materials of those who pander to the prodigality of the Court." This singular address, made in the year 1763, requires no comment; but it is a curious historical instance of the commencement of that, moral re-action to oppression which subsequently has so fully realized the prediction of the magistrate, and which, in its violence, has done so much mischief, and occasioned so many misfortunes to Europe. The travellers remained no longer in Paris than was necessary to inspect the principal works of the French Artists, and the royal collections. Mr. West, however, continued long enough to be satisfied that the true feeling for the fine arts did not exist among the French to that degree which he had observed in Italy. On the contrary, it seemed to him that there was an inherent affectation in the general style of art among them, which demonstrated, not only a deficiency of native sensibility, but an anxious endeavour to conceal that defect. The characteristics of the French School, and they have not yet been redeemed by the introduction of any better manner, might, to a cursory observer, appear to have arisen from a corrupted taste, while, in fact, they are the consequences only of that inordinate national vanity which in so many different ways has retarded the prosperity of the world. In the opinion of a Frenchman, there is a quality of excellence in every thing belonging to France, merely because it is French, which gives at all times a certain degree of superiority to the actions and productions of his countrymen; and this delusive notion has infested not only the literature and the politicks of the nation, but also the principles of Art, to such a deep and inveterate extent, that the morality of painting is not yet either felt or understood in that country. In the mechanical execution, in drawing, and in the arrangement of parts, the great French painters are probably equal to the Italians; but in producing any other sentiment in the spectator than that of admiration at their mechanical skill, they are greatly behind the English. Painting has much of a common character with dramatic literature, and the very best pictures of the French Artists have the same kind of resemblance to the probability of Nature, that the tragedies of their great dramatic authors have to the characters and actions of men. But in rejecting the pretensions of the French to superiority either in the one species of art or in the other, the rejection ought not to be extended too far. They are wrong in their theory; but their practice so admirably accords with it, that it must be allowed, were it possible for a people so enchanted by self-conceit to discover that the true subjects of Art exist only in Nature, they evince a capacity sufficient to enable them to acquire the pre-eminence which they unfortunately believe they have already attained. But these opinions, with respect to the peculiarities of the French taste,