 Hwyl ei wneud, wrth gwrs, i'w cymryd yn ymweld yma. Yn ymwyaf, mae'n Mark Hallott, ysgolodau ymlaen. Mae'n ddysgu'r ddweud i gael Martin Posterd ac i'n gwybod i'r cymryd yn Rhenolf yn Nôrthgat, yn Trawythin yn Cornwall. Mae'n gwybod i'r cymryd yn Rhenolf yn ymweld i'r cymryd yn Rhenolf yn Nôrthgat ac mae'n Rhenolf yn ymdur i gael, ac mae'n gwybod i'r cymryd ymweld i'r cymryd ymweld i'r cymryd yn yng Nghymru 18th ac yn ystod yn ddod yn ystod yn yr ysgolion bydd yn ymdgolion gynnig Rhennol. Yn ymddych chi'n meddwl, rydych chi'n meddwl i mi, rydyn ni'n gwybod i'n meddwl ar y cyfodol o ddiddordeb yn ymddangos cyllid, a'r ffordd o Rhennol, iddo benderfynu'n meddwl i ymddangos Ar gael dwy'r ystafel i'r Rhennol sy'n gweithio arferwadnau gwahanol mewn gwahol i'r reddydd. Wrth i'r rhino ac yn yw'r hwn, ac yn gallu ddweud i gyfigol yr adnodau cyllidig. Gan rhaid i gael yr Adnod Rhennol, rhaid i'r cyfle i ddwy'r cyffredinol yn ei wneud o'r adnod Rhennol, ac i'r adnod Rhennol yn ei wneud o'r adnod Rhennol i'r adnod Rhennol, called Reynolds and Celebrity, or the Creation of Celebrity, at Tate Britain a number of years ago. That's when we really first got to know each other and it was a great privilege to work with Martin on that project. Since, of course, we've been working together here at the Men and Mellons Centre, we got to know each other very well. Through really a conversation that we had a few years ago, the idea emerged of a project on the display and the collection of art in the British Country House. Martin's been working and leading on that project for the last few years. This particular talk comes out of the research that he's done in that project. What they've done for the Country House project is to look at a whole range of individual houses and to take them as case studies for exploring this whole question of the ways in which art was displayed in the Country House and the ways in which collections were developed in those same environments. It's already generating some really exciting material, new information, new research. The last two weeks we've heard from Peter Kerber and then last week from Chris Ridgway from Castle Houd about these topics in relation to those two other houses. But today we're focusing on Trewithan in Cornwall. It may not be a place that you know so much about, but I'm sure after the next 45 minutes when you've been listening to Martin, you'll know a lot more, not only about the collection there, but about some really fascinating works by Reynolds and Northcote that are part of that collection. So we'll have the talk, I think, might assess for about 45-50 minutes. Then we'll have a chance for some questions after that and discussion after that. Please feel free and encouraged to ask questions and to get a discussion going. That's always what we'd like to have here. Then after that we'll have a chance to carry on our conversations next door in the anti-room over a glass of wine. So can I ask you all to welcome Martin to give this talk on Reynolds and Northcote? Thank you very much Mark for your kind and generous words. It's a pleasure to be here and to be speaking to you this evening about something that certainly involves me. As Mark said, I've worked on Reynolds for quite a long time, but I can say hand on heart that what I'm talking to you about tonight, I didn't know before I'd been to Trewithan and I discovered things that I didn't know about Reynolds and certainly didn't know about Northcote in such detail. So this research, as Mark said, relates to this project, a collection display in the British Country House, and it's a project taking place over three years, a series of case studies, and one of them is a house in Cornwall called Trewithan, which I had never been to until about 18 months ago, and I was very agreeably surprised with the house and the collection. As part of our research project, we've kind of bored down into different aspects of collections, and Trewithan, it was particularly enjoyable because we were starting virtually from scratch. The first thing that we did, that I did with a couple of other people, is Gianni Arco and Emily Burns, was to cattle over the collection. There was no cattle whatsoever, and it was through getting to know the pictures individually. Another colleague of mine, Rodolfo Rodriguez, wrote a building history, thank you very much, and we also have looked at various aspects, and we're going to talk tonight about little thingy bit of work. I'm going to talk about concentrate, this is Trewithan, some of you may have been there, most people tend to go because the gardens are very well known, it's between St Austel and Trewiro. The house is open to the public on odd afternoons per week, but I would say that it's to