The delighted emotions of Monsieur Botta, when he found himself, very suddenly, standing in a chamber in which—to all probability—no man had stood since the Fall of Nineveh, and saw that the chamber was lined with sculptured slabs of ‘gypsum-marble’ or alabaster, full of historic scenes from the wars and triumphs of Assyria, a reader can better imagine than a writer can describe. Botta himself rather indicates than depicts them, in the deeply interesting letters which he speedily addressed to his friend Mohl at Paris (and which by Mohl were not less promptly published in the Journal Asiatique, to be within a month or two pondered and wondered over by almost every archæologist in Europe). The delight, and also the surprise, were enhanced when the discoverer saw that almost every slab had a line of wedge-shaped characters carved above it, giving hope of history in legible inscriptions, as well as history in ruins. For, unhappily, nearly all the sculptures first discovered at Khorsabad were fractured. The durability of the Assyrian style of building had brought about the defacement of the sculptured records. The walls were formed of blocks of gypsum, backed and lined, so to speak, with enormous masses of clay. When the weight of such large earth-banks pressed down upon the sculptured slabs, these were thrust from their place. Many that were still in position, when first seen, fell, or crumbled, as the explorer was looking at them. He had to shore-up and underpin, as he went on; and to do this by unpractised hands. Else, the more diligent his excavations, the more destructive they would have been of the very end he had in view.
Layard was at Constantinople when the news came of M. Botta’s increasing successes. His detention there had been unexpected, as well as unavoidable. But he wrote to England without delay. He had a foresight that Botta would not lack encouragement in France. He felt no unworthy jealousy on account of the fact that it was a Frenchman who was now disinterring historic treasures of a hitherto unexampled kind, and who was rapidly securing historic fame for himself.[[38]] Mr. Layard knew—few men just then knew more fully—that in all matters of learning and of discovery the gains of France are the gains of the world. |Layard’s overtures to the British Government.| For the staunchest of John Bulls amongst us must acknowledge that in the arts of scientific dissemination and exposition a Frenchman (other things being equal) has usually twice the expertness of an Englishman. But he was naturally desirous that France should not have all the glory of Assyrian discovery. What, then, was the reception with which his first overtures were met? ‘With a single exception,’ in the person of his London correspondent, ‘no one,’ he tells us, ‘in England’ ... |Nineveh and its Remains, vol. i, p. 10.| ‘seemed inclined to assist or take any interest in such an undertaking.’
What, on the other hand, were the encouragements given to the French explorer by the Government and the Nation of France? They were large; they were ungrudgingly given; and they were instantaneously sent. In Mr. Layard’s words: ‘The recommendation was attended to with that readiness and munificence which [has] almost invariably distinguished the French Government in undertakings of this nature. |Liberal aid extended to M. Botta by the French Government.| Ample funds to meet the cost of extensive excavations were at once assigned to M. Botta, and an artist of acknowledged skill was placed under his orders, to draw such parts of the monuments discovered as could not be preserved or removed.’ Who will wonder that at first it seemed as though France would carry off all the stakes, and England have no place at all in the archæological race?
Contrasts:—England and France.
Mr. Layard, however, was otherwise minded. And he found, presently, a powerful helper in the person of the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Stratford Canning (now Lord Stratford de Redcliffe). Had it not been for the union, in that ambassador, of a large intellect, a liberal mind, and a strong will, and also for the absence, in him, of that shrinking from extra-official responsibilities which in so many able men has often emasculated their ability, Mr. Layard’s efforts, earnest and unremitting as they were, would assuredly have been foiled.
The reader will perceive that for what was achieved, in 1845 and in the subsequent years, on the banks of the Tigris, the British public owe a debt of gratitude to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the encourager of the enterprise, as well as to Mr. Layard, its originator.
But neither does this fact, nor does the like of it, five years earlier, in the help given by Lord Ponsonby to the Lycian researches of Sir Charles Fellows, invalidate or weaken the remark I have ventured to make (on pages 348; 381, of the present volume, and elsewhere) about the discreditable and long-continued apathy of our Foreign Office in matters of art and literature; especially if we compare on that head British practice with French practice. Perhaps, at first blush, it might be thought somewhat presumptuous, in a private person, to remark so freely on what seem to him the shortcomings of statesmen. But it has to be borne in mind that, in such cases as this, outspoken criticism is rather the expression of known public opinion, than of mere individual judgment. The one writer, how humble soever, is very often the mouthpiece of the thoughts of many minds. Nor is other warrant for such criticism lacking.
Three years after beginning his excavations at Nimroud, Mr. Layard himself wrote thus (from Cheltenham):—‘It is to be regretted that proper steps have not been taken for the transport to England of the sculptures discovered at Nineveh. Those which have already reached this country, and (it is to be feared) those which are now on their way, have consequently suffered unnecessary injury; ... yet, ... |Nineveh and its Remains, vol. i, p. xiii.| they are almost the only remains of a great city and of a great nation.’
Part of the injury now observable in the Assyrian sculptures of the British Museum was, of course, inseparable from circumstances attending the discovery. Besides the injury already spoken of—from the pressure of the earth-banks—all the low-reliefs of one great palace had suffered from intense heat. From this cause, Mr. Layard’s experiences recall, in one particular, the impressive accounts we have all read of the opening of ancient tombs in Egypt and in Italy. The fortunate excavator suddenly beheld a kingly personage, in fashion as he lived. The royal forehead was still encircled by a regal crown. The fingers were decked with rings; the hand, mayhap, grasped a sceptre. But whilst the discoverer was still gazing in the first flush of admiration, the countenance changed; the ornaments crumbled; the sceptre and the hand that held it alike became dust. So it was, at times, at Nimroud. Some of the calcined slabs presented, for a moment, their story in its integrity. Presently, they fell into fragments.
Mixed nature of the causes of the mutilations observable in the Museum Sculptures from Assyria.