NOTICE OF M. WILLEMIN’S MONUMENS FRANCAIS INEDITS.  MISCELLANEOUS
ANTIQUITIES.  PRESENT STATE OF THE FINE ARTS.  GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON THE
NATIONAL CHARACTER.

July 8, 1818.

I rejoice that it is in my power once more—­and certainly for the last time, from hence—­to address you upon a few subjects, which, from your earlier replies to my Paris letters, you seem to think that I have lost sight of.  These subjects, relate chiefly to ANTIQUITIES.  Be assured that I have never, for one moment, been indifferent to them; but in the vast bibliographical field which the public libraries of this place held out for my perambulation, it was impossible, in the first instance, not to take advantage of the curious, and probably useful information, to be derived from thence.

I must begin therefore by telling you that I had often heard of the unassuming and assiduous author of the Monumens Francais Inedits, and was resolved to pay him a visit.  I found him in the Rue Babile towards the eastern end of the Rue St. Honore, living on the third floor.  Several young females were in the ante-room, colouring the plates of that work; which are chiefly in outline and in aqua-tint.  Each livraison contains six plates, at twelve francs the livraison.  The form is folio, and about twenty-eight numbers are printed.[191] There is something in them of every thing:  furniture, dresses, houses, castles, churches, stained glass, paintings, and sculpture.  Illuminated MSS. are as freely laid under contribution as are the outsides and insides of buildings, of whatsoever description.  Indeed I hardly ever visited the Public Library without finding M. Willemin busied, with his pencil and tracing paper, with some ancient illuminated MS. The style of art in the publication here noticed, is, upon the whole, feeble; but as the price of the work is moderate, no purchaser can reasonably complain.  The variety and quantity of the embellishments will always render M. Willemin’s work an acceptable inmate in every well-chosen library.  I recommend it to you strongly; premising, that the author professedly discards all pretension to profound or very critical antiquarian learning.

For himself, M. Willemin is among the most enthusiastic, but most modest, of his antiquarian brethren.  He has seen better days.  His abode and manners afford evidence that he was once surrounded by comparative affluence and respectability.  A picture of his deceased wife hung over the chimney-piece.  The back-ground evinced a gaily furnished apartment.  “Yes, Sir, (said M.W.—­on observing that I noticed it) such was once my room, and its chief ornament”—­Of course I construed the latter to be his late wife.  “Alas! (resumed he) in better days, I had six splendid cabinets filled with curiosities.  I have now—­not a single one!  Such is life.”  He admitted that his publication brought him a very trifling profit; and that, out of his own country, he considered the