The party embarked on June 9, 1764, in the _Anglicana_, bound for Constantinople, and were just at the Dardanelles on the 25th of August. Having visited the Sigæan Promontory, the ruins of Troas, with the islands of Tenedos and Scio, they arrived at the Smyrna on the 11th of September. From that city, as their head-quarters, they made several excursions. On the 20th of August, 1765, they sailed from Smyrna, and arrived at Athens on the 30th of the same month, having touched at Sunium and Ægina on their way. They staid at Athens till June 11, 1766, visiting Marathon, Eleusis, Salamis, Megara, and other places in the neighbourhood. Leaving Athens, they proceeded by the little island of Calauria to Trezene, Epidaurus, Argos, and Corinth. From this they visited Delphi, Patræ, Elis, and Zante, whence they sailed on the 31st of August, and arrived in England on the 2nd of November following, bringing with them an immense number of drawings, etc., the result of which was the publication, at the expense of the Society, of two magnificent volumes of _Ionian Antiquities_. The results of the expedition were also the two popular works, Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, 1775; and his _Travels in Greece_, in the following year; also, the volume of Greek Inscriptions, 1774, containing the Sigæan inscription, the marble of which has been since brought to England by Lord Elgin; and the celebrated documents containing the reconstruction of the Temple of Minerva Polias, which Professor Wilkins illustrated in his _Prolusiones Architectonicæ_, 1837.
Walpole, in 1791, has this odd passage upon the _Ionian Antiquities_: "They who are industrious and correct, and wish to forget nothing, should go to Greece, where there is nothing left to be seen, but that ugly pigeon-house, the Temple of the Winds, that fly-cage, Demosthenes's Lantern, and one or two fragments of a portico, or a piece of a column crushed into a mud wall; and with such a morsel, and many quotations, a true classic antiquary can compose a whole folio, and call it _Ionian Antiquities_."
But, it may be asked, how came the Society to associate so freely pleasure with graver pursuits? To this it may be replied, that when the Dilettanti first met they avowed friendly and social intercourse the first object they had in view, although they soon showed that they would combine with it a serious plan for the promotion of the Arts in this country. For these persons were not scholars, nor even men of letters; they were some of the wealthiest noblemen and most fashionable men of the day, who would naturally sup with the Regent as he went through Paris, and find themselves quite at home in the Carnival of Venice. These, too, were times of what would now be considered very licentious merriment and very unscrupulous fun,--times when men of independent means and high rank addicted themselves to pleasure, and gave vent to their full animal spirits with a frankness that would now be deemed not only vulgar but indecorous, while they evinced an earnestness about objects now thought frivolous which it is very easy to represent as absurd. In assuming, however, the name of "Dilettanti" they evidently attached to it no light and superficial notion. The use of that word as one of disparagement or ridicule is quite recent. The same may be said of "Virtù," which, in the artistic sense, does not seem to be strictly academical, but that of "Virtuoso" is so, undoubtedly, and it means the "capable" man,--the man who has a right to judge on matters requiring a particular faculty: Dryden says: "Virtuoso the Italians call a man 'who loves the noble arts, and is a critic in them,' or, as old Glanville says,' 'who dwells in a higher region than other mortals.'