Chapter III: Part THE LAST (3)

By no means, Mr Pumpkins. Certain sentiments were _thought_ true to nature by the critics and audience at the beginning of the seventeenth century; but nature, like every thing else, assumes a different appearance according to the point it is viewed from. At a time when human life was not very highly valued, and woman's feelings were held in no reverence or respect, it was, perhaps, thought "natural" that the Prince of Denmark should stab old Polonius and bully his daughter to death; but in this nineteenth century of time, no amount of insanity, real or assumed, will make us think it in accordance with the high and noble _nature_ of the philosophic prince, either to sneer at the poor old whiteheaded courtier he has murdered, or taunt the little trusting girl he has taught to love him. If it were not for the name of Shakspeare, Hamlet would be set down as nearly the beau-ideal of a snob--a combination of the pedantry of James and the unmanliness of Buckingham. Read the play, with this key to the character, and you will find it quite as true to nature as in the laborious glosses of Schlegel and Göethe.

If I ever have the honour to meet you again at the Ducrow Arms, I will enter more fully into this part of my view of the injuries inflicted on the stage by Shakspeare. It will be sufficient, at the present time, to condense my meaning into this one remark, that the nature of 1600 is not necessarily the nature of 1846, and probably is as different as the statesmanship of Sir Robert Cecil from that of Sir Robert Peel. If there had been a controller of politicians as powerful as the controller of the stage, we should have had the right honourable baronet making Popery punishable with death, dressed in trunk breeches and silver shoe-buckles--or taking measures to lessen the alarming power of Spain.

You think, perhaps, that I have let you off altogether, because I have declined enlarging on this particular point; but no, my dear Smith, I have not had half my say out yet. It is not only that things are presented to us in Shakspeare's plays in a way that _was_ admirable, because adapted to the feelings and fancies of the time, when they first enriched the Globe, but not so admirable now: I have also to find fault with the manner in which the characters--granting that they are true to nature--are developed and made palpable to vulgar eyes. The fact is, my benevolent friend, that every thing is gigantic in his conceptions. He is like a sculptor who despises the easy flow of the resting figure, and fills his studio with agonizing athletes--every muscle on the stretch--the eyeballs projecting, and the hair on end. Even when he carves a slumbering nymph, her proportions are tremendous--she is like a sleeping tigress, calm and hushed, but giving evidence of preternatural strength; her very softness is the softness of melted gold--when it hardens it will kill like lead; or, if that is a bad image, her very quiet is the quiet of the sea--let the wind blow, and then----! Don't you see that Ophelia--Juliet--Imogen--all of them, are endowed with tremendous _power_, as well as other qualities? And that, as to the heroes, they are regular volcanoes every one of them? Is not this proved by the fact, that there is no hero in Shakspeare who does not demand as much bodily labour from his representative as would tire out a coal-whipper on the Thames? Is there one leading part in any of his plays that does not require an enormous outlay of voice? Now, can it be possible that no deep passion can coexist with a weak thorax? Run over the principal plays--_Macbeth_, _Richard_, _Romeo_, _Hamlet_ again, _Lear_--and depend on it, that this loudness of exclamation is not stage trick; it is part of the development of the character; and therefore I shall always blame that infernal asthmatical tendency of mine for having induced Mr Whibbler, of the Whitechapel Imperial, to decline my services when I offered to act Coriolanus for my own benefit, gratis. The consequence, however, of this Shakspearian fancy, of placing characters of passion in positions where they must split the ears of the groundlings, is, that it has become an English article of faith, that without some prodigious explosions, calling out the whole strength of the actor's lungs, the character falls dead. The Indian could not believe the air-gun had killed the bird, because he did not hear the report. We have reversed the Indian mode of reasoning, and always believe it is the noise that kills the bird. Oh, Smith! think of the bellowings of Sir Giles Overreach--and Barbarossa--and Zanga--and the diabolical howlings of Belvidera, and Isabella, and the Mourning Bride. Can people have no passion that don't disturb the whole neighbourhood with their noise? Can a woman not find out she has been jilted without risking a bloodvessel? Is this the way they do in common life? I remember when that girl at Bermondsey hauled me up before David Jardine, and produced all my letters, and the ring I had given her * * * * she never spoke above her breath. And I was very glad to hush it up with four-and-sixpence a-week.

