, it may be regarded as the happiest portion of his
career. His house was always open to Americans visiting England, and few
things pleased him more than to listen to news from his native village.
He was a kind and judicious friend to young artists, especially to those
of his own country studying in England, and took a lively pleasure in
their success. Leigh Hunt, whose mother was a relative of West, has left
us the following description of him:

"The appearance of West 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 Rome--took up, I suppose, with more ease
than most would have done, the urbanities of his new position. Yet this
man, so well bred, and so indisputably clever in his art, whatever might
be the amount of his genius, had received a homely or careless
education, and pronounced some of his words with a puritanical
barbarism; he would talk of his art all day. There were strong
suspicions of his leaning to his native side in politics, and he could
not restrain his enthusiasm for Bonaparte. How he managed these matters
with the higher powers in England I can not say."

Possessed originally of a sound and vigorous constitution, which he had
not weakened by any species of dissipation, West lived to a good old
age, and died in London on the 11th of March, 1820, in his eighty-second
year. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, by the side of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and under the same great dome which covers the tombs of Nelson
and Wellington.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JOHN ROGERS.

There is scarcely a family of means and taste in the country but is the
possessor of one or more of Rogers's groups in plaster. You see them in
every art or book-store window, and they are constantly finding new
admirers, and rendering the name of the talented sculptor more and more
a household word.

JOHN ROGERS, to whom the world is indebted for this new branch of art,
was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 30th of October, 1829. His
ancestors were among the original settlers of the colony, and have
resided in Salem for generations. His father, a merchant of moderate
means and good reputation, was anxious to train his son to some regular
and profitable business. As the basis of this, he gave the boy a good
education in the common schools of the town, and in 1845, when he