most people, even most art historians, it's not terribly well known. I'm going to concentrate upon, we're looking there down into the dining room, but I'm going to look at a group of five pictures, some of which are in the dining room, and some of which are elsewhere in the panel room, and I'm going to concentrate on these pictures. It's a group of five 18th century pictures in the collection. Am I going to tell the story really about how I researched them, what I learnt, and the things that I found, some of which quite surprised me. Now, they comprise from left to right, top to bottom, portraits of the cleric, Zachariah Mudge, his wife Kitty, at the top there, by Reynolds, they're both by Reynolds, and on the bottom row, we've got James Northcott's copy of Reynolds's portrait of Dr John Mudge, his portrait of the philosopher James Ferguson, and his own self-portrait. Now, the only one of these pictures that I knew, or at least knew something about was Zachariah Mudge, I knew of the Reynolds portrait of John Mudge at the bottom, but I didn't know about this particular copy. Now, as I say, to this day, all these portraits remain virtually unknown beyond true within, and those are acquainted with the house. They haven't been subjected to any significant research in the modern period, and the object of my research, which I sort of self-confessed empirical fashion, was to shine a light on them, investigate the context for their creation and how they're related to patronage. And the lasting impact they had on the careers of Reynolds and Northcott, I hadn't anticipated that, just how long into their lives and careers the impact of this relationship and the Mudge family was going to take me. The first thing that I would say is that while the portraits feature prominently in displays at true within today, in the dining room and the panel room, it was only in the early decades of the 20th century that they found their way to true within. They passed through the Mudge family to Zachariah Mudge's descendant, Jenny Rosdew Mudge, who in 1845 married the Reverend William Charles Raffles Flint, and he was the nephew of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. They then passed to their son, the venerable Stamford Raffles Flint, whose daughter in 1910 married the heir to true within, George Horace Johnston. And the pictures are now installed at true within and descended through the family to the present owner, Michael Gawlsworthy, who's the owner of true within, and he has been incredibly hospitable and helpful to us in our research, and we couldn't have done it without him. Now, this line of descent from the mudges of Plymouth to Michael Gawlsworthy of true within is worth recalling because it doesn't simply, it's not an exercise in tracing provenance, but because it serves to remind us that collections can change hands and locations over surprisingly short periods of time. It also underlines the point that at true within, as with so many other country houses, what appears on the surface to be a homogenous collection of portraits conceals quite varied display and ownership histories, and that the individuals whose images are displayed on the same walls today may have been strangers in their own lifetimes. The mudge and associated portraits seem perfectly at home now in the bucolic environs of true within Cornwall. However, they were conceived in a distinctly metropolitan environment 50 miles away in the bustling city of Plymouth and further afield in London. Well, so that's to introduce the main characters and we'll be coming back to all these portraits this evening. So let's turn to the artist responsible for these portraits. Now, the relationship between Joshua Reynolds and his pupil James Northcott's well-chartered through the biography of Reynolds, which Northcott wrote in the early 19th century, Northcott's own memoir published posthumously towards the end of the 19th century and his conversations, his rather notorious conversations with the writer William Hazlett and we'll be coming back to those towards the end of the talk. Collectively, these publications provided detailed and often colourful picture of Northcott's close association with Reynolds, notably during the time that he lived and worked alongside him as his pupil and studio assistant in London during the early to mid 1770s. Study of the present portraits provides a window onto the world in which that relationship was fostered, the pivotal role of the mudge family in shaping the fortunes and friendships of Reynolds and Northcott and the impact it had upon Northcott's later career as an artist, a writer and a commentator and crucially on his posthumous reputation. So let's start with the earliest in the group of paintings