nothing if he did not question the competence of another, if not of
all others. It seems certain that Balzac frequently bought things for
what they were not; and probable that his own acquisitions went, in
his own eyes, through that succession of stages which Charles Lamb (a
sort of Cousin Pons in his way too) described inimitably. His
pictures, like John Lamb's, were apt to begin as Raphaels, and end as
Carlo Marattis. Balzac, too, like Pons, was even more addicted to
bric-a-brac than to art proper; and after many vicissitudes, he and
Madame Hanska seem to have succeeded in getting together a very
considerable, if also a very miscellaneous and unequal collection in
the house in the Rue du Paradis, the contents of which were dispersed
in part (though, I believe, the Rochschild who bought it, bought most
of them too) not many years ago. Pons, indeed, was too poor, and
probably too queer, to indulge in one fancy which Balzac had, and
which, I think, all collectors of the nobler and more poetic class
have, though this number may not be large. Balzac liked to have new
beautiful things as well as old--to have beautiful things made for
him. He was an unwearied customer, though not an uncomplaining one, of
the great jeweler Froment Meurice, whose tardiness in carrying out his
behests he pathetically upbraids in more than one extant letter.

Therefore, Balzac "did more than sympathize, he felt"--and it has been
well put--with Pons in the bric-a-brac matter; and would appear that
he did so likewise in that of music, though we have rather less direct
evidence. This other sympathy has resulted in the addition to Pons
himself of the figure of Schmucke, a minor and more parochial figure,
but good in itself, and very much appreciated, I believe, by fellow
_melomanes_.

It is with even more than his usual art that Balzac has surrounded