stores out of the proceeds of this victory, Rodney proceeded to cruise along the coast of Portugal, and fell in, January 16, with a second Spanish squadron, consisting of fourteen ships of the line, commanded by Don Juan du Langara. The weather being hazy, and the English fleet much extended, the enemy failed to perceive the whole force opposed to them, and at first took no pains to avoid an encounter. But as the British approached nearer, the Spaniards prepared to escape, and Rodney was obliged to press every sail in order to frustrate their designs. The ships engaged as they came up, and the resistance of the enemy was brisk at the beginning. About four o'clock the action was general; at five, one of the Spanish ships blew up with a tremendous explosion; two others surrendered soon after: but the contest endured until two in the morning, when the Monarca struck to the Sandwich. The fruits of this victory were the Phoenix, of eighty guns, bearing the flag of Admiral Langara, the Monarca, Princessa, and Diligente, each of seventy guns, captured; the St. Domingo, also of seventy guns, blown up; and the San Julian and San Eugenio, of seventy guns, surrendered. The gratification excited by this success was enhanced by the trifling loss with which it was acquired, for the British had only thirty-two men killed and 120 wounded. Both houses of parliament voted Rodney thanks for his conduct upon the occasion; the freedom of the city of London was presented him in a gold box valued at 100 guineas; the inhabitants of Westminster chose him one of their representatives in parliament at the general election which took place during the month of September in the same year, though he was absent from England at the time, and had not solicited their suffrages; and, in November, the king nominated him a supernumerary knight of the Bath, there being no stall vacant at the time in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. Rodney was now ordered to the West Indies, where he assumed the command of twenty sail of the line, and spent the year in endeavouring to destroy the French fleet under Admiral Guichen. No decisive action, however, occurred; though several running fights and manoeuvres of considerable skill took place: the French behaved with a prudence which baffled every effort to bring on an encounter; and in this way left the English no greater honours to gain than the maintenance of their national superiority on the station. Early in 1781 a war with the Dutch was announced; and Rodney, receiving a reinforcement of seven sail of the line from England, was instructed to commence hostilities against the settlements of that power in the west. An attack upon the island of St. Eustatia was accordingly determined on; and a sufficient force appearing before the place, February 3, it surrendered without a blow: the booty thus seized was valued at three millions sterling, but much of the public satisfaction was alloyed by the rapacity with which the property of the unfortunate islanders was confiscated. As the autumn approached, Rodney passed over to England to recruit his health, and was made vice-admiral of Great Britain, in the room of Lord Hawke. Before the year closed he resumed his station. The ship in which he now carried his flag was the Formidable, of ninety-eight guns; the force under his command amounted to thirty-six sail of the line; and that of the French, under the Count de Grasse, consisted of thirty ships of the line, ten frigates, seven armed brigs, two fire-ships, and a cutter. Between these fleets two brilliant battles were fought; the first on the 9th, and the second on the 12th of April, 1782. Signals for the former battle were made early in the morning, while the French lay in a line of battle to windward, and were standing over to Guadaloupe, and while the English were in a degree becalmed under the high lands of Dominica. Some time therefore elapsed before the ships reached their stations; but a fortunate breeze sprung up; the British, led by Sir Samuel Hood, closed with the enemy's centre, and by nine o'clock a cannonade was opened. In this direction the conflict had been hotly maintained for upwards of an hour before the British centre caught the wind, and were enabled to render assistance. Some ships, however, bore up about eleven, and took a part in the action, which raged heavily, until the rear of the British began to get under weigh; and then the Count de Grasse, having the advantage of the wind, betook himself to flight. On this day Captain Bayne of the Alfred fell. The British lay to for the purpose of repairing their damages during the night, and gave chase to the still retreating enemy for two successive days. On the morning of the 12th, a French man-of-war, disabled in the recent fight, and towed by a frigate, fell to leeward, and a general engagement was hazarded by De Grasse, in order to prevent her capture. The firing began at half-past seven, and was kept up with much sharpness until noon, when the wind shifted, and Captain (afterwards Lord) Gambier made a bold but ineffectual attempt to force the French line. Rodney, however, soon after undertook the same movement with success. He may thus claim the honour of having been the first seaman who introduced the system of tactics which Nelson afterwards made the means of so many splendid victories. Being quickly followed by other ships, he wore without delay, and doubled upon the enemy with a destructive fire. General confusion soon ensued; the French van bore away, and endeavoured to form to leeward, but were baffled in the design by the perseverance of the British, who now hailed the division under Sir Samuel Hood, which had been becalmed all the forenoon. At length the enemy, after a resistance of marked bravery, began to yield; one of their seventy-fours was sunk; and their