[19] See Forster's _Life of Goldsmith_, pp. 422-424.
The origin of this Society, which has now existed some 130 years, is due to certain gentlemen, who had travelled much in Italy, and were desirous of encouraging at home a taste for those objects which had contributed so much to their intellectual gratification abroad. Accordingly, in the year 1734, they formed themselves into a Society, under the name of Dilettanti, (literally, lovers of the Fine Arts,) and agreed upon certain Regulations to keep up the spirit of their scheme, which combined friendly and social intercourse with a serious and ardent desire to promote the Arts. In 1751, Mr. James Stuart, "Athenian Stuart," and Mr. Nicholas Revett, were elected members. The Society liberally assisted them in their excellent work, _The Antiquities of Athens_. In fact it was, in great measure, owing to this Society that after the death of the above two eminent architects, the work was not entirely relinquished; and a large number of the plates were engraved from drawings in the possession of the Dilettanti. Walpole, speaking in 1743, of the Society, in connexion with an opera subscription, says, "The nominal qualification [to be a member] is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy." We need scarcely add, that the qualifications for election are no longer what Walpole described them to have been.
In 1764, the Society being possessed of a considerable sum above what their services required, various schemes were proposed for applying part of this money; and it was at length resolved "that a person or persons properly qualified, should be sent, with sufficient appointments, to certain parts of the East, to collect information relative to the former state of those countries, and particularly to procure exact descriptions of the ruins of such monuments of antiquity as are yet to be seen in those parts."
Three persons were elected for this undertaking, Mr. Chandler, of Magdalen College, Oxford, editor of the _Marmora Oxoniensia_, was appointed to execute the classical part of the plan. Architecture was assigned to Mr. Revett; and the choice of a proper person for taking views and copying the bas-reliefs, fell upon Mr. Pars, a young painter of promise. Each person was strictly enjoined to keep a regular journal, and hold a constant correspondence with the Society.