Chapter XXXV: Letter V (4)

2nd.--Emma began the day with quarrelling....

3rd.--... At the hand of the scoundrel in the picture, trying to make him with a glass of brandy and water in it; Lucy, sitting for it with a glass of beer, spilt the whole in her lap, being asleep. Divers touches.

4th.--Emma started off to London this morning, without letting me know, before I was up.... To-day I painted out the brandy and water, which in such a small hole did not do, and the colour of it would not harmonize. Put-in a black bottle, which every one knows is the acme of scoundrelism. Painted, or tried to paint, at the head and hand of the healthy ruffian drunk and grinning....

5th.--... Emma had gone out with Nolly and Katty.... As Emma was still not returned, I wrote a letter to her, the answer to which our fate seems now to hinge on. I am writing I don’t know what scarce, because the moment is heavy with dread thoughts, and I must occupy myself. When I was young, a disappointment in painting used to give me a dreadful pain in my throat; now other miseries take the place of these, and the nervous system feels most acutely about the heart and chest--no pain is like this. What would become of my children if I were to finish my wretched existence, and what is to become of me if I do not? O God! have mercy on me and save me.

6th.--Lucy brought an answer to last night’s note; Emma gives in, so we are all happy again. Thanks to God if He did it. Went out with Emma and the children to buy things at the draper’s....

7th.--Gave Lucy her music-lesson. Set to work about one at the ropes and about the boat’s davits; till eight at this....

12th.--Began painting the infant’s foot; and out with Emma, to buy the dear some jewelry with the money I got for the sketch I gave to J. Millais and sold to White. Went to call on old White, to get his promissory. He kept me so long that it was too late to take it to the bank, and I had scarce any money with me. However, we went and selected the things, and among them a bracelet in mosaic gold so beautiful that I could not resist it....

20th.--Finishing _Windermere_ for Manchester Exhibition....

21st.--Looked out for landscapes this evening; but, although all around one is lovely, how little of it will work up into a picture! that is, without great additions and alterations, which is a work of too much time to suit my purpose just now. I want little subjects that will paint off at once. How despairing it is to view the loveliness of nature towards sunset, and know the impossibility of imitating it!--at least in a satisfactory manner, as one could do, would it only remain so long enough. Then one feels the want of a life’s study, such as Turner devoted to landscape; and even then what a botch is any attempt to render it! What wonderful effects I have seen this evening in the hayfields! the warmth of the uncut grass, the greeny greyness of the unmade hay in furrows or tufts with lovely violet shadows, and long shades of the trees thrown athwart all, and melting away one tint into another imperceptibly; and one moment more a cloud passes and all the magic is gone. Begin to-morrow morning, all is changed; the hay and the reapers are gone most likely, the sun too, or if not it is in quite the opposite quarter, and all that _was_ loveliest is all that is tamest now, alas! It is better to be a poet; still better a mere lover of Nature, one who never dreams of possession....

26th.--Garden--and then to pay the visit to Seddon and his new wife. She is very sweet and beautiful, and he a lucky dog....

27th.--Saw in twilight what appeared a very lovely bit of scenery, with the full moon behind it just risen; determined to paint it.

28th.--Garden all the morning: then prepared my traps to go and do the landscape. Got there by five, and found it looking dreadfully prosaic. However, began it,[134] and worked till half-past eight....

30th.--... Painted the sky of my little moon-piece....

3rd August.--... To work about twelve, at the hand, from my own in the glass, out in back yard: quite spoilt. Too disgusted to go out to moon-piece. Came to bed to poultice a boil; feel very queer, either from laziness, illness, or dejection--I don’t know which; but certain it is I have apoplectic symptoms imaginary or real. Had a mushroom for tea and thoughts about death, which, after all, seems to me a very natural consummation....

18th.--... _The Newcomes_ is done. The end, though a disappointment to me as construction, is, for pathos and delineation of the “human ’art,” beyond anything he has yet done. No end of kerchiefs might be wetted over it; but I read it dry, being used to misery in its actual state. But the _dénouement_ disappointed me, I own. Thackeray seems to have got them into a mess, and either to lack the skill or the courage to get them out of it. In my humble opinion, Ethel should have died just as Clive would have been enabled to marry her; after which he should have taken to art _seriatim_,[135] and have achieved a position, and so have learned the value of suffering. Clive should have wept her, and then turned serious and virtuous, and married some one just to take care of boy; or his wife should not have died, and they should at length have loved each other, and been happy in the end. This would have been far more moral, more probable, and more satisfactory to me. But he is the great word-artist of now.--I long to hear about Sveaborg; but oh how hard is the fate of these poor Russians! and what a horrid thing it is for fleets at a distance to destroy a town without the loss of a man! How cowardly, one might say.

19th.--To work about twelve, at the man’s head till seven--the woman is now quite right.

20th.--Breakfast in bed--lazy.--To work about one till half-past seven, at the woman’s hand, from Emma and baby and my own hand--Emma holding it in the back yard. Nothing but rain, wind, and sun, alternately. In despair brought it into front parlour. No good done to-day at all.

21st.--The same as yesterday, only from feeling--no good at all.

22nd.--The same again to-day, out in the yard, Emma holding my hand; and my mouth and moustache in glass. No good.

23rd.--To work by two till seven, at filling up places where the oval of the frame has been enlarged; then at the sea again, and if anything spoiled it.--The picture looks worth half as much money again now that the sight of the frame is made larger....

27th.--To work by ten--worked at the man’s head, made it disgustingly bad; left off about four--quite ill. Shall not work to-morrow,--have been at it too close. Head bad.

