A
young apprentice with very little heart in the study of his craft, after the manner of young apprentices, toiling in a watch and clock-maker's shop in the town of Devonport, heard one day the fame of great Sir Joshua's achievements in London sounding through the county—became conscious that the good folks of the shire took pride in the son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, Master of Plympton Grammar School. Why should not he, the apprentice, become as great, or nearly so, a credit to Devonport, his birthplace, as was Sir Joshua to Plympton,hisbirthplace? Could one man only have art abilities and ambitions, and make for himself the opportunity to employ and gratify them? So the apprentice asked himself. And he must have been a clever fellow that apprentice! He soon convinced himself—that was easy: but he convinced his family; he convinced several of his townsmen—a more difficult task,—that the best thing they could do with him was to send him up to town to study under his countryman, Sir Joshua, and to become, like him, a great painter. He had his way at last. In his twenty-fifth year he was painting in the studio of Reynolds, living under his roof.
After all, his dearest wishes gratified, perhaps the pupil was little better off. If cleverness, like fever, were contagious, it had been all very well. But the master was but an indifferent master. He could not, or would not, instruct. He was himself somewhat deficient in education—had few rules—only a marvellous love and perception of the beautiful, and an instinctive talent for its reproduction on his canvas. It was as certain as it was innate, but not to be expressed in words, or communicated or reasoned upon in any way. The deeds of genius are things done, as of course, for no why or wherefore, but simply because there is no help for it but to do them. So the pupils painted in the studio of their pseudo-preceptor for a certain number of years, copying his works; or, when sufficiently advanced, perhaps working at his backgrounds, brushing away at draperies, or such conventional fillings in of pictures, and then went their ways to do what they listed, and for the most part to be heard of no more in art chronicles. They had probably been of more use to the painter than he had been to them. Certainly our friend the clockmaker's apprentice was. For when there arose a cry of 'Who wrote Sir Joshua's discourses, if not Burke?' this pupil could give satisfactory evidence in reply. He had heard the great man, his master, walking up and down in the library, as in the intervals of writing, at one and two o'clock in the morning. A few hours later, and he had the results in his hands. He was employed to make a fair copy of the lecturer's rough manuscript for the reading to the public. He had noted Dr. Johnson's handwriting, forhehad revised the draft, sometimes altering to a wrong meaning, from his total ignorance of the subject and of art: but never a stroke of Burke's pen was there to be seen. The pupil, it must be said for him, never lost faith in his master. Vandyke, Reynolds, Titian—he deemed these the great triumvirate of portraiture. Comparing them, he would say, that Vandyke's portraits were like pictures, Sir Joshua's like the reflections in a looking-glass, and Titian's like the real people. And he was useful to the great painter in another way, for he sat for one of the children in the Count Ugolino picture (the one in profile with the hand to the face). While posed for this, he was introduced as a pupil of Sir Joshua's to Mr. Edmund Burke, and turned to look at that statesman. 'He is not only an artist, but has a head that would do for Titian to paint,' said Mr. Burke. He served, too, another celebrated man. With Ralph, Sir Joshua's servant, he went to the gallery of Covent Garden Theatre, to support Dr. Goldsmith's new comedy,She Stoops to Conquer, on the first night of its performance. While his friends are trooping to the theatre, the poor author is found sick and shivering with nervousness, wandering up and down the Mall in St. James's Park. He can hardly be induced to witness the production of his own play. Johnson's lusty laugh from the front row of a side box gives the signal to the worthyclaque, who applaud to an almost dangerous extent, in their zeal for their friend, because there runs a rumour that Cumberland and Ossian Macpherson and Hugh Kelly are getting up a hiss in the pit.
'How did you like the play?' asked Goldsmith of the young painter, who had been clapping his hands until they ached, in the gallery by the side of good Mr. Ralph.
'I wouldn't presume to be a judge in such a matter,' the art-student answered.
'But did it make you laugh?'
'Oh, exceedingly.'
'That's all I require,' said Goldsmith, and sent him box tickets for the author's benefit night, that he might go and laugh again.
Sir Joshua's pupil was James Northcote, a long-lived man, born at Devonport in 1746, and dying at his London house, in Argyll Place, Regent Street, in 1831. If he had a Titianesque look in his youth, he possessed it still more in his age. Brilliant eyes, deeply set; grand projecting nose; thin, compressed lips; a shrewd, cat-like, penetrating look; fine, high, bald forehead, yellow and polished, though he often hid this with a fantastic green velvet painting cap, and straggling bunches of quite white hair behind his ears. A little, meagre man, not more than five feet high, in a shabby, patched dressing-gown, almost as old as himself, leading a quiet, cold, penurious life. He never married. He had never even been in love. He had never had the time, or he had never had the passion necessary for such pursuits, or he was too deeply devoted to his profession. He was always, brush in hand, perched up on a temporary stage, painting earnestly, fiercely, 'with the inveterate diligence of a little devil stuccoing a mud wall!' cried flaming Mr. Fuseli.
Haydon, with a letter of introduction from Prince Hoare, called upon Northcote. He was shown first into a dirty gallery, then up-stairs into a dirtier painting-room, and then, under a high window, with the light falling full on his bald grey head, stood a diminutive wizened figure in an old blue striped dressing-gown, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead. Looking keenly with his little shining eyes at his visitor, he opened the letter, read it, and with the broadest Devon dialect, said—
'Zo you mayne tu bee a peinter, doo 'ee? What zort of peinter?'
'Historical painter, sir.'
'Heestoricaul peinter! Why, ye'll starve with a bundle of straw under yeer head.'
Presently he read the note again.
'Mr. Hoare zays you're studying anatomy; that's no use—Sir Joshua didn't know it. Why should you want to know what he didn't?'
'But Michael Angelo did, sir.'
'Michael Angelo! what's he tu du here? You must peint portraits here!'
Haydon was roused to opposition.
'But I won't!'
'Won't,' screamed the little man, 'but youmust! Your vather isn't a moneyed man, is he?'
'No, sir, but he has a good income, and will maintain me for three years.'
'Will hee? Hee'd better make 'ee mentein yeerzelf.'
'Do you think, sir, that I ought to be a pupil to anybody?'
'No,' said Northcote. 'Who's to teach 'ee here? It'll be throwing your vather's money away.'
'Mr. Opie, sir, says I ought to be.'
'Hee zays zo, does hee? ha, ha, ha, ha! he wants your vather's money.'
He received many visitors in his studio. He was constantly at home, and liked to talk over his work, for he never paused on account of the callers. He never let go his palette even. He went to the door with a 'Gude God!' his favourite exclamation in his west country dialect, 'what, is ityou? Come in:' and then climbed his way back to his canvas, asking and answering in his cool, self-possessed way, all about the news of the day. Yet he was violent and angry, and outspoken sometimes, was Sir Joshua's loyal pupil.
'Look at the feeling of Raphael!' said some one to him.
'Bah!' cried the little man. 'Look at Reynolds; he was all feeling! The ancients werebaystsin feeling, compared to him.' And again: 'I tell 'ee the King and Queen could not bear the presence ofhe. Do you think he was overawed bythey? Gude God! He was poison to their sight. They felt ill at ease before such a being—they shrunk into themselves, overawed by his intellectual superiority. They inwardly prayed to God that a trap-door might open under the feet of the throne, by which they might escape—his presence was too terrible!'
