sheuld yew waant to know whaat hee deedn't?" "But Michel Angelo did, sir." "Michel Angelo!" screamed the little man,—“ Michel Angelo! whaat's hee got tu du heere? Ye must peint pertreits heere." 'But I won't, sir." "Ye waant. Ye must."

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Opie was more favorable. "You are studying anatomy?" said he. "Master it. If I were your age, I would do the same." "But Mr. Northcote says it's of no use, sir." "Never mind what he says,” replied Opie; "he doesn't know it himself, and would be glad to keep you as ignorant." In answer to the question as to whether he ought to put himself under a master, Opie said, “Certainly, it will shorten your road. It is the only way." The next day the boy took his drawings to Northcote, who laughed "like an imp." "Yee'll make a good engraver indeed," said he. "Do you think, sir, I ought to be a pupil to anybody?" "No," said Northcote; "who is to teach 'ee heere? "It will be throwing your vather's money away." "Mr. Opie, sir, says I ought to be." "Hee zays so, does hee? Ha, ha, ha! Hee waants your vather's money." The lad on this drew his own conclusions, and acted upon them. He went on with his anatomical studies, and he did not take a master. Smirke, the father of Sir R. Smirke, warmly encouraged the boy, lent him drawings, and advised him to pursue the course he had marked out for himself. Fuseli, Keeper of the Royal Academy, received him with great kindness, looked at his drawings, praised them highly, and said, “I am Keeper of the Academy. I hope to see you the first night." Accordingly, on the opening night after Christmas 1804, Haydon entered the Royal Academy School as a student. I am told he was very short-sighted, very diligent, and very fond of a good romp. One of the students once insulted him-it would be invidious to mention his name-and Haydon thrashed him then and there, within an inch of his life. I am not quite sure he was not near expulsion for this, but he certainly was not expelled. West, the President, coming round one day, highly praised the boy's drawing of the Discobolos. With Fuseli, Haydon became intimate. Fuseli found in

the boy the same passionate love for art and literature, the same delight in the terrible and sublime, as he felt himself, and he took him to his heart. I believe he was really very proud of him.

DAVID WILKIE.

During his absence from town Haydon had heard from Fuseli, and from Jackson, a fellow-student. In a letter (unfortunately lost) Jackson had announced a fresh arrival at the Academy, a raw, tall, pale, queer Scotchman, an odd fellow, but there is something in him. His name is Wilkie.”

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Haydon returned to town in time to make Wilkie's acquaintance before the schools closed in August, and the two soon became intimate, and then close friends. I believe them, each

in his own way, to have been deeply attached to the other. They had both the same high views for art, the same contempt for academical art, the same industry and love of religion, and similar simple tastes. Their lives were singularly open and pure, and, though Haydon once nearly became the victim of hackneyed experience, Art was his only mistress. He held with Lucretius that such connections were best avoided—

"Dissolvunt nodos omnes et vincla relaxant."

Wilkie and he used to walk home together to Wilkie's lodgings,' of a night, bewailing their obscure fate, and comparing the proud heights Napoleon had sprung to, at a single bound, with the toilsome path they must struggle up before they could hope to reach a common repute. Then Wilkie, who did not worship rank, but adored authority, would deplore the low taste of the nobility, and, what was more to his point, the low prices they paid, which hardly covered the cost of materials, and declare he should "leave the country unless painters were treated more liberally." Against the Royal Academy, Haydon records, Wilkie, Jackson, and Collins were most violent, for its low taste in art, and its evident preference for men of inferior ability to men of real talent. Then they would console

1 No. TI Bolsover Street, Portland Road.-Ed.

each other with hopes of better times, and resolve to follow up their art and do their best to remedy the evils they felt and deplored.

In these days, Haydon writes, “Wilkie was as great a radical in the politics of art as Wordsworth in the politics of states." It seems open to doubt whether these opinions were ever really abandoned by Wilkie. He suppressed them out of prudence, that was all. But all this helped to strengthen Haydon's growing opinions, and to lay the foundation for that scheme of art reform of which he came out as the determined advocate some years later. He was already beginning to look upon the Royal Academy with suspicion. But he remembered Fintac's advice to his niece, "A votre âge il faut écouter, et se taire," and was silent.

