The unclaimed and unfinished works of Sir Joshua, along with his vast collection of pictures, drawings, engravings, casts, and statues, were sold by auction, and brought nearly 17,0001. His whole property amounted to 80,0001. The following character of this great artist is from the masterly hand of Mr. Burke : " His illness was long, but born with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of any thing irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life.
He had, from the beginning of his malady, a dis tinct view of his dissolution ; which he contemplated with that entire composure which nothing but the in nocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of providence, could bestow. In this situation he had every consolation from family tenderness which his tenderness to his family merited.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the ele gant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them ; for lie communicated to that description of the art in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity, deriv ed from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of his tory and the amenity of landscape. In painting por traits, he appears not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paint ings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to be derived from his paintings.
He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.
In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame ; admired by the expert in art, and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his na tive humility, modesty, and candour, never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation ; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse.
His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated in letters; his social virtues, in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, ren dered hint the centre of great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which were dissipated by his death.
He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow." The following character of Sir Joshua as an artist, has been Braun by Fuseli in the Supplement to Pilking ton's Dictionary " In many respects, both as a man and as a painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds cannot be too much praised, stu died, and imitated, by every one who wishes to attain the like eminence. All nature, and all art, was his academy, and his mind was constantly awake, ever on the wing—comprehensive, vigorous, discriminative, and retentive. With taste to perceive all the varieties of the picturesque, judgment to select, and skill to combine, what would serve his purpose ! Few have ever been empowered by nature to do more from the funds of his own genius; and have ever endeavoured more to take advantage of the labours of others in making a splendid and useful collection, for which no expense was spared. His house was filled to the re motest corners, with casts from the antique, pictures, statues, drawings, and prints, and by the various masters of all the different schools and nations. Beau tiful and seducing as his style undoubtedly was, it can not be recommended in so unreserved a manner as his industry both in study and in practice. Colouring was evidently his first excellence, to which all others were more or less sacrificed ; and though in splendour and brilliancy he was exceeded by Rubens and Paul Vero nese, in force and depth by Titian and Rembrandt, and in freshness and truth by Velasquez and Vandyke, yet, perhaps, he possessed a more exquisite combina tion of all these qualities, and that peculiarly his own, than is found in the works of any of those cele brated masters. His discourses arc written in an easy, agreeable manner, and contain many just observations, much excellent criticism and valuable advice ; but, being undertaken before he had profoundly considered the subject, they are frequently vague and unintelligible, and sometimes contradictory." It has been impertinently stated, that Sir Joshua did not write his own discourses, and that they were corn posed, or greatly modified, by Mr. Burke. The evi deuce of Mr. Northcote, who lived with Sir Joshua when he composed them, and who saw the manuscript fresh from the hand of its author, and after it had been submitted to Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, completely contradicts this unfounded supposition.