Whether we have read Boswell or not, we all know something of the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds. From childhood, almost from babyhood, we are made familiar with The Infant Samuel and The Age of Innocence.

But it is as a portrait-painter that he is most famous and in the latter half of the eighteenth century there was hardly a single man or woman of note whose portrait was not painted by him. A few of them are reproduced in this book.

Born in Devonshire, Joshua Reynolds came to study art in London in 1741. He was then 18 years old and, except for a year or two spent at Plymouth and two years' study of the old masters at Rome, practically all his work was done, as Johnson's was, in London.

He was the first president of the Royal Academy, founded in 1768, and was made a knight in the same year; he was supreme among the artists of his day as was Garrick among actors and Johnson among men of letters.

He did not have the same hard struggle for fame and fortune as Johnson. At the age of 35, it is true, he was painting portraits for fifteen guineas apiece, but his charm of manner, as well as his skill as a painter, brought him great popularity, and in a few years' time he was making an annual income nearly four times as great as the total sum paid to Johnson for his Dictionary.

Reynolds was first attracted to Johnson by one of his earliest prose works—The Life of Richard Savage[26].

"Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, that upon his return from Italy, he met with it in Devonshire, knowing nothing of its authour, and began to read it while he was standing with his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay down the book till he had finished, when he attempted to move, he found his arm totally benumbed."

Shortly after this the two men met for the first time at the house of the Miss Cotterells:

"Mr Reynolds had ... conceived a very high admiration of Johnson's powers of writing. His conversation no less delighted him; and he cultivated his acquaintance with the laudable zeal of one who was ambitious of general improvement.... Johnson at once perceived that Reynolds had the habit of thinking for himself ... he went home with Reynolds, and supped with him."

This was the beginning of an "uninterrupted intimacy" to the last hour of Johnson's life.

Johnson took, or pretended to take, no interest in pictures. He is reported to have said once that "he should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them, if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he had turned them"!

At another time "Johnson being at dinner at Sir Joshua's in company with many painters, in the course of conversation Richardson's Treatise on Painting happened to be mentioned. 'Ah!' said Johnson, 'I remember, when I was at college, I by chance found that book on my stairs. I took it up with me to my chamber, and read it through, and truly I did not think it possible to say so much upon the art.'"

But this was merely playful exaggeration. Johnson was at any rate interested in the portraits of himself, of which Sir Joshua painted several. One of them was set up in Lichfield:

"To Sir Joshua Reynolds, in Leicester-fields

Mrs Thrale tells another story of one of the portraits:

"When Reynolds painted his portrait looking into the slit of his pen and holding it almost close to his eye, as was his custom, he felt displeased, and told me he would not be known by posterity for his defects only, let Sir Joshua do his worst. I said that the picture in the room where we were talking represented Sir Joshua holding his ear in his hand to catch the sound. 'He may paint himself as deaf, if he chooses,' replied Johnson, 'but I will not be blinking Sam.'"

Every year Reynolds used to deliver an address to the Royal Academy. These were collected into a book with the title Discourses on Painting and the author of them freely owned his debt to Johnson: "He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed from it a great deal of rubbish."

"Reynolds" said Edmund Burke "owed much to the writings and conversation of Johnson; and nothing shews more the greatness of Sir Joshua's parts than his taking advantage of both, and making some application of them to his profession, when Johnson neither understood nor desired to understand anything of painting."

But Johnson could understand his friend's writing:

"Though he had no taste for painting, he admired much the manner in which Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art, in his Discourses to the Royal Academy. He observed one day of a passage in them 'I think I might as well have said this myself:' and once when Mr Langton was sitting by him, he read one of them very eagerly, and expressed himself thus:—'Very well, Master Reynolds; very well, indeed. But it will not be understood.'"

Sir Joshua, as we have seen, was the founder of the Literary Club and was "very constant" in his attendance. Boswell records, too, many a dinner-party where Johnson and he enjoyed good fare and good talk together, but most of the talk recorded is, naturally, Johnson's:

"On Tuesday, April 18, [1775] he and I were engaged to go with Sir Joshua Reynolds to dine with Mr Cambridge, at his beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, near Twickenham. Dr Johnson's tardiness was such, that Sir Joshua, who had an appointment at Richmond, early in the day, was obliged to go by himself on horseback, leaving his coach to Johnson and me. Johnson was in such good spirits, that every thing seemed to please him as we drove along. Our conversation turned on a variety of subjects. He thought portrait-painting an improper employment for a woman. 'Publick practice of any art (he observed,) and staring in men's faces, is very indelicate in a female'.... No sooner had we made our bow to Mr Cambridge, in his library, than Johnson ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on poring over the backs of the books. Sir Joshua observed, (aside,) 'He runs to the books, as I do to the pictures: but I have the advantage. I can see much more of the pictures than he can of the books.'"

Johnson and Reynolds often rallied each other on the subject of drinking. Reynolds reminded his friend once that he had had eleven cups of tea. "Sir," replied Johnson "I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?"

For long periods of his life, as we have seen, Johnson abstained from wine altogether; at such times he was liable to be overbearing, not to say rude, in discussing the social benefits of drinking:

"Boswell. 'The great difficulty of resisting wine is from benevolence. For instance, a good worthy man asks you to taste his wine, which he has had twenty years in his cellar.' Johnson. 'Sir, all this notion about benevolence arises from a man's imagining himself to be of more importance to others, than he really is. They don't care a farthing whether he drinks or not.' Sir Joshua Reynolds. 'Yes, they do for the time'.... I was at this time myself a water-drinker, upon trial, by Johnson's recommendation. Johnson. 'Boswell is a bolder combatant than Sir Joshua: he argues for wine without the help of wine; but Sir Joshua with it.' Sir Joshua Reynolds. 'But to please one's company is a strong motive.' Johnson (who, from drinking only water, supposed every body who drank wine to be elevated,) 'I won't argue any more with you, Sir. You are too far gone.' Sir Joshua. 'I should have thought so indeed, Sir, had I made such a speech as you have now done.' Johnson (drawing himself in, and, I really thought blushing,). 'Nay, don't be angry. I did not mean to offend you.'"

This is said to be the only known instance of Johnson having blushed. Few, indeed, would have rebuked him so neatly or so gently as the courteous Sir Joshua.

But all Johnson's quarrels with his friends were momentary. In 1782, after Reynolds had been ill, we find him writing:

This is a good example of "Johnsonese" in letter-writing. Nowadays we cannot imagine a letter written in such a style to an intimate friend of 30 years' standing. But Johnson meant every word of it.

On his death-bed his last requests of Sir Joshua were simpler:

Sir Joshua readily acquiesced.