Excerpt from Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Vol. 2 of 2: Historical Painter, From His Autobiography and Journals "January 1st. I began this new year and ended the last in apathy and indifference. No prayer, no thanksgiving, no reflection, no thought. I was ill, and fretful, and callous. My Frank was seized with an attack of the lungs. He recovered. My Mock Election opened and succeeded moderately, but it has not sold; and though I have to thank God for the last five months with all my heart and all my soul, I am beginning again to apprehend necessity." He was now at work on Eucles, when a new subject suggested itself as adapted to that Hogarthian faculty which he flattered himself might have developed itself in the Mock Election. He thus describes the subject and the circumstances under which it occurred to his mind. "February 1st. For this last week I thought I should have gone mad at the prospect of losing dearest Frank - a fellow string of the same instrument as myself. O Frank - dear little intellectual, keen, poetic soul! One night, as I was sitting by the fire in his room - his still room - sobbing quietly, in bitter grief, and resolving, if he died, to glory in letting my faculties rot over my blasted hopes, when -will it be believed - Punch, as the subject for a picture, darted into my thoughts, and I composed it, quite lost to every thing else, till dear little Frank's feeble voice recalled me. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.