cheeks, and to declare
that our loss will be felt by all the _honest_ men in Naples; and that,
as for himself, he does not know what he shall do, he had always such a
pleasure in coming to show us any thing. "It is not _interest_," says
he, putting his hand to his _side-pocket_, "but _affection_," placing it
over his _heart_, "that makes me so loth to lose you--_ah! caro lei!_"
and he kissed us again and withdrew. In the darkness of earliest
morning, while the stars are all glowing, and Aurora is still asleep, we
discern figures in cloaks, sitting over the rippling sea, on the wall of
Santa Lucia, and waiting to show us antiques by moonlight!--and then
comes the _barriere_. And now, gentlemen, we wash our hands of
you--and may you soon be consoled for the loss of us in the
acquisition of some noble lord, with more money to spend amongst you
than we ever had, and more time to devote to your winning manners and
versatile accomplishments. We hope you will speak of us kindly and
considerately; and, whilst you are busy in circulating our memoirs in
the Strada Santa Caterina, the Toledo, and the piazza of the
silversmiths, we are preparing yours, gentlemen, in a work which shall
leave those of Benvenuto Cellini far--very far behind!

We have now given the reader a very brief notice of a scantling of our
antiquarian acquaintance abroad, taking them nearly at random from the
pages of a common-place book, which abounds, we observe, in such
entries. Should he desire to know something more of the craft, we keep a
second batch of introductions by us, which are at his service; but to
give him even the shortest notice, nay, merely to attempt the
_nomenclature_, and furnish a "_catalogue raisonne_" of all that immense
body, would be as wide of our purpose as it would wholly transcend our
powers. Such a task would be as vain as--(but here, after the example of
Boileau, Corneille, and Pope, let us give _our_ paraphrase of the
well-known passage of the bard of Aquinum:--)

"Vain as th' attempt on summer eve to count
What dogs and beggars haunt the Pincian Mount.
All Tuzzi's frauds, all Coco's falsehoods tell,
And all the _Beckers_[1] all the rogues shall sell;
How many sick some sapient quack at Rome
Helps--not to England, but their _longer home_;[2]
How many Couriers forge the scoundrel tale;
How many Maids their mistress' fame assail;
How many English girls, by foreign arts
Seduced, have smiled on needy '_Knave