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It is not merely that these novels are very well for a philosopher to have produced they are admirable and complete in themselves, and would not lead you to suppose that the author, who is so entirely at home in human character and dramatic situation, had ever dabbled in logic or metaphysics. The first of these, particularly, is a master-piece, both as to invention and execution.

The Venus of Medicis surpasses it in sublimity of form, approaching nearer to ideal beauty. Bupalus, a sculptor of the Isle of Scio, is said to have produced this master-piece. He lived 600 years before Christ, so that it has now been in existence upwards of two thousand four hundred years. It was found about the middle of the eighteenth century, near San-Vitale, at Rome.

Our first walk in Florence was to the Royal Gallery we wished to see the "goddess living in stone" without delay. Crossing the neighboring Piazza del Granduca, we passed Michael Angelo's colossal statue of David, and an open gallery containing, besides some antiques, the master-piece of John of Bologna.

Towards the end of the year 1798 and in 1799, several valuable articles arrived here from Italy, among which are two crowns of gold, enriched with precious stones, worn by the ancient kings of Lombardy, at the time of their coronation; the engraved stones and medals of the Pope's cabinet; a head of Jupiter AEgiochus, on a ground of sardonyx, a master-piece of art, which is above all eulogium; the celebrated Isiac table, in copper incrustated with silver, a valuable table of Egyptian mythology, which is presumed to have been executed, either at Alexandria or at Rome, in the first or second century of the christian era; some oriental weapons; a fetfa or diploma of the Grand Signior contained in a silk purse, &c.

Did you ever read such a master-piece of Writing? Such sense, such sentiment, such purity of Thought, such flow of Language and such unfeigned Love in one sheet? No, never I can answer for it, since a Musgrove is not to be met with by every Girl. Oh! how I long to be with him! I intend to send him the following in answer to his Letter tomorrow.

In the midst of that area, under that beautiful flag, day after day, week after week, month after month, from morn till night, go when he would, he beheld there a circle ever full, its vacancies supplied as soon as they were made, a circle silent with admiration, hushed by emotion, gazing at a master-piece of American art, the Greek Slave of Powers.

Unfortunately there is another side of this picture, which it will be as well now to describe. M. d'Orleans, by disposition so adapted to become the honour and the master-piece of an education, was not fortunate in his teachers.

To describe the civil wars of Rome would be a master-piece, the unletter'd head that offers at it, will sink beneath the weight of so great a work; for to relate past actions, is not so much the business of a poet, as an historian; the boundless genius of a poet strikes through all mazes, introduces gods, and puts the invention on the rack for poetick ornaments; that it may rather seem a prophetick fury, than a strict relation, with witnesses of meer truth.

This scene is a master-piece, and if Jonson had always so composed, we must have been obliged to rank him among the first of comic writers. Merely lest we should be charged with an omission do we mention The Masques: allegorical, occasional pieces, chiefly designed for court festivals, and decorated with machinery, masked dresses, dancing, and singing.

Cross purposes, moot-points, pleas, demurrers, flaws in the indictment, double meanings, cases, inconsequentialities, these were the play-things, the darlings of Mr. Tooke's mind; and with these he baffled the Judge, dumb-founded the Counsel, and outwitted the Jury. The report of his trial before Lord Kenyon is a master-piece of acuteness, dexterity, modest assurance, and legal effect.