Art in England Part 5

Ramsay prospers--his reputation increases--he is largely employed, not only in portraiture, but in decorating walls and ceilings. He has a staff of workmen under him. A second time he visits Rome, making a stay of some months; and journeys to Edinburgh, residing there long enough to establish, in 1754, 'The Select Society.' He grows wealthy too. Poor Allan Ramsay, senior, dies much in debt in 1757; the painter takes upon himself his father's liabilities, and pensions his unmarried sister, Janet Ramsay, who survived to 1804. He is possessed, it is said, of an independent fortune to the amount of 40,000; and this before the accession of King George the Third, and his extraordinary patronage of the painter.

The office of painter to the crown was one of early date. In 1550 Antonio More was painter to Queen Mary. For his portrait of the Queen sent to Philip of Spain, he was rewarded with one hundred pounds, a gold chain, and a salary of one hundred pounds a quarter as court-painter to their Majesties. There is some obscurity about the appointments of painters to the king during the reign of George the Second. Jervas was succeeded by Kent, who died in 1748. Shackleton succeeded Kent. Yet it is probable that the king had more than one painter at the same time.

For we find Hogarth, who is said to have succeeded his brother-in-law, John Thornhill,[13] the son of Sir James, appointed in 1757, while Mr.

Shackleton did not die until 1767, when, as Mr. Cunningham relates the story of the London studios, he died of a broken heart on learning that Ramsay was appointed in his stead to be painter to George III. This was certainly about the date of Ramsay's appointment. And now there grew to be quite a rage for portraits by Ramsay--there was a run upon him as though he had been a sinking bank. He was compelled to call in the aid of all sorts of people, painting the heads only of his sitters with his own hand; and at last abandoning even much of that superior work to his favourite pupil, Philip Reinagle. So that in many of Ramsay's pictures there is probably but a very few strokes of Ramsay's brush. The names of certain of his a.s.sistants have been recorded. Mrs. Black, 'a lady of less talent than good taste.' Vandyck, a Dutchman, allied more in name than in talent with him of the days of Charles the First. Eikart, a German, clever at draperies. Roth, another German, who aided in the subordinate parts of the work. Vesperis, an Italian, who was employed occasionally to paint fruits and flowers. And Davie Martin, a Scotchman, a favourite draughtsman and helper, and conscientious servant. Mr.

Reinagle probably furnished Mr. Cunningham with these particulars. It will be noted that the English artist's employment of foreign mercenaries was considerable. This must have been either from the fact of such a.s.sistance being procurable at a cheaper rate, or that the old notion still prevailed as to the necessity of looking abroad for art-talent.

[13] Concerning the merits and career of John Thornhill, biography has been curiously silent.

Ramsay succeeded at Court. He was made of more yielding materials than Reynolds; a.s.sumed more the airs of a courtier--humoured the king.

Perhaps like Sir Pertinax he had a theory upon the successful results of 'booing and booing.' He never contradicted; always smiled acquiescence; listened complacently to the most absurd opinions upon art of his royal master. Reynolds was bent upon a.s.serting the dignity of his profession.

He did not stoop to conceal his appreciation of the fact that as a painter at any rate he was the sovereign's superior--he _would_ be, to use a popular phrase, 'c.o.c.k on his own dunghill.' When the painter's friends spoke on the subject to Johnson, he said stoutly 'That the neglect could never prejudice him: but it would reflect _eternal disgrace_ on the king not to have employed Sir Joshua.' But Reynolds received only one royal commission: to paint the king and queen, whole-lengths, for the council-room of the Royal Academy, 'two of the finest portraits in the world,' as Northcote declared. The king, who was an early riser, sat at ten in the morning. The entry in Reynolds'

pocket-book is 'Friday, May 21 (1779), at 10--the king.' The queen's name does not occur until December. The king, who was near-sighted, and looked close at a picture, always complained that Reynolds' paintings were rough and unfinished. But Reynolds heeded not. Be sure Ramsay and West were careful to paint smoothly enough after that. Northcote said that the balance of greatness preponderated on the side of the subject, and the king was annoyed at perceiving it; and disliked extremely the ease and independence of manner of Reynolds--always courteous, yet always unembarra.s.sed--proceeding with his likenesses as though he were copying marble statues. 'Do not suppose,' adds his pupil, 'that he was ignorant of the value of royal favour. No. Reynolds had a thorough knowledge of the world; he would have gladly possessed it, but the price would have cost him too much.'

