Next in importance—but next at a long interval—to the accessions which the Nation owes to the munificence of Henry Christy, comes the bequest of Mr. James Woodhouse, of Corfu, the circumstances attendant upon which have much singularity.

It is only of late years (speaking comparatively) that British Consuls have become at all notable as collectors of antiquities. But when once the new fashion was set, it spread rapidly, and it may now be hoped that there will be as little lack of continuance as of speed. In Chapter V, I had to mention (though very inadequately to the worth of their labours) several Consuls in the Levant, who have eminently distinguished themselves in augmenting our National Museum. But in this chapter the reader must be introduced to a Consul who rather obstructed than promoted a worthy public object.

James Woodhouse was a British subject engaged in commerce, who had resided for many years at Corfu (where for a time he had filled the office of Government Secretary), and who consoled his self-imposed exile by collecting a cabinet of coins, which eventually became one of great value, and also an extensive museum of miscellaneous, but chiefly of Greek, antiquities. Repeatedly, during his lifetime, he announced his desire and purpose to perpetuate his collection by giving it to the British Museum. When his health failed, he began to superintend in person the packing up of the most valuable portions of his museum; but illness grew upon him, and he was forced to leave off his preparations abruptly.

A delicate circumstance connected with his family circle seems to have combined with this regretted interruption, by increasing illness, of his precautionary measures and intentions (the secure fulfilling of which lay near his heart), to make him uneasy and anxious. |The circumstances of the Woodhouse bequest.| He sent for a legal friend, Dr. Zambelli; told him of his plans, and also of his fears that they might be—in the event of his sudden death, and he felt that death was fast coming—obstructed. Zambelli told him that the person to whom his purpose and wishes ought to be communicated, without delay, was undoubtedly the British Consul-General, Mr. Saunders. In joint communication with both of them, a deed of gift was prepared. ‘Having been engaged,’ said the donor, ‘in numismatic pursuits, ... and being desirous that the Collection of Coins and other Antiquities so formed by me, should be dedicated to national purposes, I give,’ and so on. No inventory, however, had been made when the donor died, on the twenty-sixth of February, 1866. Before Woodhouse’s death, Mr. Consul-General Saunders put a guard round the house; and, immediately after the event, sent away all the household, taking official possession of the whole of the effects, in the manner usual in cases of undoubted intestacy.[[47]] He then, according to his own statement, set about ‘selecting such portions’ of Mr. Woodhouse’s property as ‘seemed’ (to him and to a clerical friend of the collector) ‘suitable for the British Museum.’

Most naturally, when the intelligence came to the Museum, it was thought by the Trustees that Mr. Saunders had both very seriously exceeded, and very gravely fallen short of, his obvious official duty. ‘Selection’ was felt to have been superfluous in respect to any and every item, of every kind, belonging to the donor’s museum. Just as plainly, the instant forwarding of the whole, on the other hand, was a peremptory obligation upon the British Consul.

Eventually (and by the zealous exertions of Sir A. Panizzi and of Mr. Charles Newton, respectively, on behalf of the Trustees) conclusive evidence was placed before Lord Stanley (the now Earl of Derby, and then, it will be remembered, Foreign Secretary of State) that Mr. Consul-General Saunders had divided the Woodhouse antiquities into two portions, and had then proceeded to allot the smaller portion to the British Museum, and the larger to the ‘heirs-at-law’ of the deceased. Nor is it yet quite certain that such division was all the division that occurred.

After long inquiries and much correspondence—as well between the Foreign Office and the Queen’s Advocate, as between the Trustees and their officers on the one hand, and various persons at Corfu, including, of course, the Consul-General himself, on the other—Lord Stanley touched the point of the affair with characteristic keenness when he wrote, in his despatch to Mr. Saunders of the seventh of January, 1867: ‘Your neglect to make an Inventory of the effects of the deceased has been the main cause of the doubts which have been felt as to the propriety of your conduct in this matter, and of the inquiry which has been the consequence of those doubts.’

But that neglect was then incurable. And, subsequently to the despatch thus worded, further inquiry has but made the omission more regrettable. The making of the Inventory had been pressed on Mr. Saunders’ attention at the time of the Collector’s death.

Newton; in Returns to Parliament, of the year 1866.

That part of the Woodhouse Museum which came to England in 1866 included a very interesting Collection of Greek Coins, chiefly from Corcyra, Western Greece, and the Greek islands; an extensive series of rings and other personal ornaments; some ancient glass; a few medallions; a few sculptures, in marble, of doubtful antiquity; and last, but far indeed from being least acceptable, a most beautiful head of Athené in cameo, cut on a sardonyx. |Vischer, Archaeologische Beiträge aus Griechenland, p. 2.| It was thought by the antiquary Vischer—who saw this fine cameo about the year 1854—that it represents the head of Phidias’ famous statue in gold and ivory, and therefore had a common origin with the jasper intaglio so often praised by archæologists who have seen the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna.