oltaire,
who, anxious for the honor of his native town, persuaded the young
artist to select it as the place of his future residence. The event
fully answered his expectation; for the ability and zeal of M. Descamps
soon gave new life to the arts at Rouen. A public academy of painting
was formed under his auspices, to which he afforded gratuitous
instruction; and its celebrity increased so rapidly, that the number of
pupils soon amounted to three hundred; and Norman authors continued to
anticipate in fancy the creation of a Norman school, which should rival
those of Bologna and Florence, until the very moment when the revolution
dispelled this day-dream. Descamps died at the close of the last
century. To his son, who inherits his parent's taste, with no small
portion of his talent, we were indebted for much obliging attention.

The museum is open to the public on Sundays and Thursdays; but daily to
students and strangers. It contains upwards of two hundred and thirty
paintings. Of these, the great mass is undoubtedly by French artists,
comparatively little known and of small merit, imitators of Poussin and
Le Brun. Such paintings as bear the names of the old Italian masters,
are in general copies; some of them, indeed, not bad imitations. Among
them is one of the celebrated Raphael, commonly called the _Madonna di
San Sisto_, a very beautiful copy, especially in the head of the virgin,
and the female saint on her left hand. It is esteemed one of his finest
pieces; but few of his pictures are less generally known: there is no
engraving of it in Landon's eight volumes of his works.

Looking to the unquestionable originals in the collection, there are
perhaps none of greater value than Jouvenet's finished sketches for the
dome of the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris. They represent the twelve
apostles, each with his symbol, and are extremely well composed, with a
bold system of light and shadow. The museum has five other pictures by
the same master; in this number are his own portrait, a vigorous
performance, as well in point of character as of color; and the _Death
of St. Francis_, which has generally been considered one of his happiest
works. Both these were painted with his left hand. The death of St.
Francis is said to have been his first attempt at using the brush, after
he was affected with paralysis, and to have been done by way of model
for his scholar, Restout, whom he had desired to execute the same
subject for him