there several months, in March 1753. The letter gives a highly
favourable account of its writer's fortunes. Business is "coming in very
smartly," he says. He has been excellently received, and is "perpetualy
imploy'd." There is far more encouragement for modern enterprise in
Paris than there is in London; and some of his utterances must have
rejoiced the soul of his correspondent. As this, for instance--"The
humbug _virtu_ is much more out of fashon here than in England, free
thinking upon that & other topicks is more common here than amongst you
if possible, old pictures & old stories fare's alike, a dark picture is
become a damn'd picture." On this account, he inquires anxiously as to
the publication of his friend's forthcoming _Analysis_; he has been
raising expectations about it, and he wishes to be the first to
introduce it into France. From other sources we learn that (perhaps
owing to his relations with Belle-Isle, who had been released in 1745)
he had been taken up by Marigny, and also by Cochin, then keeper of the
King's Drawings, and soon to be Secretary to the Academy, of which
Rouquet himself, by express order of Lewis the Fifteenth, was made a
member. Finally, as in the case of Cochin, apartments were assigned to
him in the Louvre. Whether he ever returned to this country is doubtful;
but, as we have seen, the _Etat des Arts_ was printed at Paris in 1755.
That it was suggested--or "commanded"--by Mme. de Pompadour's
connoisseur brother, to whom it was inscribed, is a not unreasonable
supposition.

In any case, M. Rouquet's definition of the "Arts" is a generous one,
almost as wide as Marigny's powers, already sufficiently set forth at
the outset of this paper. For not only--as in duty bound--does he treat
of Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Engraving, but he also has
chapters on Printing, Porcelain, Gold-and Silver-smiths' Work, Jewelry,
Music, Declamation, Auctions, Shop-fronts, Cooking, and even on Medicine