George Morland 



the Pharisaic respectability of those who held him up to scorn. 

 Like Robert Burns, the man had too little ballast, but like Burns 

 also, George Morland had the light of genius in his heart, although 

 it flickered low at times, leaving him in darkness and despair, yet 

 when it was brightest there were many who crowded round to 

 enjoy its prodigality. 



Morland was born on the 26th of June, 1763, and his cradle 

 was surrounded with the " properties " of the painter's art. Before 

 he could walk he crawled about among unframed canvases and 

 mahl-sticks, and his earliest recollection must have been the sight 

 of his bright little French mother hard at work before the easel 

 and his father with his palette. For both his father and mother 

 were artists of some distinction in their time. Indeed, Henry 

 Morland still counts in English art, and his pictures of elegant 

 ladies dressed as dairymaids and laundresses, according to the 

 fashion of sham simplicity started by the " naturalism '' of Rousseau, 

 and depicted by Watteau, made him a popular society painter. 

 Two of these pictures hang now in the National Gallery, and are 

 very charming works in spite of their rather bluish tone. At 

 the Garrick Club there is his portrait of Garrick as Richard III.- 

 and his portrait of George III., engraved by Houston, is well 

 known in reproductions. For a time he must have earned 

 considerable sums of money, for he lived in the house at 

 Leicester Square afterwards famous as the dwelling-place of Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds, who was his good friend. When his son George 

 was born, however, Henry Morland was living in a smaller house 

 in the Haymarket. He seems to have been an erratic sort of 

 man, and to have dabbled in many branches of art, trying his 

 hand at the mezzotint process, engraving in line, and drawing in 

 crayons besides painting in oils. According to Dawe and Collins, 

 the first biographers of George, Henry Morland seems to have 

 been a dishonest fellow, palming off copies of Dutch masters done 

 by his clever son to be sold as original works by equally unprincipled 

 dealers. But there is no definite proof of this, and one cannot 

 help feeling that the statement may have been made out of malice. 

 Mrs. Morland, his French wife, a vivacious and industrious 

 little body, was an artist of sufficient skill to exhibit at the Royal 



