The author of these descriptions sets out with promising to exhibit pictures of the modes of thinking, and manners of acting, peculiar to the present age: this led us to expect some novelty in the subjects of these paintings; of course we were a little disappointed to meet with none but old pictures: the same dissipation, the same frivolité, and disposition to gallantry, and the same general profligacy among the great, are here represented as they have been so often described in past ages: nor can we perceive any peculiar excellence in this painter's performances: his colours are often coarse: he has not taken a good likeness of Nature, either in her moral or physical character; and she is mostly drawn in unbecoming dresses. In a picture of her in her physical capacity, we are presented with an accouchement² . This is a favourite subject with the artist, and he [Page 107]paints it con amore³ The companion to it is a mother surrounded with one-and-twenty children, a groupe that not a little enhances our admiration of French population: nor can we contemplate this Galtic Hecuba⁴ without some degree of respect. Among the best of the pictures, is a gambling party, where the fatal consequences of that pernicious vice are affectingly pourtrayed. A melancholy story, displaying some of the cruel effects of the present commotions in France, concludes the exhibition.

The translator is a faithful copyist: but the colouring to which we object, in some of the original pictures, is still coarser in the copies—This is not the fault of the translator, but of the languages.