During the remainder of the year, Haydon worked steadily, and finished his picture. On December 2 he notes: "It is now twenty-seven years since I ordered my Solomon canvas. I was young--twenty-six. The whole world was against me. I had not a farthing. Yet I remember the delight with which I mounted my deal table and dashed it in, singing and trusting in G.o.d, as I always do. When one is once imbued with that clear heavenly confidence, there is nothing like it. It has carried me through everything. I think my dearest Mary has not got it; I do not think women have in general. Two years ago I had not a farthing, having spent it all to recover her health. She said to me, "What are we to do, my dear?" I replied, "Trust in G.o.d." There was something like a smile on her face. The very next day came the order for 400 from Liverpool, and ever since I have been employed." Alas, poor Mary!
who had been chiefly occupied in bearing children and burying them, that must have been rather a melancholy smile upon her faded face.
During the first part of 1840, Haydon seems to have been chiefly engaged in lecturing, the only picture on the stocks being a small replica of his Napoleon Musing for the poet Rogers. In February he was enabled to carry out one of the dreams of his life, namely, the delivery of a series of lectures upon art in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, under the patronage of the Vice-Chancellor. The experiment was a triumphant success, and he exclaims, with his usual pious fervour, "O G.o.d, how grateful ought I to be at being permitted the distinction of thus being the first to break down the barrier which has kept art begging to be heard at the Universities." He describes the occasion as one of the four chief honours of his life, the other three being Wordsworth"s sonnet, "High is our calling," the freedom of his native town, and a public dinner that was given in his honour at Edinburgh.
On March 14 he arrived home, "full of enthusiasm and expecting (like the Vicar of Wakefield) every blessing--expecting my dear Mary to hang about my neck, and welcome me after my victory; when I found her out, not calculating I should be home till dinner. I then walked into town, and when I returned she was at home, and hurt that I did not wait, so this begat mutual allusions which were anything but loving or happy.
So much for antic.i.p.ations of human happiness!"
On June 12,1840, Haydon notes: "Excessively excited and exhausted. I attended the great Convention of the Anti-Slavery Society at Freemasons" Hall. Last Wednesday a deputation called on me from the Committee, saying they wished for a sketch of the scene. The meeting was very affecting. Poor old Clarkson was present, with delegates from America, and other parts of the world." A few days later, Haydon breakfasted with Clarkson, and sketched him with "an expression of indignant humanity." In less than a week fifty heads were dashed in, the picture, when finished, containing no fewer than a hundred and thirty-eight; in fact, as the artist remarked, with a curious disregard of natural history, it was all heads, like a peac.o.c.k"s tail.
Haydon took a malicious pleasure in suggesting to his sitters that he should place them beside the negro delegate; this being his test of their sincerity. Thus he notes on June 30: "Scobell called. I said, "I shall place you, Thompson, and the negro together." Now an abolitionist, on thorough principle, would have gloried in being so placed. He sophisticated immediately on the propriety of placing the negro in the distance, as it would have much greater effect. Lloyd Garrison comes to-day. I"ll try him, and this shall be my method of ascertaining the real heart.... Garrison met me directly. George Thompson said he saw no objection. But that was not enough. A man who wishes to place a negro on a level with himself must no longer regard him as having been a slave, and feel annoyed at sitting by his side."
A visit to Clarkson at Playford Hall, Ipswich, was an interesting experience. Clarkson told the story of his vision, and the midnight voice that said "You have not done your work. There is America."
Haydon had been a believer all his life in such spiritual communications, and declares, "I have been so acted on from seventeen to fifty-five, for the purpose of reforming and refining my great country in art."
