The Confessions of a Collector Part 8

The effect and success of the great Montagu sale, now nearly completed, were rather spoiled by the aim of the late owner at exhaustiveness; and the result was that numerous lots occurred, containing coins in poor state, which had been acquired for the sake of rare mint-marks. They not only fetched, as a rule, little themselves, but exercised an unfavourable influence even on other items, which happened to be in their neighbourhood. If the collection had been restricted to fine examples, the prices would have been much higher. How often and how long will it be necessary to reiterate the warning that coin-fanciers cannot fall into a more serious and costly error than the sacrifice of other considerations to technical _minutiae_, which do not strictly concern them in the way of owners.h.i.+p?

Montagu was rather weak or incomplete in British and Saxon, till he bought Addington's collection _en bloc_. Mr Whelan mentioned to him one day, that he ought to strengthen himself in this direction, and he spoke of Addington. 'But,' said M. 'he would not sell, would he?' Whelan asked his leave to put the inquiry; A. agreed; and the price was 7000, on which W.

took five per cent., and the vendor made him a present of 100. Montagu subsequently parted with the Scotish portion to Mr Richardson for 2000.

Canon Greenwell most powerfully and favourably impressed me. He was a churchman with the most liberal views and a scholarly archaeologist. He was very intimate with Mr Whelan, and stayed with him, when in town. We had good talk over the topics, which interested us in common; but with Mr Whelan himself my intercourse, spreading over many years, has been most regular, as it has been most agreeable and instructive. He was born in the business, and has been largely employed by the British Museum and by the auctioneers as an expert. He of course attended some of the country sales, and his experience could not fail to be singular. I called on his return from Staffords.h.i.+re. He had been unlucky on a visit to the same neighbourhood; all the world was there, and heavy prices ruled. Undaunted, he made a second attempt, and got an extraordinary haul of _cinque cento_ bronze medals, which went for about 30s. each. The auctioneer knew nothing about them, and Whelan drew up an _extempore_ catalogue, by which they were sold--mainly to him. His princ.i.p.als struck me at first, I confess, as rather _laisser aller_ folks; but while they do not disdain petty traffic, their profits chiefly arise from transactions, where there is a nabobish margin of 1500 or 2000. It comes to what F. S. Ellis used to say, that it is of no use to clear 100 per cent., if the amount is only eighteenpence; nor is it a great deal better to do as Mr Quaritch has ere now done, to lay out nearly 3000 on a volume, keep it a year or two, and then sell it at 25 advance.

Whelan told me a funny story of a Dutch priest, who once smuggled 600 cigars into London. He related the affair to Whelan in this way in his broken English. 'I bring over six hundred cigar. They ask me in English at custom house, "you have any thing to declare?" I shrug the shoulder. They ask me in French same thing. I shrug the shoulder. They ask me in Jarman.

I shrug the shoulder. They ask me in Hollands. I do same. Then they hold up board with writing in six language. I shrug the shoulder again. "What devil language," they say, "do this man talk?" and I go forth on my way.'

A few family portraits and miniatures descended to me by reason of two of my foregoers having been artists; and one of the former, a likeness of Hazlitt in oils by himself, met with a curious adventure. Before the Exhibition of 1851 a sculptor borrowed it of my father on the plea that he desired to execute a bust for that great event; and we lost sight equally of him and it, till I received one day from Mr Frederick Locker a catalogue of a sale at Christie's, where our long-lost picture formed a lot, against which Locker had placed a mark, to draw my attention. I represented the circ.u.mstances to the auctioneers, but finally bought back the property.

I once purchased a couple of Richard Wilson landscapes in the original frames, with the painter's initials and the date 1755; and I have dabbled a little in water colours. But, on the whole, I have been only an onlooker, with an hereditary feeling for art and a consciousness of total incapacity for it.

I was at Althorp in 1868, just when Lord Spencer had acquired the portrait by Sir Joshua of Richard Burke for 100; and I happened to be in conversation with Mr Christie-Miller at St James's Place, when some one delivered at the door as a present (I believe) an original drawing of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville.

Without being aware that the National Portrait Gallery possessed the real likeness of Charles Lamb by Hazlitt, which had been purchased for 105, I was led a few years since to go to Hodgson's rooms in Chancery Lane by the entry in a catalogue of what was alleged to be the Lamb painting. My father approved, subject to my opinion, of the purchase at 50 or so. I at once dismissed the notion of bidding, because I felt sure, that there was something wrong; and the late Mr Macmillan became its possessor at 60. A visit to South Kensington and an interview with the curator of the Gallery, where I beheld the fine, if rather bizarre, work itself, confirmed my judgment and my distrust.

