very and sources of the splendid collections which the Earl of ARUNDEL, by the persistent labours and the lavish expenditure of more than thirty years, had amassed. The surviving materials for such an account are, however, fragmentary. Those which are of chief interest occur in the correspondence which passed between the Earl and Sir Thomas RoE during the embassy of that eminent diplomatist to the Ottoman Porte in the years 1626-1628. The Earl's zeal as a collector, and the public attention which his personal successes in that character during his Italian travels had soon attracted, naturally excited a like ambition on the part of several of his contemporaries. Conspicuous in this respect were his brother-in-law the Earl of PEMBROKE, and his political rival and enemy the Duke of BUCKINGHAM. ARUNDEL'S Success in amassing many fine pictures had, in like manner, already attracted the attention of Prince CHARLES to that peculiarly fascinating branch of collectorship. BOOK I, Chap. IV. LECTOR OF DELIAN MSS. THE ARUN LECTIONS. DENCE WITH ROE. When Sir Thomas ROE set out for Constantinople he CORRESPONwas charged with commissions to search for antiquities on SIR THOMAS BUCKINGHAM's behalf, as well as on Lord ARUNDEL'S. He was himself a novice in such inquiries. He had to encounter excessive difficulties from the jealousy, and sometimes the dishonesty, of the Turkish and other agents whom he was obliged to employ. Most of them were stubborn in their belief that a search for old marbles did but mask the pursuit of buried treasure of greater currency. And to difficulties of this sort was added a standing fear that every service rendered to the Earl Marshal might be esteemed an offence to the powerful favourite at Whitehall. To an urgent letter which he had received from ARUNDEL just as he was embarking, Sir Thomas replied, from Constantinople, in January, 1622. 'I moved our Consul, Richard Book I, LECTOR OF MILWARD, at Scio, whom I found prepared and ready,' he reports. We conferred about "the Maid of Smirna " which he cannot yet obteyne, without an especiall comDELIAN MSS. mand [from the Porte]. I brought with mee from Messina the Bishop of Andre, one of the islands of the Arches, a man of good learning and great experience in these parts. Hee assured mee that the search after old and good authors was utterly vaine. . . . . The last French ambassador had the last gleanings. Only of some few he gave mee notice as of an old Tertullian, and a piece of Chrisostome . . . which may be procured to be copied, but not the originall. ... Concerning antiquities in marbles, there are many in divers parts, but especially at Delphos, unesteemed here, and, I doubt not, casy to be procured for the charge of digging and fetching, which must be purposely undertaken. It is supposed that many statues are buried to secure them from the envy of the Turks, and that, leave obteyned, [they] would come to light, which I will endeavour as soon as I am warm here.' After mentioning that he had already procured some coins, he adds, with amusing naïveté, ‘I have also a stone, taken out of the old pallace of Priam in Troy, cutt in horned shape, but because I neither can tell of what it is, nor hath it any other bewty but only the antiquity and truth of being a peece of that ruined and famous building, I will not presume to send it you. Yet I have delivered it to the same messenger, that your LordNegotiations, ship may see it and throw it away.' Sir T. Roe to Lord Arundel, 27 Jan., 1621 [0. S.]; p. 16. Two years afterwards the ambassador has to tell Lord ARUNDEL a mingled story of failure and success: 'The command you required for the Greeke to be sent into Morea I have sollicitted [of] two viziers, one after the other, butt they both rejected mee and gave answere, that it was no tyme to graunt such priviledges. Neare to the Chap IV. THE COL port they have not so great doubt and therefore I have BOOK I, prevailed with another, and [have] sent Mr. MARKHAM, assisted with a letter from the Caplen Bassa, whose jurisdiction extends to all the islands and sea-ports. LECTOR OF THE ARUN- On Asia side, about Troy, Zizicum, and all the way to Aleppo, are innumerable pillars, statues, and tombstones of marble, with inscriptions in Greeke. These may be fetcht at charge, and secrettly; butt yf wee ask leave it cannot be obteyned; therefore Mr. MARKHAM will use discretion Ibid, rather then power, and so the Turks will bring them for Nogotiations, their proffitt.' 