Part 21

We do not say that any joining together of houses should take place in country, nor even in suburban residences. No; there let every man have a house to himself; the foundation of the whole system is quite different: and there is also a certain class of persons who should always have separate dwellings in a town; but to these subjects we will revert on another occasion. We will only allude to one objection which the fastidious Englishman will be sure to raise: if you live under the same roof with one or more families he will say, you must necessarily be acquainted with all the members of the same: you must, in fact, know what they are going to have for dinner, and thus must be acquainted with all the secrets of their household economy. Well, so one would undoubtedly expect to be the case: unfortunately, however, for the theory, the practical working of the thing is just the contrary: we do not know of any town where so much isolation is kept up as in Paris, though there men crowd together under the same roof like bees into the common hive. We have lived ourselves, between the epochs of our bachelor or embryo state, and that of our full-blown paternal maturity, on every floor of a Parisian house, from the _entresol_ just over the stable, where we could lean out of our window of a morning, smoke our hookah, and talk to the "Jockey Anglais" who used to rub down our bit of blood, up to the _Septieme_, where in those celestial regions we could walk about upon our little terrace, look over the gardens of the Tuileries, ('twas in the Rue de Rivoli, gentle reader!) all the way to St Cloud and Meudon, one of the sweetest and gayest prospects in the world, by the by, and hold soft communings either with the stars or our next neighbours--(but thereon hangs a tale!) and yet never did we know the name even of any other soul in the house, nor they ours. Oh! we have had many an adventure up and down that interminable staircase, when we used to skip up two hundred and twenty steps to get to our eyry; many a blow-up with our old porter: she was a good soul, too, was old Madame Nicaise; many a time have we seen flounces and redingotes coming in and out of doors as we went up or down; but actually we cannot call to mind the reality, the living vision of a single individual in that vasty mansion. On the contrary, we used to think them all a set of unsociable toads, and, in our days of raw Anglicism, we used to think that we might be just as well called in to "assist" at some of the charming soirees which we used to hear of from the porter: we did not then know that a Parisian likes to be "chez lui" as he calls it, quite as much as an Englishman. We should have lived on in that house, gentle reader, _ad infinitum_; but one day on going up-stairs, we saw in ominous letters, on a new brass plate, "au troisieme, de la cour," LEGRAND, TAILLEUR. Horror of horrors! 'twas our own man! we had not paid him for two years: we gave _conge_ that evening, and were off to the Antipodes.

"ROGUES IN OUTLINE."

BIRBONE I.

SIGNOR RUSCA.

"Rusca the lawyer, an exceeding knave."--POPE.

"Currunt verba licet, manus est velocior illis Nondum lingua sua, dextra peregit opus."--MARTIAL.

A more knowing man in his way than Signor Avocato Rusca R---- it would not be easy to find; so first-rate is he in his style, though his style may not be quite first-rate! His father intended him for a lawyer, whilst nature qualified him for a cheat; and, as there seemed to be nothing absolutely incompatible in the prosecution of these two professions,

"He sought, without offence to either, How he might deal in both together;"

in doing which for a season, he accumulated much useful knowledge, besides laying the foundation of his future fortune. Whether in his earlier career he followed the practice of his learned predecessor, Paulus, and sought, like him, to augment his fees by pleading in a hired Sardonyx,[74] we have not heard; but his passion for jewels, none who have seen him without his gloves (and we never saw him otherwise) can for a moment doubt.

"Tight girt with gems, in massive mountings set, Beneath their weight his tumid fingers sweat."

When he had come to find that his dealings as _dealer_ better repaid the cost of his earlier education than the teasing uncertainties of the law, a sense of filial duty perhaps, and of inclination certainly, led him ultimately to give up all his time and talents, together with whatever little money he had accumulated, _legally_ or _otherwise_, to the acquisition of practical archaeology. He had seen enough of antiquarian transactions already, to convince him of the unlimited credulity of a certain class of connoisseurs--this knowledge was important, and he began to apply it presently. Having made himself a competent scholar, (he could quote Horace, and had Seneca's[75] moral precepts at his _finger-ends_;) being plausible in speech, and knowing the market-price of every ancient relic by rote, he could not but succeed; he succeeded accordingly--and is now considered throughout Italy as a _mezzo galant'uomo_ of first-rate abilities and tact!

