, L63 0s. 0d.; steel buckles, L5
5s. 0d.; a steel sword, L6 16s. 6d.; hair-dressing, L16 16s. 11d.--L309
2s. 3d. On the page opposite to that containing this record, under the
head of 'Ditto Returned,' we read 'Per Valuation, L0 0s. 0d.' Thus, to
dress a Lord Mayor costs L309 2s. 0d.; but her Ladyship cannot be duly
arrayed at a less cost than L416 2s. 0d. To dress the servants cost L724
5s. 6d."

Then comes a grand summing-up. "Dr. The whole state of the account,
L12,173 4s. 3d." Then follow the receipts per contra:--" At
Chamberlain's Office, L3,572 8s. 4d.; Cocket Office, L892 5s. 11d.;
Bridge House, L60; City Gauger, L250; freedoms, L175; fees on
affidavits, L21 16s. 8d.; seals, L67 4s. 9d.; licences, L13 15s.;
sheriff's fees, L13 6s. 8d.; corn fees, L15 13s.; venison warrants, L14
4s.; attorneys, Mayor's Court, L26 7s. 9d.; City Remembrancer, L12 12s.;
in lieu of baskets, L7 7s.; vote of Common Council, L100; sale of horses
and carriages, L450; wine (overplus) removed from Mansion House, L398
18s. 7d. Total received, L6,117 9s. 8d. Cost of mayoralty, as such, and
independent of all private expenses, L6,055 14s. 7d."

[Illustration: THE "MARIA WOOD." (_See page 447._)]

That clever but unscrupulous tuft-hunter and smart parvenu, Theodore
Hook, who talked of Bloomsbury as if it was semi-barbarous, and of
citizens (whose wine he drank, and whose hospitality he so often shared)
as if they could only eat venison and swallow turtle soup, has left a
sketch of the short-lived dignity of a mayor, which exactly represents
the absurd caricature of City life that then pleased his West-end
readers, half of whom had derived their original wealth from the till.
Scropps, the new Lord Mayor, cannot sleep all night for his greatness;
the wind down the chimney sounds like the shouts of the people; the
cocks crowing in the morn at the back of the house he takes for trumpets
sounding his approach; and the ordinary incidental noises in the family
he fancies the pop-guns at Stangate announcing his disembarcation at
Westminster. Then come his droll mishaps: when he enters the state
coach, and throws himself back upon his broad seat, with all imaginable
dignity, in the midst of all his ease and elegance, he snaps off the
cut-steel hilt of his sword, by accidentally bumping the whole weight of
his body right--or rather, wrong--directly upon the top of it.

"Through fog and glory," says Theodore Hook, "Scropps reached
Blackfriars Bridge,