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BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
Benjamin Robert Haydon, 
 
 Prom a Bust "by Park 
 
Benjamin Robert Haydon: 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE AND TABLE-TALK. 
 
 SEttfj a JKemoir 
 
 BY HIS SON, 
 
 FREDERIC WORDSWORTH HAYDON. 
 
 WITH FACSIMILE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HIS JOURNALS. 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ESTES AND LAURIAT. 
 1877. 
 
tttf C.ETTY CENTEP 
 LIBRARY 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 FAUE 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 PERSONAL MEMOIR- 
 FIRST Period .. .. .. .. .. 1 
 
 Second Period T6 
 
 Third Period .. .. .. .. .. .. 132 
 
 Closing Scenes .. .. .. .. .. 193 
 
 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE 250 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 B. E. Haydon. From a Bust by Park Frontispiece. 
 
 B. B. Haydon. From an Etching by Sir David Wilkie . . to face 1 
 1 Pen Sketch by Wilkie. A Figure for his ' Distraining for 
 
 Bent' — 75 
 
 The Executioner in ' Solomon.' First Pen Sketch . . to face 78 
 
 Pen Sketch. From Journal „ 80 
 
 First Study for 'Jerusalem' . . „ 91 
 
 Maria Foote, afterwards Countess of Harrington. From a 
 
 Sketch in Haydon's Journal „ 111 
 
 'Lazarus.' First Sketch of the principal figure .... „ 118 
 
 ' Lazarus.' First Sketches for female figures .... „ 120 
 
 ' Lazarus.' First Study for the Gravedigger .... „ 122 
 
 Pen Sketch by Wilkie. A Figure for his ' Chelsea Pensioners ' — 131 
 
 B. E. Haydon. From a Cast taken after Death . ... to face 218 
 Sketch from Haydon's Journal of a Figure in the 
 
 ' Jerusalem ' — 249 
 
 David Wilkie in an Argument to face 2L2 
 
 Omnibcs Heads : Profiles of Haydon and • Wilkie. 
 
 From Haydon's Journal „ 26G 
 
 Portrait of Haydon's Wife „ 445 
 
 A Norman Peasant Girl. 1814 — 4C9 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 John Keats. Sketched in Haydon's Painting-room from 
 
 Life, 1816 Frontispiece. 
 
 B. B. Haydon. Sketched by John Keats in Haydon's 
 
 Journal to face 16 
 
 Early Sketch by Haydon of the ' Theseus ' . . . . „ 171 
 
 A Study by Haydon. 1813 „ 264 
 
 Stody from Memory of an Expression in Insanity . . „ 451 
 
 Sketch for Alexander and Buceihalus. 1826 ... — 481 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
PREFACE 
 
 More than twenty years have been allowed to elapse since the 
 publication of the fragment of \inrevised and carelessly written 
 autobiography Haydon left behind him. The time appears 
 to have come for a further selection from his Journals and 
 Correspondence. 
 
 In making these selections, from the unpublished part of 
 Haydon's " Journals " which I venture to think may prove of 
 interest, I have been guided by the wish to put forth nothing 
 that can be held to violate confidence, or give pain in any 
 quarter, and yet secure the sequence of events which I have 
 endeavoured to place in their true light. 
 
 The Personal " Memoir," for which I am wholly and solely 
 respoi sible, has no pretension to a "Life" of Haydon — that 
 would involve a history of the Art for the first half of this 
 century — but is intended rather as a sketch of his labours by 
 way of introduction to his Letters. I am too conscious that it 
 must be full of faults, for it has been written by fragments, 
 under many distractions of domestic affliction ; and I am neither 
 a 'Painter' nor a 'Literary' man. Her Majesty's Eoyal Navy 
 does not instruct the midshipmen in Literature or Art. But I 
 have endeavoured to write it fairly. Fontenelle said that, " if 
 his hand were full of truths," he would not " open his fingers to 
 let them out." Some may think I should have followed 
 Fontenelle. I have only opened one finger; and if no previous 
 publication had been made, it is probable I might not have 
 opened that. For so far as Haydon's reputation as a Painter 
 and Writer on Art is concerned, that may be safely left to 
 Time ; and there is a difficulty in a son writing an impartial 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 " Memoir " of his father. "With such a father as Haydon, 
 involved, like his great predecessor Benvenuto Cellini, iu 
 innumerable broils, the difficulty is not diminished. Even 
 independent criticism cannot always escape the bias of party 
 feeling, or private friendship. But it has been my earnest 
 pndeavour to show that, it is possible to combine impartiality 
 with natural affection. 
 
 If I appear to support Haydon, it is not because I wish to 
 exaggerate his claims, or to make him out a Hero, or a Martyr, 
 but because I know that Bight has not always been done. 
 There are many things in his case it is only just, and con- 
 venient to remember. 
 
 In the first place, the position Haydon took up in Art 
 from his entrance into London society in 1804 down to his 
 death in 1846, has not been sufficiently understood. It was 
 peculiar, and original. It was in defence of the capacity of 
 the English people for Eine Art. At the beginning of this 
 century nobody in English society admitted the claim. It 
 was then the common creed that the English people had 
 no sense of beauty iu works of utility, and that English 
 Artists were only fitted to paint portraits. In High Art, i.e., 
 Epic, Dramatic, and Poetic Art, it was held by society that 
 Englishmen could produce nothing worthy of admiration; 
 that foreign specimens alone merited their reverence — conse- 
 quently these were over-reverenced — that the climate of 
 England was too dull, and damp, and foggy to produce Artists 
 with imagination, and the English people too gross, and too 
 toiling after wealth, politics, and power, to have either time or 
 perception for much else. The lower Art of imitation was all 
 we had feeling for, or could aspire to. The capacity of any living 
 English artist to possess "Genius" was scouted. We were not 
 a gifted people. We could turn out an 80-gun ship, though 
 only after the model of a French prize, and we could build a 
 prison, or a gasometer, but we could not produce an " Oratorio " 
 or a " Requiem ;" construct a decent palace or gallery, nor em- 
 bellish one, built for us, by exquisite design, highly wrought 
 out ; nor express fine thoughts or beautiful forms in works of 
 common utility. Thus, by easy gradations, society, by 1812, 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 had arrived at the conclusion High Art was not our forte, and 
 it was useless to attempt it. There are still persons amongst 
 us who hold to this belief. 
 
 Haydon denied these conclusions ; and his whole life was one 
 hard struggle to disprove the necessity for their existence, and 
 to prove that Englishmen could create as well as copy, in Art 
 and Design, as in mechanical contrivances. He did not dispute 
 the variableness of the climate, or question the ignorance of 
 the people. But lie denied that climate or situation were the 
 cause of intellectual development. Foreigners had no special 
 aptitude for Design, and the perception of beauty was not the 
 privilege of a nation or of a class. He explained our national 
 ignorance of Art — first, by the Eeformation, which destroyed 
 l ine Art in England ; sec 'ndly, by the absence of men of real 
 genius to meet the liberal patronage of the day of Charles I. 
 and King William ; * and thirdly, in this century, by local 
 obstruction and insufficient patronage. He maintained the 
 private patronage of the day was too petty and mean to 
 support the production of great works for great spaces.t But 
 he also asserted that the English people, ignorant as they were, 
 had no lack of sympathy or feeling for works of the highest 
 aim, when such works were put before them. 
 
 " Any man," he says ( 1 807), " with the practical good, sense 
 of the race, would understand the Cartoons and the Elgin 
 Marbles. They are intelligible to the plainest understanding."}: 
 
 * Tlie eminent artists in England at these periods were all foreigners, attracted 
 by the high prices the patrons pai l. Lely and Kneller were botli \\\ stphalians ; 
 the Vandeveldes and Varelst were Hollanders; Gibber was a Dane; Verrio a 
 Neapolitan ; G ibbons a Dutchman ; and Laguerre a Frenchman. We had not a 
 bingle man of any real eminence before Hogarth. — Ed. 
 
 t Take the instance of Lord Mansiield haggling over thirty guineas for 
 Wilkie's 'Village Politicians,' trying to get it for fifteen, and " cheapening " the 
 picture, as Hazlitt says, as if it were " a turkey or a goose." — Ed. 
 
 % When the Elgin Marbles were subsequently shown to the public (1817) at 
 the British Museum, Haydon and Wilkie were present on tin.' opening day. Two 
 workmen came in and looked long and silently at the marbles. "How broken 
 they are, ain't they?" said one. "Yes,'' said the other, "but, how like lifu ! " 
 Wilkie nudged Haydon : " There," said he, " you might just study them to 
 d nsday, but you could never convey their excellence by speech more com- 
 pletely." It is only fair, however, to Haydon's opponents to add that, on 
 another occasion he was present when a gentleman came in. After looking at 
 the marbles for some time, he said to the attendant, " And pray what may these 
 marbles be remarkable for?" "Oh, Sir," replied the man, "because they are 
 couriered to be so like life." "Like life," said the gentleman— " like' life ! 
 Why, what of that ? " and contemptuously turning on his heel he walked out.— Ed. 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 But the Cartoons were then almost inaccessible at Hampton 
 Court, and the Elgin Marbles were shut up in a shed in Park 
 Lane. " Show the people of England fine works," said Hay- 
 don ; " give them the opportunity of study and the means of 
 instruction ; teach them the basis of beauty in Art, and 
 then give your opinion, if you like ; but you have no right 
 to condemn your fellow-countrymen when you give them none 
 of the advantages foreigners enjoy ; when you have no schools 
 for Art instruction, no Art galleries open to public view, no 
 national Collections, no Schools of Design, and when you refuse 
 to allow that Art has a public function, and absolutely with- 
 hold from it all public support." To assert, under such circum- 
 stances, that Art never under any circumstances could revive 
 in England, he asserted was " a preposterous folly." Neither 
 (Greece nor Italy had burst forth into their perfection at once.* 
 England, in the thirteenth century, in her knowledge of form, 
 colour, light, shadow, and in fresco decoration, was in advance 
 of Italy ;t and had her progress not been checked by the Ee- 
 formation, would have been at the head of Europe. Genius 
 in the artist, and taste in the patron he admitted, must exist 
 together to secure the permanent advance of Art. But neither 
 genius nor taste, he said, were dependent upon latitude and 
 longitude. 
 
 In pro >f of his position, as regarded painters and sculptors, 
 Haydon pointed to Hogarth, Beynolds, Bomney, Wilson, 
 Gainsborough, Flaxman, Barry, and latterly, to Constable, 
 Turner, Wilkie, Mulready, Lough, Chantrey, and Bell, the 
 product of one century, and that, in spite of fogs and want of 
 
 * .Mian relates (lib. x. ch. 2) that in the early periods of Greek Art the 
 Creek painters wi re in the habit of writing underneath their paintings, " This is a 
 horse," " This is a tree," "This is a bull," &e. By degrees they got to express 
 the species distinctly, then to foreshortening, then to draperies, expiession, action, 
 portrait, and ideal Art. — Ed. 
 
 t Strutt states that between the tenth and thirteenth centuries Engli-h 
 painters were habitually employed painting large pictures representing passages 
 from history and the actions of great mm. Such a one was presented in the 
 t. nth cc ntiiry to the church of Ely bv Etheleda (widow of Berfhwood, Duke of 
 Northumberland), in which she had '" caused to be painted the history of the 
 great actions of her d« ceased lord." in order to preserve the memory of his valour 
 and of his virtues. Evelyn in his ' Diary.* 20th September, 1IJ72, speaks of the 
 p.dace of Sir Rob. rt Clayton, in the Old Jewry, as containing a superb b impu ting 
 renin, wainscoted with eedar, and adorned with battles of gods and giants in 
 fcesco.-ED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 sunshine, poor pay, and the curious apathy of the nobility. 
 What better proof was needed of the genius of Englishmen ? 
 " As for the people at large, would you," he asks, " expect 
 any people to care for literature if you did not teach them to 
 read? In like manner, teach our people their A. B. C. in Art, 
 and they would show that taste and feeling for Art he for one 
 believed them to pos-ess." 
 
 In spite of the liveliness and perspicuity with which Haydon 
 expressed his views, he was set down as a " young enthusiast ; " 
 and in England nothing more is needed. That mattered little, 
 however, to him. He believed he was in the right. And 
 whether he was right or wrong, so far as regarded the inherent 
 genius and taste of the people for High Art, he felt he was 
 right as to the benefit that would accrue to the nation if a dis- 
 ciplined system of ' independent ' education in Art were esta- 
 blished, and Painting and Design firmly and generously sup- 
 ported. The country, he asserted, was teeming with talent, 
 which only wanted right direction, scientific instruction, and 
 fair reward. 
 
 To this end, therefore, Haydon set himself from the first to 
 remove obstructions to the extension among the people of a 
 scientific system of Art teaching, and to obtain from the Govern- 
 ment and the nobility the recognition of Art as a business of 
 national concern, by the foundation of Art schools, and by the 
 establishment of Art galleries worthy of the nation. His 
 object was not only to refine the Art, but to promote industry, 
 encourage trade, and extend the knowledge of all classes. He 
 wished to bring the nation to regard Art with more serious in- 
 terest, and to lift ideal Art out of the darkness into which the 
 Reformation had thrust it, and the hesitation of Reynolds 
 coupled with the apathy and ignorance of our nobility, kept it 
 jammed down. And he saw further than his contemporaries. 
 Looking upon Commerce as something more than a mere affair 
 of sale and purchase, rather as a pursuit in which high skill, 
 sound knowledge, and an organised connection must be combined 
 with, and will be. lost without excellence in workmanship, as in 
 material, he aimed at so educating our manufacturers and 
 artisans in true principles of Art and Design, as to secure to 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 England, he hoped, that supremacy in manufacture which, if 
 we could not design a beautiful pattern as well as make a good 
 article, he foresaw must be lost to us on the conclusion of 
 Peace. 
 
 He had also the intention to train and educate a school of 
 Painters, making Form the basis of their Art, in order to 
 show how thoroughly Englishmen could draw, design, and 
 paint when scientifically instructed. 
 
 Thus it was that, from the first, Haydon made a place for him- 
 self in the Art. He refused to allow that Art was a mere matter 
 of amusement for the leisure of others, or of family portraiture, 
 or of household decoration. He contended, against patrons, 
 nobility, and members of Parliament, that Art and Design was 
 a great educational and economical question they should look to, 
 and which it behoved the nation to look to, or the nation would 
 suffer for its neglect. A knowledge of the beauties, capabilities, 
 and actual practical utilities of Art, Haydon maintained, was 
 " essential to the general interests of England," and more or 
 less applicable " to every situation and circumstance of her 
 national life." " Design," he writes, " is the basis of all Art, 
 and a basis of such breadth that manufactures, as well as Art, 
 rest in its excellence." That he was the ardent and determined 
 advocate of the early training of all classes in the principles of 
 Art and Design will be easily understood. " We are inferior," 
 he argued (18US), " to the French and Italians of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries ; beyond all conception inferior to the 
 Greeks; and not even equal to the ancient Egyptians in our 
 designs for manufacture?. And why ? Pecan se our pursuits in 
 Art are low. Eecause we do not cherish that style as a nation 
 which is the basis of excellence in those departments of Art ; 
 and because we do not strive to raise the taste of the nation, 
 but keep it down to the level of personal vanity, trading pro- 
 pensities, and pecuniary success." 
 
 To cure this defect, Haydon insisted, in addition to the for- 
 mation of a central Art Gallery in London, with provincial 
 galleries for the great towns, that scientific instruction in the 
 trun principles of Art and Design should form part of every 
 scheme of education for every class throughout the country. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 For the rich he would have Art professors at the Universities. 
 For the middle classes and mechanics he proposed a central 
 establishment in London, with branch Schools of Design, sepa- 
 rate, independent, and distinct, throughout the provinces. 1 he 
 course of first instruction to be the same in all, though varying 
 in degree, viz. : the study of the human form, and then orna- 
 mentation, design, or painting, hs the case might be. 
 
 One thing he appears to have aimed at was to avoid the 
 danger of subjecting the schools to the official direction and 
 control of the Government, or of the Royal Academy. He 
 would have the schools form part of the national system of 
 education, but independent; otherwise they would soon sink to 
 the level of mere drawing-schools. This was partly his dread 
 of that depressing Academic teaching, and partly his suspicion 
 of Government Departmental Control, which reduces every- 
 thing it touches to one dead level of uniform mediocrity. 
 " In matters of Art and Design," Haydon used to say, " Govern- 
 ment should help, but not direct." 
 
 With regard to our rich men who heard nothing of Art at 
 college, and who thought frivolously of it in after life, his 
 object, was to make them learn to draw the human figure. He 
 did not wish to tease them with a mass of technical detail, to 
 which they would pay no attention, but rather by teaching 
 them only to draw, give them opportunities of obtaining an in- 
 sight into the real powers of Art, so as to move their sense of 
 beauty, quicken their sympathies, and lay the foundation for 
 that feeling for the essential excellence of Art which, he hoped 
 would insensibly follow.* Thus, in his ardour and public zeal, 
 he tru-ted we should not only get excellence in Design for 
 manufacture among our artisans, provided the broad and true 
 principles of Art instruction were followed ; but amongst our 
 rich men and nobility, a race of state>men and politicians would 
 arise able to distinguish accurately, and appreciate the merits 
 of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, competent to deal 
 
 * Charles I. waa so convinced of the necessity of educating the Engl'sh 
 nobility in the principles or Art that lie established an Academy for their espi cial 
 instruction. It was railed the ' Museum Minerva,' and was organised in the 
 house oi Bit Francis Kingston in Covent Garden. — Ei>. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 with Art questions — than which nothing in those days was less 
 understood in Parliament — and qualified to become enlightened 
 patrons worthy of the genius of the country. Were this so, we 
 should no longer be left open to the reflection that our edu- 
 cated, wealthy, and high-born men grow up, and " issue out to 
 their respective public duties deficient in a feeling, the culti- 
 vation of which has brightened the glory of the greatest men 
 and most accomplished princes." 
 
 But Haydon urged upon Parliament and the public that 
 nothing satisfactory could be effected without concentrated 
 and permanent support from Parliament. Parliament, he 
 said, must aid and support these Schools of Design, these 
 public galleries, these professorships, and for the purpose of 
 keeping up the Historic Art of the country and the splendour 
 of the nation, must employ English painters, as the Continental 
 painters were employed by their respective Governments, upon 
 a series of national pictures, in fresco or in oil, for the decora- 
 tion of our public buildings, public offices, law-courts, town-halls, 
 churches, cathedrals, and Houses of Parliament. In short, Par- 
 liament must give Painting and Design that public support 
 which Greece and Italy gave, the glory and fortune of whose 
 great painters and profes-ors of Art was not left to depend 
 upon the limited wants or caprice of individuals, but on the 
 performance of great public works, for which their reward was 
 a portion of the public expenditure. 
 
 Such were the views and opinions Haydon declared and 
 urged for forty-two years, in public and private, by every means 
 in his power; by pamphlets, by public letters, by appeals to 
 Ministers, by petitions to Parliament, by lectures to the people. 
 And he laboured, I regret to have to say it, not only single- 
 handed, but opposed at every stage by the authority that 
 should have helped him most, " the iioyal Academy ;" and upon 
 no better plea apparently than that advanced by President 
 •Sir Martin Shee, viz., to support Haydon's views would be 
 "injurious to their custom." 
 
 And this brings me at once to a leading event in Haydon's 
 life — his separation from the Eoyal Academy. I would much 
 rather have said nothing about the unpleasant business; for in 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 my humble opinion, as in Wilkie's and Sir George Beaumont's, 
 the separation is much to be regretted in the public interest, 
 provided matters could have been satisfactorily arranged. In 
 Haydon, the Academy would have had a professor of painting 
 such as Europe had not seen for some centuries ; and, in the 
 Academy, Haydon would have found a powerful instrument, of 
 which he might officially have made enormous use for the 
 benefit of Art, and to the great advantage of his country. 
 Unfortunately differences arose, as differences always arise 
 between the young men and the old institutions. Originality 
 and independence of mind are inconsistent with the principles 
 of a " society," where energy and public zeal are not so much 
 wanted as respectful conformity with its rules and practice. It 
 is not the ripe fruit but the dry fruit such societies prefer. 
 
 The rules, practice,, and preferences of the Royal Academy, 
 Haydon could not, as a painter, conscientiously approve. 
 Though he seems to have wanted rather to elevate principles 
 than to adopt new machinery. He would have repaired and 
 oiled the old machine, and altered its construction in parts, 
 but he would not have removed it. Their rule of self-elec- 
 tion he considered unsound. Qualification was unprovided for, 
 and responsibility wholly wanting. It placed in the hands of 
 Academicians a power that could not be withdrawn, however 
 abused ; and he believed a power so held by an Academy of Art 
 grasping all the honours, and nearly all the emoluments of the 
 profession, invited its possessors to prefer their own interest to 
 the interests of the public. He thought the rule should be 
 absolute that a character for professional ability and integrity 
 be made necessary to the possession of authority, and that 
 decision on these points be left to the body of the profession, 
 and not confined to the interested few. He did not question 
 the motives of Academicians. Those might be perfectly satis- 
 factory to themselves. But he complained that the spirit 
 which animated the Council was cor| orate, selfish, monopolising, 
 and mean, reducing Art to a sordid trade, and envious of the 
 men who aimed at elevating the public taste. Further, he 
 insisted on some better security that the interests of Art and of 
 the public should be more fairly considered than self- election 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 for life, with eight pictures annually " on the line " by each 
 Academician, was likely to offer. 
 
 In all this, it is now admitted, Haydon took a just view of 
 the position and wants of the Art, the Academy, and of the 
 Country. The Council of the Eoyal Academy thought other- 
 wise. Nothing dies so hard as corporate abuse. There is a 
 Judaic obstinacy about its defence that is magnificent. The 
 Academy Council were not wanting on this occasion. They 
 drove Haydon from their doors, and a desperate and determined 
 struggle ensued between the two.* That Haydon never flinched 
 is matter of fact. We know that for four-and-thirty years, 
 under every circumstance of harass, anxiety, mortification, and 
 ruin, four times repeated, he kept up this struggle, which, I 
 believe, would have killed most men in the first four years 
 without the remaining thirty. But then, he was essentially 
 one of Horace's men : " Quern neque pauperies, neque mors, 
 neque vincula terrent." 
 
 How,he forced society and the public to listen to and endorse 
 his views, how nearly he succeeded in " reforming" the Royal 
 Academy in spite of themselves, first with the King (George I V.), 
 then with the Duke of Wellington, and latterly, with Parlia- 
 ment, are also matters of fact. But if he did not entirely suc- 
 ceed in carrying his plan for the " reform " of that institution, 
 he first brought the Academy before a Committee of the House 
 of Commons, 1836-38, and in spite of their determined resist- 
 ance, broke the charm of their assumed privacy, and left Par- 
 liament and the public a valuable precedent for future use. 
 
 He lived also to see his own plan for the establishment of a 
 central School of Design for London recommended to Parliament 
 and adopted. And although the extension of his plan to the 
 provinces was refused by the Government, obstructed by the 
 Board of Trade, and intrigued against by the Royal Academy, 
 he succeeded against all three authorities in rousing the people 
 
 * Tho late Lady Holland, in T.ord Melbourne's hearing, once drew a parallel 
 between Ilaydon and Ali liaba's bruth, r. " No," said Lord Melbourne. " that is 
 not a fair ( a'se. Havdon did not want to ]ob tho Academy : he wanted to add to 
 their wealth. Brides, he not only brought 'Forty Thieves' upon his back, but 
 all the rich nu n behind them ; ami though they have often quartered, they never 
 killed biw." Lady Blessington told me this. — Ld. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 to the imperative necessity of establishing such schools, and 
 between 18S6 and 1812 he carried his plan in all the principal 
 towns triumphantly. He lived also to see public employment 
 given to British artists by the State, and though he was kept 
 out of all share in the decoration of the Houses of Parliament 
 yet his " principle " was acknowledged, and acted on, and the 
 " plan " was his own.* 
 
 If in his prime he died, suddenly and sadly, broken-hearted 
 by pecuniary distress, yet he had lived long enough to see 
 much that he had struggled for accepted, and to receive assur- 
 ances that the worst abuses of the old academical system were 
 swept away, and the path made easier for the young painters 
 coming, and to come upon the stage. But to the last, it is 
 not to be forgotten, he predicted much that is happening, the 
 loss of good drawing among our artists, the break-down of our 
 Schools of Design, from " a mean desire " of the authorities 
 in Art, "not to raise skilful designers," lest "the established 
 artist might be interfered with " (letter to Kirkup, 2Gth June, 
 1844) ; and the revival of the old bitterness and antagonism be- 
 tween the lay artists and the l\oyal Academy, if this institution 
 was not " thoroughly and effectually reformed by Parliament." t 
 
 * It is the fashion nowadays to attribute to Prince Albert the foundation of 
 our Schools of Design, and. the idea of the decoration by paintings of our Houses 
 of Parliament. Without the least desire to depreciate the undoubtedly great 
 services to Art of Prince Albert, it, is to be observed that his late Royal Highness 
 did not settle in this country before 1840, and that he took no active part in the 
 Art affairs of England before his ai p tintment to the hi ad of the Royal Fine 
 Arts' Commission of 1842; where; a the "Schools of Design" and the public 
 employment of our painters in the decoration of the Houses of Parliament had 
 been proposed by Haydon for the previous thirty years, and was, de facto, carried 
 by him between 1836 and 1842. - Ed. 
 
 t If, from the events of the last two years, we may draw any conclusion, such a 
 period of antagonism would appear to have been entered upon. The corre- 
 spondence between ''a landscape painter" and the Academy Hanging Com- 
 mittee of 1874, and the fact that, in 1875, the Academy rejected 33U2 pictures 
 out of 4800 sent in for exhibition, suggests matter for reflection. For it was as 
 impossible to justify the tone taken by the Hanging Committee in 1874, as it. is 
 to believe that, out cf the 3392 rejected paintings of 1875, anything could lie 
 found worse tl an a large proportion of the paintings by Academicians actually 
 given place, and prominent place in the exhibition of t e year. In either case 
 the result is not hopeful. But privileged societies, like our Royal Academy, 
 never appear to understand it is their interest to treat the outside world, 
 particularly the professional part of it, with fairness and consideration. Such a 
 course would les-en hostility. If it does not increase the strength of the society, 
 at least it leads to the gradual subsidence of that extreme animosity and resent- 
 ment which is inevitable, which often prevails, and is never wholly absent where 
 there is a privileged, established, and possibly corrupt institution. — Ed. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
xviii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 During Haydon's long war with the Academy truces did 
 occasionally occur, in which efforts to effect a reconciliation 
 were made on both sides. Callcott, R.A., made the first in 1814. 
 Haydon made another in 1826. Eastlake, B.A., and Collins, E.A., 
 made a third in 1842; andWilkie never ceased, while he lived, 
 to try and effect a permanent peace. But concord was not 
 possible, and each attempt ended as such attempts usually end 
 where neither side believes in the sincerity of \he other. " I 
 forgive you," says Kowena to the Knight, " I forgive you, as 
 a Christian " — " Which means," remarks Wamba. " that she 
 does not forgive him at all." " Their minds," as Bacon has it, 
 " were not planted far enough above their injuries " for peace 
 to be lasting — any peace between them would have been broken 
 in a month.' The sign of the Dutch merchant who, beside 
 the motto, " To perpetual peace," had hung the picture of a 
 cemetery, was the fittest for both sides. 
 
 Whether and how far Haydon in this separation and conflict 
 was prudent and right, or imprudent and wrong, or the reverse ; 
 whether he ought to have ploughed with the Academy cattle, 
 whether the Academy would have lent him thpir cattle, or 
 whether he could have ploughed with them, are questions upon 
 which I give no opinion here. The facts of his life must 
 decide. But his object throughout appears to me perfectly 
 clear. He craved to anticipate that deficiency in High Art 
 which he foresaw, sooner or later, would be deeply felt in this 
 country, and he knew himself equal to supply that deficiency. 
 Then again, he literally lusted for the supremacy of England 
 over her Continental rivals in Art, and Design, as in Science 
 and War, and by means through which alone, in his opinion, 
 Art can be enabled to produce on the minds of the people all 
 those moral and sublime effects, and those material results of 
 which he believed Art and Design to be tiuly capable. I 
 am quite aware it has been imputed to Haydon, and by some 
 of those who should know better, by Mr. Watts the painter 
 for instance, that, he "embraced the cause of Art for bis own 
 personal gratification and advancement." But this may be 
 promptly dismissed as one of those uncharitable and stale 
 slanders always imputed to every man who aspires to make 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 his opinions felt in his lifetime, or who st ives to make 
 his fellow men wiser, or happier. Whatever were Haydon's 
 faults and imperfections, and I am not ahout to write his 
 panegyric, or to deny he had his share of human infirmities, 
 avarice and self-seeking were certainly not among them. He 
 had a mind ambitious of some higher distinction than merely 
 making money, or gaining Court honours. That he sought 
 Eminence and Fame in his Art, is true. Human nature is so 
 constituted we never pursue anything heartily but upon hopes 
 of some reward. But far beyond this was his love for his 
 country, belief in his country's future, and a passionate desire 
 that England should be pre-eminent in Art and Design. He 
 fixed his mind not only upon what was useful, but upon wh t 
 was great and famous. And so far as he could form an opinion 
 of the interests of British Art, he acted, and to the best of his 
 ability, without reference to his own personal gain, and not 
 caring whether " authority " was pleased or displeased with 
 the course which, in the public interest, he deemed it his duty 
 to take. He looked for his reward in the promotion of the 
 views and principles he urged, and in the good opinion and 
 remembrance of his fellow countrymen. 
 
 Frederic W. Ha.ydon. 
 
 London, December 1st, 1875. 
 
B.R Way&tm l\ Jfartd Whit 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 Haydon was born on the night of the 26th of January, 1786. 
 He was brought into the world, according to my grandfather's 
 journal, in the midst of " very dirty weather " and a " S.W. 
 gale." 
 
 My grandfather had a habit of tacking on the state of the 
 wind and weather to every event he set down. "Poor Mrs. 
 Burgess died in childbed. Poor Tom Burgess much distressed. 
 Wind W.N.W., weather fine." Haydon, in his own 'Life,' 
 says this meteorological statement always " alleviated any 
 pain " he felt at the afflictions related. 
 
 It was a consolation to find the course of nature went on. 
 You contrasted the perseverance of the wind doing its duty 
 with the grief of your father's friends. Poor Tom Burgess had 
 lost his wife, but he ought to be comforted, for the wind was 
 " westerly " and the weather " fine." My grandmother was 
 taken in labour with, as he hoped, a son and heir, but what 
 troubled him most was that, the wind was " S.W." and the 
 weather " dirty." 
 
 Haydon was born in Wimpole Street, Plymouth, in the 
 well-known house, still standing, of his grandfather, Robert 
 Haydon, " Printer and Stationer." Robert Haydon was a 
 peculiar man. His grandson seems to have learned very little 
 about him. He was separated in early life from his family, to 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 which, he never appears to have heen reconciled, for he never 
 seems to have had further communication with them. This 
 peculiarity descended to his grandson. I apprehend they both 
 liked their own honest will, and consequently stood apart from 
 their relations, determined to owe their success or failure in 
 life entirely to themselves. This is a scheme of life hardly 
 suitable to an old country where nearly everything turns upon 
 " connections," but it succeeded with my great grandfather. 
 
 Robert Haydon, after some vicissitudes, became engaged to 
 Miss Baskerville, of Corn wood, Devon, put himself into the 
 office of the ' Flying Post,' at Exeter, to learn printing, married 
 Miss Baskerville, and, with her money and his own, he went 
 down to Plymouth, about 1740, and set up in business as 
 "Printer and Stationer." I have heard it asserted that he 
 introduced the printing-press into Plymouth — but this is a 
 credit to which he has no claim. He had several children, but 
 only one son and one daughter survived. Robert Haydon is 
 said to have been an active man of business, fond of reading, 
 fond of painting, and a trifle morose in his temper. He 
 prospered, grew rich, and determined to make his only sur- 
 viving son an officer in the army, and to educate him accord- 
 ingly. While the boy was completing his education under Dr. 
 Garnett, of Chudleigh, Robert Haydon was seized with an 
 affection of the heart in December, 1773, and died, apparently 
 before he thought it time to make his Will. 
 
 The boy was immediately called home by his mother and 
 required to give up all visions of military glory. He must 
 take his father's place. Thus, the destinies of the family were 
 changed. Our name might have been enrolled on the list of 
 Peninsular heroes or ext nguished on the plains of Hindostan. 
 For, not improbably, the withdrawal of my grandfather from a 
 military career determined the profession of his only son, 
 Haydon the Painter. 
 
 My grandfather, Benjamin Haydon, was an unambitious lad 
 of affectionate disposition, and he complied at once with his 
 mother's wishes. He also was fond of literature and art, and 
 with his constitutional love of ease, the change was possibly not 
 wholly opposed to his inclination. He gave up the army and 
 entered on his father's business, to which he soon added that 
 of Publishing. In 1782 he married Miss Cobley, a relative of 
 the Blackall family, of which was Offspring Blackall, Bishop 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 3 
 
 of Exeter. Miss Cobley was one of the many children of the 
 Rev. B. Cobley, Curate of Shillinglord, and subsequently 
 Rector of Dodbrooke. Of Mrs. Haydon's brothers one became 
 a partner in her husband's business, another became Vicar of 
 Cheddar * and a Prebendary of Wells, and the youngest, Thomas 
 Cobley, began life as Chamberlain to the last King of Poland, 
 then joined the Russian Army, rose rapidly, became a dis- 
 tinguished general, settled in the Crimea, and at one time was 
 Commander-in-Chief at Odessa. The late Emperor Nicolas 
 knew General Cobley well, and valued him highly. Of Mrs. 
 Haydon's sisters one was married to a wealthy merchant at 
 Leghorn, and another, the eldest, became the Countess Mord- 
 winoff, of Eussia, wife of the Admiral Count Mordwinoff, Pre- 
 sident of the Imperial Council, &c. &c. Through her cousins, 
 the Leys, of Somerset, Mrs. Haydon was also highly connected 
 in England. But all this is only worth mentioning in order to 
 state that her son, Haydon the Painter, never troubled any of 
 his relatives, preferring, like his grandfather, "to be the first 
 man " of his own family. 
 
 Mrs. Haydon was a vivacious woman, of handsome presence, 
 rapid apprehension, and many accomplishments. She was 
 imperious, quick tempered, tender hearted to a degree, 
 passionately attached to her children, not very judicious in 
 their management, and of unbounded benevolence to all in 
 distress. She has been known, on her walks in winter, to go 
 up a dark passage, strip herself of her quilted petticoat and 
 give it to some poor shivering wretch who had begged her 
 charity. I mention these little traits because they were all, 
 more or less, the inheritance of her son. He was equally 
 passionate, impetuous, and humane. 
 
 To the young couple two children only were born : one son, 
 Benjamin Robert Hiiydon, the subject of this memoir, and one 
 daughter, Harriet, Mrs. Jiaviland, of Bridgewater, still living 
 (1875). 
 
 To their children no parents could be more indulgent, 
 though, from what I have heard my father repeat, I suspect 
 the good people were always in the " positive " mood. There is 
 a vast deal more to be got out of the "negative" mood, which 
 
 * Cheddar is remarkable, among other curiosities, for being the village wherein 
 Hannah Mure, on her \isit in 1791, tound only one Bible, and that propping a 
 licwer pot. — Ed. 
 
 IS 2 
 
4 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 parents overlook. Very possibly with their only boy, between 
 their love of indulgence and their desire to train him rightly, 
 inconsistencies became habitual, and his grandmother's love of 
 letting him have his own way, and then of correcting him for 
 taking it, made matters no better. I have heard him say he 
 was alternately scolded and spoiled, the worst possible training 
 for an impetuous, self-willed boy. For his own part, Haydon 
 always regretted he had not an elder brother. I Jut then he 
 would probably have thrashed him into submission to his own 
 authority, and that would not have benefited either. The 
 grandmother died in 1791, and then the young couple suc- 
 ceeded to the entire control of what had become a great and 
 growing business, and to the unmolested management of their 
 own children. I do not know that this was more judicious. 
 The credulous nurse seems to have taken the place of the in- 
 dulgent grandmother. As English nurses are the most illiterate 
 and narrow-minded of their class, I do not suppose the change 
 was to the boy's advantage. Yet it is to the hands of these 
 women we confine the formation of the character of our children, 
 forgetting that every man's character is the mould of his 
 fortune. 
 
 My grandfather was a High Tory, a warm adherent of Pitt, 
 and a staunch " Church and State " man. The fact of his 
 being printer and publisher to the Duke of Clarence, and 
 having Admiralty contracts, and being connected with the 
 Church by marriage, may have helped him a little towards the 
 settlement of his political convictions. But over and above all, 
 he was a thorough-bred Englishman, and loyal to the back- 
 bone. He spent his money freely in the service of the Govern- 
 ment, and he gave his time and personal influence without 
 a thought of reward, or of anything but his sense of duty to 
 the Government of his country. His voluminous correspon- 
 dence with the Admiralty during his lifetime shows him to 
 have been a valuable and public-spirited man. On one oc- 
 casion, by his great local influence, he prevented a serious 
 outbreak among the dockyard workmen, and cleverly out- 
 witted the delegates from Chatham who had arrived to 
 organise a "strike." And on all occasions he is quick to 
 foresee and warn the Government of dangers that must not be 
 despised. Then he seems to me to have been one of the first men 
 to organise a system of " Special Correspondence." He has the 
 
B. K. HA YD ON. 
 
 5 
 
 earliest information of the movements of fleets and armies, and 
 this he transmits privately and -immediately to the Admiralty. 
 Had he been a stock-jobber, which he never was, he might 
 have rivalled a modern syndicate. All this he did at his own 
 expense ; for beyond the official thanks of the Admiralty, 
 repeatedly transmitted to him, for his "valuable services.'' 
 it is clear he never sought for, nor received compensation in 
 any form. On the contrary, Mr. Addington's Admiralty, on 
 a plea of economy, and on the recommendation of some of their 
 officials, in 1802, deprived Mr. Hay don of his contracts for 
 stationery, &c. — contracts which, he states in his memorial to 
 the Board, " had been in his House for 47 years, without one 
 word of complaint from any quarter." But that availed him 
 nothing. If a man was too proud to flatter and too honour- 
 able to bribe, he stood no chance in those days, and so Mr. 
 Haydon lost his contracts. And that was all the reward, saving 
 the "thanks," he ever received. But it did not affect his public 
 zeal, for he corresponded with the Admiralty to the last. 
 
 It will be easily understood from this description of him 
 that his hospitable house should be a general rendezvous of 
 officers of the garrison and fleet. County neighbours, town 
 councillors, aldermen, and mayor, all met there to gossip and 
 discuss the problems of the day, and to ponder on the proba- 
 bility of that Great Revolution the exasperation of Rousseau 
 was kindling over Europe. Children, we know, are more or less 
 affected by the state of society about them, as it affects their 
 parents ; and thus it is not difficult to see how Haydon acquired 
 that bias for politics and war, which he never lost to the last 
 day of his life. The people about the child talked of nothing- 
 else. The busy town of Plymouth, so picturesquely situated, 
 with its rocks and water, its ships and batteries ; and Devon- 
 port — it then went by the name of Dock — with its building 
 ships and basins; and Mount Edgcumbe, with its beautiful 
 woods ; and the vast Sound, with its huge men-of-war floating 
 on its waters : all contained a thousand elements to attract and 
 fascinate a fearless and imaginative boy. I have often heard 
 him describe his recollections of those days, after the war had 
 begun, how the Sound was filled with fighting-fleets prepar- 
 ing for sea, or triumphantly returning, battered and blackened, 
 with shattered spars and torn sails, but with the captured ships 
 of the enemy in tow ; and how gallant frigates, amidst the 
 
6 MEMOIR OF 
 
 cheers of thousands of people, were to be seen rounding the 
 point into the inner harbour, with the Union Jack floating 
 proudly above the Tricolour or the Spanish flag, while the 
 guns of the batteries thundered out salutes in honour of the 
 victors. Such sights, and they were by no means infrequent, 
 were calculated to develop a child's faculties, to arouse his 
 pugnacity, and leave lasting impressions upon his young mind. 
 It is, perhaps, best for children to be kept tranquil and happy. 
 But in those days, at a seaport, it was impossible. Men and 
 women talked of nothing else but battles and sieges, and actions 
 by sea or land, of Nelson, of Marat, Kobespierre, Tom Paine, 
 and, in time, Napoleon. Their children were even taken on 
 board the captured ships* to examine the effects of action, 
 and habitually played with bone guillotines, cutting off the 
 King of France's head — toys put together and sold by French 
 prisoners. 
 
 The influence of such things upon an impressionable lad of 
 vehement disposition cannot be doubted. Hazlitt always said 
 such an education was " admirably calculated to make Haydon 
 a boatswain of a man-of-war," and to some extent Hazlitt was 
 right, though that was his way of expressing envy of Haydon's 
 boisterous good health. For though most of what a man has 
 he inherits from his infant life, it does not follow that he 
 enters upon the whole of his inheritance. Haydon retained to 
 the last the effects of these early influences, and they occasion- 
 ally stood him in good stead ; though it may be questioned 
 whether, without experiencing them in the first instance, he 
 would ever have required their services. 
 
 Amidst all this life of excitement and surprises I can only 
 get a glimpse of Haydon as a little boy. He was certainly no 
 philosopher in petticoats, but a wild, self-willed, affectionate 
 lad, uneven in spirits, and a great plague. He showed no 
 striking predilection for art. The recognition of things by 
 their forms occupies a large share of the mental activity 
 of all children ; but Haydon does not seem even to have 
 
 * Mv father used to tell us bow he remembered being taken on beard one of 
 our fiigatea docked for repairs after action, and being pointed out the trace of a 
 shot which had passed fore and aft, taking off the heads of the captains of several 
 guns, scattering Mood and brains along the beams. A beautiful education for a 
 child ! In 17!»8, after the " Nile," he remembered meeting Nelson on the H. e, 
 a Utile man in a shabby cocked hat, with a green si ade over one eye. The boy 
 took his hat oil, and Nelson returned the salute and smiled at hiin.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 7 
 
 indulged himself to this extent in a high degree. He was 
 pleased with prints, like most children — nothing more. lib 
 earliest recollection of drawing was trying to copy a print of 
 "Louis the Sixteenth (in his shirt sleeves) taking leave of 
 his , People," and drawing a very magnificent officer of the 
 Guards w'ho was a visitor at the house. But he remembered 
 that he put the poor man's eyes into his forehead, and joined 
 his legs on to his neck. My grandfather laughed at him, and 
 the boy began to observe more closely. But that which first 
 developed his passion for art was the conversation and teaching 
 of Dr. Bidlake, Head Master of Plymouth Grammar School, to 
 which Haydon was sent in 1792. Dr. Bicllake was an able and 
 eccentric man of talent, who dabbled in poetry and painting, 
 and delighted in boys who showed taste for drawing. Such a 
 lad he found in young Haydon, and to the development of this 
 taste the good Doctor devoted all his energies.* The boy soon 
 began to draw correctly ; and he relates in his ' Life ' how he 
 remembered his father saying one day to my grandmother, 
 " My dear, Colonel Hawker likes the boy's drawings." " What 
 does he know of drawing?" said my grandmother, with that love 
 of tearing off disguises which belongs to the sex, " What does 
 he know ? " " You know, my dear, he must know," replied my 
 grandfather, with an emphasis that showed he no more believed 
 in the Colonel than my grandmother ; only, the Colonel being 
 an important man and a good customer, he wished before his 
 son to give the Colonel credit for omniscience. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dr. Bidlake passing lightly over all else, putting 
 no great value on Propria quse maribus or as in prsesenti, devoted 
 himself chiefly to teaching the lad how to observe the beauties 
 of nature. To young Haydon and a few more of his favourite 
 
 * Worth, in his ' History of Plymouth,' asserts that Haydon was first taught 
 drawing by one of my grandfather's apprentices, T. H. Williams, and that 
 Williams get his dU-lnu-e in consequence. I Ihink I have heard my f ther 
 speak of Williams, but I doubt Williams's teaching the boy to draw. Worth 
 also asserts ihat Samuel Piout taught him to draw. But. this" I never h. aid, and 
 I think if it had been so I should have heard of it, for Prnut and Haydon corre- 
 sponded to the last. Another assertion of Worth, that in 1801-2 Haydon (then 
 a lad of sixteen) wrote a 'History of the Port of Plymoutli ' for the 'Naval 
 Chronicle,' is certainly an error. It was my grandfather, whose initials were the 
 same. Haydon never wrote a line for print." before 1810. Worth also asserts that 
 Maclise was one of Hiydon's pupils. This must be an error. Maclise unfortu- 
 nately, as some think, was never trained or instructed by Ha\don. Indeed I 
 believe they never met until one evening in 1845 (Gth December), when they 
 found Hi niselves sitting opposite to one another at the hospitable table of the 
 late Judge Talfourd, who there and then made them known to each other.— Ed. 
 
8 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 pupils the good doctor would give up much of his spare time, 
 aud on fine days take them up the granite glens and wooded 
 coombes shaded with birch and oak, and pointing out from 
 some hill-side the wide landscape of coppice and orchard, and 
 the village church "flinging the shadow of its old antiquity," 
 teach them how to mark the scene and study the beauties 
 of the sunset before them. In this easy kind of school life the 
 boy enjoyed one great advantage that is lost to us now. His 
 little head was not crammed with useless facts that he had 
 neither the power nor the will to turn to good account. He 
 knew, I feel sure, very little of his Latin grammar, or of history, 
 but a great deal of God's handywork, of light and shadow, 
 foregrounds and backgrounds, seas, sunsets, trees, and this, with 
 boating, fishing, and riding, formed his stock of knowledge and 
 accomplishments. Wandering about the green hills and 
 lovely coombes of Devon with the good doctor and half a 
 dozen select pupils left his intellect to grow unexhausted. 
 And there, sitting under jutting rocks, or stretched on the 
 fresh turf with a clear brown stream running at their feet, 
 dashing away into a broad fall of foam, they passed school 
 days worthy of that happiness so orten and so insincerely 
 regretted. In after-life ho must have cast minya lingering 
 look behind. I think there can be no question it was here the 
 boy's taste for poetry and painting first developed. The 
 pursuits of a life are often enough influenced by a single word, 
 idly dropped, but here was a boy led by the example and 
 encouragement of his master to the culture of that taste, with 
 which he only had discovered the boy was unconsciously 
 endowed. And this mode of instruction and life also developed 
 in him that passionate reverence for the works of God which 
 became such a feature in his character as a man. But the 
 good doctor must not be allowed the whole credit of Haydon's 
 instruction in art. At the head of the binding department of 
 the business premises was a Neapolitan, named Fenzi. This 
 man had remarked the young master's taste for drawing, and 
 was resolved, if he could, to turn it into a higher channel than 
 landscape. Fenzi got the boy's ear one half holiday, and 
 telling him of the beauties of the Vatican, and of the glorious 
 works of Raphael, and of Michel Angelo in the Capella 
 Sistina, he so excited the boy by his eloquent description that 
 they became fast friends. The delight of the boy was un- 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 9 
 
 bounded at this new discovery, his curiosity insatiable. Every 
 spare hour was spent in Fenzi's office, and Dr. Bidlake was 
 deserted. After an exhaustive description, Fenzi would bare 
 his arm and say, " Do not draw de landscape, draw de feegoore, 
 Master Benjamin," and Master Benjamin began to try. 
 
 And thus was first awakened and then unconsciously 
 strengthened that latent predisposition which was to disqualify 
 Haydon from conducting a lucrative business, and prove an 
 enigma and mortification, rather than a delight, to his parents 
 and friends. 
 
 After some years of this life the boy came out at ten years 
 of age full of uncertain thoughts. Nobody exactly knew what 
 to make of him. His sister tells me that at times he was 
 reserved and thoughtful to a degree, with a tone of conversa- 
 tion far beyond boys of his age, and very much given to draw- 
 ing, reading, and lonely wandering. Every life of every great 
 man he could get hold of he read eagerly. Let loose among 
 his father's books, he fed his sensibilities and excited his own 
 ambition by reading the lives of ambitious men. Not that he 
 buzzed about from subject to subject, picking up a scrap here 
 and a scrap there, but very leisurely following up the train of 
 thought from book to book, and pondering over what he read, 
 concentrating his mind upon one subject at a time. Then he 
 would suddenly abandon reading and go about in a reverie of 
 lonely musing and silent thought, sitting on the rocks for hours 
 together, watching the bright stars shining in the breathless 
 sea. Then he would have a mischievous freak and drive every- 
 one distracted in the house. But there was one thing that 
 always settled him steadily to work. If ever it was brought 
 home to him that he was ignorant of what he really ought to 
 know, or inferior in what he ought to be superior, he set to 
 work vigorously to excel. His love of excellence was touched, 
 and perhaps his love of distinction, for as early as this 17U7-8, 
 the master passion of the boy was to win praise by excellence 
 in his work. And as it was in the beginning, so it was to 
 the end. We shall see that the basis of his character was 
 thoroughness, coupled with generosity and love of distinction, 
 and the older he grew the more he strove after the highest 
 excellence by self-culture, often at the expense of his fortune, 
 yet always in pursuit of a noble object. When Haydon got 
 praise he generally deserved it. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 Suddenly in 1797 he came out in a new character. He had 
 picked up the idea of " Evening Entertainments." It is possible 
 ( harles Matthews might have been at Plymouth, or my grand- 
 father might have seen him in London. At all events the boy 
 got hold of the idea, and went to work at it with his usual im- 
 petuosity, lie bought colours and brushes, got paper from 
 Fenzi, and, painting a series of capital illustrations, he put up 
 a stage and footlights in his mother's drawing-room, invited a 
 select party to be present, and gave an entertainment of extra- 
 ordinary " Adventures," which had never happened to him, 
 illustrating the different incidents by his own drawings as he 
 told his story. Here we see the outline of Haydon's " Exhibi- 
 tion of Pictures," and Haydon's "Lectures" of later years. 
 His success was unequivocal. His good father and mother, 
 lucidly for his amusement, did not fully comprehend how 
 powerful is the influence of first studies upon the formation of 
 character, nor how greatly is predisposition enlarged by habit, 
 or they might have subjected their boy to some of the pressure 
 put upon Petrarch, Alfieri, and other young heroes. And for 
 my part I venture to regret this restraint was not put upon 
 him. For we may depend upon it, such talent in so young a 
 boy was certain to be injudiciously invested with an exag- 
 gerated halo. Yet nothing is more absolutely necessary in the 
 education of children, gifted with a lively imagination and 
 sensitive minds, to restrain rather than stimulate their imagi- 
 nation, or their vanity. The bent of every child's mind should 
 be followed, but followed judiciously. Every species of flattery 
 should be carefully avoided. And I am hard enough to think 
 if, instead of these evening exhibitions, Haydon had been set 
 down to master a problem in Euclid, the discipline of such a 
 course would have been of a far greater value to him in after- 
 life than anything he got. The object should have been to 
 strengthen his self-control, and this is to be done much more 
 effectually by mathematical or ethical studies than fond 
 parents can be brought to believe. 
 
 However, no restraint was put upon the boy : they never tried 
 to curb his will, nor to teach him that first and greatest of all 
 lessons, to try and curb it himself. My grandfather was de- 
 lighted with his boy, smiled on him approvingly, and 
 watched his growing love of self-abstraction without a fear. In 
 order the better to secure himself from domestic intrusion 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 1 1 
 
 while preparing fresh scenes for new entertainments, ITaydon 
 now constructed a little hut round the window of one of the 
 attics in his father's house. Here, like the young Alfieri 
 retiring to his cave, would the young Haydon secrete himself 
 when school was over, and instead of preparing his next day's 
 lesson, draw, paint, and " lecture " to himself so long as day- 
 light lasted. At night, before going to bed, he learned his 
 lessons; at least he always assured us he did so. These are 
 trifles, but his impetuous industry in after-life, his passion for 
 excellence in his work, his love of distinction, and the eminence 
 he attained in art, and as a lecturer upon art, make them in- 
 teresting. 
 
 But whatever his dominant passion, my grandfather had 
 destined him for business. It was not, however, until my 
 grandfather's comfort had been interfered with by these even- 
 ing entertainments that he appears to have awakened to the 
 mischief going on. He had first thought it was a mere amuse- 
 ment ; now he thought it looked serious ; then he became 
 alarmed ; then filled with dismay. AVhat did it all mean ? 
 This seclusion to himself; this love for scenery and foot-lights; 
 this painting all day. Surely the boy was not going to be a 
 play-actor ! The idea of his son becoming an artist, a painter 
 by profession of real pictures for exhibition and purchase, was, 
 to my grandfather, the most improbable incident that could 
 occur. He intended the boy to succeed him in the business, 
 and this unusual love for "scenery," " exhibitions," " foot-lights," 
 and " applause," was inconsistent with the character of a busi- 
 ness man, and must be stopped. Having himself suffered from 
 too great an intimacy with Art, and actresses, he thought it 
 the soundest morality to preach that you should have no 
 acquaintance whatever with the liated things. My grandfather, 
 in short, became seriously alarmed. But it was too late. The 
 mischief was done. A boy who has had his own way unchecked 
 for ten or twelve years is not to be broken then. 
 
 To an imaginative boy who did not want ambition or vanitv, 
 the continued applause of injudicious friends had already fixed 
 him in the career, to which by predisposition and self-culture 
 he was irresistibly attracted. Nevertheless my grandfather 
 determined on decisive measures. These tendencies must be 
 counteracted by more strict discipline. The boy was forthwith 
 (1798) removed from Dr. Bidlake, and sent away from home 
 
12 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 influences to Plympton, under Mr. Haynes, a severe man of 
 high reputation as a scholar. To Mr. Haynes were given the 
 most express instructions against all acting or recitals, or the 
 use of pencil or paint-brush. But that was of little real im- 
 portance while pens, ink, and paper were to be had. Haydon 
 had not been a week at his new school before he had made pen- 
 and-ink sketches of most of his school-fellows, on scraps of 
 paper, in the backs of books, behind the doors — anywhere in 
 fact — till at length grown bold by impunity, he sketched the 
 parish clerk at church on Sunday, to that official's obvious 
 indignation. Then he drew a hunt on the school-room wall 
 with burnt sticks, then tried to etch, and squeezed off impres- 
 sions with the school ink in the table-cloth press. Then he 
 took upon himself to teach the boys to draw. In short it was 
 the old story over again. The one thing forbidden he hankered 
 after, and always indulged in secretly. If Haydon had been 
 " saturated " with drawing by compulsion, as the Russians 
 saturate a drunkard with drams, he probably would have thrown 
 it up for a time in disgust. 
 
 Haydon remained with Mr. Haynes till 1801, and completed 
 his education at this school. In mathematics he was backward ; 
 but he was well grounded in Latin and Greek, and wrote and 
 spoke French fairly. Italian he afterwards taught himself. 
 In English history and general literature he was well informed, 
 lie had worked hard to beat boys above him, and had risen to 
 be head boy of the school, both by right of learning and fighting, 
 in which latter quality he was remarkably proficient. I have 
 been told by those who remembered him in his school-days that 
 he was a quick-witted, high-spirited, generous boy, headstrong 
 and imprudent, but a great favourite, because distinguished in 
 the school for his hatred of anything unjust or unfair. He 
 always defended the weak against the strong, and having been 
 once severely thraslied by a bigger boy in consequence, he set 
 himself resolutely to improve his method of lighting. When 
 he thought himself equal to the task, he challenged his con- 
 queror, fought, and thrashed him. In much the same way he 
 fought his road up steadily step by step to the lead of the 
 school, which, when fairly won, was not denied him. In after- 
 life we shall find him doing much the same to win the lead of 
 his profession. But your claims are not so readily admitted by 
 the world, which prefers to be led by established mediocrity. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 i3 
 
 In 1801 he was finally removed from school, and placed for 
 six months under the special charge of an accountant, at Exeter, 
 for instruction in hook-keeping, &c. Haydon was now in his 
 sixteenth year, and up to very recently was still remembered at 
 Exeter, as wild as an unbacked colt. Everything there with 
 him was in extremes. In love with every pretty girl he met, 
 and, when he saw a fresh face, always marvelling at his last 
 delusion : — 
 
 "Est mea nunc Glycera, mea nunc est cnra Lycoris, 
 Lida ruodo meus est, et modo Phillis amor." * 
 
 Vehement in his antipathies, warm in his friendships, 
 enthusiastic in his love of reading, impassioned in his love for 
 art, and irrepressible in his pugnacity, he drove the good 
 accountant to his wits' end as how to deal with him. It seemed 
 as if all the contending passions of all the Haydons for the 
 previous forty generations had met in this lad, and were by 
 turns to be feverishly indulged. The over wrought education 
 he had received at home was telling on him. But the wet 
 blanket was at hand. At the end of six months he returned 
 home, and was formally installed in his father's counting-house. 
 
 Now that his school-days were over, and he found himself 
 shackled in his liberty, deprived of his art, and brought face to 
 face with business in detail, the change was so sudden and so 
 offensive, his repugnance to the prospect grew daily. The 
 monotonous nature, the uncongenial direction of his employ- 
 ment, the dull toil of an uninspired life thoroughly disgusted 
 him ; and his Uncle Cobley, who had become a partner in the 
 business, took good care not to let the boy settle down to it 
 comfortably. He had views of his own. Uncles sometimes 
 have. My grandfather, who did not quite see all that was 
 going on, watched his son only, and watched him curiously. 
 P.rovidence had blessed him with an only son, but he was full 
 of unintelligible fancies. He had hoped the boy would supply 
 his own deficiencies. He promised to be more defective. He 
 saw it all — " saw and pined his loss." He reasoned with him. 
 He showed him that nothing is loved that is not known, and if 
 in this foolish matter of painting he would only stint his 
 curiosity for a year or two, the desire would leave him. He 
 had felt the same at the same age, and so had his father before 
 
 Arlosto, ' De Diversis Amuiibus.'— Ed. 
 
'4 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 him, and had not the desire left them ? If they had indulged 
 it to the exclusion of more serious thoughts, where would have 
 been the great " Business "? " When you know yourself better, 
 my dear boy, you will laugh at these delusions." And then, 
 " would it not be a sin and a shame to allow so fine a business 
 to pass out of the hands of its founders for the mere want of a 
 little self-denial"? As this was my grandfather's particular 
 failing, I have no doubt he pressed it strongly on his son. 
 Finding that Nature had given his son a singular taste for dis- 
 puting on most points, my grandfather gradually abandoned 
 argument and tried force. " Who has put this stuff into your 
 head ? Fenzi ? He shall be discharged. Well, then, go to 
 work and think no more about it !" It is evident to me my 
 grandfather had no faith in the creative faculty of his son. 
 He looked upon a great painter or a great poet as an excep- 
 tional and unhealthy creation — beautiful, but an error of 
 Nature. Men were intended for employment and enjoyment 
 — business and dinner — and the cultivation of bad poets and 
 bad painters, though common as bad cooks, ought vigorously 
 to be repressed by all men anxious for their country's good. 
 They should be sent to sea, or put to business, and made to 
 sticlc at it. This view is practically sound, but it has this 
 inconvenience: it provokes contradiction, and invariably 
 brings disappointment, particularly if the parental mentor is 
 insisting upon his child deriving a benefit from knowledge 
 which has never proved a restraint upon himself. Haydon 
 knew that both father and uncle had suffered from the want of 
 that self control they now preached, and that they were not 
 generally in the habit of calling themselves to account for the 
 errors and weaknesses of their lives. That is a medicine to 
 most of us, and sometimes " piercing and corrosive." And the 
 boy never having been taught to curb his inclinations, he 
 naturally preferred his own view of life to that which my 
 grandfather rather maladroitly pressed upon him. Thus dif- 
 ferences began ; then came disagreements ; then loss of mutual 
 love. Gifted with a high poetic temperament, the moody 
 misery, the despair of a spirited boy under a load of bill-books, 
 and black looks from his father after dinner, and possibly 
 sarcastic remarks upon his being "up in the clouds," and the 
 infinitesimal value of a son, of whose superior knowledge and 
 higher aims in life the father was a trifle jealous, can be easily 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 '5 
 
 imagined by sympathetic minds Avho have similarly suffered. 
 I believe it was agony to the boy. To think that all he loved 
 and lived for was to pass away from him, smothered under files 
 and folios of growing accounts ! It was simply unendurable. 
 To his only sister he poured forth his misery. At length the 
 pinch came. He could bear it no longer, and as he had a 
 habit of always going very straight at his mark, he told his 
 father in so many words that he would have " nothing more to 
 do with the business." What he would do he did not quite 
 know ; but he knew what he would not do. This brought 
 matters to a crisis. Most families have a crisis of the kind 
 sooner or later, all arising from imperfect education, and my 
 readers will be quite prepared to hear that Haydon was sub- 
 jected to much domestic criticism, but met with no sympathy. 
 The uncles and aunts who are always called in on these occa- 
 sions, and are always ready to do everything for you except the 
 very thing you wish, appear to have condemned the boy's con- 
 duct as " ungrateful." They were of the opinion of Le Sage 
 when he apostrophises the Knglish people, — " with liberty, pro- 
 perty, and three meals a clay, surely you are the most unhappy 
 people upon earth." But unfortunately boys of sixteen, afflicted 
 with that mortal restlessness which inspires thoughts of high 
 design, do often feel a natural unfitness and disinclination for 
 the vulgar realities of business pursuits, though Fortune be at 
 the end. In the midst of the crisis the boy fell ill : inflam- 
 mation attacked his eyes, and he lost his sight for six weeks. 
 When he rallied he had greatly lost his natural sight, and was 
 ever after compelled to wear spectacles. Some of the family 
 regarded this as a judgment of Providence for his ingratitude. 
 But it never struck Haydon in this light, nor in any other than 
 that, if he succeeded in his art without his natural sight he 
 would be the first painter who had done so. Here was a touch 
 of that simple courage that was in him. 
 
 As soon as his health was recovered, his father anti- 
 cipated that now the boy's natural sight being gone too far 
 for art, he would be glad enough to return to the office. But 
 again he was to be perplexed. Haydon accidentally met with 
 a volume of ' Sir Joshua Beynolds's Discourses.' He read one, 
 and finding Beynolds express a strong conviction that all men 
 are equal in capacity, and that application makes the difference, 
 Haydon made up his mind, in spite of his loss of sight, to be a 
 
[6 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Painter. He could see well enough to read near, and so to 
 draw, and if to draw, to paint. W hat more was requisite his 
 industry should supply. He took the book to bed with him, 
 passed a sleepless night, acted over and over again the scene 
 he intended to play at breakfast next morning, and falling 
 asleep at daylight, nearly lost his chance of both. Jn the 
 midst of breakfast he appeared, his toilet showing evident 
 marks of haste, ' Reynolds's Discourses ' under his arm, his eyes 
 wild with want of rest and excitement. He opened the cam- 
 paign by briefly stating his wish to go to London and enter the 
 Uoyal Academy as a student ! If he had dropped a shell on 
 the breakfast table he could not have astounded the family- 
 more. His Uncle Cobley, his great opponent, stopped cracking 
 his egg, gazed dubiously into the boy's face to see if any intel- 
 lects were there, raised his eyebrows, and being a very powdered 
 and precise man, wiped his mouth twice with his napkin ; then, 
 leaning back in his chair, he looked across at my grandfather, 
 and with a loud " a-hem," waited for the result. My grand- 
 father put down his cup and said, "Eh — what ?" The boy, 
 quivering with excitement, repeated his wishes. " Pooli ! 
 nonsense," said my grandfather. " Nonsense," repeated Uncle 
 Cobley in a firm voice, and went on with his egg. Then my 
 grandfather laughed, then lost his temper; and my grand- 
 mother beginning to cry, in ten minutes the whole house was 
 in an uproar. Uncle Cobley finished his breakfast. 
 
 In the course of the day, Uncle Cobley said, " the boy 
 must be mad," and that was the only opinion he was ever 
 heard to express. He probably thought it the surest card to 
 play to lead his nephew out of the business. 
 
 For six months longer the young Haydon had to fight his 
 way against the daily badgering and baiting of the whole 
 family but his mother and sister. From these only did he 
 get any sympathy, and for that he bore them in the most 
 affectionate remembrance all his life. His mother went 
 further. She gave him sound counsel, suh nsa, and bade him 
 never to surrender his rights as the heir of his father. She 
 seems to have had a presentiment of her own early death, and 
 to have distrusted her brother. In order to show that he was 
 in earnest, Haydon went to a sale and bought a valuable copy 
 of Albinus — which he had the audacity to leave the "business" 
 to pay for — and retiring to his hut, set to work learning the 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 17 
 
 origin and insertion of the muscles of the human form. This 
 was a sound idea. 
 
 The domestic struggle between father and son had lasted 
 now nearly two years, and it was time to bring it to a close. 
 But neither side would give in : the son, arguing that all 
 petty considerations of money and business should yield to the 
 gratification of his high ambition, feeling within himself the 
 energy to carry out his views if he were only supported for a 
 few years; the father, like all weak men without nerve, obstinate 
 in the wrong place, resenting the whole proposal as a delusion 
 and a folly, and insisting upon his son following the course he 
 had prescribed for him, and no other, instead of finding out 
 what really was his bent. This question of parental authority 
 is of course a debateable question. But 'prima facie, though a 
 father's authority is not to be lightly set aside, a boy's own 
 will is rather a sacred thing, and any aggression upon that 
 will no light matter, assuming of course that the object desired 
 is desirable in itself. My own experience of life tells me that 
 it is best to give in to a boy's bent, and to throw upon him tho 
 responsibility of never repenting of your generosity. It is for 
 him to take care of that. My grandfather seems at the last to 
 have arrived at this conclusion. To further oppose this half- 
 blind, earnest, and enthusiastic lad might lead to some real 
 mischief, and not make a business man of him after all. 
 
 So at length it was agreed — partly, I am inclined to think, 
 by the gentle persuasion of my grandmother, though it grieved 
 her fond heart to part with him — that the boy should be allowed 
 to go up to London and study at the Royal Academy for two 
 years on trial. Inquiries were made ; lodgings were taken 
 (348, Strand); and one fine May evening (14th May, 1801), 
 Haydon, with all that eager feeling of immortality peculiar to 
 youth, left his home. All that day, however, he had hung 
 about his mother with a fluttering at the heart in which duty, 
 affection, and ambition were struggling for the mastery. As 
 evening approached he missed her; presently the guard's horn 
 announced the coming mail ; he rushed upstairs calling her 
 dear name, and was answered only by violent sobbings from 
 his own bedroom. She could not bear to see him ; he could 
 just make out, " God bless you, my dear child." The guard 
 became impatient ; the boy returned slowly downstairs, his 
 heart very full, shook his father by the hand, took his seat 
 
 vol. 1. o 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 quickly ; the coachman cracked his whip, the horses sprung 
 forward, and Haydon's stormy career in life was begun. My 
 grandfather naturally went back to his room, took out his 
 diary, and entered the fact: — "14th May. — Ben started for 
 London. Weather fine. Wind east." 
 
 In the previous eighteen months' domestic purgatory Haydon 
 had undergone he had made himself master of the anatomy of 
 the human form, and he had framed out a certain two years' 
 course of study before he should consider himself fitted to 
 paint. This shows what clear views he had already formed 
 upon his art, and to some extent explains the means by which 
 he acquired his professional superiority so rapidly ; it was by 
 the sound and extensive knowledge of the human form and by 
 his extraordinary facility of drawing which this course of study 
 gave. W hatever difference there may be as to the necessity 
 or convenience of Haydon's course of art-instruction, there can 
 be none as to the knowledge you gain of internal and external 
 construction, and of the complete mastery which, in conse- 
 quence of such a course of training, he at least won over his 
 own hand and eye. 
 
 Haydon in 1804 was just in his nineteenth year; a slim, 
 handsome, inquisitive lad, with aquiline features, a ruddy com- 
 plexion, a fierce azure grey eye, and black curly hair, and 
 exulting in what Erasmus calls '• basilea, athletica, pancratiea 
 valetudine " — a healthfulness of mind and body which excited 
 him to rise superior to circumstances, and win reward by the 
 force alone of his industry and genius. 
 
 With the animal instincts strong within him, with a hand- 
 some person, and with means at his command, his parents may 
 well be excused if they felt some apprehension of what his 
 career would be in that great City of London, the grave of 
 young reputations. But Haydon never seems to have given 
 his parents one moment's uneasiness in this respect. His 
 strong domestic affections proved a valuable safeguard, and he 
 was by habit and nature so robust in his temperance as to be 
 able to rise above evil influences. He sought no society. He 
 went straight to his lodgings, unpacked his Albinus and his 
 drawings, bought Bell's book on Anatomy and a few casts, 
 aul at once began his studies. For six months he thus 
 worked alone and incessantly, day and night, rising early and 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 19 
 
 going late to bed, and with short intervals for meals, devoting 
 himself wholly to drawing from the round, heads, hands and feet, 
 and to making careful anatomical studies for his future guidance 
 in art. So intent was he upon training his eye and hand into 
 accurate drawing that he never delivered his letters of introduc- 
 tion, and rarely answered those of inquiry from home. " What 
 is Benjamin about that he never writes?" asked his father 
 of one of the Cobleys, who had just returned from London. 
 " Oh, he is mad — certainly — no doubt about it ! " said Cobley. 
 " I found him lying on the floor studying anatomy, with Albinus 
 before him —he is certainly mad ! " But there was considerable 
 method in the boy's madness, which it is not always given to 
 the Cobleys of a family to see. The gift of discrimination is 
 uncommon in families one towards another. Mad or not, the 
 boy continued to work at his task before him. It was an 
 intense one, but a task that was done. Young as he was, he 
 looked on his art as anything but ah amusement, or as a mere 
 money-making trade. To him it was already an inspiration 
 from God, a serious work by which the minds of the people 
 were to be fed by lessons of wisdom and of truth, and the 
 nation led to moral and material success. In most other 
 young men this would have been ridiculous presumption. To 
 men like Haydon it was a creed. Me was already revolving in 
 his mind vast schemes of art reform, and was selecting sacred 
 and historical subjects he would paint for his purpose.* He 
 
 * The li.,t is cuiious, and shows what ambitious projects filled the mind of this 
 boy of nineteen. It contains in all thirty-eigut subjects. The titleo of some are 
 no longer legible : — 
 
 1. ' Achilles aiming for Battle.' 
 
 2. 'Milton playing on his Organ— b'.ind.' 
 
 3. 'Aaron appeasing the Almightv.' 
 
 4. 'Christ foretelling the Uestmci'ion of Jerus.dem.' 
 
 5. 'S;imson pulling down the PhiUti ies.' 
 
 6. 'Adam reconciling Eve after her Dream.' 
 
 7. 'The Spirit of Cesar appearing to Brutus' 
 
 8. 'A Woman contemplating the Body of a Man she has just murdered.* 
 
 9. ' Scene in a Mad-house.' 
 
 10. 'Ugolino.' 
 
 11. 'The Judgment of Paris.' 
 
 12. 'Christ appearing to His Disciples at Sea.' 
 
 13. 'Ciuist disappearing from Eiumaus.' 
 
 14. 'The Crucifixion.' 
 
 15. 'The Judgment of Solomon.' 
 
 It!. 'A Mother dadiing down a Precipice with her Child, on escaping from the 
 
 Murder of the Innocents -that in the background 
 17 'Hercules recovering his Senses, and finding his Family murdered by 
 
 his bide.' [18. 'Antigone 
 
 u 2 
 
21 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 did not desire, as it has been erroneously attributed to him, to 
 restore Greek work, but to ascertain by research the principles 
 upon which the Greeks reached such excellence in their art, 
 and to try to equal, if not to surpass them. The English 
 painters, he had found out, never dissected man or animal. 
 They trusted to their skill and to their practice to hide their 
 ignorance, and they habitually painted from memory. The 
 Greek painters he believed to have mastered anatomy, and 
 always to have painted with nature before them. Michel 
 Angelo, it was as well known, had dissected both men and 
 animals, as that lxaphael had not, and that Eaphael had re- 
 gretted his neglect of anatomy, and striven hard by its practice 
 and study in his latter years to overcome this inferiority. With 
 this evidence before him, Haydon felt confident that the 
 anatomical course he was then pursuing was correct. He was 
 resolved "to make the knife accompany the pencil," and always 
 to paint from a living model. After many months' application 
 his health began to suffer, and then he bethought him of his 
 letters of introduction. 
 
 18. 'Antigone and her Mother and murdered Brother.' 
 VJ. 'The Amusements of tne Warriors before Theb s.' 
 
 20. 'Chiron holding out young Aehi.les to his Father, as he sails by on the 
 
 Argonautic Expedition.' 
 
 21. 'Orpheus amusing them with his Lyre.' 
 
 22. 'Theodore and Uonoria hunting in the Woods— Sun setting.' 
 
 23. 'The Philistines destioyed by God, as they are marching to attack tho 
 
 Isiaelites.' 
 
 24. 'The liaising of Lazarus.' 
 
 25. 'The Assassination of Dentatus.' 
 
 26. ' Joseph and Mary resting on their road to Egypt.' 
 27. 
 
 28. ' The Entombing of Christ.' 
 29. 
 
 30. 'Lear bidding defiance to the Storm.* 
 
 31. 'Christ brought before Pilate.' 
 
 32. 'Achilles shouting to the Grecians.' 
 
 33. 'Andromache taking a last lingering look after Hector, as if she dreaded 
 
 sorn^ ill.' 
 
 34. 'Our Saviour telling the young Man to give all he has to the Poor, and 
 
 follow Him.' There cannot be a finer subj. ct, or o:io that has more 
 point. 
 
 35. 'Duncan's Murder.' The door open, Lady Macbeth seen list, ning, her 
 
 shadow against the wall; or, 
 3G. 'Lady Macbeth on the foot of the Staircase,' saying. "He is about it.'* 
 Upon the top of the stairs the door half open, lamp outside, looking 
 into Duncan's cl amb r. 
 
 37. 'The Woman defending Saragossa.* 
 
 38. 'And "When they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the Mount of 
 
 Olives." ' 
 
 Of these thirty-eight subji-cts Haydon lived only to complete nine or ten, so 
 great is the space between our ambition and our deeds.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 21 
 
 It is important to mark here that Haydon had settled his 
 leading principles of art before he had seen Fuseli, Opie, or 
 Northcote, — viz., that the human form was the basis of all true 
 art, beauty, and science in design ; that knowledge of the 
 human form must be first mastered with reverence and re- 
 search, as the preliminary step ; that dissection is the true 
 basis of the arts of design ; that when you can draw the 
 human figure and its parts, you can draw anything compe- 
 tently: and when you have mastered this practical skill, then 
 you may begin to think, then you may take up geometry and 
 perspective ; after two years' thorough practice in all, then you 
 may begin to paint, but not before, and then always paint from 
 Nature before you. 
 
 Of these principles he had laid hold out of what he had learned 
 from Fenzi of the principles and practice of the great Italian 
 masters, and with intense insight, distinguishing what is essen- 
 tial from what is not, Haydon had framed for himself a code 
 of instruction, in which all subsequent experience confirmed 
 him, which he applied with the utmost success to his pupils 
 Eastlake, the Landseers, Bewick, Prentis, Chatfield, Harvey, 
 and others, and never departed from for the rest of his life. 
 His merit here appears to me of the greatest: for there can 
 be no question that Haydon's principles, are well founded and 
 true, and the more painters follow them the better they will 
 succeed in art and design, whether they only paint down " to 
 the fifth button-hole," as Hazlitt used to say, or strive for 
 something nobler and higher. 
 
 The first person he called upon was Northcote, the painter, 
 the pupil of Sir Joshua Keynolds, — a shrewd, keen man, with 
 considerable experience in the art and of the world, and with 
 a power of insinuating suspicion and distrust such that, had he 
 lived in the early ages, he would have sown dissension be- 
 tween Castor and Pollux. Northcote, like his master, had tried 
 High Art, and, like him and Flaxman and Fuseli, had found by 
 a sad experience how little real sympathy there was among the 
 patrons and nobility of England for moral, poetic, or historical 
 subjects. They did not understand High Art, they did not 
 want it, and they would not encourage it. We need not, 
 therefore, feel surprise at what followed. Northcote read the 
 letter, and eyed the boy suspiciously. " Zo ye mayne to bee 
 a peintur, doo ee ; and whaat zort of peintur ? " " Historical 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 painter, sir." " Hees-torical peintur ! " raising his eyebrows ; 
 " why, yee'll staarve — with a bundle o' streaw under yer 
 heead." 'J his was not encouraging from so distinguished 
 an authority. " Aand Meester Hoare zays yeere stoodyin' 
 aanatomie. Thaat's no euse. Sir Joshua deedn't kneow it — 
 why sheuld yew waant to kneow whaat hee deedn't?" "But 
 Michel Angelo did, sir." " Michel Angelo ! " screamed the 
 little man— " Michel Angelo ! whaat's hee got tu du heere ? 
 Ye must peint pertreits heere." " But I won't, sir." " Ve 
 waant. Ye must." 
 
 Opie was more favourable. " You are studying anatomy ? " 
 said he. "Master it. If I were your age, I would do the 
 same." " lint Mr. Northcote says it's of no use, sir.'' " ^Ncver 
 mind what lie says," replied Opie; "he doesn't know it him- 
 self, and would be glad to keep you as ignorant." In answer 
 to the question as to whether he ought to put himself under a 
 master, Opie said, " Certainly, it will shorten your road. It is 
 the only way." The next (lay the boy took his drawings to 
 Northcote, who laughed "like an imp." "Yee'll make a good 
 engraver indeed," said he. " Do you think, sir, I ought to be 
 a pupil to anybody?" "No," said Northco'e; "who is to 
 teach 'ee heere? It will be throwing your father's money 
 away." " Mr. Opie, sir, says I ought to be." "Hee zays so, 
 does hee? Ha, ha, ha ! Hee waants your vather's money." The 
 lad on this drew his own conclusions, and acted upon them. 
 He went on with his anatomical studies, and he did not take a 
 master. Smirke, the father of Sir K. Smirke, warmly en- 
 couraged the boy, lent him drawings, and advised him to 
 pursue the course he had marked out for himself. Fuseli, 
 Keeper of the Royal Academy, received him with great kind- 
 ness, looked at his drawings, praised them highly, and said, «■ I 
 am Keeper of the Academy. I hope to see you the first night," 
 Accordingly, on the opening night after Christmas 1804, Hay- 
 don entered the Koyal Academy School as a student, I am 
 told he was very short-sighted, very diligent, and very fond of 
 a good romp. One of the students once insulted him — it 
 would be invidious to mention his name — and Haydon thrashed 
 nim then and there, within an inch of his life. I am not quite 
 sure he was not near expulsion for this, but he certainly was 
 not expelled. West, the President, coming round one' day, 
 highly praised the boy's drawing of the Discobolos. With 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 2.3 
 
 Fuseli, Hayclon became intimate. Fuseli found in the boy the 
 same passionate love fur art and literature, the same delight in 
 the terrible and sublime, as he felt himself, and he took him 
 to his heart. I believe he was really very proud of him. 
 
 It would have been no loss, I think, to Hayclon if he had 
 seen less of Fuseli at this critical period of his artist life. Yet 
 no one, even thus early, saw and marked the defects of Fuseli's 
 frenzied extravagance of style more clearly. He writes (1805) : 
 " Fuseli knows full well he is wrong as to truth of imitation. 
 A man has no more right to dislocate an arm and call it the 
 * Grand style,' than he would have to put six toes on a foot 
 and call it ' Nature as she ought to be.' We have no business 
 to make Nature as she never was. We may restore her to what 
 she was at her first creation ; but if this be not done with truth, 
 mankind will turn away, let the conceptions conveyed be ever 
 so sublime or beautiful." Later on, in 1812, he writes again: 
 "The more I see of Nature, the more I see of rJapkael, the 
 more I abhor Fuseli's mind, his subjects, his manner. Let me 
 root his pictures from my fancy for ever." Indeed, at this 
 time the English Historical School was at a very low ebb. 
 Two pictures by West, one or two by Fuseli, with one by Opie, 
 and another by Sir Joshua, were the Historic masterpieces of 
 the age. They could have been hung in one room of moderate 
 dimensions. West, the leader and President of the Academy, 
 though he has added to the art of the world by his 'Wolfe' 
 and ' La Hogue,' had no elevation of thought, no deep know- 
 ledge of drawing, no expression,—" His heads are like masks," 
 wrote Horace \\ alpole, — and, he had no colour. He will 
 not rank beyond one of the maehinisti. " How do you like 
 West?" asked Haydon of Canova, in 1815. " Comme qa," 
 replied Canova. " Au moins," said Haydon, " il compose 
 bien." " Non, monsieur*, non," replied Canova, " il ne compose 
 pas, il' met des modeles en groupe." And that is the effect his 
 pictures have. They are groups of academical models care- 
 fully posed. It is like sign-painting of a superior style. When 
 Haydon saw what a narrow minded uniformity distinguished 
 the Exhibition of the Koyal Academy, and the predominance ol 
 portrait, and how feeble and mechanical the art had become 
 since the days of Sir Joshua — imagination, in 1805, was in 
 its decrepitude — he naturally turned to the Old Masters for 
 help and comparison, and the careful study of their works kept 
 
24 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 him to the true correctness of his ideal. It is possible, with 
 the weakness of a strong mind, he felt himself better than the 
 Institution he was attached to, and was not unwilling to talk a 
 little too openly of the removal of hindrances. It seems cer- 
 tain that, thus early, he and Fuseli often discussed matters 
 privately, and that he learned from Fuseli to regard with alarm 
 the increasing ascendency in the Academy of trading portrait 
 painters, whose only pleasure in their art was the money they 
 could make out of it, but whose authority was undoubted. In 
 fact, the state and prospects of high art in England at that 
 moment were forlorn. The administration of public affairs, 
 upon which High Art relies, was entirely in the hands of a 
 few great families. But which family was " in " or which 
 was " out." mattered little enough to Art, Literature, or 
 Science. All changes of administration, so far as these were 
 concerned, were of no importance. Somebody went out for 
 somebody else to come in, for which nobody was the better. 
 Then these " families " had a low conception of what patronage 
 for art really meaned. The best of them — those who, in public 
 opinion, held the first place as lovers of art — were not re- 
 markable for their depth or breadth of view upon the subject. 
 They loved art so far as it contributed to their pleasures, but 
 they had no notion of the public function of art. They col- 
 lected foreign pictures, and, like the Eomans of old, formed 
 galleries in competition with one another. The same rivalry 
 that we witness now amongst our wealthy classes, for " marks of 
 superiority," went on amfong the nobility seventy years since in 
 the matter of pictures, just as it had gone on among the 
 Romans two thousand years before. The bare possession of a 
 Greek painting of character and name was considered as much 
 a title to distinction by a Roman collector, as the possession of 
 a Correggio or a Titian by an English connoisseur; and as the 
 Romans in their day neglected and despised their own native 
 art for foreign specimens, so did the English nobility. Both 
 alike held a secret belief that, until a man had been shut up 
 in his urn or screwed down in his coffin for a few centuries, it 
 was impossible what he had painted could be worth looking at. 
 After walking through the galleries of Europe, our nobility 
 came home with a contempt for English art, in proportion 
 to their preference for works by dead Dutchmen and buried 
 Italians. They might as well have professed a competent 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 25 
 
 knowledge of botany by walking through different gardens. 
 " We do not want English high art," said a Duke of Northum- 
 berland, haughtily, " we want foreign specimens." This ex- 
 actly expressed their feeling. Like the boy in the Irish tale, 
 they pushed aside their own golden guineas to prefer the 
 debased copper to which they had accustomed themselves. 
 
 The only exhibition of native art in those days was the 
 annual exhibition by the Koyal Academy, then at Somerset 
 House. In 1805 the British Institution also opened an exhibi- 
 tion, but the English painters who met with the patronage 
 and support of the great families were the portrait painters. 
 These formed a large majority of the members of the Koyal 
 Academy, and occupied at the tables of the great the position 
 of the parson in Fielding's time. I say this without meaning 
 offence, but because it is true, and had great influence upon 
 Haydon's prospects and career. With a body of privileged 
 artists so placed, the fear and fawning of the hungry lay- 
 artists (not Academicians) can be easily understood. The 
 forty Academicians held all the honours, and nearly all the 
 gains of the profession in their grasp, and they fed daily at the 
 tables of the great. By these means the Academicians had 
 come to exercise an influence over the profession like that of the 
 Captains of the Wards in Florence in 1357-G6, " whom every- 
 body honoured," says Machiavelli, " for fear of being admon- 
 ished." Placed in such a position, it is not surprising that a 
 desire to please their rich patrons should come in time to be 
 exchisively considered by Academicians to the neglect of the 
 principal object of their institution, viz., the training and 
 education of all classes in the true principles of art and design. 
 This desire to please the patron, this submission to his wishes, 
 would seem to be a mischief that waits upon the portrait 
 painter. And how serious a mischief this is for art, the por- 
 traits by our Royal Academicians for the last seventy years 
 will attest. " When a body of painters," says Niebuhr, " places 
 above itself an uninstructed public, and that of rich patrons 
 whom they strive to please, only one result can follow — the tone 
 of the artists will hs lowered and their art degraded." That it was 
 a sorry servility of this kind by which the Royal Academy of 
 ] was infected is matter of fact. The Academicians agreed 
 
 with their patrons' opinion, instead of giving them their own ; 
 and thus, while they stooped to flatter and please, an ignorant 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 nobility enjoyed the gratification of being considered authori- 
 ties upon art, w ithout the necessity of knowing anything about 
 it. The result was what Haydon saw, and Fuseli deplored. 
 On Haydon's arrival in London in 1804, the Royal Academy 
 had been established some forty years. It had hoarded large 
 funds, yet it had never founded one single school of design. 
 Its annual expenditure in dinners, wines, and pensions exceeded 
 that which it gave for the art education of its students in 
 Italy ; and the members of the Academy, who in the last cen- 
 tury had shared in the intellectual efforts of the day, were, in 
 1805, ceasing to belong to an intellectual class at all. Their 
 art was falling into the vulgar and commonplace. It had no 
 inspiration, it had little drawing, and it was seriously defective 
 in technical excellence. In short, the Royal i^cademy of 1804-12 
 was in the fever of decay, which rendered it irritable, arbitrary, 
 and suspicious, in proportion to its debility. Between 1805 
 and 1812, Wilkie, Collins, Jackson, Haydon, Fuseli, Chantrey, 
 Soane, and others, often discussed and bewailed this degra- 
 dation of their beautiful art. They all attributed it, more 
 or less, to the same cause, viz , the power vested in Royal 
 Academicians of self-election for life, which virtually is power 
 independent of qualification, and without responsibility. And 
 they all agreed, so far as I can understand, that inferior men 
 getting possession of this power persistently applied it to their 
 own narrow purposes, rather than in upholding the principles of 
 an Institution then falling into disrepute by reason of these 
 vices. 
 
 The offence is common enough in every society that elects 
 itself for life, and, when elected, secures irresponsible posses- 
 sion of privilege and power. It was not that the Royal 
 Academicians of those days, any more than of these, entirely 
 kept out men of merit. Then, as now , they were occasionally 
 found on the side of public opinion. But the general result 
 was an Academy filled with men as obscure as the majority 
 who elected them. And thus the art was annually growing 
 weaker and worse, and almost promising to become extinct if 
 caustic correctives were not promptly applied. 
 
 Meanwhile to return to Haydon, then an Academy student. 
 In the midst of his studies, in March 1805, he 'was sud- 
 denly recalled home by the illness of his father. He hurried 
 down to Plymouth, but he did not forget to carry with 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 27 
 
 him all the materials of his art. If a cruel fate deprived 
 him of his father, and he should have to undertake business, 
 he would solace his grief and fill up his evenings by drawing. 
 This was not from want of heart. It was the mere expression 
 of his ruling passion overcoming the promptings of his original 
 disposition. Luckily for him, or unluckily as some think, his 
 father recovered ; and then began a renewal of the old 
 painful struggle. My grandfather's health was failing, and 
 Haydon ought to have taken his place. He felt and always 
 owned this. But in the interval, since his leaving home, the 
 change from boyhood towards manhood had taken place in 
 him, and with it a corresponding growth and development of 
 character. He had set his art before him as the great object 
 of his life, and he had resolved to pursue it. But his sense 
 of duty towards his parents was not extinct, and after a 
 severe struggle he decided to leave his art and submit him- 
 self humbly to his father's wishes. This was good of him. 
 Yet, with that curious hesitation some men show in clutching 
 the fruits of victory, just as their grasp has only to close, my 
 grandfather met this submission by himself giving in, and 
 begging his son to follow which pursuit he liked best, " busi- 
 ness or art." It seems incredible, but it was so. I suspect he 
 had made his arrangements, and did not care to alter them. 
 Baydon, astonished out of all prudence at this unexpected 
 concession, eagerly seized the offer. "To put the helm up" at 
 the right moment is the beginning of worldly wisdom. 
 Haydon kept his " hard down," went round on his own tack, 
 and in five minutes had parted with his birthright for a 
 palette and a porte-crayon. Henceforth his task was to be 
 that difficult one of making your own way in the world, 
 without rank or fortune, and with a good deal of self-will. 
 When my grandfather died, in 1813, he left his son— nothing. 
 Uncle Cobley reaped something more substantial. 
 
 During his absence from town Haydon had heard from 
 Fuseli, and from Jackson, a fellow-student. In a letter (un- 
 fortunately lost) Jackson had announced a fresh arrival at the 
 Acad my, "a raw, tall, pale, queer Scotchman, an odd fellow, 
 but there is something in him. His name is Wilkie." 
 
 Baydon returned to town in time to make Wilkie's ac- 
 quaintance before the schools closed in August, and the two 
 soon became intimate, and then close friends. I believe them, 
 
28 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 each in his own way, to have been deeply attached to the 
 other. They had both the same high views for art, the same 
 contempt for academical art, the same industry and love of 
 religion, and similar simple tastes. Their lives were singularly 
 open and pure, and, though Haydon once nearly became the 
 victim of hackneyed experience, Art was his only mistress. He 
 held with Lucretius that such connections were best avoided — 
 "Dissolvunt nodos omnes et vincla relaxant." 
 
 Wilkie and be used to walk home together to Wilkie's 
 lodgings,* of a night, bewailing their obscure fate, and com- 
 paring the proud heights Napoleon had sprung to, at a 
 single bound, with the toilsome path they must struggle up 
 before they could hope to reach a common repute. Tben 
 Wilkie, who did not worship rank, but adored authority, 
 would deplore the low taste of the nobility, and, what was 
 more to his point, the low prices they paid, which hardly 
 covered the cost of materials, and declare he should " leave the 
 couutry unless painters were treated more liberally." Against 
 the Royal Academy, Haydon records, Wilkie, Jackson, and 
 Collins were most violent, for its low taste in art, and its 
 evident preference for men of inferior ability to men of real 
 talent. Then they would console each other with hopes of 
 better times, and resolve to follow up their art and do their 
 best to remedy the evils they felt and deplored. 
 
 In these days, Haydon writes, " Wilkie was as great a 
 radical in the politics of art as Wordsworth in the politics of 
 States." It seems open to doubt whether these opinions were 
 ever really abandoned by Wilkie. He suppressed them out of 
 prudence, that was all. But all this helped to strengthen 
 Haydon's growing opinions, and to lay the foundation for that 
 scheme of art reform of which he came out as the determined 
 advocate some years later. He was already beginning to look 
 upon the Royal Academy with suspicion. Rut he remembered 
 Fintac's advice to his niece, " A votre age il faut ecouter, et 
 se taire," and was silent. 
 
 Wilkie's success with his 'Village Politicians,' in 180G 
 (though he complained bitterly to Haydon of the price, thirty 
 guineas, Lord Mansfield paid to him), was a great source of 
 delight to buth, and began to make Haydon think of painting. 
 * N >. 11, Bols ver Street, Portland H ad.— Eft 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 39 
 
 Wilkie encouraged him. But Haydon doubted whether he 
 had yet sufficient information and skill to enable him to 
 convey his conceptions to others. He had knowledge, and 
 two years' drawing had given him certain facility of hand and 
 eye, and he had mastered the anatomy of the human form. 
 But that is not all in art. However, he bought his first palette 
 and brushes, and tried to paint a head and hands. Wilkie 
 thought them excellent. Haydon then painted and glazed a 
 portrait of an old gamekeeper. Wilkie was so delighted with 
 this, he borrowed it for its fine colour, and repeated the head 
 in the old grandfather by the fire in the ' Blind Fiddler.' 
 
 Then Haydon determined to try and paint a picture. He 
 boldly chose from his list of subjects ' Joseph and Mary resting 
 on the road to Egypt.' This was suggested to him partly by 
 his reverence and love for the history of our Lord, and partly 
 by his admiration of Raphael. On the 1st of October, 1806, he 
 began this picture on his own responsibility. He says it cost 
 him " enormous labour and research," and I have no doubt of 
 it from what I remember of the incidents of his painting. In 
 the course of November 1806, Sir George and Lady Beaumont 
 called on the young painter to make his acquaintance. Lady 
 Beaumont was a charming and attractive woman, with great 
 taste and feeling for art, and Sir George a man of the iinest 
 taste, as a connoisseur, in Europe. Painting was his great 
 delight He had been the intimate friend of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds and Gainsborough, and his ambition was to connect 
 himself with the art of the country. This, Sir George has 
 most effectually done, for he was practically the founder of 
 our National Gallery. The acquaintance of such a distin- 
 guished man was a great honour, and the interest Sir George 
 took in Haydon, though once temporarily obscured, never 
 diminished to the end of his useful life. Sir George was 
 much pleased with the picture, but hinted that it was " quite 
 large enough for anything" (6 feet by 4 feet). Haydon re- 
 spectfully differed. Sir Joshua would have "shifted his 
 trumpet," and most men would have bowed and submitted; 
 but Haydon, although he had the greatest possible re- 
 spect for Sir George, rarely conceived it. his duty to take 
 his advice. In six months 'Joseph and Mary' Avas finished 
 and sent to the exhibition (1807). Fuseli was so pleased 
 with the picture, he ordered it to be hung on the line, but 
 
3° 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 he privately told Haydon that Northcote and the Hanging 
 Committee of that year had first "skied "it far above the whole 
 lengths. 1 his is noteworthy, as some evidence of the spirit 
 with which a young aspirant for historical honours was re- 
 garded by the old Academicians of that day. As Tacitus says 
 of the Jews, these gentlemen, in their hanging of works for 
 exhibition, exercised the highest offices of friendship towards 
 
 each other, "et adversus omnes alios hostile odium" they 
 
 watched those they knew were not of their opinions with the 
 greatest jealousy. It is also indirectly corroborative of 
 Fuseli's statement with regard to the hanging of the ' Den- 
 tatus ' (1809), the second historical picture Haydon sent to 
 the Academy, and it is valuable as evidence of the real im- 
 portance of a fair position to a good picture, for 'Joseph and 
 Mary' was highly approved, and considered to show "great 
 powers of drawing, expression, and colour," which was "pro- 
 nounced to be " properly flesh." The picture was bought by 
 Mr. Thomas Hope for, I believe, one hundred guineas, and 
 hung in his gallery at I >eepdene.* 
 
 With his picture in a good position at the exhibition, and 
 with such a valuable friend as Sir George Beaumont to dine 
 with, Haydon was not long before he made the acquaintance of 
 Sir George's old friend, Lord Mulgrave. 
 
 The Duke of Portland, on forming his administration in 
 1807, had placed Lord Mulgrave at the head of the Admiralty, 
 and here Haydon and his new friend passed many pleasant 
 hours together. Lord Mulgrave liked the lad, found him full of 
 talent and information, and able to converse on other subjects 
 than art. He gave him a commission at once, ' The Death 
 of Dentatus,' a subject that had never been painted before 
 and gave him also the entree of his house. Here the boy 
 dined frequently amongst stars and garters, ministers, ambas- 
 sadors, and illustrious refugees, and was introduced by Lord 
 Mulgrave to all the first men of the day. Nothing could ba 
 kinder than Lord Mulgrave's friendship for his " Devonshire 
 lad." And he showed it in other ways. Besides his official 
 
 * This wns a high price for a student's picture in davs when AVilkie only jrnt 
 
B. R. HAYDOX. 
 
 3t 
 
 dinners, the First Lord was also fond of a quiet evening, and 
 many times would send for Haydon to come and dine with 
 him alone. Haydon was a good listener, and eager to hear a 
 man who had played a part in public affairs, talk frankly 
 about them. Lord Mulgrave talked of Pitt and Fox, of the 
 men of the French Revolution, of India and Lord Wellesley, 
 of Ireland and the Union, of Nelson and Collingwood, and of 
 Napoleon, and generally upon the current events of the day, 
 which, I regret to say, Haydon has been too prudent to record, 
 or we might have had some curious and secret history. There 
 is nothing so entertaining as the conversational reminiscences 
 of men who have taken an active part in politics, diplomacy, 
 or war. If you listen to them judiciously, they will let out 
 mauy of the secret springs of action which you will rarely 
 find in their deliberate writings or published works. Their 
 minds, as Macaulay says of Mackintosh, are like a vast maga- 
 zine of facts. " They recollect, they do not create, and you 
 have only to apply the right key, and they will unlock their 
 stores and display the real article to your delighted view." 
 But no third person must be present. Two are friends, three 
 are " company." It was much in this spirit, I take it, that 
 Lord Mulgrave confided to his eager young listener many 
 details of his secret mission to the Archduke Charles, after 
 Marengo; of the wars of 1805-6, the Copenhagen Expedition, the 
 war in Spain, Canning, the Convention of Cintra, and the future 
 of Wellington, of whom Lord Mulgrave said, in 1809, " If you 
 live to see it, that man will prove a second Marlborough." 
 
 In Lord Mulgrave Haydon also found not only an attentive 
 listener, but a good friend. To him Haydon would open his 
 whole heart, and reveal all his aspirations and hopes for 
 English art, and always received from Lord Mulgrave the 
 warmest sympathy, support, and advice. But the idea of ob- 
 taining a grant of public money for art Lord Mulgrave 
 regarded as hopeless. " There is nothing," he used to say, 
 " Ministers understand so little, and care so little about, as art. 
 You will never get a grant of money for it. What you do, you 
 must do by your own exertions." He was not insensible to the 
 truth of Haydon's proposition, but he knew a grant of money 
 was hopeless. Considering the expenditure of the Government, 
 and the consequences of some of that expenditure, Lord Mul- 
 grave, as a Minister, may well be excused. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 In the midst of all this dining-out and these pleasant 
 evenings Haydon never lost sight of his main object, but to 
 this he now added daily study of the French, Latin, and 
 Greek authors, in order! to perfect his powers of verbal expres- 
 sion, and to qualify himself to converse freely with the foreigners 
 he was thrown amongst. I find him also " attacking " Italian. 
 Whole pages of his Journal are filled with verbs and idioms 
 and translations, until he had mastered the language, and 
 could read Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso in the original. It was 
 the same in everything he undertook. " Thorough *' was his 
 word. There was nothing of "the poor half and half" about 
 him. The result of this self-culture was that he mastered 
 French and Italian, and got through Latin and Greek. 
 Couple this with his art, and his complete mastery of that, 
 and it must be admitted that, considering all things, he did 
 well. During the season of 1807 Haydon was again recalled 
 home by an accident to his father, who had broken his " tendon 
 Achilles " at a ball, and was lamed for life. Wilkie strongly 
 advised him to set to work while at home and paint portraits 
 for practice. This advice Sir George Beaumont continue I, 
 provided " you do not allow yourself to be led away from High 
 Art by the money you can quickly realize by portraits."' Hay- 
 don carried the advice down with him to Plymouth, and imme- 
 diately began to paint portraits of his Plymouth friends at 
 fifteen guineas a-head — a very " handsome " price, he frankly 
 admits, considering the small merit of the pictures.* By the 
 tumultuous kindness of his friends he made money so fast as to 
 astonish Wilkie and alarm himself. Then, like Wyckerley 
 with the King, Haydon ran away irom his good fortune, manied 
 
 * Havdnn is frequently accused bv biographers of holding portrait painting in 
 great contem| t. Tin's is quite an error. What lie ridiculed and despised \v..s, 
 not portrait " painting," but portrait " tiianufacture." He bad no contempt for 
 anything good in art. He objected only to the supremacy being given to portrait, 
 anil particularly to the detestable caricatures of his dny, over and above, mid 
 almost to the exclusion ot, all higher art. Many passages might be quoted from 
 bis Journals of his high opinion of good portrait painting. One or two occur to 
 nie : " Alter having gone through his preparatory sunlits," he writes of a pupil. 
 '• let hill) paint portraits diligently. He will find it of the very first important ." 
 Ag. in, I find in his Journal: "There is something in the eminent portrait 
 painters, from their daily and perpetual intercourse with Nature, that painters of 
 
 id learn from." In his evidence 
 .en none after the Reform. .ti n, 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 33 
 
 himself to High Art, as Wycherley did to Lady Drogheda, to 
 find himself in the en I very much in the same sad plight.* 
 
 In Novemlier of this year Haydon suffered a sad loss in the 
 death of his mother, to whom he was deeply attached. She died 
 at Salt Hill, on the road to London, whither Haydon was bringing 
 her for medical advice. He returned to Ide, near Exeter, and 
 buried her in the old family tomb. To the day of his own 
 death he cherished her memory. 
 
 By the first of January, 1808, Haydon had returned to 
 London, and having removed to 41, Great Marlborough Street, 
 Begent Street, he commenced Lord Mulgrave's commission of 
 ' Dentatus.' t The moment selected is when Dentatus, fiercely 
 pressing back his assailants, is to be crushed by the rock being 
 thrown on him from above. It is a fine picture, full of life, 
 as Leigh Hunt said, " like a bit of embodied lightning," the 
 action is so immediate. It was while engaged on this picture 
 that Haydon first made acquaintance with John and Leigh 
 Hunt. Wilkie introduced the Hunts to Haydon ; but where 
 or how Wilkie made their acquaintance does not appear. 
 Leigh Hunt was a great contrast in every respect to Wilkie. 
 Something from each put into one would have made a 
 perfect character. Hunt was good-looking and agreeable, 
 which Wilkie certainly was not; and Hunt was witty, well- 
 read, fond of music, of high poetic temperament, and full of 
 fun and sparkle, in all of which Wilkie was deficient. But if 
 he had no wit and no music, and not much conversation or 
 poetry, and nothing to boast of by way of looks, Wilkie had 
 good qualities. He knew how to hold his peace and pick his 
 way, and would never set his own house on fire, or yours, " to 
 roast his eggs," as the saying is, and he was wholly innocent of 
 bills and discounters. Wilkie, in short, was the more judicious 
 friend. He was the man to settle and direct you, but he 
 would not lend you a sixpence, or his name. The other, to 
 
 * Charles II. was so delighted with Wycherley that he was on the point of 
 making him Governor to the Duke of Kichmoud, with a salary of 151)0/. it year. 
 Wvehi rley meanwhile fell in love with Lady Drogheda, or she with him, lieghcti d 
 the King, lost his appointment, married Lady Droghj (hi, and in a few years found 
 himself in the Fleet Prison, where he languished for seven years, when James II., 
 who remembered him kindly, paid his debts, and released him. — Ed. 
 
 t • Dentatus ' is in the collection at Mulgrave Castle, near Whitby. It is a 
 cabinet picture, very fine in colour and drawing, and in excellent pies* rvation. 
 It was engraved in England by Harvey, and in France, where it was highly 
 esteerm d, and held to Lave "established the puiuter'3 reputation."— Ed. 
 VOL. I. D 
 
31 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 amuse, distract, and unsettle you, lend you half lie possessed, 
 back a bill when you wanted it, and- ask you to do the same 
 for him next day. I am much mistaken but Haydon found this 
 to be so. Of Leigh Hunt's brother John, Haydon always spoke 
 in terms of the highest respect and admiration.* 
 
 In this picture of ' Dentatus ' Haydon encountered greater 
 difficulties than had ever occurred to his inexperience were 
 likely to obstruct him. But every fresh difficulty only gave 
 zest to his ardent mind. "Nothing is really difficult," he used 
 to say ; " it is only we who are indolent." Sir George Beaumont, 
 too, comforted and inspirited him greatly. " The more elevated 
 be your goal," he writes, " the greater must be the exertion of 
 every nerve and sinew to reach it." These inspiriting words 
 cheered him on to the task he had set himself. His object was 
 to paint for ' Dentatus ' the finest form he could invent. But 
 between the two opinions of Fuseli, who said 'Dentatus' looked 
 " too much like life," because painted from a living model, and 
 of Wilkie, who said, when Haydon, to please Fuseli, softened 
 down the markings of the joints and muscles, that it looked 
 "as if painted from stone," Haydon, in consequence, painted 
 'Dentatus' in and out several times. Certain art-critics I 
 remember, who, if they had to paint a lion would paint the 
 skin and not the lion, and be satisfied, have in their wisdom 
 appealed to Haydon's action here as a proof of " Haydon's 
 ignorance." Young men of high design when they begin 
 great works are always taunted with want of experience, under 
 one form or another. This is the common misfortune on first 
 setting out in life. But what these critics forget to acknow- 
 ledge is that, it is the capability or incapability of conquering 
 consequences that distinguishes the man of genius from the 
 man of none. In the midst of his distress at not being able to 
 realize his own conception of a figure of truly heroic rnould, 
 combined with all the essential detail of actual life, Wilkie 
 called with an order to see some " marbles " Lord Elgin had 
 brought from Athens. Haydon had no idea of what he was 
 going to see, nor how the sight would reward him. At the 
 first glance he saw in these Greek marbles that combination of 
 
 * In a very kindly-written article upon " Leigh Hunt and B E. Haydon," 
 pnbli.-hcd in the 'St. James's Magazine' (1875) tlie writer regrets Haydon's sepa- 
 ration from Leigh Hunt. I, on the contrary, feel satisfied it would' have been 
 better for Haydon had they never met. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 35 
 
 Nature and Idea he had in vain sought among existing 
 antiqu. s.* " The first thing I fixed my eyes on," he writes, " was 
 the wrist of a figure in one of the female groups, in which was 
 visible the radius and the ulna. I was astonished, for I had 
 never seen them hinted at in any female wrist in the antique. 
 I darted my eye to the elbow and saw the outer condyle visibly 
 affecting the shape, as in nature. I saw that the arm was in 
 repose, and the soft parts in relaxation, as in nature. My heart 
 beat ! If I had seen nothing else I had seen enough to keep 
 me to nature for the rest of my life. But when I turned to the 
 Theseus, and saw that every form was altered by action or 
 repose ; when I saw the two sides of his back varied ; one side, 
 stretched from the shoulder blade, being pulled forward, and 
 the other side, compressed from the shoulder blade, being 
 pushed close to the spine, as he rested on his elbow ; and when 
 I turned to the Il ssus and to the fighting Metope, and saw 
 the most heroic style of art, combined with all the essential 
 detail of actual life, the thing was done at once and for ever." 
 " Now," he adds, in a burst of very natural enthusiasm, " now 
 was I mad for buying Albinus? " He walked hurriedly home and, 
 looking at his figure of Dentatus with disgust, " dashed out the 
 abominable mass." Then, with the leave of Lord Elgin, Haydon 
 put himself again at school, and for three months spent his days, 
 from morn to midnight, drawing, alone, from these marbles. 
 
 As this Elgin marble question greatly affected Haydon's fate 
 and fortunes, I may be permitted to say here, this conviction 
 which he felt of the beauty and inestimable value of the 
 marbles was soon called in question. Mr. Payne Knight, 
 Lord Aberdeen, and a small clique of " Dilettanti " collectors, 
 whose chief vexation seems to have been at the presumption of 
 anyone, out of their set, owning or giving an opinion upon an 
 original antique, ridiculed Haydon's conclusions, and "set 
 down " Lord Elgin. " My Lord," said Payne Knight, one 
 
 * The great distinction between the Elgin Marbles and other antique, according 
 to Haydon, is the want of unity and d. penitence of the p irts in the Litter, and the 
 complete unity in the foimer. Thus in the Niohe the head is placed as if it had 
 no connection with the neck, or the neck with the body. So in the Apollo 
 Belvedere, the arms look as if stuck on to the body without any of the connecting 
 incidents of flesh. Cover the head of the Apollo, and the bo.ly, limbs, and arms 
 are stuffed *kins. In 1815 Haydon said to Canova, " Do you think if the Apollo 
 Lad been found without his head, his figure would have stood so highly?" " Peut- 
 etre non," said Canova ; " they would have been considered commonplace 
 fragments." — Ed. 
 
 D 2 
 
3<5 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 evening at dinner, " you have lost your labour ; your marbles 
 are not Greek, they are Roman of the time of Hadrian." This 
 was a cruel blow to Lord Elgin, who, on his own responsibility, 
 had spent upwards of 30,0001. to bring these marbles to 
 England, and it was the merest assumption on the part of 
 Mr. Payne Knight. But Lord Elgin had not sufficient know- 
 ledge of the principles of art to defend his own opinions 
 against such an assailant. He fell back on his young friend 
 Haydon, who quickly came to his rescue. A man in the posi- 
 tion of Mr. Payne Knight, the acknowledged authority upon 
 art, looked up to by the artists, consulted by the Government, 
 and followed by the nobility, was the man of all others, in 
 Haydon's opinion, who was not to be permitted to circulate 
 dangerous sophisms upon art. He was also the author of a 
 dull didactic poem, in five books.* Such a combination must 
 have been well nigh irresistible. When and how they first 
 crossed swords I cannot trace, most probably at Sir George 
 Beaumont's. But wherever it was, the difference of opinion 
 between the young painter and the old dilettante soon settled 
 into mutual aversion ; and a war began that time never 
 softened, nor age subdued. Haydon attacked Payne Knight's 
 arguments in society with a freshness and audacity, combined 
 with a profound knowledge of his subject, Mr. Payne Knight 
 was no match for. Driven at length from his " Roman of the 
 time of Hadrian" position, he then admitted the marbles 
 " might be Greek," but " were evidently the work of journey- 
 men not worthy the name of artists." Really, to look at these 
 divine fragments, and be told any man in his senses had once 
 uttered such an opinion concerning them seems incredible. 
 But there is no bigotry in the woidd so intolerant as the 
 bigotry of supercilious art-critics, gentlemen who think them- 
 selves a?sthetic. On this new version of the old story, put 
 forth with all the pomposity befitting the occasion, Haydon 
 flung such shouts of laughter, and so heartily ridiculed the 
 idea of such men as Payne Knight and Lord Aberdeen and 
 their learned clique now pronouncing an opinion as to what 
 was, or what was not the work of an "artist," as to make Mr. 
 Payne Knight and his friends mortal enemies for life. This 
 was imprudent, and unnecessary. But I suspect Lord Mul- 
 
 * 4 The Progress of Civil Society,' laughably satirized by CanniDg.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 37 
 
 grave, who seems to have had a good deal of the spirit of Lord 
 Steyne when he asked the rector to meet the priest at his 
 table, and enjoyed the combat that followed, to have been 
 patting the back of his Devonshire lad. Both he and Sir 
 George Beaumont relished the discomfiture of Mr. Payne 
 Knight and his learned friends. The result of the contest was 
 that, society began to lose faith in their ancient prophet; 
 opinion became divided ; and Mr. Payne Knight went down. 
 Yet, so powerful with Ministers was the influence of the Dilet- 
 tanti, they kept the question of purchase open for eight years 
 longer, and, but for Haydon, they would have cleverly secured 
 the rejection of the marbles in the end. Indeed, if it had been 
 possible to kill a truth by clamorous denial, the marbles would 
 nave been irretrievably lost to us. For neither ministers, nor 
 society knew more of the basis of beauty in art, or how to 
 distinguish the true from the false, than its predecessors of 
 the authenticity of the epistles of Phalaris. But Haydon's 
 influence was growing every day. "West, Lawrence, Goethe, 
 Kumohr, Denon, Waagen, and all the best men were on 
 his side, and, when he saw the marbles, Canova. " I ad- 
 mire," writes Canova to Lord Elgin (10 Nov. 1815), "the 
 truth of nature united to the choice of the finest forms. Every- 
 thing breathes life with a veracity, with an exquisite know- 
 ledge of art, but without the least ostentation or parade of it, 
 which is concealed by consummate skill. The naked is per- 
 fect flesh, and most beautiful of its kind." This confirmed all 
 that Haydon had been saying for the eight previous years. 
 
 For three months longer Haydon continued to draw from 
 the Elgin Marbles until he had thoroughly mastered the form 
 of those exquisite fragments, and brought his hand and mind 
 into due subjection. The same sincerity and foresight which 
 appears in his early study of anatomy is yet more prominent 
 in his immediate estimate of the value of these marbles. 
 Here too, we see again how real, how thorough, this lad was ; 
 with what quick sense and courage he acted ; how com- 
 pletely he felt and understood that the highest genius is not 
 sufficient to carry you to your ambition without industry, 
 without sincerity, without truth. No matter how disheartening 
 the discovery that he had begun to paint before he was 
 qualified, the moment Haydon saw the truth clearly, he put 
 aside his palette and brushes, went back in all humility to his 
 
33 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 crayon and drawing-board, and honestly strove to fit himself 
 for his work. In an age of mendacity and delusion it stands 
 out well, and is a lesson to students for all time. 
 
 As soon as Haydon felt himself competent to resume paint- 
 ing, he returned to his palette and finished ' Dentatus ' in time 
 for the exhibition of 1809. Wilkie, Fuseli, Sir George, and 
 Lord Mulgrave were highly pleased with the work. Wilkie 
 and Sir George said it would make Haydon's reputation in any 
 school in Europe. Lord Mulgrave said little, but showed his 
 satisfaction by begging Haydon not to exhibit it at the 
 Academy. " They will put it out of sight, you may depend 
 on it." Haydon demurred : they had hung his first picture well ; 
 why should they not hang this — a better picture — at least as 
 well ? It was his " duty " as a previous student to send what work 
 he did for the credit of the Academy, if it were good. Sir 
 George agreed with Lord Mulgrave that it would be better not 
 to trust an ideal work like ' Dentatus ' in the hands of men who 
 had either failed in, or, had no feeling for ideal art. It was not 
 that they feared Fuseli, Opie, Lawrence, and the best men of 
 the Academy, but they knew the best men were lost in a 
 majority of mediocrities. They had seen too often in 
 Keynolds's time and since, that the Royal Academy 
 
 " hath a tail 
 More perilous than the head," 
 
 and that the chances were in favour of a picture like 
 ' Dentatus ' being " skied," or put where no one could see it. 
 Haydon in his impulsive way refused to believe so ill of the 
 Academy, and entreated to be allowed to send it there. Lord 
 Mulgrave at length reluctantly consented, and then he did 
 a very foolish thing. He and Sir George hurried off to Phillips, 
 one of the hanging committee of that year, to beg 'a good place 
 for Dentatus.' Nothing was better calculated to bring about the 
 very result they dreaded. ' Dentatus ' was sent in, seen and ap- 
 proved by Fuseli, and hung by his order on the line, in the same 
 place as Haydon's previous picture in 1807. So far everything 
 was satisfactory. The day before the private day a hurried 
 note reached Haydon from Fuseli, to say he had been out of 
 town since the hanging of the pictures, and on his return he 
 had found ' Dentatus ' taken down from its place and put in 
 the ante-room. Fuseli said no more, but what he had said 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 39 
 
 was significant. Where was this ante-room ? That same day 
 West met Sir George Beaumont, and said West, who was as 
 deep as Garrick, shaking Sir George warmly by the hand and 
 looking into his eyes, " You will be pleased to hear that we 
 have hung ' Dentatus ' in the best place in the whole Academy ;" 
 and before Sir George, good easy man, could recover his 
 delight, and ask where, West pressed his hand warmly and bade 
 him adieu. Unluckily West met Lady Beaumont's carriage 
 round the corner. She waved her hand, and according to 
 her account, stopped him : " What have you done with 
 ' Dentatus ?' " He nattered her with the same charming fiction : 
 " Done with it ! why we have hung it in the very best place in 
 the Academy." " How nice of you !" said Lady Beaumont. 
 But then, with that laudable desire for a " fact " which has 
 distinguished the sex since Sophia of Hanover used to puzzle 
 Leibnitz by the subtlety of her metaphysical questions, she 
 added in her sweetest tone, " And pray where may this best 
 place be ? " Bluebeard's chamber was nothing to the question, 
 or the place. West tried to parry ; Lady Beaumont kept him 
 to the point. " No, no, but where ? tell me exactly" " Well," 
 said West, driven to it at last, "just in the very middle of the 
 Octagon room," and here he was seized with a violent fit of 
 coughing. " Dear me," said Lady Beaumont, her sympathies 
 touched, " what a distressing cough you have got ! pray take 
 care of yourself, good-bye." West waved his adieux, he could 
 not speak, poor man, and Miladi drove on, repeating to herself 
 "the Octagon-room — that's something new. I wonder if it is 
 nice." That evening Lord Mulgrave and Haydon dined with 
 them, and Lady Beaumont, full of her news, told it to Lord 
 Mulgrave as a great surprise. To her vexation he did not 
 show any pleasure. When a pretty woman gives you a 
 surprise, you should always show delight. Lord Mulgrave on 
 the contrary knitted his brows, looked sullen, and slowly 
 asked, " And pray did West ever hang any of his own pictures 
 in the Octagon-room ?" and then he explained what the Octagon- 
 room was. He knew it well. Jt was the lumber-room of the 
 Academy, without light, where a superfluous picture was now 
 and then hung by academicians to get it out of the way. Lord 
 Mulgrave was mortified, and to a nobleman and minister who 
 had just given one hundred and fifty guineas to a lad for a 
 historical picture, which everybody had predicted would create a 
 
4 o 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 sensation, it was not gratifying. Haydon, who was at the table, 
 listened, and said nothing about Fuseli's note. He was vexed 
 with himself for not taking Lord M nigra ve's advice, but he 
 should like to see the picture first before he allowed himself to 
 feel angry. And he had this consolation at all events, that if 
 the removal of the picture from the great room to the ante-room 
 — from the light to the dark — was the result of jealousy and ill 
 will, it was clear the hanging committee would not trust the 
 picture in a fair light to the decision of the public, but had 
 resorted to an expedient that might' as easily be employed if 
 they were in the wrong as in the right. The next day being the 
 private day, the exact position of ' Dentatus ' was ascertained. 
 It was hung in the dark. Lord Mulgrave was furious. Sir 
 George Beaumont shared his just indignation, and both ex- 
 pressed their opinion of the transaction freely. West, finding 
 himself in hot water, tried to get out of it at the expense of his 
 brother conspirators. He went about the room saying, ' what 
 a pity it is, what a pity it is ! but you see, Sir, the academicians 
 ivill have their own pictures on the line." That may have 
 been perfectly true, but still two questions remained whichWest 
 never stopped to answer, nor has any member of the Academy 
 since. 1st. Ought not every department of the art to find a 
 fair place upon the best walls of the Academy exhibition? 
 2ndly. As Haydon's 'Dentatus' was the only historic work in 
 that exhibition, and had been hung in a fair place by the 
 Keeper, was it not doubly entitled to that place ; and why was 
 it removed, and in the Keeper's absence ? 
 
 Leslie and other academical writers have attempted in a 
 lame way to defend the Academy treatment of Haydon's picture 
 on the ground that Sir Thomas Lawrence, as President, once 
 hung a portrait in this very Octagon-room. But that is not 
 the question. Besides, portraits are the work of a few weeks 
 only, historical pictures, of years ; and, moreover, Sir Thomas 
 was then President of the Koyal Academy, and I find had 
 several other portraits in the same exhibition, and on the line 
 in the best rooms, whereas Haydon was a young lad just 
 coming into notice and this was his only picture, and the only 
 historical picture in that exhibition, and on arrival it had beeu 
 fairly hung and was subsequently removed — why ? 
 
 "With every desire to make the fullest allowance for the 
 difficulties of a "hanging committee," and there can be no 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 4i 
 
 more invidious task, I fail to see any reasonable ground 
 of defence for their conduct towards Hay don on this occa- 
 sion. 
 
 Fuseli subsequently explained the whole transaction to 
 Haydon. I believe he had his information from Stothard, 
 who was present at the operation of taking down. During 
 Fuseli's absence from town, Shee, Phillips, and Howard, the 
 three hangers for the year, went to West on the last day and 
 asked hi 111 to give them an order to remove the 'Dentatus' 
 from where Fuseli had hung it. First, they said, the place in 
 which Fuseli had put it did not allow justice to be done to 
 its merits — the light was not good enough — and they were so 
 considerate of the young man's reputation they proposed to 
 put it in the dark ! Then they said it was a " glaring " 
 picture, and killed the pictures by academicians on each side 
 of it, so that of course the dark was just the place for it. But 
 this was to some extent an idle plea, for it never could have 
 been a glaring picture, though it very probably extinguished 
 the aca lemical works on each side. Stothard said he protested 
 against the removal of the picture, particularly into the ante- 
 room, as an act of gross injustice and cruelty. But the hangers 
 persisted, and brought up Northcote and West to look at the 
 picture. There was an animated discussion, and West ordered 
 the picture to be put into the ante-room.* 
 
 When in 1814 the hangers of that year hung Martin's 
 'Clytie' and 'Joshua' in this same ante-room, Martin con- 
 sidered himself so insulted he refused to exhibit again, and for 
 sixteen years in succession abstained from sending a single 
 work to the Academy. When his enemies were dead Martin 
 began to exhibit there once more. It almost seems a privilege 
 of societies of art and literature to embarrass and, if possible, to 
 suppress rising reputations. Haydon and Martin were not to 
 escape where Gainsborough had been made to suffer.f 
 
 * Haydon always believed that bis fellow-townsman, Northcote, was really at 
 the bottom of the whole affair. It may have been so. Northcote was p issessed 
 by nature of tint subtle spirit of intrigue which cannot resist the temptation of 
 making mischief, or of injuring a rival. But I can find no grounds for putting the 
 blame sp . cinlly upun Northcote, although it is probable enough he had his share 
 in the transaction. — Ed. 
 
 t In the exhibition of 1809 I find that Howard and Phillips, two of the 
 hangers who removed Haydon's ' Denta'us,' had each of them eight pictures of 
 their own on the line, not one of which, as Leigh Hunt said, was " worth 
 ' Dentatus's ' little toe." — Ed. 
 
42 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 That the position given to the ' Dentatus ' in the exhibition 
 of 1809 did Haydon a serious professional injury it would be 
 idle to deny. Although Lord Mulgrave, by way of consolation, 
 sent Haydon an additional cheque for sixty guineas, yet people 
 of rank, says Haydon, were ashamed to own they had seen 
 the picture, or knew the painter. In a week he found his 
 painting room deserted. On the other hand the affair gave 
 rise to severe reflections upon the conduct in general of 
 hanging committees. Haydon took no part in the wordy war. 
 Like the squire between Thwackum and Square he looked on 
 in half-scornful amusement, leaving the rival parties to fight it 
 out. He felt the time had not come for him to speak, and so 
 he held his peace. That he was mortified no one can doubt. 
 But he was too buoyant and sanguine for anything of this kind 
 to depress him. It was more likely to stimulate his hardy and 
 effective nature into determined action.* 
 
 Shortly after these events and during the season of 1809, 
 Haydon in a spirit of conciliation and with an earnest desire to 
 establish the most friendly relations between himself and the 
 Royal Academy, and setting aside entirely the recent indignity 
 their hanging committee had put upon him, entered his name 
 with Wilkie for preliminary election into the Academy as an 
 Associate. There were two vacancies and several candidates, of 
 whom the fittest were Wilkie and Haydon. The moment Hay- 
 don's name was sent in, the most intense jealousy seems to have 
 been aroused among the majority of academicians. West and 
 his colleagues, like Dante's amiable men in the City of Dis, 
 slamming their gates in the face of Virgil, united as one man 
 to keep Haydon out. Wilkie and an inferior man named Da we 
 were elected. Haydon, by reason of the action of the majority, 
 
 * All recent biographers whose works I have examined, overlook this important 
 feature in Haydon's character. Nothing ever depressed him for long. They 
 erroneously attribute, his separation from the Royal Academy to the "depres- 
 sion " and " annoyance " and " mortified vanity " consequent on this ' Dentatus ' 
 incident. Nothing can be further from the truth. Haydon was not one of 
 Issaehar's asses, I admit. He was not born with a saddle on his baok. But, to 
 attribute Ids separation from the Academy to the ' Dentatus ' incident, is to give 
 that incident ;.n air of too much importance. Perhaps this was necessary to 
 cover the retreat of the Academy. The ' Dentatus' incident occurred in 1800, 
 and was only one out of many items, I regret to say, of indignity and insult 
 inflicted by the Royal Academy upon Haydon, which at length led to his with- 
 drawal from all connexion with that Society. Mr. Samuel Redgrave, in his 
 'Dictionary of Artists,' speaks of Haydon being "wounded by the ' Dentatus ' 
 affair, an. I thereupon quarrelling with the Academy." This is inaccurate a . d 
 misleading. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 43 
 
 had not one single vote. " Numbers," says Newman, " increase 
 the effect and diminish the shame of injustice." 
 
 Leslie, R.A., in his official capacity always denied this 
 rejection of Haydon as a matter of fact, and charged Haydon 
 with untruthfulness in his accusation against the Academy. 
 But finding the fact to he officially recorded — he might have 
 found this out before, one would think — he does Haydon tardy 
 justice in his Autobiography (p. 224), which, by the way, was 
 not to be published until after his own death. Therein Leslie 
 says, " This (viz. the election of Dawe in preference to Hay- 
 don) was certainly disgraceful." " Haydon's 4 Dentatus ' should 
 assuredly have made him an Associate." 
 
 Coming so quickly upon the 1 Dentatus ' affair, this rejection 
 confirmed Haydon's suspicion that historic art was disapproved 
 by the Academy, in whose hands rested the honours of the 
 profession. Either that, or, a certain clique in the Academy, 
 jealous of the young painter, but failing to find just grounds 
 for his rejection in future, sought to make him commit some 
 outbreak of passion, when they could appeal to their prudence 
 in keeping out a young man who knew so little how to con- 
 trol himself. Hence the 'Dentatus' incident, but here Haydon's 
 extreme moderation disconcerted them. Now came his re- 
 jection, coupled with the selection of his friend and fellow- 
 student Wilkie. This would mortify him surely, and turn him 
 to bay when he would rage with a fury that would recall the 
 days of Barry. To their disappointment Haydon took this 
 fresh proof of their intolerance calmly, and sensibly. It 
 wounded him, but he was to some extent consoled by seeing 
 Wilkie elected, and what mortification he felt was more for his 
 particular style of art than for his own personal position. But 
 it was an ungenerous act, and well may Leslie say it was 
 " disgraceful." 
 
 West and his colleagues would have had no ground of 
 complaint if Haydon had straightly attacked them legetaUonis. 
 What right had they to reject him ? He had been one of their 
 most vigorous and diligent pupils ; he was far beyond all in 
 his knowledge of the human form, and, in his power of drawing 
 West himself could not compete with him ; nor was there 
 one historical painter, or work in the Academy that could 
 compare with him or his ' Dentatus.' Assuredly the object of 
 the institution of the Royal Academy was to foster and 
 
44 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 encourage art, not to caress and protect a body of indifferent 
 artists. "Had there been twenty historical painters," writes 
 Haydon, " and I alone rejected, it would have been an objec- 
 tion to me only. .But there being only myself pursuing 
 historical painting, it behoved those who had the power to 
 foster, encourage, and assist me. By rejecting me they laid 
 themselves open to the suspicion that it was not so much 
 dislike of me as of the style of art I was pursuing. Had I 
 consented to 1 paint portraits,' as Northcote told me I ' must,' 
 there would have been no difficulty. But it was because I had 
 aspired to something higher in art; because I wished to correct 
 the habitual slovenliness of the English school in drawing ; 
 because I had mastered anatomy (most superficially known 
 only to West) ; and because, in ' Dentatus,' I had made the 
 first resolute attempt in the century to unite colour, expres- 
 sion, light, shadow, and heroic form with correct drawing, I 
 was to be ' put down ' by the professors in an academy founded 
 for the production and advancement of works of this descrip- 
 tion." These are temperate and sensible remarks, and dispel 
 the statements which are to be found everywhere, attributing 
 to Haydon a passionate desire for revenge. He never thought 
 of anything of the kind. What he tried to effect, and wished 
 to see effected, was such a reform of the Royal Academy as 
 would give a fair chance to every department of art. Haydon 
 was an enthusiast in his art, I admit, but he was practical in 
 his enthusiasm. Throughout his whole struggle with the Royal 
 Academy he shows, not only that he knew how to wait, but, 
 when waiting was over, how to act, and when he did act he 
 proved that he knew what should be done, and how to do it. 
 Enthusiasm tempered by so much patience, forethought, and 
 knowledge, becomes a valuable quality. 
 
