s he considered himself sufficiently well established to send
to Philadelphia for his betrothed. This lady, Miss Elizabeth Shewell,
came out to England under the care of his father, and in the same year,
1765, West was married to her in London. She was a lady of great
amiability of character, and by the English was often spoken of as the
Philadelphia beauty.

Soon after his arrival in England he produced a large painting on a
subject from Tacitus, "Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus."
It was a decided success. George the Third was deeply impressed with it,
and congratulated West warmly upon its merits. At the same time the king
gave him a commission for a painting,--the subject to be "The Death of
Regulus,"--and thus began the friendship between the monarch and the
artist, which lasted for nearly forty years. He was a hard worker, and
during his long life his pictures followed each other in rapid
succession. They are estimated by a writer in Blackwood's Magazine at
three thousand in number. Mr. Dunlap says that they would cover a wall
ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long if arranged side by side on a
flat surface. The most famous are his "Death of Wolfe;" "Regulus, a
Prisoner to the Carthaginians;" "The Battle of La Hogue;" "The Death of
Bayard;" "Hamilcar Swearing the Infant Hannibal at the Altar;" "The
Departure of Regulus;" "Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of
Germanicus;" "Christ Healing the Sick;" "Death on the Pale Horse;" "The
Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Saviour in the Jordan;" "The
Crucifixion;" and "Christ Rejected."

The picture which brought him most prominently before the public, and
which placed his popularity beyond dispute, was "The Death of Wolfe at
Quebec." It was fashionable at this time to treat nothing but subjects
from ancient history, and when West announced his intention of painting
a picture of contemporary history his friends warned him that he was
incurring a serious risk. Nevertheless he finished his "Death of Wolfe,"
and it was exhibited in the National Gallery. The public "acknowledged
its excellence at once, but the lovers of old art--called
classical--complained of the barbarism of boots, buttons, and
blunderbusses, and cried out for naked warriors, with bows, bucklers,
and battering rams." Lord Grosvenor was much pleased with the picture,
and finally purchased it, though he did so with hesitation, daunted to
some extent by the fierce storm of opposition with which