Charlemont: On the Grand Tour

Author(s): Michael Gibbons and Myles Gibbons

Source: History Ireland, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2005), pp. 21-27
Published by: Wordwell Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27725237
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 :w?:

Michael and Myles Gibbons

Gibbons examine the essays of James Caulfeild, fourth viscount
(later first earl) of Charlemont, on his travels inOttoman territory in late 1749 and assess their
importance to classical studies and to an understanding of his later political career

Right: Having one's

portrait painted in

'Turkish' garb, like this

anonymous Anglo-Irish

lady, became extremely

fashionable in the

eighteenth century.
(NationalGallery of Ireland)

CHARLEMONT

on the Grand Tour

Last year's Athens Olympics when one of the pioneers of modern prior to its suppression. In 1749 this
and Turkey's efforts to join Mediterranean travel visited the area was still ahead of him, and the young
the European Union have in 1749. In later life Lord Charlemont lord had other concerns.
naturally drawn our attention would become an arbiter of taste in
to the eastern Mediterranean. the fields of architecture and litera Mother was concerned at her son's
While travel to mainland Greece, Turkey ture. He would command the Irish slide into debauchery
and the Mediterranean islands is now Volunteers alongside Henry Grattan, Like many parents when their children
commonplace, the situation was very gain legislative independence for the reach eighteen, James Caulfeild's moth
different in the mid-eighteenth century, Irish parliament, and die in 1799 just er was concerned at her son's slide into

IRELAND March/April 2005 21

History
 CHARLEMONT

debauchery, as was his tutor, Revd likely that he decided to go under the force it had once been, but was not yet
Edward Murphy. Unlike most families, influence of Lord Sandwich and Lord so weak that managing its collapse or
the Caulfeilds' resources stretched far Moira, both members of the Society of robbing its corpse, according to taste,
enough to allow James to be Dilettanti, who had travelled the was a major concern of European

despatched to Europe, along with the Mediterranean together. statesmen. For a brief period the empire
watchful Murphy, for the best part of a was a subject of interest rather than a
decade, to remove him from the per Diaries lost but two essays survive source of fear or a playground for greed.
ceived negative influence of Dublin The diaries the young viscount kept The Turks, aware of their growing tech
society. While Caulfeild did not man have been lost but two essays based on nical inferiority, did their best to allevi
age to avoid all of the pitfalls of youth them have survived. These were ate it by importing technology and spe
(some of his activities in Ottoman terri reworked several times over the course cialists. These efforts would ultimately
tory would have raised eyebrows in of his life and were intended to serve as fail, but this was far from clear in 1749
polite society), he did use the time to examples of a new form of travel writ and the true extent of Ottoman decline
expand his art collection and gain valu ing. Rather than concentrating his would only be revealed by Bonaparte's
able experience. attention on antiquities, Charlemont expedition to Egypt in 1798.
From a historical point of view, his intended to leave a record of the Charlemont's travels were an
early
activities in western Europe contain lit lifestyle and character of the peoples he example of an interest in Turkish affairs
tle of interest. His voyages around the had encountered on his travels. At the and customs (having one's portrait
Mediterranean are a different matter. same time those places of classical painted in Turkish garb became
Before 1800 British and other European interest he encountered along the way extremely fashionable in the late eigh
travellers' access to the Ottoman were not ignored. These essays were teenth century) and could be said to
Empire was restricted. Lord Sandwich not intended for publication, although prefigure the nineteenth-century
had travelled in Greece, Asia Minor and Charlemont seems to have considered alliance between the British and
Egypt a decade before, and a book on the idea, but rather for distribution Ottoman empires.
his experiences?A voyage performed by among an intimate circle. They provide The party travelled aboard the ex
the late earl of Sandwich round the a valuable insight into the sentiments French frigate L'Aimable Vainqueur
Mediterranean in the years 1738 and and opinions considered appropriate (under new ownership courtesy of the
1739?would be published in 1779, for private circulation among the culti Royal Navy), which they had chartered
seven years after his death. An earlier vated aristocracy of his time. for the trip. She was armed, and crewed