 Before the close of the season, 1809, Haydon left town, 
 taking Wilkie with him, on a visit to my grandfather, at 
 Plymouth. Here, in his hospitable house, they seem to have 
 enjoyed themselves heartily, passing a month or five weeks 
 between my grandfather's country house at Underwood, and his 
 house at Plymouth, and being dined out and lionised in all 
 quarters. They passed on, in August, to visit Haydon 's uncle, 
 the Vicar of Cheddar, who showed Wilkie every attention in 
 his power, pointing out the beauties of the country, the famous 
 cliffs and caverns, &c, to all of which, Haydon relates, Wilkie 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 45 
 
 was singularly insensible, his " whole attention being absorbed 
 in observing the manners and expressions of the people before 
 him."* Wilkie would have derived more real delight from one 
 hour with the lazzaroni of Naples, than from all the glories of 
 Venice and the Adriatic. 
 
 From Cheddar they passed on to Bath to pay a short visit 
 to Mrs. Hun, the mother of Canning,f and an old friend of 
 Haydon's — in fact, it was she who taught him to read — and 
 from thence returned to London, and went down to Cole-Orton 
 on a visit to Sir George and Lady Beaumont. Here they spent 
 a delightful fortnight, lounging in the lovely gardens, riding 
 over the country, wandering about the woods and rocks of 
 Cham wood, sketching, painting, walking, talking, and enjoying 
 to the full that most enjoyable form of existence, life in an 
 English gentleman's country-house. There is nothing like it 
 in the world, and when your host is one of the most accom- 
 plished and best-informed men in Europe, and your hostess 
 one of the most attractive of her sex, a fortnight of such a life 
 at Cole-Orton is as near an earthly paradise — if the weather be 
 fine — as anything we can expect here below. 
 
 It was here Sir George Beaumont, who had previously given 
 Haydon a commission, now agreed to a life-size picture, and 
 settled the subject. It was to be a scene from ' Macbeth.' 
 But unfortunately, as it turned out, neither thought of a 
 written agreement for reference in case of misunderstanding. 
 Haydon, I presume, was too delighted to be allowed to paint 
 
 * Throughout the whole tour Wilkie displayed no interest whatever in tho 
 beautiful scenery he was taken to visit. A Devonshire "combe" he c mid not 
 understand, but a \v< st country ploughboy was a study to him. Haydon, who 
 kept a "Journal" of their jaunt, seems to have been as much piqued at Wilkie's 
 preference as De Mnistre with Madame de Hautcastel, when lie offered her a 
 rose for the ball :— "Elle la prit, la posa sur sa toilette sans la regarder, et sans 
 me regarder moi-meme. Nous fais >ns, ma rose ( t moi, une fort triste figure. ' Ne 
 voyez-vous pas,' disait-elle a sa femme de chambre, 'ne voyez-vous pas que ce 
 caraeo est beaucoup trop large pour ma taille ?"' &<•., &c. Much as Madame was 
 arianging her "earaco" for effect, was Wilkie studying the aboriginals before 
 him.— Ed. 
 
 t This friendship between the young painter and Canning's mother may serve 
 to explain the extraordinary coldness Canning always showed to Haydon. He 
 would ha dly speak to him when they met at the houses of mutual friends, and 
 never of Mrs. Hun. Canning always seemed ashamed, and Haydon always said 
 he was ashamed of his poor relations, and guilty of a most unsocial arrogance 
 towards his former friends. But I think this can hardly be asserted of him with 
 regard to his mother, with whom he regularly corresponded, and did not forget to 
 provide, his own official pension of 50(1?. a year being made over by Canning, 
 in 1801, to Mrs. Hun and her daughter, Canning's half-sister, for their two 
 lives. — Ed. 
 
4 6 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 life-size, for which he had pined; and Sir George probably 
 thought no more about the size, but only of the subject. This 
 was a matter of prolonged correspondence and much considera- 
 tion. At length details being settled, Haydon began the pic- 
 ture. The moment chosen is that in which Lady Macbeth, 
 rustling on the stairs, startles Macbeth as he is stepping in 
 between the sleeping grooms and the bed to murder the King. 
 It is a scene full of the sublimity of terror, but was a subject 
 almost beyond Haydon at that age. He had not yet a suf- 
 ficient control over his subject. Yet he has painted a grand 
 picture that rouses the whole force of your imagination and 
 inspires you with a terror common subjects fail to excite. He 
 pursued the same careful course here as with ' Dentatus,' making 
 studies of every limb, even moulding many to get at the prin- 
 ciples of a standard figure, comparing all with the Elgin Mar- 
 bles day by clay, and painting every part from the living model. 
 It was a very costly process, but sound. In November, 1809, 
 Sir George arrived in town, called, and finding the picture 
 greater in size than he had anticipated, went to Wilkie and 
 begged him to ask Haydon to paint on a smaller scale. This 
 was a mistake ; Sir George should have spoken himself. The 
 result was that, Haydon nettled at such a request coming 
 through Wilkie, and taking it as a reflection on his power to 
 paint life-size, declined to make the alteration. The figure of 
 Macbeth was already greatly advanced, and was really less than 
 the size of life. Lord iMulgrave then interfered, and pressed 
 Haydon to concede the point. At length he conceded, though 
 I have little doubt with such bad grace, that Sir George now 
 took offence, and disregarded the concession. Then Haydon — 
 out of regard for Sir George, he says, but more probably out of 
 pique, and for his own self-will, or perhaps for all three — chose 
 to assume Sir George wished to give up the commission, seized 
 the opportunity to enlarge the canvas and, painted in Macbeth 
 the full size of life ! Sir George was astounded. And certainly 
 such a proceeding had an unpleasant air of defiance about it. 
 I am afraid my dear father was wanting in tact. A man need 
 not adopt that extreme flexibility which enabled Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds to accommodate himself to the humours of everybody ; 
 but, on the other hand, he need not be all gladiator. A little 
 adroit management, and Sir George would have recovered his 
 ill-humour — would have seen the "Devonshire lad" was not to 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 47 
 
 be worried like Wilkie. and all would have gone well. But this 
 terrible ' Macbeth,' the full-size of life, appalled the poor man. 
 Haydon should have yielded, and have painted the picture the 
 cabinet-size Sir George wanted. "Why did I not yield?" Haydon 
 asks himself thirty years later, when good Sir George is safe in 
 his tomb — he was careful not to put himself to the question any 
 earlier — and he answers himself, "Because my mind wanted 
 the discipline of early training." The admission could do him 
 no harm then. But Nemo nascitur sapiens, sed fit. At length 
 matters were to some extent arranged. Sir George gave way, 
 and by the 18th December, 1809, I find Sir George writing 
 of some fresh change, " I approve of the alteration extremely ;" 
 and then, as if to give him good heart after their recent mis- 
 understanding, Sir George adds, "Laugh at those who sneer at 
 your perseverance. Were you only to produce a few excellent 
 pictures, how far better it is than disgusting mankind with 
 cartloads of crude and undigested works ! The lion produces 
 but few, but they are princely whelps. The meaner animals 
 overwhelm the earth with squeaking, grunting reptiles. Re- 
 member the perseverance of the Grecian sculptors. Depend 
 on it, one exquisite and perfect work will secure all the advan- 
 tages of what is commonly called immortality." 
 
 In the midst of his labours over ' Macbeth,' Lord Mulgrave, 
 in the spring of 1810, came to him with news. The Directors 
 of the British Gallery were about to offer one hundred guineas 
 as a prize for the best historical picture by a living English 
 painter. " Now," said Lord Mulgrave, " let me persuade you 
 to send ' Dentatns.' " Haydon demurred, " unless West, the 
 President of the Royal Academy, is going to compete." This 
 is a touch of character. Lord Mulgrave explained that West 
 would not compete, but that Howard, one of the hangers of 
 ' Dentatus,' was to be the Academy champion. Haydon and 
 Lord Mulgrave chuckled over this, we may be sure, and it was 
 agreed that ' Dentatus ' should be sent to compete.* Wilkie, 
 when he heard of this intention, came down with his usual 
 caution — " Do nothing of the kind. It is only just flying in 
 the face of the Academy." There was always a struggle in 
 Wilkie's mind between his regard for Haydon, compassion for 
 his ill-treatment, anxiety for his success, and profound reverence 
 
 * In his Autobiography Haydon gives a d ffeient version of this incident, 
 Bays that he " asked " Lord Mulgrave, and that Lord Mulgrave, " out of sheer 
 
43 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 for the authority of the Royal Academy. Yet in his heart, I 
 believe, he secretly admired Haydon's daring and defiance. It 
 was something he could not reach himself, but which dazzled 
 him in others. 'Dentatus' was sent to the British Gallery 
 and hung up beside Howard's picture. Haydon asserts that 
 the academicians used all their influence to persuade the 
 Directors to award the prize to Howard, or at least to put 
 ' Dentatus ' out of court. But this probably partakes of the 
 exaggeration and heightened colouring which belong to such 
 moments of excitement. On the 17th May, 1810, the Direc- 
 tors met to decide, and with the exception of Mr. Thomas Hope, 
 unanimously declared ' Dentatus ' the winner. 
 
 Whether Lord fthilgrave was much consoled, I cannot say, but 
 fearing the effect upon his ardent young protege he writes him 
 a warning letter against the mephitic vapours of academical life 
 and practice, urges him not to allow this success to lull him 
 into "a false security," nor lead him to "abandon his high 
 aims ;" and then he nailed up ' Dentatus ' in a deal case, and 
 never looked at it, nor allowed Haydon to look at it for two 
 years. 
 
 That the Directors' decision reinstated Haydon in his own 
 good opinion, if he had ever lost it, is only reasonable to sup- 
 pose. And had the Academy accepted the defeat of its cham- 
 pion, and said no more about the mortifying miscarriage of 
 their expectations, all might have been well. But no, they 
 were intractable ; the defeat was a planned result. The fact 
 of sending 'Dentatus' to compete with their champion was an 
 act of constructive rebellion, and Haydon should be punished 
 at the first opportunity. If, as Fuller says, " it is pleasant 
 music to hear disarmed malice threaten when it cannot strike," 
 Haydon must have enjoyed a sweet concert at this moment. 
 Whether envy and jealousy be vices more incident to painting 
 than any other profession I do not know ; but of this I feel no 
 doubt, that from this moment no man was more hated than 
 Haydon. Envy, hatred, and malice stuck to him for the rest 
 of his life like his shadow. So far Wilkie was right in his 
 advice, for the Academy had always the Octagon-room in 
 
 pity," allowed him to try for the prize. All this is wholly incorrect, I have 
 icason to know, and, indeed, as his own Journal of the day sufluieiitlv allows. 
 This is only one of many instances of the lazy and inaccurate manner in which ho 
 wrote his Life, without reierriug back to his early Journals, a luhour which 
 evidently, under the influence of momentary impressions, "boied" him.— Eu. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 reserve, and thus it came to pass that, when Haydon mainly, 
 I suspect, by Wilkie's advice, and with the view probably to 
 test the feeiing of the Academy, sent in a small cabinet 
 picture of 'Borneo and Juliet ' for the exhibition of 1810, the 
 Academy hangers immediately put it into the darkest corner 
 of the Octagon-room ! Haydon, hearing from 1* useli of this 
 fresh indignity, was as much diverted as angered, and going 
 down to the Academy in person, unhung his picture, and car- 
 ried it home with him in a hackney coach. This was the last 
 he sent to the Academy for sixteen years. Wilkie, in his 
 diary, says that Haydon sent iwo pictures on this occasion, and 
 that both were hung in the Octagon-room ; if so, it only aggra- 
 vates the offence, but 1 can only trace this one. 
 
 This, with the previous affair over the ' Dentatus,' and his 
 own rejection as an Associate, convinced Haydon, as it would 
 convince most men, that if he persevered with Ideal art, his 
 career did not lie through our Royal Academy. There was a 
 latent opposition between the spirit of the Royal Academy 
 and the spirit of ideal art. Their great instrument for the 
 promotion of art was the exaltation of portrait ; and certainly 
 where opportunity for creative art is wanting, portrait may be, 
 and often is, the only means of preserving the national interest 
 in art. Rut we had got beyond this in 1810, and, moreover, a 
 Royal Academy is established, and ours was expressly esta- 
 blished for the purpose of encouraging and supporting art in 
 all its branches, and of enabling painters to bring their works 
 before the public. Hence without meaning any reference to 
 Haydon, it seems prejudicial that a society, established for 
 such general purposes, should take upon itself to consider any 
 style of art, not indecent, as distasteful to the public. Haydon's 
 style of high art might not harmonize with the art of the 
 academicians. So much the better for them, I should have 
 thought, and certainly for the public. But in any case they 
 should not have put themsel ves in the position of being afraid to 
 challenge a fair comparison. Resides, there is something 
 grotesque in an institution regarding itself as fixed in authority 
 to put down everybody and everything it happens to dislike. 
 As regards Haydon, the object of the majority, in the complete 
 and evident absence of any other grounds alleged for his rejec- 
 tion, seems clear. It was to force him out of the practice of ideal 
 art into that of portrait. This was easier plotted than done. As 
 
55 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 La Fontaine tells us, it is no difficult matter to sell the bear's 
 skin ; but, the question is, how will the bear stand skinning ? I 
 have little douU, from what I have since heard and read, the 
 academicians counted upon stripping Haydon in time, but they 
 had not yet got over the prelim' nxry step of muzzling him. 
 What in effect they said was, " You are possessed of certain 
 opinions upon art which we do not hold with. It would injure 
 our ' custom ' to allow you to practise that art within our out- 
 ward-bounds. If you wish to exhibit with us, you must there- 
 fore suppress your convictions for our convenience, abandon 
 your High Art, and not in future presume to have any opinion 
 of your own. If you will do this, we shall be happy to pat 
 you on the back and see what can be done for any portrait 
 you may send, and in due time, perhaps, we may confer upon 
 you the honour of election." 
 
 No one can. feel surprise at Haydon rejecting a patronage 
 laden with such conditions. They might as well have pro- 
 posed to take the eyes out of his head, and offer him their 
 spectacles as an equivalent. Hut so it was. Just as Haydon 
 was brooding over all this, and considering whether any amount 
 of grafting could assimilate his views of art with the views of 
 this arbitrary club of pretentious pedants, to whom art was 
 nothing but a money-making machine, came that singular 
 intrigue of West, Shee, Phillips, and others, to drive poor 
 humble, harmless Wilkie out of his beautiful style of genre 
 painting into portrait, wherein it was clearly foreseen he must 
 fail. 
 
 I refer to the famous Bird and Wilkie case, mentioned by 
 Cunningham in his 'Life of Wilkie.'* This Hird and Wilkie 
 business was nothing more nor less than an intrigue got up by 
 the portrait academicians of 1810 against Wilkie. Leslie in 
 his memoirs gives a garbled account of it, with the evident 
 design of screening the Academy, and of throwing the blame 
 
 * The Academy was jealous of Wilkie, although he was then, 1810, one of their 
 own Forty. Institutions do sometimes show jealousy of g.nius, and if a mnn 
 shows a disposition to think for himself, tl at is a crime never forgiven. The 
 s eret of success in managing a corporate body, seems to be never to go beyond 
 the general apprehension. Any propositi n beyond the average calilire of minds 
 you have to deal with, is received as a reflection on the general understanding. 
 Enthusiasm is n nuisance, and zenl a concealed reproof on the iipatliy of the 
 m jonty. It is the same in all corporate bodies — art. science, literature, or public 
 departments The explanation. I suppose, is that, there is so much more 'mock 
 turtle ' than 'real' in the world.it is very difficult to decide in a given case 
 whi.h of the two one is dealiug with.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 5' 
 
 upon Haydon, but I believe the facts to be these. Bird, 
 a new man from Bristol, of considerable talent, but no match 
 for Wilkie either in humour or mechanical' excellence, had 
 some pretty bits of cottage life for exhibition in 1810. Wilkie, 
 it so happened, had nothing ready for that exhibition but 
 a little picture of a man teasing a girl by pr.tting on her 
 cap. Haydon, having some intimation of what was intended, 
 advised Wilkie not to send this sketch to exhibition, as it 
 was not fully equd to his high reputation. Unfortunately, 
 Wilkie, who had sufficient good sense in general to follow 
 sound advice, was not always sufficiently self-contained to 
 resist being led astray by interested men. A certain person 
 persuaded him to send it in. He sent it in, and then began 
 the intrigue. West, who always seems to have mixed him- 
 self up in these transactions, hurried off to Sir George 
 Beaumont and urged him to send for Wilkie and advise him 
 to remove his picture, or Bird would extinguish him. Sir 
 George at once sent for Wilkie, and told him West's opinion. 
 Wilkie in an agony of doubt flew to Haydon for counsel. 
 " No," said Haydon, " don't remove it now it is there. You 
 promised me not to send it, but now you have sent it, keep it 
 there." Wilkie promised to be firm. In an evil hour he 
 listened again to the voice of the stray charmer, went down to 
 the Academy, and met with the fate which befel that certain 
 man who once went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Shee 
 caught him by the button-hole, the others crowded up, and while 
 they "would not permit me," he told Haydon, "to see Bird's 
 pictures," persuaded him he had " no chance " against his new 
 antagonist, and urged him by all means to remove his own. 
 Wilkie yielded, took away his picture, and that night it was 
 all over London, Wilkie had acknowledged himself defeated. 
 " The Academy Council," Haydon says, " were in an ecstasy of 
 affected concern for 'poor Wilkie' who was afraid of public 
 judgment." 
 
 On the private day Wilkie went down with Haydon, ex- 
 amined Bird's pictures, and said at once, " If I had known this, 
 I never would have taken mine away." Bird's pictures Haydon 
 pronounces to have been extremely clever, but far inferior even 
 to Wilkie's sketch. Allan Cunningham, in his ' Life of Wilkie,' 
 confirms this. " 1 here can be no doubt," he says, " that the 
 picture which he too rashly withdrew would have maintained 
 
 E 2 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 his position in art against all opposition," and Sir George 
 Beaumont regretfully expressed the same opinion. But 
 Wilkie's humiliation was not yet complete. West suggested 
 to the Prince Hegent to buy one of Bird's pictures and to 
 command Wilkie to "paint a companion" to it. This addi- 
 tional indignity cut Willde to the heart. He fell seriously ill. 
 " I never saw a man," writes Haydon, " suffer so much." One 
 evening when Haydon called and was admitted with a caution 
 as to Wilkie's danger, he found him "lying on the sofa in an 
 attitude of the completest despair I ever witnessed. His head 
 was leaning on one hand. He had a Prayer Book near him, 
 and his whole air was that of a man who had taken a new and 
 a terrible view of human nature." It was many weeks before 
 Wilkie was out of danger, and then Sir George and Lady 
 Beaumont took him down to Dunmow, and nursed him as if 
 he was their own child. After this, Wilkie gradually withdrew 
 from his old and beautiful style of cottage life art to go ulti- 
 mately into portrait, in which he failed. " He never painted 
 again as he had before," writes Haydon ; "his subsequent works 
 are by no means to be taken as specimens of his own honest 
 conviction that he was honestly doing what he was best fitted 
 to do. He went abroad, and came back a negation in art." 
 
 All this deeply affected Wilkie's old friend. "I date my 
 disgust at the mean passions of the art," writes Haydon, 
 "from this moment." The best men in the Academy, Fuseli, 
 Lawrence, Northcote, Stothard, and a few others, were power- 
 less. The authority of 8hee, Phillips, Howard, and their por- 
 trait majority was supreme, and their aim perfectly clear that 
 the chief merit in art should be strictly a virtue of portrait 
 painters. No other style of art was to be permitted to take its 
 proper rank. 
 
 It is from this incident we may date Haydon's resolution to 
 withdraw himself from all official connection with the Royal 
 Academy. Wilkie, as we might expect, endeavours hard to 
 dissuade him. Years afterwards, in 1824, Wilkie said to 
 Bewick, "Haydon should have waited patiently and have got 
 into the Academy, then he could have taken a terrible retalia- 
 tion if he liked." This was Wilkie's view, but it was not 
 sound. The question is, would the portrait painters have 
 given Haydon the opportunity ? would they have let him in ? 
 In 1809 we have seen that they unanimously refused admis- 
 
B. R. HAYDON 
 
 53 
 
 sion to him. Had their objections to him and his art dimi- 
 nished? In 1810 another vacancy occurred, and Haydon says 
 he did not receive a single vote. Arnold was elected, and 
 in 1811 we know Haydon was not. All this was sufficiently 
 significant. To have put up again, and to have been again 
 rejected, or to exhibit again and have another picture hung 
 in the Octagon-room, would have done Haydon serious pro- 
 fessional injury. Society is so cowardly it is always more 
 ready to believe that, where forty men apparently unite in r< >n- 
 demning one, the one man must be to blame rather than the 
 forty men should be mistaken in blaming him. It is not 
 always the right conclusion, but it was generally adopted in 
 Haydon's case, and is never inconvenient. 
 
 In my humble judgment there was no other course open to 
 Haydon but to withdraw from the Academy. I am only 
 astonished at his resolve to appeal against the indiscriminate 
 respect paid to its authority, to expose its abuses and corrup- 
 tion, and to call upon the public to demand its reform, not 
 being arrived at earlier. Considering the treatment he had 
 been subjected to since 1807, I am surprised at his self-control. 
 
 In the course of 1811 Haydon says he confided his views 
 and intentions to Wilkie, and to Leigh Hunt, with whom he 
 had just been engaged in a public controversy on the physical 
 construction of the negro, an effort that consolidated Haydon's 
 power of verbal expression. Hunt, with the true relish of an 
 editor for a fresh pen on a new subject, warmly encouraged the 
 project, and placed his paper, the ' Examiner,' at Haydon's 
 disposal. Willue, with his natural reverence for authority and 
 his natural incapacity for a bold action, earnestly dissuaded 
 Haydon from anything of the kind. " Hunt," said he, " gets 
 his living by such things, you will lose all chance of it." 
 There was this risk, of course ; but when Wilkie went on to sav, 
 " Be an art reformer if you like, but be one with your pencil 
 and not with your pen," he forgot that matters had come to 
 such a pass in the art, nobody but a reformer with his pen 
 could hope to effect any reform with the pencil. Even Wilkie 
 could not deny that since the deaths of Romney and Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, British art had been undergoing a gradual 
 process of degradation and decay, to which the lioyal Academy 
 had apparently become reconciled, and which, judging from 
 their conduct, it seemed they rather liked. Nor does he deny 
 
54 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 that it is hopeless to expect a society, so constituted, to 
 effectually reform itself. Close corporations, he knew, never 
 spontaneously improve to any purpose. But, nevertheless, I 
 can quite understand that although Wilkie wished the reform 
 made, he did not wish it to be made by one with whom he was 
 so intimately connected — then almost related to— as Haydori. 
 Into his motives we need not look. Men rarely act from a 
 single and disinterested motive. His nature was against con- 
 tention, and he wished Haydon to work on peaceably with him. 
 
 In addition to Leigh Hunt, I find that Chantrey, the sculp- 
 tor, and Soane, the architect, and Collins, the painter, to whom 
 Haydon was much attached, all three united to press Haydon 
 to take up his pen. No other artist could write as well, and 
 there was none so thoroughly master of the subject as he. But 
 these were not wholly disinterested advisers. Soane was an 
 academician, Collins and Chantrey wanted to be. Their bosoms 
 burned with an incensed fire of opposite injuries. Soane was 
 even writing a pamphlet against the academical abuses, and 
 the feelings of Collins had been grossly outraged by the hang- 
 ing of one of his best pictures at the exhibition of 1811.* 
 Nevertheless Haydon believed them to be as sincere as himself. 
 Perhaps they were. At least one would wish to believe them 
 so, but when their "trial" came, when "they should endure the 
 bloody spur/' they sunk, like the rest of Brutus's " hollow men.'' 
 They proved to be rays only of uncertain light, that disappeared 
 in the distractions of the academical atmosphere, to re-appear 
 — on the opposite side. 
 
 There was one other behind the scenes who probably had 
 more to do with the appearance of the "Three Betters."' and 
 whose repeated expressions of contempt against the Academy 
 had a greater effect upon Haydon than is usually supposed. 
 This was Lord Mulgrave. 
 
 It was under these ardent influences the year 1811 fever- 
 shly passed, Haydon working vigorously at his picture of 
 
 * The picture was hung below the bar, just off the fiVr. Collins was so 
 wounded by the indignity that he addressed an official letter to the Council, pro- 
 1c>tiiTJC against "the degrading situation" given to his picture and demanding 
 permission to phw easing in front of it, in order "to protect the frame and the 
 picture from the ki ks of the crowd." Mr. Howard, R.A., replied on behalf of 
 the Council, grant'ng the required permission, and with an exquisite urbanity, 
 assisted by slight sarcasm, expressing his "surprise that Mr. Collins should 
 consider the position of the picture ' degrading,' inasmuch as the hanging com- 
 mittee had thought it complimentary." — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 'Macbeth,' to finish it,* and leave him free. From time to 
 time he seems to have dallied with the Academy business, 
 starting difficulties in the temper of one who felt the chances 
 were singularly against him, yet wished to have the difficulties 
 undervalued. The question with him, however, was not what 
 is the best thing for me to do, but what will benefit the art 
 most — my silence or my exposure of these intrigues and 
 abuses':" Consequences to him were like squalls against the 
 solid rock, that shook not. And as to gaining notoriety, I feel 
 confident that never occurred to him, or if it did, he saw it 
 would be unenviable, for no man better understood the way to 
 rise to rapid celebrity is not to attack a popular delusion, but 
 rather to defend the prevailing doctrine which society likes to 
 believe, but has no good reason for believing in. To echo and 
 serve prevalent prejudices, he says, is the " surest road " to 
 reward. But applause and reward was not what Haydon was 
 aiming at. He had a definite public purpose in view, viz., to 
 break up the supremacy of the portrait painters in the Royal 
 Academy, and on the ruins of their power raise the taste of 
 the nation by giving greater support and space to ideal art in 
 every branch, by using the influence of the Academy to secure 
 the establishment of public galleries of art, particularly of 
 native art, and of schools of design, local and central, and by 
 further efforts in a direction which he trusted would have the 
 effect of awakening the epic and dramatic spirit amongst the 
 students and painters, and thus exciting the reverence, and sym- 
 pathies, and high feeling of the British public for their native 
 art. It was not that Haydon was, as he has been erroneously 
 represented, " the determined enemy of the Academy ;" but of 
 the abuses and paltriness into which it had been sunk. No 
 man more heartily recognised the great services of the Academy 
 to art in the latter half of the last century, or more generously 
 bore testimony to the genius and skill of a distinguished 
 minority among its then living members. But he also 
 thoroughly understood the mischievous action of its existing 
 majority, who had no feeling for art beyond what they could 
 gain by it, and who were banded together to keep out or suppress 
 
 * As an instance of his extraordinary courage and perse \ erance, it is the fiict 
 that when he had finibhed the figure of Macbeth, not being phased with its 
 I .<>, i t i. m, he took it completely out, in order to raise it higher in the eauvas. 
 Wilkie and Seguier luoki d on in wonder, but both admitted the gre ter etiect 
 and improvement of the ch mge, though neither would have made it. — Ed. 
 
56 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 those who had. Full of his determination, Hay don now finished 
 ' Macbeth,' and by the end of January 1st, 1812. sent it to the 
 British Gallery to compete for the three hundred guinea prize. 
 Then he deliberately took up his pen to try and obtain a 
 reform of the Eoyal Academy. 
 
 Three letters, signed "an English Student," suddenly and 
 successively appeared in the 'Examiner' newspaper for the 
 26th January ; 2nd, and 9th February, 1812; and never before 
 nor since has the art of England been thrown into such an 
 uproar.* The burst of official fury M as so great, so alarming, 
 
 * Before the appearance of the first letter Sir George Beaumont had come to 
 London, s en the ' Macbeth ' sit the liriti.-h Gallery, where h- admitte I it kept its 
 place well against the 'Paul Veronese,' but said it was too large for any room he 
 had at Cole-Orton, and on the 29th of January wrote to Hay Ion to decline its 
 possession, according to their understanding, but offering 10(1/ towards expens s, 
 and a commission for a smaller picture, the price to he settled by arbitiation. 
 Haydon petulantly rejected both offers, s aid lie would " keep the ' Macbeth,' and 
 would not paint another picture on any account for Sir George." I suspect him to 
 have b.en nettled by the abuse lavished on the picture by West ;md the acade- 
 micians, by whom, he thinks, Sir George has been influenced. Possibly so; or 
 perh i ps the letter of the 26th of January may have had seme effect, for of "all men 
 Sir George must have known Haydon' s style and opinions, especially upon such 
 a subject as Mr. Payne Knight's essay, which they had doubtless often discussed. 
 Anyhow the excuse that he had no room at Cole-Orton will not stand. But the 
 •whole affair was an unhappy business and was unquestionably the origin of 
 llaydon's pecuniary troubles. Before he began 'Macbeth' he owed nothing. 
 On the day Sir George Beaumont refitted to purchase it be was nearly 5007. in 
 d.bt, the price he put upon the picture. In explanation of his " three letters " 
 to the 'Examiner,' Haydon in his Autobiography, written tlrrlv years later, says 
 1hat Sir George's unexpected refusal to purchase 'Macbeth,' the abuse of the 
 picture by West and the academical party, and his own pecuniary predicament, 
 exasperat.d him to that degree, "an attack upon the Academy darted into his 
 heal." But this lays more at Sir George's door than Sir George can claim, 
 while it is just another of those curious and illusive errors of imagination with 
 wh.ch llaydon's Autobiography sibounds. Nothing can be fuither from the facts. 
 In the first place his habit of c imposition was, that he wrote and corre; te I in Irs 
 head before he put pen to paper. And a careful examination of Irs MSS. and 
 private correspondence at this period shows that he had publ shed his ffst letter 
 three days before he had received Sir George's offer. By that time the second 
 letter must ha e been in the printer's hands, and the thiid already in his mind. 
 
 lids institution in its existieg form a's semetbing in the light of Milton's Sin :— 
 
 " Woman 
 Dut ending foi 
 
 .he waist, and fair, 
 many a scaly fold.* 
 
B R. HA YD ON. 
 
 57 
 
 that Soane's courage failed him. He suppressed his pamphlet, 
 clung to the Academy, and left Haydon to fight the battle 
 unaided. Chantrey catching the panic, stopped short of 
 schism and separation, and threw Haydon overboard after a 
 moment's hesitation. And Collins, what becomes of the faith- 
 ful Collins does not immediately appear, but that he too shrank 
 from the logical deduction of his complaints, and went down 
 into the deep profound, to come up like Chantrey in future 
 years a Eoyal Academician, is equally sad, and equally true. 
 Had the four held together, their weight would have been 
 irresistible, the Academy would have been reformed, and the 
 art advanced by fifty years. Then came a fresh defection. The 
 editors of the ' Examiner,' besieged by angry and vindictive 
 academicians and connoisseurs, in a moment of weakness gave 
 up the name of the " English Student." In the then existing 
 state of society nothing more was requisite. Haydon forgave 
 these equivocal acts of his friends with his accustomed gene- 
 rosity. He knew the necessities of editors, and he never thought 
 evil of any man. But he immediately foresaw that a hard and 
 long struggle was now before him. He had brought forty men 
 upon his back with all the rich men behind them, and he 
 might rely on it they would show him no mercy. Neverthe- 
 less he seems to have felt satisfied that, whatever the inter- 
 mediate consequences to him, the contest must ultimately 
 resolve itself into a struggle between the exclusive domination 
 of forty academicians and the national intellect. In the end 
 the Academy would be purified, the art freed, and the public 
 taste raised. Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir George Beaumont, 
 Mr. Locke, Mr. Thomas Hope, and many others expressed the 
 same opinion ; but they never forgave Haydon for writing the 
 " letters." 
 
 I have no doubt that mateiials for an indictment against the Academy had been 
 iincon.-eiouslv accumulating in llavdon's mind for many years. Every fresh 
 conversation\vith Kuseli, Jackson, Wdkic, and Iiell, only gave them colour and 
 form, and the "Bird and WilUie" scandal, in 1810, brought them to maturity. 
 He seems to have been resolved from that moment to seize an oppoit unity to 
 appe d to the public. In 1812 the opportunity occurred, aud he took it Hence 
 it was from no sudden inspiration, but with settled views and firm convictions 
 Haydon took the field, and solely, I believe, in the public interest. For his own 
 private interests nothing could he more fatal. For it was impossible he could 
 long preserve his incognito, and that, once broken, the pe ice of his life and his 
 pio^pects of employment were fatally impeiillcd. Hatred and contention would 
 cling to him for life, his talents would be denied, his motives impugned, and 
 himself deprived of employment on every convenient opportunity. —Eu. 
 
53 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 The " Three Letters " are well known. They are too long - to 
 quote in full, and, as they review all parties and persons in the 
 art of that period, have lost much of their interest. But on 
 certain main questions still at issue, it may be permitted to 
 quote from them. They are well written, clearly, and with 
 warmth. The first letter deals with the connoisseurs, and the 
 injurious influence they often exercise upon art by mistaking 
 their knowledge for natural taste and genius. Haydon takes 
 up Mr. Payne Knight, his old opponent on the Elgin Marbles, 
 the leading connoisseur, a distinguished scholar, and eminent 
 collector of that day, as a case in point. Mr. Payne Knight 
 had enormous influence on the art just then. In an unlucky 
 moment he had written an essay on Barry, the painter, and 
 his works ; and Haydon reviews the opinions Mr. Payne Knight 
 expressed therein, shows conclusively that many of those 
 opinions are narrow, mistaken, injurious to the true interests 
 of English art, and calculated to mislead our students. On the 
 question of scale in painting, he convicts Mr. Payne Knight of 
 self-evident contradictions, and worse — of absolute dishonesty 
 in his quotations from Pliny to support his own hostility to gran- 
 deur of scale, and prove his own assertion that the greatest 
 Greek painters confined themselves " to tabular pictures which 
 could not be great." This exposure Mr. Payne Knight never 
 got over, and never forgave. But it was certainly well deserved. 
 Haydon then goes on to show Mr. Payne Knight's further 
 assertion that "greater accuracy and elegance of detail is 
 required in small works," to be most erroneous and misleading, 
 greater accuracy being de facto required for large works, 
 because the principles of painting on a grand scale are to take 
 only the leading characteristics of things. Therefore in great 
 works on a grand scale the greatest knowledge, accuracy, and 
 power is required. " Painting on a small scale," writes Haydon, 
 " affords more means of hiding defects and of concealing a want 
 of information than painting on a scale where nothing can 
 escape the eye." But then, says Haydon, comes "the real 
 secret" of Mr. Payne Knight's hostility to grandeur of scale. 
 '• The manner of furnishing rooms to make them comfortable 
 in a northern climate, excludes very large pictures." " Here," 
 says Haydon, " comes at least the unanswerable argument. I 
 dispute not such an irrefutable reason as it regards yon 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 or me as individuals; but because your rooms are small, 
 do not sophisticate and attempt to prove that great works 
 on a grand scale are not necessary to England as a great 
 nation. Want of room for great pictures ! Why, are not the 
 halls and staircases of the nobility empty ? Are not the 
 public offices, the Ordnance, the Admiralty, the House of 
 Commons, the House of Lords, empty? Let us hear no 
 more of want of space. It is not want of space, but want of 
 elevation of mind. 1 ' 
 
 Mr. Payne Knight had also asserted that " the end of art is 
 to please." " No, sir," replies Haydon ; " the end of art is to 
 instruct by pleasing." Mr. Payne Knight had further main- 
 tained that it is " the most absurd of all absurd notions to 
 affirm that painting can convey religious, moral, or political 
 instruction. Can painting really excite pity, or terror, or 1 »ve, 
 or benevolence?" contemptuously asks Mr. Payne Knight. 
 " Can it really stimulate a man to heroism, or urge a man to 
 repentance, or show the horrors of guilt, or the delights of 
 virtue ?" " No, sir," replies Haydon, " certainly not, in such 
 minds. Pictures with such properties would pass unheeded 
 by, did they hang near a red herring by Jan Mieris, or a 
 Turkey carpet by Gerard Dow." 
 
 The second and third letters deal with the Royal Academy. 
 Haydon sets out by declaring the King, in giving his support 
 to the Eoyal Academy, to be " lending his protection to the 
 promotion of error." He shows that the chief use of Academies 
 of art is as schools of art to regulate, direct, and aid pupils.* 
 He points out that since the death of Reynolds, our Royal 
 Academy has greatly failed in this pre-eminent duty by reason 
 of want of due qualifications in the members, by reason of their 
 deplorable ignorance of drawing, their lack of fundamental 
 knowledge in all technical excellencies of their profession, and 
 their then utter want of sincerity and feeling for art. He gives 
 instances of their abuse of power; he calls attention to the 
 execrable character of the academical monuments and effigies 
 "that disgrace St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey ; he points 
 
 * This was quite the opinion of Sir Jo>hua Reynolds. In his Inst discour e 
 I find Sir Joshua enforces Ihis view. "I have taken every opportunity," he 
 tays, "of recommending a national method of study as of the last importance. 
 The great, I may say the sole, use of an academy is to put, and for some timo to 
 keep, students to that course." — Ed. 
 
6o 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 out their neglect of all means to spread a knowledge of true 
 principles of art and design among the people; he ridicules 
 
 their annual exhibitions— a mere market for saleable goods 
 
 " a splendid effusion of red curtains, where each academician 
 tries to out-glare his neighbour by red-lead and king's-yellow, 
 instead of out-do him by fine forms, fine outline, fine character, 
 and refined expression ;" and he asks, " When the people have 
 their heads so split by glare, by pageantry, by show, is it any 
 wonder they are so wanting in feeling for true art? The 
 artists," he asserts, "are the instructors of the nation, and must 
 create the taste by which they are to be admired. J )id not 
 Michel Angelo and Raffaelle create the Roman feeling ? Did 
 not Titian, I intoretto, and Giorgione create the taste at Venice ? 
 Are we, then, to expect the English people to be inspired and 
 to come and tell us what is right ? No ; it is the painter who 
 must instruct them." 
 
 With regard to the selection of paintings for exhibition, he 
 asserts that the best judges among the Academicians are 
 notoriously out-voted by the majority of mediocrity, and 
 that such power is a most pernicious power, and "if not 
 checked and controlled, will ruin or suppress the art in course 
 of time. 
 
 The reforms he indicates are an improved method of elec- 
 tion, so as to secure the best men of every department in the 
 art. a reduction of the power of the council, increased responsi- 
 bility, annual premiums, greater space for the exhibition of 
 works of ideal art, both in history and landscape ; schools 
 of design, and an annual grant of public money for art 
 purposes. . 
 
 Then, addressing himself to the students. Haydon urges them 
 to go with reverence to their work, and to avoid tin- acade- 
 mical defects by more attentive investigation and scientific 
 research. He condemns the neglect of all " study " of the 
 human form, denounces "that senseless, vicious, academic 
 squareness in draw ing which has mined or misled the hopes of 
 half the academies of Europe ; " and entreats the students to 
 get a perfect knowledge of Nature "as she is," before they 
 presume to make her what they think she " ought to be." He 
 shews them w hy knowledge of correct draw ing, the basis of all 
 good art, has not made greater progress in English art, viz., by 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 6 
 
 the unwise neglect of the Academy, where " drawing " is almost 
 wholly unknown ; reminds them that the future of English art 
 rests upon their endeavours, and promises them if they will 
 only discard academical teaching, pursue the art aright, and 
 make knowledge of form their basis, and then colour, light, 
 and shadow, there is no excellence within the scope of human 
 ability they may not attain. 
 
 The letters are evidently the work of a young writer who 
 is master of his subject. They put forth a sound system ( f 
 art education, and I can quite understand why such vigorous 
 writing upon a subject hitherto sacred to connoisseurs and 
 official academicians, and so entirely in opposition to their 
 existing practice in art, should have come in the form of an 
 astounding surprise to such very great men, and, as regarded 
 the writer, raised the keenest curiosity. No sooner, however, 
 was Haydon's name given as the real writer, than there was an 
 explosion of all that long-hoarded envy, jealousy, and wrath, 
 which always accumulates in society against a young man of 
 original mind who is dependent upon society for employment, 
 and does not wear his originality with submission. Haydon 
 was denounced at every dinner-table, and at some it was sug- 
 gested legal proceedings be taken against him. 
 
 In short, he awoke one morning to find himself a man forbid, 
 and all his reputation gone. In forty-eight hours more he was 
 regarded as one of the most abandoned characters of the age. 
 ►Society in those days resented anything that smacked of an 
 appeal to public opinion.* 
 
 * When Wilkie, after the si izure of his pictures in execution, painte d his 
 well-known ' Distraining for Rent, the Directors of the Briiish Gallery, who pur- 
 chased the work, felt such misgivings over the subject, that, incredible as the 
 statement may appear now, they hid the picture for years in their lumber loom 
 below, never daring to exhibit it. The whole tone and temper of society was, in 
 fact, against reflections upon established authority. As for the number of unfor- 
 tunate editors and writers who were prosecuted, fined, imprisoned, and even 
 transported in the first quarter of this century, their name is legion. Between 
 1812 and 1822 there were 270 Government, prosecutions for libel against authors 
 or publishers, and Haydon may consider himself fortunate that he escaped as he 
 did. Nevertheless, in taking up the cause of art and' design at the tune he did, 
 and in tlie manner lie did, Haydon performed a valuable public service. It was 
 absolutely necessary that it be done. No one else in the art had the courage to 
 attempt it, though everyone in the art outside of the Academy, and a select 
 minority within its walls, felt that it ought to be done, ami were secretly grateful 
 that Haydon had done it. If he was not prudent so far as his own personal 
 interest was concerned, he was at least honest and courageous and fuithfuJ 
 towards the interests of his art and of the public. 
 
62 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 His teaching, I admit, might have been a little too vehement 
 for the nerves of an over-refined society, and, in appearance, 
 perhaps wanting in that patience and moderation habitual to 
 Englishmen when viewing the errors of established authority. 
 But nothing could be more unreasonable in fact than to charge 
 him with want of principle, hasty prejudice, and unreasoning 
 intolerance. And they need not have denounced him as an 
 enemy to Church and King. But that was the tone of society 
 in 1812. If you disagreed with any public prejudice you 
 were immediately set down as a republican and atheist. 
 What really annoyed Haydon's noble friends was his writing 
 to a newspaper — that was vulgar. Men of rank have a great 
 horror of what is vulgar, yet no people are more ignorant 
 of what is so. It was nothing that he was altogether right 
 on the main question, and on all collateral questions springing 
 out of it. Why refute the aristocratic principle in art ? That 
 was one offence. As Lord Egremont said, "why write at all?" 
 And as Lord Dartmouth said, " why write to a newspaper ? " 
 That was another. Posssibly they thought mischief was too 
 precious a thing to be wasted on such a paltry object in such a 
 public manner. Such power should have been reserved for 
 employment by a minister. 
 
 And what was the mischief he had done, for which he was to 
 be punished? He had brought it home to the minds of his 
 readers that England was not more backward in art than Italy 
 had been under similar circumstances. That it was not from 
 climate or soil, or national inability to feel art, the English 
 people were so backward, but from local obstruction, from 
 apathy and indifference in high places, from the failure of the 
 Eoyal Academy to fulfil its public function, from its insincerity 
 in art, from its long neglect to supply those means of art train- 
 ing and education the public had the right to demand at its 
 hands. 'I he whole subject was one of serious importance to 
 the growing interests of England. 
 
 The nobility, feeling that the patronage of art was a part of 
 their duty as an aristocracy, might very well be pitied for their 
 want of knowledge of art as a class. With no art tutors at 
 Oxford or Cambridge, they left college just as wise in art as 
 they entered it. But for the Eoyal Academy there was no 
 excuse. During the previous twenty years it had subtly and 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 63 
 
 insidiously abandoned its most sacred obligation, that of pro- 
 viding sufficient art instruction for the people. And, under 
 cover of its position, it had abused its powers as well as 
 evaded its responsibility, degraded the art into a vulgar 
 trade, and made it a matter of manoeuvring and compact 
 without reference to the wishes of its best men, or interests of 
 the country. 
 
 All this Haydon exposed, with a rough indifference it may 
 be to the prejudices he aroused, but with an earnestness and 
 public zeal, and a total disregard of self that merited public 
 thanks rather than social exclusion. 
 
 The reception his " J hree Letters " met with from '* society " 
 at first dismayed Haydon. He says he had expected they would 
 " welcome the diffusion of truth." There is not hing the world dis- 
 likes so much. It is humiliating to your inferiors, and offensive 
 to all the rest. And in his effort to enlighten their understand- 
 ings, Haydon had pricked the great world's prejudices so sharply, 
 they quickly rejected both him and his unpleasant truths, not 
 because they could disprove them, but because they wished them 
 disproved. His arguments were at least strong enough to de- 
 serve to be cart-fully and impartially weighed, and his state- 
 ments should have been answered. But society refused to 
 discuss either. They were persuaded the sacred fires of art 
 were preserved in the Academy hut-house.* Then the King 
 was at the head of the Academy — authority must be sup- 
 ported — and the " Exhibition " was not to be tampered with. 
 Their belief and disbelief was not grounded on the evidence of 
 facts, but formed out of partiality and prejudice against the 
 evidence those facts established. 
 
 And Haydon was equally astonished at the tone and action 
 ta'<en by the Academy. He had evidently anticipated the 
 great law of retaliation would be put in active force against 
 him, and the matter openly and publicly discussed, much as 
 "discussions " (in points of faith and morals used formerly to be 
 practised. But,' to his evident chagrin, nothing of the kind 
 occurred. After their first burst of indignation was over, the 
 culprit discovered, the authorities in art proceeded to deal 
 
 * " Of ac idem'os of art I think like you. They nre a kind of hot-houses for 
 art's winter season, unfit to reup seeds, but exp.l'ent for every kind of sickly 
 plants."— LMer of RumOhr to Haydon, 9 April, 1842. 
 
64 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 with him deliberately. They first insinuated that he was 
 factious. Nothing tells so well with society and against your 
 enemy as the insinuation that his conduct has been factious ; 
 it is delightfully vague : it covers a wide space, and although it 
 is only one man's opinion of another man's action, its effect 
 is like the lie that 'sinketh in.' Then he had harassed the feel- 
 ings of their "venerable president;" this touched society's senti- 
 ments. He had produced "a maximum of irritation in order to 
 remove a minimum of grievance ; " this was universally ap- 
 plauded. And his conduct was ungrateful. " Ingratum si dixeris 
 omnia dices." In a short time, Haydon found himself driven 
 from the field. The academicians knew the prejudices of a 
 society which hated publicity ; and they were careful never to 
 be vehement. They only insinuated, they did not accuse. And 
 this exactly suited those serene regions where fury and feeling 
 are equally unknown, where " rage assumes the milder form of 
 malignity ; " where you are abused, but only behind your back ; 
 and your reputation is destroyed in a manner the most agree- 
 able and polished in the world. Haydon did not understand 
 this. It requires a considerable amount of experience in good 
 breeding. The academicians did, and here lay their advantage. 
 To a young man so ardent, and with a passion for everything 
 that was open, manly, and fair, there must have been much 
 that was galling in this attitude of masked malevolence. 
 " They whispered slander against me," * says he. I have no 
 doubt of it, any more than I have that, stung into retort, he 
 
 * The apologists of the Royal Academy deny Haydon's complaints of their 
 malice, and of their taking unfair advantages. But I must say I cannot bring 
 myself lo believe they had mucli tenderness of conscience in their treatment of 
 him. Haydon speaks day by day of what he knows, and feels, and suffers from. 
 The academicians were well organized, weie animated by one inteiest, and they 
 had many opportunities of doing Haydon many kinds of secret mischief with an 
 angry and credulous society. And they were not scrupulous as to what was 
 according to propriety and settled practice, and what not. They certainly seem 
 to have thought with Escobar, that, provided you directed your intention l ightly, 
 and with a good conscience, " licet per insidias aut a tergo perctitiat," and thcio 
 is little doubt they struck home. Besides, after his " Tlnee Letters, ' the acade- 
 micians had a manifest interest in ruining Hayd'-n in public estimation, for, by 
 ruining him, they hoped to conceal their own laches, and this interest was exactly 
 in proportion to their responsibility to the public. Of course if we are to take it 
 for granted tint the Royal Academy of Ha\ don's day was composed of perfect 
 characters, and if all our reasoning is to proceed on the conclusion that they 
 could do no wiong, the force of the argument in their defence must be admitted. 
 But, as Macaulay said of Lord El let) borough. " It is somewhat illogical to infer a 
 man's innocence from the flagraucy of his guilt." 
 
 [And 
 
77. R. HAYDON. 
 
 6> 
 
 found slander to improve by opposition. To this unlucky sort 
 of sensitiveness Haydon, all his life, was much too prone, for a 
 well-bred man, and it kept him in a perpetual state of fretful 
 irritability. He often vowed he would never answer another 
 calumny, but he always forgot his vow on the first provoca- 
 tion. This was unfortunate ; but I apprehend few of us can 
 placidly bear to be slandered. Even a Lord Chief Justice will 
 resent. 
 
 Thus, the first and prompt effect of his now famous " Three 
 Letters " upon Haydon's own fortunes was that he was left to 
 solitude and silence in his own painting-room. He found him- 
 self without sympathy, appreciation, or support, from that very 
 society in whose interests he believed himself to be earnestly 
 working, and with feelings of appiehension and distrust roused 
 against him in all quarters. In one word, he was " cut," and 
 his antagonists petted and protected. This neglect of equal 
 
 And that there is abundant proof of such animus against Haydon we have 
 only to search the published biographies of academicians deceased since Haydon, 
 and other works written by Koyal Academicians. Unhappily a Knowledge of the 
 truih dees not always imply an intention to tell it. Men who know perfectly 
 well the leal state of a case occasionally find it to their interest to represent the 
 facts altogether differently; that is within the common experience of mankind. 
 Let us, for example, take the case of Leslie, the painter, and a Royal Acade- 
 mician. Leslie was an excellent man in m ist lespects, and one of the best spe i- 
 meus of a Eoyal Academician this century has seen. Ytt no man uses his 
 knowledge to misrepresent facts more artfully, aud to Haydon's disadvantage, 
 tl.an Leslie. In fact the moment he touches the subject of Haydon and ti e 
 Academy, his statements cease to be trustworthy, or, charitable. I have little 
 doubt he was anxious to have truth on his side when dealing with Haydon 
 and the Academy, but, unfortunately, l.e does nut display equal anxiety to be on 
 the side of truth. The disingenuous manner in which, in his Autobiography, 
 he deals with facts in the Bird and Wilkie business, and in the ease of 
 ' Dentatus,' is striking. He first charges Haydon ('Handbook,' p. 154) with 
 absolute untruthfulness, and then in his Autobiography, wholly at a loss for 
 material to support this allegation against Haydon, yet anxious to serve the cause 
 of the Eoyal Academy, to which he belonged, he d< liberately misrepresents .-onie 
 facts, suppiesses others, and garbles all with the evident design of lowering the 
 reputation of Haydon, and of placing that of the Academy in the most favourable 
 light. And yet he must have been fully acquainted with all the facts, and was 
 wiiting deliberately, several years after Haydon's de..th, and with Haydon's 
 Autobiography before him. 
 
 If no other proofs existed of the virulent party feeling against Haydon, I 
 should regard this testimony of Leslie's as having a double value— first, as 
 corroborating the probability of Haydon's statement - of the habitual malice and 
 misrepresentation concerning him ; and secondly, as showing Haydon's statements 
 of the Bird and Wilkie business and • Dentatus ' affairs were contemporary state- 
 ments, and not disingenuous ficti. ns, put forward by him in his Autobiography, 
 thirty years later, for the purpose of damaging the Academy. If such is the con- 
 duct of their best men forty years after the events themselves, may we not draw 
 a reasonable inference of what was the conduct of the majority at the time when 
 p..ssions weie heated, and personal feeling bitter and .mplacabie?— Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 justice is the habitual sin of an aristocracy. They punish 
 indiscretions, but they reward great crimes. 
 
 A small band of personal friends, who had not fled to wait 
 upon his foes, who knew his statements to be well founded and 
 true, and who believed in his sincerity and skill, alone were 
 left to him. I do not know that he felt the change in his 
 position very acutely. Like the French marshal, he was 
 always ready " de quitter la plume pour dormir sur la dure," 
 and he slept not the less soundly. When his petulance 
 was cooled he took the opinion of society upon himself and 
 his motives, at its real value, an algebraical quantity some- 
 what less than nothing, and he returned to his painting- 
 room, resolved to make himself worthy of the responsibility 
 he had assumed, to quit himself like a man and be strong, 
 and we shall see in due time what he did, and what 
 society. 
 
 Dropped by his distinguished friends, and shunned by most 
 of his recent acquaintances as a sceptic and a republican — so 
 unjust and capricious is society in one of its fits of indignation 
 with a favourite — Haydon quickly formed his resolve. His 
 strong will acting upon his indignation made him determined 
 to succeed, and, when that cooled, his high ambition sustained 
 him. Thus, what the academicians had designed as a 
 hindrance, viz., his rejection in 1809-10-11, proved to be a 
 step to his success, for it stimulated him into more determined 
 action, and what under official patronage would perhaps have 
 taken him twenty years to effect, we shall now see wrought out 
 in five. He resolved to continue to expose the abuses of the 
 academical system till they were remedied, and he would at 
 once begin to paint a " series " of sacred historical pictures, 
 to be put independently before the English people. He 
 would try also to found a school of pupils, thus laying a 
 foundation for the practical extension of his schemes for the 
 elevation of art and design, by raising a race of designers 
 for possible contingencies. Then, like the son of Sirach, he 
 said, " Let us separate ourselves from our enemies and take 
 heed of our friends whose minds are according to our minds, 
 and who will sorrow with us if we miscarry," and ordering in a 
 great canvas 12 ft. 10 in. by 10 ft. 10 in., nearly 600/. in 
 debt, and not one shilling in his pocket, he began his first 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 67 
 
 great picture — some say the greatest lie ever painted — ' The 
 Judgment of Solomon.' 
 
 Here may he said to end the first period of Haydon's career. 
 If we look back to the night on which he arrived in London, 
 May, 1804, to this March, 1812, the results will he found not 
 insignificant. His ambition had been to do his work tho- 
 roughly, according to the best of his ability, and to pray for 
 God's blessing upon it, without much caring for the opinions 
 of men. In those few years he had sprung from being an 
 unknown lad, with no knowledge of art, to the first rank of 
 English historical painters. He wielded the resources of his 
 art with , a power and ease of which his contemporaries were 
 destitute. The knowledge he had acquired of the technical 
 detail of his profession was extraordinary, and no one knew 
 how he got it — it was by study only. Under great obligations 
 to Fuseli, which he always heartily and gratefully acknow- 
 ledged, Haydon had never had a master in the full meaning of 
 the term. He had taught himself to draw before he entered the 
 Academy school, and he had taught himself to paint since he 
 left it. He had extraordinary power of drawing, great expres- 
 sion, and a fine eye for colour. Leslie, no friendly critic, says 
 the purity and tone of his colour was not to be rivalled, and he 
 was singularly free from the faults of the theorists and pedants 
 upon art. He had shown, also, that while he had all the 
 industry of a drudge, he had all the courage, the force of 
 character, the invention and enthusiasm of genius, and yet a 
 temper that could bear indignity and neglect. 
 
 And it was not alone as a painter, that Haydon had made 
 this early reputation. It was also as a fresh and powerful 
 writer and conversationalist upon art, as the bold defender in 
 society of the value of the Elgin Marbles against the contempt 
 and depreciation of Mr. Payne Knight and the connoisseurs, 
 and as a master in argument and detail on all questions arising 
 out of the extension of Art and Design. He had disputed the 
 infallibility of the academical dogma, he had asserted the 
 claims of art and industry, he had vindicated the character 
 of the British school, and he had boldly exposed the negli- 
 gence, the ignorance, the low taste, and particular short- 
 comings of those on whom British art had to rely, and society 
 believed in. 
 
 But this style of thing is not to be done by any man with 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 mpunity. A "benevolent Nature has bestowed, upon certain 
 men in all societies, an instinctive appetite to resist those 
 whose talents, rank, or power command attention. If the man 
 be poor and unknown, without rank or position, so much the 
 more certain is it he is an " impostor." When a man of this 
 position presses on their notice, so that they cannot deny his 
 existence, nor dispute his success, nor avoid witnessing its 
 appearance, that follows which we might expect when we 
 remember the meanness and malignity of this portion of man- 
 kind. They begin by feeling uneasy, then scrupulous of ac- 
 knowledging the talents which cause their uneasiness, then 
 anxious to show that he does not owe his success to any dis- 
 tinctive faculty, till his celebrity becoming hateful, because 
 well merited, they devote themselves to the pleasure of 
 degrading him. They disparage his ability, impugn his 
 motives, and then blacken his reputation before the world, 
 till, at length, their foul words having " broken the charm " 
 of his fair deeds, they drive him into poverty or the grave. 
 When he is ruined or dead the personal pressure of actual 
 presence is over, and envy breathes again without pain. 
 
 Apart from what has been called the worldly impru- 
 dence of Haydon, and from that point of view his " Three 
 Letters " and his disagreement with » v ir George Beaumont were 
 the most indiscreet acts a young man in his position could 
 possibly commit — his career, up to this point, offers a singular 
 instance of the success that may be effected by the union 
 of temperance with industry and courage, and by thinking 
 steadily on one subject, not letting your mind float idly over 
 many. In this present age of Jacks of many trades and 
 masters of few, Haydon stands out well in this concentration 
 of the attention and faculties, and may be studied with 
 advantage. 
 
 With regard to his general course of conduct, I repeat 
 that I am satisfied his motives were high and pure, and bis 
 action disinterested. Haydon had no personal object in view. 
 His art found him poor, and we know it left him so. He 
 never made an investment in his life, and no wonder. In 
 thirty yeai's he cleared exactly 13s. Q>d. as his professional 
 gains in excess of his expenditure, which was moderate enough. 
 He might have had honours, for they were within his easy 
 reach more than once. He remembered himself too little, and 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 69 
 
 his art far too much, for his interest. The only favour he ever 
 asked for himself was the promise of a small pension to keep 
 him out of the workhouse when he should be old and past 
 work. The Eoyal Bounty Fund he never troubled, poor as he 
 was ; and the only honour he ever sought, the fair recognition 
 of the claims of Painting by the State, and the adoption of his 
 principles in art and design. 
 
 His hostile attitude towards the Academy is often con- 
 demned. But I hope I have been able to show that no grounds 
 exist for his condemnation on this head. There is no question 
 now that he was right. And surely no man could have shown 
 greater forbearance than Hay don between 1809 and 1812. He 
 allowed nothing to provoke him, and it must be admitted he 
 had more than his share of provocation. When the time came 
 to act he acted, and to the best of his ability. He saw what 
 was wrong in the art and in the Academy, and how it best 
 could be set right, and he confined himself to the stubborn task. 
 But he knew with what he had to deal, and how to deal with 
 it. In a contest with a close corporation like the Eoyal 
 Academy, nothing is ever gained by trusting to their spon- 
 taneous generosity, or by consulting their convenience. Weak 
 men often talk of " moderate measures." Moderate measures, 
 in such contests, are a mistake ; for the misery of moderation 
 is that you never have an active party for or against you. If 
 you are sincere, you pass your life in seeing your best efforts 
 drop unnoticed on the ground, and in any case you die before 
 your opinions get a hearing. But in general your men of 
 moderate measures do not even get so far as this. They pass 
 their lives shuffling and juggling between two conflicting 
 principles, and shaking in their shoes for the success of either. 
 There is only one rule in these matters and for all men, 
 " thorough." This was Haydon's rule, and from first to last he 
 never swerved from it. 
 
 It may be as well, before closing this period of Haydon's 
 career, to refer briefly to his projected reform of the Royal 
 Academy. His real aim was to reduce it to the level of a 
 School of Instruction. All the world outside is now tolerably 
 well agreed that Haydon's complaints were well-founded, and 
 that he was thoroughly in the right so far as his demand for 
 reform, but no one seems to have any very distinct notion of 
 
7o 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 what kind of reform is needed. The Academy has good laws, 
 but these are overruled by bad customs. Even academicians 
 confess that " something must be done." But all they propose 
 to do is to increase the number of academicians, and conse- 
 quently of academicians' pensions. It may be fairly doubted 
 whether any increase of mere numbers or pensions will prove 
 of advantage to the public interest. 
 
 In considering the affairs of the Eoyal Academy, it must 
 be remembered the Academy has no legal status ; it has no 
 charter ; it is not incorporated by Act of Parliament ; and no 
 one in Parliament seems exactly to know how to deal with it, 
 though, as has been suggested, it might be brought in as a 
 trade union. That a Royal Academy is not necessary to the 
 art of a nation is admitted. That can exist, and, until quite 
 modern times, always contrived to flourish without the aid of 
 academies. MM. Leon Say, Rumohr, Horace Vernet, Cornelius, 
 and others of authority in art, held with Haydon that acade- 
 mies are injurious to High Art; that they generate an artificial 
 style called academic, and distinct from what is natural, and 
 have never succeeded in approaching the fine art of Italy or 
 Greece, where schools only, and not academies, existed. 
 
 With regard to our own Royal Academy, originally two 
 broad conditions accompanied its power and privileges, viz., 
 that well-regulated schools of design be established through- 
 out the country, so as to give us good designers, and that 
 annual exhibitions should be open to " all artists " to place 
 their works fairly before the public eye. If an academy of art 
 does not fully and completely comply with these two primary 
 conditions, in addition to its own particular duties as a school 
 of art, of what use is it ? 
 
 Its official character may give it the sign of ascendency, just 
 as we see a golden canister swinging over our heads. It is 
 large and lofty, and extremely imposing ; but it fulfils none of 
 the purposes of the th'ng it represents, whatever else it may 
 represent. And so it is with a Poyal Academy of art, which 
 has not an active sympathy with every phase of art. 
 
 The silly superstition of society that a Royal Academy of 
 art necessarily holds a monopoly of the genius and taste of 
 the nation, is like the credulity of the old fathers in the special 
 productiveness of their barnacle tree. They could give no 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 7i 
 
 reason for the faith that was in them, any more than society ; 
 but they firmly believed the tree dropped its fruit into the 
 waters, the fruit cracked, and, out swam a gosling. One can 
 only say to such credulity as William III. said to those who 
 besought him to touch them for scrofula, " God give you better 
 health and more sense." 
 
 One chief error of society in this blind belief is in not per- 
 ceiving the general fate of every institution is to obtain a 
 high reputation for genius and excellence under its first pre- 
 sident, and to lose it under his successors. Then the inherent 
 vices of all institutions, such as a great capacity for favouritism, 
 vanity, intrigue, envy, faction, and " a passion for capriciously 
 fixing the criteria of excellence," according to Payne Knight, 
 are not likely to be diminished when you add to these the 
 patronage of the sovereign, the support of the nobility, and an 
 organisation of forty or so self elected members, not subject to 
 the control of the profession, not compelled to subject their 
 accounts to public audit, and with large funds, all the honours, 
 and nearly all the emoluments of the profession within their 
 grasp. Such a society so constituted and so armed, becomes, 
 as Macaulay says of literary societies, a positive star-chamber. 
 No man, in their particular profession, can hope to rise to dis- 
 tinction or wealth but by their favour, and this is only to be 
 won by submission to their rules and practice. Independence 
 of character, originality of mind or of research are kept down 
 to the dead level of the average comprehension. Genius is 
 not wanted, and zeal and enthusiasm are regarded as a reflec- 
 tion upon the apathy of the rest. In short, the best men are 
 lost in a majority of mediocrities. It is in vain that you pro- 
 test. Election will be granted not for the advance of art, but 
 according to the prejudices of that faction or party which has 
 the upper hand; and when their trust is abused, and their 
 great powers grossly misapplied, that will occur which always 
 occurs on such occasions. 'Ihe society will first argue, that 
 the question is one which does not really concern the public, 
 and then, explaining their conduct entirely to their own satis- 
 faction, they will make the very magnitude of the wrong they 
 have committed, ground for suggesting easy incredulity. The 
 thing is done every day in all departments of art, literature, or 
 science ; and let me in fairness add, nowhere more grossly than 
 in the public departments of the State. 
 
72 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Prima facie, it is of course the bounden duty of the heads 
 of these institutions and departments to act with strict im- 
 partiality, and they profess so to do. But the difficulty is to 
 agree upon the meaning and application of what constitutes 
 " partiality." There is the hitch, and there lies the enormous 
 risk of societies, or public departments sheltered from direct 
 responsibility, neglecting their duties, or, irresponsibly con- 
 stituted like the Eoyal Academy, misusing their power. 
 And experience teaches us the fear of such risk is seldom 
 misplaced. 
 
 Not to enter upon so large a question as the "schools of 
 design," let us take, for example, the single instance in con- 
 nection with our Royal Academy of hanging pictures fairly 
 for public view. This is a popular question annually discussed. 
 I am not a painter although my father was, and I have no 
 connection with the art, and therefore I can speak without 
 passion or prejudice, or even party feeling. But what happens 
 notoriously in our Koyal Academy on these occasions ? The 
 great painters of Italy and Greece, when their works were ready 
 for inspection, were free to hang them in the best public situa- 
 tions. But at Burlington House, a painter, who is not an 
 academician, no matter how famous in his profession, nor after 
 how many years of study and analysis, is compelled to trust 
 his reputation in the hands of those whose interest it is to 
 keep him from the public eye ; and there is no check upon 
 them. If his style of art be a style of art not practised by the 
 academicians, he is certain to be rendered indistinct. If it be 
 similar and superior, he may count upon being made viewless, 
 unless it suits them to hang his picture in sight.* Yet no 
 academician would seriously contend that all the best places 
 for public view, on the walls of the exhibition rooms, are to 
 be reserved for academicians and their friends. That would 
 be a vicious disposition. Nevertheless — from the difficulty of 
 agreeing, I presume, upon the application of that evil thing, 
 partiality — it is the disposition practically carried into effect 
 every year. 
 
 Here then is at least one shabby facility for injuring a re- 
 putation that is envied. Look at it how we will, this hanging 
 
 * Martin, the painter, said in evidence, before Mr. Ewart's Committee (1830), 
 "The general treatment I have had at the Koyal Academy is tins, my pictures 
 have been placed in such disadvantageous situations as to do me great injury. I 
 have exhibited eight times, and in every ease had to complain." — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 73 
 
 of pictures is placing in the hands of a small body of irrespon- 
 sible men a vast discretionary power, and, irrespective of the 
 manner in which that power may be employed, is it judicious 
 to leave such a power in the hands of non-responsible men ? It 
 is trusting too much to their sense of impartiality, if it be not 
 widely opening the door to favouritism and abuse. The result 
 is that we find the nation treated as George III. was treated 
 by Lord Bute. The Academy keeps from its eye men of true 
 merit, and annually sacrifices the public interest to their own. 
 
 The main cause of this, and of every other mischief in our 
 Royal Academy, will be found in the absence of responsibility. 
 It was to this leading defect Barry attributed the vices he 
 denounced, in the last century, and it is to this same defect 
 the abuses which exist may easily be traced. Responsibility is 
 the essence of good administration in art as in other matters, 
 and it cannot be said to exist in an institution which elects 
 itself for life, and when elected secures possession of a power, 
 that, however mischievously it may be abused, cannot be 
 withdrawn. This is the seat of the academic disease. It is 
 idle to upbraid men so privileged with abuses of their power ; 
 the power is put into their hands without conditions, and they 
 are entitled to exercise it according to their judgment, wrong 
 as that judgment may be. 
 
 But such a state of things is not advantageous to art and 
 ought not to be satisfactory to the public. Many schemes of 
 improvement have been put forward from time to time ; the 
 subject has even been discussed in parliament since Haydon's 
 death. But every plan and proposal put forth as yet is 
 marred by one vicious blot that renders the rest of it valueless, 
 and will double the abuse to be cured. They one and all 
 propose to increase the number of academicians, consequently 
 of academical pensions, yet without any increase of responsi- 
 bility, and thus they undertake to cure one corruption by a 
 greater. This is not even homoeopathic treatment. The object of 
 any reform of the Royal Academy should be to secure a more 
 honest stewardship on the part of academicians ; to get from 
 them some security for the exercise of their great powers, more 
 in accordance with the artists' sense of their own interests. 
 That is what is needed. At present there is no security of this 
 kind. The abuse is that, the Academy does not apply its 
 great powers as beneficially as it might and should. This 
 
74 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 is universally admitted outside the Academy doors. How, 
 then, is this to be remedied? There is only one way, and 
 that is by supplying new motives to the members of the 
 Academy, in order to make them more considerate and 
 more studious of outside interests And you can only make 
 them so by increasing their responsibility, and by making 
 them liable to dismissal for incompetency, or proved mis- 
 conduct. 
 
 Thus, the really effective reform would be, not to make the 
 coveted honour of R.A. any cheaper, but so much the dearer. 
 It should be held only by giving proof of those qualities and 
 acquirements which should render the exercise of the power 
 bestowed beneficial to those who should have its bestowal, viz. 
 the great body of outside artists. And to this end all 
 members of the Royal Academy should be required to be 
 elected, at certain periods, by a wide constituency taken from 
 the body of artists, say, for example, those who had exhibited 
 for three years No pension should be granted under fifteen 
 years' service, but gratuities might be bestowed in cases of 
 proved necessity. 
 
 The President should, as now, be elected for life, though 
 not, as now, by the academicians, but by the whole body of 
 artists, subject to the approval of the Sovereign, and a general 
 election of forty academicians should take place every five 
 years, one-fifth to go out annually with the full capacity of 
 being re-elected. The accounts of the Academy should be 
 published every year. The advantage of this plan would be 
 that a competent constituency would thus be acquired, that 
 Royal Academicians so elected would not be liable to that 
 fatal academic infection which has spoiled so many good men 
 when once elected for life, and that a check would be placed 
 upon their official expenditure. 
 
 For academicians elected on this plan would always feel 
 that their continued possession of academical honours de- 
 pended on their possession of the esteem and confidence of the 
 great body of artists. Hence, to acquire or retain his seat the 
 candidate must have first obtained " the good opinion of his 
 brethren outside." 
 
 Nothing fairer, I conceive, can be proposed. The publica- 
 tion of the accounts would act as a beneficial check on extrava- 
 gance or misapplication ; the prerogative of the Crown would 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 75 
 
 remain where it is; the Academy would not be under the 
 dictation of the electors, and the mass of the non-elected, 
 though essentially untouched, would in very many respects 
 find themselves in a superior position, and, certainly, Royal 
 Academicians so elected would feel the force of motives which 
 have hitherto had only the faintest influence upon their 
 society. 
 
76 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 SECOND PEEIOD. 
 
 The second period of Haydon's career began, as we see, in 
 trouble. It rose through greater trouble to a period of high 
 reputation, splendid successes, and then suddenly collapsed 
 under complete ruin. Haydon, once separated from the 
 incubus of the Royal Academy, resolved to carry out the series 
 of changes he was bent on accomplishing for the art in Eng- 
 land. He is the first painter in whom we can trace, throughout 
 the whole period of his life, the steady working out of a clear 
 and definite public purpose without reference to his own 
 personal gain. His purpose was to have Ideal art, in its epic, 
 dramatic, and historic branch, put before the public in a 
 high form, combined with a close imitation of nature, so as 
 not only to delight the senses, but to excite the grander 
 passions of the soul, and call forth what is noble and good 
 within us. He formed, too, at this period a vast scheme for 
 the art-education of the people. Whatever he lived to carry 
 out was only a small portion of his plans. For himself he would 
 try to produce ideal works that should stand with the old 
 masters, and he would do his best to train and educate a race 
 of great designers — young men as enthusiastic and industrious 
 as himself, and who should be equal to the great public works 
 that would yet have to be done in this country. He would do 
 his utmost also to wring from ministers and parliament public 
 employment for historical painters. All this was not the 
 result of exaggerated illusions, the fruit of an over-heated 
 brain, but of very deliberate and well-considered plans ; his 
 object, to raise the taste and increase the skill of his country- 
 men, and add to the greatness of England's glory. 
 
 But his difficulties were immense. True, his views and 
 principles found a strong argument in the degradation of 
 
B. R. HA YD OAT. 
 
 77 
 
 academic art, in the antagonism and animosity of the artists 
 against the Academy, and in the yearning of the young men 
 for a higher and purer art, but there was an appalling reverse. 
 He was without capital, almost without friends, without credit, 
 and in debt.* These were obstacles not easily to be overcome. 
 And there was now another check upon him in the hostility of 
 the Royal Academy, and in the suspicion and disesteem of the 
 nobility and patrons. Neither of these were to be despised, 
 but they were of that class of obstructions not to be too 
 closely considered in the execution of a great project. 
 
 Mr. Prince Hoare, one day in March 1812, met him walking 
 down the Haymarket, admitted the truth of all he had written, 
 but said, " They will deny your talents and deprive you of 
 employment." " Yet," replied Haydon, " if I produce a work 
 of such merit as cannot be denied, the public will cairy me 
 through." " They know nothing of art," said Prince Hoare. 
 " That I deny," returned Haydon ; " the merest shoeblack will 
 understand Ananias." Mr. Hoare shook his head despondingly. 
 " What do you propose to paint ? " " The Judgment of Solomon." 
 " Why Rubens and Raphael have both tried it," said Mr. Hoare 
 with surprise. " So much the better," said Haydon composedly ; 
 " I will tell the story better." Mr. Hoare smiled. " And how 
 are you to live?" " Leave that to me." " Who is to pay your 
 rent?" " Leave that to me." " Ah !" said his old friend, "I see 
 you are ready with a reply ; you will never sell it." " 1 trust in 
 God," replied Haydon. " Well," said Mr. Hoare, drawing a 
 long breath, and in a tone that showed his belief in what 
 would soon happen, " if you are arrested, send for me." 
 
 It is only a conversation like this and in words like these 
 that brings home to us the real difficulties of Paydon's posi- 
 tion, and displays the courage, the tenacity, and the insuppres- 
 sive mettle of his spirit. Imagine a young man in such a 
 situation, without a sixpence in the world, and in debt, living 
 in a noisy street of a city eminently hideous, surrounded by 
 people dressed in the ugliest costumes, and with nothing 
 
 * How Haydon contrived to live during the next two years at first appears a 
 mystery. But his own trade-men gave liim full credit, and for anything else he 
 went to the money-lenders, who assisted him, though at the rate of sixty per cent. 
 How he paid this interest was by the simple method of incurring a fresh debt to 
 pay off the did one, till at length, his punctuality becoming known, his patronage 
 was sought, and offers made to accommodate him at forty per cent. And this 
 nmained his normal rate for the rest of his life. This for punctuality, aud 
 ninety per cent, (in law costs) for unpunctuality, explains much. 
 
78 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 more picturesque to excite his imagination than the Lord 
 Mayor's Show or a May Day, deliberately sitting down to con- 
 ceive, and what is more, to paint on his own responsibility, so 
 grand a work as the " J udgment of Solomon " upon the scale 
 of life! It says a good deal for the powers of his young mind. 
 
 The next morning he arose with the now proverbial " light 
 heart," and having prayed to God to guide him aright, and 
 found, as curiously enough he never failed to find, his inward 
 conviction to agree with his own self-will, he sent for his 
 model, and painted in the head of the " Wicked Mother." 
 
 With this picture Haydon pursued and carried further the 
 same cautious course he had followed with ' Dentatus ' and 
 ' Macbeth.' He painted nothing without first making careful 
 studies from the Elgin Marbles, then from nature, and always 
 painted from a living model before him. This is the true 
 principle — always to keep nature in view at the moment of 
 practice. The expense was terrible, but it is the true method, 
 though far too costly and troublesome for most painters to 
 follow. 
 
 I must return for a moment to 'Macbeth.' Having been 
 sent to the British Gallery (previous to the appearance of the 
 " Three Letters ") to compete for the prize of three hundred 
 guineas, it became the duty of the directors, in April 1812, to 
 award the prize. In the opinion of competent judges ' Macbeth ' 
 was far ahead of anything else in the room. But how could 
 the directors now award the prize to a young man who had the 
 audacity to ridicule the judgment of connoisseurs, and con- 
 demn the conduct of the King's Academy ? Here was their 
 dilemma. If they awarded the prize to Haydon it would give 
 offence to society, to the connoisseurs, by the breath of whose 
 nostrils they lived, and to the Koyal Academy, which they 
 were bound to support. And yet they could not conscien- 
 tiously give the prize to any other of the competitors, the 
 works of these being so inferior to ' Macbeth.' What was to 
 be done ? Like all men who have not the courage of their 
 opinions, the directors devised an "expedient" — that hateful 
 shelter for a lie — the refuge of every form of weak or dis- 
 honest administration. They would give prizes to nobody, but 
 they would take the prize moneys, five hund ed guineas in 
 all, which they had pledged their honour to give in different 
 prizes to different classes of competitors, and go into the town 
 
The E&ecuUzonat: &JIeads in, •Solonu'ti . 
 First pen- sketch October <?* 1S13. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 79 
 
 and buy for their own gallery a picture which had never com- 
 peted at all.* 
 
 Thus they said to themselves, " We shall get well out of our 
 difficulty. We shall not reward llaydon, but we shall not do 
 him the injustice of rewarding anybody else, and we shall 
 encourage art. Moreover, we shall add a picture to our 
 gallery." 
 
 It is satisfactory to think that their calculations turned out 
 mistaken. They got heartily abused by all parties for their 
 unpardonable breach of faith, and laughed at into the bargain 
 for buying a bad picture! Such is the fate of men when they 
 abandon a principle for what they deem expedient. 
 
 This abstraction from Haydon of the three hundred guineas 
 prize upon which he had counted, and which he had fairly 
 won, was the first serious return blow he received for his 
 " Three Letters." Coming upon the top of Sir George Beau- 
 mont's curiously unkind withdrawal, it hit Haydon as hard as 
 his best enemies could well wish. His warm friends, (Sir) 
 Charles Bell and Joseph Strutt, of Derby, came to his support 
 promptly. And it is due to Leigh Hunt and his brother 
 John, to say that, they offered Haydon all the assistance their 
 limited means allowed, and when those limits were reached, 
 Leigh Hunt initiated Haydon into the mysteries of drawing 
 and discounting bills, of which, for my part, I heartily desire 
 he had remained ignorant. 
 
 Haydon was young, he was in good health, he had no 
 encumbrances, but he had 601)1. of debt round his neck, and 
 no money of his own. His father had retired from his busi- 
 ness, and indeed died a few months after, when the printing 
 and publishing business, with the interest of which Haydon 
 never seems to have troubled his head, passed, nobody knows 
 how, to nobody knows whom, who sold it, nobody knows why, 
 and disappeared nobody knows where. Thus Haydon's position 
 was becoming critical. He felt it, and knew it, but he was 
 one of that order of minds which never waits for prosperity and 
 great powers for the accomplishment of its object. Men who 
 do, never effect much to be proud of. The man who delays 
 
 * They bought Richter's 'Christ Healing the Blind,' according to Haydon's 
 nntes. It is only fair to the directors to add that they sent the leading compe- 
 titors a cheque of thirty guineas each to cover their "expenses." Haydon indig- 
 nantly returned his. — Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 his attack till 'the next morning ' generally loses the battle 
 or finds nothing to attack. But those who make the best use 
 they can of the apparently inadequate means within their 
 reach, and trust to their own energies and constancy to carry 
 them through, work what are called miracles — Haydon wad 
 essentially one of these men. 
 
 For the next twenty months, with one brief visit to his uncle 
 at Cheddar, he kept closely to his work. Into society he no 
 longer went, and society neither sought nor missed him 
 apparently. Lord Mulgrave alone remembered him enough 
 to send him to see the Prince Regent open Parliament 
 (November, 1812). It was on this occasion Haydon seeing 
 Lord Wellesley, in the heat of debate, throw himself into the 
 attitude of Eaphael's St. Paul preaching at Athens, conceived 
 the idea of a series of pictures on a grand scale for the de- 
 coration of the Houses of Parliament, illustrative of the 
 principle for which the building is erected. He came home 
 full of the subject and consulted Wilkie, who was delighted 
 with the scheme, and William Hamilton of the Foreign Uffice, 
 who suggested Nero burning Rome as an illustration of 
 Despotism. Haydon at once made a series of sketches, and 
 one painting of the House, with the pictures in their plac s, 
 which I well remember, and very striking and powerful in 
 effect it was. But there was no hope just then of getting 
 ministers to accept any plan of this kind. Europe was con- 
 vulsed with the news that Napoleon had arrived in Paris from 
 Moscow, but without his army. The ministers had weightier 
 matters on hand than art and decoration. The beginning of 
 the end of an Empire was at hand. 
 
 The year 1813 came and passed, and brought no change in 
 Haydon's situation. By the end of the year he was reduced to 
 the greatest extremity and want. His father was dead, his allow- 
 ance lost, he was selling his books, his prints, his drawings, his 
 keepsakes, his very clothes to pay for his models and materials 
 of art, and for part of the little food he allowed himself. Now 
 and then the thought must have crossed his mind like Burns' — 
 
 " Had I to gude advice but larkit 
 I might, by this, hae led a market, 
 Or strutted in a bank and clarkit 
 
 My cash account ; 
 While here half mad, half fed, half sarkit, 
 Is a' the amount." 
 
Pen Sketch in Journal, 1813. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 81 
 
 But we may rely on it, the conclusion each time revived in 
 Haydon the resolution not to give in. And he was right. To 
 be weak is to be miserable. Difficulties should only rouse 
 our mettle to greater energy and exertion. But the strife was 
 hard. Day after day, during the latter half of IS 13, he rose to 
 a day of constant toil, and never to sufficient sustenance. He 
 fell seriously ill, but worked on. Through neglect, sickness, and 
 want, I never find him flinching. He stands his ground firmly, 
 he never whines, never makes a complaint, but works steadily 
 on with the confidence that conscious ability alone gives. It is 
 impossible to withhold our admiration of the temper and judg- 
 ment he displays at this period of his life. We might almost 
 apply to him the complimentary lines of Pope to his friend 
 Harley — 
 
 "A soul supreme in each hard instance tried, 
 Above all pain, all passion, and all pride, 
 The rage of power, the blast of public breath, 
 The lust of lucre, and the dread of death." 
 
 In his painting-room, Haydon found all he wanted. Society's 
 exclusion of him drove him neither into misanthropy, nor 
 vice. He preserved his intellectual health, untainted. He 
 would not seek to distract his evenings by dissipation, and he 
 refused to condemn the whole race in one sweeping anathema 
 of hatred and contempt. He bided his time like a man, 
 working on, trusting in God, hoping much, alone, unaided and, 
 except by a few staunch friends, forgotten. Who amongst us 
 would, at that age, face two years of such a life and come out 
 of it so free from the levity and recklessness of bigotry or vice ? 
 Of his physical health he was not so careful. He lived latterly 
 on potatoes and salt, and painted himself blind at the last. In 
 an agony of doubt he sent for Adams, the oculist. Adams was 
 out. Haydon sent for a " cupper." The man persuaded him to 
 have his temporal artery opened. Haydon lay down for the 
 operation, when Adams came into the room just in time to pre- 
 vent the mischief which, he said, would have blinded the painter 
 for life. As soon as Haydon was sufficiently recovered under 
 Adams's kind care, he finished the picture, and in good time 
 for the season of 1814.* Soon the rumour got about town that 
 
 * He was not quite satisfied with the expression of Ihe real mother, but, just 
 as he was thinking of painting her out he overheard an old-woman model say to 
 herself, "Ah, poor soul, how frightened she is!" This satislied Haydon he had 
 touched a chord iu the human heart, and he left tL e head as it is.— Ed. 
 VOL. L U 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 Haydon bad painted a great picture, and was going to exhibit 
 it alone. "West, the President of the Eoyal Academy, sud- 
 denly called, an honour he had never before conferred. He 
 looked long at the picture, and at the poor pale spectre of a 
 painter, half blind, half starved, standing before him. " This 
 is a work," he said in a low voice, " which must not be for- 
 gotten," and then, he began to cry. After a while, he said, 
 "Have you any resources?" '• They are exhausted." "Do 
 you want money ?" " Indeed, I do." " So do I," replied West. 
 " They have stopped my income from the King,* bnt Faunt- 
 leroy is now arranging an advance, an I, if I succeed, my 
 young friend, you shall hear from me. Don't be cast down." 
 In the course of the day there came a cheque from him for 
 15?., with a note that appears in the ' Correspondence.' This 
 was good of West, and must not be " forgotten." 
 
 Now that the picture was finished came the question of its 
 exhibition. Wilkie wished it sent to the Eoyal Academy to 
 heal all wounds. It was too large, I think, to fit into the 
 Octagon-room, and, to this extent Wilkie gave prudent counsel. 
 But the " scalded cat dreads cold water," and Haydon had 
 already suffered so much, he preferred to get out of reach of 
 the hose of Academy and British Gallery, and so the picture 
 was sent to the Water Colour Society, then in Spring Gardens. 
 
 The exhibition opened, and among the first visitors, on the 
 private day, was the Princess Charlotte of Wales. In at- 
 tendance upon her Royal Highness was Mr. Payne Knight, 
 and we may be sure that when he saw the great picture before 
 him, he well knew whose work it was. Walking up to the 
 canvas, he put his eye close and called aloud, "Distorted 
 stuff!" then, falling back, he said something in a low voice to 
 her Royal Highness, who turned round to the astonished 
 directors, and with all the grace and suavity of making a poor 
 painter's fortune by a kind word, said severely, " I am very 
 sorry to see such a picture here," and walked away without 
 deigning to look at it a second time. When this was repeated 
 to Haydon, he laughed, and said, " Well, well ! I feel sorry, 
 
 * Queen Charlotte, who hated West, because ho w s an Americm and had 
 hoen honoured by N;ipohon in 180.', on the declared insanity of the King bad 
 used her great influence to deprive West, now in his eightieth year, of the ino >nie 
 (101)0/. a year) allowed him bv George III. On the other hand, it is amu-ing to 
 remember that George III. had originally patronized and promoted West out of 
 dislike to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was intimate with Fox and Burke. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 8) 
 
 too. but it is that I have not been her Royal Highness's in- 
 structor in art, I would have taught her better;" and he 
 waited with resignation for the public day. As an instance of 
 the immediate ill-effect and ultimate no effect of a connois- 
 seur's opinion this is unique. 
 
 When the Monday came, and the many headed monster was 
 admitted, the directors were quickly relieved of all alarm 
 caused by the disvalue of royalty. Haydon's superb picture 
 was mobbed. Competent judges declared it to be the finest 
 historical work ever painted by an Englishman.* Mr. Lock, 
 of Norbury Park, said the execution had never been exceeded. 
 One of the visitors offered Haydon five hundred guineas for it 
 on the spot. He declined ; it had cost him more. The next 
 day a deputation of the directors of the British Gallery came 
 over to purchase it at its price, seven hundred guineas. 
 Whilst they were talking together, admiring its beauties, a 
 private gentleman, a Mr. Tingcombe, stepped behind to the 
 Secretary, and gave him a cheque for the amount. The 
 Secretary walked over and put up " Sold." " Eh ! what ! " said 
 the deputation, " but we have come to buy it." " But, gentle- 
 men, you did not say so, and this gentleman has bought it." 
 The deputation retired to consider their position. At their 
 next meeting they voted Haydon one hundred guineas as an 
 expression of their admiration, and regret. Meanwhile, the 
 rush to see this " wonderful work " continued. The " thought- 
 less rabble," as Barry called society, now congratulated Lord 
 Mulgrave and Sir George Beaumont upon their discern- 
 ment, as heartily as they had laughed at them in 1809 for 
 their credulity, and forgetting all it had said against Haydon 
 
 * A modern critic of some pretensions— Mr. Watt*, the portrait painter— has 
 found fault with Haydon's ' Solomon,' because the king is paintel as if he were 
 ri'>t really in earnest when ordering the child to be cut in twain. Like Mrs. 
 Overdo in the play, the mind of Mr. Watts is " distempered with this eno mity." 
 Unfortunately, however, f..r Sir. Watts, the error is in his supposing that Haydon's 
 conception of Solomon indicates so marvellous an inferiority to his own ; whereas 
 it is altogether Mr. Watts who is in fault, in forgetting that Solomon was not in 
 earnest, and that the idea which is embraced by Mr. Watts in 1852 1 ad occurred 
 to Haydon fifty years before, and been rejected. Thus it always is with critics 
 of a certain class of mind. They miss in a picture the very tiling they would not 
 have left out, and hug themselves with their fancied superiority. In Haydon's 
 Journal for 2nd Oetober, 1812, I find the following:— " All painters have, I 
 think, erred in giving too much of an appearance of earnestness to Solonv n's 
 judgment. The delicacy, I think, is to give the incident the air of a truth 
 without making it laughable, so that tli6 spectator may see the ex* cution was 
 not meaned, and yet feel interest for the niotuer, who thought it was." — Ed. 
 
34 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 two years before, turned round, embraced him with rapture 
 as the apostle of High Art, and made a "lion" of him for the 
 rest of the season. Poor society ! it is always in extremes of 
 morality, of profligacy, of praise, or, of detraction. If society 
 is good for nothing else, it is certainly, as Hazlitt said, "a 
 fine subject for speculation." Wearied of the limited sphere 
 to which its exertions are confined, it is always eager for 
 something novel and exciting, and what more likely to relieve 
 its ennui than a young man it thought starved, coming out 
 with real flesh on his bones, and with a picture it had 
 never seen, on a subject it had forgotten ? It would have 
 been no great credit to Haydon, with his gifts, if he had 
 painted such a work at ease and in affluence. But the relish 
 of the whole thing was that he had actually lived and painted 
 it under circumstances of the most distressing want. That 
 was the treat. A well-fed man of genius would have lost half 
 his interest, but there was an unspeakable charm about a 
 starving one.* 
 
 Haydon received their advances and heard their praises, but, 
 although he enjoyed his triumph, he said little. He might 
 have well said to them as Johnson said to Lord Chesterfield, 
 " I have pushed on my task through difficulties of which it is 
 useless to complain, without one act of assistance, one word 
 of encouragement, one smile of favour." But, whatever his 
 thoughts, Haydon held his peace, and left London early. 
 His position at the head of the art was decided. He had 
 passed far beyond all his contemporaries, and it remained 
 only for him to show whether the progress of his improve- 
 ment would cease now competition had ended. Meanwhile, 
 the fame of the picture travelled far and wide. It reached 
 Scotland, and laid the foundation of those sincere friend- 
 ships which Haydon retained there to the end of his life. It 
 arrived in Plymouth, and so delighted the townsfolk, that 
 the Mayor and Corporation called a meeting and unani- 
 mously voted Haydon the freedom of his native borough, as 
 a mark of their esteem and respect for his industry, ability, 
 and courage. It passed over to Paris and excited the French 
 
 * As Valere says, in ' L'Avare,' " de faire bonne chore nvec bicn de l'argent, 
 c'cst une chose la* plus aise'e <lu monde. mais pour agir en habile homme il f.iut 
 p.uler do t'.mv bonne chore avec peu d'argent," and this Ha) don, 10 their great 
 delight, had done. They were profuse in their praises accordingly. But they 
 kept their purges closed.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 S5 
 
 artists so greatly, they begged the picture to be sent over and 
 exhibited in Paris. It reached Italy and Home, and stimu- 
 lated the curiosity of Canova. It travelled to St. Petersburg, 
 and aroused Haydon's great Eussian relatives from their 
 lethargy and neglect. They suddenly discovered he was worth 
 writing to. And it even spread into India, and into New 
 South Wales, to warm the hearts of old schoolfellows who 
 remembered him trying to etch, and squeeze off impressions 
 with a table-cloth press. 
 
 Before he left London, however, an event occurred which 
 deserves to be noted. 1 he Royal Academy, through Calcott, 
 made overtures for a reconciliation. They were willing to say, 
 like Robert Macaire to the gendarmes, " Let us all embrace 
 and have done." They offered, if Haydon would put his name 
 down once more, to elect him. But Haydon seems to have 
 had grounds for doubting the complete sincerity of the offer, 
 and good humouredly declined. The fact of their making 
 such a proposal casts a doubt. It was easy enough for them to 
 elect Haydon, and, had they done so, they would have put 
 themselves in the right whether he accepted the election or 
 not. To ask him, at such a moment, to solicit election, was 
 to show a marvellous ignorance of human nature. A man who 
 feels his own worth does not relish the petty humiliations 
 candidature involves. Or, it was merely a point of cunning 
 upon which the academicians hoped to take a fresh advantage. 
 If that were so, Haydon did not fall into the trap so cleverly 
 baited, and the little comedy collapsed miserably. Possibly it 
 was as well, for he would no sooner have got in than, he would 
 have found it time to go out. The publication of the famous 
 * Catalogue Raisonne,' in 1816, must have produced a frightful 
 crisis in the Academy had Haydon been a member.* 
 
 * This singular publication, which I have heard Haydon attribute to a Mr. 
 Reinagle, K.A., and, I believe, rightly, arose nut of the first exhibition of works 
 ol' the old masters at the British Gallery, an exhibition Haydon warmly supp> >rted. 
 The contrast between their art and the art of the Royal Academicians was s , 
 striking, it was necessary, in the interest of the portrait painters, some eilort 
 should be made to nip such exhibitions in the bud, lest the tastj of the public 
 should get above the level of academic painting. I have never seen more than 
 extracts from this remaikable production, and certainly those were marked by a 
 vulgarity of art and style worthy of the scurrility of Temple's best pamphleteers. 
 Haydon and his friends are abused in it con amore. The authors were so con- 
 scious of its iniquitous character, that neither writer, printer, nor publisher, put 
 his name to the work. "The academicians," Haydon writes, " hailed its appear- 
 uuce, and Northcote (E.A.) told me he was so delighted with it, he ordered a long 
 
86 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Before the end of the season (1814), Haydon and Wilkie had 
 started for Paris. Napoleon had just been dethroned, the road 
 was open, and the Louvre was full of all the finest works of the 
 best masters which, after the manner of victorious Rome, 
 Napoleon had transferred to his capital. Such an opportunity 
 to examine such works might never be offered again. All the 
 schools of the Continent, the Italian, Flemish, Dutch, French, 
 and Spanish schools, were well represented in the Louvre. 
 There were twenty-five works of Eaphael, twenty-three of 
 Titian, thirty three of Vandyke, fifty-three of Rubens, thirty- 
 one of Rembrandt, sixteen of Domenichino, twenty-three of 
 Guido, twenty-six of Guercino, thirty-six of Annibale Carracci, 
 with a vast collection of the works of other painters. To .study 
 these works was a delight never to come to him again. Haydon 
 remained three months in Paris. He returned to England in 
 October, confirmed in his love for High Art, but not, I think, 
 quite settled in his determination to try further and induce 
 his countrymen to support it. When he arrived home, the 
 freedom of his native borough, Plymouth, but not ono 
 single offer of a commission awaited him ! One would have 
 hoped that if he had won a claim to notice, he had won a 
 claim to employment. He had painted what every competent 
 judge had pronounced to be the greatest historical work ever 
 painted in the English school ; and he had painted it under 
 circumstances which had tested his capacity to conceive and 
 his power to execute, and shown that he possessed patience 
 equal to his ability. But not one single commission from the 
 Court, the nobility, or from any quarter was his reward. Is 
 there any explanation but one, the utter indifference of the 
 majority of the nobility of that day to works of genius and 
 imagination, or for anything in art that was not mean and 
 mechanical ? 
 
 Vet Haydon loved England as a Roman had loved Rome. 
 He knew what the art of the country could effect if vigorously 
 supported and employed, and he felt that he was the man to 
 
 candle, and went to bed to read it with ecstasy." All things considered, I am 
 not sony Haydon did not enter the Academy on this occasion. For a man like 
 Haydon is not likely to remain quiet if the changes he de-ires are not made; and 
 had he been engaged in a haud-to-hand struggle with the Academy Council 
 inside its walls, we should have had neither the ' Jerusalem' nor the ' Lazarus.' 
 Il might have been a benefit to the Academy, but it would have been a loss to 
 art.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 87 
 
 employ it vigorously if the patrons would afford him an oppor- 
 tunity, or Government grant him the means. But the Govern- 
 ment was too busy, and the taste of the aristocracy and patrons 
 too low. They preferred, and I believe, mostly prefer still, an 
 annual exhibition of the portraits of their wives and families to 
 the decoration of their houses and halls by great works on 
 great subjects, or the admission into them of historic works 
 of life-size. These do not suit their ideas of " furniture." A 
 love for native high art does not exist among the English 
 nobility. They blame the artists, they blame the climate, 
 they blame the smoke ; but, in truth, it is they who are in 
 fault. They have no desire, no taste, no sensibility for art 
 further than it " ministers to their vanity, or transmits to the 
 admiration of their posterity the beauty and grace of their 
 wives and children." This was Haydon's deliberate opinion. 
 
 If they had possessed any feeling for high art, commissions 
 would certainly have followed upon Haydon's ' Judgment of 
 Solomon.' But the same neglect that was shown by them to 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds's 'Hercules,' and to Flaxman's ' Designs,' 
 was shown to Haydon's ' Solomon.' He was only twenty-eight 
 years of age, he was in the spring-time of his power, and no 
 one can doubt that had he even been employed as West was, 
 with only 1000J. a-year from the Crown, he would have pro- 
 duced noble works worthy of the nation, and of the patronage 
 bestowed. But no such opportunity was afforded to Haydon. 
 He at least was a luxury they did not desire, and a listless and 
 supercilious society which believes mankind expressly created 
 for its own convenience and amusement, " et qui ne cherche qu'a 
 faire grande chere, et qui croit que Dieu l'a mise au monde pour 
 tenir table," was of opinion it had done its duty by honouring 
 his picture with an inspection, and bowing to the painter as 
 they left the room. 
 
 From their general neglect of the arts as a branch of study 
 and education, Society had then no feeling for art, and no notion 
 of its public function, or, their public duty. The illiterate 
 barons of the feudal ages were more capable of feeling and 
 appreciating ideal art than the society of Haydon's day. It 
 may be a fair question, whether we, with all our cram, called 
 culture, are so much improved as we flatter ourselves. Is the 
 mass of society more capable of estimating the beauties of art, 
 are they more sensible of its intrinsic worth than formerly ? 
 
£8 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 We hear a vast deal about the progress of the arts, and the 
 spread of a fine taste ; but I strongly suspect Society is very 
 like the woman in the play, when she prefers " a roast duck " 
 to " all the birds in the heathen mythology ;" for is not the 
 chief pleasure of Englishmen now, as then, and of English- 
 women, in what Barry contemptuously calls that " daubing of 
 inconsequential things " in lieu of any finer and higher art ? 
 The strange insensibility (with one or two brilliant exceptions) 
 of our public men, towards art and in the interests of art, is too 
 notorious. We buy more pictures, and more money is now 
 spent upon art in England than was spent fifty years ago. But 
 the diffusion of any particular taste does not necessarily imply 
 its elevation or improvement. Certainly if we may judge by 
 the ugliness or anomalies of our public buildings, and the 
 expensive vulgarity of our domestic decorations, the love for 
 the beautiful, and the power of appreciating what is beautiful, 
 is not even widely spread amongst us. Improvement is a 
 plant of slow growth, and this apparently rapid diffusion of a 
 taste for art, which we are witnessing, is too often mere 
 vanity, or what is worse, a mere dealer's speculation, neither 
 of which is calculated to improve the art or the artist, or 
 elevate the public taste. As for people in society generally, 
 they seem only seeking to acquire just sufficient information 
 upon art to escape being laughed at, and not to escape it. 
 do into any modern exhibition, and what do we see but a 
 number of persons puttng their noses close to a picture, and 
 let its intellectual qualities be what they may, condemn or 
 praise it in proportion to its mechanical excellence. " Nothing 
 bold or masculine, grand or powerful, touches an English 
 connoisseur," wrote Haydon, fifty years ago. " It must be 
 small and highly wrought, vulgar and humorous, broad and 
 palpable." And is it not so still ? Where are the works of 
 High Art? And do people in general society ever think or 
 talk of the moral effect of art, or on the source of intellectual 
 delight great efforts afford ? Nothing of the kind ; a string of 
 technical phrases that are for ever on the tongue, are per- 
 petually uttered without effort or reflection. Thus all the 
 delight of English society in art, all their ideas of art do not 
 go beyond the immediate object of their senses. " The vague- 
 ness of Nature," as Haydon said, " annoys them. Everything 
 must be complete or absent." The exact copy of a lady's lace, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 *9 
 
 or of a pale violet silk dress, or a pink and ■white muslin cos- 
 tume, or of flowers, brilliant and metallic, or of some elaborate 
 peacock, or pathetic pony, or some vulgar incident in street 
 life, interests them far more than would a poetical work of the 
 finest form and expression, or the grandest painting of the 
 Crucifixion by the greatest painter. Raphael and Michel 
 Angelo would have starved in these days, unless they had con- 
 sented to be a dealer's hack, or paint portraits or vulgar sub- 
 jects. Is this proof of improved taste ? 
 
 I am not presuming to condemn the English artists, or to 
 deny the grace and beauty of delicate finish, or that an effort 
 of intellect may be shown in the due arrangement of minute 
 details of fur and feathers, of a bodice and sleeves of a skirt 
 and flounces ; but that striking want of culture among people 
 in society, that want of feeling for art, which sees only the 
 individual likeness of the thing or its absence, and there ends 
 their delight or displeasure. Society knows nothing, thinks 
 nothing, feels nothing of the poetry, the design, the intellect 
 of the artist. The observation he displays, the ideas excited 
 in his mind, are the last things society apprehends. Un- 
 educated persons might be forgiven, but to see the expensively 
 instructed and refined classes wedging their noses together 
 against a picture as if it were something to be smelled, and 
 then to hear them uttering exclamations of rapture, over 
 what? The character, the mind which is shown? Nothing 
 of the sort — over the Ihitch part only — the hair and feathers, 
 the blades of grass, the pattern of the plaid trousers, or the 
 delicate texture of the lace shawl, hiding my lady's beautiful 
 shoulders. Give them these things, indoor, polished, and 
 insipid, and you will hear terms of admiration that would be 
 applicable only to th j grandest work of the highest art, em- 
 ployed upon the mere mechanical excellence that is before 
 them. Is this to be the end of our art education ? Is the 
 superiority of High Art over this more mechanical art of imita- 
 tion never to be appreciated amongst us ? Is close imitation 
 of still life, and elaborate polish, all we in England are fitted to 
 receive, while beauty and grandeur of subject, combined with 
 truth of imitation of human expression, human passions, and 
 external nature, find support only among our Continental 
 rivals ? 
 
 In 1814 Haydon debated deeply whether he should leave 
 
9° 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 England for good, or stay and continue to employ his talents in 
 the service of those who had none. His position, too, was more 
 brilliant than solid and satisfactory. He had scarcely any money 
 left by the end of 1814. To again go through all the anxieties, 
 harass, and want he had suffered while painting the ' Solomon,' 
 was a cruel prospect, and yet there seemed nothing more 
 certain before him. He debated the matter within himself for 
 many weeks. For although he was always impetuous and often 
 rash, and proportionally easy in fitting his conclusion to his 
 wish, he was not without a certain judicial skill, and would 
 severely cross-examine himself and his prospects. At length 
 he formed his course. He would follow out his original plan. 
 He would paint and exhibit three great pictures of leading 
 events in our Saviour's life, 'His Entry into Jerusalem,' ' His 
 Raising of Lazarus,' and 'His Crucifixion;' three subjects 
 which would allow him to express feeling, emotion, and passion, 
 and in such a manner as should not only give pleasure to the 
 eye, but appeal to the heai't and mind, and tend to promote 
 the moral welfare of his fellow-men. Having completed this 
 series, he should consider he had done his duty in support of 
 English historical painting. If the Government chose to 
 employ him in the decoration of our public buildings, or the 
 nobility commissioned him to decorate their houses by recording 
 the great deeds of their ancestors, or the bishops, to paint altar- 
 pieces, he would remain in England ; if not, he would leave 
 the country for good, and settle in Italy, or in Russia, where 
 his high Court connections promised him distinguished patron- 
 age, and constant employment. 
 
 He lived to regret, and I for one have never ceased to regret 
 for his sake, though it seems un-English to say so, that he did 
 not adhere to this resolve. 
 
 For a man already in debt, with no capital, and I have no 
 doubt being well plundered by all about him, so great a 
 scheme extending over at least ten years of close application, 
 seems little better than an illusion, but in sober fact it was 
 nothing of the kind. Haydon was a shrewd if a bold specu- 
 lator. He had observed such crowds come to see the 
 ' Solomon,' that, had it been exhibited alone and on his own 
 risk, it would have placed a large sum to his credit, in addi- 
 tion to its sale. This was partly the result of the next exhibi- 
 tion, and would have been the result of the third and fourth if 
 
First' Study for Jerusalem, 7S74. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 9i 
 
 the scheme had not been interrupted. But TTaydon in the 
 interval unfortunately married a beautiful wife, and although 
 I have every reason to be grateful to him for so doing, 
 1 am bound to say, it was in one sense, the most imprudent act 
 of his whole life. For, if there is one thing a creditor never 
 forgives, it is the iniquity of his debtor enjoying domestic 
 happiness. That is the last straw which destroys usurious 
 patience. They can appreciate any other kind of luxury and 
 convenience for your enjoyment and accommodation but that. 
 So long as you remain single they consider you safe. The 
 moment you marry, something excites their apprehensions, 
 your prospects seem critical, and they ruin you without remorse 
 for taking the only step to enable you to pay off your debts. 
 
 It was the month of October, 1814, before Haydon fairly 
 settled the composition of his next great picture, that " stupen- 
 dous work," as Eastlake calls it, ' The Entry of our Lord into 
 Jerusalem.' In consequence of serious attacks of blindness 
 from over-application, it was not until the spring of 1820 this 
 picture was finished and ready for exhibition ; but, as Words- 
 worth said to me in 184S, " it was worth waiting fifty years to 
 get so complete a work." With this picture as with his pre- 
 vious works, Haydon pursued the same course. He first studied 
 and drew before painting, and always painted with the living 
 model before him. " Every nostril, every finger-nail," says 
 Bewick, who was daily with him in his painting room from 
 1817 to 1820, "will be found a complete study." 
 
 Within these five years of patient and enduring application 
 Haydon suffered much personal annoyance. Cold men of taste 
 sneered at him to his face. Comfortable portrait painters, who 
 scamped their work at high j rices, laughed at the solitary 
 student, who spent rive years over a single picture, as a fool, and 
 hated him as a rebuke. But others, not understanding him, yet 
 feeling that he ought not to be allowed to sink, when applied to, 
 gave help, and from time to time advanced him large sums of 
 money. Dawson Turner, Mr. Harman, Mr. Coutts, Mr. Watson 
 Taylor, during these years mainly supported him. This was 
 generous and kind, for the advance was intended as a gift, that 
 is evident by their letters, but it was not the way a man like 
 Haydon should have been helped, and it had a flavour of the 
 art of living upon nothing, and making the best of it, in its 
 most seductive form. If these good friends had subscribed 
 
92 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 say 21007., and paid it over to him as the price of the 
 picture when finished, and cast lots for its possession, or pre- 
 sented it to the National Gallery, they would have conferred 
 an honour, as well as a benefit upon the painter, have done 
 credit to themselves and have enriched the national collection. 
 But these perpetual loans did him injury. It was not reward, 
 it was bounty ; something just above charity ; but which 
 degraded him in his own estimation, loosened his sense of 
 pecuniary obligation, and when withheld, drove him to the pro- 
 fessional money lender at G'J per cent. His ruin was then 
 certain, his relief doubtful, and the picture was not secured.* 
 
 In the interval of 1814 and 1820, and before the exhibition of 
 the ' Jerusalem, two events occurred in connection with English 
 art and Lord Castlereagh's and Haydon's relations thereto 
 which must not in fairness be passed over. 
 
 On the conclusion of peace in 1815, Lord Castlereagh — and 
 this deserves to be remembered to his credit — obtained a vote 
 of 500,0007. for the erection of a Waterloo monument, in which 
 painting, sculpture, and architecture, were to have been united. 
 It seems more than probable that Haydon indirectly had some- 
 thing to do with suggesting the proposal. lie makes little 
 reference to it in his correspondence on the subject, and that is 
 one reason I suspect him, — he was always remarkably prudent as 
 to his relations with men in power, — but he watched the matter 
 closely. A committee of the House was appointed to consider 
 the subject, models were sent in, and an official communication 
 
 * Many persons will feel — and Haydon himself in af.er ye rs. when writing 
 his Autobiography, frankly admits— that this practice of borrowing to enable 
 him to complete one great picture, instead of earning money for himself by 
 painting portiaits a>id cabinet pictures, was wrong. And at first sight it appears 
 so. But I am satisfied, when condemning himself on this point, he had 
 forgotten the circumstances of the time. His position was quite exceptional. 
 Between 1S14 and 18'^0 his eyes were too weak to paint on a small scale. In 
 tliese years he never could have 'done it. He could not always write: lie could 
 only dictate. Out of the five years he was engaged in painting the ' Jcrusah m,' 
 and' that on the scale of life, he must have been nearly two years compelled to 
 abstain wholly from punting on account of his sight. And secondly, with t,.o 
 exceptions of a commi-sion for a three-quarter life-size picture from Sir George 
 Phillips, wlii h he painted, and one oil', red by Sir John Broughton, which ho 
 could not paint, being a cabinet picture; and another by Sir John Leicester, 
 whic.i w is made over to Bewick, at Haydon's request; and one from Mr. Thomas 
 Hope, for a small picture, which he could not see to paint— Haydorj never was 
 asked to paint even a portrait. It is idle to blame him for not doing that which 
 he had no opportunity of doing, and of which, if the opportunities bad occurred, 
 he could not have taken advantage. His Journals and letters were often written 
 by his pupils at his dictation, and, if he could not see to wr.te, and could not sea 
 to paint large, lie certainly could not see to paint small. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 93 
 
 was made to the Koyal Academy for their assistance. Hay don 
 looked eagerly for their answer. It never arrived at the 
 Treasury. '1 he application was considered by the Council of 
 the Royal Academy, and on the suggestion of Mr. (Sir Martin) 
 Shee no answer was returned. Lord Castlereagh, disgusted at 
 such conduct, and privately learning the real reason, broke up 
 the whole scheme, and never proposed it again. The explanation 
 of the behaviour of the Academy Council is to be found in 
 their pique and resentment against Lord Castlereagh for not 
 having acknowledged or noticed a previous proposal of their 
 own for the advancement of the arts. As an instance of their 
 interest in art, and of Lord Castlereagh's qualifications as a 
 minister, it is unique on both sides. 
 
 Haydon, who was deeply concerned in the success of the 
 proposal, was proportionately mortified at this fiasco. Hut the 
 time did not seem opportune to make a public matter of it. 
 Possibly he felt it was idle to further upbraid the Koyal 
 Academicians for their uses t of power, so long as that power 
 was put into their hands without conditions. 
 
 The second event to which I have referred related to the 
 Elgin Marbles. The Greek origin of these, we have seen, had 
 been keenly debated ever since their arrival in England in 
 1807-8. Haydon, maintaining they were the purest Greek, 
 the work of Phidias, and far superior to any known works, 
 Mr. Payne Knight, with Lord Aberdeen and the Dilettanti 
 generally, unhesitatingly condemned them as partly spurious, 
 partly Roman, and partly the work of Greek journeymen — in 
 short, altogether inferior works unworthy of England's purchase, 
 "poor things," as Mr. Payne Knight habitually spoke of them. 
 These assertions, like Orlando's horse, had every merit, with 
 the one fault of being dead. And Haydon thought this such 
 a serious fault they ought, in his opinion, to have been long 
 since buried out of sight and hearing. Put the Government, 
 having no knowledge or opinion of its own, thought differently, 
 and refused to sanction the purchase ; and thus the matter 
 stood. In 1815, Canova, the great sculptor from Rome, arrived 
 in England. He was officially taken to inspect the Elgin 
 Marbles and his opinion asked. Canova had lived all his lifo 
 among, and his practice had been formed upon, the inferior 
 antique at Rome. When he saw the Elgin fragments he 
 looked at them long and silently, then he pronounced them 
 
9 + 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 the finest and purest Greek antiques the world possessed. 
 "Ces statues," he said to Haydon, "produiront un grand 
 changcment dans les arts. lis renverseront le systeme mathe- 
 matique des autres." To W. Hamilton, Lord Elgin's secretary, 
 he said, " that I were a young man and bad to begin again ! 
 I should work on totally different principles from what I have 
 done, and form, I hope, an entirely new school." After this, 
 the objections of the Government gave way to the extent of 
 appointing a committee "to inquire," with the view to the 
 ultimate purchase, or, final rejection of the marbles. The com- 
 mittee was regarded as a hostile committee ; so much so, that 
 the King of Bavaria secretly lodged 30,OOOZ. with his London 
 agents for immediate advance to Lord Elgin, if opportunity 
 offered, and the other European sovereigns were watchful. 
 The committee opened its proceedings. West, President of 
 the Royal Academy, Lawrence, Nollekens, Elaxman, and West- 
 macott, were summoned on the side of English art; on the 
 side of the connoisseurs, Mr. Payne Knight, Lord Aberdeen, 
 Sir Charles Long, Lord Farnborough, and seven others. Lord 
 Elgin's chief witnesses were W. Hamilton and Haydon. 
 
 Lord Elgin and Haydon were both favourably impressed 
 with the committee at opening, but it soon began to show the 
 cloven foot. The favourable witnesses were hurried over, but to 
 the opposite side was paid the greatest attention and respect. Of 
 the professional witnesses, Nollekens called them " fine things," 
 Westmacott called them " good things." ]- laxman said they 
 were " the most excellent things of the kind he had seen, 
 though he preferred the Apollo Belvedere to the Theseus" 
 (the gods forgive him !). Chantrey said, "they were according 
 to nature in the grand style." West feebly praised them, but 
 Lawrence spoke out for tbem manfully. He said he considered 
 them " examples of the highest style of art, of essential im- 
 portance to art, and particularly to historical painting." Mr. 
 Payne Knight was equally decided. He said Lord Landsdowne's 
 Venus or Mercury was " each worth any two " of the " articles " 
 in Lord Elgin's collection, that the Theseus was " spurious," 
 and the rest of the " articles very poor." Lord Aberdeen and 
 his friends followed in much the same strain. And then came 
 the turn for the examination of Lord Elgin's professional 
 witness, Haydon. For three days, on one plea or another, 
 Haydon was put off by the committee. At length on the after- 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 noou of the third they commissioned Mr. Bankes, M.P., one of 
 their number, to inform Lord Elgin that " Mr. Haydon would 
 not be examined, out of delicacy to Mr. Payne Knight." 
 Nothing more was necessary so far as Haydon was concerned. 
 A hurried consultation took place in Westminster Hall with 
 Lord Elgin and W. Hamilton. Haydon then walked home 
 with W. Hamilton, vowing he would make the committee 
 remember him to the last day of their existence. Hamilton, 
 who knew his carelessness of consequences, begged him to be 
 moderate, suggesting, at the same time, that he should head his 
 letter with the following appropriate quotation : — 
 
 " Ceci s'adresse a vous, esprits du dernier ordre 
 Qui, n'etant bons a rien, cherchez surtout a mordre, 
 
 Yous vous tourmentez vainement. 
 Croyez-vous que vos dents impriment leurs outrages 
 
 Sur tant de beaux ouvrages ? 
 lis sout pour vous d'airain, d'acier, de diamant." 
 
 Haydon searched out the passage, and next Sunday, in the 
 ' Examiner ' and ' Champion ' newspapers, there appeared a 
 letter signed B. R. Haydon, headed by the above lines, and 
 entitled, " On the Judgment of Connoisseurs being preferred to 
 that of Professional Men," that set all London by the ears. 
 For depth, and fervour, and bold and bitter truths, and pas- 
 sionate reverence for his art, it surpassed anything Haydon had 
 written or spoken previously, and it was in good taste and 
 style. It fell like a shell into the midst of the committee, 
 and settled Mr. Payne Knight as an authority upon art for the 
 rest of his career. But its force and home-truths gave the 
 deepest offence, and were never forgotten or forgiven by the 
 nobility. It wounded their pride, and Haydon increased the 
 affront by being an Englishman, and a painter of consummate 
 ability. " It has saved the marbles," said Sir Thomas Law- 
 rence, " but it will ruin Haydon " It did both.* The letter 
 was translated into French, Italian, and German, and spread 
 
 * Years afterwards, in a conversation with Jeremiah Hnrman, the banker and 
 art connoisseur, Haydon said, in ref rence to Ids own ruin, "My crime was in 
 refuting I'ayne Knight.'' "It was," said Mr. Harman. "And I shall never be 
 forgiven" "You ought not," retorted Mr. Haimnn; "young men should never 
 give themselves airs." That is just it. The Elgin Marbles might be lost to the 
 nation, and England left to the laughter and scorn of Europe, because Mr. Payne 
 Knight, being a man of rank and connexions, and a leading connoisseur in art, is 
 not to bo refuted by a young painter who knows better, but of no position in 
 society. It is often said that a democracy revmges, and it may be true, but it is 
 certainly true that an aristocracy never forgives."— Ed, 
 
96 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 all over Europe. Goethe and Rurnohr were delighted with it. 
 Goethe refers to it in his works ; h'uraohr speaks of it as 
 masterly. Dannecker showed it with pride to Lord Elgin at 
 Dresden. A copy of it was found by Rurnohr upon the 
 Ilissus in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence, and even 
 the gentle Eastlake revelled in it at Home. Its effect upon 
 London society was exaggerated and absurd. Instead of send- 
 ing Haydon to Coventry, as they had done in 1812, they now 
 crowded to his house to pay their respects in such numbers, 
 his front doors were obliged to be kept open all day for several 
 days in succession. The whole neighbourhood was in an up- 
 roar of carriages, like a court day at St. James's. As regards 
 Haydon, anything more ludicrous and painful can hardly be 
 conceived of London society, and its artificial sentiment, except 
 its previous, and iis subsequent conduct. Just as he bad lost 
 his reputation four years before, he had now unintentionally 
 doubled it, for a time, by a similar act. But whatever its ulti- 
 mate consequences, it brought him immediate troubles of a 
 laughable kind he had not anticipated. He became the 
 " lion " of the season. Public societies, a sure sign of your 
 prosperity, sought the honour of his " name and subscription." 
 Illustrious dukes called upon him. Fine ladies coaxed him out 
 of pen sketches for their albums. Clergymen " entreated " his 
 interest with patrons and ministers to give them livings, or 
 make them deans and bishops. More modest applicants sought 
 " appointments only " under government. Strangers sonneted 
 him, and asked his autograph, which, of course, meaned a cheque 
 or a sketch. Refugees openly begged his " generous charity," 
 and the young art-students, as a delicate compliment, shaved 
 their whiskers and wore square-toed boots and broad-brimmed 
 hats in imitation of their idol. Then they called upon him to 
 " discuss the Elgin Marbles." All this was highly troublesome 
 to Haydon, who hated to be disturbed in his painting- room, 
 and had no money to subscribe, interest to give away, or time 
 for gossip. Nor did his own circle of private friends behave 
 less absurdly. They appear to have written sonnets in turn. 
 Leigh Hunt in the character of a "bard," led the way. He 
 " approves and blesses." M-ss Mitford " sheds tears." Rey- 
 nolds apostrophises him as the " saviour of art." Somebody 
 else sends him to heaven as a modern Raphael and Michel 
 Angelo rolled into one. Another adds the qualities of Leo- 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 97 
 
 nardo to his credit, and calls upon Europe to build him a 
 palace and endow him with riches. Wordsworth and Keats 
 were the only two who kept their judgment and wrote some- 
 thing sensible. But the rest "adulated" him to a degree that 
 first flattered him, then made him angry, then made him laugh, 
 and ultimately showed him how difficult and delicate a matter 
 it is for a man of any fame to regulate the ardour and 
 enthusiasm of zealous friends. They always are so ardent, 
 kind and enthusiastic about their hero, they are very likely 
 with the best intentions to prove his worst enemies. But 
 they get some little fame themselves by admiring what they 
 cannot do. 
 
 The argument put forward by Haydon in this famous letter is 
 not, as has been erroneously represented, that an unprofessional 
 opinion upon a professional subject is never to be accepted, 
 but that in art as in science it ought not to be preferred to 
 that of the professional man. 
 
 The question seems to me beset with difficulties. Certainly, 
 as Haydon says, in no other profession but painting and poetry 
 is the opinion of the man who has studied it only for his amuse- 
 ment, preferred to that of one who has devoted his life to excel 
 in it. And this ought not to be. In surgery or science we do 
 not call in an amateur to decide on surgical or scientific ques- 
 tions ; why then in art, which is of equal rank with surgery and 
 science, should the opinion of an amateur be accepted ? If 
 the amateur possesses all the necessary qualifications to enable 
 him to decide justly, he is practically no longer an amateur, 
 but a non-practising professional, and in that case, other things 
 being equal, the professional in practice must be the superior 
 man. In lower matters, the distinction seems to lie between 
 the power of doing a thing in detail, and that of perceiving it to 
 be well done. But still the man who has exercised his under- 
 standing as well as practised his hand, and acquired the power 
 to produce, is superior to the man who has only the capacity 
 to feel the result. 
 
 Throughout these continued contests with " authority," what 
 distinguishes Haydon from most controversialists seems to me 
 the extraordinary disregard he exhibits for his own interests. 
 It is not the sincerity of his convictions, or the tenacity he 
 displays, but the total disregard he shows for his own worldly 
 interests and advantages. Bold and contemptuous of all con- 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
9 8 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 sequences to himself, he breathes only for the cause of truth 
 and the interests of English art. " Never," he says, " while I 
 live or have an intellect to detect a difference or a hand to 
 write, never will I suffer a leading man in art to put forth 
 pernicious sophisms without doing my best to refute him, or 
 unjustly to censure fine works by opinions without doing my 
 best to expose them." You have only to flaunt before him a 
 sophism or an unsound opinion upon art, and he rushes at it 
 like a bull at the banderilla, catches his foe on the point of 
 his horns, gores and tramples him out of all shape, and then 
 tosses the poor bundle of rags contemptuously up to its 
 aristocratic owners. His great faults, and these were not 
 diminished by years, were a want of that aristocratic hard- 
 ness which renders a man indifferent to personal success, and 
 consequently a certain absence of control over himself and his 
 subject, and of tenderness for the interests and prejudices of 
 others. A truly wise man never despises the prejudices of his 
 opponents. Haydon forgot that honest men of all ways of 
 thinking believe themselves to be in the right, and that many 
 who differed from him might be equally positive and in earnest 
 though in error. But perhaps he had proofs, or thought he 
 had, that the men who chiefly opposed him were not honest ; 
 he certainly believed they were not. Then his mind was 
 not sufficiently restrained and circumspect. This may be 
 accounted for by his natural hatred of cant and his natural 
 eagerness to speak out what was in him, and by a certain 
 inability to put himself into another's point of view. Very 
 few men succeed in doing this. Yet he was never malignant, 
 never wilfully unjust, but, without being subtle in the least 
 degree, he had that vice of subtle minds of attaching too much 
 importance to slight resemblances, and an unfortunate tendency 
 to judge individuals with whom he had no acquaintance, from 
 his knowledge of the " party " to which they belonged. These 
 were his faults, and I hope I have stated them fairly. They 
 are dangerous faults in a controversialist, but they are common 
 enough, and in Haydon were nobly redeemed. With him 
 they were faults of defective training, and although these are 
 to be regretted and condemned, they must not be allowed to 
 overshadow his undoubtedly great services to art. 
 
 Since his return from Paris, Haydon had been so besought 
 by applicants that he was compelled to establish a school of 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 99 
 
 pupils. By 1816 lie had gathered about a strong school of 
 highly promising young men. That distinguished man and 
 fine gentleman, ISir Charles Eastlake, had been Haydon's first 
 pupil in 1813. Now the elder Landseers (Thomas and Charles), 
 Harvey, Chatfield, Lance, Prentis, Bewick, and several others 
 joined.* They were all young men, full of high design, and 
 became deeply attached to Hay don, for he had that prompt 
 and living sympathy with their feelings and aspirations which 
 endears a man so much to the younger men about him. Then 
 he was so conscientious a teacher, and never spared himself, 
 never, like the Earl of Chatham at Walcheren, thought about 
 his health, or, of his " bon bouillon de tortue, au lieu de se 
 livrer aux details de l'expedition qui lui etait confiee." On the 
 contrary, Haydon slaved himself in order to make his investi- 
 gations thorough, and his instruction complete. Whether a boy 
 was rich, or poor, mattered little enough to Haydon, provided he 
 was industrious and showed talent. " Only be industrious and 
 succeed in your art," he said to Bewick, who feared to be re- 
 jected because he was too poor to pay any premium, " and that 
 is all I require." If a lad did not show the ability he wanted, 
 nothing would induce Haydon to take him as a pupil. " What 
 must I feel," writes Bewick (MOtk March, 1S17), "when Mr. 
 Haydon rejects so many young men who come to him with 
 letters of recommendation, and who have offered him large 
 sums of money ! One young man came recommended from 
 Edinburgh ; Mr. Haydon (as he says) soon found out what 
 he was, and recommended him to begin immediately with 
 portraits." 
 
 Of Lance, the fruit painter, a charming story is told. Lance 
 
 * Tt is made a matter of reproach against Haydon by biographers, that none of 
 his pupils followed him in historic art. " He is the only painter of any eminence 
 who left no school." For the matter of that, " leaving a school" is no particular 
 proof of want of individual ability in ihc professor — in art or in politics, or in any 
 profession. And in the case of Haydon. I should have been surprised if any of 
 his pupils — granting that they were equal to it— had followed his paiticu'ar 
 style of art, sc eing to what misery and ruin the neghct of the English nobility 
 and their dislike to English historical 1 uniting rcduc; d their master. No man 
 will educate his son to famine. Besidi s, could Haydon do more than he did for 
 his pupils, which was to direct their minds towards that particular depaitraent of 
 art for which, in his judgment, they were best fitted? To Edwin Landsecr. to 
 his two brothers (Thomas and Chnrlis), to Eastlake, to Bewick, to Lance, and 
 to others, he assigned iheir several lines. They followed them, and who will be 
 bold enough to say they did not succeed? At least in this respect Haydon can 
 compare well with Sir Joshua Reynolds, for who ever heard of any of his pupils 
 but one — Northcote? And yet lie must have had hundreds pa-s through his 
 studio. Where are their works?— Ed. 
 
