"Just as the carriage was about to drive away" (more volition), "Mr. Alderman Magnay, accompanied by his lady and daughter, arrived in a post-chaise. After an interchange of salutations, the lady mayoress, observing that they must be somewhat crowded in the chaise, invited Miss Magnay to take the fourth seat, which had yet been vacant in the carriage; as the day was beginning to be warm, this courteous offer of her ladyship was readily accepted." Here is a perfect justification of Firkins's regrets at his fall--the unhappy trio, jammed in the _po chay_, had been the year before in precisely the same elevated position which their illustrious friends then occupied; and if the courteous lady mayoress the year before that, had been screwed up with her husband and daughter in a _po chay_ also, then Mrs. Magnay would have been the courteous lady mayoress, to have relieved the Wenableses. I must, however, think that the reverend gentleman's reason for Miss Magnay's ready acceptance of the courteous offer does her an injustice. By his account, she readily got out of the family jam, not because she duly appreciated the grace and favour of the lady mayoress, but because "the day was beginning to be warm." The journey to Oxford was all safely completed, and after seventy-six pages of matter, equally illustrative of Firkins's feelings, we come, at p. 77, to this description of the rapture and delight of the people of Oxfordshire, under the exciting circumstances of the lord mayor's return down the river towards London:-- "The crowds of people--men, women, and children--who had accompanied the barge from Oxford, were continually succeeded by fresh reinforcements from every town and village that is skirted by the river. Distant shouts and acclamations perpetually re-echoed from field to field, as the various rustic parties, with their fresh and blooming faces, were seen hurrying forth from their cottages and gardens, climbing trees, struggling through copses, and traversing thickets to make their shortest way to the water side. Handfuls of halfpence were scattered to the children as they kept pace with the city barge, and Mr. Alderman Atkins, who assisted the lord mayor in the distribution, seemed to enter with more than common pleasure into the enjoyment of the little children. It was gratifying to see the absence of selfish feeling manifested by some of the elder boys, who, forgetful of themselves, collected for the younger girls."--Pp. 77, 78. The last bit for which I have room, is of the more convincing and powerfully descriptive cast, than anything I have yet advanced in favour of my poor friend Gurney's estimation of Firkins's dismay at his fall. The scene is near Caversham, where crowds of "spectators, some on foot, some on horseback, and some in equipages of every kind," were collected to see the barges pass.