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Chap. II.

ARCHEOLO

GISTS AND

EXPLORERS.

which is to be derived from the study of coins, and that BOOK II, thence it may be learnt that the Phoenicians had artisans, CLASSICAL but not artists, he goes on to survey Greek art in its successive phases. That art, at its best, finds, he thinks, a typical expression, or summary, in the saying ascribed to LYSIPPUS: It is for the sculptor to represent men as they seem to be, not as they really are.' He dates the culmination of Greek sculpture as ranging between the years B.C. 450 and 400, and as due to the national pride and energy which were excited by the defeat of XERXES and the events which followed. He thinks that what was gained, by the artists of the next half-century, in ideal grace, and in the fluent refinements of workmanship, was obtained only by a loss of energy, of characteristic expression, and of originality-the 00s of art. In the works of LYSIPPUS and his school (B.C. 350-300), he sees a brief resuscitation of the vigour of the former period, combined with much more than the grace of the latter, to be followed only too swiftly by those desolating wars in which the temples were destroyed, their treasures of art pillaged, and artists, for the first time, saw their works perish before themselves.'

KNIGHT AND
THE ELGIN

MARBLES.

In the Dissertation,' as in the Inquiry,' there are many statements and many reasonings to which subsequent discoveries have brought a tacit correction. The passage in MR. PAYNE the former about the Elgin Marbles had to be corrected by the evidence of the author's own eyesight. His examination before the Commons' Committee of 1816 was an amusing The key-note was struck by the witness's first words. To the question 'Have you seen the marbles brought to England by Lord ELGIN?' he replied, Yes. I have looked them over.' But on this point, enough has been said already in a previous page.

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BOOK II,
Chap. 11.
CLASSICAL
ARCHEOLO-

GISTS AND

Both to the Edinburgh Review and to the Classical Journal Mr. KNIGHT was a frequent and valuable contributor. It was in the latter periodical that his Prolegomena EXPLORERS. to HOMER were first given to the world, although he had printed a small edition (limited to fifty copies) for private circulation, as early as in the year 1808.* His latest poetical work, the Romance of Alfred, I have never had the opportunity of reading.

Richard Payne KNIGHT died on the twenty-fourth of April, 1824, in the 75th year of his age. He bequeathed his whole Collections to the British Museum, of which he had long been a zealous and faithful Trustee. He made no conditions, other than that his gift should be commemorated by the addition to the Trust of a perpetual KNIGHT Family Trustee.'

For this purpose a Bill was introduced into Parliament by Lord COLCHESTER on the eighth of June. It received the royal assent on the seventeenth.

The addition of Mr. KNIGHT'S Greek Coins made the British Museum superior, in that department, to the Royal Museum of Paris; the addition of his bronzes raised it above the famous Museum of Naples. By the most competent judges it has been estimated that, if the Collection had been sold by public auction, Mr. KNIGHT's representatives would probably have obtained for it the sum of sixty thousand pounds.

*Carmina Homerica Ilias et Odyssea a rapsidorum interpolationibus repurgata, et in pristinam formam . . . . redacta; cum notis ac prolegomenis, opera et studio Richardi Payne Knight. 1808, 8vo.

• ...

CHAPTER III.

A GROUP OF BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC

BENEFACTORS.

'If we were to take away from the Museum Collection
[of Books] the King's Library, and the collection which
George the Third gave before that, and then the
magnificent collection of Mr. Cracherode, as well as
those of Sir William Musgrave, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir
Richard Colt Hoare, and many others,-and also all the
books received under the Copyright Act,-if we were to
take away all the books so given, I am satisfied not one
half of the books [in 1836], nor one third of the value of
the Library, has been procured with money voted by the
Nation. The Nation has done almost nothing for the
Library.

Considering the British Museum to be a National
Library for research, its utility increases in proportion
with the very rare and costly books, in preference to
modern books.
I think that scholars have a right
to look, for these expensive works, to the Government of
the Country.

'I want a poor student to have the same means of in-
dulging his learned curiosity,-of following his rational
pursuits, of consulting the same authorities,-of fathom-
ing the most intricate inquiry,-as the richest man in the
kingdom, as far as books go. And I contend that Govern-
ment is bound to give him the most liberal and unlimited
assistance in this respect. I want the Library of the
British Museum to have books of both descriptions..

