Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/51

 of John Hampden. Upon one occasion, in the course of a conversation in Buckingham palace, respecting his picture of the Institution of the Garter, West happened to make some allusion to his English descent, when the Marquis of Buckingham, to the manifest pleasure of the king, declared that the Wests of Long-Crendon were undoubted descendants of the Lord Delaware, renowned in the wars of Edward the Third and the Black Prince, and that the artist's likeness had therefore a right to a place amongst those of the nobles and warriors, in his historical picture."

WEST'S BIRTH.

Galt says Benjamin's birth was brought on prematurely by a vehement sermon, preached in the fields, by Edward Peckover, on the corrupt state of the Old World, which he prophesied was about to be visited with the tempest of God's judgments, the wicked to be swallowed up, and the terrified remnant compelled to seek refuge in happy America. Mrs. West was so affected that she swooned away, was carried home severely ill, and the pains of labor came upon her; she was, however, safely delivered, and the preacher consoled the parents by predicting that "a child sent into the world under such remarkable circumstances, would assuredly prove a wonderful man," and admonished them to watch over their son with more than ordinary care.