very fine eyes, and that her son, the present Colonel Churchill, is very like her. Him I have seen, and he is certainly not handsome. Mr. Selwyn being once in the green room with Quin, asked him whether he had seen Betterton, and his opinion of him. Quin replied that he was certainly a great actor but added, “He would not, however, do now.”—(From Mr. Kemble, April 26, 1789.)
This conversation was probably after Garrick had appeared in 1741; for in 1741 Selwyn was but about twenty-five, at which time he probably did not go among the wits of the green room, nor was he probably much interested about the merits of the old actors. Quin himself had acted with Booth, who had acted with Betterton; and Quin’s manner was formed on Booth’s, as Booth’s was upon that of Betterton. Quin therefore could not mean that between the death of Betterton and the middle period of his own acting, which was about 1735, the publick taste was altered, and must have alluded to the very different mode of acting introduced by Mr. Garrick. The conversation, therefore, probably passed about the year 1744 or 1745.
The first book that gave Sir Joshua Reynolds a turn for painting was the Jesuit’s Perspective, a book which happened to be in the parlour window in the house of his father, who was a clergyman. He made himself at eight years old so completely master of this book that he has never had occasion to study any other work on the subject; and the knowledge of
