Even while Haydon was in the first flush of his success, there were
signs that he had achieved no lasting triumph. Sir George Beaumont
proposed that the British Gallery should buy the great picture, but
the Directors refused to give the price asked--£2000. An effort to
sell it by subscription fell through, only, £200 being paid into
Coutts'. When the exhibition closed in London, Haydon took his
masterpiece to Scotland, and showed it both in Edinburgh and in
Glasgow, netting another £900, which, however, was quickly eaten up by
hungry creditors. The picture was too big to tempt a private
purchaser, and in spite of the admiration it had aroused, it remained
like a white elephant upon its creator's hands.
On his return to town, after being fêted by Sir Walter Scott,
Lockhart, and 'Christopher North,' Haydon finished his commission for
Sir George Phillips, 'Christ Sleeping in the Garden,' which, he
frankly admitted, was one of the worst pictures he ever painted.
Scarcely was this off his easel than he was inspired with a tremendous
conception for the 'Raising of Lazarus.' He ordered a canvas such as
his soul loved, nineteen feet long by fifteen high, and dashed in his
first idea. He was still deeply in debt, still desperately in love
(his lady was now a widow), and the new picture would take at least
two years to paint. Nevertheless, he worked away with all his
customary energy, and prayed fervently that he might paint a great
masterpiece, never doubting but that his prayers would be heard.
With the end of this year, 1820, Haydon's Autobiography breaks off,
and the rest of his life is told in his Journals and Letters. At the
beginning of 1821, when he was fairly at work on his Lazarus, he
confides to his Journal his conviction that difficulties are to be his
lot in pecuniary matters, and adds: 'My plan must be to make up my
mind to meet them, and fag as I can--to lose no single moment, but
seize on time that is free from disturbance, and make the most of it.
If I can float, and keep alive attention to my situation through
another picture, I will reach the shore. I am now clearly in sight of
it, and I will yet land to the sound of trumpets, and the shouts of my
friends.'
In spite of his absorption in his work, Haydon found time for the
society of his literary friends. On March 7, he records: 'Sir Walter
Scott, Lamb, Wilkie, and Procter have been with me all the morning,
and a delightful morning we have had. Scott operated on us like
champagne and whisky mixed.... It is singular how success and the want
of it operate on two extraordinary men, Walter Scott and Wordsworth.
Scott enters a room and sits at table with the coolness and
self-possession of conscious fame; Wordsworth with a mortified
elevation of the head, as if fearful he was not estimated as he
deserved. Scott can afford to talk of trifles, because he knows the
world will think him a great man who condescends to trifle; Wordsworth
must always be eloquent and profound, because he knows that he is
considered childish and puerile.... I think that Scott's success would
have made Wordsworth insufferable, while Wordsworth's failures would
not have rendered Scott a whit less delightful. Scott is the companion
of Nature in all her moods and freaks, while Wordsworth follows her
like an apostle, sharing her solemn moods and impressions.'
In these rough notes, unusual powers of observation and insight into
character are displayed. That Haydon also had a keen sense of humour
is proved by his account of an evening at Mrs. Siddons' where the
hostess read aloud _Macbeth_ to her guests. 'She acts Macbeth
herself much better than either Kemble or Kean,' he writes. 'It is
extraordinary the awe that this wonderful woman inspires. After her
first reading the men retired to tea. While we were all eating toast
and tinkling cups and saucers, she began again. It was like the effect
of a mass-bell at Madrid. All noise ceased; we slunk to our seats like
boors, two or three of the most distinguished men of the day, with the
very toast in their mouths, afraid to bite. It was curious to see
Lawrence in this predicament, to hear him bite by degrees, and then
stop, for fear of making too much crackle, his eyes full of water from
the constraint; and at the same time to hear Mrs. Siddons' 'eye of
newt and toe of frog,' and to see Lawrence give a sly bite, and then
look awed, and pretend to be listening.'
In the spring of 1821 Haydon lost two intimate friends, John Scott,
who was killed by Christie in the Blackwood duel, and Keats, who died
at Rome on February 23. He briefly sums up his impressions of the dead
poet in his Journal. 'In fireside conversation he was weak and
inconsistent, but he was in his glory in the fields.... He was the
most unselfish of human creatures: unadapted to this world, he cared
not for himself, and put himself to inconvenience for the sake of his
friends. He had an exquisite sense of humour, and too refined a notion
of female purity to bear the little arts of love with patience.... He
began life full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, ungovernable, expecting
the world to fall at once beneath his powers. Unable to bear the
sneers of ignorance or the attacks of envy, he began to despond, and
flew to dissipation as a relief. For six weeks he was scarcely sober,
and to show what a man does to gratify his appetites when once they
get the better of him, he once covered his tongue and throat, as far
as he could reach, with Cayenne pepper, in order to appreciate the
"delicious coldness of claret in all its glory"--his own expression.'
