“What do you ask for this sketch?” said Reynolds to a dealer in old pictures and prints, as he was looking over his portfolio. The shrewd tradesman, observing from his manner that he had found a gem, quickly replied, “Twenty guineas, your honor.” “Twenty pence, I suppose you mean.” “No, sir; it is true I would have sold it for twenty pence this morning; but if you think it worth having, all the world will think it worth buying.” Sir Joshua gave him his price. It was an exquisite drawing by Rubens. REYNOLDS’ MODESTY. Sir Joshua Reynolds, like many other distinguished artists, was never satisfied with his works, and endeavored to practice his maxim, that “an artist should endeavor to improve over his every performance.” When an eminent French painter was one day praising the excellence of one of his pictures, he said, “_Ah! Monsieur, Je ne fais que des ebauches, des ebauches._”--Alas! sir, I can only make sketches, sketches. REYNOLDS’ GENEROSITY. Sir Joshua Reynolds has been charged by his enemies with avarice; but there are many instances recorded which show that he possessed a noble and generous heart. When Gainsborough charged him but sixty guineas for his celebrated picture of the Girl and Pigs, Reynolds, conscious that it was worth much more, gave him one hundred. Hearing that a worthy artist with a large family was in distress, and threatened with arrest, he paid him a visit, and learning that the extent of his debts was but forty pounds, he shook him warmly by the hand as he took his leave, and the artist was astonished to find in his fingers a bank-note of one hundred pounds. When Dayes, an artist of merit, showed him his drawings of a Royal pageant at St. Paul’s, Reynolds complimented him, and said that he had bestowed so much labor upon them that he could not be remunerated by selling them, but told him that if he would publish them he would loan him the necessary funds, and engage to get him a handsome subscription among the nobility. REYNOLDS’ LOVE OF HIS ART.