Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 294: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

244 PICKWICK ABROAD. CHAPTER XXIX, VISIT TO THE LOUVRE.—MR. HOOK WALKER CONFERS AN ANTIQUARIAN RELIC UPON MR, PICKWICK, AND REQUESTS A SLIGHT SERVICE IN RETURN.—THE WHITE GREAT-COAT, &C.—VICTOR HUGO'S ‘‘ WORLD IN MINIATURE.” Unper the especial protection of Mr. Hook Walker, Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Tupman, one morning visited the Gallery of the Lofivre, and passed an agreeable couple of hours in surveying the magnificent building, as well as the admirably executed pictures which its walls. They first admired with unfeigned delight the Hall of the Caryatides, with its beautiful sculpture, its statues, its vases, its columns, and its urns; and thence proceeded to that picture-gallery, which is the boast of Paris and the wonder of the whole world, for its extent and arrangements. Instead of a paltry sutée of three or four miserable rooms, as deficient in ornament and architectural embellish. ment as they are wretched in extent—instead of a woefully circum- scribed space for the reception of the grand national specimens of the art of painting—the Gallery of the Lofivre is a museum of which the French may we oe proud, and wnich must form to the eye of the Englishman who visits Paris, a singular contrast with the sorry build- ing that now exists as a monument of bad taste and ill-judged econom in rafalgar Square. Conceive the National Gallery of England, wit its three lanthorns on the roof, suddenly transported to the vicinity of the Lodvre, in order to render the contrast the more striking ! Having, as we before stated, passed two very agreea le hours in the Gallery of Paintings, Mr. Tupman and Mr. Winkle proceeded to the Palais Royal to refresh themselves with ices and fresh air in the Garden while Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Walker pursued a different COMIC OOO (CO