarth, Gainsborough,
and Sir Joshua himself, has suffisred in reputation through
the general ignorance of his work, and the acceptance of
the slapdash generalisations about English painting which
used to- be indulged in by foreign critics. Another thing
which has robbed him of his proper place, is the perplexity
7
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
into which any one who tries to take him a little seriously
is thrown by his promiscuous use of drapery men.
Reynolds, in afiter years, was to depend on such aides as
much as any English painter has ever done ; but he con-
trived to imbue them mth his own spirit, so that, as a
rule, we find no startling dislocation between their work
and his own. It was otherwise with his master. Accord-
ing to an anecdote, to which we shall have presently to
recur, Hudson was in the habit of punting a head upon a
canvas, and then sending it off to the drapery man to be
provided with a body and clothes. The result of such
proceedings was what might have been expected. We find
an extraordinary diversity, in kind as well as in, quality,
between one portrait and another. The National Gallery has
a three-quarter length of Samuel Scott, the marine pwnter,
which is at least as good as an early Reynolds. It is well
arranged, well drawn, pleasant in colour, and quite free
from hardness. On the other hand, I could point to many
portnuts which are cold and dry, and metallic in their
texture. Of these, a three-quarter length of Lady
Mountrath, in the Irish National Gallery, is a very favour-
able example. Again, there is a whole series of portraits
by Hudson which, though hard in texture and defident in
movement, show a de^re for elegance in the pose, and for
such prettinesses as can be won by a j udidous use of ribbons,
flowers, and so on. Many of these are ascribed to Allan
Ramsay, ^om whose authentic works they are to be easily
distinguished by their more positive colour and compara-
tive heaviness of hand. Hudson's drawings, which are
not very scarce, although they usually pass under other
names, seem to show that of the three classes here
indicated, the third is that in which his own hand is chiefly
to be recognised. Assunung that I am right in this, we
may safely reject a large number of the outrageously stifi;
8
oyGoo»:^Ic
RUPTURE WITH HUDSON
dry, and lU-drawn portraits to which his name has been
so glibly attached during the last century or so. Judging
by the pictures which can be safely identified as his, on
the strength of dramngs, contemporary engravings, and
other trustworthy evidence, Hudson was a fair draughts-
man — as draughtsmen go in this country — a sound and
skilfiil punter, and, as a rule, an inoffensive colourist. As
a master, he was to Reynolds what Hayman was to Guns-
borough. He brought, indeed, no inspiration to his pupil,
but he started him on the right path as a technical painter,
putting into his hands an instrument which he could after-
wards use to realise hisown more ambitious lesthetic dreams.*
After some twenty-two months in statu pupiUari^
Reynolds left his master's house, and his indentures were
cancelled. Various explanations have been given of this
truncation of his apprenticeship. Most, if not all, of the
writers on Sir Joshua have accepted the tradition that it
was a case of Titian and Tmtoretto over again ; and yet
all the real evidence on the point goes to negative any
such idea. Farington, indeed, gives a circumstantial
account of the quarrel — for so he makes it — but his
statement seems inconsistent with what we know of the
subsequent relations of the parties. His story is that
Hudson became alarmed at the rapid progress of his
scholar, and determined to rid himself of one who might
become a dangerous rival. One day he told him to take
a canvas, on which the head had been painted, to Van
Haaken, the drapery man, to be provided with a body.
The evening was vet, and Joshua put ofF obedience until
the following morning. At breakfast Hudson asked him
* Many pictures Hcribed to Hudson In English conntiy honsei and
elMwhere are the work of Jeremiah DaTison, a pnpil of Ldy, who had
a large practice in London and Edinburgh in the first hslf of the
eighteenth century. Important signed pictures by him are at Dal-
mahoy, Midlothian, and at DriTton Park, Northamptonshire.
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
why the canvas had not been taken ; Joshua pleaded the
run. " You have not obeyed my orders," said Hudson,
" and you ^all not stay in my house." Reynolds asked
for delay, in order to write explanations to his &ther, who
might otherwise misunderstand the incident. But Hudson
would not listen to reason, and Joshua had to take him-
self off the same day to his uncle's chambers in the
Temple. It seems clear that if this were the whole truth
of the matter, the relations between Hudson and the
Reynolds family must have become strained for a time, even
if they did not remain so permanently. But nothing of the
sort occurred. On the 19th of August, 1743, that iswithin
a few days of the rupture, we find Reynolds senior writing
to his friend Cutdiffe : " As to Jo^ua's afiair, he will
give you a full account of it when he wuts upon you, as
he de»gns to do, and will be gtad to present you with
yotu* picture, who have been so good a benefactor to him.
... I have not meddled with Joshua's affairs hitherto,
any otherwise than by writing a letter to Joshua, which
never came to hand, and which I intended as an answer
both to his letter and to his maker'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 Mthcr parfy. In the meantime, I bless God
and Mr. Hudson, and you, for the extreme success that
has attended Joshua hitherto." It was the same with
Joshua himself. He and his master remained good
friends, even in those after years when the latter might
have been excused for some little chagrin and jealousy.
From the very guarded letter just quoted we may,
perhaps, infer that Hudson's account of the difference
did not agree with the version given by his pupil, and
that the elder Reynolds declined to commit himself to a
oyGoo»:^Ic
MRS. MEVKICK
Oxford Univeb'htv Galleky
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
RETURN TO DEVONSHIRE
deoMon between the two. Further than that we cannot
see our way, and must come to the (inclusion that the
real cause of Joshua's premature emancipation remains
unknown. Judging by results, it took place exactly at
the right time. He had learnt all that Hudson had to
teach, and was induced to test its value at an age when
neither future nor success could do much harm. He
returned at once to Devonshire, and accepted all the orders
for portraits which came in his way. His industry must
have been great In a letter dated 3rd of January, 1744,
only five months after the rupture with Hudson, his
Ather tells Cutdiffe that he has already painted twenty
portraits — " among them that of the greatest man in the
place, the Commissioner of the Dockyard " — and that ten
more are awuting commencement.
How long he stayed in Devonshire on this occauon we
have no means of finding out ; but we know that before
the end of the year he was agun in London. Leslie and
Taylor print quotations fi-om his father's letters, which
show that early in December Joshua had already been
introduced by his old master, Hudson, to " a club com-
posed of the most famous men in their profession," a club
idendcal, suggests Tom Taylor, with that described in
Smith's " NoUekens " (vol. ii. p. 209), which met at
Slaughter's Coffee House, in St. Martin's Lane. Many
of the pictures dating feim this first sojourn in his native
place can still be traced. They are essentially Hudsonian,
and go ^ to prove that it was not until his second visit
to Plymouth that he came under the influence which was
to make the first important change in his practice, and was
to be the cause at once of much excellence and no little
disaster to his works. To this p(»nt we must return pre-
sently. During the two years or more which Reynolds
^nC in London, between the autumn of 1744 and that
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
of 1746, the influence of Hudson rapidly waned. The
pupil and his former master were excellent friends ; of
that there is abundant evidence ; but familiarity with a
wider circle of artists, lus own gromng facility both of hand
and mind, and a more intimate acquuntance, no doubt,
with the great works of the past, gave a new freedom to
his conceptions and less timidity to his brush. Pictures
pwited in 1745 and 1746 show that he was seeking for
new forms of expression. They betray impatience with
the old conventions, and leave us in no doubt that for
every fresh sitter who appeared in his studio he endea-
voured to invent a new formula, a new esthetic equivalent.
The originative impulse, the determination to repeat
himself as tittle as was consistent with sincerity, by which
Reynolds stands apart from all other portrait-painters of
the agbteenth century, dates from these first two years of
his independent activity in London, from a time when he
was still under twenty-three years of age.
Towards the end of 1 746, Samuel Reynolds was seized
by his last illness, which ended in his death on Christmas
Day. His son Joshua was summoned home to Plympton,
whence, after the funeral, he moved to Plymouth Dock —
now Devonport — ^where he set up house-keeping with hu
two unmarried sisters. Here he remained about three
years, painting such portraits as came in his way, but on
the whole taking life easily, at least for a time. Malone
— who seems, however, to be here a little mixed in his
chronology — says that when Reynolds recalled this period
of his life, *' he always spoke of it as so much time thrown
away, so ^ as related to a knowledge of the world and
of mankind, of which he ever afterwards lamented the
loss." He goes on to say that " after some httle dissipa-
tion " Reynolds sat down seriously to the study and practice
oyGoo»:^Ic
GANDY OF EXETER
of hia art. Leslie and Taylor also speak of the first part
of this second stay in Deronshire as a period during which
he neglected his easel for the only time in his life. How-
ever that may be, it was certunly at this time that he came
under an influence which was to have a profound effect on
his future practice.
Among the many followers of Van Dyck was a certain
William Gandy.* He was a man of narrow ambitions,
who was content during most of his Hfe to work for one
or two patrons, and to remain obscure to the world at
large. The Duke of Ormonde was his principal employer,
and in Ireland only are his works now to be found. They
are dry and tame, and by no means support the assertion
that his pictures were sometimes confined with those of
Van Dyck. He had a son, however, of greater powers
than Us own, who setded in Devonshire, and came to
be known as Gandy of Exeter. His productions are
probably not rare, for he had a vt^e in his own neigh-
bourhood, and must have painted many portruts in
a year to make a living at the prices then ruling in the
provinces. Most of his works no doubt pass under
other names, or as " unknown." In Exeter itself a few
may be seen in the College Hall, in the Ho3|Mtal, and in
the Poor-house. In a general way they are broad in
treatment, sombre and monotonous in colour, richer in
texture than was usual at the time, and more forcible in
chiaroscuro. They have affinities on the one hand ^th
Rembrandt, on the other with Opie. All Sir Joshua's
tuc^aphers declare that he was much affixted by Gandy's
example, and there can be no doubt that a young man with
such an open mind as we know young Reynolds to have
possessed, would be much attracted, not perhaps so
* Born 1619. Hii Km, Ouxdy of Exeter, died about 1730. The
exact date it uncertain.
>3
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
much by Gaudy's actual work, as by the pronuse fus
methods held out to a bold disciple. It is cert^n that
during the period of rather more than two years which
elapsed between his father's death and his own final de-
parture from his native county, he punted many pictures
in which Hudson's dry methods and formal arrangements
are abandon»l for a style which suggests the study of
Rembrandt. One of the best of these is his own por-
trait, in the National Portrait Gallery, in which he is
represented at work, his hand shading his eyes as he
takes a look at the model. I must leave all detuled dis-
cussion of his pictures and the development of his art to
fiiture chapters, but may here point out that Reyn<rfd8
could have had little knowledge of Rembrandt at this
stage in his career. The tM-oader conception, the more
forcible light and shade, and the more solid texture, which
now begin to mark lus work, must have been chiefly due
to the example of Gandy. We are told that one of die
latter's axioms was that " a |Hcture ought to have a rich-
ness in its texture, as if the colours had been composed of
cream or cheese, and the reverse of a hard and husky or
dry maimer." In the light of his after productions, we
can imagine what an effect such a precept would have on
our young painter's mind. It would seem like taking
down the shutter from a window opening upon an infinite
landscape, and was probably the first hint he ever received
that the texture of punt could in itself be made repressive
and pleasure-giving. That he was afterwards so apt to
out-Gandy Gandy, and to call in all kinds of strange
substances to produce the effect of " cream or cheese,"
is, of course, to be lamented ; but for that the Exeter
artist is not responsible. He at least deserves the credit
of havii^ started a great painter on the road which led to
masterpieces not a few.
H
:„Goo<ifc
VOYAGE WITH KEPPEL
For some tvo years and a half Reynolds kept house at
Hymouth Dock Trith Ms ustets, and cultivated his friend-
ship with the Edgcumbes at Mount Edgcumbe, the Parkers
at Saltnm, the Eliots at Port Eliot, and other West of
EngLuid fiunilies, who were as usefiil as they were kind
to him for the rest of his life. A ded^ve change in his
career was brought about by an acquaintanceship which
began at Mount Edgcumbe. In the first months of 1749
the young sulor who was afterwards to be so famous and
to lead to so much excitement in Sir Joshua's own set as
Admiral Keppel, was appointed to the command in the
Mediterranean, and entrusted with a mission to the corsur
States on the North African Coast. At that time Keppel
was littie more than a boy. He had not yet completed
his twenty-fourth year, and so was even junior to Reynolds.
He sailed from Spithead on the 25th of April, but a day
<x two later was obliged to put in to Plymouth for repairs.
Here he was introduced to the young painter by Lord
Edgcumbe, and the two found themselves so sympathetic
that the Commodore ofiered to take the artist with him
totheSouth. Suchanopportunitywasnottobe neglected.
Reynolds accepted the invitation with joy, and on the 1 ith
of May H.M.S. Centurion weighed anchor for Lisbon,
irith the two very new but already very close friends on
board.
In the Mediterranean Keppel went about his business,
bong sometimes accompanied by Reynolds, and sometimes
not. The punter stayed at Gibraltar while Keppel
crossed over to Tetuan, to harry the Moorish Governor
on account of his ill-treatment of the British Consul and
some English prisoners ; on the other hand, he went with
him to Algiers, and was present at the famous interview
when the Dey tlireatened the Commodore with the bow-
string, and the Commodore refdied with a menace which
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
was to be fulfilled sixty years later by Pellew. Negotiat-
ing with the Dey was a very long buuness, and while the
palavers were going on, Reynolds amused himself by
ri»ting the Mediterranean Islands. In August he was at
Fort Mahon, as the guest of General Blakeney, the
Governor, and there he punted most of the officers of the
garrison. Minorca was to mark him for life, for while
prowhng about on horseback he met with the accident
which dnfigured his upper lip. His horse fell with him
down some steep declivity, dmng dam;^e the traces of
which are to be seen in most of the later portraits.*
During his entertainment by K^pel, Reynolds viuted
Lisbon and Cadiz, as well as the Moorish ports. At both
of those places he was present at what he calls " Bull feasts,"
and seems to have had no premonition of our modern
horror of such brutal sports. In Lisbon, of course, the
display would be comparatively mild, and the incongruity
of coupling it with the Corpus ChrisH procession would
not seem great ; but in Cadiz he would have to face the
real Spanish article, and yet he appears to have felt no
need for moralising. Perhaps he had seen buII-baiting
at home. All this we know from a curious letter to Lord
Edgcumbe, quoted by Leslie and Taylor, in which, among
much of the formal humility then de rigueur from an artist
to an3rthing in the shape of a patron, we find ^ns of
genuine gratitude to Lord Edgcumbe for the introduction
* Wm. Carpenter, keeper of tke Prints in the British Mnsenm, teenw
to hsTc persuaded Leilie that Re}'iK>lds* earlj portrait of Himielf now in
the National Portrait Gallery moit have been painted after hit MiiUMra
accident, on account of the peculiar form of the upper lip. I think he
was mistaken. The cnrionity ritnuiii lip seems to have been natural ;
in later portraits there is a decided scar. In this picture Reynolds looks
too }^ung for twenty-six, and the conception belongs to the time when
he was influenced by Gandy, rather than to the yean when he was
inrrounded by the Italian masters.
i6
oyGoo»:^Ic
EDMUND BURKE
. Kay ani> Mtss Djiumm
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
ROME
to Keppel, and to Kqipel for his liberal and delicate hos-
pitality. The letter is undated, but it must have been
written shortly after Reynolds had left the CenturioH.
This he did in the late summer of 1749, in the first weeka
of his twenty-seventh year. He landed at Leghorn and
made his way straight to Rome. " I am at last in Rome,"
he writes to Lord Edgcumbe, " having seen many places
and sights which I never thought of seeing. I have been
at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Algiers and Mahon." This
seems to show conclusively that he was not even tempted
to step aside to Florence, but made his way as speedily
as he could to what was then called the capital of art.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Rome was at
its apt^ee as a place of pilgrimage. Travellers of every
kind^-except, indeed, the commercial variety — made it
their goal. Before reaching it they were on their way out ;
after leaving it they were on thrir way home, even when
the route Jay through Constantinople or '* Grand Cairo."
All the more ambitious artists of Europe made a p<Hnt of
seeing it, some for the sake of what it could teach, others,
like Hudson, for the mere purpose of being aUe to say
they had been there. As for travelling dilettante with
money in their pockets, the city was full of them, and a
man like Reynolds, with good introductions and a pleasant
personality, could make enough iriends in a winter to last
him a lifetime. From what we know of his habits and
character, we cannot doubt that socially he made the best
pos^ble use of his two years in the Eternal City, and that
many connections of his after life there had their origin.
Some curious relics of this side of his activity have come
down to us in a set of what he called " caricaturas." These
are groups of more or less grotesque portruts of English
and other travellers, in which personal peculiarities and
oyGoo»:^lc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
defects are exaggerated in a fa^ioa recalling the charges
of Leonardo da Vincu Seven of these arc still in existence,
although Sir Joshua is sjud to have been so ashamed of
them in after years that he used to offisr in exchange any
pcture in his studio thar owners chose to select. Four
have been presented to the National Gallery of Ireland by
the Countess of Milltown. These include the most im-
portant of the whole series, the fiunous burlesque on
Raphael's " School of Athens." Here, on a canvas some
50 inches by 40, Reynolds has pwnted seventy-two por-
traits of his friends in Rome and one of himself, eking out
the composition with a few " idea figures," as he calls
them. The background is nmilar to that of the fresco,
and the disposidon of the figures follows the same model
mth tolerable fidelity. Technically, the picture — Uke the
rest of the series — is better than most of his later works.
It is painted solidly, and with entire umplicity, so much so
that at the first glance one is tempted to cry, " That's not
a Sir Joshua : it is too fresh ; its condidon is too perfect."
It shows, in fiu:t, no »gn of change. It is without cracks,
and without darkening anywhere. It has been painted
rapidly, freely, and at once. Solicitude is not always good
for a picture. Here Reynolds felt none, and produced an
excellent bit of punting ; that is about all, however, that
can be s^d for it. The fiin is of a very ob^ous kind :
exaggerated noses, calves, stomachs, and so on ; reminding
one not of the late lamented Pellegrini, but of certun
other cartoonists who have attempted to draw his
bow.*
' TLe perioiu represented la thii bnileiqae >re : Mr. Henij (of
Stnfiin, Kildaie), Mr. Leeson, junr.. Lord Brace, Mr. Muwell, Mr.
]>eioii, (cnr, (afterwirdi Earl of Milltown), Mi. Barrett, Mr. Patch,
Mr. VirepUe, Sir William Lowther, Dr. Erwin, Mr. Bagot, the Abbi
dn Boil, Mr. Brettingham, Mr. Muifey, Mi. Sterling, Mr. Iremonger,
Sii Matthew Feathentone, I<ord Charlemont, Mr. Fhelpi, Sir Thomai
18
oyGoO»:^Ic
ROME
Reynolds painted his version of the Schoc^ of Athens
in 1751, nearly two years after bis arrival in Rome. The
use he had made of the intervening months, so far as his
studies were concerned, has to be conjectured from the
fragmentary memcH^nda in his pocket-books. One of
these * contuns the following entry :
** CopiM of pktnre* I made at Rome.
*' In the Villa Medici :—
** The Twe of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia.
** Is the Conini Palace s~
"April 16, is the sftenoon, 1750, Anno Jnbilet. — Stndj' of an old
man't head, leading, bf Rnbest.
"April 17 to 19. — ^A portrait of Philip II., Sing of Spain, bj
Titias.
" April 20. — Rembrandt') portrait of himielf.
"April 21 to 23. — St. Martino on honeback, giving the Devil, who
appeared to him in the thape of a be^atmas, a part of hi) cloak.—
Captain Blackqnier*) P. — An iM Beggannas. — My own pictnie,—
Jacomo't picture.
" Began Maj 30, finiihed Jnne 10, in the Church of Capochisi, St.
Michael, hy Guido. — A foot from my own.
"Jane 13. — The " Anrora" of Gnido, a iketch.
« Jnne 15.— Went to Tivoli.
■' Augnit 15. — Worked in the Vatican. I wa) let into the CapeUa
Si>tina in the morning, and remained there the whole day, a great part
oi which I )pent in walldng np and down it with great ielf>importance.
Paning throagh, on my return, the roonu of RaSaele, they appeared of
an inferior order,"
This entry contains all the direct evidence we have as
to how Reynolds made use of the opportunities for im-
proving his practice afforded by Rome. Taken blether
with the numerous critical notes which fill the Italian
pocket-books, it shows that his afiection, or at least his
judgment, was divided, as, in &:t, it remained throughout
Kennedy, and RcTnoIds himielf. The name) are taken from the pocket-
book of 1751.
' Now in the pouesiion of Mr. Reynolds Gwatldn.
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
his life. His originality — hy which I mean his power of
thinking independently — was not robust enough to enable
lum to stand up against the public opinion of his day, and
to declare, even to himself, that its ideab were ^se, and
that the works in which they were unbodied lacked that
quality of »ncerity without which art does not exist. He
heard on every side the [Vaises of the Carracd, of Guide,
of Guerdno, and the other facile punt-slingers of the
seventeenth century, and he bowed to what seemed to hira
to be authority. He blamed himself when he found that
thdr " Magdalens " and " Ecce Homos," and ** Auroras "
left him cold, and made attempts which are really pathetic,
to reason himself into admiration and to justify the worid
in its mistaken opinions. All through lus Italian note-
books we find repeated the curious deure to bridge an
unbridgable gulf which is suggestnl by his passage, in the
^ring of 1750, from Rubens, Titian, and Rembrandt, to
Guido. By this I do not mean to insinuate that a young
painter can learn nothing from Guido. On the contrary,
his best work has many admirable qualities from a technical
standpcnnt ; the young artist who could punt such a
heady for instance, as the *' Christ Crowned with Thorns,"
in the National Gallery, would at least be well equipped.
But it was not for these technical qualities that Reynolds
studied and admired the Bolognese. He professed to see
in thor work an embodiment of the abstract principles of
what he called the great style in art, and throughout his
life he cudgelled his brun for arguments to justify the
phrase.
That Reynolds the artist was alive from the first to the
charm of the tre~ and quattro-centisH is clear from the few
notes devoted to them in the pocket-books. These notes
are scanty indeed compared with the pages devoted to
Baroccio, Salviati, Guercino, etc. ; but th^ are significant.
oyGoo»:^Ic
MRS. BRADDYL
WaUace Gallery
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
FLORENCE
and show that it vas not through a defident sympathy
that he dwelt so little upon the early men, but through
excessive respect for the ideas of his time. '*The old
Gothic masters," he says, "as we call them, deserve the
attention of the student much more than many later artists ;
simplkitf and trutk bdng oftener found in the old masters
which preceded the great age of painting, than it ever Tras
in that age, and certainly much less unce.'* As a proof
of the mixed nature of his adnuration at this time, I
cannot do better than enumerate the {nctures of which
Reynolds took particular note in the Grand Duke's col-
lection at Florence, in the Palazzo Pitti. These were :—
** Charlei I. and Henrietta Maria," by Van Dyck.
"Lady in White Satiu," do.
"The Viigm and Bambino," "St. John Biptitt," and one in
aimouT, perhapt St. Gewge, with a little diUt in hit hand, by Coneggio,
in Bi first wumtr.
" Chriit with the font Evangeliitt," hj Fia Bartolommeo.
" God the Father above, in unall, holding Chrin on the Crott,"
" Six Salnti," large ai life, beneath ; Andrea del Sarto.
" Sahitation," by P. Veronese.
"Cain and AbeC" by Titian.
Third Room.
"Two Aunmptiona of the Virgin," with the Twelve Aponles
below. In one of them there ii a priest and a nun, besides the Apoitle*.
" St. Mark the Evangelitt,** by Banolommeo,
Sixth Room.
" Madonna della Sednia,'* 1^ Ra£aele.
" Holy Famify," viz., E^beth, Virgin Maiy, St. John Baptiit,
and another, perhaps St. Catherine, by RaSaele. {Madtna tUl
"The Yapa and C3iild, St. John, and St. Elizabeth," by Dei
Sarto.
"Chriit, St. Petei, and St. John in the Clondi,** four nJnti
beneath, by Annibale (fisrrdtn),
" The Retnirection of a dead penon by a Saint," by Gnerdno ; a
print by Bloemart.
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
*• Holy Fanuly," by Rnbem ; a print by Boltwert.
" Salutation," by Del Sarto.
" Abraham and the Barning Bnih," by Batuno.
Several others, but none coniiderable.
SCVXMTH Roou.
" Man and Vcnuj," by Rnbeni.
"Chariot" by Gnido.
" Cleopatra with the Asp," by Gaido.
••"nie Tribute Money," by Titian.
"ConTcrrion of St. Panl," by Titian.
."Elitha taken up to Heaven by Angela, a Bull, and a Lion," by
Raffaele (fisin ^ EztKtl).
**Hiitory of Jo»eph,*' by And, del Sarto.
" Holy Famity," by P. Veroneae.
Many fine Baasanot.
" The Mntes dancing," by Julio Ronuno.
" The Tree Destiniet," by M. Angelo.
"Holy Fami^," in small, neatly finiihed, by An. Canacci.
"Holy Family,'* by RaSaele {i Msdanna dil Gran Dko).
Fourth Room.
A copy, by Barocdo, of the bmons " Holy Family," by Correggio,
It Parma.
"A Deaoent from the Cion," by C^li.
" St. Sebutiano," by Utiaa.
"Maiy Magdalen," by Titian, with an immoue deal of hair, but
painted to the atmoit perfection.
" In a part not oaually shown, two large pictores by Rnbcni."
Such is his selection from what was, at the time, the
finest collection of fHctures in the world. It casts a strong
light backwards on what he had been doing in Rome,
and upon the line he had taken in steering between, or
rather in combining, the lines of his heart and head. In
attemptii^ to fuse into one the art which is passionate
and the art wluch substitutes machinery for pasuon, he
set out on a task he never abandoned to the end of lus
life, in spite of the qualms it must often have given
oyGoo»:^Ic
EARLY OPINIONS
That Reynolds was naturally a first-rate critic, even to
the extent of being able to antidpate the verdict of pos-
terity, b proved by his various descriptions of lus own
emotions in the presence of works of art. Unhappily he
£uled to estimate these emotions at their true value.
Instead of realising that they were better evidence in
favour of the things he was looking at than the conclusions
to which an imperfect reasoning process could bring him,
he crushed them down, and set himself resolutely to exalt
taste, skill, and obedience to arbitrary rules above the
power to create. His first impulsive feelings in the
Sistine Chapel and the Stanze of the Vatican, antidpated
exactly what we now not only feel but confess, after
another century of study and the more generous oppor<
tunities of knowledge given by modem conditions. " 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 Raffaele, they
appeared of an inferior order." This entry in one of his
ItaUan pocket-books would now be subscribed to by the
great mass of cultivated opinion ; but Reynolds was
perturbed by his sensations, and forty years after he had
turned his back on Rome we still find him struggling
laboriously to minimise a preference which was, in fact, a
proof of his fine capadty for art. Vacillations of taste
have always been the sceptic's opportunity. They seem
to justify his denial that definite judgments are possible in
artisric questions. It would be interesting to inquire how
far these vacillations have been more apparent than real,
and how far they have been due to causes similar to those
which drove Sir Joshua, as I believe, into arguing against
his own convictions. At all periods, even in the days of
Perides, the world has been troubled with the false ideals
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
forced upon it by those whom nature has endowed with an
abnormal capadty to make the worse seem the better cause.
The littirateurs who could find nothing more valuable to
tell us of Apelles, Parrhasius, and Zeuxis, than the futile
stories about lines, and grapes, and curtains, hare had a
liberal progeny. I suspect that the true history of (pinion
on these matters is that the real instinctive appreciations
of humanity are sound ; but that civilised roan, (Ustrustii^
instincts for which he can formulate no cause, forces him-
self into the acceptance of theories which seem to provide
him with reasons for admiration, and relieve him of the
humiliadon he feels at having to confess a strong prefer-
ence without bang able to justify it in words. Complete
knowledge, ag^n, takes him beyond this stage, and by
explwiing why great art afibrds a pleasure nothing else
can give, enables him to enjoy that pleasure without re*
serve. In illustradon of this, I may quote a curious
passage from the Palmer manuscripts, in which Reynolds
allows one to see the process of crushing art under its
machinery with unusual clearness : " Well-coloured |»c-
tures," he says, " are in more esteem and sell for higher
prices than in reason they appear to deserve, as colouring
is an excellence Afitffow/fi/^fi/ A) be of a lower rank* than the
qualiries of correctness, grace, and greatness of character.
But in this instance, as in many others, the partial view c^
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 draw-
ings, and but very faintly by copies."
Reynolds left Rome for Florence early in May, 1752.
He travelled by easy stages, sleeping often on the way.
Fc^gno, Assisi, Perugia, and Arezzo were among his
• My italic*.
oyGoO»:^Ic
PENELOPE BOOTIIBY ("THE MOIJ CAP")
Mrs. Thwaitiis
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
FLORENCE
halting fJaces. His note-books still bear witness to what
I venture to call his pumped up preference for the shallow
art of the seventeenth century. At Perugia and Arezzo
he ignores Giotto, passes by Perugino with a note — ** An
infinite number of his pnctures about Perugia" — and
concentrates his praise upon Baroccio and — of all people in
the world — Vasari I On his doings in Finance I need
not dwell. The list of things he <* starred " in the Palazzo
Pitti has already been quoted ; it gives a fur idea of what
he thought himself obliged to feel in Santa Croce, Santa
Maria Novella, and the other storehouses of art Tom
Taylor, no doubt, is quite right in saying that many <^
the notes imply no particular admiration for the work*
they deal with, but were made simply as technical memo-
randa; for at this period of his life Sir Joshua was a
consdentious self -educator. But, apart from this, his cort-
veyed theory of what was to be looked at and prused if
posnble, lies on the surface and cannot be mistaken.
The Florentine note-book in the British Museum con-
tains a draft of a letter which suggests that R^olds
stayed longer in Florence than he originally intended. It
is, moreover, very characteristic : " I remember," he says,
** whenever my father discoursed on education, it was his
constant practice to give this piece of advice : * tatv&t 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.* Tlus may very well be
applied to my present affairs, as, by being in too great
a hurry, I shall perhaps nun 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 &ult with me, »nce ray omduct will have hid
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
the approbation of the greatest living punters. Then,
agun, 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 to set out and in a
manner take leave of my friends, they call me a madman
for missing those advantages I have mentioned." Why
he should have thought that the delay of a month in
starting would enable his reputation to reach home before
him it is now difficult to discover. A mere addition of
four weeks to an absence of two years could hardly add
much to the capital of knowledge placed to his credit at
home. If he had painted many pictures in Italy, to be
exhibited in England, we could understand the terms of
his letter. It might then have been prudent to delay his
own arrival until they had acted as avant eoureurs and had
aroused public curiosity. This probably is the real ex-
planation of his words, although the few things he punted
in Rome were of no great importance, and the publicity
they could then enjoy in England was scanty enough.
Some very interesting passages are to be found in the
Florentine note-book :
" In the piuu of the Annniuiata, admitable fountuns b^ John of
Bologna ; fift^^ headt — fini initead of whiiken. He had mnch the same
geniiu ai Michael Angelo."
" At a acnlptor'a ihop, which wai iormxAf the itodio of John of
Bologna, is a gesi of one of the lUret belonging to the pedestal at
Leghorn, and models for two of the figure) belonging to the foantalna
in the Boboli Gardeni ; admirable.'*
" Aaoldier with a naked dead body in hii arms, antique fin feeling), and
finely grouped, which the ancienti leldom observed. John of Bologna
has been inpetioi to the whole world, ancient and modem, in that respect
at leait, as well in statuei a* in bauo-ielieros."
" In the chapel of San Lorenzo : The four recombent figurei hj
Michael Angelo, with a great duke likewiie by him. When I am here,
I think VL Angelo (uperiot to the whole world for greatness of taite.
36
oyGoO»:^Ic
PORTRAITS IN ITALY
When I loc^ oa the fignrei of the fbuntamt in the Boboli, of which 1
hare weta the model*, I think John of Bologna greater than M. A., and
I beliere it would be a difficult thing to determine who was the greatest
■cnlptor. The same donbt in regard to the Vatican and the CapeUa
Stnina."
" In the Cannine : A chapel of the Btancacci, painted b^ Mataccio.
Raphael hai taken hit Adam and Eve diireii oat of Paradise from hence.
The heads, according to the ancient ctutotn, are portraits, and have a
mmderfal character of nature."
** We mnst arrive at what is unknown by what is known. Whoever
•eeks a ihorter method onlj deceives himself, and whilit he flatten him-
■elf that he is in postenion of the art, is embracing a doud, and produces
oolf moniter* and chimeras."
"la Ra&aele there ii nothing of the affectation of painting, neither
dart nor light — no indic3ti<»it of affected contrasts — no affected masses
of light and diadiow. He it the mediom. Annibal Caracci too
wild : ditto Michael Angelo : Domenichino too tame : Goido too
''Hone sap I look like the Attar of the Jesuits lighted up."
** Gentlemen and Brethren — Hone and Reynolds greeting."
These last two entries show that during his stay in
Florence Reynolds was on very intimate terms with a man
who was afterwards to become his malignant and most
iinchivabvus enemy. The phrase, "Gentlemen and
Brediren— Hone and Reynolds greeting," may have been
noted down as a happy thought for the commencement of
some j'oint Invitation from the pur. One hopes, in view
of Hone's later behaviour, that it was never used. Rey<
noUls may have painted Hone's portrut in Florence, but
no such picture can now be traced. That Joseph Wilton,
the sculptor, sat to him, we know. The [ncture is now in
the possession of Mr. Wilton Chambers, and is one of the
best of the early works. Wilton was a well-known per-
sonage, and when Reynolds wrote the letter I have quoted,
he may possibly have been counting on the effect of the
portrait in exdting interest about himself when it was seen
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
in London. That the fri«idship with Wilton was kept up
in after years is proved by the canvas in the National
Portrait Gallery, on which John Francis Rigaud, R.A.,
has combined the portraits of Wilton, Reynolds, and
Chambers.
Reynolds left Florence on July 4, 1752, after a stay of
two months. He travelled to Vemce by way of BdogaA^
Modena, Parma, Mantua, and Ferrara — Castelfranco he
left unvisited. On this journey the things by which he
was chiefly attracted were, naturally enough, the Correggios
at Parma. Between the master of the *' San Glrolamo **
and himself there was an affinity stronger, perhaps, than
we can trace between any other two painters so far apart
in time, place, and surroundings. It is true that the
example took time to produce its e£Fect. It was not imtil
a good many years after his return to England that the
palette of Reynolds blossomed into those child portruts
and other playfiil creations over which the spirit of Cor-
r^gio seems to hover. In his note-book we find :
" The Dnomo (Panna) : The * Capok,' by Correggto, uid angel* in
itone coloni ; " " The ' Holy FamilT- with St. Jerome.' It gave me tt
great a pleanue ai I ever received from looking on any picture. The ain
of the headi, expretaion, and colouiing, are in the ntmoit perfectioB.
'Tit very highly finiihed : no giallo in the fleah. The ihadowi leem to
be added afterwardi with a thin colour made of oil and lead. Ontline
to the face, eapecially the Vugin't, the lipi, etc., not teen. The ted
mixed with the white of the face imperceptibly^-all broad."
Another reference to Corregg^o in the Palmer manu-
scripts :
" The greatly celebrated picture of the ' Holy Family ' by Comgpft,
at Parma, waa offered to hatd Orford for XS'*'*^ ... I, who luve
Ken the picture, am far from thinking the price nnreatonable."
At Mantua and Ferrara, Reynolds made no notes. He
never alludes to Padua in his pocket-book, but as there a
:„Goo<ifc
VENICE
a night miacoounted for between his departure from
Femra and his arrival in Venice, he probably slept there.
In Venice he arrived on July 24, and there he stayed three
weeks.
In spite of what he says in his pocket-books, in his Dis-
courses, in his notes to Fresnoy, and elsewhere, we may
safely call Venice the Mecca of his pilgrimage. It was
there that he made acquaintance with the men who were
to stir his real aestheric sympathies to their depths, and to
suggest the ideals after which he strove for the rest of his
life. The notes he took in Venice are particularly copious.
They are printed in full both by Leslie and Taylor and by
Cotton, to whom I may refer those who wish to study them
in dctidl. It may be well, however, to print once more
an interesting passage in which he describes the method he
took to avail himself of Venetian prindples :
** Wlien I obterred an extiaoidiouy effect of ligbt and ihade in any
[octiire, I toc^ a leaf ont of mjr pocket-book, and darkened erer^ put of
it in the same gradation of tight and ibade u the picture, leaving the
white paper untouched to repreient the light, and this withont any
attention to the (object, or to the drawing of the figures. A few triab
of tlus kind will be sufficient to give their condnct in the management
of their lights. After a few experiments, I found the paper (? paper))
U6tted nearly alike. Their general practice appeared to be to alkm-
oot iboTe a quarter of the picture for the light, including in this portion
both the principal and the secondary lights ; another quarter to be kept
n dark as possible; and the remaining half kept in mezzotint or half
diadow. Rnbens seems to have admitted rather more light than a
qoarter, and Rembrandt mnch less, scarcely an eighth ; by this condnct
Rembrandt's light is extremely brilliant, but it costs too mnch ; the
rest of the pictnie is sacrificed to this cat object. That light will cer-
tainly appeal the brightest which is tnmnmded with the greatest qoand^
of shade, supposing eqnal sidll in the artist.
** By this means yon may likewise remark the rations forms and shapes
of those lights, as well as the objects on which they are flung ; whether
a figure, or the sky, (ff a white napkin, animals, or utensils, often intro-
doced for this purpose only. It may be observed likewise what portion
b stnngly reliered and what portion is united with its ground ; for it is
«9
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
secetMiy that tome part (though a small one U laffident) thonld be
ihaip and cntting against iti gronnd, whether it be I^ht on a dark, or
dark on a Hght ground, in order to ^ve finnneia and dittinctnett to the
work ; if, on the other hand, it is relieved on ererj' ude, it will appear
as if inlaid on its gionnd.
" Such a blotted paper, held at a distance from the eje, will itiike
the spectator as lomething excellent for the diipotition of light and
shadow, tbongh it doei not dittingnish whether it is a hiitoiy, a portrait,
a landscape, dead game, or anythmg else ; for the same principles extend
to ereiy branch t£ the art."
Here, perhaps, Reynolds was going more deeply into
the matter than he thought. Had his " blotted papers "
been blotted accurately in the colours as well as tones and
niasses of the originals, he would have amply been extract-
ing from Titian, Paolo, and the rest, all that makes thur
pictures so great as works of art, leaving the scientific and
historical elements behind.
In his Venetian notes generally he repeats the line of
conduct he followed in Rome and Florence. He concen-
trates his attention upon those punters who were highest
in the world's esteem at the moment. He only once
alludes to Giovanni Bellini, as the author of " a picture of
much merit" in Sta. Maria Ma^iore. He ignores him
at the Frari, in S. Zaccaria, in 5. Gtobbe. Giorgione he
mentions but once ; drpaccio, of course, he ignores. The
list of those he selects for honour is so short that I may as
well give it in full. His favourite seems to have been
Paolo Veronese ; after him come Titian, Tmtoretto, and
— Salviati 1 Bassano, Palma Vecchio, and Paris Bordone
come next. Luca Giordano, Pietro della Vecchia, Varotari,
and Guido bring up the rear with one mention each. The
following note on Tintoretto's "Marriage of Cana" is a
fur example of his more elaborate memoranda :
** One sees hy this pictnie the great use Tintoretto made of his paste-
board houses and wax figures for the distribution of his masses. This
oyGoO»:^Ic
LADV MAKV O'BKIEN
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
VENICE
pctqie lui the mott natnia] light and thadow that can be imag^ed.
All the light comei from the KTcral windowi otct the table. The woman
who itanda and leani forward to hare a glaai of liqnoi ii of great lex-
nce ; ahe cotcii part of the table-doth, to that there ii not too much
white in the pictnre, and hj meant of her itiong ihadowi she throwa
back the table, and makea the ponpectiTe moie agreeable. But that
her figure might not appear like a da^ inlaid figure on a light gnrand,
her face u light, her hair musea with the ground, and the light of her
handkerchief u iriiiter than the table-cloth. The ahadowi blue nltr.
ttiong. Shadow* of the table-cloth bloeish; all the other colonn of
the draperiei are like thoae of t waahed drawing. One leei, indeed, t
little lake drapery here and there, and one ettong Tellow, he that recoTea
the light. Tltii pictnie hat nothing oi mittine« : the floor ia light and
oily grey ; the table-cloth in compariaon u blae, and the figure* are
leliered from it ttrongly by being dark ; bnt of no colonr icarce. The
figure of the woman who ponrt oat liqnor, though her ihadowi are rery
daik, her lightly particularly on the knee, are lighter than the ground.
All the women at the table make one mau of light."
The cluef use of such a memorandum must hare been to
fix the impresuon recdved from the [»cture. It embocHes
no particular principle on which Reynolds could after-
vards rely, although it might, no doubt, have come in
useful as a justification for the patterns to which he was
led by his own idiosyncntcy. He had, as we can see
already, an almost pathetic respect for authority. A
little kter we come upon what looks more like a general
rule :
" A figure, or fignrea, on a light ground ; the upper pari ihonid be
ai light, if not lighter, than the ground, the lower part dark ; hanng
lighn here and there. The ground [proper^] dark — when the lecond
maM of light it too great, interpoie tome dark figure to divide it in
Although, I ^cy, it would not be difficult to match
every Venetian picture which obeys this rule with one that
does nothing of the land, Reynolds himself kept it in
memory, and we shall find many pictures in which he carries
it out literally enough.
3«
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
On Aogiut 1 6, 1752, Reynolds left Venice and turned
his face towards En^and. Northcote tells a story which
seems to show that he had felt his absence more than we
should hare expected, and that his return was due as much
to home sickness as to the necesnty of b^^ning seriously
to put money in bis pocket. It seems that, being at the
Venetian Opera House with some other Englishmen, a
ballad was sung which lud been popular when he was last
in London, and that it affected the whole party to tears.
The painter ordered lus horses and set out, travelling by
Padua, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, and Turin. Between
Turin and the Mt. Cenis he encountered his old master,
Hudson, who was rushing to Rome, " merely to say he
had been there." From the Mt. Cenis, he reached Paris
by way of Lyons. There he parted company for a time
with his companion and froUgit C^useppe Marcht, the
young Italian, [ucked up in Rome, who was afterwards to
become famous as a scraper of mezzotints. Fintting that
he had arrived at his last nx louis, Reynolds gave two of
them to Mardu, telling him to reach Paris as best he could,
while he himself went on by diligence. Marclu walked the
whole way, rejoining his master when the latter had been
dght days in the capital. Reynolds stayed a month in
Paris, although, apparently, he found nothing in the French
School of the time to satisfy his artistic appedte. *' The
French," he says, " cannot boast of above one painter of a
truly just and correct taste, free of any mixture of afiec-
tation or bombast" It would have been pleasant to
believe that in these words Reynolds was alluding to
Chardin, who, in this very year, 1752, had recdved a
pension from the French king. But of opinion Reyndds
was no [uoneer, and his next words, " and he was always
proud to own from what modeb he had formed his style
-^to wit, Raffaele and the Antique," show that aome one
3>
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS RETURN HOME
very different from the delightful and most unaffected
pednter of still life — and of the life which conies nearest
to " still " — was in his mind. No doubt, Tom Taylor
was right in suppoung the allusion was to Eustache
le Sueur.
Hudson, who must have seen Italy in a month, joined
his former apprentice in Paris. The pair travelled together
to London, where they arrived on the 1 6th of October,
1752.
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHAPTER 11
1752— 1768
was away ^m England three
i five months, of which two
eight months were spent in
In my first chapter I have
like others who have dealt
wiui u*c painter's career, to describe
what he did during that considerable absence. But, in
truth, there are gaps. His doings with his brush during
his wandgrjahre would easily go into a few months ;
while such study as we may infer from the contents of his
note-books could not have made any very exhaustive calls
on his time or energies. On the other hand, we get a few
significant hints at jollification of one kind and another. I
fancy that if we knew the whole truth about his Roman
days, we should find that a good many were passed in
Goldsmith's fashion rather than in Johnson's, and that,
like other young men, he there had that look into life at
its fullest, without which few of us can settle down into
the serenity with which Reynolds watched the passage of
his last forty years. During his absence, he seems to have
written very few letters ; scarcely any have come down to
us. Beyond his pocket-books and the few pictures painted
abroad, the only evidence as to how he lived b contuned
in the character of his friends and a few anecdotes which
34
oyGoo»:^Ic
PLYMOUTH AGAIN
have coasted round the gulf of oblivion. All these pcunt
in one direction, and justify the suspicion that plenty of
cakes and ale were mixed up mxh his study of the ** great
style " in art. The pictures he painted, few as they are,
would enable him to live bende the young Englishmen of
family and their bear-leaders, with whom much of his time
was passed. In this connection, a well-known dictum of
Hudson's has some significance. The first portrait
Reynolds punted after his return to London was the
*' Giuseppe Mardu," in a turban, which belongs to the
Royal Academy. On seeing it Hudson exclaimed,
'* Reynolds, you don't paint as well as you did before you
went to Italy,** an opimoa which has usually been put
down to jealousy. And yet it had not a little justifica-
tion. A comparison between the Marchi and the portrait
of the punter himself in which he shades his eyes
with his hand, will show that, although the former
is more brilliant in colour, and must have been much more
brilliant when it was new, the latter is better conceived
more soundly painted, and, in short, a more completely
successful creation. Even now, with all our gratitude to
Sir Joshua for the splendid pages he has added to the
history of English art, we cannot entirely refuse to allow
that Hudson was right, and that, in fact, Reynolds did
paint better before he subjected himself to the temptations
of Italy than he did immediately afterwards.
Northcote tells us that when Reynolds returned to
London, " he found his health in such an indifiFerent state
as to judge it prudent to pay a vi^t to his native air."
He went down to Plymouth, where he stayed three
months. There he painted, we are told, but two por-
truts : one of a young lady, the other of his phyracian.
Dr. John Mudge, the son of that Zachariah Mudge who
had been one of his first friends and encouragers. This
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
portrait is still in the possession of the Mudge hmiiy.
It is now little more than a monochrome, and shows
that Reynolds began his experimental methods rery
soon indeed afiter Vemce had dazzled his eyes. To the
bit^rapher, the chief importance of tlus sojourn in
Plymouth has to do with Sir Joshua's domestic relatioas
rather than with his art. When he left England, in 1749,
his youngest surviving ^ter, Frances, was only nineteen,
•o that his acquuntance with her, as a woman of formed
character, dates from some years later. Attracted no
doubt by the amiability which was afterwards to make her
such a favourite mth Johnson and others who were not
affected by her domestic pecularities, Reynolds invited her
to share the home he was about to set up in London. The
painter himself seems at first to have thought of settling
in Plymouth, at least for a time. But Leslie tells us —
he does not say on what authority — that Lord Edgcumbe
strongly urged him to establish himself without delay in
the capital. However this may be, he returned to
London early in 1753, and took rooms in St Martin's
Lane, which was then the headquarters of art. The
house. No. 1 04, had, no doubt, a regular studio, for it had
been previously occupied by Hogarth's father-in-law, ^
James ThornhiU, by Van Nost, the sculptor, and by
Francis Hayman, the master of Gunsborough. "Just
behind the house," says Smith, "upon the site of the
present Meeting House for Friends* . . . stood the
first studio of Roubiliac. There, amot^ other works, he
executed the famous statue of Handel for Vauxhall
Gardens." The entry which led to it was then known as
St. Peter's Court. When Roubiliac left, his studio was
taken for the &mous drawing academy, to which Hogarth
made over the casts and properties he had inherited from
* This itill tttndi wheic it did whea Smith wrote.
3«
jyGooi^lc
MASTER HARE
Liond Fhitlips
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
HIS PUPILS
Th(H*nhiII. The estabUshment of this academy marked
the first definite stage in the process which was to end in
the Inrth of the great institution which has dominated
Sritbh art for nearly a century and a half. In spite c^
his |»roximityi Reynolds does not seem to have helped m
the work of the school. He was t member and p»d his
quota, but we do not hear of him in connection with the
first steps of any of the young painters who there received
their education. AJl his life he was to be a bad master.
Northcote, half a century later, was to be able to say that
of all Sir Joshua's pupils — and many, of sorts, passed
through his studio— he, Northcote, was the only one who
had ever done anything. " Reynolds," he says, " certwnly
was very deficient in making scholars ; fm* although he
had a great many under him who Hved in his house for
years, yet thnr names we never hear of, and he gave him-
self not the least trouble about them or thar ^te. It
was his opinion that a genius could not be depressed nor
any instruction make a painter of a dunce. So he left
them to chance and their own endeavours. . . . Most of
hisschdars could never get a decent livelihood, but lived
ID poverty and died in debt, miserable to themselves and
a disgrace to the art I alone escaped this severe fate."*
Such indifierence was thoroughly characteristic. Sir
Joshua's nature, easy-going, imperturbable, eminently
clubbable as it was, was essentially self-contained. He
enjoyed the company of his friends and loved to have men
of social talent about his table, but he was incapable of
the busy-ness over details and preparations in general
wluch marks the man who is really altruistic and solicitous
for the well-bdng of those with whom he comes in
contact. Reynolds would give a pupil the run of his
house, would let him copy what he liked and learn as much
* Northcote: "Life of Sii Jothna RcTiioldi."
37
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
as he rauld from his ftHow scholars ; he would cvta
condescend, now and then, to require his asnstance in a -
drapery or accessory ; but to lay down his own preoccupar
tions and to put himself in the placx of a young man
wishing to penetrate the secrets of art, was entirely
outside his scheme of life. We need, therefore, feel no
surprise that he took no practical share in the various
educational experiments which preceded and accompanied
the foundation of the Royal Academy.
When Reynolds appeared in London, slu^ishness d
invention was the great defect of English painters. Many
punted well enoi^h, and would have turned out [nctures
capable of exdting a permanent interest if they had but
spurred their bruns, and had realised that only a man with
supreme aesthetic gifb can afford to depend solely on lus
methods of expression. Each painter had a few patterns,
which he repeated with as little misgiving as a lien comique
feels over a popular song. Reynolds thus describes them :
" They have got a set of postures which they apply to all
persons indiscriminately ; the consequence of which is that
all their pictures look like so many signr-post paintings ;
and if they have a history or family to paint, the first thing
they do is to look over thdr commonplace book, containing
sketches which they have stolen from various pictures ;
then they search their prints over, and pilAr one figure
from one print and another from a second ; but never take
the trouble to think for themselves." No doubt the less
able among them actually did the things Reynolds here
describes, but the want of mental initiative among the more
gifted was the natural result of the general slackness of
the times. A man like Richardson, who thought and wrote
so well, and did occa^onally produce such an excellent
[nece of art as the portrut of Anne Oldfield engraved by
Edward Fisher, must have painttd so dully on the whole
58
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS VARIETY
through the want of such external stimulant as only emu-
lation and a certain measure of appreciation can give. No
man was ever more stereotyped than Gainsborough in what
I may call his hack work. To the ordinary sitter, who
came for his portrait as he now goes to some ^hionable
photographer, he gave no thought at all. He planted his
head in the middle of a 30x25 canvas, whisked on his
coat, stuck his hat under his left arm, swept about him an
oval band of umber and black, and held out his hand for
his fee. But within Gainsborough a supreme artist lay in
wait, so that when a beautiful woman or a man with a
stimulating personality appeared on the threshold of his
painting room, they had the same efiect on his imagination
as the bellows on a blacksmith's fire. When Reynolds
came to London, however, Gainsborough was still obscure
among the Suffolk lanes, and the only English painter who
was feeding art with thought was Ht^arth. Many others
were [>unting soundly indeed, and with considerable know-
ledge of their craft, but stolidly and without making the
slightest effort to show that they were thinking as they sat
at th«r easels. Reynolds was the first English painter to
keep lus fancy alert and to provide every picture which
issued from his studio with a little soul, often, of course,
humble enough, of its own. " Damn him," said Gsuns-
borough, '* how various he is I " and when I come to deal
at length with his art I shall try to show that in this matter
of variety, of never flagging invention and contrivance,
Reynolds was unique among the pdnters of the eighteenth
century.
Reynolds was not long content with rooms in St. Mar-
tin's Lane. Before many years had passed, he moved a
hundred yards to the north, or rather north-west, to the
house near the corner of Great Newport Street which is
now occupied by Mr. Rutley, the picture cleaner. There
39
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
the brother and sister first embarked on house-kee^Mng for
themselres, and there Reynolds felt himself suffidentljr
secure to ruse his prices to the highest level of the day.
These were : for a head, twelve, for a half-length twenty-
four, and for a full-length forty-right, guineas. Not many
years afterwards the tariif rose to fifteen, tliirty, and uxty
guineas respectively. AUomng for the diminution in the
^ue of money, and for other matters which have to be
taken into account—such as the difierent ideas then pre-
viuling as to how far it was reasonable to draw upon pu|nls,
drapery men, &c., for assistance — the earning power of a
fashionable portrait punter did not differ materially from
what it is now. Reynolds was never left in any doubt as
to his success from the commercial standpoint. He was
no sooner established in St. Martin's Lane, than sitters
flocked to his door. Probably the first were sent by the
vartoiis influential friends he had made in Rome and in his
native district. Among the portraits he finished during
the four or five years which elapsed before he removed to
Newport Street, we already find the names of a laige
number of the leaders of English Society. In 1755, less
than two years after his arrival in Ix^ndon, we learn from
his pocket-book — the first of the series — ^that he had no
fewer than lao different sitters. In 1757, the total, includ-
ing one d<^ for whom an appointment is entered, had risen
to 184. I have taken the trouble to count the actual
sittings booked ; they amount to 677, an amazing number
for a young artist of whom no one had ever heard five
years before. "The year 1758," say Leslie and Taylor,
'•according to Northcote, was the very busiest time of
Reynolds's whole life, and the pocket-book completely
confirms him. It contains the startling number of 150
sitters." So it does ; but we have seen that what the joint
audiors call a startling total represents, in fkct, a falling off
40
oyGoo»:^Ic
LADY CAROLINE PRICE
Sir Julius Wbrnheh, Bart.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
HIS EARLY SUCCESS
of more than thirty from the previous year. The ptunter't
fifth year in London was his record from this point of
view. No wonder he raised his prices, and arranged to
produce less and earn more. The truth is, that in the
dghteenth century the demand for good portraits was fu
in excess of the supply. Every man who could turn out
a good likeness and give lus clients the looks of gentlefolks
was sure of a living, while to those who could add a touch
of art, »tters flocked in crowds. Hogarth was not popular
as a face punter, but then Hogarth, with all Ms gemus,
could neither catch nor create the air of breeding. He
had none of the gift with which Nature had endowed
Reynolds, Romney, and, with a still more lavish generosity^
Gunsborough, of clothing men and women in a distinction
they had never enjoyed on canvas since the death of Van
Dyck.
