16 



WEST WEST INDIES. 



spirits, came crowding thick on his fancy ; and ho 

 was the only person who appeared insensible that 

 such were too weighty for his handling." lie 

 nainted several works of great size ; but few were 

 willing to be purchasers of pictures which occupied 

 BO much room. Domestic sorrow mingled with 

 professional disappointment. His wife, with whom 

 he had lived for some sixty years in uninterrupted 

 happiness, died December 6, 1817. He did not 

 survive her many years. Without any definite 

 complaint, his mental faculties unimpaired, his 

 cheerfulness uneclipsed, and with looks serene and 

 Iwnevolent, he expired March 11, 1820, in the 

 eighty-second year of his age. He was buried be- 

 >:<!> Reynolds, Opie and Barry, in St Paul's cathe- l 

 dral. 



West was in person above the middle size, of a 

 fair complexion, and firmly and compactly built. 

 He ever preserved a sedate sobriety of sentiment, 

 and happy propriety of manners, the results of a 

 devout domestic education. In disposition, he was 

 mild, liberal, and generous. He seriously impaired 

 his fortune by his kindness to young artists, whom 

 he endeavoured to assist in every way. The advice 

 which he gave them in his discourses from the pre- 

 sident's chair was marked by good sense and affec- 

 tion. The following extract in relation to his 

 paintings is from the biography of him, written by 

 Allan Cunningham : " As his life was long and 

 laborious, his productions are very numerous. He 

 painted and sketched upwards of 400 pictures, most- 

 ly of a historical and religious nature, and left more 

 than 200 original drawings in his portfolio. His 

 works were supposed, by himself, and for a time, 

 by others, to be in the true spirit of the great mas- 

 ters ; and he composed them with the serious ambi- 

 tion and hope of illustrating Scripture, and render- 

 ing gospel truth more impressive. No subject 

 seemed to him too lofty for his pencil he consi- 

 dered himself worthy to follow the sublimest flights 

 of the prophets, and dared to limn the effulgence 

 of God's glory, and the terrors of the day of judg- 

 ment. In all his works the human form was ex- 

 hibited in conformity to academic precepts; his 

 figures were arranged with skill ; the colouring was 

 varied and harmonious : the eye rested pleased on 

 the performance ; and the artist seemed, to the 

 ordinary spectator, to have done his task like one 

 of the highest of the sons of genius. But below 

 all this splendour, there was little of the true vita- 

 lity ; there was a monotony, too, of human charac- 

 ter ; the groupings were unlike the happy and care- 

 less combinations of nature ; and the figures seemed 

 distributed over the canvas by line and measure, 

 like trees in a plantation. He wanted fire and 

 imagination to be the true restorer of that grand 

 style which bewildered Barry, and was talked of 

 by Reynolds. Most of his works, cold, formal, 

 oloodless and passionless, may remind the spectator 

 of the sublime vision of the valley of dry bones, 

 when the flesh and skin had come upon the skele- 

 tons, and before the breath of God had adorned 

 them with life and feeling. Though such is the 

 general impression which the works of West make, 

 it cannot be denied that many are distinguished by 

 great excellence. In his Death on the Pale Horse, 

 and more particularly in the sketch of that picture, 

 he has more than approached the masters and princes 

 of the calling. It is, indeed, irresistibly fearful to 

 see the triumphant march of the terrific phantom, 

 and the dissolution of all that earth is proud of 

 beneath his tread. War and peace, sorrow and joy, 



youth, and age, all who love and all who hate, seem 

 planet-struck. The Death of Wolfe, too, is na- 

 tural and noble, and the Indian Chief, like the 

 Oneida warrior of Campbell, a Stoic of the woods, 

 a man without a tear,' was a happy thought. The 

 Battle of La Hogue I have heard praised as the 

 best historic picture of the British school, by one 

 not likely to be mistaken, and who would not say 

 what he did not feel. Many of his single figures, 

 also, are of a high order. There is ti natural grace 

 in the looks of some of his women which few paint- 

 ers have ever excelled."_See Gait's Life and 

 Studies of Benjamin West (London, 18 16 and 1820); 

 and Cunningham's Lives of Eminent British Paint- 

 ers. 



WEST, GILBERT, an ingenious author, was the 

 son of doctor West, editor of Pindar's works, and 

 was born in the year 1706. He was sent to Oxford, 

 and afterwards obtained a commission in a cavalry 

 regiment. He did not, however, long remain in 

 the service, retiring to Wickham, in Kent, where 

 he devoted his time to literary pursuits and the en- 

 joyment of the society of his friends. The patron- 

 age of Mr Pitt obtained him, in 1751, the situation 

 of clerk to the privy council, he having previously 

 held a deputy's place nearly twenty years. The 

 treasurership to Chelsea college was afterwards 

 added through the same interest. On the death of 

 an only son, in 1755, his grief induced a paralytic 

 affection, which carried him off in the following 

 year. His Observations on the Resurrection were 

 printed in 1747. His other writings are a poem on 

 the Institution of the Order of the Garter, and a 

 translation of some of the Odes of Pindar. 



WEST INDIA APRICOT. See Mammec 

 Tree. 



WEST INDIES ; the extensive archipelago 

 which lies between North and South America, 

 stretching from the coast of Florida, in the twenty- 

 eighth degree, to the shores of Venezuela, in the 

 tenth degree, of north latitude. It is divided by geo- 

 graphers into the Bahamas, composed of fourteen 

 clusters of islands and 700 keys ; the Great Antilles, 

 comprising the four largest islands of the group, 

 Cuba, Hayti, Porto Rico and Jamaica ; the Lesser 

 Antilles, stretching from Trinidad, in a westerly 

 direction, along the northern coast of South Ame- 

 rica; and the Caribbee islands, stretching, like a 

 great bow, from Tobago to Porto Rico, and sub- 

 divided into the three groups known under the name 

 of the Virgin islands, the Leeward islands and the 

 Windward islands. Each of the divisions abve men- 

 tioned, and the most important individual islands, 

 have been described separately. The whole archi- 

 pelago, with the exception of some of the Bahamas, 

 lies within the torrid zone. The name India was 

 given to them by Columbus, who first discovered 

 them, under the notion that they formed part of 

 India, which was the object of his search. When 

 the mistake was discovered, they retained the name, 

 with the prefix West, to denote their geographical 

 position. (See America, and Columbus.} Ths 

 seasons, as in other tropical countries, are divided 

 between the wet and the dry ; the spring begins 

 with May, when the foliage and grass become more 

 verdant : the first periodical rains set in about the 

 middle of the month, falling every day about noon, 

 and creating a rapid and luxuriant vegetation. The 

 thermometer at this season varies considerably, but 

 its medium height is about 75. After these rains 

 have prevailed about a fortnight, the weather be- 

 comes dry and settled, and the tropical summer 



