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had every consolation from family tenderness, which his tenderness to his family had always merited.

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 colouring, 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 profess 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. In painting portraits, he appears not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to have been derived from his paintings.

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 happiness 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 candour never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or

assumption 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 in lettershis 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. Hail! and farewell.

BURKE.

To the grandeur, the truth, and simplicity of Titian, and to the daring strength of Rembrandt, he has united the chasteness and delicacy of Vandyke. Delighted with the picturesque beauty of Rubens, he was the first that attempted a bright and gay back ground to portraits, and defying the dull and ignorant rules of his master, at a very early period of life, emancipated his art from the shackles with which it had been encumbered in the school of Hudson. There is, however, every reason to believe, that he very rarely copied any entire picture of any master, though he certainly did imitate the excellent parts of many; and his versatility in this respect was equalled only by the susceptibility of his feelings, the quickness of his comprehension, and the ardour which prompted his efforts. His pictures in general possess a degree of merit superior to mere portraits, they assume the rank of history.

His

His portraits of men are distinguished by a certain air of dignity, and those of women and chil-dren by a grace, a beauty, and simplicity which have seldom been equalled, and never surpassed. No painter ever gave so completely as himself that momentary fascinating expression, that irresistible charm, which accompanies and denotes the "Cynthia of the minute." In his attempts to give character where it did not exist, he has sometimes lost likeness; but the deficiences of the portrait were often compensated by the beauty of the picture. The attitudes of his figures are generally full of grace, ease, and propriety; he could throw them into the boldest variations, and he often ventures on postures which inferior painters could not execute; or which, if attempted, would inevitably destroy their credit. chief aim, however, was colour and effect, and these he always varied as the subject required. Whatever deficiencies there may be in the designs of this great master, no one at any period better understood the principles of colouring; nor can it be doubted that he carried this branch of his art to a very high degree of perfection. His lights display the knowledge he possessed, and with shade he conceals his defects. Whether we consider the power, the brilliancy, or the form of his lights, the transparency of his shadows, with the just quantities of each, and the harmony, richness, and full effect of the whole, it is evident that he has not only far transcended every modern master, but that his excellencies in these captivating parts of painting vie with the works of the great models he has emulated. The opinion he has

given of Raffaelle, may, with equal justice, be applied to himself," that his materials were generally borrowed, but the noble structure was his own." No one ever appropriated the ideas of others to his own purpose with more skill than Sir Joshua. He possessed the alchemy of painting, by converting whatever he touched into gold. Like the bee that extracts sweets from the most noxious flowers, so his active observation could see every thing pregnant with the means of improvement, from the wooden print on a common ballad to the highest graces of Parmigiano. Perhaps there is no painter that ever went before him, from whom he has not derived some advantage, and appropriated certain excellencies with judicious selection and consummate taste. Yet after all that can be alleged against him as a borrower of forms from other masters, it must be allowed he engrafted on them beauties peculiarly his own. The severest critics indeed must admit, that his manner is truly original, bold, and free. Freedom is certainly one of his principal characteristics; and to this he seems often to have sacrificed every other consideration. He has, however, two manners; his early pictures are without those violent freedoms of execution and dashes of the pencil, being more minute and more fearful, but the colouring is clear, natural, and good. In his latter and bolder works, the colour, though excellent, is sometimes more artificial than chaste.

As an historical painter, he cannot be placed in the same rank which he holds in the line of portraiture. The compositions of his portraits are unquestionably excellent, whilst his historical

pictures are, in this respect, often very defective. They frequently consist of borrowed parts, which are not always suited to each other. Though many times inaccurate, and deficient in the style of drawing, they must, however, be allowed to possess great breadth, taste, and feeling, and many of them fine expression. His light, poetical pieces much excelled those of a narrative or historical order.

NORTHCOTE.

MAHOMET.

AT the conclusion of the life of Mahomet it may perhaps be expected that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be difficult and the success uncertain at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of religious incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to have been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition: so soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty he lived with innocence, and would have died without a name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and

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