MR. BOOLEY'S VIEW
OF THE LAST LORD MAYOR'S SHOW.

MR. BOOLEY having been much excited by
the accounts in the newspapers, informing the
public that the eminent MR. BATTY, of Astley's
Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge Road,
Lambeth, would invent, arrange, and marshal
the Procession on Lord Mayor's Day, took
occasion to announce to the Social Oysters
that he intended to be present at that great
national spectacle. MR. BOOLEY remarked
that into whatever regions he extended his
travels, and however wide the range of his
experience became, he still found, on repairing
to Astley's Amphitheatre, that he had much
to learn. For, he always observed within
those walls, some extraordinary costume or
curious weapon, or some apparently
unaccountable manners and customs, which he had
previously associated with no nation upon
earth. Thus, MR. BOOLEY said, he had
acquired a knowledge of Tartar Tribes, and also
of Wild Indians, and Chinese, which had
greatly enlightened him as to the habits of
those singular races of men, in whom he
observed, as peculiarities common to the
whole, that they were always hoarse; that
they took equestrian exercise in a most
irrational manner, riding up staircases and
precipices without the least necessity; that it
was impossible for them to dance, on any
joyful occasion, without keeping time with
their forefingers, erect in the neighbourhood
of their ears; and that whenever their
castles were on fire (a calamity to which they
were particularly subject) numbers of them
immediately tumbled down dead, without
receiving any wound or blow, while others,
previously distinguished in war, fell an easy
prey to the comic coward of the opposite
faction, who was usually armed with a strange
instrument resembling an enormous, supple
cigar.

For such reasons alone, MR. BOOLEY took a
lively interest in the preliminary announcements
of the last Lord Mayor's Show; but,
when he understood, besides, that the Show
was to be an Allegory, devised by the ingenious
MR. BATTY, in conjunction with the Lord
Mayor, as a kind of practical riddle for all
beholders to make guesses at, he hired a
window in the most eligible part of the line
of march, resolved to devote himself to the
discovery of its meaning.

The result of MR. BOOLEY'S meditation on
the Allegory which passed before his eyes on
the ninth of the present month, was given to
the Social Oysters, in the form of a report,
emanating directly and personally from
himself, their President. We have been favoured
with a copy of the document, and also with
permission to make it public; a permission of
which we now proceed to avail ourselves.
Those who have any acquaintance with MR.
BOOLEY, will be prepared to learn that the
real intent and meaning of the Allegory has
been entirely missed, except by his sagacious
and original mind. We need scarcely observe
that its obviousness and simplicity must not
be allowed to detract from the merit either of
MR. BOOLEY or of MR. BATTY, or of the Lord
Mayor. It is in the essence of these things
that they should be obvious and simple, when
the clue is once found.

"At an early hour of the morning," says
MR. BOOLEY,—"for I observe, in the
newspapers, that when any public spectacle takes
place, it always begins to take place at an
early hour of the morning—I stationed myself
at the window which had been engaged for
me. I will not attempt to describe my feelings
on looking down Cheapside. I am conscious
of having thought of Whittington and his cat,
and of Hogarth's idle and industrious
apprentice—also of the weather, which was
extremely fine.

"When the Procession began, with the
Tallow Chandlers' Company, succeeded by
the Under Beadle of the Worshipful Company
of Tallow Chandlers, walking alone, as a
Being so removed and awful should, tears of
solemn pleasure rose to my eyes; but, I am
not aware that I then suspected any latent
meaning in particular. Even when the
'Beadle of the Tallow Chandlers' Company in
his gown,' caused the vast assemblage to hold
its breath, and sent a thrill through all the
multitude, I believe I only regarded him as
the eminent Beadle in question, and not as a
symbol. The appearance of 'The Captain and
Lieutenant of the Band of Pensioners,' and
also of a Band of Pensioners, each carrying a
Javelin and Shield, struck me (though the
band was by no means numerous enough) as
a happy idea, emblematic of those bulwarks