X*

Kit L \ 'i
Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1908

^A«* ly *, ft *~t^

Sketched in. tke painttng-Tcenv from. Ufe, Nov. 181C.

Benjamin Robert Haydon :

CORRESPONDENCE AND TABLE-TALK.

SSaitfi a Jttemott
BY HIS SON,
FREDERIC WORDSWORTH HAYDON.

WITH FACSIMILE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HIS JOURNALS.
X IN TWO VOLUMES.— Vol. II.

X?

IL o n D o n : .'
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
1876.
[All Rights reserved]

LONDOX :
PKINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHAKraG CROSS.

CONTENTS OF YOL. II.

CORRESPON DENCE—
KeatsWoEDSWORTH Miss Mitfoed
Eastlake ..
Seymour Kibkup

1
1860
145
161

OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE

TABLE TALK

216
249

B. E. HAYDON.

COEEESPONDENCE.

LETTERS TO AND FROM KEATS.
From Keats.
My DEAR SlE, 20th November, 1816.
Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear
sending you the following. Yours imperfectly,
John Keats.
" Great spirits now on earth are sojourning,
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit .wide awake
Catches his freshness from archangel's wing ;
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for freedom's sake :
And lo ! whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering ;
And other spirits are there standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come :
These, these will give the world another heart
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings ?
Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.''
From Keats.
Mt DEAE SlE, Thursday afternoon, 20th November, 1816.
Your letter has filled me with a proud pleasure, and
shall be kept by me as a stimulus to exertion. I begin to fix
my eye upon one horizon. My feelings entirely fall in with
VOL. II. B

2 CORRESPONDENCE OF
yours in regard to the ellipsis, and I glory in it. The idea of
your sending it to Wordsworth put me out of breath. You
know with what reverence I would send my well-wishes to him.
Yours sincerely,
John Keats.
To Keats.
Mt dear Keats, March, 1817.
Many thanks, my dear fellow, for your two noble
sonnets. I know not a finer image than the comparison of a
poet unable to express his high feelings to a sick eagle looking
at the sky, where he must have remembered his former towerings
amid the blaze of dazzling sunbeams, in the pure expanse of
glittering clouds ; now and then passing angels, on heavenly
errands, lying at the will of the wind with moveless wings, or
pitching downward with a fiery rush, eager and intent on
objects of their seeking 
I feel deeply the high and enthusiastic praise with which you
have spoken of me in the first sonnet. Be assured you shall
never repent it. The time shall come, if Grod spare my life,
when you will remember it with delight. God bless you !
B. B. Hatdon.
To Keats.
Mt dear Keats, 11th May, 1817.
I have been intending to write to you every hour this
week, but have been so interrupted that the postman rang his
bell every night in vain, and with a sound that made my heart
quake. I think you did quite right to leave the Isle of Wight
if you felt no relief; and being quite alone, after study you can
now devote your eight hours a-day with just as much seclusion
as ever. Do not give way to any forebodings. They are
nothing more than the over-eager anxieties of a great spirit
stretched beyond its strength, and then relapsing for a time
to languid inefficiency. Every man of great views is, at times,
thus tormented, but begin again where you left off without
hesitation or fear. Trust in God with all your might, my dear
Keats. This dependence, with your own energy, will give you
strength, and hope, and comfort.

B. R. HAYDON. . 3
I am always in trouble, and wants, and distresses ; here I
found a refuge. From my soul I declare to you I never
applied for help, or for consolation, or for strength, but I found
it. I always rose up from my knees with a refreshed fury, an
iron-clenched firmness, a crystal piety of feeling that sent me
streaming on with a repulsive power against the troubles of life.
Never despair while there is this path open to you. By
habitual exercise you will have habitual intercourse and
constant companionship ; and at every want turn to the Great
Star of your hopes with a delightful confidence that will never
be disappointed.
I love you like my own brother. Beware, for God's sake, of
the delusions and sophistications that are ripping up the
talents and morality of our friend ! He will go out of the
world the victim of his own weakness and the dupe of his own
self-delusions, with the contempt of his enemies and the sorrow
of his friends, and the cause he undertook to support injured
by his own neglect of character.*
I wish you would come up to town for a day or two that I
may put your head in my picture. I have rubbed in Words
worth's, and advanced the whole. God bless you, my dear
Keats ! do not despair ; collect incident, study character, read
Shakespeare, and trust in Providence, and you will do, you must.
Ever affectionately yours,
B. B. Havdon.
To Keats.
Mt DEAR KEATS, IVth September, 1817.
I am delighted to hear that you are getting on with
your poem. Success to it and to you, with all my heart and
soul. Will you oblige me by going to Magdalen College and
inquiring of the porter there about a young man who, when I
was lately at Oxford, was copying the altar-piece at Magdalen
by Morales. I am anxious to know about that young man — the
copy promised something. Will you, if you can, see the young
man, and ascertain what his wishes in Art are ? if he has
ambition and seems to possess power ? all of which you can
soon discover. In these cases should any friend be disposed to
assist him up to London and to support him for a year, I will
* This ia in reference to Leigh Hunt. — Ed. B 2

4 CORRESPONDENCE OF
train him in the Art with no further remuneration than the
pleasure of seeing him advance. I will put him in the right
way, and do all I can to advance him. Do oblige me by
exerting yourself in this case for me. Perhaps Mr. Bailey may
also feel interest. Bemember me to him. Yours sincerely,
B. E. Haydon.
From Keats.
Mt DEAR HAYDON, Oxford, 28th September.
I read your letter to the young man, whose name is
Cripps. He seemed more than ever anxious to avail himself of
your ofifer. He does not possess the philosopher's stone, nor
Fortunatus' purse, nor Gyges' ring ; but at Bailey's suggestion,
who, I assure you, is a very capital fellow, we have strummed
up a kind of contrivance whereby he will be enabled to do
himself the benefits you will lay in his path. I have a great
idea that he will be a tolerably neat brush. It is, perhaps, the
finest thing that will befall him this many a year, for he is
just of an age to get grounded in bad habits from which you
will pluck him. He brought a copy of Mary Queen of Scots. It
appears to me that he has copied the bad style of the painting,
as well as coloured the eye-balls yellow, like the original.
He has also the fault that you pointed out to me in Hazlitt on
the constringing and diffusion of substance. However, I really
believe that he will take fire at the sight of your picture and
set about things. If he can get ready in time to return to town
with me, which will be in a few days, I will bring him to you.
You will be glad to hear that within these last three weeks I
have written a thousand lines, which are the third book of my
poem. My ideas with respect to it are, I assure you, very low ;
and I would write the subject thoroughly again but I am tired
of it, and think the time would be better spent in writing a
new romance which I have in my eye for next summer. Borne
was not built in a day ; and all the good I expect from my
employment this summer is the fruit of experience, which I
hope to gather in my next poem.
Bailey's kindest wishes and my vow of being,
Yours eternally,
John Keats.

B. R. HA YDON. 5
From Keats.
Mt DEAR HAYDON, Wentworth Place, Hampstead, 1818.
My throat has not suffered me yet to expose myself to
the night air. However, I have been to town in the day-time ;
have had several interviews with my guardian ; have written
him rather a plain-spoken letter, which has had its effect, and
he now seems inclined to put no stumbling-block in my way.
The difficulty is whether I can inherit what belonged to
poor Tom before my sister is of age— a period of six years.
Should it not be so, I must incontinently take to corduroy
trousers. But I am nearly confident it is all a Bam ! I shall
see you soon ; but do let me have a line to-day or to-morrow
concerning your health and spirits. Ever your sincere friend,
John Keats.
To Keats.
My dear Keats, 10th March, 1818.
I have been long, long convinced of the paltry subter
fuge of conversation to weaken the effect of unwelcome truth,
and have left company where truth is never found ; of this be
assured, effect and effect only, self-consequence and dictatorial
constraint, are what those love who shine in conversation at the'
expense of truth, principle, and everything else which inter
feres with their appetite for dominion. I am most happy you
approve of my last Sunday's defence, and I hope you will like
the next equally well  I shall come and see you as soon
as this contest is clear of my hands. I cannot before, every
moment is so precious. Take care of your throat, and
Believe me, my dear fellow,
Truly and affectionately your friend,
B. E. Haydon.
P.S. — At any rate, finish your present great intention of a
poem. It is as fair a subject as can be. Once more, adieu !
B. B. H.

6 CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Keats.
My dear Keats,
.... I feared your ardour might lead you to disregard
the accumulated wisdom of ages in moral points, but the
feelings put forth lately have delighted my soul : always con
sider principle of more value than genius, and you are safe,
because on the score of genius you can never be vehement
enough. I have read your ' Sleep r and < Poetry.' It is a flash of
lightning that will rouse men from their occupations, and keep
them trembling for the crash of thunder that will follow.
God bless you ! let our hearts be buried on each other.
B. B. Haydon.
To Keats.
My dear Keats, March, 1818.
I shall go certainly mad ! In a field at Stratford-upon-
Avon, in a field that belonged to Shakespeare, they have found
a gold ring and seal, with the initials W. S., and a true lover's
knot between. If this is not Shakespeare, who is it ? — A true
lover's knot ! I saw an impression to-day, and am to have one
as soon as possible : as sure as that you breathe, and that he
was the first of beings, the seal belonged to him.
OLord!
B. B. Haydon.
From Keats.
My DEAR HAYDON, Teignmouth, Saturday morning.
In sooth I hope you are not too sanguine about that seal ;
in sooth I hope it is not Brummagem,; in double sooth I hope
it is his, and in triple sooth I hope I shall have an impression.
Such a piece of intelligence came doubly welcome to me while
in your own county, and in your own hand, not but what I
have blown up the said county for its watery qualifications.
The six first days I was here it did nothing but rain ; and at
that time having to write to a friend, I gave Devonshire a good
blowing up ; it has been fine for almost three days, and I was
coming round a bit, but to-day it rains again. With me the
county is on its good behaviour. I have enjoyed the most

B. R. HAYDON.

delightful walks these three fine days, beautiful enough to
make me content.

" Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's Teign,
And King's Teign,
And Coomb at the clear Teign's head,
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.

' There's Arch Brook,
And there's Larch Brook,
Both turning many a mill ;
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon's mouth,
And_fattening his silver gill.
3.

" There's the wild wood,
A mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o' the down,
Where the golden furze,
With its green thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden's gown.

" There's Newton Marsh,
With its spear-grass harsh,
A pleasant summer level,
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street
Do meet in the dark to revel.
5.
" There's Barton rich,
With dyke and ditch,
And hedge for the thrush to live in ;
And the hollow tree
For the buzzing bee,
And a bank for the wasp to hive in.
6.
"And 0 and O,
The daisies blow,
And the primroses are wakened,
And the violets white
Sit in silver light,
And the green buds are long in the spike end.

CORRESPONDENCE OF

" Then who would go
Into dark Soho,
And chatter with dark-hair'd critics,
When he can stay
For the new-mown hay,
And startle the dappled crickets ?"
There's a bit of doggerel ; perhaps you would like a bit of
botheral. 1.
" Where be you going, you Devon maid,
And what have ye there in the basket?
Te tight little fairy just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask it ?

"I love your meads, and I love your dales,
And I love your junkets mainly,
But behind the door I love kissing more,
O look not so divinely. 3.
" I love your hills, and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating,
But oh, on the heather, to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating.

" I'll put your basket all safe in a nook,
Your shawl I'll hang on the willow,
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye,
And kiss on a grass-green pillow."
I know not if this rhyming-fit has done anything ; it will be
safe with you, if worthy to put among my Lyrics.
How does the work go on ? I should like to bring out my
' Dentatus ' at the time your epic makes its appearance.
I expect to have my mind clear for something new. Tom
has been much worse, but is now getting better : his remem
brances to you. I think of seeing the Dart and Plymouth ; but
I don't know ; it has yet been a mystery to me how and where
Wordsworth went. I can't help thinking he has returned to
his shell, with his beautiful wife and his enchanting sister. It
is a great pity that people by associating themselves with the
finest things spoil them. Hunt has damned Hampstead with
masks and sonnets and Italian tales ; Wordsworth has damned

B. R. HA YDON. 9
the Lakes ; Milman has damned the old dramatists ; West has
damned wholesale; Peacock has damned satire; Hazlitt has
damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged— how durst the
man ? He is your only good damner ; and if ever I am damned,
I should like him to damn me. It will not be long ere I see
you, but I thought you would like a line out of Devon.
Bemember me to all we know. Yours affectionately,
John Keats.
To Keats.
Mt DEAR KEATS, London, 25th March, 1818.
I take it as a great friendly kindness to remember me
in this way. Your versicles are beautiful. Surely you will
not leave Devonshire without going to Plymouth, the country
around which is most exquisite. I will give you letters, and
promise you a kind and welcome reception. Do go, my dear
Keats; and if you consent, let me know, as I will write to
my friends immediately. Go round by the Totness road, which
is very fine, and come home by Ashburton and then by Bridge-
water, where I have a sister, who will be most happy to see
you. I am getting on well, and have got my ' Christ ' better than I
have ever had it yet, and in a good state to complete it. I
feel very happy to hear your poem is advancing towards
publication. God grant it the most complete success, and may
its. reputation equal your genius.
Devonshire has somehow or other caught the character of
being " rainy ;" but I must own to you that I do not think it
more so than any other county. Pray remember the time of
year. It has rained in town almost incessantly ever since you
went away. The fact is, you dog, you carried the rain with
you as Ulysses did the winds, and then, opening your rain
bags, you look round with a knowing wink and say, " Confound
this Devonshire, how it rains !" Stay till summer, and then look
into its deep blue summer sky, fresh grass, and tawny banks,
and silver bubbling streams ; nor must you leave' Devonshire
without seeing some of its wild scenery, rocky, mossy, craggy,
with roaring rivers, and as clear as crystal. It will do your
mind good.

10 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Shakespeare, in speaking of some one who is gradually dying,
makes another say, " How is he ? — Still ill ?" " Nature cmd sick
ness debate it at their leisure." Is not this exquisite ? When I
die I'll have my Shakespeare placed on my heart, with Homer
in my right hand and Ariosto in my other, Dante under my
head, Tasso at my feet, and Corneille under my ¦  , for I
hate Corneille, a heartless, tirade maker. I leave my other
side, that is my right one, for you, if you realise all of which
your genius is capable, as I am sure you will.
Write to me if you go to Devonshire. I have heard nothing
from Wordsworth ever since he went, which I take to be
unkind. Hazlitt is going to lecture at the " Crown and
Anchor." I am sorry for it, though he will get money. It is
letting his talent down a little. What affectation in Hunt's
title, "Foliage!" Yours ever, dear Keats,
B. B. Haydon.
From Keats.
Mt DEAR HATDON, Teignmouth, 10th April, 1818.
I am glad you are pleased with my nonsense, and if it
so happen that the humour takes me, when I have set down to
prose to you I will not gainsay it. I should be (God forgive
me) ready to swear, because I cannot make use of your assist
ance in going through Devon if I was not in my own mind
determined to visit it thoroughly at some more favourable time
of the year. But now Tom, who is getting greatly better,
is anxious to be in town, therefore I put off my threading
the country. I purpose within a month to put my knap
sack at my back, and make a pedestrian tour through the
North of England and part of Scotland, to make a sort of
prologue to the life I intend to pursue, that is to write, and
to study, and to see all Europe at the lowest expense. I
will clamber through the clouds and exist ; I will get such an
accumulation of stupendous recollections that as I walk
through the suburbs of London I may not see them. I will
stand upon Mont Blanc, and remember this coming summer,
when I intend to straddle Ben Lomond. With my soul, galli
gaskins are out of the question. I am nearer myself to hear
your ' Christ ' is being tinted into immortality. Believe me,

B. R. HAYDON. n
Haydon, your picture is part of myself. I have ever been too
sensible of the labyrinthian path to eminence in Art (judging
from poetry) to think I understood the emphasis of painting.
The innumerable compositions and decompositions which take
place between the intellect and its thousand materials before it
arrives at that trembling delicate, and snail-horn perception of
beauty ! I know not your many havens of intenseness — nor
ever can know them — but for this I hope not (what) you
achieve is lost upon me, for when a schoolboy the abstract idea
I had of a heroic painting was what I cannot describe. I saw it
somewhat sideways, large, prominent, round, and coloured with
magnificence — somewhat like the feel I have of Antony and
Cleopatra, or of Alcibiades leaning on his crimson couch in his
galley, his broad shoulders imperceptibily heaving with the sea.
That passage in Shakespeare is finer than this —
" See how the surly Warwick mans the wall."
I like your consignment of Corneille — that's the humour of
it. They shall be called your posthumous works. I don't
understand your bit of Italian. I hope she will awake from
her dream and flourish fair — my respects to her. The hedges
by this time are beginning to leaf; cats are becoming more
vociferous ; young ladies who wear watches are always looking
at them ; women about forty-five think the season very back
ward ; ladies' mares have but half an allowance of corn. It
rains here again ; has been doing so for three days. However,
as I told you, I'll take a trial in June, July, or August next
year. I am afraid Wordsworth went rather huffed out of town. I
am sorry for it. He cannot expect his fireside divan to be
infallible. He cannot expect but that every man of worth is
as proud as himself. Oh ! that he hath not " fit with a war-
rener " — that is, dined at Kingston's. I shall be in town in
about a fortnight, and then we will have a day or so now and
then before I set out on my northern expedition. We will
have no more abominable rows,* for they leave one in a fearful
* Keat appears to allude here to the violent political and religious discussions
of the set, as much as to an absurd practice they had, ?when they met, of
amusing themselves after dinner by a concert, each imitating a different instru
ment. The fun was as boisterous by all accounts as the discussions were heated.
—Ed.

12 CORRESPONDENCE OF
silence. Having settled the Methodists, let us be rational —
not upon compulsion, no — if it will out, let it, but I will not
play the bassoon any more, deliberately. Bemember me to
Hazlitt. Your affectionate friend,
John Keats.
To Keats. ^ „^
Mt dear Keats, 14th July, 48t&-(f)
When I called the other morning I did not know your
poems were out, or I should have read them before I came, in
order to tell you my opinion. I have done so since, and really
I cannot tell you how very highly I estimate them. They
justify the assertions of all your friends regarding your poetical
powers. I can assure you, whatever you may do, you will not
exceed my opinion of them.
Have you done with Chapman's ' Homer '? I want it very
badly at this moment. Will you let the bearer have it, as
well as let me know how you are ?
I am, dear Keats, ever yours,
B. B. Haydon. •
Extract from Keats.
Mt DEAR HATDON, Wentworth Place, 23rd December, 1818.
.... Believe me, I never rhodomontade anywhere but
in your company. My general life in society is silence. I
feel in myself all the vices of a poet— irritability, love of effect
and admiration ; and influenced by such devils I may at times
say more ridiculous things than I am aware of, but I will put a
stop to that in a manner I have long resolved upon. I will
buy a gold ring and put it on my finger ; and from that time a
man of superior head shall never have occasion to pity me, or
one of inferior numskull to chuckle at me. I am certainly
more for greatness in a shade than in the open day. I am
speaking as a mortal. I should say, I value more the privi
lege of seeing great things in loneliness, than the fame of a
prophet, so I will turn to a thing I have thought on more, I
mean your means till your picture be finished. Not only now,

B. R. HAYDON. 13
but for this year and a half have I thought of it. Believe me,
Haydon, I have that sort of fire in my heart that would
sacrifice everything I have to your service. I speak without
any reserve. I know you would do so for me. I open my
heart to you in a few words. I will do this sooner than you
shall be distressed, but let me be the last stay. Ask the rich
lover of Art first. I will tell you why. I have a little money
that may enable me to study, and to travel for three or four
years. I never expect to get anything by my books, and,
moreover, I wish to avoid publishing. I admire human nature,
but I do not like men. I should like to compose things
honourable to man, but not fingerable over by men, so I am
anxious to exist with (out) troubling the printer's devil, or
drawing upon men's or women's admiration, in which great
solitude I hope God will give me strength to rejoice. Try the
long purses, but do not sell your drawings, or I shall consider
it a breach of friendship. Do write and let me know all your
present whys and wherefores. Yours most faithfully, John Keats.
Mt DEAR HAYDON, Wentworth Place (no date).
We are very unlucky. I should have stopped to dine
with you, but I knew I should not have been able to leave you
in time for my plaguing sore throat, which is getting well.
... I have been writing a little now and then lately, but
nothing to speak of, being discontented and, as it were,
moulting. Yet I do not think I shall ever come to the rope or
the pistol, for after a day or two's melancholy, although I
smoke more and more my own insufficiency, I see by little
and little more of what is to be done, and how it is to be done,
should I ever be able to do it. On my soul, there should be
some reward for that continual " agonie ennuyeuse."
Yours for ever,
John Keats.
To Keats.
Mt DEAR KEATS, 14th January, 1819.
Your letter was everything that is kind, affectionate,
and friendly, and, depend on it, it has relieved my anxious mind.

14 CORRESPONDENCE OF
The " agonie ennuyeuse " you talk of, be assured, is nothing
but the intense searching of a glorious spirit, and the dis
appointment it feels at its first contact with the muddy world.
But it will go off, and by-and-by you will shine through it
with fresh lightsomeness.
Don't let it injure your health. For two years I felt that
agony. Write to me beforehand, that I may be home whe"n
you come. God bless you, my dear Keats !
Yours'ever,
B. B. Haydon.

From Keats.
My DEAR HAYDON, Wentworth Place (no date).
I had an engagement to-day, and it is so fine a morning
that I cannot put it off. I will be with you to-morrow, when
we will thank the Gods, though you have bad eyes, and I am
idle. I regret more than anything the not being able to dine with
you to-day.
I have had several movements that way, but then I should
disappoint one who has been my true friend.' I will be with
you to-morrow morning and stop all day. We will hate the
profane vulgar and make us wings. God bless you !
John Keats.

From Keats.
My DEAR HAYDON, Winchester, 3rd October, 1819.
Certainly I might ; but a few months pass away before
we are aware. I have a great aversion to letter writing, which
grows more and more upon me ; and a greater to summon up
circumstances before me of an unpleasant nature. I was
not willing to trouble you with them. Could I have dated
from my " Palace of Milan," you would have heard from me.
Not even now will I mention a word of my affairs, only that I
shall not be here more than a week more, as I purpose to settle

B. R. HAYDON. 15
in town and work my way with the rest. I hope I shall never
be so silly as to injure my health and industry for the future
by speaking, writing, or fretting about my non-estate. I
have no quarrel, I assure you, of so weighty a nature with
the world on my own account as I have on yours. I have
done nothing — except for the amusement of a few people who
refine upon their feelings till anything in the un-understand-
able way will go down with them — people predisposed for
sentiment. I have no cause to complain, because I am certain
anything really fine in these days will be felt. I have no
doubt that if I had written ' Othello ' I should have been
cheered by as good a mob as Hunt ; so would you be now
if the operation of Painting were as universal as that of
Writing. It is not; therefore it did behove men I could
mention, among whom I must place Sir George Beaumont, to
have lifted you up above sordid cares. That this has not been
done is a disgrace to the country. When I am tired of reading,
I often think them over, and as often condemn the spirit of
modern connoisseurs.
Upon the whole, indeed, you have no complaint to make,
being able to say what so few men can, " I have succeeded."
On sitting down to write a few lines to you, these are the
uppermost in my mind, and, however I may be beating about
the Arctic, while your spirit has passed the Line, you may
" lay to " a minute and consider I am earnest as I can see.
Though at this present I have great dispositions to write, I
feel every day more and more content to read. Books are
becoming more interesting and valuable to me. I may say I
could not live without them. If, in the course of a fortnight,
you can procure me a ticket to the British Museum, I will
make a better use of it than I did in the first instance. I shall
go on with patience, in the confidence that if I ever do any
thing worth remembering, the reviewers will no more be able
to stumble-block me than the Eoyal Academy could you.
They have the same quarrel with you that the Scotch nobles
had with Wallace. The fame they have lost through you is
no joke to them. Had it not been for you, Fuseli would have
been, not as he is, major, but- maximus domo. What re
viewers can put a hindrance to must be — a nothing, or a
mediocrity, which is worse.

16 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I came to this place in the hopes of meeting with a library,
but was disappointed. The High Street is as quiet as a lamb.
The knockers are dieted to three raps per diem. The walks
about are interesting from the many old buildings and arch
ways. The view of the High Street through the gate of the city
in the beautiful September evening has amused me frequently.
At St. Cross there is an interesting picture of Albert Durer's,
who living in such warlike times, perhaps was forced to paint
in his gauntlets, so we must make all allowances.
I am, dear Haydon, yours ever,
John Keats.
From Keats. ~ , .
MY DEAR HAYDON, Hampstead, 1820.
I am sorry to be obliged to try your patience a few days
more, when you will have the book sent from town.
I am glad to hear you are in progress with another picture.*
Go on. I am afraid I shall pop off just when I (illegible) able
to run alone. Ever your sincere friend,
John Keats.

To Keats.
My dear Keats, ig2o.
I have been coming to see you every day ; and deter
mined this morning, as I heard you were still ill, or worse, to
walk over in spite of all pestering hindrances. I regret, my
dear Keats, to find by your landlady's account that you are
very poorly. I hope you have Dr. Darling's advice, on whose
skill I have the greatest reliance. Certainly I was as bad as
anybody could be, and I have recovered; therefore I hope,
indeed I have no doubt, you will ultimately get round again^
if you attend strictly to yourself, and avoid cold and night-
air. I wish you would write me a line to say how you really
are. I have been sitting for some little time in your lodg
ings, which are clean, airy, and quiet. I wish you were sitting
* ' The Raising of Lazarus,' now in the National Gallery.— Ed.

A vile atricature- of AB. R.Haydmv iy John, Keate A
Fa&semile of a/ sTietefu iry KecUs orv cu pa ye iw AHayfUrnb Journal.

B. R. HA YDON. 17
with me. Hunt has been laid up, too. Take care of yourself,
my dear Keats. Believe me,
Ever most affectionately and sincerely your friend,
B. E. Haydon.
From Keats.
My DEAR HAYDON, Wentworth Place, Hampstead.
I am much better this morning than I was when I
wrote the note. That is, my hopes and spirits are better,
which are generally at a very low ebb from such a protracted
illness. I shall be here for a little time, and at home all and
every day.
A journey to Italy is recommended me, which I have re
solved upon, and am beginning to prepare for.
Hoping to see you shortly,
I remain your affectionate friend,
John Keats.

vol. 11.

1 8 CORRESPONDENCE OF

LETTERS TO AND FROM WORDSWORTH.
From Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, Lowther Castle, 12th September, 1815.
Agreeable to your request, for which I am much obliged
to you, and to his friend for his offer of undertaking the bust,
I forwarded to you from Eydal Mount, a few days ago, the
dimensions of my pericranium, taken by the hand of Sir
George Beaumont. He is entitled to our common thanks, for
he exerted himself not a little upon the occasion, and I hope
the performance will answer your purpose. Sir George begged
me say that the hair on that part of the skull where the crown
is, is thin, so that a little of the skull appears bald ; and Sir
George thinks that a similar baldness there might have a good
effect in the bust.
I should have sent the drawing immediately on receipt of
your letter, but I had nobody near who could execute it.
I hope ' Christ's Entry into Jerusalem ' goes on to your satis
faction. I cannot doubt but that picture will do you huge
credit, and raise the reputation of the Art in this country.
I have not forgotten your request to have a few verses of my
composition in my own handwriting, and the first short piece
that I compose, if it be not totally destitute of merit, shall be
sent to you. I hope, also, that you bear in mind the promise
you threw out of letting me have some production of your
pencil, for my gratification would be high in possessing a
memorial of you to place by the side of those I have received
from Sir George.
I am writing in a crowded room, at a sofa-table, where two
other gentlemen are engaged in the same occupation, and one
of the company has turned all eyes on us by declaring that we

B. R. HAYDON. 19
look like three schoolboys at a writing-school. This must
plead my excuse for this incoherent letter, which I shall con
clude by assuring you that Mrs. Wordsworth and I often
remember with pleasure the agreeable hours which we passed
in your company, and that we cherish the hope, in the course
of next season, we may see you at Eydal Mount. Sir George
and Lady Beaumont are here. They have taken a small
place at Keswick for the summer months of the ensuing
year. Farewell, and
Believe me, with great respect, sincerely yours,
Wm. Wordsworth.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, London, 27th November, 1815.
Do not blame my idleness because you have not been
thanked your kind present of the pencil-case. Though your
letter was dated a month ago, I never had it till within this
day or two. You may depend on it I will keep it, and it shall
descend, while it lasts, to my posterity. I cannot express to
you how much I feel flattered by your kindness in this remem
brance of me. I can assure you, without affectation, I have
the highest enthusiasm for your genius and purity of mind. I
have benefited, and have been supported in the troubles of
life by your poetry; and I shall ever remember with secret
delight the friendship with which you honour me, and the
interest you take in my success. God grant it ultimately
be assured ! I will bear want, pain, misery, and blindness, but
I will never yield one step I have gained on the road I am
determined to travel over.
Since last I wrote to you, Canova has arrived in town ; and
last Sunday-week he honoured me by a visit. He staid long,
and was affected by my picture. I feel convinced he is the
only thoroughly-grounded artist I ever met in my life. Of
the Elgin Marbles he speaks with affection ; he told me they
were "amply worth a journey from Rome to see," and that "they
would produce a change and revolution in the Art ! " I met him
there again to-day, and soon saw that he felt all their beauties
as he ought. It is a great pleasure to me to know that I said
c 2

20 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the same thing myself six years since ; that I have always
maintained their cause ; and have gained all the little I know
in form from the study of these divine works. I was particular
in asking him. This he said to me in the presence of another,
so that I can bring witness — a very essential thing in this
country, where no man is believed in his own cause.
r I took him, by his own desire, to see a painter who once
painted some fine things, but who, from love of money,
deserted his post, and has sunk into a portrait-painter.*
I could not help watching his miserable mortification, as he
brought forth his wretched affairs. At last, and with a face of
painful despair — an air of withered littleness — he said, " We
must all paint portraits here, Sir." What would he not have
given to have left a better impression ? In that moment he
would have parted with all his wealth. I feel convinced the
pang that cut him was a punishment he will not forget. He
has all the hankerings of ambition without the courage. I
would not have changed my position for his if he had every
blessing of life. It was quite a lesson to me, &c.
Believe me, with the greatest respect and affection,
Truly yours,
B. E. Haydon.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, London, 29th December, 1815.
Since the freedom of my native town was voted to me
in honour of my ' Judgment of Solomon ' I have never been
so moved as I was on reading your exquisite sonnets. The
last is the highest honour that ever was paid, or ever can be
paid to me. Eefiect, my dear Sir, what I must feel when the
first effusion of poetry that ever was addressed to me has been
addressed by our greatest poet. I declare to you I was so
affected, on recognising the sensations of my own bosom so
sublimely put forth, that I felt as if they had been reached by
some inspired being to stimulate and encourage me. Your
writing such a fine thing to me is a proof you think I deserve
it ; and be assured that I will continue, by the greatest efforts
and most invincible constancy, to render myself daily more
* Northcote. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 21
worthy of such a high honour. I have read and re-read them ;
I read them to Landseer, who is a man of great talent; and an
old and never-failing adorer of yours. He is to have a bust.
A young man, whom I have never seen, the other day begged,
through a friend, to tell me he should be grateful to me as
long as he lived if I would allow him to have a 'Mask '! * I tell
you this; my dear Sir, to convince you how your influence }s
increasing, in spite of the reviewers. It must give you plea
sure; you must be made aware of the glory that awaits
you. I must say that I have felt melancholy ever since receiving
your sonnets, as if I was elevated so exceedingly, with such a
drunken humming in my brain, that my nature took refuge in
quiet humbleness and gratitude to God.
This year has been to me a year of glorious retribution.
Without any effort on my part my miseries have been re
dressed, my talent acknowledged, and my great object
advanced. And now, at the winding-up, comes a sonnet
from you to carry me to the conclusion of it with glory.
You are the first English poet who has ever done complete
justice to my delightful Art. Never was so just and true a
compliment paid to it in English verse before, as
" Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues."
This is the truth; every other poet has shown a thorough
ignorance of its nature, seeming not to know that the mind
was the same, the means only different. For this, only, you
will have the gratitude of every painter. Indeed, I cannot
say to you, my dear Sir, enough about them. I let Scott f see
them, and he was exceedingly affected, and thought them what
they are — some of your finest, and worthy of Milton— though
completely your own. A heart,
" Though sensitive, yet in the weakest part
Heroically fashioned, to- infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse."
This went to my heart-strings. How often have I, leaning
over a fire nearly out, with my picture before me, untouched
* Haydon about this period, had taken a fine cast himself of Wordsworth's
head.— Ed. ' t John Scott.— Ed.

22 CORRESPONDENCE OF
for the day from want of money to pay a model ; how often,
for a short time, have misgivings made my heart sink, and then
something has started me, and I have felt as if a Superior
Being had reflected a beam of light upon my brain, and a
sensitive ring through my frame whispered, " Go on ! '
Eleven years and a-half ago, the very first Sunday after I
left home and arrived in town, I went to the new church in
the Strand with the most awful feelings, and kneeling, I
prayed God to bless my exertions, to grant I might reform the
taste of my country ; to grant that, before thirty, I might be
at the head of my Art ; and to grant no obstruction, however
great, might stop me, but that I might sacrifice myself with
delight if necessary. Judge then, my dearest Sir, of my intense
feeling to find you so grandly putting forth all the secrets of
my soul. I had reverence for your inspiration before ; I now
revere you with sympathy. God bless you ! and grant that the
world may be enlightened, to feel the intensity of your
poetry, and do you full and ample justice before you leave it.
Your notions of Winkelmann appear to me quite true. He
was, I believe, well versed in antiquity, but very superficial in
his own conclusions — in everything that required thinking
out. Such men are but useless rhapsodists, who turn off the
minds of all from the beauty and raciness of nature.
I have advanced my picture,* and have got the penitent
girl done, as well as her mother and the centurion. I hope to
have the sister, who is leaning forward to encourage her,
finished shortly. Behind, I intend putting a woman, who may
have followed from curiosity, and in whose face I shall put a
tender concern, a pity — an abstracted pity- — as if she were
musing on the frailties and the temptations of a lovely girl, as
she looked at the penitent one. I have finished a study for it,
and it tells well ; it will contrast with, and set off the heart-
agonized interest of the sister who leans forward. I have
thought of another character instead of this woman, viz., the
hard, unfeeling prude, who looks with a sneer of cruel self-
approbation at the penitent girl, chuckling that she has escaped
the vice. It would be a strong character, and would be sure to
excite one's feelings for the penitent, from its cruelty. Characters
of this latter kind Eaphael seems universally to have rejected. ¦
* ' Christ's Entry into Jerusalem.' — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 23
Perhaps he thought them incompatible with beauty and pleasure.
All his men and women have one feeling of goodness and
benevolence. But there are no women in Eaphael so distinct
in essence as Goneril, Cordelia, and Beatrice. Characters on
.this principle are, I venture to think, to be added to the Art.
Eaphael's women have all the general lovely qualities that
render women such angelic creatures, and possess the graces we
wish to be their own, at least those in our own circle ; but he
appears to me not to have distinguished them, as nature has
done, from each other ; nor to have given them those dis
tinctive marks in external feature that denote internal variety
of feeling.
I have one great favour to ask. Might I ask you to allow
Scott to print the sonnet in the ' Champion ;' and might he say
it was written by you to me ? Would you object to the others,
at separate periods, being printed also ? Leigh Hunt's respect
for you seems to increase daily ; his brother it is who has had
your bust made. When you come to town again I shall have
a fine cast from the ' Theseus ' to show you. I sleep, breathe,
and exist among the finest things in Art.* My rooms are so
full, I have hardly space to turn.
With my highest respect, I am, my dear Sir,
Yours, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
P.S. — Be assured, I will exert myself to make one of my best
heads or sketches for your acceptance. If it be possible, it
shall be worthy of the sonnets. God grant it may !
From Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, Eydal Mount, 13th January, 1816.
It gratifies me much that the sonnets, especially the
one addressed to yourself, find favour in your eyes and those of
your friends. As to your request for permission to publish
them, I cannot refuse to comply with it. In regard to that
addressed to yourself you deserve a much higher compliment ;
but from the nature of the subject it may be found pretty
generally interesting. The two others, particularly the ' Snow-
* Alluding to his casts of the Elgin Marbles. — Ed.

24 CORRESPONDENCE OF
crested Mountain,' full surely are morsels only for the few.
But if Mr. Scott desires it, he is at liberty to give them a
place in his Journal when and how he likes. At the same time,
my own feelings urge me to state, in sincerity, that I naturally
shrink from solicitation of public notice. I never publish any
thing without great violence to my own disposition, which is
to shun rather than court regard. In this respect we poets
are much more happily situated than our brother-labourers of
the pencil, who cannot, unless they be born to a fortune, pro
ceed in their employment without public countenance. I
thank you for the number of the ' Champion.' After being
found worthy of such eulogy as is there bestowed upon you,
the next enviable thing is the ability to praise merit in so
eloquent a style. There is also an excellent political essay by
Scott at the head of the same number. Pray give my regards
to him ; and I will take this occasion of stating that it may be
agreeable to Mr. Hunt to learn that his ' Mask ' has been read
with great pleasure by my wife and her sister under this
peaceful roof. They commend the style in strong terms ; and
though it would not become me to say that their taste is correct,
I have often witnessed with pleasure and an entire sympathy
the disgust with which in this particular they are affected by
the main part of contemporary productions.
I am glad to learn that your picture advances. It is as
grand a subject as could be selected. The feelings to be ex
cited are adoration and exultation, and subordinate to these,
astonishment and suspense of mind. In all the Evangelists
it is written that our Blessed Lord was accompanied with
Hosannas. These a silent picture cannot express, and but
imperfectly indicate ; but garments may be spread, and boughs
may be carried in triumph, and prostrate forms exhibited, as
you have done. From the manner in which I have dwelt upon
these images you will infer that I think you have done well
in rejecting the character of the supercilious prude. I cannot
but think such a person discordant with the piece. One of the
Evangelists says that the Pharisees called on Jesus to rebuke
His disciples, and this is the only feeling mentioned that does
not fall directly in with the general triumph and exultation.
For there is nothing discordant with these in the question,
"Who is this?" succeeded immediately by the answer, "The
King of Jerusalem." In fact, in no stronger manner could the

B. R. HAYDON. 25
overwhelming presence of Jesus Christ be expressed. The
request of the Pharisees has indirectly the same tendency.
They wished that the disciples should be rebuked, and why ?
Because their pride was wounded, and their indignation raised
by the homage which the multitude paid with such fervour to
Jesus on His approach to Jerusalem. A character like that
of the haughty prude belongs rather to the higher kinds of
comedy — such as the works of Hogarth — than to a subject of
this nature, which, to use Milton's expression, is " more than
heroic." I coincide with you in your opinion as to Baphael's
characters, but, depend upon it, he has erred upon the safer
side. Dramatic diversities aid discrimination, (and) should
never be produced upon sublime subjects by the sacrifice of
sublime effect. And it is better that expression should give
way to beauty than beauty be banished by expression. Happy
is he who can hit the exact point where grandeur is not lowered,
but heightened by detail ; and beauty not impaired, but ren
dered more touching and exquisite by passion ! This has been
done by the great artists of antiquity, but not very frequently
in modern times ; yet much as I admire those productions, I
would pn no account discourage your efforts to introduce more
of the diversities of actual humanity into the management
of sublime and pathetic subjects. Much of what Garrick is
reported to have done for the stage may by your genius be
effected for the picture gallery. But in aiming at this object,
proceed with reflection, and if you are in doubt, decide in
favour of the course Eaphael pursued.
Before I conclude, I have one word to say of the mode of
publishing the sonnet addressed to you. I would wish that it
should appear that the thing was not first addressed to you
through the medium of a public journal, but was a private
communication of friendship.
My wife and Miss Hutchinson send their kindest regards
in joining with me in best wishes for your health, happiness,
and. success. This last word reminds me of your desire that
my merits as a poet might be acknowledged during my life
time. I am quite satisfied on this head. With me it must be
a work of time : but I frequently receive acknowledgments of
gratitude from persons unknown in all quarters of the island.
I remain, &c,
Wm. Wordsworth.

26 CORRESPONDENCE OF

To Wordsworth.

London, 22nd August, 1816.
I have long wished to hear you upon politics, but do
not suppose I am interrupting my studies, or harassing my
peace on such matters. I am only perpetually tormented by
sophistries from others, the fallacy of which I clearly see, but
I wish also to ask your opinion on the matter. The great
contest in society just now is between those who are the same
in principle, though they differ as to the example. One party
assert — 1st. That while Napoleon remained on the French
throne he remained in the face of Europe a perpetual living
monument of a Sovereign chosen by the people. No matter
what he did, or what were his crimes and cruelties, they in
flicted no lasting injury upon the world in comparison with the
good done to the great principle of the people having the right
to choose their own Sovereign. 2ndly. That Napoleon being
dethroned by the Allied Powers has inflicted an everlasting
injury upon this great principle ; for that, whatever were his
plans for debasing human intellect for his own purposes (and
this they acknowledge), the effect must have died with him ;
but the principle would have remained, and a better successor
would soon have remedied the follies of Napoleon. My views
are that, in the first place, Napoleon was not a Sovereign
chosen by the people, but one exclusively forced on them by
the army, totally regardless of principle or thought. And
even granting Napoleon was chosen by the people, is the prin
ciple injured by the ejection of a bad choice ? Indeed, is not
more injury done to the principle by suffering a bad choice to
remain ?
Then, again, is talent to be put into comparison with
virtue ? And was not the system he had established of edu
cating the masses with one view only, viz., submission to his
will, likely to cease with his life ?
It is strange that men who have risen by talent to a throne,
or who have been chosen by the people, so frequently behave
tyrannically as to drive the people back upon those whom
they had dethroned. It seems to me that they who imagined
Napoleon and the French people were to be instruments of
liberty to nations, exhibited gross ignorance of the character of
both, and wished an end to be brought about by means which

B. R. HA YD ON. 27
would substitute a consequence more destructive of human
liberty, and more dreadful to human intellect than any the
world ever experienced.
Buonaparte's system had all the fierce energy of a demon's
genius. Its great object was to sap youthful susceptibility,
and direct mature capacity to make an infatuated being the
instrument of another's destruction ; till he became the dreaded
deity of this lower world, and all its inhabitants trembled at
his name, shrunk in terror at his power, and wished all know
ledge extinct that did not lead towards the perfection of
the science of war. His awful Name trembled on the lips
of children as they lisped their nursery songs, intermingled
in all their boyish amusements, struck their imagination in
every public building, and stole upon their senses in their
prayers. I have seen "N. N. N." engraved round a statue of Jesus
Christ ! Any people, however inherently sound and sensible,
must in time have become affected by such a system as this.
But what can any man say to such a system operating on such
a people as the French ! Vain, insolent, active, thoughtless,
bloodthirsty, and sophistical by nature ; a people who are bril
liant without intensity; have courage without firmness; are
polite without benevolence, and tender without heart; pale,
fierce, and elegant ; their looks depraved ; lecherous and blas
phemous in their feelings ; mingling the most disgusting offices
of nature with the most elegant duties of social life, and the
most solemn feelings of religion with the most lascivious pro
pensities of nature. These are the people, this was the system,
and Napolepn was the Sovereign, who were to be the instru
ments of liberty ! And to get rid of him and his system was
to inflict a greater injury to the establishment of a virtuous
principle than to allow both to remain !
I feel sure you will hardly believe intelligent men are to be
found to assert this, and yet I often hear it asserted.
You would oblige me by giving me your opinion on the
subject for my own private gratification.
With the highest respect, my dear Sir,
Affectionately yours,
B. E. Haydon.

28 CORRESPONDENCE OF
From Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, Eydal Mount, 6th October, 1816.
Your spirited and interesting letter deserved a much
earlier answer ; it also merited a much better answer than it
will receive. I regret this inability the less because yourself,
who have proposed the case (Napoleon's deposition, 1815), have
pronounced a decision upon it so judicious as, in my opinion, to
do away with the necessity of applying to any other authority.
As to the right of a people to choose their own governor being
sacrificed by the fall of Buonaparte, it is ridiculous to talk
about it. Some part of the people of France, did indeed vote
for him as they would have voted for the Devil, but he was no
more the choice of the wisdom and virtue of the nation, nor of
their folly, than he was of the wisdom, virtue, or folly, of the
Chinese. Besides, if he were chosen by the French nation the
other nations of Europe were convinced that he would never
cease from attempting to subjugate them ! They had, there
fore, as much right to attempt and to accomplish his over
throw as the French had to elect him to their Imperial
Throne, and to endeavour to uphold him there. Overthrown he
has been, and the heir of the old monarchy put in his place,
and many, professing, and supposing themselves friends of
Freedom, lament these events ; because, forsooth, a great
principle has been violated ! One thing, however, is certain,
that if it were true that a principle had been rejected, it has
not been wantonly done, but in preference of another principle
on which nations have been accustomed to rest their tran
quillity, and to rely for protection of that portion of civil
liberty which their ignorance and sins permit them to enjoy.
Be assured, my dear Sir, that concern for principle has little
sway over the minds of your opponents. They admired
Buonaparte and his adherents because they were dashing dogs
at the head of expectation, and flattering to the discontented
and they hate the Bourbons because through them a check
has been given to the career of profligate personal ambition.
What has humanity to apprehend from this restoration as
far as it is a question between their principles ? Why, that
the respect paid to hereditary succession, by confirming the
possession of their thrones to Princes, may induce them to be
have more tyrannically than they could have done without the

B. R. HA YDON.

29

additional security which, by the termination of this struggle,
has been given them. But do you imagine that kings or
emperors care a twentieth part so much about their heirs as
about themselves? In this particular they differ little from
other men. Now the fate, the undeserved fate, of Louis XVI.,
who lost his throne and his life because his people erroneously
thought he deserved to lose them, will, like that of Charles I.,
operate beneficially as a warning and be fully adequate, so far
as example goes, to counteract any encouragement to miscon
duct which might be demanded on the restoration of the Crown
to the same family in the person of Louis XVIII. ? Is it to be
dreaded that nations will be too passive under their oppressors ?
Surely, if the works of our time are likely to render men more
so in future, it will not be in consequence of the restoration of
Louis and other acts of that kind in preference to retaining the
Corsican and his upstart crew, but because the powers and
distinctions which successful villany has obtained after the
overthrow of ancient institutions and the destruction of the
person in whom authority was rested, will be likely to make
wise and good men afraid of trying experiments. They will
rather bear the ills they have, till they become absolutely in
supportable, than rush on others which they know not of. Now
the retaining Murat, Buonaparte, and the rest of those
wretches, would have greatly aggravated this evil, and the
deference to the claims of legitimacy in the same proportion
tends to diminish it. And whatever bad consequences are to
be dreaded from an excess in this quarter, they are to the
truly discerning much less formidable than those to which the
opposite extreme would conduct us. If you are plagued with
a grievous tyrant, rise and destroy him, but do not look to
another family for his successor. There is no necessity for
that step. Take the next heir and bind him over by such
conditions as preserve a better security for your liberties. But
do not let lawless ambition loose upon you by leaving the
throne open to the pretensions of every daring adventurer.
But I have already written far too much. I beg to say a word
about painting, and to urge you to bend your attention
morning, noon, and night, that way. How are your eyes, and
what progress do you make ? For a subject, let me recommend
to your consideration the eighteenth chapter of Numbers, from
the 46th to the end of the 48th verse, " and the plague was

30 CORRESPONDENCE OF
stayed." Yesterday I left at Keswick Sir George and Lady
Beaumont, both well. Let me hear from you at some leisure
moment. Believe me,
With great respect and true affection, yours,
William Wordsworth.
To WOEDSWORTH.
DEAR SlR, 31st December, 1816.
.... I copy out a sonnet* by a young poet, Keats,
addressed to me, but beginning with you. I should wish very
much to know what you think of it. He promises a great deal,
and said in a letter to me, when I said I should enclose it to
you, " The idea of your sending it to Wordsworth puts me out
of breath ; you know with what reverence I should send my
well-wishes to him." He is quite a youth, full of eagerness
and enthusiasm, and what greatly recommends him to me, he
has a very fine head ! He is now writing a longer sort of
poem, of ' Diana and Endymion,' to publish with his smaller
productions, and (he) will send you a copy as soon as it is out.
I need not say his reverence for you, my dear Sir, is un
bounded. John Scott has been in town for a short time, dreadfully cut
up by the loss of his boy. He brought over a poem written in
all the fury and agony of despair, which, I assure you, I think
will affect you deeply and give you a higher idea of his
powers than anything he has done. There is a want through
out of pious dependence, but for a feeling, as it were, of
hugging misery, and banqueting on sorrow with fierce and
daring defiance, I never read anything so dreadful. It will be
published very shortly.
I have been getting on furiously and successfully with my
picture, and am now suffering in my health a little in conse
quence, but I hope soon to be well and, if God spare my life
to complete it. Hourly and daily, in the morning and in the
evening, does my hope to shine in my glorious Art get more
vivid and intense. If my life and eyes are only spared till I
* " Great spirits now on earth are sojourning,
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake."
— Sonnet to Haydon, by Keats.

B. R. HAYDON. 31
can inoculate a sufficient number of daring youths with true
principles, I shall have no fear for the Art of my glorious
country. We must be great in painting, and we will be great
in spite of all the obstructions on earth.
I am about to put your head into my picture as a believer
by the side of Newton. I cannot quote your ideas, therefore I
must do so with your face. If you are coming up this spring,
I would wait till then, because I wish to have your hands and
every part as it ought to be, which one cannot do from a cast.
Do you think you will be in town this season ?
With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Wordsworth and Miss
Hutchinson, Believe me, dear Sir, &c,
B. B. Haydon.

From Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, Rydal Mount, 7th April, 1817.
I have just received, through the hands of Mr. Southey,
the excellent print of the ' Gypsey's Head.' The glass was
shivered into a thousand pieces, but luckily the print itself
was not damaged. I have hung this memorial of you in my
study and be assured that I prize it not a little. If I have
any fault to find with the execution of the engraving, it is that
some strokes appear wanting in the face and features to soften
and qualify the expression of the eyes.
Mr. Southey is going shortly to town, and will be happy to
call on you. I envy him the pleasure both in seeing the artist
and the picture of ' Christ's Entry,' which, I suppose, is now
far advanced towards completion.
I have had a cast of my own hands with which I hope
Southey will charge himself. You expressed a wish for an
opportunity to paint them from life. I hope the substitute
may not be wholly useless to you. Your health continues
good, I trust, and your studies proceed. Where is Scott, and
is he well? His poem I see is published. I am afraid of
looking into it on account of the subject. If you write to him
pray remember me most kindly and respectfully to him. I
have ceased to be a reader of the 'Champion' for several
months, supposing that he had discontinued writing in it, and

32 CORRESPONDENCE OF
not approving the tone of its politics. The miscreant, Hazlitt,
continues, I have heard, his abuse of Southey, Coleridge, and
myself, in the ' Examiner.' I hope that you do not associate
with the fellow ; he is not a proper person to be admitted into
respectable society, being the most perverse and malevolent
creature that ill-luck has ever thrown in my way. Avoid him,
he is a  , and this I understand is the general opinion
where he is known in London.
Faction runs apace. The friends of liberty and good order
are alarmed at the corruption of opinion among the lower
classes. For my own part, I am full of fears, not for the
present : the immediate danger will, I think, be got over, but,
there is a malady in the social constitution which it will
require the utmost skill to manage, and which, if it is not met
with firmness and knowledge, will end in the dissolution of the
body politic. When I have the pleasure of seeing you I will
explain my views at length, and state to you the grounds of
my apprehensions.
Perhaps some of Southey's friends may think that his tran
quillity is disturbed by the late and present attacks upon him —
not a jot. Bating inward sorrow for the loss of his only son, he
is cheerful as a lark and happy as the day. Prosperous in his
literary undertakings, admired by his friends, in good health,
and honoured by a large portion of the public, busily employed
from morning to night, and capable, from his talents, of
punishing those who act unjustly towards him, what cause
has he to be disturbed ? I left him the other day preparing
a rod for Mr. Wm. Smith. Pray let me hear from you, and
believe me, my dear Sir, with great regard and high respect,
Most truly yours,
Wm. Wordsworth.
To Wordsworth.
London, 15th April, 1817.
With respect to Hazlitt, I think his motives are easily
enough discernible. Had you condescended to visit him when
he praised your ' Excursion,' just before you came to town, his
vanity would have been soothed and his virulence softened.
He was conscious of what an emergency you had helped him

B. R. HA YD ON. 33
from : he was conscious of his conduct while in your neighbour
hood,* and then, your taking no notice of his praise added to his
acrid feelings. I see him scarcely ever, and then not at my own
house. But Leigh Hunt's weathercock estimation of you I
cannot account for, nor is it worth while to attempt. He first
attacks you when he had never read your works, then a friend,
Barnes,t brought him your ' Excursiori,' pointed out your
sonnets, and Leigh Hunt began to find that he really should
have looked through a poet's works before he came to a con
clusion on the genius displayed in them. He then recanted.
When you were in town you visited him. You remember
what he said, with an agitated mouth, " The longer I live, and
the older I grow, I feel my respect for your genius increase,
Sir." Those were his words. Before a month was over I again
perceived " doubts," and " hums," and " ha's," instead of the
momentary enthusiasm displayed for you, for about that time.
Scott and I and all his friends accounted for it in the usual
way, knowing he never holds one opinion one month he does
not sophisticate himself out of it before the next is over. You
explained your political principles to him, and he said he was
satisfied. I think you did a great deal top much.
When first I knew Leigh Hunt he was really a delightful
fellow, ardent in virtue, and perceiving the right thing in
everything but religion — he now finds " no end in wandering
mazes lost," perplexes himself, and pains his friends. His
great error is inordinate personal vanity, and he who pampers
it not is no longer received with affection. I am daily getting
more estranged from him, and, indeed, all his old friends are
dropping off. John Hunt is truly a noble character 
My putting in Voltaire's head has irritated Leigh Hunt beyond
all hope. He intends attacking it. God grant he may, and if
worth while I will answer him with all my might and soul. I
never saw anything like the irritation of the Deists about this
head. It only confirms me that I have made a capital hit.
******
My turn will come with Hazlitt, for he has the malignant
morbidity of early failure in the same pursuit. I have had
* It appears by some of Wordsworth's anecdotes, recorded in Haydon's Journal,
that Hazlitt scandalized the neighbourhood at Ambleside by bis nocturnal
rambles and their consequences, to Wordsworth's great disgust — Ed.
t Mr. Barnes, editor of the ' Times.' — Ed.
VOL. II. D

34 CORRESPONDENCE OF
several side stabs about "great" pictures, &c, and the ab
surdity of Art ever existing in England, but he shall see, if he
cuts me (up) openly, it shall not be with impunity. In the
'Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,' speaking of English Art, he
mentioned every living painter now eminent, but me! By
leaving me out, the blockhead, he made people remark it, and
so he has,, in fact, done me good. One night, when I saw him
half-tipsy, and so more genial than usual, I said to him, " Why
do you sneer so at the prospects of English Art ? you know
this is the country where it will next succeed." " I dare say it
will," he replied, " but what is the use of predicting success ?"
He served me a dreadful trick with Wilkie. He asked of me
a letter of introduction to see Wilkie's pictures. I gave it, and
the very next Sunday out came an infamous attack on Wilkie's
genius ! You may depend, my dear Sir, that men of eminence
are considered food for such propensities and nothing better.
However, enough (of) him. I hope soon to have the pleasure
of seeing Mr. Southey. With the greatest respect,
Yours ever affectionately,
B. E. Haydon.

From Wordsworth.
My DEAR FRIEND, Rydal Mount, 16th January, 1820.
Mr. Monkhouse has probably informed you how far I
have suffered under the same malady as yourself. I am better
so far as being able to use my eyes by day, but I neither write
nor read by candlelight. I do most sincerely rejoice in your
recovery, and congratulate you with all my heart on the com
pletion of your picture, of which I hear from our common
friends, the Beaumonts, the most excellent accounts. Indeed,
they speak of it in the highest terms. Your most valuable
drawing arrived when I was unable to enjoy it as it deserved.
I did not like to employ an amanuensis to thank you for it, as
I hoped for a speedy recovery ; a hope I shall not indulge in
again, as I am convinced that the organ of sight is, with me
in a precarious state— that is, very irritable, and subject to
inflammation. Under these circumstances I was sure of your
painful sympathy. I ran the risk of incurring your displeasure

B. R. HA YDON. 35
as the less evil of the two. Your drawing is much admired as
a work of Art ; some think it a striking likeness, but in general
it is not deemed so. For my own part, I am proud to
possess it as a mark of your regard, and for its own merits.
I purpose being in London in the spring, when I trust I
shall find you well and prosperous. Mr. Monkhouse, I under
stand, you see occasionally ; and through him we always hear
of you with lively interest.
Now that you have recovered your eyes, paint, and leave
writing to the dunces and malignants with which London
swarms. You have taken too much trouble about them. How
is Keats|? he is a youth of promise, too great for the sorry
company he keeps. Do you skate ? We have charming diver
sion in that way about our lakes. I wish you were here to
partake of it. The splendour of the snow-clad mountains, by
moonlight in particular, is most charming, and the softness of
the shadows surpasses anything you can imagine ; this when
the moon is at a particular point of elevation. I never saw
anything so exquisite, though I believe Titian has, and so,
therefore, perhaps may you.
Let us hear from you at your leisure; and, particularly,
how far you are pleased with your performance. If I could
see your picture I think it would inspire me with a sonnet ;
and, indeed, without seeing it I do not lack matter for so slight
a tribute to your merit. Mrs. Wordsworth and Miss Hutchin
son join me in most hearty congratulation and sincerest
regards, and Believe me, my dear Haydon,
Your faithful friend and sincere admirer,
Wm. Wordsworth.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR SlR, London, 28th April, 1820.
I have been very much hurried, or I would have written
before. You will be happy to hear of my complete success in
the exhibition of my picture. It has made a deep impression.
The room has been daily crowded with visitors, and the receipts
sufficient to meet all exigencies at present, which, you may
imagine, are no trifles after six years' labour.
d 2

36 CORRESPONDENCE OF
My great object, as you know, was the character of the
British School; and this, thank God! in the opinion of
Foreigners, I have raised. I must say, " Huzza! " to this, and
I know you will join.
Of the picture you will forgive me saying something. Tke
bone of contention is the head of Christ : Mrs. Siddons thinks
I have hit it ; so say all those whose judgment I value. It is
varied from the usual type ; and people talk of it exactly as if
they knew our Saviour, or had seen Him. The feeling is more
of surprise that such a head can be meaned for His, because it
is unlike all other heads of Christ they have seen ! When you
see it, and if you feel it, I shall be content ; and I will let
them say what they will and write what they please.
It grieved me very much, to hear of your continued debility
of sight, but I hope you are better, and that, although you
resemble Milton in most things, I should be very sorry if ever
you resemble him in this.
Last night I received your volume of ' Duddon Eiver,' &c,
for which, and for all your kind remembrances of me, my dear
Sir, accept my sincere thanks. There are things in it as fine,
perhaps finer, than in any of your other works —
" We men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish. Be it so !
Enough if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour."
This is my favourite bit in the whole volume, and which I
have been thundering in my painting-room, and in the fields,
ever since I read it.
I met Walter Scott in company once, and I found him a
very delightful, man ; but still there is some imposition in the
influence which surrounds him. You are aware he is suspected
as being a concealed author ; you fear, from delicacy, to allude
to the subject ; and yet you find him continually alluding to
the subject ; and thus he has something (of) the air of a sort of
magician, with whom certain things are forbidden to you, but
granted to him. I felt as if it were a species of quackery, and
cannot but think all this has its effect in society. There are
some deep things in these novels, but yet the power is exclu
sive and national, and the mystery of the publication, the
influence of reviews, and determination of all parties to forgive

B. R. HA YD ON. 37
the grossest absurdities, have contributed as much as their
inherent merit, perhaps more, to extend their fame.
Keats is very poorly, and I think in danger.
I hope you will soon be in town, and with kindest remem
brances to Mrs. Wordsworth, Believe me, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
To Wordsworth.
My dear Wordsworth, London, 30th May, 1831.
People are now running down the Tories right and left.
I wish to ask, if this reform had taken place in the early
periods of the French Eevolution, would it have been con
ducted according to law as now ? Do we not owe something
to the fortitude of that party which preserved our laws and
institutions from Napoleon's gripe, and from French infection ?
Hazlitt told me that he heard it deliberately discussed what
space of land they would each possess when property was
divided !
No man who is a philosopher can be a party man ; he sees
such absurdities in all parties. Though a reformer in my
Art, because I would not wish success to Napoleon and the
destruction of the Church, the reformers always thought me
a trimmer ; and when I used to maintain that Manchester and
Birmingham ought to be represented, the Tories suspected me
to be a revolutionist !
This is what one gets by being a thorough Englishman, who
wishes the supremacy of his country, right or wrong ! " No,"
said Hobhouse ; " reform, reform, even by the aid of a French
army." This they, all wished, and when Wellington beat
Napoleon they sighed that liberty was gone for ever. Was
there ever such trash ? Would Europe have had any chance
of liberty if he had triumphed ? What I dread of the re
formers is their predominant infidelity. I know them all.
Lord Brougham said, in allusion to leaving out religious in
struction at the University, " What is Christianity ? No two
Christians agree." I say this is not the question. But what
have our most enlightened Christians settled to be the Chris
tianity we are bound to believe, to uphold, to provide for, and
to educate our children in ?

38 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I met Campbell the very day he was going to discuss the
question at the London University, and the kind of spitish
malignity he seemed to have against Christianity was shock
ing. Why is it they all feel such spite ? Leigh Hunt used
to talk of our Lord as if he could bite Him, &c.
Adieu, my dear friend,
B. E. Haydon.
. To Wordsworth.
Mt DEAR WORDSWORTH, • London, 28th June, 1831.
I wish your opinion on certain points in this Beform
Bill. Would you, or would you not, grant members to the
great unrepresented towns? Would you, or would you not,
suppress the decayed and corrupt boroughs ? As far as this
goes, would you not reform ? Surely you admit the principle
of growing with the knowledge of an improved people ? Are
we not too much a nation of corporations ? Should not more
of the middle class be infused into power ? Is it not time ?
And do you apprehend revolution in consequence ? What are
your distinct objections to the Bill? I understand at Lord
Holland's you had a fierce argument with Lord John, and your
admirers say you " gave " it to him. Tell me what you said.
Yours, as ever,
B. E. Hatdon.
From Wordsworth, on Sir R. Peel's ' Napoleon.'
My dear Haydon, June, 1831.
I send you the Sonnet, and let me have your ' King
dom ' for it. What I send you is not warm, but piping hot
from the brain, when it came in the wood adjoining my garden
not ten minutes ago, and was scarcely more than twice as long
in coming. You know how much I admired your picture, both
for the execution and the conception. The latter is first-rate,
and I could dwell upon it for a long time in prose, without dis
paragement to the former, which I admired also, having to it
no objection but the regimentals. They are too spruce, and
remind one of the parade, which the 'wearer seems to have
just left.

B: R. HAYDON. 39
One of the best caricatures I have lately seen is that of
Brougham, a single figure upon one knee, stretching out his
arms by the sea-shore towards the rising sun (William IV.),
which, as in duty bound, he is worshipping. Do not think
your excellent picture degraded if I remark that the force of
the same principle — simplicity — is seen in the burlesque com
position, as in your work, with infinitely less effect, no doubt,
from the inferiority of style and subject ; yet still it is pleasing
to note the under-currents of affinity in opposite styles of
Art. I think of Napoleon pretty much as you do, but with more
dislike, probably because my thoughts have turned less upon
the flesh and blood man than yours, and therefore have been
more at liberty to dwell with unqualified scorn upon his various
liberticide projects, and the miserable selfishness of his spirit.
Few men of any time have been at the head of greater events,
yet they seem to have had no power to create in him the least
tendency towards magnanimity. How, then, with this im
pression, can I help despising him ? So much for the idol of
thousands. As to the reformers, the folly of the Ministerial leaven is
only to be surpassed by the wickedness of those who will
speedily supplant them. God of Mercy, have mercy upon poor
England! To think of this glorious country lackeying the
heels of France in religion (that is no religion), in morals,
government, and social order! It cannot come to good, at
least for the present generation. They have begun it in shame,
and it will lead them to misery. God bless you !
Yours,
William Wordsworth.
P.S. — You are at liberty to print the Sonnet with my name
when and where you think proper. If it does you the least
service, the end for which it is written will be answered. Call
at Moxon's, Bond Street, and let him give you from me, for
your children, a copy of the ' Selections ' he has just published
from my poems.
Would it not be taken as a compliment to Sir Eobert Peel,
who you told me has purchased your picture, if you were to
send him a copy of the Sonnet before you published it ?

40 CORRESPONDENCE OF
From Wordsworth.
My dear Haydon, 8th July, 1831.
I have to thank you for two letters. I am glad you
liked the Sonnet. I have repeated it to one or two judges,
whom it has pleased.
You ask my opinion about the Beform Bill. I am averse
with that wisest of the moderns, Mr. Burke, to all hot reforma
tions, i.e. to every sudden change in political institutions upon
a large scale. They who are forced to part with power are, of
course, irritated, and they upon whom a large measure of it is
at once conferred have their heads turned, and know not how
to use it. To the principle of this particular measure I object
as unjust, and by its injustice opening a way for spoliation and
subversion to any extent which the rash and iniquitous may be
set upon. If it could have been shown of such and such a
borough that it claimed the right to send members to Par
liament upon . . . , or that it had made a grossly corrupt
use of a legal privilege, in both these cases I would disfran
chise, and also, with the consent of the owners, of burgess-
tenure ; but beyond this I would not have gone a step. As to
transferring the right of voting to large towns, my conviction
is that they will be little the better for it, if at all. But even
let them have their humour in certain cases, and try the result.
In short, the whole of my proceedings would have been ten
tative. This is the sum of what I have to say. My admirers, as you
call them, must have been led, perhaps by myself, to overstate
what I said to Lord John Eussell. I did not conceal from him
my utter disapprobation of the Bill, and what I said prin
cipally alluded to its effect upon the aristocracy.
I remember particularly telling him that the middle and
lower classes were naturally grievous haters of the aristocracy,
unless when they were proud of being attached to them ; that
there was no neutral ground in their sentiments. " The mass
must either be your zealous supporters," said I, "or they
will do all in their power to pull you down. That power
you are now giving them through your 10Z. voters, who,
to .effect their purpose, will soon call in the aid of others
below them, till you have the blessing of universal suffrage ;
and what will become — I might have said, but I only hinted

B. R. HAYDON. 4i
it— what will become in that case of Covent Garden and
Woburn, &c?"
I am called off. Ever truly yours,
William Wordsworth.
From Haydon to Mr. Moxon, publisher.
MY DEAR SlR, The King's Bench Prison, 12th October, 1836.
Will you put me down as a subscriber to your number
of Wordsworth ? This is a strange place to order him from, but
I relish him more here than in the mountains, from sheer con
trast of locality. I will send at the first opportunity.
There is a trifle would oblige me. He dedicates his sonnets
to R. B. Haydon. My name is B. B. Haydon, and, for God's
sake, leave out, "Esq."
Do oblige me if you have it in your power.
Yours truly,
B. E. Haydon.
From Wordsworth.
Rydal Mount, 8th July, 1837.
Your picture of the ' Duke of Wellington ' I thought
very promising, but excuse my saying that, as you had given
that of Buonaparte with his back to the spectator, I could not
help wishing that you had not repeated so much of the same
posture in that of his conqueror.
I do not know that I am right in this remark, but such was
my impression.
You are a better judge of exhibitions than I am, but I did
think that in choice of subjects, and the manner of treating
them — though that was far short of what one would wish —
there was a good deal of promising talent. The genius of our
times in your Art is ruined by painting to commission, that is,
under the control of those who order the pictures. Landseer,
if he does not take care, will be killed by this. In your
lectures pray dwell upon this mischief, and point out, as you
may do, without giving just offence, instances of its deplorable
effects. Take, for example, that picture in Lord Westminster's

43 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Gallery, a family piece. Is it possible to think of his genius
and skill could have painted such a thing, except under the
like baneful influence ?
Ever faithfully yours,
William Wordsworth.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 23rd June, 1838.
I think I may say without profanation that the people
are getting to be convinced that " High is our ' calling,' friend."
Surely, if you said this when nobody else said it of me, I may
unite myself with you when everybody is beginning to say it.
I think, after a fierce fight, I am getting into the hearts and
understandings of the people. I think I shall establish schools
of design in the great towns as in London. I think I am con
vincing them that " Exhibitions " are nil, and " Academies "
hotbeds to give importance to mediocrity.
The enthusiasm which has followed my Lectures is extra
ordinary, and when I publish them, to whom shall I dedicate
them ? Ah ! to whom ? To him who hailed the first dawn
and predicted the Sunrise ; who had the moral courage to
unite their author in inspiration with himself — to William
Wordsworth — if he object not ; who raised up their author into
the eye of his country when he was young and hardly known,
and had been oppressed and persecuted, and ridiculed and
misunderstood. Grant me leave to do this, my dear friend.
My kind respects to Mr. Southey. I have not forgotten his
saying to me in 1821 : " Bemember, it takes one man's life to
get a principle acknowledged, and another's to get it acted on."
I have lived to the first point, may I live to the second !
Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.
From Wordsworth.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rydal Mount, 25th June, 1838.
I lose no time in replying to your letter. It gives me
much pleasure to see you writing in such high spirits, as I

B. R. HA YDON. 43
conclude that you are prospering. It would ill become me
not to say that I must deem the dedication to me of your
Lectures an honourable distinction, and the more gratifying as
it comes from the feelings to which you have given utterance
in your letter.
I have not seen any extracts from your Lectures, but I have
somewhere heard that you speak of Michel Angelo in terms of
disparagement to which I cannot accede, and therefore I should
like that, in the terms of your dedication, you would contrive
as briefly as you can to give it to be understood that I am not
pledged to the whole of your opinions in reference to an Art
in wliich you are so distinguished.
Pray present my kind regards to Mrs. Haydon, and
Believe me to be faithfully yours,
William Wordsworth.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 28th June.
Whoever told you I speak in terms of disparagement of
Michel Angelo told you a mistake. I have rescued Eaphael
from the injustice done him by Cpndivi and Vasari, Michel
Angelo's toadies — followed so absurdly by Eeynolds — and I
have proved the calumnies of Vasari by dates.
I have proved Michel Angelo mistook the fallen angels of
heaven for the native monsters of hell, and did not mark the
difference any more than Dante.
I have shown Michel Angelo, great being as he is, to be not
so pure a model as the Greeks, and that we have evidence
that Pheidias was a greater. I have proved he perplexed his
limbs with useless anatomy, and did not know, as the Greeks,
how to clear the essential from the superfluous in form.
I bow to his vast genius in his ' Prophet and Sibyls,' and the
vast power of mind in the arrangement of the Sistine Chapel.
But we have the means to form a purer School of Design, and
a really grander one, and that school will issue from Great
Britain. You shall see all the Lectures, and read them before pub
lication. Accept my thanks that you comprehend my feelings.
I am never "out" of spirits. When in prison I trust in
God ; when in prosperity I pray to Him.

44 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I have had but one object from my earliest boyhood. Often
in my youth, long before I entered London, have I wandered
in the fields on Maker Heights, Mount Edgcombe, or lain on
my back, looking at the sky, composing ' Lectures on Paint
ing,' that I felt I should deliver one day.
I trust in God I shall live to carry all my points, and then,
my dear Wordsworth, I shall prepare for the workhouse.
Ever, my dear friend, sincerely yours,
B. E. Haydon.

From Wordsworth.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rydal Mount, 28th February, 1839.
I have had an opportunity of reading your ' Essay ' (on
painting), in the ' Encyclop. Brit.,' and neither in that nor in
your letter do I find anything said concerning Michel Angelo
to which I object.
I acknowledge him to be liable to all the charges you bring
against him. It would only be a question between us of the
degree in which he is so. Therefore, do not take the trouble
of sending your ' Essay ' for my inspection.
There are some opinions in your ' Essay ' about which. I
should like to talk with you, as, for example, when you say
Eaphael learned nothing from Perugino but what he had to
unlearn. Surely, this is far from the truth ; undoubtedly there
is in him as in all the elder masters a hardness, and a stiffness,
and a want of skill in composition, but in simplicity and
in depth of expression, he deserves to be looked up to by
Eaphael to the last of days. The ' Transfiguration ' would
have been a much finer picture than it is if Eaphael had not
at that period of his life lost sight of Perugino and others, his
predecessors. Whoever goes into Italy, if pictures be much of an object,
ought to begin where I ended, at Venice. Not as I did with
the pure and admirable productions of Fra Bartolomeo at
Lucca, and with Eaphael at Eome, so on to Florence, Bologna,
Pavia, and Milan, and Florence by way of conclusion. Italian
pictures ought to be taken in order, or as nearly as may
be so, Milan, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Pavia, Florence and
Eome.

B. R. HA YDON. 45
Your ' Essay ' does you great credit. I had a sad account
of the French Academy at Eome. The students appear to be
doing little or nothing, and spend their time in dissipation.
Believe me, with kindest regards to Mrs. Haydon,
Ever truly yours,
Wm. Wordsworth.

To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 31st July, 1839.
Your approbation of my treatise is a great pleasure to
me. I fear it is thoughtless to speak of Perugino as I did,
which I will correct, for you are certainly right. I have the
highest opinion of all that simple race. The more we can
revert to their simplicity, without their childishness, the
better. The Art will decay for the next fifteen or twenty years
among the existing artists. But during that time a race will
be preparing and forming themselves for a Period of Glory
which jis coming as surely as the saffron streak of dawn
announces the rising sun.
Wilkie, whose love of money always predominated over his
love of Art, has been living on his capital of early fame for the
last ten years, till he has so reduced it, that if he does not alter
his whole system, he will find the loss of fame the loss of
money too. His latter pictures are detestable. He has
painted the Queen this year as if he had dragged her through
soap suds. Poor little soul ! She has not much taste for High
Art or high poetry. She and her mother came to see my
'Xenophon,' which they did not understand, but laughed
heartily at my ' Beading the Times' So much for the pro
spects of historical Art at Court just now.
People ask me why the Court does nothing for me. I only
reply, " I am not qualified. ... I am not very tractable in
certain necessary points of progress to Eoyalty." I am likely
to be content with my ' Inward Light.' Adieu ! yours ever,
B. E. Haydon.

46 CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, Oxford, 4th March, 1840.
At last I have accomplished one of the glorious day
dreams of my earliest youth — " Lecturing on Art at the Uni
versity." I have been received with distinction by the Vice-Chancellor
and Heads of Colleges, granted the Ashmolean Museum, and
yesterday gave my first lecture, which was brilliantly
attended. There are four honours in my life : —
First. The Sonnet of Wordsworth.
Secondly. The freedom of my native town.
Thirdly. The public dinner at Edinburgh.
Fourthly. My reception at the University pf Oxford.
The first and the last are the greatest, but the first is the
jirst, and will remain so while a vibration of my heart
continues to quiver. Who said, " High is our calling, friend,"
when the whole world was adverse to desert ? There was the '
foresight, the manliness, the energy, and affection which have
marked the poet's career from the beginning to now.
You are a glorious creature, and is not our calling "high"?
Would all the crowns and kingdoms of earth have bribed you
to say that of a man, if you had not felt it ? And why did you
feel it ? Because you saw it.
You have lived to see your complete victory on earth ; you
have nothing to expect now, but " Well done, thou good and
faithful servant ; " and may that hour for the sake of your
friends here be long deferred, for it will not come the less.
After the honours I received yesterday, my mind instantly
turned to you. Fancy my reception here, and compare it with
that of those fellows of the London University, who thought that
a man of my misfortunes would have injured the religious and
moral purity of their London University if I had lectured
there I An ounce and three-quarters of civet, good apothecary
— or, rather, a couple of pounds.
If I were to die this moment, my dear friend, I would thank

B. R. HA YDON. 47
God with my last breath for this great opportunity of doing
my duty. Your affectionate old friend,
B. B. Haydon.
From Wordsworth.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rydal Mount, 12th March, 1840.
Though I have nothing to say but merely words of
congratulation, hearty congratulation, I cannot forbear to
thank you for your letter. You write in high spirits, and I am
glad of it ; it is only fair that, having had so many difficulties
to encounter, you should have a large share of triumph.
Nevertheless, though I partake most cordially of your plea
sure, I should have been still more delighted to learn that
your pencil (for that after all is the tool you were made for)
met with the encouragement it so well deserves.
I should have liked to have been among your auditors,
particularly so as I have seen not long ago so many first-rate
pictures on the continent, and to have heard you at Oxford
would have added largely to my gratification. I love and
honour that place for abundant reasons, nor can I ever forget
the distinction bestowed upon myself last summer by that
noble-minded university. '
Allow me to mention one thing on which, if I were qualified
to lecture upon your Art, I should dwell with more attention
than, so far as I know, has been bestowed upon it — I mean
perfection in each kind as far as it is attainable. This in
widely different minds has been shown by the Italians, by the
Flemings, the Dutch, the Spaniards, the Germans, and why
should I exclude the English ?
Now, as a masterly, a first-rate ode or elegy, or piece of
humour even, is better than a poorly or feebly executed epic
poem, so is the picture, though in point of subject the
humblest that ever came from an easel, better than a work
after Michel Angelo or Eaphael in choice of subject, or aim
of style, if moderately performed. All styles, down to the
humblest,. are good, if there be thrown into the choosing all
that the subject is capable of; and this truth applies not only
to painting, but in degree to every other fine art.
Now, it is well worth a lecturer's while who sees the matter

48 CORRESPONDENCE QF
in this light, first to point out through the whole scale of Art
what stands highest, and then to show what constitutes the
appropriate perfection of all, down to the lowest.
Ever, my dear Haydon, faithfully yours,
W. Wordsworth.
From Wordsworth.
My DEAR HAYDON, 23rd September, 1840.
Believe me to be duly sensible of the respect you
pay me by naming your son after me. My name will, I
hope, be of use to your son on some future day by attaching
an interest to my writing, which may induce him to become
better acquainted there than otherwise he might have been.
Nevertheless, I cannot but feel a wish that you had selected a
sponsor far short of my age, and one whose station in society
might have enabled him to serve his godchild in a way which
I can have no means of doing. But the impulse of feeling to
which you have yielded will at least prove to the boy that
there are other things of value in human life, according to your
estimation, besides worldly advancement and prosperity. Pray
present him with my best good wishes, which I offer trusting
that he will not fail in the important duties which his profes
sion will lay upon him, and that he will look up to the Father
of us all for guidance and support upon every trying occasion
of his life.
As you do not mention his mother I venture to hope she is
no worse, and, if so, improvement may be looked for, which
God grant. . . .
The unlucky Sonnet I have not yet seen in print. The
reading — " Elates not, brought far nearer that grave's rest
As shows that time-worn face. But he," &c,
is not liked by the best judges, especially Mr. Eogers, who is
now writing at the same table with me.
In haste, my dear Haydon, truly yours,
Wm. Wordsworth.

B. R* HAYDON. 49
From Wordsworth.
Lowther, 28th September, 1841.
Your letter of the 11th was duly received and ought to
have been answered earlier, particularly on account of the
notice of your son (Frederic) and the request that I would give
him a little advice. To tell you the truth, I know not how to
set about it any further than concerned the expression of the
interest I take in him and my sincere and earnest wishes for
his welfare. Upon an occasion like this it seems so difficult
to say anything which would not look like preaching, particu-*
larly difficult to a son of yours, who, I know, must have been
religiously brought up and duly impressed with moral prin
ciples. His thoughts, also, must have been directed by you to
his professional obligations, and those sentiments must have
been fostered in him which it will be likely to lead to his
being an honour to his profession. I will not, however, dismiss
the subject from my thoughts, though I feel at present with
out courage to undertake what you propose.
I was at Devonport for three days last summer along with
Mrs. Wordsworth and a dear friend of ours. I wish our visit
had happened at the same time as yours. We were much
pleased with the surrounding objects of Art and Nature, and
passed a delightful afternoon at Mount Edgcombe. The three
towns, the surrounding hills, the shipping, rocks, and water,
combine beautifully. There is, however, one great want — a
cathedral ; or, at least, a majestic church, which ought to be
planted upon some rising ground, so as to preside over the
whole and thus  the  of the dependence of all human
power, whether by sea or land, upon Divine Providence.
We were also at Exeter, and made a tour along the coast as
far as Charmouth, thence to Salisbury, Southampton, and
Winchester, which last place I had never seen before.
Your account of your feelings upon revisiting your native
place was extremely interesting, and thank you for the details
you give of your early studies in the Art to which your works
have done such honour. With the best wishes for your
future welfare and prosperity,
I remain, my dear Haydon, faithfully yours,
Wm. Wordsworth.
vol. ii. E

So CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 30th September, 1841.
I have just been rubbing in the background to the
' Battle of Poitiers,'* the English in pursuit on a distant hill,
and I sit down, with my ears tingling at the war-cries, the
shouts, the clash of armour, the trampling of horses, the rattle
of standards. Who, for fear of pain, would lose his Intellectual
Being ? I would not. — I was never more gratified at any
letter of yours. It proves your attachment unabated, and it
proves the ground of that attachment. Believe me, all my
dear children have been diligently, religiously, and morally
educated, and, so far, all are good.
Your description of Plymouth is beautiful. I always felt
the want of that one glorious object. I will make your feelings
known to them, and perhaps it will be done.
I have, in consequence of the Eeport of the Committee on
the decoration of the Houses, and the evident design to bring
over a German, begun fresco, and, I believe, succeeded with my
first attempt. 'Uriel' is the subject, "his radiant visage
turned." This good has accrued that it is clear an English-
man can paint in fresco. Before I tried, every one said, " It is
impossible." Now, everyone swears, " It is easy ! "
I have made two or three experiments since, and am going
to execute a regular one over my chimney-piece. As ' Uriel '
dried, the colour grew fainter, which was from not putting on
the colour strong enough in tone at first. But it is glorious
practice, and I trust to end my days at a fresco with Faith in
God !
So intensely, my great friend, is Christianity interwoven in
my Being, that I know it to be His revealed Will as if I
heard His Voice. It is in my heart, my brain, my blood.
What a trial of faith did I pass through with Hunt, Hazlitt,
Shelley ; and yet all this added to my convictions. I am come
now to consider death as a change of sensation only ; to go
from one scene to another, as the only thing that makes life
worth enduring. This is no Cant, but Truth.
I am, your affectionate and devoted friend,
B. E. Haydon.
" Exhibited at the Royal Academy 1844, sold to William Newton, Esq.— Eu.

B. R. HAYDON. 5r
To Wordsworth.
MY DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 14th January, 1842.
A day or two ago the Duke took it into his head to
walk out to Leslie's, Pine- Apple Place, to see the picture he is
painting for the Queen, ' The Christening of the Princess
Eoyal,' and, I believe, to give Leslie another sitting. The
Duke walked all the way, which is two-and-a-half miles, and
after a great deal of trouble found Leslie's house.
Leslie, who is prudent and economical, keeps a cheap
servant, who probably squanders as much again as an intelli
gent one of a better class— and he also keeps his outer garden-
gate barred and locked, and one is questioned and cross-
questioned before being admitted, as if the house were
besieged. After a great deal of trouble, the Duke found out the
cottage and rang the bell. After at least ten minutes out
came the servant girl, sulky at heing disturbed. " Is Mr. Leslie
at home ?" said the Duke. " I don't know," said the girl ;
" but I'll see." Away she went, leaving the Duke in the dirt,
without letting him into the garden, and she said to Leslie,
" Here's an old man wants you, Sir." " Is there ?" said Leslie ;
"ask him his name, and what he wants?" Down went the
girl. " Master says you must tell your name, and what you
want, or I can't let yer in." The Duke, by this time roused by
the question, roared out, " I am the Duke of Wellington !"
The poor girl jumped up, and ran back to her master, still
leaving the Duke outside ; out came Leslie in a fright, and, at
last, in got his Grace. He tells the story himself, and jumps
up like the girl, with capital humour.
With respect to the intended deooration of the Houses, if the
State has the moral courage to insist upon fresco, and be
determined none but those who are qualified shall be admitted,
a mighty and beneficial change will take place in British Art.
Unfortunately the question is not, in England, " How can
we advance High Art to the highest pitch ? but, how can we
advance it without endangering the supremacy of the Eoyal
Academy ?" That is the unfortunate principle, and till that be
removed, I expect nothing great. The President of the Eoyal
Academy is ex officio Trustee of the British Museum and Trustee
of the National Gallery. He thus, with his professional
e 2

52 CORRESPONDENCE OF
knowledge, turns his opportunities of intercourse (in their
respective Committees) with the highest people, who have no
professional knowledge, to take care that no plan is proposed
or carried, let it be ever so good, to advance the taste of the
people, provided it be likely to advance the nation, at the
expense of the Academy's inHuence.
I see the effect daily of this pernicious privilege. Already
fresco, which was in everyone's mouth six months ago, is now
on the* wane, because the great majority of oil painters, who
have no design and no practice, are too lazy to acquire
either. English Art, since the Eeformation, has been, in design, the
feeblest in Europe.
The object of fresco is to restore a power of drawing which
no longer exists.
Fresco, obliging the artist to be quite ready in composition,
colour, expression, form, and action, is the best possible method
of forcing the lazy into an effort they will never make without.
Fresco is painting on a thin coat of lime and sand, in colours
ground in water. As the ground thus prepared rapidly sets,
you must paint as much as you can rapidly finish in five hours,
and touch no more. You then cut round your day's labour neat
and square so as to fit it, to be joined the next day to the next
preparation, and so on till you have completed. Here is no
shirking, no re-touching or missing. Leonardo always
trembled so from his refined feeling for Art, he never could
paint in fresco.
Before beginning, however (Lettere Pittorice), you have
drawn your own picture on a cartoon as large as the wall, and
you cut your cartoon in bits daily, trace off on the mortar
with an iron point, and so on till done.
You will see the impossibility of English artists, as a body,
with their want of drawing, their tip-toes, their bits of cloud,
pillar, and table being ready for such practice and you will see
why, with my two years drawing and dissection, my long
practice in great works, and my having all my life made
studies for every part, as in fresco, I am fitted for such
practice, and I mean to pursue it.
Indeed, my dear Wordsworth, my practice in oil has ever
been fresco practice, because I never begin till I am ready,
never retouch in oil, and do as much as I can in one day, and

B. R. HA YDON. 53
no more. I do not deny there may be many profound in
" mortar," but what have they done in " oil " ?
Yet, such are the prejudices connected with my name, that
I shall be entirely left out of the question.
Such a tendency exists in the Academy to see nothing but
what is wrong in my actions, that it amounts to a morbid
insanity; and, such is their influence, they will excite the
apprehension that to encourage me is to support a principle
hostile to authority and established institutions, which, I
shrewdly fear, there is not sufficient moral courage among
those who ought to know better, to resist. However, God only
knows. Many years ago I prayed I might live to see the
great principle of State support to Art acknowledged, and I
cared not for the fruits. Perhaps I shall be taken at my
word. Eastlake, who is appointed secretary, is the fittest man in
Europe for that post. But, if that post involves his taking the
lead as a fresco-painter in a mighty space, he is the most
unfitted. As my first pupil and friend I love him. God bless
you! Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.
P.S. — You will understand the youngest men think with me,
and four or five could be selected, quite ready, under direction,
to begin. But this will be opposed by the great body of
artists, and Sir Martin Shee (P.E.A.), being the (official) repre
sentative of the average mediocrity in the Art, will be always
sure to agree in that principle which helps the unfortunate to
get bread. I know the blessing of daily bread, and the curse
of wanting it, but that has nothing to do with a great prin
ciple of decoration.
It is not to afford food to the wretched, but opportunity to
the skilful, who may, by judicious selection, improve the
condition of the wretched.
What I most fear is that peculiarly blessed English word
" Job," though I trust the sound sense of our Ministers will
check that.
If incompetent artists, on a principle of equality, are admit
ted without previous plan, and previous thought ; if one Head
directs not the whole, the whole thing will end in the laughter

54 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of Europe, and never will Englishmen be able to convince the
world it is from any cause but Incapacity. Adieu !
B. E. H.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 19th March, 1842.
I think my great object is advancing. Its necessity is
acknowledged, and although Southey says it takes one life to
get a principle acknowledged, and another to get it acted on,
still, 1 hope to see the commencement of the action before I
die. I doubt not — indeed, I never did.
God bless you, my dear friend !
B. E. Haydon.
To Wordsworth.
London, 16th October, 1842.
.... In the words of our dear departed friend, Charles
Lamb, " You good-for-nothing old Lake Poet," what has become
of you? Do you remember his saying that at my table in
1819, with '.Jerusalem ' towering behind us in the painting-
room, and Keats and your friend Monkhouse of the party ?
Do you remember Lamb voting me absent, and then making a
speech descanting on my excellent port, and proposing a vote of
thanks ? Do you remember his then voting me present ? — I
had never left my chair — and informing me of what had been
done during my retirement, and hoping I was duly sensible of
the honour ? Do you remember the Commissioner (of Stamps
and Taxes) who asked you if you did not think Milton a great
genius, and Lamb getting up and asking leave with a candle
to examine his phrenological development ? Do you remember
poor dear Lamb, whenever the Commissioner was equally pro
found, saying : " My son John went to bed with his breeches
on," to the dismay of the learned man ? Do you remember
you and I and Monkhouse getting Lamb out of the room by
force, and putting on his great coat, he reiterating his earnest
desire to examine the Commissioner's skull ? And don't
you remember Keats proposing " Confusion to the memory of

B. R. HA YDON. 55
Newton," and upon your insisting on an explanation before
you drank it, his saying : " Because he destroyed the poetry
of the rainbow by reducing it to a prism." Ah! my dear
old friend, you and I shall never see such days again ! The
peaches are not so big now as they were in our days. Many
were the immortal dinners which took place in that painting-
room, where the food was simple, the wine good, and the poetry
first-rate. Wordsworth, Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, Hazlitt,
David Wilkie, Leigh Hunt, Talfourd, Keats, &c, &c, attended
my summons, and honoured my table.
My best regards to Mrs. and Miss Wordsworth, in which my
wife and daughter join. Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 30th March, 1843.
I have — God be thanked! — got through my cartoons,
one from Milton — the 'Curse' — and one from history —
' Edward the Black Prince bringing John (of France) through
London after Poitiers.' When I look back to the beginning,
progression, and conclusion, of these works, and remember the
inextricable necessities through which I have executed them,
beginning without money, progressing without money, and
concluding without money ; appealing to landlords, collectors,
creditors of every description, flying home after expostulating
for mercy, and finishing the highest characters of poetry and
imagination, till a lawyer's letter obliged me to fly off again
to get a few hours more for Christ or. Adam, I cannot help
believing in that awful support I received thirty-seven years
ago in my obscure lodgings when painting ' Macbeth,' in just
the same condition. In an agony of mind I opened the Bible,
vowing to myself the first passage I saw should regulate my
die for life. To my joy then, and ever since, I saw : " Fear
thou not, I am with thee. Be not dismayed, I am thy God.
I will strengthen thee, yea I will help thee, yea I will uphold
thee with the right hand of righteousness." This passage has
blazed in my brain night and day ever since. Hesitation
never enters my mind. If for a moment, I hear " go on "

56 • CORRESPONDENCE OF
audibly, as if whispered. Your " High is our calling," was
from the same awful source. Poor dear Southey said years
ago, "You will see your principles acknowledged." Have I
not, my dear old friend? I have. I may not live to taste the
fruits, but I have lived to do my duty in the first State pro
position, and, as Nelson said : " I thank God with all my heart
and soul for this great opportunity." Now will come the
result, and, if I am successful, and if you do not thunder away
a last Sonnet, never look me in the face again.
(The letter, unsigned, concludes with two pen-and-ink
sketches of his cartoons.)
From Wordsworth.
My dear Haydon, No date (April), 1843.
Your letter, and the print it announced, I received on
the same day. It is as you say an excellent impression, and
the whole effect a great improvement upon the first sketch,
which I owe to your kindness. With much pleasure I con
gratulate you with having finished your cartoon. Let me
thank you also for your sketch on the back of your letter.
My verse days are almost over, as they well may be, for
to-morrow (God willing) I enter upon my seventy-fourth year,
so that I can scarcely entertain the least hope of gratifying
you by writing a Sonnet on either of the works which you have
just executed.
Lord Lansdowne, Sir Eobert Peel, and Mr. Eogers, are, I
see by the papers, the persons who are to decide upon the
merits of the several productions that may be offered. They
have all proved how much they are interested in works of Art,
and their competence to decide probably is not inferior to that
of any other gentlemen whom the charge might have involved.
So that I hope and trust you will have no reason to be dis
satisfied with their judgment.
The laureateship has just been offered to me. At first I
declined it on account of my age, but afterwards it was so
urgently pressed upon me, and in so flattering a manner, by
the Lord Chamberlain, that I could not but alter my deter
mination. I am to hold it as merely honorary.
I send you, or rather I beg Mrs. Haydon's acceptance of, a
copy of a little poem which I wrote two or three weeks ago

B. R. HA YDON. 57
upon a subject which interested the whole nation at the time of
the event.
Admiring your perseverance and firmness, and wishing you
all success, to which your skill and genius entitle you,
Believe me truly yours,
William Wordsworth.
To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 5th July, 1843.
Accept my thanks. I will weather it* in the usual
way, viz., by another and greater attempt.
The cartoons are an honour to the school. No other school
could, at such a call, have produced such works under such
circumstances. I divide the exhibition under three heads,
1st, the cartoons of the experienced painters, 2nd, the cartoons
of the inexperienced painters, 3rd, the cartoons of those who
will never paint at all.
The ; Death of Lear ' (16) ; 'Alfred among the Danes ' (103) ;
' The Fury of Constance ' (27) ; ' The Captivity of Caractacus '
(84) ; ' The Bout in Comus * (63) ; ' Una and the Satyrs ' (10) ;
' St. Augustine ' (100), are as fine cartoons, as cartoons per se,
as any country in Europe could produce, at any period. But
I question the future power of the pencil, because nothing is
more delusive than the hopes raised when a cartoon is made
an end, and not a means.
All the Academy students celebrated for Academy drawings
end in nothing, and have always done so.
My cartoons, ' Adam and Eve,' and ' Edward and John,'
Boss's cartoon of ' Adam and Eve,' and others, are cartoons of
experience with the pencil. Another is ' the Plague ' (J. P.
Davis), whose eye from long habit of imitating nature cannot
bear the hideous definition by line — the necessity when you
trace off for fresco — but which is a modern introduction by
the Germans into cartoons, for in Eaphael's ' School of Athens,'
the most splendid cartoon in Europe, it was not seen.
The decision in favour of a pupil of De La Eoche's is most
unlucky, and most fortunate : unlucky as giving the French
* Alluding to his rejection by the Prize Commissioners in the Cartoon Exhi
bition of 1843.— Ed.

58 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the eclat of beating the English on their own ground, and
fortunate as being evidence of such inferior drawing, propor
tion, character, and taste, as proves in these qualities, of
which France boasts, the English are decidedly superior.
A law was passed by the Commissioners that figures should
be the size of life ; that form, proportion, and drawing should
be preferred to chiaro oscuro ; and yet they give the head
prize to a cartoon whose only beauties are, that no figure is
the size of life, that there is neither form, proportion, nor draw
ing, and chiaro oscuro its leading quality !
Prince Albert, I understand, said, " Dat is worth two tousand
pound !" The judges lost their moral courage, and forgot the
honour of old England. The 'Death of Lear,' 'Constance,'
' Alfred,' have all the qualities required in the highest degree,
and yet they have been totally passed over.
My own cartoon you will think a fine conception, but it is
more adapted for oil than fresco. In proportion, a boy in
' Edward ' shocked me, for I could not see its error in my own
room. They are the cartoons of a painter. I have reflected
deeply on the exhibition which will astonish you. I have
learned an immense deal. I see clearly now the future
grandeur of the British School, and I hope it will not be for
gotten that I have been the basis of this mighty change, that
Eastlake was one of my pupils, that I had a similar exhibition
of cartoons twenty-four years ago, but having neither capital
nor authority to back me, and public feeling not being suffi
cient, the Eoyal Academy destroyed my plan by perpetual
calumny and ridicule.
I have now lived to see them well punished, for eight of
them have exhibited cartoons without success, and thus for
the first time we meet in affliction. Yours ever,
B. E. Haydon.

To Wordsworth.
My DEAR WORDSWORTH, London, 5th May, 1844.
My lectures will be out shortly and I shall, as agreed,
dedicate them to you. It would be no bad joke to dedicate
them to the Academy, that respectable institution, " founded to

B. R. HAYDON. 59
advance the Art, which obliged Eeynolds to resign, expelled
Barry, rejected Sir Charles Bell, insulted Wilkie, scorned
Hayter, disdained Martin, and persecuted Haydon; which
returned ' no answer ' to Lord Castlereagh's Committee when
500,OOOZ. was voted for a Waterloo Monument, and thereby
lost it to the Art ; and which in sixty years spent only 4500Z.
in] sending young men to Italy, and 19,000Z. on ' Dinners.'
In commemoration of such distinguished favours to Art, this
work is dedicated by their true friend, B. E. Haydon."
What say you ? B. E. II.

60 CORRESPONDENCE OF

LETTERS TO AND FROM MISS MITFORD.
To Miss MlTFORD.
DEAR MADAM, 26th February, 1817.
Do not lay your vain attempt at my door, but to your
own delicacy. Had you suffered my servant to bring in your
name, I would have come out to you immediately, and if you
could have amused yourself for a moment with my drawings, I
should have been at leisure. On Monday I shall be happy to
see you and any friends you choose to bring, punctually at
three, if convenient.* It is shocking thus to name an hour to
a lady, but you are aware of my occupations, and will par
don me.
I feel happy that you think me worthy to be known to any
of your friends. My kind respects to your father.
Believe me, &c.
B. E. Haydon.
To Miss MlTFORD.
Dear Madam, 30th May, 1817.
I thank you very sincerely for your beautiful, your
very beautiful Sonnet. I hope I deserve it, and if I do not,
that I shall make myself worthy of it. The Sonnet has been
exceedingly admired by some young poets. It does honour to
your powers. Attentions of any kind from ladies are to me
always delightful. To their influence I am indebted for a
revolution in my mind and feelings on my glorious pursuit, and
* The result of the visit to the painter's studio was a Sonnet, for the next
letter is one of acknowledgment in becoming terms. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 61
from my heart I wish it, when I tell you I look on women as
angels sent from Heaven to temper the fire and direct the
furious energy of men into gentler paths, and for more amiable
purposes than their own inherent fierceness would otherwise
induce them to pursue. Your faithful servant,
B. E. Haydon.
12th January, 1818.
My pupils, indeed, have done wonders. Their drawings*
were an honour to England and to the age. They were not
copies, they were translations, with the feeling, the power, the
truth of the originals. Young men who can do so with the
thoughts of others, will do great things with their own. The
drawings are now completed, and I intend to exhibit them with
all their others. It will show the English that they are as
capable of drawing finely as the Italians, if they take the same
means. It will be the1 first preparatory step in English histo
rical painting completed. Oh, Italy ! Thou art great and
glorious, with thy exquisite Art, thy blue sky, thy inexhaus
tible ruins ; but give me England, fresh, vigorous, inspiring,
where everything in Art is to do, and not where everything
has been done. The very fogs here make me grasp my hands
and say we will do it in spite of this.
To Miss Mitford after the exhibition of his pupils' cartoons.
6th February, 1818.
You would have been delighted to have seen the people
on the five days, elegant and accomplished women and distin
guished men in numbers filled the room, and studiously
examining their expressions ; here was no common attraction.
The most refined parts of the Art, in chalk only, and drawings
from dissections were felt with positive enthusiasm. 'Ihe
* These were the cartoon copies of his pupils, Thomas and Charles Landseer,
Bewick, Chatfleld, Harvey, and others, from two of Raphael's cartoons, the
'Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' and the ' St. Paul preaching at Athens,' which
the Prince Regent, on my father's request, had given permission to be brought
up from Hampton Court to the British Gallery for the purpose. The cartoons
of his pupils were afterwards exhibited to the public with great success ; and by
showing what English lads could do, when scientifically taught, led the way for
the Fine Arts' exhibition of cartoons in 1842. — Ed.

62 CORRESPONDENCE OF
private day was, indeed, a triumph. I had nothing to do when
I returned home but humble myself before my Creator, which
I did most unfeignedly, for having brought me so far upon my
" magnum iter." Indeed, my dear madam, when I consider my
whole history, I must own to you I feel deeply affected. I left
my father just at eighteen ; came to town by myself ; never
doubted an instant that I should accomplish all I have done and '
shall do : ever depending on Him who has ever protected me in
most excruciating want and sickness : and at this moment, to see
the principles of Art I have advocated from the first sanctioned
by the drawings of my pupils ; to see most of those eminent in
rank and talent bearing testimony, public testimony, to the
soundness and the truth of my teaching, after passing through
the roar of calumny for years, was touching. There are mo
ments, and this was one, when one forgives one's bitterest
enemies ; when, quite beyond the petty passions of life, one has
a distant dawning of a purer region, and feels more inclined to
soften the mortification of those whose enmity you have, than
unnecessarily to increase it.
A man in success can afford to do this. And perhaps,
after all, it only proceeds from the confiding consciousness of
success ! Perhaps one's " Vanity " feels more flattered at being
able to show one can be charitable, that is, that one has the
power to look down, and help up, monarch-like !
I can assure you, from whatever principle, success always
softens me, and injustice fires me up. A fine essay might be
written to point out the difference between violent indignation
at the public violation of a great principle, and the feelings of
private life. That man may be very amiable in his home,
though unable to bear with patience the paltry pretences of
imbecility and intrigue in public. I feel convinced that
Milton's public fury of expression on public matters has
created an unjust belief regarding his private disposition, and
that Johnson lost a fine opportunity of justifying him on the
above principle. From Miss Mitford. Bertram House, 20th March.
I congratulate you most sincerely, my dear Sir, on the
deserved fame which your pupils have acquired for themselves

B. R. HA YDON. 63
and for you, since on you it seems reflected back by common
consent by the thousands who admire and the one who rails.
If you can do all this with other hands, what will you do with
your own ? Where shall the world find words to admire, and
Mr. ** terms to abuse ? I don't want to know his name —
better to hate those innocent two stars than any guilty combi
nation of letters, and yet hatred is too strong a word for this
insect, venomous though he be. Unintentionally the thing does
good. He makes you write — always a delightful source of plea
sure and improvement to your readers — and he brings out
by his dark shadowing the bright and spotless reputation
which he vainly attempts to blacken. One must despise him,
to be sure, that is a matter of necessity, but he is of too little
importance to excite any deeper emotion. I owe him some
gratitude for having given rise to your kind attention; a
thousand thanks for the ' Examiners.' But you must not send
any more. Papa could better, I believe, dispense with his
breakfast than with the newspaper that enlivens it, and we get
the ' Examiner ' regularly, always a delightful amusement and,
when your name is there, a great treasure.
What you say of your feelings on this glorious triumph seems
to me most perfectly true both to general and individual
nature. There is a great deal of cant and nonsense in the
phrases which one hears of misfortune's softening the heart, and
such like sayings. Happiness has always seemed to me a
much greater improver both of the mind and the temper.
Many a heart which has been shut and withered by unkind-
ness opens like a flower when light and warmth are let into it.
The poets have aided and abetted this mistake ; there is much
good declaiming-ground in the sweet uses of adversity, and so
forth ; and to do them justice, they have handled it most beauti
fully. They would find a newer and, I think, a far more
gratifying subject in the passion of joy. One of the few fine
instances of this that I know is in the ' King and no King ' of
Beaumont and Fletcher, which I have always thought singu
larly well adapted to the peculiar talent of Mr. Kean. I don't
wish it acted, nevertheless. I am something of Mr. Lamb's
mind, and never wish to see a favourite play in our huge
theatres. Moreover, it would never be popular. Nothing but
Shakespeare's name can give poetry a passport in these days
of pantomime and melodrama.

64 CORRESPONDENCE OF
How very just is all you say of Milton ! To confound vir
tuous indignation with habitual ill-humour could never have
happened to Dr. Johnson had he not looked with the jaundiced
eyes of prejudice, and determined to believe what he wished.
I wish you would write an essay on this subject. Dr. Johnson,
with his Triptology (to borrow a word from Horace Walpole),
would not have done it half the justice. If Milton needed any
other defender than his poetry and his prose, let people look at
this portrait in ' Houbraken's Heads,' and then say if such a
face could possibly belong to a bad temper. I would as soon
(my dear Mr. Haydon, prepare to be shocked) believe in the
ill-humour of Napoleon. Are you throwing my note into the
fire ? or are you smiling and shaking' your head, and saying,
like another friend of mine, " Elle est folle de Napoleon ?"
****** Believe me,
Mary Mitford.

To Miss Mitford.
27th July, 1818.
I have great pleasure in telling you that the casts from
the Elgin Marbles I sent as a present to the Imperial Academy
of Eussia have arrived, and have produced a complete revo
lution in the tastes and feelings of the Eussian artists. It is
impossible to give you an idea how M. Olenin speaks of them.
As he could neither express himself as he wished in French
nor in English, he wrote to a friend, begging him to translate
the Bussian for me. He says in one part, " Tell Mr. Haydon
that we have hearts and souls to feel their beauties to the
utmost extent of his wishes. Translate to him our Eussian
proverb, ' May God Almighty do to him as he has done to
us,' " &c, &c, &c.
Have I not cause to triumph ? I, who first studied them,
who first carried their principles upon canvas ; who first dis
persed casts from them' all over my own country, and to Scot
land and Ireland ; who first sent them to Eome, and now to
Eussia ?
B. E. H.

B. R. HAYDON. 65
To Miss Mitford. Kensington, 14th November, 1819.
Wilkie is painting a capital pictureof ' Beading the Will,'
and perhaps you and your family will be amused by a descrip
tion of the subject, and of the manner in which he has treated it.
At a table is an old lawyer's clerk, a mean-looking, narrow-fea
tured fellow, who holds the will, with all its awful appendages of
seals, and reads it with a look of cant twang which all people
have in the voice when they are doing what they have done
often, and habit has rendered them insensible either to the
importance or interest of what they do. To the left sits the
widow, a large embonpoint lady, with her arm stretched over the
favourite arm-chair of the late dear departed, holding a hand
kerchief; and by her expression she seems not at all displeased at
the contents of what she hears read, or at what either she hears
said by a bald-pated half-pay officer, who leans downs to her
cheek, and in an affected air of condolence is certainly whisper
ing something which perhaps prevents her sinking into utter
despair at any hopes of again making a conquest. (Now pray,
my dear Madam, remember I am describing Wilkie's picture,
and therefore do not attribute to me any unfairness to the
sex.) To the right, in the centre, stands a middle-aged grand
mother, holding the infant in her arms, and erecting her head
with an air of insolent ecstasy at what has been read by the
clerk, which makes it pretty clear that her part of the family
is safe. Her air, figure, look, and expression are admirable.
They all dilate into a sort of turkey-cock chuckle, and
capitally contrast with a furious old maid at the door, who has
snatched up her cane at the instant, and is sarcastically
sneering at the whole company, as she hurries away in indig
nation at being cut off possibly with ten guineas for a ring.
These are the principal points of this capital picture. There
are other characters in it equally excellent, such as an old man
with an ear-trumpet, a servant boy, and others, which make
up the chain of interest. It is for the King of Bavaria, and
will not be engraved here.
Perhaps you will be pleased to hear that my own picture is
on the very brink of conclusion. Wilkie, Landseer, Scott, and
Dr. Wauf, a Scotch preacher, all think I have decidedly suc-
vol. it. F

66 CORRESPONDENCE OF
ceeded in the head of Christ. These gentlemen were all
stumbling-blocks to get over; and if they be sincere, and I
have no reason to doubt them from the impression on others,
perhaps it is true.
It is the seventh head I have painted ; yet it is not exactly
what I wished, but as I shall devote my life to painting re
ligious subjects, I hope to paint our Saviour in all the varieties
of His Divine character. To Miss Mitford. Edinburgh, 5th December, 1820.
I left London for Edinburgh in the midst of crackers
and bonfires. In the mail were three gentlemen, as silent as
myself, until a transparency over an apothecary's shop, dedi
cated to " Injured Innocence ! " lighted our faculties into furious
debate. At it we werit the greater part of the night, and Ber-
gami, Majocchi, and Her Majesty had their full share of notice,
until, tired of argument, we all fell asleep. We got to York
the next night, and I staid there two days, saw Castle Howard
and one of the finest Vandykes in the kingdom.* York is very
interesting, the gates are all up, and one can have a very good
idea of the inconvenience, filth, and impregnability of an ancient
city. I set off for Edinburgh by coach, and got there after a
tedious journey  I had one or two proofs by the inns on
the road that England was left behind. Waiters with red
Scotch noses, slovenly dirty stockings, filthy hands, and a broad
dialect. Landlords cold-blooded, unpolished, and ugly. Never
shall I forget, when having determined to go the last stage in
a post-chaise, I went in to inquire for the landlord. I was
shown to a little withered old man, who was sitting reading an
Aberdeen paper, with a rusty brown wig pushed up over his
forehead. " Can I have a chaise ? " said I. Without moving or
turning his eyes towards me — " I dinnaw but ye mai," said he,
and went on with his reading ! Did you ever hear of such
provoking, bloodless treatment ? I went to bed as soon as I
got into Edinburgh, and sallied forth the next morning to see
it. My dear Miss Mitford, Edinburgh is the finest city for
* The famous portrait of Snyders, painted by Vandyke before he came to
England, a perfect work of exquisite colouring, high finish, and grand ex
pression. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 67
situation in Europe. The two towns, old and new, are built on
two ridges, which are joined by land bridges, like the towns of
antiquity. Some streets run over the others, and afford beauti
ful combinations quite surprising. Towers, arches, houses,
streets, bridges, rocks, castles, and craggy hills are tumbled
together in a wildness and profusion of contrast and daring
beauty, that render the whole town like a wild dream of some
genius. I never saw such a beautiful city, and if the inhabi
tants proceed with taste, they will make it the most beautiful
place in modern times.
******
I dined with Walter Scott, and was delighted with the
unaffected simplicity of his family. Jeffrey has a singular ex
pression, poignant, bitter, piercing — as if his countenance never
lighted up but at the perception of some weakness in human
nature. Whatever you praise to Jeffrey, he directly chuckles
out some error that you did not perceive. Whatever you
praise to Scott, he joins heartily with yourself, and directs your
attention to some additional beauty. Scott throws a light on
life by the beaming geniality of his soul, and so dazzles you
that you have no time or perception for anything but its
beauties : while Jeffrey seems to revel in holding up his hand
before the light in order that he may spy out its deformities.
The face of Scott is the expression of a man whose great pleasure
has been to shake nature by the hand, while to point at her
with his finger has certainly, from the expression of his face,
been the chief enjoyment of Jeffrey  Wilson I think the
most powerful mind I have yet encountered here. He is a man
of great genius, and will be a distinguished figure. No allu
sion has ever passed about the ' Magazine.' They have treated
me with great respect, and it would be beneath me to think of
what is passed. There is a great concentration of talent in
Edinburgh, but yet they have one peculiarity of a small town.
Their stories at table derive their relish from their individuality.
They all relate to some one local celebrity that you must know
in order to enjoy the story. In London, on the contrary, the
stories always refer to some general principle of human cha
racter that is found in all the world. But here, they are about
" Davie," or " Dick," or " Sandy," or some one you never heard
of, who is either lame, or stutters, or squints, or has some
defect, which is not general, but personal and peculiar. This I
f 2 v

68 CORRESPONDENCE OF
suppose must always be the case where the population is
limited, and society confined to a small space.

12th January, 1821.
I saw Barry Cornwall's tragedy the first night.* It suc
ceeded well, and has some exceedingly deep things, but he has
not experience enough to compose his materials for the best
effect. In Shakespeare, every scene has its point to which all
tends and recedes from ; and every point in every scene refers
to the great leading point in the play, by which means there is
never an useless waste of passion nor prominence of situation.
The subject of Procter's tragedy is dreadful. A father marries
a young creature his son loved, without knowing it, and the .
girl marries -him under the belief that the son is dead. His
letters informing her that he was alive were intercepted by
under characters, and when he returns he finds her married to
his father ! His interview with her is very fine and torturing ;
and with his father also, but then comes a third regular set inter
view which weakens the effect of the others and of all. There
is a want of skill and of composition in this. The third inter
view should have been produced by accident, which would have
varied the mode, and rendered the two first more effective.
The scene at the feast is very deep. The father and his bride
on one throne, and the son on another by himseK, while music,
gaiety, misery, love, and joy, which so often are felt at a
splendid rout, when every visitor, as Johnson says, dreads the
hour that is to leave him at his solitary reflections.
This is the most striking thing I have seen on the stage. I
do not like such subjects. Shakespeare never chose them,
His loves, jealousies, horrors, and murders, as well as delights.
are all legitimate  But Procter is a man of exquisite and
tender genius, and will yet do more beautiful things. My model
is come. Adieu !
B. E. Haydon.
P.S. — " Benson " is John Scott, the editor of the ' Champion.'
I hate this affectation of the age, concealing the commonest
thing under nicknames and mystery.
* ' Mirandola.'— Ed.

