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Over the mantel hung an engraving of "The Death-Bed of John Knox," which they never looked at if they could help it; on the opposite wall a copy of Reynolds's "Infant Samuel," which they adored.
And they succeed in magic, in beauty, in grace, in expressing almost the inexpressible: here is the charm of Reynolds's children and Turner's seas; the impulse to express the inexpressible carries Turner so far, that at last it carries him away, and even long before he is quite carried away, even in works that are justly extolled, one can see the stamp-mark, as the French say, of insanity.
I was reserved and silent, which I suppose he perceived, and might recollect the cause. After dinner when Mr. Langton was called out of the room, and we were by ourselves, he drew his chair near to mine, and said, in a tone of conciliating courtesy , 'Well, how have you done? BOSWELL. 'Sir, you have made me very uneasy by your behaviour to me when we were last at Sir Joshua Reynolds's.
"Are you one of Dan Reynolds's boys, or Tim's?" proceeded "No, I bides with granny." Julius made no further attempt at disentangling the pedigree but inquired about his employments. Did he go to school? "When there ain't nothing to be done." "And what can be done by such a mite?" asked Rosamond. "Tell the lady," said the Rector; "what work can you do?" "Bird-starving." "Well!"
Vasari dines at the ducal table, while Galileo's pension is the rack; the mob which carries Cimabue's canvas in triumph, drives Dante into exile; Rubens is a king's ambassador, and Grotius is sent to jail; to Reynolds's levees, poor, bankrupt Goldsmith steals like an unwelcome guest, and Apelles's gold is paid to him in measures, while Homer, singing immortal lines, goes blind and begging.
The child's other hand held up a morsel of biscuit wherewith she directed the movements of her partner, a small black spitz, of a slim and silky elegance, who, straining on his hind legs, his eager attention fixed upon the biscuit, followed every movement of his small mistress; while she, her large blue eyes now solemn, now triumphant, her fair hair escaping from her cap in fluttering curls, her dainty feet pointed, her dimpled arm upraised, repeated in living grace the picture of her great-great-grandmother which hung on the wall in front of her, a masterpiece from Reynolds's happiest hours.
When the first edition of my Journal was passing through the press, it occurred to me, that a peculiar delicacy was necessary to be observed in reporting the opinion of one literary lady concerning the performance of another; and I had such scruples on that head, that in the proof sheet I struck out the name of Mrs Thrale from the above paragraph, and two or three hundred copies of my book were actually printed and published without it; of these Sir Joshua Reynolds's copy happened to be one.
Boswell celebrates Reynolds's 'equal and placid temper, ante, i. I. On Aug. 12, 1775, he wrote to Temple: 'It is absurd to hope for continual happiness in this life; few men, if any, enjoy it. I have a kind of belief that Edmund Burke does; he has so much knowledge, so much animation, and the consciousness of so much fame. Letters of Boswell, p. 212. ante, i. 446. Baretti says, that 'Mrs.
Yates, the actress, sat to Romney for a picture of the 'Tragic Muse. Of course, this work was completely eclipsed by Reynolds's 'Tragic Muse, painted some thirteen years later.
After one glance at the awful scene she sank, half fainting, on a settee near the door. When the desire for plunder got the better of their fiendish cruelty, one of the gang threw a noosed rope over Mr. Reynolds's head, and then they hanged him to the trammel or iron hook in the great chimney. "You can't smoke us out this time," they shouted.
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