Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

BOOK III,
Chap. IV.
ANOTHER

GROUP OF
ARCHEOLO-

GISTS AND

EXPLORERS.

Newton,

in Guide,
as above,
p. 74; and

Travels and

Discoveries in

vol. ii,

and passim.

THE EX

OF NATHAN

DAVIS AT
CARTHAGE

AND UTICA.

whole structure was richly ornamented with colour. The tomb of MAUSOLUS was of the class called by the Greeks heröon, and so greatly excelled all other sepulchral monuments in size, beauty of design, and richness of decoration, that it was reckoned one of the "Seven Wonders of the World.""

While LAYARD was unearthing Nineveh; FELLOWS terant, bringing into the light of day the long-lost cities of Lycia; pp. 108-137; and Charles NEWTON restoring, before men's eyes, this funereal marvel of the ancient world, which had long been PLORATIONS known (in effect) only by dim memories and traditions ; Dr. Nathan Davis, in his turn, was exhuming Carthage and Utica. All these distinguished men were labouring, in common, for the enrichment of our National Museum, within a period of some twenty years. Three of them may be said to have been busied (in one way or other) with their self-denying tasks contemporaneously.* If we take into the account the variety, as well as the intrinsic worth, of the additions thus made to human knowledge; above all, if we duly estimate the value of those links of connection

* I shall not, I trust, be suspected of a want of gratitude for the eminent and most praiseworthy efforts of Mr. Davis-one of the many Americans who have returned, with liberal profuseness, the reciprocal obligations which all Americans owe to Britain (for their ancestry, and also for the noble interchange of benefits between parent and offspring, prior to 1776; if for nought else), if I venture to remark that the abovewritten passage in the text has been inserted somewhat hesitatingly, as far as it concerns the date of the Carthaginian explorations. No index; no summary; no marginal dates; conflicting and obscure dates, when any dates appear anywhere; no introduction, which introduces anything; scarcely any divarication of personal knowledge and experiences, from borrowed knowledge and experiences; such are some of the difficulties which await the student of Carthage and her Remains. Yet the book is full of deep interest; its author is, none the less, a benefactor to Britain,

and to the world.

Chap. IV.

GROUP OF

GISTS AND

between things human and things divine, which are the Book III, most essential characteristic of some of the best of these ANOTHER acquisitions, it may well be said that the annals of no ARCHEOLO museum in the world can boast of such an enrichment as this, by the efforts of the travellers and the archæologists of one generation. And all of these explorers are-in one sense or other-Britons.

On one incidental point, I have to express a hope that the reader will pardon what he may be momentarily inclined to think an over-iteration of remark. If I have really adverted somewhat too frequently to the connection which many of these rich archæological acquisitions, of 1842-1861, present between the annals of man and the Book of GOD, I have this to plead, in extenuation: Certain writers pass over that connection so hurriedly as almost to lose sight of it. And we live in an age in which some of our own countrymen—some of those among us to whom the Creator has been most bounteous in the bestowal of the glorious gifts of mind and genius—have even spoken of our best of all literary possessions as 'Jew-Records,' and 'Hebrew old-clothes.' Those particular expressions, indeed, were employed long before the arrival of the Assyrian Marbles. But I think I have seen them quoted since.

Among the spoils of Carthage and of Utica which we owe to Dr. Nathan DAVIS, are many rich mosaic pavements, of the second and third centuries of our era, and a multitude of Phoenician and Carthaginian inscriptions, extending in date over several centuries. And it must be added that many of the antiquities, and more especially of the mosaics, excavated under Dr. DAVIS's instructions at Utica, were found to possess greater beauty, and a more varied interest, than most of those which were disinterred by him

EXPLORERS.

THE SPOILS

OF CAR

HAGE AND

UTICA.

BOOK III, Chap. IV. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS.

OTHER CON

SPICUOUS
AUGMEN

TORS OF THE
GALLERIES

OF ANTI

QUITIES.

from amidst the ruins of Carthage. Many of these, like
some of the choice treasures of Nineveh, are, in a sense, still
buried-for want of room at the British Museum ade-
quately to display them. The reader may yet, but too
fitly, conceive of some of them as piteously crying out
(in 1870, as in 1860)-

'Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion,
Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother;
None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine;
Here in disorder we lie, like desolate bones in a charnel.'

Many other liberal benefactors to the several Archæological Departments of the Museum deserve record in this chapter. But the record must needs be a mere catalogue, not a narrative; and even the catalogue will be an abridged

one.

Foremost among the discoverers of valuable remains of Greek antiquity, subsequent to most of those which have now been detailed, are to be mentioned Mr. George DENNIS, who explored Sicily in 1862 and subsequent years; and Captain T. A. B. SPRATT, who travelled over Lycia and the adjacent countries, following in the footsteps of Sir Charles FELLOWS, and who enjoyed the advantage of the company and co-operation of two able and estimable fellow-travellers, Lycia, Mityas, Edward FORBES and Edward Thomas DANIELL, both of whom, like their honoured precursor in Lycian exploration, have been many years lost to us.

Spratt and

Forbes'

Travels in

and the

Cibyrates

(2 vols, 1847), passim.

The antiquities collected in Sicily by DENNIS, at the national cost, were chiefly from the tombs. They included very many beautiful Greek vases, a collection of archaic terra-cottas, and other minor antiquities.* Some of the

* These were given to the Museum by Lord Russell, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Lord Russell was one of the earliest of

marbles discovered by SPRATT are of the Macedonian period, BOOK III, and probably productions of the school of Pergamus.

Chap. IV.
ANOTHER
GROUP OF
ARCHEOLO-

EXPLORERS.

Reports of

Museum;

subsequent

At Camerus and elsewhere, in the island of Rhodes, important excavations were carried on by Messrs. BILIOTTI GISTS AND and SALZMANN. These also were effected at the public charge. In the course of them nearly three hundred tombs British were opened, and many choicely painted fictile vases of the 1864, and best period of Greek ceramography were found. Those years. researches at Rhodes were the work of the years 1862, 1863, and 1864. In 1865, the excavations at Halicarnassus were resumed by order of the Trustees, and under the direction of the same explorers, and with valuable results. In 1864, an important purchase of Greek and Roman statues, and of the sculptures from the Farnese Collection at Rome, was made. In the following year came an extensive series of antiquities from the famous Collection of the late Count POURTALÉS. Of the precious objects obtained by the researches of Mr. Consul WOOD, at Ephesus, in the same and subsequent years, a brief notice will be found in Chapter VI.

the Foreign Secretaries who began a new epoch, in this department of public duty, by setting new official precedents of regard and forethought for the augmentation of the national collections.

BOOK III,
Chap.V
.V.

THE
FOUNDER
OF THE

GRENVILLE
LIBRARY.

CHAPTER V.

THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE

LIBRARY.

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,
Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading;
Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.'--
Henry VIII.

If a man be not permitted to change his political
opinions-when he has arrived at years of discretion-he
must be born a SOLOMON.'-

W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,
(vol. viii, p. 237).

The GRENVILLES and their Influence on the Political Aspect

of the Georgian Reigns.-The Public and Literary Life of the Right Honourable Thomas GRENVILLE.— History of the GRENVILLE Library.

Ir was the singular fortune of Thomas GRENVILLE to belong to a family which has given almost half a score of ministers to England; to possess in himself large diplo matic ability; and to have been gifted—his political opponents themselves being judges—with considerable talents for administration; and yet, in the course of a life protracted to more than ninety years, to have been an active diplomatist during less than one year, and to have been a Minister of State less than half a year. It is true that he was of that happy temperament which both enables and tempts a man to carve out delightful occupation for himself. He had, too, those rarely combined gifts of taste, fortune, and public spirit, which inspire their possessor with the will,

« ElőzőTovább »