pecial interest in the sciences of electricity
and chemistry. He became acquainted with the voltaic battery through the
lectures of his friend, Professor Sieliman; and we are told that during
one of his vacations at Yale he made a series of electrical experiments
with Dr. Dwight. Some years later he resumed these studies under his
friend Professor James Freeman Dana, of the University of New York,
who exhibited the electro-magnet to his class in 1827, and also under
Professor Renwick, of Columbia College.

Art seems to have had an equal if not a greater charm than science for
Morse at this period. A boy of fifteen, he made a water-colour sketch
of his family sitting round the table; and while a student at Yale he
relieved his father, who was far from rich, of a part of his education
by painting miniatures on ivory, and selling them to his companions at
five dollars a-piece. Before he was nineteen he completed a painting of
the 'Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,' which formerly hung in the
office of the Mayor, at Charlestown, Massachusetts.

On graduating at Yale, in 1810, he devoted himself to Art, and became
a pupil of Washington Allston, the well-known American painter. He
accompanied Allston to Europe in 1811, and entered the studio of
Benjamin West, who was then at the zenith of his reputation.
The friendship of West, with his own introductions and agreeable
personality, enabled him to move in good society, to which he was always
partial. William Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian,
Coleridge, and Copley, were among his acquaintances. Leslie, the artist,
then a struggling genius like himself, was his fellow-lodger. His heart
was evidently in the profession of his choice. 'My passion for my
art,' he wrote to his mother, in 1812, 'is so firmly rooted that I am
confident no human power could destroy it. The more I study the greater
I think is its claim to the appellation of divine. I am now going to
begin a picture of the death of Hercules the figure to be as large as
life.'

After he had perfected this work to his own eyes, he showed it, with not
a little pride, to Mr. West, who after scanning it awhile said, 'Very
good, very good. Go on and finish it.' Morse ventured to say that it was
finished. 'No! no! no!' answered West; 'see there, and there, and there.
There is much to be done yet. Go on and finish it.' Each time the pupil
showed it the master said, 'Go on and finish it.' [THE TELEGRAPH I