Sir Joshua was now elected mayor of Plympton, his native town, an honor which he greatly prized; and received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford University. Oliver Goldsmith had died, and on the day of his death Sir Joshua did not touch a pencil, "a circ.u.mstance the most extraordinary for him," says Northcote, "who pa.s.sed no day without a line." He acted as executor for his dead friend, and found, to his amazement, that his debts were ten thousand dollars.
Reynolds was as ever the centre of a charming circle. Miss Burney, the author of "Evelina," liked his countenance and manners; the former she p.r.o.nounced "expressive, soft, and sensible; the latter, gentle, una.s.suming, and engaging." Hannah More, too, was greatly pleased with the distinguished painter.
"Foremost among the beauties of this brilliant time," says Leslie, "was Sir Joshua"s pet in childhood, now the irresistible young queen of _ton_, Georgiana, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire. She effaced all her rivals, Walpole tells us, without being a beauty. "Her youth, figure, glowing good-nature, sense, lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon." The young d.u.c.h.ess was now sitting to him in the full flush of her triumph as arbitress of fashion, the most brilliant of the gay throng who danced and played the nights away at the Ladies" Club, masqueraded at the Pantheon, and promenaded at Ranelagh. Marie Antoinette herself had scarcely a gayer, more devoted, and more obsequious court. It was this beautiful young d.u.c.h.ess who set the fashion of the feather headdresses, now a mark for all the witlings of the time. Sir Joshua has painted her in her new-fashioned plumes, in the full-length now at Spencer House....
"Another beautiful sitter of this year was Eliza, the youthful wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The young couple were now emerging from the first difficulties of their married life. Her exquisite and delicate loveliness, all the more fascinating for the tender sadness which seemed, as a contemporary describes it, to project over her the shadow of early death; her sweet voice, and the pathetic expression of her singing; the timid and touching grace of her air and deportment, had won universal admiration for Eliza Ann Linley. From the days when, a girl of nine, she stood with her little basket at the pump-room door, timidly offering the tickets for her father"s benefit concerts, to those when in her teens she was the belle of the Bath a.s.semblies, none could resist her beseeching grace. Lovers and wooers flocked about her; Richard Walter Long, the Wiltshire miser, laid his thousands at her feet....
"Nor had she resisted only the temptation of money; coronets, it was whispered, had been laid at her feet as well as purses. When she appeared at the Oxford oratorios, grave dons and young gentlemen commoners were alike subdued. In London, where she sang at Covent Garden in the Lent of 1773, the king himself was said to have been fascinated as much by her eyes and voice as by the music of his favorite Handel.
From all this homage Miss Linley had withdrawn to share love in a cottage with Sheridan at East Burnham, after a runaway match in March, 1772, and after her husband had fought two duels in her cause with a Captain Matthews. When she began to sit to Sir Joshua, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was only known as a witty, vivacious, easy-tempered, and agreeable young man of three and twenty, with nothing but his wits to depend on; but, before the picture was finished, he was famous as the author of "The Rivals.""
Sir Joshua painted Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia. "She had a way of gathering little children about her, and singing their childish songs, with "such a playfulness of manner, and such a sweetness of look and voice," says one, in describing her so engaged, "as was quite enchanting."... Mrs. Sheridan was gentleness personified, and sang without pressing; but her husband, proud of her as he was, would never allow her to sing in public after their marriage, and was even chary of permitting her to delight their friends with her sweet voice in private.
She was the lovely model for the Virgin in Reynolds"s "Nativity," for which the young Duke of Rutland paid him six thousand dollars, an unexampled price for an English picture at that time. It was burnt at Belvoir Castle. She died a few years later, living long enough to witness her husband"s great success, and not long enough to see him overwhelmed with debts, partly the result of drink."
In 1780, Sir Joshua painted the ladies Maria, Laura, and Horatia Waldgrave, grand-nieces of Horace Walpole. "He never had more beautiful sitters," says Leslie; "and in none of his pictures has he done more justice to beauty. Their bright faces are made to tell with wonderful force, by the white dresses and powdered _tetes_ worn by all three. They are sitting round a work-table. Lady Laura, in the centre, winds silk on a card from a skein held by Lady Horatia; while Lady Maria, on the right, bends over her tambouring frame. The action admits of a natural arrangement of the heads, in full-face, three-quarters, and profile; and it is impossible to conceive an easier, prettier way of grouping three graceful, high-bred young ladies." At this time, all three of these young ladies were in sorrow. The young Duke of Ancaster, to whom Horatia was betrothed, had just died suddenly, and two prominent lords to whom the other sisters were engaged had broken their promises. Lady Maria married, four years later, the Earl of Euston; Laura, her cousin, Lord Chewton; and Horatia, Lord Hugh Seymour.