The much abused eighteenth century made curiously
few mistakes in art. Its excellent architects were allowed
to cover town and country irith charming houses, and
dignified, if not very churchy, chiirches. Its painters of
ability won fame, at least, if not always fortune, the one
serious exception being Richard Wilson, whose character
fought hard against his success. Barry, no doubt was
ncfjtected, but he deserved neglect Not only was his
character detestable; his genius, like that of poor Haydon,
was nine parts ambition to one of abiUty. Sculptors P
Well, you require goods to make a market, and yet the
one English imaginative sculptor was not so entirely
ignored as it is the fashion to make out, while men like
Wilton,Bacon,and NoUekens received exactly the patronage
they deserved. England, no doubt, is an inartistic nation.
Our continental friends tell us so, and we accept thdr
verdict with a humility which is almost pathetic. And yet
from the days of Holbdn to our own, we have recognised
4<
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
genius when we saw it with a readiness to which no other
country can show a parallel No clever foragner has left
our shores with empty pockets. No great artist of our
own has been left to eat out his heart in starvation.
Some, no doubt, have sounded tiie depths of distress, but
not for want of employment. Ginstable was an innovator,
speaking a new language, and yet he was accepted from
the first by his fellow artists, and by a large enough section
of the public to make his po«tion secure. To find a
paralld in our artistic history Co the sufierings of Jean
Franijpis Millet, we have to turn to men like Haydon,
who clamoured for a recognition he had never earned, or
to a spendthrift like Morland, who died in a spunging
house under a hail of cheques. That commercial England
misunderstood art, and long failed to realise how much
her own prosperity depended on the satisfaction of the
aesthetic instinct, is of course true. But those are the
ways, not of the Anglo-Saxon race, but of ccHnmerce. In
speaking of Sir Joshua's start in life, I called the profes-
sion of painting the most hazardous of all. I ought to
have qualified the assertion, for the risk lies not so much
in &ilure of opportunity — as it does, for instance, in the
law — as in the tmpos^bility of foretelling the outcome of
the most apparently promising bent towards art. Facility
has little or nothing to do with creative power, and yet It
is on the evidence of facility, or at any rate of mechanical
aptitude, that the dedsion has to be made whether the boy
or girl shall take up art or not. The risk incurred by
Reynolds was that of turning out a Hazlitt. There was
no danger of his meeting with the fate of Millet.
The promptness of our painter's success mth the upper
ranks of En^ish Society was partly due, no doubt, to the
good offices of his friend, Ixwrd Edgcumbe. *' He," we
are told by Mason, " persuaded many of the first nobility
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS FULL LENGTH OF KEPPEL
to sit to him for their pictures ; and he (? Reynolds)
applied to such of them as had the strongest features, and
whose likeness therefore it was the eauest to hit" Lord
Edgcumbe's reconrniendation, however, could not have
helped his frotigi much had the latter ^uled to justify it
hj aduerement. Happily, an opportunity came pat upon
the moment, of which he made the most. His friend
Kq>pd commtsuoned a full-length portrait, and Reynolds
so carried out the order that the picture became a landmark
in the history of European art.
Modern painting was born in England towards the
middle of the eighteenth century, and in its inauguration
this ** Keppel " by Reynolds must divide honours with the
moralities of Hogarth. The tradition which had per-
nsted, with a few notable exceptions, from the days of
Van Eyck to those of Nattier, Van Loo, LaigiUiere, and
such Englishmen as Knapton, had suddenly to give way
to a new theory as to how a sitter should be treated. It
may seem fantastic to bracket Van Eyck with a painter
like Nattier, but a little consideration will show that in a
sense they belonged to the same faction, that is to say, that
if Van Eyck had lived in I^iris in 1750, he would have
omceived a portrait much in the same way as Nattier, and
so, mutoAi mutamiu, with the Frenchman. The conscious
desire of both was to reproduce their sitter, choosing a
moment when he or she was thinking of nothing in parti-
cular, and surrounding him with his familiar properties
carefully marshalled into a de»gn. No doubt there were
times when a more complex idea intruded. Van Eyck,
for instance, meant to tell a story when he concaved the
Amolfint group in the National Gallery. Titian's "Charles
V. at Muhlberg," is, in a sense* a dramatic picture. That
is to say, it reftresents the Emperor doing something on a
43
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
fiunoiu occaaon. "La petite Pelisse," of Rubens, is
dramatic in another way, and similar instances could be
found in the work of Velazquez, Van Dyck, and one w
two of Titian's contemporaries in Venice. But between
all these and the idea of Reynolds there is a notable dis-
tinction. The English punter did not merely set his hero
among significant surroundings. He took his keynote
from him, portraying him when some characteristic power
or passion was actually at work, and so endeavoured to
give the spectator the deepest pos»ble glance into both the
posnbilities of his character and the facts of his career.
The painter's various bi<^raphers knew what they were
doing when they laid such stress on the portrait of Keppel.
It was not Sir Joshua's first attempt at dramatic present-
ment; witness his own early portrait of himself, painting;
but it was the first to attract any wide notice and to
awaken the narrow public of the time to the dawning of
a new era on English art. We must allow that in some
ways it is not among the painter's unqualified successes.
It must always have been tight in execution and curiously
uninteresting in colour, while it has darkened greatly with
time. As a design,* however, it seems to me inferior only
to such superbly happy conceptions as the "Lady Crosbie"
and the " Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, with her
baby." It completely achieved the object with which, in
some degree at least, it was painted. It turned all eyes
upon Reynolds, and powerfully helped the insistence c£
Lord Edgcumbe in directing the stream of patrons into
St. Martin's Lane.
Some two years before the first meeting between
* Lcdie deduct ttut, at a fact, the attitada wu takta from a itatiw^
and that he himielf had »eea the ikctch on which it wai founded. Ai
he doei not name the oiiginal, it ii difficult to check hit itatement, but
thae ii nothing impiobable abont it.
oyGoO»:^Ic
ADMIRAL KEPPEL
ttaliutial Portrait Gailtry
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
HIS ORIGINALITY
Reynolds and Keppel, the latter had ibeen posted to the
command of H.M.S. Maidstone^ a fifty-gun ship, which he
had had the ill luck to lose on the coast of France. He
had run her ashcH« vhile pursuing a large French vessel
and trusting to the chase for the depth of water.
The MaUstoMS broke up, but Keppel, by dint of well-
directed energy, saved most of his crew. He was court-
martiaUed, of course, but acquitted with honour. Reynolds
took his motive horn this occurrence. He punted Keppel
afoot on the stormy coast, moving energetically and giving
the orders which nMnimised the disaster. The action of
his figure is excellent, frc»n the testhetic as well as the
dramatic standpoint, and Keppel's history gives it the
& fmpos such conceptions too often lack.
Reynolds was a bold, though Ic^timate, borrower. He
did not pilfer ; he simply followed the example of all his
great predecessors, in making use of the fittest idea which
occurred to him, whether it was suggested by some pre-
nous user or whether it sprang unaided out of his own
Ivun, like Pallas irom the head of Zeus. The real and
only touchstone of lawful plagiary is the power to
asamilate, and perhaps the finest instance of triumphant
emergence from such a test is the use Raphael made of
Ftlippino's " St. Paul." Filippino's apostle is addressing a
nngle individual, so that attitude, voice, and gesture had
all to be more or less restruned ; Raphael's " St Paul "
is holding the attention of a crowd, so that increased
energy was everywhere required. This Raphael gives with
extraordinary felicity, combining it with deference to the
(Higinator in such min(»' points as the fall of his draperies.
In short, Raphael lifts Filippino's figure to the occasion,
and thneby sanctifies his theft Reynolds, in his borrow-
ings, was at a disadvantage from which Raphael was free.
In the nature of things his plagiarisms were from artists
45
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
fts great as himself. But even so, he contrires to justify
what he does. lUs most audacious proceeding of the sort
was, perhaps, his requisition of Michelangdo's "Joel " to
be the matrix of his own " Mrs. Addons as the Tragic
Muse." And yet, before the latter, we feel no call to
pretend that its success was due to any one but Reynolds.
It is of no use attempting, in such a volume as this,
to follow Reynolds through every step of his career.
Neither, happily, is it necessary, for Sir Joshua, unlike
Gainsborough, has had his Boswell, and all the known
facts of his life are set out with charming discursiveness
in the volumes of Leslie and Taylor. I may therefore be
permitted to adopt a more sketchy method, and to confine
myself to the broad masses as it were of the picture,
dealing rather with results than causes, and being satisfied
if, when all is done, I can leave a true impression of
his personality, of his fortune in tlus world, and of the
place he occupies m the history of art. So fkc, I have
detuled his proceedings with some minuteness. He was
in the making, and the process had to be shown. It was
complete, in one sense, within a year of his final migration
to London. After that he grew enormously as an artist,
but his place in London Ufe was determined at a stroke.
He stepped at once into the part of the most conspicuous
painter of his day ; he was accepted, socially, by the wtts,
the men of fashion, and last but very far from least,
by the beauties and great ladies. He can never have
known an hour of anidety about ways and means. Respon-
sible only for one unmarried sister, he found his studio
besieged by clients as soon as it was ready to receive them,
and he had every reason to suppose that his capadty
would be equal to all the demands the world could make
upon it The psdnter who can at once realise his concep-
tions as an artist and win by their help the means to satisfy
i6
:„Goo<ifc
PORTRAIT OF LORD HOLDERNESS
the rest of his ambitions, leads the ideal life. It is impos-
sible to imagine a happier lot beneath the stars than his.
The one reflection to interfere with his felicity is the
knowledge that some day death will come to end it
North(ote told one of the viutors — I forget which — who
firquented his studio for the sake of his conversation,
that he could imagine no more de^rable a heaven than to
be forgotten by Providence at his easel, and to exist for
ever in his little punting room, working on those enor-
mous canvases which offered such an amusing contrast
with his own bulk and the size of his studio. Is there
any other human pursuit of which its professors can
honestly say as much ?
Soon after the " Keppel " was finished, Reynolds began
a portrut of two young men, Lords Huntingdon and
Stormont, on one canvas. They had just returned from
the Grand Tour, and were making some little sdr in
Society.* The present whereabouts of this portrait seems
to be unknown ; at any rate, I have f^led to trace it, and
Graves and Cronin have succeeded no better. It was a
success in its day, and led to the painting of one which has
a certain accidental importance in the long series of Sir
Joshua's works. In Mason's Anecdotes of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, published by Cotton, the poet tells us that upon
sedng the picture of Lords Huntingdon and Stormont,
Lord Holderness f was induced to sit for his portrait, and
* " There are new jroung lords, fresh and fresh ; two of them are
mnch in tt^ue. Lord Hantirigdon and Lord Stormont, I lapped with
them the other night at Lad^ Caroline Petersham's. The latter it most
cried np, but he is the more reKrved, seems shy and to have sense, but
I shonld not think extreme ; yet it is not fair to jodge ■ silent man at
first. The other is very lively and agreeable." — Horace Walpole : letter
to Montagn, December 6, 1753.
t Robert i'Atcj, 4th and last Earl of Holderness.
47
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
that he (Mason) himself was present at every dtting. Tlus
gave him an opportunity of learning the painter's method
at the time, which he thus describes :
" On hit light-coloured cuitm he had alread]' laid > ground of white,
where he meant to place the head, and which was tttll w«t. iHe had
ootbing upon hit palette but flake white, lake, asd black ; and withont
inaViwg ao7 preriont tketch oi outline, he began with much celerity to
tcnmble theie pigmentt together, till he had produced, in leit than an
honr, a likencti lufficiently intelligible, yet withal, at might be expected,
cold and pallid to the latt degree. At the tecond sitting he added, I
belier^ to the other cobun a little Naplet yellow; but I do not
remember that he oted any Termilion, neither then or at the third
trial; bnt it it to be noted that hit Lordtliip had a cooDtenance much
hughtened by tcorbatic eruption. Lake atone might produce the car-
nation required. . . . Hit drapery wat crimxm velvet, copied from a
coat he then wore, and apparently not only painted bnt glazed with
lake, which hat itood to thit hour perfectly well, though the face, which,
at well at the whole picture, was highly varnished before he tent it home,
very ixnfedtd, and soon after the forehead particularly cracked, almost
to peeling off, which it would have done long tince Iiad not his pupil
Dou^7 repaired it. I have described this p<»trait to particularly on
account of my believing that he continued ^s mode <rf painting for
many years."
Here we see the r»ult of Gandjr's theory about cream
or cheese. Reynolds prepared a bed as it were for his
sitter's head, knowing how difficult it would be to give
the deured hnpasto as he went along. If he had allowed
his flake white to become hard before painting upon it,
the subsequent work might have stood well enough. He
would then have anticipated the contrivance relied on for
an appearance of solidity by so many of the younger
painters of to-day. As it was, the bed of white absorbed
the glazing colours, and left a head which must have
contrasted in a comically startling way with the scorbutic
complexion of the original. Judging from results, Mason
was quite right in saying that Reynolds persevered with
this method for many years. Down to about 1770, we
48
oyGoo»:^Ic
HOTARD
can trace portruts which have been built up in glazing
odours on these thick slabs of preparation. In some in-
stances they have &ded into bluish-white ghosts, in others
they have simply paled, while in a great many cases the lost
carnations have been replaced with the brush or finger-tip
of the restorer. It is very unusual to find a head painted
in this fashion which has retained convincingly its original
look. After 1770, or thereabouts, frightened, I suppose,
by the accumulating evidence that his system was dan-
gerous, he punted more solidly, practically confining his
experiments to vehicles, a change which transferred the
point of danger from the colour of his pictures to their
tangible substance. Speaking roughly, Sir Joshua's early
]uctures darken, the works of lus middle period fade, those
of his late maturity crack. The productions of his first
youth and of his old age stand best of all.
The first rivalry to excite the pecuUar, quiet jealousy
of Reynolds was that of the pastellist Liotard, who vi«ted
London about 1753. Liotard was a curious instance of
the man of talent masquerading as a charlatan, a combina-
tion which is not so rare as one might think. He was no
genius, but he understood his business, and his works,
whether in oil, pastel, water-colour or enamel, show none of
the sltghtness and pretence which mark the impostor. The
hackneyed " Chocolatifcre " of the Dresden Gallery is an
excellent piece of technique. Liotard, however, was not
content to base on his merits alone his claim to the loaves
and fishes of England and other countries into which his
wanderings took Mm. He dressed himself like a Turk,
and wore a beard to his wust, albeit a citizen of the least
oriental of nations. It might be argued that this proceed-
ing was an ei^dence of modesty, and that Liotard made a
guy of himself because he thought his powers insufficient
49 »
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
to attract notice Ttithout some such lud I However that
might be, he provoked Reynolds into one of his rare but
»gnificant displays of temper, "The only merit," he said,
** in LJotard's pictures is neatness, which, as a general rule,
is the characteristic of a low genius, or, ratiier, 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 qualifica-
tion in the art which this great man has got" Ijotard
produced many chalk portraits during the two years he
spent in £ngland,and yet his works are not often met with.*
I have alluded to him here chiefly because the animus
shown by Reynolds in the pronouncement just quoted
seems to me characteristic, and not the sporadic outbreak
it is called by most of the punter's bi(^;raphers. When
Reynolds found a competitor ranging up alongside, his
behaviour was never genial. He did not often give him-
self away so completely as when he allowed his distaste for
Liotard to get the better of his prudence, but in all his
dealings with those who could in any sense be considered
his rivals, we 6nd a cert«n reserve and inability to expand
combined ^th an obvious eflbrt to be just. Reynolds
had a good deal in common with an Englishman even
more famous than himself ; I mean the great Duke of
Wellington. In both men, a cool heart and a slightly
jealous temperament were kept more or less in order by
brains which perceived the right path and did their best to
follow it
The most momentous of all the friendships formed
by Reynolds b^an soon after his migration to Newport
* The bat I know are a pair at Lord Roden's, at TnllTinoFe Fai^
conn tjr Down.
SO
oyGoO»:^Ic
LAVINIA, COUNTESS SPENCER
Earl Spencsr, K.G,
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
FIRST MEETING WITH JOHNSON
Street. I mean, of course, Hs friendship with Johnson.
Boswell's account of thur first meeting has been quoted
so often that one feels a Uttle diHident at printing it
once more, but to paraphrase Boswell is a sin, so here
it is:—
" Wben Johnion lived in Cattle Street, Cavendiili Square, he need
often to Tint tno Udies who lived c^potite to Reynolds, Min Cotteiella,
danghten of Admiial Cotteiell. Reynoldi med al» to visit there, and
tkui they met. Ml. Reynolds , . , had, from the first reading of his
Lift of Sapap, conceived a very high admiration of Johiuon's powers of
writing. His conversation no leas delighted him, and he cultivated his
acquaintance with the landable zeal of one who was ambitious of general
improvement. Sir Joshna, indeed, was laci? enough, at their very first
meeting, to make a remark which was so mnch above the commonplace
%tj\K tA conversatiDn, that Johnson at once perceived that Reynolds had
the habit of thinking for himself. 1^ ladies were regretting the death
of a friend, to whom they ovred great obligations, npon which Reynolds
observed : ' Yon have, however, the comfort of being relieved from the
burden of gratitude.'
*' They were shocked a little at this alleviating suggestion as too
(elfish, bnt Johnson defended it in his clear and forcible manner, and
was much pleased vrith the mind, the fair view of human nature, which
it exhibited, like some of the RefietHeni of Rochefoucault. The con-
sequence was that he went home with Reynolds, and supped with
If my view of Sx Joshua's character be correct, this
£unous observation sprang from something more intimate
than a " fair view of human nature." Like all imnecessary
pas^ons, gratitude is rare, and from what we know of
Reynolds he woidd be at once the last man to feel it and
the first to mentally deplore his own insensibility. So to
him the death of a benefactor would mean release from the
burden of affecting a virtue he did not possess. His
remark to the Cotterells probably sprang to his lips because
it was true, and was allowed to go beyond tbem for the
sake of its epigrammatic flavour. The story which fol-
lows it in Boswell has a diflerent but still unamiable touch,
SI
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
and seems to lunt that tix CottereUs* dramng-rooin had a
bad eSect on the two great men : —
** Sir Joihiu ttdd me c pkuant duncteriitic inecdote of Johnioa
abost the time of their fint acqnaintaiice. When thcjr were one cren-
ing togedter at Mitt Cotttielli*, the then DncheM of Aig^Q and another
lidr of high rank came in. Johnton, t-hinHng that the Mi» CottercUa
were too modi engroiaed b^ them, and that he and hit friend wen
n^^ected at low oxnpai^, of whom th^ were tomeiriiat aihamed, gtew
angry, and retcdved to ihodc their inppoted pride hj making their great
TintoM imagine thiCf Were low indeed. He addietied himtelf in a kmd
tone to Mi. ReTnoldi, tajing : ' How much do 7011 think 700 and I
could get in a week if we were to woA at hard u we conld t ' — •> if
they had been OHnmon mechanic*."
The ftiendship between the two men soon became
an intimacjr. In character each was in a sense the com-
plementbf the other, while in matters intellectual Johnson
supplied the trenchancy^ the power to " finish the ball " —
to take a figure from tennis— which was wanting in Rey-
nolds. The intellect of the latter was of the class which
percdves arguments and can set out with some lucidity
the pros and cons aSzoy question, but finds itself benumbed,
as it were, when a definite osncluuon, a deciuon as to
whether the ayes or the noes have it, has to be come to.
To such a mind the cock-surencss of Johnson would be at
once a relief and an amusement. To continue the teams
metaphor, wtule Reyncdds was elaborately returmng the
ball, imable to settle the matter one way or another, his
antagoiust Johnson would step in with a smashing volley
into the grille and make an end. This reading of the two
charac^rs may seem to be inconnstent with some of the
facts, but I think the contradiction is more apparent than
real. Johnson used to consult Reynolds, and perhaps
defer to his opinion in certain matters of taste, but when
the question to be decided was on which side of an aigu-
5*
oyGoo»:^Ic
WILKES
ment lay the deciure connderation, it was Johnson's hawk-
eye that pounced upon it.
Johnson was livir^ in Goi^h Square when Reynolds
made his acquaintance. The intercourse between them
was kept up chiefly by the Doctor's Tints to Newport
Street, where he Tery soon took Frances Reynolds — a
being " very near to purity itself," as he called her — to his
heart. Johnson's hours were so irregular and his notions
of the duration of a call so generous, that Reynolds would
•omedmes leave him to be enterbuned by his sister while
he went about his own business. On one occasion he
penetrated to the Doctor's lair in Fleet Street in company
with Roubiliac, the sculptor, who wanted to decrecher an
^taph. The pur were well received, but when the
sculptor began to hold forth in his flowery French style :
** Come, come. Sir," broke in Johnson, " let us have no
more of this bombastic rhodomontade, but let me know in
simple language the name, character, and quahty of the
person whose eptaph you intend to have me write.*' The
** gentle, complying, and bland " Reynolds was himself to
suffer a good many assaults from the Johnsonian club, but
he had the knack of an effective counter, with — shall I say ?
— his own umbrella.
Among other friendships which began at about the same
time as that with Johnson, were those ^th Garrick and
Burke. Goldsmith was a later acquisition^ the introduc-
tion taking place, probably, in 1762. John Wilkes and
lustwo brothers were older friends, dating back apparentiy
to the days when Reynolds was in Hudson's studio. The
punter's intimacy with the demagogue has perturbed some
of his bic^raphers, who have found it inconsistent with
his general character. I must confess that I can see
nothing strange about it. The reader who has persevered
irith me thus far will see that, in my view, Sir Joshua was
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
a man without deep-seated prejudices of any kind. He
took people as he found them, and was ready to octract
such enjoyment as he could out of any one who (Ud not
threaten his position or trouble his seremty. He was essen-
tially a spectator. The strifes of esdstence amused him as
shows ; it was outwde his scheme of life to jump into the
arena and lay about him with his own fists. A righteous
indignadoQ was not among his emotions. It would nevCT
occur to him to shut his door in the hcc of the editor of
the Norih Briton, or even of the author of the Essay en
^oman. He would enjoy his society much in the same
way as he enjoyed that of the Nelly O'Briens, the Kitty
Fishers, and the Polly Kennedys. Such a temperament has
its advantages. It cuts both ways, and frees its owner from
temptation to einl as well as to active benevolence. John-
son called Reynolds the most invulnerable man he knew,
** the man with whom, if you should quarrel, you would
find the most difficulty how to abuse." The l^jnous lines
in Goldsnuth's "Retaliation" are little more than an ampli-
fication of this idea, and with everything else told us by
the punter's contemporaries, they build up a personality
which was sure to delight in such a companion as
Wilkes.
Other friends of these early years in London included
the members of the Edgcumbe, Keppel, and Eliot families
and their connections, as well as a larger number of his
brother artists than we afterwards find among the painter's
intimates. The friendship with Hudson was kept up, and
engagements are entered in the pocket-books vnth Jack
Astley, Frank Hayman, Joseph Wilton, Francis Cotes, and
Allan Ramsay. The favourite among all these was Ramsay,
whose ^;reeable manners and balanced intellect seem to have
appealed very strongly to Reynolds. As an artist, Ramsay
was ^Mjilt by pure want of self-confidence. He has left
S4
oyGoo»:^Ic
LAVINIA, COUNTESS SPENCER, WITH IIER SON. VISCOUNT ALTIIORP
Earl Spencer, K.G.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
ALLAN RAMSAY
tlungs which were scanxly excelled in the eighteenth
century for grace of conception and delicacy of execution,
such, for instance, as the portrait of his wife in the Edin-
burgh Gallery. Unfortunately, when a happy design
occurred to him, he was afraid to make the most of it, and
left it too often in a state of tantaliMng incompleteness.
Perhaps this deficiency helped him with Reynolds : certain
it is that when Ramsay was appointed painter to the King
on the accesfflon of George III., Reynolds showed no
symptom of disappcuntment or jealousy.
The ycari764wasin many ways the most important in
the punter's life before the foundation of the Royal Aca-
demy. The list of utters, though by no means the longest,
is perhaps the most remarkable to be found in the pocket-
books. It shows how thoroughly Reynolds carried out hia
policy, or rather, perhaps, obeyed his impulse, to stand
out«de the political and sodal oinflicts of his day. I cannot
do better than quote Tom Taylor's sketch of how the
twelve mondis passed in the pdnter's studio.
" It wu the Tear of the great Wilkea sgiution, and of tlie famoui
debate on the legality of genoal wanants . . . when the Houk lat, on
ncceanTe nighti, eleren honrs, aerenteen boon, thirteen houn ; vriien
' Totei were brought down in flannels and blankets, till the floor of the
House Io(^ed like the Pool of Bethesda * ; when the * patriotesses ' of the
anti'Bnte part7 and the great ladies of the Court faction sat ont thoae ■»
protracted fightf night after night till the March da)rlight peeped in at
the windows j or, when ther came in inch shoals that admission to the
pige<»i-holes was denied diem, establiahed themselves in one of the
Speaker's rooms, dined, and staged there till twelve, ' playing loo while
their dear conntry was at stake.' We find the leaden of these Amazonian
ctduuts, both on the Oppositiim and the Court side, among Reynolds'
uttexs for this year as the year immediately preceding— the Dncheas of
Richmond, Lady Sandei, Lady Rockingham, and Mn. Fitzrc^ on the
ude of the Opposition ; Lady Maiy Coke and Lady Pembroke on that
of the Conrt The case is the same with the leading men of the time.
The I.eiccster Fields painting-room was nentral ground, whne as yet all
partiea mjght meet If Reynolds had planned hi* list of sitters for 176^
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
to iUnttnte die catholicity of hit own popvkrity, he could hardljr have
duwea them bettei. To hii pamting-Toom comei the Minister who
granted the general warrant, and the Chief Justice who received the
freedom of the G^ ai a tribate of grateful retpect for hi) jadgment
declaring general wananti illegal, nnconititntioiul, and altogether vnd ;
George Gtenvillei Lord Bnte't Chancellot of the Exdteqner, crotiei Sir
W. Baker, the ttont alderman and member for Plympton, who . . .
' drove the Chancellor of the Excheqoer from hit entienchmenti'; wit^
and versatile Charlei Townihend bringi hii last SoM-mtt on the stout
hciresi. Miss Draycott, who hat jntt left the painting chair; Lord
Granl^, gallant, franlc, and fearless, half-ashamed of terving with an
adminittratioa which takes away their regiments from his best friendi
for ■ vote, may break his griefs to the Keppdt, promoted to General
and Admiral since their exploits at the Havannah, notwithstanding their
sturdineta in Opposition ; Shelbume, still holding office, but chafing
against the collar, may here take counsel about the policy of reugning
with Iiord Holland, cynical, but always good-tempered ; young Charles
Jamet Fox, just entered at Oxford, can find time to lit to Reynolds
between play and poUtica, which already divide the anpire of his vigoront
and venatile mind with art and letters. Here, too, classes and callingt
cross each other as oddly as opinions. The Aichbishopi of YoA and
Canterbury take the chair juit vacated by Kitty Pisher and Nelly
O'Brien ; and Mrs. Abington makes her saucy curtsey to the painter as
the angnit Chief Justice bows himself in."
It is a Strange medley, and bears irrefutable witness to
that detachment of conduct which seems to me the cluef
oharacterlstic of Reynolds.
Theyear 1 764 proTidesanother landmark in the punter's
career. It saw the foundation of the Literary Club. The
idea of the now famous society first occurred, if we may
believe Malone,* to Lord Charlemont, but the first effec-
tive step was taken by Reynolds, who suggested the scheme
to Johnson, and took his counsel as to how it should be
carried out. The members were originally limited to
twelve, but as a matter of fact it started operations with a
memberslup of nine. The nine were Reynolds, Johnson,
Burke, Dr. Nugent (Burke's father-in-law), Bennet Lang-
• See Prior's Lifi tfMaimt, p. 88.
56
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE LITERARY CLUB
too, Topham Beauclerc, Goldsmith, Chamier, and the
spoil-sport Hawkins, whose position in the Re7nolds set
has always remained somewhat of a mystery. The object
of Reynolds, we are told, was simply to pronde an arena
in which Johnson could swing his dub inthout restnunt and
his friends could enjoy and provoke his vigour.
Between 1 764 and 1 768 the chief events in the punter's
life were a severe illness from which he sufiered in the
summer of 1764; the arrival in London in 1765 of
Angelica Kaufirnannj who was to have such a curious effect
upon his &me in some quarters ; and a vi»t to Paris and
the. north-east of France between the beginning of Sep-
tember and the end of October, 1768. It was duringthis
absence abroad that the project for a Royal Academy was
finally brought to a head by some of his colleagues of the
Incorporated Society.
The mystery — if indeed there were any mystery beyond
that invented by the lady herself — of Angelica Kauffmann's
relations with Reynolds, has never been satisfiuitorily
cleared up. English writers have assumed that there was
nothing between them beyond a flirtation in which the
lady was the mOTC active agent, while not a few fordgn
authors, especially those of German nationality, have
asserted in so many words that Reynolds behaved very ill
indeed to Angelica. Now that nearly a centiuy and a half
have elapsed, it is unlikely that any new evidence on the
point will come to light, so that we have to make up our
minds on the whole aflair by a mere weighing of proba-
bilities. The punter was a wary man, with a just mind
and no passions to speak of. On the other hand, the
known fects of Angelica's career are enough to prove that
she was impulsive, credulous, and over sanguine, while her
reputation was that of a flirt. Given two such characteis,
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
wh&t more probable than that the woman should concnve
and nourish hopes which the man nerer thought of sug-
gesting, to say nothing of fulfilling i All the real evidence
points to this as a fair statement of what took place between
them. We need not be very hard upon Angelica if her
vanity afterwards led her to justify her own proceedings
somewhat at the expense of her Abend's reputation.*
* For the bat cue which can be made foi the lid7,Ke Mitt Genid'i
:„Goo<ifc
CHAPTER III
1768 — 1769
\HE chief external event in the life of
Reynolds was the foundation of the
1 Royal Academy.
This came about in the same way as
I other epoch-making changes. The idea
' did not spring up, formed and complete,
in any smgle brain or at any particular moment. It was
reached by many stepping stones of ^ure. For some
thirty years before 1769, a succession of attempts had been
made to concoct an institution which might do for Eng-
land what their Academy of Panting and Sculpture had
long been doing for our neighbours across the Channel.
The first symptom, indeed, of a movement towards co-
operation in art had declared itself more than a century
before. In 1662 John Evelyn published a scheme for an
Academy wUch curiously foreshadowed the actual consti-
tution of the body now presided over by Sir Edward
Poynter. Evelyn proposed* that a building should be
pronded in which students should have much the same
opportunities for learning their business as they now have
at Burlington House ; that a keeper and professors should
be appointed ; that medals and travelling scholarships
should be ^ven ; and that Fellows should be elected. His
* In hit Seulftm-a.
59
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
suggestions had, however, no immediste consequence, and
the next approach to an Academy was a i»ivate venture.
Walpole tells us that Vertue, the engraver, studied in 171 1
in a school established hy Sir Godirey Kneller. This is
believed to have been the immediate forerunner of the
better-known one for which Sir Junes Thornhill was re-
sponuble. Thornhill had started a scheme for setting up
an Academy on a sum of about ;f 3000, to be voted by
IVliament. Upon this, however, the Treasury put its
veto, and Thornhill had to be content with opening a
drawing school in his own house. He then lived in
James Street, Covent Garden, at the back of the Theatre.
The venture was a great success, so much so that, when
Thornhill died, the artists combined to carry on the work.
H<^arth assisted, after some hesitation, by making over
his &ther-in-law's casts and other properties to the new
body. Tlus school^ which had its first home in Arundel
Street, off the Strand, and its second in Sl Peter's Court,
St. Martin's Lane, was the germ out of which both the
Incorporated Society of Ardsts, and afterwards the Royal
Academy, were to grow.* PasMng over the abortive
attempt made in conjunction with the Dilettanti Socie^,
we come to an event which cleared away the real stumbling
block to the foundation of an Academy. In 1760, the
first exhibition of current art, in the sense in which we
now use the word, was held, and proved a great success.
It showed that the public was ready to pay its money to see
modern English pictures, and solved once and for all the
question as to how funds were to be provided. The exhibi-
tion was open only from the 2 ist of April to the 8th of May.
* Tbii ri$mmi diffen tn one or two particalsn from tHit giTcn \if
Hogarth in the paper published hj Iicland (Supplcmentai7 voL to
Htgarti lituitratttl), but, on comparing authcuitiet and date*, I ventuie
to think it hai the best evidence behind it.
60
oyGoo»:^Ic
HON. ANN BINGHAM
Earl Sl■K^tEK, K.G.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGpOl^lC
COMING OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY
The passport for admisuon was a nxpenny catalogue, of
which no fewer than 6582were sold. After paying expenses,
the artists bought ;^iOO three per cent, consols out of
the profits. After this, ererything was comparatively
plain-sailing. Instead of hanging back, the artists were
now eager to rush on, and the following year saw two
competing Societies in the field. The one drawback,
apparently, to the exhibition at the Sodety of Arts had
been overcrowding. The room had often been inconve-
niently full, and some of those who had filled it had not
been of a desirable class. To prevent this in future, a
certsun number of the exhibitors proposed that the price of
the catal<^^ should be a shilUng, and that nobody should
be admitted without one. Tlus proposal found no favour
with the Society of Arts. The Council in^sted on the
show being ftee to all comers, and found a considerable
amount of support among the artists themselves. The
m^ority, however, refused to give way: the experiment
of 1760 had shown that there *'was money in" the
exhibiting of modern pictures : and so they hardened their
hearts, christened themselves the Society of Artists of
Great Britain, took the great room of an auctioneer in
Spring Gardens, and there held an exhiHtion on thdr own
lines during May, 1761. The catalogue had two plates
by Hogarth, and one by Wale and Grignon. It was so
attractive that over 13,000 coi»e3 were sold, bringing
more than ;£650 into the artists* cofiers. Meanwhile, the
mofe timid men, the men who had agreed with the
Society of Arts, had christened themselves the Free
Society of Artists, and had b^un a series of exhiM-
tions, which lasted, with gradually decUning prosperity,
down to 1778.
Returning to the aeceders — for so, pace WUliam Sandby,
were the members of the Society of Artists — ^we find them
61
:„Goo<ifc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
in 1762, the second year of their enstence, charging one
shilling for admission and ^ving the catalogue gratis.
This catalt^e had a pre^MX, or apology, by Dr. Johnson,
explaining the objects of the exhibition, and confessing the
purposes to which any surplus would be put.* The
profits, after paying expenses, were £s^4 8/. i</. Two
years later these had risen to £y62 13;., and amtution had
come with success. The King was petitioned for a charter,
and on the 26th of January, 1765, the Society became the
Incorporated SociETr of Artists of Great Britain.
It then consisted of 2 1 1 members, one of whom, of course,
was Reynolds.
So far no measures had been taken to bring instruction
in art witlun the scope of the Society, but a move in that
direction was made in 1767. In May it was resolred
by a majority of the Fellows, " That it be referred to the
directors to consider of a proper form for instituting a
public academy, and to lay the same before the quarterly
meeting in September next." A few days later, in June,
it was, however, resolved, " That the resolution that the
directors should proceed to con»(fer of a form for msti-
tutlng a public academy be repealed, bis Majesty having
been graciously pleased to declare his royal intention of
taking the Academy under his protection." It is now,
I fear, impossible to find out exactly what had happened
in the Interval between these two resolutions ; but there
appears to be little doubt that the intrigue — for so it must
be called, in spite of its good objects and its remarkable
success — which ended dghteen months later in the founda-
* Reprinted hy Sindbj (fiUtsry tfAt Jttjat Jcadiuj cfJrti, Vol I,
P-37)- JohiuonwuftcariotutpoiuorforK pictnteexhibidoii; Johnwa,
who, ia 1761, wiote to Biretti : " Tha exhibition hu filled the headi ct
the artiitt and loren of ait. Sniety life, if it be not long, ii tedioni,
unce we are forced to call in the aid of to many tiifiea to rid ai of oni
time — of that time which can nera letum,**
oyGoO»:^Ic
COMING OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY
tion of the Royal Academy, had already be^un. The con-
stitution of the Incorporated Sodety was faulty In several
ways,' but the particular defect which led to the catastrophe
of 1 768 was that the whole of its more than two hundred
members had an equal share In its government The more
disdnguished members, whose interest it was that the
Socie^ should prosper as a society, were at the mercy of
thdr unsuccessfiil cdle^ues, whose aims were naturally
more selfish. In 176$ the latter had captured the Society ;
they had turned out the original directors and installed
themselves in thnr vacant places, with the result that,
mth few dxceptiona, all the men upon whose abilities the
success of the exhibitions depended, resigned thor member-
ship and set themselves quietly to found a body which
should profit by the mistakes of its fbrenmners.
In the absence of direct evidence it is difficult, if not
impos^ble, to exactly apportion the credit which belongs
to those who took the first steps towards the supercesaon
of the Incorporated Society by a new institution. Weigh-
ing all the probabilities, however, I think it may be
hazarded that the real founder of the Academy, the one
man ^thout whose co-operation the attempt would have
^ed, was William Chambers. After the secession had
taken place, four men formed themselves into a committee
to concert meastu-es to put matters on a better footing.
They prepared a scheme T^ch not only avoided the
dangers previous experience had brought to light, but
was such that the immediate protection of the King could
be sought with propriety. Chambers was a successful
architect, which means that he was an enet^etic man of
business as well as a very considerable artist. He had
taught the principles of architecture to the King before his
accession, and had afterwards been appointed architect to
his Majesty. In short, three advantages were conUiined in
63
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
his person, the mil to approach the King, the power to do
so, and the ability to make the best use of the oppoitunitjr.
The other members of the quartette were West, a persona
grata at Court, but not a man of ambition or much
initiative ; Cotes, a good portrait painter and a sensible
man ; and Moser, a- trustworthy hack. I do not think
that we need doubt that Chambers was the backbone of
the conmiittee and the moving spurit of the whole eater-
prise up to the hour when Rejmolds was voted into the
|«eudential chur. The only lUfficulty in the way of this
theory is the one suggested by the question : Why, then,
did not Chambers make Mmself the first P.R~A.., if his
share in the enterprise had been so great ? That, as we
shall see presently, is capable of a very simple explanation.
To return to the committee of four. On the aStfa of
November, 1768, a petition, or memorial, was presented
to the King. It was ugned by twenty-two of his Majesty's
" most dutiful subjects and servants,"* but its respon^ble
feuners were the members of the committee, and its
actual author, no doubt. Chambers himself. The
lai^:uage used supports this view, and the last paragraph,
a paragraph which calmly informs the King that he will
be eicpected to make good any money deficiency out of
his own purse, could only have been introduced with the
Rt^ral sanction, a sanction that Chambers was in a better
portion to obtain than any of his colleagues. The other
paragraphs explain (i) that his Majesty's " most faithful
* These were, ia the order of thui ngnaturei, Benjunin Wett,
Fiancetco Zuccirelli, Ntthinid Dance, Richard Wilton, George Michael
McMcr, Suunel Wale, G. B. Gpriani, Jeremiah M^er, Angelica Kanft-
mann, Qurlea Catton, Fianceico Bartolozzi, Richard Yeo, Maiy Moaer,
Agottino Carlini, Francis Cotet, William Chambert, Edward Peni^,
Joseph Wilton, George Barret, Fiancii Milner Newton, Paul Sandb^,
and Fraacu Ha^mao. The name of Jodioa VixpuMt » omipicDoiu by
oyGoO»:^Ic
COMING OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY
subjects, PiUQters, Sculptors, and Architects of this
Metropolis, being desirous of establishing a Society for
promoting the Arts of Design/* are aware that their
scheme depends for success on his Majesty's " gracious
assistance, patronage, and protection " ; (2) that the main
ot^ects are two, the establishment of a well regulated
Academy of Design and the holding of an Annual
Exhibition ; and (3) that, in the petitioners' belief, no long
time would elapse before the pro&ts of the Exhibition
would pay for the schools and leave sometlung over for
charity.
The memorial was received most graciously. The King
intimated that he looked upon the protection of the arts
as a duty to the Nation, and told the petitioners that they
might count upon his asnstance. At the same time he
asked for more information, and this Chambers was
deputed to give.* It is evident that at this point there
was some little hitch. The King's approval seems to have
been provisional. He was not going to bless the new
Academy without being quite sure that all the men of real
importance had rallied to it. Chambers and his committee
made out a list of some thirty names, inserting that of
Reynolds among the rest. The King fixed a day for the
sobimssion of the list for his approval, but Reynolds had
been induded without his own consent, and was unwilling
to commit himself. Northcote, who should be a good
authority on the point, for, no doubt, he but repeats what
Sir Joshua had told him, says that , after Edward Pemiy
had made a fruitless attempt to bring Reynolds into the
scheme, West called on the painter " on the same evening
on which the whole party had a meeting, about thirty in
number, at Mr. Wilton's house, expecting the result of
* Report from the Coimcii of the Royal Academy to the General
, i860.
65 >
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Mr. West'* n^;otUtion, as the King had app<»nted the
following morning to receive their plan, with the ntmiitu-
tion of their officers. Mr. West remained upwards of two
hours endeavouring to persuade Reynolds ; and at last
prevailed so far that he ordered his coach, and went with
Mr. West to meet the party ; and immediately on his
entering the room they with one voice hailoi htm as
'President.' He seemed very much affected by the
compliment, and returned them his thanks for the high
mark of their approbadon, but declined the honour till
such time as he had consulted with his friends. Dr.
Johnson and Mr. Edmund Burke, and it was not until a
fortnight after that Reynolds gave his consent."
Tom Taylor calls this account inconsistent both with
the Academy records and the entries in the pocket-book
for 1768, while Leslie prefers the story told by West to
his biographer, Gait, to that of Northcott. And yet in
every important particular the differences may be easily
reconciled. West says that upon the failure of Penny
and Moser to induce Reynolds to join the conspirators
at Wilton's, he himself went immetUately to Ldcester
Fields. He found that Kirby — the President of the
Incorporated Society — had told Reynolds that no such
deagn as the founding of a Royal Academy was in con-
templation, and that Reynolds shrank from attending
a caucus which had no sanction for its proceedings but its
own. To this West replied, " 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 officera
condescended on, yourself to be President, I must iimst
on your going with me to the meeting, when you will be
satisfied which of us deserves to be credited in diis
business." In the end Reynolds yielded, and on his
arrival at the meeting was received as Northcote describes.
66
oyGoo»:^Ic
viscount althorp
Earl Spenckr, K.G.
oyGoO»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
THE ROYAL ACADEMY FOUNDED
Hic pocket-book entry, which is supposed to be tncoo-
nttent with Northcote's story, is '* Mr. Wilton's at 6,'*
under date 9th December, 1768. It seems to be quite as
inconsistent with the story ttAd by West. When a man
still requires some hours cf persuauon before he will
consent to accept an invitation, he does not enter it
among his engagements in that fashion. It is easy to
recondk all discrepandes by referring the entry in ques-
tion to an adjourned meeting, and by supponng that both
Nortiicote and West condensed two meetings into one, the
former pushing the events of the first occa^on into the
second, the latter doing the reverse. In any case the
whole scheme was finally put into writing on the 9th, and
on the I oth of December, 1768, it was signed by the King.
It seems to me dear that the strong man who had his
way in the whole buuness was William Chambers. He
knew his own mind, and possessed the rare virtue of
knomng when to efface himself. Reynolds was the one
artist of commanding atnllty who was sitting on the nul,
and wuting to see whether victory would lie with the
Incorporated Society or mth the new Academy. It was
necessary to hold out an entidng bait to bring him down
on the right ude, and I cannot help thinUng that while
West was exercising his powers of persuasion in Ldcester
Pields, Chambers was organising the shout of " Mr. Pre-
sident " with which Wilton and his guests received the
hoped-for recnut.
The *' Instrument," the famous document which forms
the constitution of the Royal Academy, and gives it a l^al
r^ht to eidstence, was ^gned on the loth of December,
1768. Four days afterwards, twenty-eight of the tlurty-
fbur Academicians nominated by the King, signed a
dedaralion of obedience and fideUty to the new institution,
and formally elected its officers. Reynolds became Presi-
67
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
dent, while Ac other posts seem to have been given to
those Academicians to whom the salaries attached would
be of moment. Moser became Keeper ; Newton, Secre-
tary ; Penny, Professor of Punting ; Wale, Professor of
Perspective ; and Thomas Sandby, Professor of Arclutec-
tare. The Professor^p of Anatomy, with its stipend t^
thirty pounds a year, fdl to the distinguished Scot, Dr.
'William Hunter. It was not undl everything was settled
and conduded, and the scheme put be^nd the risk of
miscarriage, that the King's intention to found an Academy
of his own was allowed to leak out. The story of how
the members of the luckless Incorpcnated Sodety learnt
that their flank had been turned and their portion ren-
dered untenable is well known, and has contributed more
than anything else to the notion — not ill-founded, I must
confess — that the birth of the Royal Academy was the
result of intrigue. The tale has been often told, but as it
rounds off my narrative, I may once more quote it from
Gait.*
" Wbile Itii Majett}' and tbe Qaeen, at Windaor Cattle, were looking
at West* ■ pictnre of ' R^ulni,' juit then finished, th« arrival of Mr.
Kiib^, the New Preudent of the Incorporated Society, was announced.
The Eing, having connlted with hii contcvt in German, adnutted hiin,
and introdnced him to Weit, to whoK penon he wai a itranger. He
locked at the picture, praited it warmly, and congratulated the artiit.
Then, turning to the King, laid, ' Your Majeity never mentioned any-
thing of thii woii to me. Who made the frame I It ii not made by
one of youi Majesty*) wcckmcn; it ot^ht to have been made by the
Royal carver and glider.' To thia the King calmly replied, * Kirby,
whenever you are able to paint me rach a picture a> thii, your friend
(hall male the frame.' ' I hope, Mr. West,' laid Kirby, ' that yon
intend to exhibit thia ptctnre t' ' It ii painted for the palace,' said
Weat, ' and it* exhibition mntt depend upon hia Majetty't pleasure.*
* AuDicdly,* laid the King, ' I (hall be very hap^ to let the w»k be
(howa to the pnbUc.' ' Then, Mr. West,' said Kirby, ' you will tend
• LiftofWtn.
oyGoO»:^Ic
THE ROYAL ACADEMY FOUNDED
it to my exhibttkm J ' ' No,* inteirnpted the King, ' it moit goto mf
ezhibitioit— « tiat eftie Rtytl Jc4dtmj.' . . . The Preudeat of the
Anociited Artint bowed with much humility, md retired."
The interest taken by George III. in the founding of
the Royal Academy is a little difficult to understand. His
family had never previously shown any particular fondness
for art or its professors, while he himself, in after yean,
was by no means to fulfil the promise held out by these
doings of his youth. He was, no doubt, a generous
patron to West, while he allowed Gainsborough, Reynolds^
and Allan Ramsay to portray the Royal port and features.
Otherwise he was no patron of the arts, and we are tempted
to believe that his actions in the last weeks of 1768 must
have been to some extent dictated by personal motives,
which lost their force as time went on.*
The original constitution of theRoyal Academy showed
ugnificant traces of the way in which its foundation had
come about. The number of Acadenudans was probably
fixed by' analogy mth the French and other foreign bodies
of a umilar kind ; but the fact that a membership of
forty would include all the seceders from the Society, and
just leave room for de^rable recruits, no doubt had its
wdght It is idle to pretend that Chambers and his allies
* The Members of the Incorporated Society did sot ihrink from
innmudng that there was « penonal and private motive. The fint
home of the Academy wai in lome roomt in Pall Mall, which afterwardi
became the original "Chriwie'i." Dalton, the King*i Librarian, had
bought the leaie, and narted a* a dealer in print*. The ^>ecnlatioD,
uj* the Society*! pamphlet, " hnng heavy «i hit haadi," and he loolud
about for other ihonldera on which to shift the reipontibility. The
ichone of Qiamben and hiicoUeagnct gave him the chance he leqaired,
and he nied all hit influence with the King in their tuppoit. In all this
there may be tome element <rf truth, but the motive ii icaiccly equal to
beaiiag the weight put upon it by the Socie^.
«9
jyGooi^lc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
were founding a parallel iostitutton to the Society. They
meant to superaede it They saw the time was ripe for a
real Academy, which should focus the national interest in
art, and rear the artists of the future with the fiinds so
obtained. Experience had shown them the stumbling
blocks in the way of such an adventure, and these they
avmded with consummate skill. The provisions that no
Academician could bdong to any other sodety of artists
in London, and that no w(vk previously exhibited publicly
in the capital could be admitted to the Royal Academjr
exhibition, secured to them a practical monopoly. During
its (me hundred and thirty years of existence the Royal
Academy has had to reust many assaults, many of them
delivered by men who, when the chance came, were ^ad
enough to put A.R.A. and RJV. after their names. It
has too often invited attack by narrowness of view, and
by a failure to justify the claim, so often made by
painters, that only artists can understand art. It hu
even, in certun matters which need not be specially men-
tioned, shown a nngular conception of trusts placed upon
it and formally accepted. And yet, as a whole, it has
fulfilled the intenti<ms of its authora with a completeness
to which few such institutions can show a parallel. It was
founded to h(^ exhibitions, to give a free edncatitm to
art students, and to relieve poverty among artists. These
things it has done, and, on the whole, done very wdl.
Commerdally, its success has been astonishing, while
from the artistic standpoint it has only fiuled so far
as everything fta[» which depends on the common
action of many inctividuals. It would be difficult to
name an institution, either in this country or in any
other, which has more completely carried out the
um of its foundation, and that with so few changes ia
its original constitution. Chambers and his cdkagues,
70
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HON. LAVIXIA BINGHAM, AFTERWARDS COUNTESS SPENCER
Earl Spencer, K.G.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
THE FIRST P.RJi..
in short, dewnre ill the credit we can gire them for tact,
courage and forenght
Reyndds' share in the scheme was thoroughly character-
istic. He took no part in the underground work which
had to be done before the superstructure was attempted.
That he knew something of what was gtung on, we may
infer from his osnversation with Kirby and from the fact
that West was able to bring him to Wilton's house to meet
the rest of the *' cave." But otherwise he gave no ^gn,
and reserved complete liberty of action until the bribe of
the Presidency was actually pressed into lus palm and his
fingers closed upon it. I do not say this in the least by
way <^ blame, but merely to support my reading of his
character, and to show how free he was from those
eager enthuuasms which are supposed to go irith the
artistic gift. His instinct was never to put his foot so far
out that he could not readily draw it back ; I fear I must
add that it was also against his principles to take responu-
tuhties on himself which he could leave successfully to
others. He filled the office of President to perfection ;
whether he could have done equally well as an ordinary
R.A., liable to take his turn as " hangman," visittu* in the
schools, etc., I take leave to doubt.
To his initiadve, however, the Academy owes some of
its most valu^le customs. Soon after the Instrument was
ugned, he suggested the addition of a few distingmshed
men as honorary members. The King gave his approval ;
and the Cambridge Professor of Greek, Dr. Francklin,
was elected Chaplain ; Dr. Johnson, Professor of Ancient
Literature ; Dr. Goldsmith, Professor of Ancient History ;
and the King's Librarian, Richard Dalton, Antiquary.
The annual dinner was another of his ideas. He proposed
that the members should dine together in the exlubition
71
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
rooms after the pictures were hung, itiviting a few friends
to share their hospitality. At first the in^tations were
sent out by Reynolds himself ; but as the function became
[>opular and invitations eagerly sought after, he made over
his privilqje to the Council At the same time he urged
that private ^shes in the matter should be laid aude, and
the guests selected in such a way that the prestige and
weliare of the Academy might be increased. A law was
passed restricting the invitations to " persons high in rank
or official situation, to those distinguished for talent, and
to patrons of art" The result was that in a very short
time the Academy Council found Itself in the remarkaUe
position of being obliged to weigh carefully the respective
claims of Ambassadors, Ministers, and men of light and
leading generally, to admission to its table. More than a
hundred and thirty years have passed since the first dinner
was eaten in Dalton's warehouse in Pall Mall ; and what-
ever may be said in its disparagement as a meal or as an
oratorical display, no one can deny that the Academy
Banquet gives an opportunity for the most remarkable
gathering of rank and genius now to be seen in Great
Britain.
