'I received my brother's two last letters, and am exceedingly sorry to hear that my father is so poorly; don't let him work any more, I hope he will be better before this arrives. I have all the prospect of success that is possible, having much more business than I can possibly do. I have been with the King and Queen, who were highly pleased with my work, and took two of my pictures, and they are hung up in the King's collection at the Queen's palace. As to the £200 business, it is entirely false, for I was but paid my price and no more. I could have had more money for the pictures if I had sold them to several noblemen.... There is no work stirring at this time, and it is a very improper time to see the town, as it is cold and very dirty, and so full of smoak and fog that you can hardly see the length of your nose, and I should not be able to stir anywhere out by day nor keep them company indoors, by reason of the quantity of business. I would advise them to come up in June, when they may see everything in fine weather, and probably I shall not be so busy then as I am now, because most of the quality go out of town at that time, and then also they may see all the great houses, &c., but now the familys are in town, they'd not be able to see one. As to my stay here, it will depend on circumstances, as the continuation of employ and the encouragement I may meet with. If I have time and money I shall certainly come down in the summer.... Many have been in town, years, and have had nothing to do, whilst I, who have been here but two or three months, am known and talked of by everybody. To be known, is the great thing in London. A man may do ever so well, if nobody knows it, it will signify nothing; and among so many thousand and ten thousand people, it is no easy matter to get known. I cannot think what gave rise to the report which you heard, as I have never had a present from anybody in my life. Money is very scarce among everybody, and I only desire to get paid for what I do. I have a new method, and make them all, or most of them, pay half as soon as I begin the pictures, which is a very good method. Brother E. and his wife are very well and will be very glad to see Brother and Betty up at the time I mentioned; they join in their duty to you and Father, and love to Uncle, Brother and sisters, &c., with your affectionate son,
'J. Opie.
'Direct to me at Mr. Riccard's, Orange Court, Leicester Fields, London.
'March 11, 1782.'
In the following year he removed to Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; and somewhere about this time became infatuated with the black eyes and arch smiles of a City solicitor's daughter, one Mary Bunn, of St. Botolph's, Aldgate, who brought him some money on his marriage with her at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, 4th December, 1782. It was a foolish union—she, pretty and giddy, and her husband a blunt, strong-minded, hard-working artist. He tried to gloss over her follies, being placable to a degree; but in vain. She at last crowned her faithless career by eloping with a Mr. John Edwards in 1795, and an Act of divorce left Opie a free and a happier man. It was à propos of this miserable affair that Opie once uttered the following grim bon-mot. He was passing the above-named church one day with his quondam friend Godwin, who was an infidel, when Godwin exclaimed: 'Ah! I was christened at that church.' 'And I was married in it,' replied Opie; 'they make unsure work there, for it neither holds in wedlock nor in baptism.'
But at length the crowds of sitters and callers who used to annoy both Opie and his neighbours began to dwindle away, as the novelty of seeing that 'nine days' wonder'—a great artist—in
'The Cornish boy in tin-mines bred
Whose genius, like his native diamonds, shone
In secret, till chance gave them to the sun,'
began to wear off; and gave Opie the much-desired opportunity of pursuing the higher branches of his art. Henceforth he painted less portraits and more historical compositions; but amongst the former, even up to the end of his career, we still find some notable subjects, such as a whole-length of Charles James Fox (which West thought his best), William Siddons (the husband of the great actress), Fuseli, Southey, the Poet Laureate,[117] and many others. In 1784 he exhibited his 'School,' of which Horace Walpole remarked that it was 'Great nature—the best of his works yet.'
His first great work of the 'historical' school, and one of his very best, 'The Assassination of James I. of Scotland,' was produced in 1786; as to which a writer in the Quarterly Review for 1866 tells the following amusing story of Northcote's jealousy of Opie. When the latter was engaged at Hampstead on this picture (the story is, by the way, also told of the Rizzio picture), Northcote became alarmed at the reports which reached him of its extraordinary merit, and accordingly he paid a visit to Opie's studio in order to judge for himself. 'When I entered the room,' he said, 'I was astounded. The picture had the finest effect I ever witnessed; the light on the figures gleamed up from a trap-door by which the murderers were entering the King's chamber. "Oh!" said I to myself; "go home, go home; it is all over with you!" I did go home, and brooded over what I had seen. I could think of nothing else; it perfectly haunted me. I could not work on my own pictures for thinking of his. At last, unable to bear it any longer, I determined to go there again, and when I entered the room I saw, to my great comfort, that Opie had rubbed all the fine effect out.'