Page images
PDF
EPUB

the usual accessories of a noble chairman according to the hero of the day, those praises which, however conventional in their particular expressions, are yet meant to represent the laurels of

success.

Mr. Godley, in his address, thus described the present condition of the Colony :

The present population, therefore, may be set down at 3,300 Europeans, and they are, take them for all in all, as good materials, morally and physically, as any Colony was ever composed of. Of the site of the Colony there can be but one opinion, namely, that it was not only the best accessible to us in any part of the world, but that, by peculiar good fortune, it was the most advantageous, though the last selected, site for a settlement in New Zealand. A short description will make its extraordinary advantages clear, even to you. The capital of our settlement is the town of Christchurch; the sea-port, Lyttelton, is eight miles from it. These towns form the centre of a district comprising 150 miles of coast, of which the natural boundaries are, to the west, (what we call) the "snowy range;" to the north, the Kaikora mountains; and to the south, the Waitangi river, and which varies in width from seventy to forty miles. I call these its natural boundaries, because such is their impracticable nature, that in all probability, for an indefinite time to come, they will not be crossed by a road accessible to commerce. Of this district, thus shut in, Lyttelton is (with the exception of the inlets of Banks's Peninsula, also in our settlement, but lying quite out of the way) not only the best and most accessible, but the only harbour. The district consists of low hills and level prairies. It is not of uniform fertility, but the whole of it is admirably adapted for carrying stock. We calculate it to contain five or six millions of acres available for pasturage, which in the natural state will carry at a very low computation, two million sheep.'

He enlarges also on the literary merit of the 'Lyttelton Times,' with the ample field of subjects that grace its columns :

'I find recorded, for example, the meeting of a horticultural society, which is said to have been so successful, that they meant to have another on an extended scale in March; the performances of a choral society, with an elaborate and well-written critique on them; a long account of horse races (for we have our English sports, too); and finally, an entertainment given to myself, at which 150 people sat down, and which, I can assure you, was got up in a way that would have done no discredit to the old country. These things are trivial in themselves, but they are collectively inconsistent with the notions of depression, apathy, and failure.'

The mighty grievance so enlarged on by Mr. Adams: viz. the absence of any good road over the hills, is met by Mr. Godley with an explanation which must go far to nullify the complaint:

The first object we had in view, and that which I consider the most important, was to make the road over the hill. A large sum of money had been spent upon it before I came, and it was estimated by our chief surveyor that 7,000l. would finish it. Subsequent and more careful surveys, however, made it clear to me that to finish it to Christchurch on the scale on which it had been begun, would cost from 25,000l. to 30,000l.; to finish it on the inadequate scale of a width of eleven feet would cost (with a bridge over the Heathcote) 16,000l. This, of course, altered my view of

the matter, because there was no prospect whatever of getting the sum required; I saw, therefore, that it was my business not to go on sinking my small means in a work that I could not finish, but to spend them in cutting through the swamps from the head of the navigation to the dry land. I should have mentioned before, that the rivers Avon and Heathcote, which flow into the sea close to the heads of Lyttelton Harbour, are navigable for vessels of twenty-five tons close up to Christchurch, and I found, after the experience of some months, that the difficulty of this water communication between the port and the plains had been greatly exaggerated, so that, in the opinion of many of the most experienced colonists, the greater part of the heavy goods would go round by water even if the road were finished. Accordingly, I made a good bridle-path over the hill, and a cartroad from the other side of the hill to Christchurch, touching the head of the navigation. From Christchurch I formed roads to the west, north, and south, with the necessary bridges; so that, when I left the settlement, the country was opened in every direction, and a complete communication for heavy goods effected, partly by road and partly by water, between the port and every part of the plains.'

On educational schemes Mr. Godley confesses that the establishment of a college in a new colony was altogether Utopian, as both the money and time are wanted, which a course of collegiate study necessarily implies. Ecclesiastical matters he depicts much as we have already laid before our readers from other sources. He concludes his address in the following

words:

The Canterbury Association has done its work and passed away. Its memory may be unhonoured, its members reviled; they care not; they have done their work-a great and heroic work; they have raised to themselves a noble monument-they have laid the foundations of a great and happy people.'

From the other speaker on this occasion we must content ourselves with extracting but a few lines, those being from one practically acquainted with the colony. They are much to the point, and contain the substance of what we have wished ourselves to state on the general subject of the Canterbury Settlement.

'Mr. Cholmondeley, in acknowledging the toast, said they perhaps might have failed in bringing out the kind of colony which had been contemplated, but they had got together a great and noble body of men from every part of England, who had been furnished with all means and applianceswith churches, schools, a post-office, magistrates, and other officials; and although the company had not done all it wished to do, yet it was entitled to claim credit for what it had been able to accomplish. On his return from the colony, he was surprised to hear that such extraordinary misapprehension existed, and he could not conceive how such slanders had arisen. As a person holding a considerable interest in Canterbury—as a farmer as a magistrate-knowing almost every person in the colony, he must say that, if ever a colony had been established, the colony of Canterbury had been established.'

323

ART. III.-Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter. Edited and compiled by TOM TAYLOR, ESQ. London: Longman & Co. 1853.

THE majority of our readers have perhaps no very distinct idea of the artistic reputation of the subject of the work before us. They have heard of Haydon as the painter of some large historical pictures which they have never seen, and which they have probably never heard mentioned with respect. His name, when it has occurred in conversation or written critiques, has been passed over with a few summary, and perhaps, contemptuous comments. Whatever ideas they have concerning him are dimly connected with failure; with things attempted but not achieved. But even this amount of fame some will think an exaggeration. Haydon's name has perhaps fallen with as little impression on their ears as his great picture on the eyes of the thousands who ascend the stairs of the Pantheon, without bestowing on his master-piece one conscious glance. The one definite idea men have of him is not associated with his art, but with the dreadful act by which his exasperated spirit broke away from a world which would not recognise his claims.

