others simply M. Hobbema, others still
Hobbema; that the letters should be small,
irregular, greyish in colour, not too well formed
nor too prominent, generally in the middle
foreground on the ground, and not in the right
or left-hand corners, rather indistinct, and without
date. Rembrandt, should be in the left not
the right corner, in bitumen, with a long-tailed
R: if in full, Rembrandt van Ryn, then the
date should be affixed. A Proudhon, done
before he went to Italy, should be signed in
capitals P. P. P.; after that epoch, and according
to circumstances, Prud'hon, or Pierre Paul
Prud'hon, the letters traced as if with a tremulous
hand. This matter of signatures is
curiously insisted on by virtuosi, even in cases that
admit no question of authenticity. I know a
Diaz, most marked with his marked manner of
ten years ago— so far superior to his present
degeneration— but by some accident not signed,
sold in 1859 for four hundred francs, cheerfully
signed next day by the master, and resold next
year for six hundred francs to the same man
whose bid was arrested a twelvemonth before at
three hundred and forty.

The next best proof of worth after high birth
is good social connexion. Next to signatures
come seals. " You observe, gentlemen," remarks
the expert, as he hands the dubious Corregio to
the commissionnaire, "that the seal on the back
of the frame shows this to have come from the
gallery of Cardinal Fesch." And although it is
as plain as any possible combination of pike-
staves or hand-spikes that his eminence's gallery
never could have warehoused all the works
attributed to that magazine, it is as true as history
and the laws of trade that any one work with
such sealing-waxed proof of respectable local
habitation and associate name sells five, ten,
twenty per cent higher than though it lacked
the cardinal's hat in red wax. A doubtful
Scarabocchio, which, if a body only dare trust to
his own eyes, is a sad waste of oils and pigments,
has gained a certain value by sojourning in the
cabinet of the Marquis of Bricabrac; if it can
be shown that he had it from the dispersion of
the celebrated gallery of the Duke d'Inganno,
its Hotel price is often doubled. Again, as a
man sometimes of low origin and poor character,
and unaccustomed to good company, obtains
credit by having the reputation of being regardless
of expense, so a worthless picture may come
to have money worth by running up an extravagant
bill at the Hotel. The owner sends it there,
gives some one an order to bid up to, say, nine
hundred and fifty, and, acting as his rival, carries
off himself at one thousand francs his own
property that is dear at one hundred francs. When
now he offers it for a real sale to an innocent
amateur, as a charming bit, for a mere honest
trifle of profit on its cost at auction, he has the
commissaire's bill to show in proof. There are
too numerous other tricks practised at the Hotel.
Unhappily they are not peculiar to that institution,
and need not be insisted on. The world
is full of baits and hooks and gudgeons and hard
lines, but abounds in pleasant places too, of
which, despite anything yet said, the Hotel is
one. The dealings there are generally honest.
If people will buy poor pictures sometimes for
good ones, and pay dearly for them, the fault is
oftenest their own. And since they oftenest
derive pleasure from them that harms no one
else, where is the fault? Suppose your
Pittoraccio is not an original after all. What then,
if you are persuaded that it is? But perhaps
you never bought a Pittoraccio, and do not
know what " a plentiful supply of inward
comforts and contentments it hath." I have and
do. It was last year, from the " collection of
M. D., sold on account of his leaving Paris— à
cause de départ." There are M. D.s departing
in this way every winter by the Rue Drouot.
The wayfarer may read on the dead walls large
posters announcing the going of themselves
and effects. What undiscovered bournes they
tend to, why their family initial is always D.,
whether they come back the next year with
more galleries— these are among the mysteries
of Paris. The D. cabinet was not stocked
altogether with masterpieces. I seemed to
recollect having seen parts of it at former similar
sales, and recognised some of my passing
acquaintance from the shops of the Rue Jacob
and the Quais. The auction was advertised to
commence at one o'clock " very precisely,"
which is French time for about two. I went
early and took a front seat. At a quarter-past
two the somewhat dingy object of my hopes was
put upon the table. This was encouraging to
the hopes, for prices rule considerably lower
during the first half-hour or so than afterwards,
when, to speak the language of the place, " la
veute soit chauffée." This warming of the sale
depends partly on the commissaire priseur and
crier and expert, whose respective reputations
and consequent profits depend in turn largely
upon their skill in this sort of calorifaction.
They generally begin by throwing in the really
or supposedly less important articles, without
reference to their catalogue order, by way of
kindling wood as it were. But besides their
stoking and blowing, the house grows
spontaneously more combustible with time. The
magnetic emanations or what not of each
individual are developed by attrition with his right
and left-hand neighbours; the rising sympathies
cumulate and fuse and re-act again with multiplied
force on each individual, and, the official
operators rubbing all the while, a sweeping
electric current is established, running across
the table with ever-increasing force and rapidity,
and bids and cries and cries and bids leap back
and forth like battledore and shuttlecock or live
lightning.

The expert took it from the shelf, run a
sponge over it, gave it a last penetrating look
away beneath the varnish, handed it to the
commissionnaire, turned to the catalogue, and
heralded: Sainte Zitella, by Pittoraccio, No. 47.
"Pittoraccio, No. 47 of the catalogue,
messieurs!" cried the commissaire. " Sainte
Zitella," shouted the crier, " at how much?"—
aside to the expert— "five hundred francs."