June 22, 1821, is entered in the Journal as 'A remarkable day in my
life. I am arrested!' This incident, unfortunately, became far too
common in after-days to be at all remarkable, but the first touch of
the bailiff's hand was naturally something of a shock, and Haydon
filled three folio pages with angry comments on the iniquity of the
laws against debtors. He was able, however, to arrange the affair
before night, and the sheriff's officer, whose duty it was to keep him
in safe custody during the day, was so profoundly impressed by the
sight of the Lazarus, that he allowed his prisoner to go free on
parole. This incident has been likened to that of the bravoes arrested
in their murderous intent by the organ-playing of Stradella; and also
to the case of the soldiers of the Constable who, when sacking Rome,
broke into Parmigiano's studio, but were so struck by the beauty of
his pictures that they protected him and his property.
In despite of debts, difficulties, and the lack of commissions,
Haydon, who had now been in love for five years, was married on
October 10, 1821, to the young widow, Mary Hyman, who was blessed with
two children, and a jointure of fifty pounds a year. His Journal for
this period is full of raptures over his blissful state, as also are
his letters to his friends. To Miss Mitford he writes from Windsor,
where the honeymoon was spent: 'Here I am, sitting by my dearest Mary
with all the complacency of a well-behaved husband, writing to you
while she is working quietly on some unintelligible part of a lady's
costume. You do not know how proud I am of saying _my wife_. I
never felt half so proud of Solomon or Macbeth, as I am of being the
husband of this tender little bit of lovely humanity.... There never
was such a creature; and although her face is perfect, and has more
feeling in it than Lady Hamilton's, her manner to me is perfectly
enchanting, and more bewitching than her beauty. I think I shall put
over my painting-room door, "Love, solitude, and painting."' On the
last day of the year, according to his wont, Haydon sums up his
feelings and impressions of the past twelve months. 'I don't know how
it is, but I get less reflective as I get older. I seem to take things
as they come without thought. Perhaps being married to my dearest
Mary, and having no longer anything to hope in love, I get more
content with my lot, which, God knows, is rapturous beyond
imagination. Here I sit sketching, with the loveliest face before me,
smiling and laughing, and "solitude is not." Marriage has increased my
happiness beyond expression. In the intervals of study, a few minutes'
conversation with a creature one loves is the greatest of all reliefs.
God bless us both! My pecuniary difficulties are great, but my love is
intense, my ambition is intense, and my hope in God's protection
cheering. Bewick, my pupil, has realised my hopes in his picture of
"Jacob and Rachel." But it is cold work talking of pupils when one's
soul is full of a beloved woman! I am really and truly in love, and
without affectation, I can talk, write, or think of nothing else.'
But if a love-match brings increased happiness, it also brings
weightier cares and responsibilities. Haydon's credit had been in a
measure restored by the success of his last picture, but his creditors
seemed to resent his marriage, and during the months that followed,
gave him little peace. He was obliged, in the intervals of painting,
to rush hither and thither to pacify this creditor, quiet the fears of
that, remove the ill-will of a third, and borrow money at usurious
interest from a fourth in order to keep his engagements with a fifth.
In spite of all his compromises and arrangements, he was arrested more
than once during this year, but so far he had been able to keep out of
prison. His favourite pupil Bewick, who sat to him for the head of
Lazarus (being appropriately pale and thin from want of food) has left
an account of the difficulties under which the picture was painted. 'I
think I see the painter before me,' he writes, 'his palette and
brushes in the left hand, returning from the sheriff's officer in the
adjoining room, pale, calm, and serious--no agitation--mounting his
high steps and continuing his arduous task, and as he looks round to
his pallid model, whispering, "Egad, Bewick, I have just been
arrested; that is the third time. If they come again, I shall not be
able to go on."'
On December 7, the Lazarus was finished, and five days later Haydon's
eldest son Frank was born. The happy father was profoundly moved by
his new responsibilities, as well as by his wife's suffering and
danger. On the last day of 1822 he thanks his Maker for the happiest
year of his life, and also 'for being permitted to finish another
great picture, which must add to my reputation, and go to strengthen
the art.... Grant it triumphant success. Grant that I may soon begin
the "Crucifixion," and persevere with that, until I bring it to a
conclusion equally positive and glorious.' Haydon's prayers, which
have been not inaptly described as 'begging letters to the Almighty,'
are invariably couched in terms that would be appropriate in an appeal
to the President of a Celestial Academy. As his biographer points out,
he prayed as though he would take heaven by storm, and although he
often asked for humility, the demands for this gift bore very little
proportion to those for glories and triumphs.
