KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



335 



in armor is not a personage of quite as 

 much importance. He is a kind of living 

 historical romance, a mummy of chivalry. 

 Contrasted with him, how insignificant and 

 effeminate the moderns look ! All eyes are 

 upon him, especially the eyes of those who 

 now see the " Lord Mayor's Show" for the 

 first time ; and he can easily persuade him- 

 self that the sight would be worth nothing 

 were it not for the man in armor. Again, — 

 there is another important personage in the 

 procession, who must not be overlooked or 

 passed lightly by — and that is, the Lord 

 Mayor's coachman. There is nothing in the 

 whole procession to match the neatness of 

 the little curls on his wig. And what a 

 great broad seat he has to sit upon ! How 

 elevated his position ! He looks down on 

 the rest of the show, aud even turns his 

 back on the Lord Mayor himself. 



The late Mrs. Hamilton, in her Popular 

 Essays, speaks of the propensity to magnify 

 the idea of self. Now, this propensity may 

 be amply indulged in by the Lord Mayor's 

 coachman, who takes into the comprehen- 

 sive and complex idea of self, — all that fine 

 big coach behind him, and all those fine 

 horses before him, with their red morocco 

 harness and brass buckles. Abstraction is 

 an exceedingly difficult philosophical opera- 

 tion, which the Lord Mayor's coachman can- 

 not easily manage ; and therefore he attempts 

 to abstract from the idea of self, the coach 

 and horses by which he is accompanied. 

 But we might examine the case and feel- 

 ings of every individual connected with that 

 imposing and anti-utilitarian spectacle ; and 

 find in the bosom of every one some sweet 

 consoling sense of his own importance— or, 

 should there be some solitary cynic, whose 

 heart swells not with the pomp and majesty 

 of the scene, he makes up for it by think- 

 ing that he is an individual of too much 

 mind to be pleased with such trifles. A 

 voluntary nothingness, is altogether beyond 

 the fortitude of humanity. 



Reader, did you ever pay much attention 

 to general elections? Because, if you ever 

 did, you must have observed how much the 

 importance of men is developed on such oc- 

 casions. To be one of Mr. Tomkins' com- 

 mittee — to receive communications — to draw 

 up advertisements — to ride post-haste all 

 over the county — to look as wise as Solomon, 

 as courteous as Lord Chesterfield, as deep as 

 Garrick — to whisper mysteriously to the 

 candidate, to neglect one's business, to for- 

 get dinner time — and all that to bring in Mr. 

 Tomkins, and to establish the independence 

 of the county, is altogether such a wonderful 

 achievement, that if a man, under such cir- 

 cumstances, should be tempted to think 

 himself for once a nonpareil of dignity and 

 importance — is it not pardonable ? 



There is something so delightful in being 

 able to say, " Mr. Tomkins owed his election 

 to me ! " And the beauty of the matter is, 

 that there are so many such kind of " me's" 

 in every county, borough, and city, in the 

 kingdom. Poor Mr. Tomkins ! he is himself 

 hardly aware how many " best friends" he 

 has. He is in a very ticklish situation, and 

 must take care that he does not say, do, or 

 think anything to offend any one of these his 

 best friends. If by chance his memory should 

 fail him, and he should pass one of them 

 without a smile, a bow, or a squeeze of the 

 hand, woe betide him ! It would be a shocking 

 thing that it should be said, " Mr. Tomkins 

 passed me in the street without taking the 

 slightest notice of me ; he forgets that if it 

 had not been for me he would have lost his 

 election." 



In fact, all the world is a kind of Lord 

 Mayor's show ; and we are all, somehow or 

 other, people of importance. He who wrote 

 that facetious paper, called " Memoirs of P. 

 P., clerk of this Parish," thought that he was 

 merely satirising one individual, whereas, in 

 good truth, he was delineating a prominent 

 trait of humanity; and the very success of 

 the portraiture, the popularity of the sketch, 

 was owing to the fact of its general, and not 

 of its particular applicability alone. Indeed, 

 I believe, if it were possible to find a character 

 in the compass of nature's actuality, perfectly 

 unique, and altogether unlike the rest of the 

 world ; and if that character so found were 

 delineated with the utmost fidelity and spirit, 

 it would meet with but little popular ac- 

 ceptance. Some few individuals philoso- 

 phically disposed, and habituated to reflection, 

 might examine it as a psychological curiosity, 

 but the multitude would have no appetite for 

 it. We all like the delineation of people of 

 importance, especially if the importance be 

 assumed ; for by laughing at the pretensions 

 of others, we seem to establish our own. 



The world, notwithstanding all the fault 

 that has been found with it, by those who 

 never made a world themselves, is exquisitely 

 well-arranged, so that every one may, from 

 some cause or other, feel himself to be of 

 some importance, even as the physical con- 

 stitution of the material globe is such, that 

 each individual feels himself to be on the top 

 of it, and no one seems to be sticking to its 

 sides, or hanging head downwards from its 

 bottom — like a rly walking upon a ceiling. 



Lynx. 



BEAUTY. 



Beauty is like the flowery blossoms ; it soon 

 fades. But the excellencies of the mind, like 

 the medical virtues of the plant, remain in it, 

 unimpaired when all the external charms have 

 withered away. 



