ath for wearing
oak boughs in their hats on the 29th of May--another badge of the beloved
Stuarts. It is with these we have to do, rather than the marches and
battles of the armies to which the poor fellows belonged--with statesmen,
and how they looked, and how they lived, rather than with measures of
state, which belong to history alone. For example, at the close of the old
queen's reign, it is known the Duke of Marlborough left the kingdom--after
what menaces, after what prayers, lies, bribes offered, taken, refused,
accepted; after what dark doubling and tacking, let history, if she can or
dare, say. The queen dead; who so eager to return as my lord duke? Who
shouts God save the king! so lustily as the great conqueror of Blenheim
and Malplaquet? (By the way, he will send over some more money for the
Pretender yet, on the sly.) Who lays his hand on his blue ribbon, and
lifts his eyes more gracefully to heaven than this hero? He makes a
quasi-triumphal entrance into London, by Temple Bar, in his enormous gilt
coach--and the enormous gilt coach breaks down somewhere by Chancery Lane,
and his highness is obliged to get another. There it is we have him. We
are with the mob in the crowd, not with the great folks in the procession.
We are not the Historic Muse, but her ladyship's attendant,
tale-bearer--valet de chambre--for whom no man is a hero; and, as yonder one
steps from his carriage to the next handy conveyance, we take the number
of the hack; we look all over at his stars, ribbons, embroidery; we think
within ourselves, O you unfathomable schemer! O you warrior invincible! O
you beautiful smiling Judas! What master would you not kiss or betray?
What traitor's head, blackening on the spikes on yonder gate, ever hatched
a tithe of the treason which has worked under your periwig?

We have brought our Georges to London city, and if we would behold its
aspect, may see it in Hogarth's lively perspective of Cheapside, or read
of it in a hundred contemporary books which paint the manners of that age.
Our dear old _Spectator_ looks smiling upon the streets, with their
innumerable signs, and describes them with his charming humour. "Our
streets are filled with 'Blue Boars', 'Black Swans', and 'Red Lions', not
to mention 'Flying Pigs' and 'Hogs in Armour', with other creatures more
extraordinary than any in the deserts of Africa." A few of these quaint
old figures still remain in London town. You may still see there, and over
i