Now the fault of Shakspeare is this, not that he puts tearing, ramping language in the mouths of his heroes--for in their positions it is the only language fit to use--but that, in accordance with the bullying, blustering habits of his day, he has placed every one of his heroes in such a situation, that blustering and bullying is the only thing he can do. And therefore every man who writes plays at the present, and at any future time, must have a hero first-cousin at least to Stentor. Who would venture to place Louis the Eleventh on the boards? He probably never spoke louder than a physician at a consultation--no, not when he confronted the Duke of Burgundy. He would have to glide noiselessly from scene to scene, a whisper here, a look there, and perhaps a shrug of the shoulder or scarcely perceptible motion of the hand; yet, all through, it would be evident that he was the snake on two legs, the anointed Mephistopheles, the intellect without the feeling--and, with all that, he could not be the hero of a play. Or, if he was made the hero, he would be changed from the quiet self-contained character I have supposed him, to a more _effective_ one. He would have sudden starts of anger which would not be in keeping; outbursts of fiery imprecation which would not be in keeping; or, if the poet was much put to it, he might be shown, answering taunt for taunt, and threat for threat, with the ferocious Charles, which would certainly not be in such keeping as he himself was at the fortress of Peronne. So you see the fact of Shakspeare covering the stage with Titans, and forming them with Titanic thoughts, and endowing them with Titanic voices, has rendered it indispensable for all the little fellows of the present time to be prodigiously Titanic too. Did you ever hear the skipper of a steamer bellowing and roaring through a speaking-trumpet, when his ordinary voice could have had no effect amidst the awful noises of a hurricane, and the sea and the breakers under his lee? Nothing could be fitter than his attitude on the creaking paddle-box, and the thunderous sound that issued from the tube. But wouldn't it be absurd for the commander of the Hugh Frazer, amid the quiet waters of Loch-Lomond, to give orders to the little boy that holds the helm, or point out the beauties of Inversnaid, through an instrument that would startle all the cattle on the surrounding hills? Just so with Shakspeare's kings and lovers. They have "prave 'ords enough, look you," to fill the biggest speaking-trumpet that ever was cast; but miserable is it for men who have not such "prave 'ords," to be forced to bellow their little ones through the portentous instrument which they have not breath enough to fill.

Let me point out, my dear Smith, to your particular notice, a play which I think you will agree with me illustrates all that I have said. In _Othello_ you will find the nature of the seventeenth century still forced upon us in this prodigious power--with which, unless by the magic of the author's name, we should have no sympathy; and a decided proof of how nearly allied his genius, like that of every body else worth mentioning of his day, was to madness.

First, No man of the nineteenth century who knew the noble position in which civilization and religion have placed woman, would have fixed on such a subject. In the closet, when you only see the courage, fame, and dignity of the hero, you can find some excuses for the girl who is won by these attributes, and bestows her love on the possessor of them, albeit he is fallen into the sere and yellow leaf. But look at him on the stage--though the best and most intellectual of our actors represent him, and this I can answer for, as the last I saw in the character was Macready--your sympathy with Desdemona is at once at an end. The woolly hair spoils all--the black face separates him as much from the pure and trusting love of a girl of eighteen, as if he were an ourangoutang. We agree at once with the sensible old gentleman her father, that no maid

"So tender, fair, and happy,
Would ever have to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as he."

The sight of her endearments is nearly as horrid as those of Titania to Bottom are absurd. They are not paired, and all through the play you never can get quit of the disagreeable idea of the blubber lips. If he could be made into a noble statue in mahogany, (not ebony,) a Christianized Abdel Kader--a _real Moor_ and not a _blackâmoor_--the matter would be infinitely better; but no--Shakspeare meant him for a true specimen of the nigger, or why all the taunts about his colour, and the surprise that was evidently excited among the gossips of Venice by the match? The very refinement bestowed on Desdemona makes us have greater horror at her fault, and less sorrow at her griefs. If she had been a mere domestic piece of furniture, without any delicacy or sentiment, we should not have been more revolted at _her_ wedding than at the nuptials of Dyce Sombre. But Desdemona, a gentle lady, married to a Sambo!--impossible! She was either not the fair and simple creature she is painted to us, or she did not outrage humanity so abominably as to follow the example of the brewer's maid in the charming song you favoured us with in the skittle-ground, of which the burden is--

"She ran away with a black man."

If she did, choking with a pillow is too good for her; she ought rather to have been done to death in a bag of soot.

