by one who will" nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

It is, therefore, humbly conceived, that, from the number of scurrilous attacks, and malicious stories, which have lately appeared in the daily papers, and other periodical journals, the necessity of what is now here attempted will be fully admitted by all those who have still virtue enough to ` estimate the full value of truth and literary candour*. For persons of any other description, however specious their pretences, or vain of their flimsy, pedantic acquirements, the author neither ever wrote to please, nor lived to fear.

The subject of our sketch, Mr. G. Mor

*For the particular satisfaction of our readers, we have added a complete Appendix to these Memoirs of our distinguished painter; where some of the particulars respecting the malicious transaction here alluded to, may be found. Also, all the anecdotes that were any way connected with the subject, and which were worthy of notice, and possessed any of the marks of authenti- . city; or were even characteristic of his strange life and habits.

land, was born in the Haymarket, the 26th of June, in the year 1763, and is lineally descended from the great Samuel Morland, a most ingenious artist and mathematician; as appears from a little, but very curious and scarce volume now before us, written. upon the various machines and instruments invented by him for the ordinary operations of arithmetic; "Tables for the readi ly finding what Sign the Moon is in, or shall be for ever; a Perpetual Almanack, &c. &c." together with several other matters, as curious as they must have been thought useful at that time. Particularly - a "Table of Foreign Weights and Measures, carefully compared with the English, by the great pains and industry of the famous, and my worthy friend, Sir Jonas Moore, Knight." Such is the title prefixed to this part of the work, which was presented to his majesty, Charles II. who conferred the honour of knighthood upon the author; and by whom, and all the great men of that day, he appears to have been held in great esteem.

The bottom of the title-page, after the name "S. MORLAND," runs thus-"London printed, and are to be sold by Moses Pitt, at the White Hart, in Little Britain, 1673." Inside, upon a blank on the cover, is pasted the arms of the Morland family, which is a shield argent, three wheat sheaves, the armour and helmet, &c. of a knight, as far as the breast, npon which stands a deer as the crest; from whose feet are the ornaments of a swag of husks and pattaras. We have been thus particular in the description of the volume before us, as being what may be very justly entitled multum in parvo, as also to shew, that throughout the whole family, with very few exceptions, the name of Morland and singular genius are, and have been, inseparable.

The father of our painter, it is well known, was an artist of considerable talent, and much respected by all who knew him, for his liberality and gentlemanly address. The natural partiality of a parent and a painter too, must have been highly gratified, upon the first discovery of a talent in

his favourite child for the very pursuit he had from his birth chalked out for him. This happened when the child was in petticoats, and between three and four years of age. He had several times been noticed by the servants drawing with his finger in the dust, wherever it happened to accumulate. But the first legitimate trait of his genius, which excited the father's attention, was a gentleman's coach, with four fine horses, and two footmen behind it, which he drew with a bit of broken crayon, and the small remains of a black-lead pencil which his father had thrown away. This drawing, although upon a small scale, about a quarter of a sheet of paper, was a production of so very extraordinary a kind, when it was considered to have been done from so slight and rapid a glance as the child could possibly get of a gentleman's carriage just passing by the door, that the father beheld it with wonder and parental admiration. All the neighbours, and visitors at the house, gazed upon it with rapturous amazement, and the infant Raphael was idolized as a prodigy, not only by

those who were little skilled in the arts, but by the first connoisseurs of that day. This juvenile essay, which was presaged as a certain prelude to future excellence by all that saw it, is supposed to be still extant. From this specimen, the father thought it his duty to cultivate to the utmost of his means a genius of so much promise. For this purpose, he encouraged the child, by furnishing him with various chalks, water colours, pencils, and paper; leaving him at full liberty, for several months, to sketch whatever objects might first casually attract his notice, or please his fancy.

After repeated trials from nature, and sundry efforts to compose from imagina tion, the old gentleman set him down to copy from prints engraved for Gay's Fables; which, in consequence of his tender years, was not congenial to the amiable feelings of maternal solicitude for his future health. In a very short time, his improvement was so rapid, that plaster casts, and the finest models, were copied with an exactness so