under discussion, it's Reynolds' portrait of Zachariah Mudge. Now, as a young man, Mudge, who came from a Presbyterian family, attended Exeter Grammar School. Having trained subsequently as a nonconformist minister, he found employment in a school run by Joshua Reynolds as grandfather in Exeter, where he formed also a friendship with Reynolds' father, Samuel Reynolds. Under the influence of Samuel Reynolds, Mudge became a priest in the Anglican Church. In 1732, he was appointed vicar of St Andrew's Plymouth, which was among the most lucrative parishes in Devon. Four years later, he was also appointed prebandry of Exeter Cathedral, where he established a reputation through his published sermons. Locally, he was a well-known figure. By the time Reynolds got to know him during his youth, Zachariah Mudge was a man of considerable influence and power. Reynolds regarded him as a mentor and kept in touch with him when he moved to London in 1740 to pursue his career as a painter. Some years later, in the summer of 1762, when Reynolds himself had established a reputation as the leading portraitist in a metropolis, he visited Plymouth with his friend Samuel Johnson, who, by that time, had assumed the role of Reynolds as mentor in adulthood. It was in the course of this memorable visit that Mudge gained the enduring respect and friendship of Samuel Johnson. It was while in Plymouth, Reynolds and Johnson stayed with Zachariah Mudge's son, John Mudge, Dr John Mudge. They also paid a visit to the vicarage of St Andrew's, and it was there, in the vicarage, that Zachariah Mudge's wife scolded Johnson for demanding another cup of tea after he'd already had 17 cups of tea. When we visited Truith in last summer, we were pleased to inspect Zachariah Mudge's portrait in the dining room, but I was, I could say, I was as delighted to discover from Michael Gawlsworthy in a passing conversation that the teapot from which Johnson had imbibed so liberally had found its way to Truith in, along with the Mudge portraits, and it was still in full working order. Michael very sweetly brought it out on a tray with a cup, and that's my record of me drinking out of the teapot at Truith in. Now, although Zachariah Mudge was resident in Plymouth, both he and his son John regularly visited London, and Reynolds recorded the name Mr Mudge in his pocketbook on several occasions during the early 1760s. You can see it just down there towards the bottom. Although we're not quite sure at times which Mudge he was referring to, they just say Mr Mudge and that's open to question, but from entries in John Mudge's diary, we know that his mother and his father were in London from April to June 1766, and the following March, as he said in his diary, my father's picture was received from London. The slight delay in receiving the picture may, I think, be accounted for by the production of the mezzatint after it by James Watson, this very handsome mezzatint, and Watson very regularly produced engravings of some of Reynolds's more prestigious portraits and images. The print is undated and it was commissioned, I think, probably by Reynolds as a mark of respect as well as his desire to promote Mudge's reputation on the national stage. So he sort of swam as a very kind of Johnsonian kind of figure. Well, Zachariah Mudge was then in his late 60s, and his portrait forms a marked contrast to that of his much younger wife, which now hangs as a pendant in the dining room at Trwyddon. Now the image of Mudge's young wife, unlike her philosopher husband, is intimate and domestic, underlined by the subject's slightly shy expression and reserved demeanour, together with the presence on the table of the book and the workbasket. This is Mudge appears to have lived very much in her husband's shadow, as nothing is known of her personal history and a portrait by Reynolds has gone hitherto unremarked. Zachariah Mudge was married twice. His first wife, who had vexed Johnson during the tea ceremony at the vicarage at Plymouth, was the mother of five of Mudge's children, of the five Mudge's children. The date of her death is unknown, but it was sometime before 1764 when Mudge apparently married his second wife, Elizabeth, or Kitty, he was shown here, the sitter in this portrait. There's no record of Kitty having sat to Reynolds, although I think the portrait may have been made around the same time as that of her husband during one of their frequent London visits. James Northcott later recalled that, and I quote, Reynolds had them at his house for weeks, and even sometimes gave up his own bedroom to receive them, so they were very special and privileged guests. Stylistically and technically, Mrs Mudge's portrait is reminiscent of other female portraits by