King and the Miller of Mansfield—Sailors in a tippling
house in Wapping—and the girl stealing a kiss from a
sleepy gentleman.
** The statue of Handel.
its variegated lamps give place to some solitary gas-burner, to light the groping inhabitants to their dingy homes; and the melodious strains of its once celebrated vocalists be drowned in the dismal ditty of some ballad-singing weaver, and the screeching responses of his itinerant family. What would the gallant Mr. Lowe and his sprightly Euphrosyne, Nan Catley, say, could they be told to what “base uses” their harmonious groves are condemned to be turned?
* Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales sitting under her
splendid Pavilion.
Truly their wonder would be on a par with Paganini's, should ever that musical magician encounter on the other side Styx “My Lord Skaggs and his Broomstick!” *
* This celebrated professor played on his musical broomstick
at the Haymarket Theatre, November 1751.
“Each buck and jolly fellow has heard of Skegginello
The famous Skegginello, that grunts so pretty
Upon his broomstieado, such music he has made, O,
'Twill spoil the fiddling trade, O,
And that's a pity!
But have you heard or seen, O, his phiz so pretty,
In picture shops so grin, O,
With comic nose and chin, O,
Who'd think a man could shine so At Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh?”
There is a curious Tobacco Paper of Skaggs playing on his
broomstick in full concert with a jovial party! One of the
principal performers is a good-humoured looking gentleman
beating harmony out of the salt-box.
** Certain utilitarians affect to ridicule this ancient
civic festival, on the score of its parade, right-royally
ridiculous! and gross gluttony—as if the corporation of
London were the only gourmands who had offered sacrifices to
Apicius, and died martyrs to good living! We have been at
some pains to peep into the dining-parlours of the ancients,
and from innumerable examples of gastronomy have selected
the following, which prove that the epicures of the olden
time yielded not in taste and voracity to their brethren of
the new:—
The emperor Septimus Severus died of eating and drinking too
much. Valentinianus went off in a surfeit. Lucullus being
asked one day by his attendant, what company he had invited
to his feast, seeing so many dainties prepared, answered,
“Lucullus shall dine with Lucullus?” Vitellius Spinter was
so much given to gluttony, that at one supper he was served
with two thousand several kinds of fishes, and with seven
thousand flying fowl. Maximilian devoured, in one day, forty
pounds of solid meat, which he washed down with a hogshead
of wine. The emperor Geta continued his festival for three
days, and his dainties were introduced in alphabetical
order. Philoxenes wished he had a neck like a crane, that
the delicious morsels might be long in going down. Lucullus,
at a costly feast he gave to certain ambassadors of Asia,
among other trifles, took to his own cheek a griph (query
Griffin'!) boiled, and a fat goose in paste. Hercules and
Lepreas had a friendly contest, which could, in quickest
time, eat up a whole ox; Hercules won, and then challenged
his adversary to a drinking bout, and again beat him hollow.
If the Stoic held that the goal of life is death, and that
we live but to learn to die—if the Pythagorean believed in
the transmigration of souls, and scrupled to shoot a
woodcock lest he should dispossess the spirit of his
grandam—how much more rational was the doctrine of the
Epicurean, (after such a goodly catalogue of gormandizers!)
that there was no judgement to come.
Who has not heard of Guildhall on Lord Mayor's Day, ** and the Easter Ball at the Mansion-House? But we profane not the penetralia where even Common-Councilmen fear to tread! The City Marshals, and men in armour (Héros malgré eux!); the pensive-looking state-coachmen, in all the plumpness, pomp, and verdure of prime feeding, wig, and bouquet; the postilion, “a noticeable man,” with velvet cap and jockey boots; the high-bred and high-fed aristocracy of the Poultry and Cheapside, and their Banquet, which might tempt Diogenes to blow himself up to such a pitch of obesity, that, instead of living in a tub, a tub might be said to live in him, are subjects too lofty for plebeian handling. Cæsar was told to beware of the Ides of March; and are not November fogs equally ominous to the London citizen? If, then, by some culinary magic, he can be induced to cram his throat rather than to cut it—to feast himself instead of the worms—to prefer a minuet in the Council Chamber to the Dance Macabre in the shades below—the gorgeous anniversaries of Gog and Magog have not been celebrated in vain. *
* “Search all chronicles, histories, and records, in what
language or letter soever—let the inquisitive man waste
the deere treasures of his time and eye-sight—he shall
conclude his life only in this certainty, that there is no
subject upon earth received into the place of his government
with the like state and magnificence as is the Lord Maior of
the Citty of London.” This was said by the author of the
“Triumphs of Truth” in 1613. The following list of City
Poets will show that the office was not an unimportant one
in the olden time: George Peele; Anthony Munday; Thomas
Dekker; Thomas Middleton; John Squire; John Webster; Thomas
Heywood; John Taylor (the Water-Poet, one of Ben Jonson's
adopted poetical sons, and a rare slang fellow); Edward G ay
ton, and T. B. (of the latter nothing is known), both
Commonwealth bards; John Tatham; Thomas Jordan; Matthew
Taubman, and Elkanah Settle, the last of the poetical
parsons who wedded Lord Mayors and Aldermen to immortal
verse. One of the most splendid of these anniversary
pageants was “London's Triumph; or, the Solemn and
Magnificent reception of that Honourable Gentleman, Robert
Titeliburn, Lord Maior, after his return from taking his
oath at Westminster, the morrow after Simon and Jude day,
being October 29, 1656. With the Speeches spoken at Foster-
lane-end and Soper-lane-end.”—“In the first place,” (says
the City Poet T. B.) “the loving members of the honourable