Morland

“ NATIONALITY IN ART. In looking through a collection of Reynolds, Gainsboroughs, Dobsons, Morlands, we are moved by something more than the artistic beauty of the pictures. Seeing that peaceful farmyard by Morland, a dim remote life, a haunting in the blood, rises to the surface of the brain, like a water-flower or weed brought by a sudden current into sight of the passing sky. Seeing that quiet man talking with his swineherd, we are mysteriously attracted, and are perplexed as by a memory ”

“ It seemed that Morland could do everything the public appeared to want, so, before he developed into the Morland exclusively of the stable and the farmyard and picturesque vagabondage, he challenged the popular genre painters on their own ground, and beat them with the magic simplicity of nature. Could the domestic Bigg do anything in his own line as charmingly life-like as A Visit to the Child at Nurse and A Visit to the Boarding School? ”

“ Landry relapsed once more into his habitual silence, but it was evident that a new and unusual access of thought was stirring in his feeble mind. He kept looking at Morland with awakened interest. Lorraine, watching, wondered what was the result of his cogitations. His own sister and brother, accustomed to his moods, took no more notice of an occurrence that seemed trivial at the moment, but afterwards bore unexpected fruit.
"When we've made the cave so nice, it seems almost a pity to keep it quite to ourselves," suggested Morland after a pause. ”

“ From ten years of age, young Morland appears to have led the life of a prisoner and a slave under the roof of his father, hearing in his seclusion the merry din of the schoolboys in the street, without hope of partaking in their sports. ”

“ Bigg, Hamilton, Wheatley, Singleton, Westall, they were all doing pleasing, pretty things enough, and the public were buying the prints, and hanging them on the walls of their homes, without even suspecting that Nature as the true inspiration of art had but little to do with all this picture-making. Then came Morland, with his natural instinct for the true, the simple picture, his free and facile art, his charming wizardry of the palette, his happy, unaffected realism. ”

“ So Morland, who, like many young fellows of artistic calibre, had a general affection for the muses but no very marked vocation for anything, had been pitchforked into engineering, and was making quite tolerable progress, and would possibly support himself later on, but always with the feeling that life was commonplace and unromantic, and that a splendid vision had been somewhere just round the corner, only unfortunately missed. ”

“ General Morland was a fine, brave fighting soldier, but he did not have a ready tongue, and being quite nonplussed, he said in his Franco-Alsatian dialect that he was short of only a small number of men. The Emperor maintained that he was about four hundred short, and to get to the truth of the matter he wanted to have an immediate count; but knowing that General Morland was very much liked by the officers of the imperial staff, he feared a cover-up, and thought he would be more likely to discover the truth by choosing an officer who did not belong to his entourage nor to the Chasseurs ”

“ MORLAND'S EARLY FAME.
The danger of overtasking either the mind or body in childhood, is well known; and there is every reason to believe that young Morland suffered both of these evils. His father stimulated him by praise and by indulgence at the table, and to ensure his continuance at his allotted tasks, shut him up in a garret, and excluded him from free air, which strengthens the body, and from education—that free air which nourishes the mind. His stated work for a time was making drawings from pictures and from plaster casts, which his father carried out and sold ”

“ Over the works of Morland there lies all the chivalrous grace of the time of Werther, and that fine Anglo-Saxon aroma exhaled by the works of English painters of the present day. Genuine as is the fame which he enjoys as an animal painter, it is these little social scenes which show his finest side; and only coloured engraving, which was brought to such a high pitch in the England of those days, is able to give an idea of the delicacy of hue in the originals. ”

“ Plain George Morland will always sell my pictures, and there is more honor in being a fine painter than in being a fine gentleman."
MORLAND'S ARTISTIC MERIT.
As an artist, Morland's claims are high and undisputed. He is original and alone; his style and conceptions are his own; his thoughts are ever at home, and always natural; he extracts pleasing subjects out of the most coarse and trivial scenes, and finds enough to charm the eye in the commonest occurrences. ”

“ Morland and the delighted Caroline stopped at Princeton to be present at the annual commencement, and had the happiness of seeing their beloved Edward receive his diploma as bachelor of arts; after hearing him deliver, with great applause, an oration on the beauties of the American character. College youths are very prone to treat on subjects that imply great experience of the world. But Edward Morland was full of kind feeling for everything and everybody; and his views of life had hitherto been tinted with a perpetual rose-color. ”

“ There was more fever, and far more of excitement than on the day before, and she talked incessantly to herself, occasionally giving way to bursts of laughter.
“How grave you both look this morning,” said she, with a derisive smile, as they arose to leave her bedside. “I think I can guess what’s passing in your mind.” Morland shook his head in dissent, and she went on: “Of course you would be reluctant to say it, but the simple truth is, Doctor, you think me very, very ill.”
“So far, you are right,” said he, gently.
“Yes, but you suspect more. You believe that I am dying.” ”

“ It is always most amazing, when we like a person exceedingly ourselves, to find that somebody else has formed a different opinion. With all his shortcomings, Lorraine appreciated Morland. He often missed his appointments, and was generally late for everything, but when he turned up he played her accompaniments as no one else ever played them. Moreover, he was a very pleasant companion, and full of fun in a mild artistic sort of fashion of his own. He was certainly one of the central figures in the beautiful, shiftless, Bohemian household on the hill. ”

“ Even when Morland had sunk to misery and recklessness, the spirit of industry did not forsake him, nor did his taste or his skill descend with his fortunes. One day's work would have purchased him a week's sustenance, yet he labored every day, and as skilfully and beautifully as ever. A water man was at one time his favorite companion, whom, by way of distinction, Morland called "My Dicky." Dicky once carried a picture to the pawnbroker's, wet from the easel, with the request for the advance of three guineas upon it. ”

“ They did not feel capable of tackling a possible burglar unaided, yet it seemed rather weak to run away.
"Let's fetch Morland!" said Claudia.
The suggestion seemed a good one. Lorraine was only too content to throw herself upon masculine aid. They walked at double speed to Windy Howe, and hauled Morland from the piano. He stopped in the middle of a Brahms sonata, and offered at once to go back with them to the school.
"You see, Miss Kingsley and everybody's away, and there's only the charwoman about," explained Lorraine. "I know she'd be worse scared than ourselves if we told her." ”

“ Elsewhere Morland states he raised twelve barrels of water 140 feet high in one hour by the force of one man. An interesting schedule of his prices, with other papers concerning his inventions, is among the 'British Museum Tracts' (816, m. 10) . For a brass force-pump suitable for raising water from a deep well he charged 60l., and for an 'engine to quench fire or wet the sails of a ship' from 23l. upwards.
Another very interesting and important evidence of Morland's inventive genius is supplied by a manuscript in the Harleian collection at the British Museum (No. 5771) . ”

“ The life of this extraordinary genius is full of interest, and his melancholy fall full of warning and instruction. He was the son of an indifferent painter, whose principal business was in cleaning and repairing, and dealing in ancient pictures. Morland showed an extraordinary talent for painting almost in his infancy, and before he was sixteen years old, his name was known far and wide by engravings from his pictures. ”

“ Hardacre took matters into her own hands and summoned Morland to London. “Norma is in a green, depressed state,” she wrote, “and I think your proper place is by her side. I imagine she regrets her foolishness in postponing the marriage and is ashamed to confess it. A few words with you face to face would bring her back to her old self. Women have these idiotic ways, my dear Morland, and men being so much stronger and saner must make generous allowances. ”

“ I'll go and investigate," agreed Morland, rather pleased to show his courage before the girls.
So they all three went back to the museum, and here Morland placed desks and boxes together, [188] and mounted on them so as to reach the trap-door, through which he wriggled. The girls held the pile steady, and watched his long legs disappear through the opening.
"It leads on to the roof!" he shouted. "I'll climb up and explore. I'm in a sort of garret with a ladder in the corner."
To the waiting girls it seemed a very long time before Morland returned. ”

“ In August 1655 Morland was authorised to announce that the duke, at the request of the king of France, had granted an amnesty to the Waldenses, and confirmed their ancient privileges; and that the natives of the valleys, protestant and catholic, had met, embraced one another with tears, and sworn to live in perpetual amity together. During his residence in Geneva, Morland, at Thurloe's suggestion, prepared minutes, and procured records, vouchers, and attestations from which he might compile a correct history of the Waldenses (Vaughan, Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, ii. 507) . ”

“ Whitelocke describes him as 'a very civil man and an excellent scholar; modest and respectful: perfect in the Latin tongue: an ingenious mechanist,' Morland, according to his own account, was recommended on his return in 1654 as an assistant to Secretary Thurloe, and in May 1655 he was sent by Cromwell to the Duke of Savoy to remonstrate with him on cruelties inflicted by him upon the sect of Waldenses or Vaudois, which had strongly excited the English public. Morland carried a message to the duke beseeching him to rescind his persecuting edicts. ”

“ Doing nothing, however, is a bad training, and even Mr. Castleton's artistic friends—not prone as a rule to proffer good advice—tendered the occasional comment that Morland was "running to seed". Morland himself was perfectly happy if he was left alone and allowed to sit and improvise at the piano; he never troubled his head about his future career, and was as unconcerned as the ravens regarding the sources of food and raiment.
He played Lorraine's accompaniments easily at sight, with a delicacy of touch and an artistic rendering such as Rosemary had never put into them. ”

“ There were so many doubtful episodes in connection with her—the cut telephone wire; her meeting on the shore with the man arrested only yesterday as a spy, who had claimed her portrait at the Academy as that of his wife.
"It looks bad!" thought Lorraine. "Oh, why didn't we persuade Morland to give that wretched case back at once to his captain? What will he do when he gets Claudia's telegram?" ”

“ The great popularity of W. R. Bigg's pictures of child-life led the dealers to persuade Morland to take up the same line of work, and in his pictures of child-life the artist shows himself what we know him to have been—a lover of children and one who had perfect understanding of them. The insight with which he portrayed children is only equalled by that which distinguishes his animal paintings. Morland's horses, ponies, asses, calves, and pigs, are entirely his own; they possess a character which stamps them as the work of one who had almost uncanny knowledge. ”

“ They don't fit somehow into the twentieth century. Lorraine stirs them up like yeast. She'll be the making of Morland if she elects to take on so big a job."
The Ramsay girls were very much attracted by the Macleods. They liked Fay and her father and mother, whose experience of the world and sensible views appealed to them. They often went to Bella Vista and enjoyed a chat, or sat looking at American art magazines, while Morland, who could not keep away from the grand piano, sat improvising memories of Debussy or compositions of his own. ”

“ He was an artist of some merit but of no conspicuous ability, and after an unsettled life, marked by frequent changes of residence, died in Stephen Street, Rathbone Place, 30 Nov. 1797. His age, at his death, has been stated as eighty-five, but this must be an exaggeration if his father was born in the eighteenth century. He was the father of George Morland [q. v.] Maria Morland, his wife, was also an artist, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785 and 1786, one work in each year. ”

“ At a very early age Morland produced sketches of remarkable promise, exhibiting some at the Royal Academy in 1773, when he was but ten years old, and continuing to exhibit at the Free Society in 1775 and 1776, and at the Society of Artists in 1777, and then sending again to the Royal Academy in 1778, 1779 and 1780. ”