To this ridiculous self-love, equally prevalent among the great vulgar and small, some of the best painters in France, Germany, and Great Britain, are obliged for their subsistence. This creates a suspicion, that a taste for the real beauties of painting, is not quite so universal, as a sensibility to their own personal beauties, among the individuals of these countries. And nothing can be a stronger proof of the important light in which men appear in their own eyes, and their small importance in those of others, than the different treatment which the generality of portraits receive, during the life, and after the death, of their constituents. During the first of these periods, they inhabit the finest apartments of the houses to which they belong; they are flattered by the guests, and always viewed with an eye of complacency by the landlord. But, after the commencement of the second, they begin to be neglected; in a short time are ignominiously thrust up to the garret; and, to fill up the measure of their affliction, they finally are thrown out of doors, in the most barbarous manner, without distinction of rank, age, or sex. Those of former times are scattered, like Jews, with their long beards and brown complexions, all over the face of the earth; and, even of the present century, Barons of the most ancient families, armed cap-a-pee, are to be purchased for two or three ducats, in most of the towns of Germany. French Marquises, in full suits of embroidered velvet, may be had at Paris still cheaper; and many worshipful citizens of London are to be seen dangling on the walls of an auction-room, when they are scarce cold in their graves. LETTER LI. Rome.