B. R. HA YD ON. 69
To Miss MlTFORD.* 12 th March, 1821.
.... Poor Scott ! his great weakness was yielding to
the taunts of men weaker than himself. That such a powerful
mind should have been influenced by such an imbecility as his
second, a fellow who, tortured by an itching for notoriety, and
without character or sense to get it, goads his friend into a duel
that he may have the eclat of being a " second," without the risk
of a principal, and then pushes him to murder,' because in the
imbecility of his faculties he cannot comprehend that honour
could be saved, though blood be not shed — it is horrible.
******
Scott was a man of singular acuteness of understanding and
power of mind; but he was not what could be legitimately
called a man of genius. His powers of conversation were very
great, his knowledge considerable, and latterly he had supplied
the deficiencies of education by an anxious study of Italian and
French. He had been badly brought up and badly educated,
* In the midst of settling the composition of ' Lazarus,' news came that the
' Benson ' of his last postscript, his old friend Mr. John Scott, the editor of the
' Cliampion,' liad been shot in a duel with Mr. Christie in a meadow behind
Chalk Farm, on the Hampstead Road. This duel arose out of a political quarrel
between Mr. Scott and Mr. Lockhart (son-in-law to Sir Walter Scott), who was
suspected to have written certain offensive attacks against Mr. John Scott and
his liberal friends, which had appeared in the current number of ' Blackwood's
Magazine.' Mr. Scott retaliated by publishing in the 'London Magazine' a
critique upon ' Peter's Letters to bis Kinsfolk,' and in which critique Mr. Lockhart
was severely handled. An explanation, an apology, or a meeting was demanded
by Mr. Lockhart, and declined by Mr. Scott, unless Mr. Lockhart would disavow
his connection with 'Blackwood's" Magazine;' and this Mr. Lockhart refused.
The quarrel might safely have been allowed to remain where it was but for the
interference of Mr. Lockhart's friend, Mr. Christie, who drew Mr. Scott into a
correspondence ; and Mr. Scott, according to my father's view, smarting under
the imputations which were now freely levelled at him, and anxious to prove that
his rejection of Mr. Lockhart's challenge was not from want of personal courage,
challenged Mr. Christie. The challenge was accepted, and the duel was fought
at 9 p.m. on the 15th February, 1821. It was a moonlight night, and Trail,
Scott's second, knew so little of his business he placed Scott opposite to the moon.
Scott meaned to kill his man if he could. Christie fired wide the first shot.
Scott's shot grazed Christie's head. Patmore, Christie's second, observed this,
and at the second'shot said, "Don't throw away your fire this time ! " Christie
steadied his hand and fired low. Scott fell fatally wounded ; and after lingering
for twelve days in great agony, died on the 27th February. An inquest was held,
and a verdict of '•Wilful Murder" returned against Mr. Christie and the two
Seconds, Mr. Trail and Mr. Patmore, who by that time had placed themselves
quite out of reach of English law. My father, who had not been on good terms
with Mr. Scott, deplored his death as an act of wicked and unnecessary bloodshed.
He writes to Miss Mitford a detailed account of the whole of the melancholy
incident, with a critique upon the dead man and his second in this most mis
managed business. — Ed.

70 CORRESPONDENCE OF
and had the worst feelings of his nature called forth by the
brutal treatment of a brutal father. He had seen a good deal
of life, had suffered every extremity of fortune, was very enter
taining, had at bottom a good heart, but so buried in passions
that its best feelings were often swallowed up at their appear
ance. He had a strong tact for character, and in my opinion,
the soundest political feelings of the day. With all this, he
was diffident of his powers, and too much under-rated his own
judgment. This made him yield too readily to the suggestions
of weaker minds : he wanted decision, and firmness to abide by
the consequences of his own actions  The curse of his
life was a rankling consciousness of his inferiority to some of
his real friends, and the bitter cruelty of his hatred to Leigh
Hunt, his friend and benefactor, is a deep stain on his name.
He attacked Byron because Byron took no notice of him at
table,* I foresaw it from the manner in which he related this
fact to me, and abused Byron for ill-using his wife, at the very
time that he (Scott) was ill-using his own ! He assailed the
politics of the ' Examiner,' after having offered to write for it,
and was wounded by rejection ; and he set furiously upon me
on his return from Italy, after he had corresponded with me in
the most affectionate manner  And how did he attack
me ? He first asked me for some observations on Art, which I
gave to him, and then he tacked these very observations of my
own on to his attack, thus making me the leader to my own
assassination ! Is it to be wondered at I felt hurt ? . . . .
It is a consolation to think, poor fellow! that he died
believing in a future state, and this he told me last summer in
the very field where he was shot. He had no business what
ever to challenge Christie, as it will be seen, but he had got
himseK into a hole, and was willing to fight anybody to get
himself out. Mrs. Scott says that lately he could not sleep,
and told her that everybody looked at him as if he was a
coward. Poor Scott ! The last time I saw him was the first
night of ' Mirandola ;' we both came into the orchestra box and
were alone the whole evening : we shook hands distantly, when
he — but enough, God forgive him and reward him, and make
him happy ! But it is extraordinary how his death affects me,
having had so many interesting conversations with him on the
* All public criticism, the late Lord Lytton once said, was the result of
" Private Friendship ; " but evidently this is only half the truth.— Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 71
subject of death and immortality. I keep thinking I hear
him saying what he thinks of his new state. Poor fellow !
[About three weeks later came another blow: news from
Eome brought intelligence that his friend Keats had died
there on the 23rd of February. Some weeks later on, when
discussing his character with Miss Mitford, Haydon writes : — ]
21st April, 1821.
Keats was a victim to personal abuse and want of nerve
to bear it. Ought he to have sunk in that way because a few
quizzers told him that he was an apothecary's apprentice ? A
genius more purely poetical never existed ! In conversation
he was nothing, or if anything, weak and inconsistent ; he had
an exquisite sense of humour, but it was in the fields Keats was
in his glory. . . . His ruin was owing to his want of decision of
character and power of will, without which genius is a curse.
He could not bring his mind to bear on one object, and was at
the mercy of every pretty theory Leigh Hunt's ingenuity would
suggest. . . . He had a tending to religion when first I knew
him, but Leigh Hunt soon forced it from his mind. Never
shall I forget Keats once rising from his chair and approach
ing my last picture (' Entry into Jerusalem '), he went before
the portrait of Voltaire, placed his hand on his heart and bow
ing low " .... In reverence done, as to the power
That dwelt within, whose presence had infused
Into the plant sciential sap, derived
From nectar, drink of gods,"
as Milton says of Eve after she had eaten the apple. " That's
the being to whom I bend," said he, alluding to the bending
of the other figures in the picture, and contrasting Voltaire
with our Saviour, and his own adoration to that of the crowd.
Leigh Hunt was the great unhinger of his best dispositions.
Latterly, Keats saw Leigh Hunt's weakness. I distrusted his
leader, but Keats would not cease to visit him because he
thought Hunt illused. This showed Keats's goodness of heart.
He began life full of hope, and his brother told me that he
recounted with pride and delight the opinion we had expressed
of his powers the first morning he had breakfasted with me.
Fiery, impetuous, ungovernable, and undecided, he expected
the world to bow at once to his talents as his friends had done,

72 CORRESPONDENCE OF
and he had not patience to bear the natural irritation of envy
at the undoubted proof he gave of strength. Goaded by
ridicule he distrusted himself, and flew to dissipation. For six
weeks he was hardly ever sober, and to show you what a man
of genius does when his passions are roused, he told me that
he once covered his tongue and throat, as far as he could reach,
with cayenne pepper, in order to enjoy the " delicious coolness
of claret in all its glory." This was his own expression.
The death of his brother wounded him deeply, and it
appeared to me from that hour he began to droop. He wrote
his exquisite " Ode to the Nightingale " at this time, and as
we were one evening walking in the Kilburn meadows he
repeated it to me, before he put it to paper, in a low, tremulous
under-tone which affected me extremely. He had great
enthusiasm for me and so had I for him, but he grew angry
latterly because I shook my head at his proceedings. I told
him, I begged of him to bend his genius to some definite
object. I remonstrated on his absurd dissipation, but to no
purpose. The last time I saw him was at Hampstead, lying
on his back in a white bed, helpless, irritable, and hectic. He
had a book, and enraged at his own feebleness, seemed as if he
were going out of the world with a contempt for this, and no
hopes of a better. He muttered as I stood by him that if he
did not recover he would " cut his throat." I tried to calm
him, but to no purpose. I left him in great depression of
spirit to see him in such a state. Poor dear Keats !*
To Miss Mitford. 5th June, 1821.
Wilkie is making a glorious picture for the Duke,pf
Wellington, ' The Chelsea Pensioners,' as it ought to be,
though I must own his Grace's pictures at the gallery are the
most vulgar in taste there, ugly Jan Steen's — horrid subjects
— all touching on the lowest appetites. He liked my
' Jerusalem ' very much last year, so he said, but I suspect he
would like his own pictures better. A man is " no hypocrite
in his pleasures," Johnson said, and if the Duke is no hypocrite
* Shelley's beautiful monody on the death of Keats reached Haydon from
Pisa in the course of the year, and he was much pleased with it, quotes it in a
letter to Miss Mitford, and details how he first met Shelley at dinner at Horace
Smith's.— Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. ' 73
in his, an ugly Dutch boor, laughing and shewing his horrid
gums above his horrid teeth, and squeezing up his pug nose
and squinting eyes, is a thing of all others peculiarly gratify
ing to his Grace, especially if such features are rendered
doubly amiable by drunkenness and appetite. How the
nobility and the King, how he can fill his drawing-rooms with
such boors, when in real life he would feel disgust at finding
himself at table vis-a-vis with such companions, is to me extra
ordinary. Could I once get near him, I think I would revolu
tionise his taste, because I would dare to do it, and others are
afraid, poor creatures ! But I never shall show my head there.

To Miss Mitford. Windsor, 26th October, 1821.
Here I am, my dear Miss Mitford, sitting by my dearest
Mary with all the complacency of a well-behaved husband,
writing to you while she is working quietly on some unintel
ligible part of a lady's costume. The day is beautiful, cool,
sunny, and genial, fit for the beauty and gentle looks of such
a creature as my wife. You do not know how proud I am of
saying my wife. I never felt half so proud of ' Solomon,' or
' Macbeth,' as I am of being the husband of this little tender
bit of lovely humanity.
It rained the whole day yesterday ; was dark, dingy, dreary,
and dull out of doors, but within there was a sunbeam gleam
ing about that made me forget the wind and rain. Mary
smiles and says you must not believe one half of what I write
now. You must believe all. My understanding never loses
its perspicacity however agitated are my feelings, or tenderly
disposed is my heart, therefore you will believe it I feel sure.
People are very curious to see my wife, as everyone seems
surprised. " You are a man," wrote a friend, " who I should
have thought would have married some young girl at first
sight instead of selecting a widow lady." Ha ! ha ! I suppose
they imagine some old widow, whose face presageth snow,
instead of a rich and rosy youthful beauty. I shall return to
town next week and commence my studies. Accept my and
my dearest Mary's thanks for your kind congratulations. I
hope you will allow me to send you a large bit of wedding
cake, and you shall have some to give to every sweet darling

74 CORRESPONDENCE OF
you know in your neighbourhood, with my best wishes for
their happiness. To Miss Mitford. Edinburgh, November, 1821.
I find Sir William Allan only in the town, he is
painting a very clever picture of ' The Broken Fiddle.' A
wooden-legged sailor has broken his fiddle on the head of a
young scamp for some mischievous trick ; an old woman, his
granddam, is shaking her fist at the sailor, who is enjoying
the pain of the crying boy. ... It promises to be a very
clever thing indeed. The background in colour and effect is
the best thing he has done. Allan will be an honour to
Scotland. In the coffee-room where I am now dining is a coaching bill
hung up, with the intelligence that the " Sir Walter Scott,
light post coach" will start for Carlisle on Tuesdays, Thursdays,
and Saturdays. This is true fame, is it not? If writing
seldom produces such proofs of reputation, painting I fear is
considered more a refinement less generaUy comprehensible.
No man would think of attracting passengers by calling a post
coach " The Wilkie."

To Miss Mitford. London, 6th June, 1822.
When I married, the artists said : " Ah ! he will now get
careless and idle, women require so many little attentions,"
&c, &c. ; as if the few sweet attentions to a woman one pas
sionately loved were likely to be more interrupting to study than
the numerous attentions required of a bachelor. In reality I
have never been so industrious, from a love to the Art, as I have
been since marriage, from a love to my dearest Mary. This is
truth, however impolitic the acknowledgment. There never
was such a creature ; and although her face is perfect, and has
more feeling in it than Lady Hamilton's, her manner to me is
perfectly enchanting, and probably more bewitching to me
than her beauty. . . . She has just gone into breakfast, looking
like Psyche. I think I shall put over my painting-room door,
" Love, solitude, and painting."

B. R. HA YDON.

75

[His friend, William Hazlitt, appears about this time to have
been compiling his ' Liber Amoris,' of the events leading to
which Haydon gives Miss Mitford a lively description : — ]
8fh September, 1822.
Hazlitt at present gives me great pain by the folly with
which he is conducting himself. He has fallen in love, to a
pitch of insanity, with a lodging-house hussy, who will be
his death* He has been to Scotland and divorced his wife,
although he has a fine little boy by her ; and after doing this
to marry this girl, he comes back and finds she has been
making a fool of him in order to get presents, and in reality
has been admitting a lover more favoured. Hazlitt's torture is
beyond expression ; you may imagine it. The girl really ex
cited in him a pure, devoted, and intense love. His imagina
tion clothed her with that virtue which her affected modesty
induced him to believe in, and he is really downright in love
with an ideal perfection, which has no existence but in his own
head! He talks of nothing else day and night. He has
written down all the conversations without colour, literal as
they happened; he has preserved all the love-letters, many
of which are equal to anything of the sort, and really affect
ing ; and , I believe, in order to ease his soul of this burden,
means, with certain arrangements, to publish it as a tale of
character. He will sink into idiotcy if he does not get rid
of it.f
* This adventure would seem to have done Hazlitt good, to judge from the
advice he subsequently gave to his son on the subject of marriage. " Choose your
wife," he wrote, " from among your equals. You will be able to understand her
character better, and she will be more likely to understand yours. Those in an
inferior station to yourself will doubt your good intentions, and misapprehend your
plainest expressions. All that you swear to them is a riddle, or downright
nonsense. You cannot by possibility translate your thoughts into their dialect.
They will be ignorant of the meaning of half you say, and laugh at the rest. As
mistresses they will have no sympathy with you, and as wives you can have none
with them. Women care nothing about poets, philosophers, or politicians. They
go by a man's looks and manners. They are an eye-judging sex." — Ed.
t This incident in Hazlitt's domestic history appears to have been literally true
as here related. In the memoirs since published by his nephew, it is stated that
in consequence of incompatibility of disposition and temper, Hazlitt, after hving
with his first wife (Miss Stoddart) from 1808 to 1819, then separated himself
from her, and in 1822 went up to Scotland and effected a divorce, his wife being
a consenting party. On the termination of his next passion, for the lodging-
house girl referred to above, he proposed to the widow of Lieut.-Colonel Bridge-
water, a lady of some means, was accepted, and married her in 1824. They
went abroad immediately after, and on their road home, in 1825, Mrs. Hazlitt
the second preferred to remain in Paris alone rather than return to England
with her husband. A separation then ensued.— Ed.

76 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Poor Hazlitt ! He who makes so free with the follies of his
friends, is of all mortals the most open to ridicule. To hear
him repeat in a solemn tone and with agitated mouth the
things of love he said to her (to convince you that he made
love in the true gallant way), to feel the beauty of the senti
ment, and then look up and see his old, hard, weather-beaten,
saturnine, metaphysical face — the very antidote of the senti
ment — twitching all sorts of ways, is really enough to provoke
a saint to laughter. He has a notion that women have never
liked him. Since this affair he has dressed in the fashion, and
keeps insinuating his improved appearance. He springs up to
show you his pantaloons 1 * What a being it is ! His con
versation is now a mixture of disappointed revenge, passionate
remembrances, fiendish hopes, and melting lamentations. I
feel convinced his metaphysical habits of thinking have ren
dered him insensible to moral duty, &c. . . .
To Miss Mitford.
My dear Miss Mitford, 27th March, 1823.
I complained about the ' Examiner.' It was unjust, I
think. But really you must expect it. . . . All the critics in
the papers are ci-devant poets, painters, and tragedy writers
who have failed. A successful tragedy and by a lady, rouses
their mortified pride, and damnation is their only balm. Be
assured of this. . . . To Miss Mitford. 22nd April, 1823.
I am ruined, infallibly, inextricably ruined. I am at
this moment under the conviction of an execution for a great
debt, with something like the feeling of seeing the first black
speck on the horizon that announces the tornado which is to
overwhelm all ... ' Lazarus ' is already seized, and perhaps
before I finish this letter my property in the house will be
seized also. . . .
* Medwin's description of Hazlitt, when he called to see him at Vevey, on the
second marriage tour, shows that matrimony had relaxed the metaphysician's
notions of personal neatness. " I found him," says Medwin, " with dress
neglected, and chin garnished with a stubble of some days' growth." But
Hazlitt always hated what he called " the mechanism of society," in which he
seems to have included shaving and clean linen, as well as a clean table
cloth.— Ed.

B. R. HA YD ON. 77
I have pursued my object for nineteen years. I have accom
plished, as far as depends on me, what I said in my father's
house I would accomplish.
The first night I left my father's house I passed it in
burning dreams of future glory, but at the end I saw a demon
with his malicious and fiery smile, that seemed to warn and
welcome me. He looked as if in the midst of a sun, that,
while it shone on my path, increased the brilliant darkness
of his own figure. The feelings I have had have been the
feelings of inspiration.
How my heart trembled when a recent critic said : " Perhaps
this is his greatest and his last work." " Perhaps," I thought.
I felt as if a fury had breathed on his pen to warn and startle me.
The ' Crucifixion ' is rubbed in, perhaps it will end where it
is now stopped. Yours affectionately,
B. B. Haydon.
To Miss Mitford.
7th August, 1823.
" I was congratulated," he writes, " by many strangers
on regaining my freedom. My joy was not great. I knew my
misfortunes were caused by a daring attempt to change the
taste of the country. The nation had proved too unripe for
such attempts, and of course I came to the ground."
To Miss Mitford. 7th August, 1823.
Well, my dear friend, here I am stripped to the bone,
but full of health and spirit, with a lovely wife, a beautiful
child, a character to keep, and a character to regain. What
shall I do? Nobody can tell me, and all seem waiting to
observe. I have been offered to travel to Egypt and the Holy
Land, and to Italy, but I will not. I will not, the moment I
get free, fly from my country. I will prove that I can stay in
it. It will be the most judicious plan to change a little my
proceedings — to secure a resource by my own labours before
I finish the ' Crucifixion.' I have, therefore, gone into humble
lodgings, and shall begin a moderate-sized picture of some
great subject. I must own I feel more the want of my books
than prints or casts: The back of a book often excites asso-

78 CORRESPONDENCE OF
ciations, and instant reference fixes passages in your brain.
Oh ! the agony of trying to remember with nothing to refer
to! It is the wheel and the thumb-screw. But, alas! to
separate me from a gigantic canvas is tearing the soul by force
before its time. Your friend is wrong in thinking the sale of
my works cut me. They are painted. That is enough. I
know that if Art rises here, it must rise on the principles of
' Dentatus ' and ' Lazarus.' I rest content on this. God pre
serve them from fire ! I am content to let them take their
fate. If I was certain of perishing in the midst of the ' Cruci
fixion,' I would paint it, but there is no glory in getting into
prison again* To Miss Mitford. 12th September, 1823.
You will certainly spoil me, with your kind letters and
your flattering poetry. Many thanks. It is a consolation to find
some friends thinking highly of one, while so many seem to be
thinking ill. I heartily wish my " golden hour " may come.
My dear, I would pay my debts, and, plunge into solitude and
peace. ... I have made a sketch of a friend, in chalk, and
have been paid for it ; the first time I ever took money for a
drawing in my life. I felt a wrench of feeling, but my own
reflections proved to me it was more manly and honourable to
take money for a drawing than to borrow it. I have begun a por
trait ; in short, I will do anything in my Art to keep out of
debt, and avoid the horror and meanness of owing my support
to my friends. While I had a great object I pursued that
only, in the hope of public support in the end carrying me
through, and I felt justified then in asking assistance ; but I
will do nothing of that kind again until my own labours have
placed me above the want of assistance.
To Miss Mitford. September, 1823.
Sympathise, my dear Madam, with my poor lay-figure.
He who has borne the grave-clothes of ' Lazarus,' the shield of
* Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that his real desire at this moment was
to go back to his stripped #iouse, and " without a stool to sit on " finish ' The
Crucifixion.' If he had not been married he would have certainly'done so In
a subsequent letter to Miss Mitford (14th April, 1828) he admits that this was
his real wish, but that he tailed to persuade my mother to consent.— Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 79
' Dentatus,' and the drapery of ' Macbeth,' is now buttoned up in
a black coat and waistcoat ! I declare to you his awful, stiff
misery of appearance made me melancholy. Alas! how are
the mighty fallen ! Behold him with a coat and cravat, and
a waistcoat — stiff, graceless, and a dandy ! Poor lay-figure !
Thou art bound to suffer the consequences of thy master's
ambition, and it will not be long, I fear, before thou art in
boots ! . . .
I have finished a half-length; painted the coat to per
fection, the cravat unrivalled, the hand admirably, the head as
it ought to be. My sitter is a worthy man, has paid me a fair
price; so that dear Mary and I and Frank jog along, and
pay our butcher regularly. We — Mary and I — take it in turns
to clean brushes and palette, and then we read, romp, walk, or
sit down and — laugh ! Is not this the perfection of the thing ?
Have I been to prison for nothing ? But, alas ! remembrance
of what I am, what I was, and what I may be, sometimes creeps
in. I realise by night in my dreams what my day woefully
dispels. I scarcely close my eyes but I am immediately trans
ported before my ' Crucifixion ' standing on my high steps, in
my large room, painting with demoniac fury. I talk so loud
in my sleep, and utter such incongruous noises, I wake myself,
and disturb the house. Oh, believe me, I am sick at heart !
.... This is a letter, as usual, about nothing but myself.
What are you about? Hazlitt was up last week from Fonthill,
where Phillips has fixed him to write up, for fifty guineas,
what he wrote down from his conscience last year. He came
to town for a night or two, and passed nearly the whole of
each in watching Sally's door ! He had another flame, who is
at Hampton : down he went to tempt her for Gretna, but her
brother, an officer in the Navy, happened to be with her ; and
" officers," said Hazlitt, " you know, are awkward fellows to
deal with ! " Oh, the gallant, gay Lothario !
Is this not divine? But still nobody is like him.
Wilkie is going to paint the King in his Highland costume.
The King lamented Eaeburn should have died before he had
done this !
Eoyal sympathy !
[In his review of Shelley's works, Hazlitt had spoken of
Keats, Shelley, and Byron as " a band of immortals." This

8o CORRESPONDENCE OF
tickled my father, to whom Hazlitt had persistently denied
Keats's claims to any talent, much less immortality. He writes
to Miss Mitford that there must be a reason for this sudden
change of opinion : — J September, 1823.
Oh, human nature ! and human criticism ! Did man
kind know the motives which instigate all criticism on living
talent, or within ten years after its existence, how cautious it
would be of suffering itself to be led by modern critics ! . . .
When Keats was living, I could not get Hazlitt to admit
Keats had common talents ! Death seems to cut off all appre
hensions that our self-love will be wounded by acknowledging
genius. But let us see, and sift the motives of this sudden
change. ' Blackwood's ' people Hazlitt would murder, morally
or physically, no matter which, but to murder them he wishes.
To suppose Keats's death entirely brought on by ' Blackwood's '
attacks is too valuable and mortal a blow to be given up.
With the wary cunning of a thoroughbred modern review
writer, he dwells on this touching subject, so likely to be
echoed by all who have suffered by ' Blackwood's ' vindictive
animosities. Now, Keats is an immortal ; before, he was a
pretender ! Now, his sensitive mind withered under their
"murderous criticism," when, had Keats been a little more
prominent, Hazlitt, as soon as any man, would have given him
the first stab! He thus revenges his own mortification by
pushing forward the shattered ghost of poor fated Keats.
Hazlitt and his innamorata have now gone to Italy, the land of
Art, and he has left " the land of spinning-jennies and Sunday-
schools," as he says — and, as he forgot to say, the land also of
Shakespeare and Milton, Bacon and Newton, Hampden and
Locke. In the ' Morning Chronicle ' of yesterday is his first letter,
full of his usual good things, and— bad things ; but still I hope
he will continue them. Any man who can leave England, and
look back upon her shore and think only of spinning-jennies
and of nothing else, must be a bastard son. . . . Alas ! what
England suffers from her unnatural children! Disappointed
painters, disappointed poets, disappointed statesmen, disap
pointed place-hunters, all unite to decry her genius, her worth
her grandeur, and ber power !

B. R. HAYDON. 81
To Miss Mitford. 7th November, 1823.
The other day, while Frank was lying on his bed in the
nursery, a little robin hopped in. I caught it, caged it, and
after a day or two it began to "dit! dit!" This note seized
hold of the boy's imagination; and last night when, like a
good old papa, I got out in the dark to give him something to
drink, the instant he felt my rough hand, which he knew was
not his mother's, after he had satisfied his thirst, he pressed
his cheek against my hand — half-asleep as he was — and in a
small treble voice, like a flageolet, said " Dittey !" with a sort of
sparkling chuckle. Is he not a darling ? It was so cheerful,
in the midst of a dark night, when most children would have
cried, that, I privately tell you — at which you must not laugh
— I hugged him well.*
You ask my opinion of the Greek Tragedies. Judging only
of the sense, the plots, characters, and expressions ; and being
unable to judge of the effect these must have had on Greek
audiences from the associating power of the words alone of
their divine language — my opinion is, they are too systematic.
The characters seem to walk about as speaking-trumpets for
the author to blow his moral axioms through. They are ad
mitted for the purpose; they spout philosophy like schoolboys;
and end as if they feared that passion might make them for
get the instructions they had received.
They are put forward to illustrate some settled moral before
hand ; they do not seem to act from impulse, and let a moral
be inferred from the consequences. But yet there are scenes
— grand, picturesque, daring — equal to Shakespeare. Do you
know the ' Agamemnon ' of iEschylus ? Do you remember
that sublime passage where Cassandra is driven in by Aga
memnon, and when she is desired to enter the palace, starts
back and shrieks, " Apollon ! Apollon ! " The Chorus asks her
why she starts ? "I smell blood in that house — like the scent
* Later on he records how he tries to teach his son the alphabet, and fails, as
much, I suspect, from the impatience of the tutor as frnm any other cause. " I
cannot get Frank to attend to his letters. ' A.' ' There's an organ, papa — in the
street— hark ! ' ' B.' ' Give me brush to paint with.' ' C ' Ah ! there's a fly,
I've got him.' ' D.' ' Papa, why do you wear spectacles ? ' &c. &c. And so it
goes on till I get up and tumble head over heels for consolation. Whatever you
do, never keep a school ! I should be transported for thumping the boys." — Ed.
VOL. II. G

82 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of a tomb," She foams, and goes in, like a swan, chanting her
anticipation of the King's and her own murder. All, that
follows is sublime and passionate. The opening, too, with a
man who has sat for ten years watching the fire-signal from
the highest mountain : at last a blaze bursts through the night :
he rushes down to the palace, and the whole city is in an uproar
to greet the King after the ruin of Troy. This is sublime. In
Sophocles, where you hear through a whole play of CEdipus —
old, blind, and cursed — being in the palace, but never seen ; and
in the last act, when his children and wife all lie dead, he comes
forth to grope his way to their bodies. The last scene of ' Lear '
is not finer ; though ' Lear ' is beyond the whole play.
But there is an infinity more of thinking in a page of Shake
speare than in one page, or two pages, of any other being who
ever thought. The world would lose more by Shakespeare's
destruction than by the loss of all the Greek Tragedies.
But after all, God knows what peculiar delight the Greeks
must have derived from their language alone I This is the
secret and loss. We cannot imagine a language wherein a
poet could combine words into one to express one idea strongly,
and yet keep up in the mind all the associations of each
separate word taken to make this one. It is beyond us now.
To Miss Mitford. 24th January, 1824.
God knows ! but the longer a man lives the more he is
convinced that, but for "Hope," he would scarcely move.
And that, when he has no longer any hope in this world, he
carries it forward into another about which he knows nothing,
and which, principally on that account, becomes a source of
relief. Yet even the promises of Divinity are so darkened by
human folly and wickedness, that the firmest faith has at times
agonizing apprehensions, though there is " more hope atween
the twa boards of the Testament " than would save the worst
of us. To Miss Mitford. 22nd April, 1824.
I am at this moment, after twenty years as sincere
devotion to the Art as ever inspired an individual in it, without
an atom of employment for portrait, historical sketch, view,

B. R. HA YD ON. 83
drawing, or design. In the bitterness of my heart I could go
on like Polonius, for my heart is at last bitter. What am I to
do ? Croker and Sir Charles Long said, " You never painted
portraits ! " Well, I have painted one, it is admired, but neither
Croker nor Sir Charles come to sit. Others said, " His works
are too large." I have now sent out one (' Silenus ') the size
of my first picture which Thomas Hope purchased, and of
' Dentatus,' which Lord Mulgrave bought, and yet nobody buys
' Silenus,' and nobody will. A youth of genius unshattered by
misfortune is an object of hope, but a man scarred by trouble,
and branded by a prison, disposes the world to stamp him into
the earth that it may get rid of a trouble and a reproach. . , .
I have never been desponding, though I have had enough to
kill two men of ordinary spirit, because I was young, and
because time before me only added vigour and maturity ; but
now, what have I to hope from time but two or three years of
problematical health and strength, and then the gradual
approach to decay and imbecility. . . . Knowing what I could
have done, and what I could yet do ; knowing I should have
been an honour to my country; knowing that I have done little
but save my name from oblivion by a few miserable works,
imperfect and unequal, the result of a perpetual grasping
struggle with want, can you wonder at my feelings ? If" I had
not a body of iron, a heart of steel, and a mind of fire, I should
long since have been dead, and die I shall at last from the
agonies of racked ambition.
Wilkie and Chantrey were always more violent than I was,
and if they had stood by me we would have given the country
a shock. But they shrunk ; and although they explained their
reasons to me, ease, tranquillity, and self-interest were their
guides. Peace attend them !
We are all of us low. I tore the leaves out of my Journal
because I have no money to buy paper. Had I not a pupil at
so much a lesson we should have starved.
Yours, in bitterness of spirit,
B. B. Haydon.
To Miss Mitford.
31st May, 1824.
While one of the "family" was sitting, last week, a
hearty weather-beaten, unsophisticated fine creature, who
a 2

84 CORRESPONDENCE OF
should call but Tom Moore, the very essence of contrast? To
see Moore survey my sitter through his glass, like something
he was unaccustomed to in fashionable life, with his sparkling,
dancing, rosy, Anacreontic, poetical dandyism, was exquisite.
Are you not indignant that Byron has been prevented giving
us his own opinion of his own treatment, out of regard to the
feelings of others ! The waiting maid, perhaps,
" Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred ! "
This is a sad business, and shows how Byron mistook his
man. Moore had never a real feeling for Byron as a man, or
he could never have breakfasted with John Scott after his
shameful attack on Byron, which brought all Byron's affairs
before the world, an attack generated by the basest spite and
the meanest feelings ; I had a great mind to take up the busi
ness ; I had written a letter, which my wife made me destroy ;
I know the secret history of that infamous attack. Bogers, one
morning when I was with Sir Walter Scott, and we were talking
about Scott (of the 'Champion'), complained of Moore's break
fasting with him, and said he had told Moore of it. What are
the feelings of the living, who are alive to reply, to the character
of the dead, who can reply no more ? Byron's fate predomi-
nated. But I will one day tell the whole and sole cause of his
affairs being brought before the world in so shameful a manner,
and which was the source of all the calumny that followed.
I cannot take Mrs. Franklin's friend's opinion on Byron's
Journal, or Moore's, who certainly was not a sincere friend. " I
shall fight," said Byron in a letter to Moore, " and if I get
killed, do justice to a brother scribbler." Moore repeated this
to me at table about a fortnight before the news arrived of
Byron's death. What did that meanl Why, it is evident,
this — " You have got my Journal ; you have my opinions ;
publish them. It may offend, but I have been offended; it
may pain, but I have been tortured ; it may look morbid and
black, but who made me so ? The world. I came to it with
the freshness of youth ; and its vice and duplicity, its hatred of
talent, its detestable cowardice, its mean want of honour, made
me what I am." Byron showed society as it is, he had courage
to do it.*
* Haydon here appears to do Moore an injustice. From the publication of
letters from the late and present Mr. John Murray of Albemarle Street," it would

B. R. HA YDON. 85
I have not yet read Byron's ' Conversations,' but there was
an anecdote in one of the extracts which confirms what I heard
long since, but which I could not depend on before. He had
an aversion to see women eat. Colonel  was at Byron's
house in Piccadilly, Lady Byron in the room and " luncheon "
was brought in — veal cutlets, &c. She began eating. Byron
turned round in disgust and said, " Gormandizing beast !" and
taking up the -tray, threw the whole luncheon into the hall.
Lady Byron cried, and left the room.
Byron hated to be interrupted when he was writing, then
why did she interrupt him ? Because she thought it a whim.
To her and her dear delightful maid it might appear a whim,
but if, at that moment, he was conceiving some beautiful
thoughts, what can you think of a woman who, for some trifle,
would interrupt her husband's conceptions ? I have never said a
cold thing, much more a harsh one, to Mary, but if she had
come into my room and asked me if I would like roast mutton
for dinner when I was conceiving ' Lazarus,' I think she would
never have come in a second time.* Setting aside that,
women of rank and family are not fitted for "Love and
Genius." Their pride, their importance, their habits of
separate rooms, footmen, carriages, maids, and confidantes, are
inconsistent with the care a man of genius requires. But
seem that, of the ' circle,' Moore was really the only one opposed to the destruc
tion of Byron's Journal. The letters in question are dated 19th May, 1824, and
6th October, blank, and are addressed respectively to Mr. — afterwards Sir Robert
Wilmot Horton, and to the editor of the ' Academy.' In these letters the Messrs.
Murray explain that Byron's MS. Journal did not at the time of Byron's death
belong to Moore, but had become Mr. Murray's "own private property" by pur
chase from Moore in 1821, under certain conditions, which conditions Moore
allowed to lapse ; and that Mr. Murray, senior, in consequence of the failure of
Moore to redeem the MSS., was at liberty " to dispose of the MSS." as be
" thought proper." Mr. Murray then states to Mr. Horton that his " regard for
Lord Byron's memory, and my respect for his surviving family, made me more
anxious that the memoirs should be immediately destroyed, since it was surmised
that their publication might be injurious to the former, and painful to the latter.
As I myself scrupulously refrained from looking into the memoirs, I cannot
from my own knowledge say whether such an opinion of the contents was correct
or not ; it was enough for me that the friends of Lord and Lady Byron united in
wishing for their destruction. Why Mr. Moore should have wished to preserve them
I did, not and will not inquire ; but having satisfied myself that he had no right
whatever in them, I was happy in having an opportunity of making, by a pecu
niary sacrifice on my part, some return for the honour, and, I must add, the
profit, which I had derived from Lord Byron's patronage and friendship."
We have all of us heard of a lame excuse, but, as Hannibal said of the prosy
old man, "such a one as this — never." (See Appendix, Elze's 'Life of Lord
Byron.') — Ed.
* Haydon did himself injustice here. He was most patient and forbearing
in his painting-room under interruptions." — Ed.

86 CORRESPONDENCE OF
every wind blows intelligence that we are right in eur estima
tion of Byron's character.
******
[An anecdote of Sir Walter Scott follows : — ]
A friend of mine has been spending some time at Sir
Walter Scott's. Scott is liable to great intrusions of every
kind. A stupid chattering fellow got at him by a letter, and
stayed a week. He was a great bore, and my friend and
another visitor were obliged one day to retire to a window to
avoid laughing outright. Sir Walter hobbled up to them and
said, " Come, come, young gentlemen, be more respectful. I
assure you it requires no small talents to be a decided bore!"
I like this ! there is the geniality of the " Unknown " in it.
From Miss Mitford. 2nd November, 1824.
I have just finished Lord Byron's ' Conversations ' (you are
going to be very angry now), and I find my words of enthusiasm
for the noble poet very fully justified and borne out. To say
nothing of the open and avowed profligacy abroad and at home,
only think of the taste which the book shows — the crying
down Keats, Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth — the crying up
Moore's frippery songs, Dr. Johnson's heavy criticisms, and his
own dull plays. What he says of Shakespeare, and of Words
worth in particular, is disgusting. To fasten on the few and
rare grossnesses of Shakespeare, which pure-minded readers
pass over almost without consciousness, and forget all that
there is of divine in the poet of the world ; and to pitch on a
few faults of system in Wordsworth, and to speak of him as if he
was no poet at all. Fifty years hence our descendants will see
which is remembered best, the author of the ' Excursion,' or of
'Childe Harold.' But he seems to me to have wanted the
power of admiration, the organ of veneration ; to have been a
cold, sneering, vain, Voltairish person, charitable as far as money
went, and liberal so far as did not interfere with his aristocratic
notions, but very derisive, very un-English, very scornful.
Captain Medwyn speaks of his suppressed laugh. How un
pleasant an idea that gives ! The only thing that does him
much credit in the whole book is his hearty admiration of
Scott. But Scott did not interfere with him. If Sir Walter

B. R. HA YDON. 87
had been such a poet as Wordsworth, we should have seen. I
would have wagered that he would not have admired the head
of ' Lazarus,' unless to cry down some one else, or unless you
had painted his portrait and flattered him. Then, his opinion
of prowess ! Well, I think this book will have one good effect.
It will disenchant the whole sex. How very amusing Hazlitt's
letters are, with their good things and their bad things ! Where
shall we find so much admirable sense and so much sheer non
sense in the same space as is comprised in the letter which talks
so absurdly of national prejudice, and so finely of the burial-
ground of Pere-la-Chaise ? This is a letter for twenty. I have
sent them myself. Say everything that is kindest and finest
for us all to Mrs. Haydon, and believe me always most faithfully
and affectionately yours,
M. E. M.
To Miss Mitford.
You are unjust, depend upon it, in your estimate of
Byron's poetry, and wrong in your ranking Wordsworth beyond
him. There are things in Byron's poetry so exquisite, that
fifty or five hundred years hence they will be read, felt, and
adored throughout the world.* I grant that Wordsworth is
very pure and very holy, and very orthodox, and occasionally
very elevated, highly poetical, and oftener insufferably obscure,
starched, dowdy, anti-human [and anti-sympathetic, but he
never will be ranked above Byron nor classed with Milton, he
will not, indeed. He wants the constructive power, the lucidus
ordo of the greatest minds, which is as much a proof of the
* My father's admiration of Byron was sincere. In many points, such as his
picturesque description, and his practical views of men and things, my father
preferred Byron to Wordsworth ; he thought him more human ; and then, I
think, he admired his isolated position as a poet. Wordsworth's gift, in his
opinion, was in describing " those far-reaching and intense feelings and glimmer
ings, and doubts and fears, and hopes of man, as referring to what he might be
before he was born, or what he may be hereafter." In his Journal for 1815, my
father sums up Wordsworth as a "great being, who will hereafter be ranked as
one who had a portion of the spirit of the mighty ones, especially Milton, but
who did not possess the power' of using that spirit otherwise than with reference
to himself, and so as to excite a reflex action only." — Ed.
'• Byron will be remembered longer by the lyrical pearls which are scattered
so copiously through his poems, gems which are familiar to every reader of his
works, and can never be forgotten. It is in these that his muse takes her
noblest flight ; these are the portions of his poetry which are instinct with the
most exquisite beauty, and exercise on us the most powerful spell; and we
cannot imagine that they will ever fail to fill their readers with rapture."
(Elze's ' Life of Lord Byron,' p. 402.)— Ed.

88 CORRESPONDENCE OF
highest order as any other quality. I dislike his selfish
Quakerism; his affectation of superior virtue; his utter in
sensibility to the frailties— the beautiful frailties of passion.
I was once walking with him in Pall Mall; we darted into
Christie's. A copy of the ' Transfiguration ' was at the head
of the room, and in the corner a beautiful copy of the ' Cupid
and Psyche' (statues) kissing. Cupid is taking her lovely
chin, and turning her pouting mouth to meet his while he
archly bends his own down, as if saying, " Pretty dear !" You
remember this exquisite group ? . . . Catching sight o{ the
Cupid, as he and I were coming out, Wordsworth's face
reddened, he showed his teeth, and then said in a loud voice,
" The Dev-v-v-vils !" There's a mind ! Ought not this ex
quisite group to have roused his " Shapes of Beauty," and
have softened his heart as much as his old grey-mossed rocks,
his withered thorn, and his dribbling mountain streams? I
am altered about Wordsworth, very much, from finding him
a bard too elevated to attend to the music of humanity. No,
no! give me Byron, with all his spite, hatred, depravity,
dandyism, vanity, frankness, passion, and idleness, to Words
worth, with all his heartless communion with woods and grass.*
When he came back from his tour, I breakfasted with him
in Oxford Street. He read ' Laodamia' to me, and very finely.
He had altered, at the suggestion of his wife, Laodamia's fate
(but I cannot refer to it at this moment), because she had
shown such weakness as to wish her husband's stay. Mrs.
Wordsworth held that Laodamia ought to be punished, and
punished she was. I will refer to it. Here it is —
" She, whom a trance of passion thus removed,
As she departed, not without the crime
Of lovers, who, in reason's spite have loved,
Was doomed to wander in a joyless clime,
Apart from happy ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet in Elysian bowers." f
* In a subsequent conversation, Wordsworth, when questioned, laughed
heartily at being reminded of " The Devils," and said, " he had no idea what he
meaned at the time." — Ed.
t In an edition of 1863 the verse runs —
" Ah, judge her gently who so deeply loved !
Her who in reason's spite, yet without crime,
Was in a trance of passion thus removed ;
Delivered from the galling yoke of time
And these frail elements, to gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers."

B. R. HA YDON. 89
I have it in his own hand. This is different from the first
edition. And as he repeated it with self-approbation of his
own heroic feelings for punishing a wife because she felt a
pang at her husband going to hell again, his own wife sat
crouched by the fire-place and chanted every line to the echo,
apparently congratulating herself at being above the mortal
frailty of loving her William.
You should make allowance for Byron's not liking Keats.
He could not. Keats's poetry was an immortal stretch beyond
the mortal intensity of his own. An intense egotism, as it
were, was the leading exciter of Byron's genius. He could
feel nothing for fauns, or satyrs, or gods, or characters past,
unless the association of them were excited by some positive
natural scene where they had actually died, written, or fought.
All his poetry was the result of a deep feeling roused by what
passed before his eyes. Keats was a stretch beyond this. Byron
could not enter into it any more than he could Shakespeare.*
He was too frank to conceal his thoughts. If he really
admired Keats he would have said sot' (I am afraid I am as
obscure here as Wordsworth). So, in his controversy with
Bowles, Byron really thought Pope the greater poet. He pre
tended that a man who versified the actual vices or follies was
* In this opinion of Byron, Haydon is also supported by the latest authority,
that of Karl Elze, who, in his ' Life of Byron,' writes, " It is intimately connected
with the character of improvisation which belongs to the poetry of Byron, that he
could write only on the very spot, or at least that he muBt receive on the spot
inspiration for his poetry, and then, almost immediately, fervente calamo, commit
it to paper ; he could not dispense with the immediate stimulus which he received
from the external world. . . . He often said be could describe only what he had
seen or experienced. . . . According to his view, the poet, before he could
describe them, should have experienced all feelings and passions ; the poet should
live his own poetry. . . . Mere invention is, he says, the talent of a liar, and all
fictions were hateful to him which were mere fictions. . . . All his poems were
written, when the fit of inspiration was upon him, with the utmost rapidity, and
as it were at one cast ; even the Cantos of ' Childe Harold,' and of ' Don Juan,'
which came forth separately, not excepted. If the first attempt failed he would
never proceed to a second ; and the recasting of the third act of ' Manfred,' which
occasioned him extraordinary trouble, is the only example of a departure from his
practice. He often says, ' I must either make a spoon or spoil a horn.' Yet more
forcibly he compares himself to a tiger : ' If I miss the first spring I go grumbling
back to my jungle again.' " (Elze's ' Life of Lord Byron,' 400-1.) — Ed.
t While Keats lived Byron abused him heartily, called his poetry " drivelling
idiotism," and threatened to " skin him," if the reviewers did not. But after his
death, and after reading ' Hyperion,' he subsequently admitted that it was Keats's
depreciation of Pope which had " hardly permitted me to do justice to his own
genius which, malgre all the fantastic fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of
great- promise. His fragment of ' Hyperion ' seems actually inspired by the
Titans, and is as sublime as iEschylus. He is a loss to our literature." (See
Byron's ' Lifeand Letters ;' also Lord Houghton in Keats's' Life and Letters.') — Ed,

90 CORRESPONDENCE OF
a greater, and more moral poet that he who invented a plot,
invented characters which by their action on each other
produced a catastrophe from which a moral was inferred. This
at once showed the reach of his genius. . . .
To Miss Mitford. (No date), 1824.
I have had a horrid week with a mother and eight
daughters ! Mamma remembering herself a beauty ; Sally and
Betsey, &c, see her a matron. They say, " Oh ! this is more
suitable to mamma's age," and " that flts mamma's time of
life ! " But mamma does not agree. Betsey and Sally, and
Eliza and Patty want " mamma ! " Mamma wants herself as
she looked when she was Betsey's age, and papa feU in love
with her. So I am distracted to death. I have a great mind
to paint her with a long beard like Salvator, and say, " That's
my idea of a fit accompaniment."
"Can you wonder," he adds on 6th July, 1825, "that I
nauseate portraits, except portraits of clever people. I feel quite
convinced that every portrait painter, if there be purgatory,
will leap at once to heaven, without this previous purification.
For I question whether there be in all the tortures of Hades,
any torture equal to that of dragging your brush over your
canvas to copy the gaping, idiotic vanity of some nouveau
riche. No ! no man can be an honest man who is a popular
portrait-painter. His practice is one continual lie .... I
do not despise portrait; I only don't like it. I am adapted
for something else."*
You know these are not affectations. You know I always
thought so. It is curious, but I do not think any man in
the Art, of the highest fancy, ever succeeded completely in
portrait (another flattering unction). I do not except Eaphael.
Painters who are so from the nature of their principles of using
nature, are too apt when they come to -use her as an individual,
to be too much so. As a historical painter you keep the
elements only of what you have before you, and make a head,
a figure, or an expression totally different as to likeness, and
* Throughout his letters to Miss Mitford at this period "there are many
passages expressive of his true feeling on the subject of portrait painting.— Ed.

B. R. HA YD ON. 91
yet the model has been of the greatest use. Now, with such
habits, you come to a model which must be like and yet poeti
cally so — to make it like, you check your fancy, and not being
able to make it absolutely poetical from want of practice, from
want of tact, are not able to make it .sufficiently poetical to
gratify the vanity of your sitter, and yet sufficiently like to
please his friends. The consequence is you become too indi
vidual, and please neither.
A great portrait painter should not be, must not be, a man
of the highest imaginative power. Titian, Vandyke, Velasquez,
Eeynolds, possessed no more imagination than was requisite to
lift a little the being before their eyes. Eaphael, Correggio,
Michel Angelo, and Julio Bomano's powers were adequate to
elevate man to his original essence, and by rejecting all the
accidents of disease and degeneration which have degraded his
being, restored him to his essential beauty, and his essential
essence. If they touched Art it was on this principle, and when they
touched it on any other, strange as it may be seen, but it is
true, their imagination seemed to leave them when they could
not exert it to its full, and when they clogged it with more
than was necessary of the common individualities of our
nature. I except one portrait by Raphael, Julius II., where he seems
to have hit • the thing in expression, but in expression only.
Every other is nothing absolutely but a mass of littleness and
individualities. Eeynolds, Vandyke, Titian, and Velasquez
sailed with masterly skill only when they kept in sight of land.
Eaphael, Michel Angelo, and Julio Bomano's powers were
developed only when they left it. Eeynolds and Vandyke, and
occasionally Titian, would make a dash into the great ocean,
but it was only occasionally, and they never seemed so happy
or so heroic as when the setting sun showed them the shore
which guided them. This is my opinion of the reason why the
greatest geniuses in Art have not been the greatest portrait
painters, and why the great portrait painters have not been the
greatest geniuses in Art.
I think my 'Pharaoh' will be my best picture without
doubt, and so you will think, and so will the public. The boy,
the girl, and the mother are successful. My eyes filled with
tears, as I painted the mother, and so have the eyes of others

92 CORRESPONDENCE OF
now it is done. I have put the old servant burying his face in
his cloak, and my little girl, who can only speak a word or two,
looked at it and said, " Poor— poor." It will do, depend upon
it. The old carpenter cried ; and Lord Egremont said, " It is
your best." If he gives me a commission, I will paint a
better. Here am I near forty, as much the victim of delusion as
ever. What has Historical Painting been to me but a delicious
temptation, which led me soaring that my plunge into dark
ness might be more acute and headlong. I am now the same
as at seven years old, when I used to shut myself up in the
garret, and draw, and muse, and talk to myself, and swell with
fancies excusable in a boy, but what can be said of my going on
so now ? though of every nut I have cracked, at least three out
of four have been filled with a dry, husky, withered kernel.
Adieu ! to-morrow is our wedding-day. Drink our healths, as
we will drink yours ! To Miss Mitford.
I saw Kean on Monday night. Since O. P. I never was
in such an uproar. Not having any relish to let my chest-
bone be pressed into my back-bone, I relinquished the pit, and
surveying the struggle for a moment, rushed to the boxes.
Here in my violent rush to get into the stream, I rudely
squeezed a lady without meaning it. She was so enraged at
the rudeness of everybody before and behind, and on each side
of her, which was unavoidable from the pressure, that rendered
furious, she actually, with her most delicate hand, belaboured
my back, swearing and scolding, which of course being con
scious I deserved, I bore without a murmur, but felt highly
honoured, though concealing a hearty laugh at her feeble
beating. Carriage after carriage came up, and it was a high
treat to watch the confidence of old dowagers and their husbands
come swarming in fresh from a carriage. After following their
turbans, you would see their head-dresses whirled round, and a
pair of fiery eyes darting upon them in despair  Acci
dentally I met Talfourd, and he took me behind the scenes.
Kean was agitated, and at intervals kept drinking brandv and
water. He acted so finely once, that I could not help shaking
his hand as he came off, though I disapprove his conduct ....

B. R. HA YDON. 93
Talfourd said he could not have shaken his hand. Perhaps he
was right. But I could not resist his action ; besides, he was
irritated at the howling of a palpable set of touters.
To Miss Mitford. 28th March, 1825.
I was at Soane's last night to see this sarcophagus by
lamp-light. The first person I met, after seventeen years, was
Coleridge, silver-haired ! He looked at my bald front, and 1
at his hair, with mutual looks of sympathy and mutual head-
shaking. It affected me very much, and so it seemed to affect
him. I did not know what to say, nor did he ; and then in his
chanting way, half-poetical, half-inspired, half-idiotic, he began
to console me by trying to prove that the only way for a man
of genius to be happy was just to put forth no more power than
was sufficient for the purposes of the age in which he lived, as
if genius was a power one could fold up like a parasol ! At this
moment over came Spurzheim, with his German simplicity, and
shaking my hand : " How doe you doe ? Vy, your organs are
more parfaite den eaver. How luckee you lose your hair. Veel
you pearmeet me to eintrowdooze you to Mrs. Spurzheim ?" I
was pushed against Turner, the landscape painter, with his red
face and white waistcoat, and before I could see Mrs. Spurzheim,
was carried off my legs, and irretrievably bustled to where the
sarcophagus lay.
Soane's house is a perfect Cretan labyrinth : curious narrow
staircases, landing places, balconies, spring doors, and little
rooms filled with fragments to the very ceiling. It was the
finest fun imaginable to see the people come in to the library
after wandering about below, amidst tombs and capitals, and
shafts, and noiseless heads, with a sort of expression of delighted
relief at finding themselves again among the living, and with
coffee and cake ! They looked as if they were pleased to feel
their blood circulate once more, and went smirking up to Soane,
"lui faisant leurs compliments," with a twisting chuckle of
features as if grateful for their escape. Fancy delicate ladies
of fashion dipping their pretty heads into an old mouldy, fusty,
hieroglyphicked coffin, blessing their stars at its age, wondering
whom it contained, and whispering that it was mentioned in
Pliny.- You can imagine the associations connected with such

94 CORRESPONDENCE OF
contrasts. Just as I was beginning to meditate, the Duke of
Sussex, with a star on his breast, and an asthma inside it, came
squeezing and wheezing along the narrow passage, driving all
the women before him like a Blue-Beard, and putting his royal
head into the coffin, added his wonder to the wonder of the rest.
Upstairs stood Soane, spare, thin, caustic, and starched, " mock
ing the thing he laughed at," as he smiled approbation for the
praises bestowed on his magnificent house. . . . Coleridge said,
" I have a great contempt for these Egyptians with all their
learning. After all, what did it amount to, but a bad system
of astronomy?" " What do you think of this house, Mr. Hay
don ? " said that dandy  to me. " Very interesting," I
said. " Very interesting," he replied, with a sparkle in his eye
denoting an occult meaning he was too polite to express. " Very
curious, is it not ? " " Very curious," I echoed. " Very kind
of Mr. Soane to open the house so." " Very kind," I replied,
as grave as the Chancellor, seeing that he was dying to say
something which would come out if I pretended ignorance.
" Eather odd, though, stuck about so." I smiled. " However it
is very kind of Soane, you know, but it's a funny house, and
a — " Just then, Soane was elbowed against him, and both
making elegant bows to each other,  expressed his thanks
to Soane for " admitting him to the enjoyment of such a
splendid treat," &c, &c. — and he went off with Soane down
stairs, talking of the Egyptians with all the solemnity of deep
learning and of a profound interest in his subject.
As I looked at Soane, smiling and flushed by flattery, I
thought of Johnson at Eanelagh. " There was not a soul then
around him who would not, ere they put on their night-caps,
envy him his assemblage of rank, and talent, and fashion ; sneer
at his antiques, quiz his coffee, and go to sleep, pitying with
affected superiority his delusion and vanity." But Soane is a
good though caustic man  And now I must go and paint
the carpet my sitter stands on ; so adieu to human nature, and
let me paint with all my power the colour and the texture of
a Brussels bit. Ever sincerely yours,
B. E. Haydon.

B. R. HA YDON. 95
To Miss Mitford.
16th April, 1825.
I do not believe any portraits ever made more uproar.*
There has been a regular yell, but it is dying off. Poor
' Juliet ' (Borneo and Juliet) had it too, dreadfully. But all
this will pass off like the wind ; and, as if to counterbalance
this uproar, I have got a commission, unlimited in price,t and
in every way calculated to induce me to put forth all my
strength, and put it forth I will.
[He then passes on to the death of Fuseli.]
Fuseli is dead at last ; he has been dying these two years.
I shall ever regard him with affection. His early kindness
and encouragement I can never forget. He brought me into
notice by hanging my first picture well. He had left it to
Northcote, as he was a townsman. In true Christian charity —
Northcote hung me out of sight — Fuseli came back, and said,
" By Gode, you are sainding him to heavven before his time !"
and he had the picture taken down and hung in a good light.
. . . His loss is great, extravagant as he was, as he always had
the power of inspiring others. What he said of Wilkie was
the most wonderful proof of his eye for character he ever gave.
******
I dare say I am considered by my Eeforming friends as of
no character, because, seeing early through the contemptibility
of many of the Eeformers, and perfectly aware that a lurking
love of dominion was shadowed behind all their abuses of
power, I thought, upon the whole, the Tories I knew the most
reputable of all classes of politicians. I think so still, and
ever shall. I have mingled with all classes of political
characters. When dining with some of the leading Whigs, at
the house of a friend who was a Whig, the whole conversation
always hinged on sneering, personal abuse, and dislike of the
men in power. When dining with the Eadicals, Whigs and
Tories were personally canvassed to ascertain which of those
among them were the fittest subjects for newspaper attach.
* His portraits were exhibited this year, and excited a vast amount of savage
abuse, particularly by Theodore Hook in the ' John Bull ' newspaper. — Ed.
t There was consequently some difficulty in obtaining prompt payment. The
subject was ' Pharaoh dismissing' Moses,' a cabinet picture. — Ed.

96 CORRESPONDENCE OF
But when dining at Lord Mulgrave's with the leading Tories
of the day, and with many of the first men, Canning, &c. &c,
I never heard the Whigs or the Eadicals alluded to personally
but with respect. I never heard sneers, jokes, or abuse against
them. And I remember perfectly well Lord Mulgrave com
plaining, in the most good-humoured way, of the Opposition
boring them to death about the Copenhagen Expedition, and
he said that one of the ministers asked Lord Erskine why he
did it ? and Lord Erskine replied, " Because we have nothing
else to do." Perhaps, on the other hand, the consciousness of
being in power enabled the Tories to be civil.
My dear Miss Mitford, just imagine Hazlitt a minister!
Hazlitt, with all his hatred of authority ! He would metaphy-
sicise himself into a Bobespierre, depend upon it. When
Cobbett's twopenny things were making a great noise once,
Hazlitt let slip something that made me shudder. I know
them all to the marrow, and deeper ; I would not trust one in
power ; no, not one, net one, not one.
I have written this while waiting for a sitter. I hear his
knock thundering with all the consequence of conscious
patronage. Adieu !
[Occasionally he was seized with a fit of abstraction. It was
the reaction after hard work. In one of these fits he writes to
Miss Mitford, defending field sports : — ]
I have hardly painted ten touches, eat little, slept a
great deal, strolled about, stared at pictures, gone to exhibi
tions, and to the opera to hear Pasta sing that enchanting air
in ' Tancredi,' to come home and be kept awake half the night
by the bellowing of a hundred cows, who are pastured in the
meadows behind us, and which did not like the easterly wind.
Occasionally I have an excitement or two, such as turning
away our under-nurse for eating the children's food, by way of
proving how fond she was of them. Have you seen an extract
in ' Campbell's Magazine ' of Pope's ' Conversations ' ? It is ex
quisite. He talks of Walton's angling with great common
place feeling, but it is not deep enough for the question.
" Gay," says he, " would lacerate a trout, but would not hurt
a fly." This is what the ladies call " benevolent," but it is
weak. The predominant feeling in the laws of creation is love

B. R. HA YDON. 97
of power. To catch a trout, which has ten thousand chances of
escaping against your one of catching him by a device which
it is ten thousand chances but one that he does not get tricked
by, is a greater proof of superiority of power than crushing a
fly who has far fewer chances of escape. Gay did not wish to
lacerate a trout, or Walton to torture a frog, per se. But the
design to entrap a creature which can only be caught by
entrapping, is so great a gratification that any suffering which
the instruments, be they worms or frogs, may endure is as
nothing in comparison. It is the love of power, not the desire
of torture that is the principle of action in all sports — fishing,
shooting, and hunting.
It is very interesting, the description of Pope in his black
dress and tie wig, presenting his mother with a flower before
Martha Blount, and yet making it a compliment to her in
the end. To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, 18th July, 1825.
A wife must be a very shallow person who does not
understand the necessity of a husband having his faculties by
day clear and vigorous, and unimpeded by the fatigue and
drowsiness of harassed nights. Tell Talfourd that a friend of
yours, during nursing-time — that he may not have his brain
startled from a deep and dewy slumber by the piercing, dis
contented squall of a sleepless child — sleeps in a small camp
bed in an adjoining room, sufficiently near for all purposes of
protection, consolation and adoration, and yet sufficiently re
moved to obtain— what a husband must have who supports his
family by his wits — an undisturbed and healthy brain ; more
especially a man in the position of Talfourd, who is obliged
to speak, and exhaust himself.
No doubt it is irksome, and sometimes I wake and swear I
won't sleep alone any longer; but when I wake complacently
in the morning I admit the good sense of the arrangement.
A husband who attempts to assist in any nursing catastrophe,
perhaps runs against a chair, breaks a water-bottle, wakes up
the mother and child completely, and utterly ruins their
night's rest. If he is begged to get the lime-water, with his
eyes half-open he hands over the liniment. Never let a
vol. ii. h

98 CORRESPONDENCE OF
woman trust to her husband's help in such cases. If I get a
light, I study the muscles of my leg, or the light and shadow
on dear Mary's face, and perhaps drop the hot wax on the
baby's hand by way of composer.
What could not wives and husbands tell of the beautiful
blessings of nursing ? Children are a great blessing, but they
greatly interrupt the early honey-mornings of mamma and papa,
which, depend upon it, mamma and papa never cease to regret.
. . . Excuse this curious letter. Ever yours,
B. B. Haydon.
•To Miss Mitford.
My DEAR FRIEND, London, 10th November, 1825.
I have spent three hours with Hazlitt to-day, and spent
them with great delight. We talked of Michel Angelo, of
Eaphael, and — the greatest of all is behind — Leigh Hunt, till
we roared with laughter, and made more noise with our laugh
ing than all the coaches, waggons, and carts in Piccadilly.
From what Hazlitt has told me of him in Italy, I do think,
upon my soul, that he is the most extraordinary character I
ever met with in history, poetry, tragedy, comedy, or romance.
By his conduct in Italy he has personified what, in idea,
would be called extravagant. Hazlitt found him moulting;
near Florence. There he stuck, says Hazlitt, dull as a hen
under a pent-house on a rainy day. Hazlitt offered to take
him to Venice, free of expense. No. He never went to Eome,
Bologna, or Naples. He passed through Paris, and never went
into the Louvre, though staying two days ! Not he ! He was
annoyed that Venice, Bologna, Borne, Naples, or Paris should
contain anything more attractive than Mr. Leigh Hunt ; and,
consequently, he stuck to his house, expecting a deputation
from each town to welcome him to Italy ; and because no
deputation came he would not honour them by a visit ; thus
leaving unhappy Venice, unfortunate Bologna, insignificant
Florence, and unknown Eome, to bewail their destiny to
oblivion, because they had not been immortalised by the
notice of illustrious Leigh ! . . . Hazlitt laughed, roared, beat
the table, at this realisation of our predictions. When he
dies, he would smile with self-complacency at the just estima-

B. R. HAYDON. 99
tion of his genius, if the Devil made him poet-laureate, while
the flames were writhing his vitals. And if he went to heaven
— which I hope he may — he would compare himself with the
Creator, and chuckle at the idea that, in making man in His
own image, the Almighty had been the means of generating
at least one in creation whose look and air might render it
doubtful to the angels who had existed first. Such is Leigh —
" With a nose lightsomely brought
Down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought."
Said Hazlitt, " I'll take you to Eimini." No ; Bimini,
the town, was not the poem : he wouldn't stir. Sorry I am
to write so much of a man in whose acquaintance I can no
longer feel any pride. He ruined Keats ; he has injured me ;
he perverted Byron. Poor Shelley was drowned in going back
from visiting him. Like Scylla, where he comes grass never
grows ; and when he treads on what is growing, it withers, as
if the cloven hoof of hell had poisoned it*
Hazlitt looks ill ; but his jaunt has done him great good,
and his present wife a greater. She is a very superior woman,
and will make him a decent being in regard to washing his
face and hands (etcetera). He was breakfasting to-day as a
gentleman should, and seemed to be living " cleanly," as a
gentleman ought. I like Hazlitt, in spite of all : everybody
must.f I write this at the moment of my return. I can never think
of Leigh Hunt again without sorrow.
Leave the theatre, and stick to your village characters. The
theatre seems to be your evil genius. How paltry of Colman!
I want to read your play, but you will not lend it ! Do go on
again with your nature bits. Adieu, my dear friend,
B. B. Haydon.
* I believe this description of Leigh Hunt in Italy to have been most unfair
and illiberal on the part of Hazlitt. Hunt had a large family of young children
depending upon hira, and he had not the means of moving about here and
there. Nor would it have been considerate of him to have left his family at
Florence in order to jaunt about Italy with Hazlitt, who apparently was not
much troubled with a deep sense of the restraints family responsibilities impose
upon a man of feeling. — Ed.
t My father was evidently not aware that Hazlitt's second wife had at this
time made up her mind to separate herself from her husband. She had remained
in Paris on his coming to London on this occasion, and she never appears to bave
rejoined him. — Ed.
H 2

ioo CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Miss Mitford.
6th December, 1825.
You have such a horror, a Malthusian horror of the
increase of population, that I dread to write we have been
guilty here of that abominable crime — of bringing another
little snoozling rogue into being. They are both well, and'I
hope will continue so. I think myself lucky she had not
twins, for I dreaded it most abominably.
You say you cannot account for the weakness of people
having more children than they can maintain.* Stay, my dear
lady, till you marry some one you passionately love, and then
you will easily understand the secret. For my part I think it
very wicked indeed to grumble at a large family. Existence
is a blessing after all, and though according to the Methodists
you give little beings a chance of being for ever damned, you
put them in the way also of being eternally happy, wliich is
something. For my part I am convinced' that the heartburnings, the
bickerings, the suspicions, the jealousies which infest a married
life where there is no family, are infinitely greater trouble and
torture, than all the anxieties, pressure, fag, and struggle to
maintain a large one.
I know that women who have had children affect, with the
consciousness of power, to say that they would have been
equally pleased without them ; but no man, who knows the
sex, would willingly tie himseK to one for ever, if he were sure
she would be barren — not so much for his own sake as for hers,
and for the sake of both.
I differ from you, though I feel diffident of saying more to
a lady on such a delicate subject, but be assured there is
more courage in taking the chance of a large family, as a man
ought, than in the morbid, fidgety apprehensiveness attend
ing always the reverse. No, no, God bids increase ; who bids
abstain but our arch-enemy, foe to God and man ? " Increase
and multiply," so said One when lovely woman was handed to
* Miss Mitford was a warm advocate for the "prudential check'' of the
political economists being placed upon the unlimited increase of the families of
poor married people, a doctrine that in recent times has received the distinguished
support of Lord Amberley. Haydon, who laughed at any interference with
nature, took a broader and healthier view of the matter. On the birth of his
third child, Alfred, he writes a humorous letter to Three Mile Cross.— Ed

B. R. HA YDON. ioi
her mate, and no man with a proper religious feeling would be
so wicked as to dissolve such an order coming from such good
authority. Burn Malthus, read Milton and Shakespeare, and
believe me that population and prosperity go together.
Adieu ! Ever yours,
B. B. Haydon.
P.S. — My picture, ' Pharaoh Dismissing Moses,' most done.
Campbell called yesterday. He feels the pathetic, you know,
most. It touched him ; he says it will be popular, and con
gratulated me. How much better and happier Campbell looks
since he lived in London !.
I think the next subject I shall plunge at will be Bacchus
returning from India, or, his first sight of Ariadne.
Once more adieu ! Mary, if she knew I was writing, would
send her kind love. She is sleeping. The finest sight on
earth to me — even before a sunrise — is to see her wake and
watch the gradual lovely stealings of consciousness over her
divine face. If her eyes meet mine watching, the smile that
follows is that of an angel after a sunny dream. I wish no
other face to welcome me to heaven, and should think heaven
without it a perpetual twilight. Adieu !
To Miss Mitford. 10th December, 1825.
Yes, I have read Moore's 'Sheridan,' and was deeply
interested. But, my dear friend, it is more the excuse of an
admirer than the impartial memoir of a biographer. His
detail of the process of completing the ' School for Scandal '
is delightful ; but it is the process of all men of genius, the
mode only may be different. Whether a man of genius makes
memoranda of his first thoughts on paper, or keeps them
locked up in his memory, to be rethought and retouched, it is
no matter. Those who never put their thoughts down until
their taste is satisfied, complete at once what they put down,
and get reputation for rapidity. Those on the contrary, like
Sheridan, who" note each idea as it rises, are just as rapid in
conception though the mode of execution is different. Shake
speare, Homer, and at a great distance Byron, modelled and

102 CORRESPONDENCE OF
remodelled, and then poured forth to the vulgar, who, knowing
nothing of the internal machinery of the mind, take it for
granted the subject was never thought of till it was written,
and go away in ignorant astonishment.
I must differ from Moore in his view of Sheridan's heart.
Notwithstanding his passion for Miss Linley and his grief for
his father's death, who used him ill, I question his having a
really good heart. His making love to Pamela, Madame de
Genlis's daughter, so soon after his lovely wife's death, and his
marriage, in two years, with a young girl as a compliment to her
remembrance, renders one very suspicious of the real depth of
his passion. No man of wit to the full extent of the word can
have a good heart, because he has by nature less regard for
the feelings of others than for the brilliancy of his own sayings.
There must be more mischief than love in the hearts of all
radiant wits. Moore's life of him wants courage. Society is
Moore's god. He cannot, like Johnson, tell all the truth and bid
society defiance* His burning Byron's MSS. was a sacrifice
to his circle/)" and his concealments in Sheridan's life not
worthy his native independence . . . The faults of the great
Whig leaders are treated leniently by Moore, but the fact is
that neither Burke, Fox, nor Sheridan, had the caution or
prudence requisite for leaders of their Party, or for Government.
Burke's failure in the result of Warren Hastings' trial first
shook the confidence of Fox and Sheridan as to his infalli
bility, and afterwards, having often acted independently of his
advice, Burke's despotic love of rule took offence, and the
seed was planted of future separation. I heard Lord Mulgrave
say in the presence of other diplomatic men that Fpx, whenever
in power, always showed himself unfit for a leader, and his
extreme imprudence in the Committee of Begency, which Pitt
took such advantage of, is an undeniable proof of the truth of
Lord Mulgrave's assertion. However great his genius, how
ever delightful his qualities, he had not discretion enough for
a head. Lord Mulgrave once told me that Fox latterly would
have come in as Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Pitt.J
* But Johnson did not always do this, witness his ' Life of Addison.' " The
necessity of complying with times," he writes, " and of sparing persons, is the
great impediment of biography. ... I begin to feel myself walking upon ashes
under which. the fire is not extinguished, and coming to the time of which it will
be proper rather to say nothing that is false, than all that is true." — Ed.
t See ante, Vol. II. p. 85, by which Moore appears to be exonerated. — Ed.
j This statement has been disputed, but Mr. Pitt did propose Fox as Secretary

B. R. HA YD ON. 103
It was a great pity that Burke accepted a pension, because
as he turned out so right about the Bevolution it dimmed the
glory of genius. Lord Mulgrave said : " Mr. Fox acknowledged
afterwards that Burke was right too soon." It was cruel to
break up his friendship with Sheridan and Fox, but Burke
had no other way of becoming again an isolated object of
public astonishment. Sheridan and Fox had rather dulled his
fame, and his only chance of self-applause, the only chance of
soothing his wounded vanity left him, was to burst like a fiery
star from his regular orbit, and become the object of wonder
and abuse, enthusiasm and admiration, which he was no longer
in the ordinary progress. Love of power was at the "bottom of
his heart, depend upon it ; to be sure, the weakness of the
greatest minds. To think that Burke was always giving Barry
caution about his temper, while he was such a signal instance
of violence himself.
It might be the anger of a great genius so intimately con
vinced of the wicked tendencies of the French Bevolution, as
to think it a paramount duty to convince the world of his sin
cerity by showing the sacrifices he was willing to make rather
than even to appear indirectly to sanction it. It might be
so. But then the pension. My dear friend, accepting a pen
sion is like refusing a challenge. The danger escaped in the
one instance, and the good done to the individual in the other,
renders the world justly severe in its conclusions. Had Burke
refused the pension, how grandly would his character project
on the most distant periods of time ! His violence, his lace
rating the feelings of Fox, would have been considered a painful
and noble duty. But for the paltry comforts of some " six or
seven summers" he rendered his sagacity and genius sus
pected for ever of having been sacrificed to replace his shat*
tered fortunes, and secure himself and his widow from necessity
and want.
Pardon my presumption in thus giving my opinion of such
men. The condition Sheridan was in latterly was really
shocking. ... I do not agree with Moore about the desertion
for Foreign Affairs in his Cabinet of 1804. Lord Stanhope, in his ' Life of
Pitt,' vol. iv., gives a fac-simile in Mr. Pitt's handwriting of the Cabinet he had
desired to combine, and it includes Mr. Fox's name as Foreign Secretary. The
King, however, is reported to have said, " Bring me anybody you please, Mr. Pitt,
but Mr. Fox," and so the coalition, if there was one, as Lord Mulgrave hinted,
fell through.— Ed.

104 CORRESPONDENCE OF
of the nobility. He had tired and wearied them to death
He had, indeed. At their country seats he became latterly a
wearisome bore — drinking claret till midnight, and then rum
punch till five in the morning, ringing up the servants by
night, and disturbing all the habits of comfort and delicacy in
a house. I heard Sir George Beaumont say that at Lady-
Manners', in the country, Tom Sheridan was one night going to
bed. His father came in and began to lecture him, both being
drunk. Tom undressed, put the candle out, and got to bed.
The next day he was telling this, and some one said : " What
became of your father ?" " Oh ! " said Tom, " I'll be  if I
know. I heard him tumbling about for half an hour after
wards." ... I do not agree with Moore that, when he was
dead, there was an end to his faults, and that it was as a tribute
to his genius the nobility crowded to his funeral. Surely
something may be said for them.
I have tired you with this long dissertation on Sheridan.
Half his dirty tricks were from an intense relish for fun. He
forgot the apparent want of principle in the strength of the
propensity. God knows everybody has his faults, I more than
others ; but some of Sheridan's cruelties to others were really
unpardonable, and Moore ought not to have concealed them ;
Storachi's widow, for example, where Sheridan took all the
" benefit " money out of the drawer, and walked off with it as
his own.
His not relishing Shakespeare, as well as Byron, was cant.
It was from hopeless envy of rivalling him. Moore, I suspect
on this point. All dramatic authors, and many others I have
talked with, peck and spit at Shakespeare's overwhelming and
gigantic genius. Prince Hoare toddles out his namby-pamby
mumblings ; Leigh Hunt bows, but " seldom reads " him ;
Byron dreaded him ; Sheridan doubted him — at least they all
pretended this. It is extraordinary I never heard any poet
quote him but Keats, and one day in a party of literary men
I was appealed to about a passage which not one of these
worthies remembered : either the play it was in, or the words.
Is this not a shame ?
Which would you rather be, the author of the ' School for
Scandal,' .or, of the 'Merchant of Venice'? The 'School for
Scandal,' or any of Shakespeare's comedies ? It appears to
me that all the characters in the ' School for Scandal ' are too

B. R. HA YDON. 105
distinct to have mingled together. They are set apart as it
were to say certain things. Shakespeare's characters, on the
contrary, have a natural union. Each becomes the other some
times, each says things occasionally which any people might
say, however distinct their characters. Now, in the ' School
for Scandal,' every one seems to say : "I am to be a scandal
monger, don't let me forget it. I am to be Charles ; I am to
be Joseph ; I am to be Sir Peter." At least this is my impres
sion, an unlettered painter.
I feared you are tired by this time. Mr. Monk will think
we are negotiating a treaty of peace. Dear Mary's love to you
and your father and mother, and with my kind respects,
Ever yours faithfully,
B. B. Haydon..

To Miss Mitford.
My DEAR FRIEND, 29th December, 1825.
The compliments of the season ! Not bankruptcy, sus
pension of payments, or joint-stock ruin ! but plenty of cash,
laughing, happy friends, and a sirloin on your table. These
are the only English compliments, and long may you enjoy
them ! Do hot be uneasy about Whittaker's affairs. They
will soon right again. I feel for your harassing anxieties, and
had I got it in my power, would take care you should not feel
them even. But you know that I am as anxious as yourself,
and as harassed. My " voice " of " On, on," is changed to me
into " Feed, feed ! " All I can ever hope to do is to well feed
and educate my family. The rest the children must do for
themselves. Dear Frank from over-excitement has been very
ill. He and I do not do together. If we are too much together
we fire each other off to such a degree he gets ill. I took him
out daily with me, and we. ran, and played hide and seek in
the Begent's Park, and got into such a heat, to the infinite
amusement of children's maids, that he gave in, dear fellow, and
has been seriously ill. I suffered bitterly for a night, and
thought my heart would break. But he is better. There is
nothing more affecting than the sight of a dear boy restless,
sick, feverish, and sedate, whose natural expression is cool,
healthy, active, and sparkling. His dear mother, though but

106 CORRESPONDENCE OF
half-recovered, has taken him with her. ... I certainly am
very fond of my family, and begin now to consider the parts
of it as a solace and amusement. This is a good state of feeling
for a husband. Adieu to family affairs. When does your
novel come out? Do give me notice. We shall be anxious
for its complete success. My "affair" will make its appear
ance soon. I have as much difficulty in deciding where to
send it as if I were beginning life. Beechey says : " Send it
to the Academy. Justice will be done to it." A patron
says : " Send it to the British Gallery, it will please your
employers." To the Society of Artists it certainly will not go,
unless they alter in toto their ruinous light. A man might as
well exhibit his picture under the ray of a burning lens. The
members are modern landscape painters, who want all the
staring light possible, destroying all sentiment and all Art.
My existence depends on a proper exhibition of it, and God
grant I may hit on a right one! Nobody can decide but
myself. Not a word of all this before our campaign com
mences, for your life, not a bent or break. I think the ' Child,'
the ' Mother,' and the ' Kneeling Girl,' will hit more than any
thing I ever painted. Fitzharris called yesterday, poor fellow,
looking thin and harassed. I comforted him up. Pity such a
fine young fellow should have anything to do with such a
profession, the members of which are in general ill-bred, aban
doned, and illiterate. Lord Mulgrave gave this character of
them, with the single exception of Kemble. I agree with him.
Lord Mulgrave knew a great deal of them. He will be in
town again this spring, a miracle alive ! nothing but his per
sonal courage having kept him so, totally helpless for four
years. Yet, by never giving in, he has so affected his frame as
to be recovering at sixty ! God bless us all !
Ever yours,
B. B. Haydon.
To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, London, 13th August.
I write lest you should hear from anybody else that I
have run down to Beading and run away again without coming
over to see you. The fact is, I was obliged to go with Orlando
to Dr. Valpy's, and was obliged not to stay a moment in con-

B. R. HAYDON, 107
sequence of bringing out my picture ( 'Alexander and Buce
phalus ') early in October. ... I hope to be in Beading again
on the 18th of October, when I will see you.
I am delighted with the Valpys. They seem happy and
amiable and kind souls. I hope the doctor will like Orlando,
and that Orlando will please him.
Be assured, I will paint our dear friend's wife. My picture
is nearly done; but in consequence of two of my creditors
forcing me to pay them all at once, I am at present a little
necessitous or so. However, I trust in God I shall get out of
debt, which I am fast doing, being already 480Z. less in debt
than last year. Ever and ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.
To Miss Mitfoed.
18th August, 1826.
How do you find yourself? I heard you were poorly.
What are you about ? I was happy to hear of  's safe
arrival again, and I shall be most happy to see him, though
tell him he will find no more ' Solomons ' towering up as a
background to our conversations. Nothing but genteel-sized
drawing-room pocket-history — Alexander in a nutshell; Bu
cephalus no bigger than a Shetland pony, and my little girl's
doll a giantess to my Olympias !
The other night I paid my butcher ; one of the miracles of
these times, you will say. Let me tell you I have all my life
been seeking for a butcher whose respect for genius predomi
nated over his love of gain. I could not make out, before I
dealt with this man, his excessive desire that I should be his
"Customer ; his sly hints as I passed his shop that he had " a
bit of South Down, very fine ; a sweetbread, perfection ; and
a calf's foot that was all jelly without bone ! " The other day
he called, and I had him sent up into the painting-room. I
found him in great admiration of ' Alexander.' " Quite alive,
Sir ! " "I am glad you think so," said I. " Yes, Sir ; but, as I
have said often to my sister, you could not have painted that
picture, Sir, if you had not eat my meat, Sir ! " " Very true,
Mr. Sowerby." ''Ah! Sir, I have a fancy for genus, Sir!"
" Have you, Mr. Sowerby ?" " Yes, Sir ; Mrs. Siddons, Sir, has

108 CORRESPONDENCE OF
eat my meat, Sir ; never was such a woman for chops, Sir!" — and
he drew up his beefy, shiny face, clean shaved, with a clean blue
cravat under his chin, a clean jacket, a clean apron, and a pair
of hands that would pin an ox to the earth if he was obstre
perous — " Ah ! Sir, she was a wonderful crayture ! " " She was,
Mr. Sowerby." " Ah ! Sir, when she used to act that there
character, you see (but Lord, such a head! as I say to my
sister) — that there woman, Sir, that murders a king between
'em!" " Oh ! Lady Macbeth." "Ah, Sir, that's it— Lady
Macbeth — I used to get up with the butler behind her carridge
when she acted, and, as I used to see her looking quite wild,
and all the people quite frightened, ' Ah, ha ! my lady,' says I,
' if it wasn't for my meat, though, you wouldn't be able to do
that ! ' " " Mr. Sowerby, you seem to be a man of feeling ;
will you take a glass of wine ? " After a bow or two, down he
sat, and by degrees his heart opened. " You see, Sir, I have
fed Mrs. Siddons, Sir ; John Kemble, Sir ; Charles Kemble,
Sir; Stephen Kemble, Sir; and Madame Catalani, Sir; Mor
land the painter, and, I beg your pardon, Sir, and you, Sir."
" Mr. Sowerby, you do me honour." " Madame Catalani, Sir, was
a wonderful woman for sweetbreads ; but the Kemble family,
Sir, the gentlemen, Sir, rump-steaks and kidneys in general
was their taste ; but Mrs. Siddons, Sir, she liked chops, Sir, as
much as you do, Sir," &c, &c. I soon perceived that the
man's ambition was to feed genius. I shall recommend you
to him ; but is he not a capital fellow ? But a little acting
with his remarks would make you roar with laughter. Think
of Lady Macbeth eating chops ! Is this not a peep behind
the curtain? I remember Wilkie saying that at a pubhc
dinner he was looking out for some celebrated man, when
at last he caught a glimpse for the first time of a man whose
books he had read with care for years, picking the leg of a
roast goose perfectly abstracted !
[He declares firmly against painting as a profession for his
own children.]
Never will I bring up my boys to any profession that is
not a matter of necessary want to the world. Painting, unless
considered as it ought to be, is a mere matter of ornament and
luxury. It is not yet taken up as it should be in a wealthy

B. R. HA YDON. 109
country like England, and all those who devote themselves to
the higher branches of Art must suffer the penalty, as I have
done, and am doing.
So I was told, and to no purpose. I opposed my father, my
mother, and my friends, though I am duly gratified by my
fame in observant corners. Last week a bookstall keeper
showed me one of my own books at his stall, and, by way of
recommending it, pointed out a sketch of my own on the fly
leaf, " Which," said he, " I suppose is by Haydon himself.
Ah ! Sir, he was badly used — a disgrace to our great men."
" But he was imprudent," said I. " Imprudent ! " said he.
" Yes, of course ; he depended on their taste and generosity too
much." " Have you any more of his books ? " said I. " Oh ! I
had a great many ; but I have sold them all, Sir, but this, and
another that I will never part with."
To Miss Mitford. 26th August, 1826.
To-day, as I was going along Chandos Street, a fine
healthy-looking miller had left the care of his cart to a
younger branch of the profession, who, in looking round after
some pretty girls, had let a bag tumble out of the cart. The
miller just then came back, and I never shall forget his expres
sion, as he thundered out, "   ; . but I won't swear.
No. But isn't it enough to make a man ?   " &c,
swearing a most horrible oath at the same moment ! This
beautiful cunning of swearing by illustration instead of ampli
fication, and thinking he could cheat the recording angel and
yet gratify his passion, kept me in spirits all the way to a
rascally attorney, whose expenses for talking and writing I
was going to pay to the extent of 51. 6s. 9d.
Your lady friend, who delivered the letter, I like very much.
She made a capital and complimentary remark on 'Bu
cephalus ' : " I wonder whom they got with courage enough to
shoe such a horse as that ?" I won't forget this. The question
is, whether he ought to be shod ? Lord Egremont says he
ought ; I think not. The iron shoe destroys the poetry of the
animal, and this your friend felt, or I am a Dutchman — which
God forbid !
I felt such intense rapture at painting ' Olympias,' that I

no " CORRESPONDENCE OF
heard something whisper, like the Daemon of Socrates, " You
shall be worried for this." I have not painted for three days
since, from incessant worry !
Another bit of common life.
Did I ever tell you the story of two black-haired St. Giles's
ladies strolling before me in the park ? On coming to a pretty
green spot, one girl had got before the other, when, seizing her
drabbled and dirty gown with a pair of hands as red as the
' Bed Lion ' of a country inn, she hallooed out to the other girl
behind, in a voice burly with vice and drink, " I say, Sal
 , come up here, and I'll show yer the place where Bob
and I parted." Wasn't it a beautiful touch? This was her way
of associating the tender feelings. Her heart had been cut
when Bob threw his arms around her neck and imprinted a
sobbing kiss on her coral lips. You should have seen Hazlitt
when I told him this !
Have you read ' Buckingham's Travels ' ? They are excel
lent, and enable you to identify localities in ancient lands in a
manner that has given me a vast fund of information as to the
picturesque architecture and general look of Palestine. To a
painter such information is very useful. He is a clever fellow
— no cant — but not quite candid. For example : how extra
ordinary are the verifications of ancient prophecy! Buckingham
says that, after passing through the ruins of Bosrah, how
astonished he was " to see an endless plain of ruined cities."
But the prophecy is in Jeremiah. " For I have sworn to my
self, saith the Lord, and Bosrah shall become a desolation, a
reproach, a waste, and a curse, and all the cities thereof shall
be a perpetual waste! " But why did Buckingham not quote
this ? If he be a Deist, still, as a man of candour and common
sense, he must admit its extraordinary coincidence. And is it
not extraordinary ? To Miss Mitford.
As another and irrefutable proof that genius is not
acquired, but innate, a farmer's son, fresh from sheaving corn,
has produced a model of Milo eight feet high, in an obscure ,
lodging, and which promises more than the work of any
sculptor, ancient or modern, since the Phidian age. What
will my friend Chantrey say, and the writer in the ' Quarterly

B. R. HA YDON. 1 1 1
who held him forth as keeping in reserve his pure poetry till he
had leisure and fortune ! Let any man depend on it that, if his
genius does not haunt him like an Incubus, and goad and
worry him to exertion in spite of fortune, he has none ! This
young man is a thunderbolt of refutation to Beynolds, and to
all the school whose belief in the " acquirement " of great
talent is such a consolation to imbecility.
' Milo ' is an astonishing production, and worthy of the school
of Phidias. In Greece, it would have procured its author
independence for life. The young man's name is Lough.
While at work on his ' Milo ' he was for three months without
animal food from want of means, and when a friend of mine
found him he was tearing up his linen to make rags to keep
his clay model moist. He is a fine creature, conscious of high
powers, and yet modest with great simplicity, and will be the
greatest sculptor since the best days of Greece, if his early
ripeness does not lead him astray. His combination of high
style and natural incident is great. His anatomical knowledge
is not profound. It has served him for the muscles of the*
body, but in the hands and feet, the construction of which is
intricate, he has felt his want of knowledge, and comparatively
failed. In his obscure village in Northumberland, who do
you think was the only artist known in his family, where
pictures were often talked about as subjects of wonder as to
how they were composed ? Lough and his brother used to
sketch my ' Solomon ' and ' Jerusalem,' and in their walks
would wonder how I had composed them.
When 1 called, he did not know me, but when he saw my
card he was much agitated, and expressed himself with great
feeling. Brougham has given him a commission and left 501.
on the table. This is a genuine bit of heart. Young Lough was
brought to London by a friend of mine, who left him starving.
Now he invites him to breakfast !
To Miss Mitford. 8th January, 1827.
Have you read Leigh Hunt's last bit on Byron in ' Camp
bell's Magazine'? If not, read it without further fatal pro
crastination. "The noble lord," says Leigh Hunt, " complains
in ' Don Juan ' that he could never make a lady tell her age!"

112 CORRESPONDENCE OF
" But," says the amiable and chivalrous Leigh, " we have been
more fortunate with our fair informants than the noble lord."
Oh ! Heavens ! His fair informants ! Who be they ? Mrs.
Gleddon, the tobacconist's wife, or the lady of "Hampstead
ponds," who, in trying to be pathetic, and hoping she might
not be drowned, threw herself off a wooden footpath into a
Hampstead puddle where it was six inches deep, and was
pulled out black with mud and dripping with water, sufficiently
disfigured to excite sympathy, yet quite secure (as she wished)
and not requiring the aid of the Humane Society for her
recovery. Poor Leigh! Why does he write such twaddle.
He is now writing his life, which will be a monkish mixture
of petticoat twaddling and Grandison cant. . . .
1 have not seen Campbell lately. Indeed since Sir Walter
Scott breakfasted last with me and I did not invite Campbell,
who is always contesting for superiority over Scott in a nasty,
disagreeable way, I am out of favour. But Campbell is a fine
fellow, and has stuck to his political Whiggism, though, mark
you, 300?. a year as a pension is very apt to make a man
grateful and staunch. What strikes me always in Campbell's
company is the unmanly sort of nervousness that disturbs him.
I remember one day when I called on him he had cut his
finger, and you would havei thought that Sir Astley Cooper
and Lawrence had taken out his shoulder, the house was in
such commotion. When I was so furiously attacked by the
' John Bull,' Mrs. Campbell said to me, " Why does Mrs. Hay
don let you see such things?" I said, "My dear Madam, I
would not submit to let her read what I was afraid of seeing."
She read it to me, and we were both angry, and both laughed.
Except Sir Walter, I look on myself as the most natural of the
whole set. Scott is the very reverse of the nervous, palefaced,
monkishness of the political school.
Ah, the poor Duke of York ! At the Military Asylum on
Sunday the 800 little fellows sobbed at the sermon as if their
hearts would break. I consider the Duke's death a great loss
to the army and to the country, for he had just talent enough
to be a home commander-in-chief. They will find his want
there. In politics he was too frequently intolerant and wrong,
and clung to antiquated prejudices unsuited to the age. But
in his official career he justly earned great praise. I -think he
was cruelly used about Mrs. Clarke. Who could cast the first

B. R. HAYDON. 113
stone ? Who could bear all they had said and written under
the influence of a passionate attachment of that kind to be
published to the world ? I am not one of the stupid Tories of
the Eldon school, and therefore I have a real respect for Boyal
personages, for at any rate, even if not gifted with genius
themselves, they are the descendants of those who must have
been gifted, highly gifted men. To found a dynasty is no
easy matter, and the founder must either have had great talent
or property, or both, to entitle him to rule over others. I think
in a rebellion, though a strong constitutionalist, and dearly
loving the rights and liberties of my country, I should enter
the guards and fight for my king, wrong or right, merely from
love of the poetry of Eoyalty — God knows.
The death of the Princess Charlotte was the first death
signal to the King ; now this is another, and it must go home
to his bosom. "Ah," said an old woman as I was coming
through Covent Garden, " great folks must go as well as little —
The Lord receive us all!" This is the true thing. Twenty
years will alter you and me — die we must, struggle how we
may : " Ainsi passe la gloire," as Antommarchi said as Na
poleon closed his eyes. I often think how Christianity and
death must keep rank in awe. What whisperings it must
occasionally be subject to. How acutely it must feel the
uncertainty of its life under the stars and orders that cover its
breast ; the account it must give of its conduct here ; the riches
it must leave behind ; the uselessness of its splendour to soothe
the burning torture of the gout! As Lord Castlereagh was
floating down like a bird of paradise at the coronation I
thought : " Yes, there ydu go, very beautiful, but if what is
behind the curtain were known, what would become of you,
my boy ? " There is a certain compensation of good and evil in
most things which equalises us after all. Good night! my
darling Mary is well, and so are all my little rascals.*
To Miss Mitford. 27th March, 1827.
I walked out to-day and called on other artists. Call-
cott has a beautiful thing. Water has never been so perfectly
""-* Haydon was often accused of being jealous and envious of his contemporaries.
On the contrary, no man was more free from that odious vice, or more ready to
recognise and do honour to real merit. — Ed.
VOL. II. I

ii4 CORRESPONDENCE OF
painted before but once, and that once is in Lord Stafford's:
great ' Vandevelde.' Collins has a gem : sunshine on ice
and snow with an old white horse snoozing with his nose
towards the sky. It really is quite equal to the Dutch School.
Newton has a beautiful thing from ' Gil Bias ' for the Duke of
Bedford, and Leslie's ' Lady Jane Grey refusing the Crown ' is
very sweet. I think it will be a strong exhibition. Madame
Graham Callcott of course looked well, but seemed annoyed
that I came to see her husband's beautiful landscape instead of
her next new quarto : at least I thought so. She is a clever
woman, but a little too masculine for my ideas of another sex.
As for Callcott, he is patience and amiableness personified. Of
course all those who have been setting their caps at Callcott
these twenty years, and have grown grey in the service, are
annoyed, and you would die to hear them talk of " Mrs.
Graham Callcott " with ineffable spite. Depend on it, a husband
and wife to be both distinguished will not promote happiness.
I remember Mrs. Belzoni showing me a pebble she took out
from the brook of the Valley of Elah, from whence David took
his pebble to knock down Goliath, and Belzoni quite in a fever
turned to me and said, " Depend on it, this is the very pebble
that knocked out Goliath's brains ! " Sneering all the time he
said it, as if he were, as he was, annoyed at his wife's pre
tensions. Callcott is too mild for all this, but if his sea-water
picture become too celebrated, she will not be over-pleased.
Yours ever,
B. E. H.

To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, sth May, 1827.
The exhibition is a very fine one. Copley at the dinner
made the neatest speech I understand, alluding to his origin,
his elevation, and the advance in Art he had witnessed. With
respect to the ministry I think, for the Arts if Lord Lans-
downe gets in it will be good— for the world, undoubtedly a
blessing. The establishment of Canning's administration* will
* In February, 1827, Lord Liverpool was struck with paralysis, and it be
came necessary to reconstruct the Administration ; and Mr. Canning having at
length received the command of the King to take the necessary steps, Lord

B. R. HAYDON. 115
shake off the Holy Alliance first which made England instead
of an arbiter an accessary and a humble one. But still people
are too violent. They forget it was politic in Lord Castlereagh,
in order to keep the monarchs together, to make promises
(politically) rather inconsistent with constitutional freedom.
They forget how grateful they even were and how they gloried
over Waterloo. Napoleon being now no more, John Bull's
beef is not in such danger, and he flicks his fingers, as usual,
at those he no longer wants : —
" To have done, is to hang like rusty mail,
Iu monumental mockery."

To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, nth June, 1827.
Lough's first day was a triumph. I called in the morn
ing at Coutts's, and, explaining the whole case, begged as a
favour they would allow him to place his money daily in their
hands. Sir Edmund Antrobus allowed it, and last night I went
down with Lough and saw him pay it in. . . . To-day the
Duke of Northumberland has ordered a cast of his ' Sampson.'
Thank God ! I think he is safe. He has now two orders for any
work in marble from Sir John Paul and from Brougham ; and
orders for three casts of ' Milo,' at eighty guineas each ; three of
' Sampson,' at fifty guineas each ; and his exhibition will bring
him at least 300Z. or 400Z., expenses about 60Z., leaving, say,
300Z. clear profit, in addition to his commissions.
As I know the obstruction of early poverty, I will fag hard
to save him. His private friend, Mr. Anderson — all honour to
him — pays for all expenses the first week. I think, on the
whole, we have put him on his legs. For my part, I have been
quite ill with anxiety.
As you will be anxious to know particulars, listen: He
was brought to town two years and four months ago. My
Eldon, the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel and Lords Melville, Bathurst and West
moreland, resigned their offices in a body. This secession of the old Tories with
Lord Eldon at their head was looked upon with some surprise by the country,
and gave a great shock to the Tory party. The more moderate Tories, Lord
Lyndhurst, Lord Dudley, Lansdowne and Mr. Tierney, took office under Mr.
Canning, and the Administration was formed. My father had great hopes of
Lord Lansdowne. — Ed.
I 2

n6 CORRESPONDENCE OF
friend introduced him to Lord D  , who gave him 20Z., and
told him it must last him a year ! Lord B  gave him an
order. Lough, in his simplicity, thinking nothing could be
great or grand enough for a Lord, modelled ' Milo 1 ' When
done, he went to my Lord's agent, and said the order was
executed. " What size ? " " Nine feet," said Lough. " Good
heaven! Sir," said the agent, " his Lordship wants a small thing ;
but if 51. will help you in your present necessities you shall
have it." Lord B  at length called to see ' Milo,' and said,
if Lough went to Italy, he (Lord B  ) would give him 100/.,
and declined the ' Milo.' His first patron allowed him 50?., which
the expenses of the ' Milo ' swallowed up, and left Mm in want,
in hunger and distress. He told me he had not tasted meat
for three months while modelling his 'Milo ' ; that he had been
obliged to tear up his little stock of linen to make wet rags to
keep the clay moist ; that he had only one bushel and a half
of coals to warm himself by the whole winter ; and that he used
to lie down by the side of his clay model, damp as it was, and
shivered for hours, till, worn out with hunger and fatigue, he
fell asleep. Such is the lot of genius in generous England !
Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, 20th June, 1827.
I cannot go on without money. Who can ? The second
commission has ended in nothing, and the first I am appre
hensive of. In fact, I am again ruined ; with five children, and
dear, dear Mary, with her face haggard from grief, no one near
her who belongs to her, approaching her confinement. There
is an execution in the house, and in all probability our very
beds will be stripped from under us. My God ! what she is
condemned to endure ! She won't survive it. She cannot.
What to do I not know. The Duke of Bedford called, but he
has not been again, as he promised. I only want employment.
I have had none for eight months. I only fear I shall go raving
mad. Lord Egremont has been tampered with. He said
yesterday, " Why don't you paint portraits ? " When, not a
week ago, he said, " Why the devil did you paint portraits ? are

B. R. HAYDON. 117
there not enough of portrait painters without you ? " My necessi
ties are now owing to my having paid off so many of my old
debts, ' and having to meet such continually-recurring law
expenses. Out of my last commission of 200 guineas, I had
86Z. 6s. IQd. to pay in law expenses, because my 200 guineas
had not been punctually paid to me, and I could not keep my
engagements. I will not go on in this way. Pray for dear Mary's health
and strength. My tears prevent me writing more.
Always yours,
B. B. Haydon.

To Miss Mitfoed.
21st July, 1827.
The Duke of Bedford has written me the kindest letter,
saying he will co-operate with my trustees in every way to
ensure me " the reward for ' Eucles ' that such a work and such
talents merit." Have not you and Lady Madeline had some
thing to do with it ? God bless you !
B. E. H.

From Miss Mitford.
My DEAR FRIEND, Three Mile Cross, August 1827.
I rejoice from the bottom of my heart at the good news
which your most welcome letter communicates. Your prospects
seem to me at this point better than they ever have been, your
high claims certainly more universally acknowledged. Lady
Madeline and I had a long conversation respecting the affair of
the Duke of Bedford's visit, and the interest he expressed in
'Eucles.' She is a most charming person, and your warm
admirer, and entered into your situation sincerely and en
thusiastically, and I have every reason to think it likely she
would mention it in writing to Woburn. She repeated to me,
over and over again, that she was sure, after what had passed,
the Duke of Bedford would be the last man in the world not
to fulfil any hope that he had even virtually given ; that he
never expressed interest without doing service ; in fact, from

118 CORRESPONDENCE OF
all she said, he is one of the best men that ever lived, and his
conduct through this affair proves his high and just appre
ciation of you.* Ever most faithfully yours,
Mary E. Mitford.

To Miss Mitford.
2Gth August, 1827.
When you see the ' Election ' you will highly approve
it. I have made a moral satire ; on one side are the fallen
angels, on the other virtue in affliction, in the middle the
humour. I was down yesterday and sketched the head of
the smuggler who carried the Union Jack. Such a head!
Air — defiance, daring ; wind, rain, storms, and brandy had cased
his features into a look that approached the noble. The
following conversation took place: "Do not you find your
health affected by this quiet life ? " " Odd — bless ye, no ! Grog
keeps up the constitution." " How many glasses do you drink
in the day ?" " Mayhap, Sir, on an average, as you may say,
about — twenty-five— from sunrise to sunset. Eh, Bob, don't I ?"
— to his companion. Bob nodded assent. At first they were
inclined to play some trick ; but on seeing me grave, and
hitting their likenesses in chalk in a few minutes, their dispo
sition to fun changed. I was asked questions how 1 could do
it so quick ? Whether I don't think it was born with me ? &c.
The terrific dandy now sat again. I never saw such a head —
in fact, such heads ! It must be so — they are the elect of the
country. His mistress — a beautiful, black-eyed, refined little
devil, with her black hair tumbling thickly over her lustrous
eyes— put her little face in for a sketch, and of course I
sketched her.
The delight they all expressed was half-savage. The
smuggler, as a mark of gratitude, whispered to me that if I
wished for some good brandy, I had only to wink my eye, that
was all. He only hoped I would not forget that he carried the
Union Jack, and that all views of his face were at my service.
By this time came two or three wafered notes, hoping I
* But his Grace neither bought the 'Eucles,' nor gave Haydon the employ
ment he was languishing for. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 119
would call before I went. One from an author who wanted a
letter to Murray. Another from a prisoner who had been con
fined eleven years, and wanted "to send a likeness to his
daughter, if a sovereign was not an insult." Poor fellow! he
shall have it without the sovereign. And in the midst of all
this the door opened, and in were brought five brace of birds.
" Why," said I, " good Heavens ! this is before the time." " Yes,
Sir, we don't mind time here, do we, Bob ? " " Maybe, tho', you
won't refuse a brace? " " Indeed I will," said I. " Then perhaps
you'll buy a brace ?"
What a place ! where vice, virtue, and talent are brought
immediately in contact. The reckless want of principle and
thought ; the good fellowship and utter depravity; all extremes,
— affliction and fun, sorrow and drunkenness, dandyism and
filth, genius and insanity — all meet and jostle.

To Miss Mitford.
My DEAR FRIEND, 19th November, 1827.
I dined at Talfourd's yesterday, and spent a very pleasant
day. There never was such a delightful fellow, no cant, and
he likes a glass of good old port as well as myself. I was so
much pleased with Talfourd and his wine, and they seemed so
much pleased with me, that we may fairly say for four hours
yesterday the bad passions of human nature — in one company
at least — were utterly forgotten. . . . Talfourd said your tragedy
was expected to-day. Success attend it !
I have nearly done my 'Mock Election,' but these dark
days are horrible inflictions. Mary is well and as beautiful as
ever. We completed our six years of married life last month.
When I married in 1821 my sister said she gave me six years
before she would allow me to boast. I have rallied her well
now. I might have married a large fortune, if I could have
sacrificed my feelings and could have endured a gilded slavery
for life. I chose where I loved, and oh, how I rejoice that I
did so! How completely has my wife realised the most poetical
notion of married love, or, more truly, how completely has she
proved the false notion the poets have given out that matri
mony is the bane of passion ! If we can see our children
educated, and my debts paid, I shall never complain of what I

120 CORRESPONDENCE OF
have suffered by following my profession. How is your worthy
father and your dear mother ? Pray give my kindest compli
ments to them, and Believe me, my dear Friend,
Ever yours, B. E. Haydon.
To Miss Mitford. 28th February, 1828.
I have heard from Sir Walter, who has lost a large
fortune, but he says he has a handsome competence left. Four
years ago I wrote to him for assistancefor Godwin whom I never
had seen, and he gave it liberally. One year after that he — Sir
Walter— assists me, and now he is ruined himself! Such is
life ! And if such is life, what is death ? That is the question
now. As for me I am utterly indifferent. Have you read my
last petition ? I understand it is much liked in the House.
Brougham said I might as well attempt to make the Monu
ment walk as to make the House listen on Art at this period
of excitement. However it did act — the thing is advancing
and will be done. The great thwarter is Sir Charles Long ;
would you believe it ? I had a long conversation with him,
which really was a long conversation. He is one of the old
school, but younger members are growing round him who will
leave him in the lurch.
I have been very much harassed lately ; my employer could
not pay me, and gave me bills which were as much use as if
he. had given me one of his old boots to raise money on. I
have read your ' Charles,' which I shall be proud at any time
to tell the world I think a very fine thing. Adieu !
To Miss Mitford. 23rd April, 1828. >
The King was sitting with an old friend of mine,* and
in talking of Art, asked him if he had " seen Haydon's ' Mock
Election?'" My friend replied he had. The King said,
" Would it please me if I saw it ?" My friend said, " I feel
quite sure that your Majesty would be pleased." The King
* The late General Sir Thomas Hammond, K.C.B.  Ed.

B. R. HAYDON, 121
then said, "Will you get it for me to look at?" It was
finally arranged that I should be asked if I had any objection
to shut up the exhibition for a day, and if not, whether I
would send the picture to the palace for one day. It was put
to me with great delicacy — as a favour. I replied, " For a
day — for a month, if the King likes." It was then arranged
that the picture should be sent the next morning to St. James's
Palace. When I came down to the exhibition by 10 a.m. the
next morning, nothing was done. The picture was not moved,
and there was only half-an-hour to get it down to the palace.
I got into a great passion, of course, took down the picture in
five minutes, and by eleven it was in the palace. I wrote all
the names of the characters, with a particular or two of each
on the catalogue, and took my leave after seeing the picture
safe in the state apartments. At 2 p.m. I met Mr. Seguier by
appointment in the exhibition room. He took me aside.
" Well ?" said I. " Well," said he, " I congratulate you ; the
King is delighted, I never saw him more so. He said, ' I
hope Mr. Haydon will let me have the picture to-day ?' ' Mr.
Haydon will leave it with your Majesty as long as you are
pleased to keep it.' Now," said my friend, " can the King
have it directly ?" " Certainly," I said. " Then meet me at
twelve on Monday :" and we parted. The exhibition room was
very full, and the ladies and gentlemen crowded about me and
said, " Oh, Mr. Haydon, I have been coming this month, and
now I shall never see it !" " It shows very little regard to the
public for the King to take it away," said another. " It's a
great shame," said an angry gentleman. But the picture had
been on exhibition for three months and they had not come,
and now they affected disappointment ! Phipps, Lord
Mulgrave's brother, went down to the palace the next day to
see what had been done. He met M. Seguier, and asked him.
" I'll tell you what has been done," he said. " I have five
hundred guineas in my pocket for Haydon ;" and on Monday
at twelve I wrote: "Beceived of his Majesty, five hundred
guineas. B. E. Haydon."
Le Thierri dined with me ; and we drank the King's health
in the large goblet I had painted in his picture. God save
the King ! Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

122 CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, 27th April, 1828.
The times in town are horrid, and will be worse. Failures,
troubles, want, and no spirit. I do not wonder at it. Money
really was so much the God, that now it is scarce. Commer
cial men sigh and sob, and yield with all the meanness of
cowards. My friend is gone, and with it a commission for five
hundred guineas, which I had just begun. . . . Wilkie has
lost 1600Z. by Hunt and Eobinson ; and Lockhart I met yester
day so subdued, you would hardly know him. What a life
this is ! Six years ago he was strutting about in Edinburgh,
the relation of the great Sir Walter Scott, young, healthy, and
just married, and the suspected aggressor in certain attacks on
certain people in Edinburgh. Yesterday, I saw him harassed
and afflicted at the mention of Walter Scott's name ; in deep
trouble ; and, in short, an altered person. It was curious to
see me, one whom he had grossly attacked, sitting by him,
the more healthy, active, and happy of the two. He never
has and never will get over the death of John Scott.
You say my ' Pharaoh ' is popular — so everybody says. But
I say, as the Highlander said to Scott, " Everybody praises us,
but naebody gies us ony thing." ' Pharaoh ' has not even pro
cured me a thought or desire for a commission in any quarter.
I think this want of historical feeling among the English
people arises from want of imagination.
The English have no previous thoughts with which to asso
ciate any historical characters, and no poetical conceptions to
refer to as a standard by which they can try the merit of the
attempt. Whereas, if it be a portrait, or a view of themselves,
their dogs, or country seats, they can judge, because their
minds are stored with the requisite materials. A better-
informed and educated middle-class might have great in
fluence. My petition to Parliament has been discussed again and
again at different dinner-parties, so Seguier told me this
morning, and the conclusion is that " its advice ought to be fol
lowed, but that the body of the artists is not in favour of it."
Well, I dare say not. The " body of the artists " is not made
up of historical painters, but of portrait painters.
There seems a great deal of envy that I should have pre-

B. R. HAYDON. 123
sumed to petition the House, &c. " Genus irritabile " may
apply to poets, but for painters "irritabile" is a milk-and-
water denomination.
What are you about ? Denham's ' Africa ' is deeply inter
esting. Eemark the tenderness with which women always
inspire him. To show the difference of the two men : Clap
perton, the sea captain, in speaking of some woman who
interested him, says, " She was a fine, strapping wench."*
Nothing since 'Bruce' or 'Belzoni' has been so attractive
as Denham's book.

To Miss Mitford. 7th July, 1828.
With respect to the " chairing," I am advancing rapidly,
and I hope successfully. Sir Walter laughed outright ; and
when he called, the High Sheriff was sitting. I shall finish
with the ball, and then return to the paths of virtue again.
Wilkie is come back. After a three years' absence I met him
last night at Lord Grosvenor's. He turned round and said,
" Ah, how d'ye do ?" as if he had only not seen me for a week
or so ; and he one of my oldest friends ! I was going up to
squeeze his hand off and was met with this ! It is only his
nasty manner. I believe he has a heart, though sometimes I
think it must be a Cairngorm pebble.
[Then follow some characteristic, and, read by the light of
the tragedy of his own death eighteen years later, curious
remarks on suicide : — ]
Is it not curious that this forger who killed himself
with prussic acid must have used the same sort of poison that
Hannibal is said to have carried about him, viz., bull's blood ?
* Denbam and Clapperton, in 1822-4, successfully crossed the Sahara from
Tripoli by way of Fezzan, to the great kingdom of Bornou. Ledyard, Lucas,
and Hornemann, had all previously failed, or died in the attempt. D. and 0.
discovered Lake Tchad, and brought home to Europe the then incredible news
that in the heart of Africa, where nomad savages alone were supposed to wander,
were vast cities, inhabited by thousands of black Mahommedans, well-governed,
obedient to their own laws, eager for trade, and holding weekly markets for the
sale of all the wares of Europe. In 1825, Clapperton, in a Niger Expedition
which he made from Badagry on the West Coast of Africa, reached Boussa aud
Sokota on the road to Lake Tchad, and died there. His servant Lander, in 1830,
completed the attempt, and settled the course of the Niger from Boussa to ita
mouth iu the Bight of Benin. — Ed.

