It was _Waterloo-day_; and, while the Duke was supposed to be feasting his friends at Apsley House, the Lord Mayor, at the Mansion-house, gave a city feast to the Clergy of London, with others, among whom I had the honour of being numbered. It was, in fact, a dinner given to the S. P. G., in honour of its Jubilee; and I owed my invitation to the kind offices of the Bishop of Oxford. The Mansion-house is the official residence of the Lord Mayor, and it is a conspicuous object in Lombard-street, near the Bank of England. On arriving, we were shown into an ante-room, where the Lord Mayor received us, and we were presented to the Lady Mayoress. The room was filled with company, and here I met several distinguished personages whom I had not seen before. I was particularly pleased with being introduced, by Dean Milman, to Dr. Croly, for whose genius and productions I have a high regard. The dinner was served in the Egyptian Hall, so called from its original resemblance to a hall described by Vitruvius. It is a spacious banquet-room, and looks very well when lighted, although destitute of such specimens of art as would best furnish its nudity of wall, and its many “coignes of vantage.” The chief table crossed the hall at one end, and at right angles with this, four long tables stretched through the apartment. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress sat in state at the head, the former wearing his glittering collar and jewel, as well as his robes, with the city mace, sword, and other splendid insignia displayed before him. The Archbishop, with the Bishops, were seated on his right and left, dressed in their silk gowns and cassocks, in which costume all the clergy present were attired. The ladies made a very superb appearance, and I should suppose the whole company numbered about two hundred persons. The display of plate, and the general show of splendour, was sumptuous, in all respects, answering to one’s ideas of a Lord Mayor’s feast. An old-fashioned civic custom, moreover, was observed with a certain degree of punctilio, which, while highly becoming, was yet to me highly amusing, and made me feel, all the time, as if I were dining with the great Whittington himself, especially when his Lordship sent me a glass, and invited me to the high honour of drinking with him. The mayor of such a metropolis is, indeed, for the time, a right worshipful personage, and in the then incumbent I saw before me a most pleasing representative of the magistracy of the greatest capital of Christendom. He is attended with a degree of state quite worthy of a sovereign. It was odd, I must own, to see his chaplain come forward, in the style described by the cynical Macaulay, and, after saying grace, retire. So, too, the presence of his post-boy, in flaming jacket and short-clothes, and glittering cap, with many other servants, in showy and old-fashioned liveries, gave an antique appearance to the magnificence of the scene.