The first note that Haydon has preserved from his friend Keats is dated November 1816, and runs:
'MY DEAR SIR,--Last evening wrought me up, and I cannot forbear sending you the following.--Yours imperfectly,
JOHN KEATS.'
The 'following' was nothing less than the noble sonnet, beginning--'Great spirits now on earth are sojourning,' with an allusion to Haydon in the lines:
'And lo! whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.'
Haydon wrote an enthusiastic letter of thanks, gave the young poet some good advice, and promised to send his sonnet to Wordsworth. 'Keats,' he records, 'was the only man I ever met who seemed and looked conscious of a high calling, except Wordsworth. Byron and Shelley were always sophisticating about their verses; Keats sophisticated about nothing. He had made up his mind to do great things, and when he found that by his connection with the Examiner clique he had brought upon himself an overwhelming outcry of unjust aversion, he shrank up into himself, his diseased tendencies showed themselves, and he died a victim to mistakes, on the part of friends and enemies alike.'
Haydon gives a curious account of his first meeting with Shelley, which took place in the course of this year. The occasion was a dinner-party at James Smith's house, when Keats and Horace Smith were also among the guests. 'I seated myself,' writes Haydon,' right opposite Shelley, as I was told afterwards, for I did not then know what hectic, spare, weakly, yet intellectual-looking creature it was, carving a bit of broccoli or cabbage in his plate, as if it had been the substantial wing of a chicken. In a few minutes Shelley opened the conversation by saying in the most feminine and gentle voice, "As to that detestable religion, the Christian--" I looked astounded, but casting a glance round the table, I easily saw that I was to be set at that evening vi et armis.... I felt like a stag at bay, and resolved to gore without mercy. Shelley said the Mosaic and Christian dispensation were inconsistent. I swore they were not, and that the Ten Commandments had been the foundation of all the codes of law on the earth. Shelley denied it. I affirmed they were, neither of us using an atom of logic.' This edifying controversy continued until all parties grew very warm, and said unpleasant things to one another. After this dinner, Haydon made up his mind to subject himself no more to the chance of these discussions, but gradually to withdraw from this freethinking circle.
The chief artistic events of the year, from our hero's point of view, were, the final settlement of the Elgin Marbles question, and his own attempt to found a school. The Committee appointed by Government to examine and report upon the Marbles refused to call Haydon as a witness on Lord Elgin's side, but the artist embodied his views on the subject in a paper which appeared in both the Examiner and the Champion. This article, which was afterwards translated into French and Italian, contained a scathing attack on Payne Knight, and was said by Sir Thomas Lawrence to have saved the Elgin Marbles, and ruined Haydon. However this may be, the Government, it will be remembered, decided to buy the treasures for £35,000, a sum considerably less than that which Lord Elgin had spent on bringing them to England.
The School of Haydon was first instituted with three distinguished pupils in the persons of the three Landseer brothers, to whom were afterwards added William Bewick, Eastlake, Harvey, Lance, and Chatfield. Haydon set his disciples to draw from the Raphael Cartoons, two of which were brought up from Hampton Court to the British Gallery, and, as soon as they were sufficiently advanced, he sent them to the Museum to draw from the Elgin Marbles. 'Their cartoons,' he writes, 'drawn full size, of the Fates, of Theseus and the Ilissus, literally made a noise in Europe. An order came from the great Goethe at Weimar for a set for his own house, the furniture of which having been since bought by the Government, and the house kept up as it was in Goethe's time, the cartoons of my pupils are thus preserved, whilst in England the rest are lying about in cellars and corners/ The early days of the School thus held out a promise for the future, which unfortunately was not fulfilled. Haydon contrived to involve two or three of his pupils in his own financial embarrassments, by inducing them to sign accommodation bills, a proceeding which broke up the establishment, and brought a lasting stain upon his reputation.
In 1817 Haydon was introduced to Miss Mitford, who greatly admired his work, and a warm friendship sprang up between the pair. In May, Miss Mitford wrote to Sir William Elford: 'The charm of the Exhibition is a chalk-drawing by Mr. Haydon taken, as he tells me, from a mother who had lost her child. It is the very triumph of expression. I have not yet lost the impression which it made upon my mind and senses, and which vented itself in a sonnet.' A visit to the studio followed, and Miss Mitford was charmed with the room, the books, the great unfinished picture, and the artist himself--with his bonhomie, naïveté, and enthusiasm. With all her heart she admires the noble, independent spirit of Haydon, who, she declares, is quite one of the old heroes come to life again--one of Shakespeare's men, full of spirit, endurance, and moral courage. She concludes her account with an expression of regret that he should be 'such a fright.' Now Haydon is generally described by his contemporaries as a good-looking man, though short in stature, with an antique head, aquiline features, and fine dark eyes. His later portraits are chiefly remarkable for the immensely wide mouth with which he seems to be endowed, but in an early sketch by Wilkie he is represented as a picturesque youth with an admirably modelled profile.