Reynolds of the early to mid-1760s, so the precision of the manner in which the fabric of the dress, lace, and first stole are painted suggests the intervention of a drapery painter. Kitty Mudge outlived her husband and she died childless in the summer of 1782. Well, following Zachariah Mudge's death in the spring of 1769, following a fatal attack of Gout on one of his regular trips to London, Reynolds's principal contact with the Mudge family was Zachariah's youngest son, Dr John Mudge, whom he'd known since childhood. When his family moved from his birthplace in Biddiford, North Devon to Plymouth, he attended Plymouth in grammar school where Joshua Reynolds was a fellow pupil and where Reynolds's own father, Samuel, served as headmaster. John Mudge established a successful practice as a surgeon in Plymouth, specialising in the prevention of smallpox through inoculation. Although resident in Plymouth throughout his life, Mudge gained national recognition and fellowship of the Royal Society for his scientific work on the developing of lenses for the reflecting telescope. In 1752, immediately following his return from Italy, Reynolds spent three months in Plymouth with family and friends. At that time he painted John Mudge as portrait, which in composition and characterisation of the sitter is among Reynolds's most Rembrandt-esque portraits. It was engraved, as you can see here, by William Dickinson, probably around 1777, so some years later, when Mudge was elected fellow of the Royal Society. Later in the 1750s, Reynolds painted another portrait for John Mudge, this time of his eldest son. I'll also call John, this is a later engraving by Samuel William Reynolds, no relation to Joshua. As Northcott recalled, the teenage Mudge was working as a clerk in the Navy office in London. In order to surprise his father, who evidently missed him, Reynolds painted his portrait, peeping out from behind a curtain. The portraits that Reynolds painted of John Mudge and his son must have counted as among Mudge's most treasured possessions. Admirers of the portrait of John Mudge Sr. included his son-in-law, a man called Richard Rosdew, who over 50 years later commissioned a copy from Northcott, which is now true with him. So this is the later portrait. Northcott's copy, dated 1808, we have a record that it was painted in 1808, is very faithful to the original. Amongst other things, it serves as a strong visual reminder of the years that Northcott had spent with Reynolds as his pupil, his ability to emulate Reynolds' style, and the key role he played in the workshop at the height of his master's career. I would say that slides are never accurate, and this, when you see the picture in the room, in the panel room in natural light, it's not quite as harsh as you see it here. I would make that point. James Northcott was born in Plymouth in 1746, and he'd known the Mudge family since his youth. In fact, an important professional link was clockmaking. This was a trade pursued by James Northcott's father and his brother, Samuel, and Zachariah's son, Thomas Mudge. In 1766, Samuel Mudge, Northcott, one of whose clocks can be seen, this is a clock by Northcott's brother, which you can find today at Troyerthen, and again I was delighted to find that. Samuel Northcott spent time with Thomas Mudge in London learning clockmaking. His networks were very significant, the scientific networks, in connecting and promoting mutual interests, and art and science are very closely related, and their career paths of these professional classes into being overlapping and interweaving is quite fascinating. James Northcott did not aspire to follow his father, all his brother's profession as a clocksmith, but wished to become an artist. In this endeavour, he tried on several occasions to print a ship to London-based engravers. First, James McCardle, and then Edward Fisher. Nothing became of it because, evidently, Northcott's father opposed the proposition. It was almost a decade later, in 1771, that Northcott, seemingly out of desperation, walked to London with his brother, Samuel, armed with letters of introduction, including one from Dr John Mudge to Joshua Reynolds. That summer, Reynolds, presumably out of respect for his friendship with Mudge, took on Northcott as his pupil, took him under his wing and invited him to live under his roof in Leicester Square. As we see, that's very important that this relationship, he was almost family in a way. Northcott duly wrote to Mudge to express his heartfelt thanks, and Mudge in return offered him personal encouragement and financial support. The importance of John Mudge to Northcott as a friend and a patron during the formative years of his career is highlighted by the portraits of