Part 1 / Book 2 — CHAPTER II. A GROUP OF CLASSICAL ARCHÆOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS.

‘The Archæologist cannot, like the Scholar, carry on his researches in his own Library, independent of outward circumstances. For his work of reference and collation he must travel, excavate, collect, arrange, delineate, transcribe, before he can place his whole subject before his mind....

‘A Museum of Antiquities is to the Archæologist what a Botanic Garden is to the Botanist. It presents his subject compendiously, synoptically, suggestively, not in the desultory and accidental order in which he would otherwise be brought into contact with its details.’—

C. T. Newton, On the Study of Archæology, p. 26.

Sir William Hamilton and his Pursuits and Employments in Italy.—The Acquisitions of the French Institute of Egypt, and the capture of part of them at Alexandria.—Charles Towneley and his Collection of Antiquities.—The Researches of the Earl of Elgin in Greece.—The Collections and Writings of Richard Payne Knight.

Book II, Chap. II. Classical Archæologists and Explorers.

To the comparatively small assemblage of antiquities which originally formed part of the Museum of Courten and of Sloane, several additions had been made—besides the coins, medals, and bronzes of Sir Robert Cotton—prior to the opening of the British Museum to the Public in 1759. Some of those additions were the gift, severally, of three members of the Lethieullier family. Others were 347the gift of Thomas Hollis, who became a constant benefactor to the Museum almost from the day of Sir Hans Sloane’s death to that of his own.

The Lethieullier antiquities had been chiefly gathered in Egypt. |The Egyptian Antiquities of the Lethieulliers.| The first gift was made by the Will of Colonel William Lethieullier, dated 23rd July, 1755. |MS. Addit., 6179, f. 29.| And the first catalogue of any kind which was prepared for the British Museum, after its acquisition by Parliament, was a list of these antiquities drawn up by Dr. John Ward, one of the Trustees. And here it may deserve remark that for many years after the foundation not a few of the Trustees took a large share in the actual work of preparing the Museum for public use, as well as in the ordinary duties of control and administration.

To the gift of Colonel William Lethieullier, his cousin, Smart Lethieullier, and his nephew, Pitt Lethieullier, made several additions between the years 1756 and 1770. The last-named of these gentlemen, when receiving, as executor of his uncle, the personal thanks of a Committee of the Trustees (February, 1756), for the bequest so made, took the opportunity of augmenting it by the gift of some antiquities which he had himself collected during his residence at Grand Cairo.

But the first large and comprehensive addition in the archæological department was that made in 1772 by the purchase, by means of a Parliamentary grant, of the Museum of Antiquities, which had been formed during seven years’ researches in Italy by Sir William Hamilton, our Ambassador at Naples.

Sir William Hamilton and his career at Naples.

Sir William Hamilton was among the earliest of British diplomatists who, by a voluntary choice, turned to good account, in the interests of learning and of the public, the 348opportunities which diplomatic life so frequently offers for amassing treasures of literature and science, and (in many cases) for saving them from peril of destruction. In that path Frenchmen had showed the way many generations earlier.

As far, indeed, as regards a public and national care for matters of the intellect, France is far better entitled to claim a priority in the proud distinction of ‘teaching the nations how to live,’ than is any other country in the world. It is to her immortal honour that from a very early period, and even in times of sore trouble, her sovereigns and her statesmen have known how to turn public resources to the promotion of public culture, as well as of national power. A man may read in French diplomatic letters of instruction of the sixteenth century orders to collect manuscripts and antiquities, as implements of public education, such as he would look for in vain in parallel British documents of any century at all,—inclusive of the present;—although it is certain that the omission has by no means arisen from the engrossment of our diplomatists in weightier concerns.

In Sir William Hamilton’s case the liberal tastes and the mental energy of the individual supplied the defect of his instructions. He set an example which not a few of our ambassadors have voluntarily followed with like public spirit, and with results not less conspicuous.

William Hamilton was the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, youngest son of James, third Duke of Hamilton, K.G. His mother, Lady Jane Hamilton, was of that illustrious family by birth, as well as by marriage, being the daughter of James, sixth Earl of Abercorn. He was born in the year 1730.

349Towards the close of his career, Sir William would sometimes say to his intimates, when conversation turned upon the battle of life: ‘I had to begin the world with a great name, and one thousand pounds for all my fortune.’ But the world never used him very roughly. Whilst still a young man (1755) he married Miss Barlow, the wealthy heiress of Hugh Barlow, of Laurenny Hall, in Pembrokeshire. She brought him an estate, in the neighbourhood of Swansea, worth nearly five thousand pounds a year; but it was his happy lot to have married a true wife, not a bag of money. Duclos, who saw much of the Hamiltons in their family circle at Naples in after years, was wont to say, ‘They are the happiest couple I ever saw.’

1764–1800.

Mr. Hamilton was sent to the Court of Naples in 1764. The post, in that day, was not overburdened with business. And for some years to come the new Ambassador found the Neapolitan society little to his taste. He was intellectual, and, in the truest sense, an English gentleman. The tone of society at that time in Naples was both frivolous and dissolute. He had to form, by slow degrees, a circle in which a man of cultivated tastes might enjoy social life. The public duties of the embassy could employ but a small portion of his time, and the temper of the man made employment to him a necessary of life. He threw his energies into hard study. And he possessed that happiest of mental characteristics, an equal love of the natural sciences, and of the world of art and of books. He could pore, with like enjoyment, on the deep things of Nature, and on the secrets of ‘the antiquary times.’ And in both paths, he knew how to make his personal enjoyments teem with public good.

His first labours were given to the exhaustive research of volcanic phenomena. He amazed the fine gentlemen of 350Naples by setting to work as though he had to win his bread by the sweat of his brow. He laboured harder on the slopes of Vesuvius than an exceptionally diligent craftsman would labour in a factory—had Naples possessed any. Within four years he ascended the famous mountain twenty-two times. More than one of these ascents was made at the risk of his life. He made, and caused to be made, innumerable drawings of all the phenomena that he observed, showing the volcanic eruption in all its stages, and under every kind of meteorological condition. He formed too a complete collection of volcanic products, and of the earths and minerals of the volcanic district. When he had studied Vesuvius under every possible aspect, he went to Etna.

The results of these elaborate investigations were sent, from time to time, to the Royal Society (of which Mr. Hamilton was made a Fellow, after the reading of the first of his papers in 1766), and they were published in the Philosophical Transactions, between the years 1766 and 1780. They were afterwards collected, and improved, in the two beautiful volumes entitled Campi Phlegræi, and were lavishly illustrated from the drawings of F. A. Fabris, who had been trained by Hamilton to the work.^[57] The collection of volcanic geology and products was given to the British Museum in 1767.

The Hamilton Museum of Antiquities.

These geological labours had been diversified, at intervals, by the collection of a rich archæological museum, and by the establishment of a systematic correspondence on antiquarian subjects with men of learning in various parts 351of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This correspondence had for its object, not merely the enrichment of his own Museum, but the awakening of local attention throughout the country to its antiquities and history; matters which had theretofore been but too much neglected—in the Neapolitan fashion.

One of the earliest and choicest acquisitions made by Hamilton in the early years of his residence at Naples was a collection of vases belonging to the senatorial family of Porcinari, many of which had been gathered from sepulchres and excavations in Magna Græcia. This purchase, made in 1766 and afterwards largely increased, may be regarded as the substantial beginning of the noble series of vases now so prominent a part of our National Museum.

Thus had been formed, by degrees, at Naples, a museum which, at the beginning of the year 1772, included seven hundred and thirty fictile vases; a hundred and seventy-five terra-cottas; about three hundred specimens of ancient glass (including three of the most perfect cinerary urns known, at that time, to have been discovered); six hundred and twenty-seven bronzes, of which nearly one-half illustrated the arms and armour of the ancients; more than two hundred specimens of sacrificial, domestic, and architectonic, instruments and implements; fourteen bassi-relievi, busts, masques, and inscribed tablets; about a hundred and fifty miscellaneous pieces of ancient ivory, including a curious series of tessaræ; a hundred and forty-nine gems, chiefly scarabæi; a hundred and forty-three personal ornaments, of various kinds, in gold; a hundred and fifty-two fibulæ in various materials; and more than six thousand coins and medals, comprising a considerable series from the towns of Magna Græcia.

352The first fruits of this noble collection was the publication, commenced in the year 1766, of the work entitled Antiquités Etrusques, &c., with admirable illustrations, and with a descriptive text, written in French by D’Hancarville. |Publication of the ‘Antiquités Etrusques.’| The first edition of this costly book was issued at Naples. It naturally attracted great attention. No such collection of fictile vases—in their combination of number and beauty—had been theretofore known.

The two volumes published at Sir William’s cost in 1766, were followed by two other volumes in 1767. All of them were executed with great care and with lavish expenditure. But the later edition, printed at Florence—long afterwards—is in many points superior.^[58]

Whilst the volumes were still incomplete, Mr. Hamilton circulated proof plates of the work with great liberality. Some of these proofs were lent to our famous English potter, Josiah Wedgwood, and gave a strong impulse to his taste and artistic zeal. |Meteyard, Life of Josiah Wedgwood, vol. ii, p. 72.| But they excited an eager longing for access to the vases themselves, as the only satisfactory models.

Wedgwood to Bentley, 10 May, 1770.

When Wedgwood wrote to his friend and partner, Bentley;—‘Mr. Hambleton, you know, has flattered the old pot-painters very much,’ one feels that for the moment that excellent man’s prepossessions had been rubbed a little, against the grain. But he shows directly that there is no real intent to impeach the Editor’s honesty in the matter. ‘He has, no doubt,’ adds Wedgwood, ‘taken his designs from the very best vases extant,’ which was precisely what it was his duty to do, since selection was the task in hand, not the publication of seven hundred specimens.

