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KEY, JEAN. 



REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA. 



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of Germany testified the respect in which his name and learning were 

 held. Infirmity and sickness however soon compelled him to resign 

 this employment, and he died at Stuttgardt, June 30, 1522. 



As a scholar, Reuchlin's name stands high among the men of his 

 age. He was suspected of a leaning towards the reformed doctrines, 

 which the liberality of his views on the Jewish question no doubt 

 tended to confirm. Be this as it may, he never separated himself 

 from the Roman Church. His numerous writings comprehend some 

 elementary works on Hebrew, esteemed in their day, but of course 

 long since obsolete ; and some treatises on the cabalistic art. His 

 fluency and purity in speaking both Greek and Latin were great, and 

 highly admired. 



REY, JEAN, a French physician, was a native of Bugue on the 

 Dordogne. In 1630 he published at Bazas, a town about thirty miles 

 south-east of Bordeaux, a book under the following title : ' Essays de 

 Jean Rey, Docteur en Me'de'cine, sur la Recherche de la Cause pour 

 Liquelle 1'Estain et le Plomb augmentent de poids quand on les calcine.' 

 To this inquiry it appears that Rey was incited by a letter from Sieur 

 Brun, prefixed to the work, as the cause " qui a donnd sujet au present 

 discours." M. Brun states that on subjecting two pounds six ounces 

 of melted tin to the air in a pot, he found that it increased six ounces 

 in weight, and applied to Rey to explain BO unexpected a fact ; and 

 he afterwards made a similar experiment with lead, and with, a 

 corresponding result. 



Rey, after refuting all the different explanations of this increase of 

 weight which had been advanced, says, in his sixteenth essay : " Now, 

 to augment the difficulty, I say that we must not only inquire whence 

 these seven ounces are derived, but moreover whence that which has 

 replaced the loss of weight necessarily arising from the enlargement of 

 the volume of the tin by its conversion into calx, and from the vapours 

 and exhalations that have evaporated. To this question then, resting 

 on the foundations that I have laid, I answer, and proudly maintain, 

 that this increase of weight comes from the air, thickened and made 

 heavy, and in some measure rendered adhesive on the vessel, by the 

 violent and long-continued heat of the furnace, which air mixes with 

 the calx (its union being assisted by the continual stirring), and attaches 

 itself to its smallest particles, no otherwise than as water when sand 

 is thrown into it makes it heavier by moistening it and adhering to its 

 smallest grains." 



In the eleventh and subsequent volumes of the ' Royal Institution 

 Journal ' Mr. Children has given translations of various essays of Rey, 

 which are extremely well worth perusal by those who are curious in 

 the history of chemical discovery. We have already mentioned that 

 Rey's work first appeared in 1630, and it was greatly neglected till 

 1777, when a new edition appeared ; and it is remarked by Mr. Children 

 that the " copies of this reprint disappeared in a very sudden and 

 remarkable manner," and the fact has led to a suspicion that it was 

 effected by Lavoisier and his friends, to avoid the imputation of pla- 

 giarism in his celebrated work which appeared about three years after- 

 wards. Mr. Children and Dr. Thomson however are both inclined to 

 give full credit to the assertion made by Lavoisier that he knew nothing 

 of Rey's essays when he originally undertook his experiments. 



REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA, born at Plympton, July 16, 1723, of 

 an ancient family of the county of Devon, was the son of the Rev. 

 Samuel Reynolds, rector of Plympton St. Mary, and master of the free 

 grammar-school there. He was originally intended for the medical 

 profession, but he manifested when still a child so great a taste for 

 drawing, that his father was induced to abandon his intention. Rey- 

 nolds's natural inclination to the arts was much strengthened by studying 

 the Jesuits' Perspective, but was finally confirmed, and became a passion, 

 through the perusal of Richardson's treatise on painting, and he was 

 from that time resolved to become a painter. He was accordingly, in 

 1741, in his eighteenth year, placed by his father for four years with 

 Hudson, the principal portrait-painter of that time. Hudson's plan 

 of instruction, that of setting his pupil to copy Guercino's drawings, 

 had a decided influence upon Reynolds's future taste, and was probably 

 a principal cause of the difficulty which he ever after experienced 

 when drawing from the life. Reynolds and his master did not agree, 

 and they separated in an unfriendly manner when half the period of 

 the engagement had expired. Reynolds returned into Devonshire, 

 and commenced his career as a portrait-painter, at Plymouth. He was 

 fortunate in obtaining the patronage of Lord Mount Edgecombe, 

 whose influence procured him introductions to distinguished naval 

 officers of that port, amongst whom was Captain (afterwards Admiral 

 Lord) Keppel, a connection that proved subsequently most valuable 

 to him. His portraits exhibited at this early stage of his career decided 

 traces of his future style. The portraits of William Gaudy of Exeter, 

 which he greatly admired for their bold and effective manner, tended 

 not a little to confirm that taste which his previous education from 

 Guercino was so well calculated to engender. After the death of his 

 father, in 1746, Reynolds came to London, where he took apartments 

 and commenced practice in St. Martin's-lane, then a favourite quarter 

 with painters. In 1749 he accompanied Commodore Keppel as that 

 officer's guest, in the Centurion, to the Mediterranean ; and after a 

 delay of two months at Miuorca, where he resided with the governor, 

 General Blakeney, and during which time he painted the portraits of 

 several naval and military officers, he embarked for Leghorn, and 

 prosecuted his journey to Rome. 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. V. 



