as
arrived. I was glad to see American papers again. I see by them that the
lottery is done drawing. How has my ticket turned out? If the weight will
not be too great for one shipload, I wish you would send the money by the
next vessel."

The lottery was for the benefit of Harvard College.

"_September 3, 1811._ I have finished a drawing which I intended to offer
at the Academy for admission. Mr. Allston told me it would undoubtedly
admit me, as it was better than two thirds of those generally offered,
but advised me to draw another and remedy some defects in handling the
chalks (to which I am not at all accustomed), and he says I shall enter
with some eclat. I showed it to Mr. West and he told me it was an
extraordinary production, that I had talent, and only wanted knowledge of
the art to make a great painter."

In a letter to his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis, dated September 17,
1811, he says:--

"I was astonished to find such a difference in the encouragement of art
between this country and America. In America it seemed to lie neglected,
and only thought to be an employment suited to a lower class of people;
but here it is the constant subject of conversation, and the exhibitions
of the several painters are fashionable resorts. No person is esteemed
accomplished or well educated unless he possesses almost an enthusiastic
love for paintings. To possess a gallery of pictures is the pride of
every nobleman, and they seem to vie with each other in possessing the
most choice and most numerous collection.... I visited Mr. Copley a few
days since. He is very old and infirm. I think his age is upward of
seventy, nearly the age of Mr. West. His powers of mind have almost
entirely left him; his late paintings are miserable; it is really a
lamentable thing that a man should outlive his faculties. He has been a
first-rate painter, as you well know. I saw at his room some exquisite
pieces which he painted twenty or thirty years ago, but his paintings of
the last four or five years are very bad. He was very pleasant, however,
and agreeable in his manners.

"Mr. West I visit now and then. He is very liberal to me and gives me
every encouragement. He is a very friendly man; he talked with me like a
father and wished me to call and see him often and be intimate with him.
Age, instead of impairing his faculties, seems rather to have
strengthened them, as his last great piece testifies. He is soon coming
out with another which M