rter, when nineteen years of age, assisted by the late Mr.
Mulready, and presented to the City in 1808.

[Illustration: THE COURT OF ALDERMEN, GUILDHALL. (_See page 388._)]

The Common Council room (says Brayley) is a compact and
well-proportioned apartment, appropriately fitted up for the assembly of
the Court of Common Council, which consists of the Lord Mayor, twenty
aldermen, and 236 deputies from the City wards; the middle part is
formed into a square by four Tuscan arches, sustaining a cupola, by
which the light is admitted. Here is a splendid collection of paintings,
and some statuary: for the former the City is chiefly indebted to the
munificence of the late Mr. Alderman John Boydell, who was Lord Mayor in
1791. The principal picture, however, was executed at the expense of
the Corporation, by J.S. Copley, R.A., in honour of the gallant defence
of Gibraltar by General Elliot, afterwards Lord Heathfield; it measures
twenty-five feet in width, and about twenty in height, and represents
the destruction of the floating batteries before the above fortress on
the 13th of September, 1782. The principal figures, which are as large
as life, are portraits of the governor and officers of the garrison. It
cost the City L1,543. Here also are four pictures, by Paton,
representing other events in that celebrated siege; and two by Dodd, of
the engagement in the West Indies between Admirals Rodney and De Grasse
in 1782.

[Illustration: OLD FRONT OF GUILDHALL. (_From Seymour's "London,"
1734._)]

Against the south wall are portraits of Lord Heathfield, after Sir
Joshua Reynolds; the Marquis Cornwallis, by Copley; Admiral Lord
Viscount Hood, by Abbott; and Mr. Alderman Boydell, by Sir William
Beechey; also, a large picture of the "Murder of David Rizzio," by Opie.
On the north wall is "Sir William Walworth killing Wat Tyler," by
Northcote; and the following portraits: viz., Admiral Lord Rodney, after
Monnoyer; Admiral Earl Howe, copied by G. Kirkland; Admiral Lord Duncan,
by Hoppner; Admirals the Earl of St. Vincent and Lord Viscount Nelson,
by Sir William Beechey; and David Pinder, Esq., by Opie. The subjects of
three other pictures are more strictly municipal--namely, the Ceremony
of Administering the Civic Oath to Mr. Alderman Newnham as Lord Mayor,
on the Hustings at Guildhall, November 8th, 1782 (this was painted by
Miller, and includes upwards of 140 portraits of the aldermen, &c.); the
Lord Mayor's Show on the water, No