The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-11-08 00:00:00

MORLAND.

All that could die of this extraordinary painter,
• find, is dead. Hie works (if we may trust that those
• along them, of a certain descr:ption, will never more
eiurered to iasult the public eye) must doubtless live
,r ever. Whilst any taste for natural truth and beau-
fill simplicity shall remain amongst men, the name
-rd talents of Motland will be distinguished as ho-
norahle to the country which formed and prodaced
them. Of his particular merits in imitative art,
it may be observed, that he was the first !or at least
among our countrymen, by ca the most eminent)
of those who have given the true spirit and charac-
ter of (lin grew palladium—the British Oak; as well
as the form and :talon of all our most familiar ani-
mals, in all their subtleties and varieties. The ap-
plause, however, that I would pay him with reaped
to these particulars, is only expressed emphatically ;
far he really does not appear to have undertaken any
subject that he did nut treat with equal succss.
Among his other rare qualifications. he appears
u have been thoroughly and impartially acquainted
with the complexion and bias'of his own genius, from
his very boyhood; since, after that period, he is
never found .• out of his element." No sooner had
re dispersed the scrawls and daubing' of puerility,
than, anticipating his future success, and conscious
of his present powers, he retreated in silence to the
free walks of nature ; contemplated deeply, reasoned
accurately. and practised diligently. A few years
brought him back to public notice, a finished
painter of English scenery, nature, sentiments, and
manners; an artist, who, having sagaciously pre-
scribed the limits of his pursuits, and effeeted what-
ever, in knowledge, or, in praltice, was essential to
the purpose of tilling up those limits, had now no-
thing more to learn. He shrunk from no difficulty,
for his choice of subjeCt lett him no difficulty to en-
counter. He disdained nothing that was natural and
piduresque, consistently with that decorum which
he bas inviolably observed in all his public works.
He would never risque truth ; but would rather give
twenty guine:u to have a cat stolen for him, than
presume to paint one from an uncertain remem-
brance. He sometimes leaves the truth unfinished,
1-at never viola:ed. He affeeted none of those whim-
&ars that are for eve? setting amateurs by the ears,
about warm eolouriag, and cold colouring, and
furciule lights, and forcible shadows, and subordina-
Wog, that, to illustrate oae object, or .0 ion, would
racritice nine-tenths of a piaure in a waste of sense-
less I saw none of these violent par-
touities in nature; and he scorned to please a de-
praved imagination by tar.tastic pretences of surpass.
,!-.1.,, that which, as it is, no man can equal. His
ch iraaers affea no graces r.or anti-graces, that do
ant beloug to them. His lights and, s;.t.iows are
mild, moderate, anti diffusive. The whole trgether
rests easy upon the eye, and pleases a correCt taste as
Tn,;ch, as it would, had it surprised a vitions one
,e• His choice is always good; for he chases
. t in which these is nothing essential to rejtel. Ile
-vcr gives us too much of a thing. lies piece is
but a cantlet of piCturesque nature, neatly cut out,
aid frausferred into a pidure frame.
I' Ise charafter of Mot land, therefore, as a painter.
appears to be remarkably equal and consistent.
(.411%ov:rough, sometimes dull, was ofier.ez capei-
%nu." and :Ilene:- careless; and the chasaiter
o. 1% nom's landscape, seldom purely kareli.h. was
".!roo:mes mixed, aad some-tiro arisakorly
but Morlarld we are sure of :
I": p•atures never make a mistake—r ever iosalt
fiaenaod, di.gust by affeaatioa, diaapoaica by es -
• or. or teize by my! Len.
was English artist, Gerrge
ol,aland ; wli-• se a.oral ehar.aftcr was, at the same
tousiytl.at, in tie course of

twenty years, that I have hem among arts and
artists, and anxious as I ever felt to esteem the pos-
sessor of Such splendid talents, I never heard him
mentioned but with some concomitant sentiment of
reluctant disgust. Eccentric as his conduet was,
beyond all calculation, and all powers of descrip-
tion, it did not afford even the melancholy pallia-
tion of insanity; for the vigour of pis genius, and
the soundness of his. judgment, never forsook him
in a picture; though they scarcely ever accompa-
nied him in any other employment, a:tion. or sen-
timent of his life. Capable of the most regular and
profound refleaion on every thing connected with
his are—capable even of the clearest cliqinitions of
moral re4litude, he never appears to have dedicated
a single leisure hour to sober conversation ; to in-
nocent pleasantry; to anv of the endearing ifiter-
courses pf domestic or social life ; or to any rational
purpose whatever. He is generally acknowledged
to have spent all the time in which he did not paint,
in drinking, and in the meanest dissipations, with
persons the most eminent he could seloa for igno-
rance or brutality ; and a rabble of carters, hostler,
butchers-men, smugglers, poachers, and postilions,
were constantly in his company. and frequently in
his pay. He was found, At one time, w: are told,
in a lodging at Somers-town, in the following most
extraordinary circumstances :
.His infant child, that
had been dead nearly three weeks, lay in its coffin
in one corner of the room ; an ass and foal stood
munching barley straw out of the. cradle ; a sow
and pigs were solacing themselves in the recess of
an old cupboard; and himself whistling over a
beautiful plaice that he was finishing at his easel,
with a bottle of gin hung up on one side, and a live
mouse, sitting (or if you please kicking), for his
portrait. on the other!'
With such ckoire spirits, and in cirriunstanees
so unnecessarily—so preposterously disgusting—did
this perverse
" Soo of merry and heir of fame,:

without being mad, live and aft the life of a road
man ; in one continued round of painting, drinking,
and extravagance!
The only charafter likely to bear a parallel with
Morland's seems to be that of Adrian Branwer, a
Flemish painter, of great and deserred celebrity,
who lived, I think, in the beginning of the six-
teenth century. The principal differences seem to
be, that the Fleming's sabjeas were as generally
nauseous, as the EnOshman's were decent and
pleasing; and that Brauwer was more elabot ate,
and coloured more richly, though, perhaps, not
with greater truth. The latter. therefore, may pos-
sibly be surer of pleasing the eye, however he af-
feas the taste, or the understanding. The death of
Brauwer, at the age of twenty-eight, appears to
have been brought on by the same causes, of which
accident, or a stronger convitution, protraaed the
effeas in Morland twelve years longer. Peace to
their ashes! S. S.

On Saturdar last, MARTIII DAVV, Al D. Ma-
ster of Cahn donne, resigned his oifice as Vice-
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge; and,
on Sunday, the Rev. dons Tosatturros, 1). D.
Maottr of Clare HAll, was eleded into that cffice
for the year ensuing.—Dr. 'lomat sorer: served the
(Ace in 1783. _ _

The Seatonian Price (the subjelt Mese; •iewing
the Promised Land) is this year adjudged to :he Rev.
Mt. House, M. A. Librarian of Trinity College.
The late Lord 6;Hruwosaa, Baron of Ched-
worth, in Gloucestershire (whose death we lately
mentioned), was born August 29, 1934. and UK. I
seeded to his uncle Fasoraicir Hsa.ev, October
178 being the son of a yenanger brother, and de-
signed for the profession of the law; he was edu-
cated in Winchester school, and at Geoid. His
I.ordsl4 was a learned and entre& lawyer, a No-
bleman of the striaest principles, of sober and un-
affeaed piety, of singular humanity ; and, as
SHARESPIARt says, i• a gentleman of all tem-
perance." As a scholar be was conversant with the
G.-eeir and Roman Classics, which he read with
retitled and elegant taste. His habit was nervrus,
timid, and diffident.. His manners were gentle,
polite, and affable. His benevolence was univer-
sal; his charity extensive. and conferred with such
delicacy, that the ohjeas of his generosity knew
not to whom they were obliged. in brief, he was a
gentleman, a scholar, and a Christian.
His Lordship, with abundance of great and good
qualities, uncommon learning and abili:ies, had
some foibles, amongst which may be reckoned his
slovenliness of person, his avoiding the company of
men of equal rank and situation with himself, and a
perpetual dangling after some fine woman, without
any criminal intention ; but which sometimes, with-
out reason, end angered the lady's charalte/ to some
of these he may have made amends by legacies.
A Gentleman, who, from his great intimacy with
his Lordship, and from rendering him very paiti-
citiar services in the early part of his life, was ex-
pelted to stand foremost in the rank of legacies,
had displeased him by having too frequently, and
perhaps too freely, represented the impropriety of
his neglea of dress, and not associating more with
people in higher rank of life. His Lord :hip was
very fond of the Sport at Newmarket, and an ex-
cellent judge in matters of the Turf; but, though a
Member of the Rooms and Jockey Club, be never
mixed with them at table, but generally dined and
lived by himself in a very retired and obscure man-
ner. He was bashful and timid in the extreme.
The Bat-Tack-Master of Chelmsford has received
direaior.s to be imaardiately prepared to receive and
ACCOMMOJACC a brig ide of Royal Artillery, con-
slating of four gal.., &c. now on their way thither.
By letters received at Hull, on Tuesday, from
Carthagena, it appears that that city suffers severely
In.m the contagious disorder lately prevalent at Ma-
Liza Captain Siena' a., of the brig Loyal Voir"-
ire,, of that port, writes, under date of the Bth of
05tolser, that, on the preceding day, he had landed
his goods for Carthage-n.l, sn the Custom House,
aiid had obtained a clean bill of health to proceed to
i;areelona. Aa trade was suspended all the intr.
ahants and peop'.e of property bad retired into the
cou:ltry ; and, on the day be wrote, the port was
totally shut, and no bills of health granted. Capt.
MEDLIV aids, that during his stay at the port of
C irthagena, upwards of salty died daily, and that
nti it tam .:. had been carried off—his crew en-
j eJ pertel Lra:th. The above is corroborated by
letters tram the consignees of the brig Lo:sill niars-
(err, daied the *la, who bad fled to the town of La
vii the 7tll of OCtober.