PART III

On October 16, 1884, the Houses of Parliament were burned down. 'Good God!' writes Haydon, 'I am just returned from the terrific burning of the Houses of Parliament. Mary and I went in a cab, and drove over the bridge. From the bridge it was sublime. We alighted, and went into a public-house, which was full. The feeling among the people was extraordinary--jokes and radicalism universal.... The comfort is that there is now a better prospect of painting the House of Lords. Lord Grey said there was no intention of taking the tapestry down; little did he think how soon it would go.' Haydon's hopes now rose high. For many years, as we have seen, he had been advocating, in season and out of season, the desirability of decorating national buildings with heroic paintings by native artists, and, with the need for new Houses of Parliament, it seemed as if at last his cause might triumph. Once more he attacked the good-humoured but unimpressionable Lord Melbourne, and presented another petition to Parliament through Lord Morpeth. But in any case it would be years before the new buildings were ready for decoration, and in the meantime he would have been entirely out of employment if his long-suffering landlord had not allowed him to paint off a debt with a picture of 'Achilles at the Court of Lycomedes.'

In the summer of this year Mr. Ewart obtained his Select Committee to inquire into the best means of extending a knowledge of the arts and the principles of design among the people; and further, to inquire into the constitution of the Royal Academy, and the effects produced thereby. Haydon, overjoyed at such a sign of progress, determined to aid the inquiry by giving a lecture on the subject at the London Mechanics' Institute, under the auspices of Dr. Birkbeck. The lecture was a success, for Haydon's natural earnestness and enthusiasm enabled him to interest and impress an audience, and Dr. Birkbeck assured him that he had made a 'hit.' This was the beginning of his career as a lecturer, by which for several years he earned a small but regular income. But meanwhile ruin was again staring him in the face. On September 26 he writes: 'The agony of my necessities is really dreadful. For this year I have principally supported myself by the help of my landlord, and by pawning everything of value I have left.... Lay awake in misery. Threatened on all sides. Doubtful whether to apply to the Insolvent Court to protect me, or let ruin come. Improved the picture, and not having a shilling, sent out a pair of my spectacles, and got five shillings for the day. (29th) Sent the tea-urn off the table, and got ten shillings for the day. Shall call my creditors together. In God I trust.'

The meeting of the creditors took place, and Haydon persuaded them to grant him an extension of time until June, 1836. Thus relieved from immediate anxiety he set to work on his picture with renewed zest. The most remarkable trait about him, observes his son Frederick, was his sanguine buoyancy of spirits. 'Nothing ever depressed him long. He was the most persevering, indomitable man I ever met. With us at home he was always confident of doing better next year. But that next year never came.... Blest as he was with that peculiar faculty of genius for overcoming difficulties, he might have found life tame without them. I remember his saying once, he was not sure he did not relish ruin as a source of increased activity of mind.' But the struggle had begun to tell upon his powers, if not upon his spirits, and he was now painting pictures for bread; repeating himself; despatching a work in a few days that in better times he would have spent months over; ready to paint small things, since great ones would not sell; fighting misery at the point of his brush, and obliged to eke out a livelihood by begging and borrowing, in default of worse expedients such as bills and cognovits. A less elastic temperament and a less vigorous constitution would have broken down in one year of such a fight. Haydon kept it up for ten.'

The first half of 1836 went by in the usual struggle, and in September Haydon was thrown into prison for the fourth time. On November 17 he passed through the Insolvency Court, and on the following Sunday he records: 'Went to church, and returned thanks with all my heart and soul for the great mercies of God to me and my family during my imprisonment.... (29th) Set my palette to-day, the first time these eleven weeks and three days. I relished the oil; could have tasted the colour; rubbed my cheeks with the brushes, and kissed the palette. Ah, could I be let loose in the House of Lords!' In the absence of commissions, he now turned to lecturing as a means of support. He lectured in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, as well as in London, and did good service by agitating for the establishment of local schools of design, and by arousing in the minds of the wealthy middle classes some faint appreciation of the claims of art.

A valuable result of these lectures was the extension of Haydon's acquaintance among the shrewd merchant princes of the north, who recognised his artistic sincerity, and were inclined to hold out to him a helping hand. Through the influence of Mr. Lowndes, a Liverpool art-patron, Haydon received a commission to paint a picture of 'Christ blessing Little Children,' for the Blind Asylum at Liverpool, at a price of £400. So elated was he at this unexpected piece of good fortune that, with characteristic sanguineness, he seems to have thought that all his troubles were at an end for ever. Even his pious dependence on heavenly support diminished with his freedom from care, and he notes in a Sunday entry: 'Went to church, but prosperity, though it makes me grateful, does not cause me such perpetual religious musings as adversity. When on a precipice, where nothing but God's protection can save me, I delight in religious hope, but I am sorry to say my religion ever dwindles unless kept alive by risk of ruin. My piety is never so intense as when in a prison, and my gratitude never so much alive as when I have just escaped from one.'

