Yesterday morning I took a walk into Arch Street to see Mr. Peale's
painter's room. Peale is from Maryland, a tender, soft, affectionate
creature. He showed me a large picture containing a group of figures,
which, upon inquiry, I found were his family: his mother and his wife's
mother, himself and his wife, his brothers and sisters, and his
children, sons and daughters, all young. There was a pleasant, a happy
cheerfulness in their countenances, and a familiarity in their air
towards each other.
He showed me one moving picture. His wife, all bathed in tears, with a
child about six months old laid out upon her lap. This picture struck me
prodigiously. He has a variety of portraits, very well done, but not so
well as Copley's portraits. Copley is the greatest master that ever was
in America. His portraits far exceed West's. Peale has taken General
Washington, Dr. Franklin, Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Rush, Mrs. Hopkinson,
Mr. Blair McClenachan and his little daughter in one picture, his lady
and her little son in another. Peale showed me some books upon the art
of painting. Among the rest one by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of
the English Academy of Painters, by whom the pictures of General Conway
and Colonel Barre, in Faneuil Hall, were taken. He showed me, too, a
great number of miniature pictures. Among the rest, Mr. Hancock and his
lady, Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, whom you saw the other day in
Boston, Mr. Custis, and many others.
He showed me, likewise, draughts, or rather sketches, of gentlemen's
seats in Virginia, where he had been, Mr. Corbin's, Mr. Page's, General
Washington's, etc. Also a variety of rough drawings made by great
masters in Italy, which he keeps as models. He showed me several
imitations of heads, which he had made in clay, as large as the life,
with his hands only. Among the rest, one of his own head and face, which
was a great likeness. He is ingenious. He has vanity, loves finery,
wears a sword, gold lace, speaks French, is capable of friendship, and
strong family attachments and natural affections.
At this shop I met Mr. Francis Hopkinson, late a Mandamus Counsellor of
New Jersey, now a member of the Continental Congress, who, it seems, is
a native of Philadelphia, a son of a prothonotary of this county, who
was a person much respected. The son was liberally educated, and is a
painter and a poet. I have a curiosity to penetrate a little deeper
into the bosom of this curious gentleman, and may possibly give you some
more particulars concerning him. He is one of your pretty, little,
curious, ingenious men. His head is not bigger than a large apple, less
than our friend Pemberton, or Dr. Simon Tufts. I have not met with
anything in natural history more amusing and entertaining than his
personal appearance; yet he is genteel and well bred, and is very
social.
I wish I had leisure and tranquillity of mind to amuse myself with those
elegant and ingenious arts of painting, sculpture, statuary,
architecture, and music. But I have not. A taste in all of them is an
agreeable accomplishment. Mr. Hopkinson has taken in crayons with his
own hand a picture of Miss Keys, a famous New Jersey beauty. He talks of
bringing it to town, and in that case, I shall see it, I hope.