B. R. HAYDON
From a drawing by David Wilkie
B. R. Haydon left at his death not only an Autobiography extending to the year 1820, but also a Journal in twenty-six folio volumes. The former has been published entire, but the Journal has been compressed, and the whole edited in three volumes by Mr. Tom Taylor (London, 1853). It is not my intention in a short article to go through the entire Life and further to compress it, but rather to pick out a few salient points, and to draw from other sources more impartial estimates of Haydon than he formed of himself and of his work.
As the opening of his Autobiography contains some lively sketches of old Plymouth, I shall extract these.
“My father sent me to the grammar school under the Rev. Dr. Bidlake, a man of some taste. He painted and played on the organ, patronized talent, was fond of country excursions, wrote poems which nobody ever read.
“Finding that I had a taste for art, he always took me, with another boy, from our studies to attend his caprices in painting. Here his odd and peculiar figure, for his back was bent from fever, induced us to play him tricks. As he was obliged to turn round and walk away to study the effect of his touches, we used to rub out what he had done before he returned, when his perplexity and simplicity were delightful to mischievous boys. Once he sent my companion to cut off the skirt of an old coat to clean his palette with, and the boy cut off the skirt of his best Sunday coat. Poor dear Dr. Bidlake went to Stonehouse Chapel in his great-coat the next Sunday, and when he took it off to put on the surplice the clerk exclaimed in horror, ‘Good God, Sir! somebody has cut off the skirt of your coat!’”
“My father used to show my drawings to his customers. One of them was a very great man in the town—merchant and, I believe, consul. John H. [Hawker] was a very worthy but pompous man, exceedingly vain, very fond of talking French before people who could not speak a word of it, and quoting Italian sayings of which he knew little; liked everything but steady attention to his business, was a good father, good husband, and to play soldier for a week at any time would have laid his head upon the block. During the dread of invasion volunteer corps became the rage. The very infants in the nursery played soldiers too. Mr. John [Hawker] either raised or joined a corps of volunteers, and warier men made him colonel, that the expense might not fall on their heads. Colonel he was, and devoted himself to the occupation with so much sincerity that his men in discipline and order would certainly not have disgraced a marching militia regiment. After review days, nothing gave the Colonel so much delight as marching right through the town from the Hoe, to the horror and consternation of the apple-women. The moment the drums and trumpets were heard sounding at the bottom of Market Street, the scramble to get out of the way among the poor old women is not to be imagined. Market Street in Plymouth is a sort of hill, and how often as a boy have I left my drawing, dashed down and out to the top of the hill to see the Colonel in all his glory.
“First came in view his feather and cap, then his large, red, pride-swollen, big-featured face, with a smile on it in which grim war, dignity, benevolent condescension, stolidity, and self-satisfaction were mixed in equal proportions; then came his charger, curvetting with graceful fire, now hind-quarters this side, now fore-quarters that side, with the Colonel—sword drawn and glittering in the sun—recognizing the wives and children of the ironmongers, drapers, and grocers who crowded the windows to see him pass. Then came the band, big drum and trumpets; then the grenadier company with regular tramp; then the Colonel’s eldest son, John, out of the counting-house, who was captain; then his lieutenant, an attorney’s clerk; then the Colonel and band turned to the right down Broad Street—the music became fainter and fainter, the rear lagged after. The Colonel drew up his regiment before his own parlour windows, and solaced by white handkerchiefs and fair lips, dismissed his men, and retired to the privacy of domestic life until a new field day recalled him to the glory of the Hoe and the perils of apple-stalls and slippery streets.”