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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 VOL. I 
 THE ANNALS OF AN ARTIST'S LIFE
 
 ( /rcrr/r ( ( latLs 
 .'/!,,,,/,;/ 6y kiss-on . g.SF^frJcLbbs ,ln l8 ',)
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC 
 
 WATTS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 THE ANNALS OF AN ARTIST'S LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 M. S. WATTS 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 I91 2
 
 COPYRIGHT
 
 A/, 
 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACE PAGE 
 
 George Watts. Painted by his Son, G. F. Watts, in 1835 Frontispiece 
 
 G. F. Watts, aged 17 (1835) 26 
 
 G. F. Watts. From a Photograph of a Drawing, now lost 
 
 (1848) 106 
 
 The Countess Somers (1849) . . . . . .122 
 
 G. F. Watts, by himself. A Portrait bequeathed by Sir 
 William Bowman, Bart., to the National Gallery of 
 British Art (1862-64) 218 
 
 Old Little Holland House. North-east aspect . . .159 
 
 Old Little Holland House. South-west aspect . . . 280 

 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 6 1, line 4 from bottom, for villa read Villa. 
 
 „ 106, lines 14 and 15, for Cozens read Couzens. 
 
 „ 130, line 8, for Chambers $ Magazine read Chambers 's Journal. 
 
 „ 198, line 10, for Belgium read Belgian. 
 
 „ 204, line i<), for hooked read hooked. 
 
 „ 241, line 24, for Gold-Hawk read Goldhawk. 
 
 „ 241 (footnote), for Mrs. Reginald Cholmondeley read Lady Alice 
 
 Cholmondeley. 
 
 „ 244, line 5 from bottom, for Maddox read Madox. 
 
 „ 254, line 16, for Edward read Edwin. 
 
 „ 313, lines 3 and 7, for Evelene read Eveleen. 
 
 „ 319, line 16 from bottom, for Maddox read Madox. 
 
 „ 66, line 5, delete 2nd.
 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 VOL. I I B
 
 All that is most real and best in our lives is 
 that which has no material reality — sentiment, 
 love, honour, patriotism — these continue when 
 the material things pass away. 
 
 G. F. WATTS.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Any record of the early life of George Frederic 
 Watts now made, must certainly fail to give any- 
 thing but a meagre account of his childhood, of 
 his parents, or of the stock from which they 
 came. No letters were preserved, and, as his life 
 was a long one, those who knew him as a boy 
 have long passed away ; and now only do I seem 
 to be conscious that the years when I had the 
 privilege of being in close companionship with 
 him were those of flower and fruit, and that, in 
 my infinite contentment, these as it were habitu- 
 ally hid from my view any sight of the root and 
 the stem. 
 
 His own opinion was that in these days too 
 much is written of every one who comes at all 
 before the public, and he envied, as I have heard 
 Lord Tennyson say that he also envied, the 
 oblivion that now hides every fact of the life of 
 the man whose name stands first in literature. 
 
 He had a curious dislike to the sound of his 
 surname, and habitually took trouble to avoid 
 using it, a weakness best explained by his own 
 simile : " One man may walk into a beautiful 
 
 3
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 house with the dust of the highway on his boots, 
 quite unconscious of this ; while to another it 
 would be so disagreeable as to amount to its being 
 a real pain." He had fancies about the inherit- 
 ance of a name, and used to say when he heard 
 of one that pleased his ear, " Ah, if I had had a 
 name such as that, I should have done my work 
 better." 
 
 When Miss Thackeray, in her partly historical 
 novel Old Kensington, skilfully touched in with 
 words a miniature but most true and delicate 
 portrait of him, she introduced him to her heroine 
 as Mr. Royal : a name descriptive, in so far 
 that the qualities of large generosity in all matters 
 were essentially characteristic of him. 
 
 In answer to the question of a friend towards 
 the middle of his life, he says: " You ask me in 
 your letter if my name is British; I really know 
 nothing about it. Being a lover of the beautiful, 
 its want of music is distasteful to me ; and for 
 this reason, when I was younger, I often had 
 serious thoughts of changing it, and should have 
 done so if taking what did not belong to me had 
 not seemed to be a very unsatisfactory alternative. 
 I confess I should like to have a fine name and a 
 great ancestry ; it would have been delightful to 
 me to feel as though a long line of worthies were 
 looking down upon me and urging me to sustain 
 their dignity. This I feel very strongly, all the 
 time feeling still more strongly that to do good 
 work in the world is a better thing than an 
 accidental place in society. I like to see the
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 good in all, and rather pride myself on being a 
 real Liberal ; that is to say, being liberal enough 
 to see and understand that there are and must be 
 many conditions and many opinions." 
 
 He knew very little about his grandfathers or 
 grandmothers in the flesh ; the subject of his 
 ancestry did not interest him, nor could he believe 
 that it would interest any one else. He never 
 visited Hereford, where his grandfather lived and 
 married Elizabeth Bradford in 1774, and died 
 there early in the last century. He believed that 
 he had Celtic blood in his veins, but knew of no 
 proof of this. However, in the family of Eliza- 
 beth Bradford the Welsh names Edwards and 
 Pugh occur, and he knew of the name Floris, as 
 being common in the family as a Christian name ; 
 but how it came there, or what nationality it re- 
 presented, he did not know. 
 
 " I belong to a family that has gone down in 
 the world," he said, referring to ties of blood 
 relationship ; and the fact was painful to a nature 
 so finely touched in all respects. In all humility 
 he would turn with pleasure to the thought of a 
 closer kinship he knew he might claim in aspira- 
 tion and desire with great spirits of the past, and 
 say, " I am a very poor relation, but of the family." 
 His father was a man of fine perceptions, with 
 some ambition ; one who was capable of guiding 
 his son's self-education. On the mother's side, 
 though she herself was of delicate constitution, 
 he was fortunate in deriving something of the 
 hardier fibre of the English yeoman. To that 
 
 5
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 class her father and brother belonged, so probably 
 from her were inherited qualities which tempered 
 the nervous and aesthetic strain in her child. 
 
 This was all he knew of the family from 
 which he came. There is a proverb in Gaelic 
 of which a translation runs thus : " Behind the 
 wave is the ocean," and big events lay behind the 
 years into which George Frederic Watts and his 
 generation of brother-artists were born. When 
 reviewing progress in the eighteenth century, 
 Mr. Lecky wrote: "Few questions in history 
 are more perplexing and perhaps more insoluble 
 than the causes which govern the great mani- 
 festations of aesthetic genius." Without at- 
 tempting to discuss such a problem, it can be 
 affirmed without fear of contradiction that 
 English art, already great in portraiture and in 
 landscape, received a new impulse from the men 
 whose births occurred now and in the following 
 years. They appeared as a group, and seemed to 
 be sons of their age more than of any particular 
 family, the results, as it were, of some common 
 aspiration. Perhaps the victory of Waterloo had 
 relieved a tension caused by a long series of wars, 
 and men to carry forward the arts of peace were 
 needed. The story of one of these does, I venture 
 to think, show that in his regard for the honour 
 of his country he was not unworthy of the heroes 
 who won Waterloo. 
 
 Towards the end of life he wrote: " My great 
 and ever constant desire is to identify artistic out- 
 come with all that is good and great in every 
 
 6
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 creed and utterance, and all that is inspiring in 
 every record of heroism, of suffering, of effort, 
 and of achievement." This desire had inspired 
 him from the very beginning of his working life. 
 
 Some time towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century George Watts, the father, left his father's 
 workshop in Hereford, where, as I was told by a 
 granddaughter, they made musical instruments, 
 though his son writes of him as a cabinet-maker. 
 He came to London, and in 1 8 1 8 describes him- 
 self as a pianoforte manufacturer. But the am- 
 bition of invention filled his thoughts, and its 
 dazzle was always before his eyes, leading him 
 into desultory experiments and neglect of more 
 practical work ; and it is probable that failure of 
 business and other troubles had already beset his 
 steps when, in 1 8 1 6, he married, as his second 
 wife, Harriet, daughter of Frederic Smith, her- 
 self a widow. To them, living in a house in 
 Queen Street, Bryanston Square, the father being 
 already in his forty-fourth year and the mother 
 in her thirty-first, their eldest son was born, as 
 the entry in the Prayer Book carefully records, 
 at one o'clock on Sunday morning, the 23rd of 
 February 18 17. They christened him George 
 after his father and grandfather, and Frederic after 
 a brother of his mother to whom she was much 
 attached. There was a private baptism, and the 
 godfather who was present was given the little 
 basin that served as font, and this with its ewer 
 was carefully preserved by him. 
 
 The children of George Watts's first marriage 
 
 7
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 were three — a boy at this time aged sixteen, and 
 two girls of fifteen and thirteen years old ; and 
 though the second marriage brought some 
 addition to the slender purse, it was probably 
 quite put out of account by Mrs. Watts's invalid 
 condition, which greatly added to the cares and 
 anxieties of the home. 
 
 Of this marriage four sons were born in quick 
 succession, but the youngest survived his birth 
 only for a few weeks, and the two others did not 
 live much beyond infancy ; for in the winter of 
 1823 tne li^le boys all fell ill from an unusually 
 severe outbreak of measles. The parents' con- 
 cern at first was chiefly for their eldest, George 
 Frederic, but that thread of life, fragile as it was, 
 proved to be stronger than they knew ; and he 
 lived, while both his little brothers died and 
 within the space of a few days were buried in 
 one grave. With so much strain upon the 
 delicate constitution of his mother, it is easy to 
 understand why her image remained to the last 
 in her son's memory as one entirely connected 
 with sadness. He remembered her chiefly when 
 passing with the sad slow steps that mark the 
 progress of consumption to her grave by her 
 little sons, where in 1826 she was laid; a 
 lovable, patient, and good woman, of whom 
 her stepdaughters always spoke in admiration. 
 There is no picture of her, but a photograph 
 taken in old age of her sister shows that, though 
 George must have greatly resembled his father, 
 the slight frame and delicate poise of the small 
 
 8
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 head — and I believe his brown eyes — are all 
 characteristic of the family of his mother. 
 
 The father was now for the second time a 
 widower, and his two grown-up daughters 
 continued to take charge of the home, as they 
 had already done for some years. These four 
 completed the home circle. 
 
 The son's portrait of his father, painted about 
 the year 1836 and reproduced as a frontispiece to 
 this book, discloses the characteristics of a man 
 delicately minded, full of aspiration if not strong 
 of purpose. This, as his son described him, he was. 
 The pathos of the eyes seems to show that he 
 knew that the aim of his own life had not been 
 attained ; in the mouth there is something of 
 petulant protest against circumstances that had 
 proved too hard for his overcoming ; and yet, 
 underlying all, there is in the expression of the 
 eyes a hope — perhaps a confident hope for 
 another ; as if he saw the light that was rising 
 for him in the day of his grey hairs. 
 
 In an old desk once his, which since my 
 husband's death has come into my possession, 
 there lies a little agate seal, upon which may be 
 seen very unskilfully engraved, evidently by no 
 professional hand, the symbol of a rising sun. 
 Knowing that the father's inventive turn of mind 
 led him to lose time by taking up too many arts 
 and crafts, it may not be too fanciful to suggest 
 that this attempt at engraving was by his own 
 hand, and that the little seal bears in its device 
 something very personal connected with this 
 
 9
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 hope of his later years — the son whom he had 
 certainly " set as a seal upon his heart." 
 
 He had some taste for art ; even as a young 
 man at Hereford he cared to buy good engrav- 
 ings, an etching by Rembrandt and a few by 
 Greuze being amongst the still existing pos- 
 sessions of that date. He used both brush and 
 pencil, though he was never proficient, and as 
 none of these attempts remain, evidently never 
 satisfied himself in this direction ; on the other 
 hand, he carefully dated and kept many of his 
 son's earliest original drawings, and also preserved 
 some of the engravings from which the little 
 fellow's very exact copies were made. He either 
 inherited or collected a few books, in good 
 editions, the only luxury of the home ; for 
 instance, Le strange' 's Fables, some plays of the 
 time of Charles II., The Seven Champions of 
 Christendom, and others, the disappearance of 
 which was a matter of regret to his son. After 
 the death of his wife, his chief concern was for 
 little George. " His father watched him at 
 every turn," were the expressive words of one 
 who remembered his boyhood ; remembering 
 also with a tender clearness, though looking 
 down the dim distance of seventy years, that his 
 playmates looked eagerly for little George's 
 coming to join in their games, adding that she 
 could well remember the pleasure of hearing his 
 light step running to find them at play. 
 
 It is good to know there were fields still in 
 that part of London, fields rich with buttercups 
 
 IO
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and wild flowers ; and that there the little 
 George played. He could remember a day 
 when, after roaming about on a bit of ground 
 where timber was being cleared, he sat down at 
 one end of a fallen tree, when an impressive 
 figure in a long black cloak came slowly up and 
 seated himself silently at the other end. The 
 man with the fine thoughtful face that so 
 attracted the boy's attention was Edward Irving. 
 
 A few rare visits were paid to his godfather's 
 farm in Sussex, and thus he made acquaintance 
 with country pleasures, but on the whole the 
 memory of his boyhood was not a happy one, 
 chieflv because ill-health made him unable to 
 enjoy what boys of his age were enjoying. 
 Neither was he able to give himself to con- 
 secutive study such as his eager mind desired. 
 
 Amongst his earliest drawings there is one — 
 whether an original or a copy he could not re- 
 collect. It is undated, but in a round childish 
 hand the name of " Sisyphus ' is written ; and 
 comparing these pot-hooks with his handwriting 
 at ten years old, a time when copies made by 
 him could not as facsimiles be bettered, it is safe 
 to conclude that the Sisyphus belongs to some 
 years earlier — probably to the age of six or seven. 
 With firm and rather black strokes of the pencil 
 the strong muscles of the condemned one are 
 very descriptively given, and there is pathos in 
 the choice of this subject by a child who indeed 
 knew too early the steepness of the way of life 
 and the burden of its anxieties. 
 
 1 1
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 It has been suggested to me by a physician 
 that the attacks of headache, with vertigo and 
 sickness, from which he suffered so continually 
 may have been due to eye-strain. With a highly 
 nervous temperament (not sufficiently well under- 
 stood) perhaps also these were due to the strain 
 of being called upon when too young to share 
 his father's disappointments and anxieties. No 
 doubt these trials would have, on the elders of 
 the family, the effect of producing a tendency to 
 irritability, by laying nerves bare to the slightest 
 annoyance, and although little George was well 
 loved by father and sisters, they were probably 
 unaware of the torment he suffered from the 
 constant dread of recurring outbursts of temper. 
 In retrospect he concluded that the nervousness 
 of his later life was greatly due to the anxiety 
 he suffered in those early days, when these 
 thunderstorms of passion were continually brew- 
 ing and at any moment likely to burst upon the 
 household. In speaking of this it was character- 
 istic of him to blame no particular member of 
 the family, and indeed he appeared to take 
 pains not to mention any name. The attacks of 
 headache, from which he suffered so acutely all 
 through his boyhood, averaged, he believed, 
 something like one in every week, and they 
 would prostrate him completely for two days. 
 At the best of times he was conscious of a 
 malaise which seemed to halve all his pleasures ; 
 but when recovering from the worse, the better 
 would seem by comparison almost bliss, and he 
 
 12
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 would lie quietly enjoying the sense of freedom 
 from actual pain, when a strange mystic sensation 
 would come over him, as if his feet had travelled 
 off on some wonderful journey through space ; 
 further and infinitely further they went, and it 
 gave him a strange sort of joy to seem to follow, 
 and yet stay behind. He often alluded to this, 
 and wondered what explanation there might be 
 to account for the repetition of a sensation so 
 fantastic, and yet to him so real. 
 
 During the hours of enforced quiet he made a 
 little friend that became very dear to him. He 
 tamed a sparrow so completely that it perched 
 on his head as he lay in bed, ate from his plate, 
 and was a cheerful and much beloved companion. 
 Tragedy of course overtook it in the end, and 
 the grief he felt when he saw it drop dead at 
 his feet was not forgotten. " I feel the sorrow 
 as keenly to-day as if it happened yesterday," he 
 said. The end was the more terrible as it was 
 brought about by his own hand ; in shutting up 
 his sparrow for the night he accidentally caught 
 in the doorway the little head which, unnoticed 
 by him, popped oat for another last word. 
 
 In those days he looked very young for his 
 age, and, according to his own account, was so 
 backward that he was filled with shame as each 
 birthday came round ; but, if the boy may be 
 judged by the man, he took his measure by the 
 standard of what he wished to attain rather than 
 by that of other boys of his own age. " Self- 
 confidence," he said, " is called a fault of youth, 
 
 13
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 but if that is so, I think I may say it was one 
 which I had not ; I only knew one thing, which 
 was that I knew nothing." 
 
 His health preventing him from attending, 
 with any sort of regularity, any classes or school, 
 he was taught, or taught himself as best he 
 could, at home. He learnt to read fairly early, 
 his father giving a good direction to his boy's 
 choice of books. Later in life he could not hear 
 without something like indignation of boys who 
 were indifferent to and wasteful of advantages 
 which had been withheld from him ; perhaps 
 above all that of robust health. But Poverty 
 may also bring her gift of compensation ; want 
 of means made the books few, yet, as they were 
 choice, the limitation had this advantage that he 
 read them over and over again till they became 
 a part of his world and of his being. Without 
 the imposition of dreary tasks of grammar, he 
 entered freely and of his own choice into the 
 Greek mind, through such translations as were 
 accessible to him. The Iliad, perhaps the first 
 and best beloved of all, he read and re-read until 
 gods and heroes were his friends and acquaint- 
 ances ; he thought of them as such, judged 
 critically of their words and actions, and was 
 deeply moved by all that was noble and beautiful 
 and restrained ; he knew this to be a very living 
 school, and every fibre of his being answered to 
 the splendour of the great epic. And so, while 
 ill-health held him back from all pleasures of 
 the more active sort, there was given instead this 
 
 m
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 leisure, in which his imaginative mind could 
 roam the windy plains of Troy, or climb the 
 heights of Olympus. Moving through the dim 
 light of a London atmosphere, in his dull little 
 room he saw " the bright-eyed Athene in the 
 midst bearing the holy aegis, that knoweth 
 neither age nor death," and dreamed that he too 
 might be an aegis-bearer of that which cannot 
 grow old, the utterance of the human mind in 
 the language of an art. 
 
 Very early in life he also drew upon that 
 treasure-house of healthy and splendid romance, 
 the novels of Sir Walter Scott, whose knights 
 and cavaliers often supplied subjects for his 
 pencil, and with the Greek heroes inspired his 
 earliest compositions. These novels inspired 
 him then, and throughout life, and were — with 
 the novels of Miss Austen — the books that he 
 turned to most often when tired or unwell. 
 
 His family were members of the Anglican 
 Church, and into that Church he had been 
 baptized ; but the point of view held in the 
 home was too limited ; a narrow Sabbatarian 
 habit made Sunday a burden to his young mind, 
 and there was no help for the little fellow in the 
 bare and dreary Church services to which he was 
 taken. A preacher in a black gown spoke of 
 wrath to come, and his reason and his aesthetic 
 instincts were shocked, so much so that he re- 
 membered that at that time he thoroughly 
 believed all religious teachers to be insincere. 
 
 He sometimes spoke with surprise of the inde- 
 
 15
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 pendent view he remembered to have taken quite 
 early in life. " While I felt," he said, " for the 
 subject of religion so great a reverence that it was 
 difficult for me to speak about it, I reasoned and 
 rebelled against the unreality of ordinary religious 
 teaching." The early religious bent of his mind, 
 through the teaching then received, might have 
 been towards the narrowest side of the Evangeli- 
 cal school ; for instance, on Sundays he was 
 never allowed to read anything but a so-called 
 religious book ; on this day a newspaper was 
 absolutely forbidden, and all books except 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and the Bible and 
 Prayer Book were put away. 
 
 The pictures in the Bible and in the Queen 
 Anne Prayer Book (in which the entry of the 
 day and hour of his birth is made so exactly) 
 must have somewhat consoled him, until he had 
 made copies of the illustrations so many times 
 that at last he exhausted their fascinations. In 
 one of these the eye of the Deity is given — a 
 realistic eye, large in the sky — from which 
 a ray of light, solid as metal, streams upon the 
 head of Guy Fawkes, who with his lantern is 
 going about his evil business. 
 
 He remembered with what a revulsion of feel- 
 ing he heard as a little boy the story told of some 
 man who during the week had neglected to read 
 his Bible, but being sorry for this on Sunday, 
 was in the act of taking it down from the shelf 
 where it had lain, when he was suddenly struck 
 dead as a just retribution for his sin. The 
 
 16
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 horror he then felt at such a conception of 
 divine justice he could not forget. He had in 
 fact realised, when quite young, a certain want 
 of correspondence between his own nature and 
 his surroundings. 
 
 Yet one result of the early home training was 
 that he knew the Bible well, and remembered 
 every detail of the Old Testament stories, and, as 
 he retold these, just by an accent here and there 
 he would throw new and original comment upon 
 them, quite his own. Very possibly the element 
 of Puritanical austerity, which made Sunday so 
 dreary to the little boy, as it did not narrow his 
 views nor make him pretend to a piety he did 
 not feel, was valuable as a discipline ; and to 
 this may have been due a power of self-control 
 which in so highly nervous and emotional a 
 temperament was certainly remarkable. 
 
 Of the purpose he set before himself when 
 beginning to study art he once said to me : 
 " From the very first I determined to do the 
 very best possible to me ; I did not hope to 
 make a name, or think much about climbing to 
 the top of the tree, I merely set myself to do 
 the utmost I could, and I think I may say I 
 have never relaxed ; to this steady endeavour 
 I owe everything. Hard work, and keeping the 
 definite object of my life in view, has given me 
 whatever position I now have. And I may add, 
 what I think is an encouragement to others, 
 that very few have begun life with fewer 
 advantages, either of health, wealth, or position, 
 vol. i 17 c
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 or any exceptional intellect. Any success I may 
 have had is due entirely to steadiness of purpose." 
 He could not recall any time from his earliest 
 childhood when he did not use a pencil ; and he 
 seems from the first to have taken such pains 
 with his work that it might be assumed this 
 faculty was inherited. A comparison of his 
 copies in chalk, set beside the original etching 
 on copper with a metal point, prove with what 
 extreme care the boy of eleven or twelve years 
 old counted and copied every line, sharpening 
 the chalk, as he well remembered, between every 
 three or four strokes. This faculty for taking 
 pains, together with an enthusiasm for his work, 
 made anything like the ordinary training of an 
 art student quite unnecessary. His own axiom 
 that in art there was " everything to be learnt, 
 and very little to be taught," was spoken out of 
 his own experience. It may have been that in 
 later years, when giving advice to students, he 
 never quite realised the value of an opportunity 
 afforded for exclusive devotion to its study within 
 the walls of a School of Art. The limitations 
 of a boyhood precluded by ill-health from the 
 usual games, and a temperament that to some 
 extent marked him out for solitary study, may 
 possibly have made it difficult for him to under- 
 stand the advantage which schools offer to others 
 more exposed to the temptations of the active 
 and social life. The advice given by him may 
 at times have been misunderstood ; it certainly 
 was if it was taken to mean that he held that 
 
 18
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 art did not demand arduous and exclusive study 
 for many years ; a study which in one sense 
 must never cease ; the early training he held 
 was merely to find out how to study. He 
 wished the student to understand that he must 
 not depend upon academic rules, and very little 
 upon the experience of a teacher : all that others 
 could give him was quite elementary; for the 
 right development of the best that was in him 
 he had to equip himself by an intelligent study 
 of the book of nature and in the traditions of 
 great art. 
 
 As a consequence of bad health, regularity 
 of work in boyhood was not possible, but a 
 fortunate circumstance gave him an opportunity 
 which otherwise could not have been his. 
 His father, in his work of pianoforte making, 
 happened to be associated with a Hanoverian 
 of the name of Behnes, who had married 
 in England and had three sons. The Behnes 
 family had at one time living in the same house 
 with themselves an old Frenchman, a sculptor 
 by profession in England, but quite probably a 
 refugee of the French noblesse ; and his influence 
 caused both Henry and William Behnes to take 
 up the profession of art. Henry died early in 
 Rome, but William, though already helping his 
 father in his work, gave it up for the study of 
 art, and became for a time one of the most 
 successful and popular sculptors of portrait 
 medallions and busts then living. He made the 
 first portrait bust of the little Princess Victoria, 
 
 19
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and on her coming to the throne was appointed 
 by her "Sculptor in Ordinary to Her Majesty." 
 
 His first studio was in Dean Street, Soho, and 
 here little George, then not more than ten years 
 old, went in and out as he liked. In his 
 recollection the best work accomplished by 
 William Behnes was in pencil. More especially 
 he recalled one magnificent drawing from the 
 antique group of Arria and Partus, and he often 
 regretted that these were lost, and that falling 
 into ignorant hands, they had in all probability 
 been destroyed. Henry Weekes, the sculptor, 
 mentions Behnes's paintings upon vellum as being 
 the finest he had ever seen. Writing of him, 
 he says, " The genius of Behnes was a sort of 
 Mephistopheles, always at his side allowing him 
 always to fancy he was going to be pleased, yet 
 eventually leading him to destruction." 
 
 But it was Charles Behnes, the brother, an 
 invalid and malformed, of whom but slight 
 mention is made in any account of the sculptor, 
 to whom George became attached. Some time 
 early in the 'thirties William Behnes removed 
 to the studio (then No. 13 Osnaburgh Street) 
 afterwards tenanted by Mr. Foley, and where 
 Sir Frederic Leighton modelled his athlete, the 
 present occupant being Mr. Brock. It was of 
 this studio that my husband most often spoke. 
 William and his brother Charles seemed to have 
 had a full appreciation of his gifts ; and as 
 Charles was some twenty years older, the contact 
 with his maturer mind was of great value to 
 
 20
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 him. Charles was an intellectual man, and this 
 his brother the sculptor was not. His liberal 
 view of life, and understanding of the best 
 things in literature, and above all his goodness, 
 attracted George to him. As was his habit at 
 all times, it so happened that in speaking of 
 these early friends he never emphasised the fact 
 that in this respect William Behnes contrasted 
 badly with his brother ; and that indeed in 
 William the moral sense was absent ; he would 
 merely say that William had no strength of 
 character, and that while Charles lived he kept 
 his brother's business affairs in order, and held 
 him up from moral slips as far as he was able ; 
 but that after Charles died — somewhere about 
 1844 — William "went all to pieces," as he 
 expressed it. It seems, however, certain, from 
 what is known of the story otherwise, that thus 
 early in life the boy stood between a good and 
 an evil influence, and that he chose the good. It 
 was during these early days that a friend of 
 Charles Behnes, a miniature painter, gave him 
 his first lesson in the use of oil-colour, lent him 
 a painting by Sir Peter Lely to copy, and at 
 the same time gave him a simple practical 
 formula for the colours to be used. This copy, 
 full of the characteristics of Lely's work, is now 
 placed with a small collection of early works in 
 the Watts Collection at Compton in Surrey. 1 
 
 1 Throughout this book, for the sake of brevity, the name Compton 
 Gallery is used, but as there are more than twenty towns or villages of that 
 name, it must be understood that this Compton is in Surrey, equally distant 
 from Guildford and Godalming (three miles). 
 
 21
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 About this date his father took some of his 
 son's drawings to the President of the Royal 
 Academy, Sir Martin Archer Shee, and being 
 anxious to know if it was right to encourage his 
 son to be an artist, asked his opinion upon them. 
 The verdict, given after looking at the drawings, 
 was, " I can see no reason why your son should 
 take up the profession of art." The father, 
 however, was undaunted and allowed the boy to 
 have his way. 
 
 One can fancy the light figure moving about 
 the big studio, using up every atom of daylight, 
 and probably singing at his work ; a habit never 
 wholly given up if work was going to his mind. 
 He had sung from his childhood, and well 
 remembered his regret when the inevitable 
 change came and the quality of voice peculiar 
 to boyhood was lost. 
 
 Even when he was working at home, he often 
 went to Osnaburgh Street, and sat there whilst 
 the studio grew dark, talking of many things 
 with Charles Behnes. Early in life he had 
 made acquaintance with some elementary books 
 on science recommended to him by his friend ; 
 they discussed Shakespeare, Virgil, Ossian, and 
 many another author. He had some fun too 
 with his mentors, once having amused himself 
 by painting a fraudulent Van Dyck on purpose 
 to see if they would be deceived. The head 
 was painted from himself, the dress being of 
 course of the time of Charles I. When the 
 surface was hard enough, he poked his picture up 
 
 22
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the chimney, and waited till it had sufficiently 
 mellowed ; he then took it round to the studio, 
 where, with some pretence of hesitation, he 
 suggested that he thought he had discovered a 
 Van Dyck. The sculptor looked at it critically, 
 and then said : " Well, I would not venture to 
 say that it is by Van Dyck, but it certainly 
 is by no mean hand." When the trick was 
 confessed, Behnes angrily cried out, " Why the 
 deuce don't you always paint like that ? ' It 
 was probably about this time that Benjamin 
 Haydon — amongst English artists the discoverer 
 of the true worth of the Elgin Marbles — one 
 day noticed a sketch-book in the hand of a boy 
 who passed him in the street ; possibly also he 
 may have noticed something unusual in the face 
 of one setting out on his quest to find the true 
 and the beautiful : anvhow he laid his hand 
 kindly upon young Watts's shoulder, and said, 
 " May a fellow-student look at your work ? ' He 
 spoke encouragingly, and invited the boy to his 
 studio, but for some reason, probably owing to a 
 certain hesitation in putting himself forward, he 
 never went ; and this was their only meeting. 
 
 After Mrs. Watts's death the family had 
 removed from Queen Street to Star Street, 
 Marylebone, probably for the sake of greater 
 economy, and it was in this house, I believe, 
 that a room was set apart as the studio ; but his 
 first studio (built as such) was in Roberts Road, 
 Hampstead Road, where it stood in the garden 
 at the back of the house. 
 
 2 3
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Talking once of early rising, it was mentioned 
 that it was far more difficult to get up early 
 when young than later in life ; and his answer 
 was, " Don't I know that very well, for I could 
 only overcome the difficulty myself by not going 
 to bed at all : I used not to undress, but rolled 
 myself in a thick dressing-gown, and lay on the 
 floor of my studio, sometimes on two chairs, 
 until I had taught myself to awake and get up 
 with the sun." The habit once acquired was 
 never lost. In his eighty-eighth year, as soon as 
 daylight permitted he rose and set to work. If 
 he was ill and obliged to remain in bed, he 
 would generally ask to have the curtains and 
 blinds closed, once explaining, " I cannot bear it, 
 the light calls to me." 
 
 In his early days the fight against self had 
 to be continually maintained, and taking into 
 account the ever-recurrent interruptions from 
 illness, the fact that he never allowed himself 
 to become desultory in his work shows that the 
 character was resolute then as it remained un- 
 altered to the end. 
 
 Up to this time, having carefully studied 
 from anatomical casts, and still more assiduously 
 from the skeleton, a knowledge of which, as the 
 foundation of all good drawing, he placed first 
 in importance, his pencil had been busy from 
 childhood with original designs of the gods, 
 kings, knights, and ladies that peopled his brain 
 at the time ; and before he was sixteen he 
 had begun to undertake small commissions for 
 
 24
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 portraits, drawn sometimes in coloured chalk, 
 sometimes in pencil, for which he asked the 
 sum of five shillings. 
 
 Affairs at home had been going from bad to 
 worse. The father, becoming more desultory, 
 gave elementary lessons in music, tuned pianos, 
 and did any clerical work that came in his way. 
 His son was glad to think that after the age of 
 sixteen he never cost his father anything, and 
 that later he was able to support him till his 
 death in 1845. By the year 1835 the young 
 student's power of accomplishment was maturing 
 fast, but, to perfect himself further, he made up 
 his mind to enter the schools of the Royal 
 Academy. 
 
 The ivory disc for a student's admission is 
 still extant with the name and date engraved 
 upon it : " George Frederic Watts, Admitted 
 April 30th, 1835," and on the reverse, "Royal 
 Academy Antique School." His name also 
 appears upon the books during the two following 
 years, but at that time the schools were practic- 
 ally closed for half the year, the space being so 
 limited that the rooms were required when 
 Exhibitions were being held. The teaching at 
 that time was exceedingly disappointing ; as he 
 said himself, a few years later, " there was no 
 teaching at all " : he therefore attended the 
 School only long enough to satisfy himself that 
 he could learn quite as much in his own studio. 
 " There was no test," he said, " no examination 
 of the pupils " — in a word, an absolute want of 
 
 2 5
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 instruction ; and when speaking of this time he 
 would say that he learnt in no school save one, 
 that of Pheidias, and in that school he had never 
 ceased to learn. 
 
 In 1835 the President was Sir Martin Archer 
 Shee, and the Keeper Mr. William Hilton, who 
 had but recently lost his wife — the sister of the 
 painter Peter de Wint — a blow which he felt so 
 severely that it undermined his health, and is 
 said to have shortened his life. Outwardly he 
 was an austere man of few words, one from 
 whom praise was worth winning. It was there- 
 fore no small matter when this was gained. 
 
 It so happened that twice during this time at 
 the Academy Schools young Watts's drawings 
 were picked out both by Mr. Hilton and by his 
 fellow-students as being certain of a medal ; the 
 first time for a drawing from the antique, the 
 second for a drawing from the life. He remem- 
 bered it as a thing of yesterday, and described 
 it thus : 
 
 " When the result of the judging was known, 
 and that my drawing had not been given the 
 medal, I was much pleased by Hilton's coming 
 across the room to me and whispering, ' Never 
 mind, you ought to have had it ' ; I liked that 
 better than the medal." 
 
 Another day Mr. Hilton pointed to the 
 drawing on George Watts's easel, and speaking 
 generally to the students, said, " That is the way 
 I like to see a drawing done." The praise was 
 remembered. 
 
 26
 
 I iaj,fit 
 
 (; r jM(\ t ,i, 
 
 ( / 
 
 ililfil SCI iii/rrn
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 He had, however, so far formed his own 
 opinion upon the course of practice he believed 
 would best develop and strengthen his powers 
 that he recollected taking a small picture he 
 had painted of a dying knight to show to Mr. 
 Hilton, who commended it, but at the same time 
 told him on no account to attempt anything 
 original in the way of composition. He weighed 
 the advice, believed it to be mistaken, and went 
 on with his imaginative work. " I was right, I 
 believe, and Hilton wrong. Although he was 
 right in warning me against drifting into mere 
 picture making, he should have said, ' Do this 
 kind of thing certainly, but take care that you 
 make very careful studies from nature as well.' 
 
 The year 1837 f° un d him hard at work in 
 his own studio, this being a room in Clipston 
 Street ; and in March of that year he sent in to 
 the Academy for exhibition the picture called 
 the " Wounded Heron," painted from the dead 
 bird he happened to see in a poulterer's shop. 
 Struck by its beauty, he bought it, and worked 
 from it as rapidly as the conditions required, but 
 with the utmost care and painstaking. 
 
 It is impossible not to see in the pathos of 
 the outstretched wing something more than a 
 prophecy of the pathos in the wing of Love 
 defending the door of Life of forty years later- 
 young Love impotent against the inevitable — 
 much also of the same mind, taking note of the 
 mysteries in the drama of life suggested by the 
 falcon high in the blue over the dying heron — 
 
 27
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 one beautiful child of nature joyfully pursuing 
 another to the death, and the mounted falconer 
 also following gaily, and possessed with the joy 
 of the chase. 
 
 This picture l was given a place upon the 
 walls of the Academy that year, when he also 
 exhibited two portraits, each under the title of 
 " The Portrait of a Young Lady." For one of 
 these, a portrait of little Miss Hopkins, the 
 delicate sketch in chalk now lies in a scrap-book 
 of early drawings ; he painted her three times, 
 and one of these portraits hangs amongst other 
 early works in the Compton Gallery. 
 
 It was about this time that an acquaintance 
 began between him and Mr. Nicholas Wano- 
 strocht — an Englishman by birth, though Belgian 
 by descent. He inherited, so to speak, a school 
 from his grandfather and uncle, where education 
 was carried on upon very original lines ; but to 
 the world his name is best known as Nicholas 
 Felix the cricketer, the author of Felix on the 
 Bat. It was with some idea of having illustrations 
 made of the various positions of the cricketer, as 
 the game at that time was played, that he com- 
 missioned George Watts to make the series of 
 seven such positions — afterwards drawn by him 
 upon stone. Four of these are portraits of Felix 
 himself, the others of Fuller Pilch and of Alfred 
 
 1 " The Wounded Heron " was returned to him in 1888. One Sunday, 
 talking with Mrs. Henry Holiday of his early work, he spoke of it as his 
 first picture at the Royal Academy, and regretted that it was lost. Mrs. 
 Holiday suggested that I should advertise. By a strange coincidence a 
 letter from the possessor, a dealer in Newcastle, was already in the post 
 offering the picture to us for a small sum. 
 
 28
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Mynn. Five of the original drawings, still in his 
 possession in 1895, he offered to Lord Harris, the 
 President of the Marylebone Cricket Club, where 
 they are now placed. 
 
 An amusing incident brought about this gift. 
 A friend paying a visit in a country house in 
 Cornwall, on going upstairs with his host one 
 night on their way to bed, paused with his lighted 
 candle before a lithograph of a cricketer hanging 
 on the staircase wall, and said at a venture, " Only 
 Watts could have drawn that leg." This led to 
 enquiries, proving that the guess was right, and 
 my husband, finding that the original drawings 
 would be of value to the Marylebone Cricket 
 Club, accordingly offered them. 
 
 Nicholas Wanostrocht and he found much 
 pleasure in each other's society, and the evenings 
 spent at Alfred House, Blackheath, were amongst 
 the happiest of the recollections of this time. 
 Mr. Wanostrocht was a very talented man, and 
 his school was for some time very successful. 
 One opinion, which he was able to demonstrate 
 in a practical manner, was that every boy, with 
 talent or without, was capable on Hullah's system 
 of being taught to sing. The music master at 
 the school of the name of May was an assistant 
 of Hullah's, and on this (the Do, re, mi) system 
 he taught, and every pupil of the school, and 
 every member of the family as well, could sing 
 and read from sight. Sometimes in later years, 
 when listening to even very excellent singing by 
 choristers, my husband would say, " They do 
 
 29
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 not sing as well as Wanostrocht's boys used to 
 sing." These were happy evenings for him, and 
 for others too. In a letter from an acquaintance 
 of that time, she says, " I am glad to find you 
 remember the happy old times spent at Black- 
 heath ; I think they were to many of us happier 
 than any of our later years." 
 
 Another correspondent recalls the whole 
 holiday given to the boys — of whom he had been 
 one — in 1 843, "in honour of the successful cartoon 
 by the rising genius of whom Wanostrocht was 
 an early and enthusiastic appreciator." It was 
 now that George cultivated his voice with some 
 care, studied French and Italian, and worked at 
 Greek also; but the regret of his life was that 
 the time which necessarily had to be given to his 
 art left but too small a margin for such serious 
 work, and he was therefore never able to read 
 Homer in the original with pleasure. 
 
 A trifle, perhaps, but one which shows the 
 earnestness of the young mind, is to be found in a 
 little copy of the book II Pastor Fido, where in 
 pencil, the writingbeing still somewhat unformed, 
 is scribbled on one page, G. F. Watts, and under the 
 name, " qui tie le sait lire, quit est malheureux ! " — 
 to which there is an addition, probably made later, 
 " II libro di G. F. Watts," and these words follow 
 in Italian : " It seems to me that I have a way 
 made for me, and that no one could have a 
 better opportunity for hoping to achieve some- 
 thing. If I can, I shall feel well paid for all 
 the past." The day he wrote those words there 
 
 30
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 must have been a rift in the clouds : on others, 
 when he painted a small picture — somewhat 
 earlier than 1837 as ^ e believed — the clouds 
 must have been lying very thick and low upon 
 him. In this the kneeling figure seems to be a 
 bit of history, part of the young painter's own 
 experience. It was not his intention to represent 
 " The Man of Sorrows " — it is but the figure 
 of one of the many human souls who have gone 
 along the Via Crucis. The impression given 
 out from that picture is of loneliness and bareness; 
 the background represents night, and the grey 
 streak on the horizon that the sun has long gone 
 down. The thin vesture, with few folds and little 
 colour, hangs severely about the spare young 
 figure, who with closed eyes and bowed head has 
 fallen upon his knees as if the burden of the day 
 had been too great for him. Now withdrawn 
 into self, wearied but tranquil, an inward vision 
 is being revealed, in token of which a silvery 
 shaft of light is falling down upon him ; and 
 round his head the ring of a golden Glory begins 
 to form. 
 
 Much of this early time of life was not happy, 
 and the remembrance was so fraught with pain 
 that those who loved him did not care to recall 
 it to his mind, by asking questions which can 
 never now be answered. In the face of ill-health, 
 and with the additional burden laid on him by 
 the necessity for earning money, the difficulties 
 must have been great ; for the boy determined 
 to pursue a general course of education as well 
 
 3*
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 as the study and practice of his art. He was 
 much attached to his father, the failure of whose 
 life was a great pain to him ; and there was 
 much of hardship in those years to jar upon both 
 of those finely touched natures, for the father 
 was a man of peculiar refinement of mind, and I 
 have been told of manner also. 
 
 About this time George Watts made his first 
 acquaintance with the Greek family of Ionides, 
 a friendship which during his long life descended 
 from generation to generation. The first of the 
 family to come into touch with the young painter 
 was Constantine Ionides, the head of a Greek 
 Merchant House in London, with branches in 
 Constantinople and Athens. In a letter of a 
 later date Mr. Ionides recalls his first visit to 
 young Watts's studio : 
 
 " I recollect as if it was yesterday my visit 
 with Mr. E. Riley to see a portrait of a little 
 girl that you were painting when he recom- 
 mended you for copying Lane's portrait of my 
 father. Equally well your first visit to my 
 office, when you brought both original and copy, 
 and I said at once to Mr. G. F. Cavafy, who 
 was present, that I preferred by far the copy, 
 and that I was going to keep the copy and send 
 the original to Constantinople. This was in the 
 early spring of 1837. That Cavafy was quite 
 startled at the novelty of my preferring a work 
 for which I had paid £10 to one that cost £63, 
 and seemed quite incredulous, when suddenly in 
 the outer office I heard the voice of Du Roveray, 
 
 3 2
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 who was considered a good connoisseur, and was 
 occasionally employed by the Rothschilds to 
 value pictures for them — when I called him, 
 and he at once confirmed my view." 
 
 On being asked to point out the original, 
 Du Roveray replied, " I cannot tell you that, but 
 I can tell you which is by far the best painting 
 of the two." 
 
 From that time onwards George Watts had 
 many Greek friends, Mr. Constantine Ionides 
 being the first and, at that time, the most affluent 
 and generous. He spoke also with pleasure of 
 kind friends of the name of Ellis, who had a 
 charming house in West End Lane, in which he 
 made a water-colour study of some groups of 
 fine trees. Of these friends he writes in later 
 years, " Amongst the many changes in my life, 
 which I should be ungrateful to call unsuccessful, 
 I constantly recall the pleasant time spent at 
 West End Lane : seldom could enjoyment be 
 more real, or leave less to regret." 
 
 At this house he was introduced to Mr. 
 Roebuck, who sat to him for a portrait, also 
 engraved by the artist on stone, and gave him 
 the singular commission to paint a portrait of 
 Jeremy Bentham from the effigy which had 
 been modelled in wax as the terms of Bentham's 
 Will directed. The picture George Watts then 
 painted was once exhibited with his name, and 
 with no further explanation ; upon which he 
 wrote as follows to the secretary of the exhibition : 
 
 " As a portrait honestly painted from life 
 vol. i 33 D
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 becomes one of the most valuable of records, it 
 is important that the spurious and the faithful 
 representation should not be confounded. I 
 therefore beg to state that the portrait of Jeremy 
 Bentham, to which my name is affixed, is not 
 from life, but was painted by me, then a mere 
 lad, from a wax figure which was so far curious 
 that it covered, I believe, the philosopher's bones, 
 and was dressed in his clothes." 
 
 Besides the portrait of his father already 
 mentioned, there are a few portraits in oil colour 
 of small size belonging to the year 1836 — that 
 is the earliest date I know of for accomplished 
 work in this medium — one of Mr. Richard 
 Edmonds, of Mr. Richard Jarvis, and in 1837-38 
 of the Rev. Alfred Oliver Wellsted. Two por- 
 traits (on one canvas) of Miss Alice Spring Rice 
 were, I think, painted before 1839. Friends 
 of the name of Jarvis gave him many of his 
 earliest commissions, both for portraits and subject 
 pictures. In one of these, a hunting scene, the 
 slight figure of a boy holding the bridle of his 
 horse was painted from himself, and from this 
 I gather that when more than twenty years old 
 he looked very young ; one might take the 
 figure to have been drawn from a lad of sixteen. 
 Some time before he left Italy he had painted 
 the three children of the Earl of Gainsborough, 
 several portraits of the family of Admiral 
 Hamilton, Miss Brunton, Miss Jardine, Madame 
 Ionides, Miss Galenga, and the group of the 
 Ionides family, this being as to scale the most 
 
 34
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 important undertaking of this time, though not 
 by any means his first commission as some 
 writers have said. Mr. Haskett-Smith, an old 
 friend of the Hamilton family, told me that 
 Captain Hamilton (as he then was) was so 
 much pleased with the work done for him by 
 the young painter that instead of the £20 named 
 as the price, he sent £25. " But," Mr. Haskett- 
 Smith continued, " Mr. Watts immediately 
 insisted on painting the portrait of the baby, 
 which he threw in ! " 
 
 He went into Derbyshire to paint or draw 
 portraits for a Derbyshire squire, Mr. Offley 
 Shore ; and later again to the same neighbour- 
 hood to paint the children of a Mr. Bagshaw ; 
 but, though the commissions for portraits formed 
 of necessity a great part of his work, he had 
 already determined to make portraiture sub- 
 ordinate to creative work, notwithstanding that 
 he was advised by painters much older than 
 himself to wait till his later years, when his 
 fortune would be sufficient to allow him to 
 indulge in the luxury of composition. But he 
 kept his own counsel, and went on his way, 
 learning later that one at least of his advisers 
 had lived to acknowledge that he had been 
 wrong, and that when in affluent days he would 
 have turned to the use of that gift, it had perished. 
 
 Among other acquaintances of this time was 
 one with a young man whose early death some 
 years later he ever believed to be a serious loss 
 to the world. George Watts was painting the 
 
 35
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 portrait of the lad's father, a man who had had 
 some success in business. Though the family 
 were not altogether congenial to him, the mother 
 being a vain and foolish woman, on one occasion 
 when he was invited to dine and spend the 
 evening, he accepted. When he rose to go, 
 rather to his annoyance, the son of the house, 
 then a lad of about fifteen or sixteen years old, 
 whom he knew to be leading a very fast life, got 
 up also, and offered to walk across the park with 
 him. And so it was that, under the dome of a 
 sky brilliant with stars, the two pacing along 
 together came to talk of many things, when 
 suddenly some word that was said caused the 
 younger of the two to open his heart and to 
 make confession of his life. Plunged from his 
 earliest days by a dissolute father into vicious 
 company and vicious ways, something now 
 stirred within him to make him realise the 
 misery of it all. They were but as " ships that 
 pass in the night," and did not cross each other's 
 way again for several years, four of which George 
 had spent in Italy. 
 
 When they met again in the studio of Behnes, 
 the boy had grown to manhood ; tall and hand- 
 some — a brilliant talker and a delightful com- 
 panion. He was deep in the study of some 
 branch of science — at one of the Universities, I 
 think ; his professors predicting for him a very 
 distinguished career, but this promise was un- 
 happily ended by an early death. When they 
 were alone he confided to George that he dated 
 
 36
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the whole change in his life from the night 
 when they had walked together across the park. 
 When I asked what had been said, I re- 
 member the answer was simply, " We talked 
 of the stars." 
 
 37
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 39
 
 It is not only for the moment that the artist 
 works. In common with all who enrich the 
 world his work will come to be regarded for 
 what it is, not with reference to the period 
 of its production. Two thousand years hence, 
 whether a picture was painted in the sixteenth 
 century and in Italy, or in the nineteenth in 
 England, will not matter. It will be common 
 property to all who care for art. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 40
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 "The Commissioners appointed by the Queen 
 for the purpose of enquiring whether on the 
 rebuilding of Her Majesty's palace of West- 
 minster wherein her Parliament is wont to 
 assemble, advantage might not be taken of the 
 opportunity thereby afforded of promoting and 
 encouraging the Fine Arts in the United 
 Kingdom," issued on April 25, 1842, notice of 
 a competition in cartoons, in size not less than 
 10 and not more than 15 feet in their longest 
 dimensions, to be made in chalk or charcoal, 
 without colour, the figures not less than life size, 
 the subject to be from English history, from 
 Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton. The finished 
 drawings were to be sent in the first week of 
 May 1843, but subsequently this time was 
 extended to the first week in June. There were 
 140 cartoons in the Exhibition opened at the 
 Westminster Hall in that month. They all bore 
 only a mark on the back, which tallied with a 
 mark on the sealed letter containing the artist's 
 name and address. The prizes offered were three 
 of £300, three of £200, and five of £100 each. 
 
 41
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 In a volume of Parliamentary reports labelled 
 ' Fine Arts ' the award of the premium of £300 
 each stands thus in order : 
 
 " Caesar's First Invasion of Britain," Edward 
 Armitage. 
 
 " Caractacus led in Triumph through the 
 Streets of Rome," George Frederic Watts. 
 
 "The First Trial by Jury," Charles West 
 Cope. 
 
 The volume of reports was sent to my 
 husband in 1902 by a stranger to him, 1 who had 
 the kindly thought to bestow it because of a 
 pencilled note written on the margin of the 
 catalogue of the cartoons which it contains. 
 Against the " Caractacus led in Triumph through 
 the Streets of Rome " the note in a delicate hand- 
 writing runs thus : " Leaves nothing to be 
 wished, in my opinion should stand number 
 one. 
 
 That one of the three chief premiums had 
 fallen to his lot came as a complete surprise to 
 George Watts. Young as he was he had 
 schooled himself to be very temperate in any 
 forecast of success for himself. Young Horsley 
 first told him that he had heard it rumoured 
 that he was one of the winners of the first prizes, 
 but he assured Horsley that this was quite im- 
 possible, as he had very much doubted whether 
 it was worthy of being entered at all. 
 
