epitaph, and it is the failing of popular biography to supply popular people with a measure of moral equipment that would make a saint self-conscious. It is far more interesting to see great men as they lived, and understand that, like the rest of us, they had a fair, or unfair, share of faults. Had Sir Joshua possessed twice as many failings, he would still remain one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of British portrait painters. Had he associated all the virtues with less achievement, he could not have interested us, because happily we do not judge art by the moral standard of the artist.

Perhaps the most remarkable side of Reynolds’ mind was seen in its response to the real truths that underlie all the arts. He held his work to be a mode of expressing human experience, he knew that there was a domain lying beyond the reach of rules, and bade his students look “with dilated eye,” sacrificing detail to general effect for the sake of the best and most imaginative work. He declared without any reservations, that he had found art in England in the lowest possible state, he compared some of his contemporaries’ work with sign-post painting, but his fine courage was only stimulated by the bad conditions that prevailed. He sought to raise them, and as a portrait painter, made it his business to discover the perfections of his sitters, with the result, that, as his genius was wholly interpretative, his pictures stand rather less for his sitters than for their time.

A weak man might have succumbed to the temptations that beset Reynolds when he had established himself in Leicester Square. He was in a sense the darling of society, earning a larger income than had been gained by any of his contemporaries, although he painted for prices that a third-rate man could gain to-day, if we do not regard the changed value of money. But Reynolds never succumbed to society; he conquered it, showing himself worthy of all the success that came to him. He did his best, he worked hard, relaxing his efforts only when his position was unassailable, took his enjoyment temperately, if we consider the age in which he lived, and never forgot that his chief aim and object in life was to paint portraits, and to paint them as well as he could. There were years in which he completed from three to four portraits every week, but by the time he was President of the Royal Academy, the output had fallen to sixty or seventy a year, no small achievement for a man who was at liberty to enjoy all that was best, and brightest, and most enduring in London society, and everything most attractive in the country.

The life and times of Sir Joshua have a special interest for British artists, even apart from his work, because he lived through the years of storm and strife that saw the development of the R.A. It is not easy to tell in full the story of its establishment without long and detailed references to the quarrels and intrigues of the artists of the day and even then it is not easy to see the truth clearly through the mists of controversy. None of Sir Joshua’s biographies goes uncontradicted, and it is safe to say that we must be content to forego for all time exact knowledge of certain incidents in the life of Reynolds. He had considerable reserve, a fair sense of diplomacy, and was not without knowledge that there were foes as well as friends in the crowd that surrounded him. His contemporaries were often baffled by his silence, and the secrets of his tastes and intimate likes and dislikes died with him. He had friends, but no confidantes. A brief outline of the creation of the R.A. is all that needs be given here.

In the year 1760, when Reynolds was approaching the zenith of his fame, an art exhibition was held in London, attracted a great deal of attention, and became an annual institution. Thereafter, we begin to hear of the Society of Artists, which received from George III. a certificate of Incorporation in 1765, blossomed out with the grandiloquent title of the “Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain,” and published a list of two hundred and eleven members, including Joshua Reynolds. An offshoot from this society was known as the Free Society of Artists; in the history of art there have always been some men “agin the government.” Heart-burning and jealousy were associated with the work of the Incorporated Society, and William Chambers the architect, who had the king’s ear, brought about the foundation of the R.A. Reynolds took no visible part in the intrigue, in fact he was abroad during the months when the squabbles were most violent, and when the Presidency was offered to him, he asked for time to discuss the matter with Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke. Apparently he had studied Shakspere’s “Julius Cæsar.” In December 1768, the constitution of the Royal Academy was signed by the King, and the Incorporated Society was left to linger for a few years in the cold shades of opposition and then depart from a world that had no further use for it. William Chambers and Benjamin West seem to have done all that was necessary to bring King George on to the side of the new venture, which had a very wide constitution, and thirty-six original members, including two ladies, Angelica Kaufmann and Mary Moser. William Chambers became Treasurer, Dalton was appointed Antiquary, Goldsmith was Professor of Ancient History, and Dr. Johnson stood for Ancient Literature. Curiously enough, it was the foundation by Captain Coram of the Foundling Hospital that led indirectly to the creation of the Royal Academy. Hogarth, who was a great friend of Coram, gave pictures for the gallery in the Hospital, Reynolds’ old master, Hudson, Reynolds himself, and Wilson, a contemporary painter of great achievement, did the same. Mr. Claude Phillips, whose life of Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the best written and most discerning tributes to the master extant, thinks that the success of the gallery at the Foundlings led to the opening of the first exhibition of pictures by living masters in 1860. The Society of Arts was then six years old, and the Society of Artists was established in friendly rivalry. We have remarked that at the time when the Incorporated Society of Artists was engaged in the final quarrel that led to the foundation of the Academy, Sir Joshua was travelling abroad with Richard Burke. His absence from the scene of strife is more likely to have been diplomatic than unintentional.

II

We have now come down to the year 1769, and may pause with advantage to recall some of Sir Joshua’s achievements and experiences that have been omitted from a rather hurried survey. He has already painted many of the most famous men and women of his time, and his contributions to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists have been the admiration of all who take an interest in pictures. Here some of his most famous pictures have been hung, the “Lady Elizabeth Keppel as a bridesmaid,” the “Countess Waldegrave,” “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy” (now in Lord Rothschild’s town house) and many others