The year 1838 passed in comparative peace and comfort. The picture for the asylum was finished about the end of August, when Haydon congratulated his Maker on the fact that he (Haydon) had paid his rent and taxes, laid in his coals for the winter, and enjoyed health, happiness, and freedom from debt--fresh debt, be it understood--ever since this commission. Going down to Liverpool to hang his work, it was proposed to him by Mr. Lowndes that he should paint a picture of the Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo, twenty years after the battle. This was a subject after Haydon's own heart, for the Duke had always been his ideal hero, his king among men. Overflowing with pride and delight, he prays that Providence will so bless this new commission that 'the glorious city of Liverpool may possess the best historical picture, and the grandest effort of my pencil in portraiture. Inspired by history, I fear not making it the grandest thing.'

The Liverpool committee wrote to the Duke, to ask if he would consent to give sittings to Haydon, and received a promise that he would sit for his head as soon as time could be found. Meanwhile, Haydon set to work upon the horse, which was copied from portraits of Copenhagen. While he was thus engaged, D'Orsay called at the studio, and bestowed advice and criticism upon the artist, which, for once, was thankfully received. Haydon relates how D'Orsay 'took my brush in his dandy glove, which made my heart ache, and lowered the hind-quarters by bringing over a bit of the sky. Such a dress! white greatcoat, blue satin cravat, hair oiled and curling, hat of the primest curve, gloves scented with eau-de-Cologne, primrose in tint, skin in tightness. In this prime of dandyism, he took up a nasty, oily, dirty hog-tool, and immortalised Copenhagen by touching the sky. I thought after he was gone, "This won't do--a Frenchman touch Copenhagen!" So out I rubbed all he had touched, and modified his hints myself.'

As there was no chance of the Duke's being able to sit at this time, owing to the pressure of public business, Haydon made a flying visit to Brussels, in order to get local colour for the field of Waterloo. A few weeks later he was overjoyed at receiving an invitation to spend a few days at Walmer, when the Duke promised to give the desired sittings. On October 11, 1839, he went down 'by steam' to Walmer, where he was heartily welcomed by his host. His Journal contains a long and minute account of his visit, from which one or two anecdotes may be quoted. Haydon's fellow-guests were Sir Astley Cooper, Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Booth. The first evening the conversation turned, among other topics, upon the Peninsular War. '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 pulled down, and paid for, to serve as fuel. He said every Englishman who has a house goes to bed at night. He found bivouacking was not suitable to the character of the English soldier. He got drunk, and lay down under any hedge, and discipline was destroyed. But when he introduced tents, every soldier belonged to his 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 French, Spanish, and all other nations lie anywhere. It is their habit. They have no homes."'

The next morning, after his return from hunting, the Duke gave a first sitting of an hour and a half. 'I hit his grand, manly, upright expression,' writes Haydon. 'He looked like an eagle of the gods who had put on human shape, and got silvery with age and service.... I found that to imagine he could not go through any duty raised the lion. "Does the light hurt your grace's eyes?" "Not at all," and he stared at the light as much as to say, "I'll see if you shall make me give in, Signor Light." 'Twas a noble head. I saw nothing of that peculiar expression of mouth the sculptors give him, bordering on simpering. His colour was beautiful and fleshy, his lips compressed and energetic.' The next day, being Sunday, there was no sitting, but Haydon was charmed at sharing a pew with his hero, and deeply moved by the simplicity and humility with which he followed the service. 'Arthur Wellesley in the village church of Walmer,' he writes, 'was more interesting to me than at the last charge of the Guards at Waterloo, or in all the glory and paraphernalia of his entry into Paris.'

It is probable that the Duke was afraid of being attacked by Haydon on the burning question of a State grant for the encouragement of historical painting, a subject about which he had received and answered many lengthy letters, for on each evening, when there was no party, he steadily read a newspaper, the _Standard_ on Saturday, and the _Spectator_ on Sunday, while his guest watched him in silent admiration. On the Monday morning, the hero came in for another sitting, looking extremely worn, his skin drawn tight over his face, his eyes watery and aged, his head slightly nodding. 'How altered from the fresh old man after Saturday's hunting,' says Haydon. 'It affected me. He looked like an aged eagle beginning to totter from its perch.' A second sitting in the afternoon concluded the business, and early next morning Haydon left for town. 'It is curious,' he comments, 'to have known thus the two great heads of the two great parties, the Duke 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 a grander character, though Lord Grey is a fine, amiable, venerable, vain man.'

During the remainder of the year, Haydon worked steadily, and finished his picture. On December 2 he notes: 'It is now twenty-seven years since I ordered my Solomon canvas. I was young--twenty-six. The whole world was against me. I had not a farthing. Yet I remember the delight with which I mounted my deal table and dashed it in, singing and trusting in God, as I always do. When one is once imbued with that clear heavenly confidence, there is nothing like it. It has carried me through everything. I think my dearest Mary has not got it; I do not think women have in general. Two years ago I had not a farthing, having spent it all to recover her health. She said to me, "What are we to do, my dear?" I replied, "Trust in God." There was something like a smile on her face. The very next day came the order for £400 from Liverpool, and ever since I have been employed.' Alas, poor Mary! who had been chiefly occupied in bearing children and burying them, that must have been rather a melancholy smile upon her faded face.

During the first part of 1840, Haydon seems to have been chiefly engaged in lecturing, the only picture on the stocks being a small replica of his Napoleon Musing for the poet Rogers. In February he was enabled to carry out one of the dreams of his life, namely, the delivery of a series of lectures upon art in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, under the patronage of the Vice-Chancellor. The experiment was a triumphant success, and he exclaims, with his usual pious fervour, 'O God, how grateful ought I to be at being permitted the distinction of thus being the first to break down the barrier which has kept art begging to be heard at the Universities.' He describes the occasion as one of the four chief honours of his life, the other three being Wordsworth's sonnet, 'High is our calling,' the freedom of his native town, and a public dinner that was given in his honour at Edinburgh. On March 14 he arrived home, 'full of enthusiasm and expecting (like the Vicar of Wakefield) every blessing--expecting my dear Mary to hang about my neck, and welcome me after my victory; when I found her out, not calculating I should be home till dinner. I then walked into town, and when I returned she was at home, and hurt that I did not wait, so this begat mutual allusions which were anything but loving or happy. So much for anticipations of human happiness!'

On June 12,1840, Haydon notes: 'Excessively excited and exhausted. I attended the great Convention of the Anti-Slavery Society at Freemasons' Hall. Last Wednesday a deputation called on me from the Committee, saying they wished for a sketch of the scene. The meeting was very affecting. Poor old Clarkson was present, with delegates from America, and other parts of the world.' A few days later, Haydon breakfasted with Clarkson, and sketched him with 'an expression of indignant humanity.' In less than a week fifty heads were dashed in, the picture, when finished, containing no fewer than a hundred and thirty-eight; in fact, as the artist remarked, with a curious disregard of natural history, it was all heads, like a peacock's tail. Haydon took a malicious pleasure in suggesting to his sitters that he should place them beside the negro delegate; this being his test of their sincerity. Thus he notes on June 30: 'Scobell called. I said, "I shall place you, Thompson, and the negro together." Now an abolitionist, on thorough principle, would have gloried in being so placed. He sophisticated immediately on the propriety of placing the negro in the distance, as it would have much greater effect. Lloyd Garrison comes to-day. I'll try him, and this shall be my method of ascertaining the real heart.... Garrison met me directly. George Thompson said he saw no objection. But that was not enough. A man who wishes to place a negro on a level with himself must no longer regard him as having been a slave, and feel annoyed at sitting by his side.' A visit to Clarkson at Playford Hall, Ipswich, was an interesting experience. Clarkson told the story of his vision, and the midnight voice that said 'You have not done your work. There is America.' Haydon had been a believer all his life in such spiritual communications, and declares, 'I have been so acted on from seventeen to fifty-five, for the purpose of reforming and refining my great country in art.'

In 1841 the Fine Arts Committee appointed to consider the question of the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament, sat to examine witnesses, but Haydon was not summoned before them, a slight which he deeply felt. With an anxious heart he set about making experiments in fresco, and was astonished at what he regarded as his success in this new line of endeavour. During the past year, the Anti-Slavery Convention picture, and one or two small commissions, had kept his head above water, but now the clouds were beginning to gather again, his difficulties being greatly increased by the fact that he had two sons to start in the world. The eldest, Frank, had been apprenticed, at his own wish, to an engineering firm, but tiring of his chosen profession, he desired to take orders, and, as a university career was considered a necessary preliminary to this course, he was entered at Caius College, Cambridge. The second son, Frederick, Haydon fitted out for the navy, and in order to meet these heavy extra expenses, he was compelled to part with his copyright of the 'Duke at Waterloo' for a wholly inadequate sum.

In the spring of 1842 the Fine Arts Commission issued a notice of the conditions for the cartoon competition, intended to test the capacity of native artists for the decoration of the House of Lords. The joy with which Haydon welcomed this first step towards the object which he had been advocating throughout the whole of his working life, was marred by the painful misgiving that he would not be allowed to share the fruits of victory. When he had first begun his crusade, he had felt himself without a rival in his own branch of art, not one of his contemporaries being able to compete with him in a knowledge of anatomy, in strength of imagination, or in the power of working on a grand scale. But now he was fifty-six years old, there were younger men coming on who had been trained in the principles of his own school, and he was painfully aware that he had made many enemies in high places. Still, in spite of all forebodings, he continued his researches in fresco-painting, and wrote vehement letters to the papers, protesting against the threatened employment of Cornelius and other German artists.

During this year Haydon was working intermittently at two or three large pictures, 'Alexander conquering the Lion,' 'Curtius leaping into the Gulf,' and the 'Siege of Saragossa,' for the days were long past when one grand composition occupied him for six years. That the wolf was once again howling at the door is evidenced by the entry for February 6. 'I got up yesterday, after lying awake for several hours with all the old feelings of torture at want of money. A bill coming due of £44 for my boy Frank at Caius. Three commissions for £700 put off till next year. My dear Mary's health broken up.... I knew if my debt to the tutor of Caius was not paid, the mind of my son Frank would be destroyed, from his sensitiveness to honour and right. As he is now beating third-year men, I dreaded any check.' In these straits he hastily painted one or two small pot-boilers, borrowed, deferred, pawned his wife's watch, and had the satisfaction of bringing his son home 'crowned as first-prize man in mathematics.' For one who was in the toils of the money-lenders, who was only living from hand to mouth, and who had never made an investment in his life, to give his son a university career, must be regarded, according to individual feeling, either as a proof of presumptuous folly or of childlike trust in Providence.

