236 CURSORY OBSERVATIONS 



has since been re-printed, in a memoir of Mr. West, with as much 

 gravity as if all modern battles had been painted in antique dresses' 

 up to the year 1770, when the death of Wolfe was exhibited by 

 West. 



West's determination was a proof of his good sense and moral 

 courage. He chose to encounter a serious disadvantage in point of 

 pictorial dignity and grandeur, rather than tell an untruth on the 

 canvas. He could not reconcile it to his feelings and sense of duty, 

 as an historical painter, in representing an action which had taken 

 place in the year 1758, to exclude a portion of the true particulars 

 by which only it could be known, and to substitute particulars 

 which could have no possible relation whatever to it ; which had 

 fallen into disuse a thousand, or twelve hundred years before, and 

 which must render it impossible, in a few years, for any person to 

 discover to what battle the picture referred. His words, which I 

 here quote as reported by his biographer, show that, in opposition 

 to Dr. Johnson's opinion, he considered painting an organ of correct 

 historical information. " It is a topic that history will proudly re- 

 cord, and the same truth that guides the pen of the historian should 

 govern the pencil of the artist." Again, he says — " I want to mark 

 the date, the place, and the parties engaged in the evenly and if I 

 am not able to dispose of the circumstances in a picturesque manner, 

 no academical distribution of Greek or Roman costume will enable 

 me to do justice to my subject." In effect, if he had done so, he 

 would have offered a painting to the world, as the death of General 

 Wolfe, to which, if I may venture so strong an expression, the eye 

 of the spectator would instantly have given the lie. 



It is very true that the information communicated by painting 

 requires to be generally preceded by some knowledge of the story or 

 emblems which it represents. Boswell speaks of this as if it were pe- 

 culiar to painting, and in no degree necessary to poetry. He compla- 

 cently assumes it as a proof of the inferiority of the former to the latter. 

 But if it be so,, it is an advantage which the dullest drudge in The 

 Dunciad so far, according to his reasoning, enjoyed over Raffaelle, 

 Michael Angelo, and all the renowned sculptors and painters of 

 Greece and Rome. Yet, surely, we are not, on this narrow suppo- 



