Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/69

 the Hon. Charles Greville; and a ‘Child asleep.’ Among the portraits were the lovely Duchess of Rutland, a group of her children, Master Bunbury, the son of ‘Little Comedy,’ and Dr. Burney (for Mr. Thrale). He also painted ‘Mrs. Thrale and her daughter Queenie’ in this year, during which Thrale died, and the Streatham gallery came to an end. In July he went to Flanders and Holland with Mr. Metcalfe, and took elaborate notes of the pictures, which were published after his death. Later in the year he painted ‘Offy,’ now Mrs. R. L. Gwatkin, and her husband.

In 1782 Sir Joshua exhibited fifteen pictures, including portraits of Lord-chancellor Thurlow, who afterwards called him ‘a great scoundrel and a bad painter;’ Mrs. Mary Robinson (Perdita), already discarded by her royal lover, but still in the flower of her beauty; William Beckford (then twenty-three, but already the author of ‘Vathek,’ not yet published); two little boys, sons of William Brummel, one of whom was to develop into the ‘Beau;’ Captain (afterwards Sir Banaster) Tarleton [q. v.], celebrated for his brilliant feats during the American campaign; and Mrs. Baldwin, the ‘fair Greek,’ wife of the English consul at Smyrna, seated cross-legged on a divan in striped green silk and turbanlike head-dress. In this year Reynolds finished his annotations to Mason's translation of Du Fresnoy's ‘Art of Painting;’ John Opie [q. v.], to whom Reynolds had given advice and encouragement, now became for a while a very fashionable portrait-painter.

Reynolds had called upon Gainsborough shortly after he came to London, and Gainsborough never returned the visit; but in November this year Reynolds sat to Gainsborough, ‘the nearest rapprochement,’ says Leslie, ‘recorded of these illustrious rivals, till Sir Joshua was called by the dying Gainsborough to his bedside.’ The progress of the portrait was cut short by a paralytic attack, which caused serious alarm to Sir Joshua's friends, and brought a letter from Johnson, then at Brighthelmstone, in which strong affection beats through studied language. His physician sent him to Bath, and by the end of the month he was back again in his usual health; but his sittings to Gainsborough were never renewed. He sent only ten pictures to the exhibition in 1783 (a small number at that time for him), and they did not comprise any of particular note; but his powers were unabated, and he this year painted what may be regarded as his masterpiece, the picture of Mrs. Siddons as the ‘Tragic Muse.’ The conception of the picture is taken from Michael Angelo's ‘Isaiah;’ but, according to Mrs. Siddons's account, she assumed the attitude spontaneously. The picture is signed at full length in ornamental characters on the border of her dress, Sir Joshua saying that he could not lose the opportunity of going down to posterity on the hem of her garment. He inscribed Lady Cockburn's drapery in a similar way. It was in 1783 that James Barry (1741–1806) [q. v.] ended his long and noble labour in the hall of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi, which was thrown open to the public on the same day as the exhibition of the Royal Academy. In the pamphlet which he issued as a companion to the exhibition, Barry poured forth his long-bottled wrath against the academy in general and Sir Joshua in particular, not scrupling to insinuate vile charges against Sir Joshua's private character. For these hereafter he made amends by supporting Sir Joshua in his quarrel with the academy, and, immediately after his death, by pronouncing in his sixth lecture a warm eulogium on Sir Joshua's genius and character. But there was no excuse, except an overstrained mind, for his attacks in 1783; for Sir Joshua had been very kind to him when he came to London, and—till 1767 at least—Barry had professed unbounded admiration for Sir Joshua's skill. For once Sir Joshua entertained feelings of animosity, and told Northcote that he feared he hated Barry. This year Reynolds visited the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir, Lord Harcourt at Nuneham, the Eliots at Port Eliot, and the Parkers at Saltram. He also perhaps went to Flanders. He certainly did so in 1785 to see the pictures which the monasteries had been compelled to sell, and made some valuable purchases. On this occasion, as on others, he probably bought for others as well as for himself.

Besides the Mrs. Siddons, the exhibition of 1784 contained among his sixteen contributions the portraits of Fox and Warton, of Lady Dashwood and her child, Lady Honeywood and her children, and Mrs. Abington as Roxalana, altogether a magnificent display of varied power. In December of this year another irreparable gap was made in the inner circle of his friendships by the death of Johnson, with whom he had lived in unbroken intimacy more than thirty years. Nobody admired Johnson more or understood him better, and to no one was he a truer friend. He was one of the few who could get the better of Johnson in conversation, and could effectually protect others, like Goldsmith, from the brutality of his assaults; and on the rare