reconcile this alleged indifference of the public to “High Art,” with
the enthusiasm which greeted Haydon’s earlier picture of the “Entry into
Jerusalem,” we refer to what we have just said regarding the advantage
which the assertor of some supposed new principle possesses over the
veteran whose day has gone by. When the “Entry into Jerusalem” was
painted, Haydon, then comparatively a young man, was at open warfare
with the Academy, setting old constituted authority at defiance, and
was, in point of fact, a far better historical painter than West, the
President, whose meagre works were still within the recollection of the
public. He was then fighting what seemed a winning battle. The subject,
too, had its high and awful interest; whereas no one, in truth, cared
the value of a straw for Aristides. There was, and is, no party in the
country in favour of gigantic pictures. Haydon, with all his talent,
never reached sublimity; and there are none of all his works that can
properly be styled perfect. As we have already said, even his most
popular pictures were characterised by a certain degree of exaggeration,
which tendency was not modified by experience; and that which was
originally a blemish, his innate pugnacity prompted him to defend and
repeat as a beauty. As to the latter conclusion, we apprehend we need
say nothing. There is always a culminating point; and men regard with
far more earnest interest the rising than the setting star.
But to poor Haydon himself, knowing, what the world did not, the depth
of misery at home, and forced to contemplate the future lot of his dear
ones—to a man of his pride, vanity, high impressions of art, and
stubbornness—what must have been the effect of this decisive proof that
the sympathy of the public was not with him? We find it in his own
journal. At the time his pictures were exhibited—at the time when life
or death were staked upon the cast—that diminutive human abortion, Tom
Thumb, was strutting on a table for the delectation of the London
gazers. We do not blame them. All men have their tastes, and so have
women and children; and many thousands would rather have seen that dwarf
gesticulate than have listened to the full melodies of Shakespeare. Why
not? It was the same in ancient times. The Romans never could get up a
national drama—they preferred a show of gladiators, or an exhibition of
the combats of beasts, to the most powerful efforts of the tragic muse.
But who could have said that to Haydon in the midst of his frantic
despair? Few men of genius—and it boots not now to inquire how much of
the blame was his own—have been so sorely tried at the last. Far greater
men than he was have gone to their graves, indifferent as to the opinion
of their contemporaries, and in the assured faith that posterity would
do them justice—but these were men who never had relied on the current
of popular opinion, and were content to die without immediate
acknowledgment. Haydon was not one of them. He could not, like
Correggio, commit his fame, with confidence, to the verdict of a coming
generation; he required the decision instantly, and was compelled to do
so, because upon that his reason or his life depended. Awful was the
abyss before him!
Here is his commentary upon the miserable receipts of his exhibition on
Easter Monday, a day to which he had looked forward in sanguine
expectation that the tide would turn in his favour. £1, 3s. 6d. was
taken at the door.
“They rush by thousands to see Tom Thumb. They push, they fight, they
scream, they faint, they cry Help and Murder! and oh! and ah! They see
my bills, my boards, my caravans, and don’t read them. Their eyes are
open, but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a _rabies_, a
madness, a _furor_, a dream.
“I would not have believed it of the English people.”
Singular instance of faith, that could withstand, for so many years, the
almost daily and ever-increasing experience of the fickleness of the
world!
“_May 18th._—I closed my exhibition this day, and have lost £111, 8s.
10d. No man can accuse me of showing less energy, less spirit, less
genius, than I did twenty-six years ago. I have not decayed, but the
people have been corrupted. I am the same, they are not; and I have
suffered in consequence.
“I used to accuse Napoleon of want of energy in not driving out the
senate after Waterloo, as he did on the 18th Brumaire. But he knew men
better than I. It would have been useless; he was not altered, they
were.”
And yet he painted on—hard, energetically at work, between the intervals
of absolute distraction—on his picture of Alfred, intended to be the
third of the series. He did so, because in art only could he find a
momentary respite from his miseries. He even worked with more frantic
energy than before; for abstraction of thought was his opiate, and in
visions of the past alone could he take refuge from the anguish of the
present. But the moment he dropped the pencil from his wearied hand, the
Furies were again upon him.
“_23d._—Awoke at three, in very great agony of mind; and lay awake
till long after five, affected by my position. Prayed God, as David
did, and fell asleep happier, but still fearing.
