Many other names of minor reputation might be mentioned,--as Hayman, Mortimer, &c.,--who occasionally with portrait, painted history, but to no extent. This branch of the art, except for the labours of the late Sir Benjamin West, at the close of the last century, would almost have been without a representative amongst us. From that period, very great progress in all the departments has been realized. Still, to the ancient grandeur of the historic style this venerable artist has continued to make the nearest approaches. To the New World, succeeding ages will stand indebted for West; but for the painter, the arts are under obligation to England. It is singular, too, that the advice and services of a Scotsman were the immediate inducements which prevented this ornament of two worlds from returning to his native country, in which case his talents would most probably have been lost to both. The state of patronage and of taste could not have afforded to him the means nor the incitement of rising beyond portrait, in which we do not think West would ever have excelled. Two incidents in his lot reflect equal honor on his native and his adopted country,--like many other moral analogies, evincing the common possession of a congenial liberality and kindliness of spirit, which ought, and will, we trust, ever mingle its best affections in reciprocally advantageous and amicable intercourse. In the land of his birth, the opening genius of West was cheered with a truly tender solicitude; his future advance and his future fame seemed less the care of individual friends than of his countrymen. And, from 1763, on first setting foot in Britain, during the long course of his life, he received more encouragement from her sovereign and her people than has ever been accorded to any historical painter, native or foreign; this, too, in the midst of an unhappy, and, as then considered, rebellious contest. When we consider the labours of Sir Benjamin, in reference either to English or Continental art, they have, in both points of view, a high, but not an equal rank. In the former, they are unrivalled in magnitude, in progressive improvement, and in the excellence of the principles upon which they are composed. In comparing them with foreign art, their merits are not so absolute; but here we shall use the words of the present accomplished president. 'At an era,' says Sir Thomas Lawrence, 'when historical painting was at the lowest ebb, (with the few exceptions which the claims of the beautiful and the eminent permitted to the pencil of Sir Joshua), Mr West, sustained by the munificent patronage of his late Majesty, produced a series of compositions, from sacred and profane history, profoundly studied, and executed with the most facile power, which not only were superior to any former productions of English art, but, far surpassing contemporary merit on the Continent, were unequalled at any period below the schools of the Caracci.'