In February of that year he accompanied his fiancee to Charlestown, his parents, naturally, wishing to make the acquaintance of the young lady, and then returned to Portsmouth to finish his work there.

The visit of Miss Walker to Charlestown gave great satisfaction to all concerned. On March 4, 1817, Morse writes to his parents from Portsmouth: "I am under the agreeable necessity (shall I say) of postponing my return ... in consequence of a press of business. I shall have three begun to-night; one sat yesterday (a large one), and two will sit to-day (small), and three more have it in serious contemplation. This unexpected occurrence will deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you this week at least."

And on the next day, March 5, he writes: "The unexpected application of three sitters at a time completely stopped me. Since I wrote I have taken a first sitting of a fourth (large), and a fifth (large) sits on Friday morning; so you see I am over head and ears in business."

As it is necessary to a clear understanding of Morse's character to realize the depth of his religious convictions, I shall quote the following from this same letter of March 5:—

"I wish much to know the progress of the Revival, how many are admitted next communion, and any religious news.

"I have been in the house almost ever since I came from home sifting the scheme of Universal Salvation to the bottom. What occasioned this was an occurrence on the evening of Sunday before last. I heard the bell ring for lecture and concluded it was at Mr. Putnam's; I accordingly sallied out to go to it, when I found that it was in the Universalist meeting-house.

"As I was out and never in a Universalist meeting, I thought, for mere curiosity, I would go in. I went into a very large meeting-house; the meeting was overflowing with people of both sexes, and the singing the finest I have heard in Portsmouth. I was struck with the contrast it made to Mr. Putnam's sacramental lecture; fifteen or sixteen persons thinly scattered over the house, and the choir consisting of four or five whose united voice could scarcely be heard in the farthest corner of the church, and, when heard, so out of harmony as to set one's teeth on edge.

"The reflections which this melancholy contrast caused I could not help communicating to Mr. Putnam in the words of Mr. Spring's sermon, 'something must be done.' He agreed it was a dreadful state of society here but almost gave up as hopeless. I told him he never should yield a post like this to the Devil without a struggle; and, at any rate, I told him that the few Christians that there were (and, indeed, they are but as one to one thousand) could pray, and I thought it was high time. I told him I would do all in my power to assist him in any scheme where I could be of use."

The year 1817 was spent by the young man in executing the commissions which had been promised him the year before in New Hampshire. In all his journeyings back and forth the road invariably led through Concord, and the pure love of the young people for each other increased as the months rolled by. I shall not profane the sacredness of this love by introducing any of the more intimate passages of their letters of this and of later years. The young girl responded readily to the religious exhortations of her fiance and became a sincere and devout Christian.

It will not be necessary to follow him in this journey, as the experiences were but a repetition of those of the year before. He painted many portraits in Concord, Hanover, and other places, and finally concluded to venture on a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, where his kinsman, Dr. Finley, and Mr. John A. Alston had urged him to come, assuring him good business.

On January 27, 1818, he arrived in that beautiful Southern city and thus announced his arrival to his parents: "I find myself in a new climate, the weather warm as our May. I have been introduced to a number of friends. I think my prospects are favorable."

At first, however, the promised success did not materialize, and it was not until after many weeks of waiting that the tide turned. But it did turn, for an excellent portrait of Dr. Finley, one of the best ever painted by Morse, aroused the enthusiasm of the Charlestonians, and orders began to pour in, so that in a few weeks he was engaged to paint one hundred and fifty portraits at sixty dollars each. Quite an advance over the meagre fifteen dollars he had received in New England. But for some of his more elaborate productions he received even more, as the following extract from a letter of Mr. John A. Alston, dated April 7, 1818, will prove:—

"I have just received your favor of the 30th ultimo, and thank you very cordially for your goodness in consenting to take my daughter's full-length likeness in the manner I described, say twenty-four inches in length. I will pay you most willingly the two hundred dollars you require for it, and will consider myself a gainer by the bargain. I shall expect you to decorate this picture with the most superb landscape you are capable of designing, and that you will produce a masterpiece of painting. I agree to your taking it with you to the northward to finish it. Be pleased to represent my daughter in the finest attitude you can conceive."

Mr. Alston was a generous patron and paid the young artist liberally for the portraits of his children. In recognition of this Morse presented him with his most ambitious painting, "The Judgment of Jupiter." Mr. Alston prized this picture highly during his lifetime, but after his death it was sold and for many years was lost sight of. It was purchased long afterwards in England by an American gentleman, who, not knowing who the painter was, gave it to a niece of Morse's, Mrs. Parmalee, and it is still, I believe, in the possession of the family.

While he was in Charleston his father wrote to him of the dangerous illness of his mother with what he called a "peripneumony," which, from the description, must have been the term used in those days for pneumonia. Her life was spared, however, and she lived for many years after this.

In June of the year 1818, Morse returned to the North and spent the summer in completing such portraits as he had carried with him in an unfinished state, and in painting such others as he could procure commissions for. He planned to return to Charleston in the following year, but this time with a young wife to accompany him.

His uncle, Dr. Finley, writing to him on June 16, says:—

"Your letter of 2d instant, conveying the pleasing intelligence of your safe and very short passage and happy meeting with your affectionate parents at your own home, came safe to hand in due time.... And so Lucretia was expected and you intended to surprise her by your unlooked-for presence.

"Finley, I am afraid you will be too happy. You ought to meet a little rub or two or you will be too much in the clouds and forget that you are among mortals. Let me see if I cannot give you a friendly twist downwards.

"Your pictures—aye—suppose I should speak of them and what is said of them during your absence. I will perform the office of him who was placed near the triumphal car of the conqueror to abuse him lest he should be too elated.

"Well—'His pictures,' say people, 'are undoubtedly good likenesses, but he paints carelessly and in too much haste and his draperies are not well done. He must be more attentive or he will lose his reputation.' 'See,' say others, 'how he flatters.' 'Oh!' says another, 'he has not flattered me'; etc., etc.

"By the bye, I saw old General C.C. Pinckney yesterday, and he told me, in his laughing, humorous way, that he had requested you to draw his brother Thomas twenty years younger than he really was, so as to be a companion to his own when he was twenty years younger than at this time, and to flatter him as he had directed Stuart to do so to him."

Morse had now abandoned his idea of soon returning to Europe; he renounced, for the present, his ambition to devote himself to the painting of great historical pictures, and threw himself with enthusiasm into the painting of portraits. He had an added incentive, for he wished to marry at once, and his parents and those of his fiancee agreed that it would be wise for the young people to make the venture. Everything seemed to presage success in life, at least in a modest way, to the young couple.

On the 6th of October, 1818, the following notice appeared in the New Hampshire "Patriot," of Concord: "Married in this town, October 1st, by Rev. Dr. McFarland, Mr. Samuel F.B. Morse (the celebrated painter) to Miss Lucretia Walker, daughter of Charles Walker, Esq."

On the 5th of October the young man writes to his parents:—

"I was married, as I wrote you I should be, on Tuesday morning last. We set out at nine o'clock and reached Amherst over bad roads at night. The next day we continued our journey through Wilton to New Ipswich, eighteen miles over one of the worst roads I ever travelled, all uphill and down and very rocky, and no tavern on the road. We enquired at New Ipswich our best route to Northampton, where we intended to go to meet Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius, but we found on enquiry that there were nothing but cross-roads and these very bad, and no taverns where we could be comfortably accommodated. Our horse also was tired, so we thought our best way was to return. Accordingly the next day we started for Concord, and arrived on Friday evening safe home again.

"Lucretia wishes to spend this week with her friends, so that I shall return (Providence permitting) on this day week, and reach home by Tuesday noon, probably to dinner. We are both well and send a great deal of love to you all. Mr. and Mrs. Walker wish me to present their best respects to you. We had delightful weather for travelling, and got home just in season to escape Saturday's rain."



CHAPTER XI

NOVEMBER 19, 1818—MARCH 31, 1821.

Morse and his wife go to Charleston, South Carolina.—Hospitably entertained and many portraits painted.—Congratulates Allston on his election to the Royal Academy.—Receives commission to paint President Monroe.—Trouble in the parish at Charlestown.—Morse urges his parents to leave and come to Charleston.—Letters of John A. Alston.—Return to the North.—Birth of his first child.—Dr. Morse and his family decide to move to New Haven.—Morse goes to Washington.—Paints the President under difficulties.—Hospitalities.—Death of his grandfather.—Dr. Morse appointed Indian Commissioner.—Marriage of Morse's future mother-in-law. —Charleston again.—Continued success.—Letters to Mrs. Ball.— Liberality of Mr. Alston.—Spends the summer in New Haven.—Returns to Charleston, but meets with poor success.—Assists in founding Academy of Arts, which has but a short life.—Goes North again.

The young couple decided to spend the winter in Charleston, South Carolina, where Morse had won a reputation the previous winter as an excellent portrait-painter, and where much good business awaited him.

The following letter was written to his parents:—

SCHOONER TONTINE, AT ANCHOR OFF CHARLESTON LIGHTHOUSE, THURSDAY, November 19, 1818, 5 o'clock P.M.

We have arrived thus far on our voyage safely through the kind protection of Providence. We have had a very rough passage attended with many dangers and more fears, but have graciously been delivered from them all. It is seven days since we left New York. If you recollect that was the time of my last passage in this same vessel. She is an excellent vessel and has the best captain and accommodations in the trade.

Lucretia was a little seasick in the roughest times, but, on the whole, bore the voyage extremely well. She seems a little downcast this afternoon in consequence of feeling as if she was going among strangers, but I tell her she will overcome it in ten minutes' interview with Uncle and Aunt Finley and family.

