1325. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 244–245.
London
July 15 1843
My dearest Friend /
You seemed to [be] alarmed for my fate—the most promising Cartoons & finished Academy Drawings generally end in producing the most wretched painters– We know this—& await– The most unpretending Cartoons, announce generally a Capability of the Brush– These are Artistical distinctions practice only can give. Therefore be you easy, as to Ultimate results– What I have to dread, is the hatred of Peel [1] & treachery of Eastlake—between them there is no hope, for me[,] that rely on–
But, I can wield the public heart—& the public now, are asking for my opinion—at a proper time they shall have it—& I am hard at work but my fate is the hair of Damocles! [2]
Yours most truly
B R Haydon
—Howard—Chalon—Hart—Geddes[—]Patten—are the Academy Members– [3]
Address, on integral page: Miss B. Barrett / 50. Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 125–126.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. Haydon explains Peel’s dislike of him in letter 1327.
2. After flattering Dionysius, the Tyrant of Sicily, Damocles was invited to sit on the throne to savour the sovereign’s wealth and power. Accepting the invitation, he perceived a sword suspended over his head, held only by a horse’s hair. Terrified, he begged to return to his former state. (See Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, V, xxi.)
3. Henry Howard (1769–1847) was elected to the Royal Academy as an associate in 1800, and became Professor of Painting in 1833. Alfred Edward Chalon (1780–1860) became A.R.A. in 1812; he was the first artist to paint Victoria after her accession. Solomon Alexander Hart (1806–81) became A.R.A. in 1835; he later (1854) became Professor of Painting at the Academy. Andrew Geddes (1783–1844) became A.R.A. in 1832. George Patten (1801–65), elected A.R.A. in 1837, went to Germany in 1840 to paint Prince Albert and was later appointed Portrait-Painter-in-Ordinary to the Prince Consort. Howard was one of the recipients of the ten additional £100 prizes awarded, for “Man Beset by Contending Passions.” As the Catalogue of the Cartoons Sent In … for Exhibition in Westminster Hall (1843) lists the entries solely by number and title, giving only the names of the award winners, we have not been able to identify the entries of the other Academicians.
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