His fame spread to Lancaster, where he was soon employed to paint portraits. A Lancaster gunsmith, Mr. Joseph Henry, commissioned him to paint the Death of Socrates. The artist knew none too much about the personage he was going to paint, and the gunsmith read to him a few passages which spoke about hemlock and the philosopher. Once possessed of the idea, he began to work it out on canvas. The gunsmith gave him one of his men to stand for a model, and in due time this first historical picture of Benjamin West was finished.

When West was fifteen years of age, Dr. Smith, Provost of the College of Philadelphia, proposed to his father to send his son to that city where he kindly offered to direct his studies. But before this Quaker father gave up his boy to the "worldly occupation of painting," he felt it to be his duty to lay the matter before the society of which he was a member. The society assembled and waited for the moving of the spirit. It was a serious question with those serious men and women, whether they could give their consent that one of their own members should wander from the fold, to pursue an art which "had hitherto been employed to embellish life, to preserve voluptuous images, and add to the sensual gratifications of man.” "The spirit of speech first descended on one John Williamson-To John West and Sarah Persons,' said this Western Luminary, 'a man-child hath been born, on whom God hath conferred some remarkable gifts of mind and you have all heard that, by something amounting to inspiration, the youth has been induced to study the Art of Painting. It is true that our tenets refuse to own the utility of that art to mankind; but it seemeth to me that we have considered the matter too nicely. God has bestowed on this youth a genius for Art-shall we question His wisdom? Can we believe that He gives such rare gifts but for a wise and good purpose? I see the Divine hand in this; we shall do well to sanction the art and encourage this youth.'"

The assembly seems to have felt the force of these words, and the young painter was called in. He entered and took his station in the middle of the room, his father on his right hand and his mother on the left, surrounded by a company of simple-hearted worshipers. A female spoke-for in the Society of Friends the pride of man has fastened no badge of servitude upon woman. There seemed to be but one opinion. If painting had been employed hitherto only "to preserve voluptuous images, in wise and pure hands it may rise in the scale of moral excellence, and display a loftiness of sentiment, and a devout dignity worthy of the contemplation of Christians. Genius is given by God for some high purpose-what that purpose is let us not inquire-it will be manifest in His own good time and way. He hath in this remote wilderness endowed with the rich gifts of a superior spirit this youth, who has now our consent to cultivate his talents for Art. May it be demonstrated in his life and works, that the gifts of God have not been bestowed in vain nor the motives of the beneficent inspiration, which induces us to suspend the strict operation of our tenets, prove barren of religious and moral effect." "At the conclusion of this address, the women rose and kissed artist and the men one by one laid their hands on his head."" pursued his studies at Philadelphia with an untiring devotion until summoned to the bedside of his dying mother. He arrived just in time

the young West

"I care nothing for pictures," said a farmer to a young man who was endea voring to entice him into the purchase of a book, "illustrated by many pictures," "pointing morals and adorning tales." He spake the truth, for as he said so, his nostrils sniveled in a sneer, and his head jerked in a disdainful toss. He despised them as puerile; yet, as he had never wandered far beyond the sight of his chimney smoke, his brain held many good ideas solely derived from pictures; including the idea of the great wall in China, that in his boyhood he had from his school geography, to the idea of a newly invented plow he had seen in his newspaper, and that was then doing good service for him in his manly occupation as a tiller of the soil.

These incidents are true; and yet, among persons of equal intelligence, unlikely to occur in any country save our own. Americans have less fondness for the beautiful in Nature, and less appreciation of the excellent in Art, than any other civilized people. In the summer, when Young America takes his holiday, he will be found in the finest apparel, his feet pinched in patent leather, lounging under some piazza at a crowded watering-place; or if he does ruralize, it is in the utter forgetfulness of legs; for he is whirling, in a slender cariole, over a straight hard road, amid clouds of dust, and behind a 2:40 nag, out of whom he is straining to get his mile within 2:39. At the same time, in England, multitudes will be seen, all over the country, from the nobleman to the shop-keeper's clerk on his vacation, dressed in coarse checked suits and stout shoes, with their knapsacks, traveling on foot, and carrying opera-glasses; seeking out fine points of view, from whence to enjoy the ever-varying, never-repeating combinations of scenery, created expressly for our gratification, by a common Father. On the continent, poverty may deny to the humble peasant the many comforts we possess, but it cannot deprive him of the visible glories of Nature, or of the great in Art, that he sees in the cathedral where he worships, and in the galleries around him, free and open to all. He thus becomes familiar with the names of artists; he is taught by their representations, and as he looks at Art, he is educated to look at Nature and then again at Art, until by reciprocation, from one to the other, a new sense is developed, and he grows appreciative alike in the works of God and in those of man.