But passing over the incongruity of the lovers, is not the whole play filled with convulsive energies and unhealthy bursts of passion? For my part--but in this, my dear Smith, I will willingly yield to your better judgment--I think Iago was intended for the hero of the play. He is the mainspring of the whole plot; he pulls all the wires; and, to use an elegant expression of your own, he twists them all round his thumb. Critically, if superiority in mere intellect and strong self-will, or even success in the object he designs, constitute a hero, the clear-witted, audacious, subtle Ancient has entirely the upper hand of the trusting, hood-winked pigeon, Othello--

"That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are."

The only fault is, that, for a clever fellow, Iago takes too much pains to _show_ his cleverness. If he does not wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at, it must be for two reasons; first, that no gentleman wears his heart any where but inside of his chest; and secondly, that hearts are not the favourite food of the bird mentioned; but he lets slip no opportunity of displaying his wit, ingenuity, and powers of acting--for Iago is a part in which the actor acts an actor--and precisely in proportion as he shows he is acting, is he successful in the character. The usual error is in showing too little of the actor in his interviews with Cassio and Othello; his friendliness, sycophancy, and good humour become too real, as if it were the performer's cue to enact those qualities, whereas he is only to assume them for the nonce--the real presentment of the man being a malicious, revengeful, and astute villain. I think, also, my dear fellow, that our friend Iago is too communicative, not only to such a noodle-pate as Roderigo, but to the many-headed monster the Pit. He comes forward, and exactly in the same way as M. Philippe informs his audience--"Now I vill show you a ver' vonderful trick. I vill put de tea into dis canister--I vill put de sugar into dat; and I vill put de cream into dis leetle jug, and den you shall see dat you shall have de excellent cup of tea vidout any vater." And, by shaking first one canister and then another, out comes some capital tea, as hot as if you had seen the kettle boiling. So does the insinuating Iago, and says--"You shall see what you shall see. I will make Othello jealous of Cassio--I will make Cassio drunk, and get him into a quarrel on guard--and I will make him apply to Desdemona for her interest with her husband on his behalf;" and, _presto!_ first one scene, and then another--Othello gets jealous--Cassio gets drunk--and Desdemona pleads most innocently for his forgiveness. It strikes me to be letting an audience too much into the secret. I prefer such a scene as that in which the Demon of the Blood-red Glen creates an effect by springing over the foot-lights, and landing (quite unexpected by boxes, pit, or gallery) on the back of the flying Arabian, completely apparelled as the American Apollo. I have seen the Kentucky voltigeur introduce a fancy-dance on two wild steeds, and jump through a fiery hoop in the character of Shylock; and I confess I liked him better in those happy days at New York, than since he has proclaimed himself as the great transatlantic tragedian, and has set up as an infallible critic because he has proved himself a fallible actor.

And then the death of Desdemona! My dear Smith--I appeal to your own noble feelings, as a husband and a Christian,--if you thought Mrs Smith a little too fond of Cassio--or any other lieutenant,--if you even found she had given him one of your best handkerchiefs to make him a nightcap--nay, if you had determined even to achieve widowerhood with your own hands, would you take the instrument Othello uses for the purpose? I ask you as a man and a gentleman. You would borrow a pistol--you would take up a knife--you would purchase arsenic--but you would not undergo the personal fatigue of Burking her in her bed! But it is not with you I have to do just now. I go back to Shakspeare and his times--and I maintain that the manner of Desdemona's murder could only be tolerable in the state of society at the time it was presented. I suspect the very appliances of the modern stage bring the repulsiveness of the incident more prominently forward. There is a beautifully furnished room--a dressing-table beside the bed--nice curtains drawn all round it--snow-white sheets, and a pair of very handsome bed-room candles. The bed-room is brought too prominently forward; and when Desdemona is discovered asleep, it needs all the magic of Shakspeare's name, and the reverence that his genius has created and maintains, even upon the shilling gallery, to prevent the tragic interest from turning into another channel. The contrast is too great between the truthfulness of the bed-curtains and easy-chair, and the horrid purpose--which ought to be idealized, and not realized--for which the Moor enters the room. It is a frightful, blackfaced murderer--designed in the seventeenth century, and considered true to nature then, coming into the open daylight of the nineteenth, casting his Elizabethan energies into forms repulsive to the sentiments of our VICTORIAN time; and we should also feel, if the play were presented to us for the first time, that an Othello created by Shakspeare--if he had been left for these latter times--would not have murdered his wife with a pillow--if he had murdered her at all--and would not have brought forward on the stage the bed-room of a jealous husband, with his wife expecting his approach. The barrenness of the stage in Shakspeare's time was an advantage in a scene like this;--when people were told to fancy that old bench was a bed, and that the close-shaved stripling reclining on it was a woman--the imagination was set down to a feast of its own: the scanty scenery became an accessory--not a realization--all that was palpable was the innocence and sacrifice of the heroine--and the awful and inexpressible struggles of the man.

Do you see what I mean? Do you agree with me that it was a misfortune to the British drama that the summit of its glory was reached by Shakspeare so long ago;--a Shakspeare that knew the whole secrets of the human heart, as the human heart existed before his time--or at least as it was supposed in his time to exist;--a Shakspeare who was ignorant of the Great Rebellion--of the Restoration--of the Revolution--of the glorious First of June--of the Guillotine--of Napoleon--of Trafalgar--of Waterloo;--a Shakspeare who had never seen a telegraph--a mail-coach--a steam-boat--a railway. What sort of a man must this have been, that still maintains possession of the stage--that keeps (as I maintain) the British taste in a state of almost mediæval roughness, and chains the dramatic art itself to the slab over his grave? Perhaps, my dear Smith, the immortal Bunn is right after all. Perhaps, if all managers were to follow his example for forty years--if for forty years mankind were condemned to the wilderness of operas, and divertisements, and farces--we should forget the flavour of the flesh-pots (furnished by Shakspeare) which has so completely mastered our taste;--some Joshua would lead us into a chosen land, and feed us with all manner of delights;--the stage, I mean, would come, like the aloe, to a second flower, only resembling its ancient crown in its life and beauty, but smelling of the present time.

For no beer, you will grant, is so pleasant as that which has the froth on. Its freshness even compensates for its want of strength. But if, in addition to being fresher by two hundred years than the tap of William Shakspeare of Stratford, it were as strong--as cunningly mixed of malt and hops--and had as beautiful a flavour as his had when it was first brewed--eh! Smith? What do you think, then? Isn't it worth while to live forty years on the chance? isn't it worth while to be teetotallers in the meantime? to live upon slops and gruel? Gentlemen, I propose the health of Mr Lumley and Mr Bunn.

I remain, my dear Smith,
Your admirer and friend,
G. BOBSON.

BIRBONIANA; OR, ITALIAN ANTIQUARIES AND ANTICHITÀ.

"Birbone--a Jew, a cheat, a rogue, a vagabond, a liar, a coiner, an
utterer of all things base and false--an Antiquary!"--BARETTI'S
_Italian Dict_.

"Ah me! it is a dangerous freak,
When men _will_ dabble with Antique."--_Hudibras(?)_

SCENE I.--THE INTRODUCTION.

