whole night to
complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, that it
produced a vertigo in his head.'"

The story of Reynolds's youth is a happier one than is often recorded of
young artists. His father was too wise and too kind to cross the natural
proclivities of the boy, although he does appear to have wavered for a
moment when Joshua declared he "had rather be an apothecary than an
_ordinary_ painter." He was, however, early apprenticed to Hudson, the
first portrait-painter of his time in England. But hardly two years had
elapsed before the master saw himself eclipsed, and the two separated
without great waste of love on the part of Hudson. From that moment,
Reynolds's career was decided. He put the mannerism of his former master
away from his pictures when he distanced himself from his studio, and,
going soon after to the Continent, devoted himself to the study of great
works of art. With what vigor and faithfulness this labor was pursued,
the Roman and Venetian note-books testify. "For the studies he made from
Raphael," writes Leslie, "he paid dearly; for he caught so severe a cold
in the chambers of the Vatican as to occasion a deafness which obliged
him to use an ear-trumpet for the remainder of his life."

The fertility and inexhaustibility of power shown by Sir Joshua Reynolds
have seldom, if ever, been surpassed in the history of Art. In the
"Catalogue Raisonnee" of his paintings, soon to be given to the public,
nearly three thousand pictures will be enumerated. Many of these were,
of course, finished by his assistants, according to the fashion of the
time, but the expression of the face remains to attest the master's
hand. (Unless, perchance, the head may have dropped off the canvas
entirely, as happened once, when an unfortunate youth, who had borrowed
one of his fine pictures to copy, was carrying it home under his arm.)

In the record for the year 1758, we are startled by the number of one
hundred and fifty sitters. And although this was probably the busiest
year of his life, our astonishment never wanes while observing the
ceaseless industry of every moment of his career, during the seventh day
as well as the other six; and this, too, in spite of a promise won from
him by Dr. Johnson, when on his death-bed, that he would never use his
pencil on a Sunday. But the habit of a long working life was too strong
upon him, and he soon persuaded himself that it was better to have made
the promise