[H]
[G] VOLTAIRE says, this monument is not sufficiently noticed by
strangers.
[H] MADAME VALLIERE, during her retirement, being told of the death
of one of her sons, replied, "I should rather grieve for his birth,
than his death."
The _connoisseurs_ surely can find no reasonable fault with the
monumental artist; but they do, I think, with _le Brun_; the drapery,
they say, is too full, and that she is overcharged with garments; but
fulness of dress, adds not only dignity, but decency, to the person of
a fine woman, who meant (or the painter for her) to hide, not to expose
her charms.
If fulness be a fault, it is a fault that _Gainsborough_, _Hoare_,
_Pine_, _Reynolds_, and many other of our modern geniuses are _guilty
of_; and if it be _sin_, the best judges will acquit them for committing
it, where dignity is to be considered.
_Madame Valliere_ appears to have been scattering about her jewels, is
tearing her hair, crying, and looking up to the heavens, which seem
bursting forth a tempest over her head.
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