Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2142 page)

“You speak of a period of uncertainty in our dear friend’s religious opinions. If such was ever the state of his mind, it must have been before I knew him; and I think he would have entrusted me with that portion of his history. Be that as it may, I can safely bear testimony to the consistency and orthodoxy of his theory; and the beauty of his practice, during our whole acquaintance.

“* * * The first picture I saw of Allston’s, was ‘The dead Man restored by touching the Bones of Elisha,’ exhibited at the British Gallery, in 1814. He received the two hundred pounds premium for his exertions. The same year, he had a small picture of ‘Diana.’ In 1815, he exhibited at the Royal Academy, ‘Donna Mencia,’ from Gil Bias, (book 1, chap. 10.) In 1816, at the Royal Academy ‘Morning in Italy.’ In 1817, nothing. In 1818. ‘Hermia and Helena,’ from Shakespeare. This year, he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. In 1819, he exhibited at the Royal Academy, his exquisite picture of ‘Jacob’s Dream.’ After this, he never sent a picture to the Academy; which all regretted, as it was the wish of the body to see him a Royal Academician; which unless he exhibited and returned to England, was not possible according to our laws.

“ * * I will mention an anecdote of him, which it is probable he may have told you. Some years after Allston had acquired a considerable reputation as a painter, a friend showed him a miniature, and begged he would give his sincere opinion upon its merits, as the young man who drew it had some thoughts of becoming a painter by profession. Allston after much pressing, and declining to give an opinion, candidly told the gentleman he feared the lad would never do anything as a painter; and advised his following some more congenial pursuit. His friend then convinced him that the work had been done by Allston himself, for this very gentleman, when Allston was very young!

“Hoping that you will favour me with another letter, at your leisure,

“Believe me, my dear Sir,

“Your obliged and faithful servant,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

“P. S. May I beg my respectful regards and condolence to Mrs. Allston, and my best compliments to your daughter? When you see Mr. Morse, remember me to him kindly.”

By the latter end of the month of September, Mr. Collins moved into his house in Devonport-street; the preparations in his painting-room being sufficiently advanced to enable him to work in it. Once established in the new locality of his labours; with more of his sketches, his designs, his relics of Art, about him, than he had ever been able to range in any former studio — with his painting-table, that had belonged to Gainsborough, with his little model of an old woman, dressed by the same great painter’s hand; with the favourite palettes of Lawrence and Wilkie, hung up before him; with all the other curiosities, experiments, and studies in Art, that he had collected, now for the first time conveniently disposed around him; his enjoyment of his new painting-room was complete. No gloomy forebodings for the future — so often the result of impaired health in others — interfered with his pleasure in proceeding with the works that he had already begun for the Exhibition of 1844. He now laboured with all the buoyant delight, and more than the ardent ambition of his younger days; declaring that the new scene of his employments would produce from his pencil new efforts in Art, which he had as yet only ventured to contemplate; and that he looked forward hopefully, to such long years of study, as would enable him to exhaust all the designs that lay ready for him in his portfolio, and to show his younger competitors, that he could still toil as industriously and venture as ambitiously as the best of them. Such were the anticipations, which, but three years after were doomed to be numbered in the world-wide record of hopes that have perished. Like Wilkie, he laboured but a brief space in the first painting-room that he had ever completely prepared for his own occupation, before the hand of death arrested his pencil for ever!

At the close of the year, the painter accompanied Mrs. Collins on a visit to the companions of his German tour, at Southsea. On leaving her there, after a short stay on his part, he returned to London by Southampton, for the purpose of consulting his friends, the two Doctors Bullar, upon the subject of his complaint, which still manifested itself in the continuance of its weakening influence on his general health. Some idea of the result on his own mind, of the opinions formed on his case by his medical friends at Southampton, may be gained from the following letter:

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Devonport-street, January, 1844.

“I stayed with the Bullars at Southampton, where I arrived about twelve on Tuesday, until the one o’clock departure of the train, on Wednesday. 1 found they were all expecting me, with a most hearty welcome; and very difficult it was to tear myself away: but having got over the great difficulty of leaving you, the victory was, without much hard fighting, obtained.

“The whole party at Southampton are most friendly, intelligent, and excellent people. The two doctors are indefatigable in my case, and most reasonable and sincere in their lengthened investigation of my symptoms; spending a great deal of their time on the evening of my arrival upon my peculiarities, and not deciding until the following morning, when I was examined before I got out of bed. You will be happy to hear that the report is, thank God, most cheering; provided I scrupulously devote myself to getting well, and keeping so. In all my friends say, I see not one atom of anything fanciful; they are so entirely reasonable, that no one with a grain of understanding could or would attempt to dispute their proposals.

“And so, as I was telling you, — or, rather, as I was about to tell you, — you may expect to find me, when please God we meet again, at least in the way, and full of the hope of, a better state of health. But prepare for
great
things in the way of self-denial of
good
things, — as the devil calls the dinners of our corporation-like people! However, I am not to be starved; good sheep-flesh and wholesome bread are to be my diet. But I am writing by daylight, and cannot therefore spare more time even for you, — so farewell.

“Yours ever,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

With the opening of the year 1844, commences the re-appearance, among my father’s papers, of those personal records of his feelings and his progress in the Art which have been suspended through so many years of his life. These short Journals, which will be found to be fragmentary at first, become more regular during the closing year of his existence, and equal in interest his early diaries of 1812 and 1814, which have already been placed before the reader. For when the last scenes in his career approached, when his success in his Art began to depend not upon the temper of his mind, but the state of his health, his attention was directed forcibly on himself; and to note down the fluctuations of his strength, as they acted upon the progress of his pictures, for his own examination, became an employment possessing as vital an interest for him, as his former occupation of recording the variations of his mind as they affected his advancement in painting, in the diaries of his youth.

