Unlike most young artists, Copley, in conse-
quence of his rapid success, and perhaps
through the generosity of his father-in-law,
was able to indulge his taste for elegant sur-
roundings. John Trumbull, who visited the
artist in his home in 1772, wrote : " His house
was on the Common, where Mr. Sears's elegant
granite palazzo now stands. A mutual friend
of Mr. Copley and my brother, Mr. James
Lovell, went with us to introduce us. We
found Mr. Copley dressed to receive a party
of friends at dinner. I remember his dress and
appearance, an elegant-looking man, dressed
in a fine maroon cloth with gilt buttons this
was dazzling to my unpracticed eye ! But his
paintings, the first I had ever seen deserving
the name, riveted, absorbed, my attention,
and renewed all my desire to enter upon such
a pursuit."

Copley may have derived his love of color,
58



HEIRLOOMS IN MINIATURES

rich textures, and handsome appointments
from some English ancestor, or perhaps he
owed these tastes to some French strain in his
blood. There was little in the New England
life of that day to encourage a love of beauty or
grace, yet this hard-working, painstaking artist,
in this uncongenial atmosphere, developed a
side of his nature that turned to the beauti-
ful as flowers turn towards the sun. The re-
straints and limitations of the life around him
must have pressed hard against the exuberance
of his artistic nature ; and in old age, when re-
calling the scenes of his youth, Copley would
ask Americans whom he met whether "more
liberty of conscience than of limb was still
permitted in New England," relating to his
amused auditors his own experience of being
taken in custody by one of the " selectmen" of
Boston for breaking the Sabbath to the extent
of taking a stroll into the country on a fine
Sunday morning in the spring. Of her grand-
father's inborn love of beauty in dress and sur-
roundings Mrs. Amory writes :

" It seemed as if the eye of the master de-
lighted to dwell on the rich draperies and soft
laces he so well knew how to bring out on his
canvas, and which he thoroughly studied in
all their combinations and arrangements. 