The court-painter had soon enough to do, for the king had a habit of presenting portraits of himself and his queen to all his amba.s.sadors and colonial governors. He sat, too, for his coronation portrait, as it was called, in Buckingham Palace. The bland, obsequious, well-informed Ramsay became a great favourite. He always gave way to the king--would have sacrificed his art to his advancement any day. And he was almost the only person about the Court, except the servants, who could speak German, and the queen was especially fond of chatting with him in her native language. Their Majesties soon gave over being dignified. Indeed, few persons were more p.r.o.ne to forget their grandeur, although they did not like anybody else to do so. With his own hands the king would help West to place his pictures in position on the easel. The queen--plain, snuff-taking, her face painted like a mask, and her eyes rolling like an automaton, as eyewitnesses have described her later in life--called on Mrs. Garrick one day at Hampton Court, and found the widow of the Roscius very busy peeling onions for pickling. 'The queen, however, would not suffer her to stir, but commanded a knife to be brought, observing that she would peel an onion with her, and actually sat down in the most condescending manner and peeled onions.' The king, interrupting his sittings to dine off his favourite boiled mutton and turnips, would make Ramsay bring easel and canvas into the dining-room, so that they might continue their conversation during the royal meal.

When the king had finished, he would rise and say, 'Now, Ramsay, sit down in my place and take your dinner.' When he was engaged on his first portrait of the queen, it is recorded that all the crown jewels and the regalia were sent to him. The painter observed that jewels and gold of so great a value deserved a guard, and accordingly sentinels were posted day and night in front and rear of his house. His studio was composed of a set of rooms and haylofts in the mews at the back of Harley Street, all thrown into one long gallery.

Peter Pindar, in his 'Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782,'

writes:--

'I've heard that Ramsay when he died, Left just nine rooms well stuffed with Queens and Kings, From whence all nations might have been supplied That longed for valuable things.

Viceroys, amba.s.sadors, and plenipos, Bought them to join their raree-shows In foreign parts; And show the progress of the British arts.

Whether they purchased by the pound or yard, I cannot tell because I never heard: But this I know--his shop was like a fair, And dealt most largely in this ROYAL WARE.

See what it is to gain a monarch's smile, And hast thou missed it, REYNOLDS, all this while?

How stupid! Pray thee seek the courtiers' school, And learn to manufacture _oil of fool_.'

According to Dr. Walcot, King George the Third sat to Mr. Dance in preference to Reynolds as a matter of economy. Dance charged fifty pounds for a picture. Sir Joshua's price was over a hundred. The king decided upon patronizing the painter whose charge was the lower. Pindar says:--

'Thank G.o.d! that monarchs cannot taste control, And make each subject's poor submissive soul Admire the works that judgment oft cries fie on!

Had things been so, poor REYNOLDS we had seen Painting a barber's pole, an ale-house queen, The Cat and Gridiron or the Old Red Lion; At Plympton, perhaps, for some grave Doctor Slop Painting the pots and bottles of the shop; Or in the drama to get meat to munch, His brush divine had pictured scenes for Punch; While WEST was whelping 'midst his paints Moses and Aaron, and all sorts of saints, Adams, and Eves, and snakes, and apples; And devils, for beautifying certain chapels; But REYNOLDS is no favourite, that's the matter, He has not learnt the n.o.ble art to flatter.'

The doctor was never weary of launching his satirical shafts at the king. It has been suggested, however, that political considerations influenced the direction of the royal patronage. Reynolds was on terms of intimacy with Fox, Burke, and other prominent members of the Opposition. This, in the eyes of the king, was a grave offence, hardly to be pardoned, notwithstanding all the great merits of the offender in other respects.

Ramsay kept an open house and a liberal table, but more it would seem for his friends' pleasure than his own; for though fond of delicate eating, and as great a consumer of tea as Doctor Johnson, he had little taste for stronger potations, and we are told that 'even the smell of a bottle of claret was too much for him.' The Doctor entertained different opinions: he spoke with contempt of claret,--'A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk,' adding, 'Poor stuff! No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys: port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy!' Most toper sentiments! But Ramsay did not stint his guests. And these were constantly of a n.o.ble order. Lord Bute, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Bath, Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Richmond were often at the painter's table, discussing all sorts of political questions with him. Every man was a politician in those days; especially after dinner. But Ramsay was not content to be simply a talker upon the topics of the day--he became also a writer. Many clever papers by him upon history, politics, and criticism were published at various times, under the signature 'Investigator,' and were subsequently reprinted and collected into a volume. Upon the question which had agitated London for some months, as to the truth of the charge brought against the gipsy woman Mary Squire, of aiding in the abduction of the servant girl Elizabeth Canning, Ramsay wrote an ingenious pamphlet. The same subject had also employed the pen of no less a person than Henry Fielding. Ramsay corresponded with Voltaire and Rousseau, both of whom he visited. His letters, we are told, were elegant and witty. The painter to the king was a man of society.

