Growth of the Mineralogical Collections. 1858–1862.
Coming to the Department of Mineralogy, we find that the registered specimens had increased, within about four years, from fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand. This increase was mainly due to the acquisition of the nobleAllan-GregCabinet formed at Manchester. But large as this increase is, the national importance of the Mineralogical Collections is very far from being adequately represented by the existing state of the Museum series, even after all the subsequent additions made between the years 1862–1870.|Owen,Report, as above (1862).|A Museum of Mineralogy worthy of England must eventually include five several and independent collections. There must be (1) a Classificatory Collection, for general purposes; (2) a Geometrical Collection, to show the crystalline forms; (3) an Elementary Collection, to show the degrees of lustre and the varieties of cleavage and of colour; (4) a Technological Collection, to show the economic application of minerals—the importance of which, to a commercial, manufacturing, and artistic country, can hardly be exaggerated. Last of all, there is needed a special collection of an ancillary kind; that, I mean, which has been called sometimes a ‘teratological’ collection,|(Ibid.)|sometimes a ‘pseudomorphic’ collection. Call it as you will, its objectis important. Such a series serves to show both the defective and the excessive forms of minerals, and their transitional capacities. These five several collections are, it will be seen, over and above that other special Collection of Sky-stones or ‘Meteorites,’ which is already very nobly represented in our National Museum.
CHAPTER IV.ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHÆOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS.—THE SPOILS OF XANTHUS, OF BABYLON, OF NINEVEH, OF HALICARNASSUS, AND OF CARTHAGE.
CHAPTER IV.ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHÆOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS.—THE SPOILS OF XANTHUS, OF BABYLON, OF NINEVEH, OF HALICARNASSUS, AND OF CARTHAGE.
‘She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, ... when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall,—the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads; all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea.’
Ezekielxxiii, 12–15.
Ezekielxxiii, 12–15.
Ezekielxxiii, 12–15.
Ezekielxxiii, 12–15.
‘I do love these ancient ruins;We cannot tread upon them, but we setOur foot upon some reverend history.· · · · ·But all things have their end,Castles and cities (which have diseases like to men)Must have like death which we have.’Webster,The Duchess of Malfi.
‘I do love these ancient ruins;We cannot tread upon them, but we setOur foot upon some reverend history.· · · · ·But all things have their end,Castles and cities (which have diseases like to men)Must have like death which we have.’Webster,The Duchess of Malfi.
‘I do love these ancient ruins;We cannot tread upon them, but we setOur foot upon some reverend history.
‘I do love these ancient ruins;
We cannot tread upon them, but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history.
· · · · ·
· · · · ·
But all things have their end,Castles and cities (which have diseases like to men)Must have like death which we have.’Webster,The Duchess of Malfi.
But all things have their end,
Castles and cities (which have diseases like to men)
Must have like death which we have.’
Webster,The Duchess of Malfi.
The Libraries of the East.—The Monasteries of the Nitrian Desert, and their Explorers.—WilliamCuretonand his Labours on the MSS. of Nitria, and in other Departments of Oriental Literature.—The Researches in the Levant of Sir CharlesFellows,of Mr.Layard,and of Mr. CharlesNewton.—Other conspicuous Augmentors of the Collection of Antiquities.
We have now to turn to that vast field of research and exploration, from which the national Museum of Antiquities has derived an augmentation that has sufficed to double, within twenty-five years, its previous scientific andliterary value to the Public. In this chapter we have to tell of not a little romantic adventure; of remote and perilous explorations and excavations; sometimes, of sharp conflicts between English pertinacity and Oriental cunning; often, of great endurance of hardship and privation in the endeavour at once to promote learning—the world over—and to add some new and not unworthy entries on the long roll of British achievement.
Two distinct groups of explorers have now to be recorded. The labours of both groups carry us to the Levant.|The Libraries of the East.|What has been done of late years by the searchers after manuscripts, in their effort to recover some of the lost treasures of the old Libraries of the East, will be most fairly appreciated by the reader, if, before telling of the researches and the studies ofCurzon,Tattam,Cureton, and their fellow-workers in Eastern manuscript archæology, some brief prefatory notice be given of the earlier labours, in the same field, ofHuntington,Browne, and other travellers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Mention must also be made of the explorations ofSonniniand ofAndréossi.
