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British Museum.--Lord NAPIER and the acquisition of
the Abyssinian MSS. added in 1868.-The Travels of
VON SIEBOLD in Japan, and the gathering of his
Japanese Library.-Felix SLADE and his Bequests,
Artistic and Archæological.

Book III,
Chap. VI.
OTHER

BENEFAC

TORS OF

DAYS.

THE INADE

QUACY OF

THE NOTICES

OF NATURAL-
ISTS IN THIS
VOLUME,

AND ITS

No reader of this volume will, in the course of its perusal, have become more sensible than is its author of a want of due proportion, in those notices which have occasionally been given of some eminent naturalists who have RECENT conspicuously contributed to the public collections, as compared with the notices of those many archæologists and book-gatherers who, in common with the naturalists, have been fellow-workers towards the building up of our National Museum. I feel, too, that my own ignorance of natural history is no excuse at all for so imperfect a filling-out of the plan which the title-page itself of this volume implies. I feel this all the more strongly, because I dissent entirely from those views which tend to depreciate the importance of CAUSE. the scientific collections, in order (very superfluously) to enhance that of the literary and artistic collections. Far from looking at the splendid Galleries of mammals, or of birds, or of plants, as mere collections of book-plates,' gathered for the 'illustration' of the National Library, or from sharing the opinion that the books and the antiquities, alone, are what may be called the permanent departments of the British Museum' (to quote, literally, the words of a publication issued whilst this sheet is going to press, words which seem somewhat rashly-considering whence they come to prejudge a question of national scope, and one which it assuredly belongs alone to Parliament to settle),

* A Handy-Book of the British Museum, for Every-day Readers.' 1870 (Cassell and Co.).

BOOK III,

Chap. VI.

OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS.

THE FORMA
TION OF

THE NEW

DEPART

MENT OF

MEDIEVAL

ANTIQUI

I regard these scientific collections as possessing, in common with the others, the highest educational value, and as also possessing, even a little beyond some of the others, a special claim, it may be, upon the respect of Englishmen.

That speciality of claim seems to me to accrue from the fact, that two of the early FOUNDERS, and one of the most conspicuous subsequent BENEFACTORS of the Museum, were pre-eminently Naturalists. Such was COURTEN. Such was SLOANE. Such was Sir Joseph BANKS. I shall have erred greatly in my estimate of the regard habitually paid by a British Parliament to the memory of the eminent benefactors of Britain, if, in the issue, it do not become apparent that such a consideration as this will weigh heavily with those who will shortly-and after due deliberation and debate-have to decide pending questions in relation to the enlargement and to the still further improvement of the British Museum.

Be that however as it ultimately shall prove to be, if the Public should honour this volume with a favourable reception, it will be its author's endeavour (in a second edition) to supplement, by the knowledge and co-operation of others, the ignorance and the deficiencies of which he is very conscious in himself.

In resuming the notices connected with the now truly magnificent Collection of Antiquities, we have to glance at the organizing of a new Department' in the Museum. BRITISH AND During at least two generations it has been, from time to time, remarked-with some surprise as well as censure that the British' Museum contained no 'British' Antiquities. Sometimes this criticism has been put much too strongly, as when, for example, one of the recent biographers of WEDGWOOD thus wrote (in 1866, but refer

TIES.

ring also to a period then ninety years distant).

At that Book III,

Chap. VI.

OTHER

BENEFAC

TORS OF

DAYS.

Meteyard,

date, as at present, everything native to the soil, or produced by the races who had lived and died upon it, was repudiated by those who were the rulers of the National RECENT Collection.' At that time, assuredly, there were already in the Museum a good many British beasts, British birds, and British books;-no inconsiderable part of the productions' of our soil and of the races born and nurtured upon it.

But, within a few months after the appearance of the criticism I have quoted, all ground for its repetition was removed by the formation of the Department of British and Mediæval Antiquities and Ethnography.' It is thus organized, in six separate sections :

§ I. British Antiquities anterior to the Roman period.

II. Roman Antiquities found in Britain.

III. Anglo-Saxon Antiquities.

IV. Mediæval sculpture, carving, paintings, metal work, enamels,
pottery, glass, stone ware; and implements of various
kinds, and of various material.

