who will be glad to use so convenient a handle against you. I do not mention this, I assure you, for the sake of finding fault, but rather to put you on your guard, for it appears to me whoever may think proper to attack what you have written, this is what you will be most loudly called upon to answer. In all this, however, you are yourself only concerned. But I am very sorry to find, by the way you have mentioned my name, and the manner in which you have made me an exception to all that you complain of in the Academy, that I must also become a sharer in the recriminations you have been calling forth, and I can also see that in order to do justice to the person you have opposed me to, which you certainly have not done, it will be necessary in those who take his part to do a greater injustice to me to restore things to their proper level. I think that consideration for his being a competitor for the same premiums that you are contending for should have restrained you.

You have certainly got plenty of work upon your shoulders, and I should advise you to get out of it the best way you can. But is this the way an artist should be engaged? Why not follow up the reputation your painting might gain you? Let that carry you through. It will lessen the respect that people would have for your talents as a painter when they find them employed disputing in a newspaper. I shall be miserable till I hear you are going on with your new picture. I shall then only be assured that you have regained your peace of mind.

I have been getting on well with my "Blind Man's Buff," which I wish you much to come and see. I called the other day, but I did not find you. Could you come and dine with me on Wednesday the Fast day? I shall be very quiet, and if you come early you can have a ride on the horse. I can dine either at three or four o'clock if you will come.

you I shall expect you.

If I do not hear from

I am, my dear Haydon,

Yours most sincerely,

DAVID WILKIE.

Letter from WILKIE after HAYDON'S attack on the Academy.

MY DEAR HAYDON,

April, 1812.

I have given the subject of your note some consideration, and, as I believe that under the present circumstances your going to a private view at the Royal Academy with one of my tickets would do me a very serious injury, I shall esteem it a particular favor if you will not insist on having the ticket for the purpose. If it were necessary to satisfy you that I have no improper views in asking such a favor, I should have no objection to destroy the ticket in question, otherwise I think it might be a gratification to yourself as well as to me if I were to give it to our common friend, to whom it might perhaps be of some service.

Yours,

DAVID WILKIE.

MY DEAR HAYDON,

From LEIGH HUNT.

West End, Hampstead, 25th November, 1812.

Mrs. Hunt is going to her modelling again, and wishes for a good original bust, not so large as life, in order that she may be able to work at it easily and on the table of an evening. Do you know anybody who could lend her such a one for two or three months, and a small bust of Apollo, for instance, or any other that has a good poetical head of hair?

I am getting better, just in time for those legal rogues, and am preparing my next Sunday's lash for that poor creature at Carlton House, whom I really commiserate all the while.

66

I hope "Solomon" goes on well (what a transition!), but pray don't forget your Mercury" as an occasional refreshment. It is an exquisite little conception, and dipped in poetry.

Yours very truly,

LEIGH HUNT.

To LEIGH HUNT, in prison for libelling the PRINCE REGENT.

MY DEAR HUNT,

Friday night, 12th February, 1813.

I am most anxious to see you, but have been refused admittance, and was told yesterday you would write to your friends when you wished to see them, by Mr. Cave, the UnderGovernor or gaoler. I really felt my heart ache at every line of your last week's effusion. All your friends were affected, and all complained of the cruelty and severity of your sentence. I am delighted Mrs. Hunt and the children are now admitted to you, and if they ultimately relax, with respect to your friends, I hope in God the pressure of your imprisonment will be greatly lightened. I must say I have been excessively irritated at not having seen you yet; and had I gone to you as I intended the day on which the committee sat, I find, my dear fellow, I should have been allowed to see you; but I suffered myself to be advised out of my intention. I have never yet acted by the advice of others, in opposition to my own judgment, without having cause to repent it. I assure you, my dear Hunt, I think of you often, with the most melancholy and exquisite sensations. After my day's study I generally lay my. head on my hand, draw near the fire, and muse upon you till midnight, till I am completely wrapped in the delusion of my fancy. I see you, as it were, in a misty vision. I imagine myself quietly going to you in the solemnity of evening; I think I perceive your massy person, erect, solitary, nearly lost in deep-toned obscurity, pressing the earth with supernatural weight, encircled with an atmosphere of enchanted silence, into which no being can enter without a shudder. As I advance with whispering steps, I imagine, with an acuteness that amounts to reality, I hear oozing on the evening wind, as it sweeps along with moaning stillness, the strains of your captive flute; I then stop and listen with gasping agitation, and with associations of our attachment, and all the friendly affecting proofs I have had of it; afraid to move, afraid to stir, lest I might lose one melancholy tone, or interrupt by the most imperceptible motion one sweet and soothing undulation. My dear fellow, I am not

