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Sir C. T. Newton Sir C. T. Newton
R. C. Jebb
The Classical Review / Volume 9 / Issue 01 / February 1895, pp 81 - 85 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00201224, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00201224
How to cite this article: R. C. Jebb (1895). The Classical Review, 9, pp 81-85 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00201224
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.159.70.209 on 26 Mar 2015 TttK CLASSICAL REVIEW. trvoTqfia or succession of intervals given point seems to me to be that this Mixo- by the notes of the octave from i-mirr) lydian octave is obtained by a change of to vrfn) is always the same in each system such as the ancient authorities genus? Why is it always an octave recognized, viz. from disjunct to conjunct. of a particular species \ Why, in short, is In the ' Dorian ' octave E—E substitute such a thing as a standard or ' perfect' for the notes A B C D the conjunct tetra- system recognized in Greek music 1 No chord A Bb C D, and the octave becomes one mode had any such vogue or superiority ' Mixolydian.' Thus the Mixolydian is a to the others. I conclude therefore that scale which is provided for in the tetra- the crv STAT1US, SILV. I. vi. 44. Una uescimur omnis ordo mensa, Cp. Ov. Trist. I. iii. 23 femina uirque meo, Parui femina, plebs eques senatus. pueri quoque funere maerent. J. S. PHILLIMORE. Here parui pi. adjective beside femina sing, substantive is strange; and the anti- [Though this correction appears to me thesis required to woman is rather man certain, parui might derive some support than children. Baehrens reads mas et femina. from Lucan ii. 108 crimine quo parui caedem A much simpler alteration would be potuere mereri 1 S. G. OWEN.] par uir femina, plebs eques senatus. SIR C. T. NEWTON. [An Address delivered at the General Meeting of the Hellenic Society on Jan. 23, 1895, by Prof. B. G. Jebb, M.P., President of the Society.] AT the first General Meeting of this presence and influence did more than any- Society which has been held since the death thing else to carry it successfully through of Sir Charles Newton, it is fitting that some the earliest days of its existence; and who, tribute should be rendered to the memory of to the end of his life, took the keenest in- one whom the Hellenic Society may justly terest in its growing prosperity. It is fitting regard as chief among its founders; whose also that we should recall to-day, at least in NO. LXXV. VOL. IX. G 82 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW outline, the salient characteristics of the one which has a peculiar interest. In 1847 distinguished career to which our Society he wrote a paper on some sculptures from owes so large a debt. Halicarnassus—they were, in fact, parts of Newton's life divides itself into three well- the frieze of the Mausoleum—which had marked chapters. The first contains the lately been secured for the British Museum thirty-six years from his birth in 1816 to by Sir Stratford Canning. In this memoir, 1852 ; it is the period of preparative studies. Newton conjecturally placed the Mausoleum The second begins in 1852 with his consul- in the centre of the town of Budrum, from ship at Mitylene, and closes in 1861 with his the fortress of which the above-mentioned return to London as the head of his sculptures had come. A description of the Department at the British Museum ; it com- site by the architect Donaldson—confirming prises the period of travel and discovery in the account by Vitruvius—pointed to this the Levant. In the third chapter, from 1861 conclusion. Ten years later he was to prove onwards, he is the organizer and admin- its truth. Such competent explorers as istrator ; the recognized head of classical Spratt and Ross, misled by the appearance archaeology in this country ; the active sup- of the ground, had looked elsewhere. porter of all enterprises, whether originating In 1852 Newton, whose qualities were at home or abroad, which could extend the becoming well known, was appointed Vice- knowledge of antiquity, or which promised Consul at Mitylene. It was in reality, to advance an object always so near to his though not in form, an archaeological mis- heart, the addition of new treasures to our sion. Lord Granville, then Foreign great national collection. Secretary, was doubtless well acquainted From Shrewsbury School, then ruled by with the new Vice-Consul's gifts. New- that brilliant scholar, Samuel Butler, ton had able assistance in the routine Newton' went in 1833 to Christ Chm-ch, duties of the post. From April, 1853, Oxford, where he attracted the favourable no- to January, 1854, he was at Rhodes, tice, and strongly felt the influence, of Dean and thus within easy reach of the region Gaisford. He was also for a time the pupil in which his chief work was to be done. of his lifelong friend, Dean Liddell. Mr. The six years which followed were rich in Ruskin, who was an undergraduate member results. He explored the island of Calymna, of the House at the same time, has recorded off the Carian coast, and obtained some in Praeterita the particular trait which most remains of early Greek art which are now impressed him in Newton; it is one which in the room of Archaic Sculpture at the can be easily recognized by those who knew Museum. At Cnidus, in a sanctuary of him in later years—' his intense and curious Chthonian deities, he found the beautiful way of looking at things.' seated statue of Demeter, in which Brunn In May, 1840, Newton became Junior recognized the perfect ideal of the goddess. Assistant in the Department of Antiquities Among other monuments discovered at at the British Museum. That Department, Cnidus is the lion, supposed to commemorate founded in 1807, was not then constituted Conon's victory in 394 B.C. From Bran- as it is now. In 1861 it was subdivided into chidae, near Miletus, Newton brought away, three provinces ; Greek and Roman Antiqui- besides a lion and a sphinx, ten archaic ties ; Coins ; and a third, in which Oriental statues of seated figures which had stood by Antiquities were associated with British and the Sacred Way leading from the temple of Mediaeval; the two latter, with Ethno- Apollo to the harbour. It was under a graphical Antiquities, were detached from firman which he procured that the bronze the Oriental in 1866. But, in 1840, the serpent at Constantinople, inscribed with opportunities which Newton found at the the names of the Greek cities allied against Museum, if less adapted to the training of a Xerxes, was first disengaged from the specialist, were well suited to encourage a soil; though the task of deciphering the comprehensive view of antiquity. At the inscription was reserved for Frick and head of the Department was Edward Dethier. Hawkins, a man of varied attainments, but. But his most signal achievement was in especially a numismatist; and Newton's connexion with the Mausoleum at Halicar- early studies in that direction left on his nassus. It was in 1855 that he first saw mind the conviction that numismatics, be- the castle of Budrum, and found fragments sides their special interest, have the highest of sculpture embedded in its walls. Lord value as a general introduction to classical Stratford de Redcliffe, then British Ambas- archaeology. sador at Constantinople, who had constantly Among his earliest publications, there is supported Newton in all his work, promised THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 83 to obtain the necessary firmans. In the other, relative to the influence and position autumn of 1856 Newton visited London, which that office conferred. and, aided by Sir Anthony Panizzi, Principal As keeper of the Greek and Roman Librarian of the Museum, secured the Antiquities, he rightly felt that, next to the assistance of Lord Clarendon, who was then duty of organizing and conserving those Foreign Secretary. A ship of war was treasures, his first duty was to augment placed at his disposal, with a party of men them. Here his social and diplomatic of the Royal Engineers, under the command ability, joined to the prestige of his dis- of the officer who is now General Sir R. coveries, gave him unique advantages. In Murdoch Smith. On Jan. 1, 1857, Newton the first three years of his tenure, the broke ground at Budrum. The sculptures annual grant from the Treasury for pur- with which that enterprise enriched the chases in his Department rose from £785 in Museum are, for the fourth century B.C., 1861 to £1400 in 1864. In the twenty almost what the Elgin marbles are for the years from 1864 to 1883, a series of Special fifth; as the latter illustrate the art of Parliamentary Grants, amounting in the Pheidias and his school, the remains of the aggregate to about £100,000, enabled him Mausoleum throw a comparable light on the to secure for the Museum objects of first- art of Scopas. Indeed, it was Newton who, rate importance in every branch of archaeo- both by his discoveries and by his penetrating logy, including the choicest things of all analysis, opened a new era in the modern sorts in four inestimable collections,—the knowledge of that sculptor. Farnese, the Pourtales, the Blacas, and the In May, 1860, Newton was appointed Castellani. Consul at Rome. But he stayed there only This was one side of his energy,—that about a year. The reconstitution of the immediately connected with his function at Antiquarian" Department at the British the Museum. But, in virtue of his position Museum was a measure to which the wealth and influence, he was also enabled to stimu- of Newton's acquisitions had mainly con- late and assist research in every quarter of tributed ; and nothing could be more appro- the classical lands. It was thus that he priate than that, when a separate Depart- furthered the work of Messrs. Smith and ment of Greek and" Roman Antiquities was Porcher at Cyrene; of Mr. Wood at created in 1861, he should be invited to Ephesus ; of Mr. Pullan at Priene ; of Mr. preside over it. Dennis at Benghazi in Tripoli; and of The earliest years of