Chap. VI. OTHER BENEFAC- his collection by giving it to the British Museum. When BOOK III, his health failed, he began to superintend in person the packing up of the most valuable portions of his museum; but illness grew upon him, and he was forced to leave off his preparations abruptly. A delicate circumstance connected with his family circle seems to have combined with this regretted interruption, by increasing illness, of his precautionary measures and intentions (the secure fulfilling of which lay near his heart), to make him uneasy and anxious. He sent for a legal friend, Dr. ZAMBELLI; told him of his plans, and also of his fears that they might be in the event of his sudden death, and he felt that death was fast coming-obstructed. ZAMBELLI told him that the person to whom his purpose and wishes ought to be communicated, without delay, was undoubtedly the British Consul-General, Mr. SAUNDERS. In joint communication with both of them, a deed of gift was prepared. 'Having been engaged,' said the donor, in numismatic pursuits, .. and being desirous that the Collection of Coins and other Antiquities so formed by me, should be dedicated to national purposes, I give,' and so on. No inventory, however, had been made when the donor died, on the twenty-sixth of February, 1866. Before WOODHOUSE's death, Mr. Consul-General SAUNDERS put a guard round the house; and, immediately after the event, sent away all the household, taking official possession of the whole of the effects, in the manner usual in cases of undoubted intestacy.* He then, according to his own statement, set about 'selecting such portions' of Mr. WOOD . * This, I think, has been clearly shown by the correspondence laid before Parliament. The reader is referred to the papers of the session of 1867, entitled Correspondence as to the Woodhouse Collection of Antiquities, printed by order of Lord Derby, as Foreign Secretary. RECENT DAYS. THE CIR CUMSTANCES OF THE WOODHOUSE BEQUEST. BOOK III, RECENT HOUSE's property as 'seemed' (to him and to a clerical friend of the collector) suitable for the British Museum.' Most naturally, when the intelligence came to the Museum, it was thought by the Trustees that Mr. SAUNDERS had both very seriously exceeded, and very gravely fallen short of, his obvious official duty. Selection' was felt to have been superfluous in respect to any and every item, of every kind, belonging to the donor's museum. Just as plainly, the instant forwarding of the whole, on the other hand, was a peremptory obligation upon the British Consul. Eventually (and by the zealous exertions of Sir A. PANIZZI and of Mr. Charles NEWTON, respectively, on behalf of the Trustees) conclusive evidence was placed before Lord STANLEY (the now Earl of DERBY, and then, it will be remembered, Foreign Secretary of State) that Mr. ConsulGeneral SAUNDERS had divided the Woodhouse antiquities into two portions, and had then proceeded to allot the smaller portion to the British Museum, and the larger to the 'heirs-at-law' of the deceased. Nor is it yet quite certain that such division was all the division that occurred. After long inquiries and much correspondence-as well between the Foreign Office and the Queen's Advocate, as between the Trustees and their officers on the one hand, and various persons at Corfu, including, of course, the ConsulGeneral himself, on the other-Lord STANLEY touched the point of the affair with characteristic keenness when he wrote, in his despatch to Mr. SAUNDERS of the seventh of January, 1867: Your neglect to make an Inventory of the effects of the deceased has been the main cause of the doubts which have been felt as to the propriety of your conduct in this matter, and of the inquiry which has been the consequence of those doubts.' But that neglect was then incurable. And, subsequently Chap. VI. to the despatch thus worded, further inquiry has but made BOOK III, the omission more regrettable. The making of the Inventory had been pressed on Mr. SAUNDERS' attention at the time of the Collector's death. to RECENT Newton; in Returns to of the year That part of the WOODHOUSE Museum which came England in 1866 included a very interesting Collection of Greek Coins, chiefly from Corcyra, Western Greece, and 1866. the Greek islands; an extensive series of rings and other personal ornaments; some ancient glass; a few medallions; a few sculptures, in marble, of doubtful antiquity; and last, but far indeed from being least acceptable, a most beautiful head of Athené in cameo, cut on a sardonyx. It was thought by the antiquary VISCHER-who saw this fine cameo about the year 1854-that it represents the head of PHIDIAS' famous statue in gold and ivory, and therefore had a common origin with the jasper intaglio so