which fill the cases numbered from 29 to 112. The visitor particularly
interested in Greek and Roman art, might here spend an entire day.
Bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, was used by the ancients for the
manufacture of all kinds of edge-tools, long before iron was smelted
from the earth in which it is invariably found; and mineralogists of
the present day are surprised to see the works which the ancients
executed with a material, that no modern workmen could use as a
cutting medium. Stone masons' chisels, and fine edged weapons of war,
were made of bronze in those days. The collection of bronzes which the
visitor is now about to examine, cannot be said to be a perfect
collection; yet it contains some beautiful specimens, and one that is
said to be the finest bronze in Europe. The antiquarian pauses with
delight before these marvellous specimens of ancient skill; and
reflecting upon the difficulties which beset the caster in bronze, it
is astonishing to see the precision and the exquisite finish with
which the artists of ancient Greece and Rome performed their labours.
Some of their bronze manufacture were hammered, but most of those
works from which we derive a knowledge of their greatness as artists
were cast. Of those colossal bronzes which were studded about Rome,
Athens, and Delphos, few remain at the present day. The material of
which they were composed was too valuable to escape the clutch of
barbaric conquerors; therefore the bronzes which remain are chiefly of
a small size, but still sufficiently perfect to assure us of the great
works that filled every open place in the towns of ancient Greece and
Rome. In these cases the visitor will find a great number of bronze
utensils and personal ornaments: metal mirrors; lamps; incense
vessels, or thuribula; the saucers for pouring libations, called
paterae; tripods of all kinds and variously ornamented; candelabra;
and the clasps of the Romans called fibulae.