Viewing page 80 of 85

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

merit in the upper part of the Face, it is false of character in the lower portion.

Numerous sketches & miniatures of Washington were made during the Revolutionary Contest and afterwards by Savage for Cambridge College by Dunlap at Rocky-Hill - Gulager at Portsmouth, Madame Brehen - Wright of Philadelphia Ramage - Robertson of New York, and by Birch, in enamel, from Stuart. 

It is a matter of pride with americans to value evything that purposes to be a likeness of Washington, from the chance Pencil sketch, up to evert painted study from the life, each one rendered precious by some touches perhaps borrowed from the living original. 

Seventy years ago there was no engraver of portraits in America - but my Father himself executed in mezzo-tinto, several prints of Washington, a great number & variety have been engraved in Europe, and since, in America, Mr. John B. Moreau of N. York possesses more than one hundred engravings by different artists, intended as a likeness of Washington -- as an evidence of his popularity in Italy the first number of a Biography of Great Men, published at Rome in 1830, when I was there, was a life of Washington with his Portrait, as the "Liberator of America."

In the autumn of 1795, at the solicitation of my Father Washington consented to sit expressly to me - and the hour he chose was seven in the morning. Fearing that I might not profit by sittings of so much value, I induced my Father also to make a study alongside of me - Close at my right hand thus securing a double chance of success, with the advantage afforded by conversation between him and the General ---He could not sit the next day - Mrs Washington informing me that he was engaged to seit to Mr. Stuart, a celebrated american just returned from Dublin. 

Washington gave me three sittings, of three hours each. Profitting by the opportunity my Uncle James Peale, during the 2nd and 3rd sittings, at my left hand, painted a miniature on Ivory; and an Elder Brother, for a few minutes was employed in making a profile sketch. Mrs. Washington happening to enter the Room at the time, was amused by the circumstances and mentioned it to Mr. Stuart. 

At this time the public mind was greatly excited by the republication of certain forged letters attributed to Wilkinson purporting to have been written by Washington, and found on the person of a runaway Slave. Within the two weeks recent agitation no one had dared to question him on the subject. My Uncle, who was warm Whig of '76, could not credit the imposition, and at the 3rd sitting at his miniature desk, spoke directly to the point -- "General, did you write those letters"? (sic) Washington in a decisive tone replied - "I never lost any letters" no servant of mine ever ran away from me"  Then, as having said enough on that subject asked my father "What has become of that ingenious man Mr. Cram, who lived in your neighborhood"? My Uncle immediately sallied out, and in two hours the whole city was disabused of the Scandal.

By the early settings given to me by Washington I had the advantage of seeing his hair in a more natural state than as it was arranged by the barber,iin the fashion of a wig, as it is usually painted. In this particular, the hair is more graceful in the Portraits of Trumbull, as it was probably seen in the negligence

Transcription Notes:
please stick to instructions and do not truncate words across pages