The researches of Robert Huntington in the Nitrian Monasteries;
About the year 1680, RobertHuntington, afterwards Bishop of Raphoe, visited the Monasteries of the Nitrian Desert, and made special and eager research for the Syriac version of theEpistles of St. Ignatius, of the existence of which there had been wide-spread belief amongst the learned, since the time of ArchbishopUssher. But his quest was fruitless, although, as it is now well known, a Syriac version of some of those epistles did really exist in one of the monasteries whichHuntingtonvisited. The monks, then as afterwards, were chary of showing their MSS., very small as was the care they took of them. Theonly manuscripts mentioned byHuntington, in recording his visits to three of the principal communities—St. Mary Deipara, St. Macarius, and El Baramous—are anOld Testamentin the Estrangelo character; two volumes of Chrysostom in Coptic and Arabic; a Coptic Lectionary in four volumes; and aNew Testamentin Coptic and Arabic.
Towards the close of the following century, these monasteries received the successive visits ofSonnini, of William GeorgeBrowne, and of General CountAndréossi.|and those of Sonnini, Browne, and others.|Sonninisays nothing of books.Brownesaw but few—among them an Arabo-CopticLexicon, the works of St. Gregory, and theOldandNew Testamentsin Arabic—although he was told by the superior that they had nearly eight hundred volumes, with none of which they would part.|Browne,Travels in Africa, &c., p. 43.|GeneralAndréossi, on the other hand, speaks slightingly of the books as merely ‘ascetic works, ... some in Arabic, and some in Coptic, with an Arabic translation in the margin;’|Huntington,Observations(repr. in Ray’s Coll.).|but adds, ‘We brought away some of the latter class, which appear to have a date of six centuries.’ This was in 1799.|Andréossi,Vallées des Lac de Nation, pass.|Brownedied in 1814;Sonnini de Manoncourt, in 1812; CountAndréossisurvived until 1828.
In the year 1827, the late Duke ofNorthumberland(then LordPrudhoe) made more elaborate researches. His immediate object was a philological one, his Lordship desiring to further Mr.Tattam’slabours on a Coptic and Arabic Dictionary.|Lord Prudhoe’sNarrative, &c., as abridged inQuarterly Review, vol. lxxvii, pp. 45, seq.|Hearing that ‘Libraries were said to be preserved, both at the Baramous and Syrian convents,’ he proceeded to El Baramous, accompanied by Mr.Linart, and encamped outside the walls. ‘The monks in this convent,’ says the Duke, ‘about twelve in number, appeared poor and ignorant. They looked on us withgreat jealousy, and denied having any books, except those in the church, which they showed us.’ But having been judiciously mollified by some little seductive present, on the next day, ‘in a moment of good humour, they agreed to show us their Library. From it I selected a certain number of Manuscripts, which, with theLexicon(Selim) already mentioned, were carried into the monk’s room. A long deliberation ensued, ... as to my offer to purchase them. Only one could write, and at last it was agreed that he should copy theSelim, which copy and the MSS. I had collected were to be mine, in exchange for a fixed sum of dollars, to which I added a present of rice, coffee, tobacco, and such other articles as I had to offer.’ After narrating the acquisition of a few other MSS. at the Syrian convent, or Convent of St. Mary Deipara, his Lordship proceeds:—‘These manuscripts I presented to Mr.Tattam, and gave him some account of the small room with its trap-door, through which I descended, candle in hand, to examine the manuscripts, where books, and parts of books, and scattered leaves, in Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic, were lying in a mass, on which I stood.... In appearance, it seemed as if, on some sudden emergency, the whole Library had been thrown down this trap-door, and they had remained undisturbed, in their dust and neglect, for some centuries.’
The researches in the Levantine Monasteries of Mr. Curzon.
Ten years later, Mr.Tattamhimself continued these researches. But in the interval they had been taken up by the energetic and accomplished traveller Mr. RobertCurzon, to whose charmingVisits to the Monasteries of the Levantit is mainly owing that a curious aspect of monastic life, which theretofore had only interested a few scholars, has become familiar to thousands of readers of all classes.