The Lazarus, though it showed signs of haste and exaggeration, natural
enough considering the conditions under which it was painted, was
acclaimed as a great work, and the receipts from its exhibition were
of a most satisfactory nature, mounting up to nearly two hundred
pounds a week. Instead of calling his creditors together, and coming
to some arrangement with them, Haydon, rendered over-confident by
success, spent his time in preparing a new and vaster canvas for his
conception of the Crucifixion. The sight of crowds of people paying
their shillings to view the Lazarus roused the cupidity of one of the
creditors, who, against his own interests, killed the goose that was
laying golden eggs. On April 13, an execution was put in, and the
picture was seized. A few days later Haydon was arrested, and carried
to the King's Bench, his house was taken possession of, and all his
property was advertised for sale.
On April 22, he dates the entry in his Journal, 'King's Bench,' and
consoles himself with the reflection that Bacon, Raleigh, and
Cervantes had also suffered imprisonment. His friends rallied round
him at this melancholy period. Lord Mulgrave, Sir George Beaumont,
Scott and Wilkie, giving not only sympathy but practical help. At his
forced sale a portion of his casts and painting materials was bought
in by his friends in order that he might be enabled to set to work
again as soon as he was released from prison. A meeting of creditors
was called, and Haydon addressed to them a characteristic letter,
begging to be spared the disgrace of 'taking the Act,' and complaining
of the hardship of his treatment in being torn from his family and his
art, after devoting the best years of his life to the honour of his
country. But as the creditors cared nothing for the honour of the
country, he was compelled to pass through the Bankruptcy Court, and on
July 25 he regained his freedom. It was now his desire to return to
his dismantled house, and, without a bed to lie upon, or a shilling in
his pocket, to finish his gigantic 'Crucifixion.' But his wife, the
long-suffering Mary, persuaded him to abandon this idea, to retire to
modest lodgings for a time, and to paint portraits and cabinet-pictures
until better fortune dawned.
Haydon yielded to her desire, but he never ceased to regret what he
considered his degradation. He would have preferred to allow his
friends and creditors to support himself and his family, while he
worked at a canvas of unsaleable size, a proceeding that most men
would regard as involving a deeper degradation than painting
pot-boilers.
Haydon began his new career by painting the 'portrait of a gentleman.'
'Ah, my poor lay-figure,' he groans, 'he, who bore the drapery of
Christ and the grave-clothes of Lazarus, the cloak of the centurion
and the gown of Newton, was to-day disgraced by a black coat and
waistcoat. I apostrophised him, and he seemed to sympathise, and bowed
his head as if ashamed to look me in the face.' Haydon's detestation
of portrait-painting probably arose from the secret consciousness that
he was not successful in this branch of his art. His taste for the
grandiose led him to depict his sitters larger than life, if not
'twice as natural.' His objection to painting small pictures was
partly justified by his weakness of sight. It was easy for him to dash
in heads on a large scale in a frenzy of inspiration, but he seemed to
lack the faculty for 'finish.' The faults of disproportion and
apparent carelessness that disfigure many of his works, are easily
accounted for by his method of painting, which is thus described by
his son Frederick, who often acted as artist's model:--
'His natural sight was of little or no use to him at any distance, and
he would wear, one over the other, two or three pairs of large round
concave spectacles, so powerful as greatly to diminish objects. He
would mount his steps, look at you through one pair of glasses, then
push them all back on his head, and paint by the naked eye close to
the canvas. After some minutes he would pull down one pair of his
glasses, look at you, then step down, walk slowly backwards to the
wall, and study the effect through one, two, or three pairs of
spectacles; then with one pair only look long and steadily in the
looking-glass at the side to examine the reflection of his work; then
mount his steps and paint again. How he ever contrived to paint a head
or limb in proportion is a mystery to me, for it is clear that he had
lost his natural sight in boyhood. He is, as he said, the first blind
man who ever successfully painted pictures.'
Unfortunately, Haydon's self-denial in painting portraits was not well
rewarded, for commissions were few, and the clouds began to gather
again. One of his sitters had to be appealed to for money for coals,
and if such appeals were frequent, the scarcity of sitters was hardly
surprising. On one occasion he pawned all his books, except a few old
favourites, for three pounds, and entries like the following are of
almost daily occurrence in the Journal:--'Obliged to go out in the
rain, I left my room with no coals in it, and no money to buy any....
Not a shilling in the world. Sold nothing, and not likely to. Baker
called, and was insolent. If he were to stop the supplies, God knows
what would become of my children! Landlord called--kind and sorry.
Butcher called, respectful, but disappointed. Tailor good--humoured,
and willing to wait.... Walked about the town. I was so full of grief,
I could not have concealed it at home.'
