Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/45

 and title calculated to appeal to the popular mind was a drawing of 'H.M.S. Victory — Captain E. Harvey — at Trafalgar,' which he sent to the Academy in 1806. In 1803 he had taken a trip from London to Deal in an East Indiaman, the Coutts, and made about 130 sketches. These included three of the Victory then just fresh from the dock at Chatham. In 1807 he sent three drawings of the lake country, to which he had paid a visit the previous year, but he never painted a picture from the numerous sketches he took during the tour. His mind was not constituted, as his friend Leslie admits, to enjoy the sublimer scenery of nature. He was essentially a pastoral painter with an intense affection to the familiar scenes of his boyhood, like the poet Clare. His power was in a great measure due to his recognition of his natural limits and his complete contentment with them. He did not aspire to be a universal painter, desiring only to paint well those things he knew and loved well. He said, 'I imagine myself to be driving a nail. I have driven it some way, and by persevering I may drive it home; by quitting it to attack others, though I may amuse myself, I do not advance beyond the first, while the particular nail stands still.' In 1812 he writes to Miss Maria Bicknell: 'I have now a path marked out very distinctly for myself, and I am desirous of pursuing it uninterruptedly.'

His health had been affected in the previous year (1811) from his love of this lady, whom he had known when a boy. His love was returned by Miss Bicknell, but not approved by the family. Her father was solicitor to the admiralty, and afterwards to the prince regent; and her grandfather was the Rev. Dr. Rhudde, rector of East Bergholt, his native village. A millowner's son and an unsuccessful painter was not an eligible match. Dr. Rhudde did not know Constable, and Mr. Bicknell, though he knew and apparently always liked him personally, did not wish to offend Dr. Rhudde, from whom his daughter had expectations. The lovers were driven to correspondence, which lasted for five years. The extracts from it in Leslie's 'Life' are well worth reading. Artless and without extravagance the letters breathe a spirit of quiet deep affection and perfect constancy. The lovers do not go into raptures and do not quarrel, have never anything of much importance to say, nor any great thoughts to communicate, but they are always brave and Salient and faithful. At first Miss Bicknell's duty seems to have a little the better of her love, but the 'Dear sir' soon ripens into 'Dearest John,' and writing, which has hitherto been disagreeable to her, becomes her greatest pleasure. In 1812 he tells her of a fire at his lodgings, and how he saved a poor woman's money which she had left in her bed. In 1813 he speaks of the success of his picture at the Academy, 'Landscape — Boys Fishing,' and of his growing reputation as a portrait-painter. He gets fifteen guineas a head, has painted full-lengths of Lady Heathcote and her mother. For the first time his pockets are full of money. He is free from debt, and has had no assistance from his father. He dines at the Royal Academy, and is a good deal entertained with Turner, who sits next to him. 'I alway expected to find him what I did; he has a wonderful range of mind.' Next year sees improvement in his prospects as a landscape-painter. His 'Windmill' is given to John Landseer to engrave, and he sells two pictures ——one to Mr. Allnutt and another to Mr. James Carpenter. In 1815 Constable is permitted to visit Miss Bicknell at her father's house at Spring Gardens, which makes Dr. Rhudde very angry, and he says that he considers Maria no longer his granddaughter. In this year the mothers of both the lovers died, and in the next Constable's father also. Miss Bicknell was now twenty-nine and Constable forty, and they agreed to wait no longer. His friend, the Rev. J. Fisher, seems to have suggested their marriage, and himself performed the ceremony at St. Martin's Church on 2 Oct. 1816. His portrait by Constable appeared in the next year's Academy. The father of Miss Bicknell was soon reconciled, and the grandfather, though it is not recorded whether he relented during his life, left Mrs. Constable 4,000l. at his death three years after.

The newly married couple took up their abode at 63 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, where Constable had lived for some years; thence they moved, in 1817 or 1818, to 1 Keppel Street. In 1822 their address was 8 Keppel Street, and in this year they moved to 35 Upper Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Sijuare (Farington's old house), where he remained till his death. He also for some years had a supplementary residence at Hampstead. In 1821 it was 2 Lower Terrace, but he does not appear to have taken a house there till 1826, when he took a small one in Well Walk, and let a great part of his house in Charlotte Street, reserving his studio and a few other rooms, and going backwards and forwards every day. In 1819 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and exhibited one of his finest pictures, now generally known as 'The White Horse,' but called in the catalogue 'A Scene on the River Stour.' This was purchased by his friend Fisher, now archdeacon. He was now forty-three years of