A CITY FEAST.

Among the things to be seen and observed in great cities, are the courts of princes, the courts of justice, &c. &c.; as for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not be put in mind of them. BACON's Essays.

Ir it must be confessed that anticipations of pleasure generally end in disappointment, it is no less true that matters from which we expect only dissatisfaction, often turn out to be very agreeable. I never saw a prize-fight but once ; and I remember well that I approached the scene of combat certain of coming away disgusted. The result was, however, different. I went, from the laudable curiosity of witnessing a national peculiarity, (although not included in my Lord Verulam's list,) and I met the reward of my spirit of research, in seeing an animating display of courage, force, and skill. The distance at which the spectators were placed beyond the ring" allowed them to observe all that was inspiring in the scene-the vigorous forms, graceful attitudes, determined looks, and strenuous exertions of the pugilists; but it kept them far enough away to lose every. thing repulsive-the blood (scarcely allowed to gush forth when wiped away by the seconds), the discoloured faces, the exhaustion of frame, and convulsive agitation of nerve and muscle. We saw the bravery, we forgot the brutality; we were kept in a state of strong excitement; and being as well wound up (and almost as ready to strike) as the stopwatch which the umpire held in his hand, we never lagged in interest till the blow which decided the battle; and we left the ground, at least some of us, astonished at ourselves and all around us. This is a case in point.

What are the notions of the uninitiated respecting a city feast? Are they not compounded of contempt and loathing? Do we not picture to ourselves the most odious excesses of

gluttony, cramming, swilling, and repletion; indigestion, black faces, and apoplectic fits? I am quite certain that the image of a single alderman at dinner (if such has ever crossed the fancy of the reader) was in itself enough to produce these associations. What then was to be expected. from the idea of the whole corporation together, met in solemn conclave to celebrate, over turtle and venison, the election of the city chiefs! "No matter," thought I, "I will accept the invitation, steel myself against the disgust, and witness this new exhibition of life, so utterly unknown by us men of the west, in our hereditary comparative lack of wisdom."

There was something propitiating in the name of the place where the dinner was to be given. "STATIONERS' HALL" read well on the broad printed card of invitation. This smacks of literature, thought I, and savours of civilization. Had it been Fishmongers' Hall,' or 'Butchers' Hall,' or 'Bakers' Alley,' or The Poultry,' I verily believe my squeamishness would have triumphed over my curiosity, and the anticipated steams of a surfeit have risen in the throat of my imagination, to prevent my being of the party. Then I heard that one of the sheriffs, the senior one too, was an eminent publisher. That looked well. It was giving literature, in the person of its civic representative, the whip-hand over sadlery, the profession of the junior; and having myself a sort of smattering of "the bookish trade," I was put in perfect good temper, by what I could not help considering a personal compliment.

In a

Being rather ignorant of the city topography, east of Temple Bar, I threw myself upon the guidance and guardianship of the driver of the jarvey, which I had hired for the occasion. He drove me to the top of an eminence near St. Paul's, and pulled up, in the midst of a crowd of carriages, at the entrance of a narrow passage on the left. moment, I was under the portico, and on the steps of the entrance into Stationers' Hall, and making my way through a group of livery servants, (or livery men, Heaven knows which I should call them,) I mingled with the crowd that was assembled in the dinner-room.

A gentleman in black took my card: another ushered me through an alley of the tables, decked with festoons of roses (to be presently sported under by the aldermanic cupidons) and then up some half-dozen steps, into a drawing-room, VOL. I.-R

hung with portraits of old citizens, and other less appropriate pictures, and nearly filled by the entertainers and their guests. I was quite astounded by the display of corporation costume. About every fifth man wore a robe, of one colour or another; about every tenth a gold chain; one in the hundred bore a broad badge of honour on his breast, in the form of a silver plate; and there were civic dignitaries of various degrees, from members of the Stationers' Company up to the Lord Mayor. It was altogether a goodly company. I am fond of representative assemblies, showing the props and ornaments of corporate power and glory; and here was an epitome of the greatness of the greatest city in the world! All the nauseous accessaries of filthy trade were kept apart; and I saw before me the pith and marrow, without the details, of the warehouses, and banking houses, and countinghouses, and custom-houses of London.

