There was no lack of this shining talent, oratorical power, and technical tact, amongst the auctioneers of Calcutta, seasoned with humour, pathos, or persuasion, according to the occasion. How often have I heard the merits of a venerable steed proclaimed; his infirmities and defects (with a delicate regard to his presence) lightly touched upon, or at most so disposed, like the shades in a picture, as to heighten and improve the general effect! How frequently have I been pleasantly reminded of the good old maxim “_de mortuis nil nisi bonum_,” when listening to the commendations of a batch of dead and ullaged beer! And how often tempted to make an investment in a cheap “gross of green spectacles,” “a lot of damaged huckaback,” or the like, from a strong impression, fostered by the auctioneers persuasive eloquence, “that they might some day come into use,” a contingent probability largely insisted upon! What a Herculean task it is to conjure money out of some people’s pockets! Consummate tact is requisite to effect this end. What a world of machinery must be put in motion before the movable crank, the owner’s hand, finds its way into that pecuniary receptacle! A bungler may fumble for a month and not find the motive spring, whilst an adept will touch it in a moment. Yes, I see no reason on earth why the auctioneers should not rank with the liberal professions. Does not the craft combine, in an eminent degree, many of the leading features of those professions, which (always considering the predominant turn of the national mind) unaccountably rank higher in public estimation—the special pleading of the lawyer, the eloquence of the senator, and the business-like airs of the merchant? Does not the auctioneer, like another Charles Martel—ay, and with the same weapon, too—knock down his lots with as much effect as the soldier does his? Does he not pronounce orations over the dead, as has been already shown, and display a beautiful morality in covering, as with the mantle of charity, a multitude of defects? Is not his “going, going, gone,” too, a brief and pithy sermon, touchingly calculated to remind us of our common mortality?