In 1841 the Fine Arts Committee appointed to consider the question of the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament, sat to examine witnesses, but Haydon was not summoned before them, a slight which he deeply felt. With an anxious heart he set about making experiments in fresco, and was astonished at what he regarded as his success in this new line of endeavour. During the past year, the Anti-Slavery Convention picture, and one or two small commissions, had kept his head above water, but now the clouds were beginning to gather again, his difficulties being greatly increased by the fact that he had two sons to start in the world. The eldest, Frank, had been apprenticed, at his own wish, to an engineering firm, but tiring of his chosen profession, he desired to take orders, and, as a university career was considered a necessary preliminary to this course, he was entered at Caius College, Cambridge. The second son, Frederick, Haydon fitted out for the navy, and in order to meet these heavy extra expenses, he was compelled to part with his copyright of the "Duke at Waterloo" for a wholly inadequate sum.
In the spring of 1842 the Fine Arts Commission issued a notice of the conditions for the cartoon compet.i.tion, intended to test the capacity of native artists for the decoration of the House of Lords. The joy with which Haydon welcomed this first step towards the object which he had been advocating throughout the whole of his working life, was marred by the painful misgiving that he would not be allowed to share the fruits of victory. When he had first begun his crusade, he had felt himself without a rival in his own branch of art, not one of his contemporaries being able to compete with him in a knowledge of anatomy, in strength of imagination, or in the power of working on a grand scale. But now he was fifty-six years old, there were younger men coming on who had been trained in the principles of his own school, and he was painfully aware that he had made many enemies in high places. Still, in spite of all forebodings, he continued his researches in fresco-painting, and wrote vehement letters to the papers, protesting against the threatened employment of Cornelius and other German artists.
During this year Haydon was working intermittently at two or three large pictures, "Alexander conquering the Lion," "Curtius leaping into the Gulf," and the "Siege of Saragossa," for the days were long past when one grand composition occupied him for six years. That the wolf was once again howling at the door is evidenced by the entry for February 6. "I got up yesterday, after lying awake for several hours with all the old feelings of torture at want of money. A bill coming due of 44 for my boy Frank at Caius. Three commissions for 700 put off till next year. My dear Mary"s health broken up.... I knew if my debt to the tutor of Caius was not paid, the mind of my son Frank would be destroyed, from his sensitiveness to honour and right. As he is now beating third-year men, I dreaded any check." In these straits he hastily painted one or two small pot-boilers, borrowed, deferred, p.a.w.ned his wife"s watch, and had the satisfaction of bringing his son home "crowned as first-prize man in mathematics." For one who was in the toils of the money-lenders, who was only living from hand to mouth, and who had never made an investment in his life, to give his son a university career, must be regarded, according to individual feeling, either as a proof of presumptuous folly or of childlike trust in Providence.
As soon as his pictures were off his hands, Haydon began his compet.i.tion cartoons of "The Curse of Adam and Eve," and "The Entry of Edward the Black Prince and King John into London." He felt that it was beneath his dignity as a painter of recognised standing to compete with young unknown men who had nothing to lose, but in his present necessities the chance of winning one of the money prizes was not to be neglected. In the absence of any lucrative employment he was only able to carry on his work by p.a.w.ning his lay-figure, and borrowing off his b.u.t.terman. Small wonder that he exclaims: "The greatest curse that can befall a father in England is to have a son gifted with a pa.s.sion and a genius for high art. Thank G.o.d with all my soul and all my nature, my children have witnessed the harrowing agonies under which I have ever painted, and the very name of painting, the very thought of a picture, gives them a hideous taste in their mouths. Thank G.o.d, not one of my boys, nor my girl, can draw a straight line, even with a ruler, much less without one."
In the course of this year Haydon began a correspondence with Miss Barrett, afterwards Mrs. Browning, with whom he was never personally acquainted, though he knew her through her poems, and through the allusions to her in the letters of their common friend, Miss Mitford.
The paper friendship flourished for a time, and Haydon, who was a keen judge of character, recognised that here was a little Donna Quixote whose chivalry could be depended on in time of trouble. More than once, when threatened with arrest, he sent her paintings and ma.n.u.scripts, of which she took charge with sublime indifference to the fact that by so doing she might be placing herself within reach of the arm of the law. One of the pictures that were placed in her guardianship was an unfinished portrait of "Wordsworth musing upon Helvellyn." Miss Barrett was inspired by this work with the sonnet beginning:
"Wordsworth upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud Ebb audibly along the mountain wind";
and concluding with the fine tribute:
"A vision free And n.o.ble, Haydon, hath thine art released.
