LITERATURE AND ART.] SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

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Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller, it is remarkable that both were natives of Germany. The principal sculptors then amongst us were Rysbrack and Roubiliac, the former a Fleming, and the latter a Frenchman. But in the early years of George the Third we may point with especial pride to the name of Joshua Reynolds. He was born in 1723 at Plympton in Devonshire. His father and his grandfather also were clergymen of the Church of England, but left him little other patrimony besides his genius. That genius almost from his boyhood impelled him to the pursuit of art. He repaired to London, and became the pupil of Hudson, no great portrait-painter, yet still the best of his day in England. The first of his own portraits which attracted even the smallest degree of public notice was of Captain Hamilton, whose son became the first Marquis of Abercorn: this portrait he painted in 1746.

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Three years later he went to pursue his studies at Rome, where we find him speak as follows of himself: "I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with me "from England, where the art was in the lowest state it "had ever been in (it could not, indeed, be lower), were "to be totally done away, and eradicated from my mind. "It was necessary, as is expressed on a very solemn oc66 casion, that I should become as a little child."" He owns that at first sight the works of Raphael at the Vatican gave him little pleasure. But this he had the wisdom to ascribe at once to the true cause, to no deficiencies in that great Master, but solely to his own. In a short time, he says, a new taste and new perceptions began to dawn upon him, and he found that he could measure the progress of his own improvement by the growth of his admiration for Raphael.* He adds these remarkable words: Having since that period fre"quently revolved this subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher excel"lences of art is an acquired taste, which no man ever

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* Similar to this, but less just perhaps, is the rule in the study of eloquence which Quintilian laid down : "Ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit." (Instit. lib. x. c. i.)

possessed without long cultivation, and great labour and "attention."*

On returning to England, in 1752, he took a house in London, and applied himself most assiduously to the pursuit of his profession. His advancing fame was shown (the test is a sordid but a sure one) by his advancing profits. In 1758, we find his friend Dr. Johnson write as follows: "Mr. Reynolds has within these few days "raised his prices to twenty guineas a head; and Miss (Reynolds, his sister,) "is much employed in miniatures.Ӡ Years rolled on, and fame increased, until at last Sir Joshua, in his old age, received from Horace Walpole (not without some reluctance in the latter) a thousand guineas for his fine picture of the three Ladies Waldegrave.

The revival of British art, and the number of artists in London, could not fail, besides the example of foreign countries, to suggest to them the advantages of association. About the time of the accession of George the Third they agreed to have an annual exhibition of works of art. They met with many difficulties, and but moderate encouragement. In 1765 they obtained a Charter of Incorporation, which, however, could by no means reconcile their divers sections and parties. At last, in 1768, they were constituted by the King as the ROYAL ACADEMY, to include all three branches of architecture, sculpture, and painting. His Majesty, although himself no judge of art, became its patron. During several years, he made liberal grants from his Privy Purse to the rising Academy, until the receipts from its early exhibitions had grown to be more than sufficient for its objects. Apartments also were assigned it by its Royal Patron, in 1780, at Somerset House.‡

:

Of the new institution Reynolds was with good reason, and by an unanimous vote, elected President. On that occasion he received the honour of knighthood an honour which ever since has been considered as almost

*Life of Reynolds by Malone, p. xii.

note.

Letter to Mr. Langton, January 9. 1758, and Mr. Croker's

The sums contributed by the King at various times exceeded 5000%. In 1779 the receipts of the Exhibition were upwards of 15007., and double that sum was obtained in the next year,-the first in Somerset House. (Life of Reynolds by Malone, p. xxiii.)

LITERATURE AND ART.] ROYAL ACADEMY.

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the right of his successors. To the duties of his office he brought an enlightened judgment, a mild dignity, a never-failing love of Art. Seldom indeed have such Chairs been more worthily filled than were, for some time concurrently, that of the Royal Society by Sir Joseph Banks, and that of the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Though not always quite friendly in his feelings towards the artists who had risen by his side *, he was uniformly kind and helpful to the rising. His counsel was prompt to guide and his hospitality to cheer them. At his board, which once at least in every week was open to a company of guests, they might meet and commune with some of the leading spirits of the age in other walks of life beside their own; while presiding over all was seen, with spectacles on his nose, and with a trumpet at his ear, that placid and benignant countenance which his own pencil has often portrayed, and made familiar to us.

