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LITTLE BRITAIN.
What I write is most true . . . . . I have a whole booke of cases
lying by me, which if I should sette foorth, some grave auntients
(within the hearing of Bow Bell) would be out of charity with me.
NASH.
IN the centre of the great City of London lies a small
neighborhood, consisting of a cluster of narrow streets and
courts, of very venerable and debilitated houses, which goes by
the name of LITTLE BRITAIN. Christ Church School and St.
Bartholomew's Hospital bound it on the west; Smithfield and Long
Lane on the north; Aldersgate Street, like an arm of the sea,
divides it from the eastern part of the city; whilst the yawning
gulf of Bull-and-Mouth Street separates it from Butcher Lane and
the regions of Newgate. Over this little territory, thus bounded
and designated, the great dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the
intervening houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave-Maria
Lane, looks down with an air of motherly protection.
This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in ancient
times, the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As London
increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to the west, and
trade, creeping on at their heels, took possession of their
deserted abodes. For some time Little Britain became the great
mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy and prolific race
of booksellers: these also gradually deserted it, and, emigrating
beyond the great strait of Newgate Street, settled down in
Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard, where they continue to
increase and multiply even at the present day.
But, though thus fallen into decline, Little Britain still bears
traces of its former splendor. There are several houses ready to
tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched with
old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and
fishes, and fruits and flowers which it would perplex a
naturalist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate Street,
certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly family
mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided into
several tenements. Here may often be found the family of a petty
tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing among the
relics of antiquated finery in great rambling time-stained
apartments with fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and enormous
marble fireplaces. The lanes and courts also contain many smaller
houses, not on so grand a scale, but, like your small ancient
gentry, sturdily maintaining their claims to equal antiquity.
These have their gable ends to the street, great bow windows with
diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings, and low arched
doorways.*
- It is evident that the author of this interesting communication
has included, in his general title of Little Britain, man of
those little lanes and courts that belong immediately to Cloth
Fair.
In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed
several quiet years of existence, comfortably lodged in the
second floor of one of the smallest but oldest edifices. My
sitting-room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small panels and
set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a
particular respect for three or four high-backed, claw-footed
chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which bear the marks of
having seen better days, and have doubtless figured in some of
the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep
together and to look down with sovereign contempt upon their
leathern-bottomed neighbors, as I have seen decayed gentry carry
a high head among the plebeian society with which they were
reduced to associate. The whole front of my sitting-room is taken
up with a bow window, on the panes of which are recorded the
names of previous occupants for many generations, mingled with
scraps of very indifferent gentleman-like poetry, written in
characters which I can scarcely decipher, and which extol the
charms of many a beauty of Little Britain who has long, long
since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an idle personage,
with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill regularly every
week, I am looked upon as the only independent gentleman of the
neighborhood, and, being curious to learn the internal state of a
community so apparently shut up within itself, I have managed to
work my way into all the concerns and secrets of the place.
Little Britain may truly be called the heart's core of the city,
the stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of London
as it was in its better days, with its antiquated folks and
fashions. Here flourish in great preservation many of the holiday
games and customs of yore. The inhabitants most religiously eat
pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot cross-buns on Good Friday, and
roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-letters on Valentine's
Day, burn the Pope on the Fifth of November, and kiss all the
girls under the mistletoe at Christmas. Roast beef and
plum-pudding are also held in superstitious veneration, and port
and sherry maintain their grounds as the only true English wines,
all others being considered vile outlandish beverages.
Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its
inhabitants consider the wonders of the world, such as the great
bell of St. Paul's, which sours all the beer when it tolls; the
figures that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock; the
Monument; the lions in the Tower; and the wooden giants in
Guildhall. They still believe in dreams and fortune-telling, and
an old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth Street makes a
tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods and promising the
girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered uncomfortable by
comets and eclipses, and if a dog howls dolefully at night it is
looked upon as a sure sign of death in the place. There are even
many ghost-stories current, particularly concerning the old
mansion-houses, in several of which it is said strange sights are
sometimes seen. Lords and ladies, the former in full-bottomed
wigs, hanging sleeves, and swords, the latter in lappets, stays,
hoops, and brocade, have been seen walking up and down the great
waste chambers on moonlight nights, and are supposed to be the
shades of the ancient proprietors in their court-dresses.
Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of the
most important of the former is a tall, dry old gentleman of the
name of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecary's shop. He has a
cadaverous countenance, full of cavities and projections, with a
brown circle round each eye, like a pair of horn spectacles. He
is much thought of by the old women, who consider him as a kind
of conjurer because he has two or three stuffed alligators
hanging up in his shop and several snakes in bottles. He is a
great reader of almanacs and newspapers, and is much given to
pore over alarming accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires,
earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; which last phenomena he
considers as signs of the times. He has always some dismal tale
of the kind to deal out to his customers with their doses, and
thus at the same time puts both soul and body into an uproar. He
is a great believer in omens and predictions; and has the
prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother Shipton by heart. No man
can make so much out of an eclipse, or even an unusually dark
day; and he shook the tail of the last comet over the heads of
his customers and disciples until they were nearly frightened out
of their wits. He has lately got hold of a popular legend or
prophecy, on which he has been unusually eloquent. There has been
a saying current among the ancient sibyls, who treasure up these
things, that when the grasshopper on the top of the Exchange
shook hands with the dragon on the top of Bow Church steeple,
fearful events would take place. This strange conjunction, it
seems, has as strangely come to pass. The same architect has been
engaged lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exchange and
the steeple of Bow Church; and, fearful to relate, the dragon and
the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jole, in the yard of his
workshop.
"Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, "may go
star-gazing, and look for conjunctions in the heavens, but here
is a conjunction on the earth, near at home and under our own
eyes, which surpasses all the signs and calculations of
astrologers." Since these portentous weathercocks have thus laid
their heads together, wonderful events had already occurred. The
good old king, notwithstanding that he had lived eighty-two
years, had all at once given up the ghost; another king had
mounted the throne; a royal duke had died suddenly; another, in
France, had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in all
parts of the kingdom; the bloody scenes at Manchester; the great
plot in Cato Street; and, above all, the queen had returned to
England! All these sinister events are recounted by Mr. Skyrme
with a mysterious look and a dismal shake of the head; and being
taken with his drugs, and associated in the minds of his auditors
with stuffed-sea-monsters, bottled serpents, and his own visage,
which is a title-page of tribulation, they have spread great
gloom through the minds of the people of Little Britain. They
shake their heads whenever they go by Bow Church, and observe
that they never expected any good to come of taking down that
steeple, which in old times told nothing but glad tidings, as the
history of Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheesemonger,
who lives in a fragment of one of the old family mansions, and is
as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied mite in the midst of
one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of no little
standing and importance, and his renown extends through Huggin
lane and Lad lane, and even unto Aldermanbury. His opinion is
very much taken in affairs of state, having read the Sunday
papers for the last half century, together with the Gentleman's
Magazine, Rapin's History of England, and the Naval Chronicle.
His head is stored with invaluable maxims which have borne the
test of time and use for centuries. It is his firm opinion that
"it is a moral impossible," so long as England is true to
herself, that anything can shake her: and he has much to say on
the subject of the national debt, which, somehow or other, he
proves to be a great national bulwark and blessing. He passed the
greater part of his life in the purlieus of Little Britain until
of late years, when, having become rich and grown into the
dignity of a Sunday cane, he begins to take his pleasure and see
the world. He has therefore made several excursions to Hampstead,
Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has passed whole
afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through a
telescope and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St.
Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth Street but
touches his hat as he passes, and he is considered quite a patron
at the coach-office of the Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's
Churchyard. His family have been very urgent for him to make an
expedition to Margate, but he has great doubts of those new
gimcracks, the steamboats, and indeed thinks himself too advanced
in life to undertake sea-voyages.
Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and
party spirit ran very high at one time, in consequence of two
rival "Burial Societies" being set up in the place. One held its
meeting at the Swan and Horse-Shoe, and was patronized by the
cheesemonger; the other at the Cock and Crown, under the auspices
of the apothecary: it is needless to say that the latter was the
most flourishing. I have passed an evening or two at each, and
have acquired much valuable information as to the best mode of
being buried, the comparative merits of churchyards, together
with divers hints on the subject of patent iron coffins. I have
heard the question discussed in all its bearings as to the
legality of prohibiting the latter on account of their
durability. The feuds occasioned by these societies have happily
died of late; but they were for a long time prevailing themes of
controversy, the people of Little Britain being extremely
solicitous of funeral honors and of lying comfortably in their
graves.
Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of quite a
different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good-humor
over the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week at a little
old-fashioned house kept by a jolly publican of the name of
Wagstaff, and bearing for insignia a resplendent half-moon, with
a most seductive bunch of grapes. The whole edifice is covered
with inscriptions to catch the eye of the thirsty wayfarer; such
as "Truman, Hanbury, and Co's Entire," "Wine, Rum, and Brandy
Vaults," "Old Tom, Rum, and Compounds," etc. This indeed has been
a temple of Bacchus and Momus from time immemorial. It has always
been in the family of the Wagstaffs, so that its history is
tolerably preserved by the present landlord. It was much
frequented by the gallants and cavalieros of the reign of
Elizabeth, and was looked into now and then by the wits of
Charles the Second's day. But what Wagstaff principally prides
himself upon is that Henry the Eighth, in one of his nocturnal
rambles, broke the head of one of his ancestors with his famous
walking-staff. This, however, is considered as rather a dubious
and vain-glorious boast of the landlord.
The club which now holds its weekly sessions here goes by the
name of "the Roaring Lads of Little Britain." They abound in old
catches, glees, and choice stories that are traditional in the
place and not to be met with in any other part of the metropolis.
There is a madcap undertaker who is inimitable at a merry song,
but the life of the club, and indeed the prime wit of Little
Britain, is bully Wagstaff himself. His ancestors were all wags
before him, and he has inherited with the inn a large stock of
songs and jokes, which go with it from generation to generation
as heirlooms. He is a dapper little fellow, with bandy legs and
pot belly, a red face with a moist merry eye, and a little shock
of gray hair behind. At the opening of every club night he is
called in to sing his "Confession of Faith," which is the famous
old drinking trowl from "Gammer Gurton's Needle." He sings it, to
be sure, with many variations, as he received it from his
father's lips; for it has been a standing favorite at the
Half-Moon and Bunch of Grapes ever since it was written; nay, he
affirms that his predecessors have often had the honor of singing
it before the nobility and gentry at Christmas mummeries, when
Little Britain was in all its glory.*
- As mine host of the Half-Moon's Confession of Faith may not be
familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of
the current songs of Little Britain, I subjoin it in its original
orthography. I would observe that the whole club always join in
the chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering of
pewter pots.
I cannot eate but lytle meate,
My stomacke is not good,
- But
- sure I thinke that I can drinke
With him that weares a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a colde,
I stuff my skyn so full within,
Of joly good ale and olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare,
Both foote and hand go colde,
But, belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,
Whether it be new or olde.
I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste
And a crab laid in the fyre;
A little breade shall do me steade,
Much breade I not desyre.
No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe,
Can hurte mee, if I wolde,
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt
Of joly good ale and olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.
- And
- Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe,
Loveth well good ale to seeke,
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see,
The teares run downe her cheeke.
Then doth shee trowle to me the bowle,
Even as a mault-worme sholde,
- And
- sayth, sweete harte, I took my parte
Of this jolly good ale and olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.
- Now
- let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke,
Even as goode fellowes sholde doe,
They shall not mysse to have the blisse,
Good ale doth bring men to;
- And
- all poore soules that have scowred bowles,
Or have them lustily trolde,
- God
- save the lyves of them and their wives,
Whether they be yonge or olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.
