struction of Europe in detail, they suffered some sovereigns to slumber on the pillow of a fallacious security, while they trampled under their feet monarchies and republics. But, if I be not egre giously mistaken in the French character, they will hereafter arm themselves with the ruins of those states, their wealth, and population, to break in pieces those powers who have viewed with indifference, all the bulwarks of their safety demolished.

Every time that I have paced along the gallery of the Louvre, all the sentiments which arise from hatred and indignation took possesion of my mind. Amidst all the blaze of beauty which arrests the eye at every point, I have never entered nor left it without disgust. I may be accused of Vandalism by sycophants and thieves, but I confess, I never received one moment's gratification from all the Raphaels, the Titians and Correggios which I saw in it. I could have gazed with transport for whole months on these exquisite master-pieces in their proper places, but I cannot associate together the ideas of beauty and knavery, nor look with pleasure on productions violently torn from their lawful proprietors.

Of all the countries which have been undone by French havock, Italy has suffered most, and its miseries are least known to the world. The French government have literally exhausted upon it the fecundity of rapine, cheating and fury;

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they have rendered themselves masters of its correspondence, and reserve to themselves the privilege of being its periodical historians. All we know of the existence of that desolated country, is through the medium of the frequent eruptions of a tyranny without remorse, of a powerless despair, and of the accumulation of spoil which decorates the public exhibitions of Paris. The contributions of the French were nothing less than a general sack; the encyclopedia of their thefts forms a monument of curiosity.

The barbarians who formerly over-ran Italy, despised these works of art, and neglected to take possession of them. The fanatical Mussulman destroyed them as monuments of idolatry, but in our times, academicians, poets, orators, philosophers, members of the National Institute, have crossed the Alps to strip that country of its talents, to force from it, the labours of its children, the most sacred illustration of a people, a property which the laws of war had rendered inviolable among civilized nations, until the present epoch, wherein a gang of savage sophists have replunged Italy into a darkness, worse than that which overspread the middle ages of modern Europe.

Those who are ignorant of the methods by which a thief has realized an immense fortune, may be forgiven for their admiration of his wealth and treasures; but the man who is acquainted with all

the villainous and bloody machinations which have been employed in their accumulation, is inexcus able when he lavishes praises on objects, of which he knows the thief to be an unjust and wrongful possessor. How then, with the impression of this consciousness upon my mind, can I coolly fix my eyes on these paintings, and repeat the ecstasies of vulgar adulation bestowed on France, when I know that they do not belong to France, that they are all stolen goods, acquired by fraud, injustice, and murder? There is not a picture in the gallery brought from foreign parts, which does not present an inscription of theft, and whose frame is not inlaid with human blood.

No sooner have you entered the gallery than you are presented with a catalogue of these paintings, in which the French do not blush to avow their robberies. The facetious rascals of the National Institute talk and write of their knavery with as much sang-froid, as they take a pinch of snuff. Whenever these paintings are mentioned, they are styled, des Tableaux conquis en Italie, les tableaux recueillis dans la Lombardie, à Bologne, Cento, Modène, Parme, Plaisance, Rome, Venise, Vérone, Florence et Turin. One would imagine from this pleasant way of detailing their thefts, that they were the productions of their own artists, rescued either from obscurity, or the hands of tasteless barbarians, and by no means the genuine. and legitimate property of polished communities,

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a considerable part of whose celebrity and subsistence, was derived from the attractions which they held out to the curious and enlightened traveller.

With this register of pillage in your hand, you are ushered into the gallery which contains the spoils of nations, and you can hardly turn to the notice of a celebrated master-piece without finding at the bottom of the description, a declaration that it is a stolen article. They feel no shame, no remorse, no compunctious visitings of nature, but they profess their infamy, and glory in it. Scarcely a page is to be found without some such proclamations of theft as these, Ces deux Tableaux qui sont pendans, viennent de Plaisance, où ils se coyoient dans la Cathedrale, aux deux côtés du sanctuaire-Ce tableau est tiré de la galerie de Turin-Ce tableau, peint sur toile, vient de l'église des Récolets d'Anvers-Ce tableau vient du Palais Pitti-Ce tableau, peint sur toile, vient de la Belgique-Ce tableau, est tiré du Palais pontifical de Monte Cavallo à Rome -Ce tableau, vient du Cabinet du ci-devant Roi de Sardaigne, à Turin-Ce tableau, l'un des meilleurs qu'ait produit Paul Veronese, est tiré de l'église des religieuses de St. Zacharia à VeniseCe tableau vient du maître autel de l'église de St. Georges, à Verone-Ce tableau est tiré de l'eglise de la Madona del Orto, à Venise-Ce précieux et magnifique Tableau, que les artistes regardent

comme un des chefs-d'œuvres de l'art & la plus belle composition de ce grand Peintre, (Titian's martyrdom of St. Peter) est tiré de l'eglise de St... Jean and Paul à Venise-Ce portrait vient du palais du prince Braschi, à Rome.

There is no end to this catalogue of iniquity; it fills at present three volumes, and more are to be added. I question if the Newgate Calendar for the last hundred years can present altogether an hundredth part of the impudent dexterity in the art of filching, which the rogues of the National Institute present us with in these three little syllabuses of French iniquity.

Englishmen, happily shut out from the view of the sack of the continent, by that sea which guards our honest island, have no adequate idea of the ravages of the French, nor of the indignant feelings of the wretched inhabitants of the countries they have plundered. I have several times visited the gallery of paintings in company with Italians who, at this very moment, fill the highest functions of government in their country, and when, in order to try their temper and feelings, I have purposely pointed to different master-pieces, and remarked as we passed along, Ce tableau, grâces au génie de la victoire, vient d'une boutique ecclesiastique de l'Italie, I perceived in their countenances, a deep and fixed look of unutterable anguish and regret; but it was a look that the artists of Italy, whose expatriated productions

hung