Mr.Curzon’sresearches were much more thoroughthan those of any of his predecessors. He was felicitous in his endeavours to win the good graces of the monks, and seems often to have made his visits as pleasant to his hosts as afterwards to his readers. But, how attractive soever, only one of them has to be noticed in connexion with our present topic—that, namely, to the Convent of the Syrians mentioned already. ‘I found,’ says Mr.Curzon, ‘several Coptic MSS. lying on the floor, but some were placed in niches in the stone wall. They were all on paper, except three or four; one of them was a superb MS. of the Gospels, with a commentary by one of the early fathers. Two others were doing duty as coverings to large open pots or jars, which had contained preserves, long since evaporated. On the floor I found a fine Coptic and Arabic Dictionary, with which they refused to part.’ After a most graphic account of a conversation with the Father Abbot—the talk being enlivened with many cups of rosoglio—he proceeds to recount his visit to a ‘small closet, vaulted with stone, which was filled to the depth of two feet or more with loose leaves of Syriac MSS., which now form one of the chief treasures of the British Museum.’ The collection thus ‘preserved’ was that of the Coptic monks; the same monastery contained another which was that of the Abyssinian monks. ‘The disposition of the manuscripts in the Library,’ continues Mr.Curzon, ‘was very original.... The room was about twenty-six feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high; the roof was formed of the trunks of palm-trees. A wooden shelf was carried, in the Egyptian style, around the walls, at the height of the top of the door, ... underneath the shelf various long wooden pegs projected from the wall, ... on which hung the Abyssinian MSS., of which this curious Library was entirely composed. The books of Abyssiniaare bound in the usual way—sometimes in red leather, and sometimes in wooden boards, ... they are then enclosed in a case, ... to which is attached a strap, ... and by these straps the books are hung on the wooden pegs, three or four on a peg, or more, if the books were small; their usual size was that of a small, very thick quarto.... Almost all Abyssinian books are written upon skins.... They have no cursive writing; each letter is therefore painted, as it were, with the reed-pen.... Some manuscripts are adorned with the quaintest and grimmest illustrations conceivable, ... and some are worthy of being compared with the best specimens of caligraphy in any language.’ Then follows an amusing account of the ‘higgling of the monks,’ after a truly Abyssinian fashion, ending in the acquisition of books, of the whole of which the travellers could not, by any packing or stuffing, make their bags containable. ‘In this dreadful dilemma, ... seeing that the quarto was the most imperfect, I abandoned it; and I have now reason to believe, on seeing the manuscripts of the British Museum, that this was the famous book, with the date ofA.D.411, the most precious acquisition to any Library that has been made in modern times, with the exception, as I conceive, of some in my own Collection....|Curzon,Visits, &c., as above.|This book, which contains some lost works of Eusebius, has ... fallen into better hands than mine.’
In the following year (1838), the Rev. HenryTattam(afterwards Archdeacon of Bedford), in furtherance of the purpose which had previously enlisted LordPrudhoe’sco-operation, set out upon his expedition into Egypt. He arrived at Cairo in October, and in November proceeded up the Nile as far as Esneh, visiting many monasteries, and inspecting their Libraries, in most of which he only met with liturgies and service-books. Sanobon was an exception,for there he found eighty-two Coptic MSS., some of them very fine.
