The Press.
London, England, 1853-08-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

and, generally, every enactment which forbids
acts of which the immorality or illegality is not
readily intelligible by the public, fall within
the same category. All laws attempting to re-
gulate the conditions of labour are in this
respect peculiarly obiectionable. The practice
of impressment for t le navy (disused during
peace), and the bounty system of recruiting,
both of which lead to the crime of desertion,
merit similar censure. Long apprenticeships.
being in fact compulsory contracts made at an
early age, and often with an imperfect compre-
hension of the terms, otter a temptation to idle-
ness and breaches of faith. The brutal vio-
lence practised by members of the same family
on one another, which it may he hoped the re-
cent act will do something to check, is in part
ascribed by Mr. Hill to the practical impossi-
bility of obtaining a divorce or separation ; and
also to the entire control with which the law
invests the most worthless husband over
the property and labour of his wife. This,
however, as well as the game-law question, also
discussed, is a subject too wide for consider-
ation here, Our ()tailor strongly recommends
partnership:4 with limited liability—which the
law at present discourages—as a means of giving
the labourer a direct pecuniary interest in his
employer's success. This view we have our
selves, in a former article, endeavoured to
support. He considers such a change the best
if not sole guarantee against those evils
which are produced by the frequency of strikes,
often attended with violence, and which, by
enforcing temporary idleness, tend to create
crime.

The state of the police appears, by Mr.
Hill's report, to be less satisfactory than we
are in the habit of considering it. " Many
" parts of the country are still without any
" thing deserving the name." The urban and
rural police, instead of co operating, often
quarrel ; and the mode of remuneration is
essentially faulty. High premiums are given
for the detection of offenders—none for the
prevention of offences ; whence it results that
the preservers of public order have a direct
interest in not utterly extirpating crime—just
as rateatehers are said, with an eye to future
employment, always to leave a sufficient stock
of young rats in houses which they are en-
gaged to clear of vermin. It has even been
known—though happily this is rare—that,
under the stimulus of offered reward, evidence
has been got up against innocent persons.
But ,the more usual fault is that of omission,
not of commission. Receivers of stolen goods
are too mercifully dealt with—perhaps for the
reason at which we have hinted. Their houses,
their mode of life, and the extent of their
gains are commonly well known ; yet the law
refrains from touching them. A vigorous
crusade against this class, and the suppres
sion of lodging and public houses which no-
toriously harbour thieves, would break up
criminal confederacies to an extent little
imagined. The result is thus described :

An important advantage arising from vigorous measures
to reduce the her of criminals at large would be, that
the situation of every remaining criminal would become
more difficult.

Some persons, indeed, have fears that to withdraw a
number of criminals is only to create a void which will
call new criminals into existence. But this appears to not
to be a great mistake; founded probably on a false analogy
between crime and foist, or some other thing for which
there is a natural demand, the pressure of which would in-
crease with any diminution in the number of producers.
Such, however, is not the case with crime, for crime is op-
posed to the interests and feelings of society; and the
community at large would be glad to drive it out of
exiatence; and, instead of the expansive power of crime
increasing with every contraction, 1 believe the reverse to
be the case, and that the withdrawal of every criminal,
inasmuch as it tends to break up organisation for dishonest
purposes, and to bring each remaining offender more pro-
minently before the public eye, weakens the position of
criminals generally, and fm•ilitates the complete snppres•
Mon of crime. It is this want of a crowd of offenders
to afford the means of a division of labour and mutual con-
cealment that, in my opinion, does much toaceount for the
almost total absence of crime in many small places.

Certain practical reforms are here suggested,
the principal being—abolition of the Scotch
rule of evidence, by which two witnesses are
required to prove guilt—abolition of that legal
rule by which the ownership of stolen property
must be fixed before prosecution is possible—
avoidance of delay in bringing on trials, such
delay a&rding opportunities to tamper with
the witnesses—and security to be taken from

331

the landlord of any house used as a receiving.
house for stolen goods, whereby ho shall incur
a penalty in the event of its being so used
again.