 The fact was that in the endeavour to fix the 
 drawing by some process of steaming, the clumsy 
 
 1 Edwin Seward, F.R.I.B.A. 
 
 42
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 method that was then the only one known, he 
 had, as he believed, entirely ruined it, and had 
 turned it with its face to the wall and taken up 
 other work. A morning or two before the last 
 day for sending in he looked at it once more, 
 and rinding it not altogether hopeless, he spent 
 the remaining time in doing what he could to 
 restore it, and with great hesitation sent it for 
 exhibition. The large cartoon of Caractacus 
 exists in fragments only. Three of these 
 portions are known to be preserved : they were 
 bought some few years later by Sir Walter James 
 (the first Lord Northbourne) from a fine art 
 dealer, and are now at Betteshanger, and with 
 these there is also a drawing of the whole com- 
 position measuring 6 feet 3 inches by 4 feet 
 3 inches. The story of its destruction is briefly 
 this : with the sum of money which had so un- 
 expectedly fallen to his share, the young painter 
 determined to give himself the advantage of 
 going to France and Italy. Just as he was pre- 
 paring for this Mr. Horsley came to ask for his 
 co-operation with that of the other competitors 
 in a scheme suggested by a fine art agent, who 
 wished to exhibit the eleven prize cartoons in 
 various provincial towns. The agent had made 
 an offer to purchase this collection for a certain 
 sum, amounting, when divided, to something like 
 a third part of an offer already received by the 
 young artist. Finding, however, that if he with- 
 drew his cartoon it might prejudice the value of 
 the collection, he readily consented, and heard 
 
 43
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 no more of the matter until his return from 
 Italy, when he found that the " Caractacus " had 
 been resold to Dickinson the fine art dealer, 
 who had, to his vexation, cut it up into various 
 portions without communicating with him at all 
 on the subject. There exists a smaller water- 
 colour drawing made in part by Charles Couzens, 
 and worked over by himself, and besides this a 
 full -sized picture in oil-colour he had com- 
 missioned Couzens to make, upon which he also 
 worked. 
 
 Mrs. Henry Ross remembers hearing Mr. 
 Watts say that, whilst this design was in his 
 mind, he happened to be in the Zoological 
 Gardens making a sketch from one of the lions 
 there, and that from the sudden attitude of this 
 animal's head when thrown back for an instant 
 as if at bay, he got exactly what he wanted for 
 the head of Caractacus. 
 
 On first leaving England George Watts went 
 to Paris to join a friend of his own age, Edward 
 Armitage, and with him he stayed some six or 
 more weeks in the Quartier Latin. In this way 
 he saw something of the merry life of the young 
 French students of the time, and had very 
 pleasant recollections of it. The name of 
 Edward Armitage was entered as a student at 
 the Academy in the same month and year as 
 that of George Watts, but I think I am right in 
 saying that Mr. Armitage never attended the 
 schools, and studied entirely in Paris under Paul 
 Delaroche. 
 
 44
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 The journey to Italy was at that time a 
 tedious and, for those who had to study expense, 
 a disagreeable undertaking. The Diligence from 
 Paris to Boulogne took sixteen hours. The 
 Diligence itself, though built to carry some fifteen 
 people, seems only to have afforded anything like 
 comfort for three passengers in the body or 
 coupe, these seats being, of course, the most 
 expensive. After this the choice lay between 
 the Interieur with six seats, unbearably hot and 
 stuffy, the dusty Rotonde, or the seats outside on 
 the top in the Banquette, to be shared with the 
 conductor, but where at least fresh air and the 
 pleasure of seeing the country during the hours 
 of daylight were to be obtained. The journey 
 by Diligence from Paris to Marseilles took the 
 wearisome length of four days and three nights, 
 but there was an alternative for travellers who 
 did not object to spending more time on the 
 way. They could leave the Diligence at Chalons 
 and go down the Saone and Rhone by river 
 steamboats to Avignon, and so on to Marseilles. 
 It was by this route that George Watts chose to 
 travel, and he found the steamer a great relief 
 after the discomforts of the road. There is 
 a pencilled note, still decipherable, which de- 
 scribes something of this journey ; evidently part 
 of a letter written probably to Mr. Armitage, 
 whom he had just left in Paris, a chance scrap 
 of flotsam where all other written record has 
 sunk from sight. It begins : " A Frenchman 
 and a German and myself were the occupants of 
 
 45
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the Banquette. I soon discovered them to be the 
 most favourable specimens possible of the two 
 nations, and we soon became jolly companions. 
 Laughing, talking, and singing much relieved the 
 monotony of the journey, but I defy anything to 
 render the Banquette agreeable. I never passed 
 a more wretched night, except perhaps on my 
 passage to Boulogne. Fancy a cold night wind 
 and a horrid disgusting brute of a French con- 
 ductor, who I had the impression was possessed 
 with murderous monomania, who came and 
 plumped his disgusting corpus in butcher's 
 blouse down by my side, taking the room of six 
 men. We had some snatches of jollity, however, 
 and the second night we behaved so uproariously, 
 singing in chorus the Marseillaise and the 
 Parisienne, that the proprietors of the Diligence 
 took offence at the brilliancy with which we 
 executed some of the passages and complained 
 — the beasts. Thus reduced to silence, we were 
 forced to amuse ourselves by going to sleep, and 
 as I had not slept the night before, Somnus was 
 kind enough to squeeze his poppies on my eye- 
 lids." 
 
 A tremendous thunderstorm next enlivened 
 that night's journey, and as the Banquette had 
 only a rough sort of hood the travellers suffered 
 further discomfort by being thoroughly soaked. 
 With a note in a pocket-book of sundry expenses, 
 and regrets for a mistake which he had made 
 which cost him " a loss of both time and money," 
 there is also a further entry : Monday, September 
 
 4 6
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 ii, 1843. — " A stranger and an American lent 
 me without being asked £8." On board the 
 steamboat going from Marseilles to Leghorn 
 were English travellers, General Robert and Mrs. 
 Ellice, who also accepted him at sight, and 
 evidently brought a favourable report of him 
 to Lord Holland, 1 then the British Minister at 
 Florence ; indeed later on they were the means 
 of his presenting himself at the Legation. They 
 parted at Leghorn, George Watts making his 
 first acquaintance with Italy from an open 
 country cart in which he drove from Leghorn to 
 Pisa. The vintage was in full beauty, as yet 
 ungathered ; he recollected at one point driving 
 under a roof of clustering vine, the deep purple 
 bunches hanging from the treillages within the 
 reach of his hand. The weather was divine ; 
 those who know Tuscany in September know 
 what he saw — what he felt, — a treasured 
 memory to which he often referred. Also, he 
 did not forget the pleasure of talking in Italian, 
 and understanding his driver's replies. 
 
 A few days' delight at Pisa, and then to 
 Florence. It was to have been at the longest 
 a visit of a month or two ; but caught away 
 from every thought other than what Florence 
 had herself to reveal to him, the weeks were 
 fast running out when a chance meeting with 
 General Ellice changed the course of events for 
 him during several years. " Why have you not 
 
 1 Henry Edward Fox, son of the third Baron, and his wife Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Richard Vassal. Under this lady's rule Holland House and its 
 circle became famous. 
 
 47
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 been to the Casa Feroni ? " he asked. " Lord 
 Holland has been expecting you, and has caused 
 all sorts of enquiries to be made for you ; you 
 must come ; " and so urged, to Casa Feroni he 
 
 went. 
 
 The Casa Feroni, as it was then called, is now 
 known as the Palazzo Amerighi, its present 
 number being 6 in the Via dei Serragli. Its 
 date is not more remote than the latter half of 
 the eighteenth century, but it was built by a 
 wealthy son of the traditionally wealthy Feroni 
 family, and is, on a large scale, extending from 
 the Via dei Serragli along the Borgo San 
 Frediano and back to the Piazza del Carmine, 
 enclosing a spacious garden within its quadrangle. 
 It is said to contain a hundred rooms, and one 
 of its chief features is a terrace 20 feet broad 
 running the whole length of the palace and 
 overlooking the garden, the pride of which, now 
 in these days of its departed glory amid broken 
 statues and dried-up fountains, is a grand old 
 pine, behind which comes to view the red dome 
 of the church of San Spirito. 
 
 To this house he was invited to luncheon 
 by Lady Holland, and then, as he happened to 
 be on the point of changing his lodgings, the 
 invitation was further extended to a visit of a 
 few days. Lady Holland once recalled this to us, 
 saying, " I remember perfectly well hearing Lord 
 Holland say, ' Why not come here ? we have 
 plenty of room, and you must stay till you find 
 quarters that you like.' " This invitation now 
 
 48
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 accepted by George Watts, finally became one to 
 be measured not by days, but by years. It was 
 in this manner that his stay in Italy became a 
 very pleasant one for the young painter, his kind 
 hosts, to whom but a short time before he was a 
 stranger, making him more and more welcome, 
 both to their house in Florence and to their 
 country home at Careggi. The grey mirk of 
 London he exchanged for Italian blue, and the 
 rarely failing sight of " the dear brother sun " of 
 St. Francis, " that greatest of colourists " as G. F. 
 Watts himself called him, while above all 
 Florence gave him the company of her glorious 
 dead. 
 
 When thinking of one of the very last times 
 that my husband and Lady Holland met, I seem 
 to hear their voices happily reminding each 
 other of these long past days. She was ill and 
 depressed, but she was roused by those memories, 
 and laughed over stories of this time ; and when 
 he said, pointing to me, " I tell her you let me 
 paint in every room in your house, and you did 
 not let any one else do that," she replied quickly, 
 with a pretty little movement of her head, 
 looking up with youth still in her eyes, " But you 
 were not anybody else." 
 
 He never had the slightest inclination to that 
 fine indifference to daubs of colour in wrong 
 places so commonly condoned as part of the 
 artistic nature; a spot of paint where it should 
 not be, vexed him exceedingly. " I feel de- 
 graded," he once said, " it is so inartistic " ; and 
 
 VOL. I 49 E
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Lady Holland's quick eye soon perceived this 
 inherent sense of order and care, rooted indeed in 
 a still deeper sense of reverence. She told him 
 that as a girl her mother * had taught her the 
 most careful and elementary housewifery — how 
 to dust a room and how a floor should be 
 scrubbed — and she herself saw that nothing in 
 her service was left undone, being up and about 
 in her palazzo at six o'clock to see that what she 
 required of her servants they did. 
 
 When such a new element as a painter, with 
 his possibly dangerous paints and mediums, first 
 entered her house, he was pointedly told that he 
 was allowed to use his colours only in the room 
 made over to him as a studio ; but not many 
 days passed before these limits were removed. 
 One of the last notes that she penned herself to 
 him begins, " Dear Fra Paolo " — thus reminding 
 him of the first picture he painted at Casa Feroni, 
 a portrait of Lady Holland in a Riviera straw 
 hat, and of the Italian guest, who exclaimed, 
 when it was first shown to him, " Ah, nostre 
 Paolo ! " though it is not quite easy to see how 
 the handling of the paint in this picture recalled 
 the work of Paul Veronese. 
 
 At no time were the conditions of life happier 
 for George Watts ; the climate suited him, he 
 was in much better health, he enjoyed the 
 society at the Legation ; most people of note, 
 either living in Florence or passing through, 
 being as a matter of course the guests of the 
 
 1 Countess of Coventry, daughter of the fifth Duke of St. Albans. 
 
 5o
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 British Minister. Lady Holland, as he described 
 her, brilliant, full of humour, fond of society, and 
 at that time speaking French and Italian, perhaps 
 even more fluently than English, made a de- 
 lightful hostess. Lord Holland, large-hearted 
 and genial, was a sympathetic companion, always 
 certain to appreciate what was best in others — 
 a great lover of the beautiful in art and in nature. 
 The young painter made many friends here, and 
 it may be said with truth that he never lost one. 
 Time had taken a heavy toll of years before it 
 was my privilege to meet some of these, but 
 they were his faithful friends still. I remember 
 one lady whose father was at that time attached 
 to the Legation saying, " I was so proud when I 
 was allowed to sit by him at dinner " — and then 
 she added, " and he was so handsome." 
 
 Lady Holland's chef was of course a master 
 of his craft, and encouraged in the display of his 
 talents by his master, who, when a certain plat 
 had been considered so successful that the dish 
 was emptied, would call for it and send it down 
 to him with a guinea upon it as the reward of 
 merit. But George Watts, while always ready 
 with a tribute to anything well done, whether it 
 happened to be a housemaid lighting a fire or an 
 artist consummating a great work of art, sat at 
 this well-furnished table, and kept to the ascetic 
 habits of his life : he ate only of the simplest dishes 
 and drank nothing but water, and was amused 
 when Lord Holland told him that for this very 
 reason he would like to have his opinion on some 
 
 51
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 new specimen of wine upon the table. Neither 
 did the pleasant life betray him into idleness ; 
 he was at work early and late and accomplished 
 much. He had not been very long at Casa 
 Feroni before he persuaded Lady Holland to sit 
 to him for a portrait, and later he was at work 
 trying his hand at fresco-painting in the court- 
 yard of the Palazzo. His first attempts in this 
 medium have quite disappeared from the walls, 
 but his friend Count Cottrell had two studies for 
 figures painted here (St. John and St. Mary) — 
 and these are now in the possession of his 
 daughter. 
 
 In the late autumn of 1844 he saw something 
 of the worst side of the Florentine climate. 
 Torrential rains fell for something like a fortnight, 
 and he recollected that one morning early, as he 
 was preparing to go out, the rain having ceased, 
 he had a message from Lord Holland to say he 
 would like to see him ; he found him at a window 
 looking out upon one of the streets, but it was 
 no longer a street, but a fast-running river — a 
 torrent. 
 
 Later they stood, not on the Ponte Vecchio, 
 but near it, as the authorities would allow no one 
 to go upon it, and the greatest confusion and 
 anxiety prevailed. There they watched the Arno 
 rise upon the old Ponte Santa Trinita, till a thin 
 streak of light below the arches was alone visible. 
 Had the river risen above that line, the bridge 
 could not have withstood the force of the water. 
 The people, prevented from getting out of their 
 
 52
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 houses by the great iron stanchions covering their 
 windows, were fed for many days by the monks 
 and brothers, who went about in boats distri- 
 buting food. It was said that no such flood had 
 occurred for upwards of a hundred years. 
 
 At a ball given by Lady Holland in the winter 
 of 1844-45, a g uest 5 tired of the weight of a suit 
 of armour he was wearing, went to the room 
 George Watts was using as his studio and took it 
 off. Armour had always fascinated him, and 
 next day he was to be found making a study of 
 it. As the result was a portrait of himself that 
 the Hollands liked, he gave it to them, and it 
 is now at Holland House. At this time he also 
 painted Lord Holland — a portrait unfortunately 
 so greatly injured in 1870, in an outbreak of fire 
 at Holland House, that in spite of much labour 
 on his part he could not restore it to its former 
 worth. A little note from Lady Holland, dated 
 from her house, St. Anne's Hill, January 1871, 
 shows that it was a treasured gift of his to her. 
 " I feel so broken-hearted," she writes, " at the 
 contents of your letter last night that I am almost 
 unable to put pen to paper. For pity's sake, don't 
 take hope from me. Try, oh try, to do something. 
 Call picture-cleaners, picture-restorers, incur any 
 expense — I would starve to regain that portrait. 
 Dear, dear friend, I appeal to your old affections, 
 to the remembrance of days gone by, to every 
 feeling of your kind heart. On that canvas you 
 have still the outline ; you can recall the features 
 of that poor friend who valued you for so many 
 
 53
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 years. What other hand can do what you could 
 do ? I beseech you, I implore you, I have 
 lived ever since the disaster in the hope that you 
 would restore me the image of one no longer to 
 be restored to me in life ; and will my constant 
 prayers obtain that he be restored to me in an- 
 other ? I have not even that firm faith that 
 many are blessed with." All that could be done 
 he did, and to a certain extent as a likeness it was 
 restored, but as a painting its worth was lost. 
 
 His pencil drawings, in number somewhat 
 more than forty, in that same room were fortun- 
 ately saved ; these delicate pencil drawings made 
 by him during the evenings at the Casa Feroni, or 
 at the Villa Careggi, are portraits chiefly of special 
 friends of Lord and Lady Holland ; and in later 
 years, in her boudoir at Holland House, she liked 
 to sit surrounded by these friendly faces taking 
 her back to her life in Florence, a time, my 
 husband used sometimes to say, he believed to 
 have been the happiest of her life, English con- 
 ventions never being quite congenial to her nature. 
 For him, certainly, it was altogether a time he 
 liked to keep green in memory. It was delight- 
 ful to listen to his account of these happy days : 
 of the pleasant trysts at the Cafe Doney where 
 he often breakfasted or dined in the company 
 of such men as Hiram Powers, the American 
 sculptor, a hard-headed reasonable man, yet 
 latterly entirely converted to spiritualism ; Mr. 
 William Spence, and many others. 
 
 He also knew Mr. Seymour Kirkup, who, 
 
 54
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 under the whitewash on the walls of the Bargello, 
 had made the discovery of the priceless portrait 
 of Dante by Giotto. He often heard Kirkup 
 describe his night in hiding, when he caused 
 himself to be locked up in the Bargello, knowing 
 the portrait was condemned into the hands of a 
 restorer, and he, when refused permission for this, 
 had determined at all costs to make a facsimile of 
 the portrait as he found it, and succeeded in the 
 early morning in making both a tracing in pencil 
 and a water-colour drawing — thus earning the 
 gratitude of the world. The restorer painted in 
 the damaged eye, and made other changes in the 
 features, and in the colour of the poet's dress, 
 which was altered from red, white, and green to 
 a dead brown. Count Cottrell, then Chamberlain 
 to the Grand Duke of Lucca, was one of his 
 chief friends, to whose reverent care is owed the 
 preservation of some hundreds of delightful little 
 studies in pencil and water-colour ; these, with 
 several large canvases, were left in the Careggi 
 studio, and were eventually stored by Count 
 Cottrell in the cellars of the Palazzo Torre Arsa, 
 Via Cavour. 
 
 Years afterwards Mr. William Spence, writing 
 to Mr. Watts of his colour-men, says, " Bonelli is 
 dead, but there are two or three deformed helps 
 who always grin at the mention of your name " ; 
 and in 1853, on n ^ s return — after sixteen years' 
 absence — to Florence, the old flower-seller, so 
 long a well-known figure in the streets, on 
 catching sight of him leapt to her feet and ran 
 
 55
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 towards him, till to his dismay he found himself 
 enfolded in her motherly arms and kissed on both 
 cheeks, to the sound of great laughter from his 
 companions, Roddam Spencer - Stanhope and 
 Henry Prinsep. 
 
 In one respect during these years (1843-47) 
 he was unfortunate, for Walter Savage Landor 
 was absent in England, and the Brownings 
 arrived at Florence the month he left for home ; 
 so that to his great regret he never met Mrs. 
 Browning. Mr. Ruskin passed through Florence 
 and called at the British Legation, but they did 
 not meet until later in London. Nevertheless he 
 had many delightful friends ; and of the two in 
 chief who were his hosts he often spoke, wonder- 
 ing if he had been grateful enough, though in all 
 truth he did his utmost to show his indebtedness 
 to them, and to this every picture by him at Hol- 
 land House bears witness. " I often wonder," he 
 said, " when I think of the kindness of those two 
 to me ; as I think of that time I see how wonder- 
 fully they made me one with them. It pleases 
 me to think what confidence they had in me, talk- 
 ing to me about their most intimate concerns." 
 
 He liked to quote a verse by Shenstone he 
 had learnt from Lord Holland, and wished that 
 he had asked to be allowed to place the words 
 somewhere on a stone at Holland House. 
 
 I prized every hour that went by 
 
 Beyond all I valued before, 
 
 And now they are gone and I sigh, 
 
 And I grieve that I prized them no more. 
 
 56
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 One New Year's Day, his thoughts went 
 back to this festa spent at Casa Feroni, and he 
 recalled how those kind friends had wished him 
 good fortune. Lady Holland had sent to Bautte, 
 the famous watchmaker and goldsmith at Geneva, 
 for a watch and chain of delicate workmanship, 
 the only valuables of such a sort he ever possessed ; 
 and as she put the chain — then worn long — over 
 his head, she said, " We not only bind you to us, 
 we chain you." 
 
 Years later, when he was doing work that 
 took him every day through a crowded part of 
 London, fear of the pickpocket made him take 
 others into use, and he believed he had locked 
 up in safety these, so valued for the giver's sake, 
 as well as for the pleasure he found in Bautte's 
 good workmanship. But they were not beyond 
 the reach of thieving fingers. So vanished his 
 precious watch and chain, and he could never 
 speak of the loss without real pain, nor would he 
 allow any one to replace them. 
 
 57
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 59
 
 The contemplation of what has been done in art 
 will go no farther to create an artist than the 
 reading of poetry will create a real poet. The 
 artist is born, not made. The latent genius 
 may be aroused no doubt, but, excepting that it 
 is good to know how much can be achieved, the 
 sight of accumulated greatness is more likely to 
 destroy all but the most original power, by 
 making the student an imitator. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 60
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 As already said, G. F. Watts made his first study 
 of fresco upon the now whitewashed walls of 
 the courtyard at the Casa Feroni. 
 
 At the Villa Careggi the fresco painted some 
 two or three years later has been more fortunate. 
 On a blank wall space in a then open loggia he 
 found his opportunity. The wall was carefully 
 prepared, and as he had now acquainted himself 
 with the best tradition of pure fresco-painting, 
 he chose for his subject the exciting scene after 
 the death of Lorenzo de' Medici when an 
 attempt to drown his doctor was, or was said 
 to have been made. The fresco is lasting well, 
 and has every chance of being well preserved by 
 the present owner of Careggi, Professor Segre, 
 who values it and has made a delightful sitting- 
 room of the former loggia. While Lord Holland 
 was minister at the Court of Tuscany from 1839 
 to 1846, Careggi was his country home. 
 Celebrated from mediaeval times, the villa 
 Medicae di Careggi — to give it its correct name 
 — is well known as one of the most historic in 
 the Val d'Arno. The original villa was bought 
 
 61
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 by Cosimo de' Medici, "Pater Patriae," in 1417, 
 who caused it to be rebuilt by Michelozzo 
 Michelozzi, and by good fortune his work 
 remains almost untouched to this day. During 
 the years that Lord Holland lived there the 
 Roman road still ran by the north side of the 
 house, and its strangely irregular line of wall 
 seems to suggest that Michelozzi chose to keep 
 to the line of the road, and make his great 
 foundations bend to this, much as a man to-day 
 would plant a hedgerow. Whatever reason the 
 great artist may have had for planning this 
 irregularity, certainly the effect of the curving 
 line of frontage, the wall rising grandly to its 
 overhanging gallery under the roof, is sur- 
 prisingly delightful. 
 
 The public road was diverted by a later owner 
 of the villa, Mr. Soames, and trees were so 
 planted that a vigorous young wood now secludes 
 the villa on this side ; perhaps rightly, as it has 
 long passed from the glare of a great Court into 
 the quiet shade of private life. Cosimo lived 
 much at Careggi, and died there ; so did his son 
 Piero, and again his son Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 who to its courts and loggias, in Plato's name, 
 drew poet and thinker of that great age. The 
 paintings by Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of 
 the Riccardi Palace were in all probability 
 almost transcripts of the processions of that date, 
 and present to the mind something of the 
 pageant of colour that may have passed through 
 the gates of this villa, and streamed about 
 
 62
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 beneath its walls in the day of its pomp. Again, 
 but in more sombre colour, Careggi comes upon 
 the page of history when, at the bidding of 
 Lorenzo from his death-bed, Savonarola arrived 
 to make those inflexible conditions upon which 
 alone he would consent to absolve the passing 
 soul. On a summer evening, in the glow be- 
 loved by Venetian painters, nature having had 
 time to play delightfully with the modern colour 
 on its walls fretted by the shadow cast by the 
 machicolated gallery, an impression of old gold 
 shining upon a ground of cypress velvet is left 
 on the mind. 
 
 And Careggi keeps its fascinations ! At 
 least so it seemed in 1910, when its master gave 
 to two travellers kindly welcome, showed them 
 its rooms from basement to roof, and went round 
 the hanging gallery to find points in the landscape 
 made familiar by paintings done by a vanished 
 hand that had worked here with tireless zeal 
 when Lord Holland was the tenant. And at 
 Careggi Lady Holland loved to be, and here she 
 brought the young English painter, who quickly 
 converted a large building in the garden into a 
 summer studio. It was built to shelter lemon 
 trees in winter and was of grand proportions, 
 somewhere about a hundred feet in length ; but 
 now the building has gone — pulled down when 
 the villa was in the possession of Mr. Soames. 
 The light was high, with a row of windows so 
 lofty that the painter needed steps to reach his 
 paint-brushes put there to dry in the sun. He 
 
 63
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 remembered how narrowly he had escaped being 
 stung by a viper which had curled itself to sleep 
 upon the handles, and upon which one day when 
 he was about to take his brushes down he laid 
 his hand. In this studio much work was going 
 on, and with a mind attuned to the thoughts of 
 the poets of greater Italy, he designed on one 
 large canvas the story from Boccaccio, now in the 
 gallery of British Art ; on another Buondelmonti 
 riding beneath a portico and looking up towards 
 the fair lady whose beauty brought about his 
 murder — the first blow struck in a quarrel 
 between Guelf and Ghibeline, which caused the 
 streets of Florence to stream with blood. 
 Bojardo gave him the Fata Morgana ; Ariosto, 
 the Witch pursuing the Knight ; Dante, the 
 tragedy of the lovers " whirled ever like driven 
 leaves." The work accomplished in these four 
 years was immense, and the large studio made 
 possible many large canvases. One of these is 
 the picture called " Echo " (now in the Tate 
 Gallery), the under -painting of which is in 
 tempera colour. 
 
 The good state of this picture my husband 
 thought remarkable, because for many years for 
 want of wall space it was fastened upon the 
 ceiling of his studio in Kensington, and rather 
 loosely strained upon the stretcher. In course 
 of time it curved outwards like a filled sail ; and 
 yet when it was taken down it was solid and 
 whole as when newly painted. " On a tempera 
 ground prepared in Florence," he once said when 
 
 6 4
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 describing to me the way in which he set to 
 work upon this picture, " I painted a figure in 
 distemper, laying in the skeleton very simply, 
 just the principal bones ; these I next covered 
 with the flesh in monochrome (probably in 
 white and terra verte — or it might have been in 
 white and raw umber — I don't quite remember) ; 
 then, still using distemper, I laid in colour, and 
 finally, using oil colour, I painted just what you 
 see." The ordinary distemper prepared as it is 
 in Italy, is still very superior in quality — so 
 Mr. William de Morgan told him — to the same 
 pigment (whitening with size) as known in 
 England. The studio at Careggi must have 
 held an astonishing number of large canvases. 
 It was always his habit to carry on as many 
 designs at a time as easels or wall space admitted, 
 often in the same hour working alternately 
 on some five or six, or even more, different in 
 subject and in treatment. He found that the 
 change of thought was good, that it kept his 
 mind alert with fresh interest, and that his eye 
 turned with a clearer perception from one to 
 another. Another change for eye and hand he 
 found in modelling, using either clay or wax. 
 The one remaining example of his work in the 
 round belonging to this date is the head of the 
 dead Medusa, which was twice carried out in 
 alabaster, the last chiselling being done by his 
 own hand. The face is that of a noble woman 
 entirely unindividual, one who has suffered in 
 causing suffering ; she seems to have welcomed 
 vol. i 65 f
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 death because it released her from the curse 
 under the spell of which she had turned all 
 warmth of life and youth to stone. 
 
 He painted many portraits at Florence, the 
 2nd Count Cottrell, the lovely Countess Valeska, 
 gifts to the Hollands ; that of Mr. William 
 Spence ; Madame Ristori ; Princess Matilde 
 Buonaparte ; Madame Leroux, afterwards Prin- 
 cess de la Tour d'Auvergne. He also paid a 
 visit to Lucca to paint a three-quarter-length 
 portrait of Carlo Lodovico the Grand Duke of 
 Lucca, 1 who gave him his first decoration, the 
 Order of San Lodovico. 
 
 A careful study' of the work belonging to 
 this time will reveal little mark of change in 
 the style and character of the artist's work as 
 the result of these years spent in Italy. The 
 careful handling, called by a recent writer 
 " hard " when speaking of the portraits at 
 Holland House, was the training he purposely 
 gave himself from the first. Whether the word 
 " hard " should be applied to such portraits as 
 Lady Holland's in the Riviera straw hat, or to 
 that of Panizzi, is an open question. There is 
 certainly an absence of a certain freedom which 
 he allowed himself in his later manner. The 
 representative work done by George Watts at 
 this time will, I think, show no evidence of any 
 great change during his stay in Italy as the 
 result of the more direct influence of the great 
 masters. The characteristics of his portraiture 
 
 1 Now in the possession of the Duke of Parma. 
 
 66
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 had been, and for many years continued to be, 
 these — an evident avoidance of effort to produce 
 a pictorial effect, an absence of any strong 
 contrast in the shadows, a very evident careful- 
 ness of drawing, and the avoidance of any touch 
 of the kind that he would call a smear. There 
 is a portrait in the Compton Gallery of Miss 
 Marietta Lockhart, painted at Florence, to which 
 he specially liked to draw the attention of 
 students, pointing out the absence of shadow, 
 while notwithstanding, all necessary rotundity 
 and projection of the features is preserved. 
 
 His long habit of drawing with gold or lead 
 point on metallic paper, a method which 
 admitted of no correction, was, he believed, 
 valuable to him, and this practice he always 
 recommended to students. He discouraged the 
 notion that a student should make copies from 
 the old masters. When he was in Italy he never 
 made a copy of any picture whatever. The 
 water-colour sketches from Titian's " Battle of 
 Cadore," and one from Tintoretto's " Miracle of 
 St. Mark," are the only drawings upon which he 
 bestowed more time than was required to secure 
 small notes in water-colour which he occasion- 
 ally made from frescoes in the churches. He 
 studied the great masters, but not to copy them. 
 He was convinced that a man who follows 
 another must always lag behind ; his aim was 
 to find out the general principle upon which 
 they had worked. In the evidence given by 
 him in 1863 before the Royal Commission on 
 
 67
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the Academy, he said, " A good general method 
 will never interfere with the expression of genius 
 or trammel originality " ; and on being asked if 
 he had himself gained great benefit from the 
 opportunity of studying in Italy, he answered, 
 " Unquestionably it must be so, but I do not 
 think it absolutely necessary that an artist should 
 go to Italy. There are in England quite a 
 sufficient number of works of art to prove to 
 him what may be done, and I think that with 
 these and the Elgin Marbles it is not absolutely 
 necessary that students should travel ; but it is 
 obvious that much is to be gained by travelling, 
 the mind must be enlarged by it." That which 
 the young painter gained for his art during his 
 stay at Florence his own words express in writing 
 of Haydon only a few years after he had left 
 Italy. " A visit to sunny climates would have 
 afforded Haydon a valuable lesson. There he 
 would have seen the unrestrained form acquiring 
 that development he could but imagine, and 
 might be excused for exaggerating — the rich 
 colour of the flesh that gives at once the key- 
 note of the picture, the out-of-door life so 
 suggestive of breadth and brilliancy. In Italy to 
 this day, though gorgeous colour no longer 
 contributes its magnificence to the general 
 splendour, one constantly sees forms and com- 
 binations that might be adopted without 
 alteration in the grandest composition." 
 
 Besides his devotion to his work he found 
 time to enjoy going into society both Italian and 
 
 68
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 English, and those who knew him best in his 
 later life of seclusion may be surprised to hear 
 of a little surviving note written by him to his 
 friend Mr. William Spence, saying, " I wish very 
 much to go to the ball to-night, but cannot get 
 hold of a dress. Have you anything of the kind 
 you could lend me? " This might have been the 
 fancy-dress ball at Feroni. He was tasting of 
 the best pleasures that life had to give to a 
 young man, whose looks and manner found 
 favour with most, and music and poetry, in the 
 cool of Italian gardens, were suggestive of 
 romance. It was now that his picture the 
 " First Whisper of Love " was painted, and little 
 scraps of verse belong to this time, written to 
 one who was fair. 
 
 Both music and the drama in Italy, during 
 these years, received much support from English 
 residents and travellers. In Florence this was 
 notably the case, much being due to Lord and 
 Lady Normanby. Lord Normanby was the 
 British minister to whose post Lord Holland had 
 succeeded in 1843 ; they were still resident in 
 Florence, and their interest and encouragement 
 attracted the best musicians and actors, a pleasure 
 that to G. F. Watts was not small. There is a 
 little pencil drawing of the head of Verdi. 
 Madame Ristori was well known to him, and he 
 painted a portrait of her when, as he said, she 
 was a pretty and charming girl. She came to see 
 him again in London in the 'fifties, when he made 
 a drawing of her. Endowed by nature with a fine 
 
 69
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 ear, and answering as he must to everything that 
 was great in any art, he would sometimes speak so 
 enthusiastically of music as to express regret that 
 he had not in early life turned his whole attention 
 to it, rather than to the sister art. Lord Holland 
 liked to tell a story of some one much the senior 
 of Watts, a man of the world, and one who very 
 much believed in himself, who, standing among 
 a group of listeners one day at Casa Feroni, and 
 rather boasting of his contempt for music, turned 
 to those about him — Lord Holland being of 
 their number — and said, "It has not the 
 slightest effect upon me, pleasurable or otherwise 
 — what does that mean, I ask you ? ' " It means 
 a defective organisation," answered the young 
 painter hotly, obliged, in defence of the divine 
 art, to drop his habit of never putting himself 
 forward. Lord Holland was as much delighted 
 as the boaster was furious. 
 
 Though half a lifetime lies between the two 
 utterances, the conviction that brought the quick 
 rebuke to his lips was clearly explained when he 
 wrote the following passage: "'All beauty,' said 
 the devout mystic, 'is the face of God' ; there- 
 fore to make acquaintance with beauty, in and 
 through every form, is the cultivation of religious 
 feeling. This while it is the noblest aspect of 
 art, is also the most primitive. Nothing can be 
 more important to remember than that in the 
 cultivation of the artistic perceptions we are 
 developing one of the essential endowments of the 
 human creature — one in which that difference 
 
 70
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 between him and the lower creation is most 
 distinctly marked. It seems to me to be the 
 duty of every one to answer to every such call." 
 George Watts was able also to see something 
 of Italy ; he travelled with Lord Holland on 
 several occasions, once driving along the Cornice 
 road to Marseilles. They visited Milan together, 
 and he remembered the Cenacolo as the work 
 which in his opinion placed Leonardo da Vinci 
 as a great painter ; for while he demurred as 
 to the popular estimate of Leonardo's pictures, 
 which he thought extravagant, he found in this 
 fresco what he called " the greatest conception 
 of the Christ ever painted." One journey 
 made with Lord Holland was to England, to 
 which in 1845 they together paid a flying visit. 
 During this brief visit to London he saw 
 for the first time Holland House, then in the 
 possession of Lord Holland's capricious mother, 
 Elizabeth, Lady Holland. Though she was 
 living in Stanhope Street at the time, her son had 
 to sneak in at a back entrance, and the visit they 
 paid was made under the rose, as her ladyship 
 objected to her son's going there at all. He 
 brought George Watts an invitation to dine with 
 his mother one evening, but Lord Holland 
 warned him to be prepared for a bad reception, 
 as he explained she made a point of being rude 
 to all his friends. However, that evening she 
 chose to be particularly civil to the young artist. 
 This was the only opportunity he had of being 
 received by her, as she died some months later. 
 
 71
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 That evening her sarcasm was so mercilessly 
 directed against her daughter, Lady Lilford, that 
 at last, to the great discomfort of her guests, she 
 reduced her to tears. At another time he drove 
 with Lord Holland to Naples, where he stayed 
 at the Villa Rochella, and on the way stayed both 
 at Perugia and Civita Castellana. 
 
 One whole day they spent in Rome ; it was 
 a burning day in August, and my husband 
 remembered how Lord Holland, hurrying to 
 give him glimpses of the most famous sights and 
 monuments, still delayed the visit to the Sistine 
 Chapel, the one moment impatiently expected 
 by the painter. His cicerone told him he knew 
 he would be disappointed, for the light was 
 never good enough to see the work, but at last 
 his eagerness prevailed, and they stepped under 
 that matchless roof to find the whole chapel 
 flooded with light. Lord Holland afterwards 
 declared that in all his visits he had really never 
 seen the frescoes till that moment. Perhaps 
 something of this enjoyment may have been due 
 to the companionship of one who certainly had 
 the gift of opening the eyes of those who could 
 share with him the joy of beauty in art or nature. 
 Apart from the walls of this chapel, only by line- 
 engravings could these frescoes be known ; and 
 these convey but a small idea of the grandeur of 
 Michael Angelo's style. George Watts, prepared 
 as he was, by all that he had read or heard, 
 for something supreme, was nevertheless un- 
 expectedly overwhelmed. The reproductions 
 
 72
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 that photography has made possible — so often 
 pondered over in years to come — once reminded 
 him that Gabriel Rossetti had said that till he 
 saw the photographs he had disbelieved alto- 
 gether in the greatness of the work. " On the 
 whole, as a complete work by one man, they are 
 the greatest things existing," was my husband's 
 mature verdict ; " for we know but half of 
 the work of Pheidias, and we can judge of his 
 greatness only by the fragments that remain, 
 as nothing remains of that which happens to be 
 mentioned in the very meagre written records 
 that have come down to us." He has also said, 
 " Not only does Michael Angelo give a character 
 to his epoch, but he stands for Italy almost as 
 Shakespeare does for England." 
 
 With all his reverence for Michael Angelo, 
 he did not place him high as a sculptor, and 
 withheld his praise from the world-famous 
 " David " ; indeed, I have heard him declare 
 that in his opinion it was a bad statue — the right 
 foot not good, the waist too small, and the hands 
 not the hands of a youth. He had great admira- 
 tion, however, for the marble tondo in the Diploma 
 Gallery of our Royal Academy ; of this tondo he 
 wrote to Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower in 1 903 : 
 " It is a thing of supreme and even pictorial 
 beauty. It is quite lovely being left with a 
 chiselled surface, for it is incomplete according to 
 general apprehension, but in my opinion more 
 perfect, especially the infant Christ, which is as 
 full of sense of colour as any Venetian picture." 
 
 73
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 To Lord Ronald he also wrote at this time : " My 
 only disagreement with you would be in the 
 estimate of his [Michael Angelo's] comparative 
 excellence in sculpture and painting. He called 
 himself sculptor, but we seldom gauge rightly our 
 own strength and weakness." And later in the 
 same letter he adds : " This seems presumptuous 
 criticism, and you might, considering my aspira- 
 tions and efforts, say to me c Do better.' I am 
 not Michael Angelo, but I am a pupil of the 
 greatest sculptor of all, Pheidias (a master the 
 great Florentine knew nothing of), and so far, I 
 feel a right to set up judgment on the technique 
 only." However, for the studies in wax made 
 by this great master he felt an unbounded admira- 
 tion, and he thought that Michael Angelo was 
 prevented, by the obstinacy of the material, from 
 dashing his thoughts into marble, as he did with 
 the brush upon the walls of the Sistine Chapel. 
 
 The Hollands were now often at the Villa 
 Rochella, which had been Lady Holland's home 
 before her marriage, and to her was a very 
 favourite one, long after her widowhood. More 
 than forty years later, when my husband and I 
 looked down from our hotel windows upon the 
 Villa, now surrounded by buildings, it seemed to 
 him that it had been transplanted from the 
 country into the heart of Naples. Men were 
 then busily felling the beautiful ilex and pine of 
 the neighbouring garden, and he turned hastily 
 away, exclaiming, " Don't let us look at it." 
 
 Of this delightful first visit Pompeii seemed 
 
 74
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to remain most clearly in his mind. His imagina- 
 tion was touched by the signs of life and death 
 in this long-buried city, and by Vesuvius, the 
 great destroyer and preserver of it all, still sending 
 out its columns of smoke as when all was busy in 
 these ancient streets. 
 
 He remembered too his scramble up the side 
 of the mountain, when he and only one other of 
 the party (Lord Walpole) went to the top to peer 
 down into the fiery throat of the crater. 
 
 He now returned to Careggi and to his 
 work, which went on as earnestly as usual. 
 During the autumn of 1845, wnen alone, as the 
 Hollands were absent in Naples, I think on 
 account of the illness of Lady Holland's mother, 
 he received the news of the death of his father 
 who had long been in delicate health. A chill, 
 upon which bronchitis followed, was the cause of 
 his death. The previous year his son had returned 
 to England to see his father, when travelling 
 with Lord Holland, who, as has already been said, 
 had invited him to be his companion. Of this 
 sorrow he writes to a friend, many months later : 
 " My father's death has been a sad blow to me, 
 nor have I yet recovered from the effects." 
 
 In the following year both spring and 
 summer were entirely spent by the painter at 
 Careggi. Lord Holland having resigned his 
 post at Florence and retired from the diplo- 
 matic service, he and Lady Holland spent much 
 time at Naples, and the villa would perhaps 
 have been a little lonely for him in spite of 
 
 75
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 hard work, but that Lady Holland had begged 
 her friend Lady Duff Gordon, with her two 
 daughters, to make as much use of it as they 
 chose. In this way he was again surrounded 
 by that affectionate care which something in 
 his nature required and compelled. When he 
 was unwell Lady Duff Gordon looked after him 
 with motherly care ; and he and the daughters, 
 Georgie and Alice Duff Gordon, became great 
 friends over the arts both of painting and 
 music. After the day's work was accomplished, 
 duets and trios often followed ; and on a charm- 
 ing old French guitar he played and sang 
 little songs, the words of which he sometimes 
 wrote himself. In the autumn of 1846 they 
 left for Rome, and he was again alone, and 
 at work designing his large picture to be called 
 " Alfred inciting the English to resist the Danes 
 by Sea," where they were considered to be in- 
 vincible — England's first naval victory. During 
 the summer he had also been in communication 
 with Mr. lonides about a large picture he pro- 
 posed to paint for Greece, if Mr. lonides would 
 supply the cost of the materials. 
 
 From Careggi in June 1846 the painter 
 writes to him thus : " If I have not made 
 money, it has been my own fault. With the 
 connection I have made, if I applied myself to 
 portrait-painting I might carry all before me ; 
 but it has always been my ambition to tread in 
 the steps of the old masters, and to endeavour, 
 as far as my poor talents would permit, to 
 
 76
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 emulate their greatness. Nor has the sight of 
 their great works diminished my ardour ; this 
 cannot be done by painting portraits. Cannot 
 you give me a commission to paint a picture 
 to send to Greece ? Some patriotic subject, 
 something that shall carry a moral lesson, such 
 as Aristides relinquishing his right to command 
 to Miltiades, that those who look upon it may 
 recollect that the true hero and patriot thinks 
 not of his own honour or advantage, and is ever 
 ready to sacrifice his personal feelings and his 
 individual advancement for his country's good. 
 Such subjects grandly painted and in a striking 
 manner would not be without effect upon 
 generous minds. Take advantage of my 
 enthusiasm now ; I will paint you an acre of 
 canvas for little more than the cost of the 
 material. My cartoon, as you say, was not sold 
 for a large price ; I could have got a great deal 
 more for it, but an offer was made to purchase 
 the eleven prize cartoons for a certain sum to 
 be equally divided amongst us, and I did not 
 think it right, by refusing my consent, to 
 prevent those who were less fortunate than 
 myself from making a little money." 
 
 There was some correspondence about this 
 suggestion, Mr. Ionides preferring the meeting 
 of Nausicaa with Ulysses, which apparently did 
 not appeal to the mood of the painter. Mr. 
 Ionides having consented to his choosing a 
 subject from Xenophon's Cyropcedia, he began 
 to paint a picture to be called " Panthea," but 
 
 77
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 this design was afterwards obliterated, and no 
 sketches for it can be identified. 
 
 But the question of again entering as a 
 competitor for the prizes offered by the Royal 
 Commission of Fine Arts had now to be con- 
 sidered. All his friends urged him strongly to 
 compete ; and he was told that people at home 
 were blaming the Hollands for making him 
 idle. There had been two competitions for 
 which he had not entered. In 1844 the prizes 
 offered had been for arabesques and decorative 
 designs, for friezes, lunettes, panels, and pave- 
 ments ; also for designs to be carried out in 
 wrought iron. In 1845 followed a competition 
 for fresco - painting, six selected artists being 
 chosen, though the competition was open to 
 others. A cartoon, a coloured sketch, and a 
 painting in fresco of some part of the design 
 were required, and three premiums of £200 
 each were offered. In the next competition 
 (June 1847) tne particulars again varied, for 
 the size of the painting was left to the artists, 
 their names need not be concealed, and the 
 medium employed was to be oil-colour. 
 
 When he had decided to compete, during 
 this summer and autumn he began to make 
 very careful drawings for his picture of Alfred ; 
 and in December he writes to Miss Duff Gordon 
 a very full description of this design. She had 
 asked him to describe it, and he consents to 
 do so as he has " nothing better to write about," 
 and adds that it will be after the manner of the 
 
 78
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 showman. " You ask me to describe my 
 picture of Alfred ; the general design you are 
 acquainted with. Alfred stands, as you know, 
 in the centre of the picture, his foot upon the 
 plank, about to spring into the boat. I have 
 endeavoured to give him as much energy, 
 dignity, and expression as possible, without 
 exaggeration. Long-limbed and springy, he is 
 about the size of the Apollo, the other figures 
 are bigger, so you see my composition is colossal. 
 Near to Alfred is a youth who, in his excite- 
 ment, rends off his cloak in order to follow his 
 King and leader ; by the richness of his dress 
 he evidently belongs to the upper class, and I 
 shall endeavour to make that also evident by 
 the elegance of his form, and the grace of his 
 action. Next to him is a youth who is probably 
 a peasant ; he grasps a ponderous axe and 
 threatens extermination to the whole Danish 
 race. Contrasted with him you see the 
 muscular back of an older man, who turns 
 towards his wife, who, with a child in her arms, 
 follows distracted at the thought that her 
 child's father is about to rush into danger. He 
 points upward, and encourages her to trust in 
 the righteousness of the cause and the justice 
 of Heaven (religion and patriotism). Behind 
 him two lovers are taking a hurried and tender 
 leave, and beyond them a maiden with dis- 
 hevelled locks (your sister's hair), whose lover 
 or father has already departed, with clasped 
 hands is imploring the protection of Heaven. 
 
 79
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 In the corner a youth is buckling on armour ; 
 his old mother, with trembling hands and tear- 
 ful eyes, hangs about his neck a cross ; the 
 father, feeble, and no longer able to fight his 
 country's battles, gives his sword with one hand, 
 while with the other he bares his chest, points 
 to his wounds, and exhorts his son not to 
 disgrace his father's name and sword ; while 
 with glowing cheek and beating heart the 
 youth responds to his father's exhortations with 
 all the ardour characteristic of his age. This 
 I think my most interesting group. I have 
 made the parents old and infirm and the young 
 man but a lad, in order to show that he is the 
 last and youngest, the Benjamin of the family ; 
 his brothers, we will suppose, have already fallen 
 fighting against the Dane, defending their 
 country. You see I endeavour to preserve a 
 rich base accompaniment of religious and 
 patriotic feeling. A boy, carried away by the 
 general enthusiasm, clenches his little fists, 
 draws his breath, and rushes along with the 
 excited warriors ; which helps to indicate the 
 inspiring effect of Alfred's harangue. In the 
 foreground two men lift from the ground a 
 bundle which has been provided by the 
 prudence of the king. On the other side of 
 the picture some men, impatient of delay, rush 
 through the water and climb the vessel-side, 
 while others are engaged in getting it under 
 way. Now I think you have an idea of what 
 my picture is intended to be." 
 
 80
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 He made numberless pencil drawings for 
 this picture ; some forty of these are preserved 
 (mostly owing to Count Cottrell's care), none 
 of them measuring more than twelve inches at 
 their longest dimension ; sometimes the figure 
 of Alfred is repeated five times on the same 
 bit of paper, and the whole group, in most 
 careful outline, is drawn over and over again 
 whilst he considered various changes. 
 
 He was much absorbed in this picture, 
 which he described in a letter as " dedicated 
 to patriotism and posterity." Work must have 
 been incessant, as on December 21 he writes 
 that the painting is not yet begun, and only 
 the studies are made ; yet by April 15 he was 
 on his way home with it almost completed, 
 and during this short time he went to Rome 
 for a fortnight. He had been driven away 
 from Florence by the intense cold of that 
 March, but returned hurriedly to Careggi 
 when he found that there was little time to 
 spare. On April 1 5 he started from Leghorn, 
 going home by sea, and taking with him five 
 canvases varying in size from twenty feet down- 
 wards. He left Careggi meaning to return in 
 a few months, though a foreboding that he 
 should never see it again is shown in a letter 
 of good-bye to Miss Duff" Gordon : " I reply 
 to your kind letter and say farewell to Italy 
 at the same time. The boat is steaming away 
 in the harbour, my place is taken, and in a 
 short time my back will be turned upon my 
 vol. 1 81 G
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 beloved Italy. I grieve to leave it, particularly 
 at this moment, when it is beginning to put 
 on all its charms. Careggi was looking 
 beautiful. Dear Careggi, I may never see it 
 again ! though it is my intention to return, 
 if possible, immediately ; I am too well aware 
 of the accidents to which the future is subject 
 to count upon anything." And so it was ; 
 when he went back to Italy, sixteen years 
 later, Careggi was in the possession of strangers 
 and he could not bear to revisit it. 
 
 82
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 83
 
 The artist must bring to his work the ardour 
 of the young lover or the missionary. No 
 matter what his artistic organisation, if he is 
 satisfied with a few hours' hard work — no 
 matter how hard — and can throw thought of 
 it aside and say he has done enough for the day 
 and will throw aside " shop " ; not for him 
 will be a place on the highest level for all time. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 8 4
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Once more in London, George Watts did not 
 decide upon taking a studio, as his intention was 
 merely to pay a short visit and to return to 
 Florence immediately after he had been able 
 to arrange matters for his two stepsisters, and 
 when the big picture had been completed and 
 placed at Westminster Hall for the competition 
 in June. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. R. S. Holford, the 
 well-known connoisseur, kindly offered him the 
 use of a large empty room at Dorchester House. 
 He had made the acquaintance of Mr. Holford at 
 Careggi during the last months spent there. A 
 letter of introduction from the Duff Gordons 
 having taken a fortnight to reach Careggi from 
 Rome, he did not receive it until the day after 
 Mr. Holford and Mr. Reginald Cholmondeley 
 had been to visit him, when, as he writes, he 
 was much puzzled, first by the Italian servant's 
 version of their names, and then by being 
 expected to welcome them. However, stiffness 
 was soon at an end : " We plunged into art ; 
 the dear and only love was hanging upon the 
 
 85
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 wall ; I prosed away about Pheidias, they listened 
 with politeness ; I mentioned Giorgione, they 
 went off in their turn ; my own pictures were 
 forgotten, I don't recollect whether I showed 
 them — if I did, I am sure they don't recollect 
 seeing them. Finding them such enthusiasts, I 
 promised to go next day into town, and carry 
 them to the house of an old gentleman whose 
 acquaintance I have lately made, and who has 
 some of the finest pictures in the world. Ac- 
 cordingly this morning I breakfasted with them 
 and Lord Ossulton, and afterwards introduced 
 <v. them to the pictures, which are wonders. Mr. 
 Holford will never survive if he does not carry 
 off the Giorgiones." This bond of enthusiasm 
 soon made them, he says, " old acquaintances," 
 and the result of this introduction was that he 
 was for some time provided with a temporary 
 studio. Having now no home in London, he 
 found rooms for himself at 48 Cambridge Street ; 
 these he kept until 1849, when he became 
 tenant of the studios at 30 Charles Street, Berkeley 
 Square. His stepsisters had, on the death of 
 their father, removed to the country, and, as 
 he writes before leaving Italy, he wished to see 
 that they were comfortably settled ; but the 
 father's loss had greatly loosened the tie to his 
 old home. In spite of a considerable difference 
 of age, the father and son were the two who 
 completely understood each other, and certainly 
 they were one in a search after something that 
 seemed to each never to be attained. The 
 
 86
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 father, bent on making music through some new 
 channel — an adaptation of wind upon strings — 
 so I seem to understand it — but never able to 
 perfect his invention, in the bitterness of his 
 disappointment, finally broke up and utterly 
 destroyed the whole fabric upon which so much 
 had been lavished. The son also, from his 
 earliest days, was bent — so it were possible — 
 upon making the world richer by the music of 
 another art. With the sisters, for whom he had 
 now arranged the matter of an income for their 
 lives, it was different. " There was a difference 
 of fibre," as he expressed it, existing always, 
 but probably much accentuated by the years of 
 absence in Italy, and later by unhappy friction, 
 greatly due, as I have been told, though not 
 by him, to the temper of one sister ; so that 
 the breach ultimately widened until they had no 
 part in his life. 
 
