Art, like everything else, must be regulated, depressed, or elevated according to the demand for its productions. The epic is considered, almost universally, as the highest form of poetry; but it is extremely doubtful whether a new epic, even of the highest merit, would now command a sale. Is the state, then, with the view of elevating the public taste, to give commissions for epics? The idea is sufficiently absurd; and yet poetry, from its universality, is clearly to be ranked above painting.

And yet we have a British school, and its productions are greatly admired and prized. We shall not, for obvious reasons, refer to living artists, though, if we were to do so, we could mention several names which undoubtedly will hereafter be classed with those of the highest European renown. But take Wilson, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Wilkie, and Turner. None of these men pretended to the “Grand Style,” and yet see how their fame endures! Who would not rather have a masterpiece from the hands of one of them, than a specimen of gigantic grotesqueness neither classical nor romantic, such as is now called in the style of the highest art? It is a vast mistake to suppose that figures constructed from the models of prize-fighters, or of the nymphs of the Walhalla, are either heroic or beautiful. The style and expression of art, like those of thought, must vary according to the country that gives them birth.

We are led to make these observations, because we wish to see the British school remain uncontaminated by imitation. At present, the tendency is to Germanise, and to adopt the German manner. Hence the rage for frescoes, and for unlimited cartoons. In the indulgence of this, we see nothing but future disappointment for the artists. It is to the great body of the public that artists must ultimately look for encouragement; and, whatever may be their confidence in their own theories, they cannot hope to change the popular perception. Let art, by all means, be encouraged; but in the proper direction. There is a very great deal in the observation of Haydon, that the noble and wealthy of this country are well disposed towards the encouragement of art, but sadly ignorant of its principles. We are quite of his opinion that there ought to be in every one of our universities an æsthetical chair, for the purpose of tracing the history of art, and exercising its productions. This would greatly tend to elevate the general taste, and would, we think, be of much benefit to the artists, whose position, as a highly intellectual class of men, has not yet been sufficiently recognised.

Unfortunate Haydon! After obtaining his discharge, he had to begin life anew; but with the burden of a wife and family. Even his obstinacy gave way before the absolute necessity of something like remunerative labour, and he began to paint portraits, and small pictures; but he was successful in neither department. He had studied the heroic so long that he could not get rid of it.

“The great drawback,” says Mr Taylor, “was the reception his critics gave his portraits when exhibited. Their attacks took what Haydon calls ‘a new direction.’ The painter was assailed through the personal peculiarities of his sitters. It is natural enough to find the angry artist expressing an opinion that this is a cruel and deep-laid plot to injure him, at his starting on this more lucrative branch of his calling; but we shall perhaps do the critics more justice, if we believe that Haydon’s portraits had something about them provokingly open to ridicule. The heroic style of treatment could hardly have been adapted to a comfortable citizen family, or a provincial ex-mayor. Indeed, I am assured that, in the latter performance, he had represented the mayor of proportions too heroic even to have got through a door-way, out of which he was supposed to have issued in his civic state.”

In fact, he hated portrait-painting, and complained of being cramped in the composition of small pictures. He longed to be at the gigantic canvass again. Still, he had a good deal of employment, and, had he persevered, might have overcome his difficulties; but a new commission tempted him, and he again plunged into the Grand Style. In 1827, he was again arrested for debt.

The rest of his story is a record of perpetual struggle, not so much against debt as against payment. He became familiar with the King’s Bench Prison, where he painted his “Mock Election,” and “Chairing of the Member;” and, when not in jail, exerted his powers of borrowing to the uttermost. He had no hesitation in applying to those upon whom he had not the slightest claim, and expressed himself as an injured man if they refused. He painted the “Reform Banquet,” and lost money by it. He pestered Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington to take colossal pictures until his importunity became intolerable. He addressed a furious letter to his kind friend and most indulgent landlord, Newton, to whom he was indebted for heavy arrears of rent, and threatened him with a notice to quit! Then he lectured on art—and lectured well—but that would not suffice for his support. A more wretched life than his it is hardly possible to conceive. The gleams of fortune that visited him—for some of his pictures brought good prices, and one was purchased by the King—were all illusory; he was inextricably and hopelessly entangled. And yet all this while he was in communication with some of the first men, both political and literary, of the age—was addicted to no degrading vice, and endeavoured, as he best could, to rear and educate his children. Indeed, in his domestic relations, he appears in a most amiable light, striving manfully to avert the blow of misfortune from those whom he was bound to protect, however heavily it might fall on his own head. What agony must have possessed the soul of this unfortunate man, when he penned the following sentence!

“The greatest curse that can befall a fellow in England is to have a son gifted with a passion and a genius for high art. Thank God, with all my soul and all my nature, my children have witnessed the harassing agonies under which I have ever painted; and the very name of painting, the very name of high art, the very thought of a picture, gives them a hideous and disgusting taste in their mouths. Thank God, not one of my boys, nor my girl, can draw a straight line even with a ruler, much less without one; and I pray God, on my knees, with my forehead bent to the earth, and my lips to the dust, that He will in His mercy afflict them with every other passion, appetite, or misery—with wretchedness, disease, insanity, or gabbling idiotism, rather than a longing for painting—that scorned, miserable art—that greater imposture than the human species it imitates!”

Evidently this was not his serious thought—it was but a wild and frantic ejaculation, uttered in a paroxysm of despair; but it serves to show how tremendous his agony must have been. When that was penned, he was well-nigh sixty years of age; and what triumphs had he to show? In his fortunes he was an utterly broken man, almost a beggar; for what else is he who is constantly supplicating for loans which he knows he can never repay? Some of his best pictures, on which he rested his hopes of fame, had been thrown aside and neglected. He had not made friends with his cotemporaries, and he was distanced in popularity by many of the rising generation of artists. With all his vanity, he could not delude himself into the idea that he had won the popular support—the failure of his later Exhibitions had given too distinct a proof of the reverse. He had passed the best years of his life in active opposition to the Academy, and now he found himself almost an outcast from his fellows.

There can be, we think, no doubt that in secret he deeply regretted this, and deplored the rashness of his former conduct. In 1826 he attempted a reconciliation, but his pride interfered to prevent it. It was then that he held the following conversation with the elder Reinagle, which will explain what we have just said regarding the neglect of his pictures.

“‘Where is your Solomon, Mr Haydon?’ ‘Hung up in a grocer’s shop.’ ‘Where your Jerusalem?’ ‘In a wareroom in Holborn.’ ‘Where your Lazarus?’ ‘In an upholsterer’s shop in Mount Street.’ ‘And your Macbeth?’ ‘In Chancery.’ ‘Your Pharaoh?’ ‘In an attic, pledged.’ ‘Good heavens! and your Crucifixion?’ ‘In a hay-loft.’ ‘And Silenus?’ ‘Sold for halfprice.’”

Haydon constantly uses, in his Journal, expressions which would lead to the conclusion that he had suffered some heinous wrong or insult at the hands of the Academicians. We believe that charge to be utterly unfounded; indeed, the only grievance that he has particularised is the unfortunate position assigned to his “Dentatus,” in the exhibition of 1809. He himself admits, that whenever he chose to approach the Academicians individually, he was kindly and courteously received; and, so late as 1842, an overture appears to have been made to him on the part of his brethren. The entry is characteristic.