May Heaven preserve our country from ever experiencing a similar stroke of humiliation and abasement! How should we Britons feel if one day in a later catalogue we read among these: “Notices sur plusieurs précieux tableaux recueillis par les Philosophes de l’Institut pour multiplier les jouissances du public. Ce tableau peint sur toile est tiré de l’autel de l’église cathédrale de Westminster. Ce vitre vient de King’s College à Cambridge. Ce tableau est tiré du Cabinet du ci-devant Roi d’Angleterre à Windsor. Ce tableau de Shakespeare vient de la bibliothèque de la librairie à Cambridge. Ce tableau de la mort du General Wolfe est tiré du cabinet de la ci-devant Reine d’Angleterre à Buckingham House. Cette statue vient du Cabinet de Milord Lansdowne. Ce tableau peint par Claude vient du cabinet de Milord Gwydir.” Having expressed with candour what my sentiments have ever been when I visited the gallery of paintings in the Louvre, I now proceed to fulfil the important duty of an historian. [Sidenote: MRS. COSWAY] Mrs. Cosway, whose taste and skill are well known, is now occupied in copying all the paintings in the Gallery on a small scale, intending to execute later an enlarged account of them, together with the biography of their respective masters. She has already executed several compartments; and not all the fascinations of society nor the gaieties of the capital can allure her from the daily pursuit of the labour of her choice. I tell her the Gallery of the Louvre is her drawing-room, for when she is at work all the English gather around her. However, she loses no time, for she enters in conversation and paints also, and it is difficult to affirm in which she most excels. The object of Mrs. Cosway is to represent, by etchings, all the pictures precisely as they are fixed in the Gallery. The Hon. Mr. E---- is struck with the undertaking, and he has appropriated a particular part of his house at H---- for the display of her works. There is _one_ circumstance attached to all the public institutions of Paris on which I must bestow the highest commendation, they are open to the public _gratis_. I wish I could say the same of our excellent establishments at home. With the exception of the British Museum, I do not know of a single institution in Great Britain to which a native or a foreigner can be admitted without a fee. And these fees are generally exacted under so many circumstances of barefaced imposition that one cannot help feeling ashamed that such abuses should be tolerated, and that the officers of these establishments are permitted to exclude travellers who do not pay them gratuities for viewing these interesting and instructive collections. The only qualification in Paris to visit museums or public institutions is to have your passport in your pocket--without it the porter at the gate will assuredly forbid your entrance.