REFLECTIONS OF A LORD MAYOR.

"I HAVE been told," said the Lord Mayor
of London, left alone in his dressing-room after
a state occasion, and proceeding to divest
himself of the very large chain the Lord Mayor
of London wears about his neck, according to
the manner of the President of the Royal
Academy of Arts, and the watermen of the
principal hackney-coach stands: "I say, I
have been told," repeated the Lord Mayor,
glancing at himself in the glass, " rather
frequently now, in cotemporary history, that I
am a Humbug."

No matter what particular Lord Mayor of
London thus delivered himself. Any modern
Lord Mayor of London may have recalled,
with the fidelity here quoted, the homage
widely offered to his position.

"I have been told so," continued the Lord
Mayor of London, who was in the habit
of practising oratory when alone, as
Demosthenes did, and with the somewhat similar
object of correcting a curious impediment in
his speech, which always thrust the letter H
upon him when he had no business with it,
and always took it away from him when it
was indispensable; "I have been told so,"
pursued the Lord Mayor, " on the ground
that the privileges, dues, levies, and other
exactions of my government, are relics of ages
in all respects unlike the present; when the
manners and customs of the people were
different, when commerce was differently
understood and practised, when the
necessities and requirements of this enormous
metropolis were as unlike what they are now,
as this enormous metropolis itself on the map
of Queen Victoria's time is unlike the scarcely
recognisable little mustard-seed displayed as
London on the map of Queen Elizabeth's
time. I have been told so, on the ground that
whereas my office was a respectable reality
when the little city in which I hold my state
was actually London, and its citizens were
the London people, it is a swaggering sham
when that little city's inhabitants are not a
twelfth part of the metropolitan population,
and when that little city's extent is not a
tenth part of the metropolitan surface. These,
I am informed, are a short summary of the
reasons why the London citizens who stand
foremost as to the magnitude of their
mercantile dealings and the grasp of their
intelligence, always fly from the assumption
of my blushing honours; and why formally
constituted Commissions have admitted, not
without some reluctance, that I am—officially,"
said the Lord Mayor twice—"officially—a most
absurd creature, and, in point of fact, the
Humbug already mentioned."

The Lord Mayor of London having thus
summed up, polished his gold chain with his
sleeve, laid it down on the dressing-table,
put on a flannel gown, took a chair before the
glass, and proceeded to address himself in
the following neat and appropriate terms:

"Now, my Lord," said the Lord Mayor of
London; and at the word he bowed, and
smiled obsequiously; "you are well aware
that there is no foundation whatever for
these envious disparagements. They are the
shadows of the light of Greatness." (The
Lord Mayor stopped and made a note of this
sentiment, as available after dinner some
day.) "On what evidence will you receive
your true position? On the City Recorder's?
On the City Remembrancer's ? On the City
Chamberlain's ? On the Court of Common
Council's ? On the Swordbearer's? On the
Toastmaster's? These are good witnesses,
I believe, and they will bear testimony at
any time to your being a solid dignitary,
to your office being one of the highest
aspirations of man, one of the brightest crowns
of merit, one of the noblest objects of earthly
ambition. But, my Lord Mayor;" here the
Lord Mayor smiled at himself and bowed
again; "is it from the City only, that you
get these tributes to the virtues of your
office, and the empty wickedness of the
Commission that would dethrone you? I
think not. I think you may inquire East,
West, North, and South—particularly West,"
said the Lord Mayor, who was a courtly
personage—"particularly West, among my
friends of the aristocracy—and still find that
the Lord Mayor of London is the brightest
jewel (next to Mercy) in the British crown,
and the apple of the United Kingdom's eye.

"Who," said the Lord Mayor, crossing his
knees, and arguing the point, with the aid of
his forefinger, at himself in the glass, "who
is to be believed? Is it the superior classes
(my very excellent and dear friends) that are
to be believed, or is it Commissions and