persons, comprehending even the servants of an inn.  If talent be sought in these Engravings, it will doubtless be found in them; but strangers must not seek for fidelity of representation from what is before their eyes.  The greater number of the Designs are, in some sort, ideal compositions, which, by resembling every thing, resemble nothing in particular:  and it is worthy of remark that the Artist, in imitation of the Author, seems to have thought that he had only to shew himself clever, without troubling himself to be faithful.”  To this, I reply in the very words of M. Licquet himself:  “the decision is severe; luckily it is unjust.”  The only portions of the designs of their skilful author, which may be taxed with a tendency to extravagance, are the groups:  which, when accompanied by views of landscapes, or of monuments, are probably too profusely indulged in; but the individuals, constituting those groups, belong precisely to the country in which they are represented.  In the first and second volumes they are French; in the third they are Germans—­all over.  Will M. Licquet pretend to say that the churches, monasteries, streets, and buildings, with which the previous Edition of this Tour is so elaborately embellished, have the slightest tendency to IMAGINED SCENERY?  If he do, his optics must be peculiarly his own.  I have, in a subsequent page, (p. 34, note) slightly alluded to the cost and risk attendant on the Plates; but I may confidently affirm, from experience, that two thirds of the expense incurred would have secured the same sale at the same price.  However, the die is cast; and the voice of lamentation is fruitless.

I now come to the consideration of M. Licquet’s coadjutor, M. CRAPELET.  Although the line of conduct pursued by that very singular gentleman be of an infinitely more crooked description than that of his Predecessor, yet, in this place, I shall observe less respecting it; inasmuch as, in the subsequent pages, (pp. 209, 245, 253, 400, &c.) the version and annotations of M. Crapelet have been somewhat minutely discussed.  Upon the SPIRIT which could give rise to such a version, and such annotations, I will here only observe, that it very much resembles that of searchers of our street-pavements; who, with long nails, scrape out the dirt from the interstices of the stones, with the hope of making a discovery of some lost treasure which may compensate the toil of perseverance.  The love of lucre may, or may not, have influenced my Parisian translator; but the love of discovery of latent error, and of exposure of venial transgression, has undoubtedly, from beginning to end, excited his zeal and perseverance.  That carping spirit, which shuts its eyes upon what is liberal and kind, and withholds its assent to what is honourable and just, it is the distinguished lot—­and, perhaps, as the translator may imagine, the distinguished felicity—­of M. Crapelet to possess.