“I have painted five pieces since I have been here, two landscapes and three portraits; one of myself, one a copy from Mr. West’s copy from Vandyke, and the other a portrait of Mr. Leslie, who is also taking mine....  I called a day or two since on Sir William Beechy, an artist of great eminence, to see his paintings.  They are beautiful beyond anything I ever imagined.  His principal excellence is in coloring, which, to the many, is the most attractive part of art.  Sir William is considered the best colorist now living.

“You may be apt to ask, ’If Sir William is so great and even the best, what is Mr. West’s great excellence?’ Mr. West is a bad colorist in general, but he excels in the grandeur of his thought.  Mr. West is to painting what Milton is to poetry, and Sir William Beechy to Mr. West as Pope to Milton, so that by comparing, or rather illustrating the one art by the other, I can give you a better idea of the art of painting than in any other way.  For as some poets excel in the different species of poetry and stand at the head of their different kinds, in the same manner do painters have their particular branch of their art; and as epic poetry excels all other kinds of poetry, because it addresses itself to the sublimer feelings of our nature, so does historical painting stand preeminent in our art, because it calls forth the same feelings.  For poets’ and painters’ minds are the same, and I infer that painting is superior to poetry from this:—­that the painter possesses with the poet a vigorous imagination, where the poet stops, while the painter exceeds him in the mechanical and very difficult part of the art, that of handling the pencil.”

“I gave you a hint in letter number 12 and a particular account in number 13 of the horrid murders committed in this city.  It has been pretty well ascertained from a variety of evidence that all of them have been committed by one man, who was apprehended and put an end to his life in prison.  Very horrid attempts at robbery and murder have been very frequent of late in all parts of the city, and even so near as within two doors of me in the same street, but do not be alarmed, you have nothing to fear on my account.  Leslie and myself sleep in the same room and sleep armed with a pair of pistols and a sword and alarms at our doors and windows, so we are safe on that score....

“In my next I shall give you some account of politics here and as it respects America.  The Federalists are certainly wrong in very many things....

“P.S.  I wish you would keep my letter in which I enumerate all my friends, and when I say, ‘Give my love to my friends,’ imagine I write them all over, and distribute it out to all as you think I ought, always particularizing Miss Russell, my patroness, my brothers, relations, and Mr. Brown and Nancy [his old nurse].  This will save me time, ink, trouble, and paper.”

Concerning the portraits which Morse and Leslie were painting of each other, the following letter to Morse’s mother, from a friend in Philadelphia and signed “R.W.  Snow,” will be found interesting:—­