STUART GOES TO LONDON.

Not meeting with any adequate encouragement, and the country being in a deplorable state, in the midst of the Revolution, Stuart set sail for London in 1778, at the age of twenty-two, to try his fortunes in that city. He was a wayward and eccentric genius, proud as Lucifer withal; and on his arrival in that metropolis, he found himself full of poverty, enthusiasm, and hope,—often a painter’s only capital. He expected to have found Waterhouse, who would have helped him with his advice, and purse if necessary, but he had gone to Edinburg. Instead of going directly to West, as he should have done, he wandered about the “dreary solitude” of London, as Johnson used to characterize the busy hum of that crowded city to the poverty-stricken sons of genius, till he had expended his last dollar.