In the midst of all his harassing anxieties, Haydon was untiring in
his efforts to obtain employment of the heroic kind that his soul
craved. He had begun to realise that he had small chance of disposing
of huge historical pictures to private patrons, and that his only hope
rested with the Government. Even while confined in prison he had
persuaded Brougham to present a petition to the House of Commons
setting forth the desirability of appointing a Committee to inquire
into the state of national art, and by a regular distribution of a
small portion of the public funds, to give public encouragement to the
professors of historical painting. No sooner did he regain his freedom
than Haydon attacked Sir Charles Long with a plan for the decoration
of the great room of the Admiralty, to be followed by the decoration
of the House of Lords and St. Paul's Cathedral. This was but the
beginning of a long series of impassioned pleadings with public men in
favour of national employment for historical painters. Silence, snubs,
formal acknowledgments, curt refusals, all were lost upon Haydon, who
kept pouring in page after page of agonised petition on Sir Charles
Long, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, and Sir
Robert Peel, and seemed to be making no way with any of them.
Haydon thought himself ill-used, throughout his life, by statesmen and
patrons, and many of his friends were of the same opinion. But both he
and they ignored the fact that it is impossible to create an
artificial market for works of art for which there is no spontaneous
popular demand. A despotic prince may, if he chooses, give his court
painter _carte blanche_ for the decorations of national buildings,
and gain nothing but glory for his liberality, even when it
is exercised at the expense of his people. But in a country that
possesses a constitutional government, more especially when that
country has been impoverished by long and costly wars, the minister
who devotes large sums to the encouragement of national art has the
indignation of an over-taxed populace to reckon with. It is little
short of an insult to offer men historic frescoes when they are
clamouring for bread. Haydon was unfortunate in his period, which was
not favourable for a crusade on behalf of high art. The recent
pacification of the Continent, and the opening up of its treasures,
tempted English noblemen and plutocrats to invest their money in old
masters to the neglect of native artists, who were only thought worthy
to paint portraits of their patrons' wives and children. We who have
inherited the Peel, the Angerstein, and the Hertford collections, can
scarcely bring ourselves to regret the sums that were lavished on
Flemish and Italian masterpieces, sums that might have kept our Barrys
and Haydons from bankruptcy.
In January 1824 Haydon left his lodgings, and took the lease of a
house in Connaught Terrace, for which he paid, or promised to pay, a
hundred and twenty pounds a year, a heavy rent for a recently
insolvent artist. Fortunately, he acquired with the house a landlord
of amazing benevolence, who took pot-boilers in lieu of rent, and
meekly submitted to abuse when nothing else was forthcoming. As soon
as he was fairly settled, Haydon arranged the composition of a large
picture of 'Pharaoh dismissing Moses,' upon which he worked in the
intervals of portrait-painting. A curious and obviously impartial
sketch of him, as he appeared at this time, is drawn by Borrow in his
_Lavengro_. The hero's elder brother comes up to town, it may be
remembered, to commission a certain heroic artist to paint an heroic
picture of a very unheroic mayor of Norwich. The two brothers go
together to the painter of Lazarus, and have some difficulty in
obtaining admission to his studio, being mistaken by the servant for
duns. They found a man of about thirty-five, with a clever,
intelligent countenance, sharp grey eyes, and hair cut _à la_
Raphael. He possessed, moreover, a broad chest, and would have been a
very fine figure if his legs had not been too short. He was then
engaged upon his Moses, whose legs, in Lavengro's opinion, were also
too short. His eyes glistened at the mention of a hundred pounds for
the mayor's portrait, and he admitted that he was confoundedly short
of money. The painter was anxious that Lavengro should sit to him for
his Plutarch, which honour that gentleman firmly declined. Years
afterwards he saw the portrait of the mayor, a 'mighty portly man,
with a bull's head, black hair, a body like a dray horse, and legs and
thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least. To his bull's
head, black hair and body, the painter had done justice; there was one
point, however, in which the portrait did not correspond with the
original--the legs were disproportionately short, the painter having
substituted his own legs for those of the mayor, which, when I
perceived, I rejoiced that I had not consented to be painted as
Pharaoh, for if I had, the chances are that he would have served me in
exactly the same way as he had served Moses and the mayor.'
The painting of provincial mayors was so little to Haydon's taste that
by the close of this year we find him in deep depression of spirits,
unrelieved by even a spark of his old sanguine buoyancy. 'I candidly
confess,' he writes, 'I find my glorious art a bore. I cannot with
pleasure paint any individual head for the mere purpose of domestic
gratification. I must have a great subject to excite public
feeling.... Alas! I have no object in life now but my wife and
children, and almost wish I had not them, that I might sit still and
meditate on human grandeur and human ambition till I died.... I am not
yet forty, and can tell of a destiny melancholy and rapturous, bitter
beyond all bitterness, cursed, heart-breaking, maddening. But I dare
not write now. The melancholy demon has grappled my heart, and crushed
its turbulent beatings in his black, bony, clammy, clenching fingers.'