Truithan and associated correspondence, some of which actually remains little known and hasn't really been used by Reynolds scholars. In June 1771, Northcott wrote to his brother Samuel, and a lot of Northcott's letters to his brother Samuel are in the Royal Academy, and they are quite well known. He wrote to his brother Samuel telling him that he had procured a pair of spectacles for Dr Mudge from Dolland, the optician. In 1772, Mudge wrote to Northcott, thanking him for, and I quote, the obliging present of the picture, which is exceedingly well done. He doesn't identify the work in question, but it may have been, I quote, a small landscape by Rysdale which Northcott copied in Reynolds's collection on which he recalled having presented to Mudge. Rysdale's small landscape, which had belonged to Reynolds, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. So this is the picture that I think probably Northcott copied and gave to John Mudge. In another letter of April 1774, John Mudge congratulated Northcott on two pictures he had exhibited at the Royal Academy of, I quote, a young lady and an old man. He also inquired of Northcott whether the engraving of Reynolds's Count Ugalino exhibited the previous year at the exhibition had been finished. Now Northcott would have had a particular interest in this celebrated painting, not least since he had modelled for one of Ugalino's sons, the figure on the right hand side with his hand over his face. And in January 1775, John Mudge wrote rather plaintively to Northcott, You will be so good as to give my compliments to Sir Joshua and tell him that I believe he forgot his promise, which I have with great impatience expected, the etching of Count Ugalino. He was so good to say that he would give me one of the first impressions as soon as they came to his hands. Do be so good as to put him in mind of it. The Metsotent engraving by John Dixon, shown here alongside Reynolds's painting, had been published almost a year earlier in February 1774, and I don't know whether Dr Mudge received the engraving. In 1773, Northcott exhibited a portrait of John Mudge's elder brother, Thomas Mudge, by now one of the leading capital's leading clockmakers, shown here in a portrait by Nathaniel Danse of around the same time. Northcott's brother stated on hearing the news of Northcott's portrait, we were all pleased to hear that Sir Joshua and Miss Reynolds thought your portrait of T. Mudge worthy of a place in the exhibition, and Mr Mudge was no less pleased when he heard it. And though he was impatient to have the picture before he learned this news, yet he now says he could wait with patients for six months with satisfaction. The portrait, which is now enthrased, was evidently commissioned by John Mudge to promote his protégé's career through the image of his eminent brother. So, again, it's this going out of his way to help the young Northcott through his own family, promoting Northcott through his own family. Another portrait commissioned by Mudge from Northcott at this time was a copy of this picture, Reynolds's 1755 portrait of his friend, the military engineer and courtier, Leonard Smelt. Mudge flattered Northcott, and he said, his copy, I quote, is so very a good one that if you had pleased, you might have kept the original and palmed me off with the copy. For except the advantage the former has of melanness of tone, which is discoverable when only the two are side by side of each other, I protest I should have not known yours from the original. Mudge retained Reynolds's original, painted some 20 years earlier, and presented Leonard Smelt's family with Northcott's copy, and covered the whereabouts of Northcott's copy. So, again, it's this very warm kind of recommendation and the comparison between Reynolds and young Northcott, and this flattery. Towards the end of his time with Reynolds, Northcott painted the portrait of James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer and instrument and globe maker, who was a close friend of Dr John Mudge and who shared his interest in astronomy and scientific instruments. This portrait of Ferguson, now a true withen, and virtually unknown, is not recorded in his account book, which he only began to keep when he established his independent portrait business in Portsmouth, probably in the early summer of 1776. In all likelihood, Northcott painted this portrait sometime in 1775 or early 76, while he was still in Reynolds's service. It may have been painted in London, where Ferguson lived, or during his visit at that time, which was recorded to John Mudge in Plymouth. Northcott portrays Ferguson in a soft cap, holding in his hand one of his scientific publications, possibly his select mechanical exercise was published