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REMARKS ON THE AMYCL^EAN MARBLES. 



LETTER FROM LORD ABERDEEN TO THE EDITOR. 

 DEAR WaLPOLE, ( Argyll House, May 26. 1817. 



According to your request I send you a representation of the 

 Amyclsean marbles. They are sufficiently interesting in themselves, 

 but they acquire an additional importance from being instrumental in 

 the detection of daring imposture ; and in this point of view I shall 

 first consider them. We may, it is true, presume that few persons 

 are at this time the dupes of the literary frauds so extensively practised 

 by the Abbe Fourmont. Mr. Knight has so ably exposed the nature 

 of his pretended discoveries, and from the internal evidence afforded 

 by his inscriptions, has so satisfactorily refuted all their claims to 

 authenticity *, that in England it would be difficult to find a com- 

 petent judge who should now hesitate an instant in forming his 

 opinion respecting them. But as the inventions of the Abbe have 

 imposed on many estimable and learned persons, and as in France a 

 reluctance still exists to view them in their proper light, it is fortunate 

 that we are furnished by these marbles with additional proofs of his 

 falsehood, still more indisputable if possible than those already pro- 

 duced. The Abbe Barthelemy f, M. d'Hancarville, Count Caylus, 

 and others, have received these forgeries as authentic, and have in- 

 considerately adopted notions, constructed systems, and published 

 dissertations concerning them, which of course can have no foun- 



* Analysis of Greek Alphabet. 



f It is to be lamented that in the recent editions of the Voyage d'Anacharsis, the same 

 idle and groundless speculations are still permitted to disfigure that admirable work. 

 Larcher and Valckenaer had been deceived by the forgery of Fourmont (see Theocr. 

 275.); but in the late edition of Greg, de Dial, by Schacfer, we find the following re- 

 mark : — " Notandum est harum inscription um Fourmontianarum fidem esse sublestissi- 

 mam." P. 496. 