Leslie and Taylor say that from the time the Academy
was established Reynolds *' took the most active part in
its organisation and guidance, both in the Council and i*
the schools" For the statement I have put in italics I can
find no authority. Such altruism would have been outside
the punter's habits, and, indeed, would have profited the
students but little. We have seen that Reynolds was a
bad teacher, or, rather, was no teacher at all. His own
scanty work in black and white is enough to show that, as
a visitor, he would have been of no use whatever to a
student struggling with the difficulties of black chalk and
" the life." I prefer to believe that the Pre»dent confined
7»
oyGoo»:^Ic
LAST STRUGGLES OF THE "SOCIETY"
himself to that part of his duties in which his wariness,
sound judgment, and good business capacity were of
value. For the exercise of these gifts he had plenty of
opportunities. The Incorporated Sodety did not take its
defeat lying down. It brought various chaiges agunst the
new Academy, and made vigorous efforts to divert some
of the King's patronage towards itself. The most serious
accusation was practically one of sharp practice agiunst the
Academy's officers. Ktrby and bis colleagues accused
Moaer of having tricked the Society out of the collection
of casts belongii^ to the St. Martin's Lane School, which
included those inherited by Hogarth from Sir James
ThomhiU. However brought about, this was a shrewd
stroke of policy, for it secured the Apostolic succession^ it
the phrase may be allowed, to the Royal Academy, and
held it up as the legitimate heir to the private institution in
wluch so many Ei^Ush artists had been trained. The
members of the Society also accused the " Junto," as they
called the Academicians, of "intriguing, cabaUing, and
deception ; and went through the form of expelling them
from thrir body after they had left it."* They took a
room over the Cider Cellar, in Maiden Lane, and set up an
academy of their own. They also petitioned the King for
his protection and patronage, recuving in answer the
assurance that the Royal favour should be extended to both
bodies alike, and that the Kii^ would visit both their
exhibitions. Of course it was all in vun. The " cave **
included all the men of real ability, and it worked under a
sounder constitution. As it throve, its rival lost prestige
and prosperity, until, but a few years after that fatal
* Letlie and Ta)rIoi ; fee alM 7S( Cm^t tf tit Rtysl AcMitaaetMt
wBit Mtmbtrt *fttt InetrfemtJ Stcitlj tfJrttm »f Great Britmn, viz^
fitm tit year i-}6alothtirtxf»iHfi in tityear ij6^mti jmt f*rt ^drir
tnmiMditm sbKt. i2mo. London, 177 1. (Britith Miueam.)
73
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
loth of December* it finally gave up the ghosL Meanwhile,
however, its endeavours to blame the Academy for all its
misfntuoes must have provided Reynolds with many
c^iportunities for the exercise of his statesmanship. Many
of the Council meetings reox-ded in the pocket-book for
1 769 were given to the making of dispositions for meeting
the Society's attacks, and the schools were leffc to the
supervision of the Keeper and the viators.*
The first important acts of the new Academy were
directed to accentuating its connection with the old drawing
school in St. Martin's Lane. At a meeting of the Council
on 30th January, 1 769, it was resolved that the subscribers
to the latter body should be admitted, irithout subscription
or test, to the current season, which was thus declared to
be a continuation of the session begun in St. Martin's Lane
in the pre^ous autumn. New students were required to
pass a test, as before. Preparations were b^un at the same
time for the exhibition ; this, it was resolved, should be
opened on the 26th of April and closed on the 27th of
May. It was also determined that the annual course of
lectures should b^n in October ; and, in short, measures
were taken generally for the starting of the whole of that
academic machinery which has been working steadily ever
unce.
Before this, however, the Academidans had performed
a graceful duty, which is of more immediate interest to the
bic^rapher of Reynolds. At a general meeting held on
the 17th of January they had passed an unanimous vote of
thanks to their President for a proceeding of his own by
wluch the new enterprise had obtained a valuaUe publicity.
* llie firtt lin of Tiuton wai m fcdlowi : — Cirlini, Cattoo, CiprUni,
Dance, HtTinan, Toms, Weit, Wibon, and Znccirelli. It it notable
that, with the exception of Mejer, the enameller, and Bartolozzi, the
engtaver, thit lin inclodei all the male Academiciana of foreign birth.
oyGop»:^Ic
HIS FIRST DISCOURSE
On the and of Jsnuary Reyndds had delivered the first
of his aow fiunous Discourses, and had iiuugurated a custom
iriiich has since reached the force of lav. In a future
ch^>ter it will be necessary to conuder the Discourses at
some length, for not only hare they had great influence on
opimon, they also contun the best evidence we possess both
as to the mental capadty of Reynolds and the state of art
critidam at the time he wrote. Here it is enough to say
that the initial Discourse was introductory and apologetie ;
it sets out the views of those who had founded the
Academy, and attempts to justify their action. The
IKscourse bears marks of haste, llie Academy had only
been three weeks in existence when it was ddivered. To
a practised writer, who has been in the habit of feeling his
way back from phenomena to principles, and putting hi*
conclusions into lucid words, twenty-three days would, of
coarse, be more than enough for the compo^tion of such
an address. But Reynolds was in a difierentpontion. He
had enjoyed little training as a writer ; he was embarldng
on a subject to which comparatively slight attention had
been given in Eng^d ; he himself was an experiment, and
most have felt on his trial ; and, lastly, among the friends
sriio would listen critically to what he had to say were the
best writers of hb age. Add to all this the other demands
on his time, and we need feel no surprise that none of the
leading thoughts in his first address are prosecuted to thdr
conclusion, and that, as a whole, it lacks a sound Ic^cal
sabstructure.
The real sanctions for the foxmding of the Royal
Academy were two : FuBtly, it was inevitable ; the situation
had ** taken chaige:" Secondly, the founders saw and did
their best to avoid the errors which had spoilt previous
attempts, both here and abroad.
75
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Academies of Arc have &llen into disrepute all over
Europe through one great initial mistake ; they have, one
and all, attempted to teach arl. It may seem, primd faae,
unreasonable to restnct an institution from dmng what
appears to be implied in its very title, but a little thought
will be enough to show that the above sentence is not such
a paradox as it sounds. An artist is one who has some-
thing to say, some emotion to express, in punt, or marble,
or whatever other material he may select. The emotion
must be radically his own, and sincere, for otherwise it
cannot possibly lead to the organic congruity which
means creation. How is such a quality to be taught ?
It must be there, potentially, from the beginning, and all
the teacher can do is to enable its fortunate possessor to
use it. The true business of an academy is to train its
students in the use of their tools, and in nothing whatever
else. The painter's bu^ness at a school is to learn ( i ) how
to draw correcdy, (2) how to paint as he wants to, and (3)
how to so select and marshal his materials that they may
express the pasuon he has within him. The rest is not
matter for teaching at all, unless, indeed, you wish to throw
oiF swarms of sham artists, who will bear the same relation
to real ones that a rhetorician does to a poet. ** Academic
art " — the very phrase contains a proof of what has ju»t
been said. What does it mean, except art that has been
taught, and is therefcM« insincere, wluch Is tantamount to
sa]nng it is not art at all ? The vice of all foreign academies
lies in their non-rccc^nition of this vital [mnciple. They
have all, in their time, taught their pupils not only how to
punt, but what to paint, and have made their rewards
depend on matters which lie outnde their province. The
founders of our Royal Academy were the first to see diis
nustake, and avoid it. They made thur.teaching arrange-
ments in such a way that the student was practically fnccd
76
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VISCOUNT ALTIIORP
Earl Si'encbr, K.G.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
THE ACADEMY AS TEACHER
to keep his independeace, and to choose hts own line of
development. The instruction was put into the hands of
the whole body of Academicians, who taught in rotation,
so that no single man could obtain such control as would
substitute his own personality for that of his pupil. I am
well aware that at the present moment this method of
instruction is under a cloud, and that its demerits seem
more obvious to the young artists of to-day than its
advantages. But that, I think, is due to matters not of
principle but of acddent. The schools of Paris are more
popular than those conducted by our Academy, not because
they work on better lines, but because their personnel is
more efficient. French artists draw better, and are better
eqmpped in other ways, than their English rivals ; and so,
as teachers, they can set higher technical standards, and do
more to help their pupils over the initial difficulties. If
French technical efficiency could be combined with our
better arrangements for safeguardingascholar'spersonality,
we might have the ideal Academy.
The first home of the Royal Academy was in a building
in Pall Mall, immediately adjoining old Carlton House.
It had once been Lamb's Auction Rooms, but, when the
Academy took it, was in the occupation of Dalton, the
King's Librarian and Keeper of the Prints, as a print ware*
house. It afterwards became the [^ce of business of
Christie, the founder of the great firm of auctioneers. The
Academy exhibitions were held there for eleven years,
until, in 1 7 80, they were installed io the new palace in the
Strand, which Chambers had been rearing on the site of
old Somerset House. The King had granted rooms in the
old palace to the Academy, to be used as offices and lecture
rooms, some nine years before.
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHAPTER IV
1769—1772
NHE ten years which followed the founda-
' tioa of the Royal Academy were the
I buuest and most characteristic in the life
of Reynolds. His sttten, indeed, were
not so numerous as they had been in
^ the sixties, but he nude up for the
falling off by turning his attention to fancy pictures,
which at this time rapidly increase in number. Outside
his art, his interests widen prodigiously. He takes every
opportunity of extending his acquuntance among people
c^ light and leading, as well as among those irresponsible
amusers of society who are to the lighters and leaders
what cotton-wool packing is to a gem. We find him
member of many clubs, and a candidate for Almack's.
He frequents Vauxhall, the I^theon, Mrs. Cornely's.
He is a regular first-nighter, in days when first-nights
were more frequent than they are now, in ^ite of the
short tale of theatres. He steers with remarkable skill in
and out among political dangers and animo^ties, punting
Mrs. Trecothick, the rebel Lady Mayoress, at 2, and King
George, at 4, on the same day, and collecting the most
incongruous Parliamentary personalities at his table mth-
out disaster. He floats, in short, above the arena of poli-
tical, moral, and social prejudice, attaching himself to his
78
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FIRST ACADEMY EXHIBITION
land through the undeniable verities of human nature,
and ^ving perhaps the best example we Britons can pcHnt
to of the just, kindly, and imperturbable ^otat.
Reynolds became " Sax Joshua " at the leree held at St.
James's on the 2ist of April, 1769. The first Exhibition
<^the Royal Academy vas opened five days later, oa the
36th. The total number of pictures exhitnted was 136,
which is exactly the number contained in the first two
rooms at Burlington House in this present year of 1900.
In ^ite of the modest extent of the show, the motto on
the title-page of the catalogue — Nova ksruu kascitur
oaDo — ^was justified. The room was always crowded,
and even the street outride was often impassable through
the wuting carriages and footmen, and the people presring
to get in. Sir Joshua's contributions were the " Duchess of
Manchester and her son, as Diana disarming Cupid,"*
" Mrs. Blake {tiie Bunbury) as Juno recrinng the cestus
from Venus,"t " Miss Morris, as Hope nursing Love>"^
and the fiunous group, " Mrs. Bourerie and Mrs. Crewe,'*
now at Crewe Hall. According to Northcote, the other
[nctures round which the visitors dilefly congr^ted were
Gainsborough's " Lady Molyneux " ; Hone's " Pi{Hng
Boy," a small canvas now in the Irish National Gallery ;
Angelica Kauffmann's ** Hector and Andromache," and
** Venus Trith MatM and Achates *' ; West's " Regulus,"
and •* Venus lamenting Adonis " ; Cotes' "Hebe," "Duke
of Gloucester," and *' Boy playing Cricket " ; Penny's
" Scene from ' King John ' " ; Barret's " Penton Linn,"
a beautiful ^te in liddesdale; Cijuiani's "Annunciation";
Mid Dance's portraits of Geoi^ III. and Queen Charlotte.
It is not an exdting list, and yet twenty-nine thousand
people were attracted in a single month. Of the Sir
* In the poMcanon of the Duke of Maachctter.
t At Buton, BD17 St. EdmuiKiU. t At Bowood.
79
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Joshuas, the finest at the time was probably the group of
the two beaudful women now at Crewe. Time has not
been kind to it, but when first painted it must hare
glowed like a gem, while in arrangement it is happier
than most of its author's attempts to combine two por-
traits on a single canvas.* The pathetic story of Miss
Morris is well known. She was the daughter of a Q>loiual
Governor, who died and teit his widow and ctuldren
penniless. She tried the stage, appearing as Juliet at Covent
Garden, but was overcome by weakness and stage fiight*
and her career was confined to a sit^le performance. She
was ntting to Reynolds as a model at the same time. But
consumption was upon her, and she died of a rapid de-
cline while her picture was han^ng on the Academy walls.
Sir Joshua repeated the composition more than once.
JjThe year 1769 was one of the most sociable of Sir
Joshua's life. The list of sitters is very short ; it indudes
only seventy-seven appointments altogether. On the other
hand the dinners are frequent, and some have become
famous. It was apparently in 1769 that the punter's phy-
sician. Dr. Baker, gave his party for the Hornecks, and
drove Goldsmith into that protest agunst lus belated invi-
tation which throws such a genial beam of light on the
Reynold^an circle. ** Little Comedy," " the Jessamy
Bride," and *' the Capt^n in Lace " henceforth hang in the
short but delightful gallery of Goldsmith's portraits. Sir
Joshua dines often this year irith Wilkes, Goldsmith, the
Hornecks, the Nesbitts, the Bastards, Dr. Baker, and
Dr. FranckUn. He has engagements, too, with Ixntl
* On a tombitoae in the background RcTiioldi lia> writt^ " £t in
Arcadia Ego." The thonght came not from Gnercino, ai Tom Taylot
inppotei, but fiom the fimoni PooHin now in the honne, in which
(ome happ7 thepheids and thepheideuei aie grouped aboat a tomb
bearing the lame word*.
80
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE MISSES HORNECK
Sir Henry Bunbury, Bart.
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
DINNER AT BOSWELL-S
Chariemont^Mr. Hoole,Lord Ossory, the Dukeof Grafton,
Dr. Markham (Dean of Christ Church), Dr. Hinchclife
(Master of Trinity), and Dr. Hawkesworth ; with the
Nugents, the Burkes, and Lord Robert Spencer ; also with
more of his brother painters than usual, the favourites
being, curiously enough, two who had avoided the aca-
demic fold, Ramsay and Hudson. It was in the autumn,
on the 1 6th of October, that he formed one of the party
at Boswell's rooms in Old Bond Street, and met the famous
bloom-coloured coat. Besides Sir Joshua and Goldsimth,
the guests included Johnson, Garrick, Arthur Murphy,
Isaac Bickerstafie, and Tom Davies. The memory of this
diimer ought to live for ever were it only for Boswell's
picture of Garrick and Johnson. " Garrick played around
him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his
coat, and, looking up in his face urith a lively archness,
complimented him on the good health which he seemed
then to enjoy ; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld
him with a gentle complacency." What a sketch it is I
Worth all the wonderful report of the night's talk which
follows. A few days after the dinner came the catastrophe
of Baretti, who was put on his trial for murder at the Old
Bailey. After his acquittal Sir Joshua obtuned for him
the dignified but unpaid post of Secretary for Foreign
Correspondence to the Royal Academy, while Johnson
persuaded the Thrales to engage him as resident tutor to
thor children.
About four years before this time Reynolds had made
the acquaintance of Barry, who had been imported from
Cork through the generosity of Burke. At first the two
men had got on well together. Barry was warm in pr^se
of Sir Joshua's art, while Sir Joshua seems to have taken a
quite unusual interest in Barry's preparations for a career.
The time was to come when the President would confess
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
that if he hated uijr nun it was Barr^ , but in the early
yean of their relationB they seem to hive fbrmed a Ihtte
•odety for mutual admiration, and certainly Reynolds took
more trouble to advise the young Irishman and to keep
him in the way he should go, than he did in the case of
any one else. A letter was written to Barry at Rome by
Sir Joshua in this year, 1769, which must be quoted fc«-
the light it throws on the rdations between the two :
"Dub Sn,
" I am TOf nucb obliged to 70a for youi lemeubnuice
of me in jronr letter to Mr. Bode, which, thon^ I bm read with great
pleamre u a comporitioa, I cannot kelp ttjing, with lome regret to find
that 10 great a potion of jront attention hai been engaged upon
tcmporuy matttn, which might hare been lo mnch more pnfitabljr
emplojred npon what would itick hy yon throngh 7001 whole life.
" Whoever ia renlved to excel in piindng, of indeed in taj other art,
muK bring all hii mind to bear npoo that one object, from the moment
hs riiet till he goei to bed. The effect of tmy object that meeti the
paintei'i <je maj give him a le*ion, ptonded hii mind i* calm, nn-
embarraued with other object*, and open to inttmction. Thii general
attention, with other nndiet connected with the art, which mutt empkij
die artiit in hit doaet, will be found nifficient to fill np life, if it were
much longer than it i*. Were I in jaai place, I ihonid coniider m^idf
pb^ijig a great game, and never niSer the little malice and envjr of n^
rivaU to draw off m^ attention from the main object, which, if 70a pnr-
tue with a atead/ eje, it will not be in the power of all the ciceronea in
the world to hnrt you. While they are endeaTonring to prevent the
gentlemen from empkying the jaaag artiita, inctead of injnring ttiym ^
iJiey are, in my opinion, doing them the greateat aervice. Whilat I waa
at Rome I wa> very little employed by them, and that I alwaja con-
sidered at 10 much time loat ; copying thote ornamental picturei which
the travelling gentlemen alwaji biing home with them at furniture for
their honiet, ii far from being the mott profitable manner of a itudent
■pending hit time.
" Whoever hat great views, I would recommend to him, whiltt at
Rome, rather to live on bread and water than lose those advantages
which he can never hope to enjoy a tecond time, and which he frill find
<mly in the Vatican, where, I will engage, no cavalier sends his imdents
to copy for him. Idonotmean this as any reproach to the gentlemoi I
oyGoO»:^Ic
LETTER TO BARRY
^ worfcl io dut pkce, tltongh they are ibe proper itndy (rf an ante,
nuke but as tnAwaid figure painted in oil and tcdaced to the aise of
eaiel pictoKt. The CapelU Siitina is the prodncdon of the greatest
gcnini that wai em employed in the aiti ; it I< worth coniidciing hj
what prindplea that atapendoui greatnesa of i^le ii piodnced, and
endeaTOOiing to prodnce (omethisg of fonz own on thote phnciplei mil
be t more adTantageoni method d rndy than coj^iog the St. Cecilia
m the Bcoi^eie, or the Herodiaa ot Gnido, which may be copied to
e i e mity withont contributing one jot towards making i man a more
able painter.
"If yon neglect visiting the Vatican often, and particiilarly the
Capella Sistina, yon will neglect receiving that peculiar advants^ which
Rome can give above all other dtiet in the world. In otha places yon
win find casts fmn the antiqne and capital i^ctniea of the great maiteta,
l«t h is titn cmJj that you can form an idea of the dignity of the art,
M it is there imly that yon can lee the vmrki of Michehngeh> and
|^«ff«i>ll* If yoQ should not relish them at fint, which may probably
be the case, as they have none d those qualities which are captivating
at first sight, never cease looking till yon feel lomething like inspiradoa
come over yon, till yon think every other painter insipid in comparison,
and to be admired only for petty excellences.
" I snppoae yon have heard of the establishment of a Royol Academy
here; the first opportunity I have I mil send yon the Discourse I
delivered at its opening, which was the fim of Jannary. As I hope yon
win be hereafter one of our body, I wish yon would, as opportunity
often, make memorandums of the regulation! of the academiea that yoo
may visit in yonr travels, to be engrafted on onr own if they should be
found useful.
" I am, with the greatest esteem, yonn,
"J. REYNOLDS,
" On reading my letter over, I think it requires some apology for the
bhmt appearance of a dictatorial style, is which I have obtruded my
advice. I am forced te write in a great huny, aitd have little time for
polishing my s^le."
Another letter with no signature whatever was found
among Barry's papers after his death. Northcote believed
it to have been written by Burke and Reynolds jcnntly,
«3
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
but the opinions are scarMly such as to require two mea
to formulate them :
** Portnit paintitig mzj be to the painter what the piacdol knowledge
<A the world it to the poet, prorided he considen it ai a ichool by whidi
he is to acqnire the duomi of perfectioa in hit irt, and not as the ilyta
of that perfection. It wu practical knowledge of the world which gare
the poeti7 of Homer and Shakipeaie that aupeiiority which itOl exiit>
orer all other works of the ume kind, and it was a philoaophical attendon
to the imitation of common nature, which portriut painting ought to be.
that gave t^e Roman and Bolognese schools thui laperiorit^ orer the
Florentine, which eicelled so mnch in the theory of the arts."
The general tone of these letters si^gests that Barry was
indebted to Reynolds, as well as Burke, for more than good
advice. I can find no direct evidence that the President
hdped the student with funds, but it was inconsistent with
his character to write thus to one who was under no obli-
gation to listen. Barry, of course, profited nothing by
Sir Joshua's solidtude. Nature had deprived him of all
capacity for taking advice, or, indeed, for seeing any path
but that marked out by his own narrow perceptions and
truculent will.
The year 1770 was one of the least remarkable in Sir
Joshua's punting career. In the political world it was
stormy enough, and much of his attention may have been,
given to the adventures of his friends in the Government
and Opposition. It was the year of "Wilkes and
liberty," of Beckford's riplique to the King, of the for-
mation of the ministry which was to lose the American
colonies. Political events may account for the complete
absence of statesmen from his punting-room. The appoint-
ments for portnuts entered in the pocket-book only-
number forty-four, and, if we except the King, the sitters
do not include a ^ngle political personage. The Exhiln-
tion opened on the 24th of April. Sir Joshua's contribu-
8+
oyGoo»:^Ic
PORTRAIT OF GOLDSMITH
tioos were Lord Sydney and Colonel Adand as archers ;*
Mrs. Bouverie and child ;t Miss Price ;} LadyComwallis ;$
Johnson;! Goldsmith \% George Cobnan;** and "The
Babes in the Wood."tt It was in this Exlufaition of 1770
that Gunsborough was " beyond himself in a portrait of a
gentleman in a Vandyke habit," JJ which I think may be
iden^ed, beyond reasonable doubt, with the ** Blue 'Boy"
ZoflRuiy's Garrick as Abel Drugger was also at this year's
Exhibition. Mary Moser, whose phrase I have quoted
above, also teUs us that the Garrick was bought by Sir
Joshua for one hundred guineas, but that he resigned his
purchase to Lord Carlisle, pasnng on the conuderation of
twenty guineas to the painter. " He is a gentleman ! " is
her comment.
The Exhibition closed on the 26th of May, and on
the same day the ** Deserted Village " was published, mth
its dedication to Reynolds. It was a pity the publication
did not come a little sooner, when Sir Joshua's portrut of
Goldsmith might have gathered a little court about It In
die Academy rooms. It is one of the best known and
* la the poHCMion of the Eul of Canurrcm.
t In the pouemos of IJie Eul of Radnoi.
t Het daughter, Francei Muy, married Junec, and Marqnett of
Saliibni^. Tlie pictnie ii now at Hatfield.
f la the poMcttion of the Earl of St. Gcrmani.
II In the Dnke of Satherland'i collection, at Trentbam.
4 In the Doke of Bedf<Mrd'i collection, at Wohun.
** Tie propci^ of Sir Henij Hawle^, Bt.
tt In Letlie and Taylor and alio in the catalt^me of Giavet and
Craun, there leemi to be lome coofnuon over thii picture. The
original " Babet in the Wood " appean to have come into the pooeuton
of Lord Palmenton, from whote collection it paised throagh the handi
g( Mr. Onrper-Temple, Mr. Evelyn Aahley, and Mesm. Agnew and
Sena, to Mr. T. N. McFadden.
Xt Maiy Moict'i letter to Fiueli, then in Rome. For the aigumenu
CIO which the identificaticm of thii picture with the " Bine B07 ** it
founded, *ee the pretent writer*! *< Gainiborongh," pp. iii^is^*
85
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
most sympathetic of all lus works. The oiigitul {ncCure,
painted for Thnle, is now at Wobum. A good rep^tion
is at KncJe, and a fine old studio copy in the National
Gallery of Ireland. The taste of Reynolds was never
better shown than here. He has pointed Goldsmith with-
out any x£ the adventitious frippery which in his case
so fatally obscured the real man. He wears no wig,
and his dress is lu) bloom-coloured coat, but a loose
wrapper with folds thrown according to the painter's
fuicy. It is tiie author of the " Vicar ** and the '* De-
serted Wlage," not the client of Mr. Jdin FUby in Wider
Lane, that we see.
In the autumn of 1770 Sir Joshua paid a short vistto
York, and a comparatively long one to his native coun^.
He left London on the 7th of September, and returned on
the 14th of the foUomng month. His diary shows that
in the interval he visited Wilton, Mount Edgcumbe,
Saltram, and Mamhead, as well as Dorchester, ^dprart,
Axminster, Plympton, Plymouth Dock, and £»ter.
Many entries refer to sport On the nth c^ September
he is up at seven, to hunt. On the 13th, 15th, and aist
the entry is repeated. At that time of the day and year it
must have been cub-hunting. On the 14th he shot par-
tridges, and at Saltram he was induced to back himself
for five guineas in a match with one Mr, Robinson, " to
shoot ^th Mr. Treby's bullet gun at 100 yards distance ;
and a sheet of paper to be put up, and the person who
shoots nearest the centre wins." The wording of the bet
shows that entering wagers was not unong Sii Joshua's
hatnts.
Sir Joshua was again in London on the 14th of October.
He did not return alone. His niece Theophila, the second
daughter of his widowed sister, Mrs. Palmer, travelled
vrith him, to live in his house with but a few short intervals.
oyGoo»:^Ic
WILLIAM KOBERT, SECOND DUKE OF LEINSTEK-
DuKB OF Leinstek
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
RISE OF ROMNEY
until she became the wife of Mr. Gwatkin. Her elder
sister, Maiy, afterwards Countess of Inchiquin and
Marduooess €^ Thomond, was to follow three years
later, and in the end to becx>me her uncle's heir. The
onljr other event belonging to this year which need be
noticed is the first (^tribution of Academy medals, on the
nth of December, when Reynolds delivered his third
discourse. Out of the eleven medallists two, both sculptors,
aiWwards became distit^uished in their profession ; they
were Bacon and Flaxman.
Thelist of sitters for 1771 is i^un very short, although
rather longer than in 1770. It cont^ns wcty-seven
i^tpcxntmoits altt^ether. Roniney — the " man in Caven-
£sh Square " — as, we are told, Reynolds would call him
in moments of irritation — was beginning to divide the
patronage of the town. Northcote tells us roundly that
after Romney came into feshion, Sir Joshua was not much
employed, but this seems to be an exaggeration. There is
no doubt, however, that the two men were in a sense
pitted agunst each other. *' The town," said Thurlow,
" is divided into two factions ; I am of the Romney
Action." To the writers of fifty years ago it seemed
absurd that any one could have hesitated for a moment
between the pair, but to us, who know Romney better,
and have had so many opportunities of admiring his finest
ttungs, the preference seems not so strange. Romney's
native gift was not inferior to Sir Joshua's, his sense of
female beauty was even greater, while his methods of
ocecution were infinitely sounder and more honest — ^if I
may be pardoned the word. In 1771 Romney had only
hem two years in London, but he had already pointed
many portnuts and had established himself in the same
street as Reynolds. Four years later, when he returned
from his stay in Italy and took the house In Cavendish
97
:„Goo<ifc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Square, the actiul riralry began, and the two ran thdr
nedc and neck race for public favour.
Perhaps the real causes of ^ Joshua's comparatiTe
idleness were the political ferments of the time, which
drew men's attention firom other matters, and his own
preference of ease and competence before hard work and
a mountain of guineas. Certun it is that as his ntters
fidl oiF, his social engagements of every kind increase.
He multiplies his dubs, his dinners, his viuts to Carhsle
House and Vauxhall, until we feel tempted to put the
Quaker's question, "Friend, when dost thee tliink?"
Certainly not at home I For there his hospitality was of
that informal kind which makes it imposnble for a man
to keep his house to himself. He never records the
names of his own guests. It would, indeed, have been
difficult to do so, for his habit seems to have been to order
dinner for half-a-dozen, and then to have invited every
one he met during the day, until the party reached twice that
number. In his preface to the Poetical Review of Dr.
Johnson's Character y Moral and literary ^ by John Courte-
nay. Sir James Mackintosh quotes the fdlomng descrtpdon
of the Ldcester Fields hospitafity, which Courtenay
himself, a frequent guest of Sir Joshua's, had given
him: —
"There wai lometlung lingular in the it}^ and economj of Sic
Jothna't table that contributed to pleaiantiy and good htunoor ; a coane
indegaat plenty, withont any regard to order and amngemenb A table,
prepared for Kvenor eight, wu often compelled to costain fifteen or az-
teen. When thii pretiing dtfficnlty wai got over, a deficiency of knrret,
forb,platei,andgla*ieiincceeded. The attendance wai in the lame atyle ;
and it waa abtolstely neceiiaiy to call initantly for beer, bread, or vine,
that jon might be npplied with them before the fint coune waa over.
He ini once pvrailed on to fnmlih the table with decanten and gUne*
at dinner, to lave time, and prevent the tardy nunaeniret of two or three
occational, nndiicipUned, dometcio. Ai tluie accelerating nteniiliwere
demoliihed ia the coone of (ervice. Sir Jothua conld neTer be pemaded
oyGoO»:^Ic
HIS HOSPITALmr
to iv^Moe tliem. But theie trifiing embamNmenti oniy (erred to
enhance the hilarity and ringnlar pleuare of the entertainment. The
wine, cooktty, and diihei were but little attended tt) ; nor was the fleih
or Teniion ever talked of or recommended. Amidit thit conTivial ani-
mated bnitk among the gneiti, our hoit lat perfectly composed ; alwaji
■tteaUTe to what wai uid, never minding what wu eat or drank, but
left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for hinuelf. Temporal and
■piritaal peers, physicians, lawyers, acton, and musicians ccmiposed the
motley group, and played thor paiti without dissonance or discard. At
five o'clock precisely dinner was served, whether all the irtvited goests
were arrived or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill-bred u to
wait an hour perhaps for two or three persons of rank or title, and put
the rest of the company out of humour by this invidious distinction.
His friends and intimate actjuaintance will ever love his memory, and
will regret tluse social hours, and the cheeriulnesi of that irregnlar, con-
rivial table, which no one has attempted to revive or imitate, or indeed
was qualified to supply."
" Is it possible to believe that the man who thus enter-
tained was a cold and ungenial being, equable, chiefly
because he felt nottung and cared for nobody ? I think
we may take Goldsmith's affection, and the Lucester
Square dinner, if we had no other evidence, as conclunve
:^ainst the theory of Sir Joshua's character." Such is
Taylor's comment* on Courtenay's description and its
ngnificance. ^t /excuse, s'accuse, a maxim which may
as fairly be applied to a man's advocate as to himself.
Cold and ungenial Reynolds could not^ of course, have
seemed to acquaintances. His manner, no doubt, was
genial enough, wlule the want of root in his benevolence,
his incapacity to feel deeply the pain and joy of others,
would be an aid rather than a hindrance in his r61e of
neutral between the conflicting pas«ons of his sharply
contrasted friends.
Sir Joshua's engagements this year include dinners mth
Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, Garrick, Colman,
' Leslie and Taylor, Vd. i. p. 384.
89
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Lord Delaww, Mr. Lock of Norbury Park, Mr. Pwker,
Mr. Fitzhert}ert, Mrs. Cholmondeley, and, on Bcveral
occauons, with a new friend. Major Mills.* In Ma^, he
dines with the CumbcrUnda, and this, as TtHn Taylw
sa^;etts, may be the dinner recorded by the dramatist,
when Reynolds reproached Johnson with his eleven cups
of tea, and the lexio^ntpher retorted with, ** Sir, I did
not count your glasses of mne, why should yow number
up my cups of tea ? " Not the only hint we get that Sir
Joshua was fond of his glass.
As for the studio occupations in this year, 1771, the
list of appinntments includes many such entries as ''child,**
"boy," "old mao," "^yptian," "GeOTge White (the
paviour who sat for Ugolino and other figures),** nde by
ude with " Miss Kennedy," '* Mrs. Abington," " Mrs.
Badddey," " Lady Wald^rave," "Sir Charles Bunbury,"
" Bartoloxzi," &c The ** Ugolino," which was to fill so
much of his time and give him so much trouble before it
was finished, was b^un, and probably accounts for most
of the models above quoted. The best fruits of the year,
however, were the portraits of Lady Waldegrave, already
Duchess of Gloucester, although the world was not to
know it until twelve months later, of Mrs. Badddey, of
Mrs. Abington — the picture lately in the collection of
Lord Carrington — and of Folly Kennedy. The last-
named picture has recently migrated from Barton, where
it hung so long, to Clieveden. It was finished during the
months when the frail but good-hearted Polly was in agony
over the misfortunes of her two brothers, condemned to
* CmnbcrUnd deicribes Milli ai " Cc^Iectiag abont him a couideT"
■ble retort of men of wit and learning, at no other expente on hn part
than that of the meat and drink which th^ connuned." Wtat mote
did Cumberland want i Would he have had Milb fee hii guetti for
theii compan7 ?
90
oyGoO»:^Ic
WHITE, THE PAVIOUK, WITH A BEAKD
Earl or Crbwe
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
PORTRAIT OF POLLY KENNEDY
dead) for the killing of a watchman^ one ^gby, in a braid
in Westminster, in the first weeks of 1771. The story,
with its more or less happy ending, is told in detail by
Leslie and Taylor.* The portrait seems a good instance of
Kr Joshua's readiness to give a certain apropos to his concep-
tions. The girl's expres»on is one of tenuon and anxiety;
she holds a handkerchief away from her face as if a sudden
gleam c^ hope had interrupted a long fit of weeping. The
pcntrait was a commisuon from Sir Charies Bunbury, to
whom ^ Joshua writes in September, 1770 : —
** I have finisboi the fk« very much to my own satis-
faction. It has more grace and dignity than anything I
have erer done, and it is the best coloured. As to the
dress, I should be glad it might be left undetermined 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 'ds a mock dignity in
comparison of the simplicity of the antique, &c." The
last sitting was given in January, 177 1, when Miss
Kennedy's persevering fight had been so hr successfiil
that she had at least saved her brothers' lives.
The frictures sent this year to the Academy t^ Sir
Joshua were : — " Venus chiding Cupid for learning to cast
accounts,"! "Nymph and Bacchus,"^ "Reading Girl
(Oflfy Palmer, absorbed in * Clarissa '),"% "An Old Man
(White the paviour),"B "Portrait of Mrs. Abington,"f
and**Portrut of a gentleman," — unidentified. Sr Joshua's
prvt^it Barry, sent his first contribution, the " Adam and
• Vd. i. pp. 394-398-
t Wai in ^ cidlectioii of the bte Eail of Chulemont,
t Belongi to the Hon. W. F, B. MuK^-Mumrariiig.
f Wm in the collection of Mr. John Hengh.
II Burnt in the fire It Belvoir Caitle, 1816.
% Bebngt to Mi. Quilc* Wertheimei.
9*
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Eve," now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. There
were seven Gainsboroughs, and West was represented hy
the famous " Death of Wolfe." The catalogue runs to
a total of 276 numbers, or rather more than the first three
rooms at Burlington House am now disfday. The well-
known print by Earlom, after Brandoin represents this
year's ExhiMtion. In it Barry's picture occupies the
place of honour, while ^ Joshua's " Venus and Cu[Md "
is at one side.
It was in 1771 that Sir Joshua added to his hoiisehold
the only pupil* whose name is still remembered. James
Northcote was a fellow-countryman of his own. He was
bom at nymouth in 1746. His father, a watehmaker,
kept him at his own trade until he had grown to man-
hood. When he was twenty-five, having, I suppose,
acquired some little smattering of the rudiments of
art, he escaped to London, and shortly afterwards found
himself in some sort a pu[nl of Reynolds. He lived in
the Leicester Fields house for five years ; then he prac-
tised for two years as a portrut painter, saved some
money, and made the voyage to Italy, where he stayed
two years. In 178 1, he finally established himself in
London, where he lived and punted for half a century,
dying in July, 1831, at the age of eighty-five. As the
best source of information on one nde of Sir Jo^ua's
career, Northcote can never cease to be of interest, but
even as a punter he does not deserve to fall into abscdute
oblivion. His tustorical " machines " are poor enough,
but his few portraits have merit, and many of his K>{»es
* 8«Teri1 f inxnu puntert paned throii^h Sir }(Mlraa*> imdlo, Tunm
and Lawrence among them. But tlieii stay wu to aHort and thai
idatJ M ii with their matter 10 ali^t, that it would be miileading to call
tti yiii> hii papila.
9»
jyGooi^lc
JAMES NORTHCOTE
from Reynolds now make a brave show over the name of
Sir Joshua himself.*
At Barton, Sir Joshua's own " Master Bunbuiy " hangs
in the same house as Northcote's copy. If the former
perished, the latter would recall its beauties, although a
trained eye could not mistake it for an original Reynolds.
Northcote's time in Ldcester Fields passed happily enough.
He was a persona grata with Miss Reynolds, who enjoyed
his talk, we are told, and the sound of the west country
burr. Whether Reynolds himself would have been
pleased had he known to what an acute observer he was
giving houseroom, is not so certain.
* Northcote'i appearincewtu remaAable. Faaeli laid he wu like a
rat «4uch had Ken a cat ; and Hajdon, a brother Deroniaa, gim a
cniicrni accotmt of hia nunnen and home ; —
" He lived at 39, Aig7ll Street. I was thown fint into a dirtf
galleiy, then upstain into a dirtier paintingroom, and there, under a
high window with the light (hining foil on hii bald, grey head, itood *,
diminndTe, wizened figure, in an cM blue itriped dxening-gown, his
■pectaclei pnahed np on hit forehead. I^ooking keenly at me with his
little ihining eyei, he opened the letter, read it, and in the broadett
Devon dialect laid, ' Zo, you mayne ta bee a peinter, doo'ee i What
wrt of peinter ? * ' Hiitoncal painter, Sir,* ' Heeitoricaol peinter !
Why, yell starre with a bnndle of ttraw under yonr head ! '
" He then put his ipectadei down and read the note again ; put them
up, looked malidoiuly at me, and said, ' I remember yeer vather, and
yeer grand-vather tn; he used to peint.' 'So I have heard. Sir.'
' Eo ; he p^ted an el^hant once for a tiger, and he asked my rather
what txAam the inzide oPi ean was, and my rather told nn reddish, and
yeer grand-vather went home and peinted nn a vine Termilion.* He
then chuckled, inwardly enjoying my confusion at this incomprehensible
anecdote. ' I zee,' he added, * Mr. Hoare zays yee're studying anatomy ;
that* > no nse— Sir Joshna didn't know it ; wl^ should ye want to know
what he didn't \ ' ' Bat Michael Ang^ did. Sir.' ' Michael Ai^elo !
What's he to da here f You must peint portraits here.' This roused
me, and I said, clinching my mouth, ' I won't ! ' ' Won't ! ' screamed
the little man, * but you must 1 your vather isn't a moneyed man, is
he t * ' No, Sir ; bat he has a good income, and will maintain me for
three yean.' ' Will he t hee'd better mak'ee mentein yceizeU.' "
93
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
In a letter written mthin a few days of his reception
into the Freudent's house, Northcote ^ves the foUowu^
account of the arrangements for pu|»b :
" The first <1>7 1 went to paint there I sawoneof Sir Jothiu's pnpli,
ind on conTcning with him wai moch mrpriMd to find that hii Khdart
were abtolnte itrangen to Sir Joahoa't manner of worUng, and that he
m ailf nae of coloiin and vamiihei which ther knew nntliinr of, mnA
alwaji painted in a room diitant from them ; that thej' nevei law him
onleai he wanted to paint a Hand or a piece of draper^ from them, and
then thqr were alwayi diimitied ai toon ai he had done with them.
"He hai but two young gendemen with him at thii time, and they
both behave to me with great good natnre. . . .
" I find Sir Joahna ii k> entirely occnpicd all day with bsBiteai or
company that I have leldom an oppntiuity of teeing him. , . . ."
Agun, in a letter to his brother, he says : —
"I go r^nlarly to Sir Jothoa RcynoW cTeryday, and cc^ from the
pictorei in hii collection. He ii rery kind to me, and often invitca me
to dine with him, and Min Reynold! ia the moat good-natuied woman
I ever met with. . . . ."
After a time, Northcote's enthuaatm made such an
impresMon on Reynolds that he oSered to take lum into
lus house on the same terms as other pupils, an offer
which was joyftiUy accepted.
The side lights thrown by Northcote on Sir Joshua's
haHts and disposition all help to confirm the reading of
his character which I have ventured to adopt. Writing
to his brother, in August, 1771, he says : —
"Yont letter . . . wai brought to me while I wai at dinner with
Mits Reynold), Min Offy Fahner, and Mr. ClarL Miu Reynold* had
alio had a letter by the lune po«t, but it wai not from Sir Joihua, who
is at thii time in Faiii, for he never writes to her, and, between ooi-
•elves, but seldom convenes as we used to do in our family, and never
instructs her in painting. I found she knew nothing of his having
invited me to be his scholar and live in the house till I told her of it.
9t
oyGoo»:^Ic
JAMES NORTHCOTE
She ha* the commiwd <rf the hotuehold ind the tenaaa ai much tt he
bai. . . . The other dxj, Dt. GolcUmith dined here ; it wu the fint
time I erer taw 1'''*'. I had before told both Sir Jothna and Miat
Rejiuddi that I had a great cnriofit^ to tee him, and when I came into
the room the fint word Sir Jothna laid to me was, ' Thii it Di. Gold-
amith, Mr. Northcote, vhcaa 70a k much withed to lee ; why did yon
denre to lec him } * The niddenneH of the qneition rather confuted
me, and I replied, ' Because he i* a notable man ! ' Tliit, in one aenae
of the word, wu *o much unlike hit character that Sir Joihua laughed
heartily, and taidhethouldatwaytin fntoie be called the Notable Man,
bat friiat I meant wu a num of note 01 eminence."
Two more atones from the same source, which add
touches to the portrait :
" One morning, when Ganid pud a nut to Sir Jothna Reynold*, I
oreiheard him, at I waa then at work in the adjoining room. He wai
ipeaking with great freedom of Cumberland, the author, and condemned
hit diamatk wotki. I lemember hit ezprettion wai thia — ' Damn hit
dith-cloot face ! Hit playi would never do for the ttage if I did not
cook them np, and make epilogue* and prologue* for him too, and to they
go down with the public' Me alto added, ' He hatei yon. Sir Jothna,
became yon do not admire hit Corr^gio.* 'What Coneggiof'
antwered Sir Jbthua. * Why, hit Coireggio,' replied Garrid, * it
Ronneyi'"
Northcote was fond of using his ears. On another
occaaon he overheard Mrs. Garrick abusing Foote for his
perpetual girding at Garrick, both in the newspapers and
in private conversation. Kr Joshua replied that it ought
not to pve her pain, as it evidently proved Foote to be
the inferior, for it was always the lesser man who de-
scended to envy and abuse.
Northcote worked in a room, now destroyed, adjoimng
Sir Joshua's own painting room. It was also used as a
ttxt of store-room for plaster casts, rejected portnuts, and
other wreckage from the main studio. Leslie asserts that
the pupils daily saw their master's works in every stage
of progress, but we have Northcote's own statements to
9S
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
show that no such openness was practised by Reynolds.
Leslie too often writes, in hct, as a partisan. Northcote
tells us :
" I remember once i^en I was diipming the foldi of drapeiy with
great care on the la^ fignie, in order to paint from it into one of Lit
pictures, he remarked that it would not make good drapery if tet lo
artificially, and that, whenever it did not fall into inch folds as were
agreeable, I thould tif to get it better, hj taking the chance of another
tou of the drapery itnS, and hj that means I thonld get Natore, which
it alwaji laperior to art."
Upon this Leslie remarks :
" And yet Northcote, after recording thit, laid to HazUtt, ' If I had
any fault to find with Sir Joahua, it would be that he wtt a my bad
master in art.' "
As if a single remark, however much to the point, were
enough to make a man a Lion Cogniet. The truth about
Sir Joshua's activity as a teacher is probably contuned in
the statement that he only gave instruction " when
accident produced an opportunity to give it."*
Northcote stayed five years vnth Sir Joshua, quitting
him in 1776 (to glance forward a Uttle), partly because he
thought he could learn no more, partly because he found
his portion in the house irksome. In a letter to his
brother, dated February, 1775, he says :
" I find it very diipleaiing to Sir Jothna fc^ any one to come to me
in any of the roomi in which I paint, so that sJl the day I must live like
a hermit, which I nibmit to, at I wish to oblige lum in everything that
it in my power. Thus, every visitor by day is attended with giest
inconvenience to me on many accounts, which I could better explain to
you were we together ; for thote reasoot, I woold not have you encourage
D. to call often on me, 01 to think of chatting. ... All those thingt
* Gwynn't Mem*rUlt 9fan Eightttntk Centitrj PttnUr (Jamti N*rtt-
<Mf) : p. 100,
9«
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THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
EAKL Sl'ENCEK, K.G.
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jyGooi^lc
VISIT TO PARIS
I moK qaite gin up. . . . Tlie oolf place in which I caa receive tmf
penoD without Sir Jochm's koowledge ii loch a room ai I am mortified
fot aajboAy to *ee me in. . . . Dawton, when he called on me, wm
Ttrj dedioDi of teeing the room in which I woriced, and I led him into
the dinul bole, bnt it moitified me."
About the i2thof May, 1776, Reynolds and Northcote
said goodt^e with what passed for cordiality in the
aghteenth century. Sir Joshua's last piece of advice being
to remember that, for success in art, " something more
must be done than that which succeeded formerly.
Kneller, Lilly, and Hudson will not do now," an
impromptu remark dwelt upon by Northcote as if it had
been deeply premeditated.
Returning to the year 1771, the only remaining event in
Sir Joshua's life which need be chronicled was a viut to
Paris. Between the 13th of August and the 6th of
September, he was in the French cajntal, but no entries in
his pocket-book or other indications exist to show what
took lum there and how he spent his time. The next
year, sj'J2y Is chiefiy notable for the numerous entries
referring to the Ugolino. Most of the work on the
picture was done in these twelve months, and work com-
[laratively wasted it was. It is pitiful to let the eye wander
down the list of appointments, and see how often " boy
(for Ugolino)," " old man (for Ugolino) " break into the
entries of " Mrs. Abington," " Mrs. Baddeley," "Duchess
of Bucdeuch," ** Lady Mary Scott," " Mr. Dunning,"
" Miss Meyer," and others, wluch were to lead to real
additions to the world's treasure of art. This year, too,
saw more than the usual number of interruptions through
Sir Joshua's love of floating on the main stream of London
society. In sodal matters he seems to have taken as his
models such men as Topham Beauclerc, Ltnrd Melbourne,
97 o
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Lord Falmerston. Wherever amusement was combbed
with fashion — the Auhion both of^randzad demi-monde —
there we find him. We know from his pocket-4x>ok that
he was at the Pantheon on the famous mght when Mrs.
Baddeley was carried in ptast the protesting stewards by
the young men who had shared her favours, and one
cannot help suspecting that Dr. Johnson's reason for
appearing in such a vanity fair was suggestoi by the
President. To Boswell's remark that there was not half-
a-guinea*8 worth of pleasure in seeing the place : " But,
Sir," replied Johnson, *' there is half-a-guinea's worth of
infe-iority to other people in not having seen iL" The
sentiment is much more like Sir 'Joshua than Johnson.
Reynolds was also regular during this year at the
Mondays of the Qub in Gerrard Street, the Wednesday
dinners at the Briti^ Coffee House, the Thursdays of the
Star and Garter, and the alternate Sundays of the Dilet-
tanri. Many entries in the pocket-book refer to Sir
William Chambers, with whom, no doubt. Sir Joshua was
discusung the arrangements for the new rooms at Somerset
House, which were to be commenced eighteen months
later. The relations of the Academy irith the Incorporated
Society also took up much of his attention, feu* this year
the latter opened its fine new room on the site now
occu[»ed by the Lyceum Theatre, and invited the Academy
Coundl to the inaugural ceremony, an invitation gracefully,
if not very graciously, declined. The Academy Exhibition
continued to expand, for in 1772, the catalogue runs to a
total of 324 numbers, including several contributions sent
across the Channel by members of the French Academy of
Painting. The most attractive [Hcture in the coUecdon
was the well-known Zofl&ny, ** Academidans gathered
about the Model in the Life School at Somerset House."
It was in the September of this year that Sir Joshua
9«
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ALDERMAN OF PLYMPTON
recdved that honour from his native town in which he
tock so curious a [Measure, On the 9thi Samuel Northcote
writes to his brother : " I was much surprised when I first
heard from you that Sir Joshua was coming down to 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
dir^ 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 villfuny and cor-
ruption in these affairs ; but, on the contrary, he perhaps
retuns somewhat of the ideas he had of a Plympton
alderman when he was a boy."
Samuel Northcote seems to have been a very sensible
person, but having spent all his life in his native place, he
fuled, perhaps, to redise how, to one who has left it young,
distance lends enchantment to the half-remembered scenes
and peo|de of his childhood.
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHAPTER V
1773— 1778
E fiftieth jear of Sir Joshua's life wts
erhaps the most chiiracterUtic of his
'hole career. It saw the punting of st
ast three of his most famous pictutes,
brought him a peculiar pleasure in the
.access of that friend who seems to have
touched his sympathies more closely than any one else, it
gave him opportunities for a few of those quan-pubUc
appearances for which he had a decided, though sober,
taste, and it found him stUl in the full tide of sodal enjoy-
ment, It was the year of the " Ugolino," of the " ITiree
Ladies decorating a term of Hymen," and of the *' Dr.
Seattle," with its sky full of painted flattery. It was the
year of Goldsmith's triumph in " She Stoops to Conquer.'*
It was the year of that D.C.L. d^ree wtuch afterwards
enabled him to escape from sober blacks and browns in his
portnuts of himself, of his election as Mayor of his native
Flympton, which seems to have pleased him, and of his
assistance at the great pro-Russian naval review on board
the flag-ship of his friend. Lord Edgcumbe. A greater
contrast — within its limits — could scarcely be conceived
than that between the lives at this time of the two greatest
painters of their age : between Gainsborough, at Bath,
^nding his days partly in the feverish creation of works
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
REYNOLDS DAY BY DAY
of ftit in which a virid and spontaneous genius made much
thinlung needless, partly in a life which might be sketched
by judicious thefts from " Tam 0*Shanter " ; and Rey-
nolds, lavishing more thought on his art than any one else
of his century, extending his acquaintance at every oppor-
tunity but always among those who figured in the public
eye, never leaving a duty undone and never acting on
impulse, until in the end he had left a career behind him
which, putting [lassion aside, has seldom been equalled in
completeness and symmetry.
In his second volume, Leslie's editor and completer,
Tom Taylor, gives a catalogue raisomti of Sir Joshua's
dinnga for seven days of lus life, the first week of March
in this year 1773. I cannot do better than c<^ it out,
omitting a few lines in which Tayhv* seems to go too hi
outside his brief :
"Mooda7, March I : — 'The boy' como at ten; ptobably for the
Tonngcftioa but one of the Ugolino gionp, which Sk Joihua ii finiihing
for the exhibition. At eleven airiTci an Iriih gentleman, the Right
ibo. Lnke Gardiner,* now in London foi hit nuiriage with Miu
Elizabeth Montgomerj, one of the three beantifol daoghtert of Sii
Williasi Mcmtgomeij, of whom another ia engaged to Vliconnt Tovm-
fhend (l>tely taueeded in tlie Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland hj Lord
Hajconrt), and the third to the Hon. John Beietft^. All three
manriaget are to come off thia Tear, or next at latot. The npihot of
Mr. Gardiner'* littingi, betide* hi* own picture, wa* a annmiition to
p«int the three beantifol liiten, who b^an to *it to Sir Jothoa in May,
Mr. Gardiner wiihed, a* he ay ia a letter introducing Miu Montgomery,
to have their portrait* ' reptcienting lome emblematical or hinorical
•abject.' Hence the picture, now in the NadtHial Gallery, of the three
young ladiet wreathing a term of Hymen with flower*. If an all^ry
wu to be employed — and we lee it wai the patron'* laggenion, and not
. the painter'* — there oould sot be one more appropriate to theae three
beautifnl girl*, (landing hand in hand on the thie*hdd of maniage,
with the fntnie 10 bright before them. No other riUei ii appointed for
* Afterward* firat Earl of Bleidngton.
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Moacbf, bat at tena in the evenii^ there i> the Actdtmjr lecttKc,
iriiich Sir Joiliiu never tniucf,' though Mr. Fenii^ could haidlj teidt
him mnch about punting. There a a reminder, 'To ipeak for a
painter — Lord Pembroke,* v^ch hint we ma7 eke ont at we pleue ;
either Lord Pembroke had some work for a painter, and had|«ked Sir
Joshua to find him one — a kind of ctHomiatioa the Pretidest raj often
bad — or there wai some painter in whom Lord Pemlnoke wai interttted,
and had aaked Sir Jothna to apeak in favour of the man, or hit pictnret,
to the Academiciani whom he might meet at the lectnie.
"On Tuesday, between nine and eleven. Sir Joshua, strange to uj,
is not to be found in hit painting-room. He is ' in the Cit^,' no donbt
bui7 with one oE hit investments ; perhaps getting rid of some of kit
India tttxk, which keeps falling as the straggle between the Cuupanr
and t^ Government grows more and more fierce. He is bad la
Leicester Fields at eleven, to receive Mr. Gardiner, and perhaps the
design for the picture of the three Irish t beauties is already ditcotsed.
But Sir Jothua hat an appointment vrith Mr. Knapp for twelve, to
Mr. Gardiner's sitting is interrupted, bnt resumed at two, and probab^
contlnuei till four o'clock strikes, and Sir Jothaa bys aside hit pslette for
the dsy. As he has no engagements to dinner abroad, he very likdy
receives one of his pleasant, onceremonious, scrambling parties at &K,
followed by a rubber or loo-table, vrith talk, and tea presided over by
hit nieces, Maiy Palmer and her younger sitter. Sir Jothna't pet, ' Ofiy,'
who hai lately been sitting for the Strawberry Giri, but thinks her uncle
hat made her far too much of a child for fourteen. Between cuds and
conversation, the guests tit late, and twelve has struck before steady
Ralph Kirkley has lighted the last of the party out, and barred and
btdted the house. Such precautions are not unnecessary in Leicester
Fields, vAen the neighbourhood swarms with loose characten, and
supplies a large proportion of their cases to Sir John Fielding and Justice
Wdch at Bow Street
" On Wednesday, at ten, the boy comes to sit for ' The Shepherd,' I
and Sir Joshua either keeps him till four, or works on his UgoUuo, cc
his Stiawbeny Girl, or the portraits of the Duke and Duchess at
Cumberland, or passes a last golden glaze over his group of the bcautifiil
young actrett, Mrt. Hartley, as a Nymph, carrying on her shoulder her
* T.T. ought to have said "never falls to enter in his pocket-book."
