His first labours were given to the exhaustive research of volcanic phenomena. He amazed the fine gentlemen of Naples by setting to work as though he had to win his bread by the sweat of his brow. He laboured harder on the slopes of Vesuvius than an exceptionally diligent craftsman would labour in a factory—had Naples possessed any. Within four years he ascended the famous mountain twenty-two times. More than one of these ascents was made at the risk of his life. He made, and caused to be made, innumerable drawings of all the phenomena that he observed, showing the volcanic eruption in all its stages, and under every kind of meteorological condition. He formed too a complete collection of volcanic products, and of the earths and minerals of the volcanic district. When he had studied Vesuvius under every possible aspect, he went to Etna.
The results of these elaborate investigations were sent, from time to time, to the Royal Society (of which Mr. Hamilton was made a Fellow, after the reading of the first of his papers in 1766), and they were published in the Philosophical Transactions, between the years 1766 and 1780. They were afterwards collected, and improved, in the two beautiful volumes entitled Campi Phlegræi, and were lavishly illustrated from the drawings of F. A. Fabris, who had been trained by Hamilton to the work.[[57]] The collection of volcanic geology and products was given to the British Museum in 1767.
The Hamilton Museum of Antiquities.
These geological labours had been diversified, at intervals, by the collection of a rich archæological museum, and by the establishment of a systematic correspondence on antiquarian subjects with men of learning in various parts of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This correspondence had for its object, not merely the enrichment of his own Museum, but the awakening of local attention throughout the country to its antiquities and history; matters which had theretofore been but too much neglected—in the Neapolitan fashion.
One of the earliest and choicest acquisitions made by Hamilton in the early years of his residence at Naples was a collection of vases belonging to the senatorial family of Porcinari, many of which had been gathered from sepulchres and excavations in Magna Græcia. This purchase, made in 1766 and afterwards largely increased, may be regarded as the substantial beginning of the noble series of vases now so prominent a part of our National Museum.
Thus had been formed, by degrees, at Naples, a museum which, at the beginning of the year 1772, included seven hundred and thirty fictile vases; a hundred and seventy-five terra-cottas; about three hundred specimens of ancient glass (including three of the most perfect cinerary urns known, at that time, to have been discovered); six hundred and twenty-seven bronzes, of which nearly one-half illustrated the arms and armour of the ancients; more than two hundred specimens of sacrificial, domestic, and architectonic, instruments and implements; fourteen bassi-relievi, busts, masques, and inscribed tablets; about a hundred and fifty miscellaneous pieces of ancient ivory, including a curious series of tessaræ; a hundred and forty-nine gems, chiefly scarabæi; a hundred and forty-three personal ornaments, of various kinds, in gold; a hundred and fifty-two fibulæ in various materials; and more than six thousand coins and medals, comprising a considerable series from the towns of Magna Græcia.
The first fruits of this noble collection was the publication, commenced in the year 1766, of the work entitled Antiquités Etrusques, &c., with admirable illustrations, and with a descriptive text, written in French by D’Hancarville. |Publication of the ‘Antiquités Etrusques.’| The first edition of this costly book was issued at Naples. It naturally attracted great attention. No such collection of fictile vases—in their combination of number and beauty—had been theretofore known.
The two volumes published at Sir William’s cost in 1766, were followed by two other volumes in 1767. All of them were executed with great care and with lavish expenditure. But the later edition, printed at Florence—long afterwards—is in many points superior.[[58]]
Whilst the volumes were still incomplete, Mr. Hamilton circulated proof plates of the work with great liberality. Some of these proofs were lent to our famous English potter, Josiah Wedgwood, and gave a strong impulse to his taste and artistic zeal. |Meteyard, Life of Josiah Wedgwood, vol. ii, p. 72.| But they excited an eager longing for access to the vases themselves, as the only satisfactory models.
Wedgwood to Bentley, 10 May, 1770.