Grant that the auctioneer is a person of sensibility and acquainted with good books, then his calling must give him many a pang as he observes the ignorance and carelessness of his audience. It is better and more fitting that he should know little of his wares. He ought to be well paid for his work, and he is—no man gets so much for mere talk except the lawyer, and perhaps not even he. I do not so much complain of his favoritism. When there is something especially desirable going, I frequently fail to catch his eye, and my rival gets the prize
But in this he is no worse than the Speaker. On the other hand he sometimes loads me up with a thing that I do not want, and in possession of which I would be unwilling to be found dead, pretending that I winked at him—a species of imposition which it is impolitic to resent for fear of being entirely ignored. These discretionary favors are regarded as a practical joke and must not be declined
But what I do complain of is his commercial stolidity, surpassing that of Charles Surface when he sold the portraits of his ancestors. The “bete noir” of the book trade is
THE STOLID AUCTIONEER.
et not a sad ghost
From the scribbling host
Revisit this workaday sphere;
He’ll find in the sequel
All talents are equal
When they come to the auctioneer.
Not a whit cares he
What the book may be,
Whether missal with glorious show,
A folio Shakespeare,
Or an Elzevir,
Or a Tupper, or E. P. Roe.
Without any qualms
He knocks down the Psalms,
Or the chaste Imitatio,
And takes the same pains
To enhance his gains
With a ribald Boccaccio.
He rattles them off,
Not stopping to cough,
He shows no distinction of person;
One minute’s enough
For similar stuff
Like Shelley and Ossian Macpherson.
A Paradise Lost
Is had for less cost
Than a bulky “fifteener” in Greek,
And Addison’s prose
Quite frequently goes
For a tenth of a worthless “unique.”
This formula stale
Of his will avail
For an epitaph meet for his rank,
When dropping his gavel
He falls in the gravel,
“Do I hear nothing more?—gone—to—?