esults; for were the ~~224~~~ wealthy citizens (he
observed) prohibited the indulgence of luxurious eating, under certain
penalties, the produce would be highly beneficial to the civic treasury.

The Fine Arts claiming a priority of notice, the party determined on
visiting a few of the private and public Exhibitions.

London is now much and deservedly distinguished for the cultivation of
the fine arts. The commotions on the continent operated as a hurricane
on the productions of

genius, and the finest works of ancient and modern times ave been
removed from their old situations to the asylum afforded by the wooden
walls of Britain. Many of them have, therefore, been consigned to this
country, and are now in the collections of our nobility and gentry,
chiefly in and about the metropolis.

Although France may possess the greatest number of the larger works of
the old masters, yet England undoubtedly possesses the greatest portion
of their first-rate productions, which is accounted for by the great
painters exerting all their talents on such pictures as were not too
large to be actually painted by their own hands, while in their larger
works they resorted to inferior assistance. Pictures, therefore, of this
kind, being extremely valuable, and at the same time portable, England,
during the convulsions on the Continent, was the only place where such
paintings could obtain a commensurate price. Such is the wealth of
individuals in this country, that some of these pictures now described,
belonging to private collections, were purchased at the great prices of
ten and twelve thousand guineas each.

Amongst the many private collections of pictures, statues, &c. in
the metropolis, that of the Marquis of Stafford, called the Cleveland
Gallery, is the most prominent, being the finest collection of the old
masters in England, and was principally selected from the works that
formerly composed the celebrated Orleans Gallery, and others, which at
the commencement of the French revolution were brought to this country.
Thither, then, our tourists directed their progress, and through the
mediation of Dashall access was obtained without difficulty.

The party derived much pleasure in the inspection of this collection,
which contains two or three fine pictures of Raphael, several by Titian
and the Caracas, some ~~225~~~ capital productions of the Dutch and
Flemish schools, and some admirable productions of the English school,
particula