 H 2 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 came to London as a boy, found out Haydon, and tremblingly 
 called on him and asked his " terms." " Terms, my little 
 man ! " said Haydon ; " when I take pupils I don't ask the length 
 • of their fathers' purses. Let me see your drawings, and if you 
 have talent, and are industrious, I will teach you for nothing." 
 Lance showed some beautiful drawings, was at once accepted, 
 and became one of Haydon's distinguished pupils. Then 
 Edwin Landseer, seeing his elder brothers advancing so rapidly, 
 errew eager for instruction. He never seems to have worked 
 like the rest in Haydon's studio, but to have come every week 
 to eret instruction, show his work, and get more instruction, 
 returning home to work it out. Haydon, seeing his strong 
 tendency towards dogs and animals, gave him his own dissec- 
 tions of a lioness to copy, and directed him to dissect animals 
 as the only mode of acquiring a correct knowledge of their 
 internal construction, and guided his studies. When Edwin 
 Landseer's drawings were sufficiently advanced, Haydon took a 
 portfolio of them one evening to a grand dinner at Sir George 
 Beaumont's, and after coffee, showed them round to the ministers 
 and nobility who were there, recommending young Landseer to 
 their especial notice as a boy of great promise, and this Land- 
 seer amply redeemed. In the same way Haydon started 
 Bewick as a painter by begging Lord de Dunstanville to allow 
 him to transfer a commission to Bewick, which was agreed to, 
 and Bewick gave such satisfaction he obtained an order for a 
 companion piece. 
 
 In a stormy life of so much personal strife and harass of 
 mind as Haydon's, it is pleasant to turn aside for a moment 
 and look on the proofs, amidst all his own struggles and dis- 
 tresses, which he daily gives of his most affectionate and 
 generous interest in the success of others, and it was not by 
 any means confined to his art. He was often called on, and 
 always ready to share his slender purse, his food, his clothes, his 
 house, and among his pupils the very patronage by which he 
 lived, in order to advance the interests of others. Most of 
 them felt and acknowledged this in after life. Chatfield 
 repeatedly calls him his "father." " lie assured," writes 
 Eastlake to him in 1825, "be assured that your early kindness 
 to me is among those obligations 1 am least likely to forget." 
 " You will have heard," writes Bewick to his brother (17th 
 Se ptember, 181G), " how 1 have been befriended by Mr. Haydon. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 ... I really do not know how I shall ever be able to recom- 
 pense hirn for all that he has clone for me." The whole family 
 of the Landseers, father and children — with one marked ex- 
 ception I regret to say, that of Edwin — write and send him a 
 joint letter at Christmas 1818, begging him to accept their 
 cartoon drawings for his forthcoming exhibition as a mark of 
 their gratitude and regard. The terms in which the letter is 
 expressed are highly honourable to both pupils and teacher. 
 " We bear in mind," they say, " your offer of payment, but we 
 bear in mind also the instruction, &c, which our family has 
 received at your hands, of which we request you to accept the 
 drawings as an acknowledgment, not as a compensation."* 
 Nor were Haydon's generous exertions always confined to his 
 pupils. When Belzoni died and his widow fell into difficulties, 
 when Lough, the sculptor, first came starving to London in 
 1827, Haydon, although pressed to the earth on each occasion, 
 befriended them in every way in his power, and fagged him- 
 self ill in Lough's case to bring his fine works into public 
 notice. The union of such perfect disinterestednesss with great 
 talents is not often found in other professions than those of art 
 and literature. And the poor never applied to him in vain. 
 " Why did you send to me ?" he once expostulated with a for- 
 saken outcast who had written to beg for assistance; "why 
 send to a poor man like me ?" " Because I heard you were 
 humane." . That was his character. 
 
 Haydon's pupils made such rapid progress that he deter- 
 mined in 1816 on a trial which should test their powers to the 
 v+most and show the public what English students, when pro- 
 perly instructed, could do. He obtained leave from his Eoyal 
 Highness the Prince Regent for two of Raphael's cartoons to bo 
 brought up from Hampton Court to the British Gallery for his 
 pupils to copy. The Prince Regent ordered the 'Paul at 
 Athens ' and the ' Draught of Fishes ' to be sent up to the 
 1 British Gallery, and Haydon and his pupils at once moved 
 in and made fine copies, Haydon drawing the heads and 
 figures of St. Paul full size. As soon as finished, cartoons 
 and copies were hung up for exhibition and the gallery thrown 
 open to the public. The people came in such crowds, the 
 
 * Why Edwin Landseer refused (o sign tin's ktter I c.mnot positively say. 
 Haydon, with wounded feelings has explained it in a note, writtt n, apparently, 
 on receipt of the letter: "Edwin I,uihU<mt, though under as great obligations to 
 my instruction, and more for bringing (him) forward in the world— lor I auld hia 
 first picture — did not sign, for fear of the Academy ." — Ed. 
 
102 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 doors were ordered to be closed for fear of damage. At first 
 they refused to believe tbe copies were the work of any but 
 Italians. When it was known they were the work of young- 
 Englishmen the excitement became intense, but nothing came 
 of it. Haydon says lie was overwhelmed with anonymous 
 letters "threatening him with vengeance " if he continued to 
 work against the interests of the Koyal Academy in this way. 
 " Had there been no Academy," he writes in his Journal, " the 
 art would have gone on from this day for ever. But their bile 
 was roused, and by ridicule and abuse, and attributing the 
 basest motives to me they succeeded in so alarming the 
 directors that all the good was rendered nugatory. Kothing 
 came of it, and nothing ever will whilst that body, under the 
 mask of doing good to art, seek only their predominance, and 
 by standing between the nobility and the people, baffle every 
 attempt to enlighten either." 
 
 Before this eventful year 181 G closed, Haydon made a 
 further attempt to improve the general prospects of the art. 
 He submitted to the noble directors of the British Gallery 
 a detailed plan for annually offering first and second prizes 
 from a hundred guineas down to twenty guineas for the 
 fiist and second best pictures of history, landscape, genre 
 painting, poetical heads, down to studies from statues. As 
 an instance of his earnest desire to deal fairly by all branches 
 of the art it is notable. The plan, however, did not find the 
 support he expected from the directors. They were timid noble- 
 men, and on being told it would bring them into collision with 
 the interests of the Boyal Academy, they hesitated to adopt so 
 bold a proposal. Haydon attributed the rejection of his plan 
 to the influence of the academicians, and explains the timidity 
 of the nobility by want of real knowledge of art. " With no 
 art tutors at college, the nobility leave college just as wise in 
 art as they enter it. . . . Too happy to lean on anyone for 
 instruction, they become the tools of an academic clique." 
 
 The next three years were passed by Haydon in a whirl of 
 excitement and work. He appears to have gone out once 
 more into society, while his own " breakfasts " at his house 
 in Lisson Grove * became celebrated in London, not only 
 for their hospitality, but for the number of distinguished 
 
 * Haydon had now removed to a house in Lisson Orove North, fcniU by Rosn, 
 tlio Royal Academician. It had a sp icious pninting-ioow attached, and here the 
 happiest years of Ilaydoii's life were passed. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 men who frequented his table. In 1817 the Imperial Grand 
 Duke Nicolas of Kussia had come to England, and his brothei 
 the Grand Duke Michael followed in 1818, and both had 
 desired Haydon to be presented, and had commanded his 
 attendance at their inspection of the Elgin Marbles. Haydon 
 was received with marked distinction and favour by both. 
 The Grand Duke Nicolas, on discovering Haydon to be 
 nephew to General Cobley, then commander-in-chief at Odessa, 
 and with whom the Grand Duke had recently spent three 
 weeks at Odessa, treated Haydon "a rnerveille." In the 
 midst of their conversation the Grand Duke suddenly said, 
 " Vous etes un peintre d'histoire. Ou sont vos tableaux ? 
 Dans quel edifice public ?" His Imperial Highness had a better 
 notion of one of the functions of art than either the British 
 sovereign, his administration, or nobility. " Altesse Imperiale," 
 replied Haydon promptly, " dans ce pays-ci, a present, on ne 
 place pas de tableaux d'histoire clans les edifices publics." The 
 Grand Duke looked hard at him to see if he was passing a 
 joke on Imperial Kussia, but finding a curious expression of 
 disappointment on Haydon's face he changed the subject, 
 turned to the " Theseus " and discussed the beauty of the 
 marbles. The Grand Duke expressed a wish to see more of 
 Haydon, to whom he seemed to have taken a great liking, 
 but if it had come really to the point, I do not believe Haydon 
 would ever have left his country. He was too thoroughly 
 proud of her and of her great and enthusiastic people. With 
 the Grand Duke Michael, who came over in 1818, Haydon was 
 not so much struck. He says he had less feeling for art, less 
 grandeur, less sublimity of soul, than his illustrious brother 
 Nicolas. The Grand Duke, however, called on Haydon, and 
 paid a long visit to his studio, inspected his studies and his 
 picture of ' Jerusalem,' which was then much advanced, paid 
 him many high compliments, and expressed his Imperial 
 Brother's hope to see him one day at St. Petersburg. Alas ! 
 my poor father, why did you not go? The Minister of Police, 
 it is true, might have sent you to the Caucasus for some passing 
 indiscretion, but he never would have left you to die broken- 
 hearted by pecuniary distress. You would at least have had 
 the pay and rat ons of a private soldier. In England you did 
 not even get that. 
 
 Haydon's position seemed now established. He was at the 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 head of his Art, and the Leader of the Opposition to the Roy:;! 
 Academy. This at least consoled him for their rejection of 
 him in 1800, and it gratified his love of distinction. But the 
 latter was not altogether the post for him, as it involved 
 him in perpetual petty conflicts with the Eoyal Academy, 
 made him the mark for much envy and hatred, and drew off 
 his attention from his ea^el. But still it was necessary to 
 defend the privileges of lay artists against the constant en- 
 croachments of the Royal Academy ; and he was the only 
 man in a position to occupy the advanced post with any 
 safety. But it kept his brain in a state of restless agita- 
 tion. He was of course a constant contributor to the ' Annals 
 of the Arts.' In fact, that was his special organ, as it circu- 
 lated widely among the educated classes, for advancing his 
 views and opinions upon art. IMauy of his most valuable con- 
 tributions to the history of art are to be found in its pages at 
 this period. But Haydon did not confine himself wholly to 
 severe writing. He indulged, and not infrequently, in amus- 
 ing ridicule of the Academy and its practice ; and, with that 
 gift he had of hitting off a character in a phrase, he sometimes 
 made Academicians ridiculous. It is to be observed, how- 
 ever, that he always spares Turner and a few more, on account 
 of their undoubted genius. I remember, in one of the "Dreams 
 of Somniator," a distinguished French painter is introduced to 
 the Academy, and the conversation turns upon the " Vehicle 
 of the Ancients." The President, Sir Thomas Lawrence, whose 
 peculiar weakness it was to imagine he could talk French, is 
 made to say that, in his opinion, the vehicle " etait composte 
 de la wax des abbayles ; " upon which the polite Frenchman 
 expresses his complete assent, and compliments Sir Thomas 
 upon his perfect knowledge of the French language ! 
 
 But this sort of light sword-play did him no harm. It was 
 only when he thought himself called upon to " draw blood " in 
 the interests of art, his friends prayed for the destruction of all 
 pens, ink, and paper within his reach. For example, just as 
 tiie year 1817 was closing, he found himself embroiled with the 
 Academy in its official character and position. It appears 
 that, by Haydon's influence, the cartoon of Ananias had been 
 ordered by the Prince Regent to be sent up to the British 
 Gallery. The Academy, who were responsible (and I can quite 
 sympathise with them), felt aggrieved at these proceedings. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 105 
 
 In the first place, the responsibility of rolling and moving up 
 cartoons from Hampton Court, hanging them in a public gal- 
 lery for several months, and then returning them to Hampton 
 Court, was not ideal, but anxious. And when this order, which 
 they durst not disobey, was given for the second time without 
 consultation with them, and against their expressed opinions 
 as the official guardians responsible for the safety of the car- 
 toons, and only in consequence of Haydon's superior influence 
 at Court, I can understand their feelings, and their very 
 natural desire to terminate that responsibility at the earliest 
 moment, consistent with their duty. Thus, when the season of 
 1817 had closed, and the Court had left town, the authorities 
 at the Academy unexpectedly ordered the cartoon to be taken 
 down and returned. This was strictly within their official 
 right, but there was an air of ungraciousness about the act 
 the absence of due notice did not diminish. Annoyance and 
 disappointment to those- students who were in the midst of 
 their cartoon studies was the result. In a body they sought 
 Haydon's interference ; Haydon at once interested himself, 
 and begged that the cartoon might be allowed to remain some 
 months longer. The Academy curtly refused ; Haydon expos- 
 tulated. A correspondence began ; the smouldering passions 
 of both sides were soon fanned, and a furious controversy broke 
 out. Haydon made a public matter of it ; wrote a pamphlet, 
 which attracted much attention ; and, in the ' Annals of the Arts,' 
 he attacked the conduct of the Academy with such bitterness 
 and sarcasm that a general meeting of academicians was called 
 by the Council in order to take his statements " into considera- 
 tion." Their intention, I believe, was to direct his prosecution 
 for an alleged libel. Fuseli, however, interfered ; and by his 
 advice, the meeting contented itself with entering on their 
 records the fact of the cartoon being lent to the Gallery, and 
 the official right of the Academy to claim it in their discretion. 
 But the bitter invective of Haydon festered in their memory 
 for years. Many of Haydon's friends, and particularly his 
 judicially-minded friend Sir George Beaumont, regretted to 
 see his mind so diverted from his ease], and his fine powers 
 wasted, as they held, on such matters which any other man 
 could have dealt with as well — perhaps better; for Haydon 
 showed he was angry, and satire is always better and more 
 biting for being kept cool. Yet it must be remembered 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 Haydon never attacked the Academy for applause, always for 
 utility, and in defence of the interests of the public and of art, 
 just as a man hunts a mischievous hen out of his garden lest 
 she rake up the good seed he has sown. His accomplished 
 friend Wyborn, I must however admit, approved of Haydon's 
 course of action on this occasion. He writes from Paris 
 (1st November, 1817), " I entirely agree with you in the 
 reprobation such conduct merits from all lovers of art. What 
 strikes me with wonder is that such men as Wilkie and Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence, aided by Fuseli, whom you praise for his 
 liberality of thinking, should not have influence enough to 
 check the party zeal of the majority. Perhaps a dislike to a 
 state of warfare may operate on the mind of the amiable 
 Wilkie, to induce him to remain a silent spectator of conduct 
 he must be sorry for." 
 
 Charles Hayter, on the other hand, entreats Haydon not to 
 so misspend his strength. " Nothing more," he writes in 
 friendly remonstrance, " is wanting in you to ensure the wreath 
 of fame but to dedicate all your mind to the subjects of your 
 canvas, and not exhaust it on the never-to-be-corrected inca- 
 pacities and errors of others. If you must write, and that I 
 think you should, for you have clear ideas and a most intel- 
 ligible diction, let it be like Leonardo da Vinci, for the art, 
 not troubling yourself with a thought of those you know or 
 imagine to be its enemies. . . . Every man and every body 
 of men have feelings which I think it a folly for you to 
 waste a thought on." This was a style of reasoning that 
 did not recommend itself to Haydon. The power of the 
 Academy was too great, and its activity too incessant to 
 be despised. But I must admit, since he had established a 
 " school " a dread of the Academy seems to haunt Haydon, 
 often renders him uneasy, perhaps morbidly apprehensive, and 
 at times hurries him into acts his better judgment could not 
 approve. 
 
 11 is pupils being now sufficiently advanced, Haydon obtained 
 leave, and sent them to the British Museum to make cartoons 
 of the Elgin Marbles. They succeeded in making such line 
 cartoons of the Theseus, Ilissus, and the Fates, he resolved to 
 try the effect of their public exhibition the next year. 
 
 Ihe exhibition of these cartoons in 1818 proved an ex- 
 traordinary success. St. James's Street was crowded with 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 107 
 
 carriages from morning till sunset. Foreign ambassadors, 
 dukes and duchesses, all the fine ladies, Royalty even, and the 
 million crushed in to see this wonderful "Exhibition of Car- 
 toons" by young Englishmen. A caricature of "St. James's 
 Street in an uproar" filled the shop windows, and increased 
 the madness.* To add to the excitement, the art critics, who 
 made a profitable business out of writing Haydon down, 
 attacked the whole scheme vigorously. But the effect was 
 rather to show that the success a man has in turning the 
 attention of the public to the text he preaches is in proportion 
 to the abuse he receives from the doctrinaires and dunces. 
 The offence of Haydon was that, he tried to bring the public 
 mind into contact with a nobler art than these men understood. 
 But "society," which had no more feeling for art than Newton's 
 dog had for his master's problems, was really dissuaded from 
 supporting the attempt. They came to the exhibition, it is 
 true, but that was for the sake of novelty and amusement, 
 possibly to see what it was which was so abused and caricatured, 
 not for the art, or the object of the artist. Haydon flattered 
 himself and his pride in the ar stocracy, that the great people 
 came from their love for art, and praised what they saw from a 
 genuine application of the beauties put before ihem. He was 
 perpetually making this mi take, viz., taking the polite flat- 
 teries of visitors for real feeling and approbation. But he 
 lived to be undeceived. They would have lavished the same 
 praises on a Hottentot Venus, or a disgusting dwarf. Eut 
 there was one Man, as Napoleon called him, sitting, afar 
 off, in his own study, who t-aw and apprec'ated Haydon's 
 effort. He sent for the ent re set of the Hissus cartoons. 
 These he hung up around his own room at We mar, and we 
 may depend on it never passed a day without musing among 
 them. Years after, just before his own death, as if to pay a 
 debt of gratitude to Haydon, he wrote, reminding him of these 
 cartoons, and sa d, " My soul has been elevated for many years 
 by their contemplation." That man was Goethe. In England 
 it was flinging a gem to the cock in iEsop's fable ; which bird 
 is always much better pleased with a barleycorn. 
 
 * I had one in my burned portfolio. It was coloured after the style of Gillray's, 
 showed Haydon in a blue coat ;md broad brimmed hat, something like a Quaker 
 in colours ; surrounded by young ducks quacking at him, and the whole street in 
 an uproar of footmen and carriages, &c. — Ed. 
 
joS 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 About this time (1818) a large sum of money being voted 
 (1,0()0,000Z.) for the building of new churches, Haydon, with 
 the sanction of the Bishop of London, took up the matter 
 in the interests of art, and wrote an excellent treatise, urging 
 the Government to put by one per cent, for the purchase 
 of an altar-piece for each new church. Everybody read 
 and praised Haydon's views, and said, "What an excellent 
 idea ! " But nobody did anything to help him to carry it 
 out. Canning said it was " not in his department." Lord 
 Stafford said, "You will never get the House to agree to 
 that." Sir Charles Long said he " gave it up without trying, 
 as there was nothing of which public men knew so little as 
 art." And Mr. Van ittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 said, " Let us build the churches first, and then think of deco- 
 rating them ! " 
 
 This last idea was too brilliant and conclusive for Haydon. 
 He returned to his painting-room a sadder, but, I fear, not a 
 wiser man. The churches were built ; their altar-pieces are 
 not yet designed. 
 
 During these years Haydon discovered it was necessary, 
 if he wished to be on the watch in the interests of his art, to go 
 more into society, and he went. But he far preferred the easier 
 society of his own literary and professional friends. "With these 
 he lived in constant intercourse. He was ever a staunch friend, 
 and more than one of them had known with w hat unbounded 
 generosity, considering his means, he would exert himself on 
 behalf of others in embarrassment or distress.* To most of 
 them, however, his position seemed firm and established. He 
 had made it for himself, and the great picture he was then 
 painting, " Jerusalem," would maintain and increase his repu- 
 tation and authority on art. 
 
 But with all this, none, I believe, knew of the double 
 mischief gnawing at his vitals. Forty per cent, and want of 
 capital to meet it, sooner or later this must bring a man to the 
 ground. Now was the time to have repented having parted 
 
 * In his Journal for March, 1817, I find the following affectionate reference to 
 Keats: "Keats has published his first poems, and great things indeed they 
 promise. . . . Keats is a man after my own heart. He sympathies with me, and 
 comprehends me. We saw through eacli other at once, and I hope are friends 
 for ever. I only know that, if I sell my picture, Keats shall never want till 
 another is done, that he may have leisure for his effusions; in short, he shall 
 never want all his life while I live." — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 ICQ 
 
 with his birthright. Now was the time when the great businers 
 of his father would have supported him firmly, if he had only 
 supported it. But it was gone, lost past redemption, and 
 had left him literally without one sixpence he could call his 
 own. It was a pity the fate of so fine a position, won by such 
 energy and skill, and retained by such activity and toil, 
 should yet hang upon the decision of a six-and-eightpenny 
 attorney ! 
 
 I do not know that the matter weighed on Haydun's mind. 
 Anyhow he never dared to look it fairly in the face. He 
 trusted in Cod, and did his best to extricate himself. 
 
 Among his intimate friends at this period of his life, there 
 is a striking absence of lords and rich men. He had tried 
 them and found them wanting, and although he still went 
 among them, it is evident with all his love for the aristocracy 
 that he prefers the society of men with brains to men of mere 
 rank or wealth. 
 
 Horace Smith, Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Keats, Hazlitt, 
 Barnes (of the 'Times'), Charles Lamb, Wilkie, Coleridge, the 
 Hunts, Ritchie (the African traveller), Du Bois, and Ugo 
 Foscolo, were, more or less, his intimates ; with most of these he 
 lived on familiar terms. Often they would meet at one another's 
 houses, and romp like schoolboys, tell inexhaustible stories, 
 and always laugh at each other's jokes. But their interest in 
 art, in literature, in politics and religion, was anything but 
 boyish. They discussed their favourite subjects, debated over 
 classics, fought r^apoleon's campaigns with the fierceness of 
 partisans — Hazlitt always supporting Napoleon, Haydon 
 always against him, and in favour of the Duke — very often, it 
 seems, breaking up their evenings in a violent heat, to forget 
 their differences, or meet and renew them on the next occasion. 
 Hazlitt said Haydon was one of the best talkers he knew. " I 
 find him," he said to Bewick, " albeit the best painter in 
 England, well read up in the literature of the day. and never 
 at a loss for subjects of conversation, whether of books, politics, 
 men, or things. He talks well, too, on most subjects that 
 interest one; indeed, better than any painter I ever met. 
 Northcote is talkative and original, but he is narrow in his 
 views, and confined in his subjects. Haydon is more a scholar, 
 and has a wider range and versatility of information. One 
 enjoys his hearty joyous laugh ; it sets one upon one's legs as 
 
I IO 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 it were better than a glass of champagne, for one is delighted 
 to meet such a cheery spirit in the saddening depression that 
 broo Is over the hypocrisy and despotism of the world. His 
 laugh rings in my ears like merry bells." This describes him 
 at the time fairly. Talfourd, Miss Mitford, and Wordsworth 
 have all expressed to me a similar opinion, and I believe most 
 of those who remember him would confirm it. His talk was so 
 rapid, so enthusiastic, and without being brilliant, so full of 
 anecdote and illustration, and so earnest, it completely carried 
 you away. Wordsworth said, the last time I saw him, at Christ- 
 mas L v 48, " your father was a fine, frank, generous nature, a 
 capital talker, and well-informed." And as to his art, he said, 
 " He is the first painter in his grand style of art that England 
 or any other country has produced since the days of Titian. 
 He may be disregarded and scorned now by the ignorant and 
 malevolent, but posterity will do him justice. There are 
 things in his works that have never been surpassed, they 
 will be the text book of art hereafter." This was high praise 
 from Wordsworth, but Wordsworth knew what he was talking 
 about, and he was too honest not to be sincere. Haydon had, 
 of course, many personal anecdotes of his friends, and has 
 recorded some ; but he had such a keen sense of the ridiculous, 
 it would not be fair to repeat them. Of Hazlitt, whose eccen- 
 tricities offered so much opportunity for light laughter, he had 
 innumerable stories. Wordsworth added to the stock by one (of 
 Hazlitt's evening amusements at the lakes,) which combined 
 such an union of the fiendish, the ludicrous, and the sublime 
 as not to be surpassed by any story ever told of Hazlitt. Of 
 Coleridge, I have heard him say that he did not always talk, 
 but would sometimes sit silent, apparently taking no notice of 
 the conversation, when suddenly, like the "locutus bos" of 
 Livy, he would come out with something so prodigiously wise 
 everybody became silent, and then he would pour forth for an 
 hour, as the humour took him. The story of Lamb, on his 
 way to the India House, leaving Coleridge at 10 a.m. in a 
 doorway talking with his eyes shut, and coining back at 4 p.m. 
 to find Coleridge still there with his eyes shut, talking away, 
 as he thought, to Lamb, I have heard my father declare, though 
 only on Lamb's authority, to be strictly true; but then Lamb 
 delighted in such fictions about his friends. Byron he never 
 met. They were to have met, but something prevented 
 
Maim Foote. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 I ! I 
 
 Byron from coming, and the opportunity never occurred again ; 
 Haydon regretted it all his life. Shelley he met occasionally. 
 His account of their first meeting, in 1816, is characteristic; 
 it was at a dinner — one of the last he went to at Leigh 
 Hunt's. Haydon arrived late and took his place at the table. 
 Opposite to him sat a hectic, spare, intellectual-looking crea- 
 ture, carving a bit of brocoh on his plate as if it were the 
 substantial wing of a chicken. This was Shelley. Suddenly, 
 in the most feminine and gentle voice, Shelley said, " As to 
 that detestable religion, the Christian — " Haydon looked up. 
 But says he in his diary, " On casting a glance round the table, 
 I easily saw by Leigh Hunt's expression of ecstasy and the 
 simper of the women, I was t^ be set at that evening ' vi et 
 armis.' I felt exactly like a stag at bay, and I resolved to 
 gore without mercy." The result was a heated and passionate 
 argument, and the resolution on the part of Haydon to subject 
 himself no more to the chance of these discussions. And thus 
 it was, to some extent, he gradually broke off his intimacy 
 with Leigh Hunt. Warmly attached as he was to all his 
 friends, this resolution gave Haydon certain pain. But the 
 offensively condescending and patronising tone, which, under 
 the plea of impartiality and fair judgment, Hunt would insist 
 upon assuming when speaking of our Lord and His Apostles, 
 looking down upon them, as it were, from the point of view of 
 a very superior person, irritated and shocked Haydon to a 
 degree that was unendurable. It was altogether inconsistent, 
 in his view, with thu relations of man to his God. He pro- 
 tested warmly against it, but being persisted in by Hunt with 
 all the light genia'ity of his audacious romaneings over the 
 Biblical conception of the Almighty, their intimacy was dis- 
 solved. Later on, Haydon found in Talfourd as faithful and 
 fearless a friend ; he was also a more judicious adviser. 
 
 Among the gentler sex Haydon had many and sincere 
 friends and admirers; Miss Mitford was among the oldest 
 and warmest. With two very opposite characters, Maria 
 Foote and Miss Mellon, afterwards Duchess of St. Albans, 
 he was always a great favourite. Of Holly Lodge he had 
 many lively stories. And as Maria Foote was just at this 
 time delighting the town, Haydon, who used to escort her 
 to and from the theatre, saw a good deal of life behind the 
 Bcenes, but he soon tired of that. He sympathised with 
 
I 12 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Johnson when he said to Garrick, in excuse for not again 
 coming behind " Old Drury," " Oh, Davy, Davy, the silk 
 stockings and the white bosoms of your actresses excited 
 my amorous propensities ! " It is so with all studious men. 
 The sandals of Aspasia turned the heads of the Greek philoso- 
 phers. They come out from their studies into the world, and 
 are first astonished at the vivacity of their own emotions, and 
 then shocked that no one else seems to share them ; a little 
 practice renders them equally insensible. But Haydon was 
 one of those men who found love in any form a serious affair; 
 he, therefore, preferred a " fatiguing virtue to a convenient 
 vice." The former fitted into his habits of thought and reflec- 
 tion, troubled him least, and did not disturb his principles or 
 shake the peace of his mind. " Non ita difficile est quam 
 captum retibus ipsis exire et validos Veneris perrumpere 
 nodos." Tossibly he was so much liked by the sex on account 
 of this earnestness, and he was evidently much run after on 
 account of his good looks and reputation. How it was he was 
 not married much earlier in life it is difficult to say, under 
 all the circumstances that have come to my knowledge ; 
 but he was a striking example that the common belief a 
 clever woman can marry any man she likes, is not always 
 true. In love it is sometimes only one of the two that 
 loves. We as often see clever and fascinating women, trying 
 to attract the man they prefer, succeeding no further than to 
 make him think of the love they feel, or fancy they feel, 
 or wish they felt. He encourages them because it is agree- 
 able, ,and they continue to try for the same reason. The illu- 
 sions of love are always delightful. At length she notices a 
 change in his manner — he is more apt, more spirited by her 
 side. She anticipates her triumph, she sees him already at 
 her feet, when — presto! — one fine morning she learns, to her 
 exquisite mortification, that he has married the woman who 
 makes him feel what she has only disposed him to. This was 
 Haydon's fate. The explanation in his case was, I think, that 
 there are many qualities, in both men and women, which 
 although quite endurable in a friend, would be simply intoler- 
 able in a husband or a wife. He had the sagacity and good 
 fortune to find this out in time. 
 
 By the early spring of 1820, the ' Jerusalem ' was at length 
 completely finished. It was moved down safely to the Egyptian 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 113 
 
 Hall, Piccadilly — the frame alone weighed 600 lbs. — put up 
 without accident, pitched into its place, glazed, and toned ; and 
 towards the end of March the exhibition was ready. The 
 private day was crowded ; dukes and duchesses, court beauties, 
 distinguished foreigners, connoisseurs, and dilettanti. The 
 great doubt of Haydon was the head of our Saviour. He had 
 departed from the traditional type, and in his anxiety and dis- 
 satisfaction at not at first realizing his conception, had painted 
 the head in and out six times. Leonardo da Vinci, in a similar 
 difficulty, left his Christ headless. Haydon says that the 
 moment the picture was up, and he could walk back 40 feet 
 to look at it, he felt he had not reached his true conception. 
 Very possibly : the power of will to execute is often exhausted 
 by intense previous thought. The great world, having no 
 opinion of its own, but talking of our Saviour as if they had 
 known Him intimately, whispered, " This is not like Christ, ' 
 and then waited for some authority to praise or condemn, it 
 made little difference to them. Suddenly, Haydon relates, 
 Mrs. Siddons walked into the room "like a Ceres or a Juno." 
 She went straight to the picture and stood before it, silent and 
 thinking. All held their breath for the awful oracle. At 
 length Sir George Beaumont, in a timid voice, said, " How 
 do you like the Christ ? " After a moment, in a loud, tragic 
 tone, she replied, " It is completely successful." Society, put 
 at their ease, at once pronounced it the finest head ever painted 
 of our Lord. They would have condemned it with equal grace, 
 and facility. The great actress turned to Haydon and said, 
 " 1 he paleness of your Christ gives it a supernatural look." 
 This settled its success. " Its supernatural look " was hence- 
 forth in everybody's mouth. There is great virtue in the selec- 
 tion of terms ; many a man's fortune has been made by a happy 
 phrase. By Monday the reputation of the picture had spread 
 over London, and the people crowded in to see the great 
 work with a "supernatural look." Before the season closed, 
 upwards of 30,01)0 persons had come to see the picture, and saw, 
 in an instant, what had cost years of thought and toil. I have 
 never seen it, and it was not engraved ; bat, from the original 
 sketch I have seen, it must have been a marvellously fine work. 
 Wordsworth told me it was "a masterpiece of conception, 
 colour, character, and expression." He admitted the wonderful 
 force of expression in the wicked mother in ' Solomon,' and the 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
"4 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 appalling; look of ' Lazarus ;' but, he said, the air of pathetic 
 submissiveness of the Penitent Girl in the 'Jerusalem' touched 
 him " more tenderly." Now came the question, what was to 
 be done with such a work ? The ministers admired it, but 
 " what can we do with it ?" they asked, " and where are we 
 to get the money from?" Haydon wanted 2000?. for it. 1 he 
 Church looked at it approvingdy, but did not dare, and was 
 too poor to buy for itself. Watson Taylor was urged to buy 
 it and present it to a church, and it would have been a 
 more creditable extravagance than his silver fire-irons and 
 similar follies. But he had subscribed 300?. towards its paint- 
 ing, and he thought his duty done. The next day he very 
 probably allowed himself to be wheedled out of 5001'?. worth 
 of diamonds by some flatterer.* Sir George Beaumont urged 
 the directors of the British Gallery to make the purchase. 
 He said " You have advertised and asked for such works : 
 here is the finest ever painted by an Englishman ; let us buy 
 it and do honour to the art and the artist." And the directors 
 would have done so, but one man sat at their board who was all- 
 powerful, and that was Mr. Payne Knight. Every dog has his 
 day, little and big, and Mr. Payne Knight, as we have seen, 
 did not let grass grow under his feet when an injury or a mor- 
 tification was to be inflicted on the young painter. There is 
 no venom like the venom of an old man against a young one 
 when fairly aroused. Mr. Payne Knight argued that Haydon, 
 from the first, had set himself to oppose the authorities, and 
 whatever merits the picture might have, and he did not see 
 many for his part, the fact of its being exhibited in this 
 independent manner was an act of rebellion. Taking in con- 
 nection with his famous " Three Letters," his forming a school 
 of pupils, his exhibitions of their cartoons, and his whole con- 
 duct from the first, it could not be denied that he was acting 
 in opposition to the established authorities in art, and he ought 
 to be made to feel his dependence upon them. These argu- 
 ments carried a majority, and the proposal to purchase was 
 finally rejected by one. The noble directors, in their love for 
 high art, somewhat resembled Kousseau, who, laying clown 
 rules for the nurture and education of children, suffered his 
 own offspring to be brought up at a foundling hospital. 
 
 * See 'Gilbert Guriioy,' by Theodore Hook. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 This decision of the directors showed the want of a higher 
 power. Here was a picture the public approved, and would 
 have been glad to possess, lost to the nation and to the country 
 by the weakness of men influenced by the vindictive personal 
 resentment of one man, and that man notoriously of false 
 taste in art. The picture was thrown back on Haydon's 
 hands, and thus secured Haydon's ruin a few years later.* 
 Lord Ashburnham was so mortified at the rejection of the 
 picture by the directors, that he sent for Haydon, and, begging 
 him " not to be discouraged," said, " I cannot buy it myself, 
 but if you will allow me to present you with 10J7. as a slight 
 expression of my admiration of your beautiful picture, you will 
 do me a favour :" and, taking Haydon's hand in both of his, 
 left 100Z. within it. This was thoughtful and kind of Lord 
 Ashburnham, but not the way Haydon should have been re- 
 warded. The best reward for having wrought so well would 
 have been to give him more work to do. This was what 
 Haydon entreated. But it was ever denied, or not understood. 
 
 At the close of the London season he rolled up and sent his 
 picture off by sea to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and exhibited it 
 at both places with great success. Lock hart and Wilson, Terry 
 and Sir Walter Scott, who had confounded Haydon's personal 
 friendship for Leigh Hunt with a political and religious alliance, 
 and had more than once violently attacked Haydon as one of 
 the Cockney school of radicals and sceptics, were astonished to 
 find him a high tory and aristocrat, and a sound Christian ; and 
 something more, a very well read man and a good painter. 
 They changed their tone from that day. The moment they 
 changed their tone and spoke of Haydon as they found him, 
 that part of the press which is supposed to be liberal turned 
 right round, abused Haydon heartily, and for ever after re- 
 presented him as they did not find him. Such is the effect of 
 party feeling. 
 
 Lockhart spoke out manfully about the ' Jerusalem.' " It is 
 probable," he says (' Blackwood,' 1820 f), " that the absurd style 
 
 * It was bought by two American gentlemen after Haydon's sale in 1823, and 
 s<nt to the Public Giillery at Philadelphia, where it still remains. — Ed. ' 
 
 t Haydon used to tell a highland story of the Glasgow Exhibition. A year 
 or two alter, a friend sketching in the Highlands was overlooked by a lassie. 
 After a while she said, " Air ye fond of pectins?" " Yes," said he. " And did 
 yo see a pectur at Glasgaw o' 'Christ comin' to Jurrooslem ? ' " I did," said 
 he. "Ah!" said she, with wild enthusiasm, " yon was a pectur. When I sa' 
 a' the lads and lasses wi' their hats ofi', I jest sat uie doon an' grat." — Ed. 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 of language in which this picture has been lauded by the 
 critics of Cockayne may have inspired many of our readers, as 
 we confess it had ourselves, with many doubts and suspicions; 
 but in order to do away with these, we are quite sure nothing 
 more can be necessary than a single glance at this wonderful 
 performance itself. ... It is quite evident that Mr. Haydon 
 is already by far the greatest historical painter that England 
 has as yet produced. In time, those that have observed this 
 masterpiece can have no doubt, he may take his place by the 
 side of the very greatest painters in Italy." 
 
 This I believe to fairly express the general feeling at the 
 time among competent judges, not only in Scotland but in 
 England, and yet it is a fact that the nobility and patrons 
 never offered or gave Haydon one single commission of any 
 kind at this time. I have searched his correspondence care- 
 fully, and, with the exception of a note from Mr. T. Hope, 
 drily refusing an offer from Haydon now to paint him a small 
 picture, as he, Mr. Hope, had made " other arrangements," and 
 one from Mr. Watson Taylor, also declining to allow Haydon 
 to paint a picture for him for the 300?. Mr. Taylor had ad- 
 vanced, and the long standing commission (three-quarter size) 
 from Sir George Phillips, live hundred guineas, which Haydon 
 painted, and the one from Sir John Leycester, for sixty 
 guineas, which, with Sir John's permission, he had made over 
 to Bewick on account of his own weak sight, there is not a 
 trace of eaiployment of any kind being offered, or conferred. 
 The public had done what they could ; they had come in 
 crowds to see the picture, and paid for seeing it ; they had no 
 organization or individual means to do more ; that was rightly 
 left to the great nobles and rich patrons, and they did nothing. 
 This would be very remarkable if Poetry and Music did not 
 share the distinction of being considered, by the majority of 
 our nobles and rich men, as relatively of no importance to the 
 greatness of England as a nation. Professors of the fine arts, 
 let them deny and struggle against it as they may, are yet 
 regarded, in England, as inferior men of no rank, or real 
 worth. The successful blackleg with his house in Berkeley 
 Square, and a hunting-box at Melton, is, in the opinion of 
 certain classes, a better member of society, and a more agree- 
 able companion. They will send him to Parliament, drink 
 his claret, and fawn upon him for his ' good things " at New- 
 
B R. HA YD ON. 
 
 117 
 
 market and Doncaster, and as he only appeals to the worst 
 passions of mankind, there can be no doubt about the 
 superiority of his claims. Low tastes and want of high culture 
 bring a nobility down to these levels. The understanding that 
 nothing shall be deemed aristocratic that is not habitually done 
 by the aristocracy is the probable explanation. This meets 
 the case of Haydon, and beyond that I am not disposed to seek 
 a deeper explanation of conduct, which, on the face of it, 
 appears so indefensible and wrong.* 
 
 Haydon returned from Scotland late in the autumn, carrying 
 away with him, he says, " a very complete conception of 
 Scotch hospitality." Sir Walter Scott, Wilson, Lockhart, 
 Jeffrey, Allan, Eaeburn (" that glorious fellow ") had all wel- 
 comed him warmly, though Sir Walter was the only one who 
 knew him before. " Princes Street," he writes, " on a clear 
 sunset, with the castle and the Pentland Hills in radiant glory, 
 and the crowd illumined by the setting sun, was a sight 
 perfectly original. First you would see, limping, Sir Walter, 
 talking as he walked with Lord Meadowbank ; then tripped 
 Jeffrey, keen, restless and fidgety ; you next met Wilson, or 
 Lockhart, or Allan, or Thompson, or Eaeburn, as if all had 
 agreed to make their appearance at once. It was a striking 
 scene." 
 
 The exhibition of 'Jerusalem' in Scotland had been a 
 remarkable success. Upwards of 20,000 more persons, thus 
 making 5U,000 in all, had come to see the picture — an as- 
 tonishing number if we remember that in those days there 
 were no railroads, and the means of locomotion few, far 
 between, and exj:>ensive. But, if t le pecuniary success of the 
 exhibition was great it was not wholly sufficient. It materially 
 reduced Haydon's indebtedness, that is true, but sixty per cent, 
 requires a wide mai'gin ; the result was, he was still without a 
 reserve. Had the picture been sold, all would have been well; 
 Mr. Payne Knight had, however, effectually prevented that. 
 Other schemes were then tried. A public subscription to 
 
 * Yet, in Haydon's ease, there is one element always present and not to be 
 forgotten, viz., the persistent hostility of the Royal Academy. Iain not speaking 
 of individual, but of corporate action. At first I thought this complaint >>f 
 Haydon illusive, but I am reluctantly compelled to believe that the vindictive 
 feelmg of the Academy against Haydon had no small influence upon the nobility 
 and his fortunes. "They spoke against him with false tongues, they compassed 
 him about with words of hatred, and fought against him without a cause." — Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 purchase the picture and present it to the National Gallery, or 
 to a church, was proposed. But the arrangements were in- 
 judicious, the Government refused its countenance, and both 
 schemes fell through. The decision of the directors of the 
 British Gallery, as Mr. Payne Knight had foreseen, chilled 
 everybody but Sir George Beaumont and a few devoted lovers 
 of art. Haydon, who was a very practical man in such 
 matters, sa\V his chance was gone, and set about something 
 else. He had a little money to go on with, and in twenty-four 
 hours had made up his mind, sale or no sale, to paint the next 
 of his scriptural series. The very risk suited his adventurous 
 spirit. Besides, it gave him an excuse to remain in England, 
 in the vain hope of producing a salutary change in the taste of 
 the nobility, and in the disposition of the Government. 
 
 My opinion is, he shoidd now have left England and gone to 
 Home or St. Petersburg, taking the ' Jerusalem ' with him. 
 The high favour of the Emperor Nicolas, or the friendship 
 even of Canova at Kome, could not have failed to secure 
 Haydon both reputation and wealth. Though he cared little 
 enough for the latter, it would have placed him in a position, 
 wherein his genius would have had the fullest play. When 
 Canova found him the only man in England painting history, 
 and that on his own responsibility, and in a room you could 
 not swing a cat in, he must have thought of his own abundance 
 of commissions and wealth, and of his own superb palace at 
 Borne, as he pressed Haydon warmly by the hand, and said to 
 him, in a tone there was no mistaking the meaning of, " Yenez, 
 venez a Rome ! vous y verrez la veritable democratie de 
 l'art !" by which, says Eastlake, he meaned "an 'aristocracy ' of 
 artists" that was of a better kind than Haydon had to deal 
 with in England. 
 
 Haydon must often have recalled the words of Canova, and, 
 for his own reputation's sake, regretted he did not follow their 
 counsel. 
 
 In England, however, he elected to remain, with many mis- 
 givings I feel sure. For it was but a forlorn hope at the best, 
 and his reward was what we shall see — even the patronage of a 
 Duke of Mantua would have been preferable* 
 
 The ' Raising of Lazarus ' was the next picture of his series 
 
 * The Duke of Mantua, of Rubens's day, could find no better employment for 
 Rubens than to engage hiui to make copies of the old masters. — Ed. 
 
First sketch/ for dve fiquue of Lazarus 
 
 18 W 
 
n. r. haydon. 119 
 
 Haydon decided to paint. He ordered a canvas 19 feet long 
 by 15 feet high, and, as usual, with little or no money left, 
 began the third of his great works of this period. 
 
 Sir George Beaumont, with whom he had now made up his 
 differences — Sir George taking the ' Macbeth ' for two hundred 
 guineas— wrote to Haydon a letter of the warmest congratula- 
 tions upon his success with the exhibition, at least, of the 
 'Jerusalem.' But he adds a closing paragraph of friendly 
 warning, which appears to me to contain an allusion to Mr. 
 Payne Knight and his recent behaviour : " Paint down your 
 enemies," says Sir George, " rather than attempt to write 
 them down, which will only multiply them, and believe me 
 that no man is so insignificant as not to stand a chance of 
 having it in his power to do you a serious injury at some time 
 or other." 
 
 Haydon began the ' Raising of Lazarus ' in December, 
 1820 ; with one break in May 1821, when he was unsettled by 
 the difficulty of reconciling the mildness of character of our 
 Lord with depth of thought, the form that gives the one de- 
 stroying the other, he worked at this picture steadily and hard, 
 and by the 7th December, 1822, had completed it.* In 
 October, 1821, he had married a very lovely young widow, 
 to whom he had long been passionately attached. This, 
 
 * He had also one fit of real idleness in May, 1821, at the sale of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds's pictures at Christie's. It was at this sale Haydon advised Sir George 
 Phillips to buy the 'Piping Shepherd' for 400 guineas, an enormous pike in 
 those days. Haydon says m his Journal that the moment it was found out he 
 had advised it, there was a general run down of the picture, to poor Sir George's 
 great dismay, who thought that he had made a foolish purchase. His entry in h'3 
 Journal for the day after is worth quoting. " 20th May, 1821.— Went again to 
 Reynolds's sale. I found the 400 guineas of yesterday had made a great noise in 
 town, and Phillips was assailed by everybody as he came in. . . . In the midst 
 of the sale, up squeezed Ohantrey. I was exceedingly amused ; I turned round 
 and found on the other side, Northcote. I began to think something was in the 
 wind. Phillips asked him how he liked the ' Shepheid.' At first Northcote said 
 he didn't recollect it. Then he said, 'Ah! indeed.' 'Ah! yes; it is a very 
 poor thing. I remember it.' Poor Phillips whispered to me, ' You see people 
 have different tastes.' It served him heartily right, and I was very glad of it. 
 He does not deserve his prize. The moment these people heard I was the adviser 
 they began to undervalue it. I knew that Norihcote's coming up was ominous. 
 The att> mpts of this little fellow to mortify others arc amusing, he exists on it. 
 The sparkling delight with which he watches a face, when he knows something 
 is coming that will change its expression, is beyond everything. As soon as he 
 had said what he thought would make Phillips unhappy for two hours, he slunk 
 
 Haydon rates this picture very h ; jrlily. " It is the completest bit of a certain 
 expression in the world. Eyes and hands, motions and look, all seem quivering 
 with the remembrance of some melodious tone of his flageolet. The colour and 
 pivservaiion are perfect. It is a work I could dwell on for ages." — Ed. 
 
I 20 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 perhaps, may have helped him to the rapid completion of his 
 picture, but I fear that pecuniary pressure upon him was the 
 real explanation of the rapidity of his work. For, if his home 
 was now extremely happy, and his health excellent, his ex- 
 ternal relations with the world, particularly with the usurious 
 part of it, were the reverse of pleasant. In those two years 
 Haydon was made to feel many of the worst and most harass- 
 ing humiliations of debt. His creditors refused to believe 
 that he had not realized a much larger sum by the exhibition 
 of the ' Jerusalem ' than was the fact, and that he had not 
 married a fortune, which was not the fact ; and, thus, his very 
 successes became a source of serious embarrassment to him. In 
 this dilemma Haydon conducted his affairs with his usual 
 activity and foresight. I!ut the cry of an enraged creditor, 
 inflamed with suspicion and cupidity, was not pleasant to meet 
 in those days without means. Law costs, judgments, writs, 
 and arrests quickly followed, and a poor man was given no 
 sufficient time from the claim to the attachment of his person 
 to clear himself, except upon the most exorbitant terms. And 
 how to conceal the matter from his wife ! This was the first 
 question with Haydon. It was under these circumstances he 
 committed that offence against morality which has been 
 magnified so much to his discredit. In a moment of terrible 
 pressure which threatened exposxire and ruin, he asked two 
 of his elder and former pupils, both young men whom he had 
 started in life, to put their names to bills of some 25DZ. and 
 350/. respectively, for an extension of time. Considering that 
 he had almost fed and clothed these men during their pupil- 
 age, had, I find, paid the rent for one, instructed them both 
 for nothing, and set them both on their professional road, I 
 must confess I am not so much struck at the enormity of the 
 offence. I had very much rather Haydon had not clone what 
 he did, but, having done it, I do not think he could have done 
 it under circumstances so favourable to palliation. It was a 
 reprehensible act, and Haydon regretted it all his life, because, 
 by the time he was imprisoned, he had an unpaid balance still 
 on each bill, which these lads had to pay, and they could ill 
 afford it. But most men, at some time or other of their 
 lives, imagine themselves to form an exception to the ordinary 
 rules of prudence and morality. It is this that leads men to 
 do wrong with such excellent intentions. Such, however, was 
 
First Sketchet for Figure* in Lazarus, 1820-23. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 the struggle in which he now found himself engaged. The 
 ruin he had long foreseen was closing in more rapidly upon 
 him than he expected, and unless some extraordinary piece 
 of good fortune favoured him he would be crushed. But, 
 crushed or not, he must finish the ' Lazarus.' He worked 
 with superhuman energy ; he exerted himself beyond the limits 
 of ordinary human endurance — rising early to work at his 
 picture till office hours came, then rushing hither and thither 
 to pacify this creditor, quiet the fears of that, remove the 
 jealousy and illwill of a third, borrowing money of a fourth 
 and fifth, to keep his engagements with the attorney of a 
 sixth ; then hastening home to paint in a " wild tremor ;" to 
 be arrested while painting; to hasten off into the City for 
 release ; to fly back again to his picture, and so on from day 
 to day. For here there were — 
 
 " The thousand ills that rise when money fails, 
 Debts, threats, and duns, bills, bailiffs, writs, and jails." 
 
 Where now were all the dukes and earls of his last exhi- 
 bition ? Where indeed ! Not one of them comes forward to 
 assist him. Out of all their huge incomes, out of the thou- 
 sands they squander annually upon cards, cooks, prostitutes, 
 blacklegs, and their other pleasures, not one among them 
 could find it in his heart to take this struggling man by the 
 hand, and with the gift of a few thousand pounds put him in a 
 position of security for life. And they knew well his position 
 by this time. Why, the utmost the whole English nobility, 
 with all their vast wealth and possessions, were ever known to 
 do altogether for art, for literature, and for science, will not 
 amount to a single gift of one noble Roman to his favourite poet. 
 Here was an Englishman eminently learned in his art, who, by 
 the sheer force and vigour of his intellect, and the sweep and 
 mastery of his industrious and inspired hand, had put himself 
 at the head of the historical painters of Europe, left by his 
 nobility to beg mercy from attorneys, and borrow money at 
 usurious interest to pay for his models and materials of art ! 
 The fact is highly characteristic. It exemplifies in a remark- 
 able degree (and we shall yet see it still further exemplified) 
 the elaborate neglect, the inability, the dread, the dislike, the 
 English nobility invariably exhibit towards the historic art of 
 their own great country, which renders the life of the his- 
 
122 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 torical painter in England intolerable, and historic art an 
 impossibility. 
 
 As I read Haydon's private Journal at this period of his 
 career, I am astonished he did not go raving mad. How a 
 man, with his acute sensibilities, could have borne such violent 
 shocks of mental emotion, and yet concentrate his mind upon 
 the picture before him, is one of the most astonishing facts in 
 mental phenomena. Read the account Bewick, his old pupil, 
 gives of the painting of the head of Lazarus, " that most 
 appalling conception ever realized on canvas," as Sir Walter 
 described it ; and think, if any painter of your acquaintance, 
 living or dead, could have done what Haydon did that 
 morning. 
 
 " I remember well," writes Bewick (8th November, 1853), 
 " that I was seated upon a box placed upon a chair, upon a 
 table, mounted up as high as the head in the picture, and a 
 very tottering insecure seat it was, and painful, to be pinned 
 to a confined spot for so many hours, for the head, two hands, 
 and drapery were all painted at once, in one day, and never 
 touched afterwards, but left as struck off, and any one looking 
 close to the painting will perceive that the head has never 
 been even ' softened,' so successful and impressive it appeared 
 to both painter and model, and so much was it the emanation 
 of a wonderful conception executed with a rapidity and pre- 
 cision of touch truly astonishing. And when it is considered 
 that the mind of the painter was harassed and deeply anxious 
 by the circumstances of his arrest at the beginning of his work, 
 when concentrating his thoughts on the character and expres- 
 sion to be represented, any one at all acquainted with the 
 difficulties of the art of painting, will readily concede this 
 portion of so difficult a subject to be a feat of marvellous 
 dexterity and power in the art. 
 
 " I think I see the painter before me, his palette and 
 brushes in his left hand, returning from the sheriff s officer in 
 the adjoining room, pale, calm, and serious — no agitation — 
 mounting his high steps and continuing his arduous task, 
 and as he looks round to his pallid model, half-breathingly 
 whispering, ' Egad ! Bewick, I have just been arrested; that 
 is the third time ; if they come again, I shall not be able to 
 go on.' " 
 
 Can anything more mournful be written of a painter ? Surely 
 
First Study of the Oravedigger in Lazarus, 1820. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 1-3 
 
 a more terrible daily life his worst enemy could not have wished 
 him. Yet Haydon never quailed, never denied himself, but 
 faced every man, and found even sheriff's officers impressionable 
 and even generous. The first sheriff's officer who arrested him 
 was so overcome at being left alone with this awful head of 
 Lazarus staring out from the grave clothes, that on Haydon 
 coming in he refused to take him prisoner, accepted Haydon's 
 word to meet him at the attorney's, and rushed from the 
 painting-room.* 
 
 What was the secret of Haydon keeping his health and his 
 head under such terrible pressure, I cannot exactly say. lie 
 was one of those men with a faith and an enthusiasm that alone 
 makes life worth the trouble of living, and he was one of those 
 professional men of such a purely intellectual temper in his 
 art that nothing ever unsteadied his nerves. He never knew 
 when at work what it was to doubt or regret. Once at his 
 picture he never thought of himself or his difficulties. His 
 mind filled with his subject shut out all else. When we con- 
 sider all the harassing distractions that now beset him, and 
 take into account the time, the temper, the drudgery of 
 watching over this creditor, quieting that, and providing for 
 current liabilities, and then look at the picture he painted in 
 face of so many, and such dragweights, one is lost in astonish- 
 ment at the work done, at the variety and prodigality which 
 under such an incubus his creative power displays. It must 
 have been either his happy possession of a purely intellectual 
 temper in his profession, or else is it that the painter's art is a 
 distinct faculty of the soul, and has no more to do with the 
 everyday individual of domestic life than has his divine 
 ideal ? 
 
 But in either case any situation more insupportable cannot 
 easily be conceived of a man engaged upon such a divine art, 
 which above all things is held to require peace of mind and 
 
 * This lias been likened by a ' Quarterly Reviewer' to the case of Parmegiano, 
 when the soldiers of the Constable sacked Home. Breaking into I'arme^iano's 
 room, the men were so struck by the beauty of his pictures they protected him. 
 But I think the bailiff has the advantage here. The soldiers irresponsible and 
 ilu-ln d with success, came to rob and revel, and could well afford to be generous. 
 The bailiff came deliberately to make le.'al prisoner of the painter, and was bound 
 not to lose sight of h in ; yet, he is so struck by the appalling look of Lazarus, 
 be r.-fuses to take the painter from his work, aud risks the responsibility ot 
 leaving him in his house. This seems to me the li.ier insta.ice of the two. 
 —Ed. 
 
124 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 freedom from mean miseries and tormenting interruptions for 
 its conception, expression, and handling. 
 
 At length the picture approached completion. The head of 
 our Saviour he left to the last, and spoiled it. Yet it is a grand 
 work, and despite all the critics have said against it for " this " 
 and for "that," and the obtrusive vulgarity of Mary's look 
 of astonishment, at which my gorge always rises, it would be 
 difficult to find another painting of the same subject in 
 European art of equal size and equal merit. In the splendour 
 of its colour, in its drawing and composition, in its variety 
 of form and expression, it holds its place as a work of art. 
 In the fright, the grief, the movement of the crowd, contrasted 
 with the absorbed attitude of Christ, the evident scepticism ot 
 some, the amazement, the curiosity and horror of others, and 
 in the appalling look of the consciousness of a soul brought 
 back to life from death, it exceeds any picture of the samo 
 subject I have ever seen. The famous ' Sebastian del Piombo,' 
 even with the help of Michel Angelo, looks tame and insipid 
 beside it. 
 
 The exhibition was opened on the 1st March, 1823, and all 
 for a moment seemed to go rapidly and well. It was the lull of 
 the tiger before his spring. Haydon, as if conscious of impend- 
 ing mischief, but confident in his good fortune to avert it, 
 shows no interest. He remains at home deep in the compo- 
 sition of his fresh picture 'The Crucifixion.' In a short time 
 all London was crowding to the exhibition ; the receipts were 
 mounting up to 200?. a week, yet he takes no further interest 
 and neglects to perform a very obvious duty, that of calling 
 his creditors together. Nobody knew better, if this were not 
 done mischief must ensue. It is not the great debts that 
 trouble a man; it is the small ones, as Dr. Johnson said, 
 " that rattle about your head like shot." Yet Haydon did 
 nothing. His chief object se ms to have been to conceal the 
 perilous state of his affairs from his wife, and not to admit 
 it even to himself. Every daily emergency that arose he 
 met with an expedient. With all his courage, which was un- 
 questionable, I doubt if he had that rare courage of looking 
 his liabilities fairly in the face; in my experience I never 
 kuew but one man who had. A man on the wrong side of the 
 balance seldom cares to have his banking-book made up. It 
 seenis as if men in debt become so long accustomed to sup- 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 pression, they dislike the prospect of disclosure, even if it 
 brings relief. And thus it was, like iEsops doe, Haydon went 
 on his own way, hoping more than believing himself secure by 
 the growing success of his exhibition, but taking no pains to 
 secure that security, and not looking out for unexpected 
 stoims. It is, I admit, difficult for " neck or nothing " men, in 
 a close race and on the eve of apparent success, to believe in 
 immediate disaster. They talk of it, they even look upon it as 
 a contingency, but they never believe in it till everything goes 
 by the board. 
 
 Haydon went on with his design for the ' Cru ifixion,' one 
 of the grandest designs, to judge from his sketches, ever con- 
 ceived by his fertile brain, and he left the ' Lazarus ' exhibition 
 to take care of itself. Meantime an angry and impatient 
 creditor Haydon had quizzed at dinner, and had not called 
 upon as he had promised (he had staid at home, rubbing in 
 the ' Crucifixion '), came over to the exhibition. The sight 
 of the crowds of people and the heaps of shillings pouring 
 in so kindled his cupidity, he hurried off to his attorney. 
 The next day (13th April, 182 i) an execution was suddenly 
 put in, and the ' Lazarus ' seized. A few days more, Haydon 
 was arrested, carried off to prison, and before his wife had 
 quite realized the position, the house was taken possession of 
 and all their property advertised for sale. 
 
 The blow was sudden and complete, as it was intended. It 
 rolled over them both like a great tidal wave, and drowned out 
 all their landmarks. The news travelled far and wide ; the 
 exhibition room became deserted. The public was shocked. 
 It did not know what to do for him. His personal friends, 
 headed by Sir Walter Scott, rallied round him, but it was too 
 late. The lawyers had got hold of everything, and they were 
 not disposed to let go except on exorbitant terms. A man 
 with so many powerful friends was not caught every day. But 
 the bulk of the nobility and patrons held back. A few 
 thousands, a trifle from each, would have paid his debts, and 
 placed him in security to continue his labours. But no. He 
 would paint historical pictures, contrary to their wish, and they 
 were not going to help him now. A few great lords grumbled 
 out their pity, looked on at his sale, never interfered to stop the 
 dispersion of his collection, and left him mouldering in prison for 
 the whole London season. At the end of July, 1823, Haydon 
 
126 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 was brought up before the Commissioners, and there being no 
 opposition, was immediately discharged. He remarks that 
 he was treated with great kindness and consideration by the 
 court. 
 
 And this, I think, may be conveniently taken to close the 
 second period of Haydon's career. 
 
 At the end of the first period we left him in a critical 
 position; he had won a reputation as a writer upon art and 
 as a painter of great promise. But the ' Dentatus ' affair at 
 the Academy had deprived him of the confidence of the 
 patrons, and his "Three Letters" had placed him without 
 the pale of society. The question with his own friends was, 
 would he or would he not make good his promise ? J think 
 we may say he fully redeemed it. In these ten years he 
 showed that, with a brilliant imagination, he had the patience, 
 the humility, the calmness necessary to the meditation required 
 to develop his conceptions. Besides smaller works, he had 
 succeeded, with one exception, always under adverse circum- 
 stances in painting three of the grandest scriptural works and 
 
 on the largest scale ever painted by any modern Englishman 
 
 by the 'Judgment of Solomon,' the 'Entry into Jerusalem,' 
 and the 'Baising of Lazarus.' His conceptions of the false 
 mother fur malignity, of the penitent girl for pathos, and of 
 Lazarus for sublimity and awe have never been surpassed, 
 especially the latter. The head of Lazarus, it is acknowledged, 
 will hold its own against the greatest painters of the finest 
 periods of art.* His development of power from the ' Joseph and 
 Mary' of 1S07 and 'Dentatus' of 18U9 is remarkable. It is 
 difficult to look at the first of these two and believe the same 
 hand painted the others. At least you have to look closely 
 before you discover here and there traces of the power that 
 ' Solomon ' displays. In the ' Dentatus ' proofs of great power 
 in its expression of thought and distinction of character are 
 more apparent. The dying soldier in the foreground is a 
 wonderful bit of conception, expression, and painting, and the 
 whole designed in first-rate spirit. But it is in the 'Judgment 
 of Solomon ' Haydon's real powers come out. He showed here 
 that he could paint the human soul as well as the human figure. 
 
 * Hayd m lias left it on record that if this head of Lazarus is subjected t > the 
 process enlled "cleaning, ' :.s practised, in his day, at the Natiouul Gallery, it 
 will be ruined. This is worth remembering. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 127 
 
 He seems to have conceived and painted this picture with an 
 extraordinary sense of freedom from the harass of control. 
 His mastery over every variety of human expression, his bold 
 and powerful drawing, his control of light and shade, his fine 
 colour, and his noble composition show here what was really in 
 him, and how completely he could dwarf all his contemporaries. 
 In Paris they said the ' Dentatus' had "established" his repu- 
 tation ; they had no idea of what was coming in the ' Solomon.'* 
 In the ' Jerusalem,' in Wordsworth's opinion expressed to me, 
 Haydon surpassed the ' Solomon.' He admitted the colour and 
 execution and fine drawing and expression of the ' Solomon,' 
 but he said the ' Jerusalem ' " exceeded " it in general com- 
 pleteness of effect, in the more perfect embodiment of his 
 ideal, in a larger and deeper conception of human expression, 
 in the exquisite beauty and variety of which, Wordsworth said 
 Haydon had "equalled the greatest painters," and for these 
 reasons he preferred it to the ' Solomon,' fine as that was. 
 
 In the ' Lazarus ' faults of haste, and of exaggeration conse- 
 quent upon haste, begin to appear. Yet the picture has many 
 beauties, and a breadth and grandeur about it not to be seen in 
 the works of many masters. In the pathos of human grief the 
 expression of Martha has seldom been surpassed, while no 
 pai l.ter living or dead, of any school, has approached the head 
 of Lazarus. There is nothing like the expression of Lazarus 
 in the whole of European art, ancient or modern. The painter 
 of that head would have been honoured in Greece or Italy ; 
 in England he was left to linger in prison, and his name is now 
 never mentioned by a public speaker. 
 
 In addition to these paintings of Irs own, Haydon, within 
 this period, had laboured hard to attain his great objects, the 
 elevation of a higher standard in the art, employment on 
 pubbc works for painters, the establishment of public schools 
 of art, and the improvement of the taste of the people. His 
 
 * Leslie, in Irs ' Handbook for Young Painters,' refers to Havd n's ' Solomon ' 
 more than once. " Hud such a picture,' he writes (p. 60), '• bien produced in 
 France, it would have been placed in the Louvre immedi itely on the death of 
 the painter. But the Trustees of our National Gallery missed securing it for a 
 nominal sum, while they were spending the public money on doubtful or daum-. ,1 
 or second-rate pictures of the old masters." " Whatever," he adds, " may lie the 
 faults of this great work of Haydon's, it would sustain itself with credit by the 
 side of Rubens and his faults: and it will be disgraceful to the country" if it 
 (the 'Solomon') does not ultimately find a re^ting-jalace in the Kaiiunal 
 Gallery.'' — Ed. 
 
23 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 action on the Elgin Marbles bad saved those glorious fragments 
 to the country, and his education of Eastlake, the Land eers, 
 Bewick, Lance, Harvey, Ghatfield, Prentis, and others had done 
 certain good, while his placing their cartoons before the public 
 had drawn attention to the great powers of English students 
 under sound instruction. 
 
 All th's Haydon had done without the lea-t aid or promise 
 of encouragement from the Government or nobility, and with 
 only a limited assurance from a few personal friends. But 
 then some men have the gift of doing great things with small 
 means, just as Lord Peterboro' captured Montjuich with a hand- 
 ful of men. Nor do I believe any private advantage to have 
 been in his eye. His most extravagant desire was the removal 
 of that apathy in high places, and those official hindrances which 
 checked the advance of historical painting in England, together 
 with the employment of our painters on public works, and the 
 establishment of schools of design. He would have liked, I 
 believe, to clear himself from debt by his own labours. But his 
 main object throughout was to show the Government and the 
 nobility that historical paintings on a large scale were appre- 
 ciated by the public, and that subjects might be so chosen and 
 pa nted not merely to gratify the eye, but to appeal to our 
 higher feelings, and call forth what is good and noble in the 
 m uds of men. And he painted on the scale of life and larger, 
 because, although the more difficult, it was the more impressive, 
 and as a matter of art, was better calculated to keep English 
 art from degrading into a mere imitative and decorative trade, 
 than the small, highly-wrought palpable style of the Dutch 
 school to which he saw English art was rapidly tending.* 
 
 That the Government and the nobility refused to accept 
 Haydun's view is no proof that he was in error, rather the 
 reverse. They did not support him for the same reason they 
 did not support Reynolds or Etty — until he consented to 
 become the Crebillon of art— or Flaxman, or the young 
 sculptor Proctor, whom they left to be starved to death, after 
 
 * When a painter is ignorant of the anatomy of the human form and of the 
 functions of the bones and muscles, he dare not venture upon the naked figure, or 
 attempt to paint in life size. He therefore confines him- elf to a diminutive scale, 
 covers his figures with armour or blight clothing, finishes highly, and passes 
 off what may be a very pretty picture as a beautiful specimen of the highest art; 
 murh as the French cook by the help of condiments and a piquante sauce lur. d 
 his master into eating his own slippers. But in neither case is the dish fit for a 
 healthy uppcti;e. — Ed 
 
B R. HA YDON, 
 
 1-9 
 
 winning both prizes for poetic sculpture.* They were not 
 qualified to appreciate ideal, historic, or poetic art, and they 
 had no conception of the educational functions and value of 
 art, and never will have until they are taught with their 
 languages and classics to acquire some notions of the intrinsic 
 interest and value of art, and the use it was intended by Pro- 
 vidence to serve in the government of mankind.f At ] resent, 
 I fear, it must be admitted that the larger part of " our ardent 
 youth to noblest manners framed " have no more real know- 
 ledge of, or taste for art than their grandfathers, and that was 
 comprised in a flat portrait of themselves, their dogs, and 
 horses, to which may now be added a series of gaudy French 
 photographs of questionable aim. The<e, with other gross or 
 unrefined subjects, they continue to prefer to the noblest works 
 of art, representing the most glorious deeds of religion or 
 of history by the greatest painters. 
 
 There is a small minority of noble exceptions, men and 
 women of high culture, of pure and refined taste ; but they are 
 few in number, not generally wealthy, and as they shrink from 
 a contest with the coarser and uncultivated minds about them, 
 their influence in their order is limited. 
 
 It may not be inopportune to notice here a charge fre- 
 quently brought by biographers against Haydon as to his 
 inordinate estimation of his own importance to English art. 
 I must confess I see nothing "inordinate" in his feeling on 
 this point. What I see is a huge folly in his making such an 
 outcry about the nobility not crowding to his painting-room 
 every season. He had no reason to expect they should. 
 They would have left Raphael himself for Tom Thumb any 
 day, and particularly if the Academy had hung Eaphael's 
 ' Madonna ' in their Octagon-room. But, beyond this folly, 
 I see little to condemn in Haydon's attitude. He was the 
 leader of historic art in England. There was no man in 
 England who held and expressed such high views of art, and 
 no man who was his equal either with his brush or his pen 
 upon his own subject on his own scale. In these no man then 
 
 * Proctor's fate was rrn st melancholy. I believe he died in an obscure lodging 
 iu Clare Market, of absolute starvation.— Ed. 
 
 t We had a striking- instance recently of a young Marquis and cx-Ministcr 
 asking the kind indulgence . f Lis audience lor his utter and complete ignorance 
 of Art, the subject he had to speak upon. It was a candid confession, but a very 
 painful one to hear.— Ed. " 
 
 VOL. L K 
 
1?0 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 living could approach him, and I do not know one now who 
 could. And he had won his pre-eminence over every opposition 
 by the mere force of his intellect and the patience of his in- 
 dustry. Moreover, his aim was a public aim, not a petty or a 
 personal one, but a great public object. Had he not, therefore, 
 the right to consider his art, his pupils, and himself as its chief 
 exponent of some importance from a national point of view? 
 There is one answer to this, by another question. What 
 has become of High Art and high aims in arr since Haydon's 
 death ? Do we ever in the profession hear anything like h s 
 vo ce now ? Do we ever in the merely clever imitations of 
 Nature and analytic studies annually put before us find any- 
 thing equal to his id:>al works, anything, with all their faults, 
 so full of the spirit that br'ngs art in contact with the highest 
 and noblest sentiments of our being ? Whether Haydon was 
 ru'ned or not, is nothing to the point; that he was ruined 
 and driven from High Art into portrait and small copies of h:s 
 own works to get a living, is no proof he was wrong in his 
 views, but rather a reproach to the apathy, the ignorance, the 
 insincerity, and, I fear, the vulgar taste in art of the nobility, 
 the patrons and authorities in England. Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 we know, acknowledged that, in face of the obstructions he saw- 
 before him in England, he did not " feel his power equal " to 
 undertake historical painting. He confined his efforts, there- 
 fore, to doing that to which he felt equal, viz., the rescue ol 
 portrait painting from the insipidity and mannerism into which 
 it had fallen. That Reynolds really believed the interests ot 
 British art in his time to be bound up in himself would not be 
 difficult to show. Why, then, is Haydon, who did for history 
 what Reynolds did for portrait, to be condemned for holding, 
 relatively, the same opinion? The value of the charge turns 
 upon the sincerity of the belief. If Haydon had been insin- 
 cere in his desire for the public good, and under cover of such 
 professions to be merely striving after his own personal and 
 pecuniary advantage, there would be some ground to condemn 
 him. But in the face of such a purely unselfish course as he 
 pursued (and in this he stands far beyond Reynolds), to con- 
 demn him for doing what he believed to be his duty by the 
 art and to the public, viz., keeping his art and necessarily 
 himself and his pupils perpetually before the public for the 
 public good, and to see nothing in his action but mere vanity 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 131 
 
 and "love of vulgar applause," shows how easily a critic, 
 eager to find faults, may forget his own ; and how sickening 
 to those, who wish to retain their faith in honest criticism, 
 must be such an exhibition of the influence of the meanest, 
 passions. 
 
 From a pen and Ink sketch by Wilkle. A study for a head for his ' Chelsea Pensioners.' 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 Haydon t came out of prison deeply humiliated. The forced 
 inactivity and the severance from his wife and child was hard 
 to bear, and thoughts of them perhaps lay nearer to his 
 heart than all besides. But now that he came out again 
 upon the world to find his house stripped, his school of 
 pupils broken up, and himself deprived of everything that 
 helped to endear his art to him, his prints, his books, 
 his casts, his sketches, his anatomical studies, the very 
 materials of his art, and all his practice scattered among a 
 thousand purchasers, the loss was too cruel to be forgotten. 
 The memory of it lasted him for his life, and racked him 
 with anguish from time to time. It has been hastily said 
 that time softens all griefs. But the "miscreant" never restores 
 to us what he has ruined, and the loss of property that cannot 
 be replaced is an inconsolable loss — it remains with us all 
 our lives. 
 
 A few things only, bought in for him by Sir G. Beaumont, 
 by Wilkie, and by Dr. Darling, were all that he ever recovered. 
 A fourth " friend," who professed " to buy in " generously " for 
 poor Haydon, you know," and so got the cream of the collec- 
 tion at easy prices, was so pleased with his bargains that he 
 forgot to part with them, and has kept them to himself ever 
 since. I believe he is still living. If he reads this, he may 
 look at his treasures with increased interest to think how 
 cleverly he "jockeyed" everybody all round in 182-5, and 
 that I know it. 
 
 But if Haydon felt humiliated, he did not lose his courage ; 
 his conduct in prison had been worthy of him. There are 
 no complaints, no idle repinings. His misfortune seems, 
 on the contrary, to have brought out the best qualities of 
 his nature, his patience, his duty, his fortitude, his faith; and 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 133 
 
 now that be was at liberty once more, be showed that be still 
 retained — 
 
 "'Mid mnch abasement, what he had received 
 From Nature, an intense and glowing mind." 
 
 His first intention was to return to his stripped house, and, 
 without a chair to use, or a bed to lie upon, paint his ' Cruci- 
 fixion.' Not even his ruin caused him to desist from High Art. 
 I, for one, regret he did not carry his intention out. Then 
 and there he would have painted a 'Crucifixion' that would 
 have astonished the world. But my mother had suffered so 
 much, she could not endure the thought of more. Her own 
 private fortune— which she lost a few years later — was not 
 sufficient to maintain Hayclon in his art, and, with a woman's 
 prudence, she counselled him to abandon this intention for the 
 present, to retire to quiet lodgings until a suitable house could 
 be found, and then wait for better times, painting only cabinet 
 pictures meanwhile. It was weak — oh, it was very weak— but 
 these are the points in which women fail us. Out of regard 
 for her, Haydon yielded, contracted his vast design, and 
 shrank into a portrait painter. But to the day of his death 
 he never ceased to regret that he had done so, for the op- 
 portunity never came to him again. He died without paint- 
 ing what he meaned to have been, and what would have been, 
 the greatest of his scriptural works. * 
 
 He retired to modest lodgings on the Green outside Padding- 
 ton Church, and began to paint portraits— that " maudlin sub- 
 stitute for a poetic life." Eastlake, who heard of his ruin at 
 Ji'ome, called it " a national misfortune." In his J ournal Haydon 
 writes little. Now and then he utters a wad of agony over his 
 mined hopes, like the fabled oak cleft with a wedge of its own 
 t mber; and, now and then, he seems to fear for his wife and 
 family, that li s life henceforth must be one long agony of means 
 to ends. For himself he could face it; for them it would be 
 terrible and degrading. Yet he had no money, no capital but 
 
 * From the sketcles he his left behind, it would have been one of the grandest 
 as well as one of the largest pictures on this subject. In a curious note attached 
 to an early Autobiography, 1815-24, is the following passage, written about 
 1820: "Shortly after the 'Lazarus' was finished this remarkable man, B. R. 
 Haydon, died. He always said it would be his last great work. Another, John 
 Haydon, painted in imitation of the former a few small works; but he was a 
 married man— had five children — sent his pictures to the Academy, asked a 
 patron or two to employ him, and, in slioit, did all those things that men must 
 do who prefer th, ir own degradation to the starvation of their children." — Ed. 
 
134 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 his brains, aii'l his ability in art, and to what had these brought 
 him ? And he had no employment, no prospects, and h's credit 
 was gone. Once or twice, in moments of despondency, the 
 thought of destroying himself flashed into his brain — but he 
 drove it away. And what did the great nobility for him ? They 
 did for him what they have done for many other Englishmen of 
 genius. They left him in his "pinching cave" to starve! Not 
 one of them came near 1 . Not one commissioned him for a ten- 
 guinea— nay, that would have been an extravagance — a two- 
 guinea sketch. And when Wordsworth exerted himself man- 
 fully to raise a sum that should enable Haydon to carry out 
 his High Art, they would not subscribe. That may be under- 
 stood perhaps, but the want of feeling they showed towards 
 him in his distress is painful to read of. As they must have 
 known he had nothing to do, perhaps they had resolved he 
 should have nothing to eat. It is one of their favourite 
 maxims for the poor, " People who do nothing should eat 
 nothing ; " an excellent rule, only it should be impartially 
 applied. Or possibly, having experienced the mischief that a 
 full stomach and no active employment every day did for them, 
 they had resolved to save him from the risk of similar cor- 
 ruption ; so they staid away. 
 
 It reads like a romance ; but it is all too true. Of th's 
 great body, chiefly made up of idle, titled, and estated men, 
 one of whose few duties in life was self-culture so as to 
 enable them to understand and support Art, not one came near 
 Haydon after his ruin, in 1 823, to see whether he was starving, 
 or inquire if he were dead. Yet he was the only man of 
 genius in historic art the country possessed. 
 
 Perhaps they believed him dead, and buried by the pari h 
 in a quiet, unobtrusive way, and thus they were relieved of all 
 responsibility. But dead or not, buried or above ground, after 
 all their fulsome flattery of him from 1814 to 1S20, they 
 might have called, if only to take a look at his corpse, and 
 "inquire" how he died. 
 
 In no other country but England, where prescription and 
 privilege are so respected, and the titled nobility so unfeeling, 
 could such a thing happen. Even Cervantes, in the most abso- 
 lute period of aristocratic Spain, was at least fed and kept in view 
 by his aristocratic tormentors, though they left him to be buried 
 by the parish at the last. But Haydon, living, was positively 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 '55 
 
 loft to starve ; and, but for good Joseph Strutt, of Derby, who 
 was always ready with a kind word of hope and prompt assist- 
 ance, Haydon would have starved in his own country, while he 
 w.is honoured and respected abroad — while Paris was delight- 
 ing over his works and declaring his fame, and Denon and 
 Cuvier and Horace Vernet spreading his praises, and Kumohr 
 and Goethe enjoying his essays, and Dannecker and Canova 
 giving him proofs of their high esteem. Even " barbarous 
 liussia," as we delight in calling her to show our superior 
 civilisation, felt h s influence, and the Imperial Academy at 
 St. Petersburg, without his knowledge, had unanimously 
 elected him a member of their distinguished body for his great 
 public services to art. The diploma reached him while he was 
 in prison. He fixes it and his copy of the prison rules side by 
 side in his journal. No wonder that he exclaimed with the 
 indignant Leibnitz, that justice was done him everywhere 
 in Europe but there alone where he had most reason to ex- 
 pect it. 
 
 The remainder of this terrible year, and for some months of 
 18. '4, Haydon passed in the greatest extremity, painting a few 
 portraits of his tradesmen in payment of their bills. 
 
 " Oh ! how unlike 
 To that large utterance of the early gods." 
 
 To "crown" his sorrow by "remembering happier things," he 
 passed his evenings making pen sketches only of beautiful 
 subjects : Venus and Anchises, Mercury and Argos, Satan and 
 Uriel, but not daring to put them upon canvas. 
 
 His journal for these months is little more than a record of 
 painful and degrading poverty. Entries such as these follow 
 day by day : — 
 
 " Obliged to go out in the rain. I left my room with no 
 ?oals in it, and no money to buy any." 
 
 u Arose in the greatest distress. Prayed earnestly." 
 
 " Not a shilling in the world. Walked about the streets, I 
 was so full of grief. I could not have concealed it at home." 
 
1 3 5 MEMOIR OF 
 
 " Arose in an agony of feeling from want." 
 
 " In the greatest distress. Merciful God, that Thou shouldst 
 permit a being with thought and feeling to be so racked." 
 
 And so on to the end of this miserable year. It brings tears 
 into my eyes, callous as I ought to be, to read these daily 
 " troublings of a deaf Heaven with bootless cries." 
 
 It is impossible not to feel for and pity him. The cold, 
 hard, unfeeling world cannot even remotely conceive the 
 agonies of his mind at some of these periods. And what a 
 curious comment upon a " high state of civilization " and the 
 " best form of government " it all offers ! Similar entries, I 
 regret to say, are to be found, more or less, for the next two 
 years. Indeed for the next thirteen years Haydon's life appears 
 to me to have been one desperate struggle against that starva- 
 tion by which the patrons and nobility (with one or two excep- 
 tions only) seemed resolved to cure him of his love for High Art. 
 Want, worldly want, was kept "at his heels and chased him 
 hourly." He must have often asked, with Otway, 
 
 " Tell me why, good Heaven, 
 Thou madest me what I am, with all the spirit, 
 Aspiring thoughts, and elegant desires 
 That fill the happiest man ? Ah ! rather why 
 Didst thou not form me sordid as my fate, 
 Base-minded, dull, and fit to carry burdens? 
 Why have I sense to know the curse thafs on me ? 
 Is this just dealing, Nature ? " 
 
 Yet for nineteen previous years this man had been doing 
 groat and good public work, had sacrificed every chance of his 
 own profit or pleasure to raise the taste of the English people 
 and to lay the foundation for a sound system of art instruction, 
 never thinking of himself and his own interests, but only of the 
 honour and glory of his country ; not failing at any time for want 
 of energy or self-denial, but, in spite of every obstruction, doing 
 effectually what he undertook. Perhaps this was his crime. 
 There is nothing, we know, so unpardonable with great folks as 
 to stop their mouths by succeeding, when they wish you to fail. 
 And so he was now forced by this nobility and these patrons, who 
 held between them the patronage of the nation, to struggle fur 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 137 
 
 bare life as much as any poor drowning sailor grasping at a lien- 
 coop. The apathy with which they looked on and watched him 
 beating against starvation would be inexplicable on any other 
 grounds, unless the chief occupation of their lives be irrational 
 and selfish enjoyment. Now, too, that he was down, the whole 
 herd of hostile critics, headed by Theodore Hook, gratified that 
 inborn love of inflicting pain upon others, which is so prominent 
 in some men. They set upon Haydon and mangled him. But 
 the operation of these adventurers in mischief was coarse and 
 repulsive, and wanting in the coolness and skill of the true 
 • Quarterly ' anatomist.* In short, I can only liken Haydon's 
 position at this period to that of a seceding Romanist in Ire- 
 land — a " convert," as we call him — surrounded by hostile and 
 bigoted neighbours, subjected to intolerable indignities, re- 
 fused land, refused work, refused custom, and left to struggle 
 against starvation till he dies, or else — and this is the best 
 thing for him — to have his brains beaten out by a hedgestake. 
 
 but ruined, despised, rejected as he now felt himself to be, 
 suffering from absolute want, and almost hopeless of employ- 
 ment since the attacks upon him by the critics, Haydon 
 never loses his courage. JSow and then he is depressed and 
 melancholy, but he never despairs, and never loses sight of the 
 main object he had in view, the establishment of Schools of 
 Design, and public support for painting. While in prison he 
 had seized the opportunity of leisure to draw out a petition to 
 Parliament, praying the House to appoint a Commission to 
 inquire into the state of High Art, with the view to extend its 
 just influence in the country and prevent the ruin and degrada- 
 tion of its professors. He suggests the public employment of 
 our historical painters on the decoration of our Houses of Parlia- 
 
 * Hook was witty, but vulgar, and wholly unprincipled— at least in his attacks 
 on Haydou. When remonstrated with some time afterwards by a mutual friend, 
 lie said, "Good God, my dear fellow 1 You don't mean to say that Haydon was a 
 trieud of yours ! Why, I would have written it all the other way, if I had only 
 known that." " All public criticism," says Bulwer, " is the result of private 
 friendship;" he might have added, of private pique, or private pay. Amusing 
 instances are within the common experience of most men. A Radical paper was 
 lately in the market, and was bought by the Tories. The editor begged to be 
 allowed to rema n, and remains. Not long since, in a large provincial town, it 
 was proposed to e tablish a Tory paper. The man who first offered his services 
 as editor was the editor of the leading Radical paper in the same town. It 
 would be a better plan to establish an institution for the training of writers for 
 public hire. Then we should know exactly where we were, and we mi^'ht easily 
 learn qualifications a id antecedents. At present, with few honourable and 
 distinguished exceptions, it is hard for the public to discriminate. — Ed. 
 
«38 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 mont and public offices, and he calls the serious attention of the 
 House to the fact that, in addition to the benefits " that have 
 always accrued to every nation by which the arts have been 
 successfully protected, the improvement of its manufactures 
 cannot be denied nor overlooked." The petition was presented 
 by Mr. Brougham in an eloquent and feeling speech, which 
 gave rise to a lively debate, and then the subject " dropped." 
 
 The House does not feel for individual suffering, and it knew 
 nothing of Art, nor of its influence upon manufactures. The 
 result was not hopeful. Yet Haydon was scarcely free from 
 prison before he pressed his scheme for the public employ- 
 ment of painters upon public works on the individual atten- 
 tion of ministers. But Art was a matter of no importance to 
 them ; they lived in a dream of corrupt politics, they suffered 
 under a moral and mental disease of jobbery, that did not 
 even reach the stage of clairvoyance. Canning was icily cold, 
 as usual, to Haydon ; all the rest, with the exception of Sir 
 Charles Long (Lord Farnborough), utterly apathetic. They 
 did not acknowledge the necessity for Haydon or his High 
 Art. Sir Charles Long admitted the apathy, but he would 
 not exert himself to remove it. He seems to have been more 
 inclined to get what he could out of Haydon for nothing, than 
 to get his scheme carried. He flattered him, amused him, con- 
 doled with him, and asked him for a plan of decoration in any 
 single case. What would he propose ? How would he begin ? 
 Haydon, in his sincerity, drew out a plan in detail for the deco- 
 ration of the great room at the Admiralty. Sir Charles took it, 
 studied it carefully, put it into his desk, and asked Haydon to 
 supply him with another and more comprehensive plan. This 
 was comparatively a "small affair;" Haydon, in his simplicity, 
 foiled him. Instead of supp'ying him with the " comprehensive 
 plan" he was angling for, Haydon addressed him in a sensible 
 letter, pointing out that in the then feeling of Parliament the 
 very magnitude of a comprehensive plan would ensure its rejec- 
 tion. It was best to begin humbly, and by inappreciable degrees 
 work slowly to the greater end. " Any plan," writes Haydon 
 (10th August, 1823), " however extensive, must have a begin- 
 ning, and if Government and the British Institution were to 
 resolve to adorn the public halls of the country, they could not 
 adorn them all at once. It was on this principle that I recom- 
 mended as a specimen for a beginning the great room at the 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 '39 
 
 Admiralty. The great principle of encouragement in Greece 
 or Italy was gradual encouragement. Neither the Vatican nor 
 the Pantheon were the result at once of any sudden proposition 
 or extreme plan, but the result of unnumbered individual acts 
 of patronage. Cimabue, Giotto, Massaccio, and Donatello Ghi- 
 berti were enabled, by the patrons of their time, to put forth 
 their power and so prepare the way for Raphael and Michel 
 Angelo. But if the patrons living in the times of Cimabue, &c, 
 had not supported them because they had not the means to 
 produce a Vatican or a Capella Sistina, in all probability 
 neither a Vatican nor a Capella Sistina would ever have 
 appeared. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " Permit me to say there never was a reign in the history 
 of the world more worthy of illustration by the arts than this 
 of our present King. And yet, so far as a national repre- 
 sentation of any of its glorious deeds by land and sea, what 
 has been done? Nothing — absolutely nothing. Would any 
 other nation, any other Government in the world but ours, 
 have passed by the glories of the Peninsula and Trafalgar, 
 or have suffered such a mighty battle as that of Waterloo 
 to lapse without one single pictorial remembrance of its 
 glory? The only thing like a public remembrance that I 
 have seen I saw at the guard-house of the Foot Guards. Some 
 soldier, in the simplicity of his patriotism, had printed 
 ' Waterloo ' with a common pen, on a sheet of foolscap, and 
 with a pair of scissors had cut rays of glory round the word. 
 This was hung up over the door of the guard-room, and I 
 saw it." 
 
 To these remarks Sir Charles Long offers no reply except 
 that he had "no power," and, in fact, the thing was " hopeless." 
 He does not forget, however, to keep the plan Haydon has sent 
 him. Five years later, in conjunction with Wilson Croker, 
 he applies it to the decoration of Greenwich Hall as his own, 
 and keeps Haydon out of all share in the work ! Haydon 
 saw the Hall on the 29th of August, 1829, and records what he 
 saw : — " Went to Greenwich and saw the gallery they are 
 making. The plan originated with me. Lord Farnborough 
 (Sir Charles Long) has had the meanness to decline my plan 
 for the Admiralty, and adopt it, without reference to me, at 
 Greenwich." 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 "Never was ignorance of the power— the public power — of the 
 art shown so completely as in the arrangement of this gallery. 
 Instead of making history the leading feature, adorned and 
 assisted by leading portraits of the great and illustrious only, it is 
 a family collection of portraits of men who got command through 
 borough-mongering, and did nothing to deserve distinction 
 then or now. Hanged along at the bottom are a few paltry 
 attempts at history, cabinet size, as if to bring the higher 
 works of art into actual contempt. No figure in such a gallery 
 should be less than life at least ; and as to subjects, let them 
 be chosen to illustrate the actors, and not the actors to be 
 buried in the scenes and shipping." These are sound remarks, 
 but he might as well have made them to the wooden legs of 
 Ihe Greenwich pensioners as to the authorities, for any effect. 
 Croker and Lord Farnborough had unlimited power ; and the 
 proof they gave of the extent -of their notions of what the 
 decorations of a public hall ought to be showed, among other 
 things, how deeply planted in the nature of such men is the 
 love of a '"job." Instead of arranging the hall with reference 
 to the glory of the British Navy, all they did was, says Hay- 
 don, " to oblige ' My Lord ' by hanging up some fusty portrait 
 of My Lord's great-grandfather;" and, as Haydon puts it, 
 " unlock the garrets of all the houses of all their friends who 
 have had a ' Dick ' or a ' Tom ' in the Navy." In fact, they 
 reversed the order of the art, and rendered the whole arrange- 
 ment degrading and ridiculous. 
 
 Meantime, Haydon prepared a second petition, which Mr. 
 Lambton presented (14th June, 18:'4) ; and in a powerful 
 speech advocated Haydon's views for a grant of public money 
 to the British historical painters. But the subject fell upon 
 the ears of a cold and uncultured audience. The petition was 
 ordered " to lie on the table," and the subject again " dropped." 
 Not disheartened by the ill-success of his two efforts with Parlia- 
 ment, Haydon pressed his views upon ministers, and private 
 members in every direction ; maintaining himself all the time 
 by painting portraits, and here, I stop to admit, he did not 
 often succeed. The fact is, the historical painter paints what 
 lie imagines ; the portrait painter, what he sees. Haydon's 
 hand was more powerful than patient under portrait ; and his 
 heart was not often in the work, and always rebelled against 
 the control of his sitters and their friends— it was an in- 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 Mi 
 
 dignity to his art. The happiness of historical painting, lie 
 says, is that " every hour's progress is an accession of know- 
 ledge ; the mind never flags, but is kept in one delicious tone 
 of meditation and fancy : whereas, in portrait one sitter, stupid 
 as *-ibs of beef, goes ; another comes, a third follows. Women 
 screw up their mouths to make them look pretty, and men 
 suck their lips to make them look red. Then the trash one is 
 obliged to talk ! The stuff one is obliged to copy ! The fidgets 
 that are obliged to be borne ! " All this was only a part of 
 that constant superintendence and control which he resisted, 
 but to which portrait painters habitually submit, to the injury 
 and degradation of their art. " They want me to perfume 
 them, like Lawrence," he writes, "and this I will not do."' " I 
 must paint a face as I see it," he used to say ; " not as you 
 wish others to see it." If it had been his lot to paint Han- 
 nibal or Nelson he would have shown their blind eye. To have 
 painted only that side of their face which did not show the lost 
 eye would have been false in his opinion ; and without making 
 the blind eye prominent he would have shown it, on the ground 
 that, without it, the portrait would not have been true. Thus 
 he made faithful likenesses, but not a pleasant resemblance ; 
 and he never concealed a defect, or embellished. His great 
 fault appears to be that he saw character too soon, and wanted 
 the tact, so invaluable to a portrait-painter, of seizing the most 
 agreeable expression of a sitter's face, and rendering the defects 
 a cause of skilful concealment. Haydon, on the contrary, 
 seized upon the most striking expression, and often exagger- 
 ating it and the defects, rendered the sitter ludicrous. But 
 the character of his heads was capital. His head of Miss 
 Mitford, which I had for many years, was a remarkable case in 
 point ; it was also the best likeness I ever saw of her, but 
 laughable in its force. His portrait of the late Mr. Hawkes, 
 Mayor of Norwich, is another case in point. In attitude and 
 expression you can see it is the man, and his reigning passion ; 
 but it is not flattering nor agreeable, and it is forcible to sar- 
 casm. Decidedly Haydon failed as a general portrait-painter 
 of agreeable resemblance, but he gave the character. And 
 yet portraits of his occur to my mind in which there can 
 be no question of his success ; his heads of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, of Wordsworth, of Clarkson, were as fine as any por- 
 trait-painter by profession ever painted. The heads of such 
 
142 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 men interested him. I remember two more, widely different in 
 character, and which, for equal beauty in the one, and breadth 
 and power in the other, one must seek something in Eeynolds, 
 or Velasquez. One was the pathetic, pensive head of his 
 dying boy, in which that curious out-look which heralds death, 
 and the listless, suffering attitude, and wonderful intellectual 
 beauty, were rendered with a fidelity, an artlessness, and a 
 natural grace, that showed how Hay don could paint a "portrait" 
 w hen his heart was in his work. The other is a portrait of his 
 old physician, Dr. Darling — a grand old Scotch head, full of 
 brain power and quiet humour, with just a touch of the keen 
 Scotch " wut " that used to twinkle in the eye of the kindly 
 old man ; a portrait that, for depth of expression, fulness of 
 recorded life, and breadth of power, I only fully understood when 
 1 went into the gallery at Madrid and studied Velasquez. But 
 such sitters did not come every day ; or I doubt not Haydon 
 would have left some reputation as a painter of portraits. But 
 it is to be remembered these were his chosen sitters. In general, 
 to get bread and cheese he had to plod on, taking anybody 
 who offered, enduring all " that drudgery of portrait " Hogarth 
 speaks of so bitterly. 
 
 t He relieved his mind, however, by occasionally painting 
 ideal subjects of a miniature size. Thus he painted a little 
 p cture of 'Puck,' which his solicitor bought at about a fourth 
 of its fair price; another of ' Silenus,' which he sold for a trifle; 
 and another of ' Juliet at the Balcony,' which his solicitor also 
 bought a bargain. Perhaps he took it in part-payment of his 
 bill; though the profession is not often satisfied with taking 
 "good will" for any part of their payment: yet when a painter 
 can do no better they may relax— probably they make more 
 out of him. At last Haydon got a commission from a rich 
 City man for a small two hundred guinea historical picture — 
 ' Pharaoh dismissing Moses' — and this at once raised his 
 hopes. I have never seen the picture, but the original sketch, 
 in red and black chalk, was long in my portfolio.* The com- 
 position is noble, and the story well told. A group of kneeling 
 women in the foreground ; the queen and her two daughters 
 
 * The lo s of this orig'nal t-ketch. and of some six hundred others, many 
 of them designs for works he never lived to paint, is a rational loss to the art. 
 They vvcie all hnrni d, with many valuable documents. and memoranda on Art 
 affairs by Haydon, in the fire at the Pantechnicon, 1S74. His journals, fortunately, 
 were in belter security. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 143 
 
 lifting up the dead heir to the crown ; the queen-mother 
 listening to her boy's heart for a sign of life ; the sisters 
 looking up, one imploringly to the king, the other looking 
 back with horror at Moses, who points to the dead child ; the 
 king, haughty, but subdued, waves Moses away ; while, in the 
 background, a vast and furious crowd of Egyptians tossing up 
 their dead children, are struggling against the guards to get 
 into the palace. The distance is dark and awful, the front groups 
 lighted by torches; the whole, full of pathos and solemnity. 
 The picture was finished by January, 182b*, and was at once 
 sent to the British Gallery for exhibition. 
 
 At this moment the proceedings of the Government with 
 regard to the formation of a National Gallery of pictures 
 caused Haydon much concern. He had been prominent, among 
 others, in urging them into the act ; but having adopted the 
 suggestion of forming a public gallery and having purchased 
 a collection of foreign works, they stopped short at the pur- 
 chase of works by native artists. This was entirely opposed 
 to Haydon's views, and to the views of every man of any feeling 
 for English art. His picture off his hands, Haydon took up 
 this matter seriously, and appealed individually to ministers 
 not to persist in so damaging a mistake, but to make our public 
 gallery truly " national" by also "purchasing and collecting 
 the best works of our best English painters in every depart- 
 ment of the art," and not to confine the gallery to a mere 
 collection of " foreign specimens " by foreign artists. It is 
 difficult in these days to understand how such a mistaken view 
 could be taken by men in authority, except on the ground that 
 Art was the one subject upon which our public men knew least. 
 Nor is it easy to overrate the courage of Haydon's persistence 
 in forcing this unpalatable truth upon the unwilling attention 
 of the men then in office. Finding ministers hard to move, 
 Haydon petitioned Parliament through Mr. Ridley Colborne 
 (23rd February, 1826), and in this petition, with clearness and 
 force and some hidden sarcasm, he points out to the House its 
 duty, viz., that our native artists and their works should be 
 made the principal object of any public effort ; that a National 
 Gallery, in which the purchase and display of the best works 
 of our native artists was not made a conspicuous feature, would 
 be a public disappointment and injustice, and he calls upon 
 Parliament to establish a nobler estimate of the relations 
 
14? 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 that should exist between painter and people. Lastly, he 
 reminds the House that "the greatest statesmen the world 
 has ever seen have always considered the arts an engine 
 not unworthy to be used in advancing the commercial and 
 political greatness of a people." This petition met too with 
 the usual fate. 
 
 By the end of February, 1826, Haydon was once more at 
 work upon an ideal subject, ' Venus and Anchises,' a cabinet 
 commission from Sir John Leycester, who, on the completion 
 of the picture, begged that it might be sent to the Eoyal 
 Academy exhibition. Haydon reluctantly consented. It is 
 pleasant to be able to say it was well received and well placed. 
 On the 27th of May he writes in his journal, " My exhibiting 
 with the Royal Academy has given great satisfaction to every- 
 body, and they seem to regard me now without that gloomy 
 dislike they used to do. I heartily wish they may become as 
 they seem, cordial, and that in the end all animosities may be 
 forgotten in our common desire to advance the art. This is my 
 desire ; whether it be theirs, time only will show." This is 
 frank and sincere, I believe ; but his hopes were never realised, 
 and if time showed anything, it was that the "Academy" was 
 opposed to him to the last. He adds a day or two after, " I 
 should wish to do the good I want accomplished, backed by the 
 Academy ; but if I cannot, I must make one more attempt to 
 do it again without them, and perhaps perish before I accom- 
 plish it ; God only knows."' 
 
 Meanwhile, the promise of a five hundred guinea commission 
 for a picture of ' Alexander and Bucephalus' was withdrawn on 
 account of the commercial panic, and Haydon found the ' wolf 
 once more scratching fiercely at his door. In his agony where 
 to turn for help to prevent another disaster, he wrote to Lord 
 Egremont, a man noted for his kindness and liberality to artists. 
 Lord Egremont went off to Carew, the sculptor, who lived in 
 the house opposite to Haydon.* " What bedevilment has Haydon 
 got into now ?" " None, my Lord. He has lost commissions 
 he relied on, and of course, having a wife and five children, he 
 is anxious they should not starve." "Is he extravagant?" 
 " No," said Carew, " not in the least ; he is domestic, economical, 
 and indefatigable." " Why did he take that house after his 
 
 * Haydon wns now living nt the corner house of Burnood Place (tlieu Yo. 4), 
 the hoiibe in which he died.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 143 
 
 misfortunes?" " because the light was good, and ho is at less 
 rent than in a furnished lodging." " Well, he shan't starve. 
 But why did he write ? He has made himself enemies every- 
 where by his writing." Lord Egremont came over on the 
 14th of May, 182b' — the first noble lord that had come into 
 Hay don's painting-room since his ruin in April, L23. He saw 
 the sketch of ' Alexander and Bucephalus,' was delighted with 
 it, ordered it for himself, but never thought of leaving the poor 
 painter a sixpence, and went home to his ^wn 70,000/. a vear 
 and his dinner with the consciousness of having done a good 
 action. It never occurred to him to make it better. At length, 
 in July, Haydon's difficulties from want of ready money became 
 so serious that his arrest was imminent. He wrote to Lord 
 Egremont. I am too pleased to be able to say that Lord Egre- 
 mont did not take offence. He came up the next day and brought 
 1007. with him in advance. It was not much, but it saved 
 Haydon for the time. In November Lord Egremont invited 
 him to Petworth and treated him with great distinction, which 
 would have been very well if Lord Kgremont had combined 
 with it a full understanding of the needs of a poor man. For 
 instance, the picture was finished at Christmas , but for sixteen 
 days after Lord Egremont kept Haydon without the balance 
 due, and involved him, in consequence, in a mass of law-costs, 
 writs, and executions, with three warrants of attorney, three cog- 
 novits, and three actions at law. Indeed, he was only saved from 
 arrest and imprisonment, and the seizure and sale of his property, 
 by the prompt interference of his old friend, Sir Francis 
 Freeling. It was mere want of experience on the part of Lord 
 Egremont, who never in his life had known the want of credit, 
 or of money, and could not conceive such a condition. But this 
 did not lessen Haydon's sufferings, nor diminish his embarras i- 
 ment. It would be no bad training for great lords, with heavy 
 rent-rolls, to put them early through a course of want, poverty, 
 and imprisonment, that they might gain experience, and ac pure 
 consideration for their penniless fellow-men when in tb.3 full 
 enjoyment of their own inheritance. 
 
 " Take physic, pomp ! 
 
 Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 
 That thou may'st shake the supeiflux to them, 
 And show the Heavens more just."' 
 
 The ' Alexander,' by Lord Egremont's desire, was sent to the 
 
 VOL. L L 
 
145 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Academy exhibition of 1827. Previous to this, and during 
 182'!, in consequence of the pressure put upon him by Lord 
 Egremont, Sir John Leycester, Sir Francis F reeling, and many 
 other friends, Haydon had committed what he afterwards set 
 down as "the disgrace of my life," although I see no dis- 
 grace in it. He sought reconciliation with the Academy. 
 They had made him an offer in 1814, which he had de- 
 clined. It was now his turn, and they paid him the same 
 compliment. He called on the leading academicians, Flax- 
 man, Lawrence, Shee, Phillips, Stothard, Chantrey, Cooper, 
 Soane, and others, with the view to effect a reconciliation. He 
 has left an amusing and characteristic description of his different 
 interviews, but which has lost its chief interest now, although 
 the scene with Flaxman will bear repeating. 
 
 " I said, Mr. Flaxman, I wish to renew my acquaintance 
 after twenty years' interval." Mr. Haydon," said the intelli- 
 gent deformity, " I am happy to see you, walk in ! " " Mr. Flax- 
 man, Sir. you look well." " Sir, I am well, thanks to the Lord ! 
 I am seventy-two, and ready to go when the Lord pleases." 
 
 As he said this there was a look of real, unaffected piety, 
 which I hope and believe was sincere. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Haydon, Lord Egremont is a noble creature." 
 "He is, Mr. Flaxman, he has behaved very nobly to me." 
 "Ah, Mr. Haydon, has he? How?" "Why, Mr. Flaxman, 
 he has given me a handsome commission." " Has he, Mr. 
 Haydon? I am most happy to hear it — most bappy — very 
 happy." And then, with an elevation of brow, and looking 
 askance, he said, " How is your friend, Mr. Wilkie ?" " Why, 
 Mr. Flaxman, he is ill — so ill I fear he will never again have 
 his intellects in full vigour." " Really, Mr. Haydon ? why, it 
 is miserable. I suppose it is his miniature painting has 
 strained him, for between you and me, Mr. Haydon, 'tis but 
 miniature painting! you know, hem — he — m — e — e — em!" 
 " Certainly, Mr. Flaxman, 'tis but miniature painting." " Ah, 
 Mr. Haydon, the world is easily caught." Here he touched 
 my knee familiarly, and leaned forward, and his old, deformed, 
 humped shoulder protruded as he leaned, and his sparkling 
 old eye, and his a'ish old mouth, grinned on one side, and he 
 rattled out of his throat, husky with coughing, a jarry, inward, 
 hesitating, hemming sound, which meant that Wilkie's reputa- 
 tion was " all my eye " in comparison with ours. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 147 
 
 " Poor Fuseli is gone, Sir." " Yes, Sir." " Ah, Mr. Haydon, 
 he was a man of genius, but I fear of no principle." " Yes, 
 Sir." "He has left behind him some drawings shockingly 
 indelicate." " Has he, Sir ? " " Yes, Mr. Haydon, poor wretch ! ' 
 said Flaxman, looking ineffably modest. " Mr. Flaxman, good 
 morning." "Good morning, Mr. Haydon. I am very, very 
 happy to see you, and will call in a few days." 
 
 With the exception of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Cooper, Stot- 
 hard, and Flaxman, he rates the members of the Royal Academy 
 as intellectually very much below par. He notices that in the 
 houses of Sir Martin Shee and Phillips there was not a single 
 bust of antiquity or work of art to be seen. Haydon was indi- 
 vidually well received, but his " admission" was not to be enter- 
 tained. He was a ruined man ; he had lost his influence over 
 " society," and his "school" was destroyed. He was not elected 
 at any succeeding election. He put down his name for two 
 years in succession, 182 J and 1827, but never received one 
 single vote. 
 
 During these years Lord Egremont seems to have been still 
 the only member of the nobility who kept Haydon in sight. 
 The season of 1827 found him once more without work, 
 painting the 'Death of Eucles' on his own responsibility. 
 Lord Egremont called and said, " I will have the picture if 
 you cannot sell it." But this was not a real assistance. What 
 a man in Haydon's position wanted was constant employment 
 and prompt reward. If he did not get this he fell into 
 arrears, and into arrears Haydon soon fell now. Before the 
 London season was half through, he was driven to extremities 
 for want of money ; law-costs, writs, and execution followed in 
 rapid succession. No mercy was shown him by the lawyers — 
 no consideration by the nobility. He was like a man buffeting 
 in bondage, driven hither and thither for daily means to meet 
 his daily wants, till at length the catastrophe came. He was 
 again seized and thrown into prison. His debts amounted to 
 1767Z. 17s., of which 63b7. were for renewed debts incurred 
 previous to 1823. The moment he was arrested and imprisoned, 
 his noble friends attended a public meeting, voted that Haydon, 
 on account of his merits and distresses, was entitled to public 
 sympathy and relief, and subscribed the magnificent sum of 
 120Z. among themselves, which included 50Z. from the Duke of 
 Bedford and 20/. from the late Duke of Sutherland. They 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 passed a vote of thanks to the chairman, Lord F. L. Gowcr, 
 and broke up. Anything more absurd or unworthy can hardly 
 be conceived of a body of men of such reputed wealth. Here 
 was a painter, whose genius and merits they all acknowledged, 
 thrown into prison through their negligence and non-employ- 
 ment, for a trumpery debt of 1700/., and they cannot find more 
 than 120Z. towards it among themselves, but must appeal to the 
 " public " for sympathy and aid ! There must have been truth 
 in what Lord Durham told Haydon, that three-fourths of the 
 titled nobility in England are insolvent. 
 
 The whole thing is almost too ludicrous to be credible. 
 Haydon was detained in prison for two months, and then dis- 
 charged. It was on this occasion when, like Hecuba of 
 Troy, "almost run mad through sorrow,*' he saw out of his 
 prison-window the farce of a "mock election" of two M.P.'s 
 for the King's Bench, being played by imprisoned debtors. 
 Life is the same everywhere. " Vous ne pouvez vous imaginer 
 l'horreur d'un naufrage. Vous en pouvez imaginer aussi peu 
 le ridicule." Haydon looked and laughed in spite of his 
 misery. He eyed the faces, and, struck by the character 
 shewn, resolved to paint the scene the moment he was free. 
 Of course, when he came out of prison he found no work 
 waiting for him. r l hat was the last thing the nobility thought 
 of. The only commission he got was from one of his own 
 tradesmen, to copy a head from a miniature ! He remarks 
 upon this, " To think that, at forty-two years of age, in 
 the very zenith of my powers, and after painting the head 
 of 'Lazarus,' I should be compelled to do this for my bread ! 
 The nobility do not care about my talents, and would rather 
 not be cursed with anyone who has the power in a style of 
 art they do not comprehend, and wish not to encourage because 
 they do not comprehend it." 
 
 In five months, by the generous assistance of those personal 
 friends, Strutt, Talfourd, whose portrait he painted, Burn, and 
 a few others who never left him, he finished the cabinet 
 picture of the 'Mock Election,' and exhibited it at the 
 Egyptian Hall in January 1828. The exhibition was a fair 
 success, but no one offered to buy the picture. Haydcn be- 
 came depressed. "I cannot pray now to the great God to aid 
 and help and foster me in my attempts for the honour of my 
 great country, for I am making no attempt at all. I am doing 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 149 
 
 only that which will procure me subsistence, and gratify the 
 love of novelty, or pander to the prejudices of rny countrymen ; 
 even that does not succeed. I have not sold the ' Mock 
 Election.' I have no orders, no commissions. The exhibition 
 of the picture gets me a bare subsistence, and that is all. 
 
 ' Non sum qualis eram.' 
 
 " I begin at last to long to go abroad, family and all." 
 
 After a few days' low spirits, he began a fresh picture, 
 'Chairing the Member,' as a companion to the ' Mock Elec- 
 tion.' In March the Court came to town, and the King, 
 having inquired of Sir Thomas Hammond about the ' Mock 
 Election,' and been told that it was full of remarkable portraits 
 and would please him, sent Seguier for it. Anything that had 
 a spice of vice in it the King relished. Haydon who took down 
 the picture to St. James's Palace, was adroitly kept by Seguier 
 out of the way of the King, who wished to see him as much 
 as the picture — so Sir Thomas Hammond told me — and after 
 a careful inspection, the King, who showed the greatest in- 
 terest, declared it "a d— d fine thing," commanded it to be left 
 with him, and sent Haydon 50 J guineas three days after- 
 wards.* 
 
 This act of the King was not matched by any member of 
 the nobility, and before the end of the year Haydon was com- 
 pelled to sell the companion picture for half its price to a 
 private gentleman (who could not afford to pay him for six 
 
 * In the right-hand corner of the picture is the portrait of a Major Campbell, 
 a man who greatly distinguished him* If in the Peninsula War. He was im- 
 prisoned by Lord Eldon for contempt of Court. He ran away with a ward in 
 Chancery, and on Lord Eldon saying it was " disgraceful ladies of birth should 
 be entrapped by men of low familv," Campbell, who was a man of good family, 
 hurled back the insult in words the Chancellor never forgot or forgave. Mv 
 Lord," said Campbell, " my familv are ancient and opulent, and were neither 
 coalheavers nor eoalheavers' nephews," alluding to Lord Eldon's origin. Lord 
 Eldon committed him to prison on the spot, and refused to accept anv apology. 
 Campbell remained, I believe, thirteen years a prisoner. When Lord Brougham 
 came to the woolsack, in 1831 Campbell was released on special petition by his 
 friends. 
 
 The King, in 1828, was deeply interested in all this, which he learned from 
 Haydon through Lord M m it C.iarles. and seat Sir Edward Birncs d »wn to the 
 Bench, to command Campbell to state his services and his wishes, and they 
 should be gratified. Campbell was too proud to reply, refused to make any 
 statement or application, mid remained in prison. Havdou describes him as 
 haying one of the grainiest Satanic heads, a combination of Byron and Bonaparte, 
 he ever met with. I can just remember htm ; he came after his release (1834) 
 to see us, and sit for his portr .it. — Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 months). The great lords and their ladies came to its exhibi- 
 tion and looked. Some of them, the Duke of Bedford for 
 instance, admired it exceedingly, but no one of them would 
 buy it, or recommend it to the notice of the King. 
 
 The new year, 182. », Haydon opened with a temperate 
 pamphlet in favour of " Public Patronage for Painting." He 
 had some correspondence with the Duke of Wellington, then 
 Prime Minister, on the subject, and, in compliance with the 
 Duke's request, laid before him a detailed plan for the decora- 
 tion of the Houses of Parliament. The Duke, in reply, assured 
 Haydon that imprimis he "must object to the grant of any 
 public money for the object." Haydon then consulted Mr. 
 Agar Ellis, who promises to bring the matter before Parliament 
 when he sees a " favourable " opportunity, and urges Ha\ don 
 to " continue his pamphlets every year," so as to keep the subject 
 before the public. This was not very encouraging, so Haydon 
 turned to his palette once more, and worked hard upon two 
 pictures, ' Eucles ' and ' Punch,' and before the end of the year 
 had begun another, ' Xenophon and the Ten Thousand first 
 seeing the Sea,' and had painted and engraved a little sketch 
 of ' .Napoleon at St. Helena.' 
 
 In January, 1830, Haydon was much affected by the death 
 of Sir Thomas Lawrence, the President of the Koyal Academy, 
 and by the ele tion of (Sir Martin Archer) Shee as his suc- 
 cessor, in preference to Wilkie. 
 
 The academicians probably had their reasons for this pre- 
 ference, but Haydon refused to admit them. He felt such 
 an election as an abuse of the power he had so long de- 
 sired to see docked. The idea to him was preposterous, 
 that a man like David Wilkie, though not a painter of 
 history, yet a man of acknowledged genius and European 
 reputation, should be put in momentary competition, still more 
 in a position of permanent inferiority to a portrait painter of 
 the second order, " an accomplished gentleman naebo.Iy ever 
 haird on," as Sir Walter Scott described the new President. 
 It drew from Haydon a burst of honest indignation, and brought 
 him and Wilkie more closely together — they had been some- 
 what estranged since Haydon's marriage — for the rest of their 
 1 ves. Wilkie began to see at last what Haydon had seen from 
 the first, that humility and forbearance never meet with a 
 fair return from men of mean minds. By such men you may 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 do your duty, and more than your duty, but they w.'ll turn 
 upon you at the last, and when their " eyesight returns," as 
 Carlyle says, "fling you out like common sweepings."* 
 
 This election disposed of, Haydon, by the help of his good 
 friend Joseph Strutt, finished in the early part of 1830 the two 
 small five hundred guinea pictures ' Eucles' and ' Punch,' and 
 exhibited them. He raffled the first, which the nobility did 
 not approve of ; they considered it a reflection on their 
 " patronage." But as they did not offer to buy it, I do not see 
 the force of their objection. There are people in the world 
 who ore never satisfied. The ' Punch ' Haydon hoped to sell 
 to the King, but he did not succeed. The King commanded it 
 to be sent down to him at Windsor, admired it, and sent it back. 
 This was such an extraordinary proceeding, Haydon felt sure 
 something was " wrong." He wrote to Lady Conyngham and 
 to Lord Mount Charles, learned that the King was offended, 
 but no explanation was possible. 
 
 Years after, 1 learned the truth from Sir Thomas Hammond. 
 He told me that he remembered the whole circumstance per- 
 fectly. The King was greatly interested in Haydon from his 
 picture of the ' Mock Election,' and from hearing his history. 
 On seeing or being told of this exhibition of two fresh pictures 
 by Haydon, Mr. Seguier was sent up to London with orders to 
 bring both pictures down to Windsor that the King might 
 choose one or both. Seguier, it appears, was fearful if Haydon 
 once got to the King he would so interest his Majesty that 
 
 * The defence put forward by Tom Taylor in Haydon's Autobiography, in 
 support of this election of Sir Martin Slice over Wilkie, is the common defence 
 on such occasions, viz., that the man is most wanted and not his profession. I 
 fail to see the force of this. " Eloquence " and personal aeoeptabhness " may bo 
 valuable qualities in the President of a Eoyal Academy of Art; but not quite 
 to important as professional knowledge. " In a painter," snys Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 "it is particularly dangerous to be too good a speaker. It lessens (he neeessaiy 
 endeavours to make himself master of the language which properly belongs to 
 his art, that of his pencil." This was exactly the complaint under which Sir 
 Martin Shee too notoriously suffered. To elect a man President of an Academy 
 of Art, not because he is master of his art, but because he has the gift of volu- 
 bility, and that without knowledge of his art, is to say that you prefer a blunder- 
 buss to a rirle for close shooting. The foundation of eligibility of a candidate for 
 the Presidency of an Academy of any special art should always be his know- 
 ledge of that art. That should be the basis. Upon that you may superadd what 
 qualifications you please, but if high knowledge of his art and power to display it 
 be not there, the man is deficient and has not the first claim. It is like iho 
 champagne cup Macaulay speaks of, you may flavour it with what you like, but 
 tue basis must be champagne. — Ed. 
 
152 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Seguier's own position about the person of the Sovereign would 
 be in peril, and he resolved to prevent any misfortune of this 
 kind. This was the General's own inference, drawn from what 
 he had seen at the time and subsequently heard. It is possible 
 also that Seguier, who was closely allied to and in the interest 
 of the Academy, had other reasons for keeping Haydon's 
 influence out of Court. In any case Mr. Seguier came up to 
 London in obedience to the King's command, called in at the 
 exhibition, admired the pictures greatly to Haydon, but said 
 not a word of the commands of the King. He returned to 
 Windsor Castle that evening and told the King, as if the reply 
 was from Haydon, that the ' Eucles ' was engaged to be raffled 
 for and was not for sale, and to remove the ' Punch ' from the 
 exhibition would offend the public ! 
 
 This was an audacious statement to make under all the 
 circumstances ; but it was evidently ma 'e with the design of 
 putting the King off by disgusting him. What then nrm«t 
 have been Seguier's perplexity when the King said pettishly, 
 " Well, at all events, he can let me have one of them from 
 to-morrow till Monday, when I promise it shall be returned," 
 and with this, it is evident, the King suppressed all inten- 
 tion of purchase. Mr. Seguier came back to London the same 
 night (5th March), told Haydon the King wished to see 
 'Punch' in such a way as to lead Haydon to believe this 
 honour was due to Seguier's friendly action. The 'Punch' 
 was taken to Windsor early the next morning, and the King 
 admired it exceedingly, Sir Thomas Hammond told me. 
 Seguier told Haydon the King was not wholly pleased with it, 
 and on the 8th Seguier brought it back to the exhibition. 
 And thus it came to pass the King did not purchase the picture, 
 and what was worse, the story getting about the King had 
 rejected it, no one would buy. Haydon could find a buyer in 
 no quarter, and was glad enough at last to mortgage it for 
 lOUl. to a private friend* 
 
 * Ilavdon attributes Seguier's conduct to the influence of the aeadom'eia'is. 
 and be may have b in right, or he may have been wrong. It is possible that a 
 man of his vivid imagination might mistake the real meaning of others, that 
 then- persecution of him was not quite so tiery as he supposed, and that when ho 
 saw or thought he saw academicians rejoicing over his reverses and disappoint- 
 incuts, like toe wicked spirits plunging Filippo Argon ti into the foul lake, they 
 were doing nothing but lamenting his misfortunes. Yet I am bound to say there 
 isn > proof of this sympathy extant; not a word of kindness or regret ever comes 
 from any one of them b it Wilkic. It there had been, I feel sure Haydon would 
 have preserved it, he was so grateful for kind words.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 This is the picture which wag such a favourite with Wilkie. 
 " I have seen and heard him," wrote Dr. Darling in 1852, " pass 
 his hand over the left portion, exclaiming, ' How fine, how 
 very fine ! if that picture were in Italy you would see it 
 surrounded by students from all parts of Europe engaged in 
 copying.' " * 
 
 In England Haydon could not sell it. From this cause we 
 may be prepared for the inevitable result. Haydon fell into 
 arrears with his tradesmen, and, as they made use of the law of 
 arrest as a means of profit for their sons, who were commonly 
 their attorneys, cumulative law costs followed rapidly. To one 
 man, I find, on an account of 1U7. odd he pays 11/. law costs; to 
 another, on an account of 67. he pays 18/. law costs, and on several 
 other small accounts, amounting to some 14U/., I find the law 
 expenses reaching to 9b/. His current debts were trifling. 
 What embarrassed him were these law costs, and his current 
 debts he could not pay promptly because he was depending 
 upon employment that came to him with a niggard hand, 
 or upon payment that came to him from a forgetful one. 
 
 As soon as the London season of 1 830 fairly began, Haydon, 
 as usual, was arrested and thrown into prison. Among other 
 claims on him this time was one for arrears of taxes, upon 
 which the Comnvssioners of Inland Revenue were piling up 
 " law costs " like the rest. In his extremity Haydon wrote to 
 the late Sir Robert Peel, then at the Home Office, to beg his 
 official influence with the Treasury, to at least stay these pro- 
 ceedings, and he would discharge his taxes as soon as he could 
 get employment. Sir Robert Peel answered promptly, en- 
 closing Haydon a small cheque (10/.) for his present necess ties, 
 and taking official steps to moderate the severity of the Inland 
 Commissioners. This was Haydon's first introduction to Sir 
 Robert Peel. 
 
 Haydon was detained in prison the usual three months, 
 May, June, and July, of the London season. It is as if his 
 creditors took a malicious delight in periodically exhibiting 
 the great historical painter in prison every season, as an 
 illustration of the liberal patronage the nobility accorded to 
 historic art. They forgot, however, that they deprived the 
 painter of the best painting months of the year, and thus ren- 
 
 * It wis bequeathed by Dr. Darling to the National Gallery. It is tempo- 
 rarily liuug at South Ko.ismgtou. — Ed. 
 
154 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 dercd the payment of their petty claims more problematical 
 than before. But then they always got their law costs. 
 During his imprisonment Haydon, through Mr. Agar Ellis, 
 again petitioned Parliament, entreating the House at least to 
 adopt some scheme, " in its infinite wisdom," which should save 
 the future historical painters of England — where are they? — 
 from the degrading fate which had overtaken him, by pro- 
 viding for them public employment. The petition was ordered 
 to " lie on the table." 
 
 On coming out of prison in July the usual blank met 
 Haydon ; there was no employment for him from any quarter. 
 By September he was again falling into difficulties. He had 
 no commissions, and he appealed to Sir Robert Peel (Sth Sep- 
 tember) to use his influence with the directors of the British 
 Gallery to induce them to give him a commission. Ho might 
 as well have applied to a Board of Guardians for a commission. 
 " If I am suffered again," he writes, " to sink into debt from want 
 of employment, and there is no other employment in England 
 for historical painters than that whuh patrons like yourself 
 bestow upon us, I shall go down to my grave with what 
 powers I may possess rendered nugatory by disappointment, 
 fretted by ruin, and blasted by neglect. Alas ! if I deserved 
 assistance when in affliction, do I not deserve employment that 
 affliction may no more come?" 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, who was a warm supporter of the Royal 
 Academy, replied, on the 10th September, and coldly requested 
 that " any communication Mr. Haydon may wish to make to the 
 directors of 1 he British Gallery may be made to them directly 
 by Mr. Haydon." 
 
 Failing here, he struggled for a few weeks, and at length in 
 an agony of pressure he writes to the Duke of Wellington, 
 (12th October,) calling his attention to the recent report of 
 M. Guizot to the newly elected king of the French, recom- 
 mending the king to employ the French historical painters on 
 a series of national pictures in commemoration of the " Three 
 Days," and he asks the Duke, as Prune Minister, if he can 
 find nothing in the History of England worthy the public 
 employment of our painters of history ? The duke replied the 
 same afternoon kindly and courteously, regretting there were 
 no funds for such a purpose, and adding that he is " much con- 
 cerned " he cannot point out the mode in which this want of 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 '5? 
 
 encouragement can be remedied. Hay don replied on the 
 14th in a sad letter, that lays open to us the condition of his 
 mind. He describes his life and labours and his actual 
 position to the duke. Then he adds, " This perpetual pau- 
 perism will in the end destroy my mind. I look around for 
 help with a feeling of despair that is quite dreadful. At this 
 moment I have a sick house without a shilling for the common 
 necessaries of life. My want of employment and want of 
 means exhaust the patience of my dearest friends, and give 
 me a feeling as if I were branded with a curse. For God's 
 sake, for the sake of my family, for the sake of the historical 
 art I have struggled to save, permit me, my Lord Duke, to 
 say, employ me." 
 
 This is the most melancholy letter I ever remember to 
 have read. It is impossible to read it and not feel deeply. 
 r J he Duke, I regret to say, never replied. Perhaps, as he 
 sat behind his iron blinds, he felt a certain touch of scorn for 
 the man who could make such a fuss over being starved.* 
 
 Jn a few days, Haydon appealed again to the Duke for 
 public employment, and received for answer an assurance that 
 Haydon's " own good sense must po : nt out how impossible " it 
 was for the Duke to comply with the request. The result 
 amounted, in fact, to the uncle's advice to his starving nephew : 
 "You say you are without money or employment; I cannot 
 
 * Ten years after, finding Hayilon still alive, a>id with a strong appetite, he 
 asked him down to Walimr, fed him well, and having learned that lie had made 
 a fine copy sketch of the Duke's horse ' Copenhagen,' the Duke waited patiently 
 for Haydon's death. Then bis Grace sent up to Haydon's sale and bought 
 1he Copeuhag< n sketch for a couple of sovereigns. This was all the art patronage 
 he ever bestowed upon Haydon. It is all of a piece with the Duke, sending up 
 to us for his " hat" the morning Haydon's death appeared in the 'Times,' with 
 his allowing himself to be sued for his (Chancellor's) silk gown at Oxford before 
 they could get the money, and the exact repetition of what he did with Fuseli. 
 He would not give Fuseli, living, a commission ; but directly Fuseli died, he 
 sent up to his sale and bought lor a trifle that g gantic picture of 'Satan and 
 his Angels,' which used to hang on the stairea-e at Stiathtieldsaye. 
 
 The Duke. I presume, enjoyed little '• gains," and he rated art no higher than 
 he rated cabbages, with which he used to plant the moat at Walmer and sell to 
 his neighbours in Deal, on the plea that there were no market gardens near, and 
 then pay his gardener's wages with the money. As good, in its way, as his great 
 predecessor Marlborough teasing D, an Jones to pay him the sixpence the Dean 
 hml lost to him at cards, on the excuse he had no change, and wanted to pay the 
 "chair" to take him home, and then walking home with the Dean's sixpence in 
 h-s pocket! These are the foibles of genius. But as a set-oil (in the Duke of 
 Wellington's case), we know that in the \ear Alexander s bank tailed, the Duke 
 gave away at h ast 6000/. in bank notes to military men. The poor painters he 
 left to his brother dukes, who I ad not so many claims upon them as he. Dut he 
 need not have sent to us at such a moment as he did for an old hat. — Ed. 
 
56 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 help you to e'ther. But your own good sense will tell you 
 what to do. Stick to your profession, and live within your 
 means." 
 
 Blest as he was with that pecul'ar faculty of genius for over- 
 coming difficulties, Haydon might have found life tame with- 
 out them. I remember his once saying that he was not 
 quite sure he did not "relish ruin as a source of increased 
 activity of nrnd." This was, of course, only an exaggerated 
 mode of expressing his vivid sense of the warm vitality 
 with n him, with his pulse at 85. Perhaps, too, he thought 
 it good for men " to love their present pains," so the " spirit 
 is eased." But all 1 contend for is that there was no 
 necessity for his pains being made so severe, and that the 
 nation would have profited had a more generous policy been 
 pursued towards him. 
 
 On the 3rd November he writes a melancholy letter of 
 appeal to the Directors of the British Gallery, points out that, 
 for the sake of art, he had abandoned a tine property and a hand- 
 some income, that he has been twenty-six years in the art as 
 historical painter, that he has no property but the clothes he 
 wears, that out of the 14,000?. the British Gallery has given 
 in premiums in that time, he has received 200/., and out of 
 the 75,O00Z the directors had expended on the purchase of 
 pictures, he has received 6 1. That was all the encouragement 
 the noble directors had afforded him as an English historical 
 painter. On tli3 11th, the noble directors desired a cheque for 
 507. to be enclosed to him, but they did not offer to buy any 
 picture, nor give him a commission. 
 
 It was during this period that offers of large prices were made 
 to Haydon if he would consent to paint voluptuous nudities for 
 a distinguished Marquis. There are many ways, as the late Mr. 
 Croker could tell, of avoiding chronic insolvency in this rich 
 and respectable country. But Haydon preferred to die of 
 starvation, children and all, rather than consent to disgrace his 
 pencil. The " frigid villany of studied lewdness " he left to 
 those who liked it; he knew a higher use for his art; and 
 so he walked about the streets in preference, selling his little 
 prints of 'Napoleon,' — to such extremities had his art now 
 reduced him. 
 
 At length, on the evening of the 8th December, a gentleman 
 called, and was shown into the painting-room. Haydon came up 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 '57 
 
 and found Sir Kobert Peel. A personal visit from such a friend 
 and supporter of the Royal Academy, and a man so distin- 
 guished for his taste in art, gave Hay don the greatest satisfac- 
 tion at the moment. It led to the heaviest misfortunes of his 
 life, and unquestionably brought him to his bloody grave. 
 
 Of Sir Robert Peel's motive in calling there can be no ques- 
 tion ; it was a good and kindly one. 1 have reason to believe 
 that he had inquired into Hay don's history, that he considered 
 him an ill-used man, and came for the express purpose of try- 
 ing to persuade him either to devote himself to portrait, so as 
 in time to fill the vacant place of Lawrence, or else to give 
 him an opportunity of painting a poetic picture that should 
 be suitable in size and subject for a private gallery, so as to 
 induce the nobility and patrons to give him employment. 
 Soon after he entered the painting-room, my father has often 
 told me that Sir Kobert spoke of the death of Sir '1 homas 
 Lawrence, and said what an opening his death had left for a 
 portrait painter ; this led to some conversation on his merits. 
 Then Haydon showed Sir Robert his casts from the Elgin 
 Marbles. Sir Pvobert made a remark which displayed a curious 
 ignorance of art and nature. Then, coming back to his first 
 intention, he asked Haydon if he had any portraits to show ; 
 Haydon showed him two. Then Sir Robert asked his price 
 for a whole-length portrait ; Haydon replied 100 guineas. 
 Now, it happened that lying on the table or on a chair was the 
 sketch of ' Napoleon Musing on the Rocks at St. Helena,' 
 which Haydon had painted and engraved the year previous. 
 Sir Robert, who had seen and knew the engraving b< f >re 
 calling upon Haydon, looked at this sketch, said suddenly, 
 " Paint me a Napoleon," but he mentioned no price, nor 
 asked for one, and shortly after took his leave. There was no 
 reference of any kind to the price of a ' Napoleon ; ' * my 
 
 * Mr. R. Redgrave, R.A., in his ' Century of Painters ' (p. 190), says of this 
 incident, '• having named what we should think a liberal price, he offended the 
 minister by expressing dis.-ai inaction on being paid the sum he had name d." 
 This is singularly incorrect. Haydon never did " name " a price for the 'Napo- 
 leon.' The price he named, viz., one hundred guineas, had reference only 
 and was mount by him to have reference only to a portrait of a living sitter. And 
 that price, one hundred guineas, was moderate enough, even Mr. Redgrave will 
 allow for four weeks' work, about the time such a portrait would occupy. If Mr. 
 Redgrave thinks one hundred guineas sufficient r< numeration for four months' 
 work, the time the 'Napoleon' picture actually took Haydon to paint, I can only 
 eay I si all be very happy to employ Mr. Redgrave at that lale for works of 
 similar meiit. — Ed. 
 
i 5 8 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 father has often assured me. After Sir Robert had left, 
 Haydon was detailing what had passed to his wife, when, with 
 a woman's quickness, she asked if any price was named. My 
 father said " No." Then said my mother, " You may depend 
 upon it, he means you to paint the picture for 100 guineas. 
 You had better write and explain." This was a serious matter. 
 For an ordinary full-length portrait of a living sitter, 1U0 
 guineas was little enough ; but for a life-sized historic por- 
 trait, a poetic picture such as ' Napoleon Musing at St. Helena ' 
 must be made, the picture could not be painted for the money. 
 It would take at least four months to think out and paint, and 
 would cost 300Z. in time and material at the lowest estimate. 
 Its current price was 5u0 guineas; Sir Thomas Lawrence 
 would have insisted on 800 guineas. The situation afforded 
 another striking instance of the inconvenience (or convenience, 
 from the puivhaser's point of view) of not having " a clear 
 understanding." 
 
 Haydon objected to write, for fear it should look like an 
 attempt to " raise " his price upon " Sir Robert reel," and 
 there was something high-minded in the objection. He re- 
 solved, therefore, to paint the picture to the best of his ability, 
 to place it in the hands of Sir Robert Peel, and then state the 
 facts, leaving Sir Robert to deal with them as he thought fit. 
 This was the noble course to take ; but it had more than one 
 defect. Sir Robert Peel might demur, and if Sir Robert Peel 
 did not, from his point of view, feel himself bound to deal with 
 it as Haydon had settled in his mind Sir Robert ought, 
 Haydon would not with patience accept Sir Robert's decision, 
 and vice versa. The best course would have been to offer to 
 refer the matter to arbitration ; but this, unhappily, was not 
 done by Sir Robert Peel. The commission was given on the 
 8th December, 1830, and the picture was finished by the fol- 
 lowing April. It is a beautiful conception. Napoleon stands 
 on the edge of the cliff, with his back partly towards you, 
 arms folded, head slightly bent, gazing out upon the vast 
 breadth of sea that rolls between him and Europe. The dying 
 glow of the setting sun lights his profile, the sails of the 
 guard-ship glitter in the distance, and nothing but the One 
 Man, the rocks, the sky, the water, is there. All that ever 
 happened in his life of romance, of poetry, of misfortune, is 
 before you. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 iS9 
 
 Ono hundred guineas ! The picture was a bargain at a 
 thousand.* 
 
 Haydon sent down the work to Drayton, and with it went 
 the dreaded explanation. He was not generally a timid man, 
 but he had a keen eye for character. The bleak manners of 
 Sir Robert Peel had affected him. However, he wrote frankly, 
 and told him the plain truth. This was a fatal mistake. It is 
 an act of " inexcusable weakness," says Hazlitt, to lay your 
 heart open to a man who is reserved towards you. He is 
 certain to " turn that confidence against you, and exactly in 
 proportion as he means to leave it uncopied." The result 
 proved Hazlitt's sagacity. Sir Robert Peel drew himself up, 
 resented an application so frank, so unusual in form, and so 
 little flattering to his own judgment or the excellence of his 
 intentions, and affecting to regard the explanation as an 
 impudent attempt to extort money, he flung the poor painter 
 a cheque for an additional 30/., and never saw his face again. 
 But he kept the picture. This was unworthy, but when I add 
 as the fact that Sir Robert Peel ever after told the story to 
 Haydon's disadvantage, and in such a manner as to leave an 
 impression on the minds of his hearers that he had paid 300 
 guineas for the picture, and that Haydon had then demanded 
 more, there is in Sir Robert's conduct a want of generosity 
 and a disregard for the strict love of truth, that is, to say the 
 least, not pleasing. But the nature of men, it is well said, as 
 
 * The late John Wilson Crolcer (Mr. Rigby of Oningsby), who never allowed 
 merit to anybody else, and who particularly piqued himself upon having been 
 designed by Providence to set the world right in matters on which he was 
 ignorant, was in the habit of declaring that Haydon had stolen the design of this 
 p ctuie from a French print of 1820. It is, of course, within the bounds of 
 possibility that Haydon may have seen such a print. But Mr. Croker only saw 
 the print in Paris, and Haydon never visited Paris after 1814. Unfortunately, 
 too, for Mr. Cioker's infallibility, I had in my possession for many years (it was 
 only burned in the Pantechnicon fire) an original sketch in i^epia by my 
 father of ' Achilles lamenting the death of Pat rod us at break of Day.' The 
 date of this sketch was 1S09, and in it you saw the original of Haydon's 
 'Napoleon' of 1830. Achilles with his bark towards you, robe loosely flowing, 
 arms crossi d, chin restingon his palm, is pneing the sea-shore at sunrise. Before 
 him nothing but a va-t waste of waters rolling in, the sun just breaking on the 
 horizon, a single sail in sight, Anything more exquisitely poetical I never saw. 
 You felt the morning breeze, you heard the surf beating 'on the beach, you saw 
 the glory of the rising sun, you marked the thoughts oppressing the mind of tho 
 Great Chiefiain in the very motion of his body, as he paced the shore. This was 
 the origin of Haydon's ' Napoleon,' as he had himself subsequently recorded in a 
 corner.— Ed. 
 
[6o 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 of tilings, is best seen in small quantities.* Tt is painful to me 
 to have to speak of this unfortunate transaction. Haydon, with 
 all his courage, did not dare, except privately, and then he 
 always put the blame upon himself, and ended by saying, 
 " Well, perhaps I behaved like a fool." But he did nothing 
 of the kind, in the first instance. He had trusted to Sir 
 Robert Peel's generosity, and Sir Robert Peel returned the 
 trust in the manner I have shown ; and then added to the injury 
 by telling the story of his purchase so unfairly as to excite a 
 prejudice against Haydon amongst his own friends. For my 
 part, I believe he never forgave Haydon the injury he (Sir 
 Robert) had done him. It was the irritation of his conscience 
 that led him to repeat his own story over and over again, for he 
 never could have looked at the 'Napoleon ' without a twinge. 
 
 Taking the mere time the picture had cost Haydon, it was 
 rewarding him at the rate of 27s. a day ! I put it to any man 
 whether that was fair recompense ? And then, when the 
 inevitahle difference arose, instead of returning the picture to 
 Haydon, or offering to submit the question to aib.tration, Sir 
 Kobert keeps the picture, and absolutely refuses to pay its 
 fair price. He had got a good picture for next to nothing 
 and he meaned to stick to it. Such conduct is not d st'n- 
 guished by generosity or candour. The great merchant princes 
 of Italy, when pleased with the work of the painter they had 
 employed, doubled his price of the p'cture to mark their appro- 
 bation. Sir Robert improved upon this; taking advantage 
 of a misunderstanding, he pa d one-fifth of the fa r value, kept 
 the picture, and then tried to run the reputation of the painter. 
 
 Contrast the conduct of Lord Egremont, as related by J.esl e, 
 on a similar indefinite arrangement. A <:raudch;ld of Lord 
 Egremont's was dying at Colonel Wyndham's, some fifty miles 
 from London. Lord Egremont wrote to Phillips, the portrait 
 painter, to set off and take a sketch of the child at once. 
 Phillips be ng busy, deputed Leslie to go. Lesl'e posted 
 down that day, sat up all night making sketches, and, return- 
 ing to town the next day, at once painted a head of the dying 
 ch id. When Lord Egremont saw the head, he said, " What 
 am I to pay for this?" Lesl e replied, " Twenty-five guineas." 
 " But your travelling expenses inust be pa : d ? " sa d the cou- 
 
 * " Perl feels things deeply, and does not forgive quickly, and wlmt he forgives 
 least easily is an i.ttack upun Lis dignity."— Lord 1'aliucinlon to Jus Brother, 
 2!) Aug. 1841.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 sidorate earl. " They were five guineas," said Leslie. Lord 
 Egremont sat down and wrote him a cheque for fifty guineas. 
 The whole thing occupied Leslie about three days.* The 
 'Napoleon,' on the other hand, occupied Haydon four months. 
 
 And yet it is only justice to Sir Robert Peel to say that 
 his giving the commission was no act of "common passage, 
 but a strain of rareness." It was to shame the nobil.ty 
 into employing a man who could conceive and paint so 
 poetical a picture of a modern subject. What a pity he 
 insisted upon spoiling so fine an act of independent will by a 
 meanness so pitiful ! What " benefit " could it have been to 
 flay don to paint another picture of the same kind for the same 
 money? It is a very lucky thing, in one sense, the patrons 
 did not feel themselves shamed into employing Haydon on the 
 same terms, or, like Hiero of Syracuse, there would have been 
 nothing left for him but to hang himself on the spot. 
 
 Haydon, on his part, was mortified beyond measure that a 
 man, towards whom he had no feeling but of the most sincere 
 respect, should treat him so harshly, and so ungenerously. 
 Instead of wrapping himself up in the dignity of a silent 
 memory, he foolishly plunged into an useless and importunate 
 series of appeals which only shows how necessary it is never 
 to enter upon any business without having first made up your 
 mind where you will leave off. The immediate result of this 
 unfortunate business was that Haydon lost about 25 /. by the 
 picture. But that was not the worst. It soon spread through 
 London that Haydon and Sir Robert Peel had a serious 
 " difference " over the price of the ' Napoleon,' and as nobody 
 knew anything, it was only natural everyone should believe 
 the worst. Peel had " swindled " Haydon, and Haydon had 
 tried to " cheat " Peel. It became almost a " party " question. 
 
 * It is a curious coincidence that many years afterwards, in 1844, Haydon had 
 a 'replica' of Sir Robert Peel's 'Napoleon' in the Art Union lottery of that 
 year, to be sold for three hundred guineas to a winner. Sir Robert Peel was 
 then Prime Minister. Within three dnys of the distribution of prizes, to the 
 astonishment of all London, Sir Robert Peel's law officers officially arrested the 
 distribution of prizes, and stopped the lottery on the plea of its illegality. Had 
 this copy of 'Napoleon,' which had only occupied Ha\don five days in paint- 
 ing, been publicly advertised as being sold for three hundied guineas, Sir 
 Robert would have felt himself awkwardly placed with regard to the price he bad 
 insisted upon fur the original, viz., one hundred guineas, the 307. beintr sent under 
 protest. This copy, through the indefatigable exertions of the late Earl of 
 Westmoreland, one of Haydon's truest and kindest friends, was afterwards sold 
 to the then King of Hanover, and was placed by him in his pah.ce at Harm- 
 Lausen.— Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 That mo.v.t misclvevous and malicious of men, the late Wilson 
 ( 'roker, helped the affair finely. Haydon was cut " to a man 
 by the Tories. The Whigs then begon to think of taking 
 him up. But while they were thinking about it, Haydon 
 became so embarrassed, and sank down rapidly to such a low 
 ebb of battling with creditors, struggling against attorneys, and 
 trying to support his growing family that, between his mortifi- 
 cation and his troubles, I am indeed surprised he did not break 
 down utterly. Perhaps his sad experience was beginning, at 
 last to deaden pain. But indeed, it was a wonderful sight to 
 watch this man, as I can remember him, with all his powers 
 burdened to the very extremity of endurance, grappling with 
 armies of difficulties, any one of which was sufficient to try the 
 stoutest heart, running in the race with others in all the 
 freshness which ease and competence give, and never once fairly 
 giving way ; it was a picture of such innate courage, of such 
 rare heroism, as we do not often see. His Journal gives a very 
 faint notion of the real state of affairs at home ; he seems 
 unwill'ng to admit the facts, even to himself. " It is tho 
 bus'ness of an Englishman," he used to say, " to content and 
 vanquish impossibilit'es." Certainly, in this respect, he was 
 amply endowed by both Wh'gs and Tories. Indeed, it was 
 becomi ig as plain to him, as it was to Home Tooke, there 
 were only three ways by which he could live in England : he 
 must beg, borrow, or steal. He borrowed like Burke, like 
 Johnson, like hundreds of better men before him, but, unlike 
 Burke., he never found a Marquis of Bockingham,* at least, 
 among the coronets. It was degrading, but he got used to it. 
 When Hadji Baba was first, made executioner it wrung his 
 heart; but after he once got his hand in, he says, he rculd 
 have " impaled his own father without any notion of cruelty." 
 It is the same, I take it, with borrowers ; the impecunious 
 habit hardens a man into morbid indifference to appearances, 
 and leads him into acts of inexcusable laxity without any 
 notion of wrong. But there is this to be said for Haydon, his 
 private life was pure and temperate ; he had no private vices, 
 and the only extravagance he ever allowed himself was in his 
 models and materials of art. If he could ha^e got the work 
 and wages he sought, he never would have borrowed a six- 
 
 * Burke was deeply in the debt of the Marquis, whose last act on his deathbed 
 was to cancel all the bonds for money due to him from Burke. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 163 
 
 pence, but those who could afford it would not give him 
 work. For example, I find him writing to this and that noble 
 lord, not for money, but for work, offering to paint certain 
 subjects. They one and all reply that they have no room for 
 pictures, or cannot afford the cost just now, or some similar 
 excuse, and some send him twenty guineas and some five. 
 Hay don revolts against this, but, on second consideration, 
 thinks it folly to return the money, as it would have been to 
 quarrel with a man for doing what he meant kindly ; and 
 this, of course, is set down to Haydon's disadvantage. He was 
 d ficient, I do believe, in what Swift calls that under-strapping 
 virtue " discretion," but patient investigation into his affairs 
 has shown that his expenditure had always been as moderate as 
 the required support of his family permitted, and that this 
 expenditure had been sanctioned by the hopes that his 
 prospects appeared to justify. If a patron, like the late Mr. 
 Gurney, the banker, of Lombard Street, disreputably broke his 
 word with him ; or, like the Corporation of the City of London, 
 evaded their promise and refused to keep faith ; or, like the 
 late Sir Robert Peel, kept a valuable picture, and only paid 
 him one-fifth its legitimate price ; or, like the Whigs over the 
 " Reform Banquet," left him in the " hole " they had dropped 
 him into ; or, like some of his employers — the shoddy Meca> 
 nases of the last years of his life — screwed the products of his 
 long experience out of him at about a tenth of the fair price,* 
 • — he fell into arrears, and arrears begat law costs, and law costs 
 begat appeals to friends to save him from arrest. Had he 
 been fairly employed, and paid fair prices for his pictures, he 
 never would have owed, or borrowed money. 
 
 This was the opinion, expressed to me more than once, of 
 the late Judge Talfourd, who knew more about Haydon's 
 affairs than Haydon himself, and the judge assured me, in 
 1850, of his confident belief that, Haydon never incurred a 
 liability he did not honestly mean, and honestly exert himself, 
 to clear off. If he did not regularly discharge his current 
 bills it was because he had no employment, and consequently 
 no money. He was forty-two years before the public, and for 
 thirty-seven of those years he was without a commiss : on. His 
 
 * When he was dead, some of these folks complained to his family that their 
 purchases had turned out a '• bad speculation," after all ! — Ed. 
 
 M 2 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 journals and private letters are full of proof in support of the 
 op : nion of the judge. For example, the late Duke of Suther- 
 land lends Hay don 501. in an emergency. Haydon, the 
 moment he has time, paints a picture, ' Reading the Times,' a 
 picture fairly worth 200?., and sends it to the Duke, begging its 
 acceptance in discharge of the loan, and the Duke accepts the 
 picture. Lord Melbourne, in another emergency, sends him 
 707. Haydon makes him a beautiful sketch, and Lord Mel- 
 bourne accepts it in return. The Duke of Bedford sends him 
 50'., and he enters the Duke on his list for five shares in the 
 eight hundred guinea raffle for ' Xenophon,' which picture the 
 Duke, to his evident perplexity, wins. Talfourd lends him 40/., 
 and he pa : nts his portrait — the kindly judge, not forgetting to 
 add a balance to make up, as he said, " the full value." 
 Another man makes him a loan and Haydon paints his 
 portrait, and so on throughout his life. He is everywhere, and 
 on all occasions, borrowing money to meet his needs, and if he 
 has no money to pay it back, he gives what he has, his time 
 and sk 11 in his art, and scatters broadcast among his sup- 
 porters beautiful sketches, exquisite copies in miniature of 
 his own larger works, and original paintings, with a reckless 
 generosity that should be recalled to his credit as well as the 
 chief cause, when condemned for his habit of "borrowing" 
 from his friends. He always seemed to me more anxious to 
 overpay than underpay any man. Yet, after all, the "con- 
 sumption of your purse," as FaLtaff says, " is a disease that is 
 incurable," and many painters besides Haydon (Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence, for example), and many men of literature and art, 
 and others, have found that " borrowing only lingers and lingers 
 it out." That art sts, as a rule, Haydon and Sir Thomas Law- 
 rence, P.R.A., in particular, are held to have had a loose 
 morality in money matters, I am aware. But punctuality in 
 money matters is very like bravery in the field ; most men 
 arc brave because they fear to run away.* Before you praise 
 a man for being punctual in these matters, other things being 
 equal, you should first ascertain whether he is above or below 
 unpunctuality. And, because a man confines his ambition 
 to painting, is he to be wholly without the imperfect ; ons of 
 our nature ? If artists are lax in money-matters, at least 
 
 * Occasionally the desire tn escape danger overpowers tl.eir fear of &hamo, and 
 theu you will see what most nieu see w ho go into action. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 they lead pure live^ and if they borrow freely they lend 
 with benevolence. Let us make a fair balance, for are not 
 all things "double, one against the other?" Compare the 
 life of a great painter with that of a great politician. We 
 will assume they have both the same ambition to serve 
 and benefit their country. Take the case of Canning, a great 
 man of great views. We will say nothing of his private 
 life, that was too notorious, but can anything be more im- 
 moral, more repugnant to all feelings of honour, truth, duty, 
 and loyalty to your friends, than the means by which Can- 
 ning first obtained public office, held public office, and roso 
 to power ? He is the man of whom it was said he " never went 
 straightforward to his mark" — and did he ever? Opposing 
 all reform, approving every job, defending every abuse, encou- 
 raging a " No Popery " cry, when in his heart he was in favour 
 of Catholic Emancipation, and absolutely supporting, with 
 extravagant language, the most cruel measures for the repres- 
 sion of our liberties, when — who can doubt ? — he was acting a 
 part to ruin the administration of which he was a member, in 
 order to succeed as First Minister. 
 
 The morality of all this is extremely curious, and would 
 probably have called at the time for much observation, but 
 Canning became Prime Minister, and principles, then, we all 
 know, are not often allowed to stand in the way of that 
 patriotism which supports the Minister, in the hope of 
 place. 
 
 But Canning was altogether an exceptional man, a man of 
 great versatility of power, and consequently of principle. Like 
 Mirabeau, if his father and mother had quarrelled and gone 
 to law, he would have drawn up the affidavits of each with 
 equal skill. Such a man, it will be urged, is not to be judged 
 by common rules. And is not every painter of genius an ex- 
 ceptional man ? All men of genius are exceptional men, and 
 not to be judged too strictly. But let us take another case — 
 an unexceptionable case — the case of a man unwarmed by wit 
 or genius, the very opposite of Canning in every respect ; 
 distant, reflective, diffident, living in uneasy splendour, and 
 of unimpeachable integrity in private life — the late Sir Eobert 
 Peel, and will he fare any better than Canning? Is his 
 political career one we could conscientiously hold up as an 
 example to a young man ? You might as well train a youth to 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 morals on the pattern of Joseph Surface^ " All rising to great 
 place," says Bacon, " is by a winding stair ;" but, surely, no 
 man ever took so many turns as the late Sir Robert Peel. In- 
 triguing with and against Canning ; now siding with Lord 
 Eldon, now plotting against him ; now alarming the Duke, 
 now betraying him ; subservient to rank, yet courting popu- 
 larity ; defending the Tories, but not identifying himself 
 with them ; supporting the Church, but leaving a loop-hole ; 
 in short, civil to all, but satisfying none, and never denying 
 his conscience permission to release him from inconvenient 
 obligations. When at length he reaches the object of his 
 ambition, and becomes invested with all the authority the lead 
 of a great Tarty alone gives, he is, towards his Party, always 
 ambiguous, always unsatisfactory, never straightforward. For 
 ever dallying with the political devil of the day, whether 
 Catholics and Emancipation, or Cobden and Corn, he passes 
 his life, like the second son in the parable, saying to his 
 Party, as he pocketed their wages, " I will go and work in your 
 vineyard," — and in not going. 
 
 Whether the result of his policy or of Canning's was bene- 
 ficial to the nation is not the question, any more than the result 
 of a painter's labour. I am speaking only of the means each 
 employs to attain his end, which, equally with the artist is fame, 
 by increasing the happiness and prosperity of his fellow-country- 
 men. Granting to " policy " the most liberal indulgence w hich 
 the world gives, I fear Sir Robert Peel's political life, as much 
 as Canning's, will be found to afford another illustration of how 
 great a part of political history is made up of the bad actions 
 of the best men. In short, human nature is too imperfect to 
 find genius or great administrative ability, or great energy 
 of character, combined with high ambition, always under the 
 control of the moderate virtues. 
 
 I do not seek to excuse painters their one notorious defect, 
 but rather to point out what strange notions of justice those 
 have who acquit the politician and condemn the painter for 
 much the same offence under very similar conditions. 
 
 To return, however, to Haydon. The sudden rupture of his 
 friendly relations with Sir Robert Peel reduced Haydon to sad 
 straits, for his family was now growing up, and the calls 
 upon him in proportion. In spite of all his difficulties hitherto, 
 he had contrived to put one of his step-sons as a midshipman in 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 167 
 
 her Majesty's navy, and the other he had sent to Oxford. But 
 he had also eight young children at home to support, and the 
 struggle was desperate. Within the next few years his five 
 youngest children died, one after the other, from the effects of 
 the terrible mental distresses of their mother, whose bright 
 face was sad enough now. I can remember the sweet old roses 
 of her sunken cheeks fading away daily with anxiety and grie* 1 . 
 Hay don, who was passionately attached to both wife and chil- 
 dren, suffered all the tortures of the damned at the sight before 
 him. His sorrow over the deaths of his dear children was 
 something more than human. I remember watching him as 
 he hung over his daughter Georgiana, and over his dying boy 
 Harry, the pride and delight of his life. Poor fellow, how he 
 cried! and he went into the next room, and beating his head 
 passionately on the bed, called upon God to take him and all 
 of us from this hateful world. Those were dreadful days. 
 The earliest and the most painful death was to be preferred to 
 our life at that time. Who can . feel surprised at Haydon 
 entreating the Almighty to afflict his children with every other 
 calamity on earth than a love for painting ? 
 
 " Unhappy," says Carlyle, " is that family with a fool at its 
 head." He is mistaken. The misery is to have the historical 
 painter of genius at your head ; that is the domestic situation 
 most to be pitied in England. Listen to what Haydon writes 
 after live and twenty years' labour to raise the taste of the 
 English nobility, and through them of the people, to a higher 
 appreciation of fine art, and say if the picture be exaggerated. 
 " Of what use," he asks, " are my brains to myself or others ? 
 They have brought me to ruin, and now, after twenty-five 
 years' devotion to my art, I cannot get my bread by painting ! 
 I have not sold a single drawing, or picture, or portrait. The 
 English patrons and public now, knowing that my bread 
 depends on what I do, leave me to starve! and this is wealthy, 
 liberal England ! At an age, and after labours and productions 
 that ought to have placed me in a position above pecuniary 
 harass, and in any other country but England would have 
 placed me in security and peace, I am ruined and left to 
 starve ; yet I am always conceiving beautiful subjects and 
 sketching them, and then comes the dreary truth." How 
 natural, how pathetic, these touching words are ! Then he adds, 
 " I wonder my frame has borne this so long. The mere agita- 
 
tfi8 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 tions of the conceptions of one's mind, flushing one's brain with 
 blood, bathing one's body in perspiration, must wear out the 
 brain, and then, in addition, the necessities of poverty are 
 dreadful. If I were alone again, if I had neither wife nor 
 children, I would leave England for ever. Buried in Italy or 
 Greece, I would pass my days in the lowest avocation, could I 
 get by it peace — peace. I would lie on the Acropolis and hail 
 the ruins about me as congenial to my destroyed hopes. I 
 would wander in the Alps, sleep in caverns, lulled by the 
 invisible roar of foaming floods, and waked by the echoing 
 screech of soaring eagles, I would plunge into the flood and 
 rise from its depths, lie panting and breathless on its banks 
 till nature recovered sensation and my desolation returned to 
 
 me !" Then, in words that speak of the bitterness of 
 
 his humiliation, he concludes, "I pray God with all my heart 
 that no child of mine be gifted with a passion for High Art. 
 On my knees, with my forehead bent to the earth and my lips 
 to the dust, I entreat Him .that He will, in His mercy, afflict 
 them with every other passion, appetite, or misery, with 
 wretchedness, disease, insanity, and gabbling idiotism, rather 
 than a longing for painting — that scorned, that miserable art, 
 that greater imposture than the htiman species it imitates." 
 
 In this Christian country poverty is a crime ; in Pagan 
 Home, in . its worst days, it was only ridiculous.* We have 
 advanced far beyond the " benighted heathen." 
 
 Yet it is possible Haydon did not rightly understand the 
 refined philosophy of his noble friends. It may have been 
 out of a delicate appreciation for his talents they kept him in 
 this mean condition. Low living in their experience is essen- 
 tial to high thinking, and frequent fasting an excellent discipline 
 for body and mind. It was also certain to secure his morals. 
 I am not quite sure our nobility do not think that, for a 
 painter, poet, or musician to have a full stomach after dinner, 
 should be made a penal offence. " I understand," once said a 
 
 noble duke reproachfully to Haydon, " that Mr. M eats 
 
 turbot for dinner ! " Good heavens ! what a voluptuary ! The 
 poor man might as well have wished for roast meats, game, 
 and poultry, which, according to Fonblanque, a kind Providence 
 
 ♦ "Nil habet, infrlix paupertis durius in so 
 Guam quod ridicules homines tacit " . . . . 
 
 Juvenal, Sat. 3. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 169 
 
 reserves especially, with turbot and its lobster sauce, for the 
 bishops, the nobility, and their sick ladies. And thus it was, 
 we may depend on it, that poor Haydon, a man of fine poetic 
 temperament, born in an age that had no poetic feeling for art, 
 because it was too well fed, was cut off by the patrons from his 
 meat and wine, and left to the bailiffs, all out of consideration 
 for his poetic genius. They wished to preserve the freshness 
 and fancy of his imagination free from the fumes of indigestion. 
 Although why they should allow him to be imprisoned again 
 and again, I cannot understand, unless the excitement of 
 releasing him was so great a pleasure, they could not bring 
 themselves to part with it by paying his debts, or by giving 
 him employment to enable him to pay them himself. 
 
 The ancient Mosynians. 1 have somewhere read, had an 
 excellent custom ; when their King cave an unjust judgment, 
 they kept him without food for that day. In England, our 
 nobility followed and improved upon it; for a man had only 
 to paint one fine historical picture to make sure of absolute 
 starvation. To paint a second and third was to bring him to 
 wish for the fate of Euclid's chicken, which, scraping up a 
 treasure, had its neck twisted on the spot. 
 
 But now a change was coming in Haydon's favour; the 
 " Whigs " were going to take him by the hand. The pro- 
 verbial worst must have been reached, when matters began to 
 mend in this direction. The " Reform Bill " was before the world, 
 and Sir Robert Peel was making one of his great mistakes ; he 
 was opposing Reform. Haydon, who in politics had a robust 
 faith in the people, and a passionate hatred of all abuses, 
 aristocrat as he was. forgot his own sufferings in the excite- 
 ment of the times, plunged fiercely into politics, and wrote a 
 series of able "Letters" to the 'Times' and other journals 
 upon " Reform," into which he enters fully, exposes the hollow- 
 ness of Peel's opposition, and urges the people never to give 
 in, nor to accept less than the reforms which were needed. 
 How far Sir Robert Peel's treatment of him may have carried 
 Haydon in this direction I cannot say, but there is a fierceness 
 in his support of reform, and, although he always treats Sir 
 .Robert with respect, a bitterness of tone which indicates to 
 me the rankling of a private wrong. It often adds a zest to 
 invective. 
 
 Oddly enough, Haydon fell into the hands of Attwood and the 
 
170 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Birmingham radicals, who commissioned him to paint a picture 
 of the Newhall Hill Meeting, but not rinding money plentiful 
 in their pockets, and finding Hay don had the " real grit" in him, 
 as the Americans call it, they withdrew from the picture and 
 tried to indue Haydon to give up paintmg, and come out on 
 their side as a political speaker. But their fierce democratic prin- 
 ciples and their rude manners jarred upon Haydon's aristocratic 
 sentiments, and he hung back. While he was hesitating the 
 Bill was passed, and Lord Grey catching Haydon in June 183 L 
 gave him a five hundred guinea commission to pa : nt the 
 famous ' Beform Banquet' in Guildhall, and so turned him 
 once again into the pictorial groove. 
 
 I have often speculated upon what Haydon might have done 
 in public life if he had devoted to politics the time and 
 attention he gave up to art. I have heard him complain that 
 he felt " confined " in the art, that he could not get " full 
 swing " for the power he had within him, and I have no doubt 
 of it. He was a man of great natural powers of mind, with 
 high power of cultivation, and certainly he had many of the 
 qualities that go to make up a statesman. In the fu>t place 
 he was a thoroughly tough and indomitable man, " none of 
 your shilipit milk-and-water dandies," as Proudfoot says, " but 
 a sterling substantial fallow, who wadna hae feered the deil 
 suppose he met him." He had great breadth of character and 
 elevation of mind. All his political ideas were grand and 
 imperial. He was for binding the whole of our colonies in one 
 vast confederation, or else of setting them free ; but no keep- 
 ing them in mere leading-strings ; that was neither one thing 
 nor the other. I can remember his saying one evening, now 
 nearly forty years ago, with a puff of contempt, " What stuff to 
 talk of England only as a European power! She is a great 
 Asiatic and American power that could put the whole of Europe 
 in her pocket and make a colony of it." " What !" he cried out 
 on another occasion, the English Channel a lucky thing for us! 
 I can tell you it was a very lucky thing for the Continent." 
 The first idea has since struck other men. The last I have 
 never since heard uttered. But it was grand, and charac- 
 teristic of him, for his faith in England and in her people, 
 and their pugnacity and powers of endurance, was unbounded. 
 " There is no people like them — they are the finest race in 
 the world." He never had the least doubt aboat our success 
 
B. R. HAYDOX. 
 
 171 
 
 and supremacy, but he would never have despised an enemy, 
 and always have been prepared for every emergency. Then 
 his knowledge of men and things was wide, his reading of 
 history thorough, and in all the common qualities of our 
 race he was not to be surpassed. Witness his activity, his 
 energy, his industry and public zeal, his high courage, his 
 audacious self-reliance, his readiness of resource under diffi- 
 culty and defeat, his loyalty to his friends, his generosity to 
 all, and his power of passionate appeal, and in a lively and 
 picturesque style. These qualities, in spite of corresponding 
 defects, which were only the defects of a warm heart, must 
 have won for him a high place in party warfare, and, I even 
 venture to think, in that Assembly which values the man who 
 speaks from his heart. But it was not to be, and never was, 
 though I can remember his saying one day, in a half-musing 
 tone to himself, " I have done something for the Art, but I 
 could have done more in Politics ; perhaps I ought to have 
 gone in, though " (he added after a moment) " I detest their 
 dirty jobs ;" then he seemed to toss the idea contemptuously 
 from him, and went on painting furiously.* 
 
 The commission from Lord Grey was to paint the Great 
 Eeform Banquet at the Guildhall on the occasion of the 
 passing of the Bill of 1832. The Corporation of the City of 
 London also engaged to take a copy of the picture, and Haydon 
 at once set to work. It was a picture of portraits ; ninety- 
 seven of the leading Whigs and Hadicals of the day had to be 
 painted, and thus Haydon found himself compelled to go again 
 into that society from which he had greatly been excluded 
 since J823. But it was now an unequal combination, and 
 these are always disadvantages to the weaker side, as we shall 
 see. Lord Grey, Mr. Stanley, Lord Althorp, the Duke of 
 Bichmond, Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Kussell, Lord Mel- 
 bourne, Lord Brougham, Lord Palmerston, Sir Francis Burdett, 
 Tom Duncombe, Sir James Graham, O'Connell, Hume, and all 
 the leading members of the reform party of that day sat to Hay- 
 don in turn, and satirised each other, while their wives criticised 
 the portraits of each other's husband. With his sitters Haydon, 
 of course, became on good terms; but he complains that he 
 found the Whigs more lax in their views on morality, especially 
 
 * I am not certain, but I tliiuk in early life lie had an offer to enter Parliament 
 and dcclinLd.— Ed. 
 
172 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 on the subject of the Seventh Commandment, than the Tories, 
 who were perhaps just as lax but did not talk about it— and not 
 given to generous hospitality.* There was a hard aristocratic 
 selfishness about them that he did not like, and contrasted 
 unfavourably with bis old friends. The three men he liked 
 best and who liked him were Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, 
 and Lord Durham. He had no reason to complain of their 
 aristocratic exclusiveness, nor were they chary of their hospi- 
 tality towards him. Upon their opinions of the Feventh Com- 
 mandment he discreetly says nothing. The two first were men 
 of the world, the last a misanthrope, who found in Haydon's 
 disappointed ambition something congenial with his own. 
 
 With his sitters Haydon had many and interesting conver- 
 sations upon politics, by which he learned how much " chance " 
 there is in legislation, and upon the great subject of his 
 thought, the advancement of art, the reform of the Academy, 
 and the elevation of the taste of the nation. These conver- 
 sations I have given as fully as appears fair in his Table-Talk. 
 Upon the whole he did not derive a very high impression of 
 the feeling of our public men for art. They knew too little 
 about it, and were too much occupied in politics, and jobs, anil 
 parish matters to care about knowing more. What little good 
 Haydon tried to do them one day was undone the next, or at 
 night, by clever academicians. " They dine together," he 
 writes, " they speechify, they cajole, and gossip over their 
 wine, and thus the art is jobbed and ruined." For example, 
 he fondly hopes one week that he has converted the Prime 
 Minister to his theory, that Schools of Design are absolutely 
 indispensable to us as a commercial and manufacturing nation, 
 and that every pattern designer should be taught how to 
 draw on the same principle as the artist, viz., from the antique. 
 The next week Lord Grey frankly confesses that he has 
 " changed his opinion about schools of design." That he can- 
 not " understand the necessity " of pattern designers learning 
 to draw the human figure. This, of course, was not his own, 
 but had been instilled into him by Sir Martin Shee, the Pre- 
 sident of the Eoyal Academy, who, " to save his life," says 
 
 • One day nt the late Lord Grey's l ouse, during the first -Jays of their acquaint- 
 anee, and while Lord (J rev was sitting to him, luncheon was announced. Lnrd 
 Grey sot up and left the 'room, and left Haydon in it; nor was any luncheon 
 sent in.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 173 
 
 Haydon, " could not draw a hand, a foot, a head, or a knee 
 correctly." Haydon tries to remove this bad impression, but 
 a few days later Lord Grey returns to the point, and declares 
 again that he "does not really see much value in drawing. 
 Correggio, you know, could not draw, nor could Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds." " I looked fiery," says Haydon, " but I did not 
 reply, for I could not speak without making him (Lord Grey) 
 ridiculous." But if he failed with Lord Grey, Haydon was 
 more successful with his radical tail. Hume, Ewart, and Wyse 
 adopted Haydon's views, and very quickly arranged a cam- 
 paign against the Academy. Early in the session of 183 1 
 Mr. Ewart moved for and obtained a return of the works of 
 art exhibited by the Royal Academy in previous years. This 
 was the first step. With Lord Melbourne Haydon succeeded 
 better. He admitted schools of design were necessary, promised 
 Haydon that if he could he would establish one for London, 
 and also that Haydon's idea of decorating the Houses should 
 be " considered " at the first favourable opportunity. And yet, 
 though he talked and laughed and argued over the subject 
 constantly with Haydon, Lord Melbourne would do no more. 
 He would not boldly adopt Haydon's scheme for provincial 
 schools of design, but he gave him a committee (Mr. Ewart's 
 committee of 1836) to inquire generally into the subject of Art 
 and Design, and bring up the " Academy " to be cross-examined. 
 A public grant of money in aid of painting and design was 
 an innovation Lord Melbourne was not prepared to make. He 
 would have readily knighted or baroneted Haydon, or per- 
 haps have put him into the peerage if he had been well enough 
 off and wished it, but his policy was to let things alone till 
 forced to make a change. Thus, when Haydon asked him to 
 interfere with the Royal Academy, he said, " No," and when 
 Mr. Ewart's committee made their report, recommending pro- 
 vincial schools of design, he took the least notice of it pos- 
 sible, because it would have stirred up matters he preferred 
 leaving as they were, on principle and policy. " The policy of 
 the ' Whigs,' " writes Haydon, " is to arrest the keen edge of 
 the scalping-knife of reform. They are content with pricking 
 the corruption which ought to be probed and the humours 
 let out." 
 
 Lord Melbourne never even got beyond looking at the 
 knife. Though he liked Haydon and enjoyed his society, he 
 
'74 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 never gave him a commission. He could not afford it, but 
 lie once sent Haydon 70/. to save him from arrest, and accepted 
 in return a very beautiful sketch of a very beautiful woman, 
 winch I find he " always kept hung up " at his bedside. This 
 was doubly like Lord Melbourne. He was much attached to 
 Haydon, regretted that he had not done more for him, was 
 deeply affected by his death in 1846, and expressed himself 
 touchingly to the family. 
 
 Haydon finished the picture of the ' Reform Banquet ' by 
 the spring of 1831, and, by particular desire of the Whigs, 
 exhibited it publicly. They hoped it would recall the days 
 of their glory. But the discredit into which Lord Grey's 
 government had fallen kept the Ten Pounders away, and the 
 general agitation of the times made the exhibition a failure. 
 This inflicted a pecuniary loss of some 210Z. upon Haydon. 
 The moment the Whigs saw that the exhibition did not take, 
 they began to abuse the picture, and " cut " the painter. This 
 was judicious, but not magnanimous. Yet Haydon could have 
 borne the loss without danger if the Corporation of the City 
 of London had kept faith with him, and taken a copy of Lord 
 Grey's picture as they had originally agreed. But, to their 
 great disgrace, the Corporation followed suit with the "Whigs, 
 and I regret to feel compelled to apply such a term to the 
 Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London, that 
 " model for the municipalities of Europe " — but they broke 
 faith with the painter in the meanest manner, dishonour- 
 ably shirked out of their promise, and never offered him the 
 slightest compensation. Haydon had trusted implicitly to 
 their honour, and they soiled and disgraced it. 
 
 The moment Lord Althorp heard of his troubles, he came 
 forward with his great, broad, good heart, said he could not 
 afford to do much, but he would buy all the chalk drawings of 
 the sitters in Lord Grey's picture, and make a gallery of them 
 at Althorp, but Attwood and the Birmingham League he 
 would have none of. This was a help, and Haydon bore Lord 
 Althorp in grateful remembrance all his life. But the rest of 
 the Whig party did nothing. The Toiies say it is their practice 
 to desert their friends. They had honoured him by allowing 
 him to paint their portraits, for which they had paid nothing, 
 and that should be sufficient. Lord Grey, with his large family 
 and many claims, could do no more than he did. Lord Pal- 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 merston contemplated a commission, but somehow he never 
 got beyond the contemplation. And thus Haydon was left in 
 the lurch, and to bear the loss incurred by the exhibition of 
 the picture. Now, 2 18?. taken out of 5 Lbl. for nineteen months' 
 work is a serious matter. Even if we add the 200 guineas Lord 
 Althorp paid for the drawings, it yet leaves Haydon something 
 under 15s. a day for his nineteen months' labour, and to find 
 his own materials. Decidedly the Whigs were a worse pay- 
 master than Sir Eobert Peel. He at least gave Haydon a 
 journeyman painter's wages. Edward Ellice, one of the lead- 
 ing men of the Whigs, had assured Haydon that the " Party " 
 would not let him sink, and had sent Haydon 50/. himself. In 
 his later extremity Haydon turns to his distinguished friend. 
 What follows is given in his Journal with touching simplicity. 
 On the close of the exhibition he writes to Edward Ellice, 
 "The exhibition has failed, with a loss of 218/." Edward 
 Ellice replies, " I can give you no advice." As claims and 
 embarrassments and lawyers' threats close on him, Haydon 
 writes again, reminding Mr. Ellice of his promise, and pite- 
 ously adds, " Don't let me sink." He gets no answer. Again 
 he writes, " I am sinking," and Edward Ellice, putting on 
 his hat. goes out to take a stroll in the park, telling his son, 
 " Write to Haydon, and say I have gone down to the House." 
 When Vittoria Colonna received news that her husband, 
 Francesco, was desperately wounded, in great distress, and a 
 prisoner at Ravenna, she immediately addressed him in thirty- 
 seven stanzas of terza rima, and remained, at ease, at home in 
 her villa at Pietralba. I dare say my father was as much com- 
 forted as Francesco. 
 
 At length, in July, 1834. when being cruelly pressed by 
 attorneys on all sides, the Duke of Sutherland, out of sheer 
 pity, gives him a 400 guinea commission for ' Cassandra.' " But 
 for this commission," writes Haydon, somewhat unnecessarily, 
 " I should have been crushed." On the 3rd September, the 
 Dul<e sends him, at his earnest request, 100Z. " in advance." 
 Here was the mischief. He was always taking drafts on the 
 labour of time to come. Yet this 100Z. was only in time to save 
 him, for immediately after the arrival of the letter enclosing 
 the Duke's cheque, an execution is put in by order of the 
 Whig Treasury, for arrears of taxes. The Whig finance in 
 those days seldom had a balance and could not afford to forbear. 
 
176 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 The duke's advance is soon paid away — 2C07. follow in the 
 same course, a vast proportion of it going to the attorneys for 
 their law costs, — and by the end of the year, when ' Cassandra ' 
 is finished, Haydon has only a small balance to receive, and no 
 further employment in view. 
 
 In the earlier part of this year Haydon had put down his 
 name for the Professorship of Design at the. London University. 
 The Council conceiving that a man who had been imprisoned 
 for debt would injure the moral purity of this institution, 
 resolved to reject him, and began to shuffle. Haydon at once 
 withdrew his name and gave the Council his opinion of their 
 conduct. On the 16th of October, however, an event had 
 occurred which must not be passed over ; the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment were burned clown. Three days after, Haydon had a long 
 conversation with Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, and got 
 from him an assurance that Haydon's idea of uniting painting, 
 sculpture, and architecture in the new Houses should " not be 
 hopeless." As soon as the Building Committee was appointed, 
 Haydon, on a hint from Lord Melbourne, presented a petition 
 to Parliament, through Lord Morpeth (Cth March, 1>3.3;, 
 praying the House to order that "spaces be left in the new 
 building for the commemoration, by painting, of the national 
 triumphs," and urging the Committee to consider " the vast 
 benefits which may accrue to the arts and manufactures of this 
 country if this favourable moment be seized for the encourage- 
 ment of historical painting." 
 
 The House approved of the petition, and directed it to be 
 sent up to the Building Committee. Haydon had hopes, but 
 he also had grave doubts. " The worst of it is," he writes, " the 
 art is considered but as an embellishment, a sort of gilding, 
 nothing more." These fears have proved, I think, to be 
 thoroughly well founded, if we may judge at all by the num- 
 ber of pretty picture-book pictures on the walls of our great 
 Talace. 
 
 The year 183") was to Haydon a year of terrible struggle, 
 harass, irritation, threats of execution, and actual execution 
 for " arrears of taxes." Full of what he calls " heart-breaking- 
 apprehensions seizing me at intervals of thought," he was 
 never for one moment free from that supreme curse of having 
 to make every sovereign he got do the work of ten, and was 
 driven to every extremity in life to get that one. " Why do 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 177 
 
 they not employ me ? " he says mournfully one clay to Lord 
 Durham, with whom he was very intimate. " Why ? " says 
 Lord Durham, " 111 tell you why ; they can't afford it. The 
 greater part of the nobility of this country is insolvent" 
 " But they marry and mend their fortunes," expostulated 
 Haydon. " No," said Lord Durham, " not a bit of it, my dear 
 friend ; their marriages are on credit, like everything else about 
 them " Lord Durham had no higher opinion of his noble 
 friends than Lord Byron of his ; but, unlike Byron with his 
 poor companions, Lord Durham forgot to redeem their cha- 
 racter by employing Haydon himself. His curious amusement 
 seems to have been to say disagreeable things to his am able 
 wife in Haydon's presence, and to look on at Haydon painting 
 and starving, and watch how long his noble friends would leave 
 him unaided and alone to struggle. 
 
 With all his wealth I cannot see that he ever did anything 
 for Haydon except give him his portrait, and once send him 
 thirty guineas for a chalk sketch of her favourite boy, which 
 Haydon had made a present to Lady Durham. He vexed the 
 painter sadly in so doing ; but this was the man. He would 
 not employ him, but he would accept no presents. 
 
 Haydon was now in his fiftieth year, (as 1 well remember him,) 
 a handsome, fresh-coloured, robust, little man, with a big bald 
 head, small ears, aquiline features, a peculiarly short upper lip, 
 and a keen, restless, azure-grey eye, the pupil of which contracted 
 and expanded, rose and fell as he talked, just as if some inner 
 light and fire was playing on his brain. He was a very active 
 man; motion was his repose. In fact, he lived in a hurricane, 
 and fattened on anxiety and care. He carried himself up- 
 rightly and stamped his little feet upon the ground, as if he 
 revelled in the consciousness of existence, especially in an E.N.E. 
 wind, meeting him, at his own corner, in the month of February.* 
 
 * This love for fresli air he carried to an excels in his own house, and sometimes 
 in those of other persons. It was quite his hobby, as well as his suspicion of a 
 damp bed. Wherever he visited he always did two tilings: he opened all the 
 windows, and, summer or winter, lighting his bedroom fire he aired his sheets and 
 mattress. The late Lord Egremont used to tell u story of him on his arrival at 
 Petworth the first n ; ght. Dinner was announced, and Haydon, who had been in 
 the library, had suddenly disappeared. Seaich was made for him, and he was 
 found in his bedroom with his evening coat Cirefully taken off, and his great coat 
 buttoned round him, pulling his bed to pieces, hauling out blankets, sheets, 
 mattr. ss, and pillows, and spreading them over the backs of the chairs before the 
 huge fire lie had lighted. He had torgotteu to do it before be came down. The 
 late Sir Peter Fairbairn, of Leeds, used to tell a very similar story of him at 
 VOL. L N 
 
78 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 He was always a poor man, prudent and economical in his own 
 expenditure, jealous of anything that bore the appearance of 
 unnecessary .expense, but most generous to others. He was 
 strongly attached to his home and family, peculiarly tender and 
 watchful in illness, and a most devoted husband. Asa father 
 he was anxious, far beyond the common run of parents, for the 
 moral and intellectual progress of his children, always insisting 
 upon the necessity of keeping in view high objects of ambition, 
 in preference to mere worldly advancement, and of placing the 
 attainment of a great public object above the level of " making 
 money." The " comfortable " folks of course thought, and still 
 think him a fool. They are welcome to their opinion. 
 
 In his own home Haydon was habitually taciturn, except on 
 rare occasions, preferring the silence of his own thoughts to 
 conversation with his family. In society, particularly that of 
 his juniors, his talk was chiefly anecdotal ; and from the number 
 of men with whom he had associated in early life, and his power 
 of vivid narration, his stories were peculiarly interesting. He 
 was not ready in argument, rather resenting a strongly-expressed 
 difference of opinion as " disturbing his ideas " on the subject 
 on which discussion had been attempted. But now and then, 
 among his equals, one of those utterances, " deep, lucid, and 
 exhaustive, which it is given only to genius to enunciate," con- 
 centrating into a single brilliant sentence the thought and 
 experience of years, would startle into temporary silence the 
 more fluent and practised talkers among whom it was carelessly 
 thrown, to be accepted, or neglected, or rejected, as fortune 
 might decide. 
 
 To his servants and all about him Haydon was habitually 
 kind and indulgent. He possessed in a rare degree, and in 
 spite of a hasty temper and a rather dangerous candour, the 
 
 Wooilsley. There was no hirm in this; but his habit of opening windows in 
 other persons' houses sometimes got him into a scrape. One day he was calling 
 on Dr. Elliotson in town. " Pugh," he said to himself as he was shown into the 
 room, " how can he live in such air? ' and walking to the window he unfastened 
 it, flung it open, and began to breathe more freely. Dr. Elliotson was a chilly 
 man, and hated open windows. Presently the door swung aside gently, and the 
 doctor slipped in, on the halls of his toes, like something feline. "Ah, my dear 
 Haydon, how are you Good God, what's that I Eh— what— an open window ! 
 Who has dared ?" — and, ringing the bell furiously, t!iere ensued a scene between 
 the doctor and his man worthy of Moliere. It is to be hoped that Haydon gave 
 the footman a sovereign, but he more probably l a i not got it to give. Another 
 time he indulged himself at, 1 think, Lord "Yarmouth s, in the same manner. 
 Lord Yarmouth, if it was he, caught him in the act, and Walking to the window 
 slammed it down again, and then politely entered iuto conversation.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 '79 
 
 power of winning and preserving the love and respect of all 
 who knew him well. He was enthusiastically devoted to his 
 art, which he cultivated with the severest industry and research.* 
 Nothing escaped him ; indeed, he was eminently truthful in 
 all things. I do not believe he would have told a falsehood, 
 even on his oath. 
 
 And he was one of those men of profound heart to whom 
 religion is a necessity of daily existence. Both in adversity 
 and prosperity his piety was real. Tom Taylor has said of him 
 that his religiousness is " puzzling " and his prayers " cha- 
 racteristic." But of what? Of the strongest desire to over- 
 come inherent tendencies to evil, and of an intense conviction 
 that moral rectitude is only to be obtained by prayer. Just as 
 President De Thou used daily to pray God to "purify" his 
 heart from all "partiality and personal dislike," and "bend" 
 him " to truth " amidst the contending political factions of the 
 French Parliament over which he presided, so did Haydon 
 hourly pray God to guide him aright, to turn his heart from 
 evil, and keep his feet from falling, and give him strength to 
 maintain the truth, and grant success to his projects for the 
 sake of the art of his great country. To my mind Haydon's 
 prayers are quite intelligible. They show his keen sense of 
 his own imperfections and unworthiness, his deep love for his 
 Art, his passionate efforts and conflicts to reach purity of 
 heart, his awful reverence, his unreserved adoration for the 
 Almighty, and his firm belief that God could be induced by 
 fervent prayer not only to comfort, encourage, and console 
 the heart of a believer, but to " raise up " for him unknown 
 friends, and even suspend natural laws in his favour. I admit 
 
 * I have seen the accusation made against Haydon tliat he was " an idle man," 
 and frequently indulged himself in " fits of idleness." Tins is a silly bit of fault- 
 finding. Who has not "tits of idleness," tits of depression, fits of a sluggish 
 condition of brain in which you seein to have no sense of duty in life ? But these 
 do not make us idle men. Haydon had fewer fits of the kind than .my man I 
 ever knew: his liver was always in such good trim. ALstention from actual 
 painting in a man of Haydon's invention does nut imply idleness. I doubt if such 
 a man is ever vacant-minded. Haydon carri. d his art about with him everywhere, 
 and was always designing and conceiving " effects." It is told of Doineuichino 
 that his patron once rinding him not painting reproached him for his "idleness." 
 " Basta, Basta ! " retorted Ihe painter ; " io la stu continuamente dipingendo enlro 
 di me," and so is every paint, r of imagination. A great painting is like a fine 
 epic poem. The fire and energy of a first conception rxcites, and then exhausts 
 the mind. No man can accomplish such a work straight on end, day by day. It 
 must be studied, laid aside, and again renewed, with time enough in the intervals 
 to allow the imagination to cuol. — Ed. 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 his prayers contrast strangely and painfully with the outward 
 and passionate agitations of his professional life, yet they tell us 
 how present to his mind was this "invisible hut living God," who 
 '• layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters, and maketh 
 the clouds His chariot." He saw God daily, enduring as seeing 
 one that is Invisible. It was to His will he ascribed everything. 
 He even heard "voices"- — that was the way he personified 
 conscience — constraining him to do his duty, and he believed 
 himself to be a man to whose fate a mysterious importance 
 attached. He lived, in fact, in an atmosphere of extraordinary 
 interferences, and miraculous inspirations, intimations, and 
 presentiments. He notes in his journals from time to time the 
 successive ruin and degradation of men who had helped to ruin 
 and oppress him. All this shows what a strong affinity there 
 was in his mind to the best part of the old Puritan, though 
 without his austerity or intolerance. 
 
 On the subject of the inspiration of the Bible he refused to 
 have any doubts. The accidents cf poetic or legendary exag- 
 geration were, I am inclined to think, separated in his mind 
 from the essential truths, and he rated the Epistles far below 
 the Gospel. In this he saw the inspiration of the Spirit of 
 God, and he felt sure the voice of God spoke to us therein, 
 furnishing to us all rules, principles, and laws of conduct 
 sufficient to guide us under every circumstance of life.* 
 
 In politics Haydon was not a party man. Heart and soul an 
 aristocrat, that is to say, in the sense of always giving to the; 
 best men, whether by intellect, rank, or wealth, the greatest 
 influence, his hatred of injustice, wrong, and jobbery was so 
 strong, he would go great lengths to root them out. 
 
 In music he had a fine taste, and preferred Haydn, Handel, 
 and Mozart to all the rest. Of Beethoven he knew little. To 
 the English theatres he seldom went in his later years. He 
 preferred the French plays, enjoying the polished dialogue 
 and perfect acting there. He was once induced by one of the 
 family to go and see Macready in ' Lear.' He sat out the first 
 
 * One charneteii>tic trait I must not omit. Whenever he read prayers at home 
 to us, lie always studiously lelt out that prayer in the Litany for " enduing tho 
 Lords of the Council with grace, wisdom, and understanding ; '' but I never heard 
 his reason. He always, however, interpolated a petition for his own " health and 
 strength— /or the sake of the Art of my country." This was never omitted , and 
 the record of it may perhaps help to show that his < Units were direct, d at least 
 as fully towards the advancement of English Historical Tainting as towards hie 
 own. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 1S1 
 
 act, and then went away, saying he could not stand any more 
 of it. He afterwards ridiculed the whole thing, comparing 
 Macready to a machine wound up to go through a certain 
 representation, and every night in the same part performing 
 exactly the same movements, and making exactly the same 
 noises. Edmund Kean, he maintained, never played the same 
 part twice in the same way. The same thing was true, he also 
 said, of Mrs. Siddons. Of John Kemble the machine theory 
 was always true. Haydon had studied Edmund Kean from his 
 first appearance in ' Richard III.' in all his great parts in his 
 best days. Mr. Lewes, who allows that he only saw Kean in 
 his later and feebler days, asserts, on the other hand, that 
 Kean never trusted to the " inspiration of the moment." This 
 is probably true of Eean's later period, when his intemperate 
 habits had obscured his fine genius, and he could no longer 
 rely upon the advent of the divine afflatus at the right instant. 
 But Edmund Kean, (as he remembered him ) and Mrs. Siddons, 
 were Hay don's faith. 
 
 One curious trait about him I remember was his sanguine 
 buoyancy. Nothing ever depressed him for long. If one effort 
 failed, he would try another in a different direction. He was the 
 most persevering, indomitable man I ever met. With us at home 
 he was always confident of " doing better next year." But that 
 next year never came. It was the " Jack Snipe " of his existence ; 
 for in this respect, poor fellow, he was like that man whose 
 shooting for many seasons, Fonblanque tells us, was devoted 
 with great constancy to the death of one Jack Snipe, which, 
 after all, outlived him. Every year Haydon had his shot, and 
 every year, someliow or other, his bird escaped. Now it was the 
 Beform Bill— then a crisis in the City — then the failure of a 
 patron — then a change of ministers ; and so it went on, and the 
 good luck got off. He would never acknowledge to us what he 
 knew to be the true explanation, that his aim was too high to 
 bring down a bird that flew so capriciously, and so low. 
 
 The range of Haydon's sympathies was very wide. I know 
 nothing that did not interest him, except Mathematics, which 
 he detested, and tne political economists — the gentlemen who 
 think the world is to be saved by a sixpenny pamphlet — and 
 these he confessed he could not understand. He knew more 
 about ships, and forts, and guns, and the movements of troops, 
 than most naval and military amateurs : but he had no knowledge 
 
182 
 
 ■MEMOIR OF 
 
 of science, and never pretended to it. He had a great love 
 for horses and dogs, and was a sound judge of the points of 
 each.* I believe him to have kept greyhounds, and coursed 
 them under tin assumed name. But he never betted, gambled, 
 played cards or billiards, and had a perfect honor of club-life. 
 
 He was deeply read in the literature of his art. His favourite 
 authors were Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Byron. Shakespeare 
 he placed far above all " merely human" writers ; in fact, next 
 to Holy Scripture itself. He constantly referred to him, and 
 constantly quoted him, and his quotations were never common- 
 place. He never, however, discussed the plays as organic 
 wholes, but seemed to love to dwell on " touches of nature," on 
 " beauties of expression," and on the practical wisdom of in- 
 cidental sayings. After these first favourites came Fielding, 
 Richardson, Cervantes, Scott. Wordsworth and Keats he 
 praised rather than studied, at least in his later years. Bis 
 admiration of them was no doubt influenced by personal 
 friendship, which did not allow him to admit the obvious 
 defects of either. Bosw ell's ' Life of Johnson ' was with him, 
 as with most of us, the " first of biographies." Next to it, 
 he valued Eckermann's 'Conversations with Goethe.' With 
 modern English writers he had a fair acquaintance. But his 
 tastes here appeared to be capricious. He never succeeded, 
 for instance, in appreciating Tennyson, whom he condemned 
 as obscure and " affected." Yet he overcame his prejudice 
 against Carlyle, which was based on similar grounds ; and, once 
 conquered, it was soon succeeded by warm admiration. He 
 read and re-read the ' French Revolution ' several times in the 
 last year of his life. Mr. Pickwick, too (accidentally picked 
 up by one of his sons at the house of his old friend W. 
 Hamilton, who rebuked the lad for "wasting time over that 
 trash "), once known, completely fascinated him ; and old Mr. 
 Wellerand his son Sam became two of Haydon's" heroes." He 
 was so delighted with 4 Coningsby ' that he could not refrain 
 from expressing his gratification in a letter to its distinguished 
 
 * I remember when 'John Mytton's Life ' came out, I took it to bed with mt 
 to read the next morning. When I awoke 'John Mytton ' was not under my 
 pillow ! I searched the room all round, and it was gone. I dressed in a heat, and 
 lan downstairs to look for my hero. As I passed the painting-room door, I 
 heard a laugh! I opened the door gnllv, looked in, and there was my lather 
 enj..ying 'John Mytton.' He had abstracted it from under my pillow the night 
 bci'oio, and gut up eaily to read it through himself. -Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 i»3 
 
 author, which was acknowledge ! in person by Mrs. Disraeli 
 with whom he had a long and interesting conversation. He 
 was, in fact, so far as time and eyesight would allow, a 
 diligent student of literature, ancient and modern, English and 
 foreign, preferring to pass his leisure in reading to the 
 " unidea'd " talk of ordinary evening parties, or the " mental 
 torture" of whist or chess. In modern history and politics 
 he was well informed. I think he had read everything that 
 had ever been written of Napoleon, Nelson, Collingwood, and 
 the Duke, and he had gained much curious and authentic 
 detail from his intercourse with men of the day. 
 
 In his professional career he was nobly free from professional 
 jealousy, that secret source of so many of the aberrations 
 of the best men. He was too clear-hearted to deny a man the 
 praise that was his due. And it must be admitted his gene- 
 rosity was put to a severe test, for he saw those who owed the 
 means of their success in life to him, pass him in the race. Yet 
 he saw it without repining and, except in one instance, that of 
 Landseer, his journals do not contain one word which would 
 imply that he resented, as so many unsuccessful men do resent, 
 the greater success of those whom he had trained. He made 
 vigorous criticisms upon what he did not like in other men's 
 work, and refused to tone down those opinions in order to 
 escape the imputation of jealousy. It was not the man but 
 the art Hay don always looked at, and his professional judgment 
 was unbiassed, sound, and comprehensive. But when he spoke 
 of the Royal Academy and their treatment of him and other 
 painters, I must admit his judicial calmness would occasionally 
 get upset. Yet his deliberate opinions were always candid and 
 fair, and he did individual artists full justice. 
 
 Because he spoke vehemently on subjects upon which he felt 
 deeply, the world has set him down as a prejudiced and one-sided 
 man. But he was not so. The world is too apt to believe that 
 moderation in language and much worldly prudence is a guaran- 
 tee for sound judgment ; but that rests on quite a different basis. 
 
 In his painting-room,* Haydon was thoroughly and essen- 
 tially a happy man. There he lived in an ideal world, whose 
 language was not speech, but form and colour. He had 
 
 * This room, the front drawing-room of the house in Burwood Plnce, was so 
 small — thu back room being occupied as the casts and colour room — it is sur- 
 prising how he ever succeeded in painting for a distance. It was quite impos- 
 sible to calculate the etiect. — Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 the mind of a poet, and he possessed the capacity of com- 
 plete abstraction from all interrupting ideas. God had gifted 
 him with this, or he never could have borne the life that 
 was his lot so long. His practice was, after settling the 
 composition, to make an oil sketch, and from this to 
 roughly sketch or scumble in with umber upon his large 
 canvas, the whole of the subject he intended to paint. This 
 rarely took him more than one day. When this was dry he 
 would commence with the head of one of the principal figures, 
 or of the principal figure, and complete it at a sitting. Thus 
 day by day he would go through the picture, finishing as 
 he went along, reserving to himself, however, the right of 
 heightening his colours or deepening his shades at the final 
 glazing. What struck me most with his painting, as com- 
 pared with what I can remember of Wilkie, and have ob- 
 served in others, was the marvellous rapidity with which 
 he worked, and the intense precision of his touch; although 
 there was often a period when the result he aimed at was 
 not secured, and this gave him great agitation. But with 
 all that, his painting was singularly swift : it was as if he 
 had seen in his mind's eye the effect of every touch before 
 he set his palette. He certainly never painted any subject 
 that he had not long thought out. Then when he took his 
 brush in his hand, his mind overflowed, he flew at his work like 
 a man inspired with fiery impulse, talking to himself in a 
 rapid whisper, and, utterly lost to all the world around, gave 
 reins to his enthusiasm. He never seemed for a moment to 
 naggle or hesitate. If the result was not satisfactory, he 
 became greatly agitated. I have seen big drops of perspi- 
 ration come out on his brow. Another touch or two, and 
 then, perhaps, he would dash it all out, and breathe again 
 freely. In painting the human form, or that of animals, he 
 had always the living model before him. His horses were 
 brought into the house, and stabled for the day on the ground- 
 floor. Every day's work was painted straight off and done with. 
 He ground his own colours and set his own palette before break- 
 fast. He mixed his tints upon his palette, and completed 
 his work wet. After he had hit the exact expression he 
 wanted, he would never touch it again, but swish down his 
 palette and brushes and say, " There, thirty years of experience 
 are in that, and yet how infinitely below what I aim at ! But I 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 1S5 
 
 shall not do better." And then he would fling open the 
 shutters and begin to write. 
 
 His method of painting was his own. His natural sight 
 was of little or no use to him at any distance, and he would 
 wear, one pair over the other, sometimes two or three pairs of 
 large round concave spectacles, so powerful as greatly to 
 diminish objects. He would mount his steps, look at you 
 through one pair of glasses, then push them all well back on 
 his head, and jjaint by his naked eye close to the canvas. 
 After some minutes he would pull down one pair of his glasses, 
 look at you, then step down, walk slowly backwards to the 
 wall, and study the effect through the one, two, or three pairs 
 of spectacles ; then, with one pair only, look long and steadily 
 in the looking-glass at the side to examine the reflection of 
 his work ; then mount his steps, and paint again. How he 
 ever contrived to paint a head or a limb in proportion is a 
 mystery to me, for it is clear that he had lost his natural 
 sight in boyhood. Without his glasses he could see nothing 
 distinctly. He is, as he said, the first blind man who ever 
 successfully painted pictures. But then he left nothing to 
 chance. He was singularly careful in his arrangements of your 
 position and drapery, and often studied you for long before he 
 began to paint ; and would make many changes, so as to get 
 harmony of light and shadow.* He strongly disapproved of 
 hoarding up a picture until finished. It should be shown, he 
 thought, in progress ; and he always admitted uneducated as 
 well as refined persons of taste. " The instinctive feeling of 
 the untutored," he would say, " is often to be preferred to the 
 delusions of mere artists." The unbiassed decision of the 
 masses whose heart was touched, he thought a safer guide 
 than the fastidious criticism of insipid dilettanti. Of critics, 
 in general, Haydon held a mean opinion. " There is very 
 little sound criticism in the newspapers upon art," I have 
 heard him say ; " even less than there is upon literature, and 
 God knows that is little enough. There is nothing, however 
 absurd, that does not pass through the head of an art critic." 
 He attributed this generally to the same cause as Mr. Disraeli, 
 
 * Mr. Redgrave, in Irs ' Dictionary of Painters,' asserts that Havdon commenced 
 his pictures " without plan or forethought." This is wholly incorrect. I do 
 not suppose any painter ever lived, who took more preparatory pains in t..e design 
 of his works. The evidence of his 'Journals' is uloue sufficient to refute Mr. 
 Redgrave.— Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 that the critics were commonly men who had tried and failed in 
 literature and art. But unlike Mr. Disraeli, Haydon never 
 shook himself free from the thraldom of their criticism. It 
 requires a peculiar temperament, or long practice in the disci- 
 pline of self-control. Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and Mr. 
 Disraeli, are the only two men in modern times who have set 
 public men an example in this respect. 
 
 Of Haydon's trials and misfortunes I have spoken suffi- 
 ciently. If poverty is the greatest of temptations, few men 
 ever suffered more cruelly, or with greater firmness. Since 
 I have become acquainted Avith the facts of his life and 
 the nature of his struggles, my wonder is, not so much that 
 he met with so many reverses, as that he conquered so 
 much success. Looking at all the circumstances of his life, 
 he seems to me a perfect embodiment of that admirable 
 quality of tenacity, so characteristic of our race. He is a 
 thorough-bred Englishman. He never faints, rarely murmurs, 
 and is always ready to wear himself to death sooner than yield. 
 Whatever were his faults, he was a fine character in these 
 respects. He had a noble ambition, and his life at this period 
 brings out in strong relief the courage with which he bore 
 the neglect of a nobility unworthy of his genius, and en- 
 dured those calamities of fortune their neglect imposed upon 
 him. 
 
 I must not, however, conclude this part of Haydon's career 
 without noticing certain defects of character and conduct 
 alleged against him, particularly at this period. First among 
 these stands his passion for " display," that is, for theatrical 
 effect. It is true, to some extent. With all his hatred of cant 
 and claptrap, a certain love for the trumpets' blare was a con- 
 spicuous blemish in his character. I do not pretend to deny 
 it makes me laugh whenever I meet with it. Yet he does not 
 stand alone in this. All men who woo the sweet voices of 
 the multitude, from Apelles down to John Bright, have some- 
 thing of the charlatan, without knowing it. Even steady Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds set up a gaudy carriage, all gilt and colour, 
 and sent his sister Frances, to her great discomfort, to drive 
 daily about town, in order that people might ask, " Whoso 
 carriage is that?" and get their answer. Men of his calibre do 
 many things that appear absurd and indefensible to us, and 
 probably for no better reason than influenced Alcibiadcs 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 187 
 
 when he cut off his dog's tail. In the same manner Haydon's 
 " advertisements" and " appeals," and descriptions of his pic- 
 tures, and even his "statements" of his affairs, have all more 
 or less a touch of Sir Joshua's silver-gilt carriage; though 
 only a touch, for Haydon never got beyond placard-men and 
 advertisements. But it is the same with stump oratory of 
 every kind from any quarter. Appeals of this nature are 
 seldom within the limits of classical taste, and are not in- 
 frequently, as in Haydon's case, marked by an indelicacy of 
 sentiment worthy only of the English nobility during the 
 Protectorate, when they dunned the French King to give 
 them money. But with this difference, that Haydon always 
 asked for " work " before " wages ; " whereas the idea of getting 
 their own living did not occur to the English nobility. It 
 was Haydon's sole ambition. I think, also, on some occa- 
 sions, he took a robust delight in shocking the (trousered) 
 " old ladies " — of literature and art. 
 
 Yet if there is anything to feel ashamed of, it is rather in 
 the conduct of those who drove him to such questionable 
 expedients. 
 
 Another fruitful charge alleged against him is his "arrogance" 
 and his " inordinate vanity." Well, which one amongst us is 
 humble ? Humility is the virtue we invent for our neighbours. 
 But I do not understand the charge of "arrogance," as brought . 
 against Haydon. Those who condemn him on this ground 
 measure Haydon's views by their own narrow judgment, and 
 condemn him because he denied what society deemed the 
 highest authority in art. But that man only is arrogant who 
 determines to be at variance with those of whom he thinks 
 highly. No one will seriously pretend that Haydon held a high 
 opinion of those from whom he differed upon Art, viz., the Royal 
 Academy and " authorities," i.e. the connoisseurs and critics. 
 
 The imputation of "vanity " may have more ground. Haydon 
 was fond of notice. He had, I admit, a passion for distinction ; 
 but his critics universally confound this with "conceit" and "im- 
 pudence ; " just as they confound " modesty" with " humility " 
 — qualities quite distinct. A man may be very vain and very 
 modest, and yet neither conceited nor bashful. Haydon set a 
 just value on himself, and never affected an inferiority in those 
 things in which he knew himself to excel. There is nothing 
 opposed to the spirit of true modesty in this. We all of us 
 
i88 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 feel a certain pleasure in exclusive possession. We all of us, I 
 believe, " pray the Lord," with the weaver of Kilbarcban, " to 
 send us aye guid conceit o' oursels." But Hay don never claimed 
 more than was his due : and this is my idea of a modest man. 
 He laughed at his critics, but this did not show his want of 
 modesty — rather their want of knowledge. " If you wish to 
 be praised by these gentlemen," said the First Napoleon, " it is 
 necessary that you should first praise and reward them, and 
 their appetite, I must admit, is craving and coarse." 
 
 It is unfortunate, but Poetry and Painting are the only two 
 arts in wbich the professors are not sujiposed to know their own 
 business as well as those who only talk, but do not practise, 
 men who, as it were, hang between perfection and decay, blown 
 with restless vanity, at so much- a sheet, round about the pendent 
 world of their ambition, like Dryden's spirits of a middle sort — 
 
 " Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell, 
 Who just dropped halfway down, nor lowe r fell." 
 
 When Haydon resisted the pretensions of these " half-learned 
 men," as Sir Joshua Reynolds contemptuously calls the critics, 
 they attacked him, and attack him still. He was, in fact, in the 
 position of the Independent-Liberal who refuses to submit to 
 the dictation of the local committee. They attack him, and 
 start a rival candidate, and will lose a seat sooner than let him 
 in. If he succeeds in spite of them, they attribute bis success 
 to any cause but his own merits. Thus it was with Haydon. 
 He laughed at the critics ; exposed their pretensions ; took 
 his own line, and, in return, is boldly condemned as a " failure," 
 accused of " a ludicrous vanity," of a " want of the modesty of 
 true genius," and of " seeking his own glorification in his art." 
 &c. &c, all which cant we have heard before. 
 
 I feel satisfied whatever gratification Haydon felt at success 
 was upon public more than on private grounds. He rejoiced 
 boisterously, because every success was a step further from 
 the false teaching of the Authorities, and nearer to that truth 
 to which he aimed at carrying the Nation "His own 
 glorification ! " It was nothing but tbe natural joyfulness of 
 a generous heart over a long-baffled victory. He had well 
 earned every success that he won, and he deserved to enjoy 
 it. Romney, the artist, said every painter " required, almost 
 daily, a portion of cheering applause." And do they not 
 deserve it? But Haydon was "so self-intoxicated; he objected 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 to any ciiticism that did not praise him, regarding it as 
 an attempt to pull him down." No ; it was not that he 
 objected to adverse criticism, if it were sound and true, and 
 given by a competent judge ; but, like all masters in their 
 art, he objected to the publication by editors of the pompous 
 nonsense of their art-critics, who were ignorant that they were 
 ignorant, and blundered in their fault-finding. 
 
 Hogarth, "whose excessive high opinion of his own abilities," 
 says Northcote, " was a foible," was furious at the censure of 
 ignorant critics.* Hume, though he never deigned to reply, 
 was cut to the quick by hostile criticism. Racine was so ex- 
 tremely sensitive, that a single adverse criticism outweighed 
 all applause. Cicero went so far as to insist on being praised, 
 even at the expense of truth.! Theopompus, the great Greek 
 orator, when asked who was the best orator of Greece, said, " of 
 all the modern men I think I prefer myself." Buffon, con- 
 ceiving his critics did not do him justice, inscribed upon his 
 own statue, that " of the great men of modern ages there were 
 only four — Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and mvself." The 
 vanity of Voltaire, De Thou, Hobbes, Kepler, Rousseau, is 
 notorious. Garrick used to write his own criticisms — so Mrs. 
 Garrick tells us; and the conceit of Wordsworth was one of 
 the most remarkable traits in his character.^ At its very worst 
 the vanity of a man of genius is more amusing than offensive. 
 Why then should critics take offence ? They ought rather to 
 feel pleasure and pride in his success as a set-off against their 
 own failure. But some men are envious of every effort made 
 independently of them to add to the stock of a Nation's 
 thought, or win public approbation. " C'est un terrible avan- 
 itage de n'avoir rien fait, mais il ne faut pas en abuser." 
 
 * When Knmsay wrote a hostile criticism upon Hogarth's ' Analysis of Beauty,' 
 Hogarth publicly advertised he would paint no more original pictures, and con- 
 temptuously offers to present every purchaser of the ' Analysis of Beauty ' with a 
 copy, gratis, of Kamsey's eighteen penny pamphlet. — Ed. 
 
 t See his letter to Lucceius. — Ed. 
 
 j I remember well the last day I spent with him at Rydal. I happened to 
 speak of the 'critics,' and particularly of the 'Edinburgh Review.' It was hko 
 putting a red-hot poker into a powder barrel. My venerable godfather, with a 
 roar like a lion roused in his lair, shouted a "Bali !" that made the windows 
 rattle, and struggling from his chair he stood on the rug facing me with his 
 grand old head forward on his chest, and poured out such a torrent of invective 
 and contempt for the " butter-paper" of Jeffrey, as compared to his ' Poems,' that 
 I likened with awe. I had no idea such force was in the old bard. I would have 
 given a great deal to have written down his words, but I had no opporturity. 
 —Ed. 
 
190 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 THE CLOSING SCENES. 
 
 We have arrived at the last twelve years of Haydon's life. 
 On the vote in Parliament for a National Gallery, in 1832, 
 whether by reason of Haydon's direct efforts or previous 
 statements I know not but, the fact of our inferiority in design 
 to the French — one of his favourite examples and arguments — 
 was strongly insisted on, was not denied by the Government ; 
 and the result was, at last, the founding of a National School of 
 Design. 
 
 In the scheme for this school Haydon does not seem to have 
 been consulted by the Government, who appear to have pre- 
 ferred to leave the matter in the hands of the Koyal Academy. 
 He looked on curiously for the result. In the course of 1*35 
 the Government was delivered of what he declared to be an 
 abominable abortion" — a mass of radical defects and mean- 
 ness—a "school of design" which was only to teach pattern- 
 drawing, and to artisans alone. Haydon's object with regard 
 to Schools of Design was, as we have seen, to establish a great 
 central school in London, independent of the Koyal Academy, 
 with branch-schools in the provincial towns ; the course of in- 
 struction in each to be the same, though in different degrees, 
 for artist, artisan, and amateur, and to be based on a know- 
 ledge of the human form — the source of all fine art. All 
 decorative art, Haydon maintained, that was not based on fine 
 art was unworthy the name of art altogether. " I wish every 
 door-painter," he said, "to be taught to design and draw the 
 figure;" that is to say, he aimed at making the humblest 
 workman acquire a scientific knowledge of the principles of 
 bis work. He desired to foster in every pupil that spirit of 
 enquiry and research which should develope the highest 
 skill in every craft. But this large and comprehensive scheme, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 which would have restored the relations in which the Pupil 
 formerly stood to his Master, and have raised a race of 
 powerful designers for art and manufactures, did not lit into 
 the views of the bureaucrats, nor suit the interests of the Royal 
 Academy. If Haydon's great public plan were carried out it 
 would substitute Feeling for Rule, it would also draw the art- 
 students from the official Academy school, and lower the in- 
 fluence and reputation of the Royal Academy, or compel its 
 reform. Both parties therefore prepared for a struggle. The 
 Academy and the Board of Trade resolved to stifle Haydon's 
 scheme by making the new school dependent on the Royal 
 Academy, and, by strictly maintaining in the new school, as in 
 the Academy school, the separation between artist and artisan. 
 The artisan was not to be taught to draw the figure, and the 
 School of Design was to be kept as an inferior department of 
 the Academy school, and used merely for instruction in block 
 and pattern drawing. For this purpose Mr. Poulett Thompson, 
 then President of the Board of Trade, appointed a majority of 
 Academicians on the council of the new school, and these 
 gentlemen, headed by (Haydon's old friends) Chantrey and 
 Calcott, immediately passed a series of resolutions excluding 
 the study of the human figure from the course of instruction, 
 and effecting other arbitrary changes which struck at every 
 point of Haydon's scheme. For example, they required from 
 each student a written declaration that he would not practise 
 in England as a painter of portrait, history, landscape, or 
 animal life, nor, I believe, as a sculptor. The object of this is 
 clear. It was to prevent competition with established artists, 
 and to maintain the official ascendency of the Royal Academy. 
 
 Meantime Haydon, hearing of what it was intended to do, 
 determined to countermine, and deeply. He besought Ford 
 Melbourne to grant, and Mr. Ewart, M.P., to obtain, a Select 
 Committee to inquire into " the best means for extending the 
 knowledge and principles of art and design among the people." 
 Lord Melbourne, who dreaded anything like a contest with 
 ' Professors ' — " God help the Minister," he once said to Hay- 
 don, "who interferes in art" — had no objection to pass the 
 responsibility over to a select committee, and thus Mr. Ewart's 
 committee was obtained during the Session of 1835. In order 
 to aid this committee to the utmost of his power, and to go 
 further, in time, Haydon resolved during the winter of 1835-6, 
 
'9- 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 to deliver a series of lectures in London on " Painting and 
 Design." I believe the suggestion was first made to him by 
 Mr. \Vyse, and for some time he resisted it. He did not wish 
 to appear prominently before the public. At length he yielded, 
 and went to work. His object was to awake public opinion on 
 the vast importance of a knowledge of design to our manu- 
 facturers, so as to strengthen Lord Melbourne and force the 
 Board of Trade to establish a large and comprehensive system 
 of schools throughout the country. Thus it was that Haydon 
 came before the public as a lecturer on art and design. He 
 had no other object in view. All the base personal and 
 pecuniary objects imputed to him by his enemies are utterly 
 false. A man, who for thirty years had been writing for 
 the public journals on Art, and had never accepted a six- 
 pence for his contributions, was not likely to think of whether 
 this or that would "pay," on a matter he had so dearly at 
 heart as our " schools of design." I believe myself that 
 this " bcturing " went strongly against his grain. He loved 
 the quiet and repose of his painting-room, and he would 
 have given all he possessed, except his brains, to secure it. 
 Yet this work had to be done, and there was none to do it but 
 himself. He prepared a " lecture " on Painting and Design ; 
 and on the 8th September, 1835, made his first appearance in 
 public at the London Mechanics' Institution. 
 
 The hall was crammed. There was immense curiosity to see 
 him. Few people believed he would succeed, his life had been 
 so retired ; and all were eager to hear what he had to say, and 
 watch how he would acquit himself. They might have been 
 quite easy. There was no chance of his failing. He knew his 
 subject too well, and was too courageous to be " put down " if 
 there was any attempt. Put he was decidedly nervous : you 
 could see it in the corners of his mouth. He says that all his 
 distresses, humiliation, and ruin " crowded " on his mind as he 
 came on the platform. There was a dead silence, and he stood 
 stock-still, looking at the mass of heads before him. A round 
 of applause greeted him ; he did not notice it, but, taking off 
 his spectacles, wiped them carefully for some time, then held 
 them up to the light to see if they were clear. This was 
 finesse to enable him to recover his self-possession. Then he 
 opened his book and began his lecture. Lu ten minutes he 
 had got the ear of his audience. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 193 
 
 His lectures on " Painting and Design " are published and 
 well-known. He dedicated them to Wordsworth. They are 
 twelve in number, are forcibly but negligently written. Haydon 
 was too eager and too earnest to spread the truth to waste time 
 in ornament, but he might have been more careful and exact 
 in his choice of words. He insists on a knowledge of anatomy 
 as the true basis of the arts of design. He entreats English 
 students, after the manner of the old masters, to stay at home 
 and study, for that we have in the Elgin Marbles and the 
 cartoons finer things than Italy ever possessed or possesses. 
 He lays down sound rules for their guidance and instruction. 
 He maintains, in contradiction to Reynolds, that grandeur of 
 style does not consist in the omission of all details, but in 
 the judicious selection of the leading ones ; he attacks and 
 refutes Alison and Jeffrey's theories of taste, and he de- 
 nounces and ridicules what is called the " Grand style " in art. 
 " When you see an outline like iron, that is ' the grand 
 style.' When hands are twisted, heads distorted, one leg up 
 and the other so far removed from the body you may question 
 if it will return, that is ' the grand style.' All this absurdity 
 originated with Michel Angelo, and although he is not answer- 
 able for the excesses of his admirers, there must be something 
 erroneous and wrong if every imitator from Goltzius downwards 
 has b: en led to such extravagance." 
 
 In his conclusion on the first night, he said, "If by my 
 efforts I can advance your taste, or refine your feelings for High 
 Art, and prove its connection with your various callings ; if I 
 can rekindle the lost feeling for its national importance, or 
 prove its immense value to manufactures ; if I can give you a 
 deeper insight into its eternal principles than can be gathered 
 in the heat, and glare, and varnish of a spring exhibition. 0111 
 of the great objects of my life will be realised. Hut, remember, 
 nothing will, nothing can be effectually of use till schools of 
 design be established in the great towns, of which the know- 
 ledge, the deepest knowledge of the human figure, must be the 
 corner stone, and High Art has made its legitimate impression 
 in high quarters, and by State support is placed at the least 
 on a level with portrait."* 
 
 * Sir Charles Enstlake, in his last address as President of the Iioynl Academy 
 at the annual dinner, bra e wimess to the great change these schools of design I ad 
 wrought in the public appreciation of art. " The change to which I allude," he 
 VOL. I. O 
 
I '94 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 At the close, the audience enthusiastically cheered him again 
 and again, and from this night Haydon's reputation as a lec- 
 turer upon art was established. In a few months he was over- 
 whelmed with offers of engag' ments in all parts of the country, 
 and up to his death in 1846, had the greatest difficulty in 
 selecting without giving offence. Nor did he wish to give up 
 too much of his time to this labour.* 
 
 Mr. Ewart's select committee sat and took evidence during 
 the session of 18^0. Haydon was one of the principal witnesses 
 examined. He laid his whole plan for the foundation of a 
 system of schools of design before the committee, and he laid 
 before the committee also a plan for the decoration of the 
 Houses of Parliament by a series of great paintings, illustrating 
 the principles upon which the building is erected, and he pressed 
 the committee to urge public employment for the English 
 painters of history. Jn their report, the committee adopted 
 these views so far as they thought it advisable. His plan for 
 schools of design they fully accepted. 
 
 We must not leave this committee without remarking it was 
 the first Parliamentary Committee that insisted upon calling 
 before it the President and Council of the Royal Academy, and 
 subjecting them to a searching cross-examination. Haydon 
 had got this inserted into the duties of the committee. Lor I 
 Melbourne, on his suggestion, had allowed it. '1 lv j conduct of 
 Sir Martin Shee, P.H.A., when undergoing examination, was 
 marked by a great want of dignity. His virulent academic 
 
 said, " has been chiefly brought about by the application of the fine arts to what 
 is culled industrial art, and more especially in sellouts of design.'' Eastlake knew 
 well to whom this was due, and the enormous exertions Hay- Ion had made between 
 ls:;;> and 1842 to carry the principles of High Artintoh ; s schools of design against 
 the determined opposition of the Academic Council of the London School of 
 Design ; but it would have been taken ill if he had spoken out Haydon's name at 
 an academy dinner, so strong was the prejudice against him. — Ed. 
 
 * In their 'Century of Painters,' the brothers Redgrave di-miss Haydon as a 
 lecturer on art in a few contemptuous words, as if he sought engag' ments onlv to 
 make money. Nothing can be further from the truth. And besides, the brothers 
 linigrave liibtake and misconceive Haxdon's motive in lecturing. It was to 
 rouse public, opinion first in favour of Mr. Ewart's Committee, so as to bring before 
 it all available evidence, and next to put pressure upon the (Government to support 
 the recommendations of that Committee. When Haydon had succeeded in hia 
 object, that, of establishing " Schools of Design "• on his own principles of instruc- 
 tion ir. the provinces, he began to gradually withdraw himself from lecturing, in 
 order to return to his easel, which he never left for an hour without unatbeted 
 regret. Lecturing so far from being a grat.tication to him was a great and painful 
 effort, which only a sense of duty led him to undertake. The remarks of the 
 brothers Redgrave on this point appear to mo, who knew him well, to be singularly 
 ungenerous and unjust. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 '95 
 
 jealousy and hatred of Haydon broke out more than once, and 
 could hardly be restrained. He denounced Haydon as the cause 
 of all mischief in the art ; he shook his fist at him across the 
 table ; he shouted at him, " There's the man — that's the man 
 — that's the respectable man," till the committ e, pained and 
 astounded, stopped proceedings and ordered the room to be 
 cleared. After a while order was restored, and Sir Martin was 
 directed to restrain his personalities. Mr. Henry T. Hope, one 
 of the members of the committee, was so shocked that he 
 writes to Haydon next day (17th July, 1836) to express " his 
 regret and distress " at the " bitterness he had witnessed dis- 
 played against him," and, as an acceptable consolation, subse- 
 quently begs Haydon to paint him a cabinet-picture. This was 
 very good of Mr. Hope, and I, for one, shall always remember 
 him gratefully for it. The request produced that exquisite 
 bit of humour in painting ' Falstaff,' now at Deepdene, and 
 which the late Sir Robert Peel admired so much. 
 
 The violence of Sir Martin Shee did the Academy no good. 
 The committee began then to suspect there was more behind 
 the curtain than even Haydon had revealed. But their report, 
 in Haydon's opinion, erred on the side of tenderness. It 
 certainly does deal gently with the proved abuses of the Royal 
 Academy ; but the moderation of the report serves the more 
 strongly to expose the obstinate resistance of the academicians 
 to any measure having in it one particle of the substance or 
 spirit of real reform. But unquestionably one result of the 
 labours of this committee was the immediate uprising of our 
 " schools of design " under Haydon's vigorous touch, and the 
 appointment of the Fine Arts Committee of 1811.* 
 
 Before the close of the year 183 J, the insolvency of Lord 
 Audley (who had given Haydon two commissions) involved the 
 painter once more in serious embarrassments. I always know 
 what is coming when I read in his journals such entries as — 
 
 * If our schools of design, which Haydon succeeded in ge'ting established at 
 this period, have not fully answered all the expectations he formed of them, the 
 blame is not his, but first that of the central authority in London, which 
 thwarted, vexed, and crossed him while he lived, and as soon as he was dead used 
 its influence to obta n a departure from his judicious rules. A competent autho- 
 rity writes to me recently, as follows: — " Schools of design have not done what 
 was expected from them, mainly, I believe, because they have been led into a 
 wioig road by the teaching of South Kensington, which has encouraged an 
 t-xnggrrated mechanical precision of tinisli, instead of do-ijrning on the large and 
 true principles such as your father would have insisted on." — Ed. 
 
 o 2 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 "30th August. Out the whole day in hitter pecuniary 
 harass. Suffered all my old agonies of torture." 
 
 " Sept. 5th. Worked, but in agony." 
 
 On September 9th he was arrested while at breakfast with 
 us. I remember the morning well ; the timid ring ; the affected 
 unconcern ; the balancing of his spoon on the edge of his cup ; 
 the whisper in the hall ; and the servant coming in with, " If 
 you please, sir, Mr. ' Smith ' wishes to see you." I shall not 
 forget the expression of pain that passed over his face as 
 he rose and left the room, not venturing to look any of his 
 children in the face. " Tell your mother I have gone out," he 
 said, sadly ; that was all. In a few minutes we saw him driven 
 away in a hackney coach, accompanied by two men, one sitting 
 on the box. He remained in prison till the 17th November. 
 
 " What a fight it is !" he writes in his journal for the day of 
 his arrest. " It is wonderful how my health and my dear 
 Mary's, too, is preserved. But, trusting in God, I have not the 
 least doubt of carrying my great object— a vote of money for 
 art — and perhaps I shall then sink without tasting its fruits." 
 He did so, too surely. 
 
 On the 17th November he was again brought before tho 
 Insolvent Court. There was no opposition. Not a question 
 was asked, and he was discharged forthwith.* 
 
 It was on this occasion of his release that his kind friend, 
 the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, drove up to the house to 
 call, llaydon had not yet arrived. When he found the 
 Duchess had called, he wrote to beg of her when she came 
 again to come in " state." She drove up the next day in her 
 court carriage, and with all the magnificence of ducal state, and 
 paid us a long visit. During the winter and spring she occa- 
 
 * As a specimen of the furious anonymous letters which net infrequently 
 as-ailed llaydon, the following one of the hast violent and dis-usting, may l e 
 printed. The date is the loth September, 183G, and the postmark, " Coventry 
 Street : "— 
 
 " London, 15th Sept. 1836. 
 
 " Allow mo to tell you that the public thinks that von are one of the lowest, 
 mean beggars in England, that you are a lazy good-for-nothing fellow, aud can do 
 nothing, and ought, to be sent to'the treadmill as an impostor. 
 
 " I hope no cue will be swindled with you. The onlv subscriptions that should be 
 gone into for you is to purchase a broom to sweep the streets. 
 
 " A Hater, 
 
 " To B. R. Havdon." « C. M. D." 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 '97 
 
 sionally sent her carriage up of her own accord, to wait at our 
 door, as if she was in the house. It was all she could afford to 
 do, and she thought it would at least give Haydon credit with 
 his tradesmen. This was aniiahle and good of her; but 
 L'aydon wanted employment, not credit. 
 
 'J he year 1837, and, in fact, the remaining years of his life, 
 up to the last, seem to have been fairly free from those heart- 
 breaking pecuniary anxieties which had so distressed him since 
 1823 — seven times arrested, four times imprisoned and ruined, 
 and five of his children killed, for to explain their deaths by any 
 other cause than the mental anxieties of their mother during 
 these years would be incorrect — Haydon yet came out of the 
 struggle in 1837, strong in health, and firm in his determination 
 to carry his points. 
 
 This was the only bit of selfishness about him. Everything 
 but the education of his children, and everybody belonging to 
 him, was sacrificed to this effort to turn the minds of the 
 nobility and the people towards High Art and a more serious 
 view of the educational value of art. It was a great public 
 object, I admit ; but when a man has a great public and pro- 
 fessional object like that in view, and one so difficult to attain, 
 he ought not, unless he be independent of his profession, and can 
 provide for his family, to risk " giving hostages to fortune " by 
 marriage. 
 
 Haydon opens the new year (1837) by a vigorous remon- 
 strance with Mr. Poulett-Thompson, the President of the Hoard 
 of Trade, upon his mismanagement of the London School of 
 Design. Mr. Ewart had told Haydon that all was going wrong ; 
 that Poulett-Thompson was making an " Academy job " of the 
 whole thing ; and the only course left was to start an opposi- 
 tion school. With his usual habit of taking his bull fairly by 
 the horns, Haydon, as soon as he had made himself acquainted 
 with the facts, went off to the Board of Trade and sought out 
 Mr. Poulett-Thompson in his room. 
 
 " I told him," he writes, " that I had heard a resolution had 
 been passed that no student would be admitted to the School 
 of Design unless he signed a declaration that he would not 
 practise history, portrait, landscape, or sculpture. He denied 
 it and said, ' Who has been telling you these stories ? ' ' But 
 has it been passed ? ' I asked. No answer. I told him I heard 
 it was resolved the study of the figure was not necessary ? 
 
1 9 8 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 And is it,' he sa'd, ' to fellows who design screens?' I did 
 not say, ' You ought to know it is,' as he ought. I then told 
 him the Figure was the basis of all design, of which he seemed 
 
 totally incredulous I said, ' Is it consistent with 
 
 the principles of Lord Melbourne's government to make the 
 Council (of the School of Design) wholly academical?' 'I 
 selected the best artists. Calcott is the best landscape painter, 
 and Chantrey, surely, at the head of h's profession ! ' ' No, he 
 is not,' I replied. 'Who is higher?' 'Surely Westmacott 
 has done more poetical things than Chantrey, and so has Bailey. 
 And why are not Martin and Rennie on the Council?' ' What 
 pretensions has Eennie ? ' ' He does the naked, and is a judge 
 of what is necessary for a Fchool of Design.' ' Why is he against 
 the Academy ?' * 'On pr'nc pie.' 'But he has no subject of 
 complaint.' ' That is the very reason his opinion is valuable. 
 Depend on it, if the Figure be not made the basis of instruction 
 it will all end in smoke. I have no ult'mate object. I have no 
 personal wishes : but if you only put Academicians on the 
 Council, you will only become their tool.' " Mr. Poulett- 
 1 hompson was not to be convinced, and Haydon left h'm. 
 
 In a few days (29th January, 1837), Haydon paid a personal 
 visit to the Government School of Design, and feeling satisiied 
 from what he saw of the futility of the whole scheme, he wrote 
 Mr. Poulett-Thompson a characteristic letter, to be found in 
 the ' Correspondence,' and, at once joined Wyse, and Mr. Ewart, 
 to set on foot an opposition School of Design. In this they 
 were heartily supported by Mr. Kobert Foggo, Hyde ( larke, 
 and other able men, and before very long, to the astonish- 
 ment of Mr. Poulett-Thompson, a " Society for Promoting 
 Practical Design " was publicly announced and the school 
 opened, first in the old house of Sir Isaac Newton, and then 
 moved to the great room at Saville House. Mechanics were 
 invited, and came in large numbers. Drawing from the 
 antique was taught, lectures by Haydon, Hyde Clarke, Foggo, 
 and Latella, on anatomy, design, colour, fresco, &c., were de- 
 livered, and Haydon introduced a fine female model, and set 
 the working-men to draw from her. The school became im- 
 mensely popular, and soon filled. 
 
 The object of Haydon and his friends in this course of action 
 
 This was the i inch. — Ed. 
 
B. R, HA YDON. 
 
 199 
 
 was not to ruin, but to improve the Government School of 
 Design at Somerset House, by drawing their students away, 
 and thus giving the Council a sharp lesson, that if they wished 
 to exist they must enter into competition with the Saville House 
 School, when the Saville House Committee intended to reduce 
 their fees, extend their system of instruction, and draw the 
 Board of Trade on into a position from which they could never 
 again retire. Then, the Saville House School might be closed 
 or not, as seemed best. 
 
 The Board of Trade rose to the " fly " so artfully flung, and 
 gorged it. The first thing they seem to have done was to get 
 some of their own friends elected into the Committee of the 
 new school, whether or not to neutralise Haydon and his party 
 I cannot say, but if not, at least to learn the proje ts and 
 organisation of the enemy, so that these might be successfully 
 imported or balanced by Somerset House. And thus the ob- 
 structive policy of the Government in their School of Design, 
 and their effort to prevent- the mechanic from being educated 
 as an artist, was the cause of his being more artistically 
 educated, and led to this extraordinary spectacle. The hostile 
 committee of a rival school of design sitting at Saville House, 
 and including among its members the President of the Board 
 of Trade and official supporter against Haydon of the Acade- 
 mical Council of the school at Somerset House, the President 
 of the Royal Academy and official antagonist of Haydon upon 
 art, and, lastly, Sir Robert Peel, the supporter in Parliament 
 of the Royal Academy as against Haydon, all three officially 
 associating with and sitting with Haydon in the same com- 
 mittee, of which he took the lead, and following his lead in 
 opposition to their own academicians and their own School of 
 Design. It was as pretty a comedy as ever was played. The 
 object of Sir Robert Peel in getting named to this committee 
 may at least be safely assumed. But, with all his practised 
 experience, it does not appear he put Haydon down, or carried 
 measures against him. 
 
 The Saville House School flourished exceedingly. It drew 
 students from all quarters. But the greatest good, and the 
 one it aimed at, it did effectually. It forced the Government 
 School at Somerset House to compete for existence. As a 
 counter attraction to Haydon's female model, the Somerset 
 House School introduced a male as well as a female model, and 
 
2O0 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 thus for ever yielded the point of the study of the human form. 
 This, of course, drew all the women students to Somerset 
 House, as well as many of the men. To draw on Somerset 
 House still further, Saville House then reduced their fees. 
 Somerset House met them again by further liberality and an 
 improved management, and, ultimately, by the repeal of their 
 ungenerous regulations, till at length, in 183!), Haydon and his 
 friends, finding their object fully attained, and the Somerset 
 House School then working on a sound basis, withdrew from 
 Saville House, and the school was shortly after closed. 
 
 While this little comedy was in progress, Haydon had gone 
 off to Edinburgh and Glasgow in order to rouse public feeling 
 on the subject. He met with an enthusiastic reception, and, 
 on leaving Scotland, crossed into England and commenced his 
 crusade in favour of schools of design in the provinces. He lec- 
 tured to crowded audiences at Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, 
 Sheffield, Newcastle, Leicester, and elsewhere, and successfully 
 impressed upon all the vast importance to our manufactures of 
 sound knowledge of the principles of art and design. He was 
 hailed with enthusiasm wherever he appeared, and his lectures 
 drew vast audiences and were listened to and enjoyed by the 
 keen, intellectual people of the north. Before leaving Edin- 
 burgh the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh entertained him 
 at a public dinner. In a letter to his sister of the 27th April, 
 1837, he alludes to it casually : — " The dinner took place on 
 Saturday : Mr. Lothian in the chair, the Kev. Dr. Binnie on his 
 left, I on his right, and about 110 of the leading reformers in 
 Edinburgh made up the company. My health was proposed 
 by Mr. Lothian in the neatest speech of the kind 1 ever heard, 
 short, terse, to the point, and true. Had you heard and seen its 
 reception, you would not have forgotten it. Cheering, shouting, 
 huzzaing, and waving of handkerchiefs. Lothian, I thought, 
 must be a great favourite, for they know too little of me. But 
 when I got up I was met with such a storm of applause, it was 
 quite five minutes before it subsided. I was deeply affected. 
 I could not speak. Then they cheered me again and again, 
 and at last my head cleared all of a sudden, and I dashed at 
 it. Among other things, I told them this dinner showed they 
 at least comprehended me, my object, and my motives. They 
 felt that my object in exposing the Academy in 1812 was not 
 a petty, personal object, was not upon personal, but upon public 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 201 
 
 grounds and on public principle. They saw a system which 
 embedded mediocrity for life in power, and without respon- 
 sibility ; a system which had enabled inferior men like Far- 
 rington to baffle Sir Joshua Reynolds, and like Sir Martin Shee 
 to pass over the illustrious head of David Wilkie ; a system 
 which had harassed Barry, Opie, West, Martin, and myself, 
 and tried to suppress our particular art. Such a system so 
 constituted was essentially defective, and must be reformed. 
 It was inimical to the best interests of the United Kingdom in 
 art, and destructive of the independence of artists." * 
 
 Haydon's success as a public lecturer was certainly unpre- 
 cedented. The extent of his knowledge, the originality of his 
 style, the simplicity of his explanations, and the readiness with 
 which, with a piece of white chalk, he dashed out on a black 
 board the human figure, a head, a limb, or any part of the 
 human form, delighted his audiences, while the inimitable 
 way in which he leaned over his reading-desk and took them 
 into his confidence, and threw good stories, fresh from life, into 
 his " lecture," doubled its impression, and made him a pro- 
 digious favourite. His manner was natural, his voice clear and 
 musical, his delivery rapid and impassioned, and the evident 
 sincerity with which he drove home what he called " the naked 
 truth," completely carried his audience with him. Force of 
 character and elevation of mind, coupled with such courage 
 and sincerity, always maintain a powerful sway over any body 
 of men. I have been told that in the north of England the 
 audience sometimes would spring to their feet like one man, 
 and cheer him to the echo. At another time, their intense 
 silence was painful as they listened to him appealing to their 
 nobler qualities by condemning their defects, denouncing their 
 worship of wealth, their idolatry of greed and gain, and telling 
 them they so sunk their nobler feelings in their struggle for 
 gold, that intellect, character, and service in England were as 
 nothing in comparison with wealth ; and yet when thev had 
 got it, they had no knowledge how to apply it to nobler pur- 
 poses than to try and make more ! Then urging them to strive 
 to rise above this, he would entreat them to seek to combine 
 
 * It was on this occasion of his visit to Scotland that he went clown to Hnlyrood 
 fit midnight, having lnilicd ihc housekeeper to let him go up alone to Queen 
 Mary's room, by tlie staircase Ruthven and Darnley crept up on the night of their 
 murder of Rizzio. This is like Byron touchiug the keen edge of a jaiaghan, and 
 taying, " I should like to know the feelings of a murderer.' — Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 their thirst for wealth and power with a love for the Fine Arts, 
 and to give encouragement and support to them in proportion 
 to their means. His pride in old England, his passionate love 
 of what was lofty and true, his contempt for everything low 
 and mean, his ardent appeals to the higher self that is within 
 all of us, and his intense belief in the power of self-improve- 
 ment affected his hearers deeply, and there can be no doubt 
 did incalculable good in our manufacturing towns. The temper 
 of such a man harmonised with the temper of such a people in 
 its energy and sublime self-confidence, as in its earnestness and 
 patriotism, and he never flattered their prejudices. He ap- 
 pealed to their innate love of truth and fair play, and from 
 the mouth of so earnest and sincere a man this had a double 
 effect. 
 
 What delighted Haydon especially in the provinces was to 
 find how thoroughly independent of London opinion and London 
 feeling were the inhabitants. Each county was as complete in 
 itself and its feelings and opinions as in the days of the Hep- 
 tarchy. Carried to extremes, this becomes a defect and narrow s 
 the feelings and sympathies, but to a certain extent it is high'y 
 desirable as a check upon that bane of all civilised commu- 
 nities and settled government , bureaucratic and administrative 
 concentration. To the people of the provinces Haydon found 
 London only the capital, the seat of the Court and Govern- 
 ment, but nothing more. The good folks of Manchester, 
 Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, and Hull, cared no more for 
 London opinion on men and thi-gs than they cared for the 
 3 per Cents, as an investment for their gains ; they held their 
 own opinions as they held their own means of investmeut, and 
 were complete in themselves. 
 
 Brought into contact with new men under new conditions, 
 Haydon soon found its advantage. The men he met now, if 
 not quite so refined in manner, or generally so well-informed 
 as in London, were men of great energy, rapid apprehension, 
 and free from that languor and prejudice which marks the 
 supercilious London man. Commissions were freely offered to 
 him, two from Liverpool for historical pictures, life size ; one, 
 a sacred subject, for the Church of the Blind Asylum ; another, 
 for a painting of the Duke of Wellington for their Tow n Hall ; 
 and many gentlemen of Manchester, Leeds, and Hull, &c, re- 
 quested him to paint cabinet pictures for their houses. The 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 historical commissions mightily pleased Haydon, for they 
 shewed what he had always asserted, that the English people 
 had feeling for High Art, that is, historic, poetic, and ideal art, 
 though neither the Government nor the nobility would admit 
 the fact, or seek to develope the feeling, and the Academicians 
 were incapable. 
 
 Yet, with all his success he was not satisfied. He foresaw 
 great dangers. He felt and predicted that if the schools of 
 design were ever made part and parcel of an official system of 
 education, they would soon, sink to the level of mere drawing- 
 schools, subordinate, and of little effect. " Schools of design," 
 I find him writing, " should be separate, independent, and dis- 
 tinct, on the principle that the knowledge of the human figure 
 is the basis of all knowledge in art," and that " any school of 
 design where this principle is not the basis will fail." He 
 complained that lecturing disturbed his mind, and he ques- 
 tioned very much if the effect of his twelve lectures, with all 
 the ability and learning he expended on them, was not " small " 
 compared with that " of one great picture." But the work had 
 to be done and there was no one who could do it, or would do 
 it, but himself, and he never shrunk from a duty because it 
 was irksome. The first question he asked in every town was, 
 " Have you a school of design ? " The almost invariable reply 
 was, " No, we have not ; " or, " Yes, we have ; but it is not 
 open." Then he would set to work and get together a com- 
 mittee, and establish or re-establish, as the case might be, 
 send them down casts from the antique, and get them quickly 
 to work on the study of the human form. To all classes he 
 pointed out the vast, the vital importance of scientific knowledge 
 of design — founded on a knowledge of form, colour, light, and 
 shadow — to success in manufacture ; and how, without this 
 knowledge, the time would speedily come when English manu- 
 factures must be driven out of the markets of the world by 
 those who possess that knowledge flm their cheap labour.* 
 
 * It is amusing now in 1875, forty years after Haydon's provincial lal>ours, to 
 read the addn sses of our public men upon the want of our knowledge of design, 
 as if it were a new di=coveiy. Haydon, as we see, predicted all tliat has come to 
 pass seventy years ago, and laboured all his life to try and prevent it by securing 
 for our worknnn a scientific eduction in the piineiples of their craft. And his 
 reward is, never now to be mentioned by our public speakers, who give all the 
 credit for the foundation of our schools of design to his late Royal Highness the 
 Prince Consort, who^e services to English art were great indeed, but who, never- 
 theless, did not arrive in this country until 1810, by which time Haydon hud set 
 our sclooIs of design at work. — Ed. 
 
204 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Haydon's success as a lecturer upon art appears to have 
 been a thorn in the side of the Royal Academy. They hardly 
 knew how to deal with it. After a time they sent Etty and 
 Howard about the country to advocate local exhibitions of 
 pictures by way of encouraging art and, I am afraid, getting 
 rid of the unsold pictures of the Academy Exhibition. At 
 least, the proposal had a suspicious look of business about it. 
 Etty was a simple and sincere man, and hardly fathomed the 
 depth of others. This plan proved a very slight check upon 
 Haydon. Yet the Academy might render all his efforts 
 nugatory by a judicious management of Ministers. In the 
 Government they had two great allies, Mr. Spring Rice and 
 Mr. Poulett-Thompson, the one Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, the other, at the Board of Trade. These the Academy 
 manoeuvred so skilfully as to induce Mr. Spring Rice to let 
 them occupy one half of the National Gallery, in spite of 
 Haydon's utmost efforts to keep them out, for the sake of the 
 public, and make them find a house of their own ; and thev 
 induced Mr. Poulett-Thompson to believe that schools of 
 design, as projected by Haydon for the provinces, " were per- 
 fectly useless, as the failing condition of the London School," 
 which they had themselves brought about, " clearly proved." 
 Art education at this period was a business so delicate, and so 
 easily obscured and perverted, that Haydon's indignation was 
 natural at finding his best efforts at Manchester and other 
 towns suddenly paralysed by letters from Mr. Poulett-Thomp- 
 son, discountenancing the formation of schools of design 
 in the provinces, and throwing obstacles in Ids way at every 
 corner. The object of the authorities was to prevent the 
 spread of a sound knowledge of design, lest the profits of the 
 professional artist should be interfered with. It was the 
 old story over again : monopolists fighting for their mono- 
 poly against free trade. This mischievous action of the 
 Academy met Haydon everywhere. Yet he could never bring 
 it home to them. They always used some official cat or the 
 other to take Haydon's chestnut out of the fire. Now it was 
 a Prime Minister, then a Chancellor of the Exchequer, then 
 a President of the Board of Trade. It was like a spirit in 
 the air, an impalpable "something" he could not grasp and 
 strangle, but which never ceased to undermine all his efforts 
 for the public, and threaten to overturn them entirely. Really 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 205 
 
 the violence of his anger may easily be understood and ex- 
 cused. 'Ibis — 
 
 " Playing the mouse in absence of the cat, 
 To taint, and havoc more than she can eat," 
 
 compelled him to appear to the public as irrationally suspicious. 
 Yet, if he had consented to sit quietly at home, art and design 
 might have been thrown back another fifty years. Besides, the 
 proved inefficiency of academical teaching was ample justifi- 
 cation for his action, to say nothing of their present motive. 
 
 And there can be no mistake about the motive, any more 
 than about the action of the Academy over this question of 
 schools of design. Their object was to render the scheme 
 inefficient by making it subservient to the Academical teach- 
 ing. It is true that Haydon succeeded in spite of them, and 
 founded independent schools, for which they now seek to claim 
 credit. Cut their real position from 1801 to 1842 was this: 
 they denied the necessity for the artist or artisan to learn to 
 draw the human figure ; they refused permission to the aitisan 
 to do so, and they protested that pattern draughtsmen had no 
 need of such knowledge. If they believed in these opinions, 
 what can be thought of their sagacity ? and if they advanced 
 them without believing in them, what trust can be placed in a 
 body of men capable of such deceit? This is their dilemma. 
 Their friends may attribute their opposition to Haydon to 
 wilfulness, or to want of comprehension and foresight, but 
 surely that is the extent of their choice, for no one attempts 
 to deny their determined opposition to Haydon. Reform is in 
 all things a long and laborious work, and great allowance is 
 due to the difficulties ; " but none," says Arnold, " for the 
 dishonest spirit which creates difficulties when it cannut find 
 them, and exaggerates them when it can ! " 
 
 The years 1837, 1838, and 1839 may be said to have passed 
 quickly and prosperously for Haydon ; that is to say, he was 
 actively employed with his schools of design, and was never 
 arrested. Under pressure of the violent opposition of the 
 Royal Academy, through the Board of Trade, he flew from 
 town to town— the speed of the railroad suited the man — 
 lecturing, talking, persuading, and labouring in every quarter 
 to impress the inhabitants with the importance to our manu- 
 factures of the scientific knowledge by designers of form, 
 colour, light, and shadow, as the basis of true design, and 
 
206 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 in the excellence and carefulness of which all design and 
 manufacture assuredly rest. He conceived the idea of a 
 federation of towns in favour of schools of design. He also, 
 I find, kept up an active private correspondence with the 
 Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. 
 
 Before the Session of 1838 closed, Haydon, through Mr. 
 Hume (though defeated by Sir Robert Teel on a division upon 
 their immediate motion), brought the House to claim its right 
 to call at will for a return of the " receipts and expenditure of 
 the Royal Academy," though the right Mas to be " exercised 
 with di cretion." Sir Robert Peel only escaped defeat by con- 
 ceding this point. This result Haydon regarded as very 
 important, as it destroyed for ever the assumed " privacy " of 
 the Royal Academy, and established the right of Parliament 
 to call for a return of its expenditure and accounts. In his 
 journal for this Session, he also notices the repeal this year of 
 one part of the law of arbitrary arrest for debt, from which he 
 had suffered so cruelly. " The law which enabled a reptile to 
 enter your house without notice and drag you even from your 
 bed is abolished ; it is only a step to the final abolition of 
 arrest even in execution. 1 have helped to this desired 
 object." Early in 1839 Haydon busied himself with a design 
 for a Nelson monument. His was a grand idea, a temple 
 decorated with paintings of Nelson's victories, and portraits of 
 his colleagues and commanders, and in the centre a single 
 statue of the man, inscribed, 
 
 Nelson, 
 
 " A little body with a mighty heart." 
 
 The plan was rejected as " too costly," and the present dis- 
 proportioned column put up instead. 
 
 As soon as the season of 183.) was over, Haydon hurried to 
 Brussels for a week to sketch the field of Waterloo, and so 
 get a background for his Liverpool picture. The sight 
 of Rilbens's abode, the quiet seclusion of his summer house, 
 the silence of Antwerp, the golden splendour of its altars, the 
 power of its pictures affected him deeply. " I think I will 
 settle here," he writes. How curious this idea of repose is so 
 often in the minds of active and ambitious men! " Put for 
 this cursed desire of glory," wrote Frederic the Great, "I 
 assure vou I should think only of my tranquillity." 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 207 
 
 Haydon returned home, soon forgot his longings for a 
 tranquil life, worked hard at his picture until October, and 
 then, at the invitation of the Duke of Wellington, went down 
 and spent three days with the old Hero at Walmer. The picture 
 was finished by the end of November and sent home. It is a 
 fine picture : the expression of the Duke very beautiful in its 
 age, its power, and its simplicity, and without that silly 
 simper most portraits give him. He looks like "an aged 
 eagle just tottering on his perch." 
 
 Before the end of the year Haydon delivers a fresh course of 
 lectures in Leeds and the North, and records that he finds a 
 strong feeling for Truth in Art spreading rapidly among the 
 provinces. " The importance of High Art," he says, " is no 
 longer a matter of doubt." He notes that at Hull he was 
 begged to get casts of the Theseus and Ilissus ; that his 
 schools of design generally, and in sp'te of the efforts of the 
 Academy to •' burke " the whole scheme, promise well, and that 
 all things are tending " to gradually fit the next generation 
 for expecting, and being able to relish better things." 
 
 In short, the general result by 1840 was satisfactory. He 
 had carried one of his objects, the establishment by the Govern- 
 ment of a central school of design in London, though its 
 management, at present, was not what he desired, and he had 
 succeeded in establishing, and in reviving, schools of design in 
 our princ : pal provincial and manufacturing towns, on his own 
 plans, and he had, by his lectures and personal influence, 
 roused the people to the importance of design to manufacture, 
 and to the value of art and design in the education of all 
 classes. It had taken him thirty years of hard struggling, but 
 he had done it at last, and when he least expected it, and by 
 means and in a manner he long thought hopeless. But " he 
 that considereth the wind shall not sow, and he that looketh 
 to the clouds shall not reap." It is the wise man who makes 
 more opportunities than he finds. Yet let us not forget to 
 give a share of the merit where it is due. It was the unre- 
 formed Parliaments Haydon could not interest. With the 
 reformed Parliament of 1832 he found a fresh class of men, 
 keen, intellectual, and energetic, who saw, and quickly ap- 
 preciated what he was aiming at, and they helped him 
 heartily. To Mr. Ewart, Mr. Hume, Mr. Wyse, Haydon 
 was under the greatest obligation, nor should Lord Melbourne 
 
203 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 be forgotten. He did all he could. The aristocratic principle 
 in the Cabinet was too strong for him to do more. For I 
 think there can be little doubt one element in the hostility of 
 the Board of Trade to Haydon's schemes for schools of design 
 arose from that preposterous exaltation of the aristocratic 
 principle, which has ruined so many Whig Cabinets. The 
 feeling was against Haydon because he desired to educate the 
 artisan like the artist. "Why educate' a journeyman above 
 his class?" was asked. Once a journeyman, let him be 
 educated as becomes a journeyman, and let him be a journey- 
 man still.* This disinclination to allow others to rise because 
 you can get no higher, is only another form of the envy of the 
 idle against the industrious. The people of Britain, who are 
 teeming with brains, are like animalcula in a hydrogen micro- 
 scope. Turn them down one way they come struggling up 
 another, till at length the seething mass oppressed by this 
 repression dies, or, bursts its bounds. The true policy is 
 obvious. 
 
 Haydon had now to secure the ground he had won from 
 academical intrigue, and to push on to his greater project, the 
 decoration of the New Houses of Parliament, under the 
 authority of the State, in other words, the public employ- 
 ment of the English historical painters on a great work of 
 public decoration. This, from the first, had been "a fixed 
 idea "with Haydon. All his petitions to parliament, all his 
 correspondence with Ministers, bear most strongly upon it. 
 Possibly, for this reason it was made his chief disappointment. 
 
 For the next five years we find him incessantly employed in 
 writing, painting, lecturing and teaching. He painted several 
 large pictures, the ' Anti-Slavery Meeting,' a picture of 130 
 quakers, by which, as Tom Moore amusingly put it, he 
 " infected the Broad Brims with the love of the Fine Arts." 
 The 'Maid of Saragossa,' 'Uriel,' 'Alexander killing a Lion,' 
 a replica of Sir Robert Peel's ' Napoleon ' for the King of 
 Hanover ; the ' Curtius,' and numerous cabinet pictures. He 
 continually lectured in the provinces, and for the first time 
 at the Koyal Institution in London, and also (1840) at the 
 University of Oxford. Here he was received by the vice- 
 
 * It is curious to see this principle now advocated by a once distinguii-hi d 
 Radical, Mr. Roebuck. Did he never try to raise himself, was he never ambitious 
 of becoming Home Secretary ? Fie ! Mr. Itoebuck.— Eu. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 209 
 
 chancellor, Dr. Shuttleworth, and the heads of colleges, with 
 marked distinction. The vice-chancellor placed the Ashmolean 
 Museum at his disposal, and brought crowded audiences to 
 hear his six lectures. It was a great and deserved success, and 
 did honour to the vice-chancellor and those who received 
 Haydon with such liberality. He spoke of his reception at 
 Oxford ever after in warm terms of grateful recollection. 
 
 But the chief business of his life in these years, over and 
 above all this arduous work, was with his plan for the decora- 
 tion of the Houses of Parliament. Haydon's plan, from its first 
 conception by him in 1812, had been to illustrate the prin- 
 ciples for which the building is erected, and to seek for accept- 
 able examples in the history of the world. Then he proposed 
 the painters be selected, and placing one man at the head of 
 all, give to each painter a certain space, which he should bo 
 required to fill with the illustrations of the particular principle 
 allotted to him. 
 
 For example, he proposed to give one man anarchy, another 
 man despotism, another democracy, and so on ; subjects 
 selected with the view to show how the English people have 
 known to combine the greatest security to property with the 
 greatest freedom of action. This was Haydon's plan — a simple 
 and complete one, and assuredly the one calculated to produce 
 a series of works worthy of a great nation. But, unhappily, 
 this was beyond our nobility. It went too far for them, and, 
 moreover, it involved a style of art they did not understand, 
 and did not approve of because they did not understand. 
 
 However, in 1841 a Fine Arts Committee was appointed to 
 consider this particular matter. Haydon from the first does 
 not seem to have had much hopes of it. Mr. Ewart's Com- 
 mittee had disappointed him. And his experience of Parlia- 
 mentary Committees on matters of Fine Art, and from which 
 professional painters, the only men who know anything of the 
 subject, are necessarily excluded, was not satisfactory. I re- 
 member his saying, " It will end as Lord Grey said, ' in a 
 gigantic job.' " 
 
 We have followed his career now from the days when l,o 
 used to talk with Lord Mulgrave over the absence of decoration 
 in our public buildings to those when, in 1812, he first conceived 
 the idea and sketched the plan of a pictorial decoration for the 
 Houses of Parliament, on the plan just given, down through all 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
2:o 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 those ineffectual efforts with ministers from 1814 to 1832, when 
 Lord Grey assured hiin there was no chance of doing anything 
 of the kind, and on to Lord Melbourne, who promised him in 
 1834, now the old Houses were burned down, his plan should be 
 considered for the new buildings, and so to the present moment, 
 when a committee of both Houses was appointed to consider 
 the suggestion. 
 
 If this committee and the Koyal Connnission which followed 
 had sat anywhere but in London, I cannot help thinking the 
 result would have been different as regarded Haydon ; for if 
 he was to have a chance, the hearing of the case must have 
 been removed from the locality where the prejudice against 
 him was so strong. 
 
 The Fine Arts Committee of 1841 examined everybody 
 within their reach who was supposed to know anything, and 
 many who knew nothing on the subject they were appointed 
 to inquire into. But they refused to send for Haydon, the 
 real proposer of the plan, or to hear one word he had to say. 
 This was the " Elgin Marbles " case over again. Then it was 
 " out of delicacy " to Mr. Payne Knight, whose absurd sophisms 
 on art Haydon had scattered to the four winds of heaven, and 
 rendered him insignificant for the rest of his life, and now it 
 was out of regard for the "constituted authorities" in art, 
 whose mal-administration Haydon had brought, by Mr. Ewart's 
 Committee, before Parliament, that he was to be punished 
 by another, and a more serious exclusion. I believe myself 
 that Sir Pobert Peel as well as the Academy, from something 
 Sir James Graham once said to me a propos of this very com- 
 mittee, was the moving spirit in this matter. Anyhow, the 
 feeling was this : Haydon's success may have been very great 
 at Oxford and in the provinces, but we will show what he is 
 thought of in London. Hence, the Fine Arts Committee in 
 their inquiries ignored Haydon's existence, either as a profes- 
 sional painter, or as a theorist and public writer upon art, or as 
 the proposer of the plan of decoration. This studied slight 
 upon a man of such undoubted claims to be heard, wounded 
 him. It is lucky for this Committee and for the Koyal Com- 
 mission that followed, Haydon died before he had carried out 
 an intention he certainly held, that of writing a " public 
 letter " on the proceedings of both, a kind of second edition of 
 his letter on the connoisseurs and the Elgin Marbles in lbl6. 
 
3. R. HA YDON. 
 
 211 
 
 Had he written it, we may depend lie would have left some- 
 thing the ineffable nonentities would never have forgotten so 
 long as they lived, and have kept them in memory after death. 
 Luckily for them they broke his great heart and killed him 
 before he put together his accumulated experiences. I, for one, 
 have always regretted this ; for, judging from one or two frag- 
 ments he has left, the new letter would certainly have been a 
 masterpiece of exposure, refutation, and invective. There would 
 have been nothing like it on art or in literature since the days 
 of Bentley and Boyle ; it is an irreparable loss. 
 
 But Haydon subdued his feelings, and went on with what 
 easel-work he had upon hand. Hearing at length the com- 
 mittee held the notion that fresco would be preferable to oil 
 painting for the new Houses, and that, in the opinion of the 
 committee, the English oil painters could not " draw well 
 enough to work in fresco ; " that " fresco " was not their 
 " element," and that " Cornelius and the Cerman painters 
 accustomed to fresco " must be " sent for," he became indig- 
 nant. " Here," he says, " are the patrons of art in England 
 now asking for the Germans to come over and execute ' great 
 works ' in our Houses of Barliament, because, as they allege, 
 the English painters are not equal to the task. Who is to 
 blame if the English painters cannot execute great works ? 
 Who was it that left poor Barry to live and die in poverty 
 and want because he painted great works ? Who declined to 
 support Reynolds in history, drove Opie into portrait, left 
 Fuseli to live by the print-sellers, and refused to encourage 
 cither Hilton or Etty? Who allowed me to be ruined and 
 imprisoned and my school destroyed, because I would paint 
 ' great works,' and dared to tell them that great works should 
 be executed for the honour of their country. Who has pressed 
 down the genius of England by buying nothing but small 
 works and foreign ' specimens ' ? Does any man in his senses 
 believe that the exhibitions of the Royal Academy show what 
 English artists wish to paint ? No, they bring out what they 
 are obliged to paint, they bring to market the goods which 
 will sell. And now because you have degraded the art by 
 narrowing its great calling, you turn round and say, ' Let us 
 call in the Germans.' Shame on you ! Shame on you !" 
 
