Chapter 3

"Sally," said I, "your ladyship is an angel;" and so, having kissed each of my daughters, who were in progress of dressing, I descended the stairs, to begin the auspicious day in which I reached the apex of my greatness.--Never shall I forget the bows--the civilities--the congratulations--sheriffs bending before me--the Recorder smiling--the Common Sergeant at my feet--the pageant was intoxicating; and when, after having breakfasted, I stepped into that glazed and gilded house upon wheels, called the state coach, and saw my sword bearer pop himself into one of the boots, with the sword of state in his hand, I was lost in ecstasy, I threw myself back upon the seat of the vehicle with all imaginable dignity, but not without damage, for in the midst of my ease and elegance I snapped off the cut steel hilt of my sword, by accidentally bumping the whole weight of my body right, or rather wrong, directly upon the top of it.

But what was a sword hilt or a bruise to _me_? I was _the_ Lord Mayor--the greatest man of the greatest city of the greatest nation in the world. The people realized my anticipations, and "Bravo, Scropps!" and "Scropps for ever!" again resounded, as we proceeded slowly and majestically towards the river, through a fog, which prevented our being advantageously seen, and which got down the throat of the sword bearer, who coughed incessantly during our progress, much to my annoyance, not to speak of the ungraceful movements which his convulsive barkings gave to the red velvet scabbard of the official glave as it stuck out of the window of the coach.

We embarked in _my_ barge; a new scene of splendour awaited me, guns, shouts, music, flags, banners, in short, every thing that fancy could paint or a water bailiff provide; there, in the gilded bark, was prepared a cold collation--I ate, but tasted nothing--fowls, _patés_, tongue, game, beef, ham, all had the same flavour; champagne, hock, and Madeira were all alike to _me_--Lord Mayor was all I saw, all I heard, all I swallowed; every thing was pervaded by the one captivating word, and the repeated appeal to "my lordship" was sweeter than nectar.

At Westminster, having been presented and received, I desired--I--John Ebenezer Scropps, of Coventry--I desired the Recorder to invite the judges to dine with me--I--who remember when two of the oldest and most innocent of the twelve, came the circuit, trembling at the sight of them, and believing them some extraordinary creatures upon whom all the hair and fur I saw, grew naturally--I, not only to ask these formidable beings to dine with me, but, as if I thought it beneath my dignity to do so in my proper person, deputing a judge of my own to do it for me; I never shall forget their bows in return--Chinese mandarins on a chimney-piece are fools to them.

Then came the return--we landed once more in the scene of my dignity--at the corner of Fleet Street we found the Lady Mayoress waiting for the procession--there she was--Sally Scropps (her maiden name was Snob)--there was my own Sally, with a plume of feathers that half filled the coach, and Jenny and Maria and young Sally, all with their backs to _my_ horses, which were pawing the mud and snorting and smoking like steam engines, with nostrils like safety valves, and four of _my_ footmen hanging behind the coach, like bees in a swarm. There had not been so much riband in my family since my poor father's failure at Coventry--and yet how often, over and over again, although he had been dead more than twenty years, did I, during that morning, in the midst of my splendour, think of _him_, and wish that he could see me in my greatness--yes, even in the midst of my triumph I seemed to defer to my good, kind parent--in heaven, as I hope and trust--as if I were anxious for _his_ judgment and _his_ opinion as to how I should perform the arduous and manifold duties of the day.

Up Ludgate Hill we moved--the fog grew thicker and thicker--but then the beautiful women at the windows--those up high could only see my knees and the paste buckles in my shoes; every now and then, I bowed condescendingly to people I had never seen before, in order to show my courtesy and my chain and collar, which I had discovered during the morning shone the better for being shaken.

At length we reached Guildhall--as I crossed the beautiful building, lighted splendidly, and filled with well dressed company, and heard the deafening shouts which rent the fane as I entered it, I really was overcome--I retired to a private room--refreshed my dress, rubbed up my chain, which the damp had tarnished, and prepared to receive my guests. They came, and--shall I ever forget it?--dinner was announced; the bands played "O the roast beef of Old England." Onwards we went, a Prince of the blood, of the blood royal of my country, led out _my_ Sally--my own Sally--the Lady Mayoress! the Lord High Chancellor handed out young Sally--I saw it done--I thought I should have choked; the Prime Minister took Maria; the Lord Privy Seal gave his arm to Jenny; and my wife's mother, Mrs. Snob, was honoured by the protection of the Right Honourable the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.--Oh, if my poor father could have but seen _that_!

