"Sir George rises at seven, walks in the garden before breakfast, and
rides out about two--fair or foul. We have had breakfast at half-past
eight; but to-day we began at the winter hour--nine. We do not quit
the breakfast-table directly, but chat a little about the pictures in
the room. We then go to the painting-room, and Sir George most
manfully sets to work, and I by his side. At two, the horses are
brought to the door. I have had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of
Ashby, the mountain stream and rocks (such Everdingens!) at
Grace-Dieu, and an old convent there--Lord Ferrers'--a grand but
melancholy spot. At dinner we do not sit long; Lady Beaumont reads
the newspaper (the _Herald_) to us; and then to the drawing-room to
tea; and after that comes a great treat. I am furnished with some
portfolios, full of beautiful drawings or prints, and Sir George
reads a play in a manner the most delightful. On Saturday evening it
was, 'As You Like It;' and I never heard the 'seven ages' so
admirably read before. Last evening, Sunday, he read a sermon, and a
good deal of Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Some of the landscape
descriptions in it are very beautiful. About nine, the servant comes
in with a little fruit and a decanter of water; and at eleven we go
to bed. I always find a fire in my room, and make out about an hour
longer, as I have every thing there--writing-desk, &c.--and I grudge
a moment's unnecessary sleep in this place. You would laugh to see my
bed-room, I have dragged so many things into it--books, portfolios,
prints, canvasses, pictures, &c."
"_November 9._--How glad I was, my dear love, to receive your last
kind letter, giving a good account of yourself and our dear babies. *
* * Nothing shall, I hope, prevent my seeing you this week; indeed I
am quite nervous about my absence, and shall soon begin to feel
alarmed about the Exhibition. * * * I do not wonder at your being
jealous of Claude. If any thing could come between our love, it is
him. I am fast advancing a beautiful little copy of his study from
nature of a little grove scene. If you, my dearest love, will be so
good as to make yourself happy without me for this week, it will, I
hope, be long before we part again. But, believe me, I shall be the
better for this visit as long as I live. Sir George is never angry,
or pettish, or peevish, and though he loves painting so much, it does
not harass him. You will like me a great deal better than you did.
To-morrow Southey is coming with his wife and daughter. I know you
would be sorry if I were not to stay and meet him, he is such a
friend of Gooch's; but the Claudes, the Claudes, are all, all, I can
think of here. * * * The weather is so bad that I can scarcely see
out of the window, but Friday was lovely. I shall hardly be able to
make you a sketch of the house, but I shall bring you much, though in
little compass, to show you. * * * Thursday was Sir George's
birth-day. Sixty-nine, and married almost half a century. The
servants had a ball, and I was lulled to sleep by a fiddle."
"_November 18._--My dearest love, * * * I was very glad to hear a
very nice account of you and my dear babies. * * * I shall finish my
little Claude on Thursday; and then I shall have something to do to
some of Sir George's pictures, that will take a day or two more, and
then home. * * * I sent you a hasty shabby line by Southey, but all
that morning I had been engaged on a little sketch in Miss Southey's
album of this house, which pleased all parties here very much. Sir
George is loath to part with me. He would have me pass Christmas with
him, and has named a small commission which he wished me to execute
here; but I have declined it, as I am desirous to return. Sir George
is very kind, and I have no doubt meant this little picture to pay my
expenses. I have worked so hard in the house, that I never went out
of the door last week, so that I am getting quite nervous. But I am
sure my visit here will be ultimately of the greatest advantage to
me, and I could not be better employed to the advantage of all of us,
by its making me so much more of an artist. * * * The breakfast bell
rings. I now hasten to finish, as the boy waits. I really think
seeing the habits of this house will be of service to me as long as I
live. Every thing so punctual. Sir George never looks into his
painting-room on a Sunday, nor trusts himself with a portfolio. Never
is impatient. Always rides or walks for an hour or two, at two
o'clock; so will I with you, if it is only into the square. I amuse
myself, every evening, making sketches from Sir George's drawings
about Dedham, &c. I could not _carry_ all his sketch-books. * * * I
wish I had not cut myself out so much to do here; but I was greedy
with the Claudes."
In his next letter to his wife, Constable deplores the facility with which
he allowed his time to be consumed by loungers in his painting-room--an
evil his good-nature to the last entailed on him. Mrs Constable in one of
her letters had said:--"Mr **** was here nearly an hour on Saturday,
reading the paper and talking to himself. I hope you will not admit him so
often. Mr ****, another lounger, has been here once or twice."
"_Cole-Orton Hall, November. 21st._--My dearest love, I am as
heartsick as ever you can be at my long absence from you, and all our
dear darlings, but which is now fast drawing to a close. In fact, my
greediness for pictures made me cut out for myself much more work
than I ought to have undertaken at this time. One of the Claudes
would have been all that I wanted, but I could not get at that first,
and I had been here a fortnight before I began it. To-day it will be
done, with perhaps a little touch on Saturday morning. I have then an
old picture to fill up some holes in. But I fear I shall not be able
to get away on Saturday, though I hope nothing shall prevent me on
Monday. I can hardly believe I have not seen you, or my Isabel, or my
Charley, for five weeks. Yesterday there was another very high wind
and such a splendid evening as I never before beheld at this time of
the year Was it so with you? But in London nothing is to be seen,
worth seeing, in the NATURAL way.
