Note 199 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 2)

Johnson’s letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds on behalf of young Paterson was dated June 2, 1783; his three letters to Ozias Humphrey, April 5, April 10, and May 31, 1784. He asks Humphrey to allow the boy to frequent his studio and see him paint. The Doctor had chosen good teachers for the youth. “Humphrey’s miniatures, before those of any other, remind us of the excellences and graces of Reynolds” (Redgrave: A Century of Painters, i. 421). Humphrey had himself been greatly encouraged in his youth by Reynolds, who said to him: “Born in my country, and your mother a lace-maker!—why, Vandyck’s mother was a maker of lace,” and he lent him some of his pictures to copy.