Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art by Shearjashub Spooner (love letters to the dead txt) 📕

old, his name had flown far and wide. MORLAND'S MENTAL AND MORAL EDUCATION, UNDER AN UNNATURAL PARENT.

From ten years of age, young Morland appears to have led the life of a prisoner and a slave under the roof of his father, hearing in his seclusion the merry din of the schoolboys in the street, without hope of partaking in their sports. By-and-by he managed to obtain an hour's relaxation at the twilight, and then associated with such idle and profligate boys as chance threw in his way, and learned from them a love for coarse enjoyment, and the knowledge that it could not well be obtained without money. Oppression keeps the school of Cunning; young Morland resolved not only to share in the profits of his own talents, but also to snatch an hour or so of amusement, without consulting his father. When he made three drawings for his father, he made one secretly for himself, and giving a signal from his window, lowered it by a string to two or three knowing boys, who found a purchaser at a reduced price, and spent the money with the young artist. A common tap-room was an indifferent school of manners, whatever it might be for painting, and there this gifted lad was now often to be found late in the evening, carousing with hostlers and potboys, handing round the quart pot, and singing his song or cracking his joke.

His father, having found out the contrivance by which he raised money for this kind of revelry adopted, in his own imagination, a wiser course. He resolved to make his studies as pleasant to him as he could; and as George was daily increasing in fame and his works in price, this could be done without any loss. He indulged his son, now some sixteen years old, with wine, pampered his appetite with richer food, and moreover allowed him a little pocket-money to spend among his companions, and purchase acquaintance with what the vulgar call life. He dressed him, too, in a style of ultra-dandyism, and exhibited him at his easel to his customers, attired in a green coat with very long skirts, and immense yellow buttons, buckskin breeches, and top boots with spurs. He permitted him too to sing wild songs, swear grossly, and talk about anything he liked with such freedom as makes anxious parents tremble. With all these indulgences the boy was not happy; he aspired but the more eagerly after full liberty and the unrestrained enjoyment of the profits of his pencil.

MORLAND'S ESCAPE FROM THE THRALDOM OF HIS FATHER.

Hassell and Smith give contradictory accounts of this important step in young Morland's life, which occurred when he was seventeen years old. The former, who knew him well, says that, "he was determined to make his escape from the rigid confinement which paternal authority had imposed upon him; and, wild as a young quadruped that had broken loose from his den, at length, though late, effectually accomplished his purpose." "Young George was of so unsettled a disposition," says Smith, "that his father, being fully aware of his extraordinary talents, was determined to force him to get his own living, and gave him a guinea, with something like the following observation: 'I am determined to encourage your idleness no longer; there—take that guinea, and apply to your art and support yourself.' This Morland told me, and added, that from that moment he commenced and continued wholly on his own account." It would appear by Smith's relation, that our youth, instead of supporting his father, had all along been depending on his help; this, however, contradicts not only Hassell, but Fuseli also, who, in his edition of Pilkington's Dictionary, accuses the elder Morland of avariciously pocketing the whole profits of his son's productions.

MORLAND'S MARRIAGE, AND TEMPORARY REFORM.

After leaving his father, Morland plunged into a career of wildness and dissipation, amidst which, however, his extraordinary talents kept his name still rising. While residing at Kensall Green, he was frequently thrown in the company of Ward, the painter, whose example of moral steadiness was exhibited to him in vain. At length, however, he fell in love with Miss Ward, a young lady of beauty and modesty, and the sister of his friend. Succeeding in gaining her affections, he soon afterwards married her; and to make the family union stronger, Ward sued for the hand of Maria Morland, and in about a month after his sister's marriage, obtained it. In the joy of this double union, the brother artists took joint possession of a good house in High Street, Marylebone. Morland suspended for a time his habit of insobriety, discarded the social comrades of his laxer hours, and imagined himself reformed. But discord broke out between the sisters concerning the proper division of rule and authority in the house; and Morland, whose partner's claim perhaps was the weaker, took refuge in lodgings in Great Portland Street. His passion for late hours and low company, restrained through courtship and the honey-moon, now broke out with the violence of a stream which had been dammed, rather than dried up. It was in vain that his wife entreated and remonstrated—his old propensities prevailed, and the post-boy, the pawnbroker, and the pugilist, were summoned again to his side, no more to be separated.

MORLAND'S SOCIAL POSITION.

