ed a fund, and
since then a university scholarship has been founded--_sicitur ad
astra_. The back room, first floor, in which the great man died, had
been pulled down by Mr. Bensley, to make way for a staircase. Bensley
was one of the first introducers of the German invention of
steam-printing.

[Illustration: A TEA PARTY AT DR. JOHNSON'S (_see page 113_).]

At "Dr. Johnson's" tavern, established forty years ago (now the Albert
Club), the well-known society of the "Lumber Troop" once drained their
porter and held their solemn smokings. This gallant force of
supposititious fighting men "came out" with great force during the
Reform Riots of 1830. These useless disturbances originated in a fussy,
foolish warning letter, written by John Key, the Lord Mayor elect (he
was generally known in the City as Don Key after this), to the Duke of
Wellington, then as terribly unpopular with the English Reformers as he
had been with the French after the battle of Waterloo, urging him (the
duke) if he came with King William and Queen Adelaide to dine with the
new Lord Mayor, (his worshipful self), to come "strongly and
sufficiently guarded." This imprudent step greatly offended the people,
who were also just then much vexed with the severities of Peel's
obnoxious new police. The result was that the new king and queen (for
the not over-beloved George IV. had only died in June of that year)
thought it better to decline coming to the City festivities altogether.
Great, then, was even the Tory indignation, and the fattest alderman
trotted about, eager to discuss the grievance, the waste of half-cooked
turtle, and the general folly and enormity of the Lord Mayor elect's
conduct. Sir Claudius Hunter, who had shared in the Lord Mayor's fears,
generously marched to his aid. In a published statement that he made, he
enumerated the force available for the defence of the (in his mind)
endangered City in the following way:--

Ward Constables 400
Fellowship, Ticket, and Tackle Porters 250
Firemen 150
Corn Porters 100
Extra men hired 130
City Police or own men 54
Tradesmen with emblems in the procession 300
Some gentlemen called the Lumber Troopers 150
The Artillery Company 150
The East India Volunteers