No portrait this with academic air, This is the poet and his poetry."
The year 1843 brought, as Haydon"s biographer points out, "the consummation of what he had so earnestly fought for, a compet.i.tion of native artists to prove their capability for executing great monumental and decorative works; but with this came his own bitter disappointment at not being among the successful compet.i.tors. In all his struggles up to this point, Haydon had the consolation of hope that better times were coming. But now the good time for art was at hand, and he was pa.s.sed over. The blow fell heavily--indeed, I may say, was mortal. He tried to cheat himself into the belief that the old hostile influences to which he attributed all his misfortunes, had been working here also, and that he should yet rise superior to their malice. He would not admit to himself that his powers were impaired--that he was less fit for great achievements in his art than he had been when he painted Solomon and Lazarus. But if he held this opinion, he held it alone. It was apparent to all, even to his warmest friends, that years of hara.s.s, humiliation, distraction, and conflict had enfeebled his energies, and led him to seek in exaggeration the effect he could no longer attain by well-measured force. His restless desire to have a hand in all that was projected for art, had wearied those in authority. He had shown himself too intractable to follow, and he had not inspired that confidence which might have given him a right to lead."
Although Haydon loudly proclaimed his conviction that, in face of the hostility against him, his cartoons would not be successful, even though they were as perfect as Raphael"s, yet it is obvious that he had not altogether relinquished hope. In a letter to his old pupil, Eastlake, who was secretary to the Fine Arts Commission, he says: "I appeal to the Royal Commission, to the First Lord, to you the secretary, to Barry the architect, if I ought not to be indulged in my hereditary right to do this, viz., that when the houses are ready, cartoons done, colours mixed, and all at their posts, I shall be allowed, _employed_ or _not employed_, to take the brush, and dip into the _first_ colour, and put the _first_ touch on the _first_ intonaco. If that is not granted, I"ll haunt every n.o.ble Lord and you, till you join my disturbed spirit on the banks of the Styx."
On June 1, Haydon placed his two cartoons in Westminster Hall, and thanked his G.o.d that he had lived to see that day, adding with unconscious blasphemy, "Spare my life, O Lord, until I have shown thy strength unto this generation, thy power unto that which is to come."
The miracle for which he had secretly hoped, while declaring his certainty of failure, did not happen. On June 27 he heard from Eastlake that his cartoons were not among those chosen for reward.
Half stunned by the blow, antic.i.p.ated though it had been, he makes but few comments on the news in his Journal, and those are written in a composed and reasonable tone. "I went to bed last night in a decent state of anxiety," he observes. "It has given a great shock to my family, especially to my dear boy, Frank, and revived all the old horrors of arrest, execution, and debt. It is exactly what I expected, and is, I think, intentional.... I am wounded, and being ill from confinement, it shook me. (_July 1st_) A day of great misery. I said to my dear love, "I am not included." Her expression was a study.
She said, "We shall be ruined." I looked up my letters, papers, and Journals, and sent them to my dear AEschylus Barrett. I burnt loads of private letters, and prepared for executions. Seven pounds was raised on my daughter"s and Mary"s dresses."
The three money prizes were awarded to Armitage, Cope, and Watts, but it was announced that another compet.i.tion, in fresco, would be held the following year, when the successful compet.i.tors would be intrusted with the decoration of the House of Lords. Haydon did not enter for this compet.i.tion, but, as will presently appear, he refused to allow that he was beaten. On September 4 he removed his cartoons from Westminster Hall, with the comment: "Thus ends the cartoon contest; and as the very first inventor and beginner of this mode of rousing the people when they were p.r.o.nounced incapable of relishing refined works of art without colour, I am deeply wounded at the insult inflicted. These Journals witness under what trials I began them--how I called on my Creator for His blessing--how I trusted in Him, and how I have been degraded, insulted, and hara.s.sed. O Lord! Thou knowest best. I submit."
