Even when Morland had sunk to misery and recklessness, the spirit of industry did not forsake him, nor did his taste or his skill descend with his fortunes. One day's work would have purchased him a week's sustenance, yet he labored every day, and as skilfully and beautifully as ever. A water man was at one time his favorite companion, whom, by way of distinction, Morland called "My Dicky." Dicky once carried a picture to the pawnbroker's, wet from the easel, with the request for the advance of three guineas upon it. The pawnbroker paid the money; but in carrying it into the room his foot slipped, and the head and foreparts of a hog were obliterated. The money-changer returned the picture with a polite note, requesting the artist to restore the damaged part. "My Dicky!" exclaimed Morland, "an that's a good one! but never mind!" He reproduced the hog in a few minutes, and said, "There! go back and tell the pawnbroker to advance me five guineas more upon it; and if he won't, say I shall proceed against him; the price of the picture is thirty guineas." The demand was complied with.
MORLAND'S IDEA OF A BARONETCY.
Morland was well descended. In his earlier and better days, a solicitor informed him that he was heir to a baronet's title, and advised him to assert his claim. "Sir George Morland!" said the painter—"It sounds well, but it won't do. Plain George Morland will always sell my pictures, and there is more honor in being a fine painter than in being a fine gentleman."
MORLAND'S ARTISTIC MERIT.
As an artist, Morland's claims are high and undisputed. He is original and alone; his style and conceptions are his own; his thoughts are ever at home, and always natural; he extracts pleasing subjects out of the most coarse and trivial scenes, and finds enough to charm the eye in the commonest occurrences. His subjects are usually from low life, such as hog-sties, farm-yards, landscapes with cattle and sheep, or fishermen with smugglers on the sea-coast. He seldom or ever produced a picture perfect in all its parts, but those parts adapted to his knowledge and taste were exquisitely beautiful. Knowing well his faults, he usually selected those subjects best suited to his talents. His knowledge of anatomy was extremely limited; he was totally unfitted for representing the human figure elegantly or correctly, and incapable of large compositions. He never paints above the most ordinary capacity, and gives an air of truth and reality to whatever he touches. He has taken a strong and lasting hold of the popular fancy: not by ministering to our vanity, but by telling plain and striking truths. He is the rustic painter for the people; his scenes are familiar to every eye, and his name is on every lip. Painting seemed as natural to him as language is to others, and by it he expressed his sentiments and his feelings, and opened his heart to the multitude. His gradual descent in society may be traced in the productions of his pencil; he could only paint well what he saw or remembered; and when he left the wild sea-shore and the green wood-side for the hedge ale-house and the Rules of the Bench, the character of his pictures shifted with the scene. Yet even then his wonderful skill of hand and sense of the picturesque never forsook him. His intimacy with low life only dictated his theme—the coarseness of the man and the folly of his company never touched the execution of his pieces. All is indeed homely—nay, mean—but native taste and elegance redeemed every detail. To a full command over every implement of his art, he united a facility of composition and a free readiness of hand perhaps quite unrivalled.
CHARLES JERVAS.
This artist was a pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and met with plentiful employment in portrait painting. His abilities were very inferior, but, says Walpole, "Such was the badness of the age's taste, and the dearth of good masters, that Jervas sat at the head of his profession, although he was defective in drawing, coloring, composition, and likeness. In general, his pictures are a light flimsy kind of fan-painting as large as life. Yet I have seen a few of his works highly colored, and it is certain that his copies of Carlo Maratti, whom he most studied and imitated, were extremely just, and scarcely inferior to the originals."