BURKE, REYNOLDS, AND KEPPEL.
Tfriendships of great men are always interesting, and especially so when diversity of achievement makes the ground covered by those in close relationship with each other wide and varied. Thus the close connexion of three such men as Burke, Reynolds, and Koppel cannot fail to be impressive
when we consider what a wide range of human activity the friends collectively embraced. Keppel and Reynolds became acquainted as young men at Mount-Edgoumbe, the friendship was continued in London, and when Keppel, at the ago of twenty-four, was sent to the Mediteranean with seven ships
on a mission to the Dey of Algiers he invited the artist., who was two yoers his senior, to accompany him„ thus bringing a visit to Italy within the reach of the painter. The friendship thus begun was lasting, and in the years that followed some twenty-five portraits of the admiral were painted by his friend.
One of these, a full-length, done soon after Reynolds had returned from Italy, was destined to secure for the painter a great and popular success. The story is told that the picture was exhibited publicly in London with two Marines standing on guard, and at night holding torches before it—a picturesque setting which Keppel supplied, and which may well make present-day managers of Bond Street galleries envious. Burke, in his " Letter to a Noble Lord," the last, the most poignant, and also, from the standpoint of letters, the most magnificent of his political writings, begins his appeal to the memory of Keppel thus :—
" It was but the other day that, on putting in order some things which had been brought here, on my taking leave of London for ever, I looked over a number of fine portraits, most of them of persons now dead, but whose society, in my better days, made this a proud and happy place. Amongst these was the picture of Lord Keppel. It was painted by an artist worthy of the subject, the excellent friend of that excellent man from their earliest youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we lived for many years without a moment of coldness, of peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to the day of our final separation. I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best mon of his age, and I loved and cultivated him ' ly. He was much in my heart, and I believeI was in his to the very ast beat. It was after his trial at Ports- mouth that he gave me this picture. With what zeal and anxious affection I attended himthrough that his agony of glory, what part my son, in the early flush and enthusiasm of his virtue, and the pious passion with which he attached himself to all my connections,— with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, just as I should have felt such friendship on such an occasion. I partook, indeed, of this honour with several of the first and best and ablest in the Kingdom, but I was behindhand with none of them ; and I am sure that if, to the eternal disgrace of this nation and to the total annihilation of every trace of honour and virtue in it. things had taken a different turn from what they did, I should have attended him to the quarter-deck with no less good will and more pride, though with far other feelings, than I partook of the general flow of national joy that attended the justice that was done to his virtue."
Which was this portrait, we wonder, that recalled so poignantly the qualities of his dead friend to Burke P It is not likely that it was the very interesting work which has recently come to light and is now to be seen at the Shepherd
Gallery in King Street. This fine work was not long ago sold at Christie's, together with other pictures belonging to one branch of the Keppel family, but no painter's name was con. fleeted with it. However, the critical eye of Mr. Shepherd detected under the dirt and darkened varnish the hand of Reynolds in the lower part of the background—the only part ho could examine closely owing to the picture being hung rather high up. When the picture was cleaned the judgmene was confirmed not only by the beauty of the painting but by the painter's signature and the date 1749, the year in which Keppel took his friend with him on board the Centurion' to the Mediterranean. Thus we have not only the first of the portraits of Keppel which Reynolds painted, but also an example of the master's work before his Italian studies. The picture has little in it to suggest the beginning of a career: it is painted with complete ease and power, with the exception of the bands, which are weakly drawn. What is noticeable is the lifelike energy of the head and the wonderfully skilful painting which arrests and portrays a momentary expression. The picture is supposed to have been painted in Minorca, where Reynolds stayed, and, it is known, painted several of the officers of the garrison. In the background is introduced the Bay of Algiers and Keppel's seven ships. It was here that an accident nearly produced serious trouble, for when Koppers ships fired the customary salute a complaint earns from the shore that the last gun fired was shotted. The Commodore himself landed to make apologies, but the Dey was not inclined to accept them and threatened the bowstring. He was induced to take a more reasonable view of things when Keppel pointed out that if he was killed his ships would certainly reduce the town to ruins. From the picture we can well be- lieve that no threat would have availed with the brilliant young commander. The face is full of power but also of charm, and the spirited bearing of the man exactly accords with Burke's description of his character :—
"Lord Koppel had two countries, one of descent and one of birth. Their interest and their glory are the same, and bis mind was capacious of both. His family was noble, and it was Dutch; that is, he was of the oldest and purest nobility that Europe can boast, among a people renowned above all others for love of their native land. Though it was never shown in insult to any human being, Lord Keppel was something high. It was a wild stock of pride on which the tenderest of all hearts had grafted the milder virtues. He valued ancient nobility, and he was not disinclined to augment it with new honours. He valued the old nobility and the new, not as an excuse for inglorious sloth, but assn incitement to virtuous activity. He considered it as a sort of cure for selfish- ness and narrow mind, conceiving that a man born in an elevated pier° in himself was nothing, but everything in what went before and what was to come after him."
Would that the eloquence of Burke had also given us a full.
length portrait of Reynolds. As he has not done so we have to gather the materials for a complete likeness from different sources. Scattered through the pages of Boswell are numbers of sketches which indicate the happy character of the man. Open, kindly, and serene, he was one of the people whose society Johnson sought and loved, and such phrases as "I know of no man who has passed through life with more observation than Reynolds" and " When Reynolds tells me anything I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more" testify to the equality of intercourse of the two friends. It was the combination of gifts of mind and character, together with artistic genius, that enabled Reynolds to interpret the great men of his age and to fix not only their appearance but something of their spirit in his portraits. To de this success- fully his sympathies, no less than his technical skill, must have been wide and far-reaching. That this was so, and as an instance of the fellowship of great minds, we may point to this friendship of the philosopher, the artist, and the sailor —of Burke, Reynolds, and Keppel.
Previous page