in 1773. The format of Northcott's portrait, depicting Ferguson in profile, in a profile pose as a philosopher and intellectuals, clearly influenced heavily by Reynolds's earlier portrait of John Mudge, which he may have regarded as a pendant, thus uniting under one roof his own works with that of his master. The importance Northcott attached to his portrait of this distinguished man of science is reflected by the publication of a mezzatant engraving in March 1776. The engraver was Francis Hayward, who in 1776 was still a teenager, and he was enrolled as a student in the Royal Academy Schools. The print is quite possibly his earliest engraving, as well as the first published likeness of Ferguson, who died just eight months later on 17 November 1776. So it's interesting in the sense that Mudge is helping Northcott, is helping Hayward, does this kind of, you know, mutual kind of help. Without doubt, at least in my mind, the most impressive portrait that Northcott painted for John Mudge during these early years was his own self-portrait. Northcott painted this previously unrecorded work probably just before, and I didn't know this at all before I went to Truiddon. Northcott painted this unrecorded work probably before he left for Italy in the spring of 1777, as can be indicated by the comparison with a drawing by, around that time, by Prince Hall, his travelling companion in Italy. Although the precise circumstances surrounding the self-portraits creation are uncertain, it is likely that he presented it, I think, to Dr Mudge as a mark of respect for his patron, and as a means of inserting himself quite literally into Mudge's circle of influence. Northcott may also consider it as a visual right of passage, confirming that he was now regarded himself as an independent artist, emerging from the shadow of Reynolds. Indeed, in a letter written in February 1776, Northcott told his brother that he was astonished to learn that Mudge, to learn that Mudge had expressed the view that he should continue to remain with Reynolds. Instead, as he noted, rather than become the imitator of a single artist, he wished to develop his own style and earn an income. He was also determined, as Reynolds had done, to travel to Italy. Well, over a career spanning nearly 60 years, Northcott proved to be a prolific painter of self-portraits, of which this is, I'm sure, the earliest. The portrait is, in many ways, exceptional. It's vigorous in terms of the bravura handling of the paint, with loosely applied brush strokes across the entire composition. The expression of the youthful artist in the act of painting is compelling and intense. In certain respects, the dramatic image is influenced by Joshua Reynolds' youthful self-portrait of around 1749, made just before his visit to Italy. When, like Northcott, his future lay very much ahead of him. As Northcott pursued his career in London following his return from Italy, he kept in close touch with the Mudge family, who continued to commission portraits from him. In 1786, he painted John Mudge's portrait for his son-in-law, the Reverend James Young, an engraving of which, by Samuel William Reynolds, was published in 1795, engraving on the right-hand side. In this portrait of the 65-year-old Mudge, so he's now become the senior figure that Zachariah had been in many ways, in this portrait of the 65-year-old Mudge, Northcott effectively repriezed his portrait made over 30 years earlier, depicting Mudge in a similar soft cap before a drape with his arm this time resting upon an open book. Northcott and John Mudge remained in contact during the remaining years of Mudge's life. In March 1791, Mudge wrote to Northcott expressing his views on Edmund Burke's latest publication, Reflections on the Revolution in France, noting his agreement with the need for change in France, if not the means. He also asked Northcott to present his kindest remembrance to Sir Joshua, so you get the feeling that he's close to Northcott, but Reynolds is somewhat decent. By this time, Reynolds was virtually blind and in very poor health. He died in February 1792. John Mudge died just over a year later. Northcott attended his funeral in Plymouth. The news of his death, he recalled, came very unexpectedly to me and very much affected my mind, as the idea of Dr Mudge was connected with a long train of circumstances. Over the ensuing decades, Northcott promoted himself energetically as the leading authority on Joshua Reynolds, his life and his legacy. His earliest account of Reynolds appeared in 1813 as memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds' Night. Published the same year as the Great Commemorative Exhibition of Reynolds' Art at the British Institution. Further editions