N
346.5
G720985
BURGON
SOME REMARKS ON ART
WITH REFERENCE TO THE
STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
I
r n s
SOME REMARKS ON ART
WITH REFERENCE TO
THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN
Disce, docendus adliuc quae censet amioulus ; ut si
Caecus iter monstrare velit, tanion aspice, si quid
Et nos, quod cures propriura fecisse, loquamur."
HOKAT. Ep.i. 17,35.
SOME REMARKS ON ART
THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO
THE REV. RICHARD GRESWELL, B.D.,
TUTOR (LATK FELLOW) OF WORCESTER COLLEGE,
BY JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, B.A.,
OF WORCESTER COLLEGE.
OXFOKD:
FRANCIS MACPHERSON.
1846.
Imitation of Horace, Ep. i. 17., 3 5.
By an Anonymous hand.
Just give me leave, (although I don't pretend
Much wit myself,) to counsel, as a friend.
Blind as a bat, I own : a mere B.A. ;
And your own pupil, Sir, 'till yesterday ;
And yet, who knows ? in what has here been writ,
With all its want of learning, method, wit,
Something there may be, pertinent and true ;
Well worth the notice of the Dons and you !
a
SOME REMARKS ON ART,
ETC.
MY DEAR MR. GRESWELL,
I WISH to offer a few remarks on the subject of Art,
in connection with this University : its importance in
a place consecrated to liberal studies : the great neglect
under which it labours : and the possible means of
giving it a larger share of the attention to which it
seems so well entitled : and I know of no one here to
whom those remarks can be addressed with so much
propriety as to yourself. Independent of all feelings of
respect for your learning, and gratitude for your friend-
ship, the circumstance of your having written a paper
in 1843, " On Education in the Principles of Art," and
advocated its claims before the Ashmolean Society,
would have been sufficient to guide me to you.
I am well aware that owing to the distance between
our respective positions in this place, much that would
command respect and attention from you, whose office
it is to teach, would be wholly unimportant from me,
whose business (and inclination) is only to learn. You
B
2 THE AVRITEK S APOLOGY
are at liberty to complain of " a positive and notorious
defect in our system of education," where silence would
best befit me. However; such an admission on your part
has all the force of a sanction of the present endeavour:
and the same kind indulgence which so readily gave me
permission to address these remarks in the quarter I
desired, will, I am inclined to believe, readily acquit me
of any unbecoming feelings in approaching such a ques-
tion. It is hoped that others, to whom their author is
unknown, will not misinterpret him. Those whose
nature it is to feel warmly and strongly, often, half-un-
consciously, express themselves warmly and strongly too.
Hence one often seems to dictate, when one desires only
to suggest : to be laying down a law, when one merely
seeks to interpret a law already existing though not
generally recognised, because it is unwritten. If some
competent person would have taken the subject into
serious consideration, it would have been very agreeable
to me to remain silent: but not only does no one come
publicly forward, but (so far as my limited opportunities
have enabled me to observe), the subject is scarcely ever
so much as mooted among us : or if it be, it is quickly
suffered to drop. It seems admitted, by tacit consent,
that we are not well-read in Art ; and one observes that
really learned and intelligent men, (with a degree of
modesty which one cannot but secretly admire and wish
to imitate), shrink from discussions where both the
Opponent and the Respondent are in the dark ; or, to
say the least, see their way but indistinctly. In some
places men write and talk with increased ^volubility, pro-
portioned to their deficiency of real acquaintance with
the subject under consideration ; but it certainly is not
the case here.
FOR TJIE I'RRSKNT KEMAKKSS. 3
As for these remarks being written in any undutiful
spirit, or suggested by any inclination to find fault with
one's elders and betters, it is too absurd a suspicion, I
should hope, to enter any one's head : and so I shall
take no pains to refute it. The deep, the unspeakable
obligations every man owes to Oxford, who has had
the blessing of being educated within her walls, can
inspire him with none but affectionate feelings towards
her. If an intense liking for her and for her system, and
an ardent desire to see her great and good in every way
(as she is great and good in most ways), be undutiful
and reprehensible, then indeed (but I trust not other-
wise), reprehensible and undutiful I am, and hope ever
to remain And after these few remarks, it is hoped
that it will be sufficiently clear why I shall abstain in
what follows from noticing our relative position ; why
I do not inquire whether our neighbours may not be as
behindhand as ourselves; for this seems quite the wrong
way to seek for improvement, whether in morals or any
other department. If it shall appear that we are de-
ficient, and that something may easily be achieved to sup-
ply our deficiency, it seems to me that we are possessed of
all the facts we require : and whatever want of know-
ledge may be betrayed by him who shall venture to
point out that deficiency, whatever want of ability
manifested in suggesting that remedy, it is not too
much perhaps to hope that the zeal which prompted the
endeavour may inspire some sympathy, though it may
fail to carry entire conviction : and so, indirectly at
least, be attended with that success, which, in abler
hands, so good a cause must have commanded, infallibly
and immediately.
The absence of all Enthusiasm for Art, alluded to just
4 THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM.
now, as generally evidenced among us in conversation,
seems painfully reflected on the external features of our
University. I am not of course speaking of all Art. I do
not allude to Architecture. I am well aware that we
inhabit a city of palaces. You will have readily under-
stood my allusion, from the first, to be to specimens of
the other arts of design, as Sculpture, Painting, and the
like. With the exception of the venerable collection
of Elias Ashmole, we possess nothing which is called a
" Museum." True indeed it is that Ashmole's was the
first Museum in England : that the first actual step was
taken in Oxford; but we seem to have stood still (in this
department) for about two hundred years. We have
added little to the (so-called) objects of virtu brought
together by the taste and antiquarian feeling of that "fine
old English gentleman." Indeed, his Museum now derives
its chief interest from that very circumstance, I mean
its unchanged character. It is a genuine specimen of
an old English collection ; such as Sir Henry Wootton,
or Sir Samuel Pepys, or Mr. John Evelyn, or the
Founders of the Royal Society would have delighted in.
It is, for the most part, a collection of relics. There you
have a glove which was worn by Mary Queen of Scots,
and the uncomfortable shoe which belonged to John
Bigge the hermit of Dynton ; the state-sword which the
Pope gave to Henry the eighth, and a lock of Edward
the fourth's hair ; King Alfred's jewel, and a pair of
bellows that belonged to Charles the second ; an ancient
peg-tankard (presented by Sir C. Pegge\ and a pair o*
nutcrackers dated 1574. This enumeration of objects,
I trust I need not say, is made with no wish to cast
ridicule on a delightful old collection, and which in fact
contains many objects of a higher order than these ;
THE BODLEIAN GALLERY. 5
objects deserving far more attention than they commonly
meet with. But after all, it is scarcely too much to say
that the Ashmolean is but a collection of curiosities.
With all respect for the portraits of the Tradescant family
on the stairs, and that of the Dodo in the entrance hall,
it must be allowed that it contains very little deserving
the name of Art. For Art then, where shall we turn ?
Probably to the Bodleian picture-gallery, which is
indeed a charming place to lounge in ; and where about
ten out of two hundred and forty-five pictures are agree-
able specimens of painting. No. 128 (by Keynolds) and
No. 160 (a portrait of Garrick), for instance, are worth
visiting as works of art ; * and are as superior to the rest,
as the angel over the pulpit in St. Mary's is superior to
the other thirteen angels in the same church :f biit the
pictures in the Bodleian, (generally speaking), are only
curiosities. Stiff portraits of cadaverous Scholars, and por-
tentous Founders, and quaint old worthies of all sorts with
their coats-of-arms above, and an inscription (in gilt letters
on a black ground) below ; memorials which disarm
criticism indeed ; nay, make one thrill, I should hope,
with a thousand nobler emotions than the very best Claude
ever inspired : but which, after all, as works of art are
I was almost going to say beneath notice. And so, after
glancing with pleasure at the beautiful models disposed
* Since this was written, there has been a transfer of about
seventy pictures from the Bodleian to the Taylor Gallery.
The Reynolds however remains, and is now No. 97. It is well
worth a visit. It seems by far the most precious work of art
in the collection. The absorbed look of the boy is very strik-
ing. What a pity it is that so fine a painting should be allowed
to hang so high !
f That exquisite little figure must be looked at from the
undergraduates' gallery to be appreciated.
O THE TWELVE (LESARS: THE KADCL1FFE :
along the room, we may suppose our stranger in Oxford
to have taken leave of the Bodleian.
Whither then is he to direct his steps ? Must he
wander from chapel to chapel, and hall to hall, and library
to library ; keeping a careful record as he goes along of
a curious piece of monumental sculpture here, or a fine
portrait there ; a good cast from the antique in a third
place, and perhaps a few valuable paintings hanging in
solitary beauty and obscurity in a fourth ? Nay, this is
scarcely legitimate. It is perhaps fairer to admit that he
must look elsewhere for the Art of the university ; and
the determination to do so, will perhaps strike him at the
eastern end of Broad-street, in full view of the twelve
astonishing heads which encircle the Theatre. There is an
indescribable pathos in those twelve dreary faces which
must have paralysed many a beholder ; but it is to be
feared, rather with wonder than admiration. They seem
placed there practically to illustrate the close connex-
ion which subsists between the sublime and the ridiculous :
and so we may suppose a stranger will think as he pur-
sues his search in the direction of the Radcliffe Library.
On entering that beautiful edifice he may well feel grate-
ful to the elegant taste and liberality of the Messieurs
Duncan who have added to its treasures the ornament
of casts from seven of the first statues of antiquity. The
same edifice contains a few other fine casts : yet how
very few ! The two marble candelabra with which it
was enriched by Sir Roger Newdigate deserve to be
particularly noticed : nor would it be dutiful to forget
the anxiety of that old knight to keep alive in the
University a taste for ancient "Sculpture, Painting, and
Architecture ;" though the specimens he has left of his
THE POMFRET COLLECTION. 7
own judgment in these matters* forcibly remind one of
the grotesque period at which he lived : when Othello,
for example, was tolerated on the stage in a scarlet coat
and full-bottomed wig ; and when such vagaries as those
of Horace Walpole at Strawberry-Hill, were considered
true specimens of the sublime.
I desire to recollect all that we possess in the way of
works of art, lest I may seem unfair on Oxford: and
accordingly close my catalogue with the mention of the
Pomfret marbles, till now, deposited in a room in the
Schools; and guarded, be it observed, by a shilling bar-
rier, which it may be questioned if many persons were
tempted to surmount. That collection, accordingly, which
exhibited an effort made a hundred years ago to dignify
this seat of learning with specimens of the antique, and
which was thus, in a certain sense, the most important
depository of Art in Oxford, had become one of the most
unknown and insignificant of its sights. Nor can one
wonder that it was rarely visited; possessing as it did
all the dissuasives, and few of the attractions of antiquity.
Its very grim and fearfully mutilated gods and goddesses
always reminded me of a story told by Mr. Combe, the late
keeper of the antiquities in the British Museum. A Lady
of rank requested him to show her the treasures in his
custody. He complied. " And now, Mr. Combe," she
said, when the exhibition was concluded, " we will go
and see the Elgin marbles." " I have just had the
* Sir Roger's house at Arburj is described to me by a
friend as "a curious yet pleasing mixture of classic and gothic,
and containing an old museum something like the Ashmolean.
The antique statues are placed in decorated niches ; and there
is a clere- story to (I think) the dining-room. Sir Eoger " he
adds, " has adapted an old tomb to serve as a chimney piece in
University-College Hall."
8 THE ARUNDEL COLLECTION.
honour of explaining them to your ladyship." "What?
Those the Elgin marbles ! why really one sees so many
crippled objects in the streets, that one hardly cares to see
them cut out in marble, Mr. Combe." And in truth it re-
quires a considerable education to relish a mutilated work
of ancient art. The first impression is very often of a
ridiculous kind : hence perhaps the suspicion with which
the raptures of the antiquary are sometimes regarded.
It is hard at first to conceive that what makes us laugh
should make him kindle with enthusiasm. Yet the ex-
perience of some branch of polite study with which we
are ourselves familiar, music, poetry, painting,
should convince us that the fault lies in us and not in
him. These remarks are not quite irrelevant. The
Pomfret marbles might almost as well not have been, as
been where and what they were. The room was dark, and
crowded with "crippled objects." The number of supple-
mentary noses, arms, fingers, etc., passed all bounds. To
the best of my remembrance, the statues themselves were
not only for the most part exceedingly inferior specimens,
but disposed in the most inartificial way imaginable.
Even an experienced eye scarcely knew what to be at
when it got in. An inexperienced person must have
longed to get out.
It is high time to remark that in the preceding exami-
nation of works of art in Oxford, the Arundel collection,
which is by far the greatest treasure we possess, has
been passed over, simply because it is a collection of
ancient Greek Inscriptions ; and these, however transcen-
dent in point of interest, scarcely come within the terms
of our inquiry. Yet it may be permitted me most sin-
cerely to deplore the forlorn plight in which those relics,
of which we ought to be so proud, are allowed to lie.
THE TAYLOR GALLERY.
9
Why are they not drawn forth from the desolate apart-
ment where they have been so long kept under lock and
key, and exposed to the public gaze ? It must surely be felt,
that if we are so immensely behind our continental neigh-
bours in antiquarian lore, it is in a manner our own fault.
We seem unconscious of our deficiencies ; and even when
they are in part supplied, we turn the key on the trea-
sures entrusted to our stewardship. Every foreign student
indeed who visits Oxford does obtain an interview with
the Arundel marbles : but it is to be feared that many of
our own graduates leave Alma Mater, aware of nothing
beyond the bare fact of their existence.
Such seems no unfair review of our repositories of works
of Art. As for what precious prints may lie hid in this
portfolio, or curious drawings in that : what choice carv-
ings may be here, or cabinet of coins there, I do not
of course inquire. There are such things, I know. We
all know too, that no respectable applicant who really
wishes to see any or all of them, need go away disap-
pointed. All that is intended, amounts to this, that if a
person wishes to pass an hour in the study of such works
as we have been alluding to, he is at a loss to know in
what direction to bend his steps.
These then, till very lately, were our resources: and
the stranger whom we have been supposing in quest of
the tca\6v, when he had visited the several haunts enume-
rated, might be considered to have seen all that Oxford
had to show in the way of repositories of Art. This,
however, would be a true supposition no longer. It is
now about two years since a succession of covered wagons
were to be seen slowly moving in procession in the direc-
tion of the newly erected Taylor gallery. What they
could possibly contain was a mystery, and gave rise to
10 THE CASTS OF CHANTKEY's WORKS
much ingenious speculation. For my own part, 1 was struck
with what looked like an enormous ostrich's egg emerg-
ing from the canopy of one of the wagons ; which how-
ever on closer inspection proved not to belong to a
bird's nest, but to be the apex of a statue ; the bald
head of somebody whom Chantrey had immortalised.