Continuing the narrative, we find that on the 12th of January they started across the desert for the valley of the Natron Lakes, and pitched their tent at a short distance from the Monastery of Macarius.|MissPlatt’sJournal (unpublished, but abridged in theQuarterly Review, as above).|The monks told them that of these convents there had once been, on the mountain and in the valley of Nitria, no less than three hundred and sixty. Of fifty or thereabouts the ruins, it is said, may still be seen.|Researches of Archdeacon Tattam.|At the Convent of the Syrians, the Archdeacon was received with much civility, not, however, unaccompanied by a sort of cautious circumspection. After a look at the church, followed by the indispensable pipes and coffee, the monks asked the cause to which they were indebted for the honour of his visit. He told them discreetly that it was his wish to see their books. ‘They replied that they had no more than what he had seen in the church; upon which he told them plainly that he knew they had.’ A conference ensued, and, on the next day, they conducted him to the tower, and then into a dark vault, where he found a great quantity of very old and valuable Syriac MSS. He selected six quarto volumes, and took them to the superior’s room. He was next shown a room in the tower, where he found a number of Coptic and Arabic MSS., principally liturgies, with a beautiful copy of theGospels. He then asked to see the rest. The monks looked surprised to find he knew of others, and seemed at first disposed to deny that they had any more, but at length produced the key of the apartment where the other books were kept, and admitted him. After looking them over, he went to the superior’s room, where all the priests were assembled, fifteen or sixteen in number; one of them brought a Coptic and ArabicSelim, orLexicon, which Mr.Tattamwished to purchase; they informed him they could not part with it, ... but consented to make him a copy. He paid for two of the Syriac MSS. he had placed in the superior’s room, for the priests could not be persuaded to part with more.... The superior would have sold the Dictionary, but was afraid, because the Patriarch had written in it a curse upon any one who should take it away.’ [It was the same volume which had been vainly coveted by Mr.Curzon, as well as by several preceding travellers, and of which he tells us he ‘put it in one of the niches of the wall, where it remained about two years, when it was purchased and brought away for me by a gentleman at Cairo.’] ‘In the Convent of El Baramous,’ continues MissPlatt, ‘Mr.Tattamfound about one hundred and fifty Coptic and Arabic liturgies, and a very large Dictionary in both languages. In the tower is an apartment, with a trap-door in the floor, opening into a dark hole, full of loose leaves of Arabic and Coptic manuscripts.’ At the Monastery of Amba-Bichoi, Mr.Tattamsaw a lofty vaulted room, so strewn with loose manuscripts as scarcely to afford a glimpse of the floor on which they lay, ‘in some places a quarter of a yard deep.’ At Macarius Convent a similar sight presented itself, but of these Mr.Tattamwas permitted to carry off about a hundred.
As the reader may well imagine, the charms of the Syriac MSS. had made too deep an impression on Mr.Tattam’sheart to admit of an easy parting. Many were the longing, lingering looks, mentally directed towards them. Almost at the moment of setting out on his return to Cairo, he added four choice books to his previous spoils. In February, he resolved to revisit the convents, and once more to ply his most persuasive arguments. He was manfully seconded by his Egyptian servant,Mahommed, whosefavourite methods of negotiation much resembled those of Mr.Curzon. ‘The Archdeacon soon returned,’ says MissPlatt, ‘followed byMahommedand one of the Bedouins, bearing a large sack full of splendid Syriac MSS. on vellum. They were safely deposited in the tent.’ At Amba-Bischoi a successful bargain was struck for an oldPentateuchin Coptic and Arabic, and a beautiful CopticEvangeliary.|Platt’s Journal; abridged, as above.|On the next day, ‘Mahommed brought from the priests a Soriana, a stupendous volume, beautifully written in the Syriac characters, with a very old worm-eaten copy of thePentateuchfrom Amba-Bischoi, exceedingly valuable, but not quite perfect.’ The remainder of the story, or rather the greater part of what remains, must here be more concisely told than in the words of the reviewer.
The manuscripts which Mr.Tattamhas thus obtained, in due time arrived in England. Such of them as were in the Syriac language were disposed of to the Trustees of the British Museum.... Forty-nine manuscripts of extreme antiquity, containing some valuable works long since supposed to have perished, and versions of others written several centuries earlier than any copies of the original texts now known to exist, constituted such an addition as has been rarely, if ever, made at one time to any Library. The collection of Syriac MSS. procured by Mr.Richhad already made the Library of the British Museum conspicuous for this class of literature; but the treasure of manuscripts from Egypt rendered it superior to any in Europe.
From the accounts which LordPrudhoe, Mr.Curzon, and Mr.Tattamhad given of their visits to the Monastery of the Syrians, it was evident that but few of the manuscripts belonging to it had been removed since the time ofAssemani; and probable that no less a number thannearly two hundred volumes must be still remaining in the hands of the monks. Moreover, from several notes in the manuscripts ... already brought to England, it was certain that most of them must be of very considerable antiquity.... In several of these notices,Mosesof Tecrit states that, in the year 932, he brought into the convent from Mesopotamia about two hundred and fifty volumes. As there was no evidence whatever to show that even so many as one hundred of these MSS. had ever been taken away (for those which were procured for the Papal Library by the twoAssemani, added to those which Mr.Curzonand Mr.Tattamhad brought to England, do not amount to that number), there was sufficient ground for supposing that the Convent of the Syrians still possessed not fewer than about one hundred and fifty volumes, which, at the latest, must have been written before the tenth century. Application, accordingly, was made by the Trustees to the Treasury; a sum was granted to enable them to send again into Egypt, and Mr.Tattamreadily undertook the commission.|Treasury grant, in 1841, for further researches.|The time was most opportune. Had much more delay been interposed, these manuscripts, which, perhaps, constitute the greatest accession of valuable literature which has been brought from the East into Europe since the taking of Constantinople,|Quart. Review, as before.|would, in all probability, have been now the pride of the Imperial Library at Paris.