During the year Haydon had finished his picture of "Alexander and the Lion," which he considered one of his finest works, though the British Gallery declined to hang it, and no patron offered to buy it. He had also painted for bread and cheese innumerable small replicas of "Napoleon at St. Helena" and the "Duke at Waterloo" for five guineas apiece. By the beginning of 1844 his spirits had outwardly revived, thanks to the anodyne of incessant labour, and he writes almost in the old buoyant vein: "Another day of work, G.o.d be thanked! Put in the sea [in "Napoleon at St. Helena"]; a delicious tint. How exquisite is a bare canvas, sized alone, to work on; how the slightest colour, thin as water, tells; how it glitters in body; how the brush flies--now here--now there; it seems as if face, hands, sky, thought, poetry, and expression were hid in the handle, and streamed out as it touched the canvas. What magic! what fire! what unerring hand and eye! what power!
what a gift of G.o.d! I bow, and am grateful." On March 24 he came to the fatal decision to paint his own original designs for the House of Lords in a series of six large pictures, and exhibit them separately, a decision founded, as he believed, on supernatural inspiration.
"Awoke this morning," he writes, "with that sort of audible whisper Socrates, Columbus, and Ta.s.so heard! "Why do you not paint your own designs for the House on your own foundation, and exhibit them?" I felt as if there was no chance of my ever being permitted to do them else, without control also. I knelt up in my bed, and prayed heartily to accomplish them, whatever might be the obstruction. I will begin them as my next great works; I feel as if they will be my last, and I think I shall then have done my duty. O G.o.d! bless the beginning, progression, and conclusion of these six great designs to ill.u.s.trate the best government to regulate without cramping the energies of mankind."
In July the frescoes sent in for compet.i.tion were exhibited in Westminster Hall, and in the result six artists were commissioned to decorate the House of Lords, Maclise, Redgrave, Dyce, Cope, Horsley, and Thomas. "I see," writes Haydon, "they are resolved that I, the originator of the whole scheme, shall have nothing to do with it; so I will (trusting in the great G.o.d who has brought me thus far) begin on my own inventions without employment." The first of the series was "Aristides hooted by the Populace," and the conditions under which it was painted are described in his annual review of the year"s work: "I have painted a large Napoleon in four days and a half, six smaller different subjects, three Curtiuses, five Napoleons Musing, three Dukes and Copenhagens, George IV., and the Duke at Waterloo--half done Uriel--published my lectures--and settled composition of Aristides. I gave lectures at Liverpool, sometimes twice a day, and lectured at the Royal Inst.i.tution. I have not been idle, but how much more I might have done!"
In 1845 Haydon exhibited his picture of "Uriel and Satan" at the Academy, and "after twenty-two years of abuse," actually received a favourable notice in the _Times_, For the Uriel he was paid 200, but five other pictures remained upon his hands, their estimated value amounting to nearly a thousand pounds, and he was left to work at his _Aristides_ with barely ten shillings for current expenses, and not a single commission in prospect. "What a pity it is," he observes, "that a man of my order--sincerity, perhaps genius [in the Journal a private note is here inserted, "not _perhaps_"], is not employed.
What honour, what distinction would I not confer on my great country!
However, it is my destiny to perform great things, not in consequence of encouragement, but in spite of opposition, and so let it be." In the latter part of the year came one or two minor pieces of good fortune for which Haydon professed the profoundest grat.i.tude, declaring that he was not good enough to deserve such blessings. The King of Hanover bought a Napoleon for 200, and a pupil came, who paid a like sum as premium. His son, Frank, who had taken his degree, changed his mind again about his profession, and now "shrank from the publicity of the pulpit." Haydon applied to Sir Robert Peel for an appointment for the youth, and Peel, who seems to have shown the utmost patience and kindness in his relations with the unfortunate artist, at once offered a post in the Record Office at 80 a year, an offer which was gladly accepted.
