The close of the eighteenth century, says Sir John Leslie, was distinguished by the accession of a new branch of electrical science more brilliant and astonishing than even the parent stock; and after describing the discoveries of Galvani and Volta, he says they deservedly commenced a new epoch in physical science and led to the most splendid and wonderful discoveries. The year 1791, when Galvani published at Bologna a complete account of his experiments on animal electricity, in which the leg of a frog played such a memorable part, may therefore be described as the birth-time of modern electricity. In the same year was born the immortal Faraday, whose researches in electricity not only enriched science but silenced the voice of envy; and in the same year was born Samuel F. B. Morse, whose ingenuity and perseverance gave to the world one of the most original and useful methods of conveying intelligence by electricity. Professor Daniell, whose invention of the constant battery gave a marked impulse to the progress of practical electricity, was born in 1790, the same year in which Benjamin Franklin died, who, in the absence of artificial generators, drew his supplies of electricity from the clouds. It has been often said that Franklin was the American who brought electricity from the clouds to the earth, and that Morse made it subservient to the purposes of man.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born on April 27, 1791, a little over a mile from where Franklin was born, and a little over a year after Franklin died. Franklin was the youngest son of the youngest son for five successive generations, and he was the fifteenth child of his father. But in the Morse family it was generally the eldest son who displayed ability or attained distinction. The family was of English origin, but had been settled in America a century and a half. Anthony Morse, who was born at Marlborough in Wiltshire in 1606, went to America in 1635. His son had ten children, of whom the eldest, named Jedediah, was born in 1726, and was an active public man. The eighth son of the latter, also named Jedediah, was the father of Samuel Morse. He was an eminent divine and author, whose attainments were considered of such a high order that a Scotch University conferred on him the degree of D.D. His wife was also described as a person of unusual ability and dignity, who was born at New York in a house at the corner of Wall Street and Hanover Street, near to which the first telegraph office was afterwards opened. They were living at the foot of Breeds Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791, when Samuel F. B. Morse was born. He was the eldest of eleven children. In his fourth year he was sent to an old dame’s school, and in his seventh year to the preparatory school of Andover, where he is reported to have studied with ability and assiduity. Like his prototype Franklin, he then read Plutarch’s Lives, and this work is said to have given the first impulse to his mind. At the age of thirteen he wrote a Life of Demosthenes, which was preserved as a memorial of his early powers, and which gave characteristic indications of the excellence that distinguished his literary work in after life. At the age of fourteen he entered Yale College, where he got his first lessons in electricity. Jeremiah Day, who was then Professor of Natural Philosophy, delivered some lectures in 1809 upon the laws of electricity, and illustrated them by experiments. One proposition which Day expounded was that if a circuit be interrupted the electricity will become visible at the point of interruption, and that when it has passed it will leave an impression upon any intermediate object. Day declared many years afterward that he remembered one experiment which consisted in letting the electricity pass through a chain or through any metallic bodies placed at small distances from each other, whereby the current in a dark room became visible between the links or between the metallic bodies. In another experiment he showed that if several folds of paper were placed so as to interrupt a circuit, they would be perforated by the electricity. In after years Morse described these experiments as the acorn which, falling into fruitful soil, eventually spread its boughs far and wide. Another eminent professor at Yale College was Benjamin Silliman, who in later years testified that Morse attended his lectures on chemistry and galvanism between 1808 and 1810, and that the batteries then in use were exhibited and explained in detail. Moreover, Morse himself wrote letters to his parents in 1809 expressing much gratification at the chemical lectures he had heard at Yale College, and an earnest desire to get apparatus for the purpose of illustrating the experiments at home. In his home letters he especially mentioned Professor Day’s lectures on electricity as being most interesting, and as being illustrated by some very fine experiments. Those who knew Morse while at Yale College, where he took his degree in 1810, described him as gentle, refined, studious, and enthusiastic; and as he appeared then to be in love with the science of electricity, it is natural to inquire how he came to forsake it for so many years.