Mr. Tattam’s expedition to Nitria in 1842.
Mr.Tattamthought he could work most effectively through the influence of a neighbouring Sheikh with the superior of the convent. By which means he obtained, after some delays, a promise that all the Syriac MSS. should be taken to the Sheikh’s house, and there bargained for. ‘My servant,’ he says, ‘had taken ten men and eight donkeys from the village; had conveyed them, and already bargained for them, which bargain I confirmed. That nightwe carried our boxes, paper, and string, and packed them all.... Before ten in the morning they were on their way to Alexandria.’ But, as will be seen in the sequel, the monks were too crafty for Mr.Tattamto cope with.
Tischendorf’s visit in 1844.
In 1844,Tischendorfvisited the monasteries already explored byCurzonandTattam. His account reproduces the old characteristics:—‘Manuscripts heaped indiscriminately together, lying on the ground, or thrown into large baskets, beneath masses of dust.... The excessive suspicion of these monks renders it extremely difficult to induce them to produce their MSS., in spite of the extreme penury which surrounds them.... But much might yet be found to reward the labour of the searcher.’
In truth, the monks, poor and simple as they sometimes seemed to be, had taken very sufficient care to keep enough of literary treasures in their hands to reward ‘further researches.’ Nearly half of their collection seems to have been withheld.
Pacho’s negotiation for the recovery of the MSS. withheld by the monks of St. Mary Deipara.
A certain clever Mr.Pachonow entered on the scene as a negotiator for the obtainment or recovery of the missing ‘treasures of the tombs.’ They had been virtually purchased before, but the Lords of the Treasury very wisely re-opened the public purse, and at length secured for the Nation an inestimable possession. The new accession completed, or went far towards completing, many MSS. which before were tantalizingly imperfect.|See page 622, in this Chapter.|It supplied a second ancient copy of the famous IgnatianEpistles(to St. Polycarp,to the Ephesians, andto the Romans); many fragments of palimpsest manuscripts of great antiquity, and among them the greater part of St. Luke’sGospelin Greek; and about four thousand lines of theIliad, written in a fine square uncial letter, apparently not later than the sixth century. The total number of volumes thus added to theprevious Nitrian Collections were calculated, roundly, to be from a hundred and forty to a hundred and fifty.
That the rich accession to our sacred literature, thus made amidst many obstacles, should be turned speedily to public advantage, two conditions had to be fulfilled.|William Cureton and his labours in Oriental Literature.|Skilful labour had first to be employed in the arrangement of a mass of fragments. Scholars competently prepared, by previous studies in Oriental literature and more especially in Syriac, must then get to work on their transcription, their gloss, and their publication. It could scarcely have been expected, beforehand, that any one man would be able to undertake both tasks, and to keep them, for some years to come, well abreast. The fact, however, proved to be so. The right man was already in the right place for the work that was to be done.
The late WilliamCuretonhad entered the service of the Trustees of the British Museum in 1837, at the age of twenty-nine, when he had been already for about eight years in holy orders. He was a native of Westbury, in Shropshire. His education, begun at Newport School, had been matured at Christ Church, Oxford. He had been just about to enter himself at Christ Church in the ordinary way, when his father died, suddenly, leaving the family fortunes under considerable embarrassment.Cureton, and a brother of his, showed the metal they were both made of, by instantly changing their youthful plans. That the whole of the diminished patrimony might be at their mother’s sole disposal, WilliamCuretonwent to Oxford as a servitor. His brother, instead of waiting for his expected commission in the Army, enlisted as a private dragoon. And certainly, in the issue, neither of these young men lost any ‘dignity’—in any sense of that word—onaccount of the step so unselfishly taken at their start in life.
