The obsequies of the departed President were of an imposing kind. His
remains were removed from his house in Russell Square to Somerset House.
There the body was received by the Council and officers of the Academy,
and deposited in the model-room, which was hung with black cloth and
lighted with wax candles in silver sconces. At the head of the coffin
was raised a large hatchment of the armorial bearings of the deceased;
and the pall over the coffin bore escutcheons of his arms, wrought in
silk. The members of the Council and the family having retired, the body
lay in state--the old servant of the President watching through the
night the remains of his master.
The body was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral, in the 'Painters' Corner'
of the south crypt, near the coffins of the former Presidents, Reynolds
and West. The Earl of Aberdeen, Earl Gower, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Dover,
Sir George Murray, the Right Honourable J.W. Croker, Mr. Hart Davis, and
Earl Clanwilliam were pall-bearers. Etty, who followed with the other
academicians, writes: 'Since the days of Nelson there has not been so
marked a funeral. The only fine day we have had for a long time was
_that_ day. When the melancholy pageant had entered the great western
door, and was half way up the body of the church, the solemn sound of
the organ and the anthem swelled on the ear, and vibrated to every
heart. It was deeply touching.... The organ echoed through the aisles.
The sinking sun shed his parting beams through the west window--and we
left him alone. Hail, and farewell!'
The produce of the sale by auction of his collection of art works and
treasures, etc., was between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds. The
estate of the dead man was only just equal to the demands upon it,
however. His popularity ought to have brought him wealth, but, strange
to say, he was always embarrassed. Yet he did not gamble, was never
dissipated, never viciously extravagant; but he kept no accounts, was
prodigal in kindness to his brother-artists, and in responding to the
many appeals to his charity. Perhaps, too, he rather affected an
aristocratic indifference to money. He spent much time in gratuitous
drawing and painting for presents to his friends. It is probable that
his death was hastened by his incessant work, to meet the demands made
upon him for money. Washington Irving saw him a few days before his
death, and relates that 'he seemed uneasy and restless, his eyes were
wandering, he was as pale as marble, the stamp of death seemed on him.
He told me he felt ill, but he wished to bear himself up.' In one of his
letters the painter wrote: 'I am chained to the oar, but painting was
never less inviting to me--business never more oppressive to me than at
this moment.' Still he could play his courtier part in society, and was
always graceful and winning. Haydon, who never loved a portrait-painter
much, yet says of Lawrence, that he was 'amiable, kind, generous, and
forgiving.' Further on he adds: 'He had smiled so often and so long,
that at last his smile had the appearance of being set in enamel.' But
then, Mr. Haydon prided himself on his coarseness, defiance, and hatred
of conventionality, deeming these fitting attributes of the high artist.
It is only as a portrait-painter that Sir Thomas can now be esteemed;
and, as a portrait-painter, his reputation has much declined of late
years. His drawing was often very incorrect, and his execution slovenly.
His colour was hectic and gaudy; and in composition he possessed little
skill. He was a master of expression, however. His heads are wonderfully
animated, and he invested his sitters with an air of high life peculiar
to himself. Conscious and a little affected they might be, but
certainly, through his art, they proclaimed themselves people of quality
and distinction. His attempts in another line of art were few and not
successful. His 'Homer reciting his Poems' was chiefly remarkable for
its resemblance to Mr. Westall's manner, and for containing a well-drawn
figure of Jackson the pugilist. Of his 'Satan calling up the Legions,'
Anthony Pasquin cruelly wrote, that 'it conveyed an idea of a mad German
sugar-baker dancing naked in a conflagration of his own treacle.' Over
an attempt at a Prospero and Miranda, he subsequently painted on the
same canvas a portrait of Kemble as Rolla.
And was he a male coquette? 'No,' answers a lady --and it is a question
that requires a lady's answer--'he had no plan of conquest.... But it
cannot be too strongly stated that his manners were likely to mislead
without his intending it. He could not write a common answer to a dinner
invitation without its assuming the tone of a _billet-doux_. The very
commonest conversation was held in that soft low whisper, and with that
tone of deference and interest which are so unusual, and so calculated
to please. I am myself persuaded that he never intentionally gave pain.'
Perhaps he was not capable of very deep feeling, and liked to test the
effects of his fine eyes. He wooed the two daughters of Mrs. Siddons,
never being quite clear in his own mind which he really loved. He tired
of the one and was dismissed by the other, or so rumour told the story;
however, his friendly relations with the family do not appear to have
ceased. One of the sisters died. 'From the day of her death to that of
his own,' writes a biographer, 'he wore mourning, and always used black
sealing-wax. Uncontrollable fits of melancholy came over him, and he
mentioned not her name but to his most confidential friend, and then
always with tenderness and respect.' It would have been more desirable,
perhaps, that he should have exhibited a little more feeling during the
lifetime of the lady; but perhaps marriage was not in the programme of
Hoppner's courtly rival, of the painter 'that began where Reynolds left
off,' as the sinking Sir Joshua is reported to have declared of him,
rather too flatteringly.