The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 380, July 11, 1829

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 lookIn 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,4And she play'd, too, the devil with Ino.Minerva brightWas 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 sentTo a she-wolf to be suckled.Midas.Sol, the rat-catcher,5Was a great body-snatcher,And with his bow and arrowsHe 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 ScandalMade a terrible handleOf her friendship for Eudymion.Full many a featDid 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 faceMany signs did grace,(They were not painted by Zeuxis:)Of his brewing tradeHe a mystery made,6Like our Calverts and our Meuxes.There was Mistress Venus,(I say it between us,)For virtue cared not a farden:There never was seenSuch a drabbish queanIn the parish of Covent Garden.Hermes cunningPoor Argus funning,He made him drink like a buffer;To his great surpriseSew'd up all his eyes,And stole away his heifer.A bar-maid's placeWas Hebe's grace,Till Jupiter did trick her;He turn'd her away,And made Ganimede stayTo pour him out his liquor.Ceres in lifeWas a farmer's wife,But she doubtless kept a jolly house;For Rumour speaks,She was had by the BeaksTo swear her son Triptolemus.7Miss ProserpineShe 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.

"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.

SHERIDAN

Bob Mitchell, one of Sheridan's intimate friends, and once in great prosperity, became—like a great many other people, Sheridan's creditor—in fact Sheridan owed Bob nearly three thousand pounds—this circumstance amongst others contributed so very much to reduce Bob's finances, that he was driven to great straits, and in the course of his uncomfortable wanderings he called upon Sheridan; the conversation turned upon his financial difficulties, but not upon the principal cause of them, which was Sheridan's debt; but which of course, as an able tactician, he contrived to keep out of the discussion; at last, Bob, in a sort of agony, exclaimed—"I have not a guinea left, and by heaven I don't know where to get one." Sheridan jumped up, and thrusting a piece of gold into his hand, exclaimed with tears in his eyes—"It never shall be said that Bob Mitchell wanted a guinea while his friend Sheridan had one to give him."—Sharpe's Magazine.

LINES

On the window of Thorny Down Inn, about seven miles from Blandford, on the Salisbury road.

Death, reader, pallid death!! with woe or blissWill shortly be thy lot. Think then, my friend,Ere yet it be too late—what are thy hopesAnd what thy anxious fears—when the thin veilThat keeps thy soul from seeing Israel's GODShall drop. (Signed) [Greek: parepidemos].RURIS.

When Lord Ellenborough was Lord Chief Justice, a labouring bricklayer was called as a witness; when he came up to be sworn his lordship said to him—

"Really, witness, when you have to appear before this court, it is your bounden duty to be more clean and decent in your appearance."

"Upon my life," said the witness, "if your lordship comes to that, I'm thinking I'm every bit as well dressed as your lordship."

"How do you mean, sir," said his lordship, angrily.

"Why, faith," said the labourer, "you come here in your working clothes and I'm come in mine."—Sharpe's Mag.

FRIENDSHIP

Dr. Johnson most beautifully remarks, that "When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed, and wish, vainly wish for his return, not so much that we may receive as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood."

HOT TUESDAY

Derham, in his Physico-Theology, says, "July 8th, 1707, (called for some time after the hot Tuesday,) was so excessively hot and suffocating, by reason there was no wind stirring, that divers persons died, or were in great danger of death, in their harvest work. Particularly one who had formerly been my servant, a healthy, lusty young man, was killed by the heat; and several horses on the road dropped down and died the same day."

P.T.W.

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1

Tanner.

2

"There is nothing new under the sun;" Solomon was right. I had written these lines from experiencing the truth of them, and really imagined I had been the first to express, what so many must have felt; but on looking over Rogers's delicious little volume of Poems, some time after this was penned, I find he has, with his usual felicity, noted the same effect. I give his Text and Commentary; they occur in his beautiful poem, "Human Life," speaking of a girl in love, he says:

"—soon her looks the rapturous truth avow,Lovely before, oh, say how lovely now!"

On which he afterwards remarks:

"Is it not true that the young not only appear to be, but really are, most beautiful in the presence of those they love? It calls forth all their beauty."

Such a coincidence might almost induce me to exclaim with the plagiarising pedant of antiquity, "Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!"

3

Lord Albemarle, when advanced in years, was the lover and protector of Mademoiselle Gaucher. Her name of infancy, and that by which she was more endeared to her admirer, was Lolotte. One evening, as they were walking together, perceiving her eyes fixed on a star, he said to her, "Do not look at it so earnestly, my dear, I cannot give it you!"—Never, says Marmontel, did love express itself more delicately.

4

"I'll search out the hauntsOf 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.