The last Lord Mayor's pageant of the old school was in 1702 (Queen
Anne), when Sir Samuel Dashwood, vintner, entertained her Majesty at the
Guildhall. Poor Elkanah Settle (Pope's butt) wrote the _libretto_, in
hopes to revive a festival then "almost dropping into oblivion." On his
return from Westminster, the Mayor was met at the Blackfriars Stairs by
St. Martin, patron of the Vintners, in rich armour and riding a white
steed. The generous saint was attended by twenty dancing satyrs, with
tambourines; ten halberdiers, with rustic music; and ten Roman lictors.
At St. Paul's Churchyard the saint made a stand, and, drawing his
sword, cut off half his crimson scarf, and gave it to some beggars and
cripples who importuned him for charity. The pageants were fanciful
enough, and poor Settle must have cudgelled his dull brains well for it.
The first was an Indian galleon crowded by Bacchanals wreathed with
vines. On the deck of the grape-hung vessel sat Bacchus himself,
"properly drest." The second pageant was the chariot of Ariadne, drawn
by panthers. Then came St. Martin, as a bishop in a temple, and next
followed "the Vintage," an eight-arched structure, with termini of
satyrs and ornamented with vines. Within was a bar, with a beautiful
person keeping it, with drawers (waiters), and gentlemen sitting
drinking round a tavern table. On seeing the Lord Mayor, the bar-keeper
called to the drawers--

"Where are your eyes and ears?
See there what honourable _gent_ appears!
Augusta's great Praetorian lord--but hold!
Give me a goblet of true Orient mould.
And with," &c.

In 1727, the first year of the reign of King George II., the king,
queen, and royal family having received a humble invitation from the
City to dine at Guildhall, their Majesties, the Princess Royal, and her
Royal Highness the Princess Carolina, came into Cheapside about three
o'clock in the afternoon, attended by the great officers of the court
and a numerous train of the nobility and gentry in their coaches, the
streets being lined from Temple Bar by the militia of London, and the
balconies adorned with tapestry. Their Majesties and the princesses saw
the Lord Mayor's procession from a balcony near Bow Church. Hogarth has
introduced a later royal visitor--Frederick, Prince of Wales--in a
Cheapside balcony, hung with tapestry, in his "Industrious and Idle
Apprentices" (plate xii.). A train-band man in the crowd is firing off a
mu