 In June of that year, 1847, the exhibition 
 of competing works was opened. The names 
 of the three winners to whom were awarded 
 first premiums of £500 stood as follows : — 
 
 To F. R. Pickersgill for his picture, " The 
 Burial of Harold " ; to George Frederic Watts 
 for his work, " Alfred inciting the Britons to 
 resist the Landing of the Danes by encountering 
 them at Sea " ; and to Edward Armitage for the 
 picture, "The Battle of Meeanee." 1 
 
 1 Upwards of forty years later Sir F. Burton told me that he remembered 
 well this competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, and 
 how when he came away he said, "We have two men who will do well — 
 Watts and Stevens." 
 
 87
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 On the close of the exhibition Sir Charles 
 Eastlake recommended the purchase of four 
 of the pictures for the nation — Pickersgill's 
 "Harold" ; Watts's "Alfred" ; "Richard Coeur 
 de Lion," by J. Cross ; and " The Battle of St. 
 Vincent," by W. A. Knell — to be placed in 
 committee rooms of the House of Parliament. 
 In his letter to the Treasury Sir Charles East- 
 lake says : " With respect to the prices of the 
 four pictures selected, the Commissioners have 
 directed me to acquaint you that Mr. Watts had 
 intimated his readiness to present his work to 
 some national building or public institution. 
 The Commissioners were unwilling that the 
 picture should be obtained on such terms ; their 
 wish to purchase it, with the sanction of the 
 Treasury, arose from their high appreciation of 
 its merits, and was altogether uninfluenced by 
 the views of the artist. Mr. Watts, when 
 invited to fix a price, named £200 only, 
 explaining his reasons for doing so in a letter 
 of which a copy is annexed. I am directed to 
 request the sanction of their Lordships to the 
 proposed application for £1^°° f° r tne pictures 
 above named." The letter enclosed by Sir 
 Charles to Her Majesty's Secretary of the 
 Treasury is as follows : — 
 
 " Sir — In accordance with your request that I 
 should distinctly put a price upon my picture, I 
 have again considered the subject. I will not 
 occupy your time by repeating the reasons I 
 
 88
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 before submitted to you for declining to name a 
 price, but will content myself with saying that 
 the distinction and amount of the prize awarded 
 to me is more than sufficient recompense and 
 payment for my labours ; that if I may not have 
 the honour of placing my work at the disposal 
 of the Royal Commission, I wish to name a sum 
 which, by not drawing too largely upon the funds 
 devoted by the Government to the encourage- 
 ment of art, may leave it in the power of the 
 Royal Commission to extend to other artists the 
 honour and advantage of having their works 
 purchased by the nation. In naming as a price 
 £200 I trust my intentions may not be 
 misunderstood, — that it will be seen it was my 
 desire to assist the object of the Royal 
 Commission, and by no means to establish a 
 precedent prejudicial to the interests of the 
 profession. — I am, Sir, your faithful and obedient 
 Servant, G. F. Watts. 
 
 In November the picture was moved into a 
 convenient light in one of the committee rooms, 
 where Mr. Watts was allowed to work further 
 upon the figure of Alfred ; Sir Charles Eastlake 
 had made some suggestions which he thought 
 well to carry out. It now hangs upon the walls 
 of a committee room in the House of Lords. 
 The choice of this subject, England's first naval 
 victory, with its dedication " to patriotism and 
 posterity," indicates the trend of his desire 
 throughout life to be numbered amongst those 
 
 89
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 who had dedicated themselves to the service of 
 their country. He expressed this hope fifty-two 
 years later, saying to me, " If in the future 
 any one writes of me the little there is to say, I 
 hope that they will say, not that I had painted 
 many pictures, but that my strongest feeling 
 was for the honour of the nation." 
 
 It was at Dorchester House that he painted 
 " Life's Illusions " and " Time and Oblivion " — 
 this being the first realisation on canvas of the 
 dominant idea of his life to deal in art with the 
 great problems of human existence. In 1897, 
 when turning away from the door of the New 
 Gallery where his work was collected, he said, 
 " Only two pictures there seem to me to come 
 near my mark — 'Time and Oblivion' and 'Life's 
 Illusions.' Of 'Time and Oblivion' I think 
 Pheidias would have said, ' Go on, you may do 
 something.' ' Of this picture he also said, " I 
 never did anything better, but discouraged by 
 those who alone regarded art seriously, I did 
 not go on working in the way that I believed 
 in ; I lost many years of my life for this reason." 
 
 It was whilst he was working at Dorchester 
 House that he and Mr. Ruskin became acquainted. 
 Mr. Ruskin greatly cared for this picture, asked 
 that it might be lent to him, and had it hanging 
 on the wall of his house in Park Street for some 
 time ; but, gradually becoming more and more 
 in love with the faithful rendering of fact, this 
 prepossession seemed for a time to obscure his 
 vision, and his mind closed against the view held 
 
 90
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 by Mr. Watts, that in imaginative and poetic 
 painting certain material facts must be sacrificed 
 to convey the impression, exact imitation being 
 then out of place. 
 
 Seeing that the picture had ceased to please 
 him, Mr. Watts asked that it might be returned. 
 Years afterwards it was bought by Lord Somers, 
 and is now at Eastnor Castle. It was exhibited 
 at the Academy in 1864, and described in the 
 catalogue as " A design for sculpture, to be 
 executed in various materials." 
 
 Of the difference of opinion upon these points 
 between Mr. Ruskin and himself he writes : " I 
 have been thinking a great deal about your 
 remarks and the tendency of your criticisms, and 
 I cannot help inflicting some tiresome observa- 
 tions upon you, not, I beg you to understand, 
 with any reference to my own things : my own 
 views are too visionary, and the qualities I aim 
 at are too abstract, to be attained, or perhaps to 
 produce any effect if attained. My instincts 
 cause me to strive after things that are hardly 
 within the province of art, things that are rather 
 felt than seen. If I worked to please myself 
 only, instead of making a weak and insufficient 
 compromise, I should make outline compositions 
 filled up upon a monochromatic principle, and in 
 my most elaborate efforts aim at nothing beyond 
 the highest and noblest beauty of form, truth of 
 movement, and general colour. I confess that, 
 failing so greatly, my work never gives me the 
 slightest pleasure. I cannot bring myself to 
 
 91
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 labour upon a thing that disgusts me, and my 
 instinct rebels against imitation. I will do a bit 
 some day just to show you I am capable of it. 
 Perhaps it is not necessary to say all this about 
 myself, but I want you to feel and believe that 
 my remarks are made not as an artist, but as an 
 amateur. Like you, I am most interested in the 
 progress of art, and believe it can only be great 
 by being true ; but I am inclined to give truth a 
 wider range, and I cannot help fearing you may 
 become near-sighted. That I feel with you 
 with regard to earnestness and truth in painting 
 must be evident from my agreeing with you in 
 admiration of certain productions ; but I do not 
 agree with you in your estimation of truth, or 
 rather your view of truth. It appears to me 
 that you confound it too much with detail, and 
 overlook properties ; and that in your apprecia- 
 tion of an endeavour to imitate exactly, you 
 prefer the introduction of what is extraneous, to 
 the leaving out of anything that may be in 
 existence. Beauty is truth, but it is not always 
 reality. In perceiving and appreciating with 
 wonderful acuteness quality and truth of accident, 
 you run some risk of overlooking larger truth of 
 fundamental properties. In fact you are rather 
 inclined to consider truth as a bundle of parts, 
 than truth as a great whole. 
 
 " I venture to say this to you, because your 
 opinion has great weight, and your judgment 
 is listened to with great respect ; and I want 
 you to consider well, and walk round the 
 
 92
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 truth, viewing it from the distance as well as 
 examining it with a magnifying glass, lest 
 your eye and taste, becoming microscopic, fail 
 at length to take in the length and breadth." 
 
 The answer to this letter has not been pre- 
 served ; possibly it may have been as a verbal dis- 
 cussion, perhaps prolonged over many meetings. 
 The two friends were often in combat, though on 
 each side there was great appreciation — certainly 
 on Mr. Watts's side unbounded reverence, — but 
 upon principles of form they differed to the 
 end, and had many a passage-at-arms. In the 
 volume collecting Mr. Ruskin's " Notes on 
 Pictures " the editor (Mr. E. T. Cook) says : — 
 
 "In a letter of the year 1849 Ruskin wrote 
 to a friend : * Do you know Watts ? The 
 man who is not employed on Houses of Parlia- 
 ment — to my mind the only real painter of 
 history or thought we have in England. A 
 great fellow, or I am much mistaken — great 
 as one of these same Savoy knots of rock ; and 
 we suffer the clouds to lie upon him, with 
 thunder and famine at once in the thick of 
 them. If you have time when you come to 
 town, and have not seen it, look at " Time and 
 Oblivion " in his studio.' " 
 
 As I read to my husband one day, I 
 remember that he stopped me to say of Mr. 
 Ruskin, " How earnestly he pleads for all that 
 would develop the best in humanity. Never 
 let us be a week without reading something of 
 his. In another generation he will be placed 
 
 93
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 as the greatest thinker of the age. As a 
 teacher, his theories are opposed to political 
 economists, but are truer, because they are 
 based on a belief in the best side of human 
 nature. It seems to me in taking this for 
 his starting-point he is perfectly right." 
 
 Though not in its place chronologically, the 
 following letter shows that through many 
 years the two friends were at variance upon 
 this matter of realistic truth and essential truth, 
 a point of great importance in judging of my 
 husband's work. In a note of mine made after 
 a visit to his studio in the 'seventies, I find the 
 following : " Signor told me to-day of his 
 meeting Mr. Ruskin outside Burlington House 
 during a winter exhibition of the works of 
 old masters, and how, in a discussion they had, 
 Mr. Ruskin had said that these great men were 
 all wrong, because they did not paint exactly 
 what they saw ; and, denying that there were 
 any truths more essentially true than surface 
 facts, said almost fiercely, ' Paint that as it is,' 
 pointing to a scavenger's heap of mud lying 
 at the foot of a grimy lamp-post ; ' that is 
 truth.' They walked for some way discussing, 
 and, before they parted, Signor rather hoped 
 that his friend had come to be somewhat con- 
 vinced by his arguments ; but a letter followed 
 next day, Mr. Ruskin probably suspecting his 
 thought. 
 
 94
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 " Bull Hotel, Piccadilly, 
 
 but usually 
 " Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire. 
 
 [Postmark, x^th February, 1873.] 
 
 " My dear Watts — I am sometimes a little 
 hypocritical in conversation. I took laughingly 
 your charge of losing sight of all the points 
 of things while I pursue one. But — seriously 
 — you ought to know me better. I challenge 
 you (so far I am proud of what I have done 
 though not of what I am) to find any writer 
 on art ancient and modern — whose range of 
 sight is so microscopic and yet so wide as 
 mine, and when you fancy I am losing sight of 
 things, they are continually most in my mind. 
 But I purposely veil every other part of my 
 subject, that my reader may understand one at 
 a time. As for breadth of sight, do you suppose 
 there is any other man, even among your most 
 thoughtful and liberal friends, who can not 
 only admit but intensely enjoy the good in 
 De Hooghe and in Luini — in Reynolds and 
 Angelico — in William Hunt, and Tintoret ? 
 
 " But not one of you — even of my best 
 friends — have the least idea of the work I have 
 done, privately, in getting my knowledge of 
 my business ; nor have you any notion of the 
 power it gives me now to have steadily refused 
 to be warped from the sight of the pure facts 
 by my likings. ..." 
 
 (His lash here descended on others of his 
 
 95
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 particular friends, and he then turns again upon 
 G. F. Watts.) 
 
 " You fancy you see more than I do in 
 Nature — you still see less, for I, long ago, 
 learned how impossible it was to draw what 
 I saw — you still struggle to do so ; that is to 
 say, to draw what you like in what you see 
 without caring about what others like — or what 
 God likes. 
 
 " In saying all this, I retract nothing of 
 what I said of my discontent with myself, nor 
 do I equal myself for an instant with Jones and 
 you in personal power of thought and deed. 
 I merely speak as a poor apothecary's boy who 
 had earnestly watched the actual effect of sub- 
 stances on each other might speak to (when he 
 got old, and did know precisely what gold 
 and lead were) two learned and thoughtful 
 physicians, who had been all their lives seeking 
 the philosopher's stone. — Ever affectionately 
 yours, J. Ruskin." 
 
 It was at Dorchester House that the picture 
 called " Michael the Archangel contending with 
 Satan for the Body of Moses " was begun ; it 
 was never carried out to completion, but is a 
 suggestion of the two figures standing in a 
 great light. Though fresco-like in quality, it 
 has also such atmospheric qualities as might 
 make an expert, some hundreds of years hence, 
 place it chronologically as work belonging to 
 the latest years. In this respect it differs 
 
 96
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 much from "Time and Oblivion' and other 
 work of this period. Mr. Ruskin cared for 
 this picture sufficiently to buy it, about 1849— 
 1850. Through the kindness of Mrs. Severn 
 it has lately returned to the studio at Limners- 
 lease. He also painted his Miltonic Satan with 
 the face averted from the light of the Creator 
 with whom he talked. For title, these words 
 were used : " And the Lord said unto Satan, 
 Whence comest thou ? Then Satan answered 
 the Lord and said, From going to and fro 
 in the earth and from walking up and down 
 in it." The Satan the painter conceived is a 
 mighty power ruling over the evils which were 
 unconnected with sin. 
 
 At this time also, in the days of her youth 
 and beauty, Lady Waterford x came to sit to 
 him. The portrait was to be a present from 
 him to the Duff Gordons — but a labour of love 
 paid back a hundred-fold by thus making him 
 acquainted with this gifted lady. 
 
 " For certain he has seen all perfectness who 
 among other ladies hath seen her. She walked 
 with humbleness for her array ; seeming a 
 creature sent from Heaven to stay," are the 
 words upon her grave chosen to express the 
 greatness of her nature by those who best knew 
 her. That characteristic of " humbleness," 
 expressing itself by a little touch, a very slight 
 touch, of hesitation in manner and speech, 
 
 1 Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, whose memoirs, with that of her 
 sister Lady Canning, are to be found in Mr. Augustus Hare's book, Tavo 
 Noble Lives. 
 
 vol. I 97 H
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 appealed much to him in one so richly endowed 
 both by nature and fortune. 
 
 Of her genius for art he has said that he 
 believed she was born an artist greater than any 
 England has produced, the circumstances of her 
 life alone preventing her from working on to 
 the full achievement. What work she did 
 accomplish was, as far as it went, of the very 
 highest order. Her brush full of colour, so 
 unerringly blotting in all that she knew was 
 essential to her subjects : these were always 
 poetical, imaginative, and dignified, beautiful 
 in colour and in arrangement of line. No 
 faltering about truths of proportion and move- 
 ment, or in the disposition of masses : nothing 
 to jar as being out of keeping with the con- 
 ception of her subject. He hoped that some 
 day examples of her work would be preserved 
 in one of our national galleries. The inter- 
 course now entered upon was carried on inter- 
 mittently throughout her life ; and, until illness 
 prevented her moving from Ford Castle, she 
 often came to find him at work in his London 
 studio. They also met at Blickling, but he 
 never visited her at Ford ; and memoranda of 
 trains by which he never travelled, written out 
 by her own hand, still lie in some of his old 
 blotting-books. This portrait of Lady Water- 
 ford was one of the gifts he made to what he 
 sometimes called " The Casa Gordon," and they 
 were not a few ; for, from the happy Careggi 
 days when the acquaintance with Lady Duff 
 
 98
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Gordon and her daughters was first made, 
 delicate little pencil portraits and paintings in 
 water-colour were frequently bestowed upon 
 these friends. Many letters passed, usually in 
 a most cheerful tone ; but in one he becomes 
 more serious, and defines the points that in his 
 opinion a student and lover of art should regard 
 as most important. In the autumn of 1847, 
 having heard from Miss Duff Gordon that she 
 wished to study art more thoroughly than she 
 had as yet, he bids her " set about it in the 
 right way ; if not, the harder you work the 
 more laborious will be your idleness ; all 
 the energy and power of endurance will not 
 enable a man to reach his journey's end, if he 
 be not on his right road. It must first be your 
 object to separate the essence from the material, 
 to discover in what consist those qualities which 
 affect the mind, and what their properties. I 
 say discover, for no man can teach that great 
 point : Pheidias himself could but direct the 
 attention, and lay down simple rules. No poet 
 was ever formed in a school. . . . 
 
 " The mere mechanical difficulties are always 
 to be overcome by the means of judicious and 
 continual practice. The elements of the 
 beautiful and the elevated are the real diffi- 
 culties. Master them, and fill the mind with 
 the contemplation of what is great ; the hand 
 may tremble, but it must obey the impulse. 
 But it is not the knowledge of proportion, it is 
 not the knowledge of the rules of poetry that 
 
 99
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 will make the Pheidias or the Homer. ... I 
 cannot think real greatness compatible with 
 the existence of mean passions, hence the 
 impossibility of attaining perfection. But I 
 have allowed my subject to run away with me, 
 I have been prosing away at a great rate, when 
 I merely intended to say that the technical 
 difficulties of pursuing a course of study would 
 not prove formidable." 
 
 Lord and Lady Holland were now living 
 at Holland House, and deeply interested in 
 restorations and improvements there. The 
 hospitable door was as open to Mr. Watts as 
 it had been in Italy. He was much there, 
 Lady Holland reserving a room for him, and 
 he in return throwing himself into their 
 interests, and doing all in his power to give 
 them pleasure. He restored the ceiling in the 
 Gilt-room, and painted upon both ceilings of 
 what was then known as the Inner Hall : 
 amorini on the first, and on the second, figures 
 and a balcony representing mediaeval Florence. 
 Guizot sat to him there at this time, and he 
 also persuaded Lady Holland to let him paint 
 a full-length portrait of her, or, as she called 
 it, a " full shortness." In this picture he intro- 
 duced, what is unique in his work, a mirror in 
 the background to reflect the plaits of her 
 auburn hair. His two portraits of the librarian 
 of the British Museum, Anthony Panizzi, belong 
 to this date ; they were painted at the Museum. 
 One of these is at Holland House ; the other 
 
 IOO
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 he reserved for himself, and it is now in the 
 National Portrait Collection. He was also 
 working upon his two big pictures, " Life's 
 Illusions' and "Time and Oblivion." Other 
 designs were in his mind, such as " Death and 
 Resurrection," " Satan, Sin, and Death," and 
 " Charity giving the Water of Life to thirsty 
 souls," " Satan calling up his Legions," and the 
 " Temptation of Eve," where she and Adam lie 
 asleep, while above them on spread wings Satan 
 hovers and whispers in the ear of the woman. 
 There is also the drawing named by him "The 
 people which sat in darkness saw a great 
 light," a design for a fresco never carried out. 
 Taking shape in his mind at this time was the 
 scheme which may be described as the ambition 
 of one' half of his life and the regret of the other 
 half. He called it later " The House of Life," 
 and at a very early stage tentatively outlined 
 this conception in words a fragment of which 
 in faded ink remains. It runs thus : — 
 
 " The ceiling to be covered with the uniform 
 blue of space, on which should be painted the 
 Sun, the Earth, and the Moon, as it is by their 
 several revolutions and dependence upon each 
 other that we have a distinct notion of, and are 
 able to measure and estimate, the magnitude of 
 Time. The progress of Time, and its conse- 
 quent effect, I would illustrate for the purpose 
 of conveying a moral lesson — the design of 
 Time and Oblivion would be exactly in its 
 place. To complete the design, the Earth 
 
 IOI
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 should be attended by two figures symbolic of 
 the antagonistic forces, Attraction and Repul- 
 sion. I would then give, perhaps upon one 
 half of the ceiling, which might be divided 
 with a gold band on which the zodiac might 
 be painted, a nearer view of earth, and by a 
 number of gigantic figures stretched out at full 
 length represent a range of mountains typifying 
 the rocky structure or skeleton. These I would 
 make very grand and impressive, in order to 
 emphasise the insignificance of man. The 
 most important (to us) of the constellations 
 should shine out of the deep ultramarine firma- 
 ment. Silence and Mighty Repose should be 
 stamped upon the character and disposition of 
 the giants ; and revolving centuries and cycles 
 should glide, personified by female figures of 
 great beauty, beneath the crags upon which the 
 mighty forms should lie, to indicate (as com- 
 pared with the effect upon man and his works) 
 the non-effect of time upon them." 
 
 Reduced to the dimensions of a picture, some 
 ten feet in length, now hanging in the National 
 Gallery of British Art, there is a characteristic 
 representation of this idea. Torn from its true 
 setting, and named by him " Chaos," l there is 
 enough to show the painter's largeness of style 
 and imaginative power, and perhaps to make 
 some minds regret that the spirit of Pope Julius 
 II. was not alive in England to give him the 
 
 1 After he had presented this picture to the National Gallery of 
 British Art, he regretted not having chosen the word " Cosmos " for 
 the title. 
 
 102
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 walls of a Sistine Chapel on which to consummate 
 his greatest conception. The manuscript con- 
 tinues : — 
 
 " Then I would begin with man himself, 
 trace him through his moral and political life ; 
 first the hunter stage, gaining, through the 
 medium of his glimmering yet superior intelli- 
 gence, advantages over the stronger yet inferior 
 animals, almost his equals. Next the pastoral 
 state, his intelligence further developed to the 
 consequent improvement of his condition : 
 serviceable animals domesticated, reclaimed by 
 his thoughtful care, the stronger and finer sub- 
 dued by the force of his will, aided by all- 
 conquering intelligence. This is the Golden 
 Age,' the age of poetry. Of experience comes 
 tradition, of tradition is born poetry, here per- 
 forming its natural and legitimate function — 
 instructing. This portion of the work might be 
 rendered most beautifully, since in this period of 
 the history of society it is possible the human 
 animal enjoyed the greatest possible amount of 
 happiness, equally removed from the penalties 
 of ambition, and from the degradation of a 
 precarious and merely animal existence. There 
 would be a great chance of exquisite subjects to 
 illustrate this epoch, and here might be intro- 
 duced the episode of Job. 
 
 " Next should be man, — the tyrant — the 
 insidious oppressor — the slave, a dweller in 
 cities — the Egyptians raise the pyramids — their 
 mythology — the habits of the people." 
 
 103
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 The manuscript seems roughly to indicate 
 that his first scheme was to end in a pageant of 
 the progress of civilisation through Palestine, 
 Assyria, Persia, India, Greece, Rome, each 
 with their mythology and their representative 
 men : the dawning of the Christian era ; the 
 fall of Jerusalem ; the history of the Middle 
 Ages in Europe ; the rise of the Saracen power ; 
 the preaching of Peter the Hermit. As the 
 idea developed in his mind the scheme became 
 more abstract, and less realistic and historic ; it 
 is certain that as the mythology of the races 
 was traced by him, its place would have been 
 prominent, and possibly the whole scheme would 
 have developed into the history of the progress 
 of the spiritual side of man's mind ; and he 
 would simply have niched the men whom he 
 considered most representative of all forward 
 movement. 
 
 The fragment quoted belongs to a very early 
 stage of the conception of this scheme. In later 
 years he writes of the work he had been able 
 to accomplish as " only to be called a series of 
 reflections mainly upon ethics. With certain 
 material advantages, which would have caused 
 me by their nature to weld my thoughts into 
 a regular form, I think my efforts might have 
 been given place as an epic." As he described 
 it, it seemed like some magnificent dream ; 
 a magnificent dream, yet not at all impossible of 
 realisation had enthusiasm been stirred in the 
 right way, and directed in a practical manner. 
 
 104
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Perhaps it was asking too much of his con- 
 temporaries that they should see any use for 
 such a Temple of ideas : at the moment the 
 public was satisfied by, and understood best, the 
 expressions of decorative art, to be found housed 
 in a giant glass building. The aesthetic and 
 spiritual emotion of the time, led variously by 
 Keble, Newman, F. D. Maurice, and Charles 
 Kingsley, found different satisfactions. The 
 great preacher Thomas Carlyle had not the 
 vaguest sense of the proportionate value of great 
 art in the history of civilisation. To Mr. 
 Ruskin, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite 
 Brotherhood — his true brothers in devoted ser- 
 vice to art — he failed to make his aims intel- 
 ligible. With the greatest reverence each for 
 the other's achievements, there remained a 
 difference : neither the mediaeval nor the theo- 
 logical nor the decorative point of view was 
 his. 
 
 To the question of what gifts the painter 
 could have brought as his contribution to "The 
 House of Life," an answer must now be found in 
 what he always considered to be but scattered 
 pages torn out here and there from some book 
 which had cost a lifetime to compile : the first 
 page — to carry on this figure of speech — to be the 
 picture called " Chaos," and the last, " Destiny," 
 begun in the latest working hours of his life, and 
 destined to be left unfinished. 
 
 In the winter of 1848 he was on the point of 
 paying a visit to Greece, travelling with Mr. 
 
 i°5
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Ionides and returning to Italy ; but, because of 
 the disturbed state of Europe, this journey had to 
 be given up, and during the following year he 
 established himself in a large studio at 30 
 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, moving his 
 pictures from Dorchester House — I believe on 
 account of alterations and rebuilding in progress 
 there. And here, surrounded by the large can- 
 vases, " The Muffin Pictures " as he called them 
 (alluding to the skit by Thackeray on the painter 
 in Our Street), he went to work still hopeful. 
 Below this studio was another he found himself 
 able to lend to a miniature painter and copyist, 
 called Charles Cozens. They had known each 
 other as boys, and Cozens, being greatly influenced 
 in his work by that of his friend, obtained 
 commissions and occasionally made copies of 
 G. F. Watts's portraits, as these were frequently 
 required by the Ionides family. 
 
 By this time he had many acquaintances and 
 friends, and young men whose names were after- 
 wards distinguished were often in that studio. 
 When Sir Robert Morier came to see my 
 husband in 1891, they talked much of the friends 
 who used to gather there and at his rooms in Bond 
 Street. Chance accidents preventing, they had 
 not met for about forty years ; but the friendship 
 was fresh and alive as ever, and Sir Robert 
 declared that his face was quite unchanged — 
 " singularly so," he said to me. 
 
 Sir Robert Morier believed that this group of 
 friends met first at his rooms in Bond Street. 
 
 106
 
 ( /.. T.HX all.J 
 
 I rem a hlicl rijin hit r a, clrcuvuia, now lo&t, made akcrut- 18J1.8
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Subsequently it would seem that the meetings 
 were at Colonel Stirling's, 1 and it seems probable 
 that when war was declared and Colonel Stirling 
 left for the Crimea, the friends to whom the 
 studio in Charles Street was well known during 
 Mr. Watts's tenancy, applied for these rooms 
 and there established the club that became 
 known as the Cosmopolitan. Amongst the 
 earliest members of this club Sir Algernon West 
 mentions Edward FitzGerald, Francis Palgrave, 
 Monckton Milnes, Henry Reeve, Danby Seymour 
 (the owner of" Life's Illusions "), Lord Goderich, 
 Julian Fane, Philip Hardwicke, and Henry 
 Phillips the painter (honorary secretary of the 
 club). 
 
 The members with whom my husband was 
 best acquainted, and whom he recollected meet- 
 ing at Mr. Morier's rooms were : John Ruskin, 
 Henry Layard, Vernon Harcourt, Tom Taylor, 
 Chichester Fortescue, James Spedding, Thomas 
 Hughes (?), Henry Phillips, and Lord Arthur 
 Russell. For many years his picture " Echo," 
 the story from Boccaccio, and an " Early Study," 
 a sort of Arcadian picture, hung upon the 
 walls of the club-room. Sir Robert told us 
 that at one time, when the finances of the club 
 were not flourishing and a considerable outlay 
 was necessary, to avoid this expense they moved 
 to other rooms ; but they so missed the associa- 
 tions, and the pictures, that members began to 
 
 1 See Sir Algernon West's article on "The Cosmopolitan Club" in the 
 volume entitled One City and many Men, and also his volume of 
 Recollections. 
 
 107
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 give up going there, and signs were evident that 
 it was falling all to pieces ; so to pull it together 
 again, they spent a far larger sum of money, and 
 returned to the original house, 30 Charles Street. 
 In 1902, when the club removed, the members 
 generously presented the large picture which they 
 had bought to the Tate Gallery, and the Arcadian 
 picture was returned to my husband and is now 
 in the collection of his works in the Compton 
 Gallery. The painting called " Echo ' he had 
 claimed many years before. 
 
 Amongst the congenial friendships begun at 
 this time was one with Mr. Aubrey de Vere, 
 a life-long friendship, for until his visits to 
 London had to be given up, Mr. de Vere came 
 yearly to spend some hours with his friend. The 
 wife of the poet Sir Henry Taylor (Miss Alice 
 Spring Rice), a cousin of Mr. de Vere's, had 
 brought these two poetic minds together. Mr. 
 de Vere, in his hours of uncertainty before he 
 decided to join the Church of Rome, had often 
 paced the studio in Charles Street (1849-50) 
 pondering this question. Perhaps with intui- 
 tion thus quickened he knew that his friend 
 was also passing through a time of crisis. 
 However that may have been, Mr. de Vere, 
 writing from Coniston in October 1850 to 
 arrange with him to go to Curragh Chase at the 
 invitation of his brother Sir Vere de Vere, says : 
 "You would find much to interest you deeply in 
 Ireland, besides its scenery, including not a little 
 of which you must have had a second-sight 
 
 108
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 vision before you painted your ' Irish Eviction ' 
 (afterwards called " The Irish Famine "). 
 
 A few days later, with further plans, Mr. de 
 Vere writes (doubtless referring to something 
 in his friend's reply to the former letter) : " To 
 fortune you may well be cold, especially if she 
 is cold to you. Fortune, like other flirts, can 
 only be made amenable by being paid in her 
 own coin. ' The lion on your own stone gates 
 Is not more cold to you than I,' so sings 
 Tennyson to the foolish beauty. Fortune is 
 commonly only kind to those who, like poor 
 Byron, have a great wish to be spoilt. Those 
 who have every greatness in them are not 
 attentive to her, and the energies which are to 
 end in conquering the minds of men are trained 
 at first by conquering her petty caprice. She 
 will do you little harm, though she will some- 
 what delay your harvest, and it is better that 
 she should be unkind to you than to those who 
 are more easily disturbed or depressed. The 
 office of genius is to do good and receive good — 
 not from men ; so you must begin by doing 
 good to Ireland, who will thank you or mis- 
 understand you, just as accident may determine." 
 
 To Mr. Watts, Ireland was of great interest, 
 and he remembered being vexed by the ordinary 
 tone of the Members of Parliament who some- 
 times appeared early in the evening at Holland 
 House, explaining that only " those tiresome 
 Irishmen " were speaking, and consequently they 
 had been able to come away. To Ireland he 
 
 109
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 went, staying at Curragh Chase, where, as they 
 were going upstairs one evening, he drew a little 
 figure — a recollection from Flaxman — on the 
 wall, in charcoal, meaning to rub it out next 
 day ; but instead it was carefully preserved, 
 and was still in existence when, forty years later, 
 Mr. de Vere told me of it. From Curragh 
 Chase he went on to Dromoland, where Mrs. 
 O'Brien, Mr. de Vere's sister, invited him. 
 When there he made a drawing of Sir Lucius 
 O'Brien. No doubt his friend thought that it 
 would be a good move for the young painter to 
 get away from London, good for his health, and 
 good for his mind. Mr. de Vere's letter shows 
 that Mr. Watts was already missing the sun- 
 shine of Italy — his health was not as good as it 
 had been when there ; his visions of " The House 
 of Life ' were fading before his eyes ; he was 
 liable to be depressed and to gibe at Fortune for 
 being unkind. This visit was a delightful one, 
 he had many a scamper across country ; and a 
 letter written to a niece of Mr. de Vere's — Mary 
 O'Brien — shows him in his merriest mood, one 
 that to the last the "delightful people," as he 
 sometimes expressed it himself when speaking 
 of children, never failed to bring him. 
 
 " 30 Charles Street, 
 " Berkeley Square, London. 
 [I8 5 I] 
 
 " My dear little Mary — I was delighted to 
 receive your nice little letter and pretty present, 
 for which I fill this letter with thanks, and if 
 
 no
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 you don't find them in it they must have dropped 
 out at the post-office. The purse is beautiful, 
 but it has one defect, which is, when all the 
 money is taken out of it, it is empty ; now if 
 you can send me a purse that will always be 
 full, you can't think how I should value it ! In 
 the meantime I am very grateful for this one, 
 which I shall always keep for the sake of Mary 
 O'Brien and my first visit to Ireland, where I 
 should now like to be playing at Brush with 
 little Irish boys and girls. Your great card 
 house was prodigious ! what a pity you could 
 not send it to our great glass-house exhibition 
 as a specimen of Irish industry ! I hope you 
 have missed me on rainy days and riding expedi- 
 tions ; I have very often wished I could take 
 a good jump and come down right in front 
 of Dromoland. Pray remember me to your 
 Grandmama and your Aunt, and your Mamma 
 and Papa. I am glad you have beaten him at 
 chess ; do you remember how shamefully he 
 locked us all up one day ? — but we gave him 
 plenty of trouble though. How you will enjoy 
 your visit to Curragh ! I should like to go and 
 see you all there, and as I shall be all the 
 summer at Liverpool ! perhaps the temptation 
 will be too strong to resist — will you undertake 
 to get up a subscription of welcome for me ? 
 
 " I have only seen your Aunt Grace once and 
 that was on Saturday, for I have scarcely been 
 
 1 The work at Liverpool was not undertaken ; as, before anything 
 definite had been decided, the commission for a fresco in the House of 
 Lords had been arranged. 
 
 ill
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 in London at all. When you go to Curragh 
 Chase do not forget to tell your Aunt that I 
 cannot get any of those songs I was so fond of, 
 in London, nor over in Brussels. I owe your 
 Uncle Aubrey some letters — do you think the 
 purse will enable me to pay that debt ? 
 
 " I wish I knew something extraordinary or 
 interesting to tell you, but as I don't I must 
 finish my letter with all this paper to spare. 
 Mind you remember me to all ; you may kiss 
 the smallest of the children for me if you like, 
 and the largest too while you are about it, but 
 that will be if they like ; one thing you must 
 certainly do, and that is always believe me to 
 be — Yours most sincerely and affectionately, 
 
 " G. F. Watts." 
 
 Mr. de Vere in 1896 retold for my benefit a 
 story of heroism which should never be for- 
 gotten. Of this I made the following note : 
 <c After luncheon Mr. de Vere came in ; his visits 
 give one a pleasure apart from all others. To- 
 day as he sat by us, his short silver curls shining 
 in the light, his clear bell-like voice and pleasant 
 enunciation, I thought how well his name 
 Aubrey de Vere described him. I love to see 
 him by Signor, they are absolutely harmonious. 
 Asked to repeat the story of courage, one that 
 Signor could never hear too often, he told us of 
 his niece Mary O'Brien, who as a child of 
 twelve had shattered a finger when playing 
 with gunpowder. She wrapped it up and said 
 
 112
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 nothing about it, but her mother insisted on 
 seeing it, and at once sent for a surgeon, who 
 said the finger must be cut off. ' Well,' she 
 answered, ' if that is so, please do it quickly, for 
 papa will be home in half an hour.' She then 
 begged her mother to leave the room, and on 
 her refusing to do so, she said, ' Very well, then, 
 don't look at my hand, look into my eyes and 
 then you won't mind.' No wonder that a boy 
 of fourteen hearing the story became her boy- 
 lover on the spot and her husband in after 
 years." 
 
 Mr. de Vere remembered that when he first 
 visited the studio in Charles Street, he had said, 
 as he was leaving one day, " You must feel great 
 joy in the fact that you have such close affinity 
 with the great Italian masters, for certainly 
 their mantle has descended upon you " ; to 
 which the answer was, " Ah, well, if I have 
 received a mantle at all from them, it was only 
 after it had been quite worn out ! " 
 
 It was about this time that he first proposed 
 to himself to paint the distinguished men of his 
 time, and so to form a collection to leave as a 
 legacy to the country. For this end he some- 
 times thought of approaching the Duke of 
 Wellington and asking him to allow him to 
 paint his portrait, but a certain hesitation as to 
 whether it would be acceptable or not prevented 
 him from writing, and the request was never 
 made. One of the very first of this series was 
 painted at Holland House about this date — 
 VOL. i 113 1
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the head of Lord John Russell, now in the 
 National Portrait Gallery ; and also the drawing 
 of Sir Henry Layard, and that of Mr. James 
 Spedding made in the studio in Charles Street, 
 to which some of his most interesting and 
 beautiful sitters came. Lady Holland had said, 
 " I never know my friends until you have 
 painted them " ; and though Mr. Ruskin twitted 
 him with turning his sitters into angels when 
 they were not, it can hardly be doubted that 
 so shrewd an observer well understood that his 
 friend had a power of compelling his sitters to 
 the highest mood of which their natures were 
 capable. Some one has said, " Mr. Watts paints 
 people alone, and with their best thoughts." 
 To those who knew him best, the meaning of 
 the word alone went further ; it meant that they 
 had met somewhere, somehow, where the 
 barriers of individual self fell away, and they 
 talked to him as if to their own souls. " They 
 look upon me as nobody," he used to say, laugh- 
 ing, as he turned to explain matters to some one 
 who might be by, when a beautiful fair-haired 
 angel or two happened to flit in, and enfolded 
 the painter in their arms as naturally as they 
 would have enfolded some darling child — one 
 of the commonest, but one of the highest 
 tributes paid to his high nature, and sign of 
 theirs. " I think people do care for the desire, 
 there is nothing more in me to care for," he 
 told me one day, always feeling a wonder why 
 he was held dear by so many friends. 
 
 114
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 No outline of his personality can be at all 
 adequate without the attempt being made — if 
 also in mere outline — to describe an exceedingly 
 elusive, but at the same time distinguishing 
 characteristic, which the word charm does not 
 entirely cover; it was this, that the Seer in 
 him, or, if it must be called by the more modern 
 name, the transcendental Self, was always 
 visible. Intensely human as he was, under- 
 standing all in the lives of those about him — 
 the most trifling difficulties and the most pro- 
 found — entering gaily into the merriest mood 
 or the manliest sport, the presence of this trans- 
 cendental Self was always apparent. Everything 
 about him seemed an expression of this, and if 
 touched by some thought of specially wide 
 reach from a friend or from a book, the contact 
 with his imaginative Self sent a sort of trans- 
 figured look into his face, as if a flame had been 
 lighted. 
 
 Knowing nothing of psychical phenomena, 
 it is not for me to suggest any connection 
 between this visionary quality and three un- 
 accountable incidents which happened to him 
 in these years. Of any psychic faculty he was 
 not in the least conscious, he never encouraged 
 anything of the sort in himself by going to 
 seances or making acquaintance with mediums. 
 Strange things happened to him, he knew, but 
 how they occurred, or what they meant, he 
 did not attempt to explain. The first of these 
 adventures was at Careggi, and bears on the face 
 
 115
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 of it such possibility of a practical joke, played 
 by an undiscoverable though no ghostly being, 
 that it need not be recounted here. The second 
 was different. It happened when he was walk- 
 ing home late one evening to the house of 
 Mr. Ionides, who was then living at Tulse Hill. 
 Coming to a long stretch of pavement, walled 
 in for the villa gardens on each side of the road, 
 a very plainly dressed woman in a plaid shawl 
 went along the pavement before him, and very 
 naturally his eyes were fixed upon the folds of 
 her dress, taking note of the varieties of shadow 
 and the play of light as she passed under the 
 light of several street lamps. As the hour was 
 late he was walking quickly, and therefore over- 
 took her, and he just turned in passing to glance 
 at her — but she was not. He stopped, astounded 
 to find himself alone, looked forward and back- 
 ward, examined the wall to see if there was 
 any way through it, but there was none, nothing 
 but a stretch of blank wall, lighted by the lamp 
 that was close to her and to him when she 
 vanished. He told his friends of this strange 
 experience, but no story of murder or other 
 tragic occurrence connected with that place was 
 ever heard of. 
 
 An even more strange and more beautiful 
 thing out of the mysterious came to him during 
 the first months of his tenancy of the Charles 
 Street studio. At one end was a staircase with 
 a landing leading to his bedroom door. One 
 night, hearing a sound for which he could not 
 
 116
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 account, he got up from bed, and without a 
 light went out upon the landing, standing 
 quietly there to listen. He then became aware 
 that the sound he heard was the sound of wings 
 beating against the vaulted ceiling of the studio, 
 and that as they circled round and round, a 
 voice cried softly ; " anima mia, anima mia" 
 now farther, now nearer, and then all ceased, 
 and there was perfect stillness. " It seemed 
 to me then," he once said, " that it was a soul 
 seeking its own essence." It was no dream ; 
 the sound of the fluttering wings and the voice 
 that he heard were as real to him as the floor 
 that he stood on, or the wall against which the 
 wings beat. 
 
 117
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 n 9
 
 Love of art almost implies sympathy ', since its 
 productions are as much to give pleasure to others 
 as to ourselves^ unless it has been debased to a 
 mere trade. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 I20
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Into the three or four years of the painter's 
 tenancy of the Charles Street studio a good 
 many events were crowded, all of which fall 
 with importance into the story of his life. He 
 was working hard and refusing all temptations 
 to go into society, though many doors were 
 open to him at this time ; but one day, being 
 at Holland House, he fell into conversation 
 with a man much about in London — a Mr. 
 Fleming — who happened to mention the beauty 
 of a certain young lady, Miss Virginia Pattle, 
 now living in Chesterfield Street, as he explained, 
 with her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Thoby Prinsep. To them he declared 
 Mr. Watts must be introduced ; but for answer 
 he pleaded want of time, and his intention not 
 to make any new acquaintances, and so the 
 matter dropped. 
 
 Not long after this, it came about that in 
 the neighbourhood of Charles Street he happened 
 to pass two ladies walking with a little boy. 
 All three were in the matter of good looks so 
 much out of the common — the younger lady 
 
 121
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 especially so, her long grey cloak falling in 
 beautiful lines against her tall figure — that 
 Mr. Fleming's description of the beautiful Miss 
 Virginia Pattle came into his mind, and he felt 
 certain that he had now seen her. He went 
 home and wrote to Mr. Fleming that he believed 
 this had happened, and that now he was as 
 eager to be introduced to the Prinseps as Mr. 
 Fleming had been to bring this about. The 
 letter was shown to Mrs. Prinsep, and he was 
 accordingly invited to their house, 9 Chesterfield 
 Street. Being near Charles Street, they soon 
 saw much of each other, and the acquaintance 
 thus made rapidly passed into a friendship. 
 
 Artistic to their finger-tips, with an apprecia- 
 tion — almost to be called a culte — for beauty, 
 the sisters were quickly at home in the studio, 
 and in love with the work and its aims. " I 
 was never dazzled by any other painter's brush," 
 I remember Lady Somers once telling me, 
 adding, with a smile, " all other brushes were 
 like boot-brushes to me." 
 
 The dress of the sisters was not quite of 
 the fashion of that time, but designed by them- 
 selves upon simple lines ; it depended upon 
 rich colour and ample folds for its beauty, and 
 was very individual and expressive. Many 
 were the admirers who sat at Miss Virginia's 
 feet, both men and women. " Her smile 
 lighted a room," Mrs. Erskine Wemyss once 
 said to me, having known her in her youthful 
 beauty. The first portrait for which she stood 
 
 122
 
 1849
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to Mr. Watts is in delicate silver point, the 
 long grey cloak falling about her with all the 
 grace that he had seen on that first morning ; 
 the next almost a profile outline also in silver 
 point, showing the deep lids drooping over the 
 beautiful eyes. But these studies are many, 
 one so minute that her sister, Mrs. Cameron, 
 always carried it inside her watch - case. 
 Through all the adulation she remained un- 
 spoilt and unaffected — " great," as her painter used 
 to say, " in the absence of self-consciousness." 
 
 Mr. Prinsep was now a Member of Council 
 at the India Office, having returned to England 
 after some thirty-five years' work in India — one 
 of several brothers who had laboured there with 
 distinction. Large and philosophic in mind, 
 grand in his stature, his learning, his memory, 
 his everything, even to his sneeze ! (once 
 received with an encore from the gallery of a 
 theatre), childlike in his gentleness and in the 
 sweetness of his nature, it was no wonder that 
 Mr. Watts was quickly attracted to him. In 
 after years he deeply regretted that of the 
 many literary men who knew Mr. Prinsep 
 well, none had left any description of a 
 man so remarkable for his endowments. He 
 remembered the Poet Laureate, as he rose to 
 go, having ended a long hour's talk one day 
 with his friends then living at the Briary at 
 Freshwater, exclaiming in that sonorous voice 
 of his, and with the deliberation that gave such 
 weight to his words, "Well, Thoby, you are 
 
 123
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 a wonderful man." " He was," my husband 
 said once, " an encyclopedia of valuable informa- 
 tion on every sort of subject. It was just like 
 turning the pages of a delightful book, and, like 
 it, open if you wanted it and shut when you 
 did not. Like a child in the perfect un- 
 consciousness of his wonderful knowledge and 
 absence of display — as simple as a child, and 
 with its charm." 
 
 It will be granted, however, that there is a 
 whole biography in the portrait head of him 
 painted in the early 'seventies, and now amongst 
 the collected works in the Watts Gallery at 
 Compton, Surrey ; * and further that it reaches 
 the painter's own standard of true portraiture, 
 that of finding the man behind the surface. 
 The surface is there rendered as it was in life, 
 the blood circulates, the bones lie beneath, but 
 the man is there also : the brain at work, the 
 eye alive with thought ; and yet through all 
 these appears the charm of his childlikeness. 
 
 Mr. Thoby Prinsep will live in this portrait, 
 as also in the drawing made in charcoal when 
 he was a much younger man about 1850-52. 
 These were the friends into the centre of whose 
 life George Watts was gradually being drawn, 
 and, amidst the unseen flow of events carrying 
 him to this haven, none perhaps had more force 
 than that he was again slipping back into a bad 
 state of health. His old enemy of headache and 
 
 1 The portrait was generously given to this gallery by Mrs. Andrew 
 Hichens. 
 
 124
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 nausea had returned, and so violent were these 
 attacks that, while they lasted, he would lie 
 quite motionless for hours, with almost the look 
 and the pallor of death upon his face. 1 
 
 This, of course, appealed to the large mother- 
 heart of Mrs. Prinsep, with her genius for all 
 sorts of confections in the way of delicate foods, 
 and endowed as she was with untiring energy, 
 especially where nursing was required. 
 
 A serious and prolonged illness of this nature, 
 which was then described as a nervous fever, 
 befell him during the early months of 1850, 
 with a threatening of paralysis. Throughout 
 this illness Mrs. Prinsep took care that he was 
 well nursed, and during his convalescence both 
 sisters were constantly with him. It was decided 
 that he was to have the advice of Dr. Gully at 
 Malvern, the Prinseps being already there. On 
 his way to join them he spent some days at 
 Eastnor Castle, and the beautiful Virginia and 
 her sister drove over to fetch him from the place 
 which was afterwards her own home. It is said 
 that Lord Somers — then Lord Eastnor — first saw 
 her portrait in Mr. Watts's studio and fell in 
 love with it. However that may be, he 
 certainly captured the original, and they were 
 married in October of this year, 1850. 
 
 Many were the reminiscences I used to hear 
 of her forty years later. " Oh, how in love with 
 her we all were ! ' Lord Aberdare exclaimed 
 
 1 This description was given to me on separate occasions, but in almost 
 the same words, both by General Arthur Prinsep and by Mrs. Ross (Miss 
 Janet Duff Gordon). 
 
 125
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 once, turning away from a charcoal drawing, 
 perhaps the portrait that above all others renders 
 her beauty to the utmost — the face in full view, 
 life size, and with eyes deep as the night sky. 
 
 Sir Charles Newton, amongst others, used to 
 break out into reminiscences, and point to this 
 picture and that, saying, " It was painted when 
 my friend Watts and I, in company with several 
 others, were deeply grieved by the thought that 
 Lady Somers had married ; we thought she ought 
 not to marry any one." It was at this time, 
 perhaps under an impulse to make an effort to 
 conquer his own depression, by going beyond 
 self into the sufferings of others, that Mr. Watts 
 painted three or four pictures of such sorrowful 
 sort as " Found Drowned, " the wreck of a 
 young girl's life, with the dark arch of the 
 bridge she had crossed from the seen to the 
 unseen, the cold dark river, and the deep-blue 
 heaven with its one star watching all. "The 
 Irish Famine" (which at this date Mr. de Vere 
 calls " The Irish Eviction," so possibly its title 
 was still uncertain) was painted over and 
 obliterated another design, called " Panthea," 
 a more splendid subject from Xenophon's 
 Cyropczdia ; also " Under a Dry Arch," a dying 
 woman with all the anguish of a long life scored 
 upon her face ; and perhaps " The Seamstress," 
 recalling Thomas Hood's " Song of the Shirt," 
 though this picture was completed later at Little 
 Holland House. 
 
 There was much to sadden him ; the want of 
 
 126
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 response, except amongst his own personal friends, 
 to all the enthusiasm with which he had returned 
 to England, full of faith in a revival of great art, 
 was making itself felt with chilling effect year 
 by year. In a moment of depression he writes : 
 " I do not expect at most to have the opportunity 
 of doing more than prepare the way for better 
 men — and not that always ; more often I sit 
 among the ruins of my aspirations, watching the 
 tide of time. Will not that explain somewhat 
 the picture you call the ' Seashore ' ? " No wonder 
 that in such a mood he once signed " Finis " in 
 the corner of one of his pictures. But the 
 challenge to despair was given by Mr. Ruskin, 
 who, on reading the word, took up the charcoal 
 and added beneath, " et initiutn." If the end, 
 then a beginning ; and so it proved to be. 
 
 During the autumn, finding that for various 
 reasons Mr. and Mrs. Prinsep were anxious to 
 live more in the neighbourhood of London, and 
 not in it, Mr. Watts took them to see a house 
 now to be let, known as a sort of dower-house of 
 Holland House, in which Lord Holland's aunt, 
 Miss Fox, had lived for many years with her 
 cousin Miss Vernon ; and the result was that on 
 December 25 a lease of twenty-one years was 
 entered upon, and in January they established 
 themselves there. 
 
 Little Holland House, with its rambling 
 passages and many stairs and quaint rooms, 
 showing clearly that formerly two houses had 
 been made one, had its garden and fine trees and 
 
 127
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 its paddock, and beyond again the farm, which 
 later Mr. Prinsep also rented, lay only two miles 
 from Hyde Park Corner, with much untouched 
 country still around it. 
 