"I certainly will not allow of such serious interruptions as I used
to do from people who devour my time, brains and every thing else.
Sir George says it is quite serious and alarming. Let me have a
letter on Sunday, my last day here, as I want to be made comfortable
on my journey, which will be long and tiresome, and I shall be very
nervous as I get near home; therefore, pray let me have a good
account of you all. I believe some great folks are coming here in
December, which Sir George dreads, as they so much interfere with his
painting habits; for no artist can be fonder of the art."
"_November 25th._--My very dearest love, I hope nothing will prevent
my leaving this place to-morrow afternoon and that I shall have you
in my arms on Thursday morning, and my babies; Oh, dear! how glad I
shall be. I feel that I have been AT SCHOOL, and can only hope that
my long absence from you may ultimately be to my great and lasting
improvement as an artist, and indeed in every thing. If you have any
friends staying with you, I beg you will dismiss them before my
arrival."
We have already said we have no intention of going through the meagre
incidents in the life of Constable. He was elected an Academician in 1829
after the death of his wife, which took place the year before. Much as he
was pleased at the attainment of the honour, he could not help saying, "It
has been delayed till I am solitary and cannot impart it." He could not
add with Johnson, "until I am _known_ and do not _want it_;" for probably
no painter of equal genius was at that time less generally known in his
own country. Two days before, he writes, "I have just received a
commission to paint a _mermaid_ for a _sign to an inn_ in Warwickshire!
This is encouraging, and affords no small solace after my previous
labours on landscape for twenty years."
His death took place in 1837.
"On Thursday the 30th of March, I met him at a general assembly of
the Academy; the night, though very cold, was fine, he walked a great
part of the way home with me. The most trifling occurrences of that
evening remain on my memory. As we proceeded along Oxford Street, he
heard a child cry on the opposite side of the way: the griefs of
childhood never failed to arrest his attention, and he crossed over
to a little beggar girl who had hurt her knee; he gave her a shilling
and some kind words, which, by stopping her tears, showed that the
hurt was not very serious, and we continued our walk. Some pecuniary
losses he had lately met with had disturbed him, but more because
they involved him with persons disposed to take advantage of his good
feelings, than from their amount. He spoke of these with some degree
of irritation, but turned to more agreeable subjects, and we parted
at the west end of Oxford Street, laughing. I never saw him again
alive.
"The whole of the next day he was busily engaged finishing his
picture of Arundel Mill and Castle. One or two of his friends who
called on him saw that he was not well, but they attributed this to
confinement and anxiety with his picture, which was to go in a few
days to the Exhibition. In the evening he walked out for a short time
on a charitable errand connected with the Artists' Benevolent Fund.
He returned about nine o'clock, ate a hearty supper, and, feeling
chilly, had his bed warmed--a luxury he rarely indulged in. It was
his custom to read in bed; between ten and eleven he had read himself
to sleep, and his candle, as usual, was removed by a servant. Soon
after this, his eldest son, who had been at the theatre, returned
home, and, while preparing for bed in the next room, his father awoke
in great pain, and called to him. So little was Constable alarmed,
however, that he at first refused to send for medical assistance. He
took some rhubarb and magnesia, which produced sickness, and he drank
copiously of warm water, which occasioned vomiting, but the pain
increasing, he desired that Mr Michele, his near neighbour, should be
sent for, who very soon attended. In the mean time Constable had
fainted, his son supposing he had fallen asleep. Mr Michele instantly
ordered some brandy to be brought; the bed-room of the patient was at
the top of the house, the servant had to run down-stairs for it, and
before it could be procured life was extinct; and within half an hour
of the first attack of pain.
"A _post-mortem_ investigation was made by Professor Partridge, in
the presence of Mr George Young and Mr Michele, but, strange to say,
the extreme pain Constable had suffered could only be traced to
indigestion, no indications of disease were any where discovered,
sufficient, in the opinion of those gentlemen, to have produced at
that time a fatal result. Mr Michele, in a letter to me, describing
all he had witnessed, says, 'It is barely possible that the prompt
application of a stimulant might have sustained the vital principle,
and induced reaction in the functions necessary to the maintenance of
life.'
"Constable's eldest son was prevented from attending the funeral by
an illness brought on by the painful excitement he had suffered; but
the two brothers of the deceased, and a few of his most intimate
friends, followed the body to Hampstead,[3] where some of the
gentlemen residing there, who had known Constable, voluntarily joined
the procession in the churchyard. The vault which contained the
remains of his wife was opened, he was laid by her side, and the
inscription which he had placed on the tablet over it,
'Eheu! quam tenui e filo pendet
_Quidquid in vita maxime arridet!_'
might will be applied to the loss his family and friends had now
sustained. The funeral service was read by one of those friends, the
Rev. T. J. Judkin, whose tears fell fast on the book as he stood by
the tomb."