not neglect the study of his profession. He had a table constructed on which he would draw while he lay in bed; and whenever his strength permitted, he had his brush in his hand. Meanwhile, however, this long illness, during which he was probably subjected to some additional expenses, as well as prevented from making any money, was exhausting his scanty funds, and he had arrived at his last ten pounds before he was completely recovered. But at this crisis unexpected assistance arrived. One day his old patrons in Philadelphia, Mr. Allen and Governor Hamilton, were dining together at the house of the former, when letter arrived from Allen's Leghorn correspondents, in which, after the customary commercial advices, the writer added a short account of the reception of West's picture of Mr. Robinson at Rome. Delighted with this success of his countryman and protegé, Allen immediately declared that he regarded this youth as an honour to America, and that he was determined he should not want the means of proceeding with his studies. I shall send him,' said the generous merchant, whatever money he may require.' The governor joined warmly in the same sentiments, and insisted on sharing with Allen the honour of supplying the necessities of the young artist. The result of this conversation was, that when West went to his Florence banker to draw his last few pounds, that person, unfolding a letter, informed him that he was instructed to give him unlimited credit. From Florence, West proceeded to Bologna, and from thence to Venice, remaining some time at each city in order to study the works of art which it contained. He then returned to Rome, and, according to the counsel he had received from Mengs, painted two historical pictures, which he exhibited. They were received with great applause. Having now, as he conceived, accomplished every object for which he had been desirous of visiting Italy, he had no other thought than to return to America; when a letter arrived from his father, recommending to him, in the Philadelphian phraseology of that day, first to go for a short time home, meaning to England. Although his heart at this time seems to have been still in America, this proposal was not disagrecable to West, and he prepared immediately for his journey to the land of his fathers. Leaving Rome, he proceeded to Parma, where they elected him a member of the academy, a similar honour having been previously bestowed upon him by the academies of Florence and Bologna. He then passed through France, and arrived in London on the 20th of August 1763. Here he unexpectedly found his old American friends, Allen, Hamilton, and Smith; and was, through their means, and some letters he had brought with him from Italy, speedily made known to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Wilson, the highest names in English art. He soon after, not so much by the advice of his friends, as in a well-founded dependence upon his own talents, took apartments in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and commenced the practice of his profession. His sagacity had by this time discovered that London afforded a somewhat more promising field for a painter than Philadelphia, and he thought no more of returning to America. One of the first things he did in order to make himself generally known, was to paint a picture (on one of the same subjects which he had chosen at Rome), and to send it to the exhibition which then took place annually in Spring Gardens. It appeared here, accordingly, in 1764, and attracted considerable notice. He was some time after invited to dinner by Dr. Drummond, the Archbishop of York, who was so much pleased both with his conversation and the proofs of genius which he conceived his paintings to exhibit, that he contrived to have him introduced to George III. His Majesty's favour, which he immediately acquired, placed the artist's rising fortunes upon a sure foundation, and leaves us nothing more to relate of his struggles to escape from obscurity to distinction. The self-taught boy had now won his way to the highest professional employment, and was soon numbered among the best known painters of the age. It was not the patronage of royalty, however, to which he was really indebted for this elevation. That patronage his own merits chiefly had acquired for him; for all that the happy accidents by which he was assisted could have done for him would have been merely nothing, had not his real talents and acquirements enabled him to take advantage of the favours of fortune. But with these merits, had he never been noticed at court, he would undoubtedly have found in time a still more munificent patron in the public. chief benefit (if it was a benefit) which he derived from the favour of the king was, that it secured to him at once, and from the first, that independence to which he probably would not otherwise have attained except through the exertions of years. On the other hand, had he been obliged to trust merely to the general appreciation of his merits, his success, if not quite so sudden, might have been more permanent; for he lived, as is well known, to find that to rest his alliance, as he did, on the protection of a single The ing after dinner, were given to the study of the subject he was preparing to paint; while during the intermediate part of the day, from ten, namely, till four, he was