ccomplishments, so he secured some
painting materials and a book of instructions and set to work. In 1770,
a number of gentlemen of Annapolis furnished him with enough money to go
to England, a loan which he promised to repay with pictures upon his
return. West received him kindly, and when Peale's money gave out, as it
soon did, welcomed him into his own house. Peale remained in London for
four years, returning to America in time to join Washington as a captain
of volunteers, and to take part in the battles of Trenton and
Germantown.

After the war he continued painting, but, in 1801, his mind, always
alert for new experiences, was led away in a strange direction. The
bones of a mammoth were discovered in Ulster County, New York, and Peale
secured possession of them, had them taken to Philadelphia, and started
a museum. It rapidly increased in size, for all sorts of curiosities
poured in upon him, and he began a series of lectures on natural
history, which, whether learned or not, proved so interesting that large
and distinguished audiences gathered to hear him. In 1805, he founded
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the oldest and most
flourishing institution of the kind in the country. He lived to a hale
old age, never having known sickness, and dying as the result of
incautious exposure. Like West, his life is more interesting than his
work, for while he painted fairly good portraits, they were the work
rather of a skilled craftsman than of an artist.

[Illustration: STUART]

The second of West's pupils whom we have mentioned, Gilbert Stuart, was
by far the greatest of the earlier artists. He was born near Newport, R.
I., in 1755, his father being a Jacobite refugee from Scotland. He began
to paint at an early age, worked faithfully at drawing, and finally, at
the age of nineteen, began portrait painting in earnest. One of his
first pictures was a striking example of a remarkable characteristic,
the power of visual memory, which he retained through his whole life.
His grandmother had died five or six years before, but he painted a
portrait of her, producing so striking a likeness that it immediately
brought him orders for others. But Newport had grown distasteful to him,
and in 1775, he started for London.

How he got there is not certainly known, but get there he did, without
money or friends, or much hope of making either, and for three years
lived a precarious life, earning a little money, borrowing wh