We have no great collection of Portrait Busts in England. The British
Museum contains 20 antique portrait busts; those of Homer, Pericles,
Diogenes, and Julius Cæsar have a good claim to authenticity. There are,
also, in the Museum, some valuable antique Portrait Statues. The English
portraits, in Sculpture, in the Crystal Palace have been collected, as
time permitted, from old busts and statues, and from the studios of
living and deceased sculptors. Attached to the lives of our English
worthies given in the following pages, will be found, wherever
practicable, the names of the respective artists.
With the English Contingent, the muster of our illustrious army for the
present closes. Five hundred busts and statues constitute the vigorous
germ of a collection which it is hoped eventually to render by its
extent worthy of the magnificent structure in which it is housed, and of
the subject which it is intended to vivify, viz.:--The history of the
great men of all nations who have, by thought and deed, advanced human
civilization, and stamped their impress, whether for good or evil, upon
the world through which they have passed.
* * * * *
(_The English Portraits commence immediately behind the Farnese
Hercules at the north-west angle of the Great Transept and Nave._)
ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS.