Chapter II: Part 2

Sydenham is justly celebrated for the happiness of his descriptions, and his skilful application of simple methods of cure, which are as effectual as they were novel in that age when a medical prescription sometimes contained a hundred different substances; but he has merit of a higher kind, as a discoverer of general laws. Among others, he was the first to notice that there is a uniformity in the fevers prevailing at any one time, which is subject to periodical changes; and that other acute diseases often partake largely of the same general character, and sometimes even merge in it altogether, as the plague is said to have swallowed up all other diseases. This, which he ascribed to some peculiar state of the atmosphere, he called its epidemic constitution; and to be aware of its vicissitudes must of course be very important to the physician as a guide to practice. The value of these laws, which Sydenham deduced from a multitude of observations, has been attested by almost every medical writer since his time.

His works have been repeatedly printed in the original Latin, as well as in English and the continental languages. The first was published after he had been sixteen years in practice; the last he edited himself, is dated three years before his death; and an elegant compendium of his experience was published posthumously by his son. They all appear to have been extorted by the importunity of his friends or the misrepresentations of his enemies. It is said that they were composed in English, and translated into Latin by his friends Mapletoft and Havers: there is, however, little reason for attaching credit to this report, as we are assured, on the authority of Sir Hans Sloane, who knew him well, that Sydenham was an excellent classical scholar, and perfectly capable of expressing himself elegantly in Latin. They are most carefully written and clearly expressed, and bear marks of the utmost truth and impartiality in the narration of facts, and judgment in arranging them. They are not voluminous, as he studiously refrained from overloading them with trivial matter, and from entering into the detail of a greater number of cases than might be sufficient to illustrate his method of practice. His object was to confine himself to the results of his own observation: to this he pretty strictly adhered, so that little space is occupied in his writings by quotations or criticism. It must be admitted that he occasionally lapses into theoretical discussion, in violation of his own principles; but as he seldom or never permitted his fancy to divert him from what was practically useful, he may be pardoned, if in that age of speculation he could not entirely resist the seduction. A graver charge against him is, that he overlooked or undervalued the immense body of information to be obtained from examining the effects of diseased actions after death, and devoted himself too exclusively to the study of the symptoms during life, and the effect of remedies upon them. It is hardly a sufficient justification of a man of so much independence of spirit to reply, that such examinations were opposed by the prejudices of the age in which he lived. Others have overcome the same obstacles, and with them many of those difficulties which perplexed and misled even the mind of Sydenham. He had equal or greater difficulties to contend against in the deep-rooted absurdities of the chemical and mechanical schools, which in the early part of his life held an almost equally divided sway in medicine: the former originated with Paracelsus and his disciples, and had the advantage of a longer prescription; and the latter had received a fresh accession of strength from the recent discoveries of Harvey: both, however, gave way before his energetic appeal to fact and experience. Scarcely less credit is due to him for his successful opposition to the popular superstition in favour of a host of futile remedies, which are now happily consigned to oblivion with the family receipt books and herbals in which their virtues were paraded, than for his victory over false principles and dangerous rules of practice.

On the whole, it may be safely advanced that medicine, as a practical science, owes more to the closely-printed octavo, in which the results of his toilsome exertions are comprised, than to any other single source of information.

_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._

LORD CLARENDON.

_From the Picture in the Bodleian Library, Oxford._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

CLARENDON.

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the third son of Henry Hyde, of Dinton, Esquire, a younger branch of an ancient family long established in Cheshire, was born at Dinton, near Salisbury, February 18, 1609. The most valuable part of his early education he received from his father, who was an excellent scholar: from his residence at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he entered in 1622, and took his bachelor’s degree in 1625, according to his own account he obtained little benefit. In February 1627, he was entered at the Middle Temple. At the age of twenty-one, he married his first wife, who died within six months of their union. After the lapse of three years he was again married, to the daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of Requests to the King, by whom he left a numerous family. He was called to the bar in Michaelmas term, 1633. To the study of law he entertained in the first instance a strong dislike, and applied himself chiefly to history and general literature. But from the time of his second marriage he devoted himself steadily to the pursuit of his profession, in which he early acquired considerable practice and reputation. His business was, however, more frequent in the Court of Requests, in the Star Chamber, than in the courts of common law, and his name rarely appears in the reports of that period.

Soon after he was called to the bar, Mr. Hyde was concerned in a transaction of considerable moment, which produced important consequences in his future life, by introducing him to the favourable notice of Archbishop Laud. It arose out of certain Custom-House regulations, by which the London merchants found themselves aggrieved. The leading men among them applied to Mr. Hyde, who, on finding all remonstrances with the Lord Treasurer unavailing, advised them to state their grievances in a petition to the King, which he drew for them. On the death of the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Portland, the affairs of the Treasury were placed under the management of several commissioners, of whom Laud was one. The Archbishop soon found occasion to investigate the complaint of the merchants; and in consequence he sent for, and held several interviews with, Mr. Hyde: to whom he became a valuable and efficient patron, noticing him particularly when he appeared as counsel in the Star Chamber, and consulting and employing him on many public occasions.

