own valuation, and no specific sum is demanded, or even suggested, by the party who offers the collection to the public.

It is obvious that the money expended in the acquisition of any commodity is not necessarily the measure of its real value. The sum laid out in gaining possession of two articles of the same intrinsic worth, may, and often does vary considerably. In making two excavations, for instance, of equal magnitude and labour, a broken bust or some few fragments may be discovered in the one, and a perfect statue in the other. The first cost of the broken bust and of the entire statue would in that case be the same; but it cannot be said that the value is therefore equal. In the same manner, by the loss, or detention of a ship, a great charge may have been incurred, and the original outgoing excessively enhanced; but the value to the buyer will in no degree be affected by the extraneous accidents. Supposing again, artists to have been engaged at considerable salaries du ring a large period in which they could do little or nothing, the first cost would be burdensome in this case also to the employer, but those who bought would look only at the value of the article in the market where it might be exposed to sale, without caring, or inquiring how, or at what expense it was brought thither.

Supposing, on the other hand, that the thirteen other metopes had been bought at the custom-house sale at the same price which that of Mr Choiseul Gouffier fetched, it could never be said, that the value of them was no more than twenty-four or twenty-five pounds apiece.

It is perfectly just and reasonable that the seller should endeavour fully to reimburse himself for all expenses, and to acquire a profit also; but it will be impossible for him to do so,

whenever the disbursements have exceeded the fair money price of that which he has to dispose of.

Your Committee refer to Lord Elgin's evidence for the large and heavy charges which have attended the formation of this collection, and the placing of it in its present situation; which amount, from 1799 to January 1803, to 62,440l. including 23,2401. for the interest of money; and according to a supplemental account, continued from 1803 to 1816, to no less a sum than 74,0001. including the same sum for interest.

All the papers which are in his possession upon this subject, including a journal of above 90 pages, of the daily expenses of his principal artist, Lusieri, (from 1803 to the close of 1814,) who still remains in his employment at Athens, together with the account current of Messrs Hayes, of Malta, (from April 1807 to May 1811,) have been freely submitted to your Committee; and there can be no doubt, from the inspection of those accounts, confirmed also by other testimony, that the disbursements were very considerable; but supposing them to reach the full sum at which they are calculated, your Committee do not hesitate to express their opinion, that they afford no just criterion of the value of the collection, and therefore must not be taken as a just basis for estimating it.

Two valuations, and only two in detail, have been laid before your Committee, which are printed; differing most widely in the particulars, and in the total; that of Mr Payne Knight amounting to 25,000l., and that of Mr Hamilton to 60,8001.

The only other sum mentioned as a money price, is in the evidence of the Earl of Aberdeen, who named 35,000l. as a sort of conjectural estimate of the whole, without entering into particulars.

In addition to the instances of

since 1811, the contents of which, enumerated in Mr Hamilton's evidence, now form a part of the collection. The medals also, of which the value is more easily defined, were not included in the proposal made to Mr Perceval.

Against these augmentations must be set the rise in the value of money, which is unquestionably not inconsiderable, between the present time and the year 1811; a cause or consequence of which is the depreciation of every commodity, either of necessity, or fancy, which is brought to sale.

Your Committee, therefore, do not think that they should be justified, in behalf of the public, if they were to recommend to the House any extension of Mr Perceval's offer to a greater amount than 5000l.; and, under all the circumstances that they have endeavoured to bring under the view of the House, they judge 35,000l. to be a reasonable and sufficient price for this collection.

Your Committee observing, that by the act 45 Geo. III., c. 127, for vesting the Townleyan collection in the trustees of the British Museum, sect. 4, the proprietor of that collection, Mr Townley Standish, was added to the trustees of the British Museum, consider the Earl of Elgin (and his heirs being Earls of Elgin) as equally entitled to the same distinction, and recommend that a clause should be inserted to that effect, if it should be necessary that an act should pass for transferring his collection to the public.

It may not be deemed foreign to this subject, if your Committee venture to extend their observations somewhat beyond the strict limit of

their immediate inquiry, and lay before the House what occurs to them as not unimportant with regard to the age and authenticity of these sculptures. The great works with which Pericles adorned, and strengthened Athens, were all carried on under the direction and superintendence of Phi dias; for this there is the authority of various ancient writers, and parti cularly of Plutarch; but he distinctly asserts in the same passage, that Callicrates and Ictinus executed the work of the Parthenon; which is confirmed also by Pausanias, so far as re lates to Ictinus, who likewise ornamented or constructed the temple of Apollo at Phigalia;* from whence, by a singular coincidence, the sculp tures in high relief, lately purchased for the British Museum, and frequently referred to in the evidence, were transported.

The style of this work in the opinion of the artists, indicates, that it belongs to the same period, though the execution is rated as inferior to that of the Elgin marbles. In the fabulous stories which are represented upon both, there is a very striking similarity; and it may be remarked in passing, that the subjects of the metopes, and of the smaller frize, which is sculptured with the battle of the Amazons, correspond with two out of the four subjects mentioned by Pliny, as adorning the shield and dress of the Minerva; so that there was a general uniformity of design in the stories which were selected for the internal and external decoration of the Parthenon. The taste of the same artist, Ictinus, probably led him to repeat the same ideas, which abound in graceful forms, and variety of composition, when he was employed upon

the temple of another divinity, at a distance from Athens.

The statue of Minerva within the temple, was the work of Phidias himself, and with the exception of the Jupiter which he made at Elis, the most celebrated of his productions. It was composed of ivory and gold; with regard to which, some very curious anecdotes relating to the political history of that time, are to be found in the same writers; the earliest of which, from a passage in a contemporary poet, Aristophanes, proves that the value of these materials involved both Pericles and the director of his works in great trouble and jeopardy; upon which account the latter is said to have withdrawn to Elis, and to have ended his days there, leaving it doubtful whether his death was natural, or in consequence of a judicial sentence; but Plutarch places his death at Athens, and in prison, either by disease or by poison. It has been doubted whether Phidias himself ever wrought in marble; but although, when he did not use ivory, his chief material was unquestionably bronze; there are authorities sufficient to establish, beyond all controversy, that he sometimes applied his hand to marble. Pliny, for instance, asserts that he did so, and mentions a Venus ascribed to him, existing in his own time in the collection (or in the portico) of Octavia. Phidias is called by Aristotle, a skilful worker in stone; and Pausanias enumerates a celestial Venus of Parian marble undoubtedly of his hand; and the Rhamnusian Nemesis, also of the same material. Some of his statues in bronze were brought to Rome by Paulus Æmilius, and by Catulus.

His great reputation, however, was founded upon his representations of the Gods, in which he was supposed more excellent than in human forms,

and especially upon his works in ivory, in which he stood unrivalled.

Elidas, the Argive, is mentioned as the master of Phidias; which honour is also shared by Hippias. His two most celebrated scholars were Alcamenes an Athenian of noble birth, and Agoracritus of Paros; the latter of whom was his favourite; and it was reported, that out of affection to him, Phidias put his scholar's name upon several of his own works; among which the statue called Rhamnusian Nemesis is particularized by Pliny and Suidas.

In another passage of Pliny, Alcamenes is classed with Critias, Nestocles, and Hegias, who are called the rivals of Phidias. The name of Colotes is preserved as another of his scholars.

The other great sculptors, who were living at the same time with Phidias, and flourished very soon_after him, were Agelades, Callon, Polycletus, Phragmon, Gorgias, Lacon, Myron, Pythagoras, Scopas, and Pe

relius.

The passage in which Pausanias mentions the sculptures on the pedi ments is extremely short, and to this effect: " As you enter the temple, which they call Parthenon, all that is contained in what is termed the (eagles) pediments, relates in every particular to the birth of Minerva ; but on the opposite or back front is the contest of Minerva and Neptune for the land; but the statue itself is formed of ivory and gold." The state of dilapidation into which this temple was fallen, when Stuart visited it in 1751, and made most correct drawings for his valuable work, left little opportunity of examining and comparing what remained upon that part of the temple with the passage referred to; but an account is preserved by travellers, who, about eighty years earlier, found one of these pediments