It is notorious enough, that the picture-market is a man-trap of the most signal and treacherous character. Whatever may be true of books, ma.n.u.scripts, coins, or stamps, paintings and prints are the greatest snare and pitfall of all. I have frequently gazed with private misgivings, which I might have found it difficult to explain or justify, at a portrait in a broker's shop, and as I pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed the place have speculated on the real history of the production. I know full well that the preposterous sums realised for the artist in fas.h.i.+on--at present it is Romney--are explainable on principles, which would make me hesitate to enter the field as a compet.i.tor under any circ.u.mstances.

At Sotheby's, many years ago, they had to put into an auction a portrait, to which a curious misadventure had occurred. It was a likeness of Charles the Second in the first instance; but an ingenious person, judging that the Martyred monarch was more negotiable than the Merry one, and unwittingly oblivious of the discordant costume, had painted in a head of Charles the First.

Brooks of Hammersmith once bought a portrait by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., which he could sell--not to me--at 50s. It was not long after Grant's death. The President, when some one mentioned to him the name of Hazlitt as an art critic, declared that he had never heard of him. Whose fault was that?

I was told a neat anecdote of a celebrated and prosperous adventurer in this particular field of activity, where for the right sort of things the margins of profit are far better than in books or even in china. A party came into his shop, and wished to know if he would buy a picture by so-and-so. He intimated indifference, but on second thoughts asked the price. 100. The work of art changed hands, and was laid on an easel.

Client appeared. What a charming picture! Yes, just bought it. Price?

750. Work of art changes hands again. Client reappears. No wall-room; most unfortunate. Oh, no matter; cheque for the amount; picture fetched back, and reinstated on easel. Second client enters. His eye catches the object, placed at the point most likely to accomplish that effect. He demands the figure. The actual cost; the vendor has not long left the premises with a cheque for 750; and, well, ten per cent. commission.

Could anything be more moderate? Clever! A sort of commercial legerdemain.

The unsceptical acquiescence of the less experienced West-End picture dealer in the appropriation of an anonymous work of art is perhaps more particularly characteristic of the Leicester Square expert. My uncle Reynell was, I remember, pa.s.sing a shop in that vicinity, and noticing a portrait suspended near the entrance, with a humble a.s.sessment in chalk, said to himself, but in the hearing of the proprietor, 'Rather like so-and-so.' The next time he pa.s.sed, he observed the addition of a ticket, on which was paraded his _sotto voce_ suggestion in an amplified form--'A very fine portrait of so-and-so (I forget the name which Mr Reynell mentioned) by so-and-so, price 2.' The enterprising shopkeeper had found an artist to go with a casual pa.s.ser-by's speculative identification of the sitter, and had readjusted the figures accordingly.

I am unable to plead that I never went in for prints or drawings. For I looked on, an age since, at Sotheby's, and saw a lot going for 5s. The firm was not quite so proud at that time, as it has since become, and accepted sixpenny bids. I offered 5s. 6d., and was dismayed when the property fell to me; for it was a bulky portfolio, containing sketches in sepia and water-colour and other matters. There were some signed examples, however, by Stanfield, Sandby, Nasmyth, and Varley, and so I bore up against my fate. _Apropos_ of sixpenny bids, I once wanted a copy of Bacon's _Sylva Sylvarum_ to cut up for a literary purpose, and offered that amount to Mr Hodge, who insisted on having a s.h.i.+lling at one bound. I refused, and had to go round the corner, and buy another copy for double the higher figure. I tried to punish the auctioneer's pride, and punished my own folly.

I have never personally (for the best of all reasons) trodden the somewhat insidious and evidently very seductive path which leads to the conversion of a share of your estate into ancient gold and silver plate. But I have lived side by side with more than one enthusiast of this type. Diamond contracted in later days a fancy for Queen Anne silver, and grew enamoured of the rat-tailed spoon; and a second friend, whose employments took him all over the country and into provincial towns, before the great change occurred, and everything gravitated to London, has related to me a series of stories of his fortunes as an occasional collector.