31st.--Began work again to-day; intensely thick about the upper regions, but felt that I must begin again. Worked till dusk, from half-past one.--Scraped out the hand, but felt too stupid to venture to touch it again--did a lot of promiscuous touches. All this week I have been ill with a tired brain.... I think anxiety as well as work affects my head. Indeed, to see how things are going on with me is enough to drive any one mad. This is the last day of August, and the picture, which was to have been finished and _exploité_ by this time, is still on the easel. At quarter-day we leave here; and till I know whether I go to India or not it is no use seeking a fresh abode, and till the picture is shown to some people I cannot decide upon going: and, now that the picture is nearly done, all the people will be out of town. I have as yet had no time to do White’s landscape in. This confounded picture takes up all the time that I might apply to more saleable works, and looks worth nothing now that it is done. I sometimes think it looks most execrable; but this week I am ill, and in such a state of nerves that everything looks distorted. What a miserable sad thing it is to be fit for painting _only_, and nothing, nothing else! no outlet, no hope! I have touched the sky and cliffs again however to advantage....

2nd September,--Sunday. To-day fortune seemed to favour me. It has been intensely cold--no sun, no rain, a high wind. But this seemed the sweetest weather possible, for it was the weather for my picture, and made my hand look blue with the cold, as I require it in the work. So I painted all day out in the yard, and made the man’s hand more what I want than it has looked yet. Afterwards tried to mend the scoundrel’s fist, but was not so successful at it however. After work, took a four miles’ walk to warm myself, in the dark. Came back and set to work; drew-in the mother’s hand holding the baby’s, in the drawing, which has never been done yet.--Then wrote my name on the picture.

3rd.--... Into London with Emma. Looked at several houses--not knowing if we should want one, or I have to seek my fortunes in “a far countrie.” Took a room at 33 Percy Street for one week, 10s., to show the picture in.

4th.--My last day at the picture, thank God.--Finished the man’s head, scoundrel’s hand, and sundries. At four took my moon-piece; the sky of which had cracked all over, through being painted on zinc white.--Scraped it and re-painted after five; foolish, for night caught me. After tea, pasted the drawing of _Last of England_ into its frame, and nailed the picture into its ditto. Took down the _Baa Lambs_, the sketch of _Justice_, and drawing of _Beauty_, and by twelve got them ready for to-morrow.

5th.--Packed my five pictures in a cart, and at 10 a.m. started on my way to London, down the new Finchley Road--I driving, because it was too heavy to sit both of us in front, and perched up behind was anything but comfort. However, the pony, being a mettlesome beast, had no idea of going unless his own master thrashed him, and seemed to despise my attempts in that line; so we had to change seats. It is Barnet fair, and we were taken for return showmen on the road. As I got to the door in Percy Street, old White was knocking there. He looked at the picture for about one hour, and was most warm in his eulogium. I said last figure was £200 with copyright, or £150 without. I think he did not intend to buy when he came, but he seemed loth to leave it. At last he said: “I want you to give me copyright in, and will give you a bill at six months, for £150.” So I said, as it was _him_, I would take it; indeed, I would not have done so otherwise. Then he took the pencil-drawing for £7. He promises speedy fortune, and that in two years more I shall no longer sell my pictures to him, but command the highest prices in the art-market, and only give him a picture for remembrance of old times. Amen! say I.

9th.--Sunday. On Thursday I “guv a party,” to which Munro, Rossetti, Cayley, and Seddon came; so we[136] are reviving slightly towards each other. Time of breaking up, half-past 1 a.m. Friday I worked a little at altering the seat (on which they are) to green, at the suggestion of old White. People all speak in high terms of the product. Last night I ... went for the first time to Munro’s, and saw Hughes’ picture of the Lover’s Quarrel.[137] It is very beautiful indeed: the girl is lovely, draperies and all, but the greens of his foliage were so acid.... I breakfasted with Lowes Dickinson to-day; and he says that there is a fortune to be made in India, but he does not think me the man to do it. I shall not go, at present at any rate. Came home by 2 p.m. Am quite undecided what to do next. There is _Work_ begun; then _Cromwell_;[138] then subject of the “Commission” in Hyde Park.[139]

15th.--All this week I have only worked one day, Tuesday; when I finished the green bench, bought a rope and painted it, put some rust on the boat and boat’s davit to please old White, touched and finished the veil, ditto the sky, and put a string to the man’s hat. Called on Seddon and on Lucy this week. Calotype of his _Cromwell_[140] looks very well and full of individuality.... Sebastopol gone at last, all the south of it; but the French did it, not our soldiers. Since last winter, when all our real soldiers were destroyed by the rascally Government, it seems to me we have done nothing of note. Our army, I imagine, is disgusted and disorganized, morally if not physically.--Wednesday,--I packed up the picture carefully in a sheet, and took it to old White’s in a cab, at his request; and there got a six months’ bill for £157, I paying for the stamp. Then to the Bank, and drew £15. 10s. 10d. sent me by good Madame Casey[141] in payment for my plate, which, being in their hands at the time of the Revolution ’48 (owing to its having been left at the _Mont de Piété_ when, bringing poor Liz’s body[142] to this country, I found myself without the requisite money in Paris), I requested them to have melted down if in need of money....

Wednesday.--Till yesterday [24th September] I was after houses, and took one opposite Fortess Terrace; ten rooms, £45, quite new. £50 if I have a glass studio put up in garden. Yesterday I had occasion to speak to a very rich man, the owner of half Fortess Terrace, and God knows how much more property. I am quite sure he had been a shopkeeper; but so bumptious, quite a caricature of the class. This evening an old gentleman warned us not to go down a certain path ’cross fields; it was all bog, said he, pointing to his boots. I said to Emma: “That man sure is either a nobleman or a very distinguished officer.” I don’t know who he was; but we met him afterwards going into the house Garrick had at Hendon, and three minutes after we had turned the corner we met him coming out of that property, and he crossed the road to Lord Annesley’s. I supposed it is he. [N.B.--It was not, but Mr. Weire.]

