In 1736, there was—as I dare say there is now—an old Mr. Collier in the City. He lived in Essex, and his daughter—as is generally the case with rich City men—soon got married. It was thus the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of Isleworth, in 1788, described the wedding;—“Old Mr. Collier was a very vain man, who had made his fortune in the South Sea year: and having been originally a merchant, was fond, alter he had retired to live upon his fortune, of a great deal of display and parade. On his daughter’s wedding, therefore, he invited nearly fifty persons, and got two or three capital cooks from London to prepare a magnificent entertainment in honour of the day. When other ceremonies had concluded, the young couple were put to bed, and every one of the numerous assemblage came into the room to make these congratulations to the father and mother, who sat up in bed to receive them: ‘Madame, I wish you a very good-night. Sir, all happiness to you, and a very good-night,’ and so on through the whole party. My father, who hated all parade, but was forced to submit to the old gentleman’s humour, must have been in a fine fume; and my mother, who was then but seventeen or eighteen, sufficiently embarrassed.” It is as well rich citizens don’t indulge in such a display on the occasion of a marriage in the family in our time. I don’t fancy even a Lord Mayor, however fond of antiquity, would feel himself justified in attempting anything so ridiculous now. But then it was the fashion for a well-bred youth to address his father as “honoured sir,” and not as now, as “governor.” Another money-making family was that of the Hopes, originally from Holland. “Mr. William Hope,” says old Captain Gronow, “inherited, on coming of age, £40,000 a-year. He exhibited, alternately, extreme recklessness in expenditure, and the stinginess of a miser. He would one day spend thousands of pounds on a ball or supper, and then keep his servants for days on cold meat and stale bread. His large fortune enabled him to give the most splendid entertainments to the _beau monde_ of Paris. At his balls and parties all the notables of the day were to be seen, and no expense was spared to make them the most sumptuous entertainments then given. It was his custom, when the invitations were issued, not to open any letters till the party was over, to save him the mortification of refusing those who had not been invited.” If we are to believe the great poet, who mostly spent his life in London, and whose name still graces a street very much reduced from what it was in his day, Mammon-worship must have a very bad moral effect, for Mammon was the least erected spirit that fell from heaven; and even there we are told— “His looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beautiful.”