Sir Joshua painted two years later the beautiful but unhappy Mrs.
Musters, whose son John married Mary Chaworth, Byron"s first love. "The fine full-length of her as Hebe, with the eagle, still hangs at Colwich Hall. Another full-length, with a spaniel at her feet, painted in 1777, the year of her marriage, is at Petworth. It is interesting to compare the two, and note the wear and tear of five years in the reign of a queen of fashion." The eagle was a pet of Sir Joshua, kept in a yard outside the studio.
In 1783, when Mrs. Siddons was the leading actress of the time, she sat to Reynolds. Taking her hand, he led her up to his platform with the words, "Ascend your undisputed throne: bestow on me some idea of the Tragic Muse." "On which," she said, "I walked up the steps, and instantly seated myself in the att.i.tude in which the Tragic Muse now appears." He inscribed his name on the border of her drapery, saying, "I could not lose the honor this opportunity afforded me of going down to posterity on the hem of your garment." Sir Thomas Lawrence called this the finest portrait in the world of a woman, and Mrs. Jameson says, "It was painted for the universe and posterity." This picture was purchased, in 1822, by the first Marquis of Westminster, for nearly nine thousand dollars. Reynolds also painted Miss Kemble, her sister, "a very sweet and gentle woman."
This year, 1784, a friendship of thirty years was severed by the death of Dr. Johnson. On his death-bed, he made three requests of Sir Joshua: never to use his pencil on Sundays; to read the Bible whenever possible, and always on Sundays; and to forgive him a debt of thirty pounds, which he had borrowed of him, as he wished to leave the money to a poor family. Reynolds was present at the funeral, when his friend was laid beside Garrick, in the south transept of Westminster Abbey.
Reynolds said of his friend: "His pride had no meanness in it; there was nothing little or mean about him.
"Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your interest was affected, in lesser things your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation, which I supposed might likewise have happened: "It would have been a better story," says he, "if it had been so; but it was not." Our friend, Dr. Goldsmith, was not so scrupulous; but he said he only indulged himself in white lies, light as feathers, which he threw up in the air, and, on whomever they fell, n.o.body was hurt. "I wish,"
says Dr. Johnson, "you would take the trouble of moulting your feathers."
"As in his writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer the least immorality or indecency of conversation, or anything contrary to virtue or piety, to proceed without a severe check, which no elevation of rank exempted them from.
"The Christian religion was with him such a certain and established truth that he considered it as a kind of profanation to hold any argument about its truth."
At sixty-three years of age, Reynolds was as busy as ever. Miss Palmer wrote to her cousin in Calcutta: "My uncle seems more bewitched than ever with his palette and pencils. He is painting from morning till night, and the truth is that every picture he does seems better than the former. He is just going to begin a picture for the Empress of Russia, who has sent to desire he will paint her an historical one. The subject is left to his own choice, and at present he is undetermined what to choose."
He chose "The Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents." Rogers says: "Reynolds, who was always thinking of his art, was one day walking with Dr. Lawrence, near Beaconsfield, when they met a fine rosy little peasant boy--a son of Burke"s bailiff. Reynolds patted him on the head, and, after looking earnestly in his face, said: "I must give more color to my Infant Hercules."" He took such great pains with this work that he used to say of the picture: "There are ten under it, some better, some worse." The Empress sent him as pay for this a gold box, with her cipher in diamonds, and seven thousand five hundred dollars.
In his "Gleaners," painted in 1788, the centre figure, with a sheaf of corn on her head, was the portrait of a beautiful girl, Miss Potts, who afterwards became the mother of Sir Edwin Landseer.
In 1789, he lost the sight of his left eye, through overwork, but he still preserved the sweet serenity of his nature, and was not depressed.
He amused himself with his canary bird, which was so tame that it would sit upon his hand; but one morning it flew out of the window, and never returned.
On December 10, 1790, Reynolds gave his fifteenth and last Discourse to the Academy. In closing, he said to the crowded audience: "I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words I should p.r.o.nounce in this Academy and from this place might be the name of MICHAEL ANGELO."