admiral, on board the Ville de Paris, being surrounded on all sides, struck his flag with the setting sun. Signals to bring to and collect the prizes were then hung out, the night set in, and the enemy were completely dispersed. The Ville de Paris, of 110 guns, carrying the French Admiral, and a considerable sum of money; the Glorieux, Cæsar, and Hector, of 74 guns each; and the Ardent, of 64 guns, were captured; and another ship of 74 guns was sunk. Intelligence of this victory was received in England with the usual demonstrations of enthusiastic joy. The admiral, his officers, and men, were honoured with votes of thanks from both houses of Parliament. Rodney received a peerage, and a pension of 20001, a year. All these honours, however, were suddenly crossed by unexpected mortification. Just before the news of the victory reached England, the ministry, dissatisfied that no decisive action had taken place, despatched Admiral Pigot to the West Indies, with a commission superseding Rodney. Pigot reached Port Royal, and, pursuant to his orders, actually displaced the hero from his command in the hey-day of victory. | Rodney was so hurt by this unmerited disgrace, that he vowed, when striking his flag, never again to hoist it. He kept his resolution, and, after leading a retired life, died ten years after in Lon| don, aged 74. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. THE monument erected to the first president of the Royal Academy is placed under the great dome of St. Paul's, and supported by the massive pier to the north-west. It is a single statue, and represents the artist in the gown of a Doctor of Laws, holding his celebrated lectures in his right hand, and resting his left upon an elevated pedestal, to which is affixed a bust of Michael Angelo. The work is by Flaxman, R.A.; and appears to be a plain performance, with little that is imposing in the attitude, and something weak in the delineation of the head. The inscription is in Latin : JOSHUÆ REYNOLDS, Pictorum sui seculi facile principi, posteris exercendam tradidit; Painting in England is a modern art: the continental schools, which maintained its influence, and added, one after another, variety to its many * The following is a translation :-. TO JOSHUA REYNOLDS, Pre-eminently the first painter of his age, by the suavity of his manners, and the elegance of his life; This statue was placed, By the friends and fosterers of his fame, In the year of Salvation 1813. Born July 15, 1723. He died February 23, 1792. beauties, had each of them completed its list of great masters, and admiration appeared satiated with delight, before an Englishman took up the easel and made a well-sustained effort to excite emotion or attract applause. It is to the subject of this sketch that we owe the establishment of an English school of painting, and it is, perhaps, his highest praise, that he still ranks at the head of the numerous body whom the example of his success has called into existence. Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, July 15, 1723. He was the youngest in a family of ten children, belonging to the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, curate, and master of the grammar school in that borough; a pious and learned man, who supported his numerous offspring with a character of unblemished respectability, upon a very slender income. The circumstances of his birth secured Joshua one benefit-a classical education, of which he availed himself with an ease and proficiency that strewed the path of his future fame with many graces and facilities. Few men have risen to excellence in the provinces of taste and ingenuity, respecting whose early years some striking anecdotes of premature genius and self-determined talent have not been recorded. That the youth of such an artist as Reynolds should be destitute of similar traits of interest is not to be expected, and we find ourselves accordingly informed, that his taste for drawing was developed even in his boyhood. His first manifestation of it was in copying the portraits to an old edition of Plutarch's Lives upon the blank leaves at the end of the book. These specimens of a natural predilection for the art were long prized by the partiality of his relations, and have since been admitted into the cabinets of the curious. While yet a boy, "Richardson's Treatise upon Painting" happened to fall into his hands, and by that work, as he used himself afterwards to relate, was his ambition quickly directed to the art. Soon after this he met with a similar book, the "Jesuit's Perspective," and eagerly possessed himself of its contents. The bias thus evinced, attracted the favourable eyes of his father, who had the good sense to encourage the boy in a pursuit which he had chosen for himself upon the impulse of natural ability. In consequence of this sensible resolution, young Reynolds had the happiness to find himself, at the age of seventeen, bound an apprentice to Hudson, who, at that time, led the portrait-painters in London. With Hudson Reynolds resided for some five years or so, during which he applied his attention, in a great measure, to the fundamental and mechanical rules of the profession. To what ex tent he improved himself under his master, it is not easy to determine; in all probability he made no extraordinary progress. Hudson, though much praised and courted, had no very high merit to boast of; he caught a likeness well, but was a poor colourer, and had nothing creative in him. Perhaps it was a conviction of his own deficiencies that impelled him to recommend his pupil to copy from Guercino a task which the latter executed with so much ability, that several of the copies he then made, from the master just mentioned, have since acquired no inconsiderable reputation and value. His studies received a temporary check from