The professional life of Mr. West constitutes an important part of an
historical work, in which the matter of this volume could only have been
introduced as an episode, and, perhaps, not with much propriety even in
that form. It was my intention, at one time, to have prepared the whole of
his memoirs, separately, for publication; but a careful review of the
manuscript convinced me, that the transactions in which he has been
engaged, subsequently to his arrival in England, are so much of a public
nature, and belong so immediately to the history of the Arts, that such a
separation could not be effected without essentially impairing the
interest and unity of the main design; and that the particular nature of
this portion of his memoirs admitted of being easily detached and arranged
into a whole, complete within itself.

I do not think that there can be two opinions with respect to the utility
of a work of this kind. Mr. West, in relating the circumstances by which
he was led to approximate, without the aid of an instructor, to those
principles and rules of art, which it is the object of schools and
academies to disseminate, has conferred a greater benefit on young Artists
than he could possibly have done by the most ingenious and eloquent
lectures on the theories of his profession; and it was necessary that the
narrative should appear in his own time, in order that the authenticity of
the incidents might not rest on the authority of any biographer.

_April_ 25,1816.

John Galt.