“I took the original sketch of Uriel, and went to my landlord, and
asked him to buy it in vain. At last I offered it to him if he would
lend me £1 to pay an instalment, when failure would have been certain
ruin. He assented, and I left a beautiful sketch. I then came home,
and darted at my picture. I have done a great deal this week under all
circumstances, and advanced the masses of the drapery for my jury.
Here lie Aristides and Nero, unasked for, unfelt for, rolled
up—Aristides, a subject Raffaele would have praised and complimented
me on! Good God!—and £111, 11s. 5d. lost by showing it!”
On June 11th there is this entry:—
“I have £15 to pay to-morrow, without a shilling. How I shall manage
to get seven hours’ peace for work, and yet satisfy my creditors,
Heaven only knows.
“£30, Newton, on the 25th; £31, 17s. 6d., Newman, same day; £26, 10s.,
Coutts, on the 24th; £29, 16s. 9d., Gillotts, on the 29th; £17, 10s.
6d. to baker,—in all £136, 14s. 10d. this month, with only 18s. in the
house; nothing coming in—all received; one large picture painting, and
three more getting ready, and Alfred’s head to do. In God alone I
trust, in humility. * * *
“_16th._—I sat from two till five staring at my picture like an idiot,
my brain pressed down by anxiety and anxious looks of my dear Mary and
children, whom I was compelled to inform.”
He had written to Sir Robert Peel, among others, stating his
circumstances. The answer was prompt and kind, and in these terms:—
“Sir,—I am sorry to hear of your continual embarrassments. From a
limited fund which is at my disposal, I send as a contribution to your
relief from those embarrassments the sum of £50.”
But that could not rescue the poor man. As the month drew towards its
termination, the horror became greater that his intellect could bear.
The following are the last entries in his journal.
“_18th._—O God, bless me through the evils of this day. Great anxiety.
My landlord, Newton, called. I said, ‘I see a quarter’s rent in thy
face, but none from me!’ I appointed to-morrow night to see him, and
lay before him every iota of my position. ‘Good-hearted Newton!’ I
said, ‘don’t put in an execution.’ ‘Nothing of the sort,’ he repeated,
half hurt.
“I sent the Duke, Wordsworth, dear Fred, and Mary’s heads to Miss
Barrett to protect. I have the Duke’s boots and hat, and Lord Grey’s
coat, and some other heads.
“_20th._—O God, bless us all through the evils of this day. Amen.
“_21st._—Slept horribly. Prayed in sorrow, and got up in agitation.
“_22d._—God forgive me. Amen.
Finis
of
B. R. Haydon.
“Stretch me no longer on this rough world.’—_Lear._
“End of twenty-sixth volume.”
He died by his own hand.
A more profoundly melancholy history than this it is impossible to
conceive. But if the records of one life of ambition and misery,
fairly and truthfully written, can avail as a warning to others,
these volumes have not been published in vain. Genius, it must be
acknowledged, too often needs a monitor. It is rash and
eccentric—over-confident, and always seeking to conquer; with its
eye bent on the glories from afar, it cannot guide its steps along
the common pathway of existence. Of devotion to art, or literature,
or science in any branch, we desire to speak most reverently. We
know that many of the most important services rendered to mankind
have been performed by humble men labouring sedulously in seclusion,
and shutting themselves out from the external world almost as
carefully as did the alchemists of old, when brooding over their
electuaries and alembics. But these men were, like all others,
subject to the laws of society, and were compelled, somehow, to earn
their daily bread, however humble might be their fare. And in this
they followed the apostolic example, for we find that even Paul,
after he had received his world-wide mission, did not deem himself
absolved from the common lot, but laboured diligently at his craft,
as a duty, that he might not be a burden upon his fellows. The
possession of genius does not exempt men from the ordinary cares of
life; they are, after all, but men; they must eat, drink, be clothed
and lodged like the other children of Adam; there is no exemption in
their favour from the weight of the primitive curse. It is one thing
to abandon high aims and impulses in order to acquire wealth, and
another to labour diligently in order that they may have the freer
scope. It is all very well to talk disparagingly about Pegasus in
the yoke; to that restraint Pegasus must needs submit, else a worse
thing will befall him. Some faint suspicion of this seems to have
passed across the mind of Haydon when he penned the following
observation: “Homer begged; Tasso begged in a different way; Galileo
was racked; De Witt assassinated, and all for wishing to improve
their species. At the same time Raffaele, Michael Angelo, Zeuxis,
Apelles, Rubens, Reynolds, Titian, Shakespeare, were rich and happy.
