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LITTLE MEMOIRS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
BY GEORGE PASTON
1902
PREFACE
_For these sketches of minor celebrities of the nineteenth century,
it has been my aim to choose subjects whose experiences seem to
illustrate the life--more especially the literary and artistic
life--of the first half of the century; and who of late years, at any
rate, have not been overwhelmed by the attentions of the minor
biographer. Having some faith in the theory that the verdict of
foreigners is equivalent to that of contemporary posterity, I have
included two aliens in the group. A visitor to our shores, whether he
be a German princeling like Pückler-Muskau, or a gilded democrat like
N. P. Willis, may be expected to observe and comment upon many traits
of national life and manners that would escape the notice of a native
chronicler.
Whereas certain readers of a former volume--'Little Memoirs of the
Eighteenth Century'--seem to have been distressed by the fact that the
majority of the characters died in the nineteenth century, it is
perhaps meet that I should apologise for the chronology of this
present volume, in which all the heroes and heroines, save one, were
born in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. But I would
venture to submit that a man is not, necessarily, the child of the
century in which he is born, or of that in which he dies; rather is he
the child of the century which sees the finest flower of his
achievement._
CONTENTS
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON,
LADY MORGAN (SYDNEY OWENSON)
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
LADY HESTER STANHOPE
PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND
WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON,
LADY MORGAN
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
LADY HESTER STANHOPE ON HORSEBACK
LADY HESTER STANHOPE IN EASTERN COSTUME
PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU
MARY HOWITT
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON
PART I
If it be true that the most important ingredient in the composition of
the self-biographer is a spirit of childlike vanity, with a blend of
unconscious egoism, few men have ever been better equipped than Haydon
for the production of a successful autobiography. In naïve simplicity
of temperament he has only been surpassed by Pepys, in fulness
of self-revelation by Rousseau, and his _Memoirs_ are not
unworthy of a place in the same category as the _Diary_ and the
_Confessions_. From the larger public, the work has hardly
attracted the attention it deserves; it is too long, too minute, too
heavily weighted with technical details and statements of financial
embarrassments, to be widely or permanently popular. But as a human
document, and as the portrait of a temperament, its value can hardly
be overestimated; while as a tragedy it is none the less tragic
because it contains elements of the grotesque. Haydon set out with the
laudable intention of writing the exact truth about himself and his
career, holding that every man who has suffered for a principle, and
who has been unjustly persecuted and oppressed, should write his own
history, and set his own case before his countrymen. It is a fortunate
accident for his readers that he should have been gifted with the
faculty of picturesque expression and an exceptionally keen power of
observation. If not a scholar, he was a man of wide reading, of deep
though desultory thinking, and a good critic where the work of others
was concerned. He seems to have desired to conceal nothing, nor to set
down aught in malice; if he fell into mistakes and misrepresentations,
these were the result of unconscious prejudice, and the exaggerative
tendency of a brain that, if not actually warped, trembled on the
border-line of sanity. He hoped that his mistakes would be a warning
to others, his successes a stimulus, and that the faithful record of
his struggles and aspirations would clear his memory from the
aspersions that his enemies had cast upon it.
Haydon was born at Plymouth on January 26, 1786. He was the lineal
descendant of an ancient Devonshire family, the Haydons of Cadbay, who
had been ruined by a Chancery suit a couple of generations earlier,
and had consequently taken a step downwards in the social scale. His
grandfather, who married Mary Baskerville, a descendant of the famous
printer, set up as a bookseller in Plymouth, and, dying in 1773,
bequeathed his business to his son Benjamin, the father of our hero.
This Benjamin, who married the daughter of a Devonshire clergyman
named Cobley, was a man of the old-fashioned, John Bull type, who
loved his Church and king, believed that England was the only great
country in the world, swore that Napoleon won all his battles by
bribery, and would have knocked down any man who dared to disagree
with him. The childhood of the future historical painter was a
picturesque and stirring period, filled with the echoes of revolution
and the rumours of wars. The Sound was crowded with fighting ships
preparing for sea, or returning battered and blackened, with wounded
soldiers on board and captured vessels in tow. Plymouth itself was
full of French prisoners, who made little models of guillotines out of
their meat-bones, and sold them to the children for the then
fashionable amusement of 'cutting off Louis XVI.'s head.'
Benjamin was sent to the local grammar-school, whose headmaster, Dr.
Bidlake, was a man of some culture, though not a deep classic. He
wrote poetry, encouraged his pupils to draw, and took them for country
excursions, with a view to fostering their love of nature. Mr. Haydon,
though he was proud of Benjamin's early attempts at drawing, had no
desire that he should be turned into an artist, and becoming alarmed
at Dr. Bidlake's dilettante methods, he transferred his son to the
Plympton Grammar-school, where Sir Joshua Reynolds had been educated,
with strict injunctions to the headmaster that the boy was on no
account to have drawing-lessons. On leaving school at sixteen,
Benjamin, after, a few months with a firm of accountants at Exeter,
was bound apprentice to his father for seven years, and it was then
that his troubles began.
'I hated day-books, ledgers, bill-books, and cashbooks,' he tells us.
'I hated standing behind the counter, and insulted the customers; I
hated the town and all the people in it.' At last, after a quarrel
with a customer who tried to drive a bargain, this proud spirit
refused to enter the shop again. In vain his father pointed out to him
the folly of letting a good business go to ruin, of refusing a
comfortable independence--all argument was vain. An illness, which
resulted in inflammation of the eyes, put a stop to the controversy
for the time being; but on recovery, with his sight permanently
injured, the boy still refused to work out his articles, but wandered
about the town in search of casts and books on art. He bought a fine
copy of Albinus at his father's expense, and in a fortnight, with his
sister to aid, learnt all the muscles of the body, their rise and
insertion, by heart. He stumbled accidentally on Reynold's
_Discourses_, and the first that he read placed so much reliance
on honest industry, and expressed so strong a conviction that all men
are equal in talent, and that application makes all the difference,
that the would-be artist, who hitherto had been held back by some
distrust of his natural powers, felt that at last his destiny was
irrevocably fixed. He announced his intention of adopting an
art-career with a determination that demolished all argument, and, in
spite of remonstrances, reproaches, tears, and scoldings, he wrung
from his father permission to go to London, and the promise of support
for the next two years.
