ANTIQUARIANA.
My most literary antiquarianism was an article I wrote for the
_Quarterly Review_ on Coins, accepted by Lockhart and inserted in one of
the Nos. for 1843; he protested that "I could not be the Proverbial
Philosopher, as my looks were too like David's,--it must be my
father."--No, I replied, it is my father's son. However, when he read
and approved my Coin article, he began to be convinced. I give here his
letter to me on his acceptance:--
"Sir,--I am at present terribly overburdened with MSS.,
and know not whether I can send a proof of your paper for some
weeks; but I like it much, and it shall be put into type as soon as
I can manage. I assure you I am greatly pleased, and sincerely your
obliged
"J.G. Lockhart.
"Sussex Place, _February 16, 1843_."
I expostulated with him as to divers omissions for space' sake, and for
some unauthorised alterations; but editors are nothing if not
autocratic, as we all know. My article (I find it noted) was written on
the numismatic works of Cardwell and of Akerman, and took me ten days in
its composition, I tried Lockhart with a second article on "Ancient
Gems," but it failed to please. I never had an interview with him but
once, and then he seemed to me brusque and cynical at first, warming a
little afterwards. I have written also on Druidism; and the mystery of
Easter Island, which I take to be the remains of a submerged Pacific
continent, with its deified statues on the top of an extinct volcano.
And I have flung my pen into many other _mélées_ of discussion both old
and new; for it may be stated as a feature in my literary life that I
have had, one after another, all the ologies on my brain, and have
personally made small collections of minerals, fossils, insects, and the
like: special hobbies having been agates picked up in my rambles on
every beach from Yarmouth to Sidmouth, and coins at Roman stations
wherever I found them; besides a host of numismatic treasures bought at
Sotheby's auction-room, but long since sold again, as well as sundry
Egyptian and other antiquities. In particular, the Roman discoveries at
Farley Heath in the neighbourhood of Albury were mainly due to my
juvenile antiquarianism, when as a student along with Harold Browne (now
Bishop of Winchester) we used to search for coins there, and found one
happy day a Gallienus: all which I recorded years after in a now scarce
booklet, "Farley Heath, and its Roman Remains," published, with
illustrations, by Andrews, Guildford. Ultimately the finds of coin (from
Nero to Honorius), some being rare and finely patinated, as well as
several small bronzes, and old British money, were given by Mr. Drummond
(who as lord of the manor employed labourers in the search for many
months) to the British Museum, where they fill a niche near the
prehistoric room.
Some of our finds were very curious, _e.g._, we were digging in the
black mould of the burnt huts round the wall-foundations (all above
ground of said hectagonal wall having since been ruthlessly utilised by
parochial economists in making a road across the heath), and found
amongst other spoil a little green bronze ring,--which I placed on the
finger of our guest of the day, Mrs. Barclay of Bury Hill: oddly enough
it had six angles exactly like one of gold she wore as her
wedding-guard. Again; we had picked up some pieces of pottery decorated
with human finger-tips,--just as modern cooks do with pie-crust; a son
of mine said, perhaps we shall find a dog's foot on some tile,--and just
as he said it, up came from the spade precisely what he was guessing at,
the large footprint of dog or wolf stamped fifteen centuries ago on the
unbaked clay. Again; I was leaving for an hour a labourer in whose
industry and honesty I had not the fullest faith. So in order to employ
him in my absence, I set him to dig up an old thorn bush and told him to
give me when I returned the piece of money he would find under it. To my
concealed but his own manifest astonishment, he gave me when I came back
a worn large brass of Nero, saying with a scared face, "However could
you tell it was there, sir?" I looked wise, and said nothing.
Among the rarest copper coins was one of Carausius (our English Carew),
with two heads on it symbolling the ambition of our native usurper to
assert empire over East as well as West, and among more treasure-trove
was a unique gold coin of Veric,--the Bericus of Tacitus; as also the
rare contents of a subterranean potter's oven, preserved to our day, and
yielding several whole vases. Mr. Akerman of numismatic fame told me
that out of Rome itself he did not know a richer site for old-world
curiosities than Farley; in the course of years we found more than 1200
coins, besides Samian ware, and plenty of common pottery, as well as
bronze ornaments, enamelled fibulæ, weapons of war, household
implements, &c., both of the old British and the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon,
and more recent periods; Farley having been a prætorian station on the
Ikenild highway. This is quite a relevant episode of my literary
antiquariana. As also is another respecting "My Mummy Wheat," a record
of which found its way into print and made a stir many years ago. It
grew from seeds given to me by Mr. Pettigrew out of an Amenti vase taken
from a mummy pit by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, and very carefully
resuscitated by myself in garden-pots filled with well-sifted mould at
Albury; it proved to be a new and prolific species of the semi-bearded
Talavera kind, and a longest ear of 8-1/2 inches in length (engraved in
an agricultural journal) was sent by me to Prince Albert, then a zealous
British farmer.
Here I will add a very interesting letter to me on the subject from
Faraday, the original being pasted among my autographs. It will be seen
that he excuses having published my letter to him, and refuses to be
called Doctor:--
"Royal Institution, _June 11, 1842_.
"My dear Sir,--Your note was a very pleasant event in my
day of yesterday, and I thank you heartily for it, and rejoice with
you at the success of the crop. It so happened that yesterday
evening was the last of our meetings, and I had to speak in the
lecture-room. The subject was Lithotint: but I placed the one ear
in the library under a glass case, and after my first subject was
over read the principal part of your letter--all that related to
the wheat: and the information was received with great interest by
about 700 persons. Our President, Lord Prudhoe, was in the chair,
and greatly desirous of knowing the age of the wheat. You know he
is learned in Egyptian matters, and was anxious about the label or
inscription accompanying the corn. I hope I have not done wrong,
but I rather fear your letter will be published, or at least the
wheat part, for a gentleman asked me whether he might copy it, and
I instantly gave him leave, but found that he was connected with
the press, the _Literary Gazette_. I hope you will not object since
without thought on my part the matter has gone thus far. The news
is so good and valuable that I do not wonder at the desire to have
it,--Ever your obliged servant,
"M. Faraday.
"M.F. Tupper, Esq.,
&c. &c. &c.
"_P.S._--I am happy to say that I am plain Mr. Faraday, and if I
have my wish shall keep so.--M.F."
An early volume of my so-called "Critica Egotistica" has many letters
and printed communications on this subject: but as not being a
recognised agriculturist myself, I did not wish it called by my
name,--so it is only known in the markets (chiefly I have heard in
Essex) as "Mummy Wheat." Talking of declined honours in nomenclature, I
may here mention that a new beetle, found by Vernon Wollaston and urged
by him to be named after the utterly "unsharded" me (who had however
gratified that distinguished entomologist by my poem on Beetles) was
respectfully refused the prefix of my name, as scarcely knowing a
lepidopt from a coleopt. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ If honour is to be
given, let it be deserved.