that description of people, as it
will, sooner or later, have a most corrupting effect on the morals, and,
as a man is known by the company he keeps, I should be very sorry to have
you enrolled with such society, however pure you may believe his morals
to be.

"Your father and myself were eleven days in company with him in coming
from Charleston, South Carolina. His behavior was quite unexceptionable
then, but he is in a situation to ruin the best morals. I hope you do not
attend the theatre, as I have ever considered it a most bewitching
amusement, and ruinous both to soul and body. I would therefore guard you
against it."

His brother Richard joined the rest of the family in urging the young and
impulsive artist to leave politics alone, as we learn from the following
words which begin a letter of November 27, 1813:--

MY DEAR BROTHER,--Your letters by the Neptune, and also the medal, gave
us great pleasure. The politics, however, were very disagreeable and
occupied no inconsiderable part of your letters. Your kind wishes for
_our_ reformation we must beg leave to retort by hoping for _your_ speedy
amendment.

There are gaps in the correspondence of this period. Many of the letters
from both sides of the Atlantic seem never to have reached their
destination, owing to the disturbed state of affairs arising from the war
between the two countries.

The young artist had gone in October, 1813, to Bristol, at the earnest
solicitation of friends in that city, and seems to have spent a pleasant
and profitable five months there, painting a number of portraits. He
refers to letters written from Bristol, but they were either never
received or not preserved. Of other letters I have only fragments, and
some that are quoted by Mr. Prime in his biography have vanished utterly.
Still, from what remains, we can glean a fairly good idea of the life of
the young man at that period. His parents continually begged him to leave
politics alone and to tell them more of his artistic life, of his visits
to interesting places, and of his intercourse with the literary and
artistic celebrities of the day.

We, too, must regret that he did not write more fully on these subjects,
for there must have been a mine of interesting material at his disposal.
We also learn that there seems to have been a strange fatality attached
to the little statuette of the "Dying Hercules," for, although he packed
it carefully and sent it to Liverpool on June 18,