his inscriptions for him, to teach him his
history, to furnish him with learned conjectures, and to praise his
goods, which last is generally the only part of these educational
acquirements which he retains, and recollects to profit by afterwards;
his ignorance, in all other matters appertaining to his craft, is
frequently absolute. Yet many of these men live to buy villas, to plant
vineyards, and to show how much more flourishing a thing in Italy
_virtu_ is than virtue. In character, or shall we not rather say in want
of character, they are all alike; and if any act of any of them bears
the external semblance of honesty about it, this is predetermined by
their fear of the _penal_ "code Napoleon" and its consequences, and not
by the code of moral necessity. Let your antiquarian acquaintance be
ever so extensive; be you in habits of pigeon-and-hawk-like intimacy
with scores of them, for years, you shall never meet one--from the
noble, well-lampooned prince of St Georgio, and the courtly Count of
Milan, to the poor starveling old man whose cotton pocket-handkerchief
contains all his stores, with no patent of nobility to stand him in
stead should he be detected in a fraud--one who will not cheat as much
as, and whenever he can. As the King of Naples said of his ministers, in
objecting to change them, _sono ladri tutti_. Woe, then, betide the
simple Englishman to whom some demon has whispered to have a taste, and
who thinks that he cannot better employ the time of his being abroad,
than in making purchases to satisfy it. Much will he have to pay for
each new apprenticeship in each new city where he sojourns for a season,
while he will learn by degrees to distrust the teaching of his volunteer
friends, as to what he may safely purchase, when every new acquisition
is a mistake, and proves the exception to some general rule formerly
taught him. It is only when they turn king's evidence and _peach_, that
they can be safely trusted; and on these occasions he really may pick up
some important hints for his future guidance; the most important of
which is _principiis obstare_, not to begin to buy, or, if he have
bought, to give over buying. How little is it generally known, by those
who don't purchase, what large sums are squandered in Italy upon heaps
of rubbish, palmed off and sold under the imposing names, _roba antica_,
_roba dei scavi_, and the like; and how little seems it known by those
who do, that of all markets for such acq