On May 14, 1804, at the age of eighteen, young Haydon took his place
in the mail, and made his first flight into the world. Arriving at the
lodgings that had been taken for him in the Strand in the early
morning, he had no sooner breakfasted than he set off for Somerset
House, to see the Royal Academy Exhibition. Looking round for
historical pictures, he discovered that Opie's 'Gil Bias' was the
centre of attraction in one room, and Westall's 'Shipwrecked Boy' in
another.
'I don't fear you,' he said to himself as he strode away. His next
step was to inquire for a plaster-shop, where he bought the Laocoön
and other casts, and then, having unpacked his Albinus, he was hard at
work before nine next morning drawing from the round, and breathing
aspirations for High Art, and defiance to all opposition. 'For three
months,' he tells us, 'I saw nothing but my books, my casts, and my
drawings. My enthusiasm was immense, my devotion for study that of a
martyr. I rose when I woke, at three or four, drew at anatomy till
eight, in chalks from casts from nine till one, and from half-past two
till five--then walked, dined, and to anatomy again from seven till
ten or eleven. I was resolute to be a great painter, to honour my
country, and to rescue the Art from that stigma of incapacity that was
impressed upon it.
After some months of solitary study, Haydon bethought him of a letter
of introduction that had been given him to Prince Hoare, who was
something of a critic, having himself failed as an artist. Hoare
good-naturedly encouraged the youth in his ambitions, and gave him
introductions to Northcote, Opie, and Fuseli.
To Northcote, who was a Plymouth man, Haydon went first, and he gives
a curious account of his interview with his distinguished
fellow-countryman, who also had once cherished aspirations after high
art. Northcote, a little wizened old man, with a broad Devonshire
accent, exclaimed on hearing that his young visitor intended to be a
historical painter: 'Heestorical painter! why, ye'll starve with a
bundle of straw under yeer head.' As for anatomy, he declared that it
was no use. 'Sir Joshua didn't know it; why should you want to know
what he didn't? Michael Angelo! What's he to do here? You must paint
portraits here.' 'I won't,' said young Haydon, clenching his teeth,
and he marched off to Opie. He found a coarse-looking, intellectual
man who, after reading the introductory letter, said quietly, 'You are
studying anatomy--master it--were I your age, I would do the same.'
The last visit was to Fuseli, who had a great reputation for the
terrible, both as artist and as man. The gallery into which the
visitor was ushered was so full of devils, witches, ghosts, blood and
thunder, that it was a palpable relief when nothing more alarming
appeared than a little old and lion-faced man, attired in a flannel
dressing-gown, with the bottom of Mrs. Fuseli's work-basket on his
head! Fuseli, who had just been appointed Keeper of Academy, received
the young man kindly, praised his drawings, and expressed a hope that
he would see him at the Academy School.
After the Christmas vacation of 1805, Haydon began to attend the
Academy classes, where he struck up a close friendship with John
Jackson, afterwards a popular portrait-painter and Royal Academician,
but then a student like himself. Jackson was the son of a village
tailor in Yorkshire, and the _protége_ of Lord Mulgrave and Sir
George Beaumont. The two friends told each other their plans for the
future, drew together in the evenings, and made their first
life-studies from a friendly coalheaver whom they persuaded to sit to
them. After a few months of hard work, Haydon was summoned home to
take leave of his father, who was believed to be dying. The invalid
recovered, and then followed another period of torture for the young
student--aunts, uncles, and cousins all trying to drive the stray
sheep back into the commercial fold. Exhausted by the struggle, Haydon
at last consented to relinquish his career, and enter the business.
Great was his delight and surprise when his father refused to accept
the sacrifice--which was made in anything but a cheerful spirit--and
promised to contribute to his support until he was able to provide for
himself.
In the midst of all these domestic convulsions came a letter from
Jackson, containing the announcement that there was 'a raw, tall,
pale, queer Scotchman just come up, an odd fellow, but with something
in him. He is called Wilkie.' 'Hang the fellow!' said Haydon to
himself. 'I hope with his "something" he is not going to be a
historical painter.' On his return to town, our hero made the
acquaintance of the queer young Scotchman, and was soon admitted to
his friendship and intimacy. Wilkie's 'Village Politicians' was the
sensation of the Exhibition of 1806, and brought him two important
commissions--one from Lord Mulgrave for the 'Blind Fiddler,' and the
other from Sir George Beaumont for the 'Rent-Day.' It was now
considered that Wilkie's fortune was made, his fame secure, and if his
two chief friends--Haydon and Jackson--could not help regarding him
with some natural feelings of envy, it is evident that his early
success encouraged them, and stimulated them to increased effort.
Haydon had been learning fresh secrets in his art, partly from an
anatomical 'subject' that he had obtained from a surgeon, and partly
from his introduction, through the good offices of Jackson, to the
works of Titian at Stafford House, and in other private collections,
there being as yet no National Gallery where the student could study
the old masters at his pleasure. Haydon was now panting to begin his
first picture, his natural self-confidence having been strengthened by
a letter from Wilkie, who reported that Lord Mulgrave, with whom he
was staying, was much interested in what he had heard of Haydon's
ambitions. Lord Mulgrave had suggested a heroic subject--the Death of
Dentatus--which he would like to see painted, and he wished to know if
this commended itself to Haydon's ideas. This first commission for a
great historical picture--for so he understood the suggestion--was a
triumph for the young artist, who felt himself gloriously rewarded for
two years of labour and opposition. He had, however, already decided
on the subject of his first attempt--Joseph and Mary resting on the
road to Egypt. On October 1,1806, after setting his palette, and
taking his brush in hand, he knelt down, in accordance with his
invariable custom throughout his career, and prayed fervently that God
would bless his work, grant him energy to create a new era in art, and
rouse the people to a just estimate of the moral value of historical
painting.