353This Collection—far more remarkable than any, of its kind, which had yet come to England—was brought over in 1772, and offered to the Trustees of the British Museum. An appeal was made to Parliament, and the first grant of public money, worthy of mention, was now made in order to its acquisition. The sum given to Mr. Hamilton was eight thousand four hundred pounds.

How soon one of the incidental results of the acquisition returned to the Public much more than its cost—leaving out of account altogether the best returns which accrue from such Collections—is among the familiar annals of our commerce. Josiah Wedgwood told a Committee of the House of Commons that, within two years, he had himself brought into England, by his imitations of the Hamilton vases in his manufactory at Etruria, about three times the sum which the Collection had cost to the country.

The Explorations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

At the beginning of the year 1772 Mr. Hamilton was made a Knight of the Bath. He returned to Naples soon after the transfer of his antiquities to the Museum, and ere long he was busily engaged in new explorations at Pompeii and at Herculaneum. He sent to the Society of Antiquaries, in 1777, an interesting account of the discoveries at Pompeii, which is printed in the fourth volume of the Archæologia. At Herculaneum he employed, during many years, Father Antonio Piaggi to superintend excavations and make drawings, and gave him an annual salary equal to a hundred pounds sterling, after vainly endeavouring—at that time—to urge on the Neapolitan Government its own duty to carry on the task in an adequate manner for the honour of the nation, and to publish the results of the explorations for the general benefit of learning.

Sir William’s services as an ambassador were rendered with zeal and with credit, as opportunity offered. But the 354opportunity, in his earlier period, was comparatively rare. It was, perhaps, despite the proverb, not altogether a happy thing for Naples that its annals were tiresome. The rust of inactivity showed itself there, as so often elsewhere, to be much more fatal than the exhaustion of strife. Certainly, to the ambassador, it was a personal misfortune that, when the affairs of Naples became really momentous to Englishmen, the vigour and the will of earlier days were then departing from the man whose energies were at length to be put to the test in the proper sphere of his profession. Meanwhile, and in his prime, he had but—from time to time—to make routine memorials as to matters of individual wrong; to heal breaches between one Bourbon and another; and to secure the neutrality of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies during the war which grew out of the struggle in America. Such matters made no great inroad upon the pursuits of the naturalist and the antiquarian.

Labour on the mountains, in the excavations, and in the study, had been, now for many years, relieved by congenial friendships. There had been an improvement in the tone of Neapolitan Society since Hamilton’s first appearance. And all that was best in Naples had gathered round him. To English travellers his hospitalities were splendid and unremitting. But in 1782 the circle lost its mistress. Seven years before, Sir William and Lady Hamilton had been bereaved of a daughter—their only child. In 1783 occurred the dreadful earthquake in Calabria, the greatest calamity of the century save that at Lisbon.

Among the scientific correspondents in England with whom Sir William Hamilton kept up an intercourse was Sir Joseph Banks, then the President of the Royal Society. 355To him was sent the fullest account that was attainable of the sad event of 1783.

It had chanced that just before the news reached Naples, Sir Joseph had written to Hamilton about some experiments and discoveries on the composition and transmutation of water. He had said, jestingly: ‘In future we philosophers shall rejoice when an eruption, which may swallow up a few towns, affords subsistence for as many nations of animals and vegetables.’ This letter Hamilton was about to answer when he received the intelligence from Calabria.

‘We have had here,’ he writes, ‘some shocks of an earthquake which, in Calabria Ultra, has swallowed up or destroyed almost every town, together with some towns in Sicily.... Every hour brings in accounts of fresh disasters. |1783. Feb. 18.| Some thousands of people will perish with hunger before the provisions sent from hence can reach them. This, I believe, will prove to have been the greatest calamity that has happened in this century. An end is put to the Carnival. |Hamilton to Banks, MS. Addit., 8967, ff. 34, seqq.| The theatres are shut. I suppose Saint Januarius will be brought out.’ There had been no exaggeration in these first reports. It was found that at Terranova, not only were all the buildings destroyed, but the very ground on which they stood sunk to such a depth as to form a sort of gulf. In that district alone 3043 people lost their lives. At Seminara 1328 persons were buried beneath the ruins. In other and adjacent districts more than 3300 persons perished.

In 1784 the ambassador visited England. His stay was brief. But an incident which occurred during this visit gave its colour to the rest of his life.

In 1791 Sir William Hamilton was made a Privy Councillor, and in the same year (nine years after the death 356of his first wife) he married Emma Harte, whom he had first met in the house of his nephew, Colonel Greville, in 1784. In September, 1793, his eventful acquaintance with Nelson was formed.

Hamilton’s first acquaintance with Nelson.

In that month, Nelson had been sent to Naples with despatches from Admiral Lord Hood, in which Sir William Hamilton was pressed to procure the sending of some Neapolitan troops to Toulon. After his first interview with Lord Hood’s messenger, he is said to have remarked to his wife: ‘I have a little man to introduce to you who will become one of the greatest men England has ever had.’ The favourable impression was reciprocal, it seems. The ambassador gave such good furtherance to the object of Nelson’s mission, that the messenger, we are told, said to him, ‘You are a man after my heart. |Clarke and McArthur, Life, &c., of Nelson, vol. i, p. 133; and Nicolas, vol. i, p. 326.| I’m only a captain, but, if I live, I shall get to the top of the tree;’ while, of the too-fascinating lady into whose social circle he was presently brought, Nelson wrote to his wife, ‘She is a young woman of amiable manners, who does honour to the station to which she is raised.’ Several years, however, were yet to intervene before the events of the naval war and the political circumstances of Naples itself brought about a close connexion in public transactions between the great seaman and the British ambassador, whose long diplomatic career was drawing to its close.

Hamilton, after the manner of Collectors, had scarcely parted with the fine Museum, which he had sold to the Public in 1772, before he began to form another. The explorations of the buried cities gave some favourable opportunities near home, and his researches were spread far and wide. In amassing vases he was especially fortunate. And, in that particular, his second Collection came to surpass the 357first. He became anxious to ensure its preservation in integrity. With that view he offered it to the King of Prussia.

The Second Hamilton Collection of Vases.

‘I think,’ he wrote to the Countess of Lichtenau, in May, 1796, ‘my object will be attained by placing my Collection, with my name attached to it, at Berlin. And I am persuaded that, in a very few years, the profit which the arts will derive from such models will greatly exceed the price of the Collection. The King’s [porcelain] manufactory would do well to profit by it.... For a long time past I have had an unlimited commission from the Grand Duke of Russia [afterwards Paul the First], but, between ourselves, I should think my Collection lost in Russia; whilst, at Berlin, it would be in the midst of men of learning and of literary academies.

‘There are more,’ he continues, ‘than a thousand vases, and one half of them figured. If the King listens to your proposal, he may be assured of having the whole Collection, and I would further undertake to go, at the end of the war, to Berlin to arrange them. |Sir W. Hamilton to the Countess of Lichtenau, 3 May, 1796.| On reckoning up my accounts,—I must speak frankly (il faut que je dise la vérité),—I find that I shall needs be a loser, unless I receive seven thousand pounds sterling for this Collection. That is exactly the sum I received from the English Parliament for my first Collection....^[59] As respects Vases, the second is far more beautiful and complete than the series in London, but the latter included also bronzes, gems, and medals.’ But the negotiation thus opened led to no result. And some of the choicest contents of this second Museum were eventually lost by shipwreck.

358When the correspondence with Berlin occurred, the Collector’s health was rapidly failing him. The political horizon was getting darker and darker. Victorious France was putting its pressure upon the Neapolitan Government to accept terms of peace which should exact the exclusion of British ships from the Neapolitan ports. The ambassador needed now all the energies for which, but a few years before, there had been no worthy political employment. They were fast vanishing; but, to the last, Sir William exerted himself to the best of his ability. It was his misfortune that he had now to work, too often, by deputy.

The later events at Naples, 1796–1799.

Lady Hamilton’s ambitious nature, and her appetite for political intrigue, when combined with some real ability and a good deal of reckless unscrupulousness as to the path by which the object in view might be reached, were dangerous qualities in such a Court as that of Naples. If, more than once, they contributed to the attainment of ends which were eagerly sought by the Government at home, and were of advantage to the movements of the British fleet, they cost—as is but too well known—an excessive price at last. The blame fairly attachable to Sir William Hamilton is that of suffering himself to be kept at a post for which the infirmities of age were rapidly unfitting him. But there he was to remain during yet four eventful years; quitting his embassy only when, to all appearance, he was at the door of death.

Between the September of 1793 and that of 1798 Nelson and Sir William Hamilton met more than once; but their chief communication was, of course, by letter. When, in October, 1796, after two victories in quick succession, Nelson lost his hard-won prizes, and narrowly escaped being taken into a Spanish port, it was to Hamilton that he wrote for a certificate of his conduct. And one of the ambassador’s 359latest diplomatic achievements was his procuring access for British ships to Neapolitan ports before the Battle of the Nile was won.

On the very night of that famous first of August, 1798, Sir William—whilst the distant battle was yet raging—told Nelson of the disappointment which had followed the rumours, current during many days at Naples, of a defeat given to the French fleet in the Bay of Alexandretta, and assured him of his own confidence that the rumours, though then unfounded, would come true at last. Five weeks afterwards, he had the satisfaction of sending to London the first official account of the great victory which he had seen before with the eye of faith.

At Naples the authentic news was received with a joy which worked like frenzy. When the ambassador first saw the Queen, after its arrival, she was rushing up and down the room of audience, and embracing every person who entered it—man, woman, or child. |Sir W. Hamilton to Nelson; Nicolas, vol. iii, p. 72.| He sent to Nelson an account of the universal joy. ‘You have now, indeed, made yourself immortal,’ was his own greeting. On the 22nd they again met, on board the Vanguard, in the Bay. On the 21st of the following December Sir William Hamilton accompanied the King and Court of Naples in their flight to Palermo.

