Mr
Montefiore, "he would have nothing to do with the Bill, and Pearce
could get no Peer to move the second reading, consequently, the Bill
will be lost, and with it all the expenses, L400."

_Wednesday, July 19._--He attended the Queen's first levee at St
James' Palace; it was very crowded. He was one of the Deputation of
the Livery of London, by whom an address of congratulation was to be
presented to Her Majesty. The Lord Mayor introduced them. Mr
Montefiore was afterwards presented a second time. On his card was
written, "Mr Montefiore, presented by the Duke of Norfolk." "The
Queen," he observes, "looked very pretty and most interesting." "May
she be happy!" is his prayer to heaven. It was after four o'clock when
he left the Palace. He had spoken to a great number of acquaintances
there. The next day he went with Mrs Montefiore to St James' Palace to
attend the Queen's drawing-room. Mrs Montefiore was presented to Her
Majesty by the Countess of Albemarle, and was most graciously
received. "I followed her," writes Mr Montefiore. "The Queen smiled
good-humouredly at me, and the Duchess of Kent said she was pleased to
see us. No reception at a drawing-room could have been more
flattering."

At five o'clock he went to dine at the Merchant Taylors Hall. Mr
Alliston, the Master, was most civil and kind to him, and to Mr George
Carrol. It was a most splendid banquet, about one hundred and twenty
sat down to table. The entertainment was given by the Merchant Taylors
to the Skinners Company, in accordance with an old custom, which owed
its origin to the following occurrence. A difference having arisen
between the two companies, it was referred to the Lord Mayor, who
decided that "they were both wrong and both right," and decreed that
each company should annually entertain the other at a dinner. This has
been kept up, without a single exception, ever since the Lord Mayor
gave his verdict, which was more than three hundred years ago.
"Nothing," says Mr Montefiore, "could have been more magnificent than
the entertainment. I sat next to Mr Charles Culling Smith, the Duke of
Wellington's brother-in-law, and my health and that of Mr George
Carrol was drunk."

Mr Montefiore now wished to go to Ramsgate for a few days' rest, but
before leaving town he sent a letter to the Master, Wardens, and
Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, requesting
the use of their hall for the inauguration dinner in October.

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