As soon as his pictures were off his hands, Haydon began his competition cartoons of 'The Curse of Adam and Eve,' and 'The Entry of Edward the Black Prince and King John into London.' He felt that it was beneath his dignity as a painter of recognised standing to compete with young unknown men who had nothing to lose, but in his present necessities the chance of winning one of the money prizes was not to be neglected. In the absence of any lucrative employment he was only able to carry on his work by pawning his lay-figure, and borrowing off his butterman. Small wonder that he exclaims: 'The greatest curse that can befall a father in England is to have a son gifted with a passion and a genius for high art. Thank God with all my soul and all my nature, my children have witnessed the harrowing agonies under which I have ever painted, and the very name of painting, the very thought of a picture, gives them a hideous taste in their mouths. Thank God, not one of my boys, nor my girl, can draw a straight line, even with a ruler, much less without one.'

In the course of this year Haydon began a correspondence with Miss Barrett, afterwards Mrs. Browning, with whom he was never personally acquainted, though he knew her through her poems, and through the allusions to her in the letters of their common friend, Miss Mitford. The paper friendship flourished for a time, and Haydon, who was a keen judge of character, recognised that here was a little Donna Quixote whose chivalry could be depended on in time of trouble. More than once, when threatened with arrest, he sent her paintings and manuscripts, of which she took charge with sublime indifference to the fact that by so doing she might be placing herself within reach of the arm of the law. One of the pictures that were placed in her guardianship was an unfinished portrait of 'Wordsworth musing upon Helvellyn.' Miss Barrett was inspired by this work with the sonnet beginning:

'Wordsworth upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud Ebb audibly along the mountain wind';

and concluding with the fine tribute:

'A vision free And noble, Haydon, hath thine art released. No portrait this with academic air, This is the poet and his poetry.'

The year 1843 brought, as Haydon's biographer points out, 'the consummation of what he had so earnestly fought for, a competition of native artists to prove their capability for executing great monumental and decorative works; but with this came his own bitter disappointment at not being among the successful competitors. In all his struggles up to this point, Haydon had the consolation of hope that better times were coming. But now the good time for art was at hand, and he was passed over. The blow fell heavily--indeed, I may say, was mortal. He tried to cheat himself into the belief that the old hostile influences to which he attributed all his misfortunes, had been working here also, and that he should yet rise superior to their malice. He would not admit to himself that his powers were impaired--that he was less fit for great achievements in his art than he had been when he painted Solomon and Lazarus. But if he held this opinion, he held it alone. It was apparent to all, even to his warmest friends, that years of harass, humiliation, distraction, and conflict had enfeebled his energies, and led him to seek in exaggeration the effect he could no longer attain by well-measured force. His restless desire to have a hand in all that was projected for art, had wearied those in authority. He had shown himself too intractable to follow, and he had not inspired that confidence which might have given him a right to lead.'

Although Haydon loudly proclaimed his conviction that, in face of the hostility against him, his cartoons would not be successful, even though they were as perfect as Raphael's, yet it is obvious that he had not altogether relinquished hope. In a letter to his old pupil, Eastlake, who was secretary to the Fine Arts Commission, he says: 'I appeal to the Royal Commission, to the First Lord, to you the secretary, to Barry the architect, if I ought not to be indulged in my hereditary right to do this, viz., that when the houses are ready, cartoons done, colours mixed, and all at their posts, I shall be allowed, _employed_ or _not employed_, to take the brush, and dip into the _first_ colour, and put the _first_ touch on the _first_ intonaco. If that is not granted, I'll haunt every noble Lord and you, till you join my disturbed spirit on the banks of the Styx.'

On June 1, Haydon placed his two cartoons in Westminster Hall, and thanked his God that he had lived to see that day, adding with unconscious blasphemy, 'Spare my life, O Lord, until I have shown thy strength unto this generation, thy power unto that which is to come.' The miracle for which he had secretly hoped, while declaring his certainty of failure, did not happen. On June 27 he heard from Eastlake that his cartoons were not among those chosen for reward. Half stunned by the blow, anticipated though it had been, he makes but few comments on the news in his Journal, and those are written in a composed and reasonable tone. 'I went to bed last night in a decent state of anxiety,' he observes. 'It has given a great shock to my family, especially to my dear boy, Frank, and revived all the old horrors of arrest, execution, and debt. It is exactly what I expected, and is, I think, intentional.... I am wounded, and being ill from confinement, it shook me. (_July 1st_) A day of great misery. I said to my dear love, "I am not included." Her expression was a study. She said, "We shall be ruined." I looked up my letters, papers, and Journals, and sent them to my dear AEschylus Barrett. I burnt loads of private letters, and prepared for executions. Seven pounds was raised on my daughter's and Mary's dresses.'

The three money prizes were awarded to Armitage, Cope, and Watts, but it was announced that another competition, in fresco, would be held the following year, when the successful competitors would be intrusted with the decoration of the House of Lords. Haydon did not enter for this competition, but, as will presently appear, he refused to allow that he was beaten. On September 4 he removed his cartoons from Westminster Hall, with the comment: 'Thus ends the cartoon contest; and as the very first inventor and beginner of this mode of rousing the people when they were pronounced incapable of relishing refined works of art without colour, I am deeply wounded at the insult inflicted. These Journals witness under what trials I began them--how I called on my Creator for His blessing--how I trusted in Him, and how I have been degraded, insulted, and harassed. O Lord! Thou knowest best. I submit.'

