Chapter THE SECOND (2)

"You have been somewhat tardy, methinks, in finding your way hither," proceeded her ladyship.

I informed her of my visit to Lord Railton, and its disagreeable termination. She had not heard of it.

"Lord Railton," she continued, "has requested me to hold no intercourse with my son, and his lordship's requests have ever been commands to me. I have not disobeyed him. But I have looked for you. I made no promise to deny admittance to you. You were his friend. When did you see him?"

"Very lately, madam," I answered.

"He is in great difficulty and trouble--is he not?"

I shook my head.

Kind nature pleaded for poor Rupert. The mother attempted to speak--once--twice: her lips trembled: she could not: a flood of tears saved her from choking.

"He is well?" she asked at length.

"Well," I answered, "but for his trials--which are severe indeed."

"What can be done?" inquired Lady Railton.

"To bring him peace of mind--to repair the mischief that has happened--to secure prudence for the future--to save him from utter ruin, I know no remedy save reconciliation with his parents."

Lady Railton sighed deeply, and exclaimed--

"Impossible!"

"Indeed!" said I, as if surprised.

"Lord Railton is inexorable. He has listened to my appeals unmoved: he will listen to them no longer. Unhappy Rupert!"

"Unhappy indeed!" said I.

"His wife is very fair, they say?"

"Lovely, madam!"

"But wilful and extravagant?"

"Wayward, perhaps, but young. Oh Lady Railton, do not revenge too harshly upon a spoiled child of nature and the world, the sins of the world's committing. Mrs Sinclair has a warm and affectionate heart; she is devoted to her husband. Your ladyship's friendship and advice would at once render her all you could hope to find in the wife of your son. Permit me to say that the absence of your countenance has alone been sufficient to"----

"Alas! you urge in vain. I dare not see them!"

"It is a hard saying, madam," I rejoined: "may you not live to repent it!"

Lady Railton rose from her seat, came from behind the screen, and paced her small chamber with perturbation. She suddenly stopped before a cabinet--a drawer of which she unlocked, and produced from it a pocket-book.

"Take this, Mr Wilson," she said in a hurried and faltering voice. "I dare not see him--must not correspond with him. I am his mother, and I feel bitterly, most bitterly for him. But I am Lord Railton's wife, and I know my duty. He has disgraced us--irreparably, irrecoverably. You cannot understand how deep the stain is which our name has suffered; you cannot calculate the wrong inflicted on my husband. Reconciliation is hopeless!"

"And this pocket-book, madam?" I coldly asked.

"Contains an order on my banker for three thousand pounds--all that I have been able to hoard up for my unhappy boy since he deserted us. The sum, I know, is trifling, compared with his exigencies. But what can I do? His own conduct has rendered me helpless."

Poor Lady Railton, to do her justice, suffered much from the struggle between maternal feeling and her mistaken sense of duty. Her eyes filled with tears again, and she sat before me sobbing bitterly.

"Let me entreat your ladyship," I exclaimed with animation, "to make one effort for the redemption of the children whom you may lose for ever by the stern course you now adopt. Your influence with Lord Railton is naturally and deservedly very great. I cannot bring myself to believe that he will be insensible to your appeals, if you will but urge them with the earnestness and tenderness which so well become you. I an satisfied that the difficulties of Mr Sinclair would cease at once, and his happiness as well as your own be secured, if he could find parents and advisers in those to whom he has a right to look for advice and aid. Whatever his extravagance may have been, whatever his youthful follies, I do implore your ladyship to bear in mind, that not he alone is answerable for them, but they also in part who deserted him in the hour of his greatest need. You may save him now--when I next meet your ladyship, the time will have passed away."

"Spare me this anguish," said her ladyship with assumed calmness. "I repeat--it is impossible. The hour may come when it shall be permitted me to satisfy the promptings of my heart. Till that hour arrives, it is but torture to be reminded of my inability and weakness."

"Pardon me, Lady Railton--I have done."

I was about to rise, when her ladyship checked me.

"In that pocket-book, Mr Wilson," she continued, "you will find a correspondence respecting the sale of Sinclair's commission."

"His commission!" said I with surprise, for I had not heard of his desire to sell out before.