his new office were Messrs. Salzmann and Biliotti in supplemen- marked by the publication of those two tary researches on the ground which he had books which record his work in the Levant. made his own, at Badrum. In 1862 appeared his History of Discoveries When the inaugural meeting of this at Halicarnassus, C'nidus, and Branchidae ; Society was held, in June, 1879, it was to it is essentially a scientific work, addressed him that the supporters of the project to experts. Three years later came the primarily turned for countenance and Travels and Discoveries in the Levant; a book counsel. During the first six years of the profoundly interesting to all students, but Society's life, he was constantly in the chair also with a popular side ; it has been well at our meetings; nor is it too much to say described as ' a charming Odyssey,' enlivened that his guidance and his name must be with pictures of Greek and Turkish man- reckoned among the chief causes, not only ners,—lit up, indeed, with all the colours of the early and rapid success which and humours of Anatolia, such as it was attended the Hellenic Society, but also of half-a-century ago. This work, admirably the position in which it is now established. illustrated, owed not a little of its charm In 1883 his aid and counsel were also to the pencil of the accomplished lady who, valuable in helping to institute that British a few years before, had become the author's School at Athens which, in the face of wife; a daughter of the Joseph Severn difficulties not experienced by the similar whose grave at Rome is beside that of his schools of other nations, has done so much friend John Keats. One year later, in 1866, to uphold the reputation of our country in the crushing sorrow of her death befell the field of archaeological research. Newton ; and the shadow of that loss never This is merely a bare outline of Newton's passed away. life-work ; but even so slight a sketch must Newton held his post at the Museum for not close without some attempt to indicate twenty-four years—till 1885. His activity the leading characteristics of the man's during that period has two principal aspects ; mind and nature. First, as to his attitude one, directly relative to his office itself ; the towards his chosen studies. It has lately G 2 84 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. been said, by one well fitted to judge, that side ; and he was imbued with the sentiment the ancient monuments interested Newton which Aristotle attributes to old age, that rather on the historical side than on the ' most things are unsatisfactory.' No man mythological or the artistic. Indeed, his own was less sanguine, or quicker to foresee the words can be quoted ; ' I am first a historian, difficulties of a project; but, once engaged and secondly an archaeologist.' This may in it, he was tenacious and intrepid. His seem a hard saying; but I believe that it is self-contained manner was due in part to true, though it perhaps needs some elucida- the natural fastidiousness of his taste; it tion. It means that Newton was never a was only when he felt secure, for the time, specialist in the limited modern sense ; it' against jarring incidents,—which, even was classical antiquity as a whole that had when slight, affected him like physical pain, a spell for him ; it was in the intense desire —that he completely unbent, and showed to reconstruct and revivify this antiquity the most genial side of his nature. In that he so closely and indefatigably scanned colleagues he looked for the highest standard every monument of any kind that could tell of work ; his demands on subordinates were him anything about it. His strongest feeling strict: he was an exacting, but also a in early manhood was that ancient literature, stimulating ruler. in which he was well versed, told only part If the essence of his character could be of the story. His address at Oxford in contained in a phrase, it might perhaps be 1850—which now stands first in his volume described as severe enthusiasm. To those of Essays—begins with words which strike who knew him but slightly, the severity—- the key-note of his work : ' The record of not harshness, but the severity as of good the human past is not all contained in Greek sculpture—might be more evident printed books.' Hence the peculiar interest than the enthusiasm: but a nearer know- which he always took in epigraphy ; here ledge revealed the man in whom an inward he felt that he came closest to ancient lives fire had burned steadily from youth upwards ; and minds : his two essays on Greek inscrip- a sacred fire, little seen, but not to be extin- tions, published in 1876 and 1878 (the tinguished, and shaken neither by any fourth and fifth of the collected Essays), wavering of purpose, nor by the breath of illustrate this in full; few productions of any vulgar ambition. His many honours, his pen are more striking. academic or public, were prized by him in Now, this desire to apprehend the life of proportion as he took them to be recogni- antiquity is often