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.
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