Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2121 page)

“November 15th — This day I attempted, for the third time since the loss of my beloved brother, to begin again to paint; but now, as before, I cannot collect my thoughts sufficiently. A dreary blank, with much mental and nervous suffering, has succeeded to his death and burial. God help me!

“November 16th — My dear brother was, during his life-time, never three months together out of my sight, and never out of my heart. I felt a sort of fatherly care for him, (for he was always a tender plant) as well as a brotherly love. He has been taken, I most firmly believe, to that happiness prepared for those who love God, and long for the appearing of his son Jesus Christ. I cannot sorrow, as those who have no hope, about him, or doubt the mercy of God to myself. He could have had no happiness in this world, as it is now constituted — before the times of restitution; which it would not be madness to compare with that enjoyed by those who depart to be with Christ! I do not believe myself so selfish, wretched as I am, as to wish, could wishing bring him back.

“I have now increasing duties to perform to my wife and children, to my mother, to my wife’s family, and to the poor; and as I cannot perform the smallest duty of my stewardship but by the help of God, (and I praise his holy name that I know I have no other help to lean upon,) I humbly pray that I may be strengthened, and so ordered, that in passing through things temporal, I lose not the things eternal! May I be able to say — ’it is good for me that I have been in trouble.’“

The character of the painter’s brother was, in truth, one that claims a notice on the page, though it aroused no attention in the world. There are some men, whose minds, unselfish as their hearts, toil not for themselves, and take no thought of treasure for their own advantage; whose ambition, admirably destitute of self-interest, centres in the aspirations of those they love, lives but for their service, expands in no triumphs but theirs; who go through the world, in the noble privacy inherited by that widest of intellectual charities, which gives its privileges with its benefits, to its neighbour. Of such an order was Francis Collins. Penetrating and philosophic, his mind improved the various information it acquired, as rapidly as that information was received. His knowledge, on the subject of Art especially, embraced, in addition to its more important secrets, all those quaint antiquarian curiosities of the science, which still remain excluded from the world, in the memories of the few who have had the opportunities and the capacity to imbibe them as he did. Strange anecdotes of the old painters, amusing peculiarities in the modern pedigrees of their different pictures, picture-dealing frauds which were publicly unknown, extraordinary plagiarisms and errors in by-gone criticisms on Art, minute characteristics of different schools of painting, were some of the more generally attractive portions of his knowledge; to which he added that remarkable tenacity of memory, which enables a man to be always prepared with a reference to the books, dates, and circumstances, connected with whatever information he affords. Yet, finding as he did, that these qualifications made him welcome in all societies, and quoted in many disputes, he thought not of using them for his own advantage; of widening his circle of listeners, by seeking the approval of the world. If his knowledge and his anecdotes informed and amused his brother and his brother’s friends; if they moved the interest and stored the memories; if they improved the conversation and increased the usefulness, of those whom he loved, they had fulfilled their highest purpose for
him.
Thus, his labours and his hopes beginning and ending within the magic circle of his brother’s genius and reputation; happy in the privilege of existing for his brother’s advantage, and rewarded by the constant testimony of his brother’s affection and esteem; lived this amiable and Christian man. Dying, he left to all those who had known him, no remembrances connected with his character, that were not of kindly piety and natural gentleness, of various attainments and innocent humour, of good deeds humbly done, and of valuable benefits modestly conferred.

But it was not with the loss of his brother alone, that the family afflictions of Mr. Collins were to cease. While the traces of this first death were yet darkest in his household, another was soon to follow it. Age and infirmity but ill-disposed his mother’s frame to bear the physical trial of her bereavement. Soon after her son’s death, she was seized with a fit. For six weeks more she lingered — the object of the fondest care and attention — between life and death; and at the end of that time expired. She was laid in the same grave where, but two months back, her son had been buried before her. The last earthly tie that had still connected the painter with the home of his boyish studies in the Art, was now sundered for ever!

