Of the great vulgar and the small. Cowley, Horace, Odes, III. 1.
[392]. After Marriage à la Mode the article in its original issue adds: ‘exhibited lately at the British Institution.’
[394]. Universal Pan. Paradise Lost, IV. 266.
[396]. The authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds. From the article in The Champion, Oct. 30, 1814, entitled Character of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
After worth considering add: ‘From the great and substantial merits of the late President, we have as little the inclination as the power to detract. But we certainly think that they have been sometimes over-rated from the partiality of friends and from the influence of fashion. However necessary and useful the ebullitions of public or private enthusiasm may be to counteract the common prejudices against new claims to reputation, and to lift rising genius to its just rank, there is a time when, having accomplished its end, our zeal may be suffered to subside into discretion, and when it becomes as proper to restrain our admiration as it was before to give a loose to it. It is only by having undergone this double ordeal that reputation can ever be established on a solid basis—that popularity becomes fame.’
[397]. Alone give value and dignity to it. Cf. Lamb’s Essay on the Genius and Character of Hogarth (ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 80), where the words are quoted from Barry’s Account of a Series of Pictures ... at the Adelphi.
Hudson. Thomas Hudson (1701–1779), one of the most fashionable portrait painters of his day, the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
After affected position add: ‘He thought that beauty and perfection were one and he very consistently reduced this principle to practice.’
Richardson. Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745), portrait painter and writer on art.
Coypel. A family of French painters of various years from 1628 to 1752.