Even general probability is a restraint which our incognita will not brook. This same heroine inspires with a most extravagant passion a married youth, who happens to be very unsuitably yoked. The lover, too, is distinguished by every great and attractive quality, and is disingenuous. only towards the mistress of his soul. He perceives that her affections are fixing themselves on him, and the violence of his passion forces him to conceal from her his marriage. This fact, however, is discovered; and the indignation of Margaret is equalied only by her surprise: but she is no longer mistress of herself; and her heart, in spite of all her efforts, is in her lover's keeping His subsequent seclusion from the world appeases her, and she resolves to reject every offer, since she cannot be united to her Lovewell. In the mean time, at the head of her vassals, she braves the arms of Cromwell, meets his veterans in the field, and achieves every thing but the conquest of the invincible warrior. She next falls into his hands; when her charms inspire his iron heart with the tender passion; and she beholds her sub-. duer at her feet, who offers to share with her his power. The loyal heroine disdains his proposals; and he, mortified and enraged, obtains a decree for her death Bysa sort of miracle, she escapes from his hands, and passes over to Holland; where she captivates the Prince of Orange, and inspires the young Duke of Gloucester with a hopeless passion, which finally, brings him to the grave. She next visits Lisbon, where triumphs of the same sort, and equally splendid, await the fair exile; the Infant falls outrageously in love with her; and the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who had come to that capital to request the hand of the royal Infanta, is robbed of his peace of mind by Margaret's superior charms. Her first lover, however, is still possessed of her affections, and she is inexorable to all her suitors. Fortunately, the neglected wife of Lovewell dishonours his bed, and in a moment of compunction obligingly poniards herself; thus removing the sole obstacle to the union of the most ardent and perfect lovers whom the world ever saw.—t So partial is the author to this sort of plot, that she introduces an under-one, of precisely the same structure..

In this novel, it is the infelicity of the incidents, and the oddnesss of the texture, which excite our objections. It is probability rather than morality that suffers; and we are confident that the fair writer never intended to injure the interests of the latter. If the reader can endure occasional extravagancies, and incongruities such as we have noticed, he will meet with parts possessing great merit; with pictures as moving, and with effusions of sentiment and feeling as delicate, as any that ever lent interest to tales of fiction.The object of the work is toanimate

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animate and keep alive a spirit of loyalty, and to strengthen notions favourable to birth and rank. This design is manifested in so undisguised a manner, that we were greatly surprized on finding that a Paris press had sent forth such a production; and that the bookseller Perlet, whose former services to loyalty (if we mistake not) obtained for him a visit to Guiana, did not fear that a second trip to the same place might arise from being one of the publishers of this Romance.

ART. XII. Museum of French Monuments; or an Historical and Chronological Description of the Monuments, in Marble, Bronze, and Bas-Relief, collected in the Museum at Paris: ornamented with elegant Etchings. Translated from the French of ALEXANDER LENOIR, Founder and Director of the Museum, by J.. Griffiths, Esq. Member of the Philotechnic Society, Athenée des Arts, &c. &c. at Paris. Vol. I. Royal 8vo. pp. 247. Paris. 1803. Bell, London,

A'

LL lovers of the arts must lament the stupid vandalism which disgraced some periods of the French Revolution, as much as men of virtue and humanity must be shocked by its black crimes and extensive enormities: but, when a blind and infuriated populace undertakes or assists in the work of reformation, order generally gives place to confusion, all sense of decorum is lost, moral and religious ties are broken, sanctuariesare violated, and even the unoffending monuments of the dead feel the effects of that rage which has been excited by the vices (or supposed vices) of the living. However natural these consequences may be, we are little disposed to extenuate such conduct in an enlightened and polished nation. The French, we believe, can now scarcely forgive themselves; and, on recovering from their revolutionary paroxysm, they must contemplate with regret and indignation the devastations of the frenzy, which exerted itself with brutal violence against the temples of religion and the monuments of antient art. It is some consolation, however, that the hand of destruction was arrested in its course; and that all the treasures which piety, taste, and learning had accumulated, were not involved in one common ruin. From the general wreck and pillage of churches, monasteries, and other edifices, more curious remains have been preserved, than we might perhaps have expected; and for this care, France has been indebted to the Committee of Monuments, which acted under the Committee of Alienation appointed by the National Assembly. That body rescued many valuable monuments from the French populace, and proper places were chosen as depositaries of these treasures. The convent of the Little

