To Richard Price Paris, January 8, 1789
DEAR SIR,
-- I have duly received your favor of the 5'th. inst. With respect to the busts & pictures I will put off till my return from America all of them except Bacon, Locke and Newton, whose pictures I will trouble you to have copied for me: and as I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical & Moral sciences, I would wish to form them into a knot on the same canvas, that they may not be confounded at all with the herd of other great men. To do this I suppose we need only desire the copyist to draw the three busts in three ovals all contained in a larger oval in some such form as this each bust to be the size of life.
xxx. The large oval would I suppose be about between four & five feet. Perhaps you can suggest a better way of accomplishing my idea. In your hands be it, as well as the subaltern expences you mention. I trouble you with a letter to Mrs. Church. We have no important news here but of the revolution of Geneva which is not yet sufficiently explained. But they have certainly reformed their government. I am with great respect D'r. Sir
Your affectionate friend & humble serv't.