We know from Boswell and other sources that he often missed them,
t As a matter of fact thc^ were Scotch.
t The Piping Shepherd, now in the possession of the Earl of Camper-
oyGoO»:^Ic
REYNOLDS DAY BY DAY
boft Tme-wreithed, bn an infuit Bacchni.* And lo the momenti flj
till it ii time to dieu for ■ fooi o'clock dlnnet at tbe Britiih G>&ee
Honie, wbtn Sir Jothna hat appointed to meet a par^, Sir Thoma*
Milli, probably, CunberUnd, Adam Drummond, Richaid Bnrke (now
home (XI leave from hit pott at Grenada), and perbapi Caleb Whitefoord
and Dr. Barnard. The^ adjonm to Dnuy Lane at half-past tix. The
plaf ii Home'i new tragedy of ' Alonzo.' This ii the third, or author*!,
night, when the proceedi of the home, after dedocting the expentet, go
into the pocket! of the aathor, who, betidet, often lealited b7 the tale
of hit copTiight to the publiihen at much as he received from the
theatre. Mr. Home'i ' Donglat ' hat made him a reputation, and the
hoBte it crowded. 'Alonzo' it a terrible ipecimen of the hearieit
Intimate traged/, with all the itock motiTet and machinery. ... In
ipite of reipect for Mr. Home, admiration for Mrt. Bany, and excellent
breeding, one imaginet Sir Jothna hiding an occational yawn, and very
thankfnl when they came to the killing, and he conld get away to bed,
oi, likelier itill, to a meny tupper at the British or the Turk's Head.
"Thnnday it bbnk of appcuntments for either titter or model . . .
At four there it a ' dinner at home,' but the party break* up in time for
Sir Jothna to attend Mrt. Oid't conrertazione at eight. Mrs. Ord is
the dever wife of a wealthy Northumbrian gentleman, and, though only
a lurgeon'i daughter, has made her way to the front rank of the Bluet
. . . immediately after Mn. Montague, Mit. Walsingham, and Mii.
Vetey. Here Sir Joihna is certain to meet the chief literary liont of the
day, Johnion ... a bishop or two — ^very probably Shipley, of St. Asaph,
or Newton, of Bristol ... a sptinkling of lawyers and doctors. Dr.
Warren or Dr. Brockleiby, Mr. Pepyt, or young Mr. Jones, who hat
ktely published hit poemt from the Pertian. There will drop' in,
beades, during the evening, tome of the fashionable wits and noblemen
who mix with the literary todety of the time — ^Topham Beauclerc,
Lord Falmertton, Lord Lncan, Loid Mnlgrave, Lord Ossoiy ; and even
Geo^e Selwyn may saunter in like a man walking in his sleep, and drc^
Odt oat of hit mta, of which the pungency ii doubled by the languid
gravity of the speaker. More formidable than the gentlemen it the
doaely'packed aide of ladies, in high tflts . . . long stomachers, ample
mffies, and broad, ttiS ikirts of substantial flowered silk or rich brocade.
There will be Mrt. Montague, with her thin, clever face, hei grand aii,
her bright eyes, and her blaze of diamonds, talking formally and
pompously, but neither unkindly noi sillily, to the Duchess of Portland
and Lady Spencer, flanked perhapi by Mrs. Chapone ... or Mrs.
* Pietented by Sit William Agnew to the National Gallery.
103
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Cuter ... or Mn. Lenox, bow in great dinrcM, u tiie Kpaitmeot*
iriuch hiTc been granted to tier in Someraet Hotue aie aboBt to be
polled down in the coone of Sir WUiam Oumben' projected re-
h nilrling , , ,
" IIk ladiei lit late, and St. Mirtin'i niaj be rtiiking two aa Sir
Jo«Kaa'i carriage ttuni the wettem corner of Letcener Fiddt oo ita wsf
liome.
** Lord Cathcart uu on Friday morning ... a Hiitingniihed officer,
irito lerved and wai woonded at Fontenof, hu been AmbaaMdor at
St. Petenbnig, and if now about to be appointed Lord High Com-
nuMtooer to the General Aaiembl/. He it proud of hli Footoio^ acar,
and requena Sir Joahna to arrange that the black patch on hk dieek
•hall be vinble.* . . . But before Lord Cathcart*! arrival. Sir Joahna
hai hadaiittingof oneof hia'Bayi.' Between him and Lord Cathcart,
and pkturea on band to be finiihed and «ent home, the da^ it cooramed,
and at fonr the painter dinet with one of the oldeat and moat intimate
of hit friendi, Mr. John Parker, one of the member* for Devon, and
afterward! Lord Boringdon. Sir Joihna hai known him fram a bo^ ;
thej are of abont the Hune age. On the Fretident'! viiiti to Deron-
•hire, Mr. Parker i! alwajt one of hit horta ; Sir Joahna thoott and hnnt!
with him, and adviiet him abont purchatei for hit gallery, for Mr. Parker
lorei picture! a! well u conntiy tporti, and it bent on haTtng a good
collection in hit honte at Saltram, for which the Parker* have left thmr
fine old Tudor hall at Boringdon. Hi* amiable and beantifnl wife,
Thereta, it now aitting to Sir Joihua for that graceful portrait of her,
with her boy of two yean old, which now hangi in the Saltram
giUcir.
" On hit way from Mr. Parker*!, Sir Joihna drop! in at the Qnb,
iriuch now rapt on Fridayi, and at which he i* the mott conttant of
attendant!. Johnion it abient, being confined to hi* home in JobntCD*!
Court by gout and catarrh. But there it no lack of coiaputf or tt^ict;
Topham Beanderc hat to tell the humour! of the latt maaqnerade at
the Pantheon, on the iSth of February, where Gatrick had thooe lo
brilliantly ai King of the Gipiiet, and jolly Sir WatUn had produced a
great effect by riding in a* St. Darid mounted on a Wclih goat. Then
there i* Garrick*t admittion to the Club to diacud, the ballot for which
it fixed for thii month, Johnion i* known to be warmly in GarridL*!
favoar, in ^ite of hit contemptnoot tone in !peaUng of the playert.
JobntoD ha! talked of putting up Botwell** name for ballot when he
* ** In all the pmtrait* of Lord Cathcart, which erer ride ia turned
to the ipectator, the black patch it on the ride moat fnlly aeeo." C^.T.).
10+
oyGoO»:^Ic
STUDY FROM WHITE THE PAVIOUR
Eari. of Crewe
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
REYNOLDS DAY BY DAY
•rrivct from Scotland, in April Sir Jodina lays m good mid for the
loote-tongned, bruen-faced, pnihing, chattering Scotchman, whom
enrfhodj elte hai his fling at. Sir Joahaa compeli them »> admit that
he it good company, that he thawi reterre wherever he comes, and Kta
the ball of conTcrutioa rolling. ITtes Cohoan openi the budget of hit
difficnltiei and doldnimi over Goldimith't onlocfy comedy, now cm the
point of production. It matt fail ; the public will never lund a faice
in five acta ; all the actcxt are throwing up their pirta ; Gentlonan
Smith declarei he won't go on for yonng Mailow ; Woodward haa flatly
refnaed Ttuiy Lanq>kin ; and now Mrt. Abington ii in the ponti, and
ptoteit* ihe don't lee heraelf in Mix Mallow. Poor Goldy it in deapaii.
They haven't even fonnd a naoke yet for hi* haplesi play. ' The Mit-
take* of a Night ' i* pronounced too tiivial for a comedy ; ' The Old
Home a New Inn ' it voted a^ward. Sir Joihna propotet the ' BcUe"!
Stratagem,' and declaret if Goldy doe> not take iii same, he will go the
flrtt night and help to damn hit comedy. * Hiere will be no need of
hit help for that,' Colman whitpera hit next neighbour, tilent, thy, kindly
Bennet I^angtro. Bat the tide at the Clnb runt for the author against
the manager. Johnton hat given hi* weigh^ JSst, hat declared the
comedy the beat written for yeart, and hat pinned hi* repotation on it*
rocceit. Reynoldt warmly maintain* Johnton'* opinion ; Borke throw*
bit eager and impaitianed eloquence into the tame teak; and before the
Qub ditpenet for the night, Goldunith it comforted and buoyant with
hi^e, and Colman nlenced if not convinced.
" On Saturday, at half-pait ten, before Lord Cathcart arrivea, Sir
Chariet Daven hat a titting.* Sir Charlet it an honcit country gentle-
man of Suffolk, and member for Weymouth. He it a friend and
neighbour of the Bnnbniya, and hat a good deal to tay of Sir Chailet't
beta and gaDantriei and Mr. Blake't wagert and matchei. But his mott
intereating subject of conversation, I thould suppose, mutt have been
the terrible tufferingt of the poor people about Bury St. Edmnndt in the
famine of latt year, when the itarving mob ttopped the com and carcaae
carta, and forcibly told the flour, and meat, and coalt at their own
price* ; threatening to raise an English jacquerie, tiH the squires and
farmers combined to put them down ; Sir Charles Daver*, with other
k^al gmtkmen, last April, having ridden into Buy St. Edmunds
market-place at the bead of 800 (d their tenantry and tervantt, readyto
* llua portrait it either the one at Rnthbrooke, near Bniy St.
Edmnndt, vrith the hands coarsely repainted, at the one in the potset-
sion of Lord Morley, at Saltiim. A replica, vrith slight variations,
belong* t6 Lord Bristol, at Ickworth.
105
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
trample down and fire npoa the rioten, if necenuf, whkh luppilj' h
WMnot.
" No tittert nicceed Lord Ctthcirt ; Sir Jothiu dimet *t home, at fire
aa ofnaL At leren he goea ont to tea and caidi Q>iobablj fopper) at
Mr. Roffef'a, of whom I know nothing bnt that Sir Jothua leem* to
hare Tinted him a good detL
" On Sondaj (let ni hope after he hat taken Hii niece to chnrch) he
hai a atting fmn the Dukeof Giafton, now Lord Privy SeaL Bnt this
practice of receiving ntten on Sondayi ii even now— though Johaaon
hai notjret botmdSir Jothna to give it up — exertional, and only occnra
in the caae of perton* whoae time ti little at their own diipotal, oc of
very great people, who make the lerenth day of the week bend to their
occaaioDi as well ai the other liz.
" Thii happeni to be a Dilettanti Sunday, and Sir Joahna rardy mines
oneof the Society's pleaiant dinnen at the Star and Gartei, where helt
■ore to find old Mendt and congenial companion!. Here he can ditcoM
good wine and pictnret with Lord MtUgrave ot Mr. Bonverie ; bow
to Lord Falmenton't or the Dnke of DeTonthire'i piaiiea of the la«t
impOTted antiqoe ; hear Mr. Fitzpatrick*! oi George Selwyn't fretheat
boa-mot| and raiie hit eyebrowt at the newt that Lord HoQand it
thinking of paying off C^'"^'* Foz't debt!, which hit club friendi pat at
lomething above a hundred thontand. Ferhapi he taket part in the
ditcnwion of the drewei for the Henry Qnatre and Charlei the Second
qnadrillea at the next Almack't, heart the tpeculationt at to the anthor-
ihip of the Htnic Sfiitk, jntt now at much the rage at the Coort end
of the town a* the BaU> Gmde before it, or the R»lSsd afterward* ; and
thifa hit trumpet at Lord Spencer ezpatiatet on the kit Andrea Saodii
ifiuch he hat bought for a Guido. He hat beiidea to beat np
Totet for hit new friend, Mr. Luke Gardiner, who it a candidate
for the Dilettanti, and comet forward for ballot to-night. There ia a
great deal of wit and trirta talked, a great deal oi laughing, a
great deal of wine drunk, in all which Sir Jothua taket hit part geniaDy
bnt temperately."
A good deal of this — the reader may mj — is conjecture,
but a collation of the pocket-books with Boswell, N<Hth-
cote, the publications of the Historical Manuscripts Com-
mission, and other authorities, leaves us with a curious
sense of conviction as to how Reynolds passed the normal
days of life. He was free from those erratic impulses by
which people are led into adventure. It was his nature to
io6
oyGoo»:^Ic
"SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER"
fonaee, to advance hy stages booked beforehand, and to
keep engagements with such punctuality that we never get
a hint of the smallest fulure to fulfil them. If he were
ever tempted to be eccentric, it was, we may safely guess,
in connection with Goldsmith, for whom he seems to have
felt an afiection bordering on the paternal. It was tried
during this year, 1773. In the first months of it, Gold-
smith was in bad health and worse spirits, for his debts
were presung, and lus play — according to those who ought
to have known best — ^was »mply waiting to be damned.
Perhaps, however, the tales to this elfect contain some
exaggeration. It is difficult to believe that a mani^er and
a company of experienced actors can hare read " She Stoops
to Conquer " without any suspicion of its merit dawning
upon them. They may have had serious doubts ; a farce
in five acts was an experiment; but they can scarcely
have been so decided in thdr convicticm of failure as we
are told they were, or it would not have been brou^t
out at all.
The first night was the 1 5th of March. Goldsmith and
his friends dined tc^ether before the play at the Shakes-
peare tavern, near the theatre. The company included
Reync^s, Johnson. Steevens, the two Burkes, father and
son, Caleb Whitefoord, Sir Thomas Mills, Cumberland,
and some Scotsmen, ** prominent among them one Adam
Dnunmond, an invaluable man for the first night of a
comedy, being gifted with the most sonorous and conta-
gious of laughs." Goldsmith, of course, was wretched.
He couldn't eat, and when it was time to move on to the
theatre he had vanuhed. Tlie story of the play's triumph
is too well known to be repeated, but when Goldsmith was
caught wandering about in the Mall and brought into the
house just as the curtain rose for the last act, we may be
sure that Reynolds, in his double capacity as friend and
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOUJS
justified prophet, was moved to a warmer handshake than
utuaL
The Exhibition of 1773 included twelve jnctures by
Reynolds : Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Cumber-
land, * the Duchess of Buccleuch, f Lady Melbourne with
her childtt Mrs. Darner, Mr. and Mrs. Ganick,^ Mr.
Banks, a young lady, a gentleman, a ** Nymph with a
young Bacchus" (Mrs. Hartley and child), I the " Straw*
berry Girl,"f and " Ugolino and his Children in the
Dungeon."** Leslie suggests that the unusual gene-
routy of Sir Joshua to this year's Exhibition is to be
exfJained by the ^t that Gainsborough did not send at
all, and that the consequent gaps had to be filled up. The
reason of the latter's abstention is unknown, except through
Walpole, who notes in his catalc^ue that ** Gainsborough
and Danc^ having disagreed with Sir J. Reynolds, <Ud not
■end any [Hctures to this exhibition." Gain^xirough was
an intimate friend of Kirby's, which may account for some
want of cordiality between him and his brethren of the
Academy ; he was a touchy mortal too, and causes of dis-
pute are never wanting between those who paint [Mcture*
and those who hang tiiem. Ten years later there was to
be a final rupture, a rupture for which Gunsborough has
too long borne the whole of the blame, and in 1772 •
nmilar cause of quarrel may have arisen. Of Sir Joshua's
twelve contributions, the most famous, though (mi from
the best, is the " Ugotino." Leslie comments on it : "The
* Uteportnitof theDukeiiBt WiadaoiCude; thttof tlie Dschen
at WaddetdoD.
t In the Duke of Bnodendi'i coUectton at Dalkeith Palace.
t Engraved ai " Maternal Affection " ; now at Panibangci.
§ Painted for Lord Shclbrnne** brother ; now the propexty of the
Marqoeu of Lanidowne.
n Now m the National Gallery.
4 Mow in the Wallace CoUecti(». " Noir at Kaole.
108
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE STRAWBERRY GIRL
Wallace Gallery
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
THE «UG0LINO"
* Ugt^no * leaves nothing to be desired, except that it had
never been painted." With the last half of this dictum we
may cofdialljr agree. Reynolds had none of the special
gifb requir^ for success in such an undertaking. He
could not express tragedy in terms of line and colour.
The human honor of the story grips his mind, but instead
of suggesting a pictorial equivalent, it merely sets him
tlunklng how to realise the facts as told by Dante. The
picture has no design, no envelope of colour, no welding
chiaroscuro. Northcote says it was the result of chance.
Reynolds punted the Count's head from White, the
paviour, some years bef(»'e 1773. It was on a half-length
canvas, and the punter had no idea of maldng it anything
more than an ideal portrait until, one unlucky day, it was
seen by either Burke or Goldsmith, "who immediately
exclaimed that it struck him as being the precise person,
countenance, and repression of the Count Ugolino as
described by Dante in his Inferno." Sir Joshua had the
canvas enlarged, and proceeded to act upon this idea.
Northcote sat for the figure of the young man with his
hand over his fwce. How many Ugolinos would we give
6ye the " Strawberry Girl '* or the *' Mrs. Hartley " ?
The Exhitntion had grown nearly threefold in the five
years «nce 1769. The numbers in the catalogue had risen
ftom 136 to 385. The receipts, however, had only in-
creased about 30 per cent. The duration of the show was
still from the fourth week of April to the last week of
May. It was afier the doors had closed that Sir Joshua
assisted at the Naval Review. A few days later he
travelled to Oxford to receive his doctor's degree. Oa
this occasion he vidted Nuneham Courtenay, Gr^ories,
and Blenhdm — where he gave offence to their Graces by
appearing, like Tottenham, in his boots. Soon after his
return to London, he b^an the portrait of Dr. Beattie.
109
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
The account given by Beattie in his dtuy of the com-
mencement of lus friendship with Sir Joshua is interesting,
both for its glimpses of the Preudent's mode of life, and
for the strange opinions on his art which could be formed
by an intelligent contemporary : —
" On Sunday, tlie i5tJi (of Angnit) , , . Sir Jotfaua insiited <m it
that we $hoald itaf till to-moirow, and partake of a haunch of venitcn
with him to-daj' at hii home on Richmond WHL Accordingly', at
deren, Mn. Beattie, Miu Rcj^oldt, Mr. Baretti, and Mi. Palmer let
ont in Sir Joihns't coach for Richmond. At twelve he and I went in a
pon-chaJM, and hj the way paid a vitit to the Bishop of Cheater
(Dr. Markham), who wai very earneit for ni to fix a day fu diningwith
him. . . . After dining at Richmond, we all retnmed to town ibont
eigjit o'clock. Thii day I had a great deal of convenaticm with Sit
Joihna Reynold* on critical and philosophical lubjccti ; I find him to be
a man, not only of excellent taite in painting and poetry, bnt of an
enlarged understanding and tmiy philoaopbical mind. Hit notioot of
painting are not at aU the tame with thoie that are entertained by die
generally of painten and othen. Artifidtl and contracted attitndet
and gronpi he maket no account of ; it ii the truth and limplicity <rf
nature which he it ambitiout to imitate ; and these, it must be allowed,
he poKeitet the art of blending with the moit exgniute taite, the most
■nimated e^rettion. He tpeakt with contempt of those who couKire
grace to conast in erect position, tnmed-out toes, or the frippery of
modern diet*. Indeed, ai/itner aceamt ne make cf tht caltmnmg of tki$
grett ariiit (uMei Mm feefiU eijfct te), itu imfettiiJe If Jemj Mm the fraiit
tf bring tie gnattst JedgiKr ofaaj age"
He goes on to say that the picture of Garrick between
Tragedy and Comedy had been painted in a week. If
we take the literal meaning of the words, the sentence I
have put in italics contuns as absurd a judgment on Sir
Joshua as we could readily conceive, but Seattle's meaning
may, nevertheless, have been more judidous than it
sounds. That Sir Joshua was a great colourist even we,
who only know his colour after more than a century of
degradation, can assert, while, as a designer, he is seldom
uther correct or coherent. On the other hand, if we
oyGoo»:^Ic
PORTRAIT OF BEATTIE
suppose that by design the Scots' philosopher meant umply
a pictorial idea, such an idea as we see embodied in the
" Strawberry Girl," or the " Age of Innocence," or the
" I^ncess Sophia Matilda," or the *' Master Bunbury^"
then, sweeping as his assertion is, I do not know that it
can be contradicted. I, at least, can think of no painttr
whose invention remained so fresh and surprising for so
long a time. Imagine what Velazquez would have been
had he been able to combine the playful fancy of a
Reynolds with his own unrivaUed execution. Imagine
the technique of an " Infante Prosper " or an " Infanta
Margarita" wedded to as fine a movement as that of the
•• Mrs. Atnngton as Miss Ho^nlen " or the *" Miss
Bowles," and you will see the value of ^ Joshua's
invention.
Dr. Beattie sat on Monday, August i6th, for the
first time.* He gives the following account of the
«tting : —
" Breakf uted with Sii Jotbna R^noldi, who this iny began the
allegorical picture. I lat to him five hoon, in which time he finithed
mj head and sketched ont the reit of m^ fig:iire. The likeneu ii mon
Striking and the execution moat nuiterly. The fignie it ai laige at
life. Though I tat five houn, I wai not in the leatt fatigued, for, hy
placing a laige miiror oppoiite to m^ face, Sii Joihua Reynolds pnt it
in m^ power to tee ereiy ttidce of hii pencil ; and I wat greatly enter-
tained to obterre the progreti of the work, and the easf and muterly
manner of the anitt, which differs aa much from that of all other
paintert I have teen at work at the ocecation of Giardini on the violin
diffeft from that of a common fiddler." f
" No entry al the ntting appeart in the podet-bo^ probably
became it wat only ananged the preronu day, on the way home from
t It is cnriont that Gainsborough makes the same nte of Giardini to
illattrate the ease of complete mastery; he compaiei Giardini'a
" bowing " with Dnnning't conveitation.
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
The (ftcture led to one of those outbursts ui
trenchant good sense on the put of Goldsnuth which are
in such curious contradiction with his general reputRtton
as a talker. Sir Joshua filled the background of Beattic's
portrut with an all^cnical group, suggesting that the
worthy doctor's Essay on Truth had routed Vohure at
least, if not C^bbon and Hume as well. '*Howa>uld
you," asked Goldsmith, " d^rade so high a genius as
Volture before so mean a writer as Beattie i The
edstence of £>r. Beattie and his book t<^ether inll be
forgotten in the space of ten years, but your all^orical
picture and the fiune of Volture will lire for ever, to your
disgratx as a flatto'er." *
The picture of the " Three Ladies ** had been begun
before the Beattie. In July, Sir Joshua had written a
letter to Mr. Luke Gardiner, from whom he had the com-
mission, explaining the motive he had chosen —
" the adorning a term of Hymen with feitocmt of flowen. Thit iffoidi
infficient empk^ment to the figuret, and girei an opportmiity of intro-
ducing a Tarie^ of giacefnl hiitorical attitndei, I have eveiy Induce-
ment to exert mytetf on this occasion . . . from the tnbjecti iriiich
70U have preaented to me, which are inch at I am nerei likely to meet
with again ai long at I IiTe.'*
He concludes with the usual declaration that it will be
" the best picture I ever painted." In the Academy cata-
logue it was entered as " Three Ladies decorating a Term
of Hymen." .'Die name by which it is miscalled In the
catalogue of the National Gallery — "The Three Graces
decorating a Term of Hymen " — sprit^ from a confusion
between Sir Joshua's tide and the name given to both
utters and picture by contemporaries. The ladies were
the daughters of Sir William Montgomery of Stanhope
* The picture now bdongi to Mr. Glennie, of Aberdeen, a HnMTun
of Beattie.
oyGoO»:^Ic
THE SCOTS GRACES
and Magbie Hill, Feebleshire, the collateral ancestor, if
I may pat it so, of the present Sir Graham Mon^omery
of Stanhope. They were called " The Scots Graces," a
name which was inevitably transferred to Sir Joshua's
fncture, and ended in the foolish title now officially
sanctioned, and in the mistaken criticisms to which it has
given rise. Of all Sir Joshua's more elaborate conceptions,
tlus group seems to me by far the happiest. The " his-
torical attitudes," as he calls them, are full of grace and
natural movement, and are well related to each othu- ; the
pattern is fine all over, a very rare thing with Reynolds
when he ventured beyond a single figure, while the action
is so contrived that an essential unity — a unity going
deeper than mere line — is reached. In his Marlborough
Family picture, be was once again to succeed in putting
many figures on a »ngle canvas without ^ling into con-
fusion, but in no other group that I know of did he touch
the level of creation through organised dedgn that we
find in the " Scots Graces."
Sir Joshua was elected Mayor of Plympton in Sep-
tember of this year, and took a pleasure in the elevation
yfbich seemed extra<vdinary to Northcote's brother,
Samuel. It is sud that he also wished to sit in Parlia-
ment for his native borough, for which Sir Christopher
Wren had sat nearly a century before. Samuel North-
cote writes to James, under date 3rd of October ; —
" . . .Sir Joihaa went to Mount Edgcnmbe tliia monung . . .
with Mi. Miu^. ... He ipeski (4 learing ^rmonth tm Toetda^
nonuog, bat tbote wbo know anTthing of Mtyoz-twttiing think it
cannot be lo toon, at there i* mnch conconutant bosinett to be done.
I find Sir Joshna't receiving the Sacrament ii one paiticuUi. This the
tborongh-paced call ' qnilifying.' Beiide*, the Pljrmpton folki are all
on dptoc readjr Eoi a dance, and mrel^ Sii Joihna will not leave them
withont giving a ball. Bnt I ntppo«e 70a will be moie pleated ta hear
113 «
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
that Sir Joihaa called on Friday to tet jom pictoret, ind Ukal diem.
I happened t» dine at home that day, and joit after dinner he called
in and aiked to we yo\iX father"! portrait, imagining joa had finiihed it
After he had leen tltis, he desired I would let him aee the other of me.
He taid jonr father*! wai a very good head, bnt not lo good a likenea
at mine, and obterved the noie in your father*! picture wu too faS at
the end. He deaired likewiie to lee that of yonr grandmother by
Gandy. . . . Thii he said waa a very good ptcttire, and remariud dut
tlie eye! were finely painted, and that very few of Sir Godfrey Kneller*!
were lo good. . . ,"
On his election ta the Mayoralty, Sir Joshua sent a
portnut of himself to hang in the Torrn Hall.* It was
hung between " two old pictures," which " acted as a foil,
and set it off to- great advantage," as Sir William Elfofd
told Reynolds ; they were two early |Mctures by Sr
Joshua himself !
Another event of this year which requires to be
chronicled is the abortive attempt to hare St. I^iul's
decorated by a select band of Royal Academidans.
Happily, the project failed. Neither Sir Joshua nor any
of his colleagues knew enough of monumental painting to
carry such a task through with any approach to success.
Had the Bishop of London allowed the thing to be done,
we should have had a cathedral filled with gloomy, semi-
dasncal designs, which woiild have absorbed light fntbout
adding solemnity. Sir Joshua's biographers have lamented
the Bishop's sdffneckedness ; they should have thanked
him on their knees. His action saved the painter from
wasting his time on work he was quite unfitted for, and
left him free to multiply those fanciful creations tn which
we all delight.
Be^des those already mentioned, the pictures of this
year include the full-length portrwts of Lord and Lady
* It wai told when the corporatios was abolithed, and i* now at
Petmnth.
oyGoO»:^Ic
LADV COCKBURN AND HER CHILDREN
Alfred Beit, Esg.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
"CORNEUA"
BdlamoDt ;* the Richard Edgcumbe ;t several of the
Streatham portraits — ^Johnson, Goldsmith, Arthur Murphy,
and Burke ; the portrait of Robert Chambers ; and the
famous ** Cornelia "—-Lady Cockburn and her three chil-
dren — which retreated from the National Gallery to the
collection of Mr. Alfred Bat when the country's title to it
was discovered to be &ulty. It is asserted by Leslie and
other writers, that the Lady Cockburn is one of the only
two pictures ugned by Reynolds, the other bong the
" Mrs. Sddons as the Tragic Muse." The assertion is
not strictly true. As a rule, Sir Joshua left his |nctures
to sign themselves, but occauonally he ** made sicker " by
putting his name upon them. The Lady Cockburn
enjoys, periiaps, a little more fame than it deserves.
Fine in colour as it is, and exceptionally sound in con-
dition — for a Reynolds — ^it is too confused in arrangement^
both of line and mass, to give unalloyed pleasure. The
three children are |Hled awkwardly upon thdr mother, and
suggest that Sir Joshua misapplied his own favourite
Iheory that nature is superior to art. Certainly, such a
group may often be seen in a nursery, but there it should
belefL
It was in this year 1773 that the Dean of Derry, Dr.
Barnard, had his famous collision with Johnson in Leicester
Fields, and wrote those verses which I have ventured to
print beside the other two rhymed characters of Sot Joshua,
by Goldsmith and Mrs. Thrale, oppoute the first page of
ttUs volume. The year was one of much dining out. The
pocket-book notes engagements with all the punter's old
friends and with a few new ones, the most remarkable of
the latter, perhaps, being Lord Bute. Lord Shelburne,
* The pomut of Lord BeUamont ii now in the Nadooal Galleiy,
Dablin ; th>t of the Conntesc b«kHigcd nntil Jnne 1905 to Loid Tweed-
mouth, t In the poMeidm ^ the family.
115
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Lord Carlisle, Sir Thomas Mills, Lord Palmenton, the
ZXike of MarlborougK, are among his hosts, also Lord
Carysfort, vrhom he visited at Elton, in Northafflpton^iire,
where the walls are still covered with fine examples of
lua art.
The Exhibition of the year 1774 was a great oat for
the President He sent thirteen [uctures ; the Duchess of
Gloucester ; • her daughter, the Princess Sophia Matilda ; t
the " Ladies adorning a Term of Hymen" ; Mrs. Tolle-
mache as Miranda ; t Lady Cockbum and her children ;
Earl of Bellamont ; Dr. Beattie ; Bishop Newton ; § BareUi
(head) ; | Lord Edgcumbe (whole lei^th) ; T a whole
lei^th of "a Lady" ; and one of **a Gendeman" ; and
an " Infant JufMter." The pocket-book is missing, so that
we can only guess how work went In the studio during the
twelve months, from his ledger and from the pictures sent
to the Academy in 1775. These were three whole lengdis
of ladies (Countess of Dysart, for one), ** Lord Ferrers, ft
Mrs. Sheridan as St Cecilia, tt Dr. Robinson, §j the children
c^ the Duke of Rutland, || the Duke of Ldnster, W dw
Duchess of Gordon,*** a Gentleman, and ** A B^^ar Boy
and his Sister." fff Most of the work on these [Hctures
must have been done in 1774, which in other ways was
not one of Sir Joshua's most eventful years. He probably
* In finckiiiglum Palace. t In Wnd»r Caitle.
J Now in the collection of Lord Iveaf h.
S Now in Lambeth Palace.
II The property of the Earl of Ilcheater.
f At Moont Edgcombe. ** At Hun Hoiue.
tt Lately belonged to the Mirqneu Townahend.
It At Wadde«lon.
S^ Belong* to Sir Gerald RobinKm, Bt., Rokebf Hall, Co. Lonth.
III Net traceable. f!I At Carton, Co. Kildare.
*** In the collection of the Dnkc of Richmond.
ttt Pocribl^ the B07 with Cabbage-nets in Mr. Alexander Hendo-
•ob'i ooUection.
oyGoo»:^Ic
GAINSBOROUGH IN LONDON
remembered it aiterwirds u the year of his first introduc-
tion to Hannah More and of Gainsborough's establishment
in London. Hannah was a cloae Mend of the Gwatkins,
through whom no doubt she was introduced to the family
in Leicester Fields. Her description of her first appear-
ance there, of & Joshua's kindness, and of the apparition
of Johnson, vrith the 6unou8 macaw perched upon his
shoulder, has a touch t^ Boswell's vivadty.
Gainsborough arrived in London shc»tly after the
ExhiUtioa closed. Reynolds called upon him, and we are
told that his call was never returned. Leslie adds that for
several years there was no intercourse between them, but
ao far as I can discover, he had no authority for such a
sweeping assertion. Gunsborough and Reynolds had many
intimate Mends in common. Not a few sitters passed
backwards and forwards between the studio in Leicester
Fields and that in Pall Mall, and if the coldness had been
so marked as Leslie makes out we should have heard more
about it from them. Leslie, who tests evidence by its
agreement or disagreement with his own cherished view of
Sir Joshua's character, is particularly unfur to Gunt-
bcnougfa whenever there is any question of comparison.
He talks of him as feelii^ it hopeless to contend with
Reynolds in the force of his effects, and so adopting a
system of chiaroscuro less ideal — whatever that may mean
'—than that of his great rival " He never," he goes on to
tay, " could have punted in the manner of Reynolds mth-
out being below him ; but by painting in a mumer very
(Afferent he was often equal to him ; and his finest works
rise much above the inferior wotka of ^ Joshua." We
hear a good deal of the worthlessness of non-profes«onal
ojnnions cm painting, but I doubt whether any hack critic
ever wrote a more fodish paragraph than that. Gains-
bwough'sart is infinitely more spontaneous and inevitable
117
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
than Sar Joshua's. While the Prendent was too often
controlling his imagination into echoes of the past,
Gainsborough was realising viaons which had no extend
su^estors beyond a glance backwards, now and then, to
the distinction of Van Dyck.
Tlie year 1775 b memorable in Sir Joshua's life for his
introduction to Eliza Kieridan, of whom he was to paint
more than one exqiusiteportrut; for his renewed acquaint-
ance with Georgiana Spencer, now Duchess of Devonshire
whom he had painted as a diiid of ux, and was yet to show
to the world as a young wife and happy mother ; and fat
his quarrd with Hon^ over the picture in which the latter
had comtaned a ptxtrait of the Prendent with a nude
figure identified by brother Academicians as Miss Angelia
Kaufl^nann. The year also witnessed the outbreak of hos-
tilities with the American colonies, disturbing the serenity
of Sir Joshua's social horizon, and introducing an element
of (Usoird into the convivialities of his many dubs. And
yet to these twelve months bdong several of the most
vivid pictures of the society he moved in, painted by Bos-
well, Dr. Campbell, and others. ItwasontheiythofMarch
that Drury Lane saw that benefit of Mrs. Abington to
which Sir Joshua brought a contingent of forty wits, and
where Johnson sat in the seat behind BosweD, ^'wrappedin
a grave abstraction," and seeming *' quite a cloud amidst
all the sunshine of glitter and gaiety,*' but gave an oppor-
tunity for the amusing cross-examination which took place
four days later, when " one of the company " — -Bosvdl
himself, of course — at a tavern supper asked, " Why, nr,
did you go to Mrs. Atnngton's benefit 7 Did you see 7 "
Jc^nson : ** No, «r." *' Did you hear 7 " Jdmson : " No,
nr." ** Whythen, ur, did yougo?" Johnson: **Because,
me, she is a favourite of the public ; and when the public
cares the thousandth part fco' you that tt does for her, I
oyGoo»:^Ic
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
Unkitowti
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
A RICH YEAR
will go to your benefit too." A week later occurred the
famous dinner at the Club, with Fox in the cbur, when
Johnson growled to himself about bears, and startled the
company with his famous apothegm : " Patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel." A fortnight later, again,
Reynolds, Johnson, and Boswell made that expedition to
Owen Cambridge's, at lUchmond, to which Boswell devotes
so many vivadous pages, and Johnson calls up the diverting
im^ of himself as a public unger.
The pocket-book for 1776 Is missing, and we have to
depend for the routine of Sir Joshua's employments on the
udelights of Boswell, Hannah More's letters, the Academy
catalogue, &c. Twelve pictures were sent to the Academy :
the Duchess of Devonshire (the Althorp full length) ; Mrs.
Lloyd (fidl length, cutting her name on a tree) ; * Lord
Althorp (full length) ; f Lord Temple, called by Walpole
the finest portrait Reynolds ever punted ; X Mrs- Montagu
(half-length) ; § Master Crewe, as Henry VIII. ; | the
Duke of Devonshire (three-quarter length) ; T David
Garrick (the Thrale picture ; a half-length with the thumbs
tc^ther) ;"• Master Herbert, as Bacchus ; tf Omiah (full
length) ; tt the Infant Daniel ; §§ and the young St John. H
From tlus list it mil be seen that Reynolds seldom did
more for the glory of the Exhibition than in 1776. In
conception, at least, few of his whole-length portnuts of
ladies excel the Duchess of Devonshire ; in aninvttion, he
seldom equalled the Garnck ; while for prompt felicity in
* Now the pioptny of Lord Rothtchild.
t Now at ^thorp. J Now the property of the Earl Temple.
5 The property of the Maiqnet) of Winchetter.
II At Crewe Hdl. f At Crewe HalL
** In the Laiudowne collection,
tt At Migbcleie. tX At Cutle Howard. H At Knole.
III Thete are two ezamplet of thii, one at Belroir, the other at
WjnniUy.
119
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOUK
the realisation of a bojnsh indmduality, the Master
Crewe must, I tlunk, be put at the head of lus pcMtraits
of children. Among other pictures worked on, at least,
if not begun or finished in this year, were the full lengdu
of the Duke of Dorset, Sir Richard and Lady Worsley,
Lady Melbourne, Lady Frances Marsham, and Mrs. Wey-
land, the half lengths of Sir Charles Davers, Lady Tyr-
connel, and Ixird Mount Stewart, and about thirty others.
It was an active year — sitters were numerous, and die time
given to sul^ect-pictures correspondingly meagre. Only
three are referred to in the ledger, the '* Samuel," the "St.
John," and a " Boy with a dramng in his hand." In otho*
ways, 1776 was an epoch in Sr Joshua's career. It was
the year of Garrick's farewell to the stage, and practically
of the first appearance of Sarah Siddons upon it.* It was
the year, too, of Gibbon's dibut as a historian, and, as we
have already seen, of Northcote's departure hota the
master's house, to set up for himself. This event fMob-
ably left a less distinct impression on Sir Joshua's memcxy
than his own election into the Academy of Floreoce,
and his recognition of the honour by the despatch of his
autc^raph portrait to the famous collection in the Ufiin.t
Of his social eng^ments at this time we know less than
usual. Hannah More mentions a dinner, in February, at
which he entertained herself and her sister, and describes
what an embarrassment his deafness was in a large party.
It was in June or July that the dinner took place in Ldcester
Fields at which Johnson's epitaph on Goldsmith was dis-
cussed, and the round rot»n protesting against the
* Stiictl}r ipealuDg. ber Jibmt bdonge to 1775, for it wu on the 19th
of December in that year that she made her bow at Portia.
t Reynoldt hai left a note of the method naed in thit portrait. " M7
own (portrait), Florence; upon raw cloth, cera lolameiite." TTie
picture i* in excellent condition.
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.K.A.
Tm RoVAL Academy
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
HOSTS AND GUESTS
** obscurity o^ a learned language " concocted by Dean
Barnard. Tom Taylor, with his usual liberality of conjec-
ture^assumes that Reynolds made one of the crowd in West-
minster Hall on the 15th of April, when Elizid>eth Chud-
leigh, alias Countess of Bnsto), alias Duchess of Kingston,
was put upon her trial before her peers for bigamy. Seeing
what Sir Joshua's habits were, it is likely enough that he
was among those who gave way to what it is now the fashion
to call a morbid curiosity, especially as he had painted the
lady in her youth when she was the beauty of his own
native district.* There is no evidence^ however, that he
did sa With 1777 we get upon surer ground. The
pocket-book is extant to help us, and to show that busy as
he was in the studio, he yet found time for even more than
his usual recreations. Dinner engagements are entered
almost nightly. Among his hosts we find the Dukes of
Bedford and Marlborough, Lords Edgcumbe, Pahnerston,
Upper Ossory, Carysfort, Lucan, Aylesford, Mulgrave and
Shelburne ; George Colman, Garrick, Cumberland, Banksi
Sir Thomas Milk, Langton Beauclerc, Gibbon, Sheridan,
and Boswell ; Mrs. Ord, Mrs. Vesey, Mrs. Montagu, Mrs.
Walungham, Mrs. Boscawen, and Mrs. Cholmondeley ; the
intervals bong filled in with symposia at his various dubs,
and with his support of Sheridan in his new venture at
Drury Lane.
" Flood, the gteat IiuH oritor, who hid recently abandoned oppod-
tuMi for office, ii Sir Joshua's guest dnring the ritit he paid to London
to Jannuy, introdnced to the Preiident, donbtle^, bj their mntoal
friend Lord Chorlemont, or perhaps hj Hely Hntchmion, who atva
failed when in town to visit Sir Jothna. Another Irish goeit was
Jephton, Master of the Horse to the Lord Lieutenant, with his laurels
as the author of Bragaxxa still fresh, and soliciting the interest of
* Sbewas the daughter of ColonelThomuChudlcigh,ofConiWDod,
near Plymonth.
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Garrick for the new ttagtdj, FittllU. Then i* ■ Sondif engagement
with Gibbon, not ^t a Loid of Trade, but a pleainre-lonng, kU-
inddgent, though neither idle nor nnobserrant, man about town, with
a Kat in the ConunoDi for Liakeard, membet of all the dubi from
Almack't to the Turk") Head, welcomed in the bat locie^, literuy,
political, and fathionable, and drinking in with delight the ioceue cA
prai*e and luccen. The fint Tolnme of hii hiitorj had appeared in
177^- It was just at tUi time that he waa goulpiag gail/ to Moln^d :
' Town fills, and we are aLghtj agreeable — lait fear, on the Qoeen'i
birthday. Sir G. Warren had hit diamond itar cnt off hit coat ; thii d^
the lame acddent happened to him again with another star. . . .!
Six Joshua might condole with Sir Geo^ (whom he knew, and both of
whose beautifn) wives he painted) ; for had he not lost his gold laced
hat and watch at the installation of the Koighti of the Gaiter caAj a
Utde before ? ' " •
The painter andthe historian sometimes played tc^ther,
for on March 1 1 in this year's pocket-book there is an
entry for dinner and the masquerade with Gibbon. As
for Sheridan, Sir Joshua never fuls at Drury Lane on the
[Mtxluction of a new [»ece, and it is ngnificant that the
night he chooses is now generally the third, when the
profits go to the author. In February he sees the Trip te
Scarhorougit, Sheridan's toned-down version of Vanbrugh's
Relate, and in May he enjojrs the young dramatist's
triumph in the School far Seatidal. In the former his old
friend, Mrs. Abington, was the Mtss Hoyden, while
another lady, whose features he was to help in immortalis-
ing, Mrs. "Perdita" Robinson, exhibited, appropriately
enough, endangered virtue in Amanda. The Academy
contuned thirteen pictures by Sir Joshua. They were
full lengths of Lady Frances Marsham,! Lady Dtrh'jA
* t.eslie and Taylor.
t Lady Francei Wjrndham, daughter of the Earl of Egremont ; ihe
was afterwards Conntesi of Rcann^. The picture now belongs to Lord
Burton.
X Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of James, sixth Dnke of
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE DILETTANTI GROUPS
Lady Bampfylde,* a. group of Francis, Duke of Bedford,
Lords John and Willtam Russell, and their couun. Miss
Vemon,t Lady CaroHne Montagu Scott,t " a Lady," *' a
aergyman,"5 "a Lady and Child,"| *' a Gentleman,"
*•■ Child Asleep,"t "The Fortune Teller,"** "a Young
Nobleman," and " a Reading Boy."tt
In 1777 Sir Joshua's chief occupation in the studio was
with the 6unous groups for the Dilettanti Society. The
[HCtures are so well known — they were for some years in
Hamiltoa, tad Elizabeth Gnoaing. The pictnre ii uid to hare been
de«tro7«d b;^ her hatband.
* Danghter <£ Admiral Sir John Moore, K.C.B. The picture paned
from the collection of Lord Pohimoie into that of Mr. Al&ed d«
Rotluchild.
t See GraTei and Crooin for note* oa thii pictnre.
t Daughter (rf Charlei, fourth Dnke of Bncdench. The pictue i*
at Dalkeith.
5 The " Dr. Wattrai," now in the Univenitj' Gallery, Oxford.
|[ Z^adj Elizabeth Herbert and her ion, now at Hi^iclere. See
Gram and Cronin for an inteietting note on thi* pictore.
4 Cnpid ileeping in the Qoadi ; the picture ii at Highclere.
** Two of the Marlboroagh childien ; now in the coUection of Sir
Charlea Tennant, Bart.
tt Now in the poaietuon of Lwd Normantm, at Scmerlcy. L. and
T. have ■ miileading note on thii picture. la a letter to Lord Otmy
(December 17, 1776), Walpole mention) two of thii year'i picture* : " I
hare aeen the picture of ' St. George * (the Bedford family groap), and
a pproTC the Duke of Bedford's head and the exact likeneM of Miu
Venion ; but the attitude i* mean and fooliih, and eicprenei only nlly
wtsiderment. Beit of all — delicioni — ii a pictnre of a little girl of the
Duke of Bucclench, who ii overlaid with a long cloak, bonnet, and mnfE,
m the midit of the now, and it pcrithing, blue and red with cold, bat
loob to tmiling and good-humoured that one longt to cati:b her up in
ooe'i ami, and kiii her till the it in a tweat and tqualli." Min Vernon
wat toon afterwardt betrothed to the Earl of Warwid^ when Walpole
writei to Lady Otmy (June 10, 1777), " Doei not MiM Vernon think
it would have been moie hinoric to have drawn her accompanying
Eari Gay, when he ilew the Don Cow, than St. George killing the
Dngo&r"
IS]
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
the National Gallery — that they need no descriptioii here.*
Many uttinga for them ar« entered in 1777 ; the pocket-
book for 1 778 is mianng, but one sitting occurs as late as
February, 1779. Soon after the pictures were painted
they began to cause anxiety, and in the early years of the
present century many reports on their state were made to
the Dtlettand. In 1 805 the punt was scaling off in many
places, but nothing hercuc seems to hare been done until
1820, when they were doctored by Bigg, RA., at consi-
derable expense. The measures taken seem to have been
effectual, for both groups are now in fair condition for
Sr Joshuas. In the punter's attvre they are remarkaUe
chiefly for the success, or rather want of non-success, with
which he has combined so many figures on comparativdy
small canvases. As a rule he showed himself quite unfit
for such a task, and most of the pictures in wUch many
figures occur — the "Infant Hercules," the "Ugolino,"
the " Death of Cardinal Beaufort," the " Continence cf
Scipio," for instances — are without anything that can be
reasonably called design. The Dilettanti groups are
artificial, no doubt; we can see easily enough that an effort
has been made to give pretty much the same importance
to each figure ; but there is a pattern, and a fiurly agree-
able one. The real weak point in their de»gn might have
been readily avoided. It is merely, I think, that the
canvases are too smalL If Reynolds had g^ven his figures
a little more elbow room, leaving thor mutu^ relations
otherwise unchanged, the result would have been more
* Hic fint group conutt* of Conttudne, Mcond Loird Mnlgt»c ;
T&onui, ofterwardi Lord, Dondai ; Kenneth, Bail of Seaforth ; Hon.
Clurlei Greville ; Charlei Crowle ; Z^ord Caimirthai, ■fterward* fiftk
Duke of Leedi ; utd JoKph, afterward* Sir Jotvph, BmkM. The Ncond
ponp contain! Sir Watiin Williami Wjnn, Bart. ; JcJm, afterward* Sir
John, Taylor, Bart. ; Stephen Fajne Galbrej, Sir Wlliam Hamiltgo,
W, Spencei Stanhope, Richard Thompton, and John Lewin SmTth,
oyGoO»:^Ic
LADY BAMPFYLDE
Alfred iib Koihschim), Esq.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
THE BLENHEIM FAMILY GROUP
satia&ctory. There was nothing in the Sodety's conditions,
to far u I can discover, to prevent this being done.
Leslie has a cnnous parsgra^ih under the date of 1777.
''Politically," he says, "the year must have been a dispirit*
ing one to Reynolds, and all who thou^t as he did of
the American War. The tide of success seemed to be
nuuung strong and steadily for the mother country." It
it difficult to discover on what grounds he bases this
startling assertion. Reynolds, of course, was the friend
of Burke, but his acquaintance with Johnson was quite as
dose. So far as I can find out, he never gave expression,
at any time, to such political notions as those on which
the opposition to til constraint c^ our colonics was
founded. He had an opinion, and backed it, as to which
nde had the best prospects of military success, but that
g^ves us no right to assume that he wished for the defeat
of the mother country. Politically he was an opportunist,
with a leaning towards the side of Burke and Fox deter-
nuned by nothing more profound than those social
predilections which had brought him acquainted with
more Wh^ than Tories. Leslie's talk of his *' despon-
dency," under the political conditions of the time, seems
to be quite unwarranted either by evidence or by what we
know of his general character. It is pretty certain that
neith«' the capture of PhiladelpUa nor the surrender at
Seratc^a disturbed the even tenour of his life.
The other chief events of the year, for Sir Joshua, were
the painting of the great Marlborough Family [ncture, now
at Blenheim, and the election of Sheridan to the Club.
To the Blenhdm picture reference will be made presently,
when we come to discuss the painter's contributions to
the Academy of 1778. As for Sheridan's election, it
took place In March, on the initiative of Johnson. The
Hivahf the Duenna, and the 7H/> A Scarhrough, Sfaeri-
135
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
dan's veruon of Vanbnigh's Relapse^ had already been
pnxluced, the latest and least successAil only a few days
before. By two of them, probably the RivtUs and the
Duenna, Johnson had justified his proposal of thdr author.
" He who has written," he sud, **the two best comedies
of his age, is surely a considerable man." He must have
purred when his judgment was so ^gnally confirmed,
within two mcmths of the election, by that first night
which gave to the English stage its finest comedy unce
Shakespeare. The School for Scandal started on its great
career in May, 1777.
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHAPTER VI
J778— 1783
\IR JOSHUA only sent four pictures to
the Exhibition of 1778, a year in wtuch
his brush was less active than it had ever
been before. One of his contributions,
however, was the Marlborough group
mendoned in the last chapter ; the
others were a half-length of Dr. Markham, Dean of
Christ Church and Archbishop of York,* and whole-kngtiis
of John Campbell, afterwards Lord Cawdor,t and of his
uster Sarah, afterwards Mrs. Wodehouse.i^ In the Blen-
heim group Reynolds scored a triumph, for which little
in his previous work had prepared his friends. Once be-
fore, indeed, he had brought several figures tc^ether
without confumon — in the [>icture of the three Mont-
gomeries — but as a rule he had shown a want of capacity
to invent an arabesque that was at once complex and
coherent. The fact is curious, for not many painters
have put more thought into their work than he, or been
more fruitful in happy ideas. To some extent reluctance,
rather than incapacity, to arrange accounts for the short-
conung. We know that side by side with his respect for
* The picture hangt in Chiin Chotcli haU.
t Id the pouetuon of the Earl of Cawdor.
X In Lord Hillingdcni'i ccJlection.
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
the principles of the great style, he had a profound belief
in the superiority of nature over art. In the " Lady
Cockburn," for instance, and the " Lady Smithy" he fell
into confusion through being seduced by the idea that a
swarm of babies, crawling over their mother, would en-
chant on canvas as it does in the nursery. He forgot
that the living charm of youths flesh, the free play of
childish limbs, and the kaleidoscopic variation of childish
contours, would not be there to help him. He forgot,
in short, that art is great by what it makes, and not by
what it imitates. To be suggestive is an added glory to
art, but it must not depend upon suggestion. Its bu^ness
is to create, and its creatioos should be as self-contained
as those of nature. Some critics — Northcote among
them — have quoted the Marlborough Family as a proof
that " Reynolds could not manage a crowded composition."
To me it seems the only real exception to the truth of
that dictum, for the '* Ladies decorating a Term of
Hymen," the " Sisters Waldegrave," and one or two others
in which three figures are happily comtnned, cannot be
called crowded. Even now, with its division of Itg^t and
shade obscured by the degradation of the tones, it falls into
an agreeable pattern both in depth and elevation. The
scheme, no doubt, is artificial The Duchess stands in the
centre and fonm the apex to a pyramid <^ which tiie
Duke and his heir, on her right, and her two elder
daughters, on her left, supply the slopes. The youi^
children in the foreground contrast hap[nly nith their
elders by the irresponubility of thdr action, while tiiey
help the space-composition. The background, irith its
statue of Mars, is not ill conceived. It was not always as
we see it now, for Reynolds altered it after the picture
went home from Somerset House. The other pictures of
the year are all among Sir Joshua's successes, especially
138
oyGoo»:^Ic
"EVELINA"
the half-length of Dr. Markham in his robes. For simple
djgtaty, comlnned with breadth of execution and general
warmth of tone and colour, it holds its own with any
portrait he ever punted.
Johnson sat this year. He writes to Mrs. Thrale on
the 15th of October : "I have sat twice to Sir Joshua,
and he seems to like his own peHbrmance. He has pro-
jected another, in which I am to be busy ; but we can
tiunk on it at Idsure ; " and again (31st October): "Sar
Joshua has finished my picture, and it aeems to please
everybody ; but I shall wwt to see how it pleases you.'*
Other utters were Edmund Malone, now become one
of Sir Joshua's intimates, Lord Lucan, the Parker children.
Lady Beaumont, Lord Broome, Mrs. Payne-Gallwey and
child. Lord Vaughan, Mr. Bampfylde, and Mr. and Mrs,
Huddesford. Huddesford was a son of the President of
Trinity, Oxford, and a former pupil of Reynolds himself.
He had become known as a sort of Peter Pindar, and had
this year puUished a poem on the soldiering fever of the
time, called " Warl^, a Satire." It was dedicated to Sir
Joshua, who had just finished his fine portrut of Lady
Worsley in that uniform of the Hants Militia which she
had been displaying at Warley Camp, as the livery of a
husband who was to divorce her not long afterwards.
