votre g`en`erosit`e,” (I am not sure it was not “votre magnificence,”) “ne me laisse rien `a d`esirer de tout ce qui se trouve de pr`ecieux en Angleterre, dans la Chine, et aux Indes.”  But still this don’t express etc.  The charming Madame S`evign`e, who was still handsomer than Madame de Craon, and had infinite wit, condescended to pun on sending her daughter an excessively fine pearl necklace-"Voil`a, ma fille, un pr`esent passant tous les pr`esents pass`es et pr`esents!” Do you know that these words reduced to serious meaning, are not sufficient for what you have sent me!  If I were not afraid of giving you all the trouble of airing and quarantine which I have had with them, I would send them to you back again!  It is well our virtue is out of the ministry!  What reproach it would undergo!  Why, my dear child, here would be bribery in folio!  How would mortals stare at such a present as this to the son of a fallen minister!  I believe half of it would reinstate us again though the vast box of essences would not half sweeten the treasury after the dirty wretches that have fouled it since.

The Dominichin is safe; so is every thing.  I cannot think it of the same hand with the Sasso Ferrati you sent me.  This last is not so manier`e as the Dominichin; for the more I look at it, the more I am convinced it is of him.  It goes down with me to-morrow to Houghton.  The Andrea del Sarto is particularly fine! the Sasso Ferriti particularly graceful-oh!  I should have kept that word for the Magdalen’s head, which is beautiful beyond measure.  Indeed, my dear Sir, I am glad, after my confusion is a little abated, that your part of the things is so delightful; for I am very little satisfied with my own purchases.  Donato Creti’s(844) copy is a wretched, raw daub; the beautiful Virgin of the original he has made horrible.  Then for the statue, the face is not so broad as my nail, and has not the turn of the antique.  Indeed, La Vall`ee has done the drapery well, but I can’t pardon him the head.  My table I like; though he has stuck in among the ornaments two vile china jars, that look like the modern japanning by ladies.  The Hermaphrodite, on my seeing it again, is too sharp and hard-in short, your present has put me out of humour with every thing of my own.  You shall hear next week how my lord is satisfied with his Dominichin.  I have received the letter and drawings by Crewe.  By the way, my drawings of the gallery are as bad as any thing of my own ordering.  They gave Crewe the letter for you at the-office, I believe, for I knew nothing of his going, or I had sent you the Life of King Theodore.

I was interrupted in my letter this morning by the Duke of Devonshire, who called to see the Dominichin.  Nobody knows pictures better:  he was charmed with it, and did not doubt its Dominichinality.