A third time he visits Rome, accompanied on this occasion by his son, afterwards to rise to distinction in the army. He employed himself, however, more as a savant than an artist--in examining and copying the Greek and Latin inscriptions in the Vatican. The President of the Roman Academy introduced the painter to the School of Art, and was rather pompous about the works of his students. Ramsay's national pride was piqued. 'I will show you,' he said, 'how we draw in England.' He wrote to his Scotch a.s.sistant, Davie Martin, to pack up some drawings and journey at once to Rome. On his arrival, Ramsay arranged his drawings, and then invited the President and his scholars to the exhibition. The king's painter was always fond of declaring that it was the proudest moment of his life, 'for,' he said, 'the Italians were confounded and overcome, and British skill triumphant!' Perhaps the Italian account of the transaction, could we obtain it, might not exactly tally with that of the king's painter.

Soon Ramsay was again in England resuming his prosperous practice. Then occurred the accident which hindered all further pursuit of his art.

Reading an account of a calamitous fire, he was so impressed with the idea of showing his household and pupils the proper mode of effecting their escape, in the event of such an accident befalling his own house, that he ascended with them to the top storey, and pus.h.i.+ng a ladder through the loft door, mounted quickly, saying: 'Now I am safe--I can get to the roofs of the adjoining houses.' As he turned to descend he missed his step and fell, dislocating his right arm severely. At this time he was engaged upon the portrait of the king for the Excise-office.

With extraordinary courage he managed to finish the picture, working most painfully, and supporting as he best could his right arm with his left. He declared it to be the finest portrait he had ever painted; and his friends echoed his opinion. But it was the last he was ever to put his hand to.

His const.i.tution yielded; his spirits left him; his shoulder gave him great pain; his nights were sleepless. The painter to King George III.

was evidently sinking. Yet he lingered for some years--a shattered invalid. Again he visited Rome, leaving his pupil Reinagle to complete his long list of royal commissions. Reinagle's style was so admirably imitative of his master's, that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. The pupil was instructed to complete fifty pairs of kings and queens at ten guineas each! The task seemed endless, and was six years in hand. Midway, wearied to death with the undertaking, Reinagle wrote to complain that the price was not sufficient. Ramsay trebled it; but the pupil was wont to confess afterwards that he looked back with a sort of horror at his labours in connexion with the royal portraits.

The court-painter never recovered his lost health. He wrote from Italy to many of his friends--the first men of the day, both in France and England. Then came the home-sickness, which so often precedes dissolution. In the summer of 1784 he set out on his journey to England, hoping to reach it by short and easy stages. He reached Paris with difficulty: the fatigue brought on a low fever he had not the strength to support. He died on the 10th of August, at Dover, in the 71st year of his age.

'Poor Ramsay!' Johnson wrote touchingly to Reynolds. 'On which side soever I turn, mortality presents its formidable frown. I left three old friends at Lichfield when I was last there, and now I found them all dead. I no sooner lost sight of dear Allan than I am told that I shall see him no more! That we must all die, we all know. I wish I had sooner remembered it. Do not think me intrusive or importunate if I now call, dear sir, on you, to remember it!'

A handsome, acute, accomplished gentleman, outstripping all the painters of his age in the extent of his learning and the variety of his knowledge--an artist of delicacy and taste, rather than of energy and vigour--pale in colour and placid in expression, yet always graceful and refined--there was a charm about Ramsay's works that his contemporaries thoroughly understood, though they could not always themselves achieve it. Northcote gave a close and clever criticism on the king's painter in this wise:--'Sir Joshua used to say that he was the most sensible among all the painters of his time; but he has left little to show it. His manner was dry and timid. He stopped short in the middle of his work because he knew exactly how much it wanted. Now and then we find hints and sketches, which show what he might have done if his hand had been equal to his conceptions. I have seen a picture of his of the queen soon after she was married--a profile, and slightly done: but it was a paragon of elegance. She had a fan in her hand. Lord, how she held that fan! It was weak in execution and ordinary in features--all I can say of it is, that it was the farthest possible removed from everything like vulgarity. A professor might despise it, but in the mental part I have never seen anything of Vand.y.k.e's equal to it. I could have looked at it for ever. I don't know where it is now: but I saw enough in it to convince me that Sir Joshua was right in what he said of Ramsay's great superiority. I should find it difficult to produce anything of Sir Joshua's that conveys an idea of more grace and delicacy. Reynolds would have finished it better; the other was afraid of spoiling what he had done, and so left it a mere outline. He was frightened before he was hurt.' This was high praise of the king's painter, coming as it did from his rival's pupil.

GEORGE ROMNEY.