"Yes. He now awaits a purchaser of his commission to be gazetted out. I have prevented the sale hitherto. Assure him--not from me, but from yourself, that however slender is the hope now of his father's ultimate forgiveness, he cuts it off entirely by that act. Let the commission be withdrawn at once from the Horse-guards; the draft that accompanies the correspondence will make up to him the sum he loses.

"Am I to present it as a gift from your ladyship?"

"No--yes--as you will; but let him not write or communicate with me in any way. I have engaged to hold no intercourse with him, and I cannot disobey the injunctions of Lord Railton." I rose; her ladyship gave me her hand with an expression of good will, and then suffered me to depart without another word.

Things were really mending. In Lady Railton we had unquestionably a friend, time and opportunity serving. It was of the highest consequence to be assured of that. With her upon our side, I had no fear of eventual peace and harmony, provided measures could be taken for present difficulties; whilst, without her, every effort would have been purposeless, and even worse. Nor was this our only gleam of sunshine. When I returned to Rupert, the glad messenger of good tidings, I found that another friend had been sent by Providence to the rescue. Amongst the many high-born and eminent individuals whom the beauty and genius of Elinor had attracted to the gay habitation of Rupert Sinclair, was one who enjoyed, in an especial degree, the favour of his sovereign, and who was intimately connected by ties of blood and friendship with the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces. The Earl of Minden had little to recommend him beyond his influence with the court and the powers that were. He belonged to an old family, of which he was the last lineal representative; was master of unbounded wealth, but was selfish, grasping, and mean to the last degree. He had a small body, but still smaller mind. Generation after generation, the head of the family to which he belonged, had held high office in the state, and had helped to govern the country without genius for statesmanship, or the ordinary ability of their humble business men. Office came to them as a matter of right, and custom had induced a people, slow to interfere with prescription, to regard the Earls of Minden as divinely appointed rulers, whom it would be sacrilege to depose. By marriage, the Earl of Minden was connected with the chief families of England: he had represented his king and country at the principal courts of Europe, where his magnificence and prodigality--for meanness itself may be lavish--had gained for him, as a matter of course, inordinate admiration and regard. Powerful with the ministry--the owner of four boroughs--the acknowledged friend, and even associate of royalty--what commoner did not feel honoured by his patronage?--what noble not gratified by his esteem? Lord Minden had but few of the weaknesses common to mankind. Proud and self-sufficient, he acknowledged no supremacy but that of woman. The only graceful infirmity of which his contemporaries could accuse his lordship, and to which posterity might point, was the infirmity of the best and bravest--that of a facile heart in the affairs of love.

Lord Minden, charmed by the bewitching grace of Elinor Sinclair, had, as it were, gladly resigned himself to its sweet influence. He was never happier, after what were deemed the fatigues of office, than in the brilliant assembly which she could summon at her bidding; never so gay as when listening at her side to the arch sallies which drew smiles of approval from lips that seldom cared to relax. The overbearing peer was content to play the humblest part in the scene of which she was the heroine, and to which she imparted a life and spirit that were sought in vain elsewhere. The intervention of Lady Railton had been already superseded by the generosity of one far more influential. The Earl of Minden himself had taken Rupert under his all-powerful wing. Not only was the commission restored, but promises of advancement were made, and the most flattering assurances of friendship and regard liberally offered. Lady Railton's draft, at her own request, was applied to the payment of a pressing debt. I contrived to make her acquainted with the new and incalculable acquisition that had been made. The information had all the effect I could desire; her ladyship, dazzled by the brilliancy of the prospect, and eager to make as much of it as she could, to my great astonishment sent for me, and actually opened negotiations for an interview between herself and her so recently discarded son. Oh world! world!

Before these negotiations, however, could lead to any satisfactory result, a new colour was given to the state of things, by some incidents of a most disagreeable and painful character. I was sitting in my room one morning, conning in my mind the most advisable means to adopt for the presentation of Sinclair at the parental abode, when a modest knock at my door announced a visitor of humble rank. My request to "walk in" was timidly responded to by a very old friend, in the shape of John Humphrys, the valet of Sinclair, and the oldest servant in his establishment. John had nursed his master on his knee, having been himself nursed in the house of Lord Railton's father, whose coachman had acknowledged John for his son. John had never been married, but he loved his master as faithfully as though he had been his own child, and had resigned as good a situation as any in the kingdom to follow the fortunes of the exile, whatever they might be. With this unbounded reverence for Rupert, Humphrys regarded Rupert's former instructor in the light of a demigod.