The Life if &mimosas Robert Haydoet. Edited
by Tom Taylor, Esq. London : Longman
and Co.

(Second Notice.)

MR. HAVDON'S notions of the differences be-
tween swum and Num, of debtor and creditor,
were finished in the school of the King's
Bench, which he considered his second home,
and the " blessed refuge for the miserable."
There, what moral sense he had was oblite•
rated, as his bile broke forth splendidly, at the
sight of men of genius and half-pay officers
crippled with debts and honourable wounds,
and arrested by " rascally tradesmen ;" then
" the footpad who risks his life is a hero
" compared to the wretch" of an upholsterer
who had taken legal steps against our
artist, whose first exclamation when locked
up is, " What a pity it is that I should
be so harassed !" Self-love soon comes, how-
ever, with the consolation that Bacon, Ra-
leigh, and Cervantes had, like himself, been
inmates of the prison. The magnifying powers
of his self-conceit enlarged his own propor-
tions to such a size that as he paced his
painting-room when free again, and gazed
upon his gigantic canvases spread on the
easel, he only wondered how a man who could
conceive and paint on such a grand scale
should for a moment be exposed to want, by
the shameful neglect of the British nation.
He marvelled that peers and capitalists did
not strive who should be foremost to assist
him, and especially to pay the tutors and
"butte's" and college expenses of his son
whom he had sent to Oxford of all places in
the world, without more money in his sack
than in his penniless father's. The sire him-
self, while clamorous for the contents of the
purses of others, was, however, profuse in in
dulgent expenditure for himself and family,
which averaged from six hundred to a thou-
sand a year. We have inklings of " riding
horses," tours abroad, watering-place excur-
sions at home, attendances at Reform meetings
and elections, and such-like varieties of life,
more pleasing than parsimonious, and scarcely
consistent with forming a provision, present or
future, for a ready-stocked and rapidly-increas-
ing nursery. Any qualms of conscience at this
prodigious idling which occasionally crossed
his mind flitted by rapidly as the summer
clouds with an "Oh dear! this is sad work,
" nothing but one day's painting—sucking in
" fresh air, basking in sunsets, rolling with
" my children on the grass, and observing
" nature." These rural felicities usually suc-
ceeded to incarcerations and discharge through
the Insolvency Court only to recur again, for
sifter a due white-washing the wind was raised,
and the whole family started for Brighton and
places at which gratis accommodations do not
abound :

Twice have I been imprisoned (as he moralises on
one of these excursions), and 1 thought it was a little at
the expense of prineipk to go to Ramsgate without settling
all my bills. Yet, as my income is current, and all de•
Tends on my talent's and the development of them in
health, it may be excused.
Next a trip is made to Broadstairs, and tho
question of the costs is thus got over :
Ought I to spend 2111., owing it as I do? If Ido not
my children suffer. They want sea air. I struggle be.
tween the feelings of the father and the citizen.

.•
So much for the creditors, as the Noah's ark
is again launched from the watering-place'w
beach. To the taxing-man he was a trifle
more deferential, so, when "he was unable to
" pay up his rates in the approaching struggle,
" and keep his love here too—at liroadstairs—
" he wrote to the Duke of Sutherland and
" stated the case : directly, like a fine follow
" as he is, he took two shares in my ' Saragossa,'
" which will enable me to do it. !lima!" He
excused the especial good care that he took of
himself on hygienic principles, and stinted
neither "wine nor negna," as being good for
" a scrofulous habit." " Alcohol is a necessary
" stimulant ;" and he seldom failed to talk
over his wine-merehant with the blarney of She
ridan himself. When dunned by a creditor
of the cask, he shows him his unfinished