Why? _because with their genius they combined practical prudence_. I
believe this is the secret.” Haydon, however, could not shape his
course accordingly. From first to last he belonged to that unhappy
class who are constantly looking out for what they call “the good
time coming;” forgetting that every man must be the architect of his
own fortune, that the success of to-morrow depends upon the labour
of to-day, and that as we sow, so also must we reap. We doubt not
that he indulged in glowing anticipations of fame and fortune; but
he neglected to take the simplest means towards their attainment,
thereby placing himself, from the very commencement of his career,
at a sore disadvantage. It cannot be too often repeated, that to an
artist or a literary man, early debt is ruin. It is easy to find an
excuse for incurring the first obligation; but the very facility
with which that has been obtained becomes a temptation to a second;
and very soon the unfortunate borrower finds himself so entangled,
that no late exertion of industry can set him free. If we are met
with the question, What ought Haydon to have done in the earlier
part of his career? We answer unhesitatingly, that he ought to have
painted portraits—sign-posts—anything, rather than have sacrificed
his independence. After all, as we have seen, he _was_ driven to
paint portraits in his latter years; but the employment which he
then felt as a degradation, and regarded with disgust, would, had he
applied himself to it earlier, have been the means not only of
affording him a competency, but of giving him free and unharassed
leisure to carry out his more ambitious schemes. The casual reader
of this work will be amazed to find so many entries of squandered
time. In the very midst of his difficulties, months would elapse
without Haydon’s taking up his pencil, and those periods of idleness
he condemns as “the delinquency of infatuation.” For our part, we
should not be inclined to use so harsh a term. Such works as Haydon
was engaged in will not admit of continuous and unbroken
application. In their composition the faculties must be exerted to
the utmost, and both passion and imagination must be excited. That
is the case alike with the painter and the poet—if it is otherwise,
the pictures of the one and the words of the other will be cold and
unsympathetic. Now such a mood of mind is exceedingly exhausting,
and moreover cannot always be assumed at pleasure. Some men—we might
instance Schiller—have sacrificed their lives in the attempt to
prolong this excitement; for nature, whenever overtasked, demands a
period of repose, or at least a change of exertion. We have Haydon’s
own authority for the fact that, while engaged in composition, he
was always under the influence of strong emotion. It is no wonder,
therefore, that he frequently felt himself unable to continue—that
is, to raise himself to the point of elevation of idea which he had
previously reached. But instead of using these intervals profitably,
he threw away his time, dreaming and speculating, until the goad of
necessity or the prick of conscience roused him to another effort.
And how profitless these efforts were, his history too plainly
shows.
We have not thought it necessary to attempt, in this article, any
criticism of Haydon as a painter. In truth, the materials for doing so
are not within our reach, for his pictures are dispersed, and for the
greater part forgotten. Nor can he be said to be the founder of a
school; for although he numbered among his pupils Sir Edwin Landseer,
and Sir Charles Eastlake, the present distinguished President of the
Academy, the traces of his style are visible in the works of neither of
these eminent men. He will be remembered hereafter rather from his
enthusiasm—we had almost said fanaticism—in the cause of High Art, than
on account of his works; and these volumes will unquestionably remain,
remarkable in literature, as the most faithful record extant of the
miserable effects which ensue from the misapplication of genius, from
abandonment of prudence, from defiance of public opinion, and from the
indulgence of overweening vanity. They ought, as we have already said,
to be attentively perused by every student of art and literature; for
they convey an important lesson, which is not the less likely to have
its effect because our sympathies are keenly excited by the misfortunes,
the trials, and miserable fate of the man. May his unhappy story be a
warning to those who, proud in the real or fancied possession of genius,
believe that nothing more is required to carry them to the summit of
their ambition—may all such read and ponder, and recoil from the abyss
which yawns for every one who disregards the common duties and daily
responsibilities of existence!
