n, Master and Miss Custis.

Washington was also annoyed by the applications of artists and literary
men, the former for him to give them sittings for his portrait, and the
latter for materials for either his biography, or a general history of
the Revolution. He positively refused compliance with the latter
request, but occasionally indulged the former. At the solicitation of
Francis Hopkinson, he sat to Robert Edge Pine, a diminutive Englishman
and excellent artist. Pine was a warm republican, and came to America to
collect portraits of distinguished persons for the purpose of painting a
series of pictures illustrative of the War for Independence.

Soon after Pine left Mount Vernon, Houdon, the eminent French
portrait-sculptor was there, at the request of the legislature of
Virginia, who had ordered a statue of Washington to be executed for the
statehouse at Richmond. For such a purpose, and under such auspices,
Washington was willing to submit to the manipulations of art, even those
so unpleasant as the moulding of the face in plaster, and he wrote to
Houdon, on his arrival in New York: "It will give me pleasure, sir, to
welcome you to the seat of my retirement; and whatever I have, or can
procure, that is necessary to your purpose, or convenient and agreeable
to your wishes, you must freely command, as inclination to oblige you
will be among the last things in which I shall be found deficient,
either on your arrival or during your stay."

Houdon made a plaster-mould from Washington's face, modelled a complete
head and bust in clay, made a cast from that, took the latter to France,
and from it executed the statue now in the capitol at Richmond. He made
careful measurements of Washington's figure, and in Paris, Gouverneur
Morris stood for it.

During nearly all of the year 1785, Washington was engaged much of the
time in the ornamentation of the grounds around the mansion he had
greatly enlarged, and in the improvement of his farms. The relief from
the pen afforded him by Mr. Lear, gave him time for pursuits of this
nature, which he so much loved, and his diary abounds with brief records
of his planting of trees and sowing of seeds. His Mount Vernon estate
was divided into five farms, and several hundred acres of woodland. The
mansion-house farm was his great care and delight, yet he managed the
other four with skill and prudence. On them he had over fifty
draught-horses, a dozen mules, more than three hundred head o