"Ah, John, is it you?" said I. "Step in, old friend, and be seated."

John obeyed awkwardly, twirled his hat about, coughed and hemmed, but said nothing.

"Well, Humphrys, what news?" I continued, to give him confidence.

Humphrys shook his head despondingly.

I grew alarmed. "Any thing amiss?" I exclaimed. "Mr Sinclair ill, or"----

"All well--in health, sir," stammered John--"all well there. I--I am going, sir."

"Going!"

"Yes, sir," said Humphrys in a whisper, and getting up to close the door. "My heart's broke."

"Don't desert your master now, John," said I encouragingly. "You have weathered the storm hitherto. Things are mending. Take my word for it, we shall be in smooth water presently."

Humphrys shook his head again.

"Never, sir!" said he with emphasis, "as sure as my name's John."

"Explain yourself, Humphrys. What is it you have learned?"

"Too much, sir. I can bear it no longer. It is the common talk of the servants! I would have stayed with him for a crust till death, but I cannot hear him so spoken of."

"You frighten me. Go on."

"I ask your forgiveness, Mr Wilson," proceeded Humphrys, mumbling on, "but there are strange things said, and I didn't believe them at first,--and I was ready to knock the man down that hinted them to me--and I would have done it,--but I have seen, sir--with my own eyes--I wish I had been blind!" suddenly and passionately exclaimed the good fellow, his eyes overflowing with honest tears.

"Man, man!" said I hastily and vexed. "You talk in riddles. What is it you drive at?"

"Can't you guess, sir?" he answered meaningly.

"Guess?"

"Yes, sir,--Mrs Sinclair!"

"Mrs Sinclair?"

"And Lord Minden."

"Lord Minden! For God sake"--

"Hush, sir!" said John, putting his finger to his lips. "I wouldn't have any body overhear us for the world. But it's true, it's true, as I am a living man."

"It is a lie!" I cried--"an infamous and slanderous lie! Some tale of a discharged and disappointed servant--a base conspiracy to destroy a good man's character. For shame, John Humphrys--for shame!"

"I don't wonder at you, sir," continued Humphrys. "They were my own words; and, until I was satisfied with my own eyes of the truth of what I had heard, I wouldn't have believed an angel from heaven. God knows, Mr Wilson, it is too true. We have lived to see terrible things, sir."

I entreated Humphrys to be still more explicit, and he was so. His communication went to show that the interference of Lord Minden in the affairs of his master was far from being disinterested, and that the price to be exacted for the preferment was much too great to make preferment or even life desirable to Rupert Sinclair. If I was horrorstruck at this announcement, how shall I describe my feelings when he further stated, with a serious and touching earnestness, that, as he hoped for salvation hereafter, he firmly believed that Rupert Sinclair was a party to his own dishonour. I was about to strike the fellow to the earth for his audacity; but I reflected for a moment, and was relieved of a load of oppression. I could have laughed outright, so overjoyed did I at once become, with the sudden upsetting of this tremendous fabrication. Sinclair a party to his own dishonour! Any thing short of that might have found me credulous. That accusation would have destroyed the unimpeached evidence of saints. I recovered myself and spoke.

"You are an honest man, John Humphrys," said I, "a good servant, and faithful, I believe. But go your ways, and let not the wicked impose upon you more. Your tale is too good by half. Tell your informants, that, if they look for success, they must be less ambitious: if they desire to bring conviction to their listeners, they must not prove so much. And beware"--I proceeded in a more serious tone--"how you give currency to the slander you have brought to me. You love your master. Show your fidelity by treating this calumny with the scorn it merits."

"Sir," answered Humphrys, "if I were to be called from this world to-night, I could not retract the words I have spoken. I have not hinted to another what, alas! I know to be true. You may be sure I have no desire to circulate Mr Sinclair's infamy. I shall leave his service, for with him I can no longer live,--and you will soon learn whether or not I have uttered the truth. Oh dear! oh dear!" he added, with a sigh of despair,--"what will the world say?"