She is otherwise very well and sends a great deal of love to you all. Please let Mr. and Mrs. Walker know of our arrival as soon as may be. I will leave the remainder of this until I get up to town. We hope to go up when the tide changes in about an hour.

FRIDAY MORNING, 20th, AT UNCLE FINLEY'S.

We are safely housed under the hospitable roof of Uncle Finley, where they received us, as you might expect, with open arms. He has provided lodgings for us at ten dollars per week. I have not yet seen them; shall go directly.

I received a letter from Richard at Savannah; he writes in fine spirits and feels quite delighted with the hospitable people of the South.

This refers to his brother Richard Carey Morse, who was still pursuing his theological studies.

The visit of the young couple to Charleston was a most enjoyable one, and the artist found many patrons eager to be immortalized by his brush.

On December 22, 1818, he writes to his parents:—

"Lucretia is well and contented. She makes many friends and we receive as much attention from the hospitable Carolinians as we can possibly attend to. She is esteemed quite handsome here; she has grown quite fleshy and healthy, and we are as happy in each other as you can possibly wish us.

"There are several painters arrived from New York, but I fear no competition; I have as much as I can do."

As a chronicle of fair weather, favorable winds, and blue skies is apt to grow monotonous, I shall pass rapidly over the next few years, only selecting from the voluminous correspondence of that period a few extracts which have more than a passing interest.

On February 4, 1819, he writes to his friend and master, Washington Allston, who had now returned to Boston:—

"Excuse my neglect in not having written you before this according to my promise before I left Boston. I can only plead as apology (what I know will gratify you) a multiplicity of business. I am painting from morning till night and have continual applications. I have added to my list, this season only, to the amount of three thousand dollars; that is since I left you. Among them are three full lengths to be finished at the North, I hope in Boston, where I shall once more enjoy your criticisms.

"I am exerting my utmost to improve; every picture I try to make my best, and in the evening I draw two hours from the antique as I did in London; for I ought to inform you that I fortunately found a fine 'Venus de Medicis' without a blemish, imported from Paris sometime since by a gentleman of this city who wished to dispose of it; also a young Apollo which was so broken that he gave it to me, saying it was useless. I have, however, after a great deal of trouble, put it together entirely, and these two figures, with some fragments,—hands, feet, etc.,—make a good academy. Mr. Fraser, Mr. Cogdell, Mr. Fisher, of Boston, and myself meet here of an evening to improve ourselves. I feel as much enthusiasm as ever in my art and love it more than ever. A few years, at the rate I am now going on, will place me independent of public patronage.

"Thus much for myself, for you told me in one of your letters from London that I must be more of an egotist or you should be less of one in your letters to me, which I should greatly regret.

"And now, permit me, my dear sir, to congratulate you on your election to the Royal Academy. I know you will believe me when I say I jumped for joy when I heard it. Though it cannot add to your merit, yet it will extend the knowledge of it, especially in our own country, where we are still influenced by foreign opinion, and more justly, perhaps, in regard to taste in the fine arts than in any other thing."

On March 1, 1819, the Common Council of Charleston passed the following resolution:—

"Resolved unanimously that His Honor the Intendant be requested to solicit James Monroe, President of the United States, to permit a full-length likeness to be taken for the City of Charleston, and that Mr. Morse be requested to take all necessary measures for executing the said likeness on the visit of the President to this city.

"Resolved unanimously that the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars be appropriated for this purpose.

"Extract from the minutes.

"WILLIAM ROACH, JR., "Clerk of Council."

This portrait of President Monroe was completed later on and still hangs in the City Hall of Charleston. I shall have occasion to refer to it again.

Morse, in a letter to his parents of March 26, 1819, says:—

"Two of your letters have been lately received detailing the state of the parish and church. I cannot say I was surprised, for it is what might be expected from Charlestown people.... As to returning home in the way I mentioned mama need not be at all uneasy on that score. It is necessary I should visit Washington, as the President will stay so short a time here that I cannot complete the head unless I see him in Washington.... Now as to the parish and church business, I hope all things will turn out right yet, and I can't help wishing that nothing may occur to keep you any longer in that nest of vipers and conspirators. I think with Edwards decidedly that, on mama's account alone, you should leave a place which is full of the most unpleasant associations to all the family, and retire to some place of quiet to enjoy your old age.

"Why not come to Charleston? Here is a fine place for usefulness, a pleasant climate especially for persons advanced in life, and your children here; for I think seriously of settling in Charleston. Lucretia is willing, and I think it will be much for my advantage to remain through the year. Richard can find a place here if he will, and Edwards can come on and be Bishop or President or Professor in some of the colleges (for I can't think of him in a less character) after he has graduated.

"I wish seriously you would think of this. Your friends here would greatly rejoice and an opening could be found, I have no doubt. Christians want their hands strengthened, and a veteran soldier, like papa, might be of great service here in the infancy of the Unitarian Hydra, who finds a population too well adapted to receive and cherish its easy and fascinating tenets."

All this refers to a movement organized by the enemies of Dr. Morse to oust him from his parish in Charlestown. He was a militant fighter for orthodoxy and an uncompromising foe to Unitarianism, which was gradually obtaining the ascendancy in and near Boston. The movement was finally successful, as we shall see later, but they did not go as far from their old haunts as Charleston.

I shall not attempt to argue the rights and wrongs of the case, which seem to have been rather complicated, for Dr. Morse, more than a year after this, in writing to a friend says: "The events of the last fifteen months are still involved in impenetrable mystery, which I doubt not will be unravelled in due time."

The winter and spring of 1819 were spent by the young couple both pleasantly and profitably in Charleston. The best society of that charming city opened its arms to them and orders flowed in in a steady stream. Mr. John A. Alston was a most generous patron, ordering many portraits of his children and friends, and sometimes insisting on paying the young man even more than the price agreed upon.

In a letter to Morse he says: "Which of my friends was it who lately observed to you that I had a picture mania? You made, I understand, a most excellent reply, 'You wished I would come to town, then, and bite a dozen.' Indeed, my very good sir, was it in my power to excite in them a just admiration of your talents, I would readily come to town and bite the whole community."

And in another letter of April 10, 1819, Mr. Alston says: "Your portrait of my daughter was left in Georgetown [South Carolina], at the house of a friend; nearly all of the citizens have seen it, and I really think it will occasion you some applications.... Every one thought himself at liberty to make remarks. Some declared it to be a good likeness, while others insisted it was not so, and several who made such remarks, I knew had never seen my daughter. At last a rich Jew gentleman observed, 'it was the richest piece of painting he had ever seen.' This being so much in character that I assure you, sir, I could contain myself no longer, which, spreading among the audience, occasioned not an unpleasant moment."

Morse and his young wife returned to the North in the early summer of 1819, and spent the summer and fall with his parents in Charlestown. The young man occupied himself with the completion of the portraits which he had brought with him from the South, and his wife was busied with preparations for the event which is thus recorded in a letter of Dr. Morse's to his son Sidney Edwards at Andover: "Since I have been writing the above, Lucretia has presented us with a fine granddaughter and is doing well. The event has filled us with joy and gratitude."

The child was christened Susan Walker Morse. In the mean time the distressing news had come from Charleston of the sudden death of Dr. Finley, to whose kindly affection and influence Morse owed much of the pleasure and success of his several visits to Charleston.

Affairs had come to a crisis in the parish at Charlestown, and Dr. Morse decided to resign and planned to move to New Haven, Connecticut, with his family in the following spring.

The necessity for pursuing his profession in the most profitable field compelled Morse to return to Charleston by way of Washington in November, and this time he had to go alone, much against his inclinations.

He writes to his mother from New York on November 28, 1819: "I miss Lucretia and little Susan more than you can think, and I shall long to have us all together at New Haven in the spring."

His object in going to Washington was to paint the portrait of the President, and of this he says in a letter: "I began on Monday to paint the President and have almost completed the head. I am thus far pleased with it, but I find it very perplexing, for he cannot sit more than ten or twenty minutes at a time, so that the moment I feel engaged he is called away again. I set my palette to-day at ten o'clock and waited until four o'clock this afternoon before he came in. He then sat ten minutes and we were called to dinner. Is not this trying to one's patience?"

"December 17, 1819. I have been here nearly a fortnight. I commenced the President's portrait on Monday and shall finish it to-morrow. I have succeeded to my satisfaction, and, what is better, to the satisfaction of himself and family; so much so that one of his daughters wishes me to copy the head for her. They all say that mine is the best that has been taken of him. The daughter told me (she said as a secret) that her father was delighted with it, and said it was the only one that in his opinion looked like him; and this, too, with Stuart's in the room.

"The President has been very kind and hospitable to me; I have dined with him three times and taken tea as often; he and his family have been very sociable and unreserved. I have painted him at his house, next room to his cabinet, so that when he had a moment to spare he would come in to me.

"Wednesday evening Mrs. Monroe held a drawing-room. I attended and made my bow. She was splendidly and tastily dressed. The drawing-room and suite of rooms at the President's are furnished and decorated in the most splendid manner; some think too much so, but I do not. Something of splendor is certainly proper about the Chief Magistrate for the credit of the nation. Plainness can be carried to an extreme, and in national buildings and establishments it will, with good reason, be styled meanness."

"December 23, 1819. It is obviously for my interest to hasten to Charleston, as I shall there be immediately at work, and this is the more necessary as there is a fresh gang of adventurers in the brush line gone to Charleston before me."

A short while after this he received the news of the death of his grandfather, Jedediah Morse, at Woodstock, Connecticut, on December 29, aged ninety-four years. Mr. Prime says of him: "He was a strong man in body and mind, an able and upright magistrate, for eighteen years one of the selectmen of the town, twenty-seven years town clerk and treasurer, fifteen years a member of the Colonial and State Legislature, and a prominent, honored, and useful member and officer of the church."

