"The conversation was, however, in no degree changed in their absence. The Lady Mayoress and her fair friends had taken their share in it with much good sense and delicacy; and their departure, so far from being succeeded by that obstreperous and vulgar merriment, or anything like that gross profligacy of conversation, which indicates rejoicing at being emancipated from the restraint of female presence, only gave occasion to the Magistrates of Oxford to express their wish, that, in the invitations to their Corporation dinners, arrangements could be made that would include the ladies."
After such a dinner and such an evening, it may easily be imagined that Lord Wenables and his Court slept like tops—not but that his Lordship had "requested his friends not to devote too many hours to repose." In obedience to a wish, which when breathed by a Lord Mayor becomes a command, everybody was up and busy "while the morning was early:" the yeoman of his Lordship's household, half covered with an awning, was occupied with the cook, who was busied on this lovely day in making a fire to boil the tea-kettle, in a grate in the bow of the boat.
"About seven o'clock," says the reverend historian, "signals of the approach of his Lordship's party were descried and heard. The populace, thickly stationed on the road through which the carriages were to pass, caught up the acclamation; and announced to all who thronged the margin of the river, that——the Lord Mayor was coming! His Lordship and the Lady Mayoress alighted from the carriage at the bridge, and walked through the respectful crowd, which divided to give them passage; and were at once conveyed to the state barge——in the Water Bailiff's boat!"
The shouts of delight which rent the air were music to the ears of greatness—it was quite a genial morning, and one of those days "when we seem to draw in delight with the very air we breathe, and to feel happy we can scarcely tell why." So writes the reverend author, with more taste than judgment; for a man, placed as he was in the society of Lord Wenables and his Court, not to know why he felt happy, shows, we fear, a want of perception equally lamentable with the want of tact displayed in confessing it.
The reverend author laments that the eagerness of the party to do honour to the delicacies of the Lord Mayor's breakfast-table, prevented their seeing the beauties of Nuneham.
At ten o'clock they made Abingdon—and at Clifton the water shoaled suddenly from eighteen inches to fourteen and a half, so that his Lordship's yacht, which drew nearly two feet, could be drawn no farther, and they remained hard and fast till a fresh supply of the element could be procured.
The following passage is in the author's happiest style:—
"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 of acclamation 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 in running along the banks 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."
It will be remembered that the voyage now under detail was undertaken in the dreadful year of panic—but we confess we had no idea of the desperate state of affairs in the country which could induce so severe a run on the banks for a few halfpence, such as is here described. It may not be uninteresting to trace the source of the Lord Wenables's munificence. The halfpence in question were those which we mentioned his Lordship to have taken in change at the turnpike-gates during his Lordship's over-land journey to Oxford, and were now distributed with that liberality and grace for which his Lordship and Mr. Alderman Atkins will never cease to be remembered. The reverend writer, indeed, says:—
"There is, unquestionably, something genuine and affectionate in the cheerfulness of the common people, when it springs from the bounty and familiarity of those above them: the warm glow of gratitude spreads over their mirth; and a kind word or look, or a little pleasantry, frankly said or done—and which calls in no degree for any sacrifice of personal dignity—always gladdens the heart of a dependant a thousand times more than oil and wine. It is wonderful, too, how much life and joy even one intelligent and good-humoured member of a pleasure-party will diffuse around him. The fountain of indwelling light, which animates his own bosom, overflows to others; and every thing around quickly freshens into smiles."