have been the seed which rooted in his mind and grew into the 'invention of the telegraph.'
It is not evident that Morse had any distinct idea of the electric telegraph in these days; but amidst his lessons in literature and philosophy he took a special 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
