, for a gentleman in London, who had just stept into taste and a
large fortune. I was the more surprised at seeing our cousin pitched upon for
this office, as he himself had often assured me he knew nothing of the matter.
Upon my asking how he had been taught the art of a connoscento so very suddenly,
he assured me that nothing was more easy. The whole secret consisted in a strict
adherence to two rules: the one always to observe, that the picture might have
been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the other, to praise the
works of Pietro Perugino. But, says he, as I once taught you how to be an author
in London, I'll now undertake to instruct you in the art of picture buying at
Paris.
    With this proposal I very readily closed, as it was a living, and now all my
ambition was to live. I went therefore to his lodgings, improved my dress by his
assistance, and after some time, accompanied him to auctions of pictures, where
the English gentry were expected to be purchasers. I was not a little surprised
at his intimacy with people of the best fashion, who referred themselves to his
judgment upon every picture or medal, as to an unerring standard of taste. He
made very good use of my assistance upon these occasions; for when asked his
opinion, he would gravely take me aside, and ask mine, shrug, look wise, return,
and assure the company, that he could give no opinion upon an affair of so much
importance. Yet there was sometimes an occasion for a more supported assurance.
I remember to have seen him, after giving his opinion that the colouring of a
picture was not mellow enough, very deliberately take a brush with brown
varnish, that was accidentally lying by, and rub it over the piece with great
composure before all the company, and then ask if he had not improved the tints.
    When he had finished his commission in Paris, he left me strongly
recommended to several men of distinction, as a person very proper for a
travelling tutor; and after some time I was employed in that capacity by a
gentleman who brought his ward to Paris, in order to set him forward on his tour
through Europe. I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a proviso
that he should always be permitted to govern himself. My pupil in fact
understood the art of guiding in money concerns much better than I. He was heir
to a fortune of about two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in