270 Josiah Wedgwood CHAP. 



either you or my Naples acquaintance at home. How- 

 ever, I have accomplished one of my great objects, 

 which was the seeing your wonderful copy of the 

 Portland Vase. I am so well acquainted with the 

 original, and the difficulties you must have met with, 

 that I really think it is so. The sublime character of 

 the original is wonderfully preserved in your copy, 

 and little more is wanting than the sort of transparency 

 which your materials could not imitate, to induce those, 

 not quite so knowing as you and I are, to mistake it for 

 the original. In short, I am wonderfully pleased with 

 it, and give you the greatest credit for having arrived so 

 near the imitation of what I believe to be the first 

 specimen of the excellence of the Arts of the Ancients 

 existing. ... I saw the models of some bas-reliefs that 

 the young man you employ at Eome has done for you, 

 and I think them excellent. Flaxman goes on im- 

 proving daily, and is in my opinion the greatest genius 

 we have at Koine. He is attempting a marble group 

 as big as the Laocoon, and I think will succeed wonder- 

 fully. . . . I am, sir, etc., WM. HAMILTON." 



In the course of the same year, Wedgwood published 

 his Dissertation on the Portland Vase, in which he 

 detailed the results of his observations as to the pro- 

 cesses employed in its original manufacture; and he 

 explained his views as to the meaning of the groups of 

 figures which embellished it. Several of these explana- 

 tions are manifestly erroneous, having probably been 

 formed from inaccurate drawings, in which the right 