Outnde the studio the chief event of the year for Sir
Joshua was probably the publication of Evelina and his
introduction to its author. The novel appeared at the
end of January, but it was not until September that
Reynolds and his two nieces encountered Miss Bumey at
Streatham. The punter had read the book, sacrifidng a
night's sleep to get to the end, and had told Mrs. Thrale
that he would give fifty pounds to meet the then anony-
mous author. His important in the lady's eyes is proved
by the entry in her diary : '* He (Sot Joshua) several rimes
ia9 I
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
spoke to me, though he did not make love." Mrs. Thnk
lud already hinted to "Little Burney"thatR7n<^dawould
make a denrable husband. The two were Kxm indmate
friends, and the glimpses we catch of the painter in the
lady's diary are inrariably pleasant, Inthissune year, on
the 3rd of April, Sir Joshua formed one of a dinner party (at
the club ?), when the talk was more than usually good, and
even more than usually well repeated by Boswdl.
Boike Mjt : " I have been looking at thit f uuont antique marble dog
of Mr. Jenningi, valued at a tfaouaand gtuneu, aaid to be Alciblid«i*
dog." Johnaon: "HU tail, then, moat be docked. That wu the
mark of Akibiadei' dog." " A thonaand gnineai 1 " criet Bnikc " The
representatioa of no animal whatever it worth >o much. At thii rate a
dead dog would, indeed, be better than a living lion."
Johnson, who is debited widi such perverse views on
art, answers :
" Sir, it ii not the worth of the thing, bnt the ikOl in fonoing it,
which i* to highly estimated. Everything that enlarges the iphere <d
human powen, ^t ihowt man he can do what he thought he coold not
do, if valnable. The fint mas who balanced a ttiaw on hia noie;
Johnion, who rode upon three hortea at a time ; in ihort, all tnch men
deaerved the applante of mankind, not on account of the nie of what
the7 did, bnt of the dexterity which they exhibited."
In the next passage the rSles are reversed : it is Burice
who hits upon at least a partial truth, and Johnson, Bos-
well, and Reynolds who contest it.
£. (Burice) ; " We hear prodigioui complaint* at pieient of emigratioa.
I am convinced that emigration makei a conntiy more populooi."
J. (Reyn<ddi) : "That lonndt very much like a paradox." Bmke:
" Exportatkm cS men, like ecputation of all other commoditiei, mika
more to be produced." Johnton : " Bnt there would be more people
were there not emigration, provided there were food for more." Burke:
"No; leave a few breeder!, and youll have more people than if thoe
were no emigration." Johnion : **Nay, Sir, it ii plain there will be more
peo^ if there are more bieeden. Thir^ cow* in a pMtnre wiU
130
oyGoo»:^Ic
MASTEK CKEWE
Eari. Of- Ckehe
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
DINNERS IN LEICESTER FIELDS
pfodnce more cmtret than ten cowi, provided the^ hare good bnlll.**
Bo^ : ** There ve bolU enongh id Ireland. " Johiuon (snulio^ :
** So, Sir, I ihoinld think from yoor aignment." "... Burke ; " Frant
tbe o^erience I hare had — and I have had a great deal — I haTS learnt
to think bitUr of mankind." Johnwa : " From mjr oipcrience, I have
found them woite in commcrdil dealings, mare diipoied to cheat, than
I had any notion of ; bnt mcne ditpoaed to do cne another good than I
lud conceind." Rcyni^dt : " Lch jntt and more beneficeBt."
Six days later tax Joshua had a dinner and party
afterwards at his own house. The guests at dinner
were : Johnson, Gibbon, Owen Cambridge, Bennet
Langton, Allan Ramsay, Boswell, and the Bishop
of St. Asaph. The classics governed the talk. Bos-
well's report is sprinkled as freely mth the dead
languages as a speech in Parliament of a century ago. The
" rich assemblage " which awutcd the diners in the
dtawing-room included Garrick, Dr. Percy, Dr. Burney»
Mrs. Cholmondeley, Miss Hannah More, and Mr. Harris,
of Salisbury. Boswell " gets into a corner with Johnson,
Garrick, and Harris," so our further knowledge of the
evening is limited to this quartet. A ft»tnight later, on
the 25th <^ April, Sir Joshua entertuned again, the com-
pany including Johnson, Boswell, Dr. Musgrave, the
editor of Euripides, Leland, the son of the Irish Anti-
quarian, Mrs. Cholmondeley, Miss Reynolds, and other
ladies. A discussion arose as to how a man should tepXy
to an author asking a serious opinion on his own work
and advice whether to publish or not. Reynolds makes
the sound answo* :
" Yon matt, npon inch an occation, have two jni^menti ; one at to
dte real value of the wnk, the other at to what may pleaae the geneial
taite of the time.*'
* It it a pity Butke could not quote the modem game-preterrer*!
ej^ieiience.
131
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Johnson's answer is one of our documents for die
dghteenth century :
" Bnt yoa can be wrv erf nrithfr ; ind therefore I ihoold icraide
mnch to give ■ lai^neMiTe vote. BothGoIdnnitli'i ccunediei were once
refased; hit fint bf Gairick, hi* fccood I7 Colnun, who wu prerailed
on at but, b^ mnch solidtaticxi, n».y, a kind of force, to bring it on.
Hit flem- fflFahfiiJJ I mTielf did not think wonid have mnch niccett.
It wu written, and wild to a boobeller, before hii TiwtUtr, bnt pob-
liihed after — 10 little expectation had the bocAteller from it. Had it
been lold after Tb Tratitlltr, he might hare had twice u mnch mone^
for it. Thongh tixtf goineu waa no mean price. The bookieller had
the advantage o£ Goldimith'i reputation from The TmtUtr in the aale,
thoogb Goldimith had it not in telling the copf."
In the drawing-room agun they find ** a con^derabte
increase of company," and Johnson propounds the excel-
lent rule for a man's taildng of himself, that he should
only assert simple facts, such as can be tested with the
yard measure. It was a few days later that the dinner with
Paoli took {dace, when Johnson used his club to Reynolds
over the question of inne.
" Botwell," laid Johnion, " ii a bolder combatant than Sir Jodma;
he arguei for wine without the help of wine,* but Sir Joahna with it"
R^ntddi : " Bat to pleate one*i company ii a itrong motiTe,** Johnion
(irfko from drinking only water nippoied everybody who drank wine to
be elerated) : " I won't argue any more with you. Sir. Yon are too &r
g(»ie.'* Reynoldi : " I ihonld hare thought to, indeed, Sir, had I made
tuch a ipeech at yon iiaTc now done," Johniim (drawing himaeU in,
and, I really thought, bluihing) : " Nay, don't be angiy. I did not
mean to offend yon."
Four days afterwards Sir Joshua gave die dinner to a
lai^ company, including Ursa Major and his leader, at
which *' there were several people by no means of the
Johnsonian school," with the result that the neglected
Doctor turned upon poor Boswell andijso rent him that it
took a week to heal the wounds.
* It tnu dnring Boawell*! teetotal experiment.
»3»
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS "DIALOGUES"
Su- Joshua's idea of Johnson need not, however, be
taken at second hand. He wrote two imaginaiy dialogues
which portray the "great cham of literature" quite as
Tividly as his ptunted pictures. In the shorter and better
of the two, Johnson's antagonist is Reynolds himself.*
"Rbtnoum.— Let me alo&e. 1*11 bring him out. [JtiAJ} ... I
bave been thinking, Dr. Johuoo, thi> moraing on a nutter diat hu
ponied me Tciy much ; it ii a nibject that I daretay hat often paued
in jronr thon^tt, and thongh / cannot, I daie U7 yn han made up
f onr Dtind nptm It.
" JosmoN.— TiUr ttSy I wbtx ii all this preparatioa i What i> all
thi> wdgli^ matter I
" R. — ^Whj, it i> a veiy weigh^ matter. The nbject I haTe been
thinking upon it Predestination and Free Will, two things I cannot
tcconcile together for the lif e of me ; in mjr opinion. Dr. Johnatm, free
will and foreknowledge cannot be reconciled.
"J. — Sir, itii notof Teiy great importance what jour o^nion it upon
inch a qnettion.
" R. — But I meant only. Doctor j., to know joni opinion.
"J. — No, Sir, yon meant no mcb thing; jon meant only to thow theie
gentlemen that yon are not the man th^ took yon to be, bnt that yon
think of high mattert tometimet, and that yon may have the credit
of having it uid that yon held an argument with Sam Johnaon on pre-
dettination and free will — a inbject of that magnitode at to hare engaged
the attention of the world, to have perplexed the witdom id man for
thete two thontand yean ; a inbject on which the fallen angeli, who iaj
ja «tf 111 ailtitir ariffnal bri^tntit, find themtelvea m madmifg maztt
kit. That tnch a mbject could be ditcntied in the IcTity of convivial
coovcrution, ii a degree of abtordiqr b^ond what ii eatily conceivable.
" Th^ were firtt piinted, privately, by I.ady Thomond, in 1816.
They were fint pnbUihed in Croker*t Boiwell in 1838. Lady Thomond
•ent a cofj to Hannah More, who in writing her thonb »yi : " Dear
Sir Joihna, even with kii inimitable pencil, sever drew more interetting,
more retembling portrait* : I hear them all ipcak, I tee every action,
every gettnie which accompanied every word. I hear the deep-toned
and indignant accenti of onr friend JohntOB ; I hear the affected periodt
of <Sbbon ; the natural, the eaiy, the friendly, the elegant language, the
poliibed tarcaim, uftened with the iwcet temper of Sir Jothaa." Thit
iener it dated 15 March, 1820.
133
oyGoo»:^Ic
sm JOSHUA REYNOLDS
" R.— It ii M, u JOS uy, to be not ; I talked oooe to our fiiend
Garrtd upoa this iiibjcc^ but I cemember we conld make nothing c^ it.
"1.-0, noble pair!
" R. — Ganid wai a derer fellaw. Dr. J. ; Gairick, take him alto-
gether, wai certaialj a very great man.
" J.— Ganick, Sir, miy be a great man in jronr opinion, aa far aa I
know, but he wai not k> in mine ; little thing* are great to little men.
" R. — I hare heard yon aaj. Dr. Johntoo^—
** J. — Sir, 70a nerer heaid me laf that Darid Gairick waa a gnat
man ; 70a may hare heard me ny that Garrick wat a good repeatci^— of
other men'a woidi — wordi pat into hi* month by other men ; thla makei
bat a faint approach towardt being a great man.
" R.^Bnt take Garrick upon the whole, now, in rtgaid to confer-
■ation
" J. — Well, Sir, in r^ard to coftTetiation : I never diicoreted in die
oasreiMtioo of David Ganick any intellactaal cneigy, any wide graip
of tbonght, and exteniiTe compreheniiaii of mind, or that he powe a a e d
any of thote powen to which pwt conU with any degree of pioprie^
be applied.
" R.— But atill
**J. — Hold, Sir, I have not d«te. There are, to be fare, in the laxity
of oolloqnial ipeech, vaiioiu kindi of greitneM ; a man may be a great
tobacconiat, a men may be a great painter, he may be likewiie a gnat
mimic ; now, you may be the me and Ganick die other, and yet neitlMr
of yon be great men.
« R.— But, Dr. Johaion
"J. — Hold, Sir! It have often lamented liow dangerona it ii to
tnveatigate and diaoiminate character to men who hare no ditcrimiaative
" R> — ^Bnt Garrid, aa a companion, I heard yon uy — no longer ago
than lait Wednesday, at Mn. Tlirale'a ublfr
" J> — Yen teaae me. Sir. WIuUtct yon may iuve heard me lay, no
longer ago dian laat Wedneaday, at Mn. Thrale'i uble, I tell yon I do
not lay lo now ; beaidea, aa I aaid before, yon may not have undentood
me, yon miiapprehended me, yon may not have heard me.
" R- — I am very anre I heard jom,
" J. — Bcfidei, beaidc» Sir, betidei — do yon not know— are you ao igno-
rant u not to know — that it is the highest d^ree of mdenoa to qoote
a man against iiinuelf ?
" R. — But if yoa difier fram yooiaeU, and ^ve one opinion to-day^^
"J. — ^Have done, Sir; the company, yon lee, are tired, aa wdl a*
n^adf."
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS ** DIALOGUES"
The second dialogue exhilnts Johnson on the odier tick.
Gibbon has been belittling Garrick, and the Doctor takes
up the defence of his property.
" JoBxaoN. — No, Sir ; Garrick'i fune wai prodigiout, not onl^ JB
RngbnH, bat over all Enrc^. Even io Riutu I have been told he wu
c pioveib ; wlien any one had repeited well, he wu called a Kcond
Gamck.
"GissoK. — I think he hid foil ts much repnUtion as lie descTved.
** J. — I do not pretend to know, Sii, what yoat meaning may be, b^
taking he had at much lepntation ai he dcKTred ; he deaerred mach
and he had mach.
** G. — Wbj satdf, Dr. Johnton, hii merit was in imall things onl^ ;
be had none of those qnalitiei which make a real great man.
" J. — Sir, I as little nnderstand what jonr meaning maj be, when 70a
■peak of the qoalitie* that make a great man; it is a vagoe term.
Garrick was no common man ; a man abore the common size erf men
mMj nreljr, without ai^ great impr^Hety, be called a great man. In
my ojmucMi he has VKiy reasonabl;r folfiUed the prophecy which he once
reminded me of havii^ made to his mother, when the asked me how
littte David went on at school, that I should saj to her he would come
to be banged, or come to be a great man. No, Sir, it it nndoabtedly
troe that the same qualitiei, united with virtue or with rice, make a
hero or a rogue, a great general or a highwayman. Now, Garrick, we
are aoie, was never hanged, and in regard to being a great man, you
most take the whole man together. It must be contidered in how
many thingi Garrick excelled in which every man desires to eicel;
setting uide his excellence as an actor, in which he it acknowledged to
be aarivaUed, at a man, u a poet, as a convivial companion, yon will find
bnt few his equals, and none his superior. As a man, he was kind,
&iendly, benevolent, and generous.
** G. — Of Garrick't geneiosity I never heard ; I nnderstood his cha-
racter to be totally the reverse, and that he wai reckoned to have bved
money.
" J. — ^That he loved money nobody wiQ dispute ; who does not I bnt
if yon mean, by loving money, that he was panimoniout to a fault. Sir,
yon have been misinformed. To Foote and such tcoundreli, who circu-
lated thote reports, 10 tuch profligate ipendthriftt, prudence is meanneta,
and econon^ is avarice. That Garrick in early yonth was brought np in
strict habits of economy I believe, and that diey were necessary I have
heard from himself; to suppose that Garrick might inadvertently act
fr<Hn this habit, and be saving in small things, can be no wonder ; bnt
13s
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
let it be nmembered at the ume time that, if he wu frngal front habit,
he waf liberal from priaciple ; that when he acted from reflectioo he did
what hii fortune enabled him to do, and what wai expected bom toch a
fbrttme. I remember no initance of David'i panimony bnt once, iriien
he itopped Mn. Woffingtoa from rcpleniihing the teapot ; it wai aliei^,
he Mid, as ted u blood ; and thi* initaace ii donbtful, and happened
manj yean ago. In the latter pan of hif life I obierred no blameable
paitimony in David ; hit table wa* elegant and even iplendid ; hia honae,
both in town and coo&tiy, hii equipage, and I think all hit habitt of
life, were inch at might be expected from a man who had acqoiied great
riches. In regard to hit generosity, which 70U leem to question, I shall
onty lay, there is no man to whom I would apply, with more confidence
of success, for the loan of two hundred pounds to assin a common friend,
than to David, and this, too, with yaj little, if any, probability of its
being repaid.
" G. — You were going to say something of him at a writet. Yon
don't rate him very high as a poet 1
"J. — Sir, a man may be a respectable poet widout being a Homer,
at a man may be a good player without being a Gairick. In the lighter
Idnds of poetry, in the appendages of the drama, he wu, ii not the first,
in the very first class. He had a readiness and facility, a dezteri^ of
mind, that appeared extraordinary even to men of experience, and who
are not apt to wonder from ignorance. Writing prologues, epilogues,
and epigrams he laid he considered at his trade, and he was, what a man
thonld be, always and at all times ready at his trade. He required two
bours for a proline or epilogue, and five minutes for an epigram. Once
at Burke's table the company proposed a subject, and Garrick finished
hia epigram within the time ; die tame experiment was repeated in the
garden, with the same success.
" G. — Garrick had some flippancy of parts, to be sure, and waa brisk
and lively in company, and I^ the help of mimicry and stor7-telling
made himielf a pleasant cranpanion ; bnt here the whole worid gave the
tnperiori^r to Foote, and Garrick himself seems to have felt at if hit
geoiut was rebuked by the superior powers of Foote. It has been often
observed that Garrick never dared to enter into competition with him,
but vrat content to act an under part to brii^ Foote out.
" J. — That this conduct of Garrick't might be interpreted by the
gross mindt of Foote and his friends as if he wat afraid to encounttr
him, I can easily imagine. Of the actual tuperiority of Garrick over
Foote, this conduct it an instance; he disdained entering into compe-
titxm with such a fellow, and made him the buffoon of the company —
or, at you ny, brought him out. And ^rfiat wat at last brought ont but
136
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE INFANT JOHNSON
rftf Marqutss ff Lansdnrt'lit
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
HIS "DIALOGUES"
Goane jeit* and vnlgai roenime&t, mdeceiic7 md impe^, a rektion of
ercnt* which, npon the face of them, could Dercr have happened, cha-
lactert coanel^ conceiTed and coaitefy repreaented 1 Foote wu eren
no mimic; he went oat of himself, it u trae, but without going into
another man ; he wai excelled bf Gatru^ eren in thii, which ii con-
tideied ai Foote'i greatett excellence. Ganick, betide* hii exact imita-
tion of the voice and geatoie of liit original, to a degree of refinement
<rf which Foote had no ccnception, exhibited the mind and mode of
thinking of the penon imitated. Bei:de«, Gairick confined hit powen
within the Hmia of decency ; he had a character to preterre, Foote had
iKme. By Footc't bufioonery and broad-faced merriment, piivate
friendahip, public decency, and ererythisg eitimable among men, were
trod underfoot. We all know the difference of their reception in the
world. No man, however high in rank or literature, but wai proud to
know Garrick, and wu glad to have him at hii table ; no man ever cm-
aidered or tieatcd Garrick at a pbyer ; he may be taid to lutve itepped
out of hit own rank into a higher, and by raiting himaelf he raited the
roidt of hit profettion. At a amviviat table, hit exhilarating powert
were unrivalled ; he wat lively, entertaining, quick in difceming the
lidicttle of life, and at ready in repieientisg it ; and on graver tubjecti
there were few topici in vriiich he could not bear hit part. It it injorioui
to the character of Garrick to be named in the tame breath at Foote.
That Foote wat admitted lometimet in good company (to do the man
vriut credit I can) I will allow, but then it wat merely to play tricki ;
Foote't merriment wat that of a bnfiora, and Garrick*! that of a
gendenun.
" G. — I have been t^, on the contrary, that Garrick in company
Iiad not the eaty mannert of a gentleman.
"J, — I don't know what yon may have been told, or what your ideal
may be of the mannert of gentlemen ; Garrick had no vulgarity in hit
mannen ; it it true Garrick had not the airinett of a fop, nor did he
attune an affected indifference to what wat patting ; he did not lonnge
from the table to the window, and from thence to the fire, or, whilit
yoa were addreinng you ditcounea to him, torn from yon and talk to
your next neighbour, (» give any indication that he wat tired of hit
company ; if tuch maniten form youi ideal <rf a fine gentleman, Garridc
certainly had them not.
" G. — I mean that Garrick wat more overavred by the pretence of the
great, and moK obteqniont to rank, than Foote, vrbo coniidered ^■^""flf
u their equal, and treated them with the tame familiarity at they treat
each other.
"J.— He did to, and vrhat did the fellow get i^ it ? The g
137
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
of hit mind pierented him from feeing that thit funiliarity wai raadf
tnSered aa the^ would pla7 mth a d^ ; he got no ground I7 affecting
to call peen b^ their fomunet ; the fooliih fdlow imagined that lowering
them wa* raiting himielf to their lerel ; thit afiectation oi bmilitritj
with the great, thi* childiih ambition of momeataiy exaltation obtained
by the neglect of thoae ceremoniei which cnitom hit establiihed u
barrien between one order of aodeqr and another, only ihowed hii bsSlf
and mcanneai ; he did not tee that bj encroaching on other*' dignity he
put himadf in th«ir power, either to be repdled with helplen indignity,
or endnred by demmcy and condeKennon. Garrick, by paying due
napeet to rank, respected himaelf ; what he gave wa* returned, and
what WM retained he kept for ever; hii adyanccment wai tm firm
gronnd, he wai recogniwd in pnblic ai well m respected in private ; and
ai no nun wa> erer more courted and better received by the public, »
no man wa* ever leat spoiled by ia fiattny. Gairick continued advanc-
ing to the last, till he had acquired every advantage that high birth or
title could beatow, except the precedence of going into ■ room, but
when he was there he was treated with a* much attention a* the fim
man at the uble. It ia to the credit of Garrick that he nerer laid claim
to thi* dittinction, — it was as voluntarily allowed at if it had been hi*
birthii^t. In thi*, I confess, I looked oa David mth tome degree of
envy, not so much for the respect he received, ai for the manner of
it* being acquired ; what fell into his lap unsought I have been forced
to claim. I began the world by fighting my mj. Hiere wa* some-
thing about me that invited iniult, or at least a dispotition to oe^ect,
and I wat equally disposed to repel insult, and to claim attentioo, and,
I feir, continne too much in thi* disposition aovr that it ia no longer
necetiary; I recave at pretent a* much favour at I have a ri^t to
expect. I am not one of the complainen of the n^lect of merit.
" G.—Tim- preteniiont. Dr. Johnion, nobody will dispute ; I cannot
place Garrick on the same footii^; your reputation will oontinne
increasing after your death, when Garrick will be tota% forgot ; you
will be lot ever contideml a clattic
** J.— Enough, Sir, enough ! Tlie C3»npany would be better pleased
to tee na quarrel than bandying compliments.
** G. — Bat yon must allow, Dr. Johnson, that Garrick vrit too modi
a slave to fame, or rather to the mean ambition of living with the great,
tdriUy afraid of making himself cheap, even with them ; by which he
debarred himtelf of much pleasant society. Employing so much atten-
tion and so much management upon inch little things implies, I think,
a little mind. It watobserved by his friend Cohnan that he neverwcnt
into company bat with a plot how to get out of it ; he was every
138
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS "DIALOGUES"
minote called oat, tad went on, off , or retunietl, u there wu, or wm
not, a probabili^ of hit (hining,
" J.— In legard to thi* mean ambition, u jan oil it, of living witb
die great, what mu the bout oi Pope, and ii trrerj nun'i wiifa, can be
no reproach to Gaitick; he who M71 he de«pi>ei it, knows he lie*; that
Garrick hubsided his fame, the fame he liad jnttly acquired, both at
die theatre and at the table, ii not denied ; bnt irixie ii the blame,
either in the one or the other, of leaving ai little at he could to chance t
Bendea, Sir, amnder what j'on have uid : joa fint daij Garrick*! pre-
tenaiont to fame, and then accue him ci too great attention to preaem
what he never potaewed.
" G. — I don't imdentand— ^
" J. — Sir, I caa't help that.
** G.— Well, but, Dr. Johnion, joa will not vindicate him in hit over
and above attentitMa to hi* fame, inordinate desire to exhibit himself to
new men, like a coqnet ever tteking after new conqneits, to the total
neglect of old friendi and admiren : —
* He threw off hit friends like a hnntiman hit pack ; *
ahva^ looking oat for new game.
" J. — When yon qnoted the line faom G^dimith, yoa Mi^t, in fair-
ness to have given what ftdlowed : —
' He knew, when he pleased, he conld whittle them back ; '
which impUet at least that he poateiaed a power over other men's minds
approaching to fascination. Bnt consider, Sir, what Is to be done:
hue is a man whom every other man deiired to know, Garrick conld
not receive and cnltivate all, acoirding to each man's conception of hit
own value — we are all apt enough to consider outsehca as possessing a
light to be excepted fran the common crowd ; besides, Sir, I do not
see why that should be imputed to him as a crime which we all to
irresiltibfy feel and practise ; we all make a greater ezettioo in the
pretence of new men than tdd acquaintance. It is undoubtedly tne
that Garrkk divided his attention among so many that bnt little was
left to the diare of any indiridnal ; like the extension and disaipation ot
inter into dew, there was not quantity united sufficiently to quoidl
any man's thirst ; but this is the inevitable state of things ; Garrick, no
no more than another man, could unite what, in thetc natniei, ore
incompatible.
" G.— But Ganick vras not only excluded by this meant fnan real
friendihip, bnt scented of treating those whom he called friends with
intinceri^ and double dealing.
>39
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
" }. — Sir, it 11 not true ; hii chtricter in that icipect il miraiulct-
■tood ; Ganick vru, to be rare, Teiy readj is promiiing, bnt lie intended
■t the time to fnlfil lui promiK ; be intended no deceit ; hii politoiai
or hit good nature, call it which yon will, nude him unwilling to deny ;
he wanted the amiage to u^ * No ' even to nnreatonable demandl.
This WM the great enor (tf hit life ; by railing expectationt which he
did not, perhaps could not gratify, he made many enemies ; at the lame
time, h mnit be remembered that thii error proceeded from the tune
cauae which produced many of hit virtnet. Friendihip* from warmth
of temper too luddenly taken op, and too violent to continue, ended, u
they were likely to do, in diaappointment, hi* friendt became hii ""•win,
and thete, having been fottend in hit botom, well knew his seaiibili^
to reproach, and tack care that he should be amply supplied with loch
bitter potions as they were capable of administering ; their impotent
efforts he ought to have despised, but he felt them, nor did he aSect
insentibili^.
" G. — And that tentibility probably shortened hit life.
"J. — No, Sir, he died of a disorder of which yon or any other man
may die, without being killed by too much sensibility.
" G.-~But you will allow, however, that this tentibili^, those fine
feelings, made him the great actor he was.
" J.— This it all cant, fit on^ for kitchen wenches and chambennaids ;
Gatiick*! trade was to represent passion, not to feel it. Aak Reynolds
iritether he felt the diitreti of Count Ugolino when he drew it.
" G.— Bnt surely he feelt the passion at the moment he it represent-
ing it ?
" J.— About u much at Punch feeli. That Garrick himself gave in to
this foppery of feelings I can easily believe; bnt be knew at the same time
that he lied. He might think it right, as far as I know, to have what
(ooli imagined he ought to have, but it it amazing that anyone should
be to ignorant as to think that an actoi would risk his reputation by
depending on the feelings that shall be excited in the presence of two
hundred people, on the repetition of certain words which he has repeated
two hnndred times before in what actors call thur study. No, Sir,
Garrick left nothing to chance. Every gesture, every txptemoa of
countenance and variation of voice, was settled in his closet before he
•et his foot upon the stage."
The claim of Reynolds to literary ability rests ^n these
two JcHX d'ejprit with more security than upon his Dis-
courses. They are nervous and to the point, in a way that
his more pretentious writing are not ; and even if the
140
oyGoo»:^Ic
DEATH OF GARRICK
ideas are entirely those of Johnson, as Malone asserted, Sir
Jo^ua deserves pnuse for the ririd way in which they ate
expnaaed.
This was the year of Garrick's death. He died on the
20th of January, leaving behind him the large fortune, for
his day and profesnon, of ;£i40,ooo. Five days later he
was followed by Sk Joshua's old master, Thomas Hudson.
Reynolds and Hudson had kept up thnr friendship to the
end, in spite of the little difficulty which had led to the
breaking off of their relations as master and scholar.
Hudson had long ago abandoned painting, and had satis-
fied his artisdc instincts during his later years by adding to
the fine collection of drairings by the *< old masters " he
had inherited iirom his father-in-law, Jonathan Richardson.
The unbroken friendship between the two painters was
creditable to them both. A small minded man in
Hudson's place would have resented his complete eclipse
by his own scholar, while Sir Joshua must have understood
the workings of a generous soul, or the consciousness of
his own triumph would have held him aloof from the man
at whose expense it had been chiefly won. Another death
which took place this year was that of Dr. Armstrong, the
medical poet, who had formed one of Sir Joshua's circle
ever since the painter's arrival in London.
To the Exhitntion of this year Reynolds sent his picture
of the Natinty,* and his three figures of Faith, Hope,
and Charity,t for the window in New CoUege Chapel ;
full lengths of Lady Louisa Manners,^: Lady CrosUe,^
and a young lady ; a three-quarters group of a Lady
* Biunt at BdT(^ Cistle, in 1816. A iketch for it u at Somerl^.
i At Somerlef, in the collection oi Htc Earl of Nonnintoa.
J Afterwaidt Conaten of DTiait. The pictnie ii &<nr in the
GoDection of Lord Ivea^.
f la the collection of Sii Chark* Tennant. Bart.
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
and Child ; Andrew Stuart,* and a " Portnut of a Gentle-
man."
Judging JTom the sketch at Somerley, from the engrav-
ing, and from the window in New CoU^, the Nativity
was one of Sir Joshua's more successful attempts at
elaborate composition. It must, however, have been sadly
wanting in uncerity, and in the kind of imagination which
enables an artist to combine the probable emotions of the
people he is attempting to restore, with the feelings that
time, futh, and association have implanted in those to
whom he appeals. The nngle figures of the virtues are
much better. In them, indeed. Sir Joshua agiun touches
his highest level as a demgner. They were at first intended
to be cartoons, in the usual sense of the word, but Rey-
ndds had been so long in the habit of depending on bru^
and colour alone, that he painted them at once on canvas.
" Jervas, the punter on glass," he told Mason, ** will have
a better original to copy, and I suppose persons hero^ter
may be found to purchase my paintings."t
Mason's fragment on Reynolds has an interesting
passage on the painting of these glorified cartoons : —
" When he wu employed npos the centnl part of the window in hii
f unouB ' Nativity,' I happened to call on him,t when his painting-room
pruented me with a very nngnlar and pleating prospect. Three
beaatifnl yonng female children, with their hair dithevdled, wde pbced
* A Scottiah " writer," engaged in the cdebrated Dongas filiation
cue.
t The " Nativity " was bonght by the Duke of Rntknd for jf 1,200;
the (even " Virtnes," aold at LadyThomond'a lale in i82i,were bought
by Lord Normanton for £$,$65 ; the tide pictnrei to the " Nativity,"
with portrait! of Reynold! himtelf and the glau painter, Jervaa, were
acquired after the painter'i death by Lord Fitxvrilliaia, and are now at
Wentwordi-Woodhoiue.
I There ii an entry in the pocket-bocA for the 30th of jnn^
" Children, 2. Mr. Maion."
142
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE VISCOUNTESS CROSBIE
Hit. CllARLKS TENNANT, BAKT.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
THE NEW COLLEGE WINDOW
«nder ■ luge minor whick hung ingnUily over their htadt, and from
the leflectkin in this he wu punting that chamung group m uigdlt
which nuToondcd the Holy Infut. He had nearly fini«TiH thit part
of hif dedgn, and I hardly lecollect erer to have had a greater pleaiure
thin I then had in beholding and comparing beantif nl nature, both in
ita reflection and on the caavai. The effect may be imagined, bat it
cannot be deacribed. The head of the ^%gin in thii capital picnm
waa fint a profile. I told him it appeared to me lo very Ctmgptspu
that I feared it would be tbronghont thought too cloae an imitaticm of
diat maater. What I then laid, whether jnitly or not I will not pte-
■ome to tay, had u much weight with him that, when I law the picture
^it next time, the head waa altered entiiely ; part of the retiring cheek
wai bronght forward, and, ai he told me, he had got Mn. Sheridan to
Kt for it to him.
" With the copy Jcrroi made of thii pictnie he wu gricronily ditap-
pcunted. *I had frequently/ he laid to me, 'pleaied myielf with
reflecting, after I had produced what I thought a biilliant effect of
light and ihade on my canvaa, how greatly that effect would be
hdghtened by the transparency which the painting on glaat would be
aore to produce. It turned out quite the rereite.' And I man myielf
own, when I law the window at Oxford lome time before Sir Joahna
ucpreaKd this loitimcnt to me, that I had thought piediely a* be did.
It ii tme that I taw it when not illuminated by the aun behind it, an
adrantage which inch paintingi particularly require : I uw it on a doQ
momlBg, whereai, luppodng the chapel to atand eait and weat, a bright
erening ti the prc^r time to examine it.'
" The day of opening the Exhibition that year, when this pictore wai
in hand, approached too hastily upon Six Joihua, who had rcK^red that
it ahonld then make ita public appearance. I nw him at work npon it,
even the very day before it waa to be aent thither ; and it griered me to
see him laying loada of colour and vamiih upon it, at the aame time
* I hare seen it often, and under all conditions of light ; it is never
qnite sstisfactory, and that for a very obvious reason. The succen of
such a scheme of chiaroscuro depends entirely on the effective contrast
of the light parts mth the parts in shadow, a contrast easily established
on canvas hy opporing opaque and reflecting surfaces to transparent and
absorbent ones. When the whole of the light has u come through the
substance of the picture, it is scarcely possible that the necessary contrast
should be obtained. A bright sun streams through both the deepest
shadow oo irikich the glass painter can venture and the highest lig}it, and
takes all the vigour ont d the contrast.
H3
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
prognoiticatiag to n^ielf ^t it wrald uewtx ituid the tot of
Whether Muoa's prophecy were well-foanded or not
we can never know, as the picture was burnt at Belvoir m
its thirty-eighth year. The " Virtues," at Somerley, are
in fair condition.
Socially, 1779 was an average year vnth Sir Joshua.
The dinner engagements entered in his pocket-book are,
perhaps, a little less numerous than usual, but they include
one or two evenings which Boswell has made &mous.
One of these was the day after the condemnation of
Hackman for the murder of Miss Ray, when Johnson and
Topham Beaiiclerc came to high words over the ugnificance
of carrying two pistols. Another was the 24th of the
same month, when the discussion ran upon the character
(^ Garrick, and Boswell came as near as he dared to
finding fault with his hero, who had said that ** Garrick's
death had eclipsed the gaiety of nations." On both these
occauons Reynolds was present, but he is not recorded
as having taken any part in the talk. A sketch of the
painter as he seemed to an unsympathetic oontemp<wary is
quoted by Leslie, who calls it " a view of one's hero
through the reversed opera glass." Mr. B y was an
Irish ex-commissary who had sat to Reynolds in the old
days at Minorca. He speaks of him ** as if he had been
a carpenter or Aurier."
*" Did jon erer tee hit " Nidrity " * i aib Mn. Umle. 'No, madvn ;
bat I know hii pictont mj weU. I knew him manf jeut ago, ia
Minorca ; he drew my ^ctnie there, and then he knew how to take a
moderate price; but now, I tow, nia'un, 'ti* tcandahnu — tcandakmi,
indeed! to fwf ■ fellow here (erentjr gnineai for tcratching oat a
head!*
" Dr. Delap lemindi him that he mut not ma down Sir Jothna,
becaue he 11 M iw BoineT'i friend. ' Sir, I don't want to nn the man
down ; I like him well enough in hii proper place; he ii ■• decent u
(44
oyGoo»:^Ic
NEW SOMERSET HOUSE
any man of that aon I enz knew ; but for all that, Sir, hit price* ire
■hamefnl. Why, he would not' — locking at the poor Doctor with an
enraged contempt — ' he would not do your head under leventy guineas ! *
Mn. Thrale declares that too much could hardly be paid for inch a
porttait at Mi. Stnart'i in the hit Exhibition, ' What atnS ia thit ! '
exclaims Mr. B— — 7; 'how can two 01 three dabs of paint ever be
worth tnch a sum as that i ' ' Sir/ says Selwyn, delighting to draw him
out, ' yon know not how much he is improved since yon knew him in
Minorca ; he ii now the finest painter, perhaps, in the world ! ' Mr.
B y pooh-poohs this, and reiterates he has no objection to the man.
' I have dined in his company two or three times ; a very decent man
he i), fit to keep company with gentlemen ; but, ma'am, what are all
your modem dabbler* put together to one ancient ? Nothing 1 A
set of — not a Rubens among *em! I tow, ma'am, not a Rubens
among 'em ! ' "
In these days we are apt to forget that to many of Sir
Joshua's contemporaries, with the stricter notions of social
precedency in vogue a century ago, the punter's station in
London society must have seemed almost an outrage,
espedally as it had been won mthout any kind of pretence
or undue submission to those who were then called '* the
great." Fond as he was of the best that Society could
give, he lived his life in his own way, invited whom he
chose to lu9 own table, leaving his guests to shake down
among themselves as best they could, and, so far as we can
discover, paying little heed to prejudices on the matter of
turth, and still less to those which had to do with politics
or conventional morality.
The year j 780 saw the transfer of the Exhibition from
Pall Mall to the new home of the Academy in Somerset
House. The rooms dengned for it by Sir William
Chambers still exist, on the right-hand »de of the arched
entrance in the Strand. They condsted of exhibition
rooms for drawings and sculpture on the ground floor, a
library, antique academy, &c., on the first floor, and two
top-lighted picture galleries, one large, the other very
small, on the third floor. Some of the rooms were
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
decorated with the pictures by Cipriani and Angelica
Kauffinann which hare lately been placed in the vestibule
at Burlington House. The first exhibition in the new
building was a great success. The takings amounted to
£io6g, more than twice what they were in the previous
year, and many other ugns of increasing interest were
given. Sir Joshua's contributions to the show were
portraits of Lady Beaumont,* Gibbon.t the Earl of
Cholmondeley,;}: Lady Worsley, in the Hants Militia
uniform,^ Miss Beauclerc (daughter of Topham BeaudercX
as ** Una," I and of Prince William Frederick of
Gloucestefjf in a Van Dyck dress. He also sent the
cartoon for '* Justice," in the New Collie window. To
the same exhibition Gainsborough sent fourteen jnctures,
oght portraits and six landscapes. Among these were
some of his finest things, such as the George Coyte
(" Coyte alive "), Mr. Alfred de Rothschild's " Mrs.
Beaufoy," Mr. Hirsch's " Madame Le Brun," and the
"Horses drinking," now in Sir Charles Tennant's col-
lection. To us, looking back over more than a century.
It seems amazing that twenty such pictures as those just
enumerated could hang in one room, and yet cause no
abnormal excitement among those who paid their shillings
to see them. In these days, when painters swarm, it would
be difficult to find twenty pictures worth a second glaacc
in any ezlubition room in Eiirope. Certainly such things
as Gainsborough's " Mrs. Beaufoy " and Sir Joshua's
" Lady Worsley " would now, by themselves, give prestige
* Probablf the |»ctan now, or lately, at Colearton.
t Belongi to the Earl of Rotebeiy.
t Not identified. § Belongi to the Earl of Htrevrood.
H Tlie picture engraved b^ T. WatKn, and alio by S. W. Rernoldi.
TTke pictore beloaging to Lord Normanton seema to be an nnfiniibed
replica, altkongh it may pouibly be the one exhibited in 1780.
4 At Tiinity Coll^ Cambridge.
146
oyGoo»:^Ic
MASTb:K UUNBUKY
SIK Henrv Bunuukv
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
PRINCESS DASHKOW
to any exhitntion. Is it not pos^ble that we are habitually
un^r to the public of 1780 ? May not the cause of the
prompt and permanent rogue of the Royal Academy
Exhibitions have been simply the magnificent art with
which they were filled in those early and critical years ?
Writers, Sir Joshua himself among them, have been
perhaps over ready to ascribe the success of the Academy
to the King's patronage and other outside Infiuences. I
do not see why the more generous explanation should not
be the true one, that people would rush to where such
punting as that of Gainsborough and Sir Joshua was to be
seen and would set a fashion not ea^ to kill.
This year, 1780, was one of the most active of Sir
Joshtu's later life. His sitters were numerous. They
included Sir W. Molesworth, Sir W. James, Lady Laura
Waldegrave, Lady Gertrude Fitzpatricfc, Lady Comewall,
Mrs. Eckersal, Mrs. Harcoiut, the Duchess of Rutland,
Mrs. Musters, Henry Dundas, Strahan the printer, Miss
Ingram, and the evergreen General Oglethorpe, who had
fought under Marlborough and Eugene, had founded the
Savannah, and had shot snipe in Conduit Street.* Lord
Richard Cavendish sat in June for that fine portrait with
the ^yptian desert for background, which was so well
engraved by John Raphael Smith.f Among Sir Joshua's
friends, companions, or entertaners for this year the most
insistent are Burke and Dunning ; the newest, the Princess
Dashkow, the friend of the Empress Catherine and the
future President of the St. Petersbui^ Academy. The
Princess timed her visit to London at an exdting moment,
for the Gordon Riots took place tn Jime, and she, mth
some of her fellow-countrymen at the Rusuan Embassy,
were curiously well-informed as to some of the intentions
* TahU Talk ef Samiul Ragm.
t The fnctnie bekmgi to the Dnke of Deroniluie.
H7
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
of the rioters. She does not appear among % Joshua's
utters, but while in Ireland she had seen the famous
re^ew of Volunteers in Collie Green, Dublin, and
Wheatley had introduced her portrait among those who
were looking on.* During the disturbed month Reynolds
was among her guests more than once. In the autumn
Sir Joshua paid another visit to Devonshire, where he wis
a guest at Spitchwick, Dunning's house on Dartmoor, as
well as at Saltnun, Port Eliot, Mount Edgcumbe, and
other places where his presence was no novelty. He was
away a month, from the 24th of Atigust to the 2znd of
September.! His return to London was probaUy deter-
mined by the fact that the winter session of the Academy
Schoc^s was to open on the 1 6th of October in its new home
in Somerset House, and that the Presidoit had to prepare
an address for the occasion. To this year also belongs a
letter printed by Tom Taylor, in which Reynolds gives
advice to Nicolas Pocock, the young marine punter, who
had sent a belated pcture to the Exhibition. The letter is
curious:
" DiAK Sn, — Yonr pictttre cune too kte for exhibition. It ii mndi
bcTond what [ expected from a fint esiay in oil colonn ; all the pirti,
•eparately, are extreaiel7 well painted, but there wanti a harmony in tbe
whole blether ; thete ii no union between the clouds, the Ka, and the
taili. Though the lea appean aometimes ai green u you have painted
it, jret it ia 1 choice vecy nnfaTOvrable to the art ; it leenii to me ttmy
Intely atcetury, in order to produce harmony, and that the picture
thonld appear tt be painted, at the phraie it, from one palette, that
tnoie three great objecta of ihip-painting should be mnch of the une
colour, at was the practice of Vandervelt ; and he leemi to hare been
driTen W thit condnct by necettitj. Whaterer cobnr predominates in
a picture, that colour mnat be introduced in other para ; but no green
colour, tuch at you haTC given to the tea, can make a part of the i^.
I beliere the truth ia, that, however the tea may appear green when yon
* The picture it in the Iriih National Gallery,
t The pocket-bo^ for 1780 givea hit whole itineraiy.
148
oyGoo»:^Ic
LETTER TO POCOCK
are lookiog down upon it, and it ii Tciyaear — at racb a diitance *• )rotir
■hipt aie rappaied U> be, it utomei the colooi o£ the Af.
" 1 mmld reconunend to you, above all thing*, to paint from Nature,
instead of drawing ; to cany your palette and pencil to the watenide.
Iliii wu the practice of Vemet, whicoa I knew at Rome ; he there
■howed me hit ttndiea in coloun, which atiuck me Teiy mnch for that
tmth which thoae worki only have which are ptodnced while the Impiea-
aion it warm from Nature. At that time, he was a perfect master of
the character of water, if I may me the ezpreuion ; he ia now rednced
to a mere manneriit, and no longer to be recommended for imitation,
except yon would imitate him by uniting landscape to ship-painting,
which certain^ make* a more pleasing composition than either alone."
To the exhibition of 1781 Sir Joshua sent fourteen
pictures : Dr. Barney,* Mr. Thoroton, the well-known
friend and ^ent of the Duke of Rutland,t Master
Bunbury,t Lord Richard Cavendish,^ the three Ladies
Waldegravc,! Duchess of Rutland,^ Countess of Salis-
bury,** Children of the Duke of Rutland,tt a Child
Asleep,tJ a listening Boy, '* ThMS,*'§§ "Temperance,"!!
« Fortitude,"^^ and the "Death of Dido.*'*** It is a
splendid list, and the people may well be envied who saw
fourteen such pictures in all tbnr glory. The happiest in
* In America (Heam collection, New York) ; a very good replica is
in the Univcnity Gallery, Oxford.
t Burnt at BelToii ? t At Barton.
S Belongs to the Duke of Devonshire.
II In the collection of Mn. Thwaites.
11 Burnt in the fire at BelToir. ** At Hatfield.
ft Lord Gianby and Lady Elizabeth Manners, with two d(^ Hie
^ctnie ia at Belvoir Castle.
XX At Packington HaD (Earl of Aylesford).
§§ Portrait of Emily Pott, alias Bertie, a well-known courtesan, at this
time in relations with Charles Gierille. Walpole and other contempo-
raries find fault with Reynolds for the muaculari^ of Miss Pott's legs,
M if he had not only painted, but originally designed them 1 The
psctnie is now at Waddetdon.
ill For the New College window: nmrinLordNormanton'scollectioa.
ff JUJ. *** In Buckingham Palace.
»49
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
invention of them all is, no doubt, the group of the Ladies
Waldegrave, which may, perhaps, be called the most
famous of Sir Joshua's pictures. In conception, it shows
the painter at his best, and may ^rly be put on a level
with the three Montgomeries in the National Gallery. In
execution, howeyer, it is open to critidsm. The punter
has trusted entirely to hts design and the beauty of his
utters, and has allowed the actual conduct of his brush to
become a litde perfunctory. The result is a certua
emptiness, which makes it necessary to stand well away
from the canras if we vrish to feel that the picture deserves
its reputation. What Horace Walpole meant by saying
that the lock and key on the work-table are " finished like
a Dutch flower pninter " it is difficult to guess. Tom
Taylor calls the "Death of Dido" " the finest ideal [Hcture
by Sir Joshua included in the Royal collection." With
this judgment it ts impossible to agree, when we remember
that the " Cymon and Iphigenia " hangs on the same wall
But the " Dido " is certainly among the more successfiil
attempts by Reynolds to justify his own theories on the
great style. It is a pity that Sir Joshua could not have
as»milated the theories of Lesnng before he completed his
own ideals.* Had he read the first four chapters of the
LaocooHf he would never, I think, have afflicted us irith
the figure of the Carthaginian sister, hanging over the
miuibund Queen like some monstrous bird, and producing
eiactly those feelings of discomfort, irritation, and bathos
against which Lesung's first argument is directed. The
Greeks, on the rare occauon when they dealt with emotion
in action, chose the moment before it reached its culmina-
* At a matter of date, he might have done to : for the Lmmm wu
publiihed in 1766, fonrteen yean before the "Dido** wa« painted. But
we have no reaton to believe that Reynoldi knew any German, and it wai
not until 1836 that the famoai treatiae wai fir«t pnbliihed io Engliih.
ISO
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jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
TOUR ON THE CONTINENT
tion, while the spectator could still anticipate, and justify
the ineritaUe fulure of art by putting the supeme instant
beyond that portrayed by the artist. Reynold was ill-
advised enough to &I1 upon this supreme instant itself.
He selects the moment of the Queen's death, and of her
uster's fullest dismay, the very moment when the emotions
excited in the mind of an actual beholder would outrun
the image gathered by his eyes, and d^rade facts most
hopelessly below imagination. Sir Joshua was an excellent
hint-taker ; if he had known his Lcssing he would have
chosen his moment better, and left his drama unfinished.
In the late summer of 1781, Sir Jo^ua made a two
months tour on the Continent. Leaving Margate on the
a6th of July, in wmpany with his friend Metcalf, he visited
Bn^es, Ghent, and Brussels during the first week,
moving on afterwards to Mechlin and Antwerp. In
Antwerp he saw Rubens's " Rape of the Sabines," then to
be sold for 24,000 florins.* Leaving Antwerp on the 9th
of August, he piassed by Dort and " Rotirdam" to The
H^ue, where he spent mx days. On the 17th he
travelled to Amsterdam, seang " three or four pictures by
F. Hals" at Haarlem on the way. After a week in
Amsterdam, spent in sedng pictures and in dining out, he
set out for Dusseldorf, by the way of " Utrick,"
Nim^uen, and Cleves. Five days were spent at Dussel-
dorf, where the museum then contained many of the finer
{Mctures now in the Munich Gallery ; then one each in
Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle. Two days at Spa, one day
at Li^e, and then after dining at Louvain, he is bock at
Brussels on the 7th September. After a week in the
Belgian capital he travels to London by the route he had
followed when outward bound, and arrives home on the
itith of September.
* The facnre in the Natkuul Galkij.
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
During his tour Sir Joshua made oo{»ous notes on
pictures, meuiing, apparentljr, to publish them, as he left
a fr^mentary dedication to his firiend and travelling
companion, Philip Metcalf, among his papers. The whole
were published after tus death by Edmund Malone, in the
first edition of the Discourses. They form an important
document for any one attempting to fit Sir Joshua into his
true i^lace in the history of art, and inll have to be
discussed at some length in connection with his Italian
Notes and his Discxiurses.
The chief event, no doubt, of Sir Joshua's life in 1781
was the marrii^e in January of Oflfy Palmer to Richard
LovellGwatkin, which took place from Mrs. Palmer's hou«e
in Torrington. And yet, with all his auction for hb
favourite niece, the marriage does not seemed to have
stirred Reynolds frcmi his normal attitude towards the
concerns of other pet^ile. Here u the letter he wrote upon
the occauon : —
"Mt duk Otft,
" I intended to have aiuwered jaai letter immediately,
and to have wrote at the *ame time to Mr. GwatUa, bat wai pienoitcd,
and have been ptercDted ereiy evening since. However, I propoMd
dcung to thit evening, and diaenguged myself from Mrs. Elliott (where
Polfy it giHie) on porpose. But this moment Mi. Edmnnd Burke hai
caBed on me, and propoiet ■ party, but desires I would write iriule he
wtiti at my elbow, for that he will add tomething himielf . Yon must
foppote, therefne, that I have wished and ezpreited eveiything that
affectioa to yoa and friendship to Mi. Gwatkin wpnld dictate.
"That you may be as happy at yon both dcaerve ii my vrish, and yon
wiD be thehappieat couple in England. So God bktt yon. I wiD leave
^ tett to Mi. Burke.
*' Yoor most ificctionate uncle,
« Januaiy 30th, 1781." " J. REYNOLDS.
Burke was less summary, and, putting aside one Htde
touch of pomp, sent as graceful a letter as any young
couple could Irish for at their setting out in life. The
oyGoo»:^Ic
MARRIAGE OF OFFY PALMER
Ruuriage was happy. Offy was to live for seventy years
after that January day, and to found a family that still
flourishes. Before the year was out, she and her husband
were in London, nttingto Sir Joshua for the portruts now
in the possession of their own descendant.* During this
year, Opie came to London under the wing of "Peter
Pindar/* and the Thrales moved into thtar fine new house
in Groavenor Square^ where Sir Joshua had for a few short
short weeks many opportunities for the demure quasi-
flirtatious talks he carried on with Fanny Bumey.
'* Sir Jothtu," iHe nyt, " is fat and welL He ii preparing for the
Exhibition a new Death of Dido ; portiaia of the three beantifol Ladiet
WaldegraTc^ Horatia, Laoia, and Maria, all in one picture, and at work
with the tambour ; a 'null, for which Miu Emilj, a celebrated conrteian,
aat at the deiire of the Hon. Charlei Grerille ; and what Otheri I know
not, bnt hii room and gallery are both crowded."
It was not long after this entry in the famous diary that
the club had an extra n^ht, in preparation for one of the
Grosvenor Square assemblies, when a note arrived from
Johnson (at this time living in Thrale's house) to say that
the brewer had that very morning fidlen dead in a fit of
apoplexy. Other engagements during the year were at
the Bishop of St. Asaph's (the dinner at which Boswell
drank too much and was rebuked by Hannah More), and
at Mrs. Garrick's, in the Adelphi, the first party she had
after David's death.
The exhibition of 1783 contained fifteen pictures by
Reynolds. They were : — Whole lengths of Mrs. Baldwin,
** The Fair Greek," in Smymiote dress ; f Lady George
Cavendish (b^un as Lady Betty Compton) ; % and Lady
* Mr. R. Gwattin, of the Manor Houie, Poncme, Derizea.
t Now at BowDod.
I Afterward) Connteii of Burlington. Ilie picture belongs to Lord
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Charlotte Talbot ; • heads of Lady Althorp,t '* Pcrdita "
Robinson.t Lady Aylesford,§ and one not identified ;
portraits of Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Rochester, as Dean
of the Order of the Bath ; B of Col. Tarletop,1f CoL
Windham,*«and Lord Chancellor Thuriow ;tt "Children,"
a girl and an angel contemplating a Cross, for the Oxford
window.tt Agjun, we find Sir Joshua's list answered by one
no less important from his great liyal. Gwisborough,
too, was represented by a " Colonel Tarleton," with a horse,
as well as by his two famous portrwts of the Prince of
Wales and Colonel St. Leger, with their horses.§§ The
same painter's splendid " Mrs. Dalrymple Elliot " II was
also at Somerset House, where it had for companion the
&mous "Girl with Pigs," bought by Sir Joshua, but
transferred by him to M. de Calonne. Two years later,
Gunsborough was to finally shake the Exhibition dust
from his feet, but his pictures of 1782 show his easy
vigour, his airiness, his unique combination of gaiety,
irresponsibility, and light-handedness. with solidity and
no-nonsense, at its best, and , must have made Reynolds
ask with more perplexity than ever, " How does he get his
eficcts?"
The year 1782 saw the death of one great English
* Afterwirdi Connteu Talbot. The pictnie lued to be at Ingotie,
bnt is now in America.
t Lavima, afteiwarda Connteu Spcstccr ; in Lord Spencer*! collectiaa
at Altborp.
t In the collectiaa of Baiooeu Mathilde de Rotlucluld, at Frankfcm.
% Belongt to the Earl of A^letford.
II In the Bimungham GaUerr.
