forced upon a scene of action where he was to play his part with as much finesse and dissimulation as suited his interest, or furthered his ambition; and this he probably reconciled to his conscience by a commodious kind of casuistry, in which he was a true adept.

He wore upon his countenance a smile sufficiently seductive for common purposes and cursory acquaintance: his address was smooth, obsequious, studiously obliging, and at times glowingly heightened into an impassioned show of friendship and affection. He was quick enough in finding out the characters of men, and the openings through which they were assailable to flattery; but he was not equally successful in his mode of tempering and applying it; for he was vain of showing his triumph over inferior understandings, and could not help colouring his attentions sometimes with such a florid hue, as gave an air of irony and ridicule, that did not always escape detection: and thus it came to pass that he was little credited (and even less than he deserved to be) for sincerity in his warmest professions, or politeness in his best attempts to please.

As I am persuaded that he left behind him in his coffin at La Trappe no one passion, native or ingrafted, that belonged to him when he entered it, ambition lost no hold upon his heart, and of course I must believe that the station which he filled in Spain, and the high sounding titles and dignities which the favour of his Catholic Majesty might readily endow him with, were to him such lures as, though but feathers, outweighed English

guineas in his balance, for of these I must do him the justice to say he was indignantly regardless, but to the honours that his church could give, to the mitre of Waterford, though merely titular, it is clear to demonstration he had no repugnance.

He made profession of a candour and liberality of sentiment, bordering almost upon downright protestantism, whilst in heart he was as high a priest as Thomas à Becket, and as stiff a Catholic, though he ridiculed their mummeries, as ever kissed the cross. He did not exactly want to stir up petty insurrections in his native country of Ireland, but to head a revolution that should overturn the church established, and enthrone himself primate in the cathedral of Armagh, would have been his brightest glory and supreme felicity; and in truth he was a man by talents, nerves, ambition, intrepidity, fitted for the boldest enterprise.

CUMBERLAND.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

He

His illness had been long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of any thing irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. had from the beginning of his malady a distinct view of his dissolution, which he contemplated with that entire composure which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Providence could bestow. In this situation he

had every consolation from family tenderness, which his tenderness to his family had always merited.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time he was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that description of the art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who profess them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history and the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits, he appears not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to have been derived from his paintings.

He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.

In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art, and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candour never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or

assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse.

His talents of every kind-powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated in lettershis social virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy; too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow. Hail! and farewell. BURKE,

To the grandeur, the truth, and simplicity of Titian, and to the daring strength of Rembrandt, he has united the chasteness and delicacy of Vandyke. Delighted with the picturesque beauty of Rubens, he was the first that attempted a bright and gay back ground to portraits, and defying the dull and ignorant rules of his master, at a very early period of life, emancipated his art from the shackles with which it had been encumbered in the school of Hudson. There is, however, every reason to believe, that he very rarely copied any entire picture of any master, though he certainly did imitate the excellent parts of many; and his versatility in this respect was equalled only by the susceptibility of his feelings, the quickness of his comprehension, and the ardour which prompted his efforts. His pictures in general possess a degree of merit superior to mere portraits, they assume the rank of history.

His portraits of men are distinguished by a certain air of dignity, and those of women and children by a grace, a beauty, and simplicity which have seldom been equalled, and never surpassed. No painter ever gave so completely as himself that momentary fascinating expression, that irresistible charm, which accompanies and denotes the "Cynthia of the minute." In his attempts to give character where it did not exist, he has sometimes lost likeness; but the deficiences of the portrait were often compensated by the beauty of the picture. The attitudes of his figures are generally full of grace, ease, and propriety; he could throw them into the boldest variations, and he often ventures on postures which inferior painters could not execute; or which, if attempted, would inevitably destroy their credit. His chief aim, however, was colour and effect, and these he always varied as the subject required. Whatever deficiencies there may be in the designs of this great master, no one at any period better understood the principles of colouring; nor can it be doubted that he carried this branch of his art to a very high degree of perfection. His lights display the knowledge he possessed, and with shade he conceals his defects. Whether we consider the power, the brilliancy, or the form of his lights, the transparency of his shadows, with the just quantities of each, and the harmony, richness, and full effect of the whole, it is evident that he has not only far transcended every modern master, but that his excellencies in these captivating parts of painting vie with the works of the great models he has emulated. The opinion he has