effect of Payne Knight's opinion that the Marbles went down in the
public estimation, the Government hesitated to buy them for the
nation, and they were left neglected in a damp shed. Haydon was
furious at this insult to the objects of his idolatry, whose merits he
had been preaching in season and out of season since the day that he
first set eyes upon the Theseus and the Ilissus. At this critical
moment he found himself supported by a new and powerful champion in
the person of Canova, who had just arrived in England. Canova at once
admitted that the style of the Marbles was superior to that of all
other known marbles, and declared that they were well worth coming
from Rome to see. 'Canova's visit was a victory for me,' writes
Haydon, who had received the sculptor at his studio, and introduced
him to some of the artistic lions of London. 'What became now of all
the sneers at my senseless insanity about the Marbles? I, unknown,
with no station or rank, might have talked myself dumb; but for
Canova, the great artist of Europe, to repeat word for word what I had
been saying for seven years! His opinion could not be gainsaid.'

If our troubles are apt to come not in single file, but in 'whole
battalions,' our triumphs also occasionally arrive in squadrons, or
such at least was Haydon's experience. Hard upon Canova's departure
came a letter from Wordsworth, enclosing three sonnets, the last of
which had, he avowed, been inspired by a letter of Haydon's on the
struggles and hardships of the artist's life. This is now the familiar
sonnet beginning, 'High is our calling, Friend,' and concluding:

'Great is the glory, for the strife is hard.'

'Now, reader,' writes the delighted recipient, 'was not this glorious?
And you, young student, when you are pressed down by want in the midst