“Of all the Messieurs we had at Vienna during the Congress and a year or two after it, whether English, French, or of any other nation, I shall always think that, next to Lord Castlereagh, the most graceful, elegant, polished gentleman was your painter, the Chevalier Lawrence.”
So said the Princess Rosamoffski, Austrian by ancient descent and birth, and Russian only by marriage. The unmarried sister of the Princess, a Chanoinesse of Brunn, an accomplished, very tasteful person, echoed the opinion; which I also heard repeated by the Princess Jablonovski, the Countess Cléry, and by other ladies who were of la créme de la créme of Viennese society. At Florence, Rome, Naples, and wherever he went in Italy, Sir Thomas made an equally favourable impression.
I had known him in London in 1813-14, and had been wonderfully struck with
what appeared to me to be the perfection of his manners. I believe he owed a good deal of
the ease and natural elegance of his deportment and carriage to a taste he had cherished
for athletic and other exercises; he was very clever with both broad-sword and small-sword,
he could beat most men at single-stick, he was a first-rate hand with the boxing-gloves,
few could compete with him at billiards, and he had dearly loved dancing. I saw him in
Italy in 1818, but only en passant and when he
was in a great hurry to get back to his London practice. I did not see him
| CHAP. XV] | HIS MAXIMS OF LIFE | 147 |
He had for maxims, that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well; that nothing ought to be done by halves; that if he were a housemaid, he would take a pride in doing the work thoroughly. Even in writing a note to accept an invitation to dinner or to decline one, or on any other familiar or trivial subject, he took pains with it, always gave it some elegant turn, and folded it and sealed it with all possible neatness and elegance. And this he did with all persons. I saw a letter he had written to his tailor. But for the subject-matter, it might have been written to a duchess. Considering that his early education had been quite neglected, that he began to earn his livelihood by his pencil and crayons at the age of fourteen, that he had been so incessantly occupied with his portraits ever since, as to have had little time for reading or study, his range of information, his general knowledge and taste in literature, were quite extraordinary. Even in the company of professed scholars and literati he could maintain his share of the conversation, and could always say something agreeable or otherwise worthy of attention.
One night after dinner John Murray
expressed his astonishment at the painter’s acquirements, and told him to his face
that he wondered how he had ever come by them. Sir
Thomas replied with a smile: “Mr. Murray, I
have always been a good listener. My profession for many years has brought me in close
contact with clever, accomplished people, and I have always kept my ear open, and have
afterwards treasured up what I heard.” There is a good
| 148 | SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE | [CHAP. XV |
I was shocked and grieved at the painter’s sudden death. I had met him only a few days before, and was to have dined with him at Murray’s the very day on which he died. The poverty and difficulties under which his life began have been under-rated rather than over-rated. Genteel biographies have made his father an innkeeper, or an hotel-keeper; but, in truth, he was neither. He was a publican, and kept a common public-house. Even when young Lawrence was making some way in the world, he was kept so poor by the pulls made upon him by his family, that he had seldom money to buy clothes, a case all the harder as he was always fond of being well-dressed.
I knew an old West of England lady, aunt of the present General Salter of the Bombay Army, who presented the
limner with his first pair of black satin breeches, to enable him to go comme il faut to some ball or assembly at Bath. With
his long foreknowledge of the evils of poverty, it is astonishing that he should not have
taken more care of his money. After making a very large annual income for the space of a
quarter of a century, at the least, he left
| CHAP. XV] | DUCHESS OF ST. ALBANS | 149 |
Sir Thomas, it will be remembered, had neither wife
nor family. I believe he occasionally did something for two or three nieces. With one of
these, a very pretty and coquettish little woman, I was slightly acquainted, a short time
after her marriage. He had promised her husband a portion with her, but he was slow in
paying it, and when he paid an instalment he had to borrow the money for the purpose. There
was, I believe, some falsehood or exaggeration in a story current in London society a year
or two before his death. A bond which he had given for £4,000 came into the hands of
Messrs. Coutts and Co., the bankers, who demanded immediate payment,
according to the purport of the deed. The chief partner and main proprietor of that bank
was no less a personage than the Duchess of St. Albans,
who had been previously Mrs. Coutts, and originally
Harriette Mellon of Galashiels. According to the received London
tale, Lawrence hastened to her, threw himself on his knees at her
feet, and implored Her Grace to grant time and to hold the bond. Hereupon the Duchess
called for it, put it into the painter’s hand, and told him to put it into the fire,
and to
| 150 | SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE | [CHAP. XV |
Poor Brock is gone, and I am sorry for it. I had known him exactly a quarter of a century. He always appeared to be a strong, tough, hale man, likely to reach the age of fourscore. Of late years I had not seen very much of him, but at one time we used to meet rather frequently at John Murray’s, Charles Turner’s, Blewitt’s, and elsewhere. The last time we met was in the summer of 1852, on board a steamer going from Folkestone to Boulogne, when I found my somewhat corpulent and grey-headed friend, equipped with a green wide-awake, and attired in very wide trousers, grey gaiters, and a drab-coloured blouse—a costume in which, it appears, our English tourists now like to exhibit themselves to the gaze of Continentals.
