There seems no reason to doubt that Lawrence would have married Sally Siddons had he been able to do so, when Maria had passed from the scene, and that in years to come he was profoundly moved by her death. We know, too, that he died a bachelor, though the opportunities for marriage that came in his way were almost startling in their number; so it well may be that there were deeper springs of devotion and loyalty in his heart than were expressed by his pen. Sally Siddons died in 1803, when Lawrence was thirty-four years old, and had more than a quarter of a century to live. We may then give him the benefit of the doubts that have arisen in the minds of his contemporaries and biographers. Some still declare that Maria Siddons died of a broken heart, but the recently published correspondence throws a measure of doubt upon the statement; and fair-minded people will incline to the belief expressed by Allan Cunningham that “she died of a disease and a doctor.”
While the social tragedy was affecting his private life, Lawrence was making great headway in his profession and out of it. In society he was an established favourite; he had a handsome face, a fluent and honeyed tongue, he wrote agreeable verses, and made facile sketches, which he would give freely to his friends and acquaintances. His most intimate associates were Smirke, the architect of the British Museum, Farrington and Fuseli the artists, John Kemble the actor, and Mrs. Siddons, whom he painted as Aspasia as well as Zara, though he never approached the beauty of the Gainsborough Siddons in our national collection. Some of his paintings went to engravers, who paid big prices for them; and though after moving from Bond Street to Greek Street he settled finally at 65 Russell Square, he never entertained on such a scale as his position would have justified. In fact he seldom or never gave a dinner party, excusing himself on the ground that he had neither wife nor mistress to superintend one. His prices rose steadily; he took half his fee in advance, but was always in debt and difficulty, and frequently forced to borrow at a high rate of interest. A devoted and conscientious worker, he always stood to his canvas, and seldom spoke to his sitter. At a first sitting he would draw the sitter’s head, at the second he would start painting. He told friends that on one occasion he worked for thirty-seven hours consecutively, a marvellous feat for a man who never sat down to paint.