I was beginning to get entangled in rather an agreeable labyrinth of thought, when a loud buzz announced the coming of something more than common-some one superior to the "small deer" that dropped in one by one to fill up the herd around me. "The Right Honourable George Canning!" roared out in Stentorian tone, by the servant at the door (or the usher, or the secretary, for I am unaffectedly afraid of getting into mistakes,) was the signal for the entrance of the minister. He has a fine head certainly-Spurzheim could not deny it, and a corresponding person-I defy Chantry to contradict me; but as I am not minister of the interior, "further this deponent knoweth not." Dinner, which had been kept waiting for him and his fidus Achates, Mr. Huskisson, was now evidently making its way towards the table in the next room; for I saw several knowing-looking fellows elbowing through the crowd, and going breast, high towards the savoury odour which came in upon us, like a pack of fox hounds in full chase. I was hustled about without ceremony, and sadly puzzled what to do with myself, when to my great delight I espied a very pleasant felłow, whom I had frequently met at parties in the west end of the town, shoving his way towards me. I, like the tail of a well pleased dog, was determined to be waggish on this occasion, and put on a look of anti-recognition.

"How does my good friend?" cried he, stretching out his hand.

"Well, God-a-mercy," replied I, as Hamlet did to Polonius.

"Do you not know me?" asked he, taking the cue. "Excellent well; you are a fishmonger," said I.

"Egad, you have it," cried he, laughing-" a sort of fishmonger, it is true; I am a place-hunter, my friend, just now; so come along; I saw your name on the sheriff's list, and I contrived to get you the seat next my own--in the very heart of the feast too.

"Not among the aldermen, I hope," said I.

"No, no; among the authors, you dog, in the feast of reason and the flow of-—___"

"What the deuce," interrupted I, "have the sheriffs had the cruelty to ask any of that tribe, and add to their irritability by a tantalizing taste of these doings?"

"Ay, that they have," replied he;" and I'll lay my life on it, that after you have spent this evening in their circle, you will allow the tribe to be the very essence of the invited."

We were soon seated at the end of one of the three tables which were appropriated for the leather and prunella part of the assemblage, and which shot down in parallel lines from the top piece, where sat the the higher classes of the companythe city chiefs, the ministerial guest, Members of Parliament, Aldermen, &c. I quickly had occasion to rejoice in my situation, and began to make my friend useful as a shower of the lions.

"Come now," said I," raise up your long pole (he's a long-headed fellow), and give me a nod of information as to the company. Who is he that handles the ladle so scientifically, and answers so courteously the many troublesome calls upon him?"

"That's Doctor K-, to whom optics, and music, and astronomy, and gastronomy, are all equally familiar, who is giving a practical lecture to his neighbours on the art of exhausting and emptying a tureen of turtle soup.'"

"And he yonder of the handsome countenance' with a foreign order round his neck, and looking altogether like the Lord Mayor of Literature ?"

"Professor S-, the German dramatic critic, who can pose our best poets on the phraseology of Shakspeare, and who has only the one fault of devouring the immortal bard entire, beauties and faults alike, just as that hungry commoncouncilman would eat a turtle holus-bolus, calipash and calipee indfferently with the offal."

master, who, mounted on an eminence behind the Chief Magistrate's chair, with a glass in his hand, prepared the company for their duty by the oft-reiterated sounds of, "Are ye charged, gemmen ?"-"Gemmen, clear off your charge!"-and then repeated the announcement of each successive toast, in a voice which, compared to the chairman's, was a culverin replying to a popgun, and which, when his lordship called out, "Three times three!" answered, "Hip, hip, hurra!" as naturally as Paddy Blake's echo, that whenever any one cried, "How do you do this morning ?” was sure to answer, "Very well, thank ye!"

I wish I could now come to a climax worthy of my subject, and say in one short sentence all that it deserves. I can truly declare that I never spent a more social evening, nor witnessed a feast of greater propriety. On quitting my lodgings I had provided myself with a case of lancets, in the certainty of having my smattering of surgical skill called in to the aid of some suffocating gourmand; but I solemnly protest I never saw more temperance or decorum in words or action. The only vein I saw breathed during the day was one of good fellowship and good humour. Men of many nations were there, English, Irish, and Scotch-with Germans, French, and other foreigners-but all, as it were, of one family. Men of all professions and parties, of the most opposite extremes, and all touching. Lawyers and clients, reviewers, and authors, smiling and chatting together -the wolf playing with the kid. Radicals and tories, Lord Mayor and minister, bandying compliments--the lamb lying down with the lion-all, in short, a scene of primitive simplicity and peace.