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tics: but the cloathing of an emperor was no more than the weak fancy of the people.For Louis le Grand to be thus drefled up at the head of his army now a-days would bevery comical. What need other emblems, when truth may be had ; as though theprefent age need be afhatned of their modes, or that the Statua Equeftris of Henry thefourth or Louis the thirteenth were the lefs to be valued for being done in the true drefsof their times. It feems to me to be the effeCt of miftaken flattery ; but if regardedonly as a piece of mere art, it is methinks very unbecoming, and has no graceful airwith it.
I remember I was at the levee of King Charles the fecond, when three models werebrought him to choofe one of, in order to make his ftatue for the court at Windfor ; hechofe the Roman emperor’s drefs, and caufed it alfo to be executed in that other ere&edfor him in the old Exchange in London. The like is of King James in Whitehall , andat Chelfea college, our invalids. Now 7 I appeal to all mankind, whether in reprefentinga living prince now-a-days thefe naked arms and legs are decent, and whether there jsnot a barbarity very difpleafing in it. The father of thefe two Kings, Charles the firfl,was the prince of this age of the beft relifh, and of a found judgment, particularly inpainting, fculpture, architecture by fea and land, witnefs the vaft fums of money he be-llowed upon Rubens and his difciple Vandyke. Alfo the great efteem he had for theincomparable Inigo Jones , who was the firfl Englifhman in this age that underfloodbuilding. I heard M. Auzout fay, when he had viewed the banquetting-houfe at White-hall , that it was preferable to all the buildings on this fide the Alps; and I ought to be-lieve him, he having ftudied Vitruvius more than 40 years together, and much upon theplace at Rome . Alfo the fhip the Sovereign, which was truly the nobleft floatingcaflle that ever fwam the fea. Yet after all this, that King had a Statua Equeftris ofhimfelf erected, now at Charing-crofs, call in the full habit of his own time, and which Ithink may compare with the beft of that fort at Paris .
I fhould beg leave in the next place to vifit the palaces and men of letters and con-verfation: but I mufl take notice firfl of the vaft expences that are here in iron baluf-trades, as in the Place-Royal, which lquare is compaii’ed about with one of ten feet high.Of this fort and better there are infinite every w'here in Paris ; which gives indeed a fullview of the beauty of their gardens and courts.
Firfl, therefore, I faw the Palais Mazarin, in which are many good pictures, but thelow 7 gallery is furnifhed w 7 ith a great collection of ancient Greek and Roman flatues,and is what I mofl took notice of. They were mofl brought from Rome by the Cardi-nal. Thofe which are togatas and cloathed, are as they were found ; but fuch as weremade nudee or naked, are miferably difguiled by the fond humour of the Duke de Ma-zarin, who in a hot fit of devotion caufed them to be caflrated and mangled, and thenfrocked them by a fad hand with I know not what plaifler of Paris , which makes themvery ridiculous. Cicero fomew'here tells us, that fome of the ancient wife men thoughtthere was nothing naturally obfcene, but that every thing might be called by its ownname ; but our Celfus is of another mind, and begs pardon, being a Roman, that hewrote of thofe things in his own tongue. It is certain upon our fubjeft, the Duke fhouldnot have furnifhed his cabinet and gallery with naked pictures, but with the togataeonly; or if it had once pleafed him to do otherw'ife, he fhould not have cloathed them ;which was at beft but a vain oftentation of his chaftity, and betrayed his ignorance anddillike of good things; that is, fpoils and hides the noble art of the fculpture, for whichonly they are valuable.
But why fhould nudity be fo offenfive, fince a very great part of the world yet defiescloaths, and ever did fo ; and the parts they do mofl affeCt to cover, is from a certainneceffity only. It