A Biographical Sketch 



But young George was no ordinary boy. On the threshold of 

 manhood he desired but one thing, which had hitherto been denied 

 him, and that was liberty. With a spirit of independence, which 

 had previously been shown in his two brothers who ran away to 

 sea, he cut himself adrift from his family and set up on his own 

 account in lodgings at Martlett Row, Bow Street. He got into 

 touch with an Irish picture dealer, who seems to have been a con- 

 summate scoundrel, and for this fellow he painted a large number 

 of pictures, some of them, it is said, of an immodest character — 

 though this has not been satisfactorily proved — which the dealer 

 had no difficulty in selling for much greater sums than he paid to 

 the young painter. 



George was now at the crossways of life, and it must be ad- 

 mitted that he took the wrong turning. With liberty there is always 

 the danger of license, and George, having got rid of the curb of 

 parental discipline, and now a young man of high animal spirits, 

 plunged into the doubtful pleasures of the town. His hobblede- 

 hoyism had disappeared, and, once having got over the shyness and 

 reserve of youth, he became known in many a tavern and haunt of 

 young bloods as a fellow of infinite jest, of imperturbable good 

 humour, and of a daring and adventurous spirit. 



The Cheshire Cheese, off Fleet Street, was one of his favourite 

 haunts, and here he learned to drink deep, and to squander his 

 hard-earned money in loose company. There is an amusing anecdote 

 told by Dawe of how Morland set off one night to Gravesend and 

 fell into the company of a carpenter and a sailor, with whom he 

 journeyed to Chatham, rather frightened by their ruffianly behaviour, 

 but joining them in a drinking bout in some low riverside tavern. 

 After that, he went on a short voyage to the North Foreland in a 

 small sailing vessel, and turned up at the Cheshire Cheese again, 

 after an absence of three days, with a store of amusing anecdotes 

 about his adventures, and a vocabulary of nautical terms. 



Shortly after this he fell in with a certain Mrs. Hill, who 

 was more friendly than she ought to have been with many 

 gallants and fashionable men about town. Morland's high- 

 spirited youth, and his genius for painting, attracted the lady so 

 much that she invited him to accompany her to Margate, where 



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