According to a biography written in 1901 by Rowley Cleeve, George Romney was born in 1734 in Kendal, a small town in England's Cumbria County to parents who were "in humble cricumstances." His father, who made furniture, had him taken out of school when he was 11-years-old because, in Cleeve's words, "he made very slight progress with his studies, and preferred to spend his time in sketching or in copying the pictures that he found in papers or books."

After leaving school, George Romney eventually became apprenticed to a local painter named Steele. He met his wife, Mary Abbott, in 1756 after Steele "eloped with a young lady who was one of his pupils."

"Romney had to assist him in his arrangements. They were difficult and involved a vast amount of trouble and exposure to night air at a time when the youth was far from strong. ... Romney fell ill of a fever and was nursed by a domestic servant named Mary Abbott. With this young person the artist fell violently in love and on recovering from his illness married her," Cleeve wrote.

In 1767, George went to London to further his art career. He stayed there for the next 37 years and during this time, Cleeve says, he didn't see his wife "with the exception of brief visits in 1767 and 1779." Mr. Romney also journeyed to France and Italy where he had an audience with Pope Clement XIV who  allowed him to "have scaffolding specially erected in the Vatican that he might study the works of Raphael." He eventually returned to his family "as an invalid" and his wife "received him lovingly and nursed him with great devotion till his death" in 1802.

Check out our slideshow to see examples of George's paintings.

Newt Gingrich's mother-in-law, Bernita Krause Bisek. (Photo: Facebook)

Earlier this afternoon, Callista Gingrich, wife of newly minted Republican frontrunner Newt Gingrich, pointed a camera at the window of her office in Washington, D.C. and snapped a picture of a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered on the rainy street outside. Ms. Gingrich proceeded to post the picture on her Facebook page inspiring concerned comments from her mother.

Ms. Gingrich included no comment on the pictures beyond a bland caption that said, "Occupy protesters outside of our office building." About an hour later, her mother, Bernita Krause Bisek, responded to the photo.

"A little scary isn't it. Hope the police have them under control," Ms. Bisek wrote.

Ms. Bisek also "liked" another comment on the photo written by a man named Robert Fimreite.

"Hang in there Callista. Not sure what they hope to accomplish by hanging around your office building. Newt can't do anything... yet!" Mr. Fimreite wrote.

Ms. Gingrich's Occupy photo also provoked some more colorful comments from several of her 2,138 friends.

"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Or maybe that should be revised to the 'red' glassiness of their eyes. LOL," wrote a man named Lavon Wiggins.

"Who let the Dogs out, woof,woof,woof woof! LOL....," a man named Mark Usciak wrote.

Mr. Gingrich hasn't been shy about his distaste for the Occupy Wall Street movement. At the Thanksgiving Family Forum last month, Mr. Gingrich described the Occupy protesters as inconsiderate, entitled and downright unclean.

"“All of the Occupy movements start with the premise that we all owe them everything. They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so that they can self righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath.’”

Sheldon Silver after his bike accident. (Photo: Stephen Crowley/New York Times)

Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver - last seen sporting a set of bruises, stitches, and scabs all over his face after a bike fall - has checked into hospital for treatment on knee swelling caused by the same accident. The speaker was in Puerto Rico for the annual Somos el Futuro conference, where politicians schmooze with labor leaders and lobbyists ostensibly over Hispanic-related issues, earlier this month when he took a nasty spin after the bike he rented hit a San Juan pothole.

Initially reluctant to discuss the dramatic change in his appearance upon his return, Mr. Silver eventually came clean last week, admitting his embarrassment at being mocked for the fall by his grandchildren. His surgery will be a family affair: the speaker is getting it done in Stamford, CT, so his orthopedic surgen nephew can perform it.

The full statement from Silver press secretary Michael Wyland is below:

Due to an injury sustained during a bicycle accident on November 10, Speaker Silver was admitted to Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Connecticut on Sunday to undergo treatments to address swelling in his knee.  These are minor procedures which are expected to conclude on Tuesday. Speaker Silver is working from the hospital where he is expected to remain through Wednesday and will resume a full schedule after the Thanksgiving holiday. He chose Stamford Hospital so that the procedure could be performed by his nephew, Marc D. Silver, M.D., an orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon at the hospital.