t Columbia." He then proposed, in
irony, a list of a few "Cabotian words"--happify, gunning, belittle,
quiddle, composuist, sot, etc. _Lengthy_ he stigmatizes as "a foolish,
flat, unauthorized, unmusical Indian word".[12] In conclusion (_Port
Folio_, I, page 370), "let then the projected volume of _foul and
unclean_ things bear his own Christian name and be called NOAH'S ARK!"

[12] "Lengthy" is the American for long. It is frequently used by the
_classical_ writers of the New World.--(John Davis' "Travels in the
United States," page 126.)

We meet the first notice of Benjamin West, as a boy of 19 years, in
Bradford's second _American Magazine_. In the first volume of the _Port
Folio_ we find the first of a long series of sketches in praise of
West's genius and generosity. "It is a melancholy and miraculous
circumstance," the satirical writer begins, "that this American artist,
after experiencing the good fortune to be born and educated in
Pennsylvania, should sullenly retreat to England and exchange the
glorious privileges of our happy, tranquil and rising Republic for the
smoke and servility of the city of London. It is perfectly inexplicable
that he should barter citizenship for knighthood, that he should receive
a king's money, and, more provoking still, be soothed by regal praise.
What are titles, honours and gold to an independent Republican who,
remaining at home, might have had the noblest and amplest opportunities
of _giving away_ as many pictures as he pleased."

It is a singular history, that of the boy from Chester County, whom
Byron called--

The dotard West,
Europe's worst daub, and poor England's best.

The Archbishop of York, for whom he had painted his "Agrippina landing
with the Ashes of Germanicus," presented the young American to George
III. "The Departure of Regulus from Rome" won for him the royal favor.
In 1768 he was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and in 1792 he
succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of that institution.

The _Port Folio_ is full of accounts of "Christ Healing the Sick,"
West's generous gift to the Pennsylvania Hospital, and of his "Death on
the Pale Horse," and his "Paul and Barnabas" in the Pennsylvania
Academy.

In a letter from West to Charles Willson Peale, dated November 3, 1809,
and published in the _Port Folio_ of the following year, reference is
made to a young gentleman, studying under his directions, "whose talents
only want time to mature t