occasion, to explain this seeming contradiction ; 
none of them, however, were satisfactory. But, 
on the arrival of the Athenian marbles, which 
Lord Elgin brought to this country, Mr. West 
was convinced, at the first sight of them, of the 
justness of ancient criticism, and remembered 
the conversation alluded to. 
Perhaps I may be allowed to mention here, 
without impropriety, that I was at Athens when 
the second cargo of these celebrated sculptures 
was dispatched; that I took some interest in 
getting the vessel away; and that I went with 
her myself to the island of Idra. Two circum- 
stances occasioned this interference on my part; 
 an Italian artist, the agent of Lord Elgin, 
had quarrelled about the marbles with Monsieur 
Fauvelle, the French Consul, a man of research 
and taste, to whom every traveller that visited 
Athens, even during the revolutionary war, 
might have felt himself obliged. Fauvelle was, 
no doubt, ambitious to obtain these precious 
fragments for the Napoleon Museum at Paris; 
and, certainly, exerted all his influence to get the 
removal of them interdicted. On the eve of the