i
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND STUDIES 
 
 or 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST, Esq 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF 
 LONDON, 
 
 prior to l)fe arribal m englanlr; 
 
 COMPILED FROM MATERIALS FURNISHED BY HIMSELF, 
 
 BY JOHN GALT. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY MOSES THOMAS. 
 
 J. Maxwell, Primer. 
 
 1816.
 
 hJD 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The professional life of Mr. West constitutes an im- 
 portant part of an historical work, in which the matter of 
 this volume could only have been introduced as an epi- 
 sode, and, perhaps, not with much propriety even in 
 that form. It was my intention, at one time, to have 
 prepared the whole of his memoirs, separately, for pub- 
 lication; but a careful review of the manuscript con- 
 vinced me, that the transactions in which he has been 
 engaged, subsequently to his arrival in England, are so 
 much of a public nature, and belong so immediately to 
 the history of the arts, that such a separation could not be 
 effected without essentially impairing the interest and 
 unity of the main design; and that the particular nature 
 of this portion of his memoirs admitted of being easily 
 detached and arranged into a whole, complete within 
 itself. 
 
 941018
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 I do not think that there can be two opinions with 
 respect to the utility of a work of this kind. Mr. West, 
 in relating the circumstances by which he was led to 
 approximate, without the aid of an instructor, to those 
 principles and rules of art, which it is the object of schools 
 and academies to disseminate, has conferred a greater 
 benefit on young artists than he could possibly have done 
 by the most ingenious and eloquent lectures on the theor- 
 ies of his profession; and it was necessary that the nar- 
 rative should appear in his own time, in order that the 
 authenticity of the incidents might not rest on the authority 
 of any biographer. • 
 
 JOHN GALT. 
 
 April 25, 1816.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I. The birth and paternal ancestry of Mr. West. II. His maternal 
 family. III. His father. IV. The origin of the abolition of slavery 
 by the quakers. V. The progress of the abolition. VI. The edu- 
 cation of the negroes. VII. The preaching of Edmund Peckover. 
 VIII. His admonitory prediction to the father of West. IX. 
 The first indication of Benjamin's genius. X. State of society in 
 Pennsylvania. XI. The Indians give West the primary colours. 
 Xn. The artist's first pencils. XIII. The present of a box of colours 
 and engravings. XIV. His first painting. . - page 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The artist visits Philadelphia. II. His second picture. III. Williams 
 the painter gives him the works of Fresnoy and Richardson. IV. 
 Anecdote of the taylor's apprentice. V. The drawings of the 
 schoolboys. VI. Anecdote relative to Wayne. VII. Anecdote 
 relative to Mr. Flower. VIII. Anecdote relative to Mr. Ross. 
 IX. Anecdote of Mr. Henry. X. The artist's first historical picture. 
 XI. Origin of his acquaintance with Dr. Smith of Philadelphia. XII. 
 The friendship of Dr. Smith, and the character of the early com- 
 panions of West. XIII. Anecdote of general Washington. - Z7
 
 2 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 L The course of instruction adopted by provost Smith. II. The 
 artist led to the discovery of the Camera. III. His father becomes 
 anxious to place him in business. IV. Extraordinary proceedings 
 of the quakers in consequence. V. The speech of Williamson the 
 preacher in defence of the fine arts. VI. Magnanimous resolution 
 of the quakei>8. VII. Reflections on this singular transaction, page 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I. Reflections on the eccentricities of young men of genius with respect 
 to pecuniary matters. II. The death of the artist's mother. III. 
 The embodying of ihe Pennsylvania militia; an anecdote of general 
 Wayne. IV. The artist elected commandant of a corps of volunteer 
 hoys. V. The circumstances which occasioned the search for the 
 hones of Bradock's army. VI. The search. Vil. The discovery of 
 the bones of the father and brother of sir Peter Halket. VIII. 
 The artist proposed afterwards to paint a picture of the discovery of 
 the bones of the Halkets. IX. He commences regularly as a 
 painter. X. He copies a St. Ignatius. XI. He is induced to attempt 
 historical portraiture. XII. His picture of the trial of Susannah. 
 XIII. Of the merits of that picture. . - - - 76 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Motives which induced him to visit New York. II. State of society 
 in New York. HI. Reflections on the sterility of American talent. 
 rV. Considerations on the circumstances which tend to produce poet- 
 ical feelings. V. The causes which produced the peculiarities in 
 the state of society in New York. VI. The accident which led the 
 artist to discover the method of colouring candle-light and fire efiects 
 after nature. VII. He copies Strange's engraving of Belisarius, by 
 Salvator Rosa. VHI. The occurrence which hastened his voyage to 
 Italy, witli the anecdote of his obligations to Mr. Kelly. IX. Re- 
 flections on Plutarch, occasioned by reference to the effect which 
 his works had on the mind of West X. The artist embarks; 
 occiu-rence at Gibraltar. XI. He arrives at Leghorn. fXII. Jour- 
 ney to Rome. ...----- 96
 
 CONTENTS. 3 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 State of the stationary society of Rome. II, Causes -which rendered 
 the city a delightful temporary residence. III. Defects of the aca- 
 demical methods of study. IV. His introduction to Mr. Rohinson^ 
 V. Anecdote of cardinal Albani. VI. The cardinal's method of 
 finding resemblances, and curious mistake of the Italians. VII. The 
 artist's first visit to the works of art. - - . page 120 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I. Anecdote of a famous improvisatore. II. West the subject of one 
 of his finest effusions. HI. Anecdote of cardinal Albani. IV. West 
 introduced to Mengs. V. Satisfactory result cf West's first essay 
 in Rome. VI. Consequence of the continual excitement which the 
 artist's feelings endured. VII. He goes to Florence for advice: 
 VIII. He accompanies Mr. Matthews in a tour. IX. Singular instance 
 of liberality towards the artist from several gentlemen of Phila- 
 delphia. --.--- 142 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The result of the artist's experiment to discover the methods by 
 which Titian produced his splendid colouring. II. He returns to 
 Rome. III. Reflections suggested, by inspecting the Egyptian obe- 
 lisk. IV. Considerations of the author on the same subject; and 
 anecdote of a Mohawk Indian who became an actor at New York. 
 V. Anecdote of a Scotish fanatic who arrived in Rome to convert 
 the pope. VI. Sequel of the adventure. VII. The artist prepares 
 to visit England. VIII. Having completed his St. Jerome, after 
 CoiTegio's famous picture, he is elected an honorary member of the 
 academy of Parma, and invited to court. IX. He proceeds by the 
 way of Genoa towards France. X. Reflections on the state of Italy. 
 XI. Adventure on reaching the French frontiers. XII. State of 
 teste in France. - 161
 
 LIFE AND STUDIES 
 
 OP 
 
 BENJAMIN WEST, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 r. The Birth and Paternal Ancestry of Mr. West. II. His Maternal 
 Family. III. His Father. IV. The Origin of the Abolition of Sla- 
 very by the Quakers. V. The Progress of the Abolition. VI. The 
 Education of the Negroes. VII. The Preaching of Edmund Peckorer. 
 VIII. His Admonitory Prediction to the Father of West. IX. The 
 first Indication of Benjamin's Genius. X. State of Society in Penn- 
 sylvania. XL The Indians give West the Primary Colours. XII. The 
 Artist's first Pencils. XIII. The Present of a Box of Colours and En- 
 gravings. XIV. His first Painting. 
 
 I. Benjamin west, the subject of the 
 
 following Memoirs, was the youngest son of 
 John West and Sarah Pearson, and was born 
 near Sprin.^field, in Chester county, in the state 
 of Pennsylvania, on the 1 0th of October, 1738.
 
 V- "" '^ ^' -^ ^ 
 The branch of tlie West family, to which he 
 
 belongSj has been traced m an unbroken series 
 to tlie lord DelawaiTe, who distinguished 
 himself in the great wars of king Edward 
 the tliii'd, and pailicularly at the battle of 
 Cressy, under the inmiediate command of 
 the black piince. In the reign of Richard 
 the second, the ancestors of Mr. West set- 
 tled at Long Crandon in Buckinghamshire. 
 About the year 1667 they embraced the 
 • tenets of the quakers; and colonel James 
 West, the fiiend and companion in arms of 
 the celebrated Hampden, Is said to have been 
 the first proselyte of the family. In 1699 
 they emigi'ated to America. 
 
 II. Thomas Pearson, the maternal grand- 
 fatlier of the artist, was tlie confidential fiiend 
 ^ of William Penn, and the same person to 
 whom that venemble legislator said, on land- 
 ing in America, " Pi'0\1dence has brought us 
 safely hither; thou hast been the companion 
 of my perils, what wilt thou that I should call
 
 11 
 
 this place?" Mr. Pearson replied, that "since 
 he had honoured him so far as to desire him 
 to give that part of the country a name, he 
 would, in remembrance of his native city, call 
 it Chester." The exact spot where these pa- 
 triarchs of the new world fli'st landed, is still 
 pointed out vnth reverence by the inhabitants. 
 Mr. Pearson built a house and formed a plan- 
 tation in the neighbourhood, which he called 
 Springfield, in consequence of discovering a 
 large spring of water in the first field cleared 
 for cultivation; and it was near this place that • 
 Benjamin West was born. 
 
 III. When the West family emigrated. John, 
 the father of Benjamin, was left to complete 
 his education at the great school of the qua- 
 kers at Uxbridge, and did not join his relations 
 in America tiU the year 1714. Soon after his 
 arrival he married the mother of the artist; 
 and of the worth and piety of his character we 
 have a remarkable proof in the following 
 transactions, wliich, perhaps, reflect more
 
 IS 
 
 real glory on his faniUy than the achieve- 
 ments of all his heroic ancestors. 
 
 IV. As a part of the marriage poition of 
 Mi's. West, he received a negro slave, whose 
 diligence and fidehty very soon obtained his 
 ftiU confidence. Being engaged in trade, he 
 had occasion to make a voyage to the West In- 
 dies, and left tliis young black to superintend 
 the plantation in liis absence. Duiing liis resi- 
 dence in Barbadoes, his feelings were gi'eatly 
 molested, and his piinciples shocked, by the 
 cruelties to wliich he saw the negi'oes subjec- 
 ted in that island; and tlie debasing effects 
 were forcibly contrasted in Ms mind, with the 
 morals and intelligence of liis own slave. Con- 
 versing on tliis subject with doctor Gammon, 
 who was then at the head of the community 
 of friends m Barbadoes, the doctor convinc- 
 ed him that it was contrary to the laws of 
 God and Nature that any man should retain 
 his feUow creatures m slavery. Tliis convic- 
 tion could not rest long inactive in a character
 
 13 
 
 framed like that of Mr. West. On his return 
 to America he gave the negro his fi'eedom, • 
 and retained him as a hired servant. 
 
 V. Not satisfied with doing good himself, 
 he endeavoured to make others follow^ his ex- 
 ample, and in a short time his arguments had 
 such an effect on his neighbours, that it was 
 agreed to discuss publicly the general ques- 
 tion of slavery. This was done accordingly; 
 and, after debating it at many meetings, it was 
 resolved by a considerable majority that it 
 was the duty of Christians to give freedom 
 to their slaves. The result of tliis discussion 
 was soon afterwards followed by a similar 
 proposal to the head meeting of the quakers 
 in the township of Goshen, in Chester coun- 
 ty; and the cause of humanity was again • 
 victorious. Finally, about the year 1753, the 
 same question was agitated in the annual 
 general assembly at Pliiladelphia, when it 
 was ultimately established as one of the te- 
 nets of the quakers, that no person could re-
 
 14 
 
 maiii a member of their community who held 
 a human creature in slavery. This transaction 
 
 • is perhaps the fu'st example in the history of 
 communities, of a great public sacrifice of in- 
 dividual interest, not originating fi^om consi- 
 derations of pohcy or the exigencies of public 
 
 ^ danger, but purely fi'om moral and religious 
 principles. 
 
 VI. The benevolent work of restoring theii' 
 natural rights to the unfortunate negroes, did 
 not rest even at this gi'eat pecuniary sacri- 
 fice. The society of fiiends went farther, 
 and established schools for the education of 
 their children; and some of the first charac- 
 ters among themselves volunteered to super- 
 intend the course of instruction. 
 
 Vn. In the autumn of i 738, Edmund Peck- 
 over, a celebrated orator among the quakers, 
 came to the neighbourhood of Springfield, and 
 on the 28th of September preached in a meet- 
 ing-house erected by the father of Mrs. West 
 at the distance of about a mile and a half from
 
 15 
 
 his residence. Mrs. West was then the mo- 
 ther of nine children, and far advanced in her 
 pregnancy with Benjamin. — Peckover posses- 
 sed the most essential qualities of an impres- 
 sive speaker, and on this occasion the subject 
 of his address was of extraordinary interest to 
 his auditors. He reviewed the rise and pro- 
 gress of society in America, and with an en- 
 thusiastic eloquence which partook of the sub- 
 limity and vehemence of the prophetic spirit, 
 he predicted the future greatness of the coun- 
 try. He described the condition of the Euro- 
 pean nations, decrepid in then- institutions, 
 and corrupt in then- morality, and contrasted 
 them with the young and flourishing estab- 
 lishments of the New World. He held up to 
 their abhoiTence the licentious manners and 
 atheistical principles of the court of France, 
 where God was disregarded or forgotten; and, 
 elevated by the importance of his subject, he 
 described the Almighty as mustering his wrath 
 to descend on the nation, and disperse it as 
 chaflf in a whirlwind. He called on them to.
 
 16 
 
 look towards their home of England, and to 
 see with what eager devotion the inhabitants 
 of that illustrious country worshiped the gold- 
 en image of commerce, and laid the tribute 
 of all their thoughts on its altars; believing 
 that with the power of the idol alone, they 
 should be able to encounter all calamities. 
 •' The day and the hour are, however, hasten- 
 ing on, when the image shall be shaken fi'om 
 its pedestal by the tempest of Jehovah's de- 
 scending vengeance, its altars shall be over- 
 tm'ned, and the worsliipers terribly convinc- 
 ed that ^vithout the favour of the Almighty God 
 there is no wisdom m man! But," continued 
 this impassioned orator, " fi'om the woes and 
 the crimes of Europe let us turn aside our 
 eyes; let us turn from the worshipers of Com- 
 merce, clinging round their idols of gold and 
 silver, and, amidst the wrath, tlie storm, and 
 the thunder, endeavouring to support them; 
 let us not look at the land of blasphemies; 
 for in the crasMng of engines, the gusliing of 
 blood, and tlie sliiieking of wtnesses more to
 
 be pitied than the victims, the activity of God's 
 purifying displeasure will be heard; while 
 turning our eyes towards the mountains of 
 this new world, the forests shall be seen fa- 
 ding away, cities rising along the shores, and 
 the terrified nations of Europe flying out of 
 the smoke and burning to find refiige here." 
 All his auditors were deeply affected, particu- 
 larly Mrs. West, who was taken with the pains 
 of labour on the spot. The meeting was bro- 
 ken up; the women made a cirde round her 
 as they carried her home, and such was the 
 agitation into wliich she was throwTi, that the 
 consequences had nearly proved fatal both to 
 the mother and the infant. 
 
 VIIL This occurrence naturally excited 
 much attention, and became the subject of 
 general conversation. It made a deep impres- 
 sion on the mind of Mr. West, who could not 
 devest himself of a feeling that it indicated 
 sometliing extraordinary in the future for- 
 tunes of his cliild; and when Peckover, soon 
 
 /
 
 18 
 
 aftei^ards, on his leaving that part of the 
 country, paid liun a farewell \isit, he took an 
 opponunity of introducing tlie subject. The 
 warm miagination of the preacher eagerly 
 sjTiipatliised ^vitli the feelings of his Mend. 
 He took him by the hand, and, with empha- 
 tic solemnit}'. said, that a cliild sent into the 
 world under such remarkable cuxumstances 
 would prove no ordinaiy man; and he char- 
 ged liim to watch over the boy's character 
 with the utmost degi'ee of paternal solici- 
 tude. It ^^ill appear in the sequel, that tliis 
 singulai^ admonition was not lost on Mr. 
 West. 
 
 IX. The first six years of Benjamin's life 
 passed away in calm uniformity; leaving 
 only the placid remembrance of enjoyment 
 In the montli of June, 1745, one of his sis- 
 ters, who had been manied some time be- 
 fore, and who had a daughter, came with 
 her infant to spend a few days at her father's. 
 When the child was asleep in the cradle, Mrs.
 
 19 
 
 West invited her daughter to gather flowers 
 in the garden, and committed the infant to 
 the care of Benjamin dming their absence; 
 giving him a fan to flap away the flies fi'om 
 molesting his Uttle charge. After some time 
 the chUd happened to smile in its sleep, and 
 its beauty. attracted his attention. He looked at 
 it with a pleasure which he had never before 
 experienced, and obsemng some paper on a 
 table, together with pens and red and black 
 ink, he seized them with agitation and endea- 
 voured to delineate a portrait: although at 
 this period he had never seen an engraving 
 or a picture, and was only in the seventh 
 year of his age. 
 
 Hearing the approach of his mother and 
 sister, he endeavoured to conceal what he 
 had been doing; but the old lady observing 
 his confusion, inquired what he was about, 
 and requested him to show her the paper. 
 He obeyed, entreating her not to be angry. 
 Mrs. West, after looking some time at the
 
 to 
 
 drawing wth evident pleasure, said to her 
 daughter, '• 1 declare he has made a likeness of 
 little Sally," and kissed Mm with much fond- 
 ness and satisfaction. Tliis encouraged him 
 to say, that if it woidd give her any pleasure, 
 he would make pictures of the flowers which 
 she held in her hand; for the instinct of his 
 genius was now awakened, and he felt that 
 he could imitate the forms of those things 
 which pleased liis sight. 
 
 This curious incident deserves considera- 
 tion in two points of view. The sketch must 
 have had some merit, since the likeness was 
 so ob\4ous, indicating how early the hand of 
 the young artst possessed the power of re- 
 presenting the obsenations of his eye. But 
 it is still more remarkable as the birth of the 
 ^ fine arts in the new world, and as one of 
 tlie few instances in tlie history of ai% in 
 which the fii-st insph^tion of genius can be 
 distinctly ti'aced to a paiticular chxumstance. 
 The di^awing was shown by Mi^. West to hei'
 
 husband, who, remembering the prediction of 
 Peckover, was delighted with tliis early indica- 
 tion of talent in his son. But the fact, though 
 in itself very curious, will appear still more 
 remarkable, when the state of the country at 
 that period, and the peculiar manners of the 
 quakers, are taken into consideration. 
 
 X. The institutions of William Penn had 
 been sacredly preserved by the descendants 
 of the first settlers, with whom the remem- 
 brance of the causes which had led their an- 
 cestors to forsake their native country, was 
 cherished like the traditions of religion, and 
 became a motive to themselves, for indulg-' 
 ing in the exercise of those blameless prin- 
 ciples, which had been so obnoxious to the 
 arrogant spirit of the old world. The associ- 
 ates of the Wests and the Pearsons, consider- 
 ed the patriarchs of Pennsylvania as having 
 been driven fi'om England, because then' en- 
 deavours to regulate their conduct by the 
 example of Jesus Christ, moiUfted the tem-
 
 poral pretensions of those who satisfied them- 
 selves witli attempting to repeat Ms doc- 
 tiines; and they thought that the asylum m 
 America was chosen, to facilitate tlie enjoy- 
 ment of that affectionate mtercom'se which 
 their tenets enjoined, free fi^om the military 
 predilections and poUtical jealousies of Eu- 
 rope. The effect of tliis opinion tended to pro- 
 duce a state of society more peaceful and 
 pleasing than the world had ever before ex- 
 hibited. When the American poets shall in 
 future times celebrate the golden age of their 
 country, they wiU draw theu' descriptions 
 from the authentic history of Pennsylvania 
 in the reign of king George the second. 
 
 From the first emigi'ation in 1681, the co- 
 lony had continued to tluive with a rapidity 
 unknown to the other European settlements. 
 It was blessed in the maxims upon which it 
 had been founded by WilUam Penn, and 
 richlv exliibited the fruits of then- beneficent 
 operation. At the bhth of Benjamui West
 
 S3 
 
 it had obtained great wealth, and the popu- 
 lation was increasing much more vigorously 
 than the ordinary re-production of the hu- 
 man species in any other part of the world. 
 In the houses of the principal families, the 
 patricians of the country, unlimited hospita- 
 lity formed a pail of their regular economy. 
 It was the custom among those who resided 
 near the highways, after supper and the last 
 reUgious exercise of the evening, to make a 
 large fire in the hall, and to set out a table 
 with refreshments for such travellers as might 
 have occasion to pass during the night; and 
 when the families assembled in the morn- 
 ing they seldom found that their tables had 
 been unvisited. This was particularly the 
 case at Springfield. Poverty was never heard 
 of in the land. The disposition to common / 
 charity having no objects, was blended with 
 the domestic affections, and rendered the 
 ties of friendship and kindred stronger and 
 dearer. Acts of hberahty were frequently 
 performed to an extent tliat would have
 
 bewared the munificence of the old world. 
 With all these deUghtful indications of a bet- 
 ter order of things, society in Pennsylvania 
 retained, at this time, many of those respect- 
 able prejudices wliich give a venerable grace 
 to manners, and are regarded by the practi- 
 cal philosopher as little inferior in dignity 
 to the wtues. WilUam Penn was proud of 
 his distinguished parentage, and many of his 
 filends traced their lineage to the ancient 
 and noble families of England. In their de- 
 scendants the pride of ancestry was so tem- 
 pered with the meekness of their reUgious 
 tenets, that it lent a kind of patriarchal dig- 
 nity to their benevolence. In beautiful con- 
 trast to the systematic morality of the new 
 inhabitants, was the simpUcity of the Indians, 
 who mingled safe and harmless among the 
 friends; and in the annual visits which they 
 were in the practice of paying to the plan- 
 tations, they raised their huts in the fields 
 and orchards without asking leave, nor were 
 thev ever molested. Voltaire has obsei^ved.
 
 «5 
 
 that the treaty which was concluded between 
 the Indians and William Penn was the first 
 public contract which connected the inhabi- 
 tants of the old and new world together, 
 and, though not ratified by oaths, and with- 
 out invoking the Trinity, is still the only 
 treaty that has never been broken. It mayv 
 be fiirther said, that Pennsylvania is the first 
 country which has not been subdued by the 
 sword, for the inhabitants were conquered 
 by the force of Christian benevolence. 
 