22nd October.--This month has passed without entries. After taking the last-mentioned house I fell out with the builder; so took this one in Fortess Terrace at £52. 10s. a year. Intended to let the first floor, but ... I think I must make it my painting-room. On the 8th I began work again at the Hendon Moon-piece, on Lord Tenterden’s property (by-the-by, it was he I meant when I said “Lord Annesley”). The weather has been most trying: however, I have stuck at it, sometimes walking fourteen miles and only getting two hours’ work: in all, with to-day, nine days or thirty-six hours. In two more I think I shall finish what I can do to it there. Thursday I went to Finchley, and slept two nights at the Queen’s Head, and to-day I took a cab; vigorous proceeding this. During this month (for notabilia) I have been to Sadler’s Wells and seen Miss Atkinson, a new actress whom I pronounce to be admirable and better than Miss Glyn. Then I called one night at the Howitts’, and saw William ditto, and Mrs. ditto, and Anna Mary ditto, all professing to believe much in dreams....

2nd December.--... I think I finished at Hendon on the 24th, after which I did not paint again till the 9th November, when I began a small _King Lear_ from the drawing I had formerly made (for the etching which I have never finished) of the picture in John Seddon’s possession.[143] This I work at till last Thursday, just three weeks, when I get tired of it; and, as the purple ran, and would not let me go on with it except in the horizontal position with the dust descending on it, I gave up, and began working up the foreground of my Hendon landscape. Yesterday I went to Cumberland Market, and sketched a hay-cart; afterwards put it in. During the time I did not work (that is, paint) I did much in the upholstery-line, and saved thereby (in two weeks) about 10s. It must be said in my excuse, however, that two men severally saw the sofa and chairs to cover; and the last, [who] was pale and thin by being out of work, declared that the things were in such a state that he would _rather not undertake them_. I have made them look splendid, and the drawing-room all equally so, although the things would not perhaps pass muster at Seddon’s or Gillow’s. Nolly has been christened since last entry, also the prizes at the Paris Exhibition have been disposed of. But the most important fact appertaining to this history is that White has at my instigation bought _Chaucer_ (while at Paris) from Robert Dickinson for £50: this I consider a grand stroke achieved....

5th.--... At Jullien’s[144] last night, where met old White in a half boozy state. Glad to find that the prize-giving at Paris has not damped his ardour, but he talks of doing great things with it. Find Windus has my _Last of England_....

12th.--... To the Olympic. English theatricals dooced slow, however; place felt headachy. Robson tremendous, but getting spoiled....

15th.--... Read the third volume of Carlyle’s _Miscellanies_. The glorious kind-hearted old chap! _Boswell_, _Diderot_, _Cagliostro and the Necklace_, are the best in the book, and among what he has ever done best. The _Johnson_, _Göthe_, _Edward Irving_, among (to me) the unsatisfactory ones; overdone, too many immensities, eternities, and such-like superfluities; sometimes whole pages of mere gilded wind-bladders, looking something like real nuggets, but not so. Seek to grasp them, and they bob off in most tantalizing fashion--(this is Carlylean, I hope). On the other hand, we must allow the great man his occasional weaknesses and caprices and flatulencies. Real gold and solid weight and a close-packed wisdom is not wanting in the general run of it; more indeed than is attainable in any other writing now published, I opine. As he said himself, Roland of Ronceval must himself have been constipated at times....

19th.--Worked at the sketch of Hampstead for Woolner:[145] it is jolly.

20th.--Cuttle-fished the little landscape, and painted “ye moon” from nature. Called on Woolner, who declares we are more devil-worshipers than Christians. His reason for the great popularity of Lord Palmerston is that he is treacherous and pugnacious, which are the two chief characteristics of us English, and that therefore, being the most so of any, he by natural force or gravitation is the King of England. However, Prince Albert _is_ our King--worse luck. John Cross told him that Monsieur Picot, who was president of the Royal Commission of Fine Arts at Paris, affirmed that it was entirely owing to the pressing solicitude of Lord Elcho that the prizes were given as they were; that the French jurors had awarded the chief medal to Mulready. McDowell[146] voted for himself nineteen times; so they gave no medal to the sculpture....

24th.--... Spent the morning putting up holly and evergreens instead of working. I fear I have much to repent on the score of idleness. Read Carlyle’s _Miscellanies_....

1856, 1st January.--A dull foggy day. Disgusted with my landscape: stuck it up against the wall, and worked at it from a distance. Painted out all the easel, box, etc., in front, that took me so much time to paint from nature. Made the whole right again....

2nd.--... Seddon again called, with a letter he had just received from Hunt; who is on his return, I am glad to hear, but ill. I fear, a nature that works beyond its strength.

5th.--... Worked at the pencil _King Lear_, and finished it; my destiny being (as Novalis said of Göthe) “to finish whatever I may have begun.”

6th.--Spent the morning in a sort of luxury of idleness, tidying-up the painting-rooms, and hanging up two fresh pictures in them, viz.: the pencil _King Lear_, and a study of Major Freulick’s horse--painted at Ghent when I was fifteen or sixteen--at the time I painted my father’s portrait, and the head of the old woman[147] I still value. At this time, when I first began art seriatim, and before I fell into any kind of mannerism, many of my studies are better than I was able to do for many years afterwards. This same horse, which is the facsimile of the one it portrayed, was the most unmilitary-looking brute I think I ever beheld, or at any rate ever saw Major mounted on. It fell under me one day as I was trotting it over one of the Flemish wooden drawbridges, and peeled the skin off my chin. However, with the loss of a saddle-girth, we were none the worse for it much, either of us.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] There was a painter, then of some repute, named Marshal Claxton: I presume that he and his family are here referred to.

