REYNOLDS’ GENEROSITY.
Reading edition
Sir Joshua Reynolds has been charged by his enemies with avarice; but there are many instances recorded which show that he possessed a noble and generous heart.
When Gainsborough charged him but sixty guineas for his celebrated picture of the Girl and Pigs, Reynolds, conscious that it was worth much more, gave him one hundred. Hearing that a worthy artist with a large family was in distress, and threatened with arrest, he paid him a visit, and learning that the extent of his debts was but forty pounds, he shook him warmly by the hand as he took his leave, and the artist was astonished to find in his fingers a bank-note of one hundred pounds. When Dayes, an artist of merit, showed him his drawings of a Royal pageant at St. Paul’s, Reynolds complimented him, and said that he had bestowed so much labor upon them that he could not be remunerated by selling them, but told him that if he would publish them he would loan him the necessary funds, and engage to get him a handsome subscription among the nobility.