Certainly he was possessed by no extravagant notions of the divinity of blood-royal.
'What do you know,' he was asked, 'of the Prince of Wales, that he so often speaks of you?'
'Oh, he knows nothing of me, nor I of him—it's only hisbragging!' the painter grandly replied.
He could comprehend the idea of distinction of ranks little more than old Mr. Nollekens, who would persist in treating the royal princes quite as common acquaintances, taking them by the button-hole, forgetful altogether of the feuds of the king's family, and asking themhow their father did? with an exclamation to the heir-apparent of, 'Ah! we shall never get such another when he's gone!' Though there was little enough veneration for the king in this, as Nollekens proved, when he measured the old monarch, sitting for his bust, from the lip to the forehead, as though he had been measuring a block of marble, and at last fairly stuck the compasses into his Majesty's nose. Even the king, who was not very quick at a joke, could not fail to see the humour of the situation, and laughed immensely.
Modern taste prefers Northcote's portraits to his more pretentious works. The glories of Mr. Alderman Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery have pretty well passed away. However, Northcote's pictures were among the best of the collection. His 'Arthur and Hubert,' and the 'Murder of the Princes in the Tower,' and 'The Interment of the Bodies by torchlight,' were very forcible and dramatic works of art, and possessed more natural attractions than the pictures of many of his competitors. His pupilage with Sir Joshua prevented his falling into the washed leather and warm drab errors of tone that then distinguished the English school of historical painting. In the picture of the Burial of the Princes, Fuseli criticised—
'You shouldn't have made that fellow holding up his hands to receive the bodies. You should have made him digging a hole for them. How awfully grand; with a pickaxe, digging, dump, dump, dump!'
'Yes,' Northcote answered; 'but how am I to paint the sound of dump, dump, dump?'
The Boydell pictures were for a long time very popular, and the engravings of them enjoyed a large sale.
Of course, Northcote despised Hogarth. Abuse of that painter seemed to be one of the duties of the British historical artist of that day. Yet he paid him homage; he painted a series of pictures, Hogarthian in subject, and proved to the satisfaction of everybody, one would think, the absolute superiority of Hogarth. Mr. Northcote's moral subjects, illustrative of vice and virtue, in the progress of two young women, are not to be mentioned in the same breath with the 'Mariage à la Mode.' Not merely were they deficient in expression—they were not equal in point of art-execution, though of course the more modern painter had planned to excel in both these qualities. But Northcote's portraits are really admirable—broad and vigorous—with much of Sir Joshua's charm of colour, if not his charm of manner exactly.
For fifty years he lived in Argyll Place, passing the greatest part of that time in his studio—a small room not more than nine feet by twelve, crowded with the conventional articles ofvertuthat were then considered to be the indispensable properties of a painter. His maiden sister—'Northcote in petticoats,' she was often called, she was so like him in face, figure, and manner—superintended his frugal household. Its economy was simple enough. The brother and sister were of one opinion. 'Half the world died of over-feeding,' they said. They went into an opposite extreme, and nearly starved themselves. When there was a cry in the land about scarcity of food, they did not heed the panic; they were accustomed to a minimum of sustenance, they could hardly be deprived of that. Fuseli, who sowed his satire broadcast, exclaimed one day: 'What! does Northcote keep a dog? What does he live upon? Why, he must eat his own fleas!' But the painter did not attempt to force his opinions upon others, so the kennel and the kitchen fared better than the parlour. The servants were indulgently treated, permitted to eat as they pleased, and die in their own fashion—of repletion or apoplexy, if it seemed good to them.
If he was cold and callous and cynical to the rest of the world, he was ever good and kind to the pinched elderly lady his sister. By his will he gave directions that everything in his house should remain undisturbed, that there should be no sale of his property in her lifetime. He was counselled by considerate friends to have all his pictures sold immediately after his funeral while his name was fresh in the memory of the public; it was urged that his estate would benefit very much by the adoption of such a course. 'Gude God, no!' the old man would cry; 'I haven't patience with ye! Puir thing! d'ye think she'll not be sufficiently sad when my coffin be borne away, and she be left desolate! Tearing my pictures from the walls, and ransacking every nook and corner, and packing up and carting away what's dearer to her than household gods, and all for filthy lucre's sake! No; let her enjoy the few years that will be spared to her; when she walks about the house let her feel it all her own, such as it be, and nothing missing but her brother. I'd rather my bones were torn from my grave, and scattered to help repair the roads, than that a single thing should be displaced here to give her pain. Ye'll drive me mad!'
One day there was a great crowd in Argyll Place. Not to see the painter, not even to see a royal carriage that had just drawn up at his door, nor a popular prince of the blood who occupied the carriage, but to catch a glimpse of one about whom the town was then quite mad—raving mad: a small good-looking schoolboy, a theatrical homunculus, the Infant Roscius, Master William Henry Betty. Of course rages and panics and manias seem to be very foolish things, contemplated by the cool grey light of the morning after. It seems rather incredible now, that crowds should have assembled round the theatre at one o'clock to see Master Betty play Barbarossa in the evening; that he should have played for twenty-eight nights at Drury Lane, and drawn £17,000 into the treasury of the theatre. He was simply a handsome boy of thirteen with a fine voice, deep for his age, and powerful but monotonous. Surely he was not very intellectual, though he did witch the town so marvellously. 'If they admire me so much, what would they say of Mr. Harley?' quoth the boy, simply. Mr. Harley being the head tragedian of the same strolling company—a large-calved, leather-lunged player, doubtless, who had awed provincial groundlings for many a long year. Yet the boy's performance of Douglas charmed John Home, the author of the tragedy. 'The first time I ever saw the part of Douglas played according to my ideas of the character!' he exclaimed, as he stood in the wings; but he was then seventy years of age. 'The little Apollo off the pedestal!' cried Humphreys, the artist. 'A beautiful effusion of natural sensibility,' said cold Northcote; 'and then that graceful play of the limbs in youth—what an advantage over every one else!' As the child grew, the charm vanished; the crowds that had applauded the boy fled from the man. Byron denounced him warmly. 'His figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as Diggory says (in the farce ofAll the World's a Stage), "I defy him to extort that d——d muffin face of his into madness!"' Happy Master Betty! HaplessMisterBetty!
Opie had painted the Infant as the shepherd so well known to nursery prodigies watching on the Grampian Hills the flocks of his father, 'a frugal swain, whose constant care,' etc. etc. His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, who was a patron of the stage—or the people on it, or some of them—brought the boy to Northcote, to be represented in a 'Vandyke costume retiring from the altar of Shakespeare,'—rather an unmeaning ceremonial. But the picture was a great success, and the engraving of it published and dedicated to the duke. He was then about forty—a hearty, bluff gentleman, supposed to be free and breezy in his manliness from his service at sea,—kindly and unaffected in manner, had not the slightest knowledge of art, but regarded Northcote as 'an honest, independent, little, old fellow,' seasoning that remark with an oath, after the quarter-deck manner of naval gentlemen of the period.
