When the death of Socrates was finished, it attracted much attention, and
led to one of those fortunate acquaintances by which the subsequent career
of the Artist has been so happily facilitated. About this period the
inhabitants of Lancaster had resolved to erect a public grammar-school;
and Dr. Smith, the Provost of the College at Philadelphia, was invited by
them to arrange the course of instruction, and to place the institution in
the way best calculated to answer the intention of the founders. This
gentleman was an excellent classical scholar, and combined with his
knowledge and admiration of the merits of the antients that liberality of
respect for the endeavours of modern talent, with which the same kind of
feeling is but rarely found connected. After seeing the picture and
conversing with the Artist, he offered to undertake to make him to a
certain degree acquainted with classical literature; while at the same
time he would give him such a sketch of the taste and character of the
spirit of antiquity, as would have all the effect of the regular education
requisite to a painter. When this liberal proposal was communicated to old
Mr. West, he readily agreed that Benjamin should go for some time to
Philadelphia, in order to take advantage of the Provost's instructions;
and accordingly, after returning home for a few days, Benjamin went to the
capital, and resided at the house of Mr. Clarkson, his brother-in-law, a
gentleman who had been educated at Leyden, and was much respected for the
intelligence of his conversation, and the propriety of his manners.

Provost Smith introduced West, among other persons, to four young men,
pupils of his own, whom he particularly recommended to his acquaintance,
as possessing endowments of mind greatly superior to the common standard
of mankind. One of these was Francis Hopkins, who afterwards highly
distinguished himself in the early proceedings of the Congress of the
United States. Thomas Godfrey, the second, died after having given the
most promising indications of an elegant genius for pathetic and