We will now introduce the reader to an antiquarian scene or two _chez nous_, transcribed from our journal as we entered them therein at the time. When it was currently understood throughout Naples--it did not take long for the report to spread--that we were a professed purchaser of antiquities, and "at home" to antiquaries, we were besieged all day and every day by a host of dealers, jewellers and Jews, whom the waiters were weary of announcing, and were still obliged to announce, who came with bundles under their arms, filled with things "ugly and old exceedingly," which they wished to dispose of as bargains, and hoped we would purchase. They came early in the morning; they braved the fiery heat of noon; they bided their time whilst we sat at dinner; and, on returning from our moonlit drive, we are prepared for the announcement that somebody still waits with something still unshown for us to see. Sometimes one man will come alone, and if he finds us unassailable or indifferent, he will take care to return next time in company with an accomplice,--an honest, plain fellow in his dealings, who, actuated by feelings of pure humanity, and in pursuance of his sturdy motto of "_fiat justitia ruat coelum_," will, at the risk of offending his friend, alter his prices, and propose others vastly more equitable and advantageous for _us_. Enters one day a brace of these rogues at breakfast--two such palpable rogues _in face_ that you needed no proficiency in Lavater to know at once with whom you had to deal. One of the pair, _par nobile fratrum_, gives a very respectful, the other, what is meant for a very courtly, bow. "_This gentleman_," says one unknown individual introducing the other--"_This gentleman_ has just landed from Sicily, bringing with him a small collection of coins--_vergini tutti_--all virgins, and on which no amateur's eye has yet rested even for a moment." "_Non e vero, Cavaliere?_" "_Altro che vero!_" responds the cavalier. "I, sir," resumes the other, "am, as you have doubtless perceived, the poor _mezzano_, the mere umpire in this business; _I_ have no interest in the sale of any articles in that gentleman's pockets; it was by the merest accident that I heard of his arrival an hour ago; and, as I know he must have something _good_, I pounced upon him at once--would not give him time even to shave, (_voyez un peu cette barbe farouche_--it was so), but brought him hither in great haste, lest others--_vous concevez qu'à Naples_." "To be sure we did; but did not the Cavaliere understand French?" "Not a word." "What says the Signore?" interrogates the unshaved Sicilian noble; "_Domanda se lei capisce il Francese?_" "_Niente_," not a bit of it, returns he, shaking his head guilelessly. "_Non importa_,--it's of no importance. You, Cavaliere, will mention your prices to me, I will propose them to this gentleman--he his; I will then give _my opinion_ as to what is _fair_ between you, and thus we shall, I trust, do a little business to the satisfaction of both. Signor Cavaliere _s'accommodi_." Thus admonished of _our_ breach of manners in having kept the Cavaliere standing, we would fain atone for it on the spot, by begging the "mezzano" also to take a chair; but he declines it with modest confusion of face. "_Come? ma che?_" he has no pretension or business to place himself between "_due illustrissimi signori_," whose poor interpreter he is. We overcome his scruples, and all sit down, closely packed round a small table; while the noble dealer was unshrouding what seemed, from the length of time and material employed upon it, to be a _mummy_, and, from its size, perhaps a _rat_. We were all eagerness and expectancy, forming, as we sat, a _capo d'opera_ for Valentine or Caravaggio, well grouped, and ripe and ready for the canvass. At length the "unwinding bout" draws to its close; the last wrapping is unwrapped; and a small bronze Venus, without a shift, falls on her haunches on the table. "What a beautiful _pezzo_ have we here!" says the umpire, assuming the air of a man well versed in such matters, and turning her round to admire her proportions; "and where," asks he, in a manner that showed he had guessed the answer before receiving it; "where might this have been _dug up_?" "_Nei contorni di Lentine_," was the ready answer, and so _he_ "had expected to hear it was; all the best _opere Greche_ now come from that neighbourhood." We made no remark; there was a pause; we watched the countenance of the _mezzano_; he seemed to be getting more and more absorbed in the contemplation of the little Venus, till, after taking his time, while he appeared oblivious of time, his pent-up enthusiasm at the sight of charms which rivet his attention, but are beyond his powers of expression, finds vent in the very convenient formula of "_Pare impossibile!_" which, in the language of _English_ dilletanteism has no equivalent; then suddenly recollecting himself, and fearing lest, if he kept her too long, we might be jealous, he confided her gently to our hands, and having done so, said a second time, "_Pare impossibile!_" We, too, turned her round, and (one good turn tending to another) in the absence of any better occupation at the moment, we turned her round a second time; and having done so, put her down upon the table, without a word of comment. It was a tolerably well-shaped little figure, in a very _green modern gown_, and when _we_ were very green, three years ago, we had purchased a twin-born sister of hers at Capua, which we now rose to produce, and placed her side by side the other. Our visitors exchanged glances; the Cavaliere would have said that _ours_ is a copy--_his_ the original; but we remind him that a week ago his _model_ did not exist, from which to have made such a copy; and the _mezzano_, seeing that the game is up, says his friend must have been imposed upon! that there is not a more honest man breathing than the Cavaliere! that, in fact, it has been an awkward affair for _him_! _"Pare impossibile," thought_ we, that rogues should be so bold! "Had he, the Cavaliere, any thing more to show?" ask we of the _mezzano_ in French. "To what purpose," answers the Cavaliere, _suddenly understanding French_; "to what purpose should I waste that gentleman's time, and _my own_, in the long process of unwrapping things, which, when unwrapped, he is sure to pronounce modern?" and the Cavaliere went away in dudgeon, and quite "cavalierly."