When the canopy was in part removed, a succession of
gamboge-coloured personages were brought to light,
standing, sitting, reclining, the whole length of the
vehicle. An imaginative person would have fancied
that he beheld the deities of old Rome (A. u. c. 365) on
their road to Caere; but which had lost their way, and
by some unaccountable accident, blundered into Beau-
mont-street.
Since the period alluded to, those statues which
proved to be the plaster casts of Sir. F. Chantrey 's works,
have been housed in the best apartment of the Taylor
gallery. They have long since been divested of their
"orange-tawny" complexion: mounted on bases: and
disposed in order throughout the apartment. They have
indeed been very tastefully finished off, and placed as
advantageously as was feasible : but they are, after all, the
things they were. They are but the contents of Chantrey 's
atelier : and such as they are, they are the principal fea-
ture of attraction in the Taylor gallery. A stranger who
should visit Oxford now, would naturally guide his foot-
steps thither, as to a depository of works of art; and
would infer that the objects in question were of such an
order of excellence as to satisfy the requirements of the
University.
That persons of a cultivated taste among us should feel
really satisfied with these statues, is too absurd to be for
an instant supposed : but that they have been admitted
SHOULD BE EJECTED FROM THE GALLERY. 1 1
into the principal apartment in a structure consecrated
to the Fine Arts that they entirely fill that apartment
and are disposed as if they were intended to remain there
for ever, is a plain matter of fact : and it seems no unfair
inference from this circumstance, that the full extent of the
responsibilities which the possession of an empty gallery
has entailed upon the University, has not been fully
appreciated. Who the persons are, to whose taste and
liberality we must hereafter look for the wise appropria-
tion of the vacant edifice, I have very studiously refrained
from inquiring. I was afraid lest respect, or partiality,
when I came to be told of admired and honoured names,
might impose a painful silence on me, or blind my judg-
ment. As it is, these remarks may be penned with entire
freedom. My eyes are fixed solely on that new structure,
and on those modern monumental statues. In the former, I
recognise an opportunity at last presenting itself, late
enough, but still in time, for securing to ourselves a
most important advantage : in the latter, I see a heavy
blow aimed at those fair prospects. Let me at once
declare that I deprecate in the strongest terms the ad-
mission of those casts into our public gallery ; and augur
most mournfully of the prospects of an Institution com-
menced under such miserable auspices. But this is writ-
ing vaguely. Such general condemnation of works which,
in proper place, and at proper time, have been so long,
(and I cheerfully add, so justly) admired, can carry no
conviction. Give me leave, then, to offer a few remarks
which may assist us in coming to the conclusion that we
must resolutely entreat the authorities of this Institution
to remove the statues in question, and substitute some-
thing of a very different kind in their room. You I am
sure will bear with me if, in attempting to discuss an
12 STUDIES OF OXFORD.
interesting question, I venture to go back a little, and to
begin as it were at the beginning.
I would observe then, that here in Oxford where
everything is done for the education of the Heart and of
the Understanding, nothing seems to be done for .the
education of the Eye. Perhaps it would be a more correct
way of making the same remark to say, that in the Moral
and Intellectual education which a man here receives, no
account is taken of the possibility of materially influencing
both natures by physical means : of giving a high and holy
impress to the one, and aiding the correct development
of the other. The solicitude of those by whom the main
outline of our scheme of education was mapped out, to
purify the heart and sanctify the understanding, is written
in such legible characters on the system daily pursued
within these walls, that it cannot be mistaken. With-
holding only the foremost place from those sciences which
deal exclusively with Quantity and Number, they have
substituted in their room, as the student's primary concern,
the science of Ethics sacred and profane. They have
assigned to Logic so prominent a station, because they have
regarded it not as a mere art of argumentation, to ensure
victory in the war of words ; but as a test of the reasoning
process itself, and a severe discipline of thought. The
course of Religious instruction, elementary as it must ne-
cessarily be in a system which proposes . to prepare men
alike for the duties of the senate, of the bar, and of the
pastoral Office is of such a kind as rather to impress young
men with the Beauty of Holiness than to set them on
speculations about the evidences of Religion : and it
seems the object of the ancient History and Poetry, which
form so large a part of our concern, to exercise the under-
standing, to enlarge the sympathies, to cultivate and
FOEM AND COLOUR. 13
purify the taste. The entire course of study when viewed
in retrospect seems intended as a broad groundwork, on
which the student may rear his future structure with
safety. Much indeed this is; more, it may be, than any
of us are fully aware of: but it seems scarcely presump-
tuous to express one's conviction that it might easily be
made much more still. These pursuits, as already re-
marked, are all of an abstract kind; and from their very
nature must often be the indirect way of obtaining
knowledge. The eye remains wholly uneducated. And
is this because Form and Colour have nothing to do with
education? Some one will perhaps gruffly answer
" Yes." But is it likely that this should be a true
answer ? Two of the affections of bodies Number and
Quantity are deemed sufficiently important to constitute
the principal feature in the education of the sister Univer-
sity : a high place too they enjoy in our own system.
Is it not somewhat extraordinary that two other, equally
inseparable, affections of bodies, Form and Colour
shoTild constitute, in neither place, any part of education
at all?
Something like the answer which might be returned to
this interrogatory can be readily anticipated; and I trust
it will soon appear that I am not such a visionary as to
suppose that the three or four years a young man passes
at College is the "proper season for perplexing him with
the theory of Colour ; or to claim his serious attention, as
a matter of academical requirement, to Form, either
abstractedly or in the concrete. This, we are well aware,
would be not only unwise, but wholly impracticable. In
suggesting two such important subjects however, as in-
struments of education, it must be readily conceded that
it may at least deserve some consideration to what extent
they may be made available. They sound like shadowy
14 A PLEA FOR THE STUDY
College Tutors I grant ; but in some of their many con-
crete shapes, as statues or pictures, who will deny that
they might be made conducive to this high object ? They
would at all events make their appeal to the heart and
understanding immediately through the eye ; and so
become an object for many unconscious sympathies and
indefinite longings, and a help to many purer and better
thoughts. But besides all this, as will be soon shewn, they
might be made useful in a direct and obvious manner.
It may be allowed me to suggest, in passing, that some-
thing of that humanising influence which the study of
Music effected for the youth of Athens in their educational
course, seems capable of being achieved for ourselves by the
introduction of a kindred feeling a taste for the Arts
of Design. For many centuries, Music was regarded by
ourselves no less than by the ancients,* as an indispensable
branch of liberal study ; but unhappily, for many a long
year this science has been disregarded (in England) as an
instrument of education. I say unhappily ; for the heart
is what it was : its needs are the same : and those needs
have been fully felt, and frequently insisted upon. In Plato's
beautiful description of Athenian education, he explains
the office of poetry and music in forming the character
of youth; r iva rjfiepwrepoi re wo-i, Kal evpvdfAorepoi Kal
vapfj,ocrr6repoi ryisyvofievot, xprfa IJAOI waiv ei? TO \eyeiv
re Kal Trpdrreiv : and sums up with the remark, ira<s yap
6 /3w>5 rov dvQpaiTTOv evpvOiiias re Kal evap/jiocrrias SeiraiJ
This, however, is but taking one view of the subject,
* My dear brother (the Rev. Henry J. Rose) has called my
attention to a series of Treatises by S. Augustine on the great
branches of Education, or Seven liberal Sciences ; of which
those on Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, and Music are still ex-
tant. *This series appears to be the earliest instance of the
elatfs of books called Encyclopedias in the middle ages.
-f Protagoras, p. 326 B.
OF ART, IN OXFORD. 15
regarding /MovffiKrj namely, as a discipline; and it perhaps
may be thought that if the non-cultivation of Music be a
defect in our system, the substitution of the Arts of Design
would be, to say the least, a mere experiment : that Music
should be restored if Music be wanted : and that if such
observing and sagacious persons as the ancients had
thought the contemplation of Art desirable, they would
not have omitted to supply the young with such objects
for contemplation. All this however is not quite true.
We have already said that we desire to see Music restored
to its accustomed place of honour ; but it would not
answer all the ends we have in view, for many plain rea-
sons. The ancients moreover were spared the necessity
of introducing works of art to the notice of their youth ;
for the cities of antiquity, (Athens in particular, which
was the University of the civilized world till the latter end
of the sixth century when its temples were converted
into churches, and its schools finally closed), were full, to
overflowing, of works of art. Other reasons will be soon
added, further shewing the unfairness of the comparison.
It may be assumed then, that the education of the Ear,
however desirable, would not supply the place of the edu-
cation of the Eye, nor supersede the necessity for it.
Persons who are zealously attached to things as they
are, and who dread all innovation, among whose re-
spectable number let me ever find a place, will naturally
object to this, that it looks like advocating a novelty,
recommending the introduction of a new, and as yet un-
tried element into education. The proper subject of
study, say they, are the works of ancient authors. It has
been the practice of the civilised world from time imme-
morial to lay these before the young,* and it may well be
* See Plato's description of the employments of a school in
his day, Protag. p. 325 D. The passage is too interesting to
16 THE ANALOGY BETWEEN ANCIENT
assumed to be the right method. Now, all this is unde-
niable: the fact, and the inference from the fact, are
cheerfully conceded. But, let me ask, what are the
"Works o Antiquity"? It will be answered, * the re-
mains of ancient Literature. But surely these are not all
the works of antiquity which have come down to us ! The
shores of time are strewed with other wrecks besides those
of the writings of Poets, and Historians, and Philosophers.
How comes it that in an University which is so attentively
bent on understanding the mind of the ancients, the at-
tention should be confined to one class of their works,
to the utter exclusion of every other ?
The Analogy which subsists between the remains of
ancient Literature, and those of ancient Art is perhaps
somewhat closer and more interesting than at first sight
might be supposed to be the case. Some of these points
of resemblance are obvious. Greek Poetry and Greek
Sculpture for example, are independent but kindred
methods of expressing national feeling : both were in their
origin of a religious character : both underwent a peculiar
be kept from the English reader: " Parents," says he, " send
their children at a very tender age to school, enjoining on the
master far greater attention to their external deportment, than
to their proficiency in reading and music. Not that their
teachers, however, neglect their progress in these branches of
study; for when the children have learnt their letters, and are
able to understand what they read, (their education having
been hitherto conducted orally), the reading-master makes
them sit on benches, and forces them to read and learn by
heart portions of the works of the best poets. These abound
in maxims for guidance, in episodes, and panegyrics of ancient
worthies ; which it is hoped will inflame the young with the ge-
nerous desire to emulate such excellence, and with a longing
to become great and good themselves. The music-master
meantime bestows exactly the same attention on their good
conduct, and sees that the children commit no mischief, &c."
Compare Aristoph. Nub. 961 972; and Ranee, 1030 to verse 1056.
LITERATURE, AND ANCIENT ART. 17
progressive development, and reflected the successive as-
peets of Greek Society : both attained to the highest pitch
of excellence at about the same time ; and both have
descended to us in a fragmentary state. Out of each of
these remarks, several others naturally arise. Since ancient
Art is fragmentary, and it is therefore difficult to under-
stand ancient Art ; we may be sure that the small portion
of the ancient writings which have come down to us must
for ever exclude us from a perfect appreciation of ancient
Literature. Again, if a single statue out of a group, or
the fragment of a frieze, can only be imperfectly under-
stood, particularly when they have been mutilated, so
must it be with single or fragmentary compositions in
Literature: but I abstain from insisting longer on a re-
semblance which might evidently be carried much further.
Such considerations then, seem at once to recommend
ancient Sculpture to our notice, and to suggest a doubt
whether we may not have been too long strangers to it.
But the interest it possesses for us, has surely been very
inadequately stated. Let us consider for a moment what
we mean when we say that Greek Sculpture, no less than
Greek Poetry, is one of the methods of expressing national
feeling. Surely, if it be so, it might be inferred d priori
that we should find it visibly impressed with the charac-
teristics of the national mind, just as the idiom of the
Greek language, in countless particulars, reminds one of
the character and genius of the extraordinary people on
whose lips it became the plastic instrument of expression
in every department of thought and sentiment. If, for
instance, the impatience of the national character, of which
it was remarked by one of themselves that no skill on the
part of the orator could effectually baffle it, seems to ac-
count for the withholding of the subject of the verb to the
18
end of the sentence* : if their quickness, their
is borne silent testimony to, in their elliptical modes of
expression, so frequent and so perplexing, most frequent
and perplexing perhaps in their philosophical writings :
if their scientific precision enlarged their vocabulary, and
multiplied the inflexions of their nouns and verbs ; and
their fertile imaginations required a language which should
accommodate itself to every novel and extraordinary
compound : if their politeness found relief in the condi-
tional uncertainty of the optative mood with the particle
av\ and suggested the interrogative form where other
nations use the imperative : if that language occasionally
embodies features of the national faith; as, that the concep-
tion of the Universe is convertible with the conception of
Order, that Truth is in its very nature incapable of obli-
vion that Beauty and Goodness are so intimately connect-
ed, that they should form one single word, and that the
Happy man is he who stands well with his GODf: again,
* Thucydides b. iii. latter part of c. 38 Perhaps the po-
sition of the main word in the following references may repay
a student for his pains in verifying them in Dindorf s edition :
'Op<rrr/c, -/Esch. Ay. 879: "ArXav, Prom. V. 427: 'Optorai',
Soph. El. 163: AlyiaQov, ib. 957: Qr}<rvg, (Ed. Col. 1350:
'OJWffeue, Phil. 1139. Cf. also Hor. Carm. iii. 7. 5. (Gygen).
The English reader (and the classical reader too) will be
gratified by the following very faithful version of the passage last
referred to, for which I am indebted to A. H. Clough, Esq., of
Oriel College:
Why, Asteria, weep, whom the Favonian
Spring-tide breezes 'ill bring, safe to thee home again ;
Rich with ware of the Indies,
Thy true lover immutable,
Gyges?...
f Kofffjios a\r)Qeia KaXoKayadia tv^aip.ovia. See p. 299
of Tupper's beautiful " Proverbial Philosophy." Aristotle,
Eth. Nic. vi. 5. 8. Hooker, Eccl. Pol. b. i. 1. Arist. Etli.
NIC. x. 9, 1, (the verse especially,) and x. fi, 13 adfoiem.
