Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century

by George Paston

In the spring of 1821 Haydon lost two intimate friends, John Scott, who was killed by Christie in the Blackwood duel, and Keats, who died at Rome on February 23. He briefly sums up his impressions of the dead poet in his Journal. 'In fireside conversation he was weak and inconsistent, but he was in his glory in the fields.... He was the most unselfish of human creatures: unadapted to this world, he cared not for himself, and put himself to inconvenience for the sake of his friends. He had an exquisite sense of humour, and too refined a notion of female purity to bear the little arts of love with patience.... He began life full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at once beneath his powers. Unable to bear the sneers of ignorance or the attacks of envy, he began to despond, and flew to dissipation as a relief. For six weeks he was scarcely sober, and to show what a man does to gratify his appetites when once they get the better of him, he once covered his tongue and throat, as far as he could reach, with Cayenne pepper, in order to appreciate the "delicious coldness of claret in all its glory"--his own expression.'

June 22, 1821, is entered in the Journal as 'A remarkable day in my life. I am arrested!' This incident, unfortunately, became far too common in after-days to be at all remarkable, but the first touch of the bailiff's hand was naturally something of a shock, and Haydon filled three folio pages with angry comments on the iniquity of the laws against debtors. He was able, however, to arrange the affair before night, and the sheriff's officer, whose duty it was to keep him in safe custody during the day, was so profoundly impressed by the sight of the Lazarus, that he allowed his prisoner to go free on parole. This incident has been likened to that of the bravoes arrested in their murderous intent by the organ-playing of Stradella; and also to the case of the soldiers of the Constable who, when sacking Rome, broke into Parmigiano's studio, but were so struck by the beauty of his pictures that they protected him and his property.

In despite of debts, difficulties, and the lack of commissions, Haydon, who had now been in love for five years, was married on October 10, 1821, to the young widow, Mary Hyman, who was blessed with two children, and a jointure of fifty pounds a year. His Journal for this period is full of raptures over his blissful state, as also are his letters to his friends. To Miss Mitford he writes from Windsor, where the honeymoon was spent: 'Here I am, sitting by my dearest Mary with all the complacency of a well-behaved husband, writing to you while she is working quietly on some unintelligible part of a lady's costume. You do not know how proud I am of saying my wife. I never felt half so proud of Solomon or Macbeth, as I am of being the husband of this tender little bit of lovely humanity.... There never was such a creature; and although her face is perfect, and has more feeling in it than Lady Hamilton's, her manner to me is perfectly enchanting, and more bewitching than her beauty. I think I shall put over my painting-room door, "Love, solitude, and painting."' On the last day of the year, according to his wont, Haydon sums up his feelings and impressions of the past twelve months. 'I don't know how it is, but I get less reflective as I get older. I seem to take things as they come without thought. Perhaps being married to my dearest Mary, and having no longer anything to hope in love, I get more content with my lot, which, God knows, is rapturous beyond imagination. Here I sit sketching, with the loveliest face before me, smiling and laughing, and "solitude is not." Marriage has increased my happiness beyond expression. In the intervals of study, a few minutes' conversation with a creature one loves is the greatest of all reliefs. God bless us both! My pecuniary difficulties are great, but my love is intense, my ambition is intense, and my hope in God's protection cheering. Bewick, my pupil, has realised my hopes in his picture of "Jacob and Rachel." But it is cold work talking of pupils when one's soul is full of a beloved woman! I am really and truly in love, and without affectation, I can talk, write, or think of nothing else.'

But if a love-match brings increased happiness, it also brings weightier cares and responsibilities. Haydon's credit had been in a measure restored by the success of his last picture, but his creditors seemed to resent his marriage, and during the months that followed, gave him little peace. He was obliged, in the intervals of painting, to rush hither and thither to pacify this creditor, quiet the fears of that, remove the ill-will of a third, and borrow money at usurious interest from a fourth in order to keep his engagements with a fifth. In spite of all his compromises and arrangements, he was arrested more than once during this year, but so far he had been able to keep out of prison. His favourite pupil Bewick, who sat to him for the head of Lazarus (being appropriately pale and thin from want of food) has left an account of the difficulties under which the picture was painted. 'I think I see the painter before me,' he writes, 'his palette and brushes in the left hand, returning from the sheriff's officer in the adjoining room, pale, calm, and serious--no agitation--mounting his high steps and continuing his arduous task, and as he looks round to his pallid model, whispering, "Egad, Bewick, I have just been arrested; that is the third time. If they come again, I shall not be able to go on."'

