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art," continues Northcote, "I have heard him say that whenever a new sitter came to him for a portrait, he always began it with a full determination to make it the best picture he had ever painted; neither would he allow it to be an excuse for his failure to say 'the subject was a bad one for a picture;' there was always nature, he would observe, which, if well treated, was fully sufficient for the purpose."

His early friend, Lord Edgcumbe, we are told by Mason, "persuaded many of the first nobility to sit to him for their pictures; and he very judiciously applied to such of them as had the strongest features, and whose likeness, therefore, it was the easiest to hit. Most of them also had, but a little time before, sat to Vanloo, a Dutchman, who, while he remained in England, was in high fashion, though a dirty colourist, and whose only merit was that of taking a true but tame resemblance of features. Amongst those personages were the old Dukes of Devonshire and Grafton; and of these the young artist made portraits, not only expressive of their countenances, but of their figures, and this in a manner so novel, simple, and natural, yet withal so dignified, as procured him general applause, and set him in a moment above his old master, Hudson, and that master's rival, Vanloo. But the portrait which tended most to establish his reputation was a whole-length of Captain Keppel (afterwards Admiral) on a sandy beach, the background a tempestuous sea. A figure so animated, so well drawn, and all its accompaniments so perfectly in unison with it,

1 Engraved in 1755.-Ed.

2 Now in the picture-gallery at Oxford.-ED.

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I believe never was produced before by an English pencil."

1

In the conception of this fine picture he availed himself of an event that had occurred before the commencement of his acquaintance with the Commodore. Keppel, when but twenty-one years of age, had been appointed to the command of the Maidstone, a fiftygun ship, and in the following year was wrecked in her on the coast of France, while in the pursuit of a large French vessel. By great exertion he saved most of his crew; and, on his return to England, was honourably acquitted of all blame by the unanimous resolution of a court-martial, that "the loss of his Majesty's ship Maidstone was in no manner owing to Captain Keppel or any of his officers, but to the thickness of the weather at the time the Maidstone was chasing in with the land, and the ledge of rocks she struck upon being under water, and therefore not perceived, and trusting to the ship the Maidstone was chasing, which had the appearance of being a large one, and drawing near as much water as the Maid

stone.'

In the picture Keppel appears on a rocky shore; the breakers are around him, and he is stepping forward

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

and men of a squadron which the Government of the country had done everything it could do to render inefficient, except in its appointment of those officers.

Keppel's first promotion to the rank of a lieutenant came from Anson, who had witnessed his gallantry during a successful action with a Spanish galleon.

to give his orders with an energy and an expression that tell the story, though no other figure is seen. Light, spare, and active, and with a quick eye of great intelligence, he looks the very beau idéal of a sailor.

When the Maidstone was wrecked there was no such thing as a naval uniform. Every officer wore what he pleased; and Keppel, while with Anson, had part of a jockey cap shot away from his head in the attack on Payta. When the picture was painted, however, uniforms were worn, and Reynolds committed the justifiable anachronism of dressing his friend as he then dressed.1

Keppel was the first of many heroes painted by Reynolds, who was never excelled, even by Velasquez, in the expression of heroism. So anxious was he to do all possible justice to his gallant friend, and so difficult. did he find it to please himself, that after several sittings he effaced all he had done, and began the picture again.

And yet, in this admirable portrait, which cost him so much pains, the attitude is taken from that of a statue, of which a drawing by Reynolds is in the possession of Mr. William Russell; and of which he again made use in a whole-length of the Earl of Carlisle, making the picture very unlike that of Keppel, not only by its background, but by dressing the Peer in the robes of the Thistle. I have been unable to ascertain the subject of the statue, or to what period it belongs. The

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

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

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