The prince sat in the studio while the artist drew the Infant. Northcote was not a man to wear a better coat upon his back for all that his back was going to be turned upon royalty. He still wore the ragged, patched dressing-gown he always worked in. The painting of Master Betty was amusing at first, but it seemed, in the end, to be but a prolonged and tedious business to the not artistic looker-on. He must divert himself somehow. Certainly Northcote's appearance was comical. Suddenly the painter felt a twitching at his collar. He turned, frowned angrily, but said nothing. The prince persevered. Presently he touched lightly the painter's rough white locks.
'Mr. Northcote, pray how long do you devote to the duties of the toilet?'
It was very rude of his Royal Highness, but then he wassobored by the sitting.
The little old painter turned round full upon him.
'I never allow any one to take personal liberties with me. You are the first that ever presumed to do so. I beg your Royal Highness to recollect that I am in my own house.'
He spoke warmly, glanced haughtily, then worked at his canvas again. There was silence for some minutes. Quietly the duke opened the door and left the room. The painter took no notice.
But the royal carriage had been sent away. It would not be required until five o'clock. It was not yet four; and it was raining!
The duke returned to the studio.
'Mr. Northcote, it rains. Will you have the kindness to lend me an umbrella?'
Calmly the painter rang the bell.
'Bring your mistress's umbrella.'
Miss Northcote's umbrella was the only silk one in the house. The servant showed the prince down-stairs, and he left the house protected from the shower by Miss Northcote's umbrella.
'You have offended his Royal Highness,' said some one in the room.
'Iam the offended party,' the painter answered with dignity.
Next day he was alone in his studio when a visitor was announced.
'Mr. Northcote,' said the duke, entering, 'I return Miss Northcote's umbrella you were so kind as to lend me yesterday.'
The painter bowed, receiving it from the royal hands.
'I have brought it myself, Mr. Northcote,' the duke continued, 'that I might have the opportunity of saying that I yesterday took a liberty which you properly resented. I am angry with myself. I hope you will forgive me, and think no more of it.'
The painter bowed his acceptance of the apology.
'Gude God!' he exclaimed, afterwards telling the story, 'what could I say? He could see what I felt. I could have given my life for him! Such a prince is worthy to be a king!'
More than a quarter of a century passed, and then the Duke of Clarence was the King of England—William the Fourth. The old painter was still living, at work as usual, though weak and bent enough now: but with his brain still active, his tongue still sharp, his eyes still very brilliant in his lined shrunken face. 'A poor creature,' he said of himself, 'perhaps amusing for half an hour or so, or curious to see like a little dried mummy in a museum.' He employed himself in the preparation of a number of illustrations to a book of fables published after his death. He collected prints of animals, and cut them out carefully; then he moved about such as he selected for his purpose on a sheet of plain paper, and, satisfying himself at last as to the composition of the picture, he fixed the figures in their places with paste, filled in backgrounds with touches of his pencil, and then handed the curious work to Mr. Harvey, the engraver, to be copied on wood and engraved. The success of the plan was certainly as remarkable as its eccentricity.
He employed his pen as well as his pencil: contributed papers to theArtist, and published, in 1813, a life of Sir Joshua. A year before his death he produced aLife of Titian, the greater part of which, however, was probably written by his friend and constant companion Hazlitt. About the same time Hazlitt reprinted from theMorning ChroniclehisConversations with Northcote, a work of much interest and value.
He was in his small studio, brush in hand, very tranquil and happy, within two days of his death. It seemed as though he had been forgotten. 'If Providence were to leave me the liberty of choosing my heaven, I should be content to occupy my little painting-room with the continuance of the happiness I have experienced there, even for ever.' He spoke of his works without arrogance. 'Everything one can do falls short of Nature. I am always ready to beg pardon of my sitters after I have done, and to say I hope they'll excuse it. The more one knows of the art, and the better one can do, the less one is satisfied.'
Sir Joshua's pupil—'Of all his pupils I am the only one who ever did anything at all'—died on the 13th July 1831, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.
T
here have always been factions in art; and while the schools have battled separately, there has been no lack of single combats between individual painters.
Pordenone painting his frescoes in the cloisters of St. Stefano at Venice with his sword drawn and his buckler at hand, prepared for the violence of Titian, is a sample of the masters who found it necessary to combine profession of the fine arts with the business of a bravo. Domenico Veniziano was brutally assaulted by Andrea del Castagno; Annibale Caracci, Cesari, and Guido were driven from Naples, and their lives threatened by Belisario, Spagnoletto, and Caracciolo. Agostino Beltrano, surpassed in painting by his own wife, Amelia di Rosa (the niece of an artist of eminence), murdered her in a fit of jealous rage; Michael Angelo was envious of the growing fame of Sebastiano del Piombo; Hudson[19]quarrelled with his pupil Reynolds, who in his turn was made uneasy by the progress of his rival Romney; and Hoppner, on his deathbed, writhed under the polite attentions of Sir Thomas Lawrence. 'In his visits,' said the poor sick man bitterly, 'there is more joy at my approaching death than true sympathy with my sorrows.'
The mother ofJOHN HOPPNERwas one of the German attendants at the Royal Palace. He was born in London in the summer of 1759. George the Third took a strong personal interest in the bringing up and education of the child, whose sweet musical voice and correct ear soon won for him the post and white stole of a chorister in the royal chapel. Of course there were motives attributed in explanation of the king's kindness and benevolence, and the boy himself, it would appear, was not eager to contradict a slander which ascribed to him illustrious, if illicit, descent. The world chose to see confirmation of the rumours in this respect, in the favour subsequently extended to the young man by the Prince of Wales, who supported him actively against such formidable rivals as Lawrence, Owen, and Opie, and was the means of directing a stream of aristocratic patronage to his studio. He entered as a probationer the school of the Royal Academy—passing gradually through the various stages of studentship, and emerging at last a candidate for the highest prizes of the institution. He underwent few of the privations of the beginner—knew little of the trials and struggles of the ordinary student. Almost 'a royal road' was opened for him. So soon as he could draw and colour decently, patrons were ready for him. Mrs. Jordan sat—now as the Comic Muse—now as Hippolyte; a 'lady of quality' was depicted as a Bacchante. Then came portraits of the Duke and Duchess of York, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Clarence. He lived in Charles Street, close to Carlton House, and wrote himself 'Portrait painter to the Prince of Wales.' The king and queen were quite willing to favour their son's favourite, particularly as they believed, with many other people of the time, that the heir-apparent 'had a taste.' But soon obstacles came between them and the painter. They had never liked Reynolds. Hoppner, full of honest admiration of Sir Joshua, did not hesitate to sound his praises even in the unwilling eyes of royalty. The question, as he held, was one of art, not of kingly predilection. It was uncourtierlike, and the monarch was much displeased. He could not endure contradiction or opposition even in regard to matters of which he knew nothing whatever, such as art for instance. Then the giddy proceedings of the minor and rival court at Carlton House were desperately annoying to plain 'Farmer George;' and in a small way Hoppner had become celebrated in the Prince's circle: for the painter was gaily disposed, witty, and high-spirited. The Prince of Wales having thrown himself into the open arms of the Whigs, Mr. Hoppner must needs become a zealous politician, espousing the principles of the party opposed to the king. He could expect little from their most gracious majesties after that. He obtained nothing. Certainly he was imprudent. What had a painter to do with politics? He thus diminished gravely the area of his prospects. It became quite impossible for Tory noblemen and gentlemen of distinction to bestow patronage upon, sit for their pictures to, a Whig portrait-painter. Why, he might caricature them! And after painting all his Whig friends and associates, what was he to do? with a rival in the field by no means to be despised or held cheaply.