some disagreement between him and Hudson, which terminated abruptly in a separation, upon which Reynolds returned into Devonshire. There, for three successive years, he followed the bent of his own mind, and produced a succession of works, which, notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstances of his situation, spread his unfledged reputation far around his native home, and added fresh assurances of success to the earnest he had previously afforded during his residence in London. Such were the prospects under which, in 1749, he accepted the invitation of Captain (afterwards Admiral Lord) Keppel, to pay a visit to the Mediterranean, on which station that officer's ship was ordered. At the close of the same year, Reynolds landed in Italy, and visited in succession, Leghorn, Rome, and the other cities of that celebrated country, which have been so long and deservedly commended for their invaluable treasures in every branch of the fine arts. Reynolds seems to have been instantly impressed with a just sense of the excellence now set before him, and the manner in which improvement was to be derived from it. Unlike others, he drew no copies; on the contrary, he devoted his mind to a deep study of the great masters in their works: he compared their styles, sought to estimate their characters, and, after a diligent examination of each, adapted to his own powers a system compounded from them all. This mode of study has been highly praised, and with much reason; it showed great judgment, which is generally better than talent, and may be called intuition, as distinguished from mere imitation. Three years passed on in this enviable state of classical improvement, when Reynolds came back to his native land in 1752, and exhibited a fulllength portrait of his friend Captain Keppel, which at once raised him to the head of his profession. Taking a house in Newport-street, Leicester-square, he had the rare happiness of finding that there were no degrees in his fortune. He started at once into the first rank of English artists, and what must have been still more flattering to his pride, after outstripping competition he became the means of assisting his profession. In 1769, George III. instituted the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture; and Reynolds, being unanimously elected president, was knighted by the king. From the dignified position he now occupied, much was expected by his country, and much was certainly obtained. Sir Joshua displayed his talents in the president's chair in a manner eminently creditable to himself and highly advantageous to the fine arts. The discourses which he delivered from it appeared originally in 1778, and have since been printed in so many forms, and praised in so many ways, that there is little more left for a modern critic to observe, than that they were the first lectures upon the principles and practice of the fine arts addressed to an audience in this country; and, that though others have since been delivered, still none have equalled them. Sir Joshua Reynolds is the first lecturer on painting we have amongst us, both in point of time and of merit. While thus enjoying fame and fortune in the metropolis, he was not forgotten in the place of his nativity; the corporation of Plympton unanimously elected him in rotation, freeman, alderman, and mayor, of their borough. This last compliment flattered him so much, that in the warmth of his gratitude he avowed, that he regarded it as the greatest distinction conferred upon his professional career. As an acknowledgment for the obligation, he presented the corporation with his portrait, in the robes peculiar to their chief magistrate. This picture was hung up in the town hall, engraved, and universally admired. The attitude chosen, though difficult to paint well, is here decidedly effective: he holds one hand modestly before his eyes, as it has been the fashion with painters when they represent themselves. His mayoralty, and the subsequent presentation of this picture, gave rise to two complimentary verses, in Latin, which the burgesses were anxious to see subscribed to the work; but the painter's modesty declined the adaptation of such flattering praise. The lines were Laudat Romanus Raphaelem, Græcus Apellem, Other dignities were conferred upon Sir Joshua at different periods, which, though minor in themselves, deserve to be enumerated as so many proofs of the general esteem in which he was held. Thus we find him chosen a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies; and in 1784 presented with the freedom of the city of London. Again, when Lord North was made chancellor of the university of Oxford, Reynolds shared the honours of the occasion with the degree of Doctor of Laws, an academical distinction to which his talents as a writer not unjustly entitled him. For, independent of the lectures already favourably mentioned, Sir Joshua was a contributor to the "Idler" as early as the year 1759. These, his first literary productions, are numbered 76, 79, and 82, and, being all upon the appropriate subject of painting, claim attention for a pleasantness of observation and strength of diction which make them fit companions to the essays of the mighty Doctor, who was not more partial to than proud of his friend the president. Johnson often declared, and with evident satisfaction, that he considered Reynolds as one of the first pupils he had raised in his own school of writing. As an author he is further known by the notes he contributed to Mason's translation of Dufresnoy's Art of Painting, and by his notes of two tours made in Flanders and Holland during the years 1781 and 1783. Being appointed, in 1784, upon the death of Ramsay, portrait-painter to the king, Reynolds continued to practise his profession, enjoying, at the same time, general favour