BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born at Springfield, Pennsylvania, and of Quaker parents who descended from a Buckinghamshire family of the same persuasion. He early showed signs of artistic genius, and strange stories have been told of the precocity of the child. West received his first colours from Indians, and made his first paint-brush from a cat's tail. A box of colours, given by a merchant when he was nine years old, encouraged him to persevere; and we know that the donor of the box introduced him to a painter named Williams, of Philadelphia, from whom he derived instruction. West started in life at eighteen as a portrait painter; first at Philadelphia, then at New York. In 1760, he visited Italy, and, after remaining there three years, proceeded to England. He had intended to return to America, but became so successful that he settled in London. In Rome the young American created a sensation, and the blind Cardinal Albani, whose acquaintance with Americans must have been limited, asked if he was black or white. In London West was greatly sought after, and in 1766, three years after his arrival, he finished _Orestes and Pylades_ (National Gallery); his house was besieged by the fashionable world, eager for a glimpse of the picture. West now found many patrons, among them the Bishops of Bristol and Worcester, and Drummond, Archbishop of York. The Archbishop was so charmed by _Agrippa with the Ashes of Germanicus_, that he introduced West to George III., who became a warm and faithful supporter of the artist. From 1767 to 1802 West was almost exclusively employed by the King, and received large sums of money. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy, and on the death of Reynolds, became President. His inaugural address, which, like all he did, was highly praised, had two subjects--the excellence of British art and the gracious benevolence of his Majesty. The illness of George III. put an end to West's attendance at Court, and he proceeded into a wider field of art, choosing that of religion. Here he was more successful than in many of his former pictures, as in _Christ healing the Sick_ (National Gallery), _Christ rejected_, and _Death on the Pale Horse_. He died on the 11th of March, 1820, aged eighty-two. West, so popular in the days of George III., is utterly neglected now. If he aimed at being great, he succeeded only in the size of his pictures. A cold, passionless mediocrity was the highest point to which he attained, and of his pictures we may say as the old Scotsman said of Rob Roy, that they are "too bad for blessing, and too good for banning." Redgrave says: "His compositions were more studied than natural, the action often conventional and dramatic; the draperies, although learned, heavy and without truth. His colour often wants freshness and variety of tint, and is hot and foxy." We owe to West, however, the example of courage in attempting great religious