than Haydon attacked Sir Charles Long with a plan for the decoration
of the great room of the Admiralty, to be followed by the decoration
of the House of Lords and St. Paul's Cathedral. This was but the
beginning of a long series of impassioned pleadings with public men in
favour of national employment for historical painters. Silence, snubs,
formal acknowledgments, curt refusals, all were lost upon Haydon, who
kept pouring in page after page of agonised petition on Sir Charles
Long, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, and Sir
Robert Peel, and seemed to be making no way with any of them.

Haydon thought himself ill-used, throughout his life, by statesmen and
patrons, and many of his friends were of the same opinion. But both he
and they ignored the fact that it is impossible to create an
artificial market for works of art for which there is no spontaneous
popular demand. A despotic prince may, if he chooses, give his court
painter _carte blanche_ for the decorations of national buildings,
and gain nothing but glory for his liberality, even when it
is exercised at the expense of his people. But in a country that
possesses a constitutional government, more especially when that
country has been impoverished by long and costly wars, the minister
who devotes large sums to the encouragement of national art has the
indignation of an over-taxed populace to reckon with. It is little
short of an insult to offer men historic frescoes when they are
clamouring for bread. Haydon was unfortunate in his period, which was
not favourable for a crusade on behalf of high art. The recent
pacification of the Continent, and the opening up of its treasures,
tempted English noblemen and plutocrats to invest their money in old
masters to the neglect of native artists, who were only thought worthy
to paint portraits of their patrons' wives and children. We who have
inherited the Peel, the Angerstein, and the Hertford collections, can