work, Wheeler's Journey in Greece, based Charlemont arrived at an interest by professional seamen, as the Mediter
on his travels there in 1675, remained ing point in the relationship between ranean was still the haunt of pirates.
the standard text for travellers, so the West and Islam. The Ottoman She set off from Livonia for Constan
Charlemont and his companions were, Empire was no longer the threatening tinople in April 1749 in order to obtain
to a certain degree, setting off into the
unknown. He had, however, met with
Sandwich himself in Rome and may
have been influenced by him to try his Rome ^^^^^^^^^^^^^T^
^^^^^^^^H
luck in the Mediterranean.
Charlemont's presence in Rome
influenced several other travellers to the
Orient, who in turn influenced the "
James had
Caulfeild .
viscount. In addition to his own ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
j^^^^^^^^^|pl||1^K;
young this
portrait
painted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^I^^^II^^^^^^^BMtW^'
work in Athens, he helped to fund the
by James Stuart and
byPompeo ^^^^^^^^^^^t^F^m^t
fF^^^^^E????????k
expedition
Nicholas Revett, whose two-year sys
tematic survey, published in three vol
umes as The antiquities of Athens, would
eclipse his own and become one of the
foundation stones of classical archaeol

ogy, in addition to being highly influ

ential in contemporary architecture.

Although the work does not bear his

name, this was almost certainly his
greatest contribution to classical schol
arship. He had also met James Dawkins
and Robert Wood in Italy, the latter
from Trim, Co. Meath. Wood had trav
elled in Greece, Egypt and the Aegean
islands and may have given
Charlemont the benefit of his experi
ence. It is possible that Charlemont had
originally planned to travel with
Dawkins and Wood, but it seems more

22 History IRELAND March/April 2005

 MWl 5 teW 5&V 2 R;B/i 't
Left: A seventeenth-century Ottoman coffee

t3 L Cj 3l~ oti - --*__B house. (Chester Beatty Library)

officials to override their civilian coun

terparts).
He wrote at great length on the con
finement of women in Turkey and also
N-
Fe on the prevalence of homosexuality,
which he abhorred and ascribed to sen
sual overindulgence and the desire for
novelty. On the whole, Charlemont's
opinion of the Turks was favourable,
and many of the comments in his
Turkish essay are dedicated to dis
pelling prejudices against them. He was
impressed by the police force in Con
stantinople (and elsewhere in the
empire) and by the courtesy and grace
of most of the inhabitants. He took the
time to visit the public baths and
brothels of the city, as well as the
ambassadors and other representatives
of Christian powers. Interestingly, the
party was upbraided for visiting the
baths owing to the risk of contracting
the plague, which was normally pre
sent somewhere in the bathhouse.

EW i Richard Dalton's illustrations

On the way Charlemont and his com
panions, Francis Pierpoint Burton,
Alexander Scott and Revd Edward Mur
phy, 'prevailed upon' (according to his
account) Richard Dalton, an English
draughtsman they encountered off
Sicily, to accompany them. This made
up a major deficiency in their prepara
tions since an artist was considered a

necessity on a properly organised tour.

Dalton's work has been criticised as
being inadequate, but it has consider
able historical importance. He provid
ed the illustrations that accompanied
Charlemont's essays (admittedly not as
many as Charlemont had expected)
a firman, a travel document issued by with Charlemont's views on Turkish and published other drawings made on
the Ottoman government, without customs and officials. He visited the the trip. His pictures complemented
which it was illegal to travel within Porte (the administrative centre of the party's survey work, organised by
the empire. Each of Charlemont's vis Constantinople) in the party of Pisani, Murphy, and represented the first accu
its to Ottoman-held islands and settle the dragoman (translator) who dealt rate illustrations available to western
ments opened with the presentation with English affairs, and witnessed the readers of structures such as the Acrop
of the firman to the relevant authori Ottoman judicial system in action. He olis and the Thesion.
ties, who often viewed it with some compared it favourably to that of his Charlemont's voyage led to some
suspicion.
own land?notably in the speed with notable breakthroughs in antiquarian
which justice could be obtained in the ism. His travels took him as far as
Positive view of the Ottoman legal courts and in the lack of lawyers (this Egypt, and he acquired a large number
system is qualified somewhat by a later pas of artefacts, with which he later deco
The party's time in Constantinople is sage on corruption among the judicia rated the Casino. His main antiquarian
described in the Turkish essay, along ry and on the tendency of military achievements were his rediscovery of