It is after considering this general apathy and indifference that the present very remarkable work strikes us most forcibly, and furnishes its most pathetic lesson. Its very length and minuteness of detail come upon us with surprise, that there should be so much to tell of a man's struggles with a world for whom that world cared so little; and yet we are assured that these three closely printed volumes bear a small proportion to the materials from which they are abridged, which we can very well believe in realizing the wonderful fact, that Haydon left twenty-seven folio volumes of journal behind him.

There is no more expressive trait of character than journalkeeping. Many men begin to write journals with detail enough, till time or patience fails them, or more likely than either, disgust of the subject steps in and puts a stop to the work. What an image then is raised of energy, perseverance, and gigantic self-love, in the thought of a man recording his opinions, doings, trials, sufferings, large successes, trivial triumphs, overwhelming mortifications, petty disappointments, every event, small and great, that happens to himself and to others in their relation to himself, day by day, with unabated interest and unwearying particularity for more than forty years. We need not inquire whether permission was formally given for the

publication of these records, though this is not wanting. Twentysix volumes were never written for the writer's own benefit alone nothing short of a world of readers could offer stimulus enough for such prolonged exertion. They are poor Haydon's appeal to posterity; self-esteem elevated to the dignity of a passion, asserts itself in them, and like all true passion, leaves a deep impression. Nothing more curious, more melancholy, more pitiable can be conceived than this picture of a mind for ever regarding itself from a false position; nothing by contrast illustrates more forcibly the peace and blessedness of the apostolic rule- not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.'

As

It is not as a painter, but as a man, that the present work engages our curiosity and our interest (such as it is) for Haydon: though an insane desire for fame led him willingly to sacrifice every consideration of personal dignity for eminence in his chosen art, and it is solely as the great painter of the age that he claims the attention and sympathy of his readers. a painter he failed: the purpose of his life came to nought. We are sometimes inclined to wonder why this should be, for there are evidences of remarkable ability, great energy and perseverance, an extraordinary sensitiveness to impressions, an organization which we are accustomed to associate with genius, all stimulating an iron will, which we might expect to overcome every impediment. It has been common to extol the will into a power independent of natural propensity, and to assert that a man can be anything he chooses to be; Haydon is an illustration (at least for all practical purposes) to the contrary of this proposition. It is very clear that his young fixed determination was far in advance of his powers. We hear little of any early sense of beauty or correctness of eye; but we do hear of his obstinate resolution to paint, or rather, to be a great painter, for the thought of self, always in him, goes before love of his art. He is proud of this obstinacy, and records it as a fine trait and full of promise, that when for some weeks blind, and while serious fears were entertained of permanent dimness of sight, this circumstance never for a moment weakened his intention.

'I recovered my sight, but never perfectly, had another attack, slowly recovered from that, but found that my natural sight was gone, and this too, with my earnest and deep passion for art. "What folly! How can you think of being a painter? Why, you can't see," was said. "I can see enough," was my reply; "and, see or not see, a painter I'll be, and if I am a great one without seeing, I shall be the first." Upon the whole, my family was not displeased that I could only see sufficiently for business. I could still keep accounts, and post the cash books. It would have been quite natural for an ordinary mind to think blindness a sufficient obstacle

to the practice of an art, the essence of which seems to consist in perfect sight, but "when the divinity doth stir within us," the most ordinary mind is ordinary no longer.

'It is curious to me now, forty years after, to reflect that my dim sight never occurred to me as an obstacle: not a bit of it; I found that I could not shoot as I used to do, but it never struck me that I should not be able to paint.'—Vol, i. pp. 13, 14.

Haydon's will was wilfulness, and this story is only a type of his defiant attitude of mind throughout his life. The will should aim at controlling self. He had quite another idea of its purpose, and expected to overcome fate and impossibilities. He trusted and revered every impulse, and disdained all advice, all teaching-even Nature herself he approached with an imperious air, betraying, we think, from first to last, a want of comprehension of her deeper beauty, and those more exquisite graces which must be watched and waited for. He worshipped that art, which, as it were, forced the secret of action from her, but the higher divinity of repose seemed to possess no hold over his soul. Michael Angelo and the Elgin Marbles delighted him, as exhibiting anatomical excellence and power; but the hidden retiring beauties of expression, all that needed patience, humility, and a reverential aspect of mind, he could neither understand nor estimate. Thus, while he adored the antique, the human face, as nature shows it to us, in its every day aspect, was no interesting subject to him. In his pride against painting portraits, as below the dignity of high art, he betrayed a dulness of perception which we cannot but think proves his incapacity for its more elevated branches; while it seems a just consequence of the arrogance which led a youth of one or twoand-twenty to talk of taking liberties with nature, and bending her to his purposes,' (a boast which his maturer age admires and approves,) that nature should for ever withhold from him the skill to pursue her more secret workings, or to detect the beauty that lies in many rude physiognomies, which her dutiful disciples can delineate in spite of homely features and time's rough usage, and take pleasure in delineating, to whatever heights of fame their genius and imagination may have raised them. But a record of Haydon's life is after all the best comment upon his views, mistakes, and failure in art. It is impossible not to believe in the fairness of the world's judgment of works to ourselves little known, when we pursue the course of pride and presumption of their author, and are made witnesses of the passions, agitations, and vicissitudes with which his whole course was embroiled, through their disturbing influence.

The editor explains in a terse preface what his task has been ; not to give his own view of Haydon's character, but to place it before the reader as he has himself drawn it-a task of no

« PreviousContinue »