The events of 1799 belong rather to history than to biography. Sir William Hamilton’s chief share in them lay in his exertions to obtain for Nelson the large powers which the King of Naples vested in the English Admiral—with results so mingled. On the 21st of June he embarked with Nelson on board the Foudroyant, and sailed with the squadron to Naples. In the stormy interview between Nelson and Cardinal Ruffo, Sir William acted as interpreter. In all that followed, he seems to have been rather a spectator than an actor. At the close of the year 360he joined with Nelson in the vain endeavour to induce the King to return to Naples, while that course was yet open to him.

Departure from Naples.

On the 10th of June, 1800, Sir William took his final leave of Naples, which had been his home for thirty-six years, and where he had mingled in a departed world. In company with the Queen and three princesses, the Hamiltons sailed in the Foudroyant for Leghorn, on their way to Vienna. A few days after the embarkation, a fellow-passenger writes thus: ‘Sir William Hamilton appears broken, distressed, and harassed. |Miss Knight to Lady Berry, July 2, 1800.| He says that he shall die by the way, and he looks so ill that I should not be surprised if he did.’ When the Admiral struck his flag (13th July) at Leghorn, the party set out for Vienna. Between Leghorn and Florence, Sir William’s carriage met with an overturn, which increased his malady. At Trieste the physicians were inclined to despair of his life. But he rallied sufficiently to reach England at last, and the change from turmoil to rest prolonged his life for two years to come.

Sir William Hamilton’s last days.

During the long interval between the acquisition of the first Hamilton Museum and the return of its Collector to his country, he had marked his interest in the national Collection by repeated and valuable gifts. To make yet one gift more—trivial, but possessing an historical interest—was one of his last acts. On the 12th of February, 1803, he sent to the British Museum a Commission given by the famous fisherman of Amalfi to one of his insurrectionary captains. On the 6th of April Sir William Hamilton died, in London. He was buried at Milford Haven.

The kindly heart had left many memorials of its quality at Naples. The ambassador had lost a part of his fortune. 361But many poor dependants, in his old home, enjoyed pensions from his liberality.

Nelson, when writing to the Queen of the Two Sicilies upon the death of their common friend, made this remark on his testamentary arrangements:—‘The good Sir William did not leave Lady Hamilton in such comfortable circumstances as his fortune would have allowed. He has given it amongst his relations. |Nelson to the Queen of Naples (Nicolas, vol. iv, p. 84).| But she will do honour to his memory, although every one else of his friends calls loudly against him on that account.’ This comment, however, expresses rather a temporary feeling than a wise judgment. Sir William had settled a jointure of seven hundred pounds a year upon his widow.

During the few months of life that yet remained to the great seaman himself, the highest encomium known to his vocabulary was to say, ‘So-and-so was a great friend of Sir William Hamilton.’

The ‘Institute of Egypt;’ and its researches and acquisitions.

As the British Museum owes one choice portion of its archæological treasures to the man who was Nelson’s type of friendship, so also it owes—indirectly—another portion of them to the man who was Nelson’s favourite aversion, and whose very name, in the Admiral’s mind, served to sum up all that was most detestable. The Battle of the Nile, and the military operations which followed it in the after years, would have counted no antiquarian riches amongst their trophies, but for that ardent love of science in Napoleon which prompted him to plan the ‘Institute of Egypt’ as an essential part of the Campaign of Egypt.

The intention with which the Institute of Egypt was founded embraced every kind of study and research. The scholars of whom it was composed included within their number men of the most varied powers. What they effected 362was fragmentary, and yet their researches, directly or indirectly, bore much fruit.

In the end, the harvest was to France herself none the less abundant from the fact that Nelson’s achievement, and what grew thereout, set Englishmen and Germans to work with increased vigour in the same field, and divided some of the tools.

Scarcely had General Bonaparte established the military power of the French Republic in Egypt, before he was employed in organizing the Institute at Cairo. |1798–1801.| Its declared object was twofold: (1) the increase and diffusion of learning in Egypt itself; (2) the examination, study, and publication, of the monuments of its history and of its natural phenomena, together with the elucidation and improvement of the natural and industrial capabilities of the country. |Mémoires sur l’Egypt, passim.| The Institute was composed of thirty-six members, and was divided into four sections. The section with which alone we are here concerned—that of Literature, Arts, and History—was headed by Denon, and amongst its other members were Dutertre, Parseval, and Ripault. Its labours began in 1798, and were continued, with almost unparalleled activity, until the summer of 1801, when the defeat of Belliard near Cairo, and the capitulation of Menou at Alexandria, placed that part of the collections of the Institute which had not been already sent to France at the disposal of Lord Hutchinson.

Denon, on his return from Upper Egypt to Cairo, said, with French vivacity, that if the active movements of the Mamelukes now and then forced an antiquary to become, in self-defence, a soldier, the antiquary was enabled, by way of balance and through the good nature and docility of the French troops, to turn a good many soldiers into antiquaries. Had it not been for this general sympathy and 363readiness, one can hardly conceive that so much could have been accomplished, even under the eye of Napoleon, amidst perils so incessant. The Description de l’Egypte is for France at large, no less than for Napoleon and the men whom he set to work, a monument which might well obliterate the momentary mortification attendant on the transfer to London of a part of the treasures of the Institute. History, ancient or modern, scarcely offers a parallel instance in which war was made to contribute results so splendid, both for the progress of science and for the eventual improvement of the invaded country. To the labours initiated by Napoleon, and partially carried out by the ‘Institute of Egypt,’ the ablest of the recent rulers of that land owe some of their best and latest inspirations. Nor is it a whit less true that the most successful of our English Egyptologists have followed the track in which Frenchmen led the way. Such results, indeed, can never suffice to justify an unprovoked invasion. But they illustrate, in a marvellous way, how temporary evil is wrought into enduring good.

By the sixteenth article of the Capitulation of Alexandria, it was provided that the Members of the Institute of Egypt might carry back with them all instruments of science and art which they had brought from France, but that all collections of marbles, manuscripts, and other antiquities, together with the specimens of natural history and the drawings, then in the possession of the French, should be regarded as public property, and become subject to the disposal of the generals of the allied army.

The Convention of Alexandria.

The Convention was made between General Menou and General Hope, on the 31st of August, 1801. |1801, August.| Against this sixteenth article Menou made the strongest remonstrances, but General Hope declined to modify it, otherwise 364than by agreeing to make a reference, as to the precise extent to which it should be carried into actual effect, to Lord Hutchinson, as Commander-in-Chief.

Between Menou and Hutchinson there was a long correspondence. The French General declared that the Collections, both scientific and archæological, were private, not public property. The since famous ‘Rosetta stone,’ for example, belonged, he said, to himself. Various members of the Institute claimed other precious objects; some alleged, with obvious force of argument, that the care bestowed on specimens of natural history made them the property of the collectors and preservers; others threatened to prefer the destruction or defacement of their collections, by their own hands, to the giving of them up to the English army.

The Negotiations and Services of Colonel Turner.

The correspondence was followed by several personal conferences between Menou and Colonel (afterwards General) Turner, in order to a compromise. Turner, who was himself a man of distinguished knowledge and accomplishments, advised Lord Hutchinson to insist on the transfer of the Marbles and Manuscripts, and to yield the natural history specimens, with some minor objects, to the possessors. The astute Capitan Pasha had contrived to place himself in ‘possession’ of one of the most precious of the marbles—the famous sarcophagus which Dr. Clarke so strenuously contended to be nothing less than the tomb of Alexander—by seizing the ship on board of which the French had placed it, and he gave Colonel Turner almost as much trouble as Menou himself had given.

The French soldiers were, as was natural, deeply mortified when they heard that the captors of Alexandria were to have the antiquities. Every man of them who had had to do with their excavation or transport had vindicated 365Denon’s eulogy by his pains to protect the sculptures from harm. Now, their excessive zeal and their national pride led to an unworthy result. The Rosetta stone was stripped of the soft cotton cloth and the thick matting in which it had been sedulously wrapped, and was thrown upon its face. Other choice antiquities were deprived of their wooden cases. |Capture of the Rosetta Stone;| When Turner, with a detachment of artillerymen and a strong tumbril, went to the French head-quarters to receive the Rosetta stone, he had to pass through a lane of angry Frenchmen who crowded the narrow streets of Alexandria, and were not sparing in their epithets and sarcasms. Those artillerymen, too, were the first English soldiers who entered the city. When Colonel Turner had gotten safely into his hands the stone destined to mark an era in philology, he returned good for evil. He permitted some members of the Institute of Egypt to take a cast of it, which they sent to Paris in lieu of the original.

The Rosetta inscription had been found, by the French explorers, among the ruins of a fortification near the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. When they discovered it the stone was already broken, both at the top and at the right side. Of its triple inscription, commemorative of the beginning of the actual and personal reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes—and therefore cut nearly two hundred years before the Christian era—that in the hieroglyphic or sacred character had suffered most. The second or enchorial inscription was also mutilated in its upper portion. The Greek version was almost entire.

The scarcely less famous Alexandrian sarcophagus was found by the French in the court-yard of a mosque called the ‘Mosque of St. Athanasius.’ |and of the Sarcophagus sometimes called ‘Tomb of Alexander.’| Of its discovery and state when found, the following account is given in the Description de l’Egypte:—A small octagonal building, covered 366with a cupola, had been constructed by the Moslems for their ablutions, and in this they had placed the sarcophagus to be used as a bath; piercing it for that purpose with large holes, but not otherwise injuring it. The sarcophagus is a monolith of dark-coloured breccia—such as the Italians call breccia verde d’Egitto—and is completely covered with hieroglyphics. |Description de l’Egypte, vol. v, pp. 373, seqq.; Plates and Append. (8vo edit.), 1829.| Their number, according to the French artist by whom impressions in sulphur were taken of the whole, exceeds 21,700. Dr. Clarke’s identification of this monument as the tomb of Alexander has not been supported by later Egyptologists.