In the last century it behoved everybody who desired to be accounted 'a personage,' or to be ranked amongst 'people of quality,' to quit London at a certain season of the year, and repair to the city of Bath, or 'the Bath,' as it was frequently called. Now a journey to Bath in those days was no trifling matter: it involved frequent stoppages by the way, and the inns and posting-houses upon the road became, necessarily,veryimportant, and oftentimes very profitable concerns. Miss Burney, the author ofEvelina, records in her diary the particulars of her journey to Bath with Mrs. Thrale, in the year 1780. She stopped the first night at Maidenhead Bridge; slept at Speen Hill the second, and Devizes the third; arriving at Bath on the fourth day of her journey. The inn patronized by Miss Burney at Devizes was the Black Bear, of which one Thomas Lawrence was the landlord. It is in regard to this establishment we have to request that the reader will give us his attention for a few minutes.
Mr. Lawrence had been by turns a solicitor, a poet, an artist, an actor, a supervisor of excise, a farmer, an innkeeper, and, of course, a bankrupt. Probably he might have retired from the Black Bear with a fortune, but that he had a numerous family of sixteen children to support, and that he was not particularly well qualified to succeed as an innkeeper. He seems to have set up for being 'a character,' and his neighbours were inclined to ridicule and censure him for giving himself airs. A bustling, active, good-humoured man, he was prone now and then to play the scholar and the fine gentleman, the while he lost sight of his more recognised position as a landlord. He wore a full-dress suit of black, starched ruffles, and a very grand periwig; was ceremonious and stately in his manners, affected an inordinate love of literature and an air of connoisseurship that contrasted rather strangely with his calling. Certainly there was not such another landlord to be seen upon the road between London and Bath; if, indeed, anywhere else. He was proud of his elocutionary powers, and in a full, sonorous voice he would read aloud select passages from Shakespeare and Milton to all such persons as evinced an inclination to listen to him—sometimes, indeed, to people who did not in the least wish to hear him. It is hardly to be wondered at that divers of the Black Bear's customers occasionally felt indignant and outraged when, travel-worn and hungry, eager for the bill of fare and supper, they were met by the landlord's proposal to expatiate for their benefit upon the beauties of the poets, or to recite for their entertainment certain most elegant extracts. It was food for the body they desiderated, not solace for the mind; and it was, perhaps, only natural that they should treat Mr. Lawrence's suggestions rather curtly. Not that the innkeeper was prompt to take offence. The man who rides a hobby-horse seldom heeds or perceives the criticism of bystanders upon the paces or proportions of his steed. Mr. Lawrence could obtain a hearing from other quarters. Once a week he visited Bath, and passed an evening in the green-room of the theatre there. The actors would listen to him, or pretend to do so; some of them would permit him to read their parts to them, and give them counsel as to the manner in which these should be rendered on the stage, purposing to revenge themselves afterwards, the rogues, by availing themselves of the comforts of the Black Bear, without calling for their accounts when they quitted that hostelry.
But even a greater celebrity at Devizes than Mr. Lawrence was his son Thomas, born in 1769, youngest of the sixteen children. He seems to have been regarded on all hands as a sort of infant prodigy of great use in attracting visitors to the inn. He could stand on a chair and recite poetry, or he could wield his blacklead pencil and take the portrait of any one who would condescend to sit to him. 'A most lovely boy,' writes Miss Burney,—with long, luxuriant, girl-like tresses, that tumbled down and hid his face when he stooped to draw. 'He can take your likeness, or repeat you any speech in Milton'sPandemonium,' the proud father would cry, 'although he is only five years old.' And at this age he is stated to have produced a striking likeness of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Kenyon. At seven the portrait of the prodigy was taken, and engraved by Mr. Sherwin, the artist. At eight, it seems, his education was finished. His recitations—he had no doubt been carefully instructed by his father—were pronounced to be 'full of discrimination, feeling, and humour, set off by the various tones of a voice full, harmonious, and flexible.' Pretty well this, for such a mere baby as he was at the time! He recited on various occasions before Garrick, Foote, John Wilkes, Sheridan, Burke, Johnson, Churchill, and other famous people, resting for the night or to change horses at Devizes on their road to Bath. Old Lawrence lost no opportunity of talking to his customers, and of exhibiting his wonderful son. All are alleged to have been charmed with him. Mr. and Mrs. Garrick passing through the town, would retire to a summer-house in the garden of the Black Bear, and amuse themselves for some time with the recitations of the little fellow. 'Tommy has learned one or two new speeches since you were here, Mr. Garrick,' the father would exclaim, bringing forward his precocious boy. 'There was something about him,' says an authority, 'which excited the surprise of the most casual observer. He was a perfect man in miniature; his confidence and self-possession smacked of one-and-twenty.'
Young Lawrence, however, was not able at this time to read at random any passages from the poets that might be selected for him. He had been instructed in particular speeches, and to these, as a rule, he was obliged to restrict his efforts. For a long time he had been wishing to learn 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' a favourite recitation of his father's; but old Lawrence had declined to intrust him with so important a subject. Nevertheless the boy had acquainted himself with the tone and manner appropriate to the piece, and announced that he was prepared to deliver it in imitation of the elder orator. A family in Devizes, known to the Lawrences, giving a party one evening, requested that the boy might be permitted to attend and entertain the company with his readings and recitations. Old Lawrence consented, on condition that the child was not asked to read other than the pieces with which he was acquainted, and cautioned his son by no means to attempt anything in which he was not perfect, and particularly to avoid the address of Satan. In the evening young Lawrence walked to the house with Shakespeare and Milton under his arm, and went through his performances amid general applause. He was then asked which was his favourite recitation in Milton? He replied that he preferred 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' but that his father would not permit him to repeat it. On this account, and to ascertain whether the child merely performed parrot-fashion, the company were especially anxious to hear the forbidden reading. Young Lawrence's dutiful scruples, however, were not overcome until all present had promised to intercede on his behalf and obtain for him his father's forgiveness. As he turned to the interdicted page a slip of paper fell from the book. A gentleman picked it up and read aloud—'Tom, mind you don't touch Satan.' It was some time before the astonished boy could be induced to proceed; yet he is said to have eventually dealt with the subject very creditably and discreetly.
They were strange people these Lawrences, and the Black Bear must have been a curious kind of inn. Miss Burney was greatly surprised at hearing the sounds of singing and pianoforte-playing while she was beneath its roof. It was only the Miss Lawrences practising—but the inn-keepers' daughters of the last century were not generally possessed of such accomplishments. Then, still very wonderful for an inn, 'the house,' says Miss Burney, 'was full of books as well as paintings, drawings, and music, and all the family seem not only ingenious and industrious, but amiable; added to which they are strikingly handsome. I hope,' the lady concludes, 'we may return the same road, that we may see them again.'