It being generally understood that yesterday was to be our last day in Naples, our friends the _antiquari_ flocked in from all quarters of the town to pay valedictory visits, and to hope, each man for himself, that _he_ at least had always given satisfaction in any little business we might have occasionally transacted together. The visits of that day began early, and ended--no, they never ended--till next morning after passing the _barrière_. Coco's black beard, standing at the bedside with a false "Augustus," was the first object that presented itself on waking, and the last pull of the bell at night was followed by the apparition of a mysterious figure in a cloak, with a small sack, full, not of truffles, but of "Lucernæ," just exhumed, and still smelling damp, from the lamp-teeming earth of Pozzuoli. All through that day the dealers seemed to have no other employment upon earth than to wait upon us, and accordingly backwards and forwards, and up and down stairs they came and they went, till by mid-day they had permanently established, as ants do when they forage, two counter-lines of communication between us and the street, each dealer further imitating the ant community, in stopping for a moment _en passant_, to touch antennæ, and to exchange intelligences with his neighbour as he came up. All would kiss our hand and "augur" us a prosperous journey, and each had some little confidential revelation to make touching the Don Beppo, the Don Alessandro, or the Don Carlo whom he had met at the doorway. Grateful acknowledgments are due, of course, for so many proofs of their esteem; though their caveats come all too late for us to profit by; and once or twice, in the dearth of words to tell our feelings, we adopt that Italian formula for modesty at a pinch, and beseech then, _per carita!_ not to speak so flatteringly of our attainments. At dinner, (an Italian friend being at table with us,) Don Gaetano Sbano, whom we have not seen for a twelvemonth, and who has been liberated purposely, as it should seem, from St Angelo, only just in time to pay his respects before we leave, stands smilingly behind our chair, talking over imaginary drafts which he has received upon Roman bankers, in return for a very beautiful set of objects of _virtù_ with which he has been lately, it seems, enriching the Roman market!! After discanting on the moonlight beauties of the Coliseum, and other _moonshine_ subjects which had kept him, he averred, in Rome a week longer than he intended, he abruptly accosts our Italian friend, assuring him that _we_ have now become such a knowing proficient in all the tricks imposed upon travellers, and in all the various guiles of antiquaries as practised at Naples, that it would be difficult to impose upon us; and that, in fact, _he_ would back us now against being cheated by the best of _them_--modest man! he might have said of _us_, in place of presenting a false lamp of dirty device, which threw the altering of this pronoun, and the substitution of the right one, upon the party whom he had been so politely praising. Purposing to start early next morning, most of our effects, both old and new, were packed up already; a few of the former, however, still remained out, and stood on a neighbouring side table. "What a beautiful _Ryton!_" said Don G. Sbano sauntering across the room, and taking up a finely executed stag's head in _terra cotta_, that had originally served for a drinking-cup--a purchase we had that morning made at old Rossi's curiosity shop. "Beautiful, indeed," replied we carelessly, and then _sotto voce_ to our friend--"poor Rossi, pleased at our sincere sympathy at his late sad bereavements--he has lost two charming daughters within a month--insisted upon transferring it to us quite as a _regallo_ at twenty piastres,"--these words were spoken in a low tone of voice, but Don Gaetano made it a point to hear every thing. "Of course we knew," _enquired_ he maliciously, "that it was a forgery in all but the lips?" "And if the lips be true, it by no means follows, Signor, that because the _lips_ are true, the _vessel_ appended to them must be so." If any man ought to know about _lying lips_, it was Sbano; so at once admitting the truth of what indeed there was no gainsaying, we contended that the indestructibility of the glaze, tested as it had been with aquafortis by Rossi himself, proved the genuineness of its antiquity--it proved nothing but that we had something still to learn! The nola varnish was light as a soap-bubble, but this on the _Ryton_ was thick and substantial. How he wished we had been to stay another week to have taught us the difference! and how we wished him gone, lest he should make some new revelations of a kindred character to the last, and betray our ignorance in sundry other matters connected with other recent purchases. The door has scarcely closed upon his coat-tails when in comes a tall strapping fellow out of breath, who begs to take a chair, and declares forthwith that he is "tutto bagnato di sudore,"--in our service, and he hopes it may not be in vain! After administering to him proper restoratives, (the remains of an _agro-dolce_, and half a bottle of lachryma,) four battered pieces of lead are presented by him for inspection, looking very much as if they had just been scraped from the house-top, but which, when duly put together by our ingenuity, make up the highly interesting inscription,--"_Imp: Cæs: Vespas: Aug: Pont: Max: Opt; Princip: P. P._," and are no sooner so collocated than our new-comer seems enchanted at a discovery which he would have us think as important as any thing lately done in that way. After the making of which, he expects that we are to carry over this leaden trophy to England, and is much mortified accordingly at our disheartening remark, that "it was so easy to write upon lead!" Upon seeing that we are indisposed to be cheated, he resolved to humiliate us in the eyes of our friend, which he does effectually by merely glancing at a small _urceolus_ with a painting on it, and then proclaiming it to be "_ristaurata_;" a most ungrateful return, as we think, for our "_restoration_" of him. He has scarcely vanished when a third party, "happy to catch us just at dinner-time," is announced; he comes with a mouthful of lies, and a pocketful of trash, and seeing that we are beginning to wince, is retiring, but suddenly recollecting himself, pulls up at the door to ask whether it be true that we have _not_ bought Coco's _Augustus_, since, if we have been so lucky as to purchase it, Coco has in that case cheated him by pretending to have received nothing for it. "Go to ----!" exclaimed we, losing all patience at the ignorance thus plainly imputed to us, "do you think we were such a fool as to buy _such a forgery_?" Then comes a very _douce_, quiet-mannered dealer, wishing, if our friend will excuse him, to have a private interview with us just for a moment, as he has something confidential to communicate. "Signor mio," says he, "when we are in privacy," folding his hands over his breast and looking very contrite, "I am bound to confess to you that the man whom I have hitherto called 'cousin,' is not such, nor indeed any relation or connexion of mine! I know you have been cheated _often_, _sadly_, and _by him_; and, much as it has gone against my heart whenever I have heard him and his crew plot against your ingenuousness, I have long intended to be frank with you, as you have always treated me with frankness. Believe me I have ever opposed your 'ingannazione,' though without success; and, as I have no other shop in which to put my _real_ antiques excepting this man's, I am glad to pay ten per cent to interest him in their sale; but that _terra cotta_ cow that he sold you, 'twas a sad piece of business," and he looked at us as a Mackenzie might have looked upon some artless victim to man's depravity! Whereupon a new light seemed all at once to break in upon us, and we resolved to get at the truth, if we could, by a _ruse_ which should throw him off his guard; so, in place of appearing put out by the discovery, we merely said--"Well, if all forgeries were but nearly as well executed as _that_, who would care to buy antiques at all; and besides, as it _is_ a forgery, we may have a good chance of _getting some more of the casts to take home with us_, which we could not have done had the cow been _ancient_. How beautifully she stood in her horns and hoofs! and how well must _he_ have studied the antique, who could have conceived and executed such a cow!" As we had imagined, there was no resisting such an appeal, and Roderick Dhu stood confessed! He now owns himself an extensive proprietor in these cows, and says they are by no means his best productions--offering us the whole dairy at a very moderate price!

