composed for the occasion, in honour of Mr. West, and in which he particularly dwelt on the efficacy of that artist's pictures in reforming the art, and restoring the dignity of historical painting. To make a suitable return for these civilities, West gave a public breakfast to the distinguished artists, and several other eminent persons then residing in Paris.

Few artists have ever been more honourably noticed or more liberally rewarded than Mr. West.

In 1772 he was named historical painter to the present king of Great Britain.

In 1791 he was unanimously elected president of the royal academy; and has continued to preside in that institution ever since with great

credit.

In the year 1802 he was chosen a member of the national institute at Paris, in the department of fine arts.-In 1804 he became a member of the royal institution of London; and we are informed in a late periodical publication of that city* that he has been recently appointed a member of the royal Bavarian academy at Munich, and also of the celebrated academy of St. Luke at Rome. These honours are declared to be a tribute due to his superior talents. The value of one of them may be more justly appreciated when it is known that he is the first protestant ever admitted into the academy of St. Luke.

In 1779 the prince of Waldeck presented him with a gold medal, and a whole length portrait of himself and his painter looking at a picture of the death of Wolfe which Mr. West had painted for that prince.

In the year 1781 the duke of Courland complimented him with a gold medal, and rewarded him with great liberality for two pictures which his highness commissioned him to paint: the subjects were Romeo and Juliet parting in the morning, and the couch scene of King Lear and his daughter Cordelia.

VOL. VIII.

* The New Monthly Magazine, for April, 1816.
6

Of his principal pictures the following critique is given by a writer who appears to have been well acquainted with his life and his works.

"In his Agrippina we see the Roman matron, the granddaughter of Augustus, bearing in her arms the ashes of her husband Germanicus, her children by her side, the pledges of her husband's love, and the only object of concern to her maternal feelings: we see her in the midst of Roman ladies, and surrounded by a Roman people, with all their proper attributes.

"In the Regulus we see the stern and inflexible Roman, deaf to all the ties of nature, but that of heroic devotion and love to the cause of his country, and that in the midst of all that was Roman, except the Carthaginians.

"In his Wolfe we see a British hero, on the heights of Abraham, in North America, expiring in the midst of heroes and of victory, with all the characteristics of Britons, in 1759.

"In the Penn we see the legislator, with the simplicity and dignity of a man administering justice to others, and diffusing his bounties in the midst of savage tribes, and disarming their ferocity by his rectitude and benevolence; whilst himself and those about him rest in perfect security on the consciousness of their philanthropic intentions, and a persuasion that they are fulfilling the first duty of christianity, in rendering to others what they wish to be rendered to themselves, and thus conquering the savage without one weapon to denote any other conquest than that which justice achieves.

"In the picture of Alexander the Third, king of Scotland, attacked by a stag, we remark a Scottish people, fierce and brave in rescuing their king from the threatened danger.

"In the picture of Moses receiving the law on Mount Sinai, we see the Jewish sages with humility in the presence of God, whilst their lawgiver, with a conscious firmness, raises the tables into heaven for the scriptum manum of the Deity.

"In the picture of Cressy and Poitiers we behold the juvenile hero, his paternal sovereign, and the nobles with their heroic vassals, in proud triumph, their gothic banners waving in the wind; and in the battle of Poitiers we behold the same hero, with manly

See Public Characters of 1805, page 551.

demeanor, receiving the vanquished king, expressing an air of welcome, and treating him more as a visitor than as a captive: the conqueror is not seen in the reception of the captive, nor the captive in his submission to the vanquisher; all is Gothic, and all is British.

"In the picture of St. Paul shaking the viper from his finger, in the chapel at Greenwich, we see that apostle unshaken in the midst of bands of armed Roman soldiers, and the poisonous reptile hanging to his hand; the multitude of men, women, and children, cast on shore by the wreck of the ship, bespeaks the deplorable situation of such a mixture of sex and ages, composed of Jews, Romans, and islanders.

"In the picture of the battle of La Hogue, we see all that marked the courage of the English and the Dutch on the memorable event of that sea victory: we see them sweeping before them, the navy of France over a vast extent of ocean, and in the midst of fire and sword, of victory and destruction, the ferocity of battle is mitigated by the national humanity of the conquerors: in the same moment they destroy and save-they conquer and spare. In this battle all is perspicuity and deep research into the subject; the æra is marked in every object that is represented; the men, the ships, the form of battle, are all described in the character of the age in which the event took place, without any manner but that which belongs to the subject, and the element on which the battle was fought.