History IRELAND March/April 2005 23

 CHARLEMONT

sJ?^Vo^:
in the annual preparation for the Haj.
While concealed in a nearby house, he
sketched the procession that accompa
nied a holy camel carrying cloth for the
sanctuaries at Mecca and Medina, a
"Wit'^
,-S?E-;-."
i* -':S~.??sfe-s
-;-' sight forbidden to Christians. They also
i? visited and sketched the pyramids,
where, Charlemont later informed
Samuel Johnson, they encountered a
serpent in one of the chambers.
After departing Alexandria, L'Aimable
Vainqeur made for Cyprus but, frustrat
ed by contrary winds, the party turned
for Rhodes. While tacking off the island,
Charlemont and his companions made
a landing on Asia Minor at the site of an
ancient city that Charlemont, correctly,
W$r^ identified as the ancient port of Knidos.
He left the first modern description of
the ancient harbours and city walls to
reach the West. He described the surviv
ing theatre, in fact one of two, in great
detail and recorded its measurements.
the ancient city of Knidos, between by the empire. The Christian slaves on He also did his best to identify the sur
the Mediterranean and the Aegean, board the admiral's flagship were ini viving temples with those described in
and his identification of Bodrum, on tially put under mild pressure to accept the ancient texts, based on the design of
Turkey's Aegean coast, as the location Islam, but had a small chapel aboard their columns. Dalton made some illus
of the city of Halicarnassus. Dalton's ship in which they were allowed (in trations of sculpture from the city,
illustrations of Athens could not have fact compelled) to worship. which he later published.
been created without him. He also left Charlemont noted the predicament of
the first modern description of Piraeus a Catholic English slave, who seemed One of the Seven Wonders of the
as it appeared in 1749 (little visited, as resigned to his lot, but seems to have World
travellers tended to head to the Greek made no effort to obtain his release. He In Bodrum, where the Ottoman author
islands rather than the mainland), also noted with approval that Roman ities distrusted both the travellers and
which identified some of the surviving Catholic proselytism was actively dis each other, Charlemont made his most
features of the ancient harbour. This couraged in Ottoman territories. important discovery, which ranks
was complemented by a drawing of among the most significant ever made
Dalton's that looks inland toward Temporary marriage on Mykonos by an Irish antiquarian. He succeeded in
Athens. Charlemont's descriptions of On Mykonos the young Irishmen, leav gaining entrance to the castle, where,
these harbours are of notable interest ing their elders in bed aboard ship, had while unable to take precise measure
to maritime archaeologists. Knidos, in some mild misadventures while search ments, the group spotted the remains of
particular, has a superbly preserved set ing for prostitutes and took the time to some classical sculpture incorporated
of ancient harbours, among the finest investigate reports of a curious form of into the walls. Charlemont correctly
surviving examples from the classical temporary marriage on the island. identified these as the relief sculptures
world. Charlemont's account of itwas While concluding that the service was from the tomb of Mausolus, the Mau
the first since its abandonment. It has too expensive for many to avail of it, soleum, one of the Seven Wonders of
since been excavated by Professor Charlemont did note classical parallels the World. He expressed gratitude that
Ramazan Ozgan of the Seljuk Universi for the practice, demonstrating a com

ty in Konya, among others. mendably rigorous devotion to scholar 'we have reason to suppose that
Charlemont left Constantinople ship. the world is still in possession of a
and headed to Alexandria in Egypt, Sadly, none of Charlemont's written portion at least of these master

stopping en route on Lesbos, Chios, records of his time in Egypt have sur pieces which have been the admi
Mykonos, Delos, Naxos, Tinos, Syros vived. He seems to have taken the time ration of all antiquity; and we can
and Paros. In his essay on Greece he to acquire a mummy, which was later
Above:Turkishbeys inCairo by Richard
described the custom of female primo shipped to Ireland for him, along with
Dalton, an English draughtsman,
geniture on Lesbos in great detail, and enough assorted antiquities to fill a
later presented a paper to the Royal small Egyptian wing in his villa at 'prevailed upon' by Charlemont and his

companions to accompany them on their

Irish Academy on the subject. On Marino. (Like several other classical col
Chios he encountered an Ottoman lections from Irish big houses, notably trip. (TrinityCollege, Dublin)

admiral who was in the area to collect Russborough and Westport, Right: Women in Cairo by Dalton?
taxes. While unimpressed by the qual Charlemont's has long since been dis Charlemont wrote at great length on the

ity of Turkish seamen, Charlemont persed through loss and sale.) Dalton's confinement of women in Ottoman
admired the religious tolerance shown drawings show evidence of an interest Turkey. (TrinityCollege, Dublin)

