When I was a boy, the Kenneys introduced me to Captain Hudson, a retired East India commander, who resided in one of the best houses at Notting Hill, while that locality was sufficiently agreeable and select. Hudson stands out in my retrospective view as the donor of some very special Guava jelly, and as the proprietor of a £5 piece of Victoria—of course of 1839. He shewed it to me as a great compliment one day, and it made me look upon him as a personage of unbounded wealth. Yes; it was very good on his part to let a little lad like me take it in his hand. I often think of Captain Hudson, and wonder, whether my specimen and his are the same.
The auction-thief is only too familiar a feature in the sale-rooms, where portable objects of value are exhibited. At one establishment there is a standing notice, inviting information as to more or less recent larcenies of property, which it becomes the privilege of the auctioneer to make good at a fair assessment. Books are perhaps the commonest and safest game, as the room is more frequently, prior to the commencement of the sale, left to take care of itself. But coins have been occasionally appropriated by enthusiasts, whose impatience precluded them from waiting, till the time came. One person used, during quite a lengthened period, to select with unerring judgment from every sale in Wellington Street the best lot, and when he was at last detected, his genuine ardour was shown by the fact, that the whole of his selections were found at his residence intact. It was really hard on the offender to place before him treasures, for which he might on demand have been prepared to sacrifice his little finger, and expect him to incur the risk of some one else carrying them off, unless he secured them beforehand. The firm dealt tenderly with him—no doubt, on this ground, and merely offered him a piece of advice, which was that he should not throw himself again in the way of temptation. The delicacy of the circumstances was appreciated by Messrs Sotheby and Co.
At one of the coin-sales in Wellington Street four successive lots were purchased by Lincoln, Rollin, and Money, the last a term applied, where cash is paid down at the time. Lincoln bought the second as well as the first, and in the catalogue the entry was Do. Some one reconstructed the sequence, and made it run:
| Lincoln Do Roll In Money. |
I crave pardon for this undoubted ineptitude.
CHAPTER XIII
My Principal Furnishers—Influence of Early Training on My Taste—Rejection of Inferior Examples an Invaluable Safeguard—I outgrow my First Instructors—Necessity for Emancipation from a Single Source of Supply—Mr Schulman of Amersfoort—His Influential Share in Amplifying my Numismatic Stores—My Visit to Him—The Rare Daalder of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland—My Adventures at Utrecht and Brussels—Flattering Confidence—In the Open Market—Schulman’s Catalogues—MM. Rollin & Feuardent—Their English Representative—Courtesy and Kindness to the Writer—Occasional Purchases—The Late Mr Montagu—Discussion about an Athenian Gold Stater—An Atmospheric Experiment—My Manifold Obligations to Mr Whelan—Mr Cockburn of Richmond allows Me to select from His English Collection—I forestall Mr Montagu—Messrs Spink & Son—Their Prominent Rank and Cordial Espousal of My Interests and Wants—Development of My Cabinet under Their Auspices—My Agreeable Relations with Them—Their Business-like Policy, Liberality and Independence—The Prince of Naples—We give and take a Little—The Monthly Numismatic Circular—The Clerical Client.
My numismatic haunts and providers have not, especially of late, been numerous. I once took a small lot of a house in Rathbone Place—a silver medaglia of Marguerite de Foix, Marchioness of Saluzzo, 1516, which came from Lyons, and a bronze piece of Ragusa in Sicily, found in the island of Sardinia, with others. But Messrs Lincoln & Son were my earliest furnishers, and they, with MM. Rollin & Feuardent of Paris, Messrs Spink & Son of London, and Mr Schulman, of Amersfoort, have mainly contributed to build up my unpretending cabinet.