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taste of the time. The works of Fuseli, Barry, or Haydon had as great elements of
popularity. It was West's character and temperament which gained him wealth and honors while the others
struggled and starved. More specifically it was the favor of the King, but that is only another way of saying
the same thing. Besides, as far as one may judge, he would have succeeded without royal patronage, though not
to an equal degree. He had the dignified, kindly, passionless temperament of the Quakers, and he kept it
throughout life, though he relinquished most of the peculiar observances of the sect. Cunningham says, " The
grave simplicity of the Quaker continued to the last in the looks and manners of the artist," but Dunlap, who
knew him well, denies this utterly. He behaved like other people, had no desire to wear his hat in unusual
places, powdered his hair, dressed well, and "his well formed limbs," as Dunlap discreetly puts it, " were
covered by garments of texture and color such as were worn by other gentlemen." Leigh Hunt, whose mother was
a relative of the artist, says that " the appearance of West was so gentlemanly that the moment he changed
his gown for a coat he seemed to be full dressed." His Quakerism was of the spirit, not of the externals, and
it served him well. His position at court rendered him an object of envy to less-favored artists. Reynolds
was politic enough to conceal his feelings, but others were less reticent; toward the end of his life his
success, his honors, his wealth, and probably, to be fair, a growing recognition of the defects of his
painting, unchained against him a storm of vituperation.
Peter Pindar, who was then enormously popular, even brought the King into his doggerel
rhymes, beginning —
" Of modern works he makes a jest Except the works of Mr.
West."
and later Byron himself slashed at —
" the dotard West Europe's worst daub, poor England's
best."
But West never answered, never attacked, nor blamed any one. This might have been policy or
Quaker training, but no policy nor creed will explain his unfailing readiness to aid or encourage others. He
had received many benefits, and he conferred them still more liber-
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