Reynolds left Hudson’s studio before his apprenticeship had expired, for which step many reasons were assigned at the time by those who, perhaps, were not in possession of the truth. Some said his master was unkind to him, from a feeling of jealousy; but as both father and son (Reynolds) remained on friendly terms with the painter, this does not appear probable. Joshua went down to Plymouth, and painted all the remarkable people in the neighbourhood, including the greatest dignitary of all,—the Commissioner of the dockyard!
In 1746 his father died, and when the household broke up, he went to live with his two unmarried sisters at Plymouth. It was here he made the acquaintance of Commodore Keppel, whose portrait is so well known and so justly admired. This gallant sailor had been appointed to the command of the Mediterranean Fleet, and intrusted with a diplomatic mission, before he had completed his twenty-fourth year. He met Joshua at Mount Edgecumbe, and proposed to take him for a cruise, an offer that was gladly accepted. After visiting Portugal, the Balearic Isles, and different portions of the Italian coast, the young painter took leave of the Commodore, and proceeded on a prolonged tour through all the principal towns of Italy, carefully admiring, studying, copying, and writing essays on all the treasures of art in his progress. His long and patient worship of Raphael, in the chambers of the Vatican, cost him one of his senses, for the extreme cold of those vast apartments brought on a chill, which deprived him of hearing, even at that early age. Returning to London, he established himself in St. Martin’s Lane, in a house formerly occupied by Sir James Thornhill, immediately behind which stood the school for drawing and design. He now wrote to his sister Frances to come up from Devonshire, and keep house for him,—a proceeding which, judging from the character given of that lady by Madame D’Arblay (whose testimony we are always inclined to take cum grano), appeared to be of questionable advantage, for Miss Fanny, though a person of worth and understanding, lived in a perpetual state of irresolution of mind and perplexity of conduct,—what in these days we should call a chronic fuss; added to which, she insisted on being an artist, and her admiration for her brother’s works induced her to make what she called ‘copies,’ and Joshua ‘caricatures.’ ‘Indeed,’ said he wofully, ‘Fanny’s copies make me cry, and other people laugh.’ She had also a knack of taking offence on the slightest provocation, and one day, being displeased with her brother for some imaginary slight put upon her, she deputed Samuel Johnson to compose an expostulatory letter for her to write to Joshua. Dr. Johnson was a warm admirer of Miss Fanny and her talent for tea-making,—to which he did full justice,—and could deny her nothing; but when the copy of the letter was read and discussed, the style was so unmistakably masculine and Johnsonian, that it was deemed advisable not to send it.
Our painter’s hands were now full. Men and women of all classes, denominations, and reputations, thronged his studio; his pocket-book was a perfect record of all the illustrious and celebrated names of the period. He determined to change his quarters, first to Newport Street, and finally to far more commodious apartments in Leicester Square. He raised his prices, charging twelve guineas for a head, and forty-eight for a full-length. He set up a magnificent coach, which caused a great sensation. Northcote flippantly describes it as an advertisement; but it would appear more likely that Reynolds wished to do Catton a good turn. Catton had begun life as a decorator, and ended as an R.A. The vehicle was splendid in colour and gorgeous in gilding, and Catton soon received orders to paint royal and municipal carriages. Joshua was far too busy to take the air in his new equipage, and it was in vain he entreated Miss Fanny to do so. She was much too shy, she said, to attract the eyes of the whole town.
We do not require to be told that Sir Joshua was a friend and playfellow of children. None but a lover could have painted in all their winning varieties, not merely the comeliness, but the roguish grace, the dimpled smiles, the ‘beautifully shy’ glances, of childhood. It is easy to picture him paying court to these juvenile charmers, and entering into delightful small flirtations. But the history of one of these tender passages will suffice to give an idea of the course he usually pursued. The parents of the beautiful little Miss Bowles, with whose sweet face we are all familiar, had settled that their darling should sit to Romney. But Sir George Beaumont recommended Reynolds for the privilege. The little lady was shy and coy. ‘Invite him to dinner,’ said Sir George. The President came, and sat at table by the daughter of the house. He paid her the most assiduous court; no end of stories; no end of tricks; her plate was juggled away and brought back from unexpected quarters. Her senses were dazzled; the conquest was complete; she thought him the most captivating of men, and was only too ready to be taken to his house next day. There, seated on the floor in an ecstasy of expectation and delight, she gave herself up to Sir Joshua’s fascinations. He seized his opportunity, caught the radiant expression, fastened it on the canvas, and made his little friend immortal! No one gloried more in the success of the young painter than Samuel Johnson, for between these two great men, so essentially different in pursuits, in character, intellect, and appearance, a tender friendship had sprung up. Reynolds’s heart, home, and purse were always at the service of the Doctor, who was often in pecuniary difficulties, and who wrote Rasselas under the pressure of great sorrow, paying the expenses of his mother’s funeral out of the proceeds of the book. He puts these touching words into the mouth of Imlac: ‘I have neither mother to delight in the reputation of her son, or wife to share in the honours of her husband.’
Many a delightful summer excursion did Johnson and Reynolds make together, where the eccentricities and caustic humour of the former made him as welcome a guest at the country houses they visited as the refined qualities and polished manners of the latter.
If the peculiarities, the sayings, and doings of the great ‘leviathan of literature’ have been made familiar to us by the pen of Boswell, surely the pencil of Reynolds has stamped his image on our minds, as if the living Samuel had ever stood before us. Boswell recognised the Doctor when he saw him first through a glass door in Tom Davies’s coffee-house from his exact resemblance to the portrait which the painter afterwards gave the biographer, who had it engraved for one of the first editions of Johnson’s Life. What can be more charming than ‘The Infant Johnson,’ one of the chief glories of the Bowood collection? Was ever a joke so wonderfully delineated?
The question being raised one evening at a convivial meeting, Could the Doctor ever have been a baby? ‘No doubt about it,’ said Reynolds; ‘I know exactly what he looked like, and I will show you some day.’
The painter was a great admirer of Johnson’s powers of conversation, and it was chiefly at his instigation that the Literary Club was formed, with a view ‘of giving the Doctor the opportunity of talking, and us, his friends, of listening.’ The meetings were held in Gerrard Street, Soho, and were at first confined to twelve members, but ere long included all the wit and literature of the town.
Sir Joshua liked cards, masquerades, and theatres. Neither did he disdain the illegitimate drama, for we find him accompanying the sapient Samuel and the rollicking Oliver (Goldsmith) to a performance of the Italian Fantoccini; and, still more surprising, we have the account of the supper which crowned this convivial evening, when Goldsmith and the Doctor jumped over sticks, in imitation of the frolics of the wooden puppets, and the latter nearly broke his leg in these elephantine gambols!
In 1769 the Royal Academy was founded. Joshua did not join the deputation that waited on the King; in fact, he kept aloof from the whole undertaking, interested as he was at heart in the cause; but the slights put upon him at Court formed a sufficient reason for his non-appearance. From the moment that he found himself elected President by the unanimous voice of his brother artists, his zeal never slackened, and knew no bounds. He drew up Regulations, wrote and revised the Catalogue, and began a regular course of lectures, which gained him as much literary, as his paintings had secured for him pictorial, fame. As long as Reynolds could hold a brush he contributed his most splendid portraits to the Exhibitions. As in duty bound, he went to the levee, where the King knighted him. ‘His very name,’ says his friend Edmund Burke, an undoubted master of euphony, ‘seemed made for knightly honours.’