[5] This refers to the mortal illness of Mrs. Brown, in Rome: she died soon afterwards.

[6] Lucy Brown had been placed at the boarding school (a very good one) kept at Gravesend by her aunt by marriage, Mrs. Helen Bromley. This was a most estimable Scotch lady (Miss Weir): she died in 1886.

[7] The residence of the painter Charles Lucy.

[8] Highgate Cemetery, where Mrs. Madox Brown was buried.

[9] The surgeon who constantly attended Brown and his family; also Dante Rossetti. He became Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy, President of the Royal College of Physicians, &c.

[10] According to Brown’s original plan, the centre picture of Chaucer was flanked by two side-pictures, containing figures of Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Burns, and Byron. This scheme was finally abandoned in the large painting, but it is to be seen in one or two minor versions of the work.

[11] Thomas is William Cave Thomas, a painter (still living) who had distinguished himself in the Cartoon competitions at Westminster Hall. He is also known as the writer of some very thoughtful books on the Theory of Fine Art, as co-ordinate with Science and Morals.

[12] The studio was in Clipstone Street, Marylebone; the same in which Dante Rossetti first visited Madox Brown.

[13] In this instance and others Brown wrote “togam” instead of “toga.” I suppose he had, at some time, seen the word printed in its accusative case. In matters of this sort he had a _curiosa felicitas_ for going wrong.

[14] Evidently means Shakespeare’s birth-house. Possibly Mr. Thomas’s rather summary proposal was founded on his not believing that building to be the true birth-house.

[15] A blank is left in the MS.

[16] From a very early stage in his professional practice, Brown paid unusual attention to questions of true lighting, such as this.

[17] So far as I remember, these figures are not included in any version of the Chaucer subject.

[18] Mr. Richard Madox Bromley (afterwards Sir R. M. Bromley, K.C.B.) was a brother of Madox Brown’s first wife. He was employed in relief measures during the Irish famine.

[19] The highly-distinguished landscape painter.

[20] Hurlstone was then President of the Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street.

[21] There were two brothers named Foggo, historical painters of much ambition and perhaps some intellect, but deplorably bad executants. I presume that the jingle “Fogo is no go” (or something of the sort), was current among artists at this date.

[22] This is the Exhibition (then recently established) to which Brown contributed some of his early pictures--also Dante Rossetti his first two. Martin was not the celebrated painter John Martin, but a different painter, J. F. Martin.

[23] Claxton was a painter, already mentioned; of Dibdin I know nothing.

[24] This subject was painted, and was well received by the public.

[25] A painter and book-illustrator.

[26] I am sure this project was not carried out.

[27] The Dickinsons, Printsellers in Bond Street, had established a Drawing Academy in Maddox Street. Foley must be the sculptor of that name. Paris and Salter were painters: the former is perhaps still remembered as the inventor of “Paris’s Medium.”

[28] Brown was part owner of Ravensbourne Wharf, Greenwich.

[29] This is probably an oil-study which I possess, and which must have been made with a view to the figure of an infant in the Wiclif picture. Lucy Brown was now turned four years old: in the painting she might pass for still younger.

[30] A cousin of Brown’s.

[31] This was some friend of Elizabeth Brown (Bromley), much of whose youth was spent abroad. I know nothing further about Miss Ensgrubber.

[32] I don’t know what this project was; should suppose that it aimed at some pictorial decoration of the University building.

[33] A matter unknown to me; I presume “Capbell” to be a mis-writing for “Campbell.” It would appear that Brown’s drawing was lithographed.

[34] I suppose Inskip is practically forgotten now. He painted in a very broad method, with dark full-toned tints of brown &c.--gipsies, fisherfolk, and the like.

[35] There was some family connection between Bamford and Brown; I have forgotten what.

[36] Charles Robert Leslie, R.A.; he was now Professor of Painting at the Academy.

[37] He was a solicitor. The Tan Yard is, I suppose, much the same thing as Ravensbourne Wharf. Brown did not, towards this date, sell his shares in it.

[38] He seems rather to mean “French Republic.”

[39] Fenton, after receiving an artistic training, took to photography. At the time of the Crimean war (1854-6) he went to the scene of action, and acquired some prominence.

[40] A model much employed by artists towards this date.

[41] Brown wrote “Schaff” (not Scharf): I suppose the designer who became Sir George Scharf, (or else his father, who was also an artist) is meant. Collingwood Smith and Oliver were water-colour landscapists.

[42] From this observation it might be inferred that Brown in 1847 was a decided Protestant and Anti-Catholic. He may possibly have been so, and must, at any rate, have been a votary of freedom of religious thought. As I knew him (beginning in 1848), he was neither Catholic nor Protestant.

[43] The handwriting of all this part of the diary confirms the statement as to weak sight.

[44] I do not recognize the name Elliott; a later entry shows him to have been a painter. Rossetti, whom we here find for the first time in Brown’s narrative, is of course Dante Gabriel. No account is given of the first interview of all, when Brown (as related elsewhere) called round at Rossetti’s house with a “thick stick.” The letter from my brother, March 1848, which led to that interview, has been published.

[45] It will be seen that Brown, having now consigned to the Free Exhibition the moderate-sized picture of _Wiclif and John of Gaunt_, resumed work on the large _Chaucer_ and its accessories.

[46] William and Mary Howitt were much connected with this publication.

