The difficulties of transport.Jan., 1842.
When the task of removal had to be undertaken, difficulties of transport were found, under certain then existing circumstances, to be graver obstacles than had been Turkishprejudice or Turkish apathy at an earlier stage of the business. The maritime part of the duty had been entrusted to CaptainGraves, of H.M. ShipBeacon. The captain left his ship at Smyrna; sailed withFellowsfor the Xanthus, in a steam-packet; but omitted to provide himself with the needful flat-bottomed boats.|1841, February.|When they reached the site of the marbles which were to be carried away, CaptainGravessaid he would not have any of the stores taken down the river; that stores must be obtained from Malta; and that he would take all hands away from the diggings at the beginning of March.|Ibid., pp. 440, seqq.|The reader may imagine the reflections of the eager discoverer at this sudden check,—coming, as it did, at the very beginning of the burst.
He took a solitary walk of many hours, he tells us, before he could resolve upon his course of action. He saw before him, to use his own words, ‘a mine of treasure.’ He had willing hands to work it; ample firmans to stave off opposition; nothing deficient save boats and tackle. A year might possibly pass in awaiting them from Malta; and, meanwhile, the ignorance of the peasantry, the indiscreet curiosity of travellers, or the sudden growth of political complications, might destroy the enterprise irrecoverably.
He resolved, in his perplexity, to construct by his own exertions tackle that would suffice for the removal to the coast; got native help in addition to the willing efforts—however unscientific—of the honest sailors of theBeacon; succeeded in getting a portion of the precious objects of his quest to the waterside, before the arrival of the ship; and got them also strongly cased up. Then he sailed withGravesfor Malta. The worthy captain resigned the honourable task—to him so unwelcome—into the hands of Admiral Sir EdwardOwen. A new expedition started from Malta at the end of April, and brought away seventy-eightcases of sculpture in June; leaving the splendid but too heavy ‘winged-chariot-tomb’—so called by its discoverer in one place, and elsewhere called ‘horse-tomb,’ but since ascertained to be the tomb of a Lycian satrap namedPaiafa;|Arrival in England of the first series of Xanthian Marbles. Dec., 1841.|it is adorned with figures of Glaucus, or perhaps of Sarpedon, in a four-horse chariot—until next year. The seventy-eight cases were brought to England by the Queen’s shipCambridgein the following December.
On the fourteenth of May, 1842, the Trustees of the British Museum thus recorded their sense of Mr.Fellows’public services:—‘The Trustees desire to express their sense of Mr.Fellows’public spirit, in voluntarily undertaking to lend to so distant an expedition the assistance of his local knowledge and personal co-operation. They have viewed with great satisfaction the decision and energy evinced by Mr.Fellowsin proceeding from Smyrna to Constantinople, and obtaining the necessary authority for the removal of the marbles; as well as his judicious directions at Xanthus, by which the most desirable of the valuable monuments of antiquity formerly brought to light by him, together with several others, of scarcely less interest,|Minutes of the Trustees of the British Museum; 14 May, 1842. (Appendix to Fellows).|now for the first time discovered and excavated, have been placed in safety, and—as the Trustees have every reason to hope—secured for the National Museum.’
This hope was more than realised. It shows the energy ofFellows, that the expedition to Lycia of 1841 was histhirdexpedition. In 1846 he made a fourth. It was rich in discovery; but I fear somewhat exhausting to the strength of the explorer. He lived a good many years, it is true, after his return to England; but how easily he yielded when a sudden attack of illness came, I shall have the pain of showing presently.
In the interval between his third and fourth journeys to Lycia,Fellowsmarried a fellow-townswoman, Mary, the only daughter of FrancisHart, of Nottingham, but she survived the marriage only two years. A year after her death he married the widow of WilliamKnight, of Oatlands, in Herts. On his final return from Lycia he was knighted, as a token (and it was but a slender one) of the public gratitude for his services. At the close of October, 1860, a sudden attack of pleurisy invaded a toilworn frame. On the eighth of the following month he died, at his house in Montagu Place, London, in the sixty-first year of his age.
Date and character of the monuments in the ‘Lycian Gallery.’
Taken broadly, the sculptures of Lycia may be described as works which range, in date, from the sixth century before our Lord to almost as many centuries—if we take the minor antiquities into account—after the commencement of the Christian era. Some of them rank, therefore, amongst the earliestoriginalmonuments of Greek art which the British Museum possesses; and date immediately after thecastsof the sculptures of Selinus and of Ægina.
On some of the myths and on the habits of Lycian life there has been a sharp controversy, of the merits of which I am very incompetent to speak. Narrower and narrower as my limits are becoming, I yet feel it due to a public benefactor, who can no longer speak for himself otherwise than by his works, that in these waning pages he should be permitted to supply at least a part of his own explanatory comments upon the story of his discoveries. It is one of enchaining interest to the students of classical antiquity.
