Note 3 — INTRODUCTION.

Three of the pieces of sculpture in the Museum are said by Sloane3 to have been derived from the Arundel Collection, which was the first great collection of classical antiques formed in this country. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (1585-1646), was the first Englishman who employed agents to collect for him in Greece and the Greek Islands, as well as in Italy. The collection thus formed was broken up in the reign of Charles II. The inscriptions were given by Henry Howard, afterwards sixth Duke of Norfolk, to the University of Oxford in 1667. The sculptures were scattered. A part passed through the hands of the Earls of Pomfret to the University of Oxford, while others were lost, or dispersed among private collectors.4 The few examples named above thus found their way into the original collection of the British Museum. A more important fragment, however, from the Arundel Collection was added to the Museum at an early date, namely the bronze head, formerly known as Homer,5 which was presented by the ninth Earl of Exeter in 1760. This head had previously been in the collection of Dr. Richard Mead,6 physician and antiquary (1673-1754), and was sold with his collection in 1754.7