[47] Daniel Casey was a painter, of Irish birth or extraction, settled in Paris. Brown had a good opinion of his abilities, within certain limits. I own a small oil-picture of his--horsemen abducting a woman--spirited in action. He died towards 1888.

[48] I do not think that Brown ever applied for a mastership in the Schools of Design, under their old _régime_. He did so (as shown further on) under the new _régime_.

[49] Holman Hunt, of course.

[50] I fancy this may have been Brown’s first acquaintance with Keats. Dante Rossetti may have set him going. Towards this same time Millais began his first “Præraphaelite” picture, from Keats’s _Isabella_.

[51] The picture is, I think, the one which was afterwards named _The Infant’s Repast_ (sometimes here spoken of as _Mother and Child_).

[52] For side-panel of the Chaucer picture.

[53] _The Girlhood of Mary Virgin._

[54] I do not know what the lectures may have been, nor what Brown wrote about them. See the entry for 10th October.

[55] This may, I suppose, have been a portion of what Brown was writing regarding Mr. Thomas’s lectures.

[56] I think this means a copy of a head of his daughter Lucy, painted in her early infancy towards 1843.

[57] The composition for the oil-picture of _Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear_: not to be confounded with other Lear subjects (at least two) which Brown executed at later dates.

[58] This seems to relate, not to the _Lear_ picture, but to the small work named _The Infant’s Repast_.

[59] _i.e._ The jester, or fool (he is immediately afterwards termed the fool), of King Lear. This head is a very fair likeness (not exactly a striking one) of Dante Rossetti.

[60] It was the fifth storey if one reckons the sunk basement as first storey. The house was No. 50 Charlotte Street, Portland Place.

[61] The detached figures of British Poets, which were (according to the original intention) to serve as wings to the large picture of _Chaucer at the Court of Edward III._ “The page” is a figure in the central composition.

[62] The sketch, done some years before, of the _Chaucer_ composition.

[63] Brown must have known Walter Howell Deverell through Dante Rossetti. Deverell was at this time a painter of some recognized promise, son of the Secretary to the Schools of Design.

[64] This is, I suppose, a carefully finished little oil portrait, circular, which I possess.

[65] Mr. Seddon (the father of Thomas and John Seddon) was a furniture-maker of high repute, carrying on business in Gray’s Inn Road. The statement that the portraits were done “for a sofa” means that a sofa was to be assigned to Brown as his remuneration.

[66] I have little if any recollection of this figure of _The Lord Jesus_. Further on it appears that a lithograph, unsatisfactory to Brown, was made of the figure.

[67] Mr. Samuel Carter Hall, the Editor of _The Art-Union (Art Journal)_.

[68] The etching which was published in _The Germ_.

[69] It will be observed that there is a great gap of time before this resumption of Diary--as referred to immediately afterwards. So far as I know, Madox Brown did not keep any record in the interim. I do not possess any, nor seemingly does Mr. Ford Hueffer.

[70] Emma and Katy (or Cathy) are the second Mrs. Brown and her then infant Daughter, now Mrs. Francis Hueffer.

[71] This centre compartment is the _Chaucer_ above-mentioned.

[72] By “a very bad Deighton” Brown means a bad specimen of the work of a landscape-painter named Deighton.

[73] A picture of a mother and child.

[74] A professional model.

[75] The landlady at Hampstead.

[76] The work (substantially finished some years before) named _Our Lady of Saturday Night_, in which the Madonna is represented washing her infant.

[77] Finchley.

[78] White, whose name re-appears frequently in the sequel, was a well-established picture-dealer in Maddox Street, Regent Street. The picture here named _Winandermere_ is I think the same as that heretofore named _Windermere_, or a duplicate of it.

[79] I possess a copy of this lithograph, and cannot regard it as in any serious sense a failure.

[80] It seems to have come to nothing, as also the “lithotint of _Baby_.”

[81] For the Great Exhibition of 1855.

[82] As the picture stood at first, the figure of Christ was unclothed to the waist.

[83] So in the MS.: I do not well understand the phrase.

[84] “This one” means a new diary-book, which commences with the present entry.

[85] No. 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars; here Dante Rossetti had Chambers, where I also often passed the night. It was the last house on the Middlesex side of Blackfriars Bridge, right hand as one turns out of Fleet Street. The whole of Chatham Place was destroyed towards 1868.

[86] I suppose he meant “composition” or “syntax.”

[87] Thomas Woolner, the Sculptor and P.R.B. His handwriting was very distinct and precise.

[88] The two streets were (I think) Titchfield Street, Marylebone, and Torrington Square.

[89] The calf in the picture named _Found_, begun by Dante Gabriel Rossetti by this date.

[90] Woolner had tried his fortune in Australia, and had now returned to England.

[91] _The Death of Richard Cœur de Lion_, painted by John Cross.

[92] G. W. M. Reynolds, a well-known novelist and demagogic journalist of that period: he published a serial called _Reynolds’s Miscellany_. The existing weekly paper, _Reynolds’s Newspaper_, was, I think, founded by him.

[93] The “absurd old pictures” include, apparently, an _Ecce Homo_ by Mattia di Giovanni, the _Vision of St. Bernard_ by Lippo Lippi, &c.

[94] The so-called Albert Durer is now ascribed to Baldung--_Head of a Senator_.

[95] The picture that Brown terms a Masaccio was, I think, a portrait--a very telling one. No work now figures under the name of that master in the National Gallery.

[96] The Rembrandts and Wilkie had been bequeathed to the Gallery--not purchased by Dyce.

[97] Mr. Wentworth, a leading statesman in Australia, had been invited to sit for a public statue, and he had been expected to fix on Mr. Woolner as the sculptor. After long lagging (hence, it seems, Brown calls him “the Lag”) he selected some different artist.