in society and large profits. His agreeable manners and pleasant conversation procured him a crowd of friends, amongst whom are to be particularly mentioned the members of the celebrated Literary Club: with that rare body he was intimately associated. He lived well, saw the best company in London at his table, and was distinguished by his hospitality. In the decline of his life he suffered some abatement of this unbroken state of enjoyment from a diseased liver, the attacks of which were aggravated by a fit of paralysis, in 1789, through which he lost the sight of his left eye. Notwithstanding the pains he suffered, he preserved to his last moment the placid and congratulatory habits which had all along characterized his life. He died unmarried, and greatly lamented, February 23, 1799, at his house in Leicester-square. His property, which was considerable, devolved to a niece married to the Earl of Inchiquin; and his remains, after being laid out in state in the apartments of the Royal Academy in Somerset House, were interred with public honours in the crypt of St. Paul's cathedral. The lord mayor, sheriffs, and public functionaries of the city of London met the procession at the confines of their jurisdiction, and supported the mourners to the cathedral. It was remarked as an unusual homage, that among a body of ten men who carried the pall of his coffin, all were noblemen of the first rank and greatest name. The last melancholy ceremony performed, the assemblage slowly returned to Somerset House, where Mr. Burke, who had long been the intimate friend of Sir Joshua, came forward to thank them, in the name of the family, for the respectful tribute they had paid to the memory of the deceased; but for once grief was superior to eloquence, and the orator stood mute in tears before the assembly. Thus concludes all that is perishable of an Englishman, who, by his works in art, as well as by his writings, and even more by the goodness of his heart, will ever continue an ornament in the history of his country. Beyond all comparison, Sir Joshua Reynolds was not only the best painter of his age, but is in his department the best of all we as yet possess. He was the first amongst us who, in any great or decided degree, added the higher beauties of his art to the painting of the British school. He was principally, though not wholly, a portrait-painter. To enumerate his works would be to give a catalogue of all the great men of his age. They are increasing in value. The celebrated portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in the character of the Tragic Muse, has been purchased since his death for 3500 guineas. His Ugolino, and Death of Cardinal Beaufort, have been pronounced, for grandeur of conception and force of expression, two of the best pieces that English art has produced. He possessed the theory as well as the practice of his art; in his historical painting there was a grace, and in all he performed a facility that stamped a character of superiority; his portraits, for fancy, ease, variety, and, above all, for character, are far more exquisite productions than those of any other English painter. He expired with the full promise, and his memory may already be regarded as secured in the reputation, of having been the father of the British school of painting. A modern reviewer has ably drawn his character as a painter in the following passage:-"As a painter, we cannot think, with his greatest admirers among the present members of the Royal Academy, that, in illustration of his own theory, he united all the excellences of the best masters; but we do consider that he possessed great excellence. He was deficient in invention; for his composition, though generally fine, is mostly borrowed from various quarters (in illustration of his theory); and in character and expression he continually fell short, not so much in accordance with his crotchet about a central form,' and a generalized idea of beauty, as because it was not his forte. He could not invent or conceive a striking original beauty, (unless indeed in the style of his portraits and their admirable back-grounds,) and therefore worked incessantly-often with great dissatisfaction at the natural result-to compound it from all quarters, in order to produce an excellence in which all identities should be merged. The consequences of this are beautifully expressed by a poet, in describing the restless and erroneous craving after 'perfection' among his fraternity : 'Beauty through all Being Sheds her soul divine; But our spirits, fleeing Still from shrine to shrine To kneel to her delights, far in the midst repine.' WADE'S Mundi et Cordis. "Instead, therefore, of accomplishing an original and ideal, Sir Joshua only produces a nobly vague generality, the substantive materials of which are but too often plainly traceable to their sources. But although his breadth wants mental purpose, and his outline precision, owing both to a mistaken theory of a central or middle form, whereat we 'far in the midst repine,' and also to his being an indifferent draughtsman; still he always aims at elevation and refinement. There is never anything vulgar or mean in his pictures. His design is generally selected with consummate judgment; there is a peculiar grace and mastery in his touch, and he is admirable in composition as a colourist. In one sense Sir Joshua Reynolds may be considered as the father of British Art. He uplifted and redeemed it from the mawkish depravity into which it had fallen during the reign of Charles II., by the preposterous artizanship of Verrio, (the worthy' who introduced himself and Sir Godfrey Kneller, in flowing periwigs, as courteous and approving spectators of Christ healing the Sick,') and the pencils of other foreign charlatans; by the foul patronage conferred upon Lely, who was capable