 Before a week was over he had pulled down part of his 
 painting-room wall, prepared it, and trusting to his rapid 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 practice in oil, painted in genuine fresco, without retouching, a 
 magnificent half-length of an archangel. I remember well its 
 ideal and unearthly beauty, for I had to sit stripped to the 
 waist as the model, and saw him paint it. The attempt was a 
 complete success, except that it dried lighter than Haydon 
 expected, but this only added to its surprising beauty. The 
 effect was marvellous and highly poetical. The committee 
 heard of it, and with the meanness of men came up to see. 
 His painting-room I remember was crowded for days, and any- 
 body who formerly said that, "no Englishman could paint in 
 fresco, ' now declared " nothing was so easy." The scorn and 
 contempt with which Haydou listened to their idle gabble can 
 be easily conceived.* 
 
 As soon as the Report of the Fine Arts Committee of 1841 
 was presented, and it was clear to Haydon's sagacious eye that 
 fresco and not oil painting would, for some reason, be the mode 
 of decoration, and also that Sir Robert Peel would be the next 
 Prime Minister, and that very shortly, he sat down and addressed 
 a "letter" to Sir Robert Peel (lUth August, 1841) on the 
 Report of the Committee. This letter is interesting as showing 
 how clearly Haydon understood his subject, how doubtful he 
 was of fresco standing at Westminster if not painted with the 
 greatest precaution, and how necessary for the honour aud credit 
 of England, under any circumstances, to exclude foreign artists 
 and confide the work wholly to British painters; and, above 
 all, to decorate on a plan, and make the decorations subordinate 
 to and illustrative of the great principle for which the building 
 is erected. When the general election of 1841 was over and 
 Sir Robert Peel secure of his majority, Haydon addressed a 
 second letter to him (20th September, 1841), urging him not 
 to let the opportunity for a grand scheme of decoration pass 
 away, and giving him a broad hint for a cartoon competition, 
 in order to test the allegation that " English artists could not 
 
 * While at Dover, in May of this year 1841, Haydon suddenly received news 
 of the death of Sir David AVilkie on"his way home from the East. It rested en 
 his mind like a horrible nightmare fur a month, and took him quite away from 
 everything but vain n grcts and reminiscences. lie was deeply attached t> 
 Wilkie. and so I believe was AVilkie to him. One great regret he had. and that 
 was the whole of the thirty-nine academicians were not Hung overboard after him, 
 on the principle of sacrificing to the manes of a distingui lied man. Woodbinn, 
 AYidue's companion, told mv father that AVilkie literally quacked himself to 
 death with drugs. It is cm" ions how often delicate men and women will persist 
 in this dangerous interference with the chemistry of nature — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 213 
 
 draw." To Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the new Houses, 
 Haydon wrote later on, urging him to leave space for the fresco 
 decorations. Barry replied (18th December), "Be assured 
 that I am still disposed to afford you every opportunity and 
 facility within my power for carrying out the object you have 
 in view for the glory of British art." 
 
 In November, 1841, Sir Robert Peel, as Prime Minister, 
 obtained the appointment of a Boyal Commission for the 
 purpose " of inquiring whether advantage might not be taken 
 of the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament for promoting 
 and encouraging the Fine Arts," and of discovering " in what 
 manner an object of so much importance would be most effec- 
 tually promoted " This was a curious way to put the case — 
 to inquire if one thing might not conduce to promote some- 
 thing else. Who could doubt that encouragement and com- 
 missions must help to improve art ? But that should not be 
 the object of a great public work which ought to spring from a 
 love and admiration for the arts, and a desire to possess fine 
 works by native painters. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel's Royal Commission consisted at first of 
 twenty-two, and was subsequently raised to twenty-four Com- 
 missioners, including statesmen, politicians, men of rank, who 
 had no other proof of their lives but that they were only 
 gentlemen of fortune, dilettanti, and men like Lord Macaulay 
 and Ballam, and Lord Stanhope, of high literary repute. 
 All professional artists were carefully excluded. The only 
 concession made to the art was to appoint Haydon's pupil, 
 Eastlake, R.A., the secretary, " a very fit man, but timid." This 
 exclusion of professional men from seats on the Commission is 
 remarkable, because the chief advantage of a Royal Commis- 
 sion over a Parliamentary Committee is that, while in the latter 
 case the Committee is strictly confined to members of one or 
 both Houses, and can only get its information by the mere 
 evidence of witnesses, in the case of a Royal Commission the 
 Prime Minister can place upon that Commission those who 
 are practically acquainted with the matter that has to be con- 
 sidered, and such persons are much more likely to go thoroughly 
 and certainly, and entirely into a question than a body of men 
 who have no practical acquaintance with the points under 
 inquiry, however eminent or distinguished in other respects. 
 And the explanation which has recently come to light of this 
 
214 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 exclusion of professional painters from seats on the Royal Com- 
 mission of 1841 is extremely curious. 
 
 It appears that Sir Robert Peel, on his return to power in 
 1841, was uneasy as to how he would be received at Court. 
 Among his first acts he. had, as we have seen, taken up this 
 question of decorating the new Houses where Lord Melbourne 
 left it, and Sir Robert Peel now suggested to Her Majesty that 
 Prince Albert sho.uld be placed at the head of the Royal Com- 
 mission about to be issued. This was a graceful compliment to 
 the Prince, whose income Sir Robert, in opposition, had just cut 
 down by 20,000?. a year, and an earnest of Sir Robert Peel's desire 
 to stand well with the Queen after this, and his bed-chamber 
 fiasco of 1839. Whether Sir Robert Peel had any conversation 
 with the Prince on the subject does not appear. It would be 
 improbable that he had not. In either case, on the 3rd October, 
 1841, the Prince addressed a remarkable letter to Sir Robert 
 Peel. The Prince says that he has " thought much of the 
 proposed plan (of a Royal Commission), and has arrived at the 
 conviction that there had better be no artist by profession on 
 the Committee." This looks as if the point had been a sub ject 
 of discussion. The Prince goes on to give his reasons, which 
 appear to me more interesting than conclusive. His Royal 
 Highness is " afraid the discussions upon the various points 
 raised would not be so free amongst the laymen, if distinguished 
 professors were present, as these would scarcely venture to 
 maintain an opinion in opposition to those of a latter class." 
 
 The fear of the Prince, in short, amounts to this, that an 
 erroneous opinion, a crotchet, would not be put forward, or if 
 put forward, was not likely to be persevered with in the pre- 
 sence of practical men. Surely that was the value of the pro- 
 fessional man ! And one chief use and advantage of a Royal 
 Commission was that, it allowed the professional man to be 
 present at the Board, so that he could act as a check upon 
 dangerous crotchets. But the effect of Prince Albert's proposal 
 was to destroy all this, and to allow amateur ignorance not to 
 act as a check upon the balance of professional opinion, but to 
 be the balance itself. All the exquisite perplexities of art 
 involved in this great scheme of public decoration were to be 
 resolved by the acknowledged technical ignorance of the Com- 
 missioners, or by the simplicity of their inexperieneo. We, 
 now living, see the result. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 215 
 
 The reasoning of his Eoyal Highness was unsound, and should 
 have been combated by Sir Kobert Peel, considering the object 
 the Commission was appointed to determine. That it was not 
 resisted explains a good deal. It certainly helps us to under- 
 stand why we have hitherto so eminently prospered in our 
 attempts at public decoration, whether in architecture, sculp- 
 ture, or painting — matters in which nobody but the professional 
 man has sufficient and reliable knowledge, but which we in- 
 variably hand over to committees of non-professional men. 
 I must refuse to believe such a proposal originated with 
 such a clear-sighted and sagacious man as Prince Albert. It 
 must have been astutely suggested to him, for some ulterior 
 object, and the remarkable readiness of Sir Kobert Peel, a man 
 so experienced and so capable, to accept this singular sugges- 
 tion when made, throws a grave suspicion over the whole trans- 
 action. Sir Robert Peel and the Prince had come to an un- 
 derstanding before the 2nd October. On the 4th October, 1841, 
 Sir Eobert Peel replies, " I am strongly inclined to think that 
 the views of your Royal Highness with regard to the, including 
 of professional men in the Commission are perfectly just." 
 
 And so it came about that while the leading literary men 
 were put on the Commission, the leading artists were excluded. 
 Professional asperities were to be replaced by high-bred for- 
 bearance ; in short, it was the famous " Committee of Taste " 
 revived, and it ended in as bad a failure. For, without any want 
 of loyalty or feeling of disrespect, it may be safely asserted the 
 country got a very bad bargain. The immediate result was 
 not a little curious. Cornelius, the German painter, suddenly 
 arrived in London from Munich. He was received with extra- 
 ordinary distinction by the Prince, and by 3ir Robert Peel. 
 He was taken everywhere by Sir Robert's request. But he 
 never reached Haydon's studio. This was at least remarkable, 
 for of all men he would come and see, one would think he 
 would come to see the intimate friend and correspondent of his 
 own great friend Rumohr, to say nothing of Haydon's position 
 in the art. But he never came. Haydon began to scent mis- 
 chief; he had many and various sources of information. In 
 a short time he arrived at the conviction that the Prince was 
 in favour of giving the entire control of the decoration of the 
 Houses to Cornelius, leaving the practical part only to the 
 English artists. I believe him to have had good grounds for 
 
2l6 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 this conclusion. And he had also good reason for believing 
 that Sir Robert Peel was " strongly inclined to think that," in 
 this case as in the other, "the views of his Royal .Highness 
 were " perfectly just." 
 
 Haydon goes off to Eastlake (30th October) and has a 
 long conversation. Eastlake had seen Cornelius. On the 
 ^nd December, 1841, Eastlake had an interview with Prince 
 Albert with reference to the business of the Royal Com- 
 mission, of which he was appointed Secretary. The Prince, 
 with all that frankness which appears to have distinguished 
 him in his intercourse with professional men, and probably 
 not aware of Eastlake's relations with Haydon, spoke out his 
 views on the subject of the decoration of the Houses. What 
 those views were I cannot say ; but I think my father knew, 
 and we can easily infer, for in describing his interview with 
 the Prince, after the Prince had spoken, Eastlake. in a letter 
 which has been published, says, " I thought that the moment 
 had come when I must vtalce a stand against the introduction 
 of foreign artists." But then, evidently fearing he had gone 
 too far, or with the view to draw the Prince out further, 
 Ewsthike immediately modified his objections by saying he 
 saw no reason why "Germans might not be employed under 
 English artists." But Prince Albert, upon this, said he saw 
 " no reason " for that, and would not admit it was necessary ; 
 " for," said the Prince, " I am convinced in all that relates to 
 practical dexterity the English are particularly skilful." 
 
 This appears to have satisfied Eastlake, and nothing more is 
 needed, I think, to show that Haydon's information was correct, 
 and that the Prince, who had formed his opinion of English 
 art from Sir Martin Shee and the Academy, for his Royal 
 Highness was not permitted to visit Haydon's studio or those 
 of the anti-academicians, and anxious to raise a school of fresco 
 in England, had come to the hasty conclusion that no English 
 artist could draw and design sufficiently well to paint in fresco ; 
 hence, in his sincere anxiety to make the public decoration 
 of the Houses worthy of the nation, he sought to introduce the 
 best aid in design that he knew of, and that was from the 
 Germans, Cornelius, Hess, and Overbeck. In due time the 
 Prince, supported by Sir Robert Peel, formally made the pro- 
 posal at a meeting of the Commissioners to call over Cornelius, 
 Hess, and Overbeek, and employ them to design the decoration 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 of the Houses. No opposition was offered, those who disap- 
 proved took refuge in silence, and the proposal was carried. 
 In a few hours it came to Haydon's knowledge. He brooded 
 moodily over it. His loyalty to the Queen and his delight at 
 finding in Prince Albert some indications of a love for High 
 Art prevented any immediate expression of opinion. He seemed 
 all at once to wish to get out of the whole thing ; he talked 
 of going to Italy — going abroad altogether. After a while he 
 wrote to Sir Robert Peel offering to go to Italy and make a 
 careful examination of all the existing frescoes, as, in his 
 opinion, it was highly important this should be done, if fresco 
 was to be employed. Sir Robert Peel coldly acknowledged 
 Haydon's letter, took note of its main suggestion, and shortly 
 after sent out Mr. Wilson, of the London School of Design. 
 
 A thousand trifles such as this, light as air, showed Haydon 
 whose " fine Roman hand " was pulling the wires. At length 
 the intention of the Prince to employ the Germans leaked 
 out, and created such a feeling of profound dissatisfaction in 
 the art, Haydon could keep silence no longer. He wrote letters 
 to the ' Times ' under an assumed name — the ' Times ' never 
 refuses genuine public feeling — but there was no mistaking 
 the style or the subject — " aut Erasmi aut diaboli." They 
 were too bold, too full of " odious truth " for any other writer 
 but Haydon. " This German nuisance," he wrote, with his 
 usual imprudence, " must be put down." This was not in 
 good taste, and was highly indiscreet, but Haydon hated 
 quilibling and uncandid statements. What he approved he 
 always defended ; what he disapproved he condemned, and 
 endeavoured to give good and sufficient reasons. He denounced 
 the employment of Germans as unpatriotic and unnecessary, 
 and showed that it was not necessary. And no doubt Haydon 
 was right in the abstract : it was not necessary, and the pro- 
 posal was unpatriotic for Sir Robert Peel to support and 
 the commissioners to accept. But, for my humble part, I 
 must confess, looking at the result, and since Haydon, the best 
 man in England fitted to superintend the work, was to be 
 excluded, I regret the Germans were not called in. They could 
 not well have done worse ; they might have done better — at 
 least it is impossible to believe they would have given us such 
 a jumble of absurdity as we have got — and they would cer- 
 tainly have cost the country less. Cornelius would have left 
 
218 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 us something we have not got — something in genuine fresco, 
 and, for the honour of German art, let us hope, something that 
 would have excited higher feelings and nobler thoughts than 
 we have to look at now, but happily, by all accounts, shall not 
 have to look at many years longer. 
 
 Thus it was that Ha v don began to speak out the truth that 
 was in him. Had he only consented to speak half his thoughts 
 he might have escaped the censure, and perhaps have obtained 
 the favour of at least one eminent personage. But throughout 
 his life there is certainly this to be said for Haydon — and for 
 my part I honour him for it — he never hesitated to incur cen- 
 sure, even to his own ruin, by rejecting a course at variance 
 with his convictions as to that which was best for the art and 
 the country. For a man who loved approbation so dearly, 
 who strove so passionately to merit it, and to whom censure or 
 neglect was such an intolerable evil, I venture to think he de- 
 serves the highest praise for his plain-speaking on this occasion. 
 I have as little doubt that the result was quite clear to him. If 
 he helped to shut out the Germans he shut out himself; he shut 
 out the Germans, and he was refused all employment in the 
 decoration of the Houses. 
 
 The Royal Commissioners had not met in consultation many 
 times after the breaking of the German stick they had relied 
 on, before they found in what a hopeless predicament they 
 were falling from want of professional men at their Board. 
 Eastlake, their secretary, saved them from making themselves 
 ridiculous by their propositions and counter-propositions, and 
 curious display of incapacity and ignorance on all essential 
 points, by persuading them to adopt Haydon's plan, 18K>-]7, 
 of an exhibition of cartoons, in order to test the capacity of the 
 English artists in drawing and design, and thus relieved the 
 Commissioners of the difficulty of selecting and entrusting one 
 man to conduct the whole, and the right , men to serve under 
 him. It was a weak plan, a poor expedient — on a par with the 
 practice of the Greek mariners casting lots who should have 
 the management of the vessel, instead of boldly choosing tho 
 best seaman. 
 
 Towards the end of April 1842 a notice of the conditions of 
 this public cartoon competition was issued. Prizes of 30 >, 
 200, and 100 guineas were to be competed for. The leading 
 painters of established reputation were thus placed upon the 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 219 
 
 same level with their pupils and young students who had never 
 painted a picture. The spirit which dictated this can be easily 
 understood. " If it were not for the Royal Academy," said 
 Collins, the painter, to Haydon at this date, " artists would be 
 treated like journeymen:" and there was a good deal of truth in 
 the conclusion, though we may venture to doubt the premise. 
 Put the curious feature of this projected public cartoon com- 
 petition was, that the public were to have no voice in the 
 choice of winners. That was to be done for them beforehand by 
 six judges, of whom Sir Robert Peel put himself at the head ! 
 So that we had this result in view : a public competition cf 
 artists for a public work was to take place, but certain persons, 
 other than the public, were to choose the artists to be appointed 
 to the work before the public were admitted ! The fine 
 " Roman hand " again of the greatest Parliamentary Ambiguity 
 that ever lived, is here distinctly visible. One result was, of 
 course, the introduction of canvassing among relatives and 
 friends, and a decision which, under cover of public judgment, 
 was purely patronage without its honour ; and, what was of 
 more importance still, without its responsibility. 
 
 The moment Haydon read the terms of the notice, he had 
 grave doubts of the propriety of a painter of his established 
 reputation descending into the arena to compete with beardless 
 boys. He did not approve of competition after a certain age ; 
 for young men it might do, but selection was the principle for 
 men of established reputation, and they will then form the 
 students. I regret he did not adl ere to this view ; but, alas, 
 the legal wolf was once more scratching at his door. He said 
 that if he did not compete his enemies would have cried out, 
 " See, he shrinks from a public trial!" But surely the man 
 who had painted the ' Judgment of Solomon,' the ' Jerusalem,' 
 the ' Lazarus,' the ' Punch,' the ' Curtius,' and his hundred 
 other works, could . have afforded his greatest enemy the 
 enjoyment of that little triumph. . No, it was no fear of that 
 nature that prompted him to enter the lists; it was the hope 
 of winning a three hundred guinea prize that decided him. 
 And so he entered the lists, all the while declaring that, if his 
 " cartoons " were as perfect as Raphael could make them, he 
 knew he had no chance. He wrote to this effect to me. He 
 said he ought not to compete, that he knew the feeling of pre- 
 judice was so strong against him he should be refused, but that 
 
220 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 he was " so pressed for money " he could not decline the 
 chance. An intimate friend of Sir Eobert Peel's warned him 
 that he had " no chance." Barry told him " there is a dead 
 set against you among the Commissioners*'; " and Eastlake — 
 good, gentle Sir Charles — though he would have been glad 
 enough, I believe, to help his old master, whose benefits to him 
 he had declared he never could forget to his dying day, whs 
 too much engaged in watching the " wind," like a master- 
 mariner in uncertain weather, in the hope of reaching his port, 
 viz., the decoration of the Houses, to maintain Haydon's 
 claims against such determined hostility to him, and such 
 indifference to art, as the nobility displayed. But he 
 certainly gave Haydon all the hints he dare, and these are 
 not favourable. 
 
 All this only added zest to the determination of Haydon to 
 compete. He shut himself up with his two cartoons and his 
 pecuniary embarrassments, which were now becoming most 
 harassing from the postponement of two commissions, and other 
 professional disappointments, and worked vigorously for six 
 months, till he had completed the cartoons. One was ' The 
 Curse of Adam and Eve,' the other, ' The Entry of King John 
 of France into London ' after Poitiers. This was his answer to 
 Sir Robert Peel and the Commissioners. Sir Eobert had the 
 right of reply. 
 
 There were three distinct parties of competitors : the Eoyal 
 Academicians and their party ; Haydon and the reform party ; 
 and the young students. The exhibition of cartoons took place 
 at Westminster Hall, in the season of J8EJ. The result <lis>i- 
 pated the unjust suspicion that the lay artists of England 
 could neither draw nor design. The power displayed was 
 astonishing ; and when Haydon went into the room he ex- 
 pressed his joy heartily and without reserve. The young 
 students crowded round him and congratulated him warmly, 
 saying " We owe this all to you." This soothed him for what 
 had happened. 
 
 Before the exhibition was thrown open to the public, six 
 judges were appointed by the Roj al Commissioners to select the 
 winning candidates ; so that the public were only admitted to 
 approve their selection — a reversal of the true principle. These 
 "judges" consisted of Sir Eobert Peel, Lord Lansdowne. Mr. 
 Eugers 3 and three members of the Eoyal Academy. As Sir 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 221 
 
 Robert Peel was the First Lord of the Treasury, and official 
 supporter of the Academy in the House of Commons, Lord 
 Lansduwne, their defender in the House of Lords, and Mr. 
 Rogers only represented the Commissioners, it will be seen 
 that, with the three Royal Academicians, the Academy com- 
 manded five votes out of the six. The reform party were not 
 represented at all. I do not wish to cast any imputations, but 
 I must say, that had one of the Royal Academicians and one 
 of their friends been replaced by Wordsworth, whose knowledge 
 of art, and independence, were well known ; and by Mr. 
 Hume, M.P., whose judgment in drawing was unquestionable, 
 from his intimate knowledge of anatomy ; all the contending 
 parties would have been fairly represented, and the committee 
 of judgment accepted as satisfactory to the public. But this 
 was a concession Sir Robert Peel could not bring himself to 
 make. Out of evident fear of any accident he had put him- 
 self at the head of the judges, and he was not the man to 
 imperil his majority by an act of foirness to his opponents; 
 that was beyond his calibre. It is remarkable in so astute 
 a man as the late Sir Robert Peel that, with all his knowledge 
 of the art of putting the right men into the right places, for 
 the particular purpose he had in view, he habitually forgot 
 what a vastly important matter it is to find a satisfactory 
 position for the discontented. He suffered from this more than 
 once in his career. 
 
 When the time came for decision, which Sir Robert Peel 
 had proposed should be given before the public were admitted, 
 the six judges went round and made an inspection. 'I he car- 
 toons of the Royal Academicians were so glaringly defective 
 in drawing, expression, and power, it was out of the question to 
 award a prize to any academician. The cartoons of the 
 reform party and of the young students were pronounced to 
 be so equal in power, drawing, expression, and character, the 
 judges declared themselves at a loss how to decide. This looks 
 like artifice on the part of Sir Robert Peel. Prince Albert 
 then came in and was shown round. On coming before the 
 cartoon of the English pupil of De la Roche he stopped, and 
 said " That is worth tlOOOl. ;" Etty and the artists on the com- 
 mittee of judges, says Haydon, "held down their heads.'' The 
 cartoon was defective in drawing ami proportion ; but that, 
 in the opinion of such a courtier as Sir Robert Peel had now 
 
222 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 become, was of no consequence after the remark of the Prince 
 Consort. This cartoon headed the list of three hundred guinea 
 prizes.* 
 
 A vast deal of coquetting then appears to have gone on 
 between the Prince, the judges, and the other cartoons. At 
 length the judges arrived at a decision : the prizes were en- 
 tirely distributed among the young students. Thus, if they 
 could not conscientiously reward the " Royal Academicians," 
 they would not reward the " Reformers," nor that arch-rebel at 
 their head. The Treasury oyster they gave to the young 
 students; the shells were at the disposal of the rival claimants. 
 Haydon was not even admitted to be worthy of one of the 
 louest prizes. 
 
 Having effected this distribution of prize, the Committee of 
 Judgment might have retired with a certain halo of judicious 
 discretion, if not of impartiality. But when the public were 
 admitted and it was seen the selected champions of our great 
 ai t institution, which Sir Robert Peel had so often defended 
 against Haydon's assaults in Parliament as the sacred deposit 
 of art and design in England, were absolutely incompetent as 
 against the great body of lay artists, and that a committee 
 composed of its best friends, with Sir Robert Peel at their 
 head, was compelled to pass them over without a prize and in 
 silence, the public first began to laugh, and then began to 
 murmur. " It is true," was said, " Haydon has not won a 
 prize, but that does not prove his estimate of the Academy to 
 be wrong." And as many competent judges in and out of the 
 art declared Haydon's cartoons to be worthy of the highest 
 prizes, the situation became embarrassing. Ominous words 
 were heard from members of Parliament ; Sir Robert became 
 alarmed. Something must be done to restore the failing credit 
 of the Academy and the committee, or both would go down in 
 public estimation. But what was to be* done ? There was the 
 difficulty. Now this was just one of those cases with which 
 
 * My father used to tell a little bit of Court gossip-he had many sources of 
 in Co i ination— us to this t articular caitoon. De la Roche was a great fiiend of the 
 late Lord Ellesmere, and also of his brother, the late Duke of Sutherland, and he 
 be-ouuht their influence on behalf of his young pupil, though I believe wholly 
 without his pupil's consent, or even knowledge. The services of the Duchess 
 were also enlisted. All fair enough, if the Commission, of which Prince Albeit 
 was the head, had not passed a rule that no names of competitors were to be 
 known. But Suckling's experience of Court life holds good, viz., " He that's 
 be>t horsed, that is best friend! d, gets in soonest; and all that he has to do is to 
 laugh at those that are behind.*' — Ei>. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 223 
 
 the late Sir Robert Peel, of all men, was eminently fitted to 
 deal. There was a difficulty ; he delighted in " difficulties." 
 And to meet it an "expedient" was required; no man was 
 more fertile in " expedients." He revelled in them, he played 
 with them like a gambler with his tossing shilling ; and he 
 always kept a stock on hand. No more money could be got 
 from the public treasury without due recognition of the 
 cartoons and the reformers, or the risk of parliamentary ques- 
 tions. That was to be avoided. For the object was not to 
 reward the reformers' successes, but to bolster up the academical 
 failures. Sir Robert was equal to the occasion. He brought 
 out an expedient ; it was neat, it was new, it was appropriate, 
 and it exactly fitted the dilemma. He would intercept the 
 entrance shillings of the exhibition, and that not being strictly 
 " public money," the judges might deal with it as their own. 
 
 The entrance money of the exhibition was quietly appro- 
 priated, and a second distribution of prizes suddenly announced. 
 The public were interested to observe that, the entire sum 
 was distributed in gratuities among the Royal Academicians 
 and their known supporters. An expression of " regret there 
 was no more money at the disposal of the committee " was 
 offered as sufficient consolation for the reform party. 
 
 Thus ended the famous cartoon contest of 1843, and few but 
 myself will blame Haydon, alter this result, for not competing 
 the year following in fresco. I venture to think he should. I 
 would not have entered into the contest, but having done so, 
 I would have gone through with it, even with the assured 
 information he had that the commissioners were " resolved not 
 to employ " him. I would not have allowed Sir Robert Peel 
 or the Commissioners such an excuse for not employing me. 
 Haydon was one of the most competent men in England to 
 paint in fresco, and could have painted a fresco that defied 
 competition. If they then passed him over, the matter would 
 have been brought under the notice of Parliament. 
 
 His reason for not further competing was that he really 
 could not afford the loss of unrewarded time. Yet, when next 
 year he saw the hot and offensive productions that were put 
 forth by the competitors in fresco, he half regretted he had not 
 taken up the challenge for the sake of the art. For the Royal 
 Commissioners with characteristic want of confidence in their 
 own judgment, if no ulterior motive was there, had asked the 
 
224 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 artists to compote again this time for fresco ! This was "un 
 peu trop fort." The artists had come forward generously, 
 for the majority had no hope of prize, and given up six 
 months of their time to the production of cartoons in order to 
 show the public how Englishmen could draw, and now they 
 were asked to repeat the process of showing how they could 
 paint. The whole thing was laughable, for surely if the Com- 
 missioners could select prizemen in cartoons, they could select 
 the painters in fresco at once, and have done with it. But no, 
 they must have another competition. Nine-tenths of the artists, 
 with Haydon at their head, refused to have anything more to 
 do with the business, and returned to their home employment. 
 
 Yet with characteristic unselfishness I find Haydon offered 
 to aid the Commission in every way in his power, and even 
 to assist those who were appointed over his head to conduct 
 the decorations. 
 
 It would, however, be idle to deny that Haydon secretly 
 hoped Sir Robert Peel would relent, and allow him to be 
 employed. But that was out of the question with a man of 
 the nature of the late Sir Robert Peel. I believe he had con- 
 ceived so much secret regret and vexation over the ' Napoleon ' 
 that nothing but the disgrace of Haydon could cancel his own 
 want of generosity by covering Haydon with shame. The com- 
 plete rejection of Haydon from all share in his own plan 
 would ease the reproaches of Sir Robert's conscience, revenge 
 his private injury, and free the Royal Commission from a man 
 they must either have retained with fear, or dismissed with 
 danger. Couple this with Sir Robert Peel's subservience to 
 rank, and his longing to increase the influence of authority, 
 though aware of the necessity of checking it, and his conse- 
 quent dislike to a man who was the rebel against the con- 
 stituted authorities in art ; the malignant who had brought 
 before a Whig parliamentary committee that " Royal Academy " 
 Sir Robert Peel and his colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, had taken 
 under their protection ; who had attacked and shaken the 
 authority of that " Academy," and even compelled Sir Robert 
 Peel on one occasion to divide the House, and only to save 
 himself and his protege by a bare majority of five ; who 
 had scattered the connoisseurs by making them ridiculous, 
 and shown the nobility to themselves in the light in which 
 others see them, and much may be explained. " Was such a 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 22$ 
 
 man as this to be endured, when it was possible to stamp him 
 down ?" To put him on the Royal Commission, his proper 
 place, or to give him the control, or any share in the control 
 and management of the great public work before them, was 
 " to give sanction and encouragement to a man whose whole 
 career had been one resolute struggle to maintain the interests 
 of his art and to inspire a zeal for the independence and liberty 
 of artists," (who, in the opinion of the nobility, only deserve 
 to be treated like journeymen,) " rather than respect for the 
 nobility, the patrons, and the constituted authorities in art." 
 To the precise and officially trained mind of Sir Robert Peel 
 there can be little doubt, even putting aside his personal 
 grievance against Haydon, all this was sufficient to inspire him 
 with a feeling of repugnance to the man. But when Haydon 
 scented out and denounced the " Cornelius job " I think Sir 
 Robert Peel must have well-nigh hated him.* 
 
 Yet the prejudices and politics of art should have had no 
 place surely in a great question of public decoration, for which 
 by his art, and his practice of it Haydon was the fittest man in 
 England, nay, I dare say, in Europe. So far as Haydon was 
 personally concerned, the whole case shows how difficult must 
 have been his position. Many blamed him for the course he 
 took; but in truth it is one of the most difficult matters in life 
 to rightly discern when and with whom you should be modest 
 and humble, that is, if you wish to carry your point. 
 
 Humility may not only do you no good, but positive harm 
 with men of ungenerous minds. And it is a prodigious mis- 
 take to suppose you can, with such men, obliterate the sense of 
 an old injury by a new benefit. All things considered, I think 
 Haydon took the best course open to him. That he acted sin- 
 cerely and without regard to his own interests must be admitted. 
 And the result probably was the same in the end. It matters 
 little whether the melon falls on the knife, or the knife on the 
 melon, it is the melon that suffers, says the proverb. 
 
 Yet he did not despair of that " public employment " he 
 
 * Sir Robert Peel never forgave Haydon his interference on this occasion. Ho 
 was not unwilling to profit by Haydou's knowledge and suggestions and labours ; 
 but it could not be permitted that a man who devoted himself to the prevention 
 of a ' Court job," as well as to the reform of the constituted authorit es in art, 
 should be placed in conjunction or competition with the principle of authority ; 
 t. at was not to be entertained. And there was much to recommend this to tuo 
 official mind. Official life has peculiar rules of conduct of its own. These are not 
 always conformable to the public good, and, in the nakedness of their nature, 
 may serve to explain why in times of great urgency there is not often one w.se 
 man to be found in a whole Department. — Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 longetl for. Certainly ho was a sanguine man. He continued 
 to correspond with Kastlake, but refused to take hints, stand- 
 ing, as it were, buffeting with Fortune, yet making no advance, 
 lie reminds me of the Athenians, when Philip was preparing 
 to invade them, expending their time in oratorical displays. 
 He would not admit he had no chance of employment, so lonp: 
 as the final selection of the fresco painters was undecided. 
 And perhaps it was natural. We have, all of us, an instinctive 
 antipathy to complete resignations. It is impossible, how- 
 ever, to refuse him our sympathy. For had he not good 
 claim, not only to employment, but to the chief employ- 
 ment ? The plan was his, he was literally the cause of the 
 thing being done at all, and he had painted a fresco on 
 his own painting-room wall that nothing exhibited could 
 compete with. In spite of what was freely urged at the 
 time, that " Haydon was failing in physical powers," you had 
 only to look at his ruddy cheek and robust figure, to see 
 the denial there. He was no more failing for art than Sir 
 liobert Peel was for politics. No, "his eye was not dim nor 
 his natural force abated," and therefore I take that excuse at 
 its value.* In the year 1842 Haydon had painted three large 
 pictures, finished two others, and one cartoon. This, besides 
 sketches, correspondence, writing his own memoirs, and writing 
 and delivering fresh lectures in London and the provinces. 
 There is no sign of failing power here. Haste, perhaps, but 
 no loss of power, which only asked freedom from disturbance 
 and pecuniary pressure, to come forth with finer effect than at 
 any former period of his life. Nor is the question here, which 
 painter was most agreeable to the Coiirt, though the pre- 
 judices of the Court deserve to be respected, but which was 
 best for the public interest. Here was the Englishman ot 
 established reputation, who had executed the greatest works in 
 oil ever produced by the English school; who had always 
 practised in oil the habits of fresco; whose knowledge of 
 anatomy was unrivalled ; whose power of correct drawing from 
 his study and knowledge of the particular function of each 
 
 * Haydon was not yet sixty, the age when Milton wrote his 'Paradise Lost,' 
 and Cane v his ' Canterbury Tales ' The intellectual powers of a healthy man 
 of tine imagination and pure life, so far from tailing grow stronger between fifty 
 and se\enty-five; and thir later works, provided they have peace and competence, 
 will often surpass and seldom full below those of their early years. Michel 
 Angclo worked until he was ninety ; Titian was nearly one hundred when he 
 died; Rubens, seventy; Tintoretto, eighty-two; Claude, eighty-two; Teuiers, 
 eighty-four.— Ed, 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 22 7 
 
 bone, and muscle, and part of the human and animal frame, 
 was not to be surpassed ; who had proved the soundness and 
 purity of his taste in art by his defence of the Elgin Marbles 
 against the laughter and abuse of the critics and connoisseurs ; 
 who had trained and educated some of the best artists in 
 England ; and, not to mention his other services to the art of 
 the country, had painted as fine a genuine fresco as there was 
 to be seen in England. Was it in the public interest, when 
 a great work of fresco decoration was about to be painted at 
 the public cost, that such a master of his art should be passed 
 over by the authorities? The question was not a personal, 
 but a public question. Haydon was the only painter in 
 England who had thought out this particular subject of the 
 decoration of the Houses of Parliament. He was the only 
 man, I believe, in the country, who thoroughly comprehended 
 what was wanted to be done, and how to do it. Imperious, 
 and impatient of ignorance he might have been, but he was a 
 man of unmatched industry and ability, full of experience, 
 and in the prime of life. That he was an "uncompromising" 
 man, and an "impracticable" man, and a man "with such 
 extreme opinions, that he could not have worked with" this 
 man and that, is nothing but the ordinary excuses of mis- 
 applied power, and a failing cause. As Dolabella says of 
 Antony's messenger, so it may be said of Sir Robert Peel 
 this is 
 
 " An argument that he is plucked when hither 
 He sends so poor a pinion of his wing." 
 
 Such excuses were just as applicable to Haydon as they 
 would be to the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, if, 
 when the people preferred him to office, the sovereign and 
 his minister kept him out. Haydon was always kept in op- 
 position. He never was tried with power. It is in opposi- 
 tion a man most shows his defects. If in constant and irri- 
 tating opposition, he is certain— at least I never knew the 
 man who was not— to be guilty of mistakes. " Where there 
 is much activity," Burke says, " there is always aberration." 
 Put to insist that a man of original mind, who always con- 
 siders his own opinion right, is therefore unsuited to a post 
 where he is liable to be irritated by collision with others, is 
 absurd and illogical, for it quite overlooks the wide separation 
 between always thinking you are right, and thinking you are 
 always right. An honest man must always think his opinions 
 
 Q 2 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 right, or they would not be his. But it does not follow he is 
 not open to conviction. Moreover, if Haydon had shown 
 defects, he had also shown extraordinary capacity and vigour; 
 and in his art no one could touch him. Put such a man in 
 office, and he will prove that he has as much discretion as 
 your most cautious mediocrities, more than their share of 
 common sense, and infinitely more knowledge of his own par- 
 ticular business. 
 
 But Sir Bobert Peel carried his point, plain sense was 
 pushed aside, and Haydon was excluded from all employment 
 in the decoration of the new Houses. 
 
 And now comes the fair question, what has the country 
 gained by his exclusion ? Have we anything to boast of as the 
 result of Sir Bobert Peel's action in this matter ? The chief 
 thing the public has gained has been " experience," and very 
 dearly we have paid for it. Alter several annual official reports 
 from the Boyal Commission of Fine Arts, the public learned 
 in the eleventh Beport that " difficulties had arisen ;" the plain 
 fact being, as I have often heard Haydon predict, the frescoes 
 were already showiug signs of decay. In their twelfth Beport 
 (February, 1861), the Boyal Commissioners express their "ex- 
 treme mortification " at the " failure " of their efforts in fresco, 
 and intimate their intention " to attempt water-glass painting " 
 instead. A few weeks later, on the 11th March, 1861, the 
 Boyal Commissioners threw up their cards. For eighteen 
 years they had " meddled with everything and muddled all," 
 and now they begged to be allowed to resign their functions. 
 It was the cheapest thing to let them go, and Sir Bobert Peel's 
 Commissioners silently effaced themselves from public view, 
 the only official act of their existence which commanded the 
 unqualified approbation of the country. They returned to 
 their respective domestic and other duties, for which, let us 
 hope, they were better fitted than for dealing w ith matters of 
 art, in which the majority had shown the thorough ignorance 
 of educated men, and their utter insensibility to anything like 
 a grand idea.* 
 
 With regard to their fresco and water-glass decorations of 
 the House, 1 hope I am not overstating the case when I say it 
 is admittedly an enormous and costly failure. And this is 
 exactly what I have, in 1845, heard my father predict it would 
 
 * A curious anil interostinft history of this unfortunate Royal Commission is 
 given by Mr. Redgrave in his ' British Painters '—Ed. 
 
B. X. HA YDON. 
 
 229 
 
 be. " I shall not be alive to see it, but you may ; and mark 
 my words, in less than twenty years their frescoes will begin to 
 decay. In fifty years there will be nothing of them left. They 
 talk of their lasting. Good God! what credulity ! There is 
 not one of them who knows how to prepare his surface to last, 
 and except Eastlake and Dyce, there is not a soul among them 
 who can paint a genuine fresco." Are not his words fulfilling 
 themselves ? Yet this one man, who knew where the fault 
 lay, and how to remedy it, was designedly excluded by Sir 
 Robert Peel from all control over, or share in the work ! But 
 if he was not permitted to be the steersman, or even one 
 of the crew, Haydon was at least the Orpheus who sailed 
 with those Argonauts, with this difference, that his visions 
 were always intelligible to himself. 
 
 Then, again, as to the general principle and object of the deco- 
 ration as it stands. It is impossible to discover any leading 
 idea. Except to dispose of the sums of money voted by Par- 
 liament, there is no principle represented. We have Moses, 
 and Bliicher, and Nelson, and Montrose on the scaffold, and 
 Argyle on his bed, and Alice Lisle, and the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 and many pretty pictures of academic figures in theatrical 
 costume, that illustrate no principle, are guided by no leading 
 idea, which appeal only to the eye. and that must not be a 
 critical one. Allowing the works the full merit their friends 
 claim, there is throughout a marked absence of all genuine 
 heroic spirit both in sentiment and execution. No impartial 
 judge can deny that. When a recent Quarterly 'Reviewer 
 declared the whole thing a gigantic failure, "a monument of 
 our inability to meet what ought in a nation possessed of our 
 wealth, and means, and culture, to be a common and not at all 
 an extraordinary occasion," he gave expression to a truth that 
 is impressed upon most of us. 
 
 But I deny that it was the fault of the artists so much as 
 the fault of the Royal Commissioners. There were, then, as 
 there are now, competent painters equal to great public works. 
 But such men have no chance against the low taste, the want 
 of culture, and the ignorant prejudices in art of our nobility. 
 
 If Haydon's restless spirit be doomed, as a pang for sins not 
 yet atoned for, to wander round the corridors of the palace at 
 Westminster, it must suffer a melancholy remorse at seeing its 
 living predictions coming so rapidly to their crisis. I only 
 hope that, compelled to wander with him, is the spirit of Sir 
 
230 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Robert Peel. But I must hasten to bring my too long record 
 of Haydon's career to its close. 
 
 When, in 1844-5, Haydon became satisfied the original in- 
 formation he had received in 1842 was correct, and under no 
 circumstances would Sir Robert Peel, if he could help it, allow 
 him to be employed in the decoration of either House, he showed 
 no resentment : "I am totally left out," he writes in his journal 
 (27th June, 1815), "after forty-one years of suffering and hard 
 work, with my ' Lazarus,' and ' Curtius,' and ' Uriel,' before their 
 eyes ; and being, too, the whole and sole designer for the 
 decoration of the House of Lords in the first instance, and the 
 cause of the thing being done at all. 
 
 " Backed by encouragement, I have never known how 
 steadily would my powers develop! I shall never know it. 
 Had I been employed, the sense of a duty to be done would 
 have banked up my mind, and kept it running in one channel 
 deep and constant ; now it has spread out into a thousand 
 irritable little rivulets, watering the ground and exhausting 
 the fountain head." 
 
 It is pitiable to read these words. One knows how it must 
 have wrung his heart to write them. The allusion to that 
 utter absence of real encouragement which had marked his 
 hard life is touching ; while the reference to a duty to be 
 done bears out what I have said of the probable effect upon 
 him of office. And now he made up his mind. Humiliated 
 and wounded to the core at the contemptuous manner 
 in which he had been pushed aside by the Royal Commis- 
 sioners, Haydon determined upon a step that, in the most 
 favourable times, would have been hazardous, but just then 
 was almost certain ruin. He would try and interest the public 
 by painting, in opposition, and exhibiting his six original 
 designs for the decoration of the Houses. In the earlier 
 period of his then unmarried life, three great pictures had 
 brought him to the ground. Now he was about to paint 
 six, and the circumstances were even more unfavourable ; 
 for the nobility were not only against him, but the Court, 
 which was formerly indifferent, was now hostile. The Aca- 
 demy was not exactly against him, but it would not support 
 him, and a " public" had grown up since 1823 that took loss 
 interest in " Haydon and his Historical Painting " than he could 
 be brought to believe. Then he had no capital, and had to 
 maintain a family, as well as himself all the time, by painting 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 23' 
 
 cabinet pictures. The strain was too great even for him. 
 But it is with such men as with great kings, their griefs are 
 not easily allayed. 
 
 " The forest deer being struck 
 Buns to the herb that closes up the wounds, 
 But when the Imperial Lion's flesh is gored, 
 He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw: 
 And highly scorning that the lowly earth 
 Should drink his blood, mounts upward to the air." 
 
 Had he possessed capital, which would have given him time 
 to reflect and paint, I have little doubt, in spite of all 
 that the learned and unlearned critics say, he would have 
 produced a series of six works unrivalled in English art, 
 and worthy of his high repute. That was the opinion of 
 competent judges. But he had lost a year, and he had no 
 reserve funds. " Darkness before, and danger's voice behind," 
 was all his inheritance. For the first and only time in his 
 life he appears to me to have allowed his mortification to get 
 the better of his good judgment. 
 
 He began the first of his series of six pictures in April, 1845. 
 The ' Banishment of Aristides,' a fine subject, forcibly painted, 
 he finished in four months ; the second, ' Nero watching the 
 Burning of Koine,' hastily conceived and painted, he finished 
 in two months. Yet these arduous and impassioned labours 
 could not recover the year lost in indecision, nor remove that 
 disquiet of the soul which precedes misfortune. He reads, he 
 writes, he works incessantly, but ever and anon I find him re- 
 ferring directly and indirectly to Death as if he felt its awful 
 shadow near. Dr. Hook sends him the ' Confessions of St. 
 Augustine.' He reads them, reviews his own life, and writes : — 
 " The first step towards fitting the Soul to stand before its 
 Maker is a conviction of its unworthiness." Then he is more 
 constant in prayer — more curious in his utterances and quota- 
 tions from Scripture, more humble towards Him " in whom 
 there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 
 
 Suddenly he hears the sad news that his old friend, Colonel 
 Gurwood, has destroyed himself. This affects him profoundly. 
 Now he refuses to record his prayers any more. " I feel them," 
 he says ; " but it is too familiar to write them down, and bring 
 them in contact with daily expression of worldly matters." It 
 is as if he dared not utter and record them, lest the effort 
 should turn him from the fascination of some shackled pro- 
 pensity, suddenly broken loose and, mastering his obedience. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 Pie flies for relief to a fresh subject, 1 Alfred and liis First Trial 
 by Jury.' But the weight of Gurwood's miserable death presses 
 on his mind and heart. In February, 18-16, he leaves London in 
 low spirits and goes to Edinburgh. Here he met with his usual 
 enthusiastic reception. His lectures were crowded to excess, 
 and the profuse hospitality of the famous city freely extended 
 to him. Donald may not have more money than suffices for 
 his own modest wants ; but he appreciates a man with brains, 
 is a staunch friend, and is always glad to give you a warm 
 welcome in his hospitable home. The following month Haydon 
 returned to London, and prepared for his exhibition in April.* 
 
 The two pictures, ' Aristides ' and ' Nero,' were exhibited at 
 the Egyptian Hall. The newspapers spoke highly of them as 
 works of art. But the next room to Haydon's exhibition was 
 taken by the dwarf 4 Tom Thumb.' The London world rushed 
 in its thousands to see this novelty — dukes, duchesses, earls, 
 and countesses led the van, and all the " Public " followed. 
 When they came out from the Presence, the poor people were 
 so overcome by their emotions they could not endure the shock, 
 nor afford the additional expense, of looking at 'Nero' or 
 'Aristides.' They passed Haydon's exhibition room, and went 
 off to Grange's for ice and wafers. After six weeks Haydon 
 closed his exhibition with the loss of 111/., rolled up his pic- 
 tures, and went to work vigorously at the next of his series. 
 
 I do not think the failure of the exhibition disturbed him 
 much. Like Sir Isaac Newton and the South Sea Bubble, he 
 " could not calculate on the madness of the people." Besides, 
 ho had a settled object in view, that gave him no time for vain 
 regrets, but he expressed his opinion of London society — and 
 for that portion of the British Public which had followed their 
 caprice on this occasion — in terms of deep disdain. 
 
 To his own mind, unless some extraordinary assistance ar- 
 rived, his days were now numbered. But, " to-morrow knaves 
 will thrive through craft and fools through fortune ; and 
 honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit." 1 >av by 
 day passed, and no inquiries, no commissions came in, no offers 
 to buy either of the four large pictures he had now upon his 
 hands. He began to lose confidence in his power to stave off 
 the last day long enough to enable him to complete his series. 
 
 * It is only fair to Sir Robert Peel that I should state, in November, IS 15, 
 he hnd, as Prime Minister, and upon Haydon's application, appointed one of 
 H iydon's two sous, a Cambridge niau, to a clerkship under Government. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 233 
 
 " The great thing will be to get them clone," he continually 
 writes in his journal. And he struggled bravely on, flying 
 hither and thither to pacify creditors, raise money, gain time — 
 anything for peace to think and paint. His debts were not large. 
 The price of a small yacht, or of another diamond necklace, 
 would have covered them all. But no member of the nobility 
 came near him. Prince Albert was one day seen to ride by 
 and to look up at the house, and speak to his equerry. His 
 Koyal Highness had not the courage to come in. 
 
 With the month of June came no improvement of prospects, 
 no diminution of pecuniary pressure. He works vigorously. 
 He prays earnestly to be carried "through the evils " of each 
 day, and he entreats the Almighty to preserve his " mind," so 
 as to enable him to bear up against " all obstructions." But 
 at last it dawns upon his too sanguine hopes that all his 
 labour is in vain ; the taste of the Nobility for art is no 
 higher than it was fifty years before, and perhaps, after all, 
 he may have mistaken the 'feeling' of the 'People.' An 
 old friend, whom he had helped in early life, now offers to 
 lend him 1000/. They are to meet and dine in the City. 
 
 L keeps the engagement, but after dinner breaks the 
 
 news to Haydon that, he is unable to advance the money. 
 Haydon drank deeply (hotel wine is not always sound), and 
 the next day, between the disappointment and the dinner, 
 he was "wrong" in his "head." The weather now (11th 
 June) became intensely hot, and he got completely out of 
 health. All the week he was in this state, and could get no 
 rest at night, but he refused to send for medical advice, and 
 gradually abandoned work. It looks as if he felt the end was 
 near, and thought it time to fold his robe about him. But 
 now, a very curious thing happened, upon which a vast deal of 
 fine writing has, in my humble opinion, been needlessly ex- 
 pended. The 15th June had been a day of great anxiety and 
 no relief. On the lGth June Haydon wrote to his old friend, the 
 Duke of Beaufort, to explain his situation and ask assistance. 
 The letter reached the duke at Badminton, just as he was going 
 out to enjoy the bright day by shooting rabbits. The duke put 
 the letter into his pocket and took down his gun. Haydon 
 wrote also to Lord Brougham, and, oddly enough, to the Prime 
 Minister, Sir Robert Peel. Now, if ever there was a time for 
 one man to do a graceful and generous act towards another he 
 had helped to ruin, this was the moment. Sir Robert Peel, in 
 
234 
 
 MEMOIR OF . 
 
 the midst of all his Corn Law debates, replies promptly, though 
 in a formal letter, enclosing an official order for 5.)/. on a fund 
 over which, as Prime Minister, he had official control. 
 
 It is hardly fair to look your gift horse too curiously over ; 
 but it is to be remarked that only to send 50?. to an artist, 
 owing 3J0(7., and on the brink of arrest and ruin, was the 
 merest illusion in the world. It was like that phantom 
 Minerva sends to Hector to tempt him to his fate by making 
 him believe Deiphobus is at hand. Moreover, Sir Robert's 
 " contribution for your necessities " did not come out of Sir 
 Robert's private purse. It was "public " money. Considering 
 his position and grove responsibilities at that moment, his 
 prompt reply compares favourably with the Duke of Beaufort's 
 forgetfulness, and Lord Brougham's silence. But yet there is 
 something in the gift unpleasing. It came out of the Con- 
 solidated Fund, to which Haydon, who for years had been paying 
 his taxes regularly, must have contributed his share. Had 
 Sir Robert Peel made up the price he paid for the ' Napoleon' 
 to the 500 guineas, which he ought to have given 1 aydon for the 
 picture, such a sum (389Z.) would have been a real benefit to the 
 painter, and would probably have saved his life. And it would 
 only have been just from the man with 40,<)0i<Z. a year towards 
 the poor painter who had painted him so fine a picture, had got 
 so mean a price for it, and was now asking for " help." But no, 
 not one sixpence from his own private purse would Sir Hobert 
 Peel give. That would look like concession. How singular that 
 this man, who never had a guiding principle in politics, who 
 would yield everything to pressure, but resist everything till 
 he was pressed, should, in a matter of this kind, draw a hard 
 and fast line against the evidence of facts he could not contro- 
 vert, and refuse to grant to feeling what his stiff-necked pride 
 rejected. It was not magnanimous. It was wanting in gene- 
 rosity, cold in heart, and unworthy of a man in Sir Robert 
 Peel's position. But the highest virtue of which the Late Sir 
 Robert Peel was capable, and the last he arrived at, was 
 justice to those he had wronged. 
 
 Haydon acknowledged the receipt of the 50?., and in the 
 warmth of his own good heart he paid a compliment to that 
 which he assumed to belong to Sir Robert Peel. But it is to 
 be observed, he put the money aside and did not touch it. This 
 is significant. The 18th, 19th, and 2:ith of June came, passed, 
 and brought no answer from the Duke of Beaufort or Lord 
 
B. K. HA YD ON. 
 
 ^35 
 
 Brougham. ITaydon grew gloomy, and became dispirited as 
 a jaded horse. What he suffered during these days, and how 
 acutely, his daily journal tells. He feels his "heart sink"; his 
 brain "grows confused"; he lies awake at night in 'great agony 
 of mind." He prays God to bless him through " the evils " of 
 each day. He takes down to a bookseller a parcel of books he 
 had not paid for, and begs him to " take care of them." He 
 takes an unfinished sketch, upon which he was engaged for Sir 
 W. then Mr. Fairbairn,* and had been part paid for, and carries it 
 to the house of a relative of this friend, and leaves it in the hall, 
 with a hasty message for its care. He does the same with one 
 or two other small works, and he passes one entire day burning 
 vast quantities of correspondence and documents in the court- 
 yard of his house. In the intervals he sits in his painting- 
 room unable to work, staring at his picture " like an idiot," his 
 brain "pressed down by anxiety," his frenzied eyelids suing 
 in vain for rest. Every post brings him angry demands for the 
 settlement of bills, threats of execution, and immediate pro- 
 spect of arrest, imprisonment, and ruin. One by one his last 
 hopes fall from him, like dead leaves fluttering from a bough. 
 Good God ! what a picture it is ! To think of this man, after 
 forty years of noble work to refine the taste and enlighten the 
 understanding of the nobility and people of wealthy England 
 so as to make art in its higher range a delightful mode of 
 moral elevation, and design a means of their material pro- 
 sperity, sitting beggared by want of employment, silent and 
 abstracted, with all the disjointed fragments of his perishiug 
 hopes about him, in a chaos of unspeakable thought, his 
 soul " melting by reason of his trouble," his brain throbbing 
 with fire, pondering over his past life, and confronting his 
 deep love for his art with his broken fortunes, till stung by 
 the bitterness of the contrast, like a dying gladiator, he deter- 
 mines on self-murder lest he be left to languish in his agony. 
 It is a picture of human suffering, under the uttermost burden 
 of wretchedness, that one does not often see into so distinctly. 
 Nor was it wholly creditable to the country, nor, in this case, 
 to the Prime Minister of that country in which it was there 
 to be seen. On the morning of the 21st June he enters in 
 his journal : — 
 
 " Slept horribly — prayed in sorrow — got up in agitation." 
 
 * It is now in the possession of T,adv Fnh'b iirn, widow of the 1 ite Sir William 
 Faiibairn. Bart., F.R.S. The subjeut'is 'Christ before Pilate.'— Ed. 
 
236 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 This loss of rest at night was the worst sign about him. I 
 have heard him say he could face any misfortune if he got his 
 sleerj. But he could not support the irritability arising from 
 disturbed rest. The action of his brain became morbid and 
 unhealthy. On Sunday, this 21st June, he walked out with 
 one of the family to dine with his friend, Commissioner Evans, 
 at Hampstead. On his way through the Regent's Park he 
 complained much of the intense heat, and said, the night 
 before, when lying awake, he had understood how it was people 
 committed suicide ; that he had dwelt with pleasure on the 
 idea of throwing himself off the Monument and dashing his 
 head to pieces. He was begged not to dwell on such thoughts, 
 and after a time he grew more calm. He spoke of his 
 embarrassments, and appeared to show the greatest repugnance 
 to having to go through again all the degradation and miseries of 
 imprisonment and ruin. They parted at the Avenue Road bridge, 
 and on parting he said, " Tell your mother not to be anxious 
 about me," and went on his way.* About 5 p.m. he returned 
 home. He said he was not in sufficiently good spirits to stay 
 at Hampstead. At dinner he got up from his chair and turned 
 a glazed picture to the wall : his brain could not bear the re- 
 flected light. He looked flushed and haggard, and passed a 
 silent and abstracted evening. That night he was heard walking 
 about his room nearly the whole night, apparently in great 
 agitation. It was in those wakeful hours he settled his 
 resolve. He was dressed and out of his room early the next 
 morning (22nd June), and walked down, before breakfast, to 
 Riviere, a gunmaker in Oxford Street, near Regent Street. 
 II ore he bought one of a pair of pistols. He came home 
 about 9 a.m., breakfasted alone, then went to his painting- 
 room, and, probably, wrote the letters to his children, his 
 will,t and his " last thoughts." As my mother and sister 
 passed the painting-room door on their way to their rooms, 
 about KJ.oO a.m., they tried the door — it was locked — and 
 he called out very fiercely, " Who's there?" A few minutes 
 after, as if regretting the tone in which he had spoken, he 
 came up to my mother's room, kissed her affectionately, and 
 
 * My brother was so struck by this conversation that, on his return, he had the 
 intention of calling upon and consulting with tin,' farniiy medical man, but my 
 mother, to whom he mentioned his fears, laughed at the 'idea of my father com- 
 mitting "suicide," and begged of my brother to dismiss the suspicion from his 
 mind. Her treatment of his fears made him put aside his intention.— Ed. 
 
 t Being unwitnessed, it was invalid. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 237 
 
 lingered about the room as if he had something to say. Cut 
 he said little, except to ask her to call that day on an old friend 
 (one of the executors he had just named in his will) and, 
 returned to his painting-room, deliberately wrote in his 
 journal — 
 
 " God forgive me. — Amen ! " 
 
 " Stretch me no longer on this tongh -world." — Lear. 
 and in a few moments had destroyed himself. 
 
 My poor sister shortly afterwards, returning home alone, and 
 thinking to comfort and console her father in his anxieties, 
 stole gently down to his painting-room, tried the door, it 
 opened, and she looked in. What she saw I never dared to speak 
 to her about. A few weeks before her own death, in the dim twi- 
 light of a summer's night, she told me. At first, in the subdued 
 light of the painting-room, she could not distinguish clearly; and 
 the awful silence of the room, broken only by the loud ticking of 
 his watch, chilled her heart. It was as if some sorrow had passed 
 into the air, and oppressed her. She looked for him, but he was 
 not sitting at his table, though his watch was there, and his 
 Journal lay open, and some letters and a church-service she 
 had given to him. Nor was he in the further corner where he 
 commonly stood to study his picture. Another glance, and 
 she saw him lying on the floor. At first she thought he had 
 thrown himself on the floor to study the foreground of his 
 picture : she called gently to him, but he did not answer. She 
 came forward, and leaned hesitatingly over, fearing to disturb 
 him too abruptly, and softly called again. Still he was heed- 
 less. She looked steadily at him ; he was all on the floor, as 
 if huddled together. Then a horrible, an indescribable dread 
 seized her — he had fallen in a fit. She stepped close to him, 
 her foot slipped as she stooped quickly and touched his head, 
 which was cold as ice. She looked, and his ruddy cheek was 
 white and waxen as if with the pallor of death ; a fixed and 
 glassy light was in his eye, and he lay there without motion, 
 pulse, or breath. In a pool of what she first thought red 
 paint spilled upon the floor around her, she saw a razor, and 
 close to it a pistol. Then the awful truth flashed upon her mind 
 He had destroyed himself, and she was standing in his blood. 
 
 Thus died Haydon, by his own hand, in his sixty-first year, 
 in full vigour of life, and on the threshold of what appeared to 
 
238 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 be a hale old age. It was a sad end to a courageous life of 
 galling conditions : a poor reward for forty-two years of faith- 
 ful and struggling service to the public under mountains of 
 calumny, contradiction, and neglect. He was buried in Pad- 
 dington Churchyard, next to Mrs. Siddons, and in the midst of 
 his children who were so dear to his heart. His death created 
 a profound sensation ; and an enormous crowd followed him to 
 his grave. 
 
 Haydon left a widow and three children — all that survived 
 out of his family of eight. Two lovely girls and three boys had 
 sunk under the distresses of their home. Indeed, I am surprised 
 any of us survived. But a few years, and his widow was laid 
 by his side, worn prematurely to death by the sorrows and 
 anxieties of her life. A few more years, and his only surviving 
 daughter — once one of the most beautiful girls in England — 
 sunk into an early grave, carrying with her the recollections of 
 that terrible day, from the shock of which she never recovered. 
 And this is Historical Painting in England ! 
 
 Immediately on Haydon's death becoming known, the 
 nobility joined in a public meeting of condolence to the 
 family, and subscribed a sum of money for the benefit of 
 the widow and daughter, who would much prefer to have 
 refused it, but Lord Carlisle, Talfourd, and other old friends 
 insisted that the grave should cover all resentment, and it was 
 invested for their benefit. 
 
 It is, however, some satisfaction to be able to say that, how- 
 ever grateful I shall always feel towards those who subscribed 
 at the time, I have been relieved of the necessity of returning 
 the money to their families, as I had intended, by the fact 
 that, shortly after it came into my possession on the death of 
 my sister, it unexpectedly and hopelessly went down with its 
 bankers into the deep insolvent, before the necessary arrange- 
 ments for its return were completed by my solicitors. 
 
 Nor must I, in fairness to Sir Robert Peel, for I have no 
 wish to deprive him of his due, neglect to state that, on Hay- 
 don's death being made known to him, he instantly sent to 
 Haydon's widow an order on the Treasury for 200Z., also public 
 money, he removed Haydon's eldest son from the clerkship 
 given to him in 1845, to a less slenderly paid post under the 
 Board of Customs, and to the public subscription Sir Robert 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 239 
 
 Peel added 1007. of his own. But this was a mere " dipping of 
 his napkin in dead Caesar's blood." The whole sum total of all 
 he ever gave, of public and private money, including his first 
 107. for the taxes, and the 1367. for the ' Napoleon,' falls short 
 of the 50 J guineas he should have given Haydon in the first 
 instance for that picture.* 
 
 As Prime Minister, Sir Eobert Peel was then called upon to 
 advise Her Majesty to bestow a pension on the widow of Haydon. 
 The scale submitted and approved was not profuse. The same 
 spirit of guarded bounty prevailed here, and 2s. 9c?. a day was 
 considered, in the words of the Eoyal Warrant, to meet the 
 case of " Mrs. Haydon's distressed circumstances, and the merits 
 as an artist of her late husband.' f 
 
 Haydon's debts amounted to about 30007. His estimated 
 assets were about 20007. His will is a simple document, 
 expressed with brevity and pathos. He declares himself 
 clear in his intellect and decided in his resolution of purpose. 
 He acknowledges his debts with an uneasy apprehension that 
 he was morally wrong in incurring th?m, but, "considering the 
 precarious nature of the profession, pardon may be granted." 
 
 * Lady Peel was so ashamed of the whole transaction that she wrote a most 
 amiable "letter to my mother, and begged to be allowed to add another official 
 pension of 251. a year, all she had power to confer. When Mrs. Haydon died, 
 in 1 854, Lord Aberdeen refused to continue this pension to Haydon's daughter. 
 —Ed. 
 
 t The Warrant is "given at our Court at Buckingham Pab.ce, 1th July, 184C," 
 and is signed H. Gouiburn, H. Baring, and countersigned " R. Peel." This grant 
 of the half of a two-and-ninepenny pension per diem to Haydon s widow as the 
 official recognition, after forty-two years' silence, of Haydon's public services, 
 when compared with the grants of money and honours made within that p riod 
 to our naval and military officers, and to Court servants during their lifetime, 
 and then to their widows, and only for doing the duty they were appointed to 
 perform and paid for performing at tlie time, raises a qu. stion which I venture to 
 think is not sufficiently considered, viz., ought not the man who does something 
 for the public beyond his duty, something for which he is not hired and paid, and 
 could not be made liable to punishment for not doing, to have the priority of 
 pul'lic reward? It seems a fair question whi ther any man in the service of the 
 Crown has the right to consider himself entitled to honours and reward for doing 
 his duty. For what is a duty but an obligation you have undertaken and are 
 bound to discharge? But here is a man like Haydon (and there are probably 
 more like him at this moment in science and literature), without pay or reward, 
 devoting all his time, his talents, his private means, and all the energies of his 
 active and industrious mind, and sacrificing the interests of his family, to effect 
 certain great public benefits, when he is under 110 obligation to do anything of 
 the kind, and cannot be punished if he refuse. Provided the result he aims at 
 be a publ c benefit, and proves to be one, has he not the first claim to honour and 
 reward during his lifetime, to say nothing of something more liberal to his 
 widow, if she needs it, than a mere labourer's daily wage ? Surely Haydon's 
 case, and it is not the only one, shows an inequality here that ought to be 
 levelled, and occasionally one so gross— instances are familiar to all of us — that 
 Parliament, which has tlie power, should insist upon the levelling.— Ed. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 He asks forgiveness of his creditors. He declares he meant 
 all in honour* He names the Duke of Sutherland, Talfourd, 
 and others, as his best friends. He calls Sir Robert Peel 
 his "dear friend." If it were not that he desired to die in 
 charity with all men, and, that this was written in such an 
 awful moment, I should set it down as the only bit of insincerity 
 in the will, for he well knew that Sir Robert Peel was not his 
 " dear friend," but had helped to ruin him, and that the hor- 
 rible act he was about to commit, he had been greatly driven to 
 by the unceasing and deliberate pressure of the Prime Minister. 
 Finally he begs his wife and children to forgive him, " for this 
 additional pang will be the last, and relieved from the burden 
 of my ambition, they will be happier and suffer less." 
 
 The will is written in a firm, bold hand throughout. He 
 wrote letters to his children, and among others, one to Sir 
 Robert Peel, the contents of which have never transpired. 
 
 With regard to the amount of patronage and support which 
 Haydon received from the nobility, although he had many 
 kind friends among them, such as the late Lord Westmoreland 
 and the late Lord Ellesmere, and others, I find upon careful 
 calculation that he got nothing like the sums commonly 
 supposed. In the forty-two years of his professional life, 
 Haydon was paid and presented by the nobility, with a sum 
 of money not exceeding in all 2701'?., the greater proportion 
 of which was paid over to him by the Dukes of Bedford and 
 Sutherland. 
 
 From our Royal Family Haydon, in that time, received one 
 commission of 500 gs. from King George IV., and one subscrip- 
 tion of 10 gs. from King William IV. If the weight of gold 
 kings bestow on the professors of art, literature, or science, 
 is any proof of their esteem, Haydon must have stood low. Her 
 present Majesty did not honour Haydon with her royal pa- 
 tronage or support ; on the contrary, Her Majesty refused to 
 appoint him her Historical Painter. His late Royal Highness 
 the Prince Consort also declined to employ Haydon when 
 solicited to do so by one of his friends; and when Haydon, in 
 1814, requested His Royal Highness's acceptance of his ' Essay 
 on Fresco Painting,' His Royal Highness desired the Essay to 
 be returned. " Les rois ont plus de cceur que nous, lis oublient 
 plus tot les services que les offenses." 
 
 Thus, if we put together the patronage of the Sovereign 
 
 * I have heard one of his largest creditors express his firm belief in this. — En, 
 
B. R. II A YD ON. 
 
 241 
 
 and of the Government, and the patronage and gifts of the 
 nobility, we shall find it does not average more than 81)7. a 
 year. This is not extravagant support for a rich country 
 like England. It would hardly pay for the models and canva3 
 of a dealer's hack. Nor is there one instance in the forty-two 
 years of Haydon's life of any single member of the nobility or 
 Royal Family employing him as their Art Instructor, or having 
 sent pupils, or taking the slightest interest in his School. 
 How then did Haydon contrive to live? He maintained him- 
 self mainly by the support the public gave to his Exhibitions, 
 by the help of his personal friends, Dawson Turner and Joseph 
 Strutt, for example, largely and generously accorded, by the 
 patronage of the untitled classes, by his pupils, and latterly, 
 to a small extent, by his lectures. But he was made, if 
 ever a man was, for great public works, and that was denied 
 him by the governing classes. One hour of Lorenzo the Mag- 
 nificent would have changed his fate and fortunes. But Sove- 
 reigns with a ta>te for Dutch and German art, Parliaments that 
 knew nothing of the functions of Art, and Prime Ministers who 
 thought drawing of no use, or did not recognise the beauties or 
 value of the Elgin Marbles, have no sympathy with men like 
 Haydon. They do not understand them. They are an enigma. 
 The Minister would in'initely prefer they should take a com- 
 mercial view of their art, paint only what pays best, and, to 
 use the words of a recent critic on Haydon, " male themselves 
 comfortable on the ordinary level" and paint "neat little historical 
 pictures such as the British millionaire can appreciate," * rather 
 than they should seek to raise the taste of the nation by 
 striving to restore a lost excellence, or to simplify principles 
 for the instruction of the people. 
 
 Haydon left behind him not more than 250 paintings of 
 all sizes, including oil sketches. His art pupils all proved 
 capable men, and some won the highest distinction. As to 
 the real position of Haydon in his Art, that is a subject of 
 so controversial a nature, and in the present passion for 
 " polish " and " detail," one which may be expected to excite 
 so much testiness and opposition, it is hardly possible it 
 should receive fair consideration. It is rarely a controversial 
 man like Haydon is judged, in his own century, with that 
 broad and impartial spirit to which his original Jorce of mind 
 
 * 'Blackwood,' June, 187o.-Ed. 
 VOL. I. K 
 
242 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 and inventive power lias fair claim. A man who does what 
 his fiery intellect prompts, and not what the world expects, 
 never meets with fair play in his own century. Certainly, to 
 be " scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill," is peculiarly 
 Haydon's misfortune. So far as I can see, Haydon's critics 
 appear to think only of detecting and exposing his defects, 
 and of judging him either by what he does not do, or by 
 the worst of what he does. This is glib, but hardly sound. 
 It is on a par with that king of France, who condemned 
 his whole supper for the sin of a " ragout." You might as 
 well judge Raphael by his trees, Newton by his Chronology, or 
 Sir Walter Scott by his Life of Napoleon. Even Mr. Watts, 
 of whom Haydon bad the h'gbest hopes, in his critical examina- 
 tion of Haydon's works, devotes all the powers of his mind in 
 this spirit. But the result is not the product of a workman. 
 Mr. Watts begins at the wrong end. He devotes three pages 
 to point'ng out assumed blemishes, three lines to admitting 
 but not pointing out the greater beauties, and then ends by 
 impugning Haydon's motives, and damns him altogether. This 
 is neither generous nor just. And there is always something 
 suspicious in the " imputation " of motive. The question is, 
 in the works of which painter are no imperfections to be 
 found? Is it in Titian, in Carlo Dolci, in Raphael, in Michel 
 Angelo, Rubens, Guido, the Caracci, Velasquez, Murdlo, Cor- 
 reggio, or Reynolds, with his bad drawing? Why, all tho 
 painted works that ever were are more or less imperfect. 
 There is only a portion of excellence in the finest of them, 
 end that is what we have to search out and study. Having 
 once traced that, we may look for defects if we please. That 
 is the lowest step, not the first in criticism. That Haydon, 
 in common with the rest, exhibits defects, I do not presume to 
 deny. Defects cf taste and refinement, wanting at times in 
 natural grace, and with disproportion, in a greater degree than, 
 apparently, ought to be found.* But consider first the circum- 
 stances under which he painted ; and with a painter, you must 
 consider the circumstances, the harass of his mind, the pressure 
 from pecuniary anxieties, the base, the abject want of some 
 periods, the bitter sorrow of others, the cruel pain of nearly 
 all, and the cramped space in which he was compelled by the 
 nobility to live and paint. Consider all this, and instead of 
 
 * In his Painting-room, in Burwood Place, he was so cramped it was impossible 
 to judge distant etiects correctly. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 243 
 
 blaming him for not leaving his works pe rfect, wonder with 
 me there are so few defects. For is it not a truth that, to 
 get his best work from the artist, you must ensure his creative 
 power freedom from disturbances? 
 
 Throughout his whole career, I only know one period when 
 Haydon's mind was comparatively unharassed, when he worked 
 freely as to space and with a certain sense of relief fiom 
 pecuniary pressure, though then afflicted by ill-health and 
 interrupted by other disturbing causes, and that was between 
 1815 and 1820, when painting the ' Jerusalem.' The: e, indeed, 
 we may see his art fairly. Bewick saw that picture painted, 
 and he has left it on record, that there is " not an eye, nor an 
 ear, nor a nostril, nor even a finger-nail that is not a perfect 
 study." Competent judges, yet living, who remember the 
 picture, speak of it with enthusiasm as " a most glorious work." 
 All the testimony on the point tells us not only how honest a 
 painter Haydon was by inclination and habit, but how reflective 
 was the art of his execution. Nothing laboured, but nothing 
 hasty or slurred, when he had time at his command, and no 
 family to maintain. And even when he had not this time, 
 and was weighted with encumbrances, in the works of which 
 modern historical painter shall we find nobler contrasts to his 
 utmost imperfections ? 
 
 Haydon's art is a learned and thoughtful art of Form, 
 Expression, and Colour ; and by expression I mean not only the 
 aspect of the face, but the action of the figure. In breadth, 
 size, drawing, and power, he has no equal in the schools of 
 Europe. Where is the modern painter who has approached 
 him in knowledge and correct drawing of the human figure ? 
 I assert, without fear of being refuted, that his elbows, arms, 
 hands, knees and feet, are beyond anything in modern art, and 
 put all his contemporaries, and most of his successors, to shame. 
 Who has surpassed him in power of composition, in sublimity 
 of expression, in beauty of form, in richness and purity of tone 
 and colour ? Then where are we to find a man so varied and 
 so versatile — who has given us so grand a representation of 
 * i he Judgment of Solomon,' in Hazlitt's opinion, " the very 
 finest work of that high class since the days of Titian ;" or, 
 " so glorious and so complete " a painting of the ' Entry into 
 Jerusalem,' a work that, in the opinion of the most competent 
 judges of that day, stamped Haydon as the "greatest historical 
 painter England had ever produced." Who has ever con- 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 eeived and painted so sublime a head of 'Lazarus risen from 
 his Grave,' so poetical a 'Napoleon,' so exquisite and pathetic 
 a 'Penitent Girl'? Yet who has given us a more genuine 
 bit of coarse humour and character than * John Bull at 
 Breakfast,' and 4 Falstaff ' in his ' pride of grease;' or of pathos 
 and humour such as we see in his 'Mock Election,' and 
 its companion picture? Hogarth could not have equalled 
 Hay don in these on the scale they are painted. Yet again, 
 the same right hand gave us the youthful grace and fire of 
 ' Alexander and Bucephalus,' the beauty and character of the 
 ' May Day,' the dignity of ' Uriel,' the vindictive envy of 
 'Satan' as he swoops down on Paradise, the failing limbs and 
 death-stricken face of ' Eucles,' the marvellous horse of 
 'Curtius,' and the desperation of 'Dentatus'! These are his 
 minor works. But, in Italy, each of these would have made 
 the reputation of a man. In England, Haydon could sell 
 only three, and was never asked to paint a fourth. 
 
 To my mind, Haydon's strength, and indeed his distinguishing 
 excellence, lies in the grandeur and sublimity of his thoughts, 
 as much as in the spirit of his execution, and in his power of 
 drawing, expression, and humour. 
 
 When Haydon had to deal with poetical conception of cha- 
 racter, with subjects depending on the momentary expression 
 of passion, or of awe, when he had to paint the soul of a man, 
 which can only be seized and developed in the imagination, 
 I believe he will be found to rank with the greatest painters. 
 I do not believe it to be possible for the imagination of man 
 to conceive anything surpassing the expression of 'Lazarus.' 
 And Time will confirm this, and confirm also what is already 
 beginning to dawn upon the minds of the most thoughtful of 
 his critics, viz. : his extraordinary power of humour, the humour 
 of the greatest creators, the humour touched with pathos. 
 What, then, is the real complaint against him ? It is " want 
 of finish ; " he is rough, he is not " polished." In other words, 
 Haydon stamps his own character too prominently upon his 
 Art. That is true ; but it is there, and will remain there, 
 and we must make the best of it. His works are the residt 
 of thoughts rapidly expressed, nothing laboured, rapid but 
 full of thought. In a letter to the late Mr. Dilke (184!) 
 Haydon writes, "Nowhere is the principle of relative and 
 essential form so out of place as in an English exhibition. 
 The taste is altering — detail, copper finish, and polished 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 varnish are required instead of breadth, size, drawing, power." 
 Nothing can more completely express the difference between 
 Haydon and his modern critics. They want the fly on the 
 priest's nose, which Thackeray surveyed at the ceremony over 
 the entombment of the First Napoleon. Critics like Thackeray 
 see only the fly ; men like Haydon see something more ; and 
 although Haydon would not omit the fly if it was there, he 
 would not imitate it into prominence. For he always refused 
 to mingle the principles of sculpture with those of painting. 
 "When he had fully conveyed his intention, that is when he had 
 given an exact representation at the one moment a painter 
 has, he held his picture to be finished. But he modified or 
 increased the amount of finish according to the scale of his 
 painting. Proper finishing in Haydon's opinion was seizing 
 the leading points of things with truth and correctness, so that 
 they predominate over the subordinate parts, although these 
 are not to be neglected. In other words, > ou are to define 
 things so as to make them intelligible at the proper distance. 
 Hence this appearance of a rough surface is due, in. Haydon, to 
 intentional handling, not to slovenly practice, or want of skill 
 to execute. High polish and equal elaboration of all detail 
 are not a true representation. Eaphael's principle is the 
 principle which guided Haydon and Gainsborough, another 
 non-polisher, viz. that the inferior parts only are to be touched, 
 leaving the atmosphere to complete the effect. No man knew 
 better than Haydon when to leave off; witness his head of 
 Lazarus. I venture to assert that it is not minute finish, 
 but gradations of tone that constitute the true refinement of 
 painting. 
 
 That his trees and skies are punted without "finish" is, 
 I admit, perfectly true. I will even go further, and say that 
 he is apparently careless on these external matttrs of detail, 
 but it is the carelessness of internal and conscious power. He 
 no more worked up minor points than Raphael his trees and 
 skies, and even horses. " A button," as Haydon says in one of his 
 letters to Easilake (22 March, 1818), "is more easily finished 
 than a face. If the button be h'ghly wrought, it will be sure 
 to attract more than the face ; but a great mind will sacrifice 
 the button to the face." Here is the true philosophy of art. 
 
 I recollect once watching him paint the eye of a horse, 
 and how with a few masterly touches he gave the exact form 
 of the brow, the lid, and the pupil, and just in so many touches 
 
246 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 as were requisite to represent them, and no more. To me, 
 standing close by his side, it looked like so many dabs of 
 colour, and I laughed. "Come here," he said, "and look." I 
 fell back to the proper distance, and I saw sharpness, softness, 
 form, and all the characteristics of nature hit off exactly as it 
 appeared in the horse at my side. Haydon had touched with 
 unerring certainty the leading points, leaving the atmosphere 
 to complete the rest. Here was real art based on sound 
 knowledge. 
 
 No doubt in so bold a style as Hayd n preferred the delicate 
 excellencies of elaborate pi disk may be missed, but that does 
 not deprive him of credit, for execution. The same complaint 
 was made against Gainsborough. " But," says his great rival 
 !Sir Joshua Keynolds, " all those odd sc atches and marks so 
 observable in Gainsborough's pictures, this chaos, this uncouth 
 shapeless appearance, by a kind of magic at a certain dis- 
 tance assume form, and all the parts seem to drop into their 
 proper places, so that we can hardly refuse acknow ledging the 
 full effect of diligence under the appearance of chance and 
 hasty negligence." The same may certainly be said of Haydon. 
 
 Another fault found with him is an extravagant display of 
 muscular action. But to paint the naked in action requires 
 knowledge, and if the subjects painted admit of the disp'ay, 
 where is the objection ? It would have been easier for Haydon 
 to cover his figures with drapery, but he preferred for the 
 interests of art to show how limbs and hands and feet should 
 be painted. " On ne voyagerait pas sur la nier pour ne jamais 
 en rien dire." Besides, I doubt if Haydon's display of his 
 anatomical knowledge is extravagant. It may look unusual, 
 but careful study will show that it is not extravagant. It 
 certainly never approaches the violent distortions of Michel 
 Angelo. He combines, as Eastlake says, " the bursting-strength 
 of Michel Angelo with the nimble elegance" of the Greek 
 statues, and never fails in harmony of action between limbs 
 and muscles.' 
 
 Finally, with his faults, real and alleged, of three things I 
 feel satisfied : first, that Haydon always approached his work 
 with reverence, and parted from it with regret. Secondly, 
 that what he endeavoured to do was to be true to the con- 
 ditions of his subject, and produce a work of art that should 
 appeal to our higher feelings and sympathies, not a mere 
 imitation of nature. And thirdly that, no one knew better 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 247 
 
 than himself what is perfection in art, nor how far short lie 
 Ciime of that ideal excellence he aimed at, though his sense of 
 incompleteness is not generally that of his critics. It is true 
 that his happiness was in the applause of the world, but it was 
 not in his own self-approbation, for he rarely had it. Only 
 when others censured he could compare himself with them, 
 and although he well knew how imperfect he was in com- 
 parison with excellence, he knew quite as well how inferior his 
 critics were in comparison with him. 
 
 At the same time I must admit that some persons of feeling 
 and judgment do complain of Haydon's Scriptural works, of 
 his earlier career, very much resembling, to them, the 'Lara,' 
 ' Childe Harold,' and romantic poems of Byron's earlier days, 
 in being, as it were, rather academic exercises of power and 
 skill than, the genuine product of the whole nature of the man. 
 And that, although both Haydon's Scriptural pictures and 
 Byron's romantic poems are full of " fiue bits," and have here 
 and there splendid " flashes of genius," they are on the Whole 
 failures, because done with a purpose, and to a certain extent 
 " in masquerade." But the error of this view is surely in con- 
 founding the conception of the work with its representation in 
 detail, at least, with the painter. A poet cannot always con- 
 ceive a situation which he has not experienced ; Byron, I 
 believe, was one of these. But I do not think this can be said 
 of a painter gifted with invention, and least of all, of Haydon. 
 He may not have succeeded in transferring to his canvas this 
 conceptions of his mind so successfully as to excite at once 
 in others, of less vivid imagination, a similar mental and 
 emotional state to that which had produced the picture. But 
 that does not lay him open to the charge of not giving us the 
 " genuine product " of his mind, so far as it was developed at 
 that period. The humour that was in Haydon was certainly 
 not awakened until a later period. That was suddenly uncoiled 
 by what passed before his eyes when in prison in 1827. The 
 list of thirty-eight historical subjects Haydon made out for 
 himself, when only nineteen years of age, shows the bent of 
 his mind previous to 1827 ; and although I have no wish to be 
 partial, I do believe Haydon, between 1805 and 1827* to have 
 been moved, first, by powerful devotional fervour, by a pas- 
 sionate desire to illustrate the life of Christ, and, secondly, 
 by a genuine public ardour, with less thought of proving how 
 well he could paint, without going to Italy, than to make 
 
2 4 3 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 others feel what he felt, and what he wished done for the 
 moral improvement as much as for the splendour and profit of 
 England. And in this I am confirmed by Eastlake, Seymour 
 Kirkup, Wordsworth, and other competent judges. 
 
 For my own part, I feel satisfied, from the terms in which I 
 have heard him spoken of in Paris, in Madrid, and by the 
 Germans, that Hay don's reputation as a painter will last as 
 long as there is an artist in Europe ; that his reputation as a 
 writer and lecturer on art is unrivalled ; and that before 
 another century has come and gone, his pictures, in England 
 will be thought out in their own language, and he will take 
 that rank in English art which may be denied him now, but 
 to which he must most unquestionably succeed. 
 
 Let us now, in conclusion, look fairly at the prospect his 
 life presents. Grant all the errors and imperfections attributed 
 to him — his want of tact and dignity — his intense self-will — his 
 hatred of control — his impatience of ignorance — yet what a 
 balance remains in his favour ! A man of genius and of great 
 resource, with fine poetic imagination and vehement enthusiasm, 
 but essentially active, practical and shrewd, possessing a pro- 
 found knowledge of his art, and gitted with the spirit of design ; 
 a man that any country might be proud to place at the head of 
 her Art Institutions and employ upon works of public decoration, 
 that he should animate, impel, and enrich the nation by his 
 genius and labour. And what is his fate in England ? He is 
 roughly repressed by that special Inst tution established for 
 the support and protection of the able and eminent in his pro- 
 fession, and repelled from her doors. He is rejected by the 
 Government, neglected by the Nobility, and driven by the cre- 
 dulity and indifference of both to pass the greater part of his 
 life in distracting poverty, or imprisonment, drudging and 
 struggling for his daily bread, copying his own works, which 
 others could have done as well, and squandering his fine powers 
 for a bare subsistence, which in the end he fails to make, and dies. 
 
 It is a reflection upon the governing classes of that civilized 
 nation where such things are possible and permitted in art, in 
 literature, or in science. When a man who has proved his 
 capacity in either stands before them, and asks for employment, 
 that should be found him. 
 
 Yet disprized and neglected as he was by his own Nobility 
 and Government, Haydon played a great part in the Art of 
 
ydon'sFace taken After Dkat 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 240 
 
 Europe. His discovery of the Principles of Nature, upon which 
 the School of Pheidias worked, and his carrying those prin- 
 ciples into practice and instruction, was an enormous benefit to 
 Art. By him the fading historical art of England was, for a 
 period, arrested. He saved the Elgin Marbles to us ; he was 
 the real leader in the foundation of our Schools of Design ; he 
 gave the right direction to the training and education of artist 
 and artisan, however viciously departed from by the authorities 
 since his death ; he was the man whose steady action moved 
 Parliament in favour of public employment for our Painters; 
 and he advanced the cause of Art and Design throughout 
 the empire. 
 
 I cannot help thinking when an impartial posterity comes 
 to reckon up the services of those Englishmen who have 
 laboured scientifically to promote the educational value and 
 functions of art in its relation to our national life, Haydon's 
 name will not stand low upon the list, for the light he left 
 behind him will assuredly be lasting. 
 
 And thus it was that Haydon lived and died. This 
 is the story of his life. He gave to our common country, 
 to our Art, and to our artisans the disinterested labour of 
 a patriotic life, and he left the memory of his death to 
 the indelible disgrace of the Government and Nobility of 
 England. 
 
 Sketch from Haydon's Journal of a Figure in the ' Jerusalem.' 
 
GENEKAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 From W. Jackson (the Painter). 
 
 DEAR HaYDON", London, 30th May, 1805. 
 
 Your letter afforded me exquisite pleasure, not only 
 from the great regard I have for you, but also from your 
 philosophic manner of reasoning. I do firmly believe that 
 painters are capable of more real gratification than any other 
 professional man whatever. But let us be careful to merit 
 the name, for how many are there not in our days and genera- 
 tion who may justly be styled miserable daubers ! 
 
 Poor dear Mr. Fuseli has been in the country almost ever 
 since you left, on account of having suffered the misfortune to 
 be knocked down and run over by a coach, returning from the 
 theatre one evening. 1 never could learn particularly how 
 he was hurt. I believe his ankle was sprained, and he was 
 otherwise much bruised ; but he is doing well again, I hope. 
 The Academy, I regret to say, will not be fit for the reception 
 of the " hell-hounds" before July. What a disgrace to the 
 institution ! 
 
 With regard to your observation concerning taste, I am 
 really of your opinion, " It will unavoidably be regulated by 
 what is continually before our eyes;" and "a student ought 
 to be debarred the sight of works replete with gross errors," is 
 a maxim upon such authority that M. Mengs himself could 
 never upset. You say you have been drawing in Indian ink ; 
 that is a practice I should rather be disposed to dissuade you 
 from. Though you may certainly acquire the knowledge of 
 the anatomy as well in that manner as any other, yet why not 
 use the tools by which your reputation is to be acquired . J 
 Depend upon it, my dear fellow, there is more real difficulty 
 in successfully handling the bru?h than some people are aware 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 of; therefore, the sooner we begin to u~e it the bettor. Fur 
 my part, I don't mean to draw much more, even in chalk. 1 
 have been advised by Sir George Beaumont, since I saw you, 
 to paint all my studies at the Academy in black and white. 
 
 I have not seen many sales lately, not even the Shake-peare. 
 I hear that the 'Cardinal Beaufort' was sold for the price 
 which was given for it, and the ' Caldron Scene ' for less than 
 500/. Mr. Fuseli's sold for little or nothing. You won't lose 
 
 much by not seeing this year's exhibition. It is an of 
 
 wretchedness. Hoppner made some pitiful excuses to me, but 
 I have not room to repeat them. I will tell you all when we 
 meet. Your old friend, " God Bless my Soul," inquired after 
 you the other dny. 1 met him in the street. 
 
 I have had the great pleasure, through the kindness of an 
 old medical friend, to see many curious anatomies lately. I 
 intend to have a subject for my own di section. Will you 
 join me ? Only, for Heaven's sake, let us be sure that he is 
 not murdered, and that he is quite dead. 
 
 Ever, my dear fellow, 
 
 Yours most sincere, 
 
 W. Jackson. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR FlUEND, Mulgrave Castle, 7th September, 1806. 
 
 . . . We have a Colonel and Mrs. Welch here, and 
 Sir George and Lady Beaumont have arrived, so that we only 
 want Mr. Jackson to complete the party. It will, perhaps, 
 give you some pleasure to hear that you are not unfrequently 
 the subject of their conversation. It appears that Mr. Jackson 
 has spoken very highly of you several times to Lord Mul- 
 grave, and I have told them of the picture you are at present 
 engaged with, which has raised their curiosity and expecta- 
 tions. Sir George has expressed a desire to call upon you 
 when he returns to London, and Lord Mnlgrave desires me to 
 transcribe a few lines on a subject which he seems very much 
 to wish to have painted, as he admires it for its grandeur. 
 He wishes to know if you think it would suit your ideas, 
 although he would not wish to put any re ■ train t upon your 
 inclination. The subject has seldom or never been painted, 
 which his Lordship thinks is an advantage to it. I have 
 
2j2 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 enclosed the lines* in this letter, so that you may take your 
 own time to think of it ; but I will hope to see you myself 
 before it will be necessary for you to give any opinion. 
 
 Sir George Beaumont is to allow me fifty guineas for my 
 picture,! if 1 am satisfied with it. lie says he never intende 1 
 to fix it at the twenty-five guineas, but only mentioned that at 
 the time to Mr. Jackson, as being the lowest that he would 
 give. I think his offer is very liberal, and I think you will be 
 of the same opinion. 
 
 We are all astonished that Mr. Jackson is not yet arrived, 
 as we hear he was to leave London more than a week ago ; 
 but he is not one of those who are scrupulously punctual to 
 their word, else we might be very uneasy about him. I find 
 that Lord Mulgrave is as well acquainted with his failings 
 as we arc. He laughs at his unsteadiness, is pleased with his 
 simplicity, admires his talents, but grieves at his want of 
 industry ; and, moreover, observes that Jackson is a person 
 he never could be angry with. I understand he is to paint 
 the portrait of Mrs. Welch when he comes here. If he does 
 not make a fine picture of her, it will be his ow r n fault, for she 
 is a most beautiful woman. . . . 
 
 I am, my dear friend, yours sincerely, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 From David W 7 ilkie. 
 
 My DEAR FRIEND, Cults, N.B., 3rd June, 1F07. 
 
 Considering that of writing to you is the first duty I 
 have to discharge on my arrival in Scotland, I have taken 
 this as the first opportunity that my time would allow since 
 I came to my father's house. I left London, as I purposed, 
 when I saw you, on the day following, and, after a favourable 
 passage of live days, during which I was sick almost from 
 beginning to end, we arrived at Leith the Friday following. 
 I stopped in Edinburgh ten days, which I spent in calling on 
 a number of my friends ; and amongst them my old master, 
 Mr. Graham, who was very glad to see me, and who was the 
 only person I have met with in Scotland who could talk 
 reasonably about the art, for I must confess the people of 
 Edinburgh seem to be far behind in their knowledge of that 
 
 * An extract from Hook's 'Roman History,' relating to the 'Death of Den- 
 talus,' the subject of tie picture subsequently puinted. — Ed. 
 f Tue ' Blind Fiddler.'— Ed. 
 
DavifJ mkie m aasaryurnerd. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 253 
 
 subject. I find nothing so remarkable in Edinburgh as to 
 merit being mentioned to you, except that Mr. Geddes is 
 flourishing at a great rate, and making money in the portrait- 
 line ; and from the speeches he occasionally makes, he is con- 
 sidered by some, who think themselves connoisseurs, as a great 
 genius. From Edinburgh I came on to my father's house on 
 Monday last. I have not yet had time to begin anything, 
 as my painting apparatus is not yet come to hand ; but I have 
 been looking about in the village for subjects of study, and I 
 have the satisfaction to find a great number of scenes almost 
 superior to anything I have yet seen, that combine the most 
 interesting sweetness with the most picturesque effect. 
 
 On my first landing in Scotland, the effect which the Scottish 
 dialect had on my ear was very surprising. .All my friends 
 seemed to spealc a language which I had never heard before, 
 and sc great is the contrast between my mode of speaking and 
 theirs, that they think I speak the English language in all 
 its purity, an opinion in which I am very much inclined to 
 agree. I request you will remember me particularly to Mr. 
 Jackson ; say that I am exceedingly sorry at not having seen 
 him before I left London, and that I will probably write him. 
 Let me know what progress you make with your picture, and 
 Believe me, my dear Haydon, yours truly, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Cults, Stli October, 1807. 
 
 The intelligence of your success in portrait-painting at 
 Plymouth was a piece of joyful news to me, the more so as I 
 assume to myself not only the merit of suggesting the plan, 
 but of anticipating its success. I cannot, however, help being 
 a little surprised at the rapid accumulation of such a sum of 
 money as that you mention in your letter ; and I am tempted 
 to intrude upon you another piece of advice, which 1 hope 
 will not be less successfully followed than that I gave you 
 before, which is — to go on at the same trade for a little longer, 
 for I promise you that you will not have either time or inclina- 
 tion to return to it on any future occasion. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Davtd Wilkie. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, London, November, 1S07. 
 
 The shocking and unexpected account of your mother's 
 death struck me with a degree of amazement and horror, which 
 you may easily imagine such unlooked-for intelligence would 
 produce. Your letter from Exeter led me to anticipate some- 
 thing of the kind ; but I still entertained the hope of seeing, 
 and of endeavouring to contribute in some measure to alleviate 
 the misfortunes of a person to whom my friendship for you had 
 led me to regard with a kind of filial affection and veneration. 
 If I could have been of the smallest use to you at Salthill — 
 indeed, if you had but hinted the slightest desire of seeing me, 
 I should have been happy to have come to you the same day I 
 got your letter. 
 
 Although I have not myself (thank God) had the misfortune 
 to experience the loss of a mother, I can easily imagine the 
 effect such a calamitous circumstance would produce on a mind 
 much less sensitive than yours would be so great as to render 
 any consolation that I could administer quite ineffectual. 
 Indeed were I to comfort you by desiring you to forget your 
 afflictions and to think no more of the loss you have sustained, 
 I should only show by such an unnatural request a great want 
 of feeling for your misfortune ; nay, I believe it will be much 
 more consonant with your present state of mind and more con- 
 genial with the sorrows of your heart to assure you that not 
 only I but all your friends join you in your lamentations and 
 pity your misfortunes. . . . Lord Mulgrave was very sorry, 
 and observed that you should come to town as soon as you can 
 and leave those scenes which can only recall the remembrance 
 of happier days. . . . Mr. Fuseli also was much afflicted, and 
 said he would write you again if he thought it would comfort 
 you. I wish my writing to you now may be attended with the 
 same effect, liemember me with respect and affection to your 
 father; give my love to your sister. I should have liked to 
 have seen her in London, although I lament both the cause of 
 her coming to town and the cause of her not reaching it. 
 
 I am, my dear friend, 
 
 Yours with affection, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 253 
 
 From Mr. Haydon to his Son, B. P.. Haydon. 
 
 Plymouth, 15th September, 1808. 
 
 By this time I hope you have got the account of the 
 unconditional surrender of Junot, with the French army and 
 Russian fleet, to Admiral Sir C. Cotton. It is a most glorious 
 finish of the business in Portugal, and although Mr. Boney 
 may and will, no doubt, push on his hosts into Spain, I trust 
 and hope in God he will meet with nothing but a series of 
 defeats. He has already lost more than 70,000 of his best 
 troops, and I trust the Spanish armies, with our assistance 
 now Portugal is free, will, as they must be better organised 
 after six months' hard fighting, prove a match for Boney and 
 all his crew.* 
 
 I sent the Admiralty, last Saturday, the first account of the 
 gallant business of the 1 Seahorse,' 38 guns, and a Turkish 
 50-gun ship, and two of 32 guns. The first she captured after an 
 action of three hours and a half, the second she sunk, and the 
 third ran away ! Yesterday's post brings me a very hand- 
 some letter of thanks from Mr. Pole, by command of tLeir 
 Lordships. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 From Haydon to his Father. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, London, 21st December, 1S08. 
 
 It is impossible for me to explain to you all my views 
 for the art of my glorious country in the limits of a single 
 letter ; it would take a ream of Fenzi's largest sheets. The 
 Elgin Marbles will produce a revolution in the art of this 
 country. The academic style, thank God, is done for — and 
 done for, for ever. No more " sign-painting " now, if the artists 
 can only appreciate what a treasure we have got. But I fear 
 
 * This is curious as showing the nature of the first news of the Convention of 
 Cintra. The rage and indignation of the English people when tho real terms 
 granted to the French and Russians came out, viz., that they weie to be carried 
 at the chorge of England to their own countries and landed free to serve again 
 directly in the war, was in proportion to their former joy, and led to tho famous 
 inquiry which freed Sir Arthur Wellesley from all blame, but, as usual, left the 
 question of the real culprit undecided. — Ed. 
 
2 S 6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 them; I fear the low taste of the patrons. Art is looked upon 
 as nothing but a sort of gilding for their drawing-rooms and 
 chimney-pieces. They have no conception of its public func- 
 tion : it is lamentable, but it is true. But I will do my best 
 to raise their taste and to bring the people to regard Art as a 
 delightful means of moral elevation; but to do this I must 
 touch their pockets. I must show them it may be made a great 
 means of material s" access. Oh ! if God only spares my life 
 and grants me health and eyesight, I will try to make a great 
 revolution in this country before I die. Would you believe it, 
 there is not a single school of design to teach our manufacturers 
 how to draw ? And this with the example of Italy before their 
 eyes, where all the artists and the artisans were instructed in the 
 same school in the same principles ! Can anyone wonder at the 
 beauty of their work in everything, and the ugliness and stu- 
 pidity of ours? Oh! why was I born in this age? Why did 
 I not live in the days when great patrons appreciated a man 
 with high aims, and encouraged the development of his finest 
 powers ? Here, what hope have I among a nobility so ignorant, 
 and with tastes so low ? * * * * 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 Haydon to Lord Elgin, on some proposed Restorations to the 
 Elgin Marbles. 
 
 My dear Lord Elgin, December, isos. 
 
 I hope you will excuse my troubling you once more 
 about the marbles. You said you intended to offer premiums 
 to those who would produce the best restorations. Now, to 
 restore the mutilated parts of any figure, as they ought to be 
 restored, pre-supposes a thorough knowledge of the character of 
 what remains. This could not be expected from students on 
 their first admission. I would venture, therefore, to propose, 
 that a twelvemonth should be given to them to model and 
 investigate before they commenced restoring, and then I think 
 your Lordship would have better chance of their succeeding. 
 I am so interested in anything that concerns the marbles, that 
 they are become part of my existence. 
 
 I am, my dear Lord Elgin, 
 
 Your grateful and faithful servant, 
 
 B. E. Haydon 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 257 
 
 Haydon to his Father. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER. London, 1st April, 1803. 
 
 As you may suppose, my situation at present is far from 
 being a very calm one — full of doubts, fears, and anxiety about 
 the success of my picture.* It occupies my mind all day, and 
 harasses it a great part of the night ; even my dreams are filled 
 ■with it in some way or other. 1 dreamed the other night that 
 the exhibition was opened, and I ran immediately, of course, 
 to discover whether my picture was hung well or not. To 
 my utter astonishment I could not find it in any part of the 
 Academy ! In a great rage I went to Fuseli and told him how 
 infamously I had been used. He then came out with me, and 
 after a long search found my poor picture covered over with a 
 table-cloth under the kitchen table. Just as I was beginning 
 
 to stamp with rage, I awoke ! | I hope will not now neglect 
 
 me ; at such a time I stand so much in need of support. Con- 
 sider how very few have their minds so cultivated as to feel the 
 beauty of Homer or Milton, Virgil or Dante, and I feel afraid 
 that there are still fewer whom a poetical picture can affect. 
 
 To understand anything in the highest branches of any 
 science presupposes a refined and cultivated mind ; and when 
 I reflect how few men are capable of being cultivated, whatever 
 advantages of education or self-improvement they may have, 
 it indeed makes me melancholy. To see such men as Milton, 
 Otway, and Butler, with imagination that had raised them 
 above the level, die neglected and unnoticed, gives me a 
 lamentable proof of the barbarous ignorance and brutality of 
 my countrymen. No nation on earth I believe has produced 
 greater men, and no great men in any other country have had 
 such difficulties to contend with. 
 
 Ever your affectionate son, 
 
 B. B. Haydon. 
 
 Extract from a Letter to his Father. 
 
 Loudon, 10th April, 1809. 
 I am never daunted, frightened, or depressed, at diffi- 
 culties, however great. Difficulties and dangers are to me 
 
 * ' Dentntus.'— Ed. 
 
 + This dream was prophetic 'Dentatus' was not exactly put under the 
 " kitchen table," which, of the two places, would perhaps have been prefeiable ; 
 but alter having beeu hung by Fuseli in the Great Rnom, it was removed by 
 Howard and Shee in Fuseii's ti mporary absence from town and hung in the dark 
 anteroom, where it could scarcely be distinguished. - Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. £ 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 stimulants for exertion. It is undeserved neglect, or disap- 
 pointment, that tempts me to complain of life. I mean by- 
 difficulties that, supposing I were a soldier, privation of food, 
 long marches, desperate battles, losing my legs, being 
 ordered for the forlorn hope, &c, or bringing my troops into a 
 situation where they must be destroyed unless relieved by an 
 immediate conception of my own ; or if being a painter, as I 
 am, undertaking work which I find myself unprepared for, 
 being obliged to exert myself incessantly to render myself 
 adequate, trying to express the most refined and difficult ex- 
 pressions, painting one head or any part ten times over before 
 I do it rightly. All these are the delights of my soul ; but if 
 after having accomplished them I find the world insensible to 
 their excellence, I droop, feel depressed, am weary of life, and 
 then in a tumult of indignation console myself with the hope 
 that one day their value will be understood. 
 
 Ever your affectionate son, 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 From David Wilkte. 
 My deau Haydon, isoo. 
 
 I shall be much obliged if you can call to-morrow 
 morning to consult as usual about an alteration in my picture. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 MY DEAE HAYDON, Poll's Row, half-past 2, Friday. 
 
 The bearer of this, William Walker, the person I was 
 expecting when I saw you, as you will see has a very fine head. 
 I think you would do well to make him sit for the hero of 
 your piece, and if you succeed as well in it as I think I have 
 done in mine, we shall be two happy fellows. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 (No .late), 1810. 
 
 I shall be glad to know how you are getting on with 
 Macbeth, and whether you have finished any part of it. I wish 
 you could make the two figures in the foreground youthful and 
 elegant, you ought to have variety of character in the picture, 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 250 
 
 and nothing could be more appropriate, I think, than fine 
 young men so near the person of a king, as we may suppose 
 them placed in his chamber more for show and convenience 
 than for protection. You must also recollect that you have 
 not yet exhibited any pictures with figures of a youthful 
 character in them. I shall also be glad to know what you 
 have done or mean to do with your sketch of a lion looking 
 up ? Whatever you put into it (although of secondary conse- 
 quence to the lion itself) let it be sufficiently attractive to call 
 for some attention from the spectator. I shall be glad to hear 
 from you as soon as convenient, and when you write to your 
 father remember me to him, and to your sister, and your uncle 
 Cobley. 
 
 Believe me ever sincerely, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 P.S. — I intend to try something on a small panel I have got 
 from a man who is coming to sit, and although I shall not 
 bestow much labour on it, I hope to give it that which will 
 make it a marketable commodity. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Dunmow (no date), 1810. 
 
 I am getting on pretty briskly with the little picture I 
 told you of. The subject of it is a man sitting warming his 
 hands at the fire, and as the figure of the man which is only 
 seen in half length fills a great part of the panel, I expect very 
 soon to get it finished. My whole care is to be so decided in 
 every touch I put on as not to require any alteration or amend- 
 ment afterwards, and you cannot think how such precaution 
 facilitates and shortens the labour. 
 
 I am glad you are advancing with Macbeth. I should re- 
 commend you to paint it as if you did not intend to alter, and 
 to alter what you have done only where it is unavoidable. Your 
 sketch of the lion I can conceive will do very well with the 
 blood on the ground, but I think some real object before him 
 would have taken off more the appearance of a portrait which 
 I am afraid it will have by itself. The skull I can, however, 
 see would not do, as it could not be found in the state we 
 generally see it in a lion's den, and to make it mangled by the 
 teeth of the lion would be disgusting. The antelope would 
 certainly, if you had room for it, have been much better. I 
 
 s 2 
 
a6d 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 see the Academy have elected Arnold into their body, which I 
 believe is a very proper choice. I should like to know if Biid 
 was a candidate. Try if yon can inform me. 
 
 Let me hear from you soon. I shall not leave this for a 
 fortnight. 
 
 Tours most faithfully, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 Haydon to Lord Mulgrave. 
 
 22ml May, 1810. 
 
 I feel grateful, my dear Lord, at the deliberate manner 
 in which you have expressed your hopes that my exertions 
 will not be weakened. Be assured, dear Lord Mulgrave, that 
 the honour which has just been conferred upon me * shall 
 rouse me to the highest possible pitch of exertion. I consider 
 my present success as one step only of the fifty I have yet to 
 make before I can approach the great object of my being. 
 
 Believe me, dear Lord Mulgrave, 
 
 Your faithful and grateful servant, 
 B. B. Haydon. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, Cults, 16th September, 1811. 
 
 We were all overjoyed at hearing from you. I read 
 parts of your letter to all the people in the house, not 
 excepting John Andereon and Cleghorn. They have all 
 wished that you were with us, and my mother has said again 
 and again that there is no person she would be more happy 
 to see. 
 
 We have watched the ' Examiner ' anxiously for your letter, 
 and have been much gratified by its arrival. The first thing 
 that struck me on seeing it was that it was much better than [ 
 expected. I think the subjectf is very interesting, and were 
 you able to collect a sufficient number of well-authenticated 
 facts, you might at some future time by classifying and 
 illustrating them produce a work that would do you great 
 credit. 
 
 * The selection of ' Dentatus ' for the Historical Trize at the British Gallery. 
 —Ed. 
 
 f The "Negro Controversy" carried on with Leigh Hunt in the 'Examiner' 
 newspaper. — Er>. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 261 
 
 I rather regret, with this view, that you should have antici- 
 pated any part of the support in a periodical publication like 
 the ' Examiner,' when the merit of it as a scientific research 
 has been entirely overlooked, and what might naturally have 
 been expected from those banditti " correspondents ;" it has 
 been abused and ridiculed only as a political speculation. 
 This, however, you have in some degree provoked by asserting 
 in so bold a manner the total incapability of improvement in 
 the negro, a point the history of mankind does not bear you 
 out in. and I think has nothing to do with the subject of your 
 pursuit. 
 
 The part of your letter which I think most successful is 
 where you declaim against the idea of the deformities of the 
 negroes being artificial, and that wherein you expose the 
 absurdity of the passions and wants of animals being supplied 
 and administered unto by a human form. 
 
 I think, considering the acknowledgment Leigh Hunt has 
 been obliged to make of the errors you pointed out, that his 
 observations are candid and do him credit. I endeavoured to 
 explain some of your theories to Mr. Cleghorn's father, who 
 was much pleased with their ingenuity. He denies, however, 
 the impossibility of the negro becoming civilised, and insists 
 stoutly on the similarity of the ancient Egyptians to the 
 present race of African negroes as a proof in favour of his 
 opinion. 
 
 I have seen Mr. Chalmers, the political economist. He has 
 laid aside his economical theories for the present, and having 
 been lately employed to write the article ' Christianity ' for 
 Brewster's ' Encyclopedia,' he has applied himself so earnestly 
 to the study of that subject that it has changed entirely his 
 system of doctrine and belief, and instead of being a practical 
 moralist, as he was formerly, he has plunged himself into the 
 depths of speculative theology, and is attracting the whole 
 neighbourhood to hear him preach faith and repentance. 
 Write soon. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 D. Wilkie. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAK HAVDON, Cults, Cupar, Fifeshire, 7th October, 1811. 
 
 Your letter recounting the number of circumstances 
 with which your attention was then occupied gave us all very 
 
262 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 great entertainment. The controversy with the 'Examiner' 
 about the negro has interested a number of people here, and I 
 have endeavoured to explain to those and have made acquainted 
 with it the nature and extent of your theory. I have pointed 
 out the leading differences between their forms and ours, and 
 have got into a sort of knack of drawing the various heads that 
 exemplify the different steps in the scale of being. Such parts 
 of it as cannot be so illustrated I have found ways and means 
 of representing in my own person, and have succeeded not 
 amiss in imitating the awkward gait and gesture of the negro. 
 To turn, however, from the subject of your researches which 
 everybody here allows, in so far as it regards our art, to be a 
 most innocent and useful inquiry to that of the controversy to 
 which it has given rise, I must do you the justice to say that, 
 contrary to my fears and expectations, when you first began 
 the dispute, you have most manfully beaten all your adver- 
 saries out of the field. Your first letter I thought laid you 
 open to various attacks, and did not in my opinion state your 
 views of the subject with sufficient clearness to prevent their 
 being misunderstood. Your second letter, however, got the 
 bettor of all this, and gave you completely the advantage in 
 the argument ; and your third letter, which was fully as well 
 argued as the second, gained you completely the victory, even 
 on those points where the weapons were furnished by your 
 opponents themselves. Here I expected the question to rest, 
 and although you had not the last word in the dispute, you had 
 shown a much better acquaintance with the subject, more 
 general learning, and a more philosophical way of reasoning 
 than any of the modern political pamphleteers on the other 
 side. How you came to think a fourth letter necessary is to 
 me quite inexplicable, for although it is as well written as any 
 of the others, it has done no good to the discussion in general, 
 and may subject you to be again irritated by a reply. I have 
 shown (Jleghorn the papers as they came out, and he thinks 
 you have been very successful. Chalmers has also been to 
 preach for my father, and he expressed himself very well 
 pleaded with your style. Both Cleghorn and I wish you would 
 publish no more of your inquiries in the ' Examiner.' The 
 subject will get hackneyed before you have brought it to 
 maturity, and certainly will not gain in respectability by 
 having its merits debated in a newspaper. ... I hope your 
 father is well. I beg to be most kindly remembered to him 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 263 
 
 and to Harriet when next you write. I am glad to hear you 
 think you have succeeded in your body of Macbeth. I shall 
 expect to see it well advanced. If Seguier and Jackson have 
 corne back to town, pray remember me. 
 
 I am, my dear Haydon, 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 David Wilkib. 
 
 From John Eastlake. 
 My deak Haydon, (No date) i8ii. 
 
 I feel much obliged for your introduction to Mr. Hunter, 
 for it has and will be of service to me in acquiring what is 
 " gemmis venale nec auro," and what I think is of the greatest 
 importance, Utility. After you had arranged that you would 
 not wait on Hunter, &c, I find you called on him on Saturday. 
 I am not without hope that you did this from having changed 
 your opinion on the subject. Certainly more worthy of you 
 than supposing me to be " wasting my time in acquiring what 
 I could learn at Mogadore in two days." . . . Ask Hunter 
 whether he thinks that I could " at Mogadore " become in 
 " two days " rifleman enough to shoot an eagle twice as big as 
 himself, as Bruce did, or pick off a tiger, or what is nearly as 
 formidable, a hostile Arab. 
 
 It does not, as I told you, follow that because a thing is 
 contemptible as an end, that it should be so as a mean also. 
 You know I study it as a mean. Why then do you attach to it 
 the contempt of an end ? The Turkish and all locks of guns 
 used by the Moslems are constructed upon a different principle 
 from the English locks. Was it " wasting time " to get one of 
 these Turkish locks and understand how to take it to pieces, 
 and how to repair it ? Do you not remember Mungo Park's 
 fatal ignorance of this useful knowledge when the old Dooty 
 brought him out three muskets to repair, but which he could 
 not from inability ? W r hen I next tell you I have been study- 
 ing guns and rifle shooting, you will not, I vouch &r it, tell 
 me I have been wasting time. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Jko. Eastlake. 
 
 P.S. — I was successful on the heath yesterday. Of the first 
 and only six shots from 150 yards and a rest all wore target 
 
26+ 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 hits, and two were eyes. Of seven or eight shots from the 
 shoulder at 100 yards two or three were targets. Of a 
 number shot from 2J0 yards and a rest I was not very 
 successful in.* 
 
 From David "Wilkie, on the attach upon the Academtj. 
 
 , T TT 29, Phillimore Place, Kensington, 
 
 MY DEAR HaYDON, Monday, 3rd February, 1812. 
 
 I have seen your two papers in the 'Examiner,' but 
 although I have had occasion to admire what you have for- 
 merly written in that paper, and am as forward as any one to 
 give you the highest praise (which you certainly deserve) for the 
 picture you have lately finished, I must really, as a friend, say 
 that I cannot congratulate you upon what you have now offered 
 to the public in this paper. You have laid yourself open not 
 merely to the charge of spleen and disappointment, and to the 
 resentment of the Academy, all of which you no doubt laid 
 your account with, but to a charge that is much worse, and 
 which I dare say you had no notion of when you wrote the 
 papers, that of reviling the Academy in order to ingratiate 
 yourself with the Institution. Thus your panegyric on the 
 general conduct of the Institution, your indignation at the 
 aspersion which was attempted to be thrown on the purchase 
 of Mr. West's picture, and your approbation of the plan of 
 giving premiums will all, 1 assure you, conspire very much to 
 strengthen, and although those who know you may be ready 
 to acquit you of any such views, there will not be wanting 
 many who will be glad to use so convenient a handle against 
 you. I do not mention this, I assure you, for the sake of 
 finding fault, but rather to put you on your guard, for it 
 appears to me whoever may think proper to attack what you 
 have written, this is what you will be most loudly called 
 upon to answer. In all this, however, you are yourself only 
 concerned. But I am very sorry to find by the way you have 
 mentioned my name, and the manner in which you have made 
 me an exgeption to all that you complain of in the Academy, 
 that I must also become a sharer in the recriminations you 
 have been calling forth, and I can also see that in order to do 
 justice to the person you have opposed me to, which you cer- 
 tainly have not done, it will be necessary in those who take his 
 
 * As a specimea of the rifle shooting in 1811, this is interesting.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 ~ r 5 
 
 part to do a greater injustice to me to restore things tu their 
 proper level. I thiuk that consideration for his being a com- 
 petitor for the same premiums that you are contending for 
 should have restrained you. 
 
 "You have certainly got plenty of work upon your shoulders, 
 and I should advise you to get out of it the best way you can. 
 "But is this the way an artist should be engaged? Why not 
 follow up the reputation your painting might gain you ? Let 
 that carry you through. It will lessen the respect that people 
 would have for your talents as a painter when they found them 
 employed disputing in a newspaper. I shall be miserable till 
 T hear you are going on with your new picture. I shall 
 then only be assured that you have regained your peace of 
 mind. 
 
 I have been getting on well with my ' Blind Man's Buff,' 
 which I wish you much to come and see. I called the other 
 day, but I did not find you. Could you come and dine with 
 me on Wednesday the Fast day ? I shall be very quiet, and if 
 you come early you can have a ride on the horse. I can dine 
 either at three or four o'clock if you will come. If I do not 
 hear from you I shall expect you. 
 
 I am, my dear Haydon, 
 
 "Yours most sincerely, 
 
 David Wilkib. 
 
 Letter from Wilkie after Haydon's attach on the Academy. 
 My dear Haydon, April, 1812. 
 
 I have given the subject of your note some consideration, 
 and, as I believe that under the present circumstances your 
 going to a private view at the Royal Academy with one of my 
 tickets would do me a very serious injury, I shall esteem it a 
 particular favour if you will not insist on having the ticket for 
 the purpose. If it were necessary to satisfy yoi 1 . that I have no 
 improper views in asking such a favour, I should have no 
 objection to destroy the ticket in question, otherwise I think it 
 might be a gratification to yourself as well as to me if I were 
 to give it to our common friend, to whom it might perhaps b© 
 of some service. 
 
 Yours, 
 David Wjlkie. 
 
266 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAlt HaYDON, Mulgrave Castle, 12th September, 1812. 
 
 When you write again I shall expect all the news of 
 your visit to Cheddar, how you found your sister and your 
 friends, and how you were amused. If you have done much 
 among the rocks in the way of study, I shall be the more dis- 
 posed to give you credit from the idleness with which my own 
 time has been spent. A life in the country furnishes so many 
 allurements that it is impossible to set about anything like 
 serious study when there. It makes one even shrink from the 
 thought of recommencing the necessary labour in town. 
 
 I find no want of amusement in this place which has pre- 
 vented me doing anything in the way of study. I have had a 
 notion for the first time I ever thought of such a thing of 
 trying my hand at partridge shooting, and have been already 
 two days out with the gamekeeper. The game is but scarce, 
 and the first day I had to content myself by shooting a crow 
 that was over our heads. The second day, however, the game- 
 keeper and I brought in three brace, one of the partridges 
 comprising which was of my shooting. This is considered by 
 our sportsmen here as a great success for a beginner, and has 
 given me a great relish for the amusement. The fatigue 
 attending it prevents me going out more than twice a week, 
 but we have contrived to lessen that by riding on ponies to the 
 ground where the game is lodged. I have also been trying to 
 learn chess, and intend having a touch at billiards. By the 
 time I get back to London I shall be quite an accomplished 
 gentleman. 
 
 Lord Mulgrave and the General when they were at Scar- 
 borough saw Jackson at the corporation dinner and told him I 
 was here. They sent next morning to invite him to come 
 over to Mulgrave, but to their surprise found that he had left 
 Scarborough early that morning, nobody knew where. He was 
 observed to sit at dinner next to Bannister, who they learned 
 had also left Scarborough early that morning for Backston, a 
 town in one of the inland counties. 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 From Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Mr DEAR HaYDON, West End, Hampstead, 25th November, 1812. 
 
 Mrs. Hunt is going to her modelling again, and wishes 
 for a good original bust, not so- large as life, in order that sho 
 
Intdligenee and Ignorance. Pen Sketches (Omntbus Heads.) 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 1^7 
 
 may be able to work at it easily and on the table of an evening. 
 Do you know anybody who could lend her such a one for two 
 or three months, and a small bust of Apollo, for instance, or 
 any other that has a good poetical head of hair ? 
 
 I am getting better, just in time for those legal rogues, and 
 am preparing my next Sunday's lash for that poor creature at 
 Carlton House, whom I really commiserate all the while. 
 
 I hope ' Solomon ' goes on well (what a transition !), but pray 
 don't forget your ' Mercury ' as an occasional refreshment. It 
 is an exquisite little conception, and dipped in poetry. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 To Leigh Hunt, in prison for libelling the Pkince Kegent. 
 
 MY DEAR HUNT, Friday night, 12th February, 1813. 
 
 I am most anxious to see you, but have been refused 
 admittance, and was told yesterday you would write to your 
 friends when you wished to see them, by Mr. Cave, the Under- 
 Governor or gaoler. I really felt my heart ache at every line 
 of your last week's effusion. All your friends were affected, 
 and all complained of the cruelty and severity of your sentence. 
 I am delighted Mrs. Hunt and the children are now admitted 
 to you, and if they ultimately relax, with respect to your 
 friends, I hope in God the pressure of your imprisonment will 
 be greatly lightened. I must say I have been excessively 
 irritated at not having seen you yet ; and had I gone to you 
 as I intended the day on which the committee sat, I find, my 
 dear fellow, I should have been allowed to see you ; but 1 
 suffered myself to be advised out of my intention. I have 
 never yet acted by the advice of others, in opposition to my 
 own judgment, without having cause to repent it. 1 assure you, 
 my dear Hunt, I think of you often, with the most melancholy 
 and exquisite sensations. After my day's study I generally 
 lay my head on my hand, draw near the fire, and muse upon 
 you till midnight, till I am completely wrapped in the delu- 
 sion of my fancy. I see you, as it were, in a misty vision. I 
 imagine myself quietly going to you in the solemnity of even- 
 ing ; I think I perceive your massy prison, erect, solitary, 
 nearly lost in deep-toned obscurity, pressing the earth with 
 supernatural weight, encircled with an atmosphere of enchanted 
 6ilence, into which no being can enter without a shudder. As 
 
268 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 I advance with whispering steps I imagine, with an acuteness 
 that amounts to reality, I hear oozing on the evening wind, as 
 it sweeps along with moaning stillness, the strains of your 
 captive flute ; 1 then stop and listen with gasping agitation, 
 and with associations of our attachment, and all the friendly 
 affecting proofs I have had of it ; afraid to move, afraid to stir, 
 lest I might lose one melancholy tone, or interrupt by the most 
 imperceptible motion one sweet and soothing undulation. My 
 dear fellow, I am not a man of tears, nor do I recollect ever 
 yielding to them but when my mother died. But I declare I 
 felt a choking sensation when I rose to retire to rest after this 
 waking abstraction. I have no doubt we shall talk over this 
 part of our existence when we are a little advanced in life with 
 excessive interest. Let misfortune confirm instead of shake 
 your principles, and you will issue again into the world as 
 invulnerable as you left it. Take care of your health ; use as 
 much exercise as you can. Send me word by your nephew, or 
 through Mrs. Hunter, when I can see you, for which I am very 
 anxious ; and believe me, unalterably your faithful and attached 
 friend, 
 
 B. B. Haydon. 
 
 From Benjamin West. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Newman Street, 17th February, 1814. 
 
 The business was not adjusted in time for me to draw 
 out money from my bankers before five o'clock this day, or I 
 would have sent it to you ; but I hope the enclosed draft of 
 to-morrow's date will be adiquate (sic) to keep the wolfe (sic) 
 from your door, and leave your mind in freedom in exercising 
 your talents of acquiring excellence in your profession in 
 painting, of which you have a stock to work upon. 
 
 Dear Sir, yours with friendship and sincerity, 
 
 Benjamin West. 
 
 p.S. — The gout in my right hand has made it deficult (sic) 
 for me to write this note inteligeble (sic)* 
 
 Mr. Haydon. 
 
 * Haydon (1843) endorses tins letter: "I hope this will he read some day 
 throughout Kusope. 1 hope it will show the great nations— France, Germany, 
 liussia. Spain, and Italy— how England encourages High Art, and in what a 
 condition it leaves its prolessors, young and old. Whilst I write this 1 havo 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 269 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 MY DEAR HaYDON, 24, Phillmore Place, 25th April, 1814. 
 
 I have been to-day to Spring Gardens to see your pic- 
 ture (the ' Judgment of Solomon ') and I congratulate you most 
 heartily on its good appearance, and on the decidedly favourable 
 impression it has made, and will continue to make, on the pub- 
 lic mind. I have reason to hope that you will get it sold, and 
 that the reception this picture is meeting with will be but the 
 beginning of a brilliant course of success. 
 
 You will have many applications about the engraving* of 
 the picture, but do not be too hasty in disposing of it unless 
 you are sure it will be very well done. 
 
 My dear Haydon, yours very faithfully, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 To John ScoTT.t 
 
 Dear Scott, 4th May, 1814. 
 
 I have thought of another subject for a picture, one 
 which leaves the other " far in the abject rear," ' Christ's 
 Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem,' His Mother weeping for 
 joy; Magdalen pale with her eating passion ; the mob in 
 enthusiasm, all expressing their various emotions. 
 
 Never was there a finer subject ; never was there one that 
 left such scope to the painter's invention. After a miserable 
 night of restless anxiety from seeing and feeling my other 
 subject was not the one exactly, I got up yesterday in a per- 
 fect fever, and turned over the Testament in discontent, when 
 this caught my eye. The whole scene rushed into my brain 
 as if the sun had burst out at midnight. I have made a sketch, 
 and now feel all the comfort and confidence in beginning my 
 
 been eight years without a commission from the nobility ; and of the thirty-nine 
 years I have been a historical painter, thirty-two have been without an order of 
 any kind Hilton could ha» e told a talc as sad ; West, but for the King, perhaps 
 worse At eighty years of age this celebrated old man, who had been taught to 
 rely on his income from the King as long as ho lived, had it taken from him by 
 the hatred of Queen Charlotte. The secret r< ason was, he had visited and been 
 honoured by Napoleon in 1S02. Such is Royal vengeance! Royalty, 1 allow, 
 sometimes rewards fidelity, but it always punishes offence." — En. 
 
 * This picture, the 'Judgment of Solomon,' has never been engraved. It is 
 now the property of Loivsa, l ady Ashburton. 
 
 t Killed in a nocturnal duel with Mr. ChrLtie, February 15, 1821. See 
 ' Anuuol Register.' — Ed. 
 
2 7 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 picture (which I shall to-day) that a good subject always 
 inspires. 
 
 Believe me, yours always, 
 
 13. E. Haydon. 
 
 From Leigh Hunt. 
 
 MY DEAR HAYDON, Surrey Gaol, 5th May, 1814. 
 
 I need not tell you how I rejoice at the sale of your 
 picture,* nor in the conquest you have obtained over the 
 people by the mainforce of talent and independence. It is a 
 truly English victory. But I must tell you that it is more 
 gratifying to me to have heard from you in the moment of 
 prosperity, than I can express. I have sometimes wished to 
 see you oftener, and would have liked also (for a particular 
 purpose) to have obtained a sight of your work had it been 
 possible ;f but I knew the demand made upon your time and 
 attention, and waited for the days when you would be more at 
 leisure. Come, then, as soon as you can, and let us jitbilize 
 with you. You are bound to be with me when you can, for I 
 trust that we are destined to go down to posterity together, ; s 
 you know we have often indulged ourselves in hoping. God 
 bless you. 
 
 Ever your affectionate friend, 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 To Leigh Hunt. 
 
 My DEAR LEIGH HUNT, Paris, 6th June, 1S14. 
 
 The moment Wilkie and I had'placed our trunks in our 
 hotel, down we sallied to the Louvre. The gallery of pictures 
 was shut, so we walked about and contemplated the building 
 in its various positions. There is something grand in the 
 extension of its square, but the building itself is mean. Small 
 windows by thousands, and chimneys by hundreds, make it 
 look more like a model in wood for a larger building than like 
 the palace itself. This was my impression. In the middle, 
 Buonaparte has erected a triumphal arch, nearly an exact 
 copy of the arch of Titus, and what is not an exact copy does 
 no honour, but rather reflects disgrace upon French art. 
 Upon the top is a triumphal car, gilded, to which he has 
 
 * The ' Judgment of Solomon.' 
 
 t II ij-don subsequently had the picture taken down to Surrey Gaol nnd put up 
 iu the prison, f r the (unusemeut and satisfaction of Lei_,h Hunt and his brother, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 271 
 
 yoked the four bronze hoiy.es he took from Venice, and on each 
 side is a Victory grappling the bridle. The who^ is gilded, 
 and has a showy, but not a sublime look. The shafts of the 
 columns are of reddish marble, the capitals and bases of bronze. 
 To me this is childish and useless. The long line of view from 
 this arch down the Tuileries gardens, through the Champs- 
 Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, at the other end, is certainly 
 very long, but that is all. There is nothing natural or affecting 
 in such ropeivalks. After sauntering about till night, we went 
 to bed, and at ten the next morning we were at the Louvre 
 door. To be quite sure about it, I had gone down about 
 6 a.m., and had inquired of a national guard, who, with 
 the most gentlemanlike manner, entered into conversation 
 about England and the war, about Buonaparte and the revo- 
 lution, and I can tell you in a manner that you would have 
 been surprised, my dear Hunt, to meet with in a militiaman 
 in England. 
 
 After breakfast down we went. I kept thinking as I went 
 along, "Am I going to see the ' Transfiguration'?" and then I 
 had a sort of whirl in my head. On I walked. The first thing 
 that convinced me I was at the Louvre, was the politeness of 
 the attendant at the door, who, without looking through you 
 for half an hour, as with us, took my umbrella and opened the 
 door. I jumped two steps : again the ' Transfiguration ' darted 
 in my brain, and I was angry at my own tardiness : away I 
 went three steps — the ' Pietro Martyre,' too — four : Correggio's 
 4 St. Catherine ' — five; and, breath 'ess, 1 came to the top. In 
 an instant I was in, and left Wi'kie trotting on his usual pace. 
 The first glance at the whole gallery disappointed me ! So far 
 from feeling affected, I felt quite cool. There is nothing grand 
 in the first glance. The gal!ery is on the same childish prin- 
 ciples as their gardens and their palaces, viz., inordinate 
 length, and instead of looking large, it looked small, and had 
 the same effect on the mind as when one looks through the 
 wrong end of a spy-glass. 
 
