Lord Napier of Magdala, and the additions to the Museum of the Antiquities and MSS. of Abyssinia, 1867–8.
Some of my readers will remember that although war, and the calamities which commonly accompany it, have often devastated museums and libraries, it has occasionally enriched them. Sometimes by sheer plunder, as under Catharine of Russia and the marshals of her predatory armies. Sometimes by acts of genuine beneficence and public spirit, as in Ireland under Blount (afterwards Earl of Devonshire); and, again, under the great Protector. Lord Napier adds his honoured name to the small category of the soldiers who have justifiably turned victorious arms to the profit of learning, and the enrichment of honestly built-up national collections. I cannot, however, but regard as utterly unworthy of the British arms and name certain acquisitions which were incidental to that campaign. ‘Mr. Holmes, the officer attached to the Abyssinian Expedition by the Trustees of the British Museum’—I quote exactly and literally from the ‘Accounts and Estimates’ of last year (1869)—‘collected ... among other objects, a silver chalice and a paten bearing Æthiopic inscriptions, showing them to have been given to various churches by King Theodore.’
The collection of Sacramental Plate in Abyssinia.
I am certain to be uncontradicted when I assert, that neither the Trustees of the British Museum, nor Lord Napier of Magdala, instructed Mr. Holmes to take from Christian churches in Abyssinia their sacramental plate, or their processional crosses.
It is a far pleasanter task to praise the diligence with which Mr. Holmes executed the Commission really given him by the Trustees. He collected many specimens of Abyssinian art and industry which were fit contributions to the National Museum. |The collection of Abyssinian MSS.| In like manner, Lord Napier authorised the collection, partly by officers under his command, and partly by the researches of Mr. Holmes, of a series of Abyssinian Manuscripts, extending to three hundred and thirty-nine volumes. These were given to the Museum by the then Secretary of State for India.
The Slade bequest.
In the same year with the Abyssinian spoils, came a noble addition to the Art Collections of the Museum by the bequest of the late Felix Slade, and a rich addition to the Library, by the purchase of the Japanese books collected by the late Dr. Von Siebold, during the later of his two visits to Japan, a country which he so largely contributed to make well known to the rest of the world.
Felix Slade was the younger son of Robert Slade, in his day a well-known Proctor in Doctors’ Commons. Mr. William Slade, elder brother of Felix, had inherited the valuable estate of Halsteads in Lonsdale (Yorkshire), under the will of the last male-heir of that family, and on his early death he was succeeded by his brother, the benefactor.
Truly a ‘benefactor.’ To purposes of public charity he bequeathed not less than seven thousand pounds, and bequeathed that sum with wise forethought, and with Christian generality of view. He founded and munificently endowed Professorships of Art at each of the ancient Universities, and at University College in London. To the British Museum he gave the splendid bequest about to be described, which had been selected with exquisite taste, knowledge and judgment, and which, under such rare conditions of purchase, had cost him more than twenty-five thousand pounds. |The Slade Museum of Antiquities. 1869.| I describe it in the precise words—chiefly from the pen of one of his Executors—which are used in the Return to Parliament of 1869:—‘The collection of glass and other antiquities bequeathed to the Nation by the late Felix Slade, Esq., F.S.A., includes about nine hundred and fifty specimens of ancient glass, selected with care, so as to represent most of the phases through which the art of glass-working has passed. Collected in the first instance with a view to artistic beauty alone, the series has been since gradually enriched with historical specimens, as well as with curiosities of manufacture, so as to illustrate the history of glass in all its branches.
‘Of early Egyptian glass there are not many examples in the collection; one of some interest is a case for holding the stibium, used by the Egyptian ladies for the eye, and which is in the form of a papyrus sceptre. The later productions of Egypt are represented by some very minute specimens of mosaic glass, formed of slender filaments of various colours fused together, and cut into transverse sections.