By putting himself early under efficient tutelage at _Rome_, and doing as they did _there_, he soon outstripped most of his masters in his art; the art, that is, of buying "uncertain merchandise," as low as duplicity can buy of ignorance and want; and of re-selling at as high a price as credulity will pay to cunning.[76] His unusual astuteness made it really diverting, when you knew your man, to have dealings with him, otherwise it was likely to turn out an expensive amusement. Our acquaintance with him began in the full maturity of his powers, when his mode of cross-questioning false witnesses who brought him _soi-disant_ antiques to sell, and his lawyer-like mode of eliciting the truth, were capital. How he would lie! and what lungs he had to lie with! _immensa cavi spirant mendacia folles!_ What action! what volubility of tongue! what anecdotes! and then only to see how he would look a _false_ Augustus in the face, and discern that wily sovereign from a thousand counterfeits; or when a sly forger brought him a modern gold coin, carefully coated in mould--how he knew by _instinct_ that it was an imposture, and would not condescend to exhume and expose the fraud. Like all knaves, he would take incredible pains to prove that there was not a more honest man than himself breathing--and when he considered himself to have quite established _this_ on his own showing, he would sometimes speak with "honest indignation" of men who were palpable rogues: assuring you all the while, that it gave him pain thus to bear testimony against his neighbour, but then every honest man owed it to his Pope and to the people to expose Birbonism. On one occasion, when he had a large batch of _silver Emperors_ for sale, we said we must see about their _prices_ in Mionnet.[77] Upon which, with a look of frightened honesty, he asked us if "we really knew what we were talking of?" "Perfectly," we replied. "Well, sir," continued he, "Mionnet was a Frenchman; did _you_ ever know an honest Frenchman?" "Not as many as we could have wished to know; but we had known _some_." "We had in that case," he confessed, "the advantage over him--_he never had!_ As to Mionnet's book, it was written, at least so thought Rusca, with a frightfully corrupt view, being published during the French occupancy of Italy, for the joint benefit of Mr M. and the _Bibliotheque du Roi_. I admit," quoth our lawyer, "that the French only entertained a natural wish (nay, sir, as far as the _mood_ was _optative_ merely I commend it as a highly laudable one) in desiring to have the best monetary collection in Europe; but was it honourable, or just, to pledge this Mionnet to affix such prices for rare and better specimens, (such as I have the honour to show you here!) when both they and he knew them to be preposterous, and then to launch forth this misguiding book as a guide? This precious book, sir, was in the hands of all M----'s myrmidons, and the only book of appeal then extant; _this_--(thumping his fist, by way of emphasis, upon our copy of it)--this, which has been the ruin of Italy, and is the degradation of France! I only wish you could hear my friend _Sestini_ (quel _numen_ degli numismcatici) inveigh against this man and his prices, with less reluctance, I assure you, than I feel in doing it, and much more powerfully too, because he knows so much more; but come now, if you _won't_ think me vain, I will show you the difference between honesty and dishonesty. I wish it was of some one else I was about to speak, but truth compels me here to introduce my own name. Last week that pleasant countryman of yours, Lord X----,--do you know him? (we did for a goose!)--comes to buy some gold coins of me; one of the lot he fixed upon was a Becker, and so of course only worth what it weighed. He had purchased it for fifty Napoleons of me, and we went to his bankers together for the payment. There, having duly received the money, I requested him to let me see once more the coins he had just purchased of me--there might have been a dozen--and instantly picking out the Becker, I pushed him over his fifty Napoleons again, and said, "Milord, I cannot let you have that coin." "Why?" says he, alarmed and in anger. "Because _it is false, Milord_!--and I was quite grieved," added our ingenuous informant, "to see how much Lord X---- was disconcerted at this disclosure." "You did not let so pretty a coin go a-begging, I dare say?" said we with laudable curiosity and interest. "No, two days ago in comes Coco--you know Coco?" we smiled. Know Coco! did we know St Peter's? did we know the Pope? for whom did Rusca take us, we wonder? "He came," prosecuted Signor R----, "to see if I had by me any first-rate imitations from the antique, for he knew a gentleman who might fancy something of the sort; and, as soon as he had set eyes upon this Becker, he must have _it_; _it_ was just the thing to tempt Lord X----; and so I let him have it for _five times_ its supposititious value, but not for a _tenth_ of what Lord X---- would, I knew, buy it for a second time as an undoubted antique; and lest that rogue should at any time take liberties with my name, (for he is capable of anything,) and say he had been duped by Avocato Rusca into the purchase of a false thing for a true, here is a document with his name to it, which I then and there caused him to sign, which _proves_ the contrary. I met him to-day, and he seems much pleased with Lord X----'s liberality, who has bought the coin!!" The above is a sample of Avocato Rusca's _confessions_, and of his somewhat original notions of honesty! Once, however, our honest friend forgot himself in a purchase we made of him. And no wonder, for we had also forgotten ourselves; for the time when we transacted business was the gloaming, and the room being dark had lent its aid to the deception. We had also an engagement to dine out, and it was getting late, and we were in a hurry. But that same night, on returning from our party, we had looked again at what we had bought, and then, first perceiving our mistake, determined, if possible, to repair it by repairing early next morning to the Minerva Hotel, there to surprise him in his dressing-gown, by which bold _coup-de-main_ (having pre-arranged in our own minds what we should take away with us in lieu _of_ what we brought back) we carried our point at last!--and hardly carried it; for while the _new_ batch and the _old_ confronted each other on his table, the one being fair, the other like himself, ill-favoured in appearance, we saw his restless glance move wistfully from the one to the other. Three times in one minute his countenance fell; he coughed, he hesitated, he _cospetto'd_ once, he wished we had made known our mind over night; he _cospetto'd_ again, and finally was about to reconsider the affair, when, not to be foiled by a rogue, we threw it upon _his honour_, (of which he had not a particle,) and, by the extravagance of such a compliment, prevailed. "He had never cheated us before," (which was strictly true; but the reason, which the reader will have no difficulty to guess, we did not think it necessary or prudent to assign;) would he, after so long an acquaintance with us, change his tactics now?--we need not ask him--we were "persuasissimi" that he would not, neither did he! We removed the temptation out of his way as soon as we could, and felt, as we went home, that we had achieved that morning as _great_ a piece of diplomacy, and as difficult, as ever did Lord Palmerston when he was minister for our foreign affairs; and grateful were we to Apollo, the god of medicine, who had for once assisted us to overreach Mercury, the god of rogues.

