The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851. Various
p>The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851
AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, LL. D
In an early number of the International we had the satisfaction of printing an original and very interesting letter from Dr. Layard, in which, with more fulness and explicitness than in his great work on Nineveh, he discusses the subject of Ancient Art. We have carefully noted from time to time his proceedings in the East, and our readers will remember that we recently gave engravings of the most remarkable of the antiquities he sent home last year to the British Museum. Since that time he has proceeded to Bagdad, and he is now pursuing in that vicinity, with his wonted sagacity and earnestness, researches for the remains of Babylon, which in turn will furnish material for another extensive publication from his pen.
The first public announcement of the discoveries at Nimroud was made in the Knickerbocker Magazine of this city, in a letter from our countryman, Minor K. Kellogg, the painter, who was a long time the intimate friend and travelling companion of Layard in Asia Minor. Introducing the letters in which the antiquary disclosed the successful result of his investigations, Mr. Kellogg says:
"I can scarcely call to mind a person so admirably qualified in all respects for prosecuting such laborious researches. He is young, of a hardy and enduring constitution, is acquainted with the Oriental languages, and speaks the Persian and Turkish fluently. He is enthusiastic and indefatigable in every thing he undertakes, and plentifully endowed with courage, prudence, and good-nature."
This was more than two years before Layard himself, in his "Nineveh and its Remains," exhibited those triumphs of his intelligence and devotion which have secured for him a place among the most famous travellers and antiquaries in the world.
We take the occasion of copying the above portrait from the last number of Bentley's Miscellany to present, from various authentic sources, a brief sketch of Dr. Layard's history. He is descended from the noble French Protestant family of Raymond de Layarde, who accompanied the Prince of Orange into England. He was born at Paris, during a temporary visit of his parents to that metropolis, on the 5th of March, 1817. His father, who was the son of the Rev. Dr. Henry Peter John Layard, Dean of Bristol, filled a high civil office in Ceylon, between the years 1820 and 1830, and took great interest in the circulation of the Scriptures among heathen nations. He was a man of considerable classical learning, and of refined tastes. During the youth of his son, he lived at Florence, where our young antiquary had free access to the stores of the Pitti Palace, and of the Tribune. He thus became familiar from his infancy with the language of Tuscany, and formed his taste for the fine arts and literature upon the models of painting and sculpture amid which he lived, and in the rich libraries which he frequented. In this manner he added a thorough knowledge of modern languages to a competent acquaintance with those of Greece and Rome. Here, also, he acquired, almost involuntarily, a power over his pencil, which, long dormant, was called forth by the sight of slabs with the noblest sculptures and the finest inscriptions, crumbling into dust. No draughtsman had been provided for his assistance, and had he not instantly determined to arrest by the quickness of his eye, and the skill thus acquired, improved subsequently by Mr. Kellogg's companionship, those fleeting forms which were about to disappear for ever, many of the finest remains of ancient art would have been irrecoverably lost.
On his return from Italy to England, he was urged to choose the profession of the law; but his thirst for knowledge, his love of adventure, and his foreign tastes and habits, led him, after a brief apprenticeship, to travel. He left England, with no very definite object, in the summer of 1839, and, accompanied by a friend, visited Russia and other northern countries, and afterward, living some time in Germany and the states on the Danube, made himself master of the German language, and of several of the dialects of Transylvania. From Dalmatia he passed into Montenegro, where he remained a considerable time, assisting an able and active young chief in ameliorating the condition of his semi-barbarous subjects. Travelling through Albania and Romelia, where he met with numerous adventures, he arrived at Constantinople, about the end of 1839. Here he made arrangements for visiting Asia Minor, and other countries in the East, where he spent some years, adopting the costume and leading the life of an Arab of the Desert, and acquiring a thorough knowledge of the manners and languages of Turkey and Arabia. In 1840 or 1841, he transmitted to the Royal Geographical Society, an Itinerary from Constantinople to Aleppo, which does not seem to have been published; but in the eleventh volume of the Journal of that Society, we have an account of the tour which he performed with Mr. Ainsworth, in April, 1840. He travelled in Persia in the same year, and projected a journey for the purpose of examining Susa, and some other places of interest in the Baktyari mountains, to which Major Rawlinson had drawn the attention of the Geographical Society. With this view, he left Ispahan in the middle of September, in company with Schiffeer Khan, a Baktyari chief; and having crossed the highest part of the great chain of Mungasht, he visited the ruins of Manjanik, which are of considerable extent, and resemble those of the Susannian cities. He visited also the ruins in the plain of Mel Amir, and copied some of their cuneiform inscriptions. In crossing the hills to Susan, he was attacked by a tribe of Dinarunis, and robbed of his watch, compass, &c.; but having complained to the chief, and insisted on the return of every missing article, he received back the whole of his property. It had been his practice to traverse these mountains quite alone, and he was never attacked or insulted, except on this occasion, when the country was in a state of war. He found scarcely any remains at Susan to indicate the site of a large city. In 1842 and 1843, he spent a considerable time in the province of Khuistan, an elaborate description of which he communicated through Lord Aberdeen to the Royal Geographical Society. It was during these various journeys that he prepared himself for the great task to which his best and ripest powers were to be devoted. In his wanderings through Asia Minor and Syria he had scarcely left a spot untrodden which tradition hallowed, or a ruin unexamined which was consecrated by history. His companion shared his feelings and his zeal. Unmindful of danger, they rode along with no other protection than their arms. They tended their own horses, and, mixing with the people, they acquired their manners and their language. He himself says: "I had traversed Asia Minor and Syria, visiting the ancient seats of civilization, and the spots which religion had made holy. I now felt an irresistible desire to penetrate to the regions beyond the Euphrates, to which history and tradition point as the birthplace of the Wisdom of the West."
With these feelings, he looked to the banks of the Tigris, and longed to dispel the mysterious darkness which hung over Assyria and Babylonia. He, accordingly, made preliminary visits to Mosul, inspected the ruins of Nimroud and Kuyunjik, and, fortunately, obtained an interview with Sir Stratford Canning at Constantinople, then on his way to England. This distinguished man, who was formerly minister to the United States, and is remembered with well-deserved gratitude by nearly every recent traveller in the East, immediately discovered and appreciated the character and talents of Mr. Layard. His knowledge of the East, and of its manners and languages, recommended him in a peculiar manner to the notice of the ambassador, who persuaded him to remain, and employed him on many important public services. Sir Stratford Canning himself took a deep interest in the researches which had been made by the French, and he promptly aided his young countryman in carrying out the designs of which we now have the histories in his books. In the summer of 1845 Mr. Layard, Count Perpontier of the Prussian Embassy, and Mr. Kellogg, quitted Constantinople together, and visited Brusa (where Layard was some time dangerously ill from a coup de soleil), Mount Olympus, the country of the Ourouks or Wandering Tartars, the valley of the Rhyndacus, the Plain of Toushanloo, Kiutayah, the ruins of Azani, &c. Shortly after he proceeded to Nimroud, and in December, 1847, he returned to England with the fruits of his labors. He wrote to Mr. Kellogg, who was now in New-York, under date of
"My Dear Kellogg:—I was quite delighted to see your handwriting again, when a few days ago I received your letter of the 15th November, with the diploma of the New-York Ethnological Society. I reached home on Christmas day, after having been detained three months at Constantinople. As you may well conceive, since my return I have not had a moment to myself—for what with domestic rejoicings and general honors, I have been in one continual movement and excitement. I was gratified to find that the results of my labors had created much more interest in England than I could possibly have expected, and that those connected with art, and interested in early history, were really enthusiastic