It was just when things seemed at their darkest, when the waters
threatened to overwhelm the unfortunate artist, that a rope was thrown
to him. His legal adviser, Mr. Kearsley, a practical and prosperous
man, came forward with an offer of help. He agreed to provide £300 for
one year on certain conditions, in order that Haydon might be freed
from pressure for that period, and be in a position to ask a fair
price for his work. When not engaged on portraits, he was to paint
historical pictures of a saleable size. The advance was to be secured
on a life insurance, and to be repaid out of the sale of the pictures,
with interest at four per cent. This offer was accepted with some
reluctance, and the following year was one of comparative peace and
quiet. The Journal gives evidence of greater ease of mind, and renewed
pleasure in work. Haydon's love for his wife waxed rather than waned
with the passing of the years, and his children, of whom he too soon
had the poor man's quiverful, were an ever-present delight. 'My
domestic happiness is doubled,' he writes about this time. 'Daily and
hourly my sweet Mary proves the justice of my choice. My boy Frank
gives tokens of being gifted at two years old, God bless him! My
ambition would be to make him a public man.... I have got into my old
delightful habits of study again. The mixture of literature and
painting I really think the perfection of human happiness. I paint a
head, revel in colour, hit an expression, sit down fatigued, take up a
poet or historian, write my own thoughts, muse on the thoughts of
others, and hours, troubles, and the tortures of disappointed ambition
pass and are forgotten.'
Portraits, and one or two commissions for small pictures, kept Haydon
afloat throughout this year, but a widespread commercial distress in
the early part of 1826 affected his gains, and in February he records
that for the last five weeks he has been suffering the tortures of the
Inferno. He was persuaded, much against his will, to send his pictures
to the Academy, and he was proportionately annoyed at the adverse
criticism that greeted his attempts at portraiture. This attack he
regarded as the result of a deep-laid plot to injure him in a
lucrative branch of his art. He consoled himself by beginning a large
picture of 'Alexander taming Bucephalus,' the 'finest subject on
earth.' Through his friend and opposite neighbour, Carew the sculptor,
Haydon made an appeal to Lord Egremont, that generous patron of the
arts, for help or employment, in response to which Lord Egremont
promised to call and see the Alexander. There is a pathetic touch in
the account of this visit, on which so much depended. Lord Egremont
called at Carew's house on his way, and Haydon, who saw him go in,
relates that 'Dear Mary and I were walking on the leads, and agreed
that it would not be quite right to look too happy, being without a
sixpence; so we came in, I to the parlour to look through the blinds,
and she to the nursery.' Happily, the patron was favourably impressed
by the picture, and promised to give £600 for it when it was finished.
In order to pay his models Haydon was obliged to pawn one of his two
lay-figures, since he could not bring himself to part with any more
books. 'I may do without a lay-figure for a time,' he writes, 'but not
without old Homer. The truth is I am fonder of books than of anything
on earth. I consider myself a man of great powers, excited to an art
which limits their exercise. In politics, law, or literature they
would have had a full and glorious swing, and I should have secured a
competence.'
The fact that Haydon was more at home among the literary men of his
acquaintance than among his fellow-artists was a natural result of his
intense love of books, and his keen interest in contemporary history.
And it is evident that his own character and work impressed his
poetical friends, for we find that not only Wordsworth and Keats, but
Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Miss Mitford, and Miss Barrett addressed to
him admiring verses. For Byron, whom he never knew, Haydon cherished
an ardent admiration, and the following interesting passage, comparing
that poet with Wordsworth, occurs in one of his letters to Miss
Mitford, who had criticised Byron's taste:--
'You are unjust, depend upon it,' he writes, 'in your estimate of
Byron's poetry, and wrong in ranking Wordsworth beyond him. There are
things in Byron's poetry so exquisite that fifty or five hundred years
hence they will be read, felt, and adored throughout the world. I
grant that Wordsworth is very pure, very holy, very orthodox, and
occasionally very elevated, highly poetical, and oftener insufferably
obscure, starched, dowdy, anti-human, and anti-sympathetic, but he
never will be ranked above Byron, nor classed with Milton.... I
dislike his selfish Quakerism, his affectation of superior virtue, his
utter insensibility to the frailties, the beautiful frailties of
passion. I was walking with him once in Pall Mall; we darted into
Christie's. In the corner of the room was a beautiful copy of the
"Cupid and Psyche" (statues) kissing. Cupid is taking her lovely chin,
and turning her pouting mouth to meet his, while he archly bends down,
as if saying, "Pretty dear!"... Catching sight of the Cupid as he and
I were coming out, Wordsworth's face reddened, he showed his teeth,
and then said in a loud voice, "_The Dev-v-vils!_" There's a
mind! Ought not this exquisite group to have softened his heart as
much as his old, grey-mossed rocks, his withered thorn, and his
dribbling mountain streams? I am altered very much about Wordsworth
from finding him too hard, too elevated, to attend to the voice of
humanity. No, give me Byron with all his spite, hatred, depravity,
dandyism, vanity, frankness, passion, and idleness, rather than
Wordsworth with all his heartless communion with woods and grass.'
