A Biographical Sketch 



probably made upwards of a thousand drawings within that period, 

 as it was customary to produce one almost every evening." 



While he lived within the rules of the King's Bench, however, 

 Morland abandoned himself more and more to debauchery, so that 

 his hand began to lose its cunning, and his physique deteriorated 

 rapidly into a bloated and unhealthy condition. Although he kept 

 strictly enough to the rules, never breaking bounds without per- 

 mission, and returning home within the limit of time laid down by 

 the law, his imprisonment in other ways was nothing but a legal 

 form for keeping his creditors at bay. His house was the resort of 

 other debtors, who came to join in his drunken revelry and enjoy 

 his hilarious company. A queer lot they must have been — broken- 

 down literary men, faded men of fashion, bankrupt peers, unfrocked 

 clergymen, gamblers ruined at the tables, wits whose jests had long 

 lost their flavour, half-pay officers and fire-eating duellists, sporting 

 men who had been broken by backing the wrong horse, ex-pugilists, 

 prodigal sons, pimps and crimps, and every variety of human 

 wreckage. With these men, many of whom, no doubt, were "jolly 

 good fellows," and as jovial company as could be found in the town 

 Morland was a brother and comrade in misfortune. He seems to' 

 have had the genius of seeing the vital spark that smoulders in the 

 most weary hearts, and of bringing out the good humour and 

 geniality of the sourest souls. He had the magic touchstone of 

 sympathy and friendship, and, drunken as he was, the charm of the 

 man's own personality was fascinating to the last. What poor 

 Mrs. Morland felt, when she had to preside over the strange and 

 noisy crew who were her husband's guests, we are not told. Indeed, 

 Morland's wife is but a shadowy figure. His pictures have per- 

 petuated her comeliness and grace, and we know that, though her 

 love was often strained, her fidelity was unshaken ; but the tragedy 

 of the woman's soul, the sadness that must have invaded her heart 

 at the sight of the pitiful wreck of the man who had been of such 

 brilliant promise, are secret things that have not been recorded. 



And so we come to the last chapter of Morland's life — a sad 

 tale of drunken despair and apoplectic tendency. The man must 

 have realised, with a pitiful sense of fear, his own failing powers as 

 an artist at a time when he should have been in the prime of his 



43 