I dismissed John Humphrys, and turned to my own affairs. It was neither prudent nor becoming to listen further to the revelations of such a person; I would not even permit him to explain to me how he had arrived at the convictions which no doubt he honestly entertained. It was sufficient to hear the charges he brought against poor Rupert, to be convinced that the man was grossly deceived; that he had been cruelly imposed upon by vicious and vindictive men. But, could I be otherwise than deeply aggrieved by the rumour which had arisen, and which was not likely to lose on the lips of those who would be too eager to give it currency? It was a new and unexpected element in the complicated misfortunes of Lord Railton's house. _Unexpected?_ What, Walter Wilson, and had not suspicions crossed your mind before, of the probability of such slander? Had you not many times angrily repulsed intruding thoughts that savoured of uncharitableness towards the volatile and beauteous wife? Had not prejudice before her marriage rendered you cruel; and experience since--did it not tend, if not to foster cruelty, to sustain alarm? _But Rupert a party to his own dishonour!_ Monstrous! Ridiculous! Absurd!

Either the perseverance of Lady Railton, or the magic power of Lord Minden's name, had achieved a miracle. The stony and stubborn heart of Lord Railton was mollified. True, he hesitated to forgive his son; true, he would not see him; but he graciously submitted to be spoken to on his son's affairs, and even went so far as to admit me to an audience, in order that I might explain, as well as I knew them, the difficulties under which Mr Rupert Sinclair at present laboured. The doors of Lord Railton's house opened wide on the auspicious morning. The sun shone brilliantly in Grosvenor Square. The porter was a living smile from head to foot. The under butler all blandness and honied words. He rubbed his hands when he received me, bowed patronisingly and preceded me to his lordship's study with the air of one who knew which way the wind was, and that it was blowing pleasantly. There was a frozen air about the house when I had visited his lordship before--now it was summer-like and warm. Then every thing seemed bound with iron clasps,--men's mouths, and hearts, and minds; and even doors and windows. Now, every thing looked free and open, pleasant, hospitable, inviting. Could it be that I had changed,--or was it only that Lord Railton's note was different, and that the universal heart of that great house had pitched itself to the prevailing key?

No word of apology was offered for former rudeness. His lordship, as before, presented me with his finger, and then proceeded to our business. He had heard, he said, of Lord Minden's kind interference on behalf of his son, who was indeed most unworthy of his lordship's favourable notice; nay, he had been spoken to by Lord Minden himself, and desirous as he was at all times to comply with the wishes of any member of His Majesty's government, he could not but feel, that when their wishes pointed to the advancement of his own flesh and blood, there was additional reason for listening, to all they had to urge. For his part, if Lord Minden should feel justified in extending his patronage to Mr Sinclair, he, Lord Railton, on his side, should deem it a matter of grave consideration, whether it would not be advisable to extricate the object of Lord Minden's favor from the liabilities which he had thoughtlessly incurred. Not that Mr Sinclair must look for pardon--or reconciliation--yet; that is to say, until Lord Minden should be satisfied that his protégé had deserved the gracious favour of His Majesty, and had shown himself worthy of the condescension, &c. &c. &c.

The upshot of the long harangue was, that as soon as Lord Minden should aid in promoting Sinclair, Lord Railton would be ready to pay his debts--and to receive terms for peace, provided the patronage of the commander-in-chief continued to rest upon the fortunate scapegrace, and His Majesty thought him still a fit object for the exercise of his royal favour. Translated into honest English, Lord Railton's proposition was neither more nor less than this,--"I will forgive my son, as soon as circumstances render my forgiveness not worth a button to him. I will withhold it so long as it is necessary to save him from ruin, and to restore him to tranquillity." A right worldly proposition too!

Lord Railton requested, as a preliminary step, to be informed of the exact state of his son's affairs; and I, as mediator, undertook to lay it before his lordship. I quitted the mansion in Grosvenor Square to procure at once the necessary documents from Sinclair. Approaching the house of the latter, I perceived standing before the door two horses and a groom. I advanced, knocked, and was informed that groom and horses were the property of the Earl of Minden, who was then with Mrs Sinclair, and that Mr Sinclair himself was from home. I had no right to feel uncomfortable at this announcement, yet uncomfortable I was, in spite of myself. "When does Mr Sinclair return?" I asked.

The two lackeys who listened to my question exchanged an almost imperceptible smile, and replied, that "they could not tell." That smile passed like a dagger to my heart.

