memory was placed in the floor. The Countess of Huntingdon deplored his loss, in a letter to John Wesley (Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon, i. 39, 40).
Among Mitford's manuscripts at the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 32561–2) are copies of letters to and from West, the originals of which belonged to Lady Frankland Lewis in February 1853. Many of these were published for the first time in the Rev. D. C. Tovey's ‘Gray and his Friends’ (pp. 65–172). Walpole's letters to him, twenty in all, were printed in 1798 in the set of Walpole's ‘Works’ which was edited by Miss Berry and her father, and are included, with the answers, in Cunningham's edition of Walpole's ‘Correspondence.’ His correspondence with Gray has been printed by Mason and Mitford in their editions of that poet. He sent Latin elegies to Gray when on his travels, and addressed to him the ‘Ode to May’ beginning with
Dear Gray, that always in my heart
Possessest still the better part.
Gray embalmed his friend's memory in a very tender sonnet in English, and also addressed to him as ‘Favonius’ the Latin poem ‘De Principiis Cogitandi.’
Both Gray and Mitford designed to collect West's remains, but died before their work was done. A selection from his poems appeared in Park's ‘British Poets,’ vol. iv. of ‘Supplement,’ pp. 67–74, Bell's ‘Poets,’ vol. c., and Anderson's ‘Collection,’ vol. x.; all his known pieces are contained in Mr. Tovey's ‘Gray and his Friends.’ At Horace Walpole's request his ‘Monody on Queen Caroline’ was inserted in Dodsley's ‘Collection,’ ii. 274, and it was reprinted in Bell's ‘Fugitive Poetry,’ xv. 119–24; certain lines in it may be regarded as the germs of part of Gray's ‘Elegy.’ A poem signed ‘Richard West’ is in Alexander Dalrymple's ‘English Songs’ (1796), pp. 142–3. The ode on West's death, in the ‘European Magazine,’ January 1798, p. 45, is by Thomas Ashton (1716–1775) [q. v.] Some ‘very indecent poems by him’ are said by Samuel Rogers to be among the papers at Pembroke College. Mr. Tovey speaks of a lost tragedy by him entitled ‘Pausanias.’
West had ‘a fine sensibility to literary influences and a genius for friendship’ (Prof. Dowden, in Academy, 11 Oct. 1890, p. 309). His character was ‘extremely winning’ (Gosse, Gray, in ‘Men of Letters,’ pp. 5–54). Rogers said, ‘If West had lived he would have been no mean poet’ (Table Talk, pp. 40).
[Gray, ed. Mason, 1807 ed. passim; Gray, ed. Mitford, 1816, i. pp. ii–iii, xiv; Gray, ed. Gosse, i. and ii. passim; Corresp. of Gray and Mason, p. xxvii; Tovey's Gray and his Friends; Foster's Alumni, 1715–1886; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. ii. 27; Gent. Mag. 1802, i. 493; Jesse's Etonians, i. 337–43; Walpole's Letters, i. pp. i, 160, 170, 184, v. 479, 482, 487, vi. 15; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, ii. 367; Manuscript Admissions at Inner Temple, per Mr. J. E. L. Pickering.]
WEST, ROBERT (d. 1770), artist, was born at Waterford, the son of an alderman of that city, and is said to have been trained in Paris. He for some years conducted a drawing academy in George Lane, Dublin, and when the Royal Dublin Society established a school of design in Shaw's Court was appointed the first master. This position he held until 1763, when, becoming mentally deranged, he was superseded by a former pupil, Jacob Ennis. On the death of the latter in 1770 West was reappointed, but died in the same year. He was an accomplished draughtsman and an excellent teacher.
Francis Robert West (1749?–1809), son of Robert, studied in Paris, where he was a pupil of Van Loo and worked in the French Academy. On 11 Oct. 1770 he succeeded his father as master of the Dublin school of design, and this post he filled with great success throughout his life. Like his father, he excelled as a draughtsman in crayons, having a profound knowledge of the human figure, which he could draw without models, but painted little in oils. There exists a set of ten plates of moral emblems, engraved from compositions by him, and dedicated to various Irish noblemen. West died at Dublin on 24 Jan. 1809. He had many good pupils, including Sir Martin Archer Shee [q. v.] His portrait, painted by his brother Robert Lucius, is in the Royal Hibernian Academy (Cat. Third Loan Exhib. No. 86).
Robert Lucius West (d. 1849) was a son of Francis Robert West, and for some years acted as assistant to his father. On the death of the latter in 1809 he succeeded to the mastership of the school, which he retained for about forty years. He painted portraits and historical subjects, and in 1808 exhibited at the Royal Academy in London a subject from Gray's ‘Elegy.’ He was a member of the Irish Society of Artists, and on the foundation of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1823 was nominated an original academician. The National Gallery of Ireland possesses a portrait of J. H. Brocas, the landscape-painter, by West, also a miniature of the latter by himself. West died early in October 1849.
