A Biosraphical bketch 



After leaving Charlotte Street he went to live first at Chelsea, 

 but this was out of the frying-pan into the fire. He accidentally 

 ran against an old acquaintance to whom he owed as much as 

 three hundred pounds. With characteristic simplicity Morland was 

 persuaded to give the man his address, and actually promised to 

 give him a picture worth five guineas if he would come to see him. 

 The obliging creditor was pleased to do so next day ; went off with 

 the picture, and promptly had him arrested. 



Even now, however, he managed to escape the imprisonment 

 which was his constant dread, for he was quickly bailed out by 

 a friend. The fact is that while he still retained his skill there 

 were generally people ready to pay off his old creditors by 

 bargaining for his next work, and Morland escaped from one set 

 of creditors with an easy conscience by pledging himself to another 

 set. 



His next hiding-place was at Lambeth, where he lodged with a 

 waterman, who kept his secret faithfully, and rowed him across the 

 river each night, so that under cover of darkness the artist could go 

 to his old haunts and enjoy a convivial evening with public-house 

 friends from whom he thought he had nothing to fear. At the end 

 of a month, however, he again thought it prudent to change his 

 abode, and went to East Sheen. Again, however, he fell in with a 

 creditor, and escaped to Queen Anne Street, East, "where," we 

 are told, "his retreat was so well chosen that he remained in perfect 

 safety for nearly three months, although he lived in the midst of 

 several of his creditors who were in search of him, and one of whom 

 had offered ten pounds as a reward for the discovery of the place of 

 his concealment. At the end of that time he went to live with an 

 engraver named Grozier, where he was treated with much con- 

 sideration, until one day his landlord came home to find that 

 Morland had decamped without paying for his lodging. 



It is difficult and not very interesting to follow Morland's 

 movements as he went from place to place. Occasionally he 

 stayed with his father-in-law and his brother-in-law, and he lodged 

 for a time with a Methodist cobbler, who thought him a fine subject 

 for conversion ; with a carver and gilder, who treated him with 

 extreme kindness ; and then at Hackney, where he was rejoined by 



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