Being very much of a Liberal, he was wishing for another Revolution, or
for more barricades to upset Louis Napoleon. But,
among the many subjects which my friend would discuss with great vehemence and fluency,
without understanding anything about them, politics stood conspicuous. But Brockedon had a great deal of merit and much varied
talent. He was born and bred in the genial county of Devon, which has given birth to so
many of our artists, and was brought up there to the very humble calling of a watchmaker,
or rather watchmender. But he early displayed some ability in drawing and etching,
| CHAP. XV] | ALBUM OF PORTRAITS | 151 |
See his “Passes of the Alps,” his
views in Italy, and other works. He travelled considerably, and at the same time he
addicted himself to physics or natural philosophy. He lost his wife, to his very great
grief, but her property and a dear son remained, and on him he seemed to raise all his
hopes for the future, all his bright visions. By degrees he had become acquainted with most
of the celebrities of the day. He had a very handsome sort of album, in which he had
cleverly drawn, in pencil or chalk, the portraits of all his friends or
acquaintances—politicians, poets, painters, sculptors, and engravers. He did me the honour
of including my effigies, and at a period when I was little known in England, in 1831.
“I shall make no use of these things while I live,” said he,
“but it will be interesting hereafter. I intend it as an heirloom to my boy,
and if he turn out a man of taste and feeling he will prize it, and if he choose he may
have the sketches engraved and published.” Poor Brock! Another striking specimen of the “vanity of human
wishes.” The child lived on to youth, and then followed his mother to the
grave, leaving his father for many years if not a solitary man—for that
Brock never could be—yet a man without Lares or Penates, with a
lonely home-hearth. He betook himself more than ever to natural and experimental
philosophy, and not con-
| 152 | WILLIAM BROCKEDON | [CHAP. XV |
When wife and son were both gone, poor Brockedon became invaded with the spirit of money-making, and of commercial speculation. I know not how many schemes and joint-stock companies he took up or joined; but I remember that the whole aspect of his home—a very nice old-fashioned house in Queen Anne’s Square—was entirely changed; for instead of meeting with artists, men of letters, and musicians there, one met miners, brokers, projectors, managers of companies, and other men who had “shares,” “premiums,” and “cent. per cent.,” scarified on their countenances.
I think it must have been about the year 1836 that Brocky became excessively long-winded on the subject of
stopping bottles. Meet him where you would, you were sure to hear a denunciation of corks.
“Cork,” said he, “is an antiquated barbarism, a vile
solecism, a monstrous imposition on an ignorant, unthinking public! Cork never properly
preserves your wine, but it often gives it a bad flavour, and so spoils it. For
stopping your bottles and decanters there is nothing like caoutchouc,
| CHAP. XV] | INDIA-RUBBER CORKS | 153 |
William Brockedon was a friendly, rather
warm-hearted, and “serviceable” man. He must have made very considerable sums
by some of his publications, for he was always rather a keen man of business, and the
property his wife brought him put him above subjection to the whims or the rapacious
tyranny of the booksellers and publishers, and of the vendors of engravings. He had an
affection for the memory of that oddest of odd artists, his
| 154 | WILLIAM BROCKEDON | [CHAP. XV |
I knew James Northcote, R.A., a Devonshire man and confirmed old bachelor, in 1814, when he was living like a solitary old spider in a cob-webbed house in Argyle Street. Brockedon, who attempted to write his life, had many curious tales about him. Northcote had a cordial hatred for his county-man, poor Haydon, who, on his side, hated all the members of the Royal Academy, quoad Academicians, and who contrived to quarrel with nearly every man he met half a dozen times.
“Isn’t this beautiful!” said old Jemmy, showing Brockedon The Times newspaper. “Isn’t this charming! Here’s the King has been sending for Haydon to go down to Windsor Castle, and to take the daub of a picture, called ‘The Mock Election’ with him! I wish to Christ the King had knighted him! I only wish he had knighted him! It would have shown how Art is appreciated by Royalty!”
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