However inclined Harlow may have been to neglect counsel, given in rather an imperious tone, he did not hesitate to profit by Fuseli's comments, and accordingly he re-arranged the grouping in the foreground of his picture. On a subsequent visit Fuseli remarked the change: 'So far you have done well,' he said, 'but now you have not introduced a back-figure to throw the eye of the spectator into the picture.' And he then proceeded to point out by what means this might be managed. Accordingly, we learn, Harlow introduced the two boys who are taking up the cushion; the one with his back turned is altogether due to Fuseli, and is, no doubt, the best drawn figure in the whole picture.
Fuseli was afterwards desirous that the drawing of the arms of the principal object—Queen Katherine—should be amended, but this it seems was not accomplished. 'After having witnessed many ineffectual attempts of the painter to accomplish this, I remarked, "It is a pity that you never attended the antique academy."' It was only Fuseli who would have presumed to address such an observation to Harlow; while it was only from Fuseli that it would have been received with even the commonest patience.
The Kemble family are represented in this picture; and it is probable that the painter was more anxious for the correctness of their portraits, and an accurate representation of the scene, as it was enacted at Covent Garden Theatre, than for any of the higher characteristics of historical art. Mrs. Siddons is the Katherine; John Kemble is Wolsey; Charles Kemble, Cromwell; while Stephen Kemble, who was reputed to be fat enough to appear as Falstaff, 'without stuffing,' here represents the King. These are all admirable portraits of a strikingly handsome family, firmly and grandly painted, and full of expression. Perhaps the best of all is Mrs. Siddons', and the next Charles Kemble's. The whole picture is a highly commendable work of art, and enjoyed during many years an extraordinary popularity.
It was with John Kemble, however, that the artist had his greatest difficulty, and it was here that Sir Thomas Lawrence rendered assistance to Harlow. Kemble steadily refused to sit, and great was the distress of the painter. At last Sir Thomas advised his pupil to go to the front row of the pit of the theatre (there were no stalls in those days, it should be remembered), four or five times successively, and sketch the great actor's countenance, and thus make out such a likeness as he could introduce into the painting. This expedient was adopted, and not only was a very good likeness secured, but the artist was successful in obtaining the expression of the Cardinal at the exact point of his surprise and anger at the defiance of the Queen. Had Mr. Kemble sat for his portrait, Harlow would probably have experienced the difficulty Northcote complained of:—
'When Kemble sat to me for Richard III., meeting the children, he lent me no assistance whatever in the expression I wished to give, but remained quite immoveable, as if he were sitting for an ordinary portrait. As Boaden said, this was his way. He never put himself to any exertion except in his professional character. If any one wanted to know his idea of a part, or of a particular passage, his reply always was, "You must come and see me do it."'
Harlow had much of that talent for painting eyes which was so lauded in the case of his master Lawrence. A critic has described the eyes in certain of Lawrence's portraits as 'starting from their spheres.' The opinion is rather more extravagant than complimentary, or true. There is a winning sparkle about them which may occasionally be carried to excess, but, as a rule, they are singularly life-like.
Sir Joshua had laid it down as a fixed principle that, to create the beautiful, the eyes ought always to be in mezzotint. To this rule Sir Thomas did not adhere very rigorously, and indeed, by a departure from it, frequently arrived at the effect he contemplated.
Ambitious at one time of exhibiting his learning, Harlow thought proper to express surprise at a scholar like Fuseli permitting the engravers to place translations under his classical subjects.
'Educated at Westminster school,' he said, rather affectedly, 'I should prefer to see the quotations given in the original language;' and he was rash enough to instance the print from the death of Œdipus, as a case in point. The unfortunate part of this was, that, on the plate in question, the passage was really engraved in Greek characters under the mezzotint. Fuseli heard of this criticism: 'I will soon bring his knowledge to the test,' he said.
On the next occasion of his sitting to Harlow he wrote with chalk in large letters, on the wainscot, a passage from Sophocles: 'Read that,' he said to Harlow. It soon became evident that Mr. Harlow was quite unable to do this. Fuseli thought the occasion a worthy one for administering a rebuke. 'That is the Greek quotation inscribed under the Œdipus, which you believed to be absent from the plate, and a word of which you are unable to read. You are a good portrait-painter; in some ways you stand unrivalled. Don't then pretend to be what you are not, and, probably, from your avocations, never can be,—a scholar.'