17691 Collecting the Antiquities at Wilton-Houfe.

at Richlieu, which he effected, and furnished with niches for above forty ftatues and as many buftos. Lord Arundel advised him to buy a furnished palace at Rome, and recommended to him one, with about fo many, though not all antiques, many being doctors of the church. The cardinal did fo, but foon fold it again, removing however the marbles to Richlieu. Lord Arundel informed him of about eighty buftos, which he had feen difperfed in various parts of Italy, and though duplicates to many of the cardinal's, were yet much finer; thefe too he bought, and placed on wooden pedestals, adorned with rich gilding, in his palace at Paris. This, which is now called the Palais Royale, he gave to Gafton Duke of Orleans.

The duke about this time collected medals as the cardinal did marbles, they were mostly Roman, and became the foundation of the king of France's fine cabinet: Greek ones were afterwards added, chiefly through the induftry of Vaillant.

On the death of Richlieu, Maza. rine had the antiques within the house given to him; the ftatues indeed were few, but of the beft fculpture. King Charles I. had of Lord Arundel many of his ftatues and bufts, which, after he was beheaded, were difperfed abroad, and fome of them bought by Mazarine. The cardinal had twenty-fix bustos finely caft of brass at Florence, and fet up on fineered marble termini.

Laftly, Valetta's collection fupplied a few buftos, he had not many, but of the very best workmanship.

Lord Pembroke having thus taken every precaution to make a good collection, we shall find he fucceeded to the utmost of his wishes, as will appear by analyzing it. We may divide it into four parts. 1. Statues. 2. Buftos. 3. Relievos. 4. Mifcellaneous pieces.

The statue of Jupiter Ammon, with a ram on his houlders, was taken out of a temple in Thrace built by Sefcftris. This prince feemed fatisfied with nothing less than reducing the world under the Egyptian yoke; he warred with fuccefs against the Affyrians, Medes and Scythians; he fubdued Phoenicia and Asia Minor, and penetrated into Thrace and Colchis. Herodotus informs us, that in every country he conquered, he left immenfe Nov. 1769.

573

columns with infcriptions, as lafting monuments of his victories; this hif torian himself faw many of them in different places, and Strabo affures us, they remained to his time. If we recollect that no expedition was undertaken without confulting the gods, we fhall readily think many images of their deities were carried with them; and Sefoftris was, no doubt, as anxious to difperfe abroad the Egyptian superftition, as to make the people obedient to his power.

The two Perfian ftatues as termini are very curious. They were dug out of the ruins of a palace in Egypt, in which the Perfian kings lived, until Amyrteus, 113 years after Cambyfes returned to Perfia. Perhaps there is no where to be found fuch beautiful remains of these very remote nations, as the antiques just mentioned. It was Lord Pembroke's defign to form a school of fculpture, beginning at its moft early period, and proceeding downward.

The beauty and execution of the Apollos and Bacchus's in this collection can never be enough admired. It will greatly furprize a modern anatomift to obferve, how accurately the antient fculptors marked the origin and continuation of the muscles, especially as we are taught that but little of this fcience was known before latter ages. If the frame of the human body has more nicely been inquired into, it may be asked, why are not our sculptors fuperior to thofe of former ages, which confeffedly they are not? The answer is, that enough of anatomy was formerly known, to answer every useful purpofe, and further than that, it was trifling. What gave rife to this reflection is the colonial Hercules here; which, though above feven feet high, yet preferves great confiftence and harmony; no part is difproportionate to another, nothing offends the nicest eye, and the whole, notwithstanding its magnitude, is as agreeable to contemplate, as if it was of the common fize.

Obferve by what fixed rules antient artists worked; the fame proportion that this Hercules bears to common ftatues, the fame does Hercules about to die bear to his friend Pean, who fupports him. The latter lived in the heroic times, and was of great strength 4 D

and

574
and large body, yet the characteristic
magnitude of Hercules makes him but
a dwarf. How is the mind delighted
with comparing a Bacchus crowned
with vine-leaves, drawn by panthers,
and accompanied by his jovial drunken
train, with the defcription of an an-
tient poetit heightens the relifh for
claffical learning, as each is a comment
on the other. The fame may be faid
of the fymbols of Mercury, Ceres,
Pallas, and the other deities.

Thomas Earl of Pembroke's Plan for

Groups are included under ftatues; thus that very old one of Saturn hold ing a child (miling on him, is a good confutation of the barbarity ufually Imputed to that God. Hercules and Antæus, and Hercules and Achelous give us better ideas of the hero's labours than any defcription poffibly

can.

Buftos make the fecond divifion of this collection. There are one hundred and feventy-three all on marble termini. Of thefe fifty-two are fineer ed, and forty-two of folid marble. Thofe that are fineered are of the fineft antique marbles and alabasters, made at Rome for Cardinal Mazarine. Some are coloffal with infcriptions, and others with agate eyes, and fome of copper with one hand. Under buf. tos are included, bifronts, learned perfons, both Grecian and Roman; Kings and queens of Greece, Afia, and Africa, Roman emperors, Cafars and Augufta, and divinities, Egyptian, Grecian and Roman.

The head of Sefoltris is as great a rarity, as is any where to be found. Some Italian gentlemen travelling to the pyramids in Egypt, difcovered it there, and brought it with them; it is of red Egyptian granite, and the countenance remarkably lively. The antiquity of it is indifputable, and the fculpture will give us no contemptible idea of the artifts of that country, in very early times., 961 61 namestic you

Nov.

of parts, it is univerfal, but as to fashion, attitude, clothing, and fuck incidental matters, as do not partake of the effence of art, every nation has its peculiar fancies. Agate eyes in buftos come under this class, and were very common among the antients. It is fomewhat deferving attention, that the Romans fhould, according to the confeffion of Paufanias, have made bronze ftatues and buftos before the Greeks. Rhæcus and Theodorus of Samos were the firft Grecian artifts in this way. They flourished in the time of Polycrates, about the fixtieth Olympiad. Dionyfius Halicar. in his Roman Antiquities, fays, Romulus made his own ftatue of bronze, crowned by a victory and drawn by four horfes. The chariot and horfes were brought from Camerinum, when that city was taken. This happened after his triumph over the Fidenates, in the feventh year of his reign, which anfwers to the eighth Olympiad. The infcription on it, according to Plutarch, was in Greek letters, but Dionyfius fays, they greatly refenibled the most antient Greek alphabet.

About the reign of Cræfas, the Greeks worked in all forts of metals. Theodorus before-mentioned, made for that king, a filver vase, which held fix hundred eimers. An eimer is a German meafure, containing fixty-four German pints. The first quadriga, or chariot drawn by four horses in bronze, which is mentioned among the Greeks, was made by the Athenians after the death of Pifiltratus, in the fixty-seventh Olympiad.

The judgment of Lord Pembroke in antiques and claffical learning, if from nothing else, might be proved by the fimilitude between the busts of Apollo and Auguftus the faces are fo`like each other as frequently to be miftaken. Ovid, Virgil, Suetonius and Martial, exprefly inform us, that this emperor had an 'Apollinean face, that is, fo nearly refembling the antique

We now think it strange, that in the beft ages of art in Grecce, they made their ftatues and balts, not offtatues of that deity, as to be thought the fame materials throughout, but of differents Many were of marble, ivory and wood, and of various colours to us fuch would appear tawdry, yet it pleafed their eyes; which evinces, that no general definition of tafte can be forined, to fuit every country. So far as it regards proportion and harmony

2

his fon. He gave into this flattery; for at a feaft in which he and five of his courtiers reprefented the great gods, and as many ladies the fix goddeffes, he was dreffed with the attributes or fymbols of Apollo, and what is more, he affected to have it fuppofed, that his eyes beamed forth bright

nefs

1769.

Collecting the Antiquities at Wilton-Houfe.

Defs like Apollo's, and was mightily pleafed, when he looked fully on any one, if they held down their eyes, as when the fun glares too ftrong upon

.them.

The jafpers, alabasters and marbles, whereof the bufts are made, are va luable and beautiful beyond defcription. So great a number, and in fuch - preservation, are not to be found in any collection; they have conftantly obtained the applaufe and admiration of every connoiffeur who hath vifited Wilton, and always will, fo long as true taste and difcernment exist.

The third divifion of this collection confifts of relievos both high and low. Du Bois, in his reflections, has made an obfervation, which it is not easy to acquiefce in. It is, that it requires lefs genius to be a good fculptor than a good painter. Where is the difference between the defign, ordonnance and expreffion of the famous groupe of the Niobe, &c. in marble, and the fame on canvas? Sculpture in fome refpects will not admit of fuch deceptions as painting, but in thofe inftances where real genius is concerned, it is capable of them as extenfively as the other. The maternal tenderness of Niobe in protecting her children, the terror and amazement in the faces of thofe that are flying, and the various attitudes of those that are dying, would

575

feen at the distance of fifty paces. We may perceive diftinctly the joining of the ftones, and reckon the tiles of the roof. It is not thus objects prefent themselves to us naturally. They appear not only fmaller in proportion to their remoteness, but they are even confuled, when they are at a certain distance, by the interpofition of the air.

The modern fculptors, better inftructed herein than the antients, confound the ftrokes of objects which fink into the baffo relievo, and thus preferve the rules of perfpective. With two or three inches of relievo they make fome figures, which appear in full relievo, and others which feem to fink into the deepening. They reprefent alfo landfkips thrown ingenioufly into perspective by a diminution of the ftrokes, which being not only fmaller, but likewife lefs diftinct, and mixing with one another as they remove farther off, produce the fame effect almoft in fculpture, as the degradation of colours in a picture. We may therefore venture to affirm, that the antients had not this art in fuch perfection as we have it at prefent."

[To be continued in our next.】

To the AUTHOR of the LONDON
MAGAZINE.
SIR,

in your next, the fol

furnish a fubject for the best antient Blowing letter you will oblige

or modern pencil. It cannot there-fore be truly affirmed, more invention, which is the mark of genius, is found among painters than sculptors.

Another remark of Du Bois is better grounded, and as it is curious and relative to our fubject, is worth tran.fcribing." We do not, fays he, find by any of the remaining fragments of Greek and Roman fculpture, that this art was perfectly understood by the antients. Their sculptors could only cut out figures in relievo, perpendicuTarly down from head to foot, and clap them, as it were, on the ground of the baffo relievos, fo that the figures which deepened in, received no degradation of light. A tower which feems to be five hundred paces diftant from the fore-part of the ballo relievo, to judge by the proportion of a foldier mounted thereon, to the perfonages placed nearest the edge of the plain, this tower, I fay, is cut as if it were

SIR,

Your's, &c.

To Mr. H. C.

F you had not told the world that you read my letter with no fmall attention, and that I had almost perfuaded you to give up your chriftian bero, one might be apt to question whether you have read it at all, as it doth not appear that you have given any attention to the contents of it; nor have you been fo kind as to favour me with any thing like an answer to it. Instead of that, you put me off with an extract from a fermon of Dr. Burton's, published many years ago; telling me, that if the character the doctor hath given of the king is juft, certainly he was the beft of kings; and repeating the nonfenfe of his dying a martyr for his religion, without taking any notice at all of what I had offered 4 D 2

on

Strictures on the Character of

King Charles the Firft..