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"You expressed yourself somewhat rudely as to my interference in your affairs. I certainly had no intention to do so, though you are well aware you were driving a cruel bargain with a fellowcreature in distress. In proof of my words I will give you fifteen francs for what you have just given ten for," an offer he very rudely refused, and I quitted his shop. Literally only two hours after, I had occasion to visit a money-changer's, who also dealt occasionally in bric-à-brac. On my entering his room he said, "I have got something which I think may suit you." On my asking him to produce it, behold the very vase which I had recently seen. "What do you want for it?" "Twenty-five francs,—I gave twenty." "It is well worth it," I replied, “and more;" and then I told him the little historiette which I have here written, not that it has much point, but as a simple evidence of how fortunes are commenced by the humbler class of bric-à-brac sellers-and how money is paid by the inexperienced hunter for articles of little value. A thousand such dealings are of daily occurrence, and ofttimes a prize is

obtained from misery or want, for a pound or two -not in the most honest manner-which, as years pass, is sold for a hundred; indeed it is well known that a rich buyer, determined to possess any object on which he has set his heart, or if determined from some particular fancy to possess, will, at a sale, run up the price of a moderate specimen to treble its actual value. Whereas a seller, who has capital and can await time or opportunity, will, in like manner, not seldom obtain far more. I would beg to remark, that I do not mention these facts with the slightest intention or desire to injure a class who have ofttimes afforded me great interest and amusement, and from whose ignorance I have at times not unfairly benefited, and from whom in the early days of my hunting, I have learnt many a valuable lesson. Moreover, it is said that in love, as in war, all things are fair within the bounds of diplomacy, to call it by the most courteous name; so are they, I fancy, in bric-a-brac markets, though the limit may be somewhat larger. As, however, the object of this little book is to offer the moderate experience I possess

to those whose love for ceramic art may induce them to follow in my footsteps, it is well I should, as far as may be, guard them against the difficulties and chicaneries they will encounter in their researches. I cannot leave the hunting-grounds wherein I have passed so many days and hours of interest, instruction, and delight, and which I hope to revive, without one word to those who may have these pleasures to come. Kind nature is the mistress of all art, and it is amid scenes of beauty, created by God, as in cities, that one learns to appreciate alike His manifold gifts, as the ingenuity and refined art of man. Bric-à-brac hunting, believe me, to a collector, is a most agreeable, instructive, and innocent pursuit, wherein much is found alike to gratify the mind as the eye-till at length it becomes an engrossing passion. I may justly add-that the traveller who seeks such pursuit when wandering in foreign cities, not only learns the history of the land in which he lingers, but mentally peoples it with those who lived and loved in ages past. He becomes in fact so energetic in his pursuits as to banish all others of a

less refined nature from his heart. How many are there now living, ere the advent of railways caused the facility of travel, or directors of continental excursions were born, at least as speculators, but must look back with regret to those pleasant days when few English people ever found many real travellers beyond Paris, or the now beaten tracks of Switzerland and Italy.

Petersburg, Constantinople, Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid, were then all but unknown, save to diplomatists or resident merchants. The rich and real traveller, who wheeled it through Europe in a comfortable carriage, stopped at comfortable hotels, and halted here and there by the wayside, to delight calmly in the beauties of nature and the pleasures of art. In those days there were a vast number of admirable specimens of European china and bric-a-brac to be had, worthy of being exported to the collector's emporium, at a very moderate outlay. That golden era is now for ever dead and buried. Could the man who lived a hundred years since rise from his grave, and glide, as travellers do now glide, smoothly and rapidly under Mont Cenis

in a railway, I take it, when comparing the present with the past, he would jump from the window, or return to his home a lunatic. The advantage to civilization which has thus been insured by the annihilation of distance and the gain of time, who dare deny? But with all its advantages, it is not without its evils; people no longer travel by hundreds to see and learn, but rush by tens of thousands throughout Europe, without seeing much, and learning less, for the most part without knowledge of the language of the people among whom they briefly sojourn. Ofttimes, indeed, have I met with an American traveller-ay, an Englishman also who has boasted of the short time in which he did Europe and the East: his travels having the sole advantage of enabling him to tell his friends at home that he has been here and there, and everywhere, seen this and that, crossed the Mont Cenis and the Simplon, seen the Pope and Bismark, kissed St. Peter's toe, which he had no right to kiss, and drunk no end of stuff called champagne, spent no end of money, and brought home no end of vile trash as works of foreign art, "I

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