Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

embankment or fortification. Perhaps in deploying it here Ruthven was appropriating the
caricature of the antiquary as a collector of miscellaneous rubbish. Adamson’s
‘Inventory’ certainly has a humorous, teasing tone, implying a shared joke, a warmth that
later appealed to Scott and is quite different from Earle’s cool mockery. It lists Ruthven’s
motley collection:
Of uncouth forms, and wond’rous shapes,
Like Peacocks, and like Indian apes;
Like leopards, and beasts spotted,
Of clubs curiously knotted;
Of wond’rous workmanships and rare
Like eagles flying in the air...
Some carv’d in timber, some in stone,
Of the wonder of Albion;
Which this close cabin doth include,
Some portends ill, some presage good.
…Neptune gave first his awful Trident
And Pan the horns gave of a Bident…
This cabin contains what you wish-
No place his ornaments doth miss;
For there is such varietie,
Looking breeds no satietie…
This is his storehouse, and his treasure;
This is his paradise of pleasure;
This is the arcenal of gods-
Of all the world this is the odds 26
The antiquary, surrounded by objects mysterious, fabulous and numinous, here
takes on something of the character of the alchemist and this, too, was to become a
leitmotiv in later images of antiquarianism, but it would appear to be unusual at this date.
Even more unusual is the ‘Muses Threnodie’ in which Adamson writes in the person of
26 Adamson, Muses’ Threnodie, pp.1-2.
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