CHAPTER IV. ANOTHER VISIT TO THE HARTWELL MUSEUM. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, $1. A FRAGMENT OF SCULPTURE BY PHIDIAS. A GENERAL description of the Hartwell Museum appears in the Edes (pages 135 to 144), wherein is set forth the loss sustained in its Greek department by Dr. Lee's considerate liberality in presenting the relics which he had obtained by excavation at Ithaca to the Society of Antiquaries of London. The same high spirit of self-abnegation has again deprived the classical part of the collection of another of its gems, but most assuredly in a Tо πреπоν direction. Honesty required me in that mention, to plead guilty of a sort of complicity in the affair; nor can I be altogether acquitted on the second count, for, urged by the special pleading of Mr. Austin Layard, of Nineveh renown, and retaining my conviction that all such disjointed items should be restored to their original situations, or deposited in a stable public institution, I certainly became an advocate for its removal to the national collection. The following are the circumstances: Under No. 4068 of the Hartwell Catalogue is this entry :-" Beautiful head, of Pentelic marble, with the hair gracefully represented, and one ear visible. The head is in half-relief out of the marble, in the best style of Greek art, and probably belonged to the frieze of the Parthenon. From Sig. Athanasi's collection, No. 946. Sold 1837.” An engaging peculiarity in the tournure of this head had frequently attracted my attention, and led me finally to coincide with Mr. J. Bonomi that it represented the youthful Hebe, torn from the eastern pediment. I therefore listened to the entreaties of Mr. C. F. Newton, Keeper of the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, and appealed to Dr. Lee to restore it to its proper place, where it would be of greater archæological value. He at once acceded; and promptly wrote that very afternoon (January 25th, 1862), to offer it as a "humble contribution" to the Trustees of the Museum, through his friend Professor Owen. However, before its departure for London, I had it carefully photographed and the result passed over to the graver of Mr. Cobb. This is his copy :- We must not quit the Parthenon without referring to an incident which occurred in Athens a short time before my visit to that most interesting city; and before its present motley improvements.* All the world knows that there were two bitter currents of public opinion as to Lord Elgin's removal of the wondrous marbles from their glorious fane-that Fauvel and Lusieri waged an internecine war against each other-and that something was wrong regarding the effects of the defunct Mr. Tweddell; so that, after all that has been published, there can be no good reason to open up those matters again. Suffice it here to say, it was Dr. Lee who had an inscription cut and installed in the temple of Theseus to honour Tweddell. This was written by the Rev. R. Walpole; and the whole story is so well told in a letter from the learned doctor-then Mr. John Fiott-that we offer no excuse for inserting it here: MY DEAR WALPOLE, Athens, February 25, 1811. At length your inscription is engraved on a white marble slab placed over Tweddell's grave. The marble is four feet ten inches long by three feet four inches wide. It is not of so good a quality or form, nor are the letters so well engraved, as one would wish; it is, however, the best which could be had; and, considering the difficulties and obstacles which were to be overcome, most persons are satisfied with it. It appears that, when Lord Elgin was in Athens, he manufactured a long Latin inscription in honour of himself and of Tweddell, which was left with Lusieri, who had orders to engrave it and place it over Tweddell's grave in the Temple. The latter deferred doing so from time to time; and, not having a good opinion of his Lordship's Latin, he sent the inscription to Naples, where his relation, a learned father Daniele, bibliographer to the King, absolved it from all its impurities, and sent it back again considerably shortened. Much as he confides in this father, still even in its present state Lusieri neglected to place it upon marble, and, on arriving here, I found that nothing had been done. Upon sounding Lusieri with respect to his intentions it appeared that he was positively bent on beginning his corrected inscription immediately, and he offered to allow me to engrave mine under his on a very fine marble slab which he has for the purpose. I inclose you a copy of his inscription in its Neapolitan form; the original I have not seen, but am told that it was much longer. On my not acceding to this coalition, he proposed to me to engrave my inscription on the wall of the temple, as he declined to allow it to appear alone on his marble, as was my wish, and to suppress Lord Elgin's entirely. A deal of time was thus spent, but all to no purpose. Lord Byron entered most heartily into the cause, and supported your inscription; Mr. Cockerell and Mr. Foster were also with us. Nothing, therefore, remained but to act in defiance of Lusieri, and to act à l'Italienne, in secret, lest he should place his stone in the temple before we could get another ready. The Disdar offered to sell any marble in the acropolis, but Athens could not furnish means to remove one thence on account of the size, and no person possessed a cart but Lusieri. A beautiful marble next fell * It was rather grating to the ear lately on being told by a friend that he arrived in the Piræus, and proceeded from thence to Athens in an omnibus. Ye gods, heroes, and philosophers of Greece! in our way, and it required sawing through the middle, but no one in Athens had a saw but Lusieri. Both these plans were therefore abandoned; at last, by examining private houses, a slab was found in the house of an Albanian of convenient thickness; it was purchased, and, after two days' labour, it was dragged up and placed in the temple. Excellent masons as these good folks were formerly, yet no instruments were to be found in modern Athens to polish or plane it; we were therefore obliged to have it hammered as smooth as we could. Mons. Fauvel was so good as to take a deal of trouble and interest in the affair, and he drew the letters and marked them out in so clear a manner that it was impossible for the letter-cutter to make a mistake. There is only one person now in Athens of this latter description. I believe Mr. Lusieri heard of our having gotten possession of the ground, while he was drawing the letters of his own inscription. He informs me that he shall certainly place his marble in the temple also, but I do not suppose that he will remove ours. It is placed exactly in the centre, as Mons. Fauvel was careful to have Tweddell's grave dug exactly there in the hopes of finding some remains of Theseus. It was placed there on the fifteenth of February, and finished on the twenty-second. I was obliged to engrave the name, TYAAEAA, above your inscription, as, during the last summer, Mr. Watson, a nephew of Mr. Wilkie of Malta, died in Athens, and was buried by the side of his countryman. We have been for this last fortnight endeavouring to find a marble to place over his grave, and to-day we have succeeded, having had a repetition of the same trouble as before. The inscription which will be engraved on Watson's marble is written by Lord Byron. Believe me, &c. JOHN FIOTT. The Mr. Wilkie mentioned in the foregoing letter held the post of naval agent-victualler at Malta, and in early youth had been employed in the British Consul's office at Algiers, where he was associated with the celebrated Bruce, then sharpening his tools for travel. This gentleman related several anecdotes to me of Bruce's energy and skill in horsemanship, fire-arms, and befitting studies. In 1816 Wilkie re-visited Malta in extreme old age, and on my telling him that I was about to go to Benghazi, where the Abyssinian traveller had been, he smiled and said, "If you have any communication for Bruce let me be the bearer of it, for I shall soon join him ;" and he died shortly afterwards. § 2. GREEK INSCRIPTION ON GOLD. In the Edes (page 192) I mentioned the gold plate with an opus mallei inscription-in somewhat archaic Greek-which had been found among the ruins of Canopus by the Bashaw of Egypt's navvies; and which had been pre Y sented by His Highness to Admiral Sir Sydney Smith in 1820. This plate is so thin as to be quite flexible, and was found between two vitrified tiles. It is six inches and four lines long, by two inches and two lines wide; and I am now happy to give the following accurate fac-simile of the inscription which was punched upon it : These words, be it observed, prove that Ptolemy Euergetes dedicated a temple at Canopus to Osiris in the names of himself and his queen Berenice— the lady of the stellar tresses. This king Ptolemy, son of Ptolemy and Arsinoe -"of the gods brothers" appears by the inscription to have married his sister, but assuredly Berenice was his cousin, so that probably the epithet was given only as a term of honour. Now it is pleasing to find vestigia which corroborate history; and here turns up an unexpected evidence of a goodly deed of Ptolemy the Benefactor, with which we were previously unacquainted. Everything relating to him is of value, for he was one of the greatest sovereigns who ever swayed a sceptre, whether considered as a hero, a legislator, a promoter of public good, a religious tolerator, or a zealous patron of literature and science. Indeed when we recall the acts by which his subjects enjoyed internal tranquillity-the address with which he obtained the original manuscripts of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, for the Alexandrian Library-his own liberal contributions thereunto-his noble restoration of the spoils which had been carried off by the detestable Cambysesand his discrimination in inviting Eratosthenes to practise astronomy and |