 When the great founder of the state mark- 
 ed out the site of Philadelphia in the woods, 
 he allotted a piece of ground for a public 
 library. It was his opinion, that although 
 the labour of clearing the country would 
 long employ the settlers, hours of relaxa- 
 tion would still be requisite; and, with his 
 usual sagacity, he judged that the reading of 
 books was more conducive to good morals 
 and to the formation of just sentiments, than 
 any other species of amusement. The dif-
 
 26 
 
 ferent counties aftei'wards instituted libra- 
 ries, wliichthe to^vnships have also imitated: 
 where the population was insufficient to es- 
 tablish a large collection of books, the neigh- 
 bouring famihes formed themselves into 
 societies for procuring the popidar pubUca- 
 tions. But in these arrangements for cul- 
 tivating the powers of the understanding, no 
 pro\ision was made, during tlie reign of 
 George the second, for impro\ing the facul- 
 ties of taste. The works of which the hbra- 
 ries then consisted, treated of useful and 
 practical subjects. It was the policy of the 
 Quakers to make mankind wiser and better; 
 and they thought that, as the passions are 
 the springs of all moral evil when in a state 
 of excitement, whatever tends to awaken 
 them is unfavourable to that placid tenour 
 of mind wliich they \vished to see diffused 
 throughout the world. This notion is pru- 
 dent, perhaps judicious; but works of imagi- 
 nation may be rendered subservient to the 
 same pm^pose. Every tiling in Pennsylvania
 
 ^7 
 
 was thus unpropitious to the fine arts. There 
 were no cares in the bosoms of indmduals 
 to require pubUe diversions, nor any emu- 
 lation in the expenditure of wealth to en- 
 courage the ornamental manufactures. In 
 the whole Christian world no spot was ap- 
 parently so unlikely to produce a painter as 
 Pennsylvania. It might, indeed, be suppos- 
 ed, according to a popular opinion, that a 
 youth, reared among the concentrating 
 elements of a new state, in the midst of 
 boundless forests, tremendous waterfalls, 
 and mountains whose summits were inac- 
 cessible to " the lightest foot and wildest 
 wing," was the most favourable situation to 
 imbibe the enthusiasm either of poetry or 
 painting, if scenery and such accidental cir- 
 cumstances are to be regarded as every 
 thing, and original character as nothing. But 
 it may reasonably be doubted if ever natural 
 scenery has any assignable influence on the 
 productions of genius. The idea has pro- 
 bably arisen from the impression which the
 
 28 
 
 magnificence of nature makes on persons of 
 cultivated minds, who fall into the mistake 
 of considering the elevated emotions arising 
 in reaUty from their own associations, as 
 being naturally connected vrith the objects 
 that excite them. Of all the nations of 
 Europe the Swiss are tlie least poetical, and 
 yet tlie scenery of no other country seems 
 so well calculated as that of Switzerland to 
 aw^aken the imagination; and Shakspeare, 
 the gi'eatest of all modern poets, was brought 
 up in one of the least picturesque districts of 
 England. 
 
 XI. Soon after tlie occurrence of the inci- 
 dent wliich has given rise to these observa- 
 tions, the young aitist was sent to a school 
 in the neighbourhood. During his hours of 
 leisure he was permitted to draw with pen 
 and ink; for it did not occur to any of the 
 family to provide him witli better materials. 
 In tlie course of the summer a party of In- 
 dians came to pay their annual visit to
 
 so 
 
 Springfield, and being amused with the 
 sketches of birds and flowers which Benja- 
 min showed them, they taught him to 
 prepare the red and yellow colours with 
 which they painted their ornaments. To 
 these his mother added blue, by giving him 
 a piece of indigo, so that he was thus put in 
 possession of the three primary colours. 
 The fancy is disposed to expatiate on this 
 interesting fact; for the mythologies of an- 
 tiquity furnish no allegory more beautiful; 
 and a painter who would embody the meta- 
 phor of an artist instructed by Nature, could 
 scarcely imagine any thing more picturesque 
 than the real incident of the Indians instruct- 
 ing West to prepare the prismatic colours. 
 The Indians also taught liim to be an expeil 
 archer, and he was sometimes in the practice 
 of shooting birds for models, when he thought 
 that their plumage would look well in a pic- 
 ture.
 
 30 
 
 XII. His drawngs at length attracted the 
 attention of the neighbours; and some of 
 them happening to regret that the artist had 
 no pencils, he inquired what kind of things 
 these were, and they were described to him 
 as small brushes made of camels' hair fast- 
 ened in a quill. As there were, however, no 
 camels in America, he could not think of 
 any substitute, till he happened to cast his 
 eyes on a black cat, the favourite of his fa- 
 ther; when, in the tapering fur of her tail, 
 he discovered the means of supplying what 
 he wanted. He immediately armed himself 
 with his mother's scissors, and, laying hold 
 of Grimalkin with all due caution, and a pro- 
 per attention to her feelings, cut off the far 
 at the end of her tail, and with this made his 
 first pencil. But the tail only farnished him 
 with one, which did not last long, and he 
 soon stood in need of a further supply. He 
 then had recourse to the animal's back, his 
 depredations upon which were so frequent- 
 ly repeated, that his fatlier obsei-ved the al-
 
 31 
 
 tered appearance of his favourite, and la- 
 mented it as the effect of disease. The artist, 
 with suitable marks of contrition, informed 
 him of the true cause; and the old gentle- 
 man was so much amused with his ingenui- ^ 
 ty, that if he rebuked him, it was certainly 
 not in anger. 
 
 Anecdotes of this kind, trifling as they 
 may seem, have an interest independent of 
 the insight they afford into the character to 
 which they relate. It will often appear, upon 
 a careful study of authentic biography, that 
 the means of giving body and effect to their 
 conceptions, are rarely withheld from men 
 of genius. If the circumstances of Fortune 
 are unfavourable, Nature instructs them to 
 draw assistance immediately from herself, 
 by endowing them with the faculty of per- 
 ceiving a fitness and correspondence in 
 things which no force of reasoning, founded 
 on the experience of others, could enable 
 them to discover. This aptness is, perhaps,
 
 32 
 
 the surest indication of the possession of ori- 
 ginal talent. There are minds of a high class 
 to which the world, in the latitude of its ex- 
 pressions, often ascribes genius, but which 
 possess only a superior capacity for the ap- 
 phcation of other men's notions, unconnect- 
 ed with any unusual portion of the inventive 
 faculty. 
 
 XIII. In the following year Mr. Penning- 
 ton, a merchant of Philadelphia, who was re- 
 lated to the West family, came to pay a visit 
 to Mr. West. This gentleman was also a 
 member of the society of Mends, and, though 
 strictly attentive to the peculiar observances 
 of the sect, was a man of pleasant temper 
 and indulgent dispositions. He noticed the 
 drawings of bh ds and flowers round the room^ 
 unusual ornaments in the house of a quaker,- 
 and heard with surpiise that they were the 
 work of Ms httle cousin. Of their merit as 
 pictures he did not pretend to be a judge, but 
 he thought them wonderful productions for
 
 a boy only entering on his eighth year, and 
 being told with what imperfect materials they 
 had been executed, he promised to send the 
 young artist a box of paints and pencils from 
 the city. On his return home he fulfilled 
 his engagement, and at the bottom of the 
 box placed several pieces of canvass prepar- 
 ed for the easel, and six engravings by Grev- 
 iing. 
 
 XIV. The arrival of the box was an sera 
 in the history of the painter and his art. It 
 was received with feelings of delight, wliich 
 only a similar mind can justly appreciate. 
 He opened it, and in the colours, the oils, and 
 the pencils, found all his wants supplied, even 
 beyond his utmost conceptions. But who can 
 describe the surprise with which he beheld 
 the engravings; he who had never seen any 
 picture but his own dravrtngs, nor knew that 
 such an art as the engraver's existed! He sat 
 over the box with enamoured eyes; his mind * 
 was in a flutter of joy; and he could not re- 
 
 E
 
 34 
 
 train from constantly toucliing the different 
 aiticles, to ascertain that they were real. At 
 night he placed the box on a chair near his 
 bed, and as often as he was overpowered by 
 sleep, he started suddenly and stretched out 
 his hand to satisfy himself that the posses- 
 sion of such a treasure was not merely a 
 pleasing dream. He rose at the dawn of day, 
 and carried the box to a room in the garret, 
 where he spread a canvass, prepared a pal- 
 let, and immediately began to imitate the 
 figures in the engi^avings. Enchanted by his 
 art he forgot the school hours, and joined the 
 family at dinner without mentioning the em- 
 ployment in which he had been engaged. In 
 the afternoon he again retired to his study 
 in the garret; and for several days succes- 
 sively he thus withdrew and devoted himself 
 to painting. The schoolmaster, observing his 
 absence, sent to ask the cause of it. Mrs. 
 West, affecting not to take any particular no- 
 tice of the message, recollected that she had 
 seen Benjamin going up stairs every morn-
 
 S5 
 
 ing, and suspecting that the box occasioned 
 his neglect of the school, went to the garret, 
 and found him employed on the picture. Her 
 anger was appeased by the sight of his per- 
 formance, and changed to a very different 
 feeling. She saw, not a mere copy, but a 
 composition from two of the engravings: 
 with no other guide than that delicacy of sight 
 which renders the painter's eye, with respect 
 to colours, what the musician's ear is to 
 sounds, he had formed a picture as complete, 
 in the scientific arrangement of the tints, 
 notwithstanding the necessary imperfection 
 of the pencilling, as the most skilful artist 
 could have painted, assisted by the precepts 
 of Newton. She kissed him with transports 
 of affection, and assured liim that she woidd 
 not only intercede with his father to pardon*" 
 him for having absented himself from school, 
 but would go herself to the master, and beg 
 that he might not be punished. The delight- 
 ful encouragement which this well-judged * 
 kindness afforded to the young painter may
 
 36 
 
 be easUy imagined; but who will not regret 
 that the mother's over-anxious admiration 
 would not suffer him to finish the picture, 
 lest he should spoil what was ah eady in her 
 opinion perfect, even with half the canvass 
 bare? Sixty-seven years aftei^wards the wiiter 
 of these memou^s had the gratification to see 
 this piece in the same room wth the sublime 
 painting of " Cliiist Rejected," on which oc- 
 casion the painter declared to him that there 
 were inventive touches of art in his first and 
 juvenile essay, wliich, with aU his subsequent 
 knowledge and experience, he had not been 
 ' able to sm'pass.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. The artist visits Philadelphia. II. His second picture. HI. William* 
 
 the painter gives him the works of Fresnoy and Richardson. IV. An- 
 ecdote of the tailor's apprentice. V. The drawings of the schoolboys. 
 IV. Anecdote relative to Wayne. VII. Anecdote relative to Mr. 
 Flower. VIII. Anecdote relative to Mr. Ross. IX. Anecdote of Mr. 
 Henry. X. The artist's first historical picture. XI. Origin of his ac- 
 quaintance with Dr. Smith of Philadelphia. XII. The friendship of 
 Dr. Smith, and the character of the early companions of West. XIII. 
 Anecdote of general Washington. 
 
 I. In the course of a few days after the 
 affair of the painting, Mr. Pennington paid 
 another visit to Mr. West; and was so liigh- 
 ly pleased with the effect of his present, and 
 the promising talents of Ms young relation, 
 that he entreated the old gentleman to allow 
 Benjamin to accompany him for a few days to 
 Philadelphia. This was cheerfully agreed to, 
 and the artist felt himself almost as much 
 deUghted with the journey as with the box 
 of colours. Every thing in the town filled 
 him with astonishment; but the view of the
 
 38 
 
 shipping, wliich was entirely new, particu- 
 larly attracted his eye, and interested him 
 like the imaginary spectacles of magic. 
 
 II. When the first emotions of his pleasm'e 
 and wonder had subsided, he applied to Mr. 
 Pennington to procure him materials for 
 painting. That gentleman was desirous of 
 getting possession of the first picture, and 
 had only resigned what he jocularly alleged 
 were his just claims, in consideration of the 
 mother's feeUngs, and on being assured that 
 the next picture should be purposely paint- 
 ed for him. The materials were procured, 
 and the arfst composed a landscape, which 
 comprehended a picturesque \iew of a river, 
 with vessels on the water, and cattle pastur- 
 ing on the banks. While he was engaged in 
 this picture, an incident occurred which, 
 though trivial in itself, was so much in uni- 
 son with the other circumstances that favour- 
 ed the bent of his genius, that it ought not to 
 be omitted.
 
 29 
 
 III. Samuel Shoemaker,* an intimate friend 
 of Mr. Pennington, one of the principal mer- 4 
 chants of Philadelpliia, happened to meet in 
 the street with one Williams, a painter, car- 
 rying home a picture. Struck by the beauty 
 of the performance, he inquired if it was in- 
 tended for sale, and being told that it was al- 
 ready disposed of, he ordered another to be 
 painted for himself. When the painting was 
 finished, he requested the artist to carry it 
 to Mr. Pennington's house, in order that it 
 might be shown to young West. It was veiy 
 well executed, and the boy was so much as- 
 tonished at the sight of it, that his emotion 
 and surprise attracted the attention of Wil- 
 liams, who was a man of observation, and 
 judged correctly in thinking that such an un- 
 common manifestation of sensibility in so 
 young a boy, indicated something extraordi- 
 nary in his character. He entered into con- 
 versation with him, and inquired if he had 
 
 * This gentleman was afterwards introduced by Mr. 
 West to the king, at Windsor, as one of the American loy- 
 alists.
 
 read any books, or the lives of great men. 
 The little amateur told liim that he had read 
 the Bible, and was well acquainted with the 
 history of Adam, Joseph, David, Solomon, and 
 the other gixat and good men whose actions 
 are recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Williams 
 was much pleased with the simpUcity of the 
 answer; and it might have occurred to him 
 that histories more interesting have never 
 been written, or written so well. Turning to 
 Mr. Pennington, who was present, he asked 
 if Benjamin was his son; advising him at the 
 same time to indulge him in whatever might 
 appear to be the bent of his talents, assuring 
 him that he was no common boy. 
 
 Tills interview was afterwards much spo- 
 ken of by WiUiams, who in the mean time 
 lent him the works of Fresnoy and Richardson 
 on painting, and invited liim to see his pic- 
 tures and drawings. The impression which 
 these books made on the imagination of West 
 finally decided Ms destination. He was allow-
 
 41 
 
 ed to carry them with him into the country; 
 and his father and mother, soon perceiving a 
 great change in his conversation, were refer- 
 red to the books for an explanation of the 
 cause. They read them for the first time 
 themselves, and treasuring in then- minds 
 those anecdotes of the indications of the early 
 symptoms of talent with which both works 
 abound, they remembered the prophetic in- 
 junction of Edmund Peckover. 
 
 IV. The effect of the enthusiasm inspired 
 by Richardson and Fresnoy may be conceiv- 
 ed fi'om the following incident. Soon after 
 the young artist had returned to Springfield, 
 one of his schoolfellows, on a Saturday's half 
 holiday, engaged him to give up a party at 
 trap-ball to ride with him to one of the neigh- 
 bouring plantations. At the time appointed 
 the boy came, vrtth the horse saddled. West 
 inquired how he was to ride; " Behind me,*' 
 said the boy; but Benjamin, fiill of the dignity 
 of the profession to which he felt himself des-
 
 vy 
 
 42 
 
 tined, ansv/ered, that he never would ride be- 
 liiiid any body. " 0! very well then," said the 
 good-natured boy, '• you may take the saddle, 
 and I ^^ill get up behind you." Thus mount- 
 ed, they proceeded on their excursion; and 
 the boy began to inform his companion that 
 liis father intended to send liim to be an ap- 
 prentice. " In what business?" inqim^ed West; 
 "a tailor," answered the boy. '• Surely," said 
 West, " you ^vill never follow that trade;" 
 animadveiUng upon its feminine character. 
 The other, however, was a slirewd, sound- 
 headed lad, and defended tlie election veiy 
 stoutly, saying that liis father had made choice 
 of it for Mm, and that tlie person with whom 
 he was to learn the business was much re- 
 spected by all his neighbours. " But what do 
 you intend to be, Benjamin?" West answered, 
 that he, had not thought at all on tlie subject, 
 but he should hke to be a painter. "A 
 painter!" exclaimed the boy, " what sort of a 
 ti'ade is a painter? I never heai'd of such a 
 thing." "A painter," said W^est, " is a com-
 
 43 
 
 pardon for kings and emperors." '• Surely 
 you are mad," replied the boy, "for there 
 are no such people in America." "Very 
 true," answered Benjamin, "but there are 
 plenty in other parts of the world." The 
 other, still more amazed at the apparent ab- 
 surdity of this speech, reiterated in a tone of 
 greater surprise, " you are surely quite mad." 
 To this the enthusiast replied by asking liim 
 if he really intended to be a tailor. " Most 
 certainly," answered the other. " Then you 
 may ride by yourself, for I will no longer 
 keep your company," said West, and, aUght- 
 ing, immediately returned home. 
 
 V. The report of this incident, mth the 
 affair of the picture, which had occasioned 
 his absence from school, and visit to Philadel- 
 phia, made a great impression on the boys in 
 the neighbourhood of Springfield. All their 
 accustomed sports were neglected, and their 
 play-hours devoted to di^awing with chalk and 
 oker. The little president was confessedly
 
 44 
 
 the most expert among them, but he has 
 often since declared, that, according to Ms 
 recollection* many of his juvenile compa- 
 nions evinced a degree of taste and skill in 
 this exercise, that would have done no dis- 
 credit to the students of any regular academy. 
 
 VI. Not far from the residence of Mr. 
 West a cabinet-maker had a shop, in which 
 Benjamin sometimes amused himself with 
 the tools of the workmen. One day several 
 large and beautiful boards of poplar tree were 
 brought to it; and he happening to observe 
 that they would answer very well for di^aw- 
 ing on, the owner gave him two or three of 
 them for that purpose, and he drew figures 
 and compositions on them with ink, chalk, 
 and charcoal. Mr. Wayne, a gentleman of 
 the neighbourhood, ha\ing soon after occa- 
 sion to call at his father's, noticed the boards 
 in the rooiti, and was so much pleased with 
 the drawings, that he begged the young aiiist 
 to allow him to take two or three of them
 
 45 
 
 home, which, as but little value was set on 
 them, was thought no great favour, either by 
 the painter or his father. Next day Mr. 
 Wayne called again, and after compliment- 
 ing Benjamin on his taste and proficiency, 
 gave him a dollar for each of the boards 
 which he had taken away, and was resolved 
 to preserve. And doctor Jonathan Moris, an- 
 other neighbour, soon after, also made him 
 a present of a few dollars to buy materials 
 to paint with. These were the first public 
 patrons of the artist; and it is at his own re- 
 quest that their names are thus particularly 
 inserted. 
 
 VII. About twelve months after the visit 
 to Philadelphia, Mr. Flower, one of the jus- 
 tices of the county of Chester, who possessed 
 some taste in painting, requested Mr. West to 
 allow Benjamin to spend a few weeks at his 
 house. A short time before, this gentleman 
 had met with a severe domestic misfortune in 
 the loss of a wife, to whom he was much at-
 
 46 
 
 tached; and he resolved to show his respect 
 to Her memory by devoting his attention ex- 
 clusively to tlie improvement of his children: 
 for this purpose he had sent to England for a 
 governess qualified to undertake the educa- 
 tion of his daughters, and he had tlie good 
 fortune to obtain a lady eminently fitted for 
 the trust. She arrived a few days only before 
 the young artist, and her natural discernment 
 enabled her to appreciate that original bias of 
 mind which she had heard ascribed to him, 
 and of which she soon perceived the deter- 
 mination and the strength. Finding him unac- 
 quainted Avith any other books than the Bible, 
 and the works of Richardson and Fresnoy, she 
 frequently in>dted him to sit with her pupils, 
 and, during the inten als of their tasks, she 
 read to liim the most stiiking and pictm^esque 
 passages fi'om translations of the ancient his- 
 torians and poetry, of wMch Mr. Flower had 
 a choice and extensive collection. It was fi^om 
 this intelligent woman that he heard, for the 
 ^ first time, of tlie Greeks and Romansj and the
 
 47 
 
 impression which the story of those illustri- 
 ous nations made on his mind, was answerable 
 to her expectations. 
 
 VIII. Among the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Flower was a Mr. Ross, a lawyer in the town 
 of Lancaster, a place at that time remarkable 
 for its wealth, and wliich had the reputation 
 of possessing the best and most intelligent so- 
 ciety to be then found in America. It was 
 chiefly inhabited by Germans, who of all peo- 
 ple in the practice of emigrating, carry along 
 with them the gi'eatest stock of knowledge 
 and accomplishments. The society of Lancas- 
 ter, therefore, though it could not boast of any 
 very distinguished character, yet comprehend- 
 ed many individuals who were capable of ap- 
 preciating the merit of essays in art, and of 
 discriminating the rude efforts of real genius 
 from the more complete productions of xnere 
 mechanical skill. It was exactly in such a 
 place that such a youth as Benjamin West 
 was likely to meet with tliat flattering atten-
 
 48 
 
 tion which is the best stimulus of juvenile ta- 
 lent. The wife of Mr. Ross was greatly admi- 
 red for her beauty, and she had several cliil- 
 dren who were so remarkable in this respect 
 as to be objects of general notice. One day 
 when Mr. Flower was dining with them, he 
 advised his friend to have their portraits 
 taken; and mentioned that they would be ex- 
 cellent subjects for young West. Application 
 was in consequence made to old Mr. West, 
 and permission obtained for the little artist to 
 go to Lancaster for the purpose of taking the 
 Ukenesses of Mrs. Ross and her family. Such 
 was the success with which he executed this 
 task, that the sphere of liis celebrity was 
 greatly enlarged; and so numerous were the 
 appUcations for portraits, that it was with dif- 
 ficulty he could find time to satisfy the de- 
 mands of his admirers. 
 
 IX. Among those who sent to him in this 
 early stage of his career, was a person of the 
 name of William Henry. He was an able me-
 
 49 
 
 chanic, and had acquired a handsome fortune 
 by his profession of a gunsmith. Henry was, 
 indeed, in several respects, an extraordinary 
 man, and possessed the power generally at- 
 tendant upon genius under all circumstances, 
 that of interesting the imagination of those 
 with whom he conversed. On examining the 
 young artist's performance, he observed to 
 him, that, if he could paint as well, he would 
 not waste his time on portraits, but would de- 
 vote himself to historical subjects^ and he ^ 
 mentioned the death of Socrates as affording 
 one of the best topics for illustrating the 
 moral effect of the art of painting. The 
 painter knew nothing of the history of the 
 philosopher; and, upon confessing his igno- 
 rance, Mr. Henry went to his library, and, 
 taking down a volume of the English trans- 
 lation of Plutarch, read to him the account 
 given by that writer of this affecting story. 
 
