A DINNER IN THE CITY.

I.

UT of a mere love for variety and contrast, I think we cannot do better, after leaving the wretched Whitestock among his starving parishioners, than transport ourselves. to the City, where we are invited to dine with the Worshipful Company of BellowsMenders, at their splendid Hall in Marrow-Pudding Lane. Next to eating good dinners, a healthy man with a benevolent turn of mind must like, I think, to read about them. When I was a boy, I had by heart the Barmecide's feast in the "Arabian Nights"; and the culinary passages in Scott's novels (in which works there is a deal of good eating) always were my favorites. The Homeric poems are full, as everybody knows, of roast and boiled: and every year I look forward with pleasure to the newspapers of the 10th of November for the menu of the Lord Mayor's feast, which is sure to appear in those journals. What student of history is there who does not remember the City dinner given to the Allied Sovereigns in 1814? It is good even now, and to read it ought to make a man hungry, had he had five meals that day. In a word, I had long, long yearned in my secret heart to be present at a City festival. The last year's papers had a bill of fare commencing with "four hundred tureens of turtle, each containing five pints," and concluding with the pineapples and ices of the dessert. "Fancy two thousand pints of turtle, my love," I have often said to Mrs. Spec, "in a vast silver tank, smoking fragrantly, with lovely green islands of calipash and calipee floating about - why, my dear, if it had been invented in the time of Vitellius he would have bathed in it!"

"He would have been a nasty wretch," Mrs. Spec said, who thinks that cold mutton is the most wholesome food of man. However, when she heard what great company was to be present at the dinner, the Ministers of State, the Foreign Ambassadors, some of the bench of Bishops, no

doubt the Judges, and a great portion of the Nobility, she was pleased at the card which was sent to her husband, and made a neat tie to my white neck-cloth before I set off on the festive journey. She warned me to be very cautious, and obstinately refused to allow me the Chubb door-key.

The very card of invitation is a curiosity. It is almost as big as a tea-tray. It gives one ideas of a vast, enormous hospitality. Gog and Magog in livery might leave it at your door. If a man is to eat up that card, heaven help us, I thought; the Doctor must be called in. Indeed, it was a Doctor who procured me the placard of invitation. Like all medical men who have published a book upon diet, Pillkington is a great gormand, and he made a great favor of procuring the ticket for me from his brother of the Stock Exchange, who is a Citizen and a Bellows-Mender in his corporate capacity.

We drove in Pillkington's brougham to the place of mangez-vous, through the streets of the town, in the broad daylight, dressed out in our white waistcoats and ties; making a sensation upon all beholders by the premature splendor of our appearance. There is something grand in that hospitality of the citizens, who not only give you more to eat than other people, but who begin earlier than anybody else. Major Bangles, Captain Canterbury, and a host of the fashionables of my acquaintance, were taking their morning's ride in the Park as we drove through. You should have seen how they stared at us! It gave me a pleasure to be able to remark mentally," Look on, gents, we too are sometimes invited to the tables of the great."

We fell in with numbers of carriages as we were approaching Citywards, in which reclined gentlemen with white neck-cloths grand equipages of foreign ambassadors, whose uniforms, and stars, and gold lace glistened within the carriages, while their servants with colored cockades looked splendid without: these careered by the Doctor's brougham-horse, which was a little fatigued with his professional journeys in the morning. General Sir Roger Bluff, K.C.B., and Colonel Tucker, were stepping into a cab at the United Service Club as we passed it. The veterans blazed in scarlet and gold lace. It seemed strange that men so famous, if they did not mount their chargers to go to dinner, should ride in any vehicle under a coach-and-six; and instead of having a triumphal car to conduct them to the City, should go thither in a rickety cab, driven by a

ragged charioteer smoking a dhoodeen. In Cornhill we fell into a line, and formed a complete regiment of the aristocracy. Crowds were gathered round the steps of the old hall in Marrow-pudding Lane, and welcomed us nobility and gentry as we stepped out of our equipages at the door. The policemen could hardly restrain the ardor of these low fellows, and their sarcastic cheers were sometimes very unpleasant. There was one rascal who made an observation about the size of my white waistcoat, for which I should have liked to sacrifice him on the spot; but Pillkington hurried me, as the policemen did our little brougham, to give place to a prodigious fine equipage which followed, with immense gray horses, immense footmen in powder, and driven by a grave coachman in an episcopal wig.

