1447. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 68–69.
London
Nov 29. 1843
Oh you couple of Conspirators! I[’]ll be revenged– I[’]ll go to Reading & walk about for 4 hours—& come back, & turn up my head at 3 Mile Cross! see if I do not–
The Picture was painted to pay off a heavy medical bill. The Doctor, a Friend—& they are all Portraits—of the whole family—professionally employed– The Accouchèe is the wife of the Son—who is amazingly proud of his Glory &c. [1] Will you send by bearer the drawings of my sleeping boy indeed any framed drawings you may have, except myself. I am too proud to remain with you.
Fred was on Watch, in that heavy gale, a Sea beat in the Cabin Windows & floated the Captain & knocked chairs & tables to atoms [2] —he is a fine fellow, he talks of it as I would[.] I sympathize with the roar of Elements & seem to be in mine! I have got through Alexander but have yet to revise—I rubbed in a Napoleon full size with such fury Monday I strained the ligaments of my right hand, & painted a small one yesterday in 4½ hours—bet on me!– [3] Good God, when I look back on the last 9 months—& remember from what ruin I have been saved, never having yet received a single shilling for all last year’s labor, how gloriously, I have kept my own position & the position of my dear Boys—& Women[,] can I feel otherwise than grateful to him who is invisible, [4] and in whom I always trust with a daily intensity that is become a passion!
I met with a gem of a Napoleon standing, in one of his attitudes[,] a cast—it’s price is only 6/[—]shall I order it to be sent to you?
I painted him musing at St Helena[.] I’ll paint him musing at Erfurt[,] [5] Kings in his rear—ha! ha! Mum—— Was there ever such a Composition of Aristocrat, democrat, John Bull & Genius?—as the Immortal who signs
B. R. Haydon
Address: Miss B. Barrett / 50. Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 163–164.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. We have not identified this particular work; it might be “The First Start in Life,” painted in 1832 (Pope, V, 592).
2. H.M.S. Penelope was an old frigate converted to steam, and there had been criticism of risking her by sending her to the Cape of Good Hope in the “dark season of storms which is approaching” (The Times, 5 October 1843). The Times of 20 October had a report of a “Fearful Storm at Sea” on 17–18 October, but without mention of specific ships.
3. Haydon’s diary entry for 27 November read: “Worked hard and rubbed in a new Napoleon musing, size of Life. Laid aside Alexander to let it dry.” The next day he recorded: “Painted a little Napoleon in four hours; … Alexander still laid aside till I fly at the ground in a day or two” (Pope, V, 330). These paintings are nos. 136 and 137 in Pope’s checklist (Pope, V, 597).
4. Cf. Hebrews, 11:27.
5. There is no record of this ever having been done. Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I met at Erfurt in September 1808 to renew the Franco-Russian alliance.
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