sket to express his delight.

Sir Samuel Fludyer, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1761, the year of
the marriage of good King George III., appears to have done things with
thoroughness. In a contemporary chronicle we find a very sprightly
narrative of Sir Samuel's Lord Mayor's show, in which the king and
queen, with "the rest of the royal family," participated--their
Majesties, indeed, not getting home from the Guildhall ball until two in
the morning. Our sight-seer was an early riser. He found the morning
foggy, as is common to this day in London about the 9th of November, but
soon the fog cleared away, and the day was brilliantly fine--an
exception, he notes, to what had already, in his time, become
proverbial that the Lord Mayor's day is almost invariably a bad one. He
took boat on the Thames, that he might accompany the procession of state
barges on their way to Westminster. He reports "the silent highway" as
being quite covered with boats and gilded barges. The barge of the
Skinners' Company was distinguished by the outlandish dresses of
strange-spotted skins and painted hides worn by the rowers. The barge
belonging to the Stationers' Company, after having passed through one of
the narrow arches of Westminster Bridge, and tacked about to do honour
to the Lord Mayor's landing, touched at Lambeth and took on board, from
the archbishop's palace, a hamper of claret--the annual tribute of
theology to learning. The tipple must have been good, for our chronicler
tells us that it was "constantly reserved for the future regalement of
the master, wardens, and court of assistants, and not suffered to be
shared by the common crew of liverymen." He did not care to witness the
familiar ceremony of swearing in the Lord Mayor in Westminster Hall, but
made the best of his way to the Temple Stairs, where it was the custom
of the Lord Mayor to land on the conclusion of the aquatic portion of
the pageant. There he found some of the City companies already landed,
and drawn up in order in Temple Lane, between two rows of the
train-bands, "who kept excellent discipline." Other of the companies
were wiser in their generation; they did not land prematurely to cool
their heels in Temple Lane, while the royal procession was passing along
the Strand, but remained on board their barges regaling themselves
comfortably. The Lord Mayor encountered good Samaritans in the shape of
the master and benchers of the Temple, who invited him to come on sh