A feast of the corporation of the Athens is a thing altogether different from a feast of the corporation of London. In both places it is, no doubt, more sentient than sentimental; and the belly must be put to sleep ere the soul be awakened to heroic deeds; but a feast of the corporation of London is, notwithstanding all its abundance, a merely plebeian thing,--it emanates from the people, is partaken of by the people, and if royal or courtly persons be there, they are in the humble attitude of guests. It is a matter, in short, not only different from, but in opposition to, those cold collations which obtain in the kingly circles; and it is calculated to inspire the people more with sentiments of independence, and a consciousness of their own worth, than with that bowing down of the honour for the sake of rising in office, and that beggaring of the heart for the sake of filling the purse with the gains of office, which invariably accompany banquets of exclusive loyalty. The feastings of the Athenian corporation, on the other hand, are feastings which the people do not originate, and of which they are not allowed to partake. They are of two kinds,--which may be distinguished as well as characterized by the two epithets of “dinners of the flagon,” and “dinners of the scrip;” the former having reference to nothing else than the filling of the belly, the latter having an ultimate view to the replenishing of the purse. The feast of the flagon is by much the more ancient; it is characteristic of the whole genus of corporation men; and it is because they have a much greater propensity to feed the flesh than either to cultivate or to exercise the understanding, that corporations are every where denominated _bodies_,--as much as to say, that though they may have souls, these are not worth taking into the account. In ancient times, when kings held their regular courts in Scotland, and when these eclipsed all that could be done by the delegated moons of the Athenian corporation, that corporation had the same leaning toward the people which other corporations near the seat of royalty are supposed to possess, and in those days the feast of the flagon was almost the only one known to the corporation men of the Athens. Now, however, as the royal household in Scotland has become a mere cipher, and since the second-hand vessels into which the delegation of the royal authority has been poured have become such as not easily to be contaminated by any association, the feasts of the scrip--a sort of clubbing of stomachs and of tongues among all the Attic worthies, have come into use, more and more in proportion as the times have been more and more trying and troublesome, and the price of the expression of loyalty has been enhanced, upon the ground of its alleged scarcity;--since this has been the case, a complete separation has taken place even in the feasts of the flagon, between the corporated bodies and the