BRUTE LIFE IN THE ALPINE REGIONS.[2]
Switzerland has latterly become one of the most commonplace countries in
Europe. No matter that its lakes are as lovely, its mountains as
magnificent, its landscapes as beautiful, and its cascades as sparkling
as they were thirty years ago; it has the grievous misfortune of being
too well known. Familiarity has begot indifference. Switzerland is now
little more than a baiting place on the road to Italy or the East.
Everybody has visited it, and professes to know it by heart. If a
railway were accomplished, people would dart through it in a day, as
they do through monotonous Belgium on their way to the Rhine—caring to
see no more of it than they can spy from the carriage windows. As to
Mont Blanc, its ascent is becoming quite an ordinary occurrence; men
scramble up and down it like conies on a sandhill, and one thinks of the
Grands Mulets pretty much as one used to think, in the dear departed
days of four-horse teams and many-coated jehus, of the Halfway House on
the Great North Road. Switzerland is now visited (for its own sake) only
by persons who are stinted for time—who cannot afford a tour, but merely
“a run,” and who accordingly scamper off to the Alps (as they might do
to the Westmoreland lakes or Welsh hills), the journey thither being
performable, thanks to steam, in somewhere about thirty hours from
London Bridge. Rapid gentlemen, who glory in the quantity of ground they
get over, who estimate the interest of a tour by the number of leagues
accomplished, who have passed a day at Chamouni, climbed the Rhigi,
visited the convent of St Bernard, written nonsense in visitors’ books,
and satisfactorily settled in their minds the comparative merits of the
many excellent tables-d’hôte that British gulosity and guineas have
caused to replace Helvetia’s once simple and unsophisticated
hospitality,—gentlemen of this class, who have done thus much, declare
they know the country thoroughly, consider it rather slow, and pack
their portmanteaus for a trip to the Antipodes or a stroll amidst
Nineveh’s ruins.
From the Andes to the Alps, the flight is a far one. When first we fell
in with that agreeable writer and accomplished naturalist, Dr Frederick
Tschudi, he was fresh from Peru, and it was the meritorious book his
South American wanderings suggested that brought us acquainted with him.
Since that expedition, and probably during many years previously to it,
he has studied and observed nearer home. The mountains of his native
Switzerland have supplied him a theme for one of those massive octavos
which indefatigable Germany loves to produce, and whose close print and
countless pages deter foreign readers, unless the author’s name be one
that invites and encourages them to proceed. That of Dr Tschudi was
associated in our memory with so much valuable information, most
pleasantly imparted, that we at once and willingly plunged into his
formidable volume.
However well acquainted frequent visits or long residence may have made
us with one of the most picturesque and delightful of European lands, a
summer’s ramble amidst its mountains will assuredly possess much of the
charm of novelty, if performed after an attentive perusal of Dr
Tschudi’s recent publication. A summer’s ramble—not for ever along
high-roads and beaten tracks, with a luxurious hotel for the goal of
each day’s journey, but—away in the mountains, with a change or two of
linen, and Dr Tschudi’s book for sole baggage, and with a cheerful
resolution to be content with hard beds and shepherd’s fare. We are much
mistaken, or Dr Tschudi must have passed many such summers, and less
clement seasons too—must long have been a lodger in huts and chalets,
and have bivouacked for months together amidst Alpine peaks—as he once
did in Peruvian forests—in order to accumulate the country thoroughly,
consider it rather slow, and pack their portmanteaus for a trip to the
Antipodes or a stroll amidst Nineveh’s ruins.
From the Andes to the Alps, the flight is a far one. When first we fell
in with that agreeable writer and accomplished naturalist, Dr Frederick
Tschudi, he was fresh from Peru, and it was the meritorious book his
South American wanderings suggested that brought us acquainted with him.
Since that expedition, and probably during many years previously to it,
he has studied and observed nearer home. The mountains of his native
Switzerland have supplied him a theme for one of those massive octavos
which indefatigable Germany loves to produce, and whose close print and
countless pages deter foreign readers, unless the author’s name be one
that invites and encourages them to proceed. That of Dr Tschudi was
associated in our memory with so much valuable information, most
pleasantly imparted, that we at once and willingly plunged into his
formidable volume.
