After remaining on the Continent about six or seven years, Mr. Payne Knight removed to England, and went to live at Downton Castle. He took delight in the management of his land, proved himself to be a kind landlord as well as a skilful one, and convinced his neighbours that a man might love Greek and yet ride well to hounds. When returned to Parliament for the neighbouring borough, he attached himself to the Whigs, and more particularly to that section of them who supported Burke in his demands for economical reform. When in London, he gave constant attention to his parliamentary duty, and when in the country, foxhunting, hospitality, and the improvement of his estate, had their fair share of his time. But, at all periods of life, his love of reading was insatiable. When there was no hunting and no urgent business, he could read for ten hours at a stretch.
He had reached his thirty-sixth year before he made the first beginning of his museum of antiquities. The primitive acquisition was a head, unknown—probably of Diomede—which was discovered at Rome in 1785. It is in brass, of early Greek work, and was bought of Jenkins. Despite the doubt which exists as to the personage, there are many known copies of this fine head upon ancient pastes and gems. In the following year, Mr. Knight made his first appearance as an author.
Early Writings of Mr. Payne Knight.
The Inquiry into the remains of the Worship of Priapus, as existing at Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples, treated of a subject which scarcely any one will now think to have been well chosen, as the first fruits or earnest of a scholarly career. When a French critic said of it ‘a maiden-work, but little virgin-like (peu virginal)’ he expressed, pithily, the usual opinion of the very small circle of readers at home to whom the book became known. The author eventually called in the impression, so far as lay in his power, and the book is now one of the many ‘rarities’ which might well be still more rare than they are.
In 1791, he gave to the world another work on a classical subject which possessed real value, and, amongst scholars, attracted much attention. The Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet is a treatise which, in its day, rendered good service to grammatical learning, and led to more. It was followed, in 1794, by The Landscape, a Poem.
‘The Landscape’ is an elaborate protest against the then fashionable modes of gardening, which sought to ‘improve’ nature, almost as much by replacement as by selection. On many points the poem is marked by good sense and just thought, as well as by vigour of expression, but its reasoning is far superior to its poetry. What is said of the choice and growth of trees shows thorough knowledge of the subject and true taste. But it needs no poet to convict ‘Capability Brown’ of ignorance in his own pursuit when he insisted on ‘the careful removal of every token of decay’ as a cardinal maxim in landscape-gardening. Such topics may well be left to plain prose.
The one notable feature in the poem which has still an interest is its curious indication of that peculiarity in Mr. Knight’s creed which asserted—in relation both to the works of nature and to those of art—that beauty is absolutely inconsistent with vastness. The excessive love of the minute and delicate led Mr. Knight into the greatest practical error of his public life, as will be seen presently. At this time it merely led him to the bold assertion that no mountain ought to dare to lift its head so high as to—
‘Shame the high-spreading oak, or lofty tower.’
The lines which follow are, it will be seen, curiously prophetic of that controversy about the Marbles of the Parthenon in which Mr. Payne Knight took so large a share:—
‘But as vain painters, destitute of skill,