 The place had its history : Miss Fox had 
 entertained most of her brother's friends there — 
 Macaulay, Mackintosh, Coleridge, and others. 
 Jeremy Bentham was her friend, and report says 
 that he wished to marry her. The glimpses 
 given to us are of a most lovable lady, and her 
 uncle Charles James Fox had a great affection 
 for her. To Little Holland House they carried 
 the dying Lord Camelford from the field behind it, 
 after the fatal duel that he had himself provoked 
 with Mr. Best, and there four days later he died. 
 Its windows looked out upon the field upon 
 which Cromwell and Ireton had walked dis- 
 cussing affairs so secret that they chose this 
 remote spot, in order to prevent Cromwell's 
 words, when speaking loudly to Ireton, who 
 was deaf, from reaching other ears. The 
 twenty-one years' lease now held by Mr. Prinsep, 
 and in the end extended by four more, was 
 destined to be the last of the old house, but if 
 this latest chapter of its life could have been 
 written, it would have in no way diminished in 
 interest. 
 
 How Mr. Watts came to live there was once 
 picturesquely described to me by Mrs. Prinsep : 
 " He came to stay three days, he stayed thirty 
 years," she said, with a little descriptive action of 
 her hand ; and it seems a pity to destroy such 
 
 128
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 dramatic summing up by mere fact. But Mr. 
 Watts's recollection was different, and he felt 
 certain that the arrangement was made from the 
 first. Perhaps neither memory was quite at 
 fault, the arrangement most likely being proposed 
 at first, but not carried out, and some months 
 later initiated somewhat accidentally. 
 
 In girlhood Mrs. Prinsep and her sisters had 
 lived in France with their grandmother, Madame 
 de L/Etang, whom, by the way, Mr. Watts 
 remembered seeing, when upwards of eighty, 
 down on her knees in a passage in the house in 
 Chesterfield Street, keenly interested in playing 
 a game of chuck -halfpenny with her great- 
 grandsons. Madame de L'Etang had solved the 
 problem of education for her granddaughters by 
 having them taught all sorts of housewifely arts, 
 rather to the neglect of lesson-books and accom- 
 plishments. Listening to Mrs. Prinsep's descrip- 
 tion of her early life, and her regrets that she had 
 had what she called " no education," riveted all the 
 while by her power of vivid description and her 
 originality of expression, one could but acknow- 
 ledge the perfect success of the omission. It 
 was a remarkable group of sisters, each so 
 individual in her own way. The eldest, Mrs. 
 Jackson, had now become known to Mr. Watts. 
 The intimate friend of many literary men and 
 women, she also seemed to me in her old age to 
 be the most beautiful of the sisters ; for, as my 
 husband explained to me, the structure of her 
 face was so fine that the beauty of line only 
 vol. i 129 k
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 increased with age. A drawing of her was 
 in the Royal Academy Exhibition of the year 
 1850, as well as one of her daughter Adeline. 
 With these he also exhibited his picture, the 
 " Good Samaritan," dedicated to Thomas Wright, 
 the Manchester philanthropist, an account of 
 whose labours Mr. Watts read in turning over 
 the pages of Chambers's Magazine while having 
 luncheon at some restaurant. The work for 
 discharged prisoners, later to be so greatly 
 developed by Lord Shaftesbury, was begun by 
 this man. While earning a daily wage in a 
 cotton manufactory, with a large family to 
 support, his attention was drawn to the case of a 
 poor man who earnestly desired to re-establish 
 himself honestly after having been in gaol, and 
 who was being driven out by the strong pre- 
 judice of his fellow-workmen. In the end the 
 managers gave him his discharge, and though 
 this was rescinded on Wright's intercession, it 
 was too late, and the man had already gone they 
 knew not where. The " Good Samaritan " is 
 described thus in the catalogue : " Painted as an 
 expression of the artist's admiration and respect 
 for the noble philanthropy of Thomas Wright 
 of Manchester." It was given with this dedica- 
 tion to the Town Hall of that city, and a few 
 months later Wright himself appeared, bringing 
 Mr. Watts a thank-offering of six pocket- 
 handkerchiefs. He also gave him the great 
 pleasure of hearing that the presentation of that 
 picture, having called attention to his work, had 
 
 130
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 been already of great service to him. Seeing 
 that the head of Wright was remarkable in its 
 refined and spiritual beauty, he asked if it was 
 possible for him to give a sitting of an hour 
 or so ; with the result that a drawing in black 
 and red chalk — now in its place in the National 
 Portrait Gallery — was made in the Charles Street 
 studio, and there Wright is niched amongst 
 men who have made their mark. 
 
 "The Saxon Sentinels," painted at Dor- 
 chester House, was at this time exchanged for 
 a little piano ; this picture being afterwards 
 sold to Mr. Burton of York by a dealer in the 
 Strand, it disappeared for some time. It is 
 believed that Mr. Burton stored the picture and 
 forgot the painter's name ; but under his will it 
 passed into the possession of the Corporation 
 Gallery of York. It was there rediscovered by 
 Mr. Marion Spielmann, who recognised it from 
 the description he remembered hearing from 
 Mr. Watts. At the same time he began, but 
 never completed, a companion picture, which he 
 called " Bayard and Aristides," choosing these 
 as representative men. 
 
 In 1852 Mazzini was brought to his studio 
 by one who cared much for the picture of 
 "Time and Oblivion." To this friend Mazzini 
 had maintained that it was not possible for a 
 picture to have any moral influence, and denied 
 that it could have intellectual suggestions, after 
 the manner of a poem. However, he came, and, 
 after looking at the picture, confessed that he 
 
 131
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 had been wrong, and that the painter was 
 working in a new way. 
 
 Still anxious for wall space upon which he 
 could fresco some subject worthy of commemo- 
 ration, he asked Lord Elcho to be mediator. 
 Acquaintance with him had first been made in 
 Florence in 1843 when, on their marriage tour, 
 Lady Anne and Mr. Frank Charteris — as he 
 then was — came to the Casa Feroni. The great 
 hall at Euston Station had been built, and Lord 
 Elcho approached the Chairman of the London 
 and North- Western Railway on the subject of 
 allowing his friend the painter to decorate it on 
 condition that the railway company should pay 
 for scaffolding and pigments. The Chairman 
 stated privately that even such expense was not 
 justified by the state of the company's finances : 
 the architect was much alarmed, and declared 
 that he and the directors would probably be 
 stoned if such a scheme were sanctioned by 
 them. It has somehow come about that, in 
 mentioning Mr. Watts's offer to fresco Euston 
 Station, recent writers have made the mistake of 
 saying that it was there he intended to paint 
 the history of Cosmos — the House of Life. 
 Reading a statement of this sort once to him, he 
 told me very positively that " it was entirely 
 disconnected with Euston, for this remained a 
 vague idea never taking any particular form 
 through want of encouragement." 
 
 Meantime the Fine Arts Commissioners 
 offered a small space, in all only thirty feet long 
 
 132
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and divided into six compartments, to the same 
 number of painters, in which subjects from 
 Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, 
 and Pope were to be painted, "with a view 
 to the future decoration of the Palace of 
 Westminster." Unfortunately there were many 
 objections to this scheme. Where space was so 
 limited, to accomplish a good result by means of 
 six different minds, at work on different themes 
 from six different poets, a kind of patchwork 
 must have been the inevitable result. The light 
 reflected by means of mirrors from the windows 
 above the pictures was exceedingly bad ; more- 
 over the corridor was in frequent use, which was 
 most disturbing. Mr. Watts was so little satisfied 
 with what he was able to accomplish that he 
 wrote to Sir Charles Eastlake, offering either to 
 repaint his picture under more favourable con- 
 ditions, or, as he says, " to paint some other 
 space instead, if Her Majesty's Commissioners 
 will give me permission ; and this I should con- 
 sider a very great favour indeed, and I would 
 not venture to make such a proposal but that, 
 regarding the whole work as a national one, I 
 feel that every individual member has a right to 
 offer his best services, and I can never consent 
 to leave in the House of Parliament, or indeed 
 anywhere else, anything that is not as good as I 
 can make it." Unfortunately these panels were 
 destined to rapid decay. I do not know to 
 what cause it has been attributed. 
 
 I think I understood that these were not 
 
 133
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 pure fresco paintings; anyhow, in 1858 Mr. 
 Watts saw the first symptoms of decay, the 
 colour peeling off the plaster, not only in his 
 own fresco but in Mr. Cope's also. At the 
 present time, as the mischief was beyond repair, 
 the remnants of the six paintings are entirely 
 covered up from view. Some very delicate 
 pencil drawings, done at this time by G. F. 
 Watts, and two sketches in oil-colour for this 
 design, called by him " St. George overcoming 
 the Dragon," are preserved, so is the cartoon ; 
 though greatly damaged. These are sufficient 
 to show the artist's conception of Spenser's 
 " Triumph of the Red Cross Knight," when 
 
 All the people as in solemn feast 
 
 To him assembled with one full consort, 
 
 Rejoicing at the fall of the great beast 
 
 From whose eternal bondage now they were releast. 
 
 Of this composition he writes : " I fear it 
 may be thought too crowded ; but I would 
 venture to defend this as being characteristic of 
 the poem, the intention and style of which, it 
 appears to me, the artist should endeavour to 
 illustrate, rather than any particular incident." 
 
 About 1852 a remarkable Greek was in 
 London — Theophilus Kairus — and some of his 
 compatriots, Mr. Watts's friends, were anxious 
 that he should be painted. A young Greek 
 once told me a story that had grown up about 
 this portrait. Kairus, he said, had refused to sit, 
 and it had therefore been quietly arranged that 
 he and the painter should meet at dinner, and 
 
 134
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 be seated opposite each other. Mr. Watts had 
 come, and had eaten nothing, but had given his 
 whole mind to the study of his subject, and so 
 without further sittings had accomplished his 
 fine portrait. My husband, when he was told 
 this, said that it might be partly true, though 
 he did not remember how far it was so ; but 
 he added that Kai'rus certainly sat to him 
 several times. He was of the type of an old 
 Greek philosopher, wonderfully good and noble. 
 Because of his religious views he was prosecuted, 
 sent to prison, and thereby ruined, as he depended 
 on his school for a livelihood. The original 
 portrait was lost ; it was lent to a copyist, who 
 finally pawned it, and it utterly disappeared. 
 Mrs. Coronio ] had a replica of this picture. 
 
 Still urgent for wall space, in June 1852, 
 having seen the blank spaces on the walls of 
 the great Hall at Lincoln's Inn, Mr. Watts 
 wrote to make a definite offer to the Benchers 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Believing that no man of liberal education 
 denies or undervalues the importance of art, at 
 once the test and record of civilisation, it is 
 still a disgrace to us that, while in literature, 
 in science, and in arms we are second to none 
 in the highest and noblest branches, our paint- 
 ing and sculpture can lay claim to no very 
 great excellence. This I am certain is not to 
 be attributed to want of talent. Long reflection 
 and extensive comparison of the different schools 
 
 1 Aglaia Ionides. 
 135
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and epochs of art have convinced me of the 
 importance of mural decoration as a means of 
 developing those qualities which would place 
 British artists by the side of British poets, and 
 form a great national school. It is with these 
 views and in the earnest desire to apply what 
 little talent and acquirement I may possess to 
 useful purposes, and feeling that no man of 
 intellect can prefer dumbness of language and 
 blank spaces to the eloquent literature of art, 
 that I venture to make to the Benchers and 
 students of Lincoln's Inn the following pro- 
 position, namely, if they will subscribe to 
 defray the expense of the material, I will give 
 designs and labour, and undertake to paint in 
 fresco any part or the whole of the Hall." 
 Owing mainly to the representations of the 
 architect of the Hall, Mr. Philip Hardwicke, 
 the hearty consent of the Benchers was obtained, 
 and the fresco was begun in the following year, 
 and went on intermittently whenever the courts 
 were not sitting. Whilst waiting for this 
 opportunity the painter was keeping his hand 
 in — so to speak — by decorating the walls of 
 Little Holland House, in company with Mr. 
 Roddam Spencer Stanhope, who in the summer of 
 1850 had been introduced to him by Dr. Henry 
 Acland, 1 who wrote : " He is the Commoner of 
 Christchurch of whom Newton spoke to you 
 as an aspirant amateur draftsman. You will be 
 pleased with his simplicity and bonhomie." 
 
 1 Later Sir Henry Acland. 
 136
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 A glimpse of their companionship at this 
 time has been given in letters from Mr. Stanhope 
 to his people at home. 1 
 
 " I am undergoing what Watts terms the 
 discipline of drawing. ... I am at work now 
 upon a towel scattered in a picturesque way 
 upon the floor, and which Watts has enjoined 
 me to draw with as hard a pencil as I can get, 
 and shade with the finest lines possible, in order 
 to study and imitate everything I see upon it, 
 even to the blacks. 
 
 " He says the first object is to acquire power 
 in representing any object whatsoever upon 
 paper in black and white, and this is the surest 
 and quickest way of arriving at this facility. 
 After that has been obtained, the rest is com- 
 paratively easy — anatomy, study of form, etc., 
 being most necessary, and painting may follow 
 close upon that. He recommends me to draw 
 lots of outlines as well, carefully and decidedly, 
 and without rubbing out ; but to avoid drawing 
 even from the antiques indiscriminately, and he 
 says it is a sure way of spoiling one's taste for 
 form. He seems to approve of few besides the 
 Elgin Marbles as lessons to study from." As 
 I copy these words of advice given in 1851, I 
 feel how entirely they represent the views he 
 held to the end of his life — the advice given 
 in the 'seventies to me, and again so often 
 repeated when students came to him during 
 
 1 Quoted by Mrs. Stirling in her article entitled "Roddam Spencer 
 Stanhope," Nineteenth Century and After, August number, 1909. 
 
 137
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the last years of his life. One gathers from 
 this letter that Mr. Stanhope had accepted his 
 views as to the value of daylight ; for he 
 writes that he breakfasts at a quarter past seven, 
 and gets to the studio in Charles Street about 
 eight o'clock. 
 
 "About one o'clock I find myself at Little 
 Holland House, where I do a little in the way 
 of luncheon, and when that is cleared away 
 Watts and I set to work, which we carry on till 
 it is nearly dark. 
 
 " Watts, now I know him, is a glorious 
 companion, and the Prinseps are very jolly 
 people." 
 
 Although in the letter of introduction from 
 Sir Henry Acland the desire is that the relations 
 between them should be as master and pupil, 
 I think it may be said with absolute certainty 
 that Mr. Watts never did undertake to give 
 more than a certain direction either to Mr. 
 Stanhope's studies or to those of others. " I 
 never had a pupil in the true sense of the 
 word," he often said ; and I remember Lord 
 Carlisle turning round suddenly when talking 
 to him, and laughing heartily, he walked down 
 the studio to where Mrs. Percy Wyndham 
 and I were, and explained, " Signor has just 
 told me he never felt advanced enough himself 
 to take a pupil." The position is — so it seems 
 to me — made clear by Mr. Stanhope himself, 
 who writes — and this in 1853 after working 
 beside Mr. Watts some eighteen months : " You 
 
 138
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 see what I have done in the way of study has 
 been all original, and without the aid of masters. 
 I think Watts is right ; he is very fearful of 
 influencing me in any way, and never makes a 
 comment upon anything I show him, but only 
 urges me on, and gives me good advice about 
 keeping in the right way." 
 
 The relationship between them, in Mr. 
 Watts's eyes, would be that of fellow-students ; 
 as he had the advantage of years and experience, 
 he believed that he might have principles to give 
 to the younger man, but this was all. Lady 
 Elizabeth Stanhope, anxious about his influence 
 upon her son, " moral as well as artistic," is 
 reassured, partly because her son thinks most 
 highly of his character ; partly because he 
 tells her of the giant-stride in Little Holland 
 House garden — she calls it a merry-go-round 
 — where the three Prinsep boys, their tutor, 
 with Roddy and Watts, go round and round 
 till they are quite exhausted ; and she adds, 
 " very innocent." Then, after Mr. Watts had 
 given up his studio in Charles Street in 
 September 1852, she invited him to stay with 
 them at her son's request, mentioning that after 
 his kindness to " Roddy " this cannot be refused, 
 and she is still further reassured. " Watts is as 
 quiet as a mouse," she writes, " working from 
 morning to night, and is not an expensive guest, 
 as he drinks nothing but water." I rather 
 think that his friend Henry Phillips may have 
 taken over the studio, or else the Cosmopolitan 
 
 139
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Club allowed him to make use of it at times, as 
 he seems to have made appointments with his 
 sitters in Charles Street as late as September 
 1853. I* was P r °bably about this time that 
 he built his first studio at Little Holland House. 
 A gap between two walls was filled up by him, 
 and this was his working studio, though in 
 the heat of summer he found it too sunny, 
 and for this reason he built another later, on 
 the north-west side. This studio shows to the 
 left on the drawing of the old house from the 
 north-east. 
 
 In May 1852 Dr. Acland had asked Mr. 
 Watts to consider the idea of filling a spandril in 
 his house at Oxford. He suggested that an 
 outline of a composition by Flaxman, a particular 
 design for which Mr. Acland had a great 
 admiration, might be suitable for the space. 
 The design was one taken from Flaxman's illus- 
 trations to Hesiod, engraved by Blake. To this 
 request Mr. Watts replied in a letter a copy of 
 which exists ; it is dated from Little Holland 
 House, May 8, 1852. In it he says : "I should 
 find it very difficult to reply suitably to your 
 most kind letter, and I will not make the attempt. 
 I know that you do not intend to flatter, and 
 therefore take that which would really give me 
 great pain as an over-estimation of my abilities 
 to be only a proof of sympathy with my views 
 and aspirations, and as such most gratifying and 
 encouraging. I am most sincere in my wish to 
 do good, for many years grieving to see art 
 
 140
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 without a mission or an aim, and ardently 
 desiring to awaken some remembrance of its 
 legitimate purpose and real use. Professionally I 
 have neither interest nor ambition besides the 
 furtherance of what I feel to be a worthy object 
 in any way that I can imagine, or in any way 
 that may be suggested. The most that I can 
 expect is to be instrumental in preparing the way 
 for better men, and I am right glad to see upon 
 the walls of the Royal Academy this year ample 
 evidence that these will not be wanting. Mean- 
 while I will paint and send you a picture from 
 Flaxman to fill up the space you offer. I was 
 sure you would duly admire the great productions 
 of that fine genius." 
 
 This spandril is now in the Ashmolean 
 Museum. In 1902, on receiving a letter from 
 Oxford inquiring about the spandril, my husband 
 told me that Sir Henry Acland had greatly 
 admired this particular design, and that in con- 
 sequence he drew it out on a large scale and 
 laid it in flat colour for him. 
 
 " Flaxman had no sense of colour, that was 
 his great fault ; his outlines were superb," my 
 husband once said to me. " It was the lack of 
 this sense that made him blind to the beauty of 
 the Elgin Marbles. In the best sculpture you 
 feel the palpitations of colour, the elements of a 
 picture ; you unconsciously see it painted ! His 
 work was beautiful on a small scale, but on larger 
 work he was all abroad. Actual dimension has 
 an impressiveness all its own. 
 
 141
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 " Accustomed to draw in outline on a small 
 scale, Flaxman overlooked the fact that the 
 simple mass that had such a good effect in his 
 outline would be, when put into stone, but a 
 lump of stone, not representing flexible conditions 
 or colour." 
 
 In June 1852 Sir Charles Newton, writing 
 from Mitylene, where he had lately been 
 appointed Consul, tries to entice him there. 
 
 " Why are you not here ? If you could but see 
 my cave by the seashore, where I lie all through 
 a summer's day, and read Shelley. All nature 
 shut out by the over-hanging rock except one 
 blue bit of the Mediterranean, which comes in 
 little summer waves, splashing at my feet. All 
 through my siesta I hear the monotonous 
 murmur, which has continued to lull weary 
 mortals to sleep since the time when in these 
 islands was the cradle of Greek civilisation. I 
 am getting very fond of the place ; it would suit 
 you exactly. I feel that the landscape before 
 my eyes is the landscape which Homer saw, and 
 has described in his similes, and which Pheidias 
 turned into beautiful impersonations in sculpture ; 
 here there is no sensation of collision and conflict 
 between the elements and man. His physical 
 frame and the nature around him, though different 
 in kind, seem so completely in harmony that we 
 are for ever reminded that we are parts of one 
 great system. I gaze at the landscape till my very 
 soul seems absorbed and blended into it, till I 
 forget the material constraints of the body. No 
 
 142
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 wonder that the ancients made death beautiful ; 
 who would hold any other faith in such a 
 climate ? Have you finished your fresco ? [St. 
 George, in the House of Lords]. When will 
 you come out to me ? " 
 
 This must have been a great temptation to 
 the man 
 
 Who in that monstrous London dwelt, 
 And half-remembered Arcady, 
 
 and he writes in reply : " Indeed I could find 
 it in my heart to desire no better fate than 
 to dream away my life in such an isle as 
 Mitylene, but I repress the half-formed longing. 
 I wish you here very much daily, nay, hourly ; 
 we have views and sympathies in common, and I 
 see with great interest and satisfaction the time 
 approaching when the principles I have so long 
 worked for, and which you with more dexterity 
 and power were beginning to dash into shape, 
 may be carried into effect and brought to bear 
 upon a useful purpose." 
 
 But in the autumn of the following year he 
 allowed himself a month's holiday, and in 
 company with Roddam Spencer Stanhope and 
 Henry, the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Prinsep, 
 he went back to his beloved Italy. After a day 
 or two in Paris they left for Marseilles — no 
 dreadful diligence experience this time ; but 
 the railway was not open beyond Chalons, so 
 he again went down the Saone and Loire to 
 Avignon, where trains were available, and so on 
 to Marseilles. They saw something of Genoa 
 
 143
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 on their way to Leghorn, stayed at Pisa and 
 Florence, and went thence by vetturino to 
 Bologna, Padua, and Venice. These two last- 
 named places he had not seen during his former 
 stay in Italy. I find a fragment of a letter from 
 him beginning : — 
 
 " My dear Ruskin — I have been to Venice : 
 you are right " — here the rest of the sheet is 
 torn off, but on another side the letter con- 
 tinues : " I can better understand now why I 
 fail ; Titian, Giorgione, and all the most glow- 
 ing and gorgeous translations of the Venetian 
 School have rendered Nature as I feel her — as 
 I too would render her — but my imagination 
 is not vivid, nor my memory powerful. In 
 Venice especially the exquisite colour of the 
 time-tinted stone against the splendid sky gave 
 me ideas of combinations such as I have scarcely 
 ever seen even in those great masters I have 
 named. The fine bearded heads, grandly 
 coloured chests and limbs every moment being 
 presented to view, made me long for colours 
 and brushes. Under the influence of the 
 glowing sun every object is presented in a 
 manner so in harmony with my own feelings 
 that the whole language of Nature seems to me 
 perfectly intelligible." And here the fragment 
 ends. 
 
 In another note on this journey his en- 
 thusiasms awake and are crying out : — 
 
 "Then ! the glories of that Golden House, 
 
 144
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the Cathedral of St. Mark's, more, to my 
 thinking (no critic as I am), like a house not 
 made with hands than anything I ever saw ; 
 with its uneven pavement and walls, its strange 
 antique mosaics, and the more modern ones of 
 equally high import and more beauty : not 
 pictures, but representations of heads, arms, legs, 
 or draperies — the large utterance of a majestic 
 language — how impressive, how intelligible is 
 the whole ! When the rays of the setting sun 
 passing through the windows of one side of the 
 dome illumine the opposite side, the effect is 
 wonderful — wonderful in the variety of colour 
 and ornament. Below, niches that seem to be 
 scooped out of solid gold are thrown into 
 depths of shadow by massive projections. Upon 
 the broken surface of gold, bright spots start 
 out like gems, as some tessera on the surface 
 presents a different plane to the light. As the 
 eye travels upward to that part of the dome in 
 full light, by contrast it looks like the glory of 
 heaven itself. Such wealth of material, bound- 
 less profusion, and reckless scattering of variety 
 is a rendering of nature's joy. I had not 
 imagined it possible to attain such completeness 
 of design with apparent absence of it ; largeness 
 of whole, with its marvellous impression of 
 unity, profusion without confusion, finish with- 
 out smallness, contrasts without discords, har- 
 monies without monotony." 
 
 This happens to be the only bit of writing 
 fresh from his first impressions of Venice. One 
 
 VOL. 1 145 l
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 would like to have found something that he 
 had written when he first stood before the 
 " Peter Martyr," Titian's great " Assumption," 
 the " Miracle of St. Mark," or the " Colleoni " — 
 all of these great works remembered by him as 
 " amongst the greatest examples of art, reflect- 
 ing all the splendour of the great republic." I 
 recollect that the Accademia was at that time 
 in a state of some confusion, and Mr. Kerr- 
 Lawson tells me he remembers Mr. Watts 
 saying that all the Carpaccios — which were 
 unknown to him — were turned with their faces 
 to the wall, and that he ventured to turn one 
 partly round, exclaiming to Mr. Stanhope, 
 " This is not bad ! " 
 
 On their return journey they stopped at 
 Padua for the purpose of seeing the work of 
 Giotto in the cathedral. Of him he writes a 
 few months later : " Giotto was a most wonder- 
 ful man ; departing from manner, dryness, and 
 positive deformity, he displays beauty, dignity, 
 and sweetness in degrees that perhaps have 
 never been exceeded. There is a majesty of 
 form and largeness of character that no artist 
 since his time has ever produced with equal 
 simplicity. Haydon remarks upon the really 
 strange resemblance some of his heads bear to 
 the heads of the frieze of the Parthenon, and 
 concludes that he must at second-hand have 
 received instruction from Pheidias. He supposes 
 that some wandering artist had made him 
 acquainted either with some fragments or some 
 
 146
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 drawings from the Panathenaic procession ; but 
 in Giotto there is so little evidence of imitation, 
 and all appears to be so much of a piece, that 
 it is more likely his original and powerful mind 
 enabled him to perceive and seize upon the 
 noblest properties in nature ; and indeed it 
 would require a still larger compass of mind 
 to avoid servile imitation and repetition of a 
 beloved model, and there is no trace of the 
 mannerism that would have been inevitable 
 in the works of Giotto. Yet certainly the 
 resemblance in principles of form, exhibited in 
 his heads especially, to those of the best time 
 of Greek art — the age of Pheidias — is little less 
 than marvellous. There is in the cathedral at 
 Padua, amongst other fine things by him, the 
 figure of an angel seated in a boat, that for 
 grandeur and style might have been the work 
 of Pheidias himself. I have seen nothing so like 
 in the whole range of art, the dry sculpturesque 
 qualities rendering it to the superficial observer 
 more like, by suggesting sculpture, but at the 
 same time rendering it less like in fact ; for 
 Pheidias was eminently pictorial, stopping short 
 exactly at that point where richness and flexi- 
 bility merges into the florid. In this quality 
 of luscious breadth and richness of surface, his 
 style later comes out gloriously ; for Giorgione 
 and Titian are wonderfully Pheidian in texture 
 of flesh and drapery. In the flesh, the same 
 breadth and richness of general treatment, 
 rendered firm and solid by the larger markings 
 
 147 

 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 given with great determination. The form is 
 less perfect, but the feeling is identical. The 
 drapery is really exact in treatment, crumpled, 
 folded in every direction, sitting close to the 
 figure, because it has been worn. The direction 
 of fold is given by the movement and play of 
 muscle ; it is never tortured to make out the form, 
 never clumped into masses, in a mistaken notion 
 of breadth. However voluminous and ample 
 the drapery may be in the works of Pheidias, 
 Giorgione, or Titian, the figure never seems 
 smothered or loaded. The drapery of Raphael 
 has been justly celebrated for its grandeur and 
 simplicity, but excellent as it is, it looks 
 academic and like new blanket by the side of 
 the Greek and the Venetian. It is remarkable 
 that this peculiar quality of ease, flexibility, and 
 richness seems to have been entirely overlooked 
 in the Parthenon fragments, if indeed they 
 have not been regarded as defects, which 
 perhaps is most probable. No sculptor has 
 seemed to consider that the great master in- 
 tentionally cut up his drapery ; yet what pro- 
 found knowledge of both nature and of his 
 materials has he not displayed ! He knew that 
 large plain masses, in so solid a material, would 
 necessarily tell with great effect upon the eye ; 
 therefore if he made his less interesting forms 
 of drapery heavy and simple, he could not 
 prevent them from having an undue effect. By 
 cutting up the drapery with innumerable folds, 
 he gave the idea of flexible material, covering, 
 
 148
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 but not trammelling the wearer, worn for orna- 
 ment and use ; by flowing lines he gave grace, 
 by difference of surface he suggested a different 
 material, by many folds he took away the 
 importance of the mass, leaving the head and 
 limbs free and uninterfered with, simple, massive, 
 and important. 
 
 " An advocate for the use of colour in sculp- 
 ture, and believing that Pheidias employed it, I 
 see in the general treatment reasons in favour 
 of the contrary opinion, which I am surprised 
 have never been remarked ; for his method of 
 suggesting difference of texture and colour in 
 the drapery (by means of his chisel alone) would 
 certainly go far to render colour unnecessary, 
 and might be triumphantly appealed to as an 
 argument that Pheidias did not use colour. 
 
 " It has been often said that Nature is always 
 the same — the broadest and simplest principles 
 taken into consideration ; she is, but it cannot be 
 denied that great modifications take place. The 
 sun shining upon scarlet drapery produces an 
 effect as splendid as ever it did in ancient Greece 
 or Venice; and — allowing for the effect of 
 sun and climate — the vagabond scantily-covered 
 tramp is not very unlike the mendicant who 
 asked alms of Alcibiades. The country boy, in 
 his well-worn smock frock, will to this day treat 
 you to Pheidian folds. But form and colour of 
 flesh have certainly deteriorated. The well- 
 dressed gentleman of 1854 can bear small 
 resemblance to the exquisite of the time of 
 
 149
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Pericles ; the limbs, deprived, by the fashion 
 of modern clothing, of freedom, and shut off 
 from the action of sun and air, never acquire 
 their natural development, texture, or colour. 
 The junctures alone are fine in form and natural 
 in character, because they have so much work 
 to do, they are obliged to perfect themselves, 
 and therefore nature's intentions cannot be 
 thwarted." 
 
 Here the MS. ends — whether intended for 
 publication or merely part of a letter there is 
 nothing to show. 
 
 On his return to England he took up the 
 work at Lincoln's Inn, painting there by ar- 
 rangement, only during the spring and summer 
 vacations, and unfortunately much interrupted, 
 especially as years went on, by illness. He had 
 proposed to himself to paint on this great wall 
 — the space being forty-five feet wide and forty 
 feet high — the design he afterwards named 
 "Justice — A Hemicycle of Law-givers." Pre- 
 ferring to work without having made any 
 cartoon, as he had done for the " St. George," he 
 followed the practice adopted by him for the 
 large picture of Alfred, and made drawings, 
 sometimes on so small a scale that the whole 
 composition went into half a sheet of notepaper ; 
 no study seems to have been larger than a 
 medium- sized sheet of drawing-paper could 
 carry, though many of the heads of the legis- 
 lators were drawn or painted life-size, his friends 
 being laid under contribution in some degree 
 
 15°
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 as models for the various types. At one time 
 he thought of asking students of art, " anxious, 
 like young soldiers, to prove themselves," to 
 give him assistance in the work. He did not 
 remember whether or not he ever applied for 
 this, but was quite certain that he never had any 
 help whatever, and he attacked the big work 
 single-handed. To him the subject appeared to 
 be a great one, bound up with the evolution 
 of civilisation — " that evolution in which our 
 religion takes its place," he explained — and it is 
 noticeable that Moses in the central place is 
 head and shoulders above all others ; and not 
 only this, but he alone amongst the law-givers 
 has the uplifted head and face, as if listening to 
 something higher than human argument — the 
 " practical mystic " who receives his orders 
 direct from Heaven. Mahomet also turns with 
 something of the same action, but he looks 
 towards Moses rather than to the Invisible. He 
 is one of the four singled out with intention to 
 stand somewhat apart ; the others being Alfred, 
 Charlemagne, and Justinian. 
 
 The plaster was always freshly laid the day 
 before he worked upon any part, and as far as he 
 was able, with the careful attention of Messrs. 
 Winsor and Newton, the colours were carefully 
 chosen with regard to permanency. 
 
 One of the most enduring pleasures remain- 
 ing in his memories of this time was that, whilst 
 he painted, the voices of the choristers reached 
 him from the chapel, either during service or 
 
 I5 1
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 at practice ; the pure sound of the boys' voices, 
 going and returning as it were, wound about the 
 building from the unseen and distant ; and he 
 liked to fancy that a choir of angels was singing 
 to him while he worked. 
 
 152
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 15:
 
 We want the soldiers of art, not the fencing 
 
 masters. 
 
 G. F. WATTS, 1850. 
 
 154
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Now under the hospitable roof of Little Holland 
 House went in and out an ebb and flow of 
 various members of the family : some staying 
 for days, some for weeks, and some for years, 
 but all claiming Mr. Watts as one of its 
 members. It thus became impossible for them 
 to continue to call him " Mr. Watts." A name 
 had to be found, and it was found for him by 
 Mrs. Prinsep's youngest sister Sophie — Mrs. 
 Dalrymple — the one who, to the end of his life, 
 when writing to him, signed herself as "Sore//a." 
 It was she who first called him Signor, the 
 little word, half name, half title, that suited so 
 well ; for the many who liked to claim him 
 especially could use it without feeling that it 
 had the familiarity of a Christian name. They 
 generally took the first step by saying " the 
 Signor," and yet it seemed a suitably intimate 
 little name, when used by the few who were 
 most near to him. 
 
 It is not easy to explain why, but somehow 
 his personality made people think of queer little 
 names for him, in great variety — from the little 
 
 i55
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 girl who tried to bribe him, all her heart intent 
 upon his doing something she particularly 
 wanted, who looked up coaxingly and said, 
 " Do, and I'll call you Fish " ; to the full-grown 
 girl who chose to call him " Lamb," mixing 
 her metaphors when he was a little fussed about 
 some unpunctuality one day, by saying, " Now, 
 darling Lamb, don't be an old maid " — to which 
 he replied, laughing, " Ah, you have none of the 
 vices of old maids, nor the politeness of kings." 
 " Early Lambs," she dubbed his first paintings. 
 
 But "Signor" was the universal name, and 
 his own name George fell out of use entirely. 
 In Mr. Harry Prinsep's mind remains a charming 
 bit of vivid recollection of the godmother who 
 gave Signor that name ; and though he spoke of 
 the years 1864-65, the reminiscence may take its 
 place here. A nephew of Mr. Thoby Prinsep's, 
 he was one of the family for whom Little Holland 
 House was a home, and where for some two 
 years between school and taking up his profession 
 he lived and used to write for and read to 
 his uncle, who was suffering from cataract. 
 " Perhaps we were all round the dinner-table," 
 he said, " in the lower dining-room — Uncle 
 Thoby thinking about his work, passing his hand 
 over his eyes and silent ; Signor not very well and 
 silent ; Aunt Sara occupied giving all sorts of 
 directions in a low tone to a servant ; the young 
 people awed and silent. Suddenly there was a 
 rustle of silks, a lovely vision appeared — for 
 Aunt Sophie wandered in, dressed in a gown of 
 
 156
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 some rich colour, all full of crinkles " (the male 
 mind describing marvellously drawn gathers and 
 folds). "Aunt Sara would scold her a little for 
 being late, and she would put her head on one 
 side and answer with a little bit of pathetic 
 humour ; and before she had been amongst us 
 three minutes, the whole party was laughing and 
 talking." 
 
 With her head a little on one side, with down- 
 dropped lids and red-brown hair, Signor has 
 painted a miniature portrait of her on panel, in a 
 green dress full of " crinkles," a string of coral 
 beads about her neck. Years afterwards, on the 
 back of that picture he wrote the words, 
 " The days that are no more." 
 
 Mrs. Dalrymple's movements were beautiful, 
 and the soft material she wore fell into arrange- 
 ments of line full of suggestion to the artist's eye. 
 To be always at hand, he carried in his pocket a 
 small notebook of indelible paper with a metal 
 point in the sheath, and when his eye fell on 
 any particularly beautiful arrangement in posture 
 or line he would call out, with a gesture of his 
 hand, " Oh, pray, stay where you are for a 
 moment," and the notebook was taken out to 
 receive a monumental outline on the tiny page. 
 These drawings, perhaps the least well known of 
 his artistic expressions, may be placed, I venture 
 to say, beside his greatest. They are chiefly 
 drawn from Mrs. Prinsep, Lady Dalrymple, Mrs. 
 Jackson and her three daughters Adeline, Julia, 
 and Mary, who from their childhood were much 
 
 i57
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 at Little Holland House. His larger drawings 
 in chalk and charcoal are much better known. 
 Several of these of the Prinsep family were to 
 be seen on the walls of old Little Holland 
 House, including that of Mr. Thoby Prinsep 
 himself, his three sons, and one of Lady Somers. 
 And with these were also the studies from Arthur 
 as a boy, with the locks that the painter bribed 
 him to keep uncut while he was making the 
 drawings from which his pictures of " Sir 
 Galahad," " Aspiration," " Hyperion," and of the 
 " Red Cross Knight with Una," were afterwards 
 painted. The full -face portrait of Arthur, 
 reproduced in the picture " Aspiration," was 
 borrowed by Mr. Holman Hunt when he was 
 painting his famous picture of " Christ among 
 the Doctors." He told Signor it was the type of 
 head that he wished to keep in his mind when 
 rendering this subject. By the time this picture 
 was painted Arthur Prinsep had developed into 
 the usual close-cropped schoolboy, and therefore 
 never sat for this. 
 
 These drawings were not exhibited at the 
 time that they were made ; not that Sir Charles 
 Eastlake did not appreciate them, but a rule in 
 the Academy bye-laws at the time prevented any 
 drawing that was merely a head from being 
 shown there. Sir Henry Thoby Prinsep tells me 
 that he remembers Sir Charles Eastlake coming, 
 time after time, to try and persuade Signor to 
 add just a few lines to outline the shoulders in 
 each ; but he would not, as he could not per- 
 
 158
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 suade himself that it would add to the artistic 
 worth. 
 
 As the attractions of Little Holland House 
 gradually became more widely known, an un- 
 usually interesting society gathered there ; especi- 
 ally on Sunday afternoons, when Mrs. Prinsep was 
 " At Home " and Mr. Prinsep and Signor were 
 known to be at leisure. Women remarkable for 
 gifts of talent and beauty went there, as well 
 as statesmen, soldiers, painters, poets, and men 
 famous in literature. Thus under the cottage-like 
 thatched porch many a distinguished head stooped 
 and uncovered, to whom, figuratively, the world 
 now pays that mark of reverence. So near London 
 — though the sound of its traffic was not more than 
 the sound of a distant river — the stately trees, 
 and the wide green spaces merged on all sides in 
 the acres of Holland House, were alone attractive 
 enough to make the place popular. But when to 
 this was added a hostess who, with a genius for 
 hospitality, drew wit and beauty and talent to- 
 gether, the entertainment was irresistible. 
 
 In a letter to me from Lady Constance 
 Leslie, she recalls her visit to Little Holland 
 House. "It was in 1856, when we were first 
 engaged to be married, that John took me to 
 what was to me a new world — something I 
 had never imagined before of beauty and kind- 
 ness. I was a very ignorant little girl, and oh 
 how proud I felt, though rather unworthy of 
 what seemed holy ground. The Signor came 
 out of his studio all spirit and so delicate, and 
 
 159
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 received me very kindly as John's future wife. 
 Thackeray was there with his young daughters, 
 Coutts Lindsay, Jacob Omnium, and Lady 
 Somers glorious and benevolent. Signor was 
 the whole object of adoration and care in that 
 house. He seemed to sanctify Little Holland 
 House. I also remember well the Sunday, 
 June 13, 1858, when we were dining with 
 the Prinseps, Alfred Tennyson, Rossetti, Tom 
 Taylor, Adelaide Sartoris, Edward Burne-Jones, 
 Coutts Lindsay, and Richard Doyle. Adelaide 
 Sartoris sang his own poems to Tennyson. In 
 later years arose the vision of beauty, dear May 
 Prinsep, and I remember seeing Val carry 
 young Philip Burne-Jones upstairs — such a con- 
 trast ! Val as St. Christopher ! " 
 
 On weekdays the round of work went on — 
 Mr. Prinsep at the India Office, the work in the 
 studio rigorously uninterrupted. Signor's nature, 
 his work, and his health all compelled him 
 to live somewhat apart ; though sympathy and 
 vivid life were so essential to him that through 
 life he almost craved for these, and drew them 
 to him unfailingly. Amongst other friends of 
 this time the author of 'Tom Brown s School 
 Days, Mr. Tom Hughes, his brothers and 
 their only sister Jeanie (Mrs. Nassau Senior), 
 were much at Little Holland House. Being 
 an only daughter, she had been brought up in 
 her country home entirely with her brothers ; 
 her naturally bright and spontaneous out-of-door 
 nature appealed to Signor greatly, and she soon 
 
 160
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 became a friend-in-chief amongst many friends. 
 To her care is owed the preservation of many- 
 sketches and designs, made while he was 
 working out various ideas, and collected in two 
 scrap-books at a time when they were littering 
 his studio, which but for her forethought would 
 certainly have disappeared. His health during 
 these years was very uncertain ; and the letters 
 written to her seem to point to physical depres- 
 sion, and to confirm Mr. Valentine Prinsep's 
 opinion that old Little Holland House did 
 not suit Signor — the sanitation he declared was 
 very far from satisfactory. Partly for change, 
 and partly on the invitation of the Hollands, 
 who were in Paris at the time, he spent some 
 months of the winter of 1855-56 there, having 
 a studio at 10 Rue des Saints Peres. He took 
 with him Arthur Prinsep, a boy of fifteen, full 
 of spirit and fun, and needing some handling. 
 He tells me that Signor's curb upon him was 
 simply, " Well, if you do that I shall have a 
 headache " — an appeal to his affectionate nature 
 much more effective than any command would 
 have been, the boy knowing what real suffering 
 the word headache could cover in Signor's 
 case. It was here that M. Thiers came to sit 
 to him, and one sentence of the conversation 
 Signor remembered, because it seemed to him 
 very typical of the Gallic mind, as distinct from 
 the Anglo - Saxon. When talking of the 
 Frenchman who had invented a statement that 
 his fellow-countryman had anticipated Newton's 
 VOL. 1 161 m
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 great discovery of the law of gravitation, M. 
 Thiers, though admitting that it was untrue, 
 ended by saying, " Well, he had the glory of 
 his country at heart, and I applaud this, and 
 would like to put up a statue to his memory." 
 
 Prince Jerome Buonaparte, brother of the 
 first Napoleon, also sat to him here ; so did the 
 Princess Lieven, whose husband had been from 
 1812 to 1834 the Russian Ambassador in 
 England ; the portrait happened to be painted 
 during the last months of her life. Her letters 
 to Metternich, and to her brother, Count 
 Benckendorff, are well known. She was the 
 friend of Lady Holland, to whom he gave the 
 portrait. Of this time Mr. Nathaniel Hone 
 kindly writes to me : — 
 
 " I was commencing my art studies, and I 
 shall never forget Mr. Watts's kindness and the 
 excellent advice he gave me. Some successful 
 artists become vain and conceited ; Watts had 
 not those faults, he was most affable and kind 
 to me as a student. We smoked many pipes 
 together, discussing past and present art. I think 
 among the ancients Titian was his favourite." 
 " The many pipes smoked " — as far as one 
 person was concerned — is a figure of speech, as 
 Signor never smoked at any time of his life. 
 
 At the end of February he left Paris and 
 returned to Little Holland House. During the 
 months when he could not work at Lincoln's 
 Inn, he had begun to fresco the dining-room of 
 a house in Carlton House Terrace (No. 7), then 
 
 162
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 belonging to Lord Somers ; and this work he 
 continued and probably completed during the 
 spring and summer. The subjects he chose 
 for these frescoes were the Elements, and to 
 represent these he drew upon Greek mytho- 
 logical story. But he was constantly ill, and 
 later in the same year, greatly urged by Dr. 
 Gully, he accepted Charles Newton's invitation 
 to join the staff of the expedition he was direct- 
 ing for the recovery of the Mausoleum of 
 Halicarnassus at Budrum in Asia Minor. 
 
 lie left England in the middle of October, 
 in H.M.S. Gorgon, then under the command of 
 Captain Towsey, with a crew of 150 men. He 
 looked back upon this time — some eight months 
 spent almost continuously upon a man-of-war, 
 with great pleasure. He appreciated the order 
 and discipline on board, made friends with both 
 officers and men, and had a favourable outward 
 journey till within sight of Malta, where for 
 two days they tossed about, unable to enter the 
 harbour — not a pleasant experience. At Smyrna 
 they picked up Mr. Newton and went on to 
 Budrum, where they got to work on the great 
 excavations ; Mr. Newton, an officer, and some 
 sappers encamped on shore, while the staff 
 remained on board. Christmas on the Gorgon 
 was kept in English fashion, the sailors dancing 
 and making merry. There was an impromptu 
 concert in which Signor took part, and sang 
 Dibdin's song " Tom Bowling ' with such 
 effect as to reduce the bluejackets to tears. 
 
 163
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 But Mr. Newton was above all things 
 anxious to secure the lions' heads — Greek, and of 
 the school of Scopas. He had the year before 
 discovered these in the mediaeval tower of St. 
 Peter, built into its walls by the Knights 
 Templars. A firman for this being necessary, 
 he sent Signor on to Constantinople with 
 despatches to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the 
 British Ambassador, asking him to obtain the 
 firman with all possible speed. Signor soon 
 learnt, however, that speed was neither likely nor 
 possible. Delay after delay occurred, but mean- 
 time he had a pleasant life at Constantinople, 
 sometimes making acquaintance with the ex- 
 tortions of Misseri, the owner of the Hotel 
 d'Angleterre, more often on the man-of-war, a 
 guest at the Embassy, or sometimes on board the 
 Royal Albert, the flagship of"* Admiral Lord 
 Lyons ; and he was also sent for a cruise on 
 board H.M.S. Swallow (Captain Maddiston) 
 through the Greek islands and to Athens, a cruise 
 he had permission from Lord Lyons to direct, 
 who said playfully, " I put you in command." 
 He never forgot the delight given him by the 
 wonderful blueness of the waters seen through 
 the port-holes at night, and often spoke of one 
 night as more splendid than all others when he 
 was dining on board the Royal Albert. 
 
 With Sir Henry Layard, in late years, he often 
 talked over acquaintances and episodes of this 
 time. Sir Henry was not with him there, but 
 knew intimately Lord Stratford and all the staff 
 
 164
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 of the Embassy at that time. Of Charles Alison 
 — the many-sided and most remarkable of men — 
 they often talked. He seemed to possess every 
 talent, and a kind of mesmeric power over his 
 chief and over most people whom he came 
 across, and had much influence with the Turks. 
 When Signor was at Constantinople, Mr. Alison 
 was living in a tent in the Embassy garden, 
 refusing, as a protest, to live under the roof of his 
 impetuous chief. 
 
 Lord Stratford consented to sit for two por- 
 traits : one of these now in the National Portrait 
 Gallery was unfinished and was completed many 
 years later. When speaking generally of the 
 confidences made to him by his sitters, Signor 
 used to say that Lord Stratford was the most 
 indiscreet of them all. Perhaps he knew 
 best the loyalty of his painter. Meanwhile 
 Mr. Newton was beginning to get desperate 
 about the firman, and the wily Turks were 
 at work, trying to possess themselves of the 
 lions' heads ; indeed they were actually already 
 in a caique on the morning when the Swallow 
 appeared with the necessary firman. Mr. 
 Newton secured them not a moment too soon. 
 In excavating they would now and then find 
 an absolutely perfect specimen of colour, but so 
 evanescent that, in a few minutes of sunlight, it 
 would utterly disappear. One instance of this 
 Signor mentioned as almost unbelievably swift in 
 its disappearance. A great block happened to 
 be turned over while Mr. Newton was absent, 
 
 165
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and the workmen called Signor to see it. On it 
 was a border of leaf and flower ornament in 
 strong fine colour — red, yellows, and blues. He 
 had the slab covered up as quickly as possible, 
 but when turned round and uncovered again for 
 Mr. Newton's inspection, the colour had utterly 
 vanished. 
 
 He was much attracted by the men of the 
 place. The dragoman, with his good looks and 
 Eastern gift of good manners — " such a gentle- 
 man," as Signor used to say — sat to him for 
 studies more than once. He was struck by the 
 true spirit of the Mahommedan's interpretation 
 of their prophet's teaching. For instance, as the 
 habit of smoking was not of his time, it could 
 not have been forbidden by him ; nevertheless, 
 during their fast of Ramadan the workmen 
 never smoked from sunrise till sunset, and he 
 watched them sitting with pipe filled and match 
 in hand, waiting till the gun was fired as the sun 
 dropped before they entered upon this delight. 
 Later, an earnest convert to the Church of Rome 
 happened to be sitting to him in Lent, and 
 remarked, as he smoked, how glad he was that 
 tobacco had not been discovered when the fast 
 was instituted. 
 
 Towards the end of May, a man-of-war 
 homeward bound took him, Val Prinsep, and 
 Roddam Spencer Stanhope on board, and they 
 set their faces homewards. Landing at Rhodes, 
 they saw the pathetic sight of that town which 
 shortly before had been shattered by a terrible 
 
 166
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 earthquake. One single wall of a clock-tower 
 stood alone, the hands pointing to the hour of 
 the catastrophe. Still more impressive was the 
 bowed figure of an old woman, who sat day after 
 day on the summit of a high staircase still intact 
 against an otherwise ruined wall, her head bent 
 upon her knees, the very impersonation of ruin, 
 loneliness, and despair ; they were told she sat 
 there constantly. The misery had been greatly 
 enhanced by the apathy of the Turkish 
 authorities, who did nothing to rescue, nor later 
 to compensate in any way, the miserable remnant 
 of the population. 
 
 It was June before they reached England. 
 The visas on his passport are dated Smyrna, 
 May 22, and Malta, May 26. On his way 
 between these places, he writes to Mrs. Nassau 
 Senior about the work of his brother-artists : " I 
 long to hear what the exhibition will be, and 
 shall expect to hear at Malta. Alas, I shall not 
 be at home till long after the opening. I hope 
 and trust Leighton has done his best and will 
 thoroughly establish himself. I expect much 
 from Hunt and also from Millais." 
 
 The news of the outbreak of the Indian 
 Mutiny had not reached them at Malta ; but on 
 his return he found his friends at Little Holland 
 House had been receiving disquieting news from 
 India, where their eldest son, Henry, had gone, 
 and where the youngest, Arthur, had but lately 
 joined his regiment. The year that followed 
 was naturally one of great tension. But the arts 
 
 167
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 of peace, in spite of all the anxiety and trouble of 
 that time, must needs be carried on, and his first 
 care was to write as follows : — 
 
 " Little Holland House, 
 
 " Kensington, 
 
 " \\th June 1857. 
 
