A slight gap in the story of Reynolds’s earlier days is usefully filled by an essay entitled, “Observations on Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Method of Colouring,” and published by William Cotton in 1859. It had been written many years before by William Mason, the author of “Odes on Memory” and other poetical works. Mason was, besides, an amateur painter, and was always admitted to Sir Joshua’s painting room unless he had a sitter for a portrait. When not so occupied, he tells us, Reynolds was always retouching an old master, or had some beggar or poor child sitting to him, because he always chose to have nature before his eyes. Mason mentions the effect of the portrait of Keppel in attracting others to Reynolds, among the first being the young Lords Huntingdon and Stormont, who had just returned from the grand tour. As though determined to follow up the success of his _Captain Keppel_ with as bold an effort in another direction, he challenged comparison with Vandyck by painting the two young lords at full length on the same canvas. “It was upon seeing this picture,” Mason continues, “that Lord Holderness was induced to sit for his portrait (which he was afterwards pleased to make me a present of), on which occasion he employed me to go to the painter and fix with him his Lordship’s time of [Illustration: ADMIRAL KEPPEL 1780. National Gallery, London] sitting. Here our acquaintance commenced; and as he permitted me to attend every sitting, I shall here set down the observations I made upon his manner of painting at this early time, which to the best of my remembrance was in the year 1754. “On his light-coloured canvas he had already laid a ground of white, where he meant to place the head, and which was still wet. He had nothing upon his palette but flake-white, lake, and black; and without making any previous sketch or outline, he began with much celerity to scumble these pigments together, till he had produced, in less than an hour, a likeness sufficiently intelligible yet withal, as might be expected, cold and pallid to the last degree. At the second sitting he added, I believe, to the three other colours a little Naples yellow; but I do not remember that he used any vermilion, neither then nor at the third trial ... lake alone might produce the carnation required. However this be, the portrait turned out a striking likeness, and the attitude, so far as a three-quarters canvas would admit, perfectly natural and peculiar to his person, which at all times bespoke a fashioned gentleman. His drapery was crimson velvet, copied from a coat he then wore, and apparently not only painted but glazed with lake, which has stood at this hour perfectly well; though the face, which as well as the whole picture was highly varnished before he sent it home, very soon faded; and soon after the forehead particularly cracked, almost to peeling off, which it would have done long since had not his pupil Doughty repaired it.” * * * * *