This sarcophagus, with most of the other antiquities, was sent on board the flagship Madras. |List of the Egyptian Antiquities embarked at Alexandria.| The Rosetta inscription, Colonel Turner embarked, with himself, in the frigate Egyptienne. His own list of the antiquities thus brought, in safety, to England runs thus:—(1) An Egyptian sarcophagus, of green breccia; (2) another, of black granite, from Cairo; (3) another, of basalt, from Menouf; (4) the hand of a colossal statue—supposed to be Vulcan—found in the ruins of Memphis; (5) five fragments of lion-headed statues, of black granite, from Thebes; (6) a mutilated kneeling statue, of black granite; (7) two statues, of white marble, from Alexandria—Septimus Severus and Marcus Aurelius; (8) the Rosetta stone; (9) a lion-headed statue, from Upper Egypt; (10) two fragments of lions’ heads, of black granite; (11) a small kneeling figure, of black granite; (12) five fragments of lion-headed statues, of black granite; (13) a fragment of a sarcophagus, of black granite, from Upper Egypt; (14) two small obelisks, of basalt, with hieroglyphics; (15) a colossal ram’s head. Nos. 10 to 15 inclusive were all brought from Upper Egypt. (16) A statue of a woman, sitting, with a model of the capital of a column of the Temple of Isis at Dendera, between her feet; (17) a fragment of a lion-headed statue, of black 367granite, from Upper Egypt; (18) a chest of Oriental Manuscripts—sixty-two in number—in Coptic, Arabic, and Turkish.

I have given the more careful detail to this notice of the archæological results of the capitulation of Alexandria, inasmuch as a very inaccurate statement of the matter has found its way into an able and deservedly accredited book. |See the History of Europe, vol. v, p. 596 (last edition).| Sir Archibald Alison, in his History of Europe (probably from some misconception of the compromise effected between General Turner and the French Commander-in-Chief), writes thus:—‘General Hutchinson, with a generous regard for the interests of science and the feelings of these distinguished persons [the Members of the Institute of Egypt], agreed to depart from the stipulation and allow these treasures of art to be forwarded to France. The sarcophagus of Alexander, now in the British Museum, was, however, retained by the British, and formed the glorious trophy of their memorable triumph.’

General Turner’s conspicuous service on this occasion did not end with the transport into England of the Alexandrian Collections. Before the Rosetta inscription was, by the King’s command, placed, together with its companions, in the British Museum, as their permanent abode, General Turner obtained Lord Buckinghamshire’s assent to the temporary deposit of the stone from Rosetta in the custody of the Society of Antiquaries, by whose care copies of the inscriptions were sent to the chief scholars and academies of the Continent, in order that combined study might be brought to bear, immediately, upon the contents. This circumstance makes it all the more honourable to our countryman, Dr. Thomas Young, that by his labours upon the stone a strong impulse was first given to the progress of hieroglyphical discovery.

The accessions from Alexandria served, also, to initiate 368another improvement. When, in 1802, they reached the Museum, its contents had so increased that the old house afforded no adequate space for their reception. They had, like some famous sculptures of much later acquisition, to be placed in sheds which scarcely preserved them from bad weather, and were even less adapted to facilitate their study. |1804, July 2.| |Parliamentary Debates, vol. ii, col. 901, seqq.| The Trustees made their first application to Parliament for the enlargement of the Museum Building, ‘in order to provide suitable room for the preservation of invaluable monuments of antiquity which had been acquired by the valour, intrepidity, and skill of our troops in an expedition seldom equalled in the annals of the country.’ And before presenting their petition they determined that increased facilities should be given for the admission of the Public, as soon as they should be enabled to make an adequate increase in the staff of the establishment.

When the extension of the British Museum came first to be discussed in the House of Commons (somewhat grudgingly and captiously it must, in truth, be acknowledged), upon the application of the Trustees, some of their number were already aware that an accession was likely soon to accrue through the munificence of a fellow-trustee, which would make a new and extensive building indispensable. Charles Towneley had already made a Will in virtue of which—as it stood in 1804—the Towneley Marbles were devised in trust for the British Museum, on condition that the Trustees thereof should, ‘within two years from the time of the testator’s decease, set apart a room or rooms sufficiently spacious and elegant to exhibit these antiquities most advantageously to the Public,—such rooms to be exclusively set apart for the reception and future exhibition of the antiquities aforesaid.’ Circumstances not foreseen in 1802, when Colonel Towneley’s Will had been first 369made, led afterwards to a change in the mode in which his noble Collection was to be received by the Public. But its preservation and public accessibility, in one way or other, had long been resolved upon.

The Towneleys, of Towneley, rank among the most ancient and distinguished commoners of Lancashire. They can trace an honourable descent to a period antecedent to the Conquest. They have been seated at Towneley from the twelfth century. Several of them have given good service to England, in various ways, in spite of the obstacles and discouragements which, for many generations, clave to almost every man whose convictions obliged him to adhere to the Roman Catholic Church, and so to incur the pains and disabilities of recusancy. Of these they had their full share. One Towneley had been mulcted in fines amounting to more than five thousand pounds, simply for remaining true to his belief, and had been, for that cause, sent (with an ingenuity of torment one is almost tempted to call diabolic) from prison to prison across the breadth of England, and back again.^[60] Another Towneley was driven into an exile which lasted so long that when he returned into Lancashire everybody had forgotten his features and his voice, except his dog. But neither fine, imprisonment, nor banishment, had converted them to Protestantism. Hence it was that Charles Towneley, the Collector of the Marbles, received his education at Douay, and contracted 370all the strong formative impressions of early life and habit on the Continent.

He was born, in the old seat of the family at Towneley Hall, on the 1st of October, 1737. |Life of Charles Towneley.| His father, William Towneley, had married Cecilia, sole daughter and heir of Richard Standish, by his wife Lady Philippa Howard, daughter of Henry, Duke of Norfolk. The hall—which has not yet lost all its venerable aspect—was built in part by a Sir John Towneley in the reign of Henry VIII, and its older portions (turrets, gateway, chapel, and library) suit well the fine position of the building, and the noble woods which back it. Of the founder two things still remain in local tradition and memory. He took the changes made under the rule of Henry—or rather of Thomas Cromwell—so much in dudgeon, that when Lancaster Herald came to Towneley, upon his Visitation, he refused to admit him, saying, ‘Do not trouble thyself. There are no more gentlemen left in Lancashire now than my Lord of Derby, and my Lord Monteagle.’ The other tradition of this same Sir John is, that he enclosed a common pasture called Horelaw, and so made the peasantry as angry with his innovations as he was with Cromwell’s. Some of their descendants may yet chance to assure the inquisitive stranger, that his ghost still haunts the park, crying aloud in the dead of night—

‘Lay out! lay out!^[61]

Horelaw and Hollingley Clough!’

At Douay Charles Towneley received a careful education, moulded, of course, under the conditions and the memories of that celebrated College. When he left its good priests he was already the owner of the family estates—his 371father having died prematurely in 1742—and he was plunged, at once, into the gaieties and temptations of Paris. All the Mentorship he had was that of a great uncle who had become sufficiently naturalised to win the friendship of Voltaire, and to be able to turn Hudibras into excellent French. The dissipations of the Capital overpowered, for a time, the real love of classical studies which had been excited in the provincial college. But the seed had been sown in a good soil. The study of art and of classical archæology, in particular, presently reasserted its claims and renewed its attractions. It was a fortunate circumstance, too, that family affairs required the presence of Mr. Towneley in England on the attainment of his majority.

He had left Towneley very young. He came back to it with more of the foreigner than of the Englishman in his ways of life and manners. But he was able to win the genuine regard of his neighbours, and to take his fair share in their pursuits and sports, although he could never—at least in his own estimation—succeed in expressing his thoughts with as much ease and readiness in English as in French. Late in life, he would speak of this conscious inability with regret. Whether needfully or not, the feeling, no doubt, prevented Mr. Towneley from turning to literary account his large acquirements.

What he had seen of the Continent had given him a desire to see more of it, and the bias of his youthful studies pointed in the same direction. In 1765, after a short stay in France, he went into Italy, and there he passed almost eight years. They were passed in a very different way from that in which he had passed the interval between Douay and Towneley. That long residence abroad enabled him to become a very conspicuous benefactor to his country.

He visited Naples, Florence, and Rome, and from time 372to time made many excursions into various parts of Magna Græcia and of Sicily. At Naples he formed the acquaintance of Sir William Hamilton and of D’Hancarville. |Towneley’s Artistic Researches in Italy.| |1765–1778.| At Rome he became acquainted with three Englishmen, James Byres, Gavin Hamilton, and Thomas Jenkins, all of whom had first gone thither as artists, and step by step had come to be almost exclusively engrossed in the search after works of ancient art. The success and fame of Sir William Hamilton’s researches in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and of those, still earlier, of Thomas Coke of Holkham (afterwards Earl of Leicester), had given a strong impulse to like researches in other parts of Italy. Towneley caught the contagion, and was backed by large resources to aid him in the pursuit.

His first important purchase was made in 1768. It was that of a work already famous, and which for more than a century had been one of the ornaments of the Barberini Palace at Rome. This statue of a boy playing at the game of tali, or ‘osselets’ (figured in Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, part ii, plate 31), was found among the ruins of the Baths of Titus, during the Pontificate of Urban the Eighth. During the same year, 1768, Mr. Towneley acquired, from the Collection of Victor Amadei, at Rome, the circular urn with figures in high relief—which is figured in the first volume of Piranesi’s Raccolta di Vasi Antichi—and also the statue of a Nymph of Diana, seated on the ground. This statue was found in 1766 at the Villa Verospi in Rome.

Formation of the Towneley Gallery.

