But Reynolds’s greatest good fortune at Plymouth, as it afterwards proved, was his introduction to Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who became his most valuable patron when he returned to London, and to Captain Keppel, whose kindness enabled him to visit Italy instead of settling down as a provincial portrait painter, with nothing better by way of example than the hopeless decadence that followed as a natural consequence on the slovenly indifference of Kneller. In 1749 Keppel was appointed Commodore of the Mediterranean station, and invited Reynolds to accompany him. He willingly accepted the invitation, and remained in Italy for over three years. How he profited by this opportunity for studying the works of the greatest masters may be gathered from numerous passages in his memoranda and in the “Discourses;” and to discover the secret of his success, both in practice and in precept, we have only to read in his own words the story of the ceaseless activity of a mind unalterably bent on utilising every opportunity for improving his art. Let us begin with the passage in which he confesses to have found himself disappointed with the works of Raphael. “I did not for a moment conceive or suppose,” he writes, “that the name of Raphael and those admirable paintings in particular owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind; on the contrary, my not relishing them as I was conscious I ought to have done was one of the most humiliating circumstances that ever happened to me: I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted; I felt my ignorance and stood abashed. “All the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with me from England, where art was in [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF TWO GENTLEMEN 1778. National Gallery, London] the lowest state it had ever been in (it could not, indeed, be lower), were to be totally done away and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become _as a little child_.”