VII.
For twenty years Lawrence reigned alone. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the artist was commissioned by the Regent to attend the congress of sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, and produce portraits of the principal persons engaged in the great war. These European portraits—twenty-four in number—now decorate the Waterloo Hall at Windsor. In 1815 he was knighted by the Regent; in addition he was admitted to the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and became in 1817 a member of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, an honour he repaid by painting and presenting to the Academy a portrait of their countryman Benjamin West. The Academies of Venice, Florence, Turin, and Vienna subsequently added his name to their roll of members, while, through the personal interposition of King Christian Frederick, he was presented with the diploma of the Academy of Denmark. He was nominated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France, George IV. giving him permission to wear the cross of the order. Charles X. further presented the painter with a grand French clock nearly two feet high, and a dessert service of Sèvres porcelain, which Sir Thomas bequeathed to the Royal Academy. From the Emperor of Russia he received a superb diamond ring of great value; from the King of Prussia a ring with his Majesty's initials, F.R., in diamonds. He also received splendid gifts from the foreign ministers assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and from the Archduchess Charles and Princess Metternich at Vienna; from the Pope a ring and a colosseum in mosaic with his Holiness's arms over the centre of the frame; from the Cardinal Gonsalvi, besides other presents, a gold watch, chain, and seals of intaglios, and many beautiful bon-bon boxes of valuable stones set in gold; gold snuff-boxes, etc.; a breakfast set of porcelain from the Dauphin in 1825, with magnificent casts and valuable engravings from Canova at Rome. Was ever painter so fêted and glorified! And then he had been, on the death of West, in 1820, elected to the presidentship of the Academy. 'Well, well,' said Fuseli, who growled at everything and everybody, but was yet a friend to Lawrence, 'since they must have a face-painter to reign over them, let them take Lawrence; he can at least paint eyes!' In 1829, he exhibited eight portraits; but his health was beginning to decline. He died on the 7th June 1830. He had been painting on the previous day another portrait of George IV. in his coronation-dress.
'Are you not tired of those eternal robes? asked some one.
'No,' answered the painter; 'I always find variety in them—the pictures are alike in outline, never in detail. You would find the last the best.'
In the night he was taken alarmingly ill. He was bled, and then seemed better; but the bandage slipped—he fell from his chair into the arms of his valet, Jean Duts, a Swiss.
'This is fainting,' said the valet, in alarm.
'No, Jean, my good fellow,' Sir Thomas Lawrence politely corrected him, 'it is dying.' And he breathed his last.