Thus relieved of immediate care, Haydon set to work on the second picture of his series, "Nero playing the Lyre while Rome was burning."
The effect of his conception, as he foresaw it in his mind"s eye, was so terrific that he "fluttered, trembled, and perspired like a woman, and was obliged to sit down." Under all the anxiety, the pressure, and the disappointment of Haydon"s life, it must be remembered that there were enormous compensations in the shape of days and hours of absorbed and satisfied employment, days and hours such as seldom fall to the lot of the average good citizen and solvent householder. The following entry alone is sufficient proof that Haydon, even in his worst straits, was almost as much an object of envy as of compa.s.sion: "Worked with such intense abstraction and delight for eight hours, with five minutes only for lunch, that though living in the noisiest quarter of all London, I never remember hearing all day a single cart, carriage, knock, cry, bark of man, woman, dog, or child. When I came out into the sunshine I said to myself, "Why, what is all this driving about?" though it has always been so for the last twenty-two years, so perfectly, delightfully, and intensely had I been abstracted. If that be not happiness, what is?"
Haydon had now staked all his hopes upon the exhibition in the spring of 1846 of the first two pictures in his series, "Aristides" and "Nero." If the public flocked to see them, if it accorded him, as he expected, its enthusiastic support, he hoped that the Commission would be shamed into offering him public employment. If, on the other hand, the exhibition failed, he must have realised that he would be irretrievably ruined, with all his hopes for the future slain.
Everything was to be sacrificed to this last grand effort. "If I lose this moment for showing all my works," he writes, "it can never occur again. My fate hangs on doing as I ought, and seizing moments with energy. I shall never again have the opportunity of connecting myself with a great public commission by opposition, and interesting the public by the contrast. If I miss it, it will be a tide not taken at the flood."
By dint of begging and borrowing, the money was sc.r.a.ped together for the opening expenses of the exhibition, and Haydon composed a sensational descriptive advertis.e.m.e.nt in the hope of attracting the public. The private view was on April 4, when it rained all day, and only four old friends attended. On April 6, Easter Monday, the public was admitted, but only twenty-one availed themselves of the privilege.
For a few days Haydon went on hoping against hope that matters would improve, and that John Bull, in whose support he had trusted, would rally round him at last. But Tom Thumb was exhibiting next door, and the historical painter had no chance against the pigmy. The people rushed by in their thousands to visit Tom Thumb, but few stopped to inspect "Aristides" or "Nero." "They push, they fight, they scream, they faint," writes Haydon, "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. Tom Thumb had 12,000 people last week, B. R. Haydon 133 1/2 (the half a little girl). Exquisite taste of the English people!... (_May,_ 18_th_) I closed my exhibition this day, and 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."
In defiance of this shipwreck of all his hopes, and the heavy liabilities that hung about his neck, this indomitable spirit began the third picture of his unappreciated series, "Alfred and the First British Jury." He had large sums to pay in the coming month, and only a few shillings in the house, with no commissions in prospect. He sends up pa.s.sionate and despairing pet.i.tions that G.o.d will help him in his dreadful necessities, will raise him friends from sources invisible, and enable him to finish his last and greatest works.
Appeals for help to Lord Brougham, the Duke of Beaufort, and Sir Robert Peel brought only one response, a cheque for 50 from Peel, which was merely a drop in the ocean. Day by day went by, and still no commissions came in, no offers for any of the large pictures he had on hand. Haydon began to lose confidence in his ability to finish his series, and with him loss of self-confidence was a fatal sign. The June weather was hot, he was out of health, and unable to sleep at night, but he declined to send for a doctor. His brain grew confused, and at last even the power to work, that power which for him had spelt pride and happiness throughout his whole life, seemed to be leaving him.
