1184. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 16–17.
London
March 22nd 1843.
My dearest Invisible Friend /
By this time you must be a compleat Artist—after being admitted into the recesses of an Artist’s mind—how he puts forth his thoughts & how he uses his models, & how he does every thing–
I have got through both Cartoons, & revised & finally corrected the great one—I revise & finally correct the Black Prince to-morrow, and then I “cast my bread upon the Waters”— [1] Pray for my success!–
I have done my duty—and if I had not, after all the uproar I had made on this very principle and after having made my Pupils begin it 24 years ago with so great a success that Goëthe ordered a set of the Elgin drawings for his House at Weimar, where they are now preserved for ever by purchase of Government [2] —had I shrunk now, I should have been considered to have run away at the 11th hour after fighting the 10th
But it is hard to descend into the arena for the prize I was entitled to 29 years ago at the conclusion of Solomon, [3] and though an old Man (57.) yet I am stronger in body & mind, by the blessing of God, than at that early age and more fit, by long experience & suffering to do my Country honor–
Yet what chance have I?– The World of fashion are not moved by justice, but novelty!– Some young Tyro, who may make what the Ladies call a nice cartoon so finished is very likely to run away with my honors–
Nor are they likely to distinguish between the mere Carto[o]n drawn & the painter—the one making the Carto[o]n a means for an End, the other an end only, & as helpless on the Wall as a Baby— However I have done my duty as Nelson said, & I thank God—for this great opportunity of doing it–
I trust my dearest Friend all I confided to you of C. N[orton]. is sacred especially to your own sex–
It is not quite fair of me, but I, in a moment of “abandon” forgot myself.
I hope Mary Mitford is quite at rest about her Father’s debts– But I suspect to make us easy she fibs about the amount– Is it so?–
I shall want Wordsworth shortly [4] But will send you another[.]
I am ever Thine most affectionately
B R Haydon
Miss B. Barrett
Address: Miss B. Barrett / 50. Welbeck St. Redirected: Try — Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 49–50.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. Ecclesiastes, 11:1. “Adam and Eve” and “The Black Prince Entering London in Triumph” were both included in the Cartoon Exhibition in Westminster Hall in June 1843.
2. In 1819, Haydon’s pupils, William Bewick (1795–1866) and Charles Landseer (1799–1879), made cartoons of the Elgin Marbles for Goethe; they are preserved in his house in Weimar, now the Goethe Nationalmuseum. Goethe later told Haydon, in a letter dated 1 December 1831, that “my Soul has been elevated for many Years by the Contemplation of the important Pictures formerly sent to me” (Pope, III, 586 and IV, 637).
3. “The Judgment of Solomon,” commenced in April 1812, was exhibited at the Water-Colour Society in 1814 but did not gain a prize, although the British Institution awarded it a premium of £105 (Pope, I, 350).
4. i.e., the painting that inspired EBB’s sonnet (see letter 1026).
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