It would be tiresome to dwell upon the pleasures of the happy year, thus auspiciously begun, in detail; each month brought its delights, each week its festival; public meetings under the sanction of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor; concerts and balls under the patronage of the Lady Mayoress; Easter and its dinner, Blue-coat boys and buns; processions here, excursions there.--Summer came, and then we had swan-hopping _up_ the river, and white-baiting _down_ the river; Yantlet Creek below, the navigation barge above; music, flags, streamers, guns, and company; turtle every day in the week; peas at a pound a pint, and grapes at a guinea a pound; dabbling in rosewater served in gold, not to speak of the loving cup, with Mr. Common Hunt, in full dress, at my elbow; my dinners were talked of, Ude grew jealous, and I was idolized.

The days, which before seemed like weeks, were now turned to minutes: scarcely had I swallowed my breakfast before I was in my justice-room; and before I had mittimused half a dozen paupers for beggary, I was called away to luncheon; this barely over, in comes a deputation or a dispatch, and so on till dinner, which was barely ended before supper was announced. We all became enchanted with the Mansion House; my girls grew graceful by the confidence their high station gave them; Maria refused a good offer because her lover chanced to have an ill sounding name; we had all got settled in our rooms, the establishment had begun to know and appreciate us; we had just become in fact easy in our dignity and happy in our position, when lo and behold! the ninth of November came again--the anniversary of my exaltation, the consummation of my downfall.

Again did we go in state to Guildhall, again were we toasted and addressed, again were we handed in, and led out, again flirted with cabinet ministers and danced with ambassadors, and at two o'clock in the morning drove home from the scene of gaiety to our old residence in Budge Row.--Never in this world did pickled herrings and turpentine smell so powerfully as on that night when we entered the house; and although my wife and the young ones stuck to the drinkables at Guildhall, their natural feelings would have way, and a sort of shuddering disgust seemed to fill their minds on their return home--the passage looked so narrow--the drawing-rooms looked so small--the staircase seemed so dark--our apartments appeared so low--however, being tired, we all slept well, at least I did, for I was in no humour to talk to Sally, and the only topic I could think upon before I dropped into my slumber, was a calculation of the amount of expense which I had incurred during the just expired year of my greatness.

In the morning we assembled at breakfast--a note lay on the table, addressed--"Mrs. Scropps, Budge Row." The girls, one after the other, took it up, read the superscription, and laid it down again. A visiter was announced--a neighbour and kind friend, a man of wealth and importance--what were his first words?--they were the first I had heard from a stranger since my job,--"How are you, Scropps, done up, eh?"

Scropps! no obsequiousness, no deference, no respect;--no "my lord, I hope your lordship passed an agreeable night--and how is her ladyship and your lordship's amiable daughters?"--not a bit of it--"How's Mrs. S. and the _gals_?" This was quite natural, all as it _had_ been, all perhaps as it should be--but how unlike what it _was_, only one day before! The very servants, who, when amidst the strapping, stall-fed, gold-laced lacqueys of the Mansion House, (transferred with the chairs and tables from one Lord Mayor to another) dared not speak nor look, nor say their lives were their own, strutted about the house, and banged the doors, and talked of their "_Missis_," as if she had been an apple woman.

So much for domestic miseries;--I went out--I was shoved about in Cheapside in the most remorseless manner; my right eye had a narrow escape of being poked out by the tray of a brawny butcher's boy, who, when I civilly remonstrated, turned round, and said, "Vy, I say, who are _you_, I vonder, as is so partiklar about your _hysight_." I felt an involuntary shudder--to-day, thought I, I _am_ John Ebenezer Scropps--two days ago I was Lord Mayor; and so the rencontre ended, evidently to the advantage of the bristly brute. It was however too much for me--the effect of contrast was too powerful, the change was too sudden--and I determined to go to Brighton for a few weeks to refresh myself, and be weaned from my dignity.

