But of these coteries, none surpassed, if they equalled, in easy
pleasantry, unaffected intelligence, and information free from pedantry
or formality, those of the Knight of Plympton. Sir Joshua Reynolds
was singularly simple, though never inelegant in his language; and
his classical style of painting could not be more pleasing, however
more sublimely it might elevate and surprise, than his manners and
conversation.
There was little or no play of countenance, beyond cheerfulness or
sadness, in the features of Sir Joshua; but in his eyes there was
a searching look, that seemed, upon his introduction to any person
of whom he had thought before he had seen, to fix, in his painter’s
mind, the attitude, if it may be so called, of face that would
be most striking for a picture. But this was rarely obvious, and
never disconcerting; he was eminently unassuming, unpretending, and
natural.[50]
Dr. Burney has left amongst his papers a note of an harangue which he
had heard from Sir Joshua Reynolds, at the house of Dudley Long, when
the Duke of Devonshire, and various other peers, were present, and when
happiness was the topic of discussion. Sir Joshua for some time had
listened in silence to their several opinions; and then impressively
said: “You none of you, my lords, if you will forgive my telling you
so, can speak upon this subject with as much knowledge of it as I can.
Dr. Burney perhaps might; but it is not the man who looks around him
from the top of a high mountain at a beautiful prospect on the first
moment of opening his eyes, who has the true enjoyment of that noble
sight: it is he who ascends the mountain from a miry meadow, or a
ploughed field, or a barren waste; and who works his way up to it
step by step; scratched and harassed by thorns and briars; with here
a hollow, that catches his foot; and there a clump that forces him
all the way back to find out a new path;—it is he who attains to it
through all that toil and danger; and with the strong contrast on his
mind of the miry meadow, or ploughed field, or barren waste, for which
it was exchanged,—it is he, my lords, who enjoys the beauties that
suddenly blaze upon him. They cause an expansion of ideas in harmony
with the expansion of the view. He glories in its glory; and his mind
opens to conscious exaltation; such as the man who was born and bred
upon that commanding height, with all the loveliness of prospect, and
fragrance, and variety, and plenty, and luxury of every sort, around,
above, beneath, can never know; can have no idea of;—at least, not
till he come near some precipice, in a boisterous wind, that hurls him
from the top to the bottom, and gives him some taste of what he had
possessed, by its loss; and some pleasure in its recovery, by the pain
and difficulty of scrambling back to it.”