BOOK II, Chap. I. NOTICE OF MORTON, to edit, in his capacity as one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society, to which office he had been appointed in 1765. Among his minor literary publications are a life of BOERHAAVE, in French, and one of Dr. Richard MEAD, in English. At the time of his death he was working on the Life of Lord Chesterfield, afterwards prefixed to the collective edition of the Earl's Miscellaneous Works. Dr. MATY died in 1776, and was succeeded in his Librarianship by his colleague, Dr. Charles MORTON, who had had, from the beginning, the charge of the department of Manuscripts, and had also acted as Secretary to the Trustees. Dr. MORTON was a native of Westmoreland, and was born in 1716. Until the year 1750 he had practised as a physician at Kendal. In 1751 he became a Licentiate of LIBRARIAN the College of Physicians, and in the following year a PRINCIPAL Fellow of the Royal Society. His service in the British Museum lasted from 1756 to 1799. There are several testimonies to the courtesy with which he treated such visitors and students as came under his personal notice, but his long term of superior office was certainly not marked by any striking improvement in the public economy of the Museum. And how much room for improvement existed there the reader has seen. Dr. MORTON, like his predecessor, was one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society. He filled that office from the year 1760 to 1774. He contributed several papers to the Philosophical Transactions, as well on antiquarian subjects as on topics of physical science, and he was the first editor of Bulstrode WHITELOCKE's remarkable narrative of his embassy to Sweden during the Protectorate. MORTON's writings are not remarkable either for vigour or for originality, but, on more topics than one, they had the useful result of setting abler men awork. He was three times married: (1) to Chap. I. EARLY BERKELEY, the niece of SWIFT's frequent corre- BOOK II, nt Lady Elizabeth GERMAINE; (2) to Lady SAVILE; Mrs. Elizabeth PRATT. He died on the 10th Feb1799. his successors in the office of Principal Librarian ccount will be found in the Introductory Chapter of II. HISTORY OF THE BRITISH BOOK II, Chap. II. CLASSICAL GISTS AND CHAPTER II. A GROUP OF CLASSICAL ARCHEOLOGISTS "The Archæologist cannot, like the Scholar, carry on his researches in his own Library, independent of outward circumstances. For his work of reference and collation he must travel, excavate, collect, arrange, delineate, transcribe, before he can place his whole subject before his mind. A Museum of Antiquities is to the Archeologist what a Botanic Garden is to the Botanist. It presents his subject compendiously, synoptically, suggestively, not in the desultory and accidental order in which he would otherwise be brought into contact with its details.' C. T. NEWTON, On the Study of Archaology, p. 26. Sir William HAMILTON and his Pursuits and Employments in Italy. The Acquisitions of the French Institute of Egypt, and the capture of part of them at Alexandria. Charles TowNELEY and his Collection of Antiquities.-The Researches of the Earl of ELGIN in Greece. -The Collections and Writings of Richard PAYNE KNIGHT. To the comparatively small assemblage of antiquities which originally formed part of the Museum of CoURTEN ARCHEOLO and of SLOANE, several additions had been made-besides EXPLORERS. the coins, medals, and bronzes of Sir Robert COTTONprior to the opening of the British Museum to the Public in 1759. Some of those additions were the gift, severally, of three members of the LETHIEULLIER family. Others were of Thomas HOLLIS, who became a constant bene- BOOK II, o the Museum almost from the day of Sir Hans CICA 's death to that of his own. CLASSICAL EGYPTIAN OF THE LIERS. MS. Addit., LETHIEULLIER antiquities had been chiefly gathered EXPLORERS. t. The first gift was made by the Will of Colonel THE LETHIEULLIER, dated 23rd July, 1755. And ANTIQUITIES catalogue of any kind which was prepared for the LETHIEULMuseum, after its acquisition by Parliament, was a ese antiquities drawn up by Dr. John WARD, one rustees. And here it may deserve remark that for ears after the foundation not a few of the Trustees large share in the actual work of preparing the ■for public use, as well as in the ordinary duties of and administration. e gift of Colonel William LETHIEULLIER, his cousin, ■ETHIEULLIER, and his nephew, Pitt LETHIEULLIER, veral additions between the years 1756 and 1770. -named of these gentlemen, when receiving, as exhis uncle, the personal thanks of a Committee of the (February, 1756), for the bequest so made, took ortunity of augmenting it by the gift of some es which he had himself collected during his e at Grand Cairo. he first large and comprehensive addition in the gical department was that made in 1772 by the , by means of a Parliamentary grant, of the Museum uities, which had been formed during seven years' es in Italy by Sir William HAMILTON, Our AmbasNaples. 6179, f. 29. HAMILTON illiam HAMILTON was among the earliest of British SIR WILLIAM ists who, by a voluntary choice, turned to good in the interests of learning and of the public, the NAPLES. AND HIS CAREER AT BOOK II, GISTS AND EXPLORERS. opportunities which diplomatic life so frequently offers for amassing treasures of literature and science, and (in many cases) for saving them from peril of destruction. In that path Frenchmen had showed the way many generations earlier. As far, indeed, as regards a public and national care for matters of the intellect, France is far better entitled to claim a priority in the proud distinction of teaching the nations how to live,' than is any other country in the world. It is to her immortal honour that from a very early period, and even in times of sore trouble, her sovereigns and her statesmen have known how to turn public resources to the promotion of public culture, as well as of national power. A man may read in French diplomatic letters of instruction of the sixteenth century orders to collect manuscripts and antiquities, as implements of public education, such as he would look for in vain in parallel British documents of any century at all-inclusive of the present;--although it is certain that the omission has by no means arisen from the engrossment of our diplomatists in weightier con cerns. In Sir William HAMILTON'S case the liberal tastes and the mental energy of the individual supplied the defect of his instructions. He set an example which not a few of our ambassadors have voluntarily followed with like public spirit, and with results not less conspicuous. William HAMILTON was the fourth son of Lord Archibald HAMILTON, youngest son of James, third Duke of HAMILTON, K.G. His mother, Lady Jane HAMILTON, was of that illustrious family by birth, as well as by marriage, being the daughter of James, sixth Earl of ABERCORN. He was born in the year 1730. |