nter to
a court. His appearance was so gentlemanly, that, the moment he changed
his gown for a coat, he seemed to be full-dressed. The simplicity and
self-possession of the young Quaker, not having time enough to grow
stiff (for he went early to study at Rome), took up, I suppose, with
more ease than most would have done, the urbanities of his new position.
And what simplicity helped him to, favor would retain. Yet this man, so
well bred, and so indisputably clever in his art (whatever might be the
amount of his genius), had received so careless, or so homely an
education when a boy, that he could hardly read. He pronounced also some
of his words, in reading, with a puritanical barbarism, such as _haive_
for _have_, as some people pronounce when they sing psalms. But this was
perhaps an American custom. My mother, who both read and spoke
remarkably well, would say _haive_, and _shaul_ (for _shall_), when she
sung her hymns. But it was not so well in reading lectures at the
Academy. Mr. West would talk of his art all day long, painting all the
while. On other subjects he was not so fluent; and on political and
religious matters he tried hard to maintain the reserve common with
those about a court. He succeeded ill in both. There were always strong
suspicions of his leaning to his native side in politics; and daring
Bonaparte's triumph, he could not contain his enthusiasm for the
Republican chief, going even to Paris to pay him his homage, when First
Consul. The admiration of high colors and powerful effects, natural to a
painter, was too strong for him. How he managed this matter with the
higher powers in England, I can not say. Probably he was the less
heedful, inasmuch as he was not very carefully paid. I believe he did a
great deal for George the Third with little profit. Mr. West certainly
kept his love for Bonaparte no secret; and it was no wonder, for the
latter expressed admiration of his pictures. The artist thought the
conqueror's smile enchanting, and that he had the handsomest leg he had
ever seen. He was present when the "Venus de Medicis" was talked of, the
French having just taken possession of her. Bonaparte, Mr. West said,
turned round to those about him, and said, with his eyes lit up, "She's
coming!" as if he had been talking of a living person. I believe he
retained for the emperor the love that he had had for the First Consul,
a wedded love, "for better, for worse." However, I believe also that he
reta