Roman taste, genius & magnificence excite ideas

from Lyons to Nismes I have been nourished with the remains of Roman grandeur

I would advise you to cover with tin, instead of shingles. it is the lightest, & most durable cover in the world. we know that it will last 100. years, & how much more we do not know.

I now inclose the drawings you desired. every thing proposed in them is in the plainest style, and will be cheap altho’ requiring skill in the workmanship. without that it will be rendered barbarous in the execution. of one truth I have had great experience that ignorant workmen are always...

I think that the work when finished will be a durable and honorable monument of our infant republic, and will bear favorable comparison with the remains of the same kind of the antient republics of Greece & Rome.

Architecture worth great attention. as we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. ... it is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.

you see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. but it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as it’s object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world & procure them it’s praise.

I received this summer a letter from Messrs Buchanan & Hay as directors of the public buildings desiring I would have drawn for them plans of sundry buildings, & in the first place of a Capitol ... we took for our model what is called the Maison-quarrèe of Nismes, one of the most...

but how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study & imitation?

Decoration of paper machee for a ceiling 14 f. 4 I. sq. divided into 6 + 2 compartments, and resembling as much as may be Gibbs’ rules for drawg pl. 58. upper figure, & Palladio B. 4. Pl. 26. fig. C.D.F.