'A curious book might be written on the reputation of painters,' says Mr. Croker in a note to his edition of Boswell; 'Horace Walpole talked at one time of Ramsay as of equal fame with Reynolds; and Hayley dedicated his lyre (such as it was) to Romney. What is a picture of Ramsay or Romney now worth?'[14]

[14] The remark has reference to certain odes by c.u.mberland in honour of Romney, and to Johnson's comment thereupon:--'Why, sir, they would have been thought as good as odes commonly are if c.u.mberland had not put his name to them; but a name immediately draws censure, unless it be a name that bears down everything before it. Nay, c.u.mberland has made his odes subsidiary to the fame of another man. They might have run well enough by themselves; but he has not only loaded them with a name--he has made them carry double.'

That fortune is inconstant and that reputation is a bubble, it was hardly necessary for Mr. Croker to a.s.sure us. Unquestionably the fame of the painter, as of other people, undergoes vicissitudes: varies very much accordingly as it is appraised by contemporaries or posterity. But it may be open to doubt whether the editor of Boswell does not undervalue the artists specified in ill.u.s.tration of his proposition: more especially Romney. That any benefit has accrued to Romney's fame from the unsafe sort of embalmment it has received in the rhymes of such poetasters as Hayley and c.u.mberland cannot be contended. Even Pope's verse, though it has saved a name from oblivion, has failed to redeem it from contempt. The great poet condescended to sing the praises of Jervas, the pupil of Kneller; but the renown of the painter, Pope's praises notwithstanding, was fleeting enough. We read of Miss Reynolds marvelling at the complete disappearance of Jervas's pictures. 'My dear,' said Sir Joshua, in explanation, 'they are all up in the garrets now.' For just as humble guests resign their places, content with very inferior accommodation, when more distinguished visitors arrive upon the scene, so bad pictures yield to better works of art, and quit the walls of galleries and saloons to take refuge in servants' bedrooms, back attics, and stable lofts; suffering much neglect and contumely in comparison with their former high estate and fortune.

If we may a.s.sume that Romney's pictures are now but lightly valued, it must be conceded that the time has been when they were very differently estimated. For in his day Romney was the admitted rival of Reynolds, whose pupil and biographer Northcote, an unwilling witness, admitting with reluctance anything to his preceptor's disadvantage, says, expressly:--'Certain it is that Sir Joshua was not much employed in portraits after Romney grew in fas.h.i.+on.' Reynolds, it cannot be doubted, was jealous of Romney, and spoke of him always rather acridly as 'the man in Cavendish Square;' just as Barry was at one time fond of designating Reynolds 'the man in Leicester Fields.' 'There are two factions in art,' said Lord Chancellor Thurlow; 'Romney and Reynolds divide the town; and I am of the Romney faction.' In his own day, indeed, the recognition of the artist was remarkable. Flaxman, the sculptor, maintained him to be 'the first of all our painters for poetic dignity of conception.' 'Between ourselves,' wrote Hayley to Romney's son, 'I think your father as much superior to Reynolds in _genius_ as he was inferior in _worldly wisdom_.' Upon his death three biographies of Romney were given to the world. c.u.mberland wrote a brief but able memoir. Hayley produced an elaborate life, embellished with engravings and epistles in verse. And the Reverend John Romney published an interesting, if not an impartial, account of his father's career. Yet these works have not prevented the painter's name from gradually losing its hold upon the public memory, nor his pictures from sinking far beneath the valuation originally set upon them. Accident, and the want of a permanent public gallery in which the best achievements of English painters may be stored and studied and admired by their countrymen, have contributed to these results. Upon the great occasions when English pictures have been a.s.sembled for exhibition, somehow Romney has been but inadequately represented. In the Fine Art Gallery of the Great Exhibition of 1862 there was but one portrait by Romney to thirty-four examples of Reynolds. In the finer and more complete collection at Manchester, in 1857, there were five Romneys to thirty-eight pictures by Reynolds. Altogether Sir Joshua's memory has been amply avenged for any neglect he endured in his lifetime by reason of the undue ascendancy of Romney.

George Romney was born at Beckside, near Dalton, Lancas.h.i.+re, on the 15th December 1734, the son of John Romney, a carpenter and cabinet-maker, who, above his station in taste and knowledge, is alleged to have introduced into the county various improvements in agricultural engineering. Of his union with Ann Simpson, the daughter of a c.u.mberland yeoman, four sons were born:--William, who died on the eve of his departure to the West Indies, in the employ of a merchant there; James, who rose to the rank of a lieutenant-colonel in the service of the East India Company; Peter, who gave promise of considerable art-talent, but died in his thirty-fourth year; and George, the painter, under mention.