As Garrick said of him, young Lawrence's walk in life was at this time 'poised between the pencil and the stage.' To which did he incline? Would he be a player or a painter? It was hard to say. He had been taken to town on a visit to Mr. Hugh Boyd (who at one time was supposed to be one of the authors of 'Junius'), introduced to the great painters of the day, and most kindly received by them. Sir Joshua Reynolds had pronounced him 'the most promising genius he had ever met with.' Mr. Hoare had been so charmed with the boy's drawings, that he proposed to send him to Italy with his own son. On the other hand, he had been a frequent visitor in the green-room of the Bath Theatre. Placed upon the table there, the centre of a group of amused actors, he would recite 'Hamlet's Advice to the Players,' and other passages. On one of these occasions, Henderson the tragedian was present, and expressed warm approval of the child's efforts. Then, in return for the civilities and compliments he received, young Lawrence would beg that he might take the portraits of his friends among the company. We are told of his attempt to draw the face of Edwin, the comedian, who the while grimaced and distorted his features, constantly shifting the expression of his countenance, greatly to the bewilderment of the boy artist. Finally he stood silent and motionless, watching his model with a kind of despair, until it became necessary to explain the joke that had been practised. It should be said, however, that stories are current in relation to similar jokes played by humourists upon other artists.
Old Lawrence had been compelled to abandon the Black Bear, and had retreated to Bath with his family. 'Bath,' we are informed, 'was at that time London devoid of its mixed society and vulgarity. It contained its selection of all that was noble, affluent, or distinguished in the metropolis; and amongst this circle our artist was now caressed.' It became a kind of fashion to sit to him for oval crayon likenesses at a guinea and a half apiece. Portraits from his pencil of Mrs. Siddons and Admiral Barrington were now engraved, the artist being as yet only thirteen years of age. His success as a portrait-painter seemed quite assured; he was making money rapidly, largely contributing to the support of his family. Yet he was not satisfied. He was greatly tempted to try his fortune on the stage. His view was, that he could earn more, and so could further assist his father by deserting the studio for the theatre. Possibly, too, the display and excitement and applause which pertain to the career of the successful player—and of course he thought he should succeed—were very alluring to the young gentleman. He was now little more than sixteen. He took counsel of a friendly actor, Mr. John Bernard,[20]and favoured him with a private recitation of the part of Jaffier in the tragedy ofVenice Preserved. Mr. Bernard, it seems, was not much impressed by this performance; at least he did not detect sufficient dramatic ability in the young man to justify his proposed change of profession. The actor, however, did not openly express his opinion on the subject, but merely said he would bear the case in mind and speak to his manager, Mr. Palmer, in regard to it. Meanwhile he disclosed what had passed to old Lawrence. Acquainted by experience with the precariousness of an actor's fortunes, and appreciative also of the value of his son's talents as an artist, Lawrence entreated Bernard to exert all his influence in dissuading the young man from his design. It was determined at last to cure the stage-struck hero by means of a trick—to pre-arrange his failure, in fact. Palmer, the manager, entered into the plan. An appointment was made at Bernard's house, in order that young Lawrence might have a private interview with the manager. In an adjoining room were secreted his father and a party of friends. Bernard introduced the young man to Palmer, who presently desired a specimen of the aspirant's dramatic abilities, and took his seat at the end of the room in the character of auditor and judge. A scene fromVenice Preservedwas selected, and young Lawrence commenced a recitation. For several lines he proceeded perfectly, but soon he became nervous, confused—he stammered, coughed, and at last stopped outright. Bernard had the book in his hand, but he would not prompt, he withheld all assistance. Young Lawrence began again, but his self-possession was gone—his failure was more decided and humiliating than before. At this juncture his father abruptly entered the room, crying out, 'You play Jaffier, Tom? Hang me if you're fit to appear as a supernumerary!'—or some such speech—and then young Lawrence found that his mortification had not been without witnesses.
It was very trying to his vanity. He had to listen to remonstrances and appeals of all kinds. Palmer, the manager, assured him that he did not possess the advantages requisite for success on the stage. Bernard spoke with bitter truthfulness of the trials and sorrows of an actor's life. Other friends drew attention to the brilliant prospect open to the successful painter. Young Lawrence gave way at last. The theatre may thus have lost an agreeable player, but, thanks to the manœuvre of old Lawrence, Bernard, and Palmer, a famous portrait-painter was secured to the world of art.
In 1785 he received a medal from the Society of Arts for his crayon drawing of 'Raphael's Transfiguration.' In 1787, being then seventeen, he exhibited seven pictures at the Royal Academy. He painted his own portrait, and wrote concerning it to his mother, 'To any but my own family I certainly should not say this; but, excepting Sir Joshua for the painting of the head, I would risk my reputation with any painter in London.' The picture was broadly painted, three-quarter size, with a Rembrandtish effect, as Sir Joshua detected when the canvas was shown to him. 'You have been looking at the old masters; take my advice and study nature.' He dismissed the young artist with marked kindness, however. In 1789, Martin Archer Shee described him as 'a genteel, handsome young man, effeminate in his manner;' adding, 'he is wonderfully laborious, and has the most uncommon patience and perseverance.' About this time he painted the Princess Amelia, and Miss Farren, the actress, afterwards Countess of Derby, 'in a white satin cloak and muff;' and full-length portraits of the King and Queen, to be taken out by Lord Macaulay as presents to the Emperor of China. In 1791 he was, at the express desire, it was said, of the King and Queen, after one defeat, admitted an associate of the Royal Academy by a suspension of the law prohibiting the admission of an associate under the age of twenty-four. He was opposed by many of the academicians, and bitterly attacked by Peter Pindar.
Dr. Wolcot was especially angry at the alleged interference of royalty in the election. In his satiric poemThe Rights of Kings, he expostulates ironically with certain academicians who ventured to oppose the nominee of the Court:—
'How, sirs, on majesty's proud corns to tread!MessieursACADEMICIANS, when you're dead,Where can your impudences hope to go?'Refuse a monarch's mighty orders!It smells of treason—on rebellion borders!'S death, sirs! it was the Queen's fond wish as well,ThatMasterLAWRENCEshould come in!Against a queen so gentle to rebel!This is another crying sin!'Behold, his majesty is in a passion,Tremble, ye rogues, and tremble all the nation!Suppose he takes it in his, royal headTo strike your academic idol dead—Knock down your house, dissolve you in his ire,And strip you of your boasted title—"SQUIRE."[21]'Go, sirs, with halters round your wretched necks,Which some contrition for your crime bespeaks,And much-offended majesty implore:Say, piteous, kneeling in the royal view,"Have pity on a sad abandoned crew,And we, great king, will sin no more;Forgive, dread sir, the crying sin,AndMisterLAWRENCEshall come in!"'
'How, sirs, on majesty's proud corns to tread!MessieursACADEMICIANS, when you're dead,Where can your impudences hope to go?
'Refuse a monarch's mighty orders!It smells of treason—on rebellion borders!'S death, sirs! it was the Queen's fond wish as well,ThatMasterLAWRENCEshould come in!Against a queen so gentle to rebel!This is another crying sin!
'Behold, his majesty is in a passion,Tremble, ye rogues, and tremble all the nation!Suppose he takes it in his, royal headTo strike your academic idol dead—Knock down your house, dissolve you in his ire,And strip you of your boasted title—"SQUIRE."[21]
'Go, sirs, with halters round your wretched necks,Which some contrition for your crime bespeaks,And much-offended majesty implore:Say, piteous, kneeling in the royal view,"Have pity on a sad abandoned crew,And we, great king, will sin no more;Forgive, dread sir, the crying sin,AndMisterLAWRENCEshall come in!"'