We went--we drove to the Royal Hotel; in the hall stood one of his Majesty's ministers, one of my former guests, speaking to his lady and daughter: my girls passed close to him--he had handed one of them to dinner the year before, but he appeared entirely to have forgotten her. By and by, when we were going out in a fly to take the air, one of the waiters desired the fly man to pull off, because Sir Something Somebody's carriage could not come up--it was clear that the name of Scropps had lost its influence.

We secluded ourselves in a private house, where we did nothing but sigh and look at the sea. We had been totally spoiled for our proper sphere, and could not get into a better; the indifference of our inferiors mortified us, and the familiarity of our equals disgusted us--our potentiality was gone, and we were so much degraded that a puppy of a fellow had the impertinence to ask Jenny if she was going to one of the Old Ship balls. "Of course," said the coxcomb, "I don't mean the 'Almacks,' for they are uncommonly select."

In short, do what we would, go where we might, we were outraged and annoyed, or at least thought ourselves so; and beyond all bitterness was the reflection, that the days of our dignity and delight never might return. There were at Brighton no less than three men who called me Jack, and _that_, out of flies or in libraries, and one of these, chose occasionally, by way of making himself particularly agreeable, to address me by the familiar appellation of Jacky. At length, and that only three weeks after my fall, an overgrown tallow-chandler met us on the Steyne, and stopped our party to observe, "as how he thought he owed me for two barrels of coal tar, for doing over his pigsties." This settled it--we departed from Brighton, and made a tour of the coast; but we never rallied; and business, which must be minded, drove us before Christmas to Budge Row, where we are again settled down.

Maria has grown thin--Sarah has turned methodist--and Jenny, who danced with his Excellency the Portuguese Ambassador, who was called angelic by the Right Honourable the Lord Privy Seal, and who moreover refused a man of fortune because he had an ugly name, is going to be married to Lieutenant Stodge, on the half pay of the Royal Marines--and what then?--I am sure if it were not for the females of my family I should be perfectly at my ease in my proper sphere, out of which the course of our civic constitution raised me. It was unpleasant at first:--but I have toiled long and laboured hard; I have done my duty, and Providence has blessed my works. If we were discomposed at the sudden change in our station, I it is who was to blame for having aspired to honours which I knew were not to last. However the ambition was not dishonourable, nor did I disgrace the station while I held it; and when I see, as in the present year, _that_ station filled by a man of education and talent, of high character and ample fortune, I discover no cause to repent of having been one of his predecessors. Indeed I ought to apologize for making public the weakness by which we were all affected; especially as I have myself already learned to laugh at what we all severely felt at first--the miseries of a SPLENDID ANNUAL.--_Sharpe's London Magazine_.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

* * * * *

A CHAPTER ON HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY

"Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo." _Latin Grammar_.

Did you ever look In Mr. Tooke, For Homer's gods and goddesses? The males in the air, So big and so bare, And the girls without their bodices.

There was Jupiter Zeus, Who play'd the deuce, A rampant blade and a tough one; But Denis bold, Stole his coat of gold, And rigg'd him out in a stuff one,

Juno, when old, Was a bit of a scold, And rul'd Jove _jure divino_; When he went gallivaunting, His steps she kept haunting,[4] And she play'd, too, the devil with Ino.

Minerva bright Was a blue-stocking wight, Who lodg'd among the Attics; And, like Lady V. From the men did flee, To study the mathematics.

Great Mars, we're told, Was a grenadier bold, Who Vulcan sorely cuckold; When to Rome he went, He his children sent To a she-wolf to be suckled.

_Midas_.

Sol, the rat-catcher,[5] Was a great body-snatcher, And with his bow and arrows He _Burked_, through the trees, Master Niobes, As though they had been cock sparrows.

Diana, his sister, When nobody kiss'd her, Was a saint, (at least a semi one,) Yet the vixen Scandal Made a terrible handle Of her friendship for Eudymion.

Full many a feat Did Hercules neat, The least our credit draws on; Jesting Momus, so sly, Said, "'Tis all my eye," And he call'd him Baron Munchausen.