An attempt on Haydon's part to reconcile himself with his old enemies,
the Academicians, ended in failure. He heads his account of the
transaction, 'The disgrace of my life.' He was received with cold
civility by the majority of the artists to whom he paid conciliatory
visits, and when he put his name down for election, he received not a
single vote. A more agreeable memory of this year was a visit to
Petworth, where, as he records, with Pepysian _naiveté_, 'Lord
Egremont has placed me in one of the most magnificent bedrooms I ever
saw. It speaks more of what he thinks of my talents than anything that
ever happened to me.... What a destiny is mine! One year in the King's
Bench, the companion of gamblers and scoundrels--sleeping in
wretchedness and dirt on a flock-bed--another reposing in down and
velvet in a splendid apartment in a splendid house, the guest of rank,
fashion, and beauty.' Haydon's painting-room was now, as he loved to
see it, crowded with distinguished visitors, who were anxious to
inspect the picture of Alexander before it was sent to the Exhibition.
Among them came Charles Lamb, who afterwards set down some impressions
and suggestions in the following characteristic fashion:--
'DEAR RAFFAELE HAYDON,
'Did the maid tell you I came to see your picture? I think the face
and bearing of the Bucephalus-tamer very noble, his flesh too
effeminate or painty.... I had small time to pick out praise or blame,
for two lord-like Bucks came in, upon whose strictures my presence
seemed to impose restraint; I plebeian'd off therefore.
'I think I have hit on a subject for you, but can't swear it was never
executed--I never heard of its being--"Chaucer beating a Franciscan
Friar in Fleet Street." Think of the old dresses, houses, etc. "It
seemeth that both these learned men (Gower and Chaucer) were of the
Inner Temple; for not many years since Master Buckley did see a record
in the same house where Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two shillings for
beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street."--_Chaucer's Life, by T.
Speght_.--Yours in haste (salt fish waiting).
'C. LAMB.'
In June Haydon was again arrested, and imprisoned in the King's Bench.
Once more he appealed to Parliament by a petition presented by
Brougham, and to the public through letters to the newspapers.
Parliament and the larger public turned a deaf ear, but private
friends rallied to his support. Scott, himself a ruined man, sent a
cheque and a charming letter of sympathy, while Lockhart suggested
that a subscription should be raised to buy one or more pictures. A
public meeting of sympathisers was convened, at which it was stated
that Haydon's debts amounted to £1767, while his only available asset
was an unfinished picture of the 'Death of Eucles.' Over a hundred
pounds was subscribed in the room, and it was decided that the Eucles
should be raffled in ten-pound shares. The result of these efforts was
the release of the prisoner at the end of July.
During this last term of imprisonment Haydon witnessed the masquerade,
or mock election by his fellow-prisoners, and instantly decided that
he would paint the scene, which offered unique opportunities for both
humour and pathos. This picture, Hogarthian in type, was finished and
exhibited before the close of the year. The exhibition was moderately
successful, but the picture did not sell, and Haydon was once more
sinking into despair, when the king expressed a desire to have the
work sent down to Windsor for his inspection. Hopes were raised high
once more, and this time were not disappointed. George IV. bought the
'Mock Election,' and promptly paid the price of five hundred guineas.
Thus encouraged, Haydon set to work with renewed spirit on a companion
picture, 'Chairing the Member,' which was finished and exhibited, with
some earlier works, in the course of the summer. The king refused to
buy the new work, but it found a purchaser at £300, and the net
receipts from the two pictures and their exhibition amounted to close
upon £1400, a sum which, observes Haydon, in better circumstances and
with less expense, would have afforded a comfortable independence for
the year!
The Eucles occupied the artist during the remainder of 1828, and early
in 1829 he began a new Hogarthian subject, a Punch and Judy show. He
was still painting portraits when he could get sitters, and on April
15, he notes: 'Finished one cursed portrait--have only one more to
touch, and then I shall be free. I have an exquisite gratification in
painting portraits wretchedly. I love to see the sitters look as if
they thought, "Can this be Haydon's--the great Haydon's painting?" I
chuckle. I am rascal enough to take their money, and chuckle more.' It
must be owned that Haydon thoroughly deserved his ill-success in this
branch of his art. When 'Punch' was finished the king sent for it to
Windsor, but though he admired, he did not buy, and the picture
eventually passed into the possession of Haydon's old friend, Dr.
Darling, who had helped him out of more than one difficulty. A large
representation of 'Xenophon and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand' was
now begun, but before it was finished the painter was once more in
desperate straits. In vain he sent up urgent petitions to his Maker
that he might be enabled to go through with this great work,
explaining in a parenthesis, 'It will be my greatest,' and concluding,
'Bless its commencement, its progress, its conclusion, and its effect,
for the sake of the intellectual elevation of my great and glorious
country.'
