Daily National Intelligencer

THE PAINTER DAVID.

This celebrated artist, notwithstanding the account of his execution, published in the Paris papers, appears to be still alive. The Moniteur of June 21st says, that he has been exiled; and also disappointed in his views. He wished to be employed by the king of Prussia as inspector of arts; but his request had been refused. As some account of this extraordinary character, who has figured as much upon the political stage, as in the theatre of arts, may be interesting, we give our readers the following particulars of him, from the pen of sir John Carr, a travelling Englishman who knows and writes a little upon every subject:

"During my stay in Paris, I visited the Gallery of David. This celebrated artist has amassed a fortune of upwards of two hundred thousand pounds, and is permitted by his great patron and friend Bonaparte, to occupy the corner wing of the old palace, from which every other man of genius and science, who was entitled to reside there, has been removed to other places, in order to make room for the reception of the grand national Library, which the first consul intends to have deposited there. His apartments are very magnificent, and furnished in that taste which he has, by the influence of his fame, and his elegance of design, so widely and successfully diffused. Whilst I was seated in his rooms I could not help fancying myself a cotemporary of the most tasteful age of Greece. Tunics and robes were carelessly but gracefully thrown over the antique chairs, which were surrounded by elegant statues, and ancient libraries so disposed as to perfect the classical illusion. I found David in his garden, putting in the back ground of a painting. He wore a dirty robe, and an old hat. His eyes are dark and penetrating, and beam with the lustre of genius. His collection of paintings and statues, and many of his own statues afforded a perfect banquet. He was then occupied in drawing a fine portrait of Bonaparte.—The presence of David covered the gratification with gloom. Before me in the bosom of that art, which is said with her divine associates to soften the souls of men, I beheld the remorseless judge of his sovereign, the destroyer of his brethren in art and the enthusiast and confidential friend of Robespierre. David's political life is too well known. During the late scenes of horror, he was asked by an acquaintance, how many heads had fallen upon the scaffold that day, to which he is said coolly to have replied, only one hundred and twenty!! The heads of twenty thousand more must fall before the great work of philosophy can be accomplished.

"It is related of him, that during the reign of the Mountain, he carried his portfolio to the front of the scaffold, to catch the last emotions of expiring nature, from the victims of his revolutionary rage.

"He directed and presided at the splendid funeral solemnities of Lepelletier, who was assassinated by Paris, in which his taste and intrinsic knowledge of the ceremonies of the ancients, on similar occasions were eminently displayed.

"The great abilities of this man alone enabled him to survive the Revolution, which, strange to relate, has throughout its ravages, preserved a veneration for science, and, in general, protected her distinguished followers. Bonaparte, who possesses great taste 'that instinct superior to study, surer than reasoning, and more rapid than reflection, entertains the greatest admiration for the genius of David, and always consults him in the arrangement of his paintings and statues. All the costumes of government have been designed by the artist.

"David is not without his adherents.—He has many pupils, the sons of respectable, and some of them noble families, residing in different parts of Europe. They are said to be much attached to him, and have formed themselves into a military corps, for the purpose of occasionally doing honor to him, and were lately at the point of revenging an insult, which had been offered to his person, in a manner which if perpetrated, would have required the interest of their master to have saved them from the scaffold.

"But neither the gracious protection of consular favor, nor the splendor of unrivalled abilities can restore their polluted possessor to the affections and endearments of social intercourse. Humanity has drawn a sable circle round him. He leads the life of a proscribed exile, in the very centre of the gayest city in Europe. In the gloomy shade of unchosen seclusion, he passes his ungladdened hours, in the hopes of covering his guilt with his glory, and of presenting to posterity, by the energies of his unequalled genius, some atonement for the havoc and ruin of that political hurricane, of which he directed the fury, and befriended the desolations, against every cotemporary object that nature have endeared, and virtue consecrated."