Gladly he accepted, and they sailed away for the Orient with a cabin
stocked with good things, and enough brushes, paints, canvases and easels
to last several painters a lifetime.

* * * * *

It was three years before Reynolds came back to Plymouth. He had visited
Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Port Mahon and Minorca. At the two last-named
places there were British garrisons, and Reynolds set to work making
portraits of the officers. For this he was so well paid that he decided
to visit Italy instead of voyaging farther with his friend Keppel.

He then journeyed on to Naples, Rome, Venice, Pisa and Florence, stopping
in each city for several months, immersing himself in the art atmosphere
of the place. Returning to Rome, he remained there two years, studying
and copying the works of Raphael, Angelo, Titian and other masters.

Occasionally, he sold his copies of masterpieces, and by practising
strict economy managed to live in a fair degree of comfort.

Rome is the hottest place in Summer and the coldest in Winter of which I
know. The average Italian house has a damp and chill in Winter which
clutches the tourist and makes him long for home and native land. Imagine
a New England farmhouse in March with only a small dish-pan of coals to
warm it, and you have Rome in Winter.

Rome, with its fever in Summer and rheumatism and pneumonia in Winter,
has sent many an artist to limbus. Joshua Reynolds escaped the damp of
the Vatican with nothing worse than a deafness that caused him to carry
an ear-trumpet for the rest of his life.