And now, at this stage of our progress, let the reader indulge the author to the extent of a page of metaphor or allegory.—Imagine then that we are standing on the margin of a mighty river, the opposite shore of which is scarcely visible; and as to the origin of this world of waters, it is far remote and is unknown:—as to the ocean into which it shall at length empty itself and its treasures—this is distant also, nor do we find it anywhere laid down in our maps. The flow of this river is tranquil—its surface is glassy; but upon this surface there float samples and fragments, innumerable, of the products of each of the countries which it has watered in its course:—here come rafts, laden with well-packed bales, and there, confusedly mingled, are things more than can be counted—torn away—rent—shattered—coated with rust—wrapped around with weeds. Moving onward, we see the symbols and the devices of nations long ago extinct, and the utensils of a forgotten civilisation, and the products of lands—thousands of miles up the stream; and these entangled with the symbols, the devices, the rare and curious products, of some country next above us. On the bosom of this mighty river there float samples of all things, and these commingled in all imaginable modes.
This is our day-dream:—now for the interpretation of it. We have imagined ourselves to be stationed in any one of the saloons of the British Museum; or that we are passing up and down, from one of these halls to another: and at length are coming to a rest in the centre of the New Reading-room. The countless collections of antiquities—marbles—coins—gems—utensils—weapons—costumes—the manuscripts—the illuminations, and the printed books—what are all these things, but so many relics of remote ages which, favoured by various chances, have floated down to this, our own era, upon the broad surface of the River of Time?
But are these tens of thousands—these hundreds of thousands of individual objects, are they so many disjointed and disconnected particles?—this is far from being the fact. It is a very small number of things, in this vast collection, concerning which an instructed Curator would acknowledge his ignorance, as to what it is, and to what age it belongs, and of what country or people it is a relic. As to a thousand to one of all the single contents of the British Museum, each of them links itself, either nearly, or remotely, with the nine hundred, ninety and nine, of its neighbours—right and left; or perhaps with some articles that are exhibited in the opposite wing of the building: as for instance—here is a coin, the legend upon which we should have failed to read, or to understand, had it not been that a Greek writer, of whose works a sole manuscript has come down to modern times, incidentally mentions a fact concerning some obscure town of Asia Minor, and its history, under the Roman emperors, of which otherwise we should have been ignorant.
Let us avail ourselves of another supposition, remote as it may be from the fact; and it is this—That the author, and the reader, of this book, whom we imagine to be now pacing together the saloons of the Museum, are possessed of that universality of learning, and that vastness of antiquarian accomplishment, which enables the gentleman at the centre table of the Reading-room to answer all inquirers, and to aid and guide them all in carrying forward their various researches. If, then, the author and the reader were gifted in any such manner as this, we might then, with a sort of second sight, or a veritable clairvoyance, look upon the countless stores around us as if they were all falling into an appointed order, or were obeying some natural law of mutual attraction and cohesion: as thus—there goes an almost illegible manuscript, attaching itself to a colossal sculpture—much as feathers stick themselves on to an electric conductor:—there are coins, arranging themselves spontaneously, like a crown of laurel leaves, around the brows of busts:—there are weapons and fragments of armour, edging themselves on to a copy of Polybius:—there are bits of a pediment, or the chippings of a column, claiming a standing-place upon the Greek text of Procopius—and why? it is because these fragments belong to an edifice of the times of Justinian, which he has described. And now, as to the printed books, and the manuscripts, whence many of the printed books drew their existence, if we will give way to the ideal for a few moments, we shall see them floating out from their shelves, in this vast circus, and knowingly arranging themselves, in a sort of pyramidal form, as if to exhibit their real relationship of quotation, and of reference, in the order of time—the more recent to the more ancient—the many to the few;—until the pile—made up of a million of books, is surmounted by the two or three that quote none older than themselves, and that are quoted by all.
