BOOK II, GISTS AND poetaster. His earnestness in the matter approaches passion. 'I could not, without using too many words,' he says, 'express to you how much I am offended and disgusted by EXPLORERS. Mr. KNIGHT's new, insolent, and self-conceited poem. Considering to what height he dares to carry his insolent attack, it might be sufficient to lump [together] all the rest of his impertinent sallies . . as trifling peccadillos. . . . The vanity of supposing that his authority-the authority of a trumpery prosaic poetaster-was sufficient to re-establish the superannuated atheism of LUCRETIUS! . . . . . I cannot engage in an open war with him. . . . . Weak and broken as I am, tottering to the grave at some months past seventyeight, I have not spirits or courage enough to tap a paper war.' WALPOLE then adverts to a foregone thought, on MASON'S part, to have taken up the foils on the appearance of The Landscape. I ardently wish,' he says, 'you had overturned and expelled out of gardens this new Priapus, who is only fit to be erected in the Palais de l'Egalité.' And he urges his correspondent not to let the present occasion. slip. Irony and ridicule, he thinks, would be weapons 1796 (Letters; quite sufficient to overthrow this 'Knight of the Brazen Milk-Pot.' Horace Walpole to March 22, Coll. Edit., vol. ix, p.462). Spec. of Sculp., pl. 55 The last thrust was unkind indeed. It was hard that our Collector, whatever his other demerits, should be reproached for his passion to gather small bronzes, by the builder and furnisher of Strawberry-Hill. For, amidst all his devotion to poetry and pantheism, Mr. KNIGHT carried on the pursuits of connoisseurship with insatiable ardour. Among the choicer acquisitions which speedily followed the Diomede [?] purchased in 1785, were the mystical Bacchus-a bronze of the Macedonian period-found near Aquila in 1775; a colossal head of Minerva, found near Rome by Gavin HAMILTON; and a Chap. II. ARCHEOLO GISTS AND EXPLORERS. figure of Mercury of great beauty. The last-named bronze Book II, had been found, in 1732, at Pierre-Luisit, in the Pays de CLASSICAL Bugey and diocese of Lyons. A dry rock had sheltered the little figure from injury, so that it retained the perfection of its form, as if it had but just left the sculptor's 16., 33, 24. hand. It passed through the hands of three French owners in succession before it was sold to Mr. KNIGHT, by the last of them, at the beginning of the Reign of Terror. The year 1792, in which he acquired this much-prized 'Mercury,' is also the date of a remarkable discovery of no less than nineteen choice bronzes in one hoard, at Paramythia, in Epirus. They had, in all probability, been buried during nearly two thousand years. The story of the find is, in itself, curious. It shows too, in relief, the energy and perseverance which Mr. KNIGHT brought to his work of collectorship, and in which he was so much better employed -both for himself and for his country-than in philosophising upon human progress, from the standpoint of THIA, IN LUCRETIUS. Some incident or other of the weather had disclosed appearances which led, fortuitously, to a search of the ground into which these bronzes had been cast-perhaps during the invasion of Epirus, B.C. 167-and, by the finder, they were looked upon as so much saleable metal. Bought, as old brass, by a coppersmith of Joannina, they presently caught the eye of a Greek merchant, who called to mind that he had seen similar figures shown as treasures in a museum at Moscow. He made the purchase, and sent part of it, on speculation, to St. Petersburgh. The receiver brought them to the knowledge of the Empress CATHERINE, who intimated that she would buy, but died before the acquisition was paid for. They were then shared, it seems, between a Polish connoisseur and a Russian dealer. One THE BOARD OF BRONZES PARAMY EPIRUS. BOOK II, Chap. II. CLASSICAL ARCHFOLO GISTS AND bronze was brought to London by a Greek dragoman and shown to Mr. KNIGHT, who eagerly secured it, heard the story of the discovery, and sent an agent into Russia, who EXPLORERS. Succeeded in obtaining nine or ten of the sculptures found at Paramythia. Two others were given to Mr. KNIGHT by Lord ABERDEEN, who had met with them in his travels. They were all of early Greek work. Amongst them are figures of Serapis, of Apollo Didymæus, of Jupiter, and of one of the Sons of Leda. All these have been engraved among the Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, published by the Society of Dilettanti. Few sources of acquisition within the limits which he had laid down for himself escaped Mr. Payne KNIGHT'S research. He kept up an active correspondence with explorers and dealers. He watched Continental sales, and explored the shops of London brokers, with like assiduity. Coins, medals, and gems, shared with bronzes, and with the original drawings of the great masters of painting, in his affectionate pursuit. In his search for bronzes he welcomed choice and characteristic