DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55337#0031
WILTON HOUSE
ii
greatest genius often lingered in conversation with his friend and
patron, the third earl, the friend to whom, as students have shown,
he dedicated the sonnets. A lawn in the park is pointed out as the
spot where Shakespeare’s troupe gave the first performance of
As You Like It. There is a gentle magic in this park, especially
in bright September days, when the fragrance of the late summer
roses is blended with the scent of the cedars and fills the mind
with a mixture of joy and pain. So fair is life and yet so short! The
feeling that seizes one in such surroundings, finds its best outlet in
Shakespeare’s own lines :
If it were now to die,
’Twere now to be most happy ; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate. {Othello, Act n, sc. i.)
§ 2
HOUGHTON HALL (fig. 7)
This ‘ Italian palace ’, which Robert Walpole erected and
furnished with hitherto unknown splendour in 1722-30 out of the
great riches which he had gained by speculating in South Sea stock,
contains a small collection of antiques, purchased for Walpole in
Italy by the architect Brettingham in the last years of the great
statesman’s life. With this collection we pass to the second period
of the history of English private collections, which begins in 1733
with the foundation of the Dilettanti Society. Hardly any collection
in England is so little known as this. It was not visited by Michaelis,
so that it is desirable to illustrate and describe the two most interest-
ing works of art which are not portraits. One is a head of Zeus
(fig. 8) of colossal dimensions ; the nose and bust are restored
in marble. The deep technique of drilling shows that it is a copy
of the second century A. D., but the original, of which there are
several replicas —the best at Ince Blundell Hall and Madrid 1—
belongs to the fourth century b.c., and is ascribed to Bryaxis, as is
1 Furtwangler, Ueber Statuenkopien im 1501-3. Cf. also the insignificant head of
Altertum, i, pls. I and HI; Arndt-Amelung, Zeus at Madrid, Arndt-Amelung, 1611.
ii
greatest genius often lingered in conversation with his friend and
patron, the third earl, the friend to whom, as students have shown,
he dedicated the sonnets. A lawn in the park is pointed out as the
spot where Shakespeare’s troupe gave the first performance of
As You Like It. There is a gentle magic in this park, especially
in bright September days, when the fragrance of the late summer
roses is blended with the scent of the cedars and fills the mind
with a mixture of joy and pain. So fair is life and yet so short! The
feeling that seizes one in such surroundings, finds its best outlet in
Shakespeare’s own lines :
If it were now to die,
’Twere now to be most happy ; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate. {Othello, Act n, sc. i.)
§ 2
HOUGHTON HALL (fig. 7)
This ‘ Italian palace ’, which Robert Walpole erected and
furnished with hitherto unknown splendour in 1722-30 out of the
great riches which he had gained by speculating in South Sea stock,
contains a small collection of antiques, purchased for Walpole in
Italy by the architect Brettingham in the last years of the great
statesman’s life. With this collection we pass to the second period
of the history of English private collections, which begins in 1733
with the foundation of the Dilettanti Society. Hardly any collection
in England is so little known as this. It was not visited by Michaelis,
so that it is desirable to illustrate and describe the two most interest-
ing works of art which are not portraits. One is a head of Zeus
(fig. 8) of colossal dimensions ; the nose and bust are restored
in marble. The deep technique of drilling shows that it is a copy
of the second century A. D., but the original, of which there are
several replicas —the best at Ince Blundell Hall and Madrid 1—
belongs to the fourth century b.c., and is ascribed to Bryaxis, as is
1 Furtwangler, Ueber Statuenkopien im 1501-3. Cf. also the insignificant head of
Altertum, i, pls. I and HI; Arndt-Amelung, Zeus at Madrid, Arndt-Amelung, 1611.