of

Doushfield, he added that his sales would be continued every Friday following, "during the gentries' stay in town," and held out as a further inducement "a curious invention lights whereby the pictures may be seen as well as by day"-the usual hour for auctions at this period being four o'clock.

Sale by inch of candle was formerly very common, and at one time was prescribed for the sale of goods imported by the East India Company. Whoever last bid before the light expired had the lot knocked down to him. Pepys mentions an instance of this custom in his diary for 1662: "After dinner we met and sold the Weymouth successe and Fellowship hulkes, where pleasant to see how backward men are at first to bid, and yet when the candle is going out how they bawl and dispute afterwards who bid the most first. And here I observed one man cunninger than the rest, that was sure to bid the last man and to carry it, and in giving the reason he told me that just as the flame goes out the smoke descends, which is a thing I never observed before, and by that we do know the instant when to bid last."

As recently as the year 1892, some land belonging to the parish charities was disposed of in this way at the village of Corby, near Kettering. In what were called dumb biddings, the price was put under a candlestick, and it was agreed that no bidding should avail if not equal to that. One of the most interesting of early sales was that of the collection of the great antiquary and amateur, the Earl of Oxford, who bequeathed his library and manuscripts, called the "Harleian Miscellanies," to the British Museum. The announcement brought together a large assemblage of persons of rank and fashion, among the buyers being George Vertue and Horace Walpole, the latter purchasing in addition to a picture by Holbein and many coins "a Roman deep copper dish with a cupid painted on it," for which he gave two guineas. George Vertue, the engraver and disciple of Sir Godfrey Knel

ler, was an indefatigable collector of notes on British art, and these form the basis of Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting in England." The sale was effected by Mr. Christopher Cock at his house in the Piazza, Covent Garden (now the Tavistock Hotel), destined to be for long associated with the history of auctions. It formed part of the mansion once tenanted by Sir Peter Lely, and continued to be famous as Langford's salerooms, and then as those of George Robins. Here Hogarth exhibited his "Marriage à la mode" to the public gratis. The sale of this great artist's pictures at his house, "The Golden Head" in Leicester Fields, presented many peculiar features. One of the conditions was that on the last day of sale, a clock (striking every five minutes) should be placed in the room, and when five minutes after twelve had struck the first picture mentioned in the sale book was to be deemed sold, the second picture when the clock had struck the next five minutes, and so on till the whole nineteen pictures had been sold. Hogarth's celebrated "March of the Guards to Finchley" was disposed of by means of a raffle. A large number of chances were subscribed for, those which remained over being given to the Foundling Hospital. One of these latter winning the prize, the picture was forthwith handed over to the governor of that institution. It is interesting to note that the six paintings of the "Marriage à la mode" were sold at this time for one hundred and twenty guineas, and half a century later realized one thousand. Dr. Richard Mead was one of the most remarkable figures of this period, and his collection of books, coins, statuary, and drawings was the largest formed in his time. Pope was among his patients, and has commemorated his tastes in the lines:

Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,

And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.

This physician, who possessed a mu

seum at the back of his house in Great Ormond Street, is said to have been professionally consulted by Watteau, who painted two pictures for him in memory of his visit. The sale of this collection was affected by Abraham Langford, who was also something of a playwright. There is a long and grandiloquent epitaph on him in St. Pancras churchyard. Some of the verses tell us how "His Summer's Manhood" was "open, fresh, and fair,"

His virtues strict, his manners debonnaire, His autumn rich with wisdom's goodly

fruit

Which every variegated appetite might

suit.

Close by in King Street were to be found the salesrooms of Hutchins, and of Paterson, to whose son Dr. Johnson stood as godfather and for whom he wrote letters of recommendation to Sir Joshua Reynolds. These two. salerooms were constantly filled by eager purchasers of prints and pictures. Some of their frequenters we know, such as the bibliographer IsaaC Gosset the younger, whose deformity subjected him to the coarse gibes of his opponent, Michel Lort. Besides Gough, the editor of Camden's Britannia, were to be seen Caleb Whitefoord, a wine-merchant of literary tastes, who is the hero of Wilkie's picture, "The Letter of Introduction," and many others whose names are noW forgotten. The sale of the collection formed by the Chevalier D'Eon is chiefly interesting on account of the personal characteristics of this extraordinary individual, once the French ambassador at the court of St. James's, who habitually disguised himself as a woman. The question of his sex often proved the subject of bets, and until his death was never set at rest. An auction of his effects took place at Chapman's Rooms in Cornhill, "next Tom's Coffee-House." Some years later a sale was announced at Christie's of "furniture, swords, trinkets, jewels, and all the wearing apparel constituting the wardrobe of a Captain of Dragoons and a French

