A Bios;raphical Sketch 



not been out-of-doors by reason of it being so very stormy ; there 

 was a violent storm of wind this morning, and the sea was covered 

 with breakers. There is plenty of diversion here for the polite 

 world, such as dancing, coffee-houses, bath-houses, play-houses." 



It was characteristic of Morland that he should " forget the 

 name " of the man with whom he had breakfast every morning. 

 This, however, was Mr. Sherborne, the brother of Lord Digby. He 

 was the friend of Mrs. Hill, and was much attracted by the 

 personality of the young artist. Morland had brought his violin to 

 Margate, and as Sherborne played the piano with some skill, the 

 two friends used to spend many agreeable hours together practising 

 duets. George at this time was a handsome fellow, with a bold 

 merry face, high forehead, sparkling large eyes, and a well-knit 

 figure. Rowlandson's portrait of him at a later period, when 

 dissipation had begun to spoil his good looks, still shows an 

 attractive, jovial, and sporting-looking fellow. With his violin he 

 was a welcome guest in every inn-parlour within a morning's ride 

 of Margate, and after some hours of painting it was his delight to 

 play wild and wanton music to a little crowd of boon companions, 

 who were pleased to give him their applause and drink gin-flip at 

 his expense. It is a wonder that he accomplished any work, for 

 a cock-fight, a horse-race, or a boxing-match was an attraction he 

 could never resist, and some of his adventures on these occasions 

 read like pages from " Roderick Random." His description of his 

 performance as a gentleman jockey is, indeed, as good a picture as 

 one can get of the rowdiness and roughness of sporting life in the 

 eighteenth century. 



" You must know," he wrote to Dawe, " that I have commenced 

 a new business of jockey to the races. I was sent for to Mount 

 Pleasant by a gentleman of the turf to ride a race for the Silver 

 Cup, as I am thought to be the best horseman here. I went there 

 and was weighed, and was afterwards dressed in a tight striped 

 jacket and jockey's cap, and lifted on the horse, led to the start, 

 placed in the rank and file ; three parts of the people out of four 

 paid great bets that I should win the cup, etc. Then the drums 

 beat, and we started ; it was a four-mile heat, and the first three 

 miles I could not keep the horse behind them, being so spirited an 



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