It is needless to add that with intelligence, high culture, and general information, and with a strong bent to the fine arts, Mr.Morse was in 1810 an attractive young man.
During the last year of his college life he occupied his leisure hours, with a view to his self-support, in taking the likenesses of his fellow-students on ivory, and no doubt with success, as he obtained afterward a very respectable rank as a portrait-painter.

Many pieces of his skill were afterward executed in Charleston, South Carolina."* * Prime, "The Life of Samuel F.B.Morse, LL.D.", p.

26.
That Morse was destined to be a painter seemed certain, and when, soon after graduating from Yale, he made the acquaintance of Washington Allston, an American artist of high standing, any doubts that may have existed in his mind as to his vocation were set at rest.

Allston was then living in Boston, but was planning to return to England, where his name was well known, and it was arranged that young Morse should accompany him as his pupil.

So in 1811 Morse went to England with Allston and returned to America four years later an accredited portrait painter, having studied not only under Allston but under the famous master, Benjamin West, and having met on intimate terms some of the great Englishmen of the time.