MORE ROGUES IN OUTLINE.

The Sick Antiquary.

"Aspettar e non venire, Star in letto e non dormire. Son' due cose da morire." Italian Proverb.

Three years are passed since we last visited Herr Ascherson, and we once more find ourselves, with considerably improved tact and knowledge, both as to virtuosi and virtu, ringing at the well-known bell! On the door being unbarred to us, we are sorry to hear that he is now a great invalid, and confined to bed. "I hope we don't disturb you, Mr Ascherson," said we, as a half-witted slattern of fifty opened the door of the sick man's room, and discovered to us something alarmingly like Cheops redivivus, reclining on a Codrus-looking couch, which was too short to receive his whole body save diagonally, in which position he accordingly lay. Upon hearing these words, the much-swathed object suddenly draws itself up in bed; and after looking keenly to make us out in the dusk, (as if he suspected a visit of cajoling rather than condolence.) his eye lost its anxious look, and his features gradually expanded, when he saw at a glance that we were come, not to cheat, but to cheer him. The first words he uttered were—"Ja, ja; dat is mein nobil freund the Doctor;" and then, falling back, he resigned himself to his pains, like a man who has been long trained to suffer. We ask after his health. The poor invalid shakes his head, and tells us, groaning, that he was "sehr krank, very ill indeed; had much dolors but no slipp;" apologising also for having sent for some 10 pi. which we owed him, and which "it was need," so he told us, "to pay his medicine mit." Really concerned to see one whom we had so recently known under worldly circumstances so unlike the present, so suffering, so poor, and so solitary, we told him that we had been intending to call on him that very day for that very purpose—observing, by way of consoling his feelings, that it was not to be expected "that a man who had laid out so much money of the present currency to procure fine specimens of one that was out of date, could be quite so well off in ready cash as those whose money was all in hard coin at their bankers. "Ja, ja," it was even so; and then, his pains remitting for a moment, he proceeded to explain, for our satisfaction, how he had become so short of the needful supplies. "Tis three monate seyne mein freund Vinhler went to Paris—(an honest and heart-good man, Mr Vinhler)—to whom this commission I consign:—'See you give a careful eye-blink to this 9000 ducats, which you must take mit you to Paris. There in the house of Furet you shall become some moneys, which you shall send to me directly; and mit these ducats you shall also pay their consignment.' Well, it was a simple direct, als any childer might do. So Vinhler takes my money, gets to Paris, calls and pays Mr Furet, and writes that he will be back in Neapoli in a week. So I stay! Drei monate I stay, and no Mr Vinhler come! Then lastly, when I hav begin to scold myself, two days seyne, comes eine briefe, and says, 'I hav been stopt here for three weeks by what I then foresaw not when I did write you lastly. I am promised to marry Herr Furet's daughter, and we mak the marriage in eine monate. I am sorry for the delay about your monete, but shall bring them mit Mrs Vinhler and myself to Neapoli, when we arrive!" So, while he is happy mit his Julia in Paris, I cannot become my Julias that I hav bought; and I hav lost much by this man's delay. Ah! (continued he,) whenever he had felt mein dolors," (the poor man had now wrought himself up into a painful excitement,) "my no slipp, this unendlich irritation, this torment to pay the Doctor, for no gute—my loss of practice, my loss of friends, my physique so bad, mein eine samkeit so dull—he should surely have sent me that cassetta of coins to make me a little more gay." Being obliged to quit Naples suddenly, we left him in the midst of his pains, which had been wholly unrelieved by our medication; fretting more and more daily at the non-arrival of his friend; with nobody to visit him but the needy Leech, who, having asked himself—

thinks no further self-interrogatory needful; with none to inquire after him, save only the peasants, whose findings he is too ill to look at, and too poor to purchase; and Death's grim auctioneer, who undertakes for the district; and who, when he has made the daily inquiry at his door, not to lose further time, begins to ply his small hammer, and is tap-tap-tapping away for somebody else, till wanted. Oh! who would change places with a sick antiquary, whose conscience, though he sleeps, is awake to torment him, and whose dreams, if he dream, are of rifled tombs, profaned temples, Charon and his boat!

Old Ignazio.

"Oh dear! what can the matter be? Oh dear! what shall I do? Nobody coming to Jockey, and Nobody coming to Jew!"

What quondam collector at Rome but must recollect that snuffy and gruffy old fellow, Ignazio Vesconali, who lives at the bottom of Scalirata, and has grown old with the Piazza itself! Go down at any hour of the day, and there he was sure to be, either blinking away through his blue goggle glasses, with his cap on, at his door, or at a little shabby table fumbling over curiosities; or creeping over to the coffee-house opposite, to toddle back again, with his cotton pocket-handkerchief, his snuff-box, and his key in hand, to re-arrange his treasures, and utter lamentations that nobody any longer comes to buy. On such occasions we have sometimes entered; and after a "buon giorno," and a remark on the weather, (which, if you abused it, however injuriously, always secured you his assent; for he quarrels now even with the calendar,) he expected you to hope he had sold something lately, to afford him an opportunity to say, "Ma ché, ma niente;" and then you had to sit and listen while he told you all his grievances—how once "a dozen English noblemen had stood all of a row there," and he showed you where, in his shop, fighting for his wares, and buying them almost quicker than he could register the purchases they made; and how sometimes he could sell 500 scudi worth of property before breakfast, and get an appetite by doing so! No! there was not a man of note in England, that had not some day or other been booked by him. All their kindness, no doubt—and then they came not to tease poor Ignazio, but to buy of him. Now a different set of customers dropt in one by one to look at his gems, and to find nothing good enough for them; some tumbling over his antiques, and offering a scudo for his best onyxes; "uno scudo, Santissima Maria Virgine!" others adventuring a whole paul! a price for his best Consular coins!—ah! gli avari! The earth too, once so bountiful, was now as avaricious of parting with her treasures as the English themselves. The fields had ceased to yield their former supplies; and the peasants about Rome would scarce stoop to picking up rubbish, for which, however, they always wanted Ignazio's money. "Ah, poor old man!—che vecchio? old man forsooth! say rather an old dotard, who is unfit to buy, to bargain, or to live!" And then he would ventriloquize once more to himself. "Ah, poor Ignazio! ah, poor old man! your day is indeed gone by." Such appeals were irresistible. So, whenever we had a few scudi to spare, (and it was not quite discreet to go into his shop without,) we used to beg to see some of his boxes of engraved stones; and having pored for a time over wares that had been examined by the most cunning eyes in Rome, would find one of better workmanship, and stop to inquire its price. "Quanto, Signor Ignazio?" and while Signor Ignazio was recollecting himself, we glanced on from one to the other, (the great rule in bargaining being never to appear to know what you are bargaining for!) "Per cinque scudi vi lo do." Viewed thus in the light of a donation, we would think it too high, and tell him so. "Take it for four, then—pigliate lo per quattro;" and at this fresh concession he would grunt a little, like a tame seal in a water-tub! Still we would hesitate, and dare to offer two. "For every body else, he had said impossible,—for us we were padronissimi to take it, as the old man's gift, on our own terms." So we would put it up, and then, elated at our bargain, and at his respect for us, we would remove another "intaglio" from the box; and this time, naming our own price, say with perfect nonchalance, "due scudi." The old fellow would then fumble it up in his snuffy old gloves, and bring it near his snuffy old nose; and having wiped his snuffy old magnifier, would bend his blue goggle glasses over it—and having screamed—"Che! due scudi? what do you mean by two scudi? A stone of this beauty! a living head of Medusa—a front face, too—for two scudi! The serpents in the hair were worth more money—one-half of such a head, were the stone in two, would be worth more money." And then would come in the antistrophe as before—"Ah, povero Ignazio! povero vecchio!"—and we would be shocked, and declare with compunction that we had no intention to cheat him; and he, already "persuasissimo of that," would beg us to say no more, but to put it into our pocket for three. After these preliminaries were settled and paid for, we would be contented to hear him once more recount the tale of his younger days, when he had the antiquity business all to himself; when he married his first wife; had dealings with Demidoff; and knew all that were worth knowing in Rome—both buyers and sellers. "Old age, Signor, is preparing me fast to give up both my business and my life! Buy, buy, now's your time, eccomi! an old man who wants to sell off every thing! name your prices! Don't be afraid, you may offer me any thing now." "Three scudi?" "Impossible I should let you have it for that. It cost me five; but never mind! there's the mask at three scudi. Take it! Any thing else?" "This intaglio?" "You are a capital judge, or you would not have thus picked out my best intaglio—will no colonnati suit?" "No." "Will you be pleased if I prove my friendship for you by sacrificing it at fifteen?" No! "There, take it as our third gift for twelve; but, oh that I should have lived to sell it for that, even to you! But you will come and see me again; I know you will, Dottore mio! And sure you might contrive to spend a few more fees with me than you do, and be all the richer for it into the bargain—what fine opportunities you must have of selling things to your patients, especially to the donne! I wish I was a doctor, that I might carry on my business for a year or two longer!"

