Reynolds’ specialty was women and children.  No man has ever pictured them better, and with him all women were kind.  Not only were they good, but good-looking; and when arms lacked contour, or busts departed from the ideal, Kitty Fisher or Nelly O’Brien came at the call of Marchi and lent their charms to complete the canvas.

Reynolds gradually raised his prices until he received fifteen guineas for a head, one hundred for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for a full-length.  And so rapidly did he work that often a picture was completed in four hours.

Usually, success is a zigzag journey, but it was not so with Reynolds.  From Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven to Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, his income was never less than thirty thousand dollars a year, and his popularity knew no eclipse.

About the time the American Stamp Act was being pushed through Parliament, Reynolds’ studio was the neutral stamping-ground for both parties.

Copley, the Boston artist, gave Reynolds a bias in favor of truth; and when Townshend, the man who introduced the Stamp Act in Parliament, sat to Sir Joshua, the artist and sitter forgot their business and wrangled over politics.  Soon afterward Sir Joshua made a bet with Townshend, a thousand pounds against five, that George Washington would never enter Reynolds’ studio.  This was in response to the boast that Washington would soon be brought to England a captive, and Townshend would conduct him to Reynolds to have his picture taken.

The bet made a sensation and Reynolds offered to repeat it to all comers; and a score or more of sincere men paid over five pounds into the hands of Sir Joshua, and took his note for one thousand pounds, payable when Washington landed in England a prisoner.

Old Ursa Major had small patience with Reynolds’ political prophecies; he called America a land of pirates and half-breed cutthroats, and would have bet Sir Joshua to a standstill—­only he had conscientious scruples about betting, and besides, hadn’t any money.

Goldsmith and Burke, of course, sided with Reynolds in his American sympathies, and Garrick referred to them as “My friends, the three Irish Gentlemen.”

A frequent visitor at the studio at this time was Angelica Kauffman, who deserves a volume instead of a mere mention.  She came up from Switzerland, unknown, and made her way to the highest artistic circles in London.  She had wit and beauty, and painted so well that Reynolds admitted she taught him a few tricks in the use of color.  She produced several portraits of Reynolds, and Reynolds painted several of her; and the daughter of Thackeray wrote a novel which turns on the assumption that they were lovers.

There certainly was a fine comradeship existing between them; but whether Reynolds was ever capable of an all-absorbing passion there is much doubt.  He was married to his work.

Reynolds had many intimate friends among women:  Peg Woffington, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Thrale, Hannah More, Fanny Burney and others.  With them all there went the same high, chivalrous and generous disinterestedness.  He was a friend to each in very fact.