followed, including in 1819, the life of Sir Joshua Reynolds in two volumes, Revised and Augmented. During this time, Northcott remained on amicable terms with the Mudge family. In the 1820s, however, matters took a dramatic turn for the worse. As Northcott, in an effort to boost his public persona, engaged with the popular press in the person of the radical journalist and critic, William Haslett. In the last section of this talk, I want to address the issue, this issue and how it relates closely to the patronage of the Mudge's and the portraits at Truithan. The catalyst for the dramatic downturn in affairs was an essay written by William Haslett in the New Monthly magazine in 1827. This was the sixth of these essays entitled Boswell, Read of Vivas, Boswell Revived, where the author published his conversations with Northcott, revolving around recollections of earlier life and earlier times and the great men that he'd known, not least Joshua Reynolds. The essay featured prominently a less than flattering account of Zachariah Mudge, whose engraved portrait after Reynolds, Northcott showed to Haslett. Influenced, no doubt, by Northcott's revelations, Haslett observed that and I quote, Mudge appeared to me a complete high priest, bullying and insincere. In the course of the public, I don't expect you to read this. But you can if you want. If it's like going to the optician. The only bit that you might, I'm going to talk about it. So in the course of this published conversation, this sixth conversation, Northcott made close reference to a manuscript memoir concerning Zachariah Mudge, written by an old school friend, the dissenting minister, John Fox. Among other things, Fox's memoir shed new light on Mudge's early life, including an account of Mudge sleeping rough on the streets of London, following the rejection of his amorous advances on a local Devin housemaid. Northcott also drew upon the memoir to suggest that in later life, Mudge, whom Fox regarded as a daest, had no real respect for the spiritual values expressed in his sermons, and that in old age, and I quote, he grew indolent at last and spent his time in playing cards with old ladies who were rich and pious. Northcott told Haslett that he, and this is quite significant, Northcott told Haslett that he passed Fox's manuscript memoir to Reynolds, who had been anxious to learn more about Mudge's personal history. He also told Haslett that he didn't know what had become of the manuscript memoir, but he suspected Reynolds of having burnt it, because it revealed that a man he had regarded as, and I quote, a saint and the model of a Christian pastor had turned out to be little better than a vagabond and a mountibank. However, this is where it became interesting, I can now confirm that Reynolds may not have even known of the manuscript, let alone destroyed it. I know this because in 1790, Northcott made a transcription of the original document, which at that time still belonged to Fox's grandson. Northcott clearly valued this privileged access and its controversial contents, and he embellished his own transcription with original letters and his own recollections of Reynolds, so he mixed his own personal history up with this document by Fox, and he entitled it, Worthies of Devon. He must have had it close to hand at the time of the conversation with Haslett. Following his death, Northcott's own transcription was purchased by a London print seller, who sold it in turn to the Plymouth Proprietary Library in 1855 to where I traced it. Frustratingly, I got in touch with them, I was informed by the librarian that it had been destroyed in the Second World War when the library was bombed. Thankfully, I then discovered, subsequently, it had actually been published in the 1890s in the transactions of a local history society, including details concerning the circumstance surrounding Northcott's transcription. So what is evident ultimately is that Northcott was being, shall we say, economical with the truth in order to spice up Mudge's life history and aggrandise his own position and his own significance. But then things got worse, at least in terms of our opinion of Northcott's character. In the course of his published conversation with Haslett, Northcott passed comment not only upon Zachariah Mudge, but on the present generation of the Mudge family, which he affirmed and I quote, derived its chief luster from its first two founders, like clouds that reflect the sun's rays after he has sunk below the horizon. So these people, the descendants of John and Zachariah Mudge are just sort of pale limitations. Although Zachariah Mudge had been dead for nearly 50 years, his descendants and members of the local community in Plymouth took great offence. Richard