The Life of George Romney” by William Hayley (T. Payne London 1809)

p. 257 letter March 17, 1797

(George Romney used William Hodges' wife Anne, nee Carr, as one of his models for his paintings).

to a ‘dear Friend’

‘Alas poor Hodges! His wife more to be lamented1 I shall never forget what I saw one morning when I found her at breakfast with her little children; her voice and face most enchanting and beautiful than I had ever thought them before. The scene dwells upon my mind when I hear of her, poor woman1 For the gratification of the same looks and voice, I think I could travel a hundred miles. I must content myself with the vision; the reality I shall never see again.’

pp258/9
Romney had great esteem, and great pity for the amiable man, and unfortunate artist whose calamitous death he lamented in the last letter….Ill fortune seemed continually to attend all the exertions, and all the wishes of the kind-hearted and high-spirited Hodges. With uncommon industry, and considerable talents, he could not gain a comparable subsistence by his art, and when, in honest indignation, he renounced the pencil for the lucrative business of a provincial banker, the public storm, that shook even the bank of the nation, utterly overwhelmed the hapless adventurer, and all his hopes. Death delivered him from a scene of unmerited distress. Unhappy as he was, to an astonishing degree, in several incidents of his life, his destiny had given him one blessing of superlative excellence. Perhaps there never existed a woman more truly amiable in person and talents, in manners and in heart than Mrs Hodges. I believe I cannot act more in conformity to the feelings of Romney, than by inserting in the volume devoted to the personal history, a poetical tribute paid to the memory of this couple, (whom he tenderly regarded) in the following




EPITATH
on
WILLIAM AND ANNE HODGES


Ye men of genius, join’d to moral worth’
Whose merits meet no just rewards on earth,
Ye fair, who in your lot, tho’ lovely, find
To grace and virtue fortune still is blind,
Sigh o’er the names recorded on this stone!
And feel the characters so like your own!

To active Hodges, who lived with zeal sublime,
Pursued the art, he lov’d, in every clime;
Who early traversing the globe with Cook,
Painted new life from nature’s latent book;
Who with a spirit that no bars controul’d,
Labour’d in Indian heat, and Russian cold,
Yet clos’d (with virtues by the world allow’d)
A life of labour in affliction’s cloud;
To him, whose name has well deserved to live,
This faithful record truth and friendship give,
Nor give to him alone, but doubly just
Hail his angelic Anna’s hallow’d dust.
She lovely victim of affection true,
In pangs that piety could not subdue,
Perceiv’d (and felt the prospect of relief)
Her fair and gentle frame dissolv’d by grief.
Ye! who in virtuous love take tender pride,
Here honor her who as its martyr died.