We are just returned from an exhibition at the Louvre; and a very splendid exhibition it is--though, alas! but a poor consolation for the hidden treasures of the picture-gallery. Several magnificent rooms are now open for the display of works in tapestry and Sèvres porcelain; and however much we might have preferred seeing something else there, it is impossible to deny that these rooms contain many objects as wonderful perhaps in their way as any that the higher branches of art ever produced. The copy of Titian's portrait of his mistress, on porcelain, and still more perhaps that of Raphaël's "Virgin and St. John watching the sleep of the infant Jesus," (the _Parce somnum rumpere_,) are, I think, the most remarkable; both being of the same size as the originals, and performed with a perfection of colouring that is almost inconceivable. That the fragile clay of which porcelain is fabricated should so lend itself to the skill of the workman,--or rather, that the workman's skill should so triumph over the million chances which exist against bringing unbroken out of the fire a smooth and level _plaque_ of such extent,--is indeed most wonderful. Still more so is the skill which has enabled the artist to prophesy, as he painted with his greys and his greens, that the tints which flowed from his pencil of one colour, should assume, from the nicely-regulated action of an element the most difficult to govern, hues and shades so exquisitely imitative of his great original. But having acknowledged this, I have nothing more to say in praise of a _tour de force_ which, in my opinion, can only be attempted by the sacrifice of common sense. The _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of a Titian or a Raphaël are treasures of which we may lawfully covet an imitation; but why should it be attempted in a manner the most difficult, the most laborious, the most likely to fail, and the most liable to destruction when completed?--not to mention that, after all, there is in the most perfect copy on porcelain a something--I am mistress of no words to define it--which does not satisfy the mind. As far as regards my own feelings indeed, I could go farther, and say that the effect produced is to a certain degree positively disagreeable,--not quite unlike that occasioned by examining needlework performed without fingers, or watch-papers exquisitely cut out by feet instead of hands. The admiration demanded is less for the thing itself, than for the very defective means employed to produce it. Were there indeed none other, the inventor would deserve a statue, and the artist, like Trisotin, should take the air "_en carrosse doré_:" but as it is, I would rather see a good copy on canvass than on china.