“One gentleman whose portrait Reynolds had painted desired to have his hat on his head in the picture, which was quickly finished, in a commonplace attitude, done without much study, and sent home; where, on inspection, it was soon discovered that although this gentleman in his portrait had one hat upon his head, yet there was another under his arm.” A fine specimen of his accomplishments at this early period is a small “conversation piece”--that is to say, an elaborate family group, painted in the year 1746, which is now in the possession of Lord St. Germans, at Port Eliot, near Plymouth. I have not seen the original, but Mr. George Harland Peck has a small version of it in water-colour, which he was kind enough to allow me to reproduce in the Portfolio Monograph No. 48 (“English Society of the Eighteenth Century in Contemporary Art”). In this composition there are no less than eleven figures, grouped in various attitudes about the steps at a corner of the family mansion. The central figure, standing, is Edward, afterwards created Lord Eliot. On his left are seated his father and mother, Richard and Harriot Eliot. On his right are standing two of his sisters, and Captain Hamilton (ancestor of the Duke of Abercorn) with a child on his shoulders. A boy on his right, two children seated in the foreground, and a Mrs. Goldsworthy on the extreme right of the picture complete the composition. As the work of a country youth of twenty-three this is certainly a very remarkable performance. Hogarth and some of his minor contemporaries were at this date producing “conversation pieces” of more or less merit, but we must look to Holland or France for anything on this scale. Only once again did Reynolds attempt anything approaching so comprehensive a survey of family portraiture on a single canvas, namely the Marlborough group at Blenheim, containing eight figures besides several dogs, of which a very spirited little sketch in oils is now in the National Gallery.