It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club night, the shouts
of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then the choral
bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which issue from this
jovial mansion. At such times the street is lined with listeners,
who enjoy a delight equal to that of gazing into a confectioner's
window or snuffing up the steams of a cook-shop.
There are two annual events which produce great stir and
sensation in Little Britain: these are St. Bartholomew's Fair and
the Lord Mayor's Day. During the time of the Fair, which is held
in the adjoining regions of Smithfield, there is nothing going on
but gossiping and gadding about. The late quiet streets of Little
Britain are overrun with an irruption of strange figures and
faces; every tavern is a scene of rout and revel. The fiddle and
the song are heard from the taproom morning, noon, and night; and
at each window may be seen some group of boon companions, with
half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe in mouth and tankard in
hand, fondling and prosing, and singing maudlin songs over their
liquor. Even the sober decorum of private families, which I must
say is rigidly kept up at other times among my neighbors, is no
proof against this saturnalia. There is no such thing as keeping
maid-servants within doors. Their brains are absolutely set
madding with Punch and the Puppet-Show, the Flying Horses,
Signior Polito, the Fire-Eater, the celebrated Mr. Paap, and the
Irish Giant. The children too lavish all their holiday money in
toys and gilt gingerbread, and fill the house with the
Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, and penny whistles.
But the Lord Mayor's Day is the great anniversary. The Lord Mayor
is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain as the
greatest potentate upon earth, his gilt coach with six horses as
the summit of human splendor, and his procession, with all the
sheriffs and aldermen in his train, as the grandest of earthly
pageants. How they exult in the idea that the king himself dare
not enter the city without first knocking at the gate of Temple
Bar and asking permission of the Lord Mayor; for if he did,
heaven and earth! there is no knowing what might be the
consequence. The man in armor who rides before the Lord Mayor,
and is the city champion, has orders to cut down everybody that
offends against the dignity of the city; and then there is the
little man with a velvet porringer on his head, who sits at the
window of the state coach and holds the city sword, as long as a
pikestaff. Odd's blood! if he once draws that sword, Majesty
itself is not safe.
Under the protection of this mighty potentate, therefore, the
good people of Little Britain sleep in peace. Temple Bar is an
effectual barrier against all interior foes; and as to foreign
invasion, the Lord Mayor has but to throw himself into the Tower,
call in the train-bands, and put the standing army of Beef-eaters
under arms, and he may bid defiance to the world!
Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own habits, and its own
opinions, Little Britain has long flourished as a sound heart to
this great fungous metropolis. I have pleased myself with
considering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of sturdy
John Bullism were garnered up, like seed corn, to renew the
national character when it had run to waste and degeneracy. I
have rejoiced also in the general spirit of harmony that
prevailed throughout it; for though there might now and then be a
few clashes of opinion between the adherents of the cheesemonger
and the apothecary, and an occasional feud between the burial
societies, yet these were but transient clouds and soon passed
away. The neighbors met with good-will, parted with a shake of
the hand, and never abused each other except behind their backs.
I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing parties at which
I have been present, where we played at All-Fours, Pope-Joan,
Tom-come-tickle-me, and other choice old games, and where we
sometimes had a good old English country dance to the tune of Sir
Roger de Coverley. Once a year also the neighbors would gather
together and go on a gypsy party to Epping Forest. It would have
done any man's heart good to see the merriment that took place
here as we banqueted on the grass under the trees. How we made
the woods ring with bursts of laughter at the songs of little
Wagstaff and the merry undertaker! After dinner, too, the young
folks would play at blindman's-buff and hide-and-seek, and it was
amusing to see them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine
romping girl now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder
folks would gather round the cheesemonger and the apothecary to
hear them talk politics, for they generally brought out a
newspaper in their pockets to pass away time in the country. They
would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in argument;
but their disputes were always adjusted by reference to a worthy
old umbrella-maker in a double chin, who, never exactly
comprehending the subject, managed somehow or other to decide in
favor of both parties.
