LORD PALMERSTON AND THE ARTIST.
“It was before I had a name,” said Mr. Gordon, looking round the room in true story-teller style. “I had exhibited for several years, but without any particular success. One year, however—the year before I painted ‘The Corsicans’—Lord Palmerston took a sudden fancy to my picture, called ‘Summer in the Lowlands,’ and bought it at a high figure. His lordship at the same time made inquiries after the artist, and invited me to call upon him. I waited upon his lordship accordingly: he complimented me upon the picture; but there was one thing about it he could not understand. ‘What is that, my lord?’ I asked. ‘That there should be such long grass in a field where there are so many sheep,’ said his lordship promptly, and with a merry twinkle of the eye. It was a decided hit this; and having bought the picture and paid for it, he was entitled to his joke. ‘How do you account for it?’ he went on, smiling, and looking first at the picture and then at me. ‘Those sheep, my lord,’ I replied, ‘were only turned into that field the night before I finished the picture.’ His lordship laughed heartily, and said, ‘Bravo!’ at my reply, and gave me a commission for two more pictures; and I have cashed since then some very notable cheques of his—dear old boy!”—Belgravia Magazine.
HARLOWE (GEORGE HENRY).
HARLOWE, the painter, was born in the parish of St. James’s, Westminster, in 1787. He was a posthumous child, but his mother took great care of his education, and allowed him to follow the bent of his inclination for the arts, which he studied, first under Drummond, and next under Sir Thomas Lawrence. He was dismissed by Sir Thomas in consequence of claiming as his own a picture Sir Thomas employed him to dead colour. He revenged himself by painting a caricature of Lawrence’s style on a signboard at Epsom, and signed it, “T. L., Greek St., Soho.” On leaving Sir Thomas’s employ, Harlowe made arrangements and started for Italy. Previous, however, to his going abroad, he painted some historical pictures of great merit, particularly one of Henry VIII., Queen Catherine, and Cardinal Wolsey. During his residence at Rome in 1818, he made a copy of Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” and executed a composition of his own, which was exhibited by Canova, and afterwards at the academy of St. Luke’s. He died soon after his return to England, January 28, 1819.
TAKING A LIKENESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
Harlowe was very eccentric, and not a little affected. He used to go to dinner parties in the dress of a field-officer, and he was always ambitious of being taken for a military man. John Kemble disliked the man and his affectations so much, that he refused, even at the request of Sir Thomas Lawrence, to sit to Harlowe, giving as his only reason—“I do not like that man.” Harlowe was engaged at this time on his celebrated picture of Queen Catherine, and finding the grave actor persisted in his refusal to sit, he went to the theatre when Kemble played Wolsey, and seating himself in front of the stage-box, made sketches of his face in every change of its expression, and from them composed the likeness in the picture, which, it is needless to say, is the best portrait of Kemble ever painted. Harlowe used afterwards to say, in speaking of this, “By G—, I painted that portrait so well out of revenge.”
HAYDON (BENJAMIN ROBERT).
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON was born on the 25th January, 1786. In common with most true artists, young Haydon early displayed an overpowering love for art. One of his most favourite studies is said to have been drawing the guillotine, with Louis taking leave of the people. At the age of thirteen he was taken to the grammar school at Plympton—the same at which Sir Joshua Reynolds was educated. From thence he was sent to Exeter, to study book-keeping, and at the end of six months was bound to his father for seven years. Within a short time of his signing his indentures, it was evident to both his father and his friends that young Haydon would never do as a tradesman. After much dissuasion, and against all remonstrance, Haydon collected his books and colours, packed up his things, and started for London, in May, 1804. He took lodgings at 342, Strand, and for nine months he saw nothing but his books, his casts, and his drawings. He was introduced by Prince Hoare to Northcote, Opie, and Fuseli; and it was the latter who got the young artist into the Academy. While studying at the Academy he became acquainted with Sachom and Wilkie. In 1807, Haydon’s first picture of “Joseph and Mary resting on the road to Egypt,” appeared. About this time his devotion to his art was very close. He rose as soon as he woke—be it three, four, or five,—when he would draw at anatomy until eight; in chalk from nine till one, and from half-past one till five; then walked, dined, and to anatomy again from seven to ten and eleven. Wilkie had obtained for the young artist a commission from Lord Mulgrave for “Dentatus.” Having delayed the painting some months, Haydon in 1808 removed his lodgings to 41, Great Marlborough Street, when he began the noble lord’s commission in earnest. In this year he first saw the Elgin marbles, and he thus expresses his admiration of them: “I felt the future; I foretold that they would prove themselves the finest things on earth—that they would overturn the false beau ideal, where nature was nothing, and would establish the true beau ideal, of which nature alone is the basis. I felt as if a divine truth had blazed inwardly upon my mind, and I knew they would at last rouse the art of Europe from its slumber in the darkness.” His “Dentatus” brought him a prize of one hundred guineas from the British Institution. His next picture, “Macbeth,” he was not so successful with, and did not get the prize that the painter had expected: to make things worse, he relieved himself by quarrelling with the Academy and painting “Solomon.” He then began that system of getting into debt, which was the curse of his whole after-life. His usual companions were Hazlitt, the Hunts, Barnes (of the Times), Jackson, Charles Lamb, and John Scott. His “Solomon” was so far a success, that it was sold for six hundred guineas. Also the British Institution voted one hundred guineas to him as a mark of their admiration of this picture. In 1820 he finished his celebrated picture “Entry of Christ into Jerusalem.” By exhibiting this picture in town, Haydon made a clear profit of £1298. He then set to work to finish his picture “Christ in the Garden,” and to sketch his “Lazarus:” the latter he determined should be his grandest and largest work. Having recently married, he wrote on the last day of 1821 as follows: “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 much care. In early life everything, being new, excites thought. As nothing is new when a man is thirty-five, one thinks less. Or, perhaps, being married to my dearest Mary, and having no longer anything to hope in love, I get more contented 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 still great; but my love is intense, my ambition intense, and my hope in God’s protection cheering.” But the remainder of the painter’s life—25 years—was one dark cloud, here and there relieved by momentary rays of sunshine. Always in debt; always in danger; always pestered by lawyers and arrests. It has been with truth observed, that upon one half of Haydon’s income, many a better man than he had lived. In 1835 we find him lecturing at Mechanics’ Institutions in the provinces, which for a time was a pecuniary success. But he was too deeply involved in the expensive fashions and gaieties of May Fair; and again we find him in the King’s Bench. Three more years of fearful struggle brought him to the fearful tragedy which shocked the country on the 22nd of June, 1846. Having returned from an early walk, Haydon entered his painting-room, and wrote in his diary: