of a great work, remember what followed Haydon's perseverance. The
freedom of his native town, the visit of Canova, and the sonnet of
Wordsworth, and if that do not cheer you up, and make you go on, you
are past all hope.... It had, indeed, been a wonderful year for me.
The Academicians were silenced. All classes were so enthusiastic and
so delighted that, though I had lost seven months with weak eyes, and
had only accomplished The Penitent Girl, The Mother, The Centurion and
the Samaritan Woman, yet they were considered so decidedly in advance
of all I had yet done, that my painting-room was crowd by rank,
beauty, and fashion, and the picture was literally taken up as an
honour to the nation.'

But, alas! neither the sonnets of poets nor the homage of the great
would pay for models and colours, or put bread into the artist's
mouth. Haydon could only live by renewed borrowing, for which method
of support he endeavours, without much success, to excuse himself.
Once in the clutches of professional money-lenders, he confesses that
'the fine edge of honour was dulled. Though my honourable discharge of
what I borrowed justified my borrowing again, yet it is a fallacious
relief, because you must stop sooner or later; if you are punctual,
and if you can pay in the long-run, why incur the debt at all? Too
proud to do small, modest things, that I might obtain fair means of
subsistence as I proceeded with my great work, I thought it no
degradation to borrow, to risk the insult of refusal, and be bated
down like the meanest dealer. Then I was liberal in my art; I spared
no expense for casts and prints, and did great things for the art by
means of them.... Ought I, after such efforts as I had made, to have
been left in this position by the Directors of the British Gallery or
the Government?'