The opening passage in his Journal, which may now be immediately inserted, has in it a peculiar interest, as exhibiting his own anticipation of the production of that narrative of his life which forms the subject of the present work:

JOURNAL OF 1844.

“January 1st, 1844. — As I think it quite possible that my dear son, William Wilkie Collins, may be tempted, should it please God to spare his life beyond that of his father, to furnish the world with a memoir of my life, I purpose occasionally noting down some circumstances as leading points, which may be useful.

“One principal object I have in view, in this matter, is to pay a debt of gratitude, which I as well as many, I may say most, of the artists of my day, owe to the patrons of English Art; towards whom, I regret to say, there seems often to exist a most unthankful spirit. For, to judge from what is often said, and too often printed, a stranger might be led to suppose that artists had no encouragement, and that all the faults of modern pictures arose from the niggardly, heartless, and ignorant conduct of the nobility and gentry of this country.

“The converse of this proposition, to be shown by particulars gathered from the knowledge I possess, — not merely in my own case, but in many others: 1st, The names of many patrons; the sums expended in forming collections; the kindness, friendship, and hospitality evinced to professors — (this portion to be illustrated by anecdotes.) 2nd, Particulars, dates, etc., of leading circumstances of my life, family, etc., etc.”

Of the autobiographical memoirs thus projected by Mr. Collins, nothing unhappily remains beyond the above evidence of the just and generous spirit in which their execution was contemplated: sickness and suffering occupied but too soon afterwards the leisure time that he had hoped to devote to his important task. New symptoms of his malady, shortly to be detailed, appeared as the spring of 1844 advanced, and unfitted him for any exertion besides the practice of his Art. Month after month passed away, finding him less and less able, after the effort of painting was over, to apply himself to his proposed employment, consistently with that careful preservation of his impaired energies from all extraneous demands on them, which his case had already begun most imperatively to demand; and the execution of his design was at length left to be fulfilled as best it might, from the impressions of his conversations and the gathered recollections of his career, treasured up by his family and his friends.

In the month of April, when the four new pictures he had prepared for the Academy had been sent in, and before the Exhibition had opened to the public, he gladly sought a short relaxation after his close employment, and a chance, at the same time, of improving his health by change of air and scene, by accepting an invitation to Oxford from his friend Dr. Norris, President of Corpus Christ! College. From the house of this gentleman, he thus writes:

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Corpus Christ! College, Oxford,

“April 19th, 1844.

“I seize the only moment I have had, since my arrival here, to tell you that I am much delighted to find myself able
to idle,
without the smallest regret. This is surely, as poor dear Wilkie used to say, ‘a point gained!’ I have been out with the President nearly the whole day; indeed, he is indefatigable in his attentions to me. The house is splendid; we have company to dinner every day, or engagements out. I have been much amused and interested in all I see and hear in this place. I have seen two proctors made, and yesterday went to the trial of a candidate for ‘B. D.’ in the Divinity school, before the Regius Professor. The candidate was one of Newman’s friends. His essay was masterly, devout, and, as I thought, unexceptionable. It belonged, however, to
‘the Newman school;’
and poor Mr. Macmullen was rejected. He is to present another exercise to-day, at two o’clock. The case has produced the greatest sensation; it is quite on a par with the Pusey persecution. Of course I am as quiet as I can be; and not so much excited as I am sure you think I must have been. I get out in the beautiful gardens and walks of this charming place; and except the cold I brought with me, and which is not quite gone, I am doing vastly well. My heart troubles me very little, except joyously when I think of home, and of the increasing charms it has for me. We had a dinner-party here yesterday; and to-day and to-morrow I am obliged (I wish I were not) to dine out. I have done all I can to hint to my most worthy and excellent host, how much I prefer his company, — but I must submit.

“The sun is shining, as it has been every day since my arrival, and under its blessed patronage, I must take a stroll in our lovely garden before I go with the Doctor to the Divinity Hall. The subject of the exercise, is ‘The Danger of giving Tradition with Scripture.’ This, and yesterday’s, ‘Upon the Consecration of the Elements in the Holy Sacrifice,’ are subjects given by Dr. Hampden, to entrap the party, so much disliked by the steady-going jog-trots of this learned and powerful University.

“Yours ever,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

A few days before the opening of the Exhibition to the public, Mr. Collins returned to London. The following were the pictures he contributed to the Royal Academy: “The Catechist;” “Morning — Boulogne;” “Seaford Sussex;” and “A Patriarch.”

“The Catechist,” was the Italian subject among my father’s pictures of the year. The scene is in the interior of the Church of St. Onofrio, at Rome, celebrated as the burial-place of Tasso. In a side chapel sits a benevolent old monk, intent on catechising two little girls; whose mother is listening at a short distance. One of the children — a beautiful little creature, with long curling hair — is half-turned from the spectator, and is evidently puzzled to reply to some question, which it happens to be her turn to answer. Her companion’s head, clothed with its Roman covering of folded white cloth, is so disposed that her front face appears: her eyes are turned upward on the old monk, with an arch intelligent expression, as if she longed to solve at once the difficulty that embarrasses her timid little sister. The countenances of these children are treated with delightful purity and nature, and are finely opposed by the darker figures of the monk and the mother; and by the rich sombre light, pervading the interior of the chapel. The tone of colour in this work is deep and grand, and the finish of the different objects that it depicts, distinctive and careful in a high degree. It was painted for the late Sir Thomas Baring, and has since passed into the possession of the Marquis of Westminster.