n which confessedly small class every one would place himself: the
second of _mezzo Galant' uomini_, or _half_ honest men, of whom the
first division reports, that it is a well-dressed, well-spoken, and
well-instituted order, _ma astuto assai_: and a third, which even they
will tell you is their larger body, constituted of a set of ill-dressed,
uneducated, ill-looking, unmannerly fellows, whom it would be unsafe to
meet with an antique ring on your finger after dark, and _without_ the
city walls. Of this _last_ class, number three, class number one is
particularly desirous to impress you with a salutary awe, lest you
should unfortunately become its victim. Its members, so they will tell
you, _have_ occasionally something pretty for sale; but then who, save
themselves and their ally the devil, knows out of what tomb it has been
plucked by night, or what conditions are annexed to its possession; and
whether, after it has been purchased, the police shall not come and
seize both it and its possessor? Thus one class of reputable
_shopkeeping_ rogues speaks of its _peripatetic_ rivals, who, as they do
not _purchase_, can afford to dispose of their things cheaper than those
who have to pay both purchase and warehouse dues, making them very
wrathful in consequence. The _number_ of antiquaries, as compared with
the whole population, would make a far greater statistical return than
most persons are aware of, who believe the race to be confined to that
half-dozen of shopkeepers who write their title over the door; these
being, in fact, but a small fraction of that large community which, like
the beetle called _necrobios_, preys both upon the living and the dead.
Beside the regular shopkeeper, _who sells the whole statue_, and
undertakes excavations on his own account, there is, in the next place,
the stall-keeper, whose commerce is in fragments, and who makes his
small profits upon toes and fingers, (he having received certain of the
unsaleable refuse from some richer antiquary, committed to his charge on
certain conditions, as the oranges that are offered in London in the
streets are consigned by the wealthier to the poorer Jews to traffic
in,) squats himself down in the neighbourhood of some piazza, church, or
other place of public resort, where, under favour of a shower, he is
enabled to dispose of his bits of _rosso antico_, and _pavonazzo_, which
then exhibit all their hues, polished and shining in the _rain_. There
is a third