Some years later the good Earl of Egremont, lord of Petworth Castle, great in his generosity, presented Mantell with a large sum of money to start him in a spacious mansion at Brighton, where he might set up his fine museum, and pursue his profession in a wider field. Removing to this from Lewes he still pursued his science, but the sort of ground he needed was preoccupied, and, disposing of his collection to the trustees of the British Museum, he migrated finally to a suburb of London, I think it was to Clapham.
Had Government allowed such a man as Mantell a thousand a year for the purposes of science, he would have brought the geology of his day to perfection! How creditably they might have amended the sacrifice by withholding the £70,000 from the British Gallery for the purchase of a sham Raphael, and a preposterous Rembrandt, which the pencils of those artists never touched—an invalid housemaid on a throne as Virgin, and a Charles the King on a cart-horse! Raphael painted only beauty, Rembrandt only grace. But the English are the meanest judges of art in Europe. An Italian picture-dealer would have set them right in a few minutes.
What have the trustees done with those fabulous Correggios, which once made such a figure and were shelved to the entrance passage, when the National Gallery was still in Mr. Angerstein’s mansion in Pall Mall?
“Per arte e l’inganno,
Si vive mezzo l’anno;
Per inganno e l’arte
Si vive l’altro parte.”
There were other worthies in this town of Lewes: Mr. Horsfield, author of the “History and Antiquities of Lewes;” Mr. Lower, a stationer, who wrote on Sussex worthies; and the master of the Grammar School, Dr. Proctor, whose voice crackled emphasis and accent. He was one of the rolling stones that gather no moss; Lewes failed him and he took a mansion towards Kemp town; he was tempted from his school there to Jersey, and became Principal of its College, but this did not fit him for any length of time. My brother, who was his pupil, met him now and then in after days in the streets of London; he was then always on his way to see the bishop.