Laud’s favour introduced Mr. Hyde to the Lord Keeper Coventry, the Earl of Manchester, then Lord Privy Seal, and other political and legal characters of high rank, of the court party. With the leaders of the popular, or country party also he was upon friendly terms, “having,” as he says, “that rare felicity, that even they who did not love many of those upon whom he most depended, were yet very well pleased with him and with his company.”

Upon the summoning of what was called the Short Parliament, which met April 3, 1640, Mr. Hyde was elected member for Wootton-Basset, and for Shaftesbury. He chose to take his seat for the former place. His first and only speech during the session was in the celebrated debate on the subject of grievances, introduced by a motion of Mr. Pym; on which occasion Mr. Hyde directed the attention of the house to the enormous abuses of the Earl Marshal’s Court. Whitelocke says that “he gained much credit by his conduct in this business.” In the warm debate which took place in the House of Commons upon the question of a supply, it was hinted by members of the house connected with the court, that Charles, upon hearing of their proceedings, would probably dissolve the parliament in displeasure. Mr. Hyde perceived the injurious tendency of such a measure, and immediately went from the house to Archbishop Laud, to entreat him to dissuade the King from so injudicious a course. The Archbishop heard him as usual with patience, but refused to interfere: and the Parliament was dissolved in less than three weeks after its first meeting.

The necessities of the King compelled him to call the Long Parliament in the following November, of which Mr. Hyde was also a member. The elections having in general favoured the popular party, the temper of this parliament was at its commencement decidedly more opposed to the court than the last. At first, Mr. Hyde, whose familiarity with Laud was well known, was an object of jealousy and dislike. His conduct as chairman of the committee appointed to consider the abuses of the Earl Marshal’s Court, which led to the total abolition of that unauthorized jurisdiction, and his avowed disapprobation of several obnoxious branches of the prerogative, restored him in some degree to the good opinion of the house, while his influence with the moderate party, both in the court and the parliament, daily increased. Having given up his professional practice since the beginning of the parliament, he was much employed in the ordinary business of the house. He was chairman of the committee appointed to inquire into the legality and expediency of the courts of the President and Council of the North, commonly called the Courts of York; and in April, 1641, he was commissioned to communicate to the House of Lords the resolutions of the Commons against those courts. The performance of this duty he accompanied by a speech, in which he explained to the Lords, with much clearness and precision, the origin and nature of this obnoxious jurisdiction, and which he says in his History, “met with good approbation in both houses.” In July following he was chairman of the committee for inquiring into the conduct of the judges in the case of ship-money; and the management of the impeachment of the Lord Chief Baron Davenport, Baron Weston, and Baron Trevor, before the Lords, was afterwards entrusted to him. Upon this occasion, he delivered an excellent speech, exhibiting, in eloquent language, the destructive effects of the corruption of the judges upon the liberty of the subject and the security of property. During the same year, he appears from the Commons’ journals to have been usually named on the most important committees both of a public and private nature.

The course adopted by Mr. Hyde with reference to the Earl of Strafford’s prosecution cannot be precisely ascertained. That he was employed in arranging the preliminary steps for the impeachment, appears from the journals; but in his History he does not explicitly declare what part he took upon the introduction of the bill of attainder. Some of his biographers state that he warmly opposed it; but no evidence is given in support of the assertion; and it is quite clear that neither his name, nor that of Lord Falkland, his political and personal friend, appear amongst those which were posted as “Straffordians, Betrayers of their Country,” for having voted against the measure. Though he cordially acquiesced in many of the measures at this time introduced by the popular leaders for the redress of grievances, his political opinions, as well as his ultimate views and intentions, differed widely from those of the predominant party. He strenuously opposed a bill for depriving the bishops of their seats in parliament, which passed the House of Commons, though it was rejected in the House of Lords by a great majority. In no degree discouraged by this discomfiture, the leaders of the Puritan party soon afterwards introduced a measure for the total abolition of episcopacy, known by the title of ‘The Root and Branch Bill,’ which was read a first time and committed. Mr. Hyde was appointed chairman of the committee, by common consent of both parties; the one wishing to get rid of his opposition in the committee, the other to secure a chairman of their own views. The result proved the latter party to be in the right; for Hyde contrived so to baffle the promoters of the measure, that they at last thought proper to withdraw it, Sir Arthur Haselrig declaring in the house, that “he would never hereafter put an enemy into the chair.” His conduct respecting this measure was warmly approved by the King; who before he went to Scotland in 1641, sent for Mr. Hyde, to express how much he was beholden to him for his services, “for which he thought fit to give him his own thanks, and to assure him that he would remember it to his advantage.”

