Birbone I.
Signor Rusca.
| "Rusca the lawyer, an exceeding knave."—Pope. "Currunt verba licet, manus est velocior illis Nondum linguâ suâ, 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 archæology. 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.