to decline the purchase. The nearest estimate that could be formed in 1816 of Lord ELGIN’S outlay, from first to last, amounted to upwards of fifty thousand pounds. And the interest on that outlay, at subsisting rates, amounted to about twenty-four thousand pounds. Upon merely commercial principles, therefore, the mark of honour affixed by Parliament to the Earldom of Elgin was abundantly earned. By every other estimate, Lord ELGIN had done more than enough to keep his name, for ever, in the roll of British worthies. And, as all men know, he had a worthy successor in that honoured title. The name of ELGIN, instead of ranking, according to BYRON’S prophecy, with that of EROSTRATUS, has already become a name not less revered in the Indies, and in America, than in Britain itself. For nearly half a century, Lord ELGIN was one of the Representative Peers of Scotland. After his great achievement was completed, he took but little part in public life. The most curious incident of his later years was his election as a Member of the Society of Dilettanti, twenty-five years after his return from the Levant. The election was made without his knowledge. When the fact was intimated to him, he wrote to the Secretary to decline the honour. After a brief and dignified allusion to his efforts in Greece, he went on to say:—‘Had it been thought—twenty-five years ago, or at any reasonable time afterwards—that the same energy would be considered useful to the Dilettanti Society, most happy should I have been to contribute every aid in my power; but such expectation has long since past. I do not apprehend that I shall be thought fastidious, if I decline the honour now proposed to me at this my eleventh hour.’ The Collector of the Elgin Marbles died in England on the fourteenth of October, 1841. [Sidenote: THE MARBLES OF PHIGALEIA.] During the long period which had thus intervened between the first exhibition to the Public of the sculptures from the Temple of Minerva and their final acquisition for the national Museum, an inferior but valuable series of Greek marbles was obtained from Phigaleia, in Arcadia. They were the fruit of the joint researches, in 1812, of the late eminent architect, Mr. Charles Robert COCKERELL, Mr. John FOSTER, Mr. LEE, Mr. Charles HALLER VON HALLERSTEIN, and Mr. James LINKH, who, in that year, had become fellow-travellers in Greece, and partners in the work of exploration for antiquities.