At the period of this event, the MSS. from which some of Mr. Collins’s reflections on his brother’s death have been already extracted, is continued. Portions of it may be inserted as follows:

“1833. December 29th — This morning, at ten minutes past one, my poor dear mother was taken from this state to one, I hope, of bliss. She had been a great sufferer for the last six years; and since the death of my beloved Frank, her infirmities of mind and body had much increased. She spoke to me about an hour before she died, and resigned her breath without a struggle. God have mercy upon her, and remember her when He comes in His kingdom!

“1834. January 5th, Sunday — This day (my mother’s remains having been laid in the grave on Friday, the 3rd) our solitude seemed sad indeed. Poor Frank was our constant visitor on Sunday. Alas, what a wilderness is this world! I have no relative now, either on my mother’s or father’s side, that I ever saw — I have buried three, and am left the only survivor!

“February 4th — This is dear Frank’s birth-day — a day on which we always made much of him. What a treasure he was: the Lord gave him and the Lord hath taken him away!

“May 5th — Yesterday was a particularly melancholy day — the nineteenth year since I became a member of the Academy, and the first without poor Frank’s refreshing remarks upon all that I had to communicate to him about the Academy’s anniversary. Perhaps had he lived, I had done better — never, never shall I look upon his like again! No day has passed without much thought about him, and, God help me, no thought without regret! But God only knew what was best for us both — His holy will be done!

“May 26th — I left town for Kent, on Wednesday last, and returned on Saturday; having enjoyed the consolation of passing these days amid the beautiful works of God, among scenes of peace, in the society of Christians. No other society can comfort me — the society of the world depresses me greatly. I am sadly low in mind at times, and in body weak — apt to be vexed, very impatient, not bearing my afflictions with that patience, which afflictions were sent to teach. My time is not so regularly employed as it ought to be, and I am therefore full of self- reproach — but praised be God, still desirous above all things to live to his glory!”

Here, although further details of these domestic calamities, and of their effect on Mr. Collins’s projects and employments, might yet be given, the relation of his private afflictions must cease. In the progress of the page, as in the course of life, it is necessary to leave the departed to their dread repose, retaining them in thought, to resign them in action. But glancing therefore at the consolations derived by the painter, in the sadness of his first renewal of his Art, under auspices changed for ever, from the brotherly attention and kindness of his friend Wilkie, who was now more constantly with him than ever, let us pass from the observation of bereavement and grief, to the onward progress of the subject; to the new epoch in my father’s life and studies, the fresh propulsion to his ambition and his energies, of which the occurrence and the history are now alike near at hand.

CHAPTER II.

1834-1836.

Pictures of 1834 — Tour, and studies in Wales — Project of travelling in Italy — Pictures of 1835 — Letter to Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam — Visits to the country, in the autumn — Letters to Mrs. Collins — Determination to pass a year in Italy — Notice of G. S. Newton, R.A., and letter on his character to Mr. Leslie, R.A. — Pictures of 1836 — Preparations connected with the tour to Italy — Farewell letter to Sir David Wilkie — Departure, in September, for the Continent — Remarks suggested by the painter’s entry on a new career.

To the Exhibition of 1834, Mr. Collins contributed two pictures. One — a fourth in his new series of cottage subjects — was entitled “Rustic Hospitality;” the other was a Cumberland scene, called “The Morning Lesson.” To the melancholy interruption that his employments had suffered at the close of the last year, is to be attributed the diminution in the number of his new works at the present season’s Exhibition. His productions, however, though lessened in quantity, retained all their wonted attractions in character. Both were engraved.