I hesitated for a moment--left my card--and then withdrew.

I had not proceeded to the corner of the street before I turned round instinctively, and without a thought. To my joy I perceived Rupert making his way from the other extremity of the street to his own door. I moved to meet him. He came nearer and nearer--approached within sight of the horses and groom--and then turned back. What did it mean? Why did he not go home? I grew giddy with coming apprehensions. Whilst I stood motionless on the path, I felt a touch upon my shoulder. I perceived John Humphrys.

"Here, sir," said the man, "you have seen with your own eyes what I have seen every day for the last month. As soon as Lord Minden arrives, Mr Sinclair goes out, and never returns until he takes his departure. If he should by chance return whilst his lordship's horse is standing there, he walks away, and does not think of coming back until"----

"It is a lie! a dream!" I exclaimed, almost bewildered. "It cannot be!"

"I wish to say nothing, sir," proceeded Humphrys. "You have seen, you have seen!"

"I have! I have!" I cried, coming to myself. "I wash my hands of him and his. Father of Heaven! can such wickedness exist--and in _him_, in _him_? But I have done with him for ever!"

And so saying, I fled maniac-like from the accursed spot, and vowed in my excitement and indignation to return no more. I kept my word.

MORE ROGUES IN OUTLINE.

THE SICK ANTIQUARY.

"Aspettar e non venire,
Star in letto e non dormire.
Son' due cose da morire."

_Italian Proverb._

Three years are passed since we last visited Herr Ascherson, and we once more find ourselves, with considerably improved tact and knowledge, both as to virtuosi and virtu, ringing at the well-known bell! On the door being unbarred to us, we are sorry to hear that he is now a great invalid, and confined to bed. "I hope we don't disturb you, Mr Ascherson," said we, as a half-witted slattern of fifty opened the door of the sick man's room, and discovered to us something alarmingly like Cheops redivivus, reclining on a Codrus-looking couch, which was too short to receive his whole body save diagonally, in which position he accordingly lay. Upon hearing these words, the much-swathed object suddenly draws itself up in bed; and after looking keenly to make us out in the dusk, (as if he suspected a visit of cajoling rather than condolence.) his eye lost its anxious look, and his features gradually expanded, when he saw at a glance that we were come, not to cheat, but to cheer him. The first words he uttered were--"_Ja, ja_; dat is mein nobil freund the Doctor;" and then, falling back, he resigned himself to his pains, like a man who has been long trained to suffer. We ask after his health. The poor invalid shakes his head, and tells us, groaning, that he was "sehr krank, very ill indeed; had much dolors but no slipp;" apologising also for having sent for some 10 pi. which we owed him, and which "it was need," so he told us, "to pay his medicine mit." Really concerned to see one whom we had so recently known under worldly circumstances so unlike the present, so suffering, so poor, and so solitary, we told him that we had been intending to call on him that very day for that very purpose--observing, by way of consoling his feelings, that it was not to be expected "that a man who had laid out so much money of the _present_ currency to procure fine specimens of one that was out of date, could be quite so well off in ready cash as those whose money was all in hard coin at their bankers. "_Ja, ja_," it was even so; and then, his pains remitting for a moment, he proceeded to explain, for our satisfaction, how he had become so short of the needful supplies. "Tis three monate seyne mein freund Vinhler went to Paris--(an honest and heart-good man, Mr Vinhler)--to whom this commission I consign:--'See you give a careful _eye-blink_ to this 9000 ducats, which you must take mit you to Paris. There in the house of Furet you shall _become_ some moneys, which you shall send to me directly; and mit these ducats you shall also pay their consignment.' Well, it was a simple _direct_, als any childer might do. So Vinhler takes my money, gets to Paris, calls and _pays_ Mr Furet, and writes that he will be back in _Neapoli_ in a week. So I stay! Drei monate I stay, and no Mr Vinhler come! Then lastly, when I hav begin to _scold myself_, two days seyne, comes _eine briefe_, and says, 'I hav been stopt here for three weeks by what I then foresaw not when I did write you lastly. I am promised to marry Herr Furet's daughter, and we mak the marriage in eine monate. I am sorry for the delay about your monete, but shall bring them mit Mrs Vinhler and myself to Neapoli, when we arrive!" So, while he is happy mit his Julia in Paris, I cannot _become_ my Julias that I hav bought; and I hav lost much by this man's delay. Ah! (continued he,) _whenever_ he had felt mein dolors," (the poor man had now wrought himself up into a painful excitement,) "my no slipp, this _unendlich_ irritation, this torment to pay the Doctor, for no gute--my loss of practice, my loss of friends, my physique so bad, _mein eine samkeit_ so dull--he should surely have sent me that _cassetta_ of coins to make me a little more gay." Being obliged to quit Naples suddenly, we left him in the midst of his pains, which had been wholly unrelieved by our medication; fretting more and more daily at the non-arrival of his friend; with nobody to _visit_ him but the needy Leech, who, having asked himself--

"And will my patient _pay_?
And _can_ he swallow draughts until his dying day?"

thinks no further _self_-interrogatory needful; with none to _inquire_ after him, save only the peasants, whose findings he is too ill to look at, and too poor to purchase; and Death's grim _auctioneer, who undertakes_ for the district; and who, when he has made the daily inquiry at his door, not to lose further time, begins to ply his small hammer, and is tap-tap-tapping away for somebody else, till _wanted_. Oh! who would change places with a sick antiquary, whose _conscience_, though he sleeps, is awake to torment him, and whose dreams, if he dream, are of rifled tombs, profaned temples, Charon and his boat!

"Nocte, brevem si forte indulsit cura soporem,
Et toto versato toro, jam membra quiescunt,
Continuo _templum et violati numinis aras_,
Et quod præcipuis mentem sudoribus urget,
Se _vidit_ in somnis!"

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."

"And yet it is annoying not to know the difference between the works of those _Paduan_ brothers, of a recent century, and such as really belong to the old Roman mint;" saying which we began to study them afresh, as a policeman would do to a rogue, whom he expected to meet again. "Is this knowledge, dear Dedomenicis, to be acquired 'per càrita?' let us not waste our time, if it be not." "_Lei lo sapra!_ it will come in good time. _Pazienza!_ be patient! you know our proverb--'time and straw ripen medlars,' and your judgment will mature in time, _just as the medlars do_."

Crude as an unripe medlar though our judgment certainly then _was_, still the prospect of its _mellowing into unsoundness at last_ was by no means consolatory; and so we told him, pocketing our false coins, and going home to consult the memorandum of their price,--here it is! _Eccola!_ as it was most ingeniously registered by us at the time--"Nov. 7, 1840--Bought to-day of a peasant on his way from Ricci to Rome, two _beautiful coins_, a Pertinax and a Pescennius Niger, in _perfect preservation_! only paid £5 for the two!! the _simple_ contadino, who can't read the epigraphes, asks whether they are not Nero's!!"[54]

A ring at the bell, and our courier has announced Signor Dedomenicis. "By all means, show him in then,"--for he had come, a year later, to see coins we had picked up during our summer trip to Sicily. "There," said we gaily, and to put him in a good humour at once, (for the remark showed we had made ourselves master of his physiognomy),--"there, Dedomenicis, is a Ptolemy Evergetes, who was, to judge by his coins, your very prototype--it is your nose--your chin--your"----

"Suppose you make it mine altogether then," said he slily; but we "prized it too much, on this very account, to part with it!" After which we go to the nearest cabinet in the room--unlock the door, take out drawer No. 1, marked Sicilian, and _rare_; and in the pride of our young beginnings, and little knowing what we were to bring upon ourselves in so doing,--

"Midst hopes, and fears that kindle hopes.
A pleasing anxious throng;
And shrewd suspicions often lull'd,
But now returning strong,"--

we hand over the tray to Dedomenicis, whose running commentary, as soon as he had brought it into the field of his spectacles, was really appalling; and he plied it as destructively as a Sikh battery, or a Perkins's steam gun.

Prepared to see him take out the first coin in the row, to subject it to his magnifier, to turn it round, now on this side, now on that, and then to pause, ere he could decide upon it, little could we have supposed that in a second his battery was to commence fire; and that in less than a minute, he would have passed a summary sentence upon every coin of the lot.

