George Morland 



himself by playing at shuttlecock. The colonel, however, arrived 

 between four and five o'clock, and, after expressing his surprise at 

 the expedition with which he had finished the picture, gave him a 

 check on his banker for the amount." 



Morland changed his lodging several times in London between 

 the years 1789 and 1790, but at last decided to get out again into 

 "the country," selecting Paddington, now in the very centre of the 

 hurley-burley of the town, but then a quiet and rural retreat. He 

 was good friends with mine host of the White Lion at Paddington, 

 which, being a drovers' house and a highway to the cattle market, 

 gave admirable opportunities to the artist in the way of subjects 

 for his brush. He rented a house opposite to the picturesque old 

 inn and overlooking the yard, which was crowded day after day by 

 cattle-drivers and their animals. 



At this time Morland took into his household two pupils, named 

 Brown and Hand, who were ambitious of following in his footsteps 

 as painters of rural life. They seem to have been an ill-matched 

 pair, and Morland's biographers improve the occasion by holding up 

 the former as a model of respectability and virtue, and the latter as 

 a dissolute and good-for-nothing fellow who entered with too much 

 zeal into the amusements of his master. It is true that David 

 Brown seems to have given up a good business as a house and 

 sign-painter in order to follow Morland, but apart from this first 

 infatuation, he was evidently a canny fellow with a very shrewd eye 

 for the main chance. He took advantage of Morland's eagerness to 

 get hold of ready-money by making him loans, or buying up pictures 

 when the paint was still wet on them, and then disposing of them 

 for considerable sums. Thus "The Farmer's Stable," which he 

 bought from Morland for forty guineas, was sold after its exhibition 

 for upwards of one hundred, and "The Strawyard," a companion 

 picture, for a hundred and twenty. Eventually Morland tired 

 of Mr. David Brown, who, having learned to paint respectable 

 copies of his master's work, left him and set up in the country as a 

 drawing-master. 



Morland might now have been a wealthy man had he possessed 

 even an elementary idea of business and thrift. At times his 

 earnings amounted to a hundred pounds a week, for he painted 



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