udgment the caterer had provided so
lucky an entertainment for so suitable a company. After the
victuals were pretty well cooled, in complimenting who should begin
first, we all fell to; and i'faith I found by their eating, they
were no ways affronted by their fare; for in less time than an old
woman could crack a nut, we had not left enough to dine the
bar-boy. The conclusion of our dinner was a stately Cheshire
cheese, of a groaning size, of which we devoured more in three
minutes than a million of maggots could have done in three weeks.
After cheese comes nothing; then all we desired was a clear stage
and no favour; accordingly everything was whipped away in a trice
by so cleanly a conveyance, that no juggler by virtue of Hocus
Pocus could have conjured away balls with more dexterity. All our
empty plates and dishes were in an instant changed into full quarts
of purple nectar and unsullied glasses. Then a bumper to the Queen
led the van of our good wishes, another to the Church Established,
a third left to the whimsie of the toaster, till at last their
slippery engines of verbosity coined nonsense with such a facil
fluency, that a parcel of alley-gossips at a christening, after the
sack had gone twice round, could not with their tattling tormentors
be a greater plague to a fumbling godfather, than their lame jest
and impertinent conundrums were to a man of my temper. Oaths were
as plenty as weeds in an alms-house garden.

"The night was spent in another tavern in harmony, the songs being
such as:--

"Musicks a crotchet the sober think vain,
The fiddle's a wooden projection,
Tunes are but flirts of a whimsical brain,
Which the bottle brings best to perfection:
Musicians are half-witted, merry and mad,
The same are all those that admire 'em,
They're fools if they play unless they're well paid,
And the others are blockheads to hire 'em."

Perhaps the most interesting account is that of St. Paul's
Cathedral--then in progress. We all know that it was nearly fifty years
in building, but have not perhaps been aware of all the causes of the
delay:--

"Thence we turned through the west gate of St. Paul's Churchyard,
where we saw a parcel of stone-cutters and sawyers so very hard at
work, that I protest, notwithstanding the vehemency of