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, ira5 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 : 'Opri, 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\OIepei." * 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 6fjLpQ)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 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/cp6vr)