Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century

by George Paston

On October 16, 1884, the Houses of Parliament were burned down. 'Good God!' writes Haydon, 'I am just returned from the terrific burning of the Houses of Parliament. Mary and I went in a cab, and drove over the bridge. From the bridge it was sublime. We alighted, and went into a public-house, which was full. The feeling among the people was extraordinary--jokes and radicalism universal.... The comfort is that there is now a better prospect of painting the House of Lords. Lord Grey said there was no intention of taking the tapestry down; little did he think how soon it would go.' Haydon's hopes now rose high. For many years, as we have seen, he had been advocating, in season and out of season, the desirability of decorating national buildings with heroic paintings by native artists, and, with the need for new Houses of Parliament, it seemed as if at last his cause might triumph. Once more he attacked the good-humoured but unimpressionable Lord Melbourne, and presented another petition to Parliament through Lord Morpeth. But in any case it would be years before the new buildings were ready for decoration, and in the meantime he would have been entirely out of employment if his long-suffering landlord had not allowed him to paint off a debt with a picture of 'Achilles at the Court of Lycomedes.'

In the summer of this year Mr. Ewart obtained his Select Committee to inquire into the best means of extending a knowledge of the arts and the principles of design among the people; and further, to inquire into the constitution of the Royal Academy, and the effects produced thereby. Haydon, overjoyed at such a sign of progress, determined to aid the inquiry by giving a lecture on the subject at the London Mechanics' Institute, under the auspices of Dr. Birkbeck. The lecture was a success, for Haydon's natural earnestness and enthusiasm enabled him to interest and impress an audience, and Dr. Birkbeck assured him that he had made a 'hit.' This was the beginning of his career as a lecturer, by which for several years he earned a small but regular income. But meanwhile ruin was again staring him in the face. On September 26 he writes: 'The agony of my necessities is really dreadful. For this year I have principally supported myself by the help of my landlord, and by pawning everything of value I have left.... Lay awake in misery. Threatened on all sides. Doubtful whether to apply to the Insolvent Court to protect me, or let ruin come. Improved the picture, and not having a shilling, sent out a pair of my spectacles, and got five shillings for the day. (29th) Sent the tea-urn off the table, and got ten shillings for the day. Shall call my creditors together. In God I trust.'

The meeting of the creditors took place, and Haydon persuaded them to grant him an extension of time until June, 1836. Thus relieved from immediate anxiety he set to work on his picture with renewed zest. The most remarkable trait about him, observes his son Frederick, was his sanguine buoyancy of spirits. 'Nothing ever depressed him long. He was the most persevering, indomitable man I ever met. With us at home he was always confident of doing better next year. But that next year never came.... Blest as he was with that peculiar faculty of genius for overcoming difficulties, he might have found life tame without them. I remember his saying once, he was not sure he did not relish ruin as a source of increased activity of mind.' But the struggle had begun to tell upon his powers, if not upon his spirits, and he was now painting pictures for bread; repeating himself; despatching a work in a few days that in better times he would have spent months over; ready to paint small things, since great ones would not sell; fighting misery at the point of his brush, and obliged to eke out a livelihood by begging and borrowing, in default of worse expedients such as bills and cognovits. A less elastic temperament and a less vigorous constitution would have broken down in one year of such a fight. Haydon kept it up for ten.'

The first half of 1836 went by in the usual struggle, and in September Haydon was thrown into prison for the fourth time. On November 17 he passed through the Insolvency Court, and on the following Sunday he records: 'Went to church, and returned thanks with all my heart and soul for the great mercies of God to me and my family during my imprisonment.... (29th) Set my palette to-day, the first time these eleven weeks and three days. I relished the oil; could have tasted the colour; rubbed my cheeks with the brushes, and kissed the palette. Ah, could I be let loose in the House of Lords!' In the absence of commissions, he now turned to lecturing as a means of support. He lectured in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, as well as in London, and did good service by agitating for the establishment of local schools of design, and by arousing in the minds of the wealthy middle classes some faint appreciation of the claims of art.

A valuable result of these lectures was the extension of Haydon's acquaintance among the shrewd merchant princes of the north, who recognised his artistic sincerity, and were inclined to hold out to him a helping hand. Through the influence of Mr. Lowndes, a Liverpool art-patron, Haydon received a commission to paint a picture of 'Christ blessing Little Children,' for the Blind Asylum at Liverpool, at a price of £400. So elated was he at this unexpected piece of good fortune that, with characteristic sanguineness, he seems to have thought that all his troubles were at an end for ever. Even his pious dependence on heavenly support diminished with his freedom from care, and he notes in a Sunday entry: 'Went to church, but prosperity, though it makes me grateful, does not cause me such perpetual religious musings as adversity. When on a precipice, where nothing but God's protection can save me, I delight in religious hope, but I am sorry to say my religion ever dwindles unless kept alive by risk of ruin. My piety is never so intense as when in a prison, and my gratitude never so much alive as when I have just escaped from one.'

