ks," and were a source of great enjoyment
to them and their families, especially on Sunday afternoons.

When Mr. Reynolds went to London on business, he was accustomed to make
a round of visits, on his way home, to places remarkable for their
picturesque beauty, such as Stowe, Hagley Park, and the Leasowes.
After a visit to the latter place in 1767, he thus, in a letter to his
friend John Maccappen, vindicated his love for the beautiful in
nature:--"I think it not only lawful but expedient to cultivate a
disposition to be pleased with the beauties of nature, by frequent
indulgences for that purpose. The mind, by being continually applied
to the consideration of ways and means to gain money, contracts an
indifferency if not an insensibility to the profusion of beauties which
the benevolent Creator has impressed upon every part of the material
creation. A sordid love of gold, the possession of what gold can
purchase, and the reputation of being rich, have so depraved the finer
feelings of some men, that they pass through the most delightful grove,
filled with the melody of nature, or listen to the murmurings of the
brook in the valley, with as little pleasure and with no more of the
vernal delight which Milton describes, than they feel in passing
through some obscure alley in a town."

When in the prime of life, Mr. Reynolds was an excellent rider,
performing all his journeys on horseback. He used to give a ludicrous
account of a race he once ran with another youth, each having a lady
seated on a pillion behind him; Mr. Reynolds reached the goal first,
but when he looked round he found that he had lost his fair companion,
who had fallen off in the race! On another occasion he had a hard run
with Lord Thurlow during a visit paid by the latter to the Ketley
Iron-Works. Lord Thurlow pulled up his horse first, and observed,
laughing, "I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is probably the first time that
ever a Lord Chancellor rode a race with a Quaker!" But a stranger
rencontre was one which befel Mr. Reynolds on Blackheath. Though he
declined Government orders for cannon, he seems to have had a secret
hankering after the "pomp and circumstance" of military life. At all
event's he was present on Blackheath one day when George III. was
reviewing some troops. Mr. Reynold's horse, an old trooper, no sooner
heard the sound of the trumpet than he started off at full speed, and
made directly for the group of officers before whom the