THE IMPRESS OF THE GREEK MIND. 19
if their belief in the influence of the eye* led them to
connect the accusative of the noun with verbs of Sight ;
though Sound and Touch and Taste and Smell require a
genitive, in other words, if they shewed by a simple
inflexion that, in the case of these four senses, the source of
the sensation was conceived of as residing in the outward
object; while in the case of sight, it resided in the eye :
if their theory of the supremacy of Mind led them to
express notions connected with intellectual speculation by
compounding the verb with Kara, implying that in the
speaker's view the mind is sublime, and must humble
itself, must look down, to take cognizance of the things of
sensef : in a word ; if we may trace the intellectual dis-
position of Greece visibly impressed on the very language
of Greece, and therefore, a fortiori, on her literature,
then, surely, we may expect to find some impress of that
mind on the works of Art she has bequeathed to us : and
should it appear that anything of the kind is discoverable,
how shall we excuse ourselves for wholly neglecting the
study of these, while we are so intent on the study of the
other? Why, at all events, exclude ourselves from such
* The superstitious belief in the evil eye has been treated
of by many ; and is alluded to by almost every writer of An-
tiquity. So widely spread a notion seems to give point to such
passages as JEsch.Ag. 240, 470, 742-4, etc. See also Dindorf s cor-
rection of Soph. Frg. 169, ad JEsch. Ag. 240. It may be allow-
able to remark in connection with this subject, that the ancients
evidently regarded the eye as the seat of expression. See ^Es-
chylus Agam. 271, 418 (supposing the line to mean "Where
the eye of woman beams not," etc.), 520-1, 796-8. Sophocles,
(Ed. Tyr. 528-9, (Ed. Col 729-30, Ant. 690, Ajax, 139-40, 462,
etc. (Dindorf s ed.)
f Not only verbs which denote mental perception (e. g.
yEuperptKol ...Karavoovaiv cKturro), but verbs of hearing: for
instance, oi yap ^/XavXoi acWarouffi rote Xoyoie fpOffi%tiv, fay
avXoin'roc, K.T.\. Ar. Eth. Nic. x. 5- 8.
20 ANALOGY BETWEEN GREEK TRAGEDY
singularly apposite illustrations of the literature of Greece
as the works of her most gifted sons ?
Let us see then whether, without incurring the charge
of being unduly fanciful, some indication of Greek feeling,
analogous to those noticed in the structure of the lan-
guage, may not be traced on the representations which
have come down to us ; and pursuing the analogy already
noticed between Sculpture and the severer forms of dramatic
composition, in Greek Tragedy for example, I suppose
we are immediately struck with such characteristics as the
following. We find a few great stories, as the history
of CEdipus or of Agamemnon; the " tale of Troy divine"
being as it were a summum genus, under which almost all
may be comprehended. Six of the seven extant plays of
Sophocles are clearly to be referred to this source ; besides
most of those of jEschylus, and of Euripides. When we
are told the subject of the drama, we can guess the names
of the spectral shapes which are about to stalk before us.
Whatever phase of the history of Agamemnon is to be-
come the lofty theme, we can divine, with more or less
accuracy, who are to be the agents. Nor does there seem
any wish on the part of the poet to change this order of
things, to escape from the trammels of his craft. We
find no impatience of restraint no Gothic wish to intro-
duce many speakers, and hitherto untried elements. He
seems the creature of the same stern Necessity which im-
pelled Agamemnon, and Clytaemnestra, and Orestes:
spell-boTind by the same terrible power which hurled
CEdipus down to unutterable misery. Observe too how
little of plot there is in the ancient drama; if one could
forget the climax to which we are brought by the line,
aKovetv a\\ J o//,<w?
AND GKEEK SCULPTURE. 21
one might almost say that there is an utter absence of plot
in these plays. The characters come before us like statues.
When they make their appearance, they excite no emotion :
when they have ceased to speak, they leave behind no
regret. One cannot even always feel sure whether a
speaker has left the stage or not; nor how many persons
are upon it at any given time. On the other hand, it is
seldom of any importance that we should know these
circumstances. All is, for the most part, sublimely cold,
and statuesque, and passionless: in which particulars one
is strongly reminded of the extraordinary contrast between
the Greek and the English (allow me to call it the Gothic)
drama. And whence is this? Chiefly, probably, hence:
the Gothic drama supposes the freedom of the will. The
Greek drama is impressed with the belief that man is the
creature of Necessity. Hence our stirring plot our
varied subject our diversity of incident our endless
variety of character. A poet would be thought just as
presumptuous now, if he were to write a play about
Hamlet, or Macbeth, or King Lear, as he would have
been thought then if he had presumed to depart from the
mighty precedent, and ventured on wholly untrodden
ground.
And if there be truth in all this, as I suppose it will be
granted that, on the whole, there is; then, let us admit
that there is something equally peculiar, equally charac-
teristic in the feeling which seems to have influenced the
sculptors of antiquity in the remains of plastic Art which
have come down to our times. Here, as in the realms of
poetry, we shall find the artists of a fine age tied down to
certain conventional stories and conventional forms. In
this, as in that, Eeligion is the source of inspiration ; for
the earliest efforts of Art, no less than the original element
22 ANCIENT LITERATURE
of the drama, were consecrated expressly to Heaven ; and
neither ever wholly lost this character. Gods, and heroes,
and deified men, were at first the only fit subjects for the
artist ; and the period perhaps hardly ever arrived when they
were not acknowledged to be the proper objects for the
exercise of his skill. In Tragedy therefore, if a living in-
dividual, or existing political institutions are to be glanced
at, the speech is put into the mouth of a god, or some illus-
trious mythic personage: and in Art, if Alexander the
Great is to be portrayed, it is with the horn of Ammon ;
when the earlier kings of Egypt and some of those of Syria
appear on coins, it is with the radiated crown of deity ; and
even in Roman times, if a portrait of Antinoiis is intended,
the form and attributes are those of a Mercury. We
recognise in ancient art generally, and in the ancient
statues of sacred personages in particular, the same faith-
ful adherence to a received type which we before noticed
in the drama. An antiquary will immediately assent to
the statement that the Greek deities which we call by the
Latin names of Jupiter, Juno, Bacchus, Minerva, Mer-
cury, Venus, Neptune, etc., have each their distinct types
or modes of representation ; and may be readily recog-
nised, however rudely executed. Minerva, for instance,
is a standing, draped, female figure attired in the aegis,
and armed with a helmet, shield, and spear, such a con-
ventional figure, in short, as Pisistratus represented her,
when he wanted his countrymen to recognise her.* Juno
is draped, and generally seated (^pvaoOpovosi) ; wearing a
peculiar head-ornament. Venus is a draped figure, (in
* Herod, i. 60. It would be easy to give references to
works of art, executed in remote countries, and at distant
periods, where a certain type has been faithfully adhered to :
but it would answer no adequate purpose in so slight a com-
position as the present.
AND ART, CONVENTIONAL. 23
archaic art), slightly raising her garment with one
hand, as if in the act of dancing. Other personages, as
Penelope, Ulysses, Achilles, Hector, Theseus, Hercules,
or monsters, as the Sphinx, the Chimaera, the river
Achelolis, and the like, are equally recognisable; though
in some instances, to pronounce upon them with accu-
racy, and at once, requires a good eye and great experi-
ence. Brondsted, for instance, thought he recognised the
type of Cephalus (as the figure occurs on the coins of
Cephallenia) in the so-called Theseus of the Parthenon
marbles. Enough however on this subject. I merely
seek to explain what I mean when I speak of a conven-
tional representation ; and to make the analogy between
Literature and Art, in this particular, apparent. The
ancients, in truth, carried all this much further. They
had conventional modes of representing the horse, the
bull, the lion ; birds and fish ; flowers and trees ; interiors
of houses ; the sea ; a lake ; a fountain ; a river ; a
town; and the like. Are we not reminded in all this
of a certain uniformity, or sameness, a certain recurrence
of thought and expression* in the Greek drama? of that
eternally recurring similef of the mournful nightingale
for example, bewailing " Itys, Itys." Had it not become
a kind of conventional type of sorrow ?
We have also to observe in illustration of the statuesque
* For instance, Soph. Aj. 479 80; El. 989, 1082 3; Track.
721 ; Frg. 436 ; Ms. Fry. 82, 163, 384 Again, Soph. Frg. 359,
610,683 Again, Soph. Frg. 288, 302,666 ; JEs. Frg. 277
Again, Soph. Aj. 125 6 ; Frg. 13, 682 ; Eurip. JEol. Frg 18.
Again, Solon's reply ; Soph. Track. 1 3 ; (Ed. Tyr. 1186,
etc., 1528 30 ; Frg. 520, 572 Again, Soph. El. 696 7 ; (Ed.
Col. 253 4 ; Aj. 455 6 ; Antig. 1337 8 ; Herod, passim
Again, Soph. Track. 132, etc., 440 ; Aj. 131 2 ; El. 916 7 ;
Antig. 1158 9 ; Frg. 93 ; Her. i. 5, ad fin. 207, &c. &c. &c.
+ See JEsch. Ag. 1140 1149: Soph. EL 147 149 and 1077 ;
Ajax, 622 634: Antig. 422 125; Track. 962 963, etc.
24 THE STATUESQUE CHARACTER
character of the ancient drama, that the masks which the
personages wore, supply an additional link in the chain of
resemblances; and help to establish the unity of spirit
which pervaded the works of antiquity. How statue-
like, how unspeakably cold, must the beings which the
poet called up, have seemed, as they glided across the
stage with those blank unvarying faces: only recog-
nisable by the conventional character of the mask, or
costume, as already hinted. Thus Achilles and Niobe
were recognisable, though they sat on the stage muffled
up, ypv^ovTes ovSe TOUT/.* There can have been little
or nothing of passion even in the most passionate parts of a
play, with such calmness of language, with such circum-
stances of costume. The very recognition of Orestes
and Electra must have been scarcely distinguishable from
the embracing figures of a group in marble. Some will
perhaps think that the gaudy drapery, the /cpoicov /3a<f>ri,
would sufficiently rescue stage representations from this
charge ; but they must be reminded that the statues of
antiquity were all painted. The eyes and the flesh were
tinted the hair often gilded the drapery, scarlet or blue,
and the like : so that there was nothing to distinguish an
actor in repose from a statue. Instead therefore, of con-
trasting a heroine of antiquity with the Portias and
Juliets of the Gothic drama, we should (if we would under-
stand them) throw ourselves into the mind of antiquity;
and think of them as figures on a bas-relief. One would
not perhaps be so apt to charge with frigidity, the lyric
lamentations of Antigone just before her entombment, if
one were to read those verses, sitting before an ancient
frieze. It would be like reading an interpretation of the
sculptured marble. The same remark may also be made
* Aristoph. Ranee, 911 913.
OF GREEK TRAGEDY. 25
respecting Clytaemnestra, who is commonly compared
with Lady Macbeth ; and well she may be ; for certainly
if one believed in the transmigration of souls, one would
suppose that the mind of ^Eschylus had revived in the
mind of Shakspeare : I can in no other way defend or ac-
count for her cold-blooded dialogue with her son when he
was about to incur the guilt of matricide, than by remind-
ing myself of the statuesque spirit of ancient Tragedy : and
perhaps the passage in which she draws so perfect an image
of a Mother and her sleeping infant, and which seems
to unman Orestes,
9, w iral, rov8e &' ai'Secrat, re/cvov,
yu,aoTov, Trpo? c5 crv TroXXa Brj BPI'ZQN "AMA
OV\OI<TIV
has already suggested the same thought to many. One
sees the outstretched arms of the unnatural parent, and
* Choeph. 896 898. The English reader may not disdain
even so imperfect a rendering of the passage as the following :
Hold back thy murd'rous hand, my son! my child!
Look on this breast and feel some touch of pity :
This breast, where thou (so many a time and oft !)
Hast hung; and in thy sleep with boneless gums
Drawn the warm milk that did sustain thy being.
^Eschylus was a great painter. Besides a multitude of passages
equally graphic with that just quoted, see the allusions in
Ag. 41-2 419: 241 242: 741: Eum. 50-52; (the painting
he refers to may be seen in Millingen's Unedit. Monuments,
ser. i. pi. xv). Compare also the lines Ag. 113 120 with the
coin of Agrigentum which Noehden has engraved, (Specimens
of Anc. Coins of Magna Crrcecia and Sicily, etc., pi. iii. p. 7), a
composition which must have struck JEschylus during his
residence in Sicily. The poet's graphic turn may also be
inferred from Ar. Ran. 933. Bacchus : " Yes, by the gods !
why, / remember lying awake all night, trying to think what
kind of fowl the tawny horse-cock was." JEschylus : " 'Twas
painted on a ship, you blockhead, for a sign."
26 OTHEll TRACES OF THE COLD,
her bare neck : Orestes with averted eyes ; and Pylades
calmly reminding him of the risk he incurs of offending
heaven, if he shrinks from the execution of its mandates.
Now, though it certainly is not necessary to the illus-
tration of the subject immediately before us, I cannot
forbear further remarking, in this place, that the traces of
the cold statuesque spirit which we have found pervading
some of the realms of ancient Art and Literature, may be
discovered extending much further in antiquity, if we
would give ourselves the pains to look for them. They
seem no less discernible in the Architecture of Greece,
than in the other sister arts, of two of which (Music and
Painting) we shall have occasion to say a few words by
and bye. But here let me explain myself; for I would
not be misunderstood. The transcendent beauty of
Grecian Architecture, I am the last to call in question.
Further, that the ancients were endued with a natural
sense of rhythmical beauty, (and I suppose rhythm is that
which gives form to Music), so painfully acute and ex-
quisite that it is scarcely comprehensible to us, this also
must be cheerfully admitted. And again, that not only
their statues, but even their public edifices were externally
decorated with colour, this curious phenomenon we like-
wise allow, and concede to antiquity. But what I wish
to point out is, that there was a certain falling short in
each and all of these several departments which nothing
but Christianity (a new creation) was able to supply.
Let the character of the architecture of a Grecian temple,
for instance, be compared with that of a Gothic cathedral.
It will be felt that there is a profoundness of sentiment
about the latter, of which the coldness of the Greek
is wholly destitute. The soaring column, and bowing
arch, and dim long-drawn aisle; the deepest tones of
STATUESQUE SPIRIT OF ANTIQUITY. 27
Music; the subdued splendours of Painting: in
Christianity all these combine their mingled utterance:
all the creatures of God, so to speak, do here seem to
render Him their united homage. The Church, as Christ
re-edified it, had a spell which could evoke them.
And I am not afraid of being thought fanciful, if I sug-
gest, as a further very striking illustration of the coldness
of antiquity, another deficiency, or short-coming, which,
Christianity also first supplied. I allude to the fact that
the ancients do not appear to have known the sentiment
which we call Love. Woman, as it would seem, never
attained (or regained) her lawful position in society, till
the intervention of Christianity; until " the angel
Gabriel was sent from GOD unto a city of Galilee, named
Nazareth." So long as the female sex remained de-
graded, this feeling, which may be regarded as a Gothic
passion, could not exist : and so long as mankind fol-
lowed the light of Nature, as it is called, (by which,
I suppose, is meant the scarcely perceptible reflection
of the light of Revelation), so long must the female
sex have remained degraded. Aristotle, I think, com-
monly classes women, children, and brutes together ; and
when "the sex" is mentioned in poetry, it is commonly
in some disrespectful or disparaging way. Let a heroine
of Tragedy speak for herself : the allusion is to her
lord:-
6 ' etTre Trpo? fie /Sat", del B' vftvov/jieva'
" <yvvai, <yvvaif;l Koa/nov r) auyr) <f>epei." *
The tone of Hector's address to Andromache is indeed
* Soph. Aj. 292 3. Cf. (Ed. Col. 1115 : and Frag. 61, and
perhaps 102 : but especially ^Esch. Ag. 914 6. Sophocles has
a beautiful passage on the life of Woman, Frag. 517.
28 COLDNESS OF GREEK TRAGEDY.
touching ; but the world was five hundred years younger
when Homer wrote.
At all events, whether the Greeks knew what Love was,
or not, they had no word in their language (a lan-
guage not particularly deficient in names for things) to ex-
press it.* $t\ia, (piXijcris, evvoia, o/juovota, cnopytj, etc., as
we all know, mean things very different. As for epa)?,
which man shares with the brute creation, it would not
need to be mentioned at all, were it not unhappily the
only word for Love in the Greek language. As might
have been expected, we accordingly find nothing like the
romantic passion in ^Eschylus or Sophocles ; except,
perhaps, that we are just reminded of it by the little
passage between Hsemon and Antigone: rather touch-
ing, it must be confessed ; especially that description of
the dying youth,
.... 69 vypv
' er 6fjL<j>pQ)V 7rap0ev<*) TrpoffTTTVffae'ra^ K. T. X.
But such an exception really only serves to prove the
rule. If the thought had ever entered the heart of one
of those old dramatists, they would never have written as
they did. We call it " the passion," as if there were no
other : they never mention it, as if it were no passion
at all. "Single-speech" Pylades never gives us a hint
of what he is thinking about, while Electra and his friend
are talking at Agamemnon's tomb ! The only remark
he does make, as far as feeling is concerned, might have
* The Romans were, of course, worse off than the Greeks.
Cicero's phrase for " rivalry in love" is Contentio uxorice
conditionis. (Uxoria conditio ! ! !)
EXUBERANT GENIUS OF THE GREEKS. 29
proceeded from Launce's "pebble-hearted cur": but
about Electro, ovSe ypv.
To speak seriously, (and to dismiss trie subject), it is
almost affecting to notice what the result of all this was.
Men sought for sympathy and kindness in Friendship ;
and hence the endeavours of the ancients to reduce Friend-
ship to a system ; hence the prominent place this sentiment
occupies in their writings ; hence the two Books which
Aristotle has devoted to <f>i\ia ; hence many of the specu-
lations on the relative social duties of the members of a
TroXt? ; and hence the treatises which have come down to
us, on this subject. These may, in some sense, be con-
sidered as filling that space in the literature of antiquity,
which the romantic novel has filled in the literature of
modern Europe. But this is a digression for which I
ought to apologise. To return to the matter more im-
mediately before us.
Lastly then, in illustration of the Analogy we seek to
establish, it may be suggested that a spirit, uniformly
prolific, pervades and ennobles all the works of anti-
quity. The three hundred plays ascribed to the exuberant
genius of the three great tragedians of Greece, remind
one of that lavish prodigality of artistical skill which is
so striking in a collection of ancient coins; amid many
thousands of which, it is scarcely possible to recognise
any two specimens that are quite alike. Both classes
of works are in their particular way unrivalled, and
stamped with immortality : both are but imperfectly un-
derstood: both require long study, in order to be at all
felt or appreciated. Again: as in the language there
arise such delicate discriminations of meaning, such
exquisite points of beauty, depending often on the collo-
cation of a word, or the nice insertion of a particle, so
is it with fine Art. Its "condensed construction" defies
30 GREEK LITERATURE AND GREEK ART.
criticism: the essence of expression, in either case, evapo-
rates in the attempt to analyse it: its felicity may be felt
but cannot be explained ; and can no more be found out
(either in Literature or Art) by an apparatus of critical
rules, than the beauty of a landscape can be accounted
for by a diagram, or the bloom on a cheek by a lancet.
But enough has now been said on this subject, and I
may be growing tedious. Such, at all events, are some
of the analogies which may be pointed out (how many
more may be felt!) between Greek works of Literature
and Greek works of Art. What has been said has been
thrown out rather in the way of suggestion than intended
for the formal discussion of a question with which, deeply
enamoured as one may be, one is but imperfectly ac-
quainted. The sum of all amounts to this. If the con-
nexion we have been insisting upon does really exist,
why are the two subjects so effectually sundered? Why is
a man urged to toil on for ever in one department, and
never allowed the help and the solace which he might
derive from a practical acquaintance with the other?
However, I can well imagine some one remarking on
what has gone before, " There may be some truth in
all this; but the analogies you point out, however real,
are not very important. Young men at Oxford have
no time for such things ; and if they had, it is not to be
expected that they would devote themselves to their
consideration ; and if they did, it would not help them
much in the Schools :" and the like.
These objections however, and others like them, are
grounded on a complete misapprehension of the question.
It is not for an instant intended that speculations, such
as I have hazarded, should be thrust on young men on
their arrival at Oxford ; nor indeed is it wished that the
philosophy or metaphysics of art, or by whatever name
SOME OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 31
it should be called, should form any indispensable part of
the educational system of the University. Still less is it
contemplated that hours which are claimed by severe and
definite studies should be wasted in dreamy guesses at the
riddles of Antiquity : and it is not apprehended that the
season required for exercise and relaxation would be
interfered with, by the seductions of a gallery of Sculpture.
Briefly, let it be observed, that it is with Taste somewhat
as it is with the Virtues, eyyivovrcu al dperal . . .Tre
/u,ev r)/j,iv Segaa-Ocu avras, re\eiov/j>voi<; Se Sia rov
No pains taken with a spirit that is not "finely touched,"
could avail to give it a sense of Beauty, if the faculty for
apprehending beauty was denied it at its birth. You
might as well talk to a man born blind, about the Car-
toons ; or to a deaf man, about an Oratorio. Men often
escape from a discussion on sounds by declaring they have
no ear. It is a far more common (though less suspected)
defect to have no eye. A gallery of Art would therefore,
after all, appeal not to the many, but to the few : and it
would be but a mute appeal. Further, it will be admitted,
I think, by those acquainted with the subject, that there
is little fear of men being drawn away unduly from the
study of Languages, or History, or Philosophy, by the
seductive allurement of ancient Art. A laborious course
of classical study, once entered upon, supposes an amount
of resolution, and energy, and principle, which will not
be easily perverted. If the seductions of modern Litera-
ture, of poetry and romance, and of such elegant
pursuits as are open to us all in this place, as drawing, and
music, and architecture, prove ineffectual, surely the
dead language of Art will plead in even less persuasive
* Aristot. Eth. Nic. ii. 1. 3.
32 REQUIREMENTS OF A GALLERY OF ART.
tones. Truly, its beauty lies not on the surface. It may
not " unsought be won." It has nothing to attract
withal, and much to repel. One proof may suffice. Let
any one attempt to enumerate how many of our country-
men have proved able interpreters of the mind of antiquity,
as it is to be found in the not-literary remains of anti-
quity. They may be almost enumerated on the fingers
of one's two hands.
I take the liberty of supposing that by the time you
have read thus far, you will desire to hear me state in
express words what monuments those are which I desire
to see in the Taylor gallery ; and what the advantages
which I suppose would actually accrue from their posses-
sion : for I am aware that I have been vaunting the
interest and importance of the study of ancient art to one
who will not differ from me in opinion on the subject.
It is particularly agreeable to me to be thus precise. Were
I less conscious of the goodness of the cause I am plead-
ing, it might be safer to keep to generalities, and write a
rhetorical essay, instead of a plain earnest appeal : but
the duty before us is definite, the monuments themselves
capable of enumeration, and the chief advantages to be
derived from their acquisition neither difficult to discover,
nor inconsiderable.
What then are the grandest existing sculptures, not
of antiquity alone, but of any age, any clime ? We need
no prophet to tell us that these are the sublime creations
with which Phidias enriched the pediments of the Par-
thenon at Athens ; the astonishing fragments of which
Lord Elgin brought to England in 1803, and which are
now deposited in the British Museum. To enter at
any length into the history of those objects, would be
foreign to the purpose of this letter : to expatiate on
THE WORKS OF PHIDIAS. 33
their merits, would be presumptuous : to explain them,
is beyond my ability. It has been attempted by many,
and achieved in a manner altogether satisfactory by
none.* It will be quite enough for us to remember that
they were the finest work of the best artist of the first
city of Greece, achieved when that city had attained its
highest pitch of glory. Pericles suggested Phidias
execiitedf the Islands of the ^Egean and the con-
federate cities of Asia Minor paid for them. What more
need be said ? When the mighty mind of Greece first
felt its greatness and its power, then it was that she cre-
ated those works. And can we forget that all this took
place at the period when the prophetic canon came to a
close ; that the Almighty Voice was now on the eve of
being withdrawn from men, and Its divine accents were
not to be heard on earth for a second period of four
hundred years ? It was then that Providence commis-
sioned uninspired wisdom to take up the thread of the
world's History ; and allowed the human intelligence of
Greece to exhibit those marvellous phenomena of wis-
dom, imagination, and energy, philosophical, literary,
and aesthetical, which in our admiration and wonder we
sometimes call by a figure of speech " divine." The
* Among the chief names connected with this subject, are
those of Visconti, Col. Leake, and the late Chev. P. O. Brondsted .
I look back with much pleasure and gratitude to some happy
hours passed among the Elgin marbles with the last named
learned antiquary and most indulgent friend. His theory
concerning those compositions, which he had made his par-
ticular study, and to which he brought the stores of profound
and varied scholarship, enlisted the sympathy of all, even of
those who entertained a somewhat different opinion as to the
particular attribution of some of the statues.
f Tlavra t ^tetTrc icai irai-ruv t/rtWoTroe i\v ai/rw Ofi^t'ae-
Plutarch, Vit. Pericl. (quoted somewhere by Dr. E. Clarke).
D
34 THE AGE OF PHIDIAS.
struggle with Persia first made Athens conscious of her
nobility ; her resources, physical and intellectual ; her
exceeding greatness. Then ^Eschylus, and soon after,
Sophocles wrote verse, and Thucydides wrote prose.
Then too it was that Phidias achieved those immortal
sculptures which have (in part) survived the wreck of
nearly twenty-three hundred years. How does it happen
that while Thucydides, and jEschylus, and Sophocles
are read by so many, the works of Phidias are read by so
few ? But to continue.
The circumstances which give such peculiar interest to
the Parthenon marbles, and indeed set them above all
other extant specimens of ancient sculpture, deserve a
brief enumeration. They are these : we know their pre-
cise date:* we are informed, not only of the school
from which they proceeded, but of the master by whom
they were (certainly in part) executed : their locality is
determined, not only geographically, but in the temple
itself; and hence we know their use or intention : and
Pausanias has recorded the subject (no longer recognis-
able, except with the aid of his brief notice) of the two
pediments which they filled: the eastern represented
the birth of Athene, the western the contest of Athene
and Poseidon for the soil of Attica; when the former
called the Olive into being. Who but remembers, while
he reads these words, those Xa/iTrpa eV^ of the poet
of Colonus, wherein he recites the chief glories of his
native land in strains as imperishable as the subject of
his praise?
* " The construction and completion of the Parthenon is to
be attributed almost entirely to the eight years occurring be-
tween 446 and 437, B.C." Col. Leake's " Athens and Demi,"
vol. i. p. 462.
SCULPTURES OF THE PARTHENON. 35
There is too, hereabout, such plant as I,
to Asia's land belonging, hear not of;
nor in the mighty Doric Isle of Pelops,
ever of old! the scion of the soil,
unconquerable uncreate ; the terror
of foemen's spears ; which on this plain of ours
flourisheth most; the grey-leaved, the nutritious Olive!
Yea, and another vaunt have I, the gift
of the mighty god to this maternal soil,
most glorious, to rehearse: her proudest boast!
how blest in steeds, how blest in colts, how blest upon the main.
Hail son of Kronus, (for 'twas thou that didst
uplift her to this boasting), lord POSEIDON !
when for the steed the salutary curb
first in these streets of ours thou didst contrive.
Faithful it is hoped; but how poor and cold it sounds!
as indeed all literal translation of such poetry must of
necessity be. Assuredly of these marbles, no less than of
the chorus whence these verses are taken, we may exclaim
in the words of the great poet last quoted, /*e79 eV
TOVTOIS 0eo9, ovSe yrjpdaKei.
A series of casts from these marbles then, one and all,
I claim for Oxford. Not the wrecks of the statues from
the Pediments alone, but the beautiful frieze represent-
ing the Panathena'ic procession; and the Metopes, each
allusive to Attic story; together with those other frag-
ments (more or less considerable, and some of surpassing
beauty*) which recent excavations at Athens have lately
brought to light. This, in point of importance, is the
first set of objects which imperatively claims our notice.
Inferior in interest, as everything else must be, we
must not fail to remember in this place certain other
* Casts of these have recently been received from Athens,
and lie in the Elgin Room. There is among them a Victory
fastening on her sandal: a small bas-relief, but so splendid!
36 THE FLORENTINE, PHIGALEIAN,
very important series of marbles which are to be referred to
about the same period ; the casts of which should be found
in an adjoining room, and which the student should con-
template in connection with the marbles of the Par-
thenon. First, I would mention the important series of
statues (little known I fear in this country) which enrich
the Museum of Florence ; and which had always been
recognised as representing the story of Niobe and her
children : but which it was reserved for a countryman of
our own, first to throw valuable light upon. Mr. Cockerell,
(the accomplished Architect of the very gallery whose
cause we are pleading), with his accustomed fine perception
of the meaning of ancient art, has shown that these marbles
constituted the contents of the pediment of some forgotten
temple in Greece or Asia, whence, at some remote period,
they must have been carried to Italy. The Royal Aca-
demy is happy in the possession of a complete set of these
casts ; and a restoration of the Pediment, etched by Mr.
Cockerell himself, now lies before me, which makes one
sigh for a sight of the original.
And next, let me remind you of the fine sculptures in
bas-relief (also in the British Museum) which are known as
the Phigaleian marbles. They formed the frieze of the
temple of Apollo at Bassae, near Phigaleia in Aicadia;
and were discovered in 1812, by C. R. Cockerell, Esq., and
John Foster, Esq., in company with three foreigners.
