This homely, simple artist was a profound thinker; a sympathetic dreamer;
a noble-hearted, generous man; so truthful and lovable that his virtues
have been counted a weakness; and so they are--for the planet Earth.




JOSHUA REYNOLDS

To make it people's interest to advance you, by showing that
their business will be better done by you than by any other
person, is the only solid foundation of success; the rest is
accident.

--_Reynolds to His Nephew_

[Illustration: JOSHUA REYNOLDS]


On the curious little river Plym, five miles from Plymouth, is the hamlet
of Plympton. It is getting on towards two hundred years since Joshua
Reynolds was born there. The place has not changed so very much with the
centuries: there still stand the quaint stone houses, built on arches
over the sidewalk, and there, too, is the old Norman church with its high
mullioned windows. Chester shows the best example of that very early
architecture, and Plympton is Chester done in pigmy.

The birthplace of Reynolds is one of these houses in the "Row"; a
greengrocer now has the lower floor of the house for his shop, while his