Old Ignazio.
"Oh dear! what can the matter be?
Oh dear! what shall I do?
Nobody coming to Jockey, and
Nobody coming to Jew!"
What quondam collector at Rome but must recollect that snuffy and gruffy old fellow, Ignazio Vesconali, who lives at the bottom of Scalirata, and has grown old with the Piazza itself! Go down at any hour of the day, and there he was sure to be, either blinking away through his blue goggle glasses, with his cap on, at his door, or at a little shabby table fumbling over curiosities; or creeping over to the coffee-house opposite, to toddle back again, with his cotton pocket-handkerchief, his snuff-box, and his key in hand, to re-arrange his treasures, and utter lamentations that nobody any longer comes to buy. On such occasions we have sometimes entered; and after a "buon giorno," and a remark on the weather, (which, if you abused it, however injuriously, always secured you his assent; for he quarrels now even with the calendar,) he expected you to hope he had sold something lately, to afford him an opportunity to say, "Ma ché, ma niente;" and then you had to sit and listen while he told you all his grievances—how once "a dozen English noblemen had stood all of a row there," and he showed you where, in his shop, fighting for his wares, and buying them almost quicker than he could register the purchases they made; and how sometimes he could sell 500 scudi worth of property before breakfast, and get an appetite by doing so! No! there was not a man of note in England, that had not some day or other been booked by him. All their kindness, no doubt—and then they came not to tease poor Ignazio, but to buy of him. Now a different set of customers dropt in one by one to look at his gems, and to find nothing good enough for them; some tumbling over his antiques, and offering a scudo for his best onyxes; "uno scudo, Santissima Maria Virgine!" others adventuring a whole paul! a price for his best Consular coins!—ah! gli avari! The earth too, once so bountiful, was now as avaricious of parting with her treasures as the English themselves. The fields had ceased to yield their former supplies; and the peasants about Rome would scarce stoop to picking up rubbish, for which, however, they always wanted Ignazio's money. "Ah, poor old man!—che vecchio? old man forsooth! say rather an old dotard, who is unfit to buy, to bargain, or to live!" And then he would ventriloquize once more to himself. "Ah, poor Ignazio! ah, poor old man! your day is indeed gone by." Such appeals were irresistible. So, whenever we had a few scudi to spare, (and it was not quite discreet to go into his shop without,) we used to beg to see some of his boxes of engraved stones; and having pored for a time over wares that had been examined by the most cunning eyes in Rome, would find one of better workmanship, and stop to inquire its price. "Quanto, Signor Ignazio?" and while Signor Ignazio was recollecting himself, we glanced on from one to the other, (the great rule in bargaining being never to appear to know what you are bargaining for!) "Per cinque scudi vi lo do." Viewed thus in the light of a donation, we would think it too high, and tell him so. "Take it for four, then—pigliate lo per quattro;" and at this fresh concession he would grunt a little, like a tame seal in a water-tub! Still we would hesitate, and dare to offer two. "For every body else, he had said impossible,—for us we were padronissimi to take it, as the old man's gift, on our own terms." So we would put it up, and then, elated at our bargain, and at his respect for us, we would remove another "intaglio" from the box; and this time, naming our own price, say with perfect nonchalance, "due scudi." The old fellow would then fumble it up in his snuffy old gloves, and bring it near his snuffy old nose; and having wiped his snuffy old magnifier, would bend his blue goggle glasses over it—and having screamed—"Che! due scudi? what do you mean by two scudi? A stone of this beauty! a living head of Medusa—a front face, too—for two scudi! The serpents in the hair were worth more money—one-half of such a head, were the stone in two, would be worth more money." And then would come in the antistrophe as before—"Ah, povero Ignazio! povero vecchio!"—and we would be shocked, and declare with compunction that we had no intention to cheat him; and he, already "persuasissimo of that," would beg us to say no more, but to put it into our pocket for three. After these preliminaries were settled and paid for, we would be contented to hear him once more recount the tale of his younger days, when he had the antiquity business all to himself; when he married his first wife; had dealings with Demidoff; and knew all that were worth knowing in Rome—both buyers and sellers. "Old age, Signor, is preparing me fast to give up both my business and my life! Buy, buy, now's your time, eccomi! an old man who wants to sell off every thing! name your prices! Don't be afraid, you may offer me any thing now." "Three scudi?" "Impossible I should let you have it for that. It cost me five; but never mind! there's the mask at three scudi. Take it! Any thing else?" "This intaglio?" "You are a capital judge, or you would not have thus picked out my best intaglio—will no colonnati suit?" "No." "Will you be pleased if I prove my friendship for you by sacrificing it at fifteen?" No! "There, take it as our third gift for twelve; but, oh that I should have lived to sell it for that, even to you! But you will come and see me again; I know you will, Dottore mio! And sure you might contrive to spend a few more fees with me than you do, and be all the richer for it into the bargain—what fine opportunities you must have of selling things to your patients, especially to the donne! I wish I was a doctor, that I might carry on my business for a year or two longer!"
