THE HOUSE
It is March 27, 1776—fourteen years have passed. Romney is in his Cavendish Square house waiting for the first sitter recorded in his Diaries—"Lord Parker at 9 o'clock." Two more are to follow that day, "Miss Vernon at half-past 10," and "Lady Betty Compton at ¼ to 2." Seven more are booked for the three following days, and on Sunday he expects "At two a lady." He is well pleased. Fame is at his elbow. Fourteen busy years have glided by since his nag first clattered on the Cheapside cobbles. He has painted many pictures, always believing that "heroic art" is his forte, and portraits merely a means of living, and he has refused to exhibit at the Royal Academy, holding that public competition is bad for a man with "aspen nerves, shy, private, studious, and contemplative." In those fourteen years the gauche north countryman has seen something of the world. He has visited Paris, and he has made a tour lasting two years and three months through Italy, without which the education of an eighteenth-century painter was considered incomplete. Troubles he has had, of course. There was that cruel affair of the Society of Arts' competition, in which his picture of "The Death of Wolfe" won the prize; but the award of fifty guineas was, for some mysterious reason, withdrawn, and he had to be content with a consolation gift. Romney believes that Reynolds had a hand in it; but that is hard to credit. Italy and success and the Cavendish Square venture have blotted out that early disappointment. Taking Francis Cotes' large house was a bold step, and it had been complicated, at the critical moment, by an offer from Lord Warwick to visit Warwick Castle and paint a companion to the "very respectable portraits, chiefly by Vandyke, collected by the Earl." Romney refused that tempting offer (he painted the family group later), determined to let nothing delay the Cavendish Square plunge. How well it has turned out! Like Sir Joshua he has begun a Diary of his sitters. The hands of the clock point to nine. It is time Lord Parker arrived. And at half-past ten, joy! he will be shyly welcoming the beautiful Miss Vernon. The image of Mary, in the far-away north, is very faint.