The famous ‘Harpy Tomb,’ thinks Sir CharlesFellows, is to be enumerated as among the most ancient of the remaining works of the ‘Tramilæ,’ or ‘Termilæ,’ mentioned bothbyHerodotusand byStephenof Byzantium, as well as on the Xanthian obelisk orstele, now called the ‘Inscribed Monument,’ and numbered ‘141’ in the Lycian Gallery of the Museum.
Fellows’ account of the Lycian Marbles.
Sir CharlesFellowsproceeds to say that ‘the shaft, frieze, and cap of this monument, weighing more than a hundred tons, has been by an earthquake moved upon its pedestal eighteen inches towards the north-east, throwing to the ground two stones of the frieze towards the south-west: in this state I found it in 1838. In 1841 the eight stones of this frieze were placed in the Museum. The only similar art which I know in Europe is in the Albani Villa near Rome. This slab is described byWinckelmannas being of earlier workmanship than that of Etruria. I shall not dwell upon these works, as they were foundin sitû, and will therefore be as well understood in England as if seen at Xanthus. I may draw attention to the blue, red, and other colours still remaining upon them. The subject also being that of the family of KingPandarus, it should ever be borne in mind that this monument stood in the metropolis of Lycia, and within twelve miles of the city of Pinara, where we are told thatPandaruswas deified. This and the neighbouring tombs stood there prior to the building of the theatre, which is probably of Greek workmanship. The usual form of this structure must have been partially sacrificed on account of these monuments, as the seats rising in the circles above the diazoma have abruptly ceased on the western side, and have not been continued towards the proscenium. Near to one of the vomitories in the south-eastern bend of the diazoma is a similar monument to the Harpy Tomb, which has had the capstone and bas-reliefs removed, and the shaft built over by the theatre. Upon one of its sides is a short Lycianinscription, and a few words referring to its repair remain upon another side in the Greek character.
‘Not far from these stands the inscribed stele, which is of the highest interest; of this, which is too heavy and too much mutilated to allow, without great labour, of its removal to the Museum, I have had casts taken in plaster. From my publications you would learn that a portion of the top of this [monument], weighing several tons, had been split off by the shocks of earthquakes: of this I have also had casts taken. In excavating around the monument on the south-west, and in the opposite direction to which the top had split off, I found the capstone had been thrown which had surmounted bas-reliefs; also two fragments of a bas-relief, but I think too high to have been placed upon this stele: they are the work of the same age, and are now placed in the Museum. The most important discovery here was of the upper angles broken from the monument, and having upon them the inscription on each side, thus perfecting, as far as they extend, the beginnings and ends of the upper lines of the inscription; these original stones I have brought home, being useless and insecure, if left in fragments with the monument. The exact form of the letters of the Greek portion of this inscription, compared with many others of which I shall speak, will do much to fix a date to these works.
‘Upon the point of rock on the north-west side of the Acropolis is a fine Cyclopean basement, which has probably been surmounted by a similar monument to those of which I have spoken. No trace is found of any of its fragments; and from its position, shocks in the same direction as those which have destroyed the others would have thrown this down the perpendicular cliff into the river which flows about three hundred feet beneath.
‘The masses of Cyclopean foundations traced around and upon the Acropolis, have been too much worked in, and converted to the use of an after people to ascertain their original form: they certainly have not been continuous, forming a wall or defence for the Acropolis; indeed, its natural position would render this superfluous, the cliffs on the south and west are inaccessible. I observe that most of the forms are referable to vast pedestals or stoas for large monuments; and from their individual positions at various elevations, and upon angles and points, I believe that the Acropolis has been covered with the ornamented monuments of this early people. The walls and basements of these separate buildings have since been united by strong lines formed of the old materials, the most ready for the purpose, and all put together with a very excellent cement, of which I have brought away specimens. A wall of this formation, facing the south-west, attracted my attention in 1838, by displaying some sculptured animals and chariots built as material into its front. This wall we have, with great labour, owing to the hardness of the cement, entirely removed; behind a portion of it we found a fine Cyclopean wall, which had slightly inclined over from the weight of earth behind; the casing which we have removed strengthened it, and, connecting the old buildings with others, formed a line of fortification, probably in Roman times. From the great size of the blocks used in constructing this wall, from the similarity of the stone, as well as from the sculpture traceable upon almost the whole of them, I conclude that they must have been the ruins of monuments in the immediate neighbourhood; basements for such are on either side. The works found here are entirely those of the early people; and I may extend this remark to all found upon the Acropolis. Thearchitectural fragments, many specimens of which I bring away, are all Lycian, and would form monuments imitative of wooden constructions—beam-ends, ties, mortices, and cornices, similar to the tombs shown in the drawings, but double the size in point of scale to any now existing; bearing this in mind, I do not think it improbable that the sculptures representing a chariot procession have filled the panels on either side; should this be the case we have nearly the whole complete. The cornice and borders of these strongly corroborate this idea. We have four somewhat triangular stones, with sitting sphinxes upon each; these would complete the two gable ends in similar form and spirit of device to the generality of the tombs of this people. There is also an angle-stone, interesting from its sculpture, and from its style and subject blending these works with the age of the “Harpy Tomb.”
