roud of that remote if subjugated ancestry, and looking wistfully
backward to the Arcadia of which his family traditions only preserved
the record. The Roman lapidaries were not nice workmen, and their
imitations are most palpable.

Then, in the fifteenth century, came other and better lapidaries, and of
better taste, many of whose Scarabaei are of great value, though still
not difficult to distinguish from the Etruscan, when we study the
design. The modern demand for them has produced innumerable impositions
in the shape of copies,--poor Scarabaei retouched to fine ones, still
bearing the marks of antiquity, and others whose under surface, being
originally left blank, is engraved by the hired workmen of the modern
Roman antiquaries, by whom they are sold as guaranteed antiques. This is
the most common and dangerous cheat, and one which the easy conscience
of the Italian merchant regards as perfectly justifiable; for has not
the stone all the aroma of antiquity? A little shade darker in iniquity
is the selling of stones entirely recut from broken larger ones, so
that, though the stone remains identical, the workman puts a new face on
it; and even this the antiquary will sell you as a veritable antique.
Then there is the unmitigated swindle of the pure imitation, oftentimes
so perfect that the most experienced judges are deceived. There is in
fact no absolute certainty in the matter. There are antiques of which no
doubt can be entertained, with characteristics utterly inimitable; but
there are others as certainly antique which have none of these, but,
taken without reference to their _placer_, are not to be distinguished
with absolute certainty. I remember a necklace in the Campana museum,
which, in a large number of unmistakable Scarabaei, had one for which I
would not have paid two scudi on the Piazza Navona, so like the modern
imitations did it look. The only reliable criterion for the majority of
cases is the spirit of the design in the intaglio. Castellani says:
"Antique Etruscan, Greek, or Roman Scarabaei are at present very rare,
and their high price tempts the moderns to counterfeit them. And to such
a perfection have they carried their business that it is with difficulty
the best-trained eye can discover the fraud. It is not the stone, not
the polish, nor even the incision, but a peculiar smoothness and
_morbidezza_, which distinguishes the antique; and which only they who
for many years have studied such kinds o