Dr. Johnson states in his Life of Cowley that in the window of his mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s Fairy Queen, in which he very early took delight to read till by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. “Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered and perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson’s treatise.” It was an accidental circumstance of a different kind that directed the attention of Samuel Morse from electricity to art. His father, being a man of small means and having a large family, was unable to supply the enthusiastic student with sufficient funds to complete his college course, and to provide for the deficiency, Samuel betook himself to painting the portraits of such of his companions as could afford to pay him five dollars, and it is said that by this means he partly defrayed the cost of his education. A first success, like a first love, often forms the keynote of a life; and so pleased was young Samuel Morse at the success of his first artistic efforts that he soon determined to make his living by art. He accordingly directed all his energies and resources to the study of art, and became the pupil of a distinguished American artist, Washington Allston, who took a great interest in him and perceiving his fine powers took him to England in 1811. Though only a young man of twenty, Morse got introductions to Copley and West, who in turn, introduced him to Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay, and other notable men. While in London he lodged with Charles Leslie, who had not then risen to fame, and who was the son of American parents.
While in London his patron was Benjamin West, who was himself a native of Pennsylvania, and whose early career somewhat resembled that of the young protégé who now made him his guide, philosopher, and friend. West not only entertained him with encouraging accounts of how he managed to climb to the heights of fame, but did all he could to initiate him into “the philosophy of his art.” He continued his studies in London from 1811 to 1815, and though his circumstances were humble and unpretending, he regularly associated with several of the greatest men in art and literature of that time, and in his letters and pursuits gave clear indications of a great future. After a year’s study in London he wrote to his mother that his passion for art was so firmly rooted that no human power could destroy it, and that the more he studied it, the greater he thought was its claim to the appellation of divine. His enthusiasm was not quenched by either penury or disappointment. In 1814 he was induced by some friends to visit Bristol, in the hope of getting some employment that would replenish his purse, but he found that empty praise was the only recompense that his labours could command. He accordingly returned to London, where he was encouraged by the approbation of such severe judges as West and Allston.
Having been allowed to witness West working at some of his historic pictures, he determined to design and execute a large painting of his own, and selected as his subject The Dying Hercules. Allston, who was then engaged on his Restoration of the Dead Man to Life, told him that he had first modelled his subject in clay, and suggested that Morse should do likewise. The advice was followed. A model of Hercules was made, and West, on accidentally seeing it, praised its vigour and finish, remarking to his son that it showed that a true painter is a sculptor also. The Society of Arts, Adelphi, was then offering a gold medal for the best specimen of sculpture, and Morse was advised to finish his model and send it to the Society for competition. In the few days that remained before the competition began he finished the model, and it succeeded in winning the prize, which was presented by the Duke of Norfolk, then President of the Society. When his picture of The Dying Hercules was ready he went with it to West, who examined it very carefully. In after years Morse was accustomed to tell his friends that he had worked hard at the picture, and was so satisfied with it that he expected to receive commendation from West. “Very good, very good,” said West, as he handed it back, “go on and finish it.” Somewhat taken aback, Morse, in a hesitating manner, said it was finished. “Oh no, no,” said West, “see there, and there, and there, the finish is imperfect; there’s much work to be done yet, go on and finish it.” Morse quickly appreciated the defects pointed out by West; and accordingly spent another week in perfecting his drawing. He then took it to West with a feeling of confidence that it was finished. West was more profuse than ever with his praise, but concluded by repeating his former advice, “Go on and finish it.” “Is it not finished?” inquired the almost discouraged student. “See,” replied West, “you have not marked that muscle, nor the articulation of the finger joints.” A few days more were spent in supplying the deficiencies pointed out by this exacting critic. When it was again presented for examination, West first praised it and then said, “Go on and finish it, young man,” to which the young man in despair replied, “I cannot finish it.” West, no doubt observing that patience has its limits, patted him on the shoulder, and good-humouredly said: “Well, I have tried you long enough; but you have learned more by this drawing than you would have done in double the time by a dozen half finished beginnings.” He went on to explain the importance of careful attention to the most minute details, and to impress on him the value of thorough work as the secret of success and fame, declaring that it was not numerous drawings but the character of one that made a thorough painter. The picture in question received much praise at the Royal Academy.
