Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/247

 On the Classical Authorities for Ancient Art. 237 The above words, which I have selected as a frontispiece to this and succeeding articles on kindred subjects, furnish us with a succinct and faithful enumeration of the sources, from which the archaeological enquirer must fill his pitcher. I should value them the more, if they set forth with greater explicitness the truth which it is incumbent on all, who have at heart the ad- vancement of learning, carefully to remember, viz. that Archaeo- logy and Philology are two studies which should ever go hand in hand, each leaning upon, each upholding the other : two great lights in the firmament of Fore-time, Philology ruling the day of written text, Archaeology governing the night of chiselled stones. Such a precept however, could hardly have flowed from the pen of Gottfried Hermann, a scholar whose example was diametrically opposed alike to its precept and its letter. Not once only in his writings do we meet with sneers against those who have made use of Archaeology as a clue to the interpretation of clas- sical texts. From the pupil of such a man as Reiz more catholic views might have been expected. But Hermann was essentially a one-sided man. Imperishable no doubt is the name he has won, distinct the epoch he has created, in the various depart- ments of purely formal philology, grammar, metre, criticism to which he devoted the energies (the German energies) of a long and laborious life. Still, it may safely be asserted, that the exclusive cultivation of this, as of any other one branch of clas- sical antiquity, will little avail towards that reproduction and full manifestation of the living relations of the ancient world, which, as heirs of the civilization of the past, we should do our utmost to compass. Rather will it degenerate into a dull soul- less pedantry, a barren monomania for unearthing limping ana- paests, or retailing mutilated trimeters. Loudly and unceasingly to protest against this narrow and narrowing treatment of classic lore, was one of the many noble aims which Niebuhr proposed to himself, and which by precept and example he did his utmost to further. Well and wisely does he exclaim in one of his inva- luable letters : " Oh ! how men would hug philology if they did but know what it was to revel in the choicest haunts of bygone times, weaving the warp and woof of life." It may be my privilege, from time to time, in the pages of this Journal, to vindicate these claims of archaeology, and to shew how she may be made subsidiary to the intepretation of classical texts. My present purpose, however, is, in some degree,