Fair Bacchus's face Many signs did grace, (They were not painted by Zeuxis:) Of his brewing trade He a mystery made,[6] Like our Calverts and our Meuxes.

There was Mistress Venus, (I say it between us,) For virtue cared not a farden: There never was seen Such a drabbish quean In the parish of Covent Garden.

Hermes cunning Poor Argus funning, He made him drink like a buffer; To his great surprise Sew'd up all his eyes, And stole away his heifer.

A bar-maid's place Was Hebe's grace, Till Jupiter did trick her; He turn'd her away, And made Ganimede stay To pour him out his liquor.

Ceres in life Was a farmer's wife, But she doubtless kept a jolly house; For Rumour speaks, She was had by the Beaks To swear her son Triptolemus.[7]

Miss Proserpine She thought herself fine, But when all her plans miscarried, She the Devil did wed, And took him to bed, Sooner than not be married.

But the worst of the gods, Beyond all odds, It cannot be denied, oh! Is that first of matchmakers, That prince of housebreakers, The urchin, Dan Cupido.

_New Monthly Magazine_.

[4] "I'll search out the haunts Of your fav'rite gallants, And into cows metamorphose 'em."

[5] Apollo Smintheus. He destroyed a great many rats in Phrygia, and was probably the first "rat-catcher to the King."--_Vet. Schol_.

[6] "Mystica vannus Isacchi." This was either a porter-brewer's dray, or more probably the _Van_ of his druggist.--_Scriblerus_.

[7] There is some difference of opinion concerning this fact: the lady, like so many others in her interesting situation, passed through the adventure under an _alias_. But that Ceres and Terra were the same, no reasonable person will doubt: and there can be no _serious_ objection to the little _trip_ being thus ascribed to the goddess in question.--_Scriblerus_.

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"THE SEASON" IN TOWN.

_Theodore_.--I don't know how you could prevent people from living half the year in town.

_Tickler_.--I have no objection to their living half the year in town, as you call it, if they can live in such a hell upon earth, of dust, noise, and misery. Only think of the Dolphin water in the solar microscope!

_Theodore_.--I know nothing of the water of London personally.

_Odoherty_.--Nor I; but I take it, we both have a notion of its brandy and water.

_Tickler_.--'Tis, in fact, their duty to be a good deal in London. But I'll tell you what I do object to, and what I rather think are evils of modern date, or at any rate, of very rapid recent growth. First, I object to their living those months of the year in which it is _contra bonos mores_ to be in London, not in their paternal mansions, but at those little bastardly abortions, which they call watering-places--their Leamingtons, their Cheltenhams, their Brighthelmstones.

_Theodore_.--Brighton, my dear rustic Brighton!

_Odoherty_.--Synopicé.

_Shepherd_.--What's your wull, Sir Morgan? It does no staun' wi' me.

_Theodore_.--A horrid spot, certainly--but possessing large conveniences, sir, for particular purposes. For example, sir, the balcony on the drawing-room floor commonly runs on the same level all round the square--which in the Brighthelmstonic dialect, sir, means a three-sided figure. The advantage is obvious,

_Shepherd_.--Och, sirs! och, sirs! what wull this world come to!

_Theodore_.--The truth is, sir, that people _comme il faut_ cannot well submit to the total change of society and manners implied in a removal from Whitehall or Mayfair to some absurd old antediluvian chateau, sir, boxed up among beeches and rooks. Sir, only think of the small Squires with the red faces, sir, and the grand white waistcoats down to their hips--and the dames, sir, with their wigs, and their simpers, and their visible pockets--and the damsels, blushing things in white muslin, with sky-blue sashes and ribbons, and mufflers and things--and the sons, sir, the promising young gentlemen, sir--and the doctor, and the lawyer--and the parson. So you disapprove of Brighton, Mr. Tickler?