Rosdew, John Mudge's son-in-law and guardian of the family name, responded immediately in a letter of complaint to the editor of the new monthly magazine. Perhaps because of their long association, Rosdew didn't blame Northcott but Haslett, who he claimed had perverted the conversation by asking and I quote, insidious questions and then publishing them without the knowledge of the party from whom they were drawn. Northcott in turn dissociated himself from Haslett informing Rosdew that he was and I quote, a papist, a wretch, a viper and he would stab him if he could get at him. So he also wrote a personal letter to Thomas Campbell, editor of the new monthly magazine in which he described Haslett's articles as worthless trash. Northcott, by way of an apology, Campbell published Samuel Johnson's eulogy on Zachariah Mudge first published in the London Chronicle at the time of his death in 1769. I wasn't aware of the significance of any of this until I started to work on the pictures at Troyden although I knew about Haslett and Northcott. In 1830, Haslett published his conversations with Northcott in book form. This time, Rosdew wrote directly to Northcott threatening him with legal action if the book repeated and I quote any of the false and libelous accounts of the Mudge family which have appeared in the new monthly magazine. Northcott in turn requested Haslett to censor the offending passages much to Haslett's disappointment who felt that Northcott had lost his nerve. In any event, Rosdew realised that Northcott, who in truth relished the controversy, had continued to collude with Haslett behind his back. At that point, he severed his ties with the artist who had enjoyed patronage and friendship with the family for the past 70 years. Rosdew said and wrote ingratitude, envy, meanness and an ordinary self conceit together with falsehood have marked the painter's conduct respecting the Mudge's. To these I may add extreme vanity to gratify which he would sacrifice anything not accepting his money. Rosdew also banished Northcott's self portrait which he had inherited from the walls of his home and consigned it to the attic where and I quote it was placed with its face to the wall. Meanwhile, a few years earlier in 1825 Richard Rosdew had decided to pay his own tribute to Zachariah Mudge by the commission of a monumental marble bust of him from the sculptor Francis Chantry. The bust completed in 1830 was placed in the South Isle of St Andrew's Church Exeter where much had been vicar. The inscription which lorded his virtue and his intellect read and I quote, in private life he was amiable and benevolent in his ministry faithful eloquent and persuasive distinguished for the knowledge learned and for talent among men of science. Chantry modelled the bust upon Reynolds's portrait of Mudge then owned by Rosdew. Indeed Chantry was apparently so impressed with Reynolds's portrait that he offered to waive his £500 fee if he was permitted to retain it. In the end he settled for a copy of the portrait by the contemporary portraitist John Jackson. The bust itself was destroyed in the bombing of St Andrew's in 1941 and I only knew of it from a mutilated fragment and I was again delighted when I went to Truithon to find among the Mudge papers because there are also Mudge papers at Truithon a cart de visite showing it in its original state confirming its reliance upon Reynolds's portrait and this in itself is useful because it's the only image we have of Chantry's bust before it was virtually destroyed. In 1830 as the bust of Mudge was being installed at St Andrew's William Hazlett, his career in ruins died in poverty from stomach cancer. James Northcott died the following year aged 84 a wealthy man. Anxious to erect his own memorial Northcott left £1,000 in his will for a monumental marble statue of himself to be made by Francis Chantry. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838 and the statue was erected in Exeter Cathedral two years later. Although like Reynolds he died and was buried in London Northcott was clearly intent that his memory should be preserved in the county of his birth from where so much of his early patronage had derived and where these friendships these lifelong friendships had been forged whether the surviving members of the Mudge family were as impressed by Northcott's monument is quite another matter. As Northcott's earliest biographer Alan Cunningham reminded his readers in 1832 Northcott was still deeper in debt to the Mudge's than his master by them his works had been introduced to the world and himself to Reynolds. Thank you. There you are. OK. So, for any thoughts, responses, questions that you have had to ask in response to that, thank you and to those images.