Signor Dedomenicis.

"I have a hundred questions to ask," said we, turning into Dedomenicis' curiosity-shop, and casting a furtive glance behind his old armour and arras hangings, to see that there was no other confidant to whom we might be betraying our ignorance. "Dunque—well then, one at a time; è s'accommodi—make yourself at home," said the old dealer, pushing us a chair, and looking humanely communicative, as he adjusted to his temples a huge pair of spectacles, and stood at our side ready to be interrogated.

An old dealer, like a young beauty, when you are together, expects something flattering to be said about his eyes, so "we wished ours were as good as his." He said, "they were younger." "But what was the use of young eyes, or of any eyes," said we, disparaging our own, "that could not make out the wholesomeness of a coin, nor distinguish the patina of antiquity from vulgar verdigris?"

Dedomenicis' cough convinced us that this sentiment of ours was not very far from what he himself believed to be the truth, only he was too polite to say so.

"There!" said we, "look at these bronze bargains of ours, these two counterfeit coins, which have not been a week in our possession, and which C—— has already declared to be false! Oh! would you not have deemed it a happier lot to put up with a blameless blindness, and all its evils, rather than, having eyes in your head, to have disgraced them by such a purchase?" Dedomenicis glances one glance at the false Emperors, and then passes a sentence which banishes them for ever from the society of the Cæsars; while he wonders how we could have hoped to buy a real Piscennius and a Pertinax in the same adventure, and both so well preserved too?

"Were we ignorant of the prices usually set upon the heads of all those emperors who had enjoyed but a few weeks' reign?" Did not every body, for instance, know that the African Gordians, both father and son, were, in bronze, worth their weight in gold? that a Vitellius in bronze was cheap at six pounds? and that he might be considered fortunate indeed who could convert his spare ten-pound notes into as many Pertinax penny-pieces, or come into the possession of a half-penny or a second module, as it is called, of Pescennius Niger, at the same price? Did not every body know that Domitia was coy at £20, and stood out for £25? That Matidia, Mariana, and Plotina smiled upon none who would not give £40 to possess them, and that Annia Faustina was become a priceless piece? Had we been so long returned to Rome and not yet heard of the Matidia now in the keeping of our gallant countryman, General A——, who was jealous (at least so B—— had told him) of showing her even to his best friends, lest she should prove too much for their virtue to withstand, and slept with her, and could not snore securely unless she was by his side? Well, he had paid £40 for her at Thomas's sale in London, and Rollin, on seeing her in Paris, would have gladly detained her there for £50, but the general was not to be bribed; "so you see, dottore mio, it costs a good deal to collect coins even in the baser metal." "So it would appear, indeed, Dedomenicis; and the next time a Pertinax in bronze turns up, we will most pertinaciously refuse to bid for him; or if another Pescennius should ever again cross our path, we will mutter 'Hic Niger est,' and remember to have nothing to do with him."

"And I think," said the old fellow, slily taking off his spectacles, and placing them on the table,—"I think you will not lose much if you adhere to your present intention."

"And yet it is annoying not to know the difference between the works of those Paduan brothers, of a recent century, and such as really belong to the old Roman mint;" saying which we began to study them afresh, as a policeman would do to a rogue, whom he expected to meet again. "Is this knowledge, dear Dedomenicis, to be acquired 'per càrita?' let us not waste our time, if it be not." "Lei lo sapra! it will come in good time. Pazienza! be patient! you know our proverb—'time and straw ripen medlars,' and your judgment will mature in time, just as the medlars do."

Crude as an unripe medlar though our judgment certainly then was, still the prospect of its mellowing into unsoundness at last was by no means consolatory; and so we told him, pocketing our false coins, and going home to consult the memorandum of their price,—here it is! Eccola! as it was most ingeniously registered by us at the time—"Nov. 7, 1840—Bought to-day of a peasant on his way from Ricci to Rome, two beautiful coins, a Pertinax and a Pescennius Niger, in perfect preservation! only paid £5 for the two!! the simple contadino, who can't read the epigraphes, asks whether they are not Nero's!!"[54]

A ring at the bell, and our courier has announced Signor Dedomenicis. "By all means, show him in then,"—for he had come, a year later, to see coins we had picked up during our summer trip to Sicily. "There," said we gaily, and to put him in a good humour at once, (for the remark showed we had made ourselves master of his physiognomy),—"there, Dedomenicis, is a Ptolemy Evergetes, who was, to judge by his coins, your very prototype—it is your nose—your chin—your"——

"Suppose you make it mine altogether then," said he slily; but we "prized it too much, on this very account, to part with it!" After which we go to the nearest cabinet in the room—unlock the door, take out drawer No. 1, marked Sicilian, and rare; and in the pride of our young beginnings, and little knowing what we were to bring upon ourselves in so doing,—

we hand over the tray to Dedomenicis, whose running commentary, as soon as he had brought it into the field of his spectacles, was really appalling; and he plied it as destructively as a Sikh battery, or a Perkins's steam gun.

Prepared to see him take out the first coin in the row, to subject it to his magnifier, to turn it round, now on this side, now on that, and then to pause, ere he could decide upon it, little could we have supposed that in a second his battery was to commence fire; and that in less than a minute, he would have passed a summary sentence upon every coin of the lot.

"One—two—three."—Thus it began; "roba commune—common as blackberries; (four, five, six,) niente di buono—good for what you can get for them; (seven, eight, nine,) Idem; (ten, eleven, twelve,) Idem; thirteen, not of Messina, as it pretended to be; and here had sold us a Neapolitan cat in place of a Sicilian hare!" "Come! a cat?" (for we called to mind what each of puss's nine lives had cost us, and determined to die game for it), "that coin a counterfeit?" "Sī—Sīg-nō-rĕ!" in that sort of sing-song gamut twang in which one Roman answers another's incredulity—"anzi falsīssimo," with a most provoking lengthening out of the second syllable of that most provoking superlative; he knew all about its fabrication; the gentleman who made these coins was an acquaintance—not a friend of his; the original coin being in request, and somewhat expensive, he had contrived to get up a new issue of the Messina Hare,[55] which was much in vogue, and seemed, like Gay's Hare, to court an extensive acquaintance, and many friends. "That Himera[56] hen is of a brood that never lays golden eggs, and the sooner you can get rid of her the better. Time was when such poultry fetched its price; now, thanks to the prolific process of our modern hatchings, we see her as often in the market as widgeon, snipe, or plovers. That's a fine lion; 'tis a pity you've no lioness to match him; but one such real Rhegium leone is worth a host of counterfeits,—'unus, sane, at Leo'. As to your Ptolemies' eagles here, at least they are well preserved, and that always should give a coin some claim to a place in a beginner's collection; though to us dealers, who see many of them, these eagles at last become somewhat uninteresting and vulgar birds. What a collection is here of Hieros[57] on horseback, all in good plight too! Well, I might have bought in or out of these ranks myself; but I should not, I think, like you, have purchased the whole troop—of course you paid but little for them." "Yes," said we timidly, "not overmuch, not more than they were worth perhaps, six pauls a-piece," and we coughed nervously, and expected him to speak encouragingly; but he said nothing, and proceeded with his scrutiny of our box. "Per Bacco! What a quantity of cuttlefish! Methinks Syracuse has rather overdone you with her Lobigo, but that at least is genuine, for 'tis too cheap to make money of by imitation. This of Naxos will do. This of Tarentum, va bene! this of Locri, corresponde." A faint "bravo!" escapes him on taking up an Athenian Tetradrachm, with the Archer's name on the field; but he takes no note, has no "winged words" to throw away upon our winged horses, though every nag of them, we know, came from Corinth or from Argos.

The bearded corn of Metapontus, with Ceres or Mars on the reverse: Arion on his dolphin—that beautiful, most beautiful of coins—were, together with sundry others, all too common for his antiquarian eye to take pleasure in; he sought something less frequently presented to it, and at last he found it in a Croton coin with a rare reverse, which, "would we sell him, he would take at twenty dollars, and pay us in living silver." A bow told him we were not disposed to part with it. And now he comes to what we consider to be our finest piece,—our Lipari bronze! And on it is a fat dolphin sporting on a green sea. Dedomenicis' manner is vastly discouraging, and we are prepared for new disappointment, yet we could have sworn that that coin was genuine. But if false, as he believes it to be, why then not have done with it? why put it down to take it up again? why ask whether we don't repute it false, when he knows we know nothing of the matter? And why mouse it so closely under his keen eye, and look round the rim of it, and examine the face of it, and appear as if he would penetrate into its very soul,[58] and get at its history? Oh! 'tis all right, then; if "he may be mistaken," doubtless he is so: and this is confirmed by his now proposing—thinking an exchange no robbery, of course—to exchange it for us. Ingenuous man! who hadst twice invoked the saints and the Madonna in our behalf when thou heardest the price we paid for our unlucky Hare; and when thou knewest how C—— had beguiled us into taking, and paying for a Roman, the price of an Etruscan "As;" and now thou wouldst have robbed us of our best coin, have deprived us of the very Delphin classic of our collection; it won't do! Our Messenian hare is welcome, but, old æruscator, we cannot let you swim away on our dolphin; and we rise to replace him in our monetaro accordingly.

