From ten years of age, young Morland appears to have led the life of a
prisoner and a slave under the roof of his father, hearing in his
seclusion the merry din of the schoolboys in the street, without hope of
partaking in their sports. By-and-by he managed to obtain an hour's
relaxation at the twilight, and then associated with such idle and
profligate boys as chance threw in his way, and learned from them a love
for coarse enjoyment, and the knowledge that it could not well be
obtained without money. Oppression keeps the school of Cunning; young
Morland resolved not only to share in the profits of his own talents,
but also to snatch an hour or so of amusement, without consulting his
father. When he made three drawings for his father, he made one secretly
for himself, and giving a signal from his window, lowered it by a string
to two or three knowing boys, who found a purchaser at a reduced price,
and spent the money with the young artist. A common tap-room was an
indifferent school of manners, whatever it might be for painting, and
there this gifted lad was now often to be found late in the evening,
carousing with hostlers and potboys, handing round the quart pot, and
singing his song or cracking his joke.
His father, having found out the contrivance by which he raised money
for this kind of revelry adopted, in his own imagination, a wiser
course. He resolved to make his studies as pleasant to him as he could;
and as George was daily increasing in fame and his works in price, this
could be done without any loss. He indulged his son, now some sixteen
years old, with wine, pampered his appetite with richer food, and
moreover allowed him a little pocket-money to spend among his
companions, and purchase acquaintance with what the vulgar call life. He
dressed him, too, in a style of ultra-dandyism, and exhibited him at his
easel to his customers, attired in a green coat with very long skirts,
and immense yellow buttons, buckskin breeches, and top boots with spurs.
He permitted him too to sing wild songs, swear grossly, and talk about
anything he liked with such freedom as makes anxious parents tremble.
With all these indulgences the boy was not happy; he aspired but the
more eagerly after full liberty and the unrestrained enjoyment of the
profits of his pencil.