10 May, 1623, p. 154. ROE's report encouraged Lord ARUNDEL to send an agent, named PETTY, on a special exploring mission into various parts of the Ottoman Empire. The agent thus selected was eminently fitted for his task, and showed himself to be a man of untiring industry. Very soon after PETTY's arrival at Constantinople, Sir Thomas ROE wrote to the Duke of BUCKINGHAM an account of his successful researches, and he prefaced it with an acknowledgement that by conference with Mr. PETTY, sent hither by my Lord of ARUNDELL, I have somewhat bettered my sckill in such figures. We have searched all this cyttye,' he proceeds to say, and found nothing but upon one gate, called anciently Porta Aurea, built by CONSTANTINE, bewtifyed with two mighty pillars, and upon the sides and over it, twelve tables of fine marble cutt into historyes,—some of a very great relevo, sett into the wall with small pillars as supporters. Most of the figures are equall; some above the life some less. They are in my eye-extremely Roe to the decayed, but Mr. PETTY doth so prayse them, as that he hath not seene much better in the great and costly collections of Italye. . . . The fower to which I have most affection. are both brave and sweete . . . The Duke of Buckingham, 11 May, 1625, Negotiations, pp. 386-7. Book I, LECTOR OF THE PRO POSED PAR TITION OF ANCIENT MARBLES BETWEEN relevo so high that they are almost statues, and doe but seeme to sticke to the ground.' In October of the same year Sir THOMAS sent an elaboDELIAN MSS. rate account to the Earl of ARUNDEL of the progress made by PETTY, and of his own exertions to provide him with every possible facility. He told the Earl of the difficulty of his own position towards the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, and besought him to admit of an arrangement by which the product of the joint exertions of ambassador and agent should be divided between the competitors. PETTY, he reports, hath visited Pergamo, Samos, Ephesus, and some other places, where he hath made your Lordship great provisions. I have given him forceable commands, and letters of recommendation from the Patriarch. I have bene free and open to him in whatsoever I knewe, and so I will continue for your Lordship's command. But your Lordship knowing that I have received the like from the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, and engaged my word to doe him service hee might judge it want of witt, or will, or creditt, if Mr. PETTY, who could doe nothing but by mee, should take all things before or from mee. Therefore to avoid all emulation, and that I might stand clear before two so great and honourable patrons, I thought I had made agreement with him for all our advantages. Therefore we resolved to take down those sixe mentioned relevos on Porta Aurea, and I proceeded so far as I offered 600 dollars for four of them, to bee divided between his Grace and your Lordship by lotts. And if your Lordship liked not the price, Mr. PETTY had his choice to forsake them. But now, I perceave, he hath entitled your Lordship to them all by some right that, if I could gett them, it were an injury to divide them. But I am sorry wee strive for the shadowe. Your Lordship may beleeve an honest man, and Chap. IV. your servant, I have tried the bassa,—the capteyne of the BOOK I, Castle, the overseer of the Grand Signor's works,—the soldiours that make that watch,-and none of them dare meddle. They [the sculptures] stand between two mighty pillars of marble, on other tables of marble supported with less pillars, uppon the cheife port of the Citty, the entrance by the Castle called "The Seaven Towres," which was never opened since the Greeke Emperour lost it, but a counterscarfe and another wall built before it. Roe to There is butt one way left in the world, which I will practice. . . . . If I gett them not, I will pronounce [that] no man, no ambassadour, shall ever bee able to doe it;except, also, the Grand Signor, for want, will sell the 30 Oct., 1625; Castle.' Arundel, Negotiations, pp. 444-446. Just before the date of this letter PETTY had suffered shipwreck on the coast of Asia, when returning from Samos. Together with his papers and personal baggage, he lost the fruits of long and successful researches. But his inexhaustible energies enabled him to recover what, to the men about him, seemed to have hopelessly perished. He found means to raise the buried marbles from the wreck. There was never man,' wrote Sir Thomas ROE, with the frank admiration of a congenial spirit, 'so fitted to an employment; that encounters all accidents with so unwearied patience; eates with Greekes on their worst dayes; lyes with fishermen on plancks, at the best; is all thinges to all men, that he may obteyne his ends, which p. 495. are your Lordship's service.' To Dr. GOADE, one of the chaplains of Archbishop ABBOT, Sir Thomas RoE continued the narrative of PETTY'S zealous researches, and of the success which attended them. 'By my means,' he wrote, 'Mr. PETTY had admittance into the best library known of Greece, where are loades of old 7 April, 1626, |