ore
and lunch with them in the Temple Hall.

Every house from Temple Bar to Guildhall was crowded from top to bottom,
and many had scaffoldings besides; carpets and rich hangings were hung
out on the fronts all the way along; and our friend notes that the
citizens were not mercenary, but "generously accommodated their friends
and customers gratis, and entertained them in the most elegant manner,
so that though their shops were shut, they might be said to have kept
open house."

[Illustration: FIGURES OF GOG AND MAGOG SET UP IN GUILDHALL AFTER THE
FIRE.]

The royal procession, which set out from St. James's Palace at noon, did
not get to Cheapside until near four, when in the short November day it
must have been getting dark. Our sight-seer, as the royal family passed
his window, counted between twenty and thirty coaches-and-six belonging
to them and to their attendants, besides those of the foreign
ambassadors, officers of state, and the principal nobility. There
preceded their Majesties the Duke of Cumberland, Princess Amelia, the
Duke of York, in a new state coach; the Princes William Henry and
Frederic, the Princess Dowager of Wales, and the Princesses Augusta and
Caroline in one coach, preceded by twelve footmen with black caps,
followed by guards and a grand retinue. The king and queen were in
separate coaches, and had separate retinues. Our friend in the window of
the "Queen's Arms" was in luck's way. From a booth at the eastern end of
the churchyard the children of Christ Church Hospital paid their
respects to their Majesties, the senior scholar of the grammar school
reciting a lengthy and loyal address, after which the boys chanted "God
Save the King." At last the royal family got to the house of Mr.
Barclay, the Quaker, from the balcony of which, hung with crimson silk
damask, they were to see, with what daylight remained, the civic
procession that presently followed; but in the interval came Mr. Pitt,
in his chariot, accompanied by Earl Temple. The great commoner was then
in the zenith of his popularity, and our sight-seer narrates how, "at
every step, the mob clung about every part of the vehicle, hung upon the
wheels, hugged his footmen, and even kissed his horses. There was an
universal huzza, and the gentlemen at the windows and the balconies
waved their hats, and the ladies their handkerchiefs."

The Lord Mayor's state coach was drawn by six beautiful iron-grey
horses, gorgeously caparisoned, and the