painting, writing, or reading; for the last four months I have spent all my time in reading to him, and writing all that he Iwants to have done. He now amuses himself by sometimes cleaning or mending a picture, for his ruling passion still continues in force, and he enjoys his pictures as much as

ever.

"His health is perfect, and his spirits good, surprisingly so, considering what a loss an eye is to him; and as it is the gutta serena which is affected, there is not the least chance of his ever recovering his sight. I expected he would have been depressed by such an event, almost to melancholy; but far from it, he enjoys company (in a quiet way), and loves a game of cards as well as ever."

Mr. Cotton has engraved from Sir Joshua's pocket-book his record of the calamity-Monday, the 13th of July-"prevented by my eye beginning to be obscured." Still, there are several subsequent entries, from which it may be inferred that Sir Joshua worked more or less upon other portraits. Miss Palmer, writing in March, 1790, speaks of his still painting occasionally; and the author of the Testimonials dates his entire cessation from painting in Nov. 1791; “from which period, (he says) Sir Joshua never painted more,” and adds: "His last male portrait was that of Charles James Fox, and when the last touches were given to this picture, the hand of Reynolds fell to rise no more."

DEATH OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Sir Joshua now became much depressed in spirits, from his apprehension that a tumour, accompanied by inflammation. which took place above the eye that perished, might affect the other; and it could not be dispersed. Under these infirmities, he resigned for ever the Presidency of the Royal Academy. He now grew melancholy, and sorrowfully silent. A concealed malady was sapping his life and spirits. Mr. Burke says: "His illness was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of anything irritable or querulous, agreeable to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He had from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution, which he contemplated with an entire composure, that nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Providence, could bestow."

"I have been fortunate," said Reynolds, "in long good

health and constant success, and I ought not to complain. I know that all things on earth must have an end, and now I am come to mine." With these simple words of resignation, Sir Joshua expired, without any visible symptoms of pain, on the night of Thursday, February 23, 1792, in the 69th year of his age.

Next day, his body was opened by Mr. Hunter, the eminent surgeon, when his liver was found to have become præternaturally enlarged, and to have increased from about five pounds to nearly eleven pounds. Though during the whole. of his illness from December to Feb. 23, he felt and therefore thought that his malady was mortal, he submitted to the Divine Will with perfect resignation, at the same time following the prescriptions of his physicians, though with little or no hope of their being useful. He died with very little pain.

Mr. Malone left among his papers the following touching details of the last hours of Sir Joshua.

"The dear friend so often mentioned in these papers, Sir Joshua Reynolds, died at his house in Leicester Fields, (Feb. 23, 1792,) at half-past eight o'clock... He had long enjoyed such constant health, looked so young, and was so active, that I thought, though he was sixty-nine years old, he was as likely to live eight or ten years longer as any of his younger friends.

"On our return from an excursion to Mr. Burke's at Beaconsfield, last September, we alighted from his coach, and while the horses baited at the half-way house, we walked five miles very smartly in a warm day without his being fatigued. About three years ago, he found some defect in his sight, whilst painting the picture of Lady Beauchamp, if I remember right, and then determined to paint no more. Soon afterwards he entirely lost the sight of his left eye. From that period he became very apprehensive of losing the other also, yet his uniform cheerfulness never forsook him till very lately.

"I cannot help thinking that we should not have lost this most amiable man for some years, had there not been want of exertion, combined with some want of skill in his physicians. In September he was much distressed by swelling and inflammation over the lost eye, owing as has since been thought, to some extravasated blood. For this Mr. Cruikshank, who was called in as surgeon, bled him with leeches, purged and blistered him repeatedly, all in vain; for the swelling and

pain remained in that part till the period of death. This pain led him to fear that the other eye would soon be affected; and from this or other causes, his spirits became depressed, and his appetite daily decreased. In this state he continued in the month of November. The physicians who then attended, Sir George Baker and Dr. Warren, assured him that his remaining eye was in no danger, and that with respect to any other complaint, if he would but exert himself, take exercise, and think himself well, he would be well.

"Unfortunately, they paid little attention to his loss of appetite and depression of spirits. Even while he was gradually wasting, their constant language was— -What can we do for a man who will do nothing for himself?' At the same time, they owned they could not discern his disorder, though he was ready and willing to follow such prescriptions as they should direct. All this while, that is, during the months of November, December, and January, they made not the least attempt to investigate the seat or origin of his disease; nor did they call for the aid of a surgeon to examine his body minutely, and thus discover the latent mischief.

