“It so happened,” continued Miss Mitford, “that I merely passed through London that season, and, being detained by some of the thousand and one nothings which are so apt to detain women in the great city, I arrived at the exhibition, in company with a still younger friend, so near the period of closing, that more punctual visitors were moving out, and the doorkeeper actually turned us and our money back.  I persisted, however, assuring him that I only wished to look at one picture, and promising not to detain him long.  Whether my entreaties would have carried the point or not, I cannot tell; but half a crown did; so we stood admiringly before the ‘Judgment of Solomon.’  I am no great judge of painting; but that picture impressed me then, as it does now, as excellent in composition, in color, and in that great quality of telling a story which appeals at once to every mind.  Our delight was sincerely felt, and most enthusiastically expressed, as we kept gazing at the picture, and seemed, unaccountably to us at first, to give much pleasure to the only gentleman who had remained in the room,—­a young and very distinguished-looking person, who had watched with evident amusement our negotiation with the doorkeeper.  Beyond indicating the best position to look at the picture, he had no conversation with us; but I soon surmised that we were seeing the painter, as well as his painting; and when, two or three years afterwards, a friend took me by appointment to view the ‘Entry into Jerusalem,’ Haydon’s next great picture, then near its completion, I found I had not been mistaken.

“Haydon was, at that period, a remarkable person to look at and listen to.  Perhaps your American word bright expresses better than any other his appearance and manner.  His figure, short, slight, elastic, and vigorous, looked still more light and youthful from the little sailor’s-jacket and snowy trousers which formed his painting costume.  His complexion was clear and healthful.  His forehead, broad and high, out of all proportion to the lower part of his face, gave an unmistakable character of intellect to the finely placed head.  Indeed, he liked to observe that the gods of the Greek sculptors owed much of their elevation to being similarly out of drawing!  The lower features were terse, succinct, and powerful,—­from the bold, decided jaw, to the large, firm, ugly, good-humored mouth.  His very spectacles aided the general expression; they had a look of the man.  But how shall I attempt to tell you of his brilliant conversation, of his rapid, energetic manner, of his quick turns of thought, as he flew on from topic to topic, dashing his brush here and there upon the canvas?  Slow and quiet persons were a good deal startled by this suddenness and mobility.  He left such people far behind, mentally and bodily.  But his talk was so rich and varied, so earnest and glowing, his anecdotes so racy, his perception of character so shrewd, and the whole tone so spontaneous and natural, that the want