ry?
O Lafayette! O hero of two worlds! O accomplished Cromwell Grandison!
you have to answer for more than any mortal man who has played a part in
history: two republics and one monarchy does the world owe to you; and
especially grateful should your country be to you. Did you not, in '90,
make clear the path for honest Robespierre, and in '30, prepare the way
for--

. . . . . .

[The Editor of the Bungay Beacon would insert no more of this letter,
which is, therefore, for ever lost to the public.]

ON THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING:

WITH APPROPRIATE ANECDOTES, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND PHILOSOPHICAL
DISQUISITIONS.

IN A LETTER TO MR. MACGILP, OF LONDON.

The three collections of pictures at the Louvre, the Luxembourg, and the
Ecole des Beaux Arts, contain a number of specimens of French art, since
its commencement almost, and give the stranger a pretty fair opportunity
to study and appreciate the school. The French list of painters contains
some very good names--no very great ones, except Poussin (unless the
admirers of Claude choose to rank him among great painters),--and I
think the school was never in so flourishing a condition as it is at
the present day. They say there are three thousand artists in this town
alone: of these a handsome minority paint not merely tolerably, but
well understand their business: draw the figure accurately; sketch with
cleverness; and paint portraits, churches, or restaurateurs' shops, in a
decent manner.

To account for a superiority over England which, I think, as regards
art, is incontestable--it must be remembered that the painter's trade,
in France, is a very good one; better appreciated, better understood,
and, generally, far better paid than with us. There are a dozen
excellent schools which a lad may enter here, and, under the eye of a
practised master, learn the apprenticeship of his art at an expense
of about ten pounds a year. In England there is no school except the
Academy, unless the student can afford to pay a very large sum, and
place himself under the tuition of some particular artist. Here, a young
man, for his ten pounds, has all sorts of accessory instruction, models,
&c.; and has further, and for nothing, numberless incitements to study
his profession which are not to be found in England:--the streets are
filled with picture-shops, the people themselves are pictures walking
about; the churches, theatres, eating-houses, concer