There is something very interesting in the impression one receives of
the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham calls John Opie--the man
who did not paint to live so much as live to paint. He was a simple,
high-minded Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were
unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, like some
deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever aspired upwards towards
the light. His ideal was high; his performance fell far short of his
life-long dream, and he knew it. But his heart never turned from its
life's aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing
devotion which makes a man great, even though his achievements do not
show all he should have been.
The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him to succeed to
the business, was often angry, and loudly railed at the boy when good
white-washed walls and clean boards were spoiled by scrawls of
lamp-black and charcoal. John worked in the shop and obeyed his father,
but when his day's task was over he turned again to his darling
pursuits. At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also
rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a butterfly; by
the time John was sixteen he could earn as much as 7_s._ 6_d._ for a
portrait. It was in this year that there came to Truro an accomplished
and various man Dr. Wolcott--sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of
medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary man. This
gentleman was interested by young Opie and his performances, and
he asked him on one occasion how he liked painting. 'Better than
bread-and-butter,' says the boy. Wolcott finally brought his _protégé_
to London, where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted merit
brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement he suddenly found
himself the fashion. His street was crowded with carriages; long
processions of ladies and gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to
furnish a house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was beginning
to put by money when, as suddenly as he had been taken up, he was
forgotten again. The carriages drove off in some other direction, and
Opie found himself abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions,
which would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. It might
have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a man whose aim had been
less single. But Opie was of too generous a nature to value popularity
beyond achievement. He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with
great equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it was not by
the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own consciousness of
failure, of inadequate performance. Troubles even more serious than loss
of patronage and employment befell him later. He had married, unhappily
for himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he has painted
many times. She was a faithless as well as a weak and erring wife,
and finally abandoned him. When Opie was free to marry again he was
thirty-six, a serious, downright man of undoubted power and influence,
of sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual manners.
He had not many friends, nor did he wish for many, but those who knew
him valued him at his worth. His second wife showed what was in her by
her appreciation of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise a
greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in character, in
training, and disposition. They were married in London, at Marylebone
Church, in that dismal year of '98, which is still remembered. Opie
loved his wife deeply and passionately; he did not charm her, though she
charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect and admiration.