lected this period of his life, he always spoke of it as so much time thrown away, (so far as related to a knowledge of the world and of mankind,) of which he ever afterwards lamented the loss. However, 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.

While in this career, the first of his performances which brought him into any considerable notice, was the portrait of Captain Hamilton, father of the present Marquis of Abercorn, which he painted so early as in year 1746. When at a late period of

the

It is now in the possession of the Marquis of Abercorn; and there is a portrait of the same gentleman with his children around him, a small family-piece, painted

his life he saw this portrait, he was surprised to find it so well done; and comparing it with his later works, with that modesty which always accompanies genius, lamented that in such a series of years he should not have made a greater progress in his art.

On Christmas-day, 1746, his father, a man highly respected in his native county, died; and left our young painter to raise, as he could, the fabric of his own fortune. After spending a few more years in the practice of painting, partly in London 10 and partly in Devonshire, where of his early essays yet remain, he became acquainted with

many

by young Reynolds about the same time, in the Collection of Lord Eliot, at Port Eliot in Cornwall..

9 He made the same observation on viewing the picture of a Boy reading, which he also painted in 1746; an admirable piece, which was sold by auction among other of his works in 1796, to Sir Henry Englefield, Bart. for thirty-five guineas.

10 At this period he lived in St. Martin's Lane, which was then a favourite residence of Artists; nearly opposito to May's Buildings.

George, the third Lord Edgcumbe and Captain (afterwards Lord) Keppel, by each of whom he was warmly patronised; and the latter being appointed to the command of a small squadron on the Mediterranean station, Mr. Reynolds embraced the opportunity which his kindness offered, and accompanied him thither, sailing from Plymouth, May 11th, 1749. In the course of their voyage (during which he had accommodations in the captain's own ship,) they touched at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Algiers, and Minorca; and after spending about two months in Portmahon, the principal town of that island, in December he sailed to Leghorn, from which place he proceeded. to Rome.

Among our author's loose papers, I have found some detached and unconnected thoughts, written occasionally as hints for a Discourse on a new and singular plan, which he appears, at a late period of his life,

to have had it in contemplation to compose and deliver to the Academy, and which he seems to have intended as a history of his mind, so far as concerned his art, and of his progress, studies, and practice; together with a view of the advantages which he had enjoyed, and the disadvantages he had laboured under, in the course that he had run a scheme from which, however liable it might be to the ridicule of Wits and Scoffers, (à circumstance of which, he says, he was perfectly aware,) he conceived the Students might derive some useful documents for the regulation of their own conduct and practice. It is much to be regretted that he did not live to compose such a Discourse; for, from the hand of so great and candid an Artist, it could not but have been highly curious and instructive. One of these fragments relating to his feelings when he first went to Italy, every reader will, I am confident, be pleased with its insertion.

1

"It has frequently happened, (says this great painter) 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 those performances made on them. One of the first painters now in France. once 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 the art. I remember very well my own disappointment, 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