To this letter Mr. West received no answer; but on the return of the Court to Windsor, he went to the Castle, and obtained a private audience of the King on the subject, by which it appeared that His Majesty was not at all acquainted with the communication of which Mr. Wyatt was the bearer, nor had he received Mr. West's letter. However, the result of the interview was, that the King said, "Go on with your work, West: go on with the pictures, and I will take care of you." This was the last interview that Mr. West was permitted to enjoy with his early, constant, and to him truly royal patron; but he continued to execute the pictures, and in the usual quarterly payments received the thousand pounds _per ann._. till His Majesty's final superannuation, when, without any intimation whatever, on calling to receive it, he was informed that it had been stopped, and that the intended design of the chapel of Revealed Religion was suspended. This was a severe stroke of misfortune to the Artist, now far advanced in life, but he submitted to it with resignation. He took no measures, nor employed any influence, either to procure the renewal of the quarterly allowance, or the payment of the balance of his account. But being thus cast off from his best anchor in his old age, he still possessed firmness of mind to think calmly of his situation. He considered that a taste for the fine arts had been greatly diffused by means of the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and the eclat which the French had given to pictures and statues by making them objects of national conquest; and having thus lost the patronage of the King, he determined to appeal to the public. With this view he resolved to paint several large pictures; and in the prosecution of this determination, he has been amply indemnified for the effects of that poor economy that frustrated the nation from obtaining an honourable monument of the taste of the age, and the liberality of a popular king. Without imputing motives to any party concerned, or indeed without being at all acquainted with the circumstances that gave rise to it, I should mention that a paper was circulated among the higher classes of society, in which an account was stated of the amount of the money paid by His Majesty, in the course of more than thirty years, to Mr. West. In that paper the interval of time was not at all considered, nor the expense of living, nor the exclusive preference which Mr. West had given to His Majesty's orders, but the total sum;--which, shown by itself, and taken into view without any of these explanatory circumstances, was very large, and calculated to show that Mr. West might really indeed _do_ without the thousand pounds a-year. In order, however, to place this proceeding in its true light, I have inserted in the Appendix an account of the works executed and designed by Mr. West for the King, and the prices allowed for them as charged in the audited account, of which the King himself had approved.