A third interview with Dedomenicis is recorded in our entry-book of such matters.—"Here are the coins, Signor, which you gave me to clean last week: they are ten in number, for which you owe me as many pauls.—Eccole!" "Ah," said we, "you have not made much of them, I fear." "Look and see," was the laconic reply. By which time we had taken up the first, and were pleased to find that an Augustus, whose lineaments we could hardly recognise, when we gave him to Dedomenicis to scale, had come back to us perfectly restored. "Why, Dedomenicis," said we, "this is a restitution better than Trajan's, of this very Emperor's coinage; for that, after all, was but the imitation of an old mint; but yours the restoration of the old one itself. Henceforth I prefer Dedomenicis' restituit to Trajan's restituit." "Well, then, when you have looked over the others, you will, I dare say, pay these and them at the same rate, as if they had been the issues of that Emperor."[59] We were indeed surprised at what we saw, so much had all our coins gained by the process to which Dedomenicis had subjected them. The second we took up represented the Ostian harbour, (Portus Ostiensis.) We had given it to him with a foul bottom—it was restored to us with its basin cleared out, and with all its shipping, just as it used to look in the days of Nero; in another, the whole arena of the Colosseum had been disencumbered; in another, Antonine's column shone bright from top to bottom; here we saw Honos et Virtus (honour and military prowess) again taking the field; here the scales of Justice once more appeared, and librated freely in her hand; here Hope resumed her green trefoil; Pudicity unveils her face; and there sat Fecundity on a curule seat, with all her family about her; lastly, there were those three scandalous sisters of Caligula—the Misses Money (Moneta,)[60]—standing together with their arms intertwined, and their names at their backs. All these ten restitutions cost only ten pauls! "And how did you manage to clean then so well, Dedomenicis?" "Col tempo ed il temperino,"—with time and a penknife: "Ma ci vuo il genio,"—you must have a talent for it.

Scaling a Coin.

"Ci vuo il genio,"—he was right; and think you 'tis so easy or simple a thing to clean a coin? to unmask an empress, pertinacious in her disguise, or to scrape acquaintance with emperors? Try it;—not that you will succeed; but that the difficulties which you are thus made to encounter in the attempt, will dispose you the more readily to do justice to the skill of those who succeed in this delicate process, which, like the finer operations of surgery, requires at once precision and address, great nicety in the handling of your instrument; while the importance attached to the operation itself makes the successful performance of it not a little desirable. The penknife, guided by a dexterous hand, may light upon a discovery that has been buried for ages; and a pin's point may make revelations sufficient to adjust some obscure point in history. Who knows what face may now lie hid (facies dicatur an ulcus?) under some obscure coating of paste? What an it be a Vitellius; what if a Pertinax should reveal himself? or suppose, when you have removed the foul larvæ, you undermine a Matidia! a Plotina!! an Annia Faustina!!! and your fortune is made! 'Tis a lottery, we admit. But the very principle of the excitement—the charm is, that you know not what may turn up; for a less chance, you may possibly have bought a "Terno" in a Frankfort lottery, the chance of an estate on the Moselle! But there are small prizes to be picked up occasionally—and here's a case in point:—"I was one day sauntering," said our friend C——, "by the tomb of Cecilia Metella, when a peasant came up with a handful of very dirty-looking coins, so firmly encrusted with mortar, that it seemed absurd to attempt its removal. Having nothing particular to do, and liking the wild quiet of the spot, I gave some 'baiocchi' to the man; and taking my seat on a bit of the old aqueduct, I opened my penknife, and began to scrape away. At first I saw the trace of a letter; and digging round it, I at length disinterred a large M——a Roman M! It was probably Maximin, or his son Maximus, that I then had under my thumb; but it might be a Marinus, in which case it was a valuable coin; so I wrought on with renewed vigour, and presently an L was in the field. A better prospect this than the last; for if it turned out to be an Æmilianus, I should have made a good morning's work of it—and it was so! Little by little, line by line, grain by grain, I opened the field, till C. Julius Æmilianus, Pontif: Max: in a full epigraphe, shone forth with the imperial head in full relief, all in a bright emerald patina. I have seen several Æmilianuses, but none like that; and it cost me only a penny."

