Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/565

Rh decoration in fresco. In 1842 a Fine Arts Commission issued a notice of conditions for a cartoon competition. Haydon welcomed this with delight. Who but he was competent to execute such great works? And he laboured hard at the study of fresco and in the preparation of cartoons. But he was disappointed at not being given the chief place, without question, in the decoration of the Houses.

"After thirty-eight years of bitter suffering," he wrote, "perpetual struggle, incessant industry, undaunted perseverance, four imprisonments, three ruins, and five petitions to the House—never letting the subject of State support rest night or day, in prison or out; turning everything before the public—the wants of his family, the agonies of his wife, the oppression of the Academy, directing all to the great cause [of High Art], it is curious to see that the man who has got hold of the public heart, who is listened to and hailed by the masses—it is curious, as a bit of human justice, to find chairman, committee, witnesses, pupils, avoid throughout the whole inquiry any thought, word, or deed which could convey to a foreign nation or a native artist, a noble lord or an honourable member, that there was such a creature as Haydon on the earth!"

The opening of the Cartoon Exhibition was fixed for 3 July, 1843. Already, on 27 June, Haydon had received intelligence that his cartoons had been rejected. It was a bitter blow. But he struggled on till April, 1846, when he received another, that was final, and crushed his spirits. His cartoons should be seen and appreciated by the public. He hired a room in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in which to exhibit them, together with some of his historical paintings—"Aristides Banished from Naples," "Nero Playing upon his