Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/226

 When Gainsborough charged him but sixty guineas for his celebrated picture of the Girl and Pigs, Reynolds, conscious that it was worth much more, gave him one hundred. Hearing that a worthy artist with a large family was in distress, and threatened with arrest, he paid him a visit, and learning that the extent of his debts was but forty pounds, he shook him warmly by the hand as he took his leave, and the artist was astonished to find in his fingers a bank-note of one hundred pounds. When Dayes, an artist of merit, showed him his drawings of a Royal pageant at St. Paul's, Reynolds complimented him, and said that he had bestowed so much labor upon them that he could not be remunerated by selling them, but told him that if he would publish them he would loan him the necessary funds, and engage to get him a handsome subscription among the nobility.

REYNOLDS' LOVE OF HIS ART.

Reynolds was an ardent lover of his profession, and ever as ready to defend it when assailed, as to add to its honors by his pencil. When Dr. Tucker, the famous Dean of Gloucester, in his discourse before the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, asserted that "a pin-maker was a more valuable member of society than Raffaelle," Reynolds was greatly nettled, and said, with some asperity, "This is an observation of a very narrow mind; a mind that is confined to the