George Morland. By R. Richardson. Illustrated. (Elliot Stock.)—This is a
very appreciative and affectionate sketch of Morland's life and his extraordinary gift of rapid drawing. Mr. Richardson does not attempt to gloss over Morland's faults and the reckless way in which he ruined a valuable life, but relates Morland's vicissitudes, his hand-to-mouth style of living, and his fatal weakness, simply. He claims the same allowance for Mor- land that the Scotch have accorded to Burns; and certainly Burns was by far the greater sinner. We must remember that Morland
was a gentleman by birth, and thus started with advantages. Mr. Richardson, in sketching Morland's career, tells us the pictures he did from year to year, and so gives us a graphic idea of the brilliancy and ease of the great artist, for he was a ;neat artist, and no other painter wielded so powerful a brush with such extraordinary facility and speed. His finished pictures are few, but the French, who admire the "rapid touch" Tait° as much as they do the minuteness of Meissonier, have always admired Morland, and it is the same all over the Con- tinent. He knew, perhaps, few secrets of his art, but what he knew he acted upon, and he was careful to use permanent materials. Mr. Richardson appends useful lists of the exhibited pictures of Morland, of his engravers, of the prices fetched, and critical remarks and notes on Morland's work by other writers. He has relied mostly on the biography of Dawe.
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