unregarded, will ten times
treble its price in the imagination of philosophers. Beauty is far from
operating upon collectors as upon low and vulgar minds, even where
beauty might be thought the only quality that could deserve notice.
Among the shells that please by their variety of colours, if one can be
found accidentally deformed by a cloudy spot, it is boasted as the pride
of the collection. China is sometimes purchased for little less than its
weight in gold, only because it is old, though neither less brittle, nor
better painted, than the modern; and brown china is caught up with
ecstasy, though no reason can be imagined for which it should be
preferred to common vessels of common clay.

The fate of prints and coins is equally inexplicable. Some prints are
treasured up as inestimably valuable, because the impression was made
before the plate was finished. Of coins the price rises not from the
purity of the metal, the excellence of the workmanship, the elegance of
the legend, or the chronological use. A piece, of which neither the
inscription can be read, nor the face distinguished, if there remain of
it but enough to show that it is rare, will be sought by contending
nations, and dignify the treasury in which it shall be shown.

Whether this curiosity, so barren of immediate advantage, and so liable
to depravation, does more harm or good, is not easily decided. Its harm
is apparent at first view. It fills the mind with trifling ambition;
fixes the attention upon things which have seldom any tendency towards
virtue or wisdom; employs in idle inquiries the time that is given for
better purposes; and often ends in mean and dishonest practices, when
desire increases by indulgence beyond the power of honest gratification.

These are the effects of curiosity in excess; but what passion in excess
will not become vicious? All indifferent qualities and practices are
bad, if they are compared with those which are good, and good, if they
are opposed to those that are bad. The pride or the pleasure of making
collections, if it be restrained by prudence and morality, produces a
pleasing remission after more laborious studies; furnishes an amusement
not wholly unprofitable for that part of life, the greater part of many
lives, which would otherwise be lost in idleness or vice; it produces an
useful traffick between the industry of indigence and the curiosity of
wealth; it brings many things to notice that would be neglected, an