get access through them into many interiors that you would not else have heard of, and to have presented to you a new variety of wares, requiring new vigilance on your part every day. Thus, one man's room (he has been a soldier under Napoleon, hence his particular line of dealing) might well be styled a hero's slop-shop, out of whose stores Sir Walter Scott might have found fitting armour for every one of his heroes, from Waverley to Quentin Durward. The owner visits _Thrasymene_ every summer, and pretends that these iron harvests of the field, which he gleans each year from near the banks of the "Stream of Blood," were sown there in the time of Hannibal, with whose name he is perfectly familiar; and should you, on questioning him, make out that he was not quite _au courant_ as to dates, and not quite certain that every spear-head was as old as the Punic war; his rule for sale is simple, (viz.) whenever there appears to be a doubt, to give it not in your favour, but in favour of his armour. Another man, who only deals in pictures, tries your skill and knowledge in the _Madonna and Saint line_. This man is a collector of coins; and woe betide you if you purchase there, and can't make out the difference between a real Emperor S. C. and a pretender to the laurel! Do you know any thing of "storied urns and animated busts?" Then, and not till then, when you are _sure_ you do, visit A----'s interior, where --"Curias jam dimidias, humeroque minorem Corvinum, et Galbam auriculis naroque carentem," you may easily find! Lastly, let no cinque-cento object of _virtù_ tempt you to show your purse till you have taken advice from a learned friend, to whom such exhibitions are familiar. Considering the vast preliminary knowledge, both of men and things, necessary to the judicious completion of each particular purchase, you will, unless you opine, with Hudibras, that "The pleasure is as great, Of being cheated, as to cheat,"