In January of the year 1820, Dr. Morse, realizing that it would be for the best interests of all concerned to relinquish his pastorate at Charlestown, turned his active brain in another direction, and resolved to carry out a plan which he had long contemplated. This was to secure from the Government at Washington an appointment as commissioner to the Indians on the borders of the United States of those early days, in order to enquire into their condition with a view to their moral and physical betterment. To this end he journeyed to Washington and laid his project before the President and the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun. He was most courteously entertained by these gentlemen and received the appointment.

In the following spring with his son Richard he travelled through the northwestern frontiers of the United States, and gained much valuable information which he laid before the Government. As he was a man of delicate constitution, we cannot but admire his indomitable spirit in ever devising new projects of usefulness to his fellow men. It was impossible for him to remain idle.

But it is not within the scope of this work to follow him on his journeys, although his letters of that period make interesting reading. While he was in Washington his wife, writing to him on January 27, 1820, says: "Mrs. Salisbury and Abby drank tea with us day before yesterday. They told us that Catherine Breese was married to a lieutenant in the army. This must have been a very sudden thing, and I should suppose very grievous to Arthur."

Little did the good lady think as she penned these words that, many years afterwards, her beloved eldest son would take as his second wife a daughter of this union. Why this marriage should have been "grievous" to the father, Arthur Breese, I do not know, unless all army officers were classed among the ungodly by the very pious of those days. As a matter of fact, Lieutenant, afterwards Captain, Griswold was a most gallant gentleman.

In the mean time Finley Morse had reached Charleston in safety after a tedious journey of many days by stage from Washington, and was busily employed in painting. On February 4, 1820, he writes to his mother:—

"I received your good letter of the 19th and 22d ult., and thank you for it. I wish I had time to give you a narrative of my journey as you wish, but you know 'time is money,' and we must 'make hay while the sun shines,' and 'a penny saved is a penny got," and 'least said soonest mended,' and a good many other wise sayings which would be quite pat, but I can't think of them.

"The fact is I have scarcely time to say or write a word. I am busily employed in getting the cash, or else Ned's almanac for March will foretell falsely.

"I am doing well, although the city fairly swarms with painters. I am the only one that has as much as he can do; all the rest are complaining. I wish I could divide with some of them, very clever men who have families to support, and can get nothing to do.... I feel rejoiced that things have come to such a crisis in Charlestown that our family will be released from that region of trouble so soon.

"Keep up your spirits, mother, the Lord will show you good days according to those in which you have seen evil....

"I am glad Lucretia and the dear little Susan intend meeting me at New Haven. I think this by far the best plan; it will save me a great deal of time, which, as I said before, is money.

"I shall have to spend some time in New Haven getting settled, and I wish to commence painting as soon as possible, for I have more than a summer's work before me in the President's portrait and Mrs. Ball's.

"As soon as the cash comes in, mother, it shall all be remitted except what I immediately want. You may depend upon it that nothing shall be left undone on my part to help you and the rest of us from that hole of vipers.

"I think it very probable I shall return by the middle of May; it will depend much on circumstances, however. I wish very much to be with my dear wife and daughter. I must contrive to bring them with me next season to Charleston, though it may be more expensive, yet I do not think that should be a consideration. I think that a man should be separated from his family but very seldom, and then under cases of absolute necessity, as I consider the case to be at present with me: that is, I think they should not be separated for any length of time. If I know my own disposition I am of a domestic habit, formed to this habit, probably, by the circumstances that have been so peculiar to our family in Charlestown. I by no means regret having such a habit if it can be properly regulated; I think it may be carried to excess, and shut us from the opportunities of doing good by mixing with our fellow men."

This pronouncement was very characteristic of the man. He was always, all through his long life, happiest when at home surrounded by all his family, and yet he never shirked the duty of absenting himself from home, even for a prolonged period, when by so doing he could accomplish some great or good work.

That a portrait-painter's lot is not always a happy one may be illustrated by the following extracts from letters of Morse to the Mrs. Ball whom he mentions in the foregoing letter to his mother, and who seems to have been a most capricious person, insisting on continual alterations, and one day pleased and the next almost insulting in her censure:—

MADAM,—Supposing that I was dealing not only with a woman of honor, but, from her professions, with a Christian, I ventured in my note of the 18th inst., to make an appeal to your conscience in support of the justness of my demand of the four hundred dollars still due from you for your portrait. By your last note I find you are disposed to take an advantage of that circumstance of which I did not suppose you capable. My sense of the justness of my demand was so strong, as will appear from the whole tenor of that note, that I venture this appeal, not imagining that any person of honor, of the least spark of generous feeling, and more especially of Christian principle, could understand anything more than the enforcing my claim by an appeal to that principle which I knew should be the strongest in a real Christian.

Whilst, however, you have chosen to put a different construction on this part of the note, and supposed that I left you to say whether you would pay me anything or nothing, you have (doubtless unconsciously) shown that your conscience has decided in favor of the whole amount which is my due, and which I can never voluntarily relinquish.

You affirm in the first part of your note that, after due consideration, you think the real value of the picture is four hundred dollars (without the frame), yet, had your crop been good, your conscience would have adjudged me the remaining four hundred dollars without hesitation; and again (if your crop should be good) you could pay me the four hundred dollars next season.

Must I understand from this, madam, that the goodness or badness of your crop is the scale on which your conscience measures your obligation to pay a just debt, and that it contracts or expands as your crop increases or diminishes? Pardon me, madam, if I say that this appears to be the case from your letter.

My wish throughout this whole business has been to accommodate the time and terms of payment as much to your convenience as I could consistently with my duty to my family and myself. As a proof of this you need only advert to my note of yesterday, in which I inform you that I am paying interest on money borrowed for the use of my family which your debt, if it had been promptly paid, would have prevented.

And in another letter he says:—

"I completed your picture in the summer with two others which have given, as far as I can learn, entire satisfaction. Yours was painted with the same attention and with the same ability as the others, and admired as a picture, after it was finished, as much by some as the others, and more by many.

"Among these latter were the celebrated Colonel Trumbull and Vanderlyn, painters of New York.... You cannot but recollect, madam, that when you yourself with your children visited it, not withstanding you expressed yourself before them in terms so strong against it and so wounding to my feelings, yet all your children dissented from you, the youngest saying it was 'mama,' and the eldest, 'I am sure, mother, it is very like you.'...

"Your picture, from the day I commenced it, has been the source of one of my greatest trials, and, if it has taught me in any degree patience and forbearance, I shall have abundant reason to be thankful for the affliction."

In the end he consented to take less than had been agreed upon in order to close the incident.

As a happy contrast to this episode we have the following quotation from a letter to his wife written on February 17, 1820:—

"Did I tell you in my last that Colonel Alston insisted on giving me two hundred dollars more than I asked for the picture of little Sally, and a commission to paint her again full length next season, smaller than the last and larger than the first portrait, for which I shall receive four hundred dollars? He intimates also that I am to paint a picture annually for him. Is not he a strange man? (as people say here). I wish some more of the great fortunes in this part of the country would be as strange and encourage other artists who are men of genius and starving for want of employment."

Morse returned to the North in the spring of 1820 and joined his mother and his wife and daughter in New Haven, where they had preceded him and where they were comfortably and agreeably settled, as will appear from the following sentence in a letter to his good friend and mentor, Henry Bromfield, of London, dated August, 1820: "You will perceive by the heading of this letter that I am in New Haven. My father and his family have left Charlestown, Massachusetts, and are settled in this place. My own family also, consisting of wife and daughter, are pleasantly settled in this delightful spot. I have built me a fine painting-room attached to my house in which I paint my large pictures in the summer, and in the winter I migrate to Charleston, South Carolina, where I have commissions sufficient to employ me for some years to come."

He returned to Charleston in the fall of 1820 and was again compelled to go alone. He writes to his wife on December 27: "I feel the separation this time more than ever, and I felt the other day, when I saw the steamship start for New York, that I had almost a mind to return in her."

From this sentence we learn that the slow schooner of the preceding years had been supplanted by the more rapid steamship, but that is, unfortunately, all he has to say of this great step forward in human progress.

Further on in this same letter he says: "I am occupied fully so that I have no reason to complain. I have not a press like the first season or like the last, but still I can say I am all the time employed.... My President pleases very much; I have heard no dissatisfaction expressed. It is placed in the great Hall in a fine light and place.... Mrs. Ball wants some alterations, that is to say every five minutes she would like it to be different. She is the most unreasonable of all mortals; derangement is her only apology. I can't tell you all in a letter, must wait till I see you. I shall get the rest of the cash from her shortly."

Just at this time the wave of prosperity on which the young man had so long floated, began to subside, for he writes to his wife on January 28, 1821:—

"I wish I could write encouragingly as to my professional pursuits, but I cannot. Notwithstanding the diminished price and the increase of exertion to please, and although I am conscious of painting much better portraits than formerly (which, indeed, stands to reason if I make continual exertion to improve), yet with all I receive no new commissions, cold and procrastinating answers from those to whom I write and who had put their names on my list. I give less satisfaction to those whom I have painted; I receive less attention also from some of those who formerly paid me much attention, and none at all from most."

But with his usual hopefulness he says later on in this letter:—

"Why should I expect my sky to be perpetually unclouded, my sun to be never obscured? I have thus far enjoyed more of the sunshine of prosperity than most of my fellow men. 'Shall I receive good at the hands of the Lord and shall I not also receive evil?'"

