The Letters Relating to John Linnell s Portrait of Thomas Carlyle

Transcription

1 The Letters Relating to John Linnell s Portrait of Thomas Carlyle Whenever Thomas Carlyle was invited to sit to an artist wishing to capture his likeness, requisite corsing and schwering" about inconvenience seems always to have given way to reluctant acceptance. Carlyle clearly understood the iconic importance of having his picture made. When the prominent portrait and landscape artist John Linnell ( ; ODNB) made the request, the result was no different than any other artist had or would receive. Jane Welsh Carlyle suggests the pattern in a letter to her cousin Jeannie Welsh: Carlyle is tomorrow again going to sit for his picture to Linnell!!! at the request of William Cunningham who is a good sort of fellow that one does not like to disoblige but it is really an unspeakable hardship!!! (CLO: JWC to JWE, 12 March 1843). The painting was eventually finished later in the year and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844 (the portrait can be viewed in the CLO on the table of contents page for volume 16) even though the commissioner of the painting, William Coningham ( ), art collector and later M.P. for Brighton, would not, according to the poet William Allingham, have anything to do with it when finished (267). Surprisingly, JWC s letter and a footnote containing Allingham s recollection (n14) provide the only mention of Linnell s portrait of Carlyle in the Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. The editors were apparently unaware of Alfred T. Story s The Life of John Linnell (1892), in which Story not only recounts the production of Linnell s portrait, but also includes three letters from TC to Linnell. As in most accounts of Carlyle s encounters with artists, Story includes an anecdote from the sittings, events surely marked by fidgety impatience, but CSA

2 178 Carlyle Studies Annual ones also defined by the apparently unforgettable experience of being with Carlyle, and in particular of hearing his laugh: Linnell recalled to [TC s] mind the description contained in Isaiah (chap. xliv) of the man who got a block of wood, made a fire, and cooked his dinner with it, and then took the lump that remained, carved an image out of it, and worshipped it. Carlyle was greatly amused when the passage was recalled to his memory. He threw himself back in his chair, and with a loud roar of laughter cried, repeating a portion of the text: Deliver me, for thou art my god! A great jackass! (1: 303). The letters and papers upon which Story based his account of Linnell and Carlyle were acquired in May 2005 by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University. The transcriptions of the letters relating to Carlyle s portrait in the Linnell Archive are here published with the kind permission of that institution. Particular thanks are due to Emma Darbyshire for her assistance in procuring the holograph images for transcription. In addition to the three letters previously published by Story are two hitherto unpublished letters from TC to William Coningham, who clearly was involved directly in arranging Carlyle s presence at Linnell s studio, although as readers will see, Coningham s inability to read Carlyle s handwriting was the source of at least one delicious instance of confusion. Also included here is a letter from Linnell to TC dated 8 May 1878 that is apparently a response to a call for signatures to be attached to a declaration against British involvement in the Russo-Turkish War ( ). Although unrelated to the portrait of Carlyle, the Linnell Archive contains two other items of interest: a facsimile of a testimonial letter from TC to James Dowie, Bootmaker, and a brochure for Dowie and Marshall s Elastic Soled Boots that contains a transcription of the letter. Carlyle s endorsement remains rather more mysterious than certain, and copies of the letter are held at various libraries, among them the Perkins Library at Duke University. A transcription is appended here in the interest of providing a complete accounting of the Carlyle materials in the Linnell Archive. Brent E. Kinser Western Carolina University

3 Miscellanies 179 Works Cited Allingham, William. William Allingham: A Diary. Ed. H. Allingham and D. Radford. London: Macmillan, Carlyle, Thomas, and Jane Welsh Carlyle. The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle [CL]. Ed. Ian Campbell, Aileen Christianson, David R. Sorensen, et al. 37 vols. Durham, NC: Duke UP, The Carlyle Letters Online [CLO]. Coordinating ed. Brent E. Kinser. 35 vols. Durham, NC: Duke UP, Linnell, John. Thomas Carlyle < org/content/vol16/issue1/index.dtl>. Story, Alfred T. The Life of John Linnell. London: R. Bentley, TC to John Linnell, Undated. MS ; ALS, 1 p. Pbd. in Story, Life of Linnell 1: 304. Carlyle s mention of the Exhibition alludes to the Royal Academy summer exhibition, held every year, June August. Linnell s portrait was exhibited in Chelsea, Saturday My Dear Sir, Surely it would give me great pleasure to have my likeness taken by you: but I am at present in such a press of business, sickliness and confusions, I fear it is totally impossible till the Exhibition time, and more, is like to be past. With many regrets and kind regards, Yours most truly TC to John Linnell, 30 June MS ; ALS, 1 p. Pbd. in Story, Life of Linnell 1: 304. Chelsea, 30 june, 1843 My dear Sir, Above a week ago you were kind enough to ask me to come,