 X. The suggestion and description 
 wrought upon the imagination of West, and '
 
 50 
 
 induced him to make a drawng, which he 
 showed to Mr. Henry, who commended it 
 as a perspicuous dehneation of the probable 
 circumstances of the event, and requested 
 him to pamt it. West said that he Avould be 
 happy to undertake the task, but, ha\ing hi- 
 therto painted only faces and men clothed, 
 he]should be unable to do justice to the figure 
 of the slave who presented the poison, and 
 which he thought ought to be naked. Henry 
 had among his workmen a very handsome 
 young man, and, without waiting to answer 
 the objection, he sent for him into the room. 
 On his entrance he pointed him out to West, 
 and said, "there is your model." The ap- 
 pearance of the young man, wliose arms and 
 breast were naked, instantaneously convinc- 
 ed the ailist tliat he had only to look into na- 
 ture for the models which would impart 
 grace and energy to liis dehneation of forms. 
 
 XI. Wlien the death of Socrates was finish- 
 ed, it attracted much attention, and led to
 
 61 
 
 one of those fortunate acquaintances by 
 which the subsequent career of the artist has 
 been so happily facilitated. About this period 
 the inhabitants of Lancaster had resolved to 
 erect a public grammar-school; and doctor 
 Smith, the provost of the college at Pliiladel- 
 phia, was invited by them to arrange the 
 course of instruction, and to place the insti- 
 tution in the way best calculated to answer 
 the intention of the founders. This gentle- 
 man was an excellent classical scholar, and 
 combined with his knowledge and admira- 
 tion of the merits of the ancients that libe- 
 rality of respect for the endeavours of mo- 
 dern talent, with which the same kind of 
 feeling is but rarely found connected. After 
 seeing the picture and conversing with the 
 artist, he offered to undertake to make him 
 to a certain degree acquainted with classical 
 literature; while at the same time he would *' 
 give him such a sketch of the taste and cha- ' 
 racter of the spirit of antiquity, as would 
 have all the effect of the regular education
 
 52 
 
 requisite to a painter. When this liberal pro- 
 posal was communicated to old Mr. West, he 
 readily agreed that Benjamin should go for 
 some time to Philadelphia, in order to take 
 advantage of the provost's instructions; and 
 accordingly, after returning home for a fev^r 
 days, Benjamin went to the capital, and 
 resided at the house of Mr. Clarkson, his 
 brother-in-law, a gentleman who had been 
 educated at Leyden, and was much respected 
 for the intelligence of his conversation, and 
 • the propriety of his manners. 
 
 XII. Provost Smith introduced West, 
 among other persons, to four young men, 
 pupils of his own, whom he particularly re- 
 commended to his acquaintance, as possess- 
 ing endowments of mind greatly superior to 
 the common standard of mankind. One of 
 these was Francis Hopkins, who aftei^ards 
 highly distinguished himself in the early pro- 
 ceedings of the congi^ess of the United States. 
 Thomas Godfrey, the second, died after hav-
 
 53 
 
 ing given the most promising indications of 
 an elegant genius for pathetic and descrip- 
 tive poetry. He was an apprentice to a watch- 
 maker, and had secretly written a poem, 
 which he published anonymously in the Phi- 
 ladelphia newspaper, under the title of the 
 " Temple of Fame." The attention which 
 it attracted, and the encomiums which the 
 provost in particular bestowed on it, induced 
 West, who was in the poet's confidence, to 
 mention to him who was the author. The in- 
 formation excited the alert benevolence of 
 Smith's character, and he lost no time until 
 he had procured the release of Godfrey from 
 his indenture, and a respectable employ- 
 ment for him in the government of the state; 
 but this he did not live long to enjoy; being 
 sent on some public business to Carohna, he 
 fell a victim to the climate. 
 
 XIII. It is pleasant to redeem from obli- 
 vion the memory of early talent thus pre- 
 maturely withdrawn from the world. Many
 
 54 
 
 of Godfi^ey's vei^es were composed under a 
 dump of pines which grew near the upper 
 ferry of the river Schuylkill, to which spot 
 he sometimes accompanied West and their 
 mutual friends to angle. In the heat of the 
 day he used to stretch himself beneath the 
 shade of the ti'ees, and repeat to them his 
 verses as he composed them. Reid was the 
 name of the other young man, and the same 
 person who first opposed the British troops 
 in their passing through Jersey, when the 
 rebellion of the provinces commenced. Pre- 
 vious to tlie revolution, he was bred to the 
 bar, and practised with distinction in the 
 courts of Pliiladelpliia. He was afterwards 
 elected a member of congi^ess, and is the 
 same person who was appointed to meet 
 lord CarUsle on his mission from tlie British, 
 court. 
 
 XrV. Pi'ovost Smith was himself possess- 
 ed of a fluent vein of powerful eloquence, 
 and it happened that many of his pupils who
 
 55 
 
 distinguished themselves in the great strug- 
 gle of their country, appeared to have im- 
 bibed his talent; but none of them more 
 than Jacob Duche, another of the four youths 
 whom he recommended to the artist. He 
 became a clergyman, and was celebrated 
 throughout the whole of the British pro- 
 vinces in America as a most pathetic and 
 persuasive preacher. The publicity of his 
 character in the world was, however, chiefly 
 owing to a letter which he addressed to ge- 
 neral Washington, soon after his appoint- 
 ment to the chief command of the army. 
 The purport of this letter was to persuade 
 the general to go over to the British cause. 
 It was carried to liim by a Mrs. Ferguson, a 
 daughter of Doctor Graham, a Scottish phy- 
 sician in Philadelphia. Washington, with 
 his army, at that time lay at Valley-forge, 
 and tills lady, on the pretext of paying Iiim 
 a visit, as they were previously acquainted, 
 went to the camp. The general received her 
 in his tent with much respect, for he greatly
 
 56 
 
 admired the masculine vigour of her mind. 
 When she had delivered the letter he read 
 it attentively, and, rising from his seat, walk- 
 ed backwards and forwards upwards of an 
 hour, without speaking. He appeared to be 
 much agitated during the gi^eatest part of the 
 time; but at length, having decided with 
 himself, he stopped, and addressed her in 
 nearly the following words : " Madam, I have 
 always esteemed your character and endow- 
 ments, and I am fully sensible of the noble 
 principles by which you are actuated on this 
 occasion; nor has any man in the whole con- 
 tinent more confidence in the integrity of his 
 friend, than I have in the honour of Mr. 
 Duche. But I am here entrusted by the 
 people of America with sovereign authority. 
 They have placed their lives and fortunes at 
 my disposal, because they beheve me to be 
 an honest man. Were I, therefore, to desert 
 their cause, and consign them again to the 
 British, what would be the consequence? to 
 myself perpetual infamy; and to them endless
 
 57 
 
 calamity. The seeds of everlasting divi- 
 sion are sown between the two countries; 
 and, were the British again to become our 
 masters, they would have to maintain their 
 dominion by force, and would, after all, retain 
 us in subjection only so long as they could 
 hold their bayonets to our breasts. No, 
 Madam, the proposal of Mr. Duche, though 
 conceived v^th the best intention, is not 
 framed in wisdom. America and England 
 must be separate states; but they may have 
 common interests, for they are but one people. 
 It will, therefore, be the object of my life 
 and ambition to establish the independence 
 of America in the first place: and in the 
 second, to aiTange such a community of in- 
 terests between the two nations as shall 
 indemnify them for the calamities which 
 they now suffer, and form a new sera in the 
 history of nations. But, Madam, you are 
 aware that I have many enemies; congress 
 may hear of your visit, and of this letter, and 
 T should be suspected were I to conceal it 
 
 H
 
 58 
 
 from them. I respect you truly, as I have 
 said; and I esteem the probity and motives 
 of Mr. Duche, and therefore you are free to 
 depart from the camp, but the letter will be 
 transmitted without delay to confess." 
 
 Mrs. Ferguson herself communicated the 
 circumstances of this interesting transaction 
 to Mr. West, after she came to England; for 
 she, as well as Mr. Duche, were obliged to 
 quit the country. It is painfiil to add, that 
 Duche came to England, and was allowed 
 to pine unnoticed by the government, and 
 was heai'd of no more.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I. The course of instruction adopted by provost Smith. II. The artist 
 led to the discovery of the camera. III. His father becomes anxious 
 to place him in business. IV Extraordinary proceedings of the 
 quakers in consequence. V. The speech of WiUiamson the preacher 
 in defence of the fine arts. VI. Magnanimous resolution of the 
 quakers. VlII. Reflections on this singular transaction. 
 
 I. JL HERE was something so judicious 
 in the plan of study which provost Smith had 
 formed for his pupil, that it deserves to be 
 particularly considered. He regarded him 
 as destined to be a painter; and on this 
 account did not impose upon him those 
 grammatical exercises of language which are 
 usually required from the young student 
 of the classics, but directed his attention to 
 those incidents which were likely to interest 
 his fancy, and to furnish him at some future 
 time with subjects for the easel. He carried 
 him immediately to those passages of ancient 
 history which make the most lasting impres-
 
 60 
 
 sion on the imagination of the regular-bred 
 scholar, and described the pictui'esque cir- 
 cumstances of the transactions with a mi- 
 nuteness of detail that would have been 
 supei^uous to a general student. 
 
 II. In the midst of this course of education, 
 the artist happened to be taken ill of a slight 
 fever, and when it had subsided, he was in so 
 weak a state as to be obliged to keep his 
 bed, and to have the room darkened. In 
 this situation he remained several days, with 
 no other Ught tlian what was admitted by 
 the seams and fissures in the window shut- 
 ters, which had the usual effect of expanding 
 tlie pupil of his eyes to such a degi^ee, that 
 he could distinctly see every object in the 
 room, which to otliers appeared in complete 
 obscurity. ^Yhile he was thus lying in bed, 
 he obsei-ved the apparitional form of a wliite 
 cow enter at tlie one side of the roof, and 
 walking over the bed, gradually vanish at the 
 other. The phenomenon siu^rised liim
 
 exceedingly, and he feared that his mind was 
 impaired by his disease, which his sister also 
 suspected, when on entering to inquire how 
 he felt himself, he related to her what he 
 had seen. Without, however, saying any 
 thing, she went immediately and informed 
 her husband, who accompanied her back to 
 the apartment; and as they were standing 
 near the bed. West repeated the story, ex- 
 claiming in his discourse that he saw, at the 
 very moment in which he was then speaking, 
 several little pigs running along the roof. 
 This confirmed them in the apprehension 
 of his dehrium, and they sent for a physician. 
 But the doctor could discover no symptoms 
 of fever, the pulse lyas regular, the skin 
 moist and cool, the thirst was abated, and 
 indeed every thing about the patient indi- 
 cated convalescence. Still the painter per- 
 sisted in his story, and assured them that 
 he then saw the figures of several of their 
 mutual friends passing on the roof, over the 
 bed; and that he even saw fowls pecking.
 
 63 
 
 and the very stones of the street. All this 
 seemed to them very extraordinary, for their 
 eyes, not accustomed to the gloom of the 
 chamber, could discern nothing, and the 
 learned physician himself, in despite of the 
 symptoms, began to suspect that the con- 
 valescent was really delirious. Prescribing, 
 therefore, a composing mixture, which the 
 painter submitted to swallow, he took his 
 fee and leave, requesting Mrs. Clarkson and 
 her husband to come away and not disturb 
 the patient. After they had retired, curi- 
 osity overcame the influence of the drug, 
 and the artist got up, determined to find out 
 the cause of the strange apparitions which 
 had so alarmed them all. In a short time 
 he discovered a diagonal knot-hole in one 
 of the window shutters, and upon placing 
 his hand over it, the visionary paintings on 
 the roof disappeared. This confirmed him 
 in an opinion that he began to form, that 
 there must be some simple natural cause 
 for what he had seen; and, having thus
 
 63 
 
 ascertained the way in which it acted, he 
 called his sister and her husband into the 
 room and explained it to them. When able 
 to go down stairs, Mr. Clarkson gave him 
 permission to perforate one of the parlour 
 window shutters horizontally, in order to 
 obtain a representation on the waU of the 
 buildings of the opposite side of the street. 
 The effect was as he expected, but, to his 
 astonishment, the objects appeared inverted. 
 Without attempting to remedy this with the 
 aid of glasses, as a mathematical genius 
 would perhaps have done, he was dehghted 
 to see in it the means of studying the pictu- 
 ral appearance of nature, and he hailed the 
 discovery as a revelation to promote liis 
 improvement in the art of painting. On his 
 return soon after to his father's, he had a 
 box made with one of the sides perforated; 
 and, adverting to the reflective power of 
 the mirror, he contrived, vrithout ever 
 having heard of the instrument, to invent 
 the Camera, Thus furnisliing another proof,
 
 64 
 
 that although the faculty which enables a 
 man to excel in any particular art or science 
 is a natural endowment, it is seldom unac- 
 companied with a general superiority of 
 observation. It will, however, not be dis- 
 puted, that a boy under sixteen, who had 
 thus, by the guidance of his own unassisted 
 judgment, found out a method of ascertain- 
 ing the colour and outline of natural objects 
 as they should appear in painting, possessed 
 no ordinary mind. Observations of this 
 nature mark the difference between iimate 
 talent and instructed habits; and, whether in 
 painting, or in poetry, in art, or in science, 
 constitute the source of that peculiarity of 
 intellect wliich is discriminated from the 
 effects of education, by the name of original 
 talent. The self-educated man of genius, 
 when his mind is formed, differs but little in 
 the method of expressing his notions, from 
 the most mechanical disciple of the schools; 
 but the process by wliich he attains that 
 result, renders his history interesting by its
 
 65 
 
 incidents, and valuable by the hints which it 
 furnishes for the study of human character. 
 It is, perhaps, also, one great cause of Ms 
 own distinguishing features of mind, as the 
 very contrivances to which he has recourse 
 have the effect of taking, as it were, some- 
 thing extraneous into the matter of his ex- 
 periments which tinges the product with 
 curious and singular effects. — West, on after- 
 wards mentioning his discovery to Williams 
 the painter, was surprised to find himself 
 anticipated, that artist having received a 
 complete camera some time before from 
 England. 
 
 III. In this favourable state of things he 
 attained his sixteenth year, when his father 
 became anxious to see him settled in some 
 established business. For, though reluctant 
 to thwart the bias of a genius at once so 
 decided and original, and to which the in- 
 junction of Peckover had rendered him 
 favourable and indulgent, the old gentleman
 
 66 
 
 was sensible that the profession of a painter 
 was not only precarious, but regarded by 
 the religious association to which he be- 
 longed, as adverse to tlieh' tenets, by being 
 only ornamental; and he was anxious, on his 
 son's account and on his own, to avoid those 
 animadversions to which he was exposed by 
 the freedom he had hitherto granted to the 
 predilections of Benjamin. He, therefore, 
 consulted several of his neighbom^s on the 
 subject; and a meeting of the society of 
 friends in the vicinity was called, to consider, 
 publicly, what ought to be the destiny of 
 his son. 
 
 IV. The assembly met in the meeting, 
 house near Springfield, and after much 
 debate, approaching to altercation, a man of 
 the name of John Williamson rose, and de- 
 livered a very extraordinaiy speech upon the 
 subject. He was much respected by all 
 present, for the purity and integrity of his 
 life, and enjoyed great influence in his
 
 67 
 
 sphere on account of the superiority of his 
 natural wisdom, and, as a public preacher 
 among the friends, possessed an astonishing 
 gift of convincing eloquence. He pointed 
 to old Mr. West and his wife, and expatiated 
 on the blameless reputation which they had 
 so long maintained, and merited so well. 
 " They have had," said he, " ten children, 
 whom they have carefully brought up in the 
 fear of God, and in the christian religion; 
 and the youth, whose lot in life we are now 
 convened to consider, is Benjamin, their 
 youngest child. It is known to you all that 
 God is pleased, from time to time, to bestow 
 upon some men extraordinary gifts of mind, 
 and you need not be told by how wonderful 
 an inspiration their son has been led to cul- 
 tivate the art of painting. It is true that our 
 tenets deny the utility of that art to mankind. 
 But God has bestowed on the youth a genius 
 for the art, and can we beUeve that Omni- 
 science bestows his gifts but for great pur- 
 poses? What God has given, who shall dare
 
 68 
 
 to throw away? Let us not estimate almighty 
 wisdom by our notions: let us not presume 
 to arraign his judgment by our ignorance, 
 but in the evident propensity of the young 
 man, be assured that we see an impulse of 
 tlie divine hand operating towards some 
 high and beneficent end." 
 
 V. The effect of tliis argument, and the 
 lofty commanding manner in which it was 
 delivered, induced the assembly to agi'ee 
 that the artist should be allowed to indulge 
 the predilections of his genius; and a pri- 
 vate meeting of the fiiends was appointed to 
 be holden at his father's house, at which the 
 youth himself was requested to be present, 
 in order to receive, in form, the assent and 
 blessing of the society. On the day of meet- 
 ing, the great room was put in order, and a 
 numerous company of both sexes assembled. 
 Benjamin was placed by his father, and the 
 men and women took their respective forms 
 on each side. After sitting some tune in
 
 69 
 
 silence, one of the women rose, and ad- 
 dressed the meeting on the wisdom of God, 
 and the various occasions on wliich he se- 
 lected from among his creatures the agents 
 of his goodness. When she had concluded 
 her exhortation, John Williamson also rose, 
 and in a speech than which, perhaps, the 
 porticos of Athens never resounded with a 
 more impressive oratory, he resumed the 
 topic which had been the subject of his 
 former address. He began by observing that 
 it was fixed as one of their indisputable 
 maxims, that things merely ornamental were 
 not necessary to the well-being of man, and 
 that all superfluous things should be ex- 
 cluded from the usages and manners of 
 their society. " In this proscription, we 
 have included," said he, "the study of the 
 fine arts, for we see them applied only to 
 embellish pleasures, and to strengthen our 
 inducements to gratify the senses at the 
 expense of our immortal claims. But, be- 
 cause we have seen painting put to tliis
 
 70 
 
 derogatory use, and have, in consequence, 
 proliibited the cultivation of it among us, ai^e 
 we sure that it is not one of those gi^acious 
 gifts which God has bestowed on the world, 
 not to add to the sensual pleasures of man, 
 but to facihtate his improvement as a social 
 and a moral being? The fine arts are called 
 the offspring and the emblems of peace. The 
 christian religion itself is the doctiine of good 
 will to man. Can those things which only 
 prosper in peace be contrary to the chris- 
 tian religion? But, it is said, that the fine 
 aits soften and emasculate the mind. In 
 what way? Is it by withdi'awing those who 
 study them from the robust exercises which 
 enable nations and people to make war with 
 success? It is by lessening the disposition of 
 mankind to destroy one another, and by 
 taming the audacity of their animal fierce- 
 ness? Is it for such a reason as this, that we 
 who profess to Uve in unison and friendship, 
 not only among ourselves, but with all the 
 world — that we should object to tlie cultiva-
 
 7.1 
 
 tion of the fine arts, of those arts which 
 disarm the natural ferocity of man? We may 
 as well be told that the doctrine of peace and 
 life ought to be proscribed in the world be- 
 cause it is pernicious to the practice of war 
 and slaughter, as that the arts which call on 
 man to exercise his intellectual powers more 
 than his physical strength, can be contrary 
 to chri'^tianity, and adverse to the benevo- 
 lence of the Deity. I speak not, however, of 
 the fine arts as the means of amusement, 
 nor the study of them as pastime to fill up 
 the vacant hours of business, though even as 
 such, the taste for them deserves to be re- 
 garded as a manifestation of divine favour, 
 in as much as they dispose the heart to kind 
 and gentle inclinations. For, I think them 
 ordained by God for some great and holy 
 pui-pose. Do we not know that the profes- 
 sors of the fine arts are commonly men 
 greatly distinguished by special gifts of a 
 creative and discerning spirit? If there be any 
 thing in the usual course of human affairs
 
 7% 
 
 which exhibits the immediate interposition 
 of the Deity, it is in the progi'ess of the fine 
 arts, in wliich it would appear he often raises 
 up those great characters, the spirit of whose 
 imaginations have an interminable influence 
 on posterity, and who are themselves sepa- 
 rated and elevated among the generality of 
 mankind, by the name of men of genius. 
 Can we beUeve that all this is not for some 
 usefiil purpose? What that purpose is, ought 
 we to pretend to investigate? Let us rather 
 reflect that the almighty God has been pleased 
 among us, and in this remote wilderness, to 
 endow, with the rich gifts of a peculiai' sphit, 
 that youth who has now our common con- 
 sent to cultivate his talents for an art, which, 
 according to our humble and human judg- 
 ment, was previously thought an unnecessary 
 ministration to the sensual propensities of our 
 nature. May it be demonstrated by the Ufe 
 and works of the artist, that the gift of God 
 has not been bestowed on him in vain, nor 
 the motives of the beneficient inspiration
 
 73 
 
 which induces us to suspend our particular 
 tenets, prove barren of religious or moral 
 effect. On the contrary, let us confidently 
 hope that this occurrence has been for good, 
 and that the consequences which may arise 
 in the society of this new world, from the 
 example which Benjamin West will be en- 
 abled to give, will be such a love of the arts 
 of peace as shall tend to draw the ties of 
 affection closer, and diffuse over a wider 
 extent of community the interests and bles- 
 sing of fraternal love.'' 
 
 VI. At the conclusion of this address, the 
 women rose and kissed the young Artist, 
 and the men, one by one, laid their hands on 
 his head and prayed that the Lord might 
 verify in his life the value of the gift which 
 had induced them, in despite of their religi- 
 ous tenets, to allow him to cultivate the 
 faculties of his genius.
 