In this letter, a very long one, he suggests the establishment of an academy or school of painting in New Haven, so that he may be enabled to live at home with his family, and find time to paint some of the great historical works which he still longed to do. He also tells of the formation of such an academy in Charleston:—

"Since writing this there has been formed here an Academy of Arts to be erected immediately. J.R. Poinsett, Esq., is President, and six others with myself are chosen Directors. What this is going to lead to I don't know. I heard Mr. Cogdell say that it was intended to have lectures read, among other things. I feel not very sanguine as to its success, still I shall do all in my power to help it on as long as I am here."

His forebodings seem to have been justified, for Mr. John S. Cogdell, a sculptor, thus writes of it in later years to Mr. Dunlap:—

"The Legislature granted a charter, but, my good sir, as they possessed no powers under the constitution to confer taste or talent, and possessed none of those feelings which prompt to patronage, they gave none to the infant academy.... The institution was allowed from apathy and opposition to die; but Mr. Poinsett and myself with a few others have purchased, with a hope of reviving, the establishment."

Referring to this academy the wife in New Haven, in a letter of February 25, 1821, says: "Mr. Silliman says he is not much pleased to hear that they have an academy for painting in Charleston. He is afraid they will decoy you there."

On March 11, 1821, Morse answers thus: "Tell Mr. Silliman I have stronger magnets at New Haven than any academy can have, and, while that is the case, I cannot be decoyed permanently from home."

I wonder if he used the word "magnets" advisedly, for it was with Professor Silliman that he at that time pursued the studies in physics, including electricity, which had so interested him while in college, and it was largely due to the familiarity with the subject which he then acquired that he was, in later years, enabled successfully to perfect his invention.

On the 12th of March, 1821, another daughter was born to the young couple, and was named Elizabeth Ann after her paternal grandmother. The child lived but a few days, however, much to the grief of her parents and grandparents.

Charleston had now given all she had to give to the young painter, and he packed his belongings to return home with feelings both of joy and of regret. He was overjoyed at the prospect of so soon seeing his dearly loved wife and daughter, and his parents and brothers; at the same time he had met with great hospitality in Charleston; had made many firm friends; had impressed himself strongly on the life of the city, as he always did wherever he went, and had met with most gratifying success in his profession. A partial list of the portraits painted while he was there gives the names of fifty-five persons, and, as the prices received are appended, we learn that he received over four thousand dollars from his patrons for these portraits alone.

On March 31, 1821, he joyfully announces his homecoming: "I just drop you a hasty line to say that, in all probability, your husband will be with you as soon, if not sooner than this letter. I am entirely clear of all sitters, having outstayed my last application; have been engaged in finishing off and packing up for two days past and contemplate embarking by the middle or end of the coming week in the steamship for New York. You must not be surprised, therefore, to see me soon after this reaches you; still don't be disappointed if I am a little longer, as the winds most prevalent at this season are head winds in going to the North. I am busy in collecting my dues and paying my debts."



CHAPTER XII

MAY 23, 1821—DECEMBER 17, 1824

Accompanies Mr. Silliman to the Berkshires.—Takes his wife and daughter to Concord, New Hampshire.—Writes to his wife from Boston about a bonnet.—Goes to Washington, D.C.—Paints large picture of House of Representatives.—Artistic but not financial success.—Donates five hundred dollars to Yale.—Letter from Mr. DeForest.—New York "Observer."—Discouragements.—First son born.—Invents marble-carving machine.—Goes to Albany.—Stephen Van Rensselaer.—Slight encouragement in Albany.—Longing for a home.—Goes to New York.—Portrait of Chancellor Kent.—Appointed attache to Legation to Mexico.—High hopes.— Takes affecting leave of his family.—Rough journey to Washington.— Expedition to Mexico indefinitely postponed.—Returns North.—Settles in New York.—Fairly prosperous.

Much as Morse longed for a permanent home, where he could find continuous employment while surrounded by those he loved, it was not until many years afterwards and under totally different circumstances that his dream was realized. For the present the necessity of earning money for the support of his young family and for the assistance of his ageing father and mother drove him continually forth to new fields, and on May 23, 1821, which must have been only a few weeks after his return from the South, he writes to his wife from Pittsfield, Massachusetts:—

"We are thus far on our tour safe and sound. Mr. Silliman's health is very perceptibly better already. Last night we lodged at Litchfield; Mr. Silliman had an excellent night and is in fine spirits.

"At Litchfield I called on Judge Reeves and sat a little while.... I called at Mr. Beecher's with Mr. Silliman and Judge Gould; no one at home. Called with Mr. Silliman at Dr. Shelden's, and stayed a few moments; sat a few moments also at Judge Gould's.

"I was much pleased with the exterior appearance of Litchfield; saw at a distance Edwards's pickerel pond.

"We left at five this morning, breakfasted at Norfolk, dined at Stockbridge. We there left the stage and have hired a wagon to go on to Middlebury, Vermont, at our leisure. We lodge here to-night and shall probably reach Bennington, Vermont, to-morrow night.

"I have made one slight pencil sketch of the Hoosac Mountain. At Stockbridge we visited the marble quarries, and to-morrow at Lanesborough shall visit the quarries of fine white marble there.

"I am much delighted with my excursion thus far. To travel with such a companion as Mr. Silliman I consider as highly advantageous as well as gratifying."

This is all the record I have of this particular trip. The Mr. Beecher referred to was the father of Henry Ward Beecher.

Later in the summer he accompanied his wife and little daughter to Concord, New Hampshire, and left them there with her father and mother. Writing to her from Boston on his way back to New Haven, he says in characteristically masculine fashion:—

"I have talked with Aunt Bartlett about getting you a bonnet. She says that it is no time to get a fashionable winter bonnet in Boston now, and that it would be much better if you could get it in New York, as the Bostonians get their fashions from New York and, of course, much later than we should in New Haven. She thinks that white is better than blue, etc., etc., etc., which she can explain to you much better than I can. She is willing, however, to get you any you wish if you still request it. She thinks, if you cannot wait for the new fashion, that your black bonnet put into proper shape with black plumes would be as tasty and fashionable as any you could procure. I think so, too. You had better write Aunt particularly about it."

While Morse had conscientiously tried to put the best of himself into the painting of portraits, and had succeeded better than he himself knew, he still longed for wider fields, and in November, 1821, he went to Washington, D.C., to begin a work which he for some time had had in contemplation, and which he now felt justified in undertaking. This was to be a large painting of the House of Representatives with many portraits of the members. The idea was well received at Washington and he obtained the use of one of the rooms at the Capitol for a studio, making it easy for the members to sit for him. It could not have been all plain sailing, however, for his wife says to him in a letter of December 28, 1821: "Knowing that perseverance is a trait in your character, we do not any of us feel surprised to hear you have overcome so many obstacles. You have undertaken a great work.... Every one thinks it must be a very popular subject and that you will make a splendid picture of it."

Writing to his wife he says:—

"I am up at daylight, have my breakfast and prayers over and commence the labors of the day long before the workmen are called to work on the Capitol by the bell. This I continue unremittingly till one o'clock, when I dine in about fifteen minutes and then pursue my labors until tea, which scarcely interrupts me, as I often have my cup of tea in one hand and my pencil in the other. Between ten and eleven o'clock I retire to rest. This has been my course every day (Sundays, of course, excepted) since I have been here, making about fourteen hours' study out of the twenty-four.

"This you will say is too hard, and that I shall injure my health. I can say that I never enjoyed better health, and my body, by the simple fare I live on, is disciplined to this course. As it will not be necessary to continue long so assiduously I shall not fail to pursue it till the work is done.

"I receive every possible facility from all about the Capitol. The doorkeeper, a venerable man, has offered to light the great chandelier expressly for me to take my sketches in the evening for two hours together, for I shall have it a candlelight effect, when the room, already very splendid, will appear ten times more so."

On the 2d of January, 1822, he writes: "I have commenced to-day taking the likenesses of the members. I find them not only willing to sit, but apparently esteeming it an honor. I shall take seventy of them and perhaps more; all if possible. I find the picture is becoming the subject of conversation, and every day gives me greater encouragement. I shall paint it on part of the great canvas when I return home. It will be eleven feet by seven and a half feet.... It will take me until October next to complete it."

The room which he painted was then the Hall of Representatives, but is now Statuary Hall. As a work of art the painting is excellent and is highly esteemed by artists of the present day. It contains eighty portraits.

His high expectations of gaining much profit from its exhibition and of selling it for a large sum were, however, doomed to disappointment. It did not attract the public attention which he had anticipated and it proved a financial loss to him. It was finally sold to an Englishman, who took it across the ocean, and it was lost sight of until, after twenty-five years, it was found by an artist friend, Mr. F.W. Edmonds, in New York, where it had been sent from London. It was in a more or less damaged condition, but was restored by Morse. It eventually became the property of the late Daniel Huntington, who loaned it to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, where it now hangs.[1]

[Footnote 1: This painting has recently been purchased by the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery.]

I find no more letters of special interest of the year 1822, but Mr. Prime has this to record: "In the winter of 1822, notwithstanding the great expenses to which Mr. Morse had been subjected in producing this picture, and before he had realized anything from its exhibition, he made a donation of five hundred dollars to the library fund of Yale College; probably the largest donation in proportion to the means of the giver which that institution ever received."

The corporation, by vote, presented the thanks of the board in the following letter:—

YALE COLLEGE, December 4th, 1822.

DEAR SIR,—I am directed by the corporation of this college to present to you the thanks of the board for your subscription of five hundred dollars for the enlargement of the library. Should this example of liberality be generally imitated by the friends of the institution, we should soon have a library creditable to the college and invaluable to men of literary and philosophic research.

