on
the mayor had added largely by a very recent purchase. He had arranged
these various specimens, which his last acquisitions had enriched by
the interesting carcasses of an elephant and a hippopotamus, in a large
wooden building contiguous to his dwelling, which had been constructed
by a former proprietor (a retired fox-hunter) as a riding-house; and
being a man who much affected the diffusion of knowledge, he proposed
to open this museum to the admiration of the general public, and, at
his death, to bequeath it to the Athenaeum or Literary Institute of
his native town. Margrave, seconded by the influence of the mayor's
daughters, had scarcely been three days at L---- before he had persuaded
this excellent and public-spirited functionary to inaugurate the opening
of his museum by the popular ceremony of a ball. A temporary corridor
should unite the drawing-rooms, which were on the ground floor, with
the building that contained the collection; and thus the fete would be
elevated above the frivolous character of a fashionable amusement, and
consecrated to the solemnization of an intellectual institute. Dazzled
by the brilliancy of this idea, the mayor announced his intention to
give a ball that should include the surrounding neighbourhood, and be
worthy, in all expensive respects, of the dignity of himself and the
occasion. A night had been fixed for the ball,--a night that became
memorable indeed to me! The entertainment was anticipated with a lively
interest, in which even the Hill condescended to share. The Hill did
not much patronize mayors in general; but when a Mayor gave a ball for
a purpose so patriotic, and on a scale so splendid, the Hill liberally
acknowledged that Commerce was, on the whole, a thing which the Eminence
might, now and then, condescend to acknowledge without absolutely
derogating from the rank which Providence had assigned to it amongst the
High Places of earth. Accordingly, the Hill was permitted by its Queen
to honour the first magistrate of Low Town by a promise to attend
his ball. Now, as this festivity had originated in the suggestion of
Margrave, so, by a natural association of ideas, every one, in talking
of the ball, talked also of Margrave.

The Hill had at first affected to ignore a stranger whose debut had been
made in the mercantile circle of Low Town. But the Queen of the Hill now
said, sententiously, "This new man in a few days has become a Celebrity.
It is the policy of the Hill