Q Foimerl/ in the coUectioo of Mt. Wyna Ellit, who bequeathed it
to the tittei'i familj ; it now belongt to Mr. A. H. Taileton.
** Whereabonu unknown. it Belongi to the Marquex of Bath.
XI In the Duke of Portland'* collection at Welbeck Abb^.
f$ Not mounted on them, however, at Tom Taylor enoneonily tajn,
till "D(% the TaU"j the picture it at Welbeck.
"5+
oyGoo»:^Ic
REYNOLDS AND WILSON
punter to vhom Sir Joshua seems never to have done
justice. Richard Wilson died in May, at Llanberis,
whither he had retired but a short time before. It is
difficult to understand how Sir Joshua failed to percdve
the great beauty of Wilson's art. Pictures of his own
exist * in which, mutatis mutandis, a startling affinity with
Wilson may be traced. Perhaps the Preudent was blinded
by antipathy to the man, for Wilson was not a person
with whom the friction-avoiding Reynolds could have
much in common. The trueTer»onof the^ii^ committed
by Sir Joshua over Gainsborough as a landscape painter,
is probably the one given by Northcote. According to
this, the President came into the Artists' Club one day,
having just seen a fine landscape by Gainsborough. He
described it, and ended with *' Gainsborough is certunly
the finest landscape painter now in Europe." " Well, Sir
Joshua," called out Wilson, who was present, *' it is my
opinion that he is also the greatest portrait-painter at
this time in Europe." Reynolds felt his mistake, and
apologised to Wilson.f
It was in this year that Sir Joshua sat to Gainsborough.
Apptnntments to ut are entered on the 3rd of November,
and agun on the loth, both Sundays. The first «tting
* The *' Muter Hue," in the poMeuion of Mr. Lionel Phillipi, aaj
be named u a good ioatance.
t Sir Jothua'i neglect of Wilwn hai been imitated hf the Engliih
people ever lince, and jet he ii one of the really gieat and original
matten of the ei^nenth centnij. Hi* beit worki unite the digoitr of
Chade and the atmospheric troth of Cajrp or De Hooge with the fat,
lich bruthing preached hf Rejaolds himaeU, At hii worn he wa* the
equal <A many men admitted to oollectiona the doon of which wovld
nerer be opened to a Wilton, iriule at hii beit he prodnced thjngi to
friuch, in their waj, no other landicape painter can thow a parallel.
Unfartnnately he it repreteated in onr national o^ctioni mainly by
ambitioiit failnrei, "Niobei," and *' ViUai of Mecxnas," that orerwhehn
die modett cmceptiont in which hit delicate art ii moit folly thown.
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
took place ; but before the President could appear a second
time in Schombei^ House, he had one of those "two
■hakes of the palsy " to which Fanny Burney alludes in x
letter protesting against the connection of his name with
hers by the nutchmakers. On the 14th of November
Johnson writes from Brighton : —
" I hcifd ftttaday at joai late diioider, and *hoald think Ul of mpeU
if I had heard of it withoat alarm. I heard likewiie of joar ncojtzj,
wbidi I linceKly wi^ to be complete and permanent. Yoni conotrf
haa been in danger of losing one of it> bri^teit onumenta, and I of
locing one of my oldett and kindeK frieoda ; bat I hope jrm will ttill
live long for the honoor of the nation ; and that more enjoyment d
yttax elegance, your intelligence, and yoni benerolence ii ttiU rettrrcd
for, dear Sir, your moat aSecdonate," tec
Ten days seem a short time in which to receive and
recover from a stroke of paralyns, however sUght, and it
b posuble that the dates above given have been wrongly
interpreted. The one sitting Sir Joshua is known to have
given to Gainsborough may have been earlier than the
3rd of November, in which case it is not entered in the
pocket-book. On his recovery he wrote to his brother
punter hinting that he was now ready to sit again, but the
hint was not taken, and no portrait of Reyn<dds by
Gunsborough, or of Gainsborough by Reynolds, eidsts.*
In the last days of the year— on the 28th of December—
Kr Joshua gives a dinner of which we catch a glimpse in
* Ferhapi KHne good-natnred friend had repeated to GainsboFoo^ a
tcmaik made by Reynoldi in the hearing of Northcote, and repo r ted bf
the latter yean afterwarda to Jamea Ward. ** Sirjoahua . . . and Gaina-
bonngh conld not ttable their hone* together, for there wai jealoiu^
between them, Gainaboron^ I remember, aolidted Sir Joahna to st
to him for hia portrait, and he no doubt expected to be requested to at
to Sir Joihna in return. Bat I heard Sir Joihua aay, ' I inppoae he
c^wcta me to aik him to ait to me ; I ahall do no tnch thing 1 * " Cm-
vtruHmi »f Jamii Sanieeu, R^^ witi Jamti fTsrdi edited hf £nw«t
Fletcher, 1901, p. 159.
156
jyGooi^lc
GAINSBOROUGH'S LAST YEAR
Fanny Burney's diary. It U of interest chiefly because
one of the guests was '* Jadcson of Exeter," the rau»dan
and bosom friend of Gainsborough. Jackson's character
was not unlike Gdnsborough's own. He is described as
very handsome, full of originality, fire and passion, but
with flashes of silence and distraction. He and Fanny
romp a Iittle,^and the whole party brings the year merrily
to its end, Fanny with Sir Joshua's kiss upon her cheek.
Sir Joshua was not in his usual force in the exhibition
of 1783. He sent ten portraits, but none of them, with
perhaps one exception, would find a place in a list of his
best works. They were : Mrs. Gosling,* *' A Lady,"
*' A Young Lady " (Miss Falconer, by moonlight),t " A
Young Nobleman," t two groups of children, § Mr.
j^erton,! Mr. Albany WaUis,^ Lord Harrington,** and
William Strahan, printer and M.P.tt Tlus, the last year
of Gunsborough's appearance on the Academy walls,
showed lum in such strength as to throw Sir Joshua com-
pletely into the shade. He exhituted no fewer than
twenty-five pictures, including some of his finest things,
such as the full lengths of Mrs. Sheridan and the Duchess
* Bought by Agnew *nd Son in 1884.
t In Lord Normuitoii'i collection.
t Walpol« t»j» Lord Albemaile, then > boy of thineen ; another
aathonty says Lord Cobliain. The picture has not been identified.
S One of theK groupawai the " Master Brummell and his Brother,"
now in Lord Ireagh't collection. The elder brother was afterward* the
famoni beau.
II So lay* Walpole: another authority identifies the sitter as Sir
Abraham Hume, who did not sit, howerer, until 1786.
IF Gariick's friend and executor. The present owner of the pictnie
a nnlmown.
** In Lord Harrington's potsesiion, at Elvaston Castle, Derby-
shire.
ft Belongs to Mr. Arthur Lemon. A copy by Sti Wm. Beechey
was presented to the Stationers' Company by Mr. Andrew Strahan,
M.F., in 1815 (Graves and Cronin).
IS7
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
of Devonshire, the " Sir Harbord Harbord,"the" Bojra with
Fighting Dogs," and the wonderfdl heads of Geotge III.
and his children which now fill a series of fourteen
panels in the priyate audience chamber at Windsor. Sir
Joshua's eclipse was but momentary. Some of his finest
things were yet to come. But the impression made by
his appearance this year is recorded in one of the few
happy couplets hit upon by Wolcott :
*' We're lott Sir Joiliiui — lik ! that channing elf.
We griere to >a.f, hath thu year lost himielf."
Two minor exhibitions attracted a lai^ section of the
public this year : Barry's pictures at the Sodety of Arts,
which 6540 persons paid a shilling, and one, Jonas
Hanway, a guinea, to see ; and Jarvis's peepshow of his
Oxford window alter Reynolds. Jarvts contrived, in a
darkened room in Pall Mall, to make his window realise
the ideas of the painter, and so to all the more deepen the
disappointment in store when the undoctored daylight of
New College Chapel came in to upset calculations. Other
notable events in Sir Joshua's life this year are his second
tour in the Low Countries, when he bought some good
[nctures released from the religious establishments through
the somewhat reckless policy of the Emperor ; his punting
of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse ; and Ids last welcome
of Dr. Johnson to the Academy Dinner.
Z>uring his foreign tour he noticed, and was troubled
by the fact, that Rubens seemed less brilliant to his eye
than he ^d two years previously, when he first saw Brussels
and Antwerp. He thought he had discovered the reason
of the apparent filing oiF when he remembered that on
his previous visit he made many notes, and was continually
looking up to the pictures from the white pages of his
pocket-book. Northcote suggests that the real explanation
158
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHARLES JAMES FOX
Eaki. or Leicester, K,G.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
SECOND TOUR IN BELGIUM
WIS the prepress made by himself during the two yean,
which had lessened the gap between his own productions
and those of the Fleming. Northcote's explanation may
be disr^arded. It was suggested rather by his admiration
for his old master than by any viable diminution of the
distance between Sir Joshua, as an executant^ and Rubens,
durii^ the twenty-four months which separated the two
vi^ts to Belgium. On the other hand, no one who has
been in the hatut of makii^ notes in [»cture galleries will
deny that the explanation given by Reynolds himself has
some foundation. The continual reference to a catalogue,
momentary as each glance may be, will make a collection of
pictures seem warmer in colour than they do without such
accidental aid. But the difference is hardly enough to
account for such disappointment as that felt by Sir Joshua.
The truth, no doubt, was simply that his imagination had
been at work ever^nce 1781, heightening the impression
made upon him by the daring colour and miraculous
brushing of Rubens,| and that by 1783 these enhanced
impressions had substituted themselves for genuine
memories, to the disadvantage of the actual pictures. No
extraordinary effort of imagination is required to enable
us to push a work of art a little farther in certain direc-
tions than even the greatest artist can carry it In our
mind's eye we can easily add to the glow of a Titian, to
the force and depth of a Rembrandt, to the brilliance of a
Gainsborough ; and when we indulge the habit, and allow
its creations to impose themselves as tests, such disappoint-
ment as that felt by Sir Joshua on his second viut to
Rubens is always the consequence. Our pleasiu« in any
experience depends munlyon our expectations. Sir Joshua
expected much from the puntings in the Vatican, and so,
at firs^ he was (Usappointed. He expected less from
Rubens, and so on hb first introduction he was agreeably
>S9
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
surprised. Two years later he expected the same delight
to be renewed, if not enhanced ; but die element of sur-
prise was gone, and his imagination had been at work ; the
result was ineritable. It was not surprising that Reynolds
took so kindly to Peter Paul. Between the Fleming's
way of conceiving a [Hcture and his own, the likeness
sometimes comes near to identity, Putdi^ technique
aude, the differences between the Chapeau de Pulle, or
rather de Foil, and the Nelly O'Brien of the Wallace
Gallery, are accidental rather than temperamentaL
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHAPTER VII
1784— 1792
;^IR JOSHUA'S pocket-book shows that
1784 was one of the most crowded years
I of his life. His sitters were more
numerous than they had been for years,
' while his social engagements trod so
' closely upon each other's heels that we
wonder how he kept his head dear enough for art. To
the Exhibition, nevertheless, he sent no fewer than sixteen
pictures, among them some of his finest things. Here is
the list: — Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse;* Miss
Kemble, Mrs. Siddons' sister, afterwards Mrs. Twiss;t
Mrs. Abington as Roxalana;| Mr. Warton;g Lord
Leveson ;I Sir John Honywood;! Master Braddyl;**
Lady Dashwood and Child ; tt Charles James Fox ;tt Prince
of Wales ;Sj Lady Honywood and Child ;|| Dr. Bourke,
" Now in Grotrenor Honse. t In Mr, Bradley Mutin'i powetuon.
X In tke Dole of Fife'i collection.
4 ThoniM Wtrton, Poet Laureate. In Trinitj' O^ege, Oxford.
II Lord Lewiihim, afterwards 3rd Eail of Dartmonth. In the
A^leafbrd collection.
Q Wai in the poaieirion of Sir C. Honjrwood, Bart.
** In the poneuian of Lord Rothiduld.
ti" Wai in tKe posienion of Sir Heniy Dashwood, Ban., in 1867,
tt The picture at Holkham.
K At Brocket Hill ; in Earl Cowper*i cdlection.
IttI Bekoigt to the £ul of Devon.
161 L
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
ArchlMshop of Tuam;* Pott, the famous surgeon ;t
Nathaniel Chauncey ; { Nymph and Cu^Hd ; § Boy
reading.jl The portrait of Fox shows htm at Ms best as
a painter of men, and may fairly be put beside the Lord
HesthfieJd of the National Gallery, wMch was to follow
it three years later. The " Fox " was on ^ Joshua's easel
when the Coalition Ministry came to an end in Denmber,
1783, and the punter had felt some delicacy in carrying
out one of his sitter's requests. Fox had wished his India
Bill, the immediate cause of his expulsion irom office, to
be introduced into the picture, legibly docketed. After
the crash Reynolds heutated to perpetuate a failure, but
Fox stood to his guns, and those who see the picture it
Holkham may still read upon it, "A Bill for the better
r^ulating the Af^rs of the E.I. Company." Another
fine portrut is the Archbishop of Tuam, which recalls the
"Dr. Markham** of the year before. Sir Joshua's variety
was splendidly shown by the appearance on one wall of
the delightful espiegliere of Mrs. Abington as "Roxalana,"
and the majesty of Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse.
The former, of course, is the more characteristic. It
nught have been painted if Reynolds had never seen any
one's jnctures but his own. But the tact with which hints
from the Sistine Chapel are used in the *' Siddons " is so
consummate as to justify the plagiary, and to convince
us more than anything else he did of the uncerity of his
own worship of Michelangelo. A number of different
stories have come down to us on the origin of the pose.
* At Palmentown Howe, Eildaie ; beloagt to tKe Earl of Ma^o.
t Pott of " Pott** Fiactuie " fame ; the picture ii in Sc Bar-
tholunew'i HcMintal.
X The picture wai exhibited at the Bridah Inititatioo in 181] hf
Hiomu Carter.
i The " Snake in the Grau" of the Peel collectioa in the Nadoiu]
Gallery. || Belongi to Mi. Joiepb Sidebotham.
t6a
oyGoo»:^Ic
MRS. ABINGTON AS kOXALANA
Biikr nf Fi/(
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
THE "TRAGIC MUSE"
According to one account, Reynolds asked Mrs. Siddoni
to choose her own attitude, which she did at once, just as
we see it in the |»cture.* Another tale nukes the de^gn
the result of acddent, and that pounce upon a lucky
change of pontion which was characteristic of Sir Joshua.
In all probability each story has some truth in it. A
single glance is enough to show that if Michelangelo had
nerer punted his prophets and sibyls in the Vatican Chapel,
Reynolds would nerer have left us the *' Tragic Muse " we
know. Notlthat it takes^uch from any one of them. It has
echoes both of the Joel and the Isuah, but it is rather on
the general conception — the throne, the large disposition
of the limbs, the figures in the background — thui upon
details of pose that one's conviction is baaed that Reynolds
had the Sistine figures in his mind when he erected his
mental scheme^ Clothe the *' Tragic Muse " in Michel-
angelo's colour, and you might substitute her for one of
the existing sibyls without cauung a blot on the ceiling.
The various claims made by Mrs. Siddons herself, that she
chose the attitude, that she prevented Sir Joshua from
spoiling the picture by the introduction of ** all the colours
of the rainbow," and the likeness by working on the face
after her sittings were over, were no doubt made in good
faith ; but they repeat too exactiy what every sitter who
nts for a successful portrait, what every patron who co-
operates with an architect in the building of a successful
house, what every manager who brings out a successful
[day, says of lus own contribution to the final result, to be
worth refiitation. As a matter of fact, this "Tragic
Muse " is perhaps the only creation of Sir Joshua> at once
important and entirely successful, in which he put his
theories of the great style into literal execution. Founded
upon the imitation — I use his own word — of Michelangdo,
* See note in Appendix to Lealie and Ti71ot'i " Life."
I6j
jyGooi^lc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
it is carried out with ^e peculiar reticence, in the matten
of colour and texture, which Reynolds was always preadi-
ing. In light and shade, too, it obeys a [nindple laid down
in the Discourses, and itswbcde as|nratk}n, if we put aside
the bowl and dagger bunness in the background, is towards
that abstract method of vision which he discussed so tnucli
and practised so Utde.*
Sr Joshua quarrelled with Valentine Green over the
" Tragic Muse." Green, who bad scraped several plates
after his works, asked permisuon to engrave the picture.
Reynolds answered that if the chmce of an engraver should
depend on htm. Green's application being the first, '* should
certainly be remembered." Mrs. Siddons, however, pre-
ferred Francis Haward, to whom the commission wis
accordingly given. Green lost lus temper, and not only
abused Reynolds for pasung him over but declared that
Ms statement, that Mrs. Siddons had recommended another
artist, was not true. Reynolds seems to have sent him
the following amusing melange of Joshuaesque and John-
sonese :
" London, ywu ttt, 178].
" Sir, — ^Yon bave the plcaiore, if it ii an^ pleunre to 700, oi ndaaaf
me to the moat mortiffiiig utuation. I mutt dtber treat jour icciui-
tion with the contempt ot ulence (which 7011 and joat fiiendi nu^
thiol pleading guilty), 01 I muat (ubmit to vindicate mpeii likf 1
* The price put upon die original " Tragic Muse " by SIi Joilini
wai a thouiand gnineai ; but after keeping it for Kane feait, be «^ it
to M. de Calonne for ^£800^ At the Calonne tale, in 1795, it wu mU
to Mr. Smith, of Nonrich, for 0oo ; Smith add it for £gK to
Mr. G. Witton Taylor, at whote tale, at Christie't, in 1823, it mi
bought by Earl Groarenor for £1837 lot. The replica at Dulwich
teemt to hare been finiahed and told to Deienfant in 1789, a Tear after
Calonne had bought what I have called the originaL Deienfaai paid
jC735 for it. I agree irith Grarei and Cronin in thinking that boti
pictnret are b7 Reynoldt himielf. For tome further detaili bearing 00
their hittoiy tee the Catalogne at the end of this Ttdnme.
jyGooi^lc
VAIiNTINE GREEN
crimiiul from a chaige giTca in the moit impcrioiu matin >r • and thii
charge no leu than that of bemg a lui. I mentioned, in conTsnation,
the latt time I lud the honour of teeing 70a at my hoote, that
Mn. Siddoni had wiote a note to me Ktpecting the print. That note,
at I expected to be belicred, I ne¥er dicamt at thowing ; and I now
blnth at being forced to tend it in my own vindication. Thii I am
forced to do, at jaa ale pleated to ta^ in ^onr letter that Mn. Siddont
aerer did write or even ipeak to me in favour of any artiit.
" But, inpponng Mrt. Siddont otit ot the qnettion, mj wordi (00
friuch yott gtonnd jaat demand of doing the print ai a right, not at a
faronr), I do not tee, can be interpreted at mch an abwdme promiic ;
th^ mean oaiy, in the common acceptation, that, joa being the perton
wbo fint ai^lied, that circnmitance tbodd not be forgot — that it thonld
tors the tcale in your favour, tappoting an eqoality in other reipectt.
" YoQ uj joa wait the retnlt ot taj determination. What tort of
determination can yoa expect after toch a letter I Yon have been to
good at to give me a piece of advice — for the future, to give nneqnivocal
antipcn ; I ihall immediately follow it, and do now, in the ntoit on-
eqnivocal manner, inform joa that yon thall not do the print." *
The Exhibition of 1 784 is memorable in the history of
English Art> for the breach between the Council of the
Royal Academy and Gainsborough. For the garbled
account of the quarrel which was so long accepted by
English writers, the historians of the Academy and C. R.
Leslie must share the blame. I have gone Into the whole
matter at such length in my volume on Gainsborough, that
I need here only warn readers of Leslie's pages that the
paragraph on pp. 432-433 of Ms second volume is more
than diungenuous. Giunsborough made no claim to have
a group of full Ieng& portraits hung on the line, as one
academic ap<d<^^t after another has asserted ; the mode-
rate demand he really did make was not acceded to, and
so he withdrew all his pictures and never exhiUted again.
GainsbcxtJugh, in truth, was not an academizable person.
He was no man of business, and he could never have so
* Anacconntof thitpattageof ainuwaipoblitbedinthenewtpapen
of^the time, with the cnre^ondeace.
IISS
jyGooi^lc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
ot^amzed his ideai as to make them of much me to
students. But his fellow Acfldemidans should have seen
that in supplying their ExhibiUon every year with deli-
cious and most attractive works of art, he was in fact con*
tribudng more than any one except Reynolds himself to
the finandal success of the institution. It is absurd to
write as if he deserved ill of the Academy because he
neither came to meetings f>f the Council nor took his turn
as visitor. He would have been a mere embarrassment if
he had done these things. His mission was to help Sir
Joshua in making the annual appeal to the public intas-
tible, and superbly he fulfiUnl it.
The Academy dinner of 1784 was the last to number
Johnson among the diners. On the 2 ist of April he had
returned thanks in St. Clement's for his restoration to
comparative health, and had surprised Mrs. Thrale t^
announcing his intention to form one of Sir Joshua's sup-
porters. ** I cannot publish my return to the world more
effectually, for, as the Frenchman says, tout U mondt s'y
trouvera" he writes before the date ; afterwards he tells the
same correspondents :
"On Sixatiaf I ibowed fflfMlf >gun to the living wnld itdie
Exhibition ; much and (plendid wu the compuiy, bnt, like the Doge of
Genoa at Parii, I admired nothing bnt mTielf. I went up all the itiin
to the pictoiei, irithont Mopping to lett or to breathe,
' la aO the madneti of anpcrflnous health.' "
During the summer n^;otiations went on between Rey-
nolds, Boswell, and Lord Chancellor Thurlow, with the
object of procuring a grant from the King's purse to enable
Johnson to winter in Italy. The project fuled, it is said
through the Chancellor's reluctance to ask a (ayoar of mtt ;
while Thurlow's own personal offer f>f a gift, disguised la
a loan, of five or six hundred pounds, was gratefully
oyGoo»:^Ic
DR. JOHNSON
Mks. Kav and Mis^ Dkut.
:„Goo<ifc
jyGooi^lc
DEATH OF JOHNSON
declined by the Doctor. In December Johnson died. On
his death-bed he made three requests of Reynolds : never
to paint on Sunday ; to read the Bible whenever he could,
and always on Sunday ; and to forgive him a debt of thirty
pounds. Sir Joshua made no difficulty over making all
three promises, but the first two he thought it needless to
keep.
The following character of Johnson is printed in Leslie
and Taylor's bt<^^phy, from a manuscript lent to them
by Miss Gwatkin. Like the two dialogues printed in the
last chapter, it shows Sir Joshua as an eager observer when
he was not winding himself up in generalizations and
abstract ideas : —
"Fromiiunyftan' intinuicy with Dr. Johnaon, I certainly have had
the meani, if I had equally the ability, ai giving you a true and perfect
idea of the character and peculiariuet of thii extraoidiDary mao. The
habiti of my profenion unluckily extend to the contideration of io much
only of chaiactet u liei on the torface, aa ii ezpreued in the lineaments
of the conntenaoce. An attempt to go deeper, and investigate the
peculiar colouring of his mind ai distinguished from all other minds,
nothing butyour earnest desire can excuse. Such a) it is, yon may make
what use of it you please. Of bis learning, and so much of his character
as is discoverable in his writings and is open to the inspection of every
person, nothing need be said.
" I shall remark such qualities only as his works cannot convey. And
among those the most distinguished was his possessing a mind which was,
ai I may say, always ready for use. Most general subjects had un-
donbtedly been already discussed in the course of a studious thinking
life. In this respect, few men ever came better prepared into whatever
company chance might throw him, and the love which he had to society
gave him a facility in the practice of applying his knowledge of the
matter m hand in which I believe he never was exceeded by any man.
It hat been frequently observed that he was a lingolat instance of a man
vibo had so much distinguished himself by his writings, that his conversa-
tioa not only supported his character as an author, but, in the opinion
of many, was superior. Those who have lived with the wits of the age
blow how rarely this happen*. I have had the habit of thinking that
this quality, u well as others of the same kind, ate possessed in consequenca
of accidental circnmstances attending his life. What Dr. Johnstm said
■«7
jyGooi^lc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
3 few dayi before hii death of hit dUpoiitioii to inMnit]' vnt no new
diioiTeiy to thoKwhowere intiiiute with hJm. The chsncter of ImUc
in Raiteiat, I tdwaji considered as a comment on hi* own conduct which
he himself practised, and, as it now appean, yeiy niccenfullj, unce we
koow that he ccmtinued to poMew hit nndentanding in its fnll Tigoni to
the last. Solitude to him was honor ; nor would he ever trait bjnm-lf
alone bnt when emplo^d in writing or readii^. He h«i often begged
roe to go home with him to prevent hii being alone in the coach. Any
otaaptaj was better than none ,- by which he connected himself with
manjr mean perioni whose presence he conld command. For thij pnr-
pose he eitabUthed a dab at a little alehooae in Essex Street, composed
of a strange mixture of veiy learned and very ingenions odd people. Of
the former were Dr. Heberden,Mr. Windham, Mr. Boiwell, Mr. Sterent,
Mr. Paradise. Those of the btter I do not think proper to com-
meTOOTate, B7 thus living, bj* necessitji so mock in companj', mcnv
perhaps than any Other itudioni man whatever, he had acqoiied by habit,
and which habit alone can give, that facility, and wc may add docility,
of mind by which he was so much distinguished. Another circumstance
contributed not a little to the power which he had of expressing himiflf,
which was a rule, which he said he always practised on every occaHon,
of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he addressed himself
was or was not capable of comprehending him. * If,' says he, * I am
understood, my labour is not lost. If it it above that comprehension,
there is some gratification, though it it the admiration of ignocance,' and
he said those were the most sincere admlrert : and quoted Baxter, who
made a role never to preach a sermon without saying something which
he knew was beyond the compreheniion of his audience in order to in^ire
their admiration. Dr. Johnion, by this continual practice, made that a
habit which was at first an exertion : for every person who knew him
must have observed that the moment he was left out of the omvertaaon,
whether from hit deafness or whatever cause, bnt a few minutes, without
speaking or listening, his mind appeared to be preparing itself. He fell
into a reverie accompanied by strange antic gestures ; but this be never
did when hi) mind was engaged by the conversation. These were
therefore improperly called, by at well at by others, convulsions,
which imply involuntary conu>rtioni ; whereat, at a word addressed to
him, his attention was recovered. Sometimes, indeed, it would be near
a minute before he would give an answer, looking as if he laboured to
bring hit mind to bear on the question.
" In arguing, he did not trouble himself with much drcnmlocation,
but opposed, directly and abruptly, hit antagonist. He fought with all
•om of weapons ; ludidou comparitont and timilet ; if all failed, with
l£8
oyGoo»:^Ic
NVMPH ("VENUS") AND PIPING BOV
Sir Cuthbbrt Quiltbr, Bart., M.P,
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
CHARACTER OF JOHNSON
ntdeoen and overbearing. He thought it neceiuiy nerei to be wotMed
in argument. He had one viitue, which I hold one of the mott difficult
to practiae. Aita the heattrf contest wat over, if he had been iDfonned
tlut hia Bstagonift reaented hit rudenen, he waa the fint to leek after a
reconciliatiwi ; and of hia Tirtne* the moat diatingoiihed wai hii love of
tiuth.
"He aometimea, it mnit be confetied, covered hii ignvance hj
generalt, rather than appear ignorant. Yon will wonder to hear a peraon
who loved him ao aaastly apeak that freely of hit friend, bnt yon muit
recollect I am not writing hii panegTrick, bnt, ai if upon oath, not onljr
give the tmth, bnt the whole truth.
" Hit pride Had no meanneat in it ; there wai nothing little or mean
about him.
" Truth, whether in great or little nuttera, he held lacred.
"'From the violation of truth,' he taid, 'in great thing* yonr
character or jonr intereit wai affected, in letter thingt your pleaaure it
equalfy dettroyed.' I remember, on hit relating lome incident, I added
•omething to hii relauon which I luppoaed might likewise have happened :
' It would have been a better itoiy,' ujt he, ' if it had been to; but it
wat not.' Our friend Dr. Goldimith wat not to icmpuknit ; bnt he
■aid he only indulged hlmaelf in white l^et, light u feather*, which he
drew up in the air, and on whomever they fdl, nobodj' wu hurt. ' I
wiih,' ttjt Dr. Johnnn, * 700 would take the trouble of moulring youi
fcathen.'
" I Mice inadvertent^ put him in a ntaatian from which none but a
man of perfect integrity could extricate himaeU. I pointed at tome
line* in the Traiv/itr which I told him I wat tnre he wrote. He
hetitated a little ; during thit heiitation I recollected n^telf, that at I
knew he would not lye I put him in a cleft itick, and thonld have had
but my due had he given me a rough aniwer, bnt he only laid : ' Sir, I
did not write them ; bnt, that you may not imagine that I wrote more
than I really have, the utmoit I have wrote in that poem, to the bett of
my recollection, it not more than eighteen linet.' It mnit be obaerved
there wat then an opinion about town that Dr. Johnson wrote the itiiole
poem for hit friend, who wat then, in a manner, an unkncnm writer.
Tbit ««duct appean to me in the highest degree correct and refined.
If the Dr.'t conscience would have let him told a lye, the matter would
have been toon over.
"Aa in his writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish
to blot, to in his life he would never tnSer the least immorality, in-
decency of conversation, contrary to virtue or pie^, to proceed vrithout
a terete check, which no ekvatioD of rank exempted them from. . . .
1C9
jyGooi^lc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
** Cntttxn, ot poUteseM, or coortif maanen, hu aatttorijed tscli u
EMtem hyperbolical ttjrlc of compliment that part <rf Dr. Jcduuon'l
character for ndeixa (rf manner* mnit be put to the acconnt d tUt
•cntpnlotti adherence to truth. Hit obitiiute lilenc^ whilit all the
company were in raptnret, vying with each other who ihoold pepper
highett, wat contidered m rudene» oi Ol-natare.
" During hiilaitillneM, when all hope wai at an end, be appeared to
be quieter and more reiigned. Hii ap|woaching divolotion wat alwayt
present to hi* mind. A few days before he died, Mr. Langton and
myself nily prcMnt, he said he had been a great linner but he hoped
he had giren no bad example to hit friends : that he had K»ne oookHm.-
tioa in reflecting that he had never denied Ouiit, and repeated the
tat : ' Whoever denies me,* Ace. We were both vety ready to atntre
him that we were conicioni that we were better and wiser from hit life
and conversation ; and tha^ to far from denying Christ, he had been,
in this age, Hit greatest champion.
" Sometimet a flath of wit escaped him as if involuntary. He was
asked how he Ulced the new man that was hired to watch by him.
* Instead of watching,' says he, ' he ikept 1i^ a dormouse ; and when
he helps me to bed he is as awkward as a turnspit dog the first time he
is put into the wheel'
" The Christian religion wat with him tnch a certain and ettabUshed
truth, that he considered it a kind of profanation to hold any argument
about its truth.
" He was not euify imposed upon by profeuions of honesty and can-
dour ; but be appeared to have little anipicion of hypocrisy in religion.
" Hit pastiont were like thote of other men, the difierence only lay in
his keeping a stricter watch over himself. In petty circnnutancea diii
wayward disposition appeared, bnt in greater thingt he thought it worth
while to tummon hit lecollectirai and to be always on his guard. . . ,
Many instancet wilt readily occur to those who Icnew him intimately, of
the guard which he endeavoured always to keep over himsdf.
"Tbe prejndicei he had to countries did not extend to individuali.
The chief prejudice in which he indulged hinuelf was against ScotLind,
though he bad the most cordial frieodthip with individuals. Thit he
used to vindicate at a du^. In respect to Fienchmen he rather lauded
at himsdf, but it was iniurmonntable. He contideted every fweigner
at a foot till th^had convinced him of the contrary. Against the Irish
he entertained no ^jndice, he thought they nnited themsdvcs very
well with US ; bnt the Scotch, when in England, united and made a
party by employing only Scotch tervantt and Scotch tradesmen. He
held it right for Englishmen to oppose a party agsintt them.
oyGoO»:^Ic
CHARACTER OF JOHNSON
"ThitreaaoningMoiiIdhATe more weight if the nninben wen eqiuL
A isull bod^ in a iuger hu tnch gteat diudTOntage* that I feat ai«
tcaice counterbaLuicsd b^ whatever little combiiutiotu the^ make. A
general combinatios against them would be little ibort of aimihila-
ttOQ.
** We arc both of Dr. Johnwn'i tchooL For my part, I acknowledge
the highest obligatios to him. He may be laid to have formed my
mind, and to have bmihed from it a great deal of rnbbiih. Thoie veiy
people whom he ha* biought to think rightly will occatioaally critidie
the opinions of their master when he nodi. But we shoold alw^
recollect that it is he himself who has tanght as and enabled oi to
doit.
"llie drawback of his character it entertaining prejudices on very
slight foondations : giving an opinion, perhaps first at random, bat from
its being contradicted he thinks himself obliged always to support, or,
if he cannot sapport, still not to acquiesce. Of this I remember an
instance, of a ddect or foigetfulnesi in his Dictitmaty. I asked him
how he came not to correct it in the second edition. * No,* tayi h^
' they made so much of tt that I would not flatter them by altering
it!'
** From pauion, from the pievalence of hii disposition for the minute,
he was constantly acting contrary to his own reason, to his principles.
It was a frequent subject of animadTeision with him, how much anthms
lost of the pleasure and comfort of life by their carrying always about
them their own consequence and celebrity. Yet no man in mixed
cnnpany — not to his intimates, certainly, for that would be an in-
supportable slaveiy — erer acted with moie circumspection to hit character
tlun himself. The most light and aiiy diipute was with him a disputa
in the arena. He fought on every occasion at if hit whole reputation
depended on the victoiy of the minute, and he fought with all his
weapons. If he was foiled in argument, he had recoune to abuie and
rudenest. That he was not thus strenuous for victoiywith hit intimates
in dtt-k-l/u converutiont when there were no witnesses, may be easily
believed. Indeed, had his conduct to them been the same as he
exhilnted to the public, lut friends could neref have entertained that
love and affection for him which they all feel and profess for hit
memmy.
** But what appean extraordinary it that a man who to well taw,
himtdf, the folly of thii ambition of shining, of tpesJ^ing, or of acting
always according to the character im^ned to be poitessed in the
world should produce himself the greatest example of a contrary
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
"Were I to write the life of Dr. Johuon, I woaU Ubonr tliii point,
to lepaiate hii condnct tlut proceeded from bit fuumu and wbxt pio
ceeded from hii leanii, from hii natnnl ditpotition seen in hii quiet
hcmt."
In this elaborate descriptioii Sir Joshua to some extent
justifies the estimate of a painter's qualifications as a judge
of character with which he began. It goes a little deeper,
perhaps, than *' so much only of character as is expressed
in the lineaments of the countenance," but it is by no
means profound. Reynolds makes no attempt to realise
Johnson's character from within, or to track out the roots
of the remarkable personality with which be had been
Auniliar for so many years. He is content with phe-
nomena, and seems unconsdous that they must have had
causes. We shall find him displaying the same inductive
weakness in his Discourses. It would be un^r to criti-
ase this character of Johnson from a literary stam^XMnt.
It is merely a first draft, full of redundant words, dumsy
phrases, and shaky grammar, which revision, his own and
perhaps some one else's, would afterwards correct. To me
it seems probable that it was written at the request of
Boswell, who may have had the revised copy. The indu-
uon of Boswell's name among the '* very learned "
members of the Essex Street Club seems to point m that
direction.
Sr Joshua's pictures few 178J were: Mrs. Smith,*
Lady Hume,t Mrs. Musters,^ a lady unidentified, the
Earl of Korthington,^ Sir H. Munroe, H the Prince of
* MiitieMofSiTjohn;Lide,Thrale'taeiJiew,whoafteiwud*tiUfzied
hei ; the pictoie is at Waddeidon.
t Aftetmrdi htdy Amelia Home; the |»ctiiTe beltaigi to Lord
Bromiiow.
t Aj Hebe ; the pictoie belong* to Lord Iveagh.
$ In the National Gilleiy of Ireland.
U At Coutu'i Bonk in the Stnnd.
oyGoO»:^Ic
O o
:„Gooq^\c
jyGooi^lc
TRIP TO BRUSSELS
Wales,* Mrs. Stanhope,t Three Children of the Duke of
Rutland,;^ Venus,^ a gentleman, a little girl, two por-
traits of noblemen,|l and two of officers,)! sixteen |»c-
tares in all. Although no one of the sixteen could be
included in a Ust of Sir Joshua's masterpieces, they nearly
all rise above his. average level, and show that as yet his
brain had lost none of its vigour nor his hand any part of
its cunning. The Lord Northington is remarkable for the
extreme freedom and felicity of its brushing. It seems to
be entirely from the master's own hand, and suggests that
the generous praise of Frans Hals, in the sixth Discourse,
was accompanied by the uncerest form of flattery. The
three full length ladies are all good, although they scarcely
reach the level of " Lady Croslne " and a few others one
could name.
In the autumn of this year Reynolds made his third
trip to the Low Countries. On September 12 began at
Brussels a great sale of pictures removed from religious
establishments under an order from the Emperor. Sir
Joshua spent about a thousand pounds at the sale, but he
appears to have bid through an agent, for he himself was
back in England at least two days before the auction
commenced. On September 10 he signed his curious
borgsun with the sanguine Boswell, to paint the lattcr's
portrait, and wait for payment from the first fees he,
* Tlie Fed pictnn, in the National Galln]'.
t Eliza Falconer, DUiried Hon. Httay Fitzn^ Stanliope, lectKidion
of and Earl of Harrington. The pictniewa* catalogned » "Mekn-
cholf." The owner is nnknown to me.
t Burnt in the file at Betvoir, in 1816.
f Bequeathed t^ Reynoldi to the Earl of Upper Otiory ; it now
bdragt to Lord Caidetown (rf Upper 011017. ^>^ Joihtu repeated the
compodtton leveial timet. The excellent replica in Sir Cnthbert
Quiher'* collection ii the beit known of thete. Leslie and Taylor are in
error irikea they identify the 1785 pictnrc with the Peel "Snake in die
Gtau." il Not identified.
173
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Boswell, should earn u a barrister in Westminster HiIL Sir
Jo^ua tlus year received his commissioafor a pictorefrom
Catherine of Runia, and was hard at woric on the Inhat
Hercules before many weeks of it had passed. His thtr.
teen contributions to the Academy were : A Child with
guardian Angels ; * and portnuts of Er8kine,t the Duke
of Orleans,] two Children of Benjamin Vandergucht,{
Lady TaylorJ the Solicitor-General, Lee,T the Duchess
of Devonshire and her little daughter,** Joshua Sharpe,tt
Countess Spencer,}] John Hunter,§{ Miss BinghamJI
a " young gentleman," and '* a gentleman.'* Walpole's
note on the group of the Duchess of Devonshire and her
child is surprising. He calls it " little Uke and not good."
As to the likeness, it is difficult for us, who Have to be
guided by a collation of impressions, to contra(Uct him ;
but if his judgment upon it was no better than his verdict
on the work of art, it need not trouble our pleasure. For
the " Jumping Baby " is one of the great achievements of
modern painting. It seems to me one of the three most
* In the pouettion of the Duke of Leeds, at Homhf Cutle.
t At Windior Cmle.
t Bunt in the fire at Carlton Hook. There ii a good copf, i&
■mill, at Chintilly; another it at Petwonh.
§ Thia identification ii doe to Gravei and Cionin. Walpole calli the
IHctore " Children of h»dy Lucao," which could not be. The Vander-
gncht picture wai in the Wjnn EUii collection, whence it paned to
Mr. B. A. Willc<a.
II WHe of Sir John Ta7lOT, F.R.S. The picture waa in the Wjun
Ellii collection, and it now in that of M. Groult, in Parii.
^ "Honeit Jack Lee." The picture belonged to Mr. Manejr-
Mainwaiing. •" At Chatnrorth.
tt Belonged in 1884 to Mr. Makohn of Poltalloch. Sharpe died on
die day the Academy of 17S6 opened.
tt Lavinia (Bingham), wife of and Eatl Spencer. The pctnre ii at
Altboip. ^ In the College of Snrgeoni.
nil Hon. Ann, afterwards Lady Ann, Bingham. The picture ii at
Althorp,
'74
oyGoO»:^Ic
A BUSY YEAR
entirely successful creations of Sir Joshiia, the other two
b«Qg Sir Charles Tentuuit's *'Lady Crosbie" and the
« Nelly O'Brien " of the Wallace Gallery. In each of
these delicious pictures Reynolds has hit upon a conception
entirely suited to his powers^ and has carried it out with a
combination of richness, breadth, and simplicity, which
ruses him for the moment to the highest lerel touched by
portnuture.
In matters <Usconnected with his work, 1786 was,
perhaps, the busiest of Sir Joshua's later years. His love
of society was as great as ever, and many new fiiends, as
well as old ones renewed, appear in his engagement book.
He becomes a more persistent theatre-goo' than ever, and
adds the name of Dorothy Jordan to those of the stately
Sddons and the impish Abington on his list of stage
favouritts. He goes often, too, to Mrs. "Perdita"
Robinson, who was probably a better talker than either of
the others ; and an entry for the first of May refers to an
evening with the famous Marian Imhoff, the wife of
Warren Hastings. His neutrality among warring elements
could not be better proved than by this appearance at the
Hastings's house on the very day when his life-long &iend,
Burke, opened his parallels against the ex- Viceroy's repu-
tation. This was the Dreyfus year of the eighteenth century.
The Diamond Necklace scandal had set all France by the
cars, and London society could talk of little else. The
Chevalier — orChevaliere! — D'Eon was here, and Sir Joshua
is sud to have punted, or at least b^un, his, or her, portrait
Tom Taylor says an unfinished picture by Reynolds, which
belonged to the late Charles Reade, traditionally bore the
name of this mysterious specimen of double humanity.*
* GiATM and Cronia quote the following ttrange parigiaph from
the Mormng HtraU of 1785 : " No. 71. Portrait of a Lady. TTiere
■orely it a mittake in the Catalogue. The piece it either a gentleman'!
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Thirteen pictures agun made up Sir Joshua's quota in
the Exhibition of 1787. Here is the list: Ladjr Smith
and her Children ; * Lady St. Asaph and Clukl ; t Mrs.
William Hope ; X Mrs. Stanhope ; $ Lady Cadt^an ; | Lady
Elliot ; T Angds* Heads ; ** Lord Butghersh ; ft Master
Yorke; tt Miss Ward; §§ the Prince of Wales; I! Sir Henry
Engtefield ; ^ and James Boswell.*** Several of these
appear in Ramberg's well-known picture of the great
room at the Academy, which was punted this year. Much
of Sir Joshua's energy was at this time absorbed by the
amtudous jHCture of the " Infant Hercules Strangling the
Serpents," for the Russian Empress, and there is a con-
siderable falling oiF in the number of his sitters. His
sodal engagements, nevertheless, are as numerous as ever,
the most significant, perhaps, being his presence at the first
performance in the Duke of Richmond's theatre at White-
hall, on the site of the present Richmond Terrace. The
company was restricted to eighty, and an invitation was a
portrait, or elte that of Miss D'Eon in the emblemi of the Order of the
Garter."
* Lately in the pouetuon of Mr. C. P. Hnatington, of New Yoii.
t BeloDgt to the Eail of Athbaniham.
t Pretent owner unknown.
§ The picture known ai " Contcmpladon." Itwaswld atChiiitie'i
with the Monro collection in 1878.
II Pietent owner unknown. The litterwaa Mary (Churchill), Mcond
wife of the 3rd Baron Cadogan.
4 Anna Maria (Amjand), wife of Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwardi Earl
of Minto. The picture belongi to Lord Minto.
•" The pcture in the National Gallery.
tt In the collection of the Earl of Jewey.
tX Afterward* Lord lU^ton. Drowned in the Baltic in 1808. The
picture belong* to Lord iTeagh.
^ Natural daughter of John, xnd Vitconnt Dudley and Ward.
II II In the Robei of the Garter, with a black Krraitt in Huiaar dren
arranging hia belu. The picture belong! to the Earl of Londooa.
04 Preieut whereabout! unknown to me.
"** The Peel picture, in the National Gallery.
H6
jyGooi^lc
ANGELS' HEADS
National Galliry
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
THE HASTINGS TRIAL
prize. Politically, the event ta which Reynolds may be
supposed to have been chiefly interested was the Hastings
trial and the delivery of Sheridan's great speech on the
Bourns of Oude. It must have tried even his tact to show
s proper feeling on the oratorical triumph of his old friend,
at the same time as he was daily becoming more intimate
with Hastings and his wife. That his delicate steering did
not involve duplicity we may gather from the hct that on
February 13th, 1788, the first day of the trial in West-
minster Hall, he did not shrink from appearing in the
manager's box with Burke, Wyndham, and Sheridan, or
from exchanging bows from that compromising situation
with the friends he saw in court. It will be remembered
that Gainsborough was also present, and that he ascribed
his fatal illness to a chiU caught on the occasion.
The following seventeen pictures represented Sir Joshua
in the Exhibition of 1788 : The In&nt Hercules;* A
Girl Sleeping ;t A Girl ^th a Kitten ;t portraits of Sir
George Beaumont ; § Colonel Bertie ; | Mr. Braddyl ; T
Mrs. Drummond Smith ; ** Lord Damley ; ft Lady Betty
Foster ; ti Lord Grantham with his Brothers ;§§ Miss(Hdeon
with her Brother ; U Lady Harris ; T^ Lord Heathfield ; '••
* In the Imperul Hennitage, St. Petenborg.
t la the collection of the Earl of Noithbrook, at Strittoo.
X Known as " Felina " ; the pictnie belong! to Mr. Pierpoat
IdoTgan. Many replicu and old copies exiit. { At Coleorton.
II Afterwaidi 9th Earl of Lindsay. The pictaie belongi to Lord
Wimbome. IT Belonged, in 1S65, to Cox, the dealer.
** Now the piopertr of Mr. Herbert Gotling, Chertiey.
tt Not certainfy identified.
tt Afterward* Dncheu of Deronihire. The picture belongt to the
Doke of Devonihire. ^ In Lord Cowpei*! pouemon.
nil MiM Gideon became the wife of the nth Lord Saye and Sele.
The pictare beltuig* to Mn. Colling Hanbnry, Bedwell Park, Hatfield.
W Harriet Mary (Amyand), afteiwarda wife of Sir Jamei Hairii,
created Earl of Malmerinuy. The picture belonged in 1898 to
l/b. C J. Wertheimer. *** In the National Galleiy.
177 11
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Cc^onel Moi^an ; * Lord Sheffield ; f Mr. Windham ; t tnd
the Duke of York.$
I should be inclined to put Sir Joshua's " Infant He^
cults " with Iu8 " Ugc^no " and his " Death of Cardinal
Beaufort" in a class apart, and to label them Tn^;e(Uesof
Compliance. We must accept them, I think, as Sir Jodraa's
substitute for vices. Most men of unusual powers have
wasted part of them in proceedings which were detri-
mental to themselves and of no profit to their neighboun.
Reynolds lived soberly and prudently, except when he orer-
weighted his easel with these qua^ -historical madu no .
Let us take them as his tribute to human frailty, and pn
up all attempts to bring them within any reasonable view
<^ art For the "Hercules" he recdved from Catherine
fifteen hundred guineas, a jewelled box, and a graceftil
letter of thanks. There were ten pictures under it, he
ccmfessed, some better, some worse. Now that the axfaa
are banning to force their way to the surfiux, it is litde
but an unpleasant morgue.
We are now arrived at the last year of Sir Joshua's
activity as a punter. At the b^inning of 1789 there
was little to warn the President's friends that his forty
years of industry had arrived at thar end. His health
was apparentiy good, his social appearances more frequent
than ever. Europe was on the eve of the great convul-
sion ; the Bastille was to fall in July, and the various
pnssions provoked by that event were to divide Sr
Joshua's fiiends and leave his placidity the chief bond of
union between them. The year, in short, was the last of
* Sold at Cliiutie*i, in 1890, to Mr. Fitzheoir.
t Gibbos'i patron ; the pictoie bek>ngt to the pretent EuL
t The Rt. Hon. William Vt^ndham. The picture beloogi to ilte
Natiosal Gallerj, but ii hung in the Nadoiul Portnit GaOeiy.
i In St. Jamei'i Palace.
178
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MRS. WILLIAM HOPE
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
LAST YEAR OF ACTIVITY
the real ughteenth century. It saw the end of the
indifereotisin which had prevailed, in spite of party %ht-
ing and royal wars, from the latter days of Dutch William ;
and it saw the Inrth of that modern ferment, of that
into'-vibration of human atoms, which has driven the
world so hard and fair aincs Reynolds laid down his
palette and brushes for the last time. Sir Joshua's art
knew no decay. His latest pictures were among the best
he ever punted. He sent eleven to his last Academy.*
They were: Cymon and Iphigenia;t the Continence of
Sdpio;J Robin Goodfellow, or Puck ;§ Cupid and Psyche ;||
Miss Gwatkin,t Hon. Mrs. Watson,** R. B. Sheridan,tt
Lord Henry Fitzgerald,|{I^ord Iiffbrd,$§ Lord Rodney,||||
and Lord Vernon.TT Four, at least, of these should be
included in any list of lus finest works; I mean the
"Cymon and Iphigenia," the '* Robin Goodfellow," the
'* Smplidty," and the " Lord liffbrd." The Buckingham
Palace picture has never, I think, recdved all the
• L, «nd T. ttf twdTc, but theii " Hon. Mm. Watton " ind " Portiait
ct a Gentleman " piobabfy' refer to one and the lame picture. There
•eenu to hsve been a mJstalte in the R.A. Catalogue or Sir Jothna
changed liit cootribntioni at the Ian moment.
t Given to Geoige IV.b^LadfThomond; itii now in Buckingham
Palace. t In the troperial Heimitage, St. Petenbnrg.
§ In the poueuioD of Mr. Geo. W. Fitzwilliam, Milum Home,
Peterborough.
[| In the ponetdon of Ladf Bnrdett-Contts, who alao has the sketch
for it.
V Known ai " Simplicity." Many old copies, and peihapi one or
two replicas, exist. Lord Tweedmonth has (May 1905) one of the latter.
The 1789 ^ctnre is at Waddeadon.
** At Rockingham Castle, Northamptonshire.
tt Owner nnknown to me.
%t This entry ii donbtfnL It may refer to Hoppno'i well-known
pCfftiait of Lord Henry, which waa exhibited this year.
m Lftte^ in the poateauon of the Hon. Edward Hewitt.
II Ij In St. James's Palace. Vf Owner imknomi.
:„Goo<ifc
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
admiration it desenres. It is the best by far of Sr Joshua's
ei^teriments in the nude. The conception is controlled by
excellent taste, the linear arabesque is agreeable, and, if
the obscuring coat of oil varnish with which Seguier pro-
tected it were away, the beauty of its colour would surely
be dbinterred.* The " Rotnn Goodfellow," or " Puck,"
as it was generally called, used to be one of the most
famous of Sir Joshua's pictures. Rogers tells a story c^
how people called out, " There it is 1 " in the street, as it
was carried from Christie's aucdon room on the day of the
Boydell sale, in 1805. The "Lord Lifford," a Chancellor
in his robes, with the great seal of Ireland and all the
paraphernalia of a portrait de parade, is one of the most
satisfactory things of its class in existence, and the
" Sheridan " repeats the success with which the punter
had realized the individuality of Fox seven years before.
The end of Sir Joshua's career came with great abrupt-
ness. On the 13th of July he was at work on a young
lady's portrait, when his left eye became suddenly so much
obscured that he had to lay down his brush. He never
agun seriously took it up. "All things have an end," he
quietly said, "and I have come to mine." His niece,
Mary Palmer, who had the curious haKt of speaking
about her uncle's art as if it were a harmless amusement
out^de the serious bunness of life,t says, in a letter of
• The ttory told by Ledic (L. ind T., vol. it, pp. 536-7) of the
King** conTciMtioii with Seguier ia inctmriitent with pretent appear-
ancei. Undei Seguier'i Tarniih— maitic mixed liberal^ with linseed
oil — the picture ii clean enough. The nuface mnn hare bees '•Vfln'd
before the Tarniih wai applied. The jrellow gloom through vriiich the
channi of Iphigenia peer 10 ai^)ealingl7 teon* entirety dne to die i»«*eiice
of the oil on vritich Seguier depended for the prevention of " chill."
t In January, 1786, the wrote to the itme coireipondent ; " M7
ancle •eemi more bewitched than ever with hi) pallett and pencik. He
is painting from morning till night," dec
i8q
oyGoo»:^Ic
EMMA AND ELIZABETH CREWE
Earl ok Chewe
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
THE INTERREGNUM
this year : " He amuses himself by sometimes deaiuDg or
mending a picture, for Ms ruling pasnon continues in full
force, and he enjoys his pictures as much as ever. . . .
He enjoys cxtmpany, in a quiet way, and loves a game at
cards as well as ever." The serenity in which he passed
the remaining years of his life was only once interrupted.
The history of the petty squabble which led to his tem-
porary vacation of the President's chair at Somerset House
has been told so often and is so little to the honour of any
one concerned, that I do not propose to tell it again in
any det^l. Broadly, what happened was this: In 1790
an Associate had to be elected at the Academy. On a
ballot being taken, the numbers were equal between Sawrey
Gilpin and Bonomi, the Italian architect, who had recendy
settled in England. Reynolds gave a casting vote for the
iattct, and justified himself, quite needlessly, by explaining
that he had acted in the hope that, when a vacancy'
occurred, Bonomi might be promoted to the " full honours,"
and so made eUgible for the professorship of perspective.
The other members resented the appearance of dictation,
and ascribed the President's action to his dedre to serve
Lord Aylesford, Bonomi's patron. Shortiy afterwards a
vacancy occurred among the Academicians. Reynolds did
his best for Bonomi, and was even instrumental in getting
a number of the architect's drawings displayed in the
room where the voting was to take place. This again
most of those present resented, and the drawings had to
be removed. The election then took place, and Fuseli
was preferred to Bonomi by a great majority. Thereupon
&r Joshua resigned the Presidency. This bare statement
includes, I think, all the facts on which the various accounts
agree. A considerable want of courtesy seems to have
been shown to Reynolds in the course of the quarrel.