When you have given a hundred thousand pounds,-in ten or twelve years, you will begin to have a library worthy of the British Nation.'

ANTONIO PANIZZI-Eridence before Select Committee

on British Museum, 7th June, 1836. (Q. 4785-4795.)

Notices of some early Donors of Books.-The Life and Collections of Clayton Mordaunt CRACH ERODE.-William PETTY, first Marquess of Lansdowne, and his Library of Manuscripts.-The Literary Life and Collections of Dr. Charles BURNEY.-Francis HARGRAVE and his Manuscripts.-The Life and Testamentary Foundations of Francis Henry EGERTON, Ninth Earl of Bridgewater.

THE Reader has now seen that, within some twelve or fifteen years, a Collection of Antiquities, comparatively small and insignificant, was so enriched as to gain the aspect of a National Museum of which all English-speaking men might

BOOK II,

Chap. III.

BOOK

LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS.

BOOK II,
Chap. III.
BOOK.

LOVERS AND

PUBLIC
BENEFAC-

TORS.

be proud, and mere fragments of which enlightened Foreign Sovereigns were under sore temptation to covet. He has seen, also, that the praise of so striking a change was due, in the main, to the public spirit and the liberal endeavours of a small group of antiquarians and scholars. They were, most of them, men of high birth, and of generous education. They were, in fact, precisely such men as, in the jargon of our present day, it is too much the mode to speak of as the antitheses of the People,' although in earlier days men of that strain were thought to be part of the very core and kernel of a nation.

But if it be undeniably true that the chief and primary merit of so good a piece of public service was due to the HAMILTONS, TOWNELEYS, ELGINS, and KNIGHTS of the last generation, it is also true that the Public, through their representatives, did, at length, join fairly in the work by bearing their part of the cost, though they could share neither the enterprise, the self-denial, nor the wearing toils, which the work had exacted.

Now that the story turns to another department of the National Museum, we find that the same primary and salient characteristic-private liberality of individuals, as distinguished from public support by the Kingdom-still holds good. But we have to wait a very long time indeed, before we perceive public effort at length falling into rank with private, in the shape of parliamentary grants for the purchase of books, calculated even upon a rough approximation towards equality.

As COTTON, SLOANE, HARLEY, and Arthur EDWARDS, were the first founders of the Library, so BIRCH, Musgrave, TYRWHITT, CRACHERODE, BANKS, and HOARE, were its chief augmentors, until almost ninety years had elapsed since the Act of Organization. Of the Collections of those

Chap. III.

ten benefactors, eight came by absolute gift. For the other Book II, two, much less than one half of their value was returned to Bookthe representatives of the founders. And that, it has been LOVERS AND shown, was provided, not by a parliamentary grant, but out BENEFACof the profits of a lottery.

PUBLIC

TORS.

The first important addition to the Library, subsequent to those gifts which have been mentioned in a preceding chapter as nearly contemporaneous with the creation of the Museum, was made by the Will of Dr. Thomas BIRCH, One BEQUest of of the original Trustees. It comprised a valuable series of manuscripts, rich in collections on the history, and especially the biographical history, of the realm, and a considerable number of printed books of a like character.

Dr. BIRCH was born in 1705, and died on the ninth of January, 1766. He was one of the many friends of Sir Hans SLOANE, in the later years of Sir Hans' life. When the Museum was in course of organization, BIRCH acted not only as a zealous Trustee, but he occasionally supplied the place of Dr. MORTON as Secretary. His literary productions have real and enduring value, though their value would probably have been greater had their number been less. His activity is sufficiently evidenced by the works which he printed, but can only be measured when the large manuscript collections which he bequeathed are taken into the account. Very few scholars will now be inclined to echo Horace WALPOLE's inquiry-made when he saw the Catalogue of the Birch MSS.-Who cares for the correspondence of Dr. BIRCH ?'

DR. THOMAS

BIRCH,

January,

1766.

DAVID

Soon after the receipt of the BIRCH Collection, a choice BEQUEST OF assemblage of English plays was bequeathed to the Museum GARRICK, by David GARRICK. Its formation had been one of the January, favourite relaxations of the great actor. And the study of

1779.

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