A veteran officer in scarlet, with silver epaulets, and a profuse quantity of bullion and silver lace, descended from this carriage between the two footmen, and was nearly upset by his curling sabre, which had twisted itself between his legs, which were cased in duck trousers very tight, except about the knees (where they bagged quite freely), and with rich long white straps. I thought he must be a great man by the oddness of his uniform.

"Who is the General?" says I, as the old warrior, disentangling himself from his scimitar, entered the outer hall. "Is it the Marquis of Anglesea, or the Rajah of Sarawak?"

I spoke in utter ignorance, as it appeared. "That! Pooh," says Pillkington; "that is Mr. Champignon, M.P., of Whitehall Gardens and Fungus Abbey, Citizen and Bellows-Mender. His uniform is that of a Colonel of the Diddlesex Militia." There was no end to similar mistakes on that day. A venerable man with a blue and gold uniform, and a large crimson sword-belt and brass-scabbarded sabre, passed presently, whom I mistook for a foreign ambassador at the least; whereas I found out that he was only a Billingsgate Commissioner — and a little fellow in a blue livery, which fitted him so badly that I thought he must be one of the hired waiters of the Company, who had been put into a coat that didn't belong to him, turned out to be a real right honorable gent, who had been a Minister once.

I was conducted up stairs by my friend to the gorgeous drawing-room, where the company assembled, and where there was a picture of George IV. I cannot make out what public companies can want with a picture of George IV. A

fellow with a gold chain, and in a black suit, such as the lamented Mr. Cooper wore preparatory to execution in the last act of George Barnwell, bawled out our names as we entered the apartment. "If my Eliza could hear that gentleman," thought I, "roaring out the name of Mr. Spec!' in the presence of at least two hundred Earls, Prelates, Judges, and distinguished characters!" It made little impression upon them, however; and I slunk into the embrasure of a window, and watched the company.

Every man who came into the room was, of course, ushered in with a roar. "His Excellency the Minister of Topinambo!" the usher yelled; and the Minister appeared, bowing and in tights. "Mr. Hoggin! The Right Honorable

the Earl of Bareacres! Mr. Snog! Mr. Braddle! Mr. Alderman Moodle! Mr. Justice Bucker! Lieut.-Gen. Sir Roger Bluff! Colonel Tucker! Mr. Tims!" with the same emphasis and mark of admiration for us all as it were. The Warden of the Bellows-Menders came forward and made a profusion of bows to the various distinguished guests as they arrived. He, too, was in a court-dress, with a sword and bag. His lady must like so to behola him turning out in arms and ruffles, shaking hands with Ministers, and bowing over his wineglass to their Excellencies the Foreign. Ambassadors.

To be in a room with these great people gave me a thousand sensations of joy. Once, I am positive, the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office looked at me, and turning round to a noble lord in a red ribbon, evidently asked,

"Who is that?" Oh, Eliza, Eliza! How I wish you had been there! or if not there, in the ladies' gallery in the dining-hall, when the music began, and Mr. Shadrach, Mr. Meshech, and little Jack Oldboy (whom I recollect in the part of Count Almaviva any time these forty years), sang Non nobis, Domine.

But I am advancing matters prematurely. We are not in the grand dining-hall as yet. The crowd grows thicker and thicker, so that you can't see people bow as they enter any more. The usher in the gold chain roars out name after name: more ambassadors, more generals, more citizens, capitalists, bankers-among them Mr. Rowdy, my banker, from whom I shrank guiltily from private financial reasons - and, last and greatest of all, "The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor!"

That was a shock, such as I felt on landing at Calais for the first time; on first seeing an Eastern bazaar; on first catching a sight of Mrs. Spec; a new sensation, in a word. Till death I shall remember that surprise. I saw over the heads of the crowd, first a great sword borne up in the air; then a man in a fur cap of the shape of a flower-pot; then I heard the voice shouting the august name the crowd separated. A handsome man with a chain and gown stood before me. It was he. He? What do I say? It was his Lordship. I cared for nothing till dinner-time after that.