Lady." Works of art at this period would appear to have been rapidly rising in value, for Horace Walpole, writing to his friend Sir Horace Mann in 1770, tells us of the rage for English portraits: "I have been collecting them," he writes, "for about thirty years, and originally never gave for a mezzotinto above one or two shillings. The lowest are now a crown, most from half-a-guinea to a guinea. Scarce heads in books not worth threepence will sell for five guineas. Two thousand pounds were given for a picture by Guido, and the price of old paintings had tripled or quadrupled in a single lifetime."

We hear much at this time of the famous auctions of James Christie the elder, whose first sale took place in December, 1766, at rooms in Pall Mall formerly occupied by the print warehouse of Richard Dalton. Here the Royal Academy of Arts held its exhibitions for several years. Mr. Christie afterwards moved next door to Gainsborough who lived in the west wing of Schomburg House in Pall Mall. His ingenuity in describing articles put up for sale is well illustrated by a story told of him in connection with the disposal of the effects of John Hunter the surgeon. When, in the sale, he came to a mask Hunter had used to keep his face from stings in his observations on bees, he was fairly posed; and after turning the lot round and round came out with "a most curious and interesting article, a covering for the face used by the South Sea Islanders when travelling, to protect their faces from the snowstorms." Passing mention may here be made of the abortive sale of M. Desenfans' collection of pictures, which were ultimately bequeathed by the owner, French picture-dealer, to Sir Francis Bourgeois, and were in turn left by him to Dulwich College, together with

a

a sum of money wherewith to erect a gallery. In 1794, the whole of Sir Joshua Reynolds's gallery of paintings was sold by order of his executorsone of whom was Edmund Burke-by Mr. Christie "at his rooms, late the

Royal Academy, Pall Mall." The French Revolution caused the dispersal of many fine collections, the principal one being that belonging to the Duke of Orleans. An exhibition of these paintings took place in Mr. Bryan's room in Pall Mall and at the Lyceum in the Strand, and continued open for six months. Many of these pictures found their way to the galleries of Bridgewater and Stafford Houses, and the nation became ultimately possessed of several, including the Resurrection of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo.

Two sales in the first half of the present century have interesting associations connected with them-namely, the. Beckford collection at Fonthill in 1823 and the Strawberry Hill collection in 1842. With regard to the first of these, accommodation for purchasers was provided in a pavilion in the park, beds being charged three and sixpence single and five shillings double. A contemporary notice in the Times says: "He is fortunate who finds a vacant chair within twenty miles of Fonthill. Not a farmhouse, however humble, not a cottage, near Fonthill, but gives shelter to fashion, to beauty, and rank. Ostrich plumes, which, by their very waving, we can trace back to Piccadilly, are seen nodding at a casement window over a depopulated poultry yard." This sale occupied forty-one days, and many curiosities were disposed of-such as a set of ebony chairs from Cardinal Wolsey's palace at Esher, and Tippo Sahib's jade hookah, set in jewels, taken as plunder from his palace at Seringapatam. The Strawberry Hill sale was conducted by George Robins of Bartholomew Lane, who is said to have been one of the most eloquent auctioneers who ever wielded an ivory hammer. His poetical and alluring advertisements were celebrated, and he announced on this occasion that the sale would be "the most distinguished gem that has ever adorned the annals of auctions." Owing, however, to the prevalent lack of interest in such matters, its success was not quite so great

as was anticipated. A large shed had been provided for the purchasers, and many articles of great historical interest were disposed of-such as Anne Boleyn's clock, given her by Henry VII., in silver gilt, and bought for her Majesty the queen; a silver bell made for Pope Clement VII., said to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini; and Cardinal Wolsey's red hat, purchased by Charles Kean for twenty-one pounds. Another curiosity was Dr. Dee's speculum, a round piece of polished kennel-coal, called the Devil's Looking Glass, used for purposes of divination by that Elizabethan necromancer. In the year of the Fonthill sale, James Christie the younger removed to King Street, St. James's Square, where so many historical sales have been effected the Stowe, the Bernal, the Hamilton Palace, and the Fountaine being a few of the most celebrated in recent years.