"_One--two--three._"--Thus it began; "_roba commune_--common as blackberries; (four, five, six,) _niente di buono_--good for what you can get for them; (seven, eight, nine,) _Idem_; (ten, eleven, twelve,) _Idem_; thirteen, _not_ of Messina, as it pretended to be; and here had sold us a _Neapolitan cat_ in place of a _Sicilian hare_!" "_Come!_ a cat?" (for we called to mind what each of puss's _nine_ lives had cost us, and determined to die game for it), "_that_ coin a _counterfeit_?" "Si--Sig-no-re!" in that sort of sing-song gamut twang in which one Roman answers another's incredulity--"_anzi falsissimo_," with a most provoking lengthening out of the second syllable of that most provoking superlative; he knew all about its fabrication; the _gentleman_ who made these coins was an acquaintance--not a _friend_ of his; the original coin being in request, and somewhat expensive, he had contrived to get up a new issue of the Messina Hare,[55] which was much in vogue, and seemed, like Gay's Hare, to court an extensive acquaintance, and many friends. "That _Himera_[56] hen is of a brood that never lays golden eggs, and the sooner you can get rid of her the better. Time was when such poultry fetched its price; now, thanks to the prolific process of our modern hatchings, we see her as often in the market as widgeon, snipe, or plovers. _That's_ a fine lion; 'tis a pity you've no lioness to match him; but one such real _Rhegium leone_ is worth a host of counterfeits,--'_unus, sane, at Leo_'. As to your Ptolemies' eagles here, at least they are well preserved, and that always should give a coin some claim to a place in a _beginner's_ collection; though to us dealers, who see many of them, these eagles at last become somewhat uninteresting and vulgar birds. What a collection is here of Hieros[57] on horseback, all in good plight too! Well, I might have bought _in_ or _out_ of these ranks myself; but _I_ should not, I think, like you, have purchased the whole troop--of course you paid but little for them." "Yes," said we timidly, "not overmuch, not more than they were worth perhaps, six pauls a-piece," and we coughed nervously, and expected him to speak encouragingly; but he said nothing, and proceeded with his scrutiny of our box. "_Per Bacco!_ What a quantity of cuttlefish! Methinks Syracuse has rather overdone you with her _Lobigo_, but _that_ at least is genuine, for 'tis too cheap to make money of by imitation. This of _Naxos_ will do. _This_ of Tarentum, _va bene!_ this of _Locri, corresponde_." A faint "bravo!" escapes him on taking up an Athenian Tetradrachm, with the _Archer's_ name on the field; but he takes no note, has no "winged words" to throw away upon our winged horses, though every nag of them, we know, came from Corinth or from Argos.

The bearded corn of Metapontus, with Ceres or Mars on the reverse: Arion on his dolphin--that beautiful, most beautiful of coins--were, together with sundry others, all too common for his antiquarian eye to take pleasure in; he sought something less frequently presented to it, and at last he found it in a Croton coin with a rare reverse, which, "would we sell him, he would take at twenty dollars, and pay us in _living_ silver." A bow told him we were not disposed to part with it. And now he comes to what we consider to be our finest piece,--our Lipari bronze! And on it is a fat _dolphin_ sporting on a _green_ sea. Dedomenicis' manner is vastly discouraging, and we are prepared for new disappointment, yet we could have sworn that _that_ coin was genuine. But if false, as he believes it to be, why then not have done with it? why put it down to take it up _again_? why ask whether _we_ don't repute it false, when he knows we know nothing of the matter? And why _mouse_ it so closely under his keen eye, and look round the rim of it, and examine the face of it, and appear as if he would penetrate into its very soul,[58] and get at its history? Oh! 'tis all right, then; if "he may be mistaken," doubtless he _is_ so: and this is confirmed by his now proposing--thinking an exchange no robbery, of course--to exchange it for us. Ingenuous man! who hadst twice invoked the saints and the Madonna in our behalf when thou heardest the price we paid for our unlucky Hare; and when thou knewest how C---- had beguiled us into taking, and paying for a _Roman_, the price of an _Etruscan_ "As;" and now thou wouldst have robbed us of our best coin, have deprived us of the very _Delphin classic_ of our collection; it won't do! Our Messenian hare is welcome, but, old æruscator, we cannot let you swim away on our dolphin; and we rise to _replace him_ in our _monetaro_ accordingly.

