No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it.  Even Garnham has a rival.  Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had bought while on a visit to Munich.  It was entitled A catalogue of pictures in the old PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English.  Here are a few extracts: 

“It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a publication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of it.”

“An evening landscape.  In the foreground near a pond and a group of white beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers.”

“A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in his hand.”

“St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife to fulfil the martyr.”

“Portrait of a young man.  A long while this picture was thought to be Bindi Altoviti’s portrait; now somebody will again have it to be the self-portrait of Raphael.”

“Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man.  In the background the lapidation of the condemned.”

("Lapidation” is good; it is much more elegant than “stoning.”)

“St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him.”

“Spring.  The Goddess Flora, sitting.  Behind her a fertile valley perfused by a river.”

“A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc.”

“A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a table and blows the smoke far away of himself.”

“A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the background.”

“Some peasants singing in a cottage.  A woman lets drink a child out of a cup.”

“St. John’s head as a boy—­painted in fresco on a brick.”  (Meaning a tile.)

“A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end, dressed in black with the same cap.  Attributed to Raphael, but the signation is false.”

“The Virgin holding the Infant.  It is very painted in the manner of Sassoferrato.”

“A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two kitchen-boys.”

However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome—­to wit: 

“Revelations-View.  St. John in Patterson’s Island.”

But meanwhile the raft is moving on.

CHAPTER XVII [Why Germans Wear Spectacles]

A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill.  This ruin consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore a rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched foreheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation.  This ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no great deal of it, yet it was called the “Spectacular Ruin.”