50 REMARKS ON FALLACIOUS 



public with fpurious pieces under his mark. Every 

 one knows the beautiful copies made by Wierix of the 

 performances of Albert Durer. However, they are 

 not in the leaft degree fraudulent ; as the young man 

 has always added to his mark the year of his age. He 

 has likewife not ftridlly confined himfelf to his manner, 

 has frequently attempted new etchings, and feems in 

 general not to have minded the kind of keeping 

 which prevails in the works of this great artift. Nei- 

 \ ther are we impofed upon by feveral other copies, 

 which are not worth pointing out, and which in later 

 times have been attempted by every kind of bunglers, 

 who frequently have not given themfelves the trouble 

 to fketch the prints again, fo that the impreffion 

 of the copy appears on the wrong fide. I do not 

 here intend to fpeak of thefe, and it would be wrong 

 to afford them a place in any tolerable collection. But 

 there are fome which are executed by unknown, 

 though in the mechanical branch of the bufinefs, very 

 able artifls ; and which often induce us to flatter our-- 

 fclves, that we are in poffellion of the original, for 

 want of an opportunity for comparing them both to- 

 gether. The plates of thefe latter are probably ftill in 

 being; and, if I miftake not, a celebrated dealer in 

 Paris is the owner of them, who is generally ready to 

 fupply admirers with fiich of the prints as they may 

 happen to want. I will run them over according to 

 Higfen's catalogue. 



Moft collectors, and particularly limners, are fo ig- 

 norant in judging of fuch works of art, .that they are 

 not capable of entering into the flighteft detail, and of 

 giving reafons why this particular or the other is an in- 

 fallible 



