ABSTRACT
At Naples he formed the acquaintance of Sir William HAMILTON and of D'HANCARVILLE. At Rome he became acquainted with three Englishmen, James BYRES, Gavin HAMILTON, and Thomas JENKINS, all of whom had first gone thither as artists, and step by step had come to be almost exclusively engrossed in the search after works of ancient art. The success and fame of Sir William HAMILTON's researches in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and of those, still earlier, of Thomas COKE of Holkham (afterwards Earl of Leicester), had given a strong impulse to like researchers in other parts of Italy. TOWNELEY caught the contagion, and was backed by large resources to aid him in the pursuit.
