The danger of overtasking either the mind or body in childhood, is well
known; and there is every reason to believe that young Morland suffered
both of these evils. His father stimulated him by praise and by
indulgence at the table, and to ensure his continuance at his allotted
tasks, shut him up in a garret, and excluded him from free air, which
strengthens the body, and from education--that free air which nourishes
the mind. His stated work for a time was making drawings from pictures
and from plaster casts, which his father carried out and sold; but as he
increased in skill, he chose his subjects from popular songs and
ballads, such as "Young Roger came tapping at Dolly's window," "My name
is Jack Hall," "I am a bold shoemaker, from Belfast Town I came," and
other productions of the mendicant muse. The copies of pictures and
casts were commonly sold for three half-crowns each; the original
sketches--some of them a little free in posture, and not over delicately
handled, were framed and disposed of for any sum from two to five
guineas, according to the cleverness of the piece, or the generosity of
the purchaser. Though far inferior to the productions of his manhood,
they were much admired; engravers found it profitable to copy them, and
before he was sixteen years old, his name had flown far and wide.