a inan of tears, nor do I recollect ever yielding to them but when my mother died. But I declare I felt a choking sensation when I rose to retire to rest after this waking abstraction. I have no doubt we shall talk over this part of our existence when we are a little advanced in life with excessive interest. Let misfortune confirm instead of shake your principles, and you will issue again into the world as invulnerable as you left it. Take care of your health; use as much exercise as you can. Send me word by your nephew, or through Mrs. Hunter, when I can see you, for which I am very anxious; and believe me unalterably your faithful and attached friend,

B. R. HAYDON.

From BENJAMIN West.

DEAR SIR,

Newman Street, 17th February, 1814.

The business was not adjusted in time for me to draw out money from my bankers before five o'clock this day, or I would have sent it to you; but I hope the enclosed draft of tomorrow's date will be adiquate (sic) to keep the wolfe (sic) from your door, and leave your mind in freedom in exercising your talents of acquiring excellence in your profession in painting, of which you have a stock to work upon.

Dear Sir, yours with friendship and sincerity,

BENJAMIN WEST.

P.S.-The gout in my right hand has made it defficult (sic) for me to write this note intelligeble (sic).'

Mr. HAYDON.

Haydon (1843) endorses this letter: "I hope this will be read some day throughout Europe. I hope it will show the great nations-France, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Italy--how England encourages High Art, and in what a condition it leaves its professors, young and old. Whilst I write this I have been eight years without a commission from the nobility; and of the thirty-nine years I have been a historical painter, thirty-two have been without an order of any kind. Hilton could have told a tale as sad; West, but for the King, perhaps worse. At eighty years of age this celebrated old man, who had been taught to rely on his income from the King as long as he lived,

MY DEAR HAYDON,

From LEIGH HUNT.

Surrey Gaol, 5th May, 1814.

I need not tell you how I rejoice at the sale of your picture,' and in the conquest you have obtained over the people by the main force of talent and independence. It is a truly English victory. But I must tell you that it is more gratifying to me to have heard from you in the moment of prosperity, than I can express. I have sometimes wished to see you oftener, and would have liked also (for a particular purpose) to have obtained a sight of your work had it been possible; but I knew the demand made upon your time and attention, and waited for the days when you would be more at leisure. Come, then, as soon as you can, and let us jubilize with you. You are bound to be with me when you can, for I trust that we are destined to go down to posterity together, as you know we have often indulged ourselves in hoping. God bless you.

Ever your affectionate friend,

LEIGH HUNT.

To LEIGH HUNT.

MY DEAR LEIGH HUNT,

Paris, 6th June, 1814.

The moment Wilkie and I had placed our trunks in our hotel, down we sallied to the Louvre. The gallery of pictures was shut, so we walked about and contemplated the building in its various positions. There is something grand in the extension of its square, but the building itself is mean. Small windows by thousands, and chimneys by hundreds, make it look more like a model in wood for a larger building than like the palace itself. This was my impression. In the middle, Bonaparte has erected a triumphal arch, nearly an exact copy of the

had it taken from him by the hatred of Queen Charlotte. The secret reason was, he had visited and been honored by Napoleon in 1802. Such is Royal vengeance! Royalty, I allow, sometimes rewards fidelity, but it always punishes offence."-ED. 1 The "Judgment of Solomon."

2 Haydon subsequently had the picture taken down to Surrey Gaol and put up in the prison, for the amusement and satisfaction of Leigh Hunt and his brother.