 74 
 
 VII. The history of no other individual 
 affords an incident so extraordinary. Tliis 
 coidd not be called a presentiment, but the 
 result of a clear expectation, that some im- 
 portant consequence would ensue. It may 
 be added that a more beautiful instance of 
 liberality is not to be found in the records of 
 any reUgious society. Hitherto, all sects, 
 even of christians, were disposed to regard, 
 with jealousy and hatred, all those membei^ 
 who embraced any pursuit that might tend 
 to alienate them from their particular modes 
 of discipline. The quakers have, therefore, 
 the honour of having been the first to allow, 
 by a pubUc actv that their conception of the 
 religious duties of man was Uable to the 
 errors of the human judgment, and was not 
 to be maintained on the presumption of being 
 actually according to the will of God. There 
 is something at once simple and venerable 
 in the humility ^th which they regarded 
 their own peculiar principles, especially con- 
 trasted with the subUme \iew they appeared
 
 75 
 
 to take of the wisdom and providence of 
 the Deity. But, with whatever dehghtful 
 feeUngs strangers and posterity may contem- 
 plate this beautiful example of christian mag- 
 nanimity, it would be impossible to convey 
 any idea of the sentiments with which it 
 affected the youth who was the object of its 
 exercise. He must have been less than man 
 had he not endeavoured without ceasing, to 
 attain an honourable eminence in his profes- 
 sion; or, had he forgotten, in the honours 
 wliich he has since received from all polished 
 nations, that he was authorized by his friends 
 and his religion, to cultivate the art by which 
 he obtained such distinctions, not for his own 
 sake, but as an instrument chosen by Provi- 
 dence to disseminate the arts of peace in 
 the world.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 L Reflections on the eccentricities d* young men of genias with respect 
 to pecuniary matters. 11. The death of the Artist's raothcr. III. 
 The embodying of the Pennsylvania Militia; an anecdote of gene- 
 ral Wayne. IV. The Artist elected commandant of a corps of Vo- 
 lunteer boys. V. The circumstances vhich occasioned the search for 
 the bones of Braddock's army. VI. The search. VII. The discoverj 
 of the bones of the father and brother of sir Peter Halket. VIII. The 
 Artist proposed afterwards to paint a picture of the discovery of the 
 bones of the Halkets. IX. He commences regularly as a painter. X. 
 He copies a St. Ignatius. XI. He is induced to attempt historical por- 
 traiture, XII. His picture of the trial of Susannah. XIII. Of the 
 merits of that picture. 
 
 I. 1 HERE is a regardless independence 
 about niinds of superior endowment, which, 
 in similar charactei^s, manifests itself dif- 
 ferently according to the circumstances in 
 which they happen to be placed. Devoted 
 to the contemplation of the means of future 
 celebrity, the man of genius frequently finds 
 himself httle disposed to set a proper value 
 on tlie common mterests of life. When 
 bred in affluence, and exempted fi'om the
 
 77 
 
 necessity of considering the importance of 
 money to the attainment of his object, he is 
 often found, to a blameful degree, negUgent 
 of pecuniary concerns; and, on the contrary, 
 when his situation is such that he may only 
 hope for distinction, by the practice of the 
 most parsimonious frugality, he will as often 
 appear in the social and propeUing season of 
 youth, enduring voluntary privations with 
 an equanimity which the ostentatious fanatic 
 or contrite penitent would in vain attempt to 
 surpass. This peculiar feature of the self- 
 sustained mind of genius, has often been 
 misunderstood, and seldom valued as it ought 
 to be. The presumptuous weak who mis- 
 take the wish of distinction for the workings 
 of talent, admire the eccentricities of the 
 gifted youth who is reared in opulence, and, 
 mistaking the prodigality which is only the 
 effect of his fortune, for the attributes of his 
 talents, imitate his errors, and imagine that, 
 by copying the blemishes of his conduct, 
 they possess what is illustrious in his mind.
 
 78 
 
 Such men are incapable of appreciating the 
 self-denial which Benjamin West made it a 
 duty to impose upon himself on entering 
 the world; but those who are truly conscious 
 of possessing the means of attracting the 
 admu'ation of their contemporaries and pos- 
 terity, the voluntary abstinence of a youth of 
 genius will afford them delight in the con- 
 templation, even though they may be hap- 
 pily free from the obligation of practising it 
 themselves. 
 
 11. When it was determined among the 
 friends that Benjamin West should be allowed 
 to cultivate the art of painting, he went to 
 Lancaster, but he was hastily reoBed by a 
 severe domestic misfortune. His mother 
 was siezed by a dangerous illness, and being 
 conscious that she could not live long, she 
 requested that he might be sent for home. 
 Benjamin hastily obeyed the summons, but, 
 before he reached the house, her strength 
 was exhausted, and she was only able to
 
 79 
 
 express by her look the satisfaction with 
 which she saw him approach the bed, before 
 she expired. Her funeral, and the distress 
 which the event naturally occasioned to her 
 family, by all of whom she was very tenderly 
 beloved, detained the young artist some time 
 at his father's. About the end of August, 
 in 17'^6, however, he took his final depar- 
 ture, and went to Philadelphia. But, before 
 proceeding with the narrative of his profes- 
 sional career, it is necessary to advert to 
 some of the public transactions of that period, 
 by which his sensibility was powerfully ex- 
 cited. Indeed it will appear throughout the 
 whole of these singular memoirs, that the 
 subject of them was, perhaps, more imme- 
 diately affected by the development of 
 national events, than usually falls to the lot 
 of any individual so little connected with 
 public men, and so far remote from the great 
 thoroughfare of pohtical occurrences. 
 
 III. After the destruction of general Bra- 
 dock's army, the Pennsylvanians being alar-
 
 80 
 
 med at the defenceless state in which they 
 were placed by that calamity, the assembly 
 of the province resolved to embody a militia 
 force; and Mr. Wayne, who has been already 
 mentioned, was appointed colonel of the 
 regiment raised in Chester county. This 
 defensive measm-e announced that the golden 
 age of the country was past, and the change 
 felt by the peaceful quakers indicated an 
 alteration in their harmless manners. West, 
 among others, went to view the first muster 
 of the troops under the command of colonel 
 Wayne, and the sight of men in arms, their 
 purpose and array, warmed his lively ima- 
 gination vrith military enthusiasm. In con- 
 junction with a son of the colonel, a boy of 
 his own age, with whom he had become 
 acquainted, he procured a gun, and deter- 
 mined also to be a soldier. Young Wayne 
 was drilled by the disciplinarians of his fa- 
 ther's corps, and he, in turn, exercised West, 
 who, being more alert and active, soon obtain- 
 ed a decided superiority; but what different
 
 81 
 
 destinies were attached to them! West has 
 attained, in the intellectual discipline of the 
 arts of peace, an enviable reputation; and 
 Wayne, who was inferior to him in the 
 manual of the soldier, became an illustrious 
 commander, and partook, as the companion 
 in arms of Washington, of the glory of 
 having established the independence of 
 America. 
 
 IV. The martial preparations inspired all 
 the youths of Pennsylvania with the love of 
 arms, and diffused the principles of that 
 military spirit which was afterwards exerted 
 with so much effect against the erroneous 
 policy of the mother country. West, soon 
 after his drilling under young Wayne, visited 
 Lancaster; and the boys of that town having 
 formed themselves into a little corps, made 
 choice of him for their commandant. Among 
 others who caught the spirit of the time, 
 was his brother Samuel, who possessed a 
 bold character and an enterprising disposi-
 
 8S 
 
 tion. He was about six years older than 
 the artist, and, being appointed a captain in 
 colonel Wayne's regiment, joined the troops 
 under the command of general Forbes, who 
 was sent to i^epair the disasters which had 
 happened to the unfortunate Bradock. 
 
 V. After the taking of fort Du-Quesne, to 
 which the new name of Pittsburg was given, 
 m compliment to the minister of the day, 
 general Forbes resolved to search for the 
 rehcs of Bradock's ai^my. As the European 
 soldiers were not so well qualified to ex- 
 plore the forests, captain West was appoin- 
 ted, with his company of American sharp- 
 shooters, to assist in the execution of this 
 duty; and a party of Indian warriors, who 
 had returned to the British interests, were 
 requested to conduct him to the places where 
 the bones of the slain were likely to be found. 
 In this solemn and affecting duty several 
 officers belonging to the forty-second regi- 
 ment accompanied tlie detachment, and with
 
 83 
 
 them major sir Peter Halket, who had lost 
 his father and a brother in the fatal destruc- 
 tion of the army. It might have been 
 thought a hopeless task that he should be 
 able to discriminate their remains from the 
 common relics of the other soldiers; but he 
 was induced to think otherwise, as one of 
 the Indian warriors assured him that he had 
 seen an officer fall near a remarkable tree, 
 which he thought he could still discover; 
 informing him at the same time, that the 
 incident was impressed on his memory by 
 observing a young subaltern, who, in run- 
 ning to the officer's assistance, was also shot 
 dead on his reaching the spot, and fell 
 across the other's body. The major had 
 a mournful conviction in his own mind that 
 the two officers were his father and brother, 
 and, indeed, it was chiefly owing to his 
 anxiety on the subject, that this pious expe- 
 dition, the second of the kind that histoiy 
 records, was undertaken.
 
 84 
 
 VI. Captain West and his companions 
 proceeded through the woods and along the 
 banks of the river towards the scene of the 
 battle. The Indians regarded the expedition 
 as a reUgious ser\1ce, and guided the troops 
 with awe, and in profound silence. The 
 soldiers were affected with sentiments not 
 less serious; and as they explored the 
 bewildering labyrinths of those vast forests, 
 their hearts were often melted with inex- 
 pressible sorrow; for they frequently found 
 skeletons Mng across the trunks of fallen 
 trees, a mournful proof to their imaginations 
 that the men who sat there, had perished of 
 hunger, in vainly attempting to find their 
 way to the plantations. Sometimes their 
 feelings were raised to the utmost pitch of 
 horror by the sight of sculls and bones scat- 
 tered on the ground — a certain indication 
 that the bodies had been devoured by wild 
 beasts; and in other places they saw the 
 blackness of ashes amidst the relics, — the 
 tremendous evidence of atrocious rites.
 
 85 
 
 VII. At length they reached a turn of the 
 river not far from the principal scene of 
 destruction, and the Indian who remembered 
 the death of the two officers, stopped; the 
 detachment also halted. He then looked 
 around in quest of some object which might 
 recall, distinctly, his recollection of the 
 ground, and suddenly darted into the wood. 
 The soldiers rested their arms without 
 speaking. A shrill cry was soon after heard; 
 and the other guides made signs for the 
 troops to follow them towards the spot 
 from which it came. In the course of a 
 short time they reached the Indian warrior, 
 who, by his cry, had announced to his com- 
 panions that he had found the place where 
 he was posted on the day of battle. As 
 the troops approached, he pointed to the tree 
 under which the officers had fallen. Cap- 
 tain West halted his men round the spot, 
 and with sir Peter Halket and the other 
 officers, formed a circle, while the Indians 
 removed the leaves which thickly covered
 
 86 
 
 the ground. The skeletons were found, as 
 the Indian expected, lying across each 
 other. The officers having looked at them 
 some time, the major said, that as his father 
 had an artificial tooth, he thought he might 
 be able to ascertain if they were indeed his 
 bones and those of his brother. The In- 
 dians were, therefore, ordered to remove the 
 skeleton of the youth, and to bring to view 
 that of the old officer. This was immedi- 
 ately done, and after a short examination, 
 major Halket exclaimed, "It is my fatheri" 
 and feD back into the arms of his compa- 
 nions. The pioneers then dug a grave, and 
 the bones being laid in it together, a highland 
 plaid was spread over them, and they were 
 interred with the customary honours. 
 
 VIII. When lord Grosvenor bought the 
 picture of the death of Wolfe, Mr. West 
 mentioned to him the finding of the bones 
 of Bradock's army as a pictorial subject 
 capable of being managed with great effisct.
 
 97 
 
 The gloom of the vast forest, the naked and 
 simple Indians supporting the skeletons, the 
 grief of the son on recognising the reUcs of 
 his father, the subdued melancholy of the 
 spectators, and the picturesque garb of the 
 Pennsylvanian sharpshooters, undoubtedly 
 furnished topics capable of every effect which 
 the pencil could bestow, or the imagination 
 require in the treatment of so sublime a 
 scene. His lordship admitted, that in pos- 
 sessing so affecting an incident as the disco- 
 very of the bones of the Halkets, it was 
 superior even to that of the search for the 
 remains of the army of Varus; the transac- 
 tion, however, being little known, and not 
 recorded by any historian, he thought it 
 would not be interesting to the pubhc. Other 
 engagements have since prevented Mr. West 
 from attempting it on his own account. 
 But it is necessary that the regular narrative 
 should be resumed; for the military liistory 
 of the artist terminated when he was recalled 
 home by the last illness of his mother,
 
 88 
 
 although the excitement which the events 
 that led to it occasioned never lost its influ- 
 ence on his mind, especially that of the 
 incident wliich has been described, and which 
 has ever been present to his imagination 
 as one of the most affecting occurrences, 
 whether considered with respect to the 
 feelings of the gentlemen most immediately 
 interested in it, or with respect to the wild 
 and solemn circumstances under which the 
 service was performed. 
 
 IX. On his return to Pliiladelpliia, he again 
 resided with Mr. Clarkson, his brother-in- 
 law; and provost Smith, in the evenings, 
 continued to direct his attention to those 
 topics of literature which were most suitable 
 to cherish the expansion of liis mind, and to 
 enrich his imagination with ideas useful to 
 his profession. Wliile liis leisure lioui-s 
 were thus profitably employed, his reputation 
 as a portrait painter was rapidly extended. 
 His youth, and the peculiar incidents of his
 
 89 
 
 history, attracted many sitters, and his merits 
 verified the recommendations of Ms fiiends. 
 This constancy of employment, no doubt 
 materially tended to his improvement in the 
 manipulation of liis art; for, whatever may 
 be the native force of talent, it is impossible 
 that the possessor can attain excellence by 
 any other means than practice. Facility to 
 express the conceptions of the mind must 
 be acquu^ed before the pen or the pencil can 
 embody them appropriately, and the author 
 who does not execute much, however little 
 he may exhibit, can never expect to do 
 justice to the truth and beauty of his own 
 ideas. West was very soon duly impressed 
 with the justness of this observation; and, 
 while in the execution of his portraits, he 
 was assiduous to acquire a ready knowledge 
 of those characteristic traits wliich have since 
 enabled him to throw so much variety into 
 his compositions; he felt conscious that, with- 
 out seeing better pictures than his own, he 
 could neither ho])e to attain distinction, nor 
 
 M
 
 90 
 
 to appreciate his own peculiar powers. It 
 was this consideration that induced hini to 
 adopt a most rigid system of fiTigality. He 
 looked forward to a period when he might 
 be enabled, by the fruits of his own industiy, 
 to visit the great scenes of the fine ails in 
 Europe; and the care wth which he trea- 
 sured the money that he received for his 
 portraits was rewarded even at the time 
 with the assurance of realizing his expecta- 
 tions. The prices which he fii-st fixed for 
 his portraits, were two guineas and a half for 
 a head, and five guineas for a half length. 
 
 X. After what has already been men- 
 tioned of the state of society in Pennsylvania, 
 it is needless to say that at the period to 
 which these memoirs refer, there were but 
 few pictures in the British plantations; indeed, 
 without any other explanation, all tliat should 
 be contended for by any person who might 
 imagine it necessary to advocate the preten- 
 sions of Benjamin West to be placed in the
 
 91 
 
 list of original and self-instructed artists, 
 would be readily granted, upon stating the 
 single fact, that he was born in Pennsylvania, 
 and did not leave America till the year 1760. 
 At the same time, it might be construed into 
 an injudicious concealment, if it were not 
 mentioned, that governor Hamilton, who, at 
 that period, presided with so much popularity 
 over the affairs of the province, possessed a 
 few pictures, consisting, however, chiefly of 
 family portraits. Among them was a St. 
 Ignatius, which was found in the course of 
 the preceding war on board a Spanish prize, 
 and which Mr. Pennington obtained leave 
 for West to copy. Tlje artist had made 
 choice of it liimself without being aware of 
 its merits as a work of art, for it was not 
 until several years after that he discovered it 
 to be a fine piece of the Morillo school, and 
 in the best style of the master. 
 
 XI. This copy was greatly admired by all 
 who saw it. and by none more than his
 
 92 
 
 valuable friend provost Smith, to whom it 
 suggested the notion that portrait-painting 
 might be raised to something greatly above 
 the exhibition of a mere physical likeness; 
 and he in consequence endeavoured to im- 
 press upon the mind of his pupil, that cha- 
 racteristic painting opened a new line in the 
 art, only inferior in dignity to that of history, 
 but requiring, perhaps, a nicer discriminative 
 tact of mind. This judicious reflection of 
 Dr. Smith was however anticipated by sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, who had already made the 
 discovery, and was carrying it into effect 
 with admirable success. The provost, how- 
 ever, was unacquainted with that circum- 
 stance, and induced West to make an expe- 
 riment by di'awing his portrait in the style 
 and attitude of the St. Ignatius. 
 
 Xn. While he was thus employed on por- 
 traits, a gentleman of the name of Cox called 
 on him to agree for a likeness of his daugh- 
 ter; and the picture of Dr. Smith attracted his
 
 93 
 
 attention. It indeed appeared to him to evince 
 such a capacity for historical composition, 
 that, instead of then determining any thing 
 respecting his daughter's portrait, he gave 
 an order for an historical picture, allowing 
 the artist himself to choose the subject. This 
 task had peculiar charms; for the painter in 
 the course of reading the Bible to his 
 mother some time before, had been led to 
 think that the trial of Susannah v^as a fine 
 subject; and he vsras thus enabled, by the 
 liberality of Mr. Cox, to embody the concep- 
 tions of his imagination w^hile they were yet 
 in all the freshness and vigour of original 
 formation. He made his canvas alx)ut the 
 size of a half length portrait, on which he 
 introduced not fewer than forty figures. 
 In the execution he followed the rule which 
 he had adopted in painting the death of 
 Socrates, and drew the principal figures 
 from living models. — It is not known what 
 has become of the trial of Susannah. In the 
 rebellion of the colonies, Mr. Cox adhered
 
 94 
 
 to the British interest; and his daughter, 
 the last person into whose possession the 
 picture has been traced, having married a 
 British officer, came to England during the 
 war, and the artist has not heard where she 
 has since resided. 
 
 Xin. In point of composition, Mr. West 
 is of opinion that the trial of Susannah was 
 superior to the death of Socrates. In this 
 he is probably correct; for, during the inter- 
 val between the execution of the one and the 
 other, his mind had been enlarged in know- 
 ledge by reading, his eye improved by the 
 study of pictorial outUne and perspective in 
 the camera^ and his touch softened by the 
 portraits which he painted, and particularly 
 by his careM copy of the St. Ignatius. In 
 point of drawing, both pictures were no doubt 
 gready inferior to many of his subsequent 
 works; but his son, long after he had ac- 
 quired much celebrity, saw the picture of 
 the death of Socrates, and was of opinion
 
 95 
 
 that it was not suiT)assed by any of them in 
 variety of composition, and in that perspi-"^ 
 cuity of narrative wliich is the gi^and charac- 
 teristic of the artist's genius.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I. Motives which induced him to visit New York. II. State of society 
 in New York. III. Reflections on the sterilitj of Ameriean talent. 
 IV. Considerations on the circamstances which tend to produce poeti- 
 cal feelings. V. The causes which produced the peculiarities in the 
 state of society in New York. YI. The accident which led the artist 
 to discover the method of colouring candle-light and fire effects after 
 nature. VII. He copies Strange's engraving of Belisarius, by SaWator 
 Rosa. VIII. The occurrence which hastened his voyage to Italy, with 
 the anecdote of his obligations to Mr. Kelly. IX. Reflections on 
 Plutarch, occasioned by reference to the effect which his works had on 
 the mind of West. X. The artist embarks; occurrence at Gibraltar. 
 XI. He arrives at Leghorn. XII. Journey to Rome. 
 
 I. But although West found himself 
 in possession of abundant employment in 
 Philadelphia, he was sensible that he could 
 not expect to increase his prices with effect, 
 if he continued constantly in the same place. 
 He also became sensible that to view life in 
 various Ughts was as necessary to his im- 
 provement as to exercise his pencil on 
 different subjects. And, beyond all, he was 
 profoundly sensible, by this time, that he
 
 97 
 
 could not hope to attain eminence in his 
 profession, without inspecting the great mas- 
 ter-pieces of art in Europe, and comparing 
 them with his own works in order to ascer- 
 tain the extent of his powers. This pliilo- 
 sophical view of his situation was doubtless 
 partly owing to the excellent precepts of 
 provost Smith, but mainly to his own just 
 perception of what was necessary to the 
 successful career of an artist: indeed the 
 principle upon which the notion was formed 
 is universal, and applies to all intellectual 
 pursuits. Accordingly, impressed with these 
 considerations, he frugally treasured the 
 earnings of his pencil, that he might under- 
 take, in the first place, a professional jour- 
 ney from Philadelphia, as preparatory to 
 acquiring the means of afterwards visiting 
 Europe, and particularly Rome. When he 
 found that the state of his funds enabled him 
 to undertake the journey, he went to New 
 York. 
 
 N
 
 OS 
 
 II. The society of New York was much 
 less intelligent in matters of taste and know- 
 ledge than that of Philadelphia. In the latter 
 city the institutions of the college and library, 
 and the strict moral and poUtical respecta- 
 bility of the first settlers, had contributed to 
 form a community, which, though inferior in 
 the elegancies of Uving, and the etiquettes of 
 intercourse, to what is commonly found in 
 the European capitals, was little beliind them 
 in. point of practical and historical informa- 
 tion. Dr. Smith, the provost of the coUege, 
 had largely contributed to elevate the taste, 
 the sentiment and the topics of conversation 
 in Philadelpliia. He was full of the best spuit 
 of antiquity, and there was a classical purity 
 of mind and splendour of imagination some- 
 times met with in the families which he 
 frequented, that would have done honour to 
 the best periods of polished society. 
 
 ni. It would be difficult to assign any 
 reason why it has so happened that, no
 
 99 
 
 literary author of any general celebrity, 
 with the exception of Franklin, has yet 
 arisen in America. That men of learning 
 and extensive reading, capable of vying 
 with the same description of persons in 
 Europe, are to be found in the United States, 
 particularly in Philadelphia, is not to be 
 denied; but of that class, whose talents tend 
 to augment the stock of intellectual enjoy 
 ment in the world, no one, with the single ex- 
 ception already alluded to, has yet appeared. 
 