V. Costumes, weapons, accoutrements, tools, furniture, indus-
trial productions, &c.-both ancient and modern-of
non-European races.

VI. Pre-historic Antiquities.*

Life of Josiah

Wedgwood,

vol. ii, p. 162.

* See the

notice, here

after, of the

Museum.

To the enrichment of the fourth section of this new Christy department of the Museum (in a small degree), as well as (much more largely) to that of the Classical Collections, the choice treasures gathered in France during two generations. by successive Dukes of BLACAS largely contributed.

a

The first of these Dukes, Peter Lewis John Casimir de BLACAS, was born at Aulps in the year 1770. He was of family which has been conspicuous in Provence from the beginning of the Crusades. Attaining manhood just at the eve of the Revolution, the Duke followed the French princes into

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BOOK III,
Chap. VI.

OTHER
BENEFAC-

TORS OF

RECENT
DAYS.

FORMATION

OF THE
BLACAS
MUSEUM.

exile, and warmly attached himself to LEWIS THE EIGHTEENTH, to whom, in after years, he became the minister of predilection, as distinguished from that monarch's many ministers of constraint. He had, in his own day, the reputation of being a courtier; but seems to have been, in truth, an honest, frank, and outspeaking adviser. One saying of his depicts quite plainly the nature of the man, and also the nature of the work he had to do :-" If you want to defend your Crown, you musn't run away from your Kingdom.' Those words were spoken in 1815; and, as we all know, were spoken in vain.

A statesman of that stamp-one who does not watch and chronicle the shiftings of popular opinion, in order to know with certainty what are his own opinions, or in order to shape his own political principles'-rarely enjoys popularity. DE BLACAS became so little popular at home, that the King was forced to send him, for many years, abroad. At Rome, he negotiated the Concordat (1817-19); at Naples, he advised an amnesty (1822), together with other measures, some of which were too wise for the latitude. In the interval between his two residences at the Court of Naples, he took part in the Congress of Laybach.

The opportunities afforded by diplomacy in Italy and in other countries were turned to intellectual and archæological, as well as to political, account. He imitated the example of HAMILTON and of ELGIN, and that of a crowd of his own countrymen, long anterior to either. Since his son's death, the British Museum has, by purchase, entered into his archæological labours almost as largely-in their way and measure-as it has inherited the treasures of its own enlightened ambassadors at Naples and at Constantinople.

The Duke died at Goeritz in 1839. Nine years earlier,

Chap. VI.

BENEFAC

TORS OF

he had advised CHARLES X against the measures which Book III, precipitated that king into ruin; and when the obstinate onR monarch had to pay the sure penalty of neglecting good advice, the giver of it voluntarily took his share of the RECENT infliction. He offered to attend CHARLES into exile in 1830, as he had attended him forty years before, when in the flush of youth. He lies buried at the King's feet, in

the Church of the Franciscans at Goeritz

'He that can endure

To follow, in exile, his fallen Lord,

Doth conquer them that did his master conquer,
And earns his place i' the story.'

DAYS.

OF THE

COLLECTION.

The late Duke of BLACAS augmented his father's collec- CHARACTER tions by many purchases of great extent and value. His BLACAS special predilection was for coins and gems. In that department the combined museum of father and son soon came to rank as the finest known collection, belonging to an individual possessor. It includes seven hundred and forty-eight ancient and classical cameos and intaglios, and two hundred and three others which are either mediæval, oriental, or modern. The most precious portion of the STROZZI cabinet passed into it, as did also a choice part of the collections, respectively, of BARTH and of DE LA TURBIE. The Blacas Museum is also eminently rich in vases and paintings of various kinds; in sculptures, on every variety of material; in terracottas, and in ancient glass. Its 'silver toilet service' of a Christian Roman lady of the fifth century, named PROJECTA, has been made famous throughout Europe by the descriptive accounts which have appeared from the pen of VISCONTI and from that of LABARTE. The casket is richly chased with figure-subjects. Among them are seen figures of Venus and Cupid; of the lady herself and of her bridegroom, SECUNDUS. Roman bridesmaids, of

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