Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/147

 first instruction from a Scotch painter at Newport, named Alexander, who was so much pleased with his talents and lively disposition, that he took him with him on his return to Scotland. His friend dying soon after, the youth found himself pennyless in a strange country, but undismayed, he resolved to return home, and found himself obliged to work his passage before the mast. He had already made considerable progress in art, and on his return commenced portrait painting, although without meeting much encouragement. He was in Boston at the time of the Battle of Lexington, but immediately left that city and went to New York, where he painted the portrait of his grandmother from memory, though she had been dead about ten years, which is said to have been a capital likeness, and gained him some business. About this time he painted his own portrait, the only one he ever took of himself, to the excellence of which his friend Dr. Waterhouse bears ample testimony. He says, "it was painted in his freest manner, and with a Rubens' hat," and in another place, that "Stuart in his best days, said he need not be ashamed of it."

STUART GOES TO LONDON.

Not meeting with any adequate encouragement, and the country being in a deplorable state, in the midst of the Revolution, Stuart set sail for London in 1778, at the age of twenty-two, to try his fortunes in that city. He was a wayward and eccentric