No one could play the benefactor more generously when he chose, and he lost no time in sending Vanderlyn to Paris to study art.
So brilliantly did the young man acquit himself in the _ateliers_ there that within a very few years he was the most distinguished of all American painters in Europe.

In Henry Brevoort's Letters are references to his commission to paint General Jackson, among others.
And now comes the pleasant part of this little story within a story: In 1808, Aaron Burr was an exile in London.

His trouble with Hamilton, his mad scheme of empire and trial for treason, his political unpopularity, had made him an outcast; and at that time, he, the most fascinating, and at one time the most courted of men, lived and moved without a friend.

And he met Vanderlyn,--once the wistful lad who drew pictures when his master wanted him to turn spokes.

Now Vanderlyn was a big man, with a name in the world and money in his pocket, and--Aaron Burr's warm and grateful friend.