associated with the kind tions, not merely of eminence generally, but of imagination which seeks vivid or rhe- of success in the precise aims which he had torical utterance in language; it was set before himself. distinctive of Newton that, in his case, there The chief source of satisfaction to him, was absolutely no such tendency ; on the in his later years, was to think that classical contrary he recoiled from it. The life of his archaeology had gained so much ground in imagination was an inward life,—so inward, England, and that he had helped it forward ; that he might often seem unimaginative ; but this feeling was deeply tinged with a life which he wished to share only melancholy ; he thought of himself as the with the careful, laborious, exact student, leader through the wilderness, who was not but did not choose to share with the outward to enter the promised land. There are world. Witness the guides which he prepared minds, perhaps, in which life-long conversa- to his galleries at the British Museum— tion with the past so confirms the habit of exemplifying his conception of a scientific retrospect that the difficulties of earlier catalogue as the outcome of a life devoted years always loom large, even after subse- to a single study—but making no concession quent successes; so, at least, it seemed to to a popular desire for more elementary be with him. But to others it will appear knowledge. When, in 1880, he became the that, however distant the point gained in first Professor of Archaeology at University his lifetime may have been from his ideal, College, London, the stamp of his teaching still the cause to which he rendered such showed the same bent. abundant service was already gained before His sustained, though undemonstrative, he died. In the future of classical studies, ardour was singularly allied with caution. so long as they may exist in this country, Without being cynical, he was wary in a the place of archaeology, not as an accident degree which sometimes approached to but as an essential, is assured beyond the cynicism; in discriminating between what danger of overthrow. was merely probable, and what might be Newton has been recently compared, and accounted certain, he leaned to the sceptical not unjustly, with Winckelmann. The THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 85 German worked in the dawn, the English- kinship with ancient Hellas,—that voice man, though still in the morning hours, yet which so often within these walls expressed in a far clearer light : between them, the knowledge thrice-refined by ripe study however, there is this intrinsic resemblance, and experience ; a, few years more, and these that in both the mainspring of a devotion will be only traditions : but to our suc- which ended only with life was a native cessors, the members of this Society in days instinct, inteosely strong and lucid, for the to come, the history of learning in Europe spirit and the charm of classical antiquity. will bear witness that no body formed for There are those in this room to whom the the promotion of Hellenic studies could impressive personality of the master whom have entered upon existence with a worthier we commemorate will be a lasting recollec- sanction, or could desire better auspices for tion,—that singularly fine head and pose, its future, than those which are afforded by which themselves seemed to announce some the name of Charles Newton. IN MEMOEIAM : CHARLES THOMAS NEWTON, K.C.B. DECEMBER 4TH, 1894. ov K(i> (^poCSov eros' XPV(ravy^ o.v6ca 71-0177? Taia 7rp6(f>pao-aa ARCHAEOLOGY. SOME POINTS IN DR. FURT- has been admirably done by Miss Sellers- WAENGLER'S THEORIES ON THE She has undertaken it as a confessed en PARTHENON AND ITS MARBLES.1 thusiast, accepting her author's views en bloc ; the translation is all aglow with eager DR. FURTWANGLER'S Aleisterwerke der championship, and indeed only the devotion griechischen Plastik was very fully reviewed, of an ardent disciple could have carried her and indeed its contents were summarized, in with such brilliant success through a task the Classical Review for April and May of the veritably Herculean. The English transla- past year. The object of the present article tion will, I expect, largely supersede the is to call attention to the appearance of an German version, even in Germany. It is in ' English translation of the work, and to use almost every respect a gain. The changes this occasion for the criticism of certain made are noticed by Miss Sellers in her points in Dr. Furtwangler's theories on the preface, and have all been authorized by Parthenon marbles. I may say at once Dr. Furtwangler. The plates are now in- that the work of editing the English version corporated with the text, and there are no less than thirty-five new illustrations; yet 1 Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, a series of Essays the bulk of the book is not seriously in- on the History of Art. By Adolf Furtwangler. Authorized Translation. Edited by Eugenie Sellers. creased. The necessary space has been