Before the King left Whitehall, in consequence of the tumults occasioned by his indiscretion in demanding the Five Members, he charged Mr. Hyde, in conjunction with Lord Falkland and Sir John Colepeper, to consult constantly together upon the state of affairs in his absence, and to give him on every occasion their unreserved advice, without which he declared solemnly that he would take no step in the parliament. Though much discouraged by the previous conduct of the King respecting the Five Members, which he had adopted without consulting them, and entirely against their judgment, they undertook and faithfully executed the charge imposed upon them; and after the King had left London, they met every night at Mr. Hyde’s house in Westminster, to communicate to each other their several intelligences and observations, and to make such arrangements as they thought best adapted to stay the falling fortunes of the royal cause.

Mr. Hyde’s good understanding with the leaders of the popular party had rapidly declined, since his opposition to the proposed measure for ejecting the bishops from the House of Lords; and after his conduct in the committee for abolishing episcopacy he was regarded as a declared enemy, and his nightly consultations with Falkland and Colepeper were watched with the utmost jealousy. Though his situation at this time was one of considerable danger, he remained at his post after the King’s departure to York, and constantly took his seat in the House of Commons. About the latter end of April, 1642, Mr. Hyde received a letter from the King, requiring him immediately to repair to him at York; with which requisition he complied in the course of the next month, having first rendered a signal service to the royal cause by persuading the Lord Keeper Littleton to send the Great Seal and also to go himself to the King. In consequence of this step the House of Commons passed a resolution, in August, 1642, disabling him from sitting again in that parliament; and their indignation was raised to such a degree, that Mr. Hyde was one of the few persons who were excepted from the pardon which the Earl of Essex was afterwards instructed to offer to those who might be induced to leave the King and submit to the parliament. On joining the King at York, Mr. Hyde continued to be one of his most confidential advisers, and was soon afterwards knighted and made Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this capacity he negotiated with the parliamentary commissioners sent to Oxford in 1643; and in 1645 he acted as one of the King’s commissioners at the treaty of Uxbridge. After the breaking off of that treaty it was thought expedient to send the Prince of Wales into the west of England, both to secure his person from the dangers with which his father was environed, and to give encouragement to the Royalists in that part of the country. Sir Edward Hyde accompanied him as one of his council. The parliamentary successes in the west compelled the Prince to migrate, first to Scilly, thence to Jersey, from which place he departed into France in July, 1646. Hyde remained in Jersey for the space of two years, devoting himself wholly to his History of the Rebellion, which he had commenced in the Scilly Islands, and of which he completed the four first books at that time. While engaged in this manner, he received several letters from the King, expressive of his approbation of his undertaking, and supplying him with a particular relation of the occurrences which had taken place from the departure of the Prince until the period of his joining the Scotch army.

In May, 1648, Hyde received the King’s commands to join the Prince of Wales at Paris. On the way thither, he met Lord Cottington and others at Rouen, where he learned that the Prince was gone to Holland, and was ordered to follow him. After many difficulties and dangers, Cottington and Hyde met their young master at the Hague in the month of August, and were soon afterwards joined by several other members of the King’s council.

On the announcement of the execution of his father, Charles despatched Sir Edward Hyde and Lord Cottington as his ambassadors to Spain. After a fruitless negotiation of fifteen months, they received a message from court shortly after the arrival of the news of Cromwell’s victory at Dunbar, desiring them to quit the Spanish dominions. Hyde then repaired to Antwerp, where he resided with his wife and family, until, at the end of 1651, he was summoned to Paris, to meet Charles II., after his memorable escape from the battle of Worcester. He resided at Paris with the exiled court for nearly three years, and during this period enjoyed the unlimited confidence of his master, who left the arduous and difficult task of corresponding and negotiating with the English royalists entirely to his management. At this period the exiled royalists were frequently reduced to great pecuniary distress. The miserable dissensions and petty jealousies which prevailed among them are fully described in the History of the Rebellion. At length Charles, wearied and disgusted by the intrigues and broils which perpetually disturbed his council, while subject to the interference of the Queen Mother, determined to leave Paris; and accordingly he quitted that city in June, 1654, and went to reside at Cologne, Sir Edward Hyde and the rest of his court still following his humble fortunes. Upon the execution of the treaty with Spain, Charles removed from Cologne to Bruges in 1657, and in the course of that year bestowed upon Sir Edward Hyde the then empty dignity of Lord High Chancellor of England. Soon after this event the prospects of the Royalists began to brighten. The government of Cromwell had been for some time growing infirm, in consequence of domestic dissensions, the exhausted state of the revenue, and the distrust entertained towards the Protector, who had successively deceived and disappointed all parties. These seeds of discord were sedulously cultivated by the English royalists; and at last the death of that extraordinary man led to a series of events which introduced the restoration of Charles II.

