Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2124 page)

It happened that “The Peep-o’-Day-Boy’s Cabin” — that powerful delineation, by Wilkie, of the home condition of the murderous Irish peasant — was exhibited in the same year as his friend’s representation of the peaceful “Sunday Morning” of the English cottager. The striking pictorial contrast between the subjects of these two works, suggested immediately that social contrast between the poor of the two nations, in which the pictures of Collins and Wilkie had respectively originated; and was thus justly noticed by one of the newspapers of the day, in language which is unfortunately as applicable to the political part of the subject at the present moment as it was at that time.

After noticing the subject of Wilkie’s picture, (the “Peep-o’-Day Boy” sleeping in his rags, while his famished wife listens at the door of his hut to another woman’s tidings of his fellow-ruffians, from the hills,) — in terms of high and well-merited commendation, the critic proceeds: — ”Let the lovers of agitation ‘look on this picture and on this,’ — Mr. Collins’s ‘Sunday Morning,’ just by; an equally true delineation of an English cottage, of the same class of agricultural day-labourers as the inhabitants of the Irish cabin. * * * Such as Mr. Wilkie has depicted is the Irish cabin: such as Mr. Collins, with as true a pencil, has depicted, is the English cottage. Such, also, are the inhabitants of the one; and such, also, are the inhabitants of the other. Agitation, treason, murder, crowd the one; quiet, peace, content, — yea, even in poverty, — encompass the other. A quotation from one of O’Connell’s speeches would be a worthy motto for the one; and for the other Mr. Collins has aptly chosen, from the poems of George Herbert, the following sweet and appropriate lines:

‘Oh day, most calm, most bright!
The fruit of this, the next world’s bud;
The endorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time; care’s balm and bay;
The week were dark but for thy light,
Thy torch doth show the way.’“

The purchaser of “Sunday Morning” was the late Mr. George Knott; to whom it was sold for two hundred guineas. At the sale of his collection, after his death, it was bought by Mr. George Bacon, of Nottingham, for two hundred and eighty guineas, — a price amply proving the high estimation in which it was held by the world of Art. Those who have not seen the picture, cannot hope to become acquainted with any of its higher merits by the engraving executed from it in mezzotint, which is by no means a satisfactory transcript of the original work.

But little description is wanted to recall to most of my readers the picture of “Happy as a King.” The extraordinary
reality
of the composition is enough of itself to fix it on the recollection. You seem to hear the shouts of the boys and the girl, swinging on the rails of the old gate; the barking of the dog, galloping after the lad who is pushing it; the screaming of the child, who has been heedlessly knocked down by the rest, at the moment of the start. You catch the infection of the ecstatic delight of the ragged little monarch of the party, perched, happy as a king, on the topmost rail of the gate, and kicking his shoe off in the intensity of his triumph. These noises, which you almost hear, and this action which you almost partake, are no mean agents in impressing the picture with unusual vigour on the memory; strongly supported, too, as are the merits of its subject, by the attractive accessories of the composition, by its beautiful lane background, its sweet play of light, and its rich harmony of tone and colour. The merit of discovering its thoroughly appropriate title, belongs to Wilkie, who, finding his friend in some perplexity on the subject, and hearing from him the anecdote of the country boy, (who wished to be a king, that he might “swing upon a gate, and eat fat bacon all day long,”) by which the picture was first suggested, immediately declared that he should call it, “Happy as a King.” Both the work and the title won their way to popularity at once. Critics jovially apostrophised the picture, rather than sedately judged it; and poets complimented it in copies of verses which I find still preserved among the artist’s papers. The picture was originally sold to Messrs. Finden; but is now in the possession of Mr. Clough, of Liverpool. A repetition of it, by the painter, (exhibited at the British Institution after his death,) is in the collection of Mr. Vernon; and will, therefore, like “The Mariner’s Widow,” of the Exhibition of 1835 — be placed where it can be viewed by all classes, as a public possession in the National Gallery. The line engraving from it, vigorously and faithfully executed, was published by Messrs. Finden.

Such were the works with which Mr. Collins took his leave, for a time, of the English public, by whom his genius had been justly appreciated and kindly welcomed, and to vary whose sources of pleasure from his pencil, he was now about to enter on a new course of study among the wonders of Nature and Art in another land.

From the opening of the Exhibition to the day of his departure, whatever time the painter could spare from his labours over some commissioned pictures, which it was necessary that he should complete before he left England, was amply occupied in the preparations necessary to his journey. The usual business arrangements requiring settlement in the case of every one about to quit home for any length of time, were, in his situation, rendered doubly complicated by the existence of his large and valuable collection of sketches and partly-designed pictures, for which it was requisite to find a safe asylum during his absence. While he was still in some perplexity on this subject, he was most fortunate in meeting with a gentleman, willing to take his house furnished, for a year, or more than a year; who, as a warm admirer of Art in general, and of his own pictures in particular, was glad to become the guardian of his works, for the sake of enjoying them, as ornaments to the abode he was soon to inhabit. This difficulty thus satisfactorily settled, all the minor preliminaries of the journey soon moved merrily onward. Sketch-books and camp-stools, colour-boxes and canvasses were rapidly “cleared for action.” Letters of introduction, manuscript hints for travellers, and first-rate routes, projected in every conceivable direction by obliging friends, flowed smoothly and continuously in. Wilkie, who was in as high spirits as if he were setting out on the journey himself, after deploring with humorous resignation the interruptions that would happen to his friend’s studies, through his arrangement to make his family the companions of his tour, poured forth all his sources of continental information; now instructing the painter on the pictures he must particularly observe, now amusingly describing the peculiarities of the different classes of artists whom he would meet on his travels. And, finally, Madame Stark’s “Handbook” then the same “guide, philosopher, and friend” of tourists in Italy that Murray’s is now — was consulted and re-consulted as the future Delphic oracle of the party, from the morning of the departure to the evening of the return.

