Gainsborough and Romney were considered to some extent the rivals of Reynolds, but Gainsborough’s child pictures were drawn from rustic life, and Romney’s are not worthy of comparison with the master’s. We must turn, then, for the best results of Reynolds’s influence to the work of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who entered upon his career just as the great portrait-painter was obliged to lay aside his brush from failing sight.
II.
CHILDREN BORN TO THE PURPLE.
For thrones and peoples are as waifs that swing
And float or fall, in endless ebb and flow;
But who love best have best the grace to know
That Love, by right divine, is deathless King.
Tennyson.