Signor Dedomenicis.
"I have a hundred questions to ask," said we, turning into Dedomenicis' curiosity-shop, and casting a furtive glance behind his old armour and arras hangings, to see that there was no other confidant to whom we might be betraying our ignorance. "Dunque—well then, one at a time; è s'accommodi—make yourself at home," said the old dealer, pushing us a chair, and looking humanely communicative, as he adjusted to his temples a huge pair of spectacles, and stood at our side ready to be interrogated.
An old dealer, like a young beauty, when you are together, expects something flattering to be said about his eyes, so "we wished ours were as good as his." He said, "they were younger." "But what was the use of young eyes, or of any eyes," said we, disparaging our own, "that could not make out the wholesomeness of a coin, nor distinguish the patina of antiquity from vulgar verdigris?"
Dedomenicis' cough convinced us that this sentiment of ours was not very far from what he himself believed to be the truth, only he was too polite to say so.
"There!" said we, "look at these bronze bargains of ours, these two counterfeit coins, which have not been a week in our possession, and which C—— has already declared to be false! Oh! would you not have deemed it a happier lot to put up with a blameless blindness, and all its evils, rather than, having eyes in your head, to have disgraced them by such a purchase?" Dedomenicis glances one glance at the false Emperors, and then passes a sentence which banishes them for ever from the society of the Cæsars; while he wonders how we could have hoped to buy a real Piscennius and a Pertinax in the same adventure, and both so well preserved too?
"Were we ignorant of the prices usually set upon the heads of all those emperors who had enjoyed but a few weeks' reign?" Did not every body, for instance, know that the African Gordians, both father and son, were, in bronze, worth their weight in gold? that a Vitellius in bronze was cheap at six pounds? and that he might be considered fortunate indeed who could convert his spare ten-pound notes into as many Pertinax penny-pieces, or come into the possession of a half-penny or a second module, as it is called, of Pescennius Niger, at the same price? Did not every body know that Domitia was coy at £20, and stood out for £25? That Matidia, Mariana, and Plotina smiled upon none who would not give £40 to possess them, and that Annia Faustina was become a priceless piece? Had we been so long returned to Rome and not yet heard of the Matidia now in the keeping of our gallant countryman, General A——, who was jealous (at least so B—— had told him) of showing her even to his best friends, lest she should prove too much for their virtue to withstand, and slept with her, and could not snore securely unless she was by his side? Well, he had paid £40 for her at Thomas's sale in London, and Rollin, on seeing her in Paris, would have gladly detained her there for £50, but the general was not to be bribed; "so you see, dottore mio, it costs a good deal to collect coins even in the baser metal." "So it would appear, indeed, Dedomenicis; and the next time a Pertinax in bronze turns up, we will most pertinaciously refuse to bid for him; or if another Pescennius should ever again cross our path, we will mutter 'Hic Niger est,' and remember to have nothing to do with him."
"And I think," said the old fellow, slily taking off his spectacles, and placing them on the table,—"I think you will not lose much if you adhere to your present intention."