WilliamCuretonbegan his literary labours as a Coadjutor-Under-Librarian in old Bodley. Dr.Gaisfordintroduced him to Dr.Bandinel, in 1834, with the words:—‘I bring you a good son. He will make a good librarian.’ It was at Oxford that he laid the substantial foundation of his Oriental studies. After three years, he followed the fashion already set him by some of the best and ablest officers the Bodleian has ever had—Ellis,Baber, and H. O.Coxe, for example—by transferring, for a time, his services from the great Library of Oxford to that of London.|Cureton’s entrance into the British Museum.|His first (or nearly his first) Museum task was to set to work on the cataloguing of the Arabic and Persian MSS. In 1842, he began his earliest Oriental publication (undertaken for the ‘Oriental Text Society,’ to be mentioned presently), namely,Al Sharastani’s‘Book of Religious and of Philosophical Sects.’
At the British Museum, he became quite as notable for the amiability of his character, and the genial frankness of his manners, as for his scholarly attainments and his power of authorship. I have a vivid recollection of my own introduction to him, in the February of 1839, and of the impression made on me by his kindly and cordial greeting. When I noted that pleasant face, which beamed with good nature as well as with intellect, I instantly appreciated the force of the words used by my introducer: ‘Let me make you known,’ said he, ‘to my father-confessor.’ I thought the choice to be obviously a felicitous one. Not less vivid is my memory of the delight Mr.Curetonmanifested on receiving, within the Museumvaults, the first importation from the Nitrian Desert. The sight of such a mass of torn, disorderly, and dirty fragments, would have appalled manymen not commonly afraid of labour, but to WilliamCuretonthe scholarly ardour of discovery made the task, from the first, a pleasure. When successive fresh arrivals gave new hope that many gaps in the manuscripts of earliest importation would, in course of time, be filled up, the laborious pleasure ripened into joy.
The collection, obtained by the long succession of labours already narrated, reached the British Museum on the first of May, 1843. When the cases were opened, very few indeed of the MSS. were perfect.|Fragmentary condition of the Syriac MSS. imported in 1843.|Nearly two hundred volumes had been torn into separate leaves, and then mixed up together, by blind chance and human stupidity. It was a perplexing sight. But the eyes that looked on it belonged to a seeing head. Even into a little chaos like this, almost hopeless as at the first glance it seemed, the learning, assiduity, and patience of Mr.Curetongradually brought order. Of necessity, the task took a long time. First came the separation of the fragments of different works, and then the arrangement of the leaves into volumes, with no aid to pagination or catchwords. With translations of extant Greek works, the collection of their originals gave, of course, great help. But in a multitude of cases every leaf had to be read and closely studied.
Within about eighteen months of the reception of the MSS., Mr.Curetonhad ascertained the number of volumes—reckoning books made up of fragments, as well as complete works—to amount to three hundred and seventeen, of which two hundred and forty-six were on vellum, and seventy on paper; all in Syriac or Aramaic, except one volume of Coptic fragments. With the forty-nine volumes previously acquired, an addition was thus made to the MS. Department of the National Library of three hundred and sixty-six volumes. Many of these volumes contain two,three, or four distinct works, of different dates, bound together, so that probably, in the whole, there were of manuscripts and parts of manuscripts, upwards of one thousand, written in all parts of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, and at periods which range from the year 411 to the year 1292. Of the specific character and contents of some of the choicest of these MSS., mention will be made hereafter.
Dr. Cureton’s publications in Syriac, and in Arabic Literature.
For several years, the labour on the Syriac fragments did but alternate with that on the larger body of the Arabic MSS., a classed catalogue of which Mr.Curetonpublished in 1846,—only a month or two after he had contributed to theQuarterly Reviewa deeply interesting and masterly article on the Syriac discoveries. This paper was quickly followed by his first edition of theThree Epistles of St. Ignatius(I, to Polycarp; II, to the Ephesians; III, to the Romans). In an able preface, he contended that, of these genuineEpistles, all previous recensions were, to a considerable extent, interpolated, garbled, and spurious; and also that the other IgnatianEpistles, so-called, are entirely supposititious. In the year 1870 it need hardly be said either that this publication excited much controversy, or that competent opinion is still divided on some parts of the subject. But on two points there has never been any controversy whatever:—As an editor, WilliamCuretondisplayed brilliant ability; as a student of theology, he was no less distinguished by a single-minded search after truth. He was never one of those noisy controversialists of whom WalterLandoronce said, so incisively,[35]that they were less angry with their opponents for withstanding the truth, than for doubting their own claims to be the channels and thechampions of Truth. To his dying day,Curetonowned himself to be a learner—even in Syriac.