All empires, however, says some philosopher or historian, are
doomed to changes and revolutions. Luxury and innovation creep
in, factions arise, and families now and then spring up whose
ambition and intrigues throw the whole system into confusion.
Thus in letter days has the tranquillity of Little Britain been
grievously disturbed and its golden simplicity of manners
threatened with total subversion by the aspiring family of a
retired butcher.
The family of the Lambs had long been among the most thriving and
popular in the neighborhood: the Miss Lambs were the belles of
Little Britain, and everybody was pleased when Old Lamb had made
money enough to shut up shop and put his name on a brass plate on
his door. In an evil hour, however, one of the Miss Lambs had the
honor of being a lady in attendance on the Lady Mayoress at her
grand annual ball, on which occasion she wore three towering
ostrich feathers on her head. The family never got over it; they
were immediately smitten with a passion for high life; set up a
one-horse carriage, put a bit of gold lace round the errand-boy's
hat, and have been the talk and detestation of the whole
neighborhood ever since. They could no longer be induced to play
at Pope-Joan or blindman's-buff; they could endure no dances but
quadrilles, which nobody had ever heard of in Little Britain; and
they took to reading novels, talking bad French, and playing upon
the piano. Their brother, too, who had been articled to an
attorney, set up for a dandy and a critic, characters hitherto
unknown in these parts, and he confounded the worthy folks
exceedingly by talking about Kean, the Opera, and the "Edinburgh
Review."
What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which they
neglected to invite any of their old neighbors; but they had a
great deal of genteel company from Theobald's Road, Red Lion
Square, and other parts towards the west. There were several
beaux of their brother's acquaintance from Gray's Inn Lane and
Hatton Garden, and not less than three aldermen's ladies with
their daughters. This was not to be forgotten or forgiven. All
Little Britain was in an uproar with the smacking of whips, the
lashing of in miserable horses, and the rattling and jingling of
hackney-coaches. The gossips of the neighborhood might be seen
popping their night-caps out at every window, watching the crazy
vehicles rumble by; and there was a knot of virulent old cronies
that kept a look-out from a house just opposite the retired
butcher's and scanned and criticised every one that knocked at
the door.
This dance was a cause of almost open war, and the whole
neighborhood declared they would have nothing more to say to the
Lambs. It is true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no engagements
with her quality acquaintance, would give little humdrum
tea-junketings to some of her old cronies, "quite," as she would
say, "in a friendly way;" and it is equally true that her
invitations were always accepted, in spite of all previous vows
to the contrary. Nay, the good ladies would sit and be delighted
with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would condescend to strum
an Irish melody for them on the piano; and they would listen with
wonderful interest to Mrs. Lamb's anecdotes of Alderman Plunket's
family, of Portsoken Ward, and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich
heiresses of Crutched Friars but then they relieved their
consciences and averted the reproaches of their confederates by
canvassing at the next gossiping convocation everything that had
passed, and pulling the Lambs and their rout all to pieces.
The only one of the family that could not be made fashionable was
the retired butcher himself. Honest Lamb, in spite of the
meekness of his name, was a rough, hearty old fellow, with the
voice of a lion, a head of black hair like a shoe-brush, and a
broad face mottled like his own beef. It was in vain that the
daughters always spoke of him as "the old gentleman,' addressed
him as "papa" in tones of infinite softness, and endeavored to
coax him into a dressing-gown and slippers and other gentlemanly
habits. Do what they might, there was no keeping down the
butcher. His sturdy nature would break through all their
glozings. He had a hearty vulgar good-humor that was
irrepressible. His very jokes made his sensitive daughters
shudder, and he persisted in wearing his blue cotton coat of a
morning, dining at two o'clock, and having a "bit of sausage with
his tea."
He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity of his family.
He found his old comrades gradually growing cold and civil to
him, no longer laughing at his jokes, and now and then throwing
out a fling at "some people" and a hint about "quality binding."
