Reynolds had been absent for about three years from England when, in the autumn of 1752, he had the gratification of setting foot on her sacred soil. He immediately went to Devonshire, to recruit his health and inspire vigor from fresh breezes and his native air. Early in the next year he returned to London, and, quartering himself in St. Martin’s Lane, commenced his professional career with earnestness and resolution. His talents were such as, if properly exerted, could hardly fail to meet with encouragement and lead on to fortune; and their possessor not only recognized the great fact that unflinching perseverance was essential to success, but maintained the opinion that any one aspiring to excel in art must make it the subject of his thoughts from the time he rises till he goes to bed. Nay, more; he said that those aiming at distinction must work, whether willingly or with reluctance, morning, noon, and night, and expect to find their occupation no pastime, but hard labor. Undoubtedly during youth he carried this wholesome doctrine too far, in asserting that the man would never make a great painter who looked for the Sunday with pleasure, as a day of rest. But it is satisfactory, and ought to be instructive, to understand――thanks, perhaps, to the dying precept of Johnson――that he did not act on the pernicious doctrine to the end of his career. With all his taste, ease, felicity of invention, and power of rich, harmonious coloring, Reynolds did not acquire his legitimate position without a salutary struggle. His boldness, freedom, and brilliancy were regarded as strange and objectionable novelties. The old dogs began to bark. The portrait of a pupil whom he had brought from Rome, in a Turkish dress, and known as “a boy with a turban,” gained notice and excited observation. Hudson, perhaps nourishing the old wound in his breast, declared that the youth’s painting was not so good as when he left England; an eminent disciple of Kneller denounced it, as not the least like Sir Godfrey’s――it would never answer; and others were by no means sparing in sharp and invidious strictures. The artist was as little guided by such remarks as was the disinherited knight by the well-meant hints of the crowd around the lists at Ashby; but, moving onward undismayed, he soon convinced the public that he would pursue his chosen course and win high renown in doing so. He painted the second Duke of Devonshire with a success which extended his reputation in patrician circles; and universal attention was attracted by the noble picture which he executed of his friend and patron, Lord Keppel. But still his celebrity was too recent to be secure against the winds and tides of capricious fashion, and a rival artist entered the field. This was a Genevan, named Liotard, described as having little skill and no genius, but who, by the patronage of persons of rank, was elevated to an ephemeral and unmerited position. His works were wanting in