They represent the battle of the Centaurs with the La-
pithae, and of the Athenians with the Amazons.
We must remember, that to the same period of Art as
the Parthenon marbles (whether a little earlier, or a
little later, we cannot tell : it is a vexata qiuzstio, and does
not materially affect our present object) belong those
five or six draped female statues which Sir C. Fellows
brought from Xanthus two or three years ago, and which
AND XANTHIAN, MARBLES. 37
are all in the British Museum; being temporarily de-
posited in the little room which connects Egyptian with
Athenian art.* I will not detain you with any remarks
upon these works ; but you are perhaps aware that some
of them, one especially, the female figure with a dove at
her feet, are of extraordinary merit. In short, they are
fine specimens of a fine time ; and should not be entirely
separated from the relies we have been enumerating.
I take leave of this period with reminding you of the
grandest female statue in the world, the Venus of Melos.
In connexion with this wonderful work, Millingen men-
tions the Venus of Capua ; and considers both as ancient
copies of two transcendent productions which belonged
to this the finest time of Art. You will find them both
engraved in the second series .of his " Ancient Unedited
Monuments"; and to the work of that truly learned an-
tiquary and lamented friend, I would refer you for further
particulars concerning them ; but we may be allowed to
suggest a doubt as to the non-originality which he im-
putes to the first named statue. One remark may be
allowed in passing. Both exhibit the goddess half un-
draped, a peculiarity which enables us to assign the sculp-
ture to a period subsequent to the age of Phidias. There
was a maidenly modesty in the mind of early Greece
which shrunk from the merest semblance of indelicacy.
Accordingly, the primitive representations of the female
form are covered up to the neck. In my Father's collection
of Terra-cottas from Melos, now in the British Museum,
there was a little female figure, seated, and holding a dove ;
(with a smaller one at its side, which is represented with
a lyre). It was very ancient, indeed of the earliest
* Transferred, since this was written, to a room, (not yet
open to the public), which is devoted to the Lycian Marbles.
38 PERIODS OF ANCIENT ART.
style of Art: but though the personage intended was
Venus, the drapery was so disposed that nothing but the
left breast was visible. It was reserved for a more licen-
tious age, and a change in manners which Thucydides
comments upon, and in morals, which the great comic
Poet has not failed in every page to reprove, to introduce
an innovation in this respect. We may here observe how
Art exhibits, reflected as in a mirror, the social changes
of the period to which it belongs. The archaic age,
mindful of the sanctity of beauty, carefully conceals the
person*: the second period of art withdraws half the
concealment, and exhibits loveliness
OVKT K
8eSop/c<w? veoyd/Aov
the third period withdraws it entirely. Thus the earliest
female statues carefully conceal the entire person. The
Venus of Melos is an example of the second period, and
is half exposed. The Venus de Medici is perhaps as fine
a specimen as could be found of the third period ; and
she is entirely naked. But this is to anticipate.
We divide Greek history, for different purposes,
whether consciously, or unconsciously, into periods; and
I have already hinted at three : one of which very dis-
tinctly precedes that now under consideration. It is of
the second of these, (which may be considered, in round
numbers, to extend over the space of very nearly two
centuries), that the Parthenon marbles, as already sug-
gested, form so magnificent an exponent. The Persian
war (B.C. 490), and the era of Alexander (B.C. 330), seem
obviously to suggest themselves as the limits of this
* Sec the remonstrance of Gyges to Candaules, Ilerodot. i. 8 ;
and the remark which Herodotus himself makes at the end of
c. 10.
^EGINETAN MARBLES. 39
splendid period, the moments of the acme" of the second
and third empires, moments memorable in a historical,
a social, and a literary, point of view : and shall we be
surprised to find that the memorable changes which were
going on in these several departments, made an impression
also on Art ? Nay, rather let us expect here to discover
the most striking indication of those changes.
I revert to the first of the three great periods hinted at :
a period, which, whenever we may choose to consider it
to have begun, ended with the Persian war. We arc
anxious to find some statues, a series if possible, dis-
tinctly referable to this early age ; and of all the treasures
lost to us, one such series has happily been preserved.
Allusion is of course made to the contents of the two
Pediments of the temple (called) of Jupiter Panhellenius,
at JEgina, a collection of statues, which Messrs. Cockerell
and Foster (with a Bavarian traveller, named Linkh,)
were so fortunate as to discover when they were en-
gaged in excavating, in order to measure the said temple,
in 1811.
A few words concerning the history of these statue.s
shall suffice. Their subject is a matter of some uncer-
tainty. Whether it be a passage in the history of the
^Eacidse, as one would have thought probable on d
priori grounds, or whether it represent the combat
between Hector and Ajax over the body of Patroclus, as
the marbles themselves would rather incline one to
believe, remains open for discussion. The fragments ot
twenty-five statues were found, in all: of which Mr.
Cockerell is of opinion that eleven occupied the western,
and fourteen the eastern pediment. The latter bear the
marks of highest intelligence. You will find a very ex-
quisite etching of these monuments, accompanied by a
40 ARCHAIC ART.
brief memoir, both by the last-named accomplished
friend, in the periodical work cited below.*
These two series of marbles then in particular, those
namely from jEgina and those from the Parthenon, claim
our foremost attention. Both are of the highest order of
merit ; but they are great in different ways, embodying
the spirit of two different ages. Of the second series,
enough has perhaps been said. The first exhibits the
archaic features of art in a most interesting manner.
The limbs have a peculiar rigidity, which reminds us that
marble was a material of comparative novelty. They are
clearly imitations of older works ; and the heads, particu-
larly, may perhaps have been copied from originals in
wood. .In all the figures there is a vast deal of spirit and
power, but they are all singularly conformed to an archaic
archetype. The crisp short curls, the scrupulous fidelity
of conventional details, the quaint complacent smile on
every facef, peculiarities which every one can discern,
but hardly describe, and which cannot be understood
without a reference to the works themselves, all this
gives individuality to these marbles, as the expression of
a certain period of Greek History, and claims for them a
high place, the very highest, in our regard. This series,
we need not add, is indispensable to our gallery.
In calling the Mgma marbles archaic, and claiming for
them such prominent attention, it is only meant that they
exhibit the spirit of the archaic period of art in its very
perfection, that is, when it had attained its highest
beauty. You see genius struggling for expression, but
* Journal of Science and the Arts , No.xii. (London, 1819),
p. ,327. and Addenda.
-j- This singular and agreeable expression is recognisable on
the early coins of Athens, Corinth, and some other cities.
THE HEROIC AGE. 41
it is struggling in fetters : you feel that you are on the
eve of a great change, but that change has not yet arrived.
When we look at the Parthenon, we are immediately
made conscious that the change has come. The old he-
roic age had then departed, and for ever. But the marbles
of ^Egina are, of course, no fair exponent of the heroic age
of Greece. Of this age we lack adequate monuments.
I suppose, besides the lions over the gate at Mycense, no
sculptures of the Heroic age are extant ; and that the
Cyclopean remains of Mycenae, Argos, Tiryns, and a
few more towns, are the only existing relics of the age
of Homer. Amid this dearth of materials, we must be
content to cite the Harpy-tomb which Sir C. Fellows has
lately brought from Lycia, as the best and perhaps the
earliest extant specimen of a primitive time. It was pro-
bably executed about the seventh or eighth century before
our era ; and is preserved, as you are awaie, in the British
Museum. One would, of course, desire to possess a cast of
this very interesting monument, the exact locality and
use of which are fortunately so well known Another
memorable piece of sculpture referable to this first period
of art, is the singularly archaic fragment which the
learned friend I have already quoted, first introduced to
the notice of English antiquaries. The original, which was
found in Samothrace, is deposited in the Louvre; and a
cast might be easily obtained. In the meanwhile I subjoin
the reference to his work*, which should find a place
in every College-Library, as it does in our own.
Of the same period it may suffice further to mention
(as easily made available to us) the well-known metopes
found at Selinus in 1823, casts of which are in the
* Millingen's Ancient Uned. Monuments, 2nd Series, pi. 1, p. 1.
42 SELINUNTINE SCULPTURES.
British Museum*; the originals being deposited in the
Museum at Palermo. These sculptures, which have no
beauty, but are highly interesting and important, may be
seen engraved in the folio publication of their discoverer,
Mr. Angell. They are uncouth representations, derived as
usual from ancient myths; as the death of Medusa, one
of the adventures of Hercules, and the like. The frag-
ments are numerous, but the perfect groups are but
three. These however are, in their way, quite unique.
They must be seen to be understood; and studied to be
appreciated.
A third great epoch, that namely, which succeeds
the age of Alexander the Great, remains to be noticed.
We now find the barriers broken down which had so long
fenced in the holy ground of public faith and public feel-
ing : and a corresponding change is discernible in art,
a change which continued rapidly on the increase, till that
general dissolution of things prevailed which ushered in
Christianity; and, under Providence, paved the way for
its rapid dissemination. At the beginning of the period
under review, the physical investigations of the earlier
schools of philosophy recede, and at last disappear before
the metaphysical acuteness of Plato, and the free ration-
alism of Aristotle. On referring to the page of Greek
History for some further illustration of a curious problem ,
we are reminded of the Indian expedition of the Mace-
donian conqueror, by which Greece first became exposed to
the influence of the Oriental philosophy; and a mighty
shock must have been inevitably given to the prejudices
of so lively, so polite, and so susceptible a people. We
* Mr. Angell informs me that this is the only set of casts
from these marbles in England. From these, however, casts
would be easily procurable.
WORKS OF THE THIRD PERIOD. 43
arc further reminded of the teaching of the sophists, and
the first inroad of the subjective into the objective world.
It is a memorable fact that Alexander the Great is the
first human personage whose portrait appears on coins.
Accordingly, as might have been expected, we now begin
to find a mixture of the human with the divine in other
monuments also : and shall find in the remark just offered
a clue to much unwelcome novelty, and many apparent
irregularities. I am not aware of any grand series of
marbles which are referred to this time: but as we
descend in the scale of history, our monuments, whether
in Art or Literature, increase in a rapid ratio. The great
artists and the great authors have disappeared; but the
inferior performers in either department have multiplied
innumerably. The difficulty noAV consists rather in selec-
tion. We shall not, at all events, err, in calling particular
attention to such detached groups and single statues as
the following: the Laocob'n: the dying gladiator: the
gladiatorial figure sometimes called Brasidas at Amphi-
polis : the Diana of the Louvre : the Discobolus : the well-
known figure of Cupid bending his bow : the figure called
the Genius in the Vatican : the Farnese Hercules : the Flora
of Naples: and those three beaiitiful, well-known works
which formerly engrossed almost exclusive admiration,
the Venus de Medici, the Belvidere Apollo, and the Anti-
noils. It is considered that some of these, particularly
the three last named works, are of a late time ; perhaps
referable to so low a period as the age of Hadrian; but
that they are copies of older works, works, as old perhaps
as the age immediately succeeding the age of Alexander.
The Apollo is considered to be an imitation of a bronze
statue ; and there are many peculiarities in the treatment of
that fine work which irresistibly recommend the suggestion
to our acceptance. The third figure (the Antinoiis) is
44 ADVANTAGES OF SUCH A GALLERY
probably the copy of a Mercury, with the portraiture of
the favourite whose name it bears. In short, an attentive
consideration of the matter leads us to the painful con-
clusion, that of the original statues of antiquity extremely
few are extant: and in this period of Art, the last which
we shall pass under review, a splendid copy of a lost
original is probably that which wins our highest praise.
But this is by the way, and something of a digression,
though it is hoped not a tedious one.
It need scarcely be remarked, that my wish has rather
been to produce a sketch than to exhibit a finished design :
to suggest, not to prescribe. This faint outline therefore
of the requirements of an University is all that I shall
presume to offer. It must be superfluous to add that
much has been passed over, wittingly. In specifying the
^Egina marbles as a type of the first epoch of ancient
Greek sculpture, I am not forgetful of the fact that many
other fragments might be found belonging to the same
time, and which would well deserve being contemplated
side by side with them : the same may be said of the
works enumerated as specimens of the second; and especially
of the third, which is perhaps the least instructive, period :
least instructive, that is to say, to such students as would
frequent a gallery of antiquities in Oxford. Each period
would also conveniently admit of further subdivision.
My object, I trust, has been made sufficiently plain. It
remains, however, to illustrate a little more fully, the
advantage such a collection of monuments would be to
an University.
And surely, after what has been already directly
observed or indirectly suggested, much need not be said
in addition to convince such persons as, I am willing to
hope, will be induced to give these pages a patient reading,
of the importance of a Collection like this to the classical
TO THE CLASSICAL STUDENT. 45
student. The sculptures of JEgina would be to him the
Herodotus, those of Athens, the Thucydides of art. The
union of archaic simplicity with consummate know-
ledge and skill, the touches of pathos combined with
the utmost life and spirit, and I may add the quaint
smile on the faces of the one set of marbles : the severe
dignity, the condensed truth and grandeur of the other,
remind me irresistibly of the characteristics of the two
great Historians of antiquity. But even if this were not the
case, were there the utmost apparent discrepancy between
these two sets of contemporary monuments, there would
remain a great many advantages, or, as one may say, uses;
enough to recommend these marbles to the most matter-of-
fact person imaginable. To take those from the Parthenon,
for example: who, let me ask, can read the 13th chapter
of the 2nd book of Thucydides, that passage namely,
wherein Pericles is spoken of as alluding to the very
marbles in question, without an impatience to turn and
gaze on the works themselves? But it would be endless
to particularise. A thoughtful person could not live in a
city which contained such a series of objects, without
becoming in some degree affected by them; and if his
memory were stored with the literature and institutions of
the people by whom they were produced, he would soon
learn to yield them his homage, and he would receive in
return their silent teaching. He would insensibly imbibe
the spirit of antiquity, if he might stand, at leisure
moments, amid such relics; and it is to be supposed that
by studying in the same school as Miiller and Heeren, (but
under happier auspices), his apprehension of their lessons
might be sharpened; thedryness and coldness of their
scholarship and criticism relieved; the materials for
original thought and speculation supplied; somewhat of
the German enthusiasm for antiquity engendered without
46 ANCIENT ART SHOULD BE STUDIED.
its unintelligible mysticism : somewhat of its indefatigable
spirit of research, without its miserable infidelity; and
the strange phenomenon be no longer witnessed, of learned
men, when they leave our Universities, perplexed at the
sight of the monuments of the very people whose litera-
ture they know so well: with whose institutions, and
history, and manners, they are familiar; but with whose
immortal works of Art they are as unacquainted as with
the monuments of central America, or of Japan. The
most perplexing passages in the classic writers they have
completely mastered, or at least fairly met : the subtleties
of Greek thought and expression, they have made their
daily study: but the rhythm of Art the language of
those old Greeks who wrote their thoughts on Pentelic
marble, these remain as great a mystery as the languages
of Persepolis and of Etruria. We are bold to assume,
as a general position, that ancient Literature and ancient
Art are naturally connected ; and should never be entirely
separated; that to understand either, one must study
both: that even so, it will be found quite hard enough
to acquire an adequate notion of the spirit and mind of
antiquity: but that to understand the one thoroughly,
without studying the other at all, is utterly impossible.
