Then I have above 150 inscriptions among my papers, and I find most of them are unpublished. I have had them copied fairly, and they are now in the hands of a great savant, M. Akerblad, for his perusal. He promises to give me his notes on them.
I do think I have not made a bad use of my opportunities, if I may judge by the interest taken in the various new notices on different subjects I have brought with me, and the flattering consideration everywhere shown me, I get so many invitations, and am so harassed to show distinguished persons of all nations my drawings, that I can get no time to myself. And in order to have something to show I have been obliged to finish up some of my sketches, which has occupied the whole of the last two months. I have now a portfolio of about fifteen of some of the most interesting scenes in Greece fit to show, and I generally find them as much as my visitors want to see.
Finding at last that my time and occupations were too much infringed upon by gaieties, I left Rome to seek more quiet in Florence. I found it at first, and for more than six weeks was as busy as it was possible to be. My life was a curious one. I rose early, and after working all day, dined alone at a trattoria, refusing frequently three or four invitations in a day. Then I slept three or four hours on a sofa, and rose in the night to work calmly until four or five in the morning, when I took another nap, and rose at seven. This odd life got wind; and as I was a great deal known here, either by reputation or by name and family, I occasioned a good deal of wonder, particularly among those who are astonished at anyone's occupying himself earnestly except for a necessity. The interest in me was also increased rather than diminished by my shyness when I did show in company. I had so much lost the habit of society by the long sojourn in Turkey, and, looking on it with a new eye, was often so disgusted with the follies of it, and showed my disgust, that I got a character for being a cynic. But instead of taking offence people only made the more of me, and I was constantly invited out, more to gratify my hosts' curiosity than to give pleasure to me. To have travelled in Greece, still more to have been a discoverer there, is enough to make a lion; while the fame of my drawings, which few of the many who saw them understood and all were therefore willing to think wonderful, completed the business. It was at this time that I brought out my drawing of the Niobe and the etchings from it."
B. Bartholdy, Prussian consul-general in Rome, an intelligent man and much interested in art, had travelled up from Rome to Florence with Cockerell and made himself one of his most intimate acquaintances. Walking together one day in the Uffizi, they examined the group of the Niobe. It is now neglected and forgotten, but in those days it occupied, in the estimation of artists, the place to-day held by the Elgin Marbles. With the Venus de' Medici, the Apollo Belvedere, and the Torso in the Vatican, these statues were regarded as the greatest remains antiquity had bequeathed to the modern world. But, prized and studied as they were, the purpose of so many figures, evidently meant to stand together, had never yet dawned on the minds of their admirers. The figure of Niobe, which is the largest, had been placed in the middle, and the rest in a circle round her. It was felt indeed that this could not be right, but no one had anything better to suggest, and it remained one of the favourite puzzles for art lovers to wrangle over. Into the middle of this clouded state of intelligences Cockerell dropped as from another planet. The experience of the Æginetan statues, which he had arranged so laboriously, besides the constant sight of what remained of the Parthenon and other Greek monuments, made the notion of a pediment or ἁετὁς [Greek: haetos] so familiar as to present itself to his mind at once as the only possible destination for so many statues. He says the first suggestion came on that occasion from Bartholdy. "I have told Schlegel and all parties that it was first proposed by you;" to which Bartholdy replies: "J'aurai le plaisir de pouvoir dire que vous avez fait fructifier un petit grain tombé de la main d'un amateur des beaux arts qui sans cela serait resté stérile." But it was probably the company of Cockerell and the associations with Ægina &c. which suggested the notion to Bartholdy. At all events, beyond that first suggestion, Bartholdy did nothing. It was Cockerell who measured the statues, arranged them, proved the case, and made the etching which hangs to this day in the Niobe Room in the Uffizi Gallery, showing the arrangement which he proposed. In recognition, however, of the part Bartholdy had had in it, the plate was dedicated to him.
For the introduction of Cockerell as a lion into society—if that be a thing to be desired—this discovery was most opportune. He had arrived with a great reputation as a traveller, a discoverer, and unraveller of age-long puzzles, as in the case of the Temple of the Giants, and now here was a proof of his powers exhibited in the centre of artistic Europe.
"I had shown my drawing to several people and amongst the ambassadors and distinguished persons here—all of whom, de rigueur, more or less pretend to understand the arts—and it gained universal approbation. It was talked about by all, and written about by Demetrius Schinas and other obscure poets and prose writers. I was flattered, invited, and made much of. Our ambassador boasts that the solution has been proved by an Englishman; others bow and beg to be allowed to send copies of my etching to their Governments, to Metternich, &c. It was formally presented to the Grand Duke, and I have received from the Academy here a handsome letter and diploma of Academician of Florence. It is to be published in the official work on the Gallery. I have presented it myself to Madame de Staël, and my friends have sent it to all parts of the Continent."
He was now regularly launched in the fashionable society of Florence.
The reigning beauty at this time, the centre of all jollity and brightness, was Lady Dillon. All the young men were at her feet, and Cockerell was as deeply smitten as anybody. As already mentioned, during the time that he was in Syracuse he had learnt the art of cameo-cutting. He now made use of it—or at least of the preliminary stage, which is to make a model in wax—to execute a highly finished portrait of her, which still exists in the possession of her descendants. It shows a head of great beauty, and is executed with admirable skill and minuteness.
The whole English nation was now jubilant over the success of its army at Waterloo, and was considering the rewards to be offered to its idol, the Duke of Wellington. He was to have a magnificent palace, surpassing the glories of Blenheim, and architects were called upon to give reins to their imagination in preparing designs in competition. The celebrity which my father had by now made for himself obtained him, through the medium of Lord and Lady Burghersh, his fast friends, a formal invitation to send in designs for the Wellington Palace.