124 CORRESPONDENCE OF
for the best acid of the kind is made from bulls' blood, at least
so a chemist told me. If so, it proves the correctness of the
story about Hannibal, One drop on your tongue is enough.
I like to see a fellow who has not committed murder die
like a gentleman ! There is something self-willed and grand
about that defiance of an unknown hereafter ! Don't you
think that Cato was more of a hero than Napoleon by putting
an end to himself? I suspect I do. I shall always think of
Montgomery, the forger of bank-notes, as if he had died as a
gentleman should. Perhaps you remember the story of Wilkie
and the two Irish basket-women. " Why he squints, ma
cushla !" " Arrah blarney, get away wid ye ; squints, he
squints no more than a gintleman should !"
To Miss Mitford. 31st August, 1828.
I have been longing to write to you since I made a
pilgrimage to Stratford. Shakespeare may or may not have
been born in the room shown ; but his father can be proved to
have bought the house in 1574, ten years after. It may there
fore be justly inferred, in the absence of proof that he lived
anywhere else in the interval, that he lived here, and that his
son was born here ten years before he made his purchase ; and
as people, except on singular emergencies, are generally born
upstairs, Shakespeare may have given his first puling cry in
the long, low old room still pointed out. But at his grave all
doubt vanishes. You stand on the tombstone with the
inscription he himself wrote while living ; you read his pathetic
entreaty and blessing on the reader who revered his remains,
and curses on him who dared to touch ;* you see his bust put
up by his daughter ; you hear the very breezing of the trees
he himself heard, and listen to the humming watery ripple of
the river he must often have enjoyed. The most poetical
* Shakespeare's epitaph does not apparently differ from a common form of
tombstone epitaph in that day. Hacket, in his select and remarkable epitaphs
(vol. i.), says that the same epitaph was to be seen in his time (1640) on a tomb
stone in St. Paul's Churchyard, Covent Garden: In Robinson's 'Collection' in
the Bodleian, is one of 1630 on a baker —
" For Jesus Cbriste His sake forbeare
To dig the bones under this biere ;
Blessed is hee who loves my dust,
But damned be hee who movea this crust."  Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 125
imagination could not have conceived a burial-place more
English, more Shakespearian, As I stood and looked up at
the unaffected bust, which bears evidence in the exquisite
smile when seen in profile of being authentic, and thought I
was standing where Shakespeare had often been, I was deeply
touched. The church alone, from the seclusion of situation,
with the trees, the river, the tombs, was enough to make one
poetical ; but add to this, that the remains of Shakespeare, pro
strate and silent, were lying near me, in a grave he had himself
selected, in a church where he had often prayed, and with an
epitaph he had himself written while living, it was impossible
to say where on the face of the earth could an Englishman be
more affected, or feel deeper or more touching sensations. I
would not have bartered my associations at this unaffected,
sequestered tomb of Stratford for all the classical delights of the
Troad, the Acropolis, or Marathon. The old clerk, seeing me
abstracted, opened the door that led to the churchyard close to
the river, and left me to myself. I walked out, and lounging
down to the Avon looked back on the church. The sun was
setting behind me, and a golden light and shadow glittered on
the glazed Gothic windows ; and as the trees waved tenderly
backwards and forwards, what dazzled your eyes one moment
was obscured by the foliage the next, and a burnished splendour
and embrowned shadow kept shifting lazily. I was so close
that the steeple towered up against the sky like the mast of
some mighty vessel you pass under at sea. I stood and drank
in all that an enthusiastic human being could feel, all that the
most ardent and devoted lover of a great genius could have a
sensation of, and all that river, tree, or sunset could excite in
addition. I was quite lost; and returned to my inn disgusted
at the thoughts of food and waiters, and would willingly, if
my Creator had so pleased, have taken my flight to a purer
being of " calm pleasures or majestic pains." When I got to
bed I could not sleep. I tumbled about, fancied the pillow
hard, the bed badly made, the sheets damp, and then I sat up
and punched the pillow as I have seen chambermaids do ; but
it was all to no purpose ; and at daybreak I got up in a heat 6f
eagerness and restless fidget to get to Charlecote. I put the
whole house in an uproar ; got an early breakfast, and started
off for the Lucys' place as fast as my legs would carry me.
My walking is no joke, as you know, and this morning I would

126 CORRESPONDENCE OF
have defied Barclay. I met a sturdy gipsy, and after I had
passed him, remembered that I might as well ask the way to
Charlecote. "Bight across the corn-field, Sir, and it will
bring you to the back-way." I darted into the pathway, and
coming to a swinging gate, pushed it open, and in a moment
was inside an ancient park. Trees — full, tall, gigantic and
umbrageous — announce the growth, indeed, of centuries. As I
strolled along I caught a glimpse of the old red-bricked house,
and going close to the river side came at once to two enormous
willows branching aslant the stream, such as Ophelia hung to.
Every blade of grass, every daisy and cowslip, every hedge
and peeping flower, every tuft of tawny earth, every rustling
and enormous tree casting its cool gigantic shadow on the
sunny park, while the sheep dotted about on the glittering
green where the sun streaked in, announced where Shake
speare imbibed his early deep and native taste for landscape
scenery and forest solitude. They spoke to me as if Shake
speare was whispering in my ear. They looked as if his name
was stamped by nature on their flowers and leaves in glittering
dewdrops, or gorgeous colour.
I wondered I had seen no deer, when looking into the shades
I saw a lineal descendant, may be, of the very buck Shake
speare shot, and was tried for shooting, lounging on hia
speckled haunches, and staring at me ; and then up jumped a
beautiful doe, which I had not seen, and sprang off as if her
feet were feathered. The house was now full in sight, and
crossing a narrow, old, fantastic and broken bridge, I came by
the back-way to the entrance of the garden. Here sat a lady
with a parroquet, and a gardener cutting the grass ; so fearing
I had intruded, I turned back again to the private entrance,
and sent in my compliments that I was from London, and
begged permission to see the house. Leave was granted
directly. The housekeeper, a pleasant woman, said, "Here
is the hall where Sir Thomas tried Shakespeare." This is
evidently the way the family pride alludes to the fact, and I
dare say servants and all think Shakespeare a dissolute fellow
who " ought to have been transported." I am convinced the
hall is nearly the same as when Shakespeare was tried in it.
I like Malone's exquisite moral feeling ! He proves there
was no park; but might not deer be enclosed? Deer-stealing
was thought no more of in those days than apple-stealing in

B. R. HA YDON. 127
these ; and if he did not steal deer, why should Shakespeare
give the Lucy family under Shallow ? And in the ' Winter's
Tale ' say, " I would there were no age between ten and three
and twenty, or that youth should sleep out the rest, for there
is nothing in the between but . . . wronging the ancientry,
stealing, fighting !" His works allude to the point sufficiently
to make me suspect, and tradition renders it most probable.
Admirers of a genius must have him a true beau ideal, like the
Apollo ; and like the Apollo, without a single natural detail to,
excite our sympathies.
As I returned home, I could not help feeling how short a
road is when in pursuit of an object, and how long and tedious
when the object is gained. It began to rain with vigour, so
disdaining the beaten path I dashed over a hedge on a voyage
of discovery. At one time I came close to the river stretching
along like a mirror, reflecting earth and sky, and at another
plumped upon a nest of cottages embosomed in trees, with
rosy, scrambling, dirty children, squatting on broken steps.
I pushed on through flood and mud, and long wet grass and
beaten-down barley, and at last got close to Stratford Bridge.
At a humble cottage was the sign of " The Plough and
Harrow," and " capital ale " posted up. So, wet and muddy, I
walked in, and found a pure specimen of a country alehouse.
It was quite a house of Shakespeare's time, everything neat
and characteristic. Smoking on a back bench was a country
looking farmer's man. I dried myself at the fire, and orderjd
some ale, and a pint for my smoking companion. " We'll,"
said I, " did you ever hear of Shakespeare ?" " Heer of un,
ah!" (puff! came out a volley of smoke) " 'ee warn't borrn
in Henley Street tho'a'!" "Where then?" said I. "By the
waathur," said he. " Who told you that ?" I asked. " Why,
Jahn Cooper." " Jahn Cooper," shrieked the landlady, " why,
what dus 'ee knaw aboot it ?" " Nonsense," said the barmaid
sharply. My pot companion gave a furious smoke at ^thus
being floored at the beginning of his attempt to put,.forth a
new theory for my benefit, looked at me very gravely^ncUpre-
pared to overwhelm me at once. He puffed away, and after
taking a sip he said, " Ah zur ! there's another wonderful
feller!" "Who?" said I. "Why," said he, "Jahn Cooper,
I tell 'ee." Bestraining myself with a strong effort, I said,
" And what has he done ?" " Dun," said he, sitting back and

128 CORRESPONDENCE OF
smacking his knee, " dun !" in a voice of thunder, " why, zur,
I'll tell 'ee ;" and laying down his pipe, and looking right into
my eyes under his old weather-beaten, embrowned hat, he leaned
forward, " I'll tell 'ee ; 'ee's lived 'ere in this yeer town for
ninety yeer as man and boy, and 'ee's never had the toothache,
and neever last wan !" I saw the exquisite beauty of this in
an instant. He then took up his pipe, letting the smoke ooze
from the sides of his mouth, instead of puffing it out horizon
tally, till it ascended in curls of conscious victory to the
ceiling of the apartment, while he leaned back his head and
crossed his legs with an air of superior intelligence as if this
conversation must now conclude. We were no longer on a
level. To Miss Mitford. 28th October, 1828.
Tell Miss James that Fuseli -said the very same thing
of my ' Solomon.' " By Gode it is the finest ting dat eaver
any Englishman painted, and I'U maintain it, by Gode!" So
she has some authority, and let me add, entre nous, " I tink.
so myself."
What you have just undergone in London, I have undergone
twice, and Wilkie once. They are the spring-tides of repu
tation — specimens of a London campaign when the stream sets
in. I have never had a good night's rest for nights at a time,
and during each day I have had to talk to visitors in my
painting-room until my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
In Marlborough Street after ' Solomon,'' and at Lisson Grove
after - Jerusalem ' were finished before exhibition, the crush
was so great that my street door had to be left open— notes,
cards of invitation, and crowds of people of all ranks, many of
whom I had never heard of, flocked to make or renew my
acquaintance. Some had known me as a child, some had
kissed me as a baby, some knew my father, some my mother,
till I longed to hide myself in the cellar, and neither hear,
see, nor talk again.
To you fresh from the solitude of your fields and lanes, it
must have been delightfully painful, for there is a delight in
the very worry. . . . Wilkie got ill and has never been quite
well since. Oh, my dear, if you had only seen him on the

B. R. HAYDON. 129
morning we walked into the Exhibition where the people stood
crowding around his ' Village Politicians,' you would never have
forgotten it ! His red hair uncombed, his light eyes staring,
nervous, heated, wondering and yet simple-hearted, exclaiming
every five minutes, " Dear, dear !" And at table at Lord Mul
grave's, drinking Lady Mulgrave's health in some beer he had
asked for, out of sheer fright. By heavens ! it would make a
picture. His " Letter of Introduction " is himself and old
Caleb Whiteford, just as it happened, though not portraits.
However, Heaven grant you always such a worry when you
come amongst us. . . . Adieu ! our best love and kind compli
ments to Dr. and Mrs. Mitford.
B. B. Haydon.
[Here is a statement of the true cause of all his difficulties;
want of employment, and constant lawyers' expenses. For
five and twenty years of his life, a certain clique of attorneys
lived upon him. His death must have been a great loss to
them.J To Miss Mitford.
Mt dear Friend, 29th May, 1829.
I shall always be in difficulties unless I get employ
ment rapidly paid for and kept up. Last year, owing to my
purchaser of ' Moses ' getting embarrassed, and not being able
to pay me, I could not keep my engagements which his
purchase money would have paid off. Then, to obtain time
until he could pay me, I had to pay the lawyers 40 per cent.
for the favour. Who can stand this with a large family ? My
employer pays me nothing additional for making me wait, but
I, the poor professional man, am compelled to pay 40 per cent.
on my receipts to the lawyers who are immediately employed
against me by my creditors. It is horrible.
Where money is concerned the English people are the basest
and cruellest people on the face of the earth. There are more
individual acts of vile despotism exercised by vile attorneys in
this free country than by any tyrannical pacha in a Turkish
Pachalic. On a paltry bill of 51. 1 was made the other day to pay
61. 13s. 8d. law expenses, or about 130 per cent. ! No wonder
I am always on the verge of ruin. No picture pays its own
vol. ii. k

130 CORRESPONDENCE OF
expenses at our present prices, but a balance is always left to
be paid by a subsequent commission ; so that, thanks to the
heartless cruelty of my creditors, the grasping avarice of the
attorneys, and the neglect of patrons and the public, on finishing
a picture I generally find my debts doubled.
To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, 29th June, 1829.
How do you get on, these terrible times ? Terrible for
elections, terrible for money, terrible for heat, terrible for dis
course. I have suffered more this spring than at any time of
my- life. ... Sir Walter will lose 40,000?., and not more. He
seems to have been over-persuaded by Constable to speculate.
I believe this ; but of course the grovelling herd, the wretches
of the world who get a character for literary taste by quoting
his novels, say that he deserves his losses for his avaricious
desire to amass money. Bah ! their pestiferous breath
chokes me.
How do you get on with your novel, or your second volume ?
I am getting on with ' Alexander and Bucephalus ' for Lord
Egremont. It is hard work to think through the agitation of
a family. My children begin to be noisy and restless ; Frank's
curiosity is opening, as well as the girl's lungs ; and I am
occasionally, now the boys are from school, on the point of
demolishing the whole set with my maul-stick. Dearest Mary
devotes herself to train and check them, but it is all of no use.
They never pass my painting-room door without calling.
"Papa" through the keyhole; and if they hear my footstep.
in any part of the house, I am assailed with " Papas " from
the nursery-stairs in all the tones of harmony and discord.
The other night I put on a Satyr mask, when they were all at
their tea, and deliberately walked in, dressed in drapery, and
took my seat. The silence that ensued was ludicrous ; but they
soon found out who it was, and my dress was demolished in a
moment. I fear I am not just. I excite a great deal of this
familiar fun, and then I complain of it afterwards, when I am
not in the humour. Thus it is ever with children, who are
mostly treated with injustice, and are generally fretful or happy,
according to the fretful or happy humours of their nurses.
My running hand, as old Evelyn says, is " an Arabic not to

B. R. HAYDON. 131
be endured." Give my kindest remembrance to Dr. and Mrs.
Valpy ; and will you ask Valpy, for me, for all the references
to Alexander he knows of ? I know Arrian, Plutarch, Justin,
and Quintus Curtius, but is he aware of any other historian
who speaks of him, if only ten lines ? Do any of the later
authors — Macrobius, &c. — by allusion, in any way? All I
wish to know. Send me a gallon of information.
P.S. The finest thing said in modern times is what is re
ported of Parr, viz., " It is undoubted that if every rational
creature obey the laws of God, he will find existence a
blessing." This is an irrefutable answer to Byron's
" Count o'er the joys thy days have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know whatever thou hast been
'Tis something better not to be."

Adieu !

B. B. Havdon.

To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, 8th March, 1830.
I really do not know what to do, nor do I think you can
advise me. My pictures are very successful. On Saturday
week was my private day. In the morning came a message
from the King to Seguier to see the pictures, and if they were
worth seeing to bring them to Windsor. Seguier merely
asked me if the King " could see the pictures." I said, " Yes ;
has he sent for them?" " No ; he had merely desired him to
call and see them, and ascertain how they could be sent." I
said, " If I have an offer of purchase may I take it ? " " Cer
tainly," was the reply. " I suppose I may make it known that
his Majesty wishes to see them ?" I asked. " You had better
not," was the reply, " until I see him."
The day was a brilliant one. All the world was there, and
had it been known the King had sent for the pictures you can
imagine the effect. The next day Seguier went to Windsor.
The King said, " Well, are Haydon's pictures come ? " " No,
your Majesty," said he ; and then, on his own responsibility, he
proceeded to give reasons why the nobility and the public
could not be disappointed, as if those reasons were mine. The
King, gentleman as he is, replied, " Let ' Punch ' be sent on
K 2

132 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Saturday next after the rooms close. I will keep it Sunday, and
send it back on Monday time enough for Haydon to continue
his exhibition."
But he was evidently hurt, for he added, " I won't trouble
him for his ' Eucles.' " What must he think of me, for Seguier
never told him that he (Seguier) had not informed me that it
was his Majesty's wish to see both the pictures. After his
kindness to me in buying the ' Mock Election ' two years ago
he must think me a very ungrateful man. 'Punch ' went down
on Saturday, and this morning it came back with his Majesty's
high approbation, but it was not purchased.
It does not follow, of course, that the King is to purchase
every picture he sees. It is an honour to have your picture
ordered down for his inspection, but it is hard to be misrepre
sented, and with no means of explanation. Had ' Eucles ' and
' Punch ' gone when he wished it, there is no knowing the effect,
and if I had only known it off they should have gone.
Accustomed as Kings are to see the world leap at their com
mands, it is astonishing to me, and shows his good nature and
gentleman-like feeling in a high degree, that the King should
have condescended, after Seguier's statement, to even order
' Punch ' to be sent to him.
To soften and console me in my trouble, dear Mary this
morning was informed that she had lost all her money by the
bankruptcy of Mr. John Bozon, the lawyer, in whose hands it
was left by the trustees. What a world this is ! I must fly
again to my pencil. Adieu !
To Miss Mitford.
My dear Friend, 10th June, 1830.
Art will not grow with two powerful authorities inimical
and indifferent. The state of the Art in England is easily
explained. When the Eoyal Academy was founded an annual
vote ought to have^been established that those who obtained
prizes, or returned from Italy, should have employment found
in that style for which, exclusively almost, the foundation was
laid. Individuals not having the means or the room for works of
a public nature, the Historical painter found himself without
employment, and perhaps having no private fortune, or having

B. R.- HAYDON. 133
expended it on his progress, he was obliged for sustenance to
fall back upon portrait. Portrait painters thus got possession
of an Academy which was established for High Art, and keep
possession of it to the injury of High Art, and to the ruin of
the taste of the country.
At this period the British Gallery was founded, and the
members of the Dilettante Society being supposed the only
men of rank and fashion who knew anything of the matter,
became the leading authorities in the new place, with the best
intentions, I have no doubt. But Dilettanti are unfortunately
cursed with an over-reverence for the works of the dead,, and
are too apt to think nothing worthy of admiration till the
author is screwed into his coffin. Their very first decision gave
evidence of their utter want of taste, for, would you believe it ?
they were going to turn out Fuseli's ' Lazar House,' which,
though pregnant with faults, is yet one of the standard works
of the country. Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park, interfered and
saved them from this disgrace.
At that time I was much amongst them, and often admitted
to their consultations, and heart-sinking it was to perceive they
had no system, no object, no knowledge ! All they wanted was
an amusement for the season, and as their rooms were not big
enough for History, public works they had no idea of. I soon
perceived that if I wished to do anything in Art before I was
thirty, I must depend on myself.
When they asked my advice, I opposed their narrow views,
I argued with them, I tried to persuade them, I pointed out
what ought to be their objects, what their aim in their system
of encouragement, and I said, in the presence of a large party
of nobility and Dilettanti, that if they did not pursue some
such course High Art would be in a worse condition in twenty-
five years than when they first took it up.
Not relishing these independent opinions, I was set adrift on
the stream of my own independence. ' Macbeth,' ' Solomon,'
' Jerusalem,' and ' Lazarus ' were painted and exhibited in
spite of their neglect, and now twenty-six years have passed
since they opened their gallery, and certainly their last display,
as I predicted, was the very worst, far worse than their very
first. This, my dear lady, is the state of the Art. The Academy
is composed of men who have no public object, a,nd the British

134 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Gallery of men who have no real wish for any style but the
domestic. The powers in Art are therefore null, and null they will
remain. The only chance yet untried is in a Committee of the
House of Commons, who, with the high feeling of aristocracy,
coupled with the keen searching habits of democracy, would
in one fortnight send forth such a report on the subject as
would settle the. question most effectually. Lord Farnborough,
the organ of the Dilettanti, said to me : " What does a Com
mittee know of Art ? " I replied, " What did a Committee
know of the Elgin Marbles, my Lord? Nothing; but in a
fortnight what equal number of gentlemen knew more ? "
Both the Academy and the Institution dread this system
being established, and they secretly oppose it. AU corporate
bodies hate publicity ; but sooner or later it will be established;.
Many members of the House have written to me to say that it
is the only chance for Historical Painting in England ; but they
add that, it is no use for any proposition to be put forth until
we can get a Minister to second it, for the Country Party is
against it, and if Ministers are indifferent there is no chance.
I assure you, without prejudice, this is a fair statement of the
question. The Elgin Marbles would never have been bought had not
the press taken it up, and it was I who furnished John Scott,
the editor of the ' Champion,' with all the materials for the
subject. It was he who wrote the articles, and I know at Lord
Bexley's table (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) Scott's
articles were highly spoken of. Lord Elgin told me this him
self, and said that he " owed everything to us." When he put
me down on his list of witnesses to be examined bv the Com
mittee: as the one who had studied the Marbles more than
any other man in England, the Committee, at the instigation
of Payne Knight, the Dilettante, never called me up, and this
occasioned my letter — my now famous letter — on the Judg
ment of Connoisseurs being preferred in matters of Art.
Had the ' Times ' taken up Historical Painting as John Scott
took up the Elgin Marbles, this question would also have been
settled long since. I laboured hard to impress this on Barnes,
and he began in 1823, and would have gone on had not a
certain incident of a domestic nature mortified his pride.
Moore, Sergeant Bough, and myself, with the Secretary to the

B. R. HAYDON. 135
French Embassy, were invited to dine and bring our wives.
We all came and left our wives behind us. This was too
palpable a hit ever to be forgiven, and from that day dry sneers
at High Art, as if embodied in me, and a disposition to get out
of the connection, has been evident. Moore, too, is also out of
favour, and so is Bough, and you may rely on it there is no
man more likely to injure the ' Times ' than Barnes, for there
is no man who carries his private enmities into print more
remorselessly than he. He did the paper good in the Queen's
matter, but he has done it serious injur y since.
To resume, however. We Historical painters are the Boman
Catholics of Art, and under such circumstances it is the duty
of a powerful journal to lead opinion, and not to follow the
ignorance of the mob it presumes to dictate to. Had the
' Times ' held firmly to the assertion it set out with on my
petition to Parliament, that it was as much "the duty of
Parliament to vote a picture as to vote a statue," you may
rely on it, from the feeling of the House, Parliamentary sup
port for Historical Painting would have been quickly carried.
By this time you must be tired. To recapitulate, then : 1st.
That, the Eoyal Academy is inimical to High Art is proved by
their utter silence as a body upon the subject of the Elgin
Marbles, the possession of which was of vital importance to
the Art and taste of England. 2nd. By their returning no
answer to the Committee appointed by Lord Castlereagh to
communicate with them as the head of the Art when 1,000,000/.
was voted for a monument in commemoration of Waterloo.
3rd. By their refusal to admit me in 1809-10-11, before I had
written a line, or said a word to offend or hurt any individual.
Lastly. By the state of History as far as regards the British
Gallery, which alone is evidence of utter misdirection.* Thus,
then, there remains to us but one chance, through the House,
or the Sovereign. Let that be tried, and then, indeed, if in
twenty-five years more we remain in the same condition, I will
agree with Winkelmann and Du Bois that Englishmen are
incapable of such efforts.
My kind compliments to your good father. Ever yours,
B. B. Haydon.

136 CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Miss MlTFORD. 20th November, 1831. '
I have lost my younger daughter, the more beautiful of
the two, and under circumstances of great sorrow and affliction.
She lived but two years and nine months, and her life was a
long torture. Good God, what an existence this is ! Here is
a creature comes into the world without her consent, never
speaks from pain, never walks from suffering, yet conscious of
hearing others speak and seeing others walk, and lies gasping
with ambition to do what others do, is seized with convulsions,
and dies, without the power of making her sufferings known,
or being able to express one desire, one want, or one
necessity !
When she was in the agonies of approaching death I put my
face to hers, and said, " Fanny, darling, do you know papa ? "
and she moaned assent, as she used to do. Then she opened
both her beautiful and lustrous eyes, with a look which will
live fresh in my imagination till my last hour. The last convul
sion was now approaching, and, as if conscious of some terrific
power she could not resist, with a frantic scream, she held out
her arms as if appealing to me, who had always, to her senses,
been able to do, or order to be done, what she wished ; and she
put out her dear arms to me, as -if saying, " Save me, save me ! "
"Ah! my darling," I thought, "you little know the Power you
appeal against." The struggle exhausted her, she fell back and
lay in a calm, soothing palpitation, and, in a few minutes, died
without a sigh. And then her dear face changed from all the
agony of pain to the angelic repose of death.
[A lapse of ten years and upwards occurs here in the corre
spondence with Miss Mitford. Whether the letters were lost or
destroyed, or the correspondence temporarily ceased, I do not
at present know.] To Miss Mitford. London, 26th August, 1841.
My dear old Friend of former days,
At the coming on of the great epoch for Art, which I
always foresaw, predicted, and prepared for, my mind instinc-

B. R. HAYDON. 137
tively turns to you, who used to enjoy my aspirations and
applaud my thoughts. At last there can be no doubt a serious
desire exists to give British Art a fair and grand opportunity
in the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, and fresco has
been recommended as your only style. Goaded to death by
this probability, and knowing nothing of that glorious species
of Art which gave immortality to the great Italians, I deter
mined to lead the way, and getting leave of my worthy land
lord to knock my walls to pieces, if necessary, I proceeded,
with a plasterer, to chip off the outer coat, well moistened the
inner one ; ordered colours, river-sand, lime of several months'
old ; and, following Cennini, spread the requisite quantity of
wet mortar — mixed with two parts of sand and one of lime —
and, when the whole began to embody, I dashed away.
In four hours I produced a colossal sketch of ' Uriel disturbed
by Satan in disguise of an Angel.' The awful look of my own
efforts in a new, delightful, and extraordinary mode, which
seemed to give wings to my imagination, and let it loose on a
space it seemed at last to breathe freely on ; the novelty ; the
absolute rapture of mind to find my dearest Mary and daughter
both felt it, as if a new creation had burst open one side of my
painting-room and stood meditating in the gap — so completely
overpowered me, that I have been ill ever since. . . .
Now this great opportunity is coming, there is an appre
hension that the Art is not equal to it ; and whose fault is
that, if true ? Not mme, as you know. If my school of pupils
had been backed in 1819, and not prostrated by ridicule and
calumny, would there have been any apprehensions of the
kind ? And who are the most eminent men now in the Art, but
the very pupils I instructed in my school? Eastlake, the
Landseers, Harvey, Bewick, Lance, Prentice, and others. Back
to the principles of my School they must come if they wish
to base English Art on an unshaken foundation.
Yet I have not lived in vain if I have lived to see the prin
ciples for which I have suffered acknowledged. After having
been ruined, and four times imprisoned, in consequence of con
tending for it, I have lived to see that annual expenditure
voted for High Art which I first petitioned Parliament for in
1823, and for four times after.
It was I who sent the Duke a petition to adorn the House,
which he approved, and wrote to me to send it to the Building

138 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Committee. Are these not glories, when passing the meridian
of life ? Yet, am I to die on Mount Nebo, and only to see the
Promised Land ? Yours affectionately,
B. E. Haydon.
To Miss Mitford.
Loudon, 1st September, 1841.
1 believe I may tell you the fresco is considered most
promising. Sir John Hanmer, Sir Eobert Inglis, Bankes — who de
spised the genius of England — have all been. The Duke and
Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Gower, and several others, have
also been to see it, and are highly delighted. Wyse wrote to
me to say he " hoped it would be the commencement of a great
school in fresco." I trust in God it will ; if I live, it shall.
Oh, great Creator, what trials, what sufferings, what degrada
tions were not necessary first to humiliate my spirit, to prepare
me humbly to depend on Thee, to know my own imperfections
and regulate my thoughts !
When I left my father's house, in 1804, 1 went into the new
church in the Strand, and fell on my knees and prayed Him
to bless my efforts to reform the taste of this great country in
Art. After seven-and-thirty years, I have been again into this
same church and blessed Him for His mercy in permitting me
to see the advance of the cause to which I had devoted my
life. You know how I have gone about the world, haunted and
dreaming, restless and not happy, as if yearning after an un
discovered land.
But enough of myself. Your dear father I hope soon to see
again. Ask him if he recollects dining at my house, with a
noodle of a fellow who begged a greyhound-pup of variegated
colour. And your father told him, it should be in colour a
vert-antique, which the noodle, during dessert, spoke of re
peatedly as a "great obligation," saying how " very kind " it was
of your father ! How we laughed !
Where are my family, and how many have I now ? Only
two boys and one girl of my own. Orlando is now one of the
Fellows of Wadham. Frank goes to Cambridge in October ;
he is a treasure — handsome, intellectual, witty, and mathe-

B. R. HAYDON. 139
matical. Frederic, my youngest living, is a handsome, spirited,
manly boy ; a great favourite with women, whose society he
takes to like an instinct. He is appointed to the ' Belleisle,'
74, and goes to the Mediterranean on Monday. The other day,
without my knowledge, he went off to Woolwich to see the
launch of the ' Trafalgar,' 120 guns, and he was launched in
her. Was not that a fine debut ? After that, when his ap
pointment came, I sent him down to Sheerness by himself. At
Chatham there was no coach, no packet, so he took an open-
boat, and rowed down the Medway for four hours; got to the
Dockyard, and went and called on the Admiral, Sir Charles
Baker. " What ! my dear," said the Admiral, " have you come
all this way from London by yourself?" " Yes, Sir," said Fred.
" Then," said he, " you are a good plucked one, and you shall
dine with me this evening, and to-morrow I'll take you on
board the Flag-ship myself, and you shall pass your examina
tion ; and then you'll be ready to revenge the death of Nelson,
won't you?" "Well, Sir, I'll try," said Fred," if I get a
chance." " Well done,"' said the Admiral, and smacked him
on the back. The next day he took him on board in his own
barge, and Fred passed his examination, and is now an " officer "
in her Majesty's Service.
I have only one daughter living, a handsome girl with a
splendid figure, determined spirit, plays with exquisite exe
cution, knows French and Italian thoroughly, but has no
talent; is retiring, modest and feminine. She would rather
interfere with the "dignity" of a man, too much for love,
I fear. I'll tell you a story. When I went to Walmer I arrived
about 9 p.m., and went straight to the drawing-room. The
Duke was in capital spirits, and talking away to the whole
party staying there. Among other things, he talked of the
Abbe de Pradt and what a conceited fellow he was. "The
first night I came to Paris," said the Duke, " in 1814, 1 was
invited to a grand party of [Mme. de Stael's. Pradt got up
and made a long oration and said, ' We owe the Salvation of
Europe to un homme seul !' Before he gave me time to blush,"
said the Duke, " he put his hand on his own heart, and said,
' C'est moi !' "*
* This story of the Abbe de Pradt is very like the one told by Spence of
Ambrose Philips the poet, and a very vain man. He, Congreve, and Swift, were

Ho CORRESPONDENCE OF
A friend of the Duke's was at Elba when Buonaparte was
reading Pradt's published ' Memoirs,' and Napoleon absolutely
roared with laughter. Pradt had stated in these 'Memoirs'
that when he met Napoleon at the Inn at Warsaw, after
his retreat from Eussia, and conversed with him on the state
of affairs, Buonaparte was so impressed with his (Pradt's)
remarks, that he made frequent notes. "Now," said Napo
leon to the Duke's friend, "always hear both sides. I was
writing ' Maret to say, 'Benvoyez ce coquin de Pradt a son
archeveque !' " The Duke tells a story better than Sir Walter
Scott. My three days at Walmer were more valuable to me
than Napoleon's hundred days were to him. Adieu !
To Miss Mitford.
My DEAR FRIEND, 30th October, 1841.
You ought to be well scolded for not sending me a note,
though you will not regret to hear that I went out to get a
drawing-book for a sweet creature, who is deaf and dumb, and
is fond of drawing. When asked if she regretted being deaf
and dumb, she intimated she never heard many things which
seemed to pain others, and she was quite happy. Her face
looks so, and the expression is a sparkling innocence fit for a
head of Truth.
I beg you will tell Charles Dickens that I shall be most
happv to see him, or any friend of his, any Sunday from
2 till" 4.
Do not frighten yourself about the Germans, so far there is
not the slightest public movement in their favour. Cornelius
came over to execute an order for Lord Monson, who is dead.
Should there be any intention there, as in the Elgin Marbles,
I must assault their absurdities and, perhaps, go out in the
explosion. Talfourd was pleased with my lecture on Wilkie. I was
affected and the women cried, so we had a pretty touching affair.
once discussing Julius Csesar, when the question arose what Cassar was like, in
person. " For my part," said Philips, " I take him to have been a lean man, of
pale complexion, extremely neat in his dress, and about five feet seven inches
high." This was so exact a description of Ambrose Philips, Esq., that after a
minute or so, Swift politely delivered his opinion that Julius Csesar must have
been " a plump man, about five feet five inches high, not very neatly dressed in
a black gown with pudding sleeves." — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 141
To Miss Mitford.
My dear Mary Eussell, 31st May, 1842.
Frank is first in mathematics at Jesus, Cambridge, and
we are all so delighted to see the dear fellow home again, who
has done me so much honour, that I was rather inclined to
jubilize and lounge and spend money instead of getting more
by working, so we are going to Woolwich for shells and shot,
and grape, and canisters, and ramrods, and screws, and the
Lord knows what to put into the foreground of my ' Saragossa.'
On Tuesday, Wordsworth breakfasted with us alone and
went to church, and afterwards to Lockhart, who took us to
the Zoological — as a part of the wild beasts. Wordsworth's
silver-haired simplicity contrasted with Lockhart's arch mis
chief and was exquisite. Wordsworth sat down to rest and told
us a delightful story, so beautifully, as if an Apostle was unbend
ing. I looked up and saw Lockhart relishing the whole thing,
as if for a moment bewitched out of his melancholy mocking.
What an expression I caught then for one of my Cartoons ! So
when you see it, remember. The story was this : — A friend of
Gainsborough's had a sweet child who was going away to
school. As her father was on a sick-bed he was touched at
parting with her. This came to Gainsborough's ears. So Gains
borough looked out for her, and said to her, " My little love,
can you keep a secret ?" " I don't know," said she ; " but I'll
try." " Well !" said he, " you come to me to-morrow." She came,
and he painted her portrait, in order that when she was gone
it might be placed at the foot of papas bed, to delight him.
The child went to school enjoying her secret, and the next
morning, when her father opened his eyes, there was the
image of his darling looking at him from the bottom of his
bed! You never heard any human being tell such a simple story
so touchingly. It would have softened the hearts of the lions
and tigers could they have heard it.
As Wordsworth was telling this in a shady nook, I sitting by
him, Lockhart before us standing, and looking complacently
down, the sun shone on Wordsworth's silvery hairs, while his
dull eyes, with that look of internal vision I never saw in any
other face, told of thought unknown to any but his Maker —

142 CORRESPONDENCE OF
out came of the window the long neck and calm, large-eyed,
head of the camelopard as if above all human anxiety, and
with an air of quiescent contempt for all three of us, that was
exquisite. [The late Dr. Elliottson about this time became a convert to
mesmerism, and persuaded my father one evening to witness
the effects of mesmerism on a young girl-patient.]
To Miss Mitford. 13th August, 1842.
The other night Elliottson took me to see a most extra
ordinary case of mesmerism, which he told me had convinced
Brougham. I went at the appointed time, and the doctor and three
others (Angelo, the fencing-master, among them) accompanied
me, or rather we accompanied him.
As we approached Pulteney Street, the Doctor impressed
upon us all the great respectability of the people, and begged
us to be attentive.
We were shown into a parlour where sat three girls, one
very young. The other — not the eldest — sat down on a sofa,
and Elliottson directly put his two fingers before her eyes,
moving them slowly, and we saw the lids graduaUy sink till
they closed. The muscles of the neck became rigid, and her
head fixed. Her arms, hands, legs, feet, were fixed, and we
had hardly strength to move them when we did. As I sus
pected the whole thing, I watched her keenly, and I became
perfectly convinced she saw. Elliottson (who sincerely believes)
told me to touch her hand, and by mesmeric influence her arm
would become relaxed. I did so, and the rigidity went off, but
returned when I ceased to touch her. Elliottson now sat by her
side, and told us to watch the extraordinary effect. By degrees
she moved slowly towards him, and leaned almost on him.
Then some one sat on her other side, and she frowned and
seemed disturbed ; and the Doctor told us that was a repelling
influence which gave her pain. He then sat on the floor, and
she gradually bent forward ; and, in fact, wherever he moved
she leaned like the flower, and often her attitudes and expres
sions were extremely graceful.
Whilst all of them were before her, looking at her extra
ordinary appearance of intense sleep, I crept slowly behind her,

B. R. HA YDON. 143
put my hand close to her arm, and, watching my opportunity,
darted my hand on the back of her arm, which, if it had been
naturally rigid, would have been stiff, but it was as relaxed as
my own. The moment she felt an insidious attempt to detect
her, I feU the triceps muscle act by her will, and I could not
move her arm.
Now this proved that she was not asleep, because she was
taken by surprise ; and feeling she had been off her guard, her
thought was communicated by the will to the nerves, which
conveyed it to the muscle, and, in obedience to the will of the
being, it resisted the attempt to move the arms by the con
traction of that very muscle which could only resist in that
direction. I then said: "Open her eyes!" He said he could not. I
said : " Pull up the lid ! " The eye was buried above the lid ;
but for one instant the eye was visible and the pupil con
tracted ; therefore she saw ; because if it contracted, it was to
relieve the pupil from too great a rush of light, which the
somnambulist is quite insensible to.
I then said : " Wake her." " Oh ! " said Elliottson, " that is
a deuce of a job ! " He bawled in her ear. She was rigid.
He cried again, but to no purpose. He shook her, and cried
out again, and she dropped as if shot. " All of you hold her
, and wave your hands over her," cried the Doctor. Elliottson
held her head and kept breathing on her face. I held her
hands and tried hard to undo her fingers. Angelo held her
knees, and the two others held her feet ; and after breathing,
kicking, twisting, and fighting, we lifted her to the sofa, when
she gradually became awake again, but she could not open
her eyes. Elliottson breathed on one eye; it opened. He
breathed on the other, that opened. Conversation ensued, and
we took our leave. Angelo very sensibly said he was more
astonished than ever. Another said it was a most wonderful
case of catalepsy. I said nothing; and on a cab passing I
popped in, and was home in a twinkling, and mesmerised
them all.
B. B. Haydon.
P.S.— It was a scene for H. B. Five " great men " holding
a young girl in a catalepsy. 0 dear ! My poor friend Elliott
son was evidently deluded, and believed.

144 CORRESPONDENCE OF
To Miss Mitford.
12th July, 1843.
The cartoons are a glory to the country. Have I not
lived, as I told you I would, to see the first great National move ?
Did I not, twenty-five years ago, begin it with my cartoons, too
soon for my interest ? but that sowed the seed. Eastlake was
my first pupil, then the three Landseers, Harvey, Bewick,
Chatfield, and Lance, all distinguished men subsequently.
God bless you !
B. B. H.

B. R. HA YDON. 145

LETTERS TO AND FROM EASTLAKE.

From Eastlake.*
,, ,T 31, Hotel d'Espagne, rue Dauphine,
MY DEAR HAYDON, 8th January, 1815.
I have been here a week to-day and am to be introduced
to Denon to-morrow. You gave me your letters sealed, by
which I was told I ran a risk of a penalty at Dover, and
therefore cut them open before I went to the Custom House.
I was afterwards told that I need not have been alarmed.
However, as the thing was done I was obliged to apologise to
Madame le Noble, and I said I hoped it was unnecessary to
say that I had not read them. Madame Noble replied, " Oh !
Monsieur, c'est egal. Je suis bien persuadee qu'il n'y a point
d'indiscretion la-dedans." " Tant mieux," thought I, for her
husband read it with her. I have seen Nicolopolo, but have
not been able to find Wyborn. I found M. de Launay without
any difficulty. Whether your letter was one of introduction or
not I have to thank you for its having produced the same
effect, for he called on me yesterday and left an invitation for
his conversazione last night. I, of course, went and was
extremely entertained. The painter, I forget his name, who
lives in the same house, was very eager to know your opinion
of French art. I told him, not without softening it a little,
but it seemed to annoy him, and it was not till I said, " II fait
pourtant des exceptions," that his face brightened up with
" Ah, ah ! a la bonne heure."
They all seem to have an idea that you are still going to
send your picture over here ; but I said I believed there was
very little likelihood of it. They have a very high opinion of
* Eastlake was at this time just twenty-one years of age. — En.
VOL. II. L

146 CORRESPONDENCE OF
you, and a very high but uncertain one about Wilkie, that is
to say, when in answer to their inquiries I assured them as to
what he is. M. de Launay nodded his head and looked at the
company as much as to say, " I said so. I knew he was a man
of talent."
The French Exhibition is a poor come-off, very much worse
than I expected. It seems to me very odd that no person gave
me any very high description of the exterior of the Louvre
and Tuileries. I was never so struck with architecture in
my life. I have seen the Luxembqurg as well as the Louvre,
but till everything is settled I don't know what I am to do.
I do not feel enough at ease even to express my admiration.
I am, my dear Haydon,
Ever yours truly,
C. L. Eastlake,
10th January.
P.S. — I open my letter to thank you sincerely for intro
ducing me to Wyborn, whom I like very much. I was at a
ball where he introduced me last night (Countess D'Yvis).
He intends visiting London in the spring. Get something
ready to show him, as I have pitted you against all the French
painters. From Eastlake.
My dear HAYDON, Exeter, 25th August, 1815.
Your sister being married is a great loss to my father,
as she was, I believe, very kind to him, and he is still very
sensible of it.
You have, I suppose, heard of a little whole length of Buona
parte, which I have painted, and which is now exhibiting here.
The following is the certificate the French officers gave
me: —
" J'ai vu le portrait que M. Eastlake a fait de l'Empereur
Napoleon, et j'ai trouve qu'il est tres-ressemblant, et qu'il a
en outre le merite de donner une idee exacte de l'habitude
[la tenue ?] du corps de sa Majeste."
(Here follow the names and Captain Maitland's.)
You would be doing me the greatest service if you could

B. R. HA YDON. i47
get this business mentioned in any of those papers whose
editors you are intimate with, as it will pave the way for the
exhibition of the great picture in London. I shall stay here a
week exactly, and then return to Plymouth to copy the picture
life-size for exhibition in London. Yours ever, C. Eastlake.

From Eastlake.
My DEAR HAYDON, Plymouth, 24th November, 1815.
Both your letters have given me the greatest pleasure,
the last especially. I need not thank you for them, but if
your friends are entitled to receive such communications in
proportion to their interest for your success, I am not afraid
of losing so honourable a distinction. Canova must have
received a profound impression from the Elgin Marbles to have
spoken so decidedly on them, and his conviction must have
been so intense, that the mere circumstance of your agreeing
with him, tended, I have no doubt, to give him a certain
opinion of you, which it appears was so entirely confirmed by
the sight of your picture. I heartily congratulate you, and
know it will be of the greatest service to you. You have esta
blished his opinions on two important points, viz., your own
merit and that of the Elgin Marbles. On these, you may say,
hang all the law and the prophets. Certainly, next to your
self, nothing ought to be so interesting to you as these im
mortal relics. The very pain you have endured for them, the
battles you have fought for them, endear them to you; in
short, your success, which you owe so much to them, while it
is an existing proof of the truth of their principles, is the most
agreeable source of your attachment to them. We hear of
affections for places and inanimate objects, yet how poor are
the associations which occasion these feelings, compared with
the intelligent perceptions which these works light up within
one, and which supersede the grandest associations they also
can excite ! There certainly will be a revolution in ta'ste, or,
rather, it is already advancing.
I suppose your work (' Jerusalem ') is already far advanced.
It is a stupendous undertaking ! So much the better for
L 2

148 CORRESPONDENCE OF
exhibition, when it will pour the result of accumulated labour
in one torrent upon the sight! How strange it seems, and
what a triumph for the Art, that a man can see, in an instant,
what has cost years of toil ! It is the contrast between the
means and effect that put that idea into Sir Joshua's head, " as
if some mighty genius had struck it off at a blow." The
suddenness of the impression and the strong resemblance of
that impression to nature, in a fine picture, always excite this
feeling, and the power of exciting it seems to rank a great
painter with a God.
And then subject comes in to complete the elevation of our
thoughts and to purify the rapture of our senses. But how
decidedly it places grand and serious history above any other
walk of the Art! You have the happiness to follow this
highest path and the honour to add dignity to it.
Ever sincerely yours,
C. L. Eastlake.

From Eastlake.
Rome, 27th January, 1817.
If I had written to you from Florence, which I thought
of doing, I might have been able to describe my feelings on
seeing that city and its contents. You cannot have an idea of
Michel Angelo without going there. He is the genius of the
place and meets you everywhere. Not Eome itself can give
you more delight than the thousand objects of interest that
you meet there. In every street are either busts or statues of
the Medici, or the " palle :" their arms ornament the walls.
I even observed these arms on the back of an old chair at an
inn before I arrived in Florence. You turn into the great
square; at a distance some white figures against the old
palace look like colossal paintings, you soon find them to be
marble statues and recognise Michel Angelo's 'David,' with
an arm and a wrist such as he alone could have sculptured,
and looking twice as strong as a great ' Hercules,' by Brandi-
nelli, close by.
There are the masterworks of all the sculptors there, and all
more or less fine, except an unhappy giant in a fountain, said
to be by Ammanati. In the chapel of the Medici all of

B. R. HA YDON.

149

Michel Angelo's best, but the number of unfinished things by
him is quite curious. You see him in some of these things,
after having blocked out an arm in the roughest way, in
dulging himself with finishing a bit of the hand and just
hatching round the thumb, and some parts quite soft and two
or three sharp touches, leaving it — for ever. One thinks him
less a Mannerist after seeing these things. No marble was
ever so like flesh, except the Elgin figures. Momentary
actions are attempted, and mostly successfully, and the uniform
tension objected to in him does not strike one here, or looks
like a latent strength. The thigh of the ' Night,' in G. de'
Medici's tomb, is the most wonderful thing of this sort.
Though she be asleep you fancy she will dart her leg out with
force enough to knock a house down, so " heaped with strength
and turned with elegance." You think of nothing but muscle
before any figure of Michel Angelo's. You see masses of it
slipping about. 1 was going to say you hear the tendons
crack — but, after all, he seems rather to give the idea of the
power of motion than of motion itself, and the motion of
knocking down than of leaping, etc. The colossal size helps all
this and the proportions of his extremities, which are in a sort
of sledge-hammer taste, so that, putting his invention out of
the question, there is a certain degree of terror inspired even
by his forms. I could have explained my notions better at the
time. I suppose you will hardly understand this. You ought
not to rest until you have seen Michel Angelo and Florence.
I just now think you have not latterly trod so closely in his
steps, as I think your natural taste would lead you to Eubens.
Eembrandt and the Elgin Marbles have all conspired in
different ways to change your judgment on this subject.
I have a notion that the Bolognese colour and a certain
degree of Michel Angelo's bursting strength, added to the
nimble elegance of the Greek statues, would produce a style
more congenial to your feelings. The English taste, too, may
have some influence. The English is now the first school of
•colour in the world. This is all right enough, but it is quite
certain the sort of nature a man must study for colour must
narrow his feelings in form. And the Hoppners and Eomneys,
who would say Michel Angelo is " unnatural," are not to be
taken as oracles from the practice they have both omitted and
committed ; or, to be more polite, the very nature of their

ISO CORRESPONDENCE OF
merit implies, as men study in England, a more than ordinary
neglect and ignorance of the higher parts of their Art.
The French are put out of the question on all hands as
destitute of feeling for painting ; the Italians are weak ; the
Germans and the English are the only two sensible schools, and
yet nothing can be more opposite ! There are hosts of Ger
mans here determined to restore the mind of the Art ; they
paint in fresco ; they study Masaccio ; and in their bad works
are like Albert Diirer. They have no idea of colour or effect,
but, for dignity and truth of expression, and the motive of
their figures, I think their Art ranks very high. They
must get out of their absurdities in time. These are so
striking, especially to an English eye, that when I first saw
some of their works I thought them without merit. I now
think they have the highest, but still not what one would
follow. They should be judged of from their drawings, some
of which I think are equal to anything that has been done in
invention, expression, and general propriety. The English are
devoted to mere imitation of substances, save and except that
imperceptible thing which arises out of practice. They are
aware of no principle in Art ; to copy what you see is
perfection, and they make a head round and coming from the
picture. The Germans say the same, always supposing selec
tion, and they imitate an expressive turn of the head and the
looks and actions of nature. Their colour and effect are below
criticism. Some of these Germans have restored not only the
Art, but the dress of the fifteenth century. You meet Eaphael's
costume in the streets. The number of these painters is such
that all foreigners, until lately, were called Tedeschi ! The hosts
of English that have poured into Eome, and the magnificence
they display, have given the natives a high idea of us, especially
after the bombardment of Algiers, which is now exhibiting at a
theatre here, where, I am told, the nine Muses dance about Lord
Exmouth ! The Dey of Algiers sings a bravura, &c.
I saw Canova by accident before I went to deliver your letter,
and as I introduced myself to him by saying I had brought a
letter from you, I thought it needless to use the letter after
wards. He lives like a king, and is difficult of access. The
democracy he talked to you of is an aristocracy of artists.
Yours ever,
0. L. Eastlake.

B. R. HAYDON. 151
Haydon to Eastlake.
October, 1816.
.... The French mingle the principles of Sculpture
with Painting. They forget that the one is a substance, and the
other the effect of it under the influence of atmosphere and
light. This is nothing to them. They know by investigation
the parts exist in the thing as distinctly in shadow as in light,
and they make them so because they know them to be so. This
is ignorance, not knowledge, because knowledge is only useful
to develop truth, and not on its own account. If I turn the
part of any object obscured by shadow to the light, that part is
then definite. Sculpture requires every part requisite to be
there, as it can be viewed under the variety you can view
Nature ; but the moment of a Painting is but one, and can
never be changed. It is the effect of a thing under the influ
ence of the light of that moment, and no other,; therefore the
true effect must be shown of that moment, and of no other.
The mind then reposes — some part predominates over others ;
whereas, if all parts are equally obtruded, distraction ensues.
Of two evils choose the least. A button«is more easily finished
than a face. If the button be highly wrought, it will be sure
to attract more than the face. But a great mind will sacrifice
the button to the face. It will be there if you look for it ; but
it will not force you to look for it. But what is the use of
dwelling on the ignorances of a school which will not stand
fifty years ? If Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil, Ariosto,
Dante, Michel Angelo, Eaphael, Correggio, and Titian, are
right, they are wrong, and they are wrong by every principle
of Poetry and Art which has ever existed.
******
Breadth, depth, brightness, and size, a principal light, but
always gently graduated, are the great requisites to enable a
man to keep his ground against all greyness and brownness.
Teniers and Bembrandt had no chance in the Louvre.
Ever yours,
B. B. Haydon.
From Eastlake.
My dear Haydon, Rome, April, isi7.
Months have elapsed without my having heard from
any soul but you, and I have delayed writing to you more than

152 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I ought. I have seen the Easter ceremonies since your letter
arrived, and in hearing a fine musical performance in the
Capella Sistina, I had time to look well at Michel Angelo.
The ' Judgment ' has suffered most. The tone of colour is ex
tremely dark throughout, and therefore grand and according
with the subject. The sky behind the demons is almost reduced
to white, by decay, in some parts, while the devils retain their
tremendous depth of tone, and are rendered, if possible, more
terrific. It was in this part of the work that Michel Angelo
was most at home, and the figures above are striking in propor
tion, as they border on the terrible and gigantic. Yet the
demons are a vulgar crew ; their expressions would look like
caricature but from the activity they are in, which makes even
their grimaces natural. It is a complete hell broke loose.
Then the single black figure of Charon against the sparkling
sky, whacking that lump of the damned in the boat, is really
enough to make one tremble. There was a time, it is said,
when the eyes of Charon were the principal light in the picture,
but now the spots in the sky eclipse them.
With respect to the figures above, you would be astonished
at the defects in proportion and drawing. If it was an attempt
at foreshortening, it has failed completely, and I cannot think
this, because some are too taU as well as too short. Certain
deviations from proportion, especially in a large size, give a
gigantic effect. This is produced in perfection in that Saint
standing and showing a knife, a most tremendous fellow, with
a head and expression agreeing. The Bartholomew, on the
other side, is on the same style ; but the Christ outdoes them
all for bad proportion without any good effect being accom
plished by it. When peculiarities are successful we pardon
them and admire in them the artist's originality ; but the least
failure makes us refer to some other standard than the caprice
of the master, and in this instance, when we consider that these
frightful giants are representations of Christ and his Saints, it
does appear the greatest dereliction of propriety ever committed
by the Arts. With all this, this work, if on no other account.
is invaluable as the best, perhaps the only model of the gigan
tic style. The only picture I remember that comes near to it
is one by Ludovico Carracci, at Parma, ' The Interment of the
Virgin ;' all the Apostles, much larger than life, are bearing the
body : these figures of colossal dimensions seem doubly large

3. R. HAYDON. 153
by their proportions; great extremities seem to be the principal
cause of this ; you feel that you are looking at giants, and with
drapery, expression, light, and shade agreeing, it is a perfect
thing in its way.
It is strange, to return to Michel Angelo, that he should
have neglected, or failed in all this again in the ' Jonas,' which,
notwithstanding its size, looks like a boy. All the ceiling has
a magnificent tone, and the ' Prophets and Sibyls ' are in good
preservation. By-the-bye, the drapery of these figures is very
fine, a thing one never expects in Michel Angelo. I cannot at
present add anything new to what has been said of their gran
deur, but am sure they deserve all their reputation. I am
always in the Vatican, and, perhaps from having studied it
more, am of opinion, that the ' Dispute of the Sacrament ' is
the finest of the frescoes. The extraordinary truth and cha
racter in all the portraits, the expression, that monk reading,
for instance, between two Popes (but the print can give you no
idea of it), and the arrangement of colour are all first rate. The
' Christ ' is the finest I have seen. I mean to paint it. With
respect to drawing, you occasionally meet with things, as in the
Cartoons, which would not be tolerated in a modern artist ; but
Eaffaelle seems to have considered hands and feet, or rather
their details, as having little to do with his grand object. No
painter ever disposed hands more perfectly to assist expression.
And if the nails of the fingers are done in a dry way, the action
does not suffer much from it. The extraordinary variety in
which his figures point their hands, or lift them in surprise, or
hold things, is really a study by itself, and notwithstanding
this diversity, every action strikes you as being the most ap
propriate. As a Frenchman said : " It is extraordinary how a
man could ever arrive a cote de la nature comme pa." This,
by the way, was looking at the thing rightly, for Eaffaelle seems
to have only had for his object the perfect imitation of Nature.
If he ransacked ancient baths for remains of antiquity, it was
rather for decorations and arabesques, than for form. He seems
to have not felt the antique. And I think it fortunate he did
not. It is a question with me whether the study of statues
does not create a substitute for the imitation of Nature.
Every boy in the Academy can draw handsomer legs than
Eaffaelle, though very few can succeed in that consent of action
in all the limbs which he never fails in. Look at the French

154 , CORRESPONDENCE OF
artists, they give in the statues themselves in their pictures,
and yet how worse than nothing is this excellence ! I am
sure you will not think, from what I have said, that I hold
drawing cheap. The greatest difficulty in drawing is to put
a figure well together, and a greater still to put it in con
sentaneous action. When this is attained, it will hot be the
worse for fingers and toes done in a scientific way and with
feeling, and still further assisting the action; but I would
rather see the general action and proportion excel that of the
toes. I have been led to these remarks by remembering to have
heard it often inculcated that well-drawn extremities are the
test of merit in a picture. This is, to my mind, one of the
sources of the decline of Art.
Believe me, sincerely yours, C. L. Eastlake.
From Eastlake.
My dear HAYDON, Rome, 22nd March, 1818.
I cannot leave Eome without sending you one line to
thank you for your last letter. By-the-bye, you do not seem
to know that I am going to Greece. You have heard so since,
perhaps. I start in three days. I have learned a little of the
language through the aid of a Greek priest, and I shall possibly
be absent six or eight months. I am accompanied by a young
Irishman, called Barry, more an amateur than an artist ; a
Yorkshireman, called Johnson, perhaps Kinnard, and perhaps
another. We propose to embark at Otranto for Corfu, and then
proceed to Patras, in the Morea.
Have you yet made acquaintance with Cockerell ? His draw
ings of Greece would interest you very much. I mean to paint
in oil there, and take a good cargo of materials. God grant I
may not lose them ! I hope to hear news of your picture on my
return. Kirkup will give you the accounts of the Vatican you
desire, or Hayter, viva voce, for he is gone to England. I have
sent thirty or forty oil sketches from Nature to Mr. Harman ;
you may see them by calling on him, but this will arrive before
them. Make haste and finish your picture, for it is time for you to

B. R. HAYDON. 155
come out again. I have spread your fame among the French
here, and some who are going to England are prepared to judge
you. Yours ever, my dear Haydon, Charles Eastlake.
From Eastlake.
My dear Haydon, Rome, March, 1819.
You will have reason to blame me for not having written
to you sooner. Since I last wrote Fhave visited Greece, and
though it is not generally considered the thing for a painter to
do, I am so delighted to have been there that I look upon it as
a good move in my life. ... I entered the Piraeus at dawn. It
is a small harbour, or rather pool, with some miserable houses
on one side. One or two merchant ships were lying at anchor,
and a few Greeks were wrangling on a kind of pier. The
plague was in Athens, at least without the walls, and fortu
nately it never got in. The. road from the Piraeus lies along
the site of the long walls. Midway you enter the olive grove
which encircles Athens like a vast zone almost on every side.
This past, a mile or so, a plain begins, and the Acropolis be
comes distinct, on which, notwithstanding some high towers,
the Parthenon predominates. The town is entirely surrounded
by a wall, and the Acropolis and the Areopagus together hide
it completely from the view. As you approach nearer, the
Temple of Theseus appears above the wall with one palm-tree,
and Mount Hymettus beyond, the very essence of everything
classic. And the colour is so too. Here are no vivid greens
which belong to the Dutch school and not to Poussin. There
is a silent, Egyptian, sandy surface everywhere — no verdure,
but grey ground and yellow-burnt grass — the acropolis with
a tone of Ludovico Carracci — the temple of Theseus a golden
brown — the olive grove one hill of grey — the mountains, Titian,
and the sky more.
I had an opportunity of judging of the effect of the ' Metopes '
in the Parthenon ; one good one remains at the south-west corner.
They appear nothing from>elow, and I should think it impos
sible to judge of their merit accurately at that distance by the
naked eye ; on the north-west corner are some ' Metopes,' in a

156 CORRESPONDENCE OF
very bad state, of female figures sitting, one of which at the
corner seems to be very fine. There is no getting near these.
The bas-relief on the west side of the celia which Lord Elgin
only took in plaster is said to be the finest, " because," say the
architects, " it could be seen more easily than the rest." Be
cause these things cannot have their proper effect, or rather
cannot be enough appreciated at such a distance, Wilkins
concludes that they are inferior works. Now the principle
throughout the Parthenon seems to have been that of lavishing
labour and taste where it could produce no effect whatever.
Such was the gilding or painting the band under the triglyphs
with an exquisite ornament which could never be distinguished
from below, and the cornice within the portico where it was
dark. This profusion, and .what we should call useless high
finish, is to be accounted for by a spirit of devotion to the god
dess, and the best artists were honoured by being permitted to
decorate with their best works even such parts of the temple
as were out of the reach of examination. On the same prin
ciple the parts that were nearer the eye, the statue of Minerva
itself, for instance, were not of common materials, as if perfection
of art itself was not sufficient without costly materials to do
homage to the Deity of Athens.
Do give me some news of yourself and of Art.
Ever yours, C. Eastlake.
From Eastlake.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rome, 27th December, 1824.
I have been long wishing to know your address in order
to write to you, and although that may appear but a slight
obstacle, yet, after a long silence, the least difficulty operates
as such. . . . Our correspondence has been slack, and why, I
cannot tell. If it was my own neglect I am concerned at it
but I think, though that is hardly worth enquiring about,
you were at last a letter in my debt. ... It is not too late to
assure you of the interest I have never ceased to feel in all
that concerns you. Be assured your early kindness to me is
among those obligations which I am least likely to forget.
My early impressions on Art (which might, perhaps, have pro-

B. R. HAYDON. 157
duced a better result) I owe entirely to you, and I have always
involuntarily connected my idea of the many perfections of
the Art with your own practice. It would, indeed, be unneces
sary to repeat all this, but for the long cessation of our
intercourse. You have been in all the storms of an eventful
career, and have, perhaps, forgotten not only your old friend
ships, but even your former kindnesses to friends. My situa
tion has been absolutely quiet, and perhaps too much so, for
a future residence in England ; but among the recollections of
my first life there, I look back with pleasure and gratitude to
the time when I began the study of a happy profession under your
guidance. ****** I remain, dear Haydon, yours very sincerely,
C. L. Eastlake.
From Eastlake.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rome, 21st March, 1825.
Your letter gave me great pleasure, not only by satis
fying my curiosity about you, but because it showed me that
your mind has undergone the great, though I hope temporary,
change that has happened to you with fortitude and philo
sophy. Sperat infestis, metuit secundis, alteram sortem bene
prseparatum pectus. But I cannot help reflecting that if you
bad used your prosperity as prudently as you bear your
adversity nobly, the national misfortune of your present ces
sation from High Exertion would not have happened. The
danger of all ambitious pursuits is that, the independence of
will necessary to such aspirations may be directly opposed to
our social relations, to say nothing of higher ones ; and the
truth is, there is no possible situation in which the human
being is not dependent on the general or temporary nature of
things. To go no further — Buonaparte acknowledged that his
principle was merely a passive one ; that his care was to go
along with " the great march of events," and if he had not
done so he would not have been so great as he was. It is in
human actions as in art. Everything that succeeds with men
must be calculated on, and addressed to some abstract feeling
derived from the general experience or impression of natural
or moral facts. The opinions of the human beings with whom

158 CORRESPONDENCE OF
we are brought in contact, whether right or wrong, constitute
a moral fact, which it is the interest of all who aim at human
success to go along with. But nothing is more opposed to
this temper of mind (which, it is admitted, may sometimes
be employed on a wrong object) than the independence of
genius. Instead of harmonising and concurring with the
march of events, this principle would make them ; instead of
using the materials and circumstances offered, this independent
power would create them. The greatest degree of success will
always be owing, not to our attempting to over-rule, but to our
consulting the nature of things. . . .
Your account of the difficulties and trials you have passed
through are truly distressing to me, who have witnessed your
early hopes and well-grounded ambition. I was not a spec
tator of the more stormy and prouder period of your career,
but the contrast is only the greater to me. I remember the
quiet industry of your beginning and the silent energy of your
progress, but it was not in your nature to suppress the power
you were conscious of. . . .
What is to be done now ? Perhaps your greatest glories
remain ; you have years of matured practice before you, and
may add and improve on the great works you have done.
Come what will, they remain ; and your reputation as a painter
must last as long as there are artists in the country.
****** Ever sincerely yours, my dear Haydon,
C. L. Eastlake.
From Eastlake.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rome, 24th September, 1825.
I hope you are again " pittore di storia." Your account
of the war against your portraits (supposing, as I do, that they
were fine things) is quite heart-sickening. We feel more for
another than, perhaps, we should for ourselves in certain things.
The party persecuted often meets the malice of his enemies
with indifference, which is still more galling than successful
retaliation. It is, at all events, the most politic conduct,
and the most likely to ensure peace of mind. ...
I am glad Mrs. Haydon has not forgotten her sitting to me.

B. R. HAYDON. 159
Her handsome face in my painting-room (however poorly
imitated by me) was the means of getting me many portraits.
What an advantage for you to " use your eyes," as you used to
say, to such a countenance.
******
The Venetian horses are not the work of Lysippus. The
art of casting in bronze was at its highest perfection in his
time and that of his scholars, one of whom made the Colossus
of Bhodes. The Venetian horses are badly cast, and each done
in two moulds and joined lengthwise afterwards. A propos,
you know the name of Cleomenes, son of Apollodorus, on the
' Venus de' Medici ' is modern, and the verb is badly spelt
(eTrweo-ev). Falconet says there were some very old casts in
Holland, in his time, with the name of Diomedes instead of
Cleomenes, another proof that the inscription is not even a
copy from the ancient one. Now, Pliny says, " Phidias worked
but little in marble ; there is, however, a ' Venus ' by him,"
he adds, " of exquisite beauty, in the portico of Octavia."
Pausanias mentions other marble works by Phidias. How
ever, the ' Venus de' Medici' was found under ihe portico of
Octavia. Although everybody has admitted the inscription on
the statue to be spurious, no person has drawn any conclusion
from the circumstance of its discovery under the above
building, part of which still remains. I have mentioned this
to a celebrated antiquary here, but he pretends the ' Venus '
is too finished for Phidias, who, he supposes, was more of a
Michel Angelo. To say nothing of Pliny's expression, " Eximiae
.pulchritudinis," we can hardly suppose a sculptor who worked
much in ivory would neglect to finish a female statue in marble !
The Cnidian ' Venus ' was in a different attitude ; but some
have falsely attributed the Medician ' Venus ' to Praxiteles.
Pray make my compliments to Mrs. Haydon, and
Believe me, &c,
C. L. Eastlake.
From Eastlake.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rome, 15th March, 1828.
You desired me to say if I had received your catalogue
I have, and thank you for it. I think it the best com-

160 CORRESPONDENCE OF
position of yours I have read ; although, from the difference
of my view of things, I cannot always go along with your own
prominency. Still I am willing to admit that circumstances,
as well as your talents, have made you prominent, and, like
Buonaparte, I suppose you do well to meet the familiarity
with which the public are pleased to consider you. If they
choose to talk of you, you must appear as a talked-of person.
You have a knack at good quotations, but the best one you
ever hit on was that prefixed to your ' Essay on the Elgin
Marbles :' " Ceci s'adresse a vous."
I write you but a line, because I am shortly to be in
England, sooner than I first intended, and shall then have an
opportunity of talking with you of your history, " E dei di
che furono, 1' assalse il sovenir."
My kind compliments to Mrs. Haydon. Yours, &c,
C. Eastlake.

I
B. R. HAYDON. 161

LETTERS TO AND FROM SEYMOUR EIREUP.
From Kirkup.
Dear HAYDON, Rome, 2nd June, 1817.
When I wrote to you last, I thought you were coming.
Your account of proceedings at home is animating. Have you
a school or pupils of your own ? Are you raising a generation
to carry your patriotic views into effect ? You will not travel
because " your post must not be quitted, and the cause endan
gered for any private pleasure of your own." Pleasure ! I think
you are right. Delightful, indeed, it must be for you to visit
objects so much endeared to you by long and close acquaint
ance, I *may almost say relationship. The being surrounded
by them what a stimulus to your enthusiasm ! But your tem
perament is not one that stands in need of stimuli, and I think
with you a visit to Italy would be a greater pleasure to you
than benefit. What is there in Eaphael that you are ignorant
of ? It is useless, vain to talk to you of Eaphael's majestic
dignity, animated expression, and so on. My opinion is, I
believe, orthodox enough. I have now seen a great deal of
him, almost everything. Some of his heads are finely drawn ;
they almost all breathe and think. Turn, air, grace, action,
everything which regards expression seems perfect. I think
you will like his drawing better than that of Carracci ; but
you have certainly effected a fastidiousness in the eye of an
English student, which will save him from studying the
Italians. Your scrupulous and deep-studied adherence to
the old canons at first ; your discovery of the matchless new
ones, and the research and proper use of nature in your pic
tures, have given us all new views. One proof is that we have
lost some of the old. ones for coming here. The English will
VOL. ii. m

1 62 CORRESPONDENCE OF
not make so many cartoons here as formerly (except for action
or drapery), and Borne will not be considered as the first
academy in the world.
By the way, is it true that you have a new stock of casts at
Somerset House ? Has the Pope sent the Academy a cargo ?
Is the Monte Cavallo figure or figures fixed anywhere in public
yet, and for good? And, above all, are the Elgin Marbles
well placed, accessible, and casts of them at the Academy ? Is
there to be a new academy built, and a public gallery of
pictures ?
Poor Barry ! one thinks of him here. How does the war
wage between the Academy and the Institution, and Payne
Knight, has he been floundering any more ? Give us news,
and Believe me ever most sincerely yours,
S. Klrkup.
From Kirkup.
.,-. ,T Rome, Via d'Ascania,
DEAR HAYDON, 30tb November, 1817.
You desire me to send you the news of Borne. What
one discovers of Eaphael and Michel Angelo, I conceive, is
the best news from Eome. I sent you all the ill impressions
I received when I first came, because you appeared to write to
Eastlake under some disappointment at not being able to
make the journey, and I avoided increasing it by repeating
what has often made you spring again with a desire to come.
I did not, however, deceive you. I told you the truth, though
not the whole truth. You command me to go on.
I often wonder whether your love of colour, of painting,
and for England, and the indispensable necessity of studying
execution to meet with any success, of studying it deeply
where it has been the occupation of lives spent with diligence
and possessing vigour and talent worthy our noble country —
I often wonder, I say, mentally, whether so strong a bias
towards a point, wherein the old masters have done such won-
ders,*may not deter you from seizing a post which I believe
you consider of higher rank, and in which you have helped to
show there is a greater opening — or, rather, you have been the
sole demonstrator, and Eome confirms it. You produced a

B. R. HA YDON. 163
reform in the manner of studying what you called the " cold
superstitions," and your labours from Phidias were the first to
carry that style to canvas.
There is certainly much finer drawing in the 'Judgment' than
in the Farnese or Stanze. Michel Angelo, therefore, must be
the first master of design; and if drawing is to be studied from
pictures, Eeynolds is right in recommending the Capella
Sistina for drawing. But were not Mengs's precepts better,
who referred to the antique ? . . . Let me draw a comparison
no one else ever dreamt of. Michel Angelo seems to me to
have been as successful a painter as Eembrandt. He has the
appearance of the most perfect skill and command of hand,
in another way, under the influence of bad selection, and with
no regard to propriety of character. In expression, the parallel
ceases. Eembrandt has sometimes pathos, but never sublimity,
except when his effect produces it. Michel Angelo's expres
sion is worthy of Homer. I am not thinking of features only,
as we of the English school generally do when we talk of
expression, but of every "quality which conduces to the action
of a picture. The turn and motion of the figure, animation or
repose, and energy of mind, latent or in action, whether de
pending on position, direction of lines, or grandeur and general
effect of colour and light. And, my dear Haydon, I am as
much impressed by his effect, in some instances still remain
ing, as by his drawing, or, rather, I should say, more. The
splendour and magnificence of the Prophets and Sibyls are not
exceeded by any of the Venetian painters. Vasari relates (his
own words), " Che molto gli piaceva il colorito e la manera di
Tiziano ; :: and how Eeynolds could quote them or ever have
looked at those figures, and assert (in his 4th Disc.) that glow,
harmony, and splendour are incompatible with the grand style
I am at a loss to conceive. Bustle of composition are to be
found in many instances. The ' Golden Serpent,' the ' Deluge,'
' Noah's Sacrifice,' and many parts of the ' Judgment ' are
sufficiently crowded and bustling, and in the prophets' and
sibyls' draperies of satin and changeable silks, and colours in
themselves precious, and raised by the most effective and
learned contrasts, and toned and harmonised by masses of
shadow and gradations of light worthy of Titian's best efforts,
and perhaps in a broader choice of cast of drapery than ever
he executed. There is, of course, much, but not all, ruined by
M 2

1 64 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Time, some things entirely, some partially, and some rendered
uniformly faint, and some dingy, and some out of harmony by
the changing of some of the colours only. The best preserved
are the 'Zachariah,' 'Daniel,' 'Jeremiah,' 'Cumsean,' 'Delphic,'
' Ezekiel,' and the ' Jonas,' though this last appears never to
have been very forcible or correct, and is much more like
Barry's etching than I expected. I believe it to be much the
largest. The ' Daniel ' is likewise very large. The head has
something terrible in it, though it is badly drawn and very
unfinished. Their majestic attitudes you know by heart, but
a great deal of their effect you cannot imagine without seeing
them : splendid Venetian reds, and greens, and purple, and
orange with golden lights, really gilt and glazed on ; the little
bad balustrades on each side the figures are done with bright
gold leaf, and several of the best preserved figures do not
suffer for it. And not only the richest colours abound, but
some are absolutely gay, and such as one would not imagine,
and which must have called for the greatest skill and know
ledge of effect to treat in subjects of so much grandeur, rose
colour and lilac, pale yellow, and Titian's most sparkling
azure, ultramarine with pale lights. I think more of the
ornamental has entered into the scheme of these grand figures
than is generally believed.
The four historical fan-shaped compositions in the corners
of the ceiling have less variety and contrast of colours and
more impressive effects of light, astonishing Chiaroscuro. The
' David ' and ' Judith,' worthy of Eembrandt for that, and fine,
subdued, solemn colouring. The ' Brown Serpent,' too ; the
horrid earthy pestilential colour of the sick and dead side, and
the gloomy, deep twilight that pervades it, low and broad,
contrasted with the sparkling lights on the beautiful female
opposite, cannot be exceeded. I have never seen any prints
that conveyed the real effect to your mind ; indeed, a great
deal is out of the reach of engraving.
But I am afraid I am tiring you about colour. I will be
brief, and I only trouble you at all about it because it is the
quality you can least judge of by prints. In the ceiling there
is a good deal of pale faded violet or lilac, his favourite colour
for God the Father. I think there is much judgment in its
choice> as it is a fine retiring colour and makes the ceiling
appear higher, and consequently the figures larger and grander

B. R. HA YDON. 165
than they otherwise would. The ceiling is decidedly paler than
the rest. The effect is generally figures dark on a light ground,
but all pale together. The prophets are likewise dark before
light, but with vigour of effect. The triangular compositions
and the larger ones in the corners have dark back-grounds.
The outline in the ' Judgment "is done with most prodigious
power. It is dug into the wall with a hard point, in general
with surprising precision, some few repentances excepted
when the colours deviate a little from the bench that was
intended for their boundary. And yet, notwithstanding the
stubbornness of the instrument and the accuracy with which he
accomplished what he intended, it is performed with a bravura
and appearance of facility and feeling which would have been
admirable on canvas.
The left thigh of Charon is a remarkable instance where the
lines sweep down with as much boldness and emphasis as ever
you saw in a sketch by Bubens. The extremities, too, are
drawn in a very superior style to anything I have seen by
Eaphael or Annibale, though not with the best principles of
refined nature — as you would judge from the balls of the
thumbs, points of the ankles, arch of the feet, or length of the
heels. You know his faults, everything bursting equally into
action, and consequently a want of mass and of repose in the
muscles, and a want of a little straightness in some parts of
his outline. Heads too small, knees and feet too small, calves
too large, and the body heavy, are constantly to be met with,
so much so as to be his characteristic, and yet no one ap
proaches him, or his tact for action. You cannot contemplate
him without feeling absorbed by the full force of an elevated
and poetic mind. What he wants in silent or ideal form he
compensates in heroic action — some few instances excepted,
and which one has no business to think of as a painter. Think
only of West's poverty and manner in drawing an open hand,
and then, the beautiful variety in the - Judgment,' energy,
firmness, and absence of affectation.
I think I see you reading what I said at the beginning :
" Colour deter me !" — I will conquer that too. Michel Angelo
is not a bad colourist, though in England he is thought so,
because form and elevated expression are what he had no
rival in ; whereas, in colour he may have been even exceeded,
though only in a few instances. Besides, his colours have

166 CORRESPONDENCE OF
suffered infinitely more than his forms from time. C6lour is
certainly a more common attainment. You have, I may say,
discovered a new road, and proclaimed it. You are well
mounted for the good- race, for you have the advantages of a
cultivated, sensible, and ardent mind. I hope your literary
fatigues will soon end. Indeed, they must, as they will either
be effectual or ineffectual. You are not certainly a selfish
writer or painter ; you sacrifice much to the general good, but
your appearance in print is no compensation for being dis
tracted from your immortal object. I would rather see you
doing good than removing evil (you will try both) ; and, much
as I long to see your last letters, I do not pay them a bad
compliment in saying I should prefer to have an etching from
your own hand of your ' Solomon,' ' Macbeth,' or ' Dentatus.'
Believe me ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
S. Eirkup.

From Kirktjp.
DEAR HAYDON, Rome, 10th January, 1818.
Since my last I have seen Canova. I had tried several
times unsuccessfully : he is so much engaged just now. He is
much delighted by your present ; by his manner as well as by
his expressions : " Gradito con tanto piacer — e come correspon
ded: bisogna regardarlo qualche oggetto utile?" He asked
me what sort of present would be most acceptable to you, and
best express his gratitude ? This I was not quite competent to
point out, of course, but I assured him how glad you would be
to know he valued your, present ; and I read to him part
of your letter, and he was very much pleased. He told me
to mention to you that he was not aware to whom he was
indebted. He had been given to understand it was from
Mr. Hamilton, but was uncertain, or he would have been
earlier in making his acknowledgments. '
Another proof of his satisfaction. He set his pupils to study
it immediately, and one of them has made a famous little
model. Lane was so delighted with it that he is going to
have it cast for his own amusement here, until he can get
the original on his return. I dare say you will hear from Mon
signor Marchese before long.

B. R. HAYDON. 167
I am glad to hear of the drawings your pupils are making
from the cartoons. You have not seen many of the schools of
Europe, nor I the drawings you tell me of, but I have no doubt
you may defy them to produce anything comparable.
In the Academies of Italy, besides prize drawings, there
are large heroic-sized, highly-finished cartoons from Eaphael,
Michel Angelo, done in Eome, and presented by the students
pensioned there, for every little state has a set of pensioners
here. They are generally works of great labour, immense
backgrounds niggled up, and the figures crossed and patched,
and finished most elaborately. No effect, though often a great
deal of black; and then, as for drawing, expression, fine form,
movement, &c, not approached, not thought of ; all sacrificed
to the conte- crayon and hard paper stump, and so forth. I
remember seeing one at Florence or Bologna much noticed.
It was of one of Michel Angelo's figures on the ceiling, finished
very highly, and piecemeal detail was its only quality ; plenty
of patience, an infinity of markings on a large surface on grey
paper with black and white chalk, which is the favourite way.
Though I could see it was weakly and badly done, and in
correct, yet I expected to find a fine study in the original. I
was surprised. The original is nearly invisible from its height
and the injuries of time. Nearly all but the idea must have
been the invention of the copyist.
I think young students and all the Italian masters are bad
imitators of the present French, or rather the prints after
them; for nobody goes north to study. Think of such idle
labour! It is bad practice to witness such apathy as there
is abroad. Think of large, noble, and correct cartoons from
Phidias ! Exquisite purity of line, form, energy of action, and
modesty of nature. To me one of your great toes from them is
worth more than all they can do here, masters or disciples.
The Academies I have seen are Parma, Bologna, Florence,
and Naples ; all noble ones ; besides those of this place and of
France. My journey was too quick to see much on the road.
I was glad to terminate it. I hope on my return to see more.
Venice I did not visit, and at Milan I was turned back from
an informality in my passport. You wish me to tell you every
thing from city to city.
The very moment you cross the Alps you are reminded it is
Italy, by one of the most beautiful Boman antiquities in the

168 CORRESPONDENCE OF
country — an arch to Augustus, standing in a delightful garden
in Susa, at the very foot of Mont Cenis. It is one of the most
picturesque objects I have seen yet : beautiful in colour and
preservation, very original and handsome, and interesting.
Turin.— The King's Palace. Marchese Campignani's pic
tures and the ceiling of the Jesuits' Church.
Piacenza. — Duomo : ceiling by Carracci, bad form. Cupola :
Guercino, bad proportion.
Parma. — Cupola : the massing of the groups. Some figures
near the bottom remarkably hard and decided when seen near :
fine principle. Inequality in the drawing, but some finer than
usual for Correggio. The whole in a dreadful state of ruin,
few parts left, and much totally destroyed, of which some has
peeled off in large pieces.
Church of St. John.- — Cupola and a picture in left transept
by Correggio, both very much in the dark. Over the choir
a large fresco by Annibale Carracci, copied from the one
by Correggio destroyed when the church was enlarged./ A
part only was saved — the ' Virgin crowned by Christ ' — now in
the library of the Academy. On the left, on entering the
church, are some small spirited Parmegianos damaged.
Church of the Stoceado. — The ' Moses ' of Parmegiano, glo
rious, but hidden in the bend of an arch, on which it is painted
over the organ on the left. Another proof of the study of
perspective. Parmegiano was certainly not appreciated in his
time, from his being employed to paint in corners and obscure
places. At the Convent of St. Paul are several little groups of boys,
some very indifferent, ascribed to Correggio, but possibly an
early attempt, or more probably painted by his followers. At
the Annunciata, the last stage of a ruined Correggio.
Academy. — ' St. Jerome,' ' Madonna della Scudella,' ' Pieta,'
' St. Placidus,' and a ' Virgin and Child,' by Correggio ; a very
rough and slight fresco, half-length, not handsome, but a
beautiful composition, and very " Corregiesque ; " a small
Eaphael — 'St. Catherine,' &c. ; and two gigantic Ludovicos
from the Louvre — the ' Funeral ' and ' Assumption of the
Virgin.' In spite of the incorrect, and even monstrous, style
of the drawing, nothing has given me so high an idea of
Ludovico. In the library is the ' Madonna and Christ ' saved from St.

B. R. HA YDON. 169
John's. She is the most beautiful of all Correggio's 'Ma
donnas,' though the head is too large, and the cheeks too fat.
The most expressive, pure, enthusiastic, elevated character.
She is being crowned with a ring of stars of silver light, beau
tifully painted, her arms crossed gracefully, but too short.
The Christ is weak.
Of Correggio in general it is seldom you can judge of his
effect, as his frescoes are in such dreadful ruin. Chiar'oscuro is
a quality that soon dies. His expression is often wonderfully
touching, though not always accompanied by beauty or youth.
It is like Leonardo's, peculiarly Italian — sensibility, acuteness
and genius, in his women and children. I do not much admire
his men. His frescoes, like Eaphael's, are sketchy; much
slighter than his oil pictures. I say nothing of them, you saw
them in Paris. His action is graceful, supple, elastic, and
clinging rather than powerful, though never tame. His forms
are, of course, never fine, sometimes a great deal of his pecu
liar style, sometimes surprisingly weak. Worse proportion
and knowledge of the figure than Beynolds at any time.
But limbs, bodies, draperies, clouds, and everything, is indi
vidually sacrificed to the making of masses, and on that account,
notwithstanding his general elegance, and even frequent feeble
ness, there is much of the sublime. He has been reckoned, I
believe, to combine the grand and ornamental. I felt it so,
and I believe it to be more owing to his uniting and kneading
his groups so massingly and fully than to the scale on which
he painted. A proof is that one is sensible of it in prints.
The cupola is the most striking instance, and all the domes I
have seen since have seemed poor, mean, and trifling. Michel
Angelo's ' Judgment ' is another striking example, and Bubens
with that quality, and consequently a broad light and shade,
has made even his sublime.
Modena. — The Duke's Palace has a fine gallery of various
masters. Bologna. — I do not think there is one Ludovico as fine as
that at Parma. The 'Transfiguration' is pale. It is at the
Academy. There is likewise a small picture by him very fine
and well painted — a 'Monk crucified in his Bobes,' with a
vision of the Virgin coming at a distance in the air. I think
Fuseli must have studied this. There is likewise Guido's cele
brated ' Crucifixion,' and many other fine pictures.

»7° CORRESPONDENCE OF
In the Church of the Dominicans the chapel of the Guido
family is very interesting. It is very cooUy and beautifully
painted by himseK. The ceiling, all the figures and orna
ments most powerfoUy executed, and, through an opening, is
seen at an immense height the ' Virgin carried to Heaven by
Angels,' entirely foreshortened, and aU done with great skill
and effect, and colour and perspective. Bound on the walls
are the monuments of his ancestors and himseK, with the titles
and honours they possessed for two or three centuries.
In the sacristy is a masterpiece by L. Carracci, but it was too
dark for me to see it.
Florence. — In Michel Angelo's group at the Cathedral the
dead ' Christ ' is much the finest part, which is unusual ; but
some of the other figures are very bad, lame, and feeble, which
is likewise unusual with him. Of his figures in the Medici
ChapeL that of ' Night ' is very singular in its detail, and very
disgusting. The ~ Aurora,' which is the best, is not fine form,
and the others are heavy, stumpy, and short-legged. The por
traits of the 'Medici' themselves are curiously long-backed
and short-legged. In baste, ever yours,
Seymour Kibktjp.

From Kibkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Borne, 30th June, 1818.
Lawrence is making a great impression here. Our
school is rising in reputation, for it is beginning to be known.
It is yet only known through the portrait painters. If you
could but send a picture here, a smaU one, I trust you wiU ;
and it wiU stand in the face of the world, and in competition
with aU the Schools of Europe, instead of a month or two's
exhibition in London, hardly to be seen by two foreigners of
any judgment, where you have rivals who wiU not appreciate
you, and a public that cannot.
Could you make some one of your first pupils paint a small
picture under your eye, and send it to St. Luke's ? I know
what it would do- It would do ten thousand times more than
your pamphlets, which are Gospel to me, but which are not so
much studied and valued abroad as they ought to be.

t-1

I
I'

i

B. R. HAYDON. 171
Consider, my dear friend, you are born to paint. How many
dirty little souls are brought up to write better than you ?
Postpone publishers, and devote your powers wholly to your
brush. Your publications should come at the end of your
career. Not only would you then impress by your name, but
you would be more qualified by experience to express, and by
the state of Europe to receive, your doctrines than at present.
Bemember, the cause depends entirely upon you. Weigh my
advice. Ever yours,
Seymour Kirkup.
Extract from a Letter by Haydon to Kirkup.
London, 10th August, 1818.
I should wish to know from you whether Day's casts
fyom the Theseus and Ilissus have yet arrived at Borne. The
Prince Eegent's present of casts from the Elgin Marbles have'
arrived at Florence, and I hope you have seen them. When
you do see them, if you have not, compare them diligently
and carefully with Michel Angelo's nude figures at the tombs
of the Medici. I have seen in the same room casts from the
Moses, and from the Ilissus and Theseus in England, and I
assure you the principles of the Moses were completely anni
hilated. I never saw a more swaggering, pompous, and
affected figure, in fact, a bully. The execution of the feet is
beneath criticism, and I assure you I should have been
ashamed if Bossi had done them so badly. The style seemed
to be gigantic in the whole figure ; but there was a conscious
ness, as it were, in the arms and limbs, which took away all
idea of their being the mere unconscious agents of a superior
impulsion from a directing power, viz., the will, which the
limbs and body always are, and which is one great charac
teristic beauty in the Elgin Marbles. The moment that limbs
and body appear to have been moved for any other purpose
whatever unconnected with the intention for which they were
first called into action, aU feeling vanishes of their being in
that position the best adapted to execute the intention, and
the impression is weakened by an air of affectation.
This is the great principle of nature, whether in action or
repose, and the action or repose ought never to be disturbed

172 CORRESPONDENCE OF
for grace, or any other purpose not immediately the conse
quence of action or repose. However, my dear Kirkup, I have
seen but one of his figures,. Moses, and that has disappointed
me most grossly. Ever sincerely yours,
B. B. Haydon.
From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Rome, 18th October, 1818.
What is the matter ? You talking about women ! You,
the devoted to the divinity of Greek Art, discoursing of guitars
and eyebrows ! I don't wonder at your saying Baphael and
Michel Angelo are very well en passant. I have always looked
to you as the first man who has the right to say so, fqr their
revolution must end when the reign of Phidias is restored.
But Phidias another time. Just now I must talk of ladies,
since you desire me, though upon my life I cannot' help think
ing of your spectacles with awe. It is like amusing one's
schoolmaster with stolen fruit and gunpowder.
Well then, there are certainly beautiful women everywhere
in Italy, and I think a greater number than usual in Borne and
its neighbourhood. The young ones are remarkably so, but
they fade very soon, and there are fewer handsome creatures at
thirty and forty than even in England— -form especially. Of
their fine faces I have endeavoured to discover something of a
national character, and I think there is a certain combination
of fine features which may be called Boman. Siddons and
Catalani both partake of it, or rather did in their best time,
though they were very different beauties. The eyes and brow of
the one, with the smile of the other, and her fine broad antique
cheek, though not quite so high as the zygoma. (I shall expect
to see you by return of post.) But there are really some di
vine creatures — eyebrows above all — the physiology of the eye
brow was never more obvious. Come and make rhythms your
self. A painter must find much to admire among the women
of the lower classes ; their sparkling eyes, beautiful eyebrows,
fine oval faces, smooth foreheads and black glossy hair, divided
always like Niobe, fastened behind with antique ornaments — no
nasty modern caps — the only covering a small net behind, like
Raphael's pictures, or a large square white cloth (in the sun or

B. R. HA YDON. 173
rain), like Michel Angelo or Andrea del Sarto ; unchanging,
national dress*, every village a different one, and all of great
antiquity. In fact, everything that meets the eye in Italy is
full of interest, and one looks back to our English as mere apes
of France, so far as relates to dress and appearance.
I remember your being struck, in 1814, with the French
peasantry, but those were comic, and these are beautiful.
Have I anything more to tell you about the sex? Their
complexions are often pale and sallow, from the bad air, but
always clear and soft. Their mouths are generally larger than
our English beauties, and their teeth not always clean. Have
I not told you enough? Come and see them yourself, and
study them as much as you can, though not so closely as
Baphael. By the way, I have discovered the house of the Fornarina.
It is still a baker's, and his wife has the merit of resembling
her, though fatter and older.
What you say of the ' Moses ' I feel fully. There is an
excess of consciousness, but it is that excess, that abuse rather
than the principle itself, which disgusts me. Michel Angelo
is no doubt too violent for the present day, but still the effect
of the ' Moses ' is highly imposing, and the situation pro
digiously advantageous. The head must have been finished
in its present light, as it is quite poor in every other. The
window is over the right shoulder, and the frown is marked by
a very decided shadow which tells at the very bottom of the
long Doric colonnade which the figure commands. As to the
Medici figures, I never did relish them, and his ' Christ ' at the
Minerva I always thought a poor thing. The ' Moses ' and
the 'Sistine Chapel' are what maintains him, in my poor
judgment, above the moderns ; but many think not.
Canova I have not seen lately. Thorwaldsen, his rival, has
a cast of the Ilissus likewise. It seems the only one known
here. A horseman or two from the procession would have
served him more, I think, as he is finishing a large work of the
kind for the Court of Bavaria, and he will regret not knowing
them, if ever he sees them after. Why does not the Prince
Begent send a set to St. Luke's after the handsome present of
the Pope ? There is no place so universal as Eome. It is of
much more consequence than Florence. Your young friend
Harlowe is here and has done wonders ; a copy of the ' Trans-

174 CORRESPONDENCE OF
figuration ' in fifteen days, as large as the original and full of
resemblance. He has made a mark, and will return to England
with the highest honours* He gives me an enthusiastic
account of you. God bless him for it ! " Go on, my boy," as
you say to me. Do concentrate your powers.
I was delighted at receiving your " letter." There is not a
word in it but bears conviction, and those who deny it are not
worth conversion. Many thanks for it. It will run well here,
and will be fingered and thumbed by readers of all nations.
Write to me when you have half an hour to spare. Eastlake
is safe at Athens, but no further news from him.
Believe me yours, ever affectionately,
Seymour Kirkcp.

Extract from Haydon to Kirkup.
London, 27th November, 1818.
I have been thinking of the characters of Baphael and
Michel Angelo. Beynolds has certainly not discriminated
their characters as he ought, and in a forthcoming number of
the ' Annals ' I have endeavoured in a short- paper to show the
injustice done by him to Baphael. The character of Eaphael
as a painter was the representation of man influenced by
passion, appetite, or circumstance. Michel Angelo seemed
to disdain the representation of creatures who are weak enough
to yield to passion ; and took refuge from the poverty of this
world's materials in the sublime feeling of imagining a higher
order of beings. Michel Angelo's prophets and sibyls look as
if they were above the influence of time or circumstance ; they
seem as if they would never grow old and had never been
young. With all the sedateness of age they have the air and
energy of manhood. Which is the greater painter? This'
perhaps can never be satisfactorily settled. Perhaps Baphael
was the greater painter ; but Michel Angelo was the greater
being. Baphael's genius certainly only expanded, and would
have only expanded as opportunities only were given. Michel
Angelo's would have " burst its cerements " in spite of circum
stance, or have made circumstance assist its expansion. Every
* See ante, Vol. I. p. 342 : Letter to Lord Elgin,

B. R. HAYDON. 175
man will judge of them according to his own character, and
the question, who ought to stand first, will perhaps never be
concluded. Shakespeare combined both their powers, and
both their powers may yet be combined in painting. Michel
Angelo, in disdain, as it were, of this world, often violated
inherent truth in his representations ; but whatever worlds we
imagine, and whatever beings we people them with, we can
never imagine any world where malleable matter is not in
fluenced by action or repose, gravitation, extension or com
pression, the common principles of creation.
B. E. H.

From Haydon.
My DEAR KlRKUP, London, 9th December, 1841.
Years have passed since I heard from you ; but your
letters I have still got, and read them often with pleasure.
You remember my desperate struggles to paint 'Macbeth,'
' Solomon,' and ' Jerusalem,' and you remember my early asser
tion that " State employment " was the only principle. You
were abroad at my ruin ; but, in prison or out, I kept to the
same course, and now at last this great principle is acknowledged.
Southey said it took one man's life to get a principle
acknowledged and another to get it acted on. I have lived to
see acknowledged the great object of my youth. Whether I
shall live to see it acted on, God only knows ; but of this I am
quite sure, I shall not taste its fruits.
You know the fate of all reformers. They are cursed and
crucified. Their principles adopted, their name is execrated
and their ashes scattered to the winds. My ruin in 1823 was
inevitable. I had spoken the truth in 1812. The aristocracy
was angry, the artists furious, the Academy malignant. With
out any assured income I had begun and completed ' Solomon '
and ' Jerusalem,' and when I begun ' Lazarus ' I calculated
ruin at the end. I got through it by 1823, and was ruined as
I foresaw. Since that my life has been a dreadful struggle,
but I have never been down. I have brought up a large family
by way of a help. One boy is a Fellow of Wadham at Oxford ;
another was in the Eoyal Navy, but was killed at Madras by the
bite of a sea snake ; another is now at Cambridge ; another a

176 CORRESPONDENCE OF
midshipman on board H.M.S. ' Vindictive ;' and I have a beauti
ful daughter and a more beautiful wife, and have lost five lovely
children by harass and trouble. Such has been my life since
you last wrote. It has not been an idle one. But although
the great object of my life has triumphed, and the principle of
" State employment " is virtuaUy carried, in the decoration of
the Houses of Parliament, that plan being also my own, believe
me, my dear Kirkup, I have not the least chance ; and as the
principle can now work its way, and wilj need no more at
present of my eternal excitement by appeal, by attack, by
petition, I am seriously turning my thoughts, at last, to the
Vatican. I must see it, though Keats said " our brazen tombs
would lie together." Perhaps I may realise the prophecy, and
after an absence and separation of twenty years the first duty
you may have to perform may be to see me quietly inurned,
if you think it possible even then I shall be quiet. Do write
to me. For the last five years I have had constant employ
ment from public bodies, and from the middle classes. My
lectures all over the country have had enormous success. The
principles of form I used to lay down to you have been fully
comprehended by all classes but the aristocracy, and at Oxford
University my success was victorious.
If any power were put into my hands I think I could induce
the youth to come out with vigour ; but power will not. I
have offended too deeply the prejudices of authority; and
though Eastlake will do immense good, I fear his nerve when
the interests of the artists are in opposition to the Art. With
many dear and old associations, Believe me, my dear Kirkup,
B. B. Haydon.
From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 4th January, 1842.
The sight of your handwriting is like the face of an old
friend. Heartily glad am I to see it, and I shall be still more
so to see you if you can realise your intention of coming out
to Italy. You must ; you are certain to come if you are not by
force prevented. I remember it was in your portfolios, my boy!
that I made my first acquaintance with the ' Sistina ' and the
' Stanze.' At that time how much more had those prints done

B. R. HAYDON. 177
for you than the originals have done for anybody since ! Alas !
that your career should have been checked by coming a little
too soon.
You tell me that you do not expect to reap any of the fruits
of your present triumph. How so ? Has your mind suffered ?
Your hand ? Your eyes ? You must be worth what I left you.
The moment I heard of the Committee and the Beport, I set
you down in my own mind for the first great composition, and
when I heard that Eastlake was chosen secretary I looked on
it as certain. He has always done you justice. He is one of
the few who know your power. In fact, whenever they do
begin, I suspect your journey to Italy will be put off. You
will have enough to do on the spot. Your energy will be
wanted, not only in your own work, but to rouse your rivals.
Your science, your philosophy, besides your power of grand
design and colour, will be indispensable.
I suppose you and Eastlake to be the only men of " mind "
above the mere " manuel ;" but I am out of the world. I am
very happy, perhaps more so than if I were in your volcano. I
hear of nothing that makes me regret my present retirement.
But I am not alone. Surrounded by the old masters, and the
finest monuments in the land of Dante, Machiavelli, Buonarroti,
and Galileo, I am living with two dogs and a great collection
of books. I now and then paint, a humble attempt, generally
when I want some relique or MSS. beyond my purse. I go
very little into what is called " society," for I can do without
it, and my curiosity has been fully gratified by what I have seen
of the very highest — I mean in rank, for low enough it is in in
tellect generally — Courts and all. I don't know what St. James's
may be, but here they are a set of Polonius's, without his fun.
You tell me you are publishing your true principles of
Design over the country in lectures. You do quite right, for
they are too good to be lost or confined to an old newspaper.
The more I have seen, and the older I grow (fifty-three I am),
the more I am confirmed in your most important discoveries.
They should be made known by yourself, or some one will
publish them as his own. They are much wanted abroad. The
modern Italians are in the blackest darkness. They are a
miserable race, and as conceited as ignorant. The Florentines
believe they still hold the supremacy. They believe them
selves all Michel Angelos and Leonardos, though they are
VOL. II. n

178 CORRESPONDENCE OF
only lame followers of the old David school. And yet (will you
believe it?) your English aristocracy come here and admire,
and say, " You must confess the English School cannot draw so
well as that ! " But you will believe me, for you know, above
all men, how profoundly ignorant of all knowledge of correct
drawing, and of the true principles of Art, from want of proper
and previous education, are the bulk of English aristocratic
travellers. I do really hope, my dear Haydon, that you will be induced
to make a dash again at something great, instead of lecturing
about. Print and paint — for after all, by lecturing you are
only teaching others what you can best do yourseK — and gain
at the same time the honour, which may otherwise be seized
by somebody else, and you yourself forgotten.
Besides, the finest lesson of all is a picture. I have heard of
you, and of the wealthy Duke, your patron. He is a narrow,
selfish man, or he would part with a drop out of his oceans of
wealth to secure you tranquillity, and give the country a chance
of seeing what a man they possess in you, and what you could
do with your mind free from harassing anxiety. It would be
for the good of the country, for your good, and greatly to his
credit. But no; any other extravagance but that. Balls,
dinners, fetes, horses, mistresses, servants, grooms, are all he is
capable of. They are all alike — the hereditary law-makers, by
whom John Bull is bought and sold, and he deserves it.
You will find Florence a very interesting place ; and it is
healthy and more cheerful than Eome, and what is a merit
with me, it is more free from the low, vain, ignorant Cockney
artists who so infest Eome, that .1 hate the very name of artist,
and always say " painter " and " sculptor," as the old ones did.
My great resource and constant companion is Dante. He is a
world of himself, or rather three worlds, and what worlds ! I
am acquainted with the Buonarroti (descendants of Michel's
brother), who still keep up the house of the great man. Michel
Angelo was never married. He used to go to bed in his boots !
so Condini says. Adieu ! my dear Haydon. If you fear for
Eastlake's nerves, do all you can to strengthen them. He does
not want courage, but his heart is kind, and he may be biassed.
It is dangerous to have too much humanity and generosity.
Ever yours,
Seymour Kirkup.

B. R. HAYDON. 179
From Haydon.
My DEAR KlRKUP, London, 18th January, 1842.
Your letter has brought a pulsation to my heart. There
is nothing like an old friend. It is impossible to have such
associations with nouveaux venus! .... And are you fifty-
three ? Only three years younger than me. Why, you old
veteran ! Have you a beard ? are you bald ? are you grey ?
You ask me if my mind or eyes are affected. My mind,
my dear fellow, is more vigorous than ever. My eyes have
never been ill since I married, and my general health has
never been so strong. I have not had one day's serious
illness for twenty-three years. For any great public work
I am more fit than when you knew me : tempered by mis
fortune and corrected by adversity, my mind I trust is more
attuned. But the great overwhelming Curse of English Art
is still erect, and nourished by its own intrigues. All the
good done, all the benefits obtained for the English people has
been disputed, thwarted, harassed, intrigued against by the
portrait-painting Hydra! Backed by the vanities, the igno
rance, the folly, and the sympathies of the aristocracy, it baffles
every proposition for the enlightenment of the people inch by
inch, and inch by inch shall it be fought out to the last gasp.
Is there another nation in Europe which exhibits such an
anomaly ? Here is a people boasting of its liberty and its
" Habeas Corpus," from sheer contempt of taste and refinement
suffering itself to be trampled on, stamped on, and defied by a
nest of portrait painters, because, out of their sphere, they are
too contemptible as a body to have any influence on commerce
or the price of the Stocks ! The genius of the country in
Design is kept down by these people, though it is forcing up
itself rapidly ; and now, when at last the greatest moment
since Edward III. is opening upon us, and by the introduction
of fresco a wholesome state of Design would infallibly be intro
duced amongst us, the Eoyal Academicians, knowing their own
incompetence, are opposing it! But the English people are
alive to the truth ; and if fresco fail, I will hold up the Boyal
Academy once more to the disgust of Europe, even if I come
down again with more hideous crash than ever ; down I will
come, sooner than not expose their intrigues. N 2

180 CORRESPONDENCE OF
If Eastlake were independent of others, I know his sense, and
heartj and genius too well to doubt his wishes. But he is
entrammelled, beset, worried. He is obliged so to steer as to
be offensive to no one. I do not care who is offended or pleased,
so long as the truth be made known. Why my lectures have been
so popular, from the University of Oxford to the humblest
Mechanics' Institution, is because I have spoken out the truth!
no matter who disliked it. This must and. will carry the day
at last, and you will live to see it.
Parliament meets in a fortnight. The Commission on the
Decoration will meet soon after. So far, they have kept me
from examination. They may omit, but they cannot suppress.
1 foresee that I shall have precisely the same game to play as
with the Elgin Marbles — carry the day and be set aside for
my pains. ******
You see, my dear friend, I foresee " a Job," and if so, I leave
the country for ever. The British people are a fine people, but
so borne down by the habits of proper submission to authority,
that every proposition, independent of some authority, is looked
on like the emanation of a lunatic. Genius is an impertinent
intrusion on the established order of things. They don't want
genius. Property is endangered by an original conception,
and the Crown and the Altar will go to rack if a Painter
insists that portraits should not be made to stand upon their
tiptoes. But, believe me, this state of things will not last. We stand
upon a volcano. And the British people will at length become
so enraged at having their genius thwarted, their independence
threatened, and their power of advancing side by side with other
nations in Intelligence and Art so encumbered by precedent,
by authority, by the abuse of law, by the pompous pretences of
imbecile power, that up they will burst, by-and-by, with an
explosion that will shatter into a thousand fragments all these
pretensions, and with them all the relations of society, pro
perty, religion, law, and government, never to be rejoined. Be
member this for, as sure as you and I live, it is coming to pass.
A moral revolution is far advanced. Society dines and
dances, grows rich, and goes to Court, and doesn't see it. But
it is well on its way. A physical revolution is deferred by the
sense a moral revolution engenders ; but exactly as the moral

B. R. HAYDON. 181
and intellectual revolution advances will the curses of our
present unnatural social condition become apparent. -As the
rich wax richer the poor will lapse into greater poverty, capital
and labour will quarrel, trades will fly the country — Plutus is a
timid god— and in a little time down it will all come, my
dear friend, with a crash that will echo to another planet.
You are a Badical. I am not. I have always been a Be-
former. But because I will have an independent thought, the
Conservatives swear I am a Badical ; and because I wish to
preserve our constitution, the Eadicals swear I am a Tory. 1
love the aristocracy of my great country, but I despise the
morbid horror they all have of a man enjoying any principle
of thought which authority does not sanction. Ignorant of the
genius of England, they join when abroad, as a proof of their taste,
in all the hue and cry against its talents ; attributing the condi
tion of High Art to natural defect and not to local obstruction.
How can any man feel anything but disgust at such levity ?
In any other country in Europe such pictures as I have
painted for the honour of English Art — ' Solomon,' the ' Jeru
salem,' ' Lazarus,' ' Dentatus,' and ' Xenophon,' — would have
been secured in a great Public Gallery, and have kept me in
constant employment.
Here in England I have now been thirty-eight years in the
Art, and out of those years I have been twenty-two years with
out any commission whatever ! For the last six years I have
only had two orders from the aristocracy — smaU sketches,
thirty guineas each !
Two noble Lords,* who all their lives had preached against
pictures life-size, went to Paris not long since, and brought back
with them two works of De la Boche, life-size ! The press said
that " no Englishman could paint such works."
I wrote to one of the noble Lords, and I offered to paint a
picture the same size, the same sort of subject, at the same
price ; and I engaged to beat it. He declined "for the present " !
Thus, after preaching against great works, he goes abroad and
violates his own law, and then refuses his own countryman the
opportunity he grants to a Frenchman.
And this is the encouragement the nobility give to your
Attached friend,
B. E. Haydon.
* The late Duke of Sutherland and Lord Francis Egerton. — Ed.

1 82 CORRESPONDENCE OF
From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 20th February, 1842.
Your account of yourself is very inspiring as to your
powers and health, but I see that your energies have been so
absorbed by your studies in painting, that you are led by the
nose as a citizen and a man. What is to be hoped for a country
when such a mind as Haydon's floats in the wake of such a
craft as Peel ? An Arch- Ambiguity ! A Tory who is ashamed
of being so, and calls himself a " Conservative Eeformer " ! A
second-rate man, of a third-rate age ; with no real power, except
as a debater; a man who betrayed the Chartists, by whose
support he got in on the pretext of the Poor Laws ; who
betrayed the Orangemen on the "Scorpion Bill," and who
means to betray the landlords on the Corn Laws. Don't talk
to me of Sir Eobert Peel, and what he will do for Art. Nothing
can be hoped for in a country of Peelcraft, priestcraft, and
portraitcraft. His " Eoyal Commission " will end in a job, of
vulgar common thoughts, and the only man I thought likely
to do something of energy and national character — and who
shall be nameless — will most likely be left out, as he was in
the Beport, unless he stoops to flatter the man in power.
Is it true that Peel swindled you of a picture of Napoleon at
your whole-length price, and refused you what you required, or
to return it ?  , who is here, tells me he had the story
from Wilkie, who was a matter-of-fact person, and not given to
exaggeration. If you love the aristocracy of England, it is more than the
aristocracy does you, or anything but its empty, ignorant,
trifling self. What — not one in the whole land to take a man of
genius by the hand, relieve him of his miserable pecuniary
anxieties, and help him to do something for the honour of the
country ? But with all their vast wealth, to stand by and see
such a man struggle and suffer in mind and body all through
his life, when a mere drop out of their superabundant millions
would have placed him in freedom and independence, have
released his mind from the grasp of poverty, and have set him
free to conceive and paint his great and glorious designs !* No,
* "Their superabundant millions!" Although individual noblemen appear
very wealthy, the fact that the nobility generally are once again settling their
sons in " trade," does not look like superabundant " millions " being common.

B. R. HAYDON. 183
no, my dear Haydon, believe it not. Your darling aristocracy
have neither love for your Art, nor for you. Would they have
left you for thirty years without a commission if they had ?
They do not care a " straw " for you, perhaps would rather be
without you, as your situation is a reproach to them ; and if
you persist in living in spite of them, they will let you live
till you die, at length, from want of the common necessaries
of life. Then they will attend your funeral, as an excitement,
and cheerfully (of course) subscribe a small sum towards the
support of your widow, " out of respect for her husband's
talents." This is what they always do in the case of men like
yourself, and they will do it in your case. Leave the country ;
leave the country, my dear old friend, and come to Italy.
I have been round to visit the frescoes in the churches, and
have examined them well. The old ones, Giotto, Gaddi, Giot-
tino, Spenello, &c, painted with less body of colour I think,
because the rough sandy texture of the wall is apparent all
through, but their colours were not our water-colours, trans
parent. They always used earth, and white, and the lights are
touched on the local colour. They are body colours, not at all
washy, and perhaps not much thinner in quantity than the
more modern works, for the ground may have been smoother
in the latter, and that would give the appearance of more im-
pasto, which they certainly have — Massaccio for instance. He
not only has none of the gritty mealy surface of a rough wall,
but his paint is in sufficient body to show the tooth of the
brush. He has, too, a very deep rich tone (which the earlier
frescoes want in general'; they are too cold, though often har
monious), and I really think he even has more body of colour
than Andrea del Sarto, or Pocetti, or Pietro da Cortona. There
are specimens (the ' Sei Cento') wherein they have returned
again to the roughness of the lime waU, very sketchy and clever,
and almost in the style of Boucher and the loose French School.
There is much to be learned even from the inferior painters.
I repeat, the oldest frescoes are painted with body colour,
not glazed and the wall left for the lights ; not even in the
architecture or light parts of the background or drapery ; all
painted, but the surface of the rough wall, looking a little
One question certainly seems to arise out of this new view of "noblesse oblige."
How many generations in Trade are required before a titled nobleman may be
considered to have forfeited his Title ? — Ed.

1 84 CORRESPONDENCE OF
mealy, telling through the paint more than in the later works
of Massaccio. Addio, ever yours,
Seymour Kirkup.
From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 12th June, 1842.
In England taste in Art is as corrupt as the electors.
What honours were ever bestowed on Flaxman, Fuseli, Stothard,
West, &c. ? Formerly a man was ennobled for real service
to the State ; but now a sneaking courtier, a spy, a diplomate,
or an intriguing lawyer may be made a peer of any rank from
the highest to the lowest. And Sir Peter Paul, Sir Anthony,
and Sir Joshua were not even made baronets, fashionable and
rich as they were ! Think how an empty-headed guardsman
turns up his nose at such a fellow as you !
I wish you success with your cartoons and frescoes. You
are the man for all eyes to be turned on now. But you will
stand no chance against the First Lord's or a Minister's protege.
You'll see. It will end in a job !
Flaxman was once offered one from compassion, if he had
no objection to execute a design of Westmacott's. Flaxman
modestly declined, and said he feared he could not do justice to
Mr. Westmacott's thoughts ! I wish you better luck. J would
not be in Eastlake's shoes for 10007. They'll work him. He'll
suffer from pressure above and pressure below, and all his gain
will be loss of time and tranquillity. His masters will sacrifice
him without any remuneration, except the honour, which they
will think quite enough : and the Lord defend him from the
disappointed. Amen, and good night !
Ever yours, late and early,
Seymour Kirkup.
From Haydon.
My DEAR KlRKUP, London, 23rd June, 1842.
I verily believe I shall not be able to attend to a cartoon.
How can I, with two boys, one at Cambridge, who has just won

B. R. HAYDON. 185
a scholarship by being first prizeman in mathematics at
Jesus CoUege, Cambridge, and another in her Majesty's navy ?
After being thirty-eight years fighting the battle of Art, how
can I be expected to compete when I ought to be commis
sioned, and to devote six months for the chance of a prize ?
It is not just, but this is always the way in England. The
error lies deep: the want of Art education at college. The
young men of rank and means come out of college as ignorant
of Art as they go in. When in Parliament, when members of
committees they have not knowledge to come to a decision,
and they are always putting off the evil day, by schemes to
elicit some hidden wonder, to excuse themselves in the mean
time from coming to the point. By starting premiums for
next year they have no occasion to give commissions for this ;
and next year, when commissions ought to follow, oh, no,
the Eoyal Academy will advise another trial, because it is not
judicious to conclude by only one ! Thus, I, who would try to
get a prize, in the hope of a commission, will be baffled for
another year, lest my merit be accident and not desert. In
character with my convictions of Academic intrigue, I need
not tell you that the members are averse to fresco, because
fresco requires drawing, and because no member knows how to
practise it. Eastlake at this moment has not a bed of roses.
The Academy says, " How can Mr. Eastlake answer to the
Academy ? " Answer for what ? For the crime of recom
mending a style the Academy is founded to encourage. Every
thing that escapes from these men shows how just is my dis
trust, I see and am convinced there exists the intention to leave
me out, exactly as they are convinced I ought to be
brought in.
The Eoyal Commission has no idea of the skill of the Eoyal
Academy. In diplomacy, in skill for intrigue, in abiUty for
taking advantage of the ignorance of the upper classes, in tact
for playing upon their vanity by that greatest farce in Europe
— the annual dinner — they are matchless. Only think of the
Lord ChanceUor, the Prime Minister, peer and patron, gushing
over with enthusiasm with four wretched whole-lengths occu
pying the four centres ! Can any good come out of such a
Nazareth? This cartoon-scheme is intended to take the
British School at a disadvantage ; and if it fail, in will come

1 86 CORRESPONDENCE OF
the Germans. That is the real object of Prince Albert, and
of all.
I thank God with all my heart that I have lived to see State
support and drawing begun. My business is over perhaps.
But I fear the inveterate selfishness of the portrait painters.
1 really fear the whole thing will eventually be burked and
prostrated by portrait gossip. Every Academician who paints
a nobleman gains a vote for his side of Art. Wilkie acknow
ledged to me that there was a dread of High Art amongst
them. Consider that this little nest of forty men without a
charter stood out against reform, said they would not yield, and
did not yield, when King, Lords and Commons were forced to
yield. Show me such another specimen of pluck.
I have sent two historical pictures to the Exhibition of
this year. They have hung them well, but would rather be
without them. Never was the historical painter in a more
unbecoming place than in the English Exhibition. Above my
picture stands a lady in velvet : on the right, a view of Ken
sington gravel pits ; on the left, a favourite pony ; and below,
some dead mackerel; in the midst stands my 'Samson and
Delilah :' and Samson, of course, looked like a maniac. And
well he might ! ,
Of my ' Mary of Guise,' they say the infant is not an " aristo
cratic one ! " What of that ? Do aristocratic babies never
wet their napkins ? Are they above digestion and its conse
quences, and do they smile with superior condescension and
polished grace at a dose of castor oil ? What next !
Your account of Eossetti is delightful. I will get to know
him. But is his theory of Dante sound ? Good Lord ! how
many theories have I read ! I hate notes, theories, readings,
new and old. Text is enough for subject and painter.
I have had two tons of lime buried, but no one has followed
my example, and no one else has attempted a fresco. Mine
stands gloriously well. But, my dear friend, the spaces in the
new House are 15 feet by 10. It is not half enough for fresco.
I propose to illustrate the best government to regulate without
cramping the liberties of mankind by a series of historical
facts from the history of the world. They say that is allegory.
I say the principle is abstract ; but facts to illustrate it are
not allegory.
I fear our friend Eastlake corresponds too often with Over-

B. R. HAYDON. 187
beck, Schnorr, and Cornelius. He certainly has a German bite.
He is for bending the stick the wrong way to make it straight ;
I am for straightening it without bending. I am for adding
what we want, as I did to him, and to Lance, and the Land
seers, and others ; that is the true way to reform, not by losing
what is excellent, and adding only what is problematical.
They will not ask me, from a cowardly fear of the Academy,
though the whole scheme is based on my evidence in 1836.
If they would give me power I would change the whole school
and raise a race of designers. But there are men in the world
who enjoy a particular felicity in baffling the particular desire
of any of their species, especially if he deserves to gratify it.
God bless you, my dear Kirkup ! Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.
From Haydon.
Painting Room, 26th June, 1842.
Here I am, my dear Kirkup, my picture before me nearly
finished, the sun shining on my " ebauche " in fresco, which
stands gloriously well, with Vasari, Cennini, Ammenini, and
Heaven knows how many other " inis," on my table ; and shall 1
confess to a hearty, old, and sincere Eadical, no confidence in the
prospect or promise of anything in England ? You remember
my early devotion, sincerity and eagerness in the cause of
Art. You know that " self " was never my feeling. You re
member my object was the Art at the expense of my own interest,
and careless of it ; you remember what I knew, what I dis
covered, what I acquired I had no pleasure in retaining, but
in communicating. Eastlake was my first pupil. The very
first hand he ever drew he brought to me. I watched over him
like a brother, guided his studies, lent him my dissections,
and this he always acknowledges. What I did for him I did
to others — Edwin Landseer, Thomas and Charles Landseer,
Lance, Prentice, Bewick, &c, &c, in short, no young artist
ever was turned from my door who wanted help in art ; and
what is more, help in money, at least to one you know of. —
Dentatus, Macbeth, Solomon, and Jerusalem — before you left
England, were enough to establish my knowledge, my prin
ciples, and the capacity of an Englishman as to High Art.

