The fiddle and
the song are heard from the taproom morning, noon, and night; and
at each window may be seen some group of boon companions, with
half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe in mouth and tankard in
hand, fondling and prosing, and singing maudlin songs over their
liquor. Even the sober decorum of private families, which I must
say is rigidly kept up at other times among my neighbors, is no
proof against this saturnalia. There is no such thing as keeping
maid-servants within doors. Their brains are absolutely set
madding with Punch and the Puppet-Show, the Flying Horses,
Signior Polito, the Fire-Eater, the celebrated Mr. Paap, and the
Irish Giant. The children too lavish all their holiday money in
toys and gilt gingerbread, and fill the house with the
Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, and penny whistles.
But the Lord Mayor's Day is the great anniversary. The Lord Mayor
is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain as the
greatest potentate upon earth, his gilt coach with six horses as
the summit of human splendor, and his procession, with all the
sheriffs and aldermen in his train, as the grandest of earthly
pageants. How they exult in the idea that the king himself dare
not enter the city without first knocking at the gate of Temple
Bar and asking permission of the Lord Mayor; for if he did,
heaven and earth! there is no knowing what might be the
consequence.
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