Reynolds has recorded that when he first saw the grand works of 

 Raffaelle in the Vatican, he was greatly disappointed. However, he 

 did not for a moment suppose that Raffaelle owed his reputation to 

 the ignorance or caprice of mankind : he felt his own ignorance, and 

 stood abashed. All the undigested notions of. excellence which he had 

 brought with him from England were to bo eradicated from his mind ; 

 he felt that he had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection 

 of art ; " and that if those works had really been what he expected, 

 they would have contained beauties superficial and alluring, but by 

 no means such as would have entitled them to the great reputation 

 which they have so long and BO justly obtained." Yet the works of 

 Raffaelle had little, if any, permanent influence in forming his style, 

 which belonged to a wholly different school. 



Reynolds never made a practice of copying pictures or taking 

 sketches of whole compositions, as is the habit with many young 

 painters. He very properly considered copying a "delusive kind of 

 industry;" yet he was in the habit of selecting parts of compositions 

 which were of striking excellence, or from an attentive study of which 

 he imagined he should derive substantial benefit. It was in studying 

 the various great works in the Vatican, particularly those of Michel 

 Angelo and Raffaelle, that he contracted a severe cold which caused a 

 deafness for the remainder of his life. From Rome he went to Flo- 

 rence, Bologna, Parma, Modena, Milan, Padua, and Venice, where he 

 lodged with Zuccarelli, the landscape painter. The great masters of 

 Venice, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoretto, had a far greater 

 influence upon Reynolds's future practice than the great works in 

 Rome. The rich effect of Venetian tone and colour were much more 

 suited to his genius or taste, which decidedly inclined to the florid 

 or ornamental; and however much his better judgment may have 

 induced him to extol the grandeur of the Roman school in his ' Dis- 

 courses,' it was the magnificence of the Venetian that captivated him, 

 that guided his practice, that excited his emulation. From Venice 

 he went through Turin to Paris, where he made a short stay, and 

 returned to Plymouth towards the end of the year 1752, after an 

 absence from England of three years and a half. At Plymouth he 

 painted two portraits, one of which was of the Rev. Zachary Mudge, 

 vicar of St. Andrews, and the old friend of his father. 



By the advice of his early patron, Lord Mount Edgecombe, Reynolds 

 returned to London, and again took apartments for a short time in 

 St. Martin's-lane, where he painted his celebrated portrait of Joseph 

 Marchi, in a Turkish dress, a young Italian whom he had brought with 

 him as an assistant from Rome, a work which attracted much attention 

 and brought him numerous sitters. 



Reynolds's practice as a portrait-painter becoming very considerable, 

 he took a house in Great Newport-street, where he continued some 

 years. One of his first works of value was a portrait of the then 

 Duke of Devonshire, but that which established his fame as the first 

 portrait-painter of his country was a full-length of his friend Commo- 

 dore Keppel standing upon the sea-shore. It was about this time 

 that he contracted an intimacy with Dr. Johnson, which only ended 

 with the death of the latter. When Reynolds painted in St. Martiu's- 

 lane, his prices were for a head 10 guineas, a half-length 20 guineas, 

 and for a whole length 40 guineas; in Newport-street they were at 

 first respectively 12, 24, and 48 guineas, but his practice increased so 

 rapidly that in 1758 he raised his price to 20 guineas for a head, and 

 in 1760 to 25 guineas, the other sizes being in proportion. 



At this period he was in the habit of receiving six sitters a day, and 

 he valued his time at five guineas an hour. In 1761 he purchased a 

 house in Leicester-square, where he fitted up an elegant painting- 

 room, and built a spacious gallery for his rapidly-increasing collection 

 of works of art ; and here he resided the remainder of his life. His 

 practice had now become so great, that he employed several assistants, 

 of whom Marchi, the Italian, and Peter Toms, the celebrated painter 

 of draperies, were the principal. This year the first public exhibition 

 of works of art took place, in the room of the Society of Arts, in 

 which Reynolds had four pictures, and in the exhibition of the 

 following year, in Spring-gardens, he exhibited his portrait of Lord 

 Ligonier on horseback (now in the National Gallery), and one of 

 Sterne. The pictures, though not to be compared with his later per- 

 formances, from a peculiarity of style and a richness of effect which 

 distinguished them from the works of other artists, attracted uni- 

 versal attention, and established Reynolds as the favourite of the 

 public. In 1762 he painted his celebrated picture of Garrick between 

 Tragedy and Comedy; it was bought by the Earl of Halifax for three 

 hundred guineas, and has been engraved by Fisher. Dr. Johnson, in 

 a letter witten this year to Baretti, says, " Mr. Reynolds gets six 

 thousand a year." In 1764 Reynolds and Johnson instituted the 

 Literary Club, which was then limited to twelve members : Goldsmith 

 and Burke were of the number. 



Upon the foundation of the Royal Academy, in 1768, Reynolds was 

 unanimously chosen president, and the honour of knighthood was 

 conferred on him upon the occasion. The Academy was opened on 

 the 1st of January 1769, and the president delivered an appropriate 

 discourse in commemoration of the event. Lecturing was no part of 

 the duty of the president ; it was a task which Sir Joshua imposed 

 upon himself. He delivered altogether fifteen of these discourses, 

 which have been translated into several languages, and have been 

 generally and deservedly well received : they are too well known to 



