Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/126

110 not acquit it. It confesses to speaking unworthily and weakly the feeling of its writer, but she is none the less your obliged, ."

The sonnet, which can scarcely be deemed a success, that is, a success for Miss Barrett, appeared in the Athenæum of October 9th. Together with the portrait that had been the source of its inspiration, Haydon sent the poetess a sketch of his projected picture of Curtius leaping into the gulf, and several little courtesies appear to have passed between the two during the two or three succeeding years. Haydon, who was in a chronic state of pecuniary embarrassment, appears to have occasionally troubled Miss Barrett by leaving in her charge pictures that might otherwise have passed into the possession of the law, or the law's officers. He was also whimsical, eccentric, and often maddened by his treatment by the public. Miss Mitford records how he had painted a portrait of her, "far bigger than life, and with equal excess of colour, but otherwise like." Her father did not praise this production enough to please the artist, who felt that it was not considered a success. He took it home and cut out the head, which, however, he preserved. Some days before his melancholy death he sent this portrait to Miss Barrett, because, as he said, he knew she would value it. The next day he called on her at Wimpole Street, to say that he could not part with the portrait, he could only lend it to her. This was three days before his death. The circumstances attending the unfortunate artist's fate are well known. To endeavour to attract some share of the notice the public was bestowing upon less worthy objects, he exhibited one of his most ambitious paintings in a room opposite to where "General Tom Thumb" was