Charles Lamb - The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

We have been favoured with a description of this magnificent state bed, the choice of his Lordship. The body is formed by the callipee, or under shell of a large turtle, carved in mahogany, and sufficiently capacious to receive two well-fed people. The callipash, or upper shell, forms the canopy. The posts are four gigantic figures richly gilt: two of them accurate copies of Gog and Magog; the other two represent Sir William Walworth and the last man in armour. Cupids with custards are the supporters. The curtains are of mazarine purple, and curiously wrought with the series of the idle and industrious apprentice from Hogarth, in gold embroidery: but the vallens exceed description; there , the various incidents in the life of Whittington are painted. The mice in one of the compartments are done so much to the life, that his Lordship's cat, who is an accurate judge of mice, was deceived. The quilt is of fashionable patchwork figures, the description of which we shall not anticipate, as, we understand, Mr. Birch has obtained a sketch of it for his large Twelfth Cake. The whole is worthy of the taste of the first Magistrate of the first City in the world.

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Once upon a high and solemn occasion all the great fasts and festivals in the year presented themselves before the throne of Apollo, God of Days .—Each brought an offering in his hand, as is the custom all over the East , that no man shall appear before the presence of the King empty-handed. Shrove-Tuesday was there with his pan-cakes , and Ash-Wednesday with his oblation of fish . Good-Friday brought the mystical bun . Christmas-Day came bending underneath an intolerable load of turkeys and mince-pies , his snow-white temples shaded with holly and the sacred misletoe , and singing a carol as he advanced. Next came the Thirtieth of January , bearing a calf's-head in a charger; but Apollo no sooner understood the emblematical meaning of the offering, than the stomach of the God turned sick, and with visible indignation and abhorrence he ordered the unfortunate Day out of his presence—the contrite Day returned in a little time, bearing in his hands a Whig (a sort of cake well-tempered and delicious)—the God with smiles accepted the atonement, and the happy Day understood that his peace was made, he promising never to bring such a dish into the presence of a God again. Then came the august Fourth of June , crowned with such a crown as British Monarchs commonly wear, leading into the presence the venerable Nineteenth of May — Apollo welcomed the royal pair, and placed them nearest to himself, and welcomed their noble progeny, their eldest-born and heir, the accomplished Twelfth of August , with all his brave brothers and handsome sisters. Only the merry First of April who is retained in the Court of Apollo as King's Jester , made some mirth by his reverent inquiries after the health of the Eighteenth of January , who, being a kept mistress, had not been deemed a proper personage to be introduced into such an assembly. Apollo , laughing, rebuked the petulance of his wit; so all was mirth and good humour in the palace—only the sorrowful Epiphany stood silent and abashed—he was poor , and had come before the King without an oblation. The God of Days perceived his confusion, and turning to the Muses (who are nine ), and to the Graces , his hand-maids (who are three in number), he beckoned to them, and gave to them in charge to prepare a Cake of the richest and preciousest ingredients: they obeyed, tempering with their fine and delicate fingers the spices of the East , the bread-flour of the West , with the fruits of the South , pouring over all the Ices of the North . The God himself crowned the whole with talismanic figures , which contained this wondrous virtue—that whosoever ate of the Cake should forthwith become Kings and Queens . Lastly, by his heralds, he invested the trembling and thankful Epiphany with the privilege of presenting this Cake before the King upon an annual festival for ever. Now this Cake is called Twelfth Cake upon earth, after the number of the virgins who fashioned the same, being nine and three.

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(1802. TEXT OF 1818)

To the Editor of the Reflector

Mr. Reflector—I was born under the shadow of St. Dunstan's steeple, just where the conflux of the eastern and western inhabitants of this twofold city meet and justle in friendly opposition at Temple-bar. The same day which gave me to the world, saw London happy in the celebration of her great annual feast. This I cannot help looking upon as a lively omen of the future great good will which I was destined to bear toward the city, resembling in kind that solicitude which every Chief Magistrate is supposed to feel for whatever concerns her interests and well being. Indeed I consider myself in some sort a speculative Lord Mayor of London: for though circumstances unhappily preclude me from the hope of ever arriving at the dignity of a gold chain and Spital Sermon, yet thus much will I say of myself in truth, that Whittington with his Cat (just emblem of vigilance and a furred gown) never went beyond me in affection, which I bear to the citizens.

I was born, as you have heard, in a crowd. This has begot in me an entire affection for that way of life, amounting to an almost insurmountable aversion from solitude and rural scenes. This aversion was never interrupted or suspended, except for a few years in the younger part of my life, during a period in which I had set my affections upon a charming young woman. Every man while the passion is upon him, is for a time at least addicted to groves and meadows and purling streams. During this short period of my existence, I contracted just familiarity enough with rural objects to understand tolerably well ever after the poets , when they declaim in such passionate terms in favor of a country life.

For my own part, now the fit is past, I have no hesitation in declaring, that a mob of happy faces crowding up at the pit door of Drury-lane Theatre, just at the hour of six, gives me ten thousand sincerer pleasures, than I could ever receive from all the flocks of silly sheep that ever whitened the plains of Arcadia or Epsom Downs.

This passion for crowds is no where feasted so full as in London. The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet-street. I am naturally inclined to hypochondria, but in London it vanishes, like all other ills. Often, when I have felt a weariness or distaste at home, have I rushed out into her crowded Strand, and fed my humour, till tears have wetted my cheek for unutterable sympathies with the multitudinous moving picture, which she never fails to present at all hours, like the scenes of a shifting pantomime.

The very deformities of London, which give distaste to others, from habit do not displease me. The endless succession of shops where Fancy miscalled Folly is supplied with perpetual gauds and toys, excite in me no puritanical aversion. I gladly behold every appetite supplied with its proper food. The obliging customer, and the obliged tradesman—things which live by bowing, and things which exist but for homage—do not affect me with disgust; from habit I perceive nothing but urbanity, where other men, more refined, discover meaness: I love the very smoke of London, because it has been the medium most familiar to my vision. I see grand principles of honor at work in the dirty ring which encompasses two combatants with fists, and principles of no less eternal justice in the detection of a pickpocket. The salutary astonishment with which an execution is surveyed, convinces me more forcibly than a hundred volumes of abstract polity, that the universal instinct of man in all ages has leaned to order and good government.