A few words more, in illustration of the uses of a
Gallery of Art will best be offered when I have completed
my sketch.
Not to -delay you too long, I will next suggest that to
render complete such a collection as we could wish to
possess in Oxford, the works of great modern Artists should
not be altogether excluded. It may suffice to particularise,
of mediaeval art, the stupendous creations of Michael
Angelo; his Moses, for example: and I would beg
especially to remind you of the unfinished marble group
by his hand, now in the possession of the Koyal Academy.
CLAIMS OF MODERN ART. 47
It represents, in high relief, the Blessed Virgin the
Infant Saviour and St. John Baptist. No words can
express the sublimity of this composition. Once seen, it
can never be forgotten. And a cast of it may be obtained
for thirty shillings ! I have said nothing about the
wonderful Italian school of Sculpture which preceded the
age of Michael Angelo, simply because I know nothing
beyond the fact that there was such a school.
To descend at once to modern times; if, after the
Taylor gallery had admitted all the works we have
alluded to, room were still found for more, one would
be quite willing to admit a single specimen of the works
of great modern sculptors : a single specimen of the skill
of Flaxman, in whom the awful grandeur of antiquity
revived ; of Thorwaldsen ; of Canova ; of Chantrey ; of the
Westmacotts ; of Gibson ; and a few more names. But
instead of all this, what have we? No .^Egina marbles,
no Parthenon marbles ; none of the wonders of ancient,
none of the glories of modern art: nothing but a room-
ful of plaster casts from Chantrey's statues ! ! ! And these,
neither historical compositions, nor statues of our great-
est Worthies ; but, in the majority of instances, funereal
monuments of little great men : the melancholy effigies
of mothers, or maidens who died before their time, or
soldiers, or statesmen: funereal monuments, by the way,
which do not even teach us the lesson which it properly
falls within the province of monumental sculpture to
convey. Our fathers felt that the departed had gone
to their saint's rest: so they folded their hands meekly
across their breasts in prayer ; as the fittest posture for a
living man, and the only fit posture for a dead one. But it
is a well-known fact that we are wiser than our sires ; and
the whole of Christendom seems to be of the same opinion.
Bishops (whether of Rome or of any other see) retain their
48 MODERN MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE.
episcopal thrones. Our departed statesmen (unquiet
spirits !) still harangue the house. Our philosophers cleave
to their professorial chairs. All seem to " die hard." Our
heroes cannot sheathe their swords and ' ' take their rest
with their martial cloaks around them ;" but still clutch
their weapons, and stand up among cannon-balls and
muskets : or clap their hands upon their thighs, and stare
coldly at you in stone ; clinging to what Gibbon calls
" the insolence of health ; " and looking as if they wanted
to convince you that " a living dog is \_nof\ better than a
dead lion." *
It is absurd to argue that because these casts have been
given us, that therefore they must be accommodated : still
more absurd to suppose that they ought of necessity to
find room in, or rather to fill, the principal apartment of
the Taylor Gallery ; what if other great sculptors were to
leave us the casts which filled their ateliers ? Must room
be found for them too ? Must the rest of the building be
choked up ? But this is an uncongenial topic, and I
gladly abandon it. It is a painful and an ungracious thing
to speak as if in disparagement of a great artist, (which
is indeed alike foreign to my purpose and disposition), or
to seem ungrateful for an intended favour : but it is yet
more painful to see so famous an University exposed to
the risk of being misunderstood by all Europe, (for what
is done here, is not done in a corner): and this it is
which has suggested the boldness of this letter.
* Among several beautiful exceptions to these remarks,
I have particular pleasure in calling to mind some of
the works of Sir Richard Westmacott (as the monument of
the Due de Montpensier in Henry VII. 's Chapel), and of his
son, with whom I am quite sure the criticism here hazarded
will find favour. The proofs Mr. Westmacott has given of his fine
feeling for Christian Art are neither few nor inconsiderable. A
monument to the Earl of Hardwicke is one of many instances
which occur to my remembrance.
PROLIFIC GENIUS OF THE GREEKS. 49
But I must seem forgetful of the subject proposed for
consideration at the outset. Form and Colour were men-
tioned as a great and neglected means of education. Of
Colour not a word has been said ; and I have spoken of
Form, as if it were only to be seen in Sculpture, and in
ancient sculpture too. In thus narrowing the ground
however, we have acted advisedly. Mutatis mutandis, it is
easy to apply what has been said to any other department
of art, ancient or modern : and our remarks have been
restricted to the Sculptures of ancient Greece, because these
seem to present most attraction, and offer most advantages
to the student. Waiving, for the moment, any allusion
to Colour, it is imperative on us to remark, however, that
it is to do great injustice to Antiquity to speak of its
sculptors alone ; as if we had forgotten the claims of its
artists in gold, and silver, and bronze, in precious stones,
and in clay, or terra cotta. The genius of Greece seems to
have been inexhaustible, for ever developing some fresh
combination of the beautiful elements which it had at its
command. Horace* has expressed this sentiment with his
usual liveliness, in a passage which I fear you will hardly
recognise in the following English dress ; or perhaps I
should say dressing-gown, for the translation is a very
loose one :
Keleas'd, at last, from dread of Persia's king
When Peace o'er Hellas wav'd her ruffled wing,
How fast and fair the gentler Arts arose!
She train'd the steed: she grac'd the public shows:
Now, taught the Comic muse to tread the stage:
Now, bade the actor storm with Tragic rage:
With stubborn metal wag'd a noble strife,
And watch'd the marble struggle into life:
* Horat. Epist. ii. 1. v. 93 102.
E
50 AN APOLOGY FOR THE
Or Beauty's image labour'd to recall,
And hung, enfaptur'd, on the pictur'd wall.*
And, as a wayward, wanton child at play
Changes its pastime with the changing day ;
Tires of the rapture each new toy supplied,
And flings, impatient, each new toy aside;
So thou, fair Hellas, in thy youth wast fain
To take fresh flights in Fancy's bright domain :
Range ev'ry field of Truth and Beauty o'er,
Exhaust its treasures, and still pine for more !
The Coins f of the ancients are a class of monuments far
too important to be passed over unnoticed here. They
even challenge the foremost place in a gallery consecrated
to Art ; and, in a public University, those claims acquire
tenfold force and reality. Not that we can hope to feast
our eyes upon the coins themselves, for it would cost too
many thousands to secure a collection sufficiently exten-
sive, and sufficiently beautiful, for our purpose. A fine
set of casts in sulphur is all that can be hoped for ; but
these might be secured for a very insignificant sum.
Classed in geographical order, with a subsidiary chrono-
logical arrangement, and disposed in flat cases about the
level of the eye, so that the specimens (both obverse and
reverse) might be examined in a good light through
glass, what an insight into the History, the Mythology,
the Art of Sicily and Magna Graecia Greece Proper, Asia
Minor, Syria and Egypt, would be attainable by the
merest tyro ! I scarcely dare trust myself on so seductive a
* " Suspendit picta vultum mentemque tabella."
f The mention of ancient coins seems to suggest the fittest
opportunity for an acknowledgment, as sincere and hearty, as
I feel it must be brief. If there be any single sound view of
Antiquity contained in these pages, I have derived it, con-
sciously or unconsciously, from one of the best of living anti-
quaries my Father. The mistakes, (whatever they may be),
are private property, and altogether my own.
STUDY OF ANCIENT COINS. 51
theme: so pregnant with interest, so important, yet
enjoying such limited popularity. Under whatever light
we contemplate these beautiful little monuments, we are
struck with their surpassing value and importance. The
invention of coinage is contemporary with the beginning
of civilised society in Greece : the series only ends with
the extinction of the Roman Empire. Throughout that
long period, the history of each country is engraved on
its coins; those of each city become a fragmentary
chronicle of that city. What history attests, that coins
corroborate. Is history silent ? the coins still speak.
They tell of leagues formed with distant states: they
commemorate victories:* they bear witness to periods of
grandeur and decay : they indicate the change of lan-
guage, the progress of colonization, the haunts and the
seats of commerce, and the vicissitudes of empire: they
preserve the memory of local worship : they exhibit
ancient localities:! they present us with the portraits of
emperors, tyrants, kings, queens, and other illustrious
personages; so exquisite, that modern art cannot ap-
proach them: so truthful and striking, that we should
recognise Alexander the Great, Seleucus, Antiochus,
Ptolemy, or the Caesars, if we could meet them, a great
deal better probably than we should our own Shakspeare.
* None perhaps more touchingly than those large brass coins
struck by Vespasian and Titus, and inscribed IVD^EA CAPTA :
which represent the daughter of Sion sitting mournfully on
the ground beneath her palm.
t A coin of Neapolis (now Nablous) the ancient Sychcm,
or Sychar, struck by Antoninus Pius represents that temple
on Moiint Gerizim which the woman of Samaria alluded to
when she said ol iraripeg fifiwv if rnvra) ry opei TrpoaeKvvrjaai-.
A copper coin of Athens represents the Theatre of Bacchus at
the foot of the Parthenon. Another represents the Acropolis
itself. These, though rare cases, are by no means solitary
examples of localities actually pictured on coins.
52 ANCIENT COINS.
Going have a literature of their own. They may be
regarded as little leaves cut out of the great volume of an-
tiquity, consigned to the winds and storms of more than
two thousand years, and at last washed up on these dis-
tant shores, each with its indelible, unalterable record.
Some present the names of forgotten cities; others estab-
lish the orthography of cities, well known indeed, but
the names of which, variously written by mediaeval
transcribers, have perplexed the learned.* Some are
interesting for their curious legends, and challenge the
critical acumen of the scholar.f Many kings of Bactria,
many kings of Indo-Scythia, unknown names, and lost
as it might have 'seemed for ever, have come to light
only within the last ten years. A handful of coins is
all that remains of a mighty dynasty ! J
Then, had Coins no other attraction, their singular
beauty, the glory of the conceptions indelibly stamped
upon them, enough sometimes to make the heart ache
with a sense of their loveliness ! might surely rescue
them from the neglect in which they have slumbered so
long Much injustice has been done by individuals
to the different pursuits with which they are not them-
selves acquainted ; but on no pursuit has more preposterous
ridicule been heaped than on those of the Antiquary.
The Philosopher flatters himself that he soars, while the
* Dr. Arnold, I think, alludes to this in three or four places,
in his notes to Thucydides : e.g. iv. 75 (KaXKijSwv). He was
anticipated, in this practice, by Dr. Cramer, who generally
inserts a notice of the ancient orthography of ancient towns,
in the notes to his Geographical works.
t Take for example the inscription on a coin of Miletus,
which Millingen has published in his Sylloge of Ancient lined.
Coins, 4to. London, 1837, p. 70, viz., EF AfAYMilN 1EPH.
\ See Professor Wilson's learned and interesting work, en-
titled " Ariana Antiqua," 4to. London, 1841.
THE ANTIQUARY. 53
Antiquary creeps: the Historian, that he is dealing with
great things, while the Antiquary is playing with toys : the
Poet that he gathers the fruit, while the poor Antiquary puts
up with the stalk and leaves : the Naturalist, that if he be
himself a trifler, he is at least trifling with the works of
Nature, while the Antiquary is trifling with the works of
Man ; and so of others. (As if tadpoles, and torn-tits, and
cabbages were necessarily a more elevating subject of
study than Man, and Man's ways: the cunning workman-
ship of his fingers: his yearnings after perfection!).
It may be that Antiquaries themselves, or rather pretended
Antiquaries, have had their full share in promoting this
delusion. An illegible inscription, a rusty old sword,
found by no-body-knows- whom, no-body-cares- where,
a Queen Anne's farthing, a copper coin with nothing
upon it, a pipkin of red earthenware,* destitute of either
spout or handle, all these are deemed the peculiar pro-
perty of the Antiquary. One hears it sometimes gravely
stated that antiquaries admire things " because they are
old." How often must it be repeated, that nothing is to
be admired but what is beautiful, that nothing can be
beautiful which is not good ? I dismiss this slight digres-
sion by appealing to the coins of Magna Graecia in support
of my assertion, that ancient coins exhibit sometimes the
* Or such a thing, for example, as may be seen inserted into
the wall of an Iiin by the road side, near Waltham-Cross, in
Hertfordshire ; surmounted by the words VIA UNA. It seems
that a mansion once stood there, belonging to the Cecil family ;
whose motto is " Cor unurn, Via una" Amid the foundations
of the house, a rude earthen vessel, (such as, two centuries ago,
the lower orders seem to have used for beer), was discovered,
along with the latter-half of the family-motto wrought in stone.
The inference, though not quite logical, was irresistible. The
allusion was evidently to Watling-street ; and the Inn rejoices
in the sign of " The Roman Urn " to this day.
54 INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE OF ANCIENT
very highest order of artistical skill; and would particu-
larly call attention to those of Syracuse, Agrigentum,
Caraarina, Tarentum, Metapontum, Terina, Thurium,
Heraclea in Lucania, Crotona, and Velia. Nor am I
apprehensive of the result, if you will refer to the plates
in Noeh den's Specimens of ancient Coins, engraved at the
suggestion of Canova, from the princely collection of that
distinguished patron of the Arts, Lord North wick.
What then is wanting to recommend the study of this
class of monuments? What additional argument need be
urged to show the advantage of a set of casts to the clas-
sical student? Can any one read Thucydides without
wishing to see coins of Athens and Sparta? and who but
will be struck with the coinage of the former city; who
but will be led to some curious reflexions by the absence
of all coins of the latter? How interesting to such a
reader become the coins of the allies of either state !
those of Plataea, to cite a single example, How real be-
comes the narrative in b. vi. c. 4, when, at a certain period
in the series, the legend ceases to be Zancle* and becomes
Messana instead! With what interest one looks at the
Lydian coins after reading the first book of Herodotus!
Will the portraits of Mithradates,| of Pompey, of Julius
and of Augustus Caesar, of Tiberius and of Germanicus,
of Cicero, of the many illustrious ladies of Imperial
Rome, be valueless to the student of Roman history and
literature? But I must be growing tedious. Only one
remark shall be added; and it shall be expressed in
general language, for the argument applies to every
branch of ancient monuments, though it is by no means
in a slight degree applicable to coins. They would
* See a paper on this subject by my Father, Num. Chron.
vol. iii. p. 40.
t This uarne is invariably so spelt on coins.
