unfortunate Haydon; and he received a commission to paint a fresco of
"St. George overcomes the Dragon," which was not completed till 1853.
In this year he contributed as an appendix to the Diary of Haydon--in
itself an exciting document, showing how wretched the life of an
official painter then might be--a note telling of the state of
historical and monumental painting in the 'forties, and of his own
attitude towards it; a few of his own words, written before the days of
the "poster," may be usefully quoted here:

ON THE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OF ARTISTS

Patriots and statesmen alike forget that the time will come
when the want of great art in England will produce a gap sadly
defacing the beauty of the whole national structure....

Working, for example, as an historian to record England's
battles, Haydon would, no doubt, have produced a series of
mighty and instructive pictures....

Why should not the Government of a mighty country undertake
the decoration of all the public buildings, such as Town
Halls, National Schools, and even Railway Stations....

... Or considering the walls as slates whereon the school-boy
writes his figures, the great productions of other times might
be reproduced, if but to be rubbed out when fine originals
could be procured; for the expense would very little exceed
that of whitewashing....

If, for example, on some convenient wall the whole line of