1 88 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Since then my 'Eucles,' ' Xenophon,' ' Christ Blessing the
Children,' ' Lazarus,' the ' Mock Election,' ' Punch,' and other
works, would have confirmed your early impressions and have
proved them right. You know that although Fuseli, West,
Barry, Flaxman, and Hussey, had devoted themselves to the
cause of High Art, none had so completely laid it open to
the public mind as I had. None had identified the art and
the public together so deeply as myself; and notwithstanding
the outcry about .my writing — my writing ! — you know I got
at the public in a way, and interested them to a degree that
no other artist had ever done before me. Finding from indis
putable evidence that the advance of High Art was obstructed
by a body which pretended to assist it, I attacked and exposed
their imbecility and intrigues, and by proving the weakness
and treachery of the constituted authorities, the aristocracy in
art, I roused the anger of the aristocracy in the nobility.
After every variety of fortune, suffering, and torture, in which
my great pictures were painted, I brought this constituted
authority before a Parliamentary Committee, and I proved aU
I had asserted. In my evidence I laid down a plan for a Head
School of Design, with branch schools. I laid down a plan for
adorning the Houses of Parliament, and I proposed a public
system of reward. Well ! what happens ? A School of Design
is appointed, and Eastlake, my own pupil, recommends another
man (Dyce) to lead it, and of whom the world knew little. A
Committee is formed to consider my proposal of adorning the
Houses in consequence of my petition to the Building Com
mittee, and I am not even sent for, consulted, or examined.
My pupil is selected for examination, and others taken as
authorities on the question under inquiry — men whose ignorance
was apparent — and thus I am left, after being the main instru
ment, unselected, unnoticed, and unsought 
Oh, no! my dear old friend, never expect one who has
ruffled the nap of the aristocratic principle the wrong way wiU
be allowed to smooth it down again, smooth he ever so deli
cately. But after thirty-eight years of devotion to my art, thev
call on me to sacrifice six months of precious time to compete
for the chance of getting a boy's prize ! I thank God, as I
have told you, that I have lived to see the day when drawing is
acknowledged as necessary by a Eoyal Commission ; but I do not
thank God for the partiality, for the fears, for the want of

B. R. HA YDON. 189
discrimination I see everywhere. If I do not try, it will be
said, " Haydon shrinks in the day of trial after all his out
cry ! " Does he ? Try I will ; try I must ! But recollect I
shall sacrifice my boys, my wife, myself, and be rewarded
again with imprisonment in the King's Bench.
When I am again in prison, I may fall ill, I may die ; and
then the aristocracy will be relieved of the nuisance .of my
existence. Then what will happen will be — " Oh ! now the
man is gone, it is not fair his wife should suffer. Oh, no ! "
Subscriptions may procrastinate the retirement of my dear
wife to a Whig uuion, and when these means are exhausted,
" a refuge for the destitute," my Lord will say, as he drives
to a Queen's ball, " is provided for such cases ; what can she do
better than go'in ? " Voila la farce finie ! This is High Art
in England.
You say, "AU eyes will be turned to me!" My dear
Kirkup, you should have added, "And all pockets will be
turned from you!" I shall get nothing, and as I have no
income at present, Sir Eobert will have hard work to get an
income-tax out of me. I shall say, as Home Tooke said to the
income-tax commissioners, " Gentlemen, I have no income."
" No income, Mr. Tooke ; then how do you live ? " " Why,
gentlemen, there are but three ways — begging, stealing, or
borrowing; which do you think is the most likely source
for me ? " God bless you ! Ever yours,
B. B. Haydon.

From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 6th August, 1842.
What you foretell is most likely to come to pass. You
will be burked.
I perfectly see what you remark of our friend. You must
work steadily on, and depend upon no one. I don't think
writing does a man any good; it rather does harm. It is
laughed at and, indeed, often deserves it. It is so difficult to
. address the public about oneself. No, the only means for a
painter to make any impression, are his works. Leave writing
to the snobs and penny-a-liners. They are more used to the

190 CORRESPONDENCE OF
writing-tools after all. Look what a hand Severn has made
of it. Is it advisable to proclaim to the world that painters
have had no schooling ? That they can only produce the
vilest slip-slop ? No grammar, no construction, not a respect
able sentence. Ignorant as the English nobility are, they
must sneer at that. You complain of Severn leaving you out ;
but you would have had more reason if he had put you in.
It was a mere puff to draw attention and get a job. It is all
about himself, and very little about fresco. Besides, your
name would not have answered his purpose. It would have
been a damper for him with the Eoyal Academy, towards
which he may have some pretensions.
I have just seen the ' Art Union ' account of the Exhibition.
What fulsome trash ! Vulgar, common-place praise, and
ignorant, impertinent blame. All party spirit. How much
better you are out of it aU, standing alone ! You would be
much better here if fortune had favoured you, ever so slightly,
as she has done me. I advise you to keep clear of them all,
and do something to show the world and shame them. But
avoid answering attacks, losing time and reputation. The only
answer is a cartoon or a picture^ Any other, and they triumph.
The fact is, those can write who can't paint. Now you,
who can do both, are, and ought to be, above writing. Besides,
your style does not suit the country ; you are too enthusiastic
for a book-maker, and so sincere as to become distrusted, if in
the least carried away by your subject and the strength of your
convictions. Pens play the devil with us.
If you want a smooth surface for your fresco, rub it with
a sheet of paper under your trowel, or your hand, which is
better. Ever yours, dear Haydon,
Seymour Kirkup.

From Haydon.
My dear KlRKUP, London, 16th August, 1842.
I cannot help believing it was Eastlake's fault I was
not examined. I trust he is sincere. He keeps many things
from me which I get from others to whom he has communi-

B. R. HAYDON. 191
cated : this is not open. But perhaps I am over-suspicious.
As he looked at my fresco one day he said, " You will be
examined next meeting ; keep quiet, and let things take their
course." I did so. As the time approached, he hints, " no
more examinations will take place." As he was preparing the
Beport he kept saying, " I shall take up the Fuseli School,
including you as one." I said, " If you imagine my principles
of dissection and drawing were Fuseli's, you are wrong ; I
brought them up with me to London before I had seen Fuseli ;
and Fuseli, moreover, knew nothing of either. They are my
own, derived from the Italian School ; and by educating you,
the Landseers, Lance, Bewick, and others, I have laid a
foundation, the credit of which nothing can deprive me of." I
told him also, " The plan for adorning the House is mine ; the
School of Design is mine. Do you justice in your Beport to
these facts." No, my dear Kirkup, he could not screw his
courage up to the sticking-point. The fear of the Academy,
of the aristocracy, of the artists, and of his own interests pre
vailed ; and though he acknowledges aU, out comes the
Beport, with a series of inferior aUusions that interferes not
with academic predominance. Oh, Kirkup ! Bruyere's opinion of
his species is exquisite ; Swift's not half filthy enough ; Byron's
too liberal ; and Timon's generous in the extreme. I see
clearly his object. It is to keep me quiet, to keep me out of
the public mind, and, when the time comes, to lament that I
am not now followed by crowds, that I am old, that I am a
veteran. I see it all ! I see it all !
I would glory at this moment in going upon a public stage,
with a bit of white chalk and a black-board, to meet Cornelius,
and contest with him on the naked figure.
I will tell you something that will amuse you, as you are a
Badical. A member of the Beform Club asked me if I would
paint a panel in their Hall in fresco. I offered to do it for
nothing, but if successful, I was to be employed on the whole
Hall. I wrote out my plan, which was to illustrate the prin
ciples of Liberty, and to begin by a beautiful figure of Liberty.
Meantime, a "job" was set afloat to introduce instead a series of
Whig portraits. My offer was deferred. A head of Lord Holland
was done by a man named Ponsford, and let in. It looks, I
assure you, more like wood than the panel itself. And then
they put in four infants to represent the arts of Design, in

192 CORRESPONDENCE OF
bastard fresco-like flamingo. And this is how they illustrate
their principles !
Oh, my dear friend, as to **** ****** of Eome — what a
twaddle it is ! She sent for him and, in a long conversation,
said, "What we fear of fresco, Mr. ******, is that we shall lose
our custom ! " John from Eome told me this in his innocence.
He promised to call, but was taken ill at the bare thought.
I called yesterday ; when I saw him, he was planning a head
dress for Lady Marian Alford, for the "Bal Costume." He
twaddled away for two hours. The only thing he was ever fit
for was a wet-nurse to Keats. It is to be regretted he did not
advertise the continuance of his calling. He is just the man
for the aristocracy — men and women. The women treat him
as if he was harmless — as they did Lawrence — and the men as
if the women had told them so.
You ask me about the '  .' This monthly journal
was started when my success in lecturing rendered a counter
poise necessary. It was started by print-sellers ; and the
editor, a poor devil of a hireling writer, one of those who begin
life with pure aspirations and honourable principles, but whom
poverty has compelled to lie for their" bread — the English
press is full of such — wrote to me to help him with the publi
cation, which I declined, unless the Academy were opposed.
He published part of my private letter, apologised ; and sub
sequently attacked me, and said that I took "fees " for a pupil.
It was not true. I met him in public, and I told him it was a
" falsehood." He said, " Don't repeat it." " Bepeat it," I said,
"once is enough." I, expected a challenge, but none came.
His valour oozed out in his Journal by calling me a " quack ; "
and now he always leaves me out, or always abuses me.
Make your mind easy about my writing ; I am too much up
to my neck in work. But difficulties now will begin to come,
because all this time nothing is earning. It is cruel to try the
spirit of a blood horse, because they know he wiU run while
a drop of blood remains in his heart. I will not take an
inferior station in the House, and the superior one they will
never give me. So, perhaps, I shall end my days in Italy.
It is curious that Keats should have said, " Our brazen tombs
will lie together." I have had this feeling always, and so had
he. As soon as my boys can take care of themselves fifty
pounds will bring me out, and out I will come ; and I trust in

B. R. HAYDON. 193
God to paint ' The Crucifixion ' the full size, as big as the Tinto
retto, and thus leave something in that classic land which will
not be allowed to rot in a ware-room. The world — particularly
the English world — have a demoniac delight in preventing a
man accomplishing what they know he is fit for.
Though I know fresco will bring the English School right,
and will counterpoise the evils of portrait manufacture, yet I
agree with you as to its wretched deficiencies of colour.
Already the poor devils here are racking their brains to
prevent the lime drying under two or three days, and by
artificial means lessening the causticity of lime ; thus antici
pating time. Already jobbing chemists, jobbing colourmen,
jobbing members, and jobbing lords are teeming with proposi
tions and schemes and plans to turn the stream of public
money into their private channels. But was it not so in Egypt,
in Greece, and in Italy ? and will it not be so always ? In all
human affairs fraud will creep in ; and if it has the same effect
upon your temper as upon your convictions, it will have the
same effect upon your interests. The art of winking is the art
of rising in the world.
We have had the devil to pay at Manchester, but there are
no asses like the masses. The English are the greatest cowards
on earth against the Law ; one round of grape settles it all.
But they are the victims of rascals. You abuse the Tories.
Listen to the following : I painted lately a public picture of
the Abolitionists. I put a man in the foreground group —
a good orator, with a good head. My employer, a noted
Eadical, made me take this man out from the foreground,
because he had once stolen sixty pounds from his employers.
This summer my patron puts up this very thief to contest a
borough, knowing his character ! What do you think of that ?
Perhaps you will say, " He is worthy of the House." That
won't do. After the Eeform Bill it is not clear corrupt sources
do not produce clear streams, and vice versa. We were furious
for the abolition of Old Sarum, and what have we got ? Ten-
pound freemen, who boast of being bribed to vote. You have
got rid of a rotten borough which often sent forth honourable
and talented men, and you have established sound boroughs,
as you caU them, but more rotten than the rottenest !
God bless you ! Ever thine, in water and wine,
B. B. Haydon.
vol. 11. 0

194 CORRESPONDENCE OF

From Kirkup.

My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 22nd October, 1842.
I have absolutely nothing new to tell you. All your
questions about fresco are answered. Go on, and show them
that your drawing has not left you. The cartoons are the thing.
Do not write about them; it will only hurt you. Look at
Severn. Depend upon it, my good old friend, the less a painter
prints the better. Eastlake has produced some very useful
books, and in capital style, but his one little picture of ' Christ'
has done more for him than a magazine full of authorship. A
painter's picture cannot always be smuggled out of sight.
Your cartoons must be in the public eye for a certain time.
Let not your powers in form and action be annulled by some
childish neglect of proportion. I say childish, because often a
child or a bumpkin has hit at once on & fault in works of great
power and genius, and of the highest qualities, which they were
wholly unable to distinguish, but a short leg or a long throat
they detect at first sight, and then — " He can't Draw! "
How often have I seen this happen with the greatest works.
Your countryman, Mr. Hart, seemed to me to be on that scent
when he was here, and of course any enemy wiU.
What I think about fresco is its want of the crimson prin
ciple. A very little will do, no doubt, but some is indispensable
to harmony. You would feel the want of it in an imperfect
rainbow. Green, blue, violet, yellow, brick, make but a cold,
lame whole. It is like painting on deK. Even ancient china is
often defective ; but modern chemists have found a mineral com
position which becomes lake by burning, with all the varieties
of madders, &c, and never changes after. I believe it is a pre
paration of gold. Have it inquired into ; if expensive, re
member that very little would serve, with help of the red
earths and chemical combinations used in fresco. What has
stood fire wiU stand lime.
As for finishing frescoes in distemper, it is not worth
mentioning. You may as weU paint in distemper at once.
The cartoons have not stood so badly, considering how they
have been used.
Are you aware that you may, in the fifth hour, glaze your
fresco ? The surface will be hard enough to take it safely if

B. R. HA YDON. 195
done with a light hand, and not later, and the setting will still
take hold of your glaze and fix it.
If you mean your picture to last, choose a subject in favour
of Liberty and of human rights, and not of slavish degrada
tion. God bless you, and keep you from those you admire —
your mean, ignorant aristocracy — who with one drop out of
their oceans of wealth, plunder, might have placed your name
on a level with Buonarroti, for the honour of their country.
Now they can't find a painter to cover decently a couple of
rooms for them. Ever, my dear Haydon,
Seymour Kirkup.

From Haydon.
My DEAREST OLD FRIEND, London, 5th November, 1842.
Eastlake's Beport is the Eeport of the Commission, with an
introduction by our friend. He has little original power
of thinking, and is never, probably, in his element unless he
leans on somebody. As editor, notist, or translator he is
invaluable, but when he starts a theory, and tries to prove it,
he gets out of his depth. All his materials about fresco are
exquisitely useful, but naturally he burkes me. . . . We have
not quarrelled — we cannot do so, I esteem him too much — but
he is not English enough, and is bitten too deep by German
medievalism. I dare say you have heard a good deal of
Maclise; he is a nice fellow, but vicious beyond bearing —
German, copper, marble in flesh, Teutonic in expression, with
no elevation in character, and, in the naked, ignorant. In his
' Hamlet,' Laertes, I think, showed a bit of a knee, in which I
caught him. When the knee is square, the ankles turn
obUquely out. This is the test in drawing, and this test he
could not stand. He is a sort of puff in the Exhibition. But
he has considerable ability. The knowledge of the naked in
the Art is not at all advanced. It is not sought so much as in
our time. Now it is all jack-boots, buff coats, cuirass, ruff and
stuff — like an old costume shop in Wardour Street. When
Eastlake came to see my fresco, he said, with an air, " The
naked won't be much wanted." I will let them see a fresco
with the naked, they may rely on it, or none at all.
0 2

196 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I must tell you a good thing. Eastlake said to me, while
sitting with him, " I am convinced you might play your game
over again with the Academy; even Sir Martin might be got
over ! " This was a feeler. A few days alter, Collins called
and said, with a knowing look, " I really think you ought to
join us ; your pen might be of use to ihe Academy !" I made no
reply, and he seemed touched, and said he called by "accident."
Upon my life this is delicious ! My "pen " of use to the very
men it brought before a Parliamentary Committee ! And they
really think I will compromise my character by such a bait !
As I have lived, my dear Kirkup, so will I die.
Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 9th February, 1843.
I have lately found out a wonderful bit of colour in a
back room in the palace. It is a man's portrait painted on a
tile in fresco, and finished in oil, at least, so it appears, for one
can only judge from the look ; as it is forbidden to touch, and
impossible to have it down, I don't know how the material can
be known, without an analysis of chemistry. And, even then,
suppose a tempera picture finished with oil colours ! It
appears to me that the first painting must absorb so much of
the oil of the glazing colours that it will be mixed with oil all
through. Mr. Wilson, who was sent out by the Commission
for the New Houses, was " pronouncing " upon all he saw, but
I could get no reason or foundation for his assertions, except
"the thinness of some colours proved they were distemper";
as if there was no thin painting in oil, or thick in tempera !
But to return to this tile. It kills all the pictures around it
for warmth, transparency, and harmony, and there is a ' Sebas
tian del Piombo ' at the side which looks cold and black in
comparison. The texture, too, is capital, and the thing some
thing between Eembrandt and Titian, although I believe only
a Giovanni di S. Giovanni (Florentine School), for there is no
name to it. Incog.
I recommend you to try a bit in this way. It may strike the
world as a new thing and captivate all parties. ... I have

B. R. HAYDON. 197
also just found out a clever picture in a frame about Kit-Cat
size, which is in fresco by the Volterrano, and instead of being
painted on a canvas, it is on a bit of matting on a very strong
and stretching frame. It answers perfectly ; and why not, when
all the ceilings in Florence are of the same material ? But I
never saw it before used for a picture. The straining frame
has behind many thick bars of wood.
' As to the cartoon competition, I don't think there will be
much from any quarter for you to fear. You alone ought to be
enough to prevent all idea of German interference.
They never dare call in Germans to decorate the British
Houses of Parliament ? No, no ! the people would not stand
that. It would be better to paper the walls.
I think, too, that the cost of the decorating these rooms
should not fall on the taxpayers. Why do not the noble and
chosen masters of them subscribe 50?. a-piece among them
selves ? What would 50Z. be to men who spend 5000?., and up
to 50,000Z. for a seat in Parliament? Six hundred of them at
50Z. a-piece would raise 30,000Z., and half the money would pay
the cost handsomely. But no, they'll never do it. What can
be expected of men who loaded us with our National Debt in
order to crush liberty abroad, and raise first Napoleon and then
the Holy Alliance ? And what cards had not George III. !
Think of it. America and a small debt, and what is it now ?
Eight hundred millions of debt, and a great commercial
rival !
I never will believe that the Tories, as men of business, are
one bit 'better than the Whigs. Look at them putting India
under Lord Ellenborough ! Look at his " Gates !" Look at
the guns and baggage lost, after all, disgracefully on the
retreat !
But I forget — I am speaking to a Tory ; yet it is not. your
true nature. You have been bought by Sir Eobert Peel, who,
although you beg me not to repeat Wilkie's assertion that he
"swindled" you out of your 'Napoleon,' nevertheless con
descended to give you rather less than he knew was your price
for the picture — owing to a mistake, poor man, which was not
his fault, and which he could not afford to rectify, as he only
had 4O,000Z. a-year of his own, so he was forced to adhere to
the mistake — and as you were in want you were forced to take
what you could get, although he had your word that you did

198 CORRESPONDENCE OF
not intend to paint such a picture for such a low price. But
what can you expect? The magnifici in this country were
always in the habit of paying double when they were satisfied.
Peel is highly satisfied, and pays you one-fifth of the pic
ture's value, and that is the difference between the modern
English and the old Italian patron. Though happily not
always. There is a Mr. Beaumont in your country, who has
given a sculptor 500Z. a-year to help him oh, and who allows a
young painter 300Z. a-year for six years to study fresco, and
has promised him immense commissions at the end of that
time. There is a noble patron of Art, if, you please.
Ever yours,
Seymour Kirkup.
From Haydon.
My DEAR Old BOY, London, 26th May, 1843.
The Exhibition is as usual. Eastlake has a sweet
picture; Severn, a bad one ; Shee, a beauty ; Turner, a " palette."
" Tournez par pa, tournez par la, c'est la meme chose." If
the hangers were to hang them upside down no one could
discover it. There is a ' Plague,' dying of hot colour, and a
' Battle of Waterloo ' which requires a voUey of musketry to
make it warm. They are grey landscapes and green ones;
ghosts from Dante, as heavy as a horseguardsman's flesh can
make them ; a lady in white satin on one side of the flames of
the Inferno and a lady in something else on the other. There
are queens, and dukes, and baronets, and horses, and dogs, aU
full of talent, misdirected, misemployed, misapplied.
In the Exhibition I was presented to a great Lady. After the
usual courtesies, she said, " Are you, indeed, the Mr. Haydon
who painted the ' Lazarus ' ? " " Yes, madam." " Dear me ! I
thought you were an old decrepit man." " You do me honour,
but I have not yet arrived at that distinguished stage." " Ah,
ah ! ' Lazarus ' is a wonderful head. I always said so. I always
told poor dear  so, and he would confirm what I say. I.
always said it was exactly Hke old Colonel Carnac, of the 17th
Dragoons. I did, indeed !"
And for these critics we have taken Westminster HaU to
show them cartoons ! All that will be said will be, " How like

B. R. HA YDON. 199
Clara about the mouth !" " Do you think so ?" " And how like
papa about the eyes, but not so like about the chin," &.j.
Yet, despair I not. To discover resemblances is the first step ;
the next to detect differences, and the last to discover beauties
and thoughts. Believe me, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
From Kirkup.
My dear Haydon, 18th June, 1843.
Your two letters I have received since I last wrote, for
which I am obliged, as they are curious hints of what is
going on in England. I wish you success with all my heart,
but I don't expect it, however superior your merits. The fact
is, England is rotten; nothing but corruption, intrigue, and
money getting. John Bull, in addition, seeks to become
diplomatic, and it neither becomes him nor succeeds with him.
When the Commons of England went by appointment to
congratulate Prince Albert on his marriage he sent them
away with an excuse that he was engaged in receiving the
" Corps Diplomatique," and they must come another day !
Which they did ! . . .
You say you cannot believe Eastlake " a traitor " — his face
" is philosophy and amiableness personified." Can you read
so clearly ? I can only say look at his actions through life.
Whom has he ever betrayed ? His advice to me has always
been the best, and I have often regretted not following it.
That is the greatest proof of his not only being sincere but
judicious. ******
I am glad to hear of your hopes and doubts, and shall
expect in your next some result and decision, but, mark me, I
have no confidence whatever in the taste or integrity of your
judges. I wish you well out of it ; but don't be cast down if
you are out-canvassed by the courtiers, or black-balled by your
old enemies.
And do not expect friends to put themselves out of the way
to defend you against impostors and quacks. You are not rich
nor powerful enough to expect fair play. If you could only give
dinners all round to the Eoyal Academicians ! It is so agree
able a duty to enforce justice for a rich man — a thousand

zoo correspondence; OF
champions in an instant. Human nature is mean enough in.
general, but in England it is desperately selfish and cowardly.
Adieu !
Seymour Kirkup.
From Haydon.
My DEAR KlRKUP, London, 27th June, 1843.
How prophetic you are ! Last night, after a hard day's
work, on 'Alexander killing a Lion,' I was going to bed, when
the following touching letter was put into my hands : —
My DEAR HAYDON, V Fitzroy Square, 27th June, 1843.
I have delayed to reply to your note because I had no power to
answer your questions at first, and now I can truly say I answer one
question most reluctantly. The long and short is that your drawings are
not included amongst those that have been rewarded. "Whatever you
may think of the decision, you will have reason to be gratified with the
general merit of the works exhibited. The Exhibition opens on Monday
next. There is an advertisement out to-day on the subject.
Yours truly, C. L. Eastlake.
This I anticipated as well as you. Both Secretary and Min
ister, Commission and Academy, are resolved that B. B. Haydon
shall not be encouraged to develop what he himself planned.
That he can do nothing worth three hundred, two hundred, or
one hundred guineas, so he must say " You are very kind," and
make his bow. There exists a resolution to burke me. Not
once in the Beport is my name or are my efforts for forty
years alluded to. A wretched Italian, who failed in a fresco at
Moorfields, one of my own father's apprentices in Devon, is
spoken of, and Cornelius is petted and nursed ; but, alas ! the
rebel who dared to refute authority must not be known to be
alive. It is just the conduct of the Directors of the British Gallery,
in 1812, over again, and must be met 'by the same uncompro
mising resistance.
As to the head prize given to Mr. Armytage, it is the
luckiest and unluckiest decision that ever took place. A law
was passed that drawing and proportion would be preferred to
chiaro-oscuro, and that every figure should be the size of life.
Well, close to a ' Comus ' of exquisite drawing, worthy of Julio

B. R. HA YDON. 201
Eomano, hangs a ' Caesar's Invasion of Britain,' with no draw
ing, no proportion — clever in chiaro-oscuro, its only merit — and
with the figures less than life size. Yet it is to this work a
three hundred guinea prize is awarded. How has this hap
pened ? I will tell you. Armytage is a pupil of De la Boche,
and De la Boche is a great favourite of the Duke of Suther
land and Lord Francis Egerton. The Duchess of Sutherland
is a great favourite with the Queen. The women, as usual, put
up Prince Albert, and on going in he said at the Csesar, " That
cartoon is worth 2000Z. !" Sir Eobert could not resist. Etty,
Westmacott, and Cooke looked down ; the Queen, when she
came, did the amiable ; and so all was made right, and all the
ateliers of Paris are in the clouds !
But, my dear Kirkup, there is such magnificent drawing in
the cartoons as will astonish Europe. I gave three cheers to
myself, as I did when the Elgin Marbles got to the British
Museum. It was gratifying to me to see the young men crowd
round me, saying, " It is all owing to you." Pupils of Hess
even came up and congratulated me. It is the repetition of
what I tried in 1819, when I had a Cartoon Exhibition by my
own pupils in St. James's Street. Crowds of people came
there ; but the Academy ridiculed it, the Government would
not support me, and I had no capital or authority, and of
course I was ruined.
A man of rank asked my opinion of Armytage's ' Cassar,' the
head prize. I said, " My Lord, there is not a foot, a hand, a toe,
an ear, a knee, a leg, or an arm, in drawing." That was my
reply. Do not despair of me. I am personally hated. I know
it, and I am not to be sanctioned officially. But I will fight it
out to the last gasp. I am as tough as ever.
B. B. Haydon.

From Haydon.
My dear Kirkup, 13th July, 1843.
I have got to work again, but how long I shall be out
of a prison God only knows. I would come to Italy if my
boys were only able to take care of themselves. This decision
has of course been a serious blow to me. The loss of six
months time at fifty-six years of age is no light matter.
Yesterday on looking again at the cartoons, and comparing

202 CORRESPONDENCE OF
carefuUy, I assure you it is my conscientious belief you would
decide in favour of mine.
Already the nobility and patrons are beginning to talk their
old cant. " What are we to do with so many young men of
talent ? " " We have no houses to put large pictures in," &c.
All the old cant of 1812. The truth, I fear, is they hate grand
Art — they have no taste for it, and they hate me for supporting
it. I am just now in the same awful condition I was in 1812,
when you remember me, with the addition of all the responsi
bilities of a family. An intimate friend of Peel's told me lately
that Peel hated me. The Queen, I know, has never forgiven
me for a most unintentional sUght on my part,, and never
aUowed me to explain., Eoyal people occasionally reward
fidelity, but they never forgive (apparent) neglect. I declare
to you I would rather keep a shop and seU herrings than lead
such a hellish life as mine has been for ten years short of
half a century.
Infirmities must come on me in a few years, though I do not
know. I think I shall stand it out to the last. But how
different should I have felt with a three hundred guinea prize
in my pocket ! Alas, poor human nature ! Digestion and suc
cess makes us atheists or believers. " We have had enough
of Adams and Eves," said some one, of my cartoons. " Yes,"
thought I, " you have had 5000 years of it at least, but it is
not over yet. When will it end ? "
However, I must get to work and get over it. How true
have your predictions proved of Sir Eobert Peel ! Like an ass,
I told him my income had fallen off 700Z. at one blow this
year. Good-bye! Write soon to me. Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

From Kirkup.
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 25th July, 1843.
It is just as I expected. Have you had enough now of
trying for cartoons ? I dare say Sir Eobert Peel's influence
was against you if he knew your mark. His calculating mind
is not above an old grudge, whilst his vanity is galled by not
meeting with much self-esteem for the part he performed in

B. R. HAYDON. 203
the ' Napoleon ' transaction — trifling after aU — but still enough
to show him up. Some people never forgive the injuries they
do to others. It is because they are ashamed of having
betrayed their meanness or dishonesty.
How glad I am to be out of the turmoil and vortex of your
Pandemonium. It would be exciting and interesting, although
fatiguing, if there were probity and intellect. But you have
ignorance, bad taste, presumption, lucre, bad faith, and every
bad passion to contend against, and the certainty almost of
seeing imposture succeed and carry away the reward, whilst
everything good is trampled down in the scramble.
You have been too long knocked about to be discouraged by
the men of chalk and paper. Fire away again, and do some
thing better. Have you no friend to advise with but East-
lake ? You always seemed to expect this decision, and you
were wrong to try. They wanted only to bring out a young
prodigy. It is popular ; and they wanted all the credit of
discovery, of invention, of novelty, and your ancient claims
were against them. They owed you a grudge, too, for your
long struggles. When they keep you out of sight they will
have all the credit of being the first movers, and besides all
this, they propitiated the Eoyal Academy. Eefined games are
often baffled. Vedremo. Ever yours,
S. Kirkup.
From Haydon.
London, 17th December, 1843.
I have had harder work than during ' Solomon,' for I
have had two boys to keep in position as well as myself. I
had at the moment several executions hanging over me which
they knew, at least Peel did, for I had told him I had lost
700?. at one blow, and no doubt he and they thought it a capital
moment to finish Haydon. But I rebounded, as I always do,
gave a public lecture at the Freemasons' Tavern, which was
crowded, and I was cheered from the beginning to the end.
Having recovered my energy, which resistance to oppression
is sure to generate, I flew to my only comfort, a large canvas,
12 feet by 10 ; have kept myself standing, and my boys too.
The Queen went to Drayton Manor a short time since, and

204 CORRESPONDENCE OF
was so delighted with my ' Napoleon ' she could not eat her
dinner ! Three orders for small ' Napoleons ' three-quarter size
came in upon me directly. I painted them in sixteen hours and
a half. Then a pupil has joined me, another has followed,
and yesterday I painted a small ' Curtius ' in seven hours, and
begin a fourth ' Napoleon ' to-morrow.
" B. B. Haydon begs leave to inform a discerning public that
he executes ' Napoleons ' of all sizes at a moment's notice at
his patent manufactory, 14 Burwood Place.
" N.B. — The boots with Day and Martin's superior shine, as
distinguished from the ordinary shine of Napoleon's usual
blacking, will be the only extra, for which five guineas more
will be charged. Vivat Eegina ! "
I am told Peel is so annoyed at the price he paid, that when
he is asked he always tells the story against me. This is a
pitiful fact. But the truth will be known some day. Next
Monday is Christmas Day. How do you spend Christmas at
Florence ? Write soon. Ever yours,
B. E. H.

From Kirkup,
My DEAR HAYDON, Florence, 10th January, 1844.
I thought of Wilkie's anecdote about Sir Eobert Peel
and your ' Napoleon ' picture, when I saw in the English paper
the other day, that on the Queen's visit to Drayton, of all
the things she was most struck with at Drayton Manor was
your picture of ' Napoleon.' And how about the owner of it ?
He must have regretted more than once his loss of a perfect
pleasure in looking at the picture, and of the opportunity of
doing, to say nothing about a good action, but a deed of
eclat. Had I his fortune you should never have known distress, and
I would have done something for England in keeping you in
the field. You should have been champion of Design. I am
glad you are reaping something; but the fools who employ you
in copying (your own works) never reflect how much better
employed you would be in making originals. But pazienza !

B. R. HA YDON. 205
What a pity it is one cannot live with lions ! I am obliged
to be contented with dogs. But I am very happy, and have
every reason to be contented with them. Very superior crea
tures, certainly.
You ask me how I spent Christmas Day. I had three
invitations — two lords. I declined, and dined with a dog on
each side as usual, each in his chair like a gentleman. We
had hache, soup, a boiled capon, and roast beef. There was
mince pie for them and the cook, but I never eat such things.
I live very moderately for the sake of health, and I am better
in health than when I used to dine at Lord Conyngham's or
with the Duke of Hamilton. From Haydon.
My DEAR KlRKUP, London, 20th January, 1844,
Barry by entering the Academy has injured the very
principle he had shaken by his success. He beat the monopoly,
and then after beating them after establishing the power and
independence of talent, he goes in ! I told him, " This is the
way," and this is ever the way. Napoleon if he had not been
" anointed " would have been at the head of France at this
moment. A man like myself, who will die as he has lived, is
looked on as a fool for his pains, while he who violates the
very principle which made him great is flattered as having
made a sacrifice " to the established order of things," a " proper
tribute to authority and law," and to the " feelings of society,"
&c. Great God ! the humbug and hypocrisy of this England.
Barry is so delightful a creature that one can never be
angry with him, but I regret his submission, because his
resistance involved a great principle. If he had kept out he
would have been a successful instance, and though I consider
that I. have kept my ground, I am so mixed up with embarrass
ment and necessity that on the whole the world thinks I am
not a successful evidence of opposition. But I know I am.
I shall not compete in fresco. I have abundance of lime
getting ready for myself, and shall bide my time, but as to
entering the lists again, I have done. It is clear they will let
me have nothing to do with it, and I will wait.
On the 26th December, 1843, the ' Times ' repeated that
calumny about Sir Joshua not writing his own lectures. I

206 CORRESPONDENCE OF
wrote and refuted it. The ' Times ' said, " We see no reason
for publishing Mr. Haydon's letter." Now if there was reason
to brint the calumny there was reason to print the answer.
This is the liberty of the press ! Since then I have heard from
Mrs. Gwatkin, sister to Lady Thomond, and niece to Sir
Joshua, and she says he used to walk up and down the drawing-
room and repeat his thoughts, then sit down and pen them in
the rough copy. Mr. Palmer, his great-nephew, has promised
me to see the rough copy. I have sent my reply to the ' Art
Union ' and the ' Engineer's Journal,' and I shaU foUow it with
the remarks of his relations so as to clench the matter for ever.
Only fancy, not a single one of the " set " called or sym
pathised or inquired at the result last year ! They left me
" alone in my glory," and but for a premium with a pupil I
should have been in a prison. The English nobility fear the
responsibility of supporting High Art, the Academy hate it,
and back the fears of the aristocracy ; the people alone have a
longing for it, and are too poor to gratify their desire.
All that I attacked the Academy for in 1812 is now
acknowledged to be just, and the press itself is oozing out my
former sentiments. But I shall be dead before it be accom
plished. If I die before you, my dear friend, do take care that
I may be known by your opinion in foreign journals, and some
thing of my struggles known abroad. It is dreadful to have
no great opportunity given me whUst in maturity and to feel
bursting for it. They will give me none, because they dread
the success which would ensue. Britons never reward genius
unless their plum-pudding is in danger, then indeed nothing
can exceed their love.
In the political squabbles in this country Art is a bore.
The Queen thinks of little but fac-similes of Albert and herself
and their babies, and though she was touched at my ' Napoleon,'
nothing came of it. Hayter was knighted and turned off.
They were tired of him. I wish I was at Florence and Eome.
Adieu, my dear old friend! ShaU we ever meet again? If you
die first leave me enough to keep me out of a Whig union,
and if I die before you I will leave all I shall have to leave,
my blessing, which will cost you at least no legacy duty.
Once more fareweU ! Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

B. R. HA YDON. 207
To Kirkup.
Liverpool, Sth April, 1844.
Your letter about the Buonarroti fete in the Palazzo
where Michel Angelo lived and worked, touched me deeply.
And was this house the Great One's, the great known's house ?
Did he live in it, and sleep in it, and draw in it ? I regret the
young Buonarroti is a painter. It won't do after the other.
He will always be at a discount, do what he will.
You say they are poor. Is there any chance of the house
going from them? Why not publish every scrap of that
grand being? Why keep manuscripts and letters hoarded
up? I would have everything he said, thought, wrote, or
sketched, secured and printed.
It is the land of Art. The people have more imagination
than reason. When a people have more common sense than
imagination, Art struggles and gasps. Such people underrate
everything that is not gross and evident. They do not believe
painting or poetry can convey instruction, elevation of thought,
or example. They would spend the money subscribed for
public decoration in a parish dinner to the overseers, or a
public dinner to their member, and think it better spent than
in the most divine fresco for their church or town hall that
human genius could conceive, or human hands execute.
I am here just now digging this into their iron and cotton
skulls. I tell them they prefer a Habeas Corpus to a Michel
Angelo ; I tell them they spend more money on Art with less
good result than any two countries in Europe; I tell them
they are below all countries in education and taste ; I tell them
their decoration of the Houses of Parliament will be a "job,"
a wretched medley of buff coats and costume, like an ancient
armour shop in Wardour Street; I tell them it will be the
ridicule of Europe, and I laugh at them and abuse them for
permitting it, and they thunder at me with applause tiU the
roof echoes again. In fact my home truths seem to afford them
a particular delight. The fact is my character is so established
for telling all classes the truth, that all classes pay me well to
tell it to them. I treat them like children; if they go too
soon I say, " Sit still, there is something coming you should
hear." I have made naked models wrestle before them. I
have preached, talked, drawn for them, and done everything a

208 CORRESPONDENCE OF
man can do. And upon my life they are the same tasteless,
ignorant, money-getting beings as ever.
It is now four years since I was at Manchester, and they
have retrograded. The school of design I founded (in 1837),
with the artist and artisan beginning alike, working up to a
certain point, when they diverged to separate studies, has been
allowed to sink into a Government school, where this principle
is reversed ! And yet the Manchester men have a desire for
public art, for they gave 4000Z. to A  to paint their hall in
fresco, and it is " half distemper ! " They like to be hum
bugged, and will be to the end of the chapter.
If I had gone to Italy and settled there after ' Solomon,' I
would have secured an European fame. I am ashamed to say I
begin to regret it. Here it is nothing but a rugged struggle ;
a monopoly* which hates any art but its own manufacture; an
aristocracy who are infants in High Art, who detest the respon
sibility of nourishing it, and are ever on the watch to get in
foreigners, because when done with they can be paid and got
out; a people who would rather lose 40,000Z. in a South
American mine nobody ever heard of than devote 5000Z. to
decorations, design, taste, or refinement ; and a " society," who
think " very like about the nose ; but, ah, there's a something
about the mouth I can't quite explain," to be the ne plus
ultra of refined discovery. Oh, Kirkup, my dear feUow, I am
sick. That boy W7atts,f I understand, is out, and went out as ¦
the great student of the day. 'Though he came out for Art, for
High Art, the first thing the English do is to employ him on
Portrait! Lord Holland, I understand, has made him paint
Lady Holland ! ! Is this not exquisite ? Wherever they go,
racing, cricket, trial by jury, fox-hunting, and portraits are
the staple commodities first planted or thought of.
Blessed be the name of John Bull !
Did you see Barry's letter to the Boyal Commission on the
Decorations ? — a perfect melee, without head or tail, no object,
or end, or principle. Surely, my plan, viz., " The best govern
ment to regulate without cramping the energies of mankind,
and all the subjects to be selected so as to illustrate this great
moral and political end, is better and clearer."-' And then the
ridiculously small size for the frescoes. Westminster Hall is
* The Royal Academy. t Mr. Watts, R.A.

B. R. HAYDON. 209
90 feet high, and he proposes frescoes 15 feet by 10 feet,
when Eaphael's, in a small room, are 25 feet by 18 feet I
should think by the prints, each fresco occupying a side. But
here we shall have the fresco sacrificed to heraldic bearings,
tesselated tiles, carved oak, and all the endless individuality
of Gothic taste. The carvings required by the work have not
tended to advance Art. Heraldic lions by hundreds, in all the
beauty of heraldic nature.
But enough of us. You, in Florence, must be sick enough
to hear of it. How I envy you your treasures ! A mask of
Dante,- what a head ! Have they no mask of Michel Angelo ?
Tell me everything about him in your next. What did he
eat? how sleep? did he rise early? are there any private
note-books, or sketch-books, or studies extant in the family ?
Ask the Signora Faustina if she remembers my aunt, Mrs.
Partridge, at Ardenza, Livorno, who begged of me, years ago,
to come out and fall in love with Faustina, who was then a
lovely young girl, and make her an ofifer ? What a race the
young Haydons would have been with the blood of Michel
Angelo mingled with mine ! We should all have been shut
up, in England, as lunatics. Adieu !
B. E. Haydon.

From Haydon.
My DEAR KlRKUP, London, 26th June, 1844.
I keep so entirely clear of the modern German insanity
going on, I reaUy am losing curiosity. Barry had squared
off his spaces for fresco. I have prevailed on him to make
nothing square, but let the boundaries of the architecture be
the frame. I hope he will keep to this. Fresco should grow
out of the stone as it were, and be a part of the architecture.
I expect nothing but some opportunity to insult me, hoping I
may refuse. Eastlake has done his fresco at the summer
house, and Etty's has been cut out. He is utterly unfit for
fresco. Wilson is getting on with the London School of
Design. A figure-master is now added, Herbert. It is better,
but still on a wrong principle. I see a mean desire of not
raising skilful designers, so that the established artist may not
be interfered with. My object was to make "Design" as
VOL. II. P

2io CORRESPONDENCE OF
cheap as A B C, that the merest door-painter might be able
to paint a human figure. The " authorities " (?) in art have
thwarted me, and thus a great public benefit is trampled under
foot by the pompous pretension of the constituted authorities.
In fact, owing to the unreformed condition of that mass of
pompous pretension, the Boyal Academy, everything for the
English people in Grand Art has to be fought inch by inch.
Had power been given to me, or capital which is power, I
would have swept all opposition aside. I declare to you, if
they had given me power three years ago, after my fresco on
my painting-room wall, I could, by this time, have raised a
school that would have done honour to the country. But no.
Their object was not to reward matured talent and develop
its experience and its spirit ; it was how to annoy and mortify
the masters in English art by pitting young lads against them*
Horace Vernet caUed the other day : he is a nice feUow, as
active as a grasshopper. He was surprised to find me painting
so great a work as ' Uriel,' not on commission. I laughed at
his simplicity. He stared at my condition. You will hardly
believe me when I tell you that now for seven or eight years
I have not had one single commission from the nobUity, large
or small.
The people are a fine people, but the aristocracy are not
equal to them ; and in matters of art the Boyal Academy
play upon the ignorance of the aristocracy to keep the people
without opportunity or sound instruction. But it cannot last
long. Adieu. Write soon ! Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.
From Haydon.
MlO CARISSIMO KlRKUPIO, London, 6th August, 1844.
The Exhibition of Frescoes is open to us, and this
is the style we are to be afflicted with ! First, there is the
' povero Italiano,' with a view of Naples, exceeded by any
cafe in Paris. This same man has painted two frescoes already,
both of which have crumbled into atoms ; and as, in England,
a man is generally patronised in proportion as his ignorance

B. R. HAYDON. 211
is evident, into this man's hands was put the Palace Summer
House and the management of the lime, because all his
previous lime and all his frescoes had crumbled to pieces.
Luckily, he is not one of the six selected, though it was said
" he ought to have been."
With regard to the selected and others, in all the flesh there
is not a single cool tint ; they look as if they had all been
dipped in a tan pit. In Arabia there are two leprosies, the
white and the brown — these people have got the brown, you
smell it. Maclise (who has literally been the ruin of the art)
has a large one ; it looks like the shine of a magic lantern,
all dark, and glittering in the middle. He will be sure to
make a splash, but it will be fatal. Armytage is dreadful.
Cope good, but tawdry ; the rest, except Dyce, beneath notice.
A distinguished German and I met. "How d'ye like the
frescoes ? " We both looked into each other's eyes to find out each
other's thoughts, and then we roared out laughing together.
What the Commission expect from this frightful display I
cannot tell. What I expect is clear : utter and disgusting
failure ; dry, husky, hot flesh, stained to the bone, tremendous
blues, faint browns and brick reds, will make up such a nose
gay as old England has never smelt before.
Do not, my dear old friend, suppose that this is disappointed
prejudice. It is not — it is my real and decided conviction,
founded upon what I see going on before me.
The long peace, the eternal importation of cheap French
prints, the continual visits to France and Germany, the folly
of young England, and, above all, the lamentable ignorance of
the upper classes placed in authority, the apathy of the Eoyal
Academy as to the public good, and the wrong direction
wilfully given to our schools of design, will bring English art into
such a tattooed state that I dread to think of it. I foresee a con
dition of art in England utterly without taste, truth, or power.
Ever sincerely yours,
B. E. Haydon.
From Haydon.
My dear Old FRIEND, London, 29th August, 1844.
You cannot hear accounts of British art bad enough. It is
getting, it must get, it has got into inextricable absurdity.
p 2

212 CORRESPONDENCE OF
The great principles of light and shadow, colour, management,
a whole equally appUcable to monumental altar-work, or easel,
are going entirely out. A picture of Beynolds's colour and
breadth, of Eembrandt's, Titian's, startling everybody, and so
utterly is the feeling for tone gone out that under Eastlake's
eyes, raw from fresco, they have in the vacation rubbed off the
tone of the Genoese Bubens, the finest toned Eubens on earth,
the picture he painted in Italy warm from the Venetians.
Eastlake is getting on creatures of his own namby-pamby
bastard German-English, and as to Maclise, don't believe one
word of what you hear. He has considerable copper power of
brazen touch, but little knowledge of the figure and no know
ledge of form. He is a talented mannerist, who has a sort of
brazen splash, the exact thing to impose on the vulgar. A
suit of armour with a bit of a face, hands in gauntlets, head
hid in feathers and glitter, one knee of an attendant, and that
knee wrong, and this is considered the " knee " plus ultra of
art ! He, Herbert, Dyce, and Eastlake are contriving to destroy
the fabric Eeynolds reared, and which Wilkie, Jackson, Mul-
ready, and myself tried hard to reform and keep.
i * * * * * *
Landseer has painted a small picture of the Queen and her
babies. The Queen sent him 120Z. for it. The publishers
immediately gave him 500Z. for the copyright. Prince Albert
says, " Artists in England are paid too much." He makes a
mistake, I think. It is not the English artists who are paid
too highly.
Callcott is dying. I did not know his once handsome face.
It is to be hoped for his own sake he will not meet his wife.
Sydney Smith said she ought to have been indicted for a
criminal offence when she married him.
The King of Prussia begged Sir Eobert Peel to present the
"eminent" men to him, and the first Sir Eobert presented
was ?— guess,— Sir Martin Shee, the President of the Eoyal
Academy ! How Humboldt would have enjoyed this !
Marshall, a young sculptor of talent, and Dyce, a clever but
corrupt German painter, are elected to the Eoyal Academy.
Your friend Davis is as friendly as ever. He was angry with
me at not praising his cartoon. How could I, when his Lord
Mayor's horse had no forelegs ?
God bless you ! Ever yours,
B. E. Haydon.

B. R. HAYDON. 213
From Haydon,
London, 9th November, 1844.
Well, my dear old friend, I have no mind to pour into
but yours, for I find in England no mind like yours, so honest.
I have seen the Summer House in Buckingham Palace
Gardens. Eastlake refused me admission at present, so, like
the devil in Paradise, I resolved to get in my own way. To
the astonishment of all, I made my appearance one morning
without leave. They were dabbing away all round the sides
miserable arabesques to decorate more miserable frescoes. Ah !
my dear friend, you have only got to come to England
now to lose all relish for art. Etty's, so help me Heaven !
Etty's second attempt is unworthy a cafe chantant at Paris.
Unwin's is a poultice ; Leslie's dark ; Stansfield, a diminished
scene from the Lyceum ; Boss is not so bad as Etty's, but like
a drawing of Varley's ; Landseer is doing his at home ; and at
last there is something, Eastlake's, is worthy of the very best
school to be named. It is powerful, clear, beautiful, well
drawn, sweet in expression. He knows his material, has made
full use of lime as a white, and contrasted the flesh like a
master. Prince Albert should cut out all the rest, pitch them
into the pond, and let Eastlake finish the whole. As it will
be, and is, it must be wretched patch-work. A poor devil, one
A  , painted the ceiling, which has been cut entirely out.
Of course there is no unity, and will be no satisfaction. The
Queen and the Prince will be disappointed, and then throw
the blame upon the artists they have employed, instead of
upon their own folly in employing so many instead of placing
the whole decoration in the hands of one competent man.
Never was the art in such a state as it is becoming in
England. Thousands squandering by the Art Unions without
the least discrimination, and thousands by the State without
the least perception will swell the herd of fifth-rate painters
like flies in summer twilight, till the art will sink into a
vulgarity, and all refinement be lost.*
For forty years, the English aristocracy, from conviction of
* How prophetic these words are the present state of tlie Art, and the
swarming crowd of back painters sufficiently proves. I can remember my father
saying to me in 1845 : " In another generation yon will see there will scarcely
be a painter who will draw, and not a pattern designer competent to design a
pattern worth looking at. The country will be overrun with a mass of fifth-rate
' Artists ' (?) whose sole object in life will be recognition by the Royal Academy,

214 CORRESPONDENCE OF
their own want of knowledge, have never come to a conclusion
in matters of art. They have never had courage to give com
missions but once, and both proved, as might have been
expected, ridiculous failures — viz., to Ward and to Jones.
Ward had one thousand guineas to paint allegorical angels in
honour of Waterloo, because he had all his life been painting
pigs ! And Jones to paint the ' Battle of Waterloo,' on condi
tion that he kept the dead and wounded out of sight for fear
of shocking the officers' ladies.
In the crush of selfishness what chance have I ? Peel hates
me, and will never be reconciled to me until I am down,
because I held the glass to his conscience and made him see
an ungenerous soul. Eastlake fears me because he finds me
hated by Peel, and unpopular at Court. To the Academy I
am a perpetual indigestion, because I shook them in public
estimation and loosened their roots for ever, like teeth after a
blow. What chance can I have ? I have ceased to think of
it. A city cotton printer has given me a commission for
' Uriel,' and by pupils, and raffles, I pick up a living. But
mark my words, Kirkup, I may not, but my children wiU
live to see the whole affair of the fresco decoration of the
Houses a ridicule in Europe. I assure you there is not
a genuine fresco in all Westminster HaU. Eastlake's and
my own are the only two done, without subsequent aid from
retouching. If I had only been ordered to make cartoons of the series of
pictures I have planned, I would have had a school of designers
around me by this time ; but this they knew, and were resolved
I should do no such thing. Had I but capital, or any one to
back me, it should be done, and done quickly. But, as I have
often said before to you, the aristocracy of England care
nothing for a high and elevated art, nor for the means by
which superiority of design could be established amongst us.
It is shocking to me to see Hallam, of all men, in the report,
proposing in the decoration scheme a law be laid down that,
the artists should not choose their own subjects, but the choice
be made by the permanent authority, viz., the Treasury!
Think, my dear friend, of Eaphael and Michel Angelo having
and the money they can make by painting pictures.'' If I remember rightly he
attributed this probability to the wrong direction given by the authorities to bis
Schools of Design, which was likely to turn good pattern designers into bad
painters, and not to raise a race of draughtsmen after all. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 215
their genius controlled by Lords of the Treasury ! Now, the
real position of the British painter in the estimation of these
men is coming out. He is a cipher, a suitor, a beggar, a serf.
The aristocratic principle means to assert its superiority.
They pay, therefore they must select. The painter is a mere
mechanic, and has only to execute the orders he receives. No,
my dear friend, England is not worthy the naked majesty of
genius. Next to the curse of being born, is the disgrace and
greater horror of belonging to a class in a country where you
are looked upon as the slave of a set of men, who in one year
waste more money in vice, in folly, and extravagance than
would suffice to develop the struggling talent of a nation.
Independence of mind is a fiction amongst us. It exists not.
Obedience to law, custom, and precedent (though in itself a
virtue), has debauched and debased, the minds of all to such
an excess, that all classes unite in permitting any injustice,
any iniquity, any despotism, under pretence of security to
property, or respect for the dignity of authority.
It is shocking to have one's best feelings of love for old
England brought to such an acknowledgment; but so it is.
I declare to God there is actually more suffering, more ruin,
more agony, more want, more injustice, more corruption, more
hypocrisy in this England than in any two countries in Europe.
Why is this? All that have made their fortunes, all that
have fortune, and all that have to make their fortunes are the
same serfs to hypocrisy and imposture. The best feelings of
our nature are sneered at as impulses worthy only of an Eton
boy. Natural affection, filial devotiPn, tears, hearts, attach
ments, beget scenes unworthy of "high breeding." Be what
you like, but seem what you ought to be, is the rule of
England's virtue. But to be what you are, and not to seem
what you are not, is ruin.
j|( jjf ^f. jfc .$. jfc
I am heartily sick, my soul indeed is heavy, but I wiU stick
to it and die with " harness on my back." My attack on the
Academy in 1812 shaU be milk and water to what I will give
the Boyal Commissioners at parting. Adieu ! I hope they
wUl open this letter, and send a copy of it to Graham.
Yours always,
B. E. Haydon.

2,i6 CORRESPONDENCE OF

EXTEACTS FBOM
OFFICIAL COBKESPONDENCE.

From Mr. Eobert Gillam, Secretary to the British Institution
for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom.
SlR, Pall Mall, 1 7th May, 1810.
I have the honour of being desired by a meeting of the
directors of this institution, held this day, to inform you that
your picture of ' The Assassination of Dentatus ' * has been
declared entitled to the premium of one hundred guineas.
I am further desired to inform you that notice wiU be sent
you when the order for the payment of the money is made,
and am, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant,
Eobert Gillam.
Memorandum (13th January, 1811), addressed to Lord
Mulgrave for submission to the Directors of the British
Gallery, on the subject of the formation of a "National
Gallery," pointing out the vast importance to Art of such an
Institution open to the public, and urging the Directors to
press the Government to reflect that no Gallery can be con
sidered national that does not contain the works of British
artists as weU as foreign specimens.
Memorandum (7th November, 1811), addressed to the Prime
Minister, Mr. Perceval, on the subject of public encourage-
* 'Dentatus' had been sent to the British Gallery (1810) to compete for the
Historical Prize of one hundred guineas. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 217
ment to Historical Painting and the foundation of Schools of
Design, pointing out that private patronage is unequal to the
support of Historic Art in life size, which is only suitable
for public buildings, and begging Mr. Perceval to set aside
4000Z. a year for the decoration of our pubUc offices by his
torical paintings ; and further calling attention to the fact
that there are no schools of design in England ; that the
Emperor of the French has sanctioned, or is about to sanction,
their establishment in France on an extended basis, in which the
designer is made to acquire a certain knowledge of form and
colour; and earnestly entreating the attention of the Prime
Minister to the subject, for the improvement of English
manufactures and the general advantage of art and design in
England. Three Letters addressed to Mr. Payne Knight (January
and February, 1812), on the Practice of the Eoyal Academy,
on the absence of encouragement to Historical Painting in
England, and on the want of Schools of Design.
May 1813, Memorandum addressed to Lord Mulgrave pro
posing the decoration of the House of Lords by a series of
Historical Pictures, illustrating the principles which the
building may be said to represent, and their opposites, bj
events taken from the history of Europe or the world.
Letter to Lord Castlereagh (no date, 1815), on the subject
of the withdrawal of the proposed Waterloo Monument, praying
Lord Castlereagh not to abandon the subject of the Fine Arts,
but to take them into his best consideration, and especially to
give public encouragement to Historical Painting ; suggesting
the decoration of the House of Lords by a series of historical
pictures ; also urging the establishment of a system of Public
Schools of Design for the benefit of the art and the manufactures
of the country, the latter being notoriously inferior to the
manufactures of France in consequence of the admirable
system of art instruction to the French designers established
by the late Emperor Napoleon I., particularly at Lyons ; and
suggesting that Parliamentary inquiry be made into the ques
tion with the view to extend the knowledge of Art and Design

218 CORRESPONDENCE OF
among the people of England, to increase the commercial pro
sperity of our country so as to enable her to compete success-
fuUy with the foreigners in arts and manufactures as in science
and war.
Letter to the Elgin Marbles' Committee (1816) on " The
judgment of connoisseurs being preferred to that of professional
men." Essays on the Ilissus and Horses' Heads of the Elgin
Marbles (1817-21).
Plan submitted to the Directors of the British GaUery to
encourage High Art, by a system of annual premiums for the
best picture in every department of art (1816).
Letter to Mr. Canning (5th March, 1818), requesting his
influence with Parliament to obtain an order for the architects
of the New Churches, so to arrange the altars that they might
be fit for the reception of such pictures as the Government
might in future think worthy to be placed there.
Plan submitted to the Government for encouragement of
Historical Painting (May, 1818), by setting aside 10,000Z. out
of the 1,000,000Z. voted for the new churches, for the painting
of altar-pieces.
Pamphlet upon the same subject (1818).
Petition to Parliament (1823), presented by Lord
Brougham, praying the House to give public employment to
English historical painters ; pointing out that improvement to
manufactures wiU follow, and suggesting the purchase and
presentation of pictures to adorn the altars of our churches and
the sides of our pubUc haUs, and humbly praying the House
to appoint a Committee to investigate the subject.
Plan (August, 1823) submitted by request to Sir Charles
Long, M.P., to adorn the great room of the Admiralty with four
historical pictures of four leading events, illustrating our naval

B. R. HAYDON. 219
history, with four busts and four portraits of the commanders
who distinguished themselves on the occasions represented.
Petition to Parliament (14th June, 1824), presented by
Mr. Lambton, M.P., entreating the House to consider the ad
vantages that will accrue to the nation by a generous support
of High Art and Design.
Petition to Parliament (23rd February, 1826), presented
by Mr. Eidley Colborne, M.P., praying the House to take into
its consideration the encouragement of Native Art, and to
set aside a sum not exceeding 4000Z. a year, but not exclu
sively for the encouragement of historical painting. Also
pointing out that the Fine Arts have always advanced the
commercial and political greatness of a nation.
Plan submitted by desire of the Duke of Wellington
(December, 1828) for adorning the Admiralty, Chelsea Hos
pital, and the House of Lords with paintings to represent the
leading points of our naval and military history, and in the
House of Lords four subjects illustrating the best form of
government. Between the pictures, portraits of our great men,
Alfred, Bacon, Blake, Marlborough, Nelson, &c. &c*
Pamphlet upon Public encouragement to Historical Paint
ing (January, 1829).
Memorandum submitted to the Duke of Wellington (Feb
ruary, 1829), for putting aside an annual grant of public
money, viz. 4000Z. every two years, for six years, then to be
renewed every ten years, according to the success or failure of
the plan, for the encouragement of Historical Painting in
England, and predicting that without such support Historical
Painting in England " will decay and become extinct." Sug
gesting that four commissions be given to four of our leading
painters for four subjects, civil, naval, military, and sacred, as
a trial.
* It is curious that in this list of great men he does not name Cromwell ; and
of scientific men, only Bacon, though perhaps he includes both in the words, " and
all those who established our greatness." — Ed.

220 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Petition to Parliament, presented by Mr. Agar Ellis, M.P.
(June, 1830), showing that Historical Painting is not encouraged
in England by the Eoyal Academy, the British Gallery, or by
private patronage, which is unequal to the effort, and praying
the House to take this beautiful department of the Art under
its protection, or the poverty and degradation and imprison
ment that surrounds its professors wiU surely lead to the
extinction of the Art.
Memorandum to Lord Grey (October, 1832), on the suit
able construction of a National GaUery, and urging that ample
space be left for future bequests and for the works of native
artists, without which no gallery can be considered national.
Protest addressed to Lord Grey against the admission of
the Eoyal Academy into any portion of the National GaUery
as injurious to Art and a fraud upon the PuMic. (No date.)
1832. Letter to Lord Grey (December, 1832), on the subject of
Schools of Design, pointing out the reasons of our inferiority in
design in manufactures, referring Lord Grey to previous letters
to former Ministers, and urging Lord Grey to take up the
question in a large and comprehensive spirit, and establish
Schools of Design in all the principal towns, with a system of
instruction similar to that at Lyons, where every designer in
manufacture is compeUed to acquire certain proficiency in form,
colour, Ught, and shadow, before going into ornamental design.
Petition to the Building Committee of the new Houses
of Pariiament (6th March, 1835), presented by Lord Morpeth,
praying that spaces be left in the new building for the decora
tion of the Houses by painting, and urging the Committee to
consider the vast benefits that may accrue to the arts and
manufactures of this country if the opportunity be seized for
the public encouragement of historical painting.
Plan for erecting a national monument to the memory of
Nelson (May, 1838). A temple, adorned by paintings of his

B. R. HA YDON. 221
great victories, with portraits between of his most distin
guished officers. In the centre of the room a statue of Nelson,
inscribed : — " Nelson,
A little body with a mighty heart."

The Presentation of the Freedom of his Native Town,
26th September, 1814.
At a meeting of the Mayor and Commonalty at the Guild
hall, Plymouth, on the 26th September, 1814, the following
resolutions were proposed by Mr. Eastlake : —
" That Mr. Benjamin Eobert Haydon, a native of Plymouth,
be nominated and elected a Burgess or Freeman of this borough
as a testimony of respect for his extraordinary merit as a
historical painter, and particularly for the production of his
recent picture, 'The Judgment of Solomon,' a work of such
superior excellence as to reflect honour on his birthplace, dis
tinction on his name-, lustre on the art, and reputation on the
country. " That while the Mayor and Commonalty, animated with
these sentiments, are anxious to record this public tribute to
the industry and genius which this young artist has displayed
in his early performance, they anticipate with confidence that
the same ardour and enthusiasm which have hitherto inspired
his pencil wUl stimulate him to bolder exertions for the pro
duction of still higher exceUence.
" That the Worshipful the Mayor do communicate this
honorary election to Mr. Haydon."
The motion was seconded by Mr. Tingcombe, and imme
diately put and carried.

Haydon to the Mayor of Plymouth.
SlK Hastings, 30th September, 1814.
I beg to express my deep sense of the honour conferred
on me by you ana the Commonalty assembled in voting me
the freedom of my native borough. It would, perhaps, be

222 CORRESPONDENCE OF
indelicate in me to allude to the high terms by which you have
thought to distinguish me in the record of my success, and
which I am doubtful of deserving at this moment, but I can
assure you that I will endeavour to render myself worthy of
them by my future exertions.
It argues an advance in the state of public feeling for art
when artists are thus mingled in honour with the great public
characters of the country, when the highest compliment an
ancient boro' can bestow on those who are not residents is
considered as fit a reward for one who endeavours to dignify
the nation by peaceful arts as for him who elevates her by
warlike actions.
The greatness of Italy, of Greece, of Egypt in Art was at a
time when their liberties were lost and their manners depraved.
It is for England to show that a period of refinement is not
necessarily accompanied by moral degradation, that the prin
ciple is first to settle your Government and to secure your
rights, and then to turn your attention to the genius of the
country as it exhibits itself in its various callings. The freedom
of an English town on such principles is, indeed, a proud dis
tinction, and I shall ever remember the pride of my heart when
I was thought worthy to be so distinguished. Great works to
ornament the halls of the ancient boroughs and Public Build
ings of this Kingdom are the only means to raise the nation,
and effectually to rescue it from the calumnies of foreigners,
and it gives me inexpressible delight to find my birthplace the
first to give example to such a system.
The hope expressed by you and the Commonalty, Sir, that
the enthusiasm which has hitherto propelled me forward, will
not relax, is fatherly and kind. It is natural you should think
that, at my age, the honour conferred might inflate and
weaken, but, from my heart, I declare that it has always been
my principle to think nothing done whilst anything remains to
be done, and something must always remain while nature
continues to shine with her accustomed beauty.
I must now take my leave with every sentiment of respect,
and hope, at the conclusion of another picture, to have the
pleasure of personally convincing you aU how highly I esti
mate your public spirit, and how deeply I feel your private
kindness, and to assure you that whatever happens to me
hereafter, I shall ever recall, with pride and gratitude, that

B. R. HA YDON. 223
period of my life when I was remembered by the Mayor and
Commonalty of Plymouth.
I am, Sir, with every expression of respect,
Your most grateful and obedient servant,
B. E. Haydon.
To H. Brougham, Esq., M.P.
DEAR SlR, 16th February, 1826.
Sir Charles Long has promised to present the Petition,
a copy of which I enclose. I hope you may be present when
he presents it, and that you will say something on the subject,
if only two words.
I have had a long conversation with him. He does not seem
to object to the vote of money, but to the revision which would
afterwards take place as to its expenditure. This is all the
objection I could discover that he entertained.
My own private opinion is that both the Boyal Academy and
the British Institution would rather let things remain as they
are, than see the intervention of a higher power, which will
immediately take place should the House ever vote money for
the Arts. No particular " revision " ever takes place as to the
expenditure of public money in Sculpture ; and why should it
be more necessary in Painting ? And why should any gentle
man ever object to any revision if he voted it away to the best
of his taste and conscience ? Beally it takes one man's life to get
a principle acknowledged, and another to get it acted on. By
occasional petitions I hope to see the principle acknowledged
by the House, and in hoping earnestly to see it acted on, most
sincerely, my dear Sir, do I utterly disclaim all selfish or
personal feelings. I am, my dear Sir, very gratefully yours,
B. E. Haydon.
From Mr. Eidley Colborne, M.P.
19, Hill Street, 27th February, 1826.
You wUl see by the enclosed that the Petition is on the
Votes of the House of Commons. I presented it last week, as
I thought there was a gppd opportunity for so doing.

224 CORRESPONDENCE OF
I fear there may be many difficulties in ever attaining the
object of it, but, at any rate, the Petition can have done
no harm, and may, possibly, draw attention to a question
that all admirers of the Art of Painting would feel a strong
interest in. Yours, &c,
ElDLEY COLBORNE.

To Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P.
My DEAR SlR, London, 10th February, 1828.
The power you desire in politics, viz., that of advancing
the knowledge of your species, entrammeUed by no responsi
bility of place or title, " par-vis componere," &c, is what I, in
a more limited Art, have been ever ambitious of from my
youth. Why, my dear Sir, will you not give positive and
essential, and by some definite motion, in favour of the public
support of historical painting ?
I ask nothing for myself. I can support myself now I am
freed from law ; but after having been the first to break the
silence of the House, do not, I entreat you, let the subject drop
back into the gulf of forgetfulness.
You promised early this Session to present my petition,
when may I hope it will be convenient to do so ? You told
me many members of the House thought as you did on the
subject. All I ask is, bring their sincerity to the test.
Is taste in Art not essential to the intellectual condition and
moral and material improvement of a great country ? If it be,
how can it be more effectually generated than by an annual
vote of the Legislature ? The highest departments of Art cannot
be adequately fostered by the liberality of individuals alone. You
asked me once if I thought the people of England would ever
have " any taste ? " I tell you they have it now ; they only
want more examples before their eyes. A love of High Art
neither in Greece nor in Italy preceded the genius of the artists
or the patronage of the Government, but was the consequence
of the development of both. Success cannot be obtained at
once ; only, my dear Sir, break the ice. Never mention me.
If money be granted, leave me out. I want the principle esta-

B. R. HA YDON. 225
blished, let others share the emoluments how and hereafter.
Honour me by a reply, however short.
Your ardent admirer,
B. B. Haydon.
From Mr. Agar Ellis, M.P.
SlR, Roehampton, 23rd January, 1829.
I am much obliged to you for your pamphlet, which I
have read with attention. I quite agree with you that his
torical painting cannot flourish in England except it be en
couraged by grants of public money, and the power of this
kind of patronage is evident in the instance of France, wherein
a large School of Historical Painting has been instituted and
fostered by these means. But, alas! I fear it is impossible
at present to expect aid of this nature for the Arts in this
country, the state of our finances, and the economical disposi
tions of his Majesty's Government precluding, in my opinion,
all hope. I remain,
G. Agar Ellis.
To His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister.
London, 6th October, 1830.
May it please your Grace to permit me to call your
attention to a report of M. Guizot to the King of the French
recommending that, in order to commemorate the events of
July, two grand historical pictures be painted for the Senate
House, which recommendation has been approved by the King.
Alas! your Grace, how long will you permit — teeming with
talent as this country is — the historical painters of England to
languish for want of the same opportunities ? How long must
England lag behind France, and British Art remain in its
present inverted position? The simple will of your Grace
might extricate us for ever, and thus add another claim to the
gratitude of England, unobtained to this moment by any of
your predecessors in office.
I remain, with every apology,
Your Grace's most obedient servant,
B. E. Haydon.
vol. II. Q

226 CORRESPONDENCE OF
From ihe Duke of Wellington.
SlR, London, 12th October, 1830.
I have received your letter. It is certainly true that
the British Public give but little encouragement to the Art of
historical painting. The reason is obvious : there are no funds
at the disposal of the Crown or its Ministers that are not
voted by Parliament upon estimate and applied strictly to the
purposes for which such funds are voted. No minister could
go to ParUament with a proposition for a vote for a picture to
be painted, and there can therefore be no such encouragement
here as there is in other countries for this Art.
I am much concerned that I cannot point out the mode in
which this want of encouragement can be remedied.
I have the honour to be
Your most obedient humble servant,
Wellington.
To His Grace the Duke of Wellington, &c. &c.
4, Burwood Place, 14th October, 1830.
May it please your Grace to permit me to express my
deep sense of the honour conferred on the Art by your con
sideration of the causes which have hitherto obstructed its
advance. Will your Grace permit me to ask, with all the
respect due to your elevated station, whether, although no
funds are at the disposal of the Crown or Ministers for their
public encouragement of historical painting, it is not in the
minister's power to arrange the provisions of such funds for
such purposes in the same way as the funds were arranged and
provided for the purchase of the Elgin Marbles and for the
National Gallery ? And whether it would be illegal or unpar
liamentary for a moderate provision to be made systematically
in the financial estimates under the head of Encouragement of
Historical Painting, leaving it open to the House to support or
object to such a vote according to the success or failure of the
measure ?
Burke said that to a great minister alone would Art in
England owe all its ultimate elevation. The public establish
ment and encouragement of High Art is essentially requisite

B. R. HA YDON. 227
to a manufacturing country. Taste in design can only be
generated by excellence in elevated Art. Our Manchester
cottons were refused in Italy at the conclusion of the war in
1816, because their design was tasteless. The leading manu
facturers were therefore obliged to employ the most eminent
artists to make designs, and then the Italians greedily pur
chased what they had before refused. This is a fact, I can
assure your Grace, and I submit that it goes far to prove the
importance of design to a nation so far advanced as we are.
But if High Art be permitted to decay, taste in design will
decay with it, and we shall ultimately and inevitably sink
beneath the nations of the Continent, not because we are by
nature and disposition their inferiors, but because, after having
proved ourselves capable, we alone continue to be deprived of
the encouragement and public support which Continental
nations so liberally afford their professors.
If your Grace could only be induced to try the experiment
to set apart one or two thousands a year for the encouragement
of High Art, you would do all that every minister had been
entreated to do for the last sixty years, and by putting the
genius of the country to the test soon set the question at rest
for ever. I have the honour to remain, &c.
B. E. Haydon.
From the Duke of Wellington.
London, 15th October, 1830.
The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to
Mr. Haydon and has received his letter of the 14th.
The Duke is convinced that Mr. Haydon's own good sense
will point out to him the impossibility of doing what he
suggests. From Sir Herbert Taylor.
SlR, Windsor Castle, 27th October, 1831.
I have not delayed to submit your letter of the 25th to
the King, and I have the pleasure to convey to you his
Majesty's acquiescence in your wish to be allowed to place his
Majesty's name at the head of the list of those who have taken
Q2

228 CORRESPONDENCE OF
shares in the proposed raffle for your picture of ' Xenophon,'
and the ' Ten Thousand first catching sight of the Sea on their
Eetreat.' I remain, Sir, your very obedient servant,
H. Taylor,
From W. Ewart, Esq., M.P.
SlR, 16, Eaton Place, 30th April, 1834.
I beg to return my especial thanks to you for the letter
and treatises I have had the honour to receive.
The subject* is one too nationally important to be lost sight
of. More than one member of the House of Commons besides
myself are interesting themselves in it.
Mr. Lytton Bulwer (as you probably are aware) has a petition
to present on the subject of the Royal Academy. I shall
endeavour to be in the House when it is presented, and if
necessary shaU support it.
I remain your most obedient servant,
W. Ewart.
From T. Coates.
SlR, University of London, 9th June, 1834.
I am directed by the Council to inform you that it is
not their intention to elect you the Professor of the Arts of
Design in this Institution.
They beg you to accept their thanks for the trouble you
have taken in laying your application before them.
I have the honour, &c, *
Thos. Coates.
To T. Coates.
SlR, London, 11th June, 1834.
Will you have the goodness tP inform the Council I
anticipated no other decision.
* The grant of public money by Parliament for the encouragement of High Art
and Design.

B. R. HA YDON. 229
As this Professorship will be the first ever appointed for
design at any English university, and will probably be fol
lowed in example by other universities, let me intrude my
earnest desire that it may be filled by a -competent man. The
only man I know is Mr. Charles Eastlake, my first pupil. He
is thoroughly grounded in anatomy, with vast classical know
ledge. With every wish for the success of the University,
I remain your obedient servant,
B. B. Haydon.
P.S. — May I request you to withdraw my name as a
candidate. From T. Coates.
University of London, 14th June, 1834.
Mr. Coates presents his compliments to Mr. Haydon,
and he has compUed with Mr. Haydon's request.*
In reply to Lord Brougham (on his leaving office,
November, 1834).
My Lord,
I was honoured by your letter, which of course shall be
kept strictly private. I did not imagine you, as Lord Chan
cellor, could independently obtain a grant of public money for
the encouragement of High Art, but I did hope amidst your
thirst and enthusiasm for human knowledge, you would not
have forgotten your acknowledged conviction to me in 1823,
when you took up the cause and told me that yourself, as well
as many other members, were of opinion " something should
be done." My Lord, I know your incessant industry, I know
your varied and vast occupations ; I know amidst such a mul
tiplicity of passions to be assuaged, of wrongs to be redressed,
and reforms to be accomplished, it was scarcely to be expected
that Art could be remembered till more leisure had been
obtained. But still, with your remembrance of it, your allu
sion to it, or your influence in its favour, might have been
* Haydon had put his name down for the Professorship of Arts at the London
University, but in consequence of intrigues being set on foot to prevent him
gaining an official position (and of which he had satisfactory evidence), he was
refused the appointment. — Ed.

230 CORRESPONDENCE OF
occasionally exerted without interrupting your inherent
duties. In 1823, when you honoured me by calling upon me, I
showed you a series of designs to iUustrate Government to
regulate without cramping the liberty of men. You applauded
them, but turned round and said, " Do you think the people of
England wiU ever have any taste ? " Suppose, in answer to
your noble eagerness for instructing the people, I had said,
"Do you think the people of England will ever have any
knowledge ? " what would have been your reply ? " Certainly
not, if they are deprived of the means of instruction. So I
say of Art. " Certainly not, if the Government of England
does not do what other States have done and are now doing to
foster Art and Design, and improve the public taste."
The misery of England is that Art is considered a mere
ornament for dining-rooms and drawing-rooms, and is not
believed capable of moral elevation. The people see no grand
series of great works to elevate their minds. The nobility,
and all who are educated to direct the State machine, are
educated by men brought up at colleges, where there are no
professors of painting or sculpture, and consequently cannot,
and do not, impress on the minds of their pupils the im
portance to a country of correct design, of great examples of
virtue and heroism, conveyed through the medium of form
and colour, which, when done, have improved the manufac
tures, increased the wealth, and refined the minds of a nation.
Aristotle, as your Lordship knows, recommends the practice
of painting as inducing a love of order and a knowledge of the
beautiful. Ten years ago, you .admitted the truth of all this
to me in conversation; you brought the subject into the
House, and, after the most ardent expressions of enthusiasm in
its favour, you dropped it ! Have I not then reason to com
plain, when, after being four years in power, you have neither
restored, aUuded to, nor in any way attempted to advance
that cause which you acknowledged to me, when you were out
of office, to be so essential to the moral eminence and manu
facturing superiority of our nation ?
I remain, my Lord,
Your Lordship's obedient, humble servant,
B. E. Haydon.

B. R. HA YDON. 231
To the Duke of Wellington.
My LORD DUKE, London, 2nd March, 1835.
For seventy years when complaints have been made of
the want of encouragement for historical painting, the answer
has been there is no space and no object fit for the State to
interfere and develope the national talent.
By the burning down of the Houses of Parliament, there is
now both space and object afforded in the rebuilding of the
Houses of Lords and Commons.
Permit me to say, if the Houses of Parliament be rebuilt
without provision being made for a grand series of pictures to
illustrate some national or philosophic subject, with reference
to our Constitution and Government, an opportunity will be
lost which cannot be expected to occur again, and which will
evidently demonstrate, not the absence of genius in English
artists, but the want of desire of those who have the power to
give it an opportunity to come forth.
I have the honour, with every expression of my respect, to
enclose your Grace a copy of a petition which I am desirous
of presenting to the Building Committee on this important
subject, and earnestly to entreat your Grace to give it your
powerful support. I have the honour, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
From the Duke of Wellington.
London, Oth March, 1835.
The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to
Mr. Haydon, and has received his note, and returns the
petition. The Duke recommends to Mr. Haydon to send his petition
to the Lord President, who will probably be in the chair, or
to the clerk in attendance upon the Committee.
From Earl Eosslyn.
Sir, Council Office, 12th March, 1835. *
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of the 10th inst., enclosing a petition relating to the

232 CORRESPONDENCE OF
building of the Houses of Parliament, which I will lay before
the Committee of the Lords appointed for that purpose.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant, Eosslyn.
To Earl Eosslyn.
My LORD, London, 13th March, 1835.
I feel honoured by your attention. I pray you to con
sider it as the last (step) I take for the historical art of this
country. If the Lords decide on not having their noble room
adorned by painting, the expense being comparatively such a
mite, in ten years' time there will be no historical painter in
England. If their lordships decide they will have their room adorned
by painting, then a school will formed which should rival the
school  [illegible].
I beg to assure your Lordship that in this matter I have no
personal or paltry object. I am ready, as leader or subaltern,
to do my best for the love I bear my country.
I have the honour, &c, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
From W. W. Ewart, M.P.
My DEAR SlR, Brighton, 28th September, 1836.
You may rely on receiving a copy of the Eeport.* I
hope it will satisfy you, though I was somewhat restricted by
the Committee : aU that is said, however, is my own.
It is expected to be out in a few days.
I am, my dear Sir, &c,
W. Ewart,
From W. W. Ewart, M.P.
MY DEAR SlR, Brighton, 2nd October.
I hope that in the Eeport you will not be disappointed.
****** * Mr. Ewart's Committee on Arts of Design (1836).

B. R. HA YDON. 233
The Eeport is as liberal a one as it was possible for me to draw
under the control of the Committee.
I hope to send you a copy by the end of this week or the
beginning of next. Your most faithful servant,
W. Ewart.
Haydon to Viscount Melbourne, Prime Minister.
My DEAR LORD, London, llth January, 1837.
Mr. Poulett Thompson has put/ow Boyal Academicians
upon the CouncU of the School of Design! Chantrey and
Callcott are doing everything they can to quash and ridicule
the plan. Eastlake and Cockerell are good men, but timid.
If Martin and Bennie are not placed on the Council as a
balance, the whole thing from which the country expects so
much will go to the ground. As to myself, I withdraw all
claims. But it is quite in opposition to the principles of your
Government to throw a School of Design, meaned to be inde
pendent for the good of Art, into the hands of men notoriously
so inimical to High Art as they have been proved.
Ewart has declined to belong to the Council, and what do
you think of Poulett Thompson allowing Chantrey to stipulate
that no other sculptor shall belong to it !
Of all men he is the most unfit. He has not one principle of
Art. Stothard used to design his best things; and he has
totally obstructed the Council at two meetings from doing
anything. Nothing is yet settled, nothing decided on. Chantrey and
Callcott meet only to ridicule and obstruct.
Do use your influence to prevent the School from getting
into such hands, by getting Martin and Bennie placed upon
the Council, or you may rely on it, the whole thing will be a
discredit and a disgrace.
If I were to write a public letter on the subject, I should
greatly rouse the public, but I prefer to write to you, because,
however humble I may, be in the scale, every feather weighs,
and it is not the time now to say a word in opposition on any
score. Eather your friends should rally round you. But
Poulett Thompson has been made a complete tool of. I
cautioned him long ago, but to no purpose.

234 CORRESPONDENCE OF
Will you believe it possible that they came to such resolu
tions as these ?
1. That the Figure is not necessary as a basis.
2. That every one admitted must sign a declaration not to
practise as history painter, portrait painter, or landscape
painter. Now, my dear Lord, need I say more ? As a proof that the
public are feeling the thing, Hansard has sold more of the
" Eeport," than on any other subject, however political.
Praying you to obtain the admission of true artists, not
Academicians, on the Council, I remain, &c.
B. E. Haydon.
From ihe Eight Honourable Poulett Thompson.
13, South Audley Street, 12th January, 1837.
Mr. Poulett Thompson presents his compliments to Mr.
Haydon, and begs to say he shall be happy to see him on
Saturday next here.
To the Eight Honourable Poulett Thompson.
My DEAR SlR, London, 28th January, 1837.
I yesterday visited your Government School of Design.
Oh ! Mr. Thompson, what an exhibition ! Nine poor boys
drawing paltry patterns — no figures — no beautiful forms ! And
this is the School of Design the Government of Great Britain
has founded in its capital ! I felt my cheeks crimson. How
ever, persevere till your eyes are opened and the public voice
compel you to attend to the truth. You were kind enough to
say to me at our last interview: "Your talents are acknow
ledged ; " but was Art understood by you all as well as
politics and commerce, I should have been understood by you,
and you would have felt convinced that my principle for a
School of Design for the Mechanic was the true one. But you
are all at the mercy of the Eoyal Academy, and ever wUl be,
till you have Schools of Art and Design at the Universities, and
if God spares my life twenty years, you shall have them, as
you will soon have them in all the great towns.
I remain, yours truly,
B. E. Haydon.

B. R. HA YDON. 235
From James Heywood.
SlR, Manchester, 15th February, 1838.
You are particularly requested to attend a meeting of
the gentlemen favourable to the establishment of a School of
Design, in Manchester, to be held in the theatre of the Eoyal
Manchester Institution, on Monday,, the 19th February instant,
at eleven o'clock in the forenoon precisely, when a report from
the provisional committee will be laid before the meeting, and
an outline of the objects and plan of the society proposed for
consideration and adoption.
I am, &c,
J. Heywood,
Chairman.
From William Ewart, M.P.
My DEAR SlR, Eaton Place, 15th March, 1838.
I will take care that your indisputable views on the
importance of the figure are attended to; indeed, I have
already Written to the secretary thereupon.
I have also mentioned your Uberal offer of a lecture on form
as connected with design; I have no doubt that it will be
eagerly accepted.* I am, my dear Sir,
Wm. Ewart.
To the Editor, ' York Gazette.'
SlR, (No date), 1838.
Without wishing in the most remote degree to interfere
with the high honour due to Mr. Etty for impressing on the
inhabitants of York the necessity of an establishment to culti
vate Design and exhibit the results, permit me to say that the
School of Design should be the primary object of the subscribers,.
and the room for exhibition the appendage.
If the reverse be the fact, the York School of Art will
become a receptacle only for pictures unsold in the London
market ; the object of design will be forgotten in the annual
* This is in reference to the Opposition School of Design. — Ed.

236 CORRESPONDENCE OF
struggle, and after twenty-five years of experience, York and
its talented youths will be in the same condition as when it
was founded.
Let this eminent city be warned by the example of other
cities, where such has been the result of persevering to make
Exhibition instead of Instruction the leading object.
I am, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
From Joseph Hume, M.P.
31st July, 1839.
Mr. Hume will be happy to receive from Mr. Haydon
any information previous to the next Session, when it is his
intention to move for a Select Committee to enquire whether
it is not necessary that the Eoyal Academy" should either be
abolished or enlarged.
Mr. Hume will give notice of such his intention.
To Sir Eobert Peel, cm adorning the Houses of Parliament.
SlR, London, 10th August, 1841.
By this time you will have seen the Eeport of the
Committee on adorning the Houses of Parliament. It is an
honour to all parties, and no man has given his evidence, with
more spirit, sense, and manliness than Sir Martin Shee.
The Committee recommended a series of great works, to
illustrate a principle by State support. All seem agreed on
that. The question is, "How are these great works to be
executed, in oil or fresco ? and what are the subjects to be ?
Whether there is talent enough in the country ; whether
drawing correctly exists amongst us ; or, whether a foreigner
ought to be called in ?"
Fresco is painting on the last coat of lime with colour
ground in water, which incorporates with the mortar and
becomes a part of the outer coat of the wall itself. A picture
so painted must be done part by part each day. Cartoons are
prepared and traced and finished at once. Any man who can
draw is fit for fresco, and the process can be learned in a day.
One witness says its preservation is uncertain, as in one

B. R. HA YDON. 237
room one side may stand and the other decay. That Julio
Bomano's fresco decayed at Manchester because the neighbour
hood was marshy. Hence, it may be feared, as Westminster
is marshy, fresco may fail there. Another witness recom
mends oil, because at Venice (near the sea) fresco does not
stand. The Farnesina frescoes at Eome have failed because so
near the Tiber. Hence, if the Tiber endangers fresco the
Thames may !
Again, the fresco at Moorfields has decayed, but I fear the
preparation of the lime in that case was not the best or even
legitimate. Thus, Sir, the neighbourhood of a river, of the sea, of wet
lands, and the nature of the Ume preparation may, does, and
has decayed fresco. So of oil — the imperfection of the ground
of a canvas, the nature of the oil, too much glazing, any sort of
damp may and does ruin oil paintings. Fresco " ex incendiis
rapi non possunt," says Pliny ; movable pictures may. Pictures
let in like your 'Napoleon' (at Drayton Manor) could be
secured from damp, but on a large space, unless very lightly
painted to resemble fresco, the effect would be heavy.
The necessity of drawing at once in fresco would infuse
" correctness " into British Art, and do enormous good.
Mr. Barker, at .Bath, at Lord Bibblesdale's desire, painted
one side of his room in fresco, and it has stood for seven years.
He should be examined, and I hope you will again appoint
the Committee, for their work is not half over.
Between the two — Oil and Fresco — I am for fresco, if with
security. But I am altogether against calling in foreign
artists to show the way. The way is known to us, and British
artists alone ought to adorn a British House of Parliament.
Sir Martin Shee is decidedly of this opinion, and I honour
him for it.
Now, Sir, with respect to the nature of the principle of
decoration. Should a given number of artists be let in with
out a plan? without due subordination? each to paint as he
likes without reference to one guiding principle ; or, should it
not be like an army with its chief? However many should be
employed, the invention should be from one mind, and each
artist should compose the subject given to him.
We are a great political nation, let the subject be the best

238 CORRESPONDENCE OF
government to regulate the energies of a people without
cramping them. Let each room explain by subject each
separate principle given to illustrate the object. One room to
show the " Horrors of Anarchy, in Eeligion, Law, Domestic
Happiness, and Government."
The next room, " The Injustice of Democracy."
The next, " The Cruelty of Despotism."
The next, " The Curse of Bevolution."
The last, " The Blessings of Law, Eeligion, and Con
stitutional Good."
Thus all would be regulated and subdued. Twenty artists
might be employed to complete the work, but one mind, and
one mind only, ought to be commander-in-chief.
If a better plan can be suggested I will work under any one.
I would grind the colours of my own pupils if it could not be
done without.
I submit this rough plan in confidence, Sir, till I have more
fully matured it.
Mr. Banks has given useful but unpatriotic evidence, and I
will refute it.
But it is most delightful to see State support recommended
at last, after all my petitions to Parliament, and my labours
and sufferings to obtain this great concession; as I have no wish
to deprive any one of his share, I hope, Sir Eobert Peel, you
will not allow me to be deprived of mine.
British Art is in a dangerous condition, and a set of young
men, bitten by German hardness, are introducing that, arid
calling Beynolds, Gainsborough, Bubens, Vandyke, "sketchers."
This is very modest. But if Sir Martin Shee and the Eoyal
Academy do their duty, and the Government keep firm, the
Art will be saved and not lost.
If Cornelius and Schnorr be called over, they will raise up
not a School of English Draughtsmen, but a bastard school of
German students, so entirely opposed to English tastes and
habits as will bring the whole thing into disrepute.
Thus I have the liberty to state to you my humble views.
I hope they will faU in with your own, and I trust when you
come to office and power you will effectually carry out the
Schools of Design now existing, and about to exist, and that
you will not fail to resist to the last the introduction of German

B. R. HA YDON. 239
artists and German taste;* for there is talent now in Great
Britain fully adequate to all her demands.
I beg to remain, Sir, your most obedient servant,
B. B. Haydon.

From Sir Eobert Peel.
Sir Drayton Manor, 14th August, 1841.
I have not yet had an opportunity of reading with
sufficient attention the Eeport and Evidence to which your
letter of the 10th refers. I shall consider that letter a con
fidential one, so far as it discloses your own conceptions of the
mode in which the suggestions of the Committee might be
carried into effect.
I am, &c,
Eobert Peel.
To C. L. Eastlake, Esq., Secretary to H.M. Commission.
Sir, London, 28th February,, 1842.
I beg to express to you, as Secretary to her Majesty's
Commission, my hope that fresco will be adopted in the mode
of decoration in the New Houses of Parliament, being fitter
than oil for a mighty space, and from the luminous nature of
its light, calculated to give splendour wherever it is practised.
I have come to this conclusion from various experiments,
and can confidently assert the power of drawing required is so
decided that, the greatest benefit must accrue to the British
School. I am, Sir, &c,
B. B. Haydon.
From C. L. Eastlake.
SlR, 1st March, 1842.
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the
28th February on the subject of fresco-painting, and shall not
* Sir Robert Peel met this direct appeal by giving the whole weight of his
support to the proposition by Prince Albert that, the Germans be called in. — Ed.'

24o CORRESPONDENCE OF
fail to submit it to the consideration of her Majesty's Com
missioners on the Fine Arts in due time. I am, Sir, &c,
C. L. Eastlake.
To H. Howard, Esq., Keeper of the Royal Academy.
SIE London, 8th May, 1842.
I beg you will be so good as to express to the President
and Council of the Eoyal Academy my great gratification
at the manner in which they have received my desire to ex
hibit, by the very handsome way in which they have hung my
picture. It is to be regretted that in early life, when I had given
every proof of diligence and obedience as a student, kindness
of this nature was not thought the fairest way to reward me.
I am, your obedient servant,
B. E. Haydon.

To Sir Eobert Feet,.
Sir, London, 3rd October, 1842.
I take the liberty of informing you that I have got
through one cartoon, and that I have derived the greatest benefit
from doing so, but that I am now satisfied of the cause why no
great handler of the brush has appeared on the Continent since
the days of Murillo, Velasquez, Eubens, and Eembrandt.
What Eaphael and Michel Angelo made a means for an end,
all the later Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen have made an
end entirely. Hence the cartoons by the great masters were
but correct, decided sketches, so that something was left for
the hand and the imagination to add when they came to
the wall. But the latter and inferior men have made cartoon
pictures, have occupied years instead of months at these
preliminary sketches, have worked them up to a toilsome pitch
of polish, and when they took up the brush were helpless as
infants. Hence the absolute truth of Sir Thomas Lawrence's remark,

B. R. HA YDON. 241
after he had inspected Cammucini's cartoon, " And after all
this comes a  bad picture ! "
Baphael occupied the Vatican for twelve years. Had five
years been passed upon a cartoon, how much waU-work could
he have covered ?
Then, fresco was a free and original adaptation of the
correct hints of a cartoon, so that the great artist was left
almost free for his mind and hand, though guided by the
cartoon. Now, fresco is a tame copy of a tame cartoon.
There can be no doubt that the proposition of the Eoyal
Commission is the greatest move ever made in English Art.
I only venture to hint to you that, great prudence must guide
its continuance, except for express application. We must
keep our characteristics in, adding what we want, and not
lose them. If we lose what we have of simplicity, and nature,
and reality, and effect, and handling, and light and shadow,
we shall get into a condition of serious confusion, out of which
you will not easily extricate the British School.
I wrote these sentiments to one of the most distinguished
German critics, Bumohr, and he agrees with me to the letter ;
and I beg to assure you, Sir BobCrt Peel, that, if the principle,
or the style of the designs for the decoration of the Houses of
Parliament be regulated by the style of the building, and
the Gothic be preferred in Art, an irreparable injury will be
inflicted. This is the point I venture to hint, confidentially, to your
mind, and here I think your talented Secretary must be reined
a little. Though his Eeport is most valuable, I am disappointed in
the intellectual deductions of the introduction. He does not
show the originality/ and power I expected, though we owe
him and the Commission a vast debt for the facts connected
with fresco.
In respectfully submitting my opinions to you on the con
clusion of my cartoon, you will, I feel sure, do me the kindness
to beUeve that I have no other object than the elevation of our
School and the good of our students.
I am, &c, B. E. Haydon.
vol. 11. R

242 CORRESPONDENCE OF
From Sir Eobert Peel.
Whitehall, 5th October, 1842.
Sir Eobert Peel presents his compliments to Mr. Haydon,
and begs to thank him for his communication of the 3rd instant.
To Sir Eobert Peel.
Sjj^ London, 20th April, 1843.
The London School of Design is not advancing as it ought.
It is the victim of antagonistic principles.
It was founded by the Board of Trade, who imagined that
designs for manufactures could be as easily obtained as in
other matters to which apprenticeship alone was enough.
The Board of Trade did not know that designers for manu
factures, unless they pass through a portion of a great artist's
principles, can never acquire the requisite power.
Dr. Bowring was sent to Lyons to ascertain the cause of
French exceUence. He reported that every designer drew and
painted the figure for a period like the great artist, and then
when he had acquired a knowledge of colour, of light and
shadow, and of form in a certain degree, he carried these
excellencies to ornamental design, and thus added grace to it.
On the other hand, Mr. Dyce was sent out to Germany, and
he reported that the Germans began with ornament and con
cluded with the figure.
Though the Germans as designers for manufactures are
inferior to the French, nevertheless from some occult and
unaccountable reason, the German system was approved by
our Board of Trade and adopted at the School of Design.
I wrote to Lord Sydenham on the subject, and he sent for
me, and after a long conversation I convinced him the figure
ought to form a portion of the mechanic's education, but I
did not convince him it ought to be the commencement. The
figure, therefore, was added to the course of instruction pre
scribed, but not with that steady good-will which made it
beneficial. In the Council, I regret to say, there is still more than
enough of the mistaken principle upon which the school began.
Nevertheless there does exist a desire for the system of in-

B. R. HAYDON. 243
struction to begin with the figure ; but the parties are nearly
balanced, and with Mr. Dyce on one side, and Mr. Herbert on
the other, a perpetual struggle is going on, to the manifest
injury of the national interest. I wish to do no man an injury.
I have no friend I wish provided for, and I certainly have no
desire for the appointment myself. All that I seek is the
'public good ; and in my search I feel compelled to say that
Mr. Dyce appears to me unfitted for any post of influence in
the School of Design. He is by nature an experimentalist.
His delight is in the excitement of an experiment, not in the
wholesome pleasure of bringing experiment to result. A con
clusion is to him a nuisance, because it puts an end to experi
ment. He perseveres in nothing. He has thrown the school
off its balance more than once, and I understand when Lord
Lansdowne's chief decorator lately applied for designers there
were none fit, and Lord Lansdowne had to send to Munich for
six to decorate Bowood.
Considering that the School of Design has been established
six or seven years, and much public money expended on it, I
think I am entitled to ask, ' Is such a result as this creditable
or even satisfactory ? '
There are at present two parties in the school — the Figure
Party and the Ornamental Party — -when, in point of fact,
neither principle ought to predominate, one being the basis of
the other.
The figure should be made the basis, as at Lyons and
Edinburgh, by law of Council, and for a certain period. The
beginner should be kept distinct from the more advanced ; and
unless these doctrines be definitely laid down by authority, I
predict the ruin of the school, and great injury to the Art.
I am, Sir, &c,
B. E. Haydon.
From Sir Eobert Peel.
Whitehall, 21st April, 1843.
Sir Eobert Peel presents his compliments to Mr. Hay
don, and begs leave to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Haydon's
letter of the 20th instant, which Sir Eobert Peel has trans
mitted to Mr. Gladstone, the Vice-President of the Board of
Trade.
r 2

244 CORRESPONDENCE OF
From Eight Hon. W. E, Gladstone, M.P.
Sie Whitehall, 3rd May, 1843.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter, and I beg to assure you in reply that any suggestions
emanating from you upon the subject of the methods pursued.
in the School of Design can require no apology, and that they
will not fail to receive the serious consideration due to your
interest in the subject, and to the distinguished place you hold
among those who are entitled to be regarded as authorities
upon questions of Art.*
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
W. E. Gladstone.

To His Grace ihe Duke of Sutherland, Royal Commissioner*
on the result of ihe Cartoon Contest, 1843.
London, 2nd October, 1843.
If anything could console the pain of disappointment it
would be so friendly and kind a letter as I have just received
from your Grace.
I declare to you I wish cordially to believe in the integrity
of my judges, but I do not confide in their judgment. To
advertise by command for precision of drawing founded on
knowledge of the construction of the figures and composition,
independent of chiaro oscuro (see April 1842, proposition from
the Boyal Commission), and then to bestow the highest reward
on a cartoon which can be proved has no knowledge of con
struction, and has no precision of drawing, and when chiaro
oscuro was its only merit, is so utterly inconsistent with their
own previous resolutions, as to make me shrewdly suspect they
were not aware of their vast importance.
What was the object of the cartoon demand ? It was first
to ascertain if the British School could draw ; and that there
might be no mistake, precision of drawing and knowledge of
construction were laid down as the indispensable requirements.
* Mr. Dyce was shortly after superseded by Mr. Wilson as Director of the
Sohool in London. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 245
For a century foreigners have denied that we could or should
ever draw ; and every man of patriotism, and of any sense,
hailed this definition of what the Eoyal Commission required
as the one thing calculated to ¦ produce in all competitors the
very effects which, if successful, must for ever eradicate the
^ unjust suspicion, and lower the pretensions of foreigners. But
' what happens ? There was in Paris a young Englishman,* a
pupil of De la Boche, whose genius I know and admire ; but
this young man executes a cartoon on the principles of his
French master, and sends it over to England. It has certain
merit in its spirit and chiaro oscuro, but it is grossly deficient
in correctness of drawing, and vastly inferior to the works of
the English School. Nevertheless to this cartoon, and the
work of a pupil from the French School, is awarded one of the
highest prizes !
If a pupil from a French School had displayed equal
power of drawing to a pupil of the English School, still, con-
, sidering the calumny to be effaced, preference on patriotic
principles ought to have been given to the purely English
pupil. If the French pupil displayed superior drawing to that of
any English competitor, no feeling of national love ought then
to have interfered with voting him the highest prize. But
when the French pupil can be proved, and with as much truth
as a mathematical demonstration, to be decidedly inferior in
those exceUencies which were the great desiderata of the
nation to elicit, then, I maintain, ignorance of what the Com
mission required must be the excuse, or a tendency to foreign
Schools inconsistent with the duty of a Boyal English Com
mission, and in either case " prejudice or incompetence " must
be applied to the decision.
A fatal blow has been given to the national honour in Art,
and when there were the most justifiable reasons for bestowing
on the British competitors the reward they had fairly won, and
which would have removed for ever the stigma cast by
foreigners on British Art.
But what has been the result ? Why, your Grace, the ateliers
of Paris have rung with acclamations that the pupil of De
la Eoche has beaten the congregated talent of Great Britain ;
and De la Eoche himself, immediately on the decision being
* Mr. Armytage, R.A. — Ed.

246 CORRESPONDENCE OF
made known, wrote to Eastlake, congratulating himself that
his pupil had won the first prize ! *
I declare since the ' Guerriere ' struck her flag I have never
felt so mortified. Is it nothing to see the genius of Great
Britain so degraded and insulted, as if the moral greatness of a
country in Art was a bagatelle like a melo-drama, which may
be hissed or applauded as the whim may be ?
I care nothing for my own personal disappointment at being
whoUy set aside ; but I feel deeply that after having devoted
forty years to rouse up the State and the Nation to regard Art
as a matter of national concern, and when the very thing I have
laboured and suffered for so long is realised, viz., " State em
ployment," the whole thing is rendered nugatory by such a
thoughtless act as this, the effect of which no one can foresee
in Art or Essence.
It is absurd to deny the truth of my statement that I have
done this thing. My enemies affirm it is my " egotism." My
egotism ! It was my perception.
I was the first who brought the neglected condition of High
Art before the notice of Parliament in 1820. Lord Brougham,
Lord Dover, Lord Colborne, Lord Morpeth, all laid repeated
petitions from me before the House.
Jlaid before successive Ministers, from 1812 downwards, and
all over the country I laid before the people plans for deco
rating the old Houses of Parliament. When the old Houses
were burned down, I sent a petition to the Building Committee
by vote of the House, to which I had no reply, although the
suggestions it contained were subsequently acted on.
When at length the committee was appointed to consider
the question of decorating the new Houses, and evidence was
taken before the Committee, I, the original inventor, was never
examined. Sir Eobert Peel says that my pupU Eastlake, the secretary
to the Commission, never " puts himself forward," to which I
reply, he has never been " knocked backwards," and that makes
all the difference.
In fact, your Grace, it appears to me that certain persons,
instead of feeling pleased with me for having sacrificed my
* Mr. Armytage did not win the Fust Prize, but simply headed the list of First
Prizemen, whose names were given in alphabetical order. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 247
personal interests in Art to attain a national object, are nettled
and annoyed at my having done so with success.
My great crime seems to be that, I had sagacity to foresee
what was wanted, and to establish the principle without
their assistance.
Your Grace speaks of my having obtained an "isolated
reputation." True, but to whom is it owing? To those who
in early life struck me down without cause of offence, and,
while I was stunned, flung my body
" In alto mar
Senza governo " 1
in hopes I should sink and be heard of no more ! But I had a
principle of vitality that one blow did not extinguish. I re
vived and floated, and was cheered for my energy, and now
what ought to have been a matter of praise is made a matter
of reproach.
I refuted Payne Knight on the Elgin Marble question, and
that brought the connoisseurs on my back.
I brought the Eoyal Academy before a Committee of the
House of Commons, after years of struggling, and for so doing
the members of the Academy have been and will be my
enemies for life.
And your Grace wiU pardon me for saying that I do not
think the nobility were quite pleased with me for stating, at
Oxford, that Professors of Art ought to be established so that
the common principles of Art might be explained to our future
statesmen. The Vice-ChanceUor and the Heads of Colleges
cheered me, but I am not sure that, I was not considered by the
aristocracy as disrespectful.
Into the hands of these three classes I placed myself this
season. Does your Grace think these things were not re
membered? Be assured there is no mortal being more ex
quisitely alive to the very moment to punish an offender than
Sir Eobert Peel.
Years may pass and not obliterate, but add to the keen
ness of a pride which has been once touched. No posi
tion, however helpless, will stand in the way of his judicious
calculation that, " now " is the time to push home the
"thrust," and push it he will, politically, artistically, and
moraUy.* * See Lord Palmerston's opinion, ante, Vol. I., page 160.— Ed.

248 CORRESPONDENCE OF B. R. HA YDON.
I trust, however, to retain your estimation, and that of the
Duchess, all my life.
Be assured I have broken a hard sheU, and found more ashes
than fruit.
Different treatment when I was a diligent and obedient
student would have made me a different man.
My training was imperfect. I was never taught the pro
priety of self-command, and flung myself from my home ready
to revenge insult, and keenly alive to oppression; and op
pression is always more likely to eUcit the vices, rather than
the virtues of the most gentle.
I am now hard at work on ' Alexander killing a Lion,' as the
only subject likely to make me bear up under a cloud of
mental tortures which make me wonder my faculties remain
clear. I beUeve I am meant, as a human being, to try the experi
ment how much a human brain can bear without insanity, or a
human constitution without death.
I am ever your Grace's most grateful servant,
B. E. Haydon.

TABLE TALK.

I remember dining the first time with Canning at Lord Mul
grave's in 1808. There were present Lord Dartmouth, Sir
Charles and Lady Long, General and Mrs. Phipps/Angerstein,
Lady Harrington, and Charles Bagot, Canning's private secre
tary. Canning said nothing important. He appeared to me
a little overbearing. He quizzed Dr. Parr for believing in
Ireland's play ; and the conversation turning upon geometrical
staircases, "What is the principle?" said Lord Mulgrave to
Canning. After thinking a moment, he blushed deeply, and
said, " I reaUy do not know." They then began on politics, in
which of course they were all au fait. Napoleon was spoken
of with a sort of conviction of his power. Lord Mulgrave
had been sent out to Austrian head-quarters on a mission by
Mr. Pitt, when Buonaparte was in the Tyrol, and he urged the
Archduke Charles to attack Buonaparte. Lord Mulgrave used
to say that, had the Archduke attacked, Buonaparte's destruc
tion was certain. Mrs. Hun, Canning's mother, I knew well.
She was a great friend of my father's, a woman of masculine
habits of mind, very clever, and a great talker. Canning's
father was disinherited by his father for marrying her.
It is the refinement of things imperceptible to unscientific
inexperience that distinguishes great men from other human
beings. It was by delicate beauty the Greeks reached their
excellence, and the moderns will not equal or outstrip them but
by similar exhibitions of attentive investigation and scientific
research. Painting conveys ideas of form, colour, light, and shadow,
but colour, light, and shadow without form can do little. An

250 TABLE TALK OF
exact knowledge of the forms of things is therefore neces
sary to express ideas clearly, and the power of representing
things exactly as they are, or ought to be, constitutes the
painter. To execute some great work ought to be the object of every
man, and everything which will tend to interrupt his rendering
himself adequate to its execution should instantly be dismissed.
If I can but improve the moral art of my country, and do that
which will tend to abstract the mind from sensual gratification,
if I can but add to the stock of human knowledge, I shall die
happy. I like a spirit of determined enterprise. When once a man
believes himself incapable of attaining a thing, such a supposi
tion will paralyse every effort he would otherwise make to
attain it. There might be a situation in which you could suc
cessfully carry your point ; but if you set it down as a principle
that for a man in your position to attempt such an object is
absurd, you will never be quick to seize the opportunity
— a man should dare everything and determine to do every
thing. If this man, without certain means does that which
another would hardly venture with those means, this man is a
hero. Never was a mind more adapted for its purpose in art than
Wilkie's. Among a thousand instances I select the following.
When with me at Cheddar (1809), we visited the tremendous
rocks and cavern. There was something terrific in their
appearance ; a wild, ferocious, sullen tone, with a burst of light
in the sky behind, which showed their proportions sharply.
Wilkie felt nothing of this. He was much more interested in
studying John Cobley, my uncle, the very essence of simpUcity
and good faith. We then went into the cavern, through which
runs a silent stream of water that vanishes imperceptibly
among distant rocks. We fixed two bits of lighted candle on
something buoyant, and hiding our own candles, sent our little
light-ships floating down the stream. Nothing could be more
exquisitely poetical than their silent floating away, now illum
ining the vast cavern, now lost behind some rugged projection,

B. R. HAYDON. 251
now re-appearing, suspended as it were in the air, for the sur
face of the water could no longer be seen, then glimmering in
the far distance, clinging to the rocky roof like a fond memory
to our minds, yet irresistibly swept along further and fainter,
till they faded away into silent obscurity. They were like
helpless spirits borne along the Styx.
We tried another, and it upset and sputtered. Wilkie, who
had been apparently unconcerned before, now burst forth in
an ecstasy of delight, and cried out, " What a capital subject
for a picture ; a number of persons and children setting off
these things, and some fizzling and sputtering in the water ! "
I recollect once at Lord Elgin's, when I thought he was lost
in admiration at the Marbles, he said, on coming out : " I have
been thinking of a capital subject — a parcel of boys, with one
of those things they water the gardens with, spouting water over
one another ! " Nothing refined or grand, or even solemn, ever
drew his attention for one moment from his own ludicrous con
ceptions. When he went to West's funeral, and was standing
by the side of the grave, at the most beautiful moment in our
Service for the Dead, the costume of one of the officials caught
Wilkie's eye ; he nudged the man next to him, " Just look at
that cocked hat. Isn't it grand ! "
Never ridicule personal defects, when telling a story, until
you have first thrown your eye round the company.
When I hear of a great or noble action, I always thank
God for giving me the blessings of existence. It consoles me
for the meanness and malignity of the rest of mankind.
Some persons are so devotional they have not one bit of true
religion in them.
Marshal Lannes, Duke of MontebeUo, is dead. (June 16, 1809.)
The Bulletin says that Buonaparte passed an hour with him.
What a fine scene this would make ! Supposing Buonaparte's
fortunes to be on the decline, as I suppose, I think this must
give his mind a shock. This is the first of his early friends he
has lost and the first serious defeat he has met with. I should
like to have been invisible at their meeting. Lannes dying,,

252 TABLE TALK OF
weak and nervous, advising Buonaparte, must have made him
think more seriously of his mortality than anything that ever
happened to him before. I see the ghosts of D'Enghien,
Palm, Toussaint, -Palafox's friend shot at Saragossa, hovering
round their heads, and smiling as if the age of power, murder,
and destruction was coming to its end  I feel convinced
when I survey the state of Europe at this period, and compare
it with the state two years ago, that Buonaparte has lost ground,
arid the historian hereafter may with propriety date his down
fall from his invasion of Spain. Could anything on earth be
more impolitic ? He has not only lost the use of the Spanish
armies and fleets, but he has divided, his own forces. He has
given a shock to his power he will never recover.*
One day (1809), driving in the coach from Exeter to Wells,
I was excessively amused by a sailor who had belonged to the
' Victory,' and was at Trafalgar. What he told me had all the
simplicity of truth. He said as they were going into action,
Lord Nelson came round to them, and told them not to fire
until they were sure of their object. " When he came down,"
said he, "we were skylarking, as everything was ready, and
guns double-shotted." "What do ye mean by skylarking?"
said I. " Jumping over each ether's heads," he answered, "to
amuse ourselves till we were near enough to fire." He was a
robust, fine weather-beaten fellow. At some inn we changed
at, there was a well-pipeclayed, and clean, but spindle-legged
local miUtia-man, smoking his pipe. Jack and he soon came to
a misunderstanding of course. " If I was thee," said the
militia-man, " I would have put on a cleaner handkercher about
my neck." "  your eyes, what d'ye ask for your legs ?" said
* This is a proof of Haydon's political foresight. In 1809 such a view was
ridiculed. No one believed in it. The year following, when Napoleon held his
famous Court at Erfurt, his power seemed more firmly established than at any
period in his history. The splendour and magnificence he displayed on that
occasion surpassed anything that had ever been seen in Europe. " Come to
Erfurt,' he wrote to his favourite actor, Talma, " Come to Erfurf, and you shall
play before a pit full of kings 1 " Yet amidst all this display of grandeur and
authority, Haydon never swerved from his opinion, and declared him a lost man
unless he abandoned Spain. Subsequent events fully justified this view, and
modern writers have adopted it. In 1812 Lord WeUesley, referring in a speech
to the state of Europe, said of Napoleon, " He is one of an order of minds that by
nature make for themselves great reverses." But that was three years later, after
some successes of Wellington in Spain, and when war between Russia and France
was certain. In 1809 it required no ordinary sagacity to detect the character and
bearing of the " Spanish ulcer," which really destroyed Napoleon. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 253
the sailor. No human being could help roaring with laughter,
and Jack enjoyed a complete triumph, as he deserved, after
being four years at sea.
Bigo, a French artist who accompanied Denon to the cata
racts of the Nile in Napoleon's Egyptian expedition (1799),
spent last evening with me (May 6, 1811). I was curious
to get out every anecdote about Napoleon from one who had
seen him repeatedly, and indeed had always been with him
during the Egyptian expedition. Eigo said, the night before
the battle of Aboukir, he lay on the ground in the same tent
with Buonaparte. About midnight, Buonaparte told Berthier
and the rest to go to sleep in their cloaks till daybreak. Bigo
said he was never near Buonaparte, but he was attracted by his
physiognomy; there was something in his face so acute, so
thoughtful, so terrible, that it always impressed him, and that
this night when all the rest were buried in sleep, he could not
help watching him. In a little time he observed Napoleon
take the" compasses and a chart of Aboukir and the Mediter
ranean, and measure ; and then take a ruler and draw lines.
He then arose, went to the door of his tent, and looked towards
the horizon ; then returned and looked at his watch. After a
moment he took a knife and cut the table in all ways like a
boy. He then rested, with his head on his hand, looked at his
watch for some time, went again to the door of his tent, and
again returned to his seat. There was something peculiarly
awful in the circumstances, the dead silence of the night, the
solitary lamp, lighting up Napoleon's features, the generals
sleeping, the feeling that the Turks were encamped near, and
that before long a dreadful battle would be fought. Bigo said
he could not have slept. Presently Napoleon looked around
to see if all slept. Bigo shut his eyes. In a short time Na
poleon called them all up, ordered his horse, and asked how
long to daybreak. They told him an hour. The army was
then got under arms. Napoleon rode round, spoke to the
colonels and soldiers, told them in his energetic manner that
at a mile from them lay a Turkish army which he expected by
ten o'clock that morning should exist no longer. Before ten
they were annihilated.
Kleber, who commanded the reserve, did not join till after
the battle. Napoleon was surrounded by trophies : cannon,

254 TABLE TADK OF
standards, arms: and when Kleber suddenly appeared — "Eh
bien, Kleber, qu'avez-vous vu?" said Napoleon. "General,"
replied Kleber, " c'est la plus grande bataille du monde." " II
faut dejeuner avec nous," said Napoleon. Eigo said that after
his return from Egypt he had dined with Buonaparte, who was
then First Consul. Buonaparte was never more than ten
minutes at dinner. Two footmen, the moment he had eaten of
one dish, put down a second. He ate of that, drank a few
glasses of wine, and retired. The company all rose when he
got up, and then staid two or three hours. Bigo said Napoleon
in the field was as cool and collected as in his cabinet.
No man feels more acutely than myself the poetical beauties
of the Pagan mythology. But what consolation to the poor
and weary, what relief to the sick and oppressed did it offer ?
Could the minds of suffering men turn for assistance and
support to a thoughtless, beautiful youth like Apollo, warm
with love and wine, rising like a gossamer from out a laurel
grove ? Tell me anything in heathen morality equal to the
advice before you approach God in the Christian ? To examine
yourself truly whether you repent you of your sins, to eagerly
resolve to lead a new life, to love your neighbour, to forgive
your enemy, to root out lust, envy, and hatred, to purify your
soul and to make your body a temple fit for the habitation of
the Deity.*
There is an abstract idea of perfection floating about in the
world of poetry, painting, and virtue, which every man ought
* But although the development of the conviction of something divine into One
Great Being was missed by the pagans, and never established into a pure belief
without the aid of Revelation, yet, that conviction was there, and consoled them
for the time — " Prasterea, coeli ratiunes ordine certo,
Et varia annorum cernebant tempora verti ;
Nee poterant quibus id fieret cognoscere cansis.
Ergo perfugium sibi habebant omnia divis
Tradere, et illornm nutu facere omnia flecti." — Lucret., v. 1182.
" They saw the skies in constant order run,
The varied seasons and the circling sun,
Apparent rule with unapparent cause,
And thus they sought the gods in source of laws."
When the belief in their divinities was exploded, and the gods and goddesses
of the pagan mythology had lost all credit with their own people, and atheism
and corruption of morals prevailed, the time was ripe for a revelation, and it was
made. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 255
to struggle to realise by rooting out all errors that tend to
obstruct his approach. You are not to say, " Take me as I am
with my faults, they belong to my virtues." Such sophistica
tion is the excuse of a slender understanding. Your virtues
would be stronger, and your genius purer if you exerted either
to destroy your faults. Suppose Socrates had suffered his
appetites to take their range because they belonged to him
from nature, what would have become of his virtues? He
said, "I have evil propensities from nature, which I will
conquer by intellectual exertion," and he refused to allow his
appetites full play, because they were part of himself.
- If anything will mislead the promising talent of a young
student it is that senseless, vicious, impudent academic square
ness in drawing which has ruined or misled the hopes of half
the Academies of Europe.
Art is a reality, not a definition ; inasmuch as it approaches
a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it ap
proaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.
The English people are an enigma. There is nothing they
desire so much as security for property and individual liberty,
and yet nothing they obey with such distaste as authority, the
basis of that security and liberty, nothing for which they have
such a reverence, and nothing they relish so much as to see it
attacked* Is painting merely an imitative art ? You mistake the means
for the end. Paintirig is only the means of exciting poetical
and intellectual associations. Poetry and painting require the
same minds, the means only are different. Language and
versification are the means of the one, and form, colour, light,
* If we go back to the times of antiquity we find the Athenians were just as
inconsistent. For example, there was nothing they aimed at so much as a high
standard, yet they banished Aristides and condemned Socrates to death on
account of the purity of the lives of both and the wisdom of one. There was
nothing they loved so much as, being " moved by their poets and dramatists," yet
they decreed that Anaxandrides should be starved to death because his invective
was too severe, and they fined Phrynicus heavily because bis pathos was too
affecting. With similar inconsistency they decreed honours to the children of
another, because their father sold excellent salt fish, but, in this respect, looking
at the modern distribution of honours, the Athenians are hardly singular. — Ed.

