Percier[50] is the first architect in Paris; he will tell you what is worth seeing. Dismalter & Jacob are the first decorators in furniture &c., 57 Rue Meslée.

Your friends Lord Burghersh and Lord Dillon proclaim your name without ceasing, and much is expected of you. The Duke of Gloucester has commanded me to introduce you to his acquaintance. You have been spoken of at Carlton House, where I have reason to think there is great likelihood of your being noticed advantageously; but you must not be disappointed to find very common things occupying the minds of a large majority of a nation of boutiquiers, and we must take the world as we find it, believing always that good sense, refined judgment, and true taste will ultimately prevail.

Do not imagine that I am thinking of money as the only thing worth your attention. I consider that as the last object. The first, a higher order of taste and information, you possess amply. The second is to learn to suit in some measure the times we live in and the objects which occupy the multitude, and it is worth attending to. The third and last is the profit which follows; but that must come of itself, and is not worth pursuing.

You will think me lecturing to the last, but I really mean no more than to express my hope that you will not despise trifles, if elegant, finding yourself for the moment amongst a nation of triflers, because they have long been considered and imitated by ourselves and the rest of Europe as accomplished in matters of ornament, though not in subjects of use.

Your family are now on tiptoe for your arrival, and daily drink their affectionate good wishes to the homeward bound. None is behind another in their impatience; for myself, it is always present to me. Nevertheless, I am not selfish enough to wish you to leave unseen, for the sake of a few days more, anything which you ought to be acquainted with."

My father arrived in London on the 17th of June, 1817, having left it on the 10th of April, 1810. Besides his own, he had brought with him all Haller's drawings for the intended book which was to be the complete and final authority on Greek architecture and the grand result of his seven years of travel. Haller was to come to England to see it through the press. Had it appeared at once it would have been most à propos. Greek architecture was all the fashion. Unhappily, the intention was thwarted by the sudden death of Haller, which took place at Ambelakia, in the Vale of Tempe, of a congestion of the lungs, caught while making excavations in the month of September 1818. The loss of this valuable help disheartened my father, who had no taste for the work. He was already busy in other ways, and the task which should have had his first attention gradually sank into the background. One by one those who had taken part in the discoveries died: Stackelberg in 1836, Linckh and Foster not many years after. But the book remained a load on my father's conscience all his life, and it was not till 1859, more than forty years later, that it saw the light. The interest in the events and actors had died down, and the novelties had become common property. His unfortunate dislike for writing lost him much of the credit he might have reaped, while others profited by his experience. His collection of inscriptions was picked over by Walpole; Hughes fills out his pages with his letters; Bronstedt uses his drawings. It is Stackelberg who relates how he discovered the bas-reliefs at Phigaleia; Beaufort anticipates anything he might have had to tell of Karamania; Wordsworth plundered his portfolio; and in the absence of any consecutive account of his own, it has been often only by the help of the writings of others that it has been possible for me to piece together his disjointed and often undated diaries.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] See [frontispiece].

[50] Charles Percier (1764-1838), originator of the so-called "Empire" style in furniture, architect of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, and of parts of the Louvre and of the Tuileries.