‘To continue with the works of the early inhabitants: We must next notice the tombs at the foot of the rocky heights at the south-eastern parts of the city: of these the most beautiful are the kind having Gothic-formed tops; these can be seen in the various drawings. The structure generally consists of a base or pedestal which has contained bodies, thePlatas, surmounted by a plinth or solid mass of stone, which is often sculptured; above this is a sarcophagus, generally imitative of a wood-formed cabinet, the principal receptacle for the bodies, theSoros; upon this is placed a Gothic lid, sometimes highly ornamented with sculpture, which also served as a place of sepulture, probably theIsostæ. From one of these, in which the lower parts were cut out of the solid rock, and the top had fallen and been destroyed, I have had casts taken, as the subject is intimately connected with the frieze of the wild animals on the Acropolis. On this tomb, the inscriptionis cut in the language of the early people. Not far distant from this is a tomb which, from the sculpture upon it, I distinguish as the “Chimæra-Tomb.” The lid of this, which I found in 1840, is perfect, but had been thrown to the ground by the effect of earthquakes; the chamber from off which it had slidden was inclining towards the lid; beneath the chamber a few stones forming the foundation and step (in the same block) are alone to be found. There is here no trace of the first two stories, and from the rock approaching the surface of the ground I found no depth of earth for research. Upon the chamber of this tomb is a Lycian inscription, of which I have casts, in order that they may be used in reconstructing the monument in the Museum. The other tomb of this character, and by far the most highly ornamented, was the tomb ofPaiafa, and I call it, from its sculpture, the “Winged-Chariot-Tomb.” In finding this monument, in 1838, I observed that each part had been much shaken and split by earthquake, but no portion was wanting except a fragment from the north corner. This monument combines matters of great interest, showing in itself specimens of the architecture, sculpture, and language. I have stated that this style of monument is peculiar to Lycia; and I now add, from the knowledge derived from my research in that country, that Lycia contains none but these two of this ornamental description. These differ in minor points, making the possession of each highly desirable, and I am glad that these will be placed in our National Museum. The tombs of Telmessus, Antiphellus, and Limyra, are similar in construction, but have not the sculptured tops and other ornamental finishings seen in these.
‘Upon the Acropolis, and fallen into a bath, we found a pedestal having sculptured upon the side a god and goddesswithin a temple, in excellent preservation. On the opposite side of the pedestal is a very singular subject, which, had not certain points both of execution, material, and position occurred, I should have attributed to the Byzantine age. Amongst many other animals, the object of chase to a hunter is seen much mutilated: this may have been the representation of a novel idea of the Chimæra: the hind quarters of a goat remain, with a snake for its tail. It is greatly to be regretted that the other fragments could not be found. On observing in the ground some very ancient forms of the Greek letters, differing from all others found so commonly here, cut upon a slab of marble, I had it taken up, and was delighted to find that it was a pedestal, with a Lycian inscription upon the other side; this will be valuable, as showing the form of the Greek characters in use at the age of the language of Lycia. This same type is seen in all the bilingual inscriptions, of which we have only casts.
‘Of another pedestal at Tlos I have taken casts, which will be valued from the subjects of the bas-reliefs. The pedestal of one stone was formed of two cubes, a small one upon a larger. The fourth side of the upper one was not sculptured. One slab of the larger cube represents in bas-relief a view of the Acropolis of Tlos, the Troas of these early people: probably the hero whose deeds were by this monument commemorated, and whose name occurs twice upon it, was engaged in the defence or capture of the city. At Tlos I also found cut in the rock of the Acropolis a tomb with an Ionic portico.|Note.—The plans referred to are appended to the first edition of Sir C. Fellows’ book.|Within this are represented a panelled and ornamented door, and several sculptured devices and animals, as shown in the drawings and plans. On the side, and within the portico, is a very early bas-relief of Bellerophon upon Pegasus, and probablya chimæra beneath the horse; but this portion of the sculpture is unfinished, and the rock beneath is left rough; the columns of the portico are only blocked out from the rock. Of the bas-relief of Bellerophon I have casts, and the full detail of the colouring which now remains upon the figures. This is probably the earliest sculpture which we have obtained. From Cadyanda I have casts of parts of a beautiful tomb, which is so much in ruins, and shaken into fragments, that I could not even take casts of the whole of the sculptures that remain. The roof or lid is wanting. The tomb now consists of a chamber in imitation of a wooden structure, and in the panels is sculpture; surmounting this is a smaller solid block, or plinth, also sculptured, but the upper part is wanting. These bas-reliefs, of which I show many drawings in my ‘Lycia,’ derive great additional interest from several of the figures having near them names inscribed in two languages—the Greek and the Lycian. The casts of these, I doubt not, will be valued as important illustrations. From Myra I have casts of the whole of the figures ornamenting one of the rock-tombs. Three of these subjects from within the Portico retain so much of their original painting that I have had the casts coloured on the spot as fac-similes, and a portion of the paint is preserved for chemical examination. There are from this tomb eleven figures the size of life. Of the inscriptions of this people I have made many copies; I have had casts of one long one from the large Gothic-formed tomb at Antiphellus, also of the bilingual inscription from the same place, and of another from Levisse, near the ancient Telmessus.
