should be put under his charge. Pictures,--he is a travelled man, has
seen and judged the best galleries of Europe, and can speak of them as
a common person cannot. For, mark you, you must have the confidence
of your society, you must be able to be familiar with them, to plant a
happy mot in a graceful manner, to appeal to my lord or the duchess in
such a modest, easy, pleasant way as that her grace should not be hurt
by your allusion to her--nay, amused (like the rest of the company) by
the manner in which it was done.

What is more disgusting than the familiarity of a snob? What more
loathsome than the swaggering quackery of some present holders of the
hammer? There was a late sale, for instance, which made some noise in
the world (I mean the late Lord Gimcrack's, at Dilberry Hill). Ah! what
an opportunity was lost there! I declare solemnly that I believe, but
for the absurd quackery and braggadocio of the advertisements, much
more money would have been bid; people were kept away by the vulgar
trumpeting of the auctioneer, and could not help thinking the things
were worthless that were so outrageously lauded.

They say that sort of Bartholomew-fair advocacy (in which people
are invited to an entertainment by the medium of a hoarse yelling
beef-eater, twenty-four drums, and a jack-pudding turning head over
heels) is absolutely necessary to excite the public attention. What an
error! I say that the refined individual so accosted is more likely to
close his ears, and, shuddering, run away from the booth. Poor Horace
Waddlepoodle! to think that thy gentle accumulation of bricabrac should
have passed away in such a manner! by means of a man who brings down
a butterfly with a blunderbuss, and talks of a pin's head through a
speaking-trumpet! Why, the auctioneer's very voice was enough to crack
the Sevres porcelain and blow the lace into annihilation. Let it be