4 180 Carlyle Studies Annual and have that Stationary Portrait set in movement towards completion. I was too busy at the moment to think of anything whatever but what lay among my hands, up to my very chin; your very Note has never yet been answered. I go to Wales on Monday, having indeed terrible need of the country every way; and have, as you may imagine, every hour of the interim occupied, not in the pleasantest way. Believe me Yours always truly TC to John Linnell, 5 March MS ; ALS, 3 pp. Pbd. in Story, Life 1: 305. This letter suggests that the portrait was completed in 1844 instead of the usually assigned date of Chelsea, 5 March 1844 Dear Sir, I was hardly ever busier in my life thank now; I will request you also to observe that I did not surmise, that Mr Cunningham indeed did not hint to me of more than two sittings, and that to you at starting I stated expressly that I could undertake for no more. Such, according to my memory of them, are the facts. Nevertheless if three hours more of my time, divided into two more sittings, are really of importance to you, it seems churlish to refuse them. I am engaged for Friday or Saturday, I know not yet which. Let Mr Cunningham come down for me any other day at two o clock and you shall have me for an hour and half; and then again any second day in the like fashion; and after that, I wish to have it distinctly understood, that I have done with the business, and really cannot attend to it, late or early, any farther. Believe me always Faithfully yours

5 Miscellanies 181 TC to William Coningham, n.d. MS ; ALS, 1 p. Hitherto unpbd. Dear Coninghame, On Tuesday I will sit to Mr Linell, and then again either on Wednesday or on Friday, at the hour of 1 p.m. each day. Will this do? You must tell me first where Mr Linell lives! Yours Always Detail from TC to William Coningham (MS ) Courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge TC to William Coningham, n.d. MS ; ALS, 1 p. Hitherto unpbd. Dear Coninghame It was Tuesday I said and not Monday! What is to be Done? I could come today, tho it were very inconvenient: but I suppose there must be a mistake with Linell too. On the whole, I will not come today unless I get farther order from you. Yours ever Monday Morning

6 182 Carlyle Studies Annual John Linnell to TC, 8 May MS ; ALS, 1 p. On 15 April 1878 (p. 11), the Times carried an announcement of a declaration against British entry into the Russo-Turkish War. On 15 May (p. 8), the Times published a list of persons willing to receive names and addresses of anyone willing to sign the declaration. Included in this list are James Bryce, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Darwin, Anthony Froude, Edward Burne Jones, and William Morris. R-Hill May 8 / 78 Dear Mr Carlyle I have much pleasure in sending this. You have my signature agt war And if it were possible to you to see me here I shd feel great pleasure as I am not able to get to London now I am yours truly John Linnell Sr Signature John Linnell Sen. For the Declaration against War Redstone Wood Red Hill Surrey TC to James Dowie, 10 July MS ; Facsimile of ALS, 1 p. At the top of the letter, printed in red ink: Fac-simile of testimonial from thomas carlyle, esq. / to James Dowie, Bootmaker, 455, West Strand. To Mr Dowie Bt- & Shoe Maker Charing Cross or whatr the right address is [this line is circled] Dear Sir, Not for your sake alone, but for that of a Public suffering much in the feet, I am willing to testify that you have yielded me complete and unexpected relief in that particular; and in short, on trial after trial, that you seems to me to possess, in signal contrast to so very many of yr brethren, the actual art

7 Miscellanies 183 of making shoes whh are easy to the wearer. My thanks to you are emphatic and sincere. 5. Cheyne Row, Chelsea 10 july 1868 Viewing Ford Madox Brown s Work, 1865 Over a span of thirteen years, Ford Madox Brown labored on Work, his Hogarthian panorama of navvies digging in a London street, possibly near Chelsea Old Church and the Thames waterfront during the construction of Joseph Bazalgette s great sewer system that TC called the Cloaca Maxima. The half dozen workers that serve as focal point are surrounded by onlookers from all strata of Victorian society, from the top-hatted to the bare-footed. Two of the figures depicted, discussing the scene in earnest, are TC and the theologian Frederick Denison Maurice. TC did not actually pose for Brown but allowed a photograph to be made for that purpose by Charles Thompson at the South Kensington Museum (now Victoria and Albert Museum) on 12 May For more of the story, see the footnotes attending TC s letter to Brown, 5 May 1859, in which he wrote: I think it a pity you had not put (or should not still put) some other man than me into your Great Picture: it is certain you could hardly have found among the Sons of Adam, at present, any individual who is less in a condition to help you forward with it, or take interest in it active or passive. I was never in my days so overwhelmed.... Any afternoon I will attend, here, at your studio, or where you appoint me, and give yr man one hour, to get what photograph he will or can of me (CLO). In the Thompson photograph, TC is supported by a wooden sawhorse to assist him in keeping himself perfectly motionless during the long exposure time. His right hand is gripping his cane; his left hand is gripping his right hand. And still, his right hand shakes and blurs the image, giving early evidence of the palsy that would afflict him for the rest of his life. This image is