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'The appraiser valued them at four hundred and thirty-five pounds three and sixpence when father died. We have added to them since, but we will reckon them at that. How much does that make with the value of the stock? 'Two thousand one hundred and seventy-six pounds, sixteen shillings and eightpence, said Philip.
Cicero, indeed, regrets the loss of these rude lays; but it is in the character of an antiquarian and a patriot that he speaks, and not of an appraiser of literary merit.
To have the unfeeling hands of creditors, under the sanction of the law, seize upon his lost Willie's portrait, was to him so unexpected and sacrilegious a thing, that he could scarcely realize it, and he stood wrapt in painful, dreamy abstraction, until roused by the direction, "Put it down at a hundred and fifty," given to the appraiser, by one of the trustees.
"The king and queen," wrote Hervey, "looked upon human kind as so many commodities in a market, which, without favor or affection, they considered only in the degree they were useful, and paid for them in that proportion Sir Robert Walpole being sworn appraiser to their Majesties at all these sales." The cringing subserviency of political men was equal to their corruption.
Whoso cherishes friendship for the king, let him take up arms. Prowess in war is the readiest appraiser of men's spirits. Therefore let warriors have no fearfulness and the brave no fickleness: let pleasure quit their soul and yield place to arms. Glory is now appointed for wages; each can be the arbiter of his own renown, and shine by his own right hand.
He looked at a picture much as a dealer in precious stones looks at a diamond, to determine its money-value. "That is from Guido," he said, looking admiringly at a sweet picture, which had always been a favourite of Mr. Morton's, "and it is worth a hundred dollars." "Shall I put it down at that?" asked the appraiser, who had little experience in valuing pictures. "Yes; put it down at one hundred.
You may have John Holden, appraiser and auctioneer, in to set a price on them if yo' will; or yo' may look over books and bills; or, better still, do both, and so check one again t'other; but for t' sake o' making the ground o' the bargain, I state the sum as above; and I reckon it so much capital left in yo'r hands for the use o' which yo're bound to pay us five per cent. quarterly that's one hundred and seven pound ten per annum at least for t' first year; and after it will be reduced by the gradual payment on our money, which must be at the rate of twenty per cent., thus paying us our principal back in five years.
Every trunk was presumed to have a false bottom, and things wrapped up in paper were viewed suspiciously and unrolled. Clothes were being shaken and pawed. There did not seem to be much opportunity for concealment. Herndon now had donned the regulation straw hat of the appraiser, and accompanied by us, posing as visitors, was sauntering about.
He had an uncertain and dilatory tread, the trait of one who hesitates, and decides in doubt, and forthwith repents; being in his prophetic character an appraiser of the probable, and the sport of the possible. He wore many beads in strings around his neck, and big earrings of silver, heavy and costly.
He thought of the peaceful Don Diego and his salary of three pesetas as court painter, which he received only at rare intervals; of his glorious name figuring among those of jesters and barbers in the list of members of the king's household, forced to accept the office of appraiser of masonry to improve his situation, of the shame and humiliation of his last years in order to gain the Cross of Santiago, denying as a crime before the tribunal of the Orders that he had received money for his pictures, declaring with servile pride his position as servant of the king, as though this title were superior to the glory of an artist.
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