Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art

effects, Lord Valletort was the purchaser. By liberal I presume he means they became Whig or Radical. Now Sir is it to be imagined that men who all their lives had returned Tories to parliament and at the time of the disfranchisement of the Borough were represented by Sir Compton Domville & Mr Gibbs Antrobus, could be either Whigs or Radicals, or that they should be so grateful to Lord John Russell for having robbed them of their privileges and depreciated their properties more than one half as to turn Liberals and support him.

"The Members of the Corporation of Plympton have ever been & are now Tories!

"They preferred their own honour by paying their debts and they sacrificed the munificent to be just. The picture did not go to auction with the liberal corporation's other effects, nor was Lord Valletort the purchaser, but was sent to London to be valued by Messrs Woodburn & was then first offered to Lord Mt Edgcumbe (their Recorder) then to Lord Valletort (one of the aldermen) then by Sir William Elford to Sir Robert Peel. They all refused it. The Corporation then wished that the National Gallery should have it. It was accordingly sent to the Trustees and the story of it told them. A painter well known & of great talent (and not a nobleman) was called in. He decided that it was a copy, his words were 'It is a mere sketch and certainly not an original.' This was quite enough for the Trustees and they also refused. Lastly it was sent to Messrs Christie's to be sold by public auction -(Mr. Eastlake kindly attended to vouch for its authenticity),— Messrs. Woodburn's valuation being the reserved price for the Corporation. It was not sold, the fact that the Trustees of the N. G. having pronounced upon it operated against it. What was its fate after all? Why it was sent again into Devonshire & was immediately bought by Mr Condy, a clever artist of Plymouth,* for my Lord Egremont of Silverton Park, near Exeter, where long may it remain to grace the walls of the house of that truly conservative Nobleman. I am Sir &c &c

"To William Blackwood & Sons

"45 George St:

"Edinburgh.

"Veritas.

"P.S. Sir Wm Elford to the last declared that this picture was not the ppty of the Corporation but was given by Sir Joshua to the Edgcumbe & Treby families.

"Disliking all concealment and not ashamed of my name I give you my address. Henry Hele Treby

"Plympton
"Devon."

It is just possible that the truth may be in Mr. Treby's postcript; for it would appear that Sir Joshua was desirous

* For £150.

of pleasing two or three members of the Corporation in particular, that he aspired to represent his native town in Parliament, and that subsequently he made proposals on the subject to Lord Mount Edgcumbe, which were, it is said, coldly received.

Whatever may be thought of the apology for the sale, we cannot but regret that the portrait of Reynolds is not still in the Guildhall (even without the Corporation) for inhabitants and visitors to point to as the artist who sprang from Plympton, and who made himself famous throughout Europe.

But although it is passing strange that his townsmen disposed of the picture, the adage scarcely applies to Reynolds, that a prophet has no honour in his own country, for he received not a little, at any rate, during his lifetime, which is important; and his diary, from 1755 to the end of his career in 1790, shows what a large number of those who sat to him were more or less connected with the West of England, and that to the last he enjoyed the patronage and friendship of the noble families in the immediate neighbourhood-the Edgcumbe, Parker, and Port Eliot families; and every now and then we come upon some less prominent name, such as Mrs. Horneck, one of the two portraits of whom was inscribed "The Plymouth Beauty." But indeed all the talent and beauty of the land flocked to his studio, conscious of being handed down to posterity with every advantage that pictorial art could achieve.

A recent French writer, M. Chesneau, regards the picture of Nelly O'Brien as "the masterpiece of Reynolds, which constitutes his greatest claim to glory. Among all the works of this artist he says, "I have found nothing to compare with this marvellous face. In it Reynolds incontestably asserts his claim to rank among the great masters, and if he had never painted but this one picture he would thereby have certainly acquired a lasting fame. One remarks with what consummate skill the artist has blended, alternately shaded, and brought into relief the whites, neutral colours, and reddish tints, of which the picture is exclusively composed. Let me observe, by the way, that Reynolds always avoids using a great number of colours in his paintings; three or four tints, or even less, indefinitely varied and blended, are enough for him. He has a great predilection for red, but in this portrait of Nelly O'Brien he has in a great measure denied himself his favourite colour."

In a few words his pupil Northcote has strikingly com

*Painted in 1763.

pared the portraits of Reynolds with those of other eminent artists. "If I were to compare him with Vandyke or Titian, I should say that Vandyke's pictures are like pictures (very perfect ones no doubt), Sir Joshua's like the reflection in a looking-glass, and Titian's like the real people. There is an atmosphere of light and shade about Sir Joshua's which neither of the others have in the same degree, together with a vagueness that gives them a visionary and romantic character, and makes them seem like dreams or vivid recollections of persons we have seen. I never could mistake Vandyke's for anything but pictures, and I go up to examine them as such. When I see a fine Sir Joshua I can neither suppose it to be a mere picture nor a man, and I almost involuntarily turn back to ascertain if it is not someone behind me reflected in the glass."

"The human face is my landscape," said Reynolds. Who can realise the depth of his sadness when he was conscious of that landscape fading for ever from his view? Sixty, seventy, eighty such landscapes painted by him in former years; and then in July, 1789, comes almost the last entry in his diary: "Mrs. Garrick. Prevented by my eye beginning to be obscured."

It is beyond the range of this paper to recount the achievements of Reynolds in the great world of art. We know he reached the highest pinnacle of fame in his profession, and from that giddy height he showed the greatness of his mind by deploring that his progress had not been more decidedly marked since he began his career as a painter; that merit had not always kept pace with speed.

It was only the first step of the ladder he took here, with the diffidence which was worthy of his genius, and which was characteristic of him to the end; and that diffidence was not the dissembled virtue so finely described by Shakespeare

"But 't is a common proof,

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend."

Reynolds did not scorn the memory of his early steps, and he always honoured the place where he received his first inspirations.

PRINCE'S "WORTHIES OF DEVON" AND THE "DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY."

PART III.

BY W. PENGELLY, F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC.

(Read at Plympton, July, 1885.)

EXPLANATORY.

PARTS I. and II. of these Notes extended, in alphabetical order, so far as to BROOKE, Henry James-the last Devonshire Celebrity mentioned in the 6th volume of the "Dictionary of National Biography." Since that Part was written, four additional volumes-the 7th to the 10th-of the Dictionary have been published. The 6th closed with "Browell," the 10th with "Clarkson;" and within these alphabetical limits there are in Prince twenty-five names heading as many chapters, from William BROWNE, the poet, to the CISTERTIAN, Roger-all of which have to be dealt with here, as well as a larger number furnished by the Dictionary.

The mode of procedure will be the same as that followed in Parts I. and II.; and, in cases of reference to authors and publications, abbreviations will be used instead of full names and titles; all of which are explained, with it is hoped sufficient fulness below.

It will be understood that the name of every Celebrity introduced into this Part (III.) occurs in Prince, or in the Dictionary, or in both; and whenever Prince, but not the Dictionary, is mentioned in the Notes on any given Celebrity, it will be because the said Celebrity is not mentioned in the Dictionary; and vice versa.

= Britton's and Brayley's Eng. and Wales. IV. 1803.
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage, &c. 49th ed. 1887.
Burt's Notes to Carrington's Dartmoor. 1834.
Camden's Britannia. Holland's ed. 1637.
Carew's Svrvey of Cornwall. 1769.
Carrington's Collected Poems. 1834.