Wilkie's success with his "Village Politicians," in 1806 (though he complained bitterly to Haydon the price, thirty guineas, Lord Mansfield paid to him), was a great source of delight to both, and began to make Haydon think of painting. Wilkie encouraged him. But Haydon doubted whether he had yet sufficient information and skill to enable him to convey his conceptions to others. He had knowledge, and two years' drawing had given him certain facility of hand and eye, and he had mastered the anatomy of the human form. But that is not all in art. However, he bought his first palette and brushes, and tried to paint a head and hands. Wilkie thought them excellent. Haydon then painted and glazed a portrait of an old gamekeeper. Wilkie was so delighted with this, he borrowed it for its fine color, and repeated the head in the old grandfather by the fire in the "Blind Fiddler."

HAYDON'S FIRST PICTURE.

Then Haydon determined to try and paint a picture. He boldly chose from his list of subjects "Joseph and Mary resting on the road to Egypt." This was suggested to him partly by his reverence and love for the history of our Lord, and partly by his admiration of Raphael. On the 1st of October, 1806, he began this picture on his own responsibility. He says it cost

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him enormous labor and research," and I have no doubt of it from what I remember of the incidents of his painting. the course of November, 1806, Sir George and Lady Beaumont called on the young painter to make his acquaintance. Lady Beaumont was a charming and attractive woman, with great taste and feeling for art, and Sir George a man of the finest taste, as a connoisseur, in Europe. Painting was his great delight. He had been the intimate friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough, and his ambition was to connect himself with the art of the country. This, Sir George has most effectually done, for he was practically the founder of our National Gallery. The acquaintance of such a distinguished man was a great honor, and the interest Sir George took in Haydon, though once temporarily obscured, never diminished to the end of his useful life. Sir George was much pleased with the picture, but hinted that it was "quite large enough for anything" (6 feet by 4 feet). Haydon respectfully differed. Sir Joshua would have "shifted his trumpet," and most men would have bowed and submitted; but Haydon, although he had the greatest possible respect for Sir George, rarely conceived it his duty to take his advice. In six months "Joseph and Mary" was finished and sent to the exhibition (1807). Fuseli was so pleased with the picture, he ordered it to be hung on the line, but he privately told Haydon that Northcote and the Hanging Committee of that year had first ❝ skied " it far above the whole lengths. This is noteworthy, as some evidence of the spirit with which a young aspirant for historical honors was regarded by the old Academicians of that day. As Tacitus says of the Jews, these gentlemen, in their hanging of works for exhibition, exercised the highest offices of friendship towards each other, 66 et adversus omnes alios hostile odium"-they watched those they knew were not of their opinions with the greatest jealousy. It is also indirectly corroborative of Fuseli's statement with regard to the hanging of the "Dentatus" (1809), the second historical picture Haydon sent to the Academy, and it is valuable as evidence of the real im

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portance of a fair position to a good picture, for "Joseph and Mary was highly approved, and considered to show great powers of drawing, expression, and color," which was pronounced to be "properly fresh." The picture was bought by Mr. Thomas Hope for, I believe, one hundred guineas, and hung in his gallery at Deepdene.'

With his picture in a good position at the exhibition, and with such a valuable friend as Sir George Beaumont to dine with, Haydon was not long before he made the acquaintance of Sir George's old friend, Lord Mulgrave.

LORD MULGRAVE.

The Duke of Portland, on forming his administration in 1807, had placed Lord Mulgrave. at the head of the Admiralty, and here Haydon and his new friend passed many pleasant hours together. Lord Mulgrave liked the lad, found him full of talent and information, and able to converse on other subjects than art. He gave him a commission at once, "The Death of Dentatus," a subject that had never been painted before, and gave him also the entrée of his house. Here the boy dined frequently amongst stars and garters, ministers, ambassadors, and illustrious refugees, and was introduced by Lord Mulgrave to all the first men of the day. Nothing could be kinder than Lord Mulgrave's friendship for his "Devonshire lad." And he showed it in other ways. Besides his official dinners, the First Lord was also fond of a quiet evening, and many times would send for Haydon to come and dine with him alone. Haydon was a good listener, and eager to hear a man who had played a part in public affairs, talk frankly about them. Lord Mulgrave talked of Pitt and Fox, of the men of the French Revolution, of India and Lord Wellesley,

This was a high price for a student's picture in days when Wilkie only got thirty guineas for his "Village Politicians," and fifty guineas for his "Blind Fiddler; " and not so very long after Reynolds, who rarely got more than one hundred guineas for his whole-lengths in the height of his fame. But prices ruled as low in Reynolds's days as they rule high now. Hogarth only got 90l. 6s. for the whole series of the "Marriage à la Mode."-Ed.