With respectful and grateful acknowledgment,

Your obedient servant, JEREMAIAH DAY.

While he was at home in New Haven in the early part of 1823 he sought orders for portraits, and that he was successful in at least one instance is evidenced by the following letter:—

Mr. D.C. DeForest's compliments to Mr. Morse. Mr. DeForest desires to have his portrait taken such as it would have been six or eight years ago, making the necessary calculation for it, and at the same time making it a good likeness in all other respects.

This reason is not to make himself younger, but to appear to children and grandchildren more suitably matched as to age with their mother and grandmother.

If Mr. Morse is at leisure and disposed to undertake this work, he will please prepare his canvas and let me know when he is ready for my attendance.

NEW HAVEN, 30th March, 1823.

Whether Morse succeeded to the satisfaction of Mr. DeForest does not appear from the correspondence, but both this portrait and that of Mrs. DeForest now hang in the galleries of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, and are here reproduced so that the reader may judge for himself.



On the 17th of May, 1828, the first number of the New York "Observer" was published. While being a religious newspaper the prospectus says it "contains also miscellaneous articles and summaries of news and information on every subject in which the community is interested."

This paper was founded and edited by the two brothers Sidney E. and Richard C. Morse, who had abandoned respectively the law and the ministry. It was very successful, and became at one time a power in the community and is still in existence.

The editorial offices were first established at 50 Wall Street, but later the brothers bought a lot and erected a building at the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, and that edifice had an important connection with the invention of the telegraph. On the same site now stands the Morse Building, a pioneer sky-scraper now sadly dwarfed by its gigantic neighbors.

The year 1823 was one of mingled discouragement and hope. Compelled to absent himself from home for long periods in search of work, always hoping that in some place he would find enough to do to warrant his bringing his family and making for them a permanent home, his letters reflect his varying moods, but always with the underlying conviction that Providence will yet order all things for the best. The letters of the young wife are pathetic in their expressions of loneliness during the absence of her husband, and yet of forced cheerfulness and submission to the will of God.

On the 17th of March, 1823, another child was born, a son, who was named for his maternal grandfather, Charles Walker. The child was at first very delicate, and this added to the anxieties of the fond mother and father, but he soon outgrew his childish ailments.

Morse's active mind was ever bent on invention, and in this year he devised and sought to patent a machine for carving marble statues, "perfect copies of any model." He had great hopes of pecuniary profit from this invention and it is mentioned many times in the letters of this and the following year, but he found, on enquiry, that it was not patentable, as it would have been an infringement on the machine of Thomas Blanchard which was patented in 1820.

So once more were his hopes of independence blasted, as they had been in the case of the pump and fire-engine. He longed, like all artists, to be free from the petty cares and humiliations of the struggle for existence, free to give full rein to his lofty aspirations, secure in the confidence that those he loved were well provided for; but, like most other geniuses, he was compelled to drink still deeper of the bitter cup, to drain it to the very dregs.

In the month of August, 1823, he went to Albany, hoping through his acquaintance with the Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, to establish himself there. He painted the portrait of the Patroon, confident that, by its exhibition, he would secure other orders. In a letter to his wife he says:—

"I have found lodgings—a large front room on the second story, twenty-five by eighteen feet, and twelve feet high—a fine room for painting, with a neat little bedroom, and every convenience, and board, all for six dollars a week, which I think is very reasonable. My landlord is an elderly Irish gentleman with three daughters, once in independent circumstances but now reduced. Everything bears the appearance of old-fashioned gentility which you know I always liked. Everything is neat and clean and genteel.... Bishop Hobart and a great many acquaintances were on board of the boat upon which I came up to this city.

"I can form no idea as yet of the prospect of success in my profession here. If I get enough to employ me I shall go no farther; if not, I may visit some of the smaller towns in the interior of the State. I await with some anxiety the result of experiments with my machine. I hope the invention may enable me to remain at home."

"16th of August. I have not as yet received any application for a portrait. Many tell me I have come at the wrong time—the same tune that has been rung in my ears so long. I hope the right tune will come by and by. The winter, it is said, is the proper season, but, as it is better in the South at that season and it will be more profitable to be there, I shall give Albany a thorough trial and do my best. If I should not find enough to employ me here, I think I shall return to New York and settle there. This I had rather not do at present, but it may be the best that I can do. Roaming becomes more and more irksome. Imperious necessity alone drives me to this course. Don't think by this I am faint-hearted; I shall persevere in this course, painful as is the separation from my family, until Providence clearly points out my duty to return."

"August 22. I have something to do. I have one portrait in progress and the promise of more. One hundred dollars will pay all my expenses here for three months, so that the two I am now painting will clear me in that respect and all that comes after will be clear gain. I am, therefore, easier in my mind as to this. The portrait I am now painting is Judge Moss Kent, brother of the Chancellor. He says that I shall paint the Chancellor when he returns to Albany, and his niece also, and from these particulars you may infer that I shall be here for some little time longer, just so long as my good prospects continue; but, should they fail, I am determined to try New York City, and sit down there in my profession permanently. I believe I have now attained sufficient proficiency to venture there. My progress may be slow at first, but I believe it will be sure. I do not like going South and I have given up the idea of New Orleans or any Southern city, at least for the present. Circumstances may vary this determination, but I think a settlement in New York is more feasible now than ever before. I shall be near you and home in cases of emergency, and in the summer and sickly season can visit you at New Haven, while you can do the same to me in New York until we live again at New Haven altogether. I leave out of this calculation the machine for sculpture. If that should entirely succeed, my plans would be materially varied, but I speak of my present plan as if that had failed."

"August 24. I finished Mr. Kent's picture yesterday and received the money for it.... Mr. Kent is very polite to me, and has introduced me to a number of persons and families, among others to the Kanes—very wealthy people—to Governor Yates, etc. Mr. Clinton's son called on me and invited me to their house.... I have been introduced to Senor Rocafuerto, the Spaniard who made so excellent a speech before the Bible Society last May. He is a very handsome man, very intelligent, full of wit and vivacity. He is a great favorite with the ladies and is a man of wealth and a zealous patriot, studying our manners, customs, and improvements, with a view of benefiting his own countrymen in Peru.... I long to be with you again and to see you all at home. I fear I dote on home too much, but mine is such an uncommon home, such a delightful home, that I cannot but feel strongly my privation of its pleasures."

"August 27. My last two letters have held out to you some encouraging prospects of success here, but now they seem darkened again. I have had nothing to do this week thus far but to wait patiently. I have advertised in both of the city papers that I should remain one week to receive applications, but as yet it has produced no effect....

"Chancellor Kent is out of town and I was told yesterday would not be in until the end of next month. If I should have nothing to do in the mean time it is hardly worth while to stay solely for that. Many have been talking of having their portraits painted, but there it has thus far ended. I feel a little perplexed to know what to do. I find nothing in Albany which can profitably employ my leisure hours. If there were any pictures or statuary where I could sketch and draw, it would be different.... I have visited several families who have been very kind to me, for which I am thankful....

"I shall leave Albany and return to New York a week from to-day if there is no change in my prospects.... The more I think of making a push at New York as a permanent place of residence in my profession, the more proper it seems that it should be pretty soon. There is now no rival that I should fear; a few more years may produce one that would be hard to overcome. New York does not yet feel the influx of wealth from the Western canal but in a year or two she will feel it, and it will be advantageous to me to be previously identified among her citizens as a painter.

"It requires some little time to become known in such a city as New York. Colonel T—— is growing old, too, and there is no artist of education sufficiently prominent to take his place as President of the Academy of Arts. By becoming more known to the New York public, and exerting my talents to discover the best methods of promoting the arts and writing about them, I may possibly be promoted to his place, where I could have a better opportunity of doing something for the arts in our country, the object at which I aim."

"September 3. I have nothing to do and shall pack up on the morrow for New York unless appearances change again. I have not had full employment since I have been in Albany and I feel miserable in doing nothing. I shall set out on Friday, and perhaps may go to New Haven for a day or two to look at you all."

He did manage to pay a short visit to his home, and then he started for New York by boat, but was driven by a storm into Black Rock Harbor and continued his journey from there by land. Writing home the day after his arrival he says: "I have obtained a place to board at friend Coolidge's at two dollars and twenty-five cents a week, and have taken for my studio a fine room in Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard, for which I am to pay six dollars and fifty cents a week, being fifty cents less than I expected to pay."

There has been some increase in the rental price of rooms on Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard since that day.

Further on he says:—

"I shall go to work in a few days vigorously. It is a half mile from my room to the place where I board, so that I am obliged to walk more than three miles every day. It is good exercise for me and I feel better for it. I sleep in my room on the floor and put my bed out of sight during the day, as at Washington. I feel in the spirit of 'buckling down to it,' and am determined to paint and study with all my might this winter."

The loving wife is distressed at the idea of his sleeping on the floor, and thus expresses herself in a letter which is dated, curiously enough, November 31: "You know, dear Finley, I have always set my face as a flint and have borne my testimony against your sleeping on the floor. Indeed, it makes my heart ache, when I go to bed in my comfortable chamber, to think of my dear husband sleeping without a bedstead. Your mother says she sent one to Richard, which he has since told her was unnecessary as he used a settee, and which you can get of him. But, if it is in use, do get one or I shall take no comfort."

Soon after his arrival in New York he began the portrait of Chancellor Kent, and writing of him he says:—

"He is not a good sitter; he scarcely presents the same view twice; he is very impatient and you well know that I cannot paint an impatient person; I must have my mind at ease or I cannot paint.

"I have no more applications as yet, but it is not time to expect them. All the artists are complaining, and there are many of them, and they are all poor. The arts are as low as they can be. It is no better at the South, and all the accounts of the arts or artists are of the most discouraging nature."

