IX.
Haydon notes in his diary, under date 25th May 1832, 'I passed Lawrence's house (Russell Square). Nothing could be more melancholy or desolate. I knocked, and was shown in. The passages were dusty; the paper torn; the parlours dark; the painting-room, where so much beauty had once glittered, forlorn; and the whole appearance desolate and wretched—the very plate on the door green with mildew.
'I went into the parlour, which used to be instinct with life; "Poor Sir Thomas; always in trouble," said the woman who had the care of the house, "always something to worrit him." I saw his bed-room—small —only a little bed—the mark of it was against the wall. Close to his bed-room was an immense room (where was carried on his manufactory of draperies, etc.), divided, yet open over the partitions. It must have been five or six small rooms turned into one large workshop. Here his assistants worked. His painting-room was a large back drawing-room; his show-room a large front one. He occupied a parlour and a bed-room; all the rest of the house was turned to business. Any one would think that people of fashion would visit from remembrance the house where they had spent so many happy hours. Not they. They shun a disagreeable sensation. They have no feeling—no poetry. It is shocking. It is dirty!'
Bitter Mr. Haydon. Perhaps it was not that he loved Lawrence more, but that he loved his patrons less. For the people of fashion who were caring so little about the dead Lawrence, cared not at all for the living Haydon.
NOTES:
[19] A story to this effect has been generally credited; but in the Life of Reynolds by Messrs. Leslie and Taylor, 1865, a different version is given of the relations subsisting between Sir Joshua and his preceptor, and the notion of the one regarding the other with any sort of animosity is rejected, if not altogether disproved.
[20] The father of Mr. Bayle Bernard the dramatist.
[21] The diplomas of the Academicians constituted them ESQUIRES. In the last century this designation was conferred and employed by society with more scrupulousness than obtains at present.
[22] See Life of Sir M.A. Shee, vol. i. p. 441.