A third interview with Dedomenicis is recorded in our entry-book of such matters.--"Here are the coins, Signor, which you gave me to clean last week: they are ten in number, for which you owe me as many pauls.--_Eccole!_" "Ah," said we, "you have not made much of them, I fear." "Look and see," was the laconic reply. By which time we had taken up the first, and were pleased to find that an Augustus, whose lineaments we could hardly recognise, when we gave him to Dedomenicis to _scale_, had come back to us perfectly restored. "Why, Dedomenicis," said we, "this is a restitution better than Trajan's, of this very Emperor's coinage; for that, after all, was but the _imitation_ of an old mint; but yours the _restoration_ of the old one itself. Henceforth I prefer _Dedomenicis' restituit_ to _Trajan's restituit_." "Well, then, when you have looked over the others, you will, I dare say, pay these and them at the same rate, as if they had been the issues of that Emperor."[59] We were indeed surprised at what we saw, so much had all our coins gained by the process to which Dedomenicis had subjected them. The second we took up represented the _Ostian harbour_, (Portus Ostiensis.) We had given it to him with a _foul bottom_--it was restored to us with its basin cleared out, and with all its shipping, just as it used to look in the days of Nero; in another, the whole arena of the Colosseum had been disencumbered; in another, Antonine's column shone bright from top to bottom; here we saw _Honos et Virtus_ (honour and military prowess) again taking the field; here the scales of Justice once more appeared, and librated freely in her hand; here Hope resumed her green trefoil; Pudicity _un_veils her face; and there sat Fecundity on a curule seat, with all her family about her; lastly, there were those three scandalous sisters of Caligula--the Misses _Money_ (Moneta,)[60]--standing together with their arms intertwined, and their names at their backs. All these ten restitutions cost only ten pauls! "And how did you manage to clean then so well, Dedomenicis?" "_Col tempo ed il temperino_,"--with time and a penknife: "_Ma ci vuo il genio_,"--you must have a talent for it.

SCALING A COIN.

"_Ci vuo il genio_,"--he was right; and think you 'tis so easy or simple a thing to clean a coin? to unmask an empress, pertinacious in her disguise, or to _scrape_ acquaintance with emperors? Try it;--not that you will succeed; but that the difficulties which you are thus made to encounter in the attempt, will dispose you the more readily to do justice to the skill of those who succeed in this delicate process, which, like the finer operations of surgery, requires at once precision and address, great nicety in the handling of your instrument; while the importance attached to the operation itself makes the successful performance of it not a little desirable. The penknife, guided by a _dexterous_ hand, may light upon a discovery that has been buried for ages; and a pin's point may make revelations sufficient to adjust some obscure point in history. Who knows what face may now lie hid (_facies dicatur an ulcus?_) under some obscure coating of paste? What an it be a Vitellius; what if a Pertinax should reveal himself? or suppose, when you have removed the foul _larvæ_, you _undermine_ a Matidia! a Plotina!! an Annia Faustina!!! and your fortune is made! 'Tis a lottery, we admit. But the very principle of the excitement--the charm is, that you know not what _may_ turn up; for a less chance, you may possibly have bought a "Terno" in a Frankfort lottery, the chance of an estate on the Moselle! But there are small prizes to be picked up occasionally--and here's a case in point:--"I was one day sauntering," said our friend C----, "by the tomb of Cecilia Metella, when a peasant came up with a handful of very dirty-looking coins, so firmly encrusted with mortar, that it seemed absurd to attempt its removal. Having nothing particular to do, and liking the wild quiet of the spot, I gave some 'baiocchi' to the man; and taking my seat on a bit of the old aqueduct, I opened my penknife, and began to scrape away. At first I saw the _trace_ of a letter; and digging round it, I at length disinterred a large M----a Roman M! It was probably Maximin, or his son Maximus, that I then had under my thumb; but it _might_ be a Marinus, in which case it was a valuable coin; so I wrought on with renewed vigour, and presently an _L_ was in the _field_. A better prospect this than the last; for if it turned out to be an Æmilianus, I should have made a good morning's work of it--and it was so! Little by little, line by line, grain by grain, I opened the field, till _C. Julius Æmilianus, Pontif: Max: in a full epigraphe, shone forth with the imperial_ head in full relief, all in a bright emerald patina. I have seen several Æmilianuses, but none like that; and it cost me only a penny."