[Sidenote: THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN THE LEVANT.] Just as we have to go very far back indeed in the history of the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, in order to find an accession quite as notable as are—taking them as a whole—the manuscripts of the Nitrian monasteries, so have we also to do in the history of the several Departments of Antiquities, in order to find any parallel to the acquisitions of monuments of art and archæology made during the thirty years between 1840 and 1870. In point of _variety_ of interest, in truth, there is no parallel at all to be found. In archæology, however—as in scientific discovery, or in mechanical invention—every great burst of new light will be seen, if we look closely enough, to have had its remote precursive gleams, howsoever faint or howsoever little noticed they may have been. Austen Henry LAYARD, for example, is a most veritable ‘discoverer.’ Nevertheless, the researches of LAYARD link themselves with those of Claudius RICH, and with the still earlier glimpses, and the mere note-book jottings, of Carsten NIEBUHR, as well as with the explorations of LAYARD’S contemporary and most able French fellow-investigator, Monsieur BOTTA. In like manner, Nathan DAVIS is the undoubted disinterrer of old Carthage, but the previous labours of the Italian canon and archæologist SPANO, of Cagliari, and those of the French geographers DE DREUX and DUREAU DE LA MALLE, imperfect as they all were, helped to put him upon the quest which was destined to receive so rich a reward. It is obvious, therefore, that a tolerably satisfactory account of the researches of the renowned archæologists mentioned at the head of this chapter must be prefaced with some notices of much earlier and much less successful labours than theirs; and a thorough account would need greatly more than that. But, at present, I cannot hope to give either the one or the other. Rapid glances at the recent investigations are all that, for the moment, are permitted me, and for the perfunctory manner of these I shall have to make not a little demand on the reader’s indulgence. The subject-matter is rich enough to claim a volume to itself; nor would the story be found to lack well-sustained and varied interest, even if retold at large. The first inquiries and explorations in _Lycia_ of Sir Charles FELLOWS began several years earlier than those in _Assyria_ of Mr. Austen LAYARD, but an intelligible narrative of what LAYARD did, in 1845, must needs start with a notice, be it ever so brief, of what BOTTA had been doing in 1842. The Lycian excavations were also effectively begun in 1842. They were, in fact, contemporaneous with the first excavations at Nineveh. I begin, therefore, with the closely-linked labours of BOTTA and of LAYARD, prefacing them with a glance at the previous pursuits and aims in life of our distinguished fellow-countryman. [Sidenote: AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD AND HIS EARLY CAREER.]