Of a sedate and steady disposition, but somewhat dull and 'backward' at his books, George Romney, in his eleventh year, was taken from school, and, until he arrived at twenty-one, was employed in his father's workshop. The lad had manifested skill as a carver in wood; had constructed a violin for himself, and read with deep interest Da Vinci's _Treatise on Painting_, making copies of the engravings. His natural talent soon further developed itself. His father had a business acquaintance with one Mr. Alderman Redman, of Kendal, upholsterer. The Alderman's sister, a Mrs. Gardner, chanced to see some of young Romney's drawings, was struck with their cleverness, and encouraged him to persevere, and to make his first essay in portraiture by taking her likeness. The boy produced a drawing that was much extolled; further evidences of his enthusiasm for art were forthcoming; and eventually John Romney was induced to take his son to Kendal, and apprentice him to an itinerant painter named Christopher Steele, a showy gentleman, who had been in Paris, aped French manners, wore fantastic clothes, and was popularly known as _Count_ Steele--a sort of art-Dulcamara, in fact.

Articles of apprentices.h.i.+p were duly signed, sealed, and delivered between John Romney, cabinet-maker, and George his son, of the one part, and Christopher Steele, painter, of the other part. George Romney was bound for the term of four years, to serve his master faithfully and diligently, to obey his reasonable commands, and keep his secrets; John Romney was to provide his son with 'suitable and necessary clothes, both linen and woollen;' and Christopher Steele, in consideration of twenty-one pounds, covenanted to instruct his apprentice in the art or science of a painter, and to find him meat, drink, was.h.i.+ng, and lodging during the said term. Steele was no great artist, though he had studied under Carlo Vanloo, of Paris. He troubled himself little enough as to his pupil's progress, employing him for the most part in grinding colours and in the drudgery of the studio. But George Romney made the best of his opportunities. And he was not unhappy. He had fallen in love with Mary Abbott, one of two sisters living with their widowed mother, in humble circ.u.mstances, at Kendal. But soon Steele was bent on quitting Kendal, had made up his mind to move to York, and directed his pupil to prepare to accompany him forthwith. The lovers, of course, were in despair at the thought of their approaching separation. In the end they secured their mutual fidelity by a hasty and private marriage. Reproved for his precipitancy and imprudence, Romney replied that his marriage would surely act as a spur to his application: 'My thoughts being now still and not obstructed by youthful follies, I can practise with more diligence and success than ever.' While at York he zealously devoted himself to his art. His wife, left at Kendal, a.s.sisted him with such small sums as she could spare, sending him half a guinea at a time, hidden under the seal of a letter; in return he forwarded to her his own portrait, his first work in oil.

After staying nearly a year in York, Steele and his apprentice moved to Lancaster. Meeting with little encouragement there, Steele, always restless and embarra.s.sed, determined to try his fortune in Ireland. The pupil was now very anxious to be quit of his preceptor; he longed to be practising on his own account. He had at different times lent Steele small sums of money, amounting altogether to ten pounds. He now proposed that both debt and articles of apprentices.h.i.+p should be cancelled--that the release of the debtor should be the consideration for the freedom of the apprentice. Steele consented, and George Romney became his own master.

His prices until he went to London were certainly not high: two guineas for a three-quarter portrait and six for a whole figure on a kit-cat canvas. The only way of making this poor tariff remunerative was by extreme rapidity of execution; and few men have ever painted so rapidly as Romney. But this rapid manner has its disadvantages. If habitually persisted in, it in time renders thorough finish impossible to the painter. An absolute necessity in Romney's early life, it became a distinct vice in his after works. To this were in part attributable the crowd of incomplete canvases the painter left behind him at his death, and the characteristic sketchiness traceable even in his most esteemed pictures.

At York he disposed of twenty pictures by a lottery, which produced little more than forty pounds. Among these works was a scene from _Tristram Shandy_, upon which he had bestowed some pains; for at York Romney had attracted the notice of Laurence Sterne (whose portrait Steele had painted), and received at his hands marks of attention and friends.h.i.+p.

Twenty-seven years old, Romney began to weary of provincial triumphs,--to long for the wider field of exertion and the more enlightened recognition he could only find in the capital. He had toiled early and late to acquire money and skill sufficient for a creditable appearance in town. A son and daughter had been born of his marriage, yet his domestic ties could not bind him to the north, while his ambition was prompting him so urgently to seek certain fame and fortune in the south. He managed to raise a sum of one hundred pounds. Taking fifty for his travelling expenses, he left the balance for the support of his wife and children, and without a single letter of recommendation or introduction, set forth to try his chances alone in London. He was soon obliged to send for twenty pounds more, of the fifty he had left with his wife. He started southward on the 14th of March 1762, in company with two other Kendal gentlemen, on horseback. He stayed a day at Manchester, where he met his old master Count Steele, who warmly greeted his pupil, and rode with the party next day as far as Stockport.

