This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...Paddington friends, who had left his business of a butcher to follow him, and who, he contended, was so useful to him, that he could not dispense with his services, which were now turned to the purpose of colour-grinding, with a salary of a guinea per week. By exertion he might again have retrieved his character and fortune, nor was there ever encouragement more enviable offered to an English artist. He might have devoted himself undisturbed to his studies, under no solicitude for the sale of his works, or the forming of new connexions: in fact, he might have painted what he pleased, and both fame and opulence would have been at his command. About this time he painted for Colonel Stuart " The Benevolent Sportsman," a picture which had been ordered for three years, as a companion to that of "The Gypsies" before mentioned. And so great was the readiness of his pencil, that he completed this in about a week, and received for it seventy guineas, his prices having been nearly doubled since the production of the first picture. For Mr. Wedd he painted in one day two small pictures, "Watering the Farmer's Horse," and "Rubbing down the Post-Horse," for which he was paid fifteen guineas, and he has been frequently known to earn an hundred guineas in a week. Morland had not long entered upon his new plan before he found that his monied friends, and principal creditors, no longer supplied him with cash as he wanted it; hence the large pictures, that were to pay his dividends, were neglected, merely to raise an immediate supply, by painting small ones, for new acquaintances, with whom he pursued the same course as with his former connexions, and who were equally infatuated. Being acquainted with a watchmaker, ...