tain the personal inconvenience of being his prosecutor. This is a defect which admits, unlike most of the others, of a simple and easy remedy.

6. The prisons of the metropolis, crowded indiscriminately with young and old, accused and convicted of fenders, operate as hot-beds of vice, rather than schools of solitary reflection and repentance. The obvious expediency of providing more abundant and more distinct accommodations for the vicious and heterogeneous inmates of these places of confinement, has long been felt, and improvements of very considerable importance have actually been commenced in many instances. As the state of prisons, however, has since become the subject of the labours

of a separate committee, we shall at present be satisfied with this slight no. tice. The governor ofthe principal prison in London, sensible to the defects of his own establishment, and accus. tomed to observe, in every shape, the progress of depravity, suggested to the committee certain remedies, which, in his opinion, might with advantage be adopted. Some of these proposals have already been carried into effect. The first and most important of the whole, however, is not among the number, viz." An establishment for the safe and separate custody of persons before trial, who are committed on suspicion, so that they may not be injured by associating with experienced offenders.'

T

Ar an early period of this session, a petition was presented to the House of Commous from the Earl of Elgin, praying that a sum of money might be granted to him to remunerate him for the expense at which he had collected a large and valuable set of ancient marbles in Greece, which antiques he was desirous should thus be transferred from his own possession to that of the nation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer brought this petition of his lordship before the House, and observed very properly, that a committee ought to be appointed to investigate into the nature and true value of Lord Elgin's collection; and notwithstanding the outcry raised by certain members against at all entering upon such a subject in the then condi. tion of the public finances, the Chancellor's motion was carried by a large majority.

During the months of the spring, this committee pursued their labours in endeavouring to ascertain by examination of proper witnesses, first, the circumstances under which Lord Elgin had obtained his marbles, and secondly, the value of them as specimens of art.

VOL. IX. PART L

With regard to the latter point, all the distinguished artists of the kingdom were unanimous in expressing their opinion, that the Elgin marbles formed in reality the finest of all existing collections of ancient sculpture-an opinion which had already, indeed, become widely diffused, in consequence of the well-known judgment pronounced by Canova and published by West. Mr Payne Knight held the statues in great contempt; but notwithstanding the acknowledged eminence of this gentleman as an an. tiquarian and a virtuoso, the members of the committee had no difficulty in preferring the decision of practical sculptors and painters of the first celebrity to his. On the termination of their enquiries the committee brought up their report, and Mr Bankes (who had taken a lead in the investigation, and whose qualifications for doing so are too well known to require any notice here), proposed to the House that 35,000l. should be offered to Lord Elgin, and the marbles placed in the British Museum, as a great and national treasure, equal in value to any similar treasure possessed by any

other country, and honourably distinguished from that so lately in the possession of France, by having been obtained by the fairest means of peaceful negociation Mr Curwen opposed this proposal in toto, on the score of its involving an injudicious expenditure of public funds. Mr Hammersley opposed its adoption exactly as it stood, chiefly on account of the unfavourable opinion at which he had arrived respecting the mode of the acquisition of the marbles on the part of Lord Elgin. The conclusion of this gentleman's speech is too singular to be omitted: he moved that a resolution should be passed, " that this committee, having taken into its consideration the manner in which the Earl of Elgin became possessed of certain ancient sculptured marbles from Athens, laments that this ambassador did not keep in remembrance that the high and dignified station of representing his sovereign should have made him forbear from availing himself of that character in order to obtain valuable possessions belonging to the government to which he was accredited; and that such forbearance was peculiarly necessary at a moment when that government was expressing high obligations to Great Britain. This committee, however, imputes to the noble earl no venal motive whatever of pecuniary advantage to himself, but on the contrary, believes that he was actuated by a desire to benefit his country, by acquiring for it, at great risk and labour to himself, some of the most valuable specimens in existence of ancient sculpture. This committee, therefore, feels justified, under the particular circumstances of the case, in recommending that 25,000l. be offered to the Earl of Elgin for the collection, in order to recover and keep it to gether for that government from which it has been improperly taken, and to which this committee is of opinion that a

communication should be immediately made, stating, that Great Britain holds these marbles only in trust till they are demanded by the present, or any future, possessors of the city of Athens ; and upon such demand, engages, without question or negociation, to restore them, as far as can be effected, to the places from whence they were taken, and that they shall be in the mean time carefully preserved in the British Museum."

In reply to this, Mr Croker began with stating, that the honourable speaker had arrived at his opinion by a very unfair and unequal examination of the evidence laid before the committee. "He had never," he said, "heard a speech filled with so much tragic pomp and circumstance, concluded with so farcical a resolution. After speaking of the glories of Athens, after haranguing us on the injustice of spoliation, it was rather too much to expect to intérest our feelings for the future conqueror of those classic regions, and to contemplate his rights to treasures which we reckoned it flagitious to retain. It did seem extraordinary that we should be required to send back these monuments of art, not for the benefit of those by whom they were formerly possessed, but for the behoof of the descendants of the Empress Catherine, who were viewed by the honourable gentleman as the future conquerors of Greece. Spoliation must precede the attainment of them by Russia; and yet, from a horror at spoliation, we were to send them, that they might tempt and reward it! Nay, we were to hold them in trust for the future invader, and to restore them to the possession of the conqueror, when his rapacious and bloody work was executed. Our museum, then, was to be the repository of these monuments for Russia, and our money was to purchase them, in order that we might hold them