Encouraged by these results, Morse next painted a picture of the Judgment of Jupiter in the case of Apollo, Marpessa, and Idas, which was intended to compete for the gold medal and fifty-guinea prize offered by the Royal Academy in 1814. But an untoward event frustrated this design. When he left America it was with the intention of being away only three years. It was now his fourth year of absence; and his circumstances were so pressing and his means so scanty that he left England at once, offering the picture to the Royal Academy for exhibition through West. The Royal Academy, however, refused to admit it because the artist did not present it personally. West, who had urged Morse to remain in England, and who was then President of the Academy, afterwards wrote to him that if he had remained he had no doubt that the picture would have taken the prize.
If these early efforts did not replenish the artist’s purse, they probably enriched his mind. Fénelon says that “the mind of a great painter teems with the thoughts and sentiments of the heroes he is to represent; he is carried back to the ages in which they lived, and is present to the circumstances they were placed in; but, with this fervid enthusiasm, he possesses also a judgment that restrains and regulates it: so that his whole work, however bold and animated, is perfectly consonant to propriety and truth.” While therefore Morse was zealously prosecuting an art which he was destined eventually to abandon for a new and untrodden avenue to fame and fortune, his early labours, by their reflex action, may have tended to mould those moral and intellectual qualities which were needed to carry him through the trials of after years, and which in the end won for him “heroic honours.”
Returning to America in the autumn of 1815 full of hope in his success as an artist, he opened rooms in Boston where he exhibited his Judgment of Jupiter and other pictures; but though many visitors came to view it and the people of the town treated him in a hospitable manner, no one made an offer for the great picture,—a disappointment which he keenly felt. Pressure of circumstances thus led him to return to his first essay—portrait painting, which he practised with some success in New England in 1817. Next year he went to Charlestown where his uncle Dr. Finley resided, and where he soon obtained lucrative employment. On October 1st, 1818, he married Lucretia P. Walker, of Concord, New Hampshire, who was described as the beauty of the town. He resided in Charlestown four years. During these years his reputation as a painter continued to rise, but it did not enrich him. In 1821-2 he was engaged in painting a celebrated picture of the House of Representatives at Washington. It measured eight feet by nine feet, and contained eighty portraits. Though showing much artistic merit, it was not a pecuniary success. The first purchaser of it was an English gentleman. In 1825 the New York Corporation gave him an order to paint a portrait of General Lafayette, that “veteran of liberty,” whom Lamartine afterwards painted in words as “tall in stature, noble, pale, cold in aspect with a reserved look, which appeared to veil mysterious thoughts; with few gestures, restrained and caressing; a weak voice without accent, more accustomed to confidential whisperings than oratorical explosions; with a sober, studied, and elegant elocution wherein memory was more conspicuous than inspiration; he was neither a statesman, nor a soldier, nor an orator, but an historical figure, without warmth, without colour, without life, but not without prestige; detached from the midst of a picture of another age, and reappearing in a new one.” The acquaintance of Morse with this remarkable man ripened into friendship. This full-length portrait, for which he was to be paid liberally, filled him with joyful anticipations, but scarcely had he begun the work when he received news of his wife’s death. This was a crushing blow to him; and although the portrait satisfied the General, the artist declared that it was finished under such unfavourable circumstances that it was not a just specimen of his work. In 1826 he organised in New York the National Academy of the Arts of Design—an association of artists which proved a lasting success, and of which he was elected president in 1827. At the New York Athenæum he delivered the first course of lectures in America on the fine arts.
While thus assiduously pursuing his favourite vocation, his mind was by no means so absorbed in it as to exclude all other subjects. He even tried other avenues to fortune. In 1817 he, along with his brother, Sidney, took out patents for three machines which they had invented for the pumping of water, and upon which they had bestowed much labour in the expectation of reaping a profitable return. They did not, however, succeed. Undeterred by disappointment, he next invented in 1823 a machine for carving marble, of which he formed high hopes which again were doomed to disappointment. Both as a mechanical inventor and as an artist the coveted prize of fortune seemed to elude his grasp.