In 1773 Plympton remembered its famous artist and elected him mayor, an honour that touched him nearly. One cannot help thinking that it was more to him even than the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, conferred in the same year by Oxford University _de honoris causa_, though this too helped him to paint his own portrait in flamboyant style, and the artist loved colour. One portrait of himself was sent to the town of Plympton and hung between two pictures that were "old masters" according to the leading lights of the Corporation. In truth, they were two of Sir Joshua's own early works, and from this simple story we may learn that artists come and artists go, but the mental calibre of corporations is constant and not subject to change. He sent another picture of himself to the Uffizzi Gallery in Florence, where so many Masters stand self-committed to canvas in pictures that do not err upon the side of making the sitters lack distinction. The next eight years were uneventful, save for the fact that the President was doing some of his best work and enjoying life in the fullest and most complete fashion imaginable. Nearly all who knew him loved him, and to the great majority of men and women he was just and kind. For a man so completely free from emotion and self-revelation, Reynolds claimed a very large circle of intimates, and it was hardly an age of introspection. Men confessed themselves to their Maker but not to their friends; the formalities of life and speech presented an effective barrier to the emotions, even the stage was as artificial and pompous as it could be. One may perhaps acknowledge an uneasy feeling that David Garrick himself would make a very small impression upon a latter-day audience, if he confronted it with the mid-eighteenth-century style of speech and action.