Mr. Craunch advised the study of art, and through his influence and that of his friend, a lawyer, Mr. Cutcliffe of Bideford, the lad was sent to Thomas Hudson, the principal portrait painter in England, living in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn, London. He was the pupil of Richardson, married his daughter, and thus Reynolds was brought again under a kindred influence to that which had inspired him in the "Theory of Painting." Hudson was to receive six hundred dollars for care of his pupil, half of which was loaned by a married sister till he should be able to repay her. The boy made drawings from ancient statuary and from Guercino, and was delighted with his work, writing home to his father, "While I am doing this I am the happiest creature alive." One morning, while purchasing some pictures for Hudson at an auction room, he was overjoyed to see a great poet, Alexander Pope, enter the place, and bow to the crowd, who opened a passage for him. Among others, Pope shook hands with the ardent young artist. He described the poet as "about four feet six inches high; very hump-backed and deformed. He wore a black coat, and, according to the fashion of that time, had on a little sword. He had a large and very fine eye, and a long, handsome nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which are always found in the mouths of crooked persons, and the muscles which run across the cheek were so strongly marked that they seemed like small cords." Though bound to Hudson for four years, at the end of two years Joshua was dismissed, ostensibly for neglect to carry a picture at the time ordered, but in reality, it is believed, because the master was jealous that he had painted so admirably the portrait of an elderly serving-woman in the house. He returned to Devonshire, and settled at Plymouth, where he soon painted about thirty portraits of the magnates of the neighborhood, at fifteen dollars apiece. He worked earnestly, saying, "Those who are determined to excel must go to their work whether willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night, and they will find it to be no play, but, on the contrary, very hard labor." Young Reynolds made a portrait in 1746 of Captain Hamilton, father of the Marquis of Abercorn, which was the first of his pictures which brought the artist into notice. He also painted Hamilton in a picture with Lord and Lady Eliot. The latter married Hamilton after her husband's death. "This Captain Hamilton," we find in Prior's Life of Malone, "was a very uncommon character; very obstinate, very whimsical, very pious, a rigid disciplinarian, yet very kind to his men. He lost his life as he was proceeding from his ship to land at Plymouth. The wind and sea were extremely high; and his officers remonstrated against the imprudence of venturing in a boat where the danger seemed imminent. But he was impatient to see his wife, and would not be persuaded. In a few minutes after he left the ship, the boat was upset and turned keel upwards.