The academicians had, it seems, in the first instance, electedFRANCIS WHEATLEY, painter of rural and domestic subjects, in preference to Lawrence. There had been then sixteen votes for Wheatley, and but three for Lawrence.
'Yet opposition, fraught to royal wishes,Quite counter to a gracious king's commands,Behold theACADEMICIANS, those strange fishes,ForWHEATLEYlifted their unhallowed hands.So then, these fellows have not leave to crawl,To play the spaniel lick the foot and fawn.'Etc. etc. etc.
In 1792, he attended the funeral of Sir Joshua in St. Paul's Cathedral, when Mr. Burke attempted to thank the members of the Academy for the respect shown to the remains of their president, but, overcome by his emotions, was unable to utter a word. In 1795, Mr. Lawrence was elected a full member of the Academy, having previously succeeded Sir Joshua as painter in ordinary to the King—Benjamin West being elected to the presidential chair.
'Sir Joshua,' writes Northcote in hisLife of Reynolds, 'expected the appointment [of painter in ordinary] would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette with which he complied, and seems to have pleased Johnson by so doing.'
Burke, reforming the King's household expenses, had reduced the salary of King's painter from £200 to £50 per annum. But the office was nevertheless a valuable source of emolument, derived in great part from the number of State portraits of the sovereign, required, by usage, for the adornment of certain official residences, and the duty and profit of executing which devolved, as of right, on the painter in ordinary. Thus the mansion of every ambassador of the crown, in the capital of the foreign court to which he was accredited, exhibited in its reception rooms whole-length portraits of the King and Queen of England. And these works were not fixtures in the official residence, but were considered as gifts from the sovereign to the individual ambassador, and remained his property—his perquisites on the cessation of his diplomatic functions. Each new appointment among thecorps diplomatique, therefore, brought grist to the mill of the painter in ordinary in the shape of a new commission for a royal whole-length, usually areplicaof a previous work, but to be charged and paid for according to the artist's usual scale of prices for original pictures. When Reynolds, late in his career, accepted the appointment, its pecuniary advantages were a matter of indifference to him, or he did not care to be for ever reduplicating or reproducing the 'counterfeit presentment' of the sovereign, and a fashion sprung up of compensating the ambassador with a fixed sum of money, the estimated market value of the royal portrait; his excellency not being in the least unwilling to accept the specie in lieu of the picture. But Lawrence did not find it expedient to follow Sir Joshua's example. He claimed a right to execute the portraits, however numerous, of the sovereign, let the diplomatists be ever so willing to take money instead. This claim was admitted, and he reaped large profits accordingly.[22]
Add to his unquestionable art-abilities, that he was courtly in manner, an accomplished fencer and dancer, with a graceful figure and a handsome face; that he possessed an exquisitely modulated voice; and large, lustrous expressive eyes—the light in which seemed to be always kindling and brilliant.
George the Fourth, indeed, pronounced him 'the most finished gentleman in my dominions.' And then, though he had abandoned all thought of the stage as a means of obtaining profit, there was nothing to prevent his distinguishing himself in back drawing-rooms as an unprofessional player. He was certified by no less a person than Sheridan to be 'the best amateur actor in the kingdom.' Lawrence had greatly distinguished himself in that respect at a theatricalfêtegiven by the Marquis of Abercorn in 1803. 'Shall I give you an account of it?' writes the painter to his sister. 'It was projected by a woman of great cleverness and beauty—Lady Caher.... It was determined to do it in a quiet way, and more as an odd experiment of the talents of the party than anything else; but this and that friend would be offended; and at last it swelled up to a perfect theatre (in a room), and a London audience. The Prince, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Lord and Lady Melbourne, their sons, Lord and Lady Essex, Lord and Lady Amherst, with a longet cetera, and, amongst the rest, Sheridan, were present.' The plays performed wereThe Wedding Day, andWho's the Dupe?Lawrence represented Lord Rakeland in the one, and Grainger in the other. The orchestra was behind the scenes. Lady Harriet Hamilton played the organ, Lady Maria the piano; Lady Catherine the tambourine, the Honourable Mr. Lamb the violoncello; other instrumentalists were hired—'a most perfect orchestra—with admirable scenery, and light as day.' 'The Prince then came in, and of course the orchestra struck up "God save the King." Then a little terrifying bell rang—the curtain drew up—andThe Wedding Daybegan. At first, I will own to you, Sheridan's face, the grave Duke of Devonshire, and two or three staunch critics, made me feel unpleasantly: for I opened the piece. However, this soon wore off; our set played extremely well—like persons of good sense without extravagance or buffoonery, and yet with sufficient spirit. Lady Caher, Mr. J. Madox, and G. Lamb were the most conspicuous—the first so beautiful that I felt love-making very easy. A splendid supper closed the business.' Lawrence seems to have fancied that the propriety of his joining in the theatricals might be questioned. Although his father and mother had both been dead some years, their admonitions in respect of his old love for the stage were still sounding in his ears. So he writes with an air of apology to his sister—his senior by some years—'You know me too well, dear Anne, to believe that I should be of such a scheme under any but very flattering circumstances; as it is, I was right to join in it. Lord Abercorn is an old Jermyn Street friend—a staunch and honourable one, and particularly kind to me in real services and very flattering distinctions. These all formed one strong reason for joining in the thing; and another secret one was, that whatever tends to heighten a character for general talent (when kept in prudent bounds) is of use to that particular direction of it which forms the pursuit of life. I have gained, then, and not lost by this (to you) singular step. I am not going to be a performer in other families. I stick to Lord Abercorn's: and for the rest I pursue my profession as quietly and more steadily than ever.' Certainly Lawrence seemed a likely man to achieve successes, both social and artistic. And hedidsucceed unquestionably.
Byron did not criticise leniently his contemporaries, but he records in his diary: 'The same evening (he is writing of the year 1814) I met Lawrence the painter, and heard one of Lord Grey's daughters play on the harp so modestly and ingenuously, that she looked music. I would rather have had my talk with Lawrence, who talked delightfully, and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of Moore and me put together. The only pleasure of fame is, that it paves the way to pleasure, and the more intellectual the better for the pleasure and us too.'
It is clear that Mr. Hoppner, 'portrait-painter to the Prince of Wales,' had no mean opponent in Mr. Lawrence, 'portrait-painter in ordinary to His Majesty.'
