Haydon was introduced to Lord Mulgrave, and with his friends Wilkie
and Jackson frequently dined at the Admiralty, [Footnote: Lord
Mulgrave had recently been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.]
where they met ministers, generals, great ladies and men of genius,
and rose daily in hope and promise. Haydon now began the picture of
the 'Death of Siccius Dentatus' that his patron had suggested, but he
found the difficulties so overwhelming that, by Wilkie's advice, he
decided to go down to Plymouth for a few months, and practise
portrait-painting. At fifteen guineas a head, he got plenty of
employment among his friends and relations, though he owns that his
portraits were execrable; but as soon as he had obtained some facility
in painting heads, he was anxious to return to town to finish his
large picture. Mrs. Haydon was now in declining health, and desiring
to consult a famous surgeon in London, she decided to travel thither
with her son and daughter. Unfortunately her disease, angina pectoris,
was aggravated by the agitation of the journey, and on the road, at
Salt Hill, she was seized with an attack that proved fatal. Haydon was
obliged to return to Devonshire with his sister, but as soon as the
funeral was over he set off again for town, where his prospects seemed
to justify his exchanging his garret in the Strand for a first floor
in Great Marlborough Street.

He found the practice gained in portrait-painting a substantial
advantage, but he still felt himself incapable of composing a heroic
figure for Dentatus. 'If I copied nature my work was mean,' he
complains; 'and if I left her it was mannered. How was I to build a
heroic form like life, yet above life?' He was puzzled to find, in
painting from the living model, that the markings of the skin varied
with the action of the limbs, variations that did not appear in the
few specimens of the antique that had come under his notice. Was