Then followed a happy time. The difficulties of a first attempt were
increased by his lack of systematic training, but Haydon believed,
with Sir Joshua, that application made the artist, and he certainly
spared no pains to achieve success. He painted and repainted his heads
a dozen times, and used to mix tints on a piece of paper, and carry
them down to Stafford House once a week in order to compare them with
the colouring of the Titians. While this work was in progress, Sir
George and Lady Beaumont called to see the picture, which they
declared was very poetical, and 'quite large enough for anything' (the
canvas was six feet by four), and invited the artist to dinner. This
first dinner-party, in what he regarded as 'high life,' was an
alarming ordeal for the country youth, who made prodigious
preparations, drove to the house in a state of abject terror, and in
five minutes was sitting on an ottoman, talking to Lady Beaumont, and
more at ease than he had ever been in his life. In truth, bashfulness
was never one of Haydon's foibles.
The Joseph and Mary took six months to paint, and was exhibited in
1807. It was considered a remarkable work for a young student, and was
bought the following year by Mr. Hope of Deepdene. During the season,
Haydon was introduced to Lord Mulgrave, and with his friends Wilkie
and Jackson frequently dined at the Admiralty, [Footnote: Lord
Mulgrave had recently been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.]
where they met ministers, generals, great ladies and men of genius,
and rose daily in hope and promise. Haydon now began the picture of
the 'Death of Siccius Dentatus' that his patron had suggested, but he
found the difficulties so overwhelming that, by Wilkie's advice, he
decided to go down to Plymouth for a few months, and practise
portrait-painting. At fifteen guineas a head, he got plenty of
employment among his friends and relations, though he owns that his
portraits were execrable; but as soon as he had obtained some facility
in painting heads, he was anxious to return to town to finish his
large picture. Mrs. Haydon was now in declining health, and desiring
to consult a famous surgeon in London, she decided to travel thither
with her son and daughter. Unfortunately her disease, angina pectoris,
was aggravated by the agitation of the journey, and on the road, at
Salt Hill, she was seized with an attack that proved fatal. Haydon was
obliged to return to Devonshire with his sister, but as soon as the
funeral was over he set off again for town, where his prospects seemed
to justify his exchanging his garret in the Strand for a first floor
in Great Marlborough Street.
He found the practice gained in portrait-painting a substantial
advantage, but he still felt himself incapable of composing a heroic
figure for Dentatus. 'If I copied nature my work was mean,' he
complains; 'and if I left her it was mannered. How was I to build a
heroic form like life, yet above life?' He was puzzled to find, in
painting from the living model, that the markings of the skin varied
with the action of the limbs, variations that did not appear in the
few specimens of the antique that had come under his notice. Was
nature wrong, he asked himself, or the antique? During this period of
indecision and confusion came a proposal from Wilkie that they should
go together to inspect the Elgin Marbles then newly arrived in
England, and deposited at Lord Elgin's house in Park Lane. Haydon
carelessly agreed, knowing nothing of the wonders he was to see, and
the two friends proceeded to Park Lane, where they were ushered
through a yard to a dirty shed, in which lay the world-famous Marbles.
'The first thing I fixed my eyes on,' to quote Haydon's own words,
'was the wrist of a figure in one of the female groups, in which were
visible the radius and ulna. I was astonished, for I had never seen
them hinted at in any wrist in the antique. I darted my eye to the
elbow, and saw the outer condyle visibly affecting the shape, as in
nature. That combination of nature and repose which I had felt was so
much wanting for high art was here displayed to midday conviction. My
heart beat. If I had seen nothing else, I had beheld sufficient to
help me to nature for the rest of my life. But when I turned to the
Theseus, and saw that every form was altered by action or repose-when
I saw that the two sides of his back varied as he rested on his elbow;
and again, when in the figure of the fighting metope, I saw the muscle
shown under one armpit in that instantaneous action of darting out,
and left out in the other armpits; when I saw, in short, the most
heroic style of art, combined with all the essential detail of
everyday life, the thing was done at once and for ever.... Here were
the principles which the great Greeks in their finest time
established, and here was I, the most prominent historical student,
perfectly qualified to appreciate all this by my own determined mode
of study.'
On returning to his painting-room, Haydon, feeling utterly disgusted
with his attempt at the heroic in the form and action of Dentatus,
obliterated what he calls 'the abominable mass,' and breathed as if
relieved of a nuisance. Through Lord Mulgrave he obtained an order to
draw from the Marbles, and devoted the next three months to mastering
their secrets, and bringing his hand and mind into subjection to the
principles that they displayed. 'I rose with the sun,' he writes, with
the glow of his first enthusiasm still upon him, 'and opened my eyes
to the light only to be conscious of my high pursuit. I sprang from my
bed, dressed like one possessed, and passed the day, noon, and the
night, in the same dream of abstracted enthusiasm; secluded from the
world, regardless of its feelings, impregnable to disease, insensible
to contempt.' He painted his heads, figures, and draperies over and
over again, feeling that to obliterate was the only way to improve.
His studio soon filled with fashionable folk, who came to see the
'extraordinary picture painted by a young man who had never had the
advantages of foreign travel.' Haydon believed, with the simplicity of
a child, in all these flattering prophecies of glory and fame, and
imagined that the Academy would welcome with open arms so promising a
student, one, moreover, who had been trained in its own school. He
redoubled his efforts, and in March 1809, 'Dentatus' was finished.
'The production of this picture,' he naively explains, 'must and will
be considered as an epoch in English art. The drawing in it was
correct and elevated, and the perfect forms and system of the antique
were carried into painting, united with the fleshy look of everyday
life. The colour, light and shadow, the composition and the telling of
the story were complete.' His contemporaries did not form quite so
flattering an estimate of the work. It was badly hung, a fate to which
many an artist of three-and-twenty has had to submit, before and
since; but Haydon writes as if no such injustice had been committed
since the world began, and was persuaded that the whole body of
Academicians was leagued in spite and jealousy against him. Lord
Mulgrave gave him sixty guineas in addition to the hundred he had
first promised, which seems a fair price for the second work of an
obscure artist, but poor Haydon fancied that his professional
prospects had suffered from the treatment of the Academy, that people
of fashion (on whose attentions he set great store) were neglecting
him, and that he was a marked man. A sea-trip to Plymouth with Wilkie
gave his thoughts a new and more healthy turn. Together, the friends
visited Sir Joshua's birthplace, and roamed over the moors and combes
of Devonshire. Before returning to town, they spent a delightful
fortnight with Sir George Beaumont at Coleorton, where, says Haydon,
'we dined with the Claude and Rembrandt before us, and breakfasted
with the Rubens landscape, and did nothing, morning, noon, and night,
but think of painting, talk of painting, and wake to paint again.'