"Dr. Blagdon (Secretary of the Royal Society, who had studied physic, and practised for some time in America) alone uniformly declared he was confident the complaints of Sir Joshua Reynolds were not imaginary, but well founded, and that some of the principal viscera were affected. His conjecture proved but too correct; for on his body being opened, his liver, which ought to have weighed about five pounds, had attained the great weight of eleven pounds. It was also somewhat scirrhous. The optic nerve of the left eye was quite shrunk, and more flimsy than it ought to have been. The other, which he was so apprehensive of losing, was not affected. In his brain was found more water than is usual in men of his age."-Sir James Prior's Life of Edmond Malone.

In his stature, Sir Joshua Reynolds was rather under the middle size, of a florid complexion, roundish blunt features, and a lively aspect; not corpulent, though somewhat inclined to it, but extremely active; with manners uncommonly polished and agreeable. He was never married.

FUNERAL OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

The remains of the great painter, after lying in state in the great room of the Royal Academy, at Somerset House, were

interred, with great ceremony, in St. Paul's Cathedral, on March 3, 1792. The mourners included many of the most illustrious men of the land: they were conveyed in forty-two coaches, followed by forty-two empty carriages of the nobility. The coffin was deposited in a grave in the south aisle of the crypt of the cathedral, where have since been interred many of our greatest painters. Hence, if Westminster Abbey has its Poets' Corner, so has St. Paul's its Painters' Corner. Above, in the nave of the cathedral, many years after the interment, here was erected a marble statue of Reynolds, one of the finest works of Flaxman the President wears his robes of office; in his right hand he bears his Lectures, and his left rests upon a pedestal surmounted with a bust of Michael Angelo. Upon the pedestal is a long inscription in Latin, from the pen of Mr. R. Payne Knight.

The ceremonial of the funeral was superintended by Mr. Burke, who at the close attempted to thank the members of the Academy for the attention shown to the remains of their late President; but the orator's feelings found vent in tears; and after several efforts, he gave up the attempt: his eloquence was mute grief-he could not utter a word.

A print, engraved by Bartolozzi, was presented to each of the gentlemen attending the funeral. The design is, a female clasping an urn; near her is a boy holding an extinguished torch in one hand, and pointing with the other to a tablet on a sarcophagus, inscribed: "Succedet Fama, vivusque per ora feretur." Beneath, on a scroll, are these words:

The Executors and Family of Sir Joshua Reynolds return thanks for the tribute of respect paid to departed Genius and Virtue, by your attendance at the funeral of that illustrious painter and most amiable man, in St. Paul's Cathedral, on Saturday, March 3, 1792.

SIR JOSHUA'S WILL.

His will, made Nov. 5, 1791, begins with this melancholy paragraph: "As it is probable that I shall soon be totally deprived of sight, and may not have an opportunity of making a formal will, I desire that the following memorandums may be considered as my last will and testament."

The principal portion of his property, which amounted upon the whole to 80,000l., he bequeathed to his niece, Miss Palmer, who was shortly afterwards married to the Earl of Inchiquin, subsequently created Marquis of Thomond.

Sir Joshua bequeathed to Mr. Burke for the trouble of executorship, 2,000l., and also cancelled a bond for the same amount, lent on a former occasion. Their intimacy-the extent of a generation-had been close and uninterrupted— their feelings and sentiments consonant-and in this protracted friendship they had conjointly missed many a brilliant ornament from the gay circle that was wont to assemble round Reynolds's hospitable board in Leicester-square.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, (says Burke,) 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, in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the greatest inventors of the renowned ages. He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter he was a profound and penetrating philosopher. His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not merely cultivated by letters, his 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!

REYNOLDS'S THRONE-CHAIR.

This interesting relic, having fallen into the hands of Dr. Fryer, was after his death inserted in a catalogue of his household property for sale by auction, when Mr. J. T. Smith apprised Sir Thomas Lawrence of the fact. However, on the day of sale, the President of the Royal Academy had nearly lost it; as the lot was about to be knocked down for ten shillings and sixpence, just as the rescuing bidder entered the room; which enabled him, after a slight contest of biddings, to place the treasure, on that very day, by Sir Thomas's fireside in Russell-square. In the sale of the Leicester Gallery of Pictures, consisting entirely of the productions of British artists, a comparatively diminutive chair, of French character, was conspicuously advertised as the throne-chair of Sir Joshua Reynolds; but on the error being pointed out to Mr. Christie, the auctioneer, he acknowledged the error to the company, adding, that the real unostentatious chair was in the possession of the President of the Royal Academy.

The chair had some years previously been presented by Lord and Lady Inchiquin to Barry, the painter, who acknowledged the gift in the following letter: