"
Elsewhere M. Rouquet, like M. le Blanc before him, is loud in his
denunciation of the pitiful practices of Vails-giving, which blocks the
vestibule of every English house with an army of servants "ranged in
line, according to their rank," and ready "to receive, or rather exact,
the contribution of every guest." The excellent Jonas Hanway wrote a
pamphlet reprehending this objectionable custom. Hogarth steadily set
his face against it; but Reynolds is reported to have given his man L100
a year for the door. Here, from another place, is a description of one
of those popular auctions, at which, in the _Marriage A-la-Mode_, my
Lady Squanderfieid purchases the _bric-a-brac_ of Sir Timothy Babyhouse,
The scene is probably Cock's in the Piazza at Covent Garden:--"Nothing
is so diverting as this kind of sale--the number of those assembled, the
diverse passions which animate them, the pictures, the auctioneer
himself, his very rostrum, all contribute to the variety of the
spectacle. There you see the faithless broker purchasing in secret what
he openly depreciates; or--to spread a dangerous snare--pretending to
secure with avidity a picture which already belongs to him. There, some
are tempted to buy; and some repent of having bought. There, out of
pique and bravado, another shall pay fifty louis for an article which he
would not have thought worth five and twenty, had he not been ashamed to
draw back when the eyes of a crowded company were upon him.
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