Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/93

31 the list of his pleasures; neither were his mind or body assailable by the hostile power of indolence, because he knew it to be the bane of all improvement.

He had acquired a most happy art in copying maps, with a neatness and accuracy, an idea of which I have no means of conveying to the reader. Were one of his performances in this line put into the hands of an engraver, it would contract a stiffness, destructive of its identity. The specimens in my possession are curious and beautiful. Those which he has reduced by his eye, are equally accurate with what are imitated in the size of the original.

With respect to the productions of his pencil, he had now, for a considerable time, made drawing a principal source of entertainment. In the desultory pursuit of it, without any professional assistance, he had acquired no common facility of execution, and derived from nature a happy talent of original invention. It would indeed be the height of absurdity, to claim the merit of