After much alarm from highwaymen--for in those days country banks were not, and every traveller was his own purse-bearer--Mr. Romney and his friends arrived safely at the Castle Inn, London, on the 21st March. The painter remained at the inn for a fortnight, until he was able to settle down comfortably in lodgings, in Dove Court, Mansion House. He was soon hard at work upon 'The Death of Rizzio,' adorning his walls with pictures he had brought with him or sent for afterwards from Kendal, such as 'King Lear,' 'Elfrida,' 'The Death of Lefevre,' and a few portraits of friends. The Rizzio picture has been represented as 'a work of extraordinary merit, combining energetic action with strong expression.' Its fate was sad enough; attracting no notice, producing no profit, and at length becoming an inc.u.mbrance in the studio, the painter destroyed it with his own hands; or, more probably, cut it up and sold it piecemeal, for one of his biographers mentions having seen certain heads by Romney in which terror was strongly depicted, and which had evidently formed portions of some larger work. In the August following his arrival in town he quitted Dove Court for Bearbinder's Lane. Here he executed several portraits at three guineas each, and painted his 'Death of Wolfe,' to which was awarded a prize of fifty guineas by the Society of Arts. Out of this picture arose much controversy. Adverse critics objected that the work could not with propriety be regarded as an historical composition, because, in point of fact, no historian had yet recorded the event it pretended to represent; Wolfe's death, however glorious and memorable, was too recent to be within the legitimate scope of high art! Further, Mr. Romney's work was condemned as 'a mere coat and waistcoat picture,' and much fault was found with his accurate rendering of the regimentals of the officers and soldiers and the silk stockings of the general. A few years later Benjamin West was greatly praised for his treatment of the same subject; Reynolds, after much deliberation and the statement, in the first instance, of a directly contrary opinion, avowing that the young American's picture would occasion 'a complete revolution in art.' It had been the plan, theretofore, in pictures of historical events of whatever period, to portray the characters engaged in the garb (or no garb) of antiquity; but West had declined, in placing upon his canvas an event of the year 1759, to introduce the costume of cla.s.sic times; altogether disregarding the dislike of the connoisseurs to c.o.c.ked hats, cross-belts, laced-coats, and bayonets, and their demands for bows and arrows, helmets, bucklers, and nakedness. But, in truth, West was merely following in the footsteps of George Romney, who had already produced a 'Death of Wolfe' in the correct dress of the period. There were few to laud poor Romney, however. Even the decision which gave him the prize was reversed, and the premium ultimately awarded to Mortimer, who had exhibited at the same time a picture of 'Edward the Confessor seizing the Treasurer of his mother.' Romney was obliged to be content with a gratuity of twenty-five guineas.

The painter's friends at once charged Reynolds with an active share in effecting this result; and indeed it seems clear that the reversal of the decision was due to his interference. They averred that he was anything but an impartial judge; that he was well aware the 'Death of Wolfe' was the work of a portrait painter; that he could not bear the thought of a rival near his throne, and had laid down the principle 'that it was impossible for two painters in the same department of the art to be long in friends.h.i.+p with each other.' He would not permit an obscure painter from the country to carry off a prize from a student of Mortimer's pretensions. With Mortimer he was on terms of friends.h.i.+p: his fellow-pupil under Hudson, and, above all, no portrait painter. What measure of truth there may have been in these allegations it is now difficult to decide. Thenceforward Reynolds and Romney were certainly enemies. Between the two painters, indeed, there never existed the slightest intercourse of any kind.

The curious treatment he had received from the Society of Arts made much stir, however, and brought the young painter friends and patrons.

Probably the next best thing to securing the friends.h.i.+p of the future President of the Academy was the reputation of having incurred his enmity. 'The Death of Wolfe' was purchased by Mr. Rowland Stephenson, the banker, who presented it to Governor Varelst, by whom it was placed in the Council-Chamber at Calcutta. Romney moved from the city to the Mews-gate, Charing Cross, probably to be nearer the exhibition in Spring Gardens, and the Artists' Academy in St. Martin's Lane. At this time, it may be noted, Dance and Mortimer were living in Covent Garden, while Hogarth and Reynolds had set up their easels in Leicester Fields. Romney now raised his prices for portraits to five guineas, and saved money sufficient to enable him to pay a long-dreamt-of visit to Paris. He was absent six weeks; and on his return took chambers in Gray's Inn, where he painted several portraits of Members of the legal profession, including Sir Joseph Yates, one of the judges of the Court of the King's Bench. In Gray's Inn, too, he painted his picture of the 'Death of King Edmund,' which, in 1765, obtained a prize of fifty guineas from the Society of Arts. For this work, however, he was unable to find a purchaser. In 1767 his circ.u.mstances had so far improved that he felt himself justified in moving to a house in Great Newport Street, within a few doors of Reynolds, where he remained until his visit to Italy, in 1773. Meanwhile his friends were loud in their laudation of the prodigy who, in historical works, they declared, promised to rival the great masters, and in portraiture threatened to wrest the palm from Reynolds himself. He now raised his prices again, charging twelve guineas for a three-quarter portrait, and found no lack of sitters at the increased rate. Whether or not he sought for academic honours is not clear; certain it is they were not conferred upon him: and he invariably chose to send his pictures to the rooms of the Chartered Society, in Spring Gardens, rather than to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. Artists, in every way his inferiors, were welcomed to the ranks of 'the forty;'