"In the interview between Calypso and Telemachus on the sea-shore of Ogygia, the passion, character, and propriety are equally preserved. The astonishment of Telemachus at the sight of the majestic goddess and her nymphs is portrayed so masterly in the countenance of the young Ithacan, that the beholder reads his whole course of thoughts upon the canvas. Again, the stately goddess wears the look of welcome and joy at his approach, and her countenance at the same time expresses a deep inquisitiveness, an uneasy curiosity, a mixed indefinable suspicion, at the sight of his companion, the sage Mentor, who, wrapt in disguise beyond the penetration of an inferior goddess, stands some few paces beside Telemachus, deeply pondering on the snares which he knew would be set for him, and pleased with a kind of consciousness of his good intentions, in torturing the suspicious

goddess with unappeasable curiosity; but the painter has, at the same time, given him the diffidence and modesty which belonged to the assumed character of the tutor of Telemachus. How wonderfully are the composite passions here described, and made to come home to the bosom of the beholder! If we look at the island, all is likewise in character; it is the Ogygia of Homer and of Fenelon.

"In the picture of Cicero, and the magistrates of Syracuse ordering the tomb of Archimedes to be cleared from the wood and bushes that obscured it, all is classical and appropriate in the design, the character and the grouping. The country is seen as at the period when the Roman orator, was questor; the scenery, the dresses, and general characteristics, represent no other than the described æra, no other object than that on which they were employed, and no other place than Sicily and Syracuse.

"In the picture of Phaeton receiving from Apollo his last commands how to govern the chariot of the sun, the boldness of the ambitious youth is sublimely contrasted with the parental solicitude of Apollo. All the images of the poet are upon the canvas: the swift hours harnessing the horses, and leading the fiery steeds with their silken reins; the palace, the chariot, the four seasons, the zodiac, all have their place, their characters, and attributes: in one place we behold the rosy-fingered morn unbarring the gates of light (the Pododex/vλos Has;) in another the hoary, shivering winter, the green spring, the plenteous summer, and the autumn-“Madidus uvis"-Nothing is omitted that belonged to the scene, and nothing is represented but with a vigour and propriety of description which recall and enfore the images of the poet, and make him live again in the immortality of the painter.

*

In the pictures from the Revelations, of death on the pale horse, and the overthrow of the old beast and false prophet, the * Mr. West being in Paris upon the opening of the French exhibition, was induced, at the solicitation of the artists and the administration of the central museum, to submit the sketch of death upon the pale horse to the public inspection; and, in consequence, the following criticism appeared upon it in the Journal des Arts, &c.

"Mr. West, president of the royal academy, London.”

"A sketch representing death upon a pale horse on the opening of the seals. Revelations of St. John, chapter iij. verse 7, 8.

imagination is on the wings of fancy, and the indiscriminate ravages of death are every where seen under appropriate cha

racters.

"In the destruction of the old beast, the swiftness of the divine agents is like lightning, and all is overwhelmed.

7. “ And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast, who said, come and see.

8. "And there appeared at the same time a pale horse, and he who sat on him was named Death, and hell was in his train. And he received power over the four quarters of the world, to destroy mankind by the sword and by famine, by divers kinds of deaths, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

"This sketch reminds us of those many fine compositions with which Mr. West has enriched his country. We trace in it his acknowledged genius and enthusiasm. He has judiciously chosen the moment at which death appears upon the earth. The poetical figure of scripture has received from his pencil an aspect still more terrible. Every thing in nature is devoured and destroyed: the innocent dove and the wily serpent are re-united by death.

"Mr. West has represented death by sword, under a hord of armed robbers pursuing the unfortunate over the country. Death by famine is represented under the symbol of a man, ghastly, withered, and digging with his skinny fingers the barren soil for sustenance. Death by pestilence is represented by a woman expiring by the plague, one son already dead by her side, and another, somewhat older, flying into her arms. Death by wild beasts is represented by a group of men pursued by, and defending themselves against, lions and tigers, which at once destroy, and are in turns destroyed themselves.

"Such is the composition of Mr. West. The day of universal destruction is arrived: he is fully impressed by the idea, and his genius lends its force to his will.

"If Mr. West possessed the colouring of Reubens, his sketch would have produced an effect more decided; but he appears to have inclined more to the sombre hues of Poussin; his designs have even some resemblance to those of this great master. The figure of famine who digs the earth with his fingers, would have done honour to the French painter, and is as well designed as executed. We think that the figure of the woman expiring by the plague, having one son dead by her side, and another flying into her arms, somewhat reminds us of the group in the plague of the Philistines, by Poussin."

It is but justice in this place to observe that the arts in France, at the period of which we are speaking, were cultivated with great enthusiasm and success. M. Vien, whose efforts commenced near half a century ago, has raised an honourable emulation to make the Grecian taste and nature the source of all improvement. This taste and these improvements are now visible in the works of Vien himself, Vineent, David, Vernay, Guerin, and others; and in portrait paint.