In the case of the doctor, the old textbooks on Porcelain and Pottery became of secondary account, and his little lot of early and curious volumes was consigned to an American agent for disposal in the States; but I think that I stumbled on them shortly after at an auction in Leicester Square. Chaffers on _Hall-Marks_ superseded Chaffers on the less favoured topic, and c.o.c.kburn's shop in Richmond and other depots supplied the material for gratifying the new taste. When one went to Twickenham House (now no more), one was introduced, not to a fresh dish, or cup and saucer, or ceramic knick-knack, but to a rat-tailed spoon of special merit, or a silver mug with an inedited mark. It was growing toward the close of the scene; whatever the plea might have been for the prior line, it was at any rate pursued with ardour and consistency; the owner's heart and soul were in it; it was a sort of religion with him; he believed in it, as his a.s.sociates believed in him, and identified him and his name, and his home, with the subject. But the more recent foible was deficient in depth and sincerity; his set had been educated--educated by him--in a different school; and they looked wistfully and languidly at the objects, which their entertainer submitted for their criticism or approbation.

It was in truth a pa.s.sing whim, an old man's infection with the prevailing epidemic for what can scarcely be of real interest or importance to private individuals except where there is hereditary a.s.sociation or in the shape of works of reference. Friends noted an abatement in the enthusiasm; pieces mysteriously disappeared; nearly the whole acc.u.mulation, never a very large one, melted away; and the master was not long in following.

My remaining friend was imbued with a liking for old silver rather because he was fond of seeing it about him and on his table than in connection with any systematic plan. He was not guiltless of an affection for bargains, and never, I believe, went higher than 10s. an ounce. In the old days--in the forties and fifties--some tolerable examples were procurable at that rate, especially in the provinces; but latterly he found the market too stiff for him--not for his purse, but for his views. Many a desirable lot he has missed for sixpence in the ounce. A large salver engraved with masks by Hogarth, which Lazarus the dealer offered him at 7s. 6d., he lost, because he remained immoveable at 7s., and had the satisfaction of hearing that it eventually brought about four times the money, pa.s.sing from hand to hand.

My friend acted on a different principle from that, which I should have followed with ample funds at my command. I would have secured a few first-rate examples, as he did, to some extent, in china. He had bought Chelsea figures, when they were at reasonable prices, and he gave only 3, 10s. for a set of four (out of five) beakers of the same porcelain, painted with exotic birds on a dark blue ground. Benjamin bade him 50 for them; but he quietly remarked: 'If they are worth that to you, they are worth as much to me.' This was a favourite saying of his; he would draw out the expert, and then shut him up so. He never ceased to lament the Lazarus salver.

At a sale at Christie's a young man present heard a valuable piece of plate going for 15s. (as he thought), and it struck him that it would be a nice present for a young woman of his acquaintance; and at 16s. it was his. The auctioneer's clerk forthwith solicited a deposit of 20. There was a gesture of impatience from the salesman, accompanied by a general t.i.tter, and the lot was put up again.

10 per ounce may be regarded as a maximum figure even for fine early work; but this limit is constantly exceeded; it was the other day, when some _cinque cento_ example reached 22. The Edmund Bury G.o.dfrey tankard realised 525 in 1895, and weighed only 35 oz. 18 dwt. The Blacksmiths'

Cup, once belonging to that Gild, has been more than once sold under the hammer. It was bought by Ralph Bernal about sixty years since at 1 per ounce; but on the last occasion it exceeded 10. The cup weighs 35 oz. The Irish collection of Mr Robert Day, of Cork, dispersed at two intervals, the last in 1894, eclipsed the normal standard of value, as it embraced some of the finest extant specimens of the workmans.h.i.+p of the silversmiths or hammerers of Cork, Youghal, and other Irish localities.

Antiquities in metal-work have their share of romance. Bargains fall to the vigilant or the experienced seeker. We have all heard of the solid silver picture frames at Beddington, the seat of the Carews, as black as ink, and bought by the Jews at the price of ordinary material; and not so long since there was a house-sale at Wimbledon, where the trade acquired among them ornamental objects of solid gold, described in the auctioneer's catalogue as silver-gilt.

There is no problem in commerce or in morality more difficult of solution than that, which is involved in the question of right on the part of persons, who in the first place make it their study, and in the second their livelihood, to outstrip and outwit the rest of the world in a particular sphere of industry, to combine together for their own profit and the defeat of what is termed legitimate compet.i.tion. The contention on the other side is that these specialists are to waive their superior information for the benefit of proprietors, in whom they have no interest, and to whom they are under no obligation.

It awakened my personal attention to the cogent need of exercising the utmost care in sending plate to the cleaner and repairer, when a tankard of the George I. period returned home to me with part of the hall-mark obliterated. The piece had at one time been in daily use, and was slightly dented; and in straightening it the maker's symbol suffered from encroachment. Sending your treasures of this cla.s.s to the doctor's is as parlous as committing a book or tract in old parchment or sheep to the mercy of the uncanny bibliopegist or a piece of unblemished porcelain to the duster of a charwoman.

The marks in the works by Chaffers and Cripps are not implicitly reliable, and a _Manual_ furnis.h.i.+ng actual facsimiles of them is still a deficiency.

The same criticism applies to the monograph of Chaffers on Porcelain and Pottery. I was led to look into the question of hall-marks on old silver plate by seeing a spoon of Henry VIII.'s time with the leopard's head, the animal's mouth open, and the tongue protruding. This was also a mint-mark on some of the Anglo-Gallic money and on the groats of Henry VII. with the full-faced portrait.

My volume on the Livery Companies of London laid on me, among innumerable other duties, that of making the circuit of the Companies' Halls, and of studying the admirable monograph of Mr Cripps. I had an opportunity, owing to an old friend being a past master, of reproducing the ill.u.s.trations from the Clockmakers' book of the plate belonging to that Gild; and I followed the same course with one or two others in a more limited measure.

When I was dining at Merchant Taylors' Hall one evening, I observed immediately in front of me at table a large silver salver, which I felt sure I had recently seen somewhere; but I only regained the clue, when I remembered that it was one of the examples engraved in my own work.

CHAPTER XII

Coins--Origin of My Feeling for Them--Humble Commencement--Groping in the Dark--My Scanty Means and Equally Scanty Knowledge, but Immense Enthusiasm and Inflexibility of Purpose--The Maiden Acquisition Sold for Sixteenpence--The Two Earliest Pieces of the New Departure--To Whom I first went--Continuity of Purchases in All Cla.s.ses--Visit to Italy (1883)--My Eyes gradually opened--Count Papadopoli and Other Numismatic Authorities--My Sketch of the Coins of Venice published (1884)--Casual Additions to the Collection and Curious Adventures--Singular Illusions of the Inexperienced--Anecdotes of a Relative--Two Wild Money-Changers Tamed--Captain Hudson--The Auction-Thief--A Small Joke to be pardoned.

I started as a numismatist by the merest accident in 1878, at the precise juncture when, owing to the sudden death of Mr Huth, I was concluded by my well-wishers to be on the brink of ruin. My son, who was then quite a little fellow, had had a first-bra.s.s Roman coin presented to him by a gentleman, whose intentions were excellent; and shortly after a relative, who had kept by him in a bag a number of 'butcher's' pennies of George III. and a few other miscellaneous pieces, and who was profoundly anxious to throw them away, made a free gift of the whole collection to the same recipient. I was naturally led to examine our _treasure trove_, not by the light of experience of coins, of which I had absolutely not a t.i.ttle, but by that of my knowledge of collateral and a.n.a.logous matters, in which several years' training had developed certain conclusions; and I soon formed a private estimate of the twofold donation unfavourable to the judgment of the late proprietors.

The youthful owner himself was not the master of any definite views on the subject. There was the bag and there its contents; and they remained for some time inviolate, while I was deliberating and inst.i.tuting inquiries at intervals, myself a sheer tyro. I believe that in my strolls about the suburbs I added to the cabinet without greatly improving it. Mr Huth was no more; and the future was not rea.s.suring. My early acquisitions went many to the s.h.i.+lling. I was not more than a lesson or so ahead so far of my boy and his kind friends. Of works of reference, despite my acquaintance with books, I knew nothing. Of those, who could have put me on the right track, I was equally ignorant. I do not think that I had heard of such an inst.i.tution as the Numismatic Society. It was new ground, and I stood on the edge of it contemplatively, bag in hand--the bag not even strictly my own--with a wavering sentiment and with decreased resources--resources likely to decrease yet more. One morning chance led me, as I pa.s.sed, to linger at the window of Messrs Lincoln & Son in New Oxford Street; and after a pause I went in. The result was momentous in this sense, that I saw at the shop mentioned a 'butcher's' penny, which bore the same relation to the inmates of the bag as an immaculate copy of a book or a faultless piece of china bears to the most indifferent specimens imaginable; and I handed half-a-crown to Lincoln for his coin, which I took home with a rather full heart. We compared notes, and I privately meditated a _coup_. A few days after, our sixteen 'butcher's'

pennies and sundries just realised what I had given for the cornerstone of a New Collection; and I may say that at a distance of nearly twenty years I yet keep that piece, which has become a very difficult one to procure in unexceptionable state--far more so than the twopence of the same type and date.

My son and I thus acquired an a.s.semblage of numismatic monuments represented only by an unit. But it was not very long, before I revisited Lincoln's, and doubled the collection at one bound by buying a half-crown of Queen Anne for eight s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. These two were my earliest investments, when I seriously began; but I must explain that I was not only fettered by lack of courage and the apprehension of contracted means, but by the fact of being in partners.h.i.+p with my son in the venture. His pocket-money and savings partly contributed to the revised and enlarged scheme; and in the earlier stages I am sure that progress was hesitating and slow. In the end, the estate of my partner was swallowed up; and whatever funds were required came from the other member of the firm.

In the case of what was a pure hobby at first and long after its original commencement, it is impossible to lay down the exact chronological lines or the order, in which certain coins or series were acquired. The English and Roman long united to monopolise my attention; my son ceased, as he grew older, to manifest an interest in the subject; and I found myself invested with a paramount discretion, held in check only by very slender means of exercising it. I may as well add here, that I deemed it best, under the circ.u.mstances, to return the amount, which the retiring sharer in the concern had sunk in purchases; and I was thus at liberty to do as I pleased.

I am speaking of a period, which seems nearly prehistoric. It was about fifteen years since, that I took over the entire responsibility in this affair, and found myself in possession of coins of various kinds, chiefly selected at the emporium in New Oxford Street, and representing a considerable outlay. I had discerned the errors of others in collecting, but I had not failed to commit one or two myself. I conclude that it is a very usual oversight on the part of the novice to neglect to measure his ground, and lay his plan, beforehand; it was so with me; I bought rather at random coins, medals, and tokens; and even under these wide conditions I vaguely calculated that from 150 to 200 would place me in possession of a cabinet, capable of vying with most of those in existence.

It has been from no wish to exaggerate the importance of the initiative taken in 1878 under a casual impulse, that I have written down the foregoing particulars. But as I have uninterruptedly persevered from that date to the present in enlarging and improving the collection, and in communicating the fruits of my researches to the public, it appeared worth while to put on record the facts connected with the formation and development of the new taste. There have been men, who have gained a rank as numismatists far higher than any to which I can aspire or pretend, whose beginnings at least were not less humble and not less fortuitous.

When I affirm that a single season suffices to exhaust the patience or enthusiasm of many an amateur, it will supply some indication of my earnestness, when I state that at the end of three years I had barely emerged from my novitiate. I still retained my loyalty to Lincoln, but I made occasional investments elsewhere. I had abandoned the ambitious notion of comprising medals and tokens in my range, but on the other hand, through the miscellaneous nature of Lincoln's stock and his large a.s.sortment on sale of foreign coins, I conceived the possibility of admitting a few chosen specimens of the various Continental series. I resembled a s.h.i.+p without a compa.s.s; I had never had under my eyes any guide to this family of monuments, and I could only estimate its extent and cost from the selection put before me. How necessarily imperfect, nay fragmentary, that was, I did not learn till long afterward. The foreign section of the New Oxford Street stores const.i.tuted my Continental side in its first state, not so much as regarded condition, as variety and completeness. For somehow my furnishers began to understand my views touching character and preservation, and although I have throughout my career felt bound to change specimens from time to time, I apprehend that the preference for fine coins set in with me unusually early, and saved me from a good deal of loss and annoyance.

Under the auspices of the same firm I extended my lines to Greek coins.

Lincoln happened to have placed on view about 2000 pieces in silver, and I took all that struck me as being within my standard--I forget how few.

About the same time I added to them some in gold and copper. I thenceforward, during many years, was in the habit of selecting from the series immediately in hand whatever interested me, and this is another way of saying that my possessions were growing considerable. My grand safeguard was my peremptory principle of rejecting everything, no matter how rare or otherwise valuable, which did not rise to my fastidious qualification; and the greater the choice submitted to me, the more stringent became my application of the rule. It was in pure self-defence.

My pocket-money, so to speak, was extremely limited; and I thus closed the door against a deluge of rubbish or of mediocre property. I laid down for my own government the paradoxical maxim, that if a poor man buys at all, he can afford to buy only the finest things. That is to say, he should never acquire what does not represent the outlay or, if possible, a profit on it. I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a quicksand, and I saw no other practicable outlet in the event of realisation.

I farther satisfied myself that it was highly imprudent to engage in the purchase of Greek and Roman coins at inflated quotations, especially Greek silver and Roman second and third bra.s.s, in the face of the continual finds, which forced the prices downward, and reduced a specimen, perhaps, from 20 to 2 at a jump. There is absolutely no security for the buyer within these lines, and I make it my policy to wait, and complacently look on, while lots are adjudged to others at figures beyond my estimate. In the Greek copper and the Roman first bra.s.s in fine patinated state, one is tolerably safe. Of all the series I am fondest of the former, and indeed any early money in that metal, whether cla.s.sical or continental, is my weak point, provided that it is as nearly _fleur de coin_ as may be. An immaculate first bra.s.s of one of the more interesting Augusti or (better yet) _Augustae_, with a picturesque reverse, rejoices the eye; and it is no prejudice to it, if it is rare!

I remember that it was not long, before I rebelled in my own mind against the not uncommon practice of placing the Greek and Roman money on a footing of equality, and appreciated the discernment of those, who limited their researches to the former. For it struck me that, if you take out of the reckoning the republican series, which is really h.e.l.lenic in its origin and style, and a few early aurei and first and second bra.s.s recommendable by their personality or their interesting reverses, there is not such a great _residuum_ of solid importance left behind. The mere rarities of the later period I do not count; they correspond to the Greek coinages, when the latter merge in the Asiatic types. But of the Greek of the fine and finest epochs alone there is more than enough to satisfy and impoverish half a dozen such collectors as myself, if we merely selected our favourites.

I had added to my cabinet a tolerably large number of foreign specimens, when I paid a short visit to Italy in 1883. Five years had pa.s.sed since the episode of the butcher's pennies, and since the day when I made my maiden purchase of Lincoln, and he with commendable discretion extended his hand for the money, before he surrendered the coin. We have learned to understand each other a little better, and he does not object to a running account.

I did not enjoy the opportunity of making exhaustive researches; but the localities, of which I gained experience, yielded little enough for my numismatic purposes. The Italian impressed one with the notion, that he not merely laid no stress on preservation, but did not comprehend to the full extent what it signified. I have a remembrance of having recrossed the Channel with a handful of examples, which I might better have left behind me, and which I have long since renounced. Some came from Milan, where I met with a most urbane individual, whose stock was princ.i.p.ally Milanese, and very poor Milanese, too. At Venice I ascended a very dark and mysterious staircase leading out of the Piazza, with the highly unpleasant sensation that a poniard or a trap-door might be in reserve for me, when I was ushered by my conductor into an apartment, where I was invited to sit down and inspect sundry trays of gold coins. But the light was so dim, that I could not distinguish the state, hardly the type, and I ignominiously retired, putting down two _lire_, by way of footing, for a silver _teston_ of Henry IV. of France.

Otherwise there was exceedingly little of any note, so far as my observation went. I obtained a coin or two at a depot on the Piazza and one or two knick-knacks at another, where there was the usual apocrypha about the total ruin of the seller by the acceptance of rather less than a moiety of the original demand. Venice is in this respect slightly Oriental. Sir Robert Hamilton gave me an entertaining account of his experiences at Constantinople, where he was asked the equivalent of a guinea for something, and at the conclusion of a protracted negotiation, crowned by a cup of coffee, the price descended to the clown's ninepence.

It was three-and-twenty years, since I had posed as the historian of the Republic, and the sparing degree, in which I had been in the meantime enabled to secure specimens of its coinage, partly prepared me for the apparent difficulty of procuring this cla.s.s of money in good state. I brought away from Venice itself absolutely nothing beyond a silver _soldino_ of the fourteenth century doge Giovanni Dolfino; but at Milan and Bologna I succeeded in finding a couple of early gold ducats. I did not visit the Museum, nor was I so fortunate as to find Count Nicolo Papadopoli at home.