If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire and

Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light on the

strangest contrasts laughable and tearful: where you may be gentle and

pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect propriety: it is at one of

those public assemblies, a crowd of which are advertised every day in

the last page of the Times newspaper, and over which the late Mr.

George Robins used to preside with so much dignity. There are very few

London people, as I fancy, who have not attended at these meetings, and

all with a taste for moralizing must have thought, with a sensation and

interest not a little startling and queer, of the day when their turn

shall come too, and Mr. Hammerdown will sell by the orders of Diogenes'

assignees, or will be instructed by the executors, to offer to public

competition, the library, furniture, plate, wardrobe, and choice cellar

of wines of Epicurus deceased.

Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity Fairian, as he

witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed friend, can't

but feel some sympathies and regret. My Lord Dives's remains are in the

family vault: the statuaries are cutting an inscription veraciously

commemorating his virtues, and the sorrows of his heir, who is

disposing of his goods. What guest at Dives's table can pass the

familiar house without a sigh?--the familiar house of which the lights

used to shine so cheerfully at seven o'clock, of which the hall-doors

opened so readily, of which the obsequious servants, as you passed up

the comfortable stair, sounded your name from landing to landing, until

it reached the apartment where jolly old Dives welcomed his friends!

What a number of them he had; and what a noble way of entertaining

them. How witty people used to be here who were morose when they got

out of the door; and how courteous and friendly men who slandered and

hated each other everywhere else! He was pompous, but with such a cook

what would one not swallow? he was rather dull, perhaps, but would not

such wine make any conversation pleasant? We must get some of his

Burgundy at any price, the mourners cry at his club. "I got this box

at old Dives's sale," Pincher says, handing it round, "one of Louis

XV's mistresses--pretty thing, is it not?--sweet miniature," and they

talk of the way in which young Dives is dissipating his fortune.

How changed the house is, though! The front is patched over with

bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in staring

capitals. They have hung a shred of carpet out of an upstairs

window--a half dozen of porters are lounging on the dirty steps--the

hall swarms with dingy guests of oriental countenance, who thrust

printed cards into your hand, and offer to bid. Old women and amateurs

have invaded the upper apartments, pinching the bed-curtains, poking

into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe

drawers to and fro. Enterprising young housekeepers are measuring the

looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new menage

(Snob will brag for years that he has purchased this or that at Dives's

sale), and Mr. Hammerdown is sitting on the great mahogany

dining-tables, in the dining-room below, waving the ivory hammer, and

employing all the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason,

despair; shouting to his people; satirizing Mr. Davids for his

sluggishness; inspiriting Mr. Moss into action; imploring, commanding,

bellowing, until down comes the hammer like fate, and we pass to the

next lot. O Dives, who would ever have thought, as we sat round the

broad table sparkling with plate and spotless linen, to have seen such

a dish at the head of it as that roaring auctioneer?




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