The circumstance which I have just mentioned, naturally leads me to speak of the last named institution, which I visited yesterday for the second time. On my arrival at Paris, I went to see _le Musée des Monuments françois_; and not being as much struck with the exhibition as I expected, from its great renown, I purposely postponed speaking of it, till I had had an opportunity of examining it again with all the attention it deserved. After several hours employed in this second view, I continue of my former opinion, that the spot[78], in which these monuments are collected, is infinitely too small; that the garden, meant to be the tranquil site of sepulchral honours, and the calm retreat of departed grandeur, is on so limited a scale, is so surrounded with adjoining houses, and altogether so ill arranged, that, instead of presenting the model of “Those deep solitudes ... Where heav’nly pensive Contemplation dwells, And ever musing Melancholy reigns,” it might easily be mistaken for the working yard of a statuary, or the pleasure ground of a tasteless citizen, decked out with Cupids, Mercuries, and Fauns. It must, however, be acknowledged, that “_le Noir_,” by whose care this establishment was formed, deserves great credit for the courage with which he rescued the many precious monuments here deposited, from the barbarous and undiscriminating fury of revolutionary vandalism, for the perseverance and attention which has marked his conduct in the arrangement, and for the plan (whether successful or not, I shall not pretend to examine) of presenting complete and exact representations of the art of building in the different ages. Among the innumerable tombs, crowded together in this collection, of which a catalogue, in large octavo, is sold at the door, I observed many of great beauty, taste, and symmetry. Kings, poets, _belles_, philosophers, and painters, torn from the graves, in which, for centuries past, their remains had tranquilly reposed, would have had no stone to record their past celebrity, if this institution had not existed. The arts, too, are highly indebted to the founder, for the specimens of sculpture, many of them _chefs d’œuvre_, which are here seen in all their original perfection. Models, too, of ancient and celtic buildings are added to those of french architecture.