Sir William Chambers, the leading spirit of the Academy,
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
laid himself open to the suspicion of being fearful lest
Bonomi should win too secure a foodiold in Ids, Sir
WilUam's, own profesnon, while Sir Joshua himself scucdy
behaved with hia usual tact. This, I think, is apparent in
the long memorandum, endorsed <* Satisfkction in the
matter of Bononu and the re^nation of the Freadent's
chair,"* in wluch he gives his own account of the whde
transaction. ^ Joshua persevered in hb determinatioa
to resign, in s^ute of an intimation fi-om the King that
" his Majesty would be happy in Sir Joshua's continmng
in the Preudent's chur," until the i6th of March, when,
the general assembly having made the amen^ konorahlt, and
the King having signified his approval, he again took his
old place in Somerset House.
Saving In the matter of sitters, Sir Joshua's last yean
were spent Uke the rest of his life. His attention was
divided between the aiBurs of the Academy, the com-
panionship of his remarkable circle of ftiends, the compo-
ution of his last address, and the care of his works of art
In a letter written by a daughter of his sister Johnson —
to use the phrase of his time — ^we catch a curious glimpse
of his careless hours.
" He it beonne:," ihe Myi, " n Ticdendj' {bod of whiit, that he
•caicety nsid to give the gentlemen time to drink their wine, befcoe he
propoied pliTing caidi, that he might get a rubber before he went (to
the Academy). He is not tied down to common rule*, bat alwi^ hit
■ome icheme in Tiew , smd playt out hit tmmpi alwa7> ; for it it beneath
his ityle of play erer to give hii partner an opganonivf of making hii
tmmps ; but, notwithstanding, he generally inn*, from '"'■^'"g nich fine
card*."
His fifteenth and last Discourse was delivered on the
loth of December, 1790. It was mainly devoted to the
* It is printed in L. and T., vtd. iL, pp. 558-s8>.
18s
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LAST DAYS
character and abilities of A£chdangelo, and ends mth the
famous and happy peroration :
*' I feel a Klf-congratnlatioii in knowing myielf capable of mch
■eniBtiont as he intended to excite. I refiect, not nithoat vanity, that
theie Ditcoonei bear tHtimony of m^ admiration of tliat tmlj divine
nun ; and I ihonld deiiie that the lait wnd* which I abonld pronounce
■ in thii Academ7, and from thii place, might be the name td MICHEL-
ANGELO."
Fourteen months later Sr Joshtia Reynolds was dead.
The last year of his life saw him occupied over many
things which had an atmosphere of good-bye about them.
He offered his valuable collection of pictures by the old
masters to the Royal Academy at a nominal price, on con-
dition that a gallery for them should be erected on the
site of the Lyceum, in the Strand. The offer was declined.
He then exhibited a part of the collection in a room in
the Haymarket, calling it " Ralph's exhibition " and hand-
ing over the profits to his old servant, Ralph Kirkley.
Much of his attention was given to the project for a
statue of Johnson, to be erected in St. Paul's, one of the
few prefects of the kind which have ended in every way
according to the hopes of the projectors. In May he sat
for his portrait for the last time, to the Swedish ardst
Carl Fredrik von Breda. The picture is in the Academy
at Stockholm. In October, Sir William Chambers was
lus substitute at Somerset House, and in November he
made his will. A few days later he offered to resign the
Preudency, feeling he was no longer equal to his duties.
The general assembly, however, re-elected him on the loth
of December, nominating West as his deputy. He never
i^ain occupied the chair. At the end of November
Boswell writes to Temple :
" Mjr (piritt hare been itill more nmk hy teeing Sir Jothoa R^nolda
almoK ai low ai m7*elf. He hai, for more than two montha pact, had
183
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
a pain in hit blind eft, the effect of wliich liai been to inereue the
weaknett is the other, and he brood* over the diunal ipprelLeniion of
becoming qnite blind. He Lit been kept (o low u to diet that he ii
quite lelazed and deiponding. He, who nied to be looked npca u
peihapi the moit hapj^ nun in the world, it now u I tell job,"
Another visitor, Fanny Burney, describes him as wear-
ing a bandage over one eye and the other shaded with a
green half-bonnet.
'* He seemed serious even to sadness, though extremely
kind. * I am very glad,* he saad, * ... to see you agwi,
and I wish I could see you better ! but I have but one
eye now, and scarcely that* " Burke, writing to his son,
declares the peace with which he approached death.
" Nothing," he says, " can equal the tranquillity with
which he views his end. He congratulates himself on it
as a happy conclusion to a happy life."
In the evening of Thursday, the 23rd of ^February,
1792, Sir Joshua died.
I«4
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CHAPTER VIII
SIR Joshua's character as a man
E character of Reynolds was not tnuis-
uent. In this he offers a remarkable
>ntrast to Gainsborough, whose per-
)nality might be built up on the evi-
ence of a single letter. Gdnsborough's
iriends knew him as he was. They met
him, no doubt, with diiFerent measures of toleration : to
some, his uncertunty, his irresponMbility, his freedom of
manners and tongue, were less pardonable than to others ;
but they all drew his character in the same lines. It was
not so with Reynolds. His friends agree upon superficial
matters, but scarcely upon the personality that lay beneath.
A strong side light is thrown by a story told by Boswell,
which almost certainly relates to Sir Joshua. " Talldng
of a friend of ours associating with persons of very dis-
cordant principles and characters, I said he was a very
universal man, quite a man of the world. Johnson. —
* Yes, Sir ; but one may be so much a man of the worid
as to be nothing in the world. I remember a passage in
Goldsmith's Vicar of ff^akefield, which he was afterwards
fool enough to expunge : * I do not love a man who is
zealous for nothing.' " Reynolds was zealous for nothing.
Never do we find the least touch of excited warmth in
anything he wrote or anything he stud. The famous
185
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
peroration to his last Discourse comes more nearly, perhaps,
to abandon than anything else. With his well-wishers this
was moderation ; with enenues, and with friends when they
had been provoked by his imperturbability, it was coldness
of heart. Moderation is a good low-water mark, but a
bad high one. With Reynolds, I fear, it represented the
highest level to which he could drive his interest, rather
than any restraint upon bounding feelings or desires. He
was essentially self-contained, by which I mean that he
depended for his happiness entirely upon the effects of
external things on his own personality, and not at all upon
reflexes from the enjoyment of others. A life of solitude
would not have pleased him ; he was no Di<^pws ; but his
pleasure did not spring from seeing those about him h^py
in thur own fashion. It came from the way in which
their [voceedings affected his own sense of what was good
in life. In short, he had none of the makings of an
altruist ; he felt no impulse, nther from heart or mind, to
make sacrifices or act agunst his wiU for the sake of giving
an issue to desires he did not share. And yet it would
be misleatUng to call him an unqualified egoist. His
judgment was so unbiassed that his actions were those of a
sympathetic man, although not as a fact dictated l^
sympathy. He appears seldom, if ever, to have ^ven
offence, except on those occauons when his quietude was
in itself an injury. To a quick and eager personality like
that of Mrs. Thrale, the want of passion with which he
contrived to be kind was a frequent provocation. We
may guess that the turbulent and inconsequent Barry was
driven backwards and forwards from good will to ill, by
the irritating contrast between his own excitements and
the measured way in which Reynolds met them, at one
time with approval, at another with censure. Johnson's
iS6
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Mrs. Kav and Miss Drummonu
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jyGooi^lc
HIS CHARACTER
assertion that he was the most inrulnenble man he knew,
had a double force. It meant not only that it was difficult
to find a weak point agunst which to plant a battery, but
that also when a breach was made, the punter's equanimity
would form the most effectual retrenchment. Leslie
pretends to see in Sir Joshua a warm-hearted person, fiUed
with the milk of human kindness, and energetically
benevolent to every one abouthim. Before acceptii^ such
a reading of his character, we should hare to ignore all the
cUrect evidence we possess. In the jEace of such portnuts
as those drawn by Goldsimth, Dean Barnard, and Mrs.
Thrale, it is futile to build up a conception irrecondlable
with theirs on deductions which may or may not be true.
It is qtute certain that Reynolds was not collet monU. His
relations with people like Wilkes, Charles Greville, Nelly
O'Brien, and Mrs. Baddeley ; his union as it were in a
sii^e pattern of Sheridan and Hastings, at the very
moment when the one was building up his fame by invec-
tive agunst the other ; the readiness — to quote a slight
but not insignificant indication — with which he allowed a
great lady in all her glory to seat herself in the chair just
vacated by some unwashed gutter child ; all these suf^rt
the charge of indiflferentism so often brought agunst him,
and suggest a less amiable explanation of his iusouciance as
a host than the one favoured by Leslie. His dealings
with his own fiunily point in the same direction. He
seems to have had no intercourse at all with his brothers.
With his married sisters, he had bu^ness relations, which
led to an occasional exchange of ideas. The spmster
Frances, who lived in his house until she and he could
stand it no longer, was a favourite mth all the world
except her brother. Ofiy, his favourite Ofiy, was allowed
to marry an ^proved suitor without even a letter of
187
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
goodmll, until Burkc forced it fivm him. Northcote dis-
turbed his equanimity by receiving a brother Devonian in
the little den in which he was condemned to work ; and
for thirty years his house was filled inth pupils to whom
he scarcely showed himself, pufuls to whom he never
makes the slightest allusion in his letters or conversation,
pupils whose very names are unknown, except for one
or two who find a casual mention in the talks of
Northcote.
On the other hand if Reynolds had little heart, his
instincts were in the right direction, and his taste was con-
summate. He lived for more than forty years among men
and women who bad often little in common beyond hb
acquaintance and a reputation for wit ; and yet he had no
quarrels. An occamonal outburst ^[unst the coolness of
his judgment was the only sign of irritation he provoked
from those he called his friends. He said he hated
Barry ; but we may safely assume that what he felt was not
hatred, but the intense irritation set up in a man of reason by
the proceedings of a wrong-headed fanatic. He could be
quietly jealous. The ephemeral vogue of LJotard spurred
him to bitter w<»ds ; and his equanimity was disturbed by
the outbreak of human nature which took place among his
colleagues in 1790. In both these cases his displeasure
was excited by attacks on his scheme of life ; by attempts,
as it were, to head him off from the line of advance he
saw stretching out before him ; and as soon as they ceased
he fell back into his normal calm. So far as the aspect he
presented to the world is concerned, all the evidence we
have points in one direction. He was imperturbably
kind, judicial, and non-impulsive. As to what lay beneath
the suriace, men held di^rent opinions in his lifetime
and have difered ever since. To me it appears indis-
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS CHARACTER
putable that Sir Joshua's heart was hard, but his mind
just — a combination much more usual than we arc apt to
think — and that his one pasuon, if it can be called a
pas»on, was ambition, which in his case was a quiet, per-
astent determination to fill as conspicuous a position in
the society and the art of his time as his abilities and the
accident of his birth would allow.
Odds and ends of evidence, and we must rely on odds
and ends, are worth nothing unless we can see them con-
verging upon a personality, and that a personality con-
nstent intii the actual work Reynolds has left us. Now
the justification for all this discussion lies in the belief, at
which I, at least, have arrived, that the things we really
know of !^r Joshua as a man explain both Ms achieve-
ments and his shortcomings as an artist It is difficult to
identify the genial, afiectionate, somewhat happy-^o-lucky
individual in whom Leslie would have us believe, with the
piunter who, above all others, arrived at excellence by
taking thought. Reynolds distrusted genius ; and from
lus own point of view he was right. He arrived zt results
scarcely to be distinguished fi-om those of genius, and did
so entirely by the action of an original mind and a profound
taste upon accumulated materials. His path towarda
excellence was conscious, discriminative, judidal. Every
step he took was the result of a deliberate choice. He
felt no heats, driving him into particular expression in his
own despite. Just as by fairness of mind he produced the
effect of sympathy among his friends, so by imerring
judgment he produces the efiect of creation on us who value
his art. He appears to me the supreme, if not the only,,
modern instance of a punter reaching greatness along a
path every step of which was trodden deliberately, with a
full consciousness of why it was taken and whither it was.
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
leading, and with the power unlmpured to turn back or to
change the goal at any moment. Superfidallj, the art of
Sir Joshua resembled that of Raphad as Uttle as it well
could ; mentally, the processes of the two men were
curiously alike. Both possessed taste to such a d^ree
that it b^ame genius ; and both were endowed, for the
service of their taste, with a mental industry which is
rare.
oyGoo»:^Ic
PORTRAITS OK TWO GEXTLKMEN
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jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
CHAPTER IX
THE ART OF REYNOLDS
\0 many people, even among those with
whom art is one of the serious considera-
tions of life, any elaborate examination
of a ptuntor's individuality seems imper-
tinent. They say the world cares only
for results, and that so long as the artist
reaches acceptable conclusions, the method of his getting
there is of interest to himself alone. Such an assertion raises
the whole question of the significance of art What is it
that attracts us in a work of art ? In spite of stale jeers
about *' omjectiTe " and " sumjective," the answer can only
be that the significance of a picture lies mainly in its
objective qualities, for the tiro, and in its sutgective for the
real ^preciator. The one is fascinated, like Dr. Samuel
Reynolds, by its power to tromper fcfil, the other by the
beauty and vigour of the personality behind it. If the
value of art lay in the feigned reproduction of things
already created by a force outude man, then the artist
would by no means deserve the pnnnacle on which the world
has placed him. In that case his genius would be of a
secondary kind, and would be rightly compelled to yield
the pas to those intellects which look upon existing things
as stepping stones to something more. The mark of a
^nt-mbt mind is the power to create ; to select, combine,
191
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
and organise material into a whole that is at once new,
coherent, and finite. No matter where we look — amoi^
statesmen, captuns, poets, philosophers, painters — ^tlus is
our last although often unconscious test of what we call
greatness. The mind which stops short at analysis^
arrangement, and exposition, no matter how acute and
pellucid it may be, we relegate to the second row. It has
missed that ability to work on the lines of nature herself
with which the supreme spirits are endowed.
The one perennial characteristic of the human mind is
the determination to understand itself. The best proof of
its own efficiency any human mind can give is a feat of
synthesis, for the power to synthetize implies the inferitx*
mental gift of analysis as well as a number of moral virtues.
The most intimately comprehenuble residts of synthetic
power are those attained by the artist, for there all con-
verging efforts are so focussed that the organic nature of
the product can be readily grasped. The deduction from
this sorites is that behind the work of art lies the goal for
which our critical curiosity is making, and that no energy
is wasted which tries to understand the artist. " Ce que
nous admirons dans I'oeuvre d'art, c'est le ginie de I'artiste,"
was the motto of V6ron, one of the clearest of modem
writers on aesthetics. "Dans les oeuvres qui m'int^res-
sent," said Thori, " les auteurs se substituent en quelque
sorte k la nature. Quelque vulg^re qu'elle pAt £tre, ils
ont eu une perception particuliere et rare. C'est Chardin
qu'on admire dans te verre qu'il a punt. C'est le ginie de
Rembrandt qu'on admire dans le caractire profond et sin-
gulier qu^d a imprimi sur cette t£te quelconque qui posait
devantlui."*
* " In those worlu nfaich excite my inteieit, the aathon, in % ftmhimit
■obstitDte themielTei foi nature. However commonplace ihe nu^ be,
tbej look at hei with * itngnUi viiion of thai own. It ii Qurdin'*
19a
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MARCHIONESS OF TAVISTOCK
L_ Raphael, Esq.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
HIS ART
These quotations will do for a declaration of faith. It
is absurd to stop at admiration. Before a Chardin, or a
Rembrandt, we feel an irresistible desire to reconstitute the
man, to reason out the " why " he became the particular
kind of artist he was, to trace the connection between his
personality as a whole and those special gifts which made
him a creator, and to deternune the particular phtx in the
hierarchy of artists to which his creations entitle him. In
my last short chapter, I sketched the character of Reynolds
as a social unit. I shall now try to show the connection,
which was in some ways peculiar, between his lay character
— if I may put it so — and his art.
We have seen that through the whole of his life Sir
Joshua's impulses were at the disposal of his reason. No
untimely passion ever thrust him aside from the path he
had traced out Even as a boy he was free from incon-
venient enthusiasms, and was able, when asked ta choose a
profession, to make distinctions as wise as they were unusual.
" I will be a piunter," he sud, '* if you will give me the
chance of becoming a good one ; otherwise I will sell
drugs." No doubt he was seventeen when the choice was
offered, but even at that age such common sense is rare.
He gives one the impression, not so much, perhaps, that
he had no passions, as that he could nourish one and starve
another at vnH. He showed no resentment when he was
turned out of the house by Hudson, and I cannot avoid a
sneaking belief that he deliberately provoked his own dis-
missal. He had been an apprentice for nearly two years,
and must have felt that to spend two years more at the
telf we admire in the glau lie paintt. It it by tlie geniui of Rembrandt
that we are faKinated in the pretence of the deep and pecoliar tigni£-
cance with which he inreiti the head of any model who happeni to po*e
before him."— 5«/m A 1863.
193 M
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
work would be waste of time. This guess finds some little
confirmation in the fact that of all the influences under
which he came, that of his early master seems to be the
only one he ever knowingly trioi to duke off.* He left
Hudson, and b^n to compile his style;. We know from
his proceedings in later years how thb would be done.
He was awakened by Gandy to the posntHlides which lie
in texture and to the ralue of breadth. Rembrandt
showed him how the incidence of light could be made sig-
nificant and expressive, and expluned, moreover^ that a
portnut should hint at latent energy although it may
scarcely display it in action. Ndther in the pictures of
Gandy nor in such Rembrandts as were then to be seen in
England, did he find much to stir his sense of colour. The
early portrait of himself in the National Fortrait Gallery
is a fine example, perhaps the best we have, of what he
could do before his viat to Italy. It shows how wdl he
had profited by such opportunities as had come in lus way.
Although not a design in the fiiU sense of the word, it is
happily conceived. The action allows unity to be won
mthout any sense of effort. The colour is pleasant though
sombre, and probably, when the picture was new, the
shadow over the upper part of the face was more luminous
than now. If Reynolds, at this period in his career, had
had the luck to encoimter some one to tell him how to
give all possible depth and brilliancy to his pigments with-
out danger to their constitution, he might have gone near
to treading on the heek of Rembrandt. He tried to
penetrate the Dutchman's secret by copying, and not a few
pictures which now pass under the name of Rembrandt
* In hii nutter't ttadio he muit tX Itut hare learot to paint lo&ndly,
to telect and nunipnlate his matemlt with lome thonght of the faton ;
and Tet, ten yetn later, we find him setting the example of recUatneu
in thit respect which h» been lo ruinont to hi« tcfaooL
"9*
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS ART
ihow unmistakably the hand of Reynolds.* It is not
often, however, that he carried out a process consistently,
and mth sufficient foresight. He went over the ground
as often as the fancy took him, he employed glazes differ-
ing too slightly in tone from the solid painting beneath,
and he failed to make suffidmt use of the contrast in kind
between reflecting and absorbent sur^ces. In sh(»t, he
tentatively felt his way in a method wtuch demands for
complete success that its user shall know exactly, from the
very beginning, what has to be done.
The tfta of Reynolds were first opened to the posu-
bilities of colour by his Wsit to Italy. In England he
had been preoccupied with eiFects of light and shadow.
In Italy the decorative simplicity, the broad satisAction with
a simple surface, which is one of the marks of the south,
touched his imagination, and led him to wcn-k, for a time,
in a manner that we hardly recc^nise as his. He remitted
his [Muctice of building up a picture. He punted frankly
and "straight away," substituting distribution for con-
centration, and abandoning his cheese theory for the
nonce. The best example I can point to of this pasung
phase in his development — ^it did pass, entirely — is the
parody on the School of Athens, wluch is quite free A'om
darkening, cracking, fading, or any other sign of premature
decomposition. Unfortunately he was not content to
persevere in simple methods. Such technique as that of
the caricatures is rare in his practice. His satisfaction
mth Italian mmplicity soon gave way to the desire to com-
Inne the force and depth of Rembrandt with the dea>-
rative splendour of the south. What this led to may be
seen in the " Giuseppe Marchi " at Burlington House, and
that " Mrs. Chamb^" of which McArdeli made such an
* Unlen I un greatly miiUken there is one in the Natio&al Gallei^.
195
oyGoO»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
exquisite mezzodnt Both these ^ctures are Rembrandta
plus a Venetian touch in their colour, and when still fresh
they probably justified their author's ambition. We know
that he was proud of both performances, and was willing
to make them his avant-courtun in England. But
his technical knowledge was unequal to the ta^ of
ensuring longevity to its effects ; both pictures were soon
thrown out of keeping by irregular modifications of their
substance, and both arc now somewhat horny and opaque.
The " Mardu " was the first picture finished after his
return to London ; the " Mrs. Chambers " was psunted in
Paris, on his way home. The next addition to his esthetic
resources ts embodied in the famous **Keppel " of 1753,
in which he makes such bold use of dramatic action. The
general movement ts sud to have been conveyed fi^m a
statue, but which statue I do not know.* It is dear, how-
ever, that the principles of sctdpture had for the moment
intruded upon the thoughts of Reynolds when he was
fixing his de»gn. The perfect balance and detachment
of Keppel's figure ; the way it stands upon its feet, its
promise of equal harmony from all points of view, our
feeling that we could turn it, on a pivot ; all these support
the notion that the first hint was taken from something
" in the round," and show once more how ready he was
to profit by what other people had done. In a paper
quoted by Lesrie,t Reynolds declares how he considered
himself as "pla3ring a great game" and laying very bold
foundations for a success which he hoped was to come.
" Instead of beginning to save money, I laid it out faster
than I got it, in purchasing the best examples of art th^
* The letembUnce* to the Apollo BelTcdere are, of coone, obriooi,
and Lcdie (eemi to allode to lomc deriratiTe from that too fimon
figure at p. 106 of hii fint volume.
t VcJ.i,p. 115.
196
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HIS ART
could be procured ; I ereu borrowed money for this pur-
pose. The possesion of pictures by Titian, Vandyck,
Rembrandt, &&, ] considered as the best kind of wealth.
. . . Study, indeed, consists in learning to see nature, and
may be called the art of using other men's minds. . . .
My principal labour was employed on the whole together ;
and I was never weary of changing, and trying difierent
modes and different efiects. I had always some scheme in
my mind, and a perpetual deure to advance." Further on
in thC' same paper he says : "I was always willing to
believe that my uncertainty of proceeding in my works —
that is, my never being sure of my hand, and my frequent
alterations — arose from a refined taste, which could not
acquiesce in anything short of a high degree of excellence.
I had not an opportunity of being early initiated in the
principles of colouring : no man, indeed, could teach me.
If I have never been settled with respect to colouring, let
it at the same time be remembered that my unsteadiness
in this respect proceeded from an inordinate de^re to
possess every kind of excellence that I saw in the works
of others." Here, from his own lips, we have the key
to Sir Joshua's personality as an artist. He was always
gathering both material and ways to use it ; his re-
markable success, with " a method which too often leads to
inMpidity," depended on the union, in his own person, of
a fine taste and untiring mental activity.
The punting of the Ke;^ marks an epoch in the
career of Reynolds as well as of modern art. Down to
1752 it is easy to determine whence the inspiration came
for everything he did. One picture is a sublimated
Hudson, another an echo of Rembrandt, a third a Hogarth
with a difference. The Keppel is new mainly because he
there draws upon his memories of a different art, but still
new. He points the energy and aptitudes of the man a."
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
well as his head and body. Such a thing had never
really been done before. Some of the great Italians had,
no doubt, su^ested the dynamic possibilities of their
sitters ; Velazquez had now and then gripped the nature
before him with so nervous a hand as to produce a
dramatic result ; but before Reynolds punted his Keppel
no one had succeeded In fusing frank and veracious
narrative with other artistic qualities in a portr^t It was
exactly the thing to create n furore, for it was at once novel
and entirely comprehensible: People could say " How
new ! " and "Why hasn't it been done before ? " in the
same breath. Such a success would have been dat^erous, if
not fatal, to most men. They would have repeated it
until all merit had been taken out of the original po--
ftmnance. With Reynolds it seems only to have had tiie
tSkct of confirming himself in that deliberate elecddsmt^
which he was to make so excellent a use. From the years
immediately succeeding, date the first pictures in which a
real personal style of his own appears. And yet these
very things vary enormously. We can always trace the
eclectic spirit, the desire to utilise accumulated hints, the
distrust of inspiration and disbelief in " genius," by whidi
he is divided from all other painters of his own rank.
It is impossible to discuss Sir Jo^ua's productions
during the ten or twelve years which fdlowed his estab-
lishment in London in anything like detul. It was the
bu^est time of his life, and sitters came in regiments. I must
be content to select a few characteristic works, and with
their help do my best to justify my view of his achievement.
One of the most obvious and at the same time decisive
proofe of the deliberate nature of Sir Joshua's conceptions,
is the contrast, in character, between his male and female
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KITTY FISHER
Earl of Crewb
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HIS ART
portrtita. Onewouldthiak that the first care of a portrait-
painter would be to adapt his ideas — his ideas of dengn,
handling and action — to the sex of his tttter, But, as a
matter of fact, very few punters have done anything of the
kind, and the best least of all. Titian, Velazquez, Rubens,
Rembrandt, Hals and Van Dyck all had pretty much the
same formulae for men and women. As a consequen<x
no one among them, Tnth the posnble exception of lltian,
succeeded equally well with both sexes. To explun what
I mean I may say that, to me at least, Van Dyck's por-
traits — putting aside the " Comelis Van der Gheest " and
a few more — seem always feminine, while those of
Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Velazquez seem no less
invariably masculine. The hard thinking of Reynolds
preserved him &om a sinular mistake. His patterns in
line and colour have sex. During his first period of
maturity, which I take to be the years between I7J3 and
1765, he painted some half a dozen magnificent portruts
wMch illustrate this, as well as other characteristics with
peculiar force. The earliest of these is the Mrs. Bonfoy,
at Port Eliot, punted the year after the Keppel. Better
known is the *' Kitty Fisher," with the doves, of which more
than one compering example exists. The one we repro-
duce is at Crewe HalL It is a capital instance of what I
mean by femininity in conception. Every element carries
with it the notion of woman. The handling is vaporous,
nnuous, and long ; the colour opalescent, and without
masterful contrasts, the design — but that is a matter of
course — avoids any hint at the quick aggression of the
male. Still finer, though less " important " and much less
famous, is the " Lady Tavistock " which used to be at
Quiddenham and is now in the collection of Mr. Louis
Raphael. Here Reynolds su^ests with extraordinary
felidty the atmosphere of tender waiting, of intelligent
199
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
dodlity, wUch is proper to the young vife. Tedimcally , too,
it is one of the best of his early works, and shows the example
<^ Rembrandt put to the most agreeable use. But finer still
than either the "Kitty Fisher " or the "Lady Tavistock '* is
the great "NellyO'Brien"of 1763, in theWallace collection.
On the whole, I think this might be accepted as
Sir Joshua's masteqnece. In other pictures he flies at
h^her game. In the '* Duchess of Devonshire mth her
Baby " he punts maternal interest, energy, love, and psdnts
them with a broader and more audacious brush ; in the
"I<ady Crosbie" he concentrates a life lustory into a
movement and wins a miraculous unity ; in the " Laurence
Sterne," we can see his own curious smile as he plucks out
the heart of a mystery and sets it before us as a man. But
two of these three pictures can be critidsed, even from his
own standpoint. In his determination to be baby-like
with the little Lady Georgiana he becomes just a thougfit
clumsy, while the trenchant focussing of the Sterne leaves
its outskirts rather untiirnished and in»gnificant. The
" Lady Crosbie," indeed, is no less triumphant than the
" Nelly O'Brien," but the triumph was easier to bring off.
Nevertheless, Sir Charles Tennant's picture has a better
chum, I think, than any other to a place beside the beautifiil
creation at Hertford House.
Nelly O'Brien was a light of love, a courtesan in die
old clas»cal sense, who transferred her affections ^th
fadtity, and looked to results in purple and fine linen.
But like other demi^^moHdaims in the days when there really
was a stratum between the outer world and the common
ruck of demoiselles de la petite vertu, she was prudent In her
way, and Reynolds could feel that he had done all the occa^on
demanded when he had mixed a certiun ur of detachment,
a touch of the looker-on, into the usual ur of a fine lady.
And so she sits as we see her, collected, and irith but the
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NELLY O'BRIEN
Wallace Collection
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HIS ART
least posnble hint at curio»ty, in the sunlight, and backed
by the shade of trees. In colour no Reynolds is more
delidous. The pale crimson of the quilted skirt, the blue
of the overdress, the rich black, like the blacks of Gains-
borough, which veils her shoulders, make up a moving
harmony. They also betray the influence under which
the picture was concdved. Allan Ramsay was so incon-
dderable a painter that his productions have never, so far
as I know, been reckoned among those by which the art
of Reynolds was affected. And yet among the Sir Joshuas
which date &omthe years immediately following Ramsay's
establishment in London (in 1762), the indications that
the Scotsman's refined taste, and, espedally, his happy use
of shy and delicate colours, had their effect, abound. In
another particular, in the extreme solicitude with which
the three separate layers of drapery over the girl's lap are
arranged and painted, the effect of Ramsay's example may
be traced. It is exactly what Ramsay would have done
himself, carried to a perfection he could not approach.
Sir Joshua's first visit to Belgium took place in 1781 ;
had he gone there twenty years earlier we should certainly
have suspected him of talring a hint from Rubens also. In
his diary at Brussels we read : " Mr. van Haveren has an
admirable portrait by Rubens, known by the name of the
Chapeau de Faille, from her having on her head a hat and
feather, airily put on ; it has a wonderfiil transparency of
colour,asif seen in the open air; it is,uponthe whole,avery
striking portrait ; but her breasts are as ill drawn as they are
finely coloured." If these words had been written in 1 763,
and their writer had afterwards set to work to show how
he could profit by the beauties and defects of the Chapeau
de Faille, he could not have carried out his purpose more
completely than in the Nelly O'Brien. And ttus shows
the danger of ignoring coincidence.
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Before saying good-bye to this bewitching picture, I
should like to point out one small detail in which the
coolness of Sir Joshua's judgment betrays itself. Nelly
O'Brien has a dog ; so has Mrs. Robinson, in the supwrb
Gainsbctf-ough which hangs on the same wall. Compire
the two little beasts and see what a world divides diem.
Sir Joshua's dog is a fiat ornament with a cutting edge.
It helps to give an agreeable contour to the light mass in
the picture and to reduce the quantity of black, but as a
dc^ it does not exist. It is depressed out of bong in
obedience to the artist's notions of balaace and accent.
Gainsborough behaves differently. His interest in the dog,
there, wudng to be painted, overcomes his prudence. So
with him the ornament is alive, and by its alertness
enhances the vivacity of its owner. In the whole range
of Sr Joshua's art you mil find nothing to compare, so
hr as technique is concerned, with the vivid and complete
way in which this white dc^ is relieved agunst the white-
ness of the woman beside him. In short, the fire of
Gunsborough drove him to face all the difficulties, while
the cool blood of Reynolds left him content with an easier
success.
The male portraits of this time include the " Laurence
Sterne," the first ** Garrick " and the '* Garrick between
Tragedy and Comedy." Between the three we get a
complete illustration of how Reynolds approached his
portraits of men. In one of the famous Dialc^ues he
makes Johnson say of Garrick, "No, sir, Garrick left
nothing to chance. Every gesture, every expres^on of
countenance and variation of voice, was settled in his
closet before he set his foot upon the stage." Before such
a portrut as the " Sterne " our conviction is strong that ^
Joshua behaved in the same way himself. We feel that
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HIS ART
the conception is based not so much on the studio
impKsaon, as upon a mental determination that thus the
creator of Uncle Toby should be punted, and in no other
way. No artist has been so indefatigable as Sir Joshua in
hundng up ugnificant attitudes and gestures when notable
men proposed that he should paint their pictures. The
"Ixnd Heathfield," holding the key of the Mediterranean,
is the typical instance, but it is the exception to find him
handing cdebrated people down to us without some hint
of how they won their ikrae. The personality of Sterne,
then, lies open in Sir Joshua's portnut, and yet it has a
touch of ardfice. The attitude and the expresdon of the
face are not in convincing harmony. The man has been
posed and wonders what the result will be. The Garridc,
though equally profound, is more spontaneous. In spite
of his gift of forethought, Reynolds was quicker than
most men to profit by a happy in^iration or an accidental
hint The [Oyer's attitude — keen, alert, receptive —
proclaims itself his own. He has leant forward to talk and
listen, and the artist has [Kmnced upon the chan<x. The
fncture marks one extreme of Sir Joshua's habit ; the
second Garrick — between the tragic seducer and the
comic — ^the other. Here everything has been carefully
we^hed and determined, so much so that the drapo-ies,
the turn of the figures, even the facial expressions, seem
better suited to sculpture than to the prompt art of the
brush.
So far the dominant note of Reynolds has been variety,
a variety based partly on the absence of any driving Mas
within himself, partly on his power to think, and partly
on his desire to give some moral or intellectual apropos to
every portrait he undertook. He paints women in one
spirit, men in another ; and in both makes a point of
building his conception on something they have been or
M>3
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
done. He Is experimental, and exploits his predecessors,
depending at one moment on the chiaroscuro of Rem-
brandt, as in the " Lady Tavistock," at another on the
arabesque of — let us say — a Routnliac, as in the ** Garrick
between Tragedy and Comedy," at yet a third on the
delicacy of a timid artist like Ramsay, as in the " Nelly
O'Brien." Throu^ them all runs a connecting thread in
that love of a fat texture with which the dictum of Gandy
has inspired him, but otherwise they di^r in a way that
shows a more undring mental activity than we can point
to in any of his rivals. As time passed he was seduced
into increasing the dose of self in what he did, into
betraying more frankly the native sympathies which
underlay his ecleclic notions. Down to about 1765,
however, we are kept in doubt as to which influence will
finally previul, as to whether he will crystalHse into an
inheritor from the Dutch, the Venetians, the Bologoese,
or the Ferrarese. Curiously enough, he did, as a fac^
settle down to a manner in which the Venetians and (me
of the Ferrarese counted for more than any of tiie men to
whom his gaze was turned during his early maturity.
Corr^^o, Titian, and Paolo had captured his fancy in
Italy, but their influence lay comparatively dormant dunog
the years which saw the building up of his fame Aiter
about 1774 we shall find them decisive factors in his art
From 1765 to 1774 was a sort of middle period. It
was a period of good painting expended too often on
conceptions which are not essentially pictorial His eye
still lingers on the Bolognese, who count for much in sudi
compositions as *'Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the
Graces," " Mrs. Blake as Juno with the Cestus of Venus,"
" Ugolino," " Dr. Beattie," and even the great and femous
Montgomeries of the National Gallery. In all these we
find festhetic qualities contrcJled and subdued for the sake
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LADY SARAH BUNKURV SACRIHCING TO THE GKACES
biK llENKV liUNUUKV, BAKT.
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HIS ART
of others which are not xsthetic. His curious theory of
drapery in the abstract is allowed to spml the eflect ot
more than one masterpiece, whUe unity is often sacrificed
to a supposed necessity for hanging art on a lay p^. The
drapery idea is particularly unfortunate, for nothing would
have done more to cure Sir Joshua of the emptiness which
spoils so many of Ms quaa-historical pictures than atten-
tion to the sheen of «!k and velvets. Imagine the " Ladies
decorating a Term of Hymen" conceived in the same
sfwrit as Paolo's " Family of Darius " ! To my mind the
best productions as a class of this uneqiial period were such
things as the group of the two Funes, father and son, at
Oxford, punted in 1765-66; the Goldsmith of 1770 ; the
"Mrs.Abington asMissPrue," 1771 ; the HertfbrdHouse
** Strawberry Girl," piunted in 1 773 ; and the " Baretti," of
1774. Sir Joshua used to say that no artist, however
great, had done more than two or three really original
things, and that among his own works only the " Straw-
berry Girl " deserved to be so considered. It is difficult
to be sure of how he meant this to be taken. To us
onlookers, with another century of experience, he seems to
have punted many things quite as original, the " Master
Crewe," for instance, or the many versions of Mrs.
Atungton. I siispect that what sounds like a critical
oi»nion was in reality a plun statement of fact, a confession,
in short, that most of his inventions had been founded on
some hint from outside.
During the last fifteen years of his active career Sir
Joshxia shed his irrelcvancies. Between 1774 and the
£ulure of his eyes in 1789, he was seldom induced to
over-load a picture. He seems at last to have became
thoroughly alive to the fijtility of supporting art, with
non-artistic props, and from 1774 onwards we rarely find
205
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
a ccHnposition embarrassed by its extrapictorial elements.
His invention is as active as ever, but it runs on truer
lines. No doubt he is seldom satisfied, espedally in his
larger works, to depend solely upon line, colour, and
illumination. But his sense of what \nU fall property
into an sesthetic whole has become more unerring, and we
no longer find schemes dislocated by the introduction of
tilings which spoil the focus. His inabiUty to manage a
crowded canvas still per^ts. The " lady Cockbum and
her children " and the very similar group of Lady Smyth
and her family, punted in 1774 and 1786 respectively,
have no esthetic unity at all In the one apparent excep*
tion, the Marlborough family group of 1778, the arrange-
ment is so obviously artificial that, in spite of its success,
it does not shake our opinion.* But when it is a question
of one or two figures, he wins a unity that had been
previously beyond his reach, and wins it not seldom by
the very means which had once been the chief cause of
fulurc Mrs. Lloyd writing on the tree ; Master Crewe
swaggering as Bliuff* King Hal ; Litde Montague in the
snow ; Lady Crosbie stealing off surreptitiously to catch
a lover, her own or some one eUe's ; the Waldegraves
mth their tambours ; Geoi^iana Duchess jumping her
infant ; Lord Heathfield gripiring the key to the Me(£-
terranean ; John Hunter meditating among his bones ;
Mrs. Abington thrusting out her impudent museau from
behind the curtun; all these are examples of inddents
* It is a little cnrioui that nearly twenty yean earlier R^nolds tad
elaboratdy jeered at the veiy principle he here pnt> into action. In
me of hii IMtrt (29 September, 1759), lie makes his " cheap connoitaent "
*Tc1i^im^ " What a pity it it that Rafiaelle was not acquainted vrith the
pyramidal principle 1 he wonld then have contrived the figures in the
middle to hare been on higher gionnd, or the figures at the cxtiemitiei
stooping or lying ; which wonld not only have formed the group into
the shape (rf a pyiamid, bat likewise contrasted the standing fignics."
ao6
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HIS ART
growing on the theme, instead of being tied up with it in
a s(xt of bundle. I might also refer to the countless
*' Musdpulas," "Felinas," " Robinettas," Sec, &c., as
examples of the same felicity, but in spite of their
reputation few of these pictures deserye a place among
Sir Jo^ua's best works. As a rule they are ill drawn,
poor in colour, and none too happy in texture. There
are exceptions, of course. The " Age of Innocence," in
the National Gallery, is not only a delightful image, it is
perhaps the happiest of all Sir Joshua's endeavours to get a
sutiace " like cream or cheese." But unlike most artists
Reynolds does not seem to have done his best when he
worked * for fun.' " Penelope Boothby," " Smplicity "
(Offy Gwatkin the second), *' Miss Crewe," '* Princess
Sophia Matilda," have a charm, both of thought and
execution, beyond anything we find in the mementos of
his unbespoken hours.
Speaking generally. Sir Joshua made the best use of lus
powers af^er he had passed hxs fiftieth year. Before 1774
he &iled oftener than he succeeded, by which I mean that
the majority of lus works hint rather at unfulfilled than at
fulfilled intentions. Now and again he produced a mag-
nificent thing like the *• Nelly O'Brien," but tm the whole
we feel he had not settled down into a secure conviction
as to what he could and could not do. He was still ex-
perimental ; he was still the prey of any notion thrown at
him by a sympathetic rival or friend^ he was still a sceptic,
or rather a poutive and militant disbeliever in the existence
within himself or any one else of originating genius, re-
qturing nothing but encouragement to throw off the
flowers of art. His Discourses show us how his mind
worked. He thought the way to produce an artistic
thing was to accumulate materials from men who had gone
through the same process before, and to call in taste to
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
break them to a new serrice. like other theorisers, before
and unce, he committed himself to his theories before he
inem. Certain it is that as life advanced he grew less apt
to corroborate his own ideas with a thought from Venice,
Bologna, or Amsterdam. Only once or twice in his
whole career did he ptunt a picture in which no trace of
any influence outude himself could be recogmsed, but in
his final and gresUxst penod the imported elements are
completely digested. Another characteristic of these later
years is the disappearance of vacillation. His work is still
various, but its variety no longer su^ests surrender. He
leaves off ringing the changes on Rembrandt, Corr^^o,
Titian, Salviati and Salvator. When he borrows, it is to
enrich his vocdiulary. He takes what he wants and leaves
the rest, mingling on a single canvas some echo of Rem-
brandt's force with much of Corr^gio's grace and Titian's
splendour. The result is a new homogendty. His
eclecticism has at last land^ him in a style, and from 1 774
to the end of his life the most malignant of his critics had
to confess that he justified lus use of the net.
So ^ I have SEud little on that ude of Sir Joshua's art
which is, after all, the cause of his great popularity. His
fame, at least in this country, depends not so much on the
success with which he unites the sensuous qualities of the
south irith the more intellectual predilections of the north,
as upon his skill in suggesting the energy of English men
and in recording the beauty of English women and
children. As a painter of masculine personalities he has, I
think, no rival. The men of Gainsborough, subtle as
they are and full of latent possibilities, have less vitality,
Icsspromiseofeffidency, than those of Reynolds. You will
search in vun among them for a parallel to the Lord Heath-
field, or the many Garricks, or the Baretti, or the portrait
which Johnson vilified as " Blinking Sam," or the Sterne, or
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LAUKENCE STERNE
Marijuess of Lansdowne, K.G.
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jyGooi^lc
HIS ART
the Goldsmith, or the two Paines at Oxford. In all these
and a host of others Sir Joshua was not content to paint
his sitter in repose, to [Mint him when the powers which had
made him famous were quiescent, and had to be cUvined.
He chose the less simple task of putting the dots on the
i's, and leaving nothing to chance. If the names of all his
utters had been lost, and we had inherited no clues to
their identitj- beyond those given by his brush, we should
scarcely have been in a worse poudon than we are now.
We could have identified all the celebrities, and that not
by matters implying neither skill nor insight, but by the
vigour with which individual character is shown in acdon.
Much of this depends, of course, upon the mere irill to
show it. No special esthetic gift is required to hit upon
such ideas as those by which Heathfield, and Johnson, and
Baretti, could be readily picked out of the regiment of Sir
Joshua's clients. If Gainsborough, or RaelMirn, or even
Lawrence, had been driven to find an apposite — Reynolds
would have called it an historical — conception for every
man of parts among their ntters^ they might have been
equally successful. But Reynolds alone &ced the problem ;
he not only faced it, he bad set it too, and the success with
which he found the solution is one of his legitimate tiUes
totiune.
As for women and children, that is another afiair. To
me it seems imposnble to agree with those who see in
Reynolds the supreme punter of female charm and of the
fresh innocence of childhood. In both, to my mind, Gains-
borough is by far the greater artist His sympathy with
children and women was deeper and more real than that
of Reynolds. His finest portruts, the " Morning Walk,"
for instance, or the " Mrs. Sheridan," show an intimacy
of perception, a power to build up from ^thin, which is
quite beyond his rival. And so with children. Sir
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Joshua was an amused observer of their ways. Their
grace of attitude and spontaneity of movement, the curious
innocence of their faces a[^iealed to his judgment as de-
lightfid and TalwU)le material. But he did not sfrnpathiae
with them. He never realised that a child, to itself, is
just as much a [x-oduct of experience as a man of fifty.
His pmnt of view was essentially external. He painted a
little boy or girl as he would a kitten, maldng them parts
cS a lovely scheme, and often suggesting, with curious
ftlicity, thdr condition as germs of men and women.
Gainsborough's children, on die other hand, are real
children. They are not merely amusing animals, waiting
to grow up ; they are bundles of experience of a kind,
and show their naive sati^action with things in general
just like dirir elders. Sit Joshua was wgt. to make cUIp
dren lode like imps frcMn a difierent world. Compare his
" Miss Bowles," for instance, at the Wallace Gallery, with
the ** Miss Haverfield " of Gunsborough, which hangs a
few feet away. The latter is a real child, with the pride
of her eight or ten years showing through the blank page
of her fiiture. Beude her the " Miss Bowles *' seems a
changeling, and her laugh the glee of a creature that had
never seen a dog before. You can see that Gainsborough
could think like a child, could feel its little triumphs, its
ahyness, the tragic intendty of its moods. Whereas Sir
Joshua is walking round it, with his quizzing g^aas, ob-
serving its outside.
And as Sir Joshua punted children, so he painted
women. He observed them keenly, but too judicially,
•torit^ up in his -vioaAtrfvX memory the carriage of thrir
heads, the play of their limbs, even the treachery of thdr
sudden looks. He translated their obrious qualities into
terms of tine and colour with consummate success, finding
00 more difficulty in the dignity of a Caroline Mari-
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NELLIE O'bRIEN
Lnrd Ctlrysjarl
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jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
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HIS ART
facrongfa, or the Artnkness of a Georgiana Spencer, or the
irrespoimHlity of a Diana Cro^e, dun in the vivadty oi
an Abington, or the huiguor and inabilitjr to say No oi a
Fidier or a Baddeley. He even found a pictorial equiva-
lent for the venaUty of a Ndly O'Brien. But cS tiw
deeper viiion which comes of sympathy, he had little more
than a trace. It would be waste of time to look throu^
his works for something to s^ bende his rival's " Mrs.
Hallett," the young bnde taking her first walk with her
husband after she had learnt the meamng of " wifeii" or
bende the " Mrs. Sheridan," with twenty years of joy and
sorrow in her itct. With the mere beauty of woman he
was at home, like so many other English painters. He
knew exactly how to select, how to insist on this and glide
gently over that, until he had transferred to his canvas the
most i^vourable impresucm his sitter was able to give.
There, however, his glory is part of his birthright as an
English painter, and has to be shared mth others both of
his own time and ours.
Unforttmately, English women who have distingiushed
themselves by their mental gifts have not often found their
1* ay into the studios of our great painters. As a nile, I sup-
pose, their purses have been too shallow, and the notion of
punting them for love has not occurred to artists over-
whelmed with commissions. It is a pity. It would have
been agreeable to point to portr^ts of Fanny Bumey, Jane
Austen, Mary Somerville, Mary Anne Evans, Elizabeth
Browning, and the Brontis, in the collection of National
portnuts, with such names as Reynolds, Lawrence, and
Millais beneath them. With such sitters, Reynolds might
have left us something to hang be»de the " Heathfield "
and the Streatham "Johnson."
The drawings left by Sir Joshua are few in number, and
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
of no great excellence. The7 are essentially memoranda ;
his drawing was oeaily all done with the brush, and has
disappeared under subsequent wcH'k. In the few cases in
which he had recoune to a lead pencil w a pen, it was prob-
ably to preserve some idea that occurred to him when he
was away from his stucUo. A few chalk portnuts are sup-
posed to be in existence, but in most cases thdr authen-
tidty is doubtful. He nerer went through that drudgery
of it« schools which gives most painters a &cility with the
point they never lose ; and so in his legacy to the world
we find nothing to correspond with the treasiuv of beau-
tiful drawings left by his rival, Gunsborough.
oyGoo»:^Ic
CHAPTER X
SIR JOSHUA AS A WRITER AND THEORIST
^£ fame of Sir Joshua's IXscourses is at
I first nght a little difficult to understand.
I For a hundred years it has been the
fashion to treat them as models of Utera-
I ture and monuments of critical profundity.
' Thdr style has been thought so much
too good for their putative author, that the great shades
of Burke and Johnson have been descried at Sir Joshua's
elbow, controlling his expression and even suggesting his
ideas. Agun, their reasoning on the foundations of art
has been so far accepted by those who ought to know^
that they have been put, as a text-book, into the hands of
some twenty generations of students. And yet Sot
Joshiu's style is good only through its uncerity ; and his
teaching sound only if meant to be superficial
First of all, however, as little or nothing has been
said about the IXscourses in previous chapters, it may be
as well to sketch thdr history. They are usually num-
bered from one to fifteen, and printed as if they were all
of the same class, addressed to one purpose, and delivered
on nmilar occasions. As a fact, however, two out of the
fifteen are not " IKscourses " at all. The earliest in date
is an address delivered to the members and prospective
students immediately after the Academy was foimded, and
J13
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
u directed to tarning dieir minds into the right channel so
far IS that institudon was concerned. The ninth is a short
apeech, spoken on the occasion of the move from Pall
Mall to Somerset House. The remuning thirteen form
the real sequence of IXscourses. The first four were
delivered annually at the cUstribution of prizes, the re-
maining nine biennially, on those tenths of December at
which gold medals were awarded. I have called them a
sequence, and so, in a sense, they are. But the develc^
ment of the President's ideas is often erratic, and in one,
the penultimate, Discourse, he divagates into that character
of Gunsborough which is, perhaps, the most interesting
passage in the whole of his writings. The first ten Dis-
courses were printed by Reynolds himself, in 1778, with a
dedication to the King. The completed series was pub-
lished in 1797, five years after his death, by Edmund
Malone, his chief executor.
True to its belief that no man can do more tiian one
thing well, the English public began, soon after it had the
first ten Discourses at its mercy, to be sceptical as to their
origin. At first it fathered them on Johnson. The story
is well known, of how the Doctor, when tamd -with their
authorship, replied, " Sir, Reynolds would as soon require
iat to punt for lum as to write for Mm." After Johnson's
deadi, a new * ghost* had to be found, and Burke was
pitched upon. This rumour Malone thought it worth
while to disprove.* In a note to his short memoir of Sir
* The co^ of Mdone'i tecond edition (1798) which belonged to
Williun Blake ii in the British Museum. It contains a good ma!i7
amnsing and ihrewd obsemtioni beyond those quoted hy B4r. Gowe in
hii edition of the DiKonnei (See abo Oikhiist'i " Blake"). Blab has
written on the title-page "TluiMan was Hired toD^rew Art; This
is the Opinion of VfiH Bkke : my Froofi of this Opinion are given in the
following notes." Among the 'proofs' are the words " Dinmd {tie)
tod,'* written caiefoUy in ink beside Sir Joshua's nseition thn ^
oyGoo»:^Ic
PORTRAITS OF TWO GENTLEMEN
Nauonal Gallekv
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
HIS THEORIES
Joshua, he declares that among his late friend's papers he
had found no kind of sign that any one had ever written
any part of the IHscourses except R^nolds himself.
Naturally, Sir Joshiia, livmg among wits and writers,
consulted them now and then on ptnnts of style and
arrangement. But that the final form, to say nothing of
the matter, of his writings was not his own, deserres no
sort of credence.
To us who have the advantage of a distant perspective,
it seems extraordinary that any one should ascribe the
eminently human, but somewhat invertebrate periods of
Sir Joshua first to Johnson and afterwards to Burfce. As
a writer Reynolds was, of course, an amateur. He had
never been drilled in the use of language, or compelled to
notice how the pactised writer avoids those involutions
and cacophonies which spring from the unguarded expres-
saoa of complex ideas. He piles relative on relative and
partiaple on participle, until his sentences become so long
drawn out that we have to read them twice to grasp th«r
meaning. As interpreted by a good speaker, they would,
no doubt, be clear enough. Vocal modulations would
bring out the sense. But Reynolds, we are told, had a
very bad delivery, and so it is not surpriung that his
colleagues paid him the compliment of a request to print
his sermons I Let us take a few sentences at random.
Here is the first my eye falls upon as I open Malone's
edition of the piunter's writings : —
"And ju in the conception of thii ideal picture, the mind doei lun
power of giving gnmdenr to a work of art coma not from genint but
fioni niles ! To Malone's note on the Burke rumour, Blake appendi fail
own: "The contradictioni in RejTX)td('s Ditcoonei are itrong pre-
anmptioai that the^ are the woA of MTcral handi. But thii i) no |noof
that Reynold* did not write them. The man, either Painter or Philo-
•opher, who leami or acqniret all he knowi from othen mnit be full of
oo&tndictioiM.**
MS
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOUK
enter into the minute pecnliaiidei of the ditn, fnminre, or icene of
action ; to when the painter comei to repreaent it, he cxmtiivea thoie
little nrf'f^HTy concomiunt circiunitancet in inch a manner that thcr
ihall itrike the ipectator no more than they did himiclf in hi* fint
conception of the itocy."
A little further on : —
" The principle* by which each i> attained «ie to contrary to caih
other, that they teem, in my opinion, incompatible, and aa impoanble to
ezi*t together, a* that in the mind the moat inblime idea* and the k»re*t
•eutulitj (hould at the same time be united." *
And again : —
" Theie are the penont who may be (aid to have exhatuted all the
powen of florid eloquence, to debauch the yoaug and inexperienced,
and hare, withont donbt, been the caiue of turning ofi the attention of
the conncn(*enr and of the patron of art^ u well at that of the painter,
from tho*e higher excellence* of which the art it capable, and which
ought to be required in every coniiderable production." t
Such sentences are without any latsissant quality. Our
attention has to be applied to them ; they do not command
it. On the other I»nd, they have a sort of intimate
humanity which prevents the application from being irk-
some. Of Burke and Johnson the converse may ^tirly be
sud. In spite of their brilliant technique, they are diffi-
cult to read. Their technical ingenuity and their humanity
are in proportions inverse to those of Reynolds. Take
this paragraph from Burke : —
" At Ttrioui period* we have had tyranny in thit country, more than
enough. We have had rebellion* with more or leu juatification. Some
of our king* have made adnlteroni connection* abroad, and trucked awiq',
* Thii opinion il characteriitic of Reynold*. Many inftancet of
*nch a combination could eatily be given, but ai, <»i hi* piemiiet, it wat
inconceiTable, he denied it* exittence.
t FmrA DiuMru, Makme** edition (1798). vol. i., pp. 81, 95, and
too.