" Solomon" with a sigh, " Ought such a pain-
" ter to be without a glass of sherry!" where
upon two dozen more are sent in and added to
the account. Much as he loved wine and pure air,
he had a cockney affection for London smoke,
and, with the eye of an artist, was indifferent to
its purification. He dwells on " the sublime
" canopy that shrouds the city of the world,
" drifted by the wind or hanging in gloomy
" grandeur over the masses of our Babylon.
" The sight always filled my mind with feel
" lugs of energy, such as no other spectacle
" could inspire. Be erode,' said Fuseli to
" me one day, ' it's like the smoke of the
" Israelites making bricks.' It is grander,'
" said I, for it is the smoke of a people who
" would have made the Egyptians make bricks
" for them." Well done, John Bull!' replied
" Fusel." And certainly Mr. Benjamin Hay-
don was right willing to " spoil" both Egyp
flans and Jews, and, having once found out
how much easier it was to obtain money by
asking than by working for it, trumpeted forth
his wants to the public and private ear alike.
It would be curious to add up the vast sums
as noted down in his journal to have been
given to him from time to time by the affluent,
on whose bankers and human kindness ba-
lances he drew largely and with unscrupulous
iteration. Mr. Harman aided at one time with
1,0001. ; Mr. Coutts, Sir Robert Peel, and
many others were positively lavish in assist-
ance; Mrs. Coutts, indeed, so largely and
repeatedly, that Haydon, prayerful as a men-
dicant monk, called her a " sort of providence
"in this world." The sums obtained for some
of his pictures were marvelously dispropor-
tioned to their merits : thus he realised for
his "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem" no less
than 3,0001., a picture which probably would
be knocked down now for less than a hundred.
But he painted as he spoke, and wrote in the
" Areles vein," and mistook size for great-
ness, and fancied painting, like land, was pur-
chased by the acre, one little Paul Potter or
Correggio being worth more than all the roods
and perches of canvas spread out from the
studios of himself, anal Mr. West into the bar-
gain, and for the especial reception of which
Pantheons, Pantechnicons, and Pandemonium s
seem to have been invented. Yet, strange to
say, he neither wanted patrons nor admirers.
The moral and artistic dash and courage of
the young man who boldly braved the Royal
Academy, who aspired to elevate the arts of
his country, enlisted in his favour the public,
which is ever ready to give every one a fair
trial. The door of fortune was indeed opened
to him so soon that his besetting sins were
fostered rather than checked. It is clear from
the balance-sheet of his insolvency of le3tl
that his professional gains for sixteen years
amounted to no less than 10,0411., while the
causes of hie failure are put down to "heavy
rent, want of adequate employment, law ex-
penses, and a large family "!!! Lesser luxu-
ries than these have provided the Bench and
Bedlam with many an inmate ; nor can the
frequency of entries like the following be any
matter of surprise :
-

Harassed—fagged about in heat and filth to arrange
money matters—flew about like an eagle—got things
settled ; talked to this man—promised another ; took a
cab and dashed home ; after lunch, devoured like a hun-
gry tiger, dashed at my canvas.
While the sympathy of his friends kept pace
with their generosity, even those to whom he
had, by pen, word of mouth, and action, given
the justest cause of offence, nay, even the
Royal Academicians, were ready in his hour of
need and sullen repentance to forgive, forget,
and assist his necessities, heaping as it were
coals of fire on his head : yet all proved but
as a drop in the ocean, and offered no safe-
guard against practices which it is painful to
notice. Suffice it to say, that his young pupils.
whom as a master he ought to have been the
last to injure, were among the first to be vic-
timised, and, having induced an inexperienced
youngster to back his bills, he allowed him to
be arrested and kept in prison, while he was
at large and benefiting by the sums obtained
on their security ; so when another of his
scholars, scarcely aged eighteen, gained a con-
siderable prize in money, this Mentor managed
to borrow more than half of it, nor was a far
thing ever repaid.
But, "Never mind the justice nor the impu-

THE PRESS.