‘Of the age of the next works of which I must speak, and which are a large portion of the collection from Xanthus, I have great difficulty in forming an opinion. The wholewere found around a basement which stands on the edge of a cliff to the south-east of the ancient Acropolis. The monument which stood upon this stoa has been thrown down by earthquake, almost the whole of its ruins falling towards the north-west. These works are of a people quite distinct from the preceding, both in their architecture, sculpture, and language: these are purely Greek. On carefully examining the whole of the architectural members of which I have specimens selected (some retaining coloured patterns upon them), as well as the position in which each of the various parts were thrown, I have, in my own mind, reconstructed the building, the whole of which was of Parian marble, and highly finished. The monument which I suppose to have crowned this basement has been either a magnificent tomb, or a monument erected as a memorial of a great victory. In reforming this, I require the whole of the parts that we have found, and none are wanting except two stones of the larger frieze, and the fragments of the statues. The art of this sculpture is Greek, but the subjects show many peculiarities and links to the earlier works found in Lycia. The frieze, representing the taking refuge within a city, and the sally out of its walls upon the besiegers, has many points of this character. The city represented is an ancient Lycian city, and has within its walls the stele, or monument known alone in Xanthus. The city is upon a rock; women are seen upon the walls. The costume of the men is a longer and thinner garment than is seen in the Attic Greeks. The shields of the chiefs are curtained. The saddle-cloth of the jaded horse entering the city is precisely like the one upon the Pegasus of Bellerophon, and the conqueror and judge is an Eastern chief, with the umbrella, the emblem of Oriental royalty, held over him. The body-guard and conquering party of the chief areGreek soldiers. Many of these peculiarities are also seen in the larger frieze, and also in the style of the lions and statues. The form of the building, which alone I can reconcile with the remains, is a Carian monument of the Ionic order. Bearing in mind all these points, I am strongly inclined to attribute this work to the mercenaries from Æolia and Ionia, brought down byHarpagusto conquer the inhabitants of Xanthus, whom they are said to have utterly destroyed. This monument may have been the tomb of a chief, or erected as a memorial of the conquest of the city byHarpagus. No inscription has been found, or it might probably have thrown some light upon the date of this work. In the immediate neighbourhood were found the other friezes, representing hunting-scenes, a battle, offerings of various kinds and by different nations, funeral feasts, and several statues which are of the same date.’ Sir Charles then concludes thus:—
‘The whole of the remaining works now to be traced amidst the ruins of Xanthus are decidedly of a late date; scarcely any are to be attributed to a period preceding the Christian era, and to that age I cannot conceive the works just noticed to have belonged. A triumphal arch or gateway of the city at the foot of the cliff of which I have spoken has upon it a Greek inscription, showing it to have been erected in the reign ofVespasian,A.D.80: from this arch are the metopes and triglyphs now in the Museum.|Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, pp. 429, 430 (1852).|Through this is a pavement of flagstones leading towards the theatre. To this age I should attribute the theatre, agora, and most of the buildings which I have called Greek, and which are marked red upon the plan. To this people belong the immense quantity of mosaic pavements which have existed in all parts of the city. Almost all the small pebbles in the fields are the débris of these works. In manyplaces we have found patterns remaining which are of coarse execution, but Greek in design.’
The Marbles of Halicarnassus, of Cnidus, and of Branchidæ.
The not a whit less interesting discoveries at Halicarnassus and elsewhere, made chiefly in the years 1856, 1857, and 1858, by Mr. CharlesNewton, now claim attention, but my present notice of them can be but very inadequate to the worth of the subject. They as richly deserve a full record as do the explorations ofLayardor those ofFellows.