At the Restoration Sir Edward Hyde was continued as Lord Chancellor; and notwithstanding the constant hostility of the Queen Mother and her faction at court, he maintained for some time a paramount influence with the King, who treated him with the confidence and friendship which his great industry and talents for business, and his faithful attachment to himself and his father so well deserved. In November, 1660, he was raised to the peerage, by the title of Baron Hyde of Hindon in the county of Wilts, and in the spring of the following year he was created Viscount Cornbury and Earl of Clarendon. He was also about this time elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Among the tribes of expectant cavaliers who now flocked to the court of the restored monarch, all impatient to obtain something in recompense for their alleged services and sufferings in the royal cause, these honours and distinctions bestowed upon the Earl of Clarendon raised a storm of envy and malice which eventually caused his ruin. The King’s easiness of access, and, as Lord Clarendon calls it, that “_imbecillitas frontis_, which kept him from denying,” together with the moral cowardice which induced him to escape from the most troublesome importunities, by sending petitioners to the Chancellor for their answers, necessarily increased the dislike with which he was regarded. The discovery of the marriage of his daughter to the Duke of York, afterwards James II., though it probably took place without the knowledge of the Chancellor, gave ample opportunity to the malice of his enemies. The King, however, behaved on this occasion in a manner which did him credit. He not only required the Duke to acknowledge his wife, on being certified that the ceremony had been duly performed, but refused with passion the proffered resignation of the Chancellor, who offered to reside in future beyond seas, and conjured him “never more to think of those unreasonable things, but to attend and prosecute his business with his usual alacrity, since his kindness should never fail him.”

The first open act of hostility against Lord Clarendon was undertaken by the Earl of Bristol, who, in 1663, exhibited articles of high treason and other misdemeanors against him in the House of Lords. These articles, which contained a great variety of vague and inconsistent charges, were forwarded by the House of Lords to the King, who informed them, that “he found several matters of fact charged, which upon his own certain knowledge were untrue; and that the articles contained many scandalous reflections upon himself and his family, which he looked upon as libels against his person and government.” Upon a reference by the House of Lords to the judges, they reported that “the whole charge did not amount to treason though it were all true;” and upon this the proceedings were abandoned.

But it was at last the fate of Lord Clarendon to experience the proverbial ingratitude of princes. From the period of the Restoration a powerful union of discontented parties had gradually combined against him. All hated him—the old cavaliers, because they thought he neglected their just claims upon the bounty of the King; the papists and the dissenters, because they found him an uncompromising opponent of all concessions to those whom he regarded as enemies of the established church; the licentious adherents of an unprincipled court, because his honest endeavours to withdraw the King from his levity and profligacy to serious considerations, thwarted their intentions and interrupted their pleasures. Their united efforts erased from Charles’s mind the recollection of services of no common value, and caused him to abandon his best and most faithful counsellor, without having even the appearance of a reason for his conduct, beyond what he called “the Chancellor’s intolerable temper.”

The Great Seal was taken from Lord Clarendon in August, 1667; and in the month of November following, after an angry debate, he was impeached by the Commons, in general terms, of high treason and other crimes and misdemeanors; but the Lords, upon the impeachment being carried up, refused to commit him, or to sequester him from parliament, on the ground of the generality of the charge. Before the formal articles of impeachment were prepared, Lord Clarendon left England, in consequence of repeated messages from the King advising him to take that course, having previously addressed to the Lords a vindication of his conduct. Immediately after his departure a bill was introduced into the House of Lords, and rapidly passed, by which he was condemned to perpetual banishment, and declared to be for ever incapable of bearing any public office or employment in England.

The charges made against Lord Clarendon at this time were scarcely less multifarious and inconsistent than those which were instituted by Lord Bristol a few years before. He was accused of designing to govern by a standing army,—of accusing the King of popery,—of receiving bribes for patents,—of selling offices,—of _acquiring a greater estate than he could lawfully have gained in a short time_,—of advising the sale of Dunkirk to the French,—of causing Quo Warrantos to be issued against corporations in order that he might receive fines on renewals of charters, and many other particulars of alleged corruption. From most of these accusations Lord Clarendon vindicated himself in an address delivered to the House of Lords upon his departure; but during his retirement at Montpellier, he prepared, and transmitted to his children in England a fuller apology, in which he answered each article of the charges objected to him by the Commons.

After some hesitation, Lord Clarendon determined to reside at Montpellier, where he arrived in July, 1668. He was treated with much courtesy and respect by the governor of the city, as well as the French and English inhabitants of all ranks. His first task was to write the vindication of his conduct above-mentioned. During his retirement he made himself master of French and Italian, and read the works of the most eminent writers in both those languages. He also completed his History of the Rebellion, and wrote an answer to Hobbes’s Leviathan, an Historical Discourse on Papal Jurisdiction, a volume of Essays, divine, moral, and political, and also those fragments of his Life, which were first published by the University of Oxford in 1759. Engaged in these pursuits he passed nearly three years at Montpellier in great tranquillity and cheerfulness. He left that city in 1672, and went first to Moulins, then to Rouen, where he died, December 9, 1673. His remains were brought to England and interred in Westminster Abbey.