MONUMENTS TO THE CLASSICAL STUDENT. 55
deserve our best attention then, in this place, were it only
because they present us with such lively Representations of
ancient Objects. Instead of contenting ourselves with the
second-hand descriptions of men who never saw the things
themselves; or putting up with the representations of
such miserably ill-selected specimens of antiquity as are
sometimes presented to our notice, why should we not
rather make it our honest ambition to contemplate the
monuments themselves: to derive our notions from the
fountain-head ? For this purpose, we should find copies
of the subjects of ancient Vases especially valuable. How
lively a notion of a Greek warrior is derived from a Greek
frieze, or vase, or coin: his helmet, his round shield,
his offensive weapons. With regard to the second, how
intelligible, for the first time, becomes the epithet 7roS^/wy<? :
how interesting the description of its device or CTTI 0-77/40 v !
What a commentary on countless passages in classic writers
becomes the actual representation of ancient costume; of an
ancient ship ; and still more, of an ancient car : the avrvj;,
the ^705, the pv(j,6$, the earwp : to say nothing of the
trappings of the steeds. The Panathena'ic amphora which
my Father found at Athens in 1813, and which has been
so often published, exhibits, on its reverse, a two-horse
car and its charioteer, of the sixth, or perhaps even the
seventh, century before our era. Where else shall we turn for
such an early representation ? And, without it, how vague
must our notion of the scene depicted be ! Take
domestic implements again, (if the term be allowable):
the tripod, the lyre, the torch, a vase, a strigil,
a mirror, a chair: domestic scenes, as a marriage, a
hunting-party, or a feast : public scenes, as a chariot-race,
or a combat : the heads, or the statues, of ancient deities
with their accessories, and the several objects sacred to
56 SUCH STUDIES NOT TO BE NEGLECTED
them : above all, the ancient modes of representing ancient
myths. Why, in conclusion, let me most earnestly ask ;
why, with all this in our reach, are such objects as un-
known among us as if no relic of Antiquity had survived
the stormy flight of twenty centuries? Fiercely indeed
has that storm raged; and few, comparatively, are the
relics which it has spared : yet, even in their ruins, most
lovely are they, one and all ; and, like the precious stones
of earth which Plato beautifully dreamed of, as the
fragments of a brighter world above us,* they speak
eloquently of an intellectual creation such as we seem
destined never to behold again. Christianity has lent
us angels' wings: has sanctified, and therefore ennobled
Art beyond all expression : has discovered a new Architec-
tural World; and in the harmonies of Sound and Colour
has conducted us into regions never explored by antiquity :
but, in her peculiar way, Greece yet remains it may be,
must ever remain unrivalled Why do we keep these
treasures from ourselves? How long are we to be
deprived of such high gratifications? What is to be the
limit, in the age of the individual, or the history of this
place, to which we are to deny ourselves the advantages
which, for a sum too trifling to be considered, might be
made available to us all?
I suppose that every one must have been occasionally
impressed with the almost unsurmountable impediments
which stand in the way of a complete appreciation of the
classic writers. Not to mention the mystery of the idiom,
arising so frequently from the circumstance that their
compositions were in tended for the ear, and not for the eye :
not to mention the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility,
of translating a dead language into a living one; to
* Phado, p. 110. I).
WHILE SO MANY DIFFICULTIES REMAIN. 57
understand them/M%, we need to have felt their faith, and
used their laws, and shared their lives ; or, at all events, to
have lived in their land, and in their times; to have looked
upon the same blue mountains and sea through the
same pure atmosphere : to have been familiar with all their
various sights and sounds : to have seen their faces, and
heard their voices, and breathed their air, and eaten their
food. Without any such associations, how darkly do we,
how dimly must we gaze into Antiquity through the
medium of a dead language ! Some such conviction as
this is often forced upon us by a speech, a chorus, a
dialogue, the individual remarks or the reflexions of an
ancient author. Still oftener, particular passages present
difficulties which remind us of the disadvantages under
which we labour. A few examples, selected at random,
will sufficiently illustrate what is here intended. Thucy-
dides refers in a well-known passage* to the Athenian
practice of wearing a peculiar head-dress, adorned
with golden rerr^e? : and Aristophanes has several
allusions to the same ancient fashion. We refer to the
scholiast on both writers, and find, Bia TO fMovcriicbv, rj 8ia
TO avTo^dovaf elvai-, assigned as the reason : /cal <yap TO <wov
7777eve5. But we have always been allowed to translate
T6TTt|, grasshopper; and since that insect is neither
" musical," nor in any particular sense " indigenous," the
passages in question are, I suppose, not generally under-
stood : or rather, the reasons assigned by the scholiast do
not appear quite satisfactory. But every Athenian must
have been familiar with the allusion, and felt its appo-
siteness. The large winged insect which the Greeks
called T6TTt^, the Latins cicada, and the modern
Italians cigala, (but for which we have no name), when it
* B.i. c.6.
58 DIFFICULTY OF FULLY UNDERSTANDING
escapes from the chrysalis, which was deposited in the ground,
flies up with tuneful wings, out of the earth under the very
feet of the traveller, the offspring, as it would indeed
seem, of the soil. What fitter type could have been selected
of a race who deemed themselves avro^6ove<; ?. . .^Eschylus
calls the misery which war inflicts SiXoyxpv drtjv.
These two \6yxcu are truly enumerated by the com-
mentators, viz. public and private woe. But who does
not perceive that this is only half the explanation which
the phrase requires? The very best commentary on the
passage is the ancient representation of a Greek warrior,
armed with two spears. This, it will be felt, makes the
metaphor intelligible in a moment. JEschylus would
never have said rp {\oy%ov The Bovpios opviQ of the
same poet, Ag. 112; and the einnepov opviv of Sophocles,
(Ed. Tyr. 175, would, in like manner, be best illustrated
from monuments: nor would any youth, who had once
been shown the representation alluded to, again think of
translating the latter phrase, " a well-fledged hen" A
multitude of similar examples might perhaps be recol-
lected, if it were worth while. Aristophanes, in particular,
is full of allusions which we cannot explain.* It will be
perceived that the exquisite chorus in the (Edipus Coloneus
already quoted, should, in order to be understood, be read
with the recollection in our hearts that the Parthenon
over-hung the Theatre of Bacchus where the play was per-
formed : that itsPediments exhibited the theme of the poet's
song executed in Pentelic marble by Phidias: and that
a single gesture of the Coryphaeus would have sufficed to
* In a single play of his, how many occur! In the Knights,
for example, the following lines strike one as all requiring
further elucidation v.630: 815-6: 901: 1103: 1180: 1175-6:
1270-1, etc.
THE ANCIENT WRITERS. 59
render all the poet's meaning clear: (though this, as
we all remember, was not at all necessary before an
audience who, when they heard their own praises, under-
went such lively excitement, that as their fellow-townsman
and satirist told them to their faces, they could " hardly
keep their seats" eV d/cpwv TWV TrwytSww etcddyaQe}.*
Then, to all this we must add the balmy air, the bright
lights and shadows, the temple itself kindling in the
morning sunshine, and the distant sight of Salamis
and the sea; and we seem to have a faint glimpse, at
least, of what we ought to experience, in order to under-
stand what an Athenian felt, what the poet of Colonus
intended that his hearers should feel. Now, to say no-
thing of the Stygian darkness which, in addition, hangs
over the pronunciation of Greek poetry, the lost charm
of its metre, and of its musical and orchestric accompani-
ment, do we not at once perceive how thick a veil hangs
between a single chorus and ourselves? How dim, and
vague, at best, our notions of Antiquity must be? Once
more then, we shall surely feel that no legitimate method
of dispelling that gloom is to be neglected : and it is
hoped that what has been urged will suffice to show that
the contemplation of ancient Monuments themselves, or
faithful copies of them, is at once the simplest and the
most valuable.
Enough has now been said about Form ; too much
perhaps: and yet I have carefully abstained from any
theoretical views of ancient Art; or from looking deeper
into its analogies than the matter in hand seemed to
warrant. This may be reserved for some more conve-
nient opportunity ; when further reading and observation
* Aristoph, Acharn. v. 638.
60 EOI TAS APXA2.
has enabled me to systematise opinions only disconnect-
edly held at present; and to trace more distinctly the
complicated outline by which the works of Antiquity
using that term in its very widest sense are circum-
scribed: provided always that more precious claims
should not make such an occupation unlawful ; provided
too that I am not anticipated by some more able pen.*
On the subject of Colour, no less than on the subject of
Form, "if I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my
heart to bestow it all on your worship ; " but a salutary
check shall be imposed. As already remarked, I have
spoken of Art practically, not theoretically; and of the same
character shall be the remarks which remain to be offered.
I leave that other view of these matters, that, namely,
which I believe has been called the philosophy (or, as
others have preferred to call it, the science) of Art, to those
who have the taste and the ability for such investigations.
In other words, I abstain from beginning with such in-
quiries as that concerning the abstract principles of Beauty ;
but, in humble imitation of some illustrious examples which
shall be nameless, placing myself at the other end of
the scale of intelligence, and hoping, in time, to arrive
at the Universal by means of the Particular, with the
monuments before me, I desire to look up to the Beau-
tiful through and from them; and to consider what
advantages their study seems calculated to confer.
You will, I am sure, excuse me, if I here venture to
offer an opinion, differing from that which, till you
* I find with pleasure that something of the kind is contem-
plated by Charles Newton, Esq., of Christ-Church, now of
the British Museum, one of the few friends with whom, in
discussing these subjects, I have found on the whole a singular
coincidence of sentiment and general opinion.
ESTIN H OAOS. 61
did me the favour to explain your meaning more fully,
I conceived you yourself held on this subject; namely, that
it is wholly impracticable to convey a knowledge of the
arts of Sculpture and Painting on synthetic principles. In
this respect, these arts seem to differ in some degree from
the sister art, Music : and this, perhaps, is the reason why
the last named has, in all ages except the present, been
selected as an integral part of an academical course,
namely, because it admitted of something like scientific
teaching : because, (as you have yourself pointed out
from Aristotle), " the etSr) rov Ka\ov, in other words
the necessary conditions of art, raft?, Koi av^erpLa^ Kal
TO a)pi<rfAvov" are distinctly recognisable in it. That
the mysteries of Form and Colour are referable to certain
fixed laws, and that the types of aesthetic Beauty are as
immutable in their nature as the ap%ai of morals them-
selves, / make no manner of doubt. But, whatever the
4 line of beauty ' may be, it has never been discovered : and
the theory of Colour, even if there exist one worthy of
being scientifically taught, (of which I humbly confess
myself profoundly ignorant), must belong, one should
think, rather to the science of Optics, than to the study of
Art. It is feared that to one predisposed to the abstract
and a priori investigation of such questions, all that has
been here written must have a very material air, and be
singularly distasteful : but, deeply impressed with the
soundness of my position, I am bold to think that, fairly
considered, its general correctness will be admitted. Let
me hope, at all events, that I am not misunderstood to
speak slightingly of that confessedly higher view of the
subject which I judge that you are disposed to take, as
well from the conversation you have occasionally favoured
me with on such topics, as from the thoughtful paper
62 ADO TON APXQN.
you read before the Ashmolean Society " On Education
in the Principles of Art." It is, of course, a matter of
deep wonder to find that the harmonies of Colour, and
the harmonies of Sound, depend on " contemporaneous
vibrations, addressed in the one case to the sense of sight,
and in the other to the sense of hearing." Very remark-
able, too, is the coincidence you point out in the absolutely
perfect concords, and the primitive forms of colours:
namely, that they are but three. To find the mystery of
Trinity in Unity thus reflected on the creatures of GOD
must ever be delightful, and deeply affecting to a well
constituted mind; and I feel grateful for being reminded
of any instance of it. The Atomic Theory has long since
reduced Chemistry to a science of Number ; and the pro-
gress of experiment will probably extend the claims of
Number to be a kind of summum genus : so that Philosophy,
in its old age, seems to be only verifying the guesses of its in-
fancy, under Pythagoras. All these, I grant, are marvels, and
well deserving study and attention : but I do not see how,
by such abstract investigations, we shall make any approxi-
mation to the great and definite end, which I am never-
theless well persuaded we both equally have in view.
We shall perhaps be told, then, that if these things can-
not be thus taught, they are not fit subjects /or the atten-
tion of an University : but such a sweeping denunciation
is not to be tolerated, and may be replied to in several
ways. First, though it should prove impracticable to
teach them synthetically, it does not therefore follow
that they cannot be taught at all. Next, even if they
defied all systematic teaching, it would not therefore
follow that they should labour under utter neglect : the
KO\OV may be worth contemplating for its own sake;
and, be it remembered, that the organ which makes us
WHY TASTE SHOULD BE CULTIVATED. 63
acquainted with it, is that organ which " converses with
its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the
longest in action without being tired or satiated with
its proper enjoyment."* Further, whatever our rulers
may see fit to decide in this place, the plain matter of
fact is, that a man no sooner leaves Oxford, than he
inevitably finds himself thrown, day after day, among
these forms of real or apparent beauty. No less if he stays
at home, than if he goes abroad, whether he understands
the subject, or whether he does not, is he called upon to
express an opinion ; and very often to make his election.
A man may as well attempt to escape from the responsi-
bility of Moral action as from the exercise of his Taste.
He is assailed, wherever he turns, and is daily called upon
to act : the alternative in every case being between acting
right and acting wrong. Finally, as you have yourself
most truly remarked, " where different Arts appear to
be entirely distinct from each other, they are still held
together, if not by relations of direct resemblance, yet by
certain laws of analogy" : or, as some one else has said,
" Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent,
habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione
quadam inter se continentur" : and it will follow that
the cultivation of one, indirectly prepares the heart for
the reception of another; or rather, ensures an un-
conscious acquaintance with all the rest: just as in
the Aristotelian system of Ethics, the possession of
<t>p6vr)<Tt,<; ensures the possession of all virtue. Hence the
ancients fabled the Arts to be Sisters, by wedding
one of whom, you find yourself brought into close rela-
tion with all the others. And, for our present purpose, it
seems worth adding to your own remark this further
* Addison. Spectator, No. 411.
64 THE FINE ARTS ARE LINKED TOGETHER.
one, namely, that Beauty is one and the same every-
where ; though, from the nature of the case, it assumes
innumerably different aspects: and therefore, to speak
practically, that a soul which has once imbibed a thorough
sense of what is beautiful in any one department, will be
furnished with a faculty which will serve as a guide in
every unforeseen occasion ; and enable a person to decide
rightly, on the whole, in every case that may happen to
present itself, however anomalous it may appear to be.
