"I am longing for Edwards' comparison between poetry and painting, and to know how he will prove the former superior to the latter. A painter must be a poet, but a poet need not be a painter. How will he get over this argument?
"By the way, Mr. Allston has just published a volume of poems, a copy of which I will endeavor to send you. They are but just published, so that the opinion of the public is not yet ascertained, but there is no doubt they will forever put at rest the calumny that America has never produced a poet.
"I have lately been enquiring for the coat-of-arms which belongs to the Morse family. For this purpose I wish to know from what part of this Kingdom the Morses emigrated, and if you can recollect anything that belongs to the arms. If you will answer these questions minutely, I can, for half a crown, ascertain the arms and crest which belong to the family, which (as there is a degree of importance attached to heraldry in this country) may be well to know. I have seen the arms of one Morse which have been in the family three hundred years. So we can trace our antiquity as far as any family."
A letter from a college-mate, Mr. Joseph Hillhouse, written in Boston on July 12, 1813, gives a pretty picture of Morse's home, and contains some quaint gossip which I shall transcribe:—
"On Saturday afternoon the beauty of the weather invited my cousin Catherine Borland, my sister Mary (who is here on a visit), and myself to take a walk over to Charlestown for the purpose of paying a visit to your good parents. We found them just preparing tea, and at once concluded to join the family party.
"Present to the eye of your fancy the closing-in of a fine, blue-skied, sunny American Saturday evening, whose tranquillity and repose rendered it the fit precursor of the Sabbath. Imagine the tea-table placed in your sitting-parlor, all the windows open, and round it, first, the housekeeper pouring out tea; next her, Miss C. Borland; next her, your mother, whose looks spoke love as often as you were mentioned, and that was not infrequently, I assure you. On your mother's right sat my sister, next whom was your father in his long green-striped study gown, his apostolic smile responding to the eye of your mother when his dear son was his theme. I was placed (and an honorable post I considered it) at his right hand.
"There the scene for you. Can you paint it? Neither of your brothers was at home….
"In home news we have little variety. The sister of your quondam flame, Miss Ann Hart, bestowed her hand last winter on Victory as personified in our little fat captain, Isaac Hull, who is now reposing in the shade of his laurels, and amusing himself in directing the construction of a seventy-four at Portsmouth. Where the fair excellence, Miss Jannette herself, is at present, I am unable to say. The sunshine of her eyes has not beamed upon me since I beheld you delightedly and gallantly figuring at her side at Daddy Value's ball, where I exhibited sundry feats of the same sort myself.
"By the way, Mons. V. is still in fiddling condition, and the immaculate
Ann Jane Caroline Gibbs, Madame, has bestowed a subject on the state!!
"A fortnight since your friend Nancy Goodrich was married to William Ellsworth. Emily Webster is soon to plight her faith to his brother Henry. Miss Mary Ann Woolsey thinks of consummating the blessedness of a Mr. Scarborough before the expiration of the summer. He is a widower of thirty or thirty-five with one child, a little girl four or five years old.