deuce, let me only succeed," was his jesuit
maxim ; and, in fact, he so firmly believed in
the mirage, the Fata Morgans, of his future
eminence, that he laid the flattering unction
on his soul that he ultimately would be able
to pay every shilling of debt, and excused
himself on the plea of necessity and the good-
ness of intentions with which, time immemo•
rially, a certain place has been paved. When
too late he found out the error of his ethics,
and, smarting under the whips made by the
gods out of his headstrong pleasures, he thus
sadly contrasts himself with his old fellow-
student Wilkie :
His system was Wellington's, principle and prudence ;
the groundworks of risk; mine, that of -lapoleon,
audacity, with a defiance of principle, if principle was
in the way. I got into prison, Napoleon died at St.
Helena; Wellington is living, and honoured; and Wilkie
has had a public dinner given him at Rome, the seat of
art and genius, and has secured a competence ; while I
am as poor and necessitous as ever. Let no man use evil
as a means for the success of any scheme, however grand.
Evil, that good may come, is the prerogative of the Deity
alone, and should never be ventured on by mortals.
Our fiery and impulsive artist had a pro
found admiration of the great duke, who
found time, amid his infinite occupations of
state, to read, and, what is more, to reply to,
the multitudinous and lengthy letters which
the untiring enthusiast pestered him with, on
the subject of national art patronage. The
duke, whose vocation was to conquer and
govern, answered with his usual punctuality,
but, caring little for these things, quaintly
hoped " that he will have some cessation of
" note-writing about pictures."
Haydon, indeed, seems to have been the
pest of premiers, and boasted that for
" twenty-five years " he had let none rest; he
plagued them all alike with his art schemes,
and found their " indifference equalled
" only by their ignorance." " God help the
" Minister," said Lord Melbourne to him,
" that meddles with art." Lord Palmerston,
when " bored with Greek art " by him, took the
dose with amiable patience, and " asked him to
" dinner." Haydon, from painting " The Re-
form Banquet,"—a failure,—was thrown in con
tact with all the Whigs and patriots, and has
booked them from Brougham downwards.
His characteristics of these worthies form
not the least striking portion of these volumes.
Lord Melbourne shines like a planet amidst
the minor stars. Haydon was fascinated with
this " delightful, frank, easy, unaffected man
"of fashion," who " attacked his foe like a
" handsome lion, and grappled him with the
" grace of Paris ;" and, although our artist got
nothing but smiles and hand-rubbing chuckles
from the Poen chronic viscount, he rejoiced
when Lord Grey went out of office, albeit his
"charming insouciance was worse than the
" frigid formality" of his predecessor.
The duke, who was marked by neither one
nor the other, went earnestly and directly to the
point, and, while he set his face against all
grants of public money to carry out Mr.
Haydon's schemes, treated the artist with
kind and unaffected consideration. Few
heroes endured with greater fortitude than he
did the operation of sitting to painters and
sculptors, or more lamented the loss of
his time, every moment of which was
devoted to public service. While he sternly
refused to lend himselfas a lay figure to promote
portrait-printselling speculations, he felt flat-
tered by requests from cities and societies.
He, however, kept the artistic view of the sub-
ject quite distinct from himself, and the follow-
ing iterating letter on this point may be
cited :

" The Nike of Wellington presents his compliments to
Mr. Haydon. He will, according to what he stated to the
committee at Liverpool. sit to Mr. Haydon for his picture.
The composition of the picture is the business of the
artist, of the committee of gentlemen who asked its exe-
cution, of the gentlemen for whom it is intended; of any.
body, excepting the person who is to sit for it. The duke
begs leave to decline not only being responsible for the
oompoo4ition, but even to a knowledge of the subject.
When he will be able to receive Mr. Haydon he will write
to him ; but he begs leave to be clearly understood as
having no knowledge whatever of the composition or sub-
ject of the picture for which he is to sit, excepting that it
is for the committee of gentlemen at Liverpool, who have
desired that he should sit to Mr. Haydon."

The cautious F. M., having thus made
assurance doubly sure, invited Haydon down
to Weiner Castle in 1839, and no portion of
the third volume of this autobiography is more

SATURDAt,

interesting than the daguerreotype of the
great captain in the character of a kindly, high-
bred, simple, country gentleman :

About two, after hunting, he gave me an hour and a
half. I hit his grand, upright, manly expression— ha
looked like an eagle of the gods, who had put on human
shape, and had gut silvery with age and service. At first
I was a little affected, but I hit his features, and all went
off: riding hard made him rosy and dozy, his colour wu
fresh—all the poitraita are too pale. I found that to
imagine he could not go through any duty raised the lion :
—" Does the light hurt your grace's eyes?' " Not at all ;"
and he stared at the light, as much as to say, " see
if you shall make me give in, Signor Light." 'Twas a
noble head. I saw nothing of that peculiar expression of
mouth the sculptors give him, bordering on the simpering.
His colour wu beautiful and fleshy, his lips compressed
and energetic.

