of art ever produced in England. If posterity has not indorsed this judgment, the Solomon is at least regarded, by competent critics, as Haydon's most successful work. 'Before the doors had been open half an hour,' writes Haydon, 'a gentleman opened his pocket-book, and showed me a L500 note. "Will you take it?" My heart beat--my agonies of want pressed, but it was too little. I trembled out, "I cannot." The gentleman invited me to dine, and when we were sitting over our wine, agreed to give me my price. His lady said, "But, my dear, where am I to put my piano?" and the bargain was at an end!' On the third day Sir George Beaumont and Mr. Holwell Carr came to the Exhibition, having been deputed to buy the picture for the British Gallery. While they were discussing its merits, one of the officials went over, and put 'sold' on the frame, whereupon the artist says he thought he should have fainted. The work had been bought at the price asked, L700, by two Plymouth bankers, Sir William Elford (the friend and correspondent of Miss Mitford) and Mr. Tingecombe.

Poor Haydon now thought that his fortune was secure. He paid away L500 to landlord and tradesmen in the first week, and though this did not settle half his debts, it restored his credit. The balance was spent in a trip to Paris with Wilkie, Paris being then (May 1814) the most interesting place on earth. All the nations of Europe were gathered together there, and the Louvre was in its glory. So absorbed and fascinated was Haydon by the actual life of the city, that he finds little to say about the works of art there collected. Yet his first visit was to the Louvre, and he describes with what impetuosity he bounded up the steps, three at a time, and how he scolded Wilkie for trotting up with his usual deliberation. 'I might just as well have scolded the column,' he observes. 'I soon left him at some Jan Steen, while I never stopped until I stood before the "Transfiguration." My first feeling was disappointment. It looked small, harsh and hard. This, of course, is always the way when you have fed your imagination for years on a work you know only by prints. Even the "Pietro Martyre" was smaller than I thought to find it; yet after the difference between reality and anticipation had worn away, these great works amply repaid the study of them, and grew up to the fancy, or rather the fancy grew up to them.... It will hardly be believed by artists that we often forgot the great works in the Louvre in the scenes around us, and found Russians and Bashkirs from Tartary more attractive than the "Transfiguration"; but so it was, and I do not think we were very wrong either. Why stay poring over pictures when we were on the most remarkable scene in the history of the earth.'

On his return to London, Haydon was gratified by the news that his friend and fellow-townsman, George Eastlake, had proposed and carried a motion that he should be presented with the freedom of his native city, as a testimony of respect for his extraordinary merit as a historical painter. Furthermore, the Directors of the British Gallery sent him a hundred guineas as a token of their admiration for his latest work. But no commission followed, either from a private patron or public body. However, the artist, nothing daunted, ordered a larger canvas, and set vigorously to work on a representation of 'Christ's Entry into Jerusalem,' a picture which occupied him, with intervals of illness and idleness, for nearly six years.

The year 1815 was too full of stir and excitement for a man like Haydon, who was always keenly interested in public affairs, to devote himself to steady work. The news of Waterloo almost turned his brain. On June 23 he notes: 'I read the _Gazette_ [with the account of Waterloo] the last thing before going to bed. I dreamt of it, and was fighting all night; I got up in a steam of feeling, and read the