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rivals as these that Reynolds was to win the crown and keep it.'

On the death of Samuel Reynolds the family was obliged to remove from the schoolmaster's residence at Plympton. Joshua took a house at Plymouth Dock, where he resided with his two unmarried sisters.

In after life he told Malone that, in Devonshire, "he passed about three years in company from whom little improvement could be got; and when he recollected this period of his life, he always spoke of it as so much time thrown away so far at least as related to a knowledge of the world and of mankind, of which he ever afterwards lamented the loss. However," continues Malone, "after some little dissipation, he sat down seriously to the study and practice of his art; and he always considered the disagreement which induced him to leave Mr. Hudson as a very fortunate circumstance, since by this means he was led to deviate from the tameness and insipidity of his master, and to form a manner of his own."

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This temporary neglect of his art was the only instance of such neglect in the whole course of his life and when he did sit down again seriously to its study, it was most fortunate that he was in Devonshire; for there, and there only, he had opportunities of seeing pictures by William Gandy of Exeter, from which, unquestionably, he first caught the hint of that broad

I cannot but consider Reynolds of any age or country who is before superior to Hogarth as a painter, Hogarth.

though certainly not as a poet. In 2 I do not understand Reynolds's the originality of his genius Hogarth remark to Malone to imply neglect of is not only before Reynolds, but it his art.-ED.

would be difficult to name the painter.

and noble style of treating portrait which became his great distinction.

The father of William Gandy was a pupil of Vandyke, and was much employed by the Duke of Ormond in Ireland, on which account his works are elsewhere unknown. It is said the elder Gandy painted so much. in Vandyke's style, that some of his pictures have passed for works of his master. The style of his son, however it is to be accounted for, was different. Northcote speaks of a portrait by the younger Gandy that might be mistaken for a work of Rembrandt, and Farington. describes the effects of his pictures as "peculiar, solemn, and forcible." I have myself seen a head of a boy by Gandy, which looked very like an early work of Sir Joshua.1

The little that Hudson could teach Reynolds had been more than long enough in his house to learn. It was quite sufficient to enable a mind like his to profit by the sight of such pictures as Gandy's; and a traditional observation of this painter was remembered by him to good purpose throughout the whole of his subsequent practice; namely, that "a picture ought to have a richness in its texture, as if the colours had been composed of cream or cheese, and the reverse of a hard and husky or dry manner.” A single precept like this falling into an ear fitted to receive it, is suffi

1 I have examined the portraits portrait of John Patch, in the hospital, by Gandy at Exeter. That of Tobias is less above Hudson's level. The Langdon, in the College Hall, of which portrait of Sir E. Seaward will not Sir Godfrey Kneller is said to have ex-be found in the Chapel of St. Anne pressed his admiration, is a broadly (where it is placed in Murray's Handand forcibly painted picture. The book), but in the Poor-house.-ED.

VOL. I.

D

cient to create a style; while upon the inapt, all the best instruction that can be given is wasted.

It has been supposed that, soon after his return to Devonshire, Reynolds painted the portrait of himself formerly in the possession of Mr. Lane, of Coffleet, which represents him as a young man, with pencils and palette in one hand, shading the light from his eyes with the other. This very fine picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery, and there is a mastery in its execution that creates a difficulty in referring it to so early a period of his practice. The face is youthful, but Mr. Wm. Carpenter, who attributes it to a later time, noticed to me that the mouth is exactly as it appears in all the portraits of him painted after the accident in 1749, by which the form of his upper lip was injured.

It may be mentioned that, among the advantages of his residence at this time of his life in Devonshire, he did not altogether neglect the study of landscape, where it might be studied to such excellent purpose. At Port Eliot there is a long narrow view of Plymouth and the adjoining scenery, from the hill called Catdown, painted by him in 1748.'

1 Minutely painted-in complete contrast with his later landscape style. Three pictures go far to satisfy me that the qualities in which Reynolds surpassed Hudson had become apparent in his work before he visited Italy. These are, the Coffleet portrait, | the picture with reflected lights at Lord Normanton's, and Miss Gwatkin's portrait of the painter in youth.

At Eastnor Castle is a portrait of Elizabeth, first wife of Charles Lord Somers. She was a sister of the first

Lord Eliot, and after her marriage resided at Ince Castle, in the St. Germain's River. Here, about 1746, she was painted by Reynolds. The picture represents a young bright-eyed woman, in a turban of white flowered stuff, and a black dress, with a tucker of flowered satin, and pearl ornaments. It is rather timidly painted; the face has little chiaroscuro or roundness. He must have improved wonderfully in those three years at Devonport.-ED.

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CHAPTER II.

1749-1752. TAT. 26-29.

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Gibraltar

Reynolds is introduced to Commodore Keppel - Sails with him to the Medi-
- Cadiz
They arrive at Lisbon
Algiers
Reynolds lands at Minorca Is kindly received there by Governor
Blakeney-Paints many portraits - Meets with an accident - Proceeds
to Leghorn Arrives at Rome - Remains there two years - His studies
and employments there - Leaves Rome for Florence, where he spends
two months-Visits Bologna - Modena - Parma Mantua - Ferrara,
and Venice — His studies there—Notes on pictures in Venice — Returns
through France to England, stopping for a month at Paris.

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EARLY in the year 1749, the gallant Keppel, though he had not completed his twenty-fourth year, was entrusted with a diplomatic mission to the states of Barbary, and appointed to the command in the Mediterranean, with the rank of Commodore. He sailed from Spithead in the Centurion, on the 25th of April; but the ship springing both her topmasts, he was obliged to put into Plymouth for repairs, and to this accident Reynolds owed one of those many valuable friendships he was destined to form. Keppel, while detained at Plymouth, visited his friend Lord Edgcumbe, at whose seat he became acquainted with the young painter, and was so much pleased with him that he offered him a passage on board the Centurion.

The invitation was gladly accepted; and Keppel and Reynolds, destined alike to rise to the highest eminence in their professions, sailed together on the 11th of May for Lisbon, which they reached on the

!

24th. Here Reynolds saw, for the first time, some of the splendid ceremonies of the Church of Rome.

In a week Keppel proceeded to Cadiz, and from thence to Tetuan, having heard that the British Consul there had been confined in his own house, by the Moorish governor of the town, in consequence of the non-payment of some ransom money, while several British captives had been thrown into a dungeon; and though Keppel had no instructions relating to the State of Morocco, he thought the appearance of his squadron might assist in redressing these grievances. He arrived in the Bay of Tetuan on the 13th of June, leaving Reynolds at Gibraltar. The Commodore succeeded in obtaining a more comfortable state of things for the Consul and prisoners at Tetuan, and, accompanied by Reynolds, proceeded to Algiers, where he anchored on the 29th of June. On the 30th he had an audience of the Dey, at which Reynolds was present. Keppel's object was to prevent the depredations of the Algerine corsairs upon English vessels; but so many obstacles were thrown in his way by the chicanery of the Dey, that two years elapsed before his negotiations were brought to a close.

Northcote has told us that in the course of these negotiations the Dey became so much incensed that he called the Commodore "a beardless boy," and threatened him with the bowstring. Keppel heard the threat with the utmost calmness, and being near a window from which his ships could be seen, he pointed to them, and said to the Dey that, if it was his pleasure to put him to death, there were Englishmen enough in those ships to make for him a glorious funeral pile.

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