often praised archaeologi by archæologists who have seen the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna. Vischer, sche Beiträge aus Griechenland, p. 2. LORD NAPIER OF AND THE MUSEUM OF THE ANTIQUITIES ABYSSINIA, Some of my readers will remember that although war, and the calamities which commonly accompany it, have MAGDALA, often devastated museums and libraries, it has occasionally enriched them. Sometimes by sheer plunder, as under TO THE CATHARINE of Russia and the marshals of her predatory armies. Sometimes by acts of genuine beneficence and AND MSS. or public spirit, as in Ireland under BLOUNT (afterwards Earl of Devonshire); and, again, under the great Protector. Lord NAPIER adds his honoured name to the small category of the soldiers who have justifiably turned victorious arms to the profit of learning, and the enrichment of honestly builtup national collections. I cannot, however, but regard as utterly unworthy of the British arms and name certain 1867-8. BOOK III, OTHER TORS OF RECENT THE COL LECTION OF SACRA- PLATE IN acquisitions which were incidental to that campaign. 'Mr. HOLMES, the officer attached to the Abyssinian Expedition by the Trustees of the British Museum'-I quote exactly and literally from the Accounts and Estimates' of last year (1869)-'collected . . . among other objects, a silver chalice and a paten bearing Æthiopic inscriptions, showing them to have been given to various churches by King THEODORE.' I am certain to be uncontradicted when I assert, that neither the Trustees of the British Museum, nor Lord NAPIER of Magdala, instructed Mr. HOLMES to take from Christian churches in Abyssinia their sacramental plate, or their processional crosses. It is a far pleasanter task to praise the diligence with which Mr. HOLMES executed the Commission really given him by the Trustees. He collected many specimens of Abyssinian art and industry which were fit contributions to the National Museum. In like manner, Lord NAPIER ABYSSINIAN authorised the collection, partly by officers under his comMSS. mand, and partly by the researches of Mr. HOLMES, of a THE COL LECTION OF THE SLADE series of Abyssinian Manuscripts, extending to three hundred and thirty-nine volumes. These were given to the Museum by the then Secretary of State for India. In the same year with the Abyssinian spoils, came a noble addition to the Art Collections of the Museum by the bequest of the late Felix SLADE, and a rich addition to the Library, by the purchase of the Japanese books collected by the late Dr. VON SIEBOLD, during the later of his two visits to Japan, a country which he so largely contributed to make well known to the rest of the world. Felix SLADE was the younger son of Robert SLADE, in his day a well-known Proctor in Doctors' Commons. Mr. William SLADE, elder brother of Felix, had inherited the Chap. VI. valuable estate of Halsteads in Lonsdale (Yorkshire), under Book III, the will of the last male-heir of that family, and on his early death he was succeeded by his brother, the benefactor. BENEFAC TORS OF DAYS. Truly a benefactor.' To purposes of public charity he RECENT bequeathed not less than seven thousand pounds, and bequeathed that sum with wise forethought, and with Christian generality of view. He founded and munificently endowed Professorships of Art at each of the ancient Universities, and at University College in London. To the British Museum he gave the splendid bequest about to be described, which had been selected with exquisite taste, knowledge and judgment, and which, under such rare conditions of purchase, had cost him more than twenty-five thousand pounds. I describe it in the precise words-chiefly from the pen of one of his Executors-which are used in the Return to Parliament of 1869 :-'The collection of glass THE SLADE and other antiquities bequeathed to the Nation by the late Felix SLADE, Esq., F.S.A., includes about nine hundred and TIES. fifty specimens of ancient glass, selected with care, so as to represent most of the phases through which the art of glassworking has passed. Collected in the first instance with a view to artistic beauty alone, the series has been since gradually enriched with historical specimens, as well as with curiosities of manufacture, so as to illustrate the history of glass in all its branches. 'Of early Egyptian glass there are not many examples in the collection; one of some interest is a case for holding the stibium, used by the Egyptian ladies for the eye, and which is in the form of a papyrus sceptre. The later productions of Egypt are represented by some very minute specimens of mosaic glass, formed of slender filaments of various colours fused together, and cut into transverse sections. MUSEUM OF ANTIQUI 1869. |
