The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq. | Page 6

all moral
evil when in a state of excitement, whatever tends to awaken them is
unfavourable to that placid tenour of mind which they wished to see
diffused throughout the world. This notion is prudent, perhaps
judicious; but works of imagination may be rendered subservient to the
same purpose. Every thing in Pennsylvania was thus unpropitious to
the fine arts. There were no cares in the bosoms of individuals to
require public diversions, nor any emulation in the expenditure of
wealth to encourage the ornamental manufactures. In the whole
Christian world no spot was apparently so unlikely to produce a painter

as Pennsylvania. It might, indeed, be supposed, according to a popular
opinion, that a youth, reared among the concentrating elements of a
new state, in the midst of boundless forests, tremendous waterfalls, and
mountains whose summits were inaccessible to "the lightest foot and
wildest wing," was the most favourable situation to imbibe the
enthusiasm either of poetry or of painting, if scenery and such
accidental circumstances are to be regarded as every thing, and original
character as nothing. But it may reasonably be doubted if ever natural
scenery has any assignable influence on the productions of genius. The
idea has probably arisen from the impression which the magnificence
of nature makes on persons of cultivated minds, who fall into the
mistake of considering the elevated emotions arising in reality from
their own associations, as being naturally connected with the objects
that excite them. Of all the nations of Europe the Swiss are the least
poetical, and yet the scenery of no other country seems so well
calculated as that of Switzerland to awaken the imagination; and
Shakespeare, the greatest of all modern Poets, was brought up in one of
the least picturesque districts of England.
Soon after the occurrence of the incident which has given rise to these
observations, the young Artist was sent to a school in the
neighbourhood. During his hours of leisure he was permitted to draw
with pen and ink; for it did not occur to any of the family to provide
him with better materials. In the course of the summer a party of
Indians came to pay their annual visit to Springfield, and being amused
with the sketches of birds and flowers which Benjamin shewed them,
they taught him to prepare the red and yellow colours with which they
painted their ornaments. To these his mother added blue, by giving him
a piece of indigo, so that he was thus put in possession of the three
primary colours. The fancy is disposed to expatiate on this interesting
fact; for the mythologies of antiquity furnish no allegory more beautiful;
and a Painter who would embody the metaphor of an Artist instructed
by Nature, could scarcely imagine any thing more picturesque than the
real incident of the Indians instructing West to prepare the prismatic
colours. The Indians also taught him to be an expert archer, and he was
sometimes in the practice of shooting birds for models, when he
thought that their plumage would look well in a picture.

His drawings at length attracted the attention of the neighbours; and
some of them happening to regret that the Artist had no pencils, he
enquired what kind of things these were, and they were described to
him as small brushes made of camels' hair fastened in a quill. As there
were, however, no camels in America, he could not think of any
substitute, till he happened to cast his eyes on a black cat, the favourite
of his father; when, in the tapering fur of her tail, he discovered the
means of supplying what he wanted. He immediately armed himself
with his mother's scissors, and, laying hold of Grimalkin with all due
caution, and a proper attention to her feelings, cut off the fur at the end
of her tail, and with this made his first pencil. But the tail only
furnished him with one, which did not last long, and he soon stood in
need of a further supply. He then had recourse to the animal's back, his
depredations upon which were so frequently repeated, that his father
observed the altered appearance of his favourite, and lamented it as the
effect of disease. The Artist, with suitable marks of contrition,
informed him of the true cause; and the old gentleman was so much
amused with his ingenuity, that if he rebuked him, it was certainly not
in anger.
Anecdotes of this kind, trifling as they may seem, have an interest
independent of the insight they afford into the character to which they
relate. It will often appear, upon a careful study of authentic biography,
that the means of giving body and effect to their conceptions, are rarely
withheld from men of genius. If the circumstances of Fortune