The portrait of the Chancellor seems not to have brought him more orders, for a little later he writes to his wife: "I waited many days in the hope of some application in my profession, but have been disappointed until last evening I called and spent the evening with my friend Mr. Van Schaick, and told him I had thought of painting some little design from the 'Sketch Book,' so as not to be idle, and mentioned the subject of Ichabod Crane discovering the headless horseman.

"He said: 'Paint it for me and another picture of the same size, and I will take them of you.' So I am now employed....

"My secret scheme is not yet disclosable, but I shall let you know as soon as I hear anything definite."

Still later he says:—

"I have seen many of the artists; they all agree that little is doing in the city of New York. It seems wholly given to commerce. Every man is driving at one object—the making of money—not the spending of it....

"My secret scheme looks promising, but I am still in suspense; you shall know the moment it is decided one way or the other."

His brother, Sidney Edwards, in a letter to his parents of December 9, 1823, says: "Finley is in good spirits again; not because he has any prospect of business here, but he is dreaming of the gold mines of Mexico."

As his secret was now out, he explains it fully in the following letter to his wife, dated December 21, 1823:—

"My cash is almost gone and I begin to feel some anxiety and perplexity to know what to do. I have advertised, and visited, and hinted, and pleaded, and even asked one man to sit, but all to no purpose.... My expenses, with the most rigid economy, too, are necessarily great; my rent to-morrow will amount to thirty-three dollars, and I have nothing to pay it with.

"What can I do? I have been here five weeks and there is not the smallest prospect now of any difference as to business. I am willing to stay and wish to stay if there is anything to do. The pictures that I am painting for Mr. Van Schaick will not pay my expenses if painted here; my rent and board would eat it all up.

"I have thought of various plans, but what to decide upon I am completely at a loss, nor can I decide until I hear definitely from Washington in regard to my Mexico expedition. Since Brother Sidney has hinted it to you I will tell you the state of it. I wrote to General Van Rensselaer, Mr. Poinsett, and Colonel Hayne, of the Senate, applying for some situation in the legation to Mexico soon to be sent thither. I stated my object in going and my wish to go free of expense and under government protection.

"I received a letter a few days ago from General Van Rensselaer in which he says: 'I immediately laid your request before the President and seconded it with my warmest recommendations. It is impossible to predict the result at present. If our friend Mr. Poinsett is appointed minister, which his friends are pressing, he will no doubt be happy to have you in his suite.'

"Thus the case rests at present. If Mr. Poinsett is appointed I shall probably go to Mexico, if not, it will be more doubtful.... If I go I should take my picture of the House of Representatives, which, in the present state of favorable feeling towards our country, I should probably dispose of to advantage.

"All accounts that I hear from Mexico are in the highest degree favorable to my enterprise, and I hear much from various quarters."

As can well be imagined, his wife did not look with unalloyed pleasure on this plan. She says in a letter of December 25, 1823: "I have felt much for you, my dearest Finley, in all your trials and perplexities. I was sorry to hear you had been unsuccessful in obtaining portraits. I hope you will, ere long, experience a change for the better.... As to the Mexico plan, I know not what to think of it. How can I consent to have you be at such a distance?"

However, convinced by her husband that it would be for his best interests to go, she reluctantly gave her consent and he used every legitimate effort to secure the appointment. He was finally successful. Mr. Poinsett was not appointed as minister; this honor was bestowed on the Honorable Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, but Morse was named as one of his suite.

In a note from the Honorable Robert Young Hayne, who, it will be remembered, was the opponent of Daniel Webster in the great debates on States' Rights in the Senate, Morse was thus apprised of his appointment: "Governor Edwards's suite consists of Mr. Mason, of Georgetown, D.C., secretary of the legation; Mr. Hodgson, of Virginia, private secretary; and yourself, attache."

Morse had great hopes of increasing his reputation as a painter and of earning much money in Mexico. He was perfectly frank in stating that his principal object in seeking an appointment as attache was that he might pursue his profession, and, in a letter to Mr. Edwards of April 15, 1824, he thus explains why he considers this not incompatible with his duties as attache: "That the pursuit of my profession will not be derogatory to the situation I may hold I infer from the fact that many of the ancient painters were ambassadors to different European courts, and pursued their professions constantly while abroad. Rubens, while ambassador to the English court, executed some of his finest portraits and decorated the ceiling of the chapel of White Hall with some of his best historical productions."

When it was finally decided that he should go, he made all his preparations, including a bed and bedding among his impedimenta, being assured that this was necessary in Mexico, and bade farewell to his family.

His father, his wife and children, and his sister-in-law accompanied him as far as New York. Writing of the parting he says: "A thousand affecting incidents of separation from my beloved family crowded upon my recollection. The unconscious gayety of my dear children as they frolicked in all their wonted playfulness, too young to sympathize in the pangs that agitated their distressed parents; their artless request to bring home some trifling toy; the parting kiss, not understood as meaning more than usual; the tears and sad farewells of father, mother, wife, sister, family, friends; the desolateness of every room as the parting glance is thrown on each familiar object, and 'farewell, farewell' seemed written on the very walls,—all these things bear upon my memory, and I realize the declaration that 'the places which now know us shall know us no more.'"



It must be borne in mind that a journey in those days, even one from New York to Washington, was not a few hours' ride in a luxurious Pullman, but was fraught with many discomforts, delays, and even dangers.

As an example of this I shall quote the first part of a letter written by Morse from Washington to his wife on April 11, 1824:—

"I lose not a moment in informing you of my safe arrival, with all my baggage, in good order last evening. I was much fatigued, went to bed early, and this morning feel perfectly refreshed and much better for my journey.

"After leaving you on Wednesday morning I had but just time to reach the boat before she started. In the land carriage we occupied three stages over a very rough road. In crossing a small creek in a ferry-boat the stage ahead of ours left the boat a little too soon and came near upsetting in the water, which would have put the passengers into a dangerous situation. As it was the water came into the carriage and wet some of the baggage. It was about an hour before they could get the stage out of the water.

"Next came our turn. After travelling a few miles the springs on one side gave way and let us down, almost upsetting us. We got out without difficulty and, in a few minutes, by putting a rail under one side, we proceeded on again, jocosely telling the passengers in the third stage that it was their turn next.

"When we arrived at the boat in the Delaware to our surprise the third stage came in with a rail under one side, having met with a similar accident a few miles after we left them. So we all had our turn, but no injury to any of us."

His high hopes of success in this enterprise were soon doomed to be shattered, and once again he was made to suffer a bitter disappointment.

On April 19 he writes: "I am at this moment put into a very embarrassing state of suspense by a political occurrence which has caused a great excitement here, and will cause considerable interest, no doubt, throughout the country. This morning a remonstrance was read in the House of Representatives from the Honorable Ninian Edwards against Mr. Crawford, which contains such charges and of so serious a nature as has led to the appointment of a select committee, with power to send for persons and papers in order to a full investigation; and I am told by many members of Congress that Mr. Edwards will undoubtedly be sent for, which will occasion, of course, a great delay in his journey to Mexico, if not cause a suspension of his going until the next season."

The Mr. Crawford alluded to was William Harris Crawford, at that time a prominent candidate for the Presidency in the coming election.

With his customary faith in an overruling Providence, Morse says later in the same letter: "This delay and suspense tries me more than distance or even absence from my dear family. If I could be on my way and pursuing my profession I should feel much better. But all will be for the best; though things look dark I can and will trust Him who will make my path of duty plain before me. This satisfies my mind and does not allow a single desponding thought."

The sending of the legation was indefinitely postponed, and Morse, much disappointed but resolved not to be overwhelmed by this crushing of his high hopes, returned to New Haven.

He spent the summer partly at home and partly in Concord, New Hampshire (where his wife and children had gone to visit her father), and in Portsmouth, Portland, and Hartford, having been summoned to those cities by patrons who wished him to paint their portraits.

We can imagine that the young wife did not grieve over the failure of the Mexican trip. Her letters to her husband at that period are filled with expressions of the deepest affection, but with an undertone of melancholy, due, no doubt, to the increasing delicacy of her health, never very robust.

In the fall of 1824 Morse resolved to make another assault on the purses of the solid men of New York, and he established himself at 96 Broadway, where, for a time, he had the satisfaction of having his wife and children with him. They, however, returned later to New Haven, and on December 5, 1824, he writes to his wife:—

"I am fully employed and in excellent spirits. I am engaged in painting the full-length portrait of Mr. Hone's little daughter, a pretty little girl just as old as Susan. I have made a sketch of the composition with which I am pleased, and so are the father and mother. I shall paint her with a cat set up in her lap like a baby, with a towel under its chin and a cap on its head, and she employed in feeding it with a spoon....

"I am as happy and contented as I can be without my dear Lucrece and our dear children, but I hope it will not be long before we shall be able to live together without these separations."

"December 17, 1824. I have everything very comfortable at my rooms. My two pupils, Mr. Agate and Mr. Field, are very tractable and very useful. I have everything 'in Pimlico,' as mother would say.

"I have begun, and thus far carried on, a system of neatness in my painting-room which I never could have with Henry. Everything has its place, and every morning the room is swept and all things put in order....

"I have as much as I can do in painting. I do not mean by this that I have the overflow that I had in Charleston, nor do I wish it. A hard shower is soon over; I wish rather the gentle, steady, continuing rain. I feel that I have a character to obtain and maintain, and therefore my pictures must be carefully studied. I shall not by this method paint so fast nor acquire property so fast, but I shall do what is better, secure a continuance of patronage and success.