Comes Coco, a little later, with a lad who is to be forthwith forwarded to buy an engraved stone at _Tiano_, where he is to sleep, in order to meet our carriage to-morrow morning at Calvi, with the jacinth on his finger! Lastly comes old Bonelli to kiss both 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 _barrière_. 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 raisonné_" 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 '_Knaves of Hearts!_'
Or left our church, in spite of solemn 'caves,'
To score off sins by rosaries and aves!
Number the gnats that cloud the dewy lawn,
Or flitting flies that light the sparkling corn;
Or pirate hawks that haunt Rome's lawless sky,
Or the fell fevers Pontine plains supply;
The locust legions count; or say as soon
What hoarse Cicadæ stun the sultry noon
With ringing dissonance; what flow'rets fair
In early spring inebriate the air:
Or count the gems in every dazzling shower
That Roman rockets detonating pour,
Dropping their liquid light o'er Hadrian's glowing tower:
Or tell what crowds on Easter-day repair
To see their Pontiff-bird, in high-swung chair
Upborne magnificent; when, rising slow,
_Th' emerging figure stands, all white as snow_,
Like some large albatross his arms outspreads,
O'er all that mighty, silent, sea of heads!
Thrice waves his wings, the voiceless blessing sends
Far, far away to earth's remotest ends!
The joyous news th' impatient cannon tells,
Louder and louder, as the discord swells,
Of clashing bands, and shouts, and drums, and loud-tongued bells!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Becker, a celebrated coiner from the antique, recently deceased in Prussia,--_N.B._--His widow carries on the business.

[2] _Quot Themison oegros autumno occiderit uno._ Alas! and there are many Themisons still in Rome; for whose address _vide_ the Guide-Books.

BIRBONIANA.

