TWO DIALOGUES
BY
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
��[THE following yVw d' esprit was written by Sir Joshua Reynolds to illustrate a remark which he had made, that ' Dr. Johnson
��* These dialogues were printed in 1816 from the MS. of Sir Joshua, by his niece, Lady Thomond : they were not published, but distributed by her ladyship to some friends of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua. The copy which I have was spontaneously transmitted to me by Mrs. Gwynn, the friend of Goldsmith and of John son, whose early beauty is celebrated in the first part of this work (Vol. i. p. 414), and who is still distinguished for her amiable character and high mental accomplishments. Lady Tho mond, in the prefatory note, calls this a 'jeu d 1 esprit 'J but I was in formed by the late Sir George Beaumont, who knew all the parties, and to whom Reynolds himself gave a copy of it, that if the words jeu cTesprit were to be understood to imply that it was altogether an in vention of Sir Joshua's, the term would be erroneous. The substance, and many of the expressions, of the dialogues did really occur; Sir
��Joshua did little more than collect, as if into two conversations, what had been uttered at many, and heighten the effect by the juxta position of such discordant opinions.' CROKER.
Mary Palmer, the daughter of Sir Joshua's sister Mary, inherited the bulk of his property, and married the first Marquis of Thomond. Les lie and Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 635. Lady Thomond sent a copy of these Dialogues to Hannah More thirty- six years after Johnson's death, who replied: 'I hear the deep-toned and indignant accents of our friend Johnson. I hear the affected periods of Gibbon ; the natural, the easy, the friendly, the elegant language, the polished sarcasm, softened with the sweet temper of Sir Joshua.' Ib. ii. 259.
Miss Hawkins published the Dia logues in her Memoirs, i. 109.
Reynolds left Sir George Beau mont by his will Sebastian Bourdon's considered
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