Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/52

REY incomplete. The world, it seems, was not ripe for anything more advanced than the plausible sophisms of the phlogistians; and Rey's researches, however interesting, were wanting in those very points which made Lavoisier's subsequent attack on phlogiston irresistible.—J. W. S.  REYHER,, a German writer, professor of mathematics, and afterwards of law at Kiel; born in 1635; died in 1714. He translated Euclid into German. His "Mathesis Biblica," and "Dissertation on the Inscriptions upon the Cross, and the Hour of the Crucifixion," made him famous.—J. S., G.  REYNA,, a learned Spaniard, who executed the first translation of the Bible into Spanish, published at Basle, 1569, with notes. In the preface this version is said to be founded chiefly on the Latin of Pagninius. The name of the author of the notes was concealed, he being probably a protestant.—F. M. W.  REYNOLDS,, Bishop of Norwich, was born at Southampton, November, 1599. After a preliminary education at the free grammar-school, he entered Merton college, Oxford, then under the wardenship of Sir Henry Savile, took his degree of B.A., October 15, 1618, and afterwards became a fellow of the same college. His scholarship won him early fame. In 1622 he succeeded Dr. Donne as preacher at Lincoln's inn, and in 1630 he was presented to the living of Bramston in Northamptonshire. His theology was of the puritan stamp, and accordingly he was appointed one of the divines of the Westminster assembly. He did not take his seat till the 14th of July, and did not swear the covenant till the following year. He occupied no prominent place in the debates or consultations, though he had a hand in the composition of its famous documents, the Directory and the Confession of Faith, and he took part in some of the "visitations." On the ejection of Dr. Fell, he became in 1648 dean of Christ church, Oxford, and vice-chancellor of the university. After the execution of the king, a new oath called the Engagement was formed; Reynolds refused it, and was replaced by Dr. Owen. (See .) He now retired to his living at Bramston, and soon after was chosen vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, an appointment he held till the Restoration. After a period he regained his deanery in Christ church. In 1660 he preached before parliament, and gave his views on the state of the nation in a style of great moderation and candour. Reynolds was also one of the ministers appointed to wait upon the king at Breda, and on his arrival his majesty appointed him one of his ten presbyterian chaplains. He took a prominent part in several private and public discussions, being willing to accept a modified episcopacy on the plan of Usher, and urging a revisal of the liturgy. Calamy and Baxter were offered bishoprics, but declined; the famous "declaration" proposing to settle the form of church government not having passed into law. At the Savoy conference Reynolds pleaded hard for conciliatory measures. Baxter says that he "was a solid honest man, but through mildness and excess of timorous reverence to great men altogether unfit to contend with them." In 1660 he accepted the bishopric of Norwich, to the scandal of not a few of those with whom he had been accustomed to act. At Norwich he passed the remainder of his life, doing no little good, and at his own expense in great measure repairing the portions of the palace and cathedral which had been destroyed in the time of Bishop Hall. Bishop Reynolds died July 28, 1676, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Reynolds had more catholicity than force of character. His theology was Calvinistic, and he adorned every sphere which he filled, his paramount desire being to serve the Master. His works show a sound mind and excellent learning, tempered with a benign and generous spirit. His liberality in gifts, loans, and bequests was great. A well-arranged edition of his works, with life by A. Chalmers prefixed, was published in six octavos, London, 1826.—J. E.  REYNOLDS,, was the son of an attorney celebrated in his day from being engaged for John Wilkes in the lawsuits of that favourite of the people. Frederick was educated at Westminster school, being destined for his father's profession, which he had hardly begun to study when he abandoned it for the career of writer for the stage. He was the author of twenty-six plays, of which the first and second—"Werter," and "Eloisa"—being tragical and sentimental, proved failures. They appeared in 1786. Three years later he brought out "The Dramatist," a comedy, the success of which encouraged him to persevere in that description of composition.—R. H.  REYNOLDS,, a pleasant writer and poet, who in his youth gave so much promise as to be associated by name with Keats and Shelley, was born in 1795. His poem entitled "Safie" drew kind words of encouragement from Byron. A parody of "Peter Bell," which he published in anticipation of Wordsworth's poem in 1819, attracted much notice at the time. He contributed to several magazines and reviews, and to the Comic Annual of Thomas Hood, who married Reynolds' eldest sister. He followed ostensibly the profession of the law, and died at Newport, clerk to the county court of the Isle of Wight, 15th November, 1852.—R. H.  REYNOLDS,, the founder of the English school of painting, was born at Plympton in Devonshire, 16th July, 1723; his father, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, was master of the grammar-school there. Being led, through the perusal of Richardson's Treatise on Painting, to an enthusiastic desire to follow that art as his profession, his father placed him in 1741 with Hudson the portrait-painter, then enjoying a considerable reputation in London. Reynolds and his master, however, did not agree; they separated, and our young artist established himself as a portrait-painter at Plymouth Dock. After the death of his father in 1746, he settled in London. In 1749 he made a voyage to the Mediterranean in the Centurion, then commanded by the young painter's friend Commodore Keppel. After a short stay in Minorca he embarked for Leghorn, and proceeded to Rome, where, while studying the frescoes in the Vatican, he caught a cold which was the cause of his after deafness, which never left him. Reynolds educated his mind rather than his hand at Rome; he did not copy the works of the great masters, but was content to study them. From Rome he went to Florence, Bologna, and Venice, and in the last city found the kind of magnificence most congenial with his own taste, in the splendidly coloured works of Titian and Paul Veronese. From Venice he went to Paris, and returned to Plymouth in the end of 1752, but by the advice of his early friend and patron, Lord Mount Edgecombe, he lost no time in settling himself in London. Here he totally abandoned his old practice, and appeared as a soft and brilliant colourist, making, if any master in particular, Rembrandt, his model; endeavouring to combine the force of that painter with the colouring of the Venetians, and very often with complete success. But his method of practice was faulty, and as a rule his pictures have much faded, and lost their original clearness of colour, A portrait of Commodore Keppel was the first work which established his reputation. He first settled in St. Martin's Lane, where his prices were respectively for a head, a half-length, and a full-length, ten, twenty, and forty guineas. In Newport Street, his next place of residence, they were twelve, twenty-four, and forty-eight guineas. But his business constantly increasing, his prices in 1760 were raised to twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred guineas, respectively; his charge for a head was afterwards raised to thirty-five guineas. It was in the following year that he purchased his house in Leicester Square, which became the centre of attraction of the most accomplished men of the time—Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, and Burke being among the painter's most intimate friends. Upon the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768 Reynolds was unanimously elected its first president, and he was then knighted by the king, George III. At this time his reputation was established as one of the principal painters of Europe, and he received many honours both from home and foreign institutions. His practice was not entirely limited to portraits—he has left us many fancy pictures, as "Count Ugolino and his Sons," painted in 1773; "Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse," in 1784; the "Infant Hercules," in 1786; besides three subjects for Boydell's Shakspeare, and some others. He died of a disease of the liver, February 23, 1792, and was buried with great pomp in St. Paul's cathedral. Sir Joshua Reynolds was never married; the principal portion of his large property, amounting to £80,000, was left to his niece, Miss Palmer, who afterwards married the earl of Inchiquin, subsequently created Marquis of Thomond. The day after his death a eulogium upon his merits, from the pen of Burke, appeared in the papers, in which the orator terms him "one of the most memorable men of his time," and concludes by observing—"The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow." "In person," says Northcote, "he was rather under the middle size, of a florid complexion, roundish blunt features, and a lively aspect." Though Reynolds 