The _connoisseurs_ surely can find no reasonable fault with the monumental artist; but they do, I think, with _le Brun_; the drapery, they say, is too full, and that she is overcharged with garments; but fulness of dress, adds not only dignity, but decency, to the person of a fine woman, who meant (or the painter for her) to hide, not to expose her charms. If fulness be a fault, it is a fault that _Gainsborough_, _Hoare_, _Pine_, _Reynolds_, and many other of our modern geniuses are _guilty of_; and if it be _sin_, the best judges will acquit them for committing it, where dignity is to be considered. _Madame Valliere_ appears to have been scattering about her jewels, is tearing her hair, crying, and looking up to the heavens, which seem bursting forth a tempest over her head. The picture is well imagined, and finely executed. I found upon the bulk of a _portable shop_ in _Paris_, a most excellent engraving from this picture,[I] and which carried me directly to visit the original; it is indeed stained and dirty, but it is infinitely superior to a later engraving which now hangs up in all the print shops, and I suppose is from the first plate, which was done soon after the picture was finished. Under it are written the following ingenious, tho' I fear, rather impious lines: Magdala dam gemmas, baccisque monile coruscum Projicit, ac formæ detrahit arma suæ: Dum vultum lacrymis et lumina turbat; amoris Mirare insidias! hac capit arte Deum. [I] In the possession of Mr. GAINSBOROUGH. Shall I attempt to unfold this writer's meaning? Yes, I will, that my friend at _Oxford_ may laugh, and do it as it ought to be done. I. The pearls and gems, her beauty's arms, See sad VALLIERE foregoes; And now assumes far other charms Superior still to those. II. The tears that flow adown her cheek, Than gems are brighter things; For these an earthly Monarch seek, But those the KING of Kings. This seems to have been the author's thought, if he thought _chastely_.--Shall I try again? The pearls and gems her beauty's arms, See sad VALLIERE foregoes: Yet still those tears have other charms, Superior far to those: With those she gained an earthly Monarch's love: With these she wins the KING of Kings above. Yet, after all, I do suspect, that the author meant more than even _to sneer_ a little at _poor Madam Valliere_; but, as I dislike common-place poetry, (and poetry, as you see, dislikes _me_) I will endeavour to give you the literal meaning, according to my conception, and then you will see whether our _joint wits_ jump together. While MAGDALENE throws by her bracelets, adorned with gems and pearls, and (thus) disarms her beauty: while tears confound her countenance and eyes, With wonder mark the stratagems of love, With this she captivates the GOD above.