What then is our inference? It is this: that as to the persons and the events—the doings and the notions—the thoughts and the ways—the customs and the manners—the philosophy—the literature—the religion—the politics—the civilisation, of the nations of all those ages which are comprehended within the limits of what is called the historic period—these innumerable matters are assuredly, known to us, at this time;—and they have become known to us with this degree of certainty (in the main) not by the precarious and insulated testimony of a few writers, whose works have reached modern times—we know not how; but very much otherwise than thus; for it is by means of the inter-related, and the mutually attestative evidence of thousands of witnesses—witnesses in stone and marble, in metallic substances, coins and brass plates, in membranous records, and in writings upon every other material, and in every imaginable fashion; and all these things are so netted together and so welded, and dove-tailed, and linked, and glued, and sealed, into a vast conglomerate, as that the combined testimony thence accruing in support of our voluminous historic beliefs is not less solid than are the granitic ribs of a continent; and is as various, and as rich, as all the products of its surface—its faunas and its floras.
So much for a momentary glance at the treasures, the vast accumulations of the British Museum;—but now we might usefully take the Synopsis in hand, and give attention to some few of the articles that are named in it. What we are in search of are those attestations of ancient written evidences, touching the persons, the events, the manners, the religions, of ancient nations, which come upon us—we might say, by surprise, and which are derived from sources altogether and in every sense independent, and unconnected, one with another.
Take with you, in one hand, your Tacitus, Sallust, Dion Cassius;—and in the other hand, your Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, and Ovid. These writers—the one set as historians, the other set as poets, build up to our view the throne, and its personages, of the Imperial Times—say, of two centuries, reckoned back from the life-time of the last of them. But through what channels have the books come into our hands? The editors of the printed copies assure us that there had come into their possession, in each instance, one, two, three manuscripts, that had been raked out of the forgotten heaps of this or that monastery, or other conservatory of curious articles. As to the greater number of these manuscripts, they could not be assigned to an age much beyond the ninth century; therefore, on the supposition that they are genuine works—the products of a time seven hundred, or a thousand years earlier, what the editor had under his eye must have been nothing better than a copy—from a copy—or perhaps, from several in succession! Is not this line of proof somewhat precarious? Ought we to trust ourselves to it?
Advance toward the left hand, from the entrance hall, and by the time you have moved on a dozen steps, the volumes in your hands, if they were gifted with consciousness, would begin to twitch and to jerk themselves about, as if uneasy in being held away from their old friends, right and left, whom they recognise, perched on the pedestals, and fixed to the walls. Whence is it that these solid antiquities have been brought hither? Not from those same lumber-vaults in the monasteries, or the royal libraries of Europe, whence we have received the aforesaid manuscripts;—not so, but from deep under-ground—from cavities—from underneath pavements, sixty feet or more lower than the present surface: they have been picked up in cornfields; they have been sifted from out of heaps of rubbish; they have been taken from the recesses of the houses of a city, buried by a volcanic eruption, many centuries ago. These manifold samples of an ancient civilisation have been fished up from the beds of rivers and the bottoms of lakes; and these recoveries have been effected in all these and many other modes over the extent of Europe, and of Southern and Western Asia, and of North Africa. There is no possibility therefore of calling in question this million-tongued testimony; we must not gainsay what is affirmed by these tongues of stone and of brass, of silver and of gold.
And the more, in any instance, the coincidence is slender and remote, or, as one might say, frivolous or unimportant, so much the surer, and the more to be relied upon is it, in what it does affirm: as thus—Look to your Synopsis, page 87, Compartment III.:—“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of the Emperor Domitian, when he was consul for the eighth year, A.D. 82, weighing 154 lbs. It was discovered in 1731 underground, on Hayshaw Moor, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, half-way between an ancient lead-mine, north of Pately Bridge, and the Roman road from Ilkley (Olicana) to Aldborough (Isurium).” This pig had slept where he was dropped about 1,650 years.
“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of the Emperor Hadrian, weighing 191 lbs.; found in 1796 or ’97, at Snailbeach Farm, parish of Westbury, 10 miles south-west of Shrewsbury.” Then follow some other pigs, whose slumbers underground have been more or less prolonged and profound.