For there is a Right and a Wrong in every thing; there
is harmony or rhythm, though it may defy analysis, even
in the furniture of a room, the hanging of a picture,
the proportions of a chalice, the arrangement of a
garden. Such questions seem to occupy the same kind
of relation to Art, which cases of Casuistry occupy towards
Morals. A person learned in such subjects could give
off-hand a great many curious examples, or rather proofs,
of the wonderful chain which binds the Fine Arts to-
gether, and links the small with the great. It occurs to
me that Phidias, who made the chryselephantine statue
of Minerva, the wonder and admiration of the ancient
world, thought it no indignity to execute a fly ; or a
fish; so natural, that it was said of it, " Give it water,
and it will swim." A curious instance of his mechanical
ingenuity is also recorded. Michael Angelo, equally
great in Sculpture and in Painting, built St. Peter's,
fortified Florence, and wrote poetry. Raphael's inex-
haustible genius condescended to the embellishment of
the walls of the Vatican with merely ornamental details.
Leonardo da Vinci was as famous for his knowledge
of Architecture and Sculpture, as for his skill in Painting :
he was celebrated too as a musician, mathematician, and
engineer; and by a marvellous instinct, anticipated the
EXAMPLES OF THIS. 65
truths which it was reserved for a late, age to establish.
Petrarch was one of the earliest collectors of ancient
coins. " The Tuscan artist," (lie who viewed the moon
" through optick glass,") dwells on his high obligations
to Ariosto, whose works he perused constantly; and was
himself a poet and a critic.* Some time since, I happened
to meet with a most exquisite episcopal seal, that of
Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham in the reign of
Edward III. I felt sure that it could have been no
common person who had left such a memorial of his
taste, in so small a particular; and on inquiry, it proved
that this bishop had been Tutor to the King, Lord Chan-
cellor of England, and Envoy to the French capital and
the Papal Court: that he was the father of English book
collectors, and had been the friend of Petrarch. He
bequeathed his books to the University of Oxford, and
I am told that a few are still preserved in Trinity
College library. Holbein portrayed the nobility of
Henry VIII. 's court, and designed their jewellery. He
also painted the ceiling of the Chapel Royal. St. James's. r
The residence of Rubens was in itself a picture. To cite a
living instance, all who have been made welcome in
the classic residence of the author of the Pleasures of
Memory, remember how a taste for the finest of the fine
Arts seems to have introduced all the rest : till the impress
of a correct taste is discernible in the minutest decora-
tions of that beautiful dwelling. When these pages meet
the eye of my indulgent friend, W. R. Hamilton, Esq.,
* For this illustration, and two or three similar remarks
in the beginning of this letter, I am indebted to my dear
friend, the Rev. C. P. Chretien, of Oriel. The obligations
which I lie under to him for his patient teaching, and kind
assistance in my studies, I am glad of any opportunity to ac-
knowledge.
F
66 TAINTING, AN ART
I trust he will not be displeased with the liberty I
take in mentioning his name in connexion with this
subject. Surrounded by many a specimen of what is rare
and beautiful in art, he beholds the legitimate fruits
of his varied and elegant scholarship reflected on all
that meets his eye. His friends will not easily forget
the classical effect of the Athenian frieze which sur-
rounds his library at Chelsea. To judge from the well
known character by the Rev. Mr. Temple, inserted in
Mason's Life of Gray, the author of the " Elegy" seems to
have been a singularly apposite illustration of my meaning,
in the last century. But I pass on to the subject more
immediately before us.
Painting then, with whatever success the Ancients may
have flattered themselves that they cultivated it, seems to
be an Art of Christian growth: and I am inclined to
believe that, by those who have reflected on the matter
attentively, this will not be thought a rash assertion.
With the exception of the paintings discovered at Pompeii
and Herculaneum, which are not ancient enough to
gainsay our present position ; nor (as far as I can discover)
sufficiently excellent either, it may be said that no ancient
paintings have come down to us: we can therefore only
reason on the subject from the existing evidence, for and
against the claims of antiquity, which is within our
reach. And first, it is to be admitted that we have
numerous extant specimens of ancient colouring. Fictile
vases exhibit drapery of yelloAv, pinkish red, and blue :
white bodies (when females are intended), and yellow
hair, which in the more finished specimens has not un-
frequently been gilded: and perhaps another colour
(though I never saw an instance of it), besides black, and
the brownish red colour of the clay itself. Colouring, how-
OF CHRISTIAN GROWTH. 67
ever, and Painting, it need scarcely be observed, are dis-
tinct things. The former seems a merely mechanical,
the latter, a very exalted and intellectual Art. The one
must be coseval with the first ages of mankind: the other
implies a very high degree of refinement and civilization.
Neither of these two last-named conditions were certainly
wanting in ancient Greece : still, as we all know, man is
slow to invent; and without some direct evidence to the
contrary, it seems just as unlikely that Painting, in the
modern sense of the word, was known to the ancients, as
that Music was. Musical notes indeed they knew. The
elementary principles of the science of harmony, with
their usual sagacity, they discovered. But that complicated
mystery which Christianity sought and found for its
utterance, of this we do believe they knew absolutely
nothing. To be brief, it may be presumed that the worlds
in which Raphael and Handel " lived, and moved, and had
their being, " were every bit as unknown to the ancients as
America or New Holland were. The stories we read of
Apelles and Protogenes, Parasius and Zeuxis, and the
like, all go to support this position. They corroborate
the proofs already existing in metal, in marble, and in
clay, that they were first-rate artists indeed ; perfect mas-
ters of Design ; and that they were well acquainted with
Colour : but by nothing that one reads is one induced to
think very highly of their proficiency in Painting. A
beautiful anecdote which has been recorded by Pliny, indi-
cates an extraordinary sense of beauty of form ; but three
fleeting lines intersecting one another on a painter's tablet
can have had nothing to do with the Art by which Titian
became immortal. And again, every one must feel that
many of the proofs urged in support of the pretensions of
the ancients, are such as to argue an almost infantine
68 COPIES OF FINE PAINTINGS
state of Art. A child five years old might paint cherries
which a bird would peck at. Any ingenious mechanic
could represent a curtain in such a manner as to deceive :
and I suppose a horse would be just as likely to neigh at
a flagrant sign-post effigy of one of his own species,* as
if the animal had been painted by Landseer himself.
This opinion on an interesting subject, briefly ex-
pressed, but not hastily adopted, I have ventured to
offer ; chiefly to explain why, in speaking of Painting, I
pass at once to the Italian school, and would be understood
to take my stand there, in the very few remarks I desire
in conclusion to offer. Is it then, I would ask, too much
to hope that, in time, we may see the walls of some
building in Oxford adorned with faithful copies of the
grandest Pictures in the world? and might we not hope
that by some act of private munificence we should here-
after see a gallery hung with original works of some of the
great Masters? In the meantime, surely some of the best
prints of those pictures might be procured, were it only
such a collection as the fine taste of an individual mem-
ber of this University has formed for his own gratification
and that of his friends; I allude, of course, to Mr.
Johnson, of the Observatory. I have also been informed
that the Kector of Lincoln College is happy in the pos-
session of a similar treasure. The original drawings of
Raphael and Michael Angelo, at all events, we possess;
and I suppose are all burning to behold. Surely, if pictures
are to charm us hereafter, they should begin to charm us
now. If, on leaving the University, a man is expected to
know a Raphael from a Rubens, a Guido from a
Reynolds, it is surely fair to let him see a specimen of
* See Pliny, Nat. Hist. b. xxxv. c. 10. The whole chapter
is exceedingly entertaining and worth reading.
REQUIRED IN A GALLERY OF ART. 69
those great masters, or at least of their manner, before-
hand. No one can study the works of Raphael without
improvement: no one can understand them without study.
They are sure to kindle the fancy, to soften the heart,
to exalt and purify the imagination, to mature the
judgment: and the rudiments of a Taste for these things
must be acquired early; or, in nine cases out of ten, it can
never be acquired at all. How many men are there, in
consequence, who go forth from this place as ignorant of
the first principles, the very alphabet (so to speak) of Art,
as of Chinese. How many men, heirs to high titles or
large fortunes ; or destined, on their leaving college, for the
enjoyment of noble opportunities, who nevertheless
miss those opportunities, abuse those great gifts : some,
brutally indifferent on the subject of Art: others, absurdly
lavish on objects undeserving of their attention ; and then,
unwilling to learn, or incapable of being taught the
egregious folly they have committed, and the worth-
lessness of their possessions : and in the case of such as
were destined for better things, how dimly and vaguely,
(like men groping in the dark), does one sometimes see
men feeling their way, and only late in life finding it;
after many abortive attempts, and after they have purchased
their experience at a price which would have stocked
a gallery !
Oxford cannot, of course, be converted into a School of
Taste. Nothing is more remote from my wishes than that
it should ever become so. We are not yet, I fear, in a
condition even to hear Lectures delivered on Art; but
it is high time that some preliminary steps should be taken
towards such an end : and the amount of intelligence, and
rank, and opulence collected with in these walls, seems to
call imperatively for some endeavour to promote an
acquaintance with those works which must ever be re-
70 ANTICIPATED RESULTS ON
ferred to as the models, and appealed to as the standards
of excellence 7ro\v)(p6viov <yap TO Ka\6v. I have endea-
voured in the preceding pages to explain how the
contemplation of such objects would go hand in hand
with the studies peculiar to an University education : but
even were this wholly problematical, it cannot be thought
strange that we should desire to be brought into sympathy
with the Sublime and Beautiful for its own sake. If the
ancients erected a Temple to the Charities of Life in the
public way,* in order that men might be perpetually
reminded of their social relationship, (somewhat, I
suppose, as Churches bearing the names of saintly holiness
are calculated to suggest heavenly thoughts amid the
strife and turmoil of politics or trade), surely we might
construct such a Gallery as we have been here describing,
in the yet more reasonable hope that the sublimest efforts
of Genius would occasionally awaken some sympathy,
even where they failed to stimulate inquiry, or to kindle
emulation.
But, in addition to all these considerations, it is
observable that in every department, if men are not assisted
and guided by those whose position and acquirements
qualify them to assist and guide, they will infallibly assist
one another and guide themselves. We have but to look
around us to be convinced that there exists in this place
a strong yearning for Art : which only wants direction, in
order that it may be made available for a high purpose.
These indications, however, such as they are, are indica-
tions of an untutored taste. The incongruities one daily
witnesses are a proof of this; and it seems no unfair
supposition that the mind of the individual is to be seen
reflected in the apartment he inhabits. In other words
* Aristot. Eth. Nic.v.5, 7. (A learned Friend reminds
me that the Stagyrite uses xP' here in an ambiguous sense.)
THE TASTE OF UNDERGRADUATES. 71
that the state of a room and the style of its decorations is
an indication of the condition of the intellectual chamber
of its occupant. That a young man, supremely ena-
moured of the excitement of the chase, should hang his
hunting-whip or a pair of spurs over his mantel-piece,
and feast his eyes on a gaudy coloured print of Reynard
in extremis, that " Breaking cover," " Leaping a fence,"
and " Tally ho!" should send him into exstasies, may
provoke a smile, but should not create surprise. I cannot
believe, however, that were a little attention bestowed on
the subject now before us, were ever so little pains taken
to cultivate and improve men's tastes, I cannot suppose
that such ill -selected specimens of Art as one sometimes
sees, would be so eagerly sought after: or that so incon-
gruous an association of the Sublime and the Ridiculous
as some of us may have witnessed in our time, would be
so generally endured. How often have we seen a subject
of awful sublimity, as the last Supper, the Crucifixion,
or the Descent from the Cross, side by side with
what I shrink from naming in the same paragraph : some-
thing not absolutely bad in itself, perhaps ; but which
seems very bad indeed when contrasted with what is so
unspeakably holy. It is surely not too much to hope
that a healthier tone of feeling might thus be insensibly
imparted ; and, as a necessary consequence, that the un-
worthy, tasteless, and I may add, extravagant, produc-
tions of the day would gradually become loathed like
unwholesome food : while we should see them silently
supplanted by such noble compositions as the fine taste
of Dr. Hope (by a recent publication, which should be in
every one's hands,) has placed within the reach of the
poorest student in Oxford. The boast which Pericles put
into the mouths of his countrymen, that " they indulged
72 *IAOKAAIA.
their passion for the beautiful, with economy,"* might
with far greater truth f be ours. We should, at all events,
soon discover that expensiveness is no necessary ingre-
dient in Beauty : but that this source of enjoyment, the
purest, next to the exercise of Moral Virtue, is no less
attainable by us all.
And thus I bring this long letter to a close; glad
of any opportunity to subscribe myself, with sincere
respect,
My dear Mr. Greswell,
Your much obliged and most affectionate
Friend and Pupil,
JOHN WILLIAM BURGON.
WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD,
DECEMBER, 1845.
yap p.tT tvrf\i.la. Thucyd. ii. 40.
f A learned friend, and one who combines profound scholar-
ship with the highest antiquarian feeling, has some remarks
on this subject too interesting to be omitted. He is speaking
of the very monuments to which Pericles alludes. " That
which chiefly excites our wonder in these beautiful works
of sculpture is, that their execution is such as in almost every
part to admit of minute inspection, although the nearest of them
Avere not seen at a smaller distance than forty feet. We cannot
have a stronger proof that considerations of economy entered very
little into the calculations of Pericles, and that the Athenian
artists aimed at nothing short of perfection in their produc-
tions, and at glory for their highest reward. Having formed
the conception of a finished and perfect work, Phidias and his
scholars could not be contented with any thing short of its
execution. Satisfied with its being for a short time submitted
to the near inspection of the public, they thought it could
receive no greater honour than that of contributing to adorn
the temple of the protecting goddess, of being consigned to her
care, and of becoming the object of a small share of the ven-
eration paid to her." (Col. Leake's " Athens and Demi," vol.
i. p. 337). These would have been the men to build a Ca-
thedral !
73
POSTSCRIPT.
P. S. In addition to the circumstance recorded in the
note to page 5, it should perhaps be stated that since these
pages were written, my attention has been called to the
fact that casts of several of the wished-for statues, already
exist in the Taylor Gallery. Let me remark therefore that
these are so few, and they are disposed in such a way,
that nothing which has been here urged is in the least de-
gree invalidated by the circumstance. The portions of
the Panathenaic and Phigaleian friezes which are inserted
in the wall just below the ceiling, however tastefully intro-
duced, and admirable in an architectural point of view,
are not calculated, at that elevation, to answer the re-
quirements of a Student of Art.
Q
IINIV, 6F ;;,;
-33 ANGELES
LONDON :
PRINTED BY J. WERTHEIMER AND CO.
CIRCDS PLACE, FIKSBURY CIRCUS.
A 001 232 902 5