This both nettled and perplexed the honest butcher; and his wife
and daughters, with the consummate policy of the shrewder sex,
taking advantage of the circumstance, at length prevailed upon
him to give up his afternoon's pipe and tankard at Wagstaff's, to
sit after dinner by himself and take his pint of port--a liquor
he detested--and to nod in his chair in solitary and dismal
gentility.
The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting along the streets in
French bonnets with unknown beaux, and talking and laughing so
loud that it distressed the nerves of every good lady within
hearing. They even went so far as to attempt patronage, and
actually induced a French dancing master to set up in the
neighborhood; but the worthy folks of Little Britain took fire at
it, and did so persecute the poor Gaul that he was fain to pack
up fiddle and dancing-pumps and decamp with such precipitation
that he absolutely forgot to pay for his lodgings.
I had flattered myself, at first, with the idea that all this
fiery indignation on the part of the community was merely the
overflowing of their zeal for good old English manners and their
horror of innovation, and I applauded the silent contempt they
were so vociferous in expressing for upstart pride, French
fashions and the Miss Lambs. But I grieve to say that I soon
perceived the infection had taken hold, and that my neighbors,
after condemning, were beginning to follow their example. I
overheard my landlady importuning her husband to let their
daughters have one quarter at French and music, and that they
might take a few lessons in quadrille. I even saw, in the course
of a few Sundays, no less than five French bonnets, precisely
like those of the Miss Lambs, parading about Little Britain.
I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die
away, that the Lambs might move out of the neighborhood, might
die, or might run away with attorneys' apprentices, and that
quiet and simplicity might be again restored to the community.
But unluckily a rival power arose. An opulent oilman died, and
left a widow with a large jointure and a family of buxom
daughters. The young ladies had long been repining in secret at
the parsimony of a prudent father, which kept down all their
elegant aspirings. Their ambition, being now no longer
restrained, broke out into a blaze, and they openly took the
field against the family of the butcher. It is true that the
Lambs, having had the first start, had naturally an advantage of
them in the fashionable career. They could speak a little bad
French, play the piano, dance quadrilles, and had formed high
acquaintances; but the Trotters were not to be distanced. When
the Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats, the Miss
Trotters mounted four and of twice as fine colors. If the Lambs
gave a dance, the Trotters were sure not to be behindhand; and,
though they might not boast of as good company, yet they had
double the number and were twice as merry.
The whole community has at length divided itself into fashionable
factions under the banners of these two families. The old games
of Pope-Joan and Tom-come-tickle-me are entirely discarded; there
is no such thing as getting up an honest country dance; and on my
attempting to kiss a young lady under the mistletoe last
Christmas, I was indignantly repulsed, the Miss Lambs having
pronounced it "shocking vulgar." Bitter rivalry has also broken
out as to the most fashionable part of Little Britain, the Lambs
standing up for the dignity of Cross-Keys Square, and the
Trotters for the vicinity of St. Bartholomew's.
Thus is this little territory torn by factions and internal
dissensions, like the great empire whose name it bears; and what
will be the result would puzzle the apothecary himself, with all
his talent at prognostics, to determine, though I apprehend that
it will terminate in the total downfall of genuine John Bullism.
The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to me. Being a
single man, and, as I observed before, rather an idle
good-for-nothing personage, I have been considered the only
gentleman by profession in the place. I stand therefore in high
favor with both parties, and have to hear all their cabinet
counsels and mutual backbitings. As I am too civil not to agree
with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed myself most
horribly with both parties by abusing their opponents. I might
manage to reconcile this to my conscience, which is a truly
accommodating one, but I cannot to my apprehension: if the Lambs
and Trotters ever come to a reconciliation and compare notes, I
am ruined!
I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in time, and am
actually looking out for some other nest in this great city where
old English manners are still kept up, where French is neither
eaten, drunk, danced, nor spoken, and where there are no
fashionable families of retired tradesmen. This found, I will,
like a veteran rat, hasten away before I have an old house about
my ears, bid a long, though a sorrowful adieu to my present
abode, and leave the rival factions of the Lambs and the Trotters
to divide the distracted empire of LITTLE BRITAIN.
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