Reynolds had many intimate friends among women: Peg Woffington, Mrs.
Clive, Mrs. Thrale, Hannah More, Fanny Burney and others. With them all
there went the same high, chivalrous and generous disinterestedness. He
was a friend to each in very fact.

When the Royal Academy was formed in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight,
Reynolds was made its president, and this office he held until the close
of his life. He was not one of the chief promoters of the Academy at the
beginning, and the presidency was half forced upon him. He might have
declined the honor then had the King not made him a knight, and showed
that it was his wish that Reynolds should accept. Sir Joshua, however,
had more ballast in his character than any other painter of his time, and
it was plain that without his name at the head the Academy would be a
thing for smiles and quiet jokes.

The thirty-four charter members included the names of two Americans,
Copley and West, and of one woman, Angelica Kauffman.

And it is here worthy of note that although the Methodist Church still
refuses to allow women to sit as delegates in its General Conference,
yet, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-eight, no dissent was made when Joshua
Reynolds suggested the name of a woman as a member of the Royal Academy.

Sir Joshua did not forget his friends at the time honors were given out,
for he secured the King's permission to add several honorary members to
the Academy--men who couldn't paint, but who still expressed themselves
well in other ways.

Doctor Johnson was made Professor of Ancient Literature; Oliver
Goldsmith, Professor of Ancient History; and Richard Dalton, Librarian.