During the year Haydon had finished his picture of 'Alexander and the Lion,' which he considered one of his finest works, though the British Gallery declined to hang it, and no patron offered to buy it. He had also painted for bread and cheese innumerable small replicas of 'Napoleon at St. Helena' and the 'Duke at Waterloo' for five guineas apiece. By the beginning of 1844 his spirits had outwardly revived, thanks to the anodyne of incessant labour, and he writes almost in the old buoyant vein: 'Another day of work, God be thanked! Put in the sea [in "Napoleon at St. Helena"]; a delicious tint. How exquisite is a bare canvas, sized alone, to work on; how the slightest colour, thin as water, tells; how it glitters in body; how the brush flies--now here--now there; it seems as if face, hands, sky, thought, poetry, and expression were hid in the handle, and streamed out as it touched the canvas. What magic! what fire! what unerring hand and eye! what power! what a gift of God! I bow, and am grateful.' On March 24 he came to the fatal decision to paint his own original designs for the House of Lords in a series of six large pictures, and exhibit them separately, a decision founded, as he believed, on supernatural inspiration. 'Awoke this morning,' he writes, 'with that sort of audible whisper Socrates, Columbus, and Tasso heard! "Why do you not paint your own designs for the House on your own foundation, and exhibit them?" I felt as if there was no chance of my ever being permitted to do them else, without control also. I knelt up in my bed, and prayed heartily to accomplish them, whatever might be the obstruction. I will begin them as my next great works; I feel as if they will be my last, and I think I shall then have done my duty. O God! bless the beginning, progression, and conclusion of these six great designs to illustrate the best government to regulate without cramping the energies of mankind.'

In July the frescoes sent in for competition were exhibited in Westminster Hall, and in the result six artists were commissioned to decorate the House of Lords, Maclise, Redgrave, Dyce, Cope, Horsley, and Thomas. 'I see,' writes Haydon, 'they are resolved that I, the originator of the whole scheme, shall have nothing to do with it; so I will (trusting in the great God who has brought me thus far) begin on my own inventions without employment.' The first of the series was 'Aristides hooted by the Populace,' and the conditions under which it was painted are described in his annual review of the year's work: 'I have painted a large Napoleon in four days and a half, six smaller different subjects, three Curtiuses, five Napoleons Musing, three Dukes and Copenhagens, George IV., and the Duke at Waterloo--half done Uriel--published my lectures--and settled composition of Aristides. I gave lectures at Liverpool, sometimes twice a day, and lectured at the Royal Institution. I have not been idle, but how much more I might have done!'

In 1845 Haydon exhibited his picture of 'Uriel and Satan' at the Academy, and 'after twenty-two years of abuse,' actually received a favourable notice in the _Times_, For the Uriel he was paid £200, but five other pictures remained upon his hands, their estimated value amounting to nearly a thousand pounds, and he was left to work at his _Aristides_ with barely ten shillings for current expenses, and not a single commission in prospect. 'What a pity it is,' he observes, 'that a man of my order--sincerity, perhaps genius [in the Journal a private note is here inserted, "not _perhaps_"], is not employed. What honour, what distinction would I not confer on my great country! However, it is my destiny to perform great things, not in consequence of encouragement, but in spite of opposition, and so let it be.' In the latter part of the year came one or two minor pieces of good fortune for which Haydon professed the profoundest gratitude, declaring that he was not good enough to deserve such blessings. The King of Hanover bought a Napoleon for £200, and a pupil came, who paid a like sum as premium. His son, Frank, who had taken his degree, changed his mind again about his profession, and now 'shrank from the publicity of the pulpit.' Haydon applied to Sir Robert Peel for an appointment for the youth, and Peel, who seems to have shown the utmost patience and kindness in his relations with the unfortunate artist, at once offered a post in the Record Office at £80 a year, an offer which was gladly accepted.

Thus relieved of immediate care, Haydon set to work on the second picture of his series, 'Nero playing the Lyre while Rome was burning.' The effect of his conception, as he foresaw it in his mind's eye, was so terrific that he 'fluttered, trembled, and perspired like a woman, and was obliged to sit down.' Under all the anxiety, the pressure, and the disappointment of Haydon's life, it must be remembered that there were enormous compensations in the shape of days and hours of absorbed and satisfied employment, days and hours such as seldom fall to the lot of the average good citizen and solvent householder. The following entry alone is sufficient proof that Haydon, even in his worst straits, was almost as much an object of envy as of compassion: 'Worked with such intense abstraction and delight for eight hours, with five minutes only for lunch, that though living in the noisiest quarter of all London, I never remember hearing all day a single cart, carriage, knock, cry, bark of man, woman, dog, or child. When I came out into the sunshine I said to myself, "Why, what is all this driving about?" though it has always been so for the last twenty-two years, so perfectly, delightfully, and intensely had I been abstracted. If that be not happiness, what is?'

Haydon had now staked all his hopes upon the exhibition in the spring of 1846 of the first two pictures in his series, 'Aristides' and 'Nero.' If the public flocked to see them, if it accorded him, as he expected, its enthusiastic support, he hoped that the Commission would be shamed into offering him public employment. If, on the other hand, the exhibition failed, he must have realised that he would be irretrievably ruined, with all his hopes for the future slain. Everything was to be sacrificed to this last grand effort. 'If I lose this moment for showing all my works,' he writes, 'it can never occur again. My fate hangs on doing as I ought, and seizing moments with energy. I shall never again have the opportunity of connecting myself with a great public commission by opposition, and interesting the public by the contrast. If I miss it, it will be a tide not taken at the flood.'