24 IRELAND March/April 2005

History
 . .......... E
not but flatter ourselves that we niques
were not up to modern stan of Dilettanti, one of the main forces in
have had the glory of being the dards?on one occasion Charlemont the field of classical antiquarianism.
discoverers of this inestimable tested the quality of ancient Athenian Classical architecture inspired the Casi
treasure.' stonework by trying to break it!?both no, his neo-classical villa, built at Mari
men showed considerable attention to no near Clontarf between 1759 and
The frieze has since been removed detail. Dalton's plan of the Parthenon 1773 and stocked with his Mediter
and is on display in the British Muse was the first accurate survey available ranean and Italian acquisitions. Sadly,
um, although after an admittedly brief in the West", and showed that 'those his aristocratic disdain for printing
inspection the authors could find no architects who had been so amazingly meant that one of his principal discov
trace of acknowledgement for James exact in their joints, were not equally eries, the inscription at Bodrum,
Caulfeild. so with regard to the intercolumnia remained largely unknown.
Charlemont also identified Bodrum tions, since upon the most accurate Charlemont published only two essays
from ancient sources and extensive measurement we found the columns on his classical and foreign interests,
surviving surface remains as the likely were
by
no means
equidistant'. the paper on Mitylene and a work of
location of ancient Halicarnassus. He Homeric scholarship.
confirmed this by translating an Return to Italy Originally, the essays were to be
inscription that he noticed built into Charlemont's antiquarian work in accompanied by Dalton's illustrations.
the wall of a shoemaker's house. He Athens was his last in the east. The The artist took these to England with
paid a sequin for the privilege of copy group returned to Italy via Malta, him in 1750. Sadly, Charlemont broke
ing this down, since it required the where they escaped the plague, arriv contact with Dalton after the latter
removal of the owner's wife to a rela ing in early 1750. Caulfeild remained tried to claim his patronage for a book
tive's harem. In view of the young vis in Rome for five years. While in his of prints from the journey, and seems
count's activities and interests else later essays he stressed the sociological to have abandoned a planned essay on
where on the Greek islands this may aspects of his trip, his original inten Egypt until Dalton's work on the same
have been a wise
precaution. tion was probably antiquarian. He took country was complete. Politics got in
Charlemont's arrival at Piraeus gave detailed measurements of an aqueduct the way of the Egyptian essay, and Dal
him an opportunity to visit the surviv on Lesbos, the theatres in Knidos and ton's work did not live up to its
ing classical harbours and to trace the Halicarnassus, and of those buildings promise of describing the Manners and
course of the long walls that once con that interested him in Athens. In addi customs of the inhabitants from drawings
nected it to Athens. In Athens itself tion to this, Dalton recorded the sculp made on the spot when it was finally
Charlemont surveyed the Parthenon, ture encountered as well as the build published in 1791.
running into difficulties with suspi ings. Large quantities of material (now
cious guards (who forbade the use of dispersed) found their way back to The essays and Charlemont's later
most of their survey equipment), and Marino, of which a Greek stele (c. career