In England, we have our trades and our professions;--abroad, all callings are trades; medicine is a trade; theology a trade; law no better. With us, the title of professor carries with it something of rank, being always conferred by authority, and not, as in Italy, a dignity at once self-imposed and assumed by any party who chooses to adopt it. Furthermore, at home it must be a grave subject indeed that is entitled to the honour of being represented by a professor; whilst abroad, the commonest accomplishments are raised to the dignity which we restrict to science; and every private teacher of fencing, fiddling, juggling, and dancing, affixes professor to his card. The art of cheating, _ingannazione_, seems to be at present the only one in Italy irrepresented, _eo nomine_, by a teacher. Whether it be that there is properly no such art, but, as was formerly alleged of rhetoric, that every man persuades best in the subject of his own craft, the principles of cheating in like manner vary with the occupation of the cheater; or because, where all men are more or less proficients, the instructions of a professor may be dispensed with. Nevertheless, if mere pre-eminence in the dark dexterity of imposing on one's neighbour deserved this coronal, whose brows were fitter to wear it than yours, ye professors of natural history and of _virtù_, with whom _ingannation_ is but a collateral branch of these your severer studies? The very name of naturalist, which in England falls so refreshingly on our ears, accustomed as we are to link with it the memory of such men as White, Ray, Derham, Darwin, Paley, and a host of others, there, is but too frequently bestowed on a class of dishonest collectors, who fill their rooms (which they dub their museum) with a collection of modern mummies, and study nature but to jocky amateurs in the sale of her specimens! Nor is the man called _antiquaro_ in Italy, a whit a better representative of him whom we so designate, than is the _soi-disant_ professor of _taxidermy_ and seller of embalmed pole-cats of our own naturalist. Not that our thoroughbred antiquary at home stands high in our classification of English citizens. It was not as a reward for tracing sites, by following the vestiges of dry rubbish near a place ending in _chester_, that the mural crown (probably a chaplet of wallflowers) was devised by the Romans; and we, too, have a weakness for ranging the precedents of our fellow-citizens according to their usefulness. We have no sympathy with soulless bodies; with miserly old men of starved affections, who are too parsimonious even for the gout; who prefer bronze _puttini_ to babies in flesh, and marble mistresses to a fond and pleasing wife! But this is their affair, not ours; if they choose thus to sacrifice to the cold manes of antiquity the sweetest and most endearing sympathies of life, the sacrifice and the loss is their own; whilst Englishmen must admit, that in England at least they form a very learned body, much given up to the prosecution of curious and prying researches. But in Italy, where all the world pretend to be antiquaries, the ignorance and incapacity of by far the larger portion of these pretenders is marvellous. No sooner has the _adventurer_ who prints himself antiquary, begun to cheat his way on a little, then he addresses himself boldly to some venal professor of archæology too poor to refuse the bribe; who for a small consideration undertakes to decipher his inscriptions for him, to teach him his history, to furnish him with learned conjectures, and to praise his goods, which last is generally the only part of these educational acquirements which he retains, and recollects to profit by afterwards; his ignorance, in all other matters appertaining to his craft, is frequently absolute. Yet many of these men live to buy villas, to plant vineyards, and to show how much more flourishing a thing in Italy _virtù_ is than virtue. In character, or shall we not rather say in want of character, they are all alike; and if any act of any of them bears the external semblance of honesty about it, this is predetermined by their fear of the _penal_ "code Napoleon" and its consequences, and not by the code of moral necessity. Let your antiquarian acquaintance be ever so extensive; be you in habits of pigeon-and-hawk-like intimacy with scores of them, for years, you shall never meet one--from the noble, well-lampooned prince of St Georgio, and the courtly Count of Milan, to the poor starveling old man whose cotton pocket-handkerchief contains all his stores, with no patent of nobility to stand him in stead should he be detected in a fraud--one who will not cheat as much as, and whenever he can. As the King of Naples said of his ministers, in objecting to change them, _sono ladri tutti_. Woe, then, betide the simple Englishman to whom some demon has whispered to have a taste, and who thinks that he cannot better employ the time of his being abroad, than in making purchases to satisfy it. Much will he have to pay for each new apprenticeship in each new city where he sojourns for a season, while he will learn by degrees to distrust the teaching of his volunteer friends, as to what he may safely purchase, when every new acquisition is a mistake, and proves the exception to some general rule formerly taught him. It is only when they turn king's evidence and _peach_, that they can be safely trusted; and on these occasions he really may pick up some important hints for his future guidance; the most important of which is _principiis obstare_, not to begin to buy, or, if he have bought, to give over buying. How little is it generally known, by those who don't purchase, what large sums are squandered in Italy upon heaps of rubbish, palmed off and sold under the imposing names, _roba antica_, _roba dei scavi_, and the like; and how little seems it known by those who do, that of all markets for such acquisitions, 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.