h of words to tell our feelings, we adopt that
Italian formula for modesty at a pinch, and beseech then, _per carita!_
not to speak so flatteringly of our attainments. At dinner, (an Italian
friend being at table with us,) Don Gaetano Sbano, whom we have not seen
for a twelvemonth, and who has been liberated purposely, as it should
seem, from St Angelo, only just in time to pay his respects before we
leave, stands smilingly behind our chair, talking over imaginary drafts
which he has received upon Roman bankers, in return for a very beautiful
set of objects of _virtu_ with which he has been lately, it seems,
enriching the Roman market!! After discanting on the moonlight beauties
of the Coliseum, and other _moonshine_ subjects which had kept him, he
averred, in Rome a week longer than he intended, he abruptly accosts our
Italian friend, assuring him that _we_ have now become such a knowing
proficient in all the tricks imposed upon travellers, and in all the
various guiles of antiquaries as practised at Naples, that it would be
difficult to impose upon us; and that, in fact, _he_ would back us now
against being cheated by the best of _them_--modest man! he might have
said of _us_, in place of presenting a false lamp of dirty device, which
threw the altering of this pronoun, and the substitution of the right
one, upon the party whom he had been so politely praising. Purposing to
start early next morning, most of our effects, both old and new, were
packed up already; a few of the former, however, still remained out, and
stood on a neighbouring side table. "What a beautiful _Ryton!_" said Don
G. Sbano sauntering across the room, and taking up a finely executed
stag's head in _terra cotta_, that had originally served for a
drinking-cup--a purchase we had that morning made at old Rossi's
curiosity shop. "Beautiful, indeed," replied we carelessly, and then
_sotto voce_ to our friend--"poor Rossi, pleased at our sincere sympathy
at his late sad bereavements--he has lost two charming daughters within
a month--insisted upon transferring it to us quite as a _regallo_ at
twenty piastres,"--these words were spoken in a low tone of voice, but
Don Gaetano made it a point to hear every thing. "Of course we knew,"
_enquired_ he maliciously, "that it was a forgery in all but the lips?"
"And if the lips be true, it by no means follows, Signor, that because
the _lips_ are true, the _vessel_ appended to them must be so." If any
man ought to kn