A Virtuosos Collection | Page 5

repeated I. "This, at best, is the wisdom of the
understanding. It is the creed of a man whose soul, whose better and
diviner part, has never been awakened, or has died out of him."
"I did not think that you were still so young," said the virtuoso. "Should
you live to my years, you will acknowledge that the vase of Bias was
not ill bestowed."
Without further discussion of the point, he directed my attention to
other curiosities. I examined Cinderella's little glass slipper, and
compared it with one of Diana's sandals, and with Fanny Elssler's shoe,
which bore testimony to the muscular character of her illustrious foot.
On the same shelf were Thomas the Rhymer's green velvet shoes, and
the brazen shoe of Empedocles which was thrown out of Mount AEtna.
Anacreon's drinking-cup was placed in apt juxtaposition with one of
Tom Moore's wineglasses and Circe's magic bowl. These were symbols
of luxury and riot; but near them stood the cup whence Socrates drank
his hemlock, and that which Sir Philip Sidney put from his
death-parched lips to bestow the draught upon a dying soldier. Next
appeared a cluster of tobacco-pipes, consisting of Sir Walter Raleigh's,
the earliest on record, Dr. Parr's, Charles Lamb's, and the first calumet
of peace which was ever smoked between a European and an Indian.

Among other musical instruments, I noticed the lyre of Orpheus and
those of Homer and Sappho, Dr. Franklin's famous whistle, the trumpet
of Anthony Van Corlear, and the flute which Goldsmith played upon in
his rambles through the French provinces. The staff of Peter the Hermit
stood in a corner with that of good old Bishop Jewel, and one of ivory,
which had belonged to Papirius, the Roman senator. The ponderous
club of Hercules was close at hand. The virtuoso showed me the chisel
of Phidias, Claude's palette, and the brush of Apelles, observing that he
intended to bestow the former either on Greenough, Crawford, or
Powers, and the two latter upon Washington Allston. There was a small
vase of oracular gas from Delphos, which I trust will be submitted to
the scientific analysis of Professor Silliman. I was deeply moved on
beholding a vial of the tears into which Niobe was dissolved; nor less
so on learning that a shapeless fragment of salt was a relic of that
victim of despondency and sinful regrets,-- Lot's wife. My companion
appeared to set great value upon some Egyptian darkness in a
blacking-jug. Several of the shelves were covered by a collection of
coins, among which, however, I remember none but the Splendid
Shilling, celebrated by Phillips, and a dollar's worth of the iron money
of Lycurgus, weighing about fifty pounds.
Walking carelessly onward, I had nearly fallen over a huge bundle, like
a pedler's pack, done up in sackcloth, and very securely strapped and
corded.
"It is Christian's burden of sin," said the virtuoso.
"O, pray let us open it!" cried I. "For many a year I have longed to
know its contents."
"Look into your own consciousness and memory," replied the virtuoso.
"You will there find a list of whatever it contains."
As this was all undeniable truth, I threw a melancholy look at the
burden and passed on. A collection of old garments, banging on pegs,
was worthy of some attention, especially the shirt of Nessus, Caesar's
mantle, Joseph's coat of many colors, the Vicar of Bray's cassock,
Goldsmith's peach-bloom suit, a pair of President Jefferson's scarlet
breeches, John Randolph's red baize hunting-shirt, the drab
small-clothes of the Stout Gentleman, and the rags of the "man all
tattered and torn." George Fox's hat impressed me with deep reverence
as a relic of perhaps the truest apostle that has appeared on earth for

these eighteen hundred years. My eye was next attracted by an old pair
of shears, which I should have taken for a memorial of some famous
tailor, only that the virtuoso pledged his veracity that they were the
identical scissors of Atropos. He also showed me a broken hourglass
which had been thrown aside by Father Time, together with the old
gentleman's gray forelock, tastefully braided into a brooch. In the
hour-glass was the handful of sand, the grains of which had numbered
the years of the Cumeean sibyl. I think it was in this alcove that I saw
the inkstand which Luther threw at the Devil, and the ring which Essex,
while under sentence of death, sent to Queen Elizabeth. And here was
the blood- incrusted pen of steel with which Faust signed away his
salvation.
The virtuoso now opened the door of a closet and showed me a lamp
burning, while three others stood unlighted by its side. One of the three
was the lamp of Diogenes, another that of Guy Fawkes, and the third