Soon after his arrival in England he produced a large painting on a subject from Tacitus, “Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus.”  It was a decided success.  George the Third was deeply impressed with it, and congratulated West warmly upon its merits.  At the same time the king gave him a commission for a painting,—­the subject to be “The Death of Regulus,”—­and thus began the friendship between the monarch and the artist, which lasted for nearly forty years.  He was a hard worker, and during his long life his pictures followed each other in rapid succession.  They are estimated by a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine at three thousand in number.  Mr. Dunlap says that they would cover a wall ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long if arranged side by side on a flat surface.  The most famous are his “Death of Wolfe;” “Regulus, a Prisoner to the Carthaginians;” “The Battle of La Hogue;” “The Death of Bayard;” “Hamilcar Swearing the Infant Hannibal at the Altar;” “The Departure of Regulus;” “Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus;” “Christ Healing the Sick;” “Death on the Pale Horse;” “The Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Saviour in the Jordan;” “The Crucifixion;” and “Christ Rejected.”

The picture which brought him most prominently before the public, and which placed his popularity beyond dispute, was “The Death of Wolfe at Quebec.”  It was fashionable at this time to treat nothing but subjects from ancient history, and when West announced his intention of painting a picture of contemporary history his friends warned him that he was incurring a serious risk.  Nevertheless he finished his “Death of Wolfe,” and it was exhibited in the National Gallery.  The public “acknowledged its excellence at once, but the lovers of old art—­called classical—­complained of the barbarism of boots, buttons, and blunderbusses, and cried out for naked warriors, with bows, bucklers, and battering rams.”  Lord Grosvenor was much pleased with the picture, and finally purchased it, though he did so with hesitation, daunted to some extent by the fierce storm of opposition with which the critics received it.  Sir Joshua Reynolds, then the President of the Royal Academy, and the Archbishop of York, called on West and protested against his barbarous innovation, but he declared to them that “the event to be commemorated happened in the year 1759, in a region of the world unknown to Greeks and Romans, and at a period of the world when no warrior who wore classic costume existed.  The same rule which gives law to the historian should rule the painter.”  When the king saw the picture he was delighted both with it and West’s originality, and declared that he was sorry Lord Grosvenor had been before him in purchasing it.  This was the inauguration of a new era in British art, and Sir Joshua Reynolds was obliged to declare, “West has conquered.  I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art.”  This frank avowal was as honorable to Sir Joshua as to West.