Within three years of the publication of hisIgnatius,Curetongave to the world his precious edition of the fragmentaryFestal LettersofAthanasius, which RichardBurgesssoon translated into English, andLassowinto German.|The foundation of the Oriental Text Society.|The Syriac version was one of its editor’s earliest discoveries amongst the spoils of the Nitrian monasteries, and it was published at the cost of a new society, of whichCuretonhimself was the main founder. For the old Oriental publication society[36]limited itself, as its name imports, to the publication of translations. The new one—the claims of which to liberal supportCuretonwas never weary of vindicating—was expressly founded to print Oriental texts. This new body had his strongest sympathies, but he co-operated zealously with the ‘Translation Fund’ as well as with the ‘Text Society,’
Among his other and early labours, was the publication of a Rabbinical Comment on theBook of Lamentations, and of the Arabic text ofEn Nasafi’sPillar of the Creed of the Sunnites(‘Umdat Akidat ahl al Sunnat wa al Tamaat’), both of which books were printed in 1843. After 1845,Cureton’sliterary labours were almost exclusively devoted to that Syriac field in which he was to be so large and so original a discoverer. The first distinctively public recognition of his services was his appointment as a Chaplain to the Queen, in 1847. Two years afterwards, he was made a Canon of Westminster and Rector of St. Margaret’s. Thenceforward, his energies were divided. The charms of Syriac discovery were not permitted to obstruct the due performance of the appropriate work of a parish priest; though it is much to be feared that theywere but too often permitted to interfere, more than a little, with needful recreation and rest.
Among those of his parochial labours which demanded not a small amount of self-sacrifice were the rebuilding and the improved organization of the schools;|Parochial labours.|the building of a district church—St. Andrew’s—in Ashley Place; and the establishment of Working-Class Lectures, upon a wise and far-seeing plan.
Further contributions to literature.
In 1851, he gave to scholars the curious palimpsest fragments ofHomerfrom a Nitrian manuscript (nowAddit. MS., 17,210), and, two years afterwards, theEcclesiastical HistoryofJohn, Bishop of Ephesus. This was quickly translated into German bySchönfehler, and into English by Dr. R. PayneSmith.|MS.Addit.14,640. (B. M.)|Then came theSpicilegium Syriacum, containing fragments ofBardesanes, ofMelitoof Sardes, and the inexpressibly precious fragments of an ancient recension of the SyriacGospels, believed byCuretonto be of the fifth century, and offering considerable and most interesting divergences from the Peshito version.
In a preface to these evangelical fragments of the fifth century, their editor contends that they constitute a far more faithful representation of the true Hebrew text than does the Peshito recension, and that the remark holds good, in a more especial degree, of theGospel of St. Matthew. This publication appeared in 1858.
Labour and its rewards in fresh labours.
Enough has been said of these untiring labours to make it quite intelligible, even to readers the most unfamiliar with Oriental studies, that their author had become already a celebrity throughout learned Europe. As early as in 1855, the Institute of France welcomed Dr.Cureton, as one of their corresponding members, in succession to his old master,Gaisford, of Christ Church. In 1859, the Queen conferred on him a distinction, which was especiallyappropriate and dear to his feelings. He became ‘Royal Trustee’ of that Museum which he had so zealously served as an Assistant-Keeper of the MSS., up to the date of his appointment to his Westminster parish and canonry. No fitter nomination was ever made. Unhappily, he was not to be spared very long to fill a function so congenial.
Yet one other distinction, and also one other and most honourable labour, were to be his, before another illustrious victim was to be added to the long list of public losses inflicted on the country at large by the gross mismanagement, and more particularly by what is called—sardonically, I suppose—the ‘economy’ of our British railways.Cureton’slife too, like some score of other lives dear to literature or to science, was to be sacrificed under the car of our railway Juggernaut.
