en 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