uisitions, the worst that an
uninitiated _dilettante_ can have to do with is the Italian! First,
because it abounds more than any other in trash; and secondly, because
when any thing really good comes into it, the dealers take care to put
their price upon it. The much prized and paraded object has in all
probability already been in England, (whence, on the death of its
connoisseur possessor, and the dispersion of his effects, it has again
returned to its natal soil,) and is now, it may be, to be had for twice
or three times as much, as you yourself might have procured it for in
Christie's auction-rooms a few months before, unless you possess an
accurate taste, and an intimate knowledge of what you buy. (Not, depend
upon it, to be acquired, as almost all other knowledge may now be, in
_six lessons_.) You must know that it is quite easy to spend
indefinitely large sums in the accumulation of coarse crockery, broken
glass, bits of mouldings, _scratched_ cornelians, and coins as smooth as
buttons, without being able to pick one pearl from out this ancient
dunghill. The peasant's ignorance, if you are also ignorant, can by no
possibility be turned to your account, and, in fact, turns very much
against it; for there is a prevailing tradition amongst them, that
things very rare and costly, now extant in kings' palaces and great
museums, have been grubbed up by the husbandman's hands; and as he
cannot possibly decide what, in the amateur's mind, constitutes a prize,
every fresh finding that may _possibly_ be such, is put up and priced
accordingly. Now it is a safe rule here never to buy a _may be_,
especially when you have to pay for it as though it were a _must be_;
and if you followed the contadino to the dealer, (who, after you,
becomes his next resource,) you would find that, though the former now
asks pauls for piastres, and is content to substitute baiocchi for
pauls, the dealer is obdurate, and leaves his wares still upon his
hands.

Some, ignorant of the ways of dealers, persuade themselves that if they
go to a well-recommended shop, they may, by paying somewhat higher than
they would elsewhere have done, secure themselves from all risk of
imposition; and this brings us to notice that, in accordance with this
well-known delusion of our countrymen, (for such we believe it to be,)
the "Antiquari" are fond of _dividing themselves_ into three classes,
whereof the first is supposed to consist entirely of _Galant' uomini_,
i