That so successful an attempt should be repeated was only natural. Hogarth and Highmore had painted some of these “conversation pieces,” as they were called, but with indifferent, or at any rate no great amount of popular, success, and one might have supposed that a young artist would have been ready enough to respond to the encouragement accorded to him in this particular class of picture. But no others of the sort are known to have been attempted, with one exception. At about the same time Romney was engaged in a portrait group of Mr. Leigh and his family. Unfortunately, his well-wishing friend Cumberland, the dramatist, in his efforts to push Romney to the front, was ill-advised enough to drag Garrick to see his pictures. Now Garrick hated Cumberland, and had a very poor opinion of him--which is all there is to excuse him for an unpardonable exhibition of bad taste. “I brought him to see Romney’s pictures,” writes Cumberland, “hoping to interest him in his favour. A large family piece unluckily arrested his attention; a gentleman in a close-buckled bob-wig, and a scarlet waistcoat laced with gold, with his wife and children (some sitting, some standing), had taken possession of some yards of canvas, very much, as it appeared, to their own satisfaction--for they were perfectly amused in a contented abstinence from all thought or action. Upon this unfortunate group, when Garrick had fixed his lynx’s eyes, he began to put himself into the attitude of the gentleman, and turning to Mr. Romney, ‘Upon my word, Sir,’ he said, ‘this is a very regular well-ordered family; and that is a very bright-rubbed mahogany table at which that motherly good lady is sitting; and this worthy gentleman in the scarlet-waistcoat is doubtless a very excellent subject (to the State, I mean, if these are all his children), but not for your art, Mr. Romney, if you mean to pursue it with that success which I hope will attend you.’ The modest artist took the hint, as it was meant, in good part, and turned his family with their faces to the wall.” If Romney had been only moderately sensitive we can easily understand that an impertinence of this sort (for Cumberland was as dense as he was well-meaning in thinking it was intended in good part) would have been intolerable from anybody; but when we remember that Garrick was an intimate friend of Reynolds, we may readily admit that it had in fact a certain influence on Romney’s choice of subject and treatment. We have seen that in the other group his success was the result of careful and prepared study; but I know of no other sketches of his for family groups--except those for the Gower picture--though there are plenty of studies of single figures.