During this visit, Sir George gave Haydon a commission for a picture
on a subject from _Macbeth_. After it was begun, he objected to
the size, but our artist, who, throughout his life, detested painting
cabinet pictures, refused to attempt anything on a smaller scale. He
persuaded Sir George to withhold his decision until the picture was
finished, and promised that if he still objected to the size, he would
paint him another on any scale he pleased. While engaged on 'Macbeth,'
he competed with 'Dentatus' for a hundred guinea prize offered by the
Directors of the British Gallery for the best historical picture.
'Dentatus' won the prize, but this piece of good fortune was
counterbalanced by a letter from Mr. Haydon, senior, containing the
announcement that he could no longer afford to maintain his son. This
was a heavy blow, but after turning over pros and cons in his own
mind, Haydon came to the conclusion that since he had won the hundred
guinea prize, he had a good chance of winning a three hundred guinea
prize, which the Directors now offered, with his 'Macbeth,' and
consequently that he had no occasion to dread starvation. 'Thus
reasoning,' he says, 'I borrowed, and praying God to bless my
emotions, went on more vigorously than ever. _And here began debt
and obligation, out of which I have never been, and shall never be,
extricated, as long as I live.'_
This prophecy proved only too true. But Haydon, though he afterwards
bitterly regretted his folly in exchanging independence for debt, and
his pride in refusing to paint pot-boilers in the intervals of his
great works, firmly believed that he, with his high aims and fervent
desire to serve the cause of art, was justified in continuing his
ambitious course, and depending for maintenance on the contributions
of his friends. Nothing could exceed the approbation of his own
conduct, or shake his faith in his own powers. 'I was a virtuous and
diligent youth,' he assures us; 'I never touched wine, dined at
reasonable chop-houses, lived principally in my study, and cleaned my
own brushes, like the humblest student.' He goes to see Sebastian del
Piombo's 'Lazarus' in the Angerstein collection, and, after writing a
careful criticism of the work, concludes: 'It is a grand picture; a
great acquisition to the country, and an honour to Mr. Angerstein's
taste and spirit in buying it; yet if God cut not my life permanently
short, I hope I shall leave one behind me that will do more honour to
my country than this has done to Rome. In short, if I live, I will--I
feel I shall, (God pardon me if this is presumption. June 31, 1810.)'
At this time Haydon devoted a good deal of his leisure to reading
classic authors, Homer, Æschylus, and Virgil, in order to tune his
mind to high thoughts. Nearly every day he spent a few hours in
drawing from the Elgin Marbles, and he piously thanks God that he was
in existence on their arrival. He spared no pains to ensure that his
'Macbeth' should be perfect in poetry, expression, form and colour,
making casts and studies without end. His friends related, as a
wonderful specimen of his conscientiousness, that, after having
completed the figure of Macbeth, he took it out in order to raise it
higher in the picture, believing that this would improve the effect.
'The wonder in ancient Athens would have been if I had suffered him to
remain,' he observes. 'Such is the state of art in this country!'
In 1811 Haydon entered into his first journalistic controversy, an
unfortunate departure, as it turned out, since it gave him a taste for
airing his ideas in print. Leigh Hunt, to whom he had been introduced
a year or two before, had attacked one of his theories, relative to a
standard figure, in the _Examiner_. Haydon replied, was replied
to himself, and thoroughly enjoyed the controversy which, he says,
consolidated his powers of verbal expression. Leigh Hunt he describes
as a fine specimen of a London editor, with his bushy hair, black
eyes, pale face, and 'nose of taste.' He was assuming yet moderate,
sarcastic yet genial, with a smattering of everything and mastery of
nothing; affecting the dictator, the poet, the politician, the critic,
and the sceptic, whichever would, at the moment, give him the air, to
inferior minds, of a very superior man.' Although Haydon disliked
Hunt's 'Cockney peculiarities,' and disapproved of his republican
principles, yet the fearless honesty of his opinions, the unhesitating
sacrifice of his own interests, the unselfish perseverance of his
attacks upon all abuses, whether royal or religious, noble or
democratic, made a deep impression on the young artist's mind.
Towards the end of 1811 the new picture, which represents Macbeth
stepping between the sleeping grooms to murder the king, was finished,
and sent to the British Gallery. It was well hung, and was praised by
the critics, but Sir George declined to take it, though he offered to
pay Haydon a hundred pounds for his trouble, or to give him a
commission for a picture on a smaller scale. Haydon petulantly refused
both offers, and thus after three years' work, and incurring debts to
the amount of six hundred pounds, he found himself penniless, with his
picture returned on his hands. This disappointment was only the
natural result of his own impracticable temperament, but to Haydon's
exaggerative sense the whole world seemed joined in a conspiracy
against him. 'Exasperated by the neglect of my family,' he writes,
'tormented by the consciousness of debt, cut to the heart by the
cruelty of Sir George, and enraged at the insults of the Academy, I
became furious.' His fury, unfortunately, found vent in an attack upon
the Academy and its methods, through the medium of the _Examiner_,
which was the recognised vehicle of all attacks upon authority.
The onslaught seems to have been justified, though whether
it was judicious is another question. The ideals of English artists
during the early years of the nineteenth century had sunk very low,
and the standard of public taste was several degrees lower.
Portrait-painting was the only lucrative branch of art, and the
Academy was almost entirely in the hands of the portrait-painters, who
gave little encouragement to works of imagination. The burden of the
patron, which had been removed from literature, still rested upon
painting, and the Academicians found it more to their interest to
foster the ignorance than to educate the taste of the patron.