employed without intermission at his easel. All this labour and devotion to his art, besides the improved skill and excellence which practice gives, enabled West to produce an unusually great number of works. His pictures in oil amount to about four hundred many of them of extraordinary size, and containing numerous figures. In 1791, on the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, West was appointed President of the Royal Academy, which had been established in 1768. This honourable office (with the exception of one year) he held till his death, on the 11th of March 1820, in the eighty-second year of his age. individual, however exalted, was after all but to place him self at the mercy of the most common accidents. After having been chiefly employed for more than thirty years of his life in executing commissions for his Majesty, during which time he completed the eight pictures illustrative of illustrative of the reign of Edward the Third, in St. George's Hall, at Windsor, and the twenty-eight (out of thirty-six which were designed) on subjects from the Old and New Testaments, in the Royal Chapel, he suddenly received an intimation, on the king's illness in 1809, that the works on which he had been engaged were ordered to be suspended; and he was never called upon to resume his pencil. It was immediately after this that he painted his celebrated picture of Christ Healing the Sick, one of the noblest he ever produced, which he first exhibited to the One serious disadvantage, public, and afterwards sold to however, which West brought the British Institution for three upon himself by the almost thousand guineas-a much exclusive attention he had larger sum than he had re- given to painting from his ceived for any of the pieces earliest years was, that he he had executed at the royal remained to the end of his command. He afterwards life a somewhat illiterate man. painted many other pictures It has been asserted, that to on similar subjects, continuing spell his words correctly, when to study and work with un- he had anything to write, was abated industry almost to the a task of no little difficulty to very close of his long life. He the President of the Royal was always an early riser; and Academy. This neglect and the way in which he spent his ignorance of everything not day was nearly uniform. The immediately appertaining to morning hours before break- the department of their own fast, and generally all the even- | favourite study has been, per haps, as frequently exemplified by painters as by any other class of self- educated men. The celebrated Claude Lorraine could scarcely write his name. Our own Hogarth, although, by the assistance of a friend, he appeared on one occasion as an author, affected to despise literature, and, indeed, every species of mental cultivation, except the knowledge of the art of painting; nor was it much exaggeration when he professed to have himself little or no acquaintance with anything else. It would be easy to mention other instances of the same kind. They ought to serve as warn ings to the individual who, with an ardent desire for knowledge, has no one to guide him in its acquisition, of a risk to which he is peculiarly exposed. Even the great artists we have named, with capacities that might have compassed any attainments in literature or philosophy, must be held, notwithstanding all they did, to have neglected a duty they owed to themselves, or at least to have followed a lamentably mistaken course, in disregarding that general cultivation without which excellence in any department of art loses its most elevated rank as a liberal accomplishment. MANY others of our recent eventually to great eminence English painters have been almost as entirely their own instructors as West was. JARVIS SPENCER, who was celebrated as a miniature painter in the latter part of the last century, was originally a menial servant, and while in that condition used to amuse himself by attempting to draw when no one suspected what he was about. At last, one of the family in whose service he lived having sat to an artist for a miniature, the performance, when it was finished, was seen by Spencer, who immediately remarked, very much to the surprise of everybody, that he thought he could make a copy of it. He was allowed to try his skill, and succeeded to admiration. His master, upon this discovery of his servant's genius, very generously exerted himself to place him in his proper sphere, and to make him generally known; and Spencer, as we have said, rose in the department which he cultivated. JOSEPH HIGHMORE, who painted, among other wellknown works, the Hagar and Ishmael in the Foundling Hospital, and long enjoyed high reputation, both for his historical pictures and his portraits, taught himself the art which he afterwards practised with so much success while he was serving his apprenticeship in a solicitor's office, and was without any one to give him a lesson. Highmore died in 1780. Another painter of that day, of the name of HANNAM, whose works, however, have not attracted much attention, was originally an apprentice to a cabinet-maker; and, having acquired some skill in painting by his own efforts, used to be allowed by his master to spend as much of his time as he chose in executing pictures for those who gave him commissions, on condition of his handing over the price to that |