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Little Augustins was allotted for the reception of the monuments of sculpture and for pictures; the religious houses of the Capucins, Great Jesuits, and Cordelliers, for books, manuscripts, &c.; and the Committee published scientific directions respecting the mode of preserving the precious articles which it was intended to collect. By one of its members, M. Lenoir was recommended to take the charge of the depôt at the Little Augustins, and in January 1791 he was nominated by a decree to this situation.

Entering on his employment with taste and zeal, this gentle. man not only laboured to resist the barbarian violence which so unhappily prevailed, but conceived the plan of classing and arranging whatever monuments might be recovered or preserved in Paris, and in the Provinces. The Museum of the French Monuments is the result of this undertaking; and the work of Lenoir, of which the volume before us is a translation, details the successful labours of that ingenious antiquary. We are obliged to Mr. Griffiths for this elegant publication; which is printed at Paris, with a good type, on a beautiful paper, and embellished with many plates engraven by Percier and Guyot.

From the preserved monuments, M. Lenoir has formed a school of the arts, having arranged them chronologically according to the age in which they were executed. He thus describes the several apartments of his Museum, with their

contents:

'Such a considerable Collection of Monuments of every age struck me with the idea of forming a regular, historical, and chronological

Though M. Lenoir's exertions were strenuous, they were often ineffectual; instances of which are produced with concern in this history. He says, at p. 152, Had my powers been less limited, I should have had the satisfaction of preserving to the arts many valuable specimens which would have elucidated the history of those in France; either by taking possession of certain pictures, or at least drawings from them: surrounded, however, by Iconoclastes, deaf to my entreaties, it was impossible for me to rescue them from the hands of ignorance. In the Church belonging to the Carmes was a brass monument, erected to Margaret of Burgundy, daughter of Johnsans-Peur, and wife to Louis of France, Duke de Guyenne, and Dauphin of Viennois., she was married a second time to Artua, son of the Duke of Britanny, Count of Richemont, Constable of France :this was melted'

He notices also (p. 158) the fate of the tomb of Dagobert in the Abbey of St. Denis:

In 1703, the violators of the tombs broke both the statue and the coffin, supposing that the latter contained, according to antient usage, a treasure; but bones, wrapped up in a winding sheet, were all that' their avarice, discovered.'

Museum, where a succession of French sculpture should be found in separate apartments, giving to each Saloon the character and exaet fashion of the age it was intended to represent; and of removing into other establishments the Paintings and Statues, which had no immediate connection with either the French history, or that of the arts in France. I presented this plan to the Committee of Public Instruction, who received me with kindness, and desired me to read it before them. The result was, the establishment of a particular Museum at Paris for the French Monuments, and the unanimous adoption of the plans I proposed. At length, assisted by the enlightened counsels of men of learning, and of friends to the Arts, I am enabled to exhibit to the public the Saloons of four Centuries complete, and a Sepulchral Chamber, constructed expressly for the purpose of receiving the Tomb of Francis I. which I have perfectly restored.

An Introductory Hall appeared to me indispensable, as an opening to the Museum. This apartment will contain Monuments of each century chronologically placed. The artist and the amateur will there see at one glance, the infancy of the arts among the Goths; their pregress under Lewis XII. their perfection under Francis I. the commencement of their decline under Lewis XIV. a period remarkable in the history of painting for the flight of the celebrated Poussin*, and be cuabled to trace, step by step, upon the monuments of our own æra, the antique style restored among us, by the public lessons of Joseph Maria Vien +.