On June 16 he writes: "I sat from two till five staring at my picture like an idiot, my brain pressed down by anxiety, and the anxious looks of my dear Mary and the children.... Dearest Mary, with a woman"s pa.s.sion, wishes me at once to stop payment, and close the whole thing.
I will not. I will finish my six under the blessing of G.o.d, reduce my expenses, and hope His mercy will not desert me, but bring me through in health and vigour, grat.i.tude and grandeur of soul, to the end." The end was nearer than he thought, for even Haydon"s brave spirit could not battle for ever with adverse fate, and the collapse, when it came, was sudden. The last two or three entries in the Journal are melancholy reading.
"_June_ 18.--O G.o.d, bless me through the evils of this day. 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 replied, 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, Lord Grey"s coat, and some more heads.
"20_th_.--O G.o.d, bless us through all the evils of this day.
Amen.
"21_st,_.--Slept horribly. Prayed in sorrow, and got up in agitation.
"22_nd_.--G.o.d forgive me. Amen.
FINIS OF B. R. HAYDON.
""Stretch me no longer on this rough world"--_Lear_."
This last entry was made between ten and eleven o"clock on the morning of June 22. Haydon had risen early, and gone out to a gunmaker"s in Oxford Street, where he bought a pair of pistols. After breakfast, he asked his wife to go and spend the day with an old friend, and having affectionately embraced her, shut himself in his painting-room. Mrs.
Haydon left the house, and an hour later Miss Haydon went down to the studio, intending to try and console her father in his anxieties. She found him stretched on the floor in front of his unfinished picture of "Alfred and the First Jury," a bullet-wound in his head, and a frightful gash across his throat. A razor and a small pistol lay by his side. On the table were his Journal, open at the last page, letters to his wife and children, his will, made that morning, and a paper headed: "Last thoughts of B. R. Haydon; half-past ten." These few lines, with their allusions to Wellington and Napoleon, are characteristic of the man who had painted the two great soldiers a score of times, and looked up to them as his heroes and exemplars.
"No man should use certain evil for probable good, however great the object," so they run. "Evil is the prerogative of the Deity.
Wellington never used evil if the good was not certain. Napoleon had no such scruples, and I fear the glitter of his genius rather dazzled me. But had I been encouraged, nothing but good would have come from me, because when encouraged I paid everybody. G.o.d forgive me the evil for the sake of the good. Amen."
This tragic conclusion to a still more tragic career created a profound sensation in society, and immense crowds followed the historical painter to his grave. Among all his friends, perhaps few were more affected by his death than one who had never looked upon his face--his "dear aeschylus Barrett, "as he called her. Certain it is that, with the intuition of genius, Elizabeth Barrett understood, appreciated, and made allowances for the unhappy man more completely than was possible to any other of his contemporaries. Clear-sighted to his faults and weaknesses, her chivalrous spirit took up arms in defence of his conduct, even against the strictures of her poet-lover.
"The dreadful death of poor Mr. Haydon the artist," she wrote to her friend Mrs. Martin, a few days after the event, "has quite upset me. I thank G.o.d that I never saw him--poor gifted Haydon.... No artist is left behind with equal largeness of poetical conception. If the hand had always obeyed the soul, he would have been a genius of the first order. As it is, he lived on the slope of genius, and could not be steadfast and calm. His life was one long agony of self-a.s.sertion.
Poor, poor Haydon! See how the world treats those who try too openly for its grat.i.tude. "Tom Thumb for ever" over the heads of its giants."
"Could any one--_could my own hand even have averted what has happened_?" she wrote to Robert Browning on June 24, 1846. "My head and heart have ached to-day over the inactive hand. But for the moment it was out of my power, and then I never fancied this case to be more than a piece of a continuous case, of a habit fixed. Two years ago he sent me boxes and pictures precisely so, and took them back again--poor, poor Haydon!--as he will not this time.... Also, I have been told again and again (oh, never by _you_, my beloved) that to give money _there_, was to drop it into a hole in the ground.
