Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/68

 though not completed till 1780, were commenced in 1777, in which year he spent August and part of November at Blenheim in painting his great picture of the Marlborough family. It was sent to the academy in 1778, with a half-length of the archbishop of York and two other portraits. The lovely picture of Mrs. Payne-Gallwey, with her child riding ‘pick-a-back’—remarkable for the beauty of both landscape and figures—belongs to the same year, a considerable portion of which was spent on the pictures designed for reproduction in the west window of New College Chapel, Oxford. They consisted of a ‘Nativity’ and the seven ‘Virtues.’ The ‘Nativity,’ the most important of Sir Joshua's religious pictures, was elegantly grouped and beautifully lighted, after the manner of Correggio's ‘Notte,’ by rays proceeding from the infant Saviour. The picture perished by fire at Belvoir Castle in 1816, together with one of the richest collections of Reynolds's works. The ‘Virtues,’ especially ‘Charity’ (with her children), are all beautiful. Mrs. Sheridan sat for the Virgin in the ‘Nativity,’ and also for the ‘Charity.’ The pictures of the ‘Virtues’ were bought by Lord Normanton at the Marchioness of Thomond's sale in 1821 for 5,565l., ‘Charity’ fetching 1,575l., and his lordship subsequently refused three times this price for them.

In 1778 Reynolds commenced his acquaintance with Miss Burney, which was warmly sustained until the end of his life. She has left us a vivid account of her first visit to Leicester Fields, where she met with ‘more scrupulous delicacy from Sir Joshua than from anybody.’ About this time the ‘Blue Stockings’ were at their height, and Sir Joshua was a constant guest of Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey, Mrs. Ord, Mrs. Walsingham, Mrs. Cholmondeley, and Mrs. Thrale. It is to the lively pen of the last that we owe the celebrated picture of Sir Joshua in society: Of Reynolds all good should be said and no harm, Though the heart is too frigid, the pencil too warm; Yet each fault from his converse we still must disclaim, As his temper 'tis peaceful, and pure as his fame; Nothing in it o'erflows, nothing ever is wanting, It nor chills like his kindness, nor glows like his painting. When Johnson by strength overpowers our mind, When Montague dazzles, and Burke strikes us blind, To Reynolds well pleased for relief we must run, Rejoice in his shadow, and shrink from the sun.

The acquittal of Keppel at his memorable trial in 1779 (the year also of Garrick's and Hudson's death) was not only a source of great pleasure but of some profit to his old friend Reynolds, who was commissioned by the admiral to paint portraits of him for presentation to his counsel, Dunning, Erskine, and Lee, and to Burke. The king and queen also sat to Sir Joshua this year (for the portraits for the academy's new rooms at Somerset House, which were opened next year). The Prince of Wales and Gibbon, and a few noblemen, including the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, also sat to him; but his sitters were few, a great part of his time being still occupied with the ‘Nativity,’ which (with ‘Faith,’ ‘Hope,’ and ‘Charity’) was sent to the exhibition of 1779, but almost repainted afterwards. This exhibition also contained his full-length of Viscountess Crosbie, remarkable for its suggestion of swift and graceful movement. In this year the public were agitated by fears of a French invasion, but Reynolds wrote to Burke: ‘My mind has been so much occupied by my business that I have escaped feeling those terrors that seem to have possessed all the rest of mankind.’

The opening of the academy's rooms in Somerset House was the great professional event of 1780. The centre of the ceiling of the library was painted by Sir Joshua, with a figure of ‘Theory’ (now in the academy's gallery in Burlington House), and he exhibited, among other works, his portrait of Gibbon, a masterpiece; the charming full-length of Prince William Frederick, son of the Duke of Gloucester, and his duchess (the often-painted Maria, erst Lady Waldegrave); the design of ‘Justice’ for the New College window; and a portrait (as Una) of the daughter of Topham Beauclerk, whose death this year made a gap in the ranks of the Literary Club and the friendships of Reynolds. In June of this year occurred the ‘Gordon riots,’ when Sir George Savile's house in Leicester Fields was gutted before Reynolds's eyes, and an attack on the academy was threatened. In the summer and autumn he visited Lord Darnley (at Cobham), the Duke of Rutland (at Cheveley), Keppel (at Bagshot), and Dunning (soon to be Lord Ashburton) at Spitchwick on Dartmoor.

In 1781 Sir Joshua painted ‘Mrs. Nisbett as Circe,’ and exhibited the celebrated group of the Ladies Waldegrave, the great-nieces of Horace Walpole, embroidering and winding silk, and no fewer than thirteen other pictures, which included the ‘Death of Dido’ (now at Buckingham Palace), one of the most important of his works of this class; ‘Thais,’ for which the lady afterwards known as Emma lady Hamilton [q. v.] sat at the request of