In the spring of 1772 there was a stranger at Mount Vernon, in errand and person. He was one-and-thirty years of age, slender in form, with a sweet and thoughtful face. He was a native of Maryland. and had been a saddler's apprentice at Annapolis, the capital of the province. In boyhood he had been as beautiful as a girl, and at twenty he was a handsome young man. At that age he felt spiritual aspirations for the life of an artist; and when, two or three years later, he said to a retired painter who resided a few miles from Annapolis, "Show me, Mr. Hesselius, how you mix such beautiful tints for your canvas, and I will give you the best saddle that I can make,” a new world was opening to his enraptured vision. At that moment his true artist life began, for the generous painter revealed to him the coveted secret. Then the occupations of watchmaker, silversmith, carver, and saddler, in which he had severally engaged, were abandoned for the pursuit of art, except when stern necessity compelled him to employ them in earning his daily food. Thus he worked on until a way was opened for him to go to England and place himself under the instruction of Benjamin West, the great American painter, then the loved companion of the king. Two years he remained with West, and in 1769, Charles Willson Peale, the young artist referred to, returned to his native country and set up his easel as a portrait painter at Annapolis and Baltimore with wonderful success. The fame of the young painter soon reached Mount Vernon, and he was invited there to delineate, for the first time, the form and features of the noble "lord of the manor." He executed the commission admirably, and produced a fine portrait of Washington at the age of forty years, life size, a little more than half-length, and in the costume of a colonel of the twenty-second regiment of the Virginia Militia. The coat is blue, with red facings, and bright metal buttons, having the number of the regiment ("22") cast upon them. The waistcoat and breeches are also red, and the sash, a faded purple. When, in 1797 or '98, Field, an English miniature painter and engraver of some eminence, visited Mount Vernon, he slept in a room in which hung Washington's old military coat. The painter cut off one of the buttons, and brought it away with him, regarding the transaction as a pious theft, no doubt, because prompted by veneration for the owner. WASHINGTON'S MILITARY BUTTON. That button was in the possession of John F. Watson, Esq., the venerable annalist of Philadelphia and New York, and at his house in Germantown the annexed sketch of it was made. WASHINGTON AS A VIRGINIA COLONEL AT THE AGE OF FORTY. Field had a pleasant countenance and fine portly figure. He was, on the whole, rather fat, and loved his ease. "When at Centreville, on the eastern shore of Maryland, in 1798," says Rembrandt Peale, in a recent letter to a friend, "Field and I took a walk into the country, after a rain. A wide puddle of water covered the road beyond the fence on both sides. I climbed the fence and walked round, but Field, fat and lazy, in good humor paid an old negro to carry him on his shoulders over the water. In the middle of it, Field became so convulsed with laughter, that he nearly shook himself off the old man's back." Field went to Canada, studied theology a little, was ordain ed a priest of the Estab lished Church, and be came a bishop. The portrait painted by young Peale, at that time, was the first that was ever made of Washington. From the study he then made, he painted the fine picture which hung at Mount Vernon until the owner's death, and since that time has graced the walls of Arlington House, the home of the late George Washington Parke Custis. The study -the really first portrait, was afterward dressed in the continental costume. This remained in possession of the artist and his family until the Peale gallery, in Philadelphia, was sold a few years ago, when it was purchased by Charles S. Ogden, Esq., in whose possession it now rests. May 30.1772. of M? Custes, and at his desire; Washington's Meture in Miniature for the from George Washington for drawing Mr. ите Received Ten Luineas FAC-SIMILE OF PEALE'S RECEIPT. While at Mount Vernon at that time, Peale painted a miniature of Mrs. Washington, for her son, John Parke Custis, then a youth of eighteen, for which Washington, as his guardian, paid ten guineas, according to a receipt in the hand-writing of Washington, and signed by the artist, a fac-simile of which is on the preceding page. JOHN PARKE CUSTIS. Peale's miniatures were exquisitely painted, and very much sought after. A few years later he painted a portrait, in miniature, of young Custis, who was then General Washington's aide; also of his wife, the second daughter of Benedict Calvert, of Maryland, a descendant of Lord Baltimore. He also painted a portrait of that lady, life size, before her marriage, in which she is represented as a beautiful young girl in equestrian costume, the riding-jacket being open in front, and |