By dint of begging and borrowing, the money was scraped together for the opening expenses of the exhibition, and Haydon composed a sensational descriptive advertisement in the hope of attracting the public. The private view was on April 4, when it rained all day, and only four old friends attended. On April 6, Easter Monday, the public was admitted, but only twenty-one availed themselves of the privilege. For a few days Haydon went on hoping against hope that matters would improve, and that John Bull, in whose support he had trusted, would rally round him at last. But Tom Thumb was exhibiting next door, and the historical painter had no chance against the pigmy. The people rushed by in their thousands to visit Tom Thumb, but few stopped to inspect 'Aristides' or 'Nero.' 'They push, they fight, they scream, they faint,' writes Haydon, 'they see my bills, my boards, my caravans, and don't read them. Their eyes are open, but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, a furor, a dream. Tom Thumb had 12,000 people last week, B. R. Haydon 133 1/2 (the half a little girl). Exquisite taste of the English people!... (_May,_ 18_th_) I closed my exhibition this day, and lost £111, 8s. 10d. No man can accuse me of showing less energy, less spirit, less genius than I did twenty-six years ago. I have not decayed, but the people have been corrupted. I am the same, they are not; and I have suffered in consequence.'

In defiance of this shipwreck of all his hopes, and the heavy liabilities that hung about his neck, this indomitable spirit began the third picture of his unappreciated series, 'Alfred and the First British Jury.' He had large sums to pay in the coming month, and only a few shillings in the house, with no commissions in prospect. He sends up passionate and despairing petitions that God will help him in his dreadful necessities, will raise him friends from sources invisible, and enable him to finish his last and greatest works. Appeals for help to Lord Brougham, the Duke of Beaufort, and Sir Robert Peel brought only one response, a cheque for £50 from Peel, which was merely a drop in the ocean. Day by day went by, and still no commissions came in, no offers for any of the large pictures he had on hand. Haydon began to lose confidence in his ability to finish his series, and with him loss of self-confidence was a fatal sign. The June weather was hot, he was out of health, and unable to sleep at night, but he declined to send for a doctor. His brain grew confused, and at last even the power to work, that power which for him had spelt pride and happiness throughout his whole life, seemed to be leaving him.

On June 16 he writes: 'I sat from two till five staring at my picture like an idiot, my brain pressed down by anxiety, and the anxious looks of my dear Mary and the children.... Dearest Mary, with a woman's passion, wishes me at once to stop payment, and close the whole thing. I will not. I will finish my six under the blessing of God, reduce my expenses, and hope His mercy will not desert me, but bring me through in health and vigour, gratitude and grandeur of soul, to the end.' The end was nearer than he thought, for even Haydon's brave spirit could not battle for ever with adverse fate, and the collapse, when it came, was sudden. The last two or three entries in the Journal are melancholy reading.

'_June_ 18.--O God, bless me through the evils of this day. My landlord, Newton, called. I said, "I see a quarter's rent in thy face, but none from me." I appointed to-morrow night to see him, and lay before him every iota of my position. Good-hearted Newton! I said, "Don't put in an execution." "Nothing of the sort," he replied, half hurt. I sent the Duke, Wordsworth, dear Fred and Mary's heads to Miss Barrett to protect. I have the Duke's boots and hat, Lord Grey's coat, and some more heads.

'20_th_.--O God, bless us through all the evils of this day. Amen.

'21_st,_.--Slept horribly. Prayed in sorrow, and got up in agitation.

'22_nd_.--God forgive me. Amen.

FINIS OF B. R. HAYDON.

'"Stretch me no longer on this rough world"--_Lear_.'

This last entry was made between ten and eleven o'clock on the morning of June 22. Haydon had risen early, and gone out to a gunmaker's in Oxford Street, where he bought a pair of pistols. After breakfast, he asked his wife to go and spend the day with an old friend, and having affectionately embraced her, shut himself in his painting-room. Mrs. Haydon left the house, and an hour later Miss Haydon went down to the studio, intending to try and console her father in his anxieties. She found him stretched on the floor in front of his unfinished picture of 'Alfred and the First Jury,' a bullet-wound in his head, and a frightful gash across his throat. A razor and a small pistol lay by his side. On the table were his Journal, open at the last page, letters to his wife and children, his will, made that morning, and a paper headed: 'Last thoughts of B. R. Haydon; half-past ten.' These few lines, with their allusions to Wellington and Napoleon, are characteristic of the man who had painted the two great soldiers a score of times, and looked up to them as his heroes and exemplars.

'No man should use certain evil for probable good, however great the object,' so they run. 'Evil is the prerogative of the Deity. Wellington never used evil if the good was not certain. Napoleon had no such scruples, and I fear the glitter of his genius rather dazzled me. But had I been encouraged, nothing but good would have come from me, because when encouraged I paid everybody. God forgive me the evil for the sake of the good. Amen.'

