'Haydon! let worthier judges praise the skill.'
The close of this year was a melancholy period to poor Haydon. He lost his little daughter, Fanny, and his third son, Alfred, was gradually fading away. Out of eight children born to this most affectionate of fathers, no fewer than five died in infancy from suffusion of the brain, due, it was supposed, to the terrible mental distresses of their mother. 'I can remember,' writes Frederick Haydon, one of the three survivors, 'the roses of her sunken cheeks fading away daily with anxiety and grief. My father, who was passionately attached to both wife and children, suffered the tortures of the damned at the sight before him. His sorrow over the deaths of his children was something more than human. I remember watching him as he hung over his daughter Georgiana, and over his dying boy Harry, the pride and delight of his life. Poor fellow, how he cried! and he went into the next room, and beating his head passionately on the bed, called upon God to take him and all of us from this dreadful world. The earliest and most painful death was to be preferred to our life at that time.'
By dint of borrowing in every possible quarter, generally at forty per cent. interest, and inducing his patrons to take shares in his Xenophon, Haydon managed to get through the winter, though his children were often without stockings. William IV. consented to place his name at the head of the subscribers' list, and Goethe wrote a flattering letter, expressing his desire to take a ticket for the 'very valuable painting,' and assuring the artist that 'my soul has been elevated for many years by the contemplation of the important pictures (the cartoons from the Elgin Marbles) formerly sent to me, which occupy an honourable station in my house.' Xenophon was exhibited in the spring of 1832 without attracting much attention, the whole nation being engrossed with the subject of Reform. Haydon, though a high Tory by birth and inclination, was an ardent champion of the Bill, as he had been for that of Catholic Emancipation. His brush was once more exchanged for the pen, and he not only poured out his thoughts upon Reform in his Journal, but wrote several letters on the subject to the Times, which he considered the most wonderful compositions of the kind that had ever been penned. After the passing of the Bill he congratulates himself upon having contributed to the grand result, and adds: 'When my colours have faded, my canvas decayed, and my body has mingled with the earth, these glorious letters, the best things I ever wrote, will awaken the enthusiasm of my countrymen. I thanked God I lived in such a time, and that he gifted me with talent to serve the great cause.'
On reading the account of the monster meeting of the Trades Unions at Newhall Hill, Birmingham, it occurred to Haydon that the moment when the vast concourse joined in the sudden prayer offered up by Hugh Hutton, would make a fine subject for a picture. Accordingly, he wrote to Hutton, and laid the suggestion before him. The Birmingham leaders were attracted by the idea, and the picture was begun, but support of a material kind was not forthcoming, and the scheme had to be abandoned. Lord Grey then suggested that Haydon should paint a picture of the great Reform Banquet, which was to be held in the Guildhall on July 11. The proposal was exactly to the taste of the public-spirited artist, who saw fame and fortune beckoning to him once more, and fancied that his future was assured. He was allowed every facility on the great day, breakfasted and dined with the Committee at the Guildhall, was treated with distinction by the noble guests, many of whom sent to take wine with him as he sat at work, and in short, to quote his own words, 'I was an object of great distinction without five shillings in my pocket--and this is life!'
Lord Grey, on seeing Haydon's sketches of the Banquet, gave him a commission for the picture at a price of £500, half of which he paid down at once, and thus saved the painter from the ruin that was again impending. Then followed a period of triumphant happiness. The leading men of the Liberal party sat for their heads, and Haydon had the longed-for opportunity of pressing upon them his views about the public encouragement of art by means of grants for the decoration of national buildings. Although it does not appear that he made a single convert, he was quite contented for the time being with the ready access to ministers and noblemen that the occasion afforded him, and his Journal is filled with expressions of his satisfaction. We hear of Lord Palmerston's good-humoured elegance, Lord Lansdowne's amiability, Lord Jeffrey's brilliant conversation, and, most delightful of all, Lord Melbourne's frank, unaffected cordiality. Melbourne, it appears, enjoyed his sittings, for he asked many questions about Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Shelley, and highly appreciated Haydon's anecdotes. Needless to add, he did not allow himself to be bored by the artist's theories.
The sittings for the Reform picture continued through 1833, and the early part of 1834. Haydon was kept in full employment, but domestic sorrows marred his satisfaction in his interesting work. In less than twelve months, he lost two sons, Alfred and Harry, the latter a child of extraordinary promise. 'The death of this beautiful boy,' he writes, 'has given my mind a blow I shall never effectually recover. I saw him buried to-day, after passing four days sketching his dear head in his coffin--his beautiful head. What a creature! With a brow like an ancient god!' In August Haydon was arrested again, and hurried away for a day and night of torture, during which, he confesses, he was very near putting an end to himself; but advances from the Duke of Cleveland and Mr. Ellice brought him release, and in a few hours he was at home again, 'as happy and as hard at work as ever.'
In April 1834, the Reform picture was exhibited, but the public was not interested, and Haydon lost a considerable sum over the exhibition. The price of the commission had long since gone to quiet the clamours of his creditors. On May 12 he writes: 'It is really lamentable to see the effect of success and failure on people of fashion. Last year, all was hope, exultation, and promise with me. My door was beset, my house besieged, my room inundated. It was an absolute fight to get in to see me paint. Well, out came the work--the public felt no curiosity--it failed, and my door is deserted, no horses, no carriages. Now for executions, insults, misery, and wretchedness.' Then follows the old story. 'June 7.--Mary and I in agony of mind. All my Italian books, and some of my best historical designs, are gone to a pawnbroker's. She packed up her best gowns and the children's, and I drove away with what cost me £40, and got £4. The state of degradation, humiliation, and pain of mind in which I sat in that dingy back-room is not to be described.'
Haydon now began a picture of 'Cassandra and Agamemnon,' and in July he received a commission to finish it for the Duke of Sutherland, who had more than once saved him from ruin. On this occasion the Duke's advances barely sufficed to stave off disaster. Studies, prints, clothes, and lay-figures were pawned to pay for the expenses of the work, and on October comes the entry: 'Directly after the Duke's letter came with its enclosed cheque, an execution was put in for the taxes. I made the man sit for Cassandra's hand, and put on a Persian bracelet. When the broker came for his money, he burst out laughing. There was the fellow, an old soldier, pointing in the attitude of Cassandra--up right and steady as if on guard. Lazarus' head was painted just after an arrest; Eucles was finished from a man in possession; the beautiful face in Xenophon, after a morning spent in begging mercy of lawyers; and now Cassandra's head was finished in an agony not to be described, and her hand completed from a broker's man.'
PART III