In 1861, he published, from another Nitrian manuscript,Eusebius’History of the Martyrs in Palestine.|The removal, and its circumstances.|Early in 1863, he succeeded the late BeriahBotfieldin the Chair of the Oriental Translation Fund. On the twenty-ninth of May, of the same year, a railway ‘accident’ inflicted upon him such cruel injuries as entailed a protracted and painful illness of twelve months, and ended—to our loss, but to his great gain—in his lamented death, on the seventeenth of June, 1864.
He died where he was born, and was buried with his fathers. The writer of these poor memorial lines upon an admirable man well remembers the delight he used to express (thirty years ago) whenever it was in his power to revisit his birthplace, and knows that the delight was shared with the humblest of its inhabitants. Dr.Curetonwas one of those genuine men who (in the true and best sense of the words) are not respecters of persons. He had a frank, not a condescending, salutation for the lowliest acquaintancesof youthful days. And those lowliest were not among the least glad to see his face again at his holiday-visits; nor were they among the least sorrowful to see it, when it bore the fatal, but now to most of us quite familiar, traces of victimism to the mammon-cult of our railway directors.
The archæological explorations in the Levant.
Just as we have to go very far back indeed in the history of the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, in order to find an accession quite as notable as are—taking them as a whole—the manuscripts of the Nitrian monasteries, so have we also to do in the history of the several Departments of Antiquities, in order to find any parallel to the acquisitions of monuments of art and archæology made during the thirty years between 1840 and 1870. In point ofvarietyof interest, in truth, there is no parallel at all to be found.
In archæology, however—as in scientific discovery, or in mechanical invention—every great burst of new light will be seen, if we look closely enough, to have had its remote precursive gleams, howsoever faint or howsoever little noticed they may have been.
Austen HenryLayard, for example, is a most veritable ‘discoverer.’ Nevertheless, the researches ofLayardlink themselves with those of ClaudiusRich, and with the still earlier glimpses, and the mere note-book jottings, of CarstenNiebuhr, as well as with the explorations ofLayard’scontemporary and most able French fellow-investigator, MonsieurBotta. In like manner, NathanDavisis the undoubted disinterrer of old Carthage, but the previous labours of the Italian canon and archæologistSpano, of Cagliari, and those of the French geographersDe DreuxandDureau de La Malle, imperfect as they all were,helped to put him upon the quest which was destined to receive so rich a reward.
It is obvious, therefore, that a tolerably satisfactory account of the researches of the renowned archæologists mentioned at the head of this chapter must be prefaced with some notices of much earlier and much less successful labours than theirs; and a thorough account would need greatly more than that. But, at present, I cannot hope to give either the one or the other. Rapid glances at the recent investigations are all that, for the moment, are permitted me, and for the perfunctory manner of these I shall have to make not a little demand on the reader’s indulgence. The subject-matter is rich enough to claim a volume to itself; nor would the story be found to lack well-sustained and varied interest, even if retold at large.
The first inquiries and explorations inLyciaof Sir CharlesFellowsbegan several years earlier than those inAssyriaof Mr. AustenLayard, but an intelligible narrative of whatLayarddid, in 1845, must needs start with a notice, be it ever so brief, of whatBottahad been doing in 1842. The Lycian excavations were also effectively begun in 1842. They were, in fact, contemporaneous with the first excavations at Nineveh. I begin, therefore, with the closely-linked labours ofBottaand ofLayard, prefacing them with a glance at the previous pursuits and aims in life of our distinguished fellow-countryman.
Austen Henry Layard and his early career.
Austen HenryLayardis an Englishman, notwithstanding his birth in Paris (5th of March, 1817), and his descent from one of the many Huguenot families who (in one sense) do honour to France for their sufferings for conscience sake, and who (in many more senses than one) do honour to England by the way in which zealous and persevering exertions in the service of their adopted country haveenabled them to pluck the flowers of fame, or of distinction, from amidst the sharp thorns of adversity. AustenLayardis the grandson of the honoured Dr.Layard, Dean of Bristol, and he began active life, whilst yet very young, in a solicitor’s office in the City of London. But he had scarcely reached twenty-two years of age before family circumstances enabled him to gratify a strong passion for Eastern travel. Archæology had no share, at first, in the attractions which the Levant presented to his youthful enterprise. But a fervid nature, a good education, and a wonderful power of self-adaptation to new social circumstances, made the mind of the young traveller a fitting seedplot for antiquarian knowledge, whenever the opportunity of acquiring it should come.