An Extraordinary Man
Artist Benjamin Robert Haydon laments the passing of Lord Egremont, whose generosity and good judgment reached far beyond his support for struggling artists.
1837
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Artist Benjamin Robert Haydon laments the passing of Lord Egremont, whose generosity and good judgment reached far beyond his support for struggling artists.
1837
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
George Wyndham (1751-1837), 3rd Earl of Egremont, was one of Georgian England’s wealthiest and most philanthropic of men, a patron of the arts and of industry, a responsible farmer and animal breeder. After the Earl died on November 11th, 1837, artist Benjamin Robert Haydon turned to his diary and penned a glowing tribute to a man who had given support to him and many like him in lavish measure.
13th November, 1837
LORD Egremont is dead; a great loss to all, especially artists. He was an extraordinary man, — manly, straight-forward, tender-hearted, a noble patron, an attached friend and an affectionate and indulgent parent.* His great pleasure was in sharing with the highest and humblest the advantages and luxuries of his vast income. The very animals at Petworth seemed happier than in any other spot on earth, — better fed, and their dumbness and helpless dependence on man more humanely felt for. He was one of those left of the old school who considered a great artist as fit society for any man, however high his rank, and at his table, as at Sir George Beaumont’s,* Lord Mulgrave’s,* or Sir Robert Peel’s,* painter and sculptor, poet and minister and soldier, all were as equals.
George O’Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837), was the husband of Elizabeth Ilive and the couple had eight children together. Seven of them were born before George and Elizabeth were married in 1801; the couple separated in 1803. But these were not the only children on whom George lavished his attention: he maintained as many as fifteen mistresses and at least forty children in the many chambers of Petworth House in West Sussex.
Sir George Howland Beaumont, 7th Baronet (1753-1827), one of the leading figures behind the creation of the National Gallery.
General Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave (1755-1831), Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1805 until he and many others resigned following the sudden death of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, on January 26th, 1806. It was during Phipps’s tenure as Foreign Secretary that Nelson won the The Battle of Trafalgar, an event that Phipps celebrated with an Ode of his own making, subsequently set to music by Thomas Arne.
* Robert Peel (1788-1850), Prime Minister in 1834-1835 and 1841-1846. Peel treated the great men of the industrial revolution in the same manner, entertaining former collier George Stephenson at his Derbyshire home in retirement. See Burning Daylight.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Lord Egremont died on November 11th, 1837. ‘A great loss to all, especially artists.’ Haydon wrote this in his diary on the 13th.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IAfter. IIDay. IIIMiss.