Over the signature of 'An English Student,' Haydon not only exposed
the inefficiency of the Academy, but advocated numerous reforms, chief
among them being an improved method of election, the establishment of
schools of design, a reduction in the power of the Council, and an
annual grant of public money for purposes of art. In these days, when
the Academicians are no longer regarded as a sacred body, it is hard
to realise the commotion that these letters made in art circles,
whether professional or amateur. The identity of the 'English Student'
was soon discovered, and 'from that moment,' writes Haydon, 'the
destiny of my life was changed. My picture was caricatured, my name
detested, my peace harassed. I was looked at like a monster, abused
like a plague, and avoided like a maniac.' There is probably some
characteristic exaggeration in this statement, but considering the
power wielded at this time by the Academy and its supporters, Haydon
would undoubtedly have done better, from a worldly point of view, to
keep clear of these controversies. The prudent and sensible Wilkie was
much distressed at his friend's ebullition of temper, and earnestly
advised him to follow up the reputation his brush had gained for him,
and leave the pen alone. 'In moments of depression,' wrote Haydon,
many years later, 'I often wished I had followed Wilkie's advice, but
then I should never have acquired that grand and isolated reputation,
solitary and unsupported, which, while it encumbers the individual,
inspires him with vigour proportioned to the load.'
On April 3, 1812, Haydon records in his journal: 'My canvas came home
for Solomon, twelve feet ten inches by ten feet ten inches--a grand
size. God in heaven, grant me strength of body and vigour of mind to
cover it with excellence. Amen--on my knees.' His design was to paint
a series of great ideal works, that should stand comparison with the
productions of the old masters, and he had chosen the somewhat
stereotyped subject of the Judgment of Solomon, because Raphael and
Rubens had both tried it, and he intended to tell the story better! He
was now, at the beginning of this ambitious project, entirely without
means. His father had died, and left him nothing, and his 'Macbeth'
had not won the £300 premium at the British Gallery. His aristocratic
friends had temporarily deserted him, but the Hunts assisted him with
the ready liberality of the impecunious. John lent him small sums of
money, while Leigh offered him a plate at his table till Solomon was
finished, and initiated him into the mysteries of drawing and
discounting bills.
Haydon already owed his landlord two hundred pounds, but that seemed
to him no reason for moving into cheaper rooms. He called the man up,
and represented to him that he was about to paint a great masterpiece,
which would take him two years, during which period he would earn
nothing, and be unable to pay any rent. The landlord, surely a unique
specimen of his order, deliberated rather ruefully over the prospect
set before him, rubbed his chin, and muttered: 'I should not like ye
to go--it's hard for both of us; but what I say is, you always paid me
when you could, and why should you not again when you are able?...
Well, sir, here's my hand; I'll give you two years more, and if this
does not sell--why then, sir, we'll consider what is to be done.'
Thus a roof was provided, but there was still dinner to be thought of,
since, if a man works, he must also eat. 'I went to the house [John o'
Groat's] where I had always dined,' writes Haydon, 'intending to dine
without paying for that day. I thought the servants did not offer me
the same attention. I thought I perceived the company examine me--I
thought the meat was worse. My heart sank, as I said falteringly, "I
will pay you to-morrow." The girl smiled, and seemed interested. As I
was escaping with a sort of lurking horror, she said, "Mr. Haydon, my
master wishes to see you." "My God," thought I, "it is to tell me he
can't trust!" In I walked like a culprit. "Sir, I beg your pardon, but
I see by the papers you have been ill-used; I hope you won't be
angry--I mean no offence; but I just wish to say, as you have dined
here many years and always paid, if it would be a convenience during
your present work to dine here till it is done--so that you may not be
obliged to spend your money here when you may want it--I was going to
say that you need be under no apprehension--hem! for a dinner."' This
handsome offer was condescendingly accepted, and the good man seemed
quite relieved.
While Solomon was slowly progressing at the expense of the landlord
and the eating-house keeper, Haydon spent his leisure in literary
rather than artistic circles. At Leigh Hunt's he met, and became
intimate with Charles Lamb, Keats, Hazlitt, and John Scott. In January
1813 he writes: 'Spent the evening with Leigh Hunt at West End. His
society is always delightful. I do not know a purer, more virtuous
partner, or a more witty and enlivening man. We talked of his
approaching imprisonment. He said it would be a great pleasure if he
were certain to be sent to Newgate, because he should be in the midst
of his friends.' Hazlitt won our hero's liking by praising his
'Macbeth.' 'Thence began a friendship,' Haydon tells us, 'for that
interesting man, that singular mixture of friend and fiend, radical
and critic, metaphysician, poet, and painter, on whose word no one
could rely, on whose heart no one could calculate, and some of whose
deductions he himself would try to explain in vain.... Mortified at
his own failure [in painting] he resolved that as he had not
succeeded, no one else should, and he spent the whole of his
after-life in damping the ardour, chilling the hopes, and dimming the
prospects of patrons and painters, so that after I once admitted him,
I had nothing but forebodings of failure to bear up against, croakings
about the climate, and sneers at the taste of the public.'
By the beginning of 1814 Solomon was approaching completion, but the
artist had been reduced to living for a fortnight on potatoes. He had
now been nearly four years without a commission, and three without any
help from home, so that it is not surprising to learn that he felt
completely broken down in body and mind, or that his debts amounted to
£1100. A frame was procured on credit, and, failing any more suitable
place of exhibition, the picture was sent to the Water-colour Society.
At the private view, the Princess of Wales and other eminent critics
pronounced against the Solomon, but as soon as the public were
admitted, the tune changed, and John Bull vowed it was the finest work
of art ever produced in England. If posterity has not indorsed this
judgment, the Solomon is at least regarded, by competent critics, as
Haydon's most successful work. 'Before the doors had been open half an
hour,' writes Haydon, 'a gentleman opened his pocket-book, and showed
me a £500 note. "Will you take it?" My heart beat--my agonies of want
pressed, but it was too little. I trembled out, "I cannot." The
gentleman invited me to dine, and when we were sitting over our wine,
agreed to give me my price. His lady said, "But, my dear, where am I
to put my piano?" and the bargain was at an end!' On the third day Sir
George Beaumont and Mr. Holwell Carr came to the Exhibition, having
been deputed to buy the picture for the British Gallery. While they
were discussing its merits, one of the officials went over, and put
'sold' on the frame, whereupon the artist says he thought he should
have fainted. The work had been bought at the price asked, £700, by
two Plymouth bankers, Sir William Elford (the friend and correspondent
of Miss Mitford) and Mr. Tingecombe.