This tragic conclusion to a still more tragic career created a profound sensation in society, and immense crowds followed the historical painter to his grave. Among all his friends, perhaps few were more affected by his death than one who had never looked upon his face--his 'dear Æschylus Barrett, 'as he called her. Certain it is that, with the intuition of genius, Elizabeth Barrett understood, appreciated, and made allowances for the unhappy man more completely than was possible to any other of his contemporaries. Clear-sighted to his faults and weaknesses, her chivalrous spirit took up arms in defence of his conduct, even against the strictures of her poet-lover. 'The dreadful death of poor Mr. Haydon the artist,' she wrote to her friend Mrs. Martin, a few days after the event, 'has quite upset me. I thank God that I never saw him--poor gifted Haydon.... No artist is left behind with equal largeness of poetical conception. If the hand had always obeyed the soul, he would have been a genius of the first order. As it is, he lived on the slope of genius, and could not be steadfast and calm. His life was one long agony of self-assertion. Poor, poor Haydon! See how the world treats those who try too openly for its gratitude. "Tom Thumb for ever" over the heads of its giants.'

'Could any one--_could my own hand even have averted what has happened_?' she wrote to Robert Browning on June 24, 1846. 'My head and heart have ached to-day over the inactive hand. But for the moment it was out of my power, and then I never fancied this case to be more than a piece of a continuous case, of a habit fixed. Two years ago he sent me boxes and pictures precisely so, and took them back again--poor, poor Haydon!--as he will not this time.... Also, I have been told again and again (oh, never by _you_, my beloved) that to give money _there_, was to drop it into a hole in the ground. But if to have dropped it so, dust to dust, would have saved a living man--what then?... Some day, when I have the heart to look for it, you shall see his last note. I understand now that there are touches of desperate pathos--but never could he have meditated self-destruction while writing that note. He said he should write six more lectures--six more volumes. He said he was painting a new background to a picture which made him feel as if his soul had wings... and he repeated an old phrase of his, which I had heard from him often before, and which now rings hollowly to the ears of my memory--that he _couldn't and wouldn't die_. Strange and dreadful!'

Directly after Haydon's death a public meeting of his friends and patrons was held, at which a considerable sum was subscribed for the benefit of his widow and daughter. Sir Robert Peel, besides sending immediate help, recommended the Queen to bestow a small pension on Mrs. Haydon. The dead man's debts amounted to £3000, and his assets consisted chiefly of unsaleable pictures, on most of which his creditors had liens. In his will was a clause to the effect that 'I have manuscripts and memoirs in the possession of Miss Barrett, of 50 Wimpole Street, in a chest, which I wish Longman to be consulted about. My memoirs are to 1820; my journals will supply the rest. The style, the individuality of Richardson, which I wish not curtailed by an editor.' Miss Mitford was asked to edit the Life, but felt herself unequal to the task, which was finally intrusted to Mr. Tom Taylor.

Haydon's _Memoirs_, compiled from his autobiography, journals, and correspondence, appeared in 1853, the same year that saw the publication of Lord John Russell's _Life of Thomas Moore_. To the great astonishment of both critics and public, Haydon's story proved the more interesting of the two. 'Haydon's book is the work of the year,' writes Miss Mitford. 'It has entirely stopped the sale of Moore's, which really might have been written by a Court newspaper or a Court milliner.' Again, the _Athenæum_, a more impartial witness, asks, 'Who would have thought that the Life of Haydon would turn out a more sterling and interesting addition to English biography than the Life of Moore?' But the highest testimony to the merits of the book as a human document comes from Mrs. Browning, who wrote to Miss Mitford on March 19, 1854, 'Oh, I have just been reading poor Haydon's biography. There is tragedy! The pain of it one can hardly shake off. Surely, surely, wrong was done somewhere, when the worst is admitted of Haydon. For himself, looking forward beyond the grave, I seem to understand that all things, when most bitter, worked ultimate good to him, for that sublime arrogance of his would have been fatal perhaps to the moral nature, if further developed by success. But for the nation we had our duties, and we should not suffer our teachers and originators to sink thus. It is a book written in blood of the heart. Poor Haydon!' Mr. Taylor's Life was supplemented in 1874 by Haydon's _Correspondence and Table-talk_, together with a _Memoir_ written in a tone of querulous complaint, by his second son, Frederick, who, it may be noted, had been dismissed from the public service for publishing a letter to Mr. Gladstone, entitled _Our Officials at the Home Office_, and who died in the Bethlehem Hospital in 1886. His elder brother, Frank, committed suicide in 1887.

On the subject of Haydon's merits as a painter the opinion of his contemporaries swung from one extreme to another, while that of posterity perhaps has scarcely allowed him such credit as was his due. It is certain that he was considered a youth of extraordinary promise by his colleagues, Wilkie, Jackson, and Sir George Beaumont, yet there were not wanting critics who declared that his early picture, 'Dentatus,' was an absurd mass of vulgarity and distortion. Foreign artists who visited his studio urged him to go to Rome, where he was assured that patrons and pupils would flock round him; while, on the other hand, he was described by a native critic (in the _Quarterly Review_) as one of the most defective painters of the day, who had received more pecuniary assistance, more indulgence, more liberality, and more charity than any other artist ever heard of. But the best criticism of his powers, though it scarcely takes into account the gift of imagination which received so many tributes from the poets, is that contributed to Mr. Taylor's biography by Mr. Watts, R.A.