 Frankly I tell you also, the ' Transfiguration ' was not what 
 I had expected to find in effect : they have ruined the picture 
 by cleaning ; but it is only the effect they have ruined, for the 
 expressions are really Eaphael's. And then I drank till my 
 faculties were drowned. There is a ' Correggio ' there which 
 no language in Heaven or on earth can do justice to. It is a 
 simple subject ; but how he has treated it ! It is the ' Alarriage 
 
272 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 of St. Catherine ;' Christ, the infant, is putting the ring on her 
 finger with the pouting impotence you pee in children ; St. 
 Catherine holds out her hands with shrinking modesty, while 
 the Virgin is guiding the child with that delicious smile of 
 maternal vanity which I have a thousand times seen in nature, 
 when a mother's assistance is obliged to be asked. St. John 
 looks over with an expression of archness and beauty that is 
 divine. You know by what you see that not a word is speaking, 
 it is all an emanation of feeling silently lighting their features. 
 It is just one of those transient beauties that gleam forth for a 
 moment, impress, and are lost for ever. Correggio has caught 
 it, and realised it, and kept it alive with a power, a delicacy, a 
 nerve, and a sweetness as if his imagination had been one per- 
 petual lustre of angels' smiles. 
 
 When I see you I must talk to you. I can only say 
 now that my principles of art have had a complete triumph 
 in Wilkie's feelings, and so they will in all who visit the 
 Louvre. 
 
 The Eoyal Library is a perfect forest of books. Oh, you 
 dog, if you were in Paris you would die of surfeit the first week ! 
 I intend to go to all the libraries so to be able to give you a 
 good account, and to collect all the catalogues I can. I saw 
 to-day Michel Angelo's seal, then a pair of globes thirty feet 
 in circumference, and several other things I will tell you about 
 on my return. There is no difficulty of entrance. You walk 
 in, sit down, and order away. Come to Paris. You must before 
 you finish your poem, for here you will find every book, manu- 
 script, or print, that will assist or advance you. 
 
 At every step in Paris a thousand associations are excited. 
 IMighty buildings, begun by Buonaparte, and now left. Monu- 
 ments of a passed-by-glory, " naked subjects to the weeping 
 winds," unfinished and neglected ; and churches, remarkable for 
 revolutions, murders, and bridges for revolutionary fury ; streets 
 for one thing, buildings for another, that you are affected when 
 you even turn. 
 
 I could not help observing at the Louvre the slovenly shop- 
 keeping look of my honest countrymen, and silently thinking 
 that from those timid, modest, merchant-looking men had pro- 
 ceeded the finest model of human government. If you were to 
 see them in contact with the Russians, Prussians, or Cossacks, 
 you would not take them for the heroes of the world. They 
 looked like men who could give a good draft on their bankers, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 -11 
 
 but as for any appearance of genius or heroism, Heaven help 
 us ! 
 
 The French are most horribly " down in the mouth." They 
 cannot conceal it. It breaks out every moment. If you talk, 
 out come politics, and after acknowledging that we are the 
 greatest power in the world, which they always do at the com- 
 mencement, and at the conclusion they begin to cavil about 
 the peace. This morning, at the cafe, you would have enjoyed 
 to hear a Frenchman and a John Bull argue. They could both 
 speak each other's native language, but not well enough, if 
 they felt warmly, so that the one generally concluded in furious 
 English and the other in French. " Mais vous, vous avez 
 
 pris Malte et File de France est-ce juste r" " Why, , 
 
 won't you give us something after fighting twenty years?" 
 This was roared out in a French cafe, where no human being 
 under.-tood him but his antagonist. You can have no notion 
 of the ludicrous effect. 
 
 The Theatre Francais is a beautiful theatre, and the actors 
 very good. But the arrangements so different from Old Eng- 
 land. You pay outside, with a gendarme looking over you, to 
 a woman inside a grid. No noise, no fun ; no gods amusing 
 themselves before the play begins ; all drilled statues — silent, 
 decent, quiet, snuff-taking Frenchmen. 
 
 Paris is a filthy hole, and the Palais Royal a perfect Pande- 
 monium in the midst of it. You and all my friends who have 
 never left England can, in your antediluvian innocence of mind, 
 form no notion of this hall. It stands in the midst of Paris, 
 and is a fine enclosed square, the alleys full of shops, the 
 houses of gamesters and gambling-tables, brothels, &c. After 
 9 p.m. never was there such a scene witnessed. The whole 
 is illuminated, and the walks and gardens, which form the 
 centre of the square, full of depravity and villany — stuffed 
 full — so full that as you enter you feel a heated, pestilential 
 air flush your cheeks. The unrestrained obscenity of the 
 language, and the shocking indecency of the people, bewilder 
 and distract you. Such is the effect and the power of this 
 diabolical place that, like the upas-tree of Java, the people for 
 a mile around it are tinged with its vice, and infected by its 
 principles. 
 
 I have been to the Champ-de-Mars, where some thousand 
 Russians had been bivouacked. Certainly their conduct had 
 vol. I. T 
 
274 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 been very proper, for not even a tree had been injured. You 
 cannot imagine the people's ignorance and indifference to the 
 one who rules them. They know nothing. They ask you 
 questions that make you stare. In everything that concerns 
 politics they know nothing, and seem to suffer some over- 
 whelming influence over their minds that they ought to know 
 nothing. 
 
 I saw the king go in state to the Corps Legislatif, and the 
 people seemed to regard it all as a mere " spectacle." One 
 pleasant Frenchman turned round to me and said, "It was 
 nothing to the entry of the Allies ! " 
 
 Upon the whole, Paris has the look of being the residence 
 of a despotic monarch. Everything that is beautiful, every- 
 thing that is grand, convenient, or salutary is near or in the 
 palace. The streets are dirty and miserable, but the Square of 
 the Tuileries is 15 )0 feet, therefore the people ought to be 
 happy ! There is no look of individual, independent comfort. 
 Everything seems to originate and to conclude with the 
 monarch. All is vast and melancholy ; for to me their Bar- 
 thelmy fairs, and their childish frippery, where they have such 
 weighty political matters to deal with, are simply repulsive. 
 I look upon them as the monkeys of a showman, which, as far 
 as their chain permits them, are guilty of the most grotesque 
 and absurd gesticulations, and then look terrified whenever 
 they get a jerk. 
 
 In haste, believe me ever yours, 
 
 My dear Hunt, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To John Hunt. 
 
 My DEAR HUNT, Paris, 10th June, 1814. 
 
 I wrote your brother just after our arrival, and told him 
 to show my letter to you ; so that you will have had a correct 
 journal of my proceedings to the moment I entered Paris. We 
 passed over the field of battle, and saw very little remains of a 
 tight, except the Russian batteries. About two we got to Paris, 
 through one of the most infernal entrances, I think, I ever 
 witnessed — St. Giles's is an Elysium to it. The gate of St. Denis, 
 built by Louis XIV., is at the end of the street we came through ; 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 275 
 
 it struck me as being high and grand, but the bas-reliefs in a 
 wretched French taste. The first appearance of Paris, to one 
 accustomed to the streets of London, is a feeling of unutterable 
 confusion — houses, horses, carriages, carts; men, women, children, 
 and soldiers ; Turks, .Tews, Christians, Cossacks, and Russians, all 
 mingled together, without comfort, without system, in dirt and 
 dreariness, hot, fatigued, and in haste. After pushing our way- 
 through this chaos dire, we put up at a dirty golden hotel — 
 gilt this and gilt that, satin beds and satin sofas, but embalmed 
 with grease and worn with age. Never was such misery as an 
 Englishman suffers at first from the mode of lodging and living 
 in Paris. You have your b eakfast from one place and your 
 dinner from another; who is the master or where the mistress 
 no human creature can tell. We got lodgings next clay, and 
 were extremely lucky to fall into respectable hands. The 
 Louvre, of course, was our first object, and by the next day we 
 were there. The first sight is grand, but yet I was disap- 
 pointed ; it is too long to impress one, and it affected me (as I 
 have mentioned to another friend) as if I was looking through 
 the wrong end of a spy-glass. The ' Transfiguration ' is a proof 
 that had Raphael lived, he would have completed all the re- 
 quisites of art. It is powerfully coloured, and in many parts 
 will bear comparison with Titian. The expressions distinctly 
 tell the story, they really speak to one's soul ; and yet, from 
 forming, in my own imagination, something beyond nature, as 
 we always do, I must own I was disappointed at its first im- 
 pression. It has a little and rather an insignificant appear- 
 ance, and the female heads are certainly not beautiful. In 
 sweetness, Correggio, who hangs opposite, is very much superior 
 — indeed I cannot say enough of the works of this divine 
 painter. There is a magical, a trembling sensitiveness; he 
 has caught all those fleeting, delicate expressions which you 
 see illumine the face of a beautiful woman while you are telling 
 her anything peculiarly interesting. All such refinements he 
 has caught and realized. You can trace nowhere but in Nature 
 any remains of a hint from others, either ancient or modern. 
 He felt what he painted in his own way, and has touched a 
 chord which every other being had passed and neglected. His 
 pictures affected me like the strains of an angel's harp, and 
 have all the loveliness of an angel's dream. They won't permit 
 us to copy yet, or most assure, lly I should do my best to bring 
 
 t2 
 
276 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 home something of this man's delightful fancy. Reynolds had 
 studied him well, in colour and in expression, and his whole life 
 was spent in aiming at making a new discovery in the mad 
 which Correggio had opened. The statues below are beautiful, 
 but I can assure you the Elgin ' Theseus' is superior in style 
 and in principles to anything in this superb collection. I 
 have spent hours there, day after day, and shall spend hours 
 yet till I depart. All my principles of art are confirmed 
 by the practice of these men, and I hope to return with my 
 mind and feelings enlarged after having seen their highest 
 efforts. 
 
 Wilkie and I yesterday spent the day in surveying Mont- 
 martre ; and from the top of the telegraph the old soldier who 
 has the direction of it pointed out every particular of the 
 battle, and told us every interesting thing before it. It is 
 amazingly strong, and had it been properly defended and pro- 
 perly fortified, would certainly never have been taken. But 
 all was confusion, and everything done in terror and dismay. 
 The prospect from it is immense, and Paris below has a beauti- 
 ful look, with its intermingled trees and gilded domes, though 
 in size it certainly bore no comparison with London. I observe 
 everywhere old soldiers are employed where the duty is not 
 difficult. You find them in all parts of Paris, taking money at 
 bridges, &c, and nearly everybody has served in some way or 
 other. Last night we went to the Theatre Francais to see 
 Talma, and were very much entertained. The mob at the door 
 was regulated by a gendarme, which, though disagreeable to 
 an Englishman, certainly prevented a squeezing and confusion. 
 [Here follows a rough pen-and-ink sketch.] This is something 
 the way the boxes are arranged, and they certainly have a fine 
 and picturesque appearance. The audience made the orchestra 
 play the favourite air, "Vive Henri Quatre,' and received it 
 with shouts of enthusiasm. The French mob possesses great 
 patience and goodnature. They bear from each other what I 
 am sure in England would produce the most furious quarrels. 
 The manners of the women are very sweet, but they soon begin 
 to look old, and the children have the appearance of being 
 prematurely formed in their features. The race of men is cer- 
 tainly smaller than ours ; in the soldiers it is particularly 
 apparent. All the old soldiers that have served in the most 
 celebrated campaigns are active, energetic, little fellows. At 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 277 
 
 the Hotel des Invalides I met an old soldier, who had lost his 
 leg at the battle of Marengo, and ir juired about Buonaparte 
 with great interest. He was quietly watching the departure of 
 a body of Russians, and observed to me, " This is all owing to 
 the campaign of Moscow." They all say, " He was a great 
 general, a great genius, but a bad sovereign." This is the feel- 
 ing in every quaiter. The artists and the army, being those 
 who suffer the most, are of course the most outrageous and dis- 
 affected ; but I have no doubt when they perceive that Louis 
 is as likely as Buonaparte to protect their efforts, lie will be as 
 great a patron and they as good loyal subjects as king could 
 wish. We have seen very little of private society. Indeed, 
 our objects being entirely different, we intend to avoid all 
 invitations. Our landlady and her husband are temperate, 
 frugal, and industrious. They seem, like all the middle class; 
 to be indifferent who governs them so long as they are quiet. 
 This indifference is one great cause of their sufferings. Had 
 the people felt the value of having a voice in public matters, 
 they would never have suffered a parcel of scoundrels to 
 torment them at their leisure. They know hardly any events 
 that have passed, and inquire about them in a manner betraying 
 an amount of ignorance that makes me stare. Paris, in every 
 way, looks like the residence of a despotic monarch, and the 
 country round Paris uncultivated and dreary. From the top 
 of Montmaftre the villages are distinctly seen ; but there are 
 no straggling houses as in England, giving the whole a social 
 look. Each village seemed to fear the other, and each was 
 suriounded by a sort of wall and ditch. In one road I saw old 
 chateaux, but dirty and neglected. In every part of Paris are 
 traces of the change that has taken place. Great buildings, 
 begun by republicans and left unfinished when they lost their 
 power ; palaces and temples in ruins, though but half built — 
 monuments of Buonaparte's ambition and fall. The most, in- 
 teresting exhibition — except the Louvre — is that of monuments 
 of French kings and great men, collected and saved during the 
 Revolution by a private gentleman. Here are monuments 
 from the earliest ages ; here, contained in sarcophagi, are the 
 remains of Moliere, La Fontaine, Boileau, and in a secret grove 
 that of Abelard and Heloi'se. The monuments are not so de- 
 faced in France as in England, and the people have evidently 
 more feeling for things of this sort. Paris is certainly a very 
 
2 7 S 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 interesting place, and you, my dear Hunt, woidd derive great 
 pleasure from a visit. The officers I contrive to bungle out a 
 conversation with, all talk of recovering their conquests with- 
 out the least hesitation, when the country has had a little 
 repose. As I was walking by the Seine on Sunday I went 
 accidentally into a sort of open house, and to my surprise saw 
 three dead bodies lying inside a sort of glasshouse ; here they 
 lie till they are owned, as I found. Women and children, 
 playing battledore on the other side, when the shuttlecock was 
 down would quietly walk over and take a peep, and when they 
 had satisfied their cuiiosity resume their game, repeating the 
 process at intervals. I must own I never was so shocked — such 
 palpable indifference and indecency. If this be not a way to 
 use the people to blood I know none more effectual. r J here are 
 no squares equal to ours in Paris — that is, public squares. The 
 square of the Tuileries is grand, but this belongs to the 
 monarch. In Paris they are much more refined than in 
 London in the luxuries and comforts of gluttony, but in clean- 
 liness and thorough enjoyment I think they are very far behind 
 us, and certainly are nearly altogether ignorant of every moral 
 feeling. The people in the coffee-houses have a spirited air, 
 but at the same time the air of bravoes. Something I heard 
 this morning gave me a complete idea of their military notions. 
 An officer, crossing a bridge where a toll was taken, was stopped 
 to pay, and expressed the greatest surprise that the military 
 should have to do so as well as others ! Adieu, my dear Hunt. 
 Kind remembrances to your wife and brother. I forgot to send 
 him my direction, which you can now give him — No. G, Rue 
 St. Benoit, Faubourg St. Germain, Paris. 
 
 Most truly and affectionately your friend, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Leigh Hunt. 
 
 My DEAR HUNT, Paris, 20th June, 1814. 
 
 I have got so much to tell you that I do not know how 
 I can squeeze it all into one sheet ; however, I will do my best. 
 I have been to Versailles, Rambouillet, Malmaison, and St. 
 Cloud. I have been to the Catacombs, the Jardin dea Plantes, 
 Musee Francais, and through all the gaming-houses of the 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 2/9 
 
 Palais Boyal — such scenes as you, in your antediluvian inno- 
 cence of mind in England, can never conceive, and God grant 
 you never may ! Fancy whole rooms full of gamblers ; in each 
 room a table, and each table for a different game. You can 
 gamble for Napoleons down to ten sous ; each table was full, from 
 the Napoleon downwards. All eager, silent, anxious ; intensely 
 alive to the slightest motion or the slightest noise. Young 
 interesting women were wandering about, losing at one table, 
 winning at another; old harassed villains, with the most 
 polished manners ; and worn-out, ugly, dirty, dissipated 
 dowagers, smothered in ragged lace, and buried beneath huge 
 bonnets. The expressions of disappointment, of agonized dis- 
 appointment ; of piercing, acute abstraction ; of cold, dreaming 
 vexation ; of chuckling, half-suppressed triumph, were so ap- 
 parent that no man could mistake what was passing within ; and 
 as your eye wandered round, your heart sank as you recognised 
 the thoughts of each. They all looked jaded, fagged creatures, 
 whose whole lives had been passed in the perpetual struggles of 
 opposite passions. There was about them a dissipated neglect 
 which marked them. The only sound which disturbed the dread- 
 ful silence of the scene was the tinkling of the money, or the 
 smart crack of the stick as the winner jerked it towards his 
 heap. 
 
 June 22nd. — Versailles at present exhibits a most melancholy 
 appearance of ruined splendour. Painted ceilings faded ! 
 Crimson tapestry torn, and golden fringes brown with age ! 
 During the revolution a wing was occupied by the soldiers, and 
 it bears miserable proofs of their cureless inclination to destroy. 
 
 The Opera House is vast, ruinous, and dark. The Gardens 
 formal, to my feeling. How any one can look at the delicious 
 gardens of Petit Trianon, a l'Anglaise, and not be converted, is 
 to me extraordinary. Petit Trianon was fitted up most luxu- 
 riously for Maria Louisa, but she never resided there. Both 
 Buonaparte and the Empress remained at Grand Trianon. The 
 servants who showed us Grand Trianon said that they began to 
 feel the blessings of repose : during Napoleon's reign they 
 were never suffered to be st 11 for an instant. As Wilkie was 
 fatigued, I set off by myself the next morning to Bambouillet, 
 the hunting-seat of the kings of France. It is an old-fashioned 
 building, with two very ancient towers. I was exceedingly 
 affected in going through the apartments of Maria Louisa. 
 
2 8 o 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Her toilet-table was precisely as she had left it the last morning 
 she dressed her hair ; her bed-room very elegant, and by the 
 bed stood a pianoforte, which I touched. Her little salon de 
 repos was close to her dining-room, and it appeared snug and 
 refined in its luxury. The old man who showed me the 
 rooms said the Empress, on her flight here from Paris, walked 
 the last stage with her child. For the last six days she scarcely 
 ate anything, wandered about the grounds in melancholy 
 silence. When her departure was fixed she was exceedingly 
 afflicted. The old man said she was very amiable and of sweet 
 disposition. I passed on to Buonaparte's rooms, which were also 
 very luxuriously fitted up. His salle-a-manger was elegant for 
 a hunting-seat, though it did not approach that at Grand 
 Trianon. From his drawing-room I entered a twilight room of 
 small dimensions. This was Napoleon's private secret closet 
 for repose and reflection, where he used to retire when ex- 
 hausted, and to which no one was admitted but the Empress. 
 The little room seemed a complete illustration of the mind and 
 feelings of this extraordinary man. Opposite the window was 
 an elegant arch, under which stood a most luxurious satin 
 couch, with the softest pillows. Bound the arch were painted 
 in gold the names Austerlitz, Marengo, Friedland, &c, and 
 down the sides the arms of all the states tributary to France, 
 with groups of warlike implements ; and " N. N. N." with 
 laurel crowned the head. "When Napoleon lay in indolent 
 seclusion on this luxurious couch, he was reminded of con- 
 quered monarchs and his greatest battles. I was exceedingly 
 interested, and felt as though admitted to the centre of his 
 soul, on a spot where his demon spirit . had yet an influence. He 
 could never have risen from such a couch but with a mind filled 
 with vast designs, fevered blood, and his brain in a blaze. 
 "Why, I thought, might he not have resolved in this tremendous 
 silence on the murder of P'Enghien, on the gigantic enterprise 
 against Bussia ? I entered into the secret feelings of one who 
 was first the admiration, then the terror, and latterly the 
 detestation of the world. I enjoyed the full luxury of con- 
 templation, and my conductor did not interrupt me till I 
 recovered my perceptions. The English garden was very fine, 
 and the canal superbe et magnifique, as the old man said ; on it 
 was a large elegant boat, in which Buonaparte and the Empress 
 used to sail. In a room at the top of the old tower Francis L 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 281 
 
 died. I returned to Versailles, and set off next morning for 
 Malmaison and St. Cloud. Poor Josephine was dead, so we 
 could only see the gallery, in which were some extraordinary 
 pictures and statues. St. Cloud was shut up. At every step 
 in France you meet with traces of the gigantic wars that have 
 desolated Europe. There is scarcely a waiter in a coffee-house, 
 or a driver of a fiacre that has not served as a soldier, been 
 through a campaign, or been wounded in a battle. On my 
 way' to Eambouillet I took up a fine youth, only nineteen, 
 delicate and slender. He had been wounded and taken by the 
 Russians, stripped, and turned off to find his way, naked and 
 bleeding. He said he trembled, and could hardly hold his 
 musket, seeing all his companions fall around him. If it had 
 not been for Mme. la Duchesse de la Moskowa (Ney's wife) he 
 must have died. She got accommodation for him and several 
 other wounded men, obtained his discharge when better, and 
 gave him money to take him home. He left Chartres with 
 sixty youth-?, all of whom were killed but himself. " If Buona- 
 parte had remained he would have killed all mankind, and 
 then made war upon animals," said the boy. Coming back, I 
 met a dragoon from Spain. The coachman of the voiture had 
 served with Moreau, and lost three fingers. The contradictory 
 state of mind of the people is strange. They denounce 
 Buonaparte, yet glory in his victories. They tell you of his 
 genius and execrate his government in the same breath. 
 Talking of him as a conqueror they fire with enthusiasm ; as a 
 monarch they ah ithematize him. I had almost forgotten to 
 mention the Jardin des Plantes, an immense piece of ground 
 devoted to flowers of all countries: and spacious enclosures 
 where beasts, birds, and fish from every clime are kept as 
 n; arly as possible in their native manner. There is something 
 of Roman magnificence in all this, and also of Roman callous- 
 ness to human suffering. Last year a bear devoured one of the 
 keepers, an old soldier. In England the bear would have been 
 shot, and subscriptions raised for the s ildier's widow and 
 children. Here they called the b j ar by the man's name, and 
 made a caricature of the scene. I have been told of it re- 
 peatedly as a good joke. There is an immense Museum of 
 lsatmal History, in which the skeleton of every animal is kept. 
 I have also visited Voltaire's house at Ferney ; in his sitting- 
 room were plans of the Alps and Lake of Geneva, and it was 
 
2.S2 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 full of portraits, • among them Milton and Franklin. On the 
 other side hung his washerwoman an 1 chimneysweeper, with 
 Pope Clement between them ! The ballet at the French Opera 
 is much superior to ours, wonderfully fine and graceful ; but the 
 singing miserable. The Italian Opera is good ; they do not 
 suffer dancing there. I have seen Denon, and found him a 
 most delightful man. I have been to Vineennes, where 
 D'Fnghien was shot, and have investigated every atom of ihe 
 field of baitle. I am going to Fontainebleau before leaving 
 Paris, which we do on Saturday week, and hope to see your 
 gracious Majesty about the 5th. Your ' Masque,' I expect, is 
 finished and out, and succeeded, I'm sure. I have met with 
 ' Paradis Perdu ' — one line will be enough for you. Hamlet I 
 have seen — murder ! Two fine editions of Dante and Ariosto I 
 have bought for you, with Dante's private Meditations. If 
 there be no duty they will all be only 21, 12s. — old plates, 
 curious and int resting. Eemember me affectionately to your 
 brother John, to your Mrs. Hunt, and his Mrs. Hunt, also your 
 brother Robert ; to Scott, Barne«, and all the heroes. I am con- 
 vinced, my di ar Hunt, that you might make a fine article on 
 Buonaparte's secret clmet, and all that has been thought of 
 there. There he revelled in di earns of dominion and conquest, 
 of murder and blood ; and when his mind and imagination were 
 fired with a sort of gory, gleaming splendour, perhaps sent for 
 the Empress 1 
 
 Truly and affectionately y t ours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Leigh Hunt. 
 
 My DEAR HUNT, Hastings. 29tli September, 1S14. 
 
 I had no intention of writing to you, as I feared to 
 strain my eyes, having resolved to do nothing that would 
 retard their recovery ; and knowing that you would excuse me, 
 and not think it unkind, on such an explanation. Put, my 
 dear fellow, such glorious news has arrived to me that I'll 
 write you if I get blind before the conclusion. My native 
 town, in council assembled, has voted me the Freedom of the 
 Borough, as a mark of respect for the powers displayed in the 
 ' Judgment of Solomon.' You asked me last May if mine was 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 283 
 
 not an English victory ? Let me ask you if this is not also an 
 English honour? An honour, not from family interest or a 
 corrupt corporation, but from a Mayor and Commonally who 
 struggled and got their freedom and rights about ten years 
 since, and abolished the title of alderman and common council- 
 man because they were not mentioned in the Charter of 
 Henry VI. Now these are fine fellows, and their freedom is 
 worth having ; and I know, my dear fellow, you will sympa- 
 thize with me completely in this business. 
 
 I would rather have this honour paid me than be elected 
 President of all the Academies of Europe, and I assure you I 
 am prouder of it than of any honours acquired by sneaking, 
 detestable intrigue. 
 
 You shall see what I'll do after this, God give me my eyes 
 and faculties. How are you after all this preamble ? Do you 
 continue well, or better, or what ? Do let me hear. Kind 
 remembrances to Mrs. Hunt and all. I have used constant 
 and violent exercise, and am certainly wonderfully better in 
 my eyes. I hope to complete my recovery before I return. 
 God bless you, my dear Hunt. 
 
 Believe me, always yours affectionately, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 P.S. Do send this letter to your brother, who will be as 
 much pleased as either of us. How goes on your poem ? 
 
 Extract from a Letter of Haydon to David Wilkie. 
 
 September, 1814. 
 
 I say that a reference to the best models of art tends 
 to strengthen the mind, and so far from distracting the at- 
 tention from nature, sends you to it with more acuteness, 
 makes you observe beauties you might have passed unheeded, 
 and rouses vour energies to surpass what the world has so long 
 praised. 
 
 In oppositiun to your citing Carlo Marratti and Raphael 
 Mengs as a proof that an intimate acquaintance with the best 
 models of art will not produce great artists, permit me to quote 
 Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and Rubens, to prove that an 
 intimate acquaintance will. You would have approached the 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 truth had you said an intimate acquaintance alone would never 
 form great artists. To this I agree. But to cite Carlo 
 Marratti and Raphael Mengs, two men of decided imbecility of 
 mind, as proofs that an intimate acquaintance with great works 
 will not produce great men, is not taking a full view of 
 the case. Would they have been great men without such 
 helps ? Would they have been as great without such helps ? 
 Certainly not. And why ? Because they were radically without 
 capacity. Hence, if men without capacity attained some 
 degree of excellence by studying alone the works of others, is 
 it not just to conclude that men with great capacity would 
 attain a high degiee of excellence by proceeding in the same 
 road? You quote Carlo Marratti and Kaphael Mengs, men 
 without power to prove that it can produce no good effect. I 
 quote Michel Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and Rubens to prove 
 that it can. There is not one of those but was benefited by 
 the study of the works of their predecessors ; there is not one 
 of them but had his road shortened by such study, that had 
 his eyes opened to new beauties, his capacities strengthened, 
 his views enlarged, and his enthusiasms confirmed. 
 
 Would Michel Angelo have gone so far without the Torso, 
 and would Raphael without the antiquities of Rome ? Would 
 Titian without the works of Giorgioni ? Granting that Cor- 
 reggio and Rembrandt (the names that occur as not being 
 indebted to others) are great without others' assistance, are 
 they as great as Michel Angelo and Raphael ? Do they excite 
 the same feelings as to enlargement of mind ? Though never 
 seeing great productions, they pursued with their intense 
 feeling one small part. Surely these are the sensations these 
 two extraordinary men excite. The views of both are confined, 
 and without that infinite variety which exhibits a large 
 looking out on the world. If a man has the capacity, know- 
 ledge of any sort can never injure but assist him. If he has 
 not, knowledge will enable him to go further than he other- 
 wise could have gone. You say the works of Carlo Marratti 
 and Raphael Mengs contain a negation of every excellence 
 they pretend to combine. But why ? From their want of 
 capacity, or from their studying works of others ? 
 
 Believe me, ever yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 285 
 
 From Sir W. Calcott. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Kcns : ngton Gravel Pits, 30lh April, 1815. 
 
 I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter contain- 
 ing so very flattering an expression of your approbation. For 
 the general comme relation bestowed on my picture, I am aware 
 how much I am indebted to circumstances. I conceive, also, 
 that my professional friends are induced, from the same cause, 
 to think higher of it than it really deserves. 
 
 When I allow myself, then, to say that I accept, with the 
 sincerest pleasure, the eulogium your generous feeling has 
 impelled you to pronounce on this production, I do so, not 
 from any idea that I merit such praise, but from the sense 
 that I shall by these means be entitled to participate, in some 
 degree, in the honour which such sentiments as dictated this 
 letter confer upon yourself. 
 
 I am, yours most truly, 
 
 A. W. Calcott. 
 
 To Leigh Hunt on the vote of 500,000Z. for a Waterloo 
 Monument* 
 
 My dear Hunt, 5th July, isi-5. 
 
 I have not lately called on any of my friends ; I have 
 been so occupied and fatigued towards evening. 
 
 I am sure it is a most extraordinary thing, you will agree 
 with me, that in all these monuments and pillars, neither 
 mayor, minister, nor prince has said a word about painting. 
 There seems to be really an infatuated blindness as to its value 
 and importance. No captain of a twenty-gun frigate is killed 
 but monuments are voted with profusion. Sculptors and 
 architects have the stimulus of being employed by Parliament, 
 but the rank of historical painting is certainly owing to the 
 
 * It is worthy of note that on the Government applying by letter to the Royal 
 Academy, as the constituted authority in art, for their advice and assistam e in 
 raising this proposed national monument in honour of Waterloo, the Royal 
 Academy, on the advice of Sir Martin (then Mr.) Sliee. took no notice of tl o 
 application. Lord Castlereagh was so wounded at this indifference to his 
 propo-al that he quashed the whole scheme, and thus the greatest opportunity 
 that had occurred since the days of the Plantagenets for the union of painting and 
 sculpture with architecture, in public decoration, was designedly lost by the 
 ruffled spite of the Royal Academy, which owed the Treasuiy an old grudge, and 
 thus gratified it. — Ed. 
 
2 85 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 devotion of its professors, independent and in spite of neglect 
 and opposition. Now, my dear Hnnt, one word from you in 
 your Political Article will do more good than any separate 
 allusion or Fine Arts paragraph. You have often done this, 
 and I have felt, and ever shall feel, keenly such assistance to 
 my noble department. If possible, do it again at this critical 
 moment ; do say, surely the Historical Painters of the country 
 may justly complain when Architecture and Sculpture have 
 such unjust preference. Theij are certainly adapted for exposed 
 situations, but let pictures adorn the protected ones. They are 
 going to imitate Greece in engraving the names — let them 
 imitate her also in voting grand pictures. Barry adorned the 
 Adelphi /or nothing; Hogarth, the Foundling for nothing ; and 
 for nothing did Keynolds and West offer to adorn St. Paul's, 
 such was their feeling for their country's reputation ; and yet 
 they were refused — even such an offer ! Mind, my dear Hunt, 
 I don't complain of these difficulties ; he is not the Man who 
 would not head a tide fifty times as furious. I only wish to 
 impress you with an idea that if so much has been done with 
 so little, more would most assuredly be attained with greater 
 protection. If the country has been rescued from the stigma 
 of incapacity by the innate vigour of its artists, it only wants 
 the assistance of the State completely to establish its preten- 
 sions in the face of the world. It is in your power to assist our 
 great object, my dear Hunt. You have done great things for 
 us — greater, indeed, than any other political writer before 
 you ; don't forget us at this moment of enthusiasm, and you 
 will have still greater claims, if possible, on my heart than 
 ever. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 B. B. Haydost. 
 
 Extract from a Letter from John Scott. 
 
 July, 1815 [after the battle of Waterloo], 
 
 The appearance of Brussels after the Battle of Waterloo 
 is most interesting. The streets are crowded with English- 
 men who have been " in the jaws " of death, all bearing about 
 them the hurts they had received in the terrible conflict. 
 Many of them, fine young men, using crutches, or with arms in 
 slings, strutting nevertheless with a gallant coxcombical air, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 287 
 
 suggesting the excessive versatility and variety of human 
 nature. It was but the other clay they were in the heart of 
 the battle, black with powder and perspiration, fierce, bleed- 
 ing, groaning, dying. Now, they are out on a fine day, in a 
 gay park — after much careful preparation at their toilette- 
 eyeing the pretty girls, and casting complacent looks at the 
 symmetry of their legs. 
 
 Brussels appears like a machine thrown out of gear. All the 
 regular and domestic habits of the place are put to rest for the 
 time being. Nor is the virtue of the place increased by the 
 presence of our troops. A constant amatory parade up and 
 down goes on in the streets and parks. The convalescent 
 officers have but one pursuit ; and the women of Brussels, high 
 and low, married and single, are abundantly susceptible. 
 
 The place is in a perpetual throng of English, Scotch, Prus- 
 sians, Belgians — officers and privates — all free of constraint, 
 all gay, dissipated, and careless. The English are highly 
 spoken of, and the Scotch more highly. The Prussians are 
 universally execrated. 
 
 I found my friend Logan mending slowly of his wound, and 
 on Friday I set off with him for the field of battle ; and glad 
 I was that I had a companion with me who had been something 
 more than a spectator of the battle. I was glad of this, for 
 such is the crowding of the English, such their simplicity or 
 their curiosity, and the extravagance with which they pur- 
 chase all or any relics, that I found the Belgians very much 
 inclined to laugh at their visitors. 
 
 It was with deep feelings of interest that I heard my companion 
 point out to me where he rested in the Forest of Soignies on 
 his march to the field ; where he saw the Duke pass ; where 
 the artillery defiled, &c. All was deeply interesting ; but of 
 the actual battle I could glean but little or nothing. He saw 
 nothing but was before him. When we came to the village of 
 Waterloo every inn had chaises, gigs, fiacres, cabriolets, and 
 carriages crowded round its door, just as you see in the neigh- 
 bourhood of a horse-race or boxing-match. Luncheons, din- 
 ners, drinking, at every public-house. I supposed Waterloo 
 was close to the field, but it is not. The Duke's head-quarters 
 were there, but you advance from Waterloo a mile before you 
 arrive at the village of Mont St. Jean, a much smaller place, 
 about half a mile in front of which the battle was fought. On 
 
2 88 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 the field I found a twelve-pound shot, which had plunged from 
 our guns into the heart of the French lines. This trophy I 
 carried with me for five or six miles in a blazing day, and I 
 mean to bring it home, with the cuirass and other spoils of 
 battle which I have secured. I postpone what I have to say 
 about the field till my next. 
 
 I am, dear Haydon, ever yours, 
 
 John Scott. 
 
 From his Sister, Mrs. Haviland. 
 
 Plymouth, 2nd August, 1S15. 
 
 On Friday I went out to see Buonaparte, but the guard 
 boats kept us at such a great distance I was rather disap- 
 pointed, as it was impossible to clearly distinguish his features. 
 He seems a good figure and dignified ; and to the disgrace of 
 the Plymouthians be it said, yesterday, as he withdrew, the 
 people rose up in their boats and applauded him. 
 
 There is so much that is mysterious and prepossessing about 
 him, and now in his great misfortunes so much pity is felt, 
 that it is dangerous, I think, to the loyalty of the people to 
 keep him here long ; they all seem fascinated. Napoleon has 
 a large stomach, though not otherwise fat. He walks the 
 deck between five and six. 
 
 h. n. 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 My dear Sir, 1st July, I8i5. 
 
 I go on Monday, and cannot quit London without 
 leaving with you my best wishes for your success and happi- 
 ness. I am confident you will pardon what I am about to say, 
 and, whether you agree with me or not, you will give me full 
 credit for my motives. 
 
 As your sincere well-wisher, I earnestly request you to 
 abstain from writing, except upon broad and general subjects 
 chiefly allusive to your art. If any severe or unjust remarks are 
 made upon you or your works, paint them down. You can. l!ut 
 if you retort in words action will produce re-action, and your 
 whole remaining life be one scene of pernicious contention. 
 Your mind, which should be " a mansion for all lovely 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 289 
 
 thoughts," will be for ever disturbed by anger and sarcastic 
 movements, and never in a state to enable you to sit down to 
 your easel with that composed dignity your " high calling " 
 demands. 
 
 Excuse me, however, for now I recollect you told me you 
 were become sensible of this error. 
 
 I leave London on Monday, but if you wish to see me again 
 I shall be at breakfast to-morrow at nine, and glad of your 
 company. 
 
 I remain, with my good wish, and many, yours, 
 
 G. Bkaumont. 
 
 To Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My dear Sir Geoege, 5th July. 
 
 I thank you very sincerely for your advice. It is what 
 I had long since resolved on. Since my attack on the Royal 
 Academy (which I shall glory in to the day of my death) I 
 have never written one line in attack. The cause of my doing 
 that was sincere disgust at seeing such means of improving 
 the public taste so grossly perverted. I have long since been 
 thoroughly convinced that to paint my way to my great object 
 is my only plan, and to which I will firmly adhere till, under 
 God's protection, 1 attain it. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir George, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Cole-Orton, 19th July. 
 
 I felt sure you would consider what I took the liberty to 
 say in the light it was intended. Indeed 1 have no fear for you 
 except on account of the warmth of your temper, which, with- 
 out proper attention, may, with the best and most generous 
 motives, lead you into situations which will disturb the tran- 
 quillity of your mind and unfit you to pursue, at least with 
 comfort, the great object you have in view. 
 
 Should you write within a fortnight, you may address to mo 
 at Wordsworth's, Rydal Mount. On Monday I set off. I have 
 
 VOL. I. u 
 
2-p 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 not seen a mountain these seven years, and you may imagine 
 with what pleasure I look forward towards ranging among 
 them with such a worshipper of nature as Wm. Wordsworth. 
 Success to your exertions. 
 
 Ever truly yours, 
 
 G. Beaumont. 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Cole-Orfon, 13th November, 1S15. 
 
 I also have been contemplating the beauties of the 
 ocean with infinite delight. The great elevation of Mulgrave 
 (Castle) gives you the advantage of an expansive view, and the 
 sea being broad on that part of the coast the waves roll in 
 with impressive grandeur. I also have remarked its various 
 lines, its freshness, its green, cerulean, and purple tints ; and I 
 agree with you that Vandervelde confined himself to two or 
 three effects, but in those he is admirable. Perhaps he thought 
 it better to carry home that which he thought best adapted to 
 his art, or at any rate that which he felt most, than to dissi- 
 pate his powers in attempting the infinite varieties of nature. 
 Indeed, it may be observed that most of the Old Masters have 
 limited themselves to few effects. Claude painted scarce any- 
 thing but mornings and evenings, and indeed almost always 
 the same subject with variations. Salvator repeats himself 
 continually. Teniers and Ostade paint the same faces and 
 the same subjects for ever ; and, although I do not say they 
 are to be followed in this respect, yet it may be well to con- 
 sider whether we are not in some measure indebted to this 
 practice for the great excellence of their works. An artist 
 should carefully consider his quantity of power, and what suits 
 his genius best, before he attempts too great a range, since it 
 is certainly better to carry a few effects to perfection than to 
 produce thousands of moderate performances. Too great 
 sacrifice, however, should not be made. Who would wish 
 Wilkie, for example, to confine himself to half-a-dozen charac- 
 ters ? Double the execution and colouring of Teniers, or even 
 of Ostade, would be a poor amend for such a loss. 
 
 I am glad he is with you ; the sea air will do him good. 
 My best regards to him, for, super-added to my value for him 
 as a man, I consider him as an honour to the country. I 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 291 
 
 delight in youi enthusiasm ; too much cannot be said in 
 honour of your art, and the glory it has lately received in a 
 neighbouring country gives me the greatest pleasure. In one 
 thing, however, I must a little differ from you. 
 
 You do not wish our country to accumulate such works as 
 those in the Louvre ? Nor I, either, if it must be at the 
 expense of honesty, or exclude encouragement to our native 
 talent. Heaven forbid ! However, I know we shall agree on 
 this point when we come to an explanation. 
 
 it seems to me that the arts of a country are never in 
 greater danger of deterioration than when they have made 
 considerable progress towards perfection. It is very well known 
 that when they have been carried as far, or nearly so, as human 
 capacity will allow, they have at all times begun to degene- 
 rate. The reason is plain. The rising generation find it 
 impracticable to excel their predecessors by following the 
 principles of their art, and they fly off to every specious fancy 
 which promises to procure popularity. Then it is that men 
 of genius should be watched with a jealous eye, for their 
 examples are destruction ; and if once a false taste, set off by 
 great power of misled genius, gains ground in a country, adieu 
 to all hope of recovery : the case is mortal ! 
 
 Now it appears to me that nothing is more likely to prevent 
 this evil than a collection of such acknowledged merit that it 
 may be appealed to as the standard of truth on all occasions, 
 and although it must be allowed the best things bear strong 
 marks of the imperfection of human nature, yet the works to 
 which you allude are so excellent they may be safely had 
 recourse to as models until they are surpassed. And, as I 
 believe the principles on which they have boen produced have 
 never been questioned, the best chance of surpassing them is 
 by following the road, without "servilely treading" in the 
 footsteps of their authors. 
 
 I do not say this to you as a warning ; you are really a true 
 votary of legitimate art. But I shall tire you. Meanwhile 
 will you call upon Mr. Alston, and let me know how you like 
 the picture he is painting for me. You see, by this request, I 
 think you are above all little jealousies. Were I not convinced 
 of that, my hopes would not be so sanguine. 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 G. Beaumont. 
 u 2 
 
292 . CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Sir Geoege Beaumont. 
 
 My DEATt SlT?, Cole-Orton, 3rd December, 1S15. 
 
 Your account of Canova is very interesting. I am very 
 sorry I shall not see him whilst he stays. I congratulate you 
 upon his approbation of your picture. The praise of such a 
 man is valuable, for from the few of his works which I have 
 seen, I should suppose him to be a man of extraordinary 
 powers. 
 
 I comply with your request with some concern, not that I 
 have no pleasure in accommodating you, but because I feel 
 truly sorry to find that it is necessary for you to forestall too 
 much one of the stimuli which should be in reserve to encourage 
 you in the progress of your work. Will you forgive me if I 
 enter a little into the subject on this occasion? 1 admire your 
 enthusiasm, and entirely Approve of your making profit an 
 inferior consideration. But still it is necessary for your peace 
 of mind that profit should be taken into < onsideration, and 
 although you are not oppressed by pecuniary difficulties, they 
 must, as you say, harass and disturb your mind. 
 
 The gentlemen of this country are, I verily believe, anxious 
 to forward the arts, at least as far as I can judge from their 
 expressions, they have them much at heart. But their 
 powers are limited, for they have neither houses to receive, 
 nor money to spare for such works as you have in con- 
 templation. It seems, therefore, to me that it is absolutely 
 necessary, if you wish to enable yourself to indulge your 
 most laudable ambition, that you should sacrifice some portion 
 of your time to work which may afford immediate profit. 
 Both Raphael and Titian, as well as other great painters, 
 occasionally painted portraits ; and indeed when you con- 
 sider how intensely you must study nature and character 
 to paint portraits as they ought to be painted, as well as the 
 dignity and interest you would be enabled to give them, you 
 e mid not consider it as time lost. Suppose now you were to 
 give two mornings in a week to this study. I really think 
 you would forward yourself in art, and enable yourself to 
 proceed in comfort. 
 
 At any rate I am persuaded you will impute this liberty to 
 ts real motive, and if any more feasible plan occurs to you 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 293 
 
 I am siire you would eudeavour to forward it as mucli as 
 possible. 
 
 Lady Beaumont desires her kind compliments. 
 
 I am, my dear sir, most truly, 
 G. Beaumont.* 
 
 To Canova. 
 
 41, Great Marlborough Street London, 
 4th December, 1S15. 
 
 Honour me, my dear sir, before you leave England by 
 accepting and keeping this Milton in remembrance of my 
 admiration and respect. 
 
 Do not hesitate, and I promise you that I will render myself 
 worthy of such a compliment by my future exertions in my 
 art. 
 
 With every wish for your happiness and long life, 
 
 Believe me your affectionate and faithful servant, 
 B. R. Hay don. 
 
 From Canova. 
 
 SJGNORE, Londra, 5 Xbre, 1815. 
 
 Ella mi previene con una benevolenza insigne della 
 quale avrb perpetua memor'a grata. Accetto il gradito dono 
 del Milton de che Ella vuole onorarmi ; e benche non conosca 
 in me ninguno merito sufficiente a cagionare tanta di Lei cortesia 
 per me, pene conoscendola figlia d' un animo sommamente 
 gentile, non la ricuso: anzi Le sono grato, e avrb sempre vivo il 
 desiderio di mostrarle col fatto quanta che sia la mia sincera 
 riconoscenza. Intanto accogla i miei voti e l'obbligo contratto 
 con me stesso di amare e stimare una persona che tanta affezione 
 me dimostra ; duolmi ch' il tempo ristretto non mi permetta di 
 piu rivederla per questa volta; ma spero si verifieara il suo 
 venire in Italia, e allora saro in caso forse di riconoscere delle 
 mie obbligazioni. Sono con larga, viva stima, 
 
 II di Lei obbediente servitore, 
 
 Antonio Canova. 
 
 Haydon has endorsed this letter with " Very, very kind."— Ed. 
 
2 9 4 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Sir Geokge Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Cole-Orton, 26ih December, 1815. 
 
 It is impossible not to be interested for such determined 
 zeal as appears in your letter. I am far from wishing to confine 
 you to small historical pictures, and far less to portraits any 
 further than might be necessary to your comfort, and I really 
 thought there was time enough for both : you are of a different 
 opinion, and I have done. Still I have the desire to submit a 
 few observations for your consideration. Nature rarely favours 
 the same man with a warm imagination and a cool head. 
 When she does, a prolific painter or poet is produced. Now 
 she has mounted you upon a fiery courser who, with skilful 
 management, will carry you nobly over the field, but you must 
 abstain from whip and spur, and apply the curb with all your 
 dexterity, and then the race is your own. In a word, if on a 
 fair examination of your disposition you find that warmth has 
 rather the ascendency ! against that fort you must plant your 
 battery. Marcus Antonius, I think, used to thank the gods 
 daily that he was not born with an eager mind ; of course, 
 judging that such men were apt to overshoot the mark. My 
 mind figures to me Eaphael and Michel Angelo, especially the 
 former, sitting down to his work with all the calmness of a 
 philosopher; and I am convinced it was the temperate dispo- 
 sition Avhich enabled him to fill the world with magnificent 
 pictures before he was thirty-seven. All the genius that ever 
 inspired a man must be checked, if not totally impeded, by too 
 great anxiety. Let me then entreat you to calm your mind 
 by every means in your power. Abstain if possible from all 
 controversies, or from anything which you find irritates or 
 harasses your feelings, and determine to do everything quietly 
 and with composure, and if you can obtain this victory over 
 your disposition you will proceed not only with greater satis- 
 faction, but with far greater facility and expedition. 
 
 I have lately met with a book which has been of the greatest 
 service to me, as I am sure it must be to every man who will 
 read it with attention. It is an essay on the nature and im- 
 portance of self-knowledge, written by John Mason, M.A., not 
 the poet. It is a small volume, and may soon be read. It is 
 very serious, yet there is no fanaticism in it, and I am sure 
 you will like it. I shall therefore direct my bookseller to 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 send it to you in a few days, and I request you will keep it 
 for my sake. 
 
 I hope there will be nothing in this letter which will give 
 you a moment's uneasiness, but if there should be, I entreat 
 you to consider it as a wound given by a friendly surgeon with 
 the kindest intention. The mind of an artist should be gentle, 
 and the elements so mixed in him that the ti-ue balance should 
 be preserved. If then I have hit upon the quality which pre- 
 ponderates, you know your remedy. Adieu ! Success attend 
 all your exertions I 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 G. Beaumont. 
 
 To Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlR GEORGE, London, 21st January, 1816. 
 
 I received your kind letter, and in a few days afterwards 
 your kind present, which I shall estimate and keep out of 
 regard for you, not from any high opinion I entertain of tne 
 talent displayed in the essay. In general I have a very poor 
 opinion of all essays that tend rather to make a man distrust 
 his powers than depend upon them. They may do very well 
 for the commonest capacities, but can never be looked on with 
 any other feeling than mild commiseration by those — 
 
 " Whose high endeavours aie an inward light, 
 To make the path before them always bright." 
 
 What would Nelson have said, my dear Sir George, had 
 such an essay been put into his hands as he was entering 
 Aboukir Bay to fight the Battle of the Nile ? Had he opened 
 it and read that all his glorious sayings and high anticipations 
 were " romance," the " wild fire of the animal spirits," &c, 
 what would he, what could he have said ? Believe me there 
 is as much true self-knowledge in a consciousness of capacity, 
 when you possess it, and a dependence thereon, as in a de- 
 sponding distrust when you possess it not. The greater part 
 of mankind are so astounded at any daring attempt that they 
 see nothing but its hazards, and imagine he that dares sees no 
 further than themselves. They know not that the greatest 
 and most daring minds, with the highest feeling for something 
 higher than this world, have a thorough perception of the 
 
296 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 imperfections in it, and set about realizing their plans by a 
 cautious investigation of all the means requisite, because they 
 well know the means must be human. All that can be done 
 is to leave nothing to chance but what must be so left, to 
 anticipate every difficulty that can be anticipated, and to trust 
 the result to the natural operation of the means employed. 
 You say, Sir George, you imagine Raphael and Michel Angelo 
 s'tting down to their work with cool heads, and by saying this 
 in a letter of kind advice, you of course mean to hold it up 
 to me as an example, and one Avhich, it follows, you think 
 requisite. Now, my dear Sir George, those who know me best 
 know well that all my warmth and anxiety and zeal never led 
 me to begin to paint before I could draw, or to send a picture 
 out into the world before I had finished it. They know well 
 that when I began the art I was at an age to relish the 
 luxuries of touch, of colour, of effect, and of expression, but 
 that I curbed my burning inclination to express my conceptions 
 until 1 had dissected and drawn and studied at the drudgery 
 of the means for two years. Was I directed by any authority 
 to do this ? No. I was ridiculed and laughed at for doing it. 
 Surely then I must have had something in me to guide me on 
 the road, something that borders on judgment and philosophy, 
 something that could anticipate a result, or have a keen per- 
 ception of a consequence. 
 
 Fiery ardour and burning consciousness are first the exci- 
 tants to effort, and then the result of it. Jn the first instance 
 they support the spirit in the anticipation of what may be the 
 consequence, and in the next of what must be. The world in 
 general see only the fire and flame of what is uttered, and 
 having no causes for similar feelings in their own minds, esti- 
 mate such feelings as the dreams of a distempered imagination 
 till proof, following upon prophecy, teaches the wodd not always 
 to think every man mad who has other and higher objects 
 than the selfishness of individual security. 
 
 Pardon my egotism, my dear Sir George, if T ask whether 
 you think had I been frnpregnat d with the principles of the 
 book you have sent I should have borne up as I did against 
 the tide; that at one time set so strongly against me? Could 
 a distrust of my powers have urged me to begin a picture 
 larger than the one that failed, and to have brought the world 
 again in my favour ? Perhaps yon know the ' Happy Warrior ?' 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 297 
 
 In that sublime sonnet my principles are breathed in every 
 line — 
 
 " Who is the Happy Warrior ? Who is he 
 Whom every man in arms should wish to be ? 
 It is the generous spirit, who, when brought 
 Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
 Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought. 
 Whose high endeavours are an inward light 
 That make the path before him always bright; 
 Who, with a natural instinct to discern 
 What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn. 
 
 Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; 
 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
 For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state. 
 
 Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth 
 For ever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
 Or he must go to dust without his fame, 
 And leave a dead unprofitable name, 
 Finds comfort in himself and iu his cause." 
 
 Oh Wordsworth, it is impossible for me to express, the delight 
 I have experienced, and the gratitude I feel to you for the 
 effusions of your sublime spirit: they have supported and 
 inspired me when even my nature tended to suspect my 
 enemies might be right, and the aspirations of my heart mere 
 delusion ! They have indeed never failed to inspire — 
 
 " Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse 
 When the whole world seem adverse to desert." 
 
 No man can feel more ecstasy at Raphael's powers than 
 myself. I adore him. But in estimating his genius, and 
 remembering his works, let us distinguish what was owing to 
 nature from what was owing to opportunity. He entered the 
 Vatican at twenty-five years of age with unlimited control. 
 Great opportunities were given, he had not got to make them 
 for himself as has hitherto been the case in England. But we 
 are bom here to contend with what, to other nations, appear 
 impossibilities. Yet in spite of all these obstructions we will 
 yet shine forth to the wonder of Europe. Many of Raphael's 
 works in the Vatican were carried on in the spirit of a manu- 
 factory, indeed all his later ones, and his reputation depends 
 not on the number of his works, but on the quality of six or 
 seven works only. Raphael had no prejudices to combat. His 
 countrymen were prepared to receive what he did, and hia 
 
2 9 8 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 patrons to employ him on what he wished. All this would 
 have been useless, of course, if nature had not given him' 
 genius ; hut I am showing the full swing his genius was 
 allowed. People are inclined to infer dulness of invention 
 from slowness in completing the invention, and I know this 
 suspicion at present hangs over me, but time shall show. 
 Time has shown some things not expected, and time shall 
 show more if God spare my eyes and life. When I finished 
 my first picture then it was " very well for a first picture," 
 but they " feared " I was not equal to a " heroic work." Then 
 when ' Dentatus ' was done, " to be sure it was heroic," but I had 
 " no eye for colour." Then when I put out ' Macbeth,' " Oh, 
 yes, there was an eye for colour, but no simplicity." Then 
 'Solomon' was completed, but as I had taken two years to 
 paint it, I was not " rapid or prolific." Now, when I prove I 
 can be rapid and | rolific it will be "a pity he did not take a 
 little longer time." It makes me laugh. The art of painting, 
 in one respect, is not unlike the art of wa 1 *. Everybody thinks 
 they know something about it, but it is a very difficult art for 
 all that. My dear Sir George, excuse this long letter, and 
 in return for your kind present honour me still further by 
 accepting one from me, it is ' Foster's Essay on Decision of 
 Character.' It has been my guide for years, and it is written 
 with great power. I hope the more you know me the more I 
 shall deserve your esteem : indeed I will try to deserve it, and 
 so with my kindest respects to Lady Beaumont 
 Believe me, my dear Sir George, 
 
 Your affectionate and obliged servant, 
 
 B. R Haydon. 
 
 P.S. — With respect to fertility and rapidity I think higher 
 of intensity and perfection. For instance, I think that Oor- 
 reggio carried what he did to a higher degree than Raphael. 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlB, G>le-Orton Hall 8th February, 181G. 
 
 I am very sorry to see my letter has agitated your 
 feelings. Be assured if you knew my opinion of your talents 
 (and you may know it from Mr. Wordsworth and many others), 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 299 
 
 you would feel no reason to complain. I esteem you as a first- 
 rate and gallant vessel ; but, I confess, your last letter but one 
 made me fear you carried ratber too mucb sail, a fault easily 
 repaired if I was right ; and I tbougbt, as your friend, I ougbt 
 to bint tbis to you. I tbougbt the extreme ardour of your 
 disposition prevented your pursuing your art witb that placid 
 composure which, if not essential to success, certainly contri- 
 butes to happiness and prevents controversies which not only 
 present obstacles in the way of those who have the welfare of 
 you and your cause at heart, but also keep your own mind in a 
 perpetual state of tumult and resentment. You tell me I am 
 mistaken, and I have done. I can assure you that zeal for 
 your welfare which never left me, even in the time of our un- 
 lucky misunderstanding, does and will prevail, and, to resume 
 my figure, I shall hope to see you plough your way to the port 
 witb a dignified and a steady course, unmindful of the opposing 
 waves and scorning to be ruffled by them. 
 
 As to the book I took the liberty of sending you, I did not 
 recommend it for its eloquence, but its truth. I think it tho 
 most compendious receipt for its purpose I have ever met 
 with. To have put it, or even Foster's essays, into the hands 
 of Nelson on the eve of the Battle of Aboukir would, I confess, 
 have been ratber mal a jpropos. Yet, I think, if it had been 
 presented to him in bis cooler moments (and he would have 
 read it), it could not have made him a braver warrior, but 
 without clamping his ardour for judicious enterprise, it might 
 possibly have made him a wiser man, and have prevented some 
 indiscretions which every Englishman must lament. Observe, 
 I say, if be would have fairly considered the book, and brought 
 it to the test of practice, for a man who has never carefully 
 examined his heart must shrink at the first view of it. It 
 requires no common resolution to pluck out an eye or strike 
 off a limb with your own hand; and if on examination he 
 found the necessary operations were very severe, who knows 
 but the courage of Nelson might have failed him ? It is an 
 arduous task to encounter our prevailing passions, but when 
 once achieved every further undertaking is comparatively 
 easy. 
 
 I have received Foster's essays : I will take great care of 
 the book, but the same cause which has prevented my writing 
 sooner has prevented my reading them, viz., constant occupa- 
 
3oo 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 tion. When I come to town, I shall hope to find your great 
 work finished, and yourself in high spirits. 
 
 I am ever truly yours, 
 
 G. Beaumont. 
 
 From Spurzheim. 
 My DEAE SlR, Wednesday morning (1815). 
 
 I was out when your letter was delivered. I therefore 
 take the liberty of sending you the cast of the face of Voltaire. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 Spurzheim. 
 
 From F. Wybors. 
 
 My DEAR HaydON, Paris, 8th March, 1816. 
 
 I thank you over and over again for your introduction 
 to Hayter, whom I saw very often during the week of the 
 museum, and whose talents will, I am sure, do honour to our 
 little island. I regretted much that you were not by, to 
 witness the havoc and the unconcerned manner with which the 
 Vandals treated (to you and to me) the most sacred objects. 
 The sufferings of some of the first-rate artists, Girodet and 
 Gros, &c, were really affecting. Nothing but the contending 
 feelings of triumph as an Englishman at the sight of this most 
 glorious proof of our country's superiority could have prevented 
 my sympathising with them. I was enabled, however, by the 
 respect held for talent, to check any open expression of the 
 delight I felt ; but I recompensed myself for those momentary 
 sacrifices by the unrestrained burst of my sentiments when 
 alone, or in the society of the English diplomatists and artists. 
 Amongst the former, your friend William Hamilton deserves 
 the gratitude of every Englishman for having borne without 
 shrinking the odium of the action, in common with the Ihike 
 of Wellington, in the minds of the French. I hope I shall sec 
 you in France this summer. I have taken a quondam pleasure 
 house of Louis XV. at Montrouge (about one mile from the 
 Barriere d'Enfer) for the summer months, but I come in 
 regularly three times a week to the sittings of the Institute ; 
 therefore, I fear I shall be as much in your society as will, I 
 fear, give you a surfeit of me. If your picture will be done 
 this winter I shall come over to see it ; if not, I think I shall go 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 301 
 
 to Italy for the winter. God bless you, my dear H. ! Bemember 
 me most particularly to Wilkie. Mr. Lane called upon me ; 
 he imitates, or endeavours to do so, your manner on much the 
 same grounds the Due cle Berri does that of Buonaparte, and 
 with about as much right ! Adieu ! 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 F. W'iTORN. 
 
 Extract of a Letter from David Wilkie. 
 
 ]8th August, 1816. 
 Yesterday morning Lord Lynedoch (Sir Thomas Graham 
 that was) called upon me, and said that if I should be at home 
 at four o'clock the Duke of Wellington and a party that came 
 to meet at his house previous to that would then call on me 
 with him. Upon this information I set to work for the rest of 
 the day to get my rooms put to rights, put all my pictures in 
 order for view, and last, though not least, had to arrange it so 
 that my mother and sister might see the great man from the 
 parlour windows as he came in. 
 
 Matters being thus settled, we waited in a sort of breathless 
 expectation for their arrival, and at half-past four they 
 accordingly came. The party consisted of the Duke and 
 Duchess of Bedford, Lady Argyle and another lady, the 
 Duke of Wellington and Lord Lynedoch, to all of which the 
 latter introduced me as they came in. When they went up- 
 stairs they were first occupied in looking at the pictures 
 severally, but without entering into conversation further than 
 by expressing a general approbation. The Duke, on whom 
 my attention was fixed, seemed pleased with them, and said 
 in his firm voice, " Very good," " Capital," &c, but said nothing 
 in the way of remark, and seemed indeed not much attended 
 to by the company, of whom the ladies began to talk a good 
 deal. They went on in this way for a considerable time, and I 
 had every reason to feel satisfied with the impression my 
 works seemed to make on the Duke and Duchess of Bedford 
 and the others, but though the Duke of Wellington seemed 
 full of attention, I felt disappointed with his silence. At last 
 Lady Argyle began to tell me that the Duke wished me to 
 paint him a picture, and was explaining what the sub ect was, 
 when the Duke, who was at that time seated on a chair and 
 
302 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 looking at one of the pictures that happened to be on the 
 ground, turned to us, and swinging back upon the chair turned 
 up his lively eye to me, and said that the subject should be a 
 parcel of old soldiers assembled together on their seats at the 
 door of a public-house, chewing tobacco and talking over their 
 old stories. He thought they might be in any uniform, and that 
 it should be at some public-house in the King's Eoad, Chelsea. 
 I said this would make a most beautiful picture, and that it 
 only wanted some story or a principal incident to connect the 
 figures together : he said perhaps playing at skittles would do, 
 or any other game, when I proposed that one might be reading 
 a newspaper aloud to the rest, and that in making a sketch of 
 it many other incidents would occur. In this he perfectly 
 agreed, and said I might send the sketch to him when he was 
 abroad. He then got up and looked at his watch, and said to 
 the company his time was nearly out, as he had to go and 
 dine with the Duke of Cambridge. 
 
 After they had proposed to go, he made me a bow, and as 
 he went out of the room he turned to me, and said, " Well, 
 when shall I hear from you ? " To which I replied that my 
 immediate engagements, and the time it would take to collect 
 materials for his Grace's subject, would prevent me being 
 able to get it done for two years. *' Very well," said he, " that 
 will be soon enough for me." They then went downstairs, 
 and as they went out our people were all ready to see him 
 from the parlour windows : when he got to the gate, he made 
 me a bow again, and seeing at the same time my family at the 
 parlour windows he bowed to them also. As he got upon 
 his horse he observed all t' e families and the servants were 
 at the windows, and I saw two lifeguardsmen, the rogues just 
 behind the pillar at the corner, waiting to have a full view 
 of him. 
 
 The sensation this event occasioned quite unhinged us for 
 the rest of the day. Nothing was talked of but the Duke 
 of Wellington; and the chair he happened to sit upon has 
 been carefully selec'.ed out, and has been decorated with 
 ribbons, and there is a talk of having an inscription upon it, 
 descriptive of the honour it has received. 
 
 With respect to the appearance of the man, none of the 
 portraits of him are like him. He is younger and fresher, 
 more active and lively, and in his figure more clean-made 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 203 
 
 and firmer built than I was led to expect. His face is in 
 some respects odd ; has no variety of expression, but his eyo 
 is extraordinary, and is almost the only feature I remember, 
 but I remember it so well that I think I see it now. It has 
 not the hungry and devouring look of Buonaparte, but seems 
 to express in its liveliness the ecstasy that an animal would 
 express in an active and eager pursuit* 
 
 From His Excellency the Count Mordwinoff. 
 
 St. Petersburg, 8 (20) Mai, 1816. 
 On m'a dit, mon cher neveu, que vos yeux sont faibles 
 et que vous avez commence un autre tableau d'une grande 
 dimension de ' l'entree de Jesus-Christ a Jerusalem.' Vous 
 aurez done a composer, a trouver. a varier les details infinis, et 
 votre ouvrage, pour etre parfait, demandera bien des annees. 
 Mon cher, il ne sera jamais paye a raison du temps employe et 
 des depenses faites, que les amateurs et les acheteurs calculent 
 toujours peu. Ecoutez ! Votre fortune est toute dans votre 
 pinceau, et vous devez la faire encore. Votre ' Solomon ' ne 
 vous a pas rendu riche : il vous a procure' de la celebrite, et 
 vous a bien servi pour vous mettre dans la voie de la richesse, 
 qui est toujours bonne, meme pour un homme de talent. Je 
 vous aurais conseille de faire a present des tableaux de deux a 
 trois figure •, comme mon ' Adam et Eve,' et plus de la grandeur 
 de ceux qu'on place dans les cabinets. Si Baphael et Buona- 
 rotti ne faisaient que la 'Transfiguration' et le 'Dernier 
 Jugement,' ils seraient moins celebres et moins connus. Mais 
 leurs noms et leurs merites sont connus dans toute 1' Europe, 
 parce qu'ils firent des tableaux portables d'un pays a l'autre, et 
 que chaque pays les possede a present. Es peuvent faire 
 plusieurs, et avec le nombre ils doteront les nations. Si vous 
 adopterez les dimensions de la generalite de leurs tableaux, la 
 Eussie connaitra aussi le nom de Haydon, et Haydon sera 
 place avec les Baphaels que nous posse'dons. Votre celebrite 
 sera plus etendue, et votre fortune pecuniaire sera plus 
 splendide. Je serai peut-etre assez rirhe pour acheter quelque 
 croquis de votre main, mais il faut retrecir votre toile. Nous 
 avons de bien beaux tableaux de Leonard, du Correge, de Carlo 
 Dolce, d'Andre del Sarto, de Nicholas Poussin, du Titien, en 
 miniature, et leurs merites ne sont pas eclipses par leur peti- 
 
304 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 tesse. Je prends la liberte de vous donner ce conseil commo 
 votre affectionne parent, comme un homme vieux, lequel, sans 
 etre avare, trouve que l'argent est necessaire a tout age. Votro 
 talent et votre celebrite sont aussi bien connus en Russie, 
 mais vous avez besoin de vous rendre independant par le grand 
 agent de ce monde, un nombre competent de guinees en votre 
 possession, et je ne les trouve pas en grandes toiles. Je vous 
 conseille comme un admirateur du Beau qui voudrait voir 
 multiplie ses images et comme un homme en qui vous avez 
 reveille de l'estime pour vous. Je suis sinccrement 
 Votre devoud, 
 
 N. Mordwinoff. 
 
 Yos cousines (les Anglaises) se portent bien, et pretendent 
 d'etre heureuses ici. Je leur cherche des maris pour les rendre 
 plus satisi'aites encore ! 
 
 From William Bewick's Father. 
 
 SIR, Darlington, 7th September, 1816. 
 
 I received your letter yesterday concerning my son, and 
 am much obliged to you in taking so much upon you in his 
 behalf. Sir, if you think his abilities will answer the expecta- 
 tions I will do as much as my small pittance will allow. I 
 have a large family to provide for, and times are only indif- 
 ferent at this time. But I think his mind is bent upon that 
 line ; he was always ingenious from a boy in any kind of work 
 I put him to. But it is hard to bring him up in a line and 
 throw it away when to almost manhood. But, however, if you 
 think he will answer, I will do all that lays in my power for 
 him. I said, before he came to London, his mind was intent 
 solely on the drawing business, and was very much against 
 it ; but what can one do ? You will excuse this scrawl. 
 
 Sir, I remain your most obedient servant, 
 
 Wm. Bewick. 
 
 From Bewick's Mother. 
 
 SlR, D..rlington, 2Ct!i July, lSi7. 
 
 Your very kind and obliging letter I received. In 
 answer I assure you I am extremely sorry that my husband's 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 wishes are so much contrary to my son's prosperity, enthu- 
 siasm, and determination for proceeding in the study for an 
 historic painter 
 
 After interrogating my husband, his answer was, that he 
 really could not afford to support my son in London at present, 
 trade being so very bad, and having a large family at home to 
 support. What must be done I really cannot say, as my son 
 has said some time since that he is determined to be nothing 
 but an historic painter, notwithstanding the struggles he has 
 and may have to make. 
 
 You will please to accept my sincere thanks for the obliga- 
 tions, &c, which you have rendered to my son, and I hope he 
 will continue to deserve your friendship. 
 
 I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Jane Bewick. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Brussels, 16th Sept. mber, 1S16. 
 
 My landing at Ostend not being the first time I had 
 set foot in a foreign country, it did not strike me so much as 
 our entrance in Dieppe, but I was very soon awakened to some- 
 thing highly delightful on discovering that everything we 
 saw bore the stamp of being the origin of Rubens's and Teniers's 
 style of painting. We were first arrested by a cabaret on the 
 Quai, where we saw a smiling wife serving out liquor to a 
 parcel of men smoking at various tables round the room, and 
 whose faces, as well as the style of the apartment, were quite 
 familiar to me. As we passed along to the inn, the notched 
 gable ends of the houses towards the streets again reminded us 
 of Teniers. In the morning we had to walk about a mile to 
 the barge. The waggon which was sent to carry our luggage, 
 with two white horses, was exactly Rubens's team. As we pro- 
 ceeded on the canal we thought we saw whole landscapes of 
 Teniers succeeding one another. The trees were touched and 
 grouped exactly as he painted them ; the little church-spires 
 in the distance came in ; the water of the canal was the very 
 colour he has painted it ; and even the sky, which was beauti- 
 fully clear, seems to have adapted itself as if to bear him out 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 completely. This happened to be the day of a market at 
 Bruges, and we were joined by shoals of peasants from both 
 sides, till the barge was as full as it could cram. I had by 
 this time begun my operations with my sketch-book and 
 pencil ; and observing what treasure there was on board for 
 study, I went below and began upon a most inimitable group. 
 My work very soon attracted the notice and admiration of the 
 whole ship's company. These innocent and simple people seem 
 never to have seen anything of the sort before. They were 
 delighted and amused, sat with the greatest good nature, and, 
 so far as I could judge, I was regarded as a prodigy till we 
 got to Bruges by at least 300 people. Here we left them, but 
 it was only to recommence upon a new set of passengers. 
 These were people of a better class, but equally willing to 
 encourage my labours. I drew everything that was worth 
 drawing, both in the boat and on shore, till at last I began 
 to make a sketch, by the desire of several, of one who was 
 considered the smartest girl of the party. Mr. Baimbach would 
 not try any sketches. 
 
 One part of this day's journey was also delightful, that is 
 the dinner we had in the barge. This was superb, but its 
 merits cannot be explained within the compass of a letter. 
 
 Ghent we were greatly surprised with ; it is magnificent. 
 On Sunday morning we went to high mass at the cathedral. 
 The effect on us both was nearly as fine as that at Bouen. 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAlt HaYDON, Rotterdam, 25th September, 1816. 
 
 M. Baimbach and I have spent a day at Antwerp, and, 
 as artists, were exceedingly interested, not merely with the 
 works of Bubens and Vandyke which we saw, but with every- 
 thing that seemed to have furnished them with the materials 
 for their labours. The first object we sought out was the great 
 church, and I assure you on seeing the pictures of Bubens in 
 their places, I never felt more strongly the ruffianism of their 
 removal to Baris by Buonaparte. This does notarise from their 
 being well-placed either, but they seem to effect a great moral 
 purpose. They are here dedicated to religion, and they act in 
 support of it, and prove the usefulness of the art that has pro- 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 307 
 
 duced them. The situation of the 'Assumption of the 
 Virgin ' is the finest I ever saw. The ' Eaising of the Cross," 
 and the 'Descent from the Cross,' are well lighted, hut the 
 Avails on which they hang are too hare. By the assistance 
 of the Conservator, I got into the museum, and there I 
 saw all the pictures from Paris on the ground, and tbis 
 is one of the greatest treats I have had. I got close to 
 them, and I think they are the finest he ever painted. I 
 wish I had you to see a head of a ' Virgin and Child,' and 
 some others. I never saw such painting. They are as com- 
 pletely his own as Mr. Bourke's, and have much more richness 
 in point of subject. 
 
 At Amsterdam I went in the first place to the museum, 
 where I saw some large groups of portraits by Vanderhelst, 
 which are very masterly things. These are perhaps the finest 
 things in the museum. There was a great number of the 
 smaller pictures, but I think not of the very first quality. 
 AVith these, however, I was greatly interested. I stopped two 
 days at Amsterdam. 1 saw a good deal, but owing to the 
 King being there, I did not see all I might have seen at such 
 a place. The day on which I left Amsterdam, I breakfasted at 
 Harlem, and heard the organ in the great church, that wonder 
 of the musical world. This surprised me a great deal. When 
 it began I could soon perceive a richness in the tone I had not 
 heard before, and when all of a sudden the vox hum ana struck 
 up, I felt quite astonished. The imitation of a choir of men 
 and women's voices is astonishing, and would be almost ridi- 
 culous if it were not for the tremendous power of the tones, and 
 the dexterity of the execution. 
 
 I travelled by the canals, and got to Leyden to dinner. 
 This was interesting to me as the residence of Jan Steen, who 
 excels perhaps all his countrymen in expression, and certainly 
 in that of painting the houses, the dresses, and character of the 
 Dutch people. For Ostade, for Rembrandt, for Metzer and 
 Vandervelde, you must look in particular places, but Jan Steen 
 you see everywhere. 
 
 The Dutch people have not been flattered by any of their 
 painters, hut less by Jan Steen than by any other. They are, 
 however, not like the English, and though they could always 
 be made interesting, they could not be made beautiful. 
 
 At the Hague I had another treat. The picture belonging 
 
 x2 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 to the King had just come back from Paris ; they were not 
 yet put up. The Ostades and Jan Steens are of the very first 
 quality, and I only wish I could say they were in the best 
 preservation, but they have received considerable damage, and 
 it is the same case with the pictures that have come back to 
 Antwerp. This has not however arisen from their removal from 
 Paris, as the admirers of Buonaparte would have us believe, 
 but from a set of picture cleaners, who have already done the mis- 
 chief, and are now at Antwerp completing their glorious reform. 
 The large picture of the " Bull," of Paul Potter, has had a most 
 thorough scouring, and we are observing that the high lights 
 in Ostade and Jan Steen's pictures had been rubbed into the 
 very bone. The beautiful picture of the ' Dead Christ,' by 
 Vandyke, which you will remember in the Louvre, I saw at 
 Antwerp with a large patch of raw colour quite hare! I could 
 not help expressing great indignation to the conservator. His 
 views and mine, however, were very different, and it appeared 
 a delicate subject, but I saw the same thing was threatened to 
 some of the others, and I kept renewing the subject in a most 
 grievous way at every picture we came to. An intelligent 
 traveller I met with has told me that the ' Taking down from 
 the Cross,' was "most confoundedly rubbed" before it was 
 put up. If you would come to Antwerp we would make a row 
 about it. 
 
 The impression my tour in Holland has made upon me is 
 striking beyond everything. I feel familiar with all I see, as 
 if I had experienced a previous existence in this country, which 
 however, has but one character, and it is surprising the variety 
 the Dutch artists have produced from it. I see scarcely an 
 object that has not been painted; and although I am pleased 
 with the style of everything 1 see, it is less because it will 
 make a good picture, than because it has made good pictures. 
 Holland as subject for pictures has been completely ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 Although our objects are different, it would have been a 
 great assistance to me to have had you with me on this tour, 
 and might have been interesting to yourself to see what nature 
 has not done for the Dutch masters, and what they have done 
 for themselves. 
 
 I am, my dear Haydon, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 309 
 
 From David Wilkie. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Kensington, 7th October, 1816. 
 
 I arrived yesterday morning at 3 a.m., and had to 
 knock up my people. The custom-house officers at Dover 
 occasioned us great delay and vexation, but I had much less 
 difficulty with the articles that were really smuggled than with 
 those that were not. To-morrow evening I shall have the 
 pleasure of waiting on you, and talking over my journey, if 
 convenient to you to be at home. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 To David Wilkie. 
 
 27th October, 181G. 
 
 I have been at Hampstead this fortnight for my eyes, 
 and shall return with my body much stronger for application. 
 The greater part of my time has been spent in Leigh Hunt's 
 society, who is certainly one of the most delightful companions. 
 Full of poetry and art, and amiable humour, we argue always 
 with full hearts on everything but religion and Buonaparte, 
 and we have resolved never to talk of these, particularly as I 
 have been recently examining Voltaire's opinions concerning 
 Christianity, and turmoiling my head to ascertain fully my 
 right to put him into my picture ! 
 
 Though Leigh Hunt is not deep in knowledge, moral, meta- 
 physical, or classical, yet he is intense in feeling, and has an 
 intellect for ever on the alert. He is like one of those instru- 
 ments on three legs, which, throw it how you will, always 
 pitches on two, and has a spike sticking for ever up and ever 
 ready for you. He "sets" at a subject with a scent like a 
 pointer. He is a remarkable man, and created a sensation by 
 his independence, his courage, his disinterestedness in public 
 matters, and by the truth, acuteness, and taste of his dramatic 
 criticisms he raised the rank of newspapers, and gave by his 
 example a literary feeling to the weekly ones more especially. 
 As a poet, I think him full of the genuine feeling. His third 
 canto in ' Rimini ' is equal to anything in any language of that 
 sweet sort. Perhaps in his wishing to avoid the monotony of 
 the Pope school, he may have shot into the other extreme, and 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 his invention of obscene words to express obscene feelings bor- 
 ders sometimes on affectation. But these are trifles compared 
 with the beauty of the poem, the intense painting of the scenery, 
 and the deep burning in of the passion which trembles in every 
 line. Thus far as a critic, an editor, and a poet. As a man, 1 
 know none with such an affectionate heart, if never opposed in 
 his opinions. He has defects of course : one of his great defects 
 is getting inferior people about him to listen, too fond of 
 shining at any expense in society, and a love of approbation 
 from the darling sex bordering on weakness ; though to women 
 he is delightfully pleasant, yet they seem more to dawdle him 
 as a delicate plant. I don't know if they do not put a confi- 
 dence in him which to me would be mortifying. 
 
 He is a man of sensibility tinged with morbidity, and of 
 such sensitive organisation of body, that the plant is not more 
 alive to touch than he. I remember once, walking in a field, 
 we came to a muddy place concealed by grass. The moment 
 Hunt touched it, he shrank back, saying, " It's muddy ! " as 
 if he meaned that it was full of adders He is a composi- 
 tion, as we all are, of defects and delightful qualities, indolently 
 averse to worldly exertion, because it harasses the musings of 
 his fancy, existing only by the common duties of life, yet igno- 
 rant of them, and often suffering from their neglect. 
 
 How is your health ? 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon.* 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlH, Cole-Orton, 22ud December, 1816. 
 
 Our friend Wilkie gives me a most gratifying account 
 of the progress of your picture, which seems even to have sur- 
 passed his expectations. 1 can assure you this give-* me sincero 
 pleasure, and 1 look forward to the gratification I shall enjoy 
 when I see it. I hope it will be ready for exhibition this 
 spring— remember the shortness of life and the length of ait. 
 Have you had any time to do what you proposed to the 
 ' Macbeth ' ? The rest of the picture is so very excellent, it is 
 
 * Haydon adds, in a note of later date, '• If I ever loved any man onee with 
 a fullness of s ml it was Leigh Hunt. If I ever reverenee.l a man in whom vim •, 
 forbearance, and principle were personified, it was his brother John Hunt : li. li. 11." 
 —Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 a pity not to make it as perfect as you can. I have some 
 thought of placing it at the end of my gallery in London, if I 
 find the place is large enough and will suit it ; but we will 
 consult about it when I come to London. Wilkie also speaks 
 highly of the studies you have made at the gallery. I shall 
 be glad to see them too. 
 
 You have doubtless lamented with every friend to genius, 
 taste, and the arts, the destruction of the ' Nativity,' and 
 several other works of Sir Joshua's, together with many other 
 fine pictures. I luckily called at Bel voir last summer, and saw 
 the ' Nativity,' little dreaming, alas ! it was for the last time. 
 I saw it during its progress, and as soon as it was finished, and 
 I really thought I had done justice to it in the picture im- 
 pressed upon my memory. But I assure you it far surpassed 
 my most sanguine expectations in many respects (and I think 
 I do not suffer my regard and enthusiasm for the admirable 
 author to overcome my judgment). It surpassed any picture I 
 ever saw for colouring, surface, and in light and shadow nothing 
 could surely exceed it. I feel confident it would have ap- 
 peared to advantage by the side of any picture I ever beheld, 
 ancient or modem. It is indeed a national loss. But, alas ! 
 how frail is the reputation of a painter ! How lamentable it is 
 to be obliged to rely on such perishable materials! Would the 
 ' Nativity ' had been painted on a block of adamant ! But this 
 is a melancholy topic. You are, however, better off than the 
 artists of antiquity, their works are altogether gone ; your 
 compositions will at least remain in engravings, though they in 
 general are but faint echoes, for which reason I have always 
 wished great artists could find some time to etch their own 
 works — this is the only way to transmit their true feelings. 
 But as I mean to excite and not damp your exertions, I feel 
 almost sorry I have been led by this melancholy catastrophe 
 to expatiate so much on this subject. But the very lamenta- 
 tion is a stimulus, inasmuch as it shows how interwoven with 
 our best feelings the works of real genius are. This surely is 
 a flattering and consoling consideration, and should have its 
 due effect. But I am not afraid of your sanguine feelings 
 giving too much weight to the inevitable course of things. 
 
 With the best wishes of Lady Beaumont and myself, 
 I am truly yours, 
 
 George Beaumont. 
 
3 I2 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From John Scott. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Tans, 9th October, 1817. 
 
 I can perfectly sympathise with all your feelings in 
 leaving your old abode, and even think I should not feel my- 
 self at home with you in any other. I hope you will always 
 continue to find that " in action is the wisdom and nobility of 
 human nature," and in " speculative sensibilities something 
 comparatively weak and distempered." To continue through 
 life strong in that opinion one must either be very lucky, or, 
 very thoughtless. May your belief have no reference but to 
 the first cause. For myself it is because I see everybody 
 acting round about me, and myself in the middle of them, to 
 so very little purpose compared with the wear and tear of the 
 material that I am set upon wondering and regretting. A 
 determined, exclusive, fixed and monopolizing attention to any 
 one pursuit, or direction to any one aim in which " self" was 
 concentrated and bound up, would, I know, relieve this ; but it 
 would be in the same way that one feels comfortable in buttoning 
 up one's own coat very tight on seeing a beggar starving in the 
 cold. You have quite mistaken me if you imagine that I have 
 ever mentioned Rousseau as a right thinker I I merely alluded 
 to him as a person whose feelings, right or wrong, had an in- 
 tensity which conveyed them like pointed lightnings to the 
 imagination He was evidently diseased in mind, and has 
 many errors in taste, as well as in principle, to answer for. I 
 regard him only as a genuine specimen, as a certain fashion, of 
 human nature, his impulses being too strong for craft, for 
 forms, for laws and customs to destroy their characteristic 
 truth and vivid powers. A specimen of this sort is always 
 highly interesting, for we may contemplate it as a study. As 
 to making an enumeration of where Rousseau is practically 
 wrong, he is so seldom right that I would never think of it ; 
 yet our common nature thus wound up, and fermented, and 
 working, is something to be enthusiastic upon, I think, and 
 when one's own sympathies are touched by its corresponding 
 action, we are wrapt up in the stimulus. But that Rousseau 
 is a glory to anybody I should scarcely imagine. Everybody 
 who has ever written upon him has treated him as a splendid 
 eccentricity; but when one of these luminous irregularities 
 comes into view the nations wonder, and even admire. 
 
B. R. HAY VON. 
 
 313 
 
 With regard to my present views on the Christian religion, 
 when you write about the clearness of duty and the sub- 
 lime influence of prayer upon the mind, you write what I can 
 most fully join vou in ; but these two points have no more 
 to do with the veracity of the Christian religion than chemistry. 
 The points are — 1. liid God make the world in the way and 
 at the time said in Genesis ? 2. Was the Mosaic dispensation 
 His inspired work ? 3. Does the dispensation of Christ naturally 
 result from the former, as it pretends, and was the latter 
 founded by the Son, yet eijual of God, who was crucified on 
 earth to save the souls of men, he being the Great Author 
 of the starry heavens and the Creator of the unfathomable 
 universe ? This is the Christian religion, and this 1 not only 
 disbelieve myself, but I know in my own mind it cannot be 
 true, and am further immutably convinced that no one whose 
 intellect is equal to mine (which is not saying anything enor- 
 mous) can believe it, if he brings his heart and soul up 
 to the subject in the good faith and earnestness which I 
 have used. 
 
 Believe me to remain always, 
 
 Your most sincere friend, 
 John Scott. 
 
 Fragment of reply to John Scott. 
 
 No date, IS 17. 
 
 Though Christianity is built on the Mosaic dispensation 
 and on the Ten Commandments, yet it goes further, and com- 
 pletes what was not complete in the former. I deny that 
 clearness of duty and the influence of prayer have nothing to 
 do with the Christian religion. They have everything to do 
 with it, for when was clearness of duty known before, or that 
 prayer — holy, pure, pious, and submissive prayer — should be 
 effectual and granted ? I see nothing more absurd or incon- 
 sistent in the Great Spirit of the universe at a time of moral 
 depravity taking on Himself flesh to propagate and instil a 
 moral doctrine for the guidance of men here, to the happiness 
 of their immortal souls hereafter by the extirpation of evil, 
 than that the same great and infinite Creator should in the 
 midst of His sublimities and endless world give a heart and a 
 liver to a flea. Are the assurances that He will forgive, is the 
 
3>4 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 eternal happiness or misery of a soul, being immortal, nothing ? 
 Are the duties of father, son, and wife, and of all to their God 
 nothing? And if they are anything, where are these duties so 
 informed, so laid down, so distinctively developed as in the 
 Mosaic and Christian dispensations ? How comes it that the 
 Jews, dull and inert intellectually, with a language com- 
 paratively poor and barren, to whom we owe nothing in science 
 or art, who were in character a dastardly, cruel, and ungrateful 
 race, are the people to whom we owe the worship of the one 
 God ; to whom we owe a code of moral law that has been the 
 foundation of all the codes of law of intellectual Europe ? 
 Why did not the great monarchies, the Assyrian, the Baby- 
 lonian, Egyptian, and Greek contribute something in the midst 
 of their science and their intellectual skill towards these 
 important points ? How comes it that this dastardly peoplo 
 should have survived the wreck of all the mighty empires of 
 the earth ? How comes it that they predicted a Being should 
 arise from out of them who should change the morals of man- 
 kind, lay open the hope of future existence, be persecuted and 
 murdered? How comes it He did arise? How comes it that 
 they in the earliest period of their history, when in the desert 
 they should be told that if they were vicious they should be 
 scattered and become a jest and a byeword among nations, and 
 that they are so ? You will not believe that the predictions 
 were made previous to the event? But we know that so 
 scrupulous were the Jews of the text of their Scripture that an 
 order of men was specially created to keep the text uninterpo- 
 lated. They themselves believe the Scriptures, but maintain 
 that they are not yet accomplished. 
 
 Now no deist can refute their antiquity. The historical 
 record as a record only bears truth on the face of it. " One 
 touch of nature makes the whole world kin;" one touch of 
 unaffected truth and feeling throws truth over others not so 
 deep or so palpable. Everything is told that all may be 
 believed. The relation being a relation, and not a work of 
 inventive genius selected and combined for the development of 
 a passion or an object, deep touches of nature cannot be so 
 often expected as to make you exclaim. Nothing is chosen, all 
 is told like a journal of a day, therefore the author made no 
 pretensions to high intellect, or the beau-ideal or dee}) skill in 
 human nature. When deep touches do occur we may naturally 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 3i5 
 
 infer they happened, as we infer that others happened, when 
 not so deep, because they are not continued as under invention. 
 On the return of the Jews from captivity, and when the foun- 
 dations of the new temple were being laid, many old men who 
 remembered the former temple in all its glory, " wept with a 
 loud voice" (Ezra iii. 12). Now this is a touch of nature 
 that makes all the rest credible as a relation. My time and 
 studies do not allow me to compare dates, to examine trans- 
 lations, and to collect historical evidence, but I seek for the 
 evidence of a thing in its natural sympathies. Here if the 
 temple was rebuilding it must have been destroyed, and so on 
 up to first causes connected in a link. 
 
 If the miracles in Christianity be true, and if twelve men 
 had always been deceived that would have been the greater 
 miracle of the two, the rest follows. There is every reason to 
 believe that the miracles are true from historical tradition only. 
 No one at the time, or for two hundred years after, ventured to 
 contradict the fact ; they could not. They admitted that the 
 mirae'es were performed, but endeavoured to destroy their 
 effect by asserting that they were performed by the influence 
 of the devil. Hume and his followers always put their per- 
 ception of what they imagine must be truth (as far as their 
 range of capacity goes) against, first, a thing related which can 
 be proved to be historically true as to time and date ; and 
 secondly, naturally true as to inherent and internal evidence, 
 considering the nature of man and his mental and corporeal 
 formation. Let us set aside, however, historical evidence and 
 look only at the internal and natural proof in favour of the 
 truth of the miracles. How would men naturally act when 
 suddenly cured of their blindness, lameness, &c. ? If we see in 
 the relation one touch of natural consequence which physically 
 must have occurred under the circumstances, we cannot reject 
 the fact ; for the narrators were not men deeply skilled in the 
 knowledge of the physical properties of the human frame, any 
 more than they were skilled in knowledge of the metaphysical 
 properties of the human intellect. Take the case of the lame 
 man at the beautiful gate. " Silver and gold have I none, but 
 what I have give I thee ; in the name of Jesus Christ of 
 Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right 
 hand and lift him up, and immediately his feet and ankles 
 received strength, and he leaping up, stood and walked, and 
 
3i6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 entered the temple leaping and praising God." Now mark 
 this, the muscles unused to the influence of will contracted 
 involuntarily, and he leaped up, as he must have done, and then 
 walked, and then they again spasmodically contracted and he 
 leaped again, and in the first impulse of thinking he praised 
 God. But observe what follows. The novelty over for the 
 moment, the man reflected, and his heart misgiving him lest it 
 was but a charm, and that he who had lain for years an 
 impotent burden should be walking, he could not tell how, his 
 mind sank (had he been a woman he would have fainted) and, 
 terrified lest he should as instantaneously return to his decrepi- 
 tude, the lame man "held Peter and John." Shakespeare 
 could not have felt more truly how a human being in such a 
 situation woidd have acted than the apostolic historian has 
 told us how he saw this man act. He w ho refuses to believe 
 this miracle must shut his heart to all testimony on the relation 
 of his fellow-creatures that exists. But if this miracle be true, 
 as it must be to my capacity, w hy then Peter and John per- 
 formed one, and so on up to first causes.* 
 
 What distresses me and seems so incomprehensible to me is 
 that because in the Christian religion there are points one cannot 
 explain and things one cannot account for, such as the relation of 
 the Father and the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost, and 
 which if explained and accounted for would leave no difficult es, 
 you assume at once that Christianity cannot be true and ought 
 not to be believed. But are there not things which cannot be 
 contradicted, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the Cruci- 
 fixion, and can only be accounted for on the ground of its 
 authenticity? Supposing you were told that in one hour you 
 must appear before God, what would you do ? Pester yourself 
 with disquisitions on merit or demerit, on the existence and 
 functions of the Supreme Being, on the relations of the Father 
 
 * This is Shelley's great stumbling-block. The predictions are so clear tint 
 he is oblige. 1 to acknowledge that fact, but then he shuffles off by denying that 
 we have any proof they were written previous to the event. This is always the 
 subterfuge of philosophic disbelief. "The fill -third chapter of Isaiah,' savs 
 Shelley, "is more explicit vet it does not exceed in clearness the Oracle of 
 Delphos." Show me an Ora'de of Delphos which predicted a nation should be 
 dispersed and punished, a Messiah arise whom tin y should kill, that in con- 
 sequence their city should be razed, and thev themselves made a byeword among 
 uations. Show me an Oracle of Delphos that predicted anything like this, and 
 prove to me that it was accompl shed, and is now accomplishing under our very 
 eyes. You cannot, then, w holly disbelieve predictions in which such events are 
 clearly foretold, and are actually happening at this very day. — 13. K. H. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 3'7 
 
 and the Son, and on the origin of evil ? No ; you would 
 examine yourself whether you truly repented, strain all to 
 forgive all and to make your body a temple for purity, and 
 then cast yourself upon His mercy and forgiveness. But this 
 is the Christian religion, and where can you find it elsewhere 
 than in Christianity ? It is nothing to me whether God 
 created the world as related in Genesis or not, or whether evil 
 came into the world by an apple. Evil did exist when Moses 
 brought the Jews from Egypt. It was sufficient for him to 
 tell them that if they followed the commandments of God 
 instead of flattering their own foid des'res, the influence of 
 evil would be weakened, and then when they acted as they 
 ouj>ht Christ should come and complete the fabric. Then con- 
 sider the influence of Christianity. Has it not had influence 
 on society and on the feelings of mankind, in the institution of 
 marriage and all the social duties, in the refined and intellectual 
 pagan world? Were there ever such institutions for the relief 
 of the sick and poor as hospitals ? No, nothing of the kind. 
 Now Christianity has not failed in reforming the world — it is 
 reforming it. The horrible and disgusting depravity of that 
 world at the time of our Saviour's teaching not only shows us 
 that a new revelation was demanded, but to what depths of 
 iniquity and wickedness mankind could fall under the influence 
 of intellect alone, even with the teaching and example of 
 such men as Plato and Socrates, Seneca and Aristotle. The 
 advance to good from evil since the days of Tiberius is 
 enormous and progressive. The institution of charities and 
 hospitals, the abolition of human slavery and all the human 
 sacrifices, ameliorations of the condition of man are proofs. It 
 is not true that Christianity has made its way by persecutions, 
 and imprisonments, and deeds of unexampled atrocity, as the 
 enemies of Christianity assert. It has made its way in spite < f 
 persecution and by the very reverse of such practices. In the first 
 place, how could the apostles do such things ? They were not 
 the ruling powers of the world. They had no power to fling 
 pagans to the wild beasts ; the Christians have burned each 
 other for abstruse metaphysical differences which formed no 
 part of the simple teaching of Christ, but they have never 
 burned or tortured or sacrificed Mahometans, Hindoos, or Pa- 
 gans Diocletian first began by putting 100,000 Christians 
 to death because one tore his edict 1 Trajan flung them to 
 
3'3 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 feed the lions, and Julian slaughtered thousands; yet Christianity 
 established itself in spite of such persecution. But all atrocious 
 deeds were first practised against themselves. You never hear 
 the mild philosophers who feel so acutely for human nature 
 display any feeling for the poor suffering mangled Christians. 
 Voltaire, Gibbon, Hume, and Shelley have a certain range of 
 capacity, not of the highest order. They have talent enough 
 to torture truth, and sophisticate for falsehood, but not can- 
 dour enough to make allowance for any want, if its allowance 
 should be against them. The great object should be not to 
 cavil because a thing is far from being, dec, but to be willing 
 to acknowledge when it goes the greatest part of the iray towards, 
 &c, and that is the candid and unprejudiced capacity, and every 
 man must acknowledge that all the evidences of Christianity, 
 exclusive of one's own personal conviction from experience of 
 its sublime efficacy, do go the greater part of the way towards 
 its proof. 
 
 To conclude this long and I fear incoherent letter, a "deter- 
 mined, exclusive, fixed, and monopolising attention as you say 
 to one aim in which self is concentrated and bound up, would 
 relieve your present feelings, but it would be in the same way 
 a relief as buttoning over your coat when you meet a starving 
 beggar." You are .mistaken, my dear Scott. A determined 
 and monopolising pursuit to one aim, in which self is com- 
 pletely sacrificed to the glory or reformation of a great country, 
 is breasting a battery of guns with your coat open, while others 
 button up theirs and are off. Howard, I take it, was one of 
 this monopolising order, with Clarkson, Wellington, Ledyard, 
 Mungo Park, and others. In truth a man has no need to 
 button up his coat while a beggar is starving, nor need he be 
 without speculative sensibilities, but he must not let either 
 the one or the other interfere with the more important call of 
 the three. 
 
 Believe me ever sincerely yours, 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Horatio Smith. 
 
 West Cottnjre, Ryde, 
 DEAR HAYDON, Wednesday, 23rd February, 1817. 
 
 If you ever doubted that idleness was the root of all 
 evil, you will believe when I tell you that this letter is the 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 319 
 
 fruit of it, though I really wanted to assure you that I had not 
 been inattentive to the wish expressed in your balloon parlour 
 respecting an introduction to Miss F . 
 
 Knowing little or nothing of Mr. or Mrs. W I applied 
 
 to herself, but found she was so much distressed and vexed 
 
 by Mr. violation of the pledge exacted when she allowed 
 
 her miniature to be shown, that she recoiled from the pro- 
 position under a notion that artists in general have no attach- 
 ment to fair forms unless when they can be rendered sub- 
 servient to their art, as cannibals are only humane to their 
 captives when they mean to have them for supper; a sus- 
 picion that was confirmed when I admitted that you had 
 been recommended to take off her head. Indirectly I inquired 
 whether she knew Loi'd and Lady Elgin, when she assured 
 me that she had never spoken to either, and did not even 
 know them by sight, so that your friend the marble stealer 
 must add the grace of wanton fibbing to his other accom- 
 plishments, for which he deserves a cross-buttock from his 
 own Theseus. . . . 
 
 Let me find your bust at Knightsbridge and yourself at 
 Lisson Grove, comfortably housed and proceeding to work like 
 a giant refreshed. Pray don't break your promise of leaving 
 the R.A.'s to their own exposure or of fighting them only with 
 the brush. By the bye I wi~h you would invent a substitute 
 for that vile word ' brush.' Ancient writers spoke of their stile, 
 which we have so far adopted as to make the mere instrument 
 expressive of the genius that guided it. Modern writers have 
 their pen or their muse; sculptors have their chisel, all clean 
 and unobjectionable utensils, but a brush is full of mean and 
 dirty associations, suggesting nothing but a clothes brush, a 
 hearth brush, a blacking brush. How would it sound should 
 any one contemplating the drapery of one of your figures in 
 ' Jerusalem,' exclaim, " There I recognise Haydon's brush ;" 
 might it not be conjectured that you were his valet ? Pray 
 let the artists think of a word and double it, and then take 
 away the word they thought of first. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Michel Angelo ; may you beat all your 
 rivals with the brush, and then you will never have your nose 
 broken. 
 
 Yours cordially, 
 
 Horatio Smith. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Horatio Smith. 
 
 3ra June, 1817. 
 
 God bless your precious eyes. Pray keep them till 
 they have conferred immortality on your name, for you cannot, 
 like Milton, perpetuate your fame after you have lost them. 
 They are public property, and I am sure they shan't be strained 
 for me when they should be spared for posterity. Nurse them, 
 nurse them, till you are as lynx-eyed as Argus, and I will then 
 give you a call with my little girl. She is besides looking 
 gaunt and grisly at present, and I should be sorry to have a 
 sketch of her ghost instead of herself. Adieu, take care of 
 your twinklers, and tell your landlord that if he gives you 
 another such notice to quit, you are determined not to wink at 
 it, for it not only irritates you but your pupils. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 Horatio Smith. 
 
 From Sir Datid Wilkte. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, Glasgow, 7th August, 1817. 
 
 On leaving Edinburgh I went up by the steamboat to 
 pay a visit to Mr. Dugald Stewart, who lives in the ancient 
 house of Kenveil on the banks of the Forth. He received me 
 very kindly, and I remained with him for two days. He lives 
 retired, but in good circumstances, in the same kind of house 
 that I should think Voltaire must have lived in when in 
 Switzerland. His manner and also that of his family seems 
 highly cultivated, but there is really more simplicity about 
 him than I expected. You would never dream that he had 
 written a book, and though not a reserved man, he in no 
 instance leads the conversation to his own particular studies. 
 You never see him trying to say a good thing or a smart 
 thing, but with all this you never lose sight of his superiority 
 in learning aud information, and never forget that you are in 
 the presence of a judge, and of an uncommon man. 
 
 On leaving him I went up to Stirling and from thence to 
 Glasgow, where one of the first persons I waited on Mas Dr. 
 Chalmers. He was really glad to see me. One of the first 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 321 
 
 persons he inquired for was yourself. He takes a lively interest 
 I know in all that you are doing. I have only now to ask what 
 you are doing ? 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 From Canova (literally transcribed). 
 
 Kome, 2 De'cembre 1817. 
 
 Je viens de recevoir la lettre que vous me fites Fhon- 
 neur de m' crire le dix du mois passe pour m'annoncer l'expe- 
 dition du platre de l'Ulysse que vous m'avez envoye a la vente. 
 Je la recu il y a quelques semaines, et je croyais en remercier le 
 cher W. Hamilton duquel j'en avais ecrit et parle tant de fois. 
 J'apprends a present que c'est vous qui avez voulu m'en faire 
 un present, et je vous prie de vouloir bien excuser ma faute 
 innocente et d'agreer les sentiments de mon ame reconnaissante 
 a votre bonte. Vous ne pourriez, a vous dire vrai, me donner 
 un temoigne* d'amitie plus marque, et vous ne vous etes pas 
 trompe sur le desir ardent que j'avais de posseder quelques 
 morceaux de ces fameux chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art qui out fame 
 mon admiration, et qui feront to uj ours le sujet des envies des 
 artistes. 
 
 Vous voyez qu'en vous temoignant ma haute reconnaissance, 
 je veux bien me charger du devoir de vous. rendre quelque 
 service ; et de vous prouver par les faits que Ton ne peut pas 
 etre plus sensible que je le suis au precieux souvenir que vous 
 daignez avoir de moi, de l'estime dont vous m'honorez. Je 
 vous renouvelle maintenant les assurances de mon respect et 
 la consideration. 
 
 An. Canova. 
 
 From Canova. 
 
 Eoma, 20 Luglio 1818. 
 
 La vostra lettera del 27 dello scorso mese mi da una nova 
 testimonianza del gentile animo vostro inverso di me. lo non 
 posso ne voglio gareggiare con voi ; e solamente mi rallegro 
 dell' aver potuto meritare tanto da voi. 
 
 Certe e, che io godo assai la vostra cortese benevolenza ; e 
 vorrei saper darvi alcun gagno della gratitudine, da cui e pene- 
 trato il mio cuore. 
 
 * Temoignage. 
 
 vol. i. y 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Spiacemi non poter rispondere adequatamente alia domanda 
 che mi fate sull' epoca precisa in cui si credono esseguite le 
 statue di Monte Cavallo. Gli antiquaii ed erudite non sono 
 d'accordo su questo punto ; e chi le suppone d' un tempo, e chi 
 di un altro quello che sembra poi di dubbio, si e cbe sono due 
 rispettivi monumenti dell' arte antica, e che contengono, per 
 modo di essprimermi, gli elementi e quasi dirci il canone geo- 
 metrico delle forme umane ; senza perb quella ultima perfezione 
 che giustamente voi, e tutti li conoscitori veri desiderano. 
 
 Le vostre osservazioni mi sembrano molto ragionevole e ben 
 penetrate ; e per esse aposatemente, si vede come voi, profon- 
 damente abbia penetrato i misteri dell' arte. Non altrimente 
 1' ardito Belzoni squarciava il velo delle tenebre, coll' aprirsi 
 la via nelle "si nom" incognite piramide che sepoli? di quella 
 ammirabile nazione. 
 
 Io sono grato della curiosa notizia che mi avete favorito e 
 che io comunicai subito a questa nostra Eomana Accademia 
 di Archeologia. 
 
 Non dovete prendre alcuna meraviglia dell' aver inteso che 
 il Signor Hayter veniva aggregiato all' accademia di San Luca 
 mentre per fatto membro di [illegible] non di merito, ma di 
 onore, e questo secondo grado non richiede salere ed eccellenza 
 somma nell' arte come quella del Prep. Con. Nept., il quale vera- 
 mente per suo proprio dirittovenne fatto nostro collega di merito. 
 
 Cuo bapti per [illegible] il vostro dubbio su tale proposito, 
 Mi preme infinitamente di mandarvi il promesso essempio in 
 gesso della una Yenere, e faro molto trebbio di darvi con esso 
 un nuovo argumento per obbligare maggiormente la mia rico- 
 noscenza alia singolare vostra predilezione per me e per le 
 opere mie. 
 
 Ho terminato il colosale modello in creta rappresentando 
 Carlo III, He di Napoli e poi di Spagna, sopra il gigantesco 
 cavallo che devesi ora fondere in bronzo per la Eeale Casa di 
 Napoli. La prego di voler credere alia costante e sincera con- 
 siderazione colla quale mi prego essere. 
 
 Canova. 
 
 From Canova. 
 
 Eoma, 18 Giugno 1818 
 
 Ho ricevuto la lettera del primo del mese scorso, con la 
 quale a Lei piaceva darmi un nuovo attestato della sua gran 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 3*3 
 
 benevolenza. Sono molto riconoscente alle lodi ch' ella fa della 
 mia Venere acquistata dal Signor Eauchese di [illegible] e mi 
 onerano multo le riflessioni sue riguardo a quell' opera, la quale 
 certamente non pub meritare tutto quel pregio, ch' ella si 
 cornpiace di attribuirmi. Cio per altro mi prova splendida- 
 mente ch' il di Lei compatimento e favore alle opere mie e det- 
 tato piu dal cuore che dall' intelleto, il quale si lascia guidare 
 potentemente dell' affezione verso 1' autore. 
 
 Mi piace sommamente che io posso darle un qualche segno 
 della mia gratitudine e perche sembra di voler accettare un 
 gesso di qualche opera mia, io [illegible] in tal effetto di man- 
 darle un gesso dell' ultima Venere che ho modellata diversa- 
 mente dall' altra di mi. Ella conoscia il marmo che io cleggio 
 esseguire e gia si abbozza per conto del Signor Tommasso 
 Hope. 
 
 S' ella mal asperade giusta e mi sara molto caro ch' ella lo 
 intenghi in segno della stima e riconoscenza mia. 
 
 Dallo resto io era sicuro che i marmi d' Elgin doveano pro- 
 durre una specie di rivvoluzione nella scultura ; e sono lieto 
 d' intendeve come il mio presagio abbia gia cominciato ad 
 avverarsi, fatto la speciale di Lei scorta. 
 
 II Signor Hamilton mi ha scritto appunto sul proposito del 
 Cupido antico e [illegible] com' egli prometti di vedere un gesso. 
 
 Mi continui la sua preziosa amicizia, e mi creda, con sensi 
 della piu perfetta confidenza e d' attaccamento. 
 
 Canova. 
 
 From M. Olenin, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts at 
 St. Peter shir g. 
 
 Sin, 15th (27th) November, 1817. 
 
 As President of the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. 
 Petersburg, I think it my duty to thank you for your kind 
 intentions and the particular marks of attention you pay to this 
 important establishment. As for the choice of the casts, I refer 
 to your care, relying entirely upon the knowledge you have of 
 this art. As for the value of them, after what has been said 
 by such an eminent artist as M. Canova, is quite sufficient ; and 
 though I have not seen them, I am entirely contented with 
 what I have seen in the works entitled ' The Elgin Marbles,' and 
 read in ' The Judgment of Connoisseurs on Works of Art,' &c. 
 
 Y 2 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 I hope, Sir, that our correspondence will not end here, and 
 that you will be so kind as to pursue it for the benefit of arts 
 in Eussia. As we enjoin the same attachment for the same 
 cause, I have resolved to begin my desired acquaintance with 
 you by sending, for your own use, some casts from the best 
 remains of antiquity that are in the possession of his Imperial 
 Majesty at St. Petersburg, as the beautiful bust of Achilles, a 
 statue of Venus, a true antique Grecian work which the connois- 
 seurs of fine arts think to be equal to the Venus of Medicis, and 
 a small statue of Silenus, which articles I hope you will receive 
 as a mark of the esteem I have for you, and remain 
 
 Alexis Olenin. 
 
 To M. Olenin, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts at 
 St. Petersburg. 
 
 SlR, London, 22nd January, 1818. 
 
 I had the honour of receiving your very flattering letter, 
 and beg to express my thanks to you for your very high opinion 
 of me, which 1 hope will be increased and not diminished by a 
 further knowledge. 
 
 The present you have sent me is one of the highest com- 
 pliments ever paid me in my life : I esteem it deeply. To be 
 distinguished by eminent strangers, where no prejudice is sup- 
 posed to exist, is always considered a complete sanction to any 
 high opinion of one's own countrymen. Accept then, dear Sir, 
 my sincere thanks, and be assured that to continue a correspon- 
 dence with you will always be one of my greatest pleasures. I 
 hope that yon, as well as the Imperial Academy, will always 
 consider me at their service for the improvement of taste or the 
 advancement of art in Eussia. Depend on it a new light is 
 about to shine forth on the world from the preservation of the 
 Elgin Marbles. 
 
 I hope you will do me the honour to accept a cast of the 
 Ilissus, from the moulds first made for me, the negro's body, 
 two of the best bas-reliefs, and some little fragments. These 
 shall be got ready immediately and be sent to you without 
 delay ; you will then form an idea from the exquisite fragment 
 of the rest. The cast of the Ilissus, made for my own studies, 
 was made without including the left arm, on which it rests, 
 because there was drapery, which was of little use, but it con- 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 3=5 
 
 tributes to the support of the figure and therefore assists the 
 expression of the action. This arm will be in the cast sent for 
 the Academy. You will thus, Sir, be able to judge of the great 
 principles of these Divine things ; you will then see that Nature 
 and the inherent property of things are never sacrificed to a 
 false and affected "beau-ideal." You will see that as the body 
 is stretched on one side and bent on the other — that the forms 
 of each side vary in each shape as the action varies, the shape 
 of every part being dependent on the action. This principle, so 
 simple, was never violated in the best era of Greece : whether 
 they represented gods or men (as they knew they were obliged 
 to represent gods by human form), they made the form of their 
 gods subservient to the great laws to which the human form 
 must always bend. I feel convinced and sure you will agree 
 with me that there was but one period of art in the world that 
 can be called perfect, viz., the period of Phidias, whose great 
 principle was to restore every object represented to the qualities 
 and properties bestowed on that object at its creation, adapted 
 to its instincts and pursuits and cleared from the effects of 
 accident or disease. Thus, a god was but a human being in 
 his highest perfection, with none of his properties violated ; a 
 horse was characteristically a horse, a cow a cow, a dog a dog, 
 a fish a fish, and so forth ; essentially and characteristically a 
 horse, a cow, a dog, a fish; whereas in the time of Alexander 
 and of the Koman Emperors the artists then living attempte I 
 to elevate nature by a violation of many of the great principles 
 of nature, and never suffered action or repose to disturb the 
 shape of the figures they made, if action or repose at all inter- 
 fered with the " beau-ideal " of the human form they had fixed 
 on in their own minds as a standard of perfection. This " beau- 
 ideal " was making Nature bend to a capricious system of their 
 own, and never bending their system to the laws of Nature. 
 The ideal beauty of Phidias was but to restore to each object 
 its essential qualities given by God, and to leave them to the 
 influence of action or repose, gravitation or compression, to 
 which all objects must submit, whatever be their properties, 
 " if they think, act, walk, sit, stand, run, or lie, in this world, 
 for which they were cieated." 
 
 I have the honour, &c, 
 
 B. K. Haydon. 
 
326 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From William Hamilton. 
 
 DeAII IIaydON, Foreign Office, 9th F.brnary, 1818 
 
 The Archduke Maximilian will be at your Exhibition 
 at 1 p.m. next Saturday. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 W. Hamilton. 
 
 To His Excellency M. Olenin. 
 
 Lon Ion, 8th July, 1818. 
 
 I hope by this time that my casts of the Ilissus, The- 
 seus, and other Elgin fragments, with the cast of the body 
 of the Negro, have arrived safely, and that they have not 
 disappointed yourself, or the other eminent members of the 
 Imperial Academy. The first shipment of casts for the Im- 
 perial Academy are now being packed and embarking, and full 
 particulars will be given to you by M. Smernove. Ike twelve 
 Metopes and the Frieze I selected myself, and they are as fine 
 casts as have ever been taken from the Museum, the Metopes 
 especially. The Theseus and Ilissus I have not seen, being 
 laid up in my eyes from painting in too strong a light, but 
 Mr. Westmacott assures me that they are very fine casts, with 
 the draperies more complete than in those which I sent for 
 your own private studio. 
 
 Before the Metopes are permitted to be seen they should be 
 arranged about eight feet above the ground, and then they will 
 have their full effect upon the spectators. The Greeks were 
 remarkable for sacrificing everything to the point of view, and 
 you will find the outside thigh of the Theseus, though shorter 
 than the other by that position in nature, still a little shortened 
 for the sake of effect. The reason for this I take to be as 
 follows: — The Theseus was placed, according to Stuart's 'Athens,' 
 at the extreme point in one of the Pediments. As the best view 
 of all the figures in the Pediment must have been directly 
 opposite the centre, at a certain distance, had both the thighs 
 been of the same length, the outside thigh and knee would 
 have hidden the inside thigh and knee, and have given the 
 figure a most unpleasing appearance. Put by foreshorten- 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 327 
 
 ing the outside thigh, and by making it also a little shorter, 
 the leg and thigh inside were seen, and the whole figure had 
 its full effect. 
 
 The Metopes and Frieze are evidently executed by different 
 hands, some parts being inferior to others ; but all the large 
 figures of the two Pediments are equal in excellence. There is 
 no variety in their execution: they are all grand, elevated, 
 sublime, and natural. The best account that has yet appeared 
 upon these matchless productions is by Visconti, which I very 
 much regret I have not sent to your Excellency, but which 
 I will do the very first opportunity. And yet Visconti shows 
 in this work that he is more remarkable for learning than for 
 his taste or feeling for nature. He describes the llissus as a 
 figure in strong action! It is in the most perfect repose, 
 resting upon his arm and upon his thighs, one side bent, 
 and the other stretched, and his bowels hanging down, with- 
 out the least appearance of the muscles being contracted by 
 action. 
 
 This is sufficient to prove how little connoisseurs know of 
 the principles of nature. I dare say M. Visconti never in his 
 life examined a naked figure either in action or repose ; and 
 yet his opinion would be quoted, and preferred to our opinion, 
 who have studied nature for the whole of our lives. 
 
 Had you or I, Sir, given an opinion upon a passage in Greek 
 literature, without ever having read a single Greek author, we 
 ought not to have been very angry with M. Visconti if he had 
 laughed in our faces. We only claim the same privilege as 
 artists. 
 
 I shall be extremely happy to be of any service to the 
 Imperial Academy that I can in respect to the choice of 
 colours and materials of art. Our small, red, sable brushes are 
 much superior to the French, but, for the large hog's-hair 
 brushes, the French are infinitely our superiors. I get all my 
 brushes of that kind from Paris. 
 
 We have in England a very fine deep lake called lac-lake, 
 which we get from India, and which I feel convinced was used 
 by the Venetians in their rich glazing. It is the only lake 
 that stands with any certainty. 
 
 1 had the honour last week of being presented to the Grand 
 Duke Michael at the Elgin Marbles, and of attending his Im- 
 perial Highness round the Museum. He has a most imposing 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 air, but did not seem to me to possess so fine a taste for art as 
 the Grand Duke Nicolas. Indeed, I never met with any one 
 who felt their beauty more completely at once than did the 
 Grand Duke Nicolas. From what I could judge of his intellect 
 and disposition, I should say the Russians will, indeed, be a 
 fortunate and happy nation if he lives to become their future 
 Emperor. 
 
 Believe me to remain, 
 Your Excellency's most faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydox. 
 
 Extract from a Letter to His Excellency M. Olenin. 
 
 London, 10th August, 1818. 
 
 It is impossible for me to express the pleasure I felt in 
 being informed by Mr. S'mirnove that the casts from the Elgin 
 Marbles, which I had the honour to send you, had safely 
 arrived, and have been received by your Excellency and the 
 Professors with the true feeling of their beauties and principles 
 of execution. The way in which these marbles have been felt at 
 St. Petersburg says more for the soundness of Russian feeling 
 for art than any other proof that could have been given, and I 
 have not the slightest doubt that your great nation will become 
 as celebrated in painting and sculpture as in every other 
 department where intellect can be shown. 
 
 The Elgin Marbles were never more completely felt in 
 England than by the expression in your Excellency's letter, 
 and I shall never forget to the day of my death the pleasure I 
 experienced in hearing the translation of the Russian Proverb 
 which you wrote to Mr. Smirnove. Had not the superiority of 
 the Elgin Marbles been at once acknowledged in Russia over 
 what we had hitherto admired, I should not have felt satisfied 
 with the promise given by such judgments, but Russian artists, 
 to see at once their elevation above other works of art, went to 
 my soul like electricity. By the time you receive this, I hope 
 the first shipment of the great body of casts will have arrived, 
 and that the Metopes, with the remainder of the friezes with 
 the fragments of Neptune's breast will completely confirm 
 all the high notions that you have formed of these divine 
 works. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 3-9 
 
 In the Neptune's breast you will observe a most astonishing 
 instance of the union of a simple fact of nature with the highest 
 abstracted form. Under the left arm-pit you will see a wrinkle 
 of skin, which must be so in consequence of the arm being 
 down ; and thus, the space to contain the same quantity of skin 
 not being so great as when the arm is up, the skin of course 
 must wrinkle. In the other arm, which is elevated, the space 
 from the side to the arm being greater, the skin of course must 
 be stretched, and there is no wrinkle. In the fragment of the 
 Negro's chest which I sent you, under the left arm-pit you will 
 see the wrinkle of skin. It is for this reason I cast the Negro, 
 because in the movement of his body he developed the prin- 
 ciples of the Elgin Marbles. Now, Sir, how simple is this! 
 Yet what other artist but Phidias would have ventured to put 
 the wrinkle of human skin in the form of a God ! On the 
 sides of the ribs of the same fragment you will also find the 
 veins marked, which "Winkelniann and other theorists have ever 
 considered as incompatible with the form of a Divinity. But 
 Phidias knew that, as we could only represent a God by a 
 human form, the finest human form, even if for Jove himself, 
 must have had a heart, liver, and bowels, bones, muscles, and 
 tendons, and a skin to cover all. Phidias also knew that if a 
 God had a skin, it must yield to flexion and tension, and con- 
 sequently must be stretched or wrinkled up; because if his 
 skin could not be stretched or wrinkled up, it would be of little 
 use to the motion of his body, and Jove himself would have 
 found it very inconvenient to have had a skin that would not 
 have been so yielding. Now, Sir, you will find none of these 
 effects of action or repose on the skin of the Apollo, or on any 
 other antique figure that we have hitherto admired ; and it is 
 this union of the truths and probabilities of common life, joined 
 to elevated and ideal nature, that goes at once to our hearts 
 and sympathies in the Elgin Marbles, and makes them superior 
 to all the works of art hitherto known in the world. 
 
 Believe me to remain, 
 
 With every expression of my respect, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 B, B. Ha ydon. 
 
330 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Extract from a Letter to His Excellency M. Olentn - . 
 
 I hope M. Smirnove has informed you of the extreme 
 delight I experienced on receiving your handsome present of 
 casts. They have answered all the expectations you had led 
 me to form of their excellence. The head of the Silenus, for 
 beauty of execution and intense truth of expression, is one of 
 the finest specimens I know of Greek sculpture. It is uni- 
 versally admired, and has made a great noise among those 
 whose judgment I estimate. The swing of the body, the pro- 
 trusion of the bowels from the action of leaning, the pressure 
 of the muscles of the left arm and shoulder, as well as the 
 hanging over of the pectoral muscles, from the skin being 
 filled out with fat, as well as the delicacy of the hands, has so 
 much the character of a fat man. With respect to the Venus 
 the trunk is singularly beautiful ; the legs, feet, and head, I 
 think very inferior ; but the trunk is superior certainly to the 
 Venus de Medicis, and, being of a younger age, has a more 
 agreeable character. The lower part of the trunk of the 
 Venus de Medicis has the skin wrinkled .... all proofs of 
 great truth and knowledge of nature in the sculptor. In the 
 Venus which you have done me the honour to send from the 
 Palais de la Tauride, the skin is tight, &c, &c. It is, indeed, a 
 most beautiful statue, and has all the air of a fresh and pure 
 Virgin, young, elastic, and lovely, uninjured by the passions of 
 our nature, and without having suffered from the anxieties of 
 life. I venture to think the bending of the body and its con- 
 sequences upon the fore-part more perfect than in the Venus 
 de Medicis. The slenderness of its lovely waist, and " la sou- 
 plesse gracieuse " of the hips are beyond all expression. . . . 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Soutiiey. 
 
 My DEAR SlTf, Keswick, 27tli March, 1818. 
 
 Your letter travelled by the Wagon and did not reach 
 me till Wednesday last. I answer it by the first post. The 
 will and the desire to be instrumental in bringing about so 
 great an object* are not wanting, but you will not suspect me of 
 
 * The decoration of our churches and cathedrals by paintings of sacred 
 Bubjeots. — liu. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 331 
 
 any affectation of diffidence, when I express a distrust of my 
 competence for the task. I have arrived at that time of life, 
 and that state of mind in which men learn their own weakness 
 and their own ignorance, if they are ever capable of attaining 
 to that knowledge. In matters of art I am entirely ignorant: 
 for although I never should be pleased with a bad picture, and 
 can feel, I believe, the full merit of certain pictures, as far as 
 relates to their conception and effects, other works which are 
 acknowledged to be of the highest excellence have little or 
 none to me — a decisive proof that I have not the faculty 
 required for relishing them. 
 
 This, however, is in my power. I can take your pamphlet 
 for my text, repeat its arguments, and enforce them as well as 
 I am able, and then cast the bread upon the waters. Furnish 
 me, therefore, with the needful facts, and then no time shall 
 be lost. 
 
 The light you have followed has been a light from heaven, 
 and let happen what will, you are on the summit. 
 
 Oh ! never let us doubt the elevation of this glorious country 
 in Art as well as in arms, and in general happiness as well as 
 in arts, if we can but preserve it from the bestial mob rule 
 which would involve everything in one common destruction. 
 I see the danger distinctly, and while I live will stand up 
 manfully against it. I have hitherto had little reason to 
 distrust my own foresight in political affairs, reasoning from 
 the past to the present, and the more I regard the aspects 
 of these times the worse they appear. And yet, were there 
 but one vigorous mind at the helm all might be well, one 
 man, who had full confidence in himself, and, therefore, could 
 claim and command the confidence of the great well-meaning 
 majority of the people. Alas ! all Revolutions have been brought 
 about by a few knaves acting upon a multitude of fools — while 
 honest men have lain quiet — till they became the victims. 
 
 Believe me yours, with the highest respect, 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 From Southey. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Keswick, 3rd April, 1818. 
 
 Your packet is safe. You have made me see the 
 subject clearly and feel it strongly. AYhat I can do shall be 
 
332 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 done without delay, though probably not in time for the 
 number of the ' Quarterly Review ' now printing, for that, I 
 believe, will speedily be published. But I will lose no time, 
 and will endeavour to lose as little as possible of the life aud 
 spirit of your pleading. 
 
 I thank you for what you have told me of yourself. It is in 
 such things that true heroism is displayed, and how much of 
 this is there in the world, of which the world knows nothing ! 
 God bless you, my dear Sir, and may you live to reap the rich 
 rewards of that fame which you have so amply deserved. 
 Believe me, with the greatest respect, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Robert South ey. 
 
 From his Aunt, Mrs. Partridge. 
 
 Mi' DEAR BENJAMIN, Ard.nza 7th April 1818. 
 
 I received your letter of the 3rd February, and should 
 have answered it immediately, but I was desirous first to see 
 the bust you had sent to me, and then to procure for you the 
 paint you desired, for which I wrote to a Russian lady at 
 Rome, who politely purchased the particular yellow at the 
 shop you directed, and sent it by a private hand to Leghorn. 
 I have sent it off to you this morning by packet. I must 
 thank you for the fine bust, which arrived perfectly safe. I 
 brought it myself yesterday in the carriage to Ardenza, where 
 I hope it will remain, for many years, an ornament to the 
 habitation and an honour to the inhabitants. The cast sent 
 by David does not please in general, though many, who I 
 suppose are judges, discover in the form of the head both 
 capacity and genius. If Lavater had contemplated it, he 
 would have approached the lines in due order and have done 
 justice to the original. But the bust makes a more pleasing 
 jm tression on our weak minds from the advantage of the hair 
 i.nd eyes. 
 
 My dear nephew, if the Duchess of Parma* visits our 
 country you may depend upon her coming to your studio. 
 The princess is an amateur in painting, with a cultivated 
 
 * Sialic Louiso, Ex-Empi css of the French. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 353 
 
 mind, improved by her eventful life. She understands 
 English, has read our best authors with attention, and pur- 
 chases every new publication. I cannot, however, give you 
 much hopes of seeing her in England. The European Powers 
 will never consent to such a project during the life of Buona- 
 ] arte. The little boy (the King of Eome) does not resdde with his 
 mother. He is educated under the Emperor of Austria, and, I 
 understand, is a smart animated child. The Duchess told me 
 she had not seen her son for three years, but hoped to go to 
 Vienna this spring. 
 
 I have the pleasure to tell you that the Mordwinoffs are 
 all (except their married daughter) coming to pay a visit to 
 the Ardenza this year. The Emperor has graciously granted 
 Mordwinoff two years' absence to travel and complete the 
 education of his son. Their route is to be Germany, Italy, 
 France, England and Sweden : so you will see them in 
 London. You will be much pleased and gratified with your 
 uncle, who possesses the finest abilities with an excellent heart 
 and disposition. How goes on your picture ? Great expecta- 
 tions are raised, and sincerely do I desire its success — here 
 enters a little of self, for in such a case we might flatter our- 
 selves with the hope of seeing you in Italy, which, do me 
 justice to believe, would give real pleasure to your most 
 AfJectionate aunt, 
 
 E. Pakteidge. 
 
 From His Excellency the Count Bombilles, Charge 
 d'affaires, dec. 
 
 MY DEAK SlE, Lisbon, 18th April, 1818. 
 
 It is here where I have now been residing these ten 
 months that I received the copy of your last publication, which 
 you were so hind to send me. This mark of remembrance was 
 particularly gratifying to me, and I hope the place from which 
 I date this letter will be the best apology for my having so 
 long delayed returning you my best thanks. 
 
 I think you have, in your pamphlets,* very successfully 
 defended a very good cause, and aware, as I am, of the sound 
 
 * Pamphlets on 'New Churches,' aud ' Elgin Marbles,' &c., &o. 
 
331 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 judgment that has ever distinguished your nation, and of the 
 taste for real beauty and fine arts, which is now more than ever 
 diffused amongst its members, I do not doubt that a glorious 
 issue will crown your noble efforts. 
 
 If ever my fate brings me back to England, one of the 
 things that will cause me some real pleasure will certainly be 
 the sight of your great picture in its state of perfection. 
 Those parts which were finished when I was in London gave 
 me already a very high opinion of it. Not that I should boast 
 of being a connoisseur, which I am very far from, but when a 
 picture speaks to our feelings, whoever is not utterly deprived 
 of that better part of ourself may become a judge as to its 
 intellectual worth. 
 
 I am now in a country where the fine arts stand very low, 
 but in the case that, here or anywhere else, I could be of any 
 service to you, it would certainly afford me great pleasure to 
 give you a proof of the esteem and perfect consideration, 
 with which 
 
 I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Your humble and obedient servant, 
 Th. Hombilles, 
 Charge d'affaires to H. I. M. the Emperor of Austria. 
 
 A M. le Comte de Bombilles, Charge d'affaires de 8.M. 
 VEmp. d'Autriche a Lisbonne. 
 
 ClIER M. LE COMTE, London, 27th May, 1818. 
 
 I was exceedingly happy to find you had received my 
 little pamphlet and that it met your approbation. It has also 
 met with the approbation of all the leading men here, much 
 more so, indeed, than I expected. The pamphlet will not 
 effect its object at once, but it is one step towards it. Great 
 revolutions are not brought about in a moment. Everybody 
 acknowledges the truth of what I have endeavoured to express, 
 but Government says that it cannot afford to spare any money 
 yet for the public encouragement of painting. I have no 
 doubt that Government will do so in the end, as the state of 
 the country is improving fast. 
 
