The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq.: Composed from Materials Furnished by HimselfGalt, John
General
The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq.: Composed from Materials Furnished by Himself
Galt, John
West, Benjamin, 1738-1820
integral parts of the same group; but although this doubt may be well
founded, it will not invalidate the supposed general principle of the
antient sculptors, corroborated, as it is, by innumerable examples.
In the evening, after visiting the palaces, Mr. Robinson carried Mr. West
to see a grand religious ceremony in one of the churches. Hitherto he was
acquainted only with the simple worship of the Quakers. The pomp of the
papal ceremonies was as much beyond his comprehension, as the overpowering
excellence of the music surpassed his utmost expectations. Undoubtedly, in
all the spectacles and amusements of Rome, he possessed a keener sense of
enjoyment, arising from the simplicity of his education, than most other
travellers. That same sensibility to the beauty of forms and colours which
had awakened his genius for painting, was, probably, accompanied with a
general superior susceptibility of the other organs as well as the sight;
for it is observed that a taste for any one of the fine arts is connected
with a general predilection for them all. But neither the Apollo, the
Vatican, nor the pomp of the Catholic ritual, excited his feelings to so
great a degree as the spectacle which presented itself to his view around
the portico of the church. Bred in the universal prosperity of
Pennsylvania, where the benevolence of the human bosom was only employed
in acts of hospitality and mutual kindness, he had never witnessed any
spectacle of beggary, nor had he ever heard the name of God uttered to
second an entreaty for alms. Here, however, all the lazars and the
wretched in Rome were collected together; hundreds of young and old in
that extreme of squalor, nakedness, and disease which affrights the
English traveller in Italy, were seen on all sides; and their
importunities and cries, for the love of God, and the mercy of Christ, to
relieve them, thrilled in his ears, and smote upon his heart to such a
degree, that his joints became as it were loosened, and his legs scarcely
able to support him. Many of the beggars knew Mr. Robinson, and seeing him
accompanied by a stranger, an Englishman, as they concluded the Artist to
be from his appearance, surrounded them with confidence and clamours.
* * * * *
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