And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,
It ne’er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand
In loitering mood upon the sand
That earth is now as free.
Perhaps we ought not to mention an idea we sometimes entertain—that our readers may imagine we are partial to Mr. Haydon, and that we pay an undue share of attention to his works. The truth, however, is that his pictures always work upon us with greater intensity than those of any other living artist. Further, we know Mr. Haydon but by his works. We are acquainted with the original of Pharaoh, in his great picture of the Plague, but this association has nothing to do with our admiration of Mr. Haydon’s genius. One of the specimens—Eucles—will not soon be absent from our mind’s eye; and for days after we first saw it, the sorrowful mother, and the ghastly, falling figure of the warrior, haunted our imagination at every turn.