 IV. Poetry is the art of connecting ideas 
 of sensible objects with moral sentiments; 
 and without the previous existence of local 
 feelings, there can be no poetry. America 
 to the first European settlers had no objects 
 interesting to the imagination, at least of 
 the description thus strictly considered as 
 poetical; for although the vigour and stupen- 
 dous appearances of nature were calculated 
 to fill the mind with awe, and to exalt the 
 contemplations of enthusiasm, there was
 
 100 
 
 nothing connected with the circumstances of 
 the scene susceptible of that colouring from 
 the memory, which gives to the ideas of local 
 resemblance the pecuhar quaUties of poetry. 
 The forests, though interminable, were but 
 composed of trees; the mountains and rivers, 
 though on a larger scale, were not associated 
 in the mind with the exertions of patriotic 
 valour, and the achievements of individual 
 enterprise, Uke the Alps or the Danube, the 
 Grampians or the Tweed. It is impossible 
 to tread the depopulated and exhausted soil 
 of Greece \vithout meeting with innumer- 
 able relics and objects, which, like magical 
 talismans, call up the genius of departed ages 
 with the long-enriched roll of those great 
 transactions, that, in theu' moral effect, have 
 raised the nature of man, occasioning trains 
 of reflection which want only the rythm of 
 language to be poetry. But in the unstoried 
 sohtudes of America, the traveller meets witli 
 nothing to awaken the sympathy of his re- 
 coUective feelings. Even the very character
 
 101 
 
 of the trees, though interesting to scientific 
 research, chills, beneath the spaciousness 
 of their shade, every poetical disposition. 
 They bear little resemblance to those which 
 the stranger has left behind in his native 
 country. To tlie descendants of the first 
 settlers, they wanted even the charm of those 
 accidental associations which their appear- 
 ance might have recalled to the minds of 
 their father. Poetry is, doubtless, the first ^, 
 of the intellectual arts wliich mankind culti- 
 vate. In its earliest form it is the mode of 
 expressing affection and admiration; but, 
 before it can be invented, there must be 
 objects beloved and admired, associated with 
 things in nature endowed with a local habi- 
 tation and a name. In America, therefore, 
 although there has been no lack of clever 
 versifiers, nor of men who have respect- 
 ably echoed the ideas current in the old 
 world, the country has produced nothing 
 of any value descriptive of the peculiar • 
 associations connected vrtth its scenery.
 
 Among some of the Indian tribes a vein of 
 original poetry has, indeed, been discovered; 
 but the riches of the mine are unexplored, 
 and the charge of steriUty of fancy, which 
 is made by the Europeans against the 
 citizens of the United States, still remains 
 unrefuted. Since the period, however, to 
 which these memoirs chiefly refer, events 
 of great importance have occurred, and the 
 recollections connected with them, no doubt, 
 tend to imbue the American cUmate with 
 the elements of poetical thought; but they are 
 of too recent occurrence for the purposes 
 either of the epic or the tragic muse. The 
 facts of history in America are stiD seen too 
 much in detail for the imagination to com- 
 bine them with her own creation. The 
 fields of battle are almost too fresh for the 
 farmer to break the surface; and years must 
 elapse before the ploughshare shall turn up 
 those eroded arms of which the sight will 
 call into poetical existence the sad and dread- 
 ful incidents of the civil war.
 
 103 
 
 V. In New York, Mr. West found the so- 
 ciety wholly devoted to mercantile pursuits. 
 A disposition to estimate the value of things, 
 not by their utility or by their beauty, but by * 
 the price which they would bring in the mar- 
 ket, almost universally prevailed. Mercan- 
 tile men are habituated by the nature of 
 their transactions to overlook the intrinsic 
 qualities of the very commodities in wliich 
 they deal; and though of all the community 
 they are the most liberal and the most mu- 
 nificent, they set the least value on intellec- 
 tual productions. The population of New 
 York was formed of adventurers from all 
 parts of Europe, who had come thither for 
 tlie express puipose of making money, in 
 order, afterwards, to appear with distinction 
 at home. Although West, therefore, found 
 in that city much employment in taking 
 likenesses destined to be transmitted to rela- 
 tions and friends, he met with but few in 
 whom he found any disposition congenial to 
 his own; and the eleven months which he
 
 104 
 
 passed there, in consequence, contributed 
 less to the improvement of liis mind than 
 might have been expected from a city so 
 flouiishing. Still, the time was not alto- 
 gether barren of occurrences which tended 
 to advance liis progress in his art, indepen- 
 dent of the advantage arising fi^om constant 
 practice. 
 
 VI. He happened, during his residence 
 there, to see a beautiful Flemish picture of 
 a hermit praying before a lamp, and he was 
 resolved to paint a companion to it, of a 
 man reading by candle Ught. But before he 
 discovered a method of producing, in day 
 light, an effect on Ms model similar to what 
 he wished to imitate, he was frequently 
 baffled in liis attempts. At length, he hit on 
 the expedient of pei^uading his landlord to 
 sit with an open book before a candle in 
 a dark closet; and he found that, by looking 
 in upon him from his study, the appearance 
 was exactly what he wished for. In the
 
 105 
 
 schools and academies of Europe, tradition 
 has preserved the methods by which all the 
 magical effects of light and shadow have 
 been produced, with the exception, however, 
 of Rembrandt's method, and which the 
 author of these sketches ventures to suggest 
 was attained, in general, by observing the 
 effect of sunshine passing through chinks 
 into a dark room. But the American artist 
 was as yet unacquainted with any of them, 
 and had no other guides to the essential 
 principles of his art, but the delicacy of his 
 sight, and that ingenious observation of 
 nature to which allusion has been already 
 so often made. 
 
 VII. The picture of the student, or man 
 reading by candle light, was bought by a Mr. 
 Myers, who, in the revolution, continued to 
 adhere to the Enghsh cause. The same 
 gentleman also bought a copy which West 
 made about the same time of Behsarius, 
 from the engraving by Strange, of Salvator
 
 106 
 
 Rosa's painting. It is not known what has 
 now become of these pictures; but when 
 the artist long afterwards saw the original 
 of Salvator Rosa, he was gratified to observe 
 that he had instinctively coloured his copy 
 almost as faithfully as if it had been painted 
 from the picture instead of the engraving. 
 
 VIII. In the year 1759, the harvest in 
 Italy fell far short of what was requisite for 
 the ordinary consumption of the population, 
 and a great dearth being foreseen, Messrs. 
 Rutherford and Jackson, of Leghorn, a house 
 of the first consequence then in the Me- 
 diterranean trade, and well known to all 
 travellers for the hospitahty of the partners, 
 wrote to their coiTespondent Mr. Allen, at 
 Philadelphia, to send them a cargo of wheat 
 and flour. Mr. Allen was anxious that his 
 son, before finally embarking in business, 
 should see sometliing of the world; and 
 provost Smith, hearing Ms intention of 
 sending him to Leghorn with the vessel, im-
 
 107 
 
 mediately waited on the old gentleman, and 
 begged Mm to allow West to accompany 
 him, which was cheerfully acceded to, and 
 the provost immediately wrote to his pupil 
 at New York on the subject. In the mean 
 time, West had heard that there was a ves- 
 sel at Philadelphia loading for Italy, and had 
 expressed to Mr. William Kelly, a merchant, 
 who was then sitting to him for his portrait, 
 a strong desire to avail himself of this 
 opportunity to visit the fountain-head of 
 the arts. Before this period, he had raised 
 his terms for a half length to ten guineas, by 
 which he acquired a sum of money adequate 
 to the expenses of a short excursion to Italy. 
 When he had finished Mr. Kelly's portrait, 
 that gentleman, in paying him, requested 
 that he would take charge of a letter to 
 his agents in Philadelpliia, and deUver it to 
 them liimself on his return to that city, 
 wliich he was induced to do immediately, on 
 receiving Dr. Smith's letter, informing liim 
 of the arrangement made with Mr. Allen.
 
 i08 
 
 When this letter was opened, an instance 
 of deUcate munificence appeared on the 
 part of Mr. Kelly, which cannot be too 
 higlily applauded. It stated to the concern 
 to whicli it was addi^essed, that it would be 
 delivered by an ingenious young gentleman, 
 who, he understood, intended to visit Rome 
 for the purpose of studying the fine arts, and 
 ordered them to pay him fifty guineas as a 
 present from him towards furnishing his 
 stores for tlie voyage. 
 
 IX. While waiting till the vessel was clear 
 to sail. West had the gi'atification to see, in 
 Philadelphia, his old friend Mr. Henry, for 
 whom he had painted the death of Socrates. 
 Towards him he always cherished the most 
 grateful affection. He was the first who urged 
 him to attempt liistorical composition; and, 
 above all, he was the first who had made him 
 acquainted with the magnanimous tales of 
 Plutarch; perhaps, the gi'eatest favour which 
 could be conferred on a youthful mind, sus-
 
 109 ^ 
 
 ceptible of impressions from the sublime and 
 beautiful of human actions, which no author 
 has better illustrated than that celebrated 
 biographer, who may indeed be regarded, 
 almost without hyperbole, as the recorder 
 of ancient worth, and the tutor of modern 
 genius. In his peculiar class, Plutarch still 
 stands alone, at least no author in any of the 
 living languages appears to be yet truly sen- 
 sible of the secret cause by which his sketches 
 give that direct impulse to the elements of 
 genius, by which the vague and wandeiing 
 feelings of unappropriated strength are con- 
 verted into an uniform energy, endowed with 
 productive action. Plutarch, like the sculp- 
 tors of antiquity, has selected only the great 
 and elegant traits of character; and hence his 
 lives, like those statues which are the models 
 of art, possess, with all that is graceful and 
 noble in human nature, the particular features 
 of individuals. He had no taste for the 
 blemishes of mankind. His mind deUghted 
 in the contemplation of moral vigour; and
 
 liO 
 
 he seems justly to have thought that it was 
 nearly allied to virtue: hence many of those 
 characters whose portraitures in his works 
 furnish the youthful mind wth inspiring ex- 
 amples of true greatness, more authentic his- 
 torians represent in a light far different. It 
 V is the aim of all dignified art to exalt the 
 mind by exciting the feelings as well as the 
 judgment; and the immoital lessons of Plu- 
 tarch would never have awakened the first 
 stinings of ambition in the innumerable great 
 men who date their career from reading his 
 pages, had he been actuated by the minute 
 and invidious spirit of modern biography. 
 These reflections have occurred the more 
 forcibly at this juncture, as the subject of this 
 narrative was on the point of leaving a coun- 
 try in wliich were men destined to acquire 
 glory in such achievements as Plutarch would 
 have delighted to record; and of parting 
 fi'om early associates who afterwards attained 
 a degree of eminence in the public service, 
 that places them high in the roll of thos8
 
 Ill 
 
 who have emulated the exploits and vii'tues 
 of the heroes of that great biogi'apher. 
 
 X. The artist having embarked with young 
 Allen had a speedy and pleasant passage to 
 Gibraltar; where, in consequence of the war 
 then raging, the ship stopped for convoy. As 
 soon as they came to anchor, commodore 
 Carney and another officer came on board 
 to examine the vessel's papers. It happened 
 that some time before, the British government 
 had, on account of political circumstances, 
 prohibited the carrying of pro\1sions into 
 Italy, by which prohibition the ship and cargo 
 would have been forfeited had she been 
 arrested in attempting to enter an ItaUan 
 port, or, indeed, m proceeding with such an 
 intention. But captain Carney had scarcely 
 taken his pen to write the replies to the 
 questions which he put to the master, as to 
 the owners of the vessel and her destination, 
 when he again threw it down, and, looking 
 the other officer full in the face, said, " I am
 
 at 
 
 much affected by the situation in which I am 
 now placed. This valuable sliip is the pro- 
 perty of some of my nearest relations, and 
 the best friends that I have ever had in the 
 world! ' ' and he refrained from asking any more 
 questions. There was, undoubtedly, much 
 generosity in this conduct, for by the indul- 
 gence of the crown, all prizes taken in war be- 
 came the property of the captors; and captain 
 Carney, rather than enrich himself at the 
 expense of his fiiends, chose to run the hazard 
 of having his own conduct called in question 
 for the non-performance of his official duty. 
 It perhaps deserves also to be considered as 
 affording a favourable example of that manly 
 confidence in the gentlemanly honour of each 
 other which has so long distinguished the 
 British officers. On the mind of West it 
 tended to con&^m that agreeable impression 
 by which so many previous incidents had 
 made Mm cherish a Uberal opinion of man- 
 kind. In other respects, captain Carney 
 happening to be the officer who came on
 
 113 
 
 board, was a fortunate circumstance; for on 
 learning that young Alien was in the ship, 
 he invited the passengers to dine on board 
 his frigate; and the company, consisting of 
 the governor, his staff, and principal officers 
 in the garrison, tended to raise the consid- 
 eration of the artist and his companion in 
 the estimation of the fleet with wliich their 
 vessel was to proceed to Leghorn. Indeed, 
 throughout his whole Ufe, Mr. West was, in 
 this respect, singularly fortunate; for although 
 the condescensions of rank do not in them- 
 selves confer any power on talent, they have 
 the effect of producing that complacency of 
 mind in those who are the objects of them, 
 which is at once the reward and the solace 
 of intellectual exertion, at the same time that 
 they tend to mollify the spirit of contempo- 
 rary invidiousness. The day after, the fleet 
 sailed; and when they had passed the rock, 
 the captains of the two men of war* who 
 
 * The two frigates, the Shannon, captain Meadow, since 
 lord Manvers, wliose intimacy still continues with Mr. West; 
 and the Favourite sloop of war, captain Pownell. 
 
 P
 
 114 
 
 had charge of the convoy, came on board the 
 American, and imited Mr. Allen and Mr. 
 West to take tlieu- passage in one of the 
 frigates; tliis, however, they declined, but 
 every day, when the weather was favom^able, 
 they were taken on boai'd the one ship or 
 the other, to dine; and when the weather did 
 not permit tliis to be done Avith pleasure to 
 the strangers, the officers sent them presents 
 from then- stock. 
 
 XL After touching at several parts of the 
 coast of Spain, the ship arrived safely at Leg- 
 horn, where mercantile inquiiies detained 
 Mr. AHen some time, and West being impa- 
 tient to proceed to Rome, bade him adieu. 
 Prior to his departure from Philadelphia, he 
 had paid into the hands of old Mr. Allen the 
 money which he thought would be requisite 
 for his expenses in Italy, and had received 
 from him a letter of credit on Messrs. Jack- 
 son and Rutherford. When they were made 
 acquainted with the object of his voyage,
 
 115 
 
 and heard his history, they showed him a 
 degree of attention beyond even their general 
 great hospitality, and presented him with 
 letters to cardinal Albani, and several of the 
 most distinguished characters for erudition 
 and taste in Rome; and as he was unac- 
 quainted with French or Italian, they recom- 
 mended him to the care of a French courier, 
 who had occasion to pass that way. 
 
 XII. When the travellers had reached the 
 last stage of their journey, while their horses 
 were baiting, West walked on alone. It was 
 a beautiful morning; the air was perfectly 
 placid, not a speck of vapour in the sky, and a 
 profound tranquilUty seemed almost sensibly 
 diffused over the landscape. The appearance 
 of nature was calculated to lighten and 
 elevate the spirits; but the general silence 
 and nakedness of the scene touched the 
 feelings with solemnity approaching to awe. 
 Filled with the idea of the metropolitan city, 
 the ailist hastened forward till he reached
 
 416 
 
 an elevated part of the high road, which 
 afforded him a view of a spacious champaign 
 country, bounded by hills, and in the midst 
 of it the sublime dome of St. Peter's. The 
 magnificence of this view of the campagna 
 excited, in his imagination, an agitated train 
 of reflections that partook more of the 
 nature of feeling than of thought. He looked 
 for a spot to rest on, that he might contem- 
 plate at leisure a scene at once so noble and 
 so interesting; and, near a pile of nuns 
 fringed and treUissed with ivy, he saw a 
 stone that appeared to be part of a column. 
 On going towards it, he perceived that it was 
 a mile-stone, and that he was then only eight 
 miles fi-om the capitol. In looking before 
 him, where every object seemed by the 
 transparency of the Italian atmosphere to 
 be brought nearer than it was in reality, he 
 could not but reflect on the contrast between 
 the circumstances of that view and the 
 scenery of America; and his thoughts natu- 
 rally adverted to the progi'ess of civilization.
 
 iir 
 
 The sun seemed, to his fancy, the image of 
 truth and knowledge, arising in the east, 
 continuing to illuminate and adorn the whole 
 earth, and withdra\ving from the eyes of the 
 old world to enlighten the uncultivated 
 regions of the new. He thought of that 
 remote antiquity when the site of Rome 
 itself was covered with unexplored forests; 
 and passing with a rapid reminiscence over 
 her eventful story, he was touched with 
 sorrow at the soUtude of decay with which 
 she appeared to be envii'oned, till he adverted 
 to the condition of his native countiy, and 
 was cheered by the thought of the greatness 
 wliich even the fate of Rome seemed to 
 assure to America. For he reflected that, 
 although the progress of knowledge appeared 
 to intimate that there was some great cycle 
 in human affairs, and that the procession of 
 the arts and sciences from the east to the 
 west demonstrated their course to be neither 
 stationary nor retrograde; he could not but
 
 \^ 
 
 118 
 
 rejoice, in contemplating the skeleton of the 
 mighty capital before him, that tliey had 
 improved as they advanced, and that the 
 splendour wliich would precede their setting 
 on the shores of Europe, would be the gor- 
 geous omen of the glory which they would 
 attain in their passage over America. 
 
 Xin. Wliile he was rapt in these reflec- 
 tions, he heard the di^owsy tinkle of a pastoral 
 bell beliind liim, and on tm^ning round, he 
 saw a peasant dressed in shaggy skins, 
 driving a few goats from the ruins. The 
 appeamnce and physiognomy of tliis peasant 
 struck him as something more wild and 
 ferocious than any thing about the Indians; 
 and, perhaps, the observation was correctly 
 philosophical. In the Indian, nature is seen 
 in that primitive vigour and simphcity, in 
 which the actions are regulated by those 
 feeUngs that are the elements of the virtues; 
 but in the ItaUan bandit, for such he had
 
 119 
 
 reason afterwards to think was the real 
 character of the goat-herd, he saw man in 
 that second state of barbarity, in which his 
 actions are instigated by wants that have 
 often a vicious origin.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I. State of the stationary society of Rome. II. Caases which rendered 
 the city a delightful temporary residence. III. Defects of the 
 academical methods of study. IV. His intioductlon to Mr. Ro- 
 binson. V. Anecdote of cardinal Albani. VI- The cardinal's 
 method of finding resemblances, and curious mistake of the Italians. 
 yil. The artist's first visit to the works of art. 
 
 I. During the pontificate of pope Rez- 
 zonico, the society of Rome had attained a 
 pitch of elegance and aUberaUty of sentiment 
 superior to that of any other city of Christen- 
 dom. The theocratic nature of the govern- 
 ment induced an exterior decorum in the 
 pubUc form of politeness, which, to sti^angers 
 who took no interest in the abuses of the 
 state, was so highly agreeable, that it tended 
 even to appease theii' indignation against the 
 laxity of private morals. If the traveller 
 would forget that the name of Christianity 
 was employed in supporting a baneful admi-
 
 iPA 
 
 nistration to the vices, or could withdraw 
 his thoughts from the penury and suffering 
 which such an administration necessarily 
 entailed on the people, he had opportunities 
 of access at Rome to the most various and 
 delightful exercises of the faculties of me- 
 mory, taste, and judgment, in the company 
 of persons distinguished for their knowledge 
 and genius. For, with all the social inter- 
 course for wliich Paris was celebrated in the 
 reign of Louis XV. the local objects at Rome 
 gave a higher and richer tone to conversation 
 there; even the living vices were there less 
 offensive than at Paris, the rumours of them 
 being almost lost in the remembrance of 
 departed virtue, constantly kept awake by 
 the sight of its monuments and vouchers. 
 Tyranny in Rome was exercised more 
 intellectually than in the French capital. 
 Injustice and oppression were used more in 
 the form of persuasion; and though the 
 crosier was not less pernicious than the 
 bayonet, it inflicted a less irritating injury. 
 
 9.
 
 12S 
 
 The virtuous endured with patience the 
 wrongs that then- misguided judgment led 
 them to beUeve were salutary to their eternal 
 welfare. But it ought to be observed, that 
 the immorality of the Romans was greatly 
 exaggerated. Individuals redeemed by their 
 merits the reproach of universal profligacy; 
 and strangers, by being on their guard against 
 the moral contagion, suffered a less dangerous 
 taint than in the atheistical coteries of Paris. 
 Many, in consequence, who came prepared 
 to be disgusted with the degenerated Romans, 
 often bade them adieu with sentiments of 
 respect, and remembered their urbanity and 
 accomplishments with delightful satisfaction. 
 
 II. It was not, however, the native inha- 
 bitants of Rome who constituted the chief 
 attractions of society there, but the number 
 of accomplished strangers of all countries 
 and rehgions, who, in constant succession, 
 came in pUgrimage to the shrine of antiquity; 
 and who, by the contemplation of the merits
 
 1S3 
 
 and glories of departed worth, often felt 
 themselves, as it were, niu^aculously endowed 
 with new qualities. The collision of minds 
 fraught with learning, in that high state of 
 excitement which the genius of the place 
 produced on the coldest imaginations, 
 together with those innumeralde brilliant 
 and transitory topics which were never 
 elicited in any other city, made the Roman 
 conversations a continual exercise of the 
 understanding. Tlie details of political 
 intrigue, and the follies of individuals, excited 
 but little interest among the strangers in 
 Rome. It seemed as if by an universal tacit 
 resolution, national and personal peculiari- 
 ties and prejudices were forgotten, and that 
 all strangers simultaneously turned their 
 attention to the transactions and affairs of 
 former ages, and of statesmen and authors 
 now no more. Their mornings were spent 
 in surveying the monuments raised to public 
 virtue, and in giving local features in their , 
 minds to the knowledge which they had
 
 i24 
 
 acquired by the perusal of those works that 
 have perpetuated the dignity of the Roman 
 character. Their evenings were often allotted 
 to the comparison of theh' respective con- 
 jectures, and to asceilain the authenticity 
 and liistory of the relics which they had 
 collected of ancient art. Sometimes tlie 
 day was consumed in the study of those 
 inestimable ornaments of religion, by which 
 the fraudulent disposition of the priesthood 
 had, in the decay of its power, rendered 
 itself venerable to* the most enlightened 
 minds; and the night was devoted to the 
 consideration of the causes wliich contribute 
 to the development of genius, or of the 
 events wliich tend to stifle and overwhelm 
 its powers. Every recreation of the stranger 
 in Rome was an effbil of the memory, of 
 abstraction, and of fancy. — Society, in tliis 
 elevated state of enjoyment, surrounded by 
 the greatest works of human creation, and 
 placed amidst the monuments of the most 
 illustrious of mankind, and that of the quakers
 
 of Pennsylvania, employed in the mechanical 
 industry of felling timber, and amid the 
 sobriety of rural and commercial economy, 
 were like the extremes of a long series of 
 events, in which, though the former is the 
 necessary consequence of the latter, no 
 resemblance can be traced in their respective 
 characteristics. In America all was young, 
 vigorous, and growing, — the spring of a 
 nation, frugal, active, and simple. In Rome 
 all was old, infirm, and decaying, — ^the 
 autumn of a people who had gathered their 
 glory, and were sinking into sleep under the 
 disgraceful excesses of the vintage. On the 
 most inert mind, passing from the one 
 continent to the other, the contrast was 
 sufficient to excite great emotion; on such 
 a character as that of Mr. West, who was 
 naturally disposed to the contemplation of 
 the sublime and beautiful, both as to their 
 moral and visible effect, it made a deep and 
 indelible impression. It confirmed him in 
 the wisdom of those strict religious principles
 
 126 
 
 wMch denied the utility of art when solely 
 employed as the medium of amusement: 
 and impelled him to attempt what could De 
 done to approximate the uses of the pencil 
 y to those of the pen, in order to render 
 painting, indeed, the sister of eloquence and 
 poetry. 
 
