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THE only daughter of William, second Earl Cowper, by Lady Henrietta Auverquerque, daughter of the Earl of Grantham. Married in 1753 to Henry Seymour, Esq. of Sherborne, Redland Court, and Northbrook, nephew to the Duke of Somerset. They had two daughters,—Caroline, wife to Mr. Danby of Swinton Park, county York (who bequeathed this picture to Lord Cowper), and Georgiana, married to the Comte de Durfort, Ambassador at Venice.
_Green gown, with short sleeves. Holding a basket._
MISS JANE COWING married in 1793 Samuel Reynolds, who became identified with his great namesake, Sir Joshua, by his beautiful and delicate engraving of the works of that master, and of many other celebrated painters. His son and daughter were also artists in oil and miniature, and his grandchildren still keep up the character of the family for the love and practice of art. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds were intimate friends and constant guests of Lord and Lady John Townshend at Balls Park, Hertford, where the agreeable and versatile talents of the former, and the gentle and kindly disposition of the latter, ensured them a cordial welcome. They were also occasional visitors to Panshanger, and it is easy to imagine how fully the treasures of this noble gallery must have been appreciated by the practised eye and refined taste of Samuel Reynolds.
BORN at Plymouth, where his father, Samuel, was master of the Grammar-School. His mother was Theophila Potter, of Bishops Plympton, South Molton, who had many children. Samuel Reynolds was a good man, and sensible withal; yet we are told, on the authority of a maid who lived in the family, that he was given to astrology, and would go out on the house-top to consult the stars; moreover, that he once cast the horoscope of a little daughter, for whom he predicted a violent death,—a prophecy which was, unfortunately, fulfilled, as the child fell out of a window, and was killed. When only eight years old, Joshua had benefited so much by studying Richardson’s treatise on Perspective, that he was enabled to draw the schoolhouse according to rule, a feat which much delighted his father. The boy also busied himself in copying all the engravings he could lay hands on, more especially a volume of Catt’s Emblems, which his grandmother had brought with her from Holland. His sisters had all a turn for drawing, and the little band of artists used to decorate the whitewashed walls of the passages with designs in charcoal, whereof the least admired were the brother’s handiworks. Indeed, in those days Joshua was not considered a prophet by his sisters, who had nicknamed him ‘The clown,’—a sobriquet certainly not applicable to him in after life. Mrs. Parker, a friend and neighbour of the Reynolds family, sent the children a present of pencils,—a gift which the great painter lived to pay back with interest, for the walls of Saltram are rich in his paintings. When about twelve years of age, Joshua is said to have made his first essay in oils under considerable difficulties,—the portrait of Richard (afterwards Lord) Edgecumbe,—in the boat-house on Cremel Beach, below Mount Edgecumbe. This work was executed on the rough canvas of a boat-sail, with the common paints used by shipwrights!