256 TABLE TALK OF
and shadow the means of the other, and whenever an attempt
at sublimity of poetical conception shows a deviation from
nature instead of an embellishment, it is not sublimity, it is
absurdity. There is no reason on earth why the inferior parts of a great
picture should not be equally attended to, though subordinately.
kept, as well as the higher beauties.
Eubens, Vandyke, Tintoretto, and Eembrandt carried the
mechanism of the art, colour, light and shadow to the highest
perfection. They had, now and then, a glimpse of poetical
conception. Michel Angelo and Baphael had, at times, a
flash of mechanic excellence in colour and light and shadow,
but poetical conception of character was that in which their
powers lay, and this they carried to the greatest height in
modern times. Perfection in art is yet to be attained by
union of the two.
I paint History, but I do not underrate other, branches of
the art. I have no wish to see one part of the art encouraged
at the expense of the other. Let low life and small paintings,
water-colour drawing, fruit, fish, horses, dog, and portrait all
go on, but let High Art be respected as High Art, and take
that rank to which its elevation entitles it.
"We have no room for great pictures!" No room?' Are
not the haUs and staircases of the houses of the nobility
vacant ? Are not the public offices empty ? Why, the very
corn market at Athens was hung with pictures by Zeuxis, such
was the public feeling of the Greeks for art. But here, with
our War Office, our Colonial Office, our Admiralty, our Home
and Foreign Offices all empty, and our town halls, law courts
and both Houses of Parliament without a painting, we say we
have no room. Let us hear no more of want of room. It is
elevation of view among the nobility and patrons, and elevation
of soul among the students, not want of space that we are
deficient in.
When Voltaire was dying he received the sacrament with
great ceremony. His explanation was, " Je ne veux point etre

B. R. HAYDON. 257
martyr a mon age." * There is a hero ! There is a philosopher !
This is the man to ridicule the saints who proved their sincerity
by laying down their lives for principles they believed con
ducive to human virtue in this world, and human happiness
in the next. Was Voltaire sincere, or was he not, in ridiculing
Christianity ? If he was not, what can we think of such a man
putting forth all his skill and wit to perplex the world ? If he
was sincere, what a mean, cowardly dastard to receive the sacra
ment merely to ensure his own security by an appearance of
belief. " Je ne veux point etre martyr a mon age." And why ?
Surely it was more noble to die a martyr at his age, and
inflame the world by his adherence to what he considered
truth, and against what he held to be superstition, than by
an outward appearance of acquiescence to delude the people
into a belief that he repented from fear of personal perse
cution. We are the perpetual victims of hope, and when the hope
is gratified excitement ceases, and disappointment is almost
invariably the result. We fly from one thing to another in
the constant pursuit of some Ideal Happiness or some Ideal
Good, unaccompanied by that Evil which we feel is destined to
instil itself into all human pleasures, fears, hopes, anticipa
tions and attainments. The happiness we viewed, magnified
by distance, diminishes in beauty and brightness as we
approach. Whether it be that imagination overrates the
happiness that is to come, and underrates that which exists,
or that languor succeeds excitement and disappointment
gratification, God only knows, but the longer a man lives the
more he is convinced that honesty, peace, . independence, and
virtue are all that are requisite to ensure tranquillity on
earth, and that this world is but a world of trial, imperfect and
uncertain. Temperance in everything is requisite for happiness, and we
must look forward to the promises of revelation as the only just
ground of rational hope.
* This seems to corroborate the estimate Condorcet forms of him ('Vie
de Voltaire '). Voltaire, according to Condorcet, was " a singular mixture of
audacity and weakness, without that firmness in conduct which enables a truly
courageous man to meet the storm he has roused with fortitude."— Ed.
vol. II. s

258 TABLE TALK OF
I remember Keats repeating to me that exquisite ode to
Pan, just after he had conceived it, in a low, half-chanting,
trembling tone. What a true genius he was ! Poor fellow ! " I
know the miserable mistake," said he, "I have ignorantly
made in devoting myself to Leigh Hunt ; but he is not selfish,
and I'll not shrink now he is in trouble." These were his very
words. I was to have made a drawing of Keats, and my neglect
reaUy gave him a pang, as it now does me.
The anecdote Tacitus relates of Nero in his last moments is
a thunderbolt of refutation to the whole French Theatre.
Voltaire, in his objection to Shakespeare, says that no ancient
Eomans would talk together as he has made Brutus and Cassius
talk, which means that Brutus and Cassius would always have
talked as if they were in the forum before an assembly, and
never in private give way to the private feelings of men. Now
when Nero was obliged to take refuge in the obscure retreat of
a freed man, after wading through a marshy meadow, covered
with mud, and with daggers placed before him that he might
die a Boman's death, what did he do ? Instead of showing any
signs of repentance, instead, of thinking with horror, as we may
be sure Voltaire would have: made him, of the murder of his
mother, of his brother, of his wife, of his tutor, and of the hun
dreds of innocent men, instead of seeing in his flaming mind's
eye the burning of Borne, and the massacre of the helpless
Christians, he walked about .the room, and said at last in a
most melancholy tone, " What a .musician the world will lose !"
Here is a touch of nature deeper than even Shakespeare might
have ventured, yet nobody but he would have ventured on it.
As I was writing this, a distinguished Frenchman came into
my painting-room, and we set-to about the English and French
drama. After a hot debate on the superior merits of Shake
speare, he said with agony in his face, and a shrink in his frame,
" Mais, Monsieur Haydon, vous souvenez-vous de Hamlet ? Ah !
 de mettre une tete de mort entre les mains delicates d'un
jeune prince ! Bah, quel horreur !"
This was a touch almost equal to Nero's.
Fuseli says that my two women, in the 'Judgment of
Solomon,' would never have lived together in the same house.
What ! does he know so little of human nature as not to be

3. R. HAYDON. 259
aware a devil may so mask her passions as to impose on, and
obtain the confidence of a more innocent woman, and that the
she-devil's real temperament would only be developed when she
was thrown off her guard by an event like that related of
Solomon ?
The greatest minds in the history of the world have ever
been the most patriotic, have adopted the country in which
they are born, devoted their energies to its honour, and their
talents to its elevation, and have always preferred elevating its
native genius, moral and physical, that its predominance might
be acknowledged and sure. This is a healthy and natural
tendency. But there have been men of great genius, great
talent, and considerable ingenuity, who, either from morbid
tendency or a sickly affectation of geniality, a vanity of being
thought superior to the prejudices of their fatherland, have de
termined more to elevate other countries than their own, under
pretence of wishing to raise their own by dwelling on its defects
with the noble view of correcting its acknowledged errors.
All government is an evil, but, of the two forms of that evil,
democracy or monarchy, the sounder is monarchy, the more
able to do its will, democracy*
Hezekiah was dying. He prayed with tears to live, and
fifteen years were added to his life ; therefore prayer is avail
able and can alter the apparent destiny of man.f
The way to visit a palace is to take your Testament and read
the epistles as you walk about. Never does the insignificance
of all human splendour diminish to such a degree at such a
time. The dogs of Landseer are exquisite, ' but why does he not
paint a lion— not a drawing-room lion like Van Amburgh's,
surfeited with boiled beef and biscuits, but a downright savage
* " Their little finger," as Holies said of the Republicans of Cromwell's days,
" is heavier than the loins of monarchy." Nunquam libertas gratior exstat quam
sub rege pio.' — Ed.
t Tynriall's argument against the efficacy of prayer to produce changes in
Natural Laws would seem to apply here ; but Tyndall's argument, fairly carried
out, would suspend prayer in all cases of human necessity. This was a logical
conclusion Haydon would have declined to accept. — Ed.
s 2

260 TABLE TALK OF
monarch of the woods ? It is extraordinary that Landseer has
no notion of the totality of a picture. His backgrounds are
always disjointed, and his colour always wrong. He has no
eye for anything but detail.
It must be remembered that the exhibition of the Boyal
Academy is always to be taken as evidence of the taste of
the employers, and not of what British artists can best
paint. The true grand style is the conveyance of thought by the
imitation of substance and thought. Line is the basis of the
definition of substance. It should be lost in the rotundity of
reality. This is the difference between Titian and the German
school. The world is always willing to believe that he who has any
faculty more intensely strong than themselves, must have others
as intensely weak. Thus they lay the flattering unction to
their souls as soothing to their own incapacity.
What a fearful thing it is to contemplate the terrific, steady
glare of the Eye of God ! Open from all eternity to all eter
nity ; fixed with an intensity of eager inquiry ; gleaming with
an internal soul of scintillation, irresistible, unalterable, inexor
ably severe ; to deceive which, impossible ; to escape which,
hopeless ; firmly fixed above us as if. it were rooted to its
situation, and flaming at every additional discovery with the
fierceness of a heated furnace. We trust in the mercy of God ;
do we ever think seriously of the conditions upon which that
mercy will be granted?
Eeligion settles at once whether there is such a thing or not as
vice. " Thou shalt not murder." Murder therefore is wrong, and
it is the wiU of God that it be not done. " Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not bear false
witness," &c. It settles, also, with equal simplicity and decision,
our positive duties in life. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and worship Him in spirit '
and in truth, and do His Commandments ; and thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself." This is the Christian religion;
there is no occasion to split our brains with subtle arguments.

B. R. HAYDON. 261
and metaphysical doubts* as to the nature of the Supreme
Being or the mysteries of the Trinity. Christ left us not a
system of logic, but a few simple truths.
Johnson says, genius is "a large mind of general powers,
accidentally determined to some particular object." This is
not enough. Genius is a large mind of general powers with a
particular organisation of faculty to receive the impression
more strongly of one particular thing than of any other. Thus
music was invented, says Beynolds, by a man at leisure listen
ing to the notes of a hammerer. How many thousand men at
leisure • would not have removed from what they would have
called the noise ? But this particular man had a construction
of faculties that enabled him to perceive, in the regular noise
of a hammer, harmony of sound. Had an apple fallen on
Titian's head, would the principle of gravitation have occurred
to his mind ? Certainly not. He would have taken up the
apple and have thought of its colour. Spenser's ' Faery Queen '
made Cowley a poet, because Cowley had the capability to be
affected. by the harmony of verse. Would Newton have become
a poet by reading Spenser ? One of Minasi's little boys, the
other day, when walking with his father and brothers, flung a
stone against a brick. Neither his father nor brother heard
anything, yet the child cried out with glee, " Father, there is
music even in bricks,'' and at every stone he threw, said, " There
is music again," which means that, he had so delicate an organ
isation for the impression of sounds, that to his exquisite sen
sibility the commonest sounds were musical. Why did not his
father and brother say the same ? t
* But pure metaphysics are distinct from religion or creed. — Ed.
f But Johnson's definition does not explain all cases, those, for example, in
which the direction is taken against the direction that would be impressed on
other minds by the same circumstances. My father's definition amounts to
Channing's definition, or Channing's to his, viz., that the distinctive mark of
genius is " to discern more of truth than ordinary minds ;" in short, that genius
is insight. Carlyle seems to agree with Johnson. Blair's definition, that genius
is " the power of executing," is quite below the mark. The power of executing..
is only a lower form of talent, no higher than ingenuity, between which and
grand conceptions there lies a gulf as wide as that dividing Abraham from
Dives. Sir Joshua Reynolds, adopting Johnson's definition, raised his theory of
" equal aptitude " upon it, in which he maintained that all men in normal health,
being originally equal in mental power, genius could be developed by industry.
Buffon, I believe, Baid " genius is industry." But it is something more, surely ;
though that ' intellectual something ' is difficult to define, and, in its mode of
working, more difficult to explain. All that we do know of the habits of men of
genius shows they are the hardest workers at self-improvement; that they are

262 TABLE TALK OF
It may be laid down as an axiom in the politics of nations,
that in proportion as a nation is indisposed to fight, and disposed
to bear affronts even to indignity and insult rather than fight,
in that proportion will she be obliged at last to fight under the
greatest disadvantage.
There is nothing enrages mankind so much as the perception.
of their real motive under disguise. Let a youth, when he
perceives, be silent, but act on the conviction, confiding it to
no one, for if he commits that imprudence, accusations of in
justice will follow, or suspicions of morbid view. Never be
eager to prove to others your sagacity. Act, but do not talk,
and your acuteness will advance your interests ; talk, and it
will hinder and destroy them.
There is no duty more incumbent upon men of talent than
in preserving from oblivion the memories of those old friends,
however humble, who have helped them in early youth, or
shared their hours of relaxation, and whose goodness of heart,
or simplicity of mind, compensate for the want of distinguished
talents or position. It is a duty, I fear, too often violated or
neglected. I remember when Canning was a student at the
Temple, a Mr. Steer used frequently to have him to sup, indeed
at a time when Canning was very glad of it. Shortly after
Canning had enlisted under Pitt, he (Canning) was in Christie's
room," talking to some nobleman, when Steer, who had not
seen Canning for some time, happening to come in, went up to
shake Canning heartily by the hand. Canning received him
as if ashamed ! I had this from Seguier, whom Steer told.
This was heartless of Canning.
It is a misfortune for the art of any country, at least for the
living artists in it, when the public taste has been formed by
the distinguished works of other schools executed by artists no
longer in existence upon earth. To such a pitch of exclusive
*
essentially men of introspective habits, and that they have gained a complete
subjection of their attention to their will. Newton and Titian are both reported
to have substantially made the same answer to the same question as to how they
arrived at such excellent results: " By always intending my mind;" "By always
thinking about them." One thing only seems to be certain of genius, that while
men of talent are all, more or less, the same, no two men of genius are ever
alike. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. . 263
enthusiasm is the admiration carried for the genius of the
Dead, that no work is believed to be excellent if it be executed
by a painter in the flesh.
The powers of Zerah Colburn are certainly miraculous. At
six years of age his father overheard him, in play, saying what
five times three were, and asked him, as a joke, what five times
ninety-three were, when to his astonishment the child answered
correctly. He then asked him how many thirteen times ninety-
three were, and was instantly told. He tried the result on
paper, and found the child was correct. He tells me he never
can describe his feelings at this moment. It was in a wild
wood in America where he had encamped to enclose and clear
some fresh land. The boy had been born in the log hut, and
for such a child so situated, to answer such questions at six
years of age, looked to him like supernatural interference.
From this day his powers gradually developed, and extraor
dinary ones they certainly are. It is an evident faculty from
nature of great and refined power. It acts like a natural power.
It can be accounted for ; it is not like an unintelligible gift. It
is a natural common power, which every one has in some degree,
carried to the highest perfection. There is no saying where it
will end, for it appears to grow with his growth*
* It did not, however. With the general culture of his mind this special power
faded away. Dr. Carpenter, in his ' Mental Physiology,' says that he has been
informed by a friend who has a large field of observation among the primary
schools where "mental arithmetic " is cultivated, that it frequently happens to
him to find children whose instruction has been neglected in other respects, to
possess this gift of numerical intuition to such a degree as to enable them to far
surpass older, and generally well-educated, children in answers to arithmetical
questions, though they could not explain how they worked out the results.
My own experience some years since in the factory schools showed me, without
exception, the quickest child at mental arithmetic, the one that beat the whole
school in the quickness and accuracy of his or her replies was invariably the most
backward in other respects. I made many notes, of such cases at the time. But
of all calculating boys Zerah Colburn seems to have been the most extraordinary.
He was brought to London in 1812, when he was a mere child, and among other
questions put to him by Mr. Bailey, the mathematician, he was asked the square
root of 106,929. Before these figures could be written down, he gave the correct
answer, 327. He was then required to give the cube root of 268,336,125. He
replied promptly, 645. On being asked how many minutes there were in forty-
eight years, before the question could be written out, he said, 25,228,800, and
immediately after gave tlie correct number of seconds. At this time he was only
eight years of age, and had never been taught even the rudiments of arithmetic.
This curious and special power of number, as we see in Colbum and other well-
known similar cases, is not generally capable of improvement by culture, like
genius. What divides it from genius, or why it should not expand under study
so as to be able to explain the methods by which it works is not yet accounted
for. It is curious that the gift of reasoning out proportions, such as Pascal pos-

264 TABLE TALK OF
There are three supreme agonies in life : the agony of
jealousy, the agony of fearing you have mistaken your talents,
and the agony of ennui. /
The first proof of a man's incapacity for anything is his
endeavouring to fix the stigma of failure upon others. \
I do not think that Eaphael's ' Women ' have each the cha-l
racteristic of a class. They are not Cordelias or Gonerils, or!
Beatrices. They have all one general air of loveliness. They j
exhibit the combined points of interest as women. They are
tender, gentle, and sweet, inclined to love. They have what
we all sympathise with, because their qualities are those that
make women delightful ; but yet he never distinguishes them
as nature distinguishes them. They are nothing but gentle,
tender, and sweet. They are not daring or vicious. They are
never fascinating, jilts or lovely intriguers, never the im
perious beauty of opening youth, or the glowing mellowness of
maturity. They have general qualities, but not particular,
distinctive marks of character.
When I was at Fontainebleau, in 1814, the French officers
would sing a verse of their own to their national anthem : —
" Vive Buonaparte !
Vive ce grand conquerant !
Ce diable de Buonaparte
A bien plus de talent
Que votre Henri Quatre
Et tous ses descendants."
What the nobility have in their power to enjoy in this
world ! But with it all they do not seem happy. They never
seem to relish that which we feel exquisitely. They want the
stimulus of action. Their minds preying on themselves, and
they in general not remarkably well furnished, seek refuge in
novelty, but that alone, from its nature, not exciting hope, or
fear, or enthusiasm, the common feelings of faculties in action,
sessed in the highest degree, should be capable of expansion under study, and
yet not the gift of numerical intuition. But the one requires a much higher
order of mind, and the highest orders of mind are those which are capable, by
study and reflection, of the greatest expansion. — Ed.

A Study. .1813.

B. R. HA YDON. 265
they become weary of that for which they will not hesitate to
sacrifice principle and honour to pursue.*
What is life, but the choice of that good which contains the
least of evil.
The other night I was at a conversazione, and while there the
distinguished editor of the ' * * * Eeview ' came in drunk. He
walked into the room and out again. I walked after him and
caught him on the stairs. " My dear fellow," he said, " I do
hope you will get on, paint their  faces. Good night,
God bless you ! " and away he reeled.
Lord Londonderry quarrelled with Lady Londonderry, and,
said he, " My lady I have not stamina enough for you, and the
House of Commons too, and the House of Commons I cannot
neglect."

v

I remember once, on a cold May day, meeting Lady London-*
derry in St. James's Street. Hamilton said I was ready to
show her the Elgin Marbles. " Not now, Mr. Haydon," was
her reply. " It is too cold for marble : when the weather is
warmer." So much for Miladi's love for the arts.
* It may be doubted whether the nobil}ty suffer from ennui more than other
classes with similar leisure and similar want of a cultivated understanding. It
is their high rank and station, and the magnificence of their ample means which
makes the contrast so striking. When Prosper Merimee says, on his visit to
Taymouth Castle, that " everything — Marquis and Bisons — had the air of being
bored,1' he is only saying what he might as justly have said of less magnificent
establishments. A friend of mine in the country had a neighbour on each side of
him ; one destroyed himself because he had no money ; and the other, because he
had so much he did not know how to employ it. The explanation lay in want of
mental resource. The neglect of parents to give their children a truly good edu-
cation.and teach them habits of mental and moral disciphne, involves serious conse
quences. The great misfortune is that, young men of rank and means rarely realise
the best fruits of the education placed at their disposal. Many of them issue
out to their respective duties in life very little to be distinguished, intellectually,
from the noble savage. His sole ambition is hunting and the pursuit of 'game.
So is theirs. If he fail to obtain this, he falls back upon the " strong waters "
of the white man, gambles, drinks, and dies. The young noble under similar
circumstances too often falls back on the wines and brandies of Prance, gambles,
drinks, and dies. What is there to choose between them ? The whole question
is want of mental resource. " Ignorance to a rich man," says Johnson, " is like
fat to a sick sheep, it only serves to bring the rooks about him." If it did only
that in the case of the nobility, we might well afford to let it pass. But the
example of the nobility is an authority to the people, and this adds to the gravity
of the offence which sends their children out into a life of too much leisure without
habits of mental discipline, without the ballast of a well-instructed mind. — Ed.(

266 TABLE TALK OF
I saw Kean's 'Hamlet' last night (28th Oct. 1814), and
totally disagree as to its being his worst part. The fact is we
are ruined by the ranting habits of the stage. We are become
so used to noise, declamation, and fury that was nature herself
before us she would appear tame and insipid. They complain
that Kean is insipid in the soliloquies, absurd. What is the
impression from his whole acting ? Is it not of a heart-afflicted
youth who silently wanders for hours in the lobby in despairing
desolation ? At these times in nature such a man so afflicted
would soliloquise, and how would he do it ? Would he rant, and
stamp, and thunder ? Oh no. He would reason quietly, he
would weep at his father's name, and, in half-suppressed sighs and
bursting agony, lament his mother's second marriage. This is
the system of Kean, and indeed it is impossible that one who
feels the heats of passion so quickly should not feel as justly
the parts of secret soliloquy. To me his whole conception and
execution of ' Hamlet ' is perfect. You see him wander silently
about, weary, in grief, disgusted. If he speaks it is not to the
audience, if he shows feeling it is not for applause. He speaks
because he feels compelled to utter his sensations by their
excess, he weeps because his faculties can no longer retain
themselves, and the longer Kean acts the more will he bring
the world to his principles. The time is not far distant
when his purity, his truth, his energy, will triumph over all
opposition. It is always a disadvantage, I think, to choose a subject
for an epic poem so far within the range of history that it is
known events occurred, and conclusions were brought about
without the apparent interference of supernatural agency. In
such subjects the ground is not prepared by habitual associa
tions, the supernatural agents are intruders, and it is an effort
of the mind to reconcile their introduction.
The enchanters of Ariosto, the gods of Homer, and the
angels of Milton are a part of the belief of the period to which
the powers refer, but this cannot be said of the machinery of
Tasso or Camoens.
" Ne parlez pas des hommes," said Davoust on the Moscow
retreat to a general making his returns, "Ne parlez pas des
hommes, combien de chevaux avez-vous perdus ?" This is war !

B. R. HA YDON. 267
Some one remarked at dinner the other night that any
man could become " a general in a month." What absurdity !
Consider the qualities requisite, an energetic decision, the
result of an instant and luminous conception, a power of
wielding his materials at a moment to complete his own
plan, or to frustrate that of his adversary, a cool spirit not
daunted by any difficulties, an unceasing activity, and great
self-command, are the qualities attainable without nature's aid !
What nonsense !*
This (here follows a slight pen sketch of a young man) is
the head of a young man with just manner enough, just sense
enough, just music enough, just verse enough, just figure
enough, just impudence enough, to seduce a thoughtless, un
suspecting sweet girl, and then — desert her.
WThen a man finishes so highly as to lose all appearance of
touch, he gets entirely rid of all association of idea, because a
touch is the result of an impression on the mind rapidly
expressed by the hand. Eubens ranks high because his works
are all thought, not refined or elaborate, but thought of some
sort or other. Nothing laboured, his thoughts are expressed
as they arrived without hesitation. This is the reason of the
delight his works give.
Beware of the beginnings of vice. Do not delude yourself
with the belief that it can be argued against in the presence
of the exciting cause. Nothing but actual flight can save
you. Beware also of idleness, which leaves you at the mercy
of appetite : employment, employment, employment, and you
must be safe !
However the vicious may laugh at religion as if in defiance,
how they shrink at the fear of detection !
Which are most pleasurable, the fears that religion excites,
that is the fear of doing wrong, or the fears of vice, that is the
fear of being found out ?,
* " There are two subjects," said Napoleon, " upon which everybody thinks
himself competent to talk, politics and the art of war, but they are difficult ; the
art of war particularly." The Emperor might have safety added a third, viz.
medicine. — Ed.

268 TABLE TALK OF
No man is more contemptible than " the man of the town,"
and no character more despicable than a man of intrigue. "
I have more respect for a Messalina who does not disguise
her vice, than for a vicious woman who ices over her corruption
with a snowy reserve.
Beware of those women whose propensity and delight is to
correct the errors rather than love the good qualities a man
may possess. A pretty life would he lead who marries such a

" Eeligion and morality," says Shelley, " as they now stand
compose a practical code of misery and servitude." This is
untrue ; as they really and essentially are, they compose a code
of tranquiUity, freedom, and elevation of soul.
There are many feelings that to conquer which the world
has agreed to be right; but there are many also that the
vicious and vain think ought to be subdued which the moral
and the wise prefer to see indulged, cherished, and de
pended on.
How many plausible arguments from personal selfishness
might not have been put forth to save Moscow from the
flames ? " We have wives and children ;" " We have happy
homes ;" " Why burn all for an abstract principle ?" " Can we not
live as well under Napoleon as under Alexander ? " " Why burn
a whole city merely as evidence of non-submission ? " Might
not the Eussians have said this ? But they nobly preferred
the great principle of freedom to securing their comfort by
submission, and burned their city to the ground.!
It is highly convenient to believe in the infinite mercy
of God when you feel the need of mercy, but remember also
His infinite justice.
* " Plus on juge, moins on aime " (Balzac). — Ed.
t Count Rostopchin is reported to have said distinctly that, although he set
fire to liis own villa on leaving it, he gave no orders for burning the city. It was
set on fire by plunderers. There is only one nation in the world that goes to war
for an abstract idea, and she is not always above a substantial recompense. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 269
Let every artist remember that if he succeed one year, the
effect of his success will induce people to discover non-existent
beauties in his next picture during its progress ; and that if he
fail, it will urge them to discover imaginary errors. In the one
case let him not be flattered to unbounded hope, nor in the
other be reduced to helpless despondency. Exhibition to the
public generally proves the fallacy of both, and all then
shrink from their former opinions. Let a man confide in his
own strength, with a wary circumspection.
Campbell, the poet, told me once that he never slept but
two hours in the night, and was always stupid in the day in
consequence. Fuseli said to me once that people generally went to
church in proportion to their profligacy. I had it on the
tip of my tongue to tell him that I wondered he did not go
every day.
I do not recollect feeling greater joy than when I heard
of Broke's capture of the ' Chesapeake.'* I thanked God with
all my heart. When our 'Guerriere' was captured by the
Americans it affected me deeply ; I dwelt on it in sullen
disgust. I felt as if I had been grossly insulted. The indig
nation of the people, and their detestation of, Dacres for not
sinking with his colours flying, was profound throughout the
kingdom; it affected all deeply. I had recollected from
infancy seeing so many captured French frigates coming into
Plymouth Harbour, and running along the sea shore cheering
till I was inaudible, that the capture of one of our frigates cut
me acutely to the heart.
As I looked over the different animals at Pidcock's one day,
all were so different in character, so decidedly divided by im
passable bounds, I could not help asking myself are not men
equally and distinctly separated and confined by natural
powers or natural deficiencies ? Surely they are.
There must be more malice than love in the hearts of all
wits. * 1st June, 1813,

270 TABLE TALK OF
When you get a favour from a King make a point of never
telling who was the instrument — never to your dearest
friend. Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look
as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if
they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of
this. What an extraordinary desire there is to find out faults in
adversity, and virtues in success. It arises all from one cause
— the vanity of being thought foreseeing.
The great weakness of life is a disposition to give proofs
of sagacity ; and the leading vice, a hatred of superiority.
There is not a more pitiable object than an old man whose
faculties are just sinking into imbecility, but whose passions
get more intense as his powers of gratification fail.
Always appear thankful for just praise, for, although it
is no more than you deserve, is there no merit due to
those who acknowledge your deserts ? How many get their
deserts ?
Nothing is difficult ; it is only we who are indolent.
The obstruction and ignorance of EngUsh connoisseurs in
high art is a matter of ridicule on the Continent ; and weU it
may be ! No other professions are cursed with " connoisseurs "
but poetry and painting. Poor poets ! poor painters ! work as
you may, you are the only professors who are not supposed to
know more of your own profession than those who fill their
vacant days with wandering gabble or casual glance.
After the Battle of Waterloo my servant, who was an old
Peninsular man, brought several of the wounded to my rooms,
on their arrival in London. Wilkie was with me. The de
scription of the men was simple, characteristic, and poetical.
They said, when the Life-Guards and Cuirassiers met it was

B. R. HAYDON. 271
" like the ringing of ten thousand blacksmiths' anvils." One
of them knew my models, Shaw and Dakin. He saw Dakin,
dismounted, fighting with two Cuirassiers, also dismounted.
Dakin divided both their heads with cuts five and six.
Another saw Shaw fighting with two Cuirassiers at a time ;
Shaw, he said, always "cleared his passage." He saw him
take an eagle but lose it afterwards, as when any man got an
eagle all the others near him, on both sides, left off fighting
and set on him who had the eagle. Afterwards, when lying
wounded in the yard at La Haye-Sainte, he heard some one
groaning, and, turning round, saw Shaw, who said, "I am
dying ; my side is torn off by a sheU." Corporal Webster, of
the 2nd Life-Guards, saw Shaw give his first cut ; a Cuirassier
gave , point at him, Shaw parried the thrust, and before the
Cuirassier recovered Shaw cut him right through his brass
helmet to the chin, " and his face fell off him like a bit of
apple." Another model of mine, one of the wounded men —
Hodgson — the finest man of all, a perfect Achilles, charged up
to the French baggage. The first man who stopped him, he
told us, was an Irishman in the French service. He dashed at
Hodgson, saying, "  you, I'll stop your crowing." Hodg
son said he felt frightened, as he had never fought anybody
with swords. The first cut he gave was on the cuirass, which
Hodgson thought was silver-lace — the shock nearly broke his
arm. Watching the Cuirassier, however, he found he could
move his own horse quicker; so, dropping the reins, and
guiding his horse with his knees, as the Cuirassier at last
gave point, Hodgson cut his sword-hand off, and then dashing
the point of his sword into the man's throat, turned it round
and round. "  me, Sir," he added, " now I had found out
the way, I soon gave it them." As he rode back, a French
regiment opened and let him pass at fuU gallop, then closed
and fired a volley, but never hit him or his horse. Then a
mounted French officer attacked him ; Hodgson cut his horse
at the nape, and as it fell the officer's helmet rolled off, and
Hodgson saw a bald head and grey hairs ; the officer begged
for mercy, but at that instant a troop of Lancers were coming
down full gallop, so Hodgson clove his head in two at a blow
and escaped. He said the recollection of the old man's white
hairs pained him often. Before he got back to the British
lines a Lancer officer charged him and, missing his thrust,

272 TABLE TALK OF
came right on to Hodgson and his horse. Hodgson got clear,
and cut the man's head off at the neck at one blow. The head
bobbed on to his havresack, where he kept the bloody stain.
Wilkie and I kept the poor fellows long and late, and rewarded
them well. My man, Sammons, seemed astounded that the
Battle of Waterloo had been won and he not present.
The author of 'Naenia Britannica,' the Eev. — Douglas,
was one of the most singular characters. In the autumn of
1815, when I was down at Brighton, Douglas was there with
Prince Hoare, and I invited Wilkie down to meet them.
Wilkie was delighted with Douglas, he reminded him of the
Vicar of Wakefield. Douglas was an antiquary ; and his
theory was, that in the early period of urn burials brass only,
and not iron, was in use. He excited our curiosity so much
that Wilkie and I, and Prince Hoare, plagued him until
he got leave to open the great barrow on the hill close to the
Church. The 10th Hussars were then at Brighton, and I
got permission from the colonel for some of the men to
dig for us ; and early in the morning we set in to work. About
noon we came to an urn of unbaked clay, graceful in form,
and ornamented like a British shield. " There's iron," said I ;
" I hope not," thundered Douglas ; luckily for his theory it
was not iron. He was so nervous, he broke the urn, and out
tumbled the burned bones of a human skeleton. By this time
the cockneys had flocked up the hill, and, crowding round,
began to pilfer the bones. I bought a muffin basket of a boy,
put in the urn, and put it under Hoare's care. Douglas, now
his antiquarian theory was safe, jumped into the grave, and
addressed the people on the wickedness of disturbing the ashes of
the dead ! Wilkie was in ecstasies, and kept saying, " Dear,
dear, just look at him !" The effect of his large sack of a body,
his small head, white hair, and reverend look, his spectacles
low down on his nose, and his severe expression as he eyed the
mob over them, was indescribable. After a long harangue, he
persuaded the cockneys to stand back, and ordered the hussars
to cover up the bones with respect.
One day he had lost a black horse out of his orchard. I
said, "But why don't you go to a magistrate?" "Ah, my
dear friend," he replied, "perhaps God Almighty thinks I
have had him long enough."

B. R. HAYDON. 273
Prince Hoare told me an amusing anecdote illustrative of
his passion for urns. He and Douglas were conversing about
St. Paul preaching at Athens. " I wonder," said Douglas,
" who that Damaris was ? " "I do not know," said Hoare.
" Ah," said Douglas, with perfect gravity, " I wish we could
find her urn !
The characters in the Greek tragedies have an air of being
mere organs of the aggregate notions of the writers' experience
in human nature, rather than beings through which nature
herself speaks according to their particular habits or capacities.
Medea, Clytemnestra, and Prometheus, are exceptions. They
are all moral, and talk the same routine of doctrine about the
gods, and wise men, and virtue and vice, which does not seem
to suit their feelings, or to be the result of their own ex
perience, but as if they were uttering what they knew to be
proper, as children repeat ' Enfield's Speaker.'
I have a confused notion in my head of painting a series
of moral subjects to enforce the duties of man. Thus —
The evil effects of anger — Alexander killing Clitus.
The misery of voluptuousness — The death of Antony.
Duty in clanger — " Csesarem vehis, quid times ?"
Duty in success — Washington resigning the Presidency.
Duty to your neighbour — The Good Samaritan, &c. &c.
It is extraordinary how every principle becomes depraved
and tainted, what selfishness, what brutality, ingratitude, and
fierceness take possession of a man, and what wit, hypocrisy,
and vicious keenness of intellect seize on a woman when the
illicit and forbidden is suffered to range unrestrained in the
hearts of either.
To a man who has enjoyed the best Society in London,
Paris, or Vienna, all other society is low and vulgar. There is
nothing like the state of the best society in high life. How
generously they disagree, how gracefully the one helps the
other he defeats in argument, what modest diffidence in man
ner, what deference to superiors, what delicacy, what gaiety,
what sympathies, what curious self-possession ! Where is the
VOL. II. T

274 TABLE TALK OF
most heroic courage so mingled with modesty? Where are
the most voluptuous tastes so veiled with delicacy ? Where
are women so indulged without grossness, or men so beloved
without affectation ? Where are the sweetest affections so
cultivated, and the tendefest sorrows so sincerely soothed ?
But that there is something appalling to be said on the reverse
side I do not deny.
How Homer raises you by degrees to the fury of battle !
When the Greeks first prepare for fighting they eat and refresh
themselves, fall into ranks clean and invigorated, and beaming
with the cool effulgence of the morning sun. They meet, they
fight, and in the war and clash of battle they kiU each other
till midday arrives. As the sun reaches the meridian all is
confusion, roaring, clashing, and heat; the horses panting,
whitened by dust ; the heroes fainting, exhausted by slaughter.
Milton has, perhaps, a more elevated, gloomy subUmity, that
belongs to Hell and Chaos, but no man equals Homer and
Shakespeare in that inspired spirit, that raciness of nature
which animates and distinguishes everything they describe.
In Milton, his mighty Cherubim and Seraphim seem to draw
their flaming swords, or crash their rounded shields, as if they
shone through a darkened obscurity, red, solemn, and terrible,
interrupted only by groans of despair or quivering sighs of
anguish, or the falling echoes of the fiery surge bellowing
through " a vast and boundless deep." I never read Homer
without longing to run somebody through for a week after
wards. I remember once darting up and seizing a pole; I
dashed it through a study of WUson, the negro, saying to my
self, " Bite the earth, you KopvdaioXos dog !"*
Genius in poverty is never feared, because Nature, though
liberal in her gifts in one instance, is forgetful in another.
* I can quite believe it. This habit of animating his mind before painting
by reading his favourite authors, Homer or Dante, is just what Cicero, Bossuet,
Gray, Corneille, Milton, all did, and the great orators still do —
" Magnam mihi mentem, animumque
Delius inspiret Vates."
Pompey the Great never undertook any considerable enterprise without inspiring
his genius by having read to him the character of Achilles in the first Iliad.
Bossuet used to retire for days to study Homer hefore composing a funeral oration
— Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 275
But genius in affluence alarms the amour-propre of those whom
Nature has made rich, and yet made foolish. They cannot
bear a man to .rise, by the native vigour of his mind, to that
pitch of independence which they have inherited because they
were born, and not because they deserved it. Hence the
preaching that " want " is requisite to stimulate talent ; that
" competence " only is necessary ; that Milton got but 10Z. for
' Paradise Lost.' This might be impartial and candid for the
poor man of genius to say, the man who is to be paid, but for
the rich, and ignorant, and foolish, it is cant. Clear your mind
of cant !
The most painful age is that between youth and maturity,
when with all your boyish feelings you have not sufficient cha
racter of manhood to indulge in them without losing the little
reputation which your dawning beard begins to give. When
once a man any nonsense is excused. Thus it is with reputa
tion of every kind when once established ; your freaks are
excused as proofs of amiableness, which before would have been
censured as marks of imbecility.
I was at the Wellington fete last night (21st July, 1813).
It was a grand sight. Under the bust of Wellington stood
a British grenadier with the flag of the 100th Begiment,
2nd Battalion, and the baton of Marshal Jourdan. I felt
peculiarly interested at the sight. The associations were
pathetically grand, and retrieved the character of the British
army. The perseverance of Lord Wellington against tho
sneers, the contempt, the forebodings of the Opposition, and
the neglect of the Ministry, met here with its rich and
deserved reward. The fete was in every respect a great suc
cess. The rich dresses of the visitors, the variety of character ;
here the Turkish Ambassador, there the Duke of Sussex in a
highland dress ; then the Foreign Ministers, gorgeous in orders
and brilliant uniforms ; then groups of beautiful women in
fuU evening dress, and the brilliant hussars with their golden
tassels and warlike heads, aU helped to give an air of chivalrous
enchantment to the scene.*
* " The neglect of the Ministry." This charge is certainly well founded.
There is nothing so pitiable in the History of England, during this century, as
the miserable squabbles, in 1810-11, over the poor old mad King, between the
t2

276 TABLE TALK OF
The Eadicals are men of abstract virtue, they despise worldly
ways, and, leaving principles to act for themselves, fail before
men less honest, but who know the world better.
What one admires so much in Christianity is the sound good
sense of its Founder. There are no metaphysical arguments
about the origin of evil, no reproaches about its existence, no
impossible trash about the perfectibility of the human race.
Evil is taken for granted, the remedy is laid down, and no per
fectibility shown to be possible but through a consciousness of
sin, and a hearty and sincere repentance. Christ chose the
poor to show the emptiness of wealth, power, and station. He
lifted one cheek when the other was struck, to show the ab
surdity of sensibility to insult. He washed feet to inculcate
humility, and died in agony on the Cross to show the sound
ness of sacrifice and submission.
"A mystery is a truth revealed without explanation." I
heard McNeile say this ; I thought it very fine.
respective cliques of Lord Grenville and Mr. Perceval, Lord WeUesley and
Canning, Lord Sidmouth and Sheridan, Lord Castlereagh and the Hertfbrds, all
striving to oust one another from the favour of the Prince Regent, starving the
war in the Peninsula, paralysing Lord Wellington, and wasting time and energies,
which should have been devoted to their country, in a reckless struggle for place.
Lord Wellington's Expedition in Spain seems to have been regarded by Lord
Grenville and Mr. Perceval as an insufferable nuisance. Lord Liverpool, too, was
no better. He proposed to Lord Wellington either to send home his transports
to save their cost, or to evacuate the Peninsula and come home with them ! Mr.
Perceval, if he chose to remain, insisted on his dismissing his muleteers (thus
crippling his means of transport) to save expense, and refused him the reinforcn-
ments he urgently needed. Lord Grenville condemned the expedition as a
hopeless waste of public money. Lord WeUesley, as Foreign Secretary, alone of
all the Ministry insisted upon maintaining and extending our hold of the
Peninsula. But he very shortly resigned, saying, " I can serve with Mr. Perceval,
but I never can serve under him again." Indeed, to such a pass had matters
come at the close of 1810, that on the 9th January, 1811, Lord Wellington wrote
to Admiral Berkeley from Cartaxo, " The plot is thickening upon us here to such
a degree that I really think we ought not to send away any more of our
transports." Wben the Duke began to look behind him it was highly in
dicative. With these facts in our possession, it is amusing to read in the ' Quarterly
Review,' within my memory, such a passage as the following : — " A Minister for
War in England must not look for fame, he must find his reward in his
conscience. All the palpnble merit of success is the general's ; all the disgrace
of failure is the minister's. No one dreams of attributing to Lord Liverpool or
to Lord Bathurst, who were toiling at home to fwrnish the Dulce with men, money,
and materials, any share in the glories of the Peninsula war."
Thus is History written in a country where Party prevails. Macaulay probably
would have been as much wrong on the other side, though be could hardly err.
But in a country where Party feeling is so strong, each side should professedly
write its own narrative of events, and both should be bound up together. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. V7
The Freethinkers, with that kind of fancied infallibility in
themselves which makes men so contentious, persist in saying
that Providence cares nothing for His creatures, and ask why
does He not prevent this or that ? Because there would be no
free will if He did. Men must be left to the consequences of their
conduct. He interferes to alleviate, and whispers to guide their
authors. He has revealed His will. What do they want more ?
I have talked with men of every creed and sect, Deists,
Atheists, Sceptics, Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, Wesleyans,
Protestants, and Papists ; and I have always found the Papist
ready with damnation, and never wrong, but all the rest
acknowledging what they could not explain candidly.
Milman, in his ' History of the Jews,' says Moses made
religion a help to his policy. Where is the evidence ? There
was no occasion. The perpetual appearance of the Almighty
was more effectual. Besides, the Jews were not sufficiently
advanced then, were not fitted to receive the theory of the
prospective punishments or rewards of a future state. The
roar of thunder, the flash of lightning, the awe of a mysterious
voice, was better calculated to correct and impress them.
There is no " taste " in Christianity, that is, no selection of the
beauties of nature. Christianity is a religion professedly to give
Hope to the Wretched, and Comfort to the Miserable. It
does not forbid enjoyment of the beauties of nature, of art, of
poetry, of science. But to instruct the educated is not its
object. It is to reconcile desponding, dying misery, and to
show even to genius that there is a higher feeling than the
feeling of taste. The elegancies of life may soothe and soften,
but they afford no hope, no dependence; faculties are pre
carious ; fortunes may be ruined ; a dear child or wife on whom
you rest your passionate soul may sicken and die ; but looking
to the Great, Immortal, Eternal Being, is depending on what
can never change, and what can always afford assistance and
relief. The greatest happiness in this is the conviction (and
acting on this conviction) of the immediate interference of
Providence. Cynics are generally men who censure the world, from either
imagining the world has not done justice to their talents, or to

278 TABLE TALK OF
excuse their own weaknesses. The existenoe of groaners and
croakers, and all those who love justice to the letter, is com
monly to be explained by the neglect of the world from
their own misconduct, or envy of the world from their own
insignificance. For my part, 1 like the world. There is more
beauty and loveliness and happiness in it than misery. If
I see another in wealth and happiness I never envy him. ^ I
would scorn to do so. I like to see him, and I like to see him
use his riches weU. I like to see a fine young feUow driving
tandem. Why should he not make a part of the composition ?
Without him and his tandem a beauty would be lost. I like
to see lovely women weU dressed, well shod, well gloved ; and
let them dress six times a day if they like, notwithstanding the
scorn croakers talk of them. Is there any more innocent em
ployment than dressing ? If they are handsome, let them show
their beauty to the best advantage. Let them show their pretty
feet, and delightful forms in all their health and splendour:—
" Oh fortunati peregrini, cui lice
Ginngere in qnesta sede alma e felice !'"
The Greek artists knew nothing of anatomy, because their
medical men knew little! Of course if this be ground for
argument, our artists now must know a great deal, because our
surgeons know so much! Literary authority is against me,
but the back of the Theseus and the front of the Ilissus are
higher authority far. Lord Aberdeen, in 1821, told me the
Greeks certainly did not dissect, but I could get no authority
from him for this assertion. CockereU told me he was not
aware that there was any authority for saying that the Greeks
did not dissect. Carlisle, on the other hand, maintains that
Pliny and Pausanias prove that the Greeks knew nothing of
anatomy. I should Uke to know where ? How comes it that
Homer describes the wounds he inflicts, and their consequences,
with such accuracy, if anatomy was unstudied ? I grant that
the Greek surgeons may not have known muscular anatomy
as thoroughly as the moderns, but that does not imply total
ignorance* In the feet of the Venus I can trace the drawings
* Galen's Physiological Theory, Grote pronounces, in the Timaaus of Plato,
to rest " upon many anatomical facts, and results of experiments on the animal
body, by tying and cutting nerves and arteries." This is dissection. The various
treatises of Hippocrates also seem to point to the knowledge of dissection among

B. R. HA YDON. 279
and hints of the most exquisite anatomy. The sculptor who
knew how to make the feet and ankles, knew how to make the
sides. The most perfect, indeed, the only perfect school of art in
the world, was the school of Phidias ; and it has long been a
question whether or not the Greek founder of this immortal
school was or was not acquainted with the anatomical construc
tion of the figure ? Eminent scholars assert, from passages in
the Greek poets, that the Greeks had an awful respect for their
dead — so have we — and that laws existed against dissection.
But what does this prove, but that dissection was practised ?
No law is ever passed to prevent an evil, that society has not
first suffered from its exercise. Would it be any ground here
after to doubt dissection -among ourselves, because stringent
laws have been passed prohibiting the stealing of bodies, and
punishing the stealer ? Surely not.
When I was in Paris in 1814 I dined with the Academy.
I asked an Academician whether his Illustrious Forty were " the
same " as ours ? He replied, " Pour cela, mais oui, Monsieur,
imaginez-vous qu'il y a quarante membres, et chacun a trente-
neuf ennemis ! "
June 28, 1817, 1 dined at Kemble's farewell dinner. A more
complete farce was never acted. Many, I dare say, regretted
his leaving the stage, but the compliments on all sides wearied
you. The Drury Lane actors flattering the Covent Garden
actors, the Covent Garden actors flattered Drury Lane. Lord
Holland flattered Kemble ; Kemble flattered Lord Holland.
Then Campbell, the poet, flattered Moore (whom I knew he
hated), but Tom Moore, like an honest, sensible genius, as he
is, said not a word, but drank his wine and — flattered no one.
the Greek physicians. " Among the sixty treatises," says Mr. Grote, " in the
Hippocratic collection, composed by different authors, there are material and
differences, sometimes even positive opposition both of doctrine and spirit. Some
of them are the work of practitioners familiar with the details of sickness and
bodily injuries, as well as with the various modes of treatment." In a note Mr.
Grote adds : " The Hippocratic treatises afford evidence of an established art
with traditions of tolerably long standing, a considerable medical literature, and
much oral debate on medical subjects." It seems impossible after this to believe
that the most important preliminary to the successful practice of their art should
have been neglected. — Ed.

28p TABLE TALK OF
This dinner to Kemble, under the affectation of honouring him,
was in reality a masked attack upon Kean. Kemble as an
actor, and West as a painter, have more claims on society from
the honour of their private characters than from the greatness
of their genius. Age, time, and connections have formed
around them a phalanx of friends ; and, as if symptomatic of
their posthumous decay, or from a dislike that the men to
whom they have looked up, from childhood to maturity, for all
their pictorial or theatrical delights should be proved by the
superior promise of such men as Kean not to be the great
creatures they have been taught to believe, they unite to give
a lasting testimony of their respect, to make one struggle for
the glory of their favourite, with a foreboding that it is nothing
but a struggle to put a little oil into the socket of an expiring
lamp. Any one would have thought that the English Stage
took its origin from Kemble, such was the flattering of the
night. Garrick was never mentioned. Yet all that Kemble
has done for it is to improve the costume. It was laugh
able to listen, and hear that no one spoke of his genius. This
was a true touch. Lord Holland spoke of his critical capacity,
his learning, &c, but not a word about his genius. The truth
is, Kemble is a regular actor but not a great one. Never did
Kemble lose possession of himself. Never did nature whisper
in his ear one of Kean's bursts in ' Othello,' worth all Kemble's
life and the lives of fifty Kembles, if each had lived to the age
of Methusaleh. Second-rate ability finds it much easier to
imitate Kemble's droning regularity than to copy the furious
impulses of Kean, who cannot point out when they come, or
why. Every critic's self-love was affected by the startling appa
rition of Kean when he sprang into the midst of them, and
with one flash of his vigorous eye dwindled the stately march
and solemn heartlessness of the Kemble mockery into its real
insignificance. Every admirer of Kemble felt his judgment
impeached ; and, though aU had long felt that Kemble was not
the highest model of excellence, no one of them liked to
acknowledge that Kean was, because Kean did not wait to be
found out, but stood forth at once and bid others find him.
Attend to the sensations of a thing first felt. If a second
time you are less alive to its wickedness, be assured it is not
that you are better informed and less timid, but that you have

B. R. HAYDON. 281
disregarded the warnings of your heart when sensitive from
innocence, and have suffered example to duU the acuteness of
your perceptions.
I doubt whether too intense a perception of the identity,
colour, and substances of nature is not a clog on the fertility
of the invention. Titian spent eight years on the 'Pietro
Martyre,' and seven over the ' Last Supper ; ' and not because
he was all that time thinking over or varying his inventions,
but because he painted every plant and tree, and stump and
shrub, and cloud and distance, from nature, that the means of
conveying his ideas might be as perfect as the conception.
Michel Angelo, on the other hand, painted the 'Capella
Sistina ' in twenty months, because he was utterly regardless
of truth of imitation, except in form, and was satisfied if the
mind could comprehend his intention by a hint.
When Lord Elgin applied to Pitt for a small grant of
money to enable him to make mouldings of the Temples at
Athens, Pitt said, " Anxious as he felt to advance the arts,
he could not authorise such an expenditure of public money."
A few weeks after, he laid out 300,000Z. in catamarans to blow
up the flotilla in Boulogne ! Oh, our public men, our public
men! A couple of tutors of painting and sculpture at
Oxford and Cambridge would send them into Parliament
with greater notions of what were due to the arts and the
country.* Nobody complains of marriage but they who, like Paoli,
" have not the conjugal virtues," or they who, from peculiarity
of circumstances, have been its victims. These are not unpre
judiced judges. Take the aggregate of opinion, and it would
be vastly in favour of the institution of marriage. That the
consequences of the abolition of marriage would be right, as
Shelley and his followers argue, and that the intercourse
between the sexes would not be promiscuous, no man of any
knowledge of mankind, and in his senses, would venture to
utter. * Carlyle relates ¦ that when Mr. Pitt was applied to for some help for
Burns, the Minister replied, " Literature will take care of itself." " Yes,"

282 TABLE TALK OF
Where is the objection to the existence of Evil ? In our
present state evil seems requisite to excite and produce its
opposite virtue. If there was no want there would be no
charity ; if no crime, no forgiveness of it ; if no murder,
no pity, compassion, and sympathy. No doubt we can
imagine a state where Evil is not, but Evil is in our present
state, and shows how God seems to produce Good in spite
of it.*
When wiU the pride of learning blush at denying what it
cannot comprehend ?
On telling Wilkie one day that I was reading Homer, he
said, with a strong Scotch twang, "Dear, dear, I have no
patience with Pope's Homer." " Why? " said I. " Because,"
said he, " there's jest such an evident prejudice in favour of
the Greeks!"
Any one who for a moment doubts that the principles of
Greek sculpture, architecture, and painting had their origin
from Egypt can never have examined the works of that
country. The painting of the waUs of the Greek palaces in
fresco, the orders of their architecture, the principles of their
temples, are evidently derived from Egypt. The story of Calli-
machus and the acanthus are inventions.
It is extraordinary that Lord Aberdeen, in his ' Essay on
Greek Architecture,' should bring forth as arguments against
the ' Iliad' being the production of one man, such facts as that
writing was only known on stone, leather, or wood ; and that
the rhapsodists, like the ancient bards, were used to repeat
different portions of the ' IUad ' as distinct tales. Can these
reasons be placed against the positive evidence of the work
itself? Could such composition, such arrangement, such art,
added Southey, " it will take care of itself, and of you too, if you don't look
to it." — Ed.
* Haydon, like many others, was constantly haunted by speculations on
subjects beyond our reach, and the utmost result of which could only be additional
perplexity. The origin of Evil was a favourite question with him, but as he
could not dispose of the objections on either side, lie never came to a more satis
factory solution than that of St. Augustine, viz. that we must grant God does
many things which we cannot understand. — Ud.

B. R. HA YDON. 283
such exquisite character, such consistency throughout, have
ever been attained from the accidental conceptions of different
rhapsodists ? Impossible. I say of the ' Iliad ' as I said of the
Elgin Marbles, the works themselves are irresistible proofs
that they proceeded from one mind original and enlightened.
Lord Aberdeen doubts the ' Odyssey.' Why, the single con
ception of Ajax disdaining to answer Ulysses, and Achilles
striding with larger steps at hearing of his son's fame, are
proofs of its being the conception of the same mind. Men
like Lord Aberdeen can surely never have been impressed with
the real power of a poetical work, or they could not thus be
led astray by plausibility, ingenuity, and antiquarian re
search. The conduct of the people of England on the death of the
Princess Charlotte has struck me deeply. Every family in
England has felt her loss as the loss of a favourite daughter.
This day of her burial (19th Nov. 1817) has been one of the
most beautiful days I ever saw. It looked as if her spirit had
been received into happiness, and had influenced the very
air. The church bells toUed in mournful harmony. The
people crowded to the churches in humble prayer. At St.
Paul's they have been disappointed of the service ; the clergy
man, alarmed at the thousands who rushed in, left the church !
The Lord Mayor was sent for ; he addressed the people. Sud
denly an orator sprung up, and addressed the Lord Mayor, and
told him it was a shame to send the people home without
giving them an opportunity of expressing their feelings for
their dead princess. At last it was agreed that service should
be at 3 p.m., if the people cared to wait ! They waited. I think
this as fine a bit of English character, mixing with grief, as
could be seen.
Love and death are the two great hinges on which all
human sympathies turn.*
Milton and Michel Angelo seemed born with an intense
yearning after something higher than the world ; and, though
compelled to express their conceptions by this world's ma-
* But is there nothing in Resentment ?— Ed.

28 j. TABLE TALK OF
terials, yet the elevation of their view exalted the forms and
fancies and characters which they used. The genius of Homer,
Eaphael, and Shakespeare, on the other hand, was a deep,
unrivalled feeling for nature, with all its frailties, passions,
and appetites.
" As painters therefore labour the likeness about the face,
and run over the rest with a less careful hand." — Plutarch's
' Alexander.' An unanswerable proof that the Greek pictures
were not all laboured like the French, but painted on the same
principles as those of Titian and Vandyke, viz., neglecting in
ferior parts ; that is, not finishing all parts equally, but putting
their power into the heads and hands, &c.
There is in this world such a continued tendency to perfec
tion, both moraUy and physicaUy, and such a continued check
from imperfection of material, that there must be a day of
retribution, and a higher state of existence, to set all things
right. Our life here is one perpetual struggle for ideal
perfection, with inherent tendencies that obstruct our attaining
it. One of the greatest annoyances in life is the remarks of
common minds when criticising great works. Such people
always miss in great works the very things their minds would
not have left out. They never think it possible for a man of
genius to have left them out by choice. Oh no ! They imagine
such things never occurred to his conception, and thus they
chuckle over illusive imperfections with a self-congratulatory
air of conscious superiority.*
But " it is such uphiU work in this country," say the icy
ones. Uphill work ! Everything beyond the pale of common
comprehension must be so ; a result is grand because it was
difficult to conquer. If it had not been difficult to conquer,
it could have been attained by all, and would not have been
* " The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have
passed through the mind of a scientific investigator, have been crushed in silence
and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination ! that in the
most successful instances, not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes,
the preliminary conclusions have been realized." (Faraday on ' Education.') — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 285
celebrated. It is the capacity or incapacity to mount the hill
that stamps the individual, or the age.
When you look at a picture the shape of the figure should
be discovered, but it should not be all equally visible at the
proper point of sight. The Boman school made a little too
equaUy visible ; the Venetians too indefinite.
The art in England will decay ; there will be no drawing in
another generation. All the young men now springing up are
deficient in drawing.
Wilkie, with his characteristic prudence, once said to me,
" If you just want to get on in the world it is not most con
ducive to your interests to be too right. It is rather better," he
added, "to let others imagine that they are right, and you
wrong." This is genuine worldly prudence.*
In reading ' Home on the Scriptures,' one is astonished at
the quantity of evidence in favour of our religion. We may
wonder still more, while such evidence exists, that any one can
pass his life in the laziness of infidelity, ignorant of the history
of the facts and of the moral beauty of the doctrine. t Many
people pass their whole lives and never look into the Bible,
especially if they first fell in with Voltaire. I never knew any
mind get rid of that misfortune entirely.
In England it is not always Truth, but Party. Prove that
black is black in early life, and you are considered a renegade
if you do not maintain that it is black all your life through,
let it meanwhile be bleached as white as white can be.
Men of genius are often considered superstitious, but the
fact is, the fineness of their nerve renders them more alive to
the supernatural than ordinary men.
Upon the whole our public men shrink from discussion upon
* Wilkie was evidently improving upon Swift's advice, viz., that the short way
to obtain the reputation of a sensible man is, when any one tells you his opiniou
to agree with him. — Ed.
\ But most bceptics have studied their Bible, and know all its weak points
too well. Our infidels are the keen-sighted, active-minded, intellectual pagans, of
the nineteenth century. — Ed.

286 TABLE TALK OF
art. They are so occupied with their political relations that
truth, even on other points, seems unworthy investigation.
Metaphysical inquiry they detest. Matters of taste they skim.
Eeligion they consider only an engine of State ; and I do not
think much extension of knowledge on general principles is to
be acquired by intercourse with them. They are interesting
from their rank and occupation ; but a habit of having such
mighty interests hanging on their decisions generates a con
tempt for abstract deduction, and an indisposition to enter into
matters of art, literature, or morals.
I spent last evening (10th March, 1821) with Mrs. Siddons,
to hear her read ' Macbeth.' She acts Macbeth herself better
than either Kemble or Kean. It is extraordinary the awe this
wonderful woman inspires. After her first reading we retired
to tea. While we were aU eating toast and tingling cups and
saucers she began again. It was like the effect of a mass bell
at Madrid. AU noise ceased, we slunk to our seats like boors,
two or three of the most distinguished men of the day with
the very toast in their mouths, afraid to bite. It was laugh
able to watch Lawrence in this predicament, to hear him
bite by degrees, and then stop for fear of making too much
crackle, his eyes full of water from the constraint ; and to hear
Mrs. Siddons, 'eye of newt and toe of frog!' and then to see
Lawrence give a sly bite, and then look awed, and pretend to
be listening. As I stood on the landing-place to get cool, I
overheard my own servant say in the haU, " What ! is that the
old lady making such a noise?" "Yes." "Why, she makes
as much noise as ever." " Yes," was the answer, " she tunes
her pipes as well as ever she did."
Fox said it was a long time before truth could sink into the
thick skull of John BuU. It may be. But this is no reason
we should not keep it there soaking, till it finds its way in
at last.
Holt, the boxer, sat to me for his portrait in the 'Mock
Election.' If I had not made a good likeness I should have
lost my reputation with the ring. Holt said, " I have always
heard of you, Sir, these twenty years, but not knowing any
thing of art, I thought you were ' an old master.'"

B. R. HA YDON. 287
The cause of the cockney school of poets being so full of
daisies and posies, &c. &c, is simple enough. The poets have
been brought up between brick walls and in London fogs, and
their minds fly to the very reverse for employment.
Sir Walter Scott said to me of Lockhart, " He is so mis
chievous, he is like a monkey in a china shop."
Keats said to me of Leigh Hunt, " It is a great pity that
people, by associating themselves with a few things, spoil them.
Hunt has dammed Hampstead, masks, sonnets, and Italian
tales." Another time, when walking in West-end fields, he said,
"Haydon, what a pity it is there is not a Human Dusthole ! "
" Combien d'annees avez-vous servi ? " said the Duchess
D'Angouleme the other day to a " vieille moustache." " Vingt
ans avec Napoleon, et un an sous le Boi." "Ah! vingt ans
de brigandage, et une annee de service." This is how these
Bourbons conciliate the army.
What is the world but a prison ! Your faculties are limited,
your strength is limited, your stature, life, actions, powers, all
are limited ; and should you be cursed with the ambition of a
fallen angel, or blessed with the imagination of a Deity, alas !
how infinitely contemptible is what you can do to what you
can imagine !
Cicognara, the picture-dealer, sold Lord Londonderry an
" original " Titian. It was proved to be a copy. Lord London
derry brought an action and recovered his money. Some time
after, when Cicognara was again in England, he called on me
and begged me to come to Woodburn's to behold " the most
extraordinary Titian he had ever seen." I went, but on looking
at the picture I had my suspicions. As we were going out I
said to Cicognara, "What do they ask for that picture?"
Cicognara said, "I don't know, but would you mind asking
Woodburn's man for me?" I went back; the man could not
tell, but would let me know. Cicognara said, " Oh ! never
mind, we will call again." Would any one believe that this
was Cicognara's own picture, the very copy he had sold to
Lord Londonderry, and been compelled to take back ?

288 TABLE TALK OF
The higher some men are gifted by nature, the less willing
they are always to acknowledge any obligation to any other
being, however just or decent. This appUes to Edwin Landseer
particularly. He is a young man of extraordinary genius, but
his genius was guided by me, and first brought into notice by
my enthusiastic recommendation of him. When his father
brought him to me with his other brothers, I advised him to
dissect animals, as I had men. I lent him my dissections from
the lion, which he copied, and when he began to show real
powers, I took a portfolio of his drawings to Sir George Beau
mont's one day at a grand dinner, and showed them all round
to the nobility when we had retired to coffee. "When he
painted his Dogs, I wrote to Sir George and advised him to
buy it. In short, I was altogether the means of bringing him
so early into notice. These things may be trifles, but when I
see a youth strutting about and denying his obligations to me,
I may as well note them down.
Who was ever satisfied, or who ever felt that he had realized
the brilliant conceptions of his youth and vigour ? No one.
Even Michel Angelo and Baphael, encumbered as they were
with employment and burdened with honours, left something
at their death unexecuted — some brilliant plan, some divine
fancy, some unattempted expression, which had ever animated
them with hope, and led them like a guiding star through the
completion of what they left behind, as but preparation for
their greatest effort, which, as they Uved on, they hoped was
coming* This is the lot of humanity. Then comes posterity,
and judging only by what they see, naturally enough elevate
the Executors for doing what, perhaps, the Inventors regarded
as but feeble approaches to their own Divine ideas, and, look
ing back, posterity regards these men as the happiest of
mortals, freed from the evils and curses of life, and in the age
in which they lived as a truly Golden Age, in which there
was nothing but prosperity and peace. Contrasting this
* This is peculiarly true of Michel Angelo, who never prepared full-sized
models in clay, leaviug the cutting out of the marble to workmen, according to
the common practice, but cut out his statues from the marble block with his own
hand, from small models in wax he had previously prepared. In consequence of
this, from pressure of work, he was frequently unable to finish what he had begun.
Many of his works in marble are unfinished. The Madonna and Child, in the
Sagrcstia Nuova, of San Lorenzo, is a striking case in point. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 289
visionary view of times no longer present with the times
actually before us, with their prejudices, errors, and defects, a
comparative despondency is apt to obstruct all great attempts,
and must be guarded against.
Johnson, in his ' Life of Milton,' has joined the hue and cry
as to the ferocity of Milton's nature in private life. But he
has lost a fine opportunity of pointing out to the " profanum
vulgus " the difference between a man's fiery indignation at
immorality or tyranny, and his domestic irritation over petty
domestic annoyances. A man's feeling for Justice, Truth, and
Morals, may be so intense that their violation, under the pre
tence of their promotion, may put him into a frenzy of
passion, and yet have no reference at all to his temper in
private life. Milton's furious expressions in his prose writings
against hypocrites and tyrants, &c, was on this principle. It
is not so much that he personaUy hated them, but he loved
Virtue more, and he could not see virtue violated without agita
tion and passion. But this is no ground to argue from that,
because he could not bear with patience the violation of any
great principle, therefore he could not bear with temper the
little irritating vexations of private life.
The opinion of Tacitus concerning Christianity is always
quoted by the Deists with great triumph. His genius is
undoubted, and therefore his judgment is quoted on such mat
ters as undeniable and true. But, unfortunately, great as the
genius of Tacitus was, he has shown the weakness of his mind.
He believed in astrology. He believed certainly in omens. If
Tacitus, therefore, had not the power of seeing through the
superstitions of his own age, what right have Deists to consider
his opinion as infallible concerning Christianity? He that
believed in astrology called Christianity a " Superstition ! "
Unanswerable argument. Astrology and omens in which he
believed were, of course, not superstitions !
The only way to get the confidence of the world is to show
the world that you do not want their confidence.
One of the most dangerous sources of ruin to young artists of
a certain degree of poetical power is a , superciUous, ignorant,
vol. 11. u

290 TABLE TALK OF
undervaluing of the means of art If they colour like mud,
and have an outline like iron, yet they have the mind of the
art. This is their compensation. And thus they solace them
selves that what they have not is what they ought not to have,
and that he who does not overlook what cannot be overlooked
has a material and a gross soul, unfit to reUsh their inestimable
and inspired productions ! But he who undervalues the means,
in an art whose elements are imitative, is not to be admired
with awe for the mind he has, but to be treated with pity that
he has not mind enough. Had he his faculties complete he
would feel that, the power of mind in any picture is of more or
less effect in proportion to the adequacy or deficiency of the
means by which it\is represented.
Went to the House of Lords to-day (19th Aug. 1820) to see
Queen Caroline, and saw an EngUsh mob disgrace themselves
by hooting at Wellington. And yet their natural shrewdness
and love of fair play came through. They beUeved the Duke
to be the King's devoted friend and, therefore, not a fair judge
of the Queen's conduct. As the Duke and Lord Anglesea rode
slowly on, the mob howled and hooted at them furiously.
WeUington took it with great good humour, and seemed, as he
turned from side to side, to be mocking their noises. Directly
after one feUow had hooted himseK hoarse, he turned round to
me and said, " Who is it 9 " " Who is it ? " I replied, with as
much disgust and contempt as I could muster, " Who is it ?
why, WeUington." " Wellington ! " said he, " what a shame !"
The fury of the people for Queen Caroline is not from any love
of her, but rather from that innate propensity to seize any
opportunity of thwarting, annoying, and mortifying those who,
by their talents or station, enforce obedience.
The women who defend Queen Caroline most strenuously
are those who, having been guUty of simUar vices, feel afraid of
similar discovery. The enthusiasm of the sex is a tremendous
symptom of the secret vices of the time.
Gisborne, a friend of SheUey, caUed on me to-day (23 Oct.
1825). He told me, "I asked SheUey if he (SheUey) did not
think he might have done more if he had acted otherwise with
his talents ?" Shelley repUed, " Certainly ; he had made a

B. R. HA YDON. 291
mistake." I put this down within two minutes of Gisborne
leaving me, because I think it important.
Men of genius, who are not politicians, should always con
sider that, whatever tends to the obstruction of the develop
ment of their power, should be avoided, because it is a question
if they could not do more good by putting their power forth
in their calling, than by any attempt at political reformation
of power. It is a question.
I disapprove entirely of that system, prevalent in some
schools, of keeping a record of the faults of boys. No man
should have recorded against him what he did wrong as a boy.
Eecord the good ; but every year, and, in the presence of the
whole school, destroy the ledger of error.
" What do you mean by a ' touch ? ' what has a ' touch' to
do with character or thinking ? " said a counsel to Gains
borough on a trial. What! as much as the stroke of a pen
has to do with either, inasmuch as the separate strokes of the
pen make the word " mountain " and fill the mind with grand
associations, so do separate " touches " of the brush express
feature, form, colour, action, and expression, and convey associa
tions of character.
A man who, Uke Tacitus or Dr. Johnson, has a full per
ception of human weaknesses, can never relish society.
The French tragedies are written to be acted with reference
to the restraints and incapabilities of the stage. Our English
tragedies are written to be read, and felt, and imagined, where
there are no more restraints than in an epic poem. When
Milton said, " He went, and yet staid — such privilege has
omnipotence," this could not be acted, yet it can be imagined
and relished; and why should unity and time restrain the
flights of a genius who can create such sensations by their
violation? The French, even Eacine, always seem to think
that the habits of education, and of a Court, are more powerful
than the innate feelings of nature. Their characters talk as if
their passions were drilled. "N'accablez point, madame,"
says Titus to Berenice. Good heavens! is this the way a
u 2

292 TABLE TALK OF
lover would talk to his mistress when unobserved — although
an Emperor. " Madame ! " is this the language of passion ?
The French language is too much the language of personal
weakness to suit tragedy, or anything elevated. Were the
French writers to make their kings and queens feel like men
and women, there would be nothing elevated about them.
" Attila s'ennuie," says Corneille. " S'ennuie " is a term fit
for a " petit-maitre " — a man who yawns over a sofa for want
of occupation. The common feelings of life in French are
expressed too much in the language of frivolity, and not of
close nature.
I declare one might be induced to forgive any crime which
has its origin in the tremendous influence of women. I don't
wonder at men without great strength of mind being at once
conquered by this over-bearing appetite, this lava tide. So
exclusive is this passion that it swallows up everything for
the time — ambition, glory, duty, all are extinguished. Poor
lord of the creation ! thou art, indeed, weak against a woman.
How convinced every man must feel, as he grows older, of the
truth and soundness of that advice which tends to keep the
passions in subjection! Such an axiom is the result of the
accumulated experience of ages. Love purified infuses sweet
ness and delight into all our thoughts ; appetite uncontrolled
deadens the intellect, poUutes the imagination, and dulls the
edge of all the charities of life. Tenderly directed, a man's
passion for a woman becomes the greatest blessing of Ufe;
immorally gratified, it turns to his greatest curse.
All men have a love of power, but not equal capacity to
gratify it. They, therefore, will submit to be directed by
others if, in that submission, others must be directed by
them. I went last night (May 19, 1815) to see Miss O'Neill in
'Isabella.' Eeally there was no bearing it; I sat with the
tears trickling over my cheeks like a woman. Never tell me
that the feelings of a youth are half so intensely strong as
those of a man of experience in the world's troubles. What
does a boy know of the passions of the world ? What does he
know of that mysterious depth of love ? When Biron came in,

B. R. HA YDON. 293
and she screamed and fell on the floor, and then rushed to him,
looked at him, dwelt on him, and seemed eager to devour
him, what my heart felt ! Thus it is : you are born with
feelings as with capacity, and as you more easily compre
hend what you have previously comprehended, you must
more intensely feel another's agonies if you have previously
suffered them.
" How use doth breed a habit in a man ! " My landlord, now
comparatively a rich man, was brought up from low life.
Although he has a capital house, and every convenience, he
never washes his hands in a basin on a washstand, but regu
larly goes down to the kitchen sink and washes his hands
under the tap ! His wife, who was a servant, was once proud of
her parlour, but now the parlour is kept for their friends, and
he and she kennel in a little fusty back-room, with a broken
rug — dusty and kitcheny. Their whole delight seems to be in
perpetually cleaning things, and never enjoying the conse
quences. Such is the effect of early custom; it forms the
habit, and the habit keeps up the custom.*
Is it not a disgrace to this country that the leading historical
painters should be obliged to exhibit their works like wild
beasts, and advertise them like quack doctors ! With all the
noise and reputation that ' Christ healing the Sick' has
given to West — indeed, for the time, the usual question about
the " weather " gave way to " Have you seen the picture ? " —
with all this reputation, I repeat, has it obtained for him one
single commission ? Not one ! not even if his years are pro
longed to the days of Methusaleh, so long as the present
system of petty private patronage only is maintained, and art
not made a matter of national concern.
There is an air of suspicious spite in most Jewish expressions.
They watch like an animal that fears the stick. The cruel
persecutions, the fearful miseries they have undergone, seems
to have resulted in the hereditary transmission of an acquired
pecuUarity of look.
* Was it the same " force of early associations " that led the beautiful Princess
de Charolais, in the agonies of death, when her father confessor had insisted on
the rouge being washed off her face before he administered extreme unction,
to cry out to her maids, "At least then give me other ribbons. You know
without rouge yellow ribbons look frightful on me ! " — Ed.

294 TABLE TALK OF
A man of genius does not fag to acquire ideas, though they
may come with greater facility from habit, but to acquire the
power of expressing those ideas clearly and to render them
intelligible. He who gives vent to his feeUngs whenever a new
idea enters his head in a mere sketch, and then stops without
clearly expressing them so as to be understood by those
ignorant of the art, as weU as those of cultivated taste, is but
half a painter. His pictures are but mere effusions of feeling,
excellent as they may be, but they can never be models of imi
tation to him who ought to express all the minute varieties
of character incident to the human form.

To procrastinate seems inherent in man, for if you do to-day
that you may enjoy to-morrow it is but deferring the enjoy
ment ; so that to be idle or industrious, vicious or virtuous, is
but with a view of procrastinating the one or the other.
The pathos of ' Lear ' is piercing, agonizing, yet it is the
pathos of a poor, weak, despised old man. You feel horror and
detestation of the cruelty of his fiendish daughters, you weep
at their base heartlessness. When Lear says, " I pray un
button this," his heart swells, but it is merely human, it is
pinned down to this world. Whereas the sublime pathos of
Milton pierces while it overshadows. Lear's conduct to Cordelia
is imperious and wanton. You feel a great contempt, though
mingled with pity ; and, even in his acutest sufferings, a shght
doubt comes over you as if he deserved such a return. Yet in
Lear the associations are heavenly, because the finest affections
of our nature are excited ; whereas in Milton's angels there is
a feeling of vice, of diabolical ingratitude to God, which,
though it adds to the overwhelming power, detracts from the
purity of enjoyment.
There is something extremely interesting in sickness. I
think I should love my wife more tenderly then than at any
other time.
" This world is aU a joke," is the constant excuse of those
who fling aside their bibles and gratify all their appetites,

B. R. HA YDON. 295
because they cannot make out certain mysteries which, if they
were explained, would benefit nothing but our curiosity.* Now
our duty in life is simple and clear. Be industrious, lead a
temperate life, pray with sincerity, and honestly put your trust
in God. Because wicked men prosper, am I to feel distressed
at their painted happiness ? I am in this world, why should I
I weary myself about things I perceive my faculties cannot
reach, and neglect to do that which my faculties can ? Because
nations have risen and fallen are all human efforts a joke?
Did Christ consider life as a joke? He passed His life in
pointing out the necessity of our regarding this life as a state
of temporary trial, and He told men all they ought to know, or
to enquire about, set them as a moral code for our guidance,
and left us to exert our own faculties for the benefit of our
fellow men, and for the happiness of the world.
The world always revenges itself on him who pierces through
the flimsy pretences with which it glazes its weakness, by
accusing him of a bad opinion of human nature and of a
morbid temperament. Tacitus, Juvenal, and Dr. Johnson
have been so characterized, because their minds shrivelled
up the affectations under which men and women disguise their
vices, and laid their vices bare to the eyes of the world. It is
not that they had a bad opinion of humanity, but that they
had a high standard of virtue, and, trying their fellow
creatures by this standard, they judged them accordingly.
I do not care about the "origin of evil." It does exist
— that I do know- — but I also know that the same Being who
permits the existence of evil gives me a capability greatly to
mitigate its effects, if not to negative them. When I know
this what a weak creature I must be to sit still and whine about
the origin of evil, instead of standing up and manfully putting
my buckler against it !
Wilkie (John), Scott, and Ottley dined with me yesterday
(Oct. 3rd, 1819). After dinner we insisted that Wilkie, the
* " The fact that the Scriptures contain things~hard to be understood is no
reason for laying them aside, but a very strong one for taking the more pains to
understand them.'' (Archbishop Whately.) — Ed.

296 TABLE TALK OF
Tory, the cautious Tory, should drink " Success to Beform."
He resisted a long time, kept putting his glass up to his
mouth, and begging to be let off. We then affected great
candour, and appealed to his gentlemanlike feelings not to
disturb the harmony of the evening. His simplicity of mind
believed us sincere, and, with a face like Pistol when he was
forced to swaUow the leek, he said " Success to Ee — re — reform,
but very moderate, remember !" We laughed heartily at our
triumph. Three days after he sat to me for Christ's hand, and
seemed full of remorse for his imprudence. When you do not
touch his interest or his professional passions there is not
a more delightful fellow for amiable feelings than Wilkie.
Milton says Adam was made " sufficient " to have stood, yet
" free to fall." If he were " sufficient " to have stood, why did
he fall ? On first view the power seems to have been in the
opposition to virtue and obedience; and yet every man and
every woman knows if they only give their understanding and
conscience fair play, as much fair play as they most gene
rously grant their evil propensities, they would never fall.
Therefore it may be presumed Milton's view is the sound view,
and rightly interprets the meaning of the sacred writers. Why
then did Adam fall ? Because he did not yield to the influence
of his reason. His reason told him what was right ; he had
communicated to Eve the injunctions he himself had received
from his Creator: she disobeyed them, and Adam, Milton
says, from passion for Eve, preferred death with her to life
without her.*
* " Conversing with some persons who were dwelling on the sudden change
wrought by the first tasting the forbidden fruit in Eden, and the perfect holiness
as well as innocence of our first parents up to the moment of their eating it,
Archbishop Whately said, "They speak as if the fruit had dropped into the
mouth of Eve as she lay asleep without any co-operation on her part. The fact
was the case of our first parents was analogous to a man in perfectly good health,
yet with the seeds of mortality in him, and therefore capable of being attacked
spontaneously by a fever or other disease." — Life and Reminiscences of Archbishop
Whately. Both Archbishop Whately and my father shirk the real questions at issue,
and which have agitated mankind from the creation to the present day, viz., Is
not all moral evil caused by free will, and how can you reconcile the omniscience
of God with the free will of man ? There seems no doubt about moral evil being
caused by our free will. And if God foresaw that He was going to create a Being
who would fall upon temptation, though He created him capable of withstanding
all temptation, why, when he fell, did it " repent Him " that He had made man ?
If He foresaw that He should repent doing what it was at His option to do or
not, why did He do it? Neither the Archbishop nor my father meet this. But

B. R. HA YDON. 297
Love and gold, the two things which Providence has given
us to sweeten life above all others, when made objects of undue
preference become the bane of existence.*
" Do unto aU men as you would" — that is, as you should
conscientiously wish — "they should do unto you," is the
broadest principle of duty ever laid down. It teaches in what
direction to look for our duty, and when we have found it
how to act upon it.
Such is the wretched condition of all human beings that a
preacher who will not hold out hope cannot be popular. It is
evident that people wish to be consoled.f Infidelity is not
consolation, and infidelity for this reason will never be uni
versal. " I would rather be old Proteus," as Wordsworth said,
" than have no creed to rest on."

I was in company yesterday with young Betty. He is a
boisterous, good-natured youth ; but in spite of all his gaiety
and fun, his gaiety was that of despairing remembrances. His
situation is certainly one of the most melancholy and the most
singular in the world. His fame, when a boy, was certainly
never exceeded by any one ; not even Buonaparte had ever a
greater share of public attention for the time. Columns of
the pubUc journals criticised and lauded him. The prince, the
nobility, the ladies doated on him. I remember, when he was
confined with a cold, a " buUetin " was obliged to be put up in
the windows of his house to satisfy the eager inquiries of the
world. Poor fellow! When grown to man's estate, without
feeling, or capacity, or sense, he attempted again to excite the
elsewhere my father acknowledges the difficulty of reconciling foreknowledge with
free will. As to the origin of evil, the Scriptures leave that where they found
it. But the best, and indeed the only explanation is to be found in Isaiah,
chap. Iv., verse 8. " Por my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord." — Ed.
* "The chief beginning of men's miseries
Are things exceeding good." (Menander.) — Ed.
t This certainly cannot be said of the Calvinists, who are above consolation ;
and. with whom, although they look forward to a felicity beyond that of other
men, it is a question whether the contemplation of the sufferings of the damned
does not afford them a higher satisfaction. — Ed,

298 TABLE TALK OF
applause of the world. But alas ! the novelty was over ; faults
were no longer pardoned, because youth was no longer an
excuse for them; he was now criticised as a man, and he
sank like an exhalation of the evening, never to rise again.
His chief amusement now is driving his friends about in his
curricle to make their caUs, while he sits on the box with as
many capes as he can carry. If the servant mistakes him for
the coachman his delight is unbounded, and he will repeat the
story for a month. He amused us by mimicking the cries of
hounds, and the chuckling of turkey-cocks ; but he avoided all
discussion that could have exposed his intellect, and roared
down every attempt at thinking with a noise that made me
sigh. He is a melancholy instance that fame not acquired
by gradual improvement is an innovation that cannot last.
He said he remembered dining with Fox and Sheridan at the
House of Commons, but he only remembered the fact.
What a wonderful creation is this world ! How beautiful in
ornament ! How intensely deep in principle ! How simple in
arrangement ! And how singularly delightful that the elements
requisite to our physical being should afford materials for the
exercise of our intellectual faculties !

Voltaire, in his ' Siecle de Louis Quatorze,' says : " Les genies
dont les sujets se renouvellent sans cesse comme I'histoire, les
observations physiques, et qui ne demandent que du travail,
du jugement, et un esprit commun, peuvent plus aisement se
soutenir : et les arts de la main, comme la peinture, la sculpture,
peuvent ne plus degenerer quand ceux qui gouvernent ont, a
l'exemple de Louis XIV., l'attention de n'employer que les
meilleurs artistes. Car on peut en peinture et en sculpture
faire cent fois les memes sujets; on peint encore la Sainte
Famille, quoique Baphael ait deploy e dans ce sujet toute la
superiorite de son art, mais on ne serait pas recu a traiter
' Cinna ' et ' Andromsique,' ' l'Art Poetique ' et ' le Tartuffe.' "—
vol. ii. p. 123.
Now, if employment from the Government is only necessary
to make great painters, why were not the painters of this very
age as great as those of Leo X. ? They were encouraged by
Louis XIV. with the same magnificence; they had similar

B. R. HA YDON. 299
opportunities ; and they had the same field for the exercise of
their powers. This is always the way with merely literary
men. They only see the means and never the mind of
painting, because the vehicle of thought is imitation. To
them imitation is end and all of art.
Does Voltaire mean to assert that because the same subject
can for a hundred times be repeated in painting, it can always
be repeated with equal power? Does he mean to say that
Government can, when they please, order Holy Families, and
obtain them, as they order and obtain shoes for the army?
All subjects in poetry and painting are inexhaustible if they
apply to any human vice or virtue, characteristic or feeUng ;
and it only proves the narrow field on which ' Cinna,' ' An-
dromaque,' 'l'Art Poetique,' 'Tartuffe,' are planned if it be
impossible to repeat them. It is impossible to repeat with
equal success any effusion of talent that was written and
applied to any reigning folly at the time ; but it is not im
possible to unite and repeat the subjects of tragedies and
poems which apply to any unalterable principle of human
weakness and human sentiment. It is not impossible to re
treat a subject, and as often as a man of genius appears.
Besides, it is not true that ' L'Art Poetique ' cannot be re
peated. Was not Boileau's a repetition of Horace ? There is
an ignorance throughout this whole sentence of Voltaire's,
a confused view, a taking a means for the end which is very
extraordinary.

One great thing in life is to be able to distinguish between
what must be temporary in its consequences, and what eternal.
Consider everything in this light, and it is astonishing what
slight effect the pettinesses of life will have.
Professional habits generate dispositions to care little for
any consequence but the attainment of the end in view.
Shakespeare is not indecent. It is always as if a God spoke
to us, and with intense insight pointed out our passions and
our weaknesses with the right of a Creator who made the
beings from whom they originate.

300 TABLE TALK OF
We are prejudiced, you say, in favour of Christianity by
education, and are not fair judges. And you, I reply, are
prejudiced with the fear of having been prejudiced by educa
tion, and therefore you are equaUy in the other direction.
It is amusing to me the extreme sensitiveness of Voltaire's
admirers to anything that may hurt his dignity. Bidicule
Voltaire, and he is an ill-used, amiable, benevolent being, while
you are quite the reverse. But ridicule St. Paul, or St. Peter, or
the Virgin, or the Saviour, and you are a man of " enlarged "
views, who look beyond your time, and have strength of mind
to shake off "the prejudices of education." This excessive
sensitiveness of Voltaire's admirers at his being held up to
ridicule is amazingly entertaining, seeing that the very essence
of their admiration for him is his heartless ridicule of others.
But no people are so sensitive to ridicule as those who use it
most. Voltaire's ridicule of the extravagancies and absurdities of
the practices of the Boman Church is always extended to the
principles of the Christian religion.
Voltaire never mentions anything to the credit of Christianity
without adding something that may weaken its impression;
nor anything to the discredit of its persecutors without adding
something to excuse them.
Why may there not be punishment hereafter as weU as
punishment here ? You may as well argue that there is no
God because you daily see the innocent suffering, as that
Christianity cannot be of Divine origin because the wicked are
threatened with punishment hereafter.
Voltaire is in an agony lest Confucius should be mis
represented ; but he never utters a complaint that Jesus was
crucified. No people are more furious than the deists against the
weakness and wickedness of kings and tyrants ; but they never

B. R. HA YDON. 301
censure Pilate for weakly yielding to the turbulence of a
furious mob. They always endeavour to excuse him.

Voltaire seems of that order of mind which is always mortified
that the world should have come to any conclusion on religion
or science before they appeared. According to such men,
the world is always ignorant and superstitious, and must be set
right ; and they pass their lives in defending the neglected and
levelling the established ; in ridiculing the opinions of ages,
and in substituting others more absurd than those they wish
to correct. The vanity of setting up is as exquisite as the
pleasure of pulling down.
Hazlitt called in (November 3rd, 1817) and sat for three
hours, pouring out the result of a week's thinking. He told
me of the three new characters for the ' Bound Table.' One
was of a man who had always something to say on every sub
ject of a certain reach ; such as, " That Shakespeare was a great
but irregular genius," &c. He said some fine things, things
which when he writes them will be remembered for ever. I
gave him a bottle of wine, and he drank and talked, and told
me all the early part of his life, and acknowledged his own
weaknesses and foUies. We then disputed about art. I told
him that he always seemed angry on that subject because he
had given it up, and that the art would succeed in spite of
his predictions. He would then remember his opposition with
pain and mortification. And even if it were to fail, he would
also have the pain of having contributed to it. He denied
that he was angry. " I dare say," said he, " it will succeed, but
where is the use of anticipations of success?" "But where is
the use," said I, " of morbid anticipations of failure." " Very
true," he answered. Hazlitt is a man who can do great good
to the art. He practised painting long enough to know it;
and he has carried into literature a stock of art-knowledge
which no literary man ever did before him.
All his sneers and attacks at my views I take as nothing.
My object is to manage such an intellect for the great pur
poses of art ; and were he to write against me for six months,
still would I be patient. He is a sincere good fellow at heart,
with fierce passions and appetites. Appeal to him, he is always

302 TABLE TALK OF
-ionquered and yields. Before long I venture to predict that
he shall assist the good cause, instead of sneering at it.
His answer to the vile 'Catalogue Eaisonne" is the first
symptom. '
Sir Joshua Beynolds' personal influence is still in existence.
When all are dead who remember him he will fall consider
ably. He has stamped the nature of his mind for ever by
saying that he took a course " more suited to the taste of the
times " in which he lived. Was this the act of a great genius
to bend to the times ? He should have bent the times to him,
or died in the attempt.
That which I do heartily admire in Eeynolds is the heroic
candour of mind in the condemnation he passed upon his own
practice in art by the principles he laid down for the pursuit
of the higher art. It is unexampled in the history of art, or in
the human mind.
No doubt the restoration of the Bourbons and the re-esta
blishment of the Inquisition are bad, but not so bad as the
continuance in power of Buonaparte. I would have the cause
of talent so pure as to have twenty Buonapartes put down who
had so grossly betrayed it. The Bourbons do not connect
themselves with the cause of talent. They do it no harm by
their establishment; but Buonaparte's encampment in Europe
did it great injury because he rose on the shoulders of this
cause, and having betrayed it, he sullied his character, and a
sullied character is not to be at the head of the cause of talent.
A greater good has been done to Europe by his expulsion than
injury can accrue by the restoration of others; and for this
reason, their " Divine right " and such stuff cannot last, and
something purer than either will yet spring up for the blessing
James Meekf (private secretary to Lord Keith, Port Admiral
* No one felt this more fully than Napoleon himself. In the midst of Count
Mole's congratulations on a great official occasion, that he had put down the
Revolution, " Tu£ sans retour l'esprit revolutionnaire," Napoleon stopped him
with, " Vous vous trompez. Je suis le signet qui marque la page oil la Revolution
s'est arretee, mais quand je serai mort, elle tournera le feuillet et reprendra sa
marche." — Ed. t Afterwards Sir James Meek.  Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 303
at Plymouth in 1815), accompanied Lord Keith upon his visit
to Napoleon on board the ' BeUerophon,' to announce to him
the decision of the British Government that he was to go to
St. Helena. Meek said Napoleon's face had a dead marble
look, but became interesting when speaking. Napoleon kept
them standing. Meek said it was true a man came from
London to summon Napoleon to a trial, and chased Lord Keith
all day.*
When I was at Fontainebleau in 1814, 1 strolled one evening
to the Parade. More dreadful-looking fellows than Napoleon's
Guard I had never seen. They had the look of thoroughbred,
veteran, disciplined banditti. Depravity, recklessness, and
bloodthirstiness, were burned into their faces. If such fellows
had governed the world, what must have become of it ? Black
mustachios, gigantic bear-skins, and a ferocious expression,
were their characteristics. They were taU and bony, but
narrow-chested. On seeing our own men afterwards on the
road from Bayonne to Boulogne, it was easy to predict which
would have the best of it in a close struggle.
Becognising me, they crowded around me, and their familiar
and frank bearing soon took away all dislike. Napoleon was a
great man ; he had many faults, but he was never beaten. " II
etait trahi — II etait trahi." They all swore they cried when
Napoleon took leave. When the eagle was brought up, the
ensign turned away his head for crying. "Did he cry?" I
said to a grenadier. " He cry," replied the vieiUe moustache,
" l'Empereur etait toujours forme."
It being a beautiful summer evening, I retired to the Jardin
Anglais, and stretching myself out close to the soothing tinkle
of a gentle fountain, meditated on Napoleon and his fate, till
night had darkened without obscuring the scene.
Napoleon in his feelings had all the romance of a youth;
and few ever have had such power to carry out, in their
full intensity, the glorious anticipations of youthful imagi
nation. Bight opposite his library, in his English garden, was a little
column against the setting sun, with a golden eagle grappling
* Sir Francis Burdett proposed to apply for a writ of Habeas Corpus, but Sir
Samuel Bomilly dissuaded him from doing so. It appears, however, to have
been done. See BomiUy's Memoirs. — Ed.

304 TABLE TALK OF
the world. This was surely to remind him, in his solitary
walks, of the great object of his own life.
The evening was deUcious ; the fountain worthy of Armida's
garden ; the poetry of my mind unearthly for the time ; when
the crash of the Imperial drums, beating with a harsh unity
that stamped them as the voices of veterans in war, woke me
from my reverie, and made my heart throb. Never did I hear
such drums before; there were years of battle and blood in
every sound.
22nd January, 1817. — Was introduced to Lord Yarmouth at
his house, and saw his pictures. As he must be a reflection of
the Prince, his manners seemed very pleasing. He made him
self the person honoured, and not me. The great secret of
manner is to make everything felt, and nothing palpably ex
pressed. It was evident though he was a nobleman, that he
was used to attendance. He held out every picture himself in
the best Hght ; took my hat out of my hand ; ran downstairs
after a print, instead of ringing the beU; and when I went
away, opened the door himseK, and putting his body flat
against the waU, holding up his head and pressing out his
arm to keep the door back, he called out for his servants
with a suppressed loudness, as if to say, " He is coming." I
mused on this for an hour afterwards. What a victim to habit
nature is, and how delightful it is to see it under its various
influences. HazUtt sat to me for a head (May 6th). I never had so
pleasant a sitter. He amused me beyond description. I told
him I thought him not sound in art; that he appeared to
think there would never be another Eaphael. He said : " Am
I not right, bating the present time?" I said, "Certainly."
" Then," said he, " I have nothing to do with the present time,
my business is with what has been done." " Very true," said
I, " and if you have nothing to do with the present time why
attack it ? Let it alone, at any rate." Thus his real thoughts
were evident. The success of painting is to HazUtt a sore
affair after his own failure.
Spurzheim said last night (May 8th) that French skuUs
were all remarkable for the organ of individuaUty, or facts.

B. R. HA YDON. 305
The language showed it* God knows, their art does ! It is
only a compilation of facts and detail. •
There are some men who have more pleasure in the fatiguing
sighings of a hopeless passion than in the sound of enjoyments
of a healthy one. They never really care for more than liberty
to sigh out their souls in the declamatory impotence of eternal
vows; to lament their misfortunes in not knowing her before
she was married ; and who weaken her love for her husband,
without wishing her to return with sincerity their own. Such
men flit from one woman to another, and owe their importance
to the mischief they make. They suffer old age to slip on to
them, perpetuaUy delaying the time to leave off and the time
to begin, and burdened with reflections they never cease to
regret. Such a man I take it was Swift, and most certainly
was Eousseau. To them restraint seems to be the excitement
which to others is the insurmountable bar.f
The great principle in comparative anatomy is to consider
every animal but as a modification of the human form,
adapted to different purposes, instincts, appetites, and pro
pensities. The same men who groan at art and at the prospect of his
toric success are the same who groaned at the bravery of our
soldiers and sailors, the talents of our generals, and the glory
of our country. They are men disappointed in their early
prospects, and they pass the residue of their lives in horror at
the prospect of intellect succeeding when they have failed.
Beynolds's great effort seems to have been to bring down
genius to the comprehension of those who were not blessed
with it, by assuming that it was not superiority of original parts,
but merely a greater power of application, and that applica
tion made all the difference. Mengs was right in affirming
* If this be so, and the cerebrum grows to the modes of thought in which it is
habitually exercised, and such modifications are transmitted hereditarily, there
may be more in phrenology than physiologists are willing to allow. — Ed.
t Swift, perhaps ; but this can hardly be said of Eousseau, who writes : " What
an inconceivable torment it is to see each other under the restraints of a third
person ; our passion is too deep to bear perpetual chains," &c, &c. In fact, if any
man longed for retirement, that is, with his companion, it was Eousseau. — Ed.
VOL. II. X

306 TABLE TALK OF
that such principles would mislead youth because, induced to
pursue an art which required original parts, in the hope that
by application alone they might attain distinction, they would
not detect their errors until years had been wasted in vain,
and the finest part of their lives passed never to be recalled.
AppUcation will not give genius, though genius is of no use
without application.
Many persons, neither beautiful in form nor feature, yet
from a peculiar fitness of parts for action and expression, are
much more attractive when in action and expression than those
of greater beauty, formed only for repose.
Occupation is the best antidote to appetite ; and to be con
tinually employed the best determination without vow or
promise, which is nothing but shifting the labour of resistance
to an imaginary check that time proves, at trial, to be futile,
and of no real force.
There are three things which are and ever will be un
pardonable crimes in the eyes of most men. 1st. The pos
session of genius. 2nd. The exertion of it as the possessor
pleases. 3rd. Success.*
How laughable it is to observe the vanities and weaknesses
of human nature bursting out even under the influence of
disease! Go into an oculist's ante-room and listen to the
people. With what care those you talk to will inform you that
nothing is the matter with their eyes, only their Uds : while
others, quite as hopeless of any triumph, by boasting of their
freedom from danger let their vanity take refuge in the very
hopelessness of their situation; and when their turn came,
begged to be led out with a sort of air, as if to say, " Look
what I suffer, and bless yourself." Old ladies whisper to you
what Sir William thinks of their complaint ; and mothers stand
their children upon the table, and taking off the bandage from
their eyes, explain what " little martyrs " they had been. Oh,
* Mankind only admits to be genume and true that which it feels it could do
of itself. Anything that exceeds that standard it at first rejects, and would
willingly stifle if it could. It has always been so, since Cain and Abel. Con
sidering" the amount of imposture in action, possibly some doubt is necessary. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 307
human nature! Thus are your vanities and follies a balm
and a salve for your miseries and complaints.
" It will never do, Sir, in this country." How many follies,
vices and imbecilities are plausibly excused by this plausible
expression ! You will find this expression on the tongue of all
those who from idleness, incompetency, or irresolution, have
failed in situation, politics, morals or art. If an author has
failed in a tragedy, " tragedy will never do in this country, Sir,"
is the excuse. If a military man has lost a battle instead of
gaining it, " the English are not a military nation." If an
artist knows nothing of the human figure, and is afraid to
expose his ignorance by venturing the attempt, the poor
country has to bear the blame. In short, whatever has been
unsuccessfully attempted, or not attempted at all because of
failure or of cowardice, is attributed to the country, and never
to the follies or weaknesses of those who have tried and
failed. You wiU find plenty of young artists affirm with the utmost
enthusiasm that if the English went as naked as the Greeks ;
if every face had a Grecian nose; if our colour was brown
instead of rosy ; if our eyes were black instead of blue ; if the
sky was not so cloudy, and the winter not so cold ; if we were
all Eomanists, and the churches not so dark, they would have
succeeded as historical painters like other men ! Bless them !
And do they suppose that the man who does not make the
most of his actual situation, whatever the difficulties, will
make anything of any situation, whatever the facilities ?
It is a curious thing that the reformers of to-day (1818), the
sticklers for liberty in their own country, sophisticate to them
selves regarding liberty in another and neighbouring country.
While they execrate the allies for "forcing" Louis Dix-huit
" upon the French people," as they say, they forget they
displayed no sympathy for the French " people " whUe Na
poleon oppressed them. They forgot the abstract principle in
their admiration for the person that the principle produced.
When a man who had risen on the principle of liberty had
betrayed it for his own personal aims and ends as Napoleon
did, a real lover of liberty should afford to despise him, and
?2

308 TABLE TALK OF
could afford to despise him without weakening the principle
of liberty ; on the contrary, he would strengthen it*
The "splashers," "scrawlers," and "plasterers" are now
(1820) extinct in history, portrait, and low Ufe. To the honour
of the portrait painters, they have reformed their pernicious
practices. In landscape painting the above characters are yet
to be found; but if the young landscape painters will only
learn to paint, and persevere in painting in the air, to draw
the forms of their trees, to distinguish the character of their
weeds, to observe the shades of colour in foliage, to mass and
get detail, to be decided yet flowing in execution, to be con
vinced that light is not produced by whiteness but by contrast ;
that colour is not produced by rawness but tone, we shall live
to see in landscape painting what we have seen in portrait and
history, and British art will rest On a basis from whence a
pillar may tower into the air without danger of falling.
How strange it is that the very people who help to make a
man celebrated by talking of his name, which they cannot
avoid, revenge themselves by attaching everything to it that
can lower and bring him down to their own inferior level !
How does he feel the wretched weight of mortality who
strains to bring before his inward eye the cloudless faces of
blessed angels! to dive into the regions of perpetual Hght
where darkness is not, but an eternal brightness to which the
light of our sun would lack lustre and be dim ! How does he
feel the miserable incompetency of human imagination who
struggles to see that face in which aU that is visible of the
Deity is reflected! Pure, serene and lovely; sublime in its
beauty, compassionate in its grandeur, quivering with sensi
bility, terrible in its composure.
I have begun the Divine head of Christ. I shaU do it. It
comes over me so that I shake from head to foot. He appears
* The arbitrary transfer, in 1815, of the free people of Norway from Denmark
to Sweden, to which England gave her consent without sympathy or regret, and
that after fighting for seven years in the Peninsula to enable the Spaniards
to resist their transfer to Napoleon by their own king, is another dark instance
of how little we trouble ourselves about consistency, and how easily we accept
the excuses of bad faith from a powerful minister. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 3°9
to me moving on to accomplish His destiny. What is triumph
to Him ? He sees through all to the cross. He knows His
fate, His end, His object. He moves to it like a comet in its
course ; not smiling, not showing the enthusiasm of others, but
bearing it like a Superior Being — abstracted, inspired, lifted.
Oh what a glorious character to paint ! I could pass my life in
painting every incident of His Divine career.
After all, how sound is Eaphael's taste ! Admire Bubens,
now assuming the airs of a brawny slaughterman, then of fat
Dutch women in silks and satins ; then look at Michel Angelo,
tumbling head over heels, and taking delight to point his toe
at your eye, and make you wonder where his head is ; and then
go to Baphael, moving along in the same sweet unaffected
quiet, never putting on any airs to attract attention, not
shrinking from admiration, but not seeking it, delicate, sound,
sensible and true.
Though love is such an eternal passion, there is no passion
less sympathised with by others who are free from its in
fluence. Winks, nods, laughter generally precede the dis
covery; and every man chuckles to himself at his superior
sagacity in keeping free.
Went (May 11, 1818) to see the bronze statue of Monte
Cavallo casting for " the ladies of England," to be put up in
remembrance of Lord Wellington. It will be made from the
French guns taken at Waterloo, many of which were lying
about, 12 and 9-pounders, uncast. On returning home I found
Lord Mulgrave in my painting-room. I mentioned the thing
to him, he told me it was his doing, and he felt convinced
that he should not be " impeached for misapplication of public
stores."* My own opinion is that the 'Memorial of St. Helena' is
dictated by Buonaparte himself. There are developments of
secret feeUngs at every new sensation from the novelty of
* Haydon does not intend here to express his opinion of the statue, which he
always laughed at, unless in saying " I mentioned ' the thing ' to him," he means
to express his contempt for the absurdity perpetrated. It would have been
fortunate for our credit as a people of good taste in art, if not for Lord Mul
grave, that he had been at least compelled to recast the statue into guns, or
complete the group from out of which the Achilles is stolen. — Ed.

3io TABLE TALK OF
a thing first felt, that could only have come from the man
himself, or have been laid open by Shakespeare. The influence
his first little success had in fixing his mind to war is a touch
of nature known only to those who, eager for some pursuit in
life and blessed with capacity, make an attempt to try their
forte, and, success attending it, the mind bends instantly to
greater efforts in the same road, hoping for more success from
greater exertions as some success has followed the little effort.
Buonaparte's little affair at Mont Geneve was the result of
true genius acting on any materials. " D'apres cela," says he,
" je me sentis beaucoup d'attrait pour un metier qui me reus-
sissait bien." This genius has always an end. It does not
follow that all its actions are begun solely with this end in
view : many things are the result of chance, many of its con
nections. Views are always attributed to men of genius, when
once their genius is established, from the same short-sighted
ignorance which denies them the possession of any views when
they begin life, because they exhibit a difference from the rest of
mankind, or because they see further than the inteUect of their
age. " General sans emploi, je fus a Paris. Je m'attachai a
Barras, parce que je ne connaissais que lui. Eobespierre etait
mort. Barras jouait un role. II fallait bien m'attacher a
quelqu'un, et a quelque chose." This is frank and true.
Though profound in his genius, a man of genius does not
always act from profound intentions, but from attachments,
habit, chance, like all other men. A man of genius always
imagines at the beginning of life every man as capable as him
self ; he does not know that he differs from men till he finds
men differ from him. When he conceives any plan, he is on
the rack tiU it be executed, for fear of anticipation. " Je me
hatais de le presenter," says Napoleon, speaking of his plan for
attacking the Austrians in Italy, "de peur d'etre prevenu."
In those days, when he beat the Austrians, an officer came to
demand peace: " Je me regardais alors pour la premiere fois,
non comme un simple General, mais comme un homme appele
a influer sur le sort des peuples. Je me vis a I'histoire." How
like this is to the feelings of a youth in a situation Jie was not
born to ! " Cette paix changeait mon plan. II ne se bornait
plus a faire la guerre en Italie, mais a la conquerir." See
the gradual enlargement of plan as circumstances occurred, the
secret history of brilliant consequences. Does it not show

B. R. HAYDON. 3"
how brilliant consequences are brought about by common
events only being seized by a superior capacity ? Napoleon's
first ambition was to be a colonel of artillery, and he had no
idea beyond it. " Un Colonel de l'artillerie me paraissait le
ne plus ultra de la grandeur humaine." Then accident threw
him into a little affair of posts where there was material for
his capacity, and it acted directly. He then began to think if
with twelve men he could do so well and be made captain, with
more men he could do greater things. He went to Toulon :
here was a larger field, and his faculty acted again, for genius
will act with any material, large or small ; he again succeeded
and was again advanced. He went to Paris. He knew Barras,
leaned to his side, was given command of the troops, seized the
reserve artiUery and beat the sections, married Madame Beau
harnais, formed a plan to carry on the war in Italy, by Barras'
interest got command of the Italian army, beat the Austrians
till they begged for peace, and then his views again expanded.
He determined to conquer Italy ; he conquered Italy, and his
ambition then began to extend to the conquest of the world.
This gradual expansion of intention is very interesting, and
could only be explained by him to whom it happened. It is very
simple and true. Those who write the lives of men of genius
are always on the look-out to make mankind stare. Genius
is nothing more than our common faculties refined to a greater
intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing
things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials.
When a man of genius writes his own life he teUs the simpli
city of his means in the simplicity of his mind. It is the men
of no genius, the blockheads of the world, who, incapable of
doing anything by any means, think nothing can be done but
by supernatural assistance, that make a wonder of every event
when they relate the actions of great men above their feeble
comprehension. After all, this life is a strange mixture of candour and con
cealment. Observe how Napoleon excuses his crimes, but
never his political errors ! His insight into human character
is very deep. Nothing can be more interesting than the pro
gress of his mind from the fiery grandeur of youth, when mind
and body go hand-in-hand, and the fury of the one is seconded
by the vigour of the other through the ripeness of manhood to
the hesitations of settled maturity. When we have reached

312 TABLE TALK OF
the top we no longer look up, but down. The great object
then is to obstruct our inevitable declension to the grave.
Daring conduct, regardless of chances, may hasten but never
check our fatal progress. Buonaparte feeling the reflection of
public opinion as to his infallibility operate on his own tempe
rament after the battle of Pultusk, his feeling a want of con
fidence in himself he did not know why, his melancholy at his
" abatardissement " after Leipsic, his own indecision from
bodily fatigue, that of his officers having palaces to love, his
last struggle in the campaign of Mont Mirail, his rushing from
Elba with an appearance of the fire of youth, and his blank
collapse after Waterloo, proving it only to be the smoke of
former fires, are feelings exquisitely natural, and could only be
known to the breast that had contained them.
There was a time, and I remember it, when Buonaparte was
regarded as a supernatural being, whose life was so extra
ordinary that his death was expected to be miraculous. But
this little book shows him to have been a man liable, like our
selves, to the influence of events and of diseases, to weaknesses
of mind and debilities of body.
I rub my eyes to be convinced which is the dream, his
personal situation or his past glory ? And then I feel disposed
to doubt if either be true. Beading the thoughts of this great
actor, and remembering the time at wliich these thoughts must
have been thinking upon the great events they relate to, is a
pleasure that those only of his time can ever enjoy. It is
extraordinary his never mentioning Wellington ; but did he
not know that by leaving him out he shows he remembered
him, for who could forget him but by intention ?*
With regard to his political conduct I have not much to do ;
my interest in him is as a human character. That he abused the
confidence placed in him by the French nation, that he betrayed
the cause by which he rose, that he belied the good opinion the
world had formed of him and forced their willing admiration
into horror, that he furiously gave vent to wanton caprices
and pushed Europe to arms in defence of its national existence,
must be palpable to all and cannot be denied. For however
* In the ' Diary of a Lady of Quality,' it is recorded by Miss Wynne, of Captain
Sweeny, of the Marines, on board H.M.S. ' Northumberland,' that he told her during
the voyage to St. Helena, Napoleon frequently spoke of WelUngton, and always
in the handsomest manner, and never attributed his own defeat by Wellington
at Waterloo, to chance. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON 313
natural it , might be for the legitimate sovereigns to hate him,
they would have been content to let him reign unmolested
from apprehension of his genius for war, if he had only
suffered them to be at peace and had not roused them to prefer
the risk of their crowns to the inflictions peaceful acquiescence
entailed on their people.
Oh! that such a cause as the cause of talent should have
faUen into French hands; a nation vain, thoughtless, and
futile, with such an unprincipled genius as Buonaparte at its
head. He was a genius for war. This is a sufficient answer
to all assertions about his pacific intentions. " Avec de tels
soldats," he says, " quel est le General qui n'aimerait pas la
guerre ? Je l'aime, je l'avoue." Genius by its nature can
only delight in the gratification of its propensities ; hence to
such a mind peace could never be an object of pleasure, but of
convenience or of necessity, and never was peace granted or
demanded for any other purpose by Buonaparte.
The great weakness in the nobility is that when any of its
members become ministers they affect seclusion from the
outside world, and I will add, an ignorant undervaluing of
the press. I have noticed many instances of this. They seem
to think that because ex officio they have- become acquainted
with the secrets of Government and the facts of office, igno
rance of such matters — -which have nothing to do with any
great principle — involves ignorance of all that is worth
knowing. This is a pernicious weakness, and occasionally
leads to great embarrassments. A prime minister should root
out all such infectious folly from his cabinet.
Those who affirm that the character of the English people
is changed, mistake a temporary exasperation from irritating
treatment for an inherent change of character from change of
circumstance. The character of the English people is not
changed. They are now (1829) the same great, loyal, brave,
pious, and moral people as ever ; and had we an Alfred on the
throne who felt for their wants, and had the power and tact
to conciliate their tempers by anticipating their wishes in
princely style, there would be no violence to complain of.
What has happened is very simple. The ministers have
broken faith with the people, and England has no love for
breaches of faith.

