His portraits have something of the strength of Rembrandt's.
His street and tavern scenes rival Jan Steen's; but behind the mere representation of brutality, vice, crime, and misery we perceive not merely a skilled craftsman but a moral being, whom contact with misery deeply stirs and the sight of wickedness moves to indignation.
After 1720 a succession of distinguished painters were born in England.
Many of them first saw the light in obscure villages in the depths of the country.

Reynolds came from Devonshire, Gainsborough from Suffolk, Romney from the Lake country.
The eighteenth century was a time when politicians and men of letters had the habit of gathering in the coffee-houses of London--forerunners of the clubs of to-day.

Conversation was valued as one of life's best enjoyments, and the varied society of actors, authors, and politicians, in which it flourished best, could only be obtained in the town.

To the most distinguished circle of that kind in London, our painter Reynolds belonged.
In the eighteenth century, society had also begun to divide its time in modern fashion between town and country.

Many of the large country houses of to-day, and nearly all the landscape-gardened parks, belong to that date.