Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/281

 Wilkinson writers about Egypt, together with the results of modern excavations and researches conducted by the author and others, were lucidly arranged, explained in a fascinating style, and richly illustrated with plans, engravings, and coloured plates. Wilkinson's remarkable acquaintance with botany, zoology, and the technique of the arts, together; with his command of ancient literature, gave him unique qualifications for the treatment of this subject; and it was acknowledged that he had brought to light many new facts connected with Egyptian manners, history, and religion. The work brought the author into general notice, both as a savant and as a popular writer; and on 26 Aug. 1839 a knighthood was conferred on him by Melbourne's administration in recognition of his services to literature, public attention having been previously called to the fact that his researches, unlike those of Champollion, Rosellini, and others, had received no assistance from government.

In 1839 he published a paper 'On the Nile and the Present and Former Levels of Egypt' in the 'Journal' of the Geographical Society, of which he was that year elected a fellow; and in 1842 he revisited Egypt and made a 'Survey of the Valley of the Natron Lakes and of a part of the Bahr-el-Farg,' which appeared in the same journal in 1843; and in 1843 he also published an enlarged edition of his topography, with the title 'Moslem Egypt and Thebes' (2 vols.), in which, besides an abundance of archæological and topographical information, the very fullest directions were given for travellers, including a good vocabulary of modern Arabic. This work was afterwards incorporated in Murray's series of handbooks, and was frequently reprinted. Towards the end of the same year he started for Montenegro, and spent 1844 in travelling through that country, Herzegovina, and Bosnia, where he surveyed, sketched, and collected inscriptions. During his stay at Mostar he made an attempt, unfortunately ineffectual, to mitigate the cruelties practised by Turks and Montenegrins in their wars. His account of this journey, which appeared in 1848 (2 vols.), contains valuable notes on the manners, traditions, and condition of the people he visited, as well as carefully compiled historical notices, and gives an accurate history of the Paulician heresy, as well as other valuable digressions. Some of the political forecasts of that work have since been verified by events. The winter of 1848-9 he again spent in Egypt and Nubia, and the results of this journey appeared in an article in the Geographical Society's 'Journal' for 1851: 'On the Country between Wady Halfah and Jebel Berkel.'

For the winter of 1849-50 Wilkinson returned to Italy and studied the Turin papyrus, in which Champollion had first detected the royal lists, which had been pieced together by Seyffarth and edited by Lepsius; and owing to the fact that the latter had omitted to reproduce the writing on the back of the papyrus, Wilkinson judged it wise to publish a fresh facsimile, which was printed by subscription in 1851 and issued together with dissertations by Wilkinson and Hincks. A short treatise 'On the Architecture of Ancient Egypt,' which was published by subscription in 1850, contains some of the results of his studies in the Roman museums in 1849. On 23 June 1852 he was created D.C.L. of Oxford University.

In 1854 he published 'A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians,' which was an abridged edition of his larger work brought into uniformity with Lane's 'Modern Egyptians.' In 1855 he visited Thebes for the last time. He met with a sunstroke, which, however, did not permanently injure him.

On 16 Oct. 1856 he married, at Llanover, Caroline Catherine, eldest daughter of Henry Lucas of Uplands, Glamorganshire, authoress of a work on 'Weeds and Wild Flowers,' which appeared two years later. In 1857 he published a companion to the Crystal Palace Egyptian collections, called 'Egypt at the Time of the Pharaohs,' and also made important contributions to the notes appended to Rawlinson's translation of Herodotus. In 1858 there appeared his treatise on 'Colour and Taste,' in which some articles contributed by him to the 'Builder' in 1855 were incorporated. His purpose in that work was to bring before the English public canons of taste which he had learnt in his studies in continental museums; but it also shows that the author had been influenced by Ruskin. He lays down artistic principles in it with unusual precision, endeavours to detect æsthetic errors in a variety of English usages, and pleads earnestly for the Sunday opening of museums and galleries.

In 1860 he was in Cornwall, and contributed a paper on the antiquities of Redruth to the 'Transactions' of the Royal Institution of Cornwall. In 1864 he made a collection of shells in the Bay of Cadiz, and in the following year published in the 'Zoologist' (vol. xxii.) an account of a new British oyster which he had discovered at Tenby, where he was then residing. In 1867 he pleaded successfully in the 'Archæological Journal' for the preservation of an ancient gateway at Tenby, the destruction of which