the affair passes quietly off. And now you _may_, if you happen to be
tender-hearted, say something compassionate to the poor innocent who
has been _taken in_, and proceed to ask him about another; and when
you see any thing you long to pocket, enquire what can he afford to
let a _brother collector_ (give him a step in rank) have _it_ for;
and so go on feeling your way, and never "putting your arm so far out
that you cannot comfortably draw it back again." He will probably ask
you if you know Mr B---- or C----, (English collectors,) with whom he
has had dealings, calling them "_stimabili signori;_" and, of course,
you have no doubt of it, though you never heard of them before. It is
also always conciliative to congratulate him on the possession of
such and such rare and "_belle cose;_" and if you thus contrive to
get into his good graces, he will deal with you at _fair prices_, and
perhaps amuse you with an account of such tricks as he is not ashamed
to have practised on _blockheads_, who will buy at any cost if the
die is fine. Indeed, it has passed into an aphorism among these
_mezzo-galantuomini_, as their countrymen call them, that a fine coin
is always worth _what you can get for it._

We heard the celebrated organ of St Benedict, which has been praising
God in tremendous hallelujahs ever since it was put up, and a hundred
years have only matured the richness of its tones. Its voice was
gushing out as we entered the church, and filling nave and aisle with
a diapason of all that was soft and soothing, as if a choir of
Guido's angels had broke out in harmony.

A stream of fresh water issues under the old town-wall, and an
immense mass of incumbent lava, of at least ninety feet high, impends
just above its source, the water struggling through a mass of rock
once liquefied by fire, in as limpid a rill as if it came from