his misfortunes.
According to his biographer, Mr. George Dawe, who wrote an impartial and
excellent life of Morland, he reached the full maturity of his powers,
about 1790 when he was twenty-six years old; and from that time, they
began and continued to decline till his death in 1804. Poor Morland was
constantly surrounded by a set of harpies, who contrived to get him in
their debt, and then compelled him to paint a picture for a guinea,
which they readily sold for thirty or forty, and which now bring almost
any sum asked for them. Many of his best works were painted in sponging
houses to clear him from arrest.

MORLAND'S EARLY TALENT.

Morland's father having embarked in the business of picture dealing, had
become bankrupt, and it is said that he endeavored to repair his broken
fortunes by the talents of his son George, who, almost as soon as he
escaped from the cradle, took to the pencil and crayon. Very many
artists are recorded to have manifested an "early inclination for art,"
but the indications of early talent in others are nothing when compared
with Morland's. "_At four, five, and six years of age_," says
Cunningham, "_he made drawings worthy of ranking him among the common
race of students_; the praise bestowed on these by the Society of
Artists, to whom they were exhibited, and the money which collectors
were willing to pay for the works of this new wonder, induced his father
to urge him onward in his studies, and he made rapid progress."

MORLAND'S EARLY FAME.

The danger of overtasking either the mind or body in childhood, is well
known; and there is every reason to believe that young Morland suffered
both of these evils. His father stimulated him by praise and by
indulgence 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
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