The earliest, in arrival, of the Halicarnassian Marbles were procured by our Ambassador at Constantinople (then Sir StratfordCanning, now) LordStratford de Redcliffe. These first-received marbles comprise twelve slabs, sculptured with the combats of Greeks and Amazons in low-relief; and were removed from the walls of the mediæval castle of Budrum, in the year 1846, with the permission, of course, of the Sublime Porte. It is a tribute all the stronger to the energy of LordStratfordto find another man of energy writing, in 1841: ‘I would not have been a party to the asking what—to all who have seen them’ (namely, the Marbles of Halicarnassus, built into the inner walls of Budrum Castle)—‘must be considered as an unreasonable request.’|Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, pp. 429, 430 (1852).|It took, it is true, five years for LordStratfordto overcome the obstacle which to Mr.Fellowsseemed, in 1841, quite insuperable.
The mission to the Levant of Mr. Charles Newton. 1856–58.
In 1856, and expressly in order to a thorough exploration of the site of Halicarnassus, and of other promising parts of the Levant, Mr. CharlesNewton, then one of the ablest of the officers of the Department of Antiquities (whose loss at the Museum, even for three or four years, was not very easily replaceable), accepted the office of British Vice-Consul at Mitylene. In 1857, he discoveredfour additional slabs (similar to those received from the Ambassador), on the site of the world-famous mausoleum itself; several colossal statues, and portions of such; together with a multitude of architectural fragments of almost every conceivable kind; columns—mostly broken into many portions—with their bases, capitals, and entablatures, in sufficient quantity and diversity to warrant a faithful restoration of the ancient building by a competent hand.
From Didyme (near Miletus), from Cnidus, and from Branchidæ, many fine archaic figures in the round; some colossal lions; and an enormous number of fragments both of sculpture and of architecture; with many minor antiquities, various in character and in material, were successively sent to England. Mr. CharlesNewton’snarrative of his adventures at Budrum, and at several of the other places of his sojourn and excavations, is very graphic. Some portions of it are worthy to be placed side by side with the best chapters of the earlier narrative of the explorations and travelling experiences ofLayard.
Of the most famous trophy of Mr.Newton’sfirst mission to the East—the mausoleum built by QueenArtemisia—the discoverer has himself more recently given this brief and striking descriptive account:—
The tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus.
This monument, writes Mr.Newton, in 1869, was erected ‘to contain the remains ofMausolus, Prince of Caria, aboutB.C.352. It consisted of a lofty basement, on which stood an oblong Ionic edifice, surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns, and surmounted by a pyramid of twenty-four steps.|Guide to the Department of Antiquities, &c., pp. 74, 75.|The whole structure, a hundred and forty feet in height, was crowned by a chariot-group in white marble, in which probably stoodMausolushimself, represented after his translation to the world of demigodsand heroes. The peristyle edifice which supported the pyramids was encircled by a frieze, richly sculptured in high-relief,’ and so on. The frieze thus mentioned is that of which the twelve slabs were, as already mentioned, given by LordStratford de Redcliffein 1846, four exhumed byNewtonhimself in 1857, and one more purchased from the MarcheseSerra, of Genoa, in 1865. This piecemeal acquisition of the principal frieze, by dint of researches spread over twenty years, is not the least curious of the facts pertaining to the story. But the annals of the Museum comprise ten or twelve similar instances of ultimate reunion, after long scattering, of the parts of one whole. They tell of manuscripts (made perfect after the lapse of a century, it may be) as well as of sculptures, thus toilsomely recovered.
But the Greco-Amazonian battle-frieze was not the only frieze of the famous mausoleum. The external walls of the ‘cella’ had two other friezes, of which Mr.Newtonsucceeded in recovering several fragments, some of them of much interest. And the mausoleum was profusely adorned with sculptures in the round as well as with the richly carved figures in relief, both high and low, which encircled (in all probability) the very basement, as well as the peristyle and the cella portions of this marvellous structure. Lions in watchful attitudes (‘lions guardant,’ in heraldic phrase) stood here and there, and the fragments of these which have been recovered testify to their variety of scale, as well as to their number. The names of five famous sculptors of the later Athenian school—Scopas,Leochares,Bryaxis,Timotheus,Pythios—who were employed upon the decoration of the tomb itself, or upon the chariot-group, have been recorded, and it would seem that each of four of these had one side of the tomb specially assigned to him. ‘The material of the sculpture was Parian marble, and thewhole structure was richly ornamented with colour.|Newton, inGuide, as above, p. 74; andTravels and Discoveries in the Levant, vol. ii, pp. 108–137; and passim.|The tomb ofMausoluswas of the class called by the Greeksheröon, and so greatly excelled all other sepulchral monuments in size, beauty of design, and richness of decoration, that it was reckoned one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.”’
