"Marchi does not sign and date the portraits, but he does all the rest,"
said Garrick. And "Little Burney," treading on thinner ice, once
remarked, "If Sir Joshua ever embraces a fair sitter and imprints upon
her forehead a chaste kiss, I am sure that Giuseppe Marchi will never
tell."

It is too late to accuse Sir Joshua Reynolds of ingratitude towards
Giuseppe; he was grateful, and once referred to Marchi as "an angel sent
from God to help me do my work." But he paid Marchi valet's wages and
treated him like a servant. Possibly this was the part of expedience, for
had Marchi ever gotten it into his head that he could paint as well as
Sir Joshua he would have been worthless as a helper.

For forty years they were never separated.

Cotton disposes of Giuseppe Marchi by saying, "He was a clever colorist,
but incapable of doing independent work." Cotton might, however, have
told the whole simple truth, and that was that Marchi was hands, feet,
eyes and ears for his master--certain it is that without his help Sir
Joshua could never have attained the fame and fortune he did.

* * * * *

In selecting his time for a career, Joshua Reynolds showed good judgment.
He went into public favor on a high tide. England was prosperous, and
there was in the air a taste for the polite arts. Literature was becoming
a fad.

Within a short time there had appeared Gray's "Elegy," Smollett's
"Peregrine Pickle," Fielding's "Amelia" and Richardson's "Clarissa