Two years afterwards, several important acquisitions were made of marbles which were discovered in the course of the excavations undertaken by Byres, Gavin Hamilton, and Jenkins, amidst the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli. The joint-stock system, by means of which the 373diggings were effected, no less than the conditions which accompanied the papal concessions that authorised them, necessitated a wide diffusion of the spoil. But whenever the making of a desirable acquisition rested merely upon liberality of purse or a just discrimination of merit, Mr. Towneley was not easily outstripped in the quest. Amongst these additions of 1769–71 were the noble Head of Hercules, the Head said, conjecturally, to be that of Menelaus, and the ‘Castor’ in low relief (all of which are figured in the second part of Ancient Marbles).

Two terminal heads of the bearded Bacchus—both of them of remarkable beauty—were obtained in 1771 from the site of Baiæ. These were found by labourers who were digging a deep trench for the renewal of a vineyard, and were seen by Mr. Adair, who was then making an excursion from Naples. In the same year the statue of Ceres and that of a Faun (A. M., ii, 24) were purchased from the Collection in the Macarani Palace at Rome. In 1772 the Diana Venatrix and the Bacchus and Ampelus were found near La Storta. It was by no fault of Towneley’s that the Diana was in part ‘restored,’ and that blunderingly. He thought restoration to be, in some cases, permissible; but never deceptively; never when doubt existed about the missing part. In art, as in life, he clave to his heraldic motto ‘Tenez le vrai.’

In 1771, also, the famous ‘Clytie’—doubtfully so called—was purchased from the Laurenzano Collection at Naples.

The curious scenic figure on a plinth (A. M., part x) together with many minor pieces of sculpture, were found in the Fonseca Villa on the Cælian Hill in 1773. In the same year many purchases were made from the Mattei Collection at Rome. Amongst these are the heads of 374Marcus Aurelius and of Lucius Verus. And it was at this period that Gavin Hamilton began his productive researches amidst the ruins of the villa of Antoninus Pius at Monte Cagnolo, near the ancient Lanuvium. This is a spot both memorable and beautiful. The hill lies on the road between Genzano and Civita Lavinia. It commands a wide view over Velletri and the sea. To Hamilton and his associates it proved one of the richest mines of ancient art which they had the good fortune to light upon. Mr. Towneley’s share in the spoil of Monte Cagnolo comprised the group of Victory sacrificing a Bull; the Actæon; a Faun; a Bacchanalian vase illustrative of the Dionysia; and several other works of great beauty. The undraped Venus was found—also by Gavin Hamilton—at Ostia, in 1775.

The acquisition of the ‘Towneley Venus.’

In the next year, 1776, Mr. Towneley acquired one of the chiefest glories of his gallery, the Venus with drapery. This also was found at Ostia, in the ruins of the Baths of Claudius. But that superb statue would not have left Rome had not its happy purchaser made, for once, a venial deflection from the honourable motto just adverted to. The figure was found in two severed portions, and care was taken to show them, quite separately, to the authorities concerned in granting facilities for their removal. The same excavation yielded to the Towneley Collection the statue of Thalia. From the Villa Casali on the Esquiline were obtained the terminal head of Epicurus, and the bust thought to be that of Domitia. The bust of Sophocles was found near Genzano; that of Trajan, in the Campagna; that of Septimius Severus, on the Palatine, and that of Caracalla on the Esquiline. A curious cylindrical fountain (figured in A. M., i, § 10) was found between Tivoli and Præneste, and the fine representation in low 375relief of a Bacchanalian procession (Ib., part ii) at Civita Vecchia. All these accessions to the Towneley Gallery accrued in 1775 or 1776.

Of the date of the Collector’s first return to England with his treasures I have found no record. |The Towneley Gallery in England.| But it would seem that nearly all the marbles hitherto enumerated were brought to England in or before the year 1777. The house, in London, in which they were first placed was found to be inadequate to their proper arrangement. Mr. Towneley either built or adapted another house, in Park street, Westminster, expressly for their reception. Here they were seen under favourable circumstances as to light and due ordering. They were made accessible to students with genuine liberality. And few things gave their owner more pleasure than to put his store of knowledge, as well as his store of antiquities, at the service of those who wished to profit by them. He did so genially, unostentatiously, and with the discriminating tact which marked the high-bred gentleman, as well as the enthusiastic Collector.

A contemporary critic, very competent to give an opinion on such a matter, said of Mr. Towneley: ‘His learning and sagacity in explaining works of ancient art was equal to his taste and judgment in selecting them.’^[62] If, in any point, that eulogy is now open to some modification, the exception arises from the circumstance that early in life, or, at least, early in his collectorship, he had imbibed from his intercourse with D’Hancarville somewhat of that writer’s love for mystical and supersubtle expositions of the symbolism of the Grecian and Egyptian artists. To D’Hancarville, the least obvious of any two possible expositions of a subject was always the preferable one. Now and then 376Towneley would fall into the same vein of recondite elaboration; as, for example, when he described his figure of an Egyptian ‘tumbler’ raising himself, upon his arms, from the back of a tame crocodile, as the ‘Genius of Production.’

During the riots of 1780, the Towneley Gallery (like the National Museum of which it was afterwards to become a part) was, for some time, in imminent peril. The Collector himself could have no enemies but those who were infuriated against his religious faith. Fanaticism and ignorance are meet allies, little likely to discriminate between a Towneley Venus and the tawdriest of Madonnas. Threats to destroy the house in Park Street were heard and reported. Mr. Towneley put his gems and medals in a place of safety, together with a few other portable works of art. Then, taking ‘Clytie’ in his arms—with the words ‘I must take care of my wife’—he left his house, casting one last, longing, look at the marbles which, as he feared, would never charm his eyes again. But, happily, both the Towneley house and the British Museum escaped injury, amid the destruction of buildings, and of works of art and literature, in the close neighbourhood of both of them.

The Sculptures acquired from the Villa Montalto at Rome;

Liberal commissions and constant correspondence with Italy continued to enrich the Towneley Gallery, from time to time, after the Collector had made England his own usual place of abode. In 1786, Mr. Jenkins—who had long established himself as the banker of the English in Rome, and who continued to make considerable investments in works of ancient art, with no small amount of mercantile profit—purchased all the marbles of the Villa Montalto. From this source Mr. Towneley obtained his Bacchus visiting Icarus (engraved by Bartoli almost a century before); his Bacchus and Silenus; the bust of 377Hadrian; the sarcophagus decorated with a Bacchanalian procession (A. M., part x), and also that with a representation of the Nine Muses. |and from new Excavations.| By means of the same keen agent and explorer he heard, in or about the year 1790, that leave had been given to make a new excavation under circumstances of peculiar promise.

Our Collector was at Towneley when the letter of Mr. Jenkins came to hand. He knew his correspondent, and the tenour of the letter induced him to resolve upon an immediate journey to Rome. The grass did not grow under his feet. He travelled as rapidly as though he had been still a youngster, escaping from Douay, with all the allurements of Paris in his view.

The Journey to Rome of 1790?

When he reached Rome, he learnt that the promising excavation was but just begun upon. Without any preliminary visits, or announcement, he quietly presented himself beside the diggers, and ere long had the satisfaction of seeing a fine statue of Hercules displayed. Other fine works afterwards came to light. But on visiting Mr. Jenkins, in order to enjoy a more deliberate examination of ‘the find,’ and to settle the preliminaries of purchase, his enjoyment was much diminished by the absence of Hercules. Jenkins did not know that his friend had seen it exhumed, and he carefully concealed it from his view. Eager remonstrance, however, compelled him to produce the hidden treasure. Towneley, at length, left the banker’s house with the conviction that the statue was his own, but it never charmed his sight again until he saw it in the Collection of Lord Lansdowne. He had, however, really secured the Discobolus or Quoit-thrower,—perhaps, notwithstanding its restored head, the finest of the known repetitions of Myro’s famous statue,—as well as some minor pieces of sculpture.

378Other and very valuable acquisitions were made, occasionally, at the dispersion of the Collections of several lovers of ancient art, some of these Collections having been formed before his time, and others contemporaneously with his own. |Acquisitions made in England and in France.| In this way he acquired whilst in England (1) the bronze statue of Hercules found, early in the eighteenth century, at Jebel or Gebail (the ancient Byblos), carried by an Armenian merchant to Constantinople, there sold to Dr. Swinney, a chaplain to the English factory; by him brought into England, and purchased by Mr. James Matthews; (2) the Head of Arminius, also from the Matthews Collection; (3) the Libera found by Gavin Hamilton, on the road to Frascati, in 1776, and then purchased by Mr. Greville; (4) Heads of a Muse, an Amazon, and some other works, from the Collection of Mr. Lyde Browne, of Wimbledon; (5) the Monument of Xanthippus, from the Askew Collection; (6) the bust of a female unknown (called by Towneley ‘Athys’) found near Genzano, in the grounds of the family of Cesarini, and obtained from the Collection of the Duke of St. Albans; (7) many urns, vases, and other antiquities, partly from the Collection of that Duke and partly from Sir Charles Frederick’s Collection at Esher. The bronze Apollo was bought in Paris, at the sale, in 1774, of the Museum formed by M. L’Allemand de Choiseul.

Some other accessions came to Mr. Towneley by gift. The Tumbler and Crocodile, and the small statue of Pan (A. M., pt. x, § 24), were the gift of Lord Cawdor. The Oracle of Apollo was a present from the Duke of Bedford. This accession—in 1804—was the last work which Mr. Towneley had the pleasure of seeing placed in his gallery. He died in London, on the 3rd of January, 1805.

379He had been made, in 1791, a Trustee of the British Museum, in the progress of which he took a great interest. Family circumstances, as it seems, occurred which at last dictated a change in the original disposition which he had made of his Collection. |Mr. Towneley’s Will.| |Codicil of 22 Dec., 1804.| By a Codicil, executed only twelve days before his death, he bequeathed the Collection to his only brother Edward Towneley-Standish, on condition that a sum of at least four thousand five hundred pounds should be expended for the erection of a suitable repository in which the Collection should be arranged and exhibited. Failing such expenditure by the brother, the Collection was to go to John Towneley, uncle of the Testator. Should he decline to fulfil the conditions, then the Collection should go, according to the Testator’s first intent, to the British Museum.

