A year later, when the President sent some dozen pictures to the R.A., his activity came to a sudden end. Some forty years and more had passed since he painted the first of his works that concerns us, and he had not known an idle season. His record would have brought honour to any three men; he had lived as a philosopher should, grateful for the gifts of the gods, and not abusing any. Suddenly, in mid-July of 1789, about the time of the fall of the Bastille, one eye failed him as he worked at his easel; he laid his brush aside. "All things have an end--I have come to mine," he remarked, with the quiet courage that never deserted him, and he spent what remained to him of life making gradual preparation for the last day, sustained by memories of the past through hours that were not always free from pain and distress. Save for a quarrel with the Academy, arising out of the contest for membership between Bonomi and Fuseli, there was nothing to disturb the closing years of the old painter's public life, and even in this quarrel, he was the victor. The General Assembly apologised, and Reynolds withdrew his resignation, though Chambers, now Sir William, was obliged to act for him at Somerset House. In December of 1790 Reynolds delivered his final address to the students, the name of Michelangelo being last upon his lips. Little more than a year before he died, the President sat to the Swedish artist von Breda, for a picture now in the Stockholm Academy. West did his presidential work for him in the last months of his life. Many friends testify to the tranquillity of these last days, though failing sight and the deprivation of the liberal diet to which he was accustomed had lowered the spirits that were once bright as well as serene. Perhaps modern medical science would have availed to lengthen his life, and make the last few years more worth living; but in the eighteenth century one needed a very sturdy constitution to endure the combined attack of a disease and a doctor. Sir Joshua was in his sixty-ninth year--he had lived in the fullest sense all the time--and when one evening in February 1792 Death came to the House in Leicester Square, his visit was quite expected, and was met with a tranquil mind. The body lay in state awhile in the Royal Academy, and was then taken to St. Paul's Cathedral, and laid by the side of Sir Christopher Wren. To-day we look at the artist's work with a critical eye--he can no longer thrive by comparison with contemporaries, but must compete with all dead masters of portraiture; and it will be admitted on every side that he holds his own, that before every throne of judgment his best works will plead for him and vindicate the admiration of his countrymen. It is not the least of his claims to high consideration that his art moved steadily forward, that the last work was the best. IV