With purely historical and subject pictures Sir Joshua may be said to have increased his popularity more than his reputation. Of this class there are comparatively few, for while Malone enumerates one hundred and ten in “a general list of the most considerable,” no less than thirty-five of these are primarily portraits, such as _The Graces adorning a Term of Hymen_, _The Marlborough Family_, &c. &c. And while we acknowledge some of his very finest achievements to be portraits and portrait groups treated in this allegorical manner, when we turn to the “fancy subjects” we find little of which the importance is equal to its sentimental charm. Nor are the most notable exceptions, as might be expected, those for which he received the largest commissions, namely: _The Infant Hercules_, £1500; _The Nativity_, £1200; _Macbeth_, £1000; _Cardinal Beaufort_, £500; _The Continence of Scipio_, £500; _A Holy Family_, £500; _Count Hugolino_, £400; _A Gipsy Telling Fortunes_, £350; _Tuccia, the Vestal Virgin_, £300. _The Infant Hercules_ was commenced in January 1786, at a time, that is to say, when he was at the very height of his power. His niece, Miss Palmer, writing to a cousin abroad during this month, says: “My uncle seems more bewitched than ever with his pallet and pencils. He is painting from morning till night, and the truth is that every picture that he does seems better than the former. He is just going to begin a picture for the Empress of Russia, who has sent to desire he will paint her an historical one. The subject is left to his own choice, and at present he is undetermined what to choose.” The picture is now in St. Petersburg, and we [Illustration: MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE 1789. Dulwich Gallery] only know it from engravings. Tom Taylor considered it “a confused straggling picture, quite beyond the power of the painter to manage.” But this is scarcely the criticism it deserves, and we prefer the more adulatory notices of his contemporaries. In the Exhibition of 1788--the last but two in which Reynolds was represented--it was hung over the chimney-piece. “It was the first picture which presented itself on entering the room,” says Northcote, “and had the most splendid effect of any picture I ever saw.... It was a large and grand composition, and in respect to beauty, colour, and expression was equal to any picture known in the world. The middle group, which received the principal light, was exquisite in the highest degree.” James Barry was no less enthusiastic over it: “Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of light, the force and vigorous effect ... it possesses all that we look for and are accustomed to admire in Rembrandt, united to beautiful forms and to an elevation of mind to which Rembrandt had no pretensions; the prophetical agitation of Tiresias and Juno, enveloped with clouds, hanging over the scene like a black pestilence, can never be too much admired, and is, indeed, truly sublime.”