 III. But the course of study in the Roman 
 schools was not calculated to enable him to 
 carry tliis gi^and purpose into effect; for the 
 principles by which Michael Angelo, and 
 Raphael had attained their excellence, were 
 no longer regarded. The study of nature 
 was deserted for that of the antique- and 
 pictures were composed according to riiles 
 derived fi'om other paintings, without respect 
 to what the subject required, or what the 
 circumstances of the scene probably appeared 
 to be. It was, therefore, not one of the 
 least happy occurrences in liis life that he 
 went to Rome when society was not only in 
 the most favourable state for the improve-
 
 127 
 
 ment of his mind, and for convincing him 
 of the deleterious influence of the arts when 
 employed as the embeUishments of voluptu- 
 ousness and luxury; but also when the state 
 of the arts was so mean, that the full effect 
 of studying the antique only, and of grouping 
 characters by academical rules, should 
 appear so striking as to satisfy him that he 
 could never hope for any eminence, if he 
 did not attend more to the phenomena of 
 nature, than to the productions of the greatest 
 genius. The perusal of the works of other 
 painters, he was sensible, would improve 
 his taste; but he was convinced, that the 
 design wliicli he had formed for estabhshing 
 his own fame, could not be realised, if, for 
 a single moment, he forgot tliat their works, 
 however exquisite, were but the imitations 
 and forms of those eternal models to which 
 he had been instinctively directed. 
 
 IV. It was on the lOth of July, 1760, that 
 he arrived at Rome. The French courier
 
 138 
 
 conducted him to a hotel, and, having men- 
 tioned in the house that he was an American, 
 and a quaker, come to study the fine arts, 
 the cuxumstance seemed so extraordinary, 
 that it reached the ears of Mr. Robinson, 
 aftei-wards lord Grantham, who immediately 
 found himself possessed by an irresistible 
 desire to see him; and who, before he had 
 time to dress or refresh himself, paid him a 
 visit, and insisted that he should dine with 
 him. In the course of dinner, that gen- 
 tleman inquired what letters of introduction 
 the artist had brought with him; and West 
 having informed him, he observed it was 
 somewhat remarkable that the whole of them 
 shoidd be addressed to his most particular 
 friends, adding, that as he was engaged to 
 meet them at a party in the evening, he 
 expected West would accompany him. This 
 attention and fi-ankness was acknowledged 
 as it deserved to be, and is remembered by 
 the artist among those fortunate incidents 
 which have rendered the recollection of his
 
 1^9 
 
 past life so pleasant, as scarcely to leave a 
 wish for any part of it to have been spent 
 otherwise than it was. At the hour appointed, 
 Mr. Robinson conducted him to the house of 
 Mr. Crispigne, an English gentleman who 
 had long resided at Rome, where the evening 
 party was held. 
 
 V. Among the distinguished persons whom 
 Mr. West found in the company, was the 
 celebrated cardinal Albani. His eminence, 
 although quite blind, had acquired, by tlie 
 exquisite delicacy of his touch, and the com- 
 bining powers of his mind, such a sense of 
 ancient beauty, that he excelled all the 
 virtuosi then in Rome, in the correctness of 
 his knowledge of the verity and peculiarities 
 of the smallest medals and intaglios. Mr. 
 Robinson conducted the artist to the inner 
 apartment, where the cardinal was sitting, 
 and said, '• I have the honour to present a 
 young American, who has a letter of intro- 
 duction to your eminence, and who has 
 
 R
 
 130 
 
 come to Italy for the purpose of studying 
 the fine arts." The cardinal fancying that 
 the American must be an Indian, exclaimed, 
 " Is he black or white?" and on being told 
 that he was very fair, " What as fair as I 
 am?" cried the cardinal still more surprised. 
 This latter expression excited a good deal 
 of mirth at the cardinal's expense, for his 
 complexion was of the darkest Italian oUve, 
 and West's was even of more than the usual 
 degree of EngUsh fairness. For some time 
 after, if it be not still in use, the expression 
 of " as fair as the cardinal" acquired prover- 
 bial currency in the Roman conversations, 
 applied to persons who had any inordinate 
 conceit of their own beauty. 
 
 VI. The cardinal, after some other short 
 questions, invited West to come near him, 
 and running his hands over liis features, still 
 more attracted the attention of the company 
 to the stranger, by the admiration which he 
 expressed at the form of his head. This
 
 131 
 
 occasioned inquiries respecting the youth; 
 and the ItaUans concluding that, as he was 
 an American, he must, of course, have 
 received the education of a savage, became 
 curious to witness the effect which the 
 works of art in the Belvidere and Vatican 
 would produce on him. The whole company, 
 which consisted of the principal Roman 
 nobility, and strangers of distinction then in 
 Rome, were interested in the event; and it 
 was arranged in the course of the evening, 
 that on the following morning they should 
 accompany Mr. Robinson and his protege to 
 the palaces. 
 
 VII. At the hour appointed, the company 
 assembled; and a procession, consisting of 
 upwards of thirty of the most magnificent 
 equipages in the capital of Christendom, and 
 filled with some of the most erudite cha- 
 racters in Europe, conducted the young qua- 
 ker to view the master-pieces of art. It was 
 agreed that the Apollo should be first sub-
 
 13S 
 
 mitted to his view, because it was the most 
 perfect work among all the ornaments of 
 Rome; and, consequently, the best calculated 
 to produce that effect which the company 
 were anxious to witness. The statue then 
 stood in a case, enclosed with doors, wWch 
 could be so opened as to disclose it at once 
 to fldl view. West was placed in the situation 
 where it was seen to the most advantage, 
 and the spectators arranged themselves on 
 each side. When the keeper threw open 
 the doors, the artist felt himself surprised 
 with a sudden recollection altogether different 
 from the gi^atification which he had expected; 
 and without being aware of the force of what 
 he said, exclaimed, " My God, how like it is 
 to a young Mohawk warrior!" The Italians, 
 observing his surprise, and hearing the 
 exclamation, requested Mr. Robinson to 
 translate to them what he said; and they 
 were excessively mortified to find that the 
 god of their idolatry was compared to a 
 savage. Mr. Robinson mentioned to West
 
 133 
 
 their chagrin, and asked him to give some 
 more distinct explanation, by informing him 
 what sort of people the Mohawk Indians 
 were. He described to him their education; 
 their dexterity with the bow and arrow; the 
 admirable elasticity of their limbs; and how 
 much their active hfe expands the chest, 
 while the quick breathing of then' speed 
 in the cliase, dilates the nostrils with that 
 apparent consciousness of vigour which is 
 so nobly depicted in the Apollo. " I have 
 seen them often," added he, " standing in 
 that very attitude, and pursuing, with an 
 intense eye, the arrow which they had just 
 discharged from the bow." This descriptive 
 explanation did not lose by Mr. Robinson's 
 translation. The Italians were deUghted, 
 and allowed that a better criticism had rarely 
 been pronounced on the merits of the statue. 
 The view of the other great works did not 
 awaken the same vivid feelings. Those of 
 Raphael, in the Vatican, did not at first 
 particularly interest him; nor was it until he
 
 184 
 
 had often visited them alone, and studied 
 them by himself, that he could appreciate 
 the fulness of their excellence. His first 
 view of the works of Michael Angelo, was 
 still less satisfactory: indeed, he continued 
 always to think, that, with the single exception 
 of the Moses, that artist had not succeeded 
 in giving a probable character to any of 
 his subjects, notwithstanding the masterly 
 hand and mind wliich pervade the weakest 
 of liis productions. 
 
 VIII. Among the first objects which par- 
 ticularly interested Mr. West, and wliich he 
 never ceased to revisit day after day with 
 increasing pleasure, were the celebrated 
 statues ascribed to Phidias, on the Monte 
 Cavallo. The action of the human figure 
 appeared to him so majestic, that it seemed 
 to throw, as it were, a \isible kind of awe 
 into the very atmosphere, and over all the 
 surrounding buildings. But the smallness 
 of the horse struck him as exceedingly pre-
 
 135 
 
 posterous. He had often examined it before 
 the idea occurred to him that it was probably 
 reduced according to some unknown prin- 
 ciple of ancient art; and in this notion he 
 was confirmed, by observing something of 
 the same kind in the relative proportion of 
 human figures and animals, on the different 
 gems and bas-reliefs to which his attention 
 was subsequently directed. The ancient / 
 sculptors uniformly seemed to consider the 
 human figure as the chief object, and sacri- 
 ficed, to give it effect, the proportions of 
 inferior parts. The author of the group on 
 the Monte Cavallo, in the opinion of Mr. 
 West, represented the horse smaller than 
 the natural size, in order to augment the 
 grandeur of the man. How far this notion, 
 as the principle of a rule, may be sound, it 
 would be unnecessary, perhaps impertinent, 
 to inquire here; but its justness as applicable 
 to the sculptures of antiquity, is abundantly 
 verified by the bas-reliefs brought from the 
 Parthenon of Athens. Tt is, indeed, so ad-
 
 136 
 
 mitted a feature of ancient art, as to be 
 regarded by some critics, as having for its 
 object the sanie effect in sculpture, which 
 is attained by Ught and shadow in painting. 
 In a picture, the artist, by a judicious ob- 
 scurity, so veils the magnitude of the car 
 in which he places a victor, that, notwith- 
 standing its size, it may not appear the 
 principal object; but this artifice is denied 
 to the sculptor, who is necessitated to di- 
 minish the size of those things which are 
 of least importance, in order to give dignity 
 to the dominant figures. Raphael, in making 
 the boat so small in the miraculous draught 
 of fishes, is thought to have injudiciously 
 applied this rule of ancient sculpture; for 
 he ought to have accomplished, by fore- 
 shortening, tlie same effect wliich he meant 
 to produce by diminisliing the size. It 
 should however, be observed, that great 
 doubts are entertained if the statues on the 
 Monte Cavallo were originally integral parts 
 of the same group; but although this doubt
 
 137 
 
 may be well founded, it will not invalidate 
 the supposed general principle of the an- 
 cient sculptors, corroborated, as it is, by 
 innumerable examples. 
 
 IX. In the evening, after visiting the pa- 
 laces, Mr. Robinson carried Mr. West to see 
 a grand religious ceremony in one of the 
 churches. Hitherto he was acquainted only 
 with the simple worship of the quakers. 
 The pomp of the papal ceremonies was as 
 much beyond his comprehension, as the 
 overpowering excellence of the music sur- 
 passed his utmost expectations. Undoubtedly, 
 in all the spectacles and amusements of 
 Rome, he possessed a keener sense of enjoy- 
 ment, arising from the simplicity of his 
 education, than most other travellers. That 
 same sensibility to the beauty of forms and 
 colours which had awakened his genius for 
 painting, was, probably, accompanied with a 
 general superior susceptibility of the other 
 organs as well as the sight; for it is observed
 
 i38 
 
 that a taste for any one of the fine arts is 
 connected with a general predilection for 
 them all. But neither the Apollo, the 
 Vatican, nor the pomp of the catholic ritual, 
 excited his feeUngs to so great a degree as 
 the spectacle which presented itself to his view 
 around the portico of the church. Bred in the 
 universal prosperity of Pennsylvania, where 
 the benevolence of the human bosom was 
 only employed in the acts of hospitality and 
 mutual kindness, he had never witnessed any 
 spectacle of beggary, nor had he ever heard 
 thename of God uttered to secondan entreaty 
 for alms. Here, however, all the lazars 
 and the wretched in Rome were collected 
 together; hundreds of young and old in that 
 extreme of squalor, nakedness, and disease, 
 which affrights the EngUsh traveller in Italy, 
 were seen on all sides; and their impoilu- 
 nities and cries, for the love of God, and the 
 mercy of Christ, to reUeve them, thiilled in 
 his ears, and smote upon his heart to such a 
 degree, that his joints became as it were
 
 139 
 
 loosened, and his legs scarcely able to support 
 him. Many of the beggars knew Mr. Ro- 
 binson, and seeing him accompanied by a 
 stranger, an Englishman, as they concluded 
 the artist to be from his appearance, sur- 
 rounded them with confidence and clamours. 
 
 X. As they returned from the church, a 
 woman somewhat advanced in Ufe, and of a 
 better appearance than the generality of the 
 beggars, followed them, and Mr. West gave 
 her a small piece of copper money, the first 
 Roman coin which he had received in change, 
 the relative value of wliich to the other coins 
 of the country was unknown to him. Shortly 
 afterwards they were joined by some of the 
 Italians, whom they had seen in the morning, 
 and while they were conversing together, he 
 felt some one pull his coat, and turned round. 
 It was the poor woman to whom he had 
 given the piece of copper money. She 
 held out in her hand several smaller pieces,
 
 140 
 
 and as he did not understand her language, 
 he concluded that she was chiding Wm for 
 having given her such a trifle, and coloured 
 deeply with the idea. His English friend, 
 observing his confusion, inquired what he 
 had given her, and he answered that he did 
 not know, but it was a piece of money, which 
 he had received in change. Robinson, after 
 a short conversation with the beggar, told 
 Mr. West, that she had asked him to give 
 her a farthing, " But as you gave her a two- 
 penny-piece," said he, " she has brought 
 you the change." This instance of humble 
 honesty, contrasted with the awful mass of 
 misery with which it was united, gave him a 
 favourable idea of the latent sentiments of 
 the Italians. How much, indeed, is the 
 character of that people traduced by the rest 
 of Europe! How often is the traveUer in 
 Italy, when he dreads the approach of robbers, 
 and prepares against murder, surprised at 
 the bountiful disposition of the common
 
 141 
 
 Italians, and made to blush at having appUed 
 the charges against a few criminals to the 
 character of a whole people — without re- 
 flecting that the nation is only weak because 
 it is subdivided.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I. Anecdote of a famous improvisatore. II. West the subject of one 
 of his finest effusions. III. Anecdote of cardinal A Ibani. IV. West 
 introduced to Mengs. V. Satisfactory result of West's first essay 
 in Rome. VI. Consequence of the continual excitement ^hich the 
 artist's feelings endured. VII. He goes to Florence for advice. 
 yill. He accompanies Mr. Matthews in a tour. IX. Singular instance 
 of liberality towards the artist from several gentlemen of Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 I. XT was not, however, the novelty, 
 variety, and magnificence of the works of art 
 and antiquity in Rome, that kept Mr. West 
 in a constant state of high excitement; the 
 vast difference- in the manners of the people 
 from those of the inhabitants of America, 
 acted also as an incessant stimulus on his 
 feelings and imagination: even that differ- 
 ence, great as it happened to be, was rendered 
 particularly interesting to him by incidents 
 arising out of his own pecuUar situation. One 
 night, soon after his arrival in Rome, Mr.
 
 143 
 
 Gavin HamUton, the painter, to whom he 
 had been introduced by Mr. Robinson, took 
 him to a coffee-house, the usual resort of 
 the British travellers. While they were 
 sitting at one of the tables, a venerable old 
 man, with a guitar suspended from his shoul- 
 der, entered the room, and coming immedi- 
 ately to their table, Mr. Hamilton addressed 
 him by the name of Homer. He was the 
 most celebrated improvisatore in all Italy, 
 and the richness of expression, and nobleness 
 of conception which he displayed in his 
 effusions, had obtained for him that distin- 
 guished name. Those who once heard his 
 poetry, never ceased to lament that it was 
 lost in the same moment, affirming, that it 
 often was so regular and dignified, as to equal 
 the finest compositions of Tasso and Ariosto. 
 It will, perhaps, afford some gratification 
 to the admirers of native genius to learn, 
 that this old man, though led by the fine 
 frenzy of his imagination to prefer a wild 
 and wandering life to the offer of a settled 
 
 m
 
 144 
 
 independence, which had been often made 
 to liim in his youth, enjoyed in his old age, 
 by the Uberahty of several EngUshmen, who 
 had raised a subscription for the purpose, 
 a small pension, sufficient to keep Mm 
 comfortable in his own way, when he became 
 incapable of amusing the public. 
 
 n. After some conversation, Homer 
 requested Mr. Hamilton to give him a subject 
 for a poem, hi the mean time, a number 
 of Italians had gathered round them to look 
 at West, who they had heard was an Ameri- 
 can, and whom, like cardinal Albani, they 
 imagined to be an Indian. Some of them, 
 on hearing Homer's request, observed, 
 that he had exhausted Ms vein, and had 
 had already said and sung every subject 
 over and over. Mr. Hamilton, however, 
 remarked that he thought he could propose 
 sometMng new to the bard, and pointing to 
 Mr. "N^'est, said, that he was an American 
 come to study the fine arts in Rome; and
 
 145 
 
 that such an event furnished a new and 
 magnificent theme. Homer took possession 
 of the thought with the ardour of inspiration. 
 He immediately unslung his guitar, and began 
 to draw his fingers rapidly over the strings, 
 swinging his body from side to side, and 
 striking fine and impressive chords. When 
 he had thus brought his motions and his 
 feelings into unison with the instrument, he 
 began an extemporaneous ode in a manner 
 so dignified, so pathetic, and so enthusiastic, 
 that Mr. West was scarcely less interested 
 by his appearance than those who enjoyed 
 the subject and melody of his numbers. He 
 sung the darkness which for so many ages 
 veiled America from the eyes of science. 
 He described the fulness of time, when the 
 purposes for which it had been raised from 
 the deep were to be manifested. He painted 
 the seraph of knowledge descending from 
 heaven, and directing Columbus to undertake 
 the discovery; and he related the leading 
 incidents of the voyage. He invoked the
 
 146 
 
 fancy of his auditors to contemplate the wild 
 magnificence of mountain, lake, and wood, 
 in the new world; and he raised, as it were, 
 in vivid perspective, the Indians in the chase, 
 and at their horrible sacrifices. "But,'' he 
 exclaimed, " the beneficent spirit of improve- 
 ment is ever on the wing, and, like the ray 
 fi'om the throne of God wliich inspired the 
 conception of the virgin, it has descended on 
 this youth, and the hope which ushered in its 
 new miracle, like the star that guided the 
 magi to Betlilehem, has led him to Rome. 
 Methinks I behold 'in him an instrument 
 chosen by heaven, to raise in America the 
 taste for those arts wliich elevate the nature 
 of man, — an assurance that his country will 
 afford a refuge to science and knowledge, 
 when in the old age of Europe they shall 
 have forsaken her shores. But all things of 
 heavenly origin, like the glorious sun, move 
 westward; and truth and art have their periods 
 of shining, and of night. Rejoice then, 
 venerable Rome, in Uiy divine destiny; for
 
 147 
 
 though darkness overshadow thy seats, and 
 though thy mitred head must descend into 
 the dust, as deep as the earth that now covers 
 thy ancient helmet and imperial diadem, thy 
 spmt, immortal and undecayed, already 
 spreads towards a new world, where, like 
 the soul of man in paradise, it will be per- 
 fected in virtue and beauty more and more.'' 
 The highest efforts of the greatest actors, 
 even of Garrick himself delivering the poetry 
 of Shakspeare, never produced a more 
 immediate and inspiring effect than this 
 rapid burst of genius. When the applause 
 had abated, Mr. West being the stranger, and 
 the party addressed, according to the common 
 practice, made the bard a present. Mr. 
 Hamilton explained the subject of the ode: 
 though with the weakness of a verbal trans- 
 lation, and the imperfection of an indistinct 
 echo, it was so connected with the appearance 
 which the author made in the recital, that 
 the incident has never been obliterated fi'om 
 Mr. West's recollection.
 
 148 
 
 ni. While the artist was gratifying liim- 
 self with a ciii^ory view of the works of art, 
 and of the curiosities, Mr. Hope, of Am- 
 sterdam, the father of the gentlemen who 
 have since become so well known in Lon- 
 don for their taste in the ails, and their 
 superb collections of pictures and mai'bles, 
 arrived in Rome. Mr. West being introduced 
 to him, accompanied him to cardinal Albani, 
 to whom he had letters of introduction, and 
 witnessed a proof of the peculiar skill of his 
 eminence. The cardinal requested Mr. Hope 
 to come near liim, and according to his usual 
 custom with strangers, drew his hands over 
 his face, observing that he was a German. 
 In doing tlie same thing to Mr. West, he 
 recognised Mm as the young American. 
 
 IV. At tliis time Mengs was in the zenith 
 of liis popularity, and West was introduced 
 to him at the cardinal's villa. He appeared 
 to be as much struck as every other person, 
 with the extraordinary cuxum stance of an
 
 149 
 
 American coining to study the fine arts; and 
 begged that Mr. West would show him a 
 specimen of his proficiency in drawing. In 
 returning home, our artist mentioned to Mr. 
 Robinson that as he had never learnt to draw, 
 he could not produce any sketch like those 
 made by the other students; but that he 
 could paint a little, and if Mr. Robinson 
 would take the trouble to sit, he would exe- 
 cute his portrait to show Mengs. The pro- 
 posal was readily acceded to, and it was also 
 agreed, that except to two of their most in- 
 timate acquaintances, the undertaking should 
 be kept a profound secret. When the pic- 
 ture was finished, it was so advantageous to 
 the artist, that it tended to confirm the 
 opinion wMch was entertained of his pow- 
 ers, founded only on the strength of the 
 curiosity which had brought him from 
 America. But, before showing it to Mengs, 
 it was resolved that the taste and judgment 
 of the public, with respect to its merits, 
 should be ascertained.
 
