By dint of begging and borrowing, the money was scraped together for the opening expenses of the exhibition, and Haydon composed a sensational descriptive advertisement in the hope of attracting the public. The private view was on April 4, when it rained all day, and only four old friends attended. On April 6, Easter Monday, the public was admitted, but only twenty-one availed themselves of the privilege. For a few days Haydon went on hoping against hope that matters would improve, and that John Bull, in whose support he had trusted, would rally round him at last. But Tom Thumb was exhibiting next door, and the historical painter had no chance against the pigmy. The people rushed by in their thousands to visit Tom Thumb, but few stopped to inspect 'Aristides' or 'Nero.' 'They push, they fight, they scream, they faint,' writes Haydon, 'they see my bills, my boards, my caravans, and don't read them. Their eyes are open, but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, a furor, a dream. Tom Thumb had 12,000 people last week, B. R. Haydon 133 1/2 (the half a little girl). Exquisite taste of the English people!... (May, 18th) I closed my exhibition this day, and lost £111, 8s. 10d. No man can accuse me of showing less energy, less spirit, less genius than I did twenty-six years ago. I have not decayed, but the people have been corrupted. I am the same, they are not; and I have suffered in consequence.'
In defiance of this shipwreck of all his hopes, and the heavy liabilities that hung about his neck, this indomitable spirit began the third picture of his unappreciated series, 'Alfred and the First British Jury.' He had large sums to pay in the coming month, and only a few shillings in the house, with no commissions in prospect. He sends up passionate and despairing petitions that God will help him in his dreadful necessities, will raise him friends from sources invisible, and enable him to finish his last and greatest works. Appeals for help to Lord Brougham, the Duke of Beaufort, and Sir Robert Peel brought only one response, a cheque for £50 from Peel, which was merely a drop in the ocean. Day by day went by, and still no commissions came in, no offers for any of the large pictures he had on hand. Haydon began to lose confidence in his ability to finish his series, and with him loss of self-confidence was a fatal sign. The June weather was hot, he was out of health, and unable to sleep at night, but he declined to send for a doctor. His brain grew confused, and at last even the power to work, that power which for him had spelt pride and happiness throughout his whole life, seemed to be leaving him.
On June 16 he writes: 'I sat from two till five staring at my picture like an idiot, my brain pressed down by anxiety, and the anxious looks of my dear Mary and the children.... Dearest Mary, with a woman's passion, wishes me at once to stop payment, and close the whole thing. I will not. I will finish my six under the blessing of God, reduce my expenses, and hope His mercy will not desert me, but bring me through in health and vigour, gratitude and grandeur of soul, to the end.' The end was nearer than he thought, for even Haydon's brave spirit could not battle for ever with adverse fate, and the collapse, when it came, was sudden. The last two or three entries in the Journal are melancholy reading.
'June 18.--O God, bless me through the evils of this day. My landlord, Newton, called. I said, "I see a quarter's rent in thy face, but none from me." I appointed to-morrow night to see him, and lay before him every iota of my position. Good-hearted Newton! I said, "Don't put in an execution." "Nothing of the sort," he replied, half hurt. I sent the Duke, Wordsworth, dear Fred and Mary's heads to Miss Barrett to protect. I have the Duke's boots and hat, Lord Grey's coat, and some more heads.
'20th.--O God, bless us through all the evils of this day. Amen.
'21st,.--Slept horribly. Prayed in sorrow, and got up in agitation.
'22nd.--God forgive me. Amen.
FINIS OF B. R. HAYDON.
'"Stretch me no longer on this rough world"--Lear.'
This last entry was made between ten and eleven o'clock on the morning of June 22. Haydon had risen early, and gone out to a gunmaker's in Oxford Street, where he bought a pair of pistols. After breakfast, he asked his wife to go and spend the day with an old friend, and having affectionately embraced her, shut himself in his painting-room. Mrs. Haydon left the house, and an hour later Miss Haydon went down to the studio, intending to try and console her father in his anxieties. She found him stretched on the floor in front of his unfinished picture of 'Alfred and the First Jury,' a bullet-wound in his head, and a frightful gash across his throat. A razor and a small pistol lay by his side. On the table were his Journal, open at the last page, letters to his wife and children, his will, made that morning, and a paper headed: 'Last thoughts of B. R. Haydon; half-past ten.' These few lines, with their allusions to Wellington and Napoleon, are characteristic of the man who had painted the two great soldiers a score of times, and looked up to them as his heroes and exemplars.