this was natural the reader will see from such exclamations of the old painter as these:

"Oh the pleasure! when a connoisseur and lover of art has before him a picture or drawing of which he can truly say, This is the hand, these are the thoughts of him who was one of the politest, best-natured gentlemen that ever was; and beloved and assisted by the greatest wits and the greatest men then at Rome: of him who lived in great honour and magnificence, and died extremely lamented." Read "London for "Rome," and how exactly does every word of this passage apply to Reynolds, when he had risen to the top of his art!

Again: "When a man enters into that awful gallery at Hampton Court, he finds himself among a sort of people superior to what he has ever seen, and very probably to what those really were. Indeed this is principal excellence of those wonderful pictures,

must be allowed to be that part of painting which preferable to all others."

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Hampton Court is the great school of Raphael; God be praised that we have such an invaluable May the Cartoons continue in that place, *. ways to be seen; unhurt and undecayed so long nature of the materials of which they are comcod will possibly allow! May even a miracle be win their favour, as themselves are some of the Jintances of the Divine Power which endued

Han with abilities to perform such stupendous

a, when he called looking over the elder Richardson's 10, 1789), on drawings, said he understood his art

The father of Reynolds possessed a few prints, and Joshua copied such illustrations as he found in his books, particularly the engravings in Dryden's edition of Plutarch's Lives. But Jacob Cats' Book of Emblems, which his grandmother by his father's side, it has been said, brought with her from Holland, delighted him the most.1

Terrific subjects make a strong impression on young minds; and one of the prints in this book, a shepherd consulting a witch in her cave, where she sits surrounded by hideous objects, remained so long in his memory as to suggest the picture he painted for Boydell's Shakespear Gallery, of the caldron scene in Macbeth. Another plate, of a sorceress sitting at supper on a chair composed of a skeleton, no doubt suggested to him the similar chair on which his Hecate sits in that picture; and his portrait of Kitty Fisher, as Cleopatra dissolving the pearl, seems also to have had its origin from the same book.

When he was not more than twelve years old he painted a portrait of the Rev. Thomas Smart, who was a tutor in the family of Richard Edgcumbe, afterwards

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

municating intelligence concerning the King of Prussia, and other topics of the day, as Dr. Burney, who knew him very well, informs me. His Richardsoniana are not uninteresting."-PRIOR's Life of Malone, p. 403.—ED.

1 Northcote speaks of her as a Dutchwoman, and the family pedigrees state that John Reynolds married her at Antwerp. Her name, however, was English (Mary Ainsworth); and her marriage is registered at Exeter, in 1673.

the first Lord Edgcumbe. This picture, we are told, was painted in a boat-house at Cremyll beach, under Mount Edgcumbe, on a canvas which was part of a boat-sail, and with the common paint used in shipwrights' painting-sheds. He had no doubt made many drawings before this, which is supposed to be his first attempt in oil; and considering the youth of the artist, and the means at his command, it is not surprising that it had little artistic merit. 1

More than four years elapsed after the painting of this picture before the profession of Joshua was determined. A series of letters from Samuel Reynolds to Mr. Cutcliffe, an attorney at Bideford, carries on the narrative, and brings us more intimately acquainted than we have yet been with the father of so extraordinary a son.

I trust these letters will not be found to occupy too much space. The peculiar characters of the father and mother of a man of genius interest us on his account, if not on their own; and where there is genius of so high an order as that of Reynolds, it seems not in nature that the parents, certainly not that both parents,

1 The picture is now in the posses- | boys, so runs the story, ran down sion of Deble Boger, Esq., of Anthony, from Smart's church at Maker (the near Plymouth, where I saw it lately. tower of which peeps from the trees The local tradition, which carries in- above Cremyll beach, which borders ternal evidence in its favour, is, that the Mount Edgcumbe grounds on the this jolly, moon-faced tutor and parson, sea-side), to the boat-house, and there was a butt of young Dick Edgcumbe's, Reynolds perpetrated the portrait. It a humorist from boyhood, and that is, as described, on a rough canvas, Dick put young Reynolds (with whom roughly painted, but is not without he may well have been acquainted, character, and a certain broad cleverowing to the family connection withness. Mr. Boger has still a silver the borough of Plympton) up to paint- tankard given by Lord Edgcumbe to ing Smart's likeness, from a surrep- Mr. Smart.-ED. titious sketch taken in church.

The

should be ordinary persons. Theophila Reynolds may not have been living at the time at which we have arrived. The registers of her children's births prove, however, that she had lived long enough to exercise some influence on the character of Joshua; but what that was, or how much of his mind may have been an inheritance from his mother, we have no means of knowing.

The first letter to Mr. Cutcliffe is a long one, in which Mr. Reynolds begins by telling his correspondent that he had been reading six political pamphlets and the sermons of Dr. Mudge. It goes far to prove that the writer was not, as he has been called, an indolent man. I shall quote only the portions of it that relate to Joshua.

66

"Plympton, March 17th, 1740.

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

1 A gentleman of small independent than his own. Three of them are fortune, who resided at Plympton. now in possession of Deble Boger, He was probably the first to predict Esq. Reynolds painted his picture. the future eminence of Joshua; who, and his wife's. The former is now in grateful remembrance of his early at Glynn, in Cornwall, the seat of kind offices, had a handsome silver Lord Vivian, whose ancestor, John cup made to present to him, but Mr. Vivian, married Betsy Craunch, Mr. Craunch died before it was ready. He Craunch's daughter, and an old sweetadvanced Reynolds money for his visit heart of Dr. Wolcot's (Peter Pindar), to Italy, and the young painter brought who used to describe her as a pretty him a set of four landscapes on his creature." She too sat to Sir Joshua return from abroad, chosen, no doubt, in 1762.-Ed.

to suit Mr. Craunch's tastes, rather

please God I live, but he should be sufficiently instructed another way: besides that, he has spent a great deal of time and pains with that view already, and to that purpose I do intend to make a proposal to Mr. Raport of our town, so that I shall have an opportunity of instructing him on the spot; and if Mr. Raport is not inclined, then to make the proposal to my wife's kinsman, Mr. Baker, of Bideford. The other is, that Joshua has a very great genius for drawing, and lately, on his own head, has begun even painting; so that Mr. Warmell, who is both a painter and a player, having lately seen but his first performances, said, if he had his hands full of business, he would rather take Joshua for nothing than another with 50%. Mr. Craunch told me, as to this latter, he

could put me in a way. Mr. Hudson (who is Mr. Richardson's son-in-law) used to be down at Bideford, and would be so, he believed, within these two months; he persuaded me to propose the matter to you, and that you should propose it to Mr. Hudson, that Joshua might show him some of his performances in drawing, and, if the matter was likely to take effect, should take a journey to Bideford himself. I mentioned this to Joshua, who said he would rather be an apothecary than an ordinary painter; but if he could be bound to an eminent master, he should choose the latter; that he had seen a print from Mr. Hudson's painting which he had been very much pleased with. Now here I have given you a naked account of the matter, upon

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