Mr. West arrived in England on the 20th of August, 1763. The sentiments with which he approached the shores of this island, were those of a stranger visiting interesting scenes, mingled with something of the solicitude and affections of a traveller returning home. He had no intention of remaining in London: he was only desirous to see the country of his ancestors, and his mind, in consequence, was more disengaged from professional feelings than at any period from that in which his genius was first awakened. He considered his visit to England as devoted to social leisure, the best kind of repose after mental exertion; but the good fortune which had hitherto attended him in so remarkable a manner, still followed him, and frustrated the intentions with which he was at that time actuated. Those who have at all attended to what was then the state of the arts in this country, and more particularly to the relative condition of artists in society, and who can compare them with the state of both at the present period, will not hesitate to regard the arrival of Mr. West as an important event. In the sequel of this work, it may be necessary to allude to the moral and political causes which affect the progress of the fine arts, and opportunities will, in consequence, arise to show how meanly they were considered, how justly, indeed, it may be said, they were rejected, not only by the British public in general, but even by the nobility. A few eminent literary characters were sensible of their importance, and lamented the neglect to which they were consigned; but the great body of the intelligent part of the nation neither felt their influence, nor were aware of their importance to the commerce and renown of the kingdom. Artists stood, if possible, lower in the scale of society than actors; for Garrick had redeemed the profession of the latter from the degradation to which it had been consigned from the time of the Commonwealth; but Reynolds, although in high repute as a portrait-painter, and affecting a gentlemanly liberality in the style of his living, was not so eminently before the public eye as to induce any change of the same consequence towards his profession. Mr. West found, on his arrival in London, several American families who had come across the Atlantic after the peace to visit their relations, and he had the unexpected pleasure of hearing that Mr. William Allen, Governor Hamilton, and Dr. Smith, his earliest friends and patrons, were in this country. Mr. Allen, like many others in the colonies at that time, was both a professional man and a merchant. He held indeed the dignified office of chief justice in Pennsylvania, and was a person of powerful and extensive connections in the mother-country. Hamilton, who had been many years governor, was chiefly indebted to him for the rank which he enjoyed, in consequence of having married his sister.