 I can assure you I value the opinion of one who judges 
 wholly from what he feels in preference to that of the greatest 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 335 
 
 connoisseur, who generally judges without any feeling at all. 
 You may not know anything of the art of painting as an art, 
 but of the expression, the character, and whether the story be 
 well or ill told, you can judge, and so can every one of general 
 good taste for the pathos or the beauty of nature. Every man 
 cannot tell how Raphael's cartoons were executed, but every 
 man can feel whether the passion be well expressed, because 
 that refers to the general feelings of our hearts, while the other 
 is wholly addressed to an acquired sensation, the result of 
 professional experience. 
 
 Since I had the honour of seeing you I have removed into a 
 nice house, with a very large atelier, such a one, indeed, as no 
 painter, in Paris or London, can exceed for light, air, and 
 convenience. My other rooms were too small, and my health 
 suffered very much from confinement, so that, unfortunately, 
 my picture was delayed coming out this season, but I hope to 
 complete it by the next. I have finished all the heads but the 
 head of Christ, and that I hope to finish in the next fortnight. 
 I can assure you it has occupied my mind night and day for 
 the last three months, and I hope to God I shall be permitted 
 to give a new idea of His Divine face to the world. JMay I 
 prove that this is no presumption ! 
 
 I shall be most happy to hear from you again, and I hope 
 you will not remove to a new country without honouring me by 
 information 
 
 We have this year a very fine exhibition of Italian and 
 Flemish Schools at the British Gallery, and which will do 
 great good to the public taste. Theie is every reason, I think, 
 to expect that we shall at last rear our heads in painting. If 
 I can only see my glorious country as high in historical 
 painting as she is in every other department, I shall die 
 content. I have but this wish on earth, and I will devote my 
 life to accomplish it. You must own that eminent foreigners 
 have hitherto judged us unjustly with regard to the arts. 
 They invariably attr.buted our not shining in them to a 
 natural incapacity, when it was entirely owing to local causes, 
 which are fast removing. But I am afraid I fatigue you, 
 so pray 
 
 Believe me, with great respect, 
 
 Yours most faithfully, 
 
 B. K. Haydon. 
 
336 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From M. Ham el. 
 MY DEAR SlR, 15lh June, 1818. 
 
 I am again in the metropolis of dear England, and 
 slmuld be happy to see you, but it must be to-day or to-mor- 
 row, for 1 am going out of town with the Grand Duke Michael. 
 I got your letter iu Paris. Have you seen the Grand Duke ? 
 How far are your people advanced towards ' Jerusalem ?' Let 
 me hear from you. At any rate I shall hope to see you after 
 our return. 
 
 Believe me, yours most truly, 
 
 P. Hamel. 
 
 To William Hamilton, Esq., Foreign Office. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, London, 9th July, 1818. 
 
 I wrote you a note and sent it to the Foreign Office 
 about a week ago, thinking you were in town, but I heard after- 
 wards you had gone to Scotland. It will perhaps be in your 
 power, now you are there, to bring me, when you return, or send 
 me by post, an accurate profile drawing, about the miniature 
 size, of Lord Elgin's head. You would oblige me very much 
 indeed by acceding to my request, as we have long been con- 
 templating a medal struck with the 'Theseus' on one side, and 
 Lord Elgin's head on the other. The drawing of the ' Theseus ' 
 is already finished, and the business only waits for an authentic 
 likeness of Lord Elgin. 
 
 I am still suffering in my eyes, and am obliged to employ 
 a friend, even to write this letter. An Italian pupil of Canova's 
 has entered himself as a student at the Elgin Marbles for two 
 years, and we expect two Spaniards will shortly do the same 
 thing. Italians and Spaniards coming to study the art in 
 England ! This is as it should be, and but the commencemeut 
 of part of the glory that will accrue to the country from their 
 purchase. If you are near Lord Elgin, I hope you will read 
 this to him. 
 
 Though Visconti did great good by his publication on the 
 Elgin Marbles at the time, and his conjectures as to whom they 
 represented, are perhaps without objection, yet his notion as 
 to the Ilissus being in action, and his opinions concerning the 
 style of the marbles, are completely erroneous, which I intend 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 337 
 
 to prove in a short paper. I shall ha^e an etching of the 
 Ilissus, and undeniably prove that the Gladiator, the Torso, 
 and the Laocoon, are as opposite in style to the Elgin Marbles 
 as any two things can possibly be. 
 
 The first shipment of the casts for Russia are embarked. 
 Those I sent in April, by this time, I suppose, are arrived, and 
 I am anxious to bear what effect they have had. With my 
 respects to Mrs. Hamilton, 
 
 Pray believe me truly and faithfully yours, 
 
 13. E. Haydon. 
 
 P.S. — I desire my respects also to Lord Elgin. I attended 
 the Grand Duke Michael round the marbles the other day. He 
 did not seem to have the taste of his brother, the Grand 
 Duke Nicolas, nor to feel their beauties half so strongly. He 
 exclaimed, "Que la ganache du cheval etait cassee!" which 
 showed that he did not feel much this fine fragment. 
 
 B. R. H. 
 
 From William Hamilton. 
 
 DEAR HAYDON, Foreign Office (no date), 1818. 
 
 If you have a mind to go to Italy free of expense, I 
 think I can accommodate you with a b ig of dispatches as far 
 as Naples. If you agree, pray let me see you in a day or two. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Wm. Hamilton. 
 
 From William Hamilton. 
 
 DEAR HaYDON, Foreign Office, 28th October, 1818. 
 
 In the hopes of seeing you to-day (I was prevented 
 coming to the office as early as I ought), I had omitted to say 
 in my letter of yesterday that you need not travel with courier 
 rapidity, nor need to travel by night, unless you prefer it. 
 We, of course, should not wish you to linger on the road, but 
 it is not an affair of life or death, and we shall pay you the 
 full expenses of a postchaise, &c. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Wm. Hamilton, 
 vol. l z 
 
333 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 We should be ready about the end of th : s week ; but a few 
 days diday is of no consequence; indeed I had rather say 
 Tuesday or Wednesday in next week. 
 
 Yours, 
 W. H. 
 
 We might probably arrange also for the expenses of your 
 return.* 
 
 W. H. 
 
 From Edward du Eois. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, 7th January, 1819. 
 
 I have found ' Hunt's Pocket-book ' not only agreeable, 
 but useful, for it has instructed me touching your whereabouts. 
 
 Had I known your address before, I should have thanked 
 you for your kind and friendly attention. I availed myself of 
 your note, and visiting the British Gallery, had my reward. 
 Your pupils are worthy of their master, and let them rest their 
 fame on that. To you I say what was never before said to 
 man, " Bring forth male children only, for thy undaunted 
 mettle should compose nothing but males." 
 
 When the ducks have eaten up all the dirt, I mean to seek 
 you in ' The Grove,' and treat myself with a sight of your idol. 
 
 I know what you have done. 
 
 " Nescio quid majus nascitur." 
 
 Yours, truly, 
 
 Ed. du Bois. 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My dear SiR, 
 
 ^*«> zvm ivovemDer, isis. 
 
 Although I agree with you that the practice of per- 
 » young students to paint, before they have a competent 
 
 mitting young 
 
 * Haydon was nt this time in the midst of Ms ' Jerusalem,' and his position in 
 tlie ait did not, in his own opinion, justify him iu leaving England. He there- 
 fore declined Mr. Hamilton's kind oiler. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 339 
 
 knowledge of drawing, lias been carried too far, and been pro- 
 ductive of much evil, yet I think the opposite extreme is to 
 be equa'ly avoided. An artist's eye ought certainly to be 
 before his hand, or he will never improve ; but if it has 
 too great an advantage, he will be discouraged. The ques- 
 tion with me is, whether these young men, with whom you 
 have taken such laudable pains to instruct, and who have pro- 
 duced drawings which have met with so much approbation, 
 may not, when they have to contend with the entirely different 
 and far more difficult practice of the pencil, and consequently 
 produce pictures vexatiously inferior to their drawings, give up 
 the new art as hopeless ; or, as other eminent artists have done 
 who were devoted to drawing, persuade themselves colouring was 
 a matter of no consequence ! You, who are acknowledged to 
 possess an exquisite taste for this delicious ornament of art, 
 will, I know, deprecate such a consequence, at any rate. Surely, 
 as the pencil is the weapon with which they have to fLht their 
 way to fame, it would be better they should paint their drawings, 
 even if it were with two colours. 
 
 Indeed I cannot but think your objection to an early use of 
 the pencil has arisen, in a great measure, from the abuse of it, 
 for I cannot but agree with Sir Joshua that both arts may be 
 acquired at the same time, and it is the business of the teacher 
 to take care that the fascination of colour does not beguile 
 them into negligence of drawing. I believe it is generally 
 acknowledged that, if exquisite colouring could be superadded 
 to correct design, a perfect work would be produced — at least, 
 superior to anything yet known in art. 
 
 It is to be observed that of those artists who have eminently 
 excelled in the ornamental branches of colouring and pencil 
 have left few drawings, and that those whose drawings we 
 possess in abundance, if their pictures are not positively dry 
 and inlaid, yet they do not possess the relish and fascination 
 of the Venetian and Flemish artists. 
 
 Now I think this seems to teach that both have been ex- 
 treme cases, and that a middle course is the best chance of 
 producing the desired effect. Life is too short to afford three 
 or four years to drawing only. 
 
 Believe me, yours sincerely, 
 
 Geo. Beaumont. 
 
 2 
 
340 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Goethe, on receiving his copies of the ' Theseus ' and 
 ' Fates,' by Bewick. 
 
 ►SlR, Weimar, ICth February, 1819. 
 
 In answer to your polite letter which you did rne the 
 honour of addressing to me last November, permit me to re- 
 mark that if such young men as Messrs. Bewick and Landseer 
 have great reason to rejoice at having found in you so able and 
 so distinguished a master, you must, on the other hand, feel an 
 equal degree of satisfaction to have had it in your power to 
 bring your pupils acquainted with such excellent models as 
 those which your country of late has had the good fortune to 
 acquire.* 
 
 Those of us at Weimar who love and admire the arts share 
 your enthusiasm for the remains of the most glorious period, 
 and hold ourselves indebted to you for having enabled us to 
 participate, to such a degree, in the enjoyment and contempla- 
 tion of those works by means of such happy copies. 
 
 We look forward with pleasure (though we may not live to 
 witness it) to the incalculable effect and influence which will 
 be produced upon the arts by those precious relics, in England 
 as well as in other countries. 
 
 I have the honour to be, with great regard, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 J. W. Goethe. 
 
 From Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, No date, 1819. 
 
 I confess I am sorry you have answered your opponents. 
 Depend on it they will think you wounded and redouble their 
 attacks ; your peace will be disturbed, and your time consumed 
 in this unprofitable and detestable warfare. 
 
 Abjure your pen, seize your pencil, exert the powers with 
 which Nature has so amply supplied you, and paint them into 
 the earth 1 
 
 You know this was always my advice, and I really think had 
 there been no such thing as a pen in the world, all your wishes 
 would have been accomplished long ago. 
 
 * The Elgin Marblcs.-Er>. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 341 
 
 Excuse my zeal for your welfare, and believe me to be your 
 sincere well-wisher, 
 
 G. H. Beaumont. 
 
 From one of his Pupils. 
 
 MY DEAR HONOURED SlR, 7th August, 1819. 
 
 I have taken the liberty to ask a few friends (Mr. 
 Thomson and part of his family) to see your picture. Under 
 ycur leave I will call with them to-morrow between the hours 
 
 of one and three 
 
 I remain, dear Sir, your devoted son (for you have ever beeu 
 a father to me), 
 
 Edward Chatfield.* 
 From His Excellency the Count Mordwinoff. 
 
 Liverpool, 13 Aout 1819. 
 
 Nous ne vous avons pas ecrit, mon cher Haydon, car nous 
 n'avions rien a vous ecrire, excepte les assurances de nos 
 affections dont vous pouviez etre assure sans des protestations 
 de notre part. Votre tres-affectionnee tante craint pour vos 
 yeux, et je suis d'accord avec elle qu'ils doivent etre menage*, 
 car si vous devenez aveugle vous ne ferez pas le nombre de 
 tableaux que Raphael a produit et repandu dans les regions les 
 plus eloignees de lTtalie. Je veux voir les votres en Russie 
 apres que votre imagination sera temperee et plus frugale en 
 nombre. Venez vous associer aupres des Madonnas et des 
 Eves romaines, qui sont jalouses des regards des amateurs et 
 veulent les avoir fixes sur elles seules. Nous quittons Liverpool 
 en peu de jours pour voir Notre oncle Cobley a Wells. Vers la 
 fin d'Aout nous ser< >ns a Londres. Harriet et toute la famille 
 vous saluent tendrement. 
 
 Mordwinoff. 
 From His Excellency the Count Mordwinoff. 
 
 Londres, 29 Anut 1819. 
 
 Je vous envoie, mon cher neveu, deux coffres pour lesquels 
 vous aurez la bonte de trouver une petite place chez vous jusqu'a 
 
 * Edward Chatfield was another of those many young boys who came to 
 Haydon to a?k advice, and staid to get instruction. — Ed. 
 
342 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 notre retour. Je vous ai ecrit hier pour les chevaux. Nous 
 serions charmes de partir demain matin a sept heures. 
 
 Je vous salue de tout mon cceur. Nous vous attendons au- 
 jourd'hui dans la journee, apres que vous aurez donne quelques 
 grands coups de pinceaux pour faire arriver toute l'assemblee 
 iuive, qui se presse en foule de sortir de votre Tableau, pour 
 crier: "Hosanna a l'imniortel Haydon, le Benjamin des Chre- 
 tiens." Adieu ! 
 
 Mohdwinoff. 
 
 To Lord Elgin. 
 
 My LORD, No dale, 1819. 
 
 Your kind letter gave me great pVasure, as all your 
 le'ters must. You will be sorry to hear of the death of poor 
 ynung Harlowe, who distinguished himself so much at Rome. 
 He was a young man of very great promise, and had be -ome 
 very sensible to bis faults by seeing the fine works in Italy. 
 He caught cold on the Alps by getting out of a warm coach to 
 make a sketch in the snow. He got worse daily. I attended 
 bis funeral on Tuesday last. He was honourably and respect- 
 ably buried. 
 
 There is every reason to believe Belzoni is still living. 
 
 I hope your Lordship has received a small essay of mine on 
 a comparison between the Elgin horse's head and the Venetian 
 horse's head, by Lysippus, in which I have proved the 
 superiority in essence and style of the Elgin horse's head over 
 the other. 
 
 I sent it to you through the Foreign Office about two months 
 since. 
 
 I have read with great pleasure Quatremere de Quincy's 
 ' Letters,' addressed to you from London. ( )ne likes to see 
 one's conviction, as an artist, of the superiority of these divine 
 works sanctioned by so celebrated an antiquary, and though, if 
 he had doubted them, it would not have shaken my belief, 
 founded as it is upon the unalterable principles of nature, yet 
 it is a pleasure to tind him of the same opinion. He says that 
 he thinks Phidias went over, with his own hand, the large 
 figures of the Pediment. Indeed, there can be no doubt of it. 
 In the large figures of the pedestal there is no difference of 
 style. The same mighty hand reigns throughout, whereas in the 
 Meto A es and frieze there is a difference in style. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 343 
 
 It was also a great pleasure to me to see that Q. de Q. says 
 in the large figures by Phidias there was perhaps less of his own 
 hand than in the marble figures from the great number of 
 workmen be was obliged to employ. 
 
 I am happy to be able to tell your Lordship that Taste is 
 advancing with rapid strides in England, and that, in order to 
 feel the puis?, as it were, of the p ople, I collected all the 
 large drawings of my pupils from the Cartoons and Elgin 
 Marbles, and arranged them for exhibition. I had a private 
 day, and the most distinguished nobility all attended, and then 
 opened the exhibition to the public for a short time. To the 
 astonishment of those who denied the taste of the English 
 nation, chalk drawings, without any of the common attractions 
 of colour, and light and shadow, which have always been 
 thought indispensable to an English exhibition, were en- 
 thusiastically received by the public, the nobility, the ministers, 
 foreign ambassadors, &c. 
 
 I consider this success to be the greatest point hitherto 
 gained in English art, and doubt not of its ultimately leading 
 to the most favourable results. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 B. R. Haylon. 
 
 To Mrs. SlDDONS. 
 MADAM, St. John's Wood Place, March 27th, 1820. 
 
 I hope I may be pardoned for venturing to express 
 again my gratitude for your unhesitating decision on Saturday. 
 
 I have ever estimated you, Madam, as the great high 
 priestess at the shrine of Nature;— as the only being living 
 who had ever been, or who was worthy to be admitted within 
 the veil of her temple ;— as one whose immortality was lono- 
 since decided. You will then judge of my feelings at having 
 been so fortunate as to touch the sensibility of so gifted a 
 being. The whole evening I could not avoid believing I had 
 held converse with a spirit of my own imagination, whom for 
 years I had pictured in solitude as the organ of Nature herself, 
 in whose immediate impressions I would place more confidence, 
 and bow to them with more deference, than to the united' 
 reasoning of the rest of the world. 
 
344 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 By this liberty I know I risk all prospect of any future 
 notice from you, yet I rely on your goodness to pardon the 
 indelicacy as well as rudeness of the intrusion. 
 
 I am, Madam, 
 With the most respectful admiration, 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Mrs. Siddoks. 
 
 SlR, 27, Upper Baker Street, Kegent's Park. 
 
 In answer to your very nattering note I can no other- 
 wise reply than in the words of Hamlet, that the suffrage of 
 one so great a genius " o'erweighs a whole theatre of others." 
 
 Your time must of course be so completely devoted to your 
 divine art, that I can scarcely hope you will find leisure to 
 gratify me by calling here when it may not be out of your way 
 to do me that favour ; yet I doubt ; I will not despair, and I 
 remain, 
 
 With the utmost admiration, 
 
 Your most obliged servant, 
 
 S. SlDDONS. 
 
 From John Hunt. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, Upper Cheddon, near Taunton, April, 1820. 
 
 Though you have not heard from me of late, I have 
 neither forgotten you nor your labours, as both my brother 
 Robert and my son can testify. Your success has delighted me. 
 If 1 d.d not from the bottom of my soul wish you well, still 
 I should be gratiiied at finding my opinion respecting your 
 talents well founded. I was ever convinced that you had " the 
 head to conceive and the hand to execute " glorious works in 
 your beautiful art, and you have now in open day proved your- 
 self a worthy follower of the Raphaels and the Rubenses. 
 Honour, and profit, and health attend you ! 
 
 Your letter gave me great pleasure, for though you infinitely 
 overrate my little services, yet I love a warm heart, and mine 
 has been pained of late too often by the odious selfishness of 
 move t*han one. Your head of my brother is the chief orna- 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 315 
 
 ment of my humble but comfortable cottage, where there is a 
 bed for you, and a cordial welcome at all times. 
 
 Gro on, " right trusty and well beloved," and let your light 
 " so shine before men that they may see your good works," at 
 once an honour to yourself, your friends, and your country. 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 'John Hunt. 
 
 From Southey. 
 
 DEAR SIR, London, 28th June, 1820. 
 
 Among the things which I have left undone during my 
 restless life in this part of the world, there is no one which 
 vexes me so much as the neglect of which I must nt eds seem 
 guilty towaids you. But when you hear that I have been 
 residing sometimes at Stieatham, sometimes at Richmond, that 
 1 have been at Cambridge, at Oxford, at Tunbridge, and that 
 during the last ten weeks I have never slept more than three 
 nights successively in the same bed, you may be more disposed 
 to excuse me. 
 
 I have seen your great picture, one of the very few things 
 which I base found time to see, and of those few it was the 
 first. I missed the traditional countenance. On every other 
 point it fully equalled my high expectations: so that, I am 
 told by others, that repeated visits would have reconciled me 
 to the change. 
 
 My endeavour on behalf of Historic Painting is likely soon 
 to find its way to the light. I have reason to believe that it 
 will appear in the next number.* 
 
 I leave this abominable city to-night in the mail coach. 
 Farewell, Sir ; forgive me for delaying what 1 always intended 
 to do till it was too late, and believe me to be, with great and 
 true respect, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 ROBEKT SOUTHET. 
 Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 My hand shakes so with heat and fatigue of packing that I 
 fear it will hardly be legible. 
 
 * * Quarterly Ecview ' (October 1820). 
 
3+6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 DliAR SlR, Edinburgh, 1st July, 1820. 
 
 Your letter reached me when I was in the Kingdom (so- 
 called) of Fife, and now that I am returned from that foreign 
 domain I hasten to return you thanks for the honour you have 
 done me in giving your son my name. I am only afraid I shall 
 be able very indifferently to discharge my duties as godfather, 
 as I have slender means of assist ng my young friends. . . . 
 
 My daughter Lockhart and her family are just leaving for 
 Abbotsford, where I will join them in a few days, which must 
 excuse a short letter. 
 
 I am, with my best compliments to Mrs. Haydon, and 
 kind wishes to the little infant, 
 
 Always your sincere friend, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 DEAR SlR, 27th December, 1820. 
 
 I have great pleasure in pointing out whatever may be 
 useful or agreeable to you. A complete course of Scottish 
 History will run as follows : — 
 
 Dalrymj Je's (Lord Hailes's) ' Annals of Scotland,' 3 vols., 8vo. 
 This is a book drily written, but drawn from good sources, and 
 containing many passages of great spirit. It brings down the 
 history of Scotland from the earliest sources that can be relied 
 on to the accession of the Stuarts. 
 
 John Pinkerton has written the History of Scotland from the 
 point where Lord Hailes concludes down to the conclusion of 
 James V. ; a work of meritorious labou'-, but not delivered in a 
 very pleasing style or manner. 
 
 Where Pnkerton's history concludes begins the classical 
 history of the late Dr. Robertson, which conducts you by a 
 very pleasing path through the interesting reign of Queen 
 Mary, and down to the union of the Crowns by the acceptance 
 of James VI. 
 
 Mr. Laing (?) has written the History of Scotland, but in 
 rather an elaborate manner, from the union of the Crowns down 
 to that of the Kingdoms in 1707, which completes the Histo y 
 of Scotland, though you may look at some account of the 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 3<7 
 
 rebellion (so called) in 1715 and 1745. There is a prolix 
 account of the former by one Rae, and of the last by John 
 Horner (?), author of 'Douglas.' The last, though much 
 decried, is the best book we have on a very curious subject. 
 
 I am afi aid you will think I have cut you out quite as much 
 labour as the subject is worth, but if you wish to find subjects 
 for the pencil I believe you will have the I est chance of finding 
 them in some of the old historians or writers of memoirs, who, 
 without being either so full or so accurate as the philosophical 
 historians of the last or present century, had, neveitheless, the 
 art of placing their actors clearly before you. An old writer, 
 called Lindsay of Pittscotti, has left a History of Scotland, 
 which is written in a very rude and homely style, yet is often 
 picturesque in the highest degree. The work has been lately 
 reprinted, and is easily come by, but I am afraid you will have 
 much difficulty with the Scotch phraseology and spelling. 
 
 I forgot to add you should have MacPherson's Map of Scot- 
 land with the index at your hand. There is no reading Scotch 
 history usefully without it, and by a very simple mode of 
 reference it points out the situation of almost every place 
 mentioned in that course of study. 
 
 I cannot omit saying that, in turning your thoughts to 
 Scottish history, it will give me an uncommon degree of plea- 
 sure should it incline your pencil towards that field also, and 
 should that prove the case, 1 beg you will command any assist- 
 ance which can be rendered by such an old grubber amongst 
 not-known antiquities as myself respecting incidents, costume, 
 or the like. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, very much yours, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 I am at present at Lord Haddington's, so have not had it in 
 my power to be quite so accurate as if I had been in my own 
 room, but 1 believe I am correct on the whole. 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Edinburgh, 7tk January, 1821. 
 
 I just scribble a few lines to thank you for your letter, 
 and to add in reply that at any time you may command any 
 information I have about either incident or costume, should you 
 
348 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 find a Scottish subject which hits your fancy. In general there 
 is a great error in dressing ancient Scottish men like our High- 
 landers, who wore a dress, as they spoke a language, as foreign to 
 the Lowland Scottish as to the English. I remember battling this 
 point with poor Bird, who had a great fancy to put my country- 
 men, the spearmen of Tiviotdale, who fought and fell at Chevy 
 Chase, into plaids and fihibegs. I was obliged at last to compound 
 for one Highland chief, for the tartan harmonised so much with 
 some of the other colours, the artist would not part with him. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Sir ; proceed to exert your talents in prosecu- 
 tion and in representation of what is good and great, and so, as 
 Ophelia says, " God be with your labour !" I am very happy to 
 have seen you, and hope to show you one day some of our scenery. 
 
 By the way, there is a tale of our country which, were the sub- 
 ject, well known as it is, but a local and obscure tradition, strikes 
 me as not unfit for the pencil, and I will tell i,t you in three words. 
 
 In ancient times there lived on the Scottish frontier, just 
 opposite to England, a champion belonging to the clan of 
 Armstrong called the Laird's Jock, one of the most powerful 
 men of his time in stature and presence, and one of the bravest 
 and most approved in arms. Be wielded a tremendous^ large 
 and heavy two-handed sword, which no one on the west border 
 could use save himself. After living very many (years) with- 
 out a rival, Jock-of-the-Side became old and bedridden, and 
 could no longer stir from home. His family consisted of a 
 son and daughter, the first a fine young warrior, though not 
 equal to his father ; and the last a beautiful young woman. 
 About this time an English champion of the name of Foster, 
 ancient rivals of the Armstrongs, and Englishman to boot, 
 gave a challenge to any man on the Scottish side to single 
 combat. These challenges were frequent among the Borderers, 
 and always fought with great fairness, and attended with great 
 interest. The Laird's Jock's son accepted the challenge, and 
 his father presented him on the occasion with the large two- 
 handed sword which he himself had been used to wield in 
 battle. He also insisted on witnessing the combat, and was 
 conveyed. in a litter to a place called Turner's Holm, just on 
 the frontier of both kingdoms, where he was placed, wrapped 
 up with great care, under the charge of his daughter. The 
 champions met, and young Armstrong was slain ; and Foster, 
 seizing the sword, waved it in token of triumph. The old 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 349 
 
 champion never dropped a tear for his son, hut when he saw 
 his renowned weapon in the hands of an Englishman, he set up 
 a hideous cry, which is said to have heen heard at an incredible 
 distance, and exclaiming, " My sword ! my sword ! " dropped 
 into his daughter's arms, and expired. 
 
 I think that the despair of the old giant, contrasted with the 
 beautiful female in all her sorrows, and with the accompani- 
 ments of the field of combat, are no bad subject for a sketch a la 
 mode of Salvator, though perhaps better adapted for sculpture. 
 
 Yours, at length, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 From Southey. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Keswick, 11th October, 1820. 
 
 It is very gratifying to me to know that you are satisfied 
 with my good endeavours ; and the more gratifying, inasmuch 
 as the paper, having been delayed nearly two years in the 
 editor's hands, has suffered considerably by mutilation on its 
 way to the press. I had quoted much more largely from your 
 pamphlet, and in what follows the extract, not only sentences 
 but whole paragraphs have been cut out. 
 
 Mr. Gifford has more than once promised me that he would 
 not take these unwarrantable liberties with my p ipers, but 1 
 believe he might as well promise to abstain from food, as from 
 the exercise of his editorial authority 
 
 The press has great power for immediate evil, much less for 
 bringing about any immediate good. But truth and good 
 principles make their way slowly, they are to make it at last. 
 And I have no doubt that whenever the government finds itself 
 at ease concerning the revenues, the arts will feel the benefit. 
 The disposition is not wanting. 
 
 You have great subjects in hand, and if any man can be 
 equal to them you can. I wish you health to complete them, 
 and many more, and all the success you desire and deserve. 
 But whatever your immediate reward may be, your great 
 object is attained. You have proved the excellency of British 
 art, and secured that triumph for your country. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, with great respect, 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
35° 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 To Sir George Beaumont. 
 My dear Sir George, 2Gth December, 1820. 
 
 I know you and Lady Beaumont will be pleased to hear 
 th it I and my picture (' Jerusalem ') were received in Edin- 
 burgh with enthusiasm. I can a-sure you I shall never forget 
 the treatment I experienced from the inhabitants as long as I 
 exist. 
 
 The (Exhibition) room here is infinitely better lighted than 
 in London, and the picture ('Entry into Jerusalem') never 
 looked so well. Whatever prejudices you may naturally attri- 
 bute to me about the hea 1 of Christ, I am happy to tell you 
 the leading men here and the inhabitants generally feel at 
 least my intentions better than they were felt in London. I 
 ta^e this to be owing to their minds here being present in a 
 more unadulterated state. Their taste has not been corrupted, 
 or their remembrance preoccupied by the common receipt-heads 
 of Carlo Dolci, Carlo Maratti, and all the host of mediocrity 
 which for the last one hundred and fifty years has hovered over 
 and fed upon the works of Raphael without digesting one 
 atom of their strength. 
 
 Wilson said to me precisely what Mrs. Siddons said.* Wilson, 
 God knows, had no prejudices in my favour. He had been for 
 t' ree years ridiculing my talents in 'Blackwood,' and would 
 willingly have denied what little merit the picture has; but, 
 like a fine fellow, he acknowledged his sensations with a candour 
 1 shall not forget. 
 
 1 never spoke to Mrs. Siddons in my life before, and is not 
 her sensation to be of value ? What benefit could she derive 
 from praising me? I assure you I esteem her immediate 
 impressions on matters of expression to be of more value than 
 the united reasonings of the rest of mankind, and posterity 
 
 will be inclined to give her opinion the same deference 
 
 My next Christ, I am convinced, will be liked better, not 
 because it will be different, but because it will not be so 
 new 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 • Mrs. Siddons, on first seeing this picture, studied the head of Christ most 
 attentively for several minutes, the gro.it world awniti ig her verdict in silence. 
 Then she turned to Sir George Beaumont aud said, " It is completely successful." 
 —Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 From Sir W. Allan. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Edinburgh, 3rd January, 1821. 
 
 I intended to have written to you some time ago, but I 
 have been much occupied in packing my things for a journey 
 into the country, where I intend to reside for some time. I 
 find it will be impossible for me to get my picture finished in 
 time for the exhibiti on by remaining longer in Edinburgh, 
 from the number of acquaintances and friends that daily call at 
 my lodgings, the greater part of whom are generally strangers, 
 and of course I must pay them some attention. By that means 
 the post of showing the lions generally falls to my lot, which 
 is the very " diable " for killing time. Kunning about from 
 place to place, one day climbing up Arthur's Seat and Salisbury 
 Crags, another day strolling from the Castle and Calton, West 
 B^w, Cowgate, Canongate, &c. 
 
 On Christmas day 1 dined with Sir Walter Scott and family, 
 and sp^nt the evening most delightfully. Sir Walter was in 
 fine spirits, and our amusements were heightened with glorious 
 mus e on the harp, guitar, and Border bagpipe, also many 
 excellent songs, but more especially the Border ballads, which 
 were most exquisitely sung, and the accompaniment on the 
 bagpipe gave a wildness to the whole that it is difficult to 
 describe. I wish very much that you had been there, for I 
 am persuaded you would have enjoyed it if 1 may be allowed 
 to judge from the effect the Gaelic lament had upon you when 
 sung by Miss C at Locldiart's. 
 
 Mr. Nicholson, Wilson, Williams, and all your friends here 
 beg to join me in our best respects to you, and wish you many 
 happy returns of the season. 
 
 I am, my dear Havdon, yours truly, 
 William Allan. 
 
 P.S. — Pray remember me to Wilkie and all his family, and 
 if you meet Cal lender tell him I shall be in London about the 
 middle of March. 
 
 On a Public Funeral for Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 To the Editor of the ' Times.' 
 Sir, 1821. 
 
 You say, " What is the art of a stage player ? A con- 
 tingent and dependent one." May I ask what are all arts, 
 
35 2 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 viz. poetry, painting-, and music, but contingent and de- 
 pendent ? 
 
 If opposite characters did not exist in nature and had never 
 existed, if their collision had < not produced great events, and 
 elicited great passions, what would have become of the art of 
 poetry and painting? 
 
 Nature furnishes the historian, the historian the poet, and 
 the painter, and the poet furnishes the actor, but is the actor 
 tied clown to the mere representation by action and expression 
 of what the poet says any more than the poet or the painter 
 to the mere detail of what really happened in life? Surely 
 not. And it is here that begins the actor's art: here he shows 
 his susceptibility, his tact for character, his feeling for nature, 
 in fact, the portion of invention which belongs to him. 
 
 For instance, Garrick knew a man who had gone mad 
 through causing the death of his only boy by accidentally 
 dropping him out of a window into the street, and Garrick 
 had seen the poor lunatic go through in his insanity all the 
 pathetic agonies of his sufferings. This scene Garrick used to 
 act in private till tears fell from the eyes of his friends. Now 
 here life furnished him with a certain fact. It could not do 
 more to a poet, but the degree of pathos with which this was 
 represented either by poetry, painting, or acting, would prove 
 the genius of the man who had observed it. The greatest poet 
 cm be said to do scarcely more for the great actor than the 
 historian does for the poet, viz. furnish him with characters and 
 hints. The poet makes each man think consistently with his 
 character ; the painter, look, and the actor, do, as he would look 
 and a>-t in expression and action. For example : in Macbeth — 
 
 " Macbeth. . . . Didst thou not hear a noise ? 
 Lady Macbeth. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry. 
 Did not you speak ? 
 
 Macbeth. When ? 
 
 Lady Macbeth. Now. 
 
 Macbeth. As I descended? 
 
 Lady Macbeth. Ay. 
 
 Macbeth. Hark ! " 
 
 In reading this we all imagine actions and expressions 
 accompanying such thoughts. We all imagine what the great 
 tictor realizes not by being dependent or contingent, but by 
 the help of his own instinct for nature, by the help of his own 
 imagination satisfying the mind of the spectator through his 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 253 
 
 eye by giving the very actions such as would accompany two 
 illustrious murderers who had just slaughtered an innocent 
 king, and who met on the staircase after the deed was done. 
 
 If a great actor has not murdered a king, how can he do 
 this? By a portion of the same power by which Shakespeare 
 did it, viz. imagination, original, innate, and gifted as much 
 as poets and painters, though not to the same degree. 
 
 I therefore take the liberty of saying the genius of the great 
 actor is not trivial, contingent, and dependent, but a power, a 
 thing by itself put in force by the poet or by nature, and is 
 capable, though not to the same degree, of showing invention 
 and originality. 
 
 With respect to Eousseau's assertions I deny their truth. 
 The actor was of the greatest use to the Greeks in their 
 barbarous ages, liousseau admits his utility at a period 
 " moderately corrupt, but not in a pure state." Surely as we 
 are moderately corrupt and not in a very pure condition, it 
 follows the great actor may be of use to us. 
 
 " What even abstracts the mind from sensual pleasure must 
 advance the dignity of our nature," says Sir Joshua Beynolds. 
 
 Is there any ai t on earth which more contribut s to abstract 
 the mind from sensual gratification than the highest efforts of 
 the tragic actor? What mind was not always benefited by 
 witnessing the Jail of Wolsey, the sufferings of Catherine, the 
 guilt of Lady Macbeth, and all the high efforts of Mrs. 
 Siddons, and what proof of degradation would it be in any 
 nation to mark their respect for such a great genius by a 
 funeral public and solemn ? 
 
 In my opinion it would be a proof that pants et circenses, as 
 well as consols and cash, were less in our thoughts than usual. 
 
 Is not the art of the great portrait painter entirely con- 
 tingent and dependent? What is it? To catch the most 
 pleasing expression in his sitter's face, to remember it, to 
 transfer it. If he did not see it he could not reproduce it, and 
 if he must see it before he can reproduce it there is an end of 
 invention. Yet we bury our great portrait painters publicly 
 and in St. Paul's. 
 
 But a great actor or actress who realises to our imagination 
 by action and expression the great characters of history, and 
 poets who ini] ress upon youth and age the dangers of ambition, 
 the consequences of unregulated love, the horrors of gambling, 
 
 VOL. I. 2i A 
 
354 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 the guilt of murder, and the injustice of despotism, their art 
 is contingent and trivial, and they are not worthy of being laid 
 in the sanctuary of moral poet^, moral painters, and ministers 
 who never waged war with the liberties of mankind. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Alpha (B. R. Haydon). 
 
 From Judge Field. 
 
 , r „ Sydney, New Poutli Wnles, 
 
 My de \e Haydon, isth November, i82i. 
 
 Your letter made me proud indeed. I asked only for 
 the masques, and you have sent me an autograph. When I 
 quit this country, I shall bequeath the manuscript and the 
 masques to a little museum we have lately formed here. The 
 letter shall accompany one I have received from Campbell, the 
 poet. In a hundred or two years Australasia may be curious 
 to know who these great poets and painters were, and then she 
 shall find in the Sydney Museum an original old letter from 
 the painter of the well-known picture ' The Raising of Lazarus,' 
 to one Field, of whom nobody knows anything, but who must 
 have had the delight of being an early and intimate friend of the 
 
 great painter Horace Smith tells me constantly of my 
 
 old friends, and Lamb occasionally delights me by taking 
 advantage of my distance to send me all sorts of lies about 
 you all. 
 
 Thank you for your critique of Byron's tragedy.* I have 
 since read it, and entirely agree with you. It is a very fine 
 reading drama, but it has not character, plot, and stage science 
 enough to act well. This is my judgment ; and I am Lord 
 Chancellor, and Lord Chief Justice too here. 
 
 Do me the honour to recall my name to Wordsworth as one 
 of his most ardent admirers. My respects also to Wilkie. 
 Health to him and eyes to you, my dear Haydon ; for well do I 
 remember what you suffered during the long gestation of 
 ' Solomon,' and the longer of ' Christ's Entry into Jerusalem.' 
 My wife saw these two chefs-d'oeuvre, and never forgets you. 
 Farewell ! 
 
 Ever your faithful friend, 
 
 B. Field. 
 
 Marino Faliero. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 355 
 
 From Wagner. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Berlin, 10th March, 1822. 
 
 After a long lapse of time I received your letter, dated 
 ?rd November, and six copies of the wood-cut after your ' Den- 
 tatus.' I come to present to you my best thanks for the copy 
 you had the goodness to favour me with. 
 
 According to your desire, I presented one copy to the 
 Academy at Berlin, and you will have received the thanks of 
 Minister Altenstein for it. The third copy was sent to Goethe, 
 who, I presume, has written to you since about it. The fourth 
 to the President Olenin, at St. Petersburgh, and the fifth to the 
 Academy at Dresden, where it was received with grateful 
 acknowledgments, and the sixth to the Director of the Picture 
 Gallery at Stuttgart, who expresses likewise his thanks, and, as 
 all of them do, their admiration unanimously for the extra- 
 ordinary skill in the execution of this wood-cut. 
 
 I believe it exhibits all that this branch of art can possibly 
 produce, and that it has done more than what wood-cutting can 
 afford proportionately with its means.* 
 
 The merited success which your pictures have met with 
 gave me infinite satisfaction, and believe me, it will always be 
 with the same feelings I shall hear of its continuation. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Wagner. 
 
 From C. Lamb. 
 
 DEAR HayDON, India House, 9th October, 1822. 
 
 Poor Godwin has been turned out of his house and 
 business in Skinner Street, and if he does not pay two years' 
 arrears of rent, he will have the whole stock, furniture, &c, of 
 his new house (in the Strand) seized when term begins. We 
 are trying to raise a subscription for him. My object in writing 
 this is simply to ask you, if this is a kind of case which would 
 be likely to interest Mrs. Coutts in his behalf ; and who in your 
 opinion is the best person to speak with her on his behalf. 
 Without the aid of from 3007. to 400Z. by that time, early in 
 November, he must be ruined. You are the only person I can 
 
 The wood-cut was executud by Harvey. — Ed. 
 
 2 a 2 
 
356 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 think of, of her acquaintance, and can, perhaps, if not yourself, 
 recommend the person most likely to influence her. Shelley 
 had engaged to clear him of all demands, and he has gone 
 down to the deep insolvent. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 Is Sir Walter to be applied to, and by what channel ? 
 From C. Lamb. 
 
 DEAR H., Tuesday, 29th. 
 
 I have written a very respectful letter to Sir W. S. 
 Godwin did not write, because he leaves all to his committee, 
 as I will explain to you. If this rascally weather holds, you 
 will see but one of us on that day. 
 
 Yours, with many thanks, 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 Dear Sir, (No date). 
 
 I am much obliged to Mr. Lamb and you for giving me 
 an opportunity of contributing my mite to the relief of Mr. 
 Godwin, whose distresses 1 sincerely commiserate. I enclose a 
 cheque for 10Z., which 1 beg Mr. Lamb will have the kindness 
 to apply as he judges best in this case. I should not wish my 
 name to be made public as a subscriber (supposing publicity 
 to be given to the matter at all), because 1 dissent from Mr. 
 Godwin's theory of politics and morality as sincerely as I 
 admire his genius, and it would be indelicate to attempt to 
 draw such a distinction in the mode of subscribing. 
 
 I was much amused with Mr. Godwin's conversation upon 
 his return from Edinburgh, some years ago, when he passed a 
 day at this place. I beg my respects to Mr. Lamb, whom I 
 should be happy to see in Scotland, though I have not forgotten 
 his metropolitan preference of houses to rocks, and citizens to 
 wild rustics and highland men. 
 
 You should have been in Edinburgh to see the King's recep- 
 tion, which had something very wild and chivalrous in it, 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 357 
 
 resembling more what we read in Olivier or Froissart, than 
 anything I ever saw. 
 
 I congratulate you on the progress of ' Lazarus.' I fear it 
 will be long ere I have the pleasure to see it, but I have no 
 doubt it will add to your deserved laurels. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully yours, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 From James Elmes. 
 
 DEAR HAYDON, 8, Regent Street, Pall Mall, 17th July, 1823. 
 
 In answer to your letter of this morning, concerning a 
 charge made against you in the ' British Press,' of its being 
 notorious that you wrote critiques on your own works in the 
 Examiner and in the Annals of the Fine Arts, although I think 
 it scarcely worth your notice, yet as you seem to wish my 
 opinion thereon, I have no hesitation to avow that, during . the 
 five years that the ' Annals of the Fine Arts' were published, 
 of which I was sole editor and part proprietor, no criticisms or 
 praises on your own works, or on those of others that were 
 printed, were written by you, or even seen by you, till in 
 print. 
 
 I believe I was your first encomiast in the ' Monthly 
 Magazine,' on your picture of the ' Repose in Egypt,' when I 
 then wrote my friend, Prince Hoare, who in consequence intro- 
 duced me to you, as a young friend then studying from his 
 cartoon of the ' Murder of the Innocents.' Of the ' Examiner,' 
 of course, I know nothing, but the similarity of Mr. Robert 
 Hunt's initials, R. H., to yours, B. R. H., may have led some 
 careless readers to the conclusion you complain of ; but I am 
 certain I have heard Mr. Robert Hunt declare a number of 
 times that you never wrote criticisms in the ' Examiner ' on 
 your own, or other works, except such as had your name at 
 length, or your initials in full. 
 
 I am, dear Haydon, yours faithfully, 
 
 James Elmes* 
 
 * This and the succeeding letter exonerate Haydon from the charge that in 
 the ' Ait Annals' and 'Examiner' newspapers lie was in the habit of criticising 
 the works of living aitists. He never did so But the suspicion arose from the 
 similarity of the initials between Robert Hunt and his own. — Ed. 
 
35* 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From John Hunt. 
 
 DEAR HaYDON, 4, Maida Hill West, 17lh November, 1S23. 
 
 You ask " Am T, or was I ever, the author of any criti- 
 cisms on modern works of art, signed R. H. in the ' Examiner' ?" 
 and, " Did I ever in my life criticise a modern picture, or 
 influence you or your brother, Mr. Eobert Hunt, directly or 
 indirectly to give favourable or unfavourable opinions of any 
 modern picture or any modern artist ? " 
 
 In reply, I have to state that you certainly never wrote any 
 articles in the 'Examiner' under thesignature of R. H. (which 
 were written by my brother Robert), that you never criticised 
 any modern picture or artist in that paper, and that you never 
 to my knowledge, directly or indirectly, induced any writer in 
 the ? Examiner ' to give favourable or unfavourable opinions 
 respecting works of art or their authors. 
 
 I remain yours truly, 
 
 John Hunt. 
 
 From Amelia Opie. 
 Dear Friend, Colgate, 8/6/1824, 
 
 I am not able to call on thee to-day, but if thou wilt 
 breakfast with me next 2nd day (Monday) at nine o'clock I 
 will accompany thee back to Bethell Street. 
 
 If thou canst not come on Monday perhaps Tuesday would 
 suit thee, and I will see thee and the pictures on Monday. En 
 attendant, 
 
 Thine respectfully, 
 
 Amelia Opie. 
 
 From Mr. Tat rati. 
 
 MY DEAR HAYDON, Alpha Road, 27th January, 1825. 
 
 So far as the cares and anxieties of a large domestic 
 circle have given me time, I have reflected since my last very 
 interesting interview with you upon the discussion (so near to 
 my heart) .you entered upon, to enlighten, counsel, and lead 
 the steps of a boy who will, I am sure, ever feel it his honour 
 and credit to be esteemed by you, worthy of your regard in 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 350 
 
 Far be from me adulation and flattery, yet if you keep 
 memoranda of 6uch remarks as those you so eloquently made 
 at that period of time, I am very confident you will greatly 
 contribute by their exposition to the benefit of art and the 
 sound establishment of the principles upon which alone you 
 could have produced works that are an honour to the age. 
 
 May you, my dear friend, long find the " mens sana et in 
 corpore sano," and at length reap the fruit of your labours, the 
 esteem of all true lovers of real art, and the admiration of 
 youth taught by you in a school where principles and practice 
 accord, and leave at last to posterity a name and a fame that 
 time can never erase. 
 
 Ever yours most sincerely, 
 
 C. H. TaTham. 
 
 From Sir John Hobhouse. 
 Sir, 19th May, 1825. 
 
 You have asked me whether I can be of service to you. 
 I am sorry to say I cannot. I have neither money, nor taste, 
 nor vanity enough to be a collector of pictures or a patron of 
 painters. But there are many individuals who have all these 
 requisites, besides being very worthy and benevolent persons. 
 To such men I should recommend you to apply. I do not 
 recollect having made use of any expression in the conversa- 
 tion which I had with you which could lead you to believe 
 that I had the power of being of use to you.* 
 
 I have the honour to remain, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. C. Hobhouss. 
 
 To the Editor of the 'Times.' 
 
 SlR, November, 1825. 
 
 Your conduct in bringing Mrs. Belzoni's misfortunes 
 before the public, is an honour to your heart and to your 
 understanding. 
 
 * This letter is an instance of how often, like all recluses, Haydon made too 
 much of the common courtesies of Society, and mistook lor real interest the 
 polite flatteries of visitors to his studio. Hence misundi rstandi ig, loss of ac- 
 quaintance, and perhaps ie„l injury of prospects and position. — Ld. 
 
360 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 France, in her estimation of men of science, and her care to 
 provide for their connections, is at least a century in advance 
 of England. 
 
 The English take care of their navy and army, because 
 if they did not nobody would fight in either department. 
 They take care also of the widows of their officers, but 
 a man may sacrifice his fortune and his life to science, 
 art, and antiquities, may be the means, the principal means 
 of enriching England by his discoveries, and his widow's 
 only resource after his death shall be the pity of her country- 
 men ! Surely, the widow of a man of science, of a poet, or 
 of a painter, ought to be as much an object of public sym- 
 pathy and protection as the widow of a purser of a seventy- 
 four-gun ship ! Surely, the widow of Belzoni, who did so 
 much by his energy for England's public collections, ought 
 to be provided with a decent competence and placed above 
 want. 
 
 If the widow of such a man be unfit for the provision of the 
 Government, the public will not, cannot be dead to so just a 
 right. 
 
 Let those only who have read Belzoni's work, have been 
 interested by his perseverance and delighted by his success, let 
 them only subscribe and an independence will be secured for 
 Belzoni's widow. 
 
 And she amply deserves it. She has incurred no debts for 
 herself; she has lived, as she travelled, with the merest 
 necessities about them, and she has often been without even 
 them, and her troubles have been brought upon her by the 
 debts of a former tenant, of which she had no previous 
 knowledge. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 A Friend of Belzoni. 
 
 From George Borrow. 
 
 DEAR SlR, 20 > Bryaustone Street, Portman Square. 
 
 I should feel extremely obliged if you would allow me 
 o sit to you as soon as possible. I am going to the South of 
 France in little better than a fortnight, and I would sooner lose 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 a thousand pounds than not have the honour of appearing in 
 the picture. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 George Borrow.* 
 
 From Sir David Wilkie. 
 
 Rome, 4th January, 1826. 
 
 I can assure you, dear Haydon, there is not a friend I 
 have whose letter could have gratified me more than yours 
 did, when it reached me from Milan on my arrival in this 
 enduring city— the repository of the great master-works of 
 that art to which we are devoted. The objects you refer to I 
 had already seen. The Leonardo da Vinci, that once perfect 
 work, is now but a shadow past all power of revival. Its 
 material is said to have been fresco or tempera, but oil, I think 
 it was, beyond all doubt. Like other pictures of that date in 
 oil, it is cracked regularly, the small spaces flaked off, leaving 
 the dry plaister tinged only with what it may have absorbed 
 of the paint ; the head of Christ, with its fine expression, and 
 a few other parts, though faded, alone retaining their surface. 
 Leonardo had an eye for softness and depth, incompatible 
 with fresco, and if our copy in the Royal Academy ever was 
 like the original, and copies are seldom so rich as that they 
 copy from, it must have had the rich juiciness that art alone 
 can give. The cartoon of the ' School of Athens ' I saw, but was 
 more interested with those Ottley has. 
 
 From Milan we proceeded to Genoa, thence by the coast 
 of the Mediterranean to Pisa. Cimabue and Giotto appear 
 to me scarcely better than the Chinese or Hindoos, in 
 much like them, in many parts inferior, and in air and expres- 
 sion alone — religion being the theme — far above them. The 
 * Madonna ' of the former, once the wonder of Florence, would 
 not now surprise us upon a box, but it was then new and alone, 
 and addressing itself to the devotional thoughts of man gave, 
 by being the wonder of the time, the greatest stimulus that 
 could be given to himself and to his followers. Thus, as the 
 art grew and improved under their hands, that mind and 
 
 * This is interesting as comin.Br from George Borrow, seeing what (illnatured) 
 fun he tries to m;ike out, of the • Historical Fainter' in ' Lavengro.' Possibly his 
 portrait was not considered successful. — Ed. 
 
3<> 2 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 thought, and whatever is directed to the common apprehen- 
 sions of unlearned man is never wanting. Far otherwise has it 
 been since art attained its growth. Too proud to submit to 
 ordinary judgment, it strove to please the learned, the con- 
 noisseur, and, what is as bad, the artist. Foreshortening, 
 contrast, intricate light and shadow, and dexterity of hand, has 
 engrossed everything, and they seem to have refined till they 
 painted themselves out of society altogether. In the early 
 people, down to Fra Bartolomeo and Pietro Perugino, expression 
 of the story is uppermost, and with the mighty men that 
 followed, this seems to have given them all their prominence 
 in art. 
 
 In coming by Pisa, one reason was to see your good aunt, 
 Mrs. Partridge, at Leghorn. I determined to see her, and 
 having found our early crony, David and I sallied forth with 
 my cousin Lister, on a fine afternoon to the Ardenza, and soon 
 reached the villa, and a beautiful villa it is. David's sister we 
 saw first, and she reminded me of your sister Harriet ; she and 
 her brother both seemed to regard me as an old friend ; 
 showed me all over the house, with the pictures, the fossils, and 
 other curiosities there collected. Your aunt, who had been in 
 Leghorn, then arrived. She was most kind, inquired particularly 
 about you, said she had long expected to see you, and that she 
 yet hoped you would come to Italy. She talked with interest 
 about her family. She told me much about the last visit 
 she had from her sister, the Countess Mordwinoff, from Russia. 
 She had remembered her only in her youth and beauty, and 
 was shocked to find that supplanted by age and decay, 
 although she herself must be nearly seventy. Yet it was not 
 until the Countess smiled, and in some of her English words that 
 she could trace the resemblance, and in one of her daughters 
 only could she discover the sister of her own youth. Wo 
 spent a very merry afternoon, and were delighted with our 
 visit, and, on our return to Leghorn, started next day for 
 Florence ; but Pome being the object of all our thoughts, I 
 must there conduct you. We passed by the desolate road oi 
 Sienna. The Pinturicchios, I saw, bearing the hand of 
 Raphael distinctly; these, whether helped or not, are in the 
 freshest state of any fresco I have seen, give a clear idea of 
 fresco when new, and with the arabesques that surround them 
 make this sacristy the most beautifully ornamented one I have 
 
B. R. II A YD ON, 
 
 ever witnessed. By Kadicofani and Viterbo, through a 
 country dreary, wintry, and declining, we reached at last the 
 Imperial City in the expanded Campagna, like the great 
 Tadmor in the desert; and here, after putting up and feeling 
 disappointed with houses, streets, Tiber and everything, we 
 hastened to St. Peter's, whose rich and expansive interior 
 realized every expectation. Then I could not help feeling 
 gratefully thankful after all the fatigues and troubles I had 
 gone through, that I was now in Rome, and that one of the 
 day-dreams of my youth had been accomplished. 
 
 Philips and Hilton had arrived by Perugia the day before 
 me ; slight things upon such things make deep impressions. 
 They told me they had been in the Sistine Chapel I They avoided 
 all remark till we should see it together. They accordingly, 
 with Richard Cook and myself, went next day in a body. \ > e 
 passed upstairs and through the Loggia of Raphael, then 
 through to the first Stanza— impression unfavourable. ' Battle 
 of Constant ine ' looked grey and chalky. Proceeded to second : 
 the 'Attila' looked warm, light, and elegant, but the 'Bolsino,' 
 when we hid the window, looked with amazing truth and rich- 
 ness. By this time the dimness of fresco had worn off, and this 
 last, with the ' Heliodorus,' began to glow upon us with all the 
 tone and richness of oil. Fresco, however, being limited in its 
 power of depth, the ' St. Peter in Prison,' fine as it is arranged, 
 is black and colourless, and in material for want of what oil 
 alone can give, a failure. 
 
 But of all, the ' School of Athens ' is the most elegant. Though 
 suffering much from change, parts of it are most highly finished ; 
 and the French, who object to the later pictures, think this in 
 the purest laste of any. Raphael himself, however, from the 
 * Dispute of the Sacrament,' and this to the ' Incendio del Borgo.' 
 the last in the order of paint ng them, has gradually enla ged 
 his figures and his style of drawing from a dry and hard, to a 
 full and rounder manner of painting. They looked less in size 
 than I expected, and also worse in condition. From thence by 
 many intricate stairs we proceeded to the Capella Sistina, aiid 
 on entering I looked to the end, but not seeing the ' Last 
 Judgment,' guessed that I was immediately under it, and in 
 turning, knew that I should see upon the wall and ceiling what 
 Raphael and Reynolds had both imitated and admired. The 
 effect produced by shapes was rich beyond anything, but the 
 
3 r n 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 hue was grey and slaty ; and this wearing off, as it always does 
 in fresco, I was gratified to find that even in co'our a rich and 
 harmonious arrangement of tints was observed on the who!e. 
 No uncouth vulgarity, no violent contrasts, no unbroken tints, 
 but refinements such as you see in Correggio and Titian, and 
 such breadth of light and shadow, that the [illegible] of the first 
 class, is yet subordinate to the living principle of mind and in- 
 telligence that beams pre-eminent through the whole. What 
 we hast expected was, to see in them much of the feeling, and 
 even colour of Sir Joshua, impressing us with the undoubted 
 sincerity of that great man's (opinion). Of your question of 
 whether different draperies are expressed, we have duly con- 
 sidered. There are different-sized folds, and as much difference 
 of stuffs as the subjects admit of, and much more detail than 
 the strict modern costumists allow. One of the Sibyls has 
 stays laced, and a gown with hemmings. Other dresses have 
 fringes, and Goliath's shoulder is trimmed with binding like 
 the work of the tailor. I think Sir Joshua carried his imita- 
 tion farther than the works, either of Kaphael or M. Angelo 
 will bear him out; but the French, far stricter, condemn both 
 as w 11 as the harm d Poussin, as ignorant pretenders in statis- 
 tics, as well as in form and taste. .But this would be an endless 
 subject to discuss. 
 
 l'resco has excited my attention much, it decays sooner 
 than oil, and is incapable of being repaired and refreshed 
 like oil. To the common eye, too, when old, it is not so in- 
 viting. The points are admired by those who cannot compre- 
 hend the frescoes of Eaphael : but, after all, fresco, when new, 
 as I have seen them, is gay, and lnminous, and ornamental, 
 and from the space it allows, capable of combinations that oil 
 can never pretend to. Query, might it not be revived in Eng- 
 land? Blight not the halls at Windsor, and the House of 
 Lords, be so painted, as Hampton Court and the Museum, 
 though in oil, were her, tofore ? I wonder no English artist 
 here has ever thought of learning fresco. I applaud the 
 G ermans for the attempt, Gothic as it is, and I think I know the 
 chief of the sect worthy to be so employed in his own country 
 and gone to gain honour. 
 
 Now, dear Haydon, let me conclude with what I feel you are 
 most anxious I should say something about, viz., the ex] ediency 
 of your own visit to Borne I This question must be uppermost 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 365 
 
 and of deep interest to you. Prudence in the first place is to 
 be considered. Your family, as well as yourself, is to be 
 looked to, and let me be the last to advise you against pru- 
 dence ; but if the ways and means and the time is to be found, 
 Eome and Italy is of all places that you should see. No style 
 of art can be so high or so low that has mind or sentiment for 
 its object, as not to be forgotten by the contemplation of the 
 works of that school, where mind has been most pre-eminent. 
 Two ways are open, to come with your family for years, or to 
 take a run as Hilton has done. I shall not say which is most 
 suitable, but either is better than not coming at all, or defying 
 it till too late. Give my best regards to Mrs. Haydon, to 
 whom with yourself I put this for your mature consideration. 
 
 Ever yours most truly, 
 
 David Wilkie. 
 
 From Mr. Fitzgerald, Solicitor. 
 
 DEAR SlR, 2, Lawrence Pounteney Hill, 1st January, 1826. 
 
 You oveirate the trifling share of civility which you 
 have experienced here, and be assured it gave me much 
 pleasure to find that it afforded you any accommodation. 
 Hail you only that portion of what the world calls wealth, to 
 which your genius and talents so richly entitle you, you would 
 have no occasion to ask for favours ; but it seems to be the 
 common lot of those upon whom Nature has been lavish with 
 her best gifts and treasures, not to be overloaded with treasures 
 of another sort ; and no wonder it should be so, since they are 
 of a different order of men, and can scarcely be considered as 
 any part of the common race. They are, as it were, ordained 
 to diffuse delight and instruction to all about them, while they 
 are perfectly indifferent about themselves, and seek only im- 
 mortality in their works. It is no small pleasure that it 
 should fall to the lot of one of us to be kind to one of those 
 extraordinary mortals. 
 
 Believe me, yours respectfully, 
 
 A. Fitzgerald.* 
 
 * In his Journal for tliis day, Haydon heads this letler, "A lawyer's letter 
 worth preserving. ' He met with few .-uch lawyers in his can er, but "they exist, 
 neveithelets, as this letkr proves. Lawyers uie possibly not to bail as t^ey are 
 
366 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Samuel Habt to his good f riend B. E. Haydojt. 
 
 My DEAR SIR, London, 13th April, 1S26. 
 
 It has been a matter of surprise, and to some of exul- 
 tation, that Moses, throughout the whole Code of his Laws, 
 has never in one instance noticed the rewards and punish- 
 ments that are to follow hereafter ; neither, say they, has he 
 at all hinted at them, nor given any passage in the Old 
 Testament from which any inference can be drawn of a future 
 state. I am happy to say I can contradict it, and will prove 
 in-ontrovertibly that one of the first grand ordinances in that 
 sacred book relates to a future existence, and that the soul of 
 man is to be hereafter made accountable for its actions in this 
 world. Let us refer to Gen. ix. 5. Thus— 
 
 " And surely your blood of your lives will I require, at the 
 hand of every b'ast will I require it, and at the hand of man : 
 at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of 
 man." 
 
 In reading this verse in the Bible, it will appear most 
 clearly that the Almighty intended to guard mankind against 
 the horrid crime of self-destruction in the first instance ; but, 
 then, it will very naturally be asked what is meant by that 
 part of the verse, " at the hand of every beast will I require it ?" 
 Surely they cannot be cautioned against destroying each other. 
 There must then be something wrong here, and so there is. 
 The mistranslation of a word causes it to read, what I had 
 almost been prompted to say, nonsense. The original Hebrew 
 has the word (chaya). Now it is obvious to every scholar 
 who is conversant with the Hebrew language, that this word is 
 taken in a twofold sense, it either signifies a beast, or it can be 
 construed " the soul of man ;" with this difference, that when it 
 is to be underst od as meaning the former, we shall invariably 
 find it accompanied by a description of what nature the beast 
 is, as " the beasts of the earth," " beasts of the field,' " beasts of 
 the wood or wilderness," an " evil " or " wicked least." But 
 whenever it is intended to be understood as " the soul of man," 
 it i- unattended by any other substantive or an adjective, but 
 6im[)ly the word " chaya." 
 
 painted. T remember a famous old lawyer in the Midland Counties, on being 
 upbraided by an an^ry rector for daring to put him into the County Court, 
 "Lawyers are all rogues, Sir." "May be; may be; but there be middling 
 pars-ma too, Sir."— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 367 
 
 Now in this verse the word a; pears unattended by any de- 
 B r'ptive auxiliary, consequently it cannot read "beast," but 
 must unquestionably mean the " soul," and the verse should 
 read thus — 
 
 " And surely your blood of your lives will I require : at the 
 hand of every soul will I require it ; and at the hand of man, 
 at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of 
 man." 
 
 Can anything in the world be more plain than this reading 
 of the text, by which it appears most distinctly that the divine 
 legislator, Moses, predicted very early in the relation of his 
 code of laws, the reward and punishment that was to follow 
 hereafter ? 
 
 Isaiah vii. verse 14. " Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and 
 bear a son," &c. 
 
 To every correct reader of the Hebrew language it must 
 appear most clearly, that in this verse the translation of a 
 particular word has been purposely corrupted to answer some 
 particular end. In the original Hebrew it reads thus : H3n 
 rnn no^yn « Behold a young woman has conceived." " Nglmo " 
 signifies a "young woman" (a noun substantive, feminine 
 gender). The masculine is °>V. (ngelem), a " youth." The 
 same word is made use of by Saul when h.3 saw David ap- 
 proach with the head of Goliath, and runs thus in the Bible : 
 D .H'^ n pP"t? " whose son is this youth ? " Now, to denote a 
 fema'e who had not yet known man, and who was a virgin, 
 would have been designated by the word pfana (b'thula, a pure 
 virgin), a noun sub-tantive, feminine gender. Mark well, 
 there is no masculine gender to this noun substantive. The 
 reason is very obvious and requires no further explanation. 
 
 "Shall conceive," is not so in the original Hebrew. The 
 word in the original is nnrj (harah), a verb in the third person 
 singular, feminine gender, of the first conjugation,* present 
 tense, and signifies she " has born," or " doth bear ; " whereas, 
 if it were intended to be construed " she shall or will conceive," 
 it would have been written "i™ (tahar), i.e., the future tense 
 third person singular, feminine gender, first conjugation. The 
 translation of the verse in question should be, " Behold a 
 young woman has conceived," or " is conceived of a son," and 
 
 * The Hebrew has seven conjugations. — En, 
 
3 68 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 the miracle relates to her actually having conceived a son and 
 not a daughter, is a prophecy relating undoubtedly to the local 
 situation of the Jews at that time (as appears by the context), 
 with Rezina, and Pekah the son of Eemaliah, and to no other 
 circumstance. That poetic and most elegant writer, Isaiah, 
 would have been more explicit in his prophecy had he intended 
 it to relate to any event at a greater distance of time. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 S. Hart. 
 
 From Samuel Hart. 
 
 My DEAR. SIR, 16th August, 1826. 
 
 I thought I was not mistaken this morning when I 
 positively told you that there was a prophecy against Damascus; 
 therefore be so good as refer to the 17th chapter of Isaiah, and 
 you will immediately see my opinion confirmed. Excuse me 
 putting you to the expense of postage, but I know you think 
 nothing of it when it tends to literary research. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 S. Hart. 
 
 From Samuel Hart. 
 
 Wednesday, noon. 
 
 I quoted the Hebrew to you this morning, as it seemed 
 to have made an impression on my mind, and find it on refer- 
 ence correct. 
 
 " Maso Damesheck," id est — the burden of Damascus. 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 DEAR SIR, ' Edinburgh, 23rd February, 1826. 
 
 I have received your kind letter, and have little to say 
 in answer but what is reasonably indifferent to myself and will 
 be agreeable to you. I have lost a large fortune, but I have 
 ample competence remaining behind, and so I am just like an 
 oak that loses its leaves and keeps its branches. If I had ever 
 been a great admirer of money,. 1 might have been at this 
 moment very rich, for I should have had all I have lost, and 
 much more. But I knew no mode of clipping the wings of 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 3^9 
 
 fortune, so I might also have lost what I have set my heart 
 upon, and I should then have been like a man who had lost his 
 whole clothes, whereas at present I only feel like one who has 
 forgot his greatcoat. I am secure at (all events ?) of the perils 
 which make bad fortune really painful, for my family are pro- 
 vided for, and so is my own and my wife's comforts for the 
 time we may live. Others will regret my losses more than 
 I do. 
 
 It would be gross affectation to say I am glad of such a loss, 
 but many things make it more indifferent to me thin I believe 
 it would be to most people. I will feel delighted by receiving 
 your mark of kindness. I can only hope it has not taken up 
 too much of your valuable time. 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, yours ever, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 P.S. — I hope things go on well with you, as your genius 
 deserves. There is one comfort in the Fine Arts, that the 
 actual profit may be lost, but the pleasure of pursuing them 
 defies fortune. 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Edinburgh, 28th June, 1F26. 
 
 I should long since have thanked you for your valuable 
 and most acceptable picture, which was at once a kind and 
 flattering token of your recollection, and which is most inter- 
 esting to me on that account, as well as a token of your 
 regard. But misfortune seldom comes unattended, and latterly 
 it assumed its most cruel shape, by depriving me of my com- 
 panion through nearly thirty years weal and woe, making a 
 blank which time cannot fill up, though doubtless it will blunt 
 the acute sense of sorrow with which it is now attended. 
 
 You were kind enough to allude in a former letter to my 
 pecuniary losses, which, though heavy in amount, will be 
 attended, if God grant me health, with no ultimate incon- 
 venience worthy a man thinking about. Indeed, at the very 
 worst, I have a very ample life income of my own, and my 
 family are provided for, as they succeed to a considerable 
 fortune independent of me. 
 
 Walteu Scott. 
 Vol. 1. 2 b 
 
3/o 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 25, Pall Mall, 15tli November, 1826. 
 
 A battle, said a person fully well acquainted with the 
 subject, in fact, the " Hero of Waterloo" himself — is " very like 
 a ball." Everybody knows the partner he himself danced with, 
 but know .5 little about the other couples, so the more extensive 
 the inquiries that are made, the more accurate information 
 will be obtained. If you even jot down a few lines of such 
 anecdotes, addressed to me at Edinburgh (under cover if bulky, 
 to Mr. Croker, Admiralty), I will receive them safe. I should 
 be glad to receive such a mark of your kindness. Particularly 
 1 should be desirous to know Shaw's fate. I am in possession 
 of his skull, poor fellow.* 
 
 I venture to offer my respects to Lord Egremont, whom I 
 had the honour of meeting some years ago. 
 
 Permit me to congratulate you on having given young 
 Lough f a commission. 
 
 His figure of Milo' is one of the most extraordinary proofs 
 of the vigour of innate power perhaps ever given. It contains 
 evidence of acuteness quite extraordinary, oppressed as he must 
 have been by great obstructions. 
 
 I conscientiously believe that with proper encouragement, 
 if he be not spoiled by early praise, he will be one of the 
 greatest sculptors since the best ages of Greece — with no 
 
 * Shaw was a Life Guardsman, killel at Waterloo. He was a remarkably 
 well-made man, and an old model of my father's. The first French cuirassier 
 who attacked him, Shaw parried his blow, and before the Frenchman could 
 recover himself, Shaw cut him right through his brass helmet to the chin, and 
 " his face fell off like a bit of apple." Shaw afterwards captured an eagle, but 
 L>st it, and getting too far away from his troop was surrounded by lancers and 
 speared. — Ed. 
 
 t Lough, the sculptor, came out in public this year. Amidst all his own 
 haiassing distresses, Haydon, who was never insensible to the wants or ta'ents 
 of young artists, exerted himself with all his energy to make Lough's Exhibition 
 tuect s-t'ul, and to obtain from his own friends prompt recogn'tion of the young 
 sculptor's great talents. — Ed. 
 
 I am truly yours, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 To Mr. Brougham. 
 
 Dsar Sir, 
 
 London, 20 th May, 1827. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 exception — not even Michel Angelo, Bernini, or Canova. 
 There is such distinct proof of his endeavouring, to the best of 
 his knowledge, to combine the style of the antique with the 
 beauties and truth of individual nature. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 Extract from a Letter of the Duke of Bedford. 
 
 1st August, 1827. 
 
 I am extremely happy to hear that you are again restored 
 to your professional pursuits and your family, and (if) I have 
 been in the slightest degree instrumental in this desirable 
 
 event, it will afford me great satisfaction If your 
 
 trustees should devise no more advantageous mode of disposing 
 of this picture (Eucles) when finished, you may consider it a 
 commission given by me for its completion, as I feel confident 
 that it will be a very valuable work, and that the best energies 
 of your mind will be called forth to render it so. 
 
 The extraordinary scene * you describe to me must have 
 been a fine subject for a Hogarthian pencil. You may rely on 
 my not mentioning your intention to paint it to any one. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Bsdford. 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, AbboLford, Melrose, 2nd August, 1827. 
 
 Most deep'y do I regret the circumstances which render 
 this trifling remittance, which I now send, of the least conse- 
 quence to you, and am doubly sorry as my present means do 
 not permit, as I would have desired, to enlarge it. But in a 
 few weeks I will be in cash again, and shall have a little at 
 your command, and should the present unpleasant circumstance 
 continue, I will be happy to do something to relieve them. 
 
 It is indeed very hard that with talents which should enrich 
 you, you should be subject to so much distress. I trust, how- 
 ever, to hear that you are liberated soon from your present 
 
 * The 'Mock Election,' sub equently purchased by the King, George IV., and 
 now in the Royal Collection— Ed. 
 
 2 b 2 
 
372 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 unhappy situation, since it seems as unfavourable for the 
 interest of your creditors as for your own comfort, that you 
 should remain in a situation where it must be impossible for 
 you to exeit your own powers, either for their benefit or your 
 own. 
 
 I am with regard, yours faithfully, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 From Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 MY DEAR SlR, 4tl > August. 
 
 I will speak to Lockhart, for I expect him daily, about 
 what can be done for the subscription. My countrymen are 
 not slow in rendering personal honours and per.-onal attenti n 
 to the men of genius who visit them, for they have some taste, 
 and plenty of beef and mutton. But cash being scarce with 
 them, I never have great hopes when that is the article wanted. 
 My own situation, still greatly embarrassed, though the weather 
 is clearing to leeward,* will make it improper for me to give 
 more as a subscriber than a small sum, for there may be people 
 capible of saying I should pay all my own debts before I 
 assist others. 
 
 I am in haste, but very truly, yours, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 Extract from a Leiter o/Mr. Joseph St rut t, enclosing 100Z. 
 
 Derby, 20th July, 1827. 
 
 I do not indeed wonder at your anxiety, and I feel for 
 you. Look forward, however, with hope — all may yet be well. 
 Keep your noble mind composed ! You may yet have plenty 
 of employment ; be industrious, be economical — you will yet 
 be independent. Trust and hope ! I like the plan proposed. 
 Let me kn< w what is done. I may yet be of use to you, for I 
 am well disposed to be your friend. 
 
 Joseph Strutt. 
 
 * This may seem of no consequence, as what is to leeward must be blown over, 
 but Scott was right, for it may work back, aud hence the old sea saying, "Always 
 Lok to leeward lor your wealker."— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 373 
 
 From Serjeant Talfoued 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Gloucester, 5th September, 1827 
 
 I thank you heartily for your letter which was duly 
 forwarded to me, and which gave me great pleasure. The 
 subscription list, which I saw in the 'Morning Chronicle,' fell 
 so far short of my hopes that I feared you would be dis- 
 heartened,* and I am most happy to find that I was mistaken. 
 As to any feeling of " painful obligation " towards individuals or 
 the public, if a hundred times as much were done, it would be 
 entirely misplaced. Your cause is a general and an immortal 
 cause, and those who sustain it only do honour to themselves, 
 and their duty to those who are to come after them. It seems 
 to me surprising that men who have themselves sufficient for 
 the wants and desires of those who depend on them, and who 
 have no chance of being remembered when they are gone, 
 should not eagerly embrace the opportunity of ennobling 
 themselves by the delightful consciousness that by assisting in 
 the restoration of a great artist to serenity and comfort, and 
 setting at liberty faculties which must be lost under the 
 pressure of external needs, they obtain some portion in works 
 which will shed their sweetness on distant ages. Some such 
 thought 1 yet hope may animate minds whose selfishness is not 
 of the grossest order to raise the small sum which is essential 
 to your entire freedom from care, and when this is done how 
 largely will every subscriber remain your debtor! 
 
 I have before my return to attend to a writ of inquiry in 
 Berkshire, and therefore I shall not be in town till towards the 
 end of next week. When I arrive I will call on you, and as 
 soon as your leisure serves, will sit to you for my portrait. 
 A profitable Circuit has put it quite within my convenience 
 to give you at once the whole price, which I ment'on without 
 reserve, as it may be convenient to you to know that you may 
 rely on having that sum at the end of next week. In spite of 
 your endeavours 1 must insist on keeping my subscription 
 entirely distinct from this mere matter of business, for I would 
 
 * A subscription of five hundred guineas was opened by Lord Francis Leveson 
 Gowr-r, Mr. I., .ok hart, and Mr. Burn, lor the purchase of the picture of ■ Eucles,' 
 which was ultimately raffled for and won by Newman Smith, Esq., of Dulwich. 
 It is now iii the possi Bsion of Mrs. Newman Smith, of Great Cumberland Piaco 
 Hyde Park.— Ed. 
 
374 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 not for the world commit such a fraud on my own little interest 
 in your future as allowing this to enter into any other dealings 
 between us. 
 
 I trust when I arrive T shall find Mrs. Haydon sa f e and 
 doing well. Pray give my best compliments to her, and 
 
 Believe me ever faithfully yours, 
 
 T. N. Talfourd. 
 
 From C. H. Townshend. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Seven-Oaks, 25th October, 1827. 
 
 I cannot learn exactly how the 'Reigning Vice' has 
 sold, but I should fear slowly, for a second edition is not yet 
 called for. I rather expected that the poem would become 
 popular from its treating of subjects now talked of, and from 
 its sketches of character. But I am a nameless person, and 
 have no Colburn to puff me into popularity. No one ventures 
 to praise till the reviewers have set the fashion. If you send 
 the work to Jeffrey, will you be so good as to mention that 
 young Macaulay (of whom you have heard I dare say) has 
 written to me that he shall be happy to review the work if 
 Mr. Jeffrey proposes it. Being a friend of mine he feels a 
 delicacy about making the offer himself. .... 
 
 With my best wishes and regards, 
 
 I am your very sincere friend, 
 Chadncey Hare To\yn!shend. 
 
 From F. Jeffrey. 
 
 Mi* DEAR SlR, Edinborough, 4th November, 1827. 
 
 Indeed, I have not forgotten you, and have often, since I 
 had the pleasure of seeing you here, enquin d a ter your fortunes 
 with an interest which their unpropitious aspect frequently made 
 very painful. It is a great gratification to me to find that you 
 are getting out of your undeserved difficulties, and are again 
 at work with undaunted heart and unclouded hope on a subject 
 that (is) likely to be popular. 
 
 I do not think I have seen the poem of which you speak so 
 highly, but 1 shall immediately send for it, and if I find it at 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 37 5 
 
 all answerable to your description I shall willingly give an 
 account of it in the 'Review.' If you have any reason indeed 
 to know that Mr. Macaulay actually thinks so well of it as to 
 be willing to undertake the task of giving it a character, I 
 shall scarcely require any other proof of its being entitled to 
 the distinction you require for it. As I have just finished a 
 new number of the 1 Keview,' and it cannot possibly appear 
 before next January, it will probably be right that I should 
 read it myself and confer with him on the subject. 
 
 Do me the justh e to believe, my dear ISir, that it will 
 
 always be a grateful to be able to serve and oblige you, 
 
 and that I am always, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 F. Jeffrey. 
 
 From T. Campbell. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 4th December, 1827. 
 
 I know no express statements of the ancients against 
 dissection, excepting that it was a law of Athens that the dead 
 should be buried, and should not be disturbed. 
 
 The proofs in ancient writers that it was held sacrilege 
 to mangle a dead bodv are given, I know, in Sprengel's 
 ' Geschichte der Chemie,' or ' History of Physic' 
 
 I find a note in my o»n Memoranda referring to him at 
 vol. i. p. 222, but I cannot, after much search, lay my hand 
 on Sprengel. 
 
 That the superstition of the Greeks attached extreme horror 
 to a body being unburied you need no other proof than Hector's 
 speech to Achilles before his death, and the circumstance of 
 burying a corpse being the subject of Sophocles's Antigone. 
 By looking at the first note in Franklin's translation of 
 Sophocles you will see that that horror was a notorious circum- 
 stance in their creed.* 
 
 I remain, yours truly, 
 
 T. Campbell. 
 
 * But this proves nothing. This superstition was popular, so was the belii f 
 in the gods and goddesses of Homer. But ns the men of intellect certainly dis- 
 believed in the one — Socrates was content to die, sooner than profess a belief ia 
 the gods of his country— so the men of science were as likely to disregard the 
 other when opposed to the interests of science.— El) 
 
376 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From C. H. Townshexd. 
 
 Keswick, 9th February, 1828. 
 
 Since I came here we have not lacked excellent society, 
 good cheer, and Christmas gambols. Southey is as frolicksome 
 as a child, with all his fine sense and varied information, and 
 preserves "a yonng lamb's heart amongst the full grown 
 flocks," as Wordsworth says. We have had that poet also 
 amongst us. He is a favourite author of mine, but is rather 
 prosy in real life. He has not Southey 's elastic spiiits and 
 « xtensive information, but is somewhat too solemn and didactic. 
 I shall leave this exquisite scenery with reluctance. Pray 
 remember us most kindly to Mrs. Haydon, of whom we hope 
 to hear a good account. 
 
 Ever most sincerely yours, 
 
 C. Hare Townshend. 
 
 From Lord Leveson Gower. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Dublin, 12th October, 1828. 
 
 I am much obl ; ged to you for the spirited -sketch of 
 your picture, which I sincerely hope will have the same success 
 as its predecessor. There is a great field nearly untouched in 
 the line in which you have hit, at least I know no one else but 
 yourself who has ever attempted to unite the moral of Hogarth 
 with the excellence in execution of the great models of art in 
 Italy and Spain. I name the latter, because I believe you are 
 as great an admirer of Velasquez as I am. 
 
 Believe me, ever yours sincerely, 
 Leveson Gower. 
 
 To Lord Leveson Gower. 
 
 My DEAR Loi'D, London, 23rd October, 1828. 
 
 It is impossible for me not to express my admiration at 
 the concentrated essence of your criticism at the style of art I 
 have taken up. 
 
 The field is indeed untouched, and I came into it with all 
 the advantages that a severe education in the highest style 
 can give me. I drew and dissected, as Burke says, " knife in 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 377 
 
 Land," for two years before I touched a brush, and whether I 
 paint high or low, landscape or animals, shall ever feel the 
 advantages of such a system. No one can carry heroic design 
 into moral and familiar life, but he who has first acquired the 
 principles in a higher department. 
 
 I thank you most gratefully for wishing my present picture 
 the same success as the last. I heard from Lord Mount Charles 
 yesterday, saying that my little present to the King of maps 
 and sketches had been graciously received by his Majesty. I 
 have to thank your Lordship for the use of your name to 
 which I owe this high honour. 
 
 I wish to add that in painting these familiar subjects 1 
 proceed as in history. I draw every figure first from the 
 naked, and make studies for every limb be lore painting. 
 
 I once saw a cartoon by Raphael in which three hands were 
 drawn on one arm, as he had not decided where to place the 
 hand in the picture. 
 
 Pray believe me, your Lordship's 
 Most grateful and obliged servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 
 My dear Sir Thomas Lawrence, 17th March, 1828. 
 
 In reading Cennini's work on the mechanical processes 
 of Art, I met with a mode of making a vehicle which is liquid 
 and exquisite. I have never spent two hours in searching after 
 vehicle in my life, but as Cennini was a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, 
 who was a pupil of Angelo Gaddi, who was a pupil of Giotto, I 
 thought it worth while to try something of his recommenda- 
 tion, as an experiment, knowing, as you do, the simplicity of 
 those early great men. He says, "While pure linseed oil is 
 simmering on the fire, put into every pound of liquid oil one 
 ounce of liquid varnish." I took pure drying oil, previously 
 boiled eight hours in a chafing-dish (with nothing in it), and 
 to every pint I threw in an ounce of fine picked mastick, 
 boiling the whole two hours more, and I assure you it is a 
 divine vehicle, just holding the brush sufficient to give a gummy 
 touch. It cannot crack, from the tough nature of pure oil. 
 
378 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 You told me you like the 'Mock Election'; both the side 
 groups are painted up at once with this " material." 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 B. K. Haydox. 
 
 From John Mai;tin, the Painter. 
 
 Dear Sin, 
 
 I perfectly recollect the conversation we held last 
 autumn in a box facing the palace in Kensington Gardens, and 
 also your asking me if I did not think that " Sir Walter Scott 
 relating a story to all the most eminent characters of the day " 
 would be a most interesting subject for a picture. I fully con- 
 curred, and thought it particularly adapted to your pencil.* 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John Martin. 
 
 To Thomas Moore. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, London, 23rd January, 1830. 
 
 Unable to bear the prosy procrastination of library readers, 
 I ventured on an indulgence, and bought your book (' Life of 
 Lord Byron '), which I have read and re-read with delight and 
 melancholy. 
 
 The world will soon acknowledge it as one of the most exquisite 
 pieces of biography in the language, and although Sheridan's 
 was delightful, yet in style of writing and calmness of deduc- 
 tion you have beaten it hollow. 
 
 Perhaps you should not have concluded that marriage for 
 men of great genius was likely to be unhappy because many 
 of such men who were married had been so. Might not the 
 caution have been applied to the character of the woman to bo 
 chosen ? 
 
 Surely, when a man of great genius marries a woman who is 
 perfectly content with the reflection of his splendour, and is 
 
 * This must be in reference to the well-known picture, the painter of which 
 would seem to have taken all the credit of the idea to himself, when it would 
 appear he got it from Havdon, who is vexed at being anticipated. Havdon 
 sum red from this frequently, and in more ways than one. Hazlitt used to'tnko 
 raptive some of his most telliug expressions, and ruthlessly print them as hia 
 owu.-Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 379 
 
 willing to be informed by him alone, who watches his moments 
 of abstraction, and never intrudes, though lovely as an angel, 
 into his solitude ; but when she sees he wishes for solitude no 
 longer, such a wife would have softened and subdued and not 
 lost Byron, have saved Milton from all his domestic harassings, 
 and have doubled the tranquillity of Bacon or Locke. 
 
 1 venture to think you may do injury to the thoughtless and 
 unsettled by laying down such a principle as the one I take the 
 liberty to allude to ; and will you pardon my saying that I 
 think posterity will not bear you out in placing Byron by the 
 side of Shakespeare? Byron says of himself (p. 640), " I could 
 not write upon anij thing without some personal experience and 
 foundation." Herein, as it appears to me, is contained the whole 
 principle of his genius. He required the stimulus of personal 
 suffering or experience to develope any human feeling, and the 
 excitement of personal observation of spots rendered immortal 
 by others to describe his scenery. 
 
 Ought this degree of invention to be put on the same level 
 with the self-acting, innate pouring-out of Shakespeare's 
 faculty? Shakespeare, who immortalised what he touched by 
 the radiance of his own power, however obscure before ; who 
 invented characters independent of his own experience, and 
 conveyed their essence to the reader by a few words, making 
 each man develope himself? Sure'y not ! 
 
 1 wish that I had known Lord Byron. Douglas Kinnaird 
 promised, when I was introduced to him, to introduce me to 
 Byron ; but we never met again. 
 
 Pray pardon this letter, and 
 
 Believe me, ever your admirer, 
 
 B. B. Haydon. 
 
 From C. H. Townshend. 
 
 MY DEAR HaYDON, Keswick, 15th March, 1830. 
 
 I was glad to receive such unequivocal proofs of your 
 success in the papers which you were so good as to send me. 
 I had also seen favourable notices of your two great works 
 (' Eucles ' and ' Punch ') in the ' Observer,' the ' Literary 
 Gazette,' the ' Court Journal,' &c, &c, so that every voice 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 seems to unite in your praise. They all seem astonished (as 
 well they may) that you are not at the head of the Royal 
 Academy. Will you ever have justice done you on this side of 
 the grave ? I long to see ' Eucles ' in its finished state, and 
 ' Punch.' Are you not the only instance on record of two such 
 dissimilar works (each first-rate in its style) proceeding from 
 the brush of one individual ? Southey is pleased to hear of 
 your success. As to Wordsworth, I neither see him, nor am 
 likely to <ee him, for you must know that I have been dis- 
 covered by him to be the author of a certain essay, in four 
 parts, on the 'Theory and Writings of — Wordsworth,' which 
 appeared recently in 'Blackwood.' This said essay did not 
 please the bard, and he wrote to Southey a note, which, in 
 mighty plain terms, declined all further acquaintance with so 
 audacious a profligate. I did not think that literary vanity 
 could be carried so far, for the essay was anything but hostile. 
 It allotted him, as some think, an undue share of merit, and it 
 was wholly free from anything personal. I only regret the 
 matter on Southey's account, and because I am sorry to lose 
 the acquaintance of Wordsworth's family, who are really 
 amiable. Wordsworth himself I always thought very heavy in 
 hand — the prince of prosers — yet he is a glorious poet. What 
 a paradi >x ! 
 
 Since I wrote to you last I have spent a week at Edin- 
 burgh with Wilson. Unfortunately I caught cold on the 
 journey, and was able to go out very little. Sir Walter also 
 was too unwell to see anybody, so that I met with many 
 disappointments. Altogether, I was disappointed in Edin- 
 burgh. The city is much smaller than I expected, and the 
 boasted new town is a London on a little scale. The old 
 town, and the view from the North Bridge, cannot be over- 
 praised. It is perhaps the finest architectural combination in 
 Europe. 
 
 The second part of the ' Reigning Vice ' is about to appear 
 in 'Blackwood.' I like Wilson moie and more. He is tiuly 
 kind-hearted. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Haydon, 
 
 Yours, ever sincerely, 
 
 C. Hare Townshend. 
 
J}. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 33i 
 
 From Dr. Haviland. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Cambridge, I9th June, 1S30. 
 
 I fully agree with you in thinking that an acquaintance 
 with the fine arts, and the study of the principles on which 
 they depend, is a very essential part of a gentleman's educa- 
 tion. I believe, too, that lectures on this subject would meet 
 with encouragement here, particularly if they were given by a 
 competent person. The great difficulty would arise in finding 
 a person qualified to perform the duties of the professorship, 
 supposing such a one founded. Our professorships are com- 
 monly limited to graduates of the University, and in establish- 
 ing one nothing more is required than to give or bequeath a 
 sum of money sufficient for that purpose. The founder usually 
 determines the method by which the appointment is to take 
 place, whether by election or otherwise. 
 
 I was not surprised, though much grieved, at the date of 
 your letter.* I had previously hoped that your recent success 
 in a more profitable employment of your pencil than the one 
 by which you had acquired so much eminence would have been 
 the means of preserving you from all pecuniary difficulties. 
 There is certainly in this country a lamentable deficiency in 
 the true love of the Fine Arts. 
 
 Believe me, &c, 
 
 J. Haviland. 
 
 From Washington Irving. 
 
 _ 8, Argvle Street, London. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 2nd September, 1830. 
 
 I am sorry you should think anything — anything which 
 fell from you in the course of my visit the other morning could 
 be otherwise than interesting to me. The grievances of an 
 artist of genius by distinction belong to the history of his art, 
 and are not like the sordid concerns of men of mercenary and 
 vulgar callings. I hopp, for the credit of the arts in England, 
 you may not long have the same reason of complaint, but that 
 those whose rank and opulence give them the means of patron- 
 age, who have so publicly and repeatedly acknowledged the 
 
 * TLe King's Bench Prison.— Ed. 
 
3?2 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 superiority of your talents, will bestow more effectual en- 
 couragement than mere empty praise. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, 
 
 With great respect and esteem, 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 To Lord Durham, on the loss of his Son. 
 
 30th Septemb r, 1831. 
 
 No one living, dear Lord Durham, feels more sympathy 
 for you an 1 Lady Durham than I do. After all the anxiety of 
 infancy, all the cares of education, all the anticipations of 
 future eminence, to lose such a beautiful boy in the budding 
 spring of life is a pang time may soften, but will never 
 obliterate. 
 
 Yet, after all, is it not an escape ? When it pleases God to 
 take from us a dear child, and to Himself, ought we to repine? 
 Consider what is life, and where it leaves us. And although 
 his rank and station would have secured him from the lesser 
 ills and afflictions, and have saved him from being stretched 
 upon the rack of this tough world, yet all classes have their 
 afflictions, and at least you will not lament he has now missed 
 for ever the piercing sorrow which his parents feel for him. 
 l'ray pardon my saying that employment, active and instant, 
 is your only refuge. 
 
 Believe me, with every expression of my warmest sympathy 
 for yourself and Lady Durham, 
 
 B. R. IJaydon. 
 
 From Goethe 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Weimar, 1st December, 1831. 
 
 The letter which you have had the kindness to address to 
 me has afforded me the greatest pleasure ; for as my soul has 
 been elevated for many years by the contemplation of the im- 
 portant pictures formerly sent to me, which occupy an honour- 
 able station in my house, it cannot but be highly gratifying to 
 me to learn that you still remember me, and embrace this 
 opportunity of convincing me that you do so. 
 
 Most gladly will I add my name to the list of subscribers to 
 
B. R. HAY DON. 
 
 383 
 
 your very valuable painting,* and I shall give directions to my 
 banker here to forward you the amount of my ticket, through 
 the hands of his correspondents in London, Messrs. Coutts 
 and Co. 
 
 Eeserving to myself the liberty at a future period for further 
 information, as well about the matter in question and the 
 picture that is to be raffled for, as concerning other objects of 
 Art, I beg to conclude the present letter by recommending 
 myself to yuur friendly remembrance. 
 
 W. von Goethe. 
 
 From Edward Smith. 
 
 DEAR HaYDON, Sunday, 2 nd Febnwry, 1832. 
 
 I was not able to send the Bible yesterday, and I there- 
 fore take the opportunity of sending it this morning, that I 
 may at the same time make one particular request, which 
 I hope thou wilt yield to, and that is, " That no part of the 
 picture now in hand for me may be painted on this day,"f 
 because if I knew of such a thing being done I should always 
 have such associations with the picture as would render it a 
 painful rather than a pleasing one to me. I wish to encourage 
 thee to act by the book thou art now about to honour by thy 
 pencil, for the more the mind is obediently subjected thereto, 
 the more shall we find the favour of Him who can bless us or 
 otherwise as He sees meet. But this is commonplace, yet duty 
 is so simple a thing, and disobedience so common, and too often 
 so pleasant as to afford a very sufficient apology for a friendly 
 hint. Did we strive to live and walk in the spirit so often 
 adverted to, in the New Testament more especially, we should 
 avoid many hurtful and painful things, have fewer occasions 
 for repentance, and more of acknowledgment of and trust in 
 Him who gives His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. This 
 is simple scripture, and wherever any habitual breach of God's 
 commands is indulged in, whether it involves a want of love to 
 Him, or towards our neighbour, or of due respect for ourselves, 
 it is well for us to be reminded that the Scriptures which we 
 profess to believe in will be our condemnation in the last day. 
 Love, joy, peace, long-sufLriug, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
 
 * ' Xenophnn and the Ten Thousand.' — Ed. 
 
 t It was not my father's practice to paint on Sundays. — En. 
 
3§4 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 meekness, temperance, these are the fruits not of the spirit 
 which is of this world, thou knowest, Haydon, but of the spirit 
 which is of God. Let us seek this spirit, let us pray for it, 
 let us walk in it and obey it, and then, whatever others do, we 
 shall feel our hearts clothed with charity, in which we shall 
 love even our enemies, so far, at least, as not to speak evil of 
 them. 
 
 Perhaps thou wilt perceive that in these hints I am disposed 
 to lay an embargo on some of thy habits of speaking, which 
 savour of a different nature to what I have alluded to ? If so, 
 I hope it will break no bones, nor show me to be other than 
 thy real friend. 
 
 Edward Smith. 
 
 To Lord Durham, upon his sending his Portrait as a 
 Memento. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, London, lGth May, 1832. 
 
 I have never felt more honoured. I will put your speech 
 upon the second reading (of the Reform Bill) behind the en- 
 graving, and leave it as a sacred deposit with my children. 
 
 The power Sir Thomas Lawrence possessed of catching, 
 remembering, and transferring the happiest expressions was 
 never more strikingly displayed. 
 
 In future I shall certainly claim for myself some share of 
 repute for political sagacity. Your triumph — that of the 
 people — will yet be complete. The people of England -have 
 an instinct that they will now either lay the foundation of 
 ultimate slavery or of complete emancipation, and that the 
 great battle for the constitutional liberty of the world is 
 righting here. 
 
 Believe me to remain, yours most gratefully, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Jos. Scholefield. 
 
 My DEAR SIR, Birmingham, 19th Peptc mher, 1832. 
 
 You cannot feel more mortified than myself at the want 
 of patriotism and public spirit in the non-support to your 
 
B. HAYDON. 
 
 3^5 
 
 intended national work ; * but we are by misgovernment 
 become an impoverished people, and to add to our misery we 
 are also a degraded people. The rascally Tory system has 
 lowered the poor Englishman in the eyes of all Europe as well 
 as in his own eyes. If the new Parliament does not assert the 
 rights of our countrymen and give them redress for their wrongs, 
 it ought to be sunk into the sea. If I were wealthy enough 
 you should never want an order for a painting, but shame on 
 our king and nobles and rich commoners that they permit such 
 a man as yourself to suffer all the pangs of poverty without 
 remorse, and apparently without shame. 
 
 I shall not, however, fail to continue to solicit subscribers. 
 My friend Attwood has sent me your letter : he will not advance 
 any money. 
 
 Believe me most unfeignedly 
 
 Your friend and well-wisher 
 
 JOS. SuHOLEFIELD. 
 
 To the Eight Hon. Edward Ellice. 
 
 My DEAR SIR, 4th May, 1833. 
 
 Your advice is excellent, but the constitution of the 
 Eoyal Academy and its reformation must be after considera- 
 tion, when its defects are proved by investigation and report. 
 
 The Eoyal Academy to be effectually reformed must be 
 based in its reformation upon a system of encouragement for 
 High Art. For let the Academy be ever so reformed, and 
 High Art left without support, the Academy will again in a 
 few years fall back into its present corruption. 
 
 How can it be otherwise ? Portrait painting has the most 
 effective support, consequently more portraits are produced 
 than any other kind of pictures, and there are more portrait 
 than any other class of painters. The portrait painters mono- 
 polise the power, the opulence and the rank. Why is this ? 
 Because High Art is not supported in England, and historical 
 
 * This intended " national work " was a great picture in commemoration of the 
 Reform Meeting on New Hull Common, in May 18H2. But the Birmingham 
 Reformers had no detire for any other patriotic commemoration of the event°tliau 
 a hast. The plan of a picture failed, and the picture when half done was aban- 
 doned. Out of the list, of subscribers to the picture, upwards of one hundred of 
 the Biimingham gentlemen never pa.d up their subscription.— Ed. 
 VOL. L 2 c 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 painters in number, rank, or wealth, have not that considera- 
 tion, whatever be their genius, in a commercial country, which 
 would enable them to, at least, divide the empire with the 
 former. 
 
 First, place the historical painter where he ought to be, then, 
 reform the Academy. Limit the number of portrait painters, 
 limit the number of portraits; abolish canvassing for the 
 honours ; root out that detestable and selfish regulation which 
 sanctions the reception of the works of the best artists outside 
 of the Academy to make up their exhibition, and yet refuses to 
 these artists the privilege of doing something to their produc- 
 tions that, under the circumstance of situation and light, the 
 public may see their works to the best advantage, a privilege 
 the academicians make full use of to enhance, unfairly, their 
 own works. 
 
 You say that I " allude to errors past," but, my dear Sir, 
 they exist now. The foundation of the Koyal Academy has 
 really done little else than to embody the portrait painters in 
 a phalanx, who wield it for their own exclusive advantage. 
 They hate "High Art." They hate the probability and pos- 
 sibility of the people acquiring knowledge in Art. They dread 
 the consequences which would ensue from a proper support to 
 historical painting. All their actions prove it. They obstructed 
 and destroyed the only prospect it ever had under Lord Castle- 
 reagh, and now when 50,000?. are to be voted for a National 
 Gallery, they step in and get 25,000?. out of it, to do what ? 
 Double their own power and entrench their own prejudices. 
 If the House grants these men one guinea without a scrutiny 
 into their conduct and right, Parliament will sign the death 
 warrant of highest art. 
 
 Believe me, truly yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Lord Palmrrston. 
 
 DeAU LOHD PALMERSTON, 4th November, 1833. 
 
 You have more than once, with characteristic kindness, 
 hinted to me that I should paint the 'Conference' at the 
 Foreign Office. I need hardly tell you how highly honoured 
 I should feel to be entrusted with such a commission, and with 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 3S7 
 
 what energy I should devote myself to its execution as soon as 
 I have finished Lady Grey's picture. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Lord, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Lord Palmerston. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Broadlands, 10th November, 1833. 
 
 All matters in this world, great and small, turn on 
 finance, and before I answer your note I should like to know 
 what would be about the expense of such a picture of the 
 4 Conference ' as you suggest. 
 
 '1 he members would be Talleyrand for France, Esterhazy 
 and YYessemberg for Austria, Lieven andMatuszewich for Russia, 
 Bulow for Prussia, myself for England, Dedel for Holland, and 
 Van de Weyer for Belgium. 
 
 I return to town to-morrow, so direct your answer to Stanhope 
 Street. 
 
 Dear Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 Palmerston. 
 
 To Lord Palmerston. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, London, 12th November, 1833. 
 
 I know your axiom to be too true. If the portraits are 
 the full size of life, and full length, as there would be nine 
 portraits the price would be eight hundred guineas. Jf half 
 the size of life and yet full length, fivo hundred guineas. If 
 the size of life, like some of Sir Joshua's groups, as far as the 
 knees, five hundred guineas. 
 
 I love my art ; I do all myself because I love it, and I never 
 make a "job" of a picture and hurry it over by the assistance 
 of others. 
 
 You will do me the kindness to understand distinctly that I 
 wish to meet your views, because I wish to paint the picture. 
 
 1 am, my dear Lord, your faithful servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 2 c 2 
 
3°>3 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Lord Palmerston. 
 My DEAR SlR, 26th November, 1833. 
 
 I ought to have sooner answered your note of the 12th. 
 I am much obliged to you for the explanation it contains and 
 I will think the matter over between this and the spring, and 
 if I should feel up to a ' Conference ' I will let you hear from 
 me again. 
 
 My dear Sir, yours very faithfully, 
 
 Palmekston. 
 
 To Lord Palmerston. 
 
 Mv DEAR LORD, London, 28th November, 1833. 
 
 Permit me to thank you for your kind note. I shall 
 pray heartily all the winter that you may be " up to a Con- 
 ference " in the spring. 
 
 In the meantime, would it not be prudent to secure, by a 
 sketch, Talleyrand? He is old and may drop off all of a 
 sudden. But I leave that to your Lordship's discretion. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Lord, faithfully yours, 
 B. B. Haydon. 
 
 To Mr. Edward Ellice. 
 
 My DEAR Mr. ELLICE, London, 23rd April, 1831. 
 
 The exhibition of the ' Beform Banquet ' has failed. I 
 am losing money every day. The middle class do not support 
 it at all. The nobility only come and they do not make the 
 mass. Those who gave me commissions do not Jceep their word. 
 I have every prospect, if not instantly employed, of being 
 ruined, of involving Lord Grey's picture by inability to pay 
 the rent of the exhibition rooms, and in fact of sinking again 
 into that state of degradation, humiliation, and disgrace, out 
 of which I hoped Lord Grey's commission would have extri- 
 cated me, both by its influence and success. My dear Mr. 
 Ellice, this is no exaggeration, no playing on your feelings by 
 inference, it is fact, and I think it my duty in time to say so. 
 I do not want you to mix yourself with my affairs, I only 
 appeal to you if I deserve to be in this situation. 
 
 I am yours gratefully, 
 
 B. B. 11 AYDON. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 389 
 
 From Edward Ellice. 
 
 DEAR SlR, War Office, 24th April, 1834. 
 
 My father desires me to tell you that he can give no 
 advice on the subject of your letter of this morning. 
 
 He would have written to you himself, but he is obliged to 
 go down to a Committee at the House of Commons and has 
 not had time. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Edward Ellice, jun.* 
 
 From David, the Painter. 
 Monsieur, Paris, 24 Mai 1834. 
 
 Une circonstance de mon voyage en Angleterre s'est 
 gravee profondement dans mon coeur, c'est d'avoir eu l'avantage 
 de faire votre connaissance. J'en ai conserve une vive recon- 
 naissance a mon ami Thiers, qui m'avait procure cet avantage. 
 Je prends aujourd'hui la liberte de vous presenter mon bien 
 bon ami, M. Cerrier, peintre bien distingue. II va en Angle- 
 terre pour voir les hommes remarquables dans les arts. C'est 
 pour cela que je lui donne cette lettre d'introduction aupres de 
 vous. 
 
 Eecevez, etc. 
 
 David. 
 
 Extract from a Letter to Lord Melbourne. 
 
 Sandgate, 6 th September, 1834. 
 
 Lord Bexley, Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning, the Duke of 
 Wellington, and Lord Grey have all admitted to me the prin- 
 ciple of public support of High Art. It is true Lord Grey 
 said, " If money is voted, it will be a job!" But what argu- 
 ment is this ? It may be reasoning, but it is bad reasoning. 
 Are- we, my dear Lord, to abstain from doing an acknowledged 
 good for fear of the probable mixture of evil ? On this prin- 
 ciple God would never have created Adam or Eve. 
 
 • This was Edward Ellice's reply, referred to in the Memoir. — Edu 
 
39° 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 These ministers have missed their opportunity. I'll pray 
 God to inspire you with a conviction of its importance to the 
 art, industry, and manufactures of this country. 
 
 Ever, my dear Lord, yours faithfully, 
 
 B. K. Haydos. 
 
 From Lord Durham. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Lambton Castle, 2th November, 1831. 
 
 What I said at Edinburgh has been correctly reported. 
 I did say that " I regretted every hour which passed over the 
 existence of recognised and unreformed abuses." 
 
 I am as anxious as you can be for the encouragement of the 
 art of painting, but the mode you suggest of announcing that 
 desire is not the most desirable. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Durham. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne, on his Resignation in November 1834. 
 
 London, ICth November. 
 
 Oh, my dear Lord, what will become of high art, though, 
 I think, deep art seems flourishing! I shall put on mourning. 
 You have been scandalously used before the country had 
 an opportunity to judge of your power. 
 
 Believe me most sincerely yours, 
 B. B. Haydon 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, 6th December, 1831. 
 
 I have read your excellent reply to the deputation from 
 Derby this morning with unfeigned delight. You will rise 
 every hour in public feeling, and you will yet realise all that 
 those who know you have predicted of you. 
 
 You will be back again in office shortly, I know, and if you 
 are, and you then forget " historical painting," may you never 
 carry a single measure with success ! 
 
 Ever, my dear Lord, sincerely yours, 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 39 1 
 
 From Earl Guey. 
 
 Howick, 10th December, 1831. 
 
 Had I the means of the Duke of Northumberland, I 
 should feel no difficulty in following the example which you 
 quote. But at the end of four years in office with the demands 
 of a numerous family upon me, and threatened at this moment 
 with the additional expense of a contested election, I find 
 myself deprived of the power of complying with your request. 
 I am sorry, therefore, to be under the necessity of adding that 
 I can do no more than I have already done.* 
 
 I am, my dear Sir, yours truly, 
 Grey. 
 
 To Lord Stanley on his inaugural Speech at Glasgow. 
 
 My LORD, London, 23rd December, 1834. 
 
 I honour you for your moral courage in boldly speaking 
 of the necessity of deep religious feeling. It was new and grand. 
 
 Be assured half the liberality in such matters is cant, and 
 proceeds from a total indifference to all religion whatever. 
 
 There is a want in our church of such a genius as yourself. 
 There is no great church leader, no zeal, and if ever the 
 church sinks it will be not from the ignorance or want of 
 conscientious conviction, or deficiency of piety in the heads of 
 it, but from submissive apathy. 
 
 Look at the Romanists, my Lord! See how united, how 
 persevering, how daring, how defying in their conduct ! They 
 quail under no circumstances of danger or disbelief. Can that 
 be said of our church now ? 
 
 In Ireland I am told there are livings which are sinecures, 
 for no congregation of Protestants ever assembles to listen ! In 
 such cases would the Komanists have thought of suppressing the 
 livings ? Not at all. They would have colonized the villages. 
 Instead of shipping off the English poor to Van Dioman's Land, 
 why not ship them to Ireland, plant colonies of Protestants, and 
 provide congregations for such places ? There seems to me to 
 be no energy among our churchmen of this description, no 
 existing genius who is ready to meet all difficulties and be 
 daunted by none. I heartily wish you were our archbishop. 
 
 * Haydon bad reminded Lord Grey that a Duke of Northumberland had once 
 lent Kemble lO.OOOZ. to aid him in his profession, and to have hinted at some- 
 thing of the same kiud being dune for himself by the Party, or by Lord Grey. 
 
392 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Your compliment to Lord Grey was worthy of you. Would 
 that you could have all agreed. 
 
 You will perhaps remember that I told you when last you 
 sat to me where you would one day be by your face. Every 
 day is adding to my conviction, and when you are where I 
 know you will be, " Prime Minister," I shall put you in mind of 
 my prediction, and claim your protection for the decaying art 
 of my country. 
 
 Ever, my Lord, 
 
 Your most grateful servant, 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 From Lord Mulgrave. 
 
 DEAR HAYDON, 29th December, 1834. 
 
 I have been very busy lately, but as soon as L have a 
 moment to mount my horse, I will turn his head towards his 
 likeness. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Mulgrave. 
 
 From Earl Spencer. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, 19th January, 1835. 
 
 .... You wrote to me about the sketches for the picture 
 of the Birmingham Union. Your letter was unanswered when 
 my father's illness commenced, and that drove everything else 
 from my mind. I have no great ambition to have portraits of 
 those who in courtesy are called the leaders of the Birmingham 
 Union, but who in fact were driven by it wherever it chose to 
 drive them, and if I had, I really could n->t afford to make the 
 purchase.* My necessary expenses press so hard upon my 
 means that I have not the power of expending money for things 
 even that I wish for, if they are not necessary, nor, which is a 
 good deal worse, of doing many good-natured things which it 
 would gratify me very much to do. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours most truly, 
 Spencer. 
 
 * Lord Spencer hud only just succeeded to tlio title and had purchased tl'O 
 chalk studies of the IfcuvjuYt The allusion to Attvood and others shows with 
 wh^t contempt the Whig Government regarded those gentlemen. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 393 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My dear Lord, 
 
 London, 22nd June, 1835. 
 
 Why do you suffer Spring Rice to manage the estimates 
 in such a way as to advance the interests of the Royal Academy 
 at the expense of the Art ? The Academy and he baffle all 
 attempts for a committee of inquiry, and yet the Academy gets 
 the money, and in defiance of all parliamentary practice, viz., 
 fiist, to investigate, and then to grant, whereas what is allowed 
 now is first, the grant and then the investigation, perhaps. 
 
 Last year it was, " There are too many committees, wait till 
 next session." I waited, and now it is, " wait again," and yet 
 they get the money ! Next year Shee and Spring Rice will 
 look out of the National Gallery windows, and, with a sneer, 
 ask the committee to walk in. 
 
 I have reflected on your question: ""What mourning 
 was worn by the Jews in the time of the prophets?" If you 
 look at Jeremiah, chap. viii. v. 2l, also chap. xiv. v. 2, and 
 again at Isaiah, chap, 1. v. 3, it will conclusively appear, and no 
 other inference can be drawn from the passages named, that 
 Mack was the colour decidedly ; sackcloth, we know, was the 
 material. 
 
 Ever, my dear Lord, 
 
 Your grateful servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Mr. Hart. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 London, 15th November, 1835. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 J. Hart, Sen. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My dear Lord, 
 
 Loudon, 30th December, 1835. 
 
 As the session approaches I get anxious. In spite of your 
 visible and abominable indifference to the importance of High 
 
394 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Art, 1 am wedded to the "Whigs as a man is to his wife, and I 
 therefore cannot help hoping and believing you will be found 
 equal to the coming crisis. 
 
 Next session will settle your predominance or effect your 
 discomfiture, and you will be remembered by posterity as a 
 nobleman who made an attempt you were not justified in, or 
 which your talents proved you fully equal to. 
 
 It is great emergencies which bring out the man, and if you 
 fail, adieu to the predominance of the Whigs for ever ! 
 
 As I believe you to be adequate to a great moment, I 
 hold you up to my circle with confidence (always lamenting 
 your indifference to art), and I venture to think one great 
 evidence of your probable triumph is the rage of the opposite 
 press. 
 
 Permit me, in conclusion, to beg of you to leave nothing to 
 Providence but His blessing of your efforts ; to anticipate 
 failure from the slightest neglect, to act up to the very last 
 moment as if all depended on the merest trifle, and not to relax 
 night or day till victory crowns you, and not even then, if 
 anything remains to complete it. 
 
 You may smile, but believe me this comes from a mind 
 accustomed to success, and schooled in adversity, and well aware 
 of what is requisite in both. 
 
 One thing let me beg of you. Not only would I tear all 
 letters into bits, but I would burn the bits and all private 
 communications when done with. I feel perfectly convinced 
 that nothing did Lord Grey's administration so much harm 
 as the treachery connected with the publication of Lord Al- 
 thorp's and Lord Brougham's letters about the ' Times.' 
 
 You may rely on it the rewards held out, and paid, keep 
 traitors on the watch. Do not, I beg of you, disregard this. 
 God send you success, and the conviction at the same time 
 that no minister can ever complete his glory without protecting 
 native genius in art. 
 
 I am, my dear Lord, 
 
 Tout sincere friend, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 395 
 
 From Theodor Von Holst. 
 
 4(i, Upper Charlotte Street, 
 DEAR SlR, 14ih January, 18:-S0 - . 
 
 Accept a thousand thanks for your great kindness in 
 sending me the admissions to your splendid lectures. I can- 
 not express how very highly I was gratified, and I hope much 
 improved hy your discourses, the excellence of which I am sure 
 can never be surpassed for energetic love for the great and 
 noble enthusiasm for country and glory of historic art, which, 
 alas ! so few can feel with yourself. 
 
 I may add that you have awakened in my own unworthy 
 insignificance the more than half-extinguished flame of early 
 ambition. The only regret I feel is that I had not the enviable 
 good fortune to have been under your tuition. 
 I have the honour to remain, dear Sir, 
 
 With the highest consideration and respect, 
 
 Theodor Von Holst. 
 
 From the Hon. W. Cowper. 
 
 My DEAR Mr. HAYDON, Chatsworth, 15th September, 1S36. 
 
 I have only just got your letter, which has followed me 
 here. I feel most deep'y grieved to hear of the calamity which 
 has befallen you,* and I do blush for a state of society in 
 which talents and genius, such as yours, meet with such a 
 reward. I had hoped that it was only in history I should have 
 to deplore the fate of men of powerful minds and imagination 
 immured within a prison for debt. I had no right to expect 
 that I should see it in my own day. ( 
 
 I have forwarded your note to Lord Melbourne, at Brocket, 
 and thank you for the feeling of delicacy which dictated it. 
 
 If any way in which I could be of use to you should occur 
 to your mind, pray do not hesitate to tell me. 
 
 Believe me ever faithfully yours, 
 
 War. Cowper. 
 
 * Haydon's arrest and imprisonment for a debt of 18'. on 9th September, 1836. 
 —Ed. 
 
39^ 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 To his Sister, Mrs. Haviland. 
 
 My DEAR HAL, London, 2nd September, 1837. 
 
 I dare say you will all be surprised that Her Majesty 
 does nothing for me, but pray do not be. There is no man who 
 would enjoy honours more than myself, but the sacrifice of the 
 thought and action would not suit my nature. 
 
 " Blessed are those 
 Who have their honest wills — that seasons 
 Comfort ." 
 
 I would accept nothing unless I was free, and free I should 
 not be for a moment. 
 
 I have received an honour more to my taste in a commission 
 for a picture for a church in Liverpool, " Suffer little children 
 to come unto me," a beautiful subject ; so here is a public 
 order after all. Don't say a word about it at Kensington. I 
 shall go on quietly and work away. Do write and tell me the 
 news. Love to all. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 H. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, London, 27th October, 1837. 
 
 Do not on a theory of philosophic geniality reduce Eng- 
 land to the level of other nations for fear of the imputations of 
 " prejudice " in wishing her to take the lead. 
 
 There are some prejudices which are instincts or virtues, and 
 the glory and predominance of one's fatherland is not the most 
 contemptible among them. 
 
 I am ever and always yours, 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, 25th December, 1837. 
 
 I cannot help thinking it is a pity that at a certain 
 period of colonial existence there does not exist a law of free- 
 dom from the mother country. I do not think we are a noble- 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 397 
 
 minded nation on these points. We are like a father who is 
 unwilling to give up the rod when his son is twenty-one, because 
 he had the right when the boy was ten years of age. 
 
 I wish you health and success and many returns, with all 
 my heart, of this rejoicing time of year. 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, Leeds, 2, Park Street, 7th January, 1838. 
 
 I hope your worthy President of the Board of Trade 
 has his eyes opened at last about his beautiful School of Design 
 in London — 1500^. a-year to keep the mechanic as ignorant as 
 before. 
 
 Do not let it go on. Your character has been sacrificed to 
 suit the narrow views of his constituents, many of whom believe 
 the mechanic had better remain as ignorant as now, and fear if 
 he learn to draw the figure he will cease to draw flowers. 
 Believe me, my dear Lord, the cause of the superiority of 
 France and Italy in their design is in their union of artist 
 and mechanic. This union is in force in Scotland, and one 
 result at this moment is that, a certain house in Manchester, 
 which manufactures an article of unequalled material, is obliged 
 to send 1 1,000 dozens annually to Edinborough to have the 
 pattern designed ! If desired, names shall be sent. A rival 
 school to the Government school in London is being started by 
 Wise and Ewart, which never would have been the case if the 
 Government school had been founded according to my advice. 
 But Mr. Poulett-Thompson's eyes are perhaps open now, though 
 obstinately shut at my interview. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From J. R. Prentice, Secretary of the Edinburgh Society of 
 Artists. 
 
 4, St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh, 
 DEAR SIR. 23rd December, 1837. 
 
 I am happy to inform you that your picture of ' Poic- 
 tiers ' arrived here quite safe this afternoon ; and also at the 
 
398 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 same time your picture of ' Falstaff and Hal,' which Mr. Hope 
 has had the kindness to honour us with, and for both of which 
 the Edinburgh Society of Artists beg you will accept their 
 most grateful thanks. 
 
 Before I conclude, permit me to inform you that when your 
 beautiful and noble picture of ' Poictiers '* was opened and 
 spread out, it was received by the committee with the greatest 
 rapture and delight ; and again I beg to say that they can never 
 forget your kindness and generosity in again supporting their 
 efforts, and which I feel confident will be the means of esta- 
 blishing this society on a firm foundation, &c. 
 
 I have the honour to be, dear Sir, 
 
 With great respect, &c, 
 
 J. P. PltENTICE. 
 
 From Haydon to his Wife. 
 
 January, 1838.f 
 
 After I was gone, the Council of the Eoyal Institution 
 (Manchester) appointed a sub-committee to enquire and report 
 on the school of design, and what did these gentlemen do in 
 their innocent ignorance ? Why they wrote up to Poulett- 
 Thompson, who replied that the plan of founding a school of 
 design in Manchester was of no use, for their school in London 
 was doing nothing, and so the whole project fell to the ground. 
 'J his is so like the " Poulett-Thompsons " of the world. If we 
 only had professors of art at Oxford and Cambridge, men like 
 1 'oulett-Thompson, or at least men in his official position, would 
 better understand the enormous value to this country of a 
 sound knowledge of design among mechanics and artists of 
 every class. These official men do not know and cannot be 
 brought to understand that, at first all Academies of art were 
 schools with teachers, schools where the artist and mechanic, 
 the painter and the upholsterer, the decorator and the me- 
 chanic, the saddler, the carver, the sculptor, and worker in 
 
 * ' The Black Prince and Lord Audley at the battle of Poictiers,' painted for 
 the late Lord Audley.— Ed. 
 
 t Tn 1835-6, 1837-8, my father was much interested in pushing the establish- 
 ment of the school of design at Miincl ester. It had been started in 1837, but 
 during his absence in London his advice was disregarded, and owing to the notion 
 of the Council in London, matters went very wrong. On revisiting Manchester in 
 January, 183S, he writes to my mother.— Ld. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 399 
 
 metals, all met together, and learned under the same teachers, 
 the great artists of the period, so that each got their knowledge 
 from the highest source. This is the reason why the Greeks, 
 and Italians, and French, so far excel us in their beauty of 
 design. 
 
 But our ignorance is so painful, that when we found a 
 school in London, the Authorities actually forbid the mechanic 
 to study the same course as the artist ! 
 
 I should have said that about a century after the early schools 
 I have spoken of, the modern "Academy" of art, with titles 
 and honours, made its appearance, became exclusive, and ruined 
 the art. 
 
 Mr. Fraser, a most influential man here, has, nevertheless, 
 headed a fresh subscription-list, and we make another start 
 once more. At dinner last night I met Mr. Hey wood, the 
 banker, and he said, " You will have no difficulty with your 
 school of design ; and if the shares bore interest, its success 
 would be assured, though, for my part, I pre'er a donation." 
 This is thoroughly commercial, is it not ? But in a commercial 
 country one must work by the means in use. When I told 
 them at my last lecture that it was from the union which 
 formerly existed between the artist and the mechanic, in Italy 
 and in Greece, that their metal, and leather, and woodwork, 
 their vases, and candlesticks, and lamps, and saddles, &c, 
 were so superior, the audience cheered me heartily. They saw 
 and appreciated the value of the principle. Oh, be assured my 
 principles will take root in the understanding of intelligent 
 men, and will yet save old England from being eclipsed by her 
 rivals abroad. I may not live to see it, but if the mechanics 
 of this country will only master the principles of art, before 
 fifty years are over we shall be far b j yond the foreigner. If 
 they do not, we shall be as far below him. 
 
 From W. C. Macready. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Cbvent Garden Theatre, 3rd February, 1838. 
 
 I cannot withhold from you the offer of my best thanks 
 for your most kind and valued congratulations.* Lauclari a 
 
 * Although Hayd..n never could be brought to admit that Macready was a 
 great actor, he cordially sympathised with him in hi* efforts to restore a taste for 
 the poetical drama.— Ld. 
 
40O 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 laudato is my sole ambition, and it is gratified in such a notice 
 as yours. For years I have held the faith that Shakespeare, 
 properly illustrated, would give the lie to the vile and indecent 
 canters about public taste. I am borne out in the conviction 
 I have maintained, and it is indeed a gratification to me to see 
 the taste of an audience vindicated by the success that has 
 attended the production of h's plays without puff or preli- 
 minary notices. 
 
 I shall hope to have the pleasure of seeing you on your 
 return, and with many thanks am 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 W. C. Macready. 
 
 From Samuel E. Cottam. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I have the pleasure of thanking you, in the name of 
 the Directors, for your kind donation of casts from nature. 
 
 They are the first of that kind introduced into the Institu- 
 tion, and I hope ere long we shall have those excellent subjects 
 you lately suggested, a goodly group of youths and young men 
 drawing from the figure, learning curves from the figure, and, 
 whether mechanic or artist, acquiring taste and correct execu- 
 tion from the figure. Then may we hope for a reform in our 
 designs. 
 
 I remain, &c. 
 
 Saml. E. Cottam. 
 
 From J. Fraser, of Manchester. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, Manchester, 15th, 1838. 
 
 The battle is over and a victory gained ; still there is 
 a deal to do, no matter what passed, the result is a public 
 meeting for the promotion of a School of Design, in the 
 theatre of the Koyal Manchester Institution, on Monday next, 
 the 19th. 
 
 You must endeavour to be with us. The human figure was 
 
D. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 excluded in the report ! I managed, however, to get it placed 
 first in the enumeration of objects of study. 
 
 Yours very cordially, 
 
 J. W. Fraseb. 
 
 P.S. — Art and science for ever, not science and art ! 
 
 From William Hamilton. 
 
 DEAR HaYDON, Stanley Grove, 1st April, 1838. 
 
 I return you your article on ' Painting,' * which I have 
 read with much pleasure and instruction, and I am glad to 
 see it is to be finally printed in a volume. . . . The opinions 
 are bold, but, I doubt not, much more correct and more true 
 in principle than the thousand-times repeated namby-pamby 
 observations of flatterers of great names with which all our 
 works on Art are saturated with a vengeance, and the whole 
 article is well calculated to rouse the feelings of those who feel 
 at all. ... If you could procure me a number of the ' Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica ' I should like to buy it, and read the article 
 once or twice over. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Wm. Hamilton. 
 
 To Sir George Cockbtjrn, G.C.B., on the Nelson Monument 
 Dear Sir George Cockburn, London, 9th April, 1S38. 
 
 A monument to Nelson's glory should not, in my humble 
 opinion, be the ordinary one of Neptune, Fame, and Victory, 
 cannons and shot, cables, anchors and ship's prows, &c. &c, but 
 a Temple; inside a statue, simple and solitary, and on the 
 pedestal I would put 
 
 " Nelson. 
 " A little body with a mighty heart." 
 
 The four sides of the four walls should be painted with 
 
 * Printed in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' - Ed. 
 
 vol. i. 2d 
 
403 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 four of the most striking events in his glorious career. For 
 example : — 
 
 1. deceiving the swords of the Spanish officers on the 
 
 quarter-deck of the ' San Josef.' 
 
 2. The battle of the Nile. 
 
 3. Signing and reading the letter to the Crown Prince 
 
 at Copenhagen. 
 
 4. Trafalgar and death. 
 
 Tf you think this suggestion worth the attention of the com- 
 mittee, perhaps you will do me the honour to lay the proposition 
 before them. 
 
 I am, dear Sir George, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 London, 8th May, 1838. 
 Yes, my dear Lord, I congratulate you on the admirable 
 pendant to my ' Banquet,' by Wilkie. Is this like you ? Though 
 I did not show your fine eye, did I not do justice to the profile ? 
 Lid you not say it was " excellent " ? Did not Lord Lansdowne 
 say " it is a handsome likeness " ? Was not everybody pleased ? 
 and did you not all run away directly the Royal Academicians 
 abused it ? 
 
 On the morning of the battle of Culloden, one Highlander 
 was overheard to say to his next man, " Weel, God stond by 
 the right." " Na, na," said his next man, " God stawnd by 
 Hawmilton's reaiment, right or wrang." 
 
 Your Lordship and all of you should have stood by " Haw- 
 milton's regiment, right or wrang," as Hawmilton's regiment 
 stood by you. 
 
 However, I am glad to see you have stood long enough to 
 make the deity of caution paint you all. By the Lord ! that 
 says more for the security of your administration than a majority 
 in the House. 
 
 Of Hayter's ' Queen ' nothing can be said ; it is the negation 
 of every excellence which characterises High Art. Her ^Majesty's 
 affections must be strong ; she has forgotten nobody who had 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 4©3 
 
 her attention in her seclusion, clown to Fozard, her stirrup- 
 holder, and she has remembered every oneivho did net. It is to 
 be regretted that the genius displayed so far is not quite equiva- 
 lent to the warmth of heart which stimulated its employment. 
 Another proof — if one were wanted — that the higher patronage 
 does not, cannot create genius. 
 
 Ever, dear Lord, yours, 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 From Southey. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Lymington, 25th October, 1838. 
 
 Upon the subject of your letter (design for Nelson's 
 monument), wishing you all possible success in the undertaking, 
 I can only express what perhaps you may think me prejudiced 
 in maintaining, viz., a great dislike to a'legory, either in painting 
 or sculpture. ' Britannia ' is to me an abomination, though no 
 one more heartily wishes that Britain may continue to rule the 
 waves. Setting allegory aside, your conceptions appear such 
 as I might expect from you, and the design is worthy of you. 
 
 Believe me, &c, 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 Leeds, 3rd November. 1838. 
 
 I dined at Dr. Hook's last night with a large party. Two 
 of the sons of Sir John Sinclair were present. I asked the 
 elder if he was the one Buonaparte had detained in Prussia in 
 1806. It was his brother, then only a boy of sixteen. He was 
 travelling from Berlin, and came into the neighbourhood of the 
 French armies, was captured by the patrols, and brought a 
 prisoner to headquarters. He was then brought before Na- 
 poleon. Buonaparte was in his tent, with a large map on the 
 table, and Berthier was with him. He looked up fiercely at 
 Sinclair, and asked him where he had come from, and where he 
 was going ? Sinclair replied that his father had sent him to 
 travel ; and described his journeys. Napoleon sent for one of 
 his suite who understood English, and ordered him to read 
 
 2 D 2 
 
4Q4 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Sinclair's letter.?. The aide-de-camp read the letters, and told 
 the Emperor that they confirmed the boy's statement. Napoleon 
 then asked him about his studies, and how far he had got on 
 in Greek. Sinclair said that he was then reading ' Thucydides.' 
 Napoleon said, " Bravo ! now you must stay here until some- 
 thing decisive has taken place ;" and in a day or two after the 
 battles of Auerstadt and Jena were fought and won, and the boy 
 was allowed to continue his journey. As I remembered the 
 incident being related in 180 j-7, it was satisfactory to have it 
 confirmed by Sinclair's own brother.* 
 
 * Mr., afterwards Sir George Sinclair, was travelling with a companion, Mr. 
 Kegel, from Gotha to Leipsio, and the Piussians being ill informed of the road< 
 by which the French were advancing, told h m he was quite safe to go by w y 
 of Gleina and Kostritz, where the French outposts captured him, carried him to 
 Mnrnt. who sent him on to the Emperor. It is curious to find by Mr. Sinclair's 
 account that alt.iough this was only a few da\ s before th: battle of J\ na, Napoleon 
 did not know where Jena was on the map, an I could not find it. But tais was 
 a trifle compared to the blunder of the Prussians, who did not know wl ere 
 Napoleon was. Sir George Sinclair's account is so interesting it is worth quoting. 
 When brought to the Emperor's tent, Count Frohberg opened the door, s lying, 
 " Voil.i, Sire, le jeune Angla s dont je viens do parlor a votie Majeste'. ' The door 
 closed, Mr. Sin "la'r made a low bow, and on raising his eyes saw a little figure 
 arraved in a white nght-cap and dressing-gown ; an officer in uniform, Marshal 
 lierthier, the Minister at War, standing by his side. "The Emperor stood still 
 with his arms crossed, and a cup of colfee in his right hand : he surveyed mo 
 attentively, and said 'Qui etes-vous?' My reply was, 'Sire, je suis sujet de 
 S. M. Bri.anniqne.' 4 D'oii venez-vous?' 'Sire, je viens dc Gotha en Saxe; 
 et en me remlant de \h a Leipzig, j'ai e'te arrele' par quelques soldats des avant- 
 jiostes, qui m'ont mene' a Geia ehez le Grand-Duo de Berg ; et S. A. m'a envoye 
 ici pour avoir riionneur d'eae examine par V. M ' ' Par oil etes-vous passe ? ' 
 ' Sire, je suis pa-se' par Wiimar, Erfurt, et Jena, d'oii n'ayant pas pu pro-uier 
 
 des clievaux p aur nous ennduire plus loin que ju-qu'a Gleina ' M)u est 
 
 Gleina? et qu'est-ce quo e'est ?' 4 Gleiua, Sire, est un petit village appartenaut 
 au Due de Gotha.' 
 