[98] Brown had known “old Williams” through the Rossetti family. Dante Rossetti, in his first picture, _The Girlhood of Mary Virgin_, painted Williams in the character of St. Joachim.

[99] In the completed picture there is not any figure of an artist.

[100] Mr. Richard Burchett, a painter by profession, who held a leading post in the Department of Art.

[101] Lowes (brother of Robert) Dickinson, the able Portrait painter.

[102] The word written appears to be “obtaining”; perhaps a slip for “remaining.”

[103] Thomas Seddon, who had been to Egypt and Jerusalem along with Mr. Holman Hunt.

[104] Dr. John Brown, the originator of “the Brunonian System of Medicine.” His works and a biography of him have been published, and a portrait of him is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.

[105] I may be excused for saying here that I did all that I could. I put the matter plainly before my uncle Henry Polydore; he, although “in the law,” knew very little about such concerns, and probably had to say so.

[106] _The Angel in the House._

[107] This is an anecdote which has been detailed elsewhere. Scott’s volume contained a fly-sheet title “Poems by a Painter.” Carlyle read the word “Painter” as being “Printer”; and he wrote to the supposed working printer in terms apposite to his mis-reading.

[108] The well-known sculptor.

[109] Mr. Windus of Tottenham, a noted picture-collector.

[110] A specimen of fresco-work which Brown had sent to the Westminster Hall competition, 1844, for the Houses of Parliament.

[111] This means Mr. Windus the picture-collector, who was said to be the proprietor of the medicine for children known as “Godfrey’s Cordial.”

[112] I don’t know what Brown meant by “XXX”; perhaps it indicates that the works were in a very _ex_treme or exaggerated style of PRB’ism.

[113] This is entitled _The Bridesmaid_.

[114] I suppose the meaning is that Millais and Collins intended to hire horses, for exercise in riding.

[115] Serjeant Ralph Thomas, a legal gentleman who had bought a great number of Mark Anthony’s pictures, finished or sketched. Brown (as the reader may have remarked) was rather free in using the epithet “scoundrel”--whether with reason or without.

[116] Campbell’s Scotch Stores, Beak Street, Regent Street. The P.R.B.’s had a liking for this dining-room, as it was hung round with pictures by Theodore Von Holst. It is now named Blanchard’s Restaurant.

[117] _i.e._, “Beer.”

[118] “Scoundrel” means a certain personage in _The Last of England_--a _mauvais sujet_ who shakes his fist as a demonstration against the old country, in which he has been deservedly unlucky.

[119] His first picture, the _Cimabue_.

[120] _i.e._, a meeting of certain artists, to decide whether or not they would exhibit for themselves, apart from the R.A.

[121] This description of Michael F. Halliday--as friendly and obliging a man as I have known--cannot be called good-natured, but I let it stand for what it is worth. He was not truly a sinecurist, but a clerk in the House of Lords; neither was he a gent, but a gentleman.

[122] Mr. R. P. Burcham was a druggist, in whose house my sister Maria and I had at one time taken apartments. I discovered him to be an amateur artist, of superior attainment in subjects of still life, such as those painted by W. H. Hunt, of the Watercolour Society. He was in fact well acquainted with Hunt.

[123] _i.e._, in my house in Albany Street, Regent’s Park, No. 166.

[124] Miss Boyce was a sister of George P. Boyce the water-colour painter: the head which she exhibited this year was named _Elgiva_. She afterwards married Mr. Wells the Portrait-painter, and died young.

[125] _The Taming of the Shrew._

[126] A head entitled _Christabel_.

[127] The wrestling scene from _As You Like It_.

[128] Nearly the same subject which Brown had painted in 1849, _Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear_.

[129] Daughter of the Mrs. Helen Bromley mentioned in p. 64.

[130] This was (as I understand it) the wife of Mr. William Jones, a solicitor in the City, and at Greenwich: she had been a Miss Madox.

[131] Monti was author of a sculptured bust then very famous, _The Veiled Vestal_.

[132] Colleone is meant.

[133] Intended to serve as a wing (or as the two wings) for the _Chaucer_ picture.

[134] I suppose this is the picture called _The Hayfield_.

[135] Brown had a bad habit of using this Latin word as if it meant “seriously.”

[136] “We” seems to mean Brown himself and Thomas Seddon.

[137] Must be the well-known picture named _April Love_.

[138] _Cromwell on his Farm._ Brown seems by this date to have settled on the subject, but he had not, I think, made any beginning with it.

[139] I do not understand this phrase.

[140] _Cromwell at the Deathbed of his Daughter._

[141] Wife of Daniel Casey, the painter, mentioned on p. 94.

[142] Madox Brown’s first wife.

[143] _i.e._, _Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear_.

[144] Jullien’s Promenade Concerts.

[145] The sketch of a street in Hampstead, which Brown had undertaken as a study for the scene of his picture named _Work_. He gave the sketch to Mr. Woolner.

[146] A prominent sculptor of that time.

[147] All the three works here mentioned remained in Brown’s possession up to his death in 1893, and were disposed of in the sale held soon afterwards.

THE P.R.B. JOURNAL, 1849-53

THE P.R.B. JOURNAL, 1849-53.

The facts regarding the formation of the Præraphaelite Brotherhood, or P.R.B., have been frequently summarized ere now in print, by others and by myself: but I must run them over again briefly, in order to make the P.R.B. Journal the clearer.

