I do not prefer Demosthenes to Pascal, and it would be difficult for me to put Plato himself above Bossuet. Plato and Bossuet, in my opinion, are the two greatest masters of human language, with manifest differences, as well as more than one trait of resemblance; both ordinarily speak like the people, with the last degree of simplicity, and at moments ascending without effort to a poetry as magnificent as that of Homer, ingenious and polished to the most charming delicacy, and by instinct majestic and sublime. Plato, without doubt, has incomparable graces, the supreme serenity, and, as it were, the demi-smile of the divine sage. Bossuet, on his side, has the pathetic, in which he has no rival but the great Corneille. When such writers are possessed, is it not a religion to render them the honor that is their due, that of a regular and profound study?" [135] See the APPENDIX, at the end of the volume. [136] See the APPENDIX. [137] This picture had been made for a chapel of the church of St. Gervais. It formed the altar-piece, and in the foreground there was the admirable Bearing of the Cross, which is still seen in the Museum. [138] Such a law was the first act of the first assembly of affranchised Greece, and all the friends of art have applauded it from end to end of civilized Europe. [139] See the APPENDIX. [140] The _Seven Sacraments_ of Poussin are now in the Bridgewater Gallery. See the APPENDIX. [141] See the APPENDIX. [142] In the midst of this scene of brutal violence, everybody has remarked this delicate trait--a Roman quite young, almost juvenile, while possessing himself by force of a young girl taking refuge in the arms of her mother, asks her from her mother with an air at once passionate and restrained. In order to appreciate this picture, compare it with that of David in the _ensemble_ and in the details. [143] In fact, the St. Joseph is here the important personage. He governs the whole scene; he prays, he is as it were in ecstasy. [144] The pictures of Claude Lorrain, of which we have just spoken, are in the Museum of Paris. In all there are thirteen, whilst the Museum of Madrid alone possesses almost as many, while there are in England more than fifty, and those the most admirable. See the APPENDIX. [145] The last _Notice of the Pictures exhibited in the Gallery of the National Museum of the Louvre_, 1852, although its author, M. Villot, is surely a man of incontestable knowledge and taste, persists in placing Champagne in the Flemish school. _En revanche_, a learned foreigner, M. Waagen, claims him for the French school. _Kunstwerke and Kuenstler in Paris_, Berlin, 1839, p. 651.