BIRBONE II.

COCO.

----"Adspice quanta Voce negat quae sit ficti constantia vultus!"--JUV. _Sat._ vii.

We cut our pen afresh to say a few words concerning that arch-impostor, that "Fourbum imperator," Coco the coiner. Had it not been for the _prosperity_ of the St Angelo ministry at Naples, that three-headed Cerberus of iniquity, of whom the people,

"Tre Angeli a noi piu recan danno Che trenta orrendi Demoni non fanno,"

had it not been that _their_ success seemed to militate against such an inference, we might have supposed that Coco, poor, starving, and in utter disesteem, had been thus let to live, to prove by a sad contrast the truth of the old adage--that "honesty is the best policy." Coco is the very impersonation of wiliness and subtlety--a fox amongst foxes--the Metternich of his craft;--he has cheated every dealer in turn, and by turns has learnt to know the internal arrangements of every prison throughout the kingdom. By sheer force of talent he has been able, like Napoleon, to maintain his cause single-handed against a host of rivals who would crush him, and cannot; and, whenever he is not _closeted elsewhere_, he is either holding a privy council with St Angelo, or transacting busines with his Serene Highness of Salerno, against whom (_par parenthese_) we have not a word to say. Cicero's oration for Milo is not better than Coco's oration for Coco; and to hear him plead it personally for the first time, is certainly entertaining. He seems to have taken _that_ oration for his model, setting out, as Tully for that client did, with a staunch negation of the charges alleged against him; but embarrassed, as he proceeds in his harangue, to maintain himself strictly honest, he gradually throws off reserve, converts your room into a court of justice, and, confronting imaginary accusers, endeavours to shake their testimony by making out that they are just as great rogues as himself! "Coco! say over again just half a dozen of _those sentences_--you know where to begin--that you have so often been the habit of indulging me with; not the _whole_ speech, Coco, if you please." "Eccelenza, no! I was saying, then, that I was in advance of my age, and that, if I had been born in France or England in place of Naples, I should not now have been called Coco the cheat, the thief, the _birbone_, but _Sir_ Coco--or Monsieur le Marquis de Cocon. Look at the things I have done, sir, and see what they have done for me. No sooner have I devised some new _galanteria_--elegant, classical, and sure to take--when it is enough to whisper '_Coco's_,' to bring it into discredit: a great outcry is raised against me as its author, and, like a second Galileo, I am cast into prison! Knowledge is not power at Naples; for my countrymen know that I have knowledge enough when I mulct their ignorance, as I sometimes do. It is _too much_ knowledge that has brought me into all my scrapes and difficulties! Do you doubt it, signor? Why, then, was I _first_ sent to prison?--why, but because my mint was frequently preferred to that of his majesty here, and he feared lest _my_ Ferdinands should drive _his_ Ferdinands out of the market! Had I done the same in England, I suppose they would, on discovering my talent, have made me master of their mint, in place of sending me to expiate my offence in a dungeon--_basta_ about that affair!--but when I had given up making Ferdinands, and took to minting _Domitians_, what business was that to the King of Naples, I wonder, unless indeed I had put _his_ name to that tyrant's _head_? Yet he sent me a second time to prison for it, notwithstanding for which in return I have taken the liberty of sending him to a warmer place. See, here's a pretty baioccho--Ferdinand's head on one side, and a '_concordia-Augustorum_' on the other, where the devil and he are holding hands over a lighted altar, he wanting to withdraw his hand,--but the devil's clutch is too tight for that!--whilst a little imp is putting a bit of live coal into his palm, and another is doing the same under his right foot! For four elegant horses in bronze, of which _I forgot the age_, and sold them to St Angelo as _antiques_, I was sent to prison again, and a third time. Though, when it suited _him_ last year to sell off certain old horseflesh that had been many years on his hands as _young_, _his_ purchaser of course got no redress. Out upon that old Birbone! with his galleries, his harems, and his horses;--but he eats too much, and is never well,--a great consolation to me, who might else have repined at his successes; but when I compare my _health_ with his, I bless the good St Januario who keeps me poor! Again, I ought to be grateful to our good Saint that, though men may pretend that I lie and cheat, (which perhaps I do a little,) you never heard any body say of _me_, what all the world says of HIM, that I am _cruel_,--_mai_, you never heard that; and if I make money occasionally in some way that it don't _sound_ well to speak of, what then? I never hoard it up, the lottery office is my banker, and it circulates again presently. And as to cheating, if we look it boldly in the face, and see in what company we cheat, why should I be ashamed of what all the world does here from King Ferdinand, to Beppo Tuzzi of the Mergellina? Didn't Ferdinand try hard to cheat you last year in the sulphur question? and would he not have succeeded, too, unless you had thought of mixing up the sulphur with some nitre and charcoal, and of converting it into a _question of gunpowder_!" "That's true, Coco! and now tell us of your last device for raising the wind." "Here it is," and Coco has presented us with a small opaque lachrymatory, glistening all over in the exquisite irridescence of old glass. "Was it not beautiful?" he enquired. "Yes; and ancient as well," replied we; "the decomposition of the glass showed that, and the elegant and classical form of the vessel showed it too." "Well! he would manufacture just such another before us, if we would like to see it done!" "_Come?