THE

WORKS

OF

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, KNIGHT;

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY;

CONTAINING

HIS DISCOURSES, IDLERS,

A JOURNEY TO FLANDERS AND HOLLAND,

AND HIS COMMENTARY ON DU FRESNOY'S ART OF

PAINTING;

PRINTED FROM HIS REVISED COPIES,

(WITH HIS LAST CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS,)

IN THREE VOLUMES.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE

AUTHOR,

By EDMOND MALONE, Esa.

ONE OF HIS EXÉCUTORS.

THE SECOND EDITION CORRECTED.

▪QUASI NON EA PRÆCIPIAM ALIIS, QUÆ MIHI IPSI DESUNT. CICERO.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR T. CADELL, JUN, AND W. DAVIES, IN THE STRAND.

то

THE KING.

4

By your

THE regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to accommodations, from accommodations to ornaments. illustrious predecessors were established Marts for manufactures, and Colleges for science; but for the arts of elegance, those arts by which manufactures are embellished, and science is refined, to found an Academy was reserved for Your Majesty.

Had such patronage been without effect, there had been reason to believe that Nature had, by some insurmountable impediment, obstructed our proficiency; but the annual improvement of the Exhibitions which Your

Majesty has been pleased to encourage, shews that only encouragement had been wanting.

To give advice to those who are contending for royal liberality, has been for some years the duty of my station in the Academy; and these Discourses hope for Your Majesty's acceptance, as as well-intended endeavours to incite that emulation which your notice has kindled, and direct those studies which your bounty has rewarded.

SOME ACCOUNT OF

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS,

THE Author of the following admirable works, having, for near half a century, been well known to almost every person in this country who had any pretensions to taste or literature, to the present age an account of him, however brief, may seem wholly unnecessary; nor should the reader be detained, even for a few minutes, from the pleasure which awaits him, but that Posterity, while they contemplate with delight and admiration those productions of his pencil which place him on a level with Titian and Vandyck, will naturally wish to know something of the man, as well as of the painter.