d certainly, _me judice_, nothing can be more
purely artistic than a fine Scarabaeus, and the fascination that comes
over whoever has ventured to dabble in that kind of wares is as
dangerous as the chances of play. Be content with a single one! If you
once get into comparison, you have abandoned yourself to the witchery of
the unknown and unattainable perfection.

Engraved gems or simple intaglios in _pietra dura_ seem to belong to
Greek art rather than Etruscan. The style of finishing the stone was
more in accordance with the simple and elegant ideal of the Greek
intellect. The intaglio was all to the Greek artist, and anything more
was labor worse than wasted. His intaglio ceased to be ornamentation,
and passed into the category of ideal work. And there are intaglii of
Greek workmanship which are as lovely as it is possible to conceive
anything,--all the spirit and perfect proportion of the antique
sculpture concentrated in an oval, an inch by three quarters of an
inch, executed with a delicacy which defies the naked eye to measure it!

A critical study of gems is an affair of years; yet, so far as all
principles of design are concerned or characteristics of art, we may
always consider the intaglii with the sculpture of the same epoch. The
spirit and manner and perfections are the same. The first are, of
course, the Greek; and a fine example is rarely found,--heads only, of
Dioscorides or any equally famous artist, being valued at from $400 to
$800, and even $1200 in the case of the Ariadne. The next in value are
Etruscan, very fine examples being nearly as much esteemed as Greek,
while the best Roman is, like Roman sculpture, but a far-off emulation
in design, though often admirable in execution and finish. Very fine
examples of either are not largely current, being taken up by collectors
and consigned at once to public or private cabinets; but now and then
one turns up, or is turned up by an unenterprising share-holder of the
Campagna of Rome, or by some excavator or vineyard-digger in Sicily,
Magna Graecia, or Greece proper, and, if it gets into commerce, finds its
way generally to Rome, the centre of exchange for classical antiquities.
The Scarabaei are mostly found in the Etruscan tombs, and occasionally
outside the walls of the Etruscan cities,--swept out, may be, with the
antique dust. But there are Roman imitations, made doubtless for some
aristocratic descendant of the mythic Etrurian kings, like Maecenas,
p