ps, which he ever painted,
except those beautiful and chaste ones which compose the backgrounds
of many of his portraits, is "A View on the Thames from Richmond,"
which in 1784 was exhibited by the Society for Promoting Painting and
Design in Liverpool.

In 1764 Mr. Reynolds had the merit of being the first promoter of that
club, which, having long existed without a name, became at last
distinguished by the appellation of the _Literary Club_. Upon the
foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and
Architecture, he was appointed president; and his acknowledged
excellence in his profession made the appointment acceptable to all
the lovers of art. To add to the dignity of this new institution, his
majesty conferred on the president the honor of knighthood; and Sir
Joshua delivered his first discourse at the opening of the Academy, on
January 2, 1769. The merit of that discourse has been universally
admitted among painters; but it contains some directions, respecting
the proper mode of prosecuting their studies, to which every student
of every art would do well to pay attention. "I would chiefly
recommend (says he) that an implicit obedience to the _rules of art_,
as established by the practice of the great masters, should be exacted
from the young students. That those models, which have passed through
the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and
infallible guides, as subjects for their imitation, not their
criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of
making a progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting
will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For
it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his
own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them.
Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that
false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius. They
are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armor, which upon the
strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen
turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to
protect."

Each succeeding year, on the distribution of the prizes, Sir Joshua
delivered to the students a discourse of equal merit with this; and
perhaps we do not hazard too much when we say, that from the whole
collected, the lovers of belles-lettres and the fine arts will acquire
juster notions of what i