Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/91

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 251 here, as has been observed of another painter, was " the labor of love, not the task of the hireling ; " and how much he profited by it is known to all Europe. Having remained about two years in Italy, and studied the language as well as the arts of the country with great success, he returned to England, improved by travel and refined by education. On the road to London from the port where he landed, he accidentally found in the inn where he lodged Johnson's life of Savage, and was so taken with the charms of composition, and the masterly delineation of character displayed in that work, that, having begun to read it while leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, he continued in that attitude, in- sensible of pain till he was hardly able to raise his hand to his head. The ad- miration of the work naturally led him to seek the acquaintance of its author, who continued one of his sincerest admirers and warmest friends till 1 784, when they were separated by the stroke of death. The first thing that distinguished him after his return to his native country was a full-length portrait of Commodore Keppel ; which in polite circles was spoken of in terms of the highest encomium, and testified to what a degree of eminence he had arrived in his profession. This was followed by a portrait of Lord Edgecombe, and a few others, which at once introduced him to the first business in portrait-painting ; and that branch of the art he cultivated with such success, as will forever establish his fame with all descriptions of refined society. Having painted some of the first-rate beauties of the age, the polite world flocked to see the graces and the charms of his pencil ; and he soon became the most fashionable painter not only in England, but in all Europe. He has indeed pre- served the resemblance of so many illustrious characters, that we feel the less re- gret at his having left behind him so few historical paintings ; though what he has done in that way shows him to have been qualified to excel in both depart- ments. The only landscape, perhaps, which he ever painted, except those beau- tiful and chaste ones which compose the backgrounds of many of his portraits, is "A View on the Thames from Richmond," which in 1784 was exhibited by the Society for Promoting Painting and Design in Liverpool. In 1764 Mr. Reynolds had the merit of being the first promoter of that club, which, having long existed without a name, became at last distinguished by the appellation of the Literary Club. Upon the foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, he was appointed president ; and his acknowledged excellence in his profession made the appointment acceptable to all the lovers of art. To add to the dignity of this new institution, his majesty conferred on the president the honor of knighthood ; and Sir Joshua delivered his first discourse at the opening of the Academy, on January 2, 1769. The merit of that discourse has been universally admitted among painters ; but it con- tains some directions, respecting the proper mode of prosecuting their studies, to which every student of every art would do well to pay attention. " I would chiefly recommend (says he) that an implicit obedience to the rules of art, as es- tablished by the practice of the great masters, should be exacted from the young students. That those models, which have passed through the approbation of