230 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
Francis Adams. In accordance with the custom of the period, 
he gave a dinner party in honor of the General, and brought 
visitors to see the Cypriote antiquities. Articles began to ap- 
pear in the newspapers about the collection. Gladstone, who 
was then Prime Minister, declared that the Cesnola finds were 
particularly important to students of the classics. ‘The British 
Museum offered ten thousand pounds for part of the collec- 
tion. 
Field drove General di Cesnola to Morgan’s office, and pa- 
triotically suggested an immediate purchase for the Metro- 
politan Museum of New York. Morgan agreed, and a part 
payment was made. The total paid for the collection was 
sixty thousand dollars, of which Field contributed a thousand 
and other Americans similar amounts. The collection formed 
the nucleus for an important department at the Museum. A 
book about the Cesnola antiquities was later written by John 
L. Myres, professor of ancient history at Oxford. 
It must be confessed, however, that Field knew little of 
art. In this respect he was a typical American, who (as Theo- 
dore Roosevelt said) is apt to be inartistic. Field’s house at 
Ardsley, for example, was essentially Victorian in its design 
and, fortunately, is no longer standing. Field was later criti- 
cized for putting elevated railways in New York’s streets. 
Like most Americans of his time, he favored utility rather 
than esthetics. 
In the autumn of 1873, Field was in New York when a 
financial panic that paralyzed American business began. Like 
most other observers in that and other panics, he believed 
that it was only a temporary reaction and that in a few days 
all would be well. In the numerous cablegrams that he sent 
to his British associates, he stated his day-by-day opinions on 
conditions in New York. 
Thus on September 19 he cabled: “Great panic here in 
money market.” The failure of the firm of Jay Cooke & Com- 