314 TABLE TALK OF
For twenty years the people of England had consented to
postpone aU question of ParUamentary reform and pubUc
grievance until the struggle with Napoleon was fought out.
For twenty years they had spilt their blood freely, they had
paid the heaviest taxes, they had paid the allied armies, and
they had suffered great misery under the Berlin Decrees
without a murmur, and they had earned the right to have
their grievances removed.
But how did the Lord Liverpool's administration mpet their
humble petition ? Did Lord Castlereagh say, " You are a noble
nation. You have fought a hard battle. You have freely sup
ported your Government through a great crisis. We wiU investi
gate your complaints; we will lessen your taxes, and try to
remove the imperfections which time brings upon all consti
tutions, and we wiU do you justice." Nothing of the kind.
He, and his coUeagues said with him : " You are a seditious
people. Your character is changed. You show an ignorant
impatience of taxation.* You are corrupted by the press : we
will neither grant, nor listen to, nor read your complaints ; but
we wiU suspend your charter, we wiU fetter your press, and we
will imprison your leaders." And he did so. Having done so,
he attributes the exasperation of the people to a change in
their character. It was the natural irritation of the same
character excited by the violence and imbeciUty of the
ministerial measures.
No man who remembers the conduct of the people of England
on the death of the Princess Charlotte can affirm that their
character is changed. No, no ; the character of the people of
England never changes. It was the character of their ministers
that was changed. Continental intercourse in consequence of
the apprehension of Napoleon had, in effect, proved exceedingly
pernicious so far as weakening that respect for Uberty and
freedom of discussion in which all British ministers are edu
cated. I would not affirm their repressive conduct since the
Peace of 1815 to have proceeded from the direct influence of
foreign Sovereigns; but I have reason to believe that there
was a great deal of coquetting at Vienna with the freedom
of our laws and the Uberty of our press, particularly when
M. Gentz was of the party. And I know human nature too
* I forget when Sir Eobert Peel used this famous phrase, but it was not so
early as this paragraph, 1829. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 315
well to hesitate at affirming that Lord Castlereagh's tendency
to curb and coerce the EngUsh people to relinquish reform was
increased by his personal intercourse with foreign Sovereigns.*
" This is the moral of all human tales :
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past :
First freedom, and then glory; when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last."
Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Phillips told me on the morning
after Lord Castlereagh had taken credit to himself in the House
for not appointing a Press Censor, that, but for the opposition
threatened, it would " certainly have been done." I believe it.
* It may be doubted whether, the blame was so entirely Lord Castlereagh's as
is here represented. With the exception of Canning, who joined the Cabinet on
his return from Lisbon, 1816-17, and of Lord Castlereagh, the Leader Jof the
Commons, Lord Liverpool's Cabinet was not remarkable for statesmanship. But
Canning was a host in himself. Yet, as President of their India Board, he sup
ported all the arbitrary measures of the Government ; and instead of showing the
real numbers and contemptible weakness of the discontented, talked of " the
trumpet of rebellion " and " the torch of the incendiary," as if he really believed
in either ; and urged the suspension of Habeas Corpus, as if not only the British
constitution but the whole framework of society was about to be subverted by
250 pikeheads, as many more blockheads, and a handful of placards ! To add to
the perplexity of the country, the Government, in 1819, proposed and carried an
Alien and a Foreign Enlistment Bill, with six other coercion Bills of one kind
and another, declaring the mind of the people to be " diseased." It must have
been, as Collier said of Congreve, " a very bad disease to be worse than the
remedy." All these repressive measures, all this " un-English policy," as Sir
Henry Bulwer calls it, did Canning support by the most eloquent and plausible
speeches, tinged with an exaggeration of phrase and epithet that, in the light of
subsequent events, and his known jealousy of his Leader, Lord Castlereagh,
almost bears the appearance of design. If he was sincere, clearly he was no
wiser than the rest of the Cabinet. If he was not sincere — and it is difficult to
believe so clear-sighted a man really entertained the exaggerated views he then
put forth — the defence becomes a grave accusation. But be that as it may,
posterity has placed Canning as » statesman far above Lord Castlereagh, Lord
Eldon, the Duke of Wellington, or Sir Eobert Peel, yet his conduct in sup
porting these coercion Bills can scarcely be said to merit this elevation. Possibly
they were not men of his enlarged genius in politics. They showed more than
once that they had no confidence in the people of England. They dreaded
every measure which should give a just authority to the people, through appre
hension engendered by the French Eevolution, where the people had laid violent
hands upon all authority. But Canning, between 1817 and 1820, showed no
greater power to grasp the lesson the French Eevolution taught, viz., that the
only way to prevent such subversion is not by making adversaries of the people,
but by timely removal of their grievances, and liberal concession to their just
demands. Hence as his weight and authority in the country, if not in the
House, was the greater, so much the heavier should be his share of blame for
the events of 1817-1820.
In a subsequent conversation (1834) with Lord Althorp, my father asked : " Do
you think Canning would have stopped Eeform ? " " No," said Lord Althorp,
" he might have postponed it. He could not have stopped it." But why should
he have tried ? It almost seems a peculiarity of the profession of politics, that
men in practice, that is in power, rarely succeed in keeping abreast of their age.
If they did, possibly there would be fewer revolutions of the people. — Ed.

316 TABLE TALK OF
I was a good deal at that time amongst the official world, and
it was curious to study the airs these men gave themselves : one
suggesting the abolition of this or that privilege; another
proposing some new restriction, and all talking of the " canaille."
" Pour la canaille il faut la mitraille." That was their tone.
It would have been amusing to hear if it did not go far to
prove how very readily measures which tend to restrain liberty
will always be supported by those who have comparatively lost
their own.*
Ought not one who finds nothing in this world with which
he can sympathise, to abstract himself from it, and by being an
example in conduct and morals, do his best to influence the
world to alter them ?t To abominate his birth, and his Maker
for bringing him into the world, and then to join in the indul
gence of aU the vices and crimes wliich gave him an excuse
for his dissatisfaction with the world, is the greatest possible
error. The true course is first to abstain from aU the vices
with which you are disgusted, and then lean for help upon Him
who is ever listening for entreaty, and ever ready to quiet the
doubts of those who ask with a candid and a pure heart. You
will then find that by degrees you will be more inclined to
charity than contempt for the weaknesses of your feUow-men,
and you will look forward with confidence to an ultimate
clearing-up of all your apprehensions.
I was immensely struck, when I went over Blenheim, by
the disproportions of national reward to public service. What
wealth, what splendour, what magnificence is there, the reward
* In all these struggles between the People and the Court and Parliament at
-this time, one is reminded of the good old lines by George Wither : —
" Let not your King and Parliament in one,
Much less apart, mistake themselves for that
Which is most worthy to be thought upon ;
Nor think they are, essentially, The State.
Let them not fancy that the authority
And privileges upon them bestown,
Conferred, are to set up a Majesty,
A Power, a glory of their own !
But let them know 'twas for a deeper life,
Which they but represent,
That there's on earth a yet auguster thing,
Veiled though it be, than Parliament or King." — Ed.
t But if a man " abstracts " himself from the world he loses the direct influence
he might have upon it by the force of his example. The whole paragraph appears
to refer to Byron. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 317
of successful campaigns ! But the moment I entered the House
and saw the glories of Bubens, John Duke of Marlborough, and
all his battles and sieges, wealth and honour vanished from my
mind. A little demon whispered, " Which would you rather
be, Bubens or Marlborough ?" Bubens, a million times, and
Baphael ten million times ; but I should have no objection to
a column, with a palace and a park in addition. The nation
certainly behaved to Marlborough with magnificent gratitude
and liberality, and one is proud to belong to a people that can
so reward those who serve them faithfully*
Undue preference seems to be given in this world to great
generals. No pillar is erected to record the glories of Shake
speare, no palace built for his descendants, no relatives ennobled
by patent. No, the world are not adequate judges of such
powers ; they come not within their gross apprehension. But
to be sure the fame of generals is like the fame of actors. It
is not palpable to posterity, while poets and painters identify
themselves with all ages.t
* The nation certainly behaved superbly to its favourite General. But even
Blenheim was not without its reverse. The poorest man of art, science, or lite
rature might well hesitate to accept the gift, and to prefer his obscurity, if he
were told beforehand that the Treasury would dole out its payments so irregularly
that he would be compelled to take the building on his own hands, become
involved in harassing lawsuits with architect and workmen, and when stricken
with paralysis and reduced to second childhood, that his servants would exhibit
him as a "sight" to country visitors, at 5s. a head. All this and much more
happened to the Great General of his age, from this plethora of honour and
reward. — Ed.
t This involves a great question. The chances of war will never wholly cease,
and we must pay well those we employ to fight for us, and take care of them, for
if we do not, no one will fight for us at all. War will exist not because men like
to kill each other, but because the world chooses to admire and reward those who
have the courage to risk killing and being killed. The claims of art, science,
and literature to some recognition of long service are beginning to be admitted
by the State, now that the patronage of individuals has passed out. In time,
perhaps, the present anomaly which reserves the monopoly of the highest honours
for the successful commander may be broken down. Many a man of science and
art risks, and often sacrifices his life in peaceful pursuits, which as surely add to
the stock of a nation's thoughts and weal th'as the victories of the greatest general
in the field with the heaviest " butchers' bill." And just as the one may save
the nation from a great calamity, by winning his battle, so may the other raise
the nation to the highest prosperity by his researches and experiments. Yet he
never receives the thanks of Parliament ; must at least have outlived the three
score years and ten of the Psalmist before his Sovereign honours him with notice
or promotion, and, if he has not known how to keep the little money he may have
made, may think himself exceedingly lucky if he does not die in debt. If he is
so unlucky he may feel quite sure Parliament will not pay his debts out of
respect to his public services. War has always commanded the monopoly of
honour and reward in England. The same nation which lavishly bestows a
Blenheim upon a Churchill, and a Strathfieldsaye upon a WeUesley, believes

318 TABLE TALK OF
There are two things which press upon one's mind from their
merciless and irrecoverable nature, viz., the growing of children
and the passing of time. If children would but remain for ten
years smiling cherubs, what delights they would be! And
when once you have got possessed of the passing of time,
nothing is such a stimulus or such an eternal haunter of con
science. For my part I have got such a habit of thinking of
this, that resting a moment makes me start up as if I heard
time's eternal waterfall tumbling into the gulf below.* I bustle
myself with action to get rid of the roar. '
What a fortune is a mind ! What a gift, what a blessing !
If motive is everything, virtue may be punished for the sake
of motive, and vice pardoned for the same cause.
How little of life is passed in intercourse ; how much is
occupied in meditation, in business, in anxiety, in dissipation,
in self-reproach ! First there are the diseases of infancy and
the cares of education ; then the anxiety of love, and the tur
moil of marriage ; then we take cold, die, are cried over, for
gotten, and leave our children to run the same gauntlet of
perpetual effort.
My influence upon English Art has certainly been radical.
Edwin Landseer dissected animals under my eye, copied my
anatomical drawings, and carried my principles of study into
animal painting. His genius, thus tutored, has produced solid
and satisfactory results. Bewick and the Landseers wiU always
do good things, and I can perceive at last a willingness to
concede the point as to the soundness of my methods. The
irritabiUty I occasioned is, I think, wearing away, and I think
itself to have crowned Newton by making him Master of the Mint, to have fully
rewarded Vandyke, Eeynolds, and Davy by a Knighthood or a Baronetcy, and
considers Burns much beholden to them for having turned him into an excise
man. Mr. Gladstone was the first Minister to break through the snowy reserve in
which precedent had iced the Fountain of Honour ; and Mr. Disraeli, we may be
certain, will take as broad a view by " levelling up " in his distribution of the
honours of the Crown. Assuredly he has no lack of space to establish an
equilibrium. — Ed.
* Eichter at a later date has this simile. Carlyle remarks upon it as being
one of the grandest he ever read. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 319
by letting it wear away, all parties will be more inclined to do
justice to my next picture than they were to my last.
My ambition was to do great things before I was thirty, and
I did them ; but in thus not yielding to the earnest desire of
my early friend, Lord Mulgrave, I sacrificed myself and all my
early and happy connections. They ought to have done justice
to my ambition and have overlooked my opposition to their
wishes for the sake of the object, the advancement of High Art
in England. But no, their pride was offended, and I was never
forgiven.* Lord Mulgrave made two attempts — for he always
liked and defended me — to renew our old intimacy, but we
did not do together again. He could not help saying some
thing or other in allusion to my rebellion, which I could not
brook, and so we gradually parted, though we never forgot each
other. When I was ruined in 1823, he showed his affectionate
feeling towards me by at once sending me substantial aid,
covered by words of the kindest condolence.
After the Copenhagen expedition, of which he had the almost
entire preparation, the Opposition were very troublesome on
the subject, and one of Lord Mulgrave's friends said to Erskine,
" Why, how you bore us about this business !" " Why," said
Erskine, " we have nothing else at present to bore you about.
What would you have us do ?"
I must frankly own I think our modern poets — always ex
cepting Walter Scott — are unhealthy beings. Poor old Haz
litt, with his fine candour, his consciousness of never shaving
and of a soiled shirt, his frank avowal of his vices and follies,
his anti-Bourbon thoroughbred hatred, his Napoleon adhesive
ness, his paradoxical puttings forth at so much a sheet, his
believing himself the fine, metaphysical, caustic philosopher,
going about like Diogenes with a lantern impaling aU his
acquaintances, while he is the most impaled of the whole, is
worth ten thousand poets, and has more real virtue too.
* What vexed Lord Mulgrave most was the publication of the letter on the
Elgin Marbles in 1816 (see ante), at the very moment when, whether with or
without Haydon's knowledge there is no evidence, Lord Mulgrave was engaged
in persuading his brother directors of the British Institution to send Haydon to
Italy for three years with a handsome income. After the publication of the letter,
his well-intended labour was lost, and the scheme fell through. But the Marbles
were saved to England, instead of going to Bavaria. — Ed.

320 TABLE TALK OF
Painters have but one moment. Never consider that if your
figure moves he will not be so, but so, for he will never move.
People have nothing to do with what it would be, but with
what it is.
Perhaps there is no expression in any poet that creates a
subUme feeling so intensely as the " Va sublime " of Tasso.
Homer's airkpova jatav avntrvoir]^ avifioto, and Milton's ' Sails
between worlds and worlds with steady wing,' do not create such
a calm, sedate, consciousness of power, such a conviction of
superiority, such an indolent relinquishment without fear of
falling as Tasso. You see him drive on in one even direct line
from his kingly state inclining not, gradually diminishing his
glorious splendour, its beaming effulgence, melting this bright
ness, and your eye lessens tiU it becomes a point, and then
dissolves into space, leaving you wondering at the glorious
apparition that has passed.
In every sense Belzoni * was a grand fellow. He suffered in
his progress as aU suffer who dash at once upon great under
takings which thousands have feared to touch. The attempt
alone is an insult to the understanding of aU those who have
never attempted, and would never attempt such a bold attack.
When a great undertaking is unexpectedly accomplished it is
always " opportunity " and " luck." When it was undertaken
it was insanity. The world first endeavours to hinder a man
from aU attempts beyond the ordinary course by asserting the
impossibility of success, and when he proves them to be in
error, they charitably attribute his success to " happy chance,"
to anything in short but a combined action of his own under
standing and will.
The seeds of the separation of America from England were
sown in the first settlements of the English at Virginia and
Massachusetts. The settlers were the discontented, the re
formers of religion and politics, men who as they gained
strength would be sure to assert their independence.!
* Belzoni died after his return to Africa, in 1823. — Ed.
t Not in Virginia, which was settled by loyal colonists in Elizabeth's reign,
but in the northern settlements of the Puritans at New Plymouth, in 1620. It is
true they carried with them their independent principles, for which they had
suffered such cruel persecution in England, but it is equally true that, as soon as

B. R. HAYDON. 321
In everything that Burke wrote, spoke, or did, there was, to
my mind, always a certain want of good taste. In the midst
of the most sublime passages he suddenly disgusts you by the
grossest similes .* I have heard Lord Mulgrave say that on
the night of the dagger scene in the House, at which he was
present, when the whole House was affected with horror and
awe, Burke left his seat and walking to where the dagger he
had thrown down was lying on the floor, he picked it up
leisurely, wrapped it in brown paper, and put it into his
pocket. One of the most difficult things in the world is to move the
English people. But once roused, God protect their opposers !
They are the most determined and pugnacious race on earth,
but, like fighting men who know their strength, they are
they grew prosperous, the chief use they made of their " principles " was to
resolve not to tolerate opinion, and they exercised against all other sects the
same intolerance they had fled from themselves, and virtuously turned persecutors
to silence contradiction. A certain degree of scepticism almost seems necessary
to toleration.But it is a difficult point to decide who or what sowed the seeds of colonial
revolt. Most historians lay the loss of our North American Colonies upon Mr.
Grenville and his Stamp Act. But long before Mr. Grenville,. the younger Sir
Harry Vane had emigrated to New England, had become elected their Governor,
and had raised so many conscientious scruples on this and that point of practice,
that he turned the colony into a caldron of unintelligible fanaticism, and then
came home to devote himself to the overthrow of the British monarchy. Such a
man sows many thorns and thistles in a young colony. But if Sir Harry Vane
sowed the seeds, Lord Bute, and not Mr. Grenville must, I think, be credited
with bringing them up. I doubt very much, with all due respect for Macaulay
and other historians, whether the Stamp Act was really Mr. Grenville's Act. It
is more probable that it was a legacy left to Mr. Grenville by Lord Bute, just as
the repeal of the Corn Laws, in 1846, was a legacy left to Sir Eobert Peel by
Lord Melbourne, in 1841. Lord Bute had great designs upon the "patronage"
Of the colonies, and although he retired from office before he could carry out his
designs, his influence with the King was none tlie less. Full proofs of this will
be found in the ' Shelburne Papers.' How else are we to explain Lord Eock-
ingham, on repealing the Stamp Act, supporting a Bill to quarter the troops in
America in the private houses of the colonists? It was part of a settled design
to subjugate the colonies, and get hold of the patronage. Moreover, as regards
the Stamp Act, Lord Liverpool (15th May, 1777) expressly denied that the Act
was Mr. Grenville's. In the 'Parliamentary History' (vol. ix. p. 267) for that
year it is recorded that in the course of his speech " Mr. Jenkinson reprobated
in the strongest terms tlie ' Tea Act ' He condemned the whole measure as
impolitic, as futile, childish, and paltry. Then, turning to the Stamp Act, he
said that measure was not Mr. Grenville's. If the Act was a good one, the merit
of it was not due to Mr. Grenville ; if it was a bad one, the errors or the ill policy
of it did not belong to him. The measure was not his." As Grenville was the
Prime Minister who proposed the Act, Lord Liverpool should have completed his
statement, and told us whose Act it was. — Ed.
* Eogers relates that Sheridan once said to him, a propos of Burke's speeches :
'' When posterity read the speeches they will hardly be able to believe that during
his lifetime Burke was not considered a first-rate speaker, nor even a second-rate
one." — Ed.
VOL. II. T

322 TABLE TALK OF
chary of using it on inferior objects. They will bear enor
mous pressure, and grunt and grumble, but bear and forbear
up to a certain point. Beyond that it is not wise to try
them.* Had Burke not accepted the Pension, his conduct would have
been considered an illustrious sacrifice of feeling to duty, or
had he only accepted it, in case of his own death, for his widow,
and never touched it himself, one might have overlooked it ;
but knowing, as I do, his embarrassments, and how greatly he
was relieved, one must half suspect. God knows ! A man who
felt so justly and was right -too soon, might act on conviction,
and it is cruel of any one now to take the severe side. But
Sheridan refused a place for his son. With all his irregu
larities Sheridan is clear in his public conduct. Then why did
Burke not keep himself clear ?
The finest touch of what may be called the delusion of
Don Quixote is this. He makes a pasteboard vizor, believing
it to be strong enough for the stroke of a giant. He fetches
it a blow that smashes it to pieces. Mortified, he fits it up
again, consoling himself that it is strong enough now, but, says
Cervantes, "he did not give it another blow to prove it."
This is a Shakespearian touch and worthy of him. This one
willing shirk of evidence, lest he might even convince himself
against his will, and unsettle his frenzy, contains the whole
history of his character, and is a deep, deep glance into human
weakness. A man who has a fixed purpose to which he devotes
his powers is invulnerable; nothing but sickness can afflict
him. Melancholy and misfortune, vice and indolence may
* Froissart says much the same of them in the fourteenth centur^ : "C'est le
plus perilleux peuple qui soit au monde, et le plus outrageux et orgueilleux."
But it was this " proud and outrageous " spirit which won for them their liberties
soon after the Conquest, and has maintained them ever since. It is a curious
problem. What a contrast Ireland exhibits to England in this respect ! I do not
know that Haydon's views about tbe people bearing " enormous pressure " will
hold, just now. His words were written some sixty years ago. Since then we
have made progrpss in the refinement of our sensibilities, and I question if
the "wages class" would now contentedly bear pressure. The rich, of course,
may be safely squeezed by any Minister, because it is their interest to support
authority, and so authority need care little about their grievances, which after all
are not very burdensome. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 323
surround and beat on him like the mischievous waves of the
sea upon a rock that juts out into its bosom, but like the waves,
they will yield, and splitting into harmless foam, roll sputter
ing into space.
It is strange that all the pilgrimages of painters to Borne
should never have produced a Michel Angelo or a Baphael !
There is a certain idle talking habit all our artists who go
to Italy get into, a certain neglect of all the decencies and
cleanlinesses of life, a certain systematic mannered nonsense
that a man disdains to suffer. Why should your chin be
unshaven, your linen soiled, your painting-room dirty ? Will
this make you conceive finely, execute with power, give
you fancy, judgment, taste, and feeling ? Alas, alas ! the
result of such habits is invariably vain, useless, trifling pro
ductions, and in a few years the man himself dwindles and
shrinks into that oblivion, the just reward of his indolence
and folly. '
Surely the character of Satan is a character of the greatest
human interest, for what could be more interesting than to
see such an awful human being ! Ambitious, heroic, failing in
a great attempt, too proud to submit, burning to be revenged,
yet longing to regain his glory if it could be obtained
by any means short of submission, yet stung by conscience
and lamenting his folly and wickedness with a bursting
heart. There is something interesting about the failure of
Satan. A curious instance of the truth of Shakespeare. An old
friend of my father's lately died from old age and sheer ex
haustion. One who was present, in relating to me the manner
of the old man's death, said, " Just before he died, with a quiet
and composed countenance he began playing with his fingers
on the sheets. Nothing could be finer than the way he went
out of the world."
In Henry V. Mrs. Quickly says of Falstaff : " No sure, I saw
him fumble with the sheets and play with the flowers, and smile
upon his fingers' ends. I knew there was but one way, for his
nose was as sharp as a pen and 'a babbled of green fields." *
* This " fumbling " with the sheets, as if picking up the threads, though
common to dying people, is often seen in cases where death is a long way off. I
T 2

324 TABLE TALK OF
" More money," says Payne Knight, " has been spent on art
in England than in any other country in Europe." What does
this prove? More English men have been spent in fruitless
expeditions since 1789 than would have conquered Europe. If
the results are unsatisfactory it "only shows the miserable
management of those who had control over the means.
There is one thing I see going on, that if I were a politician
by profession I should regard with no little apprehension. It
is that growing tendency to call upon the Government to
look after our own individual interests, instead of looking
after them ourselves. This passion for the control of the
Government, upon every possible occasion, must sooner or later
lead to great mischief. For, carried to its end, it will either
destroy our liberties, or weaken the hold authority and Govern
ment have upon our people. If you teach the people to look
to their Government for everything, they wiU soon become dis
contented with that Government if it fails in anything. The
importance of individual effort, and the bearing it has had
throughout our history upon our liberties ought never to be
forgotten. If it ever is, the liberties of the country wUl
soon be lost.
It is singular how success and the want of it operate on two
extraordinary men, Walter Scott and Wordsworth. Scott
enters a room and sits at a table with the coolness of conscious
fame ; Wordsworth with a mortified elevation of head, as if
fearful he was not estimated as he deserved. Scott is always
believe it to be purely nervous. The more curious feature is the " babbling of
green fields." I have heard this often repeated in cases of men of middle life
dying in a foreign land. It seems as if the mind ran back, without control, over
the records of old impressions. I have heard old seamen " babble of their child
hood " in their dying hours, as if it were an affair of yesterday, when nigh half-
a-century must have passed since they played about their mother's knee. And
the curious feature of it is. that they will talk the thoughts of that day, and not
of their later life. A. striking instance of this occurs to me. A Frenchman by
birth serving on board our ship — he had been in the Enghsh service for many
years — fell from aloft, injured himself severely, and died after a few days. He
was a great favourite with us all, and as his anxiety seemed about his mother at
Lyons, we got up a handsome subscription for her, and soothed his mind. He
seemed grateful and resigned. The next night he died. It was my watch, and
I was called forward; his cot was slung under the forecastle. He "babbled"
much about his mother, and the green fields, and the river banks. Suddenly he
sprang up, " Je m'etouffe, ma mere, je m'etouffe, et mourir, mou-rir, parmi ces
cochons Anglais," and he died. These were the early opinions he had heard
the Lyons people express of their neighbours over the sea. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 325
cool and very amusing. Wordsworth, often egotistical and
overwhelming. Scott can afford to talk of trifles because he
knows the world will think him a great man who condescends
to trifle. Wordsworth must always be eloquent and profound,
because he knows that he is considered childish and puerile.
Scott seems to wish to appear less than he really is, while
Wordsworth struggles to be thought, at the moment, greater
than he is suspected to be. This is natural. Scott's disposi
tion is the effect of success operating on a genial temperament,
while Wordsworth's evidently arises from the effect of unjust
ridicule wounding an intense self-esteem. I think Scott's
success would have made Wordsworth insufferable, while
Wordsworth's failures would not have rendered Scott one whit
less delightful.
Scott is the companion of nature in all her freaks and
feelings, while Wordsworth follows her like an apostle, sharing
her solemn moods and impressions.
Two of the finest sayings I got from two models. One, an
old woman, on my talking of the difficulties of life, said, " The
greater the trouble, the greater the lion, that's my principle."
The other, another old woman, said, " It is better to bear the
difficulties than the reproaches of this world."
The lowest of the old painters had a mode of working their
tints which I verily believe is lost to the world. We equal
and excel them in thinking, propriety, and true taste, but as
for handling the brush — since Vandyke there has been no man
who knew anything about it. There was a solidity, a body, a
fleshy softness, a skilful purity which is gone from the art.
There is not a man now living (1823) who can paint a half-
tint. Tom Moore at dinner tells his stories with a hit or miss
air, as if accustomed to people of rapid apprehension. It
being asked at Paris whom they would have as godfather
for Bothschild's baby, " Talleyrand," said a Frenchman.
" Pourquoi, Monsieur ? " " Parce qu'il est le moins chretien
possible." ' Tom Jones ' is a delightful novel ; it lets you into all the

326 TABLE TALK OF
little follies and amiable weaknesses of nature ; it shows you
that the most virtuous, the most pure and innocent woman
may have little imperfections, little vanities, in fact, perfectly
national feelings, without corrupting her heart. ' Tom Jones '
sends you into the world prepared for it and renders you more
satisfied with Human Nature. ' Tom Jones ' points to you that
salvation may be attained by abstaining in time ; ' Clarissa
Harlowe,' that destruction must ensue by persisting. Bichard-
son always separates virtue from vice, and renders vice con
temptible by associating it with contemptible qualities.
Fielding mingles both, and undoubtedly reconciles us more
easily to vice by showing us that many undoubtedly fine
qualities may be mixed with it. You relinquish Fielding
with hope, but Bichardson leaves you in a gloomy agita
tion. Fielding painted men as they are, Bichardson as they
ought to be. The characters of Fielding are the result of
observation, those of Bichardson of imagination and observa
tion. Fielding is the Hogarth of novelists and something
higher. Bichardson may be caUed the Baphael of domestic
life. Women make every allowance with the greatest generosity
and unbounded benevolence for the imperfections and failings,
and even vices of men, but they severely judge and cruelly
censure weakness in their own sex*
Industry, Temperance, and Piety are the only means of present
enjoyment, and the only true sources of future happiness.
We are certain of nothing but the human feelings which
have always been • the same from the age of Homer to the
present hour, Systems of philosophy, systems of metaphysics
must be continually changing, but the feelings of the heart
and the principles of human action never vary. Homer will
outlive the metaphysicians.
Turenne used to say he never spent his time in regretting
any mistake which he had made, but set himself instantly and
vigorously to repair it.
* Bayle says that women are always " the first and most famous in defaming
their own sex." Men are not far behind them on their side. — Ed. .

3. R. HA YDON. 327
People of no practice sit still and refine themselves into
impossible beings.
When the ' Bacchus and Ariadne ' was bought for the
National Gallery, Hume first doubted the originality of the
picture, and then said that if something was not done to put
a stop to it there would "just be no end to this nautionall
extrauvagance." Fathers and brothers, and mothers, too, should be careful
how, from mistaken motives, they interfere too roughly with a
lover who is the girl's choice, though not sufficiently rich to
please them. I know girls whose happiness, health, and pro
spects in life have been utterly ruined and destroyed by such
interference of officious authority.
At Lord Stafford's, one evening (24th May, 1826), I met
Moore and Bogers, and overheard Sogers say, " I am inclined
to believe it because it gives one pain," by no means a certain
criterion, for if everything's to be believed because it gives one
pain, all calumnies must be true on this principle. Hazlitt
was there, and as he saw Moore, he came up and whispered, " I
hope he won't challenge me." This was quite a characteristic
touch. I have no doubt in meeting anybody he has attacked
Hazlitt's predominant feeling is personal fear.
After all, what is Fame ? I was talking to a very respect
able man to-day (3rd May, 1824) about colours. Said I, " Sir
Humphry Davy tried experiments on the colours of the an
cients — you know Sir Humphry Davy ?" " I can't say," he re
plied, " that I ever heard his name before." And this man had
lived in town for fifty years, and had read the newspapers daily !
Byron is dead ! I felt deeply at reading the news. Moore
said the other day, when I met him (29th March, 1824), that
in a letter from Byron to him (Moore), Byron said, " I shall
fight, and if I get killed do justice to a Brother Scribbler."*
When John Scott (Editor of the 'Champion'), who had
attacked Byron in the ' Champion,' was at Venice, Byron sent
to him, and Scott went and passed several days with Byron.
* See ante, Vol. II. p. 84.

328 TABLE TALK OF
The secret explanation of John Scott's disgraceful attack
upon Byron in the ' Champion ' (Scott's newspaper) is simply
private spite. Scott met Byron at Hunt's table when Hunt
was in prison, and Byron took no notice of Scott. When
Byron, after his separation, wrote his ' Farewell ' for private
circulation, Scott called on Brougham by chance. Brougham
had one, he gave it to Scott, and Scott published it the Sunday
foUowing. This was highly dishonourable. Scott had called
upon me on his return from Brougham, and showed me the
' Farewell,' and told me his intention of printing it, which I
disapproved. This is the private history of all that noise
which took place at Byron's separation. The ' Champion ' was
the first paper that had the ' Farewell,' and the attack on it
became public instantly. After this, Moore breakfasted with
Scott, and-I heard Bogers say to Sir Walter Scott that he was
very angry with Moore for doing so.
When Scott returned from Italy, he one night read his
journal (his wife, I believe, has since burnt it), and it contained
several things about Byron which made an impression on me.
One evening, as Byron was taking Scott, in his gondola, to a
party, he placed his hand on his knee and said, " You have
been unlucky, so has every one who has attacked me; but
now we are friends you wiU be fortunate in life."*
On another occasion Byron said, " I have a great mind to
believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may
be damned."
He told Scott that after his separation from Lady Byron, he
went to a rout and was regularly cut by all the women of
fashion. As he leaned against the mantelpiece, and they were
sweeping by, a little red-haired, bright-eyed coquette came
flirting up to him, and with a look that was exquisitely
insolent, said, " You had better have married me. I would
have managed you better."
Byron's great weakness seemed to Scott to be the belief that
every woman was mad after him, and with an affected con
tempt as if he seemed to despise it, he coquetted about you
till you seemed to believe it, and then he was pleased.
He talked with great complacency of Marie Louise enquiring
which was his box at the opera, and affected to disregard it.
* This was scarcely verified, Scott losing his only child shortly after, and
shortly after that was himself shot in a duel with Mr. Christie. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 329
The day I dined with Miss Baillie at Hampstead, with
Wilkie, Miss Baillie told me that Lord Byron had told her
on the very morning he and Miss Milbanke were married and
were driving home through the grounds, and all the tenants
and peasantry were cheering, Byron said to her, " What could
induce you to marry me ?" " Good heavens !" said Lady Byron,
" because I loved you." " No," said he, " you have a spice of
Mother Eve, you married me because your friends wished you
not to do so. "You refused me twice and I wiU be revenged."
He hated to see women eat. I have been told many things
on this point, which I cannot assert as truth, but which are
probable. It is interesting to put down these few things a contem
porary remembers. He begged Shelley not to talk of Hell or
ghosts after dark — it made him " uneasy."
A woman in love with Byron at a masquerade rushed over
and pulled the mask off the face of another who was walking
with him. Byron talked of this as so shocking, that if not
resented there could be no security. He talked as if a great
moral principle had been violated. Scott said he was highly
amused at the importance Byron attached to this.
Mrs. Opie told me, while breakfasting with her at Norwich,
that Byron's voice was the most exquisite of any mortal's she
ever heard ; that it was so sweet, whenever he spoke it startled
her " as if the Devil was speaking with intent to beguile " her.
" He gave one the idea," said she, " as if it was such a voice
as had deceived Eve." The last time she saw him was at a
rout. She was sitting on a couch with him, when Lady
Caroline Lamb, who was making herself very ridiculous at the
time, came over and placed herself between them. As Mrs.
Opie did not care to be third in the conversation, she rose and
left them ; and she never saw him after.
With all his faults, Byron was a fine creature. Moore said
that the " people of fashion " laughed at his going to Greece,
as if the " people of fashion " were capable of appreciating the
motives that influenced such a heart and soul ! He knows now
what he was so anxious to know. He has come into contact
with the mind of the Creator.
Troubles in life, national or individual, are like the crowd in
Cheapside ; you think you will never get through, yet as you

33o TABLE TALK OF
push on one goes to the right, another to the left, and you
are astonished to find yourself at the end of the street. " Chi
la dura, la vince."
It has often occurred to me that the insatiable love for
investment of capital in land is a political mistake. In aU times
of popular triumph, the first practical good sought to be effected
is " relief from taxation ; " and to effect this relief, what is the
first thing seized on and sold ? why, the landed estates of the
great proprietors ! And the most remarkable thing is that,
the confiscation of Church and corporate landed property
never seems to affect the credit of a nation. But who could
say that of the confiscation of funded property ? For my part,
if I were a large capitaUst, I should prefer my money in the
funds. Between Tasso and Ariosto there is all the difference between
a furious mountain stream and a broad and placid lake. With
Ariosto you are borne along with the torrent and whirl round
the rocky projections, your eye delighted by the succession
of fresh and enchanting sights that burst upon your view ; but
with Tasso you are wafted gently down the water glittering in
the golden sun, perceiving everything that is about to happen,
each vision passing majestically succeeded by another of
stately grandeur, but all so gradual that the fancy is not
stirred though interested. You read Tasso tiU you dream ;
you read Ariosto tiU you are fired with the energy of fight, the
fury of passion.
How many men persist in regarding political economy as
the distinctive badge of Liberalism in party politics ! It has
no more to do with party poUtics than it has to do with the
politics of art.
There is a spurious Liberalism rising up in this country
which will do great mischief to truly Liberal principles, and
wiU ultimately tend to lower the credit and authority of
Parliament with the people.
Never do evil that good may be the result : that is the pre
rogative of the Deity. Do your duty, and- don't swerve from

3. R. HAYDON. 331
it. Do that which your conscience tells you to be right, and
leave the consequences to God.
There are some people in the world who gratify their feel
ings to surfeit, are palled with all, and satisfied with none ; they
are poor wretches very much to be pitied.
No one can deny the power of poetical conception possessed
by the Greek artists, yet who more regulated by mathematical
accuracy and design ? They were all architects, all grounded
deeply in principles. In England, " principles " of anything
but light and shadow are considered out of place — mathematics
means stupidity, and Eembrandt and trowel painting are the
only proofs of talent.
So far as I have read of Tasso's ' Aminta,' I think it a sweet
thing, full of refinement and of that intensity of feeling that
marks genius. Who but one with the feelings of genius would
have said so sweetly : —
" Quella quercia, che pare
Si ruvida e selvaggia,
Sente anch' ella il potere
Dell' amoroso foco ; e se tu avessi
Spirto e senso d' amore, intenderesti
I suoi muti sospiri."
To the foggy dullness of common intellect this would appear
improbable. Every man has his little circle ; many men comprise many
circles, many circles contain a number ; therefore do not wil
fully make an enemy of any man, because you will infallibly
create more enemies by so doing. Nothing offends more than
an overbearing manner, an insolent assumption, a fierce con
sciousness of the talents God has given you. The meaner man
may assist you, the meanest man may injure you. There is
no occasion to be servile any more than insolent ; you can
commonly attain your object without hurting the feelings of
your fellow-beings.
I think the great reason of the superior manner of the
nobility is their elevation in rank above others, so that in what
ever company they fall they are at ease. Who is not polite,

332 TABLE TALK OF
witty, affable, when he fears no competition, when he thinks
he descends, when he feels himself to be among those who are
ready to laugh and who feel honour at being noticed ?
It is remarkable how ready power is to preach the doctrine
of " bear and forbear " to those they oppress, but always to
forget that if power had borne and forborne there would have
been no occasion for the practice of these virtues by the op
pressed. Christianity or fear is sometimes made a tool of in
the hands of power to palliate its iniquities.*
I do not believe in " lie still " until the Eesurrection. There
is nothing in creation analogous to that, or to annihilation.
All existence is birth, destruction, reproduction ; and why
should the whole system be so, and man only and his nature
be an exception after death? The doctrine of instant con
sciousness after death is borne out by Scripture, and by the
whole of creation, and by the solar system to boot. I see
the same sun, and moon, and stars that were beheld by the
Egyptians, Chaldeans, Syrians, and Babylonians. Why should
inanimate matter without the power of deduction and invention
be re-animate only ? Must that Divine gift of thought not be
reproduced ? Impossible ! How can we conceive that the
Power which created us with such palpable inferiority in
stability to the earth, the sun, the air, should not recompense
the agony we feel at our weakness by a resuscitation after
death, more stable than either ? It must be. The idea of
annihilation after death could not be endured, f
* Possibly this may explain a good deal of the silent scepticism which is
slowly but surely interleaving the vast mass of the wages classes in this country ;
though, perhaps that spiritual unrest which universally pervades Society at present,
and which seeks a refuge as much in vestments and wax candles as in scepticism,
would be the more true explanation. — Ed.
t Heber thinks that there will be an " intermediate state " after death and
before judgment ; and that this state is " not one of insensibility, or as the
Socinians hold, a perfect suspension of existence." And this, he maintains, is
" plain from many passages of Scripture — the penitent thief, St. Paul's desire to
be ' immediately with Christ,' " &c. (see letter of Heber in the ' Diary of a Lady
of Quality '). Priestley, on the other hand, as the most thoughtful Materialist,
maintains that free will being no independent part of man's nature as he is, and
essentially subject to conditions, as is all concerning his body, his resurrection
after death does not follow as a necessary consequence, immortality being a fresh
gift from the Creator. This, though apparently consistent with the evident sus
pension of the soul of Lazarus during the four days he was in the grave, seems
inconsistent with the passage in Genesis : " And the Lord breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a Living Soul." Coleridge believed
that there would be an immediate resurrection of the body which will have

B. R. HA YDON. 333
January 29th, 1826. — Spent three hours with Seguier, and a
very entertaining three hours. Yesterday he was two hours
with the King. Seguier said the King was showing him the
plans for Buckingham Palace. " There," said the King, " is a
road and door for people who come in a hackney coach ; that
is the road for ministers and ambassadors ; there is the road
for the Boyal Family, and that is the road for " — here he
hesitated — " for Us," said he with emphasis, " on great occa
sions." Seguier said the King was the best mimic he ever
saw in his Ufe, and the shrewdest man he ever knew — that he
knew the world well, deeply. Seguier is the reflection of the
Court, the patrons, and the nobility. He told me several
curious things, absolute matters of history. . . . He talked of
Canning in a way I could fathom. Canning was endured
because he was useful. It is astonishing how skilful the
hangers-on of a Court are in feeling out the opinions of their
superiors. When you are melancholy, if you take up Voltaire he is
sure to render you more so, strange as it may seem. But may
not that proceed from his showing you so completely, as he
sometimes does, the absurdity, the fallacy, the imposture of
human belief in many superstitions ? After reading Voltaire
I returned to Vasari ; and it was curious to feel the simplicity,
the naivete', the piety, the good-heartedness, as it were, of such
a writer on a delightful subject in comparison with Voltaire
on a dreadful one. The cutting satire of Voltaire seemed
diabolical in its contrast. I hate Voltaire ; his design is, by
cant, to give colour to his indecency. He is charitable from
contempt ; blasphemous from envy ; pious from fear ; and foul
from disgust at human nature.
When Chantrey first set up his carriage, he was not to be
borne. It was all day : " John, tell Bichard to desire Betty to
order Mrs. Chantrey's maid to tell Mrs. Chantrey to send down
my snuff-box," &c. &c.
I do not see any accidents, misfortunes, or happiness in life
nothing to do with flesh and blood, " a supersensual body." He laughed at the
idea of " disembodied " spirits floating about in an intermediate state, and main
tained that there was no such thing as the separation of the real body from the
soul (see his ' English Divines ').— Ed.

334 TABLE TALK OF
that can be proved (independent of all providential inter
ference) to be caused by any power but the concurrence of
characters and propensities, propelled and directed each by his
individual inherent disposition, and thus meeting its reverse
the various accidents of life occur. Providence may interfere,
and must have the power to avert, or cause to happen any
event, by the exercise of that power over the actions or inten
tions of our species. You cannot blame a man for falling on
his knees to thank God for his escape from some terrible
danger; it is a proof of a good heart. But might not his
escape have happened from natural causes without the least
individual interference of Providence?*
Though we cannot tell what vitality is, we can tell what it
is not. When a man is run through^the heart, and the blood
is let out, vitality ceases. If it be a separate addition to the
frame, why is it dependent on the action of any part of the
frame for complete exemplification ? Why may it not be the
result of a perfect organisation, and leave when certain parts
are disorganised ? If it be not, why does the destruction of
certain parts cause it to be destroyed ? If the destruction of
certain parts cause it to cease, then its existence must depend
upon the life of those parts. H vitality were the " breath of
God " adhering whUe life existed, it would adhere whUe any
part existed.!
I knew a man wounded at Corunna who lived eight days
with a ball in his heart ; for after he died, I made a drawing of
his heart for the surgeon. But this would be no argument
against the heart being the seat of life and circulation.
To tell the truth to power is an everlasting crime, which
time never effaces and mankind never forgives. To lessen any
man in his own conviction, or in the conviction of others, is too
severe a test for self-respect.
It does not always foUow that people who have skuUs shaped
* But all natural forces must have their root in the Creator's absolute power,;
and the question is, how far is the controlling exercise of that power consistent
with man's exercise of a free will ? — Ed.
t No definition of '' matter " and " life '' has yet been given to us. We assume
both to exist, but we know not what or where they are. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 335
like Socrates are intellectual and good ; but it always follows
that people who are intellectual and good never have a skull
shaped like Nero. It does not always follow that people who
have a skull shaped like that of Nero are always bad; but
people who are bad never have a skull shaped like that of
Socrates. This can be proved from experience. Men of the
moral and intellectual power of Socrates have always his
physical shape; and the same can be said of Nero, Bacon,
Newton, Locke, Shakespeare, Milton, &c.
The imperfection of things in this life we all feel, from the
conqueror to the peasant. It seems as if we had fallen from a
brighter world, and passed this life in futile attempts to realise
our dreaming remembrances of it.
When a passion is to be gratified, the difficulties which lie
in the way of its gratification are as nothing in comparison with
the anticipated pleasures ; but when duty sometimes urges a
man to do that for which he has no passion, the promised
pleasures are ever as nothing in comparison with the appre
hended obstructions.
If talent is inherent, why is not moral propensity ? Why
did Cyrus when he was a boy make all his companions elect
him as their king and obey him as subjects ? Would he have
submitted to become a subject, and why did not some other
boy make himself king ? Why, when Alcibiades was playing
in the street, and a cart was approaching, which for a moment
would have destroyed their game, did he throw himself on the
ground and teU the carter to drive over him, while all the
other boys ran away ? Why was not Socrates an Alcibiades
in person and mind, and why was not Alcibiades Socrates ?
How is it possible to account for the infinite mixture of gene
rosity and meanness, cunning and openness, tyranny and kind
ness, on any other principle in the same person ? If propen
sities depend on education, why are not men uniform in
their feelings ? Because when once a principle was inculcated,
if inculcation be all that is necessary, its effect would be
uniform ?
What ! was there no inherent organised difference between
Gustavus Vasa and James Boswell; between Charles XII.

336 TABLE TALK OF
and Doctor Johnson ; between Alexander and Voltaire, Eobes-
pierre and Howard? Did "circumstances" make these men
what they were ? Would " circumstances " have made James
Boswell into Gustavus Vasa, or vice versal and would the
French Bevolution have made Howard such a being as Kobes-
pierre ?
The greatest geniuses have always attributed everything to
God, as if conscious of being possessed of a spark of His
Divinity. The English are the people, perhaps the soundest in feeling
as to propensities in the world. No nation has a stronger and
deeper feeling for the rights of domestic happiness and sym
pathy ; no nation will sooner rise with one voice to repel any
intrusion on the privacy of domestic rights ; yet no nation feels
greater disgust at a man's obtruding on the world what regards
his domestic concerns only, and as they wiU not suffer others
to intrude on him, so they shrink from any attempt of his to
intrude upon them.
The great defect of portrait painters in this country is that
they are mere portrait painters and nothing more. Titian,
Baphael, Tintoretto, Veronese, Vandyke, Bubens, and Beynolds
descended from history to portrait. The education of a portrait
painter should be certainly historical.
The most contemptible character in the world is the one
which, without energy to be vicious, sophisticates in favour
of vice.
What a shallow outcry that is against priests! Do they
mean to say that those who devote themselves to the moral
guidance and instruction of the people should not have as many
prospects of comfort open to them as there are in any other
pursuits for the benefit of mankind ?
How well Claudian hits off one peculiarity of the modern
French character when he speaks of the ancient Franks
as " populos levitate feroces" — people" fierce in fickleness!"

B. R. HAYDON. 337
What an eye for character! what tact these Boman poets and
writers had!*
March 2nd, 1827.— Dined with Du Bois. Hook told -him
Croker said he was present when Sir Walter Scott dined with
the King. The King said : " Let us drink to the health of the
author of the ' Waverley Novels.' " Sir Walter Scott, without
being asked, said : "I assure your Majesty, upon my honour and
word, I am not the author." The King said afterwards, " I know
he has told me a lie, and I hope, while I live at least, he "will
not acknowledge it." Anyhow his acknowledgement now does
not seem popular. On dit, that it is ostentatious, and is made
for the sake of puffing his ' Life of Napoleon.' How like the
world ! First damning him because he would not confess to the
authorship of ' Waverley,' and then when he does, finding out
a paltry motive for his doing it ! He was wrong in either case
to give his word of honour to the King.t
Horace Smith said to Theodore Hook : " Theodore, my dear
fellow, why do you say such indecent things in the ' John Bull ? '"
To which Hook promptly replied: " My dear Bos, if I were not
a little indecent the clergymen would never take me in ! "
The (late) Duke of Cambridge dining at a public dinner the
other evening at Freemasons' Tavern, had the " wrong " wine
put before him by mistake. At the first taste, he said : " Eh !
eh ! what's this — what's this ? I think we had better go to the —
eh! — what d'ye think? — other tables, eh! — and get some of
their sherry." He was not to be put off with bad wine, and very
wise of him too.J
* This is hardly correct of Claudian, who was an Egyptian, educated as a
Greek, and, according to Gibbon, only in his later years acquiring the Latin
language ; of which, nevertheless, he obtained such an absolute command as " to
soar far above the heads of his feeble contemporaries," and place himself " among
the poets of ancient Eome." — Ed.
t Sogers, in his ' Table-Talk,' relates a similar answer given by Scott to
Sheridan ; who one evening at Lady Jersey's, and in the hearing of Sogers, put
the question to Scott in express terms. " Pray, Mr. Scott, did you or did you not
write ' Waverley ' ? " Scott replied, " On my honour I did not." Sogers remarks
upon this : " Now though Scott may perhaps be justified for returning an answer
in the negative, I cannot think that he is to be excused for strengthening it with
' on my honour.' "
J The late Duke was an excellent judge of sherry. At the banquet of the
Guards, in 1850, at St. James's, the finest wine was ordered to be supplied for
the occasion. The Duke was present. At the first taste of his sherry, he
stopped, put down his glass rapidly, seized the decanter, held it to his nose, and
saying, " Good, good, very good, most excellent," put it quietly down by the side
of his chair. He thought he should get nothing better that night, and so drank
out the decanter to himself.— Ed.
VOL. II. Z

338 TABLE TALK OF
I went one day to the Fives Court to see some sparring
without the gloves; and the next day I went to see M. Michel,
de Paris, give a grand assault of arms. The difference between
the two countries was amusing. Donelly, the boxer, kept on
winking his eyes, saying, "  your eyes, you shaU have
a taste of it directly ;" while his opponent growled out, " I'U
open your ugly eyes," &c. Now at the assault of arms, when
M. Michel was hit a tremendous thrust by his adversary right
over his foU-guard — "Ah!" cried Michel, as he gasped with
pain, " Ah ! c'est comme une ange !"
September 30th, 1827.— Talfourd dined with me. We talked
of Brougham. He said that Brougham latterly, before the
change,* had Canning frequently to dine with him, and that
he as frequently dined with Canning. That several times in
Court Brougham had said, " Canning dines with me to-day."
Talfourd said that Brougham talked often of me, and that he
said, " I could paint as well as anybody that ever lived if I
Uked, but that I was not sufficiently attentive to inferior
parts." Qusere ? Talfourd wiU rise. He is not poetical, but
logical, metaphysicaL and eloquent. He astounded me by
saying he did not know French ! We talked of Hazlitt, and
agreed that we felt inclined to overlook in him everything
treacherous, mean, and contemptible, from the apparent candour
of his nature.
The other night (17th March, 1830) at Brougham's levee,
while the Duke of WeUington and Brougham were in close
conversation — certainly just now the two foremost men in
England — who should come up and whisper into Brougham's
ear but Alderman Wood : —
" Lord Hood for a man,
For a maid Lady Anne,
And Alderman Wood for a beau."
* In February 1827, Lord Liverpool was struck with paralysis ; and the re
construction of the administration becoming necessary, the King, after some
days' delay, entrusted Mr. Canning with the task. Thereupon six of the then
ministers — the Duke of Wellington, Lord Eldon, Lord Melville, Lord Bathurst,
Lord Westmoreland, and Mr. Peel — resigned their offices. Lord Grey, the
leader of the Whig party in the House of Lords, condemned the opposition to
Mr. Canning of these members of Lord Liverpool's Government as " factious,"
although frankly admitting that he himself had no confidence iu Mr. Canning's
administration. Mr. Brougham held no office in Mr. Canning's administration.
—Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 339
Sir James Mackintosh could only get a squeeze of the hand,
though one of Brougham's oldest friends, but Alderman
Wood must push up as if intimate. It would make a fine
subject. To think, too, of the Duke and the Archbishop of Canterbury
going to Brougham's levee ! It is Brougham's Ministry.
That professional man in England who prefers excellence to
profit is considered an anomaly ; a rogue who cannot in the
nature of things pay his bills, and ought not to be trusted or
supported. What, prefer exceUence in your art to emolument !
" A fellow, Sir, who does this, is a man out of the circle of
commercial taste " — the only principle of taste acknowledged
with us.
When aU the uproar was going on against the Catholic
Emancipation Bill of WeUington, the Bishop of Salisbury
wrote a very strong letter against the Government measures.
Said some timid waverer to the Duke : " Have you seen the
Bishop of Salisbury's letter ? " "  the Bishop of Salis
bury," said the Duke ; " I mean to carry my Bill."
October \Zth, 1828.— Talfourd and Miss Mitford dined with
us, and Talfourd made us laugh exceedingly with a good story
of Hazlitt. At a card party at Charles Lamb's, Hazlitt and
Lamb's brother got into a discussion as to whether Holbein's
colouring was as good as that of Vandyke. Hazlitt denied it.
Lamb asserted the contrary ; till at length they both became so
irritated, they upset the card-table, and seized each other by
the throat. In the struggle that ensued, Hazlitt got a black
eye ; but when the two combatants were parted, Hazlitt turned
to Talfourd, who was offering his aid, and said : " You need not
trouble yourself, Sir. I do not mind a blow, Sir ; nothing affects
me but an Abstract Idea !" *
I am perfectly certain that, had the King gone into the City
(on Tuesday, the 9th November, 1830), most dreadful scenes
* This was the Lamb who had a very curious original picture of Queen
Elizabeth. He shewed it privately, and by desire, to the Princess Charlotte.
The moment she saw it, her Eoyal Highness most irreverently exclaimed, " Oh,
Christ! what a fright !"— Ed.
z 2

34o TABLE TALK OF
would have happened, and then the Duke would have been
condemned for not advising the King better*
Sir Thomas Hammond once told me a curious thing' of
George IV., that he was always a hoarder; and on one occasion,
when he was supposed to be guinealess and insolvent, and
his house was absolutely beset by importunate creditors, the
Prince, before walking out with Hammond, went over to a
little desk in his room and took out 3000Z. in bank-notes !
When George IV. died, Hammond told me he thought he
must have saved fuUy 600,000?. Sir Thomas when speaking
of him would often say that although George IV. was the
beau-ideal of a refined monarch, he had, by mingling with
black-legs and blackguards of all ranks, considerably broken
down the barriers between high and low Ufe, and that we
should suffer from it.
I have watched the Duke of WeUington aU my life, and I
have observed an invariable principle of patriotism regulate
his conduct. All personal considerations have been sacrificed
where the country was concerned; whether it was the Irish
Secretaryship, the interference of Sir Harry Burrard after
Vimiera, the war in Spain, or the Catholic question. On eyery
occasion he has shown himself ready and wiUing to do what he
believed to be his duty for the honour of England.t Et pace
* The new police which had been established in 1828-9 were made the
ostensible excuse for the most outrageous placards all over London, calling on
the people to meet on the 9th November, and " avenge their wrongs," although
the Duke of Wellington was the real man aimed at. One of the placards I have
seen quoted at the time said, " To arms ! to arms ! Liberty or death ! We
assure you that six thousand cutlasses have been removed from the Tower for
the immediate use of Peel's bloody police. Englishmen, will you put up with
this ? Come armed, be firm, and victory must be ours !" The Funds fell 3 per
cent, on the Monday. The chief offence of the new police in the eyes of these
patriots was the similarity of their dress to that of French gendarmes. Any coats
would have been forgiven but blue coats.
" If firing had begun," said the Duke to Sir William Knighton, " who could tell
where it would end ? I know something of what street firing is ; one guilty person
would fall, and ten innocent be destroyed. Would this have been innocent or
humane for a little bravado, or that the country might not be alarmed for a day
or two ?" After the Duke's explanation in Parliament, the Funds rose 5 per
cent., and the country had reason to be thankful that his calm sense had saved
the City of London from the chance of a deep disgrace. — Ed.
t But he drew the hne too hardly sometimes. I have been told by men who
served under him, that when he left the Peninsular army he never thanked the
army for their services. They had " only done their duty," as he said to Colonel
Bacon, who asked and was refused promotion for his wounds and services.
•' And, Sir," said Bacon, " I will take care I do it no more," and resigned.— Ed.

B. R HA YDON. 341
et. bello insignis. And on every occasion, we may rely on it, he
will continue to exhibit the same proofs of patriotism and
sense of duty. He is unpopular just 'now (1830), but that is
nothing. Posterity will do him full justice.
Things have been so long established in England — property,
authority, and rank, have so long retained their superiority —
that no people are less prepared to respect genius alone than
the English. A man of the greatest genius, gifted by God
with ,the greatest variety of power, without property, or au
thority, or rank, is regarded in England with little more
respect than a pauper. The greatest noodle and imbecile in
office is more looked up to than the greatest genius out of it.
Though I believe the Duke of W7eUington to be the only
man to carry us through Beform, yet I fear he has a " Con
tinental taint," and is not sufficiently alive to the constitutional
liberty of the subject. Napoleon's fall was principally owing
to his overrating the power of physical force to oppose the
moral feeling ; and I confess I fear Wellington has got into a
similar contest, when he may be taught the same lesson as
Napoleon.* I have often observed in our domestic politics that " opposi
tion " and " proposition " are two very different matters ; and
that long habits of striving to thwart the plans of another
party do not form the best school for conducting the affairs of
a great nation with credit and success, and the worst possible
school for carrying a great nation through a great crisis. The
conduct of the Whigs in 1830-32 exemplified this in a high
degree. There is only one way of carrying great measures, viz., by
decision. Cortes, Columbus, Csesar, Alexander, Napoleon, and
Wellington, never risked success by a false delicacy.
* See Lord Wellesley's opinion, " Arthur is a great general, but a  bad
Statesman," &c. (post, p. 363). Metternich used to call the Duke " The great
baby." The fact was, the Duke was too straightforward a man to understand
a round-about pohcy. But he had a touch of despotism in him unquestionably,
or he never would have favoured, as he did, the appointment of Polignac, which
was sure to bring matters to a crisis in France. M. Villemain used to say that
nobody but a king as stupid as Charles X. would have chosen for his minister
a man so stupid as Prince Polignac. What must he have thought of the Duke,
who recommended and approved of him ?— Ed.

342 TABLE TALK OF
Are we the "nation of shopkeepers"* we have been said to
be ? Will long habits of security, long indulgence in domestic
firesides, ever dull our ancient energy for a great principle,
that slavery with comfort, to just Uberty by risking liiat
comfort, will ever be preferred? I don't believe it of /the
English people.
The Duke of Wellington (1831) is said to have written to a
friend, that " if the Beform Bill \ passes, the Crown will not be
in existence six months." Can this be true of him ? But, if
so, where will the Crown be if the Bill does not pass ? And who
will have brought on that checkmate ? '
i.
Sir Edward Sugden said the other evening, "The Bristol
fires were all caused by the Beform BiU." This is begging the
question. Had the BiU passed would the fires have happened?
Certainly not. All the late calamities can be traced quite as
much to want of sense in the Tories as to want of prudence
in the Badicals; and if the nation be ultimately involved,
will it not be owing chiefly to want of prompt decision on the
part of the W7higs, without which prudence becomes timidity,
and sense purblind ?
When Scholefield and some of the Union men saw Lord
Durham after Lord Grey had been brought back to office in
1832, Lord Durham said to Scholefield,| " We owe our places
to you." This was imprudent. An older statesman would
not have said this, even if he had thought it. Scholefield. told
me this with an air, as if he felt his importance. §
* "La nation boutiquiere" is generally attributed to Napoleon. Barras
invented the phrase, according to Dr. Croly ; see ' Life of Geo. IV.' — -Ed. I
t " The Bill is bad enough, God knows I but the arguments of its advocates
and the manner of their advocacy is a thousand times worse than the* Bill
itself." — Coleridge (1S32). There is nothing like hearing both sides. — Ed.
J " Lord Durham told us last night, at a meeting of good men at Ellice's, that
the country ' owed Eeform to Birmingham, and its salvation from revolution to
the last stroke." — Letter from Mr. Parkes, 18 July, 1832; see Grote's 'Life,'
pp. 78, 79. I never heard that Lord Durham acknowledged this latter expression.
—Ed.
§ Lord Grey had resigned early in May 1832. It is said that after the defeat
of Ms Eeform Bill in the House of Lords on the 7th of May, he offered the King
the choice of making a sufficient number of new Peers to carry the Bill through
the Lords (the majority against it being thirty -five), or to accept his resignation.
The King, with a sagaeity he had not credit for, and great good judgment, took
the more constitutional course, accepted Lord Grey's resignation, and sent for
Lord Lyndhurst. In order to prevent the formation of any Tory administration,
the political Unions, with the connivance of the Whig leaders, at once set on foot
a vigorous agitation. Meetings were held to petition Parliament to refuse

B. R. HA YDON. 343
The first time I saw Hume (19th April, 1832) was on the
subject of some remarks he had made in the House with refer-
su|plies. London, Birmingham, Manchester, and other large towns, were
plaiarded with posters urging the people to resist the payment of taxes and
tithts. Jones, one of the Birmingham Union leaders, told Haydon that when
the iax gatherer called upon him he said, " If you dare, Sir, to call again, I will
haveyou nailed by the ear to my door, with a placard on your breast saying who
you ire." Hugh Hutton, another leader, said he had " made up his mind to
fight.' Mr. Parkes, another of the Union leaders, told Haydon at the time
that 'warrants were out against the whole of them ; and that if the Duke had
succefded in forming a cabinet, they were to have been arrested, and then the
people would have fought it out." Haydon did not think that necessarily
followid ; and I take it, of the two, liberal as he was, he would have sided with
the Dike in case of a fight. In Mrs. Grote's ' Life of Grote ' there is a curious
and chiracteristio letter from Mr. Parkes (May 18th, 1832), in which he says! :
" We tdd the people that they might have to make great sacrifices. ... To avert
revolution always sate most anxiously and weightily on my mind ; but if we had
been ovsr-reached this week, I and two friends should have made the revolution,
whatevir the cost. I had written to General J  , and had got a cover to
ColonelN  " (Napier), "and would have had both in Birmingham, and a
Count 'Chopski, a Pole, by Monday; and I think we could have prevented
anarchtp and have set all right in two days." Those who are best fitted to guide
public opinion have seemed hitherto to think it beneath them to expose this
nonsense ; but ask us to believe — as Mrs. Grote, by publishing this letter, appears
to isfe' us to believe — that Parkes, with two friends, Chopski, the Pole, and a
naneless general — for Colonel Napier, who was Colonel N  , made a famous
ansver when Parkes' proposal came to him, something after the fashion of Swift,
whc once found a foolish letter before him — to ask us to believe that " I and two
frieids " would have " made " a revolution, and having made it, would have
" pnvented anarchy," and " set all right in two days," is to impose a little too
muci on our credulity. Of Mr. Parkes' sincerity no one entertains any doubt.
Butbad the Government thought it so serious as Mr. Parkes would wish us to
beliive, its strength would have been put forth ;, it would have crumpled up the
Uniins in twenty-four hours ; have had Mr. Parkes, Mr. Attwood, Mr. Hobhouse,
Mr. Ellice, and more of the leading Whigs and Eadicals, safe in Newgate ;
and hen, in all probability, have passed a better Eeform Bill than Lord Grey.
The Unions had no mihtary organisation ; and although they had arms they had
no sbres, no powder, and they had no artillery. To talk of " making a revolu
tion ' under such circumstances is to talk nonsense where a standing army is
unde the orders of the Government, and is surely a most curious and absurd
illustation of the natural tendency of the human mind to the deception and
exalation of self. Fortunately, however, for Mr. Parkes, the Government knew
his veakness and took no notice of him, which may serve to explain his ex-
traoidinary letter, and Mrs. Grote's publication of it. The Duke of Wellington
md Lord Lyndhurst, finding it impossible to form an administration, the Duke
(had an interview with the King. What passed,, what advice the Duke gave, has
;never transpired, but the result was the King sent for Lord Grey ; a circular
•letter was addressed to the Opposition Peers by Sir Herbert Taylor, private
^secretary to the King, informing them that "arrangements " had been made to
secure the passing of the Eeform Bill ; and on the 4th of June following the Bill
twas read a third time by a majority of eighty-four. On the 7th the Eoyal assent
-was given ; and when the King died a few years after, his Queen, as Dowager,
feceived an annuity of 100,Q00&. a year. Mr. Parkes paid his taxes, we hope,
jrith pleasure at Birmingham, General J  never revealed his name, and
(jontinued to draw his half pay from the Treasury which,, according to Parkes,
,ie was prepared to overthrow — I don't say and rob the till, that, of course,
•eople who make " great sacrifices to contend for their liberty " never do; and
,s to what became of Chopski, the Pole, history is silent : he descended into the
jieep profound from which there is no more need to drag him. — Ed.

344 TABLE TALK OF
ence to the French excelling us in design. He explained to m
that he did not mean to refer to design as applied to High Ar^,.
but simply to manufactures. I said : " Here was the mistakj
there could be no design if there was no connection with tie
foundation of all design." He asked what I wished done ? / 1
replied : " To know if there would be any good in petitioner
the House, and proposing a motion for a committee to exa:
the whole question, with the view to an annual grant of m
for the public support of High Art. Said Hume : " It is too
Whew wool'ye heve if ony money is voted — some of tdose
fellows out of the Acawdemy ? It wiU just be a job. SAy a
little, we shall have new men. I have watched your careej ; ye
have just been shamefully treated, and if onything is doi 3, ye

shall not be overlooked." I replied : " I have been ruin

dby

proposing plans which would have interfered with the nono-
poly of the Boyal Academy." He said : " I know it all ; >ut it
is of no use to think of anything now till we have first pade
our report." i
The Eev. Sir Harcourt Lees deserves never to be forgotta.
On the 4th April, 1832, he presented a petition to the Hoiie
of Lords, through Lord Boden, against the Beform BiU, on me
ground that it would " send into the House English Jaco
Badicals and Irish Popish Beformers ; that it would endan
the succession to the throne of Her Boyal Highness the Prinoss
Victoria ; that it would have the effect of destroying the 1 "0-
testant Church, sweeping away the peerage and the monarc iy,
creating a temporary republic, and ending at length in anar
and massacre." Lord Teynham, regarding the petition as
insult, moved that it be rejected. The Duke of Sussex sai
was an outrage on the feelings of the House ; but Lord Gi
though regarding the opinions as absurd and bordering W
insanity, did not see how the petition could be rejected, and it
was ordered " to lie on the table." As an iUustration of the
extreme feeling of the time it is curious.
Bogers of an evening always gave me the idea that he had
been laid in a nasty place for a month, and washed for the
occasion. To see him standing behind a beauty was no joke,
Lady  asked me one evening to write an epitaph on her

in
er

an it
ipy=x

B. R. HA YDON. 345
married sister, whose husband Lady  detests. I took up
her pencil and wrote : —
" Here lies a sweet beauty,
Who to love was a duty.
She married a fool,
Not to make him a tool,
But only to vex
iBoth herself and his sex."
The Duke of Sussex said to me one day, "After all, the
Irish Church Establishment is a mere question of arithmetic.
If 7,000,000 require 22 bishops, how many can 700,000 need ?"
When royal dukes come to look at a great question from the
arithmetical point of view, the great question must generally
be considered to be approaching its settlement.
1
WiUiam Hamilton told me he knew of his own knowledge
that, after the Duke of Wellington was in a minority on Sir H.
Parnell's motion on the Pension List (August 14th, 1830), he
advised resignation, because Brougham's motion for reform
was coming on, and should the Government remain in and be.
beaten on Brougham's motion, they must resign, and their
successor, Lord Grey, would be then left under the necessity of
carrying some measures of Beform ; but if they resigned at
once, without letting the question of Beform force them to it,
then Lord Grey would come in free.
Hamilton agreed with me that the Whigs, as a rule, were
dissolute in their feelings with regard to women. He said it
was the " Fox school." I said I thought even Lord Grey not
very, strict in this point, and that their wishing to make mar
riage a civil contract was to suit their own convenience.
Hamilton agreed with me.*
" Give me security for my property," say the selfish ; " what
is it to me who governs ? The sun shines ; the trees bud and
blossom ; the birds sing ; spring, summer, autumn, and winter
proceed and end, whether rapacity and vice pervade every
department of the Government ; whether the corrupt govern in
spite of law, or the just according to the laws. What does it
* Coleridge held the same opinions. But it would be difficult to prove the
Tories better than the Whigs in these respects. — Ed.

346 TABLE TALK OF
matter to me, so long I have security for my property ?" This
has always been the cry of the selfish in all periods of the
world's history. It was so when Caligula received abject thanks
from those whose children he had slaughtered, and when
Tiberius tortured ; it was so when poor wretches gasped out
their lives in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or were racked
in the secret chamber of the Council of T,en. While the solar
system remains constant gravitation is not likely to stop, out
of sympathy to human beings. There is no period so dreadful
but wretches may secure ' their enjoyment if content to be
slaves ; but destroy the principle of abstract liberty in idea,
and let a nation acquiesce in it, and that nation is half pre
pared for spoliation and debasement.
Lord Grey, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Durham, all under
rated the people, though Lord Durham probably felt what he
said. When Attwood issued his violent address on the 9th
May, 1833, 1 wrote to Lord Grey : " Depend on it if you do not
put him down he wiU put down you. He is exasperated at his
failure in the House. He is a man of wild fancy, and beUeves
himself a Mahommed, and he has power over the miUion."
Happily it all passed off; but at that time there were four men
to be dreaded, Attwood, Cobbett, O'ConneU, and Hume. The
three first were actuated by private passion ; Attwood, by his
failure in Parliament and in his banking plans ; Cobbett, by
revenge on the aristocracy for his fine and imprisonment ; and
O'Connell, for the* slight he met when he approached the
Government for reconciliation, of which Hume told me he had
indisputable evidence in a letter. Of aU four men, Hume was
the purest and most to be dreaded. He had no attachment,
no revenge, no predilections, no fears, no delicacies. He loved
his country, its honour, its supremacy ; and his public economy
is but a means of crippling the Court and levelling the aris
tocracy. His failings are human ; and republican as he is, he is
not insensible to the dignity of rank and stars. You may
reach his heart through his vanity, and touch his vanity by
praising his conduct. His understanding is sound, shrewd,
unflinching. He is actuated by a high principle ; and, if cir
cumstances favour him, he wiU play an important part.
No creature on earth will bear such a burden as John BuU,

B. R. HA YDON. 347
if it be according to law, but no hysena will bear so little if it be
in defiance of or not sanctioned by law. This is one great
secret of the character of my glorious countrymen ; and woe to
the minister, Government, or king, if they lose sight of this
principle in their administration of affairs !
Talking one evening at dinner at Lord Melbourne's of John
son's letter to Lord Chesterfield, — ¦¦ — interrupted me, and said
severely to Lord Melbourne, " These fine things come from the
little to the great, but seldom from the great to the little."
Lord Melbourne, a little shaken, said : " It would be considered
bad breeding ;" and Lord Melbourne was right. The great are
not so much in the way of mortification; but they are not
sparing to each other.
There is no nation like the English so disposed to "job"
where 'money is to be had ; but where public money is to be
had, the English seem to think " jobbing " a moral duty.* This
is the explanation why most public undertakings in England
fail in answering the expectation of the nation, extending
its fame and adding to its honour. An Englishman, high or
loWj has such intense sympathies, that he is totally insensible
to any national disgrace of the kind, provided by any influence
he can obtain for his brother " Ned," or his cousin " Dick," the
"job" of a national work, without reference to his fitness to
execute the work completely.
Poor Malibran on her deathbed said to Mrs. Nbvello, who
nursed her, " To think, Mrs. Novello, they say I drink ! What
will they say next of me ? " Mrs. Novello tried to soothe her.
" Never mind them, my dear, never mind them," she said. " It
is the envious spirit of inferior talent to depreciate those who
excel." This was very fine.
v What a singular look the Duke of Wellington always had,
with his greyhound eye, his eagle nose, and singular mouth,
like a helpless infant learning to whistle !
At the time the campaign of Waterloo was preparing, I was
* It may be admitted that the modern Yankee now surpasses us in these
respects. — Ed.

348 T TABLE TALK OF
at Lord Mulgrave's one evening, and people were expressing
anxiety. " Ah ! " said the Duchess of Wellington ; " wait a little,
he is in his element now ; depend upon him."
The Boyal Academy is determined that no person shall, if
they can help it, advance the art who is not a member ; and
they take care to keep out all those who love the art in prefer
ence to their supremacy. This is the direct principle.
Apropos of portrait painting, Wilkie made a capital observa
tion to me (29th April, 1832), viz., " that the light and shadow
on a head should never be the same shape as the head."
Lockhart told me that Murray had paid Byron 16,000Z. for
his works, and had made 100,000/. by their sale. He made
25,000Z. by one edition. This is an intolerable quantity of
profit to so little pay.* {__
In most human sorrow there is generally as much morti
fication as grief; and in all preparations for mourning, with
women certainly, more vanity than affliction.
Sir Thomas Hammond told me a curious instance of the
Queen's power of recoUection. One day, in 1827-8, when she
was Princess Victoria, and the Queen of Wurtemberg was over
here, Sir Thomas Hammond, being in attendance on the Queen,
was present at luncheon. At that time the Princess Victoria
dined at one o'clock. As he sat down, the Princess Victoria
bowed to him, but being bent forward, he did not see it. One
of the royal family said, " The Princess bows to you." Ham
mond looked up — her face was as red as fire. He bowed, but
she never noticed him then, or again. The year after her
accession he attended the levee, but her Majesty did not notice
him, and he passed on to the Duchess of Kent, who said, " My
dear, don't you notice Sir Thomas Hammond, your oldest
friend ?" She bent her head slightly, and said, " I am happy
to see Sir Thomas Hammond."
Lord Lyttleton told me that nobody was so fond of childish
* If Lockhart's statement be correct, one would have thought common gratitude
would have induced the Murrays not to destroy Byron's Journal. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 349
jokes as Lord Brougham. One night, at a full-dress dinner at
Lord Grey's, Lord Brougham sat on one side, the Duke of
Sussex on the other, and Lord Lyttleton next. In the middle
of dinner Lord Brougham put his head behind Lord Grey and
made all sorts of horrid grimaces at Lord Lyttleton — they were
very old friends — till Lord Lyttleton, to escape bursting with
laughing, said, " My Lord Chancellor, may I have the honour
of taking wine with you ? " They drank wine ; but as Lord
Brougham was drinking his, he turned up the whites of his
eyes with such an absurdly methodistical twitch as to send
Lord Lyttleton into fits of suppressed laughter.
Charles Gore told me that Lord Albemarle told him on the
morning Brougham was offered the Chancellorship, he was
walking with him early round the square, when a packet of
letters was brought out ; Brougham put all into his pocket
except one. " This I must read," said he to Lord Albemarle,
" it is from my mother." He read it, and said, " She advises
me against taking the Chancellorship, but to be content and
remain member for Yorkshire." This was a fine trait.
" One half of the people in this country," said Lord Durham
to me (1834) " are insolvent and living on the other half." I
said, " I wonder the nobility do not have historical pictures
painted of their marriages. There are many beautiful events
of that sort in families, which should be recorded." " Oh,"
said Lord Durham, "because half of the marriages in high
life are upon credit, and the expense would be too great." Lord
Durham is " not a popular man," as Lord Melbourne said. He
is too frank and fearless to be popular.
Lord Grey used to scold me for writing to the newspapers
on Art and the Academy, whenever I saw anything wrong. But
he forgot I had no " House " to speak in like himself, and the
only way I could reach the public was by means of its press.
" You make enemies," he used to say, " you make enemies."
" But," I replied, " I have a great object." " Yes," said he ;
" but in the meantime you suffer." " That is true, my lord,"
I replied, " but you were fifty years before you carried your
public object." He did not reply.
One night, at the Duke of Devonshire's, the beautiful

350 TABLE TALK OF
Mrs.  was entreating Lord Melbourne to grant her some
favour for a friend. In her eagerness she seized hold of his
hand, saying, " Now do, my dear Lord Melbourne, do ! " Lord
Melbourne looked round merrily, and said, " Now do, my dear
Mrs.  , do let go my hand ; I want to scratch my nose ! "
Lord Lansdowne (1832) is a man of great refinement, con
siderable knowledge, great unaffectedness, with too much of a
mild acquiescence rather than contest. When sitting to me
for Lord Grey's picture,* he said he had seen me at the dinner
sketching in the corner, and said to himself, " At least there is
one present who is not feasting ! " He said he remembered Sir
Joshua Beynolds. Sir Joshua dined with his father, and told
them of the first panorama. The next day or so, Sir Joshua
called again, and they aU three went to see the panorama. Lord
Lansdowne said, as a boy, he was much impressed by Sir
Joshua's gentleness of manner, and his using an ear trumpet.
I asked him if Sir Thomas Lawrence required many sittings ?
He said, " many." " Did he talk much ?" " A great deal." " Was
he well informed ? " "Why, he had much English poetry."
While I was sitting to him I thought him like Canning ; but
Canning had a finer face. I told Lord Lansdowne that when
very young I had dined with Canning at Lord Mulgrave's, but
thought him haughty to me as a youth, in comparison with
Lord Dartmouth and other men of high rank. I told him that
Canning's mother, Mrs. Hun, had taught me reading, and was
as powerful a woman in conversation as I ever met, and very
likely to produce such a boy as Canning. Lord Lansdowne
was much interested in all this. He did not know that
Canning's grandfather had virtuaUy disinherited Canning's
father for marrying Mrs. Hun, under all the circumstances of
her previous life. We then talked of Beform. I told him
I thought the violent Tory principles pressed upon Lord
Normandy had probably made him a Whig. He laughed.
I said, " So violent were Lord Mulgrave's prejudices on that
score, I had heard him deny genius to Milton." " That was
rather a bold conclusion," said Lord Lansdowne. . . . When
he rose to leave, I thanked him for coming. He said, "Of
course, it disturbs an artist to come out." So he stands high
in my scale. * ' The Eeform Banquet,' now at Howick. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 351
Lord John Bussell sat to-day (24th October, 1832). He has
an interesting, mild, yet determined face. He thought Att
wood* " not the man." I said : " My lord, to be a Beformer now
is the fashion." " Yes," he replied, " people find out now they
have been Beformers all their Uves, but never thought of it
before." I praised the people of Birmingham for dining to
gether at " ordinaries." He said he did the same in Devon
shire ; dined at the Is. 6d. ordinary, at 2 p.m., with the farmers.
He seemed much pleased with Devonshire, and said he was
" happy we were brother Freemen." He said he spent an hour-
and-a-half with Napoleon at Elba. Napoleon was abrupt ; said
he " liked Lord Ebringtont amazingly. He is weU-informed —
at least I think him so," said Napoleon, which was modest of
Napoleon. "Napoleon's great mistake," said Lord Bussell,
" was his marrying an Austrian princess ; he should have had a
Eussian." " Or," said I, " a fine French woman ; " which startled
him. After a little, he added : " Ah, indeed ! or a fine French
woman." I said, " My lord, he betrayed the cause." "He
did," said Lord Bussell. I said : " Do not you think there is
great danger, if caution be not used, that France may gradually
recover her naval losses, and growing more powerful by an
alliance with us, ultimately endanger us again, than she could
ever do by a war, or a state of watchful suspicion ? "t " If the
French Government should change," said he, " certainly — in
the navy certainly ; but not if the present Government remain."
"Did you ever paint the Duke of Wellington?" "No," I
replied ; " after what the Duke said against Beform, I have no
immediate interest. He advanced Beform forty years by that
speech." " About," said Lord John, laughing.
Mr. Stanley,§ who I believe is considered idle but able, will
be " the man " some day. He is sanguine, talented, ambitious,
* Thomas Attwood, of the Birmingham ' Tribune.' His advent to Parlia
ment under the Eeform Bill of 1832 was looked forward to with much interest
and some apprehension. But the result proved the sagacity of Lord Eussell's
remark. He was a great, perhaps the greatest failure the reformed Parliament
has seen. — Ed.
t Lord Ebrington was one of the Commissioners appointed to attend Napoleon,
and being an amiable weak man, Napoleon completely hoodwinked him. — Ed.
J The events of 1840 fully justified this question in 1832.— Ed.
§ The late Earl of Derby, then Secretary for Ireland in Lord Grey's admi
nistration, subsequently Conservative Prime Minister in 1852, 1858, and again in
1866.— Ed.

352 TABLE TALK OF
and fuU of spirit and measure. I never saw such a spirit. He
has got an eye like a bird of prey, as if impatient of all human
obstructions. His nose is not handsome, but imperial. He
was keen, restless, and a little despotic. I said : " Is there any
chance of Bepeal ? " " Not an atom," said he, with enthusiasm.
" O'Connell is backing already ;" and reading a passage from an
Irish paper, his whole nature fired up, his mouth contracted,
and he ended in a victorious chuckle. It was very fine, and
.just the expression I wanted. There was a good deal of sarcasm
upon Lord Melbourne, Sir James Graham, Lord Goderich, Lord
John Bussell, &c, which seems to indicate that the sympathies
of the future Earl are not wholly with the Whigs. The Duke
of Bichmond came in while he was sitting, and said the new
Members of Parliament were very ill-regulated, jumping over
the seats, &c. &c. Mr. Stanley, said they wanted "hunting
like a pack of hounds, and would soon come into order." Mrs.
Stanley, who was with us, said, " Didn't Lord Melbourne fall
asleep when he sat to you, Mr. Haydon ? " " No, no," I said ;
" he was very entertaining." Then she turned to the head of
Graham and said, " Well, if I were Lady Graham, I should not
like that head." " Why, not? " I asked. " Why," she said,
" because it is so extremely like him." It is odd how the women
all make a dead set at Graham. Miss Eden sneered at him in
the tenderest way, and the Duke of Cleveland said he looked
" as if he had taken a couple of bottles of claret."
Apropos of this, I heard afterwards that Lady Graham said,
" Only think of Mr. Haydon making Stanley handsome, who is
not, and not doing justice to my Jemmy, who is." But the
fact is, I hit Graham's head exactly. While I was painting
him, I saw a tender expression come over his face. I turned
suddenly round, and caught Lady Graham holding up the
sketches of Lord Goderich and himself, and evidently quizzing
" my lord," and preferring her " Jemmy." This was a beautiful
touch of nature, and produced exactly his best expression.
When painting the ' Beform Banquet ' the Whigs

Attwood for a Badical and a fool, and begged me not to put
him in. I appealed to Lord Althorp. " Oh yes," said he ;
" Attwood was prominent in the cause ; he ought to be in."
This was a remarkable evidence of his goodness of heart. All
party feeling vanished in his honest heart.

B. R. HA YDON. - 353
O'Connell asked me : " What did you think of me when I
first started Bepeal ? " " That you were mad," said I ; "do
you not think that Ireland, being the smaller, must always be
subject to England the larger island ?" " No," said O'Connell.
" Is not Portugal a smaller country than Spain ? " " Yes, but
she is a separate country."*
" One great mistake of the Liberals," said O'Connell to me,
"is their infidelity. Now there are no infidels in Ireland."
" No," I said ; " they are too poetical." He looked at me as
if the thought was new, and true. I said : " It was somewhat
ungrateful after getting Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to turn
round and ask them for Bepeal." " Not in me," said O'Connell ;
"I always said Bepeal would be the consequence of Emanci
pation, and I always avowed such to be my object." " Do you
think you will carry it?" said I: "Not a doubt of it," said
he. " If you get Bepeal what will you do ?" '' Have an Irish
Parliament directly." " But an Irish Parliament was always
corrupt ? " " Yes," replied he, " in borough-mongering times,
but now there is a constituency. Besides, corrupt as it was,
it carried important measures." f
The motives of all parties (which I happen to know) on the
question of Lord Durham's conduct in Canada are laughable
evidences of the farce of principle being the stimulus to
public men. The Tories hate him because he framed the
Beform BiU. The Whigs fear him because he is a Badical,
and because he is liked by the Queen ; and the Badicals sneer
at him because he has deserted the extreme principles with
which he began political life. Lord Melbourne sent him off
to Eussia to get him out of the way. The King dies, and
Melbourne supersedes Lord Durham with the Queen. Home
from Eussia, the Whigs dread his stay in England, and they
* When the " House of Braganza " had ceased to reign, a deputation of Portu
guese nobles waited on Napoleon to secure the ancient privileges of the country.
The Emperor was brusque with them. " What is it you Portuguese want ? Do
you want to become Spaniards?" The leader of the deputation (whose name
ought not to be forgotten), a grand man, over six feet high, drew himself up to
his full height, clapped his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and, looking down
upon the little Emperor, thundered ont, " Non I " Napoleon was delighted, and
treated him with marked respect from that day. — Ed.
f " The most corrupt people under heaven," so says Lord Cornwallis, who
carried out the Union. " Adieu 1" said the Duchess of Eichmond, on leaving
Dublin. " Adieu ! dear, dirty, Dublin, where there is so much bribery, and cor
ruption, and so little said about it. Adieu !"— Ed.
VOL. II. 2 A

354 TABLE TALK OF
excite his ambition by the offer of Canada, feeling morally
certain that if left to his own bad temper, ill-conditioned liver,
and despotic will, he would be sure to commit himself. And
so it has turned out. But how he could commit himself so
far is to me astonishing. What a despicable picture it all is
of public life !
Of Arthur, Duke of Wellington, it may be fairly said that
for once a great warrior can be held up to youth as a model for
imitation, of honour, good faith, and manly heroism.* What
his enemies consider his want of genius, his want of feeling, I
consider the essence of his superiority over Alexander, Napoleon,
and Csesar. With such talents for war they would have made
themselves thrones. He returned home and took his place as
a subject of the constitutional monarchy under which he was
born. The law of arrest for debt must have had its origin in savage
times, when the novelty of money and the wish to gain it was
of more consequence than the blood of man. For how can
any one reconcile on any principle of justice greater power
given to society to receive the repayment of money than to
seize the murderer or the thief? But, say some, the power of
arrest puts a stop to extravagance! On the contrary, the
power of arrest is a bonus on unlimited extravagance in the
shape of credit. While a tradesman has the power of arrest,
* Niebuhr, in his ' Eoman History ' (vol. v. p. 17), gives a similar opinion
in regard to his successful strategy in war. Speaking of the blunders of
Hannibal, Pyrrhus, Mithridates, Frederick of Prussia, and Napoleon, Niebuhr
says, " The Duke of Wellington is, I believe, the only general in whose conduct
of war we cannot discover any important mistake." I do not know that the
military critics are quite so agreed in the Duke's favour as against Marlborough,
but in 1811, the Lord Mayor and Common Council of London, if their opinion
on military matters may be quoted, were of opinion that Wellington had com
mitted >. very great blunder in fighting the battle of Talavera. Taking their
cue from Mr. Perceval, who was for starving the Peninsular Expedition, they
petitioned Parliament, in February 1811, against the grant of any pension to
Lord Wellington for his victory at Talavera, and took upon themselves to pass
severe strictures upon him, as the General in command, for fighting a battle
where, in their opinion, he had " exhibited with equal rashness and ostentation,
nothing but a useless valour." As being spoken of a General particularly
careful of the hves of his men, and with profound aversion to " useless " conflicts,
this petition deserves to be remembered, if only as a flagrant illustration of that
propensity to draw conclusions to the disadvantage of our responsible public
servants, before every circumstance could have been known, or possession obtained
even of the necessary data. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 355
he is careless of giving credit ; because the power to lock up a
man is so great, and the being locked up such an annoyance
and disgrace to the debtor, that there is nothing he and his
friends will not do to pay the debt which the speculative
rascality of the tradesman entrapped him to incur. The whole
mass of petty credits in London is fraudulent.
Nelson was certainly a most extraordinary character. I had
no idea of his powers of mind and things till I saw his corre
spondence. How persevering he was in pursuing an object !
How restless and miserable under a chance of missing it, how
prompt and clear, cool and wary ! Having conceived a purpose,
he was rapid, energetic, unconquerable ; keeping a steady eye,
bending his whole soul, his whole body, his whole powers to
carry it. With all the simplicity and enthusiasm of fiery
youth, he had aU the wisdom and experience of suspicious
age. He had the power which all truly great men have, of
making others in his society forget their own inferiority. All
who came in contact with him, — midshipman, lieutenant, cap
tain, or admiral, ambassador or minister, all loved him, for none
in his presence lost their self-respect. He had the keen feelings
of genius. To make captive did not satisfy his soul. " We
have done very well, and we must be content," said Hotham.
" Content, and well done !" replied Nelson. " If we had taken
ten sail and let the eleventh escape, I should not have been
content, or have called it well done." This is the man who
will not wait for opportunity, but makes the most of what
he has.
Nelson is an illustrious example to show what a persevering
undivided attention to one art will do ; how far a restless habit
of enterprise, the never relaxing, or taking an indolent enjoy
ment after exertion will carry a man. He began the war an
unknown commander of a 60-gun ship, and concluded it the
greatest naval captain of his country, and famous throughout
the world.
He died the very moment he ought ; for if sympathy can be
added to admiration, what stronger hold can you have on
human nature !
When his voice was almost inarticulate ; when his sight was
dim ; when his pain was excruciating ; as life was quivering on
the borders of another world, and his gallant soul was almost
2 A 2

356 TABLE TALK OF
in the presence of the Almighty, he muttered : " I have done
my duty; I thank God I have done my duty." At such
moments if human beings are melted, and forgive injuries aud
errors, will not a Being of perfect Mercy, of perfect Benevo
lence, and of perfect Purity, receive and forgive too ? It must
be so.
Nelson's life was so compressed that one is actually forgetting
his earlier glory in the splendour of the latest. He exerted
himself to the utmost possible degree in the shortest possible
space. He is an example to all.
No nation in Europe will ever permanently secure a con
stitutional Government which does not first rescue the minds
of the people from the thraldom of priestly dominion and
degrading superstitions. The basis of our liberty was our
religious reform ; * and neither France, nor Germany, nor Spain,
nor Italy, nor South America will ever secure theirs without
proceeding on the same principle.
France is a noble country, and the French are a fine race, a
grand people ; but they must learn to limit their improvements
to themselves, or Europe will soon be in a flame. We have
no desire to see France interfered with ; but then France must
not talk about the Bhine and Belgium being her natural
boundaries, or interfere with other nations, or she wiU be
reconquered and possibly divided. Europe may serve her as
she did the works of art in the days of her Continental suc
cesses. " What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul ? " From this it seems as if the object of
God was to save as many as possible ; and if sickness, affliction,
or suffering will do it, rather than riches, health and peace,
they are used as instruments of salvation.
The ancient artists were idolaters, and believed on the per
fection of their works depended their ultimate happiness. This
* Archbishop Whately objected to the term " Eeformation " as applied to
the great religious event in our history. He thought " Bestoration " would
have been a much more effective name. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 357
is the great reason of their vast superiority. Every touch was
a compliment to a deity, and a chance of translation to heaven.
So it was with the Boman Catholic painters of the fifteenth
century. They were also animated by religious enthusiasm,
and worked under its powerful influence. The enthusiasm of
the English people is of another description. It is political,
not religious. But I see no reason why he who is animated
by an awe for the liberties of the human race cannot be
actuated by the same elevation as the ancient Greek or more
modern Italian.
Attractive as beauty is to all of us, there are yet many
people, far from being handsome, whose intellect and manner
reconcUe us, at last, to their want of good looks.
Lord Morpeth said a true thing to me of the Irish members.
I said that they seemed to be the great bores of the House.
He replied : " They talk so fluently with so little thinking ;"
which is exactly their defect, twenty words to one idea.
Cobbett's speech on taxation (Feb. 1833) was tedious and
unfair. I deny that one shilling to the wages' class is as
much as 50?. to the wealthy. If taxation went on at that
ratio there would be no rich people ; and no object in saving a
fortune if, when you have got it, it is to be diminished by one
half to preserve the remainder. Our whole system of taxation
is empirical, and Cobbett has not found the true theory which
exists somewhere. What we want is that, the relations of
taxation to property and person should be scientifically deter
mined, and the revenue raised accordingly. The next fifty
years will see great fiscal changes.
Driving home one night (9th March, 1833) from the play
with Lord Melbourne, we got upon Art. I told him that Art and
manufactures would decay if Art was not aided by Government
support. I said my ruin has hindered the youth of the country.
He- confessed that if his advice were asked in any one choosing
to practise High Art as a profession, he should say, " You will
starve." " But is that fair ?" said I. " No, certainly not," said

358 TABLE TALK OF
he. After a bit he said there was enormous private patronage ;
was not that enough ? I said, " No ; it was not of the right kind ;
it did not tend to elevate Art, or to improve Design." He
seemed interested. But they are all afraid to act ; they are so
ignorant, and they feel their helplessness in Art.
The Italians are the keenest, cleverest, and acutest people in
Europe. They would probably make head against the whole
world if ever firmly again welded into One Nation (1827).
Would anybody believe out of England that in the new
University* just started up to supply all defects of former
institutions of the kind, Art and Eeligion have been entirely
left out ?
Leigh Hunt, in his ' Lord Byron,' says : " If I know anything
in the world, and have any too good qualities to set off against
many defects, it is that, I am not vindictive, and that I speak
the truth. I have not told all, for I have no right to do so.
In the present case it would also be inhumanity both to the
dead and to the Uving." In my humble opinion there is in this
affectation of abstaining more of the essence of the most
mangling vengeance than in the furious stab of a maddened
lazzarone. This is your true " gentleman of the press."
I think it may be laid down as a moral axiom that the first
seed of depravity is parental disobedience. I have talked
with viUains of every kind, and have always found that the
confession. There is in England a democratic hatred of all superiority,
rank, wealth, talent, or worth ; a morbid dislike of innovation ;
a mean envy and tendency to deny the quaUties of mind or
morality that enable the individual to produce it ; or a con
temptible desire to depreciate the value of any discovery that
will elevate the discoverer above the ordinary man, or give
evidence that he has what others have not, extraordinary talent.
'There is more vent for these bad passions in free States thaii,.
under despotic Governments. They exist in human nature,
* The London University. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 359
and where they are suppressed in one way, they show them
selves in another. If we had not that common sewer for our
passions, the public press, the stiletto or the hemlock would
again be in vogue.
April llth, 1832. — I told Lord Grey the whole story of Art and
manufacture, and impressed on him the necessity of Govern
ment support by a vote of money. He said, " If it is done,
what will be the result? a job! everything is a job in
England ! " Then he said : " Where is there room for historical
paintings?" I said, "In the House of Lords a series of
pictures might be placed to illustrate the glories of England,
with portraits of the great men between." He smiled. They
all smile. If they would put the House of Lords in my hands,
in two years I would let them see if they ought to smile. I
told him that the portraits in the Eoyal Academy for the last
forty years had invariably been painted " standing upon their
toes." He asked how. I showed him. He looked half-annoyed
at not knowing it.
I can never forget the scenes I have witnessed in the House
of Lords when Brougham was Chancellor. His utter apathy
to other peoples' feelings ; his inordinate assumption of extra
ordinary elevation ; the restless, irritable, grossness of his allu
sions ; his indifference, his callous indifference to facts, which I
repeatedly heard, were shocking. If he had remained in office
he would have been — if he had " been endured," as Napoleon
said of himself — "lui seul une revolution," but he was not
endured, he could not be ; and in my conscience I believe
latterly his brain was over-excited.
The worst of the Whigs is they do nothing but " enquire,"
listen to both parties, and leave them worse off than where
they found them.
Why are the English people to be " inferior " to any other
nation in matters of Art ? Why " must " their taste be com
pressed to Dutch boors and dead herrings, and their industry
confined to the production of articles useful, but without a
sense of beauty ? It was not so always. No country on earth

360 TABLE TALK OF
has so many depressions as England. But the "People" are
getting above this, and will ultimately beat down all suspicion
of their genius.
I saw a great deal of Sir Eobert Peel during the fierce
debates over the Eeform Bill of 1832 ; and, as a specimen of a
human being seeking trouble without reason, I never saw the
like before. With every means of happiness in his power, he
was restless, worried, harassed day and night, and looked more
fagged than a bill-clerk at a banker's. The only time he
seemed relieved was just after he left office; and yet the
hankering for power poisoned all the sources of happiness
within his reach. He soon began to feel the rabies again,
valuing only that which gave him anxiety to get, and costs
him acute mortification now he has got it. This is a true
picture of human nature.
Mr. Coke (of Holkham) is full of reminiscences. He told
me he remembered a fox kiUed in Cavendish Square, and
where Berkeley Square now stands was a capital place for snipe.
He told me a story of Fox. One night at Brookes's, Fox made
some remark upon Government powder, in allusion to some
thing that had happened. Adam considered it a reflection, and
sent Fox a challenge. Fox went out and took his station,
giving a full front. Fitzgerald, his second, said, " You must
stand sideways." " Why ? " said Fox, " I am as thick one way
as the other." " Fire! " was given. Adam fired. Fox did not ;
and when they said he must, he said : " I'll be  if I do,"
and so they shook hands. Adam's bullet had hit Fox below
the waist, and feU into his breeches. " Adam," said Fox, " you
would have kiUed me if it hadn't been Government powder ! "*
Mr. Coke said that when Burke was dying, Fox went down
to see him, but Burke would not see Fox. When he came
* This was the famous Adam and Fox dtiel. It took place in 1779. The
Westminster Play of that year was ' Phormio,' and the Epilogue was spoken
by Phormio in the character of a Government Powder Contractor. It ended
with — " Quin cum privatis certetur ubique duellis,
Nemo perit, — pugnat pulvere quisque mek." 
Which, the author of 'Our Public Schools' says, was received with "shouts of
laughter by Westminster Wliigs and Tories." — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 361
back, Mr. Coke was lamenting Burke's obstinacy. "Ah!"
said Fox ; " never mind, Tom. I always find every Irishman
has got a piece of potato in his head."
When I looked at Sir George Cockburn, I used to think this
is the man who said to Napoleon, "Eh bien, General, je serai
pret demain a midi ! " — and served Napoleon right. He had not
an atom more delicacy, even to women.
Lord Andover, who is (1833) a very fat man, was greatly
plagued at a fancy bazaar, lately, to buy some trifle or other
from the ladies' stalls. At length he rather rudely said, " I
am like the Prodigal Son, persecuted by ladies." " No, no,"
retorted Mrs.  , " say, rather, the fatted calf." Since then
all the other fat men, Lord Nugent, Lord Althorp, &c, have
called on Mrs.  to beg her to explain it was not they who
offended.

Men wane first in love, especially in England. They get
fond of eating, drinking, hunting, shooting, and soon after
marriage leave their wives to nurse, and read novels. A woman,
on the other hand, remembers when her husband was her lover ;
never forgets that delicious time, and always regrets it. In
most cases where the sacred circle of domestic happiness is
broken, if the husband had been commonly attentive it would
never have been touched. If, after marriage, men and women
would but keep up a little of the art and romance they used
so freely before, they might live longer in delusion, in tran
quillity, and in peace.
As a matter of curiosity, what a spectacle the Day of Judg
ment will be ! When all disguises will be torn off, when aU
concealments laid open ! where nothing will be but what is,
and what ought to be, and Truth only reign. Where husbands,
wives, daughters, fathers, friends, enemies, and lovers, will see
each other as they reaUy were on earth. What a scene ! What
a terrific exposition !
The world sees only results, that is leading points ; and when
a man gains more than he loses by any conduct, the world

362 TABLE TALK OF
never attributes his conduct to principle. So that if a man
refuses a duel on principle, the world suspects his courage
because he saves his life. And when a scoundrel challenges
such a man, the scoundrel renders his rascality respectable
in the eye of the world, because he exhibits a contempt for his
personal safety.
Any attempt to lower a man's reputation in that one point
where he is ambitious to be distinguished is never forgotten,
or forgiven.
Oh ! if my mind and soul could but once get clear of that
leaden clog, "pecuniary difficulty." If my mind could but
once act without anticipating obstruction, it would act with
more power than it has ever done yet.
Why do not French pictures, or hard high-finishing, give
one the pleasure of a Vandyke ? Because there is no evidence
of an abstracting power in the mind of the artist ; a power of
conveying results, and letting the mind of the spectator fiU up
and unite.
Never disregard what your enemies say. They may be
severe ; they may be prejudiced : they may be determined to
see only in one direction ; but still in that direction they see
clearly. They do not speak aU the truth, but they generaUy
speak the truth from one point of view ; so far as that goes,
attend to them.
There was something about Sir Walter Scott — foxy. Amiable,
delightful, dear man as he was, he had something of a look as
if he had been " playing fox."
From reading the daily journals you get an insight into the
history of your own time, but you neglect the epochs of past
times. I know the period of Buonaparte well, but not those of
Csesar, Alexander, Hannibal, or CromweU. The present day
always appears so full of immediate interest, that other and
perhaps greater periods of time are neglected.
Just before waking on Saturday morning (22nd September,

B. R. HA YDON. 363
1832), I dreamed, and awoke considerably agitated, that I lived
in a square, and that Sir Walter Scott lived opposite, on the
right side of it — that I went to my window early in the
morning, and that I looked across and saw Sir Walter's house
shut up, except his bedroom windows, which were a little
open, just as they are when a corpse lies in the room. I
called out to my wife, " Sir Walter is dead," and so loudly
that I awoke. On the 24th I received the following letter
from Abbotsford : — "Abbotsford, Sept. 21.
" Sir Walter Scott died here this afternoon at half-past one."
How often do the uneducated tell us similar facts, and how
often do we laugh ! But here was a palpable intimation where
no human communication could have taken place within a few
hours of his death.*
Charles Gore told me he saw Lord WeUesley the day before
he went to Ireland, and that Lord WeUesley said of the Duke :
" Arthur is a great general but a  ¦ bad statesman : " and
alluding to the Duke as a public speaker, said : " Arthur can't
speak the English language intelligibly — there is only one
phrase he can speak, ' our old friend,' and that he can't speak
plainly." Gore said it was a rich scene. Lord WeUesley also
told of his sending out reinforcements to Spain when Foreign
Minister, and of the opposition of Perceval, &c, all of which I
* At Sio Janeiro, on 22nd June, 1846, while walking the deck of H.M.S.
' Grecian,' in the forenoon watch, I was suddenly seized with an inexplicable
presentiment of evil, of misfortune, of grief of some kind I could not explain. My
¦ spirits became so affected, I made a note of it in my Journal ; and after » day
or two vainly struggling against it, I obtained leave, crossed the harbour to
Boto Fogo, and I remained for a week in seclusion. It was on the morning,
about 11 a.m., of the 22nd June, 1846, that my father had destroyed himself at
his house in London. I had not heard for some weeks from home, and then the
news was good. But the day previous I had been ashore, and walked out with
Sir J. (then Mr.) Hudson, our Minister at Eio, to the cemetery, and there we
accidentally saw the dead-cart from the hospital being unloaded of its unlovely
burdens. I remember the attendant pulling the bodies out by the legs, and as he
hurled them into the pit, shouting, " um, dous, tres." The fourth wrs a baby, which
he tossed up in the air caressingly. I turned away sickened, and had a taste of
earth in my mouth for days. But I had no spectral illusions, nor did I dream
of my father, nor dwell at all upon what I had seen in the cemetery, though it
did occur to me now and again ; but on the 22nd I suffered the most extra
ordinary and intense depression of spirit, to which I am never subject. There
are numerous cases on record of similarly unaccountable immediate intimations
by sense-impressions occurring to friends at a great distance from the scene of
death.— Ed.

364 TABLE TALK OF
knew to be true from hearing it related at the time by well-
informed official men.*
The great defect in Lord Grey (1834) was a want of deci
sion. He was a vain man, easily flattered, and even the Beform
Bill of 1832 went further than he intended. His accessibility,
his tenderness of heart, his consistency, his truthfulness, were
contrasted by weaknesses which almost rendered them nega
tions. But on the whole, he had a beautiful character, the
basis of which was amiableness, truthfulness, and affection.
Posterity alone will appreciate and admire his consistency and
his moral courage in carrying Beform. Like other men simi
larly placed, he has been the first victim of the great moral
revolution his consistency produced, f
IB.'s absurd caricature of Brougham climbing up the sign
post was founded on fact. Lord Plunkett told me it was per
fectly true that, he and Lord Brougham had dined with the
King — they lost their way coming home, the post-boy was
drunk, and Lord Brougham got out of the carriage, and as it
was foggy, climbed up, the sign-post to spell out the direction.
April 12th, 1833. — Hume called on me and said, he " gave up "
the Ministry. They were losing ground, and not willing to
meet the wishes of the people ; " And see what a mess," said he,
" we are getting into in Holland and at Constantinople." " Oh,"
said I, "Mr. Hume, do not be low-spirited, we shall pull
through." Troubles in life, natural or individual, are like the
crowd in Cheapside ; you think you will never get through :
* Lord WeUesley was very angry at his brother, Arthur, making himself
Prime Minister instead of offering the post to him.— Ed.
t It may be doubted whether posterity will confirm this view of Lord Grev's
conduct over the Eeform Bill of 1832. Every fresh contribution to the historv of
that event seems to point to the fact that Lord Grey's desire for Eeform did not
extend further than the removal of one or two ancient abuses, and that he but
imperfectly comprehended the circumstances with which he had to deal He
certainly did not correctly estimate the effect of the Eeform he did carrv for he
complained to Lord Ebrington .of that "constant and active pressure from
without,' which was its immediate effect, and which he did not know how to
deal with. Then he became alarmed for his order, and like Swift's spider
thought the world was coming to an end because the ceiling was being brushed
°Ier' l.01^ Grey 1as ™ amiable but not a far-sighted statesman, and came into
office thirty years too late to achieve a great reputation, and went out of it a
remarkable illustration that nothing is ever got by a policy which vou merelv
carry out by halves. — Ed. j j

3. R. HAYDON. 36;
as you approach, one goes to the right, the other to the left,
and you are astonished to find yourself at the end of the street.
The fact is, Hume is extremely mortified at the ill-success of
his opposition to Lord Grey. He flattered himself he was to
have had a large majority, and it is only a petty one ; and he
has lost the confidence of the House by having no objection to
any expenditure when he has a " hobby " of his own (like a
new House of Parliament), and being niggardly over that of
any other member.
Joseph Hume was a remarkable man. He sat several times
to me, and we had many interesting conversations. He was
active minded, restlessly conversational, and intelligent — hard,
but honest, merciless on corruption, and very persuasive. He
was perfectly unaffected and with great good sense, had imagi
nation and enlarged and original views. It is extraordinary
the native freshness there is in a man like Hume, unburdened
with rank, and not troubled with the refined delicacies of high
life. In the House he must have been like a bit of granite.
He said many bitter things of Brougham. He accused him of
insincerity, selfishness, and ambition ; and said he was without
principle or heart. He said that Brougham kept the charter
of the London University merely to have the establishment
depending upon himself. I asked him if he had seen IB.'s
6s. 6d. caricatures ? He said, " One or two." I showed him
my collection, among which was one of him — the whole House
asleep, and he with one eye open ! He laughed, and asked
what they cost ? I said, " I get them at first-cost, and you may
have this for 2s." "I suppose now," said Hume, looking
archly at me, " I may get 'em hawf -price !" It was a bit of
character. We talked of war. I told him while the risk of
life was considered a proof of noble spirit, war would never be
extinct. He replied, " There was no moral courage in risking
life ; but real courage was shown by him who braved public
censure, who refused duels, and bore moral attacks nobly for
the sake of a national good." Hume said, " Captain York told
him, ' You'll see the Whigs are the Tories, we mean to do
nothing ! ' " Hume said, " The nobility of England have become
corrupt. Instead of bringing up their sons to get their own
living, they think of this or that place wherein they may be
paid well out of the public money, and do little."

366 TABLE TALK OF
He said he had dined at Hampstead at a public dinner of
working-men, where the carpenter said, " I'm a friend to
Eeform, but I must not say so ; I will fit up the room, charge
nothing, but I can't dine with you or I should lose my custom."
He wanted me to dine with him at ' The Prince of Wales and
Feathers,' near St. Luke's, but I declined. The sad truth is, I
do not relish dining with the (uneducated) wages' class. I am
very happy to work for them, and to do my best to educate and
enlighten them, and to improve their condition, but not to dine
with them. I prefer Tasso and Virgil, champagne and the
Order of the Bath. This is, I dare say, wrong, but I cannot
help it. There is poetry in the people, but there is also poetry
in nobility, and — ihe ribbon paints well. Hume said, " I do not
wonder at public men becoming disgusted with public life and
retiring for ever. I expect nothing from this Ministry but
what they are driven into — nothing ! " Lord Cavendish told
me afterwards, that " Hume was impracticable, and had better
remain as he was, for he would never do in any Cabinet."
This was the general feeling.
Having made a very successful head of Hume, I made him
a present of the sketch, but I told him a frame and glass would
preserve it. He accepted the sketch with every expression of
thanks, and begged me to order a frame and glass ; I did so,
and having mounted the sketch, sent it over to his house by
the frame-maker. He kept the man waiting for an hour, then
sent him away without paying his account, and three days
after returned me the sketch, saying, " It was not considered
like ; " leaving me to pay the frame-maker's biU, which I have
done. This is " Joe Hume " all over. I told this afterwards
to the Duke of Sussex, who agreed with me that Hume was
deficient in gentlemanlike feeling — the common defect of
such men. The Duke added, that "Hume would never get
over the business of the Greek Loan," and it sticks to him
certainly. Lord Duncannon told me that Lord Farnborough entirely
agreed with me in opposition to the proposed union of the
Boyal Academy and National Gallery under the same roof,
and quite shared my apprehensions as to the ill-effect it would
have on native art. In time others will also see that I am
right. At present Lord Grey sees nothing. Spring-Bice and

B. R. HA YDON. , 367
Shee,* by misrepresentation and insinuation, have completely
out-manoeuvred me, and have carried their darling plan.
Before fifty years are over the Boyal Academy will have
to be turned out of the gallery, if only to make room for
future bequests. Yet Lord Grey will see nothing but that
the President of the Boyal Academy has no human imperfec
tions. Poor Lord Grey !
March 27th, 1833. — Lord Plunkett has an arch humour.
" When do you sketch O'Connell ? " said one of his daughters.
" There is one thing," said Lord Plunkett, " if you could take
his head entirely off you would do great good to society."
He looked at the picture (Beform Banquet), and said, " You
have put Hume between the candles. I'll lay my life he will
be thinking of the expense of so much wax." I thought I
should have died with laughing, for Eume actually said, as he
looked at the candles, " That's bad wax." " Why ?" said I.
" Because," said he, " there's too much snuff ; no good wax has
any." -Sir John Hobhouse,t when sitting to me (7th Nov. 1832),
said Lord Byron was not naturally a melancholy, but a merry
person ; that his melancholy when in London was owing to his
pecuniary difficulties, that he often wanted 501., and that he
would have been often arrested but that he was a peer. Sir
John agreed with me that Lady Byron was not fitted for
Byron. There was nothing between them but pecuniary
necessity, and that was the sole cause of their separation. He
did not like to agree with me as to my suspicions of Moore's
regard, though he did not contradict it.
He said Moore, in his ' Life of Byron,' had certainly pre
tended that Byron's early life with those amiable girls in
Nottingham had been virtuously passed, and that had he
continued such female connections his vices might have been
less ; and that had he followed the advice of Hodgson, the
parson, it would have been better for him, &c. " Now," said
Hobhouse, " this Hodgson was, on the whole, the most dis
sipated of the set ;" that Byron came to college perfectly
* Sir Martin Archer Shee, an accomplished Irishman, President of the Eoyal
Academy, but not remarkable for his power as a painter. — Ed.
t Sir John Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Bruughton.— Ed.

368 TABLE TALK OF
initiated after these innocent experiences in Nottingham ; and
that neither he (Hobhouse) nor Mathews could teach Lord
Byron anything, for of the three he was certainly the most
advanced. He said, " Hodgson was a man always borrowing
money of Byron ; and when he (Hodgson) married, he wrote to
Byron, saying, ' Inveni fortune ! ' " Byron read the letter to
Hobhouse, and on coming to this, said " I'm glad of it. I hope
you'll now drink your own port, for,  me, you have been
drinking mine these five years."
Hodgson was very fond of giving Lord Byron religious
advice. Byron used to say, " As soon as he pays me my 1200Z.
I'll listen to him."
He said Byron was no scoffer, not in the least, and re
pressed it in others. He had investigating doubts, but never
scoffed. Hobhouse said he was one of the Newstead party; and
Hodgson, I think he said, was the clergyman dressed like a
monk. There was nothing to be ashamed of; they drank a
great deal of wine, ran after all the girls, and had a great deal
of fun — as young fellows of twenty-four used in those days.*
We then talked of the curious habit of the EngUsh people for
breaking off relics, instead of being content to let things remain
perfect, and to share the pleasure of contemplation with others.
He said the English were, in this respect, the oddest people in
the world ; and after heartily abusing them for this atrocious
vice of relic-making, he said, in a moment of abstraction, :' I
have lost three great curiosities I valued very highly — a bottle
of water from Castalia ; the sling of Buonaparte's carriage, which
I was allowed to take as. a relic;" and something else! Was
there ever anything like this? The sling of Buonaparte's
carriage ! What hope for cure is there ?t We then talked of
William Hazlitt : Hobhouse said that JEazlitt swore he would
never forgive him for striking out a passage wherein Lord
Byron had attacked Hazlitt. " Now," said Hobhouse, " I
meant to do Hazlitt a service, but he said it would have been
of the greatest service to him to have been attacked by Lord
Byron." " The truth is," said Hobhouse, " between you and
me, I thought Hazlitt beneath Lord Byron's notice." I told
* In these days nobody knows what the young men do. — Ed.
t This is not quite fair, for B. E. H. was himself as fond of relics as most of
us, though he would never have injured a beautiful fragment to get one. —Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 369
him I thought in case of a Eevolution, Hazlitt, like Eobes-
pierre, would have sheared off' heads by the thousand, on a
metaphysical principle.
Speaking of Napoleon, Sir John said that more knowledge
of him had shaken his previous esteem.
I asked him what he thought of Walter Scott's denial, on
his honour, to the Prince as to the authorship of ' Waverley.'
Sir John said he thought the Prince had no right to allude
to the subject, though he did not approve of such a voluntary
denial. He had heard Sir Walter say to Lord Byron that he
(Scott) was not the author, and that without being asked.
We then talked politics. He said, had not the Beform
Bill been passed, the people would have rolled over the aristo
cracy and have crushed them — there would have been no fight.
Speaking of the Birmingham Unions, he said Attwood was
dethroned1, and Dr. Wade the man now. I never had any doubt
that Wade was sent down by the Government to start a new
Union, so as to divide and distract.
Attwood always seemed awkward when he met me after the
failure of the Birmingham Eadicals to support the proposal
which they had accepted of a painting of the Newhall Hill
meeting. The fact was, that one hundred of these gentlemen
put down their names as subscribers, and never paid their
subscription.* The longer a man lives in the world the more he must be
convinced that all domestic quarrels had better never be
obtruded on the public ; for, let the husband be right, or let
him be wrong, there is always a sympathy existing for women
which is certain to give the man the worst of it. And it is
right that this sympathy should never be chilled ; for taking
into consideration that men are more used to bear the attacks
of the world, and are better prepared for them, it is as well
that the weight of sympathy should be on the side of the
woman. And it certainly is so ; for, as no ground is safer than
that taken by the world to defend a woman, and as there is
no suspicion more keenly felt by men than that of not being
* Attwood explained this laxity of principle and conduct by attributing it to
the " rascally Tory system," and so did Scholefield. ' L'homme est feu pour le
mensonge. H est glace' aux verites.' — Ed.
VOL. II. 2 B

37o TABLE TALK OF
alive to gallantry and love, so, in such cases of domestic
quarrels, as that between Lord and Lady Byron for example,
all men who have a character for gallantry to keep, and all
others who are ambitious to acquire such a reputation, join m
the hue and cry against the husband.
In thinking over Lady Byron's unhappy case, I have no
doubt she deserves all the handsome things that have been
said of her, but stiU I am of opinion that it is much to be
regretted she ever left Lord Byron in the depth of his mis
fortunes. It is a pity she did not stay and console him, as she
had failed to correct him. I say it is a pity ; and if she had
really and truly and passionately loved him could she have
left him? I ask this of any woman who has passionately
loved. She married Lord Byron with the romantic notion of
reforming him. Alas, this was not love ! it might be 'ambition,
vanity, virtue, principle, but it was not love. Love first, and
then correct. Every woman knows how differently she corrects
the man she first loved, instead of first correcting him to render
him worthy of her affections. These are very different modes
of proceeding ; and every woman may depend upon it, that if
she marry a man with a notion predominant of correction, she
takes into her heart from the altar the rooted seed of domestic.
misery. Nor can I think Lady Byron's treatment of Lord Byron
fair. Her method of accusing him dreadfuUy, and keeping the
pubUc in ignorance of the nature of the accusation, is a more
artful way of destroying his character than by teUing the
truth, let it be ever so horrible. The only excuse she had was,
that he was mad ; and when she found he was not mad, she left
him! Mr. Ellice, another early friend of Byron, told me, that after
Byron was married he asked Byron how he got on ? Byron
told him that when he came home he would find half-a-dozen
old blues with Lady Byron, who, if a man made a joke, thought
he was sure of damnation. Mr. Ellice said Moore knew little
of Byron till he was advanced in life. He said also that Hob
house was always quizzed by Byron, both in letters and con
versation, though he (Ellice) believed Hobhouse was more
attached to Byron than to anyone else. I said to Mr. Ellice,
" There were dreadful reports about Byron and Lady Byron ? "

B. R. HAYDON. 371
He laughed at the calumny, and said she " used him ill." I
said, "She married him to reform him." "Yes," said Mr.
Ellice, " not only to reform him but to refuse him." .... It
is just what I always thought.
The noisy mobs of the Eeform Bill period were nothing, in
my opinion, in comparison with the secret, quiet, sapping
approach of the Ballot. The people are yet not sufficiently
educated to be free of the influence of the property and moneyed
class, and they ought not to be until they are. When every
man can read, write, and reason, I have no objection to his
having the suffrage, but not till then. Open voting, with all
its risks, is less dangerous to the Monarchy ; and a limited
constituency is the safest of all. The question between Aris
tocracy and Democracy is rapidly approaching in England,
but unless regulated and controlled by the aristocracy, the
evils the people would bring on themselves are not to be
believed. Who would believe that the Whigs, with whom originated
the abolition of West Indian slavery, are now (1838) by Orders
in Council sanctioning slavery, under another form, in the
East Indies ? Yet they have done it ; and in reply to
Brougham's magnificent indictment what is Lord Melbourne's
defence ? That it is the interest of capitalists ; and so long as
men can get eight per cent, for their money by slave-trading
they will put their capital into it. What would Burke have
said to this ? Is there no such thing as feeling or sympathy ?
Are human beings but bales of cotton ? Why, if the interests
of the capitalists predominate, make it their suffering ? Hang
every man found guilty of embarking his capital in this
inhuman traffic. It would soon stop. Lord Melbourne, in this
matter, has shown, more of his hard iron-headedness as to
human suffering than he ever did before. Originally he was
not so, but Lady Caroline's infidelity scathed his sensibilities.
There is in Lord Melbourne the sarcasm as of a wounded spirit,
though he can no longer 4 consider himself a " disappointed
man." ' O'Connell said one day, in talking over the decay of
England's navy under the Whigs, " And to think of England's
2 b 2

372 TABLE TALK OF
navy being left in the hands of that ' man in buckram ' —
C****** W***. What a delusion ! "
Lord Burghersh told me that once at Florence he lent his
book to Soult's son, at the same time explaining to him that
he (Lord Burghersh) had said Soult was beaten at Toulouse.
"Oh," said the son, "my father thinks so!" This refutes the
French writers who claim the victory for Soult.
Cortez was, perhaps, as remarkable an instance of decision
of character as ever existed. He always relieved himself from
apparent ruin by attempts which would have been more ruinous
if unsuccessful than the situations he got out of by their
success. This is the true nerve so essential to the completion
of all schemes where great decision and energy and self-will
are requisite.
The Duke of Somerset told me, as an instance of Napoleon's
personal vanity that, after he had sat to Gerard for his por
trait, when the picture was finished, the Emperor looked at it,
and said peevishly to Gerard, " You ought not to paint me as I
am. Do you think Apelles painted Alexander as he was?"*
When CromweU sat to Sir Peter Lely, he said, " If you don't
put in aU the scars and wrinkles I won't pay you a farthing."
This was the finer of the two.f Cromwell was a grand
fellow. In talking of Court etiquette, Lord Melbourne once told me
that in 1782 Mr. Burke went to a levee, wearing gloves.
He was stopped, and compeUed to unglove before entering
the presence.
* If this was Gerard's portrait of the " Emperor " in 1804, no one need feel
surprise at Napoleon's remark. My father, who saw the picture in 1814, describes
it in his Journal as " an infernal portrait ; a horrid yellow for complexion ; the
tip of the nose tinged with red ; his eyes fixed, stern, and watery ; his mouth cool,
collected, and resolute. I never was so touched by human expression. It had
not the least look of mercy, breeding, or highmindedness. It was doubtless like
Napoleon at the time, for he was not then in good health."
t But the cause of difference between Cromwell and Napoleon is overlooked
both by the Duke of Somerset and my father. Cromwell desired to be painted
as Nature had made him ; and Napoleon's objection is that Gerard had painted
him as Nature had not made him, but as a horrible cutaneous disease he had
contracted at Toulon periodically altered his natural appearance. Napoleon
had a grand head and fine features, and Gerard need not have made him quite
so repulsive; and this, even with a fit of his disease upon him, Buonaparte
probably felt as he looked on the portrait that was painted for posterity.— En.