Eventually, it appeared, on an application from the Museum Trustees, that the heirs were willing to transfer the Collection to the Public, but that Mr. Towneley had left his estate subject to a mortgage debt of £36,500. |Act of 45 Geo. III.| The Trustees, therefore, resolved to apply to Parliament for a grant, and this noble Collection was acquired for the Nation on the payment of the sum of £20,000, very inadequate, it need scarcely be added, to its intrinsic worth.

Charles Towneley possessed considerable skill, both as a draughtsman and as an engraver. In authorship, his only public appearance was as the writer of a dissertation on a relic of antiquity (the ‘Ribchester Helmet’), printed in the Vetusta Monumenta.

He was a learned, genial, and benevolent man. His intense love of ancient art did not blind his eyes to things beyond art, and above it. The impulses of the collector did not obstruct the duties of the citizen. He was a good landlord; a generous friend. It may be said of him, with 380literal truth, that he restricted his personal indulgences in order that he might the more abundantly minister to the wants of others.

Charles Towneley was buried at Burnley. The following inscription was placed upon his monument:

M. S.

Caroli Towneleii,

viri ornati, modesti,

nobilitate stirpis, amænitate ingenii, suavitate morum,

insignis;

qui omnium bonarum artium, præsertim Græcarum,

spectator elegantissimus, æstimator acerrimus, judex peritissimus,

earum reliquias, ex urbium veterum ruderibus effossas,

summo studio conquisivit, suâ pecuniâ redemit, in usum patriæ reposuit,

eâ liberalitate animi, quâ, juvenis adhuc,

hæreditatem alteram, vix patrimonio minorem,

fratri spontè cesserat, dono dederat.

Vixit annos lxvii. menses iii. dies iii.

Mortem obiit Jan. iii. A.S. 1805.

Whilst the Trustees of the British Museum were preparing—in a way that will be hereafter noticed—for the reception of this noble addition to the public wealth of the Nation, another liberal-minded scholar and patriot was considering in what way his collections in the wide field of classical archæology might be made most contributive to the progress of learning, of art, and of public education.

Lord Elgin and his Pursuits in Greece.

Thomas Bruce, eleventh Earl of Kincardine, and seventh Earl of Elgin, was born on the 20th of July, 1766. He was a younger son, but succeeded to his earldoms on the death, without issue, in 1771, of his elder brother, William Robert, sixth Earl of Elgin, and tenth of Kincardine. He was educated at Harrow, at St. Andrew’s, and at Paris; entered the army in 1785; and in 1790 began his diplomatic career by a mission to the Emperor Leopold. In 381subsequent years he was sent as Commissioner to the armies of Prussia and Austria, successively, and was present during active military operations, both in Germany and in Flanders. In 1795 he went as envoy to Berlin.

Lord Elgin was appointed to the embassy to the Ottoman Porte, with which his name is now inseparably connected, in July, 1799. One of his earliest reflections after receiving his appointment was that the mission to Constantinople might possibly afford opportunities of promoting the study and thorough examination of the remains of Grecian art in the Turkish dominions. He consulted an early friend, Mr. Harrison—distinguished as an architect, who had spent many years of study on the Continent with much profit—as to the methods by which any such opportunities might be turned to fullest account. Harrison’s advice to his lordship was that he should seek permission to employ artists to make casts, as well as drawings and careful admeasurements, of the best remaining examples of Greek architecture and sculpture, and more especially of those at Athens.

Before leaving England, Lord Elgin brought this subject before the Government. He suggested the public value of the object sought for, and how worthy of the Nation it would be to give encouragement from public sources for the employment of a staff of skilful and eminent artists. But the suggestion was received with no favour or welcome. He was still unwilling to relinquish his hopes, and endeavoured to engage, at his own cost, some competent draughtsmen and modellers. But the terms of remuneration proposed to him were beyond his available means. He feared that he must give up his plans.

On reaching Palermo, however, Lord Elgin opened the 382subject to Sir William Hamilton, who strongly recommended him to persevere, and told him that if he could not afford to meet the terms of English artists, he would find less difficulty in coming to an agreement with Italians, whose time commonly bore a smaller commercial value. |Confers with Sir William Hamilton.| With Sir William’s assistance he engaged, in Sicily, a distinguished painter and archæologist, John Baptist Lusieri (better known at Naples as ‘Don Tita’), and he obtained several skilful modellers and draughtsmen from Rome. The removal of the marbles themselves formed no part of Lord Elgin’s original design. That step was induced by causes which at this time were unforeseen.

On his arrival at Constantinople Lord Elgin applied to the Turkish Ministers for leave to establish six artists at Athens to make drawings and casts. He met with many difficulties and delays, but at length succeeded. |Sends Artists to Athens;| Mr. Hamilton, his Secretary, accompanied the Italians into Greece, to superintend the commencement of their labours.

The difficulties at Constantinople proved to be almost trivial in comparison with those which ensued at Athens. Every step was met, both by the official persons and the people generally, with jealousy and obstruction. If a scaffold was put up, the Turks were sure that it was with a view to look into the harem of some neighbouring house. If a fragment of sculpture was examined with any visible delight or eagerness, they were equally sure that it must contain hidden gold. When the artist left the specimen he had been drawing, or modelling, he would find, not infrequently, that some Turk or other had laid hands upon it and broken it to pieces. But the artists persevered, and habit in some degree reconciled, at length, the people to their presence.

When Lord Elgin went himself to Athens the state in 383which he found some of the temples suggested to him the desirableness of excavations in the adjacent mounds. He purchased some houses, expressly to pull them down and to dig beneath and around them. Sometimes the exploration brought to light valuable sculpture. |and makes Explorations by digging.| Sometimes, in situations of greatest promise, nothing was found.

On one occasion, when the indication of buried sculpture seemed conclusive, and yet the search for it fruitless, Lord Elgin was induced to ask the former owner of the ground if he remembered to have seen any figures there. ‘If you had asked me that before,’ replied the man, ‘I could have saved you all your trouble. I found the figures, and pounded them to make mortar with, because they were of excellent marble. A great part of the Citadel has been built with mortar made in the same way. That marble makes capital lime.’

The conversation was not lost upon Lord Elgin. And the assertion made in it was amply corroborated by facts which presently came under his own eyes. He became convinced that when fine sculpture was found it would be a duty to remove it, if possible, rather than expose it to certain destruction—a little sooner or a little later—from Turkish barbarity.

The Explorations extended to other parts of Greece.

At intervals the artists, whose head-quarters were at Athens, made exploring trips to other parts of Greece. They visited Delphi, Corinth, Epidaurus, Argos, Mycene, Cape Sigæum, Olympia, Æginæ, Salamis, and Marathon.

But it was only by means of renewed efforts at Constantinople, and after a long delay, that the artists and their assistant labourers were enabled to act with freedom and to make thorough explorations. So long as the French remained masters of Egypt Lord Elgin had to win every 384little concession piecemeal, and obtained it grudgingly. As soon as it became apparent that the British Expedition would be finally successful, the tone of the Turkish government was entirely altered. They were now eager to satisfy the Ambassador, and to lay him under obligation. |Influence of the British Victories in Egypt.| Firmauns were given, which empowered him, not only to make models, but ‘to take away any pieces of stone from the temples of the idols with old inscriptions or figures thereon,’ at his pleasure. Instructions were sent to Athens which had the effect of making the Acropolis itself a scene of busy and well-rewarded labour. Theretofore a heavy admission fee had been exacted at each visit of the draughtsmen or modellers. Before the close of 1802, more than three hundred labourers were at work under the direction of Lusieri—with results which are familiar to the world.

It is less widely known that, had Napoleon’s plans in Egypt been carried to a prosperous issue, the ‘Elgin Marbles’ would, beyond all doubt, have become French marbles. When Lord Elgin’s operations began, French agents were actually resident in Athens, awaiting the turn of events and prepared to profit by it, in the way of resuming the operations which M. de Choiseul Gouffier had long previously begun.^[63]

Instances of Turkish Devastation.

1674.

The efforts of the British Ambassador became the more timely and imperative from the fact that no amount of experience or warning was sufficient to deter the Turks from 385their favourite practice of converting the finest of the Greek Temples into powder magazines. Twenty of the metopes of the northern side of the Parthenon had been, in consequence of this practice, destroyed by an explosion during the Venetian siege of Athens in the seventeenth century. |1800.| The Temple of Neptune was found by Lord Elgin devoted to the same use, at the beginning of the nineteenth.

No methods of extending his researches, so as to make them as nearly exhaustive as the circumstances would admit, were overlooked by the ambassador. Through the friendship of the Capitan Pasha, Lord Elgin had already, whilst yet at the Dardanelles, obtained the famous Boustrophedon inscription from Cape Sigæum. Through the friendship of the Archbishop of Athens, he now procured leave to search the churches and convents of Attica, and the search led to his possession of many of the minor but very interesting works of sculpture and architecture which came eventually to England along with the marbles of the Parthenon.

Of the curious range and variety of the dangers to which the remains of ancient art were exposed under Turkish rule, the Boustrophedon inscription just mentioned affords an instance worth noting. |Memoranda on the Earl of Elgin’s Pursuits in Greece, &c., p. 35.| Lord Elgin found it in use as a seat, or couch, at the door of a Greek chapel, to which persons afflicted with ague or rheumatism were in the habit of resorting, in order to recline on this marble, which, in their eyes, possessed a mysterious and curative virtue. The seat was so placed as to lift the patient into a much purer air than that which he had been wont to breathe below, and it commanded a most cheerful sea-view; but it was the ill fate of the inscription to have a magical fame, instead of the atmosphere. Constant rubbing had already half obliterated 386its contents. But for Lord Elgin, the whole would soon have disappeared. At Athens itself, the loftier of the sculptures in the Acropolis enjoyed equal favour in the eyes of Turkish marksmen, as affording excellent targets.

