And in the brightness and harmony of his colouring, Who, possessing the highest glories of his profession, By the suavity of his manners, and the elegance of his life: Who found the art languishing and nearly exhausted upon earth, Revived its charms by the most beautiful exertions, Illustrated its rules by precepts the most exquisitely written, And bequeathed it to the emulation of posterity, Corrected and polished ; This statue was placed, By the friends and fosterers of his fame, The cultivation of the art of painting in this country is an improvement of recent date; the different schools which added variety to its many beauties, had each of them completed its list of great masters, and admiration appeared satiated with delight, before any one Englishman took up the easel and made a decent effort to excite emotion, or attract applause. Raphael had delineated all of grace and dignity, Dominichino all of purity and Et splendore et commissuris colorum Sese mutuo excitantium Artem etiam ipsam per orbem terrarum A. S. MDCCCXIII. Natus die xv. Mensis Julii, MDCCXXIII. Mortem obiit Die xxiii Februarii, MDCCXCII. loveliness, Poussin all that is classical, Carracci all that is great; Rubens had given every harmony of style, and Michael Angelo every sublimity of conception; each contrast of light and shade was to be found in Rembrandt; and all that is wild and romantic in Salvator Rosa; every effect seemed to have been produced, and not a beauty was left untraced upon canvass, when the School of British Painting assumed the first smiles of life. That there were advantages in this brilliant constellation of examples is undeniable; but that there was discouragement in it is also manifest; the very force of ancient triumph damped the struggles of modern success; and it may be truly estimated a glory, that after so much had been previously achieved, any thing meritorious should have still been elucidated. Nevertheless this victory has been won the English school of artists has not only put forth compositions eminently entitled to a favourable comparison with the productions of ancient ability, but it has also established a new class of delineations beautifully characteristic of its peculiar talents. Portrait painting is a branch of the art, which, however well it may have been practised amongst other nations, has never been polished with such ingenuity and effect as amongst the British. They found it an inferior order of composition, and they have elevated it to the dignity of historical painting. The remark is peculiarly appropriate to the subject of this sketch, for he was not only the founder of the school, but one of the most successful portrait painters we have had. Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, on the 15th of July, 1723. He was the youngest in a family of ten children, belonging to the Reverend Samuel Reynolds, curate of Plympton, and master of the grammar school in that borough; a pious and learned man, who supported his numerous offspring with a character of unblemished respectability, upon a very slender income. The circumstances of his birth secured Joshua one benefit-a classical education, of which he availed himself with an ease and proficiency that strewed the path of his, future fame with many facilities and considerable esti mation. Few men have risen to any excellence in the provinces of taste and ingenuity, respecting whose early years some striking anec dotes of premature genius and self-determined talent have not been wonderfully recorded. That the youth of such an artist as Joshua Reynolds should be destitute of similar traits of interest is not to be expected, and we find ourselves accordingly informed, that his taste for drawing was developed even in his boyhood. The first manifestation he gave of this propensity was in copying the portraits to an old edition of Plutarch's Lives upon the blank leaves at the end of the book. These specimens of a natural predilection for the art were long preserved as curiosities by the partiality of his relations, and have been since admitted, with warmer feelings of regard, into the cabinets of the particu lar. While yet a boy, Richardson's Treatise upon Painting happened to fall into his hands, and by that work, as he used himself afterwards to relate, was his ambition quickly determined to the profession. Soon after this he met with another book of a similar nature, entitled the Jesuist's Perspective, and rapidly possessed himself of the principles it contained. The passion thus forcibly evinced, already attracted the favourable eyes of his father, and it was soon agreed, that instead of offering idle objection to the pursuit which the boy seemed to have adopted for himself, every advantage compatible with the fortune of the family should be laid open before him. In consequence of this sensible resolution, he had the happiness to find himself, at the age of seventeen, bound an apprentice to Hudson, a man who, at that time, led the fortune of the portrait painters in London. With him young Reynolds continued to reside for some five years or so, during which he applied his attention, in a great measure, to the fundamental and mechanical rules of the profession. To what degree his attainments reached under the instructions of his master, it is not easy to