L ring also to a period then ninety years distant). At that BOOK III, Chap. VI. BENEFAC TORS OF DAYS. date, as at present, everything native to the soil, or pro- OTHER duced 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 Meteyard, the Museum a good many British beasts, British birds, and British books;-no " -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, V. Costumes, weapons, accoutrements, tools, furniture, indus- 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. THE BLACAS a AND ITS FOUNDERS, MUSEUM 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 1815-1860. BOOK III, OTHER TORS OF RECENT DAYS. FORMATION OF THE BLACAS 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. OTHER BENEFAC TORS OF DAYS. he had advised CHARLES X against the measures which BOOK III, precipitated that king into ruin; and when the obstinate or 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 fect, 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, CHARACTER OF THE COLLECTION. The late Duke of BLACAS augmented his father's collections 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 BOOK III, OTHER BENEFAC TORS OF DAYS. HUGH TRAVELS indubitable flesh and blood, are mingled with the more unsubstantial forms of Nereids, riding upon Tritons. Of the men devoted, in our own day, to the enchaining pursuits of Natural History, few better deserve a compeCUMING; HIS tent biographer than does Hugh CUMING, whose career, in its relation to the Museum history, has an additional interest for us from the circumstance that his course in life was partly shaped by his having attracted, in childhood, the notice of another worthy naturalist and public benefactor, Colonel George MONTAGU, of Lackham. AND HIS AND ELSE WHERE. 1791. See page 376. Young CUMING's childish fondness for picking up shells and gathering plants attracted Colonel MONTAGU's notice about the time that the boy was apprenticed to a sailmaker, living not far from the boy's native village, West Alvington, in Devon. The elder naturalist fostered the nascent passion of his young and humble imitator, and the trade of sailmaking brought CUMING, whilst still a boy, into contact with sailors. The benevolent and Nature-loving Colonel told the youngster some of the fairy tales of science; the tars spun yarns for him about the marvels of foreign parts. A few, and very few, years of work at his trade at home were followed by a voyage to South America. At Valparaiso he resumed his handicraft, but only as a step (by aid of frugality and foresight) towards saving enough of money to enable him to devote his whole being to conchology and to botany. Seven years of work under this inspiring ambition, seem to have enabled the man of five-and-thirty to retire from business, and to build himself a yacht. But his was to be no lounging yachtman's life; it was rather to resemble the life of an A.B. before the mast. The year 1827 was spent in toiling and dredging, to good purpose, amongst the islands of the South Pacific. When he re Chap. VI. BENEFAC TORS OF DAYS. of 1865; turned to Valparaiso, the retired sailmaker found that he BOOK III, had won fame, as well as many precious rarities in concho- OTHER logy and botany. The Chilian Government gave him special privileges and useful credentials. He then devoted RECENT two years to the thorough exploration of the coasts extending from Chiloë to the Gulf of Conchagua. He botanized Athenæum in plains, marshes and woods; he turned over shingle, and Returns preexplored the crannies of the cliffs, with the patient endurance of a Californian gold-digger, and was much happier .. in his companions. In 1831, he returned to England, with a modest but assured livelihood, and with inexhaustible treasures in shells and plants, of which multitudes were theretofore unseen and unknown in Europe. The year 1831 was a happy epoch for a conchologist. The Zoological Society had just gained a firm footing. BRODERIP and SOWERBY were ready to exhibit and to describe the rich shells of the Pacific. Richard OWEN was eager to anatomize the molluscs, and to write their biography. Some of the novelties brought over by CUMING in 1831 were still yielding new information thirty years afterwards; probably are yielding it still. In 1835, Mr. CUMING returned to America. He devoted four years to an exhaustive survey of the natural history— more especially, but far from exclusively, the conchology and the botany-of the Philippine group of islands, of Malacca, Singapore, and St. Helena. CUMING was fitted for his work not more by his scientific ardour and his patient toil-bearing, than by his amiable character. He loved children. His manner was so attractive to them that in some places to which he travelled a schoolful of children were extemporised into botanic missionaries. The joyous band would turn out for a holiday, and would spend the whole of it in searching for the plants, sented to Parliament, y. |