BOB 



REYNOLDS RHABDOMANCY. 



ami at OIK ! phcc.l him nt the head of the English 

 |x>rtrail -painters. Rejecting the stiff, unvaried, 

 and unmeaning attitudes of former artists, he gave 

 id his figures air and action adapted to their charac- 

 ters, and thereby displayed something of the dignity 



invention of history. Although he never at- 

 tained to perfect correctness in the naked figure, 

 lie has seldom been excelled in the ease and ele- 



.- of his faces, and the beauty and adaptation 

 of his fancy draperies His colouring may be said 

 ti> lit- nt mice his excellence and his defect. Com- 

 bining, in a high degree, the qualities of richness, 

 brilliancy, and freshness, he was often led to try 

 luixlfs whirh, probably from want of a due know- 

 lr.ii:e in chemistry and the mechanism of colours, 

 frt quently failed, and left his pictures, after a while, 

 in a faded state. He rapidly acquired opulence ; 

 and, being universally regarded as at the head of 

 his profession, he kept a splendid table, which was 

 frequented by the best company in the kingdom, in 

 respect to talents, learning, and distinction. On 

 the institution of the royal academy, in 1769, he 

 was unanimously elected president ; on which 

 occasion the king conferred upon him the honour 

 of knighthood. Although it was no prescribed 

 part of his duty to read lectures, yet his zeal for 

 the advancement of the fine arts induced him to 

 deliver annual or biennial discourses before the 

 academy on the principles and practice of painting. 

 Of these he pronounced fifteen, from 1769 to 1790, 

 which were published in two sets, and form a 

 standard work. In 1781 and 1783, he made tours 

 in Holland and Flanders, and wrote an account of 

 his journey, which consists only of short notes of 

 the pictures which he saw, with an elaborate cha- 

 racter of Rubens. He was a member of the cele- 

 brated club which contained the names of Johnson, 

 Garrick, Burke, and others of the first rank of 

 literary eminence, and seems to have been uni- 

 versally beloved and respected by his associates. 

 He is the favourite character in Goldsmith's poem 

 of Retaliation ; and Johnson characterized him as 

 one whom he should find the most difficulty how to 

 abuse. In 1T84, he succeeded Ramsay as portrait- 

 painter to the king, and continued to follow his 

 profession, of which he was enthusiastically fond, 

 until he lost the sight of one of his eyes. He, 

 however, retained his equable spirits until threat- 

 ened, in 1791, with the loss of his other eye, the 

 apprehension of which, added to his habitual deaf- 

 ness, exceedingly depressed him. He died in 

 1792, in his sixtieth year, unmarried, and was 

 interred in St Paul's cathedral. Sir Joshua Rey- 

 nolds, although there was scarcely a year in which 

 his pencil did not produce some work of the his- 

 torical kind, ranks chiefly in the class of portrait- 

 painters. His Ugolino, and his Death of Cardinal 

 Beaufort, are, however, deemed, in grandeur of 

 composition and force of expression, among the 

 first performances of the English school. But, on 

 the whole, his powers of invention were inadequate 

 to the higher flights of historic painting, although 

 inexhaustible in portrait, to which he gave the 

 most delightful variety. His character as a colour- 

 ist has been already mentioned ; and, though-not a 

 thorough master in drawing, he gave much grace 

 to the turn of his figures, and dignity to the airs of 

 his heads. As a writer, he obtained reputation by 

 his Discourses, which are elegant and agreeable 

 compositions, although sometimes vague and incon- 

 sistent. Hi also added notes to Dufresnoy's Art 

 of Painting, and gave three papers on painting to 

 Ihe Idler. The Literary Works of Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds were edited by Mr Malone, in two 

 colinnes quarto, n 1797, with a life of the author. 



Farington and Northcote have written Memoirs of 

 his lite. 



RHABDOMANCY is the power considered ),y 

 some as existing in particular individuals, partly 

 natural and partly acquired, of discovering things 

 hid in the bowels of the earth, especially metals, 

 ores, and bodies of water, by a change in their per- 

 ceptions; and likewise the art of aiding the dis- 

 covery of these substances by the use of certain 

 instruments, for example, the divining rod. That 

 rhabdomancy, generally speaking, is little more 

 than self-delusion, or intentional deception, is now 

 the opinion of most natural philosophers and phy- 

 siologists; still it has some champions. According 

 to Ritter and Amoretti's accounts (see Physical and 

 Historical Inquiries into Rhabdomancy, &c., in 

 German, by Carlo Amoretti, from the Italian, with 

 Supplementary Treatises by Ritter, Berlin, 1809, 

 and Amoretti's Elementi di Elettrometria Animate, 

 Milan, 1816), an acceleration or retardation of the 

 pulse, and a sensation of cold or heat in different 

 parts of the body, often so great as to affect the 

 thermometer, take place in certain persons when 

 they are in the vicinity of subterranean bodies of 

 water or ore, &c. ; also peculiar sensations of taste, 

 spasmodic contractions of particular parts, con- 

 vulsions often equal to electric shocks, giddiness, 

 sickness, disquietude, solicitude, &c. Rhabdo- 

 mancy was known even to the ancients. " From the 

 most remote periods," says Kieser, in his System of 

 Tellurism (in German, first volume), " indications 

 are found of an art of discovering veins of ore and 

 water concealed in the bowels of the earth, by a 

 direct perception of their existence." The story of 

 Lynceus is connected with this notion. Snorro 

 Sturleson (Heimskringla, eller Snorro Sturleson's 

 Nordliinske Konunga Sagor, Stockholm, 1697, 

 folio, p. 1, c. vii.) relates that Odin knew where 

 gold, silver, and ore Jay hidden under the surface 

 of the earth. Del Rio (Martin del Rio, Disguisi- 

 tionum Magicarum Librisex Six Books of Magical 

 Disquisitions Cologne, 1633, quarto), relates that 

 there were some Spaniards, called Zahuris, who 

 saw things concealed under the surface of the earth, 

 such as veins of water and ores, and also dead 

 bodies, &c. The instruments of rhabdomancy are 

 known under the names of the sidereal pendulum, 

 the bipolar cylinder, and the divining rod. The 

 magnetic pendulum consists of a small ball, of 

 almost any substance (for example, metal, sulphur, 

 wood, sealing-wax, glass, &c.), which is suspended 

 from an untwisted string, such as the human hair, 

 unspun silk, &c. In using this, the string of the 

 pendulum is held fast between two fingers, and re- 

 mains suspended over the sidereal substance (as, 

 for example, a plate of metal, or a cup filled with 

 water and salt), without motion. If, now (say the 

 advocates of rhabdomancy), the person who holds 

 the pendulum possesses, in any degree, the mag- 

 netic susceptibility (the rhabdomantic quality), the 

 pendulum will move in a circular orbit, with some 

 differences, according to circumstances. These 

 circumstances are the substance of the pendulum 

 and of the objects under it, the distance of the 

 pendulum from these objects, and the nature of the 

 person who holds the pendulum, and of those who 

 come in contact with him, &c. The principal dif- 

 ference of the motion of the pendulum is, that it 

 moves, in some cases, from left to right, that is, 

 with the sun ; in others, from right to left, or against 

 the sun. That the mechanical motion of the fingers 

 does not produce the vibration of the pendulum, at 

 least in many cases, appears from accurate obser- 

 vation of many experiments of this kind ; and this 

 <.'.ircumstance is, moreover, remarkable, that the vi- 