 " Sir — I hasten to inform you that I have just 
 returned to England, and am most anxious to 
 recommence and carry out the work I have on 
 hand at Lincoln's Inn, and which, unfortunately 
 for myself and to the annoyance of the Benchers, 
 has been so much interrupted. With the reason 
 of the slowness of my progress, and the long 
 interruption, the gentlemen forming that body 
 must be acquainted, as I wrote to Mr. Hardwicke 
 upon the subject, and my deplorable state of 
 health was well known to many gentlemen 
 connected with Lincoln's Inn. I have returned 
 from a warm climate for the present at least 
 much better, and whilst I am so, I desire to 
 devote my whole time and energy to the pro- 
 secution of the fresco, and unless my health 
 should break down again entirely, may reason- 
 ably hope to complete almost the whole of the 
 picture before the winter sets in. If I were 
 strong, 1 might bind myself by a positive engage- 
 ment to finish it altogether by that time, but the 
 work is laborious, and although my health is 
 greatly improved, I have been so long and so 
 very ill that I dare not hope it is yet perfectly 
 restored. I beg to assure the Benchers that 
 
 168
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 nothing but actual physical inability has pre- 
 vented the vigorous progress of a work which 
 I feel myself peculiarly bound by honour to use 
 my utmost exertions to bring to a successful 
 conclusion. — I have the honour to be your 
 obedient servant, G. F. Watts. 
 
 "Sir John Stuart." 
 
 On his return from these travels he found 
 the Poet Laureate a guest at Little Holland 
 House ; and Signor well remembered the grand 
 figure, pacing up and down in the garden thinking 
 over those lines in " Guinevere " where Arthur 
 passes from her sight. He also remembered 
 that the poet told him that at one time he had 
 intended to use the character of Arthur as a 
 figure to represent Conscience, but in working 
 out the poem he had found himself unable to 
 carry on this idea. Mrs. Tom Taylor was often 
 at Little Holland House at this time, and had 
 set to music the poem called " The Sisters." 
 She sang the words so dramatically that at the 
 line, 
 
 Three times I stabbed him thro' and thro'. 
 
 the poet turned to Signor, and said in his deep 
 voice, " And she would have done it too." It 
 was now, or very soon after this, that the first 
 portrait of Tennyson was painted, not that which 
 is so well known, and which at the time it was 
 painted was called " the great moonlight 
 portrait," the one which is in the possession 
 
 169
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 of Lady Henry Somerset. The first portrait is 
 now in the Melbourne Gallery, the head is seen 
 in profile ; it was painted in 1857, the other in 
 1 858—59. While this last portrait was being 
 painted, the Laureate, who was then writing 
 the idyll, " Elaine, the Fair Maid of Astolat," 
 asked Signor what was in his mind when he set 
 to work upon a portrait, and the words of his 
 reply, having passed through the mind of the 
 poet, lie embedded in the poem. It was at this 
 time that another life-long friend came to Little 
 Holland House. In the Memorials of her 
 husband by Lady Burne-Jones, she quotes from 
 a note of his : " One day Gabriel took me out 
 in a cab — it was a day he was rich, so we went 
 in a hansom, and we drove and drove until I 
 thought we should arrive at the setting sun — 
 and he said, 'You must know these people, Ned; 
 you will see a painter there — paints a queer sort 
 of pictures, about God and Creation.' So it was 
 he took me to Little Holland House." 
 
 Signor had known Rossetti for some time, 
 Millais and Holman Hunt longer ; but with 
 Mr. Burne-Jones only now began the long 
 friendship. A year later, when Mr. Burne- 
 Jones was staying at Little Holland House, the 
 Poet Laureate, also staying there, overheard 
 Ruskin in another room exclaim, "Jones, you 
 are gigantic," and the Laureate dubbed him 
 " Gigantic Jones." At this same time Signor 
 writes to Mrs. Nassau Senior : " With regard to 
 the painted window, there is at this moment — 
 
 170
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 staying at Little Holland House with Val — the 
 very man you want, Jones by name — a real 
 genius ! really a genius ! " — the apostrophes 
 probably referring to his having already spoken 
 to her too often, perhaps in superlatives, of all 
 that was good in the work of other painters. 
 It was indeed a gift of his nature to find out 
 excellencies, and to avoid seeing failure ; although 
 the gift was not needed in this case, where the 
 real genius had existed and been attested. But 
 its possession was well known to his friend 
 " Ned Jones," who once said, " Signor admires 
 paintings that would make very good soles 
 for his boots ! " I remember repeating to my 
 husband a remark of Mr. Du Maurier's on the 
 lenient view he always took of the foibles and 
 faults of human nature ; alas, I cannot now 
 recall the humorous saying at which Signor 
 laughed heartily, and said, " Any affection that 
 has been given to me, I am sure is due to the 
 fact that it is difficult for me not to see the best 
 in people. I think I am not deceived, but their 
 good qualities are uppermost to me." 
 
 It was in July that Rossetti and Burne-Jones 
 began their work of painting on the walls of 
 the Oxford Union, having drawn upon Little 
 Holland House for the help of two young 
 painters, Roddam Spencer Stanhope and Val 
 Prinsep, who joined them a few weeks later. 
 In a letter to his old friend Lady Duff Gordon, 
 Signor mentions his share in persuading Mr. 
 Prinsep to take up this work : " I daresay even 
 
 171
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 in Rome you think of India in the morning and 
 of India at night, as we do here. Never were 
 expectations more signally disappointed than 
 those of universal peace that were so confidently 
 indulged in in 1 85 1. Mrs. Prinsep has been in 
 great agony of mind about her two sons in India, 
 but thank God they are, or were by the last 
 news, safe, though they have both run fearful 
 risks. I daresay you know that the second son 
 has taken up the arts as a profession. I have 
 conscientiously abstained from inoculating him 
 with any of my views or ways of thinking, and 
 have plunged him into the Pre-Raphaelite Styx. 
 I don't mean to say that I held the fine young 
 baby of six feet two by the heel, or wish to 
 imply the power of moulding his opinions at 
 my pleasure ; but, to continue my figure, I found 
 him loitering on the banks and gave him a good 
 shove, and now his gods are Rossetti, Hunt, and 
 Millais — to whose elbows more power. The 
 said Master Val — commonly called Buzz by 
 reason of his hair, which is this sort of thing 
 
 [Here follows a scribble of the bristling hair.] 
 
 — has made most satisfactory progress, and 
 has distinguished himself by painting a picture 
 at Oxford fourteen feet long with figures 
 ten feet high — ' A muffin ! ' " 
 
 Later Signor, becoming somewhat anxious 
 about the effect that this dominance of Rossetti's 
 mind was having over the mind of " the fine 
 young baby," wrote to Mr. Ruskin about it, 
 
 172
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 feeling truly that the medievalism natural to 
 Rossetti was but a mere reflection in the younger 
 mind, not his own natural expression. Upon 
 this Mr. Ruskin writes (Oct. 18, 1858) : — 
 
 " I was very glad to have your letter, entirely 
 feeling with you in this matter, and even more 
 culpable than you charge me with being," and 
 admitting that he had encouraged the stiff- 
 ness and quaintness and intensity as opposed to 
 classical grace and tranquillity, adds, " Now I am 
 suffering for so yielding to my own likings, all 
 the more that I have been having a great go 
 with Paul Veronese. I was six weeks at Turin, 
 working from a single picture of his, a bit here 
 and a bit there : came to great grief, of course, 
 but I learned a great deal : more than I ever 
 learned in six weeks, or six months, before. I 
 will try to get hold of Val this week and have a 
 serious talk with him. I see well enough there's 
 plenty of stuff in him, but the worst of it is 
 that all the fun of these fellows goes straight 
 into their work, one can't get them to be quiet 
 at it, or resist a fancy; if it strikes them ever so 
 little a stroke on the bells of their soul, away 
 they go to jingle, jingle, without ever caring 
 what o'clock it is. When can I see you ? 
 Sincere regards to Mrs. Prinsep. — Always yours 
 affectionately, J. Ruskin." 
 
 To the Exhibition at the Academy of 1858, 
 after being absent as an exhibitor for five years, 
 he sent a portrait head of Miss Mabel Eden, 
 
 173
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and two full-length portraits, one of Miss Senior 
 and the other of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Nassau 
 Senior, all three painted during the last nine 
 months. Signor was now occasionally using 
 copal varnish as a medium, the result of talking 
 over the advantages of various mediums with 
 Rossetti, Millais, and perhaps Ruskin. Being 
 at this time at work upon walls, not only at 
 Lincoln's Inn, but at Carlton House Terrace and 
 at Bowood, he was, in his portraits, using the 
 utmost care — sometimes even hatching with fine 
 strokes of the brush in the underpainting — to 
 counterbalance the effect of the work which, 
 as a whole, was of necessity broad and less pre- 
 cise. His own inclination was for matt surfaces 
 and crisp dry touches, and the use of varnish as 
 a medium was really disagreeable to him. I 
 have heard him and Val Prinsep have a passage- 
 at-arms upon the subject, Mr. Prinsep maintain- 
 ing that under Rossetti's influence Signor had 
 for some years painted all his pictures with copal 
 varnish, which he in his turn most stoutly 
 denied. The portrait of Mrs. Nassau Senior, 
 one of Mrs. George Cavendish-Bentinck and her 
 children, and the portrait of Miss Alice Prinsep 
 at the piano were painted with copal ; but on 
 beginning a portrait of Lady Somers, which in 
 the general scheme of colour and treatment 
 greatly resembles this last-mentioned portrait, 
 and is of the same date, he made use of benzo- 
 line ; and finding that when he tried to take 
 out a certain part of the background the paint 
 
 174
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 used with this medium had become so hard that 
 nothing would touch it, he continued to use 
 benzoline until later, when the chemists, Messrs. 
 John Bell and Co., provided him with a pre- 
 paration of petroleum, called by them rock oil. 
 This, suiting him even better, was the medium 
 he used to the end, the smallest possible quantity 
 of linseed oil being added to diminish the volatile 
 quality of the petroleum. While the portrait 
 of Mrs. Nassau Senior is brilliant in colour, 
 and as delicate in handling as a miniature, Miss 
 Senior's is much broader in treatment and richer 
 in the impasto quality of its surface. 
 
 He wished to avoid enthralment by any fixed 
 method, and therefore approached different sub- 
 jects, each with the technique he thought the 
 most suitable. In various parts of a drawing 
 he would point out where he had purposely 
 varied the character of line. He considered it 
 unintellectual not to do this. No compliment 
 gave him such pleasure as to be told, by any one 
 looking at his work, that they would not have 
 known that the picture was by his hand. " I 
 don't endeavour to be different," he said, " but 
 taking a different class of subject, the treatment 
 naturally becomes different. If I tried to make 
 it so purposely, I should most likely get into a 
 mess." 
 
 Owing to a sort of curiosity to see whether 
 his manner was recognisable or not, he exhibited 
 three pictures at the Academy Exhibition this 
 year (1858) under the name of F. W. George. 
 
 175
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 The secret was in fact no secret ; for if his 
 sitters had been bound over to silence the subject 
 of his portraits would have betrayed it, for they 
 were ladies with large acquaintances, and he was 
 well known as a great friend of theirs. 
 
 This year Signor painted the portrait on 
 panel of Mr. Gladstone, now in the National 
 Portrait Gallery ; and at this time he used 
 occasionally to go to the breakfasts given by 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, as he had some years 
 before gone to those given by Samuel Rogers. 
 
 The big fresco had now been carried well 
 forward during the spring and autumn vacations, 
 and Sir Henry Taylor, having been allowed to 
 see it, had written in warm praise of the work. 
 From Sandown House, Esher, on September 
 1 8, 1859, Signor replies : — 
 
 " I am somewhat late in returning my 
 acknowledgment to you for your letter, because 
 I am very much occupied by my fresco, and 
 writing costs me at all times an effort I am but 
 too much inclined to defer. A thousand thanks, 
 for I know that you intended me gratification. 
 I neither affect nor desire to be indifferent to 
 praise, for it would be no advantage to arrive 
 at that unsympathetic state which could render 
 one careless about sympathy. Criticism is indeed 
 unpalatable to me, as it can only tell me what I 
 so well know already, and do not require to be 
 told, as I would remedy that matter if I could. 
 
 " I have plenty of ambition and ardently desire 
 to be useful in my generation, but I would 
 
 176
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 prefer working silently and unnoticed, save by 
 that amount of encouragement that would cheer 
 my efforts when well directed, and for the sake 
 of their direction alone ; to produce great things 
 one ought to be intent only upon doing one's 
 utmost, and never stop to consider whether the 
 thing be great or little in the abstract. The 
 really great is so far beyond one's reach that 
 comparison becomes an unworthy consideration ; 
 to work with all one's heart, but with all 
 singleness of heart, is the right thing, and whoso 
 does this may feel satisfied, whatever the result 
 of his labour may be. I, in this instance, would 
 feel satisfied if I had been able to do my best ; 
 but many circumstances, want of health foremost 
 amongst them, have prevented me from doing 
 my best, so I cannot be contented. The utmost 
 I can hope is that my work will not be a 
 disgrace, and my hope is founded upon a steady 
 rejection of small effects. If I have shown the 
 way to better things, I shall be very well 
 contented, but I neither expect nor desire that 
 my work may be considered a great one. 
 
 " Mrs. Cameron's enthusiastic and extravagant 
 admiration is really painful to me, for I feel as if 
 I were practising a deception upon her. She 
 describes a great picture, but it is hers and not 
 mine. Saying so much upon the subject will 
 probably look very much like vanity, and I 
 confess that I feel conscious of some worth which 
 I do like to be estimated justly ; but my pride is 
 more hurt by over-estimation than by want of 
 
 VOL. I 177 n
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 appreciation, — and I am really humiliated by 
 praise which is only due to perfect success." 
 
 In October 1859 he writes to Mrs. Nassau 
 Senior : — 
 
 " I have this day put the last touches in my 
 fresco at Lincoln's Inn ! I dare not call it 
 finished, but it must go. I feel sad at giving it 
 up, for now I cannot cheat myself any longer 
 with the belief that I am going to improve it ; 
 alas, for the failure, as it is, for I shall never 
 again have so fine a space. I don't mean to say 
 that it is a disgraceful or a mean failure, but it is 
 a failure ; and the only consolation I have is in 
 the very strong feeling I have that I can do 
 much better." And to the architect of the Hall 
 he sent the following letter : — 
 
 " Little Holland House, 
 
 "Kensington, W. 
 
 " October \jtk, 1859. 
 
 " Dear Sir — I beg to announce to you and 
 to the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn that I have 
 completed the fresco in the Hall, and to thank 
 the gentlemen composing the Honourable Society 
 for their patience and consideration. It has been 
 with great vexation to myself that their patience 
 has been tried by the delay caused by my want 
 of health. 
 
 " I will say nothing about my work excepting 
 that I sincerely wish it were better. I do not 
 expect that it will be popular, but I hope and 
 think it will improve upon acquaintance. 
 
 178
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 " I have preferred to leave it a pure fresco — 
 ' Buon Fresco ' — instead of retouching it with 
 distemper colour, the effect of real fresco being 
 nobler, and the work more permanent (careful 
 washing will not injure it). 
 
 " I beg to be allowed to suggest that the long 
 window on the south-west side should have 
 stained glass put in throughout ; it would 
 harmonise better with the opposite window, and 
 though it would in a slight degree diminish the 
 light, the picture would lose nothing, my object 
 being dignity and monumental solemnity. 
 
 " Fresco also, unlike every other method of 
 painting, lights up the space it occupies, which 
 is one of its great advantages over every other 
 kind of painting applied to the purpose of mural 
 decoration. 
 
 " I have the honour to be your obedient 
 servant, G. F. Watts." 
 
 The fresco was warmly approved by many of 
 his friends, amongst them Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 
 who, writing to Mr. Bruce (afterwards Lord 
 Aberdare), says : " I have indeed seen Watts's 
 fresco and think it by far the finest specimen of 
 the method we have seen among modern ones. 
 The foreground figures and those of the second 
 plane are especially admirable, and do not betray 
 in the least the trammels of fresco. No doubt 
 Watts has overcome the difficulties of his task 
 in the only possible way, that is, by risking 
 much, painting fearlessly, and removing part 
 
 179
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 when necessary. The advance in power from 
 the background parts, painted first, to the fore- 
 ground ones, is most refreshing. It is a very 
 good work indeed, taken altogether, and does 
 honour to the country." 
 
 To Mrs. Dalrymple he also writes : " Let 
 me add a word to tell you how I smuggled 
 myself in at last (hoping, however, that friends 
 were no longer contraband) to see that great 
 work of Watts's. From what I have heard of 
 its progress he must have done wonders at the 
 last, in almost no time. And certainly the last 
 parts must be as fine as any fresco to be seen 
 anywhere ; they are far finer than any I ever saw. 
 How one must feel that one may rest a little 
 after finishing such a work, yet how one must 
 long to begin again. Will it ever be my lot, 
 I wonder, to earn such a double sensation ! 
 It is the only thing to hope for in the world. 
 Will you give the Signor my share of the thanks 
 that every one owes him ? " 
 
 The Times had a most appreciative article 
 on this fresco, and published a day or two later 
 a letter from a friend, Sir Henry Layard, his 
 principal object in writing being " to express 
 a hope that when the day is longer, and the 
 sun brighter, the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn will 
 open this noble hall for a short time to the 
 public at large." " I have read, " the letter 
 continues, " with much gratification the remarks 
 in the Times of yesterday on Mr. Watts's noble 
 fresco in the new Hall of Lincoln's Inn. I 
 
 180
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 had previously seen but one notice of that 
 remarkable work, and had read it with sincere 
 pain. Whatever there may be in the fresco 
 deserving of criticism — and what human work 
 is without fault? — no man of feeling or of 
 knowledge could approach without reverence, 
 or describe without deep respect for its author, 
 this great effort of a man of undoubted genius, 
 the result of some years of earnest labour and 
 study, carried on in spite of the disadvantage 
 of ill-health and want of sympathy, and exe- 
 cuted without other reward than that which his 
 ardent love of art could afford. 
 
 " In Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican an 
 angel may be detected with three legs and an 
 apostle with six fingers, but what should we 
 think of the man who, after contemplating 
 those immortal works, could leave them with- 
 out any other impression than the satisfaction 
 afforded by the discovery of such blemishes ? 
 I am one of those who have long hoped to see 
 painting again employed, as it was during the 
 Middle Ages, on truly great and National 
 subjects, and worthily exercising its best and 
 highest mission among us. I have consequently 
 watched, as others have done, with interest and 
 anxiety the progress of the fresco upon which 
 Mr. Watts has been employed for the last five 
 years in Lincoln's Inn. The result has far 
 exceeded my expectation ; we have at last one 
 great work worthy of the country. I trust that 
 it may lead to the introduction of a class of 
 
 181
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 painting which will place the English school 
 in the first rank, and will restore to this branch 
 of the Fine Arts its highest and most legitimate 
 function. An intimate acquaintance with, I 
 believe, every fresco of importance of the great 
 painters in Italy, and with most of the attempts 
 at mural decoration that have been made of 
 late to the north of the Alps, leads me to assert 
 without hesitation, although it is sometimes 
 dangerous to pronounce dogmatically on matters 
 of art, that there has been no such fresco 
 painted since the best period of Italian art, 
 whether as regards mastery over the material, 
 breadth and truth of conception, right under- 
 standing of the noblest end of painting, or philo- 
 sophic treatment. I will even venture to say 
 that the upper line of seated figures will bear 
 comparison with the greatest works of the old 
 masters, and I entirely agree with your remark 
 that had this fresco been anywhere else but in 
 England, it would have become to us ' an 
 object of reverent pilgrimage.' 
 
 " That we shall sooner or later appreciate it, 
 and that it will ultimately exercise that influence 
 upon English art which such a work ought to 
 exercise, I cannot doubt." 
 
 When answering a letter which had expressed 
 pleasure in this work, the painter says : " I am 
 much gratified by your expressions of approval 
 of my fresco, and hope you will not find cause 
 to change your opinion. 
 
 " I think the only explanation I can attempt 
 
 182
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 will be limited to naming the figures ; the 
 picture cannot be said to have a subject, being 
 neither historical, nor allegorical, nor poetical, 
 and aiming at no dramatic expression or effect ; 
 I would call it suggestive, my intention being 
 to produce a combination of forms and colour 
 which should have a grand monumental effect, 
 and pervade, so to speak, the building like a 
 strain of Handel's music, becoming one with 
 the architecture. This may seem too fanciful 
 and vague to such as look upon art only as a 
 means of illustrating actual events, or interesting 
 by direct and exact imitation ; but I think, if 
 I have opportunities, I shall be able to prove 
 that the principle is well worth working out. 
 I should wish to see painted round the Hall 
 a series of pictures representing such historical 
 events as have reference to the development of 
 law in England, painted with historical exact- 
 ness. In accordance with this principle I have 
 avoided disturbing the flat surface of the wall 
 by much perspective or projection, endeavouring 
 to give my figures solidity rather than relief, 
 general power rather than individuality, the 
 region being altogether different from domestic 
 or dramatic art ; feeling that to attempt any- 
 thing like illusion, to stick real men and 
 women upon a wall, would vulgarise, even 
 though it might increase the effect. For the 
 same reason I have avoided high lights, even 
 on the faces ; and indeed have made no more 
 of the heads than of other parts, keeping the 
 
 183
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 uniformity of tone which figures have when 
 seen from a distance. 
 
 " Knowing the interest you take in the 
 subject, I intrude these remarks upon you 
 because I would anticipate certain criticisms 
 which I know will be made, and I wish to 
 account for some things which will be con- 
 sidered objections, and to separate intentional 
 results from defects arising out of inability to 
 do better. 
 
 " Perhaps you may sometimes discuss the 
 subject of mural decoration. At the risk of 
 being tedious, I will repeat that I am convinced 
 we shall never have really great art in England, 
 or have the capabilities of English art fairly 
 tested, until wall-painting becomes habitually 
 practised ; until artists know by experience that 
 the general treatment of a design must be varied, 
 according to the conditions under which he 
 works. 
 
 " At present the Royal Academy Exhibition 
 supplies a universal test which is in reality only 
 applicable to exhibition pictures. The noblest 
 art ever has been and ever must be connected 
 and almost identified with architecture, and the 
 effects of oil-painting, beautiful as they are, will 
 never harmonise with architectural effects. I 
 have some hope that the Benchers of Lincoln's 
 Inn, having taken up the subject of mural 
 decoration by giving me the opportunity of 
 painting so large a space, will think over the 
 design I had in view with regard to the 
 
 184
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 complete decoration of the Hall (at a convenient 
 height from the floor), subjects from the history 
 of England. It appears to me that this is exactly 
 the sort of thing the Royal Academy ought to 
 undertake, by supplying designs to be worked 
 out by competent students, under the supervision 
 and with the instruction of professors ; the ex- 
 perience gained, if these courses of study were 
 pursued, being exactly what created great artists 
 formerly. To these, paintings by fresco would 
 be a prelude, or introductory chapter." 
 
 The painter was entertained to dinner by the 
 Benchers on April 25, i860, "an honour," the 
 Times remarks, " before conferred on no other 
 painter except Hogarth, who dined there in the 
 year 1750." Mr. Watts was presented by the 
 Society with a cup of the value of £150 and a 
 purse containing £500, "the testimonial," so the 
 address explained, " being not in the character 
 of compensation, but as a testimonial of the 
 friendly feeling of the Society for the man who 
 had selected it as the recipient of so valued a 
 gift, and of its appreciation of his genius as an 
 artist." 
 
 During the winters of the late 'fifties and 
 early 'sixties, it became the habit of the family 
 at Little Holland House to migrate to Esher, 
 staying there several months during the worst 
 part of the year. A widowed sister of Mr. 
 Prinsep's, Mrs. Sandeman, invited them to do 
 this, as she felt her loneliness ; and Sandown 
 House was capacious. Glad to escape the damp 
 
 185
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 of winter and the fogs, Signor was generally of 
 the party. Here he was able to enjoy hunting, 
 sometimes with the Surrey Union Foxhounds, 
 but more often with the Due d'Aumale's 
 Harriers. In a letter from Tom Taylor I find 
 he says : " Thoby tells me you are doing nothing 
 but laying in a stock of health and fresh air for 
 the coming year's work." He baits an invitation 
 to their house, within riding distance of Esher, by 
 telling him that Mrs. Tom Taylor has " a newly 
 dug-up composition of Beethoven's to play to 
 you, the loveliest bridal chorus and maiden's 
 magic from some long- forgotten melodrama 
 called c King Stephen of Hungary.' " 
 
 Beethoven was also being interpreted for him 
 by a young German lady, who, in writing later 
 to him, says that she found she could play her 
 favourite master better to him and to Mrs. 
 Tennyson and Sir Henry Layard than to any 
 others. 
 
 The winters at Esher were good for him. 
 The nearest approach to the understanding of 
 the joie de vivre was when he had a good mount, 
 and hounds were running. Riding to him was 
 a fine art, and his groom was not allowed to 
 exercise his horse on a snaffle-bit, his opinion 
 being that by the use of this would-be humane 
 bit the mouth of the horse was hardened, and 
 the rider's hand became heavy. He condemned 
 it as a practice which had never obtained 
 amongst the nations habitually accustomed to 
 be on horseback. He was much opposed to the 
 
 186
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 docking of horses, and also to the bearing-rein, 
 and published letters upon both these subjects. 
 
 Of the former he wrote : " The brutal fashion 
 of docking horses is a disgrace to our civilisation, 
 and cannot be too strongly protested against. 
 With regard to the artistic side, there is a 
 degraded want of taste in destroying the har- 
 monious balance of nature's arrangement, the 
 somewhat heavy head of the beautiful animal 
 being balanced by the tail, which naturally 
 should have considerable volume. Setting aside 
 the disgusting cruelty, this want of taste, which 
 can prefer to see the noble creature changed by 
 the destruction of the fine appendage into a thing 
 that resembles the stump of a worn-out broom 
 — made to resemble a pig or a tapir — is very 
 lamentable, when found among the classes that 
 can boast of education and refinement. The 
 cruelty is barbarous in those who practise it, 
 infinitely degrading in those who encourage it 
 from so mean a motive as fashion — only not 
 contemptible because so much worse. I do not 
 see how the Legislature or the Church can be 
 indifferent to it. Cropping dogs' ears was, I 
 believe, put down by law — docking is far worse ; 
 indeed it is, I think, more degrading than bull- 
 fighting. There is in that courage and address, 
 though in a bad cause ; for the brutal practice 
 of docking, a mere caprice of fashion, nothing 
 can possibly be said — indeed, the short agony in 
 the time of excitement is probably less than that 
 suffered by the horse during the protracted 
 
 187
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 time between the brutal (I wish I could find a 
 stronger word) operation and the healing of it." 
 And, as Signor pointed out, the suffering does not 
 end with healing. To their latest years these 
 unfortunate animals, when turned out in fields, 
 are deprived of their natural protection against 
 the stings of gnats and flies. In the hunting- 
 field, the tail should act as a rudder. 
 
 He had once been able to teach a young 
 lady 1 the art of a light hand. She had said to 
 him despairingly, " I can never ride well — my 
 brother tells me my heavy hand will always 
 prevent this," and he undertook that if she came 
 to ride in the paddock at Little Holland House, 
 he would show her how to cure this fault, and 
 he did so in two or three lessons. His love and 
 his understanding of a horse was akin to that 
 which is more commonly given to dogs ; and in 
 his art he liked to use the horse as a symbol as 
 much as he liked to use the little child. " The 
 horse worships too," some one has said in writing 
 of the picture of Sir Galahad ; and if carefully 
 considered, I think it would be granted that the 
 horse, wherever it is to be found in his work, 
 is made to express an emotion almost human. 
 His love of riding was a bond between him and 
 many delightful friends at Esher, amongst them 
 the French princes of the Orleans family, who 
 were living then at Claremont and Twickenham. 
 He saw much of them, and there are many 
 friendly notes and letters from the two brothers, 
 
 1 Miss Probyn, sister of Sir Dighton Probyn. 
 188
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the Prince de Joinville and Due d'Aumale, and 
 their nephew the Due de Chartres. 
 
 In the first of these, the Prince de Joinville 
 asks permission for a party from Claremont and 
 Twickenham to visit Lincoln's Inn, where the 
 fresco had just been completed: another consults 
 him about a drawing- master for his daughter, 
 and Signor having recommended a Mr. Morelli 
 for this post, the prince at first gratefully accepted 
 the recommendation, and afterwards sent in hot 
 haste to make all inquiries as to this man's 
 political views. At the same time he explained 
 that Panizzi had once recommended as a teacher 
 an Italian, with whom all arrangements had 
 been made, and the week following he was to 
 have been at Claremont ; however, they heard 
 from him that he had suddenly been called 
 on urgent business to Paris, and was therefore 
 unable to present himself at Claremont. That 
 man was Orsini, and his mission to Paris was 
 the assassination of Napoleon Third. " History 
 would never have cleared us had Orsini ever set 
 foot in Claremont," and, the prince continued, 
 " you may suppose we are careful now." A note 
 from the Due d'Aumale, though written some 
 years later from Worcestershire, is characteristic 
 of the prince's friendly regard. 
 
 " i-jth Dec, 1862. 
 
 " Cher Monsieur Watts — Aimez vous tou- 
 jours l'air de la campagne and a good ride across 
 country ? Si cela est, vous conviendrait-il de 
 
 189
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 partir de Paddington le 26 a 1.5 p.m., d'amener 
 votre cheval avec vous, de vous arreter a la 
 Station d'Evesham, et de venir achever le mois 
 et l'annee dans ce cottage au fond d'un bois ? 
 Nous vous monterons des lievres qui valent 
 mieux que ceux du Surrey, et des fermiers 
 hospitallers et bons vivants qui ont conserve les 
 traditions des vieux Yeomen. Au cottage, la 
 vie de Campagne la plus simple, telle que vous 
 l'aimiez je crois, et des gens qui seront charmes 
 de vous avoir quelques jours sous leur toit. — 
 Votre bien affectionne H. d'Orleans." 
 
 Society at Esher was in those years fortunate 
 in having some residents to whose houses came 
 people of whom Carlyle might have said, "They 
 look beyond eating their pudding." One of 
 these was the home of Sir Alexander Duff 
 Gordon l and his wife Lucie, talented and beauti- 
 ful, one whose charm won for her troops of 
 friends ; and with them was their daughter 
 Janet, still in the schoolroom, but nevertheless 
 a personage whether in the hunting -field or 
 elsewhere. Then the Prinseps attracted their 
 friends, and George Meredith his ; for he was 
 living at Copsham at this time, and it was now 
 that the great novelist met Mrs. Norton, 2 though 
 — as he once told me — only twice, and studied 
 her as a type for Diana of the Crossways chiefly 
 
 1 The son of his friend at Careggi. Their daughter Janet (Mrs. Henry- 
 Ross), now as well known as hostess of the villa Poggio Gherardo at 
 Florence, and authoress. 
 
 2 Daughter of Thomas Sheridan (1808-77), married the Hon. George 
 Chappie Norton. 
 
 190
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 through the mind of her friend, Lady Duff 
 Gordon. The chief incident, however, in the 
 life of Diana was never suggested by this loyal 
 friend, who always refused to listen to anything 
 of the nature of scandal connected with Mrs. 
 Norton's name, and indeed the incident was 
 acknowledged to be pure fiction by the novelist 
 himself. I heard Mr. Meredith and my husband 
 talk over these memories. The grand flexibility 
 of her beautiful nostril had struck them both. 
 Diana is described as having the nostril of a war- 
 horse ; and Signor told him that when painting 
 Mrs. Norton sometime before the Esher days — 
 I believe at Holland House — he kept in his 
 mind the thought of a grand old hunter, alert at 
 hearing from a distance the running of hounds. 
 In speaking of the extraordinary charm of Mrs. 
 Norton's personality, Signor told me that no 
 Diana, or any other heroine of romance, could 
 represent her indescribable fascination. He had 
 frequently met her at Holland House, and there 
 also he had first made the acquaintance with the 
 French princes. 
 
 During the winter of 1859 Lord and Lady 
 Holland were at their villa in Naples, and there 
 in December he died. Thus when Lady Holland 
 returned again to England it was as the widowed 
 mistress of Holland House, and Signor had 
 suffered an irreparable loss. 
 
 191
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 193
 
 / WANT to make art the servant of religion by 
 stimulating thought high and noble. I want to 
 assert for art a yet higher place than it has 
 hitherto had. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 194
 
 CHAPTER VII • 
 
 The first fresco at Bowood, painted in 1858, 
 the subject being Achilles watching Briseis led 
 away from his tents, seems to have been painted 
 in a few weeks' time. The artist worked some 
 twelve hours in the day if the weather prevented 
 him from getting out for a canter over the 
 Wiltshire Downs. On this first visit Lord 
 Lansdowne, not being at Bowood, had begged 
 him to take his own horse — his dear Undine 
 — with him. The second fresco was delayed 
 till July i860 for reasons which he explains 
 to Lady Somers. " In consequence of the want 
 of health you are well acquainted with, and 
 the heavy undertaking I had on hand at Lincoln's 
 Inn, which I was under the necessity of com- 
 pleting, my affairs had become a good deal 
 involved. I had some hard knots to untie, 
 being positively obliged to paint some portraits 
 in order to be able to pay my debts, or I 
 might have — should have — been at work for 
 Lord Lansdowne in the summer. I do con- 
 fidently hope to paint the fresco in the spring. 
 I have great difficulty in working out the 
 
 195
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 subject ; it is not a good one. It is impos- 
 sible to invest the figure of Coriolanus with 
 dignity, for indecision is not noble, and the 
 shape of the space does not lend itself to 
 picturesque general treatment, which might com- 
 pensate for want of grandeur ; but I must get 
 over it as best I may. As for every reason it 
 is important that the fresco should be begun and 
 finished without any break, it is work that 
 must be done during long and light days. In 
 addition to the difficulty arising from short days 
 in winter, the cold and varying temperature 
 would be fatal to the drying and permanence of 
 the colours and plaster. ... I will write to 
 Lord Lansdowne : no one can honour him more 
 than I do, and no one's good opinion should I 
 value more." 
 
 Letters from Lord Lansdowne show that the 
 Coriolanus fresco was begun at the end of July, 
 and in September final touches to both frescoes 
 were all that remained to be done. As Signor 
 certainly always spoke of the Lincoln's Inn fresco 
 as the only true fresco in England, it is doubtful 
 whether these two paintings were in " buon 
 fresco." I am told that the frescoes look faded. 
 If they have lost colour, they could not have 
 been painted in pure fresco. 
 
 It was at this time, when the country was 
 aroused by the general fear of invasion, that 
 the magnificent Volunteer movement suddenly 
 sprang into existence. Within the space of a 
 few months a hundred thousand men had proved 
 
 196
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 themselves willing and able to offer military- 
 service to their country, without coming upon 
 the Government for the smallest fraction of the 
 cost of equipment or training. It need hardly 
 be said that this spirit was in accord with all 
 Signor's ideas of patriotism, and he was himself 
 soon enrolled as a member of the Artists' Corps 
 — the spirit at least being more than willing. 
 Almost simultaneously the movement to en- 
 courage the practice of rifle - shooting was set 
 on foot, and with both these he was glad to 
 be identified. I find a note from Lord Elcho, 
 who had just then raised the London Scottish 
 Volunteers. 
 
 " St. James's Place, 
 
 " J ait. \\th, i860. 
 
 " My dear Watts — I wish to leave the 
 conception as well as the drawing of our shield 
 entirely to yourself. Our association calls itself 
 the National Rifle Association. Our object is to 
 encourage Volunteers and to nationalise rifle 
 shooting, by establishing a Grand National 
 Annual Meeting, where prizes will be shot for, 
 first by Volunteers, secondly by all comers. If 
 you could let me have a rough sketch of your 
 idea of a shield for us, by Thursday morning, as 
 we have a Committee Meeting at twelve, I 
 should feel grateful. I hope you are getting 
 strong. Can I help you in getting more wall 
 space ? — Yours sincerely, Elcho." 
 
 In a letter recently received by me (June 
 
 197
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 191 2) from Lord Wemyss, he says of the shield : 
 " Its shape was designed by a son of Mr. Cayley, 
 M.P. for some Yorkshire constituency. Your 
 dear husband said to me, ' Let it be made in 
 iron, and six feet high.' On this basis we 
 worked, I suggesting the subjects, and he 
 drawing them as they seemed fittest for the 
 shield. The work was entrusted to Elkington, 
 the silversmiths, and the execution was by them 
 given to a Belgium or Frenchman — ' Mainfroid ' 
 by name ; and when you think that it was 
 repousse out of a solid bit of iron plate, one's 
 admiration is lost in wonder." 
 
 The figures on the shield were drawn by 
 Signor, but not the surrounding decoration. It 
 was at his suggestion that the target known 
 as " the running man " became part of the 
 Wimbledon programme for the National Rifle 
 Association. 
 
 In the spring of 1855, friends writing from 
 Rome had begged Signor to go to Bryanston 
 Square to make the acquaintance of " a delight- 
 ful young painter" who had just arrived there 
 to pay a short visit to his father. The young 
 painter had brought over his picture " Cimabue's 
 Madonna " for exhibition at that year's Academy, 
 and the name of Frederic Leighton was be- 
 coming known in London. " Forty years of 
 unbroken friendship " were the last words written 
 to lay at the feet of him whose acquaintance he 
 now sought. In spite of a difference in age of 
 some thirteen years, and perhaps because of a 
 
 198
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 still greater difference in the two characters, the 
 bond between them became a strong one : each 
 seemed to find in the other that which he would 
 afbove all things have liked to find in himself. 
 Leighton once said to a friend, " Don't envy 
 me, envy Signor " ; while he, sketching out 
 Leighton's admirable qualities and his own 
 deficiencies as he was wont to do, remarked, 
 " Nature got tired when she was in the middle 
 of making me, left off, and went away and made 
 a Leighton." A note now lying before me 
 seems characteristic enough to quote : — 
 
 " 2 Orme Square, 
 " Saturday. 
 (Addressed to Esher ; Postmark, Feb. 1 8, 1861.) 
 
 " Dear Signor — Your letter has been duly 
 forwarded to Mr. Barlow (Thomas O.), who 
 lives at Auburn Lodge, St. Albans Road, Victoria 
 Road, Kensington. I shall be charmed to hear 
 of the dodges you have been devising in your 
 rural retreat. Of course you will practically 
 modify the method we talked over the other 
 day — no artist with the stamp of his own can 
 adopt unchanged the procedure of another — 
 different results require different means. The 
 happy years in which one believed implicitly in 
 panaceas are no longer ours, I am afraid, my dear 
 Signor ; those days of enviable intolerant convic- 
 tions don't reach much beyond our teens. I 
 hope when you come to town we may rub our 
 brains together, to our mutual benefit — certainly 
 
 i 99
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to mine. — Many things to Mr. and Mrs. Prinsep, 
 and to Alice, from, dear Signor, yours very 
 truly, F. Leighton." 
 
 It was a singular friendship, quite without 
 undue interdependence. If Sir Frederic could 
 have influenced Signor, there is no doubt that 
 he would have dissuaded him from painting the 
 class of subject which he (Signor) called 
 " ethical reflections " ; those pictures which 
 Signor himself regarded as alone worthy to 
 bequeath to public galleries. 
 
 On the other hand, Signor would fain have 
 persuaded Sir Frederic to retain more of the 
 beauty of his sketches in the finished work. 
 
 After Leighton had built his house in Holland 
 Park Road, attracted to that part by the friends 
 at Little Holland House, scarcely a day passed 
 without a meeting between the two brothers-in- 
 art ; and young people coming home from their 
 balls in London would often come across Leighton 
 running in, soon after dawn, to have a few words 
 with Signor before the day's work began. 
 
 In Mr. Harry Prinsep's vivid recollection 
 of this time, this studio was singular for its 
 simplicity : its floor covered with rough cocoanut 
 matting, with only the simplest furniture, rich 
 only in its " strange pictures of God and Creation," 
 and to him in the beloved presence of Signor. 
 He recollects how the door would fly open, and 
 Leighton would appear running in as if finishing 
 a two-mile race, and begin talking eagerly of a 
 
 200
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 thousand things, his handsome mobile counten- 
 ance lighted up with enthusiasm on one subject 
 or another. " And I, only a chit of a boy, would 
 receive every bit as much consideration from him 
 as Signor did." 
 
 The " chit of a boy " was very dear to Signor, 
 who after the separation of almost half a century 
 still often regretted that his fate had taken him 
 to the antipodes. They never met again. 
 
 Harry Prinsep could also give a vivid account 
 of the first evening on which Joachim played at 
 Little Holland House. It was after dinner in 
 that drawing-room of harmonious colour, under 
 the deep-blue ceiling, and Joachim leaning back 
 had sunk into one of the biggest of sofas, when 
 Signor ventured to ask him to play. Just at this 
 time he and Harry Prinsep had both been 
 impressed with the idea that they must learn to 
 play the violin. 1 Signor had bought one for 
 some twenty-five pounds, and Harry one for 
 twenty-five shillings ; and for the moment their 
 great wish was to accomplish playing the melody 
 of Beethoven's song " Adelaide." It was this 
 song that Joachim was asked to play ; he rolled 
 that leonine head of his, and answered, " Why, 
 yes, if you have a violin," upon which the boy 
 sprang to his feet with delight, and ran to fetch 
 his own. Joachim took it up, and still almost 
 
 1 Signor continued to study this art for some years, but rinding that he 
 could not get beyond the point of having merely learnt his lesson, he 
 became discouraged, and finally gave up the attempt. He explained to me 
 that the whole difference lay between the execution which conveyed the 
 sense of acquirement (with which he could not be satisfied) and the 
 execution when the music seems to be the creation of the interpreter. 
 
 201
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 lying back, his left arm thrown up, and the violin 
 held upright in the air, he drew the bow across 
 the strings once or twice with a very dubious 
 expression ; then Signor intervened, saying, 
 " There is one in my studio which is rather 
 better," and it was sent for. "Ah ! this will do," 
 Joachim allowed, upon the second trial ; and then 
 away he went, drawing from the violin all that 
 was possible, and making the room fill with the 
 wonder of the song — an evening to remember ; 
 and the old twenty-five shilling violin, across 
 the strings of which the master once drew the 
 bow, is still intact, thousands of miles away from 
 England, with a big "J " scratched upon it. 
 
 "A Lamplight Study — the Portrait of Joseph 
 Joachim," will preserve for future generations his 
 aspect on these evenings. In imagination one 
 can see him standing, bow in hand and chin upon 
 the violin, in that room with its wealth and colour 
 from floor to ceiling, the art upon its walls 
 answering so nobly to the music. Halle at the 
 piano, Joachim with eyes that seemed only to 
 hear, not to see, the lamplight falling softly on 
 the faces of beautiful women — probably Mrs. 
 Sartoris (Adelaide Kemble), possibly Miss Emma 
 Brandling, 1 Mrs. Norton, Lady Somers; Leighton 
 was almost always there, perhaps Herschel and 
 Browning, and besides these, other men of mark, 
 politicians, statesmen, or soldiers — a company 
 sitting silently wrapped away from all else, whilst, 
 
 1 Afterwards Lady Lilford, almost the most beautiful head, Signor told 
 me, from which he ever painted. He made several studies and used one of 
 these as a type when painting the Alfred in his Lincoln's Inn fresco. 
 
 202
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 in the painter's mind, musician and music were 
 being transferred to another art. 
 
 Mrs. Prinsep kept open house on Sunday 
 afternoons in summer, and in the evening was 
 also prepared for a party to remain for dinner ; 
 when the garden emptied, and tea and the games 
 of croquet or of bowls were at an end, the big 
 crimson sofas and seats, that looked so picturesque 
 under the shade of the trees, were carried in, and 
 this impromptu dinner-party followed. The 
 evenings were filled up, either by music or by 
 much delightful conversation, of such sort as was 
 once described to me, when speaking of some 
 special occasion, by a listener who said, " They 
 talked of things that belonged to no date ; their 
 subjects would have interested men of any age." 
 It was from the garden of Little Holland House 
 that Sir John Herschel first saw the great comet 
 of 1857, and here the drawing of his grand head 
 was made and completed, all but the eyes. The 
 astronomer's form of face and features are there, 
 but empty space in place of the eye that had seen 
 so far into the secrets of the universe. At this 
 point the artist's hand held off, perhaps waiting 
 for a special reserve of power, and to him it 
 seemed never to come. 
 
 Some thirty years later he expressed his deep 
 regret that he had not painted the portraits of 
 two men — Darwin and Herschel. " The mart 
 of science should be better than any other," he 
 said, " dwelling as he must in a kingdom of 
 infinite wonder — larger than that of the poet or 
 
 203
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 artist whose work of necessity turns him so much 
 within himself and makes him think of and 
 about his own emotions, and whose thoughts are 
 necessarily more occupied with his own time and 
 generation." 
 
 About this time Signor used to go round 
 occasionally to Campden Hill, where Sir James 
 South the astronomer then lived. There he 
 looked through the great telescope at Saturn and 
 his belt, and said that it was a sight that dwarfed 
 all others. 
 
 When dining at Little Holland House, Mr. 
 Doyle, who seems to be yet ever affectionately 
 spoken of as Dicky Doyle, first met the Poet 
 Laureate, and afterwards described how he had 
 waited with bated breath to catch and treasure 
 up the first syllables that should fall from his 
 lips, expecting at least that such words should 
 flow as, " He clasped the crag with hooked hands," 
 but no ; the poet spoke — he said, " Legs of 
 mutton should be cut in wedges." A very 
 frequent guest at all times, Dicky Doyle came 
 without fail on all Christmas Days, put his old 
 umbrella into the stand on arriving, while it was 
 taken for granted that he found a new one in its 
 place on leaving, and not a word was said upon 
 the subject. 
 
 From any mention, even by name, of the 
 habitues at Little Holland House, the name 
 of Mrs. Cameron (Julia Margaret), the sister 
 of Mrs. Prinsep, cannot be omitted. To all 
 who knew her she remains a unique figure, 
 
 204
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 baffling all description. She seemed in herself 
 to epitomise all the qualities of a remarkable 
 family, presenting them in a doubly distilled 
 form. She doubled the generosity of the most 
 generous of the sisters, and the impulsiveness of 
 the most impulsive. If they were enthusiastic, 
 she was so twice over ; if they were persuasive, 
 she was invincible. " I had always to quarrel 
 with Mrs. Cameron, that we might keep friends," 
 was Signor's description of the attitude he had 
 to adopt. If she had little of the beauty of her 
 sisters, she certainly had remarkably fine eyes, 
 that flashed like her sayings, or grew soft and 
 tender if she was moved, perhaps when reading 
 aloud some fine poem with modulations of voice 
 and change of countenance, to which no one 
 could listen unmoved. Like her eyes, her wit 
 flashed out also. Her adoration for the author 
 of Philip Van Artevelde, and for Lady Taylor, is 
 well known ; and it seems to have been borne 
 by them with patience ; or, at times, with 
 impatience scarcely disguised. Their mutual 
 friends had also to bear with her enthusiasms 
 when they went somewhat beyond bounds, and 
 the Poet Laureate's love of chaff was so far roused 
 one day by her praises of Sir Henry Taylor's 
 beauty as to say in banter, " I don't see what 
 you mean by his extraordinary beauty — why he 
 has a smile like a fish." But she retorted 
 instantly, " Only when the Spirit of the Lord 
 moved on the face of the waters, Alfred." 
 
 At Freshwater she commanded, and it was 
 
 205
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 done. Mr. Cameron once regretted that too much 
 space was given up to vegetables in their garden. 
 Her orders went forth secretly to friends and to 
 henchmen that this must be remedied ; but on 
 no account could the work be done when Mr. 
 Cameron wished to walk in the garden, which 
 was every day. In cartloads, therefore, turf was 
 brought and laid down out of view, and as soon 
 as Mr. Cameron had gone to bed, her army was 
 marshalled and, by lantern light, the vegetable 
 garden was swept away ; so when Mr. Cameron 
 looked out next morning a fine grass lawn spread 
 out before his astonished eyes. She used to 
 describe how her letters to her sons in Ceylon 
 were written up to the last possible moment. 
 She would go on mail days to the General Post 
 Office in London, and write there, crying out 
 from time to time, " How much longer ? " to 
 which an enthralled clerk would reply, " Ten 
 minutes more" — "five" — and so on, until the 
 last second of time to be allowed had come, 
 when her letter was shut and flung to the 
 officials now waiting to seal up the last sack. 
 She used to say that in her photography a 
 hundred negatives were destroyed before she 
 achieved one good result ; her object being to 
 overcome realism by diminishing just in the 
 least degree the precision of the focus. Thus 
 when a real success was attained, she was able to 
 give to her work a poetry and a mystery far 
 removed from the work of the ordinary photo- 
 grapher, far even from that of the very best who 
 
 206 

 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 have followed her. While other photographs, 
 after long acquaintance, weary the eye, hers 
 remain always an abiding pleasure. She had 
 much correspondence with Signor on the subject 
 of principles of composition, and quotations 
 from his words were often written below her 
 pictures : " Quite Divine — G. F. Watts," under 
 the photograph called the " Dream " — the profile 
 of " Madonna " Mary, from whom most of Mrs. 
 Cameron's successes were taken. Of some new 
 batch of prints he writes : " All the heads are 
 divine, and the plates very nearly perfect ; the 
 tone too is excellent. If you are going on 
 photographing your grandchild, and he is well 
 worth it, do have a little shirt made of some 
 yellowish material. The blot of formless white 
 spoils the whole picture. What would not do in 
 painting will not do in photography, but other- 
 wise I am delighted with the amount of gradation 
 you have obtained." 
 
 The same letter continues — " I have not time 
 to write much, for I am very hard at work, 
 trying to get ready for Freshwater. Amongst 
 other things I am designing a St. John, one of 
 four figures to be executed in mosaic for St. 
 Paul's ; so my mind is tuned to a grand major 
 key, and I can well appreciate what is noblest in 
 art, and your last photographs harmonise well 
 with the effects I wish to produce. But you 
 must not be satisfied ; there is more to be done, 
 and whilst this is the case we must never think 
 anything done. I know your difficulties, but 
 
 207
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the greatest things have been done under 
 difficulties." 
 
 In another letter he thanks her for photo- 
 graphs of Tennyson ; some he considered 
 magnificent, others he criticises and adds : " Do 
 justice to the noble and beautiful head, the 
 finest you will ever have before your lens. I 
 have at last seen the new poems, and think 
 the * Northern Farmer ' beyond all praise. It 
 conveys to my mind the birth, parentage, 
 education, life, and death of a whole community 
 of rustics ; nothing can be better or more 
 complete." And again to Mrs. Cameron, when 
 refusing a commission for a portrait, he 
 writes : — 
 
 " Nature did not intend me for a portrait- 
 painter, and if I have painted portraits decently 
 it is because I have tried so very hard, but it 
 has ever cost me more labour to paint a portrait 
 than to paint a subject-picture. I have given 
 it up in sheer weariness ; now come what may, 
 my time must in future be devoted to the 
 endeavour to carry out some of my large designs, 
 and if I fail either to make a living or to do 
 anything worthy of an artist (as I understand 
 the term), I fail, but I submit to the drudgery 
 of portrait-painting no longer. . . . 
 