WhileLayardwas unearthing Nineveh;Fellowsbringing into the light of day the long-lost cities of Lycia; and CharlesNewtonrestoring, before men’s eyes, this funereal marvel of the ancient world, which had long been known (in effect) only by dim memories and traditions;|The explorations of Nathan Davis at Carthage and Utica.|Dr. NathanDavis, in his turn, was exhuming Carthage and Utica. All these distinguished men were labouring, in common, for the enrichment of our National Museum, within a period of some twenty years. Three of them may be said to have been busied (in one way or other) with their self-denying tasks contemporaneously.[42]If we take into the account the variety, as well as the intrinsic worth, of the additions thus made to human knowledge; above all, if we duly estimate the value of those links of connectionbetween things human and things divine, which are the most essential characteristic of some of the best of these acquisitions, it may well be said that the annals of no museum in the world can boast of such an enrichment as this, by the efforts of the travellers and the archæologists of one generation. And all of these explorers are—in one sense or other—Britons.
On one incidental point, I have to express a hope that the reader will pardon what he may be momentarily inclined to think an over-iteration of remark. If I have really adverted somewhat too frequently to the connection which many of these rich archæological acquisitions, of 1842–1861, present between the annals of man and the Book ofGod, I have this to plead, in extenuation: Certain writers pass over that connection so hurriedly as almost to lose sight of it. And we live in an age in which some of our own countrymen—some of those among us to whom the Creator has been most bounteous in the bestowal of the glorious gifts of mind and genius—have even spoken of our best of all literary possessions as ‘Jew-Records,’ and ‘Hebrew old-clothes.’ Those particular expressions, indeed, were employed long before the arrival of the Assyrian Marbles. But I think I have seen them quoted since.
The spoils of Carthage and Utica.
Among the spoils of Carthage and of Utica which we owe to Dr. NathanDavis, are many rich mosaic pavements, of the second and third centuries of our era, and a multitude of Phœnician and Carthaginian inscriptions, extending in date over several centuries. And it must be added that many of the antiquities, and more especially of the mosaics, excavated under Dr.Davis’sinstructions at Utica, were found to possess greater beauty, and a more varied interest, than most of those which were disinterred by himfrom amidst the ruins of Carthage. Many of these, like some of the choice treasures of Nineveh, are, in a sense, still buried—for want of room at the British Museum adequately to display them. The reader may yet, but too fitly, conceive of some of them as piteously crying out (in 1870, as in 1860)—
‘Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion,Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother;None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine;Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel.’
‘Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion,Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother;None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine;Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel.’
‘Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion,Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother;None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine;Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel.’
‘Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion,
Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother;
None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine;
Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel.’
Other conspicuous augmentors of the Galleries of Antiquities.
Many other liberal benefactors to the several Archæological Departments of the Museum deserve record in this chapter. But the record must needs be a mere catalogue, not a narrative; and even the catalogue will be an abridged one.
Foremost among the discoverers of valuable remains of Greek antiquity, subsequent to most of those which have now been detailed, are to be mentioned Mr. GeorgeDennis, who explored Sicily in 1862 and subsequent years; and Captain T. A. B.Spratt, who travelled over Lycia and the adjacent countries, following in the footsteps of Sir CharlesFellows,|Spratt and Forbes’Travels in Lycia, Mityas, and the Cibyrates(2 vols; 1847), passim.|and who enjoyed the advantage of the company and co-operation of two able and estimable fellow-travellers, EdwardForbesand Edward ThomasDaniell, both of whom, like their honoured precursor in Lycian exploration, have been many years lost to us.
The antiquities collected in Sicily byDennis, at the national cost, were chiefly from the tombs. They included very many beautiful Greek vases, a collection of archaic terracottas, and other minor antiquities.[43]Some of themarbles discovered bySprattare of the Macedonian period, and probably productions of the school of Pergamus.
At Camerus and elsewhere, in the island of Rhodes, important excavations were carried on by Messrs.BiliottiandSalzmann. These also were effected at the public charge.|Reports of British Museum; 1864, and subsequent years.|In the course of them nearly three hundred tombs were opened, and many choicely painted fictile vases of the best period of Greek ceramography were found. Those researches at Rhodes were the work of the years 1862, 1863, and 1864. In 1865, the excavations at Halicarnassus were resumed by order of the Trustees, and under the direction of the same explorers, and with valuable results. In 1864, an important purchase of Greek and Roman statues, and of the sculptures from the Farnese Collection at Rome, was made. In the following year came an extensive series of antiquities from the famous Collection of the late CountPourtalès. Of the precious objects obtained by the researches of Mr. ConsulWood, at Ephesus, in the same and subsequent years, a brief notice will be found in Chapter VI.
CHAPTER V.THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY.
CHAPTER V.THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY.
‘He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading;Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not;But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.’—Henry VIII.
‘He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading;Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not;But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.’—Henry VIII.
‘He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading;Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not;But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.’—Henry VIII.
‘He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,
Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading;
Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.’—
Henry VIII.
