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16 ANNUAL REGISTER

[ar]chitects still live in the ruins of their edifices, in like manner as so many incomparable authors still breathe in the valuable fragments of their writings. The same Colbert had framed the design of engraving the Roman antiquities, that are still to be seen in the southern provinces of France. By his orders, Mignard, the architect, had made drawings of them, which Count de Caylus had the good fortune to recover. He resolved to finish the work projected by Colbert, and to dedicate it to that great minister; and so much had he this glorious enterprize at heart, that he was employed in it during his last illness, and recommended it warmly to M. Mariette. The project will be faithfully executed. All the plates are already engraved; and, if no unforeseen obstruction arises, the work will be finished with the utmost precision and beauty. An able architect is now upon the spot, employed by M. Mariette in measuring those edifices which escaped former researches, and in verifying the drawings of Mignard.

The confidence, which all Europe placed in the knowledge and taste of Count Caylus, has contributed to decorate and embellish it. The powers of the North have more than once consulted him, more than once referred the choice of artists to him for the execution of great undertakings. It is to the protection of Count Caylus that Bouchardon, that immortal sculptor, whose name will in future times accompany that of Phidias and Praxiteles, was indebted for the noblest opportunities of displaying his talents. It is to Count Caylus that the city of Paris is indebted for those master-pieces of art, which are two of its noblest ornaments, viz. the equestrian statue of Louis XIV, and the fountain in the Rue de Grenelle.

He shunned honours, but was desirous of being admitted into the number of the honorary members of the Academy of Belles Lettres: he entered into it in the year 1742, and then it was that he seemed to have found the place for which nature designed him. The study of literature now became his ruling passion; he consecrated to it his time and his fortune; he even renounced his pleasures, to give himself wholly up to that of making some discovery in the field of antiquity.

But, amidst the fruits of his research and invention, nothing seemed more flattering to him than his discovery of encaustic painting. A description of Pliny's, but too concise a one to give him a clear view of the matter, suggested the idea of it. He availed himself of the friendship and skill of M. Magault, a physician in Paris, and an excellent chymist; and, by repeated experiments, found out the secret of incorporating wax with different tints and colours, and of making it obedient to the pencil, and thus rendering paintings immortal.

Pliny has made mention of two kinds of encaustic painting practised by the ancients; one of which was performed with wax, and the other upon ivory, with hot punches of iron. It was the former that Count Caylus had the merit of reviving; and M. Muntz afterwards made many experiments to carry it to perfection.

In the hands of Count Caylus, litera-

For the YEAR 1772. 17

literature and the arts lent each other a mutual aid. But it would be endless to give an account of all his works. He published above forty dissertations in the memoirs of the academy of Belles Lettres. Never was there an academician more zealous for the honour of the society to which he belonged. The artists he was particularly attentive to; and, to prevent their falling into mistakes, from an ignorance of Costume, which the ablest of them have sometimes done, he founded a prize of five hundred livres, the object of which is to explain, by means of authors and monuments, the usages of ancient nations.

In order that he might enjoy with the whole world the treasures he had collected, he caused them to be engraved, and gave a learned description of them in a work which he embellished with eight hundred plates *.

His curiosity, though excessive, he was always careful to proportion to his income. He had too much pride to be burdensome to his friends. Hi name, which was known in every country where letters are respected, procured him a great number of correspondents. All the antiquaries, those who thought themselves such, those who were desirous of being thought such, were ambitious of corresponding with him. They flattered themselves that they were intitled to the character of learned men, when tbey [[they]] could shew a letter from Count Caylus.

His literary talents were embellished with an inexhaustible fund of natural goodness, an inviolable zeal for the honour of his Prince and the welfare of his country, an unaffected and genuine politeness, rigorous probity, a generous disdain of flatterers, the warmest compassion for the wretched and the indigent, the greatest simplicity of character, and the utmost sensibility of friendship.

The strength of his constitution seemed to give him the hopes of a long life; but in the month of July, 1764, a humour settled in one of his legs, which entirely destroyed his health. Whilst he was obliged to keep his bed, he seemed less affected by what he suffered, than with the restraint upon his natural activity. When the wound was closed, he resumed his usual occupations with great eagerness, visited his friends, and animated the labour of the artists, while he himself was dying. Carried in the arms of his domestics, he seemed to leave a portion of his life in every place he went to. He expired on the 5th of September, 1765. By his death his family is extinct; and the arts, and the literary world in general, have lost their warmest, their most active friend, and their most zealous benefactor.

The tomb, erected to the honour of Count Caylus, is to be seen in the chappel of St. Germain-L'Auxerrois, and deserves to be remarked. It is perfectly the tomb of an antiquary. This Monument was an ancient sepulchral antique, of the most beautiful porphyry, with ornaments in the Egyptian taste. From the moment that he had procured it, he had destined it to grace the place of his interment. While he awaited the fatal hour, he placed

* Recueil d'Antiquités Egyptiennes, Etrusques, &c. in 7 Vols. 4to.

Vol. XV.  C

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