So Canova is gone to England. I hope it is not to execute the paltry monument of Lord Nelson which he has published here. It would be a disgrace to us all. Fancy the great Nelson as a Roman in petticoats! I do trust whenever a monument is erected to him it may be as original, national, and characteristic as was the man and the great nation he sprang from. Every age hitherto has had ingenuity enough to make its costume interesting in sculpture; we are the first who have shown such poverty of ideas as to despise our age and our dress. I hope he will not be made too much of in England. It is true that nobody ever worked the marble as he does, and it is this finish of his which has deceived and captivated the world, but it is nothing but artificiality, and there is no nature about it. When he attempts the sublime he is ludicrous. In seeking grace he is more successful; but, after all, his Terpsichore was conceived in the Palais Royal, and her headdress is exactly the latest hairdressers' fashion. It is exasperating to think of his success when Flaxman, as far his superior as Hyperion to a satyr, an artist looked up to by the schools of the Continent as a great and extraordinary genius, is neglected by us because he is not a foreigner. It is exceedingly gratifying to me to find everything in my portfolio turning to account. I had the pleasure of showing to Colonel Catinelli, who lately fortified Genoa, my fortifications of Syracuse, and the sketches I made of that subject in Greece. He assures me that they are invaluable notices new to modern warfare, and that they prove that, compared to the ancients, we who imagine ourselves so well informed on the matter, know nothing at all. Then I have above 150 inscriptions among my papers, and I find most of them are unpublished. I have had them copied fairly, and they are now in the hands of a great savant, M. Akerblad, for his perusal. He promises to give me his notes on them. I do think I have not made a bad use of my opportunities, if I may judge by the interest taken in the various new notices on different subjects I have brought with me, and the flattering consideration everywhere shown me, I get so many invitations, and am so harassed to show distinguished persons of all nations my drawings, that I can get no time to myself. And in order to have something to show I have been obliged to finish up some of my sketches, which has occupied the whole of the last two months. I have now a portfolio of about fifteen of some of the most interesting scenes in Greece fit to show, and I generally find them as much as my visitors want to see.