The ceremony commenced by the children belonging to the wards’ schools, Candlewick, Bridge, and Dowgate, singing “God save the King.” They were stationed in the highest eastern gallery for that purpose; the effect produced by their voices, stealing through the windings caused by the intervening timbers to the depth below, was very striking and peculiar.
The chamberlain delivered to his lordship the several pieces of coin: his lordship put them into the bottle, and deposited the bottle in the place whereon the foundation stone was to be laid.
The members of the committee, bearing the English inscription incrusted on glasses, presented it to the lord mayor. His lordship deposited it in the subjacent stone.
Mr. Jones, sub-chairman of the Bridge Committee, who attended in purple gowns and with staves, presented the lord mayor, on behalf of the committee, with an elegant silver-gilt trowel, embossed with the combined arms of the “Bridge House Estate and the City of London,” and bearing on the reverse an inscription of the date, and design of its presentation to the right hon. the lord mayor, who was born in the ward, and is a member of the guild wherein the new bridge is situated. This trowel was designed by Mr. John Green, of Ludgate-hill, and executed by Messrs. Green, Ward, and Green, in which firm he is partner. Mr. Jones, on presenting it to the lord mayor, thus addressed his lordship: “My lord, I have the honour to inform you, that the committee of management has appointed your lordship, in your character of lord mayor of London, to lay the first stone of the new London-bridge, and that they have directed me to present to your lordship this trowel as a means of assistance to your lordship in accomplishing that object.”
The lord mayor having signified his consent to perform the ceremony, Henry Woodthorpe, esq., the town clerk, who has lately obtained the degree of L. L. D., held the copper plate about to be placed beneath the stone with the following inscription upon it, composed by Dr. Coplestone, master of Oriel-college, Oxford:—
Pontis vetvsti
qvvm propter crebras nimis interiectas moles
impedito cvrsv flvminis
navicvlae et rates
non levi saepe iactvra et vitae pericvlo
per angvstas favces
praecipiti aqvarvm impetv ferri solerent
Civitas Londinensis
his incommodis remidivm adhibere volens
et celeberrimi simvl in terris emporii
vtilitatibvs consvlens
regni insvper senatvs avctoritate
ac mvnificentia adivta
pontem
sitv prorsvs novo
amplioribvs spatiis constrvendvm decrev
ea scilicet forma ac magnitvdine
qvae regiae vrbis maiestati
tandem responderet.
Neqve alio magis tempore
tantum opvs inchoandvm dvxit
qvam cvm pacato ferme toto terrarvm orbe
Imperivm Britannicvm
fama opibus mvltitvdine civivm et concordia pollens
principe
item gavderet
artivm favtore ac patrono
cvivs svb avspiciis
novva indies aedificiorvm splendor vrbi accederet.
Primum operis lapidem
posvit
Ioannes Garratt armiger
praetor
xv. die Ivnii
anno regis Georgii Quarti sexto
a. s. m.d.ccc.xxv.
Ioanne Rennie F. R. S. architecto.