In May 1830, Haydon was back again in the King's Bench, where he had
begun to feel quite at home. He presented yet another of his
innumerable petitions to Parliament in favour of Government
encouragement of historical painting, through Mr. Agar Ellis, but as
the ministry showed no desire to encourage this particular historical
painter, he passed through the Bankruptcy Court, and returned to his
family on the 20th of July. During his period of detention, George IV.
had died, and Haydon has the following comment on the event:--'Thus
died as thoroughbred an Englishman as ever existed in this country. He
admired her sports, gloried in her prejudices, had confidence in her
bottom and spirit, and to him alone is the destruction of Napoleon
owing. I have lost in him my sincere admirer; and had not his wishes
been continually thwarted, he would have given me ample and adequate
employment.'
Although Haydon had regained his freedom, his chance of maintaining
himself and his rapidly increasing family by his art seemed as far
away as ever. By October 15th he is at his wits' end again, and writes
in his Journal: 'The harassings of a family are really dreadful. Two
of my children are ill, and Mary is nursing. All night she was
attending to the sick and hushing the suckling, with a consciousness
that our last shilling was going. I got up in the morning
bewildered--Xenophon hardly touched--no money--butcher impudent--all
tradesmen insulting. I took up my private sketch-book and two prints
of Napoleon (from a small picture of 'Napoleon musing at St. Helena')
and walked into the city. Hughes advanced me five guineas on the
sketch-book; I sold my prints, and returned home happy with £8, 4s. in
my pocket.... (25th) Out selling my prints. Sold enough for
maintenance for the week. Several people looked hard at me with my
roll of prints, but I feel more ashamed in borrowing money than in
honestly selling my labours. It is a pity the nobility drive me to
this by their neglect.'
In December came another stroke of good-luck. Sir Robert Peel called
at the studio, and gave the artist a commission to paint, on a larger
scale, a replica of his small sketch of 'Napoleon at St. Helena.'
Unluckily, there was a misunderstanding about the price. Peel asked
how much Haydon charged for a whole length figure, and was told a
hundred pounds, which was the price of an ordinary portrait. Taking
this to be the charge for the Napoleon, he paid no more. Haydon, who
considered the picture well worth £500, was bitterly disappointed, and
took no pains to conceal his feelings. Peel afterwards sent him an
extra thirty pounds, but the subject remained a grievance to Haydon
for the rest of his life, and Peel, who had intended to do the artist
a good turn, was so annoyed by his complaints, that he never gave him
another commission. The Napoleon, though its exhibition was not a
success, was one of Haydon's most popular pictures, and the engraving
is well known. Wordsworth admired it exceedingly, and on June 12, sent
the artist the 'Sonnet to B. R. Haydon, composed on seeing his picture
of Napoleon in the island of St. Helena,' beginning:
'Haydon! let worthier judges praise the skill.'
The close of this year was a melancholy period to poor Haydon. He lost
his little daughter, Fanny, and his third son, Alfred, was gradually
fading away. Out of eight children born to this most affectionate of
fathers, no fewer than five died in infancy from suffusion of the
brain, due, it was supposed, to the terrible mental distresses of
their mother. 'I can remember,' writes Frederick Haydon, one of the
three survivors, 'the roses of her sunken cheeks fading away daily
with anxiety and grief. My father, who was passionately attached to
both wife and children, suffered the tortures of the damned at the
sight before him. His sorrow over the deaths of his children was
something more than human. I remember watching him as he hung over his
daughter Georgiana, and over his dying boy Harry, the pride and
delight of his life. Poor fellow, how he cried! and he went into the
next room, and beating his head passionately on the bed, called upon
God to take him and all of us from this dreadful world. The earliest
and most painful death was to be preferred to our life at that time.'
By dint of borrowing in every possible quarter, generally at forty per
cent. interest, and inducing his patrons to take shares in his
Xenophon, Haydon managed to get through the winter, though his
children were often without stockings. William IV. consented to place
his name at the head of the subscribers' list, and Goethe wrote a
flattering letter, expressing his desire to take a ticket for the
'very valuable painting,' and assuring the artist that 'my soul has
been elevated for many years by the contemplation of the important
pictures (the cartoons from the Elgin Marbles) formerly sent to me,
which occupy an honourable station in my house.' Xenophon was
exhibited in the spring of 1832 without attracting much attention, the
whole nation being engrossed with the subject of Reform. Haydon,
though a high Tory by birth and inclination, was an ardent champion of
the Bill, as he had been for that of Catholic Emancipation. His brush
was once more exchanged for the pen, and he not only poured out his
thoughts upon Reform in his Journal, but wrote several letters on the
subject to the _Times_, which he considered the most wonderful
compositions of the kind that had ever been penned. After the passing
of the Bill he congratulates himself upon having contributed to the
grand result, and adds: 'When my colours have faded, my canvas
decayed, and my body has mingled with the earth, these glorious
letters, the best things I ever wrote, will awaken the enthusiasm of
my countrymen. I thanked God I lived in such a time, and that he
gifted me with talent to serve the great cause.'
