Mr. Wm. Ward, a very capital mezzotinto engraver, he produced the first pair of pictures that brought his name and merit fairly before the public. The subjects were, the Idle and the Industrious Mechanic, painted for my ingenious friend, I. R. Smith, then of Oxford Street, who found his account in the prints he had engraved and published from them. A reward highly flattering to the rising fame of our young painter, and a just return for the liberality of his patron and brother artist, the above-mentioned gentleman. When these pictures had been about two days at Mr. Smith's, the author, being then an humble retainer of the arts, was gratified with a sight of these rare productions by his intimate friend Mr. Morgan, the publisher. In the drawingroom, then, there happened to be several fine specimens by those respectable artists, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the late Mr. Wheatley, Page, Rawlinson, Bunbury, Pyne, and others. As the masters of each and all of these productions are entitled to their due meed of praise, it would be invidious to enter into any thing like a comparison

here of their respective merits; but in relating the facts which compose this sketch, we are confined to a very rigid outline. Let it suffice then to say, that the instant the author beheld the two little pictures of an artist then wholly unknown in name or person to him, he exclaimed-" Those fine pictures are the labour of giants in the art, but these little germs of simplicity are the production of a true child of dame Nature." To the prediction added. then by the same mouth, which the sale of the prints engraved from them afterwards so completely verified, the author is beholden for his first introduction to the late much-lamented painter. This was at a very elegant entertainment at Hammersmith, given by Mr.. Smith, in consequence of his success with these and other plates, to the gentlemen who were artists then employed by him, and the writer of these Memoirs. From this period to his last illness, the author never lost sight of the interest the world had in the preservation of such a genius: how far his conduct has justified the assertion, will be submit

ted to the candour of the reader in the subsequent pages. Between these pictures and some few others produced about this time, and a pair painted for the same gentleman already mentioned, of which we shall soon have occasion to speak, Mr. Morland conceived an affection for his landlord's sister, Miss Nancy Ward; a. young lady, whose charms of person and voice at this period, and long after, were sufficient to refute the idle assertion of those, who would have us now believe our painter had no idea of female beauty. Hundreds of pictures where he has introduced her, of which there are, or have been prints engraved, will best silence such envious calumny; which never can obtain, but with persons who have neither the leisure or abilities necessary to appreciate the talents of such a man. What Morland was in person then, the public may form some idea of, from the print lately published by Mr. Smith, of King Street, Covent Garden, if they can deduct about twelve years from the age which that portrait exhibits..

Between two persons of the age and natural advantages above described, it is no wonder a mutual flame should be kindled by the little deity; and the consequence was, our young painter in a short time led his beautiful living model to the altar of Hymen. They were married at Hammersmith church, and the general remark upon the occasion was, that a prettier couple had never graced the interior of that sacred edifice in the memory of the oldest spectator then present. This example of hyme-. neal union with the painter and the engraver's lovely sister was followed in about a month after, when the engraver, Mr. William Ward, led the painter's amiable sister, Miss Maria Morland to church, where they were bound in the indissoluble bonds of holy wedlock, and received the nuptial benediction accordingly.

Soon after these desirable events, for they were both love matches in the strictest sense of the word, our painter produced another pair of charming little pictures, called the Idle Laundress, and Industrious

Cottager. These essays of our newly married artists were finished with more care and neatness of pencil than the former, and prints being engraved after them for the same gentleman, the sale of which continued to increase the reputation of the painter and the emoluments of the publisher. The first of these pictures would have done honour to the pencil of Hogarth himself: nothing can exceed the archness and self-possession of the confident young thief, while he is stealing the stockings from the line, and eyeing the sleeping female, which is too handsome and too young for the idea we attach to the term laundress. But in this the title, or whoever gave it, is to blame, the picture having been conceived, brought forth, and delivered into the hands of its purchaser in perfect maturity, before it was christened; which was too often the case with several of this painter's early productions. Though in justice to his memory, and his astonishing genius, we know from experience, that he never went to work with greater reluctance that when he painted those subjects