The life of the American has been hard and dry. He commenced in poverty, and what with the felling of the forest, and the elbowing away of the Indian to give him room, he has thought of little else. He has not tarried to take a lesson of patience from his ox, that calmly chewed the cud under the yoke; nor one of enjoyment from the little robin, that cheerily sang all the day long in the tree near where he labored. Ever hurrying on, restless and nervous, applying to work with a never before known intensity, he brings up at length at the end of his days, without scarcely a single pause by the way, to inquire for what he has lived. He "has eyes, but he sees not;" he "has ears, but hears not; " seeing nothing nor hearing nothing, but bending all his energies, body and soul, to the one great end"the main chance."

This is wrong. "Man was not made to live by bread alone." Those finer faculties, our tastes, the love of Nature, Art, Poetry, and Music, were given to be cultivated, and the pauses to administer to them, are the resting-places in this not altogether work-day-world.

Art is so little appreciated among us, that scarcely a name of a successful American artist has impressed the American people at large, save perhaps one, a sculptor, and he only because he is said to have excelled all European cotemporaries in the carving of a nude female figure. A change is to ensue, The flush of a new dawn is shooting upward. And we trust the day will soon arrive, when the walls of even the cottages of the land will generally be attractive, from pleasant pictures of landscapes, of instructive scenes in history, and heart-improving delineations of domestic life.

America has produced some artists of note; enough to show that this kind of talent, when required among us, will be forthcoming, and in no stinted measure. Possibly, at this moment, somewhere in the dark pine forests of Minnesota, or by the shores of the rolling Atlantic, or on the sunny slopes of the Alleghanies, is a white-headed, hatless, and bare-footed little urchin, playing in the sand before the door of a rude cabin, who is marked for a great career in Art; to bless the future of our people by a matchless genius in illustrating the heroic in American annals, or by touching pictures of American life, that shall sweetly influence to a more vivid appreciation and love of home.

So little at an early day was Art cultivated in our country, that our men of genius in this line were obliged to seek a field for their efforts mainly in Europe. We introduce the histories of a few of these.

BENJAMIN WEST.

Something more than a century since, the screams of a cat in sore distress issued from the farm-house of a Quaker, in Springfield, Chester county, Pennsylvania; and she had cause, for little "Benny" West held her in his grip, and was pulling out her fur by the roots, to make his paint brushes from; genius was working in him, and poor puss had to suffer. When her hair was drawn through a goose quill, it answered his purpose very well. His resources for paints were the wandering Indians, who supplied him with the red and yellow earths with which they daubed their skins, and his mother's indigo pot, from which he got his blue color.

He early showed a fondness for Art. In 1745, when he was but seven years old, he was placed with a fly-brush to watch the sleeping infant of his eldest sister. As he sat there the child smiled in sleep. Struck by its beauty he attempted to draw its portrait in red and black ink. His sober parents encouraged this new taste, and in a little while, the quiet Quaker home was filled with his pictorial efforts.

A Mr. Pennington, a merchant of Philadelphia, made a visit to Chester county, where he saw some of these sketches of the boy-artist, and when he returned home he sent him a present worth more to him than a kingdom-"a box of paints and brushes, and several pieces of canvas prepared, and six engravings by Greveling." These were the first works or implements of Art the boy had ever seen. "West placed the box on a chair by his bedside, and he was unable to sleep. He rose with the dawn, carried his canvas and colors to the garret, hung up the engravings, prepared a palette, and commenced copying. So completely was he under the control

of this species of enchantment, that he absented himself from school, labored secretly and incessantly for several days, when the anxious inquiries of the schoolmaster introduced his mother to his studio with no pleasure in her looks, but her anger vanished as she looked upon his performance. He had avoided copyism, and made a picture composed from two of the engravings, telling a new story, and colured with a skill and effect that was in her sight surprising. "She kissed him," says Galt, who had the story from the artist, "with transports of affection, and assured him that she would not only intercede with his father to pardon him for having absented himself from school, but would go herself to the master and beg that he might not be punished."

When West was nine years of age, Pennington took him to Philadelphia, and introduced him to Williams, a portrait painter, who was so much delighted with a landscape that he had painted, that he warmly encouraged him to prosecute his studies. He gave him a couple of bok, and an invitation to call whenever he pleased and see his pictures.

The books and the pictures made the love of Art overcome all other feelings, and he returned home resolved to become painter. Williams' pictures, which were "the first specimens of true At the boy had seen, affected West so much that he burst into tears."

