The naval and military officers who had occasion, during the war, to visit Philadelphia, found in the houses of the governor and Mr. Allen a cordial hospitality which they never forgot. Many of these officers were related to persons of distinction in London, and being anxious to testify to the Americans their grateful sense of the kindness which they had experienced, rendered the strangers objects of hospitable solicitude and marked respect in the first circles of the metropolis. Mr. West, accordingly, on his arrival, participated in the advantages of their favourable reception, and before he was known as an artist, frequented the parties of several of the highest characters in the state. His first excursion from London was to Hampton Court to see the Cartoons of Raphael. Soon after, he visited Oxford, Blenheim, and Corsham; whence he proceeded to Bath, where Mr. Allen was at that time residing. Here he remained about a month; and in returning to town made a short tour, in the course of which he inspected the collections of art at Storehead, Fonthill, Wilton House, the Cathedral of Salisbury, and the Earl of Radnor's seat at Longford. At Reading he staid some time with his half-brother, Mr. Thomas West, the eldest son of his father. When he returned to London he was introduced by Mr. Patoune, his travelling companion from Rome, to Reynolds, and a friendship commenced between them which was only broken by death. He also, much about the same time, formed an acquaintance with Mr. Richard Wilson, the landscape painter, to whom indeed he had brought very warm letters of introduction, from some of that great artist's friends and admirers in Italy. The first lodgings which Mr. West occupied, in his professional capacity, were in Bedford-Street, Covent-Garden, where, when it was understood that he intended to practise, he was visited by all the artists of eminence then in London, and welcomed among them with a cordiality that reflected great honour on the generosity of their dispositions. In this house the first picture which he painted in England was executed. The subject was Angelica and Medora, which, with the Cymon and Iphiginia, painted at Rome, and a portrait of General Moncton, (who acquired so much celebrity by his heroic conduct as second in command under General Wolfe at Quebec,) by the advice of Reynolds and Wilson, he sent to the exhibition in Spring Gardens in 1764. While he was engaged on the picture of Angelica and Medora, Dr. Markham, then Master of Westminster-School, paid him a visit and invited him to a dinner, at which he introduced him to Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke; Mr. Chracheroide, and Mr. Dyer. On being introduced to Burke he was so much surprised by the resemblance which that gentleman bore to the chief of the Benedictine monks at Parma, that when he spoke he could scarcely persuade himself he was not the same person. This resemblance was not accidental; the Protestant orator was, indeed, the brother of the monk.