determine, but, in all probability, they were not extraordinary. Hudson, though much praised and greatly courted, had no very high merit to boast of; his felicity lay more in catching the features of a likeness with great fidelity, than in enriching his portraits with the beauties of colouring, or the pretensions of creative embellishment. Perhaps it was a conviction of his own deficiencies that impelled him to recommend his pupil to copy the rich charms of Guercino—a task which the latter executed with so much ability, that several of his copies made at this period from the master just mentioned, have since acquired no inconsiderable reputation and value. The diligence and improvement marked by these productions, received a temporary shock in consequence of some disagreement between him and Hudson, which ere long terminated in an abrupt separation, after which Reynolds returned into Devonshire. There, for three successive years, he followed the impulses of his own mind, and produced a succession of works which, notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstances of his situation, spread his unfledged reputation far around his native home, and added fresh assurances of success to the earnest he had previously excited during his residence in London. Such were the prospects under which, in 1749, he accepted the invitation of Captain, afterwards Admiral Lord Keppel, to pay a visit to the Mediterranean, on which station that gentleman's ship was ordered. At the close of the same year, Reynolds landed upon the peninsula of Italy, and visited in succession, Leghorn, Rome, and the other cities of that celebrated country, which have been so long and meritoriously exalted for their exquisite possessions in every diversity of the fine arts. The impressions made upon a superior mind by a first acquaintance with such performances must ever be interesting and important: Reynolds seems to have become immediately impressed with a just sense of the excellence revealed before him, and the manner in which advantages were to be derived from them. Unlike others, he drew no copies; on the contrary, he devoted his mind to a deep perusal of the works of the great masters: he compared their styles, sought to estimate their characters, and by a faithful investigation of all, adapted to his own powers a system of distinction for which his judgment and experience gave the promise of natural success. This has been aptly termed the study not of imitation but of intuition. Three years passed on in this enviable state of classical improvement, when Reynolds came back to his native land in 1752, and exhibited a full length portrait of his friend Captain Keppel, which at once raised him to the head of his profession. Taking a house in Newport-street, Leicester Square, he had the rare happiness of finding that there were no degrees in his fortune. He started at once into the first rank of English artists, and what was more felicitous, found, that even at the onset, he advanced beyond the parallel of competition. The consequence of this superiority, very properly was, that when in the year 1769, George the III. instituted the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, Reynolds was unanimously elected President; and in confirmation of the choice, honoured with knighthood by the King. From this new dignity much was naturally expected by his country, and much was as certainly obtained: the services of Sir Joshua from that chair were eminently creditable to himself, and highly advantageous to his profession. The discourses which he delivered during his incumbency appeared originally in 1778, and have since been printed in so many forms, and praised in so many ways, that there is nothing more left for a modern author to observe, than that they were the first lectures upon the principles and practice of the fine arts, that were addressed to any audience in this country; and, that though others have since adopted the example, and conveyed instruction in a similar manner, still, no one competitor has obtained for himself the honour of an equal. Sir Joshua Reynolds is the first lecturer on painting we have amongst us, both in precedence of time and priority of desert. Such was the character of his enjoyments in the metropolis, when his attention was again drawn back to the place of his nativity, by an act of the corporation, who unanimously elected him in rotation freeman, alderman, and mayor, of their Borough. This last compliment flattered the painter so much, that in the warmth of his gratitude he did not hesitate to confess, that he esteemed the favour the greatest distinction which had been conferred upon his professional career. As an acknowledgment for the obligation, he presented the corporation with his portrait, at full length, in the robes peculiar to their chief magistrate. This picture was hung up in the town hall of Plympton, was engraved, and universally admired. The attitude is one difficult for interest, but here decidedly engaging: he holds one hand before his eyes with an air of modesty, such as painters when they draw themselves, have been generally wont to assume. The occasion of this election, and the subsequent present of this picture, gave rise to two com-` plimentary verses, in Latin, which the burgesses were anxious to |