MONTHLY 


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Fox SEPTEMBER, 2797. 
MAGAZINE. 


[voL. Iv. 



“ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
, PBT | 
if ba ii opportunity taken by the French, 
in confequence of BuONAvARTx’s 
vidtories, of firipping Italy of many of 
the moft valuable remains of ancient, and 
“many of the fineft fpecimens of modern 
art, having excited much envy, much 
indignation, and much difcuilion, among 
the amateurs. and profeffors of painting 
and fculpture, a few obfervations on the 
probable confequences of it, may not be 
unacceptable to fome of your readers. 
Mr. Damrant, through .your Maga- 
zine, and an ingenious Arrifi of our own 
country, have, in fome letters publifhed 
not long fince, endeavoured to prove 
that the French had no right to remove 
the fine works in queftion, and that fuch 
a removal mult certainly be very detri- 
mental to the reft of Europe, by dividing 
and difperfing them, and thereby render. 
ing it more difficult for men of. genius 
to purfue their ftudies than heretofore, 
while they were concentrated-in Italy ; 
which has, for fome centuries, been the 
wniverfity of Europe, or, more properly, 
ot the world. ; 
But, without entering into the queftion 
of their right, which, however, is the 
fame that the Remans had to plunder the 
Greeks, and, if narrowly looked into, 
the fame right that any man has to enjoy: 
more than what an equal divifion of pro- 
perty would entitle him to, it may be 
worth while to enguire, whether this 
vaft acceffion to the ftock already colleét- 
ed in France, is likely to be attended 
with thofe beneficial confequences, 
which, at firft fight, we are apt to expect 
from it, but which, on a nearer infpec- 
tion, appears more remote and doubttul ; 
fo much fo, indeed, that a Jarge part of 
the artifts of the French Academy went 
fo far as'to petition the Directory again 
it, as a meafure more fplendid than ufe- 
ful, and more calculated, to excite the 
envy of ofher nations, than to encourage 
the induftry, and improve the tafte of 
their own. 
MonTrury Maa. No. XXII. 
It will readily be allowed by all, that 
the poffetlion of a certain quantity of the © 
fineft works in every art muft be emi- 
nently ufeful to a nation; but when 
this quantity excecds certain limits, both 
as to kind and number, when, inftead of 
being only enough to create an appetite, 
it is enough to fatiate it, the effeét muft 
_ evidently be, not what it ought, the im- 
provement of the tafte and genius of the 
people and artifts of that nation, but 
guite the reverfe ; of this England is, at _ 
prefent, a woeful example, where the 
-deluge of foreign art, of old originals, 
old copies, and old imitations, overwhelms 
all, burying and choking every {pring 
of encouragement to genius, or tafe; 
where a vaft body of ignorant jcolleétors, 
and dealers, without number, impudent, 
cunning, and rapacious, from a mighty 
intereft, exerted, with unceafing induf- 
try, to depreciate all modern efforts, and 
damn, with undifcriminating rape, the 
inventor who endcavours to copy-nature,. 
and forma new ftyle, and the imitator, 
who copies her in the manner of any of 
the celebrated mafters, his predeceffors. 
To have merit in thei eyes, it is abfo- 
lutely neceflary that both the man and 
his work fhould be -rotten, the ftatue 
mutilated and ftained, and the picture in 
rags. In confequence of thefe practices, 
the public tafte 1s depraved, by having 
an infinity of vile copies, clumfy imita- 
tions, of originals buried under fuccef- 
five flrata of dirt, varnith, and mendings 
of hireling dawhers (in the pay of the 
dealers) till not ao original atom remains 
vifible, impofed on it under the facred 
names of thofe to whofe real works they 
bear no refemblance, and who would 
have looked on ituch trafh with equal 
fhame, contempt, and indignation. | 
To this pernicious -miferable traffic 
equally difcreditable to the living and the 
dead, and the arts ufed in {upport of it, 
and not to any peculiar perfonal vanity in 
the Englifh, is owing (in fpite of com- 
plaint, in f{pite of ridicule, and tothe dif- 
grace of the national tafte) the great 
Z prevalence 

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