On December 7, the Lazarus was finished, and five days later Haydon's eldest son Frank was born. The happy father was profoundly moved by his new responsibilities, as well as by his wife's suffering and danger. On the last day of 1822 he thanks his Maker for the happiest year of his life, and also 'for being permitted to finish another great picture, which must add to my reputation, and go to strengthen the art.... Grant it triumphant success. Grant that I may soon begin the "Crucifixion," and persevere with that, until I bring it to a conclusion equally positive and glorious.' Haydon's prayers, which have been not inaptly described as 'begging letters to the Almighty,' are invariably couched in terms that would be appropriate in an appeal to the President of a Celestial Academy. As his biographer points out, he prayed as though he would take heaven by storm, and although he often asked for humility, the demands for this gift bore very little proportion to those for glories and triumphs.

The Lazarus, though it showed signs of haste and exaggeration, natural enough considering the conditions under which it was painted, was acclaimed as a great work, and the receipts from its exhibition were of a most satisfactory nature, mounting up to nearly two hundred pounds a week. Instead of calling his creditors together, and coming to some arrangement with them, Haydon, rendered over-confident by success, spent his time in preparing a new and vaster canvas for his conception of the Crucifixion. The sight of crowds of people paying their shillings to view the Lazarus roused the cupidity of one of the creditors, who, against his own interests, killed the goose that was laying golden eggs. On April 13, an execution was put in, and the picture was seized. A few days later Haydon was arrested, and carried to the King's Bench, his house was taken possession of, and all his property was advertised for sale.

On April 22, he dates the entry in his Journal, 'King's Bench,' and consoles himself with the reflection that Bacon, Raleigh, and Cervantes had also suffered imprisonment. His friends rallied round him at this melancholy period. Lord Mulgrave, Sir George Beaumont, Scott and Wilkie, giving not only sympathy but practical help. At his forced sale a portion of his casts and painting materials was bought in by his friends in order that he might be enabled to set to work again as soon as he was released from prison. A meeting of creditors was called, and Haydon addressed to them a characteristic letter, begging to be spared the disgrace of 'taking the Act,' and complaining of the hardship of his treatment in being torn from his family and his art, after devoting the best years of his life to the honour of his country. But as the creditors cared nothing for the honour of the country, he was compelled to pass through the Bankruptcy Court, and on July 25 he regained his freedom. It was now his desire to return to his dismantled house, and, without a bed to lie upon, or a shilling in his pocket, to finish his gigantic 'Crucifixion.' But his wife, the long-suffering Mary, persuaded him to abandon this idea, to retire to modest lodgings for a time, and to paint portraits and cabinet-pictures until better fortune dawned.

Haydon yielded to her desire, but he never ceased to regret what he considered his degradation. He would have preferred to allow his friends and creditors to support himself and his family, while he worked at a canvas of unsaleable size, a proceeding that most men would regard as involving a deeper degradation than painting pot-boilers.

Haydon began his new career by painting the 'portrait of a gentleman.' 'Ah, my poor lay-figure,' he groans, 'he, who bore the drapery of Christ and the grave-clothes of Lazarus, the cloak of the centurion and the gown of Newton, was to-day disgraced by a black coat and waistcoat. I apostrophised him, and he seemed to sympathise, and bowed his head as if ashamed to look me in the face.' Haydon's detestation of portrait-painting probably arose from the secret consciousness that he was not successful in this branch of his art. His taste for the grandiose led him to depict his sitters larger than life, if not 'twice as natural.' His objection to painting small pictures was partly justified by his weakness of sight. It was easy for him to dash in heads on a large scale in a frenzy of inspiration, but he seemed to lack the faculty for 'finish.' The faults of disproportion and apparent carelessness that disfigure many of his works, are easily accounted for by his method of painting, which is thus described by his son Frederick, who often acted as artist's model:--

'His natural sight was of little or no use to him at any distance, and he would wear, one over the other, two or three pairs of large round concave spectacles, so powerful as greatly to diminish objects. He would mount his steps, look at you through one pair of glasses, then push them all back on his head, and paint by the naked eye close to the canvas. After some minutes he would pull down one pair of his glasses, look at you, then step down, walk slowly backwards to the wall, and study the effect through one, two, or three pairs of spectacles; then with one pair only look long and steadily in the looking-glass at the side to examine the reflection of his work; then mount his steps and paint again. How he ever contrived to paint a head or limb in proportion is a mystery to me, for it is clear that he had lost his natural sight in boyhood. He is, as he said, the first blind man who ever successfully painted pictures.'