Miss Frances Milton

With her Trathers best love

LETTERS

ON

THE FINE ARTS,

WRITTEN FROM PARIS,

IN THE YEAR

1815.

BY HENRY MILTON, Esq.

Quid deinde loquêre ? Quirites,

Hoc, puto, non justum est; illud male; rectius illud.
Scis etenim justum gemina suspendere lance
Ancipitis libræ : rectum discernis, ubi inter
Curva subit, vel cum fallit pede regula varo.

PERS.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME,

AND BROWN.

5

English
Frampton

5-19-25

11747

PREFACE.

AMONGST the events recorded in the history of the Arts, few will be found more extraordinary, or more important, than the formation and the destruction of the Museum of the Louvre.

Bands of practised ruffians, their own land no longer furnishing them with the employment in which they delighted, were sent into other countries to continue their crimes under a less ignominious name.

That the progress of Armies thus composed, should be marked by robbery and devastation was to be expected; but the usual and more general objects of plunder were not sufficient to satisfy the rapacity of the French. Troops of scientific rob