U E Y N 
Societies; and when the late lord North was installed chan¬ 
cellor of the University of Oxford, in July 1773, Sir Joshua 
was admitted to the honorary degree of doctor in civil 
law. He had previously, in 1769, been elected to the presi¬ 
dency of the Royal Academy, in the formation of which 
he had a principal share, and had, upon the occasion, 
been honoured by his majesty with the rank of knighthood. 
To 'this institution he was a most invaluable member, and 
repaid the honour and fame he acquired from his situation 
in it, by a zealous attention to its interests. Nor did the 
Academy derive less credit from the admirable works which 
he continued yearly to exhibit in it, consisting indeed chiefly 
•of portraits, though he rarely suffered a season to pass in 
which he did not bring forwards one or more specimens of 
his powers in history. From the year 1769, when, as we 
have said, the academy was founded, till 1790, inclusive, 
it appears that he sent no less than 244 pictures to the 
exhibition. 
The task of reading lectures was no part of the prescribed 
duty of his office; but imposed voluntarily upon himself for 
the following reasons, assigned by him in his fifteenth dis¬ 
course. “ If prizes were to be given, it appeared not only 
proper, but almost indispensably necessary, that something 
should be said by the president on the delivery of those prizes, 
and the president, for his own credit, would wish to say 
something more than mere words of compliment; which, 
by being frequently repeated, would soon become flat and 
uninteresting; and by being uttered to many, would at last 
become a distinction to none. I thought, therefore, if I were 
to preface this compliment with some instructive observation 
on the art, when we crowned merit in the artists whom we 
rewarded, I might do so to animate and guide them in their 
future attempts.” To the exertions which this most judi¬ 
cious sense of propriety stimulated him to make, he is indebt¬ 
ed principally, lor his renown as an author. In the course 
of twenty-one years, viz. from 1769 to 1790, inclusive, he 
composed fifteen discourses; replete with the soundest prin¬ 
ciples, and the most useful information concerning the art he 
practised, that have ever been given to the world; in which 
though it must be acknowledged that there are some few 
points not sufficiently explained, yet they are free from the 
affected rant of connoisseurship, and practically efficient to 
guide the young, whilst it confirms the more advanced, in 
pursuit of just objects of the art of painting, and the surest 
means of obtaining success. Besides these, he wrote three 
papers for the Idler, in 1759 ; viz. Nos. 76, 79, and 82; in 
which is exhibited his original turn of thinking on the nature 
and properties of beauty and of art: and in 1783, his notes 
to Mason’s translation of Du Fresnoy’s poem on Painting, 
gave to the world many practical observations and explana¬ 
tions of the rules laid down in the text, which convey 
instruction of the most useful kind, and tend to show how 
carefully, and how systematically, his mind was made up 
on the subject. 
It has been conjectured, and widely diffused in opinion, 
that Sir Joshua did not compose his lectures himself. In sup¬ 
port of what ,is due to him on that head, Mr. Northcote, 
who lived some years in his house, has said in his memoirs, 
“ At the period when it was expected he should have com¬ 
posed them, I have heard him walking at intervals in his 
room till one or two o’clock in the morning, and I have on 
the following day, at an early hour,seen the papers on the 
subject of his art which had been written the preceding 
night. I have had the rude manuscript from himself, in his 
own handwriting, in order to make a fair copy from it forhim 
to read in public: I have seen the manuscript also after it 
had been revised by Dr. Johnson, who hassometimes altered 
it to a wrong meaning, from his total ignorance of the sub¬ 
ject and of art; but never to my knowledge saw the marks of 
Burke’s pen in any of the manuscripts. 
“ The bishop of Rochester, also, who examined the wri¬ 
tings of Mr. Burke since his death, and lately edited a part 
of them, informed a friend that he could discover no reason 
to think that Mr. Burke had the least hand in the discourses 
of Reynolds.” And Burke himself, in a letter to Mr. Ma- 
Vol. XXII. No. 1482. 
OLDS. 37 
lone, after the publication of Sir Joshua’s life and work, 
says, “ I have read over some part of the discourses with an 
unusual sort of pleasure, partly because being faded a little 
in my memory, they have a sort of appearance of novelty; 
partly by reviving recollections mixed with melancholy and 
satisfaction. The Flemish journal I had never seen before. 
You trace in that, every where, the spirit of the discourses, 
supported by new examples. He is always the same man ; 
the same philosophical, the same artist-like critic, the same 
sagacious observer, with the same minuteness, without the 
smallest degree oftrifling.” We may safely say, this is not 
the language of one who had himself contributed much to 
those discourses. And if neither Johnson nor Burke wrote 
for Reynolds, to whom else among his contemporaries shall 
the praise due to those invaluable compositions be given, if 
Reynolds is to be deprived of it ? 
It is much to be lamented, that the world was deprived of 
this great artist before he had put into execution apian which 
his biographer, Mr. Malone, says, appears, from some loose 
papers, to have been revolved in his mind. “ I have found,” 
says that author, “ among Sir Joshua’s papers, some detached 
and unconnected thoughts, written occasionally, as hints for 
a discourse, on a new and singular plan, which he seems to 
have intended as a history of his mind, so far as concerned 
his art; and of his progress, studies, and practice; together 
with a view of the advantages he had enjoyed, and the dis¬ 
advantages he had laboured under, in the course that he had 
run; a scheme from which, however liable it might be to 
the ridicule of wits and scoffers, (of which, he says, he was 
perfectly aware,) he conceived the students might derive 
some useful documents for the regulation of their own con¬ 
duct and practice." Such a composition, from such a man, 
written after he had spent a long life in successful practice, 
with none to guide him ; who had chosen a line of art for 
himself, stamped with originality ; and in which he had to 
develope principles, and elucidate them by practice; and 
competent as he was to explain the operations of his own 
mind; could not fail of being interesting and useful in the 
highest degree. 
in 1781, during the summer, he made a tour through 
Holland and the Netherlands, with a view of examining 
critically the works of the celebrated masters of the Dutch 
and Flemish schools. An account of this journey, written 
by himself, containing much excellent criticism on the works 
of Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, &c. in the churches and 
different collections at Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, the Dus- 
seldorf gallery, and at Amsterdam, was published after his 
death; it concludes with a masterly drawn character of 
Rubens. 
In 1783, in consequence of the emperor’s suppression of 
some religious houses, he again visited Flanders, purchased 
some pictures by Rubens, and devoted several more days to 
the contemplation and further investigation of the perform¬ 
ances of that great man. On his return, he remarked that 
his own pictures wanted force and brilliancy, and appeared, 
by his subsequent practice, to have benefited by the obser¬ 
vations he had made. This year, on the death of Ramsay, 
he was made principal painter in ordinary to his majesty, 
and continued so till his death. 
Fora very long period he had enjoyed an almost uninter¬ 
rupted state of good health, except that in the year 1782 he 
was for a short time afflicted with a paralytic stroke. A few 
weeks, however, perfectly restored him, and he suffered no 
inconvenience from it afterwards. But in July 1789, whilst 
he was painting the portrait of lady Beauchamp, he found 
his sight so much affected, that it was with difficulty he 
could proceed with his work ; and notwithstanding every 
assistance that could be procured, he was in a few months 
totally deprived of the use of his left eye. After some strug¬ 
gles, he determined, lest his remaining eye should also suffer, 
to paint no more: and though he was thus deprived of a 
constant employment and amusement, he retained his usual 
spirits, and partook of the society of his friends with appa¬ 
rently the same pleasure to which he had been accustomed ; 
and was amused by reading, or hearing others read to him. 
L In 