‘If a man be not permitted to change his political opinions—when he has arrived at years of discretion—he must be born aSolomon.’—
W. F. Hook,Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, (vol. viii, p. 237).
W. F. Hook,Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, (vol. viii, p. 237).
W. F. Hook,Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, (vol. viii, p. 237).
W. F. Hook,Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, (vol. viii, p. 237).
TheGrenvillesand their Influence on the Political Aspect of the Georgian Reigns.—The Public and Literary Life of the Right Honourable ThomasGrenville.—History of theGrenvilleLibrary.
It was the singular fortune of ThomasGrenvilleto belong to a family which has given almost half a score of ministers to England; to possess in himself large diplomatic ability; and to have been gifted—his political opponents themselves being judges—with considerable talents for administration; and yet, in the course of a life protracted to more than ninety years, to have been anactivediplomatist during less than one year, and to have been a Minister of State less than half a year. It is true that he was of that happy temperament which both enables and tempts a man to carve out delightful occupation for himself. He had, too, those rarely combined gifts of taste, fortune, and public spirit, which inspire their possessor with the will,and confer upon him the power, to make his personal enjoyments largely contribute (both in his own time and after it) to the enjoyments of his fellow-countrymen. It might be true, therefore, to say that ThomasGrenvillewas the happier and the better for his exclusion, during almost forty-nine-fiftieths of his long life, from the public service.|What was it that kept Thomas Grenville aloof from political office?|But it can hardly be rash to say that England must needs have been somewhat the worse for that exclusion.
Nor was it altogether a self-imposed exclusion. There was among its causes a curious conjunction of outward accidents and of philosophic self-resignation to their results. Untoward chances abroad twice broke off the foreign embassies of this eminent man. Unforeseen political complications amongst Whigs and semi-Whigs twice deprived him of cabinet office at home. But, no doubt, neither shipwreck at sea nor party intrigue on land would have been potent enough to keep ThomasGrenvilleout of high State employment, but for the personal fastidiousness which withheld him from stretching out his hand, with any eagerness, to grasp it.
The political influence of the Grenville Family; its duration and its peculiar characteristics.
It would, perhaps, be hard to lay the finger on any one family recorded in the ‘British Peerage’ which so long and so largely influenced our political history, in the Georgian era of it, as did that ofGrenville. During the century (speaking roundly) which began with the suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, and ended with the Repeal of the Corn Laws,Grenvillesare continually prominent in every important political struggle. The personal influence and (for lack of a plainer word) the characteristic ‘idiosyncrasy’ of individualGrenvillesnotoriously shaped, or materially helped to shape, several measures that have had world-wide results. But perhaps the most curious feature in their political history as a family is this: At almost every greatcrisis in affairs oneGrenville, of ability and prominence, is seen in tolerably active opposition to the rest of theGrenvilles. In the political history of the man who forms the subject of this brief memoir the family peculiarity, it will be seen, came out saliently.
The politicalGrenvilleswere offshoots of an old stock which, in the days of eld, were richer in gallant soldiers than in peace-loving publicists. The oldGrenvillesdealt many a shrewd swordthrust for England by land and by sea, in the Tudor times, and earlier. The younger branch has been rich in statesmen and rich in scholars. Not a few of them have shone equally and at once in either path of labour.
Parentage and early life of Thomas Grenville.
ThomasGrenvillewas the second son of the Minister ofGeorge the Third, GeorgeGrenville,—himself the second son of RichardGrenville, of Wotton, and of HesterTemple(co-heiress of RichardTemple, Lord Cobham, and herself created CountessTemplein 1749). He was born on the thirty-first of December, 1755, and entered Parliament soon after attaining his majority. In the House of Commons he voted and acted as a follower of LordRockinghamand a comrade of CharlesFox, in opposition to the otherGrenvillesand the ‘Grenvillite’ party. Had the famous India Bill ofFox’sministry been carried into a law, ThomasGrenville, it was understood, would have been the first Governor-General of India under its rule.
His short diplomatic career.
His first entrance into the diplomatic service was made in 1782. His mission was to Paris. Its purpose, to negotiate with BenjaminFranklina treaty of peace with America.|See above, Book II, Chap. III, page 431.|The circumstances beneath the influence of which it was undertaken I have had occasion to advert to, already, in the notice of LordShelburne. It is needless to return to them now.
ThomasGrenville’sunion in the double negotiation with Mr.Oswald(instructed byShelburne, it will be remembered, asGrenvillewas byFox) proved to be very distasteful to him. From the beginning it boded ill to the success of the mission. As early as the 4th of June, 1782, we find Mr.Grenvillewriting toFox|The Mission to Paris, 1782–3.|thus:—‘I entreat you earnestly to see the impossibility of my assisting you under this contrariety.... I cannot fight a daily battle with Mr.Oswaldand his Secretary.[44]|T. Grenville to Fox; 4th June, 1782.|It would be neither for the advantage of the business, for your interest, or for your credit or mine; and, even if it was,Icould not do it.’