 " If I could carry out my own feeling 
 perfectly, my pictures would be solemn and 
 monumental in character, noble and beautiful 
 in form, and rich in colour ; but the subtle 
 varieties of sunlight I should never aim at pro- 
 
 208
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 ducing. I can see in nature what Turner saw, 
 and can appreciate the excellence of his imita- 
 tion, but my natural tendency is to see nature 
 with such eyes as Giorgione and Titian had ; 
 I see only with their eyes, but do not work 
 with their brains or hands. Alas ! " 
 
 The reference made in the letter to Mrs. 
 Cameron, to the design for one of the spandrils 
 under the dome of St. Paul's, recalls that in 
 1 86 1 Signor had been in correspondence with 
 Dean Milman on the subject, having had 
 occasion to write to the Dean to urge the 
 fitness of his friend Charles Newton for the 
 post of Keeper of Greek Antiquities at the 
 British Museum ; a post Mr. Newton — then 
 Consul at Rome — was anxious to have. The 
 Dean replies that he had the fullest appreciation 
 of Mr. Newton's character and attainments, and 
 continues : " You must allow me to add that if 
 anything had been necessary to convince me of 
 Mr. Newton's special fitness for the important 
 office, your high opinion would have gone far. 
 With regard to St. Paul's, it gives me the 
 highest satisfaction to find that you take an 
 interest in its embellishment ; I shall carefully 
 put your letter by, that when we arrive, as I 
 trust we may (our only difficulty being funds), 
 at the great question of mosaic ornament or 
 fresco painting, we may avail ourselves at least 
 of your counsel, if not — as I understand your 
 generous offer — of more active and valuable 
 support." 
 
 VOL. I 209 P
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 The result was the design for the two 
 evangelists, St. Matthew and St. John, which 
 were eventually carried out in mosaic, and it 
 was Dean Milman's wish that Signor should 
 be entrusted with the whole scheme of decora- 
 tion ; nevertheless after the Dean's death the 
 matter was dropped. 
 
 To this time belongs the portrait of John 
 Lothrop Motley. I find his letter appointing 
 a sitting in May 1861, and remember that once, 
 when we were reading over old letters that had 
 escaped destruction, we came on this note ; and 
 my husband told me, out of his varied ex- 
 perience, that of all his sitters Motley was by 
 far the finest talker he had ever come across. 
 Signor used to quote against himself an example 
 of no memory for faces : that a few years after 
 these sittings he had allowed himself to be re- 
 introduced to Motley, as to a stranger ; Motley 
 exclaiming, " Well, that is rather too bad, con- 
 sidering you have painted me twice." The 
 following year he was staying at Blickling 
 during several weeks, painting the portrait of 
 Lord Lothian ; a portrait of which Mr. 
 Meredith wrote, on seeing it many years after- 
 wards, that he was struck " by the living in- 
 telligence in the eyes, a point rarely achieved. 
 I remember it at this moment only in the 
 Titian Schoolmaster ; as it is called generally." 
 Signor was deeply interested in the subject of 
 this portrait, impressed as he was by the beauty 
 of character, rare intelligence, and the rich 
 
 210
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 promise of a young life never to be fulfilled ; 
 for he knew he was painting a doomed man. 
 All that medical skill and all that absolute 
 devotion could do, was to be of no avail ; and 
 the tragedy of it seemed heightened by its 
 passing in this poetically beautiful home. Life 
 truly in flower at its best and loveliest ; and so it 
 was that the sight of Death inexorable, and 
 Love impotent, came before his eyes. Here 
 he painted in two hours' time the head of 
 Lord Shrewsbury, Lady Lothian's father. Lady 
 Waterford had asked him to show her his way 
 of handling oil-colour, or rather one of the ways 
 of setting about to paint a portrait, for his usual 
 method took far more time ; he seldom finished 
 a picture at what the French call the first blow. 
 Certainly, considering the subtleties of form and 
 colour, he never surpassed that feat, excepting 
 perhaps in the portrait of Sir Leslie Stephen 
 painted many years later. He was also at work 
 for his own pleasure on a portrait group of the 
 three sisters, Lady Lothian, Lady Gertrude, 1 and 
 Lady Adelaide Talbot ; 2 and he made a study 
 from the head of their brother, 3 for a picture 
 he named the " Standard-Bearer " : this was 
 done in the hope that he should some day paint 
 a life-size equestrian portrait of Lord Shrews- 
 bury in armour, representing some ancestor, 
 with his son Reginald as standard-bearer, walk- 
 ing beside the horse. The project never went 
 
 1 Afterwards Countess of Pembroke. 
 
 2 The Countess Brownlow. 
 
 3 General the Honourable Sir Reginald Talbot. 
 
 211
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 beyond a small sketch, painted in water-colour, 
 and now placed between the two portraits in 
 the collection at Compton. This visit to 
 Blickling, and later another to Ingestre, Lady- 
 Lothian's old home, remained, in spite of the 
 cloud on the horizon, a very happy recollection. 
 
 The great interest he found in Lady Water- 
 ford's work, the rides through wood and glade 
 with pleasant companionship, the beginning of 
 a friendship accorded to him through life by 
 the family, all combined to leave a charming 
 impression on mind and memory. He described 
 one evening when out walking with a party, 
 they suddenly saw Lady Waterford coming to 
 join them, moving along so grandly that both 
 he and the friend at his side could only exclaim 
 in a breath, " O Pallas Athene ! " 
 
 In the following year, 1863, to consider the 
 need of a separate building for the Royal 
 Academy — at that time occupying a part of the 
 National Gallery — and other measures for extend- 
 ing its usefulness, a Royal Commission was held, 
 before which the President, Sir Charles Eastlake, 
 and several members of the Academy, with a 
 few outside of this body, were called to give 
 evidence. Amongst these last were John Ruskin, 
 Holman Hunt, and G. F. Watts. The general 
 tenor of Signor's evidence reveals his ever-con- 
 stant desire that the Academy should stand as a 
 great national institution for the encouragement 
 of great art, and for the elevation and cultiva- 
 tion of the national taste ; and that it should 
 
 212
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 be recognised as a body entirely devoid of the 
 element of a personal and professional clique. 
 
 For this reason he proposed that there should 
 be a certain proportion of non-professional men 
 elected as Members of Council ; and he did not 
 think the want of practical technical knowledge 
 in these lay members would be in the least 
 degree an objection. He considered that the 
 non - professional element might more fairly 
 represent the opinion " out of doors " than could 
 the general body of artists themselves. " The 
 non-professional man would be without predilec- 
 tions, — not entirely — no one is — but without any 
 special taste for one style of painting." In the 
 schools he strongly advocated a reform in the 
 system of teaching, especially in the antique 
 school, the most important of all, as there the 
 pupils lay the foundations of all art — the drawing 
 of the human figure. 
 
 He suggested that a specially competent 
 teacher should be always there, and that while 
 the students drew from casts, demonstrations 
 should also be given from time to time from the 
 living model. " I would demonstrate the action 
 of the limbs, and the use of the muscles, 
 from the living model in combination with the 
 antique. It is impossible to learn much about 
 the human form by merely drawing the figure 
 in a set position." 
 
 He would like to see sculpture, painting, and 
 architecture connected together as one and the 
 same ; and that students should be encouraged 
 
 213
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to study the whole range of art as much as 
 possible. " I look upon architecture as one of 
 the most important branches of art. I lament 
 the three branches ; they were not considered as 
 three formerly, but were combined in one and 
 the same man." 
 
 The more they are combined the better it 
 would be for art in general. Above all things 
 he wanted to see the Royal Academy students, 
 under the supervision of an accomplished artist, 
 trained to make designs, or even to copy designs, 
 such as Flaxman's, upon wall spaces and on a 
 large scale ; not only because he considered that 
 the practice of mural painting was of paramount 
 importance, but that also it might lead to a 
 more general diffusion of art, giving the public 
 a very much greater opportunity of seeing some- 
 thing beautiful, both in colour and line. "At 
 present," he wrote to Lord Elcho, one of the 
 Commissioners, a few days after giving his 
 evidence, " it is a melancholy fact that hardly a 
 single object amongst those that surround us has 
 any pretension to real beauty, or could be put 
 simply into a picture with noble effect ; and, as 
 I believe the love of beauty to be inherent in 
 the human mind, it follows that there must 
 be some unfortunate influence at work. To 
 counteract this should be the object of a Fine 
 Art Institution, and I feel assured that if really 
 good things were scattered amongst the people, 
 it would not be long before satisfactory results 
 exhibited themselves." 
 
 214
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Lord Elcho propounds the grave question, 
 with mischief lurking in his look, no doubt, " Is 
 the system a sound one in your opinion, of giving 
 panels in a corridor to different artists, to be 
 decorated according to their own notions ? ' "I 
 disapprove of it very much, the result of it must 
 be inharmonious." And again in the same spirit 
 he asked the question, "Whether, under arrange- 
 ments more favourable to the selection of the 
 best art for our public places, we should have 
 had at the present moment the Duke of Welling- 
 ton's statue on the arch at Hyde Park " ; and 
 Mr. Watts replies, " I think there would have 
 been a chance that we should have had a better 
 thing." It is clear that the Commissioner and 
 his witness understood each other. 
 
 The Chairman, Lord Stanhope, asks, " Have 
 any other points occurred to you in which you 
 think alterations for the better might be made 
 in the Royal Academy?" Mr. Watts replies, "It 
 is very difficult to point out how the Academy 
 might be improved, and I have not given much 
 attention to the subject ; but, considering the 
 position the Academy holds, it has displayed 
 very great apathy. I do not see its influence 
 in our architecture, our fashions, or our taste 
 in general, in any way whatever. The only 
 National School which has grown up at all 
 has grown up outside the Academy, and indeed 
 in opposition to it, that is the Water Colour 
 School ; and the only definite reform move- 
 ment (which the Pre-Raffaelite School may be 
 
 215
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 called) was certainly not stimulated by the Royal 
 Academy, and even met with opposition from it." 
 
 Chairman : " You ascribe the fact which you 
 have mentioned to some defect in the Royal 
 Academy ? " " It seems to me that there must 
 be some defect. If the members were extremely 
 anxious to develop taste, or to encourage art, I 
 think that some means could have been found. 
 A merchant finds means if he wants to improve 
 his commercial arrangements ; whatever a man 
 wishes to do he finds a way of doing it more 
 or less satisfactorily. But I do not see that the 
 Royal Academy has done anything whatever. 
 
 " I must beg to say, in making these remarks, 
 that I have no kind of feeling against the Royal 
 Academy. Many of the members whom I have 
 the honour to be acquainted with I esteem very 
 much indeed. They have always displayed to 
 me great consideration, and indeed kindness, and 
 as I was never a candidate for the honour of 
 membership I cannot say that I have been 
 overlooked ; and I have not the smallest per- 
 sonal feeling of any kind against them." 
 
 In the supplementary letter to Lord Elcho, 
 after giving evidence before the Royal Academy 
 Commission, Signor wrote : " I insist upon mural 
 painting for three reasons — first, because it is 
 an exercise of art which demands the absolute 
 knowledge only to be obtained by honest study, 
 the value of which no one can doubt, whatever 
 branch of art the student might choose to follow 
 afterwards ; secondly, because the practice would 
 
 216
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 bring out that gravity and nobility deficient in 
 the English school, but not in the English 
 character, which being latent might therefore 
 be brought out ; and, thirdly, for the sake of 
 action upon the public mind." 
 
 Of the benefit of studying the old masters he 
 wrote : " The great Italian masters worked un- 
 questionably upon some principle (for technique) ; 
 no one can undervalue the practical importance 
 of placing at the disposition of the student means 
 of expressing his ideas much sooner than he 
 could possibly find them out for himself." 
 
 During these years Signor, having some 
 occasion to consult an oculist, was recommended 
 to go to Mr. Bowman, whose reputation for skill 
 and delicate manipulation he had been aware of 
 for some years. They were kindred spirits ; 
 as those who may happen to remember Sir 
 William Bowman will understand — " a nature 
 finely touched to fine issues," and a great lover 
 of art and literature. He had seen the painter's 
 own portrait — painted, I believe, some years 
 before, for Signor told me it had been " knocking 
 about for some time in the studio, and at last 
 Bowman much wished to have it," and the last 
 portrait of the Poet Laureate as well. As was 
 very much his habit, he had hesitated about 
 price, fearing that he was asking too much, and 
 Mr. Bowman replies : — 
 
 " \jtk November 1863. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Watts — I really can on no 
 account let you off, so I have the pleasure of 
 
 217
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 enclosing a cheque for one hundred guineas ; and 
 why should I take a tenth of you ? I am no 
 parson ! 
 
 " I am delighted to hear you propose soon to 
 finish for me the head of the great poet. The 
 sooner the better. The only thing I would have 
 wished otherwise in the head of the great artist, 
 is that in size and handling it does not (but 
 perhaps my impression is wrong) match the 
 other ; for I would fain have painter and painted, 
 a pair of nobles answering one to the other on 
 my walls. Shall you ever treat yourself ' with 
 variations ' ? If so, may I have the only locus 
 penitentiae I can ever desiderate ? But believe 
 me I fully appreciate the true humility and 
 delicacy of mind which dictated your note of 
 to-day. — Always truly yours, 
 
 "W. Bowman." 
 
 Preserved in the same envelope with this 
 note is a letter from Ruskin of almost the same 
 date — 1 8th November 1863. 
 
 " Dear Watts — Indeed I love you much, and 
 it was not ill-treatment of you. I was too ill 
 to see any one, it would only have hurt you to 
 see me : so tired and sad I was about many 
 things. Now I have given up everything but 
 friends — and dinners, so judge if I won't come and 
 dine with you.* I shall like to see you all again 
 so much. Only I am just home for a week just 
 now. I'm going into the country on Monday, 
 
 218
 
 , 
 
 (;\t c ((\m. 
 
 la ImiIiuiI Iciiii,,i i 'lit, I lij i ' )/ r (l illiiiin J. Ji'inniiii ./'hiil 
 It- ill,- < \, ill, -mil ( hill, it) r. ,A)rili.,/i r i rl )
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and I can't arrange for anything before that ; but 
 I'll be back in no time and at home all the 
 winter. I mean to try and see you in the fore- 
 noon before Monday, but mayn't be able, but I 
 think I shall. — Always affectionately yours, 
 
 "J. RUSKIN. 
 
 " P.S.* — Not that I would dine with many 
 people, because friends and dinner are too good 
 to have at once : I like to eat like a bear, and hug 
 afterwards, but to growl over my bones." 
 
 During these years Mr. Ruskin seems to 
 have been often and much at Little Holland 
 House, and the following little note, evidently 
 written from Denmark Hill, shows what he had 
 lately been looking at in the studio : — 
 
 " 14M May 1864. 
 
 " Dear Watts — I find all my apple-blossoms 
 (nearly) on the ground this morning in fading 
 snow, so I won't let you come to me for a fort- 
 night yet, when I shall have got some flowers 
 out and some strawberries ripe, I hope, and some 
 of Jones's sketches framed ; but I shall beg of 
 you to come then, very earnestly. 
 
 " That haystack and Colleone : and the new 
 Trionfo della Morte Madonna stay by me- — but 
 you know — you must learn to paint like Titian ! 
 — Ever affectionately yours, J. Ruskin." 
 
 1 The words haystack and Colleone refer to the small landscape called 
 " All the air a solemn silence holds," an impression he received when riding 
 home one evening ; both stacks and trees were close to Little Holland 
 House. The other picture is known as "The Court of Death." 
 
 219
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 In the spring of 1864 Garibaldi came to 
 England to receive an ovation, which appears to 
 have exceeded in enthusiasm all such for many 
 years before or since. The admiration of the 
 crowd for their hero put his life, at one part of 
 the progress from the station to Stafford House, 
 into as much danger as it had ever been during 
 his campaigns ! Signor, as a true sympathiser 
 with the emancipation of Italy, who admired 
 him greatly, had arranged with the Duchess of 
 Sutherland to attempt to make a portrait of him, 
 but the sittings had to be from seven to eight 
 in the morning, and even then there were 
 deputations waiting below to pay him homage. 
 The duchess came herself and read aloud to the 
 patient sitter. There was a study made of the 
 head, as well as a more finished picture ; and of 
 this portrait the Countess Martinengo Cesaresco 
 wrote in 1903 : "I sent one of Mr. Hollyer's 
 photographs of your beautiful portrait of Gari- 
 baldi to his surviving son, General Ricciotti 
 Garibaldi, whose acquaintance I made lately in 
 Rome. I have just had a letter from his wife, 
 in which she says, ' My husband received the 
 portrait with the greatest pleasure ; it is most 
 wonderfully like ! ' 
 
 " I feel a temptation to send this little word to 
 you, and I hope that you will pardon the liberty 
 I take in doing so." 
 
 In spite of the constant intercourse Signor 
 had for years enjoyed with friends, many of 
 whom, sooner or later, have been given their 
 
 220
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 place in making the history of their time ; in 
 spite of the solicitous care given to him by all 
 at Little Holland House, and the real affection 
 in which he was held by the whole circle of the 
 family, there is often a note of great sadness in 
 his letters. A sense of loneliness seems to per- 
 vade his life. Perhaps this is the case even in 
 the happiest surroundings, where the nature has 
 been given intimations of some place afar, which 
 it is ever seeking, partly aware that only there 
 can it ever be truly at home. In more than one 
 letter I find that he expresses regret that he had 
 never married ; as if he were asking himself 
 whether it was this companionship that was 
 missing from his life. To what is well known 
 I wish to add nothing ; all who have heard 
 his name know also that a beautiful young girl 
 who, with her yet undeveloped genius, was 
 destined later to fascinate and delight thousands 
 of her generation, came into his life, that they 
 were married in February 1864, and were parted 
 in June 1865, and, except for the accident of one 
 chance meeting in the streets of Brighton, never 
 met again, the marriage being dissolved in 1877. 
 But to return to what had just been said, of 
 the something akin to loneliness that contributed 
 to make him know a tinge of sadness, as if for 
 some reason he was not quite at home in the 
 ways of life, a feeling which is probably shared 
 by all highly sensitive natures, and to be accounted 
 for by their spiritual elevation. That this eleva- 
 tion was visible in him can best be explained by 
 
 221
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the effect his presence had upon others. After the 
 last visit Mr. F. W. H. Myers paid to Signor, 
 he wrote of him as " one who without sect or 
 dogma shall answer to the welcoming Infinite 
 with simplicity and calm." Or, in the simple 
 words used by a French lady who, forty years 
 later, looking back to her early teens, said, 
 " Mr. Watts was the first person to make me 
 want to be good." It was not an aloofness, 
 which would have put a distance between him 
 and you — this was never so ; it seemed as natural 
 to be aware of that elevation as to be aware of 
 the air breathed on a mountain top — you were 
 beside him, but on a plane that you knew was 
 different. Not long ago I had the pleasure of 
 talking to a lady at Brighton who had known 
 him well in these early 'sixties. She spoke with 
 enthusiasm and affection of many of his friends, 
 and describing one brilliant personality after 
 another, ended by saying, " But Mr. Watts was 
 different — he had something apart." 
 
 In 1865 the introduction of Mr. Charles 
 Rickards to Signor, through the medium of 
 Mr. J. E. Taylor and his namesake, though not 
 related, Mr. Tom Taylor (author and critic), was 
 the means of bringing a very sincere admirer and 
 constant purchaser of pictures to the studio at 
 Little Holland House. Mr. Rickards wished to 
 have a portrait painted by him, and from the 
 time of their first acquaintance kept all the letters 
 and notes that passed between them for more 
 than twenty years. They are docketed by him 
 
 222
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 as " Letters written to me by my friend, pre- 
 served by me from motives of warm regard, as 
 well as for the future biographical or other 
 public service. — C. H. Rickards." These letters 
 were kindly given to me in 1904 by his cousin, 
 Miss Chesworth. The first of the bundle is 
 from Tom Taylor to his namesake : — 
 
 " i-th June 1865. 
 
 " Dear Taylor — I have written urgently to 
 Watts re Rickards, pointing out to him how 
 important it is that the great North should be 
 impregnated with great Art of a different 
 character from much of that which enriches your 
 picture dealers, and fills the galleries they have 
 the catering for. — Always yours, 
 
 "Tom Taylor." 
 
 The first sitting for this portrait was in 
 September 1865, the artist having told Mr. 
 Tom Taylor that it could not be painted out of 
 hand, as he had much work about in his studio, 
 to complete which he was giving all the 
 time possible. The portrait was therefore not 
 finished until the end of September in the year 
 following, and when appointing the last sitting 
 Signor writes : " I am glad to find that the 
 subject of art is become one of interest to you, 
 and I hope, from what you say, to some of your 
 friends. I am sure that you now feel it is an 
 interest that should not be left out of any man's 
 life. However little I might care about being 
 known myself, I am glad that the opinions I 
 
 223
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 have arrived at by really earnest thinking should 
 be known and tested. In the belief that art of 
 noble aim is necessary to a great nation, I am 
 sometimes tempted in my impatience to try if 
 I cannot get subscriptions to carry out a project 
 I have long had, to erect a statue to unknown 
 worth — in the words of the author of Felix 
 Holt, ' a monument to the faithful who are not 
 famous.' I think this would be a worthy thing 
 to do, and if I had not unfortunately neglected 
 opportunities of making money, I would certainly 
 do it at my own expense. 
 
 " I am at this time making a monumental 
 statue, and feel confident I could execute a 
 colossal bronze statue that should be a real monu- 
 ment. I would give up all other work to be 
 enabled to carry out such an idea, and should be 
 contented if guaranteed against loss ; contented 
 to be able to meet the expenses of the under- 
 taking. Please think a little about this plan." 
 
 When the portrait and another picture were 
 about to be sent off to Mr. Rickards, he writes : 
 " I will send the pictures in a day or two, and 
 I must ask you to hang them on a dark wall ; 
 an oil picture suffers so very much if hung upon 
 a light ground. If your walls are light I would 
 beg you, for the sake of your own pleasure in 
 the pictures, to have your room re-papered. 
 It may seem a rather bold request, but pictures 
 are expensive luxuries, and a man ought to get 
 all the satisfaction he can out of them, and, I 
 may say, in justice to the artist. Any dark 
 
 224
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 colour, red or green, and no matter how rich, 
 would do, and if possible the picture should be 
 hung with the light on the spectator's left, and 
 not too near the window, because the spectator 
 should stand between the pictures and the 
 
 light.- 
 
 The portrait of Mr. Rickards gave entire 
 satisfaction, and to him Mr. Frederick Walker, 1 
 an intimate friend, writes of this : " It is no 
 exaggeration to say that it is the best portrait 
 I have ever seen of one intimately known to 
 me. The features are drawn with photographic 
 avoidance of flattery, and at the same time the 
 noblest side of your character appears." In this 
 letter he also says that he agrees with Signor 
 that frescoes might be invaluable instruments 
 of education. It had occurred to him some 
 years ago, on seeing the fresco at Lincoln's Inn, 
 that with the aid of the sixth book of the 
 JEneid, Roman history could be well condensed 
 into a single picture. "There in the Elysian 
 fields Anchises points out to iEneas the unborn 
 souls of all the men who in after times were 
 to make Rome great, the long list ending with 
 Pompey, Caesar Augustus, the young Marcellus. 
 Perhaps the subject is not susceptible of pictur- 
 esque treatment, but I should like to see the 
 experiment tried." To this Signor replies : 
 " You may be sure that I am most gratified to 
 find your friends approve. Some success such 
 patience as yours insured ; but, anxious as I 
 
 1 In later years headmaster of St. Paul's School. 
 VOL. I 225 Q
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 am, I never feel sure of succeeding under any 
 circumstances, as portraiture is certainly not 
 my line, and I find it very difficult, hence it 
 is that I undertake a portrait with very great 
 reluctance, but my pleasure in giving satisfac- 
 tion is of course in proportion. I am much 
 interested by Mr. Walker's letter and certainly 
 sympathise with his idea. What he proposes 
 is exactly the right kind of thing for educational 
 purposes, and exactly the right treatment of the 
 subject. Ten years ago I would have offered 
 to paint a mural picture of the kind, provided 
 the materials were found. It is not in my 
 power to do so now, but I would gladly make 
 some sacrifice in order to carry out so admirable 
 a scheme. Your Manchester School of Art 
 ought to be able to supply students competent 
 to carry out designs under the direction of an 
 experienced artist. Surely something might 
 be done in such a place as Manchester." 
 
 In the next letter, some six months later, 
 he writes : " Flattered as I must be by your 
 wish to buy some of my pictures, I feel great 
 difficulty about taking advantage of your newly 
 awakened taste. It is possible you may here- 
 after regret spending money upon works which 
 may never be generally cared for ; at the same 
 time, as I naturally think my direction a right 
 one, or I should not follow it, and — as I am 
 desirous of giving an impulse to taste for art 
 of a graver and nobler character than that 
 which is characteristic of the English school, 
 
 226
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 you shall have such pictures of mine as you 
 may take a fancy to, upon the understanding 
 that I take them back at the same price if you 
 should change your opinion of them, or grow 
 tired of them." Later in the same letter he 
 writes : " I shall keep you to your offer to 
 purchase a picture from some young artist, and 
 will take care that you shall run no risk. 
 Thank you for the promise. As to the 
 criticisms — even the best art critics are very 
 unsafe guides, talking more glibly than wisely, 
 upon the subject ; even when they form — 
 speaking generally — a right estimate of the 
 excellencies of the picture, mostly praising 
 it for qualities it does not possess, and dis- 
 approving of qualities which really are merits, 
 so that real artists who began by resenting their 
 patronage as much as their blame, soon become 
 indifferent to both." 
 
 Again, three months later, he writes to Mr. 
 Rickards : " I have always told you that I feel 
 the greatest unwillingness to take advantage of 
 your wish to buy so many pictures, lest I should 
 be injuring you and defrauding others. How- 
 ever, we have discussed that matter, and I won't 
 say more about it " — a promise he felt himself 
 unable to keep ; and over and over again Mr. 
 Rickards is warned that he may be defrauding 
 him, or that those who come after him may 
 feel that his investments in these pictures were 
 ill-judged ; and often he had to apologise for 
 returning Mr. Rickards's cheque, if sent before 
 
 227
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the picture was completed, or if in payment 
 of one he could not make up his mind to sell. 
 " The Court of Death " was designed and well 
 advanced. " Time, Death, and Judgment " was 
 also designed. The small version of " Sir 
 Galahad" had been completed before 1862. 
 The study for the head of the knight was made 
 from Arthur Prinsep as early as 1855 or 56. 
 " The Court of Death " was originally designed 
 for a Mortuary Chapel. Signor had been told 
 of a project to open a cemetery for London 
 paupers, in which a chapel was to be built 
 where the coffins would be collected, to ensure 
 that one burial service would be sufficient for 
 several paupers. This cold calculation to save 
 trouble had touched Signor to the quick, and 
 he immediately set to work to think out such a 
 design as he believed might dignify the building. 
 The scheme for this cemetery was, I believe, 
 given up, certainly in its original bareness. Of 
 this design and of his " Time, Death, and Judg- 
 ment " he writes to Mr. Rickards : " Allegory 
 is much out of favour now and by most people 
 condemned, forgetting that spiritual and even 
 most intellectual ideas can only be expressed by 
 similes, and that words themselves are but 
 symbols. The design ' Time and Death ' is 
 one of several suggestive compositions that I 
 hope to leave behind me in support of my 
 claim to be considered a real artist, and it is 
 only by these that I wish to be known. I am 
 very glad that you find the ring of poetry in it." 
 
 228
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 229
 
 THOUGHT and imagination are the attributes of 
 man alone. Surely the development of the con- 
 ception of beauty indicates an assimilation to the 
 most divine — that which is most beyond our mere 
 material existence. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 230
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 On Thursday, January 31, 1867, Edward 
 Armitage and George Frederic Watts were 
 elected Associates of the Royal Academy, 
 William Holman Hunt standing next in the 
 order of votes. 
 
 These elections were made without the candi- 
 dates putting down their names. When the 
 news was brought to him by his friend Leighton, 
 no one was more surprised by the result of the 
 election than Signor himself. He had given 
 his opinion at the Royal Academy Commission 
 that the regulation by which each candidate for 
 admission into that body was required to write 
 his name down every year until elected was 
 " vexatious and unnecessary." 
 
 " I know," he had said, " within the range 
 of my own personal acquaintance, that it has 
 been felt to be very disagreeable to many men." 
 He thought that every man should be eligible 
 who had been an exhibitor for any length of 
 time. After Sir Charles Eastlake's death, Sir 
 Francis Grant being President he worked to 
 get this rule altered, and he afterwards told 
 
 231
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Signor it was chiefly on his account. Signor's 
 first impulse was to refuse the honour, on the 
 ground that the state of his health precluded 
 any possibility of his being useful in the 
 Academy. He explained that the uncertainty 
 of his condition made ordinary social life for 
 him impossible, and kept him almost entirely 
 in the seclusion of his studio. However, his 
 friends Leighton and Armitage, and several 
 members of the Academy, all pointed out to 
 him the opportunities he would have for useful- 
 ness. Mr. Armitage wrote : " You would be 
 able to give a vote at the election, and any 
 opinion you expressed would, I am sure, have 
 great weight with the junior members, and 
 indirectly on the state of public feeling about 
 art." He also says : " I was in hopes that in 
 the Academy we might have united to give a 
 new direction to the school." On February 7 
 Mr. Armitage again writes : " No one can 
 rejoice more than I do that you have withdrawn 
 your resignation ; your note gave me very great 
 pleasure." No doubt the opinion of his friend 
 Leighton, who had been elected as Associate in 
 1864, had weight with him. In such matters 
 it would ; but he was also sensible that there 
 was liberality in the action of the members of 
 the Academy, as he had not conformed to rules, 
 and was personally unknown to by far the larger 
 number of the members, who might very well 
 consider that he was critical of the Institution, if 
 not hostile to it. His election as Academician 
 
 232
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 followed in December of the same year, which, 
 he thought, was generous ; though some of his 
 friends considered it to be " but tardy justice," 
 as his work had been before the public for 
 twenty-three years, and over and over again men, 
 much his junior, had in the meantime been 
 elected. However that may have been, there 
 was no feeling of soreness on his part ; and in 
 1869 he was busy, with his friend Frederic 
 Leighton, at work as one of the Hanging Com- 
 mittee for the summer Exhibition. With them 
 Sir Francis Grant had some difference of opinion 
 on the subject of two pictures, which they refused 
 to place on " the line," although the President 
 had received — with one of them at least — a 
 special request from high places to have it 
 well hung. He writes afterwards : " You and 
 Leighton acted with Roman virtue according 
 to your judgment. . . . However, although we 
 have differed, it has always been done in good 
 humour ; and I can assure you as friends I value 
 you both greatly, and I am only happy to have 
 seen so much of you, and to remember so much 
 that has been so pleasant and agreeable. With 
 the only trifling exception of the two pictures, 
 I think I never remember to have seen the 
 exhibition so well hung, and I never before 
 have seen such general satisfaction. I am so 
 sorry to hear you are poorly — you want another 
 room to hang ! " 
 
 The two friends had been given a very free 
 hand in the matter of arrangement, but when 
 
 2 33
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 they chose to hang their own pictures above 
 " the line," their colleagues objected, and they 
 were obliged to give way. 
 
 Many of Signor's well-known designs belong 
 to these years, though few indeed can be said to 
 belong to one year only. A design laid in in 
 the 'fifties might be completed ten, twenty, and 
 even thirty years later. He could not be per- 
 suaded to see his own work from the point of 
 view of the expert of the future, who would 
 require to place such-and-such work in an early 
 or late period of the artist's life. 
 
 Mr. Thoby Prinsep, who was not aesthetic, 
 grew impatient at times, and was once heard to 
 exclaim, " I never saw such a fellow as you are, 
 Signor ! Why don't you finish one picture before 
 you begin another ? " and from the doorway 
 came the parting shot from Signor as he went 
 back to work, " My dear friend, you don't paint 
 a picture as you would make a pair of boots ! " 
 
 If, while it was still unfinished, he could 
 improve a picture in any way, he would work 
 upon it for any number of years. He very 
 rarely retouched a completed work, one which, 
 after some four or five years — the time he 
 usually allowed for the colour to harden — he 
 had had varnished. The only exception to this 
 that I know of is the " Fata Morgana," now 
 in the Municipal Gallery at Leicester. This 
 picture, painted at Careggi, had been laid in 
 with the simplicity of fresco. In 1889 he had 
 all the mastic varnish removed from the picture, 
 
 234
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and in a very few days changed it from one 
 thinly painted, laid in in broad simple masses, 
 into a picture extremely rich in texture and 
 brilliant in colour. I remember Sir Frederic 
 Leighton chaffing him about the " tocchi reso- 
 luti" and for once approving of this union of 
 two periods of manner. His counsel was usually 
 against delay in completing pictures, the two 
 friends differing very distinctly. Signor often 
 begged Leighton not to attempt to finish for 
 exhibition in May pictures he had begun in the 
 autumn. They talked things over, but each 
 went his own way ; it could not have been 
 otherwise. 
 
 I must here venture to correct an error that 
 has appeared more than once in published 
 accounts of Mr. Watts's work with reference to 
 a portrait of Lady Somers, begun in i860. It 
 is a mistake to say that he worked all over this 
 in 1889. The right arm, sleeve, and lower part 
 of the picture had originally been sketched in 
 monochrome, and so left. Naturally, the colour 
 painted over these parts in 1889 * s distinguish- 
 able from that which was painted thirty-eight 
 years before ; but he put no touch upon the 
 panel where the work was already complete, save 
 only on one small spot upon the lower lip, where 
 there was some slight damage to the colour. 
 
 The designs he had now in hand were the 
 " Court of Death," " Time, Death, and Judg- 
 ment," "The Creation," "The Denunciation," 
 " The Genius of Greek Poetry," " The Island of 
 
 2 35
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Cos," "Ariadne in Naxos," "Daphne," "Thetis," 
 and "The Mid-day Rest." Besides these, he 
 was at work upon a full-length portrait of Lady 
 Bath, now at Longleat. It was carried on during 
 more years than he could remember, that subtle 
 quality of resemblance eluding him. He asked 
 Lady Bath once, during the last sittings, if she 
 could remember when the portrait was begun, 
 and she answered, " I am not quite sure of the 
 exact date, but I know it was soon after my 
 marriage, and now I have seven children." 
 
 It was at this time that Mr. Gladstone wrote 1 
 to express a wish to possess the picture described 
 in the catalogue of the Royal Academy Exhibi- 
 tion of 1868 as "The Wife of Pygmalion, a 
 translation from the Greek," and in reply Mr. 
 Watts writes thus : — 
 
 " May yd, 1868. 
 " Little Holland House. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Gladstone — I am really rather 
 shocked by your great admiration of the ' Wife 
 of Pygmalion,' for it makes me feel like a 
 humbug. I cannot think you could find her 
 so deserving on longer acquaintance. In pro- 
 portion as I value I am encouraged by sympathy 
 with the direction of my efforts, having, I believe, 
 a right to feel that they are worthy of some 
 respect. I am really pained by applause which 
 
 1 This letter is not preserved, but of the picture Mr. Bernard 
 Bosanquet wrote to me in 1886 : "Ever since I saw the 'Galatea,' I have 
 hung on Mr. Watts's works as the one realisation of what modern art 
 might do. He has kept alive the conception of great art almost single- 
 handed." 
 
 236
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 is more than my due ; if you will come out here 
 some day I will cure you of your love and 
 console you from your disappointment (the 
 picture is claimed), by showing you the frag- 
 ment from which it was painted, wherein you 
 will see all that you admire in the picture, with 
 infinite beauties altogether missed. 
 
 " I much desire your good opinion of my bust 
 (The Clytie), and must explain that my aim in 
 this my first essay has been to get flexibility, 
 impression of colour, and largeness of character, 
 rather than purity and gravity — qualities I own 
 to be extremely necessary to sculpture, but 
 which, being made, as it seems to me, ex- 
 clusively the objects of the modern sculptor, 
 have deadened his senses to some other qualities 
 making part — often glories — of ancient Art, and 
 this has resulted in bare and cold work. When 
 you have time I should like to talk this matter 
 over with you, for I have it much at heart, and 
 I am full of anxiety to do something for the 
 national honour. Mr. Jones and myself hope to 
 avail ourselves of your invitation next Thursday. 
 
 " You may believe that I should be proud to 
 know my c Greek ' head hung up in your house, 
 but I am sure a cast of the antique bust will 
 more than console you. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 « G. F. Watts." 
 
 Some years before, Sir Charles Newton and 
 Signor had visited Oxford, to look over the 
 Arundel Marbles. These marbles, though pre- 
 
 237
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 sented in 1624, had been left, in great part, 
 neglected in a cellar. The object of their visit 
 was to look, over the fragments, and to pick out 
 those which were of real worth for exhibition 
 in the Ashmolean Museum. Si^nor was the 
 discoverer here of a beautiful head severed at 
 the neck, and unhappilv without the nose. The 
 missing parts were searched for, and thev were 
 successful in rinding the bust and shoulders. It 
 is now one of the o;ems of the collection. Si°;nor 
 ranked this bust with the best art of Greece in 
 the time of Pheidias, but he believed that it was 
 a portrait, because certain characteristics of the 
 Greek ideal were lacking. For instance, the 
 eves were slightlv prominent, which alone 
 denoted that it was a likeness. Casts were 
 made from the bust, and one of these always 
 stood in his studio. The reverence in which 
 this was held by him was so great that it in- 
 spired him to paint the transition of Galatea 
 from marble to life. To compare this picture 
 with the Greek bust is instructive, the attempt is 
 so often made to discover plagiarisms committed 
 by our poets, a form of criticism from which 
 Shakespeare does not escape. Had the picture 
 been in anv way a copy of the bust, it could not 
 have been ranked, as it was bv Mr. Gladstone 
 and others, as amongst the painter's most 
 imaginative works. All art is transmitted by 
 a natural process of fertilisation. Almost un- 
 consciouslv this process had stirred his imagina- 
 tion. From his letter to Mr. Gladstone, it is 
 
 *3«
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 clear that Signor looked upon his picture as ^ 
 sort of portrait of the bus:. But how far it is 
 removed from this, comparison of the two will 
 show. The distinction between a copy and the 
 work inspired bv the great work of another 
 
 ■:*5 imagination is evident. The imitator 
 of anv school, or of any artist's productions, 
 must in his own production fall so short of the 
 original that he can never hope to stir the 
 enthusiasm of the spectator. 
 
 T:< a voung student I have heard Signor say: 
 • Go and look at the old masters, not to copv 
 them but to admire them ; look at Nature and 
 be vourself. Learn the principles of art, but 
 never mind about the rules ; thev mav be 
 broken, and are bv every great painter ; the 
 principles are fundamental." 
 
 Great Art and great Nature fertilise the 
 minds of those gifted to receive ; for as Walt 
 Whitman says, "The great masters hear the 
 inaudible words of the earth."' 
 
 One full-length portrait was painted during 
 these years, and is now the best known of the 
 portraits because it has been so generously lent 
 to various exhibitions in London. It is one that 
 probably to his mind came nearer than any other 
 towards that attainment to stvle always kept 
 in view bv him — the portrait of Mrs. Percy 
 Wvndham. He proposed to begin this picture 
 in the summer of i S66, but it was not begun 
 till the spring of 1S67, and was on the easel 
 until the spring of 1870, when he hoped that 
 
 - :
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 he might complete it for exhibition at the 
 Academy ; but he writes later to say he is so 
 unwell that he has given up all idea of sending 
 it. Though it was finished shortly after this 
 date, it was not exhibited until the first 
 exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. 
 The painting of this portrait brought a new joy 
 into his life, as he writes many years afterwards 
 when he speaks of his regret at ever having 
 finished it, because he saw Mrs. Wyndham less 
 often. " But not the less you will believe that 
 your friendship is very precious to me." In 
 another letter of an earlier date he tells her that, 
 through the letter he had just received from her, 
 he had been entering keenly into her enjoyment 
 of great art and great nature ; and he says 
 further: " What depresses me in general is not 
 so much that I cannot give utterance to ' the 
 thoughts that fill my heart to bursting ' " (her 
 own words), "though it is painful enough, but 
 that people walk through all this glory, and 
 only coldly recognise that something is round 
 about them, interesting perhaps when they 
 have time to think upon the matter, after 
 business and the claims of society. With me 
 it is like a religion, in fact, I believe it to 
 be part of the same thing ; the sense of the 
 beautiful in the highest manifestations is 
 religious. I am really moved — much more 
 than pleased — that you should have been 
 prompted to write me a long letter, for I take 
 it as a proof that my own efforts have not 
 
 240
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 altogether failed in helping you to take in what 
 you have seen. . . . That you are reminded of 
 me is precious to me, as a sign that in direction 
 and intention my aspirations are in harmony 
 with what you so truly appreciate. Alas, that 
 aspiration and achievement should be so far 
 apart." 
 
 During the last five or six years, he had been 
 working much with clay. His " Clytie," a bust, 
 had been completed ; but the first large piece of 
 sculpture was for a memorial — a life-sized figure 
 — commissioned by his friend Mr. Reginald 
 Cholmondeley, to commemorate his elder brother 
 Thomas, whose career of usefulness and high 
 endeavour had been too early closed by death, 
 tragically soon after his marriage in 1864. This 
 memorial, now in Condover Church, was placed 
 there a few years afterwards. 1 In 1869 he under- 
 took to make a recumbent figure of the Bishop 
 of Lichfield, Doctor Lonsdale. At first his 
 sculpture studio was but a small greenhouse put 
 to this use, and there the " Clytie " was modelled ; 
 but for larger work he shared part of a studio 
 in Gold-Hawk Road, where the sculptor Mr. 
 Nelson was at work. The commission for the 
 Bishop's monument was not accepted without 
 
 1 The question whether this memorial was by Signor or the work of 
 Mr. Reginald Cholmondeley having been publicly raised, a friend, Mrs. 
 Baldwin Childe, wrote to the former to confirm her (correct) statement, and 
 received the following reply : "The statue of Thomas Cholmondeley Owen 
 is wholly mine. — G. F. Watts, December 20th, 1898." 
 
 A confusion had been made between this work and a memorial in the 
 same chapel at Condover Church to Mrs. Reginald Cholmondeley, that 
 her husband had designed and carried out with the aid of advice from 
 Signor. 
 
 VOL. I 241 R
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 some hesitation, and Sir George Gilbert Scott, 
 who was to design the base and canopy, seems to 
 have misunderstood this, and wrote to Mr. Watts 
 saying that, in the event of his not undertaking 
 the work, it would be offered to Mr. Armstead. 
 Mr. Watts had replied in his usual generous way 
 anxious to leave the commission to fall to the lot 
 of another ; and Sir Gilbert Scott writes to thank 
 him for the manner in which he had received 
 his letter. " You have, however, carried your 
 generosity far beyond what I had intended, 
 which had been suggested solely by your ex- 
 pressions of doubt as to your acceptance of the 
 commission. It was only in case these doubts 
 should be confirmed that I ventured to offer 
 the suggestion I made. I feel that for you to 
 decline the work when these doubts have been 
 removed will be to deprive it of the benefit of 
 the highest talent that could be devoted to it, and 
 of which I cannot over-state my appreciation. 
 I beg, therefore, that you will reconsider what 
 the impulse of generosity has dictated." 
 
 The letters in which this spirit of generosity 
 is referred to are many ; sometimes on his 
 returning a cheque for a portrait that has been 
 criticised, sometimes when it was a question of 
 hanging a work of his less well than his colleagues 
 at the Royal Academy knew to be his due. On 
 his exhibiting for the first time as an Associate 
 there was a question of this sort ; and Mr. George 
 Richmond wrote : " I must, though very tired, 
 thank you for your kind and obliging message. 
 
 242
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 My colleagues felt that I was treading on very 
 delicate ground when I sent a message to you. 
 Your generous answer has convinced them that 
 I have not mistaken my man, and we are all 
 grateful to you." Very often this spirit appears 
 when he is anxious to obtain the commission for 
 a younger man, and he has stepped aside in his 
 favour. His treatment of the Bishop's lawn 
 sleeves and robe was, he believed, at that time 
 unique. It brings to mind his careful observation 
 of Pheidian work, shown in the letter already 
 quoted, on the frescoes of Giotto at Padua, and 
 their likeness to the work of Pheidias. It will 
 be remembered that of the Greek sculptor he 
 said, " By many folds he took away the importance 
 of the mass, leaving the head and limbs free and 
 uninterfered with, simple, massive, and import- 
 ant." He never saw the memorial when placed 
 in Lichfield Cathedral, but Sir Gilbert Scott told 
 him with honourable candour that to his regret 
 the canopy had destroyed the figure. Of this 
 effigy Signor writes to Mr. Rickards : — 
 
 " I am glad you like the Bishop, but imagine 
 you did not think the likeness good ; a probable 
 thing, for the materials I had to work from were 
 very unsatisfactory, until I got two photographs 
 from Miss Lonsdale ; but then the alabaster was 
 already so much advanced that alteration was not 
 possible. Such an effigy is a very different thing 
 from a portrait for a drawing-room, and the kind 
 of likeness required should be in accordance rather 
 with an abstract idea than of a realistic character ; 
 
 243
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 but I would have made a great difference in it, if 
 the photographs had come to hand earlier." 
 
 In colder weather he was prevented from 
 working with clay, on account of the damp and 
 chill, its effect upon his health being very bad. 
 This material he afterwards ceased to use alto- 
 gether, and replaced it by the Italian gesso grosso. 
 But though prevented from going to work in the 
 damp studio, he tells Mr. Rickards that his mind 
 was much occupied with the subject of sculpture, 
 and in the following summer he writes : " I have 
 been sculpturing a good deal lately, and the more 
 I do in that way, the more confidence I feel in 
 my power as a sculptor." Mr. Rickards, though 
 not a very rich man, was now buying from him 
 paintings of mythical and symbolic subjects, at a 
 time when very few indeed cared to possess these, 
 and his generous appreciation was met in the 
 same spirit. Always anxious that he should not 
 defraud his friend, he writes : " I am relieved to 
 find that the last importation was not a dis- 
 appointment to you or your friends. You know 
 I am always afraid of trafficking upon your 
 predilections for my works, dreading lest I may 
 injure you in your pocket or your taste. I am 
 always anxious to hear that you are satisfied and 
 that your friends approve. For this last reason 
 I am really gratified to find Mr. Maddox Brown 
 expressing a favourable opinion ; for in addition 
 to being an artist of real genius, his sentiment 
 for art is in many respects so different from my 
 own that it was hardly to be expected that he 
 
 244
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 should find much to care for in my work. You 
 have twice expressed a wish that the portrait 
 that you have of me should be exhibited; this I 
 should be most unwilling to have carried out, and 
 hope you do not greatly set your heart upon it, 
 for it would be really disagreeable to me ; not 
 that I see any reason against an artist painting 
 himself, but the contrary. The most interesting 
 gallery I know is the collection of artists' portraits, 
 painted by their own hands, and I paint myself 
 constantly ; that is to say, whenever I want to 
 make an experiment in method or colour, and am 
 not in a humour to make a design. So there are 
 other portraits of me, and if I live there may be 
 many more, but I should not like to display them 
 to the public. I should feel a sort of absurdity 
 attaching to such a proceeding." 
 
 With an organisation peculiarly sensitive 
 to pain, whether physical or mental, it will be 
 easily understood that the appreciation of a few 
 friends, whose opinion he could respect, helped 
 him to become inured to the indifference of a 
 public led by criticisms either ignorant or hostile. 
 Mr. Rickards not only gave this sympathy, but 
 gave it in a material shape, often possessing him- 
 self of pictures which had been painted many 
 years before ; and thus he had found one of the 
 greater satisfactions in life, one which he rejoiced 
 in sharing with a group of friends artistic or 
 literary, who were capable of entering into his 
 pleasure. He liked to ask his friends to come to 
 luncheon and afterwards to take them round his 
 
 245
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 rooms, enjoying each picture in turn, or making 
 the acquaintance of some new acquisition. He 
 was led by Signor's influence to admire the works 
 of other and younger men, and an occasional 
 commission, where it was very welcome, was 
 given through him. Of one of the first of these 
 he writes to Mr. Rickards: " As to your generous 
 proposal respecting the money that was to buy 
 a picture by some young artist, I can only say 
 that your feeling does you infinite honour, and 
 makes me proud to reckon amongst my friends 
 Charles Rickards ; but whichever way you 
 desire generously to apply the money, you may 
 be sure that I should be the last person to deprive 
 you of your honest credit. I should like you 
 to have this credit ; I will surely find an 
 opportunity of gratifying your good feeling." 
 Monsieur Legros was then but little known in 
 England, and a commission for a picture to be 
 painted for Mr. Rickards was acceptable to him. 
 Of this Signor writes: " I shall be very anxious to 
 know how Legros's picture is liked. I do not 
 expect that it will be much approved of at first, 
 but I think you will find that its grave simplicity 
 will make its effect in time." In the next letter 
 he writes : " I am delighted to find that Legros's 
 work is appreciated. I own it is rather more 
 than I expected, fearing that the simplicity of 
 the workmanship would be regarded as want of 
 finish. I am sure it is a picture that will give 
 you more and more pleasure, as you become used 
 to it ; there is in it all the poetry your friends 
 
 246
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 have fancied, but it is the unconscious poetry of 
 the bird's song, and not an elaborated effort, 
 therefore so much more delightful, being per- 
 fectly natural — a most rare quality." 
 
 Mr. Rickards's high services as a citizen of 
 Manchester having been acknowledged publicly, 
 Signor writes to him : " I wish all testimonials 
 were as well deserved. I don't see why, for fear 
 of seeming to be a flatterer, I should not add my 
 testimonial, and say that I believe that you 
 belong to the class that has made England great, 
 and would make any nation great, earnest, sincere, 
 and courageous, sympathising with all that is 
 good in action and great in aspiration, free from 
 meanness, and impatient only of wrong-doing. 
 Perhaps it signifies little whether such are Whig, 
 or Tory, or Radical ; the cause of humanity is 
 sure to be helped. For myself I honour you and 
 your like." 
 
 In spite of the opinion he expressed now in 
 writing to a friend — " I am specially unfitted to 
 paint a portrait " — his friends refused to be per- 
 suaded ; and when Mr. Henry Bruce — then 
 Home Secretary — now better known as Lord 
 Aberdare, was asked to give sittings for a pre- 
 sentation portrait and to choose the painter, he 
 wrote to beg Signor to undertake it, saying : 
 " Of this let me assure you, with all earnestness 
 and sincerity, that I desire you to undertake the 
 task, not only because I hold you to be the first 
 of living artists, but because it will always be 
 a pleasure to me and mine to know that my 
 
 247
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 portrait was the work of a valued friend." In 
 his reply Signor again begs to assure Mr. Bruce 
 of his own incapacity. " I am not a good 
 portrait painter," he writes ; " I know you will 
 point to a certain amount of success, but if you 
 knew what toil, anxiety, and positive pain that 
 success represents, you would feel it is in no 
 degree commensurate." He also explains further, 
 " The best part of my life is gone, and I devote 
 what remains to the endeavour to produce works 
 that will be worthy contributions to the national 
 honour. I am conscious that it will be only an 
 endeavour, so the aspiration is not presumptuous." 
 The appeal made by Mr. Bruce must have been 
 hard to resist ; but the painter was at the moment 
 realising to the full the difficulty of achieving a 
 successful portrait, for Carlyle was giving him 
 sittings, and Signor was more than ever confirmed 
 in the opinion that he was not intended by nature 
 to succeed in portraiture, and Mr. Wells under- 
 took the commission. 
 