but to Romney never were granted even the poorer dignities of a.s.sociates.h.i.+p. This neglect of him he always ascribed to the sinister influence of Reynolds and his followers, among whom, in this instance, must be numbered Fuseli, who was much given to sneering at Romney as 'a coat and waistcoat painter,' and who, in his edition of _Pilkington_, says, pertly, 'Romney was made for his times, and his times for him.'

Allan Cunningham suggests, what is probably true, that Romney was a man likely to take a sort of morbid pleasure in his isolation, and in the odium which would necessarily devolve upon the Academy by its neglect of an artist of his eminence. His name has gone to swell the list of painters of mark who have ventured to defy the influence and opposition of the Academy, and have single-handed fought their way to success notwithstanding.

In 1771, through the introduction of c.u.mberland, Mrs. Yates, the actress, sat to Romney for a picture of the 'Tragic Muse.' Of course, this work was completely eclipsed by Reynolds's 'Tragic Muse,' painted some thirteen years later. Notwithstanding the demerits of the President's picture, the plagiarism of the pose and draperies from Michael Angelo's Joel in the Capella Sistina, the incongruities of the theatrical state-chair in the clouds, the gold lace, plaited hair, imperial tiara and strings of pearls,--still the majestic beauty of his model, her cla.s.sical features, broad brow, grand form and superb eyes, enabled him to surpa.s.s immeasurably the effort of his younger and less favoured rival. Mrs. Yates, though an accomplished actress, was far from possessing the personal gifts of the Kembles' sister. To Romney's studio c.u.mberland also brought Garrick, with some hope that the great actor might interest himself in favour of the painter. But Garrick was too closely allied with Sir Joshua; he was wilfully blinded to the merits of Romney. He criticised with most impertinent candour the works he found in the studio, pausing before a large family group of portraits and with an affected imitation of the att.i.tude of the chief figure, saying, 'Upon my word, Mr. Romney, this is a very regular, well-ordered family; and this is a very bright-rubbed mahogany table, at which that motherly, good lady is sitting; and this worthy good gentleman in the scarlet waistcoat is doubtless a very excellent subject--to the state, I mean (if all these are his children)--but not for your art, Mr. Romney, if you mean to pursue it with that success which I hope will attend you!'

His 'pasteboard Majesty of Drury Lane,' in truth, knew nothing of the painter's art; and from any other than Romney would have incurred, as he well merited, most unceremonious ejection from the studio. He was safe enough with Romney, however, as he probably well knew. The painter, deeply mortified, silently turned the family picture with its face to the wall. He was extremely sensitive: a curious diffidence mingled with his conviction of his own cleverness. He was readily disconcerted: at a laugh, a jest, a few words of satiric criticism, he lost faith in himself, interest in his works; the subject which had promised so much pleasure now seemed to him fruitful only in pain and disappointment; he would seek at once a new occupation, and add another to a growing pile of canvases which the ridicule and captiousness of others, and his own weakness and caprice, had combined to leave for ever incomplete. Perhaps it was by way of balm for the wound he had unwittingly inflicted, by bringing Garrick to the studio, that c.u.mberland published in the Public Advertiser his verses upon the painters of the day, with especial mention of Romney and his picture of 'Contemplation,' which work, the poet says in a note, 'the few who attended the unfas.h.i.+onable exhibition in Spring Gardens may possibly recollect.' Already the success of the Royal Academy was telling disastrously upon the 'Society of Artists of Great Britain' to which Romney had attached himself.

In 1773, our painter, in his thirty-ninth year, and in receipt of an income of some twelve hundred pounds, derived solely from his profession, set sail for Italy, bearing with him letters of introduction from the Dukes of Gloucester and Richmond to the Pope, and accompanied by his close friend, Humphrey, the miniature-painter. His Holiness gave gracious permission to the artist to erect scaffolds in the Vatican, the better to make copies of the Raphaels which decorate the palace.

