r,) kneeling before King Henry VIII. Sir
Robert Peel is said to have offered a thousand pounds for the liberty of
cutting out one of the heads from this picture, he conditioning to have
a perfect fac-simile painted in. The room has many other pictures of
distinguished members of the company in long-past times, and of some of
the monarchs and statesmen of England, all darkened with age, but
darkened into such ripe magnificence as only age could bestow. It is not
my design to inflict any more specimens of ancient hall-painting on the
reader; but it may be worth while to touch upon other modes of
stateliness that still survive in these time-honored civic feasts, where
there appears to be a singular assumption of dignity and solemn pomp by
respectable citizens, who would never dream of claiming any privilege of
rank outside of their own sphere. Thus, I saw two caps of state for the
warden and junior warden of the company, caps of silver (real coronets
or crowns, indeed, for these city-grandees) wrought in open-work and
lined with crimson velvet. In a strong-closet, opening from the hall,
there was a great deal of rich plate to furnish forth the banquet-table,
comprising hundreds of forks and spoons, a vast silver punch-bowl, the
gift of some jolly king or other, and, besides a multitude of less
noticeable vessels, two Loving-Cups, very elaborately wrought in silver
gilt, one presented by Henry VIII., the other by Charles II. These cups,
including the covers and pedestals, are very large and weighty, although
the bowl-part would hardly contain more than half a pint of wine, which,
when the custom was first established, each guest was probably expected
to drink off at a draught. In passing them from hand to hand adown a
long table of compotators, there is a peculiar ceremony which I may
hereafter have occasion to describe. Meanwhile, if I might assume such a
liberty, I should be glad to invite the reader to the official
dinner-table of his Worship, the Mayor, at a large English seaport where
I spent several years.

The Mayor's dinner-parties occur as often as once a fortnight, and,
inviting his guests by fifty or sixty at a time, his Worship probably
assembles at his board most of the eminent citizens and distinguished
personages of the town and neighborhood more than once during his year's
incumbency, and very much, no doubt, to the promotion of good feeling
among individuals of opposite parties and diverse pursuits in life.