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.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55