Among the pictures executed during Romney's Italian tour was a portrait of the eccentric Wortley Montagu (Lady Mary's son), who had a.s.sumed the manners and attire of a Turk, and who, shortly after his sitting to the painter, died from a bone sticking in his throat. Another work which he brought back with him to England was a daring attempt to represent 'Providence brooding over chaos.' In later years, when Lord George Gordon and his mob were sacking the Roman Catholic chapels throughout London, and plundering the houses of all suspected of sympathy with the Latin Church, Romney became alarmed lest his picture should attract the attention of the rioters, and, regarded by them as an evidence of idolatrous devotion, lead to the destruction of his house and property.

The canvas was at once removed out of sight. At the sale of his works, on the death of the painter, his son changed the name of the picture to 'Jupiter Pluvius,' under which more marketable guise it soon found a purchaser.

On the 7th of June 1775, Romney arrived again in England: his return being celebrated by glowing strains from c.u.mberland's ready muse. As Gibbon said of the poetic praises of the painter's friends--'If they did not contribute much to his professional prosperity, they might be justly called an elegant advertis.e.m.e.nt of his merit.' Sitters of all ranks now crowded to his studio. If his absence from England had done nothing else for him, it had wonderfully enhanced his reputation. But persons of taste and quality were of opinion that his visit to Italy had wrought marvels. They pretended to see a striking improvement, not merely in the mechanical, but also in the mental part of his work; his conceptive powers were found to be strengthened and enriched, and his method of painting benefited beyond measure by his Italian studies; he was no longer cold, and harsh, and heavy; all was now warmth and light, tenderness and beauty. It was at this time that Reynolds began to speak of Romney as 'the man in Cavendish Square.' He had established himself in the s.p.a.cious mansion which the death of Cotes, the Royal Academician, had left vacant, and which, it may be noted, after the expiry of Romney's tenancy, was occupied by Sir Martin Archer Shee. Not without considerable anxiety, however, did Romney enter upon possession of his new abode. He was seized with an irrepressible misgiving that he was embarking upon a career of far greater expense than his success had warranted, or than the emoluments of his profession would enable him to maintain. 'In his singular const.i.tution,' his biographer Hayley here finds occasion to observe, 'there was so much nervous timidity united to great bodily strength and to enterprising and indefatigable ambition, that he used to tremble, when he walked every morning in his new habitation, with a painful apprehension of not finding business sufficient to support him. These fears were only early flutterings of that hypochondriacal disorder which preyed in secret on his comfort during many years, and which, though apparently subdued by the cheering exhortations of frends.h.i.+p and great professional prosperity, failed not to show itself more formidably when he was exhausted by labour in the decline of life.' His trepidation was quite groundless, however. He had no lack of patrons or employment; the Duke of Richmond gave him generous encouragement and support, sat for his own picture, in profile, and commissioned portraits of Admiral Keppel, Mr. Burke, the Honourable Mrs.

Damer, Lord John Cavendish, Lord George Lennox, and others. The painter's income soon sprung up to between three and four thousand a year, produced by portraits only. In 1776 he was seriously ill from a violent cold caught by standing in the rain, amongst the crowd outside Drury Lane Theatre, waiting to witness Garrick's farewell performance.

He was cured, however, by Sir Richard Jebb, the eminent physician, who prescribed a bottle of Madeira to his patient, and attended him from that time forward in every illness, but generously declined to accept a fee for his services.

And the Mary Abbott whom George Romney had married years before and left behind at Kendal, with his son and daughter and thirty pounds, while he sought his fortune alone in London--the wife, his union with whom was to be as 'a spur to his application'--was she to be denied the sight of her husband's success, a share in his prosperity, a place in his house in Cavendish Square? It is hard to understand the utter unmanliness and heartlessness of Romney's conduct in this respect. There is no word of accusation against her--- no hint affecting her character--no question as to her being in any way unworthy of his love and trust, and of her rightful position by his side. His separation from her, in the first instance, was, under all the circ.u.mstances of the case, no doubt justifiable; and it is hardly possible to believe that his original withdrawal from Kendal was in pursuance of a plan of deliberate abandonment of his family. But for the protraction of this separation, after the first necessity for it had pa.s.sed away, there would seem to be absolutely no excuse. His son, the Rev. John Romney, with a laudable desire to serve his father's memory, urges, as some faint apology for the painter's cruelty, that his affairs were at all times less prosperous than they seemed; that his brothers were a heavy burden upon him and drained him of his savings; that his professional journeys to Paris and Rome consumed all the money he could raise; and that thus a 'succession of untoward circ.u.mstances threw impediments in the way of good intent, till time and absence became impediments also.'