age, and he owed his election, not to any favouritism or even popularity, but, as Fisher wrote, 'solely to his own unsupported, unpatronised merits.' His house was full of unsold pictures, and he advertised for the public to come to see them gratis. Whether this invitation was largely accepted or not does not appear, but there is no doubt that, in spite of the opportunities afforded to the public of seeing his pictures on the walls of the National Gallery and the British Gallery, and in his own house, he never attained any great measure of popularity or success in his own country during his life. The first breeze of real fame came from France. In 1821 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture called 'A Landscape — Noon,' which is now known as 'The Hay Wain,' presented by Mr. Henry Vaughan to the National Gallery in 1886. Its orst purchaser was a Frenchman, who bought it and two other pictures for 250l. The purchaser sent it to the Salon in 1824, together with a view on the Thames at the opening of Waterloo Bridge, called by CJonstable the 'small Waterloo,' to distinguish it from the larger picture, then projected but not finished for many years after. What is called the romantic school of France had then begun. It was a revolt against the habitual conventionalism, the pseudo-classicism, and the falseness of the school of the empire headed by David. The revolt was headed by Baron Gros, G6ricault, and Delacroix among the figure painters, and by Paul Huet in landscape. Constable's pictures revealed to them a fresh and natural way of observing and recording natural effects. Their profound influence on the modern school of French landscape is fully acknowledged by French critics (see Burger in Histoire des Peintres, article 'Constable,' and Chesneau in La Peinture Anglaise), Delacroix himself was so impressed with Constable's landscapes, that he painted his own 'Massacre de Scio' entirely over again in four days. After being exhibited a few weeks they were removed from their original situations to a post of honour, 'two prime places in the principal room.' Constable writes: 'They acknowledge the richness of texture and the surface of things. They are struck with their vivacity and freshness, things unknown to their own pictures.' Constable was awarded a gold medal by the king of France (Charles X). Medals were also given to Bonington [q. v.] and Copley Fielding, and Sir Thomas Luawrence was created a knight of the Legion of Honour. The effect of Constable's 'White Horse ' at the exhibition at Lille in 1825 was equally great and produced another gold medal.
No such recognition was accorded him in England. Things had improved a little down to 1826. In 1822 he writes that 'several cheering things have happened to me professionially. 'I am certain my reputation rises as a landscape-painter and that my style of art, as Farington always said it would, is fast becoming a distinct feature.' This year Bishop Fisher conunissioned Constable to paint a picture of Salisbury Cathedral from his grounds, as a present to his daughter on her marriage, but ill-health prevented the artist from finishing it till 1823. This, now in the South Kensington Museum, is one of the most beautiful of his pictures; out it did not quite please the bishop, and Constable painted him another, with a slight alteration, which is now in the possession of the bishop's descendants. In 1824 he sold his large picture of 'A Boat passing a Lock' to Mr. Morrison for a hundred and fifty guineas (including frame), but he was not so successful with 'The Jumping Horse' of next year, nor with the 'Cornfield' of the year after, which is now in the National Gallery. During these years his family had been increasing, and in 1828 his seventh and last child (Lionel) was born. Though since the legacy of Dr. Rhudde and the death of his own father his income appears to have been sufficient for his wants, it is evident that he was sometimes hard pushed and had to employ much of the time he would have devoted to landscapes in copying pictures and making portraits. Now, however, all strain of the kind was ended by the death of Mr. Bickncll, who left the Constables 20,000l. 'This,' he wrote, 'I will settle on my wife and children, and I shall then be able to stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease, thank God ! 'But a greater misfortune than poverty was at hand. His wife, always consumptive, died towards the end of the year, leaving him with seven children, the youngest not a year old.
He bore up bravely against the bereavement, but when he next year (1829) was at length elected an Academician he felt the tardy honour had come too late. 'It has been delayed,' he said, 'too long, and I cannot impart it.' It was also accompanied by much bitterness against Sir Thomas Lawrence, the president, who told him he ought to consider himself fortunate at being elected. This seems to have been also the opinion of the public, who did not seem to appreciate him any more after his election. But he went on bravely working, though saddened, till his death in 1837. In 1831 appeared his grand ' Salisbunr Cathedral from the Meadows,' and in 1832 his long-delayed 'Waterloo Bridge,' called in the catalogue 'White-