For a time the rivalry was continued in a spirit of much moderation. The painters were calm and forbearing, and scrupulously courteous to each other. Lawrence was too gentle and polite ever to breathe a word against his antagonist, if, indeed, he did not respect his talents too highly to disparage them. Perhaps he was conscious that victory would be his in the end; as Hoppner might also have a presentiment that he was to be defeated. He was of a quick temper; was a husband and a father; entirely dependent on his own exertions, though he could earn five thousand a year easily when fully employed. But certainly the innkeeper's son was stealing away his sitters: even his good friends the Whigs. He chafed under this. He began to speak out. He denounced Lawrence's prudent abstinence from all political feeling as downright hypocrisy. He thought it cowardice "to side with neither faction, and be ready and willing to paint the faces of both." And then he commenced to talk disrespectfully of his rival's art. He claimed for his own portraits greater purity of look and style. 'The ladies of Lawrence,' he said, 'show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional chastity.' This was purposed to be a terrible blow to Lawrence. Of course there was plenty of repetition of the remark, and people laughed over it a good deal. But in the end it injured Hoppner rather than Lawrence. The world began to wonder how it was that the painter to the purest court in Europe should depict the demure and reputable ladies of St. James's with such glittering eyes and carmine lips—asoupçonof wantonness in their glances, and a rather needless undraping of their beautiful shoulders; while the painter to the Prince was bestowing on the giddy angels of Carlton House a decency that was within a little of dull, a simplicity that was almost sombreness, a purity that was prudery! The beauties of George III.'s court were not displeased to be pictorially credited with a levity they did not dare to live up or down to; and the ladies of the Prince's court, too honest to assume a virtue they had not, now hastened to be represented by an artist who appeared so admirably to comprehend their allurements. Poor Mr. Hoppner was deserted by the Whig ladies; he had only now the Whig lords to paint: unless he took up with landscape art, for which he had decided talent, as many of the backgrounds to his pictures demonstrate. He grew peevish and irritable. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried out at the neglect of living men. Examining a modern work, he would say: 'Ay, it's a noble picture, but it has one damning defect—it's a thing ofto-day.Prove it to be but two hundred years old, and from the brush of a famous man, and here's two thousand guineas for it.' Northcote tells of him: 'I once went with him to the hustings, to vote for Home Tooke, and when they asked me what I was, I said, "A painter." At this Hoppner was very mad all the way home, and said I should have called myself "a portrait-painter." I replied that the world had no time to trouble their heads about such distinctions.'
Hoppner now produced but few pictures, and these met with small success. He looked thin and haggard, talked incoherently, gave way to bitter repinings and despondency. He resented and misinterpreted, as has been shown, Lawrence's inquiries as to his health. Certainly there is every appearance of feeling in Lawrence's letter, where he writes to a friend, 'You will be sorry to hear it. My most powerful competitor, he whom only to my friends I have acknowledged as my rival, is, I fear, sinking to the grave. I mean, of course, Hoppner. He was always afflicted with bilious and liver complaints (and to these must be greatly attributed the irritation of his mind), and now they have ended in a confirmed dropsy. But though I think he cannot recover, I do not wish that his last illness should be so reported by me. You will believe that I can sincerely feel the loss of a brother-artist from whose works I have often gained instruction, and who has gone by my side in the race these eighteen years.' Hoppner died on the 23d January 1810, in the fifty-first year of his age. To quote Lawrence's letters again: 'The death of Hoppner leaves me, it is true, without a rival, and this has been acknowledged to me by the ablest of my present competitors; but I already find one small misfortune attending it—namely, that I have no sharer in the watchful jealousy, I will not say hatred, that follows the situation.' A son of Hoppner's was consul at Venice, and a friend of Lord Byron's in 1819.
'Hoppner,' says Haydon, 'was a man of fine mind, great nobleness of heart, and an exquisite taste for music; but he had not strength for originality. He imitated Gainsborough for landscape, and Reynolds for portraits.' He held Northcote, Sir Joshua's pupil, however, in great aversion. 'I can fancy a man fond of his art who painted like Reynolds,' Hoppner would say; 'but how a man can be fond of art who paints like that fellow Northcote, Heaven only knows!' There was no love lost between them. 'As to that poor man-milliner of a painter Hoppner,' said Northcote, 'I hate him, sir, I ha-a-ate him!'
According to Haydon, he was bilious from hard work at portraits and the harass of fashionable life. And his post of portrait-painter to the Prince had its trials. The Carlton House porter had been ordered to get the railings fresh painted. In his ignorance the man went to Hoppner to request his attention to the matter. Wasn't he the Prince's painter? Hoppner was furious!
The factions of Reynolds and Romney lived again in the rivalry of Hoppner and Lawrence. The painters appeared to be well matched. Hoppner had the advantage of a start of ten years, though this was nearly balanced by the very early age at which Lawrence obtained many of his successes. Hoppner was also a handsome man, of refined address and polished manner; he, too, possessed great conversational powers, while in the matter of wit and humour he was probably in advance of his antagonist. He was well read—'one of the best-informed painters of his time,' Mr. Cunningham informs us—frank, out-spoken, open-hearted, gay, and whimsical. He had all the qualifications for a social success, and was not without some of those 'Corinthian' characteristics which were indispensable to a man of fashion, from the Prince of Wales's point of view. With Edrige, the associate miniature-painter, and two other artists, he was once at a fair in the country where strong ale was abounding, and much fun, and drollery, and din. Hoppner turned to his friends. 'You have always seen me,'he said, 'in good company, and playing the courtier, and taken me, I daresay, for a deuced well-bred fellow, and genteel withal. All a mistake. I love low company, and am a bit of a ready-made blackguard.' He pulls up his collar, twitches his neckcloth, sets his hat awry, and with a mad humorous look in his eyes, is soon in the thickest of the crowd of rustic revellers. He jests, gambols, dances, soon to quarrel and fight. He roughly handles a brawny waggoner, a practised boxer, in a regular scientific set-to; gives his defeated antagonist half a guinea, rearranges his toilet, and retires with his friends amidst the cheers of the crowd. It is quite a Tom-and-Jerry scene. Gentlemen delighted to fight coal-heavers in those days. Somehow we always hear of the gentlemen being victorious; perhaps if the coal-heavers could tell the story, it would sometimes have a differentdénouement. Unfortunately for Hoppner, he had to use his fingers, not his fists, against Lawrence—to paint him down, not fight him.
He was a skilful artist, working with an eye to Sir Joshua's manner, and following him oftentimes into error, as well as into truth and beauty. Ridiculing the loose touches of Lawrence, he was frequently as faulty, without ever reaching the real fascination of his rival's style. He had not the Lawrence sense of expression and charm; he could not give to his heads the vivacity and flutter, the brilliance and witchery, of Sir Thomas's portraits. They both took up Reynolds's theory about it being 'a vulgar error to make things too like themselves,' as though it were a merit to paint untruthfully. And painting people of fashion, they had to paint—especially in their earlier days—strange fashions; and an extravagant, and fantastic, and meretricious air clings as a consequence to many of their pictures; for the Prince of Wales had then a grand head of hair (his own hair), which he delighted to pomatum, and powder, and frizzle; and, of course, the gentlemen of the day followed the mode; and then the folds and folds of white muslin that swathed the chins and necks of the sitters; and the coats, with fanciful collars and lapels; and the waistcoats, many-topped and many-hued, winding about in tortuous lines. It is not to be much marvelled at that such items of costume as 'Cumberland corsets,' 'Petersham trousers,' 'Brummel cravats,' 'Osbaldistone ties,' and 'Exquisite crops,' should be only sketchily rendered in paint. Of course, Mr. Opie, who affected thorough John Bullism in art, who laid on his pigments steadily with a trowel, and produced portraits of ladies like washerwomen, and gentlemen liking Wapping publicans—of course, unsentimental, unfashionable Mr. Opie denounced the degeneracy of his competitor's style. 'Lawrence makes coxcombs of his sitters, and they make a coxcomb of him.' Still 'the quality' flocked to the studios of Messrs. Hoppner and Lawrence, and the rival easels were long adorned with the most fashionable faces of the day.