Poor Haydon now thought that his fortune was secure. He paid away £500
to landlord and tradesmen in the first week, and though this did not
settle half his debts, it restored his credit. The balance was spent
in a trip to Paris with Wilkie, Paris being then (May 1814) the most
interesting place on earth. All the nations of Europe were gathered
together there, and the Louvre was in its glory. So absorbed and
fascinated was Haydon by the actual life of the city, that he finds
little to say about the works of art there collected. Yet his first
visit was to the Louvre, and he describes with what impetuosity he
bounded up the steps, three at a time, and how he scolded Wilkie for
trotting up with his usual deliberation. 'I might just as well have
scolded the column,' he observes. 'I soon left him at some Jan Steen,
while I never stopped until I stood before the "Transfiguration." My
first feeling was disappointment. It looked small, harsh and hard.
This, of course, is always the way when you have fed your imagination
for years on a work you know only by prints. Even the "Pietro Martyre"
was smaller than I thought to find it; yet after the difference
between reality and anticipation had worn away, these great works
amply repaid the study of them, and grew up to the fancy, or rather
the fancy grew up to them.... It will hardly be believed by artists
that we often forgot the great works in the Louvre in the scenes
around us, and found Russians and Bashkirs from Tartary more
attractive than the "Transfiguration"; but so it was, and I do not
think we were very wrong either. Why stay poring over pictures when we
were on the most remarkable scene in the history of the earth.'
On his return to London, Haydon was gratified by the news that his
friend and fellow-townsman, George Eastlake, had proposed and carried
a motion that he should be presented with the freedom of his native
city, as a testimony of respect for his extraordinary merit as a
historical painter. Furthermore, the Directors of the British Gallery
sent him a hundred guineas as a token of their admiration for his
latest work. But no commission followed, either from a private patron
or public body. However, the artist, nothing daunted, ordered a larger
canvas, and set vigorously to work on a representation of 'Christ's
Entry into Jerusalem,' a picture which occupied him, with intervals of
illness and idleness, for nearly six years.
The year 1815 was too full of stir and excitement for a man like
Haydon, who was always keenly interested in public affairs, to devote
himself to steady work. The news of Waterloo almost turned his brain.
On June 23 he notes: 'I read the _Gazette_ [with the account of
Waterloo] the last thing before going to bed. I dreamt of it, and was
fighting all night; I got up in a steam of feeling, and read the
_Gazette_ again, ordered a _Courier_ for a month, and read all
the papers till I was faint.... 'Have not the efforts of the
nation,' I asked myself, 'been gigantic?' To such glories she only
wants to add the glories of my noble art to make her the grandest
nation in the world, and these she shall have if God spare my life....
'_June_ 25.--Dined with Hunt. I give myself credit for not
worrying him to death at this news. He was quiet for some time, but
knowing it must come, and putting on an air of indifference, he said,
"Terrible battle this, Haydon." "A glorious one, Hunt." "Oh yes,
certainly," and to it we went. Yet Hunt took a just and liberal view
of the situation. As for Hazlitt, it is not to be believed how the
destruction of Napoleon affected him; he seemed prostrated in mind and
body; he walked about unwashed, unshaved, hardly sober by day, and
always intoxicated by night, literally, without exaggeration, for
weeks, until at length, wakening as it were from his stupor, he at
once left off all stimulating liquors, and never touched them after.'
It is in this year that we find the first mention in the Journal of
Wordsworth, who, throughout his life, was one of Haydon's most
faithful friends and appreciative admirers. On April 13, the artist
records: 'I had a cast made yesterday of Wordsworth's face. He bore it
like a philosopher.... We afterwards called on Hunt, and as Hunt had
previously attacked him, and now has reformed his opinions, the
meeting was interesting. Hunt paid him the highest compliments, and
told him that as he grew wiser and got older, he found his respect for
his powers, and enthusiasm for his genius, increase.... I afterwards
sauntered with him to Hampstead, with great delight. Never did any man
so beguile the time as Wordsworth. His purity of heart, his kindness,
his soundness of principle, his information, his knowledge, and the
intense and eager feelings with which he pours forth all he knows,
affect, interest, and enchant one. I do not know any one I would be so
inclined to worship as a purified being.'
The new picture was not far advanced before the painter was once again
at the end of his resources, though not of his courage. Fifty guineas
were advanced to him by Sir George Beaumont, who had now commissioned
a picture at two hundred guineas, and Mr. (after Sir George) Phillips,
of Manchester, gave him a commission of £500 for a sacred work, paying
one hundred guineas down. But these advances melted rapidly away in
the expenses attendant on the painting of so ambitious a work as the
'Entry into Jerusalem.' Towards the close of the year Haydon's health
began to suffer from his excessive application, his sight weakened,
and he was often unable to paint for months at a time. Under these
afflictions, he was consoled by receiving permission to take casts of
the Elgin Marbles, the authenticity of which treasures had recently
been attacked by the art-critic, Knight Payne, who declared that they
were not Greek at all, but Roman, of the time of Hadrian. Such was the
effect of Payne Knight's opinion that the Marbles went down in the
public estimation, the Government hesitated to buy them for the
nation, and they were left neglected in a damp shed. Haydon was
furious at this insult to the objects of his idolatry, whose merits he
had been preaching in season and out of season since the day that he
first set eyes upon the Theseus and the Ilissus. At this critical
moment he found himself supported by a new and powerful champion in
the person of Canova, who had just arrived in England. Canova at once
admitted that the style of the Marbles was superior to that of all
other known marbles, and declared that they were well worth coming
from Rome to see. 'Canova's visit was a victory for me,' writes
Haydon, who had received the sculptor at his studio, and introduced
him to some of the artistic lions of London. 'What became now of all
the sneers at my senseless insanity about the Marbles? I, unknown,
with no station or rank, might have talked myself dumb; but for
Canova, the great artist of Europe, to repeat word for word what I had
been saying for seven years! His opinion could not be gainsaid.'
