MR. I'ANSON, LORD LEIGHTON'S GREAT-UNCLE. 1850
By permission of Mr. E. I'Anson[ToList]
The portrait of his great-uncle, Mr. I'Anson, here reproduced, proves that the visit to London effected the desired result. On his return to Frankfort he painted the portraits of Lady Cowley and her three children. Lady Cowley writes: "I am delighted with the pictures of my dear little girls, and again return you my most sincere thanks for having painted them." And in another letter: "I should have called on Mrs. Leighton all these days, had I not been very unwell with the grippe, as I wished to express to her, as well as to yourself, how very grateful I am for the beautiful portrait you have made of my little Frederick. I am quite delighted with it, as well as every one else who has seen it. Besides being extremely like, it is such a good painting that it must always be appreciated. Ever yours sincerely, Olive Cecilia Cowley." In the spring of 1852, Leighton, being then twenty-one, went to Bergheim, to paint the portraits of Count Bentinck's family. He writes from there:—
"[Dearest Mamma],—Having naturally a reflecting turn of mind, I am struck with the truth of the following aphorism: 'It's all very well to say I'll be blowed, but where's the wind?' Circumstances induce me to deliver a sentiment of a parallel tendency; it's all very well to say 'mind you write'; but where's the post? A deficiency in that latter commodity is a leading feature in the economy of the principality of Waldeck; so much so, that any individual residing in Bergheim, and desiring to carry on a correspondence 'ins Ausland,' is obliged to take advantage of the privilege freely granted him by the liberal constitution of the country of carrying his own letters to the first frontier town of the next state, and having posted them, waiting for an answer. I, however, knowing my privileges, and not being desirous of availing myself of them in that line, humbly and modestly send these lines by my hostess's flunkey, who is going to Fritzlar to-morrow on an errand of a similar description. N.B.—If you want a person to receive an epistle within a fortnight (that is allowing you to be a neighbour), you must chalk up per express on the back of it, in consideration of which he or she will receive it through the medium of a hot messenger, much, and naturally, fatigued and excited by a journey performed at the rate of half a mile an hour, not including the pauses in which the inner man is refreshed and invigorated by a cordial gulp of 'branny un worrer.'
"Fancy a man getting to a place, by appointment, expecting a carriage and trimmings to take him to a lovely retirement in the country, and finding—devil a bit of it! Well that's precisely what did not happen to me when I got to Waldeck, because although the carriage was not there, there was a letter to say it could not come. The road to Bergheim, which crosses a river of no mean pretensions without the assistance of a bridge (other advantageous peculiarity of the state of Waldeck), was, it appeared, rendered impracticable by an inundation of the torrent alluded to; it was therefore proposed to me (without an option) to perform the journey on the top of an oss provided for the purpose and accompanied by a groom mounted on another; I willingly accept an offer so much to my taste, and for the first time after a lapse of nearly three years put a leg on each side of a steed. The first part of the road was executed at a round trot on a very nice level chaussée, but I cannot say that I felt altogether at home on my saddle. An eye to effect is nevertheless kept open, which is manifested by my catching up two drowsy, drawling, jingling 'po shays' and sweeping past them with supreme contempt, but at a great expense of my lumbar muscles. Presently, however, my continuation-clad members began to thaw a little, and to adapt themselves to the saddle, which also lost some of its rigid severity; I began to feel very comfortable, and, by Jove! it was a good job I did, for on getting out of Fritzlar, we left the high road (for reasons above given) and plunged into a rugged, donkey-shay sort of by-path in which the ruts were without exaggeration a foot deep. Nothing daunted, however, I make light of this 'terrain légèrement accidenté,' cross stream and ride along tattered banks with the nonchalance of the Chinese Mandarin in the Exhibition of '51; in fact, such is my confidence in myself, that I at last begin to feel above my stirrups, I scorn them, fling them over my saddle, and perform without their assistance the rest of the journey to within half a mile of Bergheim, and that on a road the profile of which was about this:
(Here was drawn a line representing a hill-side almost perpendicular.)
"On my arrival I am of course kindly received by the Countess (her husband is still at Oldenburg), got my tea, and go to bed rather stiff after an equestrian performance of about two hours and a half. The house is large and rambling, fifteen windows in a row, and yet I cannot get a satisfactory light, the only available north room looking on a lane, the white-washed houses of which reflect disagreeably on the picture, whenever the sun shines. However I must make up my mind to it and do my best; I am at present painting the Countess."
"Bergheim, Sunday.
"[Dear Mamma],—In the midst of my anxious expectations of a letter from you, it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten to give you my direction; in the full confidence that late is far preferable to never, I now hasten to make up for my omission—
Mons. F. Leighton
bei
Ihrer Erlauchten der Gräfin von
Waldeck und Pyrmont
zu Bergheim
bei Fritzlar
Fürstenthum Waldeck.