&9 Letter from John Flaxma?i, Esq. to the 



fare^f another. This is the only way in which we can 

 honour our country, and not, by behaving- like highway 

 robbers or pirates, in bringing home whatever valuable 

 plunder we can seize. 



Thus we see that the intended removal of the fine works, 

 ■Ipture and painting is as unreasonable respecting the 

 . Europe as it is unjust respecting Rome ; for, as France, 

 docs not appear to have any claim upon Rome for com- 

 pensation, any other plea might be urged, with as much 

 reason, by any other country of Europe. 



If France in her demand on Rome for those works had 

 any motive of state policy, or view of indemnification for. 

 general losses, these I can say nothing to, as being out of 

 the way of my intention, which was to enter into no poli- 

 tical discussion : but surely it may be said that these works 

 supply no means to support a war ; and it must be doubtful 

 whether their removal to Paris would facilitate the study of 

 design even in that city ; whilst the great community of 

 arts and letters both of the' present and future ages, natives 

 as well as foreigners, would have reason to blame France, 

 for having dismembered the university of the world. 



However, before I quit this, part of the subject, I shall 

 notice one argument of the petitioners for wishing to bring 

 those works to' Paris : it is this :- — c< The Romans, although 

 anfiently rude and unpolished themselves, civilized their' 

 nation by transplanting into it the productions of con- 

 quered Greece." It is true that the Roman orators and 

 poets owe almost the whole of their splendour to what they 

 had learned from the Greeks. But Rome profited little by 

 Grecian philosophy and mathematics; they were reduced to 

 be the handmaids of politics and war in that metropolis; 

 and, according to the testimony of Pliny the elder, as well 

 as the remaining monuments, we have but slight grounds 

 to believe that all the painting and sculpture brought from 

 Greece ever produced a Roman artist of real excellence ; on 

 the contrary, it has been supposed that the. genius of Rome 

 was buried under the ruins of Greece. 



I shall now consider how far it is possible to make France 

 an university for the arts of design equal to Italy. 



The petitioners desire that France may become the uni- 

 versity for the arts of design in the following words : — u It. 

 is necessary that all nations should henceforth borrow the 

 fine arts' from' us with the same eagerness they formerly 

 imitated our follies; and when we shall have granted them 

 peace, they will be anxious to come to this country to imi- 

 tate the wisdom and taste which those works of genius im- 

 part/' 