"I have no disposition to be a nine days' wonder, all the rage for a moment and then forgotten forever; compelled on this very account to wander from city to city, to shine a moment in one and then pass on to another."

In a letter of a later date he says:—

"I am going on prosperously through the kindness of Providence in raising up many friends who are exerting themselves in my favor. My storms are partly over, and a clear and pleasant day is dawning upon me."



CHAPTER XIII

JANUARY 4, 1825—NOVEMBER 18, 1825

Success in New York.—Chosen to paint portrait of Lafayette.—Hope of a permanent home with his family.—Meets Lafayette in Washington.—Mutually attracted.—Attends President's levee.—Begins portrait of Lafayette.— Death of his wife.—Crushed by the news.—His attachment to her.—Epitaph composed by Benjamin Silliman.—Bravely takes up his work again.— Finishes portrait of Lafayette.—Describes it in letter of a later date. —Sonnet on death of Lafayette's dog.—Rents a house in Canal Street, New York.—One of the founders of National Academy of Design.—Tactful resolutions on organization.—First thirty members.—Morse elected first president.—Reelected every year until 1845.—Again made president in 1861.—Lectures on Art.—Popularity.

It is a commonly accepted belief that a particularly fine, clear day is apt to be followed by a storm. Meteorologists can probably give satisfactory scientific reasons for this phenomenon, but, be that as it may, how often do we find a parallel in human affairs. A period of prosperity and happiness in the life of a man or of a nation is almost invariably followed by calamities, small or great; but, fortunately for individuals and for nations, the converse is also true. The creeping pendulum of fate, pausing for an instant at its highest point, dips down again to gather impetus for a higher swing.

And so it was with Morse. Fate was preparing for him a heavy blow, one of the tragedies of his eventful life, and, in order to hearten him for the trial, to give him strength to bear up under it, she cheered his professional path with the sun of prosperity.

Writing to his wife from New York on January 4, 1825, he says:—

"You will rejoice with me, I know, in my continued and increasing success. I have just learned in confidence, from one of the members of the committee of the corporation appointed to procure a full-length portrait of Lafayette, that they have designated me as the painter of it, and that a subcommittee was appointed to wait on me with the information. They will probably call to-morrow, but, until it is thus officially announced to me, I wish the thing kept secret, except to the family, until I write you more definitely on the subject, which I will do the moment the terms, etc., are settled with the committee.

"I shall probably be under the necessity of going to Washington to take it immediately (the corporation, of course, paying my expenses). But of this in my next."

"January 6, 1825. I have been officially notified of my appointment to paint the full-length portrait of Lafayette for the City of New York, so that you may make it as public as you please.

"The terms are not definitely settled; the committee is disposed to be very liberal. I shall have at least seven hundred dollars—probably one thousand. I have to wait until an answer can be received from Washington, from Lafayette to know when he can see me. The answer will arrive probably on Wednesday morning; after that I can determine what to do about going on.

"The only thing I fear is that it is going to deprive me of my dear Lucretia. Recollect the old lady's saying, often quoted by mother, 'There is never a convenience but there ain't one'; I long to see you."

It was well for the young man that he did not realize how dreadfully his jesting fears were to be realized.

Further on he says: "I have made an arrangement with Mr. Durand to have an engraving of Lafayette's portrait. I receive half the profits. Vanderlyn, Sully, Peale, Jarvis, Waldo, Inman, Ingham, and some others were my competitors in the application for this picture."

"January 8. Your letter of the 5th I have just received, and one from the committee of medical students engaging me to paint Dr. Smith's portrait for them when I come to New Haven. They are to give me one hundred dollars. I have written them that I should be in New Haven by the 1st of February, or, at farthest, by the 6th; so that it is only prolonging for a little longer, my dear wife, the happy meeting which I anticipated for the 25th of this month. Events are not under our own control.

"When I consider how wonderfully things are working for the promotion of the great and long-desired event—that of being constantly with my dear family—all unpleasant feelings are absorbed in this joyful anticipation, and I look forward to the spring of the year with delightful prospects of seeing my dear family permanently settled with me in our own hired house here. There are more encouraging prospects than I can trust to paper at present which must be left for your private ear, and which in magnitude are far more valuable than any encouragement yet made known to me. Let us look with thankful hearts to the Giver of all these blessings."

"Washington, February 8, 1825. I arrived safely in this city last evening. I find I have no time to lose, as the Marquis will leave here the 23d. I have seen him and am to breakfast with him to-morrow, and to commence his portrait. If he allows me time sufficient I have no fear as to the result. He has a noble face. In this I am disappointed, for I had heard that his features were not good. On the contrary, if there is any truth in expression of character, there never was a more perfect example of accordance between the face and the character. He has all that noble firmness and consistency, for which he has been so distinguished, strongly indicated in his whole face.

"While he was reading my letters I could not but call to mind the leading events of his truly eventful life. 'This is the man now before me, the very man,' thought I, 'who suffered in the dungeon of Olmuetz; the very man who took the oaths of the new constitution for so many millions, while the eyes of thousands were fixed upon him (and which is so admirably described in the Life which I read to you just before I left home); the very man who spent his youth, and his fortune, and his time, to bring about (under Providence) our happy Revolution; the friend and companion of Washington, the terror of tyrants, the firm and consistent supporter of liberty, the man whose beloved name has rung from one end of this continent to the other, whom all flock to see, whom all delight to honor; this is the man, the very identical man!' My feelings were almost too powerful for me as I shook him by the hand and received the greeting of—'Sir, I am exceedingly happy in your acquaintance, and especially on such an occasion.'"

Thus began an acquaintance which ripened into warm friendship between Morse and Lafayette, and which remained unbroken until the death of the latter.

"February 10, 1825. I went last night to the President's levee, the last which Mr. Monroe will hold as President of the United States. There was a great crowd and a great number of distinguished characters, among whom were General Lafayette; the President-elect, J.Q. Adams; Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President elect; General Jackson, etc. I paid my respects to Mr. Adams and congratulated him on his election. He seemed in some degree to shake off his habitual reserve, and, although he endeavored to suppress his feelings of gratification at his success, it was not difficult to perceive that he felt in high spirits on the occasion. General Jackson went up to him and, shaking him by the hand, congratulated him cordially on his election. The General bears his defeat like a man, and has shown, I think, by this act a nobleness of mind which will command the respect of those who have been most opposed to him.

"The excitement (if it may be called such) on this great question in Washington is over, and everything is moving on in its accustomed channel again. All seem to speak in the highest terms of the order and decorum preserved through the whole of this imposing ceremony, and the good feeling which seems to prevail, with but trivial exceptions, is thought to augur well in behalf of the new administration."

(There was no choice by the people in the election of that year, and John Quincy Adams had been chosen President by a vote of the House of Representatives.)

"I went last night in a carriage with four others—Captain Chauncey of the navy; Mr. Cooper, the celebrated author of the popular American novels; Mr. Causici (pronounced Cau-see-chee), the sculptor; and Mr. Owen, of Lanark, the celebrated philanthropist.

"Mr. Cooper remarked that we had on board a more singularly selected company, he believed, than any carriage at the door of the President, namely, a misanthropist (such he called Captain Chauncey, brother of the Commodore), a philanthropist (Mr. Owen), a painter (myself), a sculptor (Mr. Causici), and an author (himself).

"The Mr. Owen mentioned above is the very man I sometimes met at Mr. Wilberforce's in London, and who was present at the interesting scene I have often related that occurred at Mr. Wilberforce's. He recollected the circumstance and recognized me, as I did him, instantly, although it is twelve years ago.

"I am making progress with the General, but am much perplexed for want of time; I mean his time. He is so harassed by visitors and has so many letters to write that I find it exceedingly difficult to do the subject justice. I give him the last sitting in Washington to-morrow, reserving another sitting or two when he visits New York in July next. I have gone on thus far to my satisfaction and do not doubt but I shall succeed entirely, if I am allowed the requisite number of sittings. The General is very agreeable. He introduced me to his son by saying: 'This is Mr. Morse, the painter, the son of the geographer; he has come to Washington to take the topography of my face.' He thinks of visiting New Haven again when he returns from Boston. He regretted not having seen more of it when he was there, as he was much pleased with the place. He remembers Professor Silliman and others with great affection.

"I have left but little room in this letter to express my affection for my dearly loved wife and children; but of that I need not assure them. I long to hear from you, but direct your letters next to New York, as I shall probably be there by the end of next week, or the beginning of the succeeding one.

"Love to all the family and friends and neighbors. Your affectionate husband, as ever."

Alas! that there should have been no telegraph then to warn the loving husband of the blow which Fate had dealt him.

As he was light-heartedly attending the festivities at the White House, and as he was penning these two interesting letters to his wife, letters which she never read, and anticipating with keenest pleasure a speedy reunion, she lay dead at their home in New Haven.

His father thus conveys to him the melancholy intelligence:—

"February 8th, 1825. My affectionately beloved Son,—Mysterious are the ways of Providence. My heart is in pain and deeply sorrowful while I announce to you the sudden and unexpected death of your dear and deservedly loved wife. Her disease proved to be an affection of the heart—incurable, had it been known. Dr. Smith's letter, accompanying this, will explain all you will desire to know on this subject.

"I wrote you yesterday that she was convalescent. So she then appeared and so the doctor pronounced. She was up about five o'clock yesterday P.M. to have her bed made as usual; was unusually cheerful and social; spoke of the pleasure of being with her dear husband in New York ere long; stepped into bed herself, fell back with a momentary struggle on her pillow, her eyes were immediately fixed, the paleness of death overspread her countenance, and in five minutes more, without the slightest motion, her mortal life terminated.

