to their opponents, found themselves excluded from every
local dignity. Nevertheless, the external splendour of the municipal
government was not diminished, nay, was rather increased by this change.
For, under the administration of some Puritans who had lately borne
rule, the ancient fame of the City for good cheer had declined: but
under the new magistrates, who belonged to a more festive party, and
at whose boards guests of rank and fashion from beyond Temple Bar were
often seen, the Guildhall and the halls of the great companies were
enlivened by many sumptuous banquets. During these repasts, odes
composed by the poet laureate of the corporation, in praise of the King,
the Duke, and the Mayor, were sung to music. The drinking was deep and
the shouting loud. An observant Tory, who had often shared in these
revels, has remarked that the practice of huzzaing after drinking
healths dates from this joyous period. [110]

The magnificence displayed by the first civic magistrate was almost
regal. The gilded coach, indeed, which is now annually admired by the
crowd, was not yet a part of his state. On great occasions he appeared
on horseback, attended by a long cavalcade inferior in magnificence
only to that which, before a coronation, escorted the sovereign from the
Tower to Westminster. The Lord Mayor was never seen in public without
his rich robe, his hood of black velvet, his gold chain, his jewel, and
a great attendance of harbingers and guards. [111] Nor did the world
find anything ludicrous in the pomp which constantly surrounded him. For
it was not more than became the place which, as wielding the strength
and representing the dignity of the City of London, he was entitled to
occupy in the State. That City, being then not only without equal in the
country, but without second, had, during five and forty years, exercised
almost as great an influence on the politics of England as Paris has,
in our own time, exercised on the politics of France. In intelligence
London was greatly in advance of every other part of the kingdom. A
government, supported and trusted by London, could in a day obtain such
pecuniary means as it would have taken months to collect from the rest
of the island. Nor were the military resources of the capital to be
despised. The power which the Lord Lieutenants exercised in other
parts of the kingdom was in London entrusted to a Commission of eminent
citizens. Under the order of this Commission were twe