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collectors were willing to pay for the works of this new wonder, induced his father to urge him onward in his studies--and his progress was rapid. But it is a dangerous thing to overtask either the mind or the body at these years, and there is every reason to believe that young Morland suffered both of these evils. His father stimulated him by praise and by indulgences at the table, and to ensure his continuance at his allotted tasks, shut him up in a garret, and excluded him from free air, which strengthens the body, and from education-that free air which nourishes the mind. His stated work for a time was making drawings from pictures and from plaster casts, which his father carried out and sold; but as he increased in skill, he chose his subjects from popular songs and ballads, such as Young Roger came tapping at Dolly's window," My name it is Jack Hall," "I am a bold Shoemaker, from Belfast Town I came," and other productions of the mendicant muse. The copies of pictures and casts were commonly sold for three half-crowns each; the original sketches-some of them a little free in posture, and not over delicately handled, were framed and disposed of for any sum from two to five guineas, according to the cleverness of the piece, or the generosity of the purchaser. Though far inferior to the productions of his manhood, they were much admired; engravers found it profitable to copy them, and before he was sixteen years old, his name had flown far and wide.

But long before he was sixteen, he had begun to form those unfortunate habits by which the story of his life is to be darkened. From ten years of age, he appears to have led the life of a prisoner

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and a slave under the roof of his father, hearing in this 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 of 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 taproom was an indifferent school of manners, whatever it might be for painting, and there this gifted lad was now otfen 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 any thing 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.

During this feverish period he was introduced to Reynolds, obtained permission to copy some of his works, and began to be very generally noticed as an artist of no common promise. His father was his constant companion when he went out a-copying; more, it is said, though it can scarcely be believed, with the intention of seizing upon his productions, than with the desire of preserving him from loose associates or the charms of the taproom. He went to copy the painting of Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy in the gallery of Mr. Angerstein, at Blackheath; and the proprietor, a man of taste, and a lover of art, desired to view the work in its progress. The elder Morland declared that his son George had refused to begin his copy till it was promised that no one should overlook him, and that he should act in the house as he thought proper. This coarse arrogance was submitted to-young Morland refused all invitations to mix with the family of Angerstein-he descended to the servants' hall-emptied his flagoncracked his wild jest, and was exceedingly happy.

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VOL. II.

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How he escaped from the thraldom of his father has been related by Hassell and by Smith, and as they contradict each other, I shall rehearse both The former, who knew Morland 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 broke 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.' 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.

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In the seventeenth year of his age he left his father's house, with his easel, his palette, his pencils-and dressed in his favourite green coat and top boots. "He was in the very extreme of foppish puppyism," says Hassell, "his head, when ornamented according to his own taste, resembled a snow-ball, after the model of Tippy Bob, of dramatic memory, to which was attached a short thick

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