Next day was Sunday, and the duke is thus
sketched in another and touching point of
view:—

A few moments after the service had began, the duke
and Mr. Arbuthnot came up—no pomp, no servants in
livery with a pile of books. The duke came into the pre•
Bence of his Maker—without cant, without affectation—a
simple human being. He pulled out his prayer•book, and
followed the clergyman in the simplest way. I got deeply
affected: here was the greatest hero in the world, who had
conquered the greatest genius, prostrating his heart and
being before his God in his venerable age, and praying for
his mercy. However high his destiny above my own, here
we were at least equal, before our Creator. Here we were
stripped of extrinsic decorations, and I looked at this
wonderful man with an interest and feeling that touched
my imagination beyond belief. The silence and cm-
bosomed solitude of the village church, the simplicity of
its architecture, rather deepened than decreased the depth
of my sensibilities. At the name of Jesus Christ, the duke
bowed his silvery hairs like the humblest labourer, and yet
not more than others, but to the same degree ; he seemed
to wish for no distinction ; at the epistle he stood upright,
like a soldier ; and when the blessing was pronounced he
buried his head in one hand, and uttered his prayer as if
it came from his heart in humbleness.

In the strange mixture of good and evil
kneaded in the psychological composition of
Mr. Haydon, the nervous, impulsive, imagina-
tive, overlaid the moral, the firm, and the high-
principled ; and it is but charitable to conclude
that a screw was loose in the intricate and
complicated mechanism ; nor can it be doubted
that the poeo de matto, which Bacon deems essen-
tial to greatness, existed in his case somewhat
more than a little ; nor can these confessions fail
to be of use to the future student who aspires to
raise himself above the level. These volumes,
which Mr. Taylor has so ably and tenderly
edited, have another and peculiar charm to
readers who were born in the last century, and
Haydon's contemporaries. In his diary, the
images of men and things, of scenes and events,
in which they took part are reproduced, and im-
pressions, once familiar, but now fading, are re-
called and renewed ; they return with all their
truth and colour, and excite feelings of plea-
sure, as we thus live over again those happy
days of youth when existence of itself was all.
sufficient; and those only who were eye-
witnesses of incidents on which the fate

of nations turned can fully estimate the in-
terest of these descriptions which, to the
younger, rank simply as matter of fact—histo-
rical incidents.

Mona's Isle, and other Poems. By T. J. Ouseley.
London: Woodfall and Kinder.
THIS little volume is at all events free from many of
the affectations of more ambitious pretenders. It is
happy in giving the local colours of a local subject,
and in rendering agreeably those legends on some of
which Sir Walter Scott had already dwelt admiringly.
The Isle of Man, from the descriptions here con-
tained, must be a charming spot for a summer's
ramble, and we doubt whether its attractions have
been hitherto so pleasantly recorded. The author
found some unusual charms at Onchan:—
Fair Onchan like a cloudlet calmly lies,
Studding the hill above the glassy bay;
A tiny hamlet bosomed in the skies;
Its dwellings seeming on a summer's day
Like sheep when on a mountain's brow they stray,
Dotting the distant verdure,—snowy white:—
Here Mona's fairest Maid, so Miummen say,
Dwells the admired of all, a fairy sprite,
A glimpse of heaven on earth is she to mortal sight.
His further references to this fair vision will tempt
many a pilgrim who should furnish himself with Mr.
Ouseley's portrait of the original.
The Isle of Mona occupies about half the
present volume. The rest is filled with detached
pieces—all of them evidencing a health" frame of
mind, and some of them offering promise of lite-
rary power.