_Tickler_.--Brighthelmstone, when I knew it, was a pleasant fishing village--what like it is now, I know not; but what I detest in the great folks of your time, is, that insane selfishness which makes them prefer any place, however abominable, where they can herd together in their little exquisite coteries, to the noblest mansions surrounded with the noblest domains, where they cannot exist without being more or less exposed to the company of people not exactly belonging to their own particular sect. How can society hang together long in a country where the Corinthian capital takes so much pains to unrift itself from the pillar? Now-a-day, sir, your great lord, commonly speaking, spends but a month or six weeks in his ancestral abode; and even when he is there, he surrounds himself studiously with a cursed town-crew, a pack of St. James's Street fops, and Mayfair chatterers and intriguers, who give themselves airs enough to turn the stomachs of the plain squirearchy and their womankind, and render a visit to the castle a perfect nuisance.

_Theodore (aside to Mullion.)_--A prejudiced old prig!

_Tickler_.--They seem to spare no pains to show that they consider the country as valuable merely for rent and game--the duties of the magistracy are a bore--county meetings are a bore--a farce, I believe, was the word--the assizes are a cursed bore--fox-hunting itself is a bore, unless in Leicestershire, where the noble sportsmen, from all the winds of heaven cluster together, and think with ineffable contempt of the old-fashioned chase, in which the great man mingled with gentle and simple, and all comers--sporting is a bore, unless in a regular _battue_, when a dozen lordlings murder pheasants by the thousand, without hearing the cock of one impatrician fowling-piece--except indeed some dandy poet, or philosopher, or punster, has been admitted to make sport to the Philistines. In short, every thing is a bore that brings the dons into personal collision of any kind with people that don't belong to the world.

_Odoherty_.--The world is getting pretty distinct from the nation, I admit, and I doubt if much love is lost between them.--_Blackwood's Magazine_.

* * * * *

THE HOPKINSONIAN JOKE.

My friend Hertford, walking one day near his own shop in Piccadilly, happened to meet one Mr. Hopkinson, an eminent brewer, I believe--and the conversation naturally enough turned upon some late dinner at the Albion, Aldersgate Street--nobody appreciates a real city dinner better than Monsieur le Marquess--and so on, till the old brewer mentioned, _par hazard_, that he had just received a noble specimen of wild pig from a friend in Frankfort, adding, that he had a very particular party, God knows how many aldermen, to dinner--half the East India direction, I believe--and that he was something puzzled touching the cookery. "Pooh!" says Hertford, "send in your porker to my man, and he'll do it for you _à merveille_." The brewer was a grateful man--the pork came and went back again. Well, a week after my lord met his friend, and, by the way, "Hopkinson," says he, "how did the boar concern go off?"--"O, beautifully," says the brewer; "I can never sufficiently thank your lordship; nothing could do better. We should never have got on at all without your lordship's kind assistance."--"The thing gave satisfaction then, Hopkinson?"--"O, great satisfaction, my lord marquess.--To be sure we did think it rather queer at first--in fact, not being up to them there things, we considered it as deucedly stringy--to say the truth, we should never have thought of eating it cold."--"Cold!" says Hertford; "did you eat the ham cold?"--"O dear, yes, my lord, to be sure we did--we eat it just as your lordship's gentleman sent it."--"Why, my dear Mr. Alderman," says Hertford, "my cook only prepared it for the spit." Well, I shall never forget how the poor dear Duke of York laughed!--_Ibid_.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

SEALING WAX AND WAFERS.

Francis Rousseau, a native of Auxerres, who travelled a long time in Persia, Pegu, and other parts of the East Indies, and who, in 1692, resided at St. Domingo, was the inventer of sealing-wax. A lady, of the name of Longueville, made this wax known at court, and caused Louis XIII. to use it; after which it was purchased and used throughout Paris. By this article Rousseau, before the expiration of a year, gained 50,000 livres. The oldest seal with a red wafer ever yet found, is on a letter written by Dr. Krapf, at Spires, in the year 1624, to the government at Bareuth.

* * * * *

I was in company some time since with George Colman, "the younger," as the old fellow still styles himself. It was shortly after the death of Mrs. ----, the wife of a popular actor, and at that time an unpopular manager. Some one at table observed that, "Mr. ---- had suffered a loss in the death of his wife, which he would not soon be able to make up."--"I don't know how that may be," replied George, drily, "but to tell you the truth, I don't think he has _quarrelled_ with his loss yet."--_Monthly Mag_.