The little steamer, Leon y Castillo, that plies twice a week between Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Teneriffe, selects the best of all hours for a first glimpse of that picturesque island. You leave a stuffy little cabin and go on deck for a whiff of invigorating air to find land upon the forward horizon heavily revealed between two twilights -the shadowy blue of night, and the cheerless brown of the wide mysterious dawn, lit by the waning moon and the brilliant morning star. It is a revelation of miraculous beauty. The harbor looks like the entrance to a dim paradise, made up of the loveliest mountainlines against a sky of lilac promise, with life asleep along the shore. On one side the unearthly glimmer of a tired moon drooping to extinction; on the other, and penetrating fulgence of the steady star; and between the land of mountains and deep ravines, peak beyond peak, fold upon fold, to this

furthest altitude of snow-hooded Teide, emerging with all the mystery of nature's simplicity out of the silence and peopled gloom of night.

You

A little pier shoots out upon ocean's marbled plain, and the movement of boats and dusk-hued sails getting ready to meet the steamer seems as vague and dim as the stir of a shadowed underworld. The beauty of land wears an aspect of cold and strange remoteness. But when the boat has rocked you across the slip of troubled purple, from whose waves the foam slides backwards as from blocks of shining granite, the romantic charm vanishes. have a vulgar little town instead of a vision of high-arched streets that throw wide banks of shadow along rivers of blinding light, of picturesque plazas and lovely patios. You have been carried on the crests of the laboring waves to a sordid quay, where coated ruffians loaf in quest of coin and gossip, without as much as a red sash or embroidered jacket or cloak among them. By and by, when the sun is up, and you go forth to examine the place, you are further surprised with its ugliness. But for the magnificent girdle of mountains of the deepest purple and the long roll of ocean, you would not even find its strangeness anything of a compensation for its meanness. For an adequate presentment of its varied encircling features you should, after you have looked at Nelson's captured flag in the cathedral, mount the belfry stairs, and there you will see a picture of wide and rocky barrancos, brilliant bits of green spaces, palms and camels accentuating the wild majesty of the mountains, enfoliaged plazas, the highroad to Laguna curying upward round broken meadows, here and there a pretty garden, and Gran Canaria outlined upon the pure sky like folds of soft cloud. Below ugly little lanes invite inspection under enchanting names, such as Calle de la Luz, Calle de la Cruz Verde; and the street of Castille leads to a dull plaza in front of the captain-general's establishment (the imaginative describe it as a palace), and from here queer passages skirt the under line of broken hill-paths,

and lead to a charming avenue of pepper-trees and oleanders, with high under-edges of red geraniums on both sides. From this point Santa Cruz presents a coquettish side view, with its Italian bell-towers, red-brown against the liquid intensity of blue, and an attractive edge of foliage along the rim or the terraces, while the red tiles and white walls under the open fan of the palms are not without a note of quaintness. Away to the verge of the heavens, a wavy world, with its violet and sullen moods, with none of Mediterranean's inland charm; none of its soft white bloom of mist, nor its gem-like glitter, nor its pearl-hued hours of melancholy. Out there lies the trav elled highway, the old Spanish main. The Santa Maria, bearing its precious burden, captained as no other galleon yet had been, rocked upon its perilous billows and was cast windward upon these shores for repair. Here may have stood the leader of the exterminated race, puzzled by a sight so unaccountable as that corded stranger so gallantly bound for unknown ports, and Columbus, looking landwards, must have found food enough for his courageous mind in conjecture upon the inhabiting people. On one side come and go the vessels for South America. and on the other the great liners for New Zealand and the Gold Coast, while yachts and schooners glide in and out the insular sea-roads in a perpetual shifting of masts and sails.

