The Merry Past 



ing commenced; one member proposed one artist, 

 another another. None of the proposers in all prob- 

 ability knew anything about the particular artist he 

 mentioned, except his name. At last a member of 

 the court, who had drunk enough wine to render him 

 a bold speaker, rose and gave full vent to his oratory, 

 which he concluded by saying that they might vote 

 for whom they pleased, but for his part he was deter- 

 mined to vote for the artist they had asked to dine 

 that night, because he knew that he had a large family, 

 and was a very poor man ! 



The most striking characteristic of the citizens 

 of London in the middle of the eighteenth century 

 was pride ; sometimes it was the pride of ignorance, 

 sometimes the pride of wealth ; and sometimes, as it 

 related to the affairs of the City, it was the pride of 

 rank. But though there were various kinds, pride 

 was the universal basis upon which everything was 

 founded. To be a citizen of London was, in the 

 opinion of many a man, to be a member of the most 

 important class of subjects in the British Empire ; 

 whilst to be the first magistrate was, in their opinion, 

 to be the greatest man in all the British dominions, 

 save and except the King alone. 



*' Once a lord always a lord " was their favourite 

 maxim, and the lord of a single year, after he had 

 passed out of his office, continued to be, in his own 

 idea, as well as that of his family, only second to the 

 ruling lord, the Lord Mayor ; and as he, also in his 

 turn, had to descend from his lordly rank at the end 

 of the year, there was always a host of retired lords 



205 



