At the same time he was making steady progress in his studies and making friends, both among the Americans who were his fellow students or artists of established reputation, and among distinguished Englishmen who were friends of his father.

Among the former was Charles R. Leslie, his room-mate and devoted friend, who afterwards became one of the best of the American painters of those days.  In his autobiography Leslie says:—­

“My new acquaintances Allston, King, and Morse were very kind, but still they were new acquaintances.  I thought of the happy circle round my mother’s fireside, and there were moments in which, but for my obligations to Mr. Bradford and my other kind patrons, I could have been content to forfeit all the advantages I expected from my visit to England and return immediately to America.  The two years I was to remain in London seemed, in prospect, an age.

“Mr. Morse, who was but a year or two older than myself, and who had been in London but six months when I arrived, felt very much as I did and we agreed to take apartments together.  For some time we painted in one room, he at one window and I at the other.  We drew at the Royal Academy in the evening and worked at home in the day.  Our mentors were Allston and King, nor could we have been better provided; Allston, a most amiable and polished gentleman, and a painter of the purest taste; and King, warm-hearted, sincere, sensible, prudent, and the strictest of economists.

“When Allston was suffering extreme depression of spirits after the loss of his wife, he was haunted during sleepless nights by horrid thoughts, and he told me that diabolical imprecations forced themselves into his mind.  The distress of this to a man so sincerely religious as Allston may be imagined.  He wished to consult Coleridge, but could not summon resolution.  He desired, therefore, that I should do it, and I went to Highgate where Coleridge was at that time living with Mr. Gillman.  I found him walking in the garden, his hat in his hand (as it generally was in the open air), for he told me that, having been one of the Bluecoat Boys, among whom it is the fashion to go bareheaded, he had acquired a dislike to any covering of the head.

“I explained the cause of my visit and he said:  ’Allston should say to himself, “Nothing is me but my will. These thoughts, therefore, that force themselves on my mind are no part of me and there can be no guilt in them.”  If he will make a strong effort to become indifferent to their recurrence, they will either cease or cease to trouble him.’

“He said much more, but this was the substance, and, after it was repeated to Allston, I did not hear him again complain of the same kind of disturbance.”

Mr. C.B.  King, the other friend mentioned by Leslie, returned to America in 1812, and writes from Philadelphia, January 3, 1813:—­

MY DEAR FRIENDS, This will be handed you by Mr. Payne, of Boston, who intends passing some time in England....  I have not been here sufficiently long to forget the delightful time when we could meet in the evening with novels, coffee, and music by Morse, with the conversation of that dear fellow Allston.  The reflection that it will not again take place, comes across my mind accompanied with the same painful sensation as the thought that I must die.