works from Egypt and from Etruria, as well as the consummate works of Greck genius. His numismatic. cabinet was also comprehensive, but its Greek coins were pre-eminent. For works in marble he had so little relish that he actually persuaded himself, by degrees, that the greatest artists of antiquity rarely 'condescended' to touch marble. But he collected a small number of busts in that material. For one volume of drawings by CLAUDE, Mr. KNIGHT gave the sum of sixteen hundred pounds. Among his later acquisitions of sculpture in brass was the This figure beautiful Mars in Homeric armour. was brought to England by Major BLAGRAVE in 1813. The very Chap. II. ARCHEOLO. Bacchic Mask (No. 35, in the second volume of the Speci- Book II, mens) was found, in the year 1674, near Nimeguen, in a CLASSICAL stone coffin. It was preserved by the Jesuits of Lyons, in their Collegiate Museum, until their dissolution. From them EXPLORERS. it passed into the possession of Mr. Roger WILBRAHAM, from whom Mr. KNIGHT obtained it. On the thorough study of the fine Collection which had been gathered from so many sources-here indicated by but a scanty sample-and on that of other choice Collections both at home and abroad, Mr. KNIGHT based the most elaborate—perhaps the most valuable-work of his life, next to his Museum itself. The Inquiry into the Symbolism of Greek Art and Mythology bears, indeed, too many traces of the narrowness of the author's range of thought, whenever he leaves the purely artistic criticism of which he was, despite his limitations, a master, in order to dissertate on the interdependence or on the 'priestcraft' of the religions of the world. But his genuine lore cannot be concealed by his flimsy philosophy. The student will gain from the Inquiry real knowledge about ancient art. He will find, indeed, not a few statements which the author himself would be the first to modify in the light of the new information of the last fifty years. But he will also find much which, in its time, proved to be suggestive and fruitful to other minds, and which prepared the way for wider and deeper studies. It may do so yet. The book is one which the student of archæology cannot afford to overlook. Whilst he may well afford a passing smile at the philosophic insight which prompted our author's eulogics (1) upon the liberal and humane spirit which still prevails among those nations whose religion is founded upon the principle of emanations; (2) upon the wisdom of the Siamese, who GISTS AND BOOK II, Chap. II. CLASSICAL ARCHEOLO GISTS AND shun disputes, and believe that almost all religions are good;' (3) on the supreme fitness of the idolatries of India 'to call forth the ideal perfections of art, by expanding and exalting EXPLORERS. the imagination of the artist; or (4) upon the exceptional Inquiry, &c., and pre-eminent capacity of the Hindoos to, become 'the most virtuous and happy of the human race,' but for that one solitary misfortune which cursed them with a priesthood.* p. 19. The Inquiry into Symbolism was, at first, printed only for private circulation, in 1818. It was afterwards reprinted in the Classical Journal, with some corrections by the author. It was again reprinted, after his death, as an appendix to the second volume of the Specimens of Ancient Sculpture. To the first volume of that work Mr. Payne KNIGHT ON ANCIENT had already prefixed his Preliminary Dissertation on the Progress of Ancient Sculpture. After showing that of Phoenician art we have no real knowledge other than that THE DIS- SCULPTURE. * That my needful abridgment, in the text, of Mr. Payne Knight's words may not misrepresent his meaning, I subjoin the whole of the passage:- Had this powerful engine of influence' [namely, loss of caste] 'been employed in favour of pure morality and efficient virtue, the Hindoos might have been the most virtuous and happy of the human race. But the ambition of a hierarchy has, as usual, employed it to serve its own particular interests instead of those of the community in general. Should the pious labours of our missionaries succeed in diffusing among them a more pure and more moral, but less uniform and less energetic system of religion, they may improve and exalt the character of individual men, but they will for ever destroy the repose and tranquillity of the mass. . . . The prevalence of European religion will be the fall of European domination. The incarnations which form the principal subject of sculpture in all the temples of India, Tibet, Tartary, and China, are, above all others, calculated to call forth the ideal perfections of the art, by expanding and exalting the imagination of the artist, and exciting his ambition to surpass the simple imitation of ordinary forms, in order to produce a model of excellence, worthy to be the corporeal habitation of the Deity. But this no nation of the East, nor indeed of the Earth, except the Greeks and those who copied them, ever attempted.'-Analytical Inquiry, &c., p. 80. ...... 1 1 |