Note 219 — 1840
Reading edition
Haydon worked at this picture of Wellington from June to November, 1839. (See his Autobiography, vol. iii. pp. 108-131.) He writes under date, Sept. 4, 1840:—“Hard at work. I heard from dear Wordsworth, with a glorious sonnet on the Duke, and Copenhagen.† It is very fine, and I began a new journal directly, and put in the sonnet. God bless him.” The following is part of Wordsworth’s letter:—
“My dear Haydon,—We are all charmed with your etching. It is both poetically and pictorially conceived, and finely executed. I should have written immediately to thank you for it, and for your letter and the enclosed one, which is interesting, but I wished to gratify you by writing a sonnet. I now send it, but with an earnest request that it may not be put into circulation for some little time, as it is warm from the brain, and may require, in consequence, some little retouching. It has this, at least, remarkable attached to it, which will add to its value in your eyes, that it was actually composed while I was climbing Helvellyn last Monday.”—Ed.
† Wellington’s war-horse.—Ed.