B. R. HAYDON. 373
One of the most curious features of English society is the
rapid rise of men from obscurity, into which they sink again.
Take, for instance* Attwood, Hunt, Cobbett, and now (1845)
Cobden and Bright ; though, perhaps, Cobden may remain.*
One of Lord Egremont's married nieces, when in an interesting
condition, used at Petworth to sit for hours looking at the
baby in my picture of ' Alexander.' Lord Egremont asked her
mother why she did this. Oh! said she, "don't you know?
She thinks that baby the very picture of what a baby ought
to be, and she wants hers to be like it." This was a charming
compliment to both baby and painter. The baby was my
dear boy Alfred, who died some years later.
It should be laid down as an axiom in our policy that the
great foreign ambassadors are leagued in a conspiracy to
render as nugatory as possible the power and predominance of
Great Britain. What is the use of talking of the eight hundred
miUions of debt ? It is the price we paid for keeping our inde-
* This cannot be justly assumed of Cobbett. He was a far superior man in
many respects to Attwood and Hunt ; and when they are forgotten he will long
be remembered as the man who courageously fought against the efforts of official
authority to put down the freedom and independence of our public press, and
that, too, at a time when a ruinous fine, imprisonment, and transportation, was
the common lot of writers hostile to the measures of the Government, or who
ventured to criticise the public acts of any member of the administration.
Cobbett fought this battle out to the end, and won it, as the failure of his last
prosecution virtually established our present freedom of criticism which Lord
Castlereagh, there can be no doubt, had intended to suppress. But Cobbett has
other claims upon our affectionate remembrance. He is the only man who ever
made " Grammar " amusing, and language easy, and he wrote and spoke re
markably pure English. But what one likes most about Cobbett is his thorough
good hearty English feeling. That he was a man of high talent is unquestion
able. That he did not make a reputation in Parliament is true enough, though
he left his mark there. But then he never entered Parliament till he was
seventy-six years of age, and yet, old as he was, and wholly unused to the
oppressive forms and critical coldness of the House, he took his place at once in
the front rank of the best Parliamentary debaters of that day, when able debaters
were not so rare as now. But Cobbett was something more than a mere debater.
Had he been true to his party, whichever it was, he would probably have been
returned to Parliament years before, and have left a great Parliamentary reputa
tion behind him. But he was so inconsistent with himself, so wanting in definite
opinions, and so unwilling to ally himself with any party, or to deny himself the
pleasure of attacking every party or person as they rose up in turn, that he
dissipated the power his great abilities might have won for him under an
accepted leader. Possibly, like Mr. Cobden, who once explained to me as his
reason for not taking office under Lord Palmerston that he "declined to pay
the price," so Cobbett loved his independence, and aspired rather to be courted
by all parties than identified with any. Beyond this nobody knew where to
have him. — Ed.

374 TABLE TALK OF
pendence, and not too dear. My politics are the energy of
Cromwell, the nationality of Nelson, and the fierceness of Blake.
We are becoming too fine gentlemen, and shall lose our;
manliness of character if we do not take care.
Poor Lord Grey ! he has been completely taken in. Warburton
told me that he dined with Spring-Bice a day or two ago
(20th December, 1833), and that when he alluded to the pro
bable want of space if the Boyal Academy were allowed to
occupy any part of the gallery, Spring-Bice said, " Oh, if we.
want room we will pull down the barracks behind ! " So they1
are building a National Gallery for a specific purpose, and with,
the option of choosing a plan, and then so acting by placing.
the Academy within the Gallery, that they are obliged to
acknowledge the probability of destroying a barrack built at a
great expense for another specific purpose. Good heavens ! and
this is the way a great public measure is jobbed, and a large
sum of public money wasted !
After thirty years' struggle to get the Government to do
something for art, in which the Eoyal Academy as a body hung
round the neck of art like a millstone, all the Whig Govern
ment consented to do was not to provide opportunity and bestow
employment upon artists, but to give 25,OO0Z. of pubUc money
to the Eoyal Academicians to build a new Academy, and this
while the Eoyal Academy had 40,000Z. in the funds.
Lord Melbourne told me that George IV. was fond of riff
raff, with whom he could take Uberties. I told him of Seguier's
conduct towards me, and he said directly that, he had no doubt
the King had asked for me.*
Painters should not be talkers, except with their brushes,
or writers upon their art, because the display of too much
power, when others know something, is apt to excite envy
* All the men George IV. preferred to have about him seem to have had a
spice of vice in their composition. " Kings are inclined to favour those,"' says
Tacitus, " in whose vices they see a reflection of their own secret depravity," I
do not know that this weakness is confined to kings. It seems common enough
among men and women. The odd thing is that the reverse rarely exists.
Virtuous people seldom are attracted to one another by their virtues. They
seem, on the contrary, to be constantly on the look-out for the weak points in
each other's armour, and to be animated rather by a love for antagonisms than
identities in thought and feeling. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 375
and injure a painter's development of his art. Men are con
tent that you should know more of Painting than they, but
they do not like that you should know as much of any other
thing. The secret of portrait painting for men, is the secret for
women ; mingle love in every woman's expression, and tender
submission in men, and it will do. Women see their lovers
in their husbands, and are never satisfied with any portrait
that does not give them an association of that description.
Sir Thomas Lawrence knew this, and carried it to effeminacy.
A painter who makes it a principle will be sure to succeed,
but you lose aU the higher qualities of character, fortitude,
elevation, intellect, &c.
When you have an opportunity of putting a human being on
his back, never, from charity, give him the opportunity of
putting you upon yours. Bemember this through life. Floor
him first, and then let him rise without obstruction — but floor,
him first*
Nothing is more simple than a man's duty — or call it policy,
if you like — in life. Industry, virtue, and religion produce a
temperate patience where we are in doubt, and give a relish
and enjoyment to what we comprehend. Idleness, vice, and
infidelity render us, where in doubt, more distressingly dejected,
and take off the relish and enjoyment from what we might
otherwise draw comfort and delight. Let every man bend his
faculties to do that which his faculties can do, and he will be
happy; but let him not bend them to discover that which
human faculties cannot discover, and then mutter at his Creator
for not giving him faculties which are not adapted to the
sphere in which he exists. Work hard, wait patiently, yield
to age, depend on your Creator, and the curtain which now
conceals all will, one day, be lifted.
Milton exhausts human means in describing a grand idea,
and yet leaves your imagination to finish it.
Sir Joshua Beynolds, from ignorance of the forms of objects,
* This seems scarcely in accordance with his previous injunction to " Do unto
others as we should wish them to do to us," but it is very human and excusable
in a man so generous as Haydon. — Ed.

376 TABLE TALK OF
always painted with hesitation. Payne Knight says that he raised
himself gradually by undertaking at first whatever was offered.,
The fact was he undertook what was offered and the easiest ;j
and after painting thirty years he found he must do something/
more to secure a reputation, and he attacked great works un
prepared ; whereas had he at first wrestled with the highest
difficulties he would have secured a foundation to build on for
the remainder of his career.
Perhaps the most effectual way of interesting aU human
beings is to make human beings the agents of sublimity as
weU as pathos.
The Duke of Sussex (1833) when he first sat to me talked
much upon the Greek Tragedies, which he admired as much as
myself. He said he did not, on the whole, approve the vio
lation of the writers in our drama .* He spoke very well, quite
like a Uterary man with a great deal of feeUng. When I
described to him the opening of Agamemnon in ;ZEschylus he
was visibly affected. He seemed to feel as if he was but a
Boyal personage, and said in an impassioned tone — " Ah ! those
are brilliant flashes of genius — genius ! " I thought this candour
very fine.
Jeffrey once said to me, a propos of WUUam HazUtt, " He
always reminds me of the tired ass in the desert, without occu
pation, profession, or pursuit."
In talking of royalty, the Duke said he did not think it quite
fair that after the bargain of giving up the Boyal domains for
an equivalent the Boyal Family on every occasion of coming of
age or a marriage, &c, should be obliged to come before Parlia
ment " in forma pauperis " for an aUowance. He said, " We
begin in debt. I did not get an estabUshment tiU I was
thirty. The Eoyal Family of England were never beggars, but
possessed demesnes, and after having parted with these for an
equivalent, that which they now had frpm the pubUc purse
* Archbishop Whately asserts that it is a "common mistake" to suppose that
the unities of time, place, and action, were derived from the practice of the
ancient Greeks 1 " The supposition," he says, in his ' Table Tali,' " is entirely
gratuitous." In many of the Greek Tragedies, " unity of time and place is
entirely disregarded." The mistake seems to have arisen from a misapprehen-'
sion of a passage in Aristotle. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 377
dught to be considered their right." This seemed just and
reasonable from the royal point of view, but on subsequently
mentioning the matter to Lord Durham, he said at once,
" What the Duke says is very true, but before the Eoyal Family
gave up their land they maintained the army out of their
domains, like other landed proprietors. When the present
arrangement was effected the public took the burden of the
army with the Boyal domains, and allowed the Eoyal Family
an income instead." *
I went to the House of Lords to-night t (3rd June, 1833) to
hear the Duke of Wellington make his attack upon Lord Grey
relative to Portugal. The Duke looked fresh and well, and
wore his star, but there was throughout his whole speech an
evident consciousness he was doing a dirty action. He looked
down,. I never saw his eye once, and he seemed as if on the
watch lest he should commit himself. For the very first time
I doubted, and shall ever doubt, his political integrity. He
seems to have become the tool of a faction. When he sat
down Lord Grey replied, and certainly a more effectual refu
tation never came from the mouth of a man, yet the bishops
voted against him.
After the debate, as I was sending him the lithograph of
Lord John Bussell, I wrote a line —
To the Bight Hon. Earl Gset.
My dear Lord,
I send you Lord John, which is further carried than
Stanley. I was in the House, and how any man could vote
against you after your irrefutable refutation to the Duke, a
bishop (don't be angry) only could explain. Believe me,
B. E. Haydon.
P.S.— Priests are always the same, Catholic, Protestant,
Pagan, or Hindoo.
* This explanation hardly seems to meet the case. The objection of the
Duke of Sussex was not so much to the amount as to the manner of granting it.
But the whole question, as put by the Duke of Sussex, is full of difficulties, not
the least of which would be the primary one of finding a standard epoch from
which to value the measure of the property of the Crown. But as a matter of
fact, I have reason to believe, no large change in the present system of Eoyal
Grants is considered possible.— Ed. t 3rd June, 1833. Debate.— Hansard.

378 TABLE TALK OF
I asked Mr. Coke* (10th July, 1833) if it was 'true that
Lord Castlereagh had the bad taste to allude to his marriage
in the House. Mr. Coke said that, soon after his marriage, on
some important Whig question, he made a point of being pre
sent at the division, and that Lord Castlereagh pointedly
alluded to his being present in the House during his honey
moon. Mr. Coke said, " I replied that if I had not proved
myself a better man than Lord Castlereagh had ever done, I
should be a very poor one indeed." As Lord Castlereagh was
known to be constitutionally feeble in certain points, the
House laughed heartily.
While the Duke of Sussex was one day (22nd August, 1833)
sitting in my painting-room looking at ' The Eeform Banquet,'
which I was then painting, he said he considered this great
Eeform dinner as of more consequence than the meeting of the
Holy Alliance. "For my part," he added, "I respect this
assembly of talent and rank much higher than the assemblage
of monarchs." This was very fine of him. He seems a real
friend to liberty, and man of extended views. Afterwards, we
talked of Bui wer Lytton. "He is one of those," said his
Eoyal Highness, " to use a homely phrase, who doesn't think
small beer of himself."
Old Sir Eardley Wilmot was a delightful sitter. He used
to amuse one immensely with his recollections and anecdotes.
He told me the Queen knew a little of everything, and nothing
thoroughly. He used to see her, when Princess Victoria, often
drawing from wretched prints not worth sixpence. He asked
her if she knew Houbraken's heads ? She had never heard of
them ! He found her, on another occasion, reading Phsedrus.
He asked her if she knew Tacitus. She said they told her it
was too difficult. He advised her to read the ' Agricola.' She
promised she would, and did so ; and the next time expressed
great delight. He complained to Sir John Conroy of tier not
having the means to acquire a finer taste in art than the miser
able prints put before her were likely to create. This bore
out Sir John's remark to me as the Princess and her mother
were leaving my exhibition-room of ' Xenophon,' " They know
* The late Earl of Leicester.

B. R. HA YDON. 379
nothing of High Art." But whose fault was that? not the
Princess's. There is no reason why members of the Boyal
Family should not have their faculties as highly cultivated as
the best of their subjects, and every good reason why they
should. But I hope better times are coming.
When the beautiful Mrs.  was, one evening, coming out
of the House of Lords, said  , " She looks like a Babylonish
beauty." " Egad," said his friend, " it's a kind of Babylonish
captivity I should be very proud of."
Dr. Lushington had a fine head ; his expression was judi
cial : looking out as if he saw results. He told me Lady
Byron was perfectly justified in leaving Byron even in his
troubles, and that if I knew all the circumstances of the
case I should think so. He asked me if I had read his
letter to Moore. I said " No." He said there he had spoken
out. He told me he had been at Eton with Lord Melbourne ;
and he said, as Lord Durham had before to me, that he
would never send a boy to any public school, such was thet
vice and abomination. I told him I was in favour of public
schools. See what a race they produce as statesmen, generals,
admirals.* Boys should be brought up with each other.
Vice is inherent, Jbut they should be taught to resist by
early precaution and warning. Boys should never be kept
too ignorant.
Dr. Lushington told me that, in France, Odillon Barrot had
immense power. I told him I thought there was no security
for any nation which relied on France, and that she would
sooner or later have to be dismembered. He said he was
inclined to submit to a great deal rather than war. That
there was so much commercial intercourse, so many inter
marriages, and the two nations had become so completely
interwoven, that he believed all the respectable part of both
nations wished peace, and the other nations of Europe also.-
* This assertion will hardly be borne out on inquiry. The public schools have,
produced no "race" of the kind. Most of our greatest men have owed nothing
to public schools, and the few great men who were educated at a public school
became great,, not in consequence of their school training, but in spite of it. — Ed.

380 TABLE TALK OF
I said, " You must remember Venice : she was so long in
peace, and relied so long on the forbearance of her great
neighbours, that when war touched her she crumbled in from
sheer decay." He agreed, but added that war could not be
supported. Property would be so lowered that the means could
not be obtained.
We then got upon Lord Brougham, Lushington said he
was a most careless man as to application, and never over
tired himself. He said on one morning he brought him an
"express," that required an answer by six. Brougham was
asleep, and then swore he would not wake. Lushington said,
"By Heavens, if you don't get up I'll throw this jug of water
over you ; " on which he turned out, growling at Lushington
aU the time, and set to work.
On the night before the opening of Queen Caroline's trial,
Brougham dined at Lord Holland's, and when he came down
to the House found he had forgot his notes ! He said,
" Lushington, you are the only man I'U trust ; go to my
chambers, break open the door; here's the key of my desk,
bring me my papers." Away went Lushington and got the
papers. I asked William Hamilton if Lord Castlereagh spoke good
French. Hamilton said, " No. I heard him once, at dinner,
say to the Spanish ambassador, ' Votre Boi Ferdinand n'est
pas en belle ordure (odeur) dans ce pays-ci.' " This is as good
as d'Orsay's story of Lady  saying to him, when he had a
boil on his neck, "Eh bien — aujourd'hui comment se porte
votre queue (cou) ?" *
AU that the Eadicals want is movement. They should
occasionaUy remember that false movements lose battles.
The day after Lord Melbourne was dismissed from office in
November, 1834, 1 was at Lady Blessington's in the evening,
when in came Cutlar Fergusson fuU of club news. The Duke
of WeUington was to be premier ; Peel, " home secretary ; "
* Lord Liverpool, it is said, was nearly as bad as Lord Castlereagh. An
accomplished Frenchman one day at dinner remarked to him that in England
any man might rise to eminence. Lord Liverpool assented, and instanced
Whitbread as a man who had raised himself to a very high position from being
a mere " braconnier " (poacher). (He meaned " brasseur," brewer.)  Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 381
EUenborough, "foreign." "Pour les affaires etranges," said
D'Orsay ; at which there was a hearty laugh, Fergusson said
it was a most extraordinary coup d'etat. The death of old Lord
Spencer was a mere pretext, and after the King* had dismissed
him, he said to Lord Melbourne, " Melbourne, you may as well
take the Duke's letter to town with you ;" and Lord Melbourne
brought it ! Lady Blessington said it was " all Brougham's
fault." I think it is Lord Durham's fault. He has frightened
the Eoyal Family by his speech at Edinburgh. On the
Sunday previous to Lord Melbourne's dismissal I was with
him in South Street (November 9 th), and in the midst of an
interesting conversation when suddenly the door opened, and
in stalked Lord Brougham, unannounced. Lord Melbourne
looked embarrassed and shocked at such a violation of all
decorum to a man in his own house ; but my impression was
. that, Brougham knew Lord Melbourne's exact weight with the
King at that moment, and so it seems. I took my leave, and
just as I was going out of the room, I heard Brougham say,
" By-the-bye, I want to put off our little dinner with Mrs. Lane
Fox." Lady Blessington said that on the evening Lord Melbourne
returned from Brighton after receiving his dismissal from the
King, not knowing how to get ministers together, he bethought
himself to send his carriage down to Mrs. Lane Fox, with a
note, saying, "Dear Mrs. Lane Fox — Send up any of the
ministers you have" and up came two, Lord Mulgrave and
Lord Palmerston.
The Peel and Wellington Cabinet has resigned (9th April,
1835). The King has not sent for Lord Melbourne, whom he
had dismissed a few months before (November, 1834), but for
Lord Grey. While Lord Grey was with the King, I sent Lord
Melbourne the following prescription, which I'll be bound to
say he laughed over and showed to Lord Grey.
"Pulv. Melbourne, q3 Lij.
Statim et repetatur omni hora si opus sit, usque ad nauseam.
& B. E. Haydon, M.D."
* The King made the removal of Lord Althorp from the Commons to the
Lords the ground of his withdrawing his confidence.— Ed.

382 TABLE TALK OF
On the 11th, Lord Melbourne administered the above to his
Majesty, and returned to office as Prime Minister. I saw Lord
Grey a day or two afterwards. He had decUned to return to
office. He looked arch and foxy, and shook my hand so warmly,
and laughed so heartily, I feel sure Lord Melbourne must have
shown him my prescription.
Lady Blessington, who is fond of a little scandal now and
then, declares Tom Duncombe, Lord Thynne, Mdme. Vestris,
and Mrs.  -, are all allies, and that Mrs.  , who has a
liaison with F  , has got his brother to advance to Dun
combe 36,000Z. on security.

She told a good story of  having fallen desperately in
love with Grisi, and finding out that she was sitting for her
portrait, made an excuse to call on the artist. On being shown
into his painting-room he found his divine " Giulia " making
her luncheon, with half a loaf on her knees, a German sausage
in one hand, and a pint-pot of porter in the other. His love
vanished. Lady Blessington told me that Byron was not sincere. That
when she asked him about the Hunts, he always affected never
to have seen them above once or twice a week, " a notorious
story, Mr. Haydon." She said his nose was not handsome,
one eye decidedly larger than the other, but his mouth
exquisite. Colonel Stanhope told me that Byron agreed with him about
the press in Greece, though he argued for 'mere argument's
sake. Mrs. Leicester Stanhope told me (on the other hand) she
had seen a letter from Byron, saying, " Can any one relieve me
of Lady Blessington, or rather of Count D'Orsay ?"
She said the Guiccioli used to watch Byron through a tele
scope when he went out riding. So one day she asked him
why he did not take the GuiccioU out with him. He drawled
out in his usual way, " Consider, consider, what a fright she
would look in a habit!" "Do you think her handsome ¦? "

B. R. HAYDON. 383
Lady Blessington asked him. "Handsome?" he replied,
" she is a horror ; she has red hair." (Which was not true.)
She said then, " Why don't you take her out walking ? " He
answered, " Because she shuffles like a duck, and I am lame ;
a pretty couple ! " " Do you ever tell her this ? " she asked.
" Yes." " What does she say ? " " She scra-a-atches me,"
replied Byron.
I met the Countess Guiccioli subsequently, and she was
certainly not handsome. She had small eyes, large nose, long
upper lip, and weak mouth and chin. ¦  's beautiful head
would have demolished her.
Godwin told Lady Blessington that he well remembered
meeting Lord Grey in his early days, and Canning, then a
youth of fifteen, to whom he took a great liking. He said he
remembered that Lord Grey was dressed in the extreme of
dandyism, with large, square, gold buckles on his shoes. He
kept arranging his buckles, and when all was right, got up,
and surveyed his legs in a glass.* Lady Blessington said that
one day, as she was taking Godwin in her carriage to drop
him somewhere, they passed Buckingham House.t " There,"
said he, " is a place worse than useless for a thing worse still."
She thought it a good joke for such republican sentiments to
be uttered in a carriage that bore a coronet.
Godwin dispraised Shelley, and said his imagination was not
sound, but false.
Lord Melbourne, when sitting to me (1832), said he knew
that Lord North often endeavoured to persuade the King not
to continue the American War, but that the virulence of the
old King's feelings obliged him. Lord Melbourne added that
the King patronised West against Eeynolds, because the latter
was too intimate with Fox and Burke.
Lord Althorp is not so conversational as Lord Melbourne,
* The. late Earl was remarkable for the symmetry of his head, legs, and feet,
and was naturally vain of these gifts of nature and of race. I remember, on his
coming one day to sit to my father, seeing the noble Earl admiring his own legs
for fully two minutes, on the landing, before he allowed the painting-room door
to be opened. — Ed.
t Now Buckingham Palace, — Ed.

384 TABLE TALK OF
but the essence of good nature. He said nothing remarkable.
He seems heavy. I said to him, " My lord, for the first time
in my life, I scarcely slept when Lord Grey was out during
the (Eeform) BiU* Were you not deeply anxious?" "I
don't know," said Lord Althorp ; " I am never very anxious."
Jeffrey (Lord Advocate) amused me much by his description
of Lord Althorp's reception of him (May, 1832) when he caUed
to ask what he should do about his resignation. Lord
Althorp's secretary could give him no information, and Lord
Althorp desired he would walk upstairs. Up Jeffrey walked.
Lord Althorp had just done washing, and one arm was bare
above the elbows, and rather hairy; his razor was in the
other hand, and he was about to shave. " WeU, Mr. Advocate,"
said Lord Althorp, " I have the pleasure to inform you that
we are no longer his Majesty's ministers. We sent in our
resignations, and they are accepted." When the Whigs
returned to office, Jeffrey caUed again. Lord Althorp was
looking over his fowling-pieces, and said to Jeffrey in his usual,
grumbling, lazy way, " Confound these political affairs, all my
locks are out of order."
November 25th, 1832. — Spent an interesting hour with Lord
Althorp. He said an annual vote of money for the support
of High Art would imply a necessity of always buying when
there might be nothing to buy. He said Government did
nothing for painting because it was not the practice. I in
stanced sculpture, and he acknowledged ; I begged to assure
him I had no paltry view in recommending commissions to
the most eminent painters, but asked either for that or some
other plan, so that pursuing art from feeling and not for gain
might not bring ruin to those who attempted it. I said,
" Sooner or later it must be done." He said, " Would pre
miums be a good plan ? " " No, my Lord, commissions are
best." " Sometimes," said he, " pictures make a great dash,
and are forgotten. Government might commit itself. Fifty
years, I think, ought to pass before a picture is bought."
" And the painter," said I, " starves in the meantime." He
said, "Who is to judge — patrons in matters of taste and per-
* Lord Grey resigned on 9th May, 1832, to return to office on the 18th, after
the fruitless negotiation between the King and Lord Lyndhurst, &c. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 385
sons of technical knowledge ? " I said, " No, my Lord ; all the
world can judge if an expression be true or, a story told. All
the world would be impressed with a national series of pictures
to illustrate a principle ; but all the world are not judges of
technicaUties. This is exclusively professional."
Before the election of Speaker for the Parliament of 1835
took place, odds were freely betted on Manners Sutton against
Abercrombie.' At Crockford's,on the 16th February, D'Orsay
told me six to four was laid on Sutton freely. Sir Francis
Burdett's vote was considered of some consequence, and Lady
Blessington, liking to be mixed up in politics, wrote to him.
Burdett replied, very diplomatically, as I thought, and said he
was not likely " to alter his opinion of Sir Charles." Lord
Strangford and some one else dined, and after dinner in came
Sir Eobert Wilson — a trimmer to the marrow — who all his life
has been playing fast and loose with Whigs, Tories, and
Eadicals. He was so delighted, he asked her leave to show
Burdett's letter. Lady Blessington gave him permission, and
away toadied Wilson to the Duke of Wellington — whom he
used to abuse — to Peel, and to Lord De Grey. The ' Morning
Chronicle ' got hold of it, and next day out came a violent
article on her ' circean arts ' in seducing Sir Francis Burdett.
She liked this ; Wilson liked it ; the Duke was happy ; Sir
Eobert Peel dignified ; Lord De Grey bowed gracefully ; and
all parties went to bed that night to sleep, before another day
of struggle to get up an excitement.
On the 19th February the election of Speaker took place;
Manners Sutton was beaten, and Abercrombie elected in his
place. The night after, I went down to Lady Blessington to
see how she took it. There I found D'Orsay, Dick, Wilson,
and some others. She read Burdett's letter to us, insisting
that it was a promise, and that the Duke and Sir Eobert Peel
thought so too. There was a dead silence, which I broke by
saying I thought the letter an evasion ; and Dick ventured to
agree with me. I asked them if they had seen Wakley's
speech ? No, they had not. I told them he had said to his
constituents : "At a conference between the two Houses, the
Lords keep their hats on and sit, and the Commons stand, un
covered. Shall I do so? (No, no.) No; I will not. I will
put on my hat and sit also." "If he does," said Dick, "he
VOL. 11. 2 c

386 TABLE TALK OF
will be turned out." " That may be," I replied ; " but it is a
remarkable symptom that the question should be raised.'
And then I told them, of which they all seemed ignorant, that
when Les Etats-Generaux met in 1789, they all rose as the
King entered ; the King sat and covered, the nobility and
clergy sat and covered too ; and then, to the astonishment of
King, court, nobility, and clergy, the Tiers Etat covered and
sat too. " Le temps etait passe," says Mignet, " quand le Tiers
Etat se tient devot et a genoux."
When the debate, as to the election of Manners Sutton or
Abercrombie for Speaker, was going on (19th February, 1835),
Lady Sutton was hiding for some hours behind the curtain to
hear the result. " Ah !" said D'Orsay, " she vas wrong. She is
von weak woman. If he had gained, she would have fainted ;
if he had lost, she would have  fainted too." Lady Bles
sington assured me that in the May interregnum of 1832, she
knew that Manners Sutton had kissed hands as Premier.*
I met that patriarch of dissimulation and artifice, Talleyrand,
but once, and once only, and I never shall forget him. He
looked like a toothless boa of intrigue, with nothing left but
his poison. To see his impenetrable face at a game of whist,
watching everybody without a trace of movement in his own
* Lord Mahon confirms this. Certainly if Manners Sutton did, that showed
he was quite unfit to continue in the chair, and justifies the motion for putting
him out of it. The history of his rejection in 1835, is curious also as a bit
of Parliamentary precedent. The Eight Hon. Manners Sutton was originally
elected Speaker by the Whigs in the first Eeformed Parliament, because they
did not dare oppose him, apprehending defeat from a coalition of the Eadicals
with the Tories ; but on the Meeting of the Second Eeformed Parliament on the
19th February, 1835, the Conservatives then being in office but in a minority
in the Slew House, on the Conservative proposal for the re-election of Mr.
Manners Sutton as Speaker, Mr. Denison as a Whig-Eadical opposed the motion
on the ground of public principle. He argued it was incumbent on the House
to place in the chair a gentleman " assimilated in principles and opinions " to the
great majority of the House, and he proposed as an amendment the election of
the Sight Hon. J. Abercrombie. Mr. Ord seconded this amendment, and Lord
John Eussell supported it, quoting the conduct of Lord North, who, on a similar
occasion, had a majority, and very rightly and properly said, " Let me have a
Speaker who suits the majority." On a division Mr. Abercrombie was elected
by 316 to 306 votes. Mr. Abercrombie had formerly been legal adviser and
agent to the Duke of Devonshire, and although without any important practice
at the bar was, out of friendship for the Duke of Devonshire, promoted by the
Duke of Wellington (1828-9) to the post of Chief Baron of Scotland, which he
held for two and a-half years, and then retired on a pension of 20007. a year.
He barely held the Speakership for this one Parliament, being succeeded bv
Mr. Shaw Lefevre. —Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 387
figure or face, save the slightest perceptible twitch in the lip,
was a sight never to be forgotten. It was the incarnation of
meaning without assumption. He was sent over by Louis
Philippe to sound the depths and shallows of the Whigs, and to
divert the natural foreign policy of England, which regarded
France always with watchful suspicion with one of mutual affec
tion, and extremely well he did his task. He quickly enveloped
the Whigs in his web of inextricable diplomacy, and won them
over to regard jealousy of France as an antiquated and unjust
prejudice. The French and English, fleets were soon after to
be seen sailing together out of Portsmouth into the North Sea,
capturing Dutch barges, in order to cut off from Holland her
best province, that it may be more easily absorbed by France,
when the European pear is quite ripened once more. Lord
Palmerston thought he saw through Talleyrand, and called
him " Old Tally." I dare say " Old Tally " had his own opinion
of Lord Palmerston.
But it would be unjust to say the Whigs were not sincere.
They were sincere ; but they were deluded. They were led
away by the vanity of doing something different from the
Tories, and in cultivating the friendship of France, they be
lieved they were originating a "policy," when secretly they
were the merest tools of Talleyrand.*
* This is neither fair to the Whigs nor to Talleyrand, whose great Life has
yet to be truly written, and who will probably come out of the ordeal, like the
proverbial Devil, not half so black as he has been painted. But with regard to
the foreign policy of the Whigs in 1833, Haydon's views as expressed here are
somewhat strained. It was a natural bias with him to see everything connected
with our French policy through the smoke of a captured French frigate, with
the tricolour trailing over the stern and the Union Jack flaunting proudly above.
He forgot, or he would not choose to remember that to cultivate the friendship
of France and to maintain a good understanding with her is a policy that has
always been supported by a strong party in England. It was the policy of
Walpole and of Fox to go back no further, and it is quite a question whether a
really good and friendly understanding with France is not better calculated to
restrain her passion for military glory, and prevent her undue aggrandizement,
than a policy of abstention, or jealous suspicion on our part, which would only
stimulate without controlling that national restlessness, it is for the interest of
the world should at least be turned into other channels than war. After the
Eevolution of 1830, Talleyrand came over to London to settle the New Govern
ment of Louis Philippe successfully amongst us, and through our alliance, amongst
the great Monarchies of Europe. But the foreign policy pursued by Lord Grey
and Lord Palmerston as the organs of the Whig Cabinet was not diverted one
moment by his astuteness from the interests of England. When the Belgian
question came to be settled, Talleyrand had various schemes for the disposal of
Belgium. ¦ Sir Henry Bulwer asserts that to obtain possession of Belgium was
as much the object of Louis Philippe as it had been of Charles X., and to some
extent it was so. But Charles X. before his deposition had designed a great
scheme for a new partition of Europe, the chief object of which was to aggrandize
2 c 2

388 TABLE TALK OF
September 2ith, 1835.— Called on Lord Melbourne: was very
glad to see him, and he me. We had a regular set-to about
art. I went on purpose. I said, " For twenty-five years I have
been at all the Lords of the Treasury without effect. The
first lord who has courage to establish a system for the public
encouragement of high art will be remembered with gratitude
by the English people." He said, " What d'ye want ?" " 2,OO0Z.
a-year ! " " Ah," said Lord Melbourne, shaking his head and
looking with arch eyes, " God help the minister that meddles
with art." " Why, my Lord ?" " He will get the whole Aca
demy on his back." " I have had them on mine," I said ; " I,
who am not a minister and a nobleman, and yet here I am.
You say the Government is poor ; you voted 10,000Z. for the
Poles, and 20,OOOZ. for the Euphrates." "I was against the
10,0U0Z. for the Poles," said Lord Melbourne. " These things
only bring over more refugees. What about the Euphrates ?"
" Why, my Lord, to try if it be navigable when all the world
knows it is not." Then Lord Melbourne, turning round full of
fun, said, " Drawing is of no use ; it is an obstruction to genius.
Correggio could not draw. Beynolds could not, draw." " Ah,
my Lord, I see where you have been lately." Then he rubbed
his hands and laughed again. " Now, Lord Melbourne," I said,
" at the bottom of that love for fun you have a mine of solid
sense. You know the beautiful letter you wrote to me.* Do
let us have a regular conversation ; the art will go out. " Who
is there to paint pictures ?" said he. " Myself, Hilton, and
Etty." "Etty! why he paints old  ," said Lord Mel
bourne. . . . "Well, come on Sunday at eleven." "I am
going out of town, and will put my ideas clearly on paper."
France and to weaken the force and lower the reputation of England. Louis
Philippe had no scheme of that kind. What he wanted was the settlement of
the independent (?) Crown of Belgium upon a member of his own family. But
this was contrary to England's interest, and Lord Grey would not listen for a
moment to the proposal. The Crown of Belgium " should not be conferred upon
the Duke de Nemours," and to that he held. The French army which had
entered Belgium to besiege Antwerp was withdrawn faithfully according to
agreement, and Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston in face of the Holy Alliance
conducted the negotiations which ended in the selection of Leopold and in the
establishment of the independence and neutrality of Belgium. So far, therefore
there was no "reversal" of the policy of the Tories, who had no policy as to
Belgium, and as to Talleyrand outwitting the Whig Cabinet, Talleyrand's
projects were rejected. Subsequently, indeed, LoUis Pbilippe was unfaithful
to the English alliance, but that does not prove the Whigs to have been outwitted
at any time. — Ed.
* I have not yet succeeded in finding this letter. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. • 389
" Well, Sunday week ; will that do ?" " Yes ; now my dear
Lord, do be serious about it." " I will," said he, looking archly
grave. I said, "Do you occupy Downing Street?" He said,
" No ;" with hesitation. I fancy he fears his lease.*
October Vdth, 1835. — Called on Lord Melbourne. He looked
round with his arch face, and said, " What now ?" " Now, my
Lord," said I, " I am going to be discreet for the rest of my life,
and take you for an example." I got up and was talking
eagerly away, when he said, " Sit down." Down I sat, and con
tinued, " Do you admit the necessity of State support ?" " I
do not," said he, " there is private patronage enough for all
that is requisite." " That I deny," I replied, at which he
rubbed his hands, and said, " Ha, ha !" He then went to the
glass and began to comb his hair. I went on, " That is a false
view ; private patronage has raised the school in all the depart
ments where it could do service, but High Art cannot be ad
vanced by private patronage." " But it is not the policy of
this country," said he, " to interfere." " Why ?" " Because," said
he, " it is not necessary." " Ah, you say so, but I'll prove the
contrary." " Well, let us hear," said Lord Melbourne ; " where
has art ever flourished?" "In Greece, Egypt, and Italy."
" How, by individual patronage ?" " No, my Lord ; by the
support of the State alone." " Has it flourished in any country
without State support ?" " No." " Then how can you expect
it to flourish in this ?" He did not reply. I went on, " If,
then, it has flourished in every country where State patronage
accompanied it, and it has never flourished where there is no
State patronage, what is the inference ? And High Art does not
end with itself, it pre-supposes great knowledge which influences
manufactures. Why is France superior in manufactures ?
Because at Lyons by State support she educates her youth to
design. You say you cannot afford it. In Lord Bexley's time
the same thing was said, yet 30,000Z. was spent to build an
ophthalmic hospital. It^ failed ; 5,OO0Z. were fetched by the
sale of the materials, and 4,O0OZ. were voted to Adams for put
ting out the remaining eyes of the old veterans." " No doubt,"
said Lord Melbourne, " a great deal of money has been uselessly
spent." " I take the excuse of poverty as a nonentity," I said.
He did not reply. " Now, my Lord, a new house must be built.
* Lord Melbourne's Administration was dismissed by the King in a few
weeks. — Ed.

39° TABLE TALK OF
Here is an opportunity that never can occur again. Painting,
sculpture, and architecture, must be combined. Burke said it
would ultimately rest on a minister. Have you no ambition to
be that man ?" He mused, but did not reply. " For God's
sake, Lord Melbourne, do not let this opportunity slip ; for the
sake of the art, for your own sake, only say you will not forget
art. I will undertake it for support during the time I am
engaged, because it has been the great object of my life. I
have qualified myself for it, and be assured if High Art sinks
as it is sinking, all art will go with it." No reply. " Depend on
my discretion ; not a word shall pass from me ; only assure me
it is not hopeless." Lord Melbourne glanced up with his fine
eyes, looked into me, and said, "It is not. There will be only
a temporary building till Parliament meets. There is time
enough." November 9th, 1835. — Sent down to Lord Melbourne to know
if he could see me. He sent me back word he would receive
me at once. At 1 p.m. I called and saw him. " Well, my Lord,
have you seen my petition to you ?" " I have." " Have you
read it ?" " Yes." " Well, and what do you say to it ?" He
affected to be "occupied and to read a letter. I said, "What
answer does your Lordship give ? What argument or refutation
have you ?" " Why, we do not mean to have pictures ; we
mean to have a building with all the simplicity of the ancients."
" Well, my Lord, what public building of the ancients will you
point out that had not pictures ? I fear, Lord Melbourne, since
I last saw you, you are corrupted. You meet academicians at
Holland House, I am sure you do." He looked archly at me
and rubbed his hands, "I do ; I meet CaUcott. He is a good
fellow." I said, " But an academician." " Ha, ha !" said Lord
Melbourne. " Now, my Lord, do be serious." " Well, I am.
Callcott says he disapproves of the system of patrons taking up
young men to the injury of the old ones ; giving them two or
three commissions and letting them die in the workhouse."
" But, my Lord, if young men are not to be taken up, how are
they to become known ? But to return. Look at Guizot. He
ordered four historical pictures for the Government to com
memorate the Barricades. Why wiU not the English Govern
ment do that here ? What is the reason, Lord Melbourne that
no English minister is aware of the importance of art to the

B. R. HA YDON. 391
manufactures and wealth of this country? I will tell you-
You want tutors at the universities."
I was talking eagerly with my hand, the door opened, and
in stalked Lord Brougham. He held out his two fingers.
" How d'ye do, Mr. Haydon ?" While I stood, looking staggered,
Lord Melbourne glanced at me, said, " I wish you good morn
ing." I bowed to both and took my leave*
November 28tfA, 1834. — Lord Melbourne said he had talked
to several artists about a vote of money, and they all said it
had better " be left alone." " Who," said I ; " portrait painters
in opulence ? Why do you not give me an opportunity to meet
these fellows ? The fact is," I said, " you are corrupted ; you
know you are, since I first talked to you. Callcott (B.A.) after
dinner at Lord Holland's has corrupted you, sneered you out
of your right feelings over your wine." He acknowledged there
was a great deal of truth in this, and laughed heartily. He
advised me to attack Peel, and told me how to proceed to get
a sum on the estimates. This is exactly Lord Melbourne.
February 1st, 1835. — Called on Lord Melbourne. He was
lounging over the ' Edinburgh Beview.' He began instantly,
" Why, here are a set of fellows who want public money for
scientific purposes, as well as you, for painting ! They are a
set of ragamuffins." " That is the way," I said, " nobody has
any right to public money but those who are brought up to
politics. Are not painting and science as much a matter of
public benefit as political jobbing ? You never look upon us
as equals ; but any scamp who trades in politics is looked on as
a companion for my Lord." " That is not true," said he. " I
say it is," said I ; and then he roared with laughter and rubbed
his hands. " Lord Melbourne, will you make me a promise ?"
" What is that ?" " Pass your word to get a vote of money for
Art if ever you are Premier again." Not a word. No old poli
tician ever speaks of politics so as to give you a notion of what
is going on. After chatting a good while about everything, I
bade him good-bye.
October 13th, 1835.— Called on Lord Melbourne. " Is there
* This was the day Lord Brougham was supposed to have some knowledge of
the mischief brewing, which put out Lord Melbourne by the end of the month.
But it did not make Lord Brougham Prime Minister. — Ed.

392 TABLE TALK OF
any prospect of the House of Lords being ornamented by paint
ing ?" " No !" he thundered out, and began to laugh. " What
is the use of painting a room of deliberation ?" " Ah," said I,
" if I had been your tutor at college, you would not have said
that." He rubbed his hands, looking the picture of mischief,
and laughed heartily. I then said, " Let me honour your
reign." He swaggered about the room in his grey dressing-
gown, his ministerial boxes on the table, his neck bare, and a
fine antique one it was, looking the picture of handsome, good-
natured mischief. " Suppose," said he, " we employ CaUcott."
" CaUcott, a landscape 'painter !" said I ; " come, my Lord, that
is too bad." He then sat down, opened his boxes, and began
to write. I sat dead quiet, dead quiet, and waited tiU his
majesty spoke. " What would you choose ?" " Maintain me
for the time, and settle a small pension to keep me from the
workhouse." He looked up with real feeling. " Let me," said
I, " in a week, bring you one side as I would do it." He con
sented and we parted.
October 2%ih. — Sent down the sketch. ' Lord Melbourne saw
it. . . . He objected to the picture of 'Bevolution' being
taken from the French ; said the subjects ought all to refer to
the House of Lords and the English History. I replied it
should be an abstract idea, illustrated from the history of the
world. After musing some time he said, " It certainly does
express what you mean, but — I will, I wiU have nothing to do
with it." He then went on bantering me, and I replying in
the same strain. It was an amusing duel.
Edward EUice told me a good story of old Lady Eosslyn.
Mrs.  was announced. The ladies began to bundle off.
" Sit still, sit still," said old Lady Eosslyn, " it's na' catching."
There is nothing a certain class of men will not forgive if
you accept their views ; and nothing they will if you do not.
Lough the sculptor told me that he had spent a day recently
(January 1834) with the Duke of WeUington, that the Duke
told him he had corresponded with me, and that he had in
tended to rescue the art from its degraded condition of portrait,
but that he was upset before it could be accomplished. This
at least should be some consolation to me.

B. R. HA YDON. 393
Lady Holland took an intense pleasure in wounding your
self-esteem. One day when I had got Lord Grey in the best
of good humours and was making a capital sketch of his fine
head, she and Lord Lansdowne were announced. She came
in, looked at my sketch and said, " I won't say." " She doesn't
like it," said Lord Grey snappishly. " Why, Mr. Haydon,"
said Lady Holland, " Lord Grey's expression is a very sweet
one. I don't like your nostrils and mouth." This vexed me,
for it was not true, and put dear Lord Grey out of temper.
Lord Lansdowne came over and begged to see, and as if ,to
nullify the absurdity of Lady Holland, said sotto voce, " It is
extremely like," and so it was.*
In proportion as you refine the virtues, so do you the vices
of mankind.!
Johnson never said a finer thing than this, viz., " That an
* This Lady Holland was noted for her delight in saying disagreeable things.
Moore in his Diary writes of her, " Poets inclined to a plethora of vanity would
find a dose of Lady Holland, now and then, very good for their complaint." The
late Sir Henry Bulwer qnce fold me (he repeats the anecdote in his ' Characters ')
that she asked him whether he thought she said " disagreeable " things. Sir
Henry told her he thought she did occasionally indulge herself in that attractive
caprice. " Ah ! " she replied, " but you know I only want to poke the fire." I
said I thought she must have been reading Swift, who likens putting fresh coals
on a fire, " to a gentle stirring of the passions, lest the mind languish." " Yes,"
said Sir Henry, " but she always poked her fire with a red-hot poker." Her
ladyship certainly practised the art so successfully on her first husband that
he " put " himself " out," to avoid the nuisance. And nothing but the bien-
veillance imperturbatriee of her second probably saved him from a similar happy
dispatch. But she was a fine, clever, accomplished woman, and most hospitable.
With so many virtues we may well forgive one defect. Like Waller's wit, her
talent and her hospitality were enough to cover many infirmities. She could
not help it I believe. One night the lamps got dim, and the old butler had to
bring steps and arrange matters. Lady Holland kept on " poking the fire " at
him, till at length goaded to madness he roared out at her before the whole
room, " G  it, my Lady, how can I do the thing right if you go on bother
ing me in this way ?" Talleyrand used to say of her, " Elle est toute assertion,
mais quand vous en demandez la preuve ! Oh, c'est la son secret." — Ed.
t I do not know that this would hold good upon investigation. Certainly
there have been well-known individual cases of men of the most refined virtue
indulging, breaking out occasionally, and then indulging in the grossest vice.
" It is impossible to believe," writes Taine of one distinguished living example,
" in the coarseness of his tastes." Chateaubriand and Lamartine were notably
examples of this, and I think I have heard my father say something of the same
kind of Turner, the landscape painter, who used to take the pleasures of a
Wapping sailor on the spree. There is no estimating what gross evil lurks
latent in the hearts of the most refined and virtuous people, nor what wild
license it will madly take in an unaccustomed atmosphere. Every man has
imprisoned within, him the evil of his lower self, and happy is he who passes
through life without the opportunity of giving it a license it is never slow to
seize. — Ed.

394 TABLE TALK OF
excuse for violated morality was generally the principle of all
perverted notions of religion." No man certainly had the
power of making other minds think to a greater degree than
Johnson. Sir Joshua Beynolds said this of him, and in it I
cordially agree. Every pause in Johnson's conversation is pre
ceded by a deduction.
Without the love of praise or of ambition the highest
qualities are of no use to the world. A cobbler lately died
who had taught himself several languages and was a deeply
read man. Just before he died he offered his books for sale.
The auctioneer was surprised among other valuable works to
find seven different and rare editions of Euclid. The cobbler
said in explanation that he had maintained himself by cobbling,
and literature and mathematics had been his amusement, but
as he was now too infirm to work he must sell his books. He
grew melancholy at their loss and died shortly afterwards,
having never got " beyond his last." Perhaps he was wise,
but perhaps also, if the love of praise or ambition of distinc
tion had animated him, the world might have been more
benefited by his labours.
Let no man ever make a girl an offer if he does not feel
inclined to marry without reflection. If there is one moment's
reasoning whether her beauty, or her wealth, or her good dis
position predominate, let him stop, he is heart whole, and will
only embitter his life by marriage, or destroy her prospects by
extrication. One day when I was lounging after dinner at Petworth with
Lord Egremont, I began to think to myself can he be jealous
of anything ? He has a clear 80,000Z. a year, five men-cooks,
stables for sixty horses, and he can put up a hundred people
in his house. He has a grand estate, a fine house, some of the
finest pictures, and every luxury about him that money can
buy, inheritance transmit, or good taste acquire. Is there one
single thing he can be envious of? At this moment from some
turn in the conversation I happened to mention Cowdray
Castle. "Castle," said Lord Egremont, " what castle ? Cow
dray is no castle, it was only an old monastery." Here
was human nature. He was quite pettish, and evidently

B. R. HA YDON. 395
objected to anything like a country seat to interfere with
him. There are degrees of immortality. On leaving Petworth,
and when waiting for the coach to return to Brighton, a man
of the village came up, looked hard at me and said, " I beg
your pardon, Sir, but are you the great painter ?" " Well, I
don't know about that exactly." " But, Sir, did you paint the
picture of Christ entering into Jerusalem ?" " Yes, my friend,
I did." " Ah, Sir, that was a picture — that was a picture —
and — what a donkey !"
How many men we meet of that nature of mind who would
rather be relieved of the burden of original thinking by
executing the thoughts of others than their own.
Seguier, the keeper of the king's pictures, detailed to me the
whole story of Theodore Hook's attack upon Watson Taylor in
' Sayings and Doings.' When Watson Taylor suddenly came
into his immense fortune, Theodore Hook's father, who had
some previous acquaintance with Watson Taylor, wrote and
offered professionally to conduct any concert that Watson
Taylor might think of giving, and requested an advance of
500?. to enable him to make the necessary preparations.
Watson Taylor refused ; the Hook family were angered, and
Theodore having learned all the history of Watson Taylor's
family from a relative and old college chum of Taylor's, worked
the whole story, which required very little colouring to make
it attractive, into ' Sayings and Doings.' Such is the origin
of human works : pique, envy, and hatred. Seguier described
to me with his usual humour, how Watson Taylor's bookseller
had sent ' Sayings and Doings ' with other new publications to
Taylor's house, and that it lay on his table for some weeks
before he opened it. One morning Seguier called and saw
that something was wrong. Watson Taylor after some delay
asked him if he had read ' Sayings and Doings.' Seguier said
" Yes." " Do you think," said Taylor, " that I am alluded to ?"
" Certainly," said Seguier. Watson Taylor then said that he
would prosecute. Seguier advised him not. Taylor's fate is
a fine moral to those who think to obtain by profuseness the
gratitude or respect of the world. He was a perfect Timon in

396 TABLE TALK OF
squandering money. To many people he gave pieces of plate
which had cost him a thousand pounds, to others rouleaux of
notes containing several hundreds, diamonds to some, jewels
or money to another, and yet all were discontented, for all
thought he might have given more. He was advised to buy
my picture of 'Jerusalem,' yet because he was advised he
declined. Yet if he had, it might have been his least folly,
at least so think I. Peace be to him !
Between the years 1834 and 1837 the most amusing con
trasts might be drawn in parallel columns between the ex
pressed opinions of the ' Times ' then and now, on the same
subjects. For instance, in 1834 the House of Lords was
described as " old and useless lumber, and it is high time the
peers were deprived of the means of doing mischief." In 1837
" the Lords have saved the country by their wisdom and firm
ness. It is indeed an established fact that their usefulness to
the State was never so gloriously manifested as at the present
time." Sir Eobert Peel and Lord Lyndhurst underwent the
same metamorphoses. In 1834, "No man with the least com
prehension would pronounce Sir Eobert Peel anything but a
shallow, red-tapeist, and Lord Lyndhurst a designing knave."
In 1837 the time is changed. " He must indeed be either an
arrant knave or a fool who denies the established fact that Sir
Eobert Peel is the greatest of living statesmen, and that Lord
Lyndhurst is the most honest and learned politician of his
time." The Conservative party, the question of church rates,
and Oxford University, all are submitted to the same process.
In 1834, " the monks at Oxford are the most narrow-minded
of ecclesiastics." In 1837, "the pious and learned divines of
the University of Oxford are the bulwarks of Christianity. It
is an established fact beyond all doubt that to their liberal
feelings it is owing that all religious disabilities have been
removed." And in 1834 what were church rates in the opinion
of the 'Times ' ? " Church rates were the most nefarious exac
tions." Yet in 1837, " those who choose to secede from our
Established Church — and it is an estabUshed fact that it is the
only true church — ought to be made to pay the penalty of their
backsliding." In 1834, what were the Conservatives but " the
most inveterate obstructives ; what do they seek to gain but
power, at the expense of honour, justice, and the welfare of the

B. R. HA YDON. 397
people ?" But in 1837 what a change comes o'er the spirit of
this writer's pen ! He rejoices— so he tells us — at the spread
of Conservative principles ; " we rejoice at finding the cause of
Conservatism so rapidly advancing. We can almost assert
that the .spirit of Providence is directly visible in that advance
ment.* It is an established fact that the Conservatives have
ever been eager to promote all such reforms as tend to the
benefit and happiness of the community." The ' Times '
seems partial to established facts, but certainly one fact seems
to be clearly established, viz., that when the ' Times ' is certain
it is right, it is almost sure to be wrong.f
I believe I can with safety assert that the greatest admirers
of the British School of Painting lament its general ignorance
of drawing, and in consequence, in all matters of manufacture
depending on correct knowledge of design for their superiority,
the proofs of such ignorance are both lamentable and dis
graceful. (1835.)
There is no doubt that in originality of character, varied
power, colour, light and shadow, and nature, the British School
is the greatest school since the time of Bubens. But with all
this excellence it has a defect which can never apply to any of
the great schools of the Continent, a want of real knowledge of
the construction of any object represented.
The great mischief in our British School of Painting is the
absurd and overwhelming authority of the Boyal Academy in
aU matters of art. Our statesmen, totally ignorant of all
principles of art from want of art professors at our universities,
when matters of art come officially before them, lean of course
* After this, it must be admitted Sir Archibald Alison can no longer claim
the credit of being the first to assert that Providence was always on the side of
the Tories.— Ed.
t The folly of forming an immature judgment upon uncertain grounds, and
before you are in possession of the necessary data, is the disease of our daily
press. A man who has to write his leading article on the spot before he has
time to form a correct opinion, is like a courtier questioned by his prince. He
dare not admit his ignorance, nor leave the question in doubt : so he falls back
on his imagination, and puts forth as a decided opinion, founded on evidence and
fact, that which, as Faraday says elsewhere, is "little else but the fruit of
his own incertitude." But as concerns the inconsistency alleged here, there
is to be remembered in the case of the ' Times' that, it is tlie reflection of
popular feeling for that day, or it would not be the ' Times.' — Ed.

3Q8 TABLE TALK OF
upon the Eoyal Academy, and the President and Members,
just as of course, insinuate to the statesman who consults them
that, the only way to advance the art is to keep up the dignity
of the Eoyal Academy. If the art advances, well and good;
and if it goes back, well and good also, so long as we have a
Eoyal Academy. The mischief of it is that the Eoyal
Academy is a corporate body with all its vices, and yet
screened from public responsibility by having no charter.
I do not despair, but it is perplexing, and that it is highly
injurious to the best interests of the art, no impartially-minded
man can doubt or deny. Lord Melbourne said to me one day
when speaking of the Eoyal Academy, " Ah ! they made a
great mistake in founding that place." They certainly did.
The great characteristic of my dear country is the percep
tion of moral right. A fact is a moral truth. A portrait is a
fact, so is a view, but a poetical composition of a great event
is not a fact to them. Hence the English people prefer
portraits of individuals and views of places on the principle of
indisputable evidence.
Power is ever ready to reward those who sacrifice principle
to its supremacy, and ever ready to punish those who uphold
principle in opposition to power.
The Tory party is . like the Eomish party, one and indivis
ible ; the Whigs like the Protestants are on an intermediate
principle, and are split into a thousand ramifications on the
same point.
Lord Castlereagh cut his throat, because he was overworked,
his digestion out of order, and his brain full of blood. He was
forbidden to eat hot buttered toast, to a healthy stomach indi
gestible, to a diseased one ruin. His servant the last morning
brought it to him ignorantly ; Lord Castlereagh ate heartily
of it ; his brain filled with more blood, he became insane, and
cut the carotid artery. The moment the blood flowed he re
covered his reason and said, " Bankhead, it's all over." So of
Bomilly. The moment his brain was relieved of the excess of
blood, he asked for pen and ink. Both these remarkable cases
prove that reason returned on physical relief being given to

B. R. HAYDON.

399

the brain, and that the power of the mind was interrupted by
its physical irregularity. Now, was the mind here distinct from
the body, or did it depend on the body ?
Some women are so thoroughly corrupt in mind, as well as
heart and body, that everything in nature, light and darkness,
solitude and society, beauty and deformity, every object that
seeing, smelling, touching, or tasting, could reach, are to them
sources of licentious gratification. The perfume of flowers
has to them an amorous smell. The richness of a summer
sunset, the silence of a cloudless night, affect their vitiated
fancy only as affording more refined means of gratification.*
Lancaster and BeU's system of education, though doubtless a
benefit to society, and a great blessing in thus distributing
knowledge, and thereby correcting vice, will, nevertheless, take
off the fiery edge of nature. Men will be better regulated, and
there may be less crime ; but will they not also become more
humble, more awed at the great, and more terrified at au
thority ? I feel convinced that the principle of their system
is submission to authority and power. Boys will be so edu
cated in a belief of the infallibility of kings, and brought
into life with a horror of opposition that another hundred
years will have prepared the national mind for submission and
slavery. September 30th, 1836. — Dined with my dear friend, William
Hamilton, who read me a pamphlet of his on the ' New Houses
of Parliament,' and in which he talks of the ignorance of the
upper classes in art! I told them this twenty years ago in
1816. But I had not a pension of 2000Z. a year as retired
Ambassador, and I was ruined accordingly. But it is well
to tell the great their faults, for the very height of their
position involves the consequence that no fault of theirs can
be trifling. On the whole, therefore, I do not regret my ruin
if it has brought men like William Hamilton to adopt my '
opinions. * This seems severe on the more susceptible sex. Such extreme sensibility
may arise from a highly nervous organization in which the power of self-control
is weak. Ninon de l'Enclos used to declare she was so susceptible her soup
absolutely intoxicated her. Delicate people of both sexes are subject to extra
ordinary exhilaration from a very slight stimulus. — Ed.

400 TABLE TALK OF
One evening (1836), when sitting by myself in my room in
prison, there came a knock at my door. I opened it, and the
head turnkey (a worthy man, for I have found him feeding
the poor prisoners from his own table), after making sundry
apologies, begged a few minutes' conversation. He sidled in
and sat down, big with something. " Perhaps, Sir," said he,
taking out and putting across his knee a blue cotton hand
kerchief, " you would scarcely suppose that from seven years
old divinity and medicine have been my passions." " Certainly
not, Mr. Colwell." " Ah ! Sir, 'tis true, and 1 know, I assure
you, much more than most of the doctors or parsons. Why,
Sir, you 'would little think I always cured the cholera! You
may wonder, Sir, but it is a fact. 1 never lost a case, and in
twenty-four hours they were as well as ever. I do it all by
harbs, Mr. Haydon, by harbs ; you are a public man, Sir, a man
of genius they say, and perhaps you will laugh at a man like
me knowing anything. But, Sir," said he, looking peculiarly
sagacious and half-knowing, yet trembling I should quiz, " I
gather my harbs under the planets, Sir ; aye, and it's wonderful
the cures I perform ! Why, there is old Lord Wynford, he is
as bent as an old oak, and if he'd listen to me I'd make him as
straight as a poplar." " No, Mr. ColweU ! " "I would, though,"
he said in a loud voice, re-assured on finding I did not laugh.
By this time he had got courage. He assured me he had a
wife who believed in him, and that he had cured her often and
often ; and here his weather-beaten face quivered. " Ah !
Mr. Colwell," said I, " your wife is a good motherly woman.
It is a comfort to see her face among the others here." Colwell
grew solemn, assured me he had out-argued Taylor, the Atheist,
before the people ; that he had undoubted evidence Joseph of
Arimathea landed at Glastonbury, for at that time the sea
came up to the abbey, and " What was to hinder him ? And
Mr. Haydon," said he, drawing his chair closer, and wiping his
mouth with his blue handkerchief, which he spread again over
his short thighs that poked out, as it were, from under his
waistcoat. . " Would you believe it, I can prove Abraham was
circumcised the very day before Sodom and Gomorrah were
burned ! "
Mr. Hodson, of Leicester, told me that after Waterloo, in
1815, he dined at the British Ambassador's at Madrid, and sat

B. R. HA YDON. 401
next to the Bishop of Toledo. They were all jubilising over
Waterloo, and the Bishop said, "The Duke should fight no
more now, but be kept as a stallion to beget heroes."
Hone, the infidel,* who published the ' Apocryphal Testa
ment' — he afterwards repented and became religious — was a
very clever fellow, and got his repute by his victory over Lord
Ellenborough (Lord Chief Justice), who thundered out to him
as he was defending himself on his trial, " Pooh, Sir, experience
makes fools wise!" "No, my Lord," retorted Hone, "expe
rience makes wise men wiser, but experience does not make
fools wise, or I should not have been indicted three times for
the same thing I have been acquitted of twice before."
Hone was one day teUing Godwin how much he admired his
essay on ' Truth,' but complained to Charles Lamb afterwards
that he couldn't tell why, but Godwin ever since had been cool
to him. "Don't you know why?" said Lamb;" "No," said
Hone. " Why," said Lamb, " Godwin is known to be the
greatest liar living ; he thought you were quizzing him."
Lord Burghersh told me that when Sir Humphry Davy was
in Italy, he spent most of his time shooting — of which he was
passionately fond — in the pine-forest at Eavenna. The Italians,
thinking he had come to work on chemistry, were astonished
at his conduct. He died at Genoa, of eating too freely of pike.
He was " an epicure," Daubeny told me. Daubeny seemed to
think that high life had done him harm.
Lord Essex asked Lady Holland the other day to come down
to Cashiobury. She wrote back in her insolent way and said,
"Before I say yes or no, send me a list of your guests." t Lord
Essex made no reply, which served her right.
Somebody once asked HazUtt about his father. " Say
* Hone was indicted and tried in 1817 for " blasphemous libel." He was
tried first before Mr. Justice Abbott, and then tried before Lord Ellenborough,
but the brow-beating' of Lord Ellenborough had its effect, and the Government
failed to obtain a verdict. — Ed.
t Lady Holland possibly had heard this of Swift. Lord Bolingbroke once
trying to persuade him to come and dine, said, " I will send you my bill of fare"
" Send me your bill of company," replied Swift. — Ed.
vol. n. .2d

402 TABLE TALK OF
nothing about my father," said Hazlitt, " he was a good man.
His son is a devil, and let him remain so."
Dominic Colnaghi told me that on one occasion, when the
Trustees of the British Gallery were discussing whether they
should buy an oil picture of Eaphael's for 3600Z. or not, Shee
(President of the Eoyal Academy) said, "They had much
better spend their 3600Z. at the Eoyal Academy. As for his
part, he never saw any picture by an old master that would
assist him." Bogers, who was standing by, muttered to Charles
Bagot, " I beUeve him " — (et ego).
On the day Sir WiUiam Beechy was knighted, Lord Mulgrave,
who Uked to worry Hoppner, who had used Beechy iU, caUed
to tell Hoppner, but Hoppner was out. Mrs. Hoppner looked
over the banisters: "TeU Hoppner," said Lord Mulgrave,
" that Beechy was knighted to-day at Court." She thundered
out, "It's a Be." She was a violent woman, and felt the in
tended insult to Hoppner.
When I was painting the ' Anti-Slavery Convention ' in 1840,
I said to ScobeU, one of the leading emancipation men, "I
shaU place you, Thompson, and the Negro together." This
was the touchstone. He sophisticated immediately on the
propriety of placing the Negro in the distance.
Now, a man who wishes to place the Negro on our level
must no longer regard him as having been a slave, and feel
annoyed at sitting by his side.
David Wilkie was as fine an example as I ever witnessed of
love of Art. Wherever he was it never left 'him. He had aU
the novelty and originaUty of genius. With a man of real
genius you know not what he is going to come out with next.
He does not know himself. With a man of no genius nothing
comes. Every word WUkie said on composition should be
treasured up. Young men may study his rustic groups with as
much certainty as Eaffaele's.
After the investigation of the Convention of Cintra, and
when the Duke had proved his genius to my mind, I lay in
bed one morning and clearly saw in my mind's eye his triumph

3. R. HA YDON. 403
in Spain, and his crossing the French frontier. I got up, deter
mined going as I was, to write to him to tell him my con
viction, and to add that, if it turned out as I believed, as my
views in Art were as grand as his in military matters, I hoped
he would allow me in the hour of victory to remind him of my
prophecy. . Subsequent reasoning made me believe this to be
absurd, and, to the regret- of my whole life, I gave up the
intention.* «
Colonel Gurwood told me that the Duke of Wellington com
plained that liberties were taken with him at Court. When
he went to Court after William IV.'s death, the Duke of Cam
bridge said, "Why, Duke, why d'ye have your hair. so short?"
Directly after, the Duke of Sussex said, " Why are you not in
mourning, Duke?" The Duke said, "I ordered black, your
Eoyal Highness." "Ah !" replied he, " it is not black, it's what
the French call tete-de negre." The Duke said to Gurwood,
" The Duke of Marlborough, because he was an old man, was
treated like an old woman. I won't be. And the reason why
I have a right never to have a liberty taken with me, is
because I never take a liberty with any man." Gurwood said
that the Duke, although he had known Lord Fitzroy Somerset
from a boy, always called him " Lord " Fitzroy.
The Duke of Wellington told me that in the coldest weather
in the churches in Eussia, he never heard a single cough.
* " When I lay in bed one morning." Every one must have experienced the
clearness of thought which so commonly accompanies these delightful half-hours
of a morning. I am convinced the charge of laziness against poets and literary
men arises from their habit of lying awake in bed of a morning thinking out
their conceptions. It is not that the horizontal position has much to do with
the clearness of thought at this time, but the previous repose, giving freshness
to brain-action, and the absence of anything to distract the attention. The
elder Pitt framed out all his great speeches in bed of a morning, and so did his
son. Brindley, the engineer, who contracted the Bridgewater Canal, when he
met with any particular difficulty would take to his bed, sometimes for three
days, to think it out. Saxe and Vend6me, the famous French generals, did the
same in a campaign previous to commencing a movement of troops. Napoleon
never did it, by all accounts. The moment he awoke, and that was generally
about 2 a.m., he would shout out, " Call D'Albe " (his private secretary), " Let
every one arise," and the whole staff, secretaries, aides-de-camp, marshals, and
personal guards, were turned out, if on a campaign, without remorse, and set to
work, while the Emperor walked up and down the centre tent in his dressing-
gown and white night-cap, sipping his coffee, and dictating orders and dispatches.
When he had done, he called ont, " To horse ! To horse 1 " put on his boots and
coat, and was off across country at a hard gallop. He hated riding along the
road. At the Tuileries the Staff enjoyed longer repose.— Ed.
2 d 2

404 TABLE TALK OF
Of the two men— the Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey—
I prefer the Duke infinitely. He is more manly, has no vanity,
is not deluded by any flattery or humbug, and is in every way,
much as I admire Lord Grey, a grander character; though
Lord Grey is a fine, amiable, venerable, vain man.
At dinner at Walmer the Duke talked of the want of fuel in
Spain, of what the troops suffered, and how whole houses, so
many to a division, were regularly puUed down and paid for as
fuel. He said he found every Englishman who has a home
goes to bed at night. He found bivouacking not suitable to
the character of the English soldier. He got drunk, and lay
down under a hedge. DiscipUne was thus injured. But when
he introduced tents, every soldier knew his own tent, and,
drunk or sober, he got to it before he went to sleep. I said,
" Your Grace, the French always bivouac." " Yes," he replied,
" because the French, Spanish, and aU other nations, lie any
where. It is their habit. They have no home."
The Duke said the natural state of man was plunder.
Society was based on security of property alone. It was for
that object men associated. He thought we were coming to
the natural state of man very fast.
Breakfast at Walmer Castle was at ten. The Duke, Sir
Astley Cooper, Booth, and myself, breakfasted. In the midst
of our breakfast six dear, healthy, noisy, children were brought
to the indoors. " Let them in," said the Duke, and in they
came, rushed over to the Duke. " How d'ye do, Duke ? How
d'ye do, Duke ? I want some tea, Duke," roared young Grey.
" You shall have it," said the Duke, " if you promise not to
slop it over me as you did yesterday." Toast and tea were then
in demand. Three got on one side, and three on the other.
He hugged them all. Tea was poured out, and I saw little
Grey try to slop it over the Duke's coat. After breakfast they
all rushed out on the leads of the cannon, the Duke romping
with the whole of them.
Amelia Opie told me she had heard Fuseli say of Northcote,
" He looks like a rat that has seen a cat."

B. R. HA YDON. 405
July llih, 1840. — I rallied Charles Barry* on his joining the
Boyal Academy after having beat the Academicians in compe
tition and established principle. I said, " You have been
talked over at coffee." He smiled and replied, " The hour after
dinner." He said many people had remarked he ought not
to have gone in. I told him by so doing he sacrificed the
results of his victory.
May 29th, 1841. — Dined at Mackenzie's with Murray Glad
stone, Ward, and ladies, and a furious political evening we had.
Mackenzie said he met the Duke at the Panorama of the
Bombardment of Acre, and the Duke said, with his usual
correctness of mind, " He wondered Napier, in all his speeches,
had made no allusion to the Government which had put such
means in his hands to accomplish such objects." How fine this
is ; how correct in feeling, and what a mild reproof !
June A.ih, 1841. — Mackenzie breakfasted with me and told
me some pleasant anecdotes of his government agencies at
Morlaix, in 1811, when trying to effect an exchange of
prisoners of war. He said all went well until the Battle of
Busaco, when Napoleon became angry. Yet he ordered
cannon to be fired in honour of a victory, and the French offi
cials impudently said that, if Mackenzie wished the Duke of
Wellington and his army should come in under the exchange.
Afterwards, at Lisbon, he had the Due de Valmy on parole.
The Due found Lisbon dull, and wished a ball to be got up
that he might see the women. Mackenzie told him he had
better go to church. The Due asked how long he should have
to remain quiet ? " About an hour-and-a-half," said Mackenzie.
"Une heure et demie!" he cried out; "je n'ai jamais ete
tranquille pour une heure et demie depuis la Bevolution."
Sir Eobert Peel, in his Tamworth address, says the French
Eevolution of 1830 was " the triumph of physical force over
constituted authority." I deny it. It was the instinct of a
great people against authorities who violated the Charter they
had sworn to maintain, in order to establish a despotism of
Conscience and Thought.
* Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. — Ed.

4°6 TABLE TALK OF
The misfortune of John Bull is that, the moment war is over
he believes it to be all done with, and suffers his power and
habit of war to sleep, till roused to another war by repeated
insults. This is a serious error. If he would consent to keep
himself in training and always ready and prepared up to a
certain point, capable of rapid improvement, another war would
not so easily happen. It is by showing yourself ready at any
moment you prevent the necessity.
What Walter Scott said of Eogers was very true : " He
cracked his jokes like minute guns." Once after he had looked
long at my picture of ' Christ Blessing Little Children,' he
said, "When all the figures in the picture get up to walk
away, I beg leave to secure the little girl in the foreground."
A pretty compliment !
The Germans with their tendencies will never be an example
in art. They are not a school, but a sect. Diamonds and chaff
are all mixed. They have invention, they are a rich mine of
original, ideas, but their mode of putting their ideas forth is,
seeing Nature through a false medium, and they cannot be a
guide like the Venetians, the Spaniards, the English. They
are a great, a glorious nation, but with all their vast genius
there is a vein of affectation, which, although not theatrical Uke
the French, is still affectation. The modern German painter
paints more from a natural impression than classic recoUec-
tion. To use their own phrase, they seek " to represent Truth,
and not Fancy." Here is the kernel of German infatuation
and error. The unalterable principles of the perfection of the
human form, as shown in the Elgin Marbles, is " a classic
prejudice," a mere "Fancy," and to copy the imperfectly
formed nineteenth century human being before you, is the only
Truth. This sophistication began with the monks of the second
and third centuries, who, on account of its Pagan association,
considered the perfection of the outward form as inconsistent
with the inward purity of the Christian Soul.
But painting conveys its associations only by form and
colour, and beauty of mind must, as a principle, be considered,
in art, always as an adjunct of beauty of form, and beauty of
form as a necessary symbol of inward perfection.
That the modern Germans have reverted to the prejudices

B. R. HA YDON. 407
and absurdity of the monks of Early Christianity is a sophism
in art, which, from its refined and mystic singularity, is sure to
get hold of all those in Europe who are disposed to be bitten,
and never yet, in my recollection, did man or woman, once
bitten, recover the " German bite."
The German painters define objects by line, the Venetians,
Spaniards, Flemish, Dutch, and EngUsh define one object by
the .contact of another without line. There is no lime. The
line is an imagination. Substance is not imaginary, but real.
This is the reason why definition by the contact of realities is
preferable to line. Line, in progressive study, is, however, the
first step to the correct imitation and the production of the
effect of reaUties.
The aristocracy is the intermediate power between tyranny
and democracy. It saves the people from violating the law,
and the king from oppressing the people. If ever aristocracy
be destroyed in England, the crown and the people will come
into inevitable collision, and destroy each other.
The more decoration can be regulated by the principles of
art, the more beautiful wiU be the decoration and the more
will it be found in unison with human sensibility, and in pro
portion as this principle is departed from, will the deviation
be inconsistent with our sympathies, and distressing and dis
turbing to our minds.
I have no objection to the young artist seeing Munich, but
only after he has studied at Eome. I am no friend to the
suffocation of young students with the luxuries of study.
Sound imitation on the principles of the great masters of
imitation exists at this moment (1842) nowhere but in England.
All other European countries, though teeming with talent,
are totally deficient in the abstractive power of conveying
thoughts by seizing the leading parts of objects by a touch.
This power has descended to the British, and yet they are so
silly and shortsighted they will not acquire (what every
noodle abroad has at his fingers' ends) the power of defining
anatomically the human figure, which would place them at the
head of the artists of the world. When Wilkie was in Spain,

408 TABLE TALK OF
again and again in trying to make the Eoyal Academicians of
Spain understand this power of touch in Velasquez, and its
soundness in principle, they would reply, " No, no, Velasquez
was in a hurry ! "
May 25th, 1842. — I have been six years now without a single
commission from any of the nobility or aristocracy, with the
exception of two little things I painted for Sir John Hdnmer,
and one for Eogers. Thirty guineas a-piece, or, at the rate of
fifteen guineas a year. This is magnificent patronage, but
thank God ! I have lived to see the principle of State support
of the art of painting conceded.
Grant's picture of ' Lord Cardigan and his Horse ' is not
worthy of the painter or the peer. The milk-and-water action
of the horse is just such an action as a timid horseman— which
Lord Cardigan is not — would put a horse in to try if he might
venture a leap without tumbling. The horse is feeble in bone,
blood, sinew, vigour and drawing. It has never lived in a stable,
but in a boudoir, been groomed by a femme de chambre, and
sent into the field for his Lordship, bedewed with "eau de
jasmin." If Grant could give Lord Cardigan a little of his
horse's distrust of himself, and his horse a portion of his
master's spirit, what a perfect picture it would have been !
I see what is coming on in the Art of this country, painful
obtrusion of equal definition, equality of parts never seen
even in a , single object, much more in a variety of objects,
bounded by a hard line which does not exist. The difficulty
will be to retrace. The French have found out their folly of
pursuing the middle ages — they are getting rid of it. Our
young painters are taking it up. What absurdity !
Nothing can be more foolish than the system of the Ger
mans in beginning the Art as Massaccio left it. The state of
Art in Massaccio's time (fifteenth century) was the natural and
not intentional state. Massaccio carried it as far beyond his
predecessors as he could, but if he had gone back to Cimabue's
system, and had confined himself to their limits, how could he
have advanced the Art ? Do the Germans and their admirers
imagine that by going back to the beginning instead of

B. R. HA YDON. 409
advancing from the ending, they will carry the Art further than
it has hitherto been carried ? Do they think that by affecting
the ignorance of simplicity, knowledge will be the result ?
With finer art before their eyes, and from which they ought to
start, they go back again to that period from which Eaphael
started. At most, they can only hope to equal Eaphael. But
by starting where Eaphael ended, and by adding what he did
not add, they have a chance of extending the limits of the Art
itself, and of leaving it as far advanced beyond him as he left
it beyond Massaccio.
There is a German sect arising who wish to introduce Gothic
art. The mind gets fatigued looking at a picture so painted-
There is no prominent object to rest on. All objects, and all
parts of objects, are equally detailed, and offensively attractive,
and hence a strain on the mind by opposing one of its most
intense appetites — a desire for variety. There is nothing left
for the imagination. Eeason, Fancy, Imagination must be
supplied with food. If either be forgotten there is an intel
lectual craving even in the imitation of natural objects.
Lord Duncannon, in talking over with me the ridiculous
conduct of Cobbett, saying publicly that " Providence had in
terfered to prevent his leaving town that he might procure a
member for Coventry," told me Lord Erskine once told him, in a
particular manner, that on one occasion, in a very dry season,
when the turnip crop was failing, a shower of rain fell directly
over his fields of turnips and over no other, which event Er
skine believed as a direct interference of Providence in his
favour. Lord Duncannon said that Erskine beUeved always in
such trifles. I told Lord Duncannon that every man believes
this more or less, but had not the courage to say so.
Danger is the very basis of superstition. It produces a
searching after help supernaturally when human means are no
longer supposed to be available.
Lockhart, meeting me one day, said, with a, relish, " Hogg
met Black of the ' Chronicle ' yesterday, and they both got

410 TABLE TALK OF
dead drunk as oldsfriends." This is hearty, but savage. It is
what the negroes do on the Coast of Africa, only they carry it
a little further.
The worse a man is used in this world the more likely he is
to lean on, and love, and hope in his Creator.
The Duke of WeUington, in speaking of the death of George
the Fourth said to Sir Thomas Hammond, who told me, " He
died like a man, as I always said he would." Hammond
added that no one was in the room with the King when he
died but two valets. This was the exact truth. The doctors
said they were there, but they were not. The King was dead
before they came in.
Chantrey made his fortune by those two children in Lich
field Cathedral. One day, calling on him, I was shown into
his work-room, and, on a table, I saw a design for these very
children by Stothard. I could swear to it.
A friend of mine was at a lock-up house to be bail for another ;
while he was sitting there in walked Stothard arrested by his coal
merchant for a biU of 34Z. He was on his way to the Academy
as Visitor when it happened. My friend went up to him, said,
" I know you, what can I do ?" and got Stothard out in time to
attend his duties. Chantrey was then drinking champagne at
luncheon, had employment for life, and wiU leave a large
fortune at his death, all in consequence of Stothard's genius,
while the possessor of the powers by which Chantrey rises is
arrested by his coal merchant, and escapes into the Academy
as librarian to eke out a living. What singular apparent in
justice appears in the fate of some men of genius and the
fortune of others !
I never saw any man so ignorant of perspective and compo
sition as Sir Thomas Lawrence. He never puts his " feet " at
the right angle.
It is of no use to affect what I do not feel. I have little or
no sympathy with the modern painters. The communion I
feel is with Titian, with Bubens, with Veronese for execution
and colour; with Eaphael and Michel Angelo and the Elgin

B. R. HAYDON. 411
Marbles for form and expression; and with Nature for all
these, with the addition of humour, fun, and satire. I see
nothing in modern exhibitions from which I can learn, and
which I can look at with that delight and confidence I feel
before an ancient work. This is not from conceit, for I reve
rence my superiors ; but there is in English art an inherent
ignorance of the frame and structure — a vulgar ruddiness of
colour — an ignorance of harmony of action as well as its
contrasts — a lack of repose that leaves the mind in a state of
excitement and fatigue, till one hurries away to a Titian or a
Claude for relief and consolation, just as one looks out of a
heated ball-room at daybreak and listens to the lark, and
scents the cool freshness of the dewy grass, and forgets the
passions and frivolities within in the peace of heavenly repose
of renewing nature.
It is curious and melancholy to see the struggle a man of
real talent will often make to impose on himself and others
that he is " vastly respected." I have one in my eye just
now. All the cards of every one who calls on him are
stuck in around the looking-glass, and when you call, you find
him, on entering the room, sticking in yours with careful
pomposity. If you invite him to come and see you, he must
first look over his invitations, consult his wife, talk to his wife's
sister, and arrange it so that it shall not interfere with Sir
Somebody This, or My Lord That. It is painful. Southey has
this same tendency. When in town he always affects never to
sleep in the same bed two nights, he is in such request ! I
remember, when passing a day with him at Keswick, he feared,
in case of a revolution, he should be the very first man hanged
by the Eadicals ! Coleridge is a finer fellow. He proves, with
all his eloquence, a man ought to change and meet his enemies
like a genius.
Nothing delights women and children so much as the pursuit
of guilt and the exercise of power.
The two points of Christianity are charity and forgiveness
of injuries. Of the last the less said the better. As to charity,
the allowances of all of us to the poor are not enough. Do we
really think of their distresses ? No, we do not. We think

412 TABLE TALK OF
how we can obey our Saviour with the least possible incon
venience to our own enjoyments. A shilling won't interfere
with our wine, or our fruit, or our going to the opera, or a
concert, but 10Z. would. If we only used what was necessary
we should have much to spare.
I feel perfectly satisfied in my own mind that before half a
century is past the great Powers of Europe will have to reduce
France for their own security. The Duke says in his despatches
that she was left too powerful at the settlement of 1815, and
the way she has recovered her strength since is remarkable, and
so Austria and Prussia will one day find. The foreign policy of
the continental nations should be based on the question which is
the most beneficial to the world, the predominance of England
or of France. Surely the predominance of England can never
endanger the liberty or independence of any European nation.
We want nothing. We fear nobody. But can that be said of
France? Look at her at this moment (February 1840). Young
France is raging for ihe Empire again, and not twenty years
will pass without another outbreak and another war.*
How difficult it is to get men to believe that any other man
can or does act from disinterestedness !
Liddell, member for Durham, told me that Canning was very
kind to him on his first taking his seat in Parliament, and
pointed out all the members as they came in. When Sir John
Nicholl took his seat, " That's Sir John Nicholl, the lawyer,"
said Canning ; " he has to do with the exclusive in-deUcacies of
the season." He said Canning one night wrote an impromptu
on Phillimore and Wynn : —
" Oh, Phillimore
Is such a bore,
He makes me cry.
But tho' a bore
Is Phillimore,
He don't spit in my eye."
Which Wynn, in speaking, always did.
* The above paragraph appears under date of February 10th, 1840. By the
10th February, 1860, the revolution of 18i8 had occurred, the Empire had
been res! ored, and the Crimean and Itahan wars concluded. By February 1871
France had been invaded, and reduced by a great European Power for her own
security. Haydon's political foresight here deserves credit.  Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 413
It is amusing to think how completely Lord Ebrington was
bamboozled and befooled by Napoleon at Elba. At the very
time that his arrangements for landing in France were being
completed, Napoleon, taking Lord Ebrington into his familiar
confidence, talked to him philosophically of the happiness of
retirement ; that he was better off than he had any right to
expect ; that he was but an adventurer ; and, that weary of the
world, he was content to cultivate asparagus ; all of which, good
Lord Ebrington devoutly believed.
The great curse of Whiggism is that it is the intermediate
principle, playing at " Hawk and Buzzard " between liberty and
despotism. This is why we owe some of the noblest as well as
some of the most despotic laws of our Constitution to the
Whigs.* Moore's 'Life of Sheridan' is a delightful work, but the
excuse of an admirer. It is the life of a politician and a
man of genius by a poet. There should now be published a
life of Sheridan by a great politician ; and both being bound up
together, each would supply the deficiencies of the other.
How cautious men should be not to take offence too readily,
or to show they feel a mortification, but to bear and forbear !
While painting the Eeform Banquet, Alderman Cowan offended
me, and I put in the back of his head. He is now Lord Mayor,
and has to receive the Queen (1837), and he refuses me admis
sion to see the sight. He might let in the back of my
head! When a man is no longer anxious to do better than well he
is done for.
Now the Whigs are in (during WiUiam IV.'s reign),
" commissioners " are swarming over the land like vermin.
* This does not fairly allow for the great difficulty of regulating the demo
cratic element. Democracy never rests, and if not held in check, advances to
predominance ; and if uninstructed and unintelligent, to despotism ; and then
follows loss of liberty, reaction, and disorder. In a mixed constitution like ours,
the balance of constitutional proportion is a delicate instrument to keep level.
The Whigs have at times committed great errors both ways ; but it may be fairly
said of them that, although they have not always shown confidence in the people,
they seldom lost sight of their constitutional rights, and have generally admitted
the necessity of proportioning popular power to popular intelligence. — Ed.

414 TABLE TALK OF
AU professors of fine arts, all those who contribute not to the
necessities of life but to the enjoyment of society, hold their
position only by the severe tenure of exhibiting excellence in
their several departments.
A man like my friend George Walker of Leeds, a man
with talent of no ordinary kind, would have made a figure in
London if obliged to work for his Uving. His power of sketch
ing, and his Dutch humour for character were exquisite. How
many men of this nature are lost to the world — ruined by 500Z.
a year ! .
At the Polish Ball the Lord Mayor said to Lady Douglas,
who squints, " Which do you prefer, my lady, Gog or Magog !"
" Of the three" said Lady Douglas, " I prefer' your Lordship!"
Dean Swift said, more than one hundred years ago, "that
when the dragon on Bow Church kisses the cock behind the
Exchange, great changes wiU take place in England."
Just before the Beform Bill of 1832, the dragon and cock
were both taken down at the same time to be cleaned and
repaired by the same man, and were placed close to each other.
In fact, the dragon kissed the cock, and the Beform Bill was
passed. Who can say there is no virtue in predictions after
this ?
Count d'Orsay said one evening, " It wiU be a pity to spoil
old England, but it wiU be spoiled." Whose fault, say I ? The
extreme Tory faction are alone the cause. By their obstinate
opposition to all Eeform they gave the nation an impulsion it
wiU not lose for fifty years. What might have been granted
gradually and peaceably has been taken forcibly and rapidly.
They first provoked the nation, and then accused it of un
reasonable desires.
When Sir Fowell Buxton sat to me (1840) for the Anti-
Slavery Convention picture, I was vastly amused and then
bored to death at his air of weighty importance, as if the whole
of Europe rested on his shoulders. He brought a clerk, to
whom he dictated letters, and he had appointed two American
delegates to hold forth to him on the advantage of the Coloni-

3. R. HAYDON. 415
sation Society in America. These men so bedimmed my brain,
that what with Buxton's dictating, and correcting, and reading,
and signing letters, and talking, I passed a most distracting
morning. Conceive a man coming to the studio of a painter
with all his paraphernalia of business ! I had painted the Duke
of Sussex, Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, and all the ministers,
and never had I seen among them a symptom of that vast
importance of occupation which precluded the possibiUty of
devoting two hours to a painter without interruption. Buxton
has a singular expression of tenacity of purpose and irresolu
tion, yet he keeps to his object in spite of his own conscious
weakness of self-will.
November 3rd, 1832. — Lord Goderich sat. I told him there
was no hope for* High Art but by a moderate and regular
vote to support History. "But how?" said he; " we have no
houses." " My Lord," I said, " there is the mistake ; we do
not want houses ; we want public support for public objects in
public buildings, or, you may depend on it, the Art of the
country will sink. No young men will devote themselves to
acquire the power if ruin and a prison are to be the result of
studying the Art as a science, instead of making it what it is —
a trade, and a means of getting money and sitters."
Eogers told me that on coming out of the Vatican with
Mr. Lock of Norbury Park, he said to Lock, " Let us go in
again and have one more look." " Why," said Lock, " you
have finer things at Hampton Court — the cartoons !" " Is it
not odd," said Eogers to me, in relating this, " that the Elgin
Marbles and the cartoons are finer than anything abroad!"
Not in the least, I think.
Lady Blessington gave me an account of Lady Morgan and
her marriage, which was at least amusing. Lady Morgan (like
Lady .Blessington) was an Irish girl, a Miss Owenson, and
Morgan was an apothecary, who fell in love with her. I forget
how Miss Owenson became a fixture at the Priory, but at all
events it was very disagreeable to Lord Abercorn, who hated
her, but could not get quit of her. One day the Duke of
Eichmond was coming his rounds as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
when it was the custom to make a knight at every seat he

416 TABLE TALK OF
visited. He came to the Priory, and before leaving he said,
" WeU, Abercorn, do you want any one to be knighted?" " By
 ! " said Lord Abercorn, as the idea flashed into his mind,
"the very thing. Knight Morgan, the apothecary, and I'll
soon get rid of my plague." Morgan was sent for, and told if
he would, marry Miss Owenson off-hand he should be knighted.
He was knighted, married Miss Owenson, and Lord Abercorn
gave her a substantial " present " to get rid of her. "And that,"
said Lady Blessington, " is the real history of ' Sir Charles '
and ' My Lady.' " I should Uke now to hear Lady Morgan's
history of Lady Blessington's early Ufe, and marriage.
Those who oppose corruption, or begin a reform, should be
particularly careful not to endanger their schemes by fooUsh
neglect of the ordinary duties of life. Because a failure or an
embarrassment from their neglect is instantly attributed to the
wildness or extension of their schemes to its consequent risk,
and thus an injury is done to noble attempts irreparable for
years. Against a woman of embonpoint with an artful, persuasive,
honey-face always be on your guard. If she has daughters
you will be sure to be entrapped to marry one. If she be
young herself you wUl be entrapped to marry her.
I am convinced the generaUty of women eat and drink much
more than is necessary for health. The wants of nature keep
within a certain limit ; but if you once go beyond the limit, the
desire to transgress increases with the indulgence. Gunter
said to me one day, " You would be surprised, Sir, if you knew
what the ladies eat between breakfast and dinner:" though
this was hardly fair of Gunter, who profited by it. I am sur
prised sometimes at what I see them eat and drink at luncheon
and at dinner. Medical men are much to blame for this.
They should be careful how they teU a woman in general
terms "to keep up her strength," to "take plenty of nourish
ing food," and "drink wine," &c. AU this creates an artificial
appetite proportioned to the artificial stimulus, and destroys
health. Women require to be guided by the most exact
definitions, or in their ignorance they run to excess*
* Hawthorne, the American writer, remarks upon this weakness for strong
meats and drink, which, he declares, distinguished English ladies in his time

B. R. HA YDON. . 417
The Lord Advocate (Jeffrey) told me many amusing things
about Lord Brougham. He knew Brougham from very early
years, and at one time, for about eight months, Brougham gave
way to all kinds of luxury and extravagance. He had a great
notion of giving grand dinners, and, like the ancients, of per
fuming his rooms. He would get all sorts of perfumes, so that
when they came in the suffocation was dreadful, and they were
obliged to open the windows. Then he used to smoke hookahs,
and use the hot bath at the same time ; and one night, being
very tipsy, he smoked till he fell asleep in his bath, and was
nearly drowned. He was found sound asleep with his lips just
touching the water, and the water cold. This cured him of
that indulgence. Then he used to make bets how he would
come on the race-ground, and give a sealed paper to a friend
before betting. Sometimes he would come on in a wheel
barrow; sometimes in a coffin; sometimes in a basket on a
man's shoulder ; but he always won his bets. Jeffrey said he
belonged with Brougham to a little society, where they had
apparatus for chemical experiments, and that Brougham in
time by his daring experiments blew the whole apparatus to
pieces. I asked him if it were true that Lord Grey had offered
Brougham the Attorney-Generalship, and that Brougham had
torn up the letter, and said, " That is my answer." Jeffrey said
he had not heard. Jeffrey said the person who influenced Lord
Grey to give him the Chancellorship told him (Jeffrey) that
he had told Lord Grey his salvation depended upon making
Brougham Chancellor, Lord Althorpe Chancellor of the Ex
chequer, and the Ministry was formed that afternoon in con
sequence. After Brougham's acceptance of the Chancellorship he took
of course they never do it now — and to that degree that he could never look upon
a massive English matron without inevitably thinking of her " as made up of
steaks and sirloins." Unfortunately for his theory, it is not fat people who eat
most, or much of animal food. Besides, I think the Americans equal us even
here. I chanced one day, at the Imperial Hotel, Cork, to overhear an American
lady order her breakfast. It was as follows : — "Waiter!" "Yes, ma'm." "What
can yew git me for breakfast?" "Brakfust, ma'm? ham and eggs, grilled
chicken, chop." — " Hev yew no fish ? " " Yes, ma'm ; salmon cutlets." " Salmon !
whar do yew git salmon from ? " Waiter (in a tone of pique), " Sure, and isn't
the river full of them I " " Ah ! wall ; I'll hev some salmon cutlets, and I'll hev
— some broiled bacon, and I'll hev — some grilled chicken, and I'll hev some
fried bread, and I'll hev some dropped eggs, and some English breakfast tea—
and " (after a pause)—" and that's all."— Ed.
VOL. II. 2 E

4i 8 TABLE TALK OF
Lord Grey's house in Berkeley Square ; and when he gave
it up in 1834, Bromley, Lord Grey's agent, told me that never
was a house left in such a filthy condition. The bed-rooms
were simply unendurable ; and hidden in the handsome satin
curtains in the drawing-room, he found a kitchen candlestick,
and black lead for the grates. The furniture was nearly all
ruined by ill-usage and neglect ; and although Lord Grey gave
Brougham two months in excess of his term to move out, it
was next to impossible to get him out ; and when he went,.
instead of paying up the arbitrated sum— for he had insisted on
" arbitration " as to damages — he sent a cheque short of 15?.
The cheque was returned, and in three days the full amount
was sent. Brougham was certainly wanting in delicate feeling
in all the common transactions of life.
As marking the difference between England and France,
the following from their respective " Court Circulars " is
suggestive : —
England. — Yesterday her Majesty sat to Sir David Wilkie
for her state portrait.
To-day her Majesty sat to Mr. Hayter for her portrait.
On Friday her Majesty sits to M, Pistrucci for her portrait.

Fbance. — Yesterday his Majesty commissioned M. Horace
Vernet to paint a picture of the storming of Constantine, and
M. Horace Vernet starts immediately for Algeria to make
sketches. His Majesty has also ordered designs to be laid before him
for the decoration of the Grand Palace at Versailles. His
Majesty has also resolved upon iUustrating the life of the
Great Conde by a series of historical pictures.

If men would only take the chances of doing right because
it is right, instead of the immediate certainty of the advantage
from doing wrong, how much happier would their lives be!*
* The conduct of men is a very complicated structure, and in general not
strongly built upon the solid foundation of sound early training. It is there the
mischief is. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 419
The English people are base-minded where money is wanting,
or rank concerned. They reverence rank from the belief wealth
is impUed ; but when they have evidence wealth is wanting,
away goes all their respect for " my Lord." This is base. But
property is either acquired by inheritance or industry. In
either way it is respectable to possess, and merit is inferred by
the possession. This is the principle, but still it is base, as the
English do, to place all virtue in money.
" Everything here is a job," said Lord Grey to me just before
his resignation, as he sank into my arm-chair looking the
picture of worried hopelessness and wounded benevolence. At
that very moment he was burdened with fears and suspicions,
surrounded by apparent friends who, it was quite clear to me,
when in his presence were suppressing their pity, and plotting
his expulsion. No man could be deceived, and he was not.
February 22nd, 1837. — The Whigs are evidently sinking
after being in seven years (with one brief interregnum), and
when they go, they will go without regret from anybody. This
comes from playing Trim. They have meddled with everything,
and messed all* As for myself, I have been rightly served for
belying my real heart, and rushing forward to honour them
because I believed they passed the Beform Bill, when I found
out on close contact they were almost as much annoyed at
being obliged to do it as the Tories. If the Tories come in
and press too fiercely, there will be a reaction, and then will
come Badicalism with its sweeping violence.
The explanation of the propensity of the English people to
portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let
a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be
distinguished by the most brilUant personal heroism, yet the
English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the
great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is
a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot
judge of, for they have no imagination.
* This is curious. The late Lord Derby's famous " meddled and muddled "
was not spoken until some quarter of a century after Haydon penned this concise
description of Whig policy, though it is hardly fair of a Government that passed
more than one good measure. — Ed.
2 e 2

420 TABLE TALK OF
Lord Durham told me that he did not say exactly that
" Intelligence only " ought to predominate ; but that " Property
only ought not to predominate. It should be combined with
Intelligence." Leigh Hunt, in talking to me of Byron (1833) undervalued
his poetry, saying, " He wrote poetry, yes, such as it is." This
is of a piece with Sir Thomas Lawrence not replying to Hob-
house's first letter on the subject of a monument to Byron, and
when pressed for an answer, saying, " that he did not think
Byron of sufficient consequence to deserve a monument."
The safest principle through Ufe, instead of reforming others,
is to set about perfecting yourself.
Sir Thomas Hammond told me that the crown at George the
Fourth's Coronation was not bought, but borrowed. EundeU's
price was 70,OOOZ. ; and Lord Liverpool told the king he could
not sanction such an expenditure. Eundell charged 7,00 OZ.
for the loan, and as some time elapsed before it was decided
whether the crown should be bought or not, Eundell charged ,
three or four thousand pounds more for the interval.
April 5th, 1832.— Dined at Childron's Hotel with Major
Campbell, who was imprisoned by Lord Eldon for thirteen years
for contempt of court. Campbell told me the whole story.
He ran away with a ward in Chancery. Lord Eldon said, " It
was a shame men of low family should thus, entrap ladies of
birth." " My Lord," retorted Campbell, " my family are
ancient, and opulent, and were neither coalheavers nor coal-
heavers' nephews," in allusion to Lord Eldon's origin. Lord
Eldon committed him, and would never forgive the reply. On
Lord Brougham's accession, Campbell petitioned, and by a
special order was discharged. When Lord Eldon committed
him to prison, his wife, who was only a girl of fifteen, went to
his mother's in Scotland. They allowed him on his word to
see her to Gravesend. She cried incessantly, and died soon
after the birth of her child from a broken heart. ... He was
at the storming of Ciudad Bodrigo, Burgos, Badajoz, and St.
Sebastian. As early remembrances of his campaigns, his loves,
his vices, his triumphs, and his disgraces crowded his imagina-

B. R. HAYDON. 421
tion ; his face, heated by wine, shone out, his eye seemed black
with fire, his mouth got long with revengeful feelings. He
looked like a spirit escaped from Hades wandering till his des
tiny was over. He said he had never loved any woman but
his first wife. I thought I saw something like a tear fill his
tremendous, globular, demoniacal eye, as he said, " She was a
splendid creature ;" but he clenched his mouth and it passed.
" By  , Haydon," he said, " I have seen all the real plea
sures, all the humiliations, all the miseries. Death will come ;
I know it. I never curl myself up in bed but I pray never to
wake again." He sits to me on Tuesday ; I will make three
studies of his head for Satan.*
Attwood said to me, " After poverty, there is nothing so
much hated as independence. We are become a nation of petty,
paltry, corporations with a love for wealth. The five-pounder
adores the ten, and the ten the twenty." During the Beform
agitation (1832), he told Lord Melbourne, " If the people don't
get their bellies full after this, I shall be torn in pieces."
" And so much the better ; you deserve it," said Lord Mel
bourne. " Yes, my Lord," retorted Attwood, " but they will
begin with you. I do not despair of seeing you aU tried for
your conduct, Commons and all."
Invention is totally independent of the will. If I have a
day of repose and of undisturbed leisure, and I sit down deli
berately to compose, I often do nothing ! whereas on some sub
sequent occasion, harassed by interruptions and noise, and
pestered while I am working, by some unconscious operation of
the brain, I find all the previous obscurity cleared away, I think
and arrange, and in the middle of it all I seize a brush and
some old colours, and alter or make a sketch with great effectf
* I remember the heads well; three heads on one long canvas — three of
the most handsome but evil heads I ever remember to have seen, full of
character. — Ed.
f Many curious instances of this unconscious exercise of the inventive faculty
are related in physiological works ; but the late Sir W. K. Hamilton's descrip
tion of his great mathematical discovery, Quaternions, is among the most
curious :— " They started into life," he writes, " on the 16th Oct. 1843, as I was
walking with Lady Hamilton to Dublin, and came up to Brougham Bridge.
That is to say, I then and there felt the galvanic circuit of thought close, and
the sparks which fell from it were the fundamental equations between i. j. k ;
! exactly such as I have used them ever since .... I felt a problem at that
moment solved., an intellectual want relieved, which had haunted me for at least
fifteen years before." (North British Beview., vol. xiv. p. 57.)— Ed.

422 TABLE TALK OF
No man, perhaps, is so wicked as to commit evil for its own
sake. Evil is generally committed under the hope of some
advantage the pursuit of virtue seldom attains. Yet the most
successful result of the most virtuous heroism is never without
its aUoy. How, then, can men be so weak as to anticipate a joy
from crime which is denied to virtue ? And how can they be
so foolish as to expect the usual aUoy to aU human enjoyment
will not be doubled when crime has been committed, if no
human happiness under any circumstances is ever without it,
be the virtue what it might ?
A boy, whose father is intimate with Lord Lyndhurst, said a
most extraordinary thing to my son. "Do you think your
father would take a bribe ?" Try me ; I wiU accept the bribe
of employment and purchase of my great works. No other
bribe wiU have any effect upon me, and that wiU bribe me to
work harder than ever, and attack the authorities whenever
they make asses of themselves in matters of Art.
A very pretty prospect of employment in the new Houses
have I. Peel cannot endure me because I developed him to
his own conscience ; * * * * dislikes me because he owes to my
gratuitous instruction his knowledge of the principles of Art ;
and to the Eoyal Academy I am a perpetual indigestion, be
cause I first shook their roots in public estimation, and left
them, like a set of teeth loosened by a blow, unable to chew
the most impalpable bouilli without a twang in the nerves.
Eeligion and education are not a match for evil and organi
zation without the grace of God, His Holy Spirit, and constant
prayer, and then they are. And this is the meaning — evU is
original sin ; God will counteract it by His Grace and Spirit,
if the individual in whom original sin exists will sincerely ask
for aid. Eeligion, education, grace, and holy inspiration from
constant watchfulness and prayer, are enough to baffle organi
zation, and inherent evil, if prayed for with belief.*
Eastlake, by his " Eeport," is bringing back the English
* " Knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find." Most of
us content ourselves with " thinking " that if we " want " we shall " find," and
if we are in need it will be opened to us. But the words of Scripture are
definite.— Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 423
school to the insanity of " Vehicles " in the practice of their
Art, and which it was the great object of myself and Wilkie to
destroy, and which in great measure we did accompUsh by
restoring the purity of simple oil.
November 15th, 1844.— Poor old Lord Say and Sele is dead.
No man took more trouble to keep himself alive, but I have
come to the conclusion although a man may make himself more
or less comfortable by excessive care, that he does not prolong
his existence an hour.*
The only legitimate artists in England are the architects.
" Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the
heroic makes heroes." See Coningsby, which I have read right
through. There is very high talent in Coningsby.
How often temptations cross an embarrassed man !f Five
hundred guineas were once offered to me when I had not a six
pence, if I would say a copy from Eaphael was an original.
"It is not an original," I said, "it is a copy, and you know it."
1 never got another advance of the kind, thank God ; but I
never did or would belie my conscience for any reward.
At a pleasant party at Mrs. Leicester Stanhope's one evening
(her house was a great resort for expatriated Poles), we were
talking pf Pozzo di Borgo, whose health was failing. I said,
" He cannot snuff a candle." " Without a lie," added a Pole.
This was severe but capital.^
* But if Lord Say and Sele had not taken the care he did, he would certainly
have died ten years sooner. The above rule may apply to healthy, but not to
diseased men. — Ed.
t St.Augustin says, "It is the devil's part to suggest, but ours not to consent."
—Ed. X Pozzo di Borgo was then Russian Ambassador in London. He is a curious
• instance of a man carrying the hatred of his youthful days, and " nursing bis
wrath to keep it warm," into almost every action of his varied life. Expelled
from Corsica by Buonaparte when quite a youth, he vowed the ruin of the
Buonapartes and escaped to Elba. From thence he came to London, where,
through Paoli's influence, he obtained an introduction to Pitt. Lord Grenville,
then Foreign Secretary, sent him on a mission to Vienna. From thence he
passed into the diplomatic service of Eussia, and was sent to Naples. At the
peace of Presburg he found it wiser to return to St. Petersburg, for had
Napoleon caught him, his shrift would have been short, and his fate certain.
After the peace of Tilsit, he found it convenient to leave Eussia and seek a refuge

424 TABLE TALK OF
Eaphael's women are certainly not handsome, when one
thinks of our lovely EngUsh beauties.
A knowledge of the human form is the basis of the know
ledge of the form of aU other objects. The anatomical con
struction of man is the cause of his motion, and a knowledge
of that construction is the great basis of all power of represent
ing his figure by imitation, influenced by passion or wiU.
Dissection is the basis, and the only basis.
At the opera one night, to hear ' Parisina,' Hugo, after
receiving Parisina's handkerchief as an emblem of her love,
walked to the side scenes and flung it behind ! He ought to
have been beheaded on the spot.
I heard Lord Brougham say a beautiful thing in his speech
on the Poor-Law Amendment BiU. He said, " While Pro
vidence cursed man to labour by the sweat of his brow, He
blessed labour with its attendant happiness of the sweet sensa
tions which accompany its exercise. The nausea of idleness,
the hypochondriasis of lazy wealth, were unknown to whole
some exertion." How beautiful, and how true !
Lord Ebrington told me that Napoleon acknowledged to
him the massacre at Jaffa, and justified it as a necessary
measure; but that he (Lord E.) did not think Napoleon
bloodthirsty. Lord Ebrington told me that he overheard, at a fair in
Ireland, where a very fine buU was being led about for sale,
one Paddy say to the other, " Shure, now, an' who's got that
bull ?" " Why, another buU," said the other. " An' thin there's
two bulls," said the first. " An' jest no bull at all," said the
other. All this passed as quickly as written, and is an amusing
at Vienna. After the battle of Wagram, Napoleon insisted on his banishment
from Vienna, and he came to London in 1810, where he incited Lord Wellesley
to assist a grand scheme for an insurrection in Italy, and a combined attack by
Prussia and England on France. It fell through , but the seed for the great
Coalition of 1813 was laid, and Pozzo di Borgo lived to see his work succeed.
" I did not bury him," he said of Napoleon, " but I helped to fling the last
shovel-full of earth on his head." He passed once again into the service of
Eussia, and died in 1842. — Ed.

