No. 3.
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A.
Red coat. Fur collar. No spectacles.
BORN 1723, DIED 1792.
By Himself.
BORN at Plymouth, where his father, Samuel, was master of the Grammar-School. His mother was Theophila Potter, of Bishops Plympton, South Molton, who had many children. Samuel Reynolds was a good man, and sensible withal; yet we are told, on the authority of a maid who lived in the family, that he was given to astrology, and would go out on the house-top to consult the stars; moreover, that he once cast the horoscope of a little daughter, for whom he predicted a violent death,—a prophecy which was, unfortunately, fulfilled, as the child fell out of a window, and was killed. When only eight years old, Joshua had benefited so much by studying Richardson’s treatise on Perspective, that he was enabled to draw the schoolhouse according to rule, a feat which much delighted his father. The boy also busied himself in copying all the engravings he could lay hands on, more especially a volume of Catt’s Emblems, which his grandmother had brought with her from Holland. His sisters had all a turn for drawing, and the little band of artists used to decorate the whitewashed walls of the passages with designs in charcoal, whereof the least admired were the brother’s handiworks. Indeed, in those days Joshua was not considered a prophet by his sisters, who had nicknamed him ‘The clown,’—a sobriquet certainly not applicable to him in after life. Mrs. Parker, a friend and neighbour of the Reynolds family, sent the children a present of pencils,—a gift which the great painter lived to pay back with interest, for the walls of Saltram are rich in his paintings. When about twelve years of age, Joshua is said to have made his first essay in oils under considerable difficulties,—the portrait of Richard (afterwards Lord) Edgecumbe,—in the boat-house on Cremel Beach, below Mount Edgecumbe. This work was executed on the rough canvas of a boat-sail, with the common paints used by shipwrights!
After much consultation with friends and relations, and many pecuniary obstacles, Joshua proceeded to London as an apprentice to Hudson, the fashionable portrait-painter of the day, son-in-law to Richardson, whose writings on Art had been so useful to the young beginner. Shortly after his departure, his father writes to a friend that no one could be more delighted than the dear fellow with his new life, his master, his employment,—indeed, he was in the seventh heaven.
Joshua was an enthusiast in all things, and a characteristic anecdote is told of him when he first went to London. Hudson sent him to a picture sale, on a commission to make a purchase, when a whisper ran through the crowded room—‘Mr. Pope! Mr. Pope!’ A passage was instantly made for the great man, and Joshua, in a fever of excitement, stretched out his hand under the arm of the person who stood before him, desirous even to touch the hem of the poet’s garment. To his delight, his hand was warmly shaken by the man whose homely but expressive features, and poetical creations, he was destined to portray in later days.