_ we should be delighted!" "_Dunque e fatto subito_, now that I have _shown how_ it is to be effected--just as when that great sea-captain, _quel famoso Cristoforo Colombo_"--"Yes, yes! Coco, never mind about _him_ just now." "Ah, your excellency, I perceive, knows the story! Well, here you see is a small clay vessel moulded from the antique; here a small packet which I untie; and here a little gum-water in a phial." We require no other materials--a child might do the rest. In the packet now open, we remark a quantity of a beautiful, many-coloured glass-dust, in the midst of which appear thousands of filmy flakes that have been scraped off from the sides of old lachrymatories, and present every hue of colour. In a twinkling Coco has _gummed_ the vessel all over, and in less than a minute he has rolled round its sides a rainbow robe of the most rich and glowing colours, while not a speck of clay remains visible by which to make out the fraud! "_Eccolo!_" says he, placing the beautiful fabrication in our hand; "_Eccolo!_ do you think that for such a work as _that_ I ought to have been sent for the twentieth time to prison?" Fearful of having our moral sense dazzled _by the glass_ into making some indiscreet admission, we now change the theme. We had heard that morning a good story; it was "the case of Coco _versus_ Casanuova," in which the cleverness of the former rogue had prevailed against his equally astute rival, who had himself been so obliging as to favour us with the full particulars thereof, in words like the following:--"Coco--(you know Coco?")--(Coco and I smiled, for we knew each other perfectly,)--"Well, he presents himself one day before me in a shop in the Piazza degli Orefici, bringing in a coin in his hand, which he throws down carelessly on the counter, asking me what price he should put upon it? On taking it up, I see '[Greek: Yelion],' which, with the common type of the Velian Lion, as we all know, _vale poco_; but, in place of a lion, this had the Athenian _diota_ (or two-eared _amphora_) upon the field of the reverse. Knowing that the rogue was eyeing me to see how I liked it, in order that he might charge for it accordingly, I asked him doubtingly whether _he_ was quite sure it was genuine, (_entertaining no doubt on that subject myself._) 'Rather an ingenious question for a profound connossieur like Casanuova, to put to a poor devil who has the good fortune for once in his life to buy something good. _You_ have no doubt about it; but if you say you have, I will take it to Tuzzi, and get his opinion first.' Fearing to lose it if he did, I confessed that I believed it genuine, and then asked him his price. 'He had _refused_ fifty; we might have it at seventy dollars.' Of course I 'was astonished,' and offered 'forty--Would that do?' No! _honest_ men had but one price; seventy he had said--seventy, he repeated, was the price.' I bought it, and paid for it and took it home, and consulted my books, and _there_ there was no such type to be seen--learned friends who called upon me had never seen its fellow--it was pronounced an _inedited_ coin, as indeed it turned out afterwards to be! The annual meeting of our archaeological society was at hand. I determined to _memorialize_ my coin, and to read my memoir at the meeting. In three weeks I had finished my labours. There were some striking conjectures in the paper, which I went early to deliver. We had waited half an hour for the Prince St Georgio. At last he came. 'Look!' said I, putting the coin into his hands, (and I said not a word beyond this.) Mightily pleased he seemed with it _at once_, looking from me to it and from it to me. I thought he was going to propose for it. At last he spoke--it was but a word; but his emphasis and accent made my ears tingle. '_Excellent!_' said he; but I was reassured on hearing him add, 'Casanuova has the luck of St Angelo, and nobody ever took him in.' Relieved by this announcement, I could now afford to be modest, and said it was but by accident that I had _first_ seen the coin. '_Not first_, Casanuova," said the prince--'but second, I _believe_. I saw it _first_.' '_You!_' said I, aghast; 'you saw this coin, and did not buy it?' '_Costava!_ it cost too much; besides, to tell you the truth, _Coco, who had just made it_, told me it was expressly intended for the cabinet of _quel dottissimo suo amico J. Battista Casanuova_.'" "'Tis all true," said Coco, rubbing his hands; "and I believe I can do almost any thing I _like_ with any of them." "Except not to tell lies, and not to impose upon antiquaries?" "_Caro lei!_ these are the very things I like to _do most_, and do accordingly."