Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/291

H of Plymouth was conferred upon him. Yet the triumph of ‘Solomon’ brought him no commissions, and the exhibition of it in Plymouth, Liverpool, and Birmingham was a failure. He now set to work with renewed energy on his ‘Christ's Entry into Jerusalem,’ which took him six years to complete. He writes on 29 April 1815: ‘Never have I had such irresistible and perpetual urgings of future greatness. I have been like a man with air-balloons under his armpits and ether in his soul.’ But the progress of his picture was much interrupted from weakness of his eyes and a controversy about the Elgin marbles. Canova arrived in England in 1815, and confirmed Haydon's views as to their supreme merit. A committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the question of purchase for the nation. Out of consideration to Payne Knight, Haydon's evidence was not called for, but he wrote an article ‘On the Judgment of Connoisseurs being preferred to that of Professional Men,’ which mercilessly exposed the ignorance of Payne Knight, and demonstrated with great vigour and knowledge the merits of the marbles. It appeared in both the ‘Examiner’ and the ‘Champion,’ and, as Sir Thomas Lawrence said, saved the marbles. Lawrence added that it would ruin Haydon, but Haydon was well on the road to ruin already. He was penniless, but would not paint marketable pictures. Sir George Beaumont gave him a commission, but he did not execute it; Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Phillips gave him another for a picture of ‘Christ's Agony in the Garden,’ but he spent an advance of 200l., and was in no hurry to finish the picture. It is now at the South Kensington Museum. With reckless extravagance he had casts taken of the Elgin marbles, and made presents of them to Canova and others. He took pupils for nothing, and set up a school to rival the Academy. He got into the hands of the money-lenders. He spent much time in writing essays on art and attacks on the Academy for Elmes's ‘Annals of Art,’ and if it had not been for the generous assistance of friends and patrons he would probably have never finished his ‘Christ's Entry into Jerusalem.’ When it was finished at last, Haydon, without a penny in his pocket, engaged the great room at the Egyptian Hall for a year at 300l., and opened the exhibition on 27 March 1820. Its success was great; the net profits of the exhibition in London amounted to nearly 1,300l., and it was afterwards exhibited successfully at Edinburgh and Glasgow, but he was still deeply in debt when in December he commenced his ‘Lazarus’ (now in the National Gallery) on a canvas 19 feet long by 15 feet high. It was not finished till December 1822.

In October 1821 Haydon married Mary Hymans, a beautiful widow, with whom he had been in love for some years, and about this time his creditors began to take active steps against him. A few months before and again shortly after his marriage he was arrested for debt, and in November 1822 he had an execution in the house. His eldest son, Frank, was born in December. ‘Lazarus’ was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in the March following. The exhibition was very successful, but the picture was seized by creditors almost immediately with the rest of his property, including a new huge canvas on which he had already commenced a picture of ‘The Crucifixion.’ He was imprisoned in the King's Bench till 25 July. ‘Lazarus’ was sold to his upholsterer for 30l., and ‘The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem’ (now at Philadelphia) for 240l.

Henceforth, though full of activity in various directions, his career as a painter was maimed. Hitherto this career had been chequered, but on the whole brilliant. His aims were high, and if he formed an exaggerated notion of his own genius and the importance of his mission as an artist, he was encouraged in his delusions by some of the most cultivated and gifted men of the day. Among his admirers were Sir Walter Scott, Keats, Charles Lamb, Wordsworth, Southey, Hazlitt, Miss Foote, Miss Joanna Baillie, Miss Mitford, and Mrs. Siddons. Wordsworth addressed him the fine sonnet commencing ‘High is our calling, friend! creative art;’ Keats evidently referred to him in his sonnet beginning ‘Great Spirits now on earth are sojourning;’ Miss Mitford and Charles Lamb joined the chorus. Distinguished foreigners, like Canova and Cuvier, Horace Vernet and the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, had come to see the great picture of ‘Jerusalem’ in progress. He had an enthusiastic following of pupils, including Charles and Thomas Landseer, William Harvey, George Lance, William Bewick, and others. He firmly believed, too, that God was on his side. His journals are interwoven with prayers. The year before his death he wrote: ‘The moment I touch a great canvas I think I see my Creator smiling on all my efforts—the moment I do mean things for subsistence, I feel as if he had turned his back, and what's more I believe it.’

From prison Haydon petitioned parliament to grant money for the decoration of churches and other public buildings with paintings, and on his release his first intention was to return to his stripped home and paint his ‘Crucifixion.’ But to this his wife