Question

I. Переведите текст письменно и ответьте на вопросы. Samuel Finley Breese Morse

Morse was an artist, painting his great love. He was a founder and the first President of the US National Academy of Design. When he took up a second career as an engineer-inventor he left his art unwillingly and grieved over the loss for years.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse - the American Leonardo, according to a biographer - was born on 27-th April, 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Named after his mother‟s parents taking their surnames as his Christian names he was called Finley by his family.
Whilst a student at Yale his reputation as an artist began to grow, especially for his ivory miniatures. But his father dissuaded him from art as a career and, for a time, Morse became a clerk in a bookshop.

His talent was not to be retrained. On 13-th July 1811, aged 20, he sailed for England where he studied art for the next four years, mainly at the Royal Academy in London. Among his works were three of outstanding merits. One, “The Dying Hercules”, was exhibited at the Royal Academy; another, a statuette of Hercules, won a gold medal from the Society of Arts.
Best known of his works are probably two portraits of Lafayette, painted in Washington in 1823, and the slightly earlier “The old House of Representatives” which includes 86 portraits.
Even in those early years Morse appears to have been something of an experimenter. For a portrait of his wife and children he ground the pigments in milk. Another time he used beer!
The mid 1820‟s brought change for Morse. In four short years his wife, father and mother all died.
In 1829 he again sailed for Europe and Spent the next three years mostly in France and Italy.
On the return voyage in 1832 a fellow passenger drew the dinner-time conversation to electricity. Soon Morse was hooked. By the end of his voyage his notebook was crammed with sketches and ideas. The next dozen years transformed his life - and the world.
By the end of 1835 he was at the University of the City of New York as professor of painting and sculpture. Apart from teaching and painting, both of which brought in a little money and took most of his time he was working on the telegraph. On 24-th May, 1844 after his 53rd birthday Morse opened his telegraph.
In 1843 the first two-wire 40-mile telegraph system linked Washington and Baltimore. It was checked by sending messages both ways. By 1845 this line was extended to New York and Boston.
At 57, after 23 years as a widower, Morse remarried. Later, as he grew rich from the exploitation of his telegraph system, he became a philanthropist and again supported the furtherance of art, though his own skills were never really recovered. In 1836 he had tried his hand at politics when he ran for mayor of New York. Aged 63, he had another go, this time attempting to become a Democratic Congressman.
Samuel Morse died in 1872, at the age of 81.

Вопросы:

What was Morse?
What was Morse famous for whilst a student?
Was his reputation as an artist restrained by his father? Where did he study art?
What were his outstanding works?
What events took place in Morse life in the mid 1820‟s? What problem did he pay his attention to in 1832?
Where did he work as professor of painting and sculpture? When did he try his hand at politics?