"Full many an artist has on canvas fix'd
All charms that Nature's pencil ever mix'd—
The witchery of Eyes, the Grace that tips
The inexpressible douceur of Lips.
Romney alone, in this fair image caught
Each Charm's expression and each Feature's thought;
And shows how in their sweet assemblage sit,
Taste, spirit, softness, sentiment and wit."
Romney does not shine in the Wallace Collection. His sole example, "Mrs. Robinson," is but a "twinkling star" (his own phrase to express the charms of the greatest beauties of the eighteenth century compared with Lady Hamilton) in the galaxy of masterpieces in the large gallery at Hertford House. Hanging on the same wall is Reynolds's version of seaward-gazing "Mrs. Robinson," and the superb full length by Gainsborough that dominates the Gallery, quite eclipsing our Romney's modest presentment of the famous lady, dressed for walking, with her hands in a muff. Her high powdered hair is crowned by a cap, the strings of which are tied beneath her plump chin. There is more character and resolution in the face than in the generality of Romney's portraits. Indeed, she is almost matronly, but the complexion has all his rose-leaf freshness; the touch of colour he permits in the sleeve is characteristic.
This room at Hertford House, with its three portraits of Mrs. Robinson, by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney, is the place to brood over and speculate upon the dazzling career of this charming woman. A recital of the facts is enough; imagination can supply the rest. First a protégé of Hannah More; then the attraction of the town as "Perdita" at Drury Lane, she dazzled the Prince of Wales and became his mistress. In receipt of a pension of £500 a year at the age of twenty-five, she amused herself writing novels, poems, and plays, was a member of the Delia Cruscan School, and died, "poor and palsied," in 1800 at the age of forty-two.
Among the nine Romneys at the National Portrait Gallery is a winsome and smiling Emma. Her elbows are upon a table, and her firm chin rests upon her hands; but face and hands suffer from an excess of the Romney red. Here also is the crayon sketch of Cowper which inspired the poet's sonnet to Romney, and of which Cowper wrote, "Romney has drawn me in crayons, and, in the opinion of all here, with his best hand and with the most exact resemblance possible"; his friend Richard Cumberland gazing upwards for inspiration; a "Flaxman modelling the Bust of Hayley," an example of "heroic portraiture"; and the Adam Walker family group—the last picture Romney painted, and interesting for its connection with William Blake. In a letter to Hayley, after Romney's death, Blake, who was collecting material for the Life by Hayley, wrote in 1804: "He (Adam Walker) showed me also the last performance of Romney. It is of Mr. Walker and his family, the draperies put in by somebody else. It is an excellent picture, but unfinished."
Unfinished also is the large autograph portrait of himself "as he appeared in the most active season of his existence," painted at Eartham in 1780. "He looks a man of genius" is the comment of visitors to the National Portrait Gallery. Certainly he looks an impressionable, sensitive, and easily moved man, with his large, somewhat mournful eyes and the high brow. Place beside Romney's portrait a photograph of Huxley, and you have two types, poles apart, remote as a Perugino from a Frans Hals.
A noble portrait is that of Warren Hastings at the India Office, everything subservient to the finely-cut head with its fringe of silvery hair, and the dark grey eyes looking shrewdly out at the world. Romney took his colour from his environment. With a lovely woman before him he painted loveliness; confronted by Warren Hastings he painted intellect and power; confronted by a Wesley, intellect and spirituality. But he failed when he tried to imagine something "noble and heroic," such as the melodramatic "Milton Dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his Daughters," or a story picture such as the replica of "Serena reading 'Evelina' by Candlelight," at the South Kensington Museum. What inspiration could he derive from Hayley's "Triumph of Temper." The personality of Warren Hastings or Charles Wesley could stimulate his genius—not such verses as the following:—
"Sweet Evelina's fascinating power
Had first beguil'd of sleep her midnight hour;
Possesst by Sympathy's enchanting sway
She read, unconscious of the dawning day."