For twenty years Lawrence reigned alone. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the artist was commissioned by the Regent to attend the congress of sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, and produce portraits of the principal persons engaged in the great war. These European portraits—twenty-four in number—now decorate the Waterloo Hall at Windsor. In 1815 he was knighted by the Regent; in addition he was admitted to the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and became in 1817 a member of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, an honour he repaid by painting and presenting to the Academy a portrait of their countryman Benjamin West. The Academies of Venice, Florence, Turin, and Vienna subsequently added his name to their roll of members, while, through the personal interposition of King Christian Frederick, he was presented with the diploma of the Academy of Denmark. He was nominated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France, George IV. giving him permission to wear the cross of the order. Charles X. further presented the painter with a grand French clock nearly two feet high, and a dessert service of Sèvres porcelain, which Sir Thomas bequeathed to the Royal Academy. From the Emperor of Russia he received a superb diamond ring of great value; from the King of Prussia a ring with his Majesty's initials, F.R., in diamonds. He also received splendid gifts from the foreign ministers assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and from the Archduchess Charles and Princess Metternich at Vienna; from the Pope a ring and a colosseum in mosaic with his Holiness's arms over the centre of the frame; from the Cardinal Gonsalvi, besides other presents, a gold watch, chain, and seals of intaglios, and many beautiful bon-bon boxes of valuable stones set in gold; gold snuff-boxes, etc.; a breakfast set of porcelain from the Dauphin in 1825, with magnificent casts and valuable engravings from Canova at Rome. Was ever painter so fêted and glorified! And then he had been, on the death of West, in 1820, elected to the presidentship of the Academy. 'Well, well,' said Fuseli, who growled at everything and everybody, but was yet a friend to Lawrence, 'since theymusthave a face-painter to reign over them, let them take Lawrence; he can at least paint eyes!' In 1829, he exhibited eight portraits; but his health was beginning to decline. He died on the 7th June 1830. He had been painting on the previous day another portrait of George IV. in his coronation-dress.
'Are you not tired of those eternal robes? asked some one.
'No,' answered the painter; 'I always find variety in them—the pictures are alike in outline, never in detail. You would find the last the best.'
In the night he was taken alarmingly ill. He was bled, and then seemed better; but the bandage slipped—he fell from his chair into the arms of his valet, Jean Duts, a Swiss.
'This is fainting,' said the valet, in alarm.
'No, Jean, my good fellow,' Sir Thomas Lawrence politely corrected him, 'it is dying.' And he breathed his last.
The obsequies of the departed President were of an imposing kind. His remains were removed from his house in Russell Square to Somerset House. There the body was received by the Council and officers of the Academy, and deposited in the model-room, which was hung with black cloth and lighted with wax candles in silver sconces. At the head of the coffin was raised a large hatchment of the armorial bearings of the deceased; and the pall over the coffin bore escutcheons of his arms, wrought in silk. The members of the Council and the family having retired, the body lay in state—the old servant of the President watching through the night the remains of his master.
The body was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral, in the 'Painters' Corner' of the south crypt, near the coffins of the former Presidents, Reynolds and West. The Earl of Aberdeen, Earl Gower, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Dover, Sir George Murray, the Right Honourable J.W. Croker, Mr. Hart Davis, and Earl Clanwilliam were pall-bearers. Etty, who followed with the other academicians, writes: 'Since the days of Nelson there has not been so marked a funeral. The only fine day we have had for a long time wasthatday. When the melancholy pageant had entered the great western door, and was half way up the body of the church, the solemn sound of the organ and the anthem swelled on the ear, and vibrated to every heart. It was deeply touching.... The organ echoed through the aisles. The sinking sun shed his parting beams through the west window—and we left him alone. Hail, and farewell!'
The produce of the sale by auction of his collection of art works and treasures, etc., was between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds. The estate of the dead man was only just equal to the demands upon it, however. His popularity ought to have brought him wealth, but, strange to say, he was always embarrassed. Yet he did not gamble, was never dissipated, never viciously extravagant; but he kept no accounts, was prodigal in kindness to his brother-artists, and in responding to the many appeals to his charity. Perhaps, too, he rather affected an aristocratic indifference to money. He spent much time in gratuitous drawing and painting for presents to his friends. It is probable that his death was hastened by his incessant work, to meet the demands made upon him for money. Washington Irving saw him a few days before his death, and relates that 'he seemed uneasy and restless, his eyes were wandering, he was as pale as marble, the stamp of death seemed on him. He told me he felt ill, but he wished to bear himself up.' In one of his letters the painter wrote: 'I am chained to the oar, but painting was never less inviting to me—business never more oppressive to me than at this moment.' Still he could play his courtier part in society, and was always graceful and winning. Haydon, who never loved a portrait-painter much, yet says of Lawrence, that he was 'amiable, kind, generous, and forgiving.' Further on he adds: 'He had smiled so often and so long, that at last his smile had the appearance of being set in enamel.' But then, Mr. Haydon prided himself on his coarseness, defiance, and hatred of conventionality, deeming these fitting attributes of the high artist.
It is only as a portrait-painter that Sir Thomas can now be esteemed; and, as a portrait-painter, his reputation has much declined of late years. His drawing was often very incorrect, and his execution slovenly. His colour was hectic and gaudy; and in composition he possessed little skill. He was a master of expression, however. His heads are wonderfully animated, and he invested his sitters with an air of high life peculiar to himself. Conscious and a little affected they might be, but certainly, through his art, they proclaimed themselves people of quality and distinction. His attempts in another line of art were few and not successful. His 'Homer reciting his Poems' was chiefly remarkable for its resemblance to Mr. Westall's manner, and for containing a well-drawn figure of Jackson the pugilist. Of his 'Satan calling up the Legions,' Anthony Pasquin cruelly wrote, that 'it conveyed an idea of a mad German sugar-baker dancing naked in a conflagration of his own treacle.' Over an attempt at a Prospero and Miranda, he subsequently painted on the same canvas a portrait of Kemble as Rolla.
And was he a male coquette? 'No,' answers a lady —and it is a question that requires a lady's answer—'he had no plan of conquest.... But it cannot be too strongly stated that his manners were likely to mislead without his intending it. He could not write a common answer to a dinner invitation without its assuming the tone of abillet-doux. The very commonest conversation was held in that soft low whisper, and with that tone of deference and interest which are so unusual, and so calculated to please. I am myself persuaded that he never intentionally gave pain.'
Perhaps he was not capable of very deep feeling, and liked to test the effects of his fine eyes. He wooed the two daughters of Mrs. Siddons, never being quite clear in his own mind which he really loved. He tired of the one and was dismissed by the other, or so rumour told the story; however, his friendly relations with the family do not appear to have ceased. One of the sisters died. 'From the day of her death to that of his own,' writes a biographer, 'he wore mourning, and always used black sealing-wax. Uncontrollable fits of melancholy came over him, and he mentioned not her name but to his most confidential friend, and then always with tenderness and respect.' It would have been more desirable, perhaps, that he should have exhibited a little more feeling during the lifetime of the lady; but perhaps marriage was not in the programme of Hoppner's courtly rival, of the painter 'that began where Reynolds left off,' as the sinking Sir Joshua is reported to have declared of him, rather too flatteringly.