The then existing arrangements of the Secretaryship of State gave the control of a negotiation withFranceto one Secretary, and of a negotiation withAmericato the other. The reader has but to call to mind the well-known political relationship betweenFoxandShelburnein 1782, to gain a fully sufficient key to the consequent diplomatic relationship betweenOswaldand ThomasGrenville, when thus engaged in carrying on, abreast, a double mission at the Court of Paris.|Comp. also same to same, June 16. (Court and Cabinetsof Geo. III, pp. 36–51.)|To add to the obvious embroilment,Oswaldhad shortly before received from BenjaminFranklina suggestion that Britain should ‘spontaneously’ cede Canada, in order to enable his astute countrymen at home the better to compensate both the plundered Royalists and those among the victorious opponents of those Royalists who had, from time to time, sustained any damage at the hands of the British armies.
The most earnest entreaties, from many quarters, were used to induceGrenvilleto remain at Paris. His political friends, and his family connections, were, on that point, alike urgent. But all entreaties were in vain. When thenews reached him of LordRockingham’sdeath, and of the break-up in the Cabinet which followed, his decision was, if possible, more decided. He still clave toFox, while his brother, LordTemple, accepted fromShelburnethe Lieutenancy of Ireland. A Lordship of the Treasury or the Irish Secretaryship was by turns pressed upon Mr.Grenvilleby LordTemplewith an earnestness which may be called passionate.|Lord Temple to T. Grenville, 12th July.|‘Let me hope,’ said he, ‘that you will feel that satisfaction that every [other] member of my family most earnestly feels at my acceptance of the Lieutenancy of Ireland.... I conjure you, by everything that you prize nearest and dearest to your heart; by the joy I have ever felt in your welfare; by the interest I have ever taken in your uneasiness; weigh well your determination; it decides the complexion of my future hours.... I have staked my happiness upon this cast.’ The resolve of ThomasGrenvilleto adhere to the position he had taken was the cause of a family estrangement which endured for many years. But the more a reader, familiar with the annals of the time (and especially if he be also familiar with the personal history of LordTemplebefore and after), may study LordTemple’sletters of 1782, the less he is likely to wonder that the peculiar line of argument they develope failed to attain the aim they had in view. The vein that runs through them is plainly that of personal ambition; not of an adherence—at any cost—to a sincere conviction, whether right or wrong, of public duty. Such a line of argument was, at no time, the line likely to commend itself to ThomasGrenville. Both his virtues, and what by many politicians will be regarded as his weaknesses, alike armed him against obvious appeals to mere self-interest or self-aggrandisement.
One result—and the not unanticipated result—of the family estrangement of 1782 was that, two years later, Mr.Grenvillefound himself to have no longer the command of a seat in Parliament.|The withdrawal from Parliament, 1784–90.|For four years to come he gave most of his leisure to a pursuit which he loved much better—as far as personal taste was concerned—namely, to the resumption of his systematic studies in classical literature. But in 1790 he was elected a burgess for the town of Aldborough. Thenceforward, and for a good many years, politics again shared his time with literature, and with those social claims and duties to which no man of his day was more keenly alive.
In 1795 a second diplomatic mission was offered to him, and it was accepted. In the interval, another and more lasting change had come across his career in Parliament. He was one of the many ‘Foxites’ who utterly disapproved the course which their old leader adopted in regard to the French Revolution and to the rising passion to glorify and to imitate it at home. To the ‘Man of the People’ (as he was very fancifully called), the English countershock to the French overturn was, in one sense, specially fatal. It ripened peculiar, though hitherto in some degree latent, weaknesses. And with these, when they became salient, ThomasGrenvillehad really as little fellow-feeling as had EdmundBurke. Alike both men now supportedPitt, with whom, as experience increased and judgment matured, they both had always had intrinsically far more in common. And among the results of the new political relationships came a restoration of family harmony. GeorgeGrenvillebecamePitt’sForeign Secretary; ThomasGrenvillebecamePitt’sMinister to the Court of Berlin. One year later, he again sat in Parliament for Buckingham.
The mission to Berlin was first impeded by a threatened shipwreck among icebergs at sea, and, when that impediment had been with difficulty overcome, the journey was again and more seriously obstructed by an actual shipwreck upon the coast of Flanders.|The Mission to Berlin, 1795.|Mr.Grenville’slife was exposed to imminent danger. After a desperate effort, he succeeded in saving his despatches and in scrambling to land. But he saved nothing else; and the inevitable delay enabled the French Directory to sendSièyesto Berlin, in advance of the ambassador of Britain. The able and versatile Frenchman made the best of his priority. Mr.Grenvillewas not found wanting in exertion, any more than in ability. But in the then posture of affairs the advantage in point of time, proved to be an advantage which no skill of fence could afterwards recover. Hence it was that the mission of 1795 became practically an abortive mission. With it ended the ambassador’s diplomatic career.