Page:Demeter and other poems (IA demeterotherpoem00tennrich).pdf/156

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ROMNEY'S REMORSE.

'I read Hayley's Life of Romney the other day—Romney wanted but education and reading to make him a very fine painter; but his ideal was not high nor fixed. How touching is the close of his life! He married at nineteen, and because Sir Joshua and others had said that "marriage spoilt an artist" almost immediately left his wife in the North and scarce saw her till the end of his life; when old, nearly mad and quite desolate, he went back to her and she received him and nursed him till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney's pictures! even as a matter of Art, I am sure,' (Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald, vol. i.)

'Beat, little heart—I give you this and this'
Who are you? What! the Lady Hamilton?