 150 
 
 V. Mr. Crespigne, one of the two friends 
 in the secret, lived as a Roman gentleman, 
 and twice a year gave a grand assembly at 
 his house, to w^hich all the nobility and 
 strangers in Rome, the most eminent for 
 rank, birth, and talents, were invited. It 
 was agreed that the portrait should be ex- 
 hibited at one of his pailies, which happen- 
 ed to take place soon after it was finished. 
 A suitable frame being provided, the paint- 
 ing was hung up in one of the rooms. The 
 first guests who arrived, were amateurs and 
 artists; and as it was known among them 
 that Robinson was sitting to Mengs for his 
 portrait, it was at once thought to be that 
 picture, and they agreed that they had never 
 seen any painting of the artist so well 
 coloured. As the guests assembled, the 
 portrait became more and more the subject 
 of attention, and Mr. West sat behind on a 
 sofa equally agitated and delighted by their 
 strictures, which Mr. Robinson reported to 
 liim from time to time. In the course of the
 
 151 
 
 evening Mr. Dance, an Englishman of great 
 shrewdness, was observed looking with an eye 
 of more than common scrutiny at the portrait, 
 by Mr. Jenkins, another of the guests, who, 
 congratulating Robinson in getting so good 
 a portrait from Mengs, turned to Dance, and 
 said, " That he must now acknowledge that' 
 Mengs could colour as well as he could 
 draw." Dance confessed that he thought 
 the picture much better coloured than those 
 usually painted by Mengs, but added that he 
 did not tliink the drawing either so firm or 
 so good as the usual style of that artist. 
 This remark occasioned some debate, in 
 which Jenkins, attributing the strictures of 
 Dance to some prejudice which he had 
 early conceived against Mengs, drew the 
 company around to take a part in the dis- 
 cussion. Mr. Crespigne seizing the proper 
 moment in their conversation to produce the 
 effect intended, said to Jenkins that he was 
 mistaken, and that Dance was in the right, 
 for, in truth, the picture was not painted by
 
 152 
 
 Mengs. '• By whom then,*' vociferated every 
 one, " for there is no other painter now in 
 Rome capable of executing any tiling so 
 good?" " By that yomig gentleman there," 
 said Mr. Crespigne, tm*ning to West. At 
 once all eyes were bent towards him, and the 
 Italians, in their way,* ran and embraced liim. 
 Thus did the best judges at once, by tliis 
 picture, acknowledge him as only second in 
 the executive department of the art to the 
 first painter then in Rome. Mengs himself, 
 on seeing the picture, expressed Iiis opinion 
 in terms that did great honour to liis liberality, 
 and gave the aitist an advice whicli he never 
 forgot, nor remembered without gi^atitude. 
 He told liim that the portrait showed that 
 he had no occasion to learn to paint at 
 Rome. " You have already, sir," said he, 
 " the mechanical part of your art: what I 
 would, therefore, recommend to you, is to 
 see and examine every thing deserving of 
 your attention here, and after making a few 
 drawings of about half a dozen of the best
 
 153 
 
 statues, go to Florence, and observe what 
 has been done for art in the collections 
 there. Then proceed to Bologna, and study 
 the works of the Caracci; afterwards visit 
 Parma, and examine, attentively, the pic- 
 tures of Corregio; and then go to Venice 
 and view the productions of Tintoretti, 
 Titian, and Paul Veronese. When you have 
 made this tour, come back to Rome, and 
 paint an historical composition to be ex- 
 hibited to the Roman public; and the opinion 
 which will then be formed of your talents 
 should determine the Une of our profession 
 which you ought to follow." This judicious 
 advice, so different from those absurd aca- 
 demical dogmas wliich would confine genius 
 to the looking only to the works of art, for 
 that perfection which they but dimly reflect 
 from nature. West found accord so well mth 
 his own reflections and principles, that he 
 resolved to follow it with care and attention. 
 But the thought of being in Rome, and the 
 constant excitement arising from extraordi- 
 
 u
 
 154 
 
 nary and interesting objects, so afFected his 
 niind, accustomed to the sober and uniform 
 habits of the quakers, that sleep deserted 
 his pillow, and he became ill and constantly 
 feverish. The public took an interest in 
 his situation. A consultation of the best 
 physicians ia Rome was held on liis case, 
 the residt of which was a formal communi- 
 cation to Mr. Robinson, that his friend must 
 immediately quit the capital, and seek relief 
 from the irritated state of his sensibility in 
 quiet and retirement. Accordingly, on the 
 SOth of August he returned to Leghorn. 
 
 VI. Messrs. Jackson and Rutherford, by 
 whose most fiiendly recommendations he 
 had obtained so much flattering distinction 
 at Rome, received him into their own house, 
 and treated him \vith a degi-ee of hospitaUty 
 that merits for them the honour of being 
 considered among the number of his early 
 patrons. Mr. (aftenvards sir John) Dick, 
 then the British consul at Leghorn, and his
 
 455 
 
 lady, also treated him with great partiality, 
 and procured for him the use of the impe- 
 rial baths. His mind being thus relieved 
 from the restless ecstasy which he had suf- 
 fered in Rome, and the intensity of interest 
 being diminished by the circumscribed na- 
 ture of the society of Leghorn, together with 
 the bracing effects of sea-bathing, he was 
 soon again in a condition to resume his 
 study in the capital. But the same over- 
 powering attacks on his feehngs and imagi- 
 nation soon produced a relapse of his 
 former indisposition, and compelled him to 
 return to Leghorn, where he was again 
 speedily cured of his fever, but it left in its 
 dregs a painful affection in the ancle, that 
 threatened the loss of the limb. The well- 
 known Nanoni, an eminent surgeon, who 
 had introduced many improvements in the 
 treatment of diseased joints, was at this 
 period resident in Florence, and Messrs. 
 Jackson and Rutherford wrote to sir Horace 
 Mann, then the British minister at the ducal
 
 156 
 
 court, to consult him relative to the case of 
 Mr. West: his answer induced them to 
 advise the artist to go to Florence. After 
 a painful period of eleven months confine- 
 ment to his couch and chamber, he was 
 perfectly and radically cured. 
 
 VII. A state of pain and disease is adverse 
 to mental improvement; but there were 
 intervals in which 3Ir. West felt his anguish 
 abate, and in which he could not only 
 participate in the conversation of the gentle- 
 men to whose kindness he had been recom- 
 mended, but was able, occasionally, to 
 exercise his pencil. The testimonies of 
 friendship which he received at this period 
 from sir Horace Mann, the marquisses of 
 Creni and Riccardi, the late lord Cooper, 
 and many others of the British nobility, then 
 travelling in Italy, made an indelible impres- 
 sion on his mind, and became a stimulating 
 motive to his wishes to excel in his art, in 
 order to demonstrate by his proficiency that
 
 157 
 
 he was not unworthy of their soUcitude. He 
 had a table constructed so as to enable him 
 to draw while he lay in bed; and in that 
 situation he amused and improved himself 
 in deUneating the picturesque conceptions 
 which were constantly presenting themselves 
 to his fancy. 
 
 VIII. When he was so far recovered as to 
 be able to take exercise, and to endure the 
 fatigue of travelling, a circumstance happened 
 which may be numbered among the many 
 fortunate accidents of his professional career. 
 Mr. Matthews, the manager of the important 
 commercial concerns of Messrs. Jackson and 
 Rutherford, was one of those singular men 
 who are but rarely met with in mercantile 
 life, combining the highest degree of Uterary 
 and elegant accomplishments, with the best 
 talents for active business. He was not only 
 confessedly one of the finest classical scholars 
 in all Italy, but, out of all comparison, the 
 best practical antiquary, perhaps, then in that
 
 158 
 
 country, uniting, along with the minutest 
 accuracy of criticism, a delicacy of taste in 
 the perception of the beauty and judgment 
 of the ancients, seldom found blended with 
 an equal degree of classical erudition. Affairs 
 connected with the business of the house, 
 and a wish to see the principal cities of Italy, 
 led Mr. Matthews, aboiit the period of Mr. 
 West's recovery, to \isit Florence, and it 
 was agreed between them that they should 
 together make the tour recommended by 
 Mengs. 
 
 IX. In the mean time, the good fortune of 
 West was working to happy effects in another 
 part of the world. The story of Mr. Robin- 
 son's poiirait had made so great a noise 
 among tlie travellers in Italy, that Messrs. 
 Jackson and Rutherford, in sending back the 
 ship to Philadelphia, in wliich the artist had 
 come passenger, mentioned it in their letters 
 to Mr. Allen. It is seldom tliat commercial 
 affairs are mingled with those of art, and
 
 i5i) 
 
 it was only from the Italian shore that a 
 mercantile house could introduce such a topic 
 into their correspondence. It happened that 
 on the very day this letter reached Mr. Allen, 
 Mr. Hamilton then governor of Pennsylvania, 
 and the principal members of the government, 
 along with the most considerable citizens of 
 Philadelphia, were dining with him. After 
 dinner, Mr. Allen read tlue letter to the 
 company, aind mentioned the amount of the 
 sum of money which West had paid into his 
 hands at the period of his departure fi'om 
 America, adding that it must be pretty far 
 reduced. But, said he with warmth, " I 
 regard this young man as an honour to the 
 country, and as he is the first that America 
 has sent to cultivate the fine arts, he shall 
 not be frustrated in his studies, for I have 
 resolved to write to my correspondents at 
 Leghorn, to give him, from myself, whatever 
 money he may require." Mr. Hamilton felt 
 the force of this generous declaration, and 
 said, with equal animation, " I think exactly
 
 160 
 
 as you do, sir, but you shall not have all the 
 honour of it to yourself, and, therefore, I beg 
 that you will consider me as joining you 
 in the responsibility of the credit." The 
 consequence of this was, that upon West 
 going, previously to leaving Florence, to 
 take a small sum of about ten pounds from 
 the bankers to whom he had been recom- 
 mended by Messrs. Jackson and Rutherford, 
 a letter was brought in, wliile he was waiting 
 for his money, and the gentleman who opened 
 it, said to him, " that the contents of the 
 letter would probably afford him unexpected 
 pleasure, as it instructed them to give him 
 unUmited credit." A more splendid instance 
 of Uberality is not to be found even in the 
 records of Florence. The munificence of 
 the Medici was excelled by that of the ma- 
 gistracy of Philadelphia.
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 I. The result of the artist's experiment to discover the methods by 
 which Titian produced his splendid colouring. II. He returns to 
 Rome. III. Reflections suggested, by inspectiug the Egyptian obe- 
 lisk. IV. Considerations of the author on the same subject; and 
 anecdote of .a Mohawk Indian who became an actor at New York. 
 V. Anecdote of a Scottish fanatic who arrived in Rome to convert 
 the pope. VI. Sequel of the adventure. VII. The artist prepares 
 to visit England. VIII. Having completed his St. Jerome, after 
 Corregio's famous picture, he is elected an honorary member of the 
 academy of Parma, and invited to court. IX. He proceeds by the 
 way of Genoa towards France. X. Reflections on the state of Italy. 
 XI. Adventure on reaching the French frontiers. XII. State of 
 taste in France. 
 
 I. From Florence the artist proceeded 
 to Bologna, and having staid some time there, 
 carefully inspecting every work of celebrity 
 to which he could obtain access, he went on 
 to Venice, visiting in liis route all the objects 
 which Mengs had recommended to his 
 attention. The style of Titian, which in 
 breadth and clearness of colouring so much
 
 163 
 
 excels that of almost every other painter, 
 was the peculiar characteristic of the Vene- 
 tian school which interested him the most, 
 and seemed to him, at first, involved in 
 inexplicable mystery. He was never satisfied 
 with the explanations which the ItaUan 
 amateurs attempted to give him of what 
 they called the internal fight of that master's 
 productions. Repeated experiments, how- 
 ever, enabled him, at last, to make the 
 discovery himself. Indeed, he was from 
 the first persuaded that it was cliiefly owing 
 to the peculiar genius of the artist himself, 
 to an exquisite deficacy of sight which enabled 
 liim to perceive the most approximate tints, 
 and not to any particular dexterity of pencU- 
 fing, nor to any superiority in the materials 
 of his colours. This notion led Mr. West 
 to try the effect of painting in the first place 
 y with the pure primary colours, and softening 
 them afterwards with the semi tints; and 
 the result confirmed him in the notion that 
 such was probably the pecuhar method of
 
 163 
 
 Titian. But although this idea was suggested 
 by liis visits to the collections of Venice, he 
 was not perfectly satisfied with its soundness 
 as a rule, till many years after his arrival in 
 London, and many unsuccessful experiments. 
 
 II. Having completed liis tour to the most 
 celebrated repositories of art in Italy, and 
 enriched his mind, and improved Ms taste, 
 by the perusal rather than the imitation of 
 their best pieces, he returned to Rome, and 
 applied himself to a minute and assiduous 
 study of the great ornaments of that capital, 
 directing his principal attention to the works 
 of Raphael, and improving his knowledge of 
 the ancient costume by the study of Cameos, 
 in which he was assisted by Mr. Wilcox, 
 the author of the Roman Conversations, — to 
 whom he had been introduced by Mr. Ro- 
 binson, at Mr. Crespigne's, on the occasion 
 of the exhibition of the portrait, — a man of 
 singular attainments in learning, and of a 
 serene and composed dignity of mind and
 
 164 
 
 manners that rendered him more remarkable 
 to strangers than even liis great classical 
 knowledge. 
 
 III. Of all the monuments of ancient art 
 in Rome, the obelisk brought from Egypt, in 
 the reign of Augustus, interested his curiosity 
 the most, and even for a time affected him 
 as much as those which so Jigitated him by 
 their beauty. The hieroglyphics appeared 
 to resemble so exactly the figures in the 
 wampum belts of the Indians, that it occurred 
 to him, if ever the mysteries of Egypt were 
 to be interpreted, it might be by the abori- 
 gines of America. This singular notion was 
 not, however, the mere suggestion of fancy, 
 but the effect of an opinion which his early 
 friend and tutor provost Smith conceived, in 
 consequence of attending the grand meeting 
 of the Indian chiefs, with the governors of 
 the British colonies, held at East town, in 
 Pennsylvania, in the year following the 
 disastrous fate of Bradock's army. The
 
 155 
 
 chiefs had requested this interview, in order 
 to state to the officers the wrongs and injuries 
 of which they complained; and at the meeting 
 they evidently read the reports and circum- 
 stances of their grievances from the hiero- 
 glyphical chronicle of the wampum belts, 
 which they held in their hands, and by which, 
 from the date of their grand aUiance with 
 William Penn, the man from the ocean, as 
 they called him, they minutely related all 
 the circumstances in which they conceived 
 the terms and spirit of the treaty had been 
 infringed by the British, defying the officers 
 to show any one point in which the Indians 
 had swerved from tlieir engagements. It 
 seemed to Dr. Smith that such a minute 
 traditionary detail of facts could not have 
 been preserved witliout come contemporary 
 record; and he, therefore, imagined, that the 
 constant reference made to the figures on 
 the belts was a proof that they were chronicles. 
 This notion was countenanced by another 
 circumstance, which Mr. West had himself
 
 166 
 
 often noticed. The course of some of the 
 high roads through Pennsylvania Ues along 
 what were formerly the war tracks of the 
 Indians; and he had frequently se^n hiero- 
 glypliics engraved on the trees and rocks. 
 He was told, that they were inscriptions left 
 by some of the tribes who had passed that 
 way, in order to apprise then- friends of the 
 route which they had taken, and of any 
 other matter wliich it concerned them to 
 know. He had also noticed among the Indians 
 who annually visited Philadelphia, that there 
 were certain old chiefs who occasionally 
 instructed the young warriors to draw red 
 and black figures, similar to those which are 
 made on the belts, and who explained their 
 signification with great emphasis, while the 
 students Mstened to the recital with profound 
 silence and attention. It was not, therefore, 
 extraordinary, that, on seeing similar figures 
 on the Egyptian trophy, he should have 
 thought that they were intended to transmit 
 the record of transactions like the wampum
 
 167 
 
 belts. A language of signs derived from 
 natural objects, must have something uni- 
 versal in its very nature; for the qualities 
 represented by the emblematic figure, would, 
 doubtless, be those for which the original of 
 the figure was most remarkable: and, there- 
 fore, if there be any resemblance between 
 the Egyptian hieroglyphics and those used 
 by the American Indians, the probability is, 
 that there is also some similar intrinsic 
 meaning in their signification. But the 
 wampum belts are probably not all chronicles; 
 there is reason to believe that some of them 
 partake of the nature of calendars, by which 
 the Indians are regulated in proceedings 
 dependant on the seasons; and that, in this 
 respect, they answer to the household gods 
 of the patriarchal times, which are supposed 
 to have been calendars, and the figure of 
 each an emblem of some portion of the year, 
 or sign of the zodiac. It would be foreign 
 to the nature of this work to investigate the 
 evidence which may be adduced on this
 
 168 
 
 subject, or to collect those various end 
 scattered hints which have given rise to the 
 opinion, and with a faint, ' but not fallacious 
 ray, have penetrated that obscure region of 
 ancient history, between the period when 
 the devotion of mankind, witlidrawn from 
 the worship of the Deity, was transferred to 
 the adoration of the stars, and prior to the 
 still greater degradation of the human fa- 
 culties when altars were raised to idols. 
 
 IV. The idea of the Indians being in 
 possession of hieroglypliical writings, is cal- 
 culated to lead us to form a very different 
 opinion of them to that which is usually 
 entertained by the world. Except in the 
 mere enjoyments of sense, they do not 
 appear to be inferior to the rest of mankind; 
 and their notions of moral dignity are ex- 
 actly those which are recommended to our 
 imitation by the literatm^e of all antiquity. 
 But they have a systematic contempt for 
 wliatever either tends to increase their 
 ti'oubles, to eflcumber the freedom of their
 
 169 
 
 motions, or to fix themto settlediiabitations. 
 In their unsheltered nakedness, they have a 
 prouder consciousness of their importance 
 in the scale of beings, than the philosophers 
 of Europe, with all their multiplicity of sen- 
 sual and intellectual gratifications, to supply 
 which so many of the human race are de- 
 graded from their natural equality. The 
 Indian, however, is not deficient in mental 
 enjoyments, or a stranger to the exercise of 
 the dignified faculties of our common nature. 
 He delivers himself on suitable occasions 
 with a majesty of eloquence that would 
 beggar the oratory of the parliaments, and 
 the pulpits' of Christendom; and his poetry 
 unfolds the loftiest imagery and sentiment 
 of the epic and the hymn. He considers 
 himself as the lord of the creation, and 
 regards the starry heaven as his canopy, and 
 the everlasting mountain as his throne. It 
 would be absurd, however, to assert with 
 Rousseau, that he is, therefore, better or 
 happier than civilized man; but it would be 
 
 T
 
 170 
 
 equally so to deny him the same sense 
 of dignity, the same feeling of dishonour, 
 tlie same love of renown, or ascribe to 
 his actions in war, and his recreations in 
 peace, baser motives than to the luxurious 
 waniors and statesmen of Europe. Before 
 Mr. West left America, an attempt was 
 made to educate three young Indians at New 
 York; and their progress, notwthstanding 
 that they still retained something of their 
 original wildness of character, exceeded the 
 utmost expectations of those who were in- 
 terested in the experiment. Two of them, 
 however, in the end, returned to their tribe, 
 but they were rendered miserable by the 
 contempt with which they were received; and 
 the brother of the one who remained beliind, 
 was so affected with their degradation, that 
 he came to the city determined to redeem 
 his brother from the thraldom of civilization. 
 On liis arrival, he found he had become an 
 actor, and was fast rising into celebrity on 
 the stage. On learning tliis cuxumstance.
 
 171 
 
 the resolute Indian went to the theatre, and 
 seated himself in the pit. The moment that 
 his brother appeared, he leapt upon the 
 stage, and drawing his knife, threatened to 
 sacrifice him on the spot, unless he would 
 immediately strip himself naked, and return 
 with him to their home in the woods. He 
 upbraided him with the meanness of his dis- 
 position, in consenting to make himself a 
 slave. He demanded if he had forgotten 
 that the Great Spirit had planted the Indian 
 corn for their use, and filled the forests with 
 game, the air with birds, and the waters with 
 fish, that they might be free. He represent- 
 ed the institutions of civilized society as 
 calculated to make him dependent on the 
 labour of others, and subject to every 
 chance that might interrupt their disposition 
 to supply his wants. The actor obeyed his 
 brother, and returning to the woods, was 
 never seen again in the town.* 
 
 * The following extract from the journal of a friend, 
 who has lately travelled through the principal parts of th«
 
 173 
 
 V. It may, perhaps, not be an imperti- 
 nent digression to contrast this singular 
 occurrence in the theatre of New York, 
 
 United States, will probably be found interesting, as it 
 tends to throw some deg^ree of light on the sentiments of 
 the Indians, of which the little that is known, has hitherto 
 never been well elucidated. 
 
 " One of my fellow passengers was a settler in the new 
 state of Tenessee, who had come to Charleston with hor- 
 ses for sale, and was going to Baltimore and Philadelphia 
 for the purpose of investing his money in an assortment of 
 goods suited to the western country. The ideas of civili- 
 zed- and savage life were so curiously blended in this man, 
 that his conversation afforded me considerable amusement. 
 Under the garb and appearance of a methodist preacher, I 
 found him a hunter and a warrior; with no small portion of 
 the adventurous spirit proper to both those characters. He 
 had served as a militia-man or volunteer under general 
 Jackson, in his memorable campaign against the Creek 
 Indians in 1813; and he related to me some interesting 
 particulars of the principal and final action which decided 
 the fate of the war. The Indians had posted themselves at 
 a place called, in their language, Talapoosie, and by the 
 Americans, the Horse-shoe; a position of great natural 
 strength, the advantages of which they had improved to 
 the best of their skill, by a breast-work seven feet high, 
 extending across the neck of land which formed the only 
 approach to their encampment. This seems to have been 
 viewed by the Creeks themselves as the last stand of their 
 nation; for, contrary to the usual practice of the Indians, 
 they made every preparation for defence, but none for 
 retreat. Their resistance was proportionably desperate 
 and bloody. For several hours they supported a continued
 
 173 
 
 with another truly European, to which Mr. 
 West was a witness, in the cathedral of St. 
 Peter's. Among other intelligent acquain- 
 
 fire of musketry and cannon without shrinking; till at 
 length the American general, finding that he had lost a 
 great number of men, and that he could not otherwise 
 dislodge the enemy, gave orders for a general assault. 
 The breast-work was carried by storm; and the Indians, 
 broken at all points, and surrounded by superior numbers, 
 were nearly all put to the sword. Out of one thousand 
 warriors who composed the Creek army, scarcely twenty 
 made their escape. A body of Choctaw Indians, who at- 
 tended the American army as auxiliaries, were the chief 
 actors in this massacre, and displayed their usual barbarous 
 ferocity. It affords a remarkable illustration of the savage 
 character, that the whole of this bloody scene passed in 
 the most perfect silence on the part of the Indians: there 
 was no outcry, no supplication for mercy: each man met 
 his fate without uttering a word, singly defending himself 
 to the last. The lives of the women and children were 
 spared, but many of the boys were killed in the action, 
 fighting bravely in the ranks with their fathers and elder 
 brothers. My Tenessee friend received four arrows from 
 the bows of these juvenile warriors, while in the act of 
 mounting the breast-work. 
 
