That Vandyke did not possess that liberal patron in King Charles I. which his biographers have hitherto stated, is unquestionably a fact, which can be proved by a long bill which I have lately seen (by the friendly indulgence of Mr. Lemon[250] and his son), in the State Paper Office, docketed by the King’s own hand. For instance, the picture of his Majesty dressed for the chase (which I conjecture to be the one engraved by Strange),[251] for which Vandyke had charged £200, the King, after erasing that sum, inserted £100; and down in proportion, nay, in some instances they suffered a further reduction. Of several of the works charged in the bill, which his Majesty marked as intended presents to his friends, I recollect one of two that were to be given to Lord Holland was reduced to the sum of £60. Other pictures in the bill the King marked with a cross, which is explained at the back by Endymion Porter, that as those were to be paid for by the Queen, the King had left them for her Majesty to reduce at pleasure.
That a daughter of Vandyke was allowed a pension for sums owing by King Charles I. to her father, is also true, as there is a petition in consequence of its being discontinued still preserved in the State Paper Office, in which that lady declares herself to be plunged into the greatest distress, adding that she had been cheated by the purchaser of her late father’s estate, who never paid for it.[252]
It would be the height of vanity in me to offer anything beyond what the author of The Sublime and Beautiful has said of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who died this year at his house in Leicester Square.[253] As Mr. Burke’s character of this most powerful of painters may not be in the possession of all my readers, I shall here reprint it.[254]
“The illness of Sir Joshua Reynolds was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of anything irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life.
“He had, from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution; and he contemplated it with that entire composure which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and unaffected submission to the will of Providence, could bestow. In this situation he had every consolation from family tenderness, which his own kindness to his family had indeed well deserved.
“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 was 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 professed 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 appeared 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 be 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 scrutinising eye, in any part of his conduct or discourse.
“His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters—his social virtues in all the relations and in 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!’”
The following letter was addressed to me by my worthy friend Colonel Phillips:[255]—