 Carlyle was an impatient sitter, and though 
 he tried to conceal the fact, Signor was conscious 
 of this, and told me that it so acted upon his 
 nerves that one of the most important portraits 
 he had ever taken in hand was thus spoilt. 
 " You have made me like a mad labourer," was 
 Carlyle's well-known comment. In spite of 
 this ruggedness of character, Signor's impression 
 of Carlyle was one of goodness and nobility of 
 disposition, and he thought that the emphasis, 
 in Mrs. Carlyle's letters, upon his irritability, 
 
 248
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 exaggerated what may have been a blemish in 
 a childlike and generous nature. Three portraits 
 of Carlyle were begun ; two were completed and 
 one left incomplete. The sittings had already 
 begun in June 1867, perhaps earlier, and were 
 still being continued in July of the following 
 year, when Carlyle writes : " Unexpectedly I find 
 I have to go to Scotland in about ten days, and 
 continue there I know not how long. If you 
 do want me again, therefore, let it be within 
 that time, fairly within ; I am anxious to 
 neglect nothing for perfecting of our mutual 
 enterprise, in which I see in you such excellent 
 desire after excellence, and shall be ready within 
 the prescribed limits and times, any time at a 
 day's notice." 
 
 The two had many discussions, the artist in 
 vain trying to open the eyes of the great prophet 
 to the value of art outside the historical record 
 in a portrait. Signor liked to tell his friends 
 the opinion he gave him upon the works of 
 Pheidias, and it has therefore become common 
 property. Carlyle had been to see the Elgin 
 Marbles, and stated that there was not one 
 clever man amongst them, the jaw was not 
 sufficiently prominent ; and, he added, " depend 
 upon it neither God nor man can get on with- 
 out a jaw." He thought the long upper lip 
 was a sign of intellect, though his opponent 
 could quote Napoleon, and Byron, and Carlyle's 
 hero Goethe, as being remarkable for the beauty 
 of a very short one. He did not find in the 
 
 249
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 frieze or any fragment from the Parthenon 
 what he called " a clever man amongst them 
 all, and I would away with them," he said, 
 " away with them — into space." They also 
 differed as to whether the brown eye or grey 
 eye denoted the man of action, Carlyle main- 
 taining that the brown eye belonged of necessity 
 to the active temperament and the grey eye to 
 the contemplative. Signor, denying this, could 
 quote Guizot, who had seen Napoleon I. in 
 Switzerland, and had told him he could never 
 forget the steel-coldness of his eye. Carlyle 
 sends a copy of an extract at the end of which 
 he writes : " Mahomet's eyes were large, black, 
 and full of fire (Biographie Umverse//e, tome 
 26, p. 206, by Silvester de Lacy). For its 
 excellence and clearness, from which you might 
 paint, I have had the whole description copied 
 for you, and send it revised with my compli- 
 ments. — T. Carlyle, Chelsea, June 18th, 1867." 
 In accordance with the regret he had ex- 
 pressed to the Commissioners then considering 
 the state of the Royal Academy, that archi- 
 tecture, sculpture, and painting had ceased to 
 be looked upon as one, and that artists were 
 therefore in the habit of keeping exclusively 
 to one branch, he was devoting himself more 
 than ever to the study of sculpture, the adapta- 
 tion of painting to architecture being denied 
 to him. About 1867, for the larger work he 
 had in hand, he felt the necessity of a sculptor's 
 studio ; and, on obtaining permission from Lady 
 
 250
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Holland to build this, he found with some 
 alarm that there was no written promise to 
 Mr. Prinsep that his lease — expiring in 
 December 1871 — would be extended. Signor 
 therefore begged Lady Holland to allow him 
 to enter into an agreement for an extension of 
 ten years at any rental she might like to ask, 
 the lease to be in his name ; but she was then 
 quite sure that she would never wish to make 
 changes during her life, and seemed rather to 
 smile at the idea that legal arrangements were 
 necessary between them. The sculpture studio 
 was therefore built, and there the Condover 
 memorial was modelled. Four years later 
 (1871) he was at work upon a memorial to 
 Lord Lothian, for Blickling Church ; and in 
 correspondence with the Marquis of West- 
 minster about a great equestrian statue of Hugh 
 Lupus. While thinking of this group, he had 
 at the same time sketched out in his mind the 
 work he was anxious to make as great as might 
 be, the embodiment of physical energy. He 
 was therefore overwhelmed when he heard 
 that Lady Holland was being advised, for the 
 good of the estate, to sell off that part of Little 
 Holland House garden on which his sculpture 
 studio stood. To him it appeared to be the 
 destruction of all privacy, all beauty, and even 
 more : it seemed as if his hope of realising his 
 desire to do one great work was to be taken 
 from him. Being of nervous temperament, the 
 change appeared to be a calamity, for he now 
 
 251
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 realised that they had no guarantee that Little 
 Holland House would continue to be leased 
 to Mr. Prinsep after six months' time. So far 
 they had felt secure, as Lord Holland had 
 always given them to understand that he could 
 never be tempted to destroy Little Holland 
 House, the place being dear to him from old 
 association ; and Lady Holland, after his death, 
 had confirmed this view herself, both to the 
 Prinseps and to Signor. There was some 
 friction, Signor writing his views very plainly, 
 and believing that no money could compensate 
 for the loss to the property of this pleasant 
 old house with its fields and farm, so unique 
 in its situation now that Kensington had be- 
 come a part of London. To other arguments 
 he adds : " You know that from the very outset 
 of my career my one desire has been to prove 
 myself a true artist, studying and labouring hard, 
 in spite of want of health or means or encourage- 
 ment, with the direct object of contributing my 
 little — but my best — towards the enrichment 
 not only of the nation but of humanity in 
 general — aspirations perhaps in me ridiculous, 
 certainly not ignoble. All my way through, 
 clinging to this idea, I have abstained from 
 throwing myself into popular art, resigning 
 money-making (to the increase of my difficulties 
 in the present juncture), but have steadily 
 worked on, generally against discouragement, 
 endeavouring by severe labour to acquire know- 
 ledge and experience, making large designs 
 
 252
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 both in painting and sculpture with this great 
 end in view." The outcome of this corre- 
 spondence was nothing very definite ; Lady 
 Holland felt sure that she would not wish to 
 make any change, yet at the same time she 
 does not seem to have given any distinct 
 promise, with the result that, at the end of 
 the lease in 1871, the Prinseps became merely 
 tenants by the year. Meanwhile Signor had 
 bought some acres in the Isle of Wight, adjoin- 
 ing the Farringford property ; for on learning 
 that Lady Holland had received an offer for 
 the site of Little Holland House, amounting 
 to some forty thousand pounds, he told her 
 that he withdrew any kind of suggestion that 
 might " interfere with her prudential arrange- 
 ments " ; and he writes that " with any reference 
 to^the future, Little Holland House had," for 
 him, " practically ceased to exist." He ends 
 his letter, of which a copy exists, by telling her 
 that he is now going to devote his time to 
 painting portraits, with the object of making 
 money for the purpose of building new studios. 
 " Trouble and expense are before me," he writes, 
 " but the only real misery to me arises from loss 
 of time ; and I must hope to live long enough 
 to make that up. I have not spoken at all to 
 the Prinseps about this, and shall not do so : 
 the question of Little Holland House is now 
 entirely between you and them, and I sincerely 
 hope that with the removal of all difficulty 
 between us, there may be a removal of all 
 
 253
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 vexation. It would grieve me very much to 
 feel any coolness between so old a friend and 
 myself." The letter was addressed to St. Anne's 
 Hill, bearing the date of December 3, 1871. 
 
 Lady Holland, as I have already said, 
 granted a further extension by the year, and 
 for three more years the Prinseps were her 
 tenants. 
 
 It was in 1870 that the then Marquis of 
 Westminster first asked Signor to consider the 
 possibility of undertaking a big equestrian group 
 to represent in sculpture what he called his 
 mythical ancestor, Hugh Lupus (Le Gros 
 Veneur), to be placed in one of the courts at 
 Eaton Hall. Lord Westminster had at one time 
 spoken to Sir Edward Landseer on the subject, 
 but on referring again to this matter, Landseer 
 had definitely replied that he was already too 
 deeply engaged to venture on a fresh commission. 
 This left the ground clear, and the offer was 
 exceedingly agreeable to Signor, who writes : 
 " What I should wish would be to have the 
 materials and necessary aid provided and paid 
 for by an agent of yours, and would gladly 
 do my part for nothing, and think myself over- 
 paid by the chance of distinguishing myself." 
 Writing to Mr. Rickards, November 22, 1870, 
 he says : " I don't know where you saw an account 
 of the design for the equestrian statue ; it had 
 very little existence except in the poetical 
 imagination of the writer. All that is, is the 
 merest sketch on a very small scale, nothing to 
 
 2 54
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 photograph. I hope it will start into form with 
 the coming spring." The work was begun in 
 this way at old Little Holland House, and carried 
 on during 1873-74, though much disturbed by 
 the prospect of change, and by the necessity for 
 undertaking many portraits, that he might carry 
 out his desire to provide a home at Freshwater, 
 where he hoped his friend Mr. Prinsep 1 might 
 yet enjoy many years of life and repose. For 
 Signor himself, these early years of the 'seventies 
 were full of vexation. There was the certainty 
 that the home to which he had become attached 
 was so soon to be destroyed — an uprooting 
 peculiarly painful to his nature ; and the new 
 venture required money, which could only be 
 made with anything like certainty by painting 
 portraits. Of this he writes to Mr. Rickards : 
 " No one can imagine the intense weariness of 
 my existence as a portrait painter." It was 
 really more than weariness ; he was often 
 prostrated by nervousness before the arrival of 
 some new sitter ; and, as he once said to me, 
 " No one knows what it costs me, and yet when 
 I take people's cheques, I feel as if I were 
 cheating them." He had not quite completed 
 the monument of the Bishop of Lichfield, nor 
 was the statue of Lord Holland's father, 2 made 
 more or less in conjunction with Mr. Boehm, 
 
 1 Mr. Prinsep had suffered from various causes a considerable loss of 
 fortune, the first of these causes being a contested election for a seat in 
 Parliament, which threw unexpected expense upon him. 
 
 2 In the park at Holland House ; behind the fountain in High Street, 
 which was the work of Sir Edgar Boehm. 
 
 255
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 yet out of hand; and he writes in June 1870 
 to say he was " too much overworked by the 
 necessity of finishing sculpture I have on hand 
 before the clay falls to pieces. I always get to 
 work soon after 5 a.m. and work all day, so you 
 may suppose I am rather done up, which is the 
 reason I have not answered your letter." The 
 Hugh Lupus he intended to be simply decorative 
 with some suggestion of a time when violence 
 and force were characteristic. 
 
 The Duke took great interest in the progress 
 of the work, and wrote many letters referring 
 Mr. Watts to the pattern of spurs, or of the 
 actual sword supposed to belong to he Gros 
 Veneur preserved at the British Museum, and he 
 sent to Normandy for a perfect specimen of a 
 horse — the Normandy Percheron. It was brought 
 over to Cliveden to be at Signor's service when he 
 required it, and was photographed in the garden 
 at Little Holland House. This statue was 
 taken to the foundry at Thames Ditton in 1883. 
 It took nine months to cast and was delivered 
 at Eaton Hall in September 1884. The original 
 work of the artist (in gesso grosso) was presented 
 to the collection of casts at the Crystal Palace 
 by the Duke of Westminster. 
 
 While working out the small sketch the 
 thought occurred to him that on the same scale 
 he would some day allow himself to design a 
 group, untrammelled by costume or period ; and 
 almost simultaneously he made sketches for the 
 " Physical Energy," which was eventually to be 
 
 256
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 worked at during the fine weather, as the work 
 was done out of doors. Dauntless as always in 
 the tasks he set himself, he now proposed to 
 undertake his diploma picture, and on December 
 31, 1870, he says: "I am now about to 
 paint for the Royal Academy a picture contain- 
 ing six or seven life-sized figures " ; and this 
 picture was completed and exhibited in the May 
 following. As he never devoted himself ex- 
 clusively to any one picture, believing that it 
 was better for hand and eye to be kept alert 
 and awake by turning from one train of thought 
 and its artistic expression to quite another, and 
 yet another successively, it was an unusual feat 
 for him to have carried out so large a design 
 in such a very short time. The picture, hanging 
 as it does in the little-visited Diploma Gallery, 
 is not well known. During the exhibition of 
 1 872 the effect of the work was so far neutralised 
 by the strong contrasts beside it that in con- 
 sequence he asked permission of the Council to 
 be allowed to work upon the picture after the 
 exhibition had closed, and arriving there one 
 day with his materials for work, the Royal 
 Academy porter, who carried these for him, on 
 entering the now empty gallery, stopped short 
 in surprise and exclaimed, " Why, sir, it's a 
 different picture " ; and Signor found that there 
 was nothing he wished to change. This picture 
 awaits the judgment of time. The name in the 
 catalogue was "My Punishment is greater than I 
 can bear " — later known as the " Denunciation of 
 
 VOL. I 257 S
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Cain" ; it is one of the fragments of the " House 
 of Life." In his mind a sort of epic grew up 
 about this early record of a crime, the brother's 
 hand against a brother. He believed it to be a 
 subject for a great cantata, and now and again 
 tried to give shape to it in words ; but nothing he 
 wrote seemed to him adequate, and these remain 
 only in fragmentary notes. In speaking of it, 
 he once outlined the general idea in this way : — 
 " If I were a poet and musician like Wagner, 
 I could make a fine cantata or oratorio of the 
 subject. The first act would be to describe the 
 innocence of the two brothers in their boyhood, 
 the first shadow of the stain in the character of 
 Cain just indicated ; then, as the story grew, to 
 mark the widening difference between them — 
 the angelic guilelessness of Abel and the darken- 
 ing of Cain's heart through the sin of jealousy, 
 the ever-increasing desire to make himself greater 
 than Abel ending in the madness of his wrath 
 and the murder of Abel. The denouncing 
 spirits, as I have painted them, represent the 
 voices of conscience reproaching him with the 
 many sins that culminated in the murder. The 
 brand is set upon him ; he is shut out from con- 
 tact with all creation ; he has closed the avenue 
 of sympathy with his fellow-men ; as he decides 
 that they shall be unknown to him he becomes 
 unknown to them. 1 The brand, forbidding 
 human vengeance ('No man may slay him'), 
 
 1 I am reminded by this description that the isolation of Cain was in 
 the painter's mind the retribution that follows upon the sin of selfishness. 
 
 258
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 constitutes the most terrible part of his punish- 
 ment ; he is driven out from all contact with 
 created things — unseen, unacknowledged, un- 
 known. Not only are his fellow-men unconscious 
 of his presence, but all animate nature has cast 
 him out : no bird or living creature acknowledges 
 his being. For him no bird sings, no flower 
 blooms, evil passions haunt and follow him, 
 making discords in his ear ; but all the while, 
 one voice, as of an angel, is heard, and more and 
 more prevails, until worn and weary nature can 
 bear no more, and, surrendering to the Voice, he 
 returns to Abel's altar, there to give himself up 
 a sacrifice ; and there the angel removes the 
 curse and he dies forgiven. I should have 
 liked to have made a sort of psychological study 
 of it all, not only of Cain and of Abel, but of 
 the human beings who passed by Cain during 
 his term of isolation." Carrying on the theme 
 in his mind during several years, he painted a 
 second picture called the " Death of Cain," not 
 exhibited until 1886. The Angel in this design 
 is seen removing the curse, and to a corre- 
 spondent on this subject — Mr. Edward Butler — 
 to whom the picture had suggested a poem in 
 blank verse, he writes : — 
 
 "May z$tA, 1886, 
 " Kensington, W. 
 
 " Dear Sir — I am much gratified by your 
 poetic illustration of my picture, ' The Death of 
 
 He sometimes spoke of it as the only sin that might be called " the un- 
 pardonable," because, when carried to the utmost limit, it must entail the 
 death of love, the most vitalising of all human instincts. 
 
 2 59
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Cain.' You have exactly rendered my intention, 
 very nobly and beautifully. The picture is one 
 of a series illustrating a sketched-out poem of 
 my own. Cain is, in my intention, a symbol of 
 reckless, selfish humanity (always killing his 
 brother). I intend simply that the sacrifice is 
 accepted. The flaming angel sweeps away the 
 cloud which represents the brand. I am much 
 pleased that you felt so distinctly the return to 
 the deserted altar. — Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " G. F. Watts. 
 
 " Edward Butler, Esq." 
 
 In a subsequent letter Mr. Watts adds : " I 
 identify myself and my work with no especial 
 dogma. I think there may be as much of Cain 
 in sitting on one's own altar, and choosing one's 
 form of sacrifice, as in making none at all. Cain 
 is in the grasping of riches to the hurt of others, 
 or in indifference to others ; in the building of 
 houses unfit for dwelling in ; in the polluting of 
 streams without regret ; in short, in the absence 
 of sympathy with the weaknesses of our fellows ; 
 and there is need to return to the deserted altar 
 of sympathy before the cloud of unhappiness 
 and gloom that hangs over all life can be swept 
 
 away." 
 
 Pictures such as these, he knew very well, 
 could no more make an appeal to the mind of 
 visitors to the summer exhibition than could a 
 chapter of Isaiah read in the midst of a company 
 at some ordinary afternoon party in modern 
 
 260
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 London ; and to this want of concord was added 
 the necessarily destructive effect upon a painting 
 low in tone and subtle in drawing, of conflicting 
 colours, and the dazzle of upright and level lines 
 of new gilding. It was, however, the message 
 which he had come to bring, and he had to 
 give it. The sympathy of a few friends was 
 meanwhile a solace to him, and amongst these 
 some two or three Manchester merchants were 
 foremost. 
 
 Mr. Richard Johnson at this time had ex- 
 pressed a wish to obtain from him the painting, 
 then incomplete, which was afterwards named 
 " She shall be called Woman." Of this Signor 
 writes to Mr. Rickards : — 
 
 " With regard to the proposition, I hardly 
 know what to say. In the first place, Mr. 
 Johnson has not seen the picture, which is a 
 large one — seven feet high — though narrow, 
 and he can scarcely have space for it in his 
 house ; secondly, it is a perfectly naked figure, 
 and though I hope my endeavour to render 
 it perfectly unobjectionable on that score has 
 not been wholly unsuccessful, still, such sub- 
 jects are more fit for a gallery than a dwelling- 
 house, and one could not expect a household 
 that has not been brought up in familiarity with 
 this class of work to escape being shocked. 
 
 "Thus far, you see, I am thinking of Mr. 
 Johnson, and am anxious he should not feel like 
 the man who came into possession of a white 
 elephant. Now, as for what concerns myself, 
 
 261
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 these designs — Eve in the glory of her innocence, 
 Eve yielding to temptation, and Eve restored to 
 beauty and nobility by remorse — form part of 
 one design and can hardly be separated, any 
 more than one would think of separating the 
 parts of an epic poem. My intention was to 
 make them part of an epic, and they belong to 
 a series of six pictures illustrating the story in 
 Genesis, viz. the three Eves — ' The Creation of 
 Eve,' ' After the Transgression,' and ' Cain ' — 
 three single figures, and three full compositions. 
 These I always destined to be public property, 
 and if I could afford to do so I would paint them 
 and present them to Manchester. Such hope 
 have I of Manchester from my knowledge of 
 yourself, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Barlow, all caring 
 for art in the highest sense, and sympathising 
 with efforts that meet with very little popular 
 encouragement. But I don't suppose it will 
 ever be in my power to carry out such an 
 intention." 
 
 From this letter it is evident that the hope 
 of having the means given to him to create the 
 great epic of life, and story of mankind, had 
 been entirely given up ; and that the scheme 
 which was in some measure to take its place — 
 his gift of pictures to the nation of a certain 
 class of subject — had been decided upon, though 
 not their final destination. The want of general 
 sympathy with this object was very bitter to 
 him, though it did not embitter him. Like 
 the young knight in " The Court of Death," he 
 
 262
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 accepted with bowed head the verdict, laid 
 down his dearest hope, and went on to work 
 upon that which was left to him. He wrote 
 of this, in a note perhaps only meant for his 
 own eye : " I feel as some athletic man who, 
 awaking from a fever, finds himself reduced to 
 half the strength of infancy ; as Samson might 
 have felt, when shaking off his lethargy, and 
 shorn of his locks feels the wonderment of 
 strangeness, the despair of weakness." 
 
 He would at any rate enter into and do 
 something to forward his friend Mr. Ruskin's 
 lofty ideals. St. George's Guild was in the 
 making, and he proposed to help him in this 
 matter. " I hope you fully understand that I 
 intend to join you in your scheme, though I am 
 not sure it will result in any practical success. 
 I know nothing about that, perhaps it is entirely 
 Utopian. I don't care, it is a protest against 
 Mammon-worship, and the giving up of every- 
 thing in the desire to ' get on ' — characteristics 
 of the age I cannot but deplore. Whilst I 
 perceive that they are natural, at least I wish to 
 add my name to the list of those who think that 
 humanity, and even society, is capable of better 
 objects. The assistance I can lend you will be 
 but very little indeed, and I offer it only as a 
 proof of sympathy. The tenth of my earnings 
 I will give yearly, but that will amount to very 
 little, for my professional (labours) are not valued 
 in the market ; and, after having worked indeed 
 very earnestly for five-and-twenty years, I have 
 
 263
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 not succeeded in realising enough to give me — 
 after satisfying just claims — if I should be from 
 accident unable to work, £50 a year. But that 
 need not be thought of while I can work. I 
 do not complain, I do not know that I even feel 
 disappointed. The fault is mine, no doubt. If 
 I had possessed real power, I should have com- 
 manded success. The only thing that some- 
 times crosses my mind is that some of the many 
 with worth and influence whom I have known, 
 and who have professed to believe in my capacity, 
 and in the direction of my aim, might have 
 shown without material difficulty the material 
 sympathy without which I have failed to carry 
 out my aspirations." 
 
 To this letter Mr. Ruskin replies : — 
 
 " Denmark Hill, 
 '■'■May \oth, 1871. 
 
 " My dear Watts — I am deeply grateful for 
 your letter. You can, of course, help us in all the 
 best and most noble ways. I do not move in 
 any wise until next year, when my purpose will 
 be completely laid before all who care to know 
 it. I will then hope that you will consider of 
 it deliberately before giving it the sanction of 
 your name. I would fain have no man regret 
 joining hand with me. — Ever affectionately 
 yours, J. Ruskin." 
 
 During the lamentably short career as an artist 
 of George Mason, Signor became greatly attached 
 
 264
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to him. He lent him at one time a studio at 
 Little Holland House, and there, I think I 
 am right in saying, the " Harvest Moon " was 
 painted. I know he told me that he had seen 
 that moon travel from one end of the picture to 
 the other, and finally go back to its original 
 place in the design. He said that there were 
 quite six pictures on that canvas. The artist 
 Frederick Walker was a very constant visitor at 
 old Little Holland House, and Signor spoke of 
 the attractive qualities of his nature. He liked 
 to recall that when the picture " Man goeth 
 forth to his Labour unto the Evening ' came 
 before the Hanging Committee at the Academy 
 not one word was spoken, but a burst of 
 spontaneous applause was given to it by every 
 member clapping his hands. I remember one 
 morning as we walked down the village street 
 of Compton (Surrey), the splendid figure of a 
 young countryman went along before us, and 
 Signor exclaimed, " How like Walker ! and yet 
 critics objected to his ploughman because they 
 said it was too like a Greek statue in modern 
 clothes." He pointed out, however, that there 
 is a possibility of a scientific arrangement of line 
 becoming too apparent, and in the avoidance of 
 this Jean Francois Millet went further than 
 Frederick Walker. 
 
 The building of the new home at Freshwater 
 in the Isle of Wight began in the summer of 
 1872. The attraction to that place was that 
 both Farringford and Mrs. Cameron's house 
 
 265
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 were in the near neighbourhood, also that the 
 climate of the Isle of Wight was mild, and 
 certainly in May the untouched, unbevillaed 
 country of the Isle of Wight was a paradise of 
 beauty. To make money for the building he 
 set himself to the unwelcome task of painting 
 portraits professionally, writing that it is " an 
 occupation as distasteful to me as any exercise 
 of my profession can be." He made engage- 
 ments sometimes with three sitters in one day, 
 the consequence being that later he was much 
 knocked up and went to Brighton for some 
 weeks to recruit. He was, however, unfortunate 
 enough to have a bad kick on his shin from a 
 horse the first day he happened to be out with 
 the Brighton Harriers, and so was laid up for 
 some time, the pain and confinement to his 
 room obliging him, as he writes, to spend 
 " much time being ill and getting well." It 
 was here, and now, that he took upon himself 
 the guardianship of a little orphan girl. It so 
 happened that a young widow, a great-niece of 
 Mrs. Prinsep's, had died quite suddenly, leaving 
 several little children, and, being at Brighton, 
 they were brought to see the Prinseps. They 
 had not been very long in the room when the 
 youngest — a tiny thing to wear so black a frock 
 — made her way to Signor's side, found him to 
 her liking, jumped upon his knee, and so into 
 his heart. She came to live at Little Holland 
 House under Mrs. Prinsep's care, but she was 
 
 to be his little Blanche. 
 
 266
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 A year or two before this time the volume 
 of poems written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 
 had been published. These poems placed 
 Rossetti, in Signor's estimation, amongst the 
 greatest of our English poets. To him the 
 poet Rossetti stood higher than the painter. 
 
 It appears to be doubtful whether Rossetti 
 knew, or did not know, that it was Signor's 
 intention to paint for the National Collection 
 the portrait for which, soon after the appearance 
 of the poems, he was asked to give sittings, 
 though the portrait was certainly painted with 
 this view. It is quite possible that Signor 
 forgot to mention its destination, or if he did 
 mention it, that the poet had forgotten this 
 in 1875, when he wrote asking if he might 
 have it in exchange for a crayon drawing, un- 
 named, but labelled, " Drawn in Chalk by Dante 
 G. Rossetti, 1874." 
 
 It was in fact straining generosity to break- 
 ing point, and possibly Rossetti afterwards 
 recognised this, when he wrote his thanks for 
 the gift. 
 
 " 16 Cheyne Walk, 
 u z6th August 1875. 
 
 " My dear Watts — You must have thought 
 me very ungrateful in not having written again 
 till now. 
 
 " On seeing the portrait anew, I really felt 
 that I had asked too much of you. I re- 
 membered it only as a beginning, and had no 
 idea that it was so happy and brilliant an 
 
 267
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 example of your work, or a framed picture so 
 near completion. In proposing the exchange 
 I wished for it in order to make a present, 
 having always found it impracticable to paint 
 my own portrait. Were it not for this I must 
 in conscience have offered it you back again, 
 seeing the utter inequality of the exchange as 
 it stands ; but things being thus, I will instead 
 beg your acceptance of some further memento 
 of my work, such as it is, when I have any- 
 thing worthy of you at disposal. 
 
 " I feel sincerely that I have unduly taxed 
 your friendly feeling, and that you have re- 
 sponded as few would have done. 
 
 " You know how glad I should be to see you 
 here any time, but I am well aware that you 
 are little more given up to visits than myself. 
 Moreover, I am not an early riser, and after- 
 noons are of course precious with you. I will 
 hope to see your own works one day yet. — Ever 
 yours sincerely, D. G. Rossetti." 
 
 To which the reply was : — 
 
 " My dear Rossetti — It gives me infinite 
 pleasure to find that you like the picture. We 
 will not bandy compliments or I might tell 
 you how much I value your drawing. I cannot 
 think you indebted to me and should be very 
 unwilling to take anything more from you in 
 return ; that would be to rob you of your time 
 and labour, a very unjustifiable sort of proceed- 
 
 268
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 ing, though of course I should like to possess 
 any number of your works. 
 
 " I hope you are working, and when I am 
 settled shall make an effort to come and see 
 you ; meantime I am obliged to you for giving 
 me the opportunity of affording you pleasure. — 
 Yours very sincerely, G. F. Watts." 
 
 A mutual friend once told him that Rossetti's 
 reason for asking for the portrait was that a 
 great dislike for it had so grown up in his 
 mind that he wanted it to destroy it ; but, on 
 seeing it, he was greatly surprised to find that it 
 was so fine a portrait. What truth there is in 
 this story I cannot say, and the letter quoted 
 gives a different version. 
 
 The picture, after Rossetti's death, came into 
 the possession of Mr. Frederick Leyland ; it 
 was said that he bought it from a pawnbroker. 
 My husband, deeply regretting that his collec- 
 tion was without that portrait, got permission 
 from Mr. Leyland to make a replica by his 
 own hand. 
 
 Of the two paintings, Mr. William Rossetti, 
 brother of the artist, wrote to Mr. Watts in 
 1892: "Will you allow me to express my 
 thanks to you for that very beautiful portrait 
 of my brother ? I looked on it long with deep 
 interest and satisfaction. It will continue to 
 long distant years to represent my brother to 
 his countrymen in the most advantageous light, 
 and a truthful one too. Certainly in that 
 
 269
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Victorian Exhibition you have made my brother 
 shine forth pre-eminently among his con- 
 temporaries, both for aspect of genius and for 
 those attractive qualities of person which one 
 is glad to associate with mental superiority. I 
 think the original exceeds (as was natural under 
 the circumstances affecting the two cases) in 
 the look of personal presence and activity : on 
 the other hand, I think that the duplicate 
 exceeds in suavity of expression, and in the 
 sort of beauty which accompanies this, and it 
 is not less of a definite likeness." 
 
 Not many years later, when the Leyland 
 collection of pictures was in Christie's auction 
 rooms, Mr. Woods was told the story of this 
 portrait, and was asked to mention how it had 
 strayed from Mr. Watts's possession. Perhaps 
 in consequence of this, Mr. James Smith (of 
 Blundell Sands) bid for the picture, and, be- 
 coming its possessor, subsequently kindly allowed 
 Signor to exchange it for another work. And 
 so the original picture was restored to the 
 collection at Little Holland House, and is now 
 in the National Portrait Gallery. At the 
 memorial exhibition of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 
 paintings at Burlington House in 1883, this 
 portrait was on an easel ; and, surrounded by all 
 the mystic poetry of Rossetti's imagination, it 
 was found to be not less subtle or mystic, 
 although but a literal record of a man, and so 
 belonging also to the prose of everyday. The 
 poet in Rossetti was what the painter wished to 
 
 270
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 honour, and to the presence of a poet in this 
 portrait he endeavoured to bring the spectator. 
 As I (and that not seldom) read to him from 
 " The House of Life," from " The Rose Mary," 
 or from " Hand and Soul," he listened with ever- 
 increasing admiration. He placed the sonnet 
 called " Lost Days " beside the very greatest in 
 the English language. He liked to talk of him 
 with old and intimate friends, such as Mr. 
 Watts-Dunton and Mr. Frederick Shields, and 
 I can never forget the emphasis laid by the 
 saintly Mr. Shields upon these words : " Depend 
 upon it, Rossetti had a very holy mind." And 
 that marvellous bit of a poet's prose, " Hand and 
 Soul," witnesses to this. 
 
 Signor saw very little of Rossetti during 
 these later years ; his own habit of keeping 
 within his studio walls and Rossetti's failing 
 health led naturally to this ; but there was no 
 sort of breach between them. When Rossetti 
 was younger, and perhaps less occupied with 
 work, he came often to Little Holland House. 
 Later, these visits were less frequent, and in 
 1868 Signor writes to him : " I have been con- 
 stantly on the point of going to see you, as I am 
 always anxious to know what you are doing, but 
 you and I are not good at visiting." And the 
 following year he says : " I don't ask you to 
 come and see what I have for exhibition, I 
 always dislike the whole thing, and am disgusted 
 with my work ; however, if you should be out 
 this way, I need not say, ' Pray, walk up and see 
 
 271
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the gems ! ' " He never met Mrs. Rossetti 
 (Miss Siddall), about whom in a postscript of a 
 letter from Mr. Ruskin to Signor I find these 
 lines : " Yes, Rossetti's a great great fellow, 
 and his wife is as charming as the reflection of 
 a golden mountain in a crystal lake, which is 
 what she is to him." 
 
 " I wish I had seen her," Signor once said to 
 me. " I told Rossetti that I was sorry I had not 
 met his wife, and he answered, ' Oh, come and 
 dine. I will write to you.' Sometime after- 
 wards he wrote : " I did write to ask you to 
 dinner, but as you did not come I thought the 
 letter had miscarried, and I was partly confirmed 
 in that impression by rinding it in my pocket." 
 
 One of the saddest stories in the annals of Art 
 was told to Signor by Rossetti. An elderly 
 man once came to see him, and bringing speci- 
 mens of his paintings and drawings with him, 
 had begged Rossetti to give him a candid 
 opinion upon them as to whether they were 
 worthless or not. Rossetti looked at them care- 
 fully, wondering how he could break to the 
 poor man the fact that there was nothing good 
 in them whatever, and eventually he gave him 
 to understand this as kindly as he could. The 
 man then drew out from under his coat another 
 collection of drawings, and spread them out 
 before Rossetti, telling him that they were the 
 work of a young student. Rossetti was delighted, 
 exclaiming that they showed remarkable talent, 
 and that there was every reason to believe that 
 
 272
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the young student would distinguish himself. 
 " Ah, sir," said the poor man, " I was that 
 student." The letters from Rossetti to Signor 
 are evidence of his wish to be of use to younger 
 men ; each one is written with the object of 
 serving some one, and he applies to Signor to 
 lend a helping hand. 
 
 In March 1873 the portrait of John Stuart 
 Mill was painted. The undertaking of this was 
 the outcome of conversations with Sir Charles 
 Dilke, while painting his portrait and that of 
 Lady Dilke, in the early months of the year. 
 Mr. Mill wrote to Sir Charles : "I hardly know 
 how to answer your very kind and flattering 
 proposal regarding a portrait. I have hitherto 
 disliked having my portrait taken, but I am 
 unwilling to refuse the high compliment paid 
 me by Mr. Watts and yourself; and if sittings 
 can be arranged within the limited time of my 
 stay in London, I shall be happy to make an 
 appointment." Miss Helen Taylor, his step- 
 daughter, had also urged him to consent to Sir 
 Charles's request. Of the first appointment 
 Signor writes on March 17: "Mr. Mill is to 
 come to-morrow to give me a sitting." As 
 this is the only portrait for which Mr. Mill 
 ever sat, it may be reckoned amongst the most 
 fortunate accidents of the artist's career that he 
 succeeded in painting what must be called one 
 of his most subtle delineations of character. 
 
 During these sittings Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett 
 came to see the portrait, and I think then first 
 vol. 1 273 T
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 made acquaintance with Signor. Mrs. Fawcett 
 tells me that Signor seized that characteristic of 
 Mill which gave the impression of his great 
 refinement and delicacy. I remember that my 
 husband found himself entirely in agreement 
 with Mr. Mill when he said that the real 
 change required for social reformation is a 
 change of character. He found his sitter sur- 
 prisingly sympathetic ; sensitive to all that was 
 beautiful in form and poetic in thought. 
 
 Mr. Mill left for France early in April and 
 died at Avignon on May 8. Signor was able 
 to make a replica of the portrait for the 
 National Collection, and was so far satisfied 
 with this that he doubted whether the replica 
 did not surpass the original. Sir Charles, how- 
 ever, preferred to purchase the original portrait, 
 and this is now, by his bequest, the property of 
 the City of Westminster. The duplicate is in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. Later, Signor made 
 yet another. It was not to be expected that the 
 level could be sustained, and this replica — cer- 
 tainly in Sir Charles Dilke's opinion — lacked 
 some of the inspiration in the other two paintings. 
 
 The picture was etched by Rajon, at Sir 
 Charles's desire ; and of this Signor writes, 
 when he sends the original portrait and replica 
 for inspection : — 
 
 '■'August z%th, 1873, 
 " Little Holland House. 
 
 " Dear Sir Charles — I send you the two 
 pictures and the photograph. I am told that 
 
 274
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 it would be best to have the picture etched, and 
 that there are some French engravers who would 
 do it very well. I think Mr. Stephens would 
 be able to give information on the subject. I 
 know little or nothing about such matters. — 
 Yours very truly, G. F. Watts. 
 
 " P.S. — I believe according to law it is 
 necessary to mention that the copyright of a 
 picture is, or is not, disposed of with it, and in 
 parting with my portrait of Mr. Mill I must 
 reserve the copyright." 
 
 To Miss Helen Taylor Sir Charles very 
 generously offered to give the picture, but she 
 would not accept this for herself, and, writing 
 from abroad, suggests that she should be allowed 
 to ask Mr. Watts to make a replica for her to 
 give to the nation, but the painter had already 
 forestalled her wish. 
 
 He makes an allusion to the sittings, under 
 the date of March 28, 1873, in writing to 
 Mr. Rickards of Mr. Johnson's wish to possess 
 the picture he afterwards called " Chaos " : 
 " Without reference to the success or failure of 
 my work as a painting, I feel sure that Mr. 
 Johnson will gain no small credit for the proof 
 given of sympathy with endeavours to give 
 utterance to the highest qualities of art, as such 
 sympathy is very rare in England, even where 
 it might be expected to exist. 
 
 " Yesterday I told one of our most profound 
 
 275
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 thinkers and most influential amongst our in- 
 fluential men (referring to yourself and Mr. 
 Johnson) that from Manchester and commerce 
 I had received encouragement to carry out those 
 abstract views which he to my satisfaction was 
 rinding full of interest — I had failed to receive 
 from those whose inherited position, whose 
 education, wealth, and leisure, constituted the 
 natural fosterers of the noblest aspirations in 
 Art ; he was surprised." 
 
 During these later years, both Mr. and 
 Mrs. Prinsep were more or less invalids. The 
 hospitality at Little Holland House could not 
 be offered in the same liberal way, and Mr. 
 Watts's life continued to be one of arduous 
 devotion to work, his ride every morning for 
 health's sake being the only interruption per- 
 mitted. His companion on these rides was, 
 more often than not, Mr. Prinsep's niece, May 
 Prinsep, whose home from childhood had been 
 at Little Holland House, and who now a grown- 
 up young lady was going out in London. Old 
 and young friends joined them, and the ride in 
 the Park made a pleasant hour in the day of 
 work. It was now that he saw something of 
 Mr. and Mrs. George Lewes, and would have 
 painted " George Eliot " for the National Collec- 
 tion ; but he knew that the features belonged 
 to a type he would have found most difficult ; 
 and afraid of not doing the great mind justice, 
 he did not venture to make the attempt. 
 
 To her he writes, thanking for her apprecia- 
 
 276
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 tion of his " Clytie " : "I would pay my respects 
 to you and Mr. Lewes, but I am a wretched 
 creature, and dare not go out in the evening, 
 or even in the daytime, unless the weather is 
 perfect ; then every moment is required for work. 
 But if — kindly overlooking the apparent want 
 of respect due to you and Mr. Lewes — you 
 would sometimes give me your opinion of 
 things scattered about in my studio, it could not 
 but be of great service to me. I aim at what 
 is beyond me, and, in a wholly unsympathetic 
 age, struggle with my half-formed conceptions ; 
 miserable in the consciousness of my incapacity. 
 You who can not only imagine but give perfect 
 form to your poetry, cannot fortunately realise 
 such a struggle with phantoms." When thank- 
 ing him for a cast of " Clytie " he had sent her, 
 she tells him that she had heard from Mr. 
 Rossetti that he had long been, and was still, 
 suffering from bad health, and adds : " That 
 experience is almost sure to include some sadness 
 and discouragement. Therefore when I tell you 
 that such conditions have made a large part of 
 my history, you will understand how keenly I 
 feel the help brought me by some proof that 
 anything I have done has made a place for me 
 in the mind which the world has good reason 
 to value ; and this strong proof from you 
 happens to come at a time when I especially 
 needed such cheering. The bust looks grander 
 in my eyes, now that I can turn to it from time 
 to time." 
 
 277
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 During the autumn of 1873, the new house 
 at Freshwater was finished ; but for Mr. and 
 Mrs. Prinsep, both being somewhat of invalids, 
 the dry air of Bournemouth was recommended, 
 and three months were spent there ; Signor also 
 recruiting after two strenuous years in which he 
 had been surpassing his usual record of work. 
 He was also glad to know that his companion- 
 ship was a solace and comfort to his friends. 
 
 I thought myself very fortunate at this time 
 to be with an elder sister at Bournemouth for a 
 week, and used to feel very shy and very proud, 
 when Mr. Watts came to see us, and took us 
 for a walk, or when we went to find him at 
 Trinity Lodge. I remember his pointing out 
 beauty in the bare branches of trees in villa 
 gardens, or perhaps in sky or sea ; but what I 
 remember most distinctly was the sense of being 
 in an unusual presence. This had not so much 
 to do with anything that he said, as it had to 
 do with that which he was. It gave me a 
 feeling of awe, and I was always grateful for his 
 patience, and wondered at his understanding of 
 a girl's stupid timidity. 
 
 From Trinity Lodge he writes to Mr. 
 Rickards, who had disappointed him by his 
 want of appreciation of the picture " The 
 Shadow of Death," by Holman Hunt : " With 
 regard to the intention of the work I do not feel 
 as you do ; I think the painter more than justified 
 in illustrating the historical side of his subject, 
 and there is something very touching in the 
 
 278
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 words, e He was subject to his parents.' I feel 
 also that there is much real religious poetry in 
 the allusion to the dignity of labour, and charm 
 in the idea conveyed of human love between 
 Mother and Son. As to my own picture ('The 
 Spirit of Christianity ') it is wholly different, and 
 not to be placed in the same category in any 
 way whatever. Mine is but the symbol of 
 compassionate tenderness. I take an idea that 
 may be accepted by all Christian Churches, and 
 even, I think, by the hardest philosophy which 
 will admit the divinity of love and charity, too 
 much forgotten, it appears to me, in all the 
 contributions to the controversy. I have not 
 time to write at any length, or endeavour to 
 express myself properly. I shall look forward 
 to showing you my picture, but I doubt if you 
 will find it satisfactory ; I don't think it can be 
 fairly called a religious picture, certainly not a 
 doctrinally religious picture." 
 
 The spring of 1874 found the Prinsep family 
 settled at the Briary, while Signor arranged to 
 remain one more year at Little Holland House. 
 Although at the Briary he had now built two 
 good studios, he soon realised when there how 
 difficult it would be for him to live so far from 
 London. Therefore his friend Mr. Frederick 
 Cockerell was preparing plans for a new house 
 on a piece of ground sub-let to him by Valentine 
 Prinsep, who had found his garden, and the 
 ground-rent he paid for this, too large. Lady 
 Holland, burdened by the management of the 
 
 279
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 property, had now made it over to her successor, 
 Lord Ilchester ; and with him, or his agent, 
 business arrangements had to be made. All such 
 matters troubled Signor greatly ; he had not the 
 faculty for business he so greatly admired in 
 Leighton, and with which even the poetic mind 
 of Dante Gabriel Rossetti seemed to have been 
 endowed. It fretted him when he had to give 
 up time from his work to such considerations, 
 and much now happened to thwart and annoy him. 
 The work of the memorial to Lord Lothian, 
 commissioned by Lady Lothian for the church at 
 Blickling, and a replica for Jedburgh Abbey were 
 in hand, as well as the Hugh Lupus for the 
 Duke of Westminster, and he felt more or less 
 paralysed by the thought of removing all this 
 work to a new studio. He had also undertaken, 
 on behalf of the Benchers, to paint a portrait of 
 the Prince of Wales, and was anxious that the 
 sittings should if possible be all at his own studio ; 
 but this was not found practicable, and he was 
 under the disadvantage of having at times to take 
 his work to Marlborough House, and so to paint 
 in different lights ; also of having to retouch 
 without the presence of the sitter, a thing he 
 never cared to do when painting from life. In 
 spite of these disadvantages, the sittings left a 
 pleasant impression. The considerate thought- 
 fulness of the Prince struck him much, and he 
 formed a very high estimate of his abilities, and 
 regretted that he had not long been given more 
 
 responsible work for the country. 
 
 280
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 There were frequent interruptions, and the 
 portrait of the Prince was not exhibited till 1882, 
 when it met with hostile criticism, which caused 
 him to withdraw the picture and beg the 
 Benchers to ask Mr. Frank Holl to paint the 
 Prince, at the same time returning their cheque. 
 Early in February (1875) he returned to Little 
 Holland House, believing that he should have 
 to leave it at Lady Day. However, so over- 
 whelming was the task of removing and rehous- 
 ing the great accumulation of work contained 
 in four studios, that it was found to be quite 
 impossible to arrange all in the time. He was 
 therefore fortunate in being able to obtain a 
 further lease of part of the old house, with his 
 studio, now surrounded by the debris of the half- 
 demolished walls, till the end of the following 
 August. He was working hard to finish his 
 large picture, the " Spirit of Christianity." 
 Certain discussions between Church and Church 
 had made him anxious to paint what to him was 
 the Life of the Life in all religion, and this 
 picture was shown at the summer Exhibition. 
 It suffered much from its surroundings, seeming 
 to him to be out of place ; but he writes : — 
 
 " I do not in my more thoughtful pictures 
 work expecting that the drift and higher qualities 
 of my aims will be discovered or cared for, as a 
 rule ; but, though I am not influenced by this 
 consideration, trusting to, and satisfied with, the 
 justice of time, the sympathy of a few minds is 
 always most encouraging, if only as proof that I 
 
 281
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 am not wholly deceiving myself with regard to 
 such aims ; therefore it is a great pleasure to me 
 to find the Bishop reading my imperfect work 
 aright. I was surprised to find that Ruskin 
 found something in the picture, 1 and though his 
 praise could hardly be called very cordial, or 
 unqualified, it was far more than I expected." 
 
 The large picture called the " Mid-day Rest " 
 had also to be completed. Some years before 
 (in 1863), the dray, the horses, and the carman 
 were lent as models to Signor through the 
 kindness of Mr. Charles Hanbury. Believing 
 that this particularly fine breed of horses would, 
 under the inevitable changes of time, practically 
 disappear, he had already approached a firm of 
 brewers, making known his wish to paint these 
 animals, and had politely asked the firm if they 
 could see their way to lend a pair to him for such 
 a purpose. For answer he had received a curt 
 refusal, with the information that the firm 
 required no such advertisement. On hearing 
 this Mr. Hanbury, anxious to vindicate the 
 honour of brewers, immediately wrote to assure 
 Signor that Messrs. Hanbury, Trueman, and Co. 
 would be proud to send him, at any time, the 
 finest specimen they could select of both carman 
 and horses. 
 
 Accordingly in Little Holland House garden 
 the picture was painted, a special arrangement 
 of temporary roofing being set up round the 
 
 1 In his criticism Mr. Ruskin admits that this picture " belongs to the 
 inevitable expression in each period of the character of its own faith." 
 
 282
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 canvases upon which he made the necessary 
 studies. 
 
 He had just completed the " Ariadne in 
 Naxos," and speaks of it as the most complete 
 picture he had ever painted. It was bought by 
 Mr. Rickards, but became better known in 
 London when, after his death, it came into the 
 possession of Lord Davey, who so generously 
 lent it to many exhibitions. A still better known 
 design was on his easel, and had been so for 
 some time : this was the first version of " Love 
 and Death " ; l it had been exhibited at the 
 Dudley Gallery in 1870, and at Manchester in 
 1874. On its return to his studio it was almost 
 repainted, and completed in July of this year. 
 He liked to send his pictures to exhibitions 
 before their final completion, and said he did 
 so purposely, as he thought he might learn 
 something by seeing them placed in what he 
 usually found to be unfavourable conditions. 
 In Manchester the picture had been greatly cared 
 for, some of his friends being most anxious that 
 it should be acquired for that town by public 
 subscription. In writing of this a friend had 
 called it " Love Restraining Death," and he 
 replies : " I hope it is not so called in the 
 catalogue. Love is not restraining Death, for 
 it cannot do so ; I wish to suggest the passionate 
 though unavailing struggle to avert the inevit- 
 able. 
 
 1 The canvas of this first picture measures 69 inches by 29 inches, and is 
 now in the Art Gallery of Bristol. 
 
 283
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 " You know my great desire to use such 
 talents as I may have, and such experience in 
 art as I have been able to acquire, with the 
 object of proving that art, like music and poetry, 
 may suggest the noblest and tenderest thoughts, 
 inspiring and awakening, if only for a time, the 
 highest sensibilities of our nature. If an in- 
 dividual feels, for five minutes, the best part of 
 his nature called into activity, he has been a 
 gainer ; and in this way I hope to deserve well 
 of my fellow human beings. Such designs as 
 ' Love and Death ' and the ' Angel of Death,' with 
 certain others, I hope to be able to paint and 
 present to public institutions at Manchester or 
 elsewhere ; wherever, in fact, I might feel they 
 would best perform their mission." At this 
 time he also writes : " I have about twelve to 
 fifteen very large pictures which it will be a great 
 point of conscience to paint, and I can only hope 
 to succeed by giving up the rest of my life to 
 them. When I get to work in my new studio 
 I shall be better able to judge. You may be 
 sure if I cannot undertake all you desire it will 
 not be for want of will but want of power." 
 
 284
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 285
 
 Art is a language. The habitual use of it 
 will create the impulse and power to express 
 ideas and thoughts. That Art which simply 
 says, " This is a flower" even though describing 
 accurately enough its form and line, is inferior 
 to the Art which, while showing these, becomes 
 an interpretation of the poetry of Nature. 
 
 G. F. WATTS. 
 
 286
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Some few years previous to this date (1875), 
 among the large canvases standing about in the 
 studio was one upon which had been made the 
 sketch of a life-sized horse, with its rider, a 
 mailed figure, standing by the bridle. The 
 knight had been painted from the convenient 
 model always at hand, even at 4 a.m. ; and as a 
 portrait it recalls very truly what Signor was in 
 1870. Despairing of ever carrying the whole 
 design further, he now had the canvas cut down, 
 the casque and plume of peacock's feathers were 
 added, and the picture of the knight passed into 
 the possession of Mr. Rickards, who named it 
 the " Eve of Peace." 
 
 Although this picture, as a portrait, conveys 
 the impression of a man of action, physically 
 stronger and bigger, and therefore does not 
 give the almost ethereal impression produced 
 by the painter's own aspect, it is otherwise very 
 much as he looked when I first saw him in 
 1870. 
 
 My people had been introduced to him in 
 1867. They were in London during May and 
 
 287
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 June, and Mrs. Cameron, who had been photo- 
 graphing my two elder sisters at Freshwater, 
 was urgent that they should be seen by her 
 " divine artist." 
 
 The letters describing their visit to Little 
 Holland House are connected, in my mind, with 
 twilight and scent of lovely May evenings in 
 the Inverness-shire highlands. The birch in 
 tiny leaf and the bog-myrtle we brushed through 
 made the air sweet when, after schoolroom tea, 
 my cousins, my younger sister and I, with our 
 respective governesses, all set out for a walk to 
 meet the postman, due between eight and nine 
 in the evening. I heard that Mrs. Prinsep, 
 though an invalid at the time, had received 
 them with her usual generous welcome. One 
 of my sisters sat beside her, and in her impulsive 
 way Mrs. Prinsep called to the painter, who was 
 present, to join in her expressions of admiration. 
 She drew his attention to her golden hair, which 
 she called "an aureole," much to the discomfiture 
 of her young visitor. My sister never forgot 
 the restrained and quiet rejoinder, which in- 
 stantly set her at her ease, " I am not going to 
 pay compliments. Young ladies do not like it." 
 