It is this chronological series of Statues in marble, in bronze, and in bas-reliefs, as well as the Monuments of celebrated persons of either sex, that I propose describing in this work; Monu ments which have escaped the axe of the destroyers and the scythe of time. I have also added a particular description of certain Antique Monuments, which from their character do not belong to this Muscum (intended for French Monuments only), and which have lately been conveyed from hence to their respective Museums or Cabinets, as well as of various Statues and Bas-reliefs, of which I have taken Casts; these I mean to place in a particular Hall, for the purpose of elucidating the chronology of the art, a principal object of my labours. This rare Collection is composed of an Egyptian Monument seen on both sides; of a series of antique Tombs brought into France by the

*Poussin, unable to support the persecutions he experienced from the malevolence of Simon Vouet, quitted Paris on a sudden, and esta blished himself at Rome, in 1642.-T.'

+ A modern writer has thus expressed himself: "The order, the art, the melancholy magic which Le Noir has exhibited in the arrangement of this Museum, give an idea at once of his mind, his genius, and his knowledge. His powerful hand seems as if supporting ages upon the brink of destruction, arranging each in its place, and preventing their anaihilation, for the purpose of portraying their arts, their men of character, their tyrants, and frequently their ignorance: let us retrace with this artist the ages past, beginning with the tomb of Clovis, etc."

The respectable Joseph Lavallée.

Ambassador

Ambassador Nointel, who travelled into Greece and in the Archipelago for Lewis XIV. and of a number of statues which Robert Strozzi presented to Francis I.

In the first part of the "Museum of French Monuments,"`I give a description of the Monuments of antient France, and of those erected to the first line of kings, Dagobert, Clovis, Fredegonde, Childebert, Charlemagne, etc.

The continuation of wars and ignorance having occasioned a long interval in the cultivation of the arts, we shall pass on to the Thirteenth Century, when timid artists, servile copyists of nature, and of the costumes of the times, began to execute whole figures, and to give a sort of form to their statues. Here is to be found the origin of Arabian Architecture in France, introduced at the close of the crusades.

The Fourteenth Century exhibits the Monuments of the wise Charles V. the good Constable Duguesclin, the gallant Sancerre, Isabeau of Baviere, etc.

The Tombs of the Orleans, Juvenal des Ursins, Philip de Com mines, Pierre de Navarre, and of Tannegui du Châtel, form the introduction to the Fifteenth Century.

The Second Part is composed of the Monuments of the Sixteenth and continued down to the Nineteenth Century. Before Francis I. gave birth to the arts in France, our school was plunged into an affecting state of degradation: already had both painting and sculpture flourished in Italy, already in Germany had Albert Durer established a School for the Arts, when, governed by the influence of superstition, we had scarcely ventured to trace a single line. Upon the tomb of Lewis XII. will be found the first sketches of correct figures and of true taste; after that may be mentioned the mausoleum of Francis I. The Monument erected by Catherine de Medicis to the family of the Valois, executed by Germain Pilon, after the designs of Phillibert de L'Orme, exhibits also great beauties.

Gougeon and Cousin! ye much esteemed founders of the French School, ye have also ennobled the Arts! and the erection of Monuments is a debt 1 was willing to pay in favour of future gene

rations.

your

These Mausolea have been executed after my own plans and drawings, as well as a great part of those contained in the Museum, which I have been obliged to re-compose, and to re-adjust according to their age, on account of the prodigious mutilations they had suffered.

Some benevolent genius no doubt produced the Seventeenth Century, for the honour of the French Nation. Warriors, Poets, Statesmen, have all advanced with equal steps towards immortality. Without doubt, the Monuments of Richelieu, Mazarin, and the Statues of Lesueur, Sarrazin, Puget, as well as that of Nicholas Poussin the painter of poets and philosophers, cannot be seen, without exciting the most pleasing sensations.

The Eighteenth Century is also stamped with its particular character, and the arts, though degenerated by the introduction of a false taste, will still furnish matter very interesting to their history. Coustou, Bouchardon, Lemoine, and Pigalle, have left Monuments, curious on account of the personages they represent; and it will no doubt