The political conduct of Lord Clarendon, though variously described by writers of opposite parties, appears to have been generally as consistent and upright as can reasonably be expected from men of warm tempers, deeply interested in the most violent civil dissensions. His earliest impressions were decidedly in favour of the popular party; and even after he had become familiar with Archbishop Laud, and was favourably noticed by Charles I., he strenuously supported that party in the removal of actual grievances, and resisted with zeal and energy the encroachments of prerogative. That he afterwards refused to join in the wild and intemperate actions committed by the Parliament, and supported the royal cause against the continually increasing demands of those with whom he had previously acted, is not to be ascribed to inconsistency in his conduct, but to the development of designs and measures at all times repugnant to his principles. His advice to Charles I. and to Laud was always temperate and wise, and was given with boldness and candour. After the Restoration, in the height of his power and influence, he displayed the same moderation in his opinions and conduct, and acted upon the same principles of dislike to fundamental changes, which had influenced him as a member of the Long Parliament. It has been imputed to Lord Clarendon that he neglected to exert himself for the relief of those unfortunate cavaliers whose attachment to the King had involved them in penury and ruin. It is difficult to ascertain the exact truth of this charge; but, whether true or false, such an accusation was sure to be made in a case where the applicants for compensation were numerous, and the means of satisfying them inconsiderable.

In the discharge of the legal functions of his office of Lord Chancellor, as presiding in the Court of Chancery, he was by no means distinguished; he promoted some reforms in the practice of his court, and continued the judicious improvements effected during the Commonwealth; but Evelyn says “he was no considerable lawyer,” and the circumstance that he never decided a case without requiring the presence of two judges is, if true, a sufficient acknowledgment of his judicial incompetency.

For his judicial appointments Lord Clarendon is entitled to unqualified praise. Hale, Bridgeman, and other judges of the highest eminence for learning and independence, were appointed by him immediately after the Restoration, and contributed in a great degree to give stability and moral strength to the new government, by the confidence which their characters inspired in the due administration of the law.

As an historian Lord Clarendon was unquestionably careless and inexact to a surprising degree, which may in some measure be excused by the necessity of writing very much from recollection; and he was a perpetual advocate and partisan of the Royal cause, though by no means of most of its supporters. But though his narration constantly betrays the bias of party, and cannot therefore be safely relied upon for our historical conclusions, his misrepresentations arise from the avowed partiality and intense concern he feels for the cause he is advocating, and not from any design to suppress or distort facts. His style is luxuriant and undisciplined, and his expression in the narrative parts of his history is diffuse and inaccurate; but his fervent loyalty and the warmth of his attachment to his political friends have infused a richness of eloquence into his delineations of character, which has perhaps never been surpassed in any language.

[Medal of Clarendon.] [Medal in Commemoration of the
Restoration.]

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

_From a Picture by himself in his Majesty’s Collection._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

SIR J. REYNOLDS.

“Sir Joshua Reynolds,” says Burke, “was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country.” Without staying to inquire how far the literal truth of this assertion may be affected by the priority in date of Wilson and Hogarth, not to mention their less illustrious predecessors, it may safely be affirmed, not only that Reynolds was the founder of the English school, but that the most valuable qualities in the art of painting were almost lost sight of throughout Europe when he began his career. In Holland, the rich manner of Rembrandt, feebly sustained by his imitators, had been succeeded by no less opposite a style than that of Vanderwerf; the still more laboured finish of Denner, a native of Hamburgh, followed; while the minute perfection which was in vogue found a more legitimate application in the flower-pieces of Van Huysum. Reynolds was twenty-four years old at the decease of Denner, who had twice visited London, and had been much employed there. The French school about the middle of the last century took its tone from Boucher, a name now almost forgotten, and if remembered, synonymous with the extreme of affectation; he was principal painter to Louis XV. The native country of Claude and Poussin was indeed more illustrious during this time in the department of landscape, as Vernet produced his views of sea-ports about the period alluded to; but this example, however respectable, was itself indicative of a declining taste, and the style of view-painting in the hands of the foreign artists who practised it in Italy, with the Prussian Hackert at their head, had the effect of extinguishing for a time all invention in landscape. The academy at Berlin was under the direction of a Frenchman; Oeser was the greatest name at Leipzic and Dresden; and the south of Germany still imported imitations of the latest Italian styles in fashion. The state of the arts in Spain may be judged of by the fact, that when, in 1761, Mengs, who was himself a native of Germany, repaired to Madrid in the service of Charles III., the chief painters established there were a Venetian and a Neapolitan, Tiepolo and Corrado Giaquinto. The Venetian school, sometimes entirely losing its original character, seemed at least to maintain a consistent degeneracy in the styles of Sebastian Ricci and the above-named Giambattista Tiepolo, both weak and mannered imitators of Paul Veronese, but still preserving, at least the latter, some brilliancy of colour and pleasing execution. With Tiepolo the characteristic merits of the school seem however to have ceased altogether: towards the latter part of the century, the chief employment of the Venetian painters was the restoration of old pictures.[2] A particular school was established in 1778 for this purpose, and a description of the extraordinary labours of the artists is preserved in the thirty-eighth volume of Goëthe’s works. In Rome, the talents of Maratta and Sacchi, and “the great but abused powers of Pietro da Cortona,” had been succeeded by feebler efforts, descending or fluctuating through the styles of Cignani, Trevisani, and others, till the time of Sebastian Conca, and Pompeo Battoni. The last-named was approaching the zenith of his short-lived reputation, and almost without a rival (for Mengs was as yet young, and Conca already aged), when Reynolds visited Rome.

