Having established their authenticity, it is easy to show that Mr. Whittington's name was not Richard, as the vulgar fondly imagine; R, and not M, being the initial of Richard; and we might perhaps have doubted between Matthew, Mathias, Moses, Melchisedec or Mark; but the concluding W. of the last inscription seems to settle the matter in favour of Matthew, which is the only name that I know of in ordinary use which begins with M, and ends, as all the world sees, with a W. I shall say little of an erroneous supposition--built on the strength of the words "fool," "dunce," and "stupid dog;" and on the manifestly mistaken date,--which would refer these characteristic sentences to a worthy alderman now alive; (with whose initials they do, indeed, by a strange accident, agree.) Such a supposition is clearly false and untenable, as may be proved by one decisive observation, _inter alia_; that they appear to be the work of some jealous rival, displeased at Mr. Whittington's superior ability: perhaps they were even engraved by a fraud on the parish furniture, after Mr. Whittington's rise had given some handle to envy; whereas it is well known and universally admitted, to be the happiness of the worthy alderman now alive, that no human being either ever did, or could envy _him_:--this sets that important question asleep for ever. It may seem to some readers that these epithets,--opprobria, as some may think them,--do not redound to the credit of Mr. Alderman Whittington's intellect; but even if they are not, as before suggested, the production of envy, they are by no means inconsistent with Whittington's successful progress in life; on the contrary, they seem to designate him as a person who would naturally rise to City honours. It is grown to be a proverb, and admitted by the best writers on the subject, that Lord Mayors are "stupid dogs."[29] The City hath a prescription to choose "fools," for places of honour therein; and, as Matthew was at least twice Lord Mayor, he might with great propriety have been twice as great a fool as any of the others. This leads me to the important consideration of how often the illustrious Matthew had the honour of so worthily filling the Civic throne. An ancient and well-known ballad has this beautiful, and indeed important, rhyme,-- "---- ---- Whittington, _Twice_ Lord Mayor of London."[30]