A Biographical Sketch 



of " Blind Man's Buff." The sketch for this was seen by J. R. 

 Smith, the printseller, who offered him what was, at that time, the 

 good price of twelve guineas for the completed picture. Morland 

 was hugely delighted with his stroke of good luck, and, in a 

 boisterous mood, vowed that he would drink a glass of gin for each 

 of the guineas he had earned. As soon, therefore, as he had 

 finished his work, with extraordinary rapidity he threw down his 

 brushes and palette, and set off with a crony to the nearest inn, 

 where he drank his twelve glasses with great gusto, returning in an 

 uproarious condition. His brother-in-law, William Ward, with 

 whom he was now on friendly terms again, engraved the picture, 

 and it immediately achieved a wide popularity. 



Morland followed up this success by other pictures of a similar 

 character, such as " Children playing at Soldiers," " Children 

 Knitting," " Children Birdsnesting," "The Angry Farmer," " Boys 

 Bathing," " Boys Robbing the Orchard," " Gathering Butter- 

 fllowers," " The Kite Entangled," "Juvenile Navigators," " Gath- 

 ering Blackberries," " Selling Guinea Pigs," " Dancing Dogs," and 

 "The Snowball." All these were engraved by William Ward, 

 and sold by J. R. Smith as quickly as they were finished. 



They appealed straight to the heart of the English public, for no 

 painter had hitherto shown such a sympathetic understanding of 

 child-life, nor devoted his genius to the beauty and charm of rustic 

 youth. Even now they have lost none of their appeal to one's 

 love of youthfulness, for their simplicity, their naturalness, their 

 merriment, and their exquisite delicacy of treatment, put them in 

 a rank immeasurably higher than the falsely sentimental and 

 crudely painted child-subjects which now fill fond mothers with 

 ecstasy, and lovers of art with despair. 



Among the most charming of Morland's pictures are his " Visit 

 to a Boarding School," and "Visit to a Child at Nurse." In the first 

 picture an elegant and beautiful mother, dressed in the height of 

 eighteenth century fashion, in a satin gown, a " Siddons " hat with 

 an immense black feather, and powdered hair, in her Marie Antoin- 

 ette dress, is waiting to see her children. The schoolmistress, a 

 very prim "old maid," in a white mop-cap, is evidently recounting 

 some of the naughtiness of her charges, who are being led in by a 



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