Footnote 2:

It is worthy of remark that about the same time the sculptors in Rome
were as exclusively employed in restoring antique statues.

Laborious detail on the one hand, and empty facility on the other, formed the distinguishing characteristics of these different schools; but however opposite in execution, mind was alike wanting in both. Denner may be considered the representative of the microscopic style; a style, if it deserves the name, which he applied even to heads the size of life; and as mere finish never was, and probably never will be carried to a more absurd length, his name, though comparatively obscure, marks an epoch in the art. The same scrupulous minuteness obtained about the same time in landscape; among the view-painters, Hendrick Van Lint, surnamed Studio, may be named as the most remarkable of his class. Reynolds alludes to him in one of his discourses, as noted, when he knew him in Rome, for copying every leaf of a tree. The opposite style, which aimed at quantity and rapidity, was derived from the expert painters of galleries and ceilings, called “Machinisti,” and more immediately from Luca Giordano. Facility and despatch, at the expense of every solid quality of art, were the characteristics of the school which was represented in the earlier part of Reynolds’s career, principally by Sebastian Conca in Italy, and by Corrado Giaquinto in Spain.

The changes which took place in this state of things, towards the latter part of the century, may be traced partly to the renewed appreciation of the antique statues (a taste which, however beneficial to sculpture, had an unfortunate influence on the sister art), and subsequently to political circumstances. The fluctuations of taste, however deliberately estimated by retrospective criticism, are indeed generally the result of accident, and depend on causes but seldom derived from a just definition of the nature and object of art. It appears, however, that Reynolds, alone as he was, the founder rather than the follower of a school, enjoyed the rare privilege of making the taste of his time instead of being made by it; and although it would be absurd to suppose that he could be independent of the accidents with which he was brought in contact, it will not appear, upon a candid inquiry, that this great artist was in any respect directly influenced by the practice of his age.

Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton, near Plymouth, in Devonshire, July 16, 1723; he was the son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, who taught the grammar school of Plympton. The young artist’s fondness for drawing manifested itself early, and at eight years of age he had become so well acquainted with the “Jesuits’ Perspective,” as to apply its principles with some effect in a drawing of his father’s school, a building elevated on stone pillars. Among other books connected with art to which he had access, Richardson’s ‘Treatise on Painting’ had a powerful effect in exciting his ambition. The earliest known picture he attempted is a portrait of the Rev. Thomas Smart, who was the vicar of Maker, the parish in which Mount Edgecumbe is situated. Reynolds, then a schoolboy about twelve years of age, sketched the portrait of the vicar at church, and afterwards copied it on canvass. This picture is now in the possession of John Boger, Esq., of East Stonehouse near Plymouth. The taste of the young painter becoming every day more decided, his father, urged by the advice of some friends, placed him at the age of seventeen as a pupil with Hudson, who had at that time the chief business in portrait painting, although a very indifferent artist. In 1743 Reynolds returned to Devonshire, in consequence of a disagreement with his master, and set up as a portrait painter in the town of Plymouth Dock, since called Devonport. He here painted various portraits, chiefly of naval officers. One of these works, containing the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Eliot and family, is in the possession of the Earl of St. Germains. The composition of this picture, the artist’s first attempt at a group, approaches the pyramidal form, and Reynolds, after contemplating it when finished, observed, ‘I see I must have read something about a pyramid, for there it is.’ Six other pictures of the artist are preserved in the same collection, at Port Eliot in Cornwall. An admirable picture of a boy reading by a reflected light was also executed about this time. Many interesting works of Reynolds, some of them belonging to his earlier practice, are preserved in the immediate neighbourhood of Plymouth, in the collections of the Earl of Morley, Mr. Pole Carew of Antony, Mr. Rosdew of Beechwood, Mr. Lane of Coffleet, and others. The artist’s early works, although sometimes carelessly drawn, are distinguished by breadth of colour, by freedom of handling, and not unfrequently by great truth of expression: in short, he seems to have contracted none of the defects of Hudson, except, according to some of his biographers, a certain stiffness and sameness in the attitudes of his portraits; defects which he afterwards exchanged for such grace, spirit, and, above all, endless variety, that it was said “his inventions will be the future grammar of portrait painters.” The earliest portrait he painted of himself is in the collection of Mr. Gwatkin of Plymouth, who married a niece of Reynolds: the same gentleman also possesses the last portrait of the artist by himself, together with many other interesting specimens of his pencil. In 1747 Reynolds repaired again to London, and took lodgings in St. Martin’s Lane, then and long afterwards the favourite residence of artists. In 1749 he sailed to the Mediterranean, by the invitation, and in the company of Captain (afterwards Lord) Keppel. Reynolds spent two months in Minorca, where he painted several portraits of military and naval officers, and proceeded thence, by way of Leghorn, to Rome.

