PORTRAITS BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

Edited by Hilles, who also contributes the commentary and amplification to these literary portraits by the famous artist, these sketches by Sir Joshua Reynolds are part of the recently discovered Boswell archives. Reynolds is seen, not only in the estimate of his contemporaries, but in relation to the men he is to describe in these sketches, as a man of great social gifts as well as artistic capabilities, whose ""equal and placid temper"" and strong gregarious inclinations brought him a wide circle of friends. The sketches here of Johnson whom he greatly revered, Garrick who irritated him, Goldsmith and Gibbon- along with the miscellaneous documents which are appended (some random comments, discourses and correspondence) add to the source material on this period and a few of its famous figures.