But if to have dropped it so, dust to dust, would have saved a living man--what then?... Some day, when I have the heart to look for it, you shall see his last note. I understand now that there are touches of desperate pathos--but never could he have meditated self-destruction while writing that note. He said he should write six more lectures--six more volumes. He said he was painting a new background to a picture which made him feel as if his soul had wings... and he repeated an old phrase of his, which I had heard from him often before, and which now rings hollowly to the ears of my memory--that he _couldn"t and wouldn"t die_. Strange and dreadful!"
Directly after Haydon"s death a public meeting of his friends and patrons was held, at which a considerable sum was subscribed for the benefit of his widow and daughter. Sir Robert Peel, besides sending immediate help, recommended the Queen to bestow a small pension on Mrs. Haydon. The dead man"s debts amounted to 3000, and his a.s.sets consisted chiefly of unsaleable pictures, on most of which his creditors had liens. In his will was a clause to the effect that "I have ma.n.u.scripts and memoirs in the possession of Miss Barrett, of 50 Wimpole Street, in a chest, which I wish Longman to be consulted about. My memoirs are to 1820; my journals will supply the rest. The style, the individuality of Richardson, which I wish not curtailed by an editor." Miss Mitford was asked to edit the Life, but felt herself unequal to the task, which was finally intrusted to Mr. Tom Taylor.
Haydon"s _Memoirs_, compiled from his autobiography, journals, and correspondence, appeared in 1853, the same year that saw the publication of Lord John Russell"s _Life of Thomas Moore_. To the great astonishment of both critics and public, Haydon"s story proved the more interesting of the two. "Haydon"s book is the work of the year," writes Miss Mitford. "It has entirely stopped the sale of Moore"s, which really might have been written by a Court newspaper or a Court milliner." Again, the _Athenaeum_, a more impartial witness, asks, "Who would have thought that the Life of Haydon would turn out a more sterling and interesting addition to English biography than the Life of Moore?" But the highest testimony to the merits of the book as a human doc.u.ment comes from Mrs. Browning, who wrote to Miss Mitford on March 19, 1854, "Oh, I have just been reading poor Haydon"s biography. There is tragedy! The pain of it one can hardly shake off. Surely, surely, wrong was done somewhere, when the worst is admitted of Haydon. For himself, looking forward beyond the grave, I seem to understand that all things, when most bitter, worked ultimate good to him, for that sublime arrogance of his would have been fatal perhaps to the moral nature, if further developed by success. But for the nation we had our duties, and we should not suffer our teachers and originators to sink thus. It is a book written in blood of the heart. Poor Haydon!" Mr. Taylor"s Life was supplemented in 1874 by Haydon"s _Correspondence and Table-talk_, together with a _Memoir_ written in a tone of querulous complaint, by his second son, Frederick, who, it may be noted, had been dismissed from the public service for publishing a letter to Mr. Gladstone, ent.i.tled _Our Officials at the Home Office_, and who died in the Bethlehem Hospital in 1886. His elder brother, Frank, committed suicide in 1887.
On the subject of Haydon"s merits as a painter the opinion of his contemporaries swung from one extreme to another, while that of posterity perhaps has scarcely allowed him such credit as was his due.
It is certain that he was considered a youth of extraordinary promise by his colleagues, Wilkie, Jackson, and Sir George Beaumont, yet there were not wanting critics who declared that his early picture, "Dentatus," was an absurd ma.s.s of vulgarity and distortion. Foreign artists who visited his studio urged him to go to Rome, where he was a.s.sured that patrons and pupils would flock round him; while, on the other hand, he was described by a native critic (in the _Quarterly Review_) as one of the most defective painters of the day, who had received more pecuniary a.s.sistance, more indulgence, more liberality, and more charity than any other artist ever heard of. But the best criticism of his powers, though it scarcely takes into account the gift of imagination which received so many tributes from the poets, is that contributed to Mr. Taylor"s biography by Mr. Watts, R.A.