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS THEORIES
for focdgs ff^ the interent and gloiy of thdr crown. But befote
thii time, our libert7 luu nerer been corrnpud. I mean that it bai
nerer been debauched from iti domeatic relationt. To thil time it haa
been English Liberty and Englith Libera only — our love of Libcrt7,
and onr love of onr countiy, were not diitinct thing* ; " *
or this from Johnson :—
" In this ditaitroni year (l/so) of national infatuation, when mon
richei than Pern can boatt weie expected from the South S«a, when the
contagion of araricc painted every "i''"^, and even poeti panted after
wealth. Pope waa teized with the nnivenal patiion, and ventured lome
of hit money." t
No ii^enuity could set such paragraphs as these in Sir
Joshua's prose inthout discovery. They are terse and
well made, and betray familiarity with the rewurces, not
to say the tricks^ of the stylist. They are, in short, the
product of minds very different, both in native quality and
in cultivation, from the mind of Reynolds. The point is
not worth elaborating further, perhaps, for I do not sup-
pose that, in these days^ any one would attempt to dispute
Sr Joshua's paternity of his literary children. About it,
however, hangs another consideration which has its interest.
Beside Burke and Johnson, Reynolds was a bungling
writer, taldng a long time to say what he had to say, and
showing almost complete ignorance of those contrivances
by which the cunning scribe prevents the reader from
knowing he is bored. And yet, a century and a quarter
old as it is, his prose is strangely fresh. Its eauness is by
no means inherent in the subject of which it treats, for
even the art critic does not ding, voraciously, to a page
of art criticism 1 To put it frankly, Reynolds is neither
profound in induction, nor l<^cal in deduction, nor dear
' X^^ i*Mr«, Letter rV.
t Lifi ^ Pifi : Matthew Anu^'i edititw of die St» CkUf lavtSy
^3S4•
117
oyGoo»:^Ic
I
SIR JOSHUA SETNOLDS
in expKsritm, uid yet his Discounes have vitality, and
successive genetadons of students have read them with
interest, and intb a pleasant sense that a real personality
strove for expression in their unconvindng periods. Aa a
rule an Englishman of good education takes more interest
in poetry, and vastly more interest in politics, than he
does in art. And yet I feel [nctty sure that m(M« readers
woriE their way throi^h the Discourses than through the
best works of wther Johnson or Burke.* Why is this ?
I believe it to d^nd on eicactly the same instinct as that
which makes us prefer the fifbenth century to the uxteenth
in Italian pointing.
In reading Sir Joshua, we feel that he is inade his
Subject, gro[»ng his way out. His guesses are often
unhappy, and lead him to concIu»ons which are little else
than absurd. But there he is, nevertheless, inside, and
doing his best to understand his milieu, and to get a right
conception of the whole matter. His methods of expres-
uon are imperfect, and leave us mth the idea that bis con-
ceptions are too complicated to be rendered in such w(»^
as he can command. He who has more imagination than
expressive power is more interestit^ to his fellow creatures
than one in whom the proportions are reversed. His
strinng is a guarantee that he has done his best, and leaves
us with a sense of something to be filled In by ourselves.
With writers like Burke and Johnson it is diflferent.
Thdr methods are apt to be more complete, as methods,
than their ideas are, as ideas. So that instead of being
inude thdr subjects, they are outside, or even detached
* If the re*dei donbt thU, let him go to the Reading Room fA the
Britiih Mojeam, and tend for copiei of the Ditconnet, of the Lives of
the Poeti, ind the pamphlet of Bnike he thiaki the leutfixgDtteii. He
will find the Rexnoldi thumbed neulj to rain, md the othen » freth
u when the^ were pabtithcd.
si8
oyGoo»:^Ic
MRS. HARDINGE
MARgUESS OF CUMRIKASDE
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
HIS THEORIES
•nd a tittle contemptuous. The kernel of human interest
seems to have shrunk away and to be rattling, dry and
sapless, within the fine externals of their style. Perfect
art, no doubt, demands that imagination and expression
shall each rise to the same level, and that style and thought
shall be so nearly one that we shall find it difficult to
determine where the one leaves off and the other begins.
This, however, is a consummation not often reached, and
our choice lies, as a rule, between extreme uncerity with
mtxc or less halting expression, on the one hand, and less
nncerity with greater fluency, on the other. Sir Joshua's
Discourses belong to the former class.
Before going on to speak of Sir Joshua's esthetic
theories, I must say something about those other writings
in which more literary skill is to be found than in the
Discourses. I mean the two famous Dialogues. The
short one, especially, in which Sir Joshua attempts to
upheld his own and Garrick's importance agunst the
Doctor, is a little masterpiece— dramatic, full of character,
and light in touch. The second is nearly as well done,
and more pr^nant. The two endings show that Reynolds
had not been so ^thful to Covent Garden and Drury
Lane for nothing. The first dial<^;ue is cut off sharply,
and yet exactly in the right place, by the angry Johnson ;
to the second he provided a peroration so vigorous that it
makes an excellent " curtain " for both.
The rest of Sir Joshua's writings, whether published or
not, are greatly inferior. The character of Johnson is
only a rough draft ; the three " Idlers " are happy nather
in form nor substance ; wlule the '* Journal of his Tour in
tite Netherlands" is only a journal and his notes to
Du Fresnoy only notes. As a writer his reputation
depends on the fifteen Discourses and the two Dia-
li^ucs. The superiority of the latter suggests that
H9
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
be might, had he tried, have made a reputadon as a
l&ywright.
Turning to his ideas about art, the first thing to strike
us is the remarkable contradiction between his expressed
opinions and his own [»wtice. The whole drift of his
Discourses is towards the promotion of those forms of art
which spring from and appeal directljr and soldjr to the
reason, over those which excite emotion by the expression
of more or less sensuous ideas. I do not think it is
putting the matter unfairly to say that Reynolds, the
theorist, did all he could to promote the belief that fine
art is a question of teaching and a good memory, like
filing ; while Reynolds, the punter, spent his energies
in showing that all risks may be run for the sake of
clothing a [uctorial idea in a gorgeous envelope. You
may say that these two courses are not ioconmstent, and
that the one may be engrafted on the other. No doubt
that is true. It is even true that, in practice. Sir Joshua
did attempt to combine the qualities he praised with those
he derided, but he did so in such a fashion that if we
judged him from his works alone, we should beheve his
table of precedence to be the reverse of what he himself
asserted. Be Venetian, if you like, but at all events draw
correctly, keep ideal forms of men, women, draperies, &c.,
before your minds ; generalise, and do not be seduced into
any kind of particularity ; beware of nature, she is only
to be safely looked at through the eyes of others ; do not
imagine you can invent, the modem substitute is imitation,
and the only invention now posuble is the making of some
infiniteumal addition to previous inventions. That is a
£ur e[Htome of lus advice to students, but he reversed it
in practice. He never entirely forgot his theories about
invention, natural acddents, draperies in the abstract, and
oyGoo»:^Ic
HIS THEORIES
$o on, but he postponed them all to the winning of
exactly those qualities of individual vision and Venetian
richness against which he warned his juniors. It may seem
childish, perhaps, to give instances, but one occurs to me
which illustrates in a curious way his readiness to practise
one thing and preach another. In that strange fourth
Discourse, which brings out the oppontion between
dghteenth and nineteenth century ideas in such a startling
fashion, he says : " To give a general ur of grandeur at
first view, all trifling or artful play of little lights, or an
attention to a variety of tints, is to be avoided; a quiet-
ness and simplicity must reign over the whole work ; to
which a breadth of uniform and umple cdour will very
much contribute." Now at the very time when he was
thus advising his young men, he was probably painting
the " Mrs. Carnac " of the Wallace Gallery. The date of
this [Hcture is not certunly known, as no mention of it
occurs in the pocket-books or ledgers. By its style, how-
ever, it belongs to the seventies, and the fourth Discourse
was delivered in 1771. It is perhaps the most audacious
example we can find in the whole history of art of the use
of a trifling play of little lights ; for the lady's white
dress, as she advances through a wood, is covered with the
pattern made by the shadows of the leaves playing over-
head in the sunlight. He often repeated this ei^ct, which
is about as strongly opposed to the whole spirit of his
teaching as anything could be. And yet the " Mrs.
Carnac " is one of his great efforts, and clearly aims at
both grandeur of presence and breadth of effisct
In spite of his independence, Reynold* was not an
wiginal thinker. He accepted the ideas of his time as the
foundation for his own reasoning, and seems to have felt
no impulse to go behind, and test their value for himself.
It is imposnble to believe that the painter of the " Nelly
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
O'Briui," and the " Lord Heathfield " could hare fdt any
uncere emotion before the dry melodrama of Salvator
Rosa or the ct^ fiidlity of Le Sueur. But ioitead of con-
fessing his indi&rence, he wasted his mental energies in
searching after ** rules " by which thar hold on fashion and
pretence to set a standard might be confirmed. If hefaad
b^un by telling the students that the essential part of ait
was neither to be learnt nor taught, and that all the
academy could do was to enaUe young men to bec(Hne
such ousters of their tools that those bom to art could
step into viuble possession of thdr birthright, he would
have done sometlung to put his theories in thdr pn^wr
fdace.
The truth is that Sir Joshua, inth all his study and
introspection, never hit upon a real theory of art at lU.
His mind took too narrow a iwctp. The notion of
cc41ating one art with another occurred to lum but <uice,
and then he made a most unhappy use of it. It never
struck him that a theory of art which might fit a picture
but would be absurd if ^plied to a teapot could not be a
universal theory. He never suspected that beneath die
whole body of artistic things which man had created Jay a
deep^ solid, and universal foundation on which the beaitty
of them all was built. He examined phenomena, and
when he had collected a certain number d these from
famous wcM'ks of art, he concluded they were the causes of
excdlence. Raf&elle was great, Rafikelle painted dn^xxies
in the abstract, not silks and velvets, ergOj abstract draperies
are the cause of greatness. In all seriousness that is too
often the fosluon of Sir Joshua's reasoning. His obiective
was false and so, of course, was his my of stepping towards
it. His um was not to help the young men who hung
upon his words in makii^ the most of any artistic
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF HAMILTON
The Lokd Iveauii, K.P.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
HIS THEORIES
ikculties with wUcfa niture had endowed them, but to teach
them how to produce imitations of the Camcci, at least, if
they could not manage Raffaelle and Michelangelo. So
hr does he sometimes go in this direction that one is almost
tempted to believe his teaching insincere, to suspect that he
was speaking agunst his convictions, under the belief that
it was bett^ for students to believe that hard work
could do everything, than to know the artist is not school-
made, but concaved in his mother's womb.
I alluded just now to the one attempt made by Sr
Joshua to carry his theories beyond the art of painting.
This was in that Tenth Discourse, in which he spoke of
sculpture. A more convincing [Mw>f of his inability to
step outude the area of tus own experience, could scarcely
be given. He makes no real attempt to determine the
natural aesthetic boundaries which omtrol the modeller.
He takes them as already decided by the practice of the
ancients and of such modems as he chooses to adnut into
their company. "Sculpture has but one style," be
declares, and therefore " can only to one style of Painting
have any relation." So far as this was true, and even a
century ago it was* but a partial truth, it was due to the
survival of so many masterpieces of ancient art. With
these to inutate, men were slow to expl(He new paths for
themselves. Knee the days of Reynolds they have done
so, vnth splendid results ; and it is not, perhaps, unreason-
able to think that an artist of his distinction ought to have
foreseen the fea»bility of such a new departure. He was
blinded, however, by his system. He tested art, not by
its own immutable conditions, but by the fcM^s into which
accident had led it All his theoriung rests on the assump-
tion that man had nothing more to <£scover, no new
thoughts to express, no changed forms of civilisation to
illustrate, no new beliefs to inust upon. He Ukes one
sij
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
form of the wwld's art wealth as it existed in lus own day,
and, instead of attempting to discover the vitaUnng piia-
dple which ran through it all and brought it into Une with
uster forms, marshals its mere external phenomena Into
rules to control the new generation, and prevent any future
i«petition of such free developments as those which make
the glory of Greece and Italy.
The experience of a century has refuted Reynolds as a
teacher, although as a painter it has set him on a higher
pinnacle than ever. How came it that a man who could
leave us so many great and delightful pages of art was so
unsattsfitctory as a theorist, and so discouraging to those
who hold that the forms of art are capable of such cxpsm.-
sion that all human emotions and aspirations can be
expressed with thnr help P The contradiction is strange
but it most have its orig^ in some deep-seated [Mopensity
of human nature, for it is common to nearly all artists,
from Leonardo downwards, who have played with the pen.
The explanation seems to be that when an artist seta out to
reason upon his art, he instinctively turns for guidanc^
those features and qualities in his own perfcx-mance which
have cost him thought.. He passes over, as impossible to
discuss, those selections and dedsions which were made in
obedience to predilection, which were governed by die
desire to convey his own personal emotions to the people
about Mm. Th^ had required no labour ; he had felt,
not reasoned out, thnr necesnty. That dednons so
obvious could be the most important factors in his success
he would be slow to belteve, and slower still to assert. . For
by their very nature they admitted of no justification in
words, and of little explanation. Sjet us take a concrete
instance from the works of Reynolds himself. Let us
suppose that he is trying to so explun the genem of the
Ladies decorating a term of Hymen, that a class of students
oyGoo»:^Ic
THE MARQUESS OF liATH, K.G.
oyGoo»:^Ic
jyGooi^lc
- HIS THEORIES
might be enabled to do somethit^ of the sort themselves.
Judging from his own Discourses, he would slur over or
ignore the fine pattern, the sonorous tone, the quick answer
of the brush to the painter's mood, on which its harmony
and iHvadty depend. He would draw their attention to
the way in which he had contrived that the dark portions
should be to the light as three to one, that the dark figure
should be relieved on the light part of the background and
yet should be light at the top to prevent its being too much
of a silhouette. He would point out that the draperies
are by no means clothes, that the vase in the corner is
n«ther copper, brass, nor gold, but simply metal ; that the
term of Hymen is neither of stone nor marble, but a kind
of hint at both. In short, he would insist upon the results
of his thinking, and leave those of his feeling — yet art
should be "»mple, sensuous and passionate" — ^totake care
of themselves. I hope all this does not strike the reader
as flippant, for it is honestly based on Sir Joshua's own
reasoning about the great style.
The inclination to dwdl overmuch on those constituents
of art which can be translated into words, Reynolds had
in common with nearly all painters who have reasoned on
their work at all. Artists who confess, like MUIais, that
punt is paint and talking talk, and that the one cannot be
expressed in terms of the other, are strangely rare. At
any rate Sir Joshua was not one of them. His native bent
on all occasions was towards antecedent thinking, and what
he had thought out he could, of course, explain. He took,
a curious pleasure in reducing ideas to theories. He liked
to lay out his course, to know well in advance what he was
going to do, and why. The majority of artists discover
such explanations only when asked for them ; but we feel
that Sir Joshua was quite capable of putting aside an {es-
thetic inspiration if he could not find its verbal equivalent.
sis '
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jyGooi^lc
jyGooi^lc
A
jyGooi^lc
INDEX
Abihcton, Mn., 90, itS, i», 30(,
Abingl»», Portrait of Mrs., ao6, 91,
97 ; as " Miss HoyiUn," Mrs.,
Ill ; OS "Miss Prut," Mrs., 305 ;
as RoxalaHa, Mrs., 161, l6a
Aoademisians gathartd about Hit
Model (ZoSuiy), 98
Acadoniies, French and English,
compared, 77
Academies of Art, their troe funo-
tiona, 76. 77
Academy, Royal, 3;, Si, 18], 183;
Dioaer, 71. 73, 158, 166; Ex-
hibitioos, 118, i33, 141, 146, 147,
149. IS4. "57. 161, i6s, 174, 176.
177, 179 ; First Exhibition of, 7S ;
Fouadation of Royal, 38, jj, 59-
77, 3 1 3 ; iU fimcttons and achieve-
ments, jo; projected, 57; Rey-
nolds resigns Presidency of Royal,
181
Adam and Evt, 91
A ge of Innocenci, The, ill
Aix-la-Chapelle. Reynolds at, 151
Algiers, Keppd and Reynolds at,
15. '7
Almack's, 78
Al thorp, 119
AUhorp, Portrait of Lady, IS4
AUkorp, Portrait of Lord, I19
American War, iiS, 135
Aneedotes of Sir Joshua Reynotds,
Mason's, 47
Amsterdam, Reynolds at, iji
Attgtt'i Htads, 176 and note
Atuntticiation {Cipriani), 79
Antwerp, Reyncdds at, tsi
ArcEZo, Reynolds at, 34, 3^
Armstrong, Dr., 141
Amotfiitt Group, Van Eyck's. 43
Artists' Qnb, 15 j
Arundel Street, Strand, 60
Assisi, Reynolds at, 34
AsUey. J., S4
Austen, Jane, 311
AyUsfoti, Porlraa of Lady, 154
gsford. Lord, i3i, tSi
niiuter, Reynolds visits. So
Babts in llu Wood, Tht, 85
Bacon, John, 41, 87
Baddeley. Mrs., 90, 98. 187, an
Baddelry, Portrait of, Mrs., 97
Baker, Dr.. 80
Baker, Rev. Thomas, a
Baker, Theophila, I
BaJdarin, Portrait of Mrs. {Th* Fait
Creek), 153
Bampfylde, Mrs., lap
Batnpfylde, PortriUt of Lady, laj
Banks, Sir J., lai
Baretti, 6z, 8t-iio
BaretU, Portrait of, 116, ao8, 309
Barnard, Dr., Dean of Derrjr, 115,
131,18?
Baroccio, ao, aj
Barrett, George, 64 note
Bany, 41, Si, 91, 15S, iSti, ISS
Barry, letter to, 83. S3, 84
Bartolozzi, Francesco, 64 not*,
74 note, 90
Barton House, 79 note
Bassanc, 30
Bastards, the. So
Beattie, Dr., on the art of Reynolds,
Btattit, Portrait of Dr., 100, 109,
no, 113, 116. 304
Beattie. Mrs., no
Beauclerc, Langton, lai
Btauclere, Portrait of Miss, M Cim.
146
Beauclerc, Tophani, 97, 144 ] Joins
Literary Club, 57
Btaufoy, Portrait of Mrs. (Gains-
borough), 140
BtaumonI, Portrait of Lady, 146
Beaumont, Lord, 139
Btaumont, Portrait of Sir Gtorgt,
177
and William Russia, and 1
Vtrnon, portrait group, 133
Beggar Boy and His Sisttr, 116
Beit. Mr. Alfred, 115
Btltamont, Portrait of Lord. II6
oyGoo»:^Ic
r
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
BettamonI, Portraitt of Lord and
Lady, 114, and note
BelLiiu, Giovanni, 30
Belvoir, 141 note, 144
Bergamo, 3)
BtrHe, PorlraU of Cot..
BlMSinxton. Lord, im Gardiner.
Hr. Lnfc^ 101 and note, 113
Bidcentafie, Isaac, 81
Bidelord, 6
Bigg, R. A., 114
Bingjlam, PorlraU of Miu, 174
Btaka, Mn.. with (b Ceitut 0/
Vemu, 304
Blake, ^Mlliam, on ReTnolde' Dia-
coonea, a 14 note
BlakeDey, General, 16
Blenlieim, 1351 Reynoldi visits, 109
Blua Boy, Tkt (GunsboronghJ. 85
Bologna, Rnmolda at, 33
BologncM Sidiool, Rejwilda' admin-
tion for, 30
Bonfoy. Porfroil of Mrs.. 199
Bonomi, architect, iSi, 1S3
Boothby, Misi P&H^opt, 307
Boscawen, Uia., isi
BoBwell, 81, 106, iiS, 119. 131,
<3>. 'S3. '?a. t?3. i83;qnot«l,
SI, S», 130. ija. '44. iSj
Botwell, Portrait of, 176
BourJu. Portrait of Dr., ArcMitkop
t of Tuam, 161, ifis
Bottetrie, Mrs., and Child, Sj
Bomierit, Mrs., and Urt. Crmat, 79,
80
Bowhs, Miss, iii,3io
Bowood, 79 note
Boy playing Criektt (F. CotM), 79
Boy with a Drawing in his Hand,
W ISO
Boy dell sale, i3o
Boys with Fit ' '
borough), i$f
Braddyl. Mast«r, 161
Braddyl, Portrait of Mr., lyj
Breda,' C F. von, 183
Brescia, 33
Bridport, Reynolds visits, 86
Britub Coffee Honse, 98
British Mnaenm, Reynolds' note-
book in, 35
Broome, Lord, 139
Browning, Elizabeth, 311
Bruges, Reynolds at, 151
Bmasels, BiWnolds at, 151, 173
Bucckueh. Portrait of the Duehtis
Eof, 108
nnbniy. Sir Charles, 90, 91
Bunlnay, Lady Sarah, sacrificing
to Ms Graces, 304
Bunbuty, Portrait of Mattrr, HI, 149
. Edmund, 81, ,. .. _ .
147, 153, 177, 184, 113-31S; con-
sulted b^ Reyiudds, 66 ; his friend-
ship vith Reyncjds, 53 ; joins
Literary dab, 56
Bnrkes, ttie, 81, 107
Burlington House, 59, 91, 146, 195
Bnniey, Dr., 13 1
Bwney, Portratt of Dr.. 149
Barney, Fanny, 139, 130, 144, 153,
156, IS7. 184, III
Bnte, Lotrd, 115
B ^y, Mr., 144, 14s
Cadii, Reynolds at, 16, 17
Cadogan, Portrait of Lady, IfG
Calonne, M. de, 154
Cambridge, Owen, 119, 131
CampbeU, Dr., 118
Camfibdl. Portrait of John (Lord
Cawdor], 137
CampbtU, Portrait of Mitt Sarah
{Mrs. Wodthauu), 137
ConcaJwM, The, 17, 18, ig
Carlini, Agostino, 64 note, 74 note
Carlisle, Lord, 85, 116
Carlisle Honse, 88
Comae, Portrait of Mrs.. 331
CaipacGio, mentioned, 30
Carpenter. Wm., 16 note
Carracd, The, mentioned, so
Cairington, Lord, go
Carysfort, Lord, 116, 131
Catnerine of Rusua, 147, 174, [76,
178
Cats' Book of EitAltms, 6
Castelfranco, 38
Catton, Charles, 64 note, 74 note
Caetndiih, Portrait of Lady G«o^fs,
153
Cavendish, Lord Richard, 147, 149
Cent%aion, H.M.S., 15, 17
Chatfbws, Portrait of Mrs., 195,
196
ChaiHbtrt. Portrait of Sobtrt, 115
Chambers, Sir William, 37, 18. 63,
64 note, 6s, 67, 69, 70. 77. 145,
181, 18}
Chamier, joins Literary Qub, 57
CkaptoM d* Poil (Rnbensl, 160
Chardiu, 33, 193, 193
Chailemont, Lord, 56, 81
CkarltsV. at Miihlbarg, Titian's, 43
Charlotte, Queen, 68
ChmilotU, Portrait of Qu**n (Dance),
79
Chait«e«y, Portrait of Nathanial.
:„Goo<ifc
INDEX
CttocotatQre, La, Liotard'a, 49
CMmondAy, Portrait of Lord, 146
Cholmondeley, Mn., 90, isi, iji
ChudleiBh, Hiis, t*a Kingston,
Dnc±Mi of
Chnii eroumttl »M Thonu, Gnido'a,
■' Christie's," 69 note, 77, 180
Cipriani, G. B., 64 note, 74 note,
146
CUrk, Ur.. 94
Clergyman, Portrait of a, 133
CocI
rgyman. Portrait of a, 133
:kbMnt, and CkiUr*n, Lady, wa
Daosri, Portrait of Sir Charlts, I30
Davia, Tom, it
Daviaon, Jereiniah, g nota
Dtath of Cardinal Btaufort, IS4,
Cornelia
CoKoiet, Lion, 96
C^man, George, Sg, ill
Cotman, Portrait of G*org4, Sj
Cologne, Reynolds at, 151
Conttnenee of Seipio, 134, 179
Constable, John, 41
ComtHa (Lady Cockburn m
Childrtn), 115, 116, 1*8, B06
Comely, Mis., 78
Comewall, Luly, 147
ComwaUis, Portrait of Lady, 85
Coireggio, 104, 3oS ' ' ' "
on Reynoldi, i3
" Correggio," nickname for Rom-
Cotes, Fcands, 54, 64 and note
Cotterell, Miwea, 51
Cotton, 3, 39, 47
COnrtenay, John, 88
Covent Gvden, a 19
CoyU, Portrait of Gtorg* (Galna-
borough], 146
Crewe Hall, 79, 199
Crmo, Masltr, m Htnry VIH..
119, 110, 305, 306
Crtwe, Portrait of Miu, S07
Crost^e, Diana, Lady, an
Crodnt, Portrait of Lady, 44, 141,
173' 17s, 300, 3o6, 3>6
CwM&trteMf, Portraits of ilu Dtihs
and DMchtti of, lOS
Cnmberiaad, Ricbud, 90, 95, 107,
lai
Cupid'and Ptyek*. 179
Cutlifie,6, 7, 10, II
CymoM atid Iphiftina, 150, 180
Dalion, Richard, Gg note, 73, 77
Dallon, Richard, Hon. Hem. ol
ER.A., 71
anur. Portrait of Mrt.. 108
Dance, Nathanid, 64 note, 74 note,
loS
Dsnte. 109
DamUy, Portraitjpf Lord. 177
DashkofE, Piinceaa, 147
Datkwood and Child, Lady, t6i
Delavar, Liard,
D'Eon, Chevalier, 175 and note
Dtrby, Portrait of Lady, iia
" Deserted Village," dedicated to
Reynolds, 85
Devonshire, Goorgiana, Dncheaa of,
118, 3It
DtBOtukir*, Portrait of th* Duektss
of, 119. 138 ^Gainsborough)
Daoontkira. Portrait of tk* Dttkt of,
119
Diamond Necklace, Afiair ol the,
17s
Dilettanti Society, 60, 98
Dibtlanii Society, Portrait Groups
of Ika, 123, 134 and note
" Discoarsea," Reynolds', 39, 75,
87, 140, 153, 164, 173, 173, 183,
1B3, 307, 313-335
Dorcneater, Reynolds visit*, 8$
Dorset, Portrait of the Duko of, I30
Dresden Gallerv, 49
Drummond, Aoam, 107
Dmry Lane, 131, 1*3, 319
Dublin, 148
" Duenna," Sheridan's, 1*5
Dnndas, Heniy, 147
Donning, Mr.. 147, 14S
Dunning, Portrait of Mr.,
DOssddorf, Reynolds at, 1$!
Dysart, Portrait of Lady, ite
EcKBKSAL, Hn., 147
44, too, 131 ; letter from Rey-
nolds to, 17
EdgeunOe, Portrait of Lord, 116
E^cumb*. Portrait of Rickard, Its
Edinburgh Gallery, 54
Egerton. Portrait of Mr., 157
EUot laniily, 15. 54
EUiotI, Portrait of Lady, 176
EBiol, Portrait of Mrt. DalryMpU,
Englefidd, Fortnit of Sir Henry,
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
•pnrilfih an l&artlatlc nation. 41
Ersiine, Portrait of. tj^
" Essay on Truth," Beattle'a.
" Essay on Women," Wilkes",
Essex Street Clnb, 173
Evans, Mary Anne, 31 1
" Evelina," Hiss Bnniey's, la;
Evdyn, John, his Mheme io
Audemy of Fine Art, 59
Exeter, mctniea by Gandy at,
Reynolds visits. 86
Garriek betvetn Tragtdy and
Comsdy, no, 303-304
Gamck, death of. 141 ; discussed in
" Imaginary Dialogoes," 134-140;
his friendship with Reynolds, 53 ;
Johnson on, 144
GatrUt. Portraits of, 119, 303, 304.
aoS ; Zofiany's Portrait of, 85
Garriek, PortraiU of Mr. and Mtf^
108
of a. gi, 116,
aos
Farington, 9
Ferrara, Reynolds at, 38
Fwrirt, Portrait of Lord, I tfi
FUippino (Lippi), 45
Flaher, Edward, 38
Flaher, Kitty, 54, a>l
Fishtr. Portrait of Kilty, 199, 100
Fitigtrald, Portrait of Lord Htnry,
179
Fitzherbert, Mr.. 90
Fitipatiick, Lady Gertrude, 147
Flaxman, 87
Fleet Street, 53
Florence, Academy of. I30: Rey-
nolds at, 31, 34-38
Foligno, Reynolds at, 34
Foote, Samuel, 95, 136-138
Fortttuda, 149
Forhine-TtlUr, Tttt, 133 and note
FotUr, Portrait of Lady Btlty, 177
Fox, C. J., 119, 135
Fox, Charhi Jam»s, Portrait of, 161,
163
France, Rej
FraneUin, 1 ...
Free Society of Artists, fit
French Revolution. 178
Fresnoy, Reynolds' notes t
39, 319
Fnseli, 181
trasted with Reynolds, 117, 118,
185, 303, 308, 309 ; his qnarrel
with the R.A., 165, [66; Rey-
nolds sits to, 155, 1(6, and note
Gait, 66, 68
Gandy, of Exeter, 13, 14, 16 note,
48,114. 194. aoS
Gaudy, WiUiam, 13
n^-mACmr 111. T »!.. •...
George IH., S4. 6a. 6s, 67-69, 73,
78,79. 84, 1J8. i83, 314
Gtorgt ill. and his Ckiidrtn (Gains-
Gerrard Street. J
Ghent, Reynolds at, 151
Giardini. iii and note
Gibraltar, Reynolds at, 15. 17
Gibbon, III, ISO, I3i, 133, 131,
133 ; (in " Imaginary Dialogue *'
with Johnson], 135-140
Gibbon, Portrait of, 146
Gidaon Childr»n. 177
Gilpin, Sawrey, 181
<Horgioiie, 30
Giotto, 35
Girl Siuping, 177
Girl with a KiUm (Fsh'iM), 177
Girt with Pigs (Gainsborough), 154
GloiuMstar, Portrait of th» Duchess of.
H6
Giouctster, DmJu of (F. Cotes], 79
Goldsmith. 80, 81, 89, 100, 109, iij,
110, 185; and NoTtbcote,95; Hon.
Mem. of R.A., 71 ; his friendship
withReynolds, $3'; joins Literary
Club, 57 i on Reynolds, 187 ; on
Reynolds' portrait of Beattie, lis
Goldsmith, Dr., Portrait of , 85, IIJ.
305, 109
Goldsmith's Sh* Stoops to Congutr,
Gordon, Portrait of tt« Duelteu of,
116
Gordon Riots, 147
Gosling, Portrait of Mts„ 157
Gosse, Ur. Edronnd, 214 note
Grafton, Dnke of, 81
Grantham and his Brothers, tfird,
, 177
oyGoo»:^Ic
INDEX
Gnen, Talenttna, letter to, 164
Gregaries, Reynolds visits, 109
Greville. Chulet, 187
Grignon, 61
Gnerciiu), mentioiMd, 30, 80 note ;
his drawings copied by Rey-
Gnido, 30
Gwtktkln family, 117
Gwatkin. Miss, 167
Gwatkin, Mr., S7
Gw&tkiii, Mn.. SM Palmer, Theo-
Gwatldn. Richard Lovell, 153, 153
Gwatkin, Tbeopbila, the yonnger,
207
Gtrynn, 96 note
Hackman, murderer of Hias Ray,
'44
Hsfne, Reynolds at the, 151
Hua, Fnuns, 151, 173, 199
Harbord, Portrait of Sir HaiiorJ
(Gainaboroagh), 15S
Harconxt, His., 147
Harris, Mr., o( Salisbnry, 131
Harris, Portrait of Lady, 1 77
Harrington. Portrait of Lord, 157
Hartley and Child, Mrs.. loS, 109
Hastings, Warren, 175. 177, 187
Hmierfiild, Portrait of Uiat, a\o
Haward, Francis, 164
Hawkeiworth, Dr., 81
Hawkins, Sir J., 57
Haydon. 41, 42
Hayman. Francis, 9, 36, 54, 64
note, 74 note
HtatkfiM. Portrait of Lord, 177,
30], so6, ao8, tog, an
Htb4 (F. Cotes), 79
Htctor and Andromaekt (A. ITanfi-
tnann), 79
Htrfrl, Masfar, as Baeehtts, 1 19
Hinchcliffe, Dr., 81
Mirsch. Mr., 146
Historical Hannscripts Commission,
106
. S. 7. 36. 39. 41. 43. 60.
*". 73> '49
Hogarth, on Thomhill's Academy,
tonytfood.
Portrait of Sir John,
146
HodsoQ, Tbonuu. 5, 6, 7, S-ia,
II. 17. S3. 81,97. 194. >97i criti-
dses Reynolds, 35 ; death of, 141 ;
his prolonged friendship with
Reynolds, $4 ; bis style, 14 ; Rey-
nolds apprenticed to, 6 ; rupture
between him and Reynolds, 10,
., l»9
Hume, Portrait of Lady, 171
Hanter, Dr. William, 68
Hunter, Portrait of Dr.] o\n. 174. S06
Huntingdon and Slormont, Lord*,
Portrait granp, 47
IcKwoRTH, 105 note
"Idler," 119
"Imaginary Dialogues": Reynold*
and Jonnson ; Johnson and
Gibbon, 133, and note, S19
Imhofi Marian (Mrs. Hastinp),
17s
luchignin, Conntess of, see Palmer,
Ma^
Incorporated Society of Artists, 57,
60, 61, 63. 66-68 and note, 69
and note, 73 and note, 93
Infant Hereuht. 114, 174. 17&-
178
Infant Jupiter, 116
Infant SI. Jolm, 119, iio
Infant Samuel, 119, ijo
Ingram, Miss, 147
Innocence, The Age of, 107
" Instrnment," The (constitntion
of R.A.), 67, 7t
Iackson of Exeter, r
lames. Sic W.. 147
jarvis' (or Jervas), glass-painter,
142. and note, 143 ; Peepshow of
the Oxford Window, 158
Jervas {see above)
Jtuil's Perspective, 4
"joel. Michelangelo's, 46
Johnson, Dr., 81, 107, 125, 130,
131, 141, 144, 313-119 ; and Dr.
Barnard. 115 ; at Academy Ban-
quet, 158, 166; consnlted by Rey
nolds, 66 ; death of, 1S7 ; bis ap-
preciation of Reynolds, 54 ; tiis
epitaph on G<ddsmith, 120; first
meeUne with Reynolds, 51 ; his
friendship with Reynolds, 52, 53 ;
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Ids nmaA on tbe Panttieon, g/8 ;
Hon Member of R^., 71 ; joins
the Literary Qnb, 56 ; letter to
Reynolds, I $6 j on art, 61 note ;
on Gold«mith'i litemy incceM,
131 ; on Sberidan's plays, 136 ;
on Reynolds, 166
Johnson, Dr., Portrait of, 85, IIS,
SOS. 309, 129, 211
Johnson, Dr.. projected statne of.
lands," Reynolds',
119
S8.
Lelasd, 131
Lely("Laiy"].97
Leslie, C R., quote
loS, 117, las. 187, , .
boTongb «nd the R.A.., 165
Leslie and Taylor, qnoted, 6, 1
13. 16. 39. 36, 40. 46, 7>> 9>> ''
167
Lessings', LaocoBn, 150, 151
M Suenr, Enitache. 33. 333
Ltvtson, Portrait of Lord, ifii
Liige, Roynolda at, 151
Kauffmamn, Angelica, 57,
64 note, 79, 118, 146
Kmbla. Portrait of Miss (iit
Twiss), t6t
Kennedy, Ptdly, $4. go. 91
Keppel. Admiral. 15-17, 45
Ktpptl, Portrait of Admirat, 43-45,
196-109
Keppd family, 54
Kingston, Dncheas of, I3I and note
KirW, Josiah, 66, 71, 73, 108
KiiMey. Ralph, iSj
Knapton, 43
Kneller, 97
Kntde, Fortrait of Goldsmith at, 86
Led», Lady, see Smith, Mrs,
Lady and Child, 133, 141
Lady, Portrait of a, 116, 133, 157
Langton, Beonet, 131; joins Literary
dab, 56
Largillitie, 43
Lawrence, an
L* Brun, Portrait of Madam*
(Gainsborongh),
Xm, Portrait of Solieilor-Gtntral,
'74
Leghorn, Reynolds at, 17
Leicester Fields, Reynolds' honse
in, 66, 67, 88, 115, 117. lao
Ltinstgr, Portrait of ths Dukt of.
Literary Qub, 56,08, 119, 135
Uoyd, Portrait of Mrs., 119, 3o6
Lock, Mr.. 90
London, Reynolds' arrives in, 36,
38
Loavain, Reynolds at, iji
Low Coantiies, Reynolds in the.li 58,
>73
Lnca Giordano, 30
Lncan, Lord, 111, 139
Lyims, 33
Mackintosh, Sir James, 88
Maidttont, H.H.S., 45
Maiden Lane Academy, 73
Halone, Edmnnd, 13, 56, 139, 141,
153, 314 and note
Manntri, Portrait of Lady Louisa,
141
M^imhi-afl Reynolds visits, 86
Martekestar, Dnciass of, and htr Son,
as Diana disarmiHg Cupid, 79
Mantna, Reynolds at, iS
Marcfai, Giuseppe, 33
Marehi, C„ Portrait of, 35, 195,
196
Marlborongh, Caroline, Dnchess of,
HaiiboTong^, Duke of , 116, [3i
Marlborough Family Group, 113,
135. 137, 138, 306
Marsham, Portrait of Lady Francos,
Mason, quoted, 43, 47, 48 ; on Rey
nolda' Nativity, 143,^143
Maynard, Sergeant, t
McArdeU, 195
Mechlin, Reynolds'at, iji
MediterranMui, Admiral Kcppel's
command in the, 15
Melancholy, aee Stanhopo, Mrs.,
Melbonme, Lord, 89
Mslboum* with h*r Chil4, Lady.
108
MMoumt, Portrait of Lad^, 120
" Memorials of an Eighteenth
Century Painter," Gwynn's, 96
Metcalf, Philip, 151, 153
Meyer, Jeremiah, 64 note, 74 note
Meytr, Portrait of Miu, 97
Michelangelo, 46,(163,. 163, 183
Milan, 33
Millais, 211, 325
oyGoo»:^Ic
INDEX
_._t«Jor.90
Ha, Sir Thomai, 107. 116, m
UOltOWD, Conntera oi, 18
liinorca, Reynoldi at, 16, 144, 14J
Ifodenft, Reynolda tX, 18
UolMworth, Sir W., 147
Mofyntut, Lady (Gainabonnigh),
79
Hontkgn, His., 121
MonSant, Mrs., Portrttti of, 119
Uont Cenls, 33
Ifontgomery, tha Misses, loi, loa,
113, 13?, 304. ijo: see also
Tkr— LadUs dteorating « Tann
ofHyimt*
More, Hannah, 117, ii
IJ3 B
119, 130. 131,
Morgan, Portrait of Col., 178
Morbnd, G«oi^, ^a
Morning Walk, Th* (Goinabonin^),
109, 31 1
Horris, Miss, 80; see also Hop»
nursing Loot
UoMT, Ceorgo, 64 and note, M,
«. 73
Moser, Haiy. 64 note, 85
Mount Edscnmbe, 15, 86, 113, 148
MotmhtOk, Portrait of Lady. S
Mount SUwari, Porlrail of Lord, ix>
Mndge famOv, 36
Hndge, Dr. John, 35
Madge, Mr., 99, 113
H<idg«, Zaf.hariah. 35
Unlive, Lord, I3i
Munich Gallery, 1 51
Uunrot. Portrait of Sir H., 173
Murphy, Arthur, 81
Murphy, Portrait of Arikur. 115
Miueiputa, 307
Mnsgnve, Dr., 131
Musters, Mrs., 147
Musl*rs, Portrait of Mrt., 173
National Gallery, 8. ao. II3, 150,
19s. 304, 307'
National Gallery of Irdand, 8, 18,
79. 8C, 148 note
NaUooal Portrait Gallery. 14. 38,
194
K^ivity, The, 141 and note, 143-
144
Nattier, 43
Naval Review, 109
Nesbitts, The, 80
New College Cbapd, Rern<rfda'
caTtoon.1 for window in, I41,
143, 146. 154. 158
Newport Street, 50, 53
Newton, F. M., 64 note, €8
Newton, Portrait of Bithop, 116
Nobleman, A Young, 133, 157
NofcfaMUK, Portrait of a. 173
Nollekens, Joseph, 41
" North Bnton, The," 54
Northcote, James. 3, 3, 33, 37, 4f,
", 106, 109, 130,158, iS9;qiioted«
letters of, 94 ; on MarBioroufh
Group, ia8 ; aketch of his career,
93, 93 and note i
NorthcotB, SamnBl, 99, 113
Norlhington, Portrait of Lord. 173,
Note-books, tea Pocket-books
Notes on Pictures in tlw NetlMT^
Nngent,' Dr., 56
Nogents, The, 81
Nnneham Conrtonay, Reynolda
visits, 109
Nymph and Baeehua, 91
Nymph with a young Bacchus IMru
Hartley and Child), loS
CBrixk, Nelly, 54, 3it
O'Brien, Portrait of Nelly, 160, soo-
303, 304, 307, 333, 336
O'Brien, Portrait of Lady. 175
Officer, Porlrail of an, 173
Ovlethorpe, General, 14.7
OldlUld. Anne. Portrait of, by J*
Ricbardaon, 38
Omiah, Portrait of, 1 19
Opie, John, 13, 153
Ord, Mrs., 13 1
Orleans, Portrait of the Dnhe of, 174
Ormonde, Duke of, 13
Qsaory, Lord, 8t
Oxford. Reynol(ls visits, t09
Oxford Umversity, i
Padua, 38, 33
Paines, Portrait Group of the teea,
PaU Hall, Bi^al Academy in, 77,
314
Palma Vecchio, 30
Palmer Manuscripts, 34, aS
Palmer, Hary, nie Reynolds, 7
Palniv. Hary, the younger, 87, 153,
iSo
Palmer, Mr., no
Palmer, Theophila {" Ofiy "}, 86.
87, 91, 94, 133, 187 i letter to, 153
Palmeiston, Lord, S9, g8, ti6, III
Pantheon, The, 98
Paoli, General, 133
Paris Bordme. 30
Paris, Reyncdds in, 33, 57, 97
oyGoo»:^Ic
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Parker ehildmi, 139
Porker family, 1 5
PukcT, Ut., 90
Puma, Reynolds at, a8
PoirhasiiiB, 34
Payne-GBUweT,IHra., lag
Pttilt Pelissf, Rabens', 44
Pelligrini, Carlo, meotioiied, iS
PeUew, Admiral,* 16
Penny, Edward, 64 note, 65, €6
68
Ptnion Lynn (Barref >), 79
Pwcy, Dr., ijr
Peridea, 33
Pensia, Reynolds at, 04, 15
E^dar, P«ter, 139
Pitt, 166
Pitti Palace, Reynold** notM on
pictnm in, II
Plymonth. S. 15. 3S. 36. "3
Plvmontb Dock (DovoaportJ, 11,
15. B6
PlynipUn, I. 2, 5, 86, 99, lOO, 113
Pocket-booki, notes in Reynolds',
19, ao, 35, 36, 38, 39, 30, 40. 66,
67,97,98, IIS, '58. i6i
nxiock, Nicolu, letter to, 148
" Poetical Review of Dr. Johnion'a
Character," 88
PortiEliot, IS, H8. I99
Poit'Mahon, Kejmolds at, 16, 17
Pott,' UiM Emay. 149 Bote
Pott, Portrait of Sttrgeou, 163
Potter, Theoidiila (Ua. S. Rey
nolds], I, a
Poynter, Sir Edward, «
President of R.A., Reynolds
fiiat. 66, 68, 71
Price. Portrmt 0/ MUt, 8$
RAUBBRa's pictnre of the R.A., 176
Ramsay, Allan, S4. 55' ^> Bi- ^Jt,
30I, 304
Raphael, 13. $'■ 45. 190, 333, 333
Reading Boy, ^f . ist and note
Reading Girl (Offy Pidmer], 91
Rtpdtu (West), 68, 70
" Relapse," Vanbmgh's, I33, I36
Rembrandt, 1 3, 14. 3o, 19a, 193.' '94.
197. 199 ! ^ influence on Rey-
nolds, 194-1961 304 ; Reynolds
copies his pictnrea, 194, 19s
ReMiation. Goldsmith's, S4
Reynolds, Misi Frances, 36, 40,
53,94, no, 131, 187
Reynolds. Sir Joshua, analy^ of
his art, 193-313; an inefficient
teacher, 37 ; ss a host, SS, 89 ;
as a writer, 313-330; Urth and
parentage, i ; edncation, 3, 4 :
choice of a profession, 4 ; chacac-
terof, 37, 1S5-190 ; critical ability
of, 23 i elected Alderman of
Plympton, 99 ; dected Mayor of
Flympton, 100, 113 ; his eyeei^t
fails, 180, 184; his last daya and
deabk, 183, 184; joins literary
Qab, 56 ; knighted, 79
Reynolds. PoriraU of, by Breda, 183 ;
by himself, 194, 16 note
Reynolds, Sir J., receives D.CX.
d^roe, 109 ; technical methods,
48, 491 theo
the variety
Rey*olds, fP'i
Portrait ffronp of, 38
Reynolds, Rev. Samnd, t, s, 3, 7,
Richardson, Jonathan, 5, 38, 141
Richmond, 1 19 ; Reynolds' homeat.
theory of art, a
iety ofnis art, 39
WMoH and C
Dnke of, 176
R^nd, John Francis, R,A., sS
" Rivals,*' Sheridan's, I3S
Robinetta, 307
Robin Goodftilov, 179. 180
Jiobimon, Portrait of Dr., 116
Robinson, Mis. (Perdita). I33, 175
Robinson, Portrait of Mrs. (Periita).
154. 303
Rodiester, Dr. Tiamat,Biski)p of, 154
Roden, Lord
Rodney. Portrait of Lord, 179
Rome, Reynolds at, 17, 19, S3, 03,
34, 35
Rome, Rejmolds on pictwea in, 19
Roubiliac, 36, 53, 304
Rubens, 30, 44, 199 ; his Ctutptau
dt Poil, 30I, 303; his affinities
with Reynolds, 158-160; bi»Rape
of llie Sabines, 151
Rnshbrooke, Bnry St. Edmonds, 105
Rntland, Dnchess of, 147
RuOoHd, Portrait of tJte Dmkut of,
'49
Rutland, the Children of tka Dmiu of.
116, 149, 173
Rntley, Ur., pictDie-cIeaner, 39
St. Abapb, Bishop of, 131, 153
SI. Asaph and Child, Lady, 170
St. Leger. Portrait of Col.. 1 54
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St.^Usrtin's Lane, 44 ; Reynolds
lodges in. 36, 39, 40 ; Thoniliill'i
Academy in, te, 73, 74
St. Paul, RaphMl'i, 45
St. F&nl's Cathbdial, propooed
decoration □[. 114
Saliibury, Portrait of Lady, 149
Saltram, is, 148, 105 note; Rey-
nolds visits, 86
Sat va tor Kosa, aoS. aaa
Saiviati, 20. 30, 308
Sandby, Pul, 64 not*
Sandtre, Thonuu. 68
Sandbar, William, 61, Sa
San Giobbe, Church of, 30
Santa Croce, Chnrch of, 35
Sta. Maria Uaggioie, Chnrch of,
30
Santa Maria Novdla, Chnrch of, *$
San Zaocaiia, Chnrch of. 30
Sctut from King John (Penny), 79
School of AHuns, tt* " Caricatfrv,"
Smith, PortraU of Mrt. Drum-
Society of Artists of Great Britain,
aiteiwards Incorporated Society,
51
Societjrof Arts, 61, i j8
Somerset Honse, 118, 154, 181-
[83 ; the Royal Academy In, 77,
Sophia Matilda, Portrait of Uu, Prin-
essi. III, 116, 307
Sottth Monlton, a
Somerley, 141 note, 143, 144
Spa, Reynolds at, iji
Spencer. Lord Robert. 81
Sptnetr, PortraU of Coitntttt. 174
Spitchwick, 148
Spring Gardens, exhibition, 61
Stanhops. Portrait of th$ Bo*.
Mrs., 173, and note, 176
Star and C^ter, Richmond, 98
5t(rfW, Portrait of, 300, 30J, 103,
ao8
" School for Scandal," Sheridan's,
136
Stoa. Portrait of Lady Carolina
Montagu, 133
Scott, Portrait of Lady E. Monlagu,
SIraxpberry Girl, Th*. IDS. 109, 1
lo; ; ci» also Palmer, Theophila
Streatham, 115, 139, 311
SliMfi, Portrail of Andrtm, 143,
Samnel Scott, portrait ot by £
eon, 8
Segnier, 180 and note
Selwyn, George, on Reynolds, 14J
Sharpe, Portrait of Joshua, 174
Sheffield. PortraU of Lord, 178
Sbelbnme, Lord, 115, I3i
Sheridan, i3i, 133, 177, 187
Sheridan, Portrait of, [79, 180
Sheridan. Bilrs., 118, 143, 309, 3il
Shtridan, Portrait of Mrt. (Gains-
botongb), 157
Shtridan, Mr$.. as SI. CtcUia, 116
"She Stoops to Conquer," prodnc-
tion of, TOO, 107
Siddons, Mrs., iso
Siddoiu, Mrs., as tht Tragic Must,
46, 11$, 15S, 161-164 and note
SintpUcity, 179, 307; m* alio,
Gwatkui,K^
Sistine Chapd. 33. 163, 163
Smart, Rev. TtuMUa, j
Smith, John Raphael, 147
Smith. Lady, and Childrm, laS.
176, 306
Smith, "Ufe of NoUekems," it
Smith. Portrait 0/ Mrt., tja and
TaOiot. Portrait of Lady Chariot
TarteloH, Portrait of Cot., 154
Taoiiloeh, Portrait of Lady, 199,
300,304
Taylor, Portrait of Lady, 174
Taylor, Tom. quoted, aj, 33, 66, 89,
po, 131 i tus sketch of a week
in Reynolds' life qnoted, [01-106;
on Reynolds in 1764, 55
Tcmptrance, 149
Temple, 183
TtmpU, Portrait of Lord, 119
Tennant, Sir Charies, 175, 300
Tetnaa, Keppd at, 1 j
Tintoretto, 30
Tintoretto's Marriag* in Cana, 30,
lltian, 30, 30, 43, 44, 197, 199, sof
3o8
Thais (Emily I\>lt), 149 and note
Thontoid.lbrchioness of, 133 note
(H ^ito Palmer, Mazy
Tbori (W. Bnrger), 193
ThorahiU, Sir James, 36, 73 ; hit
academy, fio
Thondon, PortraU of Mr., 149
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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Thfale. S6, iij, 139, 130, 134, 144
14s, i6e, 186, 187
Thrilei, The, 81, 1$$
TkrM Laditt dscorating a Tarm of
Hymen, too. loi, lis, 116, 304,
30S, 334, 33;
Thnrlow, Lord, 87, 166
TKurlow, Portrait of Lord, 154
TolUmache tu Miranda, Mrs., 1 16
Tama, 74 note
Treby. Hr.. 6, 86
Trecothick, Mrs., 78
Trip to Scuboron^ Th«, iss, la;
Tyramntl, Portrait of Lady. I3D
Fm <fer G—it, Portrait of Comaiu.
(VandycV], 190
VendtgvcM Ckiidrtn, TIm, 1^4
V«n Dyck. 13, 41, 44, 197. 199
Van Loo, 43
Van Nost, 36
VaiDlari, 30
Vasari. as
Veluquez, 44, n'l 19S, 199
Venice, 44 ; Reynolds at, 38-33
Vmus. 17 J
Kanfimann), 79
Vtmon, Portrait of Lord, 179
Viron, Eagine, 193
Veronese, Paolo, 30, 1C4
Vcrtue, engraver, 60
Vesey, His., i3i
Victoris and Albert Mnsenm, 9a
Vinci, Leonardo da, tS, 334
Voltaire, iia
Wftldegrave. Lady t . „
Waldtgtaot, Portrait Group of tt«
Ladits, 149, I jo, i$3, 3oiS
Wale, Samad, 61, 64 note. 68
(Toiw, Portrait of On Print* of
(Gainsborongli}, 154, 161, i7a.4ad
note, 176
Wallace CoUecUoo, 160. 175, MO,
'SO
Walsingham, lbs., iii
Ward, Portrait of Miit, I76
Wailey Camp; 139
Warfon. Portrait of, 161
Watson, Portrait of the Han. Mn.,
179
WelUnrton, Dnke of, 50
West, Benjamin, 64 and note, 66, 69,
74 note, 99, 183
Wayland. Portrait of Mrs., tao
Wtaeatiey, F., 14S
Wbite, Geoiga, the Paviour. 90,
_?'■ '°?
Whitefoord, Caleb, 107
Wilka. John, hia Mendsbip with
Reynolds, 53, 54, So, 84, 187
William Frideriek, Portrait of
Prinu, I4fi
Wilson, Richaid, 41, 74 note, 15s
and note
Wilton, Joseph, 37, 38, 41, 54, 64
not^ 65-67, 70
Wilton Honse, S6
Windham, Portrait of Colonel. 154
Wobum, 86
Wolcot, Dr. (Peter Pindar], i ;8
WoTSley. Portraits of Sir RicMard
and Lady, lao, 139, 146
Wren, Sir Cbriatopber, 113
Wyndham, 177
Ybo, Richard, 64 note
Yorhe, Portrait of MasUr, 176
Yorlt, Reynolds at, 86
Young NoUtman.A, 133
Zbitxis, 34
Zofiany, 08
Znccai^, FnuiGCSCO, 64 note. 74
note
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