George Romney

by George C. Williamson

She may have desired to avoid such society and have preferred her quiet at home, and it may have been a refinement of kindness on his part which led him to shelter her from the troubles which he knew would await her in London.

There is nothing which, with any degree of accuracy, can be stated against the moral character of Romney whilst he was away from her, and all such charges against him fall to the ground by reason of the absence of proof, and it seems clear that it was no such cause that kept him from sending for his wife. Even the reports as to Romney and Lady Hamilton, to which reference is made in a succeeding chapter, are gainsaid by the letters of Lady Hamilton herself which are in the Morrison collection, and no one has ever been able to produce one single piece of evidence in support of the statements that have been too wildly made. Mrs. Romney from the very first showed her deep attachment to her husband by sacrificing herself for his advancement; and she continued, as her letters show, throughout her life, to act in the same way for him, and to give him her deepest and tenderest affection: and we are therefore justified in accepting as normal a state of affairs as to which the chief persons concerned made no complaint, and in declining to attribute to the artist any unworthy motives for his conduct.

Romney did not come to London provided with references or introductions, nor with much money, and the consequence was that for the first ten years of his life in town it was a struggle for him to do any more than keep himself and remit small sums to his wife in Kendal.

He seems to have known only two persons in London, neither of whom was in a position to do much to assist him.

His first important effort proved a disappointment to him in its result. He competed for a premium offered by the Society of Arts, and his picture of The Death of General Wolfe, sent in 1763, received the second prize of fifty guineas. Later on, however, it was stated that the picture was not painted at all by this unknown artist, but by someone else, and that a fraud had been practised; and then, when that was disproved, the costume of the picture, which was not the usual one adopted at the time, was objected to; and it was further claimed that the event was not strictly historical, having only so recently happened. The prize was accordingly taken away from Romney; but, in consideration of the merits of the work, an ex-gratia payment was made to the artist by the Council of the Society of twenty-five guineas. The leading artists of the day had in this way given a slight to this new-comer which he never in after years forgot.

Whether, as has been stated, Sir Joshua Reynolds was at the head of this movement to crush the young artist we cannot tell; but it seems likely that the bitter jealousy which existed between the two men in after years, and which Reynolds never lost an opportunity of increasing, took its rise at this time, and certain it is that Reynolds hated to hear Romney praised, and was ever ready to say and do things that would annoy and irritate his rival.

Romney had always been convinced that the study of the great artists of the Continent was needful for him before he would be able to accomplish what he felt was within him, and he made every effort to get to Italy in order to study the Old Masters.

At this time he was unable to accomplish his cherished desire for want of funds, but he saved all that he could, and contented himself with a journey to Paris.

Here he copied all the works that appealed strongly to him, and spent every hour of his time in visiting galleries and churches and feasting his eyes on the treasures which they contained. His acquaintance with Vernet was of great service to him at this issue.

On his return to London after some seven weeks' absence he again set valiantly to work, and in 1765 carried off a premium from the Society of Arts of fifty guineas against all his competitors.