in deposit till she made her demand. The proposition, he would venture to say, was one of the most absurd ever heard in that House. Considerations of economy had been much mixed up with the question of the purchase; and the House had been warned in the present circumstances of the country, not to incur a heavy expense merely to acquire the possession of works of ornament. But who was to pay this expense, and for whose use was the purchase intended? The bargain was for the benefit of the public, for the honour of the nation, for the promo tion of national arts, for the use of the national artists, and even for the advantage of our manufactures, the excellence of which depended on the pro. gress of the arts in the country. It was singular that when, 2500 years ago, Pericles was adorning Athens with those very works, some of which we are now about to acquire, the same cry of economy was raised against him, and the same answer that he then gave might be repeated now, that it was money spent for the use of the people, for the encouragement of arts, the increase of manufactures, the prosperity of trades, and the encouragement of industry; not merely to please the eye of the man of taste, but to create, to stimulate, to guide the exertions of the artist, the mechanic, and even the labourer, and to spread through all the branches of society a spirit of improve ment, and the means of a sober and industrious affluence. But he would go the length of saying, that the posses sion of these precious remains of ancient genius and taste would conduce not only to the perfection of the arts, but to the elevation of our national character, to our opulence, to our substantial great ness. The conduct of the noble earl, who, by his meritorious exertions, had given us an opportunity of considering whether we should retain in the country what, if retained, would constitute one

of

of its greatest ornaments, had been made the subject of severe and undeserved censure. No blame had, however, been shown to attach to it after the fullest examination. One of the objects, and the most important object, for which he wished the institution of a committee, was, that the transactions by which those works of art were obtained, and imported into this country, might stand clear of all suspicion, and be completely justified in the eyes the world, and that the conduct of the noble lord implicated might be fully investigated. He (Mr C.) was entirely unacquainted with the noble lord before he became a member of the committee, and could, of course, have no partialities to indulge. What he said for himself, he believed he might say for the other members with whom he acted. They were all perfectly unprejudiced before the enquiry commenced, and all perfectly satisfied before its conclusion. They had come to an unanimous opinion in favour of the noble lord's conduct and claims, and that opinion was unequivocally expressed in the report which was the result of their impartial examination. With regard to the spoliation, the sacrilegious rapacity, on which the last speaker had descanted so freely, he would say a few words in favour of the noble lord, in which he would be borne out by the evidence in the report. The noble lord had shewn no principle of rapacity. He laid his hand on nothing that could have been preserved in any state of repair: he touched nothing that was not previously in ruins. He went into Greece with no design to commit ravages on her works of art, to carry off her ornaments, to despoil her temples. His first intention was to take drawings of her celebrated architectural monuments, or models of her works of sculpture. This part of his design he had to a certain extent executed, and many

drawings and models were found in his collection. Nothing else entered into his contemplation, till he saw that many of the pieces of which his predecessors in this pursuit had taken drawings had entirely disappeared, that some of them were buried in ruins, and others converted into the materials of building. No less than eighteen pieces of statuary from the western pediment had been entirely destroyed since the time when M. de Nointel, the French ambassador, had procured his interesting drawings to be made; and when his lordship purchased a house in the ruins of which he expected to find some of them, and had proceeded to dig under its foundation with such a hope, the malicious Turk to whom he had given the purchase-money, observed, "The statues you are digging for are pounded into mortar, and I could have told you so before you began your fruitless labour." Ought not the honourable gentleman who had spoken so much about spoliation to have mentioned this fact? Ought he not to have stated that it was then, and not till then, that Lord Elgin resolved to endeavour to save what still remained from such wanton barbarity? Had he read the report, and did he know the circumstances without allowing any apology for the noble earl? Did he not know that many of the articles taken from the Parthenon, were found among its ruins? More than one third of that noble building was rubbish before he touched it. The honourable member (Mr Hammersley) had referred to the evidence of the member for Northallerton (Mr Morrit ;) but while he quoted one part of it, he had forgotten another, by which that quotation would have been explained and qualified. He had visited Athens in 1796; and when he returned five years afterwards, he found the greatest dilapidations. In his first visit he stated, that there were

eight or ten fragments on the pediment, with a car and horses not entire, but distinguishable: but when he returned, neither car nor horses were to be seen, and all the figures were destroyed but two. If the honourable member, whose statement he was combating, had read the evidence carefully, he would have seen that Lord Elgin interfered with nothing that was not already in ruins, or that was threatened with immediate destruction. The temple of Theseus was in a state of great preservation, and, therefore, proceeding on this principle, he had left it as he found it, and only enriched this country with models and drawings taken from it. Much had been said of the manner in which Lord Elgin had prostituted his ambassadorial character to obtain possession of the monuments in question. There was no ground for such an imputation. Not a piece had been removed from Athens till Lord Elgin had returned, and of course till his official influence ceased. Signor Lucieri was even now employed there under his lordship's orders; and was he still prostituting the ambassadorial character? When his lordship was a prisoner in France, the work was still going on; and was he then prostituting the ambassadorial character ? His lordship had remained after his return at his seat in Scotland; and was the character of ambassador injured in his person during his retirement? He (Mr Croker) might have shown some warmth in defending the opinion of the committee, and removing the imputation thrown upon the noble person whose character had been attacked by the honourable member; but he hoped he would be excused, when the nature of the charges which had excited him were considered.-He could not sit in his place, and hear such terms as dishonesty, plunder, spoliation, bribery, and others of the same kind, applied to the conduct of a British nobleman, who