 44 Upon hearing that I had passed through these places, he paused and t'.eti 
 said, ' Tracez-moi le plan de votre route.' He then sat down at a table, o i 
 which a map of Germany was spread. . . . and leaning his face upon his thumb 
 an I forefinger looked me full in the face, and said, 'Quel jour etes-vous parti da 
 Gotha?' At taat moment I had forgotten the exact day of our departure; I 
 began to calculate. This pause, though but a sho.t one, excited the Emperor's 
 impatience. 4 Je vous demande, quel jour etes-vous parti de Gotha?' H.s 
 abrupt manner, and a significant look, which I saw him exchange wiih Bert'de , 
 would have very much interrupted my calculation, had I not concluded it, and 
 i amed the exact day of our departure. He then 1 ioked for Goiha in the map, 
 ami asked me a number of questions as to the strength of the Prussians in that 
 place, lhe reports prevalent in regard to their probable movements, &c. He next 
 bsnght out Erfurt, and inquired whether I had observed any troops in motion 
 oetweeu the two places? He was very minute in his interrogatories with rcgird 
 to Erfurt. He asked how strong the girrison was there? I replied, that this 
 was a point whi h I bad not had any opportunity of ascertaining. He asked me 
 if I bad been at the parade? I replied in the affirmative. ' How many regi- 
 ments were pre ent?' 4 Siro, I cannot tell; the Duke of Brunswick was then 
 at Erfurt, and there seemed to be almost as many officers as soldiers assembled 
 on tb^ parade.' ' Is Erfurt a well-fortified town?' 4 Sire, 1 know very little 
 about the strength of t'ortili. atioas.' 4 Y a-t-il un chateau a Erfurt?' Upon 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 At Manchester last week they told me that Chantrey, Wilkie, 
 and Shee had been there, and that Chantrey grumbled at the 
 School of Design ; but they told nie their influence was gone. 
 The School is getting on pretty well. I am to make a report 
 to the Committee. It is infinitely better than it was, but on 
 my second visit I had to find fault. 
 
 this pnint I felt some doubts; but was afraid to plead ignorance again, Ifst lie 
 should imagine that it was feigned. I therefore boldly said, ' Oui, Sire, il y a 
 im chateau.' After inquiring whether I had ma le any observations on the mad 
 1 etwe. n Erfurt and Weimar, he proee, ded to question me minutely as to the 
 6tate of tlie latter place, the number of troops quartered there, the destination of 
 the Oiand Duke, &c. 
 
 " On my mentioning that Jena was the next place at which we stopped, Napoleon 
 did not immediately discover its exact sit uai ion on the map. I, therefore, had 
 to point to it with my fing°r, and show hira the place at which he so soon 
 afterwards achieved to brilliant anil decisive a victory. He inquired who com- 
 manded at Jena, what was the state of the town, whether I knew any particulars 
 ab ut the garrison, &c. ; and then made similar inquiries with regard to Gleina 
 and the intervi ning road. 
 
 " Having followed up the invest : gation until the moment when we were arrested, 
 he paused, and looked at me very earnestly. 'Comment!' said le, ' voulez- 
 vous que je croie tout ce que vous dites? Les Anglais ne voyagent pas ordi- 
 naiiement a pi d sans doniestiqne, et eomme cela' (looking at my dress, which 
 cons'sted in an old box-coat of rough and dark materials, which I had for some 
 time previously only worn as a cover r"imd my legs, when travelling in a carriage, 
 but, which I had been glad to resume as an article of dress, over my other clothes, 
 when obliged to travel on foot). ' II est vrai, Sire.' I replied, 'que tela peut 
 paraitre un peu singulier, mais des circonslances imperieuses, et l'impossibiliie 
 <le ti ouver des ehevaux, nous ont obliges a cettc de'marche ; d'ailleurs, je crois que 
 j'ai dans ma poche des lettres qui prouveront la ve'rite de tout ee que j'ai d.t au 
 bujet de moi-meme.' 
 
 '" 1 then drew out of the pocket of the old box-coat some letters. When I laid 
 the.-e upon the table, Napoleon pushed them quickly towards Count Frohberg, 
 nodding to him ra;>idly with his head. The Count immediately took up the 
 letters, and said to the Emperor, whilst opening them. that, from having examined 
 and convcr.-ed with me during our journey, he thought he could be responsible 
 for the truth of everything I had said. 
 
 "After cursorily glancing through some of the papers, he said, 'These letters 
 are of no consequence, and quite of a private nature ; for instance, here is one from 
 Mr. Sinclair's f.,th. r, in which, after reminding him of the attention he had paid 
 to the Greek and Latin languages in 1 ngland, he expre-ses a hope that the same 
 care will be bestowed upon the acquisition of the French and German abroad.' 
 
 " Napoleon s features here relaxed into a smile; and I never can forgot the 
 kindness with which he ey> d me, whilst he said, ' Vous avez done appiia le Grec 
 et le Latin ; quels auteurs avez-vous lus? ' 
 
 "I mentioned Homer, Thucvdi 'es, Cicero, and Horace; upon which he replied, 
 'C'est fort bien, e'est fort bieu;' and then turning to Berthier, he added, ' Je 
 ne crois pas que ce jeune homme soit espion ; ma is l'autre qui est avec lui, le 
 s ra, et aura amene' ce jeune homme avec lui pour etre moins suspect' He then 
 made a slight inclination of the he ad, as a signal for me to retire ; upon which I 
 bowed profoundly, and p issed intotne ante-chamber; after which Mr. Kegel was 
 introduced."— Pp. 30, 31, 32, 33, M4. 
 
 Mr. Kegel was severely examined by the Emperor and minutely questioned. 
 Upon the good pastor remarking that he had believed t ie French were quite in 
 another direction, and that was also the be.ief of the Duke of Brunswick and his 
 staff, Napoleon smiled to himself, saying, "Ce sont des perruques. lis se sont 
 lurieiiaement trompes." {See Sir George Sinclair's ' Memoir.') —Ed. 
 
4' 6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From T. Moore. 
 
 My DE\R SlR, Sloperton, 10th May, 1838. 
 
 Of any communication from you I am most ready to say 
 " better late than never." It was exceedingly kind of you to 
 take so much trouble for me, in the first instance, and not at 
 all surprising that you should forget it all afterwards. As to 
 Sheridan, I have really almost forgot everything about him 
 myself; so many other and different subjects have since 
 occupied my thoughts ; as somebody says of the waves of the 
 sea — 
 
 " And one no sooner kissed the shore and died, 
 Than a new follower rose." 
 
 Even so it has been with my works. The dying, I fear, 
 included. 
 
 Trusting I may be more lucky in meriting than I have been 
 now, I am sorry to say, 
 
 I am very truly yours, 
 
 Thomas Moore. 
 
 From Sir G&opge Cockburn. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Leamington, 18th October, 1838. 
 
 I have always understood Lord Nelson was mortally 
 wounded on the quarter-deck of the ' Victory,' and not on the 
 poop ; but if you are desirous to obtain more positive informa- 
 tion on this point, I have no doubt Sir Thomas Hardy, who 
 is now Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and who was Lord 
 Nelson's Captain at the time, will answer the question as best 
 authority, if you apply to him. 
 
 As regards you and the question, I am not sure where Lord 
 Nelson wrote his letter to the Crown Prince ; whether a table 
 and paper were brought to him on purpose on one of the gun- 
 decks, or whether he went to the orlop or cockpit (where alone 
 such materials were deposited when the ship was cleared for 
 action), I cannot affirm, but my impression is the latter was 
 the case. Mr. Scott, of 22, New Bridge Street, who is the son 
 of Lord Nelson's then Secretary, might perhaps be able to 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 407 
 
 give you more minute information from his father's papers. I 
 hope you are in the enjoyment of good health, and 
 
 Kemain, dear Sir, your very faithful servant, 
 
 George Cockburn. 
 
 From Sir Thomas Hardy. 
 
 Greenwich Hospital, 7th November, 1838: 
 
 Sir Thomas Hardy presents his compliments to Mr. Hay- 
 don, and begs to inform him that Admiral Lord Nelson was 
 mortally wounded on the quarter-deck of the ' Victory ' at the 
 battle of Trafalgar, and died in the cockpit. 
 
 His Lordship wrote the letter to the Crown Prince at the 
 battle of Copenhagen in his Lordship's cabin on board the 
 ' Elephant ' in the heat of the battle, and sent to the cockpit 
 for a lighted candle, in order that he might seal it with his 
 arms. 
 
 From Sir Thomas Hardy. 
 
 Greenwich Hospital, 13th November. 
 
 I was not on board the ' Elephant ' at the time Lord 
 Nelson wrote the letter. Captain Foley commanded that ship, 
 to which the Admiral had shifted his flag from the ' Prince 
 George ' (his proper flag-ship, of which I was the Captain), as 
 the ' Elephant ' drew less water, and could approach nearer to 
 the enemy.* 
 
 I remain, 
 
 T. M. Hardy. 
 
 To Ms Wife. 
 
 Liverpool, 20th November, 1838. 
 
 .... I have just been over the Mechanics' Schools here. 
 There are seven hundred boys being instructed, six hours a-day, 
 an hour a-day on six different subjects. I object strongly to 
 this, for I will defy them to retain anything effectually, and 
 one-half of the boys will probably end with disease of the brain. 
 
 * These letters show what immense trouble Haydon took to get at the facts of 
 any picture he was painting from the best authorities. — Ed. 
 
4oS 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 This is some of the new-fangled trash of the theorists on educa- 
 tion — the idealogues, as Buonaparte used to call them. After 
 the boys were gone I discussed the subject with the classical 
 master, a Trinity man, and he agreed with me that no boy 
 could become a classical scholar under such a system. I object 
 to all these exceedingly refined theories in education, which 
 are gradually coming to the front. I believe the effect will be 
 to render the next generation active in mind, but not steady- 
 minded. They will get tired over a long investigation, and 
 fly off to ten thousand other things. 
 
 As an institution, of course it is very magnificent, but I dis- 
 trust the system. I'll bet my existence the rising generation 
 will be coxcombical smatterers. They must be under such a 
 system. I find no provision for moral or religious instruction. 
 That, of course, belongs to seels. That is prejudice. " Thou 
 shalt not commit adultery" is only a civil crime in the new 
 cant, and marriage is no longer a religious act. We shall see. 
 No boy of mine shall ever be taught after this fashion. They 
 would not have been worth a straw if they had been, whereas 
 now either of them would puzzle the masters here. When will 
 people learn to let Nature alone ? This coming age will be a 
 restless, petty, theoretical, inquisitive, pestering age. The age 
 of fidget, hurry, and restlessness, but not deep — no, nor think- 
 ing. Neither grand in Art nor elevated in imagination. 
 
 B. R. H. 
 
 From Lord Francis Egerton. 
 
 Warley, 14 th December, 1838. 
 
 I hear from Liverpool that you are engaged in an under- 
 taking there that I think you will like.* 1 hope whoever 
 superintends the affair will let you have your own way as to 
 the treatment. I have told the Secretary to put my name 
 down as a subscriber for any sum subscribed by the principal 
 people there, as to give more would look political on my part 
 
 in that very political quarter I have sometimes thought 
 
 of the subject of the Duke of ^'ellington, but never could hit 
 on any individual incident which would specially attract me if 
 
 * The historical picture of the ' Duke of Wellington,' subscribed for by the 
 gentlenn n ot' Liverpool. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 409 
 
 I were a painter. In person he is to my fancy more picturesque 
 now than he ever was. 
 
 The mere portrait with a prancing horse or a red curtain 
 woulJ give me low spirits if I had to do it. 
 
 Believe me yours, 
 
 Francis Egertcn. 
 
 From Lord Francis Egerton. 
 
 Wirley, 17th December. 
 
 It seems to me your notion Of the Duke surveying the 
 field of Waterloo twenty years after the battle is admirable. 
 The victor on the field would be a very good subject for a 
 picture of mighty detail and costume in the present style, but 
 between such a picture and the sentiment of the other there 
 would be something like the difference between Wouvi rm inn's 
 and any great painter of the Italian school. 
 
 You will find a difficulty in getting sittings from the Duke, 
 a difficulty which you share with Sir Francis Chantrey, who, I 
 know, has failed in getting sittings for a bust bespoke by the 
 Oxford people long before his installation. Perhaps the House 
 of Lords would relieve you of a part of this. 
 
 There is, unfortunately, no good picture of Copenhagen. 
 Lord Fitzroy Somerset has, I rather think, a bad portrait of 
 him, from which Cockerell's bronze was taken, but he will 
 complain of that as a likeness. 
 
 Lawrence's, in my opinion, is too bad to give you much 
 assistance. Copenhagen was a picturesque little horse. The 
 ] )uke rode him sixteen hours, and, when he dismounted, nar- 
 rowly escaped a kick, which might have been fatal, from the 
 spirited animal. 
 
 I remain, &c, 
 
 F. Egeuton. 
 
 From Thomas Winstanlet. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Liverpool, 15th December, 1838. 
 
 Many thanks for your permission to attend your Lecture 
 on Academies. It has strengthened my opinion on the subject, 
 for the historical detail of facts in support of your prin- 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 ciples is, in my opinion, irresistibly strong. Wherever you 
 are enabled to lay these facts before the public, the public 
 must be awakened, and the result will be a " School of 
 Design." 
 
 I cannot hope to see this glorious reformation of opinion in 
 favour of the Arts ; but that you may, and that you may enjoy 
 the reward of your labours and perseverance is the very sincere 
 wish of 
 
 Your friend and faithful servant, 
 
 Thomas Winstanley. 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 29th April, 1839. 
 
 .... The tiresome habits of people in the country 
 would drive me stark mad in six months. I'll just give you an 
 instance of Lancashire. Here at Warrington, on arriving this 
 evening, I asked a man, "Is this the way to the Eed Lion?" 
 He repeats my words, " Is this the way to the Bed Lion?" 
 dropping his head on his breast, and as if lost in thought at 
 the profundity of the question. " Is this the way to the Eed 
 Lion?" he said again, looking up and smiling in my face at 
 his own sagacity that an idea had reached him at last. " Wale, 
 I just think it may be ; but, stop, I'll inquire." This was too 
 much for me, and I darted into a shop. " Is this the way 
 to the Eed Lion?" I said fiercely to the man behind the 
 counter. " Wale," he replied, " the Eed Lion ? ar't sure it 
 t'aint tbe Nag's Head." " God forbid !" I cried in my agony ; 
 " I don't know." " Not know," said he ; " may be, then, it is 
 the Eed Lion you want, and that is the way ; though, stop," he 
 said, " up by the market's the nearest ; that is, I think it be ; 
 but Mr. Thomas, the printer, knows wale, and his house is the 
 first after you've passed the corner. But, stop a minute, and 
 I'll just go myself and ask." The intellect of Warrington has 
 evidently not got sufficient employment. 
 
 B. E. H. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, Warrington, 2nd May, 1839. 
 
 1 have met with the most glorious success J\ly last 
 lecture at Newcastle was hailed with cheers and acclamations. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON, 
 
 411 
 
 I then went to Hull, where it ended in the same satisfactory 
 manner. At Newcastle a School of Design is formed. I began 
 one at Hull, and now I am here, and my reception as usual. 
 
 Be assured the people are alive to sound Art, and only want 
 instruction. My three first lectures tire wholly upon the con- 
 struction of the figure, and are yet listened to with an attention 
 the Greeks could not exceed. 
 
 I write you this that your Lordship may be kept au fait as 
 to what is going on in the country towns. Be careful, my dear 
 Lord, what you say at the Academy dinner, that interesting 
 entertainment founded to reflect honour on the Art, but made 
 a means to get business for the monopoly. 
 Ever, my dear Lord, 
 
 Your grateful and obliged servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 Manchester, May 1839. 
 
 .... At first I could not bear the sight of the huge 
 factories in this place. They looked like so many vast mill- 
 prisons, with the eternal hum of forced labour sounding in your 
 ears. The only sign of life, it was a relief to see, was the smoke 
 pouring out of the chimneys. But I am assured the work- 
 people are not harshly treated. I doubt the wisdom of 
 allowing delicate women, and young girls and children, to be 
 employed for so many hours daily in heated work-rooms. Of 
 course, they are employed because their labour is cheaper than 
 that of men. But 1 think it an evil, and, if pursued, must tell 
 seriously on future generations. The race will deteriorate. The 
 day may yet come when we shall want the bone and muscle 
 that has made England great, to keep her so. But unfortu- 
 nately, although we are in the habit of boasting so much about 
 our Habeas Corpus and our liberties, we allow many serious 
 evils to exist that strike at the roots of our very existence as a 
 nation. In England an immense accumulation of wrong is 
 necessary before you can overcome John Bull's national 
 inclination to leave alone things that do not affect his belly or 
 his pocket, and to resist every change that does. Here, a y 
 limit upon labour means fresh expenditure by employers, and 
 
412 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 so they resist it ; and a loss to the working man's weekly gains, 
 and so they resist it. .But there can be no doubt, if the present 
 system continues, the next five-and-twenty years will show 
 decreased statures, diminished physical powers, and a gradual 
 failing in the manufacturing populations. That is my opinion. 
 J am told that in the pottery districts in Staffordshire the 
 entire populations are renewed every five or ten years by fresh 
 blood from the country districts. These things ought to be 
 carefully looked into, for they point to serious results. . . . 
 
 B. It II. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, London, 7th July, 1839. 
 
 The affairs of the East may be getting serious, and 
 France may be creeping into her former preponderance, which 
 may and will requite another war to reduce and divide; but 
 consider what the state of Europe will certainly be if the 
 President of the Eoyal Academy is permitted to rule un- 
 checked and unmolested ; if the purest despotism in Europe be 
 not reduced to constitutional law ; and if the great question of 
 whether the Eoyal Academy be a private or public body, be 
 not cleared up by some modern Puffendorf or Yattel of 
 palette and paint ? 
 
 Fruitless inquiries, my dear Lord, if not followed by castiga- 
 tion or reform, generally end by strengthening the vices they 
 were meaned to correct. 
 
 Here are men who unblushingly talk of the unsullied purity 
 with which they marched off irom the Parliamentary furnace 
 that was heated to disinfect them of all impurities, when by 
 their own returns it appears that in seventy years they have 
 spent 19,750Z. in dinners, and but 4,- r ;8u7. in sending fifteen 
 students to Pome, and in that time have never founded one 
 single school of design. 
 
 If this be their " unsullied purity," what must be their 
 imperfections ? 
 
 Permit me to ask you what has been g lined for the Art by 
 the Parliamentary investigation into the Academy which you 
 granted ? Have you not, in the very teeth of the evidence, 
 installed them in the National Gallery, a Gallery built and 
 planned for a great public purpose ? and have you not doubled 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 4>3 
 
 their means and increased their ability to defy the people and 
 trample on the Art ? 
 
 All I ask of the Government is, are they a private or a 
 public body? If private, let them keep strictly within the 
 limits of private rights. If public, let them not be exempted 
 from that necessary audit and control the Government, as 
 representatives of public power and the public purse, have a 
 right to exercise. But do not permit or connive at tin ir 
 claiming the right to keep their transactions secret under the 
 inviolability of private law when reform approaches, but never- 
 theless pushing forward to share a public advantage from 
 which their character and claim, if sincere, as a private asso- 
 ciation must wholly exclude them when the Treasury door 
 opens. 
 
 Believe me, dear Lord Melbourne, I have not relinquished the 
 contest. I am only carrying my arms. Let me re-assure you 
 also on another point. I have no personal resentment to gratify. 
 I want settlement, not movement. I am not one of those whose 
 consequence will be lost by tranquillity. It would probably be 
 increased ; but I am actuated solely and wholly by a sincere 
 desire to relieve the Art from its present anomalous condition, 
 and that only can be done by obliging the Eoyal Academy to 
 rise up to the feeling of the time. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Lord, 
 
 Ever your grateful servant, 
 
 B. E. Hatdon. 
 
 From Lord Francis Egerton. 
 
 Warley, 31st August, 1839. 
 
 I am happy to hear of your feelings of success with 
 your noble subject. I speak against all rule and practice ; but I 
 cannot help thinking that a real designer must do better by 
 such casual sketches (as yours after the Duke) than when he gets 
 his subject into a chair, with a made-up face and a regulation 
 window, darkened below, and an orthodox patch of shadow 
 under the nose. 
 
 " Ancn' io son pittore," i.e., I am always making scrawls of 
 my children, and I have never yet succeeded in getting from 
 them the similitudo of anything human when they were oi.ee 
 
414 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 aware what I was at. At other times, I sometimes consider 
 myself an IB., and moan over the idleness of my youth in 
 not having studied the figure from the skeletons of Albinus to 
 the Elgin Marbles. It seems to me that our painters go to 
 work as people might who, feeling an inclination towards the 
 study of astronomy, should attempt it without a knowledge of 
 arithmetic. 
 
 I should be curious to see or know the real history of the 
 " Catalogue Eaisonne," to which your pamphlet refers. It 
 w as before my time, and I never saw it. 
 
 I should be glad to make up my mind as to the question of 
 the Royal Academy as part of the general one of the best 
 
 mode of propagating the arts of design in this country 
 
 Don't expect me, however, to join the ranks on either side in 
 the "bella plus quam civilia " which are raging. 
 
 Your principle that all improvement must be founded on the 
 knowledge of the figure is, bei/ond question, the true one. 
 
 I once consulted Denon for a drawing-master in landscape. 
 "Do you draw the figure?" he asked. I said that I had 
 " never attempted anything else," upon which he consented to 
 recommend me the article I wanted. 
 
 I will take the earliest opportunity I can of seeing your 
 work. 
 
 I remain, &c. 
 
 F. Egerton. 
 
 From the Duke of Bedford* 
 
 27th September, 1839. 
 
 I have received your letter of the 23rd, and have much 
 pleasure in sending you a cheque on my bankers for two addi- 
 tional chances in the raffle for the ' Maid of Saragossa.' 
 
 I have received, since I have been here, a copy of your 
 pamphlet on ' Academies of Art.' I read a part of it with 
 much pleasure, as it proved your enthusiasm for the Arts, but 
 there are other parts of which I cannot speak so favourably, as 
 I think you write with unmeasured severity of the Royal 
 Academy. 
 
 I was glad to see that you spoke well of the conduct of the 
 
 * This w.ta tho list letter received from this srenerous friend of artists. The 
 Duke tV 11 ill and died within three weeks afterwards.— Eft 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 4 IS 
 
 British Institution " in bringing forward the fine works of the 
 Great Masters," as this measure was mine — suggested to the 
 Institution more than thirty years ago. I Avas one of the 
 original members of the Society, and it immediately struck me 
 that the surest way of promoting the Fine Arts, and of 
 exciting ambition and emulation in the breasts of young 
 British artists, would be to give them frequent opportunities of 
 seeing the finest works of the old masters, by establishing such 
 an exhibition as now annually takes place. I wrote to a friend 
 of mine (since deceased), then a very influential member of the 
 Institution, and stated my own ideas at some length, requesting 
 him to lay my letter before the directors. I was laughed at 
 by many at the time, and my plan treated as visionary. I was 
 asked whether I thought it likely that persons possessing fine 
 pictures in their collections would lend them to be exhibited 
 at the British Gallery with all the attendant risks? I could 
 only answer that I, myself, would do so with pleasure. 
 
 I had the extreme satisfaction of seeing my proposition 
 adopted by the directors, and it is for the public to say 
 whether the measure has tended " to promote the Fine Arts." 
 
 I am, &c, 
 
 Bedford. 
 
 From S. Rogers. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, St. James's Place. 30th November, 1839. 
 
 I need not say how much flattered I am by your offer, 
 or how happy I should be to possess a picture of yours ; but, 
 alas ! I am poor, having many claims upon me, and I have not 
 an inch uncovered on my walls. But if you will condescend to 
 do what you are so good as to say, I cannot resist your pro- 
 posal. Mr. Leslie has just painted a small picture for me, 2 ft. 
 by 2 ft. 6 in., and his price was thirty guineas. May I venture 
 to make this same proposal to you? 
 
 Your idea of the subject I am delighted with, and I hope 
 you will make no alteration but in the proportions of the 
 figure. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 S. Kogeus.* 
 
 * On the opposite leaf of this note is written, 2nd December, 1839. Rogers 
 calhd to sue (my picture of) ' The Duke,' and taid, apropos of my ' Nupjleon ' at 
 
4i6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Colonel Gurwuod. 
 
 MY DEAR SlR, 23, Lowndes Street, 11th December, 1839. 
 
 I think I could false it upon myself to say that the 
 Duke of Wellington never took his hat off to cheer on the 
 troops on any one occasion, and that at Waterloo, although 
 constancy under fire, he was in rear of the troops that fought, 
 as all officers generally are, or they would prevent the fire of 
 their own men. 
 
 I should say that his Grace never placed himself in a 
 theatrical position, which might be paintaMe as a fart, but 
 there may be many incidents which might make an interesting 
 picture- 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 J. Gurwood. 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 Leerls, lGth December, 1839. 
 
 .... I have hardly seen Dr. Hook ; the business of the 
 vicarage is so harassing, that neither he nor any of his curates 
 have been able to get to bed before three in the morning for the 
 whole of this last week. Poor Mrs. Hook is in the midst of 
 hooping-cough, and looks forlorn. But I dine with the vicar on 
 Friday ; yesterday I could not. The fact is, I cannot dine at mid- 
 day, as they do on Sundays at the vicarage, so I took a walk for 
 fresh air out to Woodhouse Moor— Woodhouse "mud," it should 
 be, for of all the slimy, s ippery, sticky, wet, muddy walks, I 
 never met with anything equal to this. But Leeds is so buried 
 in smoke that every green plot is a paradise ; but they do not 
 make the best of their paradise here. Mr. Gott's place in summer 
 is pretty; but the tall chimneys are the end of all landscape about 
 here, and bring you back to bricks and mortality at every point. 
 
 You would be astonished at the depth of the religious feeling 
 in Leeds ; it is not feeling, it is fury. I am half afraid to open 
 my lips lest I offend some prejudice or the other. The Roman 
 Catholic church is built, and a handsome building it is, and tho 
 Bomanists are scattering tracts about plentifully, and moving 
 
 Drayton Manor, that the only thing Talleyrand and the Duchesse de Dino could 
 noi reconcile was the stoutness of Napoleon ; and, said Rogers, " I wish you would 
 paint one making him thinner, sm.dl," and looking keenly at me; "or large.* 
 i thought it my duty to oiler to paint it suiull for lam, and I wrote to him, and 
 this is his answer. 
 
 B. K. IIAYDUN. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 417 
 
 heaven and earth to make converts. Dr. Hook, however, keeps 
 the lead; and Hamilton, the Dissi nting minister, a fine fellow, 
 seems very sore at the Doctor's name. It is curious ; but the 
 vice of professional jealousy runs deep into that sacred profes- 
 sion, whose duty it is to teach us how to oveicome the envies 
 and jealousies and petty feelings of our passionate nature. Dr. 
 Hook gave us a splendid sermon yesterday on the Atonement : 
 it was very fine indeed. The crowds which go to church and 
 chapel on Sunday in Leeds are more numerous than in any town 
 I ever saw before; all places of worship swarm with worshippers 
 in Leeds. It is very remarkable, very creditable to the ministers, 
 and highly honourable to the people. Leeds appears to me to 
 be one of the best conducted and best behaved towns I know, 
 and I should not be surprised if facts fully bore out this im- 
 pression ; indeed, the resident inhabitants of Leeds, Liverpool, 
 and Manchester are much more religious than in London, and 
 better people. Honest dealing seems to guide them more 
 universally than with us in London. I don't think a Leeds 
 tradesman ever thinks of cheating, or if he does, his religion 
 prevents its practice : this is a good character. 
 
 I like Leeds for one reason — they are always so happy to see 
 me, and make me so much " at home," I feel like coming into 
 a large family I have known for years. They are a thoroughly 
 good set at Leeds ; they are such domestic, good people. In all 
 that crash, at Leeds no bank went ; Mr. Beckett helped them 
 all and kept them up. This was very amiable, and an act 
 of good brotherhood, which makes one a better Christian to 
 hear of. 
 
 To his Sister, Mrs. Haviland. 
 
 My DEAR HAL, Sheffield, 3rd January, 1840. 
 
 I begin here to-night ; Montgomery, the poet, is presi- 
 dent. I lodge with two old maiden ladies, who make me die 
 several times in the twenty-four hours. They bore me night 
 and day to know if there be " anything I ivant." At last I said 
 I want " quiet." Last night one came in with the Sheffield 
 paper, wherein the committee had advertised my lectures for 
 to night. The old lady looked at me so much as to say, " and 
 is he before my very eyes ! " gave a deep sigh, and went out aga ; n, 
 leaving the paper on the table. Sometimes 1 hear awful whis- 
 vul. 1. 2 a 
 
4i8 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 perings, and then in comes the little girl and says, " Please, Sir, 
 Miss Turner's compliments, and if there is anything you wish, 
 she begs you will mention it." I reply : " I want nothing, my 
 dear, but my breakfast at eight, my luncheon at one, nnd my 
 dinner at five ; and don't worrit me in the interval." Then out 
 goes the girl, and I hear her whisper, " he says he icon't he wor- 
 rited ;" and then there's a dead silence for an hour ; but they 
 can't hold out longer. 
 
 Sheffield is the pleasantest place in all the manufacturing 
 towns ; the approach is very neat, and the road across the York- 
 shire downs beautiful, like the Scotch hills. . . . Frank's going 
 to Fairbairn's has lost him a year at a most critical time. He 
 is entered for the October term, and goes to a private tutor near 
 Oxford, meanwhile, with five or six other young fellows. Fred, 
 I trust, will be off to sea in June. Had he been older he would 
 have been at the bombardment of Acre ; I wish he had. Did 
 I ever tell you of his poor brother, when he was quite young, 
 being left in command of the ' Algerine,' and the sailors, think- 
 ing Lim but a youngster, began to take liberties, and would not 
 obey orders? He ordered up the gunner, had a carronade 
 loaded, and told the men if they did not at once go to their 
 work he would fire a gun for assistance from the flag-ship, 
 and he settled them in five minutes. He was a glorious boy. 
 His death has been a great blow to me. . . . 
 
 B. E. H. 
 
 Extract from Letter to his Wife. 
 
 Hull, 3rd January, 1 840. 
 Poor Hilton is gone. All my life they puffed the poor 
 fellow against me, and what has he done ? Now they will puff 
 him once more and for the last time. There is nothing mean 
 men take such delight in as pretending great admiration for 
 an inferior man in order to run down a man whose talents they 
 cannot disprove. Hilton was a delicate, amiable, weak creature, 
 who had no invention, and who pilfered from everybody living 
 and dead. Fuseli used to call him the " bold tief." In my 
 second picture I opposed him at the British Gallery for the 
 hundred guinea prize, and I beat both Hilton and Howard 
 who, by the way, the year before, had hung this very picture 
 ' Dentatu.V out of sight in the ante-room of the Royal Academy. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 419 
 
 Phillips contended that I had no right to the pri::e, because I 
 had taken two years to paint ' Dentatus,' but the directors very 
 properly turned a deaf ear to such absurdities. 
 
 Hilton had not only no invention, but he did not draw finely. 
 But the academicians pushed him against me just as they 
 pushed Bird against Wilkie. Where is Bird now? And 
 where will Hilton be in a few years ? where Bird is now, 
 forgotten ; yet I will be bound to say we shall have a huge 
 hue and cry over poor Hilton, and we shall be told that the art 
 has sustained an irreparable loss. 
 
 It is curious how malice urges men to praise those they really 
 desp'se, in order to injure others they have a hatred of. 
 
 To Lord Melbourne. 
 
 My DEAR LORD, Hull, 8th January, 1840. 
 
 It is long since I had the honour of writing. My 
 lectures are still sought after and my reception the same. I 
 have given three successive courses on the 4 Principles of Art,' 
 the ' History of Art,' the ' State of Art,' and all have been met 
 by the same enthusiasm. 
 
 Wherever the Elgin Marbles were not known, and casts did 
 not exist, I have induced their purchase, and admiration. 
 
 I am indeed happy to be convinced that her Majesty is 
 advancing the Court taste by having herself painted in historical 
 compositions. Though small, yet as I trust her Majesty's life 
 will be long, this desire on her part will and must help to turn 
 the Court taste from Hutch boors and the low humour of 
 peasants. 
 
 Since I had the pleasure of seeing you, the last day of the 
 session, I have spent some days at Walmer with the Buke of 
 Wellington, and I was highly delighted with him. 
 
 Nobody need wonder at his military success who hears him 
 talk, or reads his despatches. The sound practical reasons he 
 occasionally gave to us for many of his proceedings in Spain 
 showed his sagacity and his genius, and in my opinion, and I 
 know your Lordship will allow me to be a judge, I declare he 
 tells a story better than any man I ever heard, not excepting 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 He gave me sittings for himself, imagined to be on the field 
 of Waterloo with Copenhagen twenty years after the battle, and 
 
 2 E 2 
 
4^0 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 I flatter myself you will neither be displeased with the picture 
 or the portrait, should yen have a moment's leisure to see it in 
 the season when shown. 
 
 Your Lordship will see Hilton is dead, the historical painter; 
 a good man, but not a great artist. In early life his merits were 
 overrated by the Royal Academy in order to pit him against 
 me, but I beat him wherever we met. 
 
 I first beat him with my second picture for the hundred 
 guinea prize at the British Institution in 1810. He had con- 
 siderable power, but little originality of invention. He pilfered 
 from all. Fuseli called him " a bold tief." He was not master 
 of the figure, though he knew a great deal of it. His best 
 work is in Chelsea Church, though without one original 
 thought. As keeper of the Royal Academy he will not be 
 easily supplied. Eastlake is the only man fit to be his suc- 
 cessor, classically, and as an artist. 
 
 To turn to another matter more immediately interesting to 
 you, I believe the reports of distress in these parts to be 
 exaggerated. Into the poorest parts of Leeds and elsewhere I 
 made a point of going, and I saw fires and food, comfort and 
 cleanliness. Where the 10,000 starving poor are would puzzle 
 any man to find, though, of course, misery here and there does 
 exist. Wishing you many happy returns of the season, 
 Believe me, my dear Lord, 
 
 Your grateful servant, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To a Pupil 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Lon'lo!],.21st January, 1840. 
 
 I regret to hear of your father's difficulties. As I passed 
 my word to your landlord to pay your rent due if you could 
 not, so that you might be able to return home and help 
 your father ; and as you now write to me that you and your 
 father are really unable to pay the rent, I will undoubtedly 
 pay it, so make your mind easy, and don't let it press on you 
 as a debt. I release you from it entirely. You obeyed me 
 strictly, you advanced rapidly, you kept your word of following 
 . my instructions, and I kept mine of educating you if you were 
 supported. But do not despair because you are this moment 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 421 
 
 unfortunate. Take adversity always as a correction, and success 
 more to be feared. 
 
 I shall be most happy to see you again as soon as your 
 circumstances and the help of your friends will enable you to 
 come up to London ; but you must act with energy, and not 
 forget the precepts I gave you when here. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to Ms Wife. 
 
 Hull, 13th January, 1840. 
 
 I wish you could have been present here last night. 
 We had a brilliant discussion. You must know that it is the 
 fashion of the gentlemen here to read papers in their hall ; 
 and finding that the audiences to my lectures were double the 
 usual amount on hall nights, and the lectures not admitting of 
 reply, it became evident to me that something was brewing 
 for my benefit ; and a few days since they proposed to me to 
 " read a paper " on a hall night. Certain old gentlemen had 
 come to the conclusion that I might be all very well at a 
 lecture, where, like the priest in the pulpit, no one replied to 
 me, and I had it all my own way ; but if I were caught on 
 hall night, and laid open to discussion, I should be dissected 
 to the public advantage in their opinion. I agreed at once 
 to the proposal, and chose for my subject ' The Elgin Marbles,' 
 and whether Lord Elgin was justified in removing the marbles 
 from Greece. When I came in, the president sat in awful 
 state, with the treasurer on one side and a vacant chair for me 
 on the other, the platform crowded and the hall full. I read 
 my paper to its conclusion ; and then up got a little man, and 
 soon forgot the subject-matter of my paper to fly off to the 
 Academy question. He was called to order. Then up got a 
 second and third, and lastly the president, all praising me 
 highly, but maintaining that I had avoided the real question 
 at issue, viz., as to whether Lord Elgin would not have shown 
 greater regard for posterity if he had left the marbles where 
 he found them. At last came my turn to reply, and I de- 
 molished all their flimsy arguments and assertions in ten 
 minutes. I showed that in fifty years whole temples had dis- 
 
422 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 appeared. I proved by printed evidence that it was the habit 
 of the Turks to make the figures a target for musket practice ; 
 that the heads had been knocked off and polished into shot 
 for their big guns ; and that travellers and tourists daily and 
 hourly were breaking off a hand here and a foot there to take 
 home as a memento. If the Turks and the Greeks had relished 
 and understood the merits of these works, I admitted then that 
 the question became altered ; but they did not, and indeed could 
 not, and therefore Lord Elgin was justified in removing those 
 invaluable fragments for the mere sake of securing their pre- 
 servation from further injury. I sat down amidst thunders of 
 applause, and the president putting the question to the vote, 
 Lord Elgin was voted justisfied nem. con. As the president left 
 the chair he whispered to me, " I should have said exactly 
 what you said had I been in your place." I went off home 
 quite satisfied ; and the others to supper, to debate the question 
 over again. I was content to leave it where it was. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Oxford, 2nd March, 1840. 
 
 Last evening I dined en famille with the warden of 
 New College, and spent a very cheerful evening. His eldest 
 daughter has a genius for humorous sketches, and showed me 
 two in particular that made me die with laughing ; one was 
 that of an undergraduate, who, very tipsy one night, walked 
 into the warden's kitchen instead of his own rooms, and could 
 not be persuaded of his mistake. The servants therefore 
 locked him in, and called the warden, who went down and 
 tried to persuade the young gentleman to go to his own rooms, 
 but to no purpose. The attitude of this drunken young scamp, 
 standing on his heels and resting against the kitchen dresser, 
 with his cap and tassel over his nose and his eyes, doggedly 
 looking into space between the warden's legs, while the 
 warden stood in front, finger up, was perfectly irresistible. I 
 laughed over it until the tears came into my eyes. It was so 
 true to life. She is a real genius, but of course will never 
 develop her genius, because she will not have to work for a 
 living. 
 
 I have learned more of Oxford these last few days than 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 423 
 
 I ever knew before. The undergraduates abuse the Fellows, 
 the Fellows abuse the warden, and the warden complains of 
 both. 
 
 A young fellow here the other day for the loan of 30Z. down 
 made himself liable for 8501, and will have to pay it. 
 
 From (Sir) Peteu Fairbairn. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Leeds, 1st June, 1840. 
 
 Up to the moment I was oblige;! to lea^e town I was 
 engaged as one of the Anti-Corn Law Committee, with business 
 in connection with that all-absorbing question, affecting as it 
 does the very vitals of the manufacturing and commercial 
 interests of the country. I was indeed sorry it was put out of 
 my power to pay my respects to you personally in Burwood 
 Place, besides the pleasure I should have had in observing the 
 progress you had made in the picture. 
 
 I would only beg of you not to hurry the picture before 
 giving time to the colours to sink properly. Between you 
 and me, I am anxious for your fame, as well as the pleasure I 
 hope to have in a first-rate work, but I am well aware this can 
 only be accomplished by a good deal of time and study being 
 dedicated to the subject ; I know you will forgive me if I speak 
 out. Do not hurry the work, but take time, and in return you 
 shall not want the means to get on in the interim. In ten 
 days or a fortnight I shall be more in funds than I am at 
 present, when I shall take care you are duly remembered.* 
 Till then, 
 
 Believe me, truly yours, 
 
 P. Fair bairn. 
 
 From T. Moore. 
 
 DEAR Mr. HaYDON, Sloperton, 1st December, 1810. 
 
 I am delighted to find myself so kindly remembered 
 by you, and trust that some good chance may before lung 
 
 * In a note underneath this, ILivdon calls attention to the breadth of view and 
 liberal tone of this letter, and with the real feeling it displays both for the Art 
 and artist, as compared with the want of feeling and the querulous exactions of 
 those patrons who know 1 ttle of Art and care le.-s for the artist, worry h m with 
 thi ir petty suggestions and complaints instead of leaving him to his own design. 
 —Ed. 
 
424 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 bring us together. I am not surprised at your success, whether 
 as lecturer or painter, and if you inspire the Broadbrims with 
 a love for the Arts you will indeed do wonders. Mrs. Moore 
 was much pleased by your remembrance of her. 
 
 Ever truly yours, 
 
 Thomas Moore. 
 
 From William Hamilton, on the Elgin Marbles. 
 
 12 Bolton Row, 25th December, 1840. 
 
 I have read your note and paper, and I wish you a 
 merry Christmas amongst your newly enlightened friends.* I 
 hope the feeling you have created amongst them may not be 
 only of a day. 
 
 I have read the report of your lecture on the Elgin Marbles, 
 .... and 1 must trouble you with a few corrections on points 
 which came under my own observation : — 
 
 a. The rock on which we split was a rock "a fleur 
 d'eau," off the island of Cerigo, close to the mouth of the 
 harbour. 
 
 b. We were not in our direct course for England, but had 
 been obliged to put about the night before, having sprung a 
 leak in a part of the ship where the weight of the marbles 
 laid her too deep in the water. 
 
 c. I introduced Canova first to the marbles, and I never 
 shall forget his attitude of astonishment and delight when 
 gazing upon them as if they were really motionless living 
 figures, and when he said, " Oh ! that I were a young man, 
 and had to begin again, I should work on totally different 
 principles from what I have done, and form, I hope, an entirely 
 new school." 
 
 It was evident, as you say also, that he at once saw that 
 all the chefs d'eeuvre, as supposed, of antiquity which he had 
 studied and admired at home or elsewhere, were in his eye as 
 naught. And you are aware that even before he had seen 
 them, or the description given of them to him by Lord Elgin 
 at Koine, Canova had recommended him never to have them 
 touched by the hands of a restorer. 
 
 * The abolitionists.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 4-5 
 
 Indeed, we may date from that period the improved feeling 
 now existing at home respecting the futility of restoring 
 antique fragments, a practice now become almost obsolete, with 
 the gr. at exception, however, of the iEgina Marbles by Thor- 
 waldsen. 
 
 d. Payne Knight had delivered his opinion of the (alleged) 
 inferior character of the Elgin Marbles, and of their having 
 been, part at least, set up by Hadrian, whilst Lord Elgin was 
 then a detenue amongst other English in F ranee, from whence 
 he was not released until 1S0G. This was a very unlucky 
 circumstance for their reception in this country — les absents out 
 toujours tort. 
 
 e. All the artists who conducted Lord Elgin's operations at 
 Athens were engaged by me (except Luiserni, the landscape 
 painter, who was recommended by Sir William Hamilton), 
 and not at Naples, which could not have supplied them, 
 but at Eome, where I went at Lord Elgin's request from 
 Messina. 
 
 /. I had nothing to do with the details of the removal of the 
 marbles from Athens (this was under the entire direction of 
 Luiserni), though I happened to be present when the ship 
 ' Mentor,' which was wrecked, sailed from the Piraeus with a 
 portion of them, about fifteen or eighteen large cases, four of 
 which I recovered that year by means of divers, and the rest 
 were found at the bottom of the sea by the same divers two 
 years after, when the ship had gone to pieces. 
 
 g. The divers were not the inhabitants of the coast, i.e. 
 the neighbouring coast. I had to send for them to the 
 islands of Cos, Syene, &c, on the opposite coast of Asia 
 Minor ; and I waited their arrival in Cerigo, in which island 
 I remained four months to carry on and complete the under- 
 taking. 
 
 h. My valuation before the Committee of the House of 
 Commons is, I believe, acknowledged now by all who think 
 of the subject at all to be at least nearest the real value 
 of the marbles, though still, if now to be valued, far from 
 adequate. 
 
 i. I can't swim at all,* and therefore I am not likely to 
 
 * Note by B. R. H. — " Then you ou^bt to have swum. To put you ashore in 
 a boat destroys the poeti y of the whole thing. Horrible ! "—Ed. 
 
4:6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 have escaped from the shipwreck swimming with my papers in 
 my mouth. Lord Elgin was fond of a good story. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 W. Hamilton. 
 
 To the Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 My dear Loud, 
 
 London, ISth April, 1341. 
 
 1 am glad Phillips is painting you, for I know no man 
 in English portrait painting who equals his broad, manly 
 power in men. With respect to his high opinion of my talents 
 as an artist, it was a pity he did not perceive them in 1809, 
 when he was one of the hangers of ' Dentatus,' and put it in 
 the dark : a picture executed at twenty-two years of age on 
 principles which, when explained to the University of Oxford 
 thirty-one years afterwards, were received with enthusiasm. 
 However, " blessed is the man to whom the Lord doth not 
 impute sin." 
 
 I shall be most happy to see his portrait of you, as I feel 
 sure it will be a fine one ; and after he has done, your Lordship 
 must give me a sitting for my collection. 
 
 To a young Lady who had been deaf and dumb through illness. 
 
 I am very happy to hear from you ; and if you will send 
 up your drawings to me, I will always correct them and send 
 them back. You shall have a drawing-book in a few days, as 
 soon as I have time to get it. Make yourself, my dear Eliza- 
 beth, mistress of drawing, because, though Cod has deprived 
 you of hearing, He has blessed you with sight, the greatest 
 blessing of all the senses ; and if you will cultivate drawing, 
 you will never have an irksome moment, and you will never 
 care about hearing. I assure you many people would be glad 
 to be deaf sometimes, they hear such disagreeable things. 
 You cannot put up your hands to your ears, for that would 
 
 I am, my dear Lord, ever truly yours, 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 My dearest Elizabeth, 
 
 19th October, 1841. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 427 
 
 be rude, but you can shut your eyes in a moment if you do not 
 like to see anything offensive. 
 
 I know a good man whom God has deprived of hearing; but 
 he had good eyes, and he studied drawing, and drew beauti- 
 fully, and he was the happiest man in the world, as you will be 
 the happiest woman, if you learn to draw. Don't draw non- 
 sense ; but draw the human head, and face, and eyes, and 
 then you will be able to draw your good papa and mamma, 
 and sister and brother, and that will make you and them very 
 happy. 
 
 Trust in God, my dear little friend, and pray to Him every 
 night and every morning, and feel grateful for the many bless- 
 ings you enjoy in spite of the one affliction He has been pleased 
 to give you. You will find, after all, that you will remember 
 Him more, and pray to Him oftener, and be more blessed than 
 other people who are able to hear everything — and yet forget 
 Him all their lives. 
 
 Kind regards to papa and mamma. 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 B. R. Haydox. 
 
 From Serjeant Talfoukd. 
 
 3, Serjeants' Inn, 23rd October, 1841. 
 
 I cannot refrain from expressing to you how much 
 gratified we were by the lecture your kindness afforded us the 
 opportunity of hearing last night on Sir David Wilkie. The 
 details of his early course, steeped in the feeling of old regard, 
 had a double interest from the subject and the relator, which I 
 have scarcely ever (if ever) felt on such an occasion ; and the 
 whole, full of instruction for students of Art, was no less affect- 
 ing and suggestive to us who are only worshippers in the outer 
 gate of the Temple. You did not want admirers, even from the 
 Academy, for Maclise, who sat next to us, expressed himself 
 exceedingly charmed by the entire lecture. 
 
 I hope that Sir Robert Peel, who I rejoice to find in friendly 
 communication with you, will take care that in the decoration 
 
 * Th's kindly hope was not realised. The derision of the Commission, of 
 which Sir K.ibert Peel was the leading n ember, set aside Huydoii (rum any 
 6hare in the decoration of the Houses of i'ailiament.— Eo. 
 
4:8 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 of the new Houses of Parliament with works of High British 
 Art, you shall have a fair scope for your genius ; and if he 
 should accomplish this, I shall be quite reconciled to all the 
 events which have made him what he is — and what, if his life 
 is spared, he will assuredly continue for many years. 
 
 Believe me, &c, 
 
 T. N. Talfourd. 
 
 Extmd from Mr. Harold Stanley, on German Cartoons. 
 
 Munich, 9th April, 1S42. 
 
 The Germans seek so little after peculiarity in the 
 execution of their work, or I should rather say manner, that 
 the process of each, with the slightest variation, is the same. 
 Their finished sketch of a composition is in lead- pencil. If for 
 a large work, they are of some considerable size. Kaulbach's, 
 for the ' Battle of the Huns,' was 5 feet ; for his ' Destruction 
 of Jerusalem,' 7 feet ; the figures being in this smaller, from 
 their number. Professor Hess's are not so large, but more 
 highly finished, and completely studied from nature, so that 
 from them his pupils can finish the cartoon, he having only to 
 retouch. In these sketches they give, with or without nature, 
 the intended expressive action and throw of drapery ; in other 
 words, the whole is composed to be afterwards corrected more 
 fully by nature in the large cartoon. Schnorr is the only 
 artist here w ho works his large cartoon from a slight scribble 
 sketch, merely for the position of the figure. Formerly he 
 employed the same means I have mentioned. He possesses an 
 inconceivable rapidity of execution. With the exception of 
 Hess, they all work their own cartoons. An outline is then 
 made from the sketch on the cartoon, and each individual 
 figure worked out, one by one, beginning, if the subject allows 
 it, of that figure or figures wherein the strongest interest lies ; 
 the character or quantity of the shadow being guided by the 
 sketch. The cartoon is worked in charcoal, shadows rubbed in 
 with a stump. Kaul bach, from his great correctness in draw ing, 
 is never satisfied until his lines are determined, always runs 
 over them with cou/e'-chalk, and sharpens at the same time 
 the various parts. 
 
 When the drawing is finished, it is steamed, and a tracing 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 429 
 
 of the whole is then made to be applied to the wall. A German 
 hardly ever designs the outline of even the most trifling thing 
 in any other material than charcoal, tracing with it the finest 
 possible line. When satisfied as to its correctness, he sketches 
 over it with a lead-pencil, rubbing in the shadows. They 
 make almost invariably all their studies with a lead-pencil. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Harold Stanley. 
 
 From Horatio Smith. 
 
 My DEAR HaYDON, Brighton, 23rd July, 1842. 
 
 I hope you continue in good health, with improved sight, 
 and your old energetic resolution to fight your way manfully 
 to the last, and leave a name behind you, if you had nothing 
 else to leave. For me, I feel that I am getting old both in 
 body and intellect, but I am thankful to say that I have no 
 serious ailments, and that my spirits are good. How time 
 runs out ! I have no recollection of your children except as 
 youngsters, and I am very glad to find that they promise so 
 well as they advance towards the active business of life. We 
 have had our struggles, Heaven knows ! but those of the rising 
 generation will be still more arduous, for they will have greater 
 competition and worse times to encounter. 
 
 Ever, dear Haydon, yours very truly, 
 
 Horatio Smith. 
 
 To his Sister, Mrs. Haviland. 
 
 My DEAR HARRIET, London, 28th October. 1842. 
 
 I have done my cartoon (' Adam and Eve '), and am on 
 ' Curtius.' I mean to paint my own head for him. As I have 
 never done this, I think it but fair. 
 
 I really feel uneasy about Art. Eastlake is so decidedly 
 German. The School of Design I founded has got into the 
 hands of two young men with German tendencies, who are 
 doing great mischief. I shall oppose it, and have begun. The 
 French make all mechanics draw and paint the figure first, and 
 then go to ornament. The Germans begin with ornament, and 
 then go to the figure. The French is the sound code, because 
 
430 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 the mechanics learn sound Art, and carry sound Art to orna- 
 mental Art ; while the Germans become corrupted by ornamental 
 Art, and carry bad taste to High Art. Yet in spite of the 
 evidence of the superiority of the French system, Eastlake 
 advised the German system to be adopted. In a few years, if 
 not checked, glare, flatness, hardness, and violence will take 
 the place of colour, harmony, reality, and nature in the English 
 School. 
 
 It is a dangerous thing to interfere, but interfere I must — 
 in the public interest and in the interest of Art. 
 
 To Eastlake. 
 
 My DEAR EASTLAKE, London, 31st October, 1842. 
 
 If you remain Secretary for the Commission another 
 year, your amiableness will go. What occasion was there for 
 you to write me such an irritable note ? * I went to see Hess's 
 picture, as you asked of me, and at once perceived the prin- 
 ciple which you have recently engrafted on your own style. 
 
 As you had previously belonged to the Council of the School 
 of Design, what trouble could it give you to tell me if you had 
 recommended Herbert as well as Dyce ? Because if you did, 
 there is surely some foundation for my fear that, with the very 
 best intentions for the taste of the country, you have a design 
 to engraft German Art on the rising youth, for both Dyce and 
 Herbert are German to the bone and marrow. You are also in 
 correspondence with Cornelius and Schnorr, and surely it is not 
 any insult to you to infer that you will take their advice, and 
 thus become, in spite of yourself, an instrument in their hands 
 to advance their sectarian doctrines. 
 
 My system of reform in our Art was to add what we wanted 
 without losing what we have. The German system is to abolish 
 what we have by substituting what we have not. 
 
 Every now and then, when I ask you a searching question, 
 you threaten me with a dissolution of intercourse. My dear 
 Eastlake, I am quite passive, and leave the decision to you. 
 
 The Art of my country and the elevation of the taste of its 
 people, have been the leading objects of my existence from my 
 
 * The nnte in question is missing, as well as the reply, although once wafered 
 into the Journal. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 43' 
 
 boyhood. For this I have sacrificed everything that could 
 advance my own personal interests in life ; and you may rely on 
 it, that having got the people s > far on the road, I shall be 
 ever alive and watchful to any danger which may render them 
 the victims of false theories and barbarian practice, under 
 whatever shelter they be put forth. 
 
 I am, dear Eastlake, yours truly, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Eastlake. 
 
 My DEAR EaSTLAKE, London, 4th November, 1842. 
 
 The question between us is, did you or did you not 
 recommend Herbert ? 
 
 You do not answer this question, but you evade it by saying 
 that I raise "a gratuitous assumption." If you did recommend 
 him, it is not a gratuitous assumption. If you did not, I will 
 admit my error and apologise. 
 
 You recommended Dyce as a teacher, and I say and will prove 
 that Dyce is vicious as an artist. I ask you if you recom- 
 mended Herbert, who is also vicious, though not to the same 
 degree, and you reply that I raise " false assumptions," but you 
 do not answer my question. 
 
 With respect to German Art, I wish to speak with all the re- 
 spect due to an illustrious school ; but I can admit of no palliation 
 for adopting, at a more advanced period of Art, a principle that 
 was only acted on in utter ignorance in a period of barbarism. 
 
 I will admit of no palliation for leaving out colour, light and 
 shadow, backgrounds, handling and seizing the leading points of 
 objects by a touch, leaving atmosphere to unite the abstraction. 
 
 I affirm that the highest quality of expression and form are 
 injured ly the omission, and are rendered duubly effectual by 
 the adoption. 
 
 I affirm that there is more drawing and comprehension of 
 mind in the mode of drawing a head as it is drawn by Velas- 
 quez, than in the ' Hero ' of Cornelius or a head of Hess. 
 
 As to the Germans speaking with " contempt of English Art," 
 is that any proof we deserve it ? My dear Eastlake, how can 
 you be so simple? They want employment over here. They 
 want a bit of English cake. Did you ever know a German, from 
 prince to peasant, who did not ? And if Cornelius and his fellow- 
 
432 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Germans can persuade the travelling English that we British 
 painters are unfit, or not capable to decorate our own Houses of 
 Parliament, they may succeed in getting a slice. But it is not 
 the less our duty to resist any such attempt. 
 
 To conclude ; I think you have done English Art great injury 
 by your recommendation of Mr. Dyce to his post at the School 
 of Design ; and if Herbert came also under your advice, you 
 have increased that injury. 
 
 With regard to your report, we are all very much indebted 
 to you for the valuable materials you have collected, only 
 "forget not England's precedence" of teaching nations how to 
 paint as well as to govern and fight ; and believe me a mau 
 may yet " be wise, and never see the Louvre." 
 
 Believe me yours affectionately, 
 
 B. E. Haydojt. 
 
 From Eastlake. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, Thursday, 17tn November. 
 
 Thanks for the ticket of your syllabus of lectures. 
 Success to all your rational views. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 C. L. Eastlake. 
 
 From Haydon to Eastlake. 
 
 London, 18th November. 
 
 You dog! I have no irrational views. I love my 
 country's glory more than I do my life. 
 
 I claim for it the same opportunity to raise a name in Art 
 by State employment as the German artists did for Germany 
 when their State employment spread its blessings upon them. 
 
 I see no right that they have to intrude upon us when we 
 are in a progressive state, and only want from our Government 
 that which they get from their own. 
 
 You wish success to my rational views ; I wish confusion to 
 your German ones (if you hold any). 
 
 But, my dear Eastlake, let Art never make any difference 
 between us. I lament in Art there is not the same breeding 
 as in politics. 
 
B. R. II AY DON. 
 
 433 
 
 Politics in public life make no difference in piivate friend- 
 ship, nor ought politics in Art. 
 
 I a,m always yours, 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 To Tm Sister, Mrs. Havit.and. 
 
 (No date), 1812. 
 
 I have had a kind letter from Eastlake, but still I fear 
 I have been slighted. Of all — Hussey, Barry, West, Reynolds — 
 I am certainly the man who sacrificed everything, and by keep- 
 ing the subject of public employment for painters before tbe 
 public, have at length brought matters to their present state. 
 i\Iy theory at least is admitted to be correct, and practical 
 effect is about to be given to it ; yet my pupil is examined and 
 I am omitted. The fact is, tribunals on Art in England are 
 timid for want of knowledge. They have not the energy to 
 act at once ; but are always putting off the responsibility of 
 placing confidence in any one man, fearing to give any one man 
 a chance of great distinction ; and most of all fearing to give 
 me such a chance, because if they were to give it to me, what 
 can they say for rejecting and neglecting me for so long ? 
 Eight and thirty years have I been in the Art, and out of those 
 years for thirty two years I have had no commissions; and now, 
 after telling me for eight and thirty years that I am wrong, 
 they find out that I am right 1 I wait for the report, and then 
 be assured if I am not done justice to, I will come down with 
 my sledge-hammer of iron truths. Sir Robert Peel may be my 
 friend, and may intend lo do me right, but is it not a disgrace 
 to expect me to descend into the arena at fifty-six years of 
 age, and to contend for a prize ? I, too, who have painted 
 'Solomon,' and ' Jerusalem,' and 'Lazarus' ! but to give me a 
 commission, oh, no ! that would offend the Boyal Academy ; 
 it would be flying in their faces; and how can I expect justice 
 if 1 do compete ? Who is to bestow it ? I competed for the 
 Nelson competition (which ended in the present wretched 
 monument) ; and although everybody, even Westmacott, said 
 that my plan of combining painting with architecture was the 
 le.-t, yet I had no chance. 
 
 Now ought I, with all this prejudice against me, risk my 
 reputation a second time ? Do write and give me your well- 
 
 vol. L 2 F 
 
CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 weighed opinion on the propriety of competing or not with the 
 cartoons. 
 
 Ever your affectionate brother, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From Elizabeth Barrett (Browning). 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 My intention was to return by your messenger, when he 
 should come for the picture, some expression of my sense of 
 your very great kindness in trusting it with me, together with 
 this sonnet, but having since heard from my sister that it may 
 be almost as long as I wish (no ! it can't be so long) before you 
 send such a messenger, I cannot defer thanking you beyond 
 to-day, lest you should fancy me either struck dumb with the 
 pleasure you conferred, or still worse, born an ungrateful 
 person. 
 
 Pray, dear Sir, believe how different is the reality from the 
 last supposition. 
 
 I have indeed looked at your picture until I lost my obli- 
 gation to you in my admiration of your work, but in no 
 other way have I been ungrateful. How could I be so? 
 I have seen the great poet who "reigns over us" twice, 
 face to face, and by you 1 see him the third time. You have 
 brought me Wordsworth and Helvellyn into this dark and 
 solitary room. How should I not thank you? Judge for 
 yourself, Mr. Haydon. 
 
 But you will judge the Sonnet, too, and will probably 
 not acquit it. It confesses to speaking unworthily and 
 weakly the feeling of its writer, but she is none the less your 
 obliged 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett. 
 
 T.S. — A letter from our mutual dear friend, Miss Mitford, 
 says that Mr. Lucas had been talking to her rapturously of 
 your cartoon, the cartoon which I have seen with my ears. 
 
 Mrs. Browning's Sonnet on IIayeon's Picture of Wordsworth, 1842. 
 
 «* Wordsworth upon Helvelljn! Let the cloud 
 Ebb audibly along the mountain wind, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 435 
 
 Then break against the rock, and show behind 
 The lowland vallies floating up to crowd 
 The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed 
 And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined 
 Before the sovran thoughts of his own mind, 
 And very meek with inspirations proud; 
 Takes here his rightful place as Poet-Priest 
 By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer 
 To the yet higher heavens. A vision free 
 And noble, Haydon, hath thine art releast. 
 No portrait this with academic air! 
 This is the poet and his poetry." 
 
 From Sir Samuel Meyrick. 
 
 Goodrich Ourt. Ross, Hereford, 
 SlE, 4th February, 18 13. 
 
 Several years have elapsed since I had the pleasure of 
 seeing you, but your great talents live in my memory ; I am 
 therefore anxious to return such sort of answers to your queries 
 as most fully suit your purpose. 
 
 This will oblige me to refer to contemporary writers in order 
 that you may have good authorities, which I will do as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 This, therefore, is merely to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 letter, and to assure you that I will pay due attention to its 
 contents. 
 
 I remain, Sir, &c, 
 
 Saml. Meykick. 
 
 From Sir Samuel Meyrick. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, 6th February, 1843. 
 
 I cannot give you the full information I could have 
 wished, because I have neither Knighton nor Murimuth in 
 whose annals are the particulars of the scene you intend to 
 represent. Froissart I have searched diligently, but he does 
 not notice the procession through London. 
 
 You may certainly have the street, but not in the modern 
 style, with foot pavements at the side. It must be like one in 
 a French town, with a couple of gutters, or one in middle, as 
 at Eouen, for instance, and the houses in the old style, with 
 gables. 
 
 Although of much later da'e, the print by Vertue, publihhed 
 
 2 f 2 
 
436 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 by the Society of Antiquaries of the procession of Edward VI., 
 through the city, will give you some idea how the hangings 
 and tapestry were arranged ; and I dare say Colnaghi could 
 show you other unobjectionable authorities. Please to read 
 ' Lingard's Descriptive History of England.' Svo. ed., vol. 4, 
 pp. It 6. He says that the King of France was on a cream- 
 coloured charger, with magnificent trappings. Turner, in his 
 'History of England,' says, "a white courser," but as both 
 mention the trappings, I think unless you find anything to the 
 contrary in the authors mentioned on the other side, you would 
 be justified in putting him in armour. The trappings, I con- 
 ceive, would be a housing of sky-blue, powdered with gold 
 fleur-de-lys. King John's jupon of the same, which may be 
 partly hid by a cloak, if you choose. Turner says, the Black 
 Prince was on a small black pony, with nothing to distinguish 
 him. I should therefore advise you to dress him like Stot- 
 hard's monumental effigy (the ornament of which is rubbed 
 away from the breast) of William of Hatfield. Put a sword in 
 his military girdle, but none to that of the King of France. 
 
 You will find representations of John, King of France, in 
 Monfaucon's ' Monarchie Francaise,' but the armour of both 
 countries was alike. 
 
 I would recommend you to buy a little book which formed 
 one of the library of entertaining knowledge, published by 
 Knight, Ludgate Street, for about 4s. 6d., and probably at 
 other booksellers now to be had for less, the 'History of 
 British Costume,' by Planche. This will give you authorities 
 in all cases, and may be fully relied on. 
 
 Wishing I could do better as bellows-blower to an excellent 
 performer, 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, truly yours, 
 
 Saml. Meyrick. 
 
 From Sir Samuel Meyrick. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Goodrich Court, 7th February, 1S43. 
 
 Most certainly you may, and ought to put chimneys, not 
 with chimney-pots, as at present ; and I should think your 
 buildings ought to be timber-houses, like those in Coventry 
 and Chester. 
 
 I find I have Murimuth bound as a 2nd vol. to Twist, and so 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 437 
 
 lettered. Not a word does he say beyond the arrival of John in 
 England in 1357, so that Knighton is the only author you need 
 examine. Gower would be twenty-seven years of age in 1357, 
 and Chaucer about seventeen or eighteen, as on his legal 
 examination as a witness in 1386 he states himself to be forty 
 years and upwards. 
 
 I think you had better ask Colnaghi to show you a sketch 
 by Kerricke, of the equestrian statue of Bernabo Visconte, 
 Duke of Milan, as the leather trappings of the horse would be 
 authority for you for the Black Prince's, and as he is in armour 
 without his bassinet and camail, you might so attire John 
 putting a cap on his head which you might find in Flanche. 
 This etching would also show you the form of the saddle. If you 
 wish to put the King of France in a robe of peace, unless 
 Knighton says to the contrary, you would be at perfect liberty 
 to do so, but take care that the illumination in the British 
 Museum be of your date, for there is not one copy of Froissart 
 there that is : 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 Saml. Mevuick. 
 
 From Sir Samuel Meyi!ick. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Goodrich Court, 7th February, 1813. 
 
 You have acted a hazardous part in encouraging me to 
 write, now you have taught me how to get such pretty sketches. 
 Nothing can be better than the last you have sent me, and if 
 you like you can put on John a short cloak that would float 
 away behind, as you will find an authority for the same in 
 Montfaucon. As he appears not so much a prisoner as an 
 honoured guest, his head should have some covering, as a light 
 hood, or a cap with a single feather (ostrich), put upright in 
 the front, and bent back by the wind. In this last sketch of 
 the Black Prince you have obviated my objection about the 
 camail, and the positions of both horse and rider are spirited in 
 the extreme. John was at this period aged thirty-eight and 
 the Black Prince twenty-seven. 
 
 How capitally you have given the idea of the head of the 
 horse for John ! and you have very correctly ornamented his 
 bridle. There is a fine noble dignity that exactly coincides 
 with what you have written. 
 
43? 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 I can give you no idea of a City Emblem. The banner of 
 the citizens was St. George's Cross without the sword in the first 
 quarter, which, as you know, was added in the ensuing reign. 
 
 As yours is a grand procession, and not a hunting match, 
 there would be no impropriety in putting the French kin"- in 
 shoes instead of boots. The custom of so riding on grand oc- 
 casions was continued to a much later period. 
 
 Both your figures should have the dagger at the girdle. See 
 Stothard's 'Monumental Effigies' for the mode of suspending it. 
 
 I don't know whether or not the directions of the funeral 
 procession of the Black Prince, given by himself in his last 
 Will, may be of any use to you ; but they seem to me so very 
 curious that I hazard their insertion. Of course, the armorial 
 bearings of peace you cannot introduce, they being intended 
 only for the tournament. 
 
 " And we will see that two coursers, covered with our arms, 
 and two men, armed in our arms and in our helmets " (one for 
 the tournament and the other for war), " shall go before our 
 said body : that is to say, the one for war with our arms 
 quartered, and the other for peace with our badges of ostrich 
 feathers, with four banners of the same suit: and that every 
 one of those who bear the said banners shall have a chapeau of 
 our arms, and that he who shall be armed for war shall have a 
 man armed bearing after him a black pennon with ostrich 
 feathers." 
 
 I remain, truly yours, 
 
 Saml. Meyiuck. 
 
 P.S. — I am a good deal of the opinion you express, " au secret, 
 mais nous verrons." 
 
 From Sir Samuel Meyiuck. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Goodrich Court, 11th February, 1843. 
 
 I was about to thank you for your very clever and 
 spirited sketch, and to assure you that no one should see it, 
 when your letter of the 7th was put into my hand. It appears 
 to me that you are quite at liberty to dress the figures either 
 in the garments of peace or war, as best suits your composition, 
 and the authority you mention for John of France seems the 
 very best possible. It may be worth your while to look into 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 439 
 
 Johne's translation of Froissart, as Turner quotes him alone, 
 chap, clxxiii. pp. 368-70, though I have examined the French 
 original in vain. It is Lingarcl who gives Murimuth and 
 Knighton as his authorities. 
 
 I am not surpri ed that you have found in Lord Willoughby's 
 stud a horse to yuur purpose, for I remember some years back 
 he used to drive a splendid animal in his cab that had quite 
 the character of a fine charger. The moment my eyes met your 
 speaking sketch, the idea flashed on my mind that the cartoon 
 was intended for the new Parliament House. I am glad to find 
 my conjecture realised, as I now know that there will at least 
 be one good picture for posterity. Last year I was at Versailles 
 to view the historic series there so much boasted of. I saw 
 nothing of the first class ; some pretty good, and the rest 
 colour and canvas. In May I hope to be in London, and 
 should my time admit, will have the pleasure of calling upon 
 you. May I take the liberty ? 
 
 The camail is far more picturesque as you have drawn it 
 than as represented on the monumental effigies. In these it 
 seems to form an unnatural line, but I take it there was 
 buckram within, as then the space between it and the neck 
 would allow it to give with a cut, and thus be less likely to be 
 severed. Can't you do something between ? 
 
 Depend on it, there is much more general interest in subjects 
 of the Middle Ages' than in those of classic times. All people 
 are not acquainted with the latter, and the costume varies but 
 little, though I admit all you say of the naked in works of art. 
 
 In any historic event connected with Scotland you have as 
 great an advantage as if you copied from the Roman Legion- 
 aries. So with the Ancient Britons; and this makes me 
 wonder that the 'Landing of Julius Ca?sar,' so picturesquely 
 described by himself, has never been sketched for the easel. 
 This should be the commencement of our historic series. 
 
 I beg you will apply to me whenever you think I can be 
 of service, for this is the only way I can hope to benefit the 
 art of which I am passionately fond, and if, in a more genial 
 season of the year, you wish to paint from actual armour, the 
 collection here, I think, you will not find of less value than 
 that in the Tower. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 Saml. Meykick. 
 
-140 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 To his Sister, Mrs. Haviland. 
 
 12th July, 1843. 
 
 I assure you the cartoons are an honour to the country 
 and to the British School. But the ' Landing of Caesar,' by 
 Armitage,* is a glaring instance of defective proportion and 
 drawing; and coming from the French School is extraordinary. 
 The English now decidedly draw better. All the young men 
 ye&terday crowded about me, and said, " This is your doing" 
 It was an honour to their hearts, and it is true, for to no man 
 are they more indebted than to me. 
 
 From Charles L. Wigram, on the Death of Rumdhr. 
 
 SlR, Dresden, 28th July, 1843. 
 
 I address these few lines to you, believing that it will 
 bo preferable to you to -hear from a certain source the intelli- 
 gence of the death of a person in whom you felt interest, 
 rather than read it in the newspapers. 
 
 Baron Kumohr of Lubec expired here on the 25th inst. 
 
 During the last eighteen months I was in an almost uninter- 
 rupted exchange of friendly intercourse with him, and read 
 several letters from you addressed to him, as he was un- 
 accustomed to read English writing. 
 
 His disorder was water on the chest. Two years since he 
 had a fit in Copenhagen, the effects of which greatly impaired 
 his speech, and he here had attacks somewhat similar, but from 
 which he rallied quickly. Some vexatious circumstances, 
 1 hough trifling in themselves, have very likely accelerated his 
 death ; he had much vexation about a house he had purchased 
 in Lubec ; and in Berlin, where he was part of last winter, the 
 king requested his opinion of some purchases made in Italy 
 by Dr. Waagen. 
 
 Rumour took me with him to see them, and urged me to 
 support their merit. "Everyone here knows you have been 
 long in Italy, and will value what you say ; remember that the 
 thing must be supported." 
 
 * Mr. Aimitage was a pupil of De la Roche, and according to my father's 
 account was purposely brought over by tlie lato Earl of Eilesinere to compete 
 wiih the EnglL-h students —En. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 41 r 
 
 It is certainly singular tliat Dr. Waagen should have made 
 such incredible mistakes ; but three copies, one purchased by 
 him as an original Correggio ; the copy of a known picture by 
 Rubens ; another copy of a portrait by Rubens, purchased as a 
 Paul Veronese ; and a copy of Claude Lorraine for an original, 
 are among the number. 
 
 Besides which, with the exception of very few indeed, Dr. 
 Waagen's purchases by no means merited a place in the 
 Museum, or indeed in anj 7 collection of merit. 
 
 Rumohr was much vexed that he could not meet the wishes 
 of the king by upholding them, and he left Berlin. 
 
 He came hither on his way to Toplitz, where, after six 
 weeks' discomfort rather than severe suffering, he expired sud- 
 denly on the 25th July. His age was about 6J. 
 
 I first made his acquaintance here about twelve years since. 
 
 The impression I had received, from what was said about 
 him, was that his religious principles were those of infidelity. 
 A long conversation which I had with him in Lubec, I am 
 thankful to say, satisfied my mind on this point. He never 
 concealed his opinion when asked, and if he spoke the con- 
 viction of his mind on this point he was decidedly a Christian 
 in the true acceptation of the word. 
 
 I have intruded longer on you than I purposed. Pray accept 
 my excuses, and 
 
 Believe me, Sir, <vc, 
 
 Charles L. Wig ram. 
 
 From the Secretary of Lord Nelson. 
 
 DEAR SlR, Brighton, llth October, 1843. 
 
 I shall be most happy to give you all the information 
 in my power relative to the Copenhagen affair, especially the 
 circumstances attending that important event, the sending on 
 shore in the midst of the action Lord Nelson's celebrated note 
 addressed to the " Brothers of Englishmen, the Danes." 
 
 Lord Nelson wrote the note at the casing of the rudder head, 
 and as he wrote I took a copy, both of us standing. The 
 original was put in an envelope and sealed with his arms. At 
 first I was going to secure it with a wafer, but he would not 
 allow this to be done, observing that it " must be sealed," or 
 
442 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 the enemy " would think it was written and sent on shore in a 
 hurry." The man I sent below for a light never returned, 
 having been killed on his way. 
 
 To the best of my recollection the admiral wore a plain, 
 blue, sort of great coat, without epaulettes or gold lace, but on 
 his breast were his several orders, and he wore a plain cocked- 
 hat. 
 
 Civilians in those days were not required to wear a uniform. 
 My dress was a plain blue coat, blue trousers, with a white 
 kerseymere waistcoat. 
 
 The decks, as you observe, were perfectly clear fore and aft, 
 and the place where the note was written was on the extreme 
 after part of the ship. Captain Foley commanded the 
 ' Elephant.' Captain Thesiger, to the best of my remembrance 
 held no command, but was merely a volunteer on board Sir 
 Hyde Parker's flag-ship, and in consequence of his knowledge 
 of Copenhagen and the Danish language he was considered the 
 fittest officer to be entrusted with the flag of truce. 
 
 I shall be very glad to see you on Wednesday, and shall be 
 delighted to give you any further information. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Thus. Wallis. 
 
 From Haydon au I\£dacteur du ' Journal des Dehats.' 
 Monsieur, 
 
 L'article de M. Delescluze sur la grande composition de 
 M. Delaroche au Palais des Beaux-Arts a vivement fixe mon 
 attention. L'auteur est un homme de beaucoup de talent, et 
 ses remarques sur l'etat de l'art en France sont egalement 
 applicables a l'art en Angleterre. II deplore avec raison qu'a 
 Paris les jeunes gens soient tous des maitres isoles et indepen- 
 dants do tout controle, et que l'usage de cinq on six chefs 
 guidant et dirigeant des ecoles soit tombe en desuetude, de 
 sortc qu'il n'y a plus dans la decoration des edifices publics 
 cette unite qui regnait autrefois dans ces travaux quand i!s 
 avaient une seule direction. 
 
 L'ouvrage recent de M. Delaroche est une exception. Je 
 connais bien le genie de ce peintre et l'admire beaucoup, 
 ayant souvent vu les deux tableaux qu'il a points pour le Due 
 de Sutherland et Lord Egerton. J'espere aller voir bientot sa 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 44-3 
 
 nouvelle ceuvre au Palais cles Beaux- Arts. D'apres l'examen 
 que j'en ai lu dans votre journal, je prends la liberty sans 
 pretendre imposer mon opin'on a vos lectenrs, de remarquer 
 qu'a mon avis M. Delamche a ete injuste en placant Apelles 
 sur le trone et Phidias a son cote. 
 
 Le grand peintre monumental de la Grece etait Polygnotos, 
 et non Apelles. Apelles etait le Titien et non pas le Baphael 
 de son temps. Ses ouvrages etaient des figures et des portraits 
 parfaitenn nt finis, mais non de grandes ceuvres nationales 
 comme le Vatican. Apelles etait le precurseur de la de'cadence, 
 comme Test toujoursun talent aussi acheve. Polygnotos a ete le 
 grand inventeur, le grand compositeur epique : il a peiut un 
 cycle a Delphes, un antre a Thesp'es, le Poidile et les Propylecs 
 a Athenes. Le conseil des Amphictyons avuit de rete qu'il seiait 
 entn tenuauxfrais flu peuple et il offrit gratuitement ses oeuvres 
 a son pays. C'etait un genie digne de Phidias : c'etait la 
 1'homme qui devait etre mis sur le trone, et non pas Apelles, 
 un peintre de portraits fashionaliles, qui composait dt s Venus, 
 mais qui n'etait pas un cieateur fecond dans le grand style. 
 
 Je me permets done de protester contre l'injustice faite a 
 Polygnotos par un lion me aussi eminent que Delaroehe, 
 esperant que vous voudrez bien donner ]>lace a ma piot> station 
 dans votre journal. 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 Un arti>te eminmt, qui tient le premier rang parmi les 
 peintres en Angleterre, M. Haydon, nous adresse,, au sujet du 
 beau travail que M. Paul Dtlaroche vient de te: miner au 
 Palais cles Beaux-Arts, les observations precedentes, que nous 
 nous sommes empresses de reproduire. 
 
 To Ms Son Fkederic, H.M.S. 'Penelope* 
 
 MY DEAB FKEDERIC, I-ondon, 14th March, 1844. 
 
 You must never believe in the " croakers." There are 
 plenty of them in every profession. In the army and navy 
 they seem to abound. A certain class of men could not exist 
 without "croaking." I have lived in the world now more 
 than half a century, and I never remember any period of my 
 life at which I was not assured by these people that England 
 had seen her best days, and her decline had set in. My dear 
 
4M 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 boy, if you live another fifty years you will hear the same 
 story constantly repeated, and you will see what I see, your 
 glorious country higher and greater than ever. The sun of 
 England is only just rising above the horizon. The fools, to 
 think that because of some passing cloud the glory of England 
 was to set ! The people of England are the greatest people on 
 earth ; and in proportion as they acquire knowledge and 
 skill, they will improve their machinery and appliances, extend 
 their commerce, and increase their capital. England is wealthy 
 and numerous now. In fifty years her wealth and numbers 
 will be quadrupled. You have no conception of the energy 
 and enterprise of the great nation to which you belong, and of 
 the vast future before it. 
 
 There are many dangers I admit ; but by giving the people 
 a sound education and training — and by the people I mean the 
 nobility and middle classes quite as much as the working 
 classes, for if anything the nobility want it most — we may 
 escape them. But never despair of your country. Progress 
 is slow ; but provided it be not checked by foolish laws or too 
 many laws, it is certain to advance in the right direction. The 
 only things I see likely to inflict injury upon us are the neglect 
 of sound education, and the giving political power to the 
 people before they are prepared to receive it. If ever that be 
 done, you will have trouble in England for a period, and 
 perhaps a great struggle. The fierce democratic hatred of 
 superiority, which lies hid beneath the surface of their labour 
 in the hearts of the working classes, may some day, if not 
 wisely provided for by education, bring about a state of things 
 which I do not like to think of. But yet there is in the 
 English people such a solid substratum of good sense, that 
 follies of that kind would soon work their own cure. But pre- 
 vention is better than cure. 
 
 You are quite right to read history; make yourself master 
 of the histories of Greece and Borne. The English people are 
 in many respects not unlike the Athenians without their Art, 
 and like the Romans without their profligacy. Bead your 
 Bible daily. There is no more interesting book in the world ; 
 and it is becoming more necessary to read it and study it, 
 because I already perceive a tendency among our scientific 
 men, in all their pride of knowledge and what they call dis- 
 covery, to set the Bible aside as an Oriental legend. Do 
 
PartraU of Haydons Wife 
 IH17 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 445 
 
 not believe them. The Mosaic account of the Creation 
 is the most simple and the most natural, and will be found, 
 you may rely on it, 'confirmed by science, when science has 
 got down to the real facts. Generalisation, founded on our 
 present knowledge of the laws of nature, is the very thing 
 which our present acquaintance with those laws does not 
 justify. 
 
 1 am convinced that no thoroughly established and settled 
 scientific theory will be found to contradict the truths revealed 
 in the Bible. But you are too young yet for me to enter 
 further upon this subject. 1 only tell you of it to put you on 
 your guard. You will find many men, old and grown-up men, 
 who will laugh at the Bible. Don't believe them. Mathe- 
 matics are all very well ; but the differential calculus, my dear 
 boy, can never prove or disprove the existence of God. Bead 
 your Bible, do your duty, and leave the rest to God. 
 
 Ever your affectionate father, 
 
 B. R. Hayuon. 
 
 To Ms Wife. 
 
 Liverpool, 1st April, 1844. 
 
 Poor old Winstanley, Dr. Frekleton and others when 
 building their gallery took me over to show to me as a wonder- 
 ful thing, and it certainly was, for they had so placed the light, 
 at the sides instead of in the middle, that no picture could ever 
 be seen. I pointed this defect out to them and to their aichi- 
 tpct, but he laughed at my objections, fiuished the roof, and 
 brought in the pictures. Not one could be seen. Ashamed of 
 his blunder and of spending so much money, they applied to 
 me for a plan and I sketched one for them and referred them 
 fuither to the Borter House at Rugby as the true method of 
 lighting a picture gallery. Three hundred pounds more were 
 collected, the roof altered so as to place the light in the middle, 
 and now the pictures are seen to perfection. 
 
 The other day when going through their gallery once more 
 to see the effect of my suggestions, 1 was much amused to hear 
 first one, and then the other, boast to me that they had "always 
 said so," &c. 
 
 It is the same at Manchester among a certain set. They 
 actually serve up my own lectures to me as their own original 
 
446 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 thoughts. I suppose every wr'ter has to subm't to this at 
 t in s. but the effect at first is startling: you doubt your own 
 individuality for a moment. In future'' I will communicate 
 with nobody privately. If a body want information, the body 
 shall apply for it. Now the old foxes come to me piivately, 
 obtain from me all they want, and then bring forward, as their 
 own plan, that whi -h I have furnished them with. 
 
 I have been much amused to see that som <>. of tlie-e profound 
 gentlemen at their gallery has attributed to Guido a copy of 
 Raphael's Venus in his Cupid and Psyche. I shall say not a word, 
 and somebody by-and-by will find it out, and their profundity 
 will receive a fall. This is unchristian, but I really cannot 
 help it. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to his Wife. 
 
 Liverpool, 3rd April, 1844. 
 I lodged last week with a poor widow at Manchester 
 who was one of the few saved from the wreck of the ' Rothsay 
 Castle ' steamer in 1831.* Out of the 1M3 passengers 110 
 were drowned. She and her husband got fast to a spar with 
 rigging attached to it. He died and hung entangled in the 
 ropes, and for eleven hours she floated about in the sea with 
 his dead body under her eyes. She was at last rescued by a 
 boat. Do you not recollect the case ? The steamer was on an 
 excursion to the Welsh coast with a party of pleasure. If you 
 talk to her about it, the expression of her face becomes 
 piercingly keen, as if she saw her husband's ghastly corpse 
 before her. She says she saw him die but was too weak to 
 help him. His body was taken up with her. She says she 
 often dreams of the shriek of the passengers when the ship 
 parted in two, and about fifty were swept under at once. Good 
 God, what an awful moment ! 
 
 Manchester, 9th April, 1844. 
 
 Only think of what has happened. I had established 
 here, as you know, a school of design, with the figure as the 
 basis. Some time since, again influenced by those obstinate 
 ignoramuses in London, the council here allowed itself to be 
 
 * The 'Rothsay Castle' was wrecked on Puffin Island, off Beaumaris, 17th 
 AugUft 1831. (Since this \w\ck a lighthouse had been constructed on the S.W. 
 front.— Ed, 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 447 
 
 persualed to abolish the figure. The young men behaved 
 admirably well. They met together, subscribed, and continued 
 the figure privately, and waited for my coining down. Now 
 that I have arrived they have brought me their drawings, 
 which are admirable for their accuracy, breadth and finish. 
 This is going on like the early Christians. Persecution like 
 this will make the thing. These councils and pupils are doing 
 here what is being done by councils and pupils in many of the 
 great towns at which I have lectured. Such is the baneful and 
 mischievous influenceof that blot of centralised ignorance in 
 London, the moment my back is turned they seek to undo all 
 the good I have done. But if the young men only remain sound, 
 and continue to draw the figure, those gentlemen in London 
 will one day be brought to acknowledge their error. It is 
 pitiable to find such obstinacy and ignorance, wilf id intentional 
 ignorance, of what is for this great country's good, in high 
 places. 
 
 To R. Greswell, Esq. 
 
 MY DEAE SlE, London, 14th April, 1841. 
 
 Permit me to congratulate you on your manly speech 
 at the Artists' Fund Dinner. That is the way to speak out ; you 
 have advanced the cause immensely, and I have no fear of its 
 ultimate success. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, yours respectfully, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Chaeles Baeey. 
 
 My DEAE BAEEY, London, 26th April, 1844. 
 
 I have seen the octagon room, the robing room, 
 corridor, and all the rooms and halls rising up where brick 
 preparations for frescoes were being made, and I wish to state 
 to you my opinion as follows : — 
 
 1. It must be admitted that all fresco decorations should look 
 as if they had been conceived by the architect when he first 
 designed his plan, and not as if subsequently invented and 
 forced in. 
 
 2. The boundary of each fresco decoration should be the 
 
448 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 actual architectural boundary of the space, and not an arbitrary- 
 division, which is not necessarily a part of the building, and 
 should be able to exist as a component part, if decoration were 
 absent altogether. 
 
 3. It must be admitted that fresco decoration should look 
 as much a portion of the building as the columns on the 
 stone. 
 
 These are my three leading points in the admission of fresco 
 in any building — Gothic, Greek, Italian, or Byzantine. 
 
 The moment frescoes are made square, or upright, or circular, 
 or angular, unless each shape is an actual part of the archi- 
 tectural plan, they look not like decorative portions, but like 
 pictures in a gallery. 
 
 On this ground I objected to Nash's drawings of the entrance 
 chamber, where a series of small square frescoes took away 
 entirely all idea of commeniorat.ve design. Now pray, my 
 dear Sir, get rid of all shapes which are not flat portions under 
 pointed arches, and bounded by them. Spaces regulated only 
 by the actual shape of the actual arch give a grand air of 
 series, and would give a spring to the design of the country. 
 But, be assured, unless all your spaces for fresco be enlarged by 
 heightening, as it is impossible to widen, you will be dis- 
 appointed in the result and so will the country.* 
 
 Now, remember, I am cursed with the gift of prophecy, and 
 the attendant curse of never being believed till it is too late. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To R. Gresswell, Esq. 
 
 Mr DEAR SlR, London, 27th April, 1844. 
 
 If I had waited for "the hearty concurrence of the 
 Royal Academy " what would have become of the Elgin 
 Marbles? What of decoration of the Houses? What of 
 Schools of Design? 
 
 No, my clear Sir, you must do what is wanted in spite of the 
 " hearty opposition " of that body, or you will do nothing. 
 
 The Roynl Academy, as it is constituted, ever has been, and 
 ever will be, a millstone round the neck of the people and the 
 
 * This prediction has certainly been verified. — Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 449 
 
 nobility of this country, and a stubborn and perverse obstruc- 
 tion to the advance of High Art. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, truly yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydox. 
 
 To Eastlake. 
 
 MY DEAR EASTLAKE, London, 8th May, 1S44. 
 
 One arch of the Royal Exchange is done. Sang has 
 gone to Munich to bring over a host. His assistant re- 
 mains behind at work, frescoing the second arch, with three 
 pupils. 
 
 If they had known me I should have been thrown over. 
 The work is hideous, and the Exchange will be one large and 
 varied Turkey carpet.* 
 
 In the walk of the Exchange there are flat spaces 10 feet by 
 6, where might have been painted in fresco a series of beautiful 
 designs illustrating our great commercial rise and prosperity. 
 All will now be dotted with galvanised squares, spasmodic 
 angles, and sickly flowers. 
 
 If this man only knew the forms of men, animals, and plants, 
 he might be a reasonable decorator. 
 
 Owing to the influence of exhibitions the old connection 
 between artist, sculptor, and architect is gone out. The 
 artist is no longer thought of as a public character. He is 
 never required to give in his estimates like the two other 
 professions, and when he is employed, it is as a mechanic. 
 
 I fear your official position precludes that spirit and search- 
 ing alertness which is necessary to save the profession from 
 being the laughing-stock of Europe ; but I beg to say, if 
 I had been in your position, no German, without vigorous 
 opposition, should have profaned the walls of the Royal 
 Exchange. 
 
 It is lamentable. 
 
 I am, my dear Eastlake, ever yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 * "When it was proposed to the Committee of the Royal Exchange to decorate 
 the Wiills by a srries of pictures in fresco, illustrating tue rise and progress of our 
 Commerce, their reply was, " We don't want a picture gallery."— Ed. 
 
 VOL. L 2 G 
 
45o 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 Extract from a Letter of Gibson. 
 
 London, 20th May, 1814. 
 
 ... It is now twenty-seven years since I waited upon you on 
 my way to Rome. There I have been always learning and 
 practising my Art, surrounded by powerful rivals from different 
 nations. This is my first visit to England since my departure, 
 and for several days I have been on the point of paying my 
 respects to you. 
 
 I shall have the pleasure of going to see your eel brat ed 
 pictures to-morrow, and then .1 shall have the pleasure of 
 waiting on you. 
 
 .Believe me, truly yours, 
 
 Joun Gibson. 
 
 From Lord Hardwjck. 
 
 Buckingham Palace, 5th June, 1S44. 
 
 I find the Emperor (Nicolas) is so pressed on all sides in 
 various ways, which, together with the short time he remains 
 in this country, that 1 am unwilling to interfere in any 
 way. But I venture to throw out the idea to you that Baron 
 Brnnnow or Count Orloff would be very j, roper persons to 
 apply to. 
 
 Boron Brunnow is at Ashbnrton House, and Count Orloff in 
 the Palace. 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 Hardwick.* 
 
 From the Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 Sir, 12th June, 1S44. 
 
 I am sorry that I cannot comply. You well know that 
 I am not desirous of augmenting my collection of pictures, and 
 I decline, with much regret, but decidedly, to authorise the 
 execution of your attractive idea. As I would rather you should 
 
 * Tim Emperor Nicolas while visiting (lie Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick 
 held a Court under the crdar-tree nenr the house. Haydnn, who was present, 
 struck with the heautv of the scene, asked leave of the Duke to paint it. The 
 Duke of Devonshire being a Whig, and by way of being a friend to the Poles, 
 appears to have thought Havdou's view of the " attractive idea," a little incon- 
 venient.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 45' 
 
 not execute the scene you propose I must refuse to give any 
 facilities towards it. 
 
 Believe me, yours, &c, 
 
 Devonshire. 
 
 From Bell, the Sculptor. 
 
 DEAR PlR, Hopton, Great Yaimouth, 5th July, 1844. 
 
 I feel most gratified at your exceeding high p raise (my 
 statue) of ' Jane Shore.' ' Laudari a laudato viro ' is a great 
 honour, and I well know the value of your approbation ; and 
 forgive me if I say also that I am much gratified by the kind- 
 ness and liberality which has induced you to let me know of it 
 in your own handwriting. 
 
 Art should have its freemasonry, but it is not in every case 
 we find it felt. I assure you my own feeling on placing the 
 ' Jane Shore ' in the hall was that of disappointment, for I 
 thought neither the light or position suited it, and this feeling 
 I retained until I received your letter. I cannot very well say 
 what my price is for it, as I have no safe-mould of it, and I 
 make it a rule never to part with my original models. 
 
 I hope I may have the pleasure of making your acquaintance 
 on my return to London. I must claim, however, that of 
 having been once in your house, on which occasion I accom- 
 panied my excallent friend Du Bois, who suggested to me the 
 subject of the statue you do me the honour of approving. 
 
 Although now in the country on a most sorrowful mission, 
 your letter has been a gleam of sunshine. 
 
 I have the honour to be, dear Sir, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 John Bell. 
 
 From (Sir) W. Tite. 
 
 MY DEAR SlR, New Roy^l Exchange, 9th July, 184 1. 
 
 I am asked to give the committee some notion of the 
 cost of decorating the panels of the merchant's area with fresco 
 paintings. I really never felt myself more embarrassed with 
 such a question. Could you help me at all in it ? You have 
 seen the size of the panels. Of course they would require a 
 rich fresco border, and then a picture inside. If you could 
 
452 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 think of this, and give me your opinion, you would greatly 
 oblige. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Wm. Tite. 
 
 To (Sir) William Tite. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, London, 11th July, 1844. 
 
 I have always entertained the conviction that historical 
 fresco decoration was essential to the completion of the Royal 
 Exchange. There are twenty-four large spaces and eight smaller 
 ones. The large ones might be filled with a beautiful series 
 of frescoes illustrative of our rise from the earliest to the latest 
 period of commercial greatness. The smaller might contain 
 portraits in chiaro-oscuro of the greatest men who have contri- 
 buted to that rise. The whole series might be, like the build- 
 ing and the ceiling, under the direction of one man and his 
 assistants, as abroad ; but if other artists have to share, they 
 should be constrained within their respective boundaries to 
 carry out their part only of one great consistent object, and 
 every subject they paint on that side should first be approved 
 by committee and architect as part of the original scheme. 
 
 Unless this be made a positive law, confusion and failure 
 would be the result. 
 
 With respect to the estimate, it may be not possible to be 
 correct within 100Z. But if one man only has the direction he 
 could certainly accomplish the whole without loss for 3500Z., 
 the architect supplying the two first coats of mortar. 
 
 To conclude : b'5U0Z. would prevent any man who undertook 
 the whole from losing ; 4000/. would put 500Z. into his pocket, 
 and 500UZ. would enable him to put by something for his old 
 age. I would be delighted to undertake it for 3500/. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, yours, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 From (Sir) William Tite. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, New Royal Exchange, 16th July, 1844. 
 
 The cost of the frescoes staggered the gentlemen who 
 had talked to me about it, and it was impossible to do anything 
 with it. 
 
 The matter must, I fear, stand over for the present ; and I 
 
B. R. HA YDON. 
 
 453 
 
 hope that when opened, public feeling and a public purse may- 
 enable me to bring the subject forward again with a better 
 chance of success than at present. 
 
 I arn, my dear Sir, &c, 
 
 Wm, The. 
 
 From William Lockhart. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, London, 25th July. 
 
 I saw the Cartoon Collection yesterday for the first time, 
 and certainly have a perfect conviction that yours are among 
 the works which should have been rewarded, nay, that they 
 ought to have had some of the highest rewards. 
 
 There could have been no doubt whose they were ; and I 
 really cannot guess why they were passed over, unless the 
 judges conceived them to be mainly pieces of plagiarism, in 
 which guess, if they made it, I feel sure they were quite 
 mistaken. I am truly grieved at the result. I thought the 
 ' Caesar ' prize cartoon very bad ; not to be named in the same 
 day as the ' Caractacus,' 'The Jury Trial,' or your 'Black 
 Prince.' I am very sorry you have not one of the first prizes, 
 which I humbly think was your due. 
 
 Ever yours truly, 
 
 Wm. Lock hart. 
 
 To (Sir) W. Tite, on the completion of the Royal Exchange. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, London, 29th October, 1844. 
 
 I congratulate you, with all my heart, on the successful 
 termination of all your anxieties. 
 
 I could have wished a series of grand designs a little more 
 intellectual than mere decoration ; but, however, the whole 
 thing is a step, and if we lay the foundation for a subsequent 
 generation to make another, that is something. 
 
 I have only now one anxiety. Don't compromise your high 
 position by ever joining the Eoyal Academy, or sacrifice the 
 principles of independent Art which you have so gloriously 
 carried through. 
 
 I am, my dear Sir, truly yours, 
 
 E. E. Ha ydon. 
 
454 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From George Combe. 
 
 My de \e Mr Haydox, 
 
 Accept of my best thanks for your 1 Lectures on Painting 
 and Design,' which I received, last week. They form a 
 highly valuable contribution to the philosophy of Art, and I 
 have no doubt, to the practice of it also, although on this 
 point it does not become me to speak. Your fundamental 
 principles, admirably well represented in your two preliminary 
 skeletons, seem to me unquestionably sound. It has made a 
 great and valuable addition to my own stock of principles, an- 
 nounced in the two letters which I sent you, and I wish that I 
 was again in Venice, Florence, and Rome, with your book in my 
 hand and in my head. But has not your pupil, who drew the 
 human skeleton, Plate A, brought the hind part of the skull too 
 low ? Look at the point of insertion of the jaw, and at the hole 
 of the ear in a skull ; there is no brain in general below these, 
 and I should say more rarely still does it descend so low as in 
 your pupil's figure. I notice this error because the mistake is fre- 
 quently made by artists, and from the very same cause to which 
 you so emphatically allude in treating of the muscles, viz., their 
 not knowing the function of the part. They do not dream of 
 the mental character which they are communicating to their 
 figure when they bring down, preposterously, the hind head. 
 
 With your criticisms on Michel Angclo I completely agree. 
 Your criticism on his 4 Moses,' page 137, is the identical 
 counterpart of what I uttered as I stood before the statue, aud 
 what I wrote in my journal when I returned to the house. 
 Your remark, on the same page, that " all the naked heroes of 
 the ancients look like gentlemen stripped," is equally true in 
 fact and in philosophy, and in felicity of expression is excel- 
 lent. They are gentlemen stripped, i.e. they have the brains 
 and mental qualities of gentlemen, and their forms and propor- 
 tions are in perfect harmony with their brains (saving always a 
 few individual exceptions). 
 
 The criticism in p. 150, that Michel Angelo "could not 
 select the essential from the accidental," is most true. I doubted 
 my own judgment when I first saw Michel Angelo's works, 
 and went back again and again, and examined them minutely, 
 and then wrote their condemnation in the particulars to which 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 45 5 
 
 you allude, with the firmest conviction that time would 
 sanction the opinion. Your judgment, therefore, gives me the 
 assurance that I was not deluded by ignorance or stupidity, 
 which for long I really feared. 
 
 Your remarks on pp. 302-3, on ' The Last Judgment,' are 
 also so admirable that I must indulge my own vanity, and try 
 your patience by quoting from my own journal under date 
 Eome, 16th Feb., 1S44. — " Visited the Sistine Chapel in bright 
 sunshine, ascended into the gallery, and examined Michel 
 Angelo's paintings. Intellectual power, and a wild grandeur 
 of style alone carry these works down the stream of time with 
 reputation, and communicate to them interest. 'The Last 
 Judgment ' is, to my taste, a collection of horrors. Christ has 
 the abdomen of a woman who has had ten children, aud a large 
 thorax, with a low angry expression of countenance, and in 
 attitude is sending the ' Damned to Hell.' The scene is said 
 to be sublime and awful. It is a proof how near the sublime 
 comes to the ridiculous. It is genius, wasting itself in a base 
 alliance with the propensities." 
 
 Your criticism on the ' Fallen Angels ' is equally just. But 
 my doubt is whether the whole conception of ' Fallen Angels ' 
 is not philosophically absurd. A being fit for heaven can have 
 no propensities to convert him into a devil. If you (with 
 Milton) give the devil the propensities and intellect plus, and 
 the moral sentiments minus, he was a devil ab initio ; and if 
 with such endowments he had existed in the human form he 
 would have borne the stamp of an animal = intellectual man, 
 a finer Hercules, but never have exhibited the pure, elevated 
 beauty, in form and proportions, of a moral intellectual being. 
 
 Your own excellent remarks on " everything represented in 
 nature having a style of its own," p. 189, apply here exactly. 
 At page 320, speaking of St. Paul, you say, " Reflect for a 
 moment on the dreadful look of a little mean figure, eager and 
 inspired, of St. Paul striking Elymas blind, or preaching the 
 living God to the Athenians." 
 
 I doubt the fact of a figure with a mean expression being 
 found in nature in combination with a powerful and inspired 
 mind in the moral and intellectual departments. The spine may 
 be crooked, and the limbs ungainly through disease, but light up 
 such a frame by intense moral and intellectual energy, and it 
 will become lustrous with radiant mind. .... 
 
45 6 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 At p. T.30, I like your description of Wellington. There is 
 a great manhood if not a dash of genius in the honest, sturdy 
 old Duke. He fears nothing ; and goes to the point with the 
 confidence that right and reason can stand their own ground, 
 and need no flummery to support them. 
 
 Excuse these crude and disjointed remarks. I could write a 
 volume on your lectures, so rich are they in suggestive power. 
 They are full of poetry and genius, and go thundering on with 
 
 the might of a massive brain kindled by its noble subject 
 
 I remain, with every expression of great esteem, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Geo. Combe. 
 
 To Eastlake. 
 
 My DEAR EASTLAKE, London, 14th November, 1844. 
 
 How could you suffer Eu bens' ' Brazen Serpent ' to be 
 revived ? It was one of his finest Italian pictures, warm from 
 Venetian tone, and all the glazing is gone ! 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 B. E. Haydon. 
 
 From Eastlake. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, 7 Fitzmy Square, 16th November. 
 
 Without particularly wishing to influence your judg- 
 ment, or to defend my own, I think it may not be uninteresting 
 to you to know what one of the best living authorities says 
 respecting picture cleaning. 
 
 Professor Schlesinger (restorer of the Eoyal and Public 
 Pictures at Berlin) unexpectedly called on me this morning. 
 Finding he had been to the National Gallery, I was anxious to 
 have his opinion of the ' Brazen Serpent,' which he saw in its 
 uncleaned state (without knowing that anything was to be done 
 to it) some months since. 
 
 He said it was one of Eubens' unglazed pictures in perfect 
 preservation, and an interesting specimen as showing how far 
 the master carried his work before glazing. 
 
 I reminded him of its previous state, and asked him (by way 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 457 
 
 of experiment) whether he did not think it advisable in some 
 cases to leave the dirt on pictures, as it often served to harmo- 
 nise them. He replied, " In that case all old pictures would 
 be alike. We have no right to attempt to alter what the 
 master left fine. Dirt should always be removed where 
 possible. In some cases this is a hazardous experiment, but 
 never so with Kubens' pictures, for I would defy any picture- 
 cleaner living to start Kubens' glazing without tearing the 
 surface to pieces. In this picture the purity is uniform, and 
 the last sharp touches of the brush everywhere visible." 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. L. Eastlake. 
 
 To Eastlake. 
 
 The picture was glazed, and now it is 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 J3. K Haydon. 
 
 To John Forster, Esq.* 
 
 My DEAR Mr. FORSTER, London, 2nd December, 1814. 
 
 Let us swear eternal friendship— with more sincerity 
 than Canning's Germans — I offer you my thanks. 
 
 There is no inconsistency in my urging the youth to stay in 
 England on one page, and on another explaining the good I 
 derived from visiting the Louvre. In the Louvre the works 
 were concentrated. One journey accomplished what took years 
 before. The bad and lazy habits of lounging travel were never 
 indulged. A man went and saw, studied and settled, and came 
 back and got to work. But there was nothing in the Louvre 
 equal to the Cartoons and Elgin Marbles ; and therefore the 
 first doctrine remains unimpeached, though good accrued by 
 seeing so many opposite styles united, and their relative value 
 was more easily estimated. Yet I was not opposing all foreign 
 travel, but only such foreign visits as took years, and engen- 
 dered habits which did more harm than the remainder of a 
 life could disentangle, when the same good could have been 
 attained without this evil. 
 
 * On readiug a criticism upon one of his ' Lectures,' by Mr. Forster. — Ed. 
 
 My dear Eastlake, 
 Facts are facts. 
 
 not. 
 
453 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 I hope you will come and dine with us some day on such 
 fare as fish, flesh, and humble port and sherry; such as used to 
 entertain Sir Walter, Wordsworth, Keats, Lamb, Hazlitt, and 
 other departed Immortals. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, truly yours, 
 
 13. R. Haydon. 
 
 From the Earl of Westmoreland 
 
 My DEAR Mr. HaYDON, Berlin, 23rd January, 1S45. 
 
 I have anticipated your wishes as to the Emperor of 
 Russia, for at the Prince of Prussia's recommendation I have 
 requested General Rauch, a great favourite Avith the Emperor, 
 aud who went last night to St. Petersburg, to mention the 
 picture — which I showed him, and which he much admired — 
 to the Emperor. I shall hear from him in a few weeks when 
 he decides. 
 
 Believe me, very truly yours, 
 
 Westmoreland. 
 
 To Mr. Huxley on his Cartoons. 
 
 DEAR SlR, London, 12th March, 1845. 
 
 I assure you, sincerely, I have never been more affected 
 by any works since the Elgin Marbles than by your Correggio 
 cartoons. 
 
 I hope they will be secured for the nation, for in conjunc- 
 tion with Raphael's Cartoons and the Elgin Marbles, they 
 would afford examples of excellence no other country could 
 equal. 
 
 1 cannot say more if I was to write a dozen pages. 
 
 Relieve me, &c, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 To Henry Hallam. 
 
 SlR, London, 5th May, 1845. 
 
 I beg leave, without the honour of a personal intro- 
 duction, to express my entire pleasure at your letters in the 
 last Report of the Royal Commission, and to assure you that if 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 459 
 
 the Commission confines the artists to Eng'ish subjects alone, 
 the whole thing will end in a Horse Armoury at the Tower. 
 
 The designs I made for the Old Houses, and which I have 
 laid before every minister for thirty years, I have begun on 
 my own responsibility. They are on the principles you 
 advocate ; and I shall be proud to show you the one I have now 
 in hand as illustrating ' The Injustice of Democracy ' as part 
 of the series to illustrate the best form of Government to 
 regulate the species — Man. 
 
 I take the liberty of saying I am opposed in toto to the 
 present plan of adorning the xSew Houses, which seems to be 
 mere functional embellishment for functional, portions. Pray 
 forgive me, but your letters express my sentiments with more 
 power, more force, more knowledge. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 B. 11. Haydon. 
 
 From Henry Hallam. 
 
 SlB, 24 Wit on Crescent, 14th May. 
 
 I ought to have answered your note of the 5th sooner, 
 but have been unable to fix a day when I could with con- 
 venience call on you. If I do not hear to the contrary, I will 
 pay you a visit to-morrow at 1 p.m. 
 
 The objects contemplated in the decoration of the New 
 Houses of Parliament are so different, that they must be ex- 
 pected to clash with each other. 
 
 The promotion of the highest style of Art is one thing, the 
 commemoration of important events or persons is another. The 
 latter is likely to predominate. 
 
 I am, Sir, your most, &c., 
 
 Henry Hallam. 
 
 To Henry Hallam. 
 
 Sill, London, 14th May. 
 
 I shall be honoured by the visit of so distinguished a 
 
 man. 
 
 1 admit the promotion of High Art is one thing, and the com- 
 
460 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 memoration of events and persons another; but I maintain 
 that the commemoration of events and persons ought to be 
 conveyed through High Art, all three being made subservient 
 to the illustration of a political, religious, or moral object. 
 That is my view. 
 
 I am, Sir, &c, 
 
 B. R. IIaydon. 
 
 From Serjeant Tai.foubd. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Serjeants' Inn, 20th May, 1845. 
 
 I have too long delayed to assure you how deeply 
 obliged are we by your most interesting gift. It is not, how- 
 ever, matter of a day. The idea embodied in your portrait of 
 Wordsworth is really one which enriches life, and therefore I 
 regret the less that I did not at once acknowledge it. You justly 
 call it a " 1'roof of Wordsworth's Head." It is so ; a convincing 
 and enduring proof of the meditative power so long denied or 
 neglected by the world, but now admitted with an intensity of 
 appreciation which has endowed the living poet, not with popu- 
 larity, or reputation, or fashion, but with that fame which 
 usually belongs only to a man when he is deaf to its music. 
 
 I did not think there was anything the least indiscreet in 
 your expression of feeling as to Wordsworth's visit to the 
 palace. I quite understand the feeling ; but I own I rather 
 incline to look on the incident in the aspect which these 
 Courtly honours wear as the " outward and visible signs " of the 
 late appreciation which genius has wrought out for itself. 
 
 As Uazlitt dwells on all the external glories and pomp3 
 of his great idol's empire, I am reconciled to Wordsworth 
 receiving these honours by considering how delightful it is 
 that he shall have compelled the Court to pay them. 
 
 Believe me, ever truly yours, 
 
 T. N. Talfourd. 
 
 To John Fobster. 
 
 M,r »v„ . London, 14 Burwood Place, 
 
 Y DEAR STB, 9th October, 1815. 
 
 My seven first Lectures will be published on the 17th 
 Longmans will send you a copy. I trust you will honour me 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 by one of your first-rate criticisms. I am delighted at your 
 remarks on Miss Barrett, and so was she. Your criticisms 
 really are treasures. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, truly yours, 
 
 B. B. Haydon. 
 
 Extracts from a Letter by Miss Barrett. 
 
 .... I had felt some apprehension from the thunders 
 in that quarter. The delay had seemed to me ominous ; and 
 although a criticism will not kill a book which is not right 
 mortal, and although we authors may say so over and over to 
 ourselves, yet before such a critic as Mr. Forster, of the 
 ' Examiner,' we must not affect an impossible indifference. He 
 is the ablest of English critics, and for his kindness to my 
 little volumes I am grateful. 
 
 Ever most faithfully yours, 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett. 
 
 From Mr. Cobden. 
 
 My DEAR SlR, Manchester, 4th February, 1846. 
 
 Thank you for your friendly note. There is nothing 
 more gratifying than to find one's public conduct approved by 
 those who are living beyond the eddy of that vortex of agita- 
 tion into which I was plunged seven years ago, and from which 
 I hope to escape ere the close of the present year. Most con- 
 fidently do I trust that the closing prediction of your note will 
 be verified, and that I shall live to see my opponents convinced 
 that my labours have been for their benefit. 
 
 Believe, me, &c, 
 
 Richard Cobden. 
 
 From Francis Jeffrey. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, Wednesday, 3rd March, 1843. 
 
 I return your " Proof," * though I am rather sorry to 
 part with it, and think it very interesting. 
 
 * Proof of the head of Wordsworth. 
 
462 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 The fair creature you sat by was Mrs. Forrest, the wife of 
 the moustached American who was at the other table. They 
 leave this neighbourhood, Tarn sorry to say, to-morrow, and I 
 have little chance of looking on her loveliness any more in this 
 world. I wish you could have made a picture and a proof of 
 her ! 
 
 Let us see you again some evening before you go. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 F. Jeffrey. 
 
 From Sir Rodekick Murchisos. 
 
 Sir Roderick Murchison presents his compliments to 
 Mr. Haydon, and, in reply to his note of yesterday, begs to say 
 that he has not a particular recollection of the arrangement of 
 the granite blocks in Rickley Yale, near Plymouth, but he 
 believes that they resemble, more or less, those which he has 
 seen at numerous points in and around Dartmoor, the great 
 centre of the granite of that region. Sir Roderick is by no 
 means prepared to deny that some of these blocks may have 
 been affected by the agency of water expanded into ice at a 
 former period when a glacial sea may have covered large por- 
 tions of the island ; but he believes that both in Devonshire and 
 in Cornwall many of the chaotic appearances of the surface of 
 the granite (in the tors of Cornwall certainly) are due chiefly 
 to the peculiar disintegration of the rock, or rather of its feld- 
 spar, as explained by Dr. M'Culloch in the 'Geological Trans- 
 actions (Old Series), and by other writers. 
 
 'Some of the appearances may also be due to vibratory action 
 attendant upon the elevation of the land. The cases in Dale- 
 carlia of chaotic assemblages of stratified hard sandstone in situ, 
 the blocks of which have preserved their angles intact, cannot 
 be explained by disintegration. 
 
 From George Combe. 
 
 My DEAR Sm, Edinburgh, 9th March, 1846. 
 
 In your admirable lecture on Friday evening you de- 
 molished Alison and Jeffrey out and out. 
 
 I agreed with all your own theory of beauty, and thought it 
 excellent, except on one point : that woman is not the standard 
 of all beauty in form. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 463 
 
 My notions, published in my ' System and Letters on the 
 Fine Arts,' are these, viz. :— 
 
 The organ of form is agreeably affected by some forms, and 
 disagreeably by others, from the adaptation of the form to the 
 organization. We call the forms which produce the agreeable 
 impressions, beautiful ; and the opposite, ugly. This applies 
 to all forms. The forms of a woman and of a column each 
 makes its own impression independently. Your theory is really 
 one of association ; as much nearly as Alison's or Jeffrey's : 
 for you admit only one set of beautiful forms (woman's), and 
 all others are beautiful in so far as they resemble it : but 
 resemblance is an idea of association. 
 
 2ndly. Colours are beautiful from their adaptation to the 
 organ of colour ; or ugly when they transgress the laws of the 
 agreeable relations of coloured objects to the organs. 
 
 3rdly. Certain proportions are beautiful from their adapta- 
 tion to the organ of size, and ugly when they offend it. 
 
 In short, I regard every organ as standing in a definite rela- 
 tion to its own objects. It is agreeably impressed by some, 
 and we call them beautiful ; disagreeably, and we call them 
 ugly- 
 
 I have no doubt that the charge of bayonets, which you so 
 happily introduced, appeared very beautiful to destrudiveness ! 
 
 Excuse me for making these remarks ; but I know that you 
 prize an honest opinion, and therefore I offer them. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, &c, 
 
 George Combe. 
 
 Extracts from Letters to Ms Wife. 
 
 Edinburgh, 13th March, 1846. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with old Mr. Cadell, the former part- 
 ner with Constable, sole proprietor of the Waverley novels, and 
 the possessor of all the manuscripts. He lives some eight miles 
 out of Edinburgh. He has paid by the sale of the novels the 
 greater portion of Sir Walter's debts, and he says there will bo 
 twenty shillings in the pound for everybody. Abbotsford is 
 secured ; and this old hero, Cadell, has made his own fortune 
 out of the novels already. He has bought a splendid man- 
 sion, with six hundred acres of land, has a second wife, eight 
 daughters, but no son. Six of the daughters are very pretty, 
 
4 r '4 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 blonde to perfection, fair silky hair, the finest complexions, and 
 dark-blue eyes. Watson Gordon, the portrait-painter, was 
 there, an old friend of Wilkie's, and a Mr. Christie. After 
 dinner out came the manuscripts of Waverley, and all the 
 novels ; and more beautiful manuscript I never saw. Shake- 
 speare is said to have been the same ; without a blot or a cor- 
 rection. Pages of little writing, line after line, and so close 
 that three of Sir Walter's pages made sixteen pages of printing. 
 He wrote three pages a day, and hardly ever worked after 
 1 p.m. How Walter Scott could answer to his conscience for 
 putting his hand to his heart and declaring to George IV. 
 that he was not the author of ' Waverley ' is to me painful. 
 From this sight of his manuscripts I will alter my style 
 for the printer. Would you believe it, these invaluable 
 manuscripts are in no way secured from fire. I startled 
 Cadell by saying: "Why don't you secure these papers in a 
 fire-proof box ? " He assured me there was no danger. " But," 
 I said, " you don't leave your title-deeds to such risks. Take 
 my advice, and get a box made and fitted with castors, so 
 that it can be rolled out of the house in a few minutes." 
 They all agreed it ought to be done, and I have little doubt 
 it will be. It is astonishing how little precaution people take 
 against fire. 
 
 Watson Gordon took me afterwards to Jeffrey's soiree. Gor- 
 don himself, the picture of a portrait fag, went home. Up I 
 went, and found Jeffrey's rooms stuffed with blues and no 
 blues, Scotch beauties and Scotch authors, and Jeffrey himself 
 looking very old, feeble, and the piercing expression of his face 
 softening evidently with a submissive quiescence, which he 
 seemed to repose on without a struggle. A lady, to whom 
 I had been presented after one of my lectures, I took in to 
 supper. She was very travelled and very talented. Jeffrey 
 sat next to her, and a very handsome lady sat on my other 
 side. I fear beauty carried the day with me ; but I re- 
 turned to my duty, and after the usual intellectual talk 
 of a soiree, I contrived to escape without eating supper, 
 and got home by midnight. J effrey said : " Haydon, you 
 look fat and well, the sure signs of prosperity." Ah ! 
 thought I, if you knew the trouble I have to pay my bills 
 you would not say that. But«such are the blessings of "ap- 
 pearances." 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 465 
 
 To Mr. Fobster. 
 
 MY DEAR Mr. FORSTER, London, 23rd April, 1816. 
 
 I beg to return you my sincere thanks for your masterly 
 notice of my works. All the press has burst out with praise, 
 except that lumbering cargo of weekly common-place and 
 trimming, the . . . . ; and that fourpenny dose of Germanism, 
 mysticism, aphorism, criticism, galvanism, and mesmerism, 
 the ... . 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 B. R. Haydox. 
 
 From Jos. Gwilt. 
 
 DEAR HaYDOX, 20 Abingdon Street, 1st May, 1846. 
 
 There is not any book that will give you any insight in 
 early Anglo-Saxon architecture, especially so early as the ninth 
 century. To be near the mark, you may use the arches, 
 columns, and forms of churches at Stukeley, in Buckingham- 
 shire ; Barfreston, in Kent ; and Avington, in Berkshire. Ex- 
 amples at Waltham Abbey : the transept arches at Southwell, 
 Notts ; the nave of the Abbey Church of St. Alban's, Neots 
 nave of Christchurch, Oxon ; castles of Roman or Saxon founda- 
 tion ; Richborough, Kent ; Castletown, in Derby ; Porchester, 
 in Hampshire ; Pevensey, in Sussex ; Castor, Norfolk ; Burgh, 
 Suffolk; Corfe, Dorchester; Exeter Castle Gateway; Dover, 
 &c, &c. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JOS. GWiLT. 
 
 To his Son Frederic, H.M.S. ' Vernon.' 
 
 My DEAR FRED, London, 4th May, 184G* 
 
 I am delighted with your account of your battle and 
 fights. Your description is capital, and very picturesque. 
 The roar of the great ship guns, the splitting of the shells, the 
 rush of the Congreve rockets, and the cloud of sulphury flame 
 they leave behind them, must have been very fine. But you 
 will get no credit with the Government; for the Duke was 
 furious at Sir Gore Ouseley intercepting the troops for the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and sending them to Monte Video. Cap- 
 
 * This was the last letter I ever received from hirn, except the one left on his 
 table for me. 
 
466 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 tain Hope must be a fine fellow. I almos f wish you were in 
 his ship. I wish I had gone to sea myself as a boy. I might 
 have had my head knocked off the first week, and I might not. 
 In any case I could hardly be worse off than I am now, after 
 forty-two years' devotion to the Art of my country. But, my 
 dear boy, you put fresh blood into my heart when I read your 
 account of all your fights with these rascals. The poncho 
 of the South American Gen' ral that you captured in his tent 
 is a trophy. Keep it and bring it home, and his dress boots 
 too. My dear Fred, I will try what I can do for you at the 
 Admiralty ; but when you come to make suggestions to officials 
 on improving the arms and armaments of our ships and crews, 
 you will find it a very different matter to asking a favour such 
 as your removal from one ship to another, or your promotion. 
 The question that you bring up is a very great one, involving 
 great changes in construction, and great expense, and ever 
 since the Keform Bill " economy " is the order of the day.* 
 
 * In the latter pnrt of 1845, while serving on the South American Slntion, I 
 contrived to g' t lent to tho squadron for some four months' active service iu the 
 River Plate Expedition, commanded by the late i>ir Charles Hotham, K.C.B., 
 with the present Admiral Sir James Hope, K.C.B., second in command. The 
 squadron had to force the passage of the River Parana, and after one pitched 
 battle- at Obligado, and repeated daily engagements, at length opened the river 
 to Corrientc, to rind it blocked up ae.aiu on return, when a second severe 
 action at San Lorenzo closed the expedition. From the great splits of imn which 
 only 18-lb. shot tore out of the sides of the iron steamers, and from the dilli •ultv 
 we'had in killing the enemy off the tops of the cliffs, by reason of the short range 
 of i ur musk, ts, I suggested to my father if we had rifles we should do bi tter, and 
 if the iron steamers sent out were backed with wood, and cased with stouter iron, 
 they would be impenetrable. I think for this I may fairly claim priority over the 
 latJ French Emperor for the ideaof an iron-clad ship for lighting purposes. When 
 I returned to England in 1847-8, I mentioned the suhj. ct to the late Sir William 
 Faii-bairn F R.S., who had constructed the small iron steamers we iiad in the ex- 
 pedition, and he was much interested. 1 also tried the Admiralty, but I could get 
 no one to listen to me there further than by an otfic'al letter to know if I wished 
 " to be appointed on Foreign Service." It is only fair, however, to add that what 
 first gave form and substance to the vague ideas floating in my mind was seeing 
 the French Admiral, before going into action, stop his chain cables up and down 
 the exposed sides of all his wooden ships — captured prizes — of light si-antling. 
 This, and the fractures of our small iron steamers when hit, sugge ted to me that 
 if a stout combination of layers of wood and iron were made in the building, a 
 sliip so c instructed would be impenetrable to ritle and cannon shot. I told Sir 
 Charles Hotham of it one middle watch, when the mosquitoes would not let him 
 sleep, and he commended the idea highly, and told me to " work it out " But to 
 work out ideas takes tine, and money, and I had neither to spare. But I have 
 lived to see the idea fully developed by others better qualified, and that is some 
 consolation, although they have not yet succeeded in making their ironcl ids 
 " handy," an indi p usable requisite which I ventured to suggest to the Ad- 
 miralty, in a letter to the ' Times' some twelve years since; nor, in preventing 
 their decay from the inside, which thev never will do until thev coat their iron 
 with red lead in the first instance, i.e. while tho bloom is on it. To cover it with 
 red lead after decay has Set in, is like putting pepper on a bad egg.— Ed. 
 
B. R. HA YD ON. 
 
 467 
 
 I quite agree with you, and I quite understand and see the 
 folly of giving men carbines that, as you say, won't kill a man 
 at fifty paces, instead of a rifle that will kill a man at five 
 hundred and more. All the men ought to have rifles for such 
 work as you have to do. The marines certainly. I will show 
 your letter at the Admiralty : meantime make the best of what 
 you have got. 
 
 And what you tell me about the iron steamers is most 
 interesting. The next time I go to Manchester I will tell 
 Fairbairn, the engineer. But I don't like your idea of covering 
 wooden ships with iron, fighting in perfect security of your own 
 lives against poor wretches who have no security of the kind 
 for their protection. It seems to me unfair, un-English, and 
 unmanly. But, after all, it is the duty of a commander to save 
 the lives of his own men, and to destroy the enemy by every 
 means in his power : and this is only one of them. Your 
 account of the effect of the Congreve rockets is curious. They 
 were first used, I think, at Waterloo, and exactly the same sort of 
 panic was produced. After three rockets had been dropped into 
 them, a whole French regiment broke and ran. I read of the 
 murder of that poor young officer * and his boat's crew. What 
 a horrible thing ! Those South American fiends seem to have 
 no generosity or honour, and no feeling for life ; but after what 
 you tell me of the little children at the Saladeros pulling out 
 the palpitating hearts of the dying bullocks, I am not sur- 
 prised at it. Take care that you don't fall into their bloody 
 hands. God protect you, my dear boy, and bring you home in 
 honour to 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 B. R. Haydon. 
 
 P.S. — I enclose you two sketches — one of my ' Nero,' and of 
 ' Trial by Jury ' before Alfred. The ' Aristides ' you remember. 
 We are all fairly well. Your dear mother will write next 
 mail. 
 
 * Mr. Wavdlaw. His boat grounded off the enemy's coast, near Buenos Ayres. 
 The Guaohof rode into the water, lassoed tlie crew out one by one, and dragging 
 them to a hut, butchered them like sreep, and then cut them up as the American 
 Consul described it, "into 4-lb. pieces." — Ed. 
 
468 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 
 From Count D'Orsat. 
 
 My DEAR HAYDON, 5th May, 1846. 
 
 I am very proud of your approbation. I was tired to 
 see the Duke dressed as a corporal or as a policeman (as 
 Pickersgill painted him), therefore I did choose the dress you 
 approve, as being very elegant and exact, and suited for what I 
 intended. As to the hands, I did prefer to think of his than 
 Vandyke's, as the characteristic of his hands are very bony ; so 
 much so that many of his friends told me they could recog- 
 nise his hands if the top of the picture was hidden. 
 
 I must speak to you of your picture. I went to the private 
 view and admired exceedingly ' Aristides.' It is Kaffaelesque, 
 and your sketch of the ' French Revolution ' digne de Michel 
 Angelo. This is my candid opinion. 
 
 I ought to have thanked you sooner for having sent me a 
 ticket, but the fact is that, between my affairs and those of 
 others, my artistic pursuits, and hundreds of letters to answer, I 
 am always behindhand with everything. Au revoir soon. 
 
 Believe me yours faithfully, 
 
 Count D'Orsay. 
 
 From Samuel Prout. 
 
 M\' DEAR IIaYDON, Denmark Hill, 8th June, 1846. 
 
 I had not unpacked your parcel when I last wrote, or 
 should have thanked you sooner for a perfect resemhlance. The 
 profile almost prophesies great things ; and as nature has given 
 you a head fitted for a pedestal, I trust it will be inscribed 
 with an immortal name. 
 
 Why are you not, as Jackson used to say you would be, 
 P.R.A. ? 
 
 * You may not aspire to such a distinction, but pray keep on 
 on the good old way. Who can forget the holy and lovely 
 humility of the ' Young Penitent,' bending with her mother 
 before the Saviour of the world, as he was approaching Jeru- 
 salem ?* Let us see more and more of that deeply felt variety 
 of expression, &c, which delighted and attracted crowds to see 
 
 • An allusion to Haydon's picture of the 1 Entry into Ji rusalem '—Ed. 
 
B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 469 
 
 your pictures. I refer particularly to the 'Entry into Jeru- 
 salem,' the 4 Judgment of Solomon,' and the ' Raising of 
 Lazarus.' They gave you a grand distinction among artists, 
 pledges that you would achieve a higher eminence. 
 
 When I see your increasing glory I shall claim you as my 
 oldest friend, and 
 
 Believe me, dear B. R. H., ever most truly, 
 
 Samuel Pkout. 
 
 VOL- I. 
 
 2 1 
 
* I '\(k 
 
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