of far better things, and upon Kneller, who was not; and sweeping away the bare-faced dominion of bare-breasted doll-like courtesans and ladies of the court, established a nobleness of style in design and colouring which entitles him to the admiration and gratitude of all British Artists." Hazlitt's estimate of Reynolds as a writer upon art is equally good: "The reasoning of the Discourses is, I think then, deficient in the following particulars: "1. It seems to imply, that general effect in a picture is produced by leaving out the details ; whereas the largest masses and the grandest outline are consistent with the utmost delicacy of finishing in the parts. "2. It makes no distinction between beauty and grandeur, but refers both to an ideal or middle form, as the centre of the various forms of the species, and yet inconsistently attributes the grandeur of Michael Angelo's style to the superhuman appearance of his prophets and apostles. "3. It does not at any time make mention of power or magnitude in an object as a distinct source of the sublime, (though this is acknowledged unintentionally in the case of Michael Angelo, &c.) nor of softness or symmetry of form as a distinct source of beauty, independently of, though still in connexion with another source arising from what we are accustomed to expect from each individual species. "4. Sir Joshua's theory does not leave room for character, but rejects it as an anomaly. "5. It does not point out the source of expression, but considers it as hostile to beauty; and yet, lastly, he allows that the middle form, carried to the utmost theoretical extent, neither defined by character, nor impregnated by passion, would produce nothing but vague, insipid, unmeaning generality." SIR WILLIAM JONES. SIR WILLIAM JONES's monument, a neat and somewhat affected statue, by Bacon, R.A., stands against the south-west great pier of the dome. He is represented in an attitude of composition, a pen in one hand, a scroll in the other, and his right arm supported by some volumes, which are meant to be the Institutes of Menu. The pedestal is wrought on one side with an insipid allegory of Study and Genius, opening out Oriental Knowledge, and on another with this plain inscription : To the Memory of the Supreme Court of Judicature This Statue was erected by the Honourable East India Company, of their grateful sense of his public services, He died in Bengal, on the 24th April, 1794, William Jones, for whom some Cambrian genealogists have traced a descent from Welsh kings, was born in London on Michaelmas Eve, 1746. When only three years old, his father died, in the possession of a moderate property and some reputation as a mathematician. His education thus devolved upon his mother, a lady well qualified for the task. She was the daughter of a cabinetmaker, named Nix, and is commended by her son's biographers for good sense, a strong understanding, and a proficiency in such unfeminine branches of science as algebra, trigonometry, and the theory of navigation. Two serious accidents had nearly deprived her of the honour of rearing her clever son. Being one day left alone in a room, he amused himself by scraping the soot from the chimney, and fell into the fire, from which he was only saved, after a severe burning, by a servant, whom his cries had alarmed and brought to his assistance. Soon after this escape he quarrelled with the maid who was dressing him, and in his peevish struggles fastened one of the hooks of his coat in his eye. A danger ous wound was thus inflicted, which, though healed by the skill of Doctor Mead, left the sight ever after imperfect. Being placed at Harrow school in his seventh year he became remarkable for quickness and application, until he had the misfortune to break his thigh-bone in a scholastic scramble. He had been three years at Harrow when this accident occurred. It was so severe as to occasion a suspension of his studies for a twelvemonth: but so favourable was the opinion entertained of his ability, that upon his return to school he was placed in the class to which he would have risen had he continued in it without interruption. Naturally enough he was then far behind his school-fellows; but the deficiency was soon supplied; for his master, Dr. Thackery, flogged him up to par with a severe earnestness, which Jones never ceased to condemn. In his twelfth year he was promoted to a form in the upper-school; and from that period the vivid industry which distinguished him through life, and an extraordinary talent for grappling with a variety of subjects at one and the same time, were strongly manifested. Various anecdotes are told to prove the powerful comprehensibility of his mind; but it must here suffice to relate, that he now translated, of his own accord, the Epistles of Ovid, the Pastorals of Virgil, wrote a dramatic piece on the story of Meleager, which was acted by his companions, and that before his fifteenth year, in which he left the school: he had acquired, by private assiduity, a knowledge of French, Italian, Hebrew, and Arabic; had composed a Greek play entitled Mormon, and a volume of poetry under the designation of Prolusions. Such were lucubrations, precocious and elaborate in the extreme, by which he grew to be the pride of Harrow, and was styled the great scholar. During the spring of the year 1764 he matriculated at University College, Oxford, and, in the course of a few months, was unanimously elected a scholar on one of the four foundations established by Sir Simon Bennet. To his knowledge of languages he next added an acquaintance with the Spanish, Portuguese, and Persian authors, and rendered into Arabic the Tales of Galland. nineteenth year he became tutor to Lord Althorpe, the eldest son of Earl Spencer, and in 1766 obtained a fellowship at his college. He seems to In his |