In the course of various excavations made, not only at Athens, but at Æginæ, Argos, and Corinth, a large collection of vases was also formed. It was the first collection which sufficed, incontestibly, to vindicate the claim of the Greeks to the invention of that beautiful ware, to which the name of ‘Etruscan’ was so long and so inaccurately given.

Ibid., 31.

One of the most interesting of the many minor discoveries made in the course of Lord Elgin’s researches comprised a large marble vase, five feet in circumference, which enclosed a bronze vase of thirteen inches diameter. In this were found a lachrymatory of alabaster and a deposit of burnt bones, with a myrtle-wreath finely wrought in gold. This discovery was made in a tumulus on the road leading from Port Piræus to the Salaminian Ferry and Eleusis.

Early in 1803, all the sculptured marbles from the Parthenon which it was found practicable to remove were prepared for embarkation. Both of those so prepared and of the few that were left, casts had been made, together with a complete series of drawings to scale. That great monument of art had been exhaustively studied, with the aid of all the information that could be gathered from the drawings made by the French artist, Carrey, in 1674, and those of the English architect, Stuart, in 1752. A general monumental survey of Athens and Attica was also compiled and illustrated.

The original frieze, in low relief, of the cella of the Parthenon—representing 387the chief festive solemnity of Athens, the Panathenaic procession—had extended, in the whole, to about five hundred and twenty feet in length. That portion which eventually reached England amounted to two hundred and fifty feet. And of this a considerable part was obtained by excavations. Of a small portion of the remainder casts were brought. But the bulk of it had been long before destroyed. Of the statues which adorned the pediments a large portion had also perished, yet enough survived to indicate the design and character of the whole. Of statues and fragments of statues, seventeen were brought to England. Of metopes in high relief, from the frieze of the entablature, fourteen were brought.

The difficulties of Transport and the Shipwreck at Cerigo.

Thus far, an almost incredible amount of effort and toil had been rewarded by a result large enough to dwarf all previous researches of a like kind. But the difficulties and dangers of the task were very far from being ended. The ponderous marbles had to be carried from Athens to the Piræus. There was neither machinery for lifting, nor appliances for haulage. There were no roads. The energy, however, which had wrestled with so many previous obstacles triumphed over these. But only to encounter new peril in the shape of a fierce storm at sea.

Part of the Elgin Marbles had been at length embarked in the ship, purchased at Lord Elgin’s own cost, in which Mr. Hamilton sailed for England, carrying with him also his drawings and journals. The vessel was wrecked near Cerigo. Seven cases of sculpture sunk with the ship. Only four, out of the eleven embarked in the Mentor, were saved, along with the papers and drawings. Meanwhile, Lord Elgin himself, on his homeward journey, was, upon the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, arrested and ‘detained’ in France.

388If the reader will now recall to mind, for an instant, the mortifications and discouragements, as well as the incessant toils, which had attended this attempt to give to the whole body of English artists, archæologists, and students, advantages which theretofore only a very small and exceptionally fortunate knot of them could enjoy, or hope to enjoy, he will, perhaps, incline to think that enough had been done for honour. The casts and drawings had been saved. The removal of marbles had formed no part of Lord Elgin’s first design. It was only when proof had come—plain as the noonday sun—that to remove was to preserve, and to preserve, not for England alone, but for the civilised world, that leave to carry away was sought from the Turkish authorities, and removal resolved upon.

Entreaty to the British Government that the thorough exploration of the Peloponnesus, by the draughtsman and the modeller, should be made a national object, had been but so much breath spent in vain. Private resources had then been lavished, beyond the bounds of prudence, to confer a public boon. Personal hardships and popular animosities had been alike met by steady courage and quiet endurance. All kinds of local obstacle had been conquered. And now some of the most precious results of so much toil and outlay lay at the bottom of the sea. The chief toiler was a prisoner in France.

But Lord Elgin was not yet beaten. He came of a tough race. He was—

‘One of the few, the letter’d and the brave,

Bound to no clime, and victors o’er the grave.’

|Lord Elgin branded, in England, as a Robber.| The buried marbles were raised, at the cost of two more years of labour, and after an expenditure, in the long effort, of nearly five thousand pounds, in addition to the original loss of the ship. Then a storm of another sort had to be 389faced in its turn. A burst of anger, classical and poetical, declared the ambassador to be, not a benefactor, but a thief. The gale blew upon him from many points. The author of the Classical Tour through Italy declared that Lord Elgin’s ‘rapacity is a crime against all ages and all generations; depriving the Past of the trophies of their genius and the title-deeds of their fame, the Present of the strongest inducements to exertion.’ |Eustace, Classical Tour, p. 269.| The author of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage declared that, for all time, the spoiler’s name (the glorious name of Bruce)—

Byron, Curse of Minerva, § 7.

‘Link’d with the fool’s who fired th’ Ephesian dome—

Vengeance shall follow far beyond the tomb.

Erostratus and Elgin e’er shall shine

In many a branding page and burning line!

Alike condemn’d for aye to stand accurs’d—

Perchance the second viler than the first.

So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,

Fix’d statue on the pedestal of scorn!’

That the abuse might have variety, as well as vigour, a very learned Theban broke in with the remark that there was no need, after all, to make such a stir about the matter. The much-bruited marbles were of little value, whether in England or in Greece. If Lord Elgin was, indeed, a spoiler, he was also an ignoramus. His bepraised sculptures, instead of belonging to the age of Pericles, belonged, at earliest, to that of Hadrian; far from bearing traces of the hand of Phidias, they were, at best, mere ‘architectonic sculptures, the work of many different persons, some of whom would not have been entitled to the rank of artists, even in a much less cultivated and fastidious age.... Phidias did not work in marble at all.’ These oracular sentences, and many more of a like cast, were given to the world under the sanction of the ‘Society of Dilettanti.’

390The equanimity which had stood so many severer tests did not desert its possessor under a tempest of angry words. When set at liberty, after a long detention in France, he resumed his journey. On his eventual arrival in England, in 1806, he brought with him a valuable collection of gems and medals, gathered at Constantinople. He also brought some valuable counsels as to the mode in which he might best make the Athenian Marbles useful to the progress of art, obtained in Rome.

Lord Elgin’s Conference with Canova.

For, at Rome, he had been enabled to show a sample of his acquisitions to a man who was something more than a dilettante. ‘These,’ said Canova, ‘are the works of the ablest artists the world has seen.’

When consulted on the point whether restoration should, in any instance, be attempted, the reply of the great Italian sculptor was in these words: ‘The Parthenon Marbles have never been retouched. It would be sacrilege in me—sacrilege in any man—to put a chisel on them.’

Lord Elgin came to England with the intention of offering his whole Collection to the British Government, unconditionally. He was ready to forget the short-sightedness with which his proposal of 1799 had been met. He was prepared to trust to the liberality of Parliament, and to the force of public opinion, for the reimbursement of his outlay, and the fair reward of his toil. The ambassador was not in a position to sacrifice the large sums of money he had spent. He could not afford the proud joy of giving to Britain, entirely at his own cost, a boon such as no man, before him, had had the power of giving. There were conflicting duties lying upon him, such as are not to be put aside. That British artists—in one way or another—should profit by the grand exemplars of art which he had saved from Turkish musquetry and the Turkish 391lime-kilns, was the one thing towards which his face was set.

When first imprisoned in France, Lord Elgin did actually send a direction to England that his Collection should be made over, unconditionally, to the British Government. This order was sent, to guard against the possible effect of any casualty that might happen during his detention, the duration of which was then very problematical. He reached England, however, before the instruction had been carried into effect. In the mean time, the controversy about the real value of the Marbles, as well as that which impugned the Collector’s right to remove them from Athens, had arisen, and had excited public attention. It became important to elicit an enlightened opinion on those points, before raising the question how the sculpture should be finally disposed of.

The ignorance of essential facts—which alone made such reproaches^[64] as those I have just quoted possible from a man devoid of malice, and gifted with genius—was a far less stubborn obstacle in Lord Elgin’s intended path than was the one-sided learning (one-sided as far as true art and its appreciation are concerned) which dictated the sneering utterances of some among the ‘Dilettanti.’ A Byron, by his nature, is open to conviction, sooner or later, in his own despite. A connoisseur, when narrow and scornful, is above reason. And he is eminently reproductive.

The action of the Trustees of the British Museum on the Towneley Bequest. 1805–1806.

But for this stumbling-block in the path, the time of Lord Elgin’s return to England would have been eminently favourable for realising his plans in their fulness.

The two important accessions of antiquities to the British Museum which had just accrued from the success of our 392arms in Egypt, and from the almost life-long researches of Mr. Towneley and his associates in Italy, had led the way to an important enlargement of the Museum building, and also to a great improvement in its internal organization. The true importance, to the Public, of a series of the best works of ancient art as a national possession was beginning to be felt.

In June, 1805, the Trustees obtained from Parliament the purchase of the Towneley Marbles. They had already (in the previous year) obtained power to begin an additional building, the plan and design of which were now enlarged, and made specially appropriate to the reception and display of the Towneley Collection.

Organization of the Department of Antiquities.

Hitherto, the Antiquities in the Museum had been regarded as a mere appendix of the Natural History Collections. They were now made a separate department, in accordance with their intrinsic value. Mr. Taylor Combe, who had entered the service of the Trustees, in 1803, as an assistant librarian, was made first Keeper of the new department. He filled that office, with much efficiency, until his death in 1826.

The new building or ‘Towneley Gallery’ was opened by a royal visit on the third of June, 1808. The Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, came to the Museum with a considerable retinue, and were received, with much ceremony, by a Committee of the Trustees. The Queen had not visited the Museum for twenty years past.