If our troubles are apt to come not in single file, but in 'whole
battalions,' our triumphs also occasionally arrive in squadrons, or
such at least was Haydon's experience. Hard upon Canova's departure
came a letter from Wordsworth, enclosing three sonnets, the last of
which had, he avowed, been inspired by a letter of Haydon's on the
struggles and hardships of the artist's life. This is now the familiar
sonnet beginning, 'High is our calling, Friend,' and concluding:
'Great is the glory, for the strife is hard.'
'Now, reader,' writes the delighted recipient, 'was not this glorious?
And you, young student, when you are pressed down by want in the midst
of a great work, remember what followed Haydon's perseverance. The
freedom of his native town, the visit of Canova, and the sonnet of
Wordsworth, and if that do not cheer you up, and make you go on, you
are past all hope.... It had, indeed, been a wonderful year for me.
The Academicians were silenced. All classes were so enthusiastic and
so delighted that, though I had lost seven months with weak eyes, and
had only accomplished The Penitent Girl, The Mother, The Centurion and
the Samaritan Woman, yet they were considered so decidedly in advance
of all I had yet done, that my painting-room was crowd by rank,
beauty, and fashion, and the picture was literally taken up as an
honour to the nation.'
But, alas! neither the sonnets of poets nor the homage of the great
would pay for models and colours, or put bread into the artist's
mouth. Haydon could only live by renewed borrowing, for which method
of support he endeavours, without much success, to excuse himself.
Once in the clutches of professional money-lenders, he confesses that
'the fine edge of honour was dulled. Though my honourable discharge of
what I borrowed justified my borrowing again, yet it is a fallacious
relief, because you must stop sooner or later; if you are punctual,
and if you can pay in the long-run, why incur the debt at all? Too
proud to do small, modest things, that I might obtain fair means of
subsistence as I proceeded with my great work, I thought it no
degradation to borrow, to risk the insult of refusal, and be bated
down like the meanest dealer. Then I was liberal in my art; I spared
no expense for casts and prints, and did great things for the art by
means of them.... Ought I, after such efforts as I had made, to have
been left in this position by the Directors of the British Gallery or
the Government?'
The year 1816 was distinguished in Haydon's life as the epoch of his
first, or, more accurately, his last serious love-affair. He was of a
susceptible temperament, and seems to have been a favourite with
women, whom he inspired with his own strong belief in himself; but he
demanded much of the woman who was to be his wife, and hitherto he had
not found one who seemed worthy of that exalted position. He had long
been acquainted with Maria Foote, the actress, for whom he entertained
a qualified admiration, and by her he was taken one day to a friend's
house where, 'In one instant, the loveliest face that was ever created
since God made Eve, smiled gently at my approach. The effect of her
beauty was instantaneous. On the sofa lay a dying man and a boy about
two years old. We shortly took leave. I never spoke a word, and after
seeing M---- home, I returned to the house, and stood outside, in
hopes that she would appear at the window. I went home, and for the
first time in my life was really, heartily, thoroughly, passionately
in love. I hated my pictures. I hated the Elgin Marbles. I hated
books. I could not eat, or sleep, or think, or write, or talk. I got
up early, examined the premises and street, and gave a man
half-a-crown to let me sit concealed, and watch for her coming out.
Day after day I grew more and more enraptured, till resistance was
relinquished with a glorious defiance of restraint. Her conduct to her
dying husband, her gentle reproof of my impassioned air, riveted my
being. But I must not anticipate. Sufficient for the present, O
reader, is it to tell thee that B. R. Haydon is, and for ever will be,
in love with that woman, and that she is his wife.'
The first note that Haydon has preserved from his friend Keats is
dated November 1816, and runs:
'MY DEAR SIR,--Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear
sending you the following.--Yours imperfectly,
JOHN KEATS.'
The 'following' was nothing less than the noble sonnet,
beginning--'Great spirits now on earth are sojourning,' with an
allusion to Haydon in the lines:
'And lo! whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.'
Haydon wrote an enthusiastic letter of thanks, gave the young poet
some good advice, and promised to send his sonnet to Wordsworth.
'Keats,' he records, 'was the only man I ever met who seemed and
looked conscious of a high calling, except Wordsworth. Byron and
Shelley were always sophisticating about their verses; Keats
sophisticated about nothing. He had made up his mind to do great
things, and when he found that by his connection with the
_Examiner_ clique he had brought upon himself an overwhelming
outcry of unjust aversion, he shrank up into himself, his diseased
tendencies showed themselves, and he died a victim to mistakes, on the
part of friends and enemies alike.'
Haydon gives a curious account of his first meeting with Shelley,
which took place in the course of this year. The occasion was a
dinner-party at James Smith's house, when Keats and Horace Smith were
also among the guests. 'I seated myself,' writes Haydon,' right
opposite Shelley, as I was told afterwards, for I did not then know
what hectic, spare, weakly, yet intellectual-looking creature it was,
carving a bit of broccoli or cabbage in his plate, as if it had been
the substantial wing of a chicken. In a few minutes Shelley opened the
conversation by saying in the most feminine and gentle voice, "As to
that detestable religion, the Christian--" I looked astounded, but
casting a glance round the table, I easily saw that I was to be set at
that evening _vi et armis_.... I felt like a stag at bay, and
resolved to gore without mercy. Shelley said the Mosaic and Christian
dispensation were inconsistent. I swore they were not, and that the
Ten Commandments had been the foundation of all the codes of law on
the earth. Shelley denied it. I affirmed they were, neither of us
using an atom of logic.' This edifying controversy continued until all
parties grew very warm, and said unpleasant things to one another.
After this dinner, Haydon made up his mind to subject himself no more
to the chance of these discussions, but gradually to withdraw from
this freethinking circle.
The chief artistic events of the year, from our hero's point of view,
were, the final settlement of the Elgin Marbles question, and his own
attempt to found a school. The Committee appointed by Government to
examine and report upon the Marbles refused to call Haydon as a
witness on Lord Elgin's side, but the artist embodied his views on the
subject in a paper which appeared in both the _Examiner_ and the
_Champion_. This article, which was afterwards translated into
French and Italian, contained a scathing attack on Payne Knight, and
was said by Sir Thomas Lawrence to have saved the Elgin Marbles, and
ruined Haydon. However this may be, the Government, it will be
remembered, decided to buy the treasures for £35,000, a sum
considerably less than that which Lord Elgin had spent on bringing
them to England.
