Roubillac, whose monument to Mrs. Nightingale, however, belongs to a
later date than the _Etat des Arts_, though he had already achieved the
masterly figure of Eloquence on the Argyll monument. The only other
sculptor referred to by Rouquet is Gabriel Cibber, whose statues of
Madness and Melancholy, long at Bedlam, and now at South Kensington,
certainly deserve his praise. But Cibber died in 1700, and belongs to
the Caroline epoch. He no doubt owes his place in the _Etat des Arts_ to
the fact that he had been abused in the already-mentioned _Letters on
the English and French Nations_.

At this point we may turn M. Rouquet's pages more rapidly. It is not
necessary to linger over his account of Silk Stuffs, more excellent in
his opinion by their material than their make up. Under Medallists he
commends the clever medals of great men by his compatriot, Anthony
Dassier; under Printing he refers to that liberty of the Press which, in
England, amounted to impunity. "A few too thinly disguised blasphemies;
a few too rash reflections upon the Government, a few defamatory
libels--are the sole things which, at the present time, are not
allowed." And this brings about the following lively and very accurate
description of the eighteenth-century newspaper:--"One of the most
notable peculiarities which liberty of the Press produces in England, is
the swarm of fugitive sheets and half-sheets which one sees break forth
every morning, except Sunday, covering all the coffee-house tables.
Twenty of these different papers, under different titles, appear each
day; some contain a moral or philosophical discourse; the majority of
the rest offer political, and frequently seditious, comments on some
party question. In them is to be found the news of Europe, England,
London, and the day before. Their authors profess to be familiar with
the most secret deliberations of the Cabinet, which they make public. If
a fire occurs in a chimney or elsewhere; if a theft or a murder has