1749, Reynolds first set sail for the Continent, and for the land of his desires and aspirations.

On Sir Joshua's death papers were found on which were written a number of detached thoughts, jotted down as hints for a Discourse, never written, in which the artist intended to give a history of his mind, so far as it concerned his art, his progress, studies, and practice. One of these fragments narrates his feelings on first seeing the treasures of Italian art, and is sufficiently remarkable. "It has frequently happened," he writes, “as I 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 Raffaelle, 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 in France told me that this circumstance happened to himself; though he now looks on Raffaelle with that veneration which he deserves from all painters and lovers of art. I remember very well my own dis. appointment 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 Raffaelle 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 ever relishing these divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them. In justice to myself, however, I must add, that though disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured with the works of this great master, I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raffaelle and those admirable paintings in particular owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind; on the contrary, my not relishing them, as I was conscious I ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating things that ever happened to me. I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles

with which I was unacquainted. I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed.

"All the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with me from England, where the art was at the lowest ebbit could not indeed be lower-were to be totally done away with 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 merits and to admire them more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and new perceptions 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 estimation of the world.

"The truth is, that if these works had been really 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 long and so justly obtained."

It must, of course, be borne in mind, reading these words, that Sir Joshua Reynolds had not the advantages put into the way to-day, not only of art students, but of every person more or less interested in art, in the way of copies, photographs, autotypes, from the works and drawings of the great masters. He had to learn to understand, and he at once put himself into the attitude of the learner, humbly assured that the fault in appreciation must be in himself, not in those masterpieces. His good sense told him that "the duration and stability of their fame is sufficient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every tie of sympathetic approbation."

"Having since that period," continues Sir Joshua, "frequently revolved the subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher excellences of the art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation and great labour and attention. On such occasions as that which I

have mentioned, we are often ashamed of our apparent dulness, as if it were expected that our minds, like tinder, should instantly catch fire from the divine spark of Raffaelle's genius. I flatter myself that now it would be so, and that I have a just perception of his great powers; but let it be remembered that the excellence of his style is not on the surface, but lies deep, and at the first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the eye, for a time, without ever satisfying the judgment. Nor does painting in this respect differ from other arts. A just poetical taste, and the acquisition of a nice discriminative musical ear, are equally the work of time. Even the eye, however perfect in itself, is often unable to distinguish between the brilliancy of two diamonds, though the experienced jeweller will be amazed at its blindness; not considering that there was a time when he himself could not have been able to pronounce which of the two was the most perfect, and that his own power of discrimination was acquired by slow and imperceptible degrees."

From the first Reynolds avoided making copies, and had refused lucrative orders. He sketched portions of pictures, such as he thought would help his own comprehension, but he would do no slavish imitation. "The man of true genius," writes Sir Joshua, "instead of spending all his hours, as many artists do while they are at Rome, in measuring statues and copying pictures, soon begins to think for himself, and endeavour to do something like what he sees. I consider general copying," he adds, as a delusive kind of industry: the student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and labouring without a determinate object; as it requires no effort of mind, he sleeps over his work, and those powers of invention and disposition which ought particularly to be called out and put into action lie torpid, and lose their energy for want of exercise. How incapable of producing anything of their own those are who have spent most of their time in making finished copies, is an observation well known to all those who are conversant with our art."

His own precise method of study is not known, but it may be assumed that he was chiefly occupied in reasoning on what he observed. Elsewhere he writes-"A painter should form his rules from pictures rather than from books or precepts; rules were first made from pictures, not pictures from rules. Every picture an artist sees, whether the most excellent or the most ordinary, he should consider whence that fine effect or that ill effect proceeds, and then there is no picture ever so indifferent but he may look at it to his profit." "The artist," he observes, "who has his mind filled with ideas, and his hand made expert by practice, works with ease and readiness; whilst he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of genius, is in reality at a loss how to begin, and is at last delivered of his monsters with difficulty and pain. The wellgrounded painter, on the contrary, has only maturely to consider his subject, and all the mechanical parts of his art will follow, without his exertion."

The mode of study which Sir Joshua adopted himself he continually recommends to the students : "Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions; instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road; labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking; possess yourself with their spirit; consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject, and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed; even an attempt of this kind will raise your powers.

"We all must have experienced how lazily, and consequently how ineffectually, instruction is received when forced upon the mind by others. Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers. We prefer those instructions which we have given ourselves from our affection to the instructor; and they are more effectual from being received into the mind at the very time when it is most open to receive them."

Having stayed in Rome as long as his resources allowed, Sir Joshua visited Florence, Venice, and some of the smaller Italian towns, everywhere adopting the same careful, observant

b

method of study. After an absence of nearly three years he returned to England, feeling himself indeed a mentally richer, wiser man than he set out.

It was after his return from Italy that Reynolds took up his permanent abode in London, then, as now, the only true centre for art or literature. At first he met much opposition; Hudson especially was fiercely critical over Reynolds' new style, saying to him, "You don't paint so well now as you did before you went to Italy." Another eminent portrait-painter of the time, now long since consigned to oblivion, shook his head sadly on seeing one of Sir Joshua's finest portrait works, saying, "Oh, Reynolds, this will never answer: why, you don't paint in the least in the manner of Kneller." And when the artist tried to expose his reasons, his rival, not able to answer him, left the room in a fury, shouting, "Damme! Shakespeare in poetry, and Kneller in painting; damme !"

Nevertheless, Reynolds soon became a favourite with the public, and his painting-room a fashionable resort. To this end his courtly manner and agreeable conversation may greatly have aided. By the year 1760 he had become the most sought for portraitist of his day, and was making as much as £6000 a-year, in those days a very large sum for an artist to earn, especially as the price he charged for his portraits was very low as compared with modern artistic demands.

It was in 1759 that Reynolds first put down some of his artistic ideas in writing. He contributed three papers to the Idler, then edited by Dr. Johnson, with whom he had, on coming to London, formed that friendship which lasted all their lives. They are the Numbers 76, 79, and 82, and are reprinted in this volume.

"These papers," observes Northcote, "may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all his future discourses; and they certainly occasioned him some thinking in their composition. I have heard Sir Joshua say that Johnson required them from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account he sat up the whole night to complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered that it produced a vertigo in his head."