"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.