the same time the abler portrait painter; for the character and expression of the individual are the chief points which are demanded. Lastly, the conduct and execution of his pictures were in strict conformity with the same principles, and may be said to have been dictated by the largest view of the nature and means of the art. In his works the attention is always attracted by the important objects, or diverted from them, when diverted, only to conceal the artifice which thus commands the eye of the spectator. It is evident that the general degree of completeness will depend on that of the principal object; and assuming that Reynolds’s style of painting a head was sufficiently elaborate (it is generally less so than Vandyck’s), the _unfinish_ of the accessories could hardly be otherwise than it is, consistently with due subordination. The truth of this consistency of style was ultimately acknowledged, and although so opposite from what had before been in fashion, and so different in many respects from what the vulgar admire, the pictures of Reynolds soon won the favour of the public. If the admiration of his works had any ill effect, it was that it tended to produce an imitation of the same mode rather than of the same consistency. On his return to England in 1752, which has been somewhat anticipated in the foregoing remarks on his style, Reynolds repaired to his native county, and painted one or two pictures at Plymouth: perhaps the earliest of the fine portraits of Mr. Zachary Mudge, Vicar of St. Andrews, was one of these. He returned to London accompanied by his sister Frances. For a short time he again occupied lodgings in St. Martin’s Lane, and produced there the portrait of Giuseppe Marchi, an Italian whom he had brought home as an assistant. This picture, which was in the style of Rembrandt, attracted general admiration; and when his former master Hudson saw it, he exclaimed, stung with jealousy, “Reynolds, you don’t paint so well as when you left England!” Soon after this, in consequence of his increased fame and employment, Reynolds took a house in Great Newport Street, where he resided for some years. The whole length portrait of Admiral Keppel was the next work of importance which he produced: it exhibited such powers that it completely established the fame of the artist, and he was generally acknowledged to be the greatest painter England had seen since the time of Vandyck. From this period his career was one of uninterrupted success and improvement; for his reputation was never greater than at the close of his laborious life. The detraction which such extraordinary merit soon excited was compelled to vent itself in attempting to undervalue the department of art in which he excelled: in consequence of these insinuations, a defence of portrait painting, from the pen of Dr. Johnson, appeared in the forty-fifth number of the Idler. Johnson in that essay, after all,