[163] George Keate was a man of miscellaneous talent. His best-known literary works are his serio-comic poem “The Distressed Poet” (1787), and his “Account of the Pelew Islands from the Journal of Captain Henry Wilson.” He enjoyed the friendship of Voltaire at Geneva, and was careful that the world should know it. In her _Early Diary_, Miss Burney gives a good portrait of Keate as she met him “at the house of six old maids, all sisters, and all above sixty.” She found him a “sluggish” conversationalist who aimed continually at making himself the subject of discussion, “while he listened with the greatest nonchalance, reclining his person upon the back of his chair and kicking his foot now over, and now under, a gold-headed cane.” [164] This dealer probably bought dog-skins. “The dexterous of all dentists” may be explained by the following passage in Smith’s _Vagabondiana_ (1817): “It is scarcely to be believed that some few years ago a woman of the name of Smith regularly went over London early in the morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had been stolen and killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she sold to bookbinders, carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.” [165] The Last Supper was one of many religious subjects which the Quaker artist painted for his uncritical patron, George III. It was a transparent painting, and was let into the east window, which was structurally altered for its accommodation; but it was long ago removed, and the window restored. It is a commonplace that West’s powers lagged far behind his ambition. “Twenty years after his death,” says Mr. E. T. Cook, “some of his pictures, for which he had been paid 3000 guineas, were knocked down at a public sale for £10; and such of his pictures as had been presented to the National Gallery have now been removed to the provinces.” West’s work for George III. is represented by seventeen paintings in the Queen Anne’s Drawing-Room at Hampton Court. These include “Hannibal Swearing never to make Peace with Rome,” “The Death of Epaminondas,” “The Death of General Wolfe” (a picture of some value), “The Final Departure of Regulus from Rome,” etc. [166] Richard Wyatt of Egham was a well-known amateur, and the patron of John Opie. He married Priscilla, daughter of John Edgell of Milton Place, and had three sons and four daughters.