Chap. II. ARCHEOLO GISTS AND c Mask (No. 35, in the second volume of the Speci- BOOK II, was found, in the year 1674, near Nimeguen, in a CLASSICAL coffin. It was preserved by the Jesuits of Lyons, in Collegiate Museum, until their dissolution. From them ed into the possession of Mr. Roger WILBRAHAM, hom Mr. KNIGHT obtained it. EXPLORERS. THE INQUIRY SYMBOLISM he thorough study of the fine Collection which had thered from so many sources-here indicated by but INTO THE y sample-and on that of other choice Collections t home and abroad, Mr. KNIGHT based the most MYTHOLOGY. te—perhaps the most valuable-work of his life, next Museum itself. The Inquiry into the Symbolism of Art and Mythology bears, indeed, too many traces of rowness of the author's range of thought, whenever es the purely artistic criticism of which he was, his limitations, a master, in order to dissertate on rdependence or on the 'priestcraft' of the religions of ld. But his genuine lore cannot be concealed by his hilosophy. The student will gain from the Inquiry owledge about ancient art. He will find, indeed, ew statements which the author himself would be t to modify in the light of the new information of fifty years. But he will also find much which, in , proved to be suggestive and fruitful to other and which prepared the way for wider and deeper It may do so yet. The book is one which the of archæology cannot afford to overlook. Whilst well afford a passing smile at the philosophic inhich prompted our author's eulogies (1) upon the and humane spirit which still prevails among those whose religion is founded upon the principle of >ns; (2) upon the wisdom of the 'Siamese, who BOOK II, 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 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.* Inquiry, &c., p. 19. THE DIS SERTATION 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 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 .... 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. it Chap. II. ARCHEOLO- EXPLORERS. is to be derived from the study of coins, and that BOOK II, be learnt that the Phoenicians had artisans, CLASSICAL may t artists, he goes on to survey Greek art in its sucphases. That art, at its best, finds, he thinks, a expression, or summary, in the saying ascribed to Us: It is for the sculptor to represent men as they obe, not as they really are.' He dates the culmiof Greek sculpture as ranging between the years 50 and 400, and as due to the national pride and which were excited by the defeat of XERXES and the which followed. He thinks that what was gained, artists of the next half-century, in ideal grace, and in ent refinements of workmanship, was obtained only oss of energy, of characteristic expression, and of ity-the 00s of art. In the works of LYSIPPUS school (B. C. 350-300), he sees a brief resusof the vigour of the former period, combined with more than the grace of the latter, to be followed only tly by those desolating wars in which the temples estroyed, their treasures of art pillaged, and for the first time, saw their works perish before res.' KNIGHT AND THE ELGIN MARBLES. › 'Dissertation,' as in the 'Inquiry,' there are many its and many reasonings to which subsequent dishave brought a tacit correction. The passage in MR. PAYNE er about the Elgin Marbles had to be corrected by ence of the author's own eyesight. His examination e Commons' Committee of 1816 was an amusing The key-note was struck by the witness's first To the question 'Have you seen the marbles to England by Lord ELGIN?' he replied, Yes. I ked them over.' But on this point, enough has already in a previous page. 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 Пlias 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. GROUP OF BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 'If we were to take away from the Museum Collection Considering the British Museum to be a National I want a poor student to have the same means of in- When you have given a hundred thousand pounds,-in ANTONIO PANIZZI-Eridence before Select Committee s of some early Donors of Books.-The Life and Col- Chap. III. Reader has now seen that, within some twelve or BOOK II, years, a Collection of Antiquities, comparatively small BOOKsignificant, was so enriched as to gain the aspect of a PUBLIC al Museum of which all English-speaking men might LOVERS AND BENEFAC TORS. H |