REYNOLDS’ FIRST ATTEMPTS IN ART.

This excellent painter, in his boyhood, showed his natural taste for painting, by copying the various prints that fell in his way. His father, a clergyman, thought this an idle passion, which ought not to be encouraged; he esteemed one of these youthful performances worthy of his endorsement, and he wrote underneath it, “Done by Joshua out of pure idleness.” The drawing is still preserved in the family.

Dr. Johnson says that Sir Joshua Reynolds had his first fondness of the art excited by the perusal of Richardson’s Treatise on Painting.