Dalton took the opportunity to draw fourth century BC) has come to light The activities of Charlemont and those
portions of the Panathenaic frieze, in recent years. like him who went east on errands of
now also in the British Museum, as Charlemont remained an active curiosity and came back with souvenirs
well as the Erecthion and the antiquarian scholar on his return to Ire which it would now be illegal even to
Parthenon itself. While their tech land. He was a member of the Society purchase, let alone export, have been
considered as the precursors of the later
activities of empire-builders and colo
41~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' nial surveyors. This is an unjustified use
of hindsight. While he expressed hopes
for the liberation of Greece, which
became independent in 1830, and criti
cised aspects of the Ottoman Empire (in
1749 still a great power), the essays
show no evidence of the contempt for
the Orient typical of many later
exchanges between the West and Dar
al-Islam. Nevertheless, there ismuch in
Charlemont's essays, and in his later
politics, that the modern reader will
I
find distasteful.
While capable of putting aside West
ern prejudices against the Turks, to
R~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ whose manners he dedicates his Turkish
An;= w[:w~v.: essay, he proved unable or unwilling to
do so in the case of his fellow Chris
~~~~[:.t
tians. Charlemont's bemused contempt
for the Catholic religious ceremonies he

History IRELAND March/April 2005 25

 C HARLEMONT

'
t'"^. \' .
ions of the mob are present in the elder
.f/ but so too are his
statesman, curiosity,
concern for well-thought
intelligence,
out reform and his love of art and cul
ture. James Caulfeild was a creature of
the old order; his eyes looked back in
fear to the tyranny of 'superstition' and
'arbitrary power', whether revolutionary
or royal, rather than forward to the
'Rights of Man'.
His antiquarian interests show similar
tendencies to his politics. The modern
inhabitants of Greece, unlike the Turks,
interested him principally as a source of
curiosities, wine or or else as
prostitutes,
the inadequate successors of their glori
ous forebears. Charlemont showed little
interest in the antiquities of the country
in which he spent much of his life, Ire
land, or in the manners and customs of
encountered in Italy and his specula reader should note, the sultan, 'the the majority of its inhabitants, to whom
tions on the chastity of Orthodox nuns excellent Mahmud', but the Kisler he referred as 'slaves' or, when in a more
mark him as a man of his time and Agha, who has placed above them the forgiving mood, 'our semi-barbarians'.
class. The specific issues he raises, 'slave of the slave of an emasculated His works concerned themselves with
notably on flagellation and patently negro who is himself a slave!' Greece and Turkey, as did his artistic
fraudulent miracles in Italy, are valid Few men entirely escape the preju interests.
ones to modern ears, but his failure to dices of their own time and place, and His political achievements were in the
turn his perceptive eye to similar issues Charlemont would retain many of name of aWhiggish constitutional patri
in his own religious background sug these attitudes in his later career in Ire otism that excluded most of the popula
gests that his distaste was mainly land. He supported Catholic relief but tions of Great Britain and Ireland from
directed at Romish superstition. would oppose full emancipation. His power as a matter of principal. The popu
Charlemont's comments on the distaste for large mob enthusiasms lace was conceived of as a threat to prop
Kisler Agha, or Master of the Black (whether religious or political) can be erty, order and public safety, which
Eunuchs, in Constantinople show evi detected in his increasing distance ought to be led by its betters for its own
dence of a quite virulent racism. He from the Volunteer movement as its good. The revolution in France was the
specifically excludes the Ethiopians character changed from an Ascendan incarnation of Charlemont's greatest
from the comments he applies to the cy army to a revolutionary organisa fears and those of his class, and by the
'Nubians', an
example of the later tion. The young man's arrogance and time he died the British Empire had been
European habit of categorising racial freedom from concern for the opin at war with the forces of republican
groups so that one could show precise
ly the right level of contempt for each.
The situation was exacerbat
probably
ed by the fact that the individual in
seems to have been an espe
question
cially unpleasant Ottoman func
tionary, and also by an underlying
unease with sexual or charac
practices
teristics differing from his own.
Charlemont's hatred for him leads to a
extreme passage on the
quite subjec
tion of Athens, which he praises for its
ancient glories while deploring its
modern wretchedness and subjection
to 'this despicable thing*?not, the

Above: Detail of a religious procession in

Cairo, including a 'holy camel', by Dalton.

(TrinityCollege, Dublin)

Right:Mullah instructingstudents in
Constantinople by Dalton. (TrinityCollege, Dublin)
m

26 History IRELAND March/April 2005

nationalism for six years. The revolu
tion had already come to Ireland and
the reaction against it would destroy
the independent Irish parliament,
A portrait
Right: of
which would otherwise have been ^^^BH?:
^T^^^^^
Charlemont in later > ^i
Charlemont's monument. In an inter ^|flB?^' -^IfI
lifeby Richard -? ::|?fl^fcl
esting example of the law of unintend ?H^BPI
ed consequences, the Royal Irish Acade Livesay. (National "^J?bl. '-^^B?
BHHB-
of Ireland)
Gallery vW
my, which Charlemont helped to JM^^^HnHNEhiii jflJ^^';S;2^^^^^'E?;;
found in 1786, would help to create the
basis for a cultural nationalism based
on the very Gaelic, Catholic peasantry
whom Charlemont himself ignored, x

Further
H.C.S. Ferguson, 'Lord Charlemont's
travels in Greece', Irish Arts Review
(January 1988).
C. O'Connor and B.F. Cook, 'A Greek
stele in Dublin', The Antiquaries
Journal 61 (1981).
W.B. Stanford, The manuscripts of
Lord Charlemont's eastern travels',

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

80C (1980).
W.B. Stanford and EJ. Finopoulos
(eds), The travels of Lord Charlemont in
Greece and Turkey 1749 (London,
1984).

o
ENGLISH HERITAGE
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History IRELAND March/April 2005 27