The chief authorities on the life and work of Reynolds are James Northcote, R.A., his most successful pupil; Henry William Beechey, and C. R. Leslie, R.A., each of whom produced a two-volume work on the subject. The first of these appeared in 1819, seventeen years after Sir Joshua’s death; the next in 1835, and the last, edited by Tom Taylor, in 1865.

Besides these capital works there are memoirs by Joseph Farington, R.A., by Edmund Malone, by William Cotton, by William Mason, and by Allan Cunningham in his “Lives of the British Painters,” all of which appeared in the earlier half of the last century.

From such an abundance of material, to say nothing of modern publications, it is hardly possible to collect everything that is of value within the limits of a short memoir. Only such points as are in themselves essential, or seem significant in relation to the enormous influence of Reynolds on his contemporaries, has it been attempted to dwell upon.

R. D.