Portrait with two hats.-Rome.-First impressions.

the portrait of an elderly servant woman of Hudson's. It was accidentally exhibited in Hudson's gallery, and obtained general applause. This was more than the old man could endure. Without any warm words a separation took place, and Reynolds returned to Devonshire; here he passed three years in company, from which, as he informed Malone, little improvement could be gained.

When he was twenty-two years old, Reynolds and his two youngest sisters took a house at the town of Plymouth Dock: here he occupied the first floor, and employed his time in painting portraits. It must be confessed that many of his productions, up to this period, were carelessly drawn, in common attitudes, and undistinguished by those excellences of colouring and power of expression which have made his name famous. His old master, Hudson, was still strong within him. One hand was hid in the unbuttoned waistcoat; the other held the hat; and the face was looking forwards with that vacant listlessness which is the mark of a sitter who conceives portrait painting to resemble shaving, and that the sine qua non is to keep his features stiff and composed. One gentleman desired to be distinguished from others, and was painted with his hat on his head; yet so inveterate had the practice of painting in one position become, that— if there be any truth in the story—when the likeness was sent home, the wife discovered that her husband had not only one har on his head, hut another under his arm.

Rome, which is in reality to painters, what Parnassus is in imagination to poets, was frequently present to the fancy of Reynolds; and he longed to see with his own eyes the glories of art, of which he had heard so much. He went to Rome in 1749. Of his first impressions in the Metropolis of Art, he has left a minute account. "It has frequently happened," says he, "as I

Disappointment.-New perception of art.

was informed by the keeper of the Vatican, that many of those whom he had conducted through the various apartments of that edifice, when about to be dismissed, have asked for the works of Raphael, and would not believe that they had already passed through the rooms where they are preserved; so little impression had these performances made on them. One of the first painters of France once told me that this circumstance happened to himself; though he now looks on Raphael with that veneration which he deserves from all painters and lovers of art. I remember very well my own disappointment when I first visited the Vatican but, on confessing my feelings to a brother student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the works of Raphael had the same effect on him, or rather that they did not produce the effect which he expected. This was a great relief to my mind, and on inquiring farther of other students, I found that those persons only who, from natural imbecility, appeared to be incapable of relishing those divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them. All the undigested 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 it is expressed, on a very solemn occasion, that I should become as a little child. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of those excellent works. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to feel their merit and admire them more than I really did. In a short time, a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the admiration of the world.

Return to England. Opposition.

The truth is, that if these works had really been what I expected, they would have contained beauties superficial and alluring, but by no means such as would have entitled them to the great reputation which they have borne so long, and so justly obtained."

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He contemplated with unwearied attention and ardent zeal the various beauties which marked the style of different schools, and different ages. It was with no common eye that he beheld the productions of the great masters. He copied and sketched in the Vatican such works of Raphael and Michael Angelo as he thought would be most conducive to his future excellence, and by his well-directed study acquired, while he contemplated the best works of the best masters, that grace of thinking, to which he was principally indebted for his subsequent reputation as a portrait painter." After an absence of nearly three years, he returned to England; and, after visiting Devonshire for a few weeks, he established himself as a professional man in London. He found such opposition as genius is commonly doomed to meet with, and does not always overcome. The boldness of his attempts, the freedom of his conceptions, and the brilliancy of his colouring, were considered as innovations upon the established and orthodox system of portrait manufacture. The artists raised their voices first; and of those, Hudson, who had just returned from Rome, was loudest. His old master looked for some moments on a Boy, in a turban, which he had just painted, and exclaimed: "Reynolds, you don't paint so well as when you left England!" Ellis, an eminent portrait-maker, who had studied under Kneller, lifted up his voice next: "Ah! Reynolds, this will never answer' Why, you don't paint in the least like Sir Godfrey." The youth ful artist defended himself with much ability, upon which the other exclaimed in astonishment, at this new heresy in art

Royal Academy.-First president.-Public discourses.

"Shakspeare in poetry, and Kneller in painting!" and walked The contest with his fellow-artists was of short The works which had gained him celebrity, were

out of the room.

continuance.

not the fortunate offspring of some happy moment, but of one who could pour out such pictures in profusion. Better ones were not

slow in coming.

The Royal Academy was planned in 1768. A list of thirty members was made out; and West called on Reynolds, and succeeded in persuading him to join them. He ordered his coach, and, accompanied by West, entered the room where his brother artists were assembled. They rose up to a man, and saluted him president. He voluntarily imposed on himself the task of delivering discourses, for the instruction of students in the principles of their art. They were delivered during a long succession of years, in a manner cold, and sometimes embarrassed, and even unintelligible. A nobleman, who was present at the delivery of the first of the series, said: "Sir Joshua, you read your discourse in so low a tone, I scarce heard a word you said." "That was to my advantage," replied the president, with a smile. The king, to give dignity to the Royal Academy of Great Britain, bestowed knighthood on the president; and seldom has any such distinction been bestowed amid more universal approbation. He died in 1792, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. Sir Joshua has a three-fold claim on posterity for his discourses, his historical an! poetical paintings, and his portraits.

The portraits of Reynolds are equally numerous and excellent; and all who have written of their merits, have swelled their eulogiums, by comparing them with the simplicity of Titian, the vigour of Rembrandt, and the elegance and delicacy of Vandyke. Certainly, in character and expression, and in manly ease, he has never been surpassed. He is always equal; always natural,

Style of portraiture.-Portraits of eminent personages.—Poetic subjects.

graceful, unaffected. His boldness of posture, and his singular freedom of colouring, are so supported by all the grace of art, by all the sorcery of skill, that they appear natural and noble. Over the meanest head he sheds the halo of dignity; his men are all nobleness, his women all loveliness, and his children all simplicity; yet they are all like the living originals. He had the singular art of summoning the mind into the face, and making sentiment mingle in the portrait.

The admirers of portrait painting are many, and it is pleasant to read the social and domestic affections of the country in these innumerable productions. In the minds of some, they rank with historical compositions; and there can be no doubt that portraits, which give the form and the soul of poets, and statesmen, and warriors, and of all whose actions or whose thoughts lend lustre to the land, are to be received as illustrations of history. The most skilful posture and the richest colouring cannot create the reputation which accompanies genius, and we turn coldly away from the head which we happen not to know, or to have heard of. The portrait of Johnson has risen to the value of five hundred guineas, while the heads of many of Sir Joshua's grandest lords remain at their original fifty.

Of historical and poetic subjects he painted upwards of one hundred and thirty They are chiefly in England; and in the galleries of the titled or opulent. The names of a few of the most famous may interest the reader: Macbeth and the Witches; Cardinal Beaufort; Holy Family; Hercules strangling the Serpents; The Nativity; Count Ugolino; Cymon and Iphigenia; The Fortune-teller; Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy; The Snake in the Grass; The Blackguard Mercury; Muscipula, Puck; Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse; The Shepherd Boy; Venus chiding Cupid for Casting Accounts, &c