The Towneley Gallery was erected from the designs of Mr. Saunders, and was admirably adapted to its purpose. Some of the sculptures have not been seen to quite equal advantage since its replacement by the existing building. The addition has now disappeared as entirely as has old 393Montagu House itself, but the reader may see its form and style by glancing at the small vignette on the title-page of this volume.

Opening of the Elgin Marbles at Burlington House.

So favourable an opportunity, however, was for the present lost. The self-conceit of the cognoscenti strengthened the too obvious parsimony of Parliament. Lord Elgin made no direct overture to the Government, but appealed to the great body of artists, of students, and of art lovers, for their verdict on his labours in Greece and their product. He arranged his marbles first in his own house in Park Lane, and afterwards—for the sake of better exhibition—at Burlington House, in Piccadilly, and threw them open to public view. The voice of the artists was as the voice of one man. Some, who were at the top of the tree, acknowledged a wish that it were possible to begin their studies over again. Others, who had but begun to climb, felt their ardour redoubled and their ambition directed to nobler aims in art than had before been thought of. Not a few careers, arduous and honourable, took their life-long colour from what was then seen at Burlington House. Some of the men most strongly influenced were not what the world calls successful, but not one of them ended his career without making England the richer by his work.

The eagerness of foreign artists to study the Elgin Marbles was equal to that of Englishmen. Canova, when on his visit to London in 1815, wrote: ‘I think that I can never see them often enough. Although my stay must be extremely short, I dedicate every moment I can spare to their contemplation. I admire in them the truth of nature, united to the choice of the finest forms.... I should feel perfectly satisfied, if I had come to London only to see them.’

394The most accomplished of foreign archæologists were not less decisive in their testimony. Visconti, after seeing and studying repeatedly a small portion only of the Parthenon frieze, said of it: ‘This has always seemed to me to be the most perfect production of the sculptor’s art in its kind.’ When he saw the whole, his delight was unbounded.

The Collector was not able to carry out his plan of exhibition, in any part of it, to the full extent which he had contemplated.

He was anxious that casts of the whole of the extant sculptures of the Parthenon should be exhibited, in the same relative situation to the eye of the viewer which they had originally occupied in the Temple at Athens. He was also desirous that a public competition of sculptors should be provided for, in order to a series of comparative restorations of the perfect work, based upon other casts of its surviving portions, and wrought in presence of the remains of the authentic sculpture itself.

Continuance of the labours of Lusieri at Athens, until 1816.

Meanwhile, the chief of the artists employed in the work of drawing and modelling continued his labours at Athens, and in its vicinity, for more than twelve years after Lord Elgin’s departure from Constantinople. Between the years 1811 and 1816, inclusive, eighty cases containing sculpture, casts, drawings, and other works of art, were added to the Elgin Collection in London.

In the year last named, when the question of artistic value had already been very effectively determined by the cumulative force of enlightened opinion, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was at length appointed, to inquire whether it were expedient that Lord Elgin’s Collection ‘should be purchased on behalf of the Public, and, if so, what price it may be reasonable to allow for the same.’

Report on Earl of Elgin’s Collection (1816), p. 8.

395By this Committee it was reported to the House that ‘several of the most eminent artists in this kingdom rate these marbles in the very first class of ancient art; ... speak of them with admiration and enthusiasm; and, notwithstanding their manifold injuries, ... and mutilations, ... consider them as among the finest models and most exquisite monuments of antiquity.’ It was also reported that their removal to England had been explicitly authorised by the Turkish Government. |Ib., p. 16.| The Committee further recommended their purchase for the Public at the sum of thirty-five thousand pounds; and that the Earl of Elgin and his heirs (being Earls of Elgin) should be perpetual Trustees of the British Museum. |Ib., p. 27.| And the Committee expressed, in conclusion, its hope that the Elgin Marbles might long serve as models and examples to those who, by knowing how to revere and appreciate them, may first learn to imitate, and ultimately to rival them. On the 1st of July, 1816, the Act for effecting the purchase was passed by the Legislature. I do not know that any one member of the Society of Dilettanti really regretted the fact. But it is certain that by a very eminent connoisseur on the Continent it was much regretted. The King of Bavaria had already lodged a sum of thirty thousand pounds in an English banking house, by way of securing a pre-emption, should the controversy amongst the connoisseurs on this side of the Channel, of which so much had been heard, lead the British Parliament eventually to decline the purchase.

The nearest estimate that could be formed in 1816 of Lord Elgin’s outlay, from first to last, amounted to upwards of fifty thousand pounds. And the interest on that outlay, at subsisting rates, amounted to about twenty-four thousand pounds. Upon merely commercial principles, therefore, the mark of honour affixed by Parliament to the 396Earldom of Elgin was abundantly earned. By every other estimate, Lord Elgin had done more than enough to keep his name, for ever, in the roll of British worthies. And, as all men know, he had a worthy successor in that honoured title. The name of Elgin, instead of ranking, according to Byron’s prophecy, with that of Erostratus, has already become a name not less revered in the Indies, and in America, than in Britain itself.

For nearly half a century, Lord Elgin was one of the Representative Peers of Scotland. After his great achievement was completed, he took but little part in public life. The most curious incident of his later years was his election as a Member of the Society of Dilettanti, twenty-five years after his return from the Levant. The election was made without his knowledge. When the fact was intimated to him, he wrote to the Secretary to decline the honour. After a brief and dignified allusion to his efforts in Greece, he went on to say:—‘Had it been thought—twenty-five years ago, or at any reasonable time afterwards—that the same energy would be considered useful to the Dilettanti Society, most happy should I have been to contribute every aid in my power; but such expectation has long since past. I do not apprehend that I shall be thought fastidious, if I decline the honour now proposed to me at this my eleventh hour.’

The Collector of the Elgin Marbles died in England on the fourteenth of October, 1841.

The Marbles of Phigaleia.

During the long period which had thus intervened between the first exhibition to the Public of the sculptures from the Temple of Minerva and their final acquisition for the national Museum, an inferior but valuable series of Greek marbles was obtained from Phigaleia, in Arcadia. 397They were the fruit of the joint researches, in 1812, of the late eminent architect, Mr. Charles Robert Cockerell, Mr. John Foster, Mr. Lee, Mr. Charles Haller von Hallerstein, and Mr. James Linkh, who, in that year, had become fellow-travellers in Greece, and partners in the work of exploration for antiquities.

The temple to which these marbles had belonged, and beneath the ruins of which they were found, stands on a ridge clothed with oak trees on one of the slopes of Mount Cotylium. The scenery which surrounds it is of great beauty. The temple itself has long been a ruin. It was the work of Ictinus, the builder of the Parthenon. One portion of the frieze of its cella represents the battles of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ—the subject of the metopes of the Parthenon entablature. The remaining portion illustrates another series of mythic contests—that of the Athenians and the Amazons.

The extent of this frieze, in its integrity, was about a hundred and eight feet in length, by two feet one and a quarter inches in height. About ninety-six lineal feet were found, broken into innumerable fragments, but susceptible, as it proved—by dint of skill and of marvellous patience—of almost entire reunion, so that no restoration was needed to bring the subject of the sculpture into perfect intelligibility.

The Excavations on Mount Cotylium.

Mr. Cockerell, one of the most active of the explorers of 1812, had to proceed to Sicily whilst his fellows in the enterprise carried on the toils of digging and removal. But it is from his pen that we have a charming little notice of the progress of the work, and of the amusements which enlivened it. ‘I regret’ wrote Mr. Cockerell, ‘that I was not of that delightful party at Phigaleia, which amounted to above fifteen persons. They established themselves, for 398three months, on the top of Mount Cotylium—where there is a grand prospect over nearly all Arcadia—building, round the Temple, huts covered with boughs of trees, until they had almost formed a village, which they called Francopolis. They had frequently fifty or eighty men at work in the Temple, and a band of Arcadian music was constantly playing to entertain this numerous assemblage. When evening put an end to work, dances and songs commenced; lambs were roasted whole on a long wooden spit; and the whole scene in such a situation, at such an interesting time, when, every day, some new and beautiful sculpture was brought to light, is hardly to be imagined. Apollo must have wondered at the carousals which disturbed his long repose, and have thought that his glorious days of old were returned.’

Cockerell to ...; printed by Hughes, Travels in Greece, vol. i, p. 194.

‘The success of our enterprise,’ continues Mr. Cockerell, ‘astonished every one, and in all circumstances connected with it good fortune attended us.’ One of these circumstances, however—that of the mixed nationality of the discoverers—put, it must be added, some difficulty in the way towards accomplishing an earnest wish, on the part of the English sharers in the adventure, that England should be made the final home of the Phigaleian sculptures. Two Germans, as we have seen, were active partners in the exploration. A third, Mr. Gropius, had likewise some interest in it. And there was also a more formidable sleeping partner in the rich digging. Vely Pasha had stipulated that he was to have one half of the marbles discovered, as the price of his licence to explore. But, very fortunately, one of the ordinary changes in Turkish policy at Constantinople removed Vely from his government, just at the critical moment; and so made him anxious to sell his share, and to facilitate the removal of the spoil. The new Pasha had 399heard of the discoveries, and was hastening to lay hands upon the whole. But he was too late.

The marbles were removed to Zante. The German proprietors insisted on a public sale by auction. There was not time to bring the matter before Parliament. |The Transfer of the Marbles of Phigaleia to Zante;| But the Prince Regent took an active interest in it. With his sanction, and mainly by the exertions of Mr. W. R. Hamilton (afterwards a zealous Trustee of the British Museum), some members of the Government authorised the despatch of Mr. Taylor Combe to Zante. By him the marbles were purchased, at the price of sixty thousand dollars; but that sum was enhanced by an unfavourable exchange, so that the actual payment amounted to nineteen thousand pounds. |and to England.| It was paid out of the Droits of the Admiralty,—a fund of questionable origin, and one which had been many times grossly abused, but which, on this occasion, subserved a great national advantage.