Meanwhile, Mr. Collins was not idle in his professional vocation. The pictures he had been commissioned to paint were, by the beginning of September, completed and sent home. They were, — a small view of “Bayham Abbey,” for Mr. Sheepshanks; a repetition of “Happy as a King,” for Mr. E. Finden, to be engraved; and portraits of the three daughters of Mr. George Philips, M.P., charmingly painted as a scene from “Little Red Ridinghood.” None of these pictures were exhibited.

The last letter by the painter, before his departure, was written to take leave of Sir David Wilkie, who was then travelling in Devonshire. It is as follows:

“To SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A.

“Bayswater, Sept 8th, 1836.

“Dear Wilkie, — We were much pleased to find by your kind letter, that you have been enjoying yourself in the midst of perhaps the finest scenery in England. Clovelly is certainly unique. I hope you remained there long enough to see it, both from the heights above, and from the beach below. With respect to our own movements, we find that the plan we first formed has not been superseded by any of the numerous suggestions which have come before us; and we intend, God willing, to leave this place on Wednesday next, and proceed to Paris, and, after staying a week there, make the best of our way to the Mediterranean coast, where I expect to find much to interest me; and then, with the information we may obtain there, to form plans for further proceedings.

“Since I saw you, I have completed both the pictures you mention; and the portraits were yesterday sent to Weston.* My time has been, and is now, fully occupied in making arrangements about future communications with London, putting away the multitude of sketches, hanging up pictures with a view to their preservation, etc., etc. Harriet, too, has her hands full; but we hope soon to be at large. The meeting you could not attend at the Academy was a short and a small one, but most important, — as evinced by the President’s relation of the kind interest the King takes in our affairs, as well as by his Majesty’s signature, with the word ‘approved,’ to the address sent him. This now becomes a document which the Academy may find, at some future time, most useful.

* The portraits of the daughters of Mr. Philips, before referred to.

“And now, my dear Sir David, having come nearly to the end of my paper, and fearing that I shall not have an opportunity of personally taking my leave of you, it remains that I should say adieu. It may be long before we meet again. God bless and prosper you! Many, many thanks for all your kind words and kind acts to me and mine — they will not easily be erased from our hearts.

“Ever yours, faithfully,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

Some delay occurred to protract the time of departure, as mentioned by the painter in the above letter; and it was not till the 19th of September that he and his family set forth at last for Paris, on their way to Italy.

Here the second epoch in Mr. Collins’s life terminates. Before we enter on the third, it may not be uninstructive or uninteresting to revert for a moment to the first. It will be remembered that we left him at that period of his career in a position of no ordinary trouble and no easy responsibility. He had then struggled through the difficulties entailed on his family by his father’s premature death, to no ultimate purpose; and had laboured meritoriously in his profession with no proportionate reward; for it was in poverty and ill-fortune that he journeyed to Hastings, with borrowed money, to depend on his own genius for the future happiness or misery of his after life. At that first period of his career, we left him struggling upwards in his Art, through adversity and doubt, bravely labouring to widen his reputation and to sustain his sinking household; warmly befriended by one or two patrons of Art, and but little considered as yet by the rest. At this second epoch in his life, we leave him in the possession of competence, and in the enjoyment of success: quoted, wherever painting is studied, and known wherever it is beloved in his country; favoured by the patronage of the illustrious and the wealthy, and honoured by the friendship of the greatest and best men of his day — a striking contrast, in the prosperity of his mature age, to the adversity of his youth; and knowing that contrast to be the work of his own genius and industry, made fruitful by the judgment and liberality of the public, to whom his efforts had been addressed. Traced thus far, his progress does not stop here; successful in his career, we do not find him yet satisfied that he has followed it to its limits, or idly convinced that he has yet served his Art with all the devotion which it deserves. Ever looking onwards and upwards, — as genius which is born of Heaven should look, — we see him now as anxious to attain to greater things as in his earliest student days; setting forth to study for new attainments in another land with the same spirit that had animated him when, as a boy, he tried to draw the sea by his father’s side; when, as a man, he departed to follow his Art on his native shores. Scenes of a life such as this cannot be misapprehended: they have their lesson and their testimony in themselves: their lesson is of perseverance and hope to native genius; their testimony is to the justice and generosity of native taste.

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

1836-1837.

Extract from Diary — Events of journey from Paris to Nice — Letter to Wilkie, and answer — Studies at Nice, etc., etc. — Reports of cholera in Italy — Journey to Genoa — Works of Art, etc., in that city — Visit to Pisa — Arrival at Florence, and impressions produced by its picture and sculpture galleries — Departure for Rome — Letters to and from Wilkie — Models, studies, opinions, and employments at Rome — Two instances of remarkable designs for future pictures Second letter to, and answer from, Wilkie — Projects of departure — New rumours of cholera — Arrival at Naples — rich field for pictorial study, presented by the people and scenery of that place — Preparations for an extended sojourn there — Outbreak of cholera — Removal of the painter and his family to Sorrento — Its varied attractions — Remarkable landscape sketches there — Other studies — Excursion to Amalfi — Sudden illness — Sufferings from rheumatic fever — Departure in October, to try the efficacy of the sulphur baths of Ischia.

THE commencement of his journey to Italy, is thus described in Mr. Collins’s note-book: