506 My First Lord Mayors SJioiv. QNov 



glories of that day still " haunt me like a vision ;" and I have assisted 

 at no Lord Mayor's Show since, without an undefinable sense of something 

 to be seen which I had somehow not seen. 



I shall not soon forget that first illusion, which, if I had not studied 

 the programme, I might now suspect I had not beheld with these eyes, 

 but, in its stead, a gayer sort of funeral. Yet that foreknowing of the dram, 

 pers. of that dullest of all the dolorous dramas represented on this stage, 

 the wdrld ; that bitter fruit of knowledge, which I had intended as an 

 olive of preparation to the wine of delight, did too well inform me that 

 I had seen the veritable Lord Mayor's Show of November's sober 

 seriousness, and not the Lord Mayor's pageant of my April imagination. 

 It was an epoch in my life ; for it was the first of its many deceits in 

 which I was undeceived. The show of my preconceiving was indeed a 

 sight to have seen ; but I saw the real Simon Pure, and felt that all 

 glory here is but " a naught, a thought, a pageant, and a dream." First 

 impressions are last impressions. 



It was, of course, a dull, dirty November day. The rains which at 

 that season usually drench one half the world, leaving the other half 

 parching with thirst, had first washed the city, and then left it one 

 weltering kennel of mud. However, on the morning of the day big 

 with the fate of Watson or of Staines (I forget which), the clouds 

 contented themselves with a sleety sort of drizzle, a kind of confectionery 

 rain, which, under pretence of powdering you all over with a sort of 

 candy of ice, soaked your broadcloth through and through. At ten, the 

 thick air, instead of melting into " thin air," grew " palpable to feeling 

 as to sight:" it was sullenly stationary at eleven, and there was not the 

 sixteenth of a hope that it would clear off. The " clink of hammers 

 accomplishing the knights" (who needed it), and " closing their rivets 

 up," gave note of preparation. In a few minutes more a foggy, half- 

 suffocated cry was heard, " a wandering voice," from one end of Milk- 

 street to the other " They come ! they come !" " Where ? where ?" 

 was the response j and the glorious vision that I was to have seen passed 

 unbeheld away, with all its banners, bannerets, bandy drummers, foot- 

 men, knights, coaches, carts, common-councilmen, tumbrels, and common 

 stage-waggons, through an admiring mob, equally imperceptible. The 

 darkness swallowed all. 



Having by some mysterious instinct, with which nature, when she 

 located that people of Britain called cockneys, on the northern shore 

 of the Thames, must have abundantly gifted them, found their unseen 

 way to Blackfriars, the Bight Honourable and his retinue took water, 

 and felt out their way by the piles standing along the shore, to West- 

 minster, where landing " all well," the common- serjeant, with an 

 instinct natural to a lawyer, made Westminster Hall, and led " the 

 splendid annual" within its legal gates. Certain mummeries being gone 

 through, as well as the official labours of a hearty refection, the " corpo- 

 rative capacity" of London paddled its way patiently from Westminster, 

 clearing the small craft with a nautical skill never sufficiently to be 

 wondered at and admired; and miraculously weathered Blackfriars- 

 bridge, in total safety, thanks to the skill of the pilot at the helm of 

 city-admiralty affairs, to whom the dark dangers of both shores were 

 as familiar as posts and corners to a blind man. 



Here the day, as if it relented in its spiteful intention of damping 

 the general joy and the corporative glory, smiled a momentary smile ; 



