which they visited were Cologne, Aix la Chapelle, Spa and Liege, and they returned by the same route to England passing through Brussels, Ostend, and Margate and arriving at London at 7 o'clock on the evening of Sunday the 16th September. A little touch at Brussels on the return journey showed Metcalfe's keen observation and sarcastic humour. He remarked that M. Orion was "almost the only gentleman who showed his own pictures, who did not pester us by prating about their merit." From this connoisseur sir Joshua bought Rubens's sketches for the ends of the ceiling of the Whitehall banqueting-house.
Reynolds told his friend on their return that "his own pieces seemed to him to want force." His account of this visit is published in his works. "It contains very valuable remarks on the pictures preserved in the various churches and cabinets which he visited, together with a masterly character of Rubens." It was intended for separate publication, and was to have been dedicated to Metcalfe but this intention was never carried into effect. A portion of the dedication was found by Malone among the papers of sir Joshua, and shall in part be reproduced. "I present [these notes] to you as properly your due: for if I had been accompanied by a person of less taste and less politeness they probably would not have been made . . . To whichever of your good qualities I am to attribute your long and patient attendance while I was employed in examining the various works which we saw, it merits my warmest acknowledgments. Nor is it an inconsiderable advantage to see such works in company with one who has a general rectitude of taste and is not a professor of the art. We are too apt to forget that the art is not intended solely for the pleasure of professors. The opinions of others are certainly not to be neglected, for painters, being educated in the same manner, are likely to judge from the same principles and are liable to the same prejudices."
