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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 together 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 interest 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. of its greatest ornaments, had been The proposition, he would venture to made the subject of severe and undesay, was one of the most absurd ever served censure. No blame had, howheard in that House. Considerations ever, been shown to attach to it after of economy had been much mixed up the fullest examination. One of the with the question of the purchase; objects, and the most important object, and the House had been warned in the for which he wished the institution of present circumstances of the country, a committee, was, that the transactions not to incur a heavy expense merely by which those works of art were obto acquire the possession of works of tained, and imported into this country, ornament. But who was to pay this might stand clear of all suspicion, and expense, and for whose use was the be completely justified in the eyes of purchase intended? The bargain was the world, and that the conduct of the for the benefit of the public, for the noble lord implicated might be fully honour of the nation, for the promo- investigated. He (Mr Č.) was ention of national arts, for the use of the tirely unacquainted with the noble national artists, and even for the ad- lord before he became a member of vantage of our manufactures, the ex- the committee, and could, of course, cellence of which depended on the pro- have no partialities to indulge. What gress of the arts in the country. It he said for himself, he believed he was singular that when, 2500 years might say for the other members with ago, Pericles was adorning Athens whom he acted. They were all perwith those very works, some of which fectly unprejudiced before the enquiry we are now about to acquire, the same commenced, and all perfectly satisfied cry of economy was raised against him, before its conclusion. They had come and the same answer that he then gave to an unanimous opinion in favour of might be repeated now, that it was the noble lord's conduct and claims, money spent for the use of the people, and that opinion was unequivocally for the encouragement of arts, the in- expressed in the report which was the crease of manufactures, the prosperity result of their impartial examination. of trades, and the encouragement of With regard to the spoliation, the saindustry; not merely to please the eye crilegious rapacity, on which the last of the man of taste, but to create, to speaker had descanted so freely, he stimulate, to guide the exertions of the would say a few words in favour of artist, the mechanic, and even the la- the noble lord, in which he would be bourer, and to spread through all the borne out by the evidence in the branches of society a spirit of improve- report. The noble lord had shewn ment, and the means of a sober and no principle of rapacity. He laidindustrious affluence. But he would go his hand on nothing that could have the length of saying, that the posses- been preserved in any state of repair: sion of these precious remains of ancient he touched nothing that was not pregenius and taste would conduce not only viously in ruins. He went into Greece to the perfection of the arts, but to the with no design to commit ravages on elevation of our national character, to her works of art, to carry off her ornaour opulence, to our substantial great- ments, to despoil her temples. His first ess. The conduct of the noble earl, intention was to take drawings of her who, by his meritorious exertions, had celebrated architectural monuments, given us an opportunity of considering or models of her works of sculpture. whether we should retain in the country This part of his design he had to a what, if retained, would constitute one 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 Northaller, ton (Mr Mortit ;) 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 com bating, 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 employ. ed there under his lordship's orders; and was he still prostituting the ambas sadorial 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

was so far from deserving them that he merited the greatest praise, and to the nature of transactions by which so great a benefit was conferred upon the country, without any ground for a charge of rapacity or spoliation. But if the charges of improper conduct on Lord Elgin's part were groundless, the idea of sending them back to the Turks was chimerical and ridiculous. This would be awarding those admirable works the doom of destruction. The work of plunder and dilapidation was proceeding with rapid strides, and we were required again to subject the monuments that we had rescued to its influence. Of 20 statutes that decorated the western pediments of the Parthenon, only seven miserable fragments were preserved: yet this part of the building was almost perfect at the beginning of last century; now only a few worthless pieces of marble were preserved he called them worthless, not as compared with the productions of art in other countries, but in comparison with what had been lost. They would, however, remain to animate the genius and improve the arts of this country, and to constitute in after times a sufficient answer to the speech of the honourable member, or of any one else who should use his arguments, if indeed such arguments could be supposed to be repeated, or to be heard beyond the bottle-hour in which they were made."

This powerful statement produced its due effect on the House, and the original motion of Mr Bankes was carried by a large majority. We have given a place to this transaction, partly because, in a national point of view, we regard it as if no common importance, inasmuch as from the Elgin marbles, we look for a great and visible impetus to the ardour of British artists-and partly also out of regard to the feelings of the Earl of Elgin, whose enlightened exertions to promote the cause of British art, have been, on more occasions than one, but ill rewarded by the ungrateful sneers of his country

men.

During this session, on the motion of Lord Castlereagh, the sum of 17,000l. was set apart for the erection of a monument in memory of the battle of Trafalgar-a great action, which, said his lordship, had been to the fleets, exactly what Waterloo had been to the armies of France, and which therefore was well entitled to receive a similar mark of honour from the national grati. tude. To this proposal, as to that which we have above described, objec tions were made by various members, on the ground of its being extravagant in the present situation of the country; but it was carried by a great majority within, and we may venture to say, ap proved of by an infinite majority with out the House.

CHAP. VII.

Distresses of the Country.-Debates on this Subject in the House of Commons. -Change produced in the Public Feeling by Reason of the Bad Harvest.Riots in the Counties of Suffolk, Cambridge, and Stafford.-Meetings at Spafields, and Disturbances in the Metropolis.-Orator Hunt.-Marriages of the Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg Saalfield, and of the Princess Mary and the Duke of Gloucester.-Death of Mr Sheridan,

In the speech at the commencement of the session of Parliament, the regent, as we have already seen, congratulated himself and the two Houses on the prosperous condition of the nation. In regard to a very great part of the nation, however, it was early suspected, and it soon became quite evident, that these congratulations were at the best somewhat premature. To so great an extent indeed did this impression gain ground, that both within Parliament and without it a very considerable share of the public attention was ere long directed to the causes out of which the acknowledged distresses of the agricultural part of the nation had arisen, and to the remedies by which, in the opinion of various speculators, they might most probably be cured. Mr Western first brought the subject in a formal way before the Lower House, and in his speech and that of Mr Brougham's, delivered at a somewhat later period of the enquiry, a great variety of facts were brought

together, which furnished certainly no inadequate view of the nature and even of the causes of the distresses-but which failed, as was commonly supposed, to exhibit much either of sound or of practical information respecting the methods of averting them.

The extent of the distresses among all the agricultural classes of the community was exhibited to the House in such an alarming point of view, both by the petitions which arrived daily from the most afflicted districts, and by the speeches delivered before the committee, that no attempt was made to infuse the spirit of party zeal into the discussion of the subject. The business of the committee was gone about in the calm manner of a merely scientific society, all men appearing to bring to the investigation minds influenced by no motives except those of the purest and most honourable nature; nor is it to be doubted that this circumstance alone was of consi

derable efficacy in soothing the spirits

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