As Reynolds descended from the chair, Edmund Burke stepped forward, and, taking his hand, addressed him in the words of Milton,--
"The angel ended, and in Adam"s ear So charming left his voice, that he awhile Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."
This year, he allowed Sheridan to buy the picture of his wife, "St.
Cecilia," at half-price. Reynolds said it was "the best picture he ever painted," and added, in the letter to Sheridan: "However, there is now an end of the pursuit; the race is over, whether it is won or lost."
The next year, in May, 1791, Sir Joshua sat for his picture for the last time to the Swedish artist, Beda, at the request of the Royal Academy of Sweden. He had sent his picture to Florence, on being elected an honorary member of that famous Academy. In October of this year he became almost totally blind.
Burke wrote to his son Richard in January, 1792: "Our poor friend, Sir Joshua, declines daily. For some time past he has kept his bed.... At times he has pain; but for the most part is tolerably easy. Nothing can equal the tranquillity with which he views his end. He congratulates himself on it as a happy conclusion of a happy life. He spoke of you in a style that was affecting. I don"t believe there are any persons he values more sincerely than you and your mother."
Reynolds died tranquilly between eight and nine on Thursday evening, February 23, 1792. He was buried in St. Paul"s, on Sat.u.r.day, March 3, ninety-one carriages following the body to the grave. There were ten pall-bearers, the Duke of Dorset, Duke of Leeds, Duke of Portland, Marquis Townshend, Marquis of Abercorn, Earl of Carlisle, Earl of Inchiquin, Earl of Upper Ossory, Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Eliot.
By will he left to his niece Offy, who had married, in 1781, a wealthy Cornish gentleman, Mr. Gwatkin, fifty thousand dollars; to his sister Frances the use, for life, of twelve thousand five hundred dollars; to Burke, ten thousand dollars, and cancelled a bond for the same amount of money borrowed; a thousand dollars to each of his executors; five thousand dollars to a servant who had lived with him more than thirty years; all the remainder of his property, about five hundred thousand dollars, to his niece, Miss Palmer. Such an amount of money earned by an artist, making his own way in life from poverty, was indeed wonderful.
The number of his pictures is estimated at three thousand.
Burke wrote of him, the pages blurred with his tears: "Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of coloring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that description of the art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history and the amenity of landscape. He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.
"In full affluence of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candor never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or a.s.sumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse.
"His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters, his social virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow."
Mrs. Jameson says: "The pictures of Reynolds are, to the eye, what delicious melodies are to the ear,--Italian music set to English words; for the color, with its luxurious, melting harmony, is Venetian, and the faces and the a.s.sociations are English.... More and more we learn to sympathize with that which is his highest characteristic, and which alone has enabled him to compete with the old masters of Italy; the amount of mind, of sensibility, he threw into every production of his pencil, the genial, living soul he infused into forms, giving to them a deathless vitality."
One secret of Reynolds"s popularity, outside his genius, was the fact that he never spoke ill of the work of other painters. Northcote says he once asked Sir Joshua what he thought of two pictures by Madame Le Brun, who at that time was the most popular artist in France in portraiture.
""They are very fine," he answered.
""How fine?" I said.
""As fine as those of any painter."
""Do you mean living or dead?"
""Either living or dead," he answered briskly.
""As fine as Van d.y.k.e?"
"He answered tartly, "Yes, and finer."
"I said no more, perceiving he was displeased at my questioning him."
Leslie says of him: "He felt deeply and almost impatiently the gulf between the technical merits of his pictures and those of the great Venetians or Rembrandt, whom at different epochs he worshipped with equal reverence. I have no doubt his inferiority to these men in power, in mastery of materials, and in certainty of method was just as apparent to Sir Joshua as it is to any unbia.s.sed judge who now compares his pictures with those of t.i.tian, Rembrandt, or Velasquez....
"Estimating Reynolds at his best, he stands high among the great portrait painters of the world, and has achieved as distinct a place for himself in their ranks as t.i.tian or Tintoret, Velasquez or Rembrandt."
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
Sir Edwin Landseer, born in 1802, in London, on or about March 7, was the fifth child in a family of seven children. The father, John Landseer, a most skilful engraver, was the author of some books on the art of engraving and archaeology. He once gave a course of lectures before the Royal Inst.i.tution. The mother, whose maiden name was Miss Potts, was a gifted and beautiful woman, whose portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.