terwards that Haydon thought they might be duns, as he was very hard
up at the time. His eyes glistened at the mention of the L100. 'I am not
very fond of painting portraits,' he said, 'but a mayor is a mayor, and
there is something grand in that idea of the Norman arch.' And thus
Mayor Hawkes came to be painted by Benjamin Haydon, and his portrait may
be found, not without diligent search, among the many municipal worthies
that figure on the walls of that most picturesque old Hall in Norwich.
Here is Borrow's description of the painting:

The original mayor was a mighty, portly man, with a bull's
head, black hair, body like that of a dray horse, and legs and
thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least. To his
bull's head, black hair, and body the painter had done justice;
there was one point, however, in which the portrait did not
correspond with the original--the legs were disproportionably
short, the painter having substituted his own legs for those of
the mayor.

John Borrow described Robert Hawkes to his brother as a person of many
qualifications:

--big and portly, with a voice like Boanerges; a religious man,
the possessor of an immense pew; loyal, so much so that I once
heard him say that he would at any time go three miles to hear
any one sing 'God save the King'; moreover, a giver of
excellent dinners. Such is our present mayor, who, owing to
his loyalty, his religion, and a little, perhaps, to his
dinners, is a mighty favourite.

Haydon, who makes no mention of the Borrows in his _Correspondence_ or
_Autobiography_, although there is one letter of George Borrow's to him
in the latter work, had been in jail for debt three years prior to the
visit of the Borrows. He was then at work on his greatest success in
'the heroic'--_The Raising of Lazarus_, a canvas nineteen feet long by
fifteen high. The debt was one to house decorators, for the artist had
ever large ideas. The bailiff, he tells us,[17] was so agitated at the
sight of the painting of Lazarus in the studio that he cried out, 'Oh,
my God! Sir, I won't arrest you. Give me your word to meet me at twelve
at the attorney's, and I'll take it.' In 1821 Haydon married, and a
little later we find him again 'without a single shilling in the
world--with a large picture before me not half done.' In April 1822 he
is arrested at the instance of his colourman, 'with whom I had de