However well acquainted frequent visits or long residence may have made
us with one of the most picturesque and delightful of European lands, a
summer’s ramble amidst its mountains will assuredly possess much of the
charm of novelty, if performed after an attentive perusal of Dr
Tschudi’s recent publication. A summer’s ramble—not for ever along
high-roads and beaten tracks, with a luxurious hotel for the goal of
each day’s journey, but—away in the mountains, with a change or two of
linen, and Dr Tschudi’s book for sole baggage, and with a cheerful
resolution to be content with hard beds and shepherd’s fare. We are much
mistaken, or Dr Tschudi must have passed many such summers, and less
clement seasons too—must long have been a lodger in huts and chalets,
and have bivouacked for months together amidst Alpine peaks—as he once
did in Peruvian forests—in order to accumulate the great store and
variety of curious information he has brought together in this volume.
Some aid he may have derived from the numerous admirable books which
Swiss naturalists have devoted to the beauties and wonders of their
native land. But his pages bear the stamp of originality, and abound in
unmistakable evidence of an enthusiastic love of science, and of keen
and intelligent personal observation. One of their most striking
features is the minute knowledge displayed of the ways and habits of
creatures of whose existence many persons are barely aware—a knowledge
which can only have been acquired by long frequentation of their haunts,
and by the most cautious watchfulness. The author of a book like this
must, one would think, have led the life of an Indian on the
war-path—have exercised the craft, and patience, and vigilance, the
silence and self-denial of Leatherstocking on a Sioux trail—whilst
watching the furred and feathered and scaly denizens of the forests, as
eager to note their aspect and peculiarities as the wild warrior could
be to surprise foes and add fresh scalps to his savage trophies.
Dr Tschudi has made a Dantesque arrangement of his work, dividing it
into “circles,” whose denizens he describes in turn. The circles are the
Mountain Region, the Alpine Region, the Snow Region. The first chapter
of each circle is devoted to the general characteristics of the region
described, its formation, geology, climate, streams and lakes. A
botanical chapter follows; then one is given to the lower animals—fish,
insects, reptiles—and others to birds and quadrupeds. Each circle is
terminated by a series of biographies and delineations of particular
animals, and these are some of the most pleasing portions of the book,
which, far from being dry or abstruse, contains few scientific terms
that are not intelligible to all tolerably educated persons, and maybe
ranked in the same class to which belongs White’s delightful Natural
History of Selborne. The general reader might be little attracted by so
extensive a work devoted entirely to natural history, but Dr Tschudi is
capable of imparting attraction and interest to a much drier subject.
“The Alps,” says Dr Tschudi, in his few preliminary pages of general
reflections, “are the pride of the Switzer, who has planted his home at
their foot. Their vicinity exercises an indescribable and extensive
influence on his whole existence. They are in some sort the condition of
his natural and spiritual, his social and political life. He loves them
almost instinctively; the most secret fibres of his heart are
intertwined with them; when absent from them, his longing is incessant
to return to his beloved mountains. His love for them is perhaps greater
than his knowledge of their nature. Even at the present day, when the
furrow is sought in which the locomotive may most easily wind its way
over the lowest saddle of the Central Alps, and the galvanic stream
glides along the copper wire, where beautiful roads have long
intersected them, and thousands of tourists from every part of the world
have visited them—even now that the indefatigable spirit of inquiry of
our numerous great naturalists has stimulated to a thousand fruitful
expeditions to their lofty and glittering summits, a deep mystery still
envelopes them.” They compose an almost unknown land, in the midst of
thickly peopled and highly civilised countries. Refined and prosperous
nations have occupied their valleys, and pushed their way up those lower
steeps which form the step of transition from plain to mountain. But at
a certain elevation they stop, and go no farther. Above is the domain of
bird and beast, rarely intruded upon, save by a stray hunter or by an
ardent and adventurous seeker after knowledge. In those lofty regions
are immense tracts of mountain, which have never echoed to a human
voice, or received the print of human foot, and whose animal and
vegetable life are still totally uninvestigated. “Many a valley in the
rugged recesses of the Upper Alps is less known than the coasts of the
remotest group of islands, or than the banks of the Nile and the
Mississippi. And not only this: even the districts which we have before
our eyes, and under our feet, have but lately become known to us; we
still are but at the threshold of knowledge, and few are there who
earnestly knock, and are admitted.”