The year 1838 passed in comparative peace and comfort. The picture for the asylum was finished about the end of August, when Haydon congratulated his Maker on the fact that he (Haydon) had paid his rent and taxes, laid in his coals for the winter, and enjoyed health, happiness, and freedom from debt--fresh debt, be it understood--ever since this commission. Going down to Liverpool to hang his work, it was proposed to him by Mr. Lowndes that he should paint a picture of the Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo, twenty years after the battle. This was a subject after Haydon's own heart, for the Duke had always been his ideal hero, his king among men. Overflowing with pride and delight, he prays that Providence will so bless this new commission that 'the glorious city of Liverpool may possess the best historical picture, and the grandest effort of my pencil in portraiture. Inspired by history, I fear not making it the grandest thing.'

The Liverpool committee wrote to the Duke, to ask if he would consent to give sittings to Haydon, and received a promise that he would sit for his head as soon as time could be found. Meanwhile, Haydon set to work upon the horse, which was copied from portraits of Copenhagen. While he was thus engaged, D'Orsay called at the studio, and bestowed advice and criticism upon the artist, which, for once, was thankfully received. Haydon relates how D'Orsay 'took my brush in his dandy glove, which made my heart ache, and lowered the hind-quarters by bringing over a bit of the sky. Such a dress! white greatcoat, blue satin cravat, hair oiled and curling, hat of the primest curve, gloves scented with eau-de-Cologne, primrose in tint, skin in tightness. In this prime of dandyism, he took up a nasty, oily, dirty hog-tool, and immortalised Copenhagen by touching the sky. I thought after he was gone, "This won't do--a Frenchman touch Copenhagen!" So out I rubbed all he had touched, and modified his hints myself.'

As there was no chance of the Duke's being able to sit at this time, owing to the pressure of public business, Haydon made a flying visit to Brussels, in order to get local colour for the field of Waterloo. A few weeks later he was overjoyed at receiving an invitation to spend a few days at Walmer, when the Duke promised to give the desired sittings. On October 11, 1839, he went down 'by steam' to Walmer, where he was heartily welcomed by his host. His Journal contains a long and minute account of his visit, from which one or two anecdotes may be quoted. Haydon's fellow-guests were Sir Astley Cooper, Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Booth. The first evening the conversation turned, among other topics, upon the Peninsular War. 'The Duke talked of the want of fuel in Spain-of what the troops suffered, and how whole houses, so many to a division, were pulled down, and paid for, to serve as fuel. He said every Englishman who has a house goes to bed at night. He found bivouacking was not suitable to the character of the English soldier. He got drunk, and lay down under any hedge, and discipline was destroyed. But when he introduced tents, every soldier belonged to his tent, and, drunk or sober, he got to it before he went to sleep. I said, "Your grace, the French always bivouac." "Yes," he replied, "because French, Spanish, and all other nations lie anywhere. It is their habit. They have no homes."'

The next morning, after his return from hunting, the Duke gave a first sitting of an hour and a half. 'I hit his grand, manly, upright expression,' writes Haydon. 'He looked like an eagle of the gods who had put on human shape, and got silvery with age and service.... I found that to imagine he could not go through any duty raised the lion. "Does the light hurt your grace's eyes?" "Not at all," and he stared at the light as much as to say, "I'll see if you shall make me give in, Signor Light." 'Twas a noble head. I saw nothing of that peculiar expression of mouth the sculptors give him, bordering on simpering. His colour was beautiful and fleshy, his lips compressed and energetic.' The next day, being Sunday, there was no sitting, but Haydon was charmed at sharing a pew with his hero, and deeply moved by the simplicity and humility with which he followed the service. 'Arthur Wellesley in the village church of Walmer,' he writes, 'was more interesting to me than at the last charge of the Guards at Waterloo, or in all the glory and paraphernalia of his entry into Paris.'

It is probable that the Duke was afraid of being attacked by Haydon on the burning question of a State grant for the encouragement of historical painting, a subject about which he had received and answered many lengthy letters, for on each evening, when there was no party, he steadily read a newspaper, the Standard on Saturday, and the Spectator on Sunday, while his guest watched him in silent admiration. On the Monday morning, the hero came in for another sitting, looking extremely worn, his skin drawn tight over his face, his eyes watery and aged, his head slightly nodding. 'How altered from the fresh old man after Saturday's hunting,' says Haydon. 'It affected me. He looked like an aged eagle beginning to totter from its perch.' A second sitting in the afternoon concluded the business, and early next morning Haydon left for town. 'It is curious,' he comments, 'to have known thus the two great heads of the two great parties, the Duke and Lord Grey. I prefer the Duke infinitely. He is more manly, has no vanity, is not deluded by any flattery or humbug, and is in every way a grander character, though Lord Grey is a fine, amiable, venerable, vain man.'