ted to the Prince, but he has declined hearing any of them. Also
the Catholic cause remains undecided, and he refuses hearing anything on
that subject. But no more of politics. I am sure you must have more than
sufficient at home.

"I will turn to a more pleasant subject and give you a slight history of
the American artists now in London.

"At the head stands Mr. West. He stands and has stood so long preeminent
that I could relate but little of his history that would be new to you,
so that I shall confine myself only to what has fallen under my own
observation, and, of course, my remarks will be few.

"As a painter Mr. West can be accused of as few faults as any artist of
ancient or modern times. In his studies he has been indefatigable, and
the result of those studies is a perfect knowledge of the philosophy of
his art. There is not a line or a touch in his pictures which he cannot
account for on philosophical principles. They are not the productions of
accident, but of study.

"His principal excellence is considered composition, design, and elegant
grouping; and his faults were said to be a hard and harsh outline and bad
coloring. These faults he has of late in a great degree amended. His
outline is softer and his coloring, in some pictures in which he has
attempted truth of color, is not surpassed by any artist now living, and
some have even said that Titian himself did not surpass it. However that
may be, his pictures of a late date are admirable even in this
particular, and it evinces that, if in general he neglected that
fascinating branch of art in some of his paintings, he still possesses a
perfect knowledge of all its artifices. He has just completed a picture,
an historical landscape, which, for clearness of coloring combined with
grandeur of composition, has never been excelled.

"In his private character he is unimpeachable. He is a man of tender
feelings, but of a mind so noble that it soars above the slanders of his
enemies, and he expresses pity rather than revenge towards those who,
through wantonness or malice, plan to undermine his character. No man,
perhaps, ever passed through so much abuse, and none, I am confident,
ever bore up against its virulence with more nobleness of spirit, with a
steady perseverance in the pursuit of the sublimest of human professions.
He has travelled on heedless of the sneers, the ridicule, or the
detraction of his enemies, and he has arrived at that point where the
l