_Paris, October 29, 1801._
If the culture of the arts, by promoting industry and increasing
commerce, improves civilization, and refines manners, what modern
people can boast of such advantages as are now enjoyed by the French
nation? While the sciences keep pace with the arts, good taste bids
fair to spread, in time, from the capital throughout the country, and
to become universal among them. In antiquity, Athens attests the
truth of this proposition, by rising, through the same means, above
all the cities of Greece; and, in modern times, have we not seen in
Florence, become opulent, the darkness of ignorance vanish, like a
fog, before the bright rays of knowledge, diffused by the flourishing
progress of the arts and sciences?
When I closed my letter yesterday, we had just terminated our
examination of the HALL OF THE ROMANS. On the same line with it, the
next apartment we reach, taking its name from the celebrated group
here placed, is styled the