On the 10th of March, 1820, died Benjamin West, esq., president of the Royal Academy, in the eighty-second year of his age. It was his delight to gently lead genius in a young artist; and Mr. WILLIAM BEHNES, the sculptor, was honoured by the venerable president with the means of transmitting his parting looks to an admiring world, upon whom he was soon to look no more. Mr. West’s sittings to Mr. Behnes were about two months before his death. Expressing himself to his young friend in terms of high satisfaction at the model, he encouraged him to persevere in that branch of art which Mr. Behnes has since distinguished, by admirable power of design and use of the chisel. To speak of Mr. Behnes’s model as a mere likeness, is meagre praise of an effort which clearly marks observation, and comprehension, of Mr. West’s great mental powers. The bust, as it stands in marble, in sir John Leicester’s gallery, is a perfect resemblance of Mr. West’s features, and an eloquent memorial of his vigorous and unimpaired intellect in the last days of earthly existence. If ever the noblest traits of humanity were depicted by the hand of art, they are on this bust. Superiority of mind is so decidedly marked, and blended, with primitive simplicity, and a beaming look of humanity and benevolence, that it seems the head of an apostle. Mr. West was an American; he was born at Springfield, in Pennsylvania, on the 10th of October, 1738; his ancestors and parents were “Friends:” the family had emigrated from England with the illustrious founder and legislator of Pennsylvania, WILLIAM PENN: of whose treaty with the Indians for a tract of their territory, it is observed, that it was the only christian contract unsanctioned by an oath, and the only one never violated.[17] The first of the family who embraced Quaker principles was colonel James West, the friend and companion in arms of the great John Hampden.