This is a long exordium for a fugitive sketch, and it is time to say it has sprung from reflections created in the mind of an imprisoned "conspirator" and "mover of sedition," by the flitting across his cell, in his imagination, of sundry bygone shapes with whom he was, more or less, familiar at one period of his changeful life. It is the "Old Corporation" of the ancient and time-honoured city of Lincoln, of which the writer speaks;--and though wit might discover among its members many a foible that would form a picture to "make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere," yet generosity, and justice, no less, must confess, that after the most searching inquiry and exposure, they were neither individually nor collectively stained with the acts of peculation and embezzlement, nor application of public funds to political party purposes, which were so heavily, and, no doubt, truly charged on some of the old guilds in other parts of the country. Yet they were, as a body, supporters of the _ancien régime_, as was natural: they had been inured, the greater part of them, through nearly the whole of their lives, to look upon the established state of things as the best and fittest;--and, no doubt, the majority of them conscientiously believed it to be so,--failing, through the confined and stinted nature of their social training, to reflect that what was productive to themselves, the few, of pleasure or comfort, might confer no benefits on the many,--but rather be a source, to these, of deep and increasing suffering. Passing by many a picture that starts to memory of "mayoralty," and its ludicrous airs of greatness, and many a reminiscence of grave joke and lighter whimsicality,--of burlesque importance, and mirth-moving earnestness about trifles,--recollection dwells with consolated interest on more durable limnings of simple, uncorrupted manners, and warm hearts, and really expansive natures, that belonged to some of that "Old Corporation."