[182] [Purchased by myself:  and now at Hodnet.]

[183] [This picture was purchased for the gallery at ALTHORP.  There is an
    exquisite drawing of it by Wright, for the purpose of a stipling
    engraving.]

[184] It was purchased by the late King of France for 10,000 francs.

[185] [Purchased for the gallery at ALTHORP.]

[186] The above quotation is incomplete; for the passage alluded to runs
    thus.—­“Where is the painter so well sorting his colours, that could
    paint these faire eyes that are the windows of the body, and glasses
    of the soul.”  The continuation is in a very picturesque style.  See
    the Theatre or Rule of the World, p. 236-7, quoted in a recent
    (1808) edition of More’s Utopia, vol. ii. p. 143.  But Primaudaye’s
    French Academy, Lond. 1605, 4to. runs very much in the same strain.

[187] A little graphic history belongs to this picture.  I obtained a most
    beautiful and accurate copy of it by M. Le Coeure, on a reduced scale: 
    from which Mr. J. Thomson made an Engraving, as a PRIVATE PLATE, and
    only 75 copies were struck off.  The plate was then destroyed; the
    impressions selling for a guinea.  They are now so rare as to be worth
    treble that sum:  and proofs upon India paper, before the letter, may
    be worth L5. 5s.  Three proofs only were struck off of the plate in its
    mutilated state; of which my friends Mr. Haslewood and Mr. G. H.
    Freeling rejoice in their possession of a copy.  The drawing, by
    Coeure, was sold for 20 guineas at the sale of my drawings, by Mr.
    Evans, in 1822, but it has been subsequently sold for only nine
    guineas; and of which my worthy friend A. Nicholson, Esq.—­“a good
    man, and a true”—­is in the possession.

    Subsequently, the ABOVE ORIGINAL picture was sold; and I was too happy
    to procure it for the gallery at Althorp for twelve guineas only!

[188] [A magnificent whole length portrait of this first DUKE DE GUISE,
    painted by PORBUS—­with a warmth and vigour of touch, throughout,
    which are not unworthy of Titian—­now adorns the very fine gallery at
    Althorp:  where is also a whole length portrait of ANNE OF AUSTRIA, by
    Mignard.  Both pictures are from the same Collection; and are each
    probably the masterpiece of the artist.  They are of the size of life.]

[189] [Mr. Craufurd died at Paris in 1821.]

[190] ["Amateurs, connaisseurs, examinateurs, auteurs de revues du Salon,
    parodistes meme, vous n’entendez rien a ce genre de critique; prenez
    M. Dibdin pour modele:  voila’ la bonne ecole!” CHAPELET, vol.
    iv. p. 200.  My translator shall here have the full benefit of his own
    bombastical nonsense.]

LETTER XI.