On reading the account of the monster meeting of the Trades Unions at
Newhall Hill, Birmingham, it occurred to Haydon that the moment when
the vast concourse joined in the sudden prayer offered up by Hugh
Hutton, would make a fine subject for a picture. Accordingly, he wrote
to Hutton, and laid the suggestion before him. The Birmingham leaders
were attracted by the idea, and the picture was begun, but support of
a material kind was not forthcoming, and the scheme had to be
abandoned. Lord Grey then suggested that Haydon should paint a picture
of the great Reform Banquet, which was to be held in the Guildhall on
July 11. The proposal was exactly to the taste of the public-spirited
artist, who saw fame and fortune beckoning to him once more, and
fancied that his future was assured. He was allowed every facility on
the great day, breakfasted and dined with the Committee at the
Guildhall, was treated with distinction by the noble guests, many of
whom sent to take wine with him as he sat at work, and in short, to
quote his own words, 'I was an object of great distinction without
five shillings in my pocket--and this is life!'
Lord Grey, on seeing Haydon's sketches of the Banquet, gave him a
commission for the picture at a price of £500, half of which he paid
down at once, and thus saved the painter from the ruin that was again
impending. Then followed a period of triumphant happiness. The leading
men of the Liberal party sat for their heads, and Haydon had the
longed-for opportunity of pressing upon them his views about the
public encouragement of art by means of grants for the decoration of
national buildings. Although it does not appear that he made a single
convert, he was quite contented for the time being with the ready
access to ministers and noblemen that the occasion afforded him, and
his Journal is filled with expressions of his satisfaction. We hear of
Lord Palmerston's good-humoured elegance, Lord Lansdowne's amiability,
Lord Jeffrey's brilliant conversation, and, most delightful of all,
Lord Melbourne's frank, unaffected cordiality. Melbourne, it appears,
enjoyed his sittings, for he asked many questions about Hazlitt, Leigh
Hunt, Keats, and Shelley, and highly appreciated Haydon's anecdotes.
Needless to add, he did not allow himself to be bored by the artist's
theories.
The sittings for the Reform picture continued through 1833, and the
early part of 1834. Haydon was kept in full employment, but domestic
sorrows marred his satisfaction in his interesting work. In less than
twelve months, he lost two sons, Alfred and Harry, the latter a child
of extraordinary promise. 'The death of this beautiful boy,' he
writes, 'has given my mind a blow I shall never effectually recover. I
saw him buried to-day, after passing four days sketching his dear head
in his coffin--his beautiful head. What a creature! With a brow like
an ancient god!' In August Haydon was arrested again, and hurried away
for a day and night of torture, during which, he confesses, he was
very near putting an end to himself; but advances from the Duke of
Cleveland and Mr. Ellice brought him release, and in a few hours he
was at home again, 'as happy and as hard at work as ever.'
In April 1834, the Reform picture was exhibited, but the public was
not interested, and Haydon lost a considerable sum over the
exhibition. The price of the commission had long since gone to quiet
the clamours of his creditors. On May 12 he writes: 'It is really
lamentable to see the effect of success and failure on people of
fashion. Last year, all was hope, exultation, and promise with me. My
door was beset, my house besieged, my room inundated. It was an
absolute fight to get in to see me paint. Well, out came the work--the
public felt no curiosity--it failed, and my door is deserted, no
horses, no carriages. Now for executions, insults, misery, and
wretchedness.' Then follows the old story. 'June 7.--Mary and I in
agony of mind. All my Italian books, and some of my best historical
designs, are gone to a pawnbroker's. She packed up her best gowns and
the children's, and I drove away with what cost me £40, and got £4.
The state of degradation, humiliation, and pain of mind in which I sat
in that dingy back-room is not to be described.'
Haydon now began a picture of 'Cassandra and Agamemnon,' and in July
he received a commission to finish it for the Duke of Sutherland, who
had more than once saved him from ruin. On this occasion the Duke's
advances barely sufficed to stave off disaster. Studies, prints,
clothes, and lay-figures were pawned to pay for the expenses of the
work, and on October comes the entry: 'Directly after the Duke's
letter came with its enclosed cheque, an execution was put in for the
taxes. I made the man sit for Cassandra's hand, and put on a Persian
bracelet. When the broker came for his money, he burst out laughing.
There was the fellow, an old soldier, pointing in the attitude of
Cassandra--up right and steady as if on guard. Lazarus' head was
painted just after an arrest; Eucles was finished from a man in
possession; the beautiful face in Xenophon, after a morning spent in
begging mercy of lawyers; and now Cassandra's head was finished in an
agony not to be described, and her hand completed from a broker's
man.'