The School of Haydon was first instituted with three distinguished
pupils in the persons of the three Landseer brothers, to whom were
afterwards added William Bewick, Eastlake, Harvey, Lance, and
Chatfield. Haydon set his disciples to draw from the Raphael Cartoons,
two of which were brought up from Hampton Court to the British
Gallery, and, as soon as they were sufficiently advanced, he sent them
to the Museum to draw from the Elgin Marbles. 'Their cartoons,' he
writes, 'drawn full size, of the Fates, of Theseus and the Ilissus,
literally made a noise in Europe. An order came from the great Goethe
at Weimar for a set for his own house, the furniture of which having
been since bought by the Government, and the house kept up as it was
in Goethe's time, the cartoons of my pupils are thus preserved, whilst
in England the rest are lying about in cellars and corners/ The early
days of the School thus held out a promise for the future, which
unfortunately was not fulfilled. Haydon contrived to involve two or
three of his pupils in his own financial embarrassments, by inducing
them to sign accommodation bills, a proceeding which broke up the
establishment, and brought a lasting stain upon his reputation.
In 1817 Haydon was introduced to Miss Mitford, who greatly admired his
work, and a warm friendship sprang up between the pair. In May, Miss
Mitford wrote to Sir William Elford: 'The charm of the Exhibition is a
chalk-drawing by Mr. Haydon taken, _as he tells me_, from a
mother who had lost her child. It is the very triumph of expression. I
have not yet lost the impression which it made upon my mind and
senses, and which vented itself in a sonnet.' A visit to the studio
followed, and Miss Mitford was charmed with the room, the books, the
great unfinished picture, and the artist himself--with his
_bonhomie_, _naïveté_, and enthusiasm. With all her heart she
admires the noble, independent spirit of Haydon, who, she
declares, is quite one of the old heroes come to life again--one of
Shakespeare's men, full of spirit, endurance, and moral courage. She
concludes her account with an expression of regret that he should be
'such a fright.' Now Haydon is generally described by his
contemporaries as a good-looking man, though short in stature, with an
antique head, aquiline features, and fine dark eyes. His later
portraits are chiefly remarkable for the immensely wide mouth with
which he seems to be endowed, but in an early sketch by Wilkie he is
represented as a picturesque youth with an admirably modelled profile.
To Miss Mitford we owe a quaint anecdote of our hero, which, better
than pages of analysis, depicts the man. It appears that Leigh Hunt,
who was a great keeper of birthdays and other anniversaries, took it
into his head to celebrate the birthday of Papa Haydn by giving a
dinner, drinking toasts, and crowning the composer's bust with
laurels. Some malicious person told Haydon that the Hunts were
celebrating his birthday, a compliment that struck him as natural and
well deserved. Hastening to Hampstead, he broke in upon the company,
and addressed to them a formal speech, in which he thanked them for
the honour they had done him, but explained that they had made a
little mistake in the day! As a pendant to this anecdote, Miss Mitford
relates that Haydon told her he had painted the head of his Christ
seven times, and that the final head was a portrait of himself. It is
only fair to remember that he always regarded it as the least
successful part of the work.
While the picture was in progress, Haydon decided to put in a side
group with Voltaire as a sceptic, and Newton as a believer. This idea,
founded on the intentional anachronisms of some of the old masters,
was afterwards extended, Hazlitt being introduced as an investigator,
and Wordsworth bowing in reverence, with Keats in the background. The
two poets had never yet met in actual life, but in December 1817,
Wordsworth being then on a visit to London, Haydon invited Keats to
meet him. The other guests were Charles Lamb and Monkhouse.
'Wordsworth was in fine cue,' writes Haydon, 'and we had a glorious
set-to-on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly
merry, and exquisitely witty, and his fun, in the midst of
Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory, was like the sarcasm and
wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion.' Although the
specimens of wit recorded no longer seem inspired, we can well believe
Haydon's statement that it was an immortal evening, and that in all
his life he never passed a more delightful time. We have abundant
testimony to the fact that the artist-host was himself an
exceptionally fine talker. Hazlitt said that 'Haydon talked well on
most subjects that interest one; indeed, better than any painter I
ever met.' Wordsworth and Talfourd echoed this opinion, and Miss
Mitford tells us that he was a most brilliant talker--racy, bold,
original, and vigorous, 'a sort of Benvenuto Cellini, all air and
fire.'
It was not until January 1820 that the 'Entry into Jerusalem' was
finished, when the artist, though absolutely penniless, engaged the
great room at the Egyptian Hall for its exhibition, at a rent of £300.
His friends helped him over the incidental expenses, and in a state of
feverish excitement he awaited the opening day. Public curiosity had
been aroused about the work, and early in the afternoon there was a
block of carriages in Piccadilly; the passage was thronged with
servants, and soon the artist was holding what he described as a
'regular rout at noonday.' While Keats and Hazlitt were rejoicing in a
corner, Mrs. Siddons swept in, and in her loud, deep, tragic tones,
declared that the head of Christ was completely successful. By her
favourable verdict, Haydon, who had his doubts, was greatly consoled,
not because Mrs. Siddons had any reputation as an art-critic, but
because he recognised that she was an expert on the subject of
dramatic expression. A thousand pounds was offered for the picture and
refused, while the net profits from the exhibition, in London alone,
amounted to £1300. Haydon has been commonly represented as an unlucky
man, who was always neglected by the public and the patrons, and never
met with his professional deserts. But up to this time, as has been
seen, he had found ready sympathy and admiration from the public,
practical aid during the time of struggle from his friends, and a fair
reward for his labours. With the exhibition of the 'Entry into
Jerusalem,' his reputation was at its zenith; a little skilful
engineering of the success thus gained might have extricated him from
his difficulties, and enabled him to keep his head above water for the
remainder of his days. But, owing chiefly to his own impracticability,
his story from this point is one of decline, gradual at first, but
increasing in velocity, until the end came in disaster and despair.