are arranged. These are a series of earthen vases discovered in Italy.
These painted vases are the spoil from the tombs of the ancient
Etruscans. The Etruscans inhabited the northern parts of Italy, and
flourished there in a state of comparative civilisation, when the rest
of the Peninsula, save where the Greeks were busy on its southern
shore, was in a barbarous state. The Etruscan tombs present various
degrees of ornament according to the wealth of their occupant, but in
all of them painted vases of some description are found. It is
maintained by many learned men that these beautiful vases were not a
native manufacture, but were bought by the Etruscans of the Greeks of
Southern Italy, who imported them from the famous potteries of Athens.
The Greek inscriptions on some of these vases, and the Greek subjects
from which the decorations are taken, tend strongly to confirm this
hypothesis. It is, however, altogether a mystery why the Etruscans
surrounded their dead with these vases. They were not used to hold
human bones, nor to contain food for the deceased; but that the
Etruscans held them in high estimation as sepulchral ornaments is
certain from the fact that they are found universally in their tombs,
the finer and more elaborate in the sepulchres of the rich, and the
coarser and plainer kinds in the graves of the poor. The visitor will
do well to walk carefully round this room in which the Etruscan vases
belonging to the Museum are deposited. They are arranged in the
supposed chronological order in which they were manufactured; the
clumsy and coarse ware being placed in the first case, as exhibiting
the dawn of the potter's art, and the more elaborate and
highly-wrought specimens being arranged in regular order of
improvement in the succeeding cases.
The first five cases are filled with clumsy black ware, ornamented in
some cases with figures in relief, and extracted from tombs discovered
on the site of the oldest Etruscan towns, which circumstance has led
antiquaries to allow the Etruscans the honour of having fashioned
these rude specimens of pottery; but as the samples display a higher
degree of skill they refuse to allow the Etruscans the merit of having
improved the clumsiness of their early handiwork. In the sixth and
seventh cases are pale vases with deep red figures, chiefly of animals
upon them, chiefly from Canino and Vulci. The exertions of the Prince
of Canino in excavating on his estate in search of Etruscan tombs and
their treasures are well known; and the enthusiasm with which Sir
William Hamilton, while on his embassy at Naples, bought the
curiosities of Etruscan tombs, should be remembered. Few Englishmen,
however, can think pleasantly of those times when the Hamiltons were
at Naples, when Lady Hamilton did her country great services; then
recall the picture of the poor woman fed by a charitable neighbour at
Calais, think of Horatio's last words, and then of the country that
forgets the woman's service, and the hero's dying words. Well, the
visitor may pass on his way amidst these spoils from Etruscan tombs,
and forgetting the family to whom we owe many of them, serenely watch
the gradual improvement in the manufacture. The best have black
figures upon a dark ground. The glass cases in the centre of the room
contain those vases which are painted on both sides. On the walls of
the room above the cases are fac-similes of paintings from some of the
Etruscan tombs. Some of them represent dances and games; but one
represents a female in the act of covering the head of a man who has
just expired, while a male figure is drawing a covering over the feet,
and two spectators are in attitudes of grief in the neighbourhood.
Having roamed amid the spoils of Etruscan tombs, the search after
which is now a settled business in parts of Italy, the visitor may
take a southerly direction through two empty rooms into that at the
southern extremity of the western wing. Here a few miscellaneous
objects are deposited, amongst which in the eastern cases he should
notice some curious old enamels, and the frescoes from St. Stephen's
Chapel, Westminster, and on the floor, a model of the Victory. He
should then turn in an easternly direction into the Ethnographical
room, which, to the visitor without a guide has very much the
appearance of a confined curiosity shop; but on inspection proves to
be an interesting compartment of the Museum, in which curiosities
illustrative of the civilisation of various countries and continents
are arranged. Before applying himself to the wall cases, however, the
visitor would do well to advance to the eastern extremity of the room,
noticing the objects deposited in the central space by the way. These
consist of Flaxman's cast of the shield of Achilles; a model of the
Thugs fashioned at Madras by a native artist; a model of a moveable
temple; her Majesty's present to the museum of a great Chinese bell,
surmounted by the Chinese national dragon, and decorated with figures
of Buddh, from a temple near Ningpo; and various cromlechs or
sepulchres of the ancient Britons, ruder in their construction than
those with which the visitor has lately busied himself. Having arrived
at the eastern end of the room, the visitor should advance to the
northern wall cases, and begin his inspection. He will at once remark
that the first five cases (1-5) are devoted to