Ant. I have something else to look after. Have you disposed of those relics, as I bad you?
Pet. Yes, sir.
Ant. Well, thou dost not know the estimation of what thou hast in keeping. The whole Indies, seeing they are but newly discovered, are not to be valued with them: the very dust that cleaves to one of those monuments is more worth than the ore of twenty mines!
Pet. Yet, by your favour, sir, of what use can they be to you?
Ant. What use! Did not the Signiory build a state-chamber for antiquities? and 'tis the best thing that e'er they did: they are the registers, the chronicles, of the age they were made in, and speak the truth of history better than a hundred of your printed commentaries.
Pet. Yet few are of your belief.
Ant. There's a box of coins within, most of them brass, yet each of them a jewel, miraculously preserved in spite of time or envy; and are of that rarity and excellence that saints may go a pilgrimage to them, and not be ashamed.
Pet. Yet, I say still, what good can they do to you, more than to look on?
Ant. What good, thou brute! And thou wert not worth a penny, the very showing of them were able to maintain thee. Let me see now, and you were put to it, how you could advance your voice in their commendation. Begin.
Pet. All you gentlemen that are affected with such rarities,[317] the world cannot produce the like, snatched from the jaws of time, and wonderfully collected by a studious antiquary, come near and admire.