The application of Sir Joshua to his art was never relaxed by his growing wealth or fame. Usually he was in his painting room before ten o'clock, and remained there at least six hours. According to the fine expression of Mr. Burke, who to the honour of both was his intimate friend: "In painting portraits, he appeared not to be "raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a "higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and "his lessons seem to be derived from his paintings." Never, perhaps, was his pencil more felicitous and truthful than in all its delineations of infancy. It was one of his favourite maxims that all the gestures of children are graceful, and that the reign of distortion and unnatural attitude commences with the dancing master.†

care.

It was to portraits that Reynolds gave his more especial Yet they did not wholly engross it. Many exquisite fancy pieces of the most opposite kinds bear witness to his skill. How various, for example, are the works of his genius contained in that grey old mansion of Knole, where, embosomed in coeval groves of beech, the accomplished race of the Sackvilles, now extinct in the male Îine, showed themselves both partakers and patrons of

*See on this point the Memoirs of Sir Joshua by Northcote, p. 317. &c., and the Supplement, p. cxlii.

+ Life by Malone, p. lii.

intellectual eminence! There in one place we find Sir Joshua personify with the laughing eyes and the elastic form of Mrs. Abington the Comic Muse. There, on another side, we behold him follow in the footsteps of the Tuscan poet of old time—unveil the dismal secrets of the "Tower of Hunger,"-and portray Count Ugolino and his children in the agonies of their famishing despair.

Far from being satisfied with his own success, Sir Joshua was ever aiming at improvement. Late in his career, and at considerable cost, he took the pains to discompose some valuable pictures of the old Venetian School, in order to trace and ascertain their process of colouring. It must be owned, however, that such experiments were made in some measure at the expense of his friends. Thus at Blenheim, which, during one phase of his art, he adorned with many admirable portraits, a spectator at the present day must observe with concern, that the colours have so far faded from each face of female loveliness as exactly to resemble the livid hues of death. The change can scarce have been greater in the originals themselves.

From some such result or anticipation, Sir Joshua did not persevere for any long period in the new courses which he tried. Towards the close of his life, he had an opportunity to see again that portrait of Captain Hamilton which he had painted some forty years before. He was surprised to find it so good, and, comparing it with his later works, lamented that during so many years he should not have made a greater progress.*

Of the other principal painters at this time, Hogarth had died four years before the Academy was constituted. The best judges have deemed him deficient in the art of colouring. But, as Horace Walpole happily expresses it, he should be considered rather as a writer of comedy with a pencil than as a painter. Allan Ramsay, son of the poet of that name, though far inferior to Reynolds, showed in his portraits both taste and skill. Like Reynolds he was a friend of Dr. Johnson, who speaks of him with warm regard, and survived him only a few months. †

* Life by Malone, p. viii. "Poor Ramsay !

I no sooner lost sight of dear Allan "than I am told that I shall see him no more.' (To Si Joshua Reynolds, Aug. 19. 1784.)

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Ramsay was painter in ordinary to the King and Queen; in fact, it has been remarked, that their Majesties never gave Sir Joshua a commission for a single picture, and sat to him only once, when their portraits were required for the Royal Academy.* In 1766, however, Reynolds was selected to paint the portrait of the Queen of Denmark on her marriage. He was wont to complain of the difficulties of the task, since during the hours of sitting, that ill-assorted and unhappy Princess had been for the most part in tears.†

Romney was another painter of high reputation in his day. There are not many things in biography more striking than the tale how, at the age of twenty-seven, he forsook his young wife at Kendal, and went forth to seek his fortune in London - how, after seven-and-thirty years of desertion, he returned to her, rich indeed and famous, but worn out in body and in mind—and how, with patient forgiveness, she nursed him during his remaining span of decay, and at last of imbecility. When in full possession of his powers, he had been deemed a rival to Sir Joshua himself, and it is by no means to the credit of the President, that Romney never was elected even an associate of the Royal Academy. Indeed, whenever Reynolds had occasion to refer to him, he would call him only "the man in Cavendish Square." In those days Lord Thurlow had said: "There are two "factions in Art, and for my part I am of the Romney "faction." But, as Mr. Southey observes, time has reversed the Chancellor's decision.†

The true rival of Reynolds, in our eyes at least, was Gainsborough. Born and bred in Suffolk, he had not the advantages of academic education or foreign travel; but from his earliest years he manifested an inborn passion for art. A beautiful wood near Sudbury is still shown, where Gainsborough, in his school-boy days, used to sit and fill his copy-books with pencillings of flowers and trees. With Wilson he divides the honour of founding

* Memoirs by Northcote, p. 259.

† Ibid. Supplement, p. xliii.

Life of Cowper, vol. iii. p. 77.

§ Cunninghain's Lives of the Painters, vol. iii. p. 320.