in 1782, uniformly good; but in July 1789 he was threatened with one of the greatest misfortunes that could occur to a painter, the loss of his sight. His left eye was, in fact, rendered totally useless by the attack; and, in order to préserve the right, he relinquished, though very reluctantly, the exercise of what was to him as much an amusement as an employment-he resolved to paint no more.

Until the latter end of 1791 he continued in vigour and good spirits, partaking cheerfully of social and literary amusements. In the October of this year, however, he was not only affected with a tumour and inflammation of the blind eye, but there was reason to apprehend a more dangerous'

head. When in company with only one person, he heard very well, without the aid of a trumpet." Goldsmith, in his imaginary epitaph on Sir Joshua, has pleasantly alluded to his defect of hearing:

Here Reynolds is laid; and, to tell you my mind,

He has not left a wiser or better behind:

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;

His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;

Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart;

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,

When they judg'd without skill, he was still hard of hearing; When they talk'd of their Raffaelles, Corregios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff,

1

and latent complaint; his strength, his appetite, and his spirits failed; yet his physicians were not able to ascertain the seat of his disorder until within a fortnight of his death, when the symptoms became unequivocally indicative of an enlarged liver, which, after his death, was found to have attained the extraordinary weight of elevenpounds. He bore the melancholy consequencest of this disease with exemplary patience and resignation, and expired, at his house in LeicesterFields, on the evening of Thursday, the twentythird of February, 1792. He was interred on Saturday the third of March, with the most distinguished national honours, in the vast crypt of the Cathedral of St. Paul, and near the graves of Sir Christopher Wren, and Sir Anthony Vandyck.

In his personal character and manners, Sir Joshua Reynolds was one of the most pleasing and amiable of men.* Cheerful, modest, unassuming, elegant in his address, accomplished in his education, great and original in his art, and highly respectable in a literary point of view, he was the centre and bond of union of a circle which embraced almost all the worth and talents of the metropolis. Among those who had the

Dr. Johnson declared him to be " the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse."

happiness of being called his intimate friends, he was beloved with an ardour and sincerity which the brilliancy of his talents, the soundness of his understanding, and the sweetness of his temper, rendered permanent and unalloyed.

To his art he was attached with an enthusiasm that was extinguished only with his life, and which, by rendering his daily occupation a pleasure, proved consequently a source of the most durable felicity. "In the fifteen years,” says Mr. Malone, in a paragraph which should be indelibly impressed on every mind," during which I had the pleasure of living with our author on terms of great intimacy and friendship, he appeared to me the happiest man I have ever known. Indeed, he acknowledged to a friend in his last illness, that he had been fortunate and happy beyond the common lot of humanity. The dissipated, the needy, and the industrious, are apt to imagine, that the idle and the rich are the chosen favourites of heaven, and that they alone possess what all mankind are equally anxious to attain: but, supposing always a decent competence, the genuine source of happiness is, virtuous employment, pursued with ardour, and regulated by our own choice. Sir Joshua Reynolds was constantly employed in a lucrative profession, the study and practice of which afforded him inexhaustible

entertainment, and left him not one idle or languid hour."*

The progress which the art of painting has made in this country within the last half century, is to be attributed almost entirely to the pencil and the pen of Sir Joshua Reynolds: which of these, indeed, has contributed most effectually to the establishment of an English School, it would be difficult to decide. Their union, however, has been creative beyond the expectations of the most. sanguine; and there is much reason to hope, that the disciples of so great a master, animated by his spirit and example, will support and extend his efforts, and will finally carry the productions and reputation of his school to the highest pitch of celebrity.

The three Essays which Sir Joshua composed for the IDLER are on the subject of painting; namely, No. 76, on False Criticism on Painting; No. 79, on the Grand Style of Painting; and No. 82, on the True Idea of Beauty. They contain many just observations and precepts, in a style sufficiently easy and correct. To ridicule the cant of connoisseurship, is the principal object of the first of these papers: the second discloses the lofty idea which the author had conceived, and ever retained, of the genius of Michael Angelo,

* Malone's Life of Sir Joshua, vol. 1. p. 85, 86.

whom he justly terms the Homer of Painting; and the third is an attempt to establish a general criterion of beauty; a subject full of difficulty, and which, if not very satisfactorily explained in this essay, is yet discussed with no small portion of ingenuity.

BENNET LANGTON, of Langton, in Lincolnshire, descended of an ancient and most respectable family, was one of the best beloved and most intimate of the friends of Dr. Johnson, whose acquaintance he solicited, from an ardent admiration of his Rambler, soon after the conclusion of that work. He was introduced to the Doctor by Mr. Levet, and, as Mr. Boswell relates," was exceedingly surprized when the sage first appeared. He had not received the smallest intimation of his figure, dress, or manner. From perusing his writings, he fancied he should see a decent, well-drest, in short, a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down from his bed-chamber, about noon, came, as newly risen, a huge uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his