(Pall Mall Gazette, October 15, 1887.)

Through the exertions of Sir Charles Newton, to whom every student of
classic art should be grateful, some of the wonderful treasures so long
immured in the grimy vaults of the British Museum have at last been
brought to light, and the new Sculpture Room now opened to the public
will amply repay the trouble of a visit, even from those to whom art is a
stumbling-block and a rock of offence. For setting aside the mere beauty
of form, outline and mass, the grace and loveliness of design and the
delicacy of technical treatment, here we have shown to us what the Greeks
and Romans thought about death; and the philosopher, the preacher, the
practical man of the world, and even the Philistine himself, cannot fail
to be touched by these 'sermons in stones,' with their deep significance,
their fertile suggestion, their plain humanity. Common tombstones they
are, most of them, the work not of famous artists but of simple
handicraftsmen, only they were wrought in days when every handicraft was
an art. The finest specimens, from the purely artistic point of view,
are undoubtedly the two stelai found at Athens. They are both the
tombstones of young Greek athletes. In one the athlete is represented
handing his strigil to his slave, in the other the athlete stands alone,
strigil in hand. They do not belong to the greatest period of Greek art,
they have not the grand style of the Phidian age, but they are beautiful
for all that, and it is impossible not to be fascinated by their
exquisite grace and by the treatment which is so simple in its means, so
subtle in its effect. All the tombstones, however, are full of interest.
Here is one of two ladies of Smyrna who were so remarkable in their day
that the city voted them honorary crowns; here is a Greek doctor
examining a little boy who is suffering from indigestion; here is the
memorial of Xanthippus who, probably, was a martyr to gout, as he is
holding in his hand the model of a foot, intended, no doubt, as a votive