ce, if I had never
seen any of the works of Correggio, I should never perhaps have remarked
in nature the expression which I find in one of his pieces; or if I had
remarked it I might have thought it too difficult, or perhaps impossible
to be executed.

"My success and continual improvement in my art (if I may be allowed
that expression), may be ascribed in a good measure to a principle which
I will boldly recommend to imitation; I mean the principle of honesty;
which in this as in all other instances is according to the vulgar
proverb certainly the best policy: I always endeavoured to do my best.

"My principal labour was employed on the whole together, and I was never
weary of changing and trying different modes and different effects. I
had always some scheme in my mind, and a perpetual desire to advance. By
constantly endeavouring to do my best, I acquired a power of doing that
with spontaneous facility that which at first was the effort of my whole
mind."

"I had not an opportunity of being early initiated in the principles of
colouring"; he continues, "no man indeed could teach me. If I have never
been settled with respect to colouring, let it at the same time be
remembered that my unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an
inordinate desire to possess every kind of excellence that I ever saw in
the works of others, without considering that there are in colouring, as
in style, excellencies which are incompatible with each other.... I
tried every effect of colour, and by leaving out every colour in its
turn, showed every colour that I could do without it. As I alternately
left out every

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.--SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

LADY COCKBURN AND HER CHILDREN

_National Gallery, London_]

colour, I tried every new colour; and often, as is well known,
failed.... My fickleness in the mode of colouring arose from an eager
desire to attain the highest excellence."

In the year 1759 Reynolds began to write, and three of his essays were
printed in the _Idler_, which was conducted by Dr. Johnson. Northcote
records that at the same time he committed to paper a variety of remarks
which afterwards served him as hints for his discourses. One or two of
these will give us as good an idea as we are likely to get from
elsewhere of what are the first requisites of a successful painter.

"It is absolutely necessary that a painter, as the first requisite,
should endeavour as much as possible to form to himself