thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least. To his bull's
head, black hair and body, the painter had done justice; there was one
point, however, in which the portrait did not correspond with the
original--the legs were disproportionately short, the painter having
substituted his own legs for those of the mayor, which, when I
perceived, I rejoiced that I had not consented to be painted as
Pharaoh, for if I had, the chances are that he would have served me in
exactly the same way as he had served Moses and the mayor.'

The painting of provincial mayors was so little to Haydon's taste that
by the close of this year we find him in deep depression of spirits,
unrelieved by even a spark of his old sanguine buoyancy. 'I candidly
confess,' he writes, 'I find my glorious art a bore. I cannot with
pleasure paint any individual head for the mere purpose of domestic
gratification. I must have a great subject to excite public
feeling.... Alas! I have no object in life now but my wife and
children, and almost wish I had not them, that I might sit still and
meditate on human grandeur and human ambition till I died.... I am not
yet forty, and can tell of a destiny melancholy and rapturous, bitter
beyond all bitterness, cursed, heart-breaking, maddening. But I dare
not write now. The melancholy demon has grappled my heart, and crushed
its turbulent beatings in his black, bony, clammy, clenching fingers.'

It was just when things seemed at their darkest, when the waters
threatened to overwhelm the unfortunate artist, that a rope was thrown
to him. His legal adviser, Mr. Kearsley, a practical and prosperous
man, came forward with an offer of help. He agreed to provide L300 for
one year on certain conditions, in order that Haydon might be freed
from pressure for that period, and be in a position to ask a fair
price for his work. When not engaged on portraits, he was to paint