"It happened that just at this moment I was entering her chamber door with Charles in my arms, to pay her my usual visit and to pray with her. The nurse met me affrighted, calling for help. Your mother, the family, our neighbors, full of the tenderest sympathy and kindness, and the doctors thronged the house in a few minutes. Everything was done that could be done to save her life, but her 'appointed time' had come, and no earthly power or skill could stay the hand of death.

"It was the Lord who gave her to you, the chiefest of all your earthly blessings, and it is He that has taken her away, and may you be enabled, my son, from the heart to say: 'Blessed be the name of the Lord.'... The shock to the whole family is far beyond, in point of severity, that of any we have ever before felt, but we are becoming composed, we hope on grounds which will prove solid and lasting.

"I expect this will reach you on Saturday, the day after the one we have appointed for the funeral, when you will have been in Washington a week and I hope will have made such progress in your business as that you will soon be able to return....

"You need not hurry home. Nothing here requires it. We are all well and everything will be taken good care of. Give yourself no concern on that account. Finish your business as well as you will be able to do it after receiving this sad news."

This blow was an overwhelming one. He could not, of course, compose himself sufficiently to continue his work on the portrait of Lafayette, and, having apprised the General of the reason for this, he received from the following sympathetic letter:—

I have feared to intrude upon you, my dear sir, but want to tell you how deeply I sympathize in your grief—a grief of which nobody can better than me appreciate the cruel feelings.

You will hear from me, as soon as I find myself again near you, to finish the work you have so well begun.

Accept my affectionate and mournful sentiment.

LAFAYETTE.

The day after he received his father's letter he left Washington and wrote from Baltimore, where he stopped over Sunday with a friend, on February 13:—

MY DEAR FATHER,—The heart-rending tidings which you communicated reached me in Washington on Friday evening. I left yesterday morning, spend this day here at Mr. Cushing's, and set out on my return home to-morrow. I shall reach Philadelphia on Monday night, New York on Tuesday night, and New Haven on Wednesday night.

Oh! is it possible, is it possible? Shall I never see my dear wife again?

But I cannot trust myself to write on this subject. I need your prayers and those of Christian friends to God for support. I fear I shall sink under it.

Oh! take good care of her dear children.

Your agonized son, FINLEY.

Another son had been born to him on January 20, 1825, and he was now left with three motherless children to provide for, and without the sustaining hope of a speedy and permanent reunion with them and with his beloved wife.

Writing to a friend more than a month after the death of his wife, he says:—

"Though late in performing the promise I made you of writing you when I arrived home, I hope you will attribute it to anything but forgetfulness of that promise. The confusion and derangement consequent on such an afflicting bereavement as I have suffered have rendered it necessary for me to devote the first moments of composure to looking about me, and to collecting and arranging the fragments of the ruin which has spread such desolation over all my earthly prospects.

"Oh! what a blow! I dare not yet give myself up to the full survey of its desolating effects. Every day brings to my mind a thousand new and fond connections with dear Lucretia, all now ruptured. I feel a dreadful void, a heart-sickness, which time does not seem to heal but rather to aggravate.

"You know the intensity of the attachment which existed between dear Lucretia and me, never for a moment interrupted by the smallest cloud; an attachment founded, I trust, in the purest love, and daily strengthening by all the motives which the ties of nature and, more especially, of religion, furnish.

"I found in dear Lucretia everything I could wish. Such ardor of affection, so uniform, so unaffected, I never saw nor read of but in her. My fear with regard to the measure of my affection toward her was not that I might fail of 'loving her as my own flesh,' but that I should put her in the place of Him who has said, 'Thou shalt have no other Gods but me.' I felt this to be my greatest danger, and to be saved from this idolatry was often the subject of my earnest prayers.

"If I had desired anything in my dear Lucretia different from what she was, it would have been that she had been less lovely. My whole soul seemed wrapped up in her; with her was connected all that I expected of happiness on earth. Is it strange, then, that I now feel this void, this desolateness, this loneliness, this heart-sickness; that I should feel as if my very heart itself had been torn from me?

"To any one but those who knew dear Lucretia what I have said might seem to be but the extravagance of an excited imagination; but to you, who knew the dear object I lament, all that I have said must but feebly shadow her to your memory."



It was well for him that he found constant occupation for his hand and brain at this critical period of his life. The Fates had dealt him this cruel blow for some good reason best known to themselves. He was being prepared for a great mission, and it was meet that his soul, like gold, should be purified by fire; but, at the same time, that the blow might not utterly overwhelm him, success in his chosen profession seemed again to be within his grasp.

Writing to his parents from New York, on April 8, 1825, he says:—

"I have as much as I can do, but after being fatigued at night and having my thoughts turned to my irreparable loss, I am ready almost to give up. The thought of seeing my dear Lucretia, and returning home to her, served always to give me fresh courage and spirits whenever I felt worn down by the labors of the day, and now I hardly know what to substitute in her place.

"To my friends here I know I seem to be cheerful and happy, but a cheerful countenance with me covers an aching heart, and often have I feigned a more than ordinary cheerfulness to hide a more than ordinary anguish.

"I am blessed with prosperity in my profession. I have just received another commission from the corporation of the city to paint a common-sized portrait of Rev. Mr. Stanford for them, to be placed in the almshouse."

The loss of his young wife was the great tragedy of Morse's life. Time, with her soothing touch, healed the wound, but the scar remained. Hers must have been, indeed, a lovely character. Professor Benjamin Silliman, Sr., one of her warmest friends, composed the epitaph which still remains inscribed upon her tombstone in the cemetery at New Haven. (See opposite page.)

IN MEMORY OF LUCRETIA PICKERING WIFE OF SAMUEL F.B. MORSE WHO DIED 7TH OF FEBRUARY A.D. 1825, AGED 25 YEARS.

SHE COMBINED, IN HER CHARACTER AND PERSON, A RARE ASSEMBLAGE OF EXCELLENCES: BEAUTIFUL IN FORM, FEATURES AND EXPRESSION PECULIARLY BLAND IN HER MANNERS, HIGHLY CULTIVATED IN MIND, SHE IRRESISTIBLY DREW ATTENTION, LOVE, AND RESPECT; DIGNIFIED WITHOUT HAUGHTINESS, AMIABLE WITHOUT TAMENESS, FIRM WITHOUT SEVERITY, AND CHEERFUL WITHOUT LEVITY, HER UNIFORM SWEETNESS OF TEMPER SPREAD PERPETUAL SUNSHINE AROUND EVERY CIRCLE IN WHICH SHE MOVED. "WHEN THE EAR HEARD HER IT BLESSED HER, WHEN THE EYE SAW HER IT GAVE WITNESS TO HER." IN SUFFERINGS THE MOST KEEN, HER SERENITY OF MIND NEVER FAILED HER; DEATH TO HER HAD NO TERRORS, THE GRAVE NO GLOOM. THOUGH SUDDENLY CALLED FROM EARTH, ETERNITY WAS NO STRANGER TO HER THOUGHTS, BUT A WELCOME THEME OF CONTEMPLATION. RELIGION WAS THE SUN THAT ILLUMINED EVERY VIRTUE, AND UNITED ALL IN ONE BOW OF BEAUTY. HERS WAS THE RELIGION OF THE GOSPEL; JESUS CHRIST HER FOUNDATION, THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF HER FAITH. IN HIM SHE RESTS, IN SURE EXPECTATION OF A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION.

With a heavy heart, but bravely determining not to be overwhelmed by this crushing blow, Morse took up his work again. He finished the portrait of Lafayette, and it now hangs in the City Hall in New York. Writing of it many years later to a gentleman who had made some enquiries concerning it, he says:—

"In answer to yours of the 8th instant, just received, I can only say it is so long since I have seen the portrait I painted of General Lafayette for the City of New York, that, strange to say, I find it difficult to recall even its general characteristics.

"That portrait has a melancholy interest for me, for it was just as I had commenced the second sitting of the General at Washington that I received the stunning intelligence of Mrs. Morse's death, and was compelled abruptly to suspend the work. I preserve, as a gratifying memorial, the letter of condolence and sympathy sent in to me at the time by the General, and in which he speaks in flattering terms of the promise of the portrait as a likeness.

"I must be frank, however, in my judgment of my own works of that day. This portrait was begun under the sad auspices to which I have alluded, and, up to the close of the work, I had a series of constant interruptions of the same sad character. A picture painted under such circumstances can scarcely be expected to do the artist justice, and as a work of art I cannot praise it. Still, it is a good likeness, was very satisfactory to the General, and he several times alluded to it in my presence in after years (when I was a frequent visitor to him in Paris) in terms of praise.

"It is a full-length, standing figure, the size of life. He is represented as standing at the top of a flight of steps, which he has just ascended upon a terrace, the figure coming against a glowing sunset sky, indicative of the glory of his own evening of life. Upon his right, if I remember, are three pedestals, one of which is vacant as if waiting for his bust, while the two others are surmounted by the busts of Washington and Franklin—the two associated eminent historical characters of his own time. In a vase on the other side is a flower-the helianthus—with its face toward the sun, in allusion to the characteristic stern, uncompromising consistency of Lafayette-a trait of character which I then considered, and still consider, the great prominent trait of that distinguished man."

Morse, like many men who have excelled in one branch of the fine arts, often made excursions into one of the others. I find among his papers many scraps of poetry and some more ambitious efforts, and while they do not, perhaps, entitle him to claim a poet's crown, some of them are worthy of being rescued from oblivion. The following sonnet was sent to Lafayette under the circumstances which Morse himself thus describes:—

"Written on the loss of a faithful dog of Lafayette's on board the steamboat which sank in the Mississippi. The dog, supposing his master still on board, could not be persuaded to leave the cabin, but perished with the vessel.