 As the next two years were, for us, chiefly 
 spent on the Continent, there was no opportunity 
 of being again at Little Holland House. It 
 was therefore not till 1870 that I first went 
 under its thatched porch, and waited in the 
 room of the blue ceiling till summoned to the 
 studio, to pass with a beating heart through a 
 
 288
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 red baize-covered door. There we read with 
 some feeling of awe a large label — " I must 
 beg not to be disturbed till after two o'clock " 
 — before it was pushed back, to swing again 
 heavily behind us ; the studio door opened, and 
 Signor came forward to meet us. By that date 
 we had become intimate with the great pictures 
 in the Dresden Gallery, going to it nearly every 
 day for nine months. We had spent days in 
 Venice and Florence, and a winter at Rome. 
 Now at all modern exhibitions I acknowledged 
 to myself that George Frederic Watts was the 
 painter of painters for me. 
 
 In 1870 the beard was only slightly touched 
 with grey, his hair quite brown, very fine in 
 quality, and brushed back from the forehead. 
 I do not recollect that I saw the picture of the 
 knight with bowed head now called the " Eve 
 of Peace." I remember the painter much more 
 distinctly than his work ; but he nevertheless 
 so distinctly suggested to me the days of chivalry 
 that I believe I should not have been surprised 
 if, on another visit, I had found him all clad in 
 shining armour. 
 
 From this time forward I received the 
 greatest kindness and help from him. His 
 patience with amateur work, his appreciation 
 of anything that was a natural expression in 
 any art, is so well known that nothing further 
 need be said. I was one of the many who 
 brought their efforts to show him, and who, 
 coming to learn something to enable them to 
 vol. 1 289 u
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 draw better, went away feeling they had also 
 learnt how to live better. 
 
 But again to take up the story, five years 
 later, from which an excursion backwards has 
 been made. 
 
 The last entry of rent for " a part of Little 
 Holland House ' shows that it was paid up 
 to August 31, 1875. He had then been able 
 to build what was always known as the Iron 
 House, or sometimes as the " Tin-pot " : a studio 
 in one corner of the new ground, where much 
 could be stored till the studios in the new 
 house were completed. There was provision 
 made on the original plan for an extra studio, 
 upon which Mr. Burne-Jones's name is written 
 as owner ; a pleasant proposition, made between 
 the two friends, but which was never realised. 
 Though two large canvases stood there for 
 many years, with certain designs upon them 
 by the hand of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, he 
 never painted there ; and the canvases were at 
 last claimed, and the partition between the two 
 studios, which had already been moved back 
 some twenty feet, was finally removed altogether, 
 and in the end only the two doors, side by 
 side, remained to show what had been intended. 
 
 It was now that his old friend, Mrs. Charles 
 Wylie, dismayed at the thought of the destruc- 
 tion of all the frescoes at Little Holland House, 
 asked him if she might try to remove them 
 from the walls. There was much correspond- 
 ence between them, he being reluctant to allow 
 
 290
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 her to undertake such a labour of love. But 
 as she insisted he consented ; and so, with two 
 workmen under her, she saved a great many 
 of these. 
 
 These decorations made a sort of frieze round 
 the room known as the upper dining-room, and 
 were also in the corridor of the old house. 
 They were packed in cases which naturally 
 were very cumbersome and had to be stored for 
 two or three years by a builder. On the death 
 of this man, they were sent to Mr. Watts in 
 Melbury Road. Later he gave them to Mrs. 
 Barrington, who has preserved them on the 
 walls of her house. 
 
 Mrs. Wylie had a considerable knowledge 
 of the methods employed by the old masters, 
 and possessed a fine artistic gift that, unfor- 
 tunately, her parents had not allowed her to 
 cultivate ; otherwise she would certainly have 
 made her mark. Her married life did not 
 leave her much opportunity for study, but a 
 copy she made for Signor of a portion of 
 Titian's " Bacchus and Ariadne," he liked to 
 keep constantly before his eyes ; and Sir 
 Frederick Burton, who, as Director of the 
 National Gallery, had seen so many fail in 
 their attempts to copy the picture, was amazed 
 when he first saw this copy and considered that 
 she had entirely mastered the quality of Titian's 
 colour. Signor liked to have her advice, and 
 often sought her help for the preparation of 
 canvases ; and she sometimes laid in work for 
 
 291
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 him in monochrome. She was a kind friend at 
 the time of the removal from the old house to 
 the new ; seeing that the pictures were removed 
 carefully, and later that they were preserved 
 from damp ; and to her he writes from the 
 Briary, September 22, 1875: — 
 
 " I cannot come up to town as soon as I 
 expected, being, besides other matters, again 
 immersed in drains, which I find equally un- 
 salubrious and expensive. I shall, however, 
 come as soon as I can, for I greatly wish to 
 see what has been done. I cannot thank you 
 enough for all the trouble you have taken ; do 
 pray let me know something about the expense. 
 I mean what it has actually cost you, for I 
 cannot think that you have been able to avoid 
 spending money. At least let me return this, 
 without delay ; this is most necessary to my 
 comfort. You do not tell me anything about 
 the extra studio, the walls of which I hope are 
 up by this time. I am very anxious to have 
 some detailed account." 
 
 And again, a month later, he says : — 
 " I have left off thanking you for the trouble 
 you so kindly take, and have taken. I will 
 ask you, if not inconvenient, to pay Tupper for 
 me ; if you will send me the account I will 
 send you a cheque. There are lots of things 
 you have paid for me ; do not let me get into 
 nasty little debts. I am so indolent about these 
 things that I am likely to find myself in certain 
 difficulties, if you allow me to go on forgetting. 
 
 292
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 We go on having wet weather here, and I am 
 beginning to be very anxious about the things 
 in the ' Tin-pot ' : please let me know if Conrad 
 is taking any active steps. I told him to give 
 you the key of the sculpture studio gallery. — 
 Yours most sincerely, G. F. Watts." 
 
 The saving of the frescoes having cost Mrs. 
 Wylie so much time and labour, Signor begged 
 her to accept them for her own studio ; but she, 
 knowing his ways, thought this was as usual 
 the too generous return he liked to make for 
 anything done for him, and refused to accept 
 the gift. 
 
 While at work at the old house, where during 
 its destruction she had to be every day, she was 
 called to see a charred beam in the upper dining- 
 room, and told me that a few more days of heat 
 from the kitchen fire, and the beam must have 
 been alight, — and the house with all its contents 
 in danger of being burnt to the ground. 
 
 The new Little Holland House, for he 
 transferred the name, was the first house built in 
 the Melbury Road. Mr. Cockerell, knowing of 
 the trouble at the Briary, took care there should 
 be no recurrence of it here, from mistakes or 
 carelessness on the builder's part. The work was 
 thoroughly well done ; and in November some 
 rooms were practically ready for his use ; but 
 that autumn and winter were spent by him at the 
 Briary. 
 
 Freshwater, even in winter, was never a 
 
 2 93
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 dull place. Interesting people came and went, 
 attracted by Farringford. Then life seemed to 
 hum like some big wheel round the Cameron 
 household, so that it was impossible for the place 
 to become sleepy. 
 
 One amusing Cameron episode Signor liked 
 to tell to his friends. A drive had been arranged 
 by Mrs. Cameron, who wished to take the Poet 
 Laureate, Mr. Prinsep, and Signor to see a newly 
 built house, and the view from it which she 
 admired. However, on arrival they found the 
 house was let to a German Count, who had no 
 wish to be invaded by strangers. But Mrs. 
 Cameron was not to be repulsed, she pleaded 
 with her usual eloquence, and at last they found 
 themselves in the presence of the Count. To 
 him she then introduced Mr. Tennyson as " the 
 greatest living poet," Mr. Prinsep as " our 
 greatest Indian Legislator," and Signor as " the 
 greatest living painter." But here the Count 
 had had enough, and felt that he must thus 
 protest : " I subscribe not to that opinion, also in 
 Germany very good painters we have." 
 
 It was not uncommon for Mrs. Cameron, after 
 taking a house by storm — camera in hand — to 
 succeed in captivating the owners entirely, and 
 making them life-long friends. This was the 
 case, I believe, with the Empress Frederic, when 
 she was Crown Princess of Germany. 
 
 Then the coming and going between the 
 Briary and Farringford was constant. A walk 
 down the broad green glade and up the pathway 
 
 294
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 through the " careless ordered garden ' being 
 a matter of some ten minutes' time from door 
 to door, walks over the downs with the Poet 
 Laureate, and his son Hallam, took the place 
 of rides ; for Signor's little mare, the friend of 
 so many years, was failing in her old age from 
 the feet upwards. She was turned out in the 
 paddock, and during one of her master's absences 
 in London showed such signs of feebleness that 
 before his return, and to avoid for him the pain 
 of giving the distinct order for this himself, she 
 was mercifully helped out of life. Writing to 
 Mr. Rickards on January 24, 1876, he speaks 
 of this loss : — 
 
 " You mention my intention of painting my 
 old and much valued thoroughbred mare ; few 
 things have shocked and grieved me more than 
 finding when I came here in the Autumn, her 
 place vacant, and being told it had been found 
 necessary to put her out of the world ; a friend 
 of twenty years, who had never in any sort of 
 manner deceived me, or refused to make any 
 effort I required, or failed in the attempt ! 
 Many a delightful day we have spent together, 
 the most delightful days of my life. If I had 
 painted her as I fully intended to do this last 
 Autumn, I do not think I should have parted 
 with the picture, but as it is one of the many 
 things that might have been, there is nothing 
 more to be said about it." 
 
 Many old friends were attracted to Freshwater 
 at this time, and Mrs. Nassau Senior had taken a 
 
 2 95
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 house at no great distance, her life of active work 
 brought to a full stop by illness ; — her friends 
 could not but be aware that she was slipping 
 gradually from them. Signor had but lately 
 painted the portrait of her only child, her son 
 Walter ; and this note, the last of a discussion as 
 to whether he or Miss Synnot — a friend of hers 
 — was to have the pleasure of giving it to her, 
 is characteristic both of the painter and of Mrs. 
 Nassau Senior. 
 
 " Colwall Bay Cottage, 
 "z%tk July 1875. 
 
 " My dear Signor — When I told Miss Synnot 
 that you positively refused to take any money for 
 the portrait of Walter, she was quite unhappy. 
 She said that she wanted to think that the most 
 precious thing I could have was her gift to me. 
 
 " I wanted her to take back the cheque, and she 
 would not ; she said that I was to spend it in 
 some present for you which would be of real use, 
 or else she should never feel that she had 
 given me Walter's picture ; so I told her that 
 £100 did not represent more than a quarter of 
 what a portrait by you really was, in market 
 value. So we agreed that I would give you 
 something that would be useful, as her share of 
 the gift ; and that for all the rest I should remain 
 in dear Signor's debt. 
 
 " I do not feel oppressed by being in your debt 
 because I truly love you, and I know that you 
 truly love me, and between real friends debts do 
 not weigh heavily. 
 
 296
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 " After this explanation you will see that I 
 cannot pretend to give anything to the Artists' 
 orphan fund. It would not be honest. I make 
 no money now I am ill, and I cost a good deal, 
 and I have no right to appear to be generous 
 when I have no money to give away. But 
 there is an object which I have much at heart, 
 and to which I should have given, had I been in 
 a position to do so. I send you a prospectus of 
 it. If you will not make use of Miss Synnot's 
 money for anything but charity, at least use it 
 for that, dear Signor ; and if you give jTio for 
 the People's Play Ground, I shall not feel so 
 regretful, as I now do, that I am too ill to make 
 money to give away. What would make me 
 happy, and would please Miss Synnot, would be 
 that you should draw the money, and lodge it in 
 your banker's hands, and draw it for charities, if 
 you won't use it for necessaries. Though the 
 cheque has such an old date, it is quite right, 
 for Miss Synnot desired, that whenever it was 
 presented it should be honoured. So I enclose 
 it, dear kind Signor, and a great many good 
 objects will, I know, be the better for it, and 
 I can quite feel that it is better so spent than 
 in Persian carpets and couches and chairs, 
 which is what I had thought of, for your new 
 studio. 
 
 " I am dreadfully sorry that you have gone 
 away, dear Signor, I was so pleased to think of 
 the possibility of your coming in at any time to 
 have a chat. But I shall be here till the middle 
 
 297
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 of September, so I trust that I shall see you 
 again. — Good-bye, dearest Signor, I am ever 
 yours afftly., J. C. S." 
 
 In August and September of this year, as 
 my father 1 had taken a house at Freshwater, I 
 had the opportunity of seeing something of 
 Signor. Later in this year I stayed at the 
 Briary, but now I sometimes went to find him 
 at work in the new studio, and on what were 
 great occasions for me, he came to find me at 
 work, trying to paint a portrait of my sister 
 Ethel. 
 
 The Briary in its setting of great elm trees 
 had altogether lost any look of crude newness, 
 both from without and within. With the old 
 furniture, and with the household gods from 
 Little Holland House, which Mrs. Prinsep 
 knew so well how to place, the new walls 
 framing these had ceased to look new. Mr. 
 Prinsep, now an invalid, was the centre of 
 solicitude from devoted belongings. At luncheon, 
 Mrs. Prinsep, at the head of her table, reigned 
 over her large family party, looking like the 
 wife of a Venetian Doge, transplanted into the 
 nineteenth century, Mr. Prinsep seated beside 
 her. On his other side was the beautiful young 
 widow — their niece, Mrs. Herbert Duckworth 
 — her hand often resting lovingly on his shoulder. 
 Then the beautiful young wife and her husband, 
 May and Andrew Hichens — not yet married a 
 
 1 Charles Edward Fraser-Tytler. 
 298
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 year ; and her sister Anne Prinsep, my particular 
 friend of all the party, as she had often stayed 
 with us in Scotland. And there was Signor, 
 with a child on each side, as he could not 
 be parcelled out to the greater number who 
 clamoured to sit by him also. This was the 
 group I remember round that hospitable table. 
 
 Afterwards in the big studio, with its 
 serene sense of noble thought, one recalls the 
 painter's light movements to and fro, always 
 intent on work, and yet bearing so courteously 
 with an interruption. 
 
 One afternoon in the drawing-room, as some 
 visitors who had driven over to call rose to say 
 good-bye, they turned to him and asked if they 
 might see the studio. Something in the manner 
 of asking seemed to imply politeness rather than 
 interest, but courteously assenting, he opened 
 the door for them to pass out, drew back behind 
 it to hide a distinct shudder, caught my look of 
 sympathy, and answered it half smiling, while 
 I was uplifted with pride at being trusted with 
 the secret of his feeling. Awake and in the 
 studio with daylight, he was accomplishing an 
 astonishing amount of work ; three portraits 
 were painted in one fortnight. I see him now, 
 in my memory, looking so tired, so spiritual, 
 but indefatigable. 
 
 Miss Ellice Hopkins writes her impressions 
 of a visit to the Briary at this time. 
 
 " At a very unassuming looking house at 
 the foot of the Downs lived another of the 
 
 299
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Immortals, our great painter, who always went 
 by the name of the ' Divine Watts.' Mrs. 
 Cameron took us to see his studio, and to be 
 introduced to him. We found a slightly built 
 man with a fine head, most courteous in manner, 
 and with the simplicity and humility of the 
 immortal child that so often dwells at the heart 
 of true genius. There was something pathetic 
 to me in the occasional poise of the head, the 
 face slightly lifted, as we see in the blind, as if 
 in dumb beseeching to the fountain of Eternal 
 Beauty for more power to think his thoughts 
 after Him. There is always in his work a 
 window left open to the infinite, the unattainable 
 ideal." 
 
 It was now that Mr. and Mrs. Cameron's 
 friends were astonished to hear that they were 
 planning to exchange their home in Freshwater 
 for one in Ceylon. Once it had been proposed 
 there was not much hesitation or delay. Mr. 
 Cameron longed to return to the island he had 
 loved ; and though for years he had not been 
 outside his own garden, and, as a recluse and an 
 invalid, was never seen by his friends but in a 
 picturesque dressing-gown, over the blue and 
 crimson of which his white locks flowed — he 
 suddenly borrowed a coat from his son Hardinge, 
 and walked down to the seashore, where he had 
 not been for twelve years. Mrs. Cameron was 
 as willing as her husband to embark upon a 
 voyage that would take her where already four 
 sons had made their homes. The striking of 
 
 300
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 the tents for the Cameron household was full 
 of characteristic unusualness — Mrs. Cameron 
 providing for every contingency possible, to the 
 point of unconscious humour. The house was 
 soon in a state of turmoil, their rooms piled up 
 with packing-cases, while telegrams poured in 
 and out, and friends came in crowds to say their 
 farewell. All Freshwater was wailing ! rich 
 and poor. I was not present at the last act, 
 but heard that crowds of friends gathered at 
 Southampton to see them off, who as they 
 returned saw railway porters also going back 
 from the ship-side, carrying under their arms 
 the large white mounting boards with which 
 her photographs were always enriched. She 
 had said, " I have no money left, but take this 
 instead as a remembrance," as she bestowed a 
 fine representation of Carlyle or of the " quite 
 divine " Madonna Mary 1 — no mean tip. 
 
 During some weeks in October and November 
 Signor was staying in Grosvenor Street with his 
 friends Mr. and Mrs. Charles Macnamara, laid 
 up, and in the hands of his surgeon and doctor, 
 Thomas Bond, for some surgical treatment. He 
 returned in November to the Briary, to spend 
 the winter there, in better health than he had 
 known for some time. 
 
 The first completed version of his picture, 
 then called "The Titans," now known as "Chaos," 
 was being exhibited at Manchester. Of this he 
 
 o 
 1 Mary Hjllyer, who sat for the greater number of Mrs. Cameron's 
 most successful photographs, her maid-servant, well remembered for her 
 beauty, and for the entire absence of any self-consciousness. 
 
 301
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 writes to Mr. Rickards from Grosvenor Street, 
 October 1 1, 1875 : — 
 
 " Many thanks for sending me the Manchester 
 City News. I am sorry to see, by the remarks 
 of the critic, that the arrangement of the exhibi- 
 tion seems to be less satisfactory than that of 
 last year ; it seems impossible that any real 
 principle can be carried out in a modern 
 exhibition. 
 
 "The bad effect of these exhibitions is evident 
 in the remarks of the writer when speaking of 
 my picture, ' The Titans ' (not a good name). 
 I don't quarrel with the critic for not liking the 
 picture, indeed his notice is not unfavourable ; 
 but all criticisms upon pictures, whose aim is 
 not immediately apparent, prove that such aims 
 have no sort of interest in exhibition rooms ; 
 indeed they cannot interest when the expectation 
 of the spectators is to be amused or interested at 
 the first glance. 
 
 " When pictures formed part of the decora- 
 tion of noble walls, an impressive effect would 
 probably suggest to the intelligent spectator that 
 some motive might exist, which, though not 
 clear at the first glance, might be worth study- 
 ing. It does not seem to occur to the critic 
 that such might be the case in a modern work. 
 Mr. Burne -Jones is more than right in not 
 exhibiting, and I shall follow his example in the 
 case of all but my lighter productions. If you 
 come across the critic, tell him, with my compli- 
 ments, not to suppose there can be no meaning 
 
 302
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 in a thing because he may not perceive it at the 
 first glance. Probably there would not be much 
 meaning apparent to him in Beethoven's so- 
 called Moonlight Sonata, especially on hearing 
 it for the first or second time. I think I warned 
 Mr. Johnson that it was not in the least likely 
 to be in any degree intelligible, but I trust to 
 time. 
 
 " I hope you are getting on well, I mean with 
 regard to sight. I am still a prisoner to my 
 room." 
 
 The reference to Mr. Rickards's eyesight is 
 the first indication to be found in the letters 
 that a serious calamity was to fall upon this kind 
 and generous man, and true lover of art. The 
 trouble proved to be cataract, and almost total 
 blindness followed before relief came through 
 a successful operation ; meanwhile his cousin, 
 Miss Chesworth, continued the correspondence. 
 Vicariously through her and his friends he con- 
 tinued to enjoy his collection of pictures, and 
 even to add to it. 
 
 The later autumn and winter were spent by 
 Signor at the Briary, where he worked as hard 
 as usual, but could also be merry with the 
 children there. He was indeed looked upon as 
 their property. They persuaded him to come 
 and have romps with them, which meant much 
 chasing and running, for he loved to see young 
 things move about with the swiftness of birds ; 
 and that the little Blanche, now growing tall, 
 could vault over a five-barred gate as easily as 
 
 3°3
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 a boy, " and be a regular tomboy " when she 
 liked, very much delighted him. 
 
 Mrs. Prinsep's grandchildren were also with 
 her, so there was much merry distraction for 
 him with these little people ; children could 
 always make him gay. There was a Christmas 
 tree and a ceremony afterwards, when the 
 tree was replanted by him. It rooted again 
 and nourished, a matter in which he took a 
 keen interest ; and he found it alive and of 
 good growth when he went to look for it in 
 1 891. Trees were to him much like personal 
 friends. 
 
 Upon the old site and garden of Little 
 Holland House was now building, and to be 
 built, a row of substantial houses ; but, before 
 the change took place, Mr. Rickards had 
 thoughtfully sent a young artist to make water- 
 colour sketches of the old house, and at Christ- 
 mas he sent these as a present to Signor. 1 
 
 By the beginning of February 1876 he had 
 established himself at Little Holland House the 
 second (6 Melbury Road). That Signor might 
 be well taken care of, Mrs. Prinsep installed her 
 own housekeeper, Emma Graver, and she and her 
 mother at once took charge at 6 Melbury Road. 
 For the sake of his health Mrs. Prinsep knew 
 that food, however plain, must be well prepared, 
 and knew also that in this matter, as well as for 
 all the other comforts of his daily life, Signor 
 
 1 From the copy of these made by Andrew Hichens and given to me 
 by Mrs. Hichens, and partly from photographs, the drawings of the old 
 house, used as illustrations in this book, have been made. 
 
 3°4
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 would be safe under Emma's care. From the 
 new home he writes to Mr. Rickards : — 
 
 " I am afraid, in consequence of my various 
 misfortunes, want of health in the autumn, the 
 singularly bad weather all the winter, and the 
 trouble attending upon my leaving Little Holland 
 House, you will find very little done, a fact very 
 grievous to me." 
 
 In the spring of this year Mr. Gladstone sat 
 for the second time, or, indeed, began a series 
 of sittings, extending over several years. This 
 portrait was commissioned by Dean Liddell for 
 Christchurch, the Dean being very anxious that 
 Signor should be the painter. A little note to 
 Mr. Gladstone, appointing the first sitting on 
 May 12, 1876, runs thus : — 
 
 " Dear Mr. Gladstone — Tuesday will suit 
 me better than Monday. I shall look forward 
 to seeing you at twelve. New Little Holland 
 House, in which you will find me, is about a 
 hundred yards beyond the old place, and is the 
 only house finished on the new road. — Yours 
 very sincerely, G. F. Watts." 
 
 The sittings could only be given at long 
 intervals of time, and went on till 1879. Light 
 is thrown on the difficulty of achieving a good 
 result by the final words of a letter from Signor 
 in 1878 : "Postscript: Not a word to be spoken 
 from the beginning to the end." Also from 
 one of Mr. Gladstone's a year later, in which he 
 
 VOL. I 305 X
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 says, " I think it is but fair also to promise that 
 you shall be undistracted by my yielding to the 
 temptations which the chance of a talk with 
 you always offers." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, as he said later, was sitting 
 when the stress of work was unusually severe ; 
 the appointments therefore could only be made 
 occasionally and with some interval between 
 each. Then, as the artist was more than usually 
 anxious to paint the man, body, soul, and spirit, 
 the portrait proved to be a matter of extreme 
 difficulty. He was dissatisfied himself, after 
 painting two portraits ; and as he found the 
 subscribers were so also, he begged to with- 
 draw, and Sir William Richmond painted Mr. 
 Gladstone. No one was more appreciative of 
 the success of this likeness than Signor himself; 
 and he wrote warmly to congratulate the Dean, 
 who replied : " I could not refrain from sending 
 your most generous letter to Mr. Gladstone. 
 He fully sympathises with me and is sorry, very 
 sorry for the conditions that made it impossible 
 for him to give the time you required ; he adds 
 slyly, that it was you who inveigled him into 
 the conversations which caused so much dis- 
 traction to you. To this no doubt you will 
 plead guilty." 
 
 Oxford possesses, in the Bodleian, the portrait 
 of Dean Stanley, of Lord Lothian, and of the 
 Rev. Henry Coxe, librarian, all usually con- 
 sidered as belonging to the first rank of Mr. 
 Watts's portraiture. In the Dining-Hall of 
 
 306
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Christchurch, there are also the portraits of 
 Dean Liddell and of Professor Jowett, both by 
 his hand. He was now painting the small 
 version of the " Court of Death " for Mr. 
 Rickards, and it seems at this date to have 
 been always called the "Angel of Death." 
 Mr. Rickards had seen the large picture which 
 was then in progress and desired to have a 
 small replica, and this was being worked 
 upon during many years. Meanwhile he had 
 suggested two changes in the design ; and Signor 
 replies : — 
 
 " I will think over the introduction of the 
 cross. Perhaps you wonder that I should have 
 any sort of hesitation, but in these suggestive 
 pictures such as ' Time and Death,' ' Love 
 and Death,' and the 'Angel of Death,' I have 
 a strong idea that they should appeal purely to 
 human sympathies, without reference to creed 
 or dogma of any kind. In one sense they are 
 lowered by this view, but in another they are 
 more universal in their appeal. I don't know 
 whether you will quite follow me in this — I 
 divide my painted poems into three classes ; 
 some are religious, some are purely philosophical, 
 and some are simply poetical. I believe you 
 will see my reasons if you think the matter well 
 out, though they may not recommend them- 
 selves to your judgment — at least at first." And 
 a few weeks later, replying to a remark made 
 by Mr. Rickards, he says further of this 
 picture : — 
 
 3°7
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 " The suggestion that even the germ of life 
 is in the lap of Death, I regard as the most 
 poetic idea in the picture, the key-note of the 
 whole. You say it produces disagreeable im- 
 pressions ! This proves that the picture is not 
 one for a drawing-room — the fastidiousness of 
 modern taste being taken into account. It is 
 a work of great gravity of character, and — as 
 with a dramatic poem or an epic — it cannot be 
 made up wholly of delightful fancies. But this 
 being as I said before a small copy only, the 
 original not being affected, I will emasculate the 
 design so as to make it less complete, but more 
 what the modern — I will not say unthinking 
 — mind requires in art." 
 
 Needless to say, Mr. Rickards withdrew his 
 objections, and begged Signor to paint what 
 he felt he must paint. 
 
 During this summer he was very unwell, 
 and his doctor ordered him to Harrogate. From 
 want of health, life for him was always a struggle, 
 and he often deplored the loss of time spent " in 
 being ill and getting well ; time lost, indeed," 
 as he put it, " that never could be made up 
 again." But now his doctor was firm, and he 
 was, as he writes, " ordered off to Harrogate, 
 which no doubt will be detestable." " Blanche 
 and a young lady, May's sister, go with me, 
 and will make it as pleasant as circumstances 
 permit. I hope to be away a very short time 
 and get to work with renewed vigour. This 
 going to a watering-place is very hateful to me, 
 
 308
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 but there is no help for it. I do not know 
 whether or not Blanche has sent the verses on 
 the late Little Holland House, suggested to 
 Mr. Prinsep by the pictures you have so kindly 
 given me ; she shall write to you from 
 Harrogate." 
 
 3°9
 
 *
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 3>i
 
 I HAVE done little more than desire the good thing, 
 and seek to know nothing about the mysteries of 
 our being, but I like to think that even unuttered 
 aspirations may have a material force. 
 
 G. F. WATIS. 
 
 312
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 On Signor's return he found that Mrs. Tennant 
 and her daughters were at Freshwater, and 
 Dorothy and Evelene l soon became to him 
 especial friends. They were constantly at the 
 Briary, and he painted them there and in 
 London, where the portraits were finished. 
 " When Evelene sits to you again," her sister 
 wrote to Signor, " I have a most delightful 
 book to read to you." 
 
 Miss Tennant was working seriously at art, 
 and wrote when she heard he was returning to 
 the Briary for the winter : " I am so afraid of 
 relapsing into what I was before I knew you, 
 and seeing you once in the week even made 
 me work doubly hard afterwards." To her 
 persuasions in no small measure was due the 
 writing of his first article in the Nineteenth 
 Century^ to which he gave as title " The 
 Present Conditions of Art." In many letters 
 she had urged him to write out " what would 
 be so valuable to future and present art." 
 One day she brought her friend M. Coquelin 
 
 1 Who later became Lady Stanley and Mrs. F. W. Myers. 
 
 313
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to see him, and he afterwards spent some time 
 with her in the gallery ; and she wrote later 
 to Signor, to describe the great actor's views 
 on art. After mentioning Coquelin's admira- 
 tion for certain portraits, landscapes, and for the 
 " Love and Death," she says : " In common with 
 his nation he can only be appealed to — can only 
 be touched — by reality in what he has seen, 
 rather than what he may have felt, and he 
 vehemently protests against art being an ex- 
 pression of very elevated and abstract thought. 
 He thinks that you should stand before a picture, 
 and that it should tell you the clearest, simplest 
 story, and that it should appeal to you by its 
 style and execution — by its being masterly. 
 That Velasquez, Rembrandt, Holbein, Titian 
 did not stir you by the subject or by the ideas 
 embodied in the painting, but because they were 
 supreme masters of pencil, brush-effects, and 
 composition. These, dear Signor, are what I 
 gather to be the views of French artists, and 
 though not altogether ours, are, as you say, 
 interesting to know." To which Signor 
 replies : — 
 
 " Tuesday, L. H. H., 
 " 1880. 
 
 " Thanks, dear Dolly, for your letter ; it tells 
 me what I wanted to know, and I confess it 
 impresses me with a mournful feeling to find, 
 what I thought was true, that the brilliant and 
 acute French intellect regards the art of painting 
 and sculpture as a thing of passing interest — as 
 
 3M
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 embroidery on the intellectual needs and yearn- 
 ings of our nature. Of course, its appeal being 
 through the medium of the eye, the eye should 
 be satisfied with the beauty of form and colour 
 and execution — and this would be enough for 
 what I call the passing interest ; but a great 
 picture should be a thing to live with, to 
 respond to varying moods, and especially should 
 have the power to awaken the highest of our 
 subtle mental and intellectual sensibilities. To 
 my mind it is nearer in its operation, on these 
 sensibilities, to music than to anything else ; 
 but it must not only have the power to touch 
 and awaken, it must have also the power to 
 sustain the awakened and elevated spirit in that 
 pure atmosphere that we only breathe in our 
 happiest and least earthly moments. This can 
 never be achieved by technical merits alone, 
 never except by the artist throwing his whole 
 and best self into his work. Such work may 
 say little to the hasty observer, and the hasty 
 observer is the ordinary amateur of art. But 
 the few who linger to take in something more, 
 in the course of time become a many — it is to 
 such I would speak — but I am scribbling a lot 
 at random, and have not time to put my thoughts 
 into definite shapes, and these into still more 
 definite words, but we will talk the matter over 
 when I come to see you. — Always most affection- 
 ately yours, Signor." 
 
 The editor of the Nineteenth Century now 
 
 315
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 added his entreaties to those made by Miss 
 Tennant to Signor. It was she who suggested 
 to Mr. Knowles that such an article would be 
 in place in the Nineteenth Century. He was 
 delighted with the suggestion, and immediately 
 acted upon it, and during the summer of 1879 
 the article on the " Present Conditions of Art " 
 was written. There was, however, the in- 
 evitable delay in revising proofs, and because 
 of the hesitation Signor felt as to its worthiness ; 
 and Mr. Knowles writes on December 16, 1879 : 
 " I am anxiously awaiting the final return of 
 your finally corrected proof, with your final 
 changes." The paper appeared in the February 
 number, and Miss Tennant was satisfied, and 
 writes to him : " I do so want to see you again, 
 I have so much to talk to you about. I always 
 felt certain that if you took to writing you 
 would do much good, and surprise the public 
 who think that a painter cannot be anything 
 but a painter. Your article in the Nineteenth 
 Century has created a great sensation. Perhaps 
 you heard what Mr. Lowe said, that it was the 
 finest piece of English he had read in these times. 
 I do hope, dear Signor, you are well and vigorous. 
 With you, the only thing wanting is a full con- 
 sciousness of worth, a realising of what you are, 
 and what you have done for others. Now, will 
 you not write upon your theory of curves ? ' 
 
 The theory of curves, that Miss Tennant asks 
 him to write about, he liked to demonstrate by 
 pointing out the bounding line of Greek form 
 
 316
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 either upon the cast of the Theseus or that of 
 the Ilissus, both of which always stood upon the 
 mantelpiece of his studio. Every part of the 
 outline of these figures he saw to be fractions 
 of very vast circles. In the flatness of the 
 curving outline of these Pheidian sculptures he 
 therefore perceived a suggestion of immensity. 
 If, in other sculptures, the development of 
 muscle was emphasised by a certain roundness 
 intended to be impressive, he perceived that on 
 the contrary the form became less majestic, the 
 curve being part of a circle on a very much 
 smaller scale. " The circle," he wrote, " is the 
 only perfect form, equal in all its parts and 
 complete. All lines bounding any form what- 
 ever will, if absolutely followed to the end, 
 resolve themselves into circles ; hence it will 
 result that the impression of magnitude in 
 complex forms (the human form for example) 
 will depend upon the sweep of the line com- 
 posing the parts of the form. Lines with a 
 visible sweep suggest vitality, movement, and 
 direction. Circles imply centres. All creation is 
 full of circles which resolve into each other. The 
 divine Intelligence must be the centre of all." 
 
 " As a principle of form in nature," he con- 
 tinued, " all lines curve towards their object. 
 This is a very important fact, and must be borne 
 in mind in the study of the human figure. 
 Knowledge of that kind becomes a plan of 
 construction in which everything takes its 
 proper place without difficulty." 
 
 3 X 7
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 The decoration of the Town Hall of 
 Manchester was now under consideration, and 
 some of his admirers were anxious that he 
 should undertake to fill the spaces left for fresco ; 
 but his health would not permit, and he had in 
 hand the colossal statue upon which he was at 
 work with hammer and chisel throughout all 
 the fine days in summer. Then fifteen big 
 canvases were being worked upon, and the 
 truth that the natural limits of time were closing 
 around him was ever present to his mind. 
 
 " If I were younger," he writes, " I should 
 not hesitate a moment, the more especially as I 
 think mural decoration ought to be painted in 
 situ, but my health is unsatisfactory, and I have 
 my hands full, as you know, of large subjects, 
 and certainly I did not contemplate moving from 
 my studio. Still, if the matter took the shape 
 of a duty — if I thought I could aid the cause of 
 art — I should not consider I had a right to 
 refuse from any consideration short of necessity, 
 health, or something of the kind. With regard 
 to material, waterglass I do not like, or think 
 successful ; the wax process I am not acquainted 
 with, but it is probable that it could be well 
 adapted." 
 
 Such opportunity as this afforded should have 
 been his many years before ; it came too late now, 
 and he could not seriously consider undertaking 
 so huge a work, but he talked the matter over 
 with Mr. Alfred Waterhouse — the architect of 
 the Town Hall. 
 
 318
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 He allowed his mind to exercise itself on 
 an arrangement of designs — an assemblage of 
 symbolic pictures — to show the happiness that 
 might result if the higher human aspirations 
 could be realised ; and beside these the degrada- 
 tion consequent upon disobedience to divine 
 laws. " Time, Death, and Judgment," and the 
 " Court of Death " were to have had their place 
 in this scheme, and also — a subject conceived 
 yet never designed — of Adam and Eve in Paradise, 
 surrounded by angels, symbols of those virtues 
 which would make human conditions perfect, 
 and constitute happiness. It was but an after- 
 glow from his former hope that soon faded into 
 grey reality again ; and some months later, when 
 the work had been placed in the hands of Ford 
 Maddox Brown, Signor wrote : " Manchester 
 seems to be inspired with great ideas just now. 
 I saw in one of the papers a project on the tapis, 
 to connect the town with the sea, by means of a 
 canal. This would be an undertaking worthy 
 of a great town and, I should think, be of pro- 
 digious importance. If the rich men of all 
 classes in England would combine to do great 
 things, as far as great things may be done with 
 money, instead of having for object the unworthy 
 one of dying rich, how much better for their 
 fame and the real greatness of the country." 
 
 During the winter Mrs. Nassau Senior had 
 been much with her mother (Mrs. Hughes) at 
 the house she had taken for her daughter at 
 Colwell Bay ; and the intercourse was constant 
 
 3*9
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 between her and the households at the Briary 
 and Farringford. For many years her brother, 
 a widower with four children, had lived with her 
 and her husband and son. She adored children 
 and undertook this extra care with joy ; and now 
 for nearly a year one of the nephews, Gerard 
 Hughes, who had shown considerable talent for 
 art, had been coming to draw under Signor's 
 guidance. The first letter referring to this is of 
 interest, as it shows how little his general view 
 upon a student's first practice of art had changed 
 in the many years between this date and the time 
 when Mr. Roddam Stanhope was first at work 
 with him. 
 
 " My dear Jeanie — I send you back little 
 Gerard's drawing ; it is most interesting as dis- 
 playing qualities of eye and hand, which may 
 develop into a Fred Walker. Nothing is wanting 
 but that knowledge which practice and study can 
 supply. I shall be most happy to give all the 
 aid in my power. He has been drawing here 
 for an hour, or an hour and a half, these last two 
 or three days. Though I am not able to be in 
 the studio, I think the kind of work I have set 
 him to do will exercise his eyes, hand, and 
 judgment. It is drawing bits of drapery. 
 Every variety of line and angle will be found in 
 a crumpled bit of cloth, and studied upon the 
 principles I gave you an idea of, form, I think, 
 the best means of education of eye and hand that 
 can be found ; not so interesting perhaps as 
 
 320
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 drawing the human figure, but that will come, 
 perhaps, in a little time. I thought the casts I 
 alluded to belonged to you ; all my things in 
 London are now in such confusion that I don't 
 know what I have ; but for the moment nothing 
 more is necessary than what we have at hand. 
 Do not let the boy's general education be 
 neglected. I am confident that with judicious 
 teaching his artistic studies for the moment 
 need not have more than an hour or an hour 
 and a half devoted to them. What I set him to 
 do requires very great and fatiguing attention, and 
 had better not be continued too long at a time. 
 Of course as he goes on he will be able to give 
 more time to the study, and if his father likes, 
 the boy can come and be in my studio altogether, 
 giving me what assistance he can in return for 
 teaching, after the manner of the ancient practice. 
 But this is an idea for the future. I am sorry 
 you should take any trouble about the Sonata, it 
 would be so easy for me to send for it. You do 
 not say anything about yourself; is that a good 
 or a bad sign ? — Yours affectionately, 
 
 " SlGNOR." 
 
 In one of the last letters that passed between 
 the two friends on this subject, he says : " You 
 must not talk about wonderful kindness with 
 regard to Gerard ; all I can do is to go in two 
 or three times, in the course of the morning, and 
 look over his work, find fault, and explain some 
 principles. As he is working in the next room 
 vol. i 321 y
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 to me, this is not a very wonderful exercise of 
 generosity." 
 
 Mrs. Nassau Senior left Colwell early in 
 February of this year (1877), believing she had 
 made great way towards recovery ; but these 
 hopes were not to be realised. Shortly after 
 her return home she had a serious relapse 
 from which she did not rally, and she died 
 on March 24. 
 
 Of this great loss he writes to Mr. Rickards 
 without any over-estimation of what that loss 
 proved to be to him during the nearly thirty 
 years of life that remained for him. " I have 
 lost a friend who could never be replaced," are 
 his words, " even if I had a long life before me ; 
 one in whom I had unbounded confidence, never 
 shaken in the course of a friendship very rare 
 during twenty-six years — Mrs. Nassau Senior, 
 who I daresay you will remember talking about 
 with me. She had been called by a friend of 
 yours ' that woman.' * I think when you read 
 the biography of ' that woman ' — for it is one 
 that will be written — that very few canonised 
 saints so well deserved such glorification. For 
 all that makes human nature admirable, lovable, 
 and estimable, she had very few equals indeed, 
 
 1 For the reason that from 1873 she had held the post of Inspector of 
 Workhouses, the first woman to be appointed by Government to such a 
 position. Her special charge was to ascertain the condition of women, 
 children, and infants in the workhouse. She worked with a zeal that was 
 worthy of a great nature, paying visits in the earliest hours of the morning 
 to see if the children slept in well-ventilated rooms. The prejudiced mind 
 thought that by accepting this post Mrs. Nassau Senior had degraded her 
 sex. 
 
 322
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 and I am certain no superiors ; and it is not too 
 much to say that children yet unborn will have 
 cause to rue this comparatively early death." 
 
 The summer of 1877 had, for people who 
 loved art, an event which few can fail to look 
 back upon otherwise than as a landmark, an 
 event they are glad that Memory keeps fresh 
 for them — in May this year the doors of the 
 Grosvenor Gallery stood open for the first time. 
 The public — not of the number of Sir Coutts and 
 Lady Lindsay's invited acquaintance at special 
 times, for this was their private venture — paid 
 its shilling at the top of a broad flight of stairs, 
 and there found the first and largest of the 
 galleries. This room, well proportioned and 
 well lit, had on the walls — with spaces of back- 
 ground restfully dividing group from group — a 
 series of modern pictures never before so seen. 
 
 The individual taste and thought evident all 
 about gave the pleasant sense of its being a 
 privilege to be there. That was the first sensa- 
 tion. Afterwards came the consciousness that 
 the work of some English painters of the day 
 was being revealed to the public for the first 
 time. And why ? Because in the setting of 
 this well-conceived building each was being 
 allowed to deliver his message consecutively, 
 and the visitor was not called upon to listen to 
 him between other and conflicting voices, or to 
 hear from him nothing but a broken sentence. 
 The works of each artist, grouped together and 
 divided by blank spaces, allowed the spectator's 
 
 3 2 3
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 eye and mind to be absorbed entirely by 
 what that painter had to give them ; conse- 
 quently this message was both understood and 
 remembered. 
 
 Though indisputably the painter whose 
 pictures made the chief interest of this ex- 
 hibition was Edward Burne-Jones, those who 
 had cared to search the Academy walls, season 
 after season, for the work of George Frederic 
 Watts, usually to find a portrait here and a 
 portrait there, stood before the end of the West 
 Gallery wall, and hailed their master as made 
 known now for the first time to a larger public. 
 For them " Love and Death " dominated the 
 whole room. For some, through the door of 
 their house of life the grey messenger had 
 but lately passed ; to the door of the home of 
 some that figure was drawing very near ; and 
 as such personal response to the chord he had 
 struck came to be known to Signor, as it did 
 sooner or later, he felt he had not failed in 
 the aim of his life. It was not too much to 
 say that now to a larger public, beyond the 
 circle of his friends, the mind of the painter 
 was speaking for the first time, going into the 
 intimate, into the most sacred hours of life. 
 
 After 1877, it was common for him to 
 receive letters from strangers, some of these 
 giving neither signature nor address, but thank- 
 ing the painter with the sort of thanks he 
 liked best to receive, for the transformation 
 made — generally at the darkest hour of life — 
 
 3 2 4
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 through some thought suggested by one of his 
 pictures. 
 
 With the question of the tone of the crimson 
 damask upon the walls, and the enrichment of 
 other parts of the gallery, which met with such 
 severe criticism from Mr. Ruskin, Signor did 
 not greatly concern himself. He believed that 
 the background for rich and low-toned pictures 
 could hardly be too strong in colour, and he 
 preferred a rich crimson to any other ; he had 
 also long held an opposite opinion to Mr. 
 Ruskin in the matter of seeing the work by 
 each man kept together as much as possible. 
 
 The three portraits that Sir Coutts chose 
 to exhibit as examples of Signor's work were 
 the portrait of Lady (Coutts) Lindsay, of Mr. 
 Burne-Jones, and of Mrs. Percy Wyndham, and 
 in his letter of thanks to her he says : — 
 
 " A thousand thanks for so liberally lending 
 me the picture. I do not know that I should 
 have asked for it of my own suggestion, for, as 
 you know, I am not fond of exhibiting at all ; 
 but the picture is certainly one of the best, and 
 I hope it will look well for the sake of my 
 friends more than my own. I have always 
 regretted having finished it, for if it had still 
 been on my hands, I should most likely have 
 seen you, which now it seems I never do ; but 
 not the less you will believe that your friend- 
 ship is very precious to me." 
 
 To this friend (who never failed him) he 
 also writes : " I have so few pleasures that I 
 
 3 2 5
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 can ill afford to lose the best of all — the friend- 
 ship of some people." 
 
 Of the exhibition he had written a forecast 
 to Mr. Rickards : " I think the exhibition will 
 be a great success. Burne-Jones will be very 
 strong, and when you have seen his works I 
 do not think you will care much for mine. In 
 fact I expect him to extinguish almost all the 
 painters of the day, so you may prepare yourself 
 for being knocked off your legs. The pictures 
 go in to-morrow." He had written, in replying 
 to an inquiry from Mr. Rickards : " I know 
 nothing about the arrangements, nor have I 
 had anything whatever to do with the enterprise, 
 though you seem to give me credit for having 
 been a power in the matter.'' 
 
 That summer at his new home in Melbury 
 Road he was chiefly at work upon the new 
 " Hugh Lupus " ; and he writes to a friend : — 
 
 " You are quite right, I am working too 
 hard, and could not continue to do so, but the 
 decline of the year necessarily shortens my 
 working time. I am now no longer able to 
 get to work at four, but I am obliged to work 
 all the available hours ; nor must you suppose 
 I do not put all possible concentration into each. 
 I do not look forward to a future of repose, for 
 I do not desire an existence when power of 
 work is gone ! But no one ought to grumble 
 at work, even if less interesting than the pursuit 
 of art ; I do not believe in any real enjoyment 
 outside work, or interest belonging to it." 
 
 326
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Signor spent that winter at the Briary. Mr. 
 Prinsep's health was giving some anxiety, and 
 though on the whole unchanged — certainly in 
 vigour of mind — there are evidences in the 
 letters that he was often laid up. His son Val 
 was in India, painting the picture of the great 
 Durbar held by Lord Lytton on the Imperial 
 Proclamation, naturally a visit in which the 
 father was greatly interested. Val returned in 
 January, but not long after his arrival Mr. 
 Prinsep became seriously ill, and on February 
 1 1 he died. " A man of very heroic character, 
 and extraordinary gifts and acquirements," as 
 Signor — his friend and companion of nearly 
 thirty years — wrote at the time of this great 
 loss. He had with much certainty believed 
 that Mr. Prinsep's grand physique would insure 
 for him a great age, and many years in the 
 peace-surrounded home he had purposely and at 
 considerable sacrifice made for him. And that 
 " Sweet-Briary " — as Miss Mary Boyle dubbed 
 it — in the inevitable changes that followed 
 Mr. Prinsep's death, practically ceased to be a 
 home for Mrs. Prinsep, or for Signor himself, 
 was somewhat pathetic. But life to him was 
 a trust not to be wasted in morbid grief; the 
 more he suffered, the more earnestly did he set 
 his hand to his work. He was more or less laid 
 up for a month after Mr. Prinsep's death, but 
 he managed to finish the large picture of 
 "Time, Death, and Judgment," for exhibition 
 at the Grosvenor Gallery, where it was shown 
 
 3 2 7
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 with " Mischief," " Ophelia," and the small 
 " Sir Galahad," " Britomart " and five portraits 
 being in the Academy. 
 
 In August he reports to Mr. Rickards : " I 
 have nothing to tell you about myself. I have, 
 as you know, a number of compositions on hand, 
 old acquaintances of yours, which I am bringing 
 on at the same time. This I think the best 
 plan ; I have nothing finished to show, but I 
 insure a certain amount of completion in several 
 important cases, and it also enables me to work 
 longer, the change from one to another being 
 a kind of relaxation. All the summer I have 
 steadily used up all the daylight, and to tell the 
 truth am beginning to feel a little tired ; but I 
 hope to hold out for another month, and then 
 change my quarters, carrying some work to 
 Brighton. In spite of all my labour, autumn 
 finds me with much less done than I anticipated. 
 My great equestrian statue is apparently not 
 advanced; the difficulty of making every point of 
 view equally good has necessitated constant atten- 
 tion ; but it had better not be done at all than 
 done in an unsatisfactory manner that the world 
 does not want. 
 
 " I have sent some pictures to Manchester, 
 but I really do not know what. When the 
 pictures came out of the Royal Academy and 
 Grosvenor Gallery, having been applied to by 
 agents from Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and 
 other places — really having no time to spare — I 
 left the matter almost entirely in the hands of 
 
 328
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 Mr. Smith ; l the consequence is that a letter has 
 come to me from Leeds asking if I would sell 
 the picture there, and I have no idea what it is." 
 
 The building in Melbury Road went on 
 during 1876-77. Mr. Thornycroft built his 
 two houses under one roof on one side of Little 
 Holland House which was afterwards numbered 
 6 in the road, and Mr. Marcus Stone on the 
 other side. It became, what Mrs. Thornycroft 
 liked to call it, " Melbury Village " ; detached 
 houses, mostly built from good designs, standing 
 in gardens of some size. 
 
 It was now that Mr. and Mrs. Barrington 
 came to live in the next house to Little Holland 
 House, and for some years were very constant 
 visitors there. 
 
 I met Mrs. Barrington for the first time very 
 shortly before our marriage. I never saw her 
 after September 1890. She and I never really 
 knew each other. I have this winter (191 1 — 
 1 91 2) for the first time seen and read her pub- 
 lished recollections of my husband, and have thus 
 been made aware that she did not really know 
 him. 
 
 A house at Brighton had been decided upon 
 by Mrs. Prinsep, as it suited in many ways better 
 than the Isle of Wight. Her son Val could so 
 easily run down to her from London ; and the 
 dryness and brightness of the winter climate she 
 thought would be better for Signor, who was 
 
 1 The head of the firm of carvers and gilders (who were also fine art 
 agents), and who gave Signor service for sixty years. 
 
 3 2 9
 
 GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS 
 
 likely to spend many of the shorter days away 
 from London. It also solved difficulties of 
 education for Blanche and the three grand- 
 children, now entirely with Mrs. Prinsep ; 
 therefore, by the autumn of 1876, she had 
 settled at 24 Lewes Crescent, and a room suit- 
 able as a studio was prepared. 
 
 The change from Kensington to Brighton 
 proved to be what Signor liked. He was always 
 the boon companion of the young people. 
 Blanche, now growing into a tall graceful girl, 
 was to his great delight still quite a child ; and 
 it was a happiness to him to feel how entirely 
 she and the little Laura and Rachel 1 gave him 
 their confidence. They told him of their little 
 sorrows, as well as of their pleasures ; and he was 
 often able to steer the small craft through troubled 
 waters. Once from the group of children about 
 him the little Laura looked up suddenly to say, 
 " Aren't we happy chaps ? " — a little saying that 
 later Signor would sometimes quote, and one that 
 it was always good to hear. 
 
 1 Afterwards Lady Troubridge and Countess of Dudley. 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
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 Form L9-Series 4939
 
 > 11111111 I D III 
 
 3 1158 00199 9845 
 
 
 
 
 r 1