Little Memoirs of the 19th Century | Page 6

of painting, talk of painting, and wake to paint again.'
During this visit, Sir George gave Haydon a commission for a picture on a subject from Macbeth. After it was begun, he objected to the size, but our artist, who, throughout his life, detested painting cabinet pictures, refused to attempt anything on a smaller scale. He persuaded Sir George to withhold his decision until the picture was finished, and promised that if he still objected to the size, he would paint him another on any scale he pleased. While engaged on 'Macbeth,' he competed with 'Dentatus' for a hundred guinea prize offered by the Directors of the British Gallery for the best historical picture. 'Dentatus' won the prize, but this piece of good fortune was counterbalanced by a letter from Mr. Haydon, senior, containing the announcement that he could no longer afford to maintain his son. This was a heavy blow, but after turning over pros and cons in his own mind, Haydon came to the conclusion that since he had won the hundred guinea prize, he had a good chance of winning a three hundred guinea prize, which the Directors now offered, with his 'Macbeth,' and consequently that he had no occasion to dread starvation. 'Thus reasoning,' he says, 'I borrowed, and praying God to bless my emotions, went on more vigorously than ever. _And here began debt and obligation, out of which I have never been, and shall never be, extricated, as long as I live.'_
This prophecy proved only too true. But Haydon, though he afterwards bitterly regretted his folly in exchanging independence for debt, and his pride in refusing to paint pot-boilers in the intervals of his great works, firmly believed that he, with his high aims and fervent desire to serve the cause of art, was justified in continuing his ambitious course, and depending for maintenance on the contributions of his friends. Nothing could exceed the approbation of his own conduct, or shake his faith in his own powers. 'I was a virtuous and diligent youth,' he assures us; 'I never touched wine, dined at reasonable chop-houses, lived principally in my study, and cleaned my own brushes, like the humblest student.' He goes to see Sebastian del Piombo's 'Lazarus' in the Angerstein collection, and, after writing a careful criticism of the work, concludes: 'It is a grand picture; a great acquisition to the country, and an honour to Mr. Angerstein's taste and spirit in buying it; yet if God cut not my life permanently short, I hope I shall leave one behind me that will do more honour to my country than this has done to Rome. In short, if I live, I will--I feel I shall, (God pardon me if this is presumption. June 31, 1810.)'
At this time Haydon devoted a good deal of his leisure to reading classic authors, Homer, ?schylus, and Virgil, in order to tune his mind to high thoughts. Nearly every day he spent a few hours in drawing from the Elgin Marbles, and he piously thanks God that he was in existence on their arrival. He spared no pains to ensure that his 'Macbeth' should be perfect in poetry, expression, form and colour, making casts and studies without end. His friends related, as a wonderful specimen of his conscientiousness, that, after having completed the figure of Macbeth, he took it out in order to raise it higher in the picture, believing that this would improve the effect. 'The wonder in ancient Athens would have been if I had suffered him to remain,' he observes. 'Such is the state of art in this country!'
In 1811 Haydon entered into his first journalistic controversy, an unfortunate departure, as it turned out, since it gave him a taste for airing his ideas in print. Leigh Hunt, to whom he had been introduced a year or two before, had attacked one of his theories, relative to a standard figure, in the Examiner. Haydon replied, was replied to himself, and thoroughly enjoyed the controversy which, he says, consolidated his powers of verbal expression. Leigh Hunt he describes as a fine specimen of a London editor, with his bushy hair, black eyes, pale face, and 'nose of taste.' He was assuming yet moderate, sarcastic yet genial, with a smattering of everything and mastery of nothing; affecting the dictator, the poet, the politician, the critic, and the sceptic, whichever would, at the moment, give him the air, to inferior minds, of a very superior man.' Although Haydon disliked Hunt's 'Cockney peculiarities,' and disapproved of his republican principles, yet the fearless honesty of his opinions, the unhesitating sacrifice of his own interests, the unselfish perseverance of his attacks upon all abuses, whether royal or religious, noble or democratic, made a deep impression on the young artist's mind.
Towards the end of