3. R. HAYDON. 425
instance, if one were wanted, of their ready wit. Sir Walter
Scott told me that one day, when in Ireland, he flung a half-
crown to the man who opened a gate. The fellow looked up
and said, in an instant, " Ah ! shure, now, an' may God bless
yer honour and let you live till I pay you !"
Lord Melbourne had more knowledge, and made less pre
tence of it, than any man I ever knew, or desired to cul
tivate. Every one in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the antipodes advises
me against writing on art. But I am convinced that the want
of taste in art which distinguishes the English people above all
other civilized nations on earth, and their non-perception as to
what is their duty towards art, require pointing out. The
people of this country are not aware of the vast importance to
our manufactures, and to our position as a nation, of a just
and due encouragement of High Art and historical design ; and
this is my reason for writing.
Soldiers and sailors are requisite that John Bull may guzzle
his beer and eat his beef in security, but poets, painters
and travellers are not ; he can do without them. Therefore,
" let them go and be  ."
Davis, the painter, tells me that in Italy he has seen poor
Italians come up to the window of a print-shop to look at some
fresh caricatures, and heard them say, " Ah ! niente di bello ! "
and turn away. Beautiful expression of the taste and feeling
of this gifted people.
When Englishmen go abroad they not only lose their heart
and feeling for England, but they lose their common per
ception. Jeffrey agreed with me that Beauty could be reduced to
One Principle.
High Art will never flourish in this country until professor
ships are established at the Universities, and the young men
of rank and fortune, before they issue out in life, have the

426 TABLE TALK OF
opportunity of becoming instructed in taste. Lord Goderich'
told me that in the House, whenever he wanted to get advice
on the arts, he was astonished how little he could get from
people in office. Of course. But let professors read annual
lectures on art at each University, and the present ignorance
will be greatly dispersed. Unless the House of Commons
appoint an authority higher than either the Boyal Academy or
the British Institution, such as a Committee of the House,
High Art will never flourish in England. In a fortnight a
committee would get all the requisite information.
Eumohr, in his letter to-day (9th AprU, 1842), says, " Of
academies of art I think like you. They are a kind of hot
houses for art's winter-season, unfit to reap seeds, but excellent
for nursing every kind of sickly plant." This is good, and
true. Of CorneUus, Overbeck, and Kaulbach, he says —
Cornelius's faults are revolutionary, and his errors mixed
with truth and a very high flight of thought. There are fine
talents in Germany, fostered by a splendid encouragement by
princes and associations. There wants not so much to perfec
tion but the most effectual facts of perfect art. More know
ledge, more respect of nature, more interest in, and a more
lively and spirited attention to, the richness and variety of
nature ; more application to the experience of old age, and to
the fine examples of gone-by times, in aU what is merely
technical. And, over all, an uninterrupted stream of > 
[illegible]. Overbeck, Cornelius, and Kaulbach have the merit of a
poetical conception, a fine disposition of groups and figures;
the first and third, of drawing naturally and, on the whole,
correctly. All, together, could do much more if not restrained
by the prejudices and singularities they share with their
brother artists of secondary merit.
The greatest curse to society is the delicate irritability of
medical men. Many a wife, many a mother, many a child,
and many a sweet girl have been sacrificed, from the apprehen
sion of their relatives to offend the medical attendant by hinting

B. R. HAYDON. 427
at a wish for further advice. Never hesitate ; it is better to
offend your medical man than risk a loss of life.*
No man, says Burke, can live in the world without some
trials of his patience, and if they have an ill-effect on your
temper they will have the same effect on your interest.
Never was anything more true than this truism. All young
men should write it over their doors.
The Waterloo GaUery at Windsor Castle, from not being
arranged as a gallery, is a disjointed failure. No one portrait
has reference to any other. There is no composition as a
whole ; they are separate pictures, painted as several pictures,
and it is melancholy to see so total an absence in King and
painter of all comprehension of mind.
Wordsworth breakfasted with me this day (16th June, 1842).
He was remarkably well, and we had a good set-to. I told
him Canova said of Fuseli, " Ve ne sono negli arti due cose, il
fuoco e la fiamma." " He forgot the third," said Wordsworth,
" and that is ' ilfumo,' of which Fuseli had plenty."
He said, once in a wood Mrs. Wordsworth and a lady were
walking when the stock-dove was cooing. A farmer's wife
coming by, said, " Oh, I do like stock-doves ! " Mrs. Words
worth, in all her enthusiasm for Wordsworth's beautiful
address to the stock-dove, took the old woman to her heart.
" But," continued the old woman, " some like 'em in a pie ; for
my part, there's nothing like 'em stewed in onions ! "
I do not know if the pleasantest part of a London season be
not the last fortnight after Parliament is up. Business is over ;
people lounge long and late after dinner ; the arts, the opera,
* The worst of medical men now-a-days is that they never tell you the whole
truth. They make "mental notes," which they reserve to themselves, and tell you
only theirhopes. Their real opinion, if it be unfavourable, they carefully conceal
under the euphuism of " waiting for the disease to declare itself." They might
as well order your coffin. The explanation of all this is a weak dread of responsi
bility. Hence frequent consultations, and five doctors, generally, being in at
your death. The remedy for this state of things is for every boy and girl
to be taught the principles of physiology, and to learn something of their own
form and structure, and. something of themselves in health and disease The
ignorance of the educated, unprofessional classes in these respects is astounding;
and yet what subject -more worthy of instruction, and even study ! — Ed,

428 TABLE TALK OF
the session, the Court, the intrigues, the courtships, the
marriages, are all discussed ; till, one by one, each drops away
by the First of September ;* and then takes place that lull — to
use a word of Lord Palmerston's, which exactly expresses the
thing — and London harass is succeeded by country duties,
stewards' accounts, partridges and pheasants, hunting, and a
vacant borough, till Christmas arrives, and then, hey for the
New Year !
Napoleon crowning himself, and Wordsworth on his knees,
unable to rise, before the Queen, after his early Democracy,
are beautiful specimens of the consistency of genius, and an
everlasting tribute to the Monarchical principle.
What sad patchwork the summer-house in Buckingham
Palace is to the loggia of Eaphael !
When it was quite uncertain whether Napoleon would or
would not make peace at Chatillon (1814), my old friend, Sir
Thomas Hammond, dined in town with the Prince de Conde
and the Duchesse d'Angouleme. Their anxiety was lest peace
should be made. Every horn that blew, the Prince de Conde
sent out for a ' Gazette.' Frightened out of his Ufe, he kept
saying, " Ah, Monsieur le General, la paix est faite ! la paix est
faite ! " Hammond told me he tried to keep their spirits up,
but the Duchesse kept declaring, " Non, non, nous sommes de
pauvres miserables ; e'en est fait de nous."
The next morning Hammond was with the Prince Eegent,
and he was talking about Napoleon, when Hammond said,
" Sir, if the feUow does not sign the Treaty it would be no bad
time to shove in the Bourbons." " Ah," said the Prince, " you
like them better than I do. Little, I fear, can be done." The
next day Hammond saw the Prince again — "in node consilium."
The Prince said, " 'Gad, Hammond, I have been thinking of
what you said, and I'll see if something can't be done for
them ; say not a word."
As Lord Liverpool was announced, Hammond went down to
McMahon, who was writing in Hammond's room. McMahon
went up to the Prince, and shortly after came down and said,
" There is the devil, to pay upstairs. What do you think ?
* It is now the 12th of August. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 429
Lord Liverpool will resign. The Prince says he will restore
the Bourbons ; Lord Liverpool says he won't hear of it." At
this instant Lord Liverpool crossed the yard, in the dumps,
and went away. Hammond's window looked into the yard and
up St. Alban's Street (before Begent Street was built). Sir
Thomas declared solemnly to me that this was the beginning
of the return of the Bourbons.
May 2&ih, 1845. — My dear old uncle, Admiral Mordwinoff, is
dead ; as venerable and good a man as Eussia ever produced.
He was, as a child, educated with the Emperor Paul, by the
Empress Catherine's order, and was that Emperor's playmate.
After the Emperor Paul came to the throne, some act in his
old playmate offended him, and Mordwinoff was exiled to
Siberia ; but the death of Paul brought Mordwinoff back to
St. Petersburg. He entered the Eussian navy, and [was
rapidly promoted ; and when in command of a ship in the
Mediterranean met with my aunt, Harriet 'Cobley, at her
uncle's house at Leghorn, fell in love with her, obtained the
permission of the Emperor to marry, married, and carried
his young wife off to St. Petersburg. He afterwards com
manded the Eussian fleet in the Black Sea, then became the
head of the Eussian Admiralty, and was subsequently made
President of the Imperial Council. He was a most amiable
and liberal-minded man, was the friend of Bentham, and is well
known in Eussia as a political writer. His liberaUty of senti
ment annoyed the Emperor Alexander. After an interview,
in which the Emperor overwhelmed Mordwinoff with favour,
Mordwinoff found he had been previously removed from the
post of President of the Council. Yet such was the respect
in which he was held by the members of Council that,
although he had left the chair, and was now seated among
them as only an ordinary member, they turned to him for his
opinion as if he was still at their head.
Mordwinoff was a distinguished man, had fine taste in art, a
valuable collection of pictures, and he had great knowledge of
European literature. Howard, the philanthropist, died at Mord-
winoff's house. It was Mordwinoff who got my uncle Tom
Cobley into the Eussian army. Cobley served under Suwar-
row; was knighted for his gallantry in war by the Empress
Catherine ; and by Mordwinoff's kindness, was made Chamber-

430 TABLE TALK OF
lain to the last King of Poland. Cobley subsequently married,
and was appointed to the post of Commandant at Odessa, in
the neighbourhood of which he purchased a large estate—
" Cobleska." He had a high reputation in the Eussian army ;
was a favourite of the Emperor Nicholas ; and died in 1834,
leaving an only daughter, who married the Marquis of
Paulucci, the Governor of Eiga.*
Lord Melbourne, in conversation one day, told me that he
considered Lord Stanley "the best Parliamentary debater since
Fox." " Had I attended," says Nelson, " less than I have done to
the service of my country, I might have made some money
too; but I hope my name wiU stand on record when the
money-makers are forgot."
Glorious words to be cut into the bulkheads of every cap
tain's cabin. Nelson's integrity, his disinterestedness, his
public spirit, his glorious death, will live in the heart of Eng
land to the end of time. Millions do not compensate for the
want of such a fame.
How much religious feeling there is in the world ! If people
did not fear the ridicule of scepticism, how much would be
known !
There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to
extract all the good out of aU the evil.
At the conclusion of any work beware of the freaks of inven
tion. . The mind long dwelling on one idea grows weary, and
starts alterations. Immediately that begins, fly to a new
subject. March 26th, 1845. — A friend of mine called on Sir Eobert
* Both my cousin and her husband died in 1844, leaving a large family. The
old General's marriage was a very romantic one. A young lady of rank in the
Crimea, about to be married against her will, appealed to General Cobley for
his official protection. "Certainly," said Cobley, "if you will marry me."
" That I will," she said, and kept her word. She was a very beautiful girl
—Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 43 1
Peel the other day. On coming out, he said to the old hall
porter, " I am glad to see Sir Eobert look so well." " Yes,
Sir," replied the porter; "yes, Sir, Sir Eobert looks quite
well. We carry it with a high hand, Sir ! "
April 5th, 1845. — Eogers called — the father of English
poetry, or rather the grandfather. He said to me, on entering
the dining-room and seeing the engraving of Lady Westmore
land's Duke writing the Waterloo despatch, " Why did you
let her do such a thing ? " " She wouldn't attend to me," said
I. " Then she is a conceited hussy," said Eogers. " I'U tell
her," said I. " Oh ! no doubt," said Eogers, half-frightened.
Hazlitt used to say that it was Lord Brougham who wrote
those sneering reviews of Wordsworth which appeared in the
' Edinburgh Be view.' But not that beginning, " This will
never do." This was Jeffrey.
Turner's pictures look to me as if they were the works of a
savage suddenly excited to do his best to convey to his fellow-
men his intense impressions of the scenery of nature. Without
the slightest power of giving the form, he devotes himself to
giving the effects and colour of what he sees. It is so much easier
to give effects only, like Eeynolds, than to combine correct form
with effect, like Titian, that a man of genius whose want of
education in the art obliges him to depend on his own resources
to supply, or to correct his own deficiencies, is sure to be hailed
with rapture by the lazy, the idle, the dull or the affected,
the ignorant or the impudent in the art. Sir Joshua Eey
nolds was for years, and Turner is, the excuse for every caprice
and every impertinence, for every unintelligible scrawl, for
every indolent splash, to be considered as the effusions of
genius " of an inspired being, too much elevated above mor
tality to condescend to be intelligible. Such inspired beings
look with ineffable contempt on the dull-headed correctness
of Phidias or Michel Angelo, Titian or Claude, Baphael or
Vandyke. This dropsy of the art, which, by the good sense
of the English people, had by frequent tapping been reduced
to its natural dimensions, is beginning again to pit and
puff. On what metaphysical principles genius can be proved to exist

432 TABLE TALK OF
in a picture, because every rational person mistakes an elm-tree
for a cabbage ; or how making the sun look like a brass kettle,
or a man with a lighted torch like a bit of red ochre at the
end of a porte-crayon, is undeniable evidence, for that reason
alone that, the man who so painted is a great man, I have yet
to learn.
Sir Eobert Peel has not the manners of the nobility. He
wants the naivete and condescension of high birth. He always
seems to me to possess the consciousness of a parvenu. One of
the finest scenes ever witnessed with him happened once at
the Eoyal Academy. Lady Chantrey was a lady's maid. It
is no matter how Chantrey became acquainted with her ; he
married her, and in due time he was knighted, and she became
Lady Chantrey. At the next private day before the Exhi
bition opened, Sir Eobert and Lady Peel came up to congratu
late Chantrey, who was there with his wife. Chantrey at once
offered his arm to Lady Peel, and Sir Eobert could not do less
than take Lady Chantrey. Peel's face, as Chantrey paraded
him all down the rooms, was a perfect study. The great people
looked unutterable things, and whispered exquisite little asides
as they passed. Peel was boiUng over with pride and mortifi
cation. Chantrey, who was a Home Tookite at heart, deUghted
in thus showing the power of station in a parvenu as well as
himself, and had ample revenge, to the intense satisfaction of
theE.A.'s. Hogarth or I could alone do justice to the scene.
The most mischievous review I have read for some time
past is the one just published in the ' Westminster. Eeview,'
asserting the principle that genius can exist and can develop
itself without patronage ; that poets have existed and do exist
without patronage, and that patronage is not necessary to the
perfection of Art. The obvious answer to this is that genius
may exist independent of aU patronage, but wiU it be able to
develop itself to its full capabiUty without it ?
Our young soldiers are fine animals, most of them, and
nothing more. They talk, act, and think as if they were young
colts suddenly gifted with the power of expressing their not very

3. R. HA YDON. 433
inteUectual thoughts* High spirits, but little cultivation. How
few of them can talk of the campaigns of Marlborough !
One effect of Peel's Bank Charter Act must certainly be
to contract the currency whenever a severe drain arises, no
matter what the cause. Now the question seems to me to be,
will not the dread of this contraction under some circumstances
help to bring about the very panic Sir Eobert says he wishes
to avert ? On the other hand if you throw the whole reserve
open, might we not some day find ourselves without any?
Why not have a floating and a fixed reserve, that would allow
some elasticity? By Peel's Bill the hard line is always in
view. There is hardly another instance in the world of a great
military commander under the authority of others being
suffered to do all his genius enabled him to do, when holding
his command at the mercy of those over him, as Lord Welling
ton did. Luckily, the apprehensions of his employers of the
enemy he contended against were greater than any bad passions
Wellington's success might excite, and they willingly sacri
ficed all envies and hatreds in their greater fear of Napoleon.
Wellington's genius could alone save them, and this they saw.t
* The Duke of Wellington is said never to have encouraged discussion on
subjects of interest, civil or military, or to have indulged in argument at his
own table when commanding the army in the Peninsula; conversation being
kept down, on principle, to the level of "hounds and horses." When General
Picton arrived at headquarters, his arrival always produced a sensation, as he
loved discussion ; and being a highly cultivated man, would talk on matters not
generally discussed at Lord Wellington's table. In order to check this tendency
to serious conversation, an amiable young officer of the Guards, remarkable for
his power of buffoonery and feats of agility, was invariably invited to meet Sir
Thomas Picton. In the case of a man who had to do so much thinking by
himself his dislike of discussion may possibly be explained upon the principle
on which Talleyrand married an uncultured woman, — her ignorance was a relief
to him. — Ed.
t This is, of course, written before the publication of documents which would
have modified the opinion here expressed. For it is impossible to read the
History of the Peninsular War, the Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, and
the Diaries and Letters of the Duke of Buckingham, and other contemporary
authorities, without feeling a doubt as to whether the Duke was really so un
fettered, or the conviction that the then Home Administration — always excepting
the Marquis WeUesley — scarcely realised the value and importance of the Duke's
military operations in Spain. A Government that denied him supplies, and
seriously proposed to cripple him in his means of transport because it was
"expensive," and* to drive him to consider the propriety of embarking his troops
to return to England, may have had some envy, but scarcely an appreciation of
the genius of their General, or so great, so serious an apprehension of the enemy
he was contending against, as to be willing to abandon the contest, which is in
VOL. II. 2 F

434 TABLE TALK OF
The Duke of Wellington did not behave well in opposing
a medal for the Peninsular army. There can be no question
that the greatest danger this kingdom was ever in was from
the genius of Napoleon. The Continental Sovereigns and
armies, thoroughly beaten, had given up the contest, as if he
were invincible ; and though it was the Spanish people who
first broke the charm by their capture of Dupont and his
16,000 French troops at Baylen,* yet Spain was lost, and
nothing but the timely arrival of the Duke and the British
troops saved Portugal and recovered Spain, It was the indis
putable courage and endurance of these troops in battle for
successive years, under the guidance of WeUington, which
ultimately prostrated the reputation of the troops of Austerlitz
and Jena, freed the Peninsula, and invaded France. And are
we to be told that " for fear " every soldier and sailor who dis
tinguished himself throughout the war will demand a medal,
that the heroes of particular campaigns are to have none?
We are the base slaves of officialism and heartless etiquette.
To attempt to excuse such meanness by " custom " and " pre
cedent," was to wash himself in official ink, and to make the
refusal all the darker and dirtier. We are two centuries
behind France in these matters. Would Napoleon have opposed
such distinction to his veterans ?
Lord Grey's talents were not of the highest order, but his
virtue in public matters was unimpeachable. If from tender
ness of heart he put relatives into public places, it was not
itself a serious accusation. In either ease, the Governments of Mr. Perceval and
of Lord Liverpool, by their conduct towards Lord Wellington, placed themselves
in a position it is to be regretted an English Government should appear.— Ed.
* The number of troops which surrendered more nearly approached 20,000
men, as Vedel's corps was included. Dupont's surrender has never yet been
satisfactorily explained, any more than Whitelocke's retreat from Buenos Ayres.
Dupont was a man of high reputation as General of Division, and was selected
by Napoleon for this expedition. The French Emperor rarely made a mistake
in his choice of men. Yet Dupont, after plundering Cordova, hesitated to
advance on Seville ; and, like the woman in love, the man in war who hesitates
is generally lost. He fell back on Andujar, where he wasted twenty days in
inactivity, waiting for Vedel, who was moving up to his support with troops,
stores, and. ammunition. They were to effect their junction at Baylen. Dupont,
assured that Vedel was close at hand, fell back fighting to Baylen ; and though
Vedel heard Dupont's guns at Guaroman, only six miles off Baylen, he halted
his troops all mid-day for repose, and had to surrender for his satisfaction. It is
curious how frequently the French generals, when absent from Napoleon's eye,
violated the very first principles on which he had educated them for the conduct
of war. — Ed.

3. R. HAYDON. 435
because he was reckless of the public good, but because he
thought himself justified in choosing a relative when he found
him as able as any other man. Nor do I think him wrong in
that principle. He was fond of flattery, exceedingly vain of
his fine person, very tender, very sensitive, very haughty, and
had more of real aristocracy in his democracy than the most
ultra-Tory who ever lived.
The iniquities of a favourite are pardoned, whilst the virtues
of one who is not a favourite are treated like iniquities. True
enough. August 9th, 1845. — The Queen dissolved Parliament to-day ;
and the most extraordinary thing happened which perhaps ever
happened before on such an occasion. In carrying the Crown of
England it fell off the cushion and split ! I hate such things.
I put it down to watch the result, uneasy at the omen. The
old Duke was much agitated, and kept telling everybody
about it.
The Queen said to the Duke (before the accident with the
Crown), " That is a very heavy robe your Grace has got on."
" Not so heavy," said some one by her, " as his Grace's sword,"
meaning the Sword of State he carried. " Ah ! " said the old
hero, alluding to his own sword, " that is light enough now."
August 19th, 1845. — Called on Lucas, once the favourite
painter of Eoyalty and fashion, but now almost deserted save
by a stray lord or lady. He let out that Prince Albert told
him Eastlake had said " the young men must be the men to do
the Houses." Lucas told me also that the Duke of Northum
berland said, " What is to become of all these young men when
the Houses are finished ? We can't afford to maintain young
students till they learn High Art." He said a noble Duke, whose
portrait he is now painting, said, " The aristocracy do not
want High Art. Nothing pleased them but first-rate speci
mens, and these they had of the old masters." All this is
exactly what I have said. They do not want it. They do not
care about it, and laugh at all who do. I do care about it ;
and the public voice will at last force justice and reward.
Lord Egerton's Titians have suffered a little by cleaning.
2 f 2

436 TABLE TALK OF
They are a little thrown out of harmony. The flesh is lighter,
and the shadows, by comparison, darker. But they are beau
tiful productions. The 'Actseon' is best preserved. What
tenderness, what clearness! All other pictures looked oily
beside them, and Guido's 'Virgin' looked absolutely leaden.
There is always this crisp look in Titian and the Venetians.
What an awful thing is a sick and dying chamber at break
of day ! The contrast between the dimness and closeness and
horror inside, where the life of your darling is slowly ebbing
away, and the saffron streak and freshness of the coming morn.
The glorious sun breaking through the night mists, the birds
chirping merrily, the trees gently waving to and fro, as if to
welcome the fresh life and warmth of another happy day ; and
a human life inside, struggling with its last efforts to resist
suppression ; the clammy forehead, the terrible anxiety of the
eye, the gasps for breath growing fainter and fainter, a wild
stare, a lovely smile, the closing of the eye, a brief twitching
of the lips, the head rolls back, and all is still !
Lord Brougham says, " The truths of Eevelation are ill sup
ported if the prop of natural religion were withdrawn. They
would then rest on tradition alone." They would not. Is
there nothing in the intrinsic virtue of a moral principle?
Natural religion, more or less, always existed. The Christian
religion wants no help and prop for belief ; and he who wants
any help or prop, in addition to the internal evidences of its
truth, for his belief, never was and never will be a Christian.
With respect to dreams being evidence of the independent
existence of mind, the first question is, What is the cause of
dreams ? Do they not arise from indigestion, or some form
of ill health which prevents the repose of the brain, and the
brain, being no longer under control, runs over the traces of
previous recoUections without order or thought? Did the
dreamer when dreaming do all he does when awake, and as
reasonably, collectively, and clearly, there might be something
in the argument ; but he does not. What he generaUy dreams
or does is an incongruous, uncontrolled jumble of what he has
previously done at different times in a different manner. How,
then, can this be held as " evidence " of the independent exist
ence of the mind from the body in this world, and of its

B. R. HA YDON. 437
immateriality in the next ? No one can prove the mind to be
distinct and independent of the body, and to this complexion
we had better come quickly. The mind appears to me to be
a phenomenon developed by the brain, just as motion is a
phenomenon developed by muscle. But this does not prove
mind, any more than motion, to be material. Why, if the
immaterial mind be not dependent on a material organ for
the development of consciousness, does any affection of the
brain disturb the sound conclusions of the mind ?
It may be a distinct essence, but we are only sensible of its
power by a material organ. If that organ be deranged by
repletion suicide generally follows.
After all, the Bible account of the creation of man is incom
parably the best. Man was physically formed out of the dust
of the earth. He lay formed, but inanimate. The Creator
breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and instantly the
lungs played, the heart beat, the brain quickened, the muscles
acted, and. man in conscious gratitude knelt to his Creator.
Whether this " breath of life " be the soul, or the mind acting
on the body and producing Motion, or on the brain and pro
ducing Thought — because the brain and the body are the
vehicles respectively of its power — is that a reason why it is
material ? We are a compound of both here and hereafter ; we
shaU be made responsible for the actions of both while here.
Anything beyond this is beyond our power to prove, and would
be of no real value if we could.
A Eoyal Academician said the other day (December 1835),
" The sun of Art had set in England." The siUy creature !
It has never risen. The first streak of the dawn has but ap
peared. The morning star is still glittering. Those comets —
Hogarth, Wilson, Gainsborough, Eeynolds — were blazing, but
irregular lights. The steady effulgence of the sun we have
never had.
I do not wonder at Byron liking Trelawney. He is a fine
animal. Civilised life seemed a bore to him. " There is
nothing to be done here," he said to me ; " first, there's your
vested rights, then your corporations, then your Acts of Par
liament, and Heaven knows what besides! Civilised society
softens a man." This must be the man who had breathed the

438 TABLE TALK OF
air of the Pampas ; who had hunted buffalo in the prairie ;
fought for Greek liberty amidst the mountains of Greece, and
swam rivers in pursuit of the enemy. I like him exceedingly.
Lord Melbourne said to Bulwer one evening, in aUusion to
Bulwer's staying away from the House to pursue his literary
work, " A little quiet voting is worth a ream of writing."
W. C. told me Lord G*** was so much in love with Lady
Blessington, he offered to take her to America ; and she told
him G*** was so far gone, that if she quizzed him he would
pout like a boy and stay away !
The Queen's summer-house in the gardens of Buckingham
Palace is like nothing I can think of but a great Gunter's
twelfth cake turned outside in. And is this a specimen of what
Sir B. H. Inglis, Mr. Hallam, Lord Palmerston, and Sir Eobert
Peel, wish in their hearts for the Houses of Parliament ? Not
they ; not one of them, if they had the moral courage to speak
out. I should not like to be rich. It makes you too forgetful of
your Creator. Struggle, struggle. Seeing Him that nobody
else sees is the thing for me.
October 19th, 1845. — Called on Bell, the sculptor. I liked
his statue of Lord Falkland. Bell was croaking about getting
no order for his ' Eagle Slayer,' and said he would do no more
naked figures. He does not see that, though he gets no
orders for the Slayer, its superiority gets him the order for
Falkland, Lady Holland at table one evening leaned forward and said
to Allen (Bear- Allen), warden of Dulwich, " And are you quite
sure, Mr. Allen, there is no hereafter?" "Quite, Lady Hol
land, quite," replied AUen, and went on with his dinner.
Let Fame precede Notoriety. Do not attempt to get fame
by notoriety. Labour not to be public without being known,
but rather strive to be known before you become public. " He
was one of those men," said Johnson, " who has become public
without being known."

B. R. HA YDON. 439
The great art of colour is leaving the ground, and letting
the ground in darks have its effect. The reason why the
French never have colour is they never do this.
Art exhibitions of the present day are poor-law bazaars,
where the greatest quantity of works are squeezed into the
smallest quantity of space, to afford bread for the greatest
number of painters, that they may not succumb to Whig
unions, and so burden the parish.
February 4ih, 1845. — Went to the House of Lords to see the
Queen open Parliament. The Queen looked much altered,
and was peculiarly nervous. She hurried everything; was
scarcely ten minutes in the House, when she came out again ;
officers, heralds, and attendants, all obliged to scamper here
and there to get into their places. One of the mace-men
nearly knocked Lord Lyndhurst on the head, and he, lame as
he was, scrambled with the rest to be in time. In the Bobing-
room the doors were hardly shut when they were opened again,
and out they aU fought their way, the Queen and Prince Albert
following. The Duke looked old and bent ; Lord Lyndhurst
like a superannuated Mephistophiles ; Lord Wharncliffe had
lost his teeth ; the Duke of Beaufort alone kept up the cha
racter of his order. All the women looked old and ugly except
that sweet, feminine Duchess of Buccleuch. For forty years
has this pageant now passed under my eye.
Sydney Smith was a man of great genius, but he was too
careless of his wit where religion ought to have restrained it.
I have heard him say irresistible things which ought not to
have been irresistible on such a subject. Bidicule was his
power, and he was not always scrupulous of principle or feeUng.
I do not remember one thing he ever said, thought, or wrote,
which has added one argument in favour of Christianity, not
one — not one feeling towards it — or removed one doubt, which
at times all human beings feel. But he was consistent in poli
tics, and adhered to his party.
If it were not for the anxieties of life, how few of us would
think of our Creator ! *
* " Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives, and the sincerest part of
our devotion." (Swift.)— Ed.

440 TABLE TALK OF.
I spoke to a sexton to-day who was digging a grave. He
answered me like Hamlet's grave-digger. How true is Shake
speare ! A grave-digger, a turnpike-man, and a butcher, from
consciousness of power are all impudent — a grave-digger espe
cially. He must and he does feel that he is digging the last
habitation of another. The consciousness that he is alive, and
the other, as it were, his victim, gives him a surly, healthy,
witty independence.
Cobbett's ' History of the Beformation ' is finely written,
beautifully and clearly reasoned to the uneducated mind by
the most familiar illustrations, but full of Cobbett's vice of
warped thinking. Evidence brought to their senses, proofs to
their convictions, and their prejudices enlisted in his favour to
triumph over their understanding. The book is full of all his
power of mind, his vicious exaggerations, his wilful suppres
sions, his unprincipled omissions. Moreover, he seems to me
to mistake the means for the cause. Henry VIII.'s uncaged
lust was not the cause of the Beformation. He might have
pushed his divorce, and denied the supremacy of the Pope to •
no purpose, if the public mind had not been ready to back
him. The King's appetite was the match, but not the maga
zine.* That is my feeling of the difference.
There can be little doubt, I fear, that the people were better
fed, better cared for, and, generally speaking, better off before
the Eeformation than since. The Poor-laws are one result of
the Beformation. But has not a " race " sprung up as a com
pensation — the keen, acute-minded mechanic ? At least, if the
monks filled the bellies of the poor, it was at the expense of
their freedom of conviction. Would they have been allowed
to read Cobbett ?
They may talk as they please about the sufferings of hu
manity, but nothing so excites my sympathy as the helpless
sufferings of a fine old oil picture of a great genius in the
hands of your professional picture-cleaner. Unable to speak or
* The struggles between the Crown and Parliament on one hand, and the
Eeligious Houses on the other, for the acquisition of land, and the clever evasion
by the monastic clergy, since 1164, of successive statutes against their appro
priation of land in mortmain, had probably more to do with the Reformation in
England than historians on either side seem inclined to allow. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 441
remonstrate ; touching all hearts by its dumb beauty ; appealing
to all sympathies by its silent splendour ; laid on its back in
spite of its lustrous and pathetic looks ; taken out of its frame
and fixed to its rack, to be scraped, skinned, burned, and then
varnished — in mockery of its tortures, its lost purity, its beau
tiful harmony — and then hung up again for living envy to
chuckle over ; whilst the shade of the mighty dead is allowed
to visit and sigh over its former glory, as a pang for sins not
yet atoned for.
Rossi's daughter called to-night (22nd October, 1844) to beg
half-a-crown of me! Bossi was a Eoyal Academician, and
behaved with great cruelty towards me in 1823. He was sub
sequently ruined, and is dead. His widow has a pension of
16s. (!) a week from the Eoyal Academy, and the family are
in great distress. Lord Ashley had promised her a sove
reign on Monday ! ! never thinking how they could live in the
interval. How can anything be beyond our reason which we can prove
to be unreasonable ? I believe God descended in Christ to lay
down His human life for the enforcement of a code of morality
which should ultimately bring mankind to salvation. This is
sufficient to believe, because it can be inferred indisputably ;
but this is no reason why that which is in itself contradictory
should be taken as reasonable. The absurdities are human, the
truths Divine.
One of our nurses made a good remark. One said, " Nobody
knows the miseries of the poor." The other replied, " Well,
the world knows nothing of the great but their wealth and
happiness, it knows nothing of their sorrows." This was well
said. She had been in Lord Stanley's family, and was alluding
to their anxiety to rear a favourite child. But for all that the
world knows something, or history belies them, of their sub
lime selfishness, their follies, their vices, their depravity — and
when they have it, and sometimes when they have it not (for
epitaphs and eulogies are not always to be relied on) — of their
grandeur and their virtues.
Lord Palmerston, when he first came to me paid me the
compliment of saying that I had the reputation of being the

442 TABLE TALK OF
pleasantest painter the nobility ever sat to. This was a high
compliment ; and if they are as much pleased with me as I am
with them, I shall be quite satisfied.*
We talked of Ferdinand of Spain. Lord Palmerston said he
was not a bigot, but fond of his indulgencies, and was popular.
* Lord Palmerston repeated this to me many years afterwards, and spoke
of my father's life and death with much warmth and feeling. He seemed
to have appreciated his good qualities, and to have liked him personally. I
remember he said he "was a thorough Englishman," and loved the old country.
" He might have made a greater name abroad, and have amassed money
quickly, but he never cared for money, though, poor fellow, he was always in
want of it. I was much affected by his death, for I remembered him well, and
always regretted I was not rich enough to give him the commission I had
intended, but I was myself a very poor man." Many other kind things he said
of him, particularly as to his conversational powers, which, he said, were very
great. " He was one of the few men," I remember his saying, " who knew how
.to ' causer, causer.' " Sir James Graham spoke about him in much the same
terms. " So far as I can remember," he said, " he was a capital man to sit to ;
never let you feel dull, and eould talk upon anything." I remember Sir James
particularly laying stress upon his straightforwardness. " You were sure to get
the truth from him," he said. " He never misled you. If he did not know it,
he said so." I remember also asking Sir James what he thought of his views
upon the public encouragement of Art ? Sir James replied to this effect : — " That
if Haydon's views were sound there could be no doubt, and that painting had
as good a claim aB sculpture and architecture ; but the difficulty would be
with the artists, they hated each other so cordially." I suggested that the
decision as to choice should rest with the minister. " Oh, God help him ! " said
Sir James, " the fate of Actsson would be a pleasure to his 1 " With Mr. Cobden,
after his last return from Paris, I had also some conversation. He knew Haydon
well, and had been much in contact with him between 1836 and 1846. I asked him
if Haydon was a good business man at committees, &c. ? " He was the quickest
man at seeing all round a question," said Mr. Cobden, " I knew." Then I asked
him if he could remember what part Haydon had taken in the formation of the
School of Design at Manchester, and with regard to the schools of design gene
rally in Lancashire and Yorkshire ? Mr. Cobden's answer was to this effect : —
" The schools of design in their foundation owe everything to your father.
Without him we should have had no schools of design for another twenty years.
He worked hard to get them established throughout the great manufacturing
towns. I have no hesitation in saying that if he had his deserts he would
have a statue of gold raised to him in every manufacturing town in this country,
for the good he did us. He sowed, others reaped." I asked what he thought of
him as a business man when he met him in committee and conference ? " Very
highly," replied Mr. Cobden. " He was very rapid, with great grasp of mind."
" Was he impracticable," I asked ? " Not in the least," said Mr. Cobden, " that
I ever saw." I often think that he would have done better if he had gone into
the army, or got into Parliament ; anything but painting in this country. " But
his reputation will rise yet, you may depend on it," said Mr. Cobden. " HiB heart
was in his profession, and when a man puts his heart into his work, he seldom
lives in vain." " Do you think he would have succeeded in Parliament 1 " "In
anything he undertook," said Mr. Cobden, " he would have succeeded. Parlia
ment might have done him good, certainly. It's a good school for such a man
as your father." He was alluding to his pugnacity here. I asked, " Do you
think he ever would have been a minister? " " I don't think," said Mr. Cobden,
smiling, " that he would have consented to Day the price. He loved his inde
pendent will too well." " Then there is a price to pay," I said. " Yes, indeed,"
he replied, " there is. I myself might have taken office more than once, and have
had honours, but I never would consent to pay the price," &c. — Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 443
He told me of Ferdinand's conduct to Alava, which was in
famous ; and he said Calomarde got on with him by submission
to Ferdinand's caprices. Ferdinand used to draw the pen
through Calomarde's hands and ink them all over, at which
Calomarde would laugh. Lord Palmerston told me an amusing
anecdote of Talleyrand, who told him, when Napoleon quartered
Ferdinand on Talleyrand, he was, of course, put to great
expense, and naturally expected that Ferdinand would make
him a handsome present on leaving. On his day of departure
Ferdinand took out something carefully wrapped up, and told
TaUeyrand he could not think of leaving so pleasant a house
without requesting Talleyrand to honour him by accepting
what he, Ferdinand, esteemed more than anything else he
possessed in the world, and he pressed into Talleyrand's
hands —a fusty old Prayer Book ! Under all the circum
stances, Talleyrand being a Bishop of the Church, it was
exquisite. The Duke of Somerset told me that on meeting Talleyrand
at Lady Grey's, the first evening of his return to England
(1833), the Duke congratulated him on his arrival, and his
health, &c, and all he could get in return was a series of
elaborate bows, as if Talleyrand was afraid even to speak
common thanks lest he should commit himself.*
Lady Durham f (1833) is to my mind the most interesting
woman in society. Not regularly handsome, speaking as a
painter, but sweet, graceful, full of sympathy, tenderness, sub
missive love, and maternal interest.
Lord Blessington used to say, " No Whig was a gentleman ;"
and it was extraordinary how it was remarked in the House the
different manner between Whig and Tory 4
Lord Willoughby D'Eresby told me that he knew Tom
Sheridan well. One night he had got excessively tipsy at
* When the Army and Navy Club gave Louis Napoleon a dinner before he
went to Paris in 1848, and drank his health with all the honours, he rose and
said, " Gentlemen, I am very much obUged to you," and sat down. — Ed.
t Lady Louisa Durham, a daughter of Charles, Earl Grey.— Ed.
\ By the Tories.— Ed.

444 TABLE TALK OF
dinner, and the ladies were much annoyed. At breakfast next
morning he did not appear. Suddenly the door opened, and he
stood before them in a sheet !
It is the fashion to say that a Monarchy is the sacrifice of
the people for the benefit of one man. I say it is a sacrifice of
one man for the benefit of the people. Which is the more
true ?
I do not know if Croker has not overlaid Johnson, and made
Boswell's deUghtful "Life" a "bore," which Boswell alone
never is.
July 30th, 1840. — Poor Lord Durham is dead ; a victim to
mortified ambition, bad liver, bad temper, and the intrigues of
his enemies. He should never have left England. By so
doing he opened the door to Melbourne and Lord Palmerston,
who understood one another, and who " floored " him. He
was a Badical with a hankering for title ; a Beformer with a
reverence for aristocracy ; and a Lord with no inimical feeling
towards universal suffrage ! His temper was uncontroUable ;
and at times he behaved harshly to the gentlest woman in the
world, his wife, yet loving her sincerely. Such a combination
of contradictions were never seen in any man before ; and yet he
was sincere, straightforward, and manly.
Lady Graham told me that one evening at dessert, and with
Lady Durham (Lord Grey's daughter) at the head of " his "
table, she (Lady G.) praised the eldest boy for his beauty.
"Yes," said Lord Durham savagely, "and he's not got the
 Grey mouth !"
Never let your love for your profession overshadow your
religious feeling. Depend on it that religion will strengthen,
not weaken, your energies, and will not only make you a
better sailor, but a superior man. Professional studies are
not to be neglected, but, on the other hand, take care how
you fall into the common error of believing that they
are the remedy for aU the ills of life, — (Letter to his Son,
1843.)

B. R. HA YDON. 445
What cant it is for our public men to raise such an outcry
about the advance of Eussia into Asia ! Have we not done
the same elsewhere ? and a lucky thing for Europe that we
did. It is the natural, the inevitable tendency of great
nations to expand; and it is better for the world at large
that Eussia, having no colonial possessions, should expand
into Asia than into Europe. Eussia will do us no harm in
India for a century to come ; by that time we should have so
developed and consolidated our Empire over the interests and
sympathies of the people of India that nothing should shake
our authority. But do not let us deceive ourselves ; at present
our danger lives in India, in the disaffection of the people. We
are guilty of cruel, and judicial abuses in our government of
India, and we offer little in return but protection from foreign
war. We make few roads, we allow their tanks to fall into
decay, we tax the working man heavily, and do nothing to
improve his condition as tenant. Lord Auckland told me
he believed that torture was even practised in the local police
courts, though exceedingly difficult to prove* We have
enough on our national conscience, surely, in connection with
India, without our magistrates putting the wretched people
to torture. If this petty tyranny be not rooted out, and a
steady effort made to win the sympathies of the people to our
rule, by developing the vast resources of the country, we
may depend on it there are those in the country who will
try to exasperate the people against our rule, and the result
may be counted on, a revolt and a massacre, which shall make
the massacre of the Protestants in 1646 light by comparison.
It is curious that with the history of our rule in Ireland
branded upon our memories we cannot apply the lesson it
should have taught us in our dealings with the people of
India — the most tractable, the most obedient people in the
world. It is better to make friends than adversaries of a
conquered race. The Bomans possessed the art. We seem to
despise it.
* I believe it to be literally true that "torture" was practised at our police
courts in Bengal until within a short time of the extinction of the East India
Company in 1858-9. Haydon's anticipations proved too true. I have often
heard him say that such had been the cruelty and treachery of the East India
Company towards the princes and people of India, a heavy penalty would have
to be paid sooner or later. He looked upon a great revolt in India as inevitable.
—Ed.

446 TABLE TALK OF
The contemptibUity of the Jews, as a nation, is all in favour
of their inspiration. Why has a nation so insignificant, so
mean, so contemptible, as to political power, number, and pos
sessions, been the origin of the religion of the civiUsed
world ?
Voltaire loses possession of himself when religion comes
under discussion. The sublimity of Homer he feels not,
because Homer has Gods ; he hates Milton, and leaves out his
best passages because Adam and Eve and Satan are connected
with our belief ; he sees no merit in Tasso, but prefers Ariosto
to aU, though there are greater absurdities in Ariosto than in
any of the others. But then Ariosto's machinery has nothing
to do with Christ or Christianity for principals. Milton's
allegory of ' Sin and Death ' Voltaire ridicules ; but he makes
no mention of Ariosto getting Orlando's wits from the moon of
St. John bottled up in a jar, from which Orlando snuffs up his
inteUects again ! This is not at all absurd ! Nothing can
be found in Homer, or VirgU, or Milton, or Tasso, one-tenth
part so ridiculous. Yet the candid Voltaire never mentions
this; but quotes Ariosto's best passages, so that the reader
may judge of Ariosto's genius in comparison with MUton's,
from whom Voltaire quotes the worst, which he makes
ridiculous by translation. For example : his translation
of Milton's 'AU HaU! Mother of Mankind,' by 'Bon jour!
mere des hommes,' may have made the Paris wits laugh,
but is it a specimen of phUosophic impartiaUty and candid
criticism ?*
It is a feature of the EngUsh aristocracy that they are never
satisfied with the existing talent of the country. They are
ever in hopes from the future, enthusiastic for the past, but
blind to the present, when no longer a novelty. Hence, that
* This translation of Voltaire is almost equalled by another Frenchman's
translation of Hamlet's ' Not a mouse stirs !' which he rendered, ' Pas un souris
s'agite.' Chataubrnn, another French author, in his desire to improve upon
Sophocles, who tortures Philoctetes on a desert island, introduces a young
princess to keep Philoctetes company, and makes the son of Achilles say, " De
mes deguisements que penserait Sophie ? " Moore, in his Diary, declares that a
French translator expressed that passage in ' Prince on the Picturesque,' where
it is said : "A bald head is the only smooth thing which is really picturesque,
but that if covered over with flour it would lose its picturesqueness," by " Une
belle tete chauve couronnee de fleurs." — Ed.

3. R. HAYDON. 447
restless nervousness of perpetual schemes for raising genius,
Hke cucumbers. The Nobility always appear to me anxious
to escape from the excellence which is before them to enjoy
the irrational pleasure of expecting perfection without any
irrational data to reckon upon but hope !
When Cornelius was over here with Eastlake — my old
pupU — he was taken everywhere ; but was never brought to my
house, where Eastlake knew I had painted a fresco on my own
waU, and that it was highly approved. Eastlake is under
heavy obUgations to me ; and now (1842) that he has an oppor
tunity to return them, he keeps Cornelius from me ; never even
mentions my name as his instructor in art, when examined
before the Fine Arts Committee, nor puts me forward as one of
the leading EngUsh painters who should be examined. I have
therefore been left out of the examination entirely. I begin to
perceive a cold, calculating diplomacy, which is to keep me
out entirely. At our last interview, a few weeks since, East-
lake said to me, " Of course, you and I must be secret in our
visits!" Why?
Eastlake called on me to-day (13th May, 1842), and we had
a long conversation on the state and prospects of the Art, the
Boyal Commission, &c. He said he feared the nobility ; they
laughed at the idea of educating the English artists. Many
of the members of the aristocracy were old, and wished to have
the decoration of the Houses all done, like a spring fashion,
before they were taken away. Many of them preferred
foreigners, because foreigners spoke a language considered in
England as an accomplishment, and many of them were
indifferent. He told me I had no idea of the difficulty of carrying
the plan; and if at any time in the commission the party
opposed should happen to be more numerous, the whole thing
might be lost after all. He said the most important people
were staunch, and he relied principally on Prince Albert, who
was young.
July 3rd, 1842. — I am not a politician, and therefore it may
be presumption in me to offer an opinion ; but when I hear

448 TABLE TALK OF
people talking about the peace of Europe being " now secured
for another fifty years," I ask myself whether I am dreaming or
they ? Cobden talks to me of Eussia being a hollow sham, a
mere bogie that has no substantial powers of injury or resist
ance to England ; but I don't agree with Cobden here any
more than I do with him in view that the time has arrived for
settling all disputes in Europe by arbitration. When two or
three great questions which are looming upon us just now are
disposed of, arbitration may be entertained, but not till then.
And what are these questions ? They are, in my opinion, the
French and German question, the Italian question, and the
Eastern question. The question of Poland I look upon as laid
in the dust for the next hundred years. The Polish Kingdom
can never be revived but by the active assistance of one, at
least, of the three great Powers which divided her. There is
one other chance for her, a disruption of Eussia ; but that is
not yet. Of the three questions I have named, only one
need plunge us into war, and that is the Eastern question —
and a war with Russia, and perhaps France, or, as likely with
France against Eussia, is certain sooner or later to come to
pass. But it need give us little apprehension if we profit by
the errors of Napoleon in 1812, and refuse to attack Eussia in
the north, where she wants it, and strike at her in the south,
where the joint in her armour is. Odessa and Sebastopol are
the places to hit at, and destroy. I know, from many things
my uncles have let drop, that in a war with Eussia we have
nothing to do but block her up in the Baltic, and attack her in
the Black Sea, to bring her to terms in a single campaign.
But no "Expeditions to Walcheren," no "Sir Eichard Strachan,
with his sword undrawn, waiting for, an ' Earl of Chatham.' "
Whoever conducts that campaign for us must be a man of
energy and decision, and a first-rate engineer, for the spade
more than the bayonet will be the weapon. But after all,
why should we fight to prevent Eussia from occupying Con
stantinople ? Could we not settle this eternal Eastern question
by some other means ? Turkey is poor ; why not buy out the
Sultan ? What is the money value of his European provinces ?
How many years' purchase is his occupation worth ? Give
him 50,000,000?. for it down, send him into Asia Minor,
under securities, and put Austria a neutral and non-naval

B. R. HAYDON. 449
Power, at Constantinople in his place. This would not only
get rid of the Turk, but it would turn his face to his natural
steppes ; it would protect Constantinople on the Asian side
from Eussia ; and it might help to settle the German and
Itahan questions, by giving scope to Prussia, our natural
Protestant ally, and by relieving Italy of Austria. By uniting
Germany and Italy, each under one crown, it would check
France, get rid of Austria, quiet the Pope, and then, perhaps,
secure the peace of Europe for half a century.
The danger of decoration is that the Art may be lost in
rendering it merely subservient to architecture.
From Eumohr's letters to me it is clear that Cornelius
neglected the figure and nature in his youth, and then he seeks
to establish the principle that fine form is incompatible with
modern subjects. So much do men sophisticate in favour of
their own weaknesses, that who dare say he has not put forward
these sophistries to excuse his own defects ?
" He knows not," says Eumohr, " one iota of Nattjke," and is
" ignorant of the figure." Upon my word, a very pretty fellow
to hold up to us as a model — to show us the way !
I have been often asked from whom I got the model for the
dying soldier in 'Dentatus.' It was Eastlake's brother, who
was suffering from asthma. I called one day to inquire after
him. He was very ill, and had a fit of asthma while I was
there. I persuaded him to let me send for a coach. I wrapped
him in a blanket and took him off to my painting-room, and
while he was in a paroxysm I painted the head.
Bailey, the sculptor, assured me that when he was making a
bust of Prince Albert, the Queen told him that she wondered
Sir David Wilkie painted portraits, and that she would never
sit to him for her portrait again. " I dare say he thinks me
rude, but I never will sit to him again."
He told me that he did a bust of the Prince, that it was sent
for to be shown to the family, and was sent back, saying it was
"not liked." Bailey said: "They measured Prince Albert
and then the bust, and wished me to alter it according to a
German bust." Bailey sent word that if such was the Art
VOL. ii. ^ G

450 TABLE TALK OF
which pleased her Majesty, "he feared it was beyond his
talents." Though PhiUips is an able painter of a head, he has a heavy
hand, and has no notion of the construction of the figure.
Grant for a woman, and Faulkner, too, are not matched in any
school in Europe. Grant is purer than Lawrence, something
between Eeynolds and Gainsborough.
My principle, founded on evidence and fact, is that all
Academies of Art, especially the Eoyal Academy of England
in their present constitution of limited members, negative as a
body the good they do as a school ; and that the object of
the members of the Boyal Academies is not so much the
advance of the Art as the security of their own personal
predominance. If the advance of Art by enlightening the people threatens
their personal predominance, they will not hesitate to sacrifice
the Art in order to retain their influence. This applies to
all Academies of Art, but most particularly to our own Eoyal
Academy. Sir Walter Scott caUs me "too enthusiastic." I Uke that
from the man who went about the Vales of Liddesdale blowing
a Borderer's horn, and longing for a bursting raid on English
cattle! This is the man to call my feelings for High Art
" Dreams !" How men see others ! how little they understand
themselves! In Art Scott wanted elevation. He never saw
Eaphael's works in Eome, and was indifferent to them.
This is an age of intellectual sauces, of essence, of distil
lation. We have " conclusions " without deductions, " abridg
ments of history " and " abridgments of science " without leading
facts. We have " animals " for literature, ' Cabinet ' Ency
clopaedias, 'Family' Libraries, 'Diffusion' Societies, and heaven
knows what else ! What is all this for ? Not to add know
ledge to the learned, but to tell points to the ignorant, without
giving them the trouble to acquire the linkg. Oh ! it is sad
work. And the result will be injurious to all classes.*
* Swift, in his advice to a young poet, makes the same complaint of his own
age ; and yet we have weathered some rough times since them, and have some

A StuAfy froTn/ memory of an> expression in, insanity.

3. R. HAYDON. 451
Supernatural agency is useless where the natural passion is
sufficiently strong without it, and should never be used but to
increase the interest or intensity of any excitement. What,
for instance, could supernatural agency do for Lear's madness,
or his recovery ? Is not the natural feeling so strong of itself
that any interference by superior beings would be felt as a sub-
duction from our sympathies? Knowing that we, too, are liable
to such afflictions from apparent and evident causes.
Again ; in Ariosto, the madness, recovery, and stupefaction of
Orlando are sufficient to rouse the feelings of all human crea
tures ; but the absurdity of Astolfo giving him his senses by
putting a bottle to his nose, which is supposed to contain his
wits, so that Orlando might snuff up his intellects, destroys the
melancholy naturalness and associations of a hero going vio
lently about the world, naked and savage, and furiously de
ranged by the cruelty of his mistress.
Lear's madness is a truly deranged intellect; like "sweet
beUs jarred and out of tune," it stiU acts, but acts confusedly.
It seems to collect all its experience made in the time of its
vigour, and to shower it on the folly and vices of human
nature without order or reflection; now and then a pathetic
dash of resistance against his daughters, and now and then a
pathetic remembrance of her he loved, but used badly. And
when he recovers, he recovers so quietly, so sweetly, so con
sciously unconscious of all, and yet with such real glimmerings
of his situation! But Orlando's is the madness of a beast,
furious beyond all reflection ; no pathetic remembrances of her
well-informed men yet amongst us. " The modern device," says Swift, " of
consulting indexes is a compendious way of coming to an acquaintance with
authors ; for authors are to be used like lobsters, you must look for the best meat
in the tails, and lay the bodies back again in the dish." Elsewhere he speaks
of the abstracts, abridgments, and summaries of his day as " admirable expe
dients" for being very learned with little or no reading. Macaulay, in one
of his after-dinner speeches, thought he had answered the objection by main
taining that " a little learning " was better than none at all ; and that the " little
learning " of to-day was a very great deal of learning three centuries since, just
as our highest learning now will be a very little learning three centuries {lence.
But that involves the whole point at issue, viz., that it shall be " learning." My
father's complaint is directed rather against the studious idling which Swift's
modern device excites, than against any " learning,'' however little. Concentra
tion, and not a skimming versatility, is what he is insisting on. It was for the
same reason he objected so strongly to " Magazine writing and reading." And
I do not think he really approved of newspapers for habitual reading. " They
weakened the powers of your mind." I think there can be no question also that
the numerous books of " amusement " young people have now, tend to distract
rather than settle their attention. The object should be to concentrate a child's
reading, and thus have a few subjects mastered thoroughly.— Ed.
2 G 2

452 TABLE TALK OF
he loved, his mind seems to have gone, and to have left nothing
but " a study of revenge," and violent ungovernable love of
ruin. Lear's madness is the madness of a broken heart and
shattered mind. Orlando's is that of disappointed lust, and
hatred and revenge blurring his faculties that another should
have enjoyed his mistress than himself. It is the disappoint
ment, of a lion who in his fury loses his mate, and goes mad
from boiling appetite. Lear's intellect is truly deranged, Or
lando's only heated to fury. But yet Orlando has a feeling and
amiable heart. His first lamentation for Angelica, when he
fancies her wandering about the world without help, is one of
the most pathetic things in poetry.
" Deh ! dove senza me, dolce mia vita,
Rimasa sei si giovane e si bella ?
Come, poi che la luce e dipartita,
Eiman tra boschi la smarrita agnella,
Che dal pastor sperando essere udita
Si va lagnando in questa parte e in quella,
Tanto che '1 lupo 1' ode da lontano
E '1 misero pastor ne piagne in vano."
Then his falling asleep and dreaming of her, and rising and
setting off in pursuit, is truly affecting, and displays aU the
intense restlessness of a heart capable of deep feeling and
affection. The great exceUence of Ariosto is in the fertiUty, simplicitv,
and nature of his incidents. There is no poem in the whole
world where the poet seems so little driven, as it were, for
incident. We keep it up to the very last ; your attention is
never suffered to flag ; the incidents come in exactly where
they ought as bits of human character, so that you fancy the
poem would be imperfect without them.
Many of his stories are borrowed from antiquity; but where
has he taken one he has not improved? The beauty of his plots
is that they are so intricate, and come so naturaUy out of the
situations in which the characters, according to their pro
pensities, place themselves, that you see they could not be
otherwise situated, and may on the same principle be soon and
easily extricated. Ariosto's similes are infinitely varied, alwavs
apt, never repeated, and always placing what he wants to illus
trate in a stronger light. Thus, when Orlando hurls down a
table on the thieves in the cave where IsabeUa is, Ariosto com-

B. R. HAYDON. 453
pares the havoc to a peasant dashing a stone down among a
nest of snakes ; they all scramble off, some wounded and bleed
ing, some cut in two, some crushed, and some untouched.
Nothing could be more perfect as an illustration.
Again; when Bradamante comes to Court and finds Buggiero
absent, who that has ever loved does not feel the truth when
Ariosto describes her as feeling like one who has seen a beau
tiful garden in fuU bloom in April and May, and returned to find
it deserted, bare, and ruined by " winter's wind ;" and that per
haps he is gone after another lady, to drive out his love for her
as one nail drives out another ? In opposition to these beauties
must be placed his grossness and indecency ; for though he may
have had a moral precept to instil, he must have known it was a
dangerous method to choose, and that mankind were more
likely to perceive and to relish the grossness which was
evident, than to search out his moral which was obscure. It
is to be remarked, also, that he puts in heaven and the angels,
not because he felt their beauty or wanted their machinery,
but rather as if his Catholic conscience had given him a twinge
at his incUnation to leave them out. Human incident and
embarrassment acting on human feelings and naturalness of
situation are his fate. Perhaps he is as much a painter's poet
as any.
I have had a bust given to me of Grace Darling. She has
a fine head. She had many offers of marriage after her no
toriety. Her pretty answer to a Captain in the navy pleased
me. He entreated her to marry him. "Na, na," said she;
" I must think of him who thought of me when I was poor."
Worthy of her, was it not ?
If I were to put my head out of John Knox's window in his
house in High Street, Edinburgh, and lecture, 900 out of every
1000 of the Scotch common people who would listen would
comprehend everything I said. Such is their excellent system
of public instruction for the people. But if I were to do
that in Oxford Street, not 100 out of any 1000 would know
anything of the subject, and the remaining 900 would pelt me
with dead cats, and call for a song. Such is the difference
between good training and instruction of all classes, and only a
very indifferent training of the higher.

454 TABLE TALK OF
Nelson said that a radiant orb was perpetuaUy present to
his mind's eye, urging him onward to renown.
Perhaps the history of the greatest and earliest geniuses is
simply that applause for their trifling efforts has urged them on
to greater exertions, and that they were subsequently urged to
greater efforts as much in the hope of increasing their present
reputation as that their reputation would continue when they
could no longer act.*
The world and posterity will never do a man justice who
yields any schemes from disgust. Never relinquish any plan
in disgust at ill-treatment. The world will never sympathise
with you. Each man is full of his own troubles. Whereas if
you persevere through, the world will not forget your having
conquered your disgusts. Make yourself remarkable by your
talents, and the common properties of your nature will then be
elevated into virtues. Suffer your disgusts to subdue you to
failure, and your common failings will be censured as vices.
Great talents are always feared ; superiority, always hated.
But is the fault always on one side ? Let those who possess
great talents endeavour to make their fellow-men bear their
inferiority by sweetness, gentleness, and benevolence, which
will give no cause or excuse for enmity, and render themselves
grateful instead of hateful to their friends.
"Bomantic!" "wild!" "extravagant!" — how well we know
these phrases ! They are always the epithets of envious im
becility on schemes beyond their power.
It is curious ; but where necessity is the only object, men are
nearly alike in their remedies at aU times. I could not help
observing the other day, on the banks of the Serpentine, that
the huts they have lately constructed there are of the same
form of simple awkwardness as those in New Zealand and
Otaheite. Sir William Knighton's 'Memoirs' leave the mystery
* This appears particularly to have been Napoleon's case, by his own ad
mission in the ' Memorial de Ste.-Helene.' But this seems to make the develop
ment of genius too dependent upon mere circumstance and applause. — Ed.

3. R. HA YDON. 455
attached to his sudden appointment to such a confidential
post as he held about George IV. just where it was. Nothing
is explained. Sir Thomas Hammond tells me that Knighton
got his post by being alone at Brighton with McMahon, the
King's confidential man. When McMahon died so suddenly,
Knighton took possession of all McMahon's papers, and then
wrote to the King to say he had got them. The King was
caught, and like a sensible man he put Knighton into
McMahon's place. But he never really forgave him. Ham
mond tells me he hated because he feared Knighton. Yet
Knighton served him faithfully, and in the ' Memoirs ' he has
left betrays no confidence. This should redeem him, though
his first act was questionable. But the temptation must have
been enormous. It would have been more upright to have
sealed up the drawers, and written to the King for instructions.
But, alas ! I fear it is by base acts many men come to Court
dignities.* People wonder why I have been so treated,! but a moment's
reflection will explain it. Authority, Property, and Law have
been so long established - in England, and such great results
have been the consequence of their security, that it is con
sidered better to put up with any oppressions from authority,
however infamous, than to endanger its dignity by any resist
ance, however just. I was oppressed by authority ; I revenged
it successfuUy, and exposed my oppressors before a Committee
of the House. Hence it was necessary that I should be pun
ished, as a warning to others. Though I first planned the
decoration of the Lords (1812), made sketches (1819), and put
them on canvas (1835), and laid them before all the Ministries
in succession down to that of Sir Eobert Peel ; though in my
evidence (Mr. Ewart's Committee, 1836) I first planned a
Central School of Design, with branch schools, and first men
tioned the decoration of the Lords as a necessary public work,
the Academy, the Government, and the Eoyal Commission
thoroughly understand one another. They have all made up
their minds that I must be sacrificed as a successful rebel,
because I have succeeded, in spite of four ruins, in keeping
my ground, and wiU keep my ground in spite of four more.
* Bacon. — Ed. .
t The rejection of his Cartoons by the Eoyal Commissioners, 1843.— Ed.

456 TABLE TALK OF
My cartoons, therefore, it was clearly predetermined, were not
to be rewarded, on the principle of authority being supported
at all hazards.
Every artist of any feeling saw that, whatever merit or
demerit there might be in my cartoons, — 1st. They were the
cartoons of a painter who could execute them with the brush ;
2nd. That no principle of art had been neglected, as appUcable
in them ; and, 3rd. That although there were two or three dis
proportions, from the smallness of the room in which they were
executed, one day's labour would have remedied these. There
fore, because a shoulder might be a trifle too heavy, or a calf a
trifle too large, to deny reward to works whose character, ex
pression, and knowledge of construction were self-evident, was
unjust and tyrannical.
I do not know that I like Algernon Greville's brother so
well as most people.* He is a fussy man, too fond of meddUng,
and affects to be so very diplomatic. He has that con
temptible tendency in a man of telling " little womanish
tea-table lies " — as George II. said of Lord Chesterfield —
which make mischief in families. D'Orsay teUs me Greville
keeps a regular daily journal of everything he sees and hears.
If he does, God help his friends ! for if he records as he talks,
he will put down a great deal of what he neither sees nor
hears, but suspects.
Schlegel, speaking of the Greek Drama, lays open the
principles of the Greeks in Art, without ever having seen our
Elgin Marbles. " The Greeks," says he, " succeeded in com
bining in the most perfect manner in their art, ideality with
reality ; or, dropping school terms, an elevation more than
human, with all the truth and life and all the energy of
bodily qualities." This is sound and true. It is on these
incontrovertible principles the Apollo Belvedere can be proved
so inferior to the Elgin Marbles, as may be seen by comparing
it with the Ilissus.
I like Collins, the academician ;N we are old friends, and he
*.The late Mr. Charles Greville, whose memoirs have recently created so
touch anger and amusement.— Ed.

B. R. HA YDON. 457
comes to see me occasionally, and we have a regular " fight "
about once in twenty years. " I have no doubt," he said to-day,
"the Academy would, forgive you readily enough — nobody
denies your talent— but they fear you ; you have brought
them into contempt ! " I never disturb this amusing tone.
These academicians abuse me for thinking what I do ; yet
everything they say confirms the justice of my conclusions.
He said my picture of ' Alexander killing a Lion ' was " too
big for the Academy." But it ought not to be thought " too
big!" Here is the very point at issue. Then he asked me
what I thought of their election of Cope and Duncan ? "Very
proper," I replied ; " but this would not have happened if I
had not pummelled and thumped ye well."
Lord' Chatham's 'Letters to Lord Camelford ' is a most
delightful little book. It has all the pith of Lord Chester
field without his laxity, more honour, nobler views, and incul
cates as elegant and polite behaviour, without being at the
expense of any principle of religion or virtue. It is the secret
history, as it were, of the conduct of a great mind in his
private duties — the causes that produce results, which the
world only knows.
A satirist never gets fair play. He is always stigmatised as
having a bad opinion of human nature ; whereas a dramatist,
by showing both sides, like Shakespeare, does not offend the
touchy self-love of the world.*
The intense feeling of Eabelais, Voltaire, and Swift for the
filthy and degraded and ridiculous, proves them to have been
men not of the highest genius, f Men of the highest genius
have such a perception of beauty that they reflect it upon
human nature as a looking-glass the sun, whereby any object
they look at or think upon shines immediately in all the
beauty that it has. They never suffer their hands to dwell on
.filth; they shrink from it.
* " Satire and flattery are the two plagues of history, the two sources that
poison the relation of human events." (Boyle.) — Ed.
t And yet they are enjoyed by their opposites. The pure Claude de St. Martin
read Eabelais with the keenest relish ; and the pious St. Chrysostom, we may feel
sure, would have read Swift, for we know that he enjoyed Aristophanes, and
always kept a copy at hand. — Ed.

458 TABLE TALK OF
The power of Tacitus is sublime. The tremendous tact he
had for character is quite unexampled but in Shakespeare and
Homer. The power of imagination, too, which he possessed
(when once he had the elements of a character) to supply the
deficiencies of historical tradition is quite extraordinary; so
extraordinary, that one would declare, at the time of reading,
he has not even described a change of Tiberius's countenance
but what he either saw, or related from eye-witnesses.
What a man Sir Eobert Peel is ! He passes his life in a
perpetual torture of opposite appetites, without resolution to
gratify any to its full capacity of power.
It is lamentable to me to see how little attention is paid by
the aristocracy to the cultivation of the minds of their children.
They seem to me to think that all that was required in the
Feudal ages — when, to sit your horse, wield a lance, draw a
bow, and excel in feats of agility and strength — is all that is
required of young men now. They wiU find out their mistake.
In an age of inteUectual activity and smarter, such as the next
wUl be, they should make a point of grounding their children
thoroughly ; " fiUing their minds," as Archbishop Leighton
said, " with good wheat," for then there wiU be not only less
room " for others to pack in chaff," but it will enable them to
maintain that superiority which they hold now by rank, but
which they wiU not hold long before the fierce democratic
spirit of the age, without higher claims to respect than rank,
wealth, and leisure can afford. Sir Eobert Peel said : " Begister,
register." O'ConneU : " Agitate, agitate." I say : " Educate,
educate." Train the minds of your young people ; put wis
dom into their heads. Do not neglect their bodies, but educate
their minds as weU : train them into habits of self-examination
and inquiry ; and teach them that, although it is no disgrace
to be ignorant of many things, it is the duty of every one to
know one thing weU, and to cultivate the inteUect with which
God has blessed him. Without such cultivation a man had
better not be born.*
* The fault hes with the parents more than with the young people. Parents"
are not sufficiently attentive to the education of their children. Like a fine lady
with her baby, they hand the children over to their tutors, just as she does the
baby to the nurse, and think any closer personal intercourse on their part super-

B. R. HA YDON. 459
Wordsworth's great power is an intense perception of human
feelings regarding the mystery of things, by analysing his
fluous and unnecessary. That this is a great mistake, we have seen some
remarkable instances during the last few years. One of the most striking was
certainly that of the late Marquis of Hastings. Endowed by nature with a,
handsome person, and gifted with high qualities of mind, which, under a better
early training and education, and a more healthy moral atmosphere, and a
system of discipline skilfully adapted to his restless nature, he would have
made a very different man — perhaps a great one. He died, as we all remember,
a miserable wreck at six-and-twenty ; broken in health, weakened in mind,
bankrupt in fortune, and regretted by few, though deeply by one or two who
knew him well, and had hoped for better things.
I was one of those few ; and as I knew him thoroughly, and he is so often made
a text to point a moral by writers who knew nothing of him, I may perhaps be
permitted to say a word on the subject. The blame of his ruin unquestionably must
rest upon the late Lord Howe, his guardian, who, with ample leisure and means,
took no sufficient pains to secure the boy's welfare by judicious training, educa
tion, or superintendence. The boy was removed from Eton and sent to the great
capitals of Continental Europe. At seventeen, when I first met him, he had
no knowledge, except in vice, in which he was a proficient, and he had no
accomplishments. He could neither read distinctly, nor spell, nor write; nor
could he even sit a horse, fence, play cricket, singlestick, or chess ; and he
knew little about a gun. Yet he was capable of great things. He was keen
after knowledge, but from fear of being laughed at he never asked ques
tions. By degrees I won his confidence, and then he would come to me in his
difficulties. In his secret heart his capability for better things than ' Ruff's
Guide,' or baser books — of which he had a choice illustrated collection, that
rivalled the famous one of Lord Henry Seymour — would now and then dimly
reveal itself to him. One day in my room he flung down his trashy novel :
" These books teach me nothing. I want to learn. I am a horrid fool, I know ;
but it is not my fault. They have often tried to teach me, but they never did if
the right way." "What is your idea of the right way?" I asked. "Well," he
replied, " to tell me something that interests me." I brought him a volume of
Murphy's ' Tacitus.' It was the Tiberius volume. " Now," I said, " try that
instead of your cheap trash, and tell me how you like it." For the next three
days the book was never out of his hand. He devoured it. He made me get
him a map of Italy, and he went over all the places, to most of which he
had been. " To think," he said, " that I have been in Eome, Naples and Capri,
and nobody ever told me about Tiberius or Nero." There was the real boy
coming out. On another occasion we were walking home through St. James's
Park one bright starlight night. He looked up to the sky and said, " What a
splendid sight, it beats St. Peter's ! " " Yes," I replied ; " and nobody ever saw
' the pillars of that dome,' as Luther said." After a minute or two he said :
"Don't laugh at me for asking, but who was that fellow Luther? I have heard
of him. Tell me all about him." I told him ; and when we came in I brought
him a copy of Carlyle's ' Hero-Worship,' which I had with me. He took it to
bed with him. We generally slept in adjoining rooms with the door open, he
was so nervous. In the middle of the night I awoke, and saw his candle still
burning. I called to him, "What are you doing?" "I am reading about
Luther," he said. " What hard words this fellow uses ; but what a splendid
fellow Luther was !" He told me the next morning he had read the whole of the
fourth lecture through before he went to sleep. Every day while he was with
me that week he read and re-read the volume, and would look at no other book,
and he would talk well upon it if you encouraged him. These are only two
among many proofs which he gave, when alone with me, of his anxiety for
knowledge. But the great defect of his character was weakness of will. He
was eager for knowledge, but he was easily enticed from the pursuit of it ; and
as I never knew him— except when with me, when I resolutely shut my door to
all of them— not to be more or less besieged by dissolute men, both young and

460 TABLE TALK OF
own. He sat to me to-day (22nd Dec. 1817), and read aU the
book of ' Despondence Corrected,' in his ' Excursion,' in the
finest manner. The moral of Wordsworth is enforced by a
old, who were eager to gain his friendship by flattering his basest appetites, and
my official duties prevented me from being with him, except at long intervals,
and then only for a few days, any good I might have done was too quickly
effaced. In politics, ludicrous as it may seem to say so now, he was ambitious to excel
his grandfather. We had many conversations as to the distinctions of Party,
in all of which he took great interest. He decided at last that he would support
Lord Derby. One day when he was about twenty we were talking of his future
career, and seeing the " fall " below the hill, on the brink of which he was
then standing, I urged him to restrain his pleasures and self-indulgenee, and
turn his mind seriously to learning the history of his own country. He answered
something in these words : " I should like, of course, to take my seat in the
House, and I should like to be a greater man than my grandfather. But how
can I ? I know nothing. Nobody has ever taught me anything. And now,
how can I learn ? I don't like to ask, it, makes me look such a fool." But that
was not the rock that sunk him. The difficulties, the self-abnegation required
to make up his deficiencies in knowledge were not such, I believe, as he would
not have borne, with some man to lean on always at his side, but Lord Howe
refused to encourage the boy in his best moods, and his own set could not bear to
see him put in practice such reform. And thus he was turned aside. It is the
old, old story ; and down the hill at a fearful pace he went, into the great ditch
where many had gone before him, and where those who had Hved Upon him for
years left him now, to die.
His case is common enough among men of his rank. The explanation is not
far to seek. From want of education and sound knowledge he could not take his
place in politics or in society ; and sooner than not be first where he wished to
be, he would be first and foremost in the lower and inferior sphere. If he met
men of rank where book learning was not required, where his natural unin-
structed acuteness found much to work upon, and where his wealth and rank,
and luck, temporarily won for him envy and respect, that gratified his vanity,
and soothed mental reproach. But in his secret heart he despised the life, and
despised himself for following it. He acknowledged this to me more than once,
when remonstrating with him upon his monstrous follies. " Yes," he said, one
day, " the life is bad, I know ; but what else am I fit for ? They have made me
what I am. I am no good at anything else. Let us order the horses, and come
and ride." And he went down the high road to stupid, sottish ruin, checked for
a moment by his marriage, with a sort of pride. " You have made me what
I am by your neglect, and by Heaven I'll show you what the result can be I "
That I feel satisfied was the feeling at his heart, for love of effect was his
ruling passion. And to me he opened his secret heart, finding that he
got at least sympathy, if it was mixed with much remonstrance and sincere
regret. I enter into these details because it is just to his memory. He had great
natural abilities, and many elements of character that go to make a great] man.
But his failure in life must unquestionably be attributed, partly to inherited
tendencies, but mainly to the ignorance, the incapacity, the obstinate neglect of
his chief guardian, the late Lord Howe, who squandered the boy's intelligence
at the most critical period of his life ; and who, as his guardian, showed neither
watchfulness,' resolution, nor sense of right or sympathy, in dealing with this
boy of so much affectionate nature, keen sensibility, active temperament, and
weak will ; and possessing inherited constitutional tendencies that .required the
greatest care, the nicest management, in their direction and control. All this
Lord Howe left to chance, and then affected to be much astonished at the
result. But anything might be expected from the man who tried his utmost to
eject Arnold from Eugby. — Ed.

m

3. R. HA YDON. 461
previous development of duty. Now Shakespeare has an
intense power of laying open the heart and mind of man by
analysing the feelings of others acting on themselves ; and his
moral inferred from the consequences of conduct. Shake
speare is the organ of nature ; Wordsworth of piety, religion,
and virtue. Wordsworth lays down the duty of man, from
which to swerve is to do wrong. Shakespeare has no moral
code, and he leaves it to the option of all how to act by show
ing the consequences of such-and-such conduct in acting.
Wordsworth tries to render agreeable all that has hitherto
alarmed the world, by showing that death, the grave, and
futurity are the penalties only to reach a happier existence.
Shakespeare seems reckless of any principle of guidance. He
takes futurity, death, and the grave as materials to act on his
different characters; and though we may be horrified one
moment in reading what Claudio says of death —
" Aye, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot," &c.
— yet we may be reconciled by attending to what the Duke
then says in contempt of life, feel uncertain which to believe,
and leave off in intense and painful distraction.
In grief and in the troubles of life Shakespeare solaces by
our finding similar feelings displayed by others in similar
situations ; that is sympathy. [ In grief and in misery the
comfort and consolation Wordsworth affords is by consoUdating
-the hopes and glimmerings man has from a Higher Power into
a clear and perceptible reality. \ What we hope he assures
us of. What we fear he exhibits without apprehension ; of
what we have a horror he reconciles us to, by setting it before
us with other associations. (Wordsworth is the apostolic poet
of piety and pure thoughts ; and Shakespeare, dear Shake
speare ! the organ of nature herself, with all her follies and
captivations, beauties and vices. Wordsworth's feelings are
exclusive, because his intensity of purpose is so strong.') His
object is to reform the world, by pointing out to it how it
ought to be; Shakespeare to delight it, by showing nature
herself how she is. I It would be the height of absurdity to say
that the power of Shakespeare, in its infinite variety, does not
entitle him to the highest place over all poets ; but in moral
scope and height of purpose, Milton and Wordsworth have

462 TABLE TALK OF
greater intention and nobler views than Shakespeare. They
have, however, but this one power ; yet that one is the highest
on earth, for it is to guide men into desiring endless happiness
in futurity.
Surely before a man of genius throws his powers into any
subject he ought to consider its tendency. He ought not to
rouse your enthusiasm in favour of that your principles forbid ;
he ought not to envelop crime with noble, though perverted
sentiments, with pathetic and sublime feelings, rather making
you lament the misdirection than detesting the intention of
direction, and too often, indeed, rendering you blind to their
wickedness, and forgetful of everything but their perseverance,
their energy, their noble spirit. As these qualities of mind
wiU always excite admiration, why not mingle them with
fallen virtue or noble ambition ? Why mingle the highest
feelings of our nature with characters without principle, with
out virtue, so that you cannot admire but at the risk of your
morality? Take Milton, for instance. Bather than detest
Satan, or rejoice at his agonies when the sight of the meridian
sun recaUs to his fiery mind " from what height fallen," you
sympathise with him ; you lament such noble qualities should
have such a termination. Is there a moral here ? Does this
send you from him warned by his example ? or do you not. turn
from Satan rather animated than otherwise by the splendour
and daring of his gigantic attempt ?
It is, indeed, a question. No man, in my opinion, ought to
select crime to exercise his powers on without debasing it by
failure and misery in the end. Satan is to be punished
eternaUy in the end, but for a while he triumphs. HeU is not
represented as disgustingly horrible, but as sublimely terrible
— a place where souls of great sensation would Uke rather to
wander than fear to dwell ; and which would fro tanto increase
than diminish the sum of human means of pleasure if, when
melancholy, one could sail amid such beings, and enjoy for a
time the luxury of sublime terror in such a dreary, fiery, hope
less and tremendous situation. It may be answered that
Milton's punishment is not bodily torment, but the racking
agonies of conscience ; but still they are agonies of superior
souls. His object, nevertheless, was to show how great qualities
may be misdirected ; and therefore the moral is as forcible for

B. R. HAYDON. 463
those possessed of great qualities, as if they had been merely
furious and demoniac. You see their grand feelings bursting
through their diabolical ones ; and is not the reflection that
great qualities have led to ruin instead of to glory, by the
vice of the possessors, just as likely to serve as a warning,
as great qualities having led to ruin by the vice of others ?
I said to the Duke of Devonshire one day, " Has your Grace
seen the drawing of Sir Augustus Clifford ?" Being very deaf,
he thought I said he and Sir' Augustus were very much alike.
He looked arch, and repUed, " We are often taken for each
other." Eumour says that relationship justifies the Duke's
reply.* O'ConneU, one day looking at a sketch of Napoleon's bed
in my painting-room, said, "Ah, Napoleon was mad ! His
brother told me from a conversation he had with him after the
peace of Amiens, he was certain there was a touch of insanity
in him."
Let us suppose Napoleon had died on the Throne, would
Lucien have mentioned this conversation ?
Edward Ellice said England would never suffer Bepeal of
the Union, but would rather govern Ireland by a Commission
like Oliver Cromwell. Yet he liked O'Connell, and said he
was " an oppressed man."t
Dr. Johnson said " the first Whig was the devU." Why ?
From a love of Uberty ? No ; from the hatred of control,
and from a passion to rule others. This is the secret of
Whiggism. * The famous Dr. Croft, who attended the Princess Charlotte in her confine
ment, had previously attended the Duchess of Devonshire at her confinement in
Paris. Dr. Croft subsequently blew his brains out. — Ed.
t This "oppression," meaning neglect by the Whigs, most probably cast
O'Connell into his career of Eepeal agitation. O'Connell said once to my father,
" How could the Government expect, after the character and publicity I had
gained by Emancipation, that I could relapse into a poor barrister ? Human
vanity would not permit it." The best policy for the Whigs to have followed
with O'Connell would have been to have made him Lord Lieutenant. The dis
like and suspicion of the Irish to all legal authority would have deprived
O'Connell of his influence in a week.
As an instance of feeling towards him by the Liberals of 1832, Mrs. Grote says,
frankly, that " O'Connell was feared, detested, and yet accepted as an ally " by
the Whigs. "The leading Liberals," she adds, "avoided contact with the
Liberator, as he was termed." — Ed.

464 TABLE TALK OF
The magic of Politics is to be right.
I asked young Greville, the brother of Lady Francis
Egerton, whether there was any part of the day at Waterloo "
when he despaired. He replied, "Never; but being in the
Guards at Hougomont I could not judge." This was the first
candid acknowledgment of the kind from a subordinate that I
had ever received. All the others — Captains and Colonels — told
you, " It went very hard ;" but the Duke and Lord HiU both.
said there was never a time in the day when they had any
doubt ; and being first and second in command they were able
to see over the whole field, whereas, how could the others,
mixed up with their different regiments in the midst of smoke,
and confusion, and dying men, have any clear idea of how the
action went. Yet when you reminded them of this, they did
not like it, and never acknowledged it. But GreviUe acknow
ledged it Uke a man.
December 2Mh, 1844.— Eastlake caUed. It was interesting
to meet my old pupil as Secretary to the Boyal Commission.
He had told a mutual friend that he should feel grateful to me
as long as he lived, when having told him aU I knew when he
first came to London. He was looking strained and pale. He
told me every commission from the Queen was less than the
last. He had sat up aU night and painted nineteen hours
to finish, by the 23rd, a smaU picture of ' A Nun visited by
her relations ' for the Queen, which she wanted as a Christ
mas present. I told him that I had once painted twenty
hours, but I did not recover the strain for years. It is
my belief that Eastlake's real passion was for Uterature, and
that my enthusiasm and success with ' Dentatus ' pushed
him off his road and made him a painter, malgre lui. He
said what Eoyal people like is rapidity. The Grand Duke
of Tuscany once kissed Vasari's forehead for executing his
wishes, which Vasari had only accomplished by sitting up
some nights.
CoUn Mackenzie told me that Lady Mornington said, " My
sons do not pay me the attention they ought." He was looking
at Lady Westmoreland's portrait of her over my chimney-
piece.

3. R. HA YDON. ^465
Painters should not be talkers except with their brushes,
nor writers upon anything but their Art. Men are content
that you should know something more of painting than they,
but do not like that you should know as much of any other
thing.* I find the artists most favoured by the great are those of no
education, or those who conceal what they have. The love of
power and superiority is not trod upon if a man of genius be
ignorant of what a nobleman is informed of. " Great folks,"
said Dr. Johnson, " don't like to have their mouths stopped."t
Seguier's brother John, in the course of conversation with me
to-day (December 30th, 1841), said, " My brother had a diffi
cult business to prevent George IV. from remodelling the
Boyal Academy, which he talked about a good deal at the
time." I said Seguier hindered me from getting near George IV.
from apprehension I should influence his" mind. Thirteen
years after, his brother lets out what was going on, and which I
suspected at the time, and was told it was my suspicion.
Mackenzie told me he was present at the Austrian Head
quarters, in 1814, when a French officer of artillery was taken
and brought to Schwartzenburg. Among other questions he
was asked what they were doing in the South of France.
"Don't you know?" said he; "we have been fighting a man,
who, if he had your army, would have been in Paris a month

* This is not quite fair towards society, which is rather bored than otherwise
with a man who can talk only upon a subject upon which they are ignorant, or
be silent. I think society is better pleased when it finds a professional man will
condescend to talk of something else than his profession, whether it be politics,
law, medicine, art, science, or literature. Manner has much to do with the " not
liking " here attributed to society. A dictatorial manner, as much as that evil
habit, of which the late Wilson Croker was a remarkable illustration, of per
petually taking " the mote " out of your " neighbour's eye," is highly offensive,
but among men accustomed to deference, I fear rather common. After all, the
great want of both sides is perhaps that of mental discipline, the first result of
which is, as Faraday says, " an internal conviction of your ignorance of many
things upon which your neighbours are taught." — Ed.
t Nor did Dr. Johnson. Nobody liked it less. It is all a question of manner
and tact. The world is governed by tact and good manner, and men make or
mar their fortunes according as they possess, or are deficient in either." — Ed.
VOL. II. 2 H

466 TABLE TALK OF
Eastlake, who had much of WUkie's timidity without any of
his servUity, when I remarked to him how submissive WUkie
was to the great, said, " He wanted to rise in the world. I do
not." This was sincere.
In one of our discussions on the decoration of the Houses of
ParUament, Eastlake said to me, " How many artists wish to
paint in fresco ?" I replied, " The question is not what the
artists wish, but what the State wants."
The Eoyal Academy, in my humble opinion, should be made
to take its chance with other institutions, and left to maintain
its superiority only by the talent it displays.
February 12th, 1849. — Went to Sir Eobert Peel's; stayed
an hour, studying his exquisite collection. In the Eeynolds
room there was a small picture of Edwin Landseer' s, in his
detailed and finished style, which was a singular contrast to
the broad mascuUne head of Johnson, and the rich power
of the ' Snake in the Grass,' by Sir Joshua. Landseer is the
" Lawrence " of dog painters, with all his vices. He has no
eye for colour, none, and by the side of Eeynolds this was
painfuUy palpable. I never was so struck with it.
Eastlake one day (1845), when talking over my ' Essays on
Fresco,' said, " I find to assume ignorance is the thing with the
aristocracy." Yes, that is the secret, no doubt. These people
will Usten to a man who teaches by affecting to know less-
This may be poUtic, but is it straightforward? When I
thunder out a naked truth which nobody can refute, they all
cry out, " What a  impudent feUow !" Six months after
wards they steal my truth and bring it out as their own. This
is the fair-play one meets with in the world.
Fresco decoration will never be popular in England. The
English are too commercial. They like snug rooms and snug
property. They can get money on a picture, and they cannot
upon a fresco. They can change and exchange a picture, they
can do neither with a fresco ; and frescoes will not be taken as
fixtures. That is a great point with them.

B. R. HAYDON. 467
Never make love by letter. Nine times out of ten love,
made by letter, fails ; and how any man can be such an ass as
to propose to any woman, unless he felt sure of his ground, is
to me extraordinary. A man should never propose to a girl
until by a little piquing he sees her getting ill. Besides, a
man can always tell if a girl loves him. She trembles if you
sit by her, flushes in the face, gets hot on her forehead, and her
eye has a pecuUar lustre never seen at other times. . These are
indisputable signs.
The great difficulty is first to win a reputation ; the next to
keep it while you live ; and the next to preserve it after you
die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but
sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer
youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be
an excuse for indolence.
One of the surest evidences of an elevated taste is the power
of enjoying works of impassioned terrorism, in poetry, and
painting. The man who can look at impassioned subjects of
terror with a feeling of exultation may be certain he has
an elevated taste.
The great want now (1811) in the press is of editors inde
pendent of society. Leigh and John Hunt on that point were
noble characters. I should like to know the amount of the
bribe which could have made them say what they did not
think, or omit to say what they knew ought to have been
said. In talking of the first French Eevolution with Mr. Hamilton
and the Chevalier Bronstedt to-day (March 29th, 1840),
Hamilton said a French bishop once offered him some books
for sale, and in recommendation pointed out that one of them
was bound in a man's skin !
How often, when weighed down by the burden " of the Great
Mystery," one cannot help believing that all depends on the
temperament of the individual on whom the impression is
produced ; and that we may all, perhaps, awake at some future
¦ 2 h 2

468 TABLE TALK OF
period to find this life has been rounded with a little dream,
and aU our conjectures airy fancies :
" Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy."
Peel is so innately aristocratic that I am not sure he does
not think all my eagerness for High Art, and my plans to raise
the taste of the nation by improved design, as so much imper
tinent intrusion beyond the limit of my station, as unbecoming
a man who holds no office ; nor does he believe any human
creature has the right to express an independent thought
unless he be a funded proprietor.
I asked Sir George Cockburn if it was true that when he
captured Washington he got in so suddenly the President had
barely time to get away, and left his dinner. Sir George said
it was quite true ; they found the table laid and wine ready,
and the soldiers and sailors all had leave to take a fair
quantity. Sir George said that had he the troops which were
sent to New Orleans he could have kept Washington and made
peace ; " but I fear," said he, " my Commander thought there
was more plunder at New Orleans than at Washington."
Mistrusts sometimes come over one's mind of the Justice of
God. But let a real misery come again, and to whom do we
fly ? To whom do we instinctively and immediately look up ?
The principle that authority must be upheld, let what may
be its injustice, wiU, in the long run of human suffering,
destroy all authority.
I admire the caution with which all reforms are made in
Great Britain, as necessary to regulate and bridle excess or
injudicious enthusiasm ; but our rulers should take heed lest
in their awful reverence for the outworks of the constitutional
citadel, they forget the citadel itself; and whilst they are
flourishing about on the outside walls with their flags and
trumpets, poverty, under cover, does not mine to the centre,
and surprise the world by an exasperated explosion that will
bury constitution, capital, authority, and order, all under one
vast ruin.

3. R. HA YDON. 469
After the cartoon affair of 1843, many academicians on
meeting me would express astonishment at my keeping my
health. " What is the reason of this extraordinary stamina ?
Is it here ?" laying their hand on my chest. Their air was
exactly as if they had been looking out for my death.
What trash is occasionally written about Art ! Here is a
learned Theban* writing now that a man "Maybe able to
paint a historical picture, however large, but not a series!"
What, then, qualifies a man to paint a series ? Not being able
to paint at all ? If painting a single picture does not qualify
him, what does ? All the painters who have -painted a series
well, had painted nothing but single pictures before: viz.,
Baphael, Michel Angelo, Correggio, Giulio Eomano, Annibal
Caracci, Eubens, &c. And why were they qualified to paint a
series? Because the same powers which enabled them to
arrange the parts of which a single picture is composed, with
reference to a whole, will enable them to arrange each picture
painted as parts of a series, so as to complete a whole. And
yet the public are instructed, by authority, to believe that the
man who can arrange and paint a good single picture cannot
be trusted to arrange and paint a series ! Was there ever such
absurdity ?
The Duke of Sutherland, looking at my head of 'Alexander,'
said : " But you have made him smiling." " Yes," I said, " he
is conscious of victory, and glories in it." " But it is a serious
thing," said the amiable Duke, looking grave, " to kill a lion."
" But it's a glorious thing," I said. " I wish it may be my lot
before I die to kill a lion." The Duke smiled at me, as if he
thought me mad.
Sir William Boss told me that Lord Brougham said he
once complimented Louis Philippe upon being the most ex
ceptional Sovereign in Europe. " I believe I am," said the
King; "for I am the only one who ever blacked his own
shoes." The crying evil of Great Britain is that debasing and
* Wilson, the Managing Director of the London School of Design, 1843. — Ed.

470 TABLE TALK OF
degrading appetite for gain, against which neither misery,*
nor science, nor Art, have the least chance.
There never was a man so unfit for a biographer as Allan
Cunningham. A poet by nature, he had no pleasure in resting
alone on truth as the basis of the lives of the great men. He
treats their characters as inventions, not as realities; he put
speeches in their mouths, and amplified their sayings, as if they
were the heroes of a drama he had invented, or of a poem,
where imagination was of more worth than fact. His ' Lives
of the Painters ' are quite unworthy his age, and he has not
extinguished, but rather confirmed this conclusion in his last
work, ' The Life of Sir David Wilkie.' The truest biographer
that ever lived was Boswell. His love of truth was such, that
Sir George Beaumont told me he would race the town for days
to ascertain the correctness of a word passed at a previous
party. Cunningham's account of Wilkie's first arrival at the
Eoyal Academy is extremely incorrect, as are most of the
anecdotes in which I am mentioned as having taken part ; and
the whole account of Wilkie's visit to Devonshire in 1809 is
an absurdity.f Wilkie was the guest of my father, and lived
at my father's house, and was introduced by me to the East-
lakes, Charles Eastlake being then a youth; all of which
is absurdly misrepresented by Cunningham. But as I offered
Murray to write Wilkie's ' Life/ and he selected Cunningham, I
must say nothing, lest it look like jealousy. But there is quite
enough of what is correct in the ' Life ' to show that Wilkie
really held the same opinions as I do concerning the Eoyal
Academy. Wordsworth once asked my wife what was my " chief plea
sure." She said: " Feeding on his own thoughts." It was a
great compliment; and how sincere from a- beautiful woman
whose divine face had a right to claim my chief attention !
John Haydon, an ancestor of mine, who in 1662 wrote
' The Harmony of the World,' had the following sonnet dedi-
* Not misery — art and science perhaps ; but for " misery " there is more money
annually subscribed in England than in any other country in the world. — Ed.
t " He called on the Haydons," says Cunningham, as if Wilkie lived else
where than as a guest in my grandfather's house. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 471
cated to him by Dr. John Brown, D.D. of Oxford. The thoughts
are well expressed.
"TO THE MOST EXCELLENT PHILOSOPHER ANH IlAWYEE, Me. JOHN
Hatoon, upon nis so much l-esieed 'Haemont ov the Woeld,'
1662:— "A public good must quell your private fear;
The profit of a winter's industry
Should be imparted to a general ear,
For good is bettered by community.
Nor may be detraction, or the injury
Of some men's censures dash what he doth write,
If but what pleaseth all men's sight
No work would come to light.
Through all the world ye'ave gathered the several flowers
Of other books into your harmony ;
Distilled to spirit by you. They're wholly young.
So honey sucked from the variety
Of flowers is yet the honey of the bee.
And tho' iu these last daies miracles are fled,
It brings back time that's past, and gives life to the dead."
— John Brown, D.D. Oxon.
John Haydon lived next door to the Bed Lion, east side of
Spitalfields, near Bishopsgate Street.
A pupil told me that Cornelius told him he (Cornelius)
thought Eeynolds a great man, and Lawrence nobody. This
speaks highly for Cornelius's taste.
One secret of worldly success is command of temper. From
the throne to the cottage every man should strive to com
mand his temper. It might be said that Hampden should
have borne ship-money ; the barons, John ; the nation,
James II. But how are the evils of bad Government to be got
rid of if remonstrance, or resistance, or complaint, do not rise
and overturn? Who fiercer against the despotism of unjust
power than our own Saviour ? Did He bear the hypocrisy of
the Pharisees, the cant of the Sadducees, the imposture of the
priesthood ? And yet He preached : " Bear and forbear." But
He preached it as a general principle of conduct through life,
not to apply to particular instances where the welfare of nations
was concerned, or the danger of a great moral principle.
It was always my great object in reforming British Art,
which Wilkie and I set about in 1806, to add what was wanted

472 TABLE TALK OF
without losing what we had. This was the principle I ex
plained to my pupils ; to Eastlake at first, and to the Land
seers and others afterwards. To Edwin I lent my anatomical
studies of the 'Lion,' which guided him to dissect dqgs and
monkeys. Charles and Thomas, Bewick, Harvey, Prentice,
Lance, were all instructed in the same principle ; so that they
have all been reformers in Art, by adding what they wanted
without losing what they had. Now his Eoyal Highness
Prince Albert does not care what is lost, however exquisite, if
we acquire what we have not, which I maintain is pregnant
with danger to the British School, and if not checked will be
its ruin.
Nothing is so envied as genius, nothing so hopeless of at
tainment by labour alone. Though labour always accompanies
the greatest genius, without the inteUectual gift labour alone
will do little.
People of fashion are accused of " impudence," &c. I know
no people who have so tender an apprehension of intrusion.
How perfect their manners are ! And what a contrast to the
vulgarity one meets with occasionally elsewhere !
Sir Eobert Peel wishes well to the Art, but he wishes better
to authority ; and if the taste of a great people, the value of its
manufactures, or the development of its inteUectual powers,
would endanger the predominance of an established institution
by being in advance of or in opposition to its selfish interests,
Sir Eobert is a man who would stand aside for the sake of
authority, and let the taste and inteUect and advance of a
great country perish before him. Not that he would be glad
to do so, but that he would think it a moral duty to shrink
from any principle which rmight endanger an advanced post of
the Three per Cents.
April 2Ath, 1844. — I called on Charles Barry, the architect
of the New Houses, and one of the most amiable of men. He
explained to me his views, listened to my objections, and
admitted the frescoes were not large enough. This is a great
point to have brought him to. I told him if they were not
bigger they would only be diaper ornaments, and nothing else.

3. R. HAYDON. 473
I told him I thought his plan did not embrace a principle to
be developed by design. His plan was an unconnected series
of facts. He said he had no objection to a principle, but events
must develop it. " Should the events be confined to our own
history?" "Surely not," I said. "Surely not," he replied.
He told me the opposition to the painting of Westminster Hall
by the Boyal Commissioners was extraordinary. They would
not hear of it, although it was the finest space in the kingdom.
He said : " What I admired your cartoons for was they were
filled. I told everybody so. However angry you may be with
Eastlake, by hints I know he thinks you ill-treated."
" The fact is," said Barry, " you say what you think so com
pletely, and carry it to such an extent, that they are afraid of
you." " Who ? the nobility ? " " Yes." " But," I replied, " I
am not in a responsible situation."
He sounded me if Greswell and I acted together; and I
lamented over his joining the Eoyal Academy. He said all
his friends said so. I replied : " Ah, Barry ! you did not know
the greatness of your position. After having beaten a mono
poly by a genuine display of talent, you should have kept it."
" Well," he said, " I hope it is all for the best." I asked him
if it was owing to anything he had said the Duke * had sent for
my cartoon ? He repUed : " I believe it may ; I admired it
excessively ; I am more with you than you imagine."
Before Lord Duncannon came to the Woods and Forests the
" Take Notice " Board in St. James's Park excluded " all
soldiers, servants in livery, beggars, and dogs." Very compli
mentary to the troops who had been fighting at Waterloo, for
example; to servants who add to our comforts; to beggars,
whom cruelty or injustice may have reduced ; and to dogs, the
most innocent, faithful, and attached, of all four !
When Mr. Greswell came to London to obtain Peel's assistance
in carrying out the scheme for establishing professors of Art at
Oxford, he failed to interest Sir Eobert, and received nothing
from him but a formal acknowledgment. Peel wished well to
Art, but he wished better to established authority, and would
not identify himself with any movement in advance ; and he
* The late Duke of Sutherland.— Ed.

474 TABLE TALK OF
liked to befriend the Eoyal Academy, whose influence at that
time over what was called by courtesy the educated classes was
in exact proportion to their ignorance of Art.
April 21st, 1845. — Called on Eastlake, who said he was
going to write a letter to Sir Eobert Peel on the National
Gallery, and " no doubt ihe Academy might be carried further."
He said he should be "happy to have my advice." Never
were two men so adapted for each other as Peel and Eastlake.
I will venture to predict that a reform of the Academy is
meaned by both. When Peel is most eloquent in admiration
of either principle, person, or corporation, be sure a reform is
at hand of all three, or he is meditating their annihilation.
A man who defers working because he wants tranquiUity of
mind will have lost the habit when tranquiUity comes. Work
under all circumstances — any circumstances. When you are
compeUed to be absent from your work keep it in your mind, be
always ready to seize what occurs to you, and you wiU return
to it with new thoughts and additional improvements, as if you
had never left your room.
The history of the London School of Design is a remarkable
instance of how easily a good instrument may be spoiled by bad
workmen. When I was caUed upon by the House of Commons
Committee to give my opinion on all matters connected with
the Eoyal Academy, among other reforms, I proposed to the
Committee the extension of the Schools of the Eoyal Academy,
and the attaching to the Eoyal Academy a central School of
Design in London, with branch Schools of Designs in the
provinces, under the inspection of the Central School, &c. &c.
The Committee complimented me on the importance of my
evidence, and the Government, in part, adopted my proposition,
by founding a Central School of Design in London, but they
placed it under one of their own departments, viz., the Board
of Trade and Manufactures. Here was the first error. Poulett
Thompson said he did this " to mix official gentlemen " in the
scheme, as that was the only means "to prevent the artists
from cutting each other's throats ! " This mixture of Poulett
Thompson's was error Number Two ; and error Number Three
was the " mixture " passing a resolution that " the study of the

3. R. HA YDON. 475
figure was not necessary to the artisan." This was the greatest
error of all. What followed is worthy of notice. The Eoyal
Academy, jealous of the foundation of the school, but unable
to prevent it, affected to fall in with the scheme, got nomi
nated on the Committee, and the very first thing they did was
to vote out all artists that were not Eoyal Academicians at
their next meeting. "Now," said Bellenden Kerr, "let us
settle the principle." " Oh," said Chantrey, " I have been thirty
years in the Art, and never could settle the principle yet ! "
A talk took place about the "figure." "If," said one of the
academicians, "we allow the artisan to -draw the figure, he
should be compelled to sign a bond not to paint history,
portrait, or landscape!" This resolution happily was not
passed, and the study of the figure was rejected.* Finding that
the study of the figure was rejected, I took up the matter
fiercely, and obtained the admission of the " figure," but it was
never regarded favourably.
But the most amusing part of all was that, when everybody who
had read my evidence, and was looking out for my appointment
as the first master of the School of Design, which was really
my own suggestion, up starts a protege of Eastlake's — Mr. Dyce
— of whom nobody had ever heard before, and who had not
one single qualification for the post— as the result fully proved
— he is appointed master, at 400Z. a year ; while my claims
and public services, and acknowledged fitness for the post, are
wholly set aside. If he had been as fit a man as myself it
would have mattered little to me, whose only object was an
efficient master to set the school afloat. But he was unques-
' tionably the most incompetent man for the post, in mind and
in theory. He wasted his own time, and the time of the
students, pursuing experiment after experiment, starting off,
as conclusions hove in sight, to pursue something new in which
there was less hope of conclusion ; till at last, having brought
the school into inextricable confusion, he was aUowed to resign.
Then Mr. Wilson, as master of mechanical art, was appointed,
with Herbert as "figure" master; and how these two have
come to loggerheads, and the best interests of the school
sacrificed by their absurd jealousies and squabbles, is matter of
public notoriety ; the basis of which is the indisposition of the
* I am assured on good authority that this resolution was passed, though
subsequently revoked. — Ed.

476 TABLE TALK OF
upper classes to let the mechanics get on too quickly, and the
resolve of the Eoyal Academy to keep the Art as much as
possible in their own circle, and from being spread. " The scales
of every Leviathan," as Luther said, " are linked together."
May 10th, 1845.— Herbert, the master for the "figure" for
the School of Design, called and read his Eeport to the Coun
cil on the " figure " being the basis of decoration. He said the
younger men in the Academy had a friendly feeling towards
me, and if I put my name down I should be elected. I smUed
inwardly, though I told him it was impossible. " Four times,"
said I, " have I waited in your ante-chamber or been repulsed
from your door." My name had been down in 1810, 1841,
1826, 1827, and never had a single vote. The insult was
public, and so must be the reparation; no more names
down! May Vith, 1845. — CaUed on my old fellow-student, Pickers-
gill, and had a regular croak. He said, " I want to see the
Academy renovated and remodelled ! " I stared. " We want,"
he continued, "we want a man of daring energy to save us!"
I thought I should have died. As I was going out, he caUed
me back and said, with a solemn air, " Haydon, sUence ! we
must work like the mole ! " All of which is a mystery to me
of which I have no perception.
There is nothing so mischievous as an estabUshed authority
with nothing to do. Eather than do nothing they do wrong,
because doing wrong begets . remonstrance and opposition,
reply and rejoinder, and before things are got right there
is no longer any ground for the complaint of nothing
to da*
Hallam told me, with great gusto, that when Wordsworth
went to the Levee (1845) he was passing before the Queen,
when Lord Delawarr said, " Kneel, kneel." Wordsworth,
ignorant of Court etiquette, plumped down on both knees, and
when he was down he was too feeble to get up again by him-
* This applies admirably well to the public departments of every state. Each
department strives to rival the other in size and situation ; and having grown to
be cumbrous, makes work in excuse for its bloated existence. — Ed.

B. R. HAYDON. 477
self. Lord Delawarr and Lord Lansdowne helped him up.
The Queen was much touched. " Paint a picture of it," said
Hallam, with a roguish look.
June 2%th, 1845. — While looking at the cartoons and fres
coes to-day, the Duke of Wellington came in, and toppled
away, looking very little at anything. Eogers was there ; and
it was curious to see old Eogers totter up to the Duke, who
turned round and said, " How d'ye do?" giving Eogers a squeeze
which made him writhe. C. Greville then came up, and the
Duke at once began to laugh and talk with him only. Eogers
put on his hat and walked off ! There is nothing so awkward
to a man in the middle-class as " making up " to a man of high
rank who, the moment he has noticed him, turns round and
leaves him to follow or make the best of his way. Eogers had
this to encounter to-day. Eogers was a man of genius, the
friend of Byron, yet the Duke did not familiarise with him ;
but the instant GreviUe came up — one of his own class —
joking, chatting, and laughing began, without further notice
of Eogers.
I thought the frescoes infamous. Mr. Blake came up to me,
and said, " If the House of Lords is to be plastered with daubs
like this, foreigners will go into fits." Lord Monteagle and Barry
both agreed with me that there was a want of simplicity in
material ; altogether, I cannot say the display is promising.
The young artists are not improved in their drawing, and in
fresco they are not advanced. The young men did not seem
in spirits. They crowded round me for my opinion. I lec
tured them weU on their want of simplicity and composition.
" What do you think of us ? " said Barry. " You want sim
plicity of material," I said. " You are right," he replied. The
only bit of fresco fit to look at is by Ford Brown. It is a figure
of ' Justice,' and exquisite so far as that figure goes. Oh ! how
easily I could regulate all these young men, and make their
separate designs unite as a whole !
There is nothing so injurious to poetry, painting, or music,
as a man of bad taste gifted with great talents. From the popu
larity always attending such men there must be more bad taste
than good in the world, or why should such an enormous
quantity of people shout with delight when a work of talent
and bad taste makes its appearance ?

478 TABLE TALK OF
Maclise's talent is the most extraordinary microscopic talent
I ever met with. He never sees a predominant part, which
always is in everything ; if but a knob, every part of the knob
is detailed by Maclise as if it were flat! It is a defect of
vision. Now it is impossible to see all of any object, or all of
any number of objects, at once. The eye fixes itself on the
leading points, the remaining parts are not seen distinctly, but
perceived imperfectly ; and that is the principle of imitation.
The leading points should be seen and finished, the subordinate
inferred. July 17th, 1845.— Eastlake called ; he was going to the
summer-house in the Palace gardens to meet Lady Holland,
who, as usual " en Imperatriee" would not go between 1 and 3
p.m., when everybody else went, but not tiU after everybody
else had been. That is the distinction ! Since Lord Holland's
death people indulge her, and she grows worse.
Eastlake said of my pictures, " I like your subjects ; but as
to the ' horrors ' of anarchy, for people who drink their claret —
I do not know." So I must not call it the " horrors," but the
" injustice " of anarchy, and then it will go down whUe they
are sipping their claret.
Study silence. Avoid that improba garrulitas, that lust for
thoughtless gabble which is the distinguishing mark of so
many in society. To speak much and to the point seldom faUs
to the lot of the same man.
England is strictly commercial, and Art, of course, takes its
colour from the habits of the country. He who loves his high
calling for its own sake ; who wishes to adorn the haUs, the
churches, the public buildings of his country, without reference
to profit and loss ; who has no wish for bank-stock or consols,
and whose only passion is to raise the reputation of his country
in Art as others have in arms, is looked upon as a lunatic more
fit for Bedlam than the world ; is left without employment ;
and if he cannot pay his current debts, is regarded as a man
ignorant of moral duties, and set upon as a monster who
deserves to be hunted from the light. Yet I have laboured
hard to advance the Art ; I have educated young men without
remuneration ; I have tried to do good ; but my original sin,*

3. R. HAYDON. 479
that of telUng the plain truth plainly, will never be forgiven

me.

When money was voted to Napoleon's order for Art or science
he took good care the pubUc should have the best thing,
and the best man to execute it, that money could get. Not
so in England. When money is voted by our Parliament for
a public work, it is not the best thing by the best man, but
how can we render the public money available to private
affection, with the least possible injury to the public and the
greatest possible advantage to cousin Dick ? But if the ques
tion be, is Dick or the public to suffer ? Dick must be preserved
at any cost.
Jerdan told me he had seen a note of Lord Holland's with
the advice he gave the Duchess of Bedford against her
marrying Edwin Landseer, who was much affected by her
refusal. June 19th, 1845. — Called on Pickersgill, who told me Shee
had resigned the Presidentship of the Eoyal Academy. It had
cost him 7000Z. out of his hard earnings. Pickersgill said
there was a " Court party," who would ruin the Art, and were
doing all to ruin it.
It is extraordinary how few Eoyal persons have had sound
taste in art. We talk about educating " the People," why not
educate the Crown and Aristocracy ? It cannot be denied that,
with the exception of Charles I. and Henry VIII., so far
as we know, our Sovereigns have generally patronised the
worst artists and neglected the best. George I. hated poetry
and painting; George II. cared for neither; George III.
thought West and Dance greater men than Eeynolds, Wilson,
Gainsboro', Hogarth, or Barry ; George IV., though he was a
liberal patron of native talent, preferred the Dutch School to
all others ; William IV. thought Huggins quite as clever a
painter as W. Vandevelde ; while, during the greater part of
the present reign, it is not a calumny to say that at all
the Courts of Europe, not excluding our own, Winterhalter
in his day was thought a greater man than Titian, Bubens,

480 TABLE TALK OF
Vandyke, or Eeynolds ; or any of our own men — Watson
Gordon, Pickersgill, Knight, Grant, or Phillips.
Sir Eobert Peel throughout the whole conduct of the Eoyal
Commission on the decoration of the Houses of Parliament
appears firmly resolved to keep me out of aU connection with
it. I was not examined as a witness, although fully qualified
to give evidence that I venture to believe would have been
valuable ; and when the question of " fresco or oil " was dis
cussed, I wrote to Sir Eobert and offered to go to Italy and
examine the frescoes there, and report to the Eoyal Com
mission. He acknowledged my letter, adopted my proposal,
but sent out Mr. Wilson, the Master of the School of Design.
This is the way I am treated. However, Sir Eobert and the
Boyal Commission got weU served: WUson — I heard from
good authority on the spot — flew over Italy, deciding on this
and that, hardly giving himself time to make the most cursory
examination ; and on his return, and under the sanction of the
Boyal Commission, printed a report to the effect that there
was no evidence of the use of the iron point in Michel
Angelo's frescoes ; though the forms in those frescoes are often
marked by a cutting definition, deep and positive. When I
read this, I said to Wilson, " How could you say so ? " He
replied, " The rascals would not give me a scaffold ! " So he
came home, and reported as true what cannot be ascertained
without a scaffold, he knowing a scaffold had been refused him,
by which alone he could have decided !
>
When Mr. Coke* of Holkham sat to me in 1833, 1 asked him
a question which interested him very much. I had heard Lord
Mulgrave say at table, it was a fact that Charles Fox would
have agreed to come in under Mr. Pitt, in 1804, as Secretary
for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Coke said that there was such a
report, and he wrote to Fox, saying if it were so they must
separate. Fox assured him, on his honour, it was not so;
and Mr. Coke has the letter now.t
* The late Lord Leicester. — Ed.
t This letter, I have reason to believe, cannot now be found among the late
Lord Leicester's papers. It is to be regretted, because it might have thrown
light upon a much-disputed point. That Pitt did design to include Fox in his
cabinet of 1804 is clear. Fox is named in Pitt's handwriting, on a proposed list
of the cabinet, as one of the three Secretaries of State. It is equally clear from

3. R. HAYDON. 481
Peel is not a far-sighted man ; but I am convinced he calcu
lates on his Maynooth Bill loosening the hold over the people
of the Boman Catholic priests in Ireland. He is going to give
them a cheap education at home under the eye of their neigh
bours, and not allow them to be taken out of sight for a
number of years, and then come back with all the eclat of a
fine foreign gentleman. The more I think of it, the more I
am convinced it is not Peel's idea — it is too sagacious for him.
And yet the narrowest-sighted men do occasionally the most
sagacious things, without being aware of it*
Ihe explanation of the perpetual failure in matters of
decoration in England, whether in architecture, in sculpture,
or in painting, is that the management is left to Boyal Com
missions and Committees ; which is all very well when the
subjects to be settled are commercial or political, and every
the King's letter to the Lord Chancellor (5th May, 1804), that nothing would
induce . George III. to admit Fox into any cabinet ; and he was astonished,
as he writes, " that Mr. Pitt should for one moment harbour the thought of
bringing such a man (as Fox) before his Eoyal notice." The King had struck his
name off the Privy Council list for factious conduct, and was not likely to accept
him as a minister. But it is by no means clear that Fox had any communication
with Pitt on the subject, or was at all aware of Pitt's intentions towards him.
It seems most probable that, knowing the hostile feelings of the King against
Fox, Pitt would first try to overcome these before he made any proposal to Fox.
Nor is it at all clear that Fox would have accepted office under Pitt. The
evidence is rather the other way. The only weak point in the case for the
refusal is the expression in Lord Grenville's letter to Pitt, quoted by Giffbrd,
wherein Lord Oirenville declines to join the cabinet, on the ground that the
cabinet is formed " on a principle of exclusion." That letter must have been
written after an interview with Fox, or, at least (as the King objected to no one
else), could refer only to the exclusion of Fox. If so, it looks as if Fox were
willing to take office. And yet he may have been guilty of no subterfuge
towards his old friend Mr. Coke, for he may not have written that (missing)
letter until all hope of office was over. It would, in some degree, be satisfactory
if the letter Mr, Coke speaks of could be found. (See Lord Mahon' s and Clifford's
'Life of Pitt,' &c.)— Ed.
* Whether this was the object or not of Sir Robert Peel in his Maynooth Bill,
the result appears to me to have fulfilled Haydon's expectations. Upwards of
twenty years had passed between my first and last residence in Ireland, and
latterly nothing struck me more than the deterioration of the Roman Catholic
priesthood in the country districts, and the levity with which the priest was
spoken of by the people, as compared with the first period. It was not now what
he wished, but what they would allow. And I was not surprised at it. In one
city, where I was detained a few weeks (1867), three priests within that time
were, I believe, suspended by their bishop for drunkenness. Such incidents I was
assured were not infrequent. They cannot be concealed from the people, and they
have their effect. My own impression is that, the Roman Catholics of Ireland,
priests and people,— like the Ancient Britons, — are being gradually pushed out of
the plains into the mountains, where they will finally rest like the Welsh in Wales.
The priests foresee and dread this, and that is one reason why they resist the
introduction of Enghsh capital in the form of factories and manufactures. — Ed. '
VOL. II. 2 I

482 TABLE TALK OF
member of commission and committee knows something of what
he is to inquire, act, and discuss ; but it is ludicrous to apply
such a system to matters of Art, of which nobody but the pro
fessional artist knows one iota.
I have never been able to ascertain from any decorator why
the lowest objects of decoration should not be conducted upon
principles of Art ? He can give me no reason why fruit and
flowers, satyrs' heads or tigers' faces, should be stuck on a
white ground, like the botanical beauties of an album. Surely
the most exquisite decoration in any chamber in fruit and
flowers would be heightened by an appropriate background !
December 3rd, 1845. — The Lord Chancellor (Lyndhurst) has
been ill from childish over-eating. Not long since, after a
hasty dinner, he ate heartily of plum-pudding. He wanted
" more'' Lady Lyndhurst begged of him not to eat any more.
He persisted, and she began to cry. I know this to be a fact.
Such is human nature.
Talfourd is the noblest creature I ever knew — take him in
every way — as father, husband, brother, son, friend, or enemy.
The Trustees of the British Museum have bought Lucas's
model of the Parthenon. It had occupied him a whole year
to construct, and he asked 3651. for it. The Trustees would
not give him more than 2657., telling him that men who so
devote themselves must be content with their great fame, and
take small pay ! He begged me to say nothing ; but certainly
the Trustees ought to feel ashamed of their meanness and
their principles. As the cost for material, &c, amounted to
185?., poor Lucas had only 801. left for his time and subsist
ence for the twelve months.
January 16th, 1846. — Barry caUed. He admired the Aris-
tides very much. He said, " Why does not Charles Eastlake
bring Prince Albert ?" Why, indeed! and yet Eastlake wrote
to me from Borne in 1824, — " Be assured your early kindness
to me is among those obUgations which J am least Ukely to
forget. My early impressions in Art, which might perhaps have
produced a better result, I owe entirely to you, and have always
connected my ideas of many of the perfections of Art with

B. R. HA YDON. 483
your practice  Among the recollections of my past life,
I look back with pleasure and gratitude to the time when I
began the study of a happy profession under your guidance."
The leading defect of a mind like Eastlake's was the defect
of Wilkie's, viz., a want of courage. They are both men who
have exerted their utmost ingenuity of thought to bind great
principles to the predominant tendencies of the society to
which they were admitted, instead of steadily maintaining
what they knew to be right, and bending society to that.
February IMh, 1846. — Called on Barry, and had a most inte
resting conversation. I told him that (in 1812) thirty-four years
ago, when I showed my design for the old Houses to a Minister
of State (Lord Mulgrave ?), he looked in my rosy face, and said,
" Why, Haydon, you are too young ! " Twenty-nine years later,
I hinted the thing to the Duke at Walmer, and he mumbled
out, " You are too early." Seven years after that I ask a
Boyal Commissioner (Sir E. H. Inglis) what chance I had, and
he says, " We are decided. You are too late." " Ah," said
Barry, " you are always too early, or too late ! " " Barry," said
I, " I asked an old friend of yours if you were a courtier ? and
he replied, ' Barry is a simple-minded, honest, straightforward
man.' Now, answer me — have I any chance?" "I know no
more than a child," said he. ..." I am never consulted. If
they want to know anything about a pedestal, I am sent for ;
but on anything else to me a word is never said." He went
on : "I have no influence whatever. They think me the archi
tect and nothing but. Instead of being under one mind, every
one has his crotchet. Was ever anything more ridiculous
than the present plan ? The spirit of chivalry, and such non
sense ! If ever I have any power, with a space, I'll not forget
you, but I tell you there is a tide against you in that quarter."
The vigour of my life has only made a cranny in the wall
of prejudice and ignorance, through which, it may be, a star
of light shines; whether any other will batter in a breach,
Time only can prove.
March 2Mh, 1846. — Well, it is glorious to be able to fight a
last battle — nous verrons !

484 TABLE TALK OF B. R. HA YDON.
Herb
Lieth the Bony
OF
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON,
An English Historical Painter, who, in a struggle to make the People, the
Legislature, the Nobility, and the Sovereign of England give due
dignity and rank to the highest Art, which had ever languished, and,
until the Government interferes, ever will languish in England, fell a
Victim to his ardour and his love of country ; an evidence that to seek
the benefit of your Country by telling the Truth to Power, is a crime
that can only be expiated by the ruin and destruction of the Man who
is so patriotic and so imprudent.
He was born at Plymouth, 26th January, 1786, and died on the
(22nd June), 18(46), believing in Christ as the Mediator and Advocate
of Mankind : —
" What various ills the Painter's life assail,
Pride, Envy, Want, the Patron, and the Jail."
This I wish written upon my tombstone when my day
comes.
B. E. Haydon.

Sketch for Alexander and Bucephalus. — 1826.

THE ENTD.

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