On the withered trunk of a felled tree, before a cottage gate, sits the object of “Rustic Hospitality.” His coarse, dusty garments, his listless position, and his half-suffering expression of countenance, indicate his humble station in life, his weariness, and the distance he has journeyed. In the middle of the picture is a group of three children, in many respects the happiest the artist ever painted. One fair, healthy little girl, advances slowly and seriously towards the traveller, carrying a jug of beer, with her younger sister by her side, who is turning to run away at the unusual sight of a stranger’s face; while a chubby urchin, still more shy, crouches behind them both, taking an observation of the new guest from the securest position he can find. The children’s dog, more inquisitive and less scrupulous than they, has already approached the traveller, and is relieving his doubts by the usual canine method of investigation, smelling the stranger’s shin. At the opposite extremity of the picture, is the cottage gate. The door of the principal room in the little abode behind it, is open; and reveals the figure of the mother of the young cottagers, occupied in cutting bread and cheese for the traveller’s meal. All the accessories of the picture suggest the primitive retirement and simplicity of the place and its inhabitants. The black-bird’s cage hangs at the sunniest point of the cottage wall; the hollyhocks flourish brightly over its garden paling; the narrow strip of grassy ground between the gate and an old fence opposite, is marked but by one small foot-track, lost ere long amid the close tall trees, which — speckled here and there, through their graceful forms, with a glow of sunlight — present the woodland background of the composition. The breadth and grandeur of light and shade, and the deep richness and transparency of colour, discernible in this picture, testify to the painter’s successful study of the theory and practice of the old masters, and add forcibly to the sterling attractions of his simple and natural illustration of the subject. The original work was painted for the late Mr. Marshall. A repetition of it was then produced by the painter, for Mr. Hogarth, the print-seller; who published a clever and faithful line engraving from it, by Mr. Outrim, in “Finden’s Gallery of Modem Art.”

“The Morning Lesson,” with its fresh, open, dewy landscape, its tranquil Cumberland distance, its “misty mountain tops,” mingling with the delicate airy clouds, and its group of three foreground figures, (a rosy girl, teaching a little child at her knees to read the alphabet, and repressing the importunate playfulness of an idle boy behind her,) formed a complete contrast to “Rustic Hospitality,” in treatment, subject, and composition; and pleasingly attested the capacity as well as the ambition of the painter to sustain that variety in production which is an essential requisite of successful Art. This picture was purchased, to be sent to America, by Mr. Carey, of Philadelphia. A small, poorly-executed, engraving from it was published in an American annual.

When the anxieties connected with the preparation of his pictures and the opening of the Exhibition had passed away, and as the fine summer months approached, Mr. Collins began to feel that his constitution had been more shaken by the trials of the past autumn than he had imagined, and that a lengthened change of scene and a salutary withdrawal from the bustle and excitement of society were now the surest measures that he could take to effect the re-establishment of his health and spirits. Declining, therefore, all the invitations which now reached him as usual from his patrons and friends, he made arrangements for a tour with his family, through the scenery of North and South Wales; the attractions of which he had often heard of, but had never yet beheld. Accompanied, therefore, by his wife and children, he visited Chepstow, Tintern, and Ragland, proceeding through the beautiful scenery of that part of Wales to Aberystwith. Here, by the sea-shore, which his Art made an occupation and an enjoyment to him in all places, he remained for some time. His sketching excursions in this neighbourhood did not, however, delay him long from the contemplation of the more northward mountain beauties about Snowdon and Llanberris. With the pretty little village called by the latter name he was so much delighted, as to make arrangements for staying there several weeks. In the glens and lakes, mountains, and waterfalls around this place, he found new landscape materials for many of his future pictures; while the wild, barefooted, little Welsh children, scrambling about the mountain passes, presented a fresh collection of those unsophisticated rustic models which he most delighted to study. None of these children could speak English, or had the remotest idea of sitting still on their chairs to be painted. Mr. Collins was, however, too experienced a student of children’s natures, as well as children’s figures, to be defeated in sketching them by any obstacles of this description. No tyro in the potent diplomacy of pennies, cakes, and sugar-plums, — he made models of them all. One after another, as they hovered doubtfully about his parlour-window, he lured them into his room, displayed his stock of bribes; and seizing the first position into which their astonishment or their fear happened to throw them, drew them at once, just as they were. One plump little boy was caught with his father’s old stock buckled tightly about his short neck. This peculiarity in his costume obliged him to sit steadily, for his face at least; for it absolutely incapacitated him from moving his head, and kept him staring upwards with a comic gravity of expression, which the painter transcribed on his paper with genuine delight. Of all these models, the most difficult to manage was a tiny, sun-burnt, little girl, about three years old, who could only be induced to look up, even for a moment, by the painter’s expedient of holding a halfpenny before her with one hand, while he drew from her with the other. She was afterwards introduced, (as then sketched,) into his picture called “Welsh Guides.”