ten thousand pounds. The horse cut out of a block of marble at the
stairs-foot attracted me not a little; but we are told that the
impression it makes will soon be effaced by the sight of greater
wonders. Mean time I go about like Stephano and his ignorant companions,
who longed for all the glittering furniture of Prospero's cell in the
Tempest, while those who know the place better are vindicated in crying,
"_Let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash_."

Some letters from home directed me to enquire in this town for Doctor
Charles Allioni, who kindly received, and permitted me to examine the
rarities, of which he has a very capital collection. His fossil fish in
slate--blue slate, are surprisingly well preserved; but there is in the
world, it seems, a chrystalized trout, not flat, nor the flesh eaten
away, as I understand, but round; and, as it were, cased in chrystal
like our _aspiques_, or _fruit in jelly_: the colour still so perfect
that you may plainly perceive the spots upon it, he says. To my
enquiries after this wonderful petrefaction, he replied, "That it might
be bought for a thousand pounds;" and added, "that if he were a _Ricco
Inglese_[Footnote: Rich Englishman], he would not hesitate for the
price:" "Where may I see it, Sir?" said I; but to that question no
intreaties could produce an answer, after he once found I had no mind to
buy.

That fresh-water fish have been known to remain locked in the flinty
bosom of Monte Uda in Carnia, the Academical Discourse of Cyrillo de
Cremona, pronounced there in the year 1749, might have informed us; and
we are all familiar, I suppose, with the anchor named in the fifteenth
book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Strabo mentions pieces of a galley found
three thousand stadii from any sea; and Dr. Allioni tells me, that Monte
Bolca has been long acknowledged to contain the fossils, now diligently