from the neck to the knees; but the former is broken off at the waist, and wants one of the most graceful, characteristic and prominent rotundities of the human form. He cannot sit down, on the whole, without deprecating this purchase, and he may hope that his 'round unvarnished tail,' for he did not affect eloquence, will have its due weight with the House."

Sir JOSEPH YORKE* will take a favourable oppor

tunity of intimating, "that he'll be damned, if he consents to any such thing. If we are to give thirtyfive thousand pounds for stones, let it be for stones that can be of some use; stones for a breakwater in the Needles, or a new dock and wharf-wall under Dungeness." The gallant Admiral will probably express his surprise at such a proposition coming from Mr. Bankes, whom he always looked upon before as a steady fellow; and as for the Report of the Committee, it will seem to him a damned farrago

* Rear-admiral Sir Joseph Yorke, one of the lords of the admiralty, M. P. for Sandwich.

of outlandish lingo, and he may assert that one half the Members present, if they would but confess the truth, can neither make head or tail of it; and for his part he believes the Report is like the statues themselves, which, by the account of the Honourable Gentlemen who spoke last, have neither heads nor tails.

Mr. MACDONALD✶ may observe, that he understands from Mr. Payne Knight† that these marbles are so corroded and pitted by the effects of the weather and time, that Minerva looks as if she had had the small-pox; and he may assert, on the same learned authority, that the marbles taken collectively are wholly worthless for the only purpose to which Mr. Knight considers such things as applicable, namely, for household furniture. Mr. Macdonald may state his own opinion that surface and a polish

* James Macdonald, Esq. M. P. for Sutherland.

† Mr. Knight gave some evidence to this effect before the committee on the marbles.-E.

appear to him to be valuable, far above all other qualities, and he therefore cannot consent to purchase what have neither.

Mr. SHARPE will probably dissent from the arguments of the last speaker: he cannot rate mere surface so highly, and thinks there may be considerable merit even when the exterior is greatly corroded, and that the insinuation relative to the small-pox might have been spared. He will express his thanks to the Committee for having set the country right on the important point of the quantity of the penultimate of the word Phygalya, which he, for one, did not know before; and he will hope that in future the City of Alexandria will be called Alexandrya.

Mr. BROUGHAM will, perhaps, detain the House with "only one single observation"—he will take leave to enter-register-and record his formal and solemn dissent-disavowal and protest against this

* Richard Sharpe, Esq. M. P. for Portarlington.

P

most atrocious-most flagitious-and unusual proposition for the bargain-sale-and transfer-of the Panathenaiac marbles; for it was a gross abuse of terms to denominate or call them Elgin, and he will tell the House, why :—' "Because when his Majesty's lieges are asking for bread, you propose to give them stones-When the manufacturers of Birmingham are out of work, you are playing at marbles-When the gardeners of Isleworth were, no later than January last, out of employ-when the fen-men of Ely are in insurrection, the Honourable Member proposes, forsooth, to throw away the sum of thirtyfive thousand pounds!—a sum which, at the rate of a shilling a head, would afford a substantial meal for twenty times thirty-five thousand honest, hardworking manufacturers-he proposes, forsooth, to spend this monstrous-this alarming sum of public money in the purchase of a few wretched, mutilated blocks, which, as my Honourable Friend tells us,——— and I am sure the House is obliged to him for the

information, that Mr. Payne Knight has declared to be-what?-valuable ?-no; in good taste ?-no; of our own manufacture?-no; but mere dirty, corroded surfaces, little better than that pagan idol the Apollo of Belvidere.”

Mr. Brougham may probably speak for two hours, and touch upon the thousand and one points connected immediately or remotely with the subject; for such, we are well aware, are the eloquence and ability of the Honourable Gentleman, that it is far easier for him to speak a speech of any length than it is for ordinary Members to listen to it.

Mr. PONSONBY will probably close the debate by observing, "that he knows not what to think of the matter, as he has not yet had an opportunity of reading the papers; but thus much he will take upon himself, even in the present state of his information, to assert, that if any public money is to be voted for the purpose, this House, and this House only, has the constitutional right of voting the said