In 1848 there were four young students in the Royal Academy Schools--John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt in the Life-school, Thomas Woolner in the Sculpture-school, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the Antique-school. Woolner, born in 1825, was the eldest; Millais, born in 1829, the youngest. These young men were all capable and ambitious: they had all, except Rossetti, exhibited something, to which (more especially in the case of Millais) the Art-authorities and the public had proved not wholly indifferent. They entertained a hearty contempt for much of the art--flimsy, frivolous, and conventional--which they saw in practice around them; and wanted to show forth what was in them in the way of solid and fresh thought or invention, personal observation, and the intimate study of and strict adherence to Nature. The young men came together, interchanged ideas, and were joined by two other youthful Painter-Students, James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, and also myself, who was not an Artist. So there were seven men forming the Præraphaelite Brotherhood. I will not debate at any length why the term Præraphaelite was adopted. There was much defiance in it, some banter, some sense, a great deal of resolute purpose, a large opening for misinterpretations, and a _carte-blanche_ invitation for abuse. After thus constituting themselves, what they had to do was to design, paint, and model, and one of them in especial, Dante Rossetti, to write poetry; and they did it with a will.

Some little while having elapsed, it was determined that one of the P.R.B.’s should be Secretary, and should keep a journal; and I, as not being taken up by art-work, was pitched upon for the purpose. I accordingly began the P.R.B. Journal.

This Journal was entirely my own affair, and was compiled without pre-consulting any of my fellow-members, and without afterwards submitting it to them. At the same time, the object of it was understood to be a record, from day to day, of the proceedings of _all_ the Members, so far as these were of a professional or semi-professional character, and came within my knowledge; it was not in any sense a diary personal to myself (save in so far as I was one P.R.B. among seven), nor deriving from my own thoughts or feelings. The Journal was producible to any Member who might choose to ask for it--I don’t think any one ever did. I used to make it a rule to myself to mention only the Members of the Brotherhood, along with some few other persons who came into close relation with them, their purposes, and their work.

The compilation, as will be seen, extends from 15th May 1849, soon after the Exhibitions had opened containing the works of the first year of Præraphaelitism, to 29th May 1853; by which date, mainly owing to Millais’s picture of _A Huguenot on St. Bartholomew’s Eve_, the Præraphaelites had practically triumphed--issuing from the dust and smother of four years’ groping surprise on the part of critics and public, taking the form mostly of thick-and-thin vituperation. There are various gaps in the Journal, owing to my own laches; and several more, owing to a performance by my Brother, justifying the designation once (I think) applied to him by a cabman, “a harbitrary cove.” After the Journal had been finally (though not of any set purpose) discontinued, it lay by me unnoticed for a number of years. When at last I had occasion to re-inspect it, I found that several pages had been torn out by my Brother, and several others mutilated. I never knew accurately--never at all enquired--why he did this. I suppose that at some time or other he took up the MS. in a more or less haphazard way, and noticed in it some things which he did not care to have on record regarding himself, and also in all likelihood regarding Miss Elizabeth Siddal, to whom he was then engaged. Not that I recorded anything whatever in a spirit of detraction or ill-nature concerning either of them--far from that.

Thus the P.R.B. Journal is now much more fragmentary than it need have been--for the portion destroyed by my Brother amounted, I dare say, to a fair fifth of the whole. In what remains a good deal is mere plodding journey-work, of no interest to myself, still less to others. The extracts here presented may constitute something like a half of the extant MS.--less rather than more.

I am aware that even these extracts are not written in an entertaining style: the Journal was intended to be simply, and rather servilely, a compendium of _facts_. It is however a highly authentic account of the early stages in a movement which proved of great importance, and to which much and increasing public interest has attached--a movement in which men of staunch achievement and eminent name bore the leading parts. As such, I suppose that the P.R.B. Journal may be regarded in some quarters as a document not undeserving of attention.

* * * * *

May 1849.

Tuesday 15th.--At Millais’s--Hunt, Stephens, Collinson, Gabriel, and myself. Gabriel brought with him his design of _Dante drawing the figure of an Angel_ on the first anniversary of Beatrice’s death[148] which he completed in the course of the day, and intends for Millais. Millais has done some figures of the populace in his design of _The Abbey at Caen_[149] since last night, and has also continued painting on the beard in the head of Ferdinand listening to Ariel, being that of Stephens. He says he has begun his “Castle-moat” poem[150] and is to continue it after we left (one o’clock). The plan of writing this diary was fixed, and will, I am in hopes, be steadily persevered in. We minutely analysed such defects as there are in Patmore’s _River_ from Gabriel’s recitation; who also read his poem (in progress) intended as introductory to the _Vita Nuova_[151]....

Wednesday 16th.--Gabriel began redesigning _Kate the Queen_[152]....

Thursday 17th.--Millais called on us in the evening. He has gone on with his Caen Nunnery design, and has put in some fat men, finding his general tendency to be towards thin ones. He is also progressing with his poem (the Castle-moat subject)....

Saturday 19th.--... Hunt ... is getting on with his _Monk succoured by the ancient Britons_ in time of persecution. Woolner has done four of his heads commissioned by Cottingham[153]--Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and Leonardo--and is engaged on Vandyck.... I understand that the _Court Journal_, speaking of a picture by one Walters that has been rejected, exclaims against the injustice, considering that such works as Hunt’s and Millais’s,[154] which can have been admitted only for charity, are hung.

Sunday 20th.--Gabriel made considerable progress to-day with his _Kate the Queen_ design.... Woolner came in the evening, and showed us two verses of a new song he has begun, having the burden, “My Lady rests her heavy, heavy rest”[155]....

Monday 21st.--Millais called in the evening, to take Gabriel with him to Mr. Bateman’s (the Illuminator): they also picked up Woolner on the way. The visit ... afforded unqualified satisfaction. Gabriel recited lots of Patmore, Browning, Mrs. Browning, etc.... We (Gabriel and myself) presented Bernhard Smith, on his departure, with a Browning, bearing the following inscription--“Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory has departed. Travels Waring West away?” Smith leaves on Wednesday[156]....

Wednesday 23rd.--... Hunt ... has completed his design of the Ancient Britons and Monk, and has resumed the one from _Isabella_, “He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch.” ... Millais has made considerable progress with the _Caen Nunnery_, having put-in the greater part of the populace. He says his poem is considerably advanced, and that he will work hard on it to-night. He having informed us, almost as soon as we entered, that he had been reading Patmore’s _Woodman’s Daughter_ and _Sir Hubert_,[157] and had found several faults of diction etc. therein, we proceeded to a most careful dissection, and really the amount of improvable is surprisingly small--as he also agreed in thinking.... In the course of conversation, Millais said that he had thoughts of painting a hedge (as a subject) to the closest point of imitation, with a bird’s nest--a thing which has never been attempted. Another subject he has in his eye is a river-sparrow’s nest, built, as he says they are, between three reeds; the bird he describes as with its head always on one side, “a body like a ball, and thin legs like needles.” He intends soon to set about his subject from Patmore, Sir Hubert and Mabel, “as she issues from the trees”[158]....

Thursday 24th.--... Millais came; soon after which we fell to portrait-taking. Millais’s, of Woolner, Hancock, and Hunt, have come highly successful. He has done something to his poem....

Sunday 27th.--Gabriel and I went in the morning, by appointment, to Dickinson’s,[159] where we met Ford Brown and Cave Thomas. Dickinson says that, when Cottingham first mentioned to him his intention of buying Gabriel’s picture, he descanted glowingly on his genius, and expressed his horror at having “found him in a garret.”[160]

Monday, July 13th.--Hunt, with Gabriel’s co-operation, removed the majority of his property to Brown’s study, etc.... A most cheeky letter received from Cottingham, in answer to a civil enquiry relative to the price payable for the _Morning_ and _Evening_,[161] left him in a state of profound disgust; when he was relieved therefrom by a note from Egg[162] informing him that he had sold the Rienzi picture for 160 guineas to Mr. Gibbons, and requesting to see him to-morrow morning on some other business. Hunt swears that he’ll cut Cottingham altogether, and leave him to find another man of talent (of whom Cottingham asserts that he knows plenty) to do two fair-sized pictures for £50. In the evening Gabriel and I went to Woolner’s with the view of seeing North[163] (whom, however, we did not find at home) about a project for a monthly sixpenny magazine[164] for which four or five of us would write and one make an etching, each subscribing a guinea, and thus becoming a proprietor. The full discussion of the subject is fixed for to-morrow, at Woolner’s.... Woolner has been working at the _Euphrosyne_.

Tuesday 14th.--Hunt called on Egg, and received the money for his picture. Mr. Gibbons is also to give him a commission for not less than another 100 guineas; and Egg thinks that, after seeing the picture of the Early Christian which Hunt is now engaged on, he will probably select that. Gabriel has settled to go with Hunt to Paris, passing by Ghent and Bruges, which Egg strongly recommends them to see. A second letter to Gabriel from John Orchard,[165] the painter, has been received. He had written for the first time nearly a week ago, expressing the most intense admiration for the _Mary Virgin_, and entering into a long metaphysical disquisition on the principle of adopting the mode of thought and the practice of any preceding age, which he condemns. In his present letter, in answer to Gabriel’s reply, he says that he hopes to call and see the picture on Saturday.... We went to Woolner’s to settle on our contemplated magazine. The title is to be _Monthly Thoughts in Literature and Art_, with a sonnet on the wrapper....

Wednesday 15th.--... It was proposed that the magazine should be increased to forty pages, two etchings, and 1s. each No. I wrote the first eight lines of a sonnet for the wrapper, to be considered with others....

Thursday 16th.--Gabriel made a study, from a girl whom Collinson recommended to him, for the head of the angel in his picture,[166] which head he means to do over again....

Friday 17th.--Gabriel began painting the head of the angel; and he wrote two stanzas of a French song, _La Sœur Morte_[167]....

Sunday 19th.--Hunt ... has taken his Rienzi picture to Brown’s study, and is engaged giving it some finishing touches. At Ewell he made a study (in colour) of a cornfield.... I finished my sonnet, begun on the 15th, with reference to the wrapper of the proposed magazine. In the morning Gabriel worked a good deal on the angel’s head, and wrote the concluding stanza of his French song.

Monday 20th.--Gabriel still at the figure of the angel. Orchard, the Painter, called in the afternoon, and left Gabriel two sonnets he has written on his picture....

Saturday 25th.--Gabriel’s picture was sent off to the Marchioness of Bath. The daguerreotype will be ready on Monday....

Sunday 26th.--Gabriel wrote a sonnet entitled _For the Things of these Days_[168]....

Tuesday 28th.--... Gabriel thinks of taking, as the incidents for the two side-pieces in his picture, the Virgin planting a lily and a rose, and the Virgin in St. John’s house after the crucifixion,[169] as illustrating the periods of her life before the birth and after the death of Christ. For the middle compartment, to represent her during his life, he has not yet settled an incident. He went to see Woolner, who has finished the first part of _My Lady_, and the poem is therefore now altogether completed....

Wednesday 29th.--Gabriel thought of taking for the principal compartment of his commission-picture the eating of the passover by the Holy Family, in which he proposes to make Zachariah and Elizabeth joining, as it is said that, if a household were too small for the purpose, those of a neighbouring household were to be called in. He made a preliminary sketch of this....