He was fully alive to the sources of inspiration which this city of the arts contained. In the midst of his enthusiasm, however, he was secretly humiliated by discovering in himself an absence of all relish for the grand works of Raffaelle in the Vatican. Richardson had inspired him with the most exalted admiration of Raffaelle; and whatever may be supposed, Reynolds could not be entirely unacquainted with the subjects and designs of the works alluded to. Indeed, in some notes of his own that have been preserved, he only confesses a feeling of disappointment, and afterwards says, “In justice to myself, however, I must add, that though disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured with the works of this great master, I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raffaelle, and these admirable paintings in particular, owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind: on the contrary, my not relishing them, as I was conscious I ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating circumstances that ever happened to me. I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted; I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed; all the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with me from England, where art was in the lowest state it had ever been in (indeed it could not be lower), were to be totally done away and eradicated from my mind.” The union of candour and docility with good sense, which the above account evinces, was the means of emancipating Reynolds from the taste or fashion of the day. Instead of enrolling himself among the scholars of Pompeo Battoni, as he was strongly recommended to do before his departure from England by his kind patron Lord Edgecumbe, he endeavoured during the practice of his art to penetrate the principles on which the great works around him, particularly those of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, were produced. His general theory will be found embodied in his writings, and if his principles sometimes appear to be pushed too far, we may perhaps attribute it to the wish to counteract certain prevailing errors among his contemporaries. It is a general notion that, considering the difference in style between the paintings of Reynolds and those of the great models he professes to admire (Michael Angelo received his more especial homage), he could not have been sincere in acknowledging so thorough a conviction of their excellence. To decide fairly on this difficult and often-discussed point, it is necessary to remember the state of the arts when Reynolds formed his style. The great vice of the age was a routine practice, seldom informed by any reference to the general nature of the art, and as little remarkable for a just discrimination of its various styles. In such a state of things it cannot excite surprise that a sagacious and unprejudiced mind, in endeavouring to retrace the leading principles of the art, should at the same time see the necessity of modifying them in their application to a particular, and in some respects a limited, department. As portrait painting, the imitation of individuals, was to be Reynolds’s chief occupation, it certainly did not occur to him that the abstract representations of Michael Angelo, or even of Raffaelle, could be fit models for him to follow, as far as execution was concerned. He saw however that these masters were probably right even in this respect, when the dignity and purity of their aim, and when subject, place, and dimensions are duly considered. His imitation of them therefore began when he endeavoured to define the end and object of the particular style of art which he himself professed; and although he soon concluded that it required a widely different treatment, he failed not to translate, if we may so say, the causes of the grandeur he admired into the language which belonged to his own department. What he considered the distinctive and desirable requisites of portrait painting to consist in, may be best learnt from his own works. In the first place, the more delicate refinements of colouring and chiaro-scuro, by no means essential in the grander and more abstract department of the art, are indispensable where the imitation is confined to a single and generally a defective person. It is thus that Rembrandt made up the _sum_ of beauty by the fascinations of gradation and contrast, while the forms he had to deal with were often of the most ordinary description. The just imitation of the colour of flesh, the most beautiful and at the same time the most nameless hue in nature, has ever been considered the triumph of imitative art, and confers value and dignity on the _work_ wherever it is fully accomplished. Again, it must be remembered that the domain of expression begins with the accidents of form; that it belongs to and often recommends individuality and redeems deformity; and that its vivid interest is to be sought less in the abstract personifications of Michael Angelo, far less in the higher region of beauty which the Greeks justly placed above the atmosphere of the passions, than in the varieties of accidental nature. Reynolds seized on the delicacies of expression as strictly harmonizing with the individual forms he had to copy: and, while thus adding a charm to his class of art, he became at the same time the abler portrait painter; for the character and expression of the individual are the chief points which are demanded. Lastly, the conduct and execution of his pictures were in strict conformity with the same principles, and may be said to have been dictated by the largest view of the nature and means of the art.

In his works the attention is always attracted by the important objects, or diverted from them, when diverted, only to conceal the artifice which thus commands the eye of the spectator. It is evident that the general degree of completeness will depend on that of the principal object; and assuming that Reynolds’s style of painting a head was sufficiently elaborate (it is generally less so than Vandyck’s), the _unfinish_ of the accessories could hardly be otherwise than it is, consistently with due subordination. The truth of this consistency of style was ultimately acknowledged, and although so opposite from what had before been in fashion, and so different in many respects from what the vulgar admire, the pictures of Reynolds soon won the favour of the public. If the admiration of his works had any ill effect, it was that it tended to produce an imitation of the same mode rather than of the same consistency.