The life of the plaza is unchanged, whether you sojourn on the Peninsula or in the Spanish colonies. Here may you sit within view of the pink-painted fort, and the modest house where Marshal O'Donnell, Duke of Tetuan. was born. Santa Cruz speaks contemptuously enough of the Peninsula. It looks towards Cadiz in sullen envy, and says that it has sent over men as great as any produced in Madrid. "We sent them O'Donnell, and they made a duke of him, but they might just as well have made him regent as that fool Espartero." It also sent Pérez Galdós, the popular novelist, and now the fishermen of the Canaries call their boats by his

name or the names of his favorite heroines. Not that they have read his books, but they regard him as having placed the haughty Peninsula under an obligation to them.

At all hours the plaza has its tale to tell. When the light is fading out of the heavens, you may sit and watch the manœuvres of the conquering officers pacing up and down, with their eye upon some form of subjugated womanhood, fiirting their canes or trailing their swords and gossiping between drinks at the café. Then the sea, in the glamour of sunset, takes on its evening beauty, and mystery creeps into the crude sapphire of the sky. On band nights it is too crowded, though it is always pleasant to hear laughter and social chatter, and watch smiling faces go by in groups. But it is best of all to see the plaza upon forsaken nights. Take the occasion of an unexpected invasion of the drama. Everybody who can afford it goes to the theatre, an edifice of mixed pretensions, where a musical conductor misconducts an inefficient orchestra, and raps out a thin bass accompaniment on a cracked piano, and a prompter irritates the gallery to mutiny by a too audible performance of his duty, while rows of female heads show in the boxes, elaborately decorated, smiling above the flutter of the eternal fan. Those who cannot afford this distraction, shut themselves up in their houses, prisoners of pride and their neighbors' opinion; for Santa Cruz is as proud as any hidalgo in decay. It would not have its poverty detected. You have the place to yourself. A new moon curls like a shred of silver upon the shadowy blue, and the warm and lucent stars shed a twilight above the town lights. Forms and profiles as they move about are oddly revealed, and the scene looks mediæval enough to be a legend or a mystery. You will see a man pass with the bright lining of his capa showing upon his shoulder with operatic grace, and the contrast of dusky beard and pallid cheek suggestive of Almaviva and other beguiling heroes of lattice and lute. Reality is clouded as if by

perfumed dust blown from star to star upon the salt-laden breezes of the sea. So warm is the air, so subtle the scent of brine, so illusive the quiver of the stars and the white shaving of a moon swimming in indigo, that if you happen to be neither blighted nor bored, you are ready enough to count yourself on the rim at least of the garden of Hesperides. Then should the hoarse thrum of a guitar come, carried upon the night wind from the pier below, where the sailors sit, rapping its amorous, unmelodious, insistent notes at judgment, with its thin sweet muffled charm, you are jerked into fancy's enchanted forest upon a sentimental thrill of senses in the blink of an eyelid. What is the sorcery of the guitar? It is the woodenest of instruments, and it lacks melody, yet we cannot hear it in cool blood. It possesses no body. Yet it has the peril of wine. Without art, it can set our pulses dancing. A couple of rough chords and a thin whine for treble, a hollow echo of wood and nimble fingers, broken bars of sweetness like the rainbow-hued bars cast by the sun on a summer tempest and swallowed in the valley of the waters as they recede and are gathered into mountains. Strange for the modern ear to sit on the plaza of a dull Altantic island, and listen to that crude and plaintive staccato, and those heartbroken chords, with their indescribable half-animal and hysterical charm. Some of the queer scraps of song seem to come from the throat of a sixteenthcentury Spaniard.

After musing by starlight on the plaza, your duty is to awake in the twilight of dawn, and then you will taste the untainted freshness of the air blown from Teide as an intoxication. This is the best hour for driving. Let your route be Orotava, that blest spot upon God's earth. You will be fronting the hills, after a cup of chocolate, by the time the sun has got well above the sealine, and melted all the pearly lights in a blaze of color. Mountain rolls beyond mountain, a shimmering revelation of upper worlds, of naked chasms, of wild fastnesses, and solitudes seemingly un