Sir Joshua Reynolds and his works. By

Edited by Jolm Burnet, F.R.S. 1856.

A portrait of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds. which belonged to the late Dean of Cashel, is in at Plym

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A.

BIRTH-PLACE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

JOSHUA REYNOLDS, "the founder of the British School of Painting," was born at Plympton, an ancient town of Devonshire, in a fertile valley, about five miles from Plymouth, and contiguous to the high road leading from Exeter. Here "the lover of the picturesque will find much to please him in the surrounding scenery; and he whose delight it is to linger in the haunts of genius, will stop to contemplate the humble and unassuming residence of the schoolmaster, where Joshua Reynolds first saw the light; and while standing under the arcades of the old Grammar School, will picture to himself the youthful artist, sitting apart from his schoolfellows, regardless of their sports, and seeking pleasure in his own favourite pursuit, with the Jesuit's Perspective in his hand, busily engaged in applying its rules to the delineation of the building."

66

Joshua was born on the 16th of July, 1723, and was the seventh of either ten or eleven children, five of whom, it is said, died in their infancy. His father, grandfather, and two uncles, were all in Holy Orders. His father, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, is described in the baptismal register of Plympton, as clerk and schoolmaster": he was a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford; and there is in existence a letter from Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, addressed to Mr. Samuel Reynolds, Fellow of Balliol College. Northcote, and most of Sir Joshua's biographers, have erroneously described the Rev. Samuel Reynolds as the Incumbent of Plympton.† He was master of the Grammar School of the town: " although

*

Sir Joshua Reynolds and his works. By William Cotton, M.A. Edited by John Burnet, F.R.S. 1856.

A portrait of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, painted by Sir Joshua, which belonged to the late Dean of Cashel, is in the Cottonian Library, at Plymouth.

(says Cotton) possessed of a high character for learning, he appears to have been ill fitted for the office of a schoolmaster, and before his death it is said that the number of his scholars was literally reduced to one." The mother of Sir Joshua was Theophila, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Potter, near Torrington, in the north of Devon. Samuel Reynolds had a ParsonAdams-like absence of mind; and it is said that in performing a journey on horseback, one of his boots dropped off by the way, without being missed by the wearer. Of his humour it is related that, in allusion to his wife's name, Theophila, he made the following rhyme :

When I say The

Thou must make tea-
When I say Offey

Thou must make coffee.

The house in which Reynolds was born at Plympton was visited by Haydon and Wilkie in 1809, when they saw in the chamber reputed as the birth-room, an early attempt at a portrait drawn with a finger dipped in ink, showing an air of Reynolds's later works. This and other sketches, Mr. Cotton tells us, have been obliterated by the unsparing hand of some renovator. At the period of Haydon's and Wilkie's visit, the house was occupied by Haydon's schoolmaster. From "the Shrine of Reynolds," as it is called, Wilkie went to the Hall of Guild, where he saw, he says, a very fine portrait of Sir Joshua himself; and portraits of two naval officers, painted before he went to Italy, which for composition were as fine as he ever did afterwards. From the Hall he went to the house of an old lady, who showed him a very early picture by Reynolds, which, in spite of want of spirit, and experience of touch, had much in it which promised future excellence. At the residence of Mrs. Mayo, he likewise saw the portrait of an old man, which, though a little faded, was very finely painted: such was her reverence for it, that she would not allow a servant to clean it with either brush or towel, but caused the dust to be blown off with a pair of bellows; nevertheless, adds Wilkie, the best schemes are sometimes frustrated: a giddy housemaid one day drove the bellows-pipe through the canvas.

Mr. Cotton has engraved this room, the window of which commands a view of the Grammar School.