Morland's dissipated habits and worthless companions, produced the effect that might have been expected; and this talented painter, who might have mingled freely among nobles and princes, came strength to hold a position in society that is best illustrated by the following anecdote. Raphael Smith, the engraver, had employed him for years on works from which he engraved, and by which he made large sums of money. He called one day with Bannister the comedian to look at a picture which was upon the easel. Smith was satisfied with the artist's progress, and said, "I shall now proceed on my morning ride." "Stay a moment," said Morland, laying down his brush, "and I will go with you." "Morland," answered the other, in an emphatic tone, which could not be mistaken, "I have an appointment with a gentleman, who is waiting for me." Such a sarcasm might have cured any man who was not incurable; it made but a momentary impression upon the mind of our painter, who cursed the engraver, and returned to his palette.

AN UNPLEASANT DILEMMA.

Morland once received an invitation to Barnet, and was hastening thither with Hassell and another friend, when he was stopped at Whetstone turnpike by a lumber or jockey cart, driven by two persons, one of them a chimney-sweep, who were disputing with the toll-gatherer. Morland endeavored to pass, when one of the wayfarers cried, "What! Mr. Morland, won't you speak to a body!" The artist endeavored to elude further greeting, but this was not to be; the other bawled out so lustily, that Morland was obliged to recognize at last his companion and croney, Hooper, a tinman and pugilist. After a hearty shake of the hand, the boxer turned to his neighbor the chimney-sweep and said, "Why, Dick, don't you know this here gentleman? 'tis my friend Mr. Morland." The sooty charioteer smiling a recognition, forced his unwelcome hand upon his brother of the brush; they then both whipt their horses and departed. This rencontre mortified Morland very sensibly; he declared that he knew nothing of the chimney-sweep, and that he was forced upon him by the impertinence of Hooper: but the artist's habits made the story generally believed, and "Sweeps, your honor," was a joke which he was often obliged to hear.

MORLAND AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

Morland loved to visit this isle in his better days, and some of his best pictures are copied from scenes on that coast. A friend once found him at Freshwater-Gate, in a low public-house called The Cabin. Sailors, rustics, and fishermen, were seated round him in a kind of ring, the rooftree rung with laughter and song; and Morland, with manifest reluctance, left their company for the conversation of his friend. "George," sad his monitor, "you must have reasons for keeping such company." "Reasons, and good ones," said the artist, laughing; "see—where could I find such a picture of life as that, unless among the originals of The Cabin?" He held up his sketch-book and showed a correct delineation of the very scene in which he had so lately been the presiding spirit. One of his best pictures contains this fac-simile of the tap-room, with its guests and furniture.

A NOVEL MODE OF FULFILLING COMMISSIONS.

"It frequently happened," says one of Morland's biographers, "when a picture had been bespoke by one of his friends, who advanced some of the money to induce him to work, if the purchaser did not stand by to see it finished and carry it away with him, some other person, who was lurking within sight for that purpose, and knew the state of Morland's pocket, by the temptation of a few guineas laid upon the table, carried off the picture. Thus all were served in their turn; and though each exulted in the success of the trick when he was so lucky as to get a picture in this easy way, they all joined in exclaiming against Morland's want of honesty in not keeping his promises to them."

HASSELL'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH MORLAND.

Hassell's introduction to Morland was decidedly in character. "As I was walking," he says, "towards Paddington on a summer morning, to inquire about the health of a relation, I saw a man posting on before me with a sucking-pig, which he carried in his arms like a child. The piteous squeaks of the little animal, and the singular mode of conveyance, drew spectators to door and window; the person however who carried it minded no one, but to every dog that barked—and there were not a few—he sat down the pig, and pitted him against the dog, and then followed the chase which was sure to ensue. In this manner he went through several streets in Mary-le-bone, and at last, stopping at the door of one of my friends, was instantly admitted. I also knocked and entered, but my surprise was great on finding this original sitting with the pig still under his arm, and still greater when I was introduced to Morland the painter."

MORLAND'S DRAWINGS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

A person at whose house Morland resided when in the Isle of Wight, having set out for London, left an order with an acquaintance at Cowes to give the painter his own price for whatever works he might please to send. The pictures were accompanied by a regular solicitation for cash in proportion, or according to the nature of the subject. At length a small but very highly finished drawing arrived, and as the sum demanded seemed out of all proportion with the size of the work, the conscientious agent transmitted the piece to London and stated the price. The answer by post was, "Pay what is asked, and get as many others as you can at the same price." There is not one sketch in the collection thus made but what would now produce thrice its original cost.

MORLAND'S FREAKS.

One evening Hassell and his friends were returning to town from Hempstead, when Morland accosted them in the character of a mounted patrole, wearing the parish great-coat, girded with a broad black belt, and a pair of pistols depending. He hailed them with "horse patrole!" in his natural voice; they recognised him and laughed heartily, upon which he entreated them to stop at the Mother Red Cap, a well known public-house, till he joined them. He soon made his appearance in his proper dress, and