A story well authenticated is told by all his biographers, which goes to show that Benjamin was quite an ambitious little fellow for a Quaker. "One of his school-fellows allured him on a half-holiday from trap and ball, by promising him a ride to a neighboring plantation. Here is the horse, bridled and saddled,' said his friend, 'so come, get up behind me.' 'Behind you,' said Benjamin; 'I will ride behind nobody.' 'Oh! very well,' replied the other, 'I will ride behind you; so mount.' He mounted accordingly and away they rode. This is the last ride I shall have,' said his companion, for some time. To-morrow I am to be appenticed to a tailor.' 'A tailor!' exclaimed West; 'you will surely never be a tailor.' 'Indeed, but I shall,' replied the other; it is a good trade. What do you intend to be, Benjamin?' 'A painter.' 'A painter! What sort of a trade is a painter? I never heard of it before.' 'A painter,' said this humble son of a Pennsylvania Quaker, 'is the companion of kings and emperors.' 'You are surely mad,' said the embryo tailor, there are neither kings nor emperors in America.' 'Aye, but there are plenty in other parts of the world. And do you really intend to be a tailor?' 'Indeed I do-nothing surer.' 'Then you may ride alone,' said the future companion of kings and emperors, leaping down; 'I will not ride with one willing to be a tailor!'"

A gentleman by the name of Flower, who lived in a neighboring town, saw some of West's first pictures, and was so well pleased with the boy that he invited him to visit his house. There he met a young Engish lady, who was governess to his daughter. She was well acquainted with Art, and also intimate with Greek and Latin Poets, and loved to point out to the young artist the most picturesque passages. He had never before heard of Greece or of Rome, or of the heroes, philosophers, poets, painters, and historians, whom they had produced, and he listened while the lady spoke of them, with an enthusiasm which, after an experience of nearly seventy years in the world he loved to live over again.

His fame spread to Lancaster, where he was soon employed to paint por traits. A Lancaster gunsmith, Mr. Joseph Henry, commissioned him to paint the Death of Socrates. The artist knew none too much about the personage he was going to paint, and the gunsmith read to him a few passages which spoke about hemlock and the philosopher. Once possessed of the idea, he began to work it out on canvas. The gunsmith gave him one of his men to stand for a model, and in due time this first historical picture of Benjamin West was finished.

When West was fifteen years of age, Dr. Smith, Provost of the College of Philadelphia, proposed to his father to send his son to that city where he kindly offered to direct his studies. But before this Quaker father gave up his boy to the "worldly occupation of painting," he felt it to be his duty to lay the matter before the society of which he was a member. The society assembled and waited for the moving of the spirit. It was a serious question with those serious men and women, whether they could give their consent that one of their own members should wander from the fold, to pursue an art which "had hitherto been employed to embellish life, to preserve voluptuous images, and add to the sensual gratifications of man."

The spirit of speech first descended on one John Williamson-'To John West and Sarah Persons,' said this Western Luminary, 'a man-child hath been born, on whom God hath conferred some remarkable gifts of mind and you have all heard that, by something amounting to inspiration, the youth has been induced to study the Art of Painting. It is true that our tenets refuse to own the utility of that art to mankind; but it seemeth to me that we have considered the matter too nicely. God has bestowed on this youth a genius for Art-shall we question His wisdom? Can we believe that He gives such rare gifts but for a wise and good purpose? I see the Divine hand in this; we shall do well to sanction the art and encourage this youth." "

The assembly seems to have felt the force of these words, and the young painter was called in. He entered and took his station in the middle of the room, his father on his right hand and his mother on the left, surrounded by a company of simple-hearted worshipers. A female spoke-for in the Society of Friends the pride of man has fastened no badge of servitude upon woman. There seemed to be but one opinion. If painting had been employed hitherto only "to preserve voluptuous images, in wise and pure hands it may rise in the scale of moral excellence, and display a loftiness of sentiment, and a devout dignity worthy of the contemplation of Christians. Genius is given by God for some high purpose-what that purpose is let us not inquire-it will be manifest in His own good time and way. He hath in this remote wilderness endowed with the rich gifts of a superior spirit this youth, who has now our consent to cultivate his talents for Art. May it be demonstrated in his life and works, that the gifts of God have not been bestowed in vain nor the motives of the beneficent inspiration, which induces us to suspend the strict operation of our tenets, prove barren of religious and moral effect." "At the conclusion of this address, the women rose and kissed the young artist and the men one by one laid their hands on his head."" West pursued his studies at Philadelphia with an untiring devotion until summoned to the bedside of his dying mother. He arrived just in time