On his return to England in 1752, which has been somewhat anticipated in the foregoing remarks on his style, Reynolds repaired to his native county, and painted one or two pictures at Plymouth: perhaps the earliest of the fine portraits of Mr. Zachary Mudge, Vicar of St. Andrews, was one of these. He returned to London accompanied by his sister Frances. For a short time he again occupied lodgings in St. Martin’s Lane, and produced there the portrait of Giuseppe Marchi, an Italian whom he had brought home as an assistant. This picture, which was in the style of Rembrandt, attracted general admiration; and when his former master Hudson saw it, he exclaimed, stung with jealousy, “Reynolds, you don’t paint so well as when you left England!” Soon after this, in consequence of his increased fame and employment, Reynolds took a house in Great Newport Street, where he resided for some years. The whole length portrait of Admiral Keppel was the next work of importance which he produced: it exhibited such powers that it completely established the fame of the artist, and he was generally acknowledged to be the greatest painter England had seen since the time of Vandyck. From this period his career was one of uninterrupted success and improvement; for his reputation was never greater than at the close of his laborious life. The detraction which such extraordinary merit soon excited was compelled to vent itself in attempting to undervalue the department of art in which he excelled: in consequence of these insinuations, a defence of portrait painting, from the pen of Dr. Johnson, appeared in the forty-fifth number of the Idler. Johnson in that essay, after all, only proved that portrait painting is interesting to a _few_—that in the hands of Reynolds it was “employed in diffusing friendship, in renewing tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.” Reynolds himself, however, without forgetting these important prerogatives, evidently took a more extended view of the matter; he seems early to have felt that the chief difficulty of portrait painting (a difficulty perhaps greater than any in the other branches of art) is to make the representation _generally_ interesting. It is quite obvious that this end can only be attained (especially as beauty of form is not always at command) by a high degree of perfection in all that constitutes the charm of art; for no interest that attaches itself to the individual pourtrayed, however celebrated, can be so universal or so independently intelligible as that which arises from a large and true imitation of nature, to which all are more or less alive. The perfection of art as applicable to portrait painting, was therefore Reynolds’s great object, and it was only in subservience to this that he ventured to introduce what in his hands might be considered a novelty in this department. That novelty was the historic air he often gave his portraits, by happy allusions to some important circumstance in the life of the individual. His consummate knowledge of effect enabled him to do this by means which never interfere with the mere portrait, a difficulty which had been in a great measure evaded by preceding painters. It will be remembered that in most of the portraits even of Titian and Vandyck the attention is literally confined to the individual pourtrayed (after all, the subject of the picture), and it was not lightly or inconsiderately that Reynolds occasionally departed from this judicious practice. If ever a painter could depend on the mere character and expression of his heads, to say nothing of the charm of their execution, Reynolds undoubtedly would have been secure of the public approbation on those grounds alone; and it was only where historic interest happened to coincide or to interfere but little with picturesque effect, that he ventured on the additions alluded to. A better instance perhaps cannot be given than the portrait of Lord Heathfield (celebrated for his defence of Gibraltar), in the National Gallery; in the background of which a cannon pointed downwards indicates, by its angle of depression, the elevation of the spot where the veteran stands, grasping the keys of the fortress which he defended so bravely. In his allegorical portraits, such as Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, &c., Reynolds encountered a much greater difficulty, and it may be questioned whether any painter who has yet appeared would have succeeded better. The mixture of real and imaginary beings, of individual and abstract personifications, the treatment of which would seem to require so different a style, was so managed by Reynolds as to satisfy, in this respect, the most fastidious taste. The secret of the greatness of his style in these subjects, and indeed in most of his portraits, is to be sought in his colouring, the idea of which is large and general; and under its dignified influence the individuality of forms and locality of dress are rendered with all sufficient fidelity without offending. It is thus we find in many Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch pictures, where the subject and forms are most homely, an air of refined taste, and even of grandeur, which seems unaccountable, till we discover that the colouring is true to the largest idea of nature; and thus, to a certain extent, the art is raised by raising its characteristic quality. In short, to return to the question of his imitation of Michael Angelo, we should find that, keeping the main requisites and attainable excellences of portrait painting in view, Reynolds contrived to infuse into it as much elevation as was calculated to improve it without injuring its character; and when we find that he applied this even to execution, and that his breadth of manner, his disdain of non-essentials, is evidently inspired by the same feeling, we shall no longer wonder at his admiration of the highest style of art, or doubt the sincerity of his recorded professions on the subject. The very _indirectness_ of his imitation, in which the whole mystery lies, so sure a proof of his having penetrated the principle of the great master, establishes his claim to originality as well as to consummate judgment and taste.