On his return from his three years’ tour in 1752 Reynolds lost no time in setting up his easel as a professional painter in London. The effects of his studies in Italy were too obvious to escape notice, and as the arts at that time were scarcely, if at all, deserving of kindlier mention than Reynolds has given them in the passage above quoted, it is hardly surprising that he was subject to some adverse criticism. Hudson, his former master, after looking at a _Boy in a Turban_--a portrait of his pupil Marchi, now one of the treasured possessions of the Royal Academy--which had just been painted, told him that he didn’t paint as well as when he left England. A pupil of Kneller objected that he didn’t paint in the least like Sir Godfrey. But his success was now not far off, and with the full-length portrait of Keppel, which was painted in 1753, he sprang into fame. “With this picture,” says Farington, in his Memoir of Reynolds published in 1819, “he took great pains; for it was observed at the time that after several sittings he defaced his work and began again. But his labour was not lost; that excellent production was so much admired that it completely established the reputation of the artist. Its dignity and spirit, its beauty of colour and fine general effect occasioned equal surprise and pleasure. The public, hitherto accustomed to see only the formal, tame representations which reduced all persons to the same standard of unmeaning insipidity, were captivated with this [Illustration: LADY AND CHILD 1780? National Gallery, London] display of animated character, and the report of its attraction was soon widely circulated.” Malone is not less enthusiastic. “The whole interval between the time of Charles I and the conclusion of the reign of George II,” he observes, “though distinguished by the performances of Lely, Riley, and Kneller, seemed to be annihilated, and the only question was whether the new painter or Vandyck were the more excellent. For several years before the period we are now speaking of the painters of portraits contented themselves with exhibiting as correct a resemblance as they could, but seemed not to have thought, or had not the power, of enlivening the canvas by giving a kind of historic air to their pictures. Mr. Reynolds ... instead of confining himself to mere likeness (in which, however, he was eminently happy) dived, as it were, into the minds and habits and manners of those who sat to him; and accordingly the majority of his portraits are so appropriate and characteristic that the many illustrious persons whom he has delineated will be almost as well known to posterity as if they had seen and conversed with them.” * * * * *