Now, touching the difficulties in your way—should you still fancy them to be imaginary—take any dirty coin nigra moneta sordibus, and try to clean it; oil it, and scrub it as you may; pick into, poke at, finally, waste your whole morning over it, till your back aches, and your penknife is blunted; you will have to confess at last that your labour has been lost! Your only chance, then, is the fire; and if the actual cautery fails, there is no longer any hope. As in learning to scale properly, you must come to sacrifice a great many coins before you can hope to succeed, fiat experimentum in corpore vili—begin with those that are worthless. Never mind scratching a Faustina's face; set no store by Nero; you may, if you like, mutilate as many Domitians as that emperor mutilated flies. For why?—they cost nothing; unless, indeed, there were something to be gained by reversing the picture. But this only while learning, and to learn; for when you know how to clean a coin properly, you will hardly waste your time in adding new Trajans to the ten thousands already in existence; nor whet your curiosity or steel upon an empress, known to be as common in bronze as she was wont to be in the flesh! When you have a really valuable coin, on which your pains will not be thrown away, your mode of procedure is, first to scrape, with extreme caution, on some small spot by the margin, till you have taken your proper soundings, and come down to the patina. Your next step must be, to ascertain whether that patina is hard, or soft and friable; in which latter case you will have to use all diligence not to poke your penknife in Crispina's eyeball, nor to wound her husband, with a few days' beard upon his chin. No healing process can help you here to undo your clumsy surgery and want of skill. He will remain cicatrised, and she lippa for life. Each separate feature requires renewed care. When your minute manipulations have brought out the eyeball unspecked, then comes the nose; and to remove the closely sticking plaster from its side, and expose uninjured the curling nostril underneath, requires more than Taliacotian sleight of hand to manage properly. You must not trifle with Faustina's hair, nor with Philip's beard. The "flava coma," which we do not consider as ornamental at any time, looks far worse in brass than in golden tresses. You must be an aurist when you come to the ear. Deal with the ear, and remember that it has its portio mollis as you gently probe your way into its tube. Need we insist upon the necessity of respecting a lady's lips? and yet you will wound them, unless you are careful. And when all is done, you may find that your coin is no sooner cleaned, than it is seized with the smallpox,[61] which will become confluent and spread, unless properly instructed. You have probed each cicatrix to the bottom, and filled the minute holes with ink. Thus you will see that patience, tact, and care are all required in scaling a coin; or, as Dedomenicis said, ci vuo il genio!

The collecting coins is a pleasant way of learning the chronology of the royal families of antiquity; and if you are culpably negligent in their arrangement, the first dealer who sees your cabinet takes care to apprize you of your mistakes, and will generally rate you soundly as he does so. The first time Dedomenicis visited our collection of the Roman emperors, he was in a great taking on detecting (which he did not fail to do at a glance) various anachronisms in our arrangement. "By all that should be, if here is not Agrippina the wife of Germanicus, and Claudius's Agrippina, in next-door neighbourhood! the two Faustinas (che scandalo, dottore mio!) lying side by side with strange husbands! Philip junior deposing his own father—ci avevano questa consuetudine, so let that pass; but here is a more serious affair. Pray separate all these Julias a little, my dear sir, caro lei, (looking at us very reproachfully;) here, in this one tray, you have mixed, introduced, and confounded together all the Julias of the Roman empire! Julia, the daughter of Titus, alone in her right place beside her first consort Domitian. But Julia Pia and Julia Domna are but the aliases of the same empress, the wife of Septimius Severus; and here you have placed by mistake Julia Paula, the wife of Eliogabalus, after Julia Mammæa, who you must remember married Maximin. Pray attend to these things; and whenever your series is deficient, leave vacant spaces in your trays to mark the deficiencies. Don't crowd your emperors thus together, when time has separated them in history," &c. &c. &c. We promised faithfully to attend to these hints; but it was all to no purpose, for in one week our friends, to whom we used to show our collection properly arranged, would again involve our chronology in inextricable confusion, especially certain dear young ladies of our acquaintance, who, by no means showing the same respect for old Time that old Time continued to demonstrate towards them, would make light of whole centuries; and we have known them so regardless of all dates, except perhaps their own, as to bring up a Constantine or Maxentius, and to place them under the very nose of Augustus!