Harlowe." Here was menu to fit most palates, and the bill-of-fare was
duly discussed in all social gatherings of the upper circles. The
afflicted ones fed on Gray; the repentant quoted Richardson; while
Smollett and Fielding were read aloud in parlor gatherings where fair
ladies threatened to leave the room--but didn't. Out at Strawberry Hill,
his country home, Horace Walpole was running that little printing-shop,
making books that are now priceless, and writing long, gossipy letters
that body forth the spirit of the time, its form and pressure. The
Dilettante Society, composed of young noblemen devoted to high art and
good-fellowship, was discussing a scheme for a National Academy. Garrick
was at the height of his fame; Hogarth was doing for art what Smollett
did for literature; while two young Irishmen, Burke and Goldsmith, were
getting ready to make English letters illustrious; Hudson was painting
portraits with a stencil; Gainsborough was immortalizing a hat; Doctor
Johnson was waiting in the entry of Lord Chesterfield's mansion with the
prospectus of a dictionary; and pretty Kitty Fisher had kicked the hat
off the head of the Prince of Wales on a wager.

And so into this atmosphere of seething life came Joshua Reynolds, the
handsome, gracious, silent, diplomatic Reynolds. Fresh from Italy and the
far-off islands of the Southern seas where Ulysses sailed, he came--his
name and fame heralded as the Raphael of England.

To have your portrait painted by Reynolds was considered a proper
"entree" into the "bon ton." To attempt to give the names of royalty who
sat to him would be to present a transcript of Burke's Peerage.

Unlike Van Dyck, at whose shrine Reynolds worshiped, Reynolds was coldly
diplomatic in his relations with his sitters. He talked but little,
because he could not hear, and to hold an ear-trumpet and paint with both