very nearly of the same age. The most interesting is that in which she holds a dove in her lap, while another is about to descend to its mate from the back of the sofa on which she reclines.

Of this composition there are three repetitions; one is in the possession of Mr. Munro, another belongs to Lord Crewe, and the third is in the collection of Mr. Lenox of New York. They are all very lovely; and the lady looks innocent as her doves-as she no doubt could look. It is very strange that there is no contemporary engraving of any one of these charming pictures. Of the two others, the one at Petworth, and that in which Kitty personates Cleopatra dissolving the pearl, there are engravings.

The Petworth portrait of Kitty Fisher must have been the first painted, as the dressing of the hair in it is of an earlier fashion than in the others. In this picture a letter lies open on the table on which she rests her arms; and the date on the letter, which is very indistinct, looks like "1759." 1

[Among his sitters this year are three actors— Garrick, Woodward, and Barry.

Both Barry and Woodward were excellent actors, and the painter has well expressed the characteristic points of each. Woodward, the best Petruchio, Copper Captain, Captain Flash, and Bobadil of his day, had brisk and genuine, if rather brassy humour. In spite

1 There is a charming portrait of her in Lord Lansdowne's Gallery, in profile, with a parrot on her fore-finger. But the loveliest, perhaps, of all the

portraits of Kitty is an unfinished head in powder, and a fly cap, in Lord Carysfort's possession.-ED.

of his sense and with the best intentions, he never could utter a line of tragedy. His face, for all its regular and handsome features, the moment he spoke beamed somehow with irresistible mirth, and seemed to carry a laugh in every line. In Barry, on the other hand, Reynolds had to paint a man so gifted by nature, and so formed by study, for heroes and lovers, that his charm seemed almost to defy time. On his last appearance in 1776, he was so infirm that before the curtain rose it was thought he could not support himself through the play, but in spite of decay he played Jaffier with such a glow of love and tenderness, and such a heroic passion, as thrilled the theatre, and spread even to the actors on the stage with him, though he was almost insensible when, after the fall of the curtain, he was led back to the Green-room. There was, we are told, in Barry's whole person such a noble air of command, such elegance in his action, such regularity and expressiveness in his features, in his voice such resources of melody, strength, and tenderness, that the greatest Parliamentary orators used to study his acting for the charm of its stately grace and the secret of its pathos.

But in Garrick Reynolds had to express something far subtler, more impalpable and evanescent than the bold humour of Woodward or the pathetic dignity of Barry. He had to light the eyes with that meteoric sensibility, and to kindle the features with that fire of life, which could deepen into the passion of Lear, sparkle in the vivacity of Mercutio, or twinkle in the fatuousness of Abel Drugger. He had to paint the

man who of all men that ever lived presents the most perfect type of the actor: quick in sympathy, vivid in observation, with a body and mind so plastic that they could take every mould, and give back the very form and pressure of every passion, fashion, action; delighted to give delight, and spurred to ever higher effort by the reflection of the effect produced on others, no matter whether his audience were the crowd of an applauding theatre, a table full of noblemen and wits, a nursery group of children, or a solitary black boy in an area; of inordinate vanity; at once the most courteous, genial, sore, and sensitive of men; full of kindliness, yet always quarrelling; scheming for applause even in the society of his most intimate friends; a clever writer, a wit, and the friend of wits, yet capable of mutilating Hamlet,' and degrading 'The Midsummer Night's Dream' into a ballet opera.

There is not so curiously complex a personage as Garrick in all that half-century, rich as it was in character. If the man be admitted less worthy of love than Goldsmith or Reynolds, of respect than Johnson or Burke, it is, I suppose, because of his mobility, his mirror-like, glancing mind, which could reflect and dazzle, but neither originate nor retain.

Such as he was, Reynolds has painted immeasurably the best portraits of him. There are seven of them; that of this year was the first. To paint Garrick was to come into direct competition with all the notable portraitpainters of the time. Everybody painted Garrick— Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hayman, Dance, Cotes, Hone, Zoffany, Angelica Kauffman. His London house in Southampton Street, and afterwards in the

Adelphi, was full of portraits of himself, gifts or purchases. But for the world Garrick is immortalised by the pencil of Reynolds; and chiefly by that happy allegory of him between Tragedy and Comedy, painted two years after this.

It is pleasant to think what a heavy debt of pleasure Reynolds was repaying in those pictures. He had, no doubt, seen and admired Garrick in the actor's primest days, while himself working under Hudson between 1742 and 1744. Cumberland's vivid account helps us, better than any other description, to understand what a revelation Garrick's acting must have been to the young men of that day. The play he describes was the Fair Penitent: Quin was the Horatio, Ryan the Altamont, Mrs. Cibber the Calista, Mrs. Pritchard the Lavinia, Garrick the Lothario. "Quin presented himself upon the rising of the curtain in a green velvet coat embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled square-toed shoes. With very little variation of cadence, and in deep full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the plaudits bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key high-pitched but sweet withal, sung, or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain, somewhat in the manner of the improvisatoris. It was so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the manner of every succeeding one: it was like a long legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of