SOANE'S LIBERALITY AND PUBLIC MUNIFICENCE.
Sir John Soane was a munificent patron of various public charities, and was even more liberal in his contributions for the advancement of art; he subscribed £1000 to the Duke of York's monument; a similar sum to the Royal British Institution; £750 to the Institute of British Architects; £250 to the Architectural Society, &c. He made a splendid collection of works of art, valued at upwards of £50,000 before his death, converted his house into a Museum, and left the whole to his country, which is now known as Sir John Soane's Museum—one of the most attractive institutions in London. He devoted the last four years of his life in classifying and arranging his Museum, which is distributed in twenty-four rooms, and consists of architectural models of ancient and modern edifices; a large collection of architectural drawings, designs, plans, and measurements, by many great architects; a library of the best works on art, particularly on Architecture; antique fragments of buildings, as columns, capitals, ornaments, and friezes in marble; also, models, casts, and copies of similar objects in other collections; fragments and relics of architecture in the middle ages; modern sculptures, especially by the best British sculptors; Greek and Roman antiquities, consisting of fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture antique busts, bronzes, and cinerary urns; Etruscan vases; Egyptian antiquities; busts of remarkable persons; a collection of 138 antique gems, cameos and intaglios, originally in the collection of M. Capece Latro, Archbishop of Tarentum, and 136 antique gems, principally from the Braschi collection; a complete set of Napoleon medals, selected by the Baron Denon for the Empress Josephine, and formerly in her possession, curiosities; rare books and illuminated manuscripts; a collection of about fifty oil paintings, many of them of great value, among which are the Rake's Progress, a series of eight pictures by Hogarth, and the Election, a series of four, by the same artist; and many articles of virtu too numerous to mention here, forming altogether a most rare, unique, and valuable collection. What a glorious monument did the poor bricklayer's son erect to his memory, which, while it blesses, will cause his countrymen to bless and venerate the donor, and make his name bright on the page of history! Some there are who regard posthumous fame a bubble, and present pomp substantial; but the one is godlike, the other sensual and vain.
THE BELZONI SARCOPHAGUS.
One of the most interesting and valuable relics in Sir John Soane's Museum, is the Belzoni Sarcophagus. It was discovered by Belzoni, the famous French traveler, in 1816, in a tomb in the valley of Beban el Malouk, near Gournon. He found it in the centre of a sepulchral chamber of extraordinary magnificence, and records the event with characteristic enthusiasm: "I may call this a fortunate day, one of the best, perhaps, of my life. I do not mean to say that fortune has made me rich, for I do not consider all rich men fortunate; but she has given me that satisfaction, that extreme pleasure which wealth cannot purchase—the pleasure of discovering what has long been sought in vain." It is constructed of one single piece of alabaster, so translucent that a lamp placed within it shines through, although it is more than two inches in thickness. It is nine feet four inches in length, three feet eight inches in width, and two feet eight inches in depth, and is covered with hieroglyphics outside and inside, which have not yet been satisfactorily interpreted, though they are supposed by some to refer to Osirei, the father of Rameses the Great. It was transported from Egypt to England at great expense, and offered to the Trustees of the British Museum for £2,000, which being refused, Sir John Soane immediately purchased it and exhibited it free, with just pride, to crowds of admiring visitors. When Belzoni discovered this remarkable relic of Egyptian royalty, the lid had been thrown off and broken into pieces, and its contents rifled; the sarcophagus itself is in perfect preservation.
TASSO'S "GERUSALEMME LIBERATA."
The original copy of "Gerusalemme Liberata," in the handwriting of Tasso, is in the Soane Museum. It was purchased by Sir John Soane, at the sale of the Earl of Guilford's Library, in 1829. This literary treasure, which cannot be contemplated without emotion, once belonged to Baruffaldi, one of the most eminent literary characters of modern Italy. Serassi describes it, and refers to the emendations made by the poet in the margin (Serassi's edit. Florence, 1724;) but expresses his fear that it had been taken out of Italy. In allusion to this expression of Serassi, Lord Guilford has written on the fly-leaf of the MS., "I would not wish to hurt the honest pride of any Italian; but the works of a great genius are the property of all ages and all countries: and I hope it will be recorded to future ages, that England possesses the original MS. of one of the four greatest epic poems the world has produced, and, beyond all doubt, the only one of the four now existing." There is no date to this MS. The first printed edition of the Gerusalemme is dated 1580.
There are other rare and valuable MSS. in this Museum, the most remarkable of which are a Commentary in Latin on the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, by Cardinal Grimani. It is adorned with exquisite miniature illustrations, painted by Don Giulio Clovio, called the Michael Angelo of miniature painters. "The figures are about an inch in height," says Mrs. Jameson, "equaling in vigor, grandeur, and originality, the conceptions of Michael Angelo and of Raffaelle, who were his cotemporaries and admirers." Also, a missal of the fifteenth century, containing ninety-two miniatures by Lucas van Leyden and his scholars, executed in a truly Dutch style, just the reverse of those of Clovio, except in point of elaborate finishing.