68 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



after my introduction to this distinguished man, he 

 ;i friend, and, when in 1804, I was preparing 

 inland, he gave me valuable letters of introduc- 

 tion, and still more valuable written instructions, as to life 

 in 1 .n-1 and. and especially in London, embodying the re- 

 sults oi' his own long experience of twenty years. In fact, 

 my acquaintance with him ceased only with his life, al- 

 though our intercourse was mainly suspended during a pro- 

 .1 absence of his, in England, caused chiefly by the 

 of LSI 2 to 1815. In the mean time, I had been 

 married to his niece. 



The idea of depositing his paintings at New Ha- 

 ven. \v:is first broached in a conversation with Profes- 

 sor Silliman. 



When returning from a journey in 1830, 1 called upon 



.-I Trumbull, at his lodgings, at Miss Lentner's, 

 corner of Walker Street and Broadway, New York, it being 

 my habit to pay my respects to him when I was in the city. 

 Tin- house was large, the apartments spacious, and two con- 

 tiguous parlors, of uncommon dimensions, were adorned by 

 the paintings of Colonel Trumbull, which were advantage- 

 ously suspended all around upon the walls. I had seen 

 many of them singly before, but had never seen them all 



ber, and some of them never before. I was, therefore, 



strongly impressed and delighted by this unexpected vision, 



and had the good fortune to find the venerable artist in the 



"f his treasures. Friendly salutations were followed 



Her explanations of some of the subjects than I had 

 ' ived ; but I \vas sorry to find that the great artist, 



'nty-four years of age, was in a position far from eli- 

 gible, and although surrounded by the splendid productions 

 of his own skill, talent, and taste, he was without a sure 

 n, upm, which In- might repose in the evening of 

 ms llf( ' ^ might be indelicate in me, to report his 



