DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0222
194
LIFE OF GEORGE MORLAND.
place called Fresh-water Gate, in a low public house,
known by the name of the Cabin. A number of
fishermen, a few sailors, and three or four rustics formed
the homely group : he was in the midst of them, con-
tributing his joke, and partaking of their noisy mer-
riment, when his friend called him aside, and intreated
his company for an hour. Morland, with some reluc-
tance withdrew from the Cabin; and the next day when
his friend began to remonstrate on his keeping such
company, he took from his pocket a sketch-book, and
asked him where he was to find a true picture of humble
life unless in such a place as that from which his friend
had taken him. The sketch was a correct delineation
of every thing in the common tap-room, even to counte-
nance, a stool, a settee, or the position of a figure. This
representation his memory had supplied after leaving the
house, and one of his best pictures is the very scene he
then sketched: a proof that his mind was still intent on
its favorite pursuit, the delineation of nature in her
homeliest attire, though his manners at the moment be-
trayed nothing farther than an eagerness to partake of
the vulgar sensualities of his surrounding companions.
The manner in which he painted rural subjects ob-
tained so much notice, that his fortune might now have
been made ; purchasers appeared who would have taken
any number of pictures he could have painted, and
paid any price for them he could have demanded, but
here the low-bred dealers in pictures stepped in, and
completed that ruin which low-bred artists had begun.
His unfortunate peculiarity assisted them much in this
plan; the dislike he had for the society of gentlemen
made him averse to speak to one who only wished to
purchase his pictures. This peculiarity, his friends the
dealers took care to encourage to such a degree, that
men of rank and fortune were often denied admittance to
him,
LIFE OF GEORGE MORLAND.
place called Fresh-water Gate, in a low public house,
known by the name of the Cabin. A number of
fishermen, a few sailors, and three or four rustics formed
the homely group : he was in the midst of them, con-
tributing his joke, and partaking of their noisy mer-
riment, when his friend called him aside, and intreated
his company for an hour. Morland, with some reluc-
tance withdrew from the Cabin; and the next day when
his friend began to remonstrate on his keeping such
company, he took from his pocket a sketch-book, and
asked him where he was to find a true picture of humble
life unless in such a place as that from which his friend
had taken him. The sketch was a correct delineation
of every thing in the common tap-room, even to counte-
nance, a stool, a settee, or the position of a figure. This
representation his memory had supplied after leaving the
house, and one of his best pictures is the very scene he
then sketched: a proof that his mind was still intent on
its favorite pursuit, the delineation of nature in her
homeliest attire, though his manners at the moment be-
trayed nothing farther than an eagerness to partake of
the vulgar sensualities of his surrounding companions.
The manner in which he painted rural subjects ob-
tained so much notice, that his fortune might now have
been made ; purchasers appeared who would have taken
any number of pictures he could have painted, and
paid any price for them he could have demanded, but
here the low-bred dealers in pictures stepped in, and
completed that ruin which low-bred artists had begun.
His unfortunate peculiarity assisted them much in this
plan; the dislike he had for the society of gentlemen
made him averse to speak to one who only wished to
purchase his pictures. This peculiarity, his friends the
dealers took care to encourage to such a degree, that
men of rank and fortune were often denied admittance to
him,