 In hearing such a story, it is impossible not to be touch- 
 ed with a feeling of sympathy for a high-minded but ex- 
 piring people, thus gallantly but vainly contending, against 
 an overwhelming force, for their native woods, and their 
 name as a nation; or to refrain from lamenting that the 
 settlement of the new world cannot be accomplished at a 
 less price, than the destruction of the original and rightful 
 proprietors of the soil."
 
 174 
 
 tances, which he formed in Rome, was the 
 abate Grant, one of the adherents of that 
 unfortunate faniDy, whom the baseness of 
 their confidential servants, and the factions 
 of ambitious demagogues, deprived, collec- 
 tively, of their birth-right. This priest, 
 though a firm jacobite in principle, was, like 
 many others of the same political sentiments, 
 liberal and enliglitened, refuting, by his 
 conduct, the false and fraudulent calumnies 
 Avhich have been so long alleged against the 
 gallant men who supported the cause of the 
 ill-fated Stuarts. On St. Peter's day, when the 
 pope in person performs high mass in the 
 cathedral, the abate offered to take Mr. 
 West to the church, as he could place him 
 among the ecclesiastics, in an advantageous 
 situation to witness the ceremony. Glad of 
 such an offer, Mr. West willingly accompanied 
 him. The vast edifice; the immense multi- 
 tude of spectators; the sublimity of the 
 music; and the effect of the pomp addressed 
 to the sight, produced on the mind of the
 
 175 
 
 painter feelings scarcely less enthusiastic, 
 than those which the devoutest of the 
 worshippers experienced, or the craftiest 
 inhabitant of the Vatican affected to feel. At 
 the elevation of the host, and as he was 
 kneeling beside the abate, to their equal 
 astonishment he heard a voice, exclaiming 
 behind them in a broad Scotish accent, " O 
 Lord, cast not the church down on them for 
 this abomination!'* The surrounding Italian 
 priests, not understanding what the enthusiast 
 was saying, listened with great comfort to 
 such a lively manifestation of a zeal, which 
 they attributed to the blessed effects of the 
 performance. The abate, however, with 
 genuine Scotish partiality, was alarmed for 
 liis countryman, and endeavoured to persuade 
 him to hold his tongue during the ceremony, 
 as he ran the risk of being torn to pieces by 
 the mob. 
 
 VI. It appeared that this zealous presby- 
 terian, without understanding a word of any
 
 176 
 
 civilized language, but only a dialect of his 
 own, had come to Rome for the express 
 purpose of attempting to convert the pope, 
 as the shortest way, in Ms opinion, of putting 
 an end to the reign of antichrist. — When 
 mass was over, the abate, anxious to 
 avert from liim the consequences which liis 
 extravagance would undoubtedly entail, if he 
 continued to persevere in it, entered" into 
 conversation with him. It appeared he had 
 only that morning anived in Babylon, and 
 being unable to rest until he had seen a 
 gUmpse of the gorgeous harlot, he had not 
 then provided himself with lodgings. The 
 abate conducted him to a house where he 
 knew he would be carefully attended; and 
 he also endeavoured to reason with him on 
 the absurdity of his self-assumed mission, 
 assuring him that unless he desisted, and 
 behaved wdth circumspection, he would 
 inevitably be seized by the inquisition. 
 But the prospect of martyrdom augmented 
 his zeal; and the representations of the
 
 477 
 
 benevolent catholic only stimulated his 
 enterprise; so that in the course of a few 
 days, much to Ms own exceeding great joy, 
 and with many comfortable salutations of the 
 spirit, he was seized by the inquisition, and 
 lodged in a dungeon. On hearing this, the 
 abate applied to king James in his behalf, and 
 by his majesty's influence he was released, 
 and sent to the British consul at Leghorn, on 
 condition of being immediately conveyed to 
 his friends in Scotland. It happened, how- 
 ever, that no vessel was then ready to sail, 
 and the taste of persecution partaking more 
 of the reUsh of adventure than the pungency 
 of suffering, the missionary was not to be so 
 easily frustrated in his meritorious design; 
 and, therefore, he took the first opportunity 
 of stealing silently back to Rome, where he 
 was again arrested and confined. By this 
 time the affair had made some noise, and it 
 was universally thought by all the English 
 travellers, that the best way of treating the 
 ridicidous madman, was to allow him to
 
 478 
 
 remain some time in solitary confinement 
 in the dungeons of the inquisition. When 
 he had been imprisoned about thi'ee months, 
 he was again hberated, sent to Leghorn, and 
 embarked for England, radically cured of his 
 inclination to convert the pope, but still 
 believing that the punishment which he had 
 suffered for his folly, woidd be recorded as a 
 trial which he had endured in the service of 
 the faith. 
 
 VII. In the mean time, West was carefully 
 furnishing his mind by an attentive study of 
 the costume of antiquity, and the beauties 
 of the great works of modern genius. In 
 doing this, he regarded Rome only as an 
 university, in which he should graduate; and, 
 as a thesis preparatory to taking his degree 
 among the students, he painted a picture of 
 Cimon and Iphigenia, and, subsequently, 
 another of Angehca and Madoro. The 
 applause which they received justified the 
 opinion which Mengs had so early expressed
 
 179 
 
 of his talent, and certainly answered every 
 object for which they were composed. He 
 was honoured, in consequence, with the 
 marks of academical approbation, usually 
 bestowed on fortunate artists. He then 
 proposed to return to America, with a view 
 to cultivate in his native country that profes- 
 sion in which he had already acquired so 
 much celebrity. At this j uncture, he received 
 a letter from his father, advising him, as 
 peace had been concluded between France 
 and England, to go home for a short time 
 before coming to America; for the mother 
 country was at that period still regarded as 
 the home of her American offspring. The 
 advice of his father was in unison with his 
 own wishes, and he mentioned his intention 
 to Mr. Wilcox. That gentleman, conceiving 
 that he spoke of ximerica as his home, 
 expressed himself with grief and surprise at 
 a determination so different from what he 
 had expected;, but, upon being informed of 
 the ambiguity in the phrase, he exclaimed
 
 180 
 
 that he could hardly have resolved, on 
 quitting Italy, more opportunely, for Dr. 
 Patoune, a Scotish gentleman, of considerable 
 learning, and some taste in painting, was 
 then returning homeward, and waiting at that 
 time in Rome, until he should be able to 
 meet with a companion. It was therefore 
 agreed that West should be introduced to 
 him; and it was soon after arranged that the 
 doctor shoidd proceed to Florence, while 
 the artist went to take leave ofhisfiiends at 
 Leghorn, to express to them his gratitude 
 for the advantages he had derived from their 
 constant and extraordinary kindness, which 
 he estimated so highly, that he could not 
 think of leaving Italy without performing 
 this pleasing and honourable pilgrimage. 
 It was also agreed between him and his 
 companion, that the doctor should stop a 
 shoii: time at Parma, until West should have 
 completed a copy of the St. Jerome of Cor- 
 regio, which he had begun during his visit 
 to that city with Mr. Matthews.
 
 181 
 
 VIII. During their stay at Parma, the 
 academy elected Mr. West a member, an 
 honour which the academies of Florence 
 and Bologna had previously conferred on 
 him; and it was mentioned to the prince 
 that a young American had made a copy of 
 the St. Jerome of Corregio, in a style of 
 excellence such as the oldest academicians 
 had not witnessed. The prince expressed 
 a wish to see this extraordinary artist, par- 
 ticularly when he heard, that he was from 
 Pennsylvania, and a quaker. Mr. West was, 
 in consequence, informed that a visit from 
 him would be acceptable at court; and it 
 was arranged that he should be introduced 
 to liis highness by the chief minister. Mr. 
 West thought that, in a matter of this kind, 
 he should regulate his behaviour by what he 
 understood to be the practice in the court 
 of London; and, accordingly, to the aston- 
 ishment of the whole of the courtiers, he 
 kept his hat on during tlie audience. This, 
 however, instead of offending the prince,
 
 18^ 
 
 was observed vnth evident pleasure, and 
 made his reception more particidar and 
 distinguished; for his highness had heard 
 of the pecuhar simplicity of the quakers, 
 and of the singidarly christian conduct and 
 principles of William Penn. 
 
 IX. From Parma he proceeded to Genoa, 
 and thence to Turin. Considering this city 
 as the last stage of his professional observa- 
 tions in Italy, his mind unconsciously took 
 a retrospective \iew of the different objects 
 he had seen, and the knowledge wliich he 
 had acquired since his departure from 
 America. Although his art was always 
 uppermost in his thoughts, and although he 
 could not reflect on the course of his ob- 
 servations without pleasure and hope, he 
 was often led to advert to the lamentable 
 state into which every tiling, as well as art, 
 had fallen in Italy, in consequence of the 
 general theocratical despotism which over- 
 spread the whole country, like an imwhole-
 
 183 
 
 some vapour, and of those minute subdi- 
 visions of territory, in which political tyran- 
 nv exercised its baleful influence even where 
 the ecclesiastical oppression seemed dispo- 
 sed to spare. He saw, in the infamous 
 establishment of the cicisbeo, the settled 
 effect of that general disposition to palliate 
 vice, which is the first symptom of decay in 
 nations; and he was convinced that, before 
 vice could be thus exalted into custom, there 
 must exist in the community which would 
 tolerate sucli an institution, a disregard of 
 all those obUgations which it is the pride of 
 virtue to incur, and the object of law to 
 preserve. It seemed to liim that every 
 thing in Italy was in a state of disease; and 
 that the moral energy was subsiding, as the 
 vital flame diminishes from the progress of 
 old age. For although the forms and graces 
 of the human character were often seen in 
 all their genume dignity among the common 
 people, still even the general population 
 seemed to be defective in that detestation
 
 184 
 
 of vice found in all countries in a health- 
 ful state of morals, and which is often 
 strongest among the lowest of the vulgar, 
 especially in what respects the conduct of 
 the great. He thought that the commonalty 
 of Italy had lost the tact by which the good 
 and evil of actions are discriminated; and 
 that, whatever was good in their disposition, 
 ^ was constitutional, and unconnected with 
 any principle of religion, or sense of right. 
 In the papal states, this appeared to be par- 
 ticularly the case. All the creative powers 
 of the mind seemed there to be extinct. 
 The countiy was covered with ruins, and 
 the human character was in ashes. Some- 
 times, indeed, a few embers of intellect were 
 seen among the clergy; but the brightness 
 of their scintillation was owing to the black- 
 ness of death, with which they were con- 
 trasted. The splendour of the nobiUty 
 struck him only as a more conspicuous 
 poverty than the beggary of the common 
 people; and the perfect contempt with
 
 185 
 
 which they treated the feeUngs of their 
 dependants, seemed to him scarcely less 
 despicable than the apathy with which it 
 was endured. The innumerable examples 
 of the effects of this moral paralysis to 
 which he was a witness on his arrival in 
 Rome, filled him for some time with indes- 
 cribable anxiety, and all his veneration for 
 the Roman majesty was lost in reflections 
 on the offences which mankind may be 
 brought to commit on one another. But at 
 Genoa, Leghorn, and Venice, the ItaUans 
 were seen to less disadvantage. Commerce, 
 by diffusing opulence, and interweaving the 
 interests of all classes, preserved in those 
 cities some community of feeling, which 
 was manifested in an interchange of respect 
 and consideration between the higher and 
 the lower orders; and Lucca he thought 
 afforded a perfect exception to the general 
 degeneracy of the country. The inliabitants 
 of that Uttle republic presented the finest view 
 of human nature that he had ever witnessed. 
 With the manliness of the British character 
 
 A a
 
 186 
 
 they appeared to blend the suavity of the 
 Italian mannei-s; and their private morals 
 were not inferior to the celebrity of their 
 pubUe virtues. So true it is, that man, under 
 the pohce and vigilance of despotism, be- 
 comes more and more vicious; wliile, in 
 proportion to the extension of his freedom, 
 is the vigour of Ms private \ii1:ue. When 
 deprived of the right of exercising his own 
 judgment, he feels, as it were, his moral 
 responsibility at an end, and naturally blames 
 the system by which he is oppressed, for the 
 crimes which his own um-esisted passions 
 instigate him to commit. To an EngUsh- 
 man the remembrance of a journey in Italy 
 is however often more deUghtful than that 
 of any other country, for no where else is 
 his arrogance more patiently endured, his 
 eccentricities more humorously indulged, 
 nor tlie generosity of his character more 
 publicly acknowledged. 
 
 X. In coming from Italy into France, Mr. 
 West was particularly struck with the pic-
 
 187 
 
 turesqiie difference in the character of the 
 peasantry of the two countries; and while 
 he thought, as an artist, that to give appro- 
 priate effect to a national landscape, it would 
 not only be necessary to introduce figures 
 in the costume of the country; but in em- 
 ployments and recreations no less national, 
 he was sensible of the truth of a remark 
 which occurs to almost every traveller, that 
 there are different races of the human spe- 
 cies, and that the nature of the dog and 
 horse do not vary more in different climates 
 than man himself In making the observa- 
 tion, he was not, however, disposed to agree 
 with the continental philosophers, that this 
 difference, arising from climate, at all nar- 
 rowed the powers of the mind, though it 
 influenced the choice of objects of taste. 
 For whatever tends to make the mind more / 
 famihar with one class of agreeable sensa- 
 tions than another, will, undoubtedly, con- 
 tribute to form the cause of that preference 
 for particular qualities in objects by which 
 the characteristics of the taste of different
 
 188 
 
 nations is discriminated. Although, of all 
 the general circumstances which modify the 
 opinions of mankind, climate is, perhaps, the 
 most permanent, it does not, therefore^ follow 
 that, because the climate of France or Italy 
 induces the inhabitants to prefer, in works of 
 art, certain qualities of the excellence of 
 which the people of England are not so 
 sensible, the climate of Great Britain does 
 not, in like manner, lead the inhabitants to 
 discover other qualities equally valuable as 
 sources of enjoyment. Thus, in sculpture 
 for example, it would seem that in naked 
 figures the inhabitants of a cold climate can 
 never hope to attain that degree of eminence 
 w^hich we see exemplified in the productions 
 of the Grecian and Italian sculptors; not 
 that the artists may not execute as well, but 
 because they will not so readily find models; 
 jDr what is perhaps more to the point, they 
 wiU not find a taste so capable of appreciating 
 the merits of their performances. In Italy 
 the eye is familiar with the human form, in 
 a state of almost complete nudity; and the
 
 189 
 
 beauty of muscular Expression, and of the 
 osteological proportions of man, is there 
 as well known as that of the features and 
 complexion of his countenance; but the same 
 degree of nakedness could not be endured 
 in the climate of England, for it is associated 
 with sentiments of modesty and shame, 
 which render even the accidental innocent 
 exposure of so much of the body offensive 
 to the feeUngs of decorum. It is not, there- 
 fore, just to allege, that, because the Italians 
 are a calm, persuasive, and pensive people, 
 and the French all stir, talk, and inconstancy, 
 they are respectively actuated by different 
 moral causes. It will not be asserted that,- 
 though the sources of tlieir taste in art spring 
 from different qualities in the same common 
 objects, any innate incapacity for excellence 
 in the fine arts, is induced by the Enghsh 
 climate, merely because that climate has the 
 effect of producing a different moral tempe- 
 rament among the inhabitants.
 
 190 
 
 XI. On the morning after arriving at tlic 
 first frontier town, in coming from Savoy 
 into France, and while breakfast was prepar- 
 ing, Mr. West and his companion heard the 
 noise of a crowd assembled in the yard of 
 the inn. The doctor rose and went to the 
 Avindow to inquire the occasion: immediately 
 on his appearance, the mob became turbulent, 
 and seemed to menace him with some 
 outrage. The peace of 17^3 had been but 
 lately concluded, and without ha\ing any 
 other cause for the thought, it occurred to 
 the travellers that the tm^bulence must have 
 originated in some political occurrence, and 
 they hastily summoned the landlord, who 
 informed them, "that the people had, indeed, 
 assembled in a tumultuous manner round 
 the inn on hearing that two Englishmen were 
 in the house, but that they might make 
 themselves easy, as he had sent to inform 
 the magistrates of the riot." Soon after, one 
 of the magistrates arrived, and on being 
 introduced by the landlord to the travellers, 
 expressed himself to the following effect:
 
 191 
 
 " I am sorry that this occurrence should have 
 happened, because had I known in time, I 
 should, on hearing that you were Englishmen, 
 have come with the other magistrates to 
 express to you the sentiments of respect 
 which we feel towards your illustrious nation; 
 but, since it has not been in our power to 
 give you that testimony of our esteem; on 
 the contrary, since we are necessitated 
 by our duty to protect you, I assure you 
 that I feel exceedingly mortified. I trust, 
 however, that you will suffer no inconve- 
 nience, for the people are dispersing, and 
 you will be able to leave the town in safety!" 
 " This place," he continued, "is a manufac- 
 turing town, which has been almost ruined 
 by the war. Our goods went to the ocean 
 from Marseilles and Toulon; but the vigilance 
 of your fleets ruined our trade, and these 
 poor people, who have felt the consequence, 
 considered not the real cause of their distress. 
 However, although the populace do not look 
 beyond the effects which immediately press 
 upon themselves, there are many among us
 
 192 
 
 well acquainted with the fountain-head of 
 the misfortunes which afflict France, and 
 who know that it is less to you than 
 to ourselves that we ought to ascribe the 
 disgraces of the late war. You had a man 
 at the head of your government (alluding to 
 the first lord Chatham), and your counsellor 
 are men. But it is the curse of France that 
 she is ruled by one, who is, in fact, but the 
 agent and organ of valets and strumpets. 
 The coui-t of France is no longer the focus 
 of the gi'eat men of the country, but a band 
 of profligates that have driven away, the 
 gi'eat. This state of things, however, cannot 
 last long, the reign of the Pompadours must 
 draw to an end, and Frenchmen will one 
 day take a temble revenge for the insults 
 wliich they suffer in being regarded only as 
 the materials of those who pander to the 
 prodigality of the court." This singular 
 address, made in the year 1763, requires no 
 comment; but it is a curious liistorical instance 
 of the commencement of that moral re-action 
 to oppression which subsequently has so
 
 193 
 
 folly realized the prediction of tlie magistrate, 
 and which, in its violence, has done so much 
 mischief, and occasioned so many misfortunes 
 to Europe. 
 
 XII. The travellers remained no longer 
 in Paris than was necessary to inspect the 
 principal works of the French artists, and 
 the royal collections. Mr. West, however, 
 continued long enough to be satisfied, that 
 the true feeling for the fine arts did not 
 exist among the French to that degree wliich 
 he had observed in Italy. On the contrary, 
 it seemed to him that there was an inherent 
 affectation in the general style of art among 
 them, which demonstrated, not only a defi- 
 ciency of native sensibiUty, but an anxious 
 endeavour to conceal that defect. The 
 characteristics of the French school, and they 
 have not yet been redeemed by the intro- 
 duction of any better manner, might, to a 
 cursory observer, appear to have arisen from 
 a corrupted taste, while, in fact, they are the 
 consequences only of that inordinate national 
 
 Bb
 
 194 
 
 vanity, which in so many different ways, has 
 retarded the prosperity of the world. In 
 the opinion of a Ei^enchman, there is a quality 
 of excellence in every thing belonging to 
 France, merely because it is French, which 
 gives at all times a certain degree of supe- 
 riority to the actions and productions of his 
 countrymen; and this delusive notion has 
 infested not only the Uterature and the 
 politics of the nation, but also the principles 
 of art, to such a deep and inveterate extent, 
 that the moraUty of painting is not yet either 
 felt or understood in that country. In the 
 mechanical execution, in dramng, and in the 
 arrangement of tlie parts, great French 
 painters are probably equal to the Itahans; 
 but in producing any other sentiment in the 
 spectator than that of admiration at their 
 mechanical skill, they are greatly behind the 
 English. Painting has much of a common 
 character Mith dramatic literature, and the 
 very best pictures of the French artists have 
 the same kind of resemblance to the proba- 
 bility of nature, that the tragedies of their
 
 195 
 
 great dramatic authors have to the characters 
 and actions of men. But in rejecting the 
 pretensions of the French to superiority 
 either in the one species of art or in the 
 other, the rejection ought not to be extended 
 too far. They are wrong in their theory; 
 but their practice so admirably accords with 
 it, that it must be allowed, were it possible 
 for a people so enchanted by self-conceit, to 
 discover that the true subjects of art exist 
 only in nature,they evince a capacity sufficient 
 to enable them to acquire the pre-eminence 
 which they unfortunately believe they have 
 already attained. But these opinions, with 
 respect to the peculiarities of the French 
 taste, though deduced from incidental remarks 
 in conversations with Mr. West, must not 
 be considered as his. The respect which 
 he has always entertained towards the different 
 members of his own profession, never allows 
 him to express himself in any terms that 
 might possibly be construed by malice or 
 by ignorance, to imply any thing derogatory 
 to a class which he naturally considers among
 
 ^ 196 
 
 the teachers of mankind. He may think, 
 indeed he has expressed as much, that the 
 style of the French aiHsts is not the most 
 perspicuous; and that it is, if the expression 
 may be allowed, more rhetorical than elo- 
 quent; but still he regards them as having 
 done honour to their country, and, in 
 furnishing objects of innocent interest to the 
 minds of mankind, as having withdrawn so 
 far the inclinations of the heart from mere 
 sensual objects. The true use of painting, 
 he early thought, must reside in assisting the 
 reason to arrive at correct moral inferences, 
 by furnishing a probable view of the effects of 
 motives and of passions; and to the enforce- 
 ment of this great argument his long life has 
 been devoted, whether with complete success 
 it would be presumptuous in any contem- 
 porary to determine, and injudicious in the 
 author of these memou's to assert. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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