'The characteristics of Haydon's art,' he writes, 'appear to me to be great determination and power, knowledge, and effrontery... Haydon appears to have succeeded as often as he displays any real anxiety to do so; but one is struck with the extraordinary discrepancy of different parts of the work, as though, bored by a fixed attention that had taken him out of himself, yet highly applauding the result, he had scrawled and daubed his brush about in a sort of intoxication of self-glory... In Haydon's work there is not sufficient forgetfulness of self to disarm criticism of personality. His pictures are themselves autobiographical notes of the most interesting kind; but their want of beauty repels, and their want of modesty exasperates. Perhaps their principal characteristic is lack of delicacy and refinement of execution.' While describing Haydon's touch as woolly, his surfaces as disagreeable, and his draperies as deficient in dignity, Mr. Watts admits that his expression of anatomy and general perception of form are the best by far that can be found in the English school. Haydon had looked forward in full confidence to the favourable verdict of posterity, and to an honourable position in the National Gallery for the big canvases that had been neglected by his contemporaries. It is not the least of life's little ironies that while not a single work of his now hangs in the National Gallery, his large picture of Curtius leaping into the Gulf occupies a prominent position in one of Gatti's restaurants. [Footnote: Three of Haydon's pictures, however, are the property of the nation. Two, the 'Lazarus' and 'May-day,' belong to the National Gallery, but have been lent to provincial galleries. One, the 'Christ in the Garden,' belongs to the South Kensington Museum, but has been stored away.]

As a lecturer, a theoriser, and a populariser of his art, Haydon has just claims to grateful remembrance. Though driven to paint pot-boilers for the support of his family, he never ceased to preach the gospel of high art; he was among the first to recognise and acclaim the transcendent merits of the Elgin Marbles; he rejoiced with a personal joy in the purchase of the Angerstein collection as the nucleus of a National Gallery; he scorned the ignoble fears of some of his colleagues lest the newly-started winter exhibitions of old masters should injure their professional prospects; he used his interest at Court to have Raphael's cartoons brought up to London for the benefit of students and public; he advocated the establishment of local schools of design, and, through his lectures and writings, helped to raise and educate the taste of his country.

Haydon has painted his own character and temperament in such vivid colours, that scarcely a touch need be added to the portrait. He was an original thinker, a vigorous writer, a keen observer, but from his youth up a disproportion was evident in the structure of his mind, that pointed only too clearly to insanity. His judgment, as Mr. Taylor observes, was essentially unsound in all matters where he himself was personally interested. His vanity blinded him throughout to the quality of his own work, the amount of influence he could wield, and the extent of the public sympathy that he excited. He was essentially religious in temperament, though his religion was so assertive and egotistical in type that those who hold with Rosalba that where there is no modesty there can be no religion, [Footnote: Rosalba said of Sir Godfrey Kneller, 'This man can have no religion, for he has no modesty.'] might be inclined to deny its existence. From the very outset of his career Haydon took up the attitude of a missionary of high art in England--and therewith the expectation of being crowned and enriched as its Priest and King. He clung to the belief that a man who devoted himself to the practice of a high and ennobling art ought to be supported by a grateful country, or at least by generous patrons, and he could never be made to realise that Art is a stern and jealous mistress, who demands material sacrifices from her votaries in exchange for spiritual compensations. If a man desires to create a new era in the art of his country, he must be prepared to lead a monastic life in a garret; but if, like Haydon, he allows himself a wife and eight children, and professes to be unable to live on five hundred a year, he must condescend to the painting of portraits and pot-boilers. The public cannot be forced to support what it neither understands nor admires, and, in a democratic state, the Government is bound to consult the taste of its masters.

Haydon's financial embarrassments were perhaps the least of his trials. As has been seen, he had fallen into the hands of the money-lenders in early youth, and he had never been able to extricate himself from their clutches. But so many of his friends and colleagues--Godwin, Leigh Hunt, and Sir Thomas Lawrence among others--were in the same position, that Haydon must have felt he was insolvent in excellent company. As long as he was able to keep himself out of prison and the bailiffs out of his house, he seems to have considered that his affairs were positively nourishing, and at their worst his financial difficulties alone would never have driven him to self-destruction. Mrs. Browning was surely right when she wrote:--'The more I think the more I am inclined to conclude that the money irritation was merely an additional irritation, and that the despair, leading to revolt against life, had its root in disappointed ambition. The world did not recognise his genius, and he punished the world by withdrawing the light... All the audacity and bravery and self-calculation, which drew on him so much ridicule, were an agony in disguise--he could not live without reputation, and he wrestled for it, struggled for it, _kicked_ for it, forgetting grace of attitude in the pang. When all was vain he went mad and died... Poor Haydon! Think what an agony life was to him, so constituted!--his own genius a clinging curse! the fire and the clay in him seething and quenching one another!--the man seeing maniacally in all men the assassins of his fame! and with the whole world against him, struggling for the thing that was his life, through day and night, in thoughts and in dreams ... struggling, stifling, breaking the hearts of the creatures dearest to him, in the conflict for which there was no victory, though he could not choose but fight it. Tell me if Laocoön's anguish was not as an infant's sleep compared to this.'

Haydon wrote his own epitaph, and this, which he, at least, believed to be an accurate summary of his misfortunes and their cause, may fitly close this brief outline of his troubled life:--

'HERE LIETH THE BODY

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 has 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 of January 1786, and died on the [22nd of 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."'

LADY MORGAN (SYDNEY OWENSON)

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