to be in Court dresses, and I fear ye'll think that o'er costly, being so far from your own shop, where you could get the cloth at the first hand; over and above which, the Coronation is so near, that I doubt it is not in the power of nature for any tailor to make the garb in time."

I need not say how well pleased I was with this complimentary attention of Doctor Pringle; and when I told him of Mr Solomon and the old-fashioned clothes, we had a most jocose laugh about the same; and he said, that, as soon as I had taken my tea, we would go together in the Captain's carriage to Mr Solomon's shop, and get a suit of Court clothes for me. As for the Doctor, he stood in no need of such vanity; having brought up his gown and bands with him, in case of being obligated to preach any charity sermons, as he was in his legacy visit to London, and he was told, that clergymen were to be admitted in their gowns. "Indeed," said the Doctor, "Rachel wrote to her mother of this when she pressed us to come to see the Coronation, which was the cause of Mrs Pringle putting the gown in the portmanty; but, you know, if I preach in another's pulpit, there is never an objection to lend either gown or

bands."

The Doctor then went to the window, and, opening the same, said to the coachman, that he might put up his horses for a season at a changehouse, and come back in half an hour; but I could discern that the flunkies were draughty fellows, though they seemed to obey him; for when they, at the end of the time, came back with the carriage for us, the horses were reeking hot, and when we stepped in, to go to Mr Solomon's at Charing Cross, the first thing the Doctor laid his hand on was a lady's ridicule, and how it could have come into the carriage was past all comprehension. But the footman took charge of it, and said he knew the owner, so the Doctor gave it to him; but when I came to reflect at leisure on this, I thought it was very soft of the Doctor to give it up without an examination.

By the time we got to Mr Solomon's shop, it was full of strangers, on the same errand as ourselves, and it was long before we could be served. At last, however, the Doctor and me were

persuaded by the man to take a skyblue silk suit, richly flowered, with an embroidered white satin waistcoat, adorned with glass buttons. I would fain myself have had one of the plain cloth sort, such as I saw the generality of gentlemen preferring, but I was overly persuaded, particularly by the man offering me the loan for a guinea less than the others were let for. The Doctor, too, in this was partly to blame; for he greatly insisted, that the gayer the apparel the more proper it was for the occasion,-although I told him, that a sky-blue silk dress, with great red roses and tulips, and glass buttons, was surely not in any thing like a becoming concordance with the natural douceness of my character. However, persuaded I was; and we brought the dress away,-sword, and cockit-hat, with all the other parapharnalia,-and the Doctor and me had great sport at my lodgings about the spurtle-sword, for we were long of finding out the way to put it on,-for it was very incommodious to me on the left side, as I have been all my days Katy-handed. Indeed, we were obligated to call up both Mrs Damask and the footman to instruct us; and I thought the fellow would have gone off at the head with laughing, at seeing and hearing the Doctor's perplexity and mine. However, we came to a right understanding at last; and the Doctor wishing me good-night went home to his gudeson's, with a promise to come down to me betimes in the morning.

After he was departed, I began to consider of the borrowed dress, and I was not at all satisfied with myself for the gaiety thereof; I thought also that it must surely be one very much out of fashion, or it would never have been so much pressed upon me at a moderate rate. But Mrs Damask thought it most handsome, so submitting my own judgment to the opinion of others, I reasoned myself into contentment, and getting a mutchkin of London porter in, and a partan, which to me was dainties, I made a competent supper, and retired to my bed, where I slept as comfortable as could be till past eight o'clock_next morning, when I rose and had my breakfast, as I had bargained with Mrs Damask, for the which I was to pay her at the rate of seven shillings per week, a price not out of the way,

considering London and the Coronation time, when, as was understood at Glasgow, every thing was naturally expected to be two prices.

By the time I had got my breakfast, and was in order to adventure forth, Captain Sabre's carriage, with the Doctor and Mrs Pringle, came to the door, to take me out with them to show me the curiosities of London. But before going, Mrs Pringle would see my court dress, which she examined very narrowly, and observed "it must have cost both pains and placks when it was made, but it's sore worn, and the right colour's faded.-Howsomever, Mr Duffle, it will do vastly well, especially as few ken you."

This observe of Mrs Pringle did not tend to make me the more content with my bargain, but I was no inclined to breed a disturbance by sending back the things, and I could no bear the thought of a law-plea about hiring clothes to look at the King.

Mrs Pringle having satisfied her curiosity with my garments, we all went into the carriage, and drove to a dressmaker's, where she had dealt before, to get a new gown and mutch for the Coronation. The mantua-maker would fain have persuaded her to have taken a fine glittering gauze, spangled and pedigreed with lace and gum flowers, but Mrs Pringle is a woman of a considerate character, and was not in a hurry to fix, examining every dress in the room in a most particular manner, that she might, as she told me, be able to give an explanation to Nanny Eydent of the Coronation fashions. She then made her choice of a satin dress, that would serve for other times and occasions, and adhered to it, although the mantua-making lady assured her that satin was not to be worn, but only tissues and laces; the mistress, however, made her putt good, and the satin dress was obligated to be sent to her, along with a bonnet, that would require the particularity of a millinder's pen to describe.

When we had settled this matter, we then drove home to Captain Sabre's, to hear about the tickets, where I got one, as being a literary character, to the box set apart for the learned that were to write the history of the banquetting part of the solemnity, and it was agreed that I was to be at the door of admittance by three o'clock in

the morning; the Doctor and Mrs Pringle were provided, by the Captain's means, with tickets both for the Hall and Abbey, he himself was to be on guard, and Mrs Sabre, being big with bairn, and thereby no in a condition to encounter a crowd, was to go with a party of other married ladies, who were all in the like state, to places in the windows of a house that overlooked the platform, so that nothing could be better arranged, not only for me to see myself, but to hear what others saw of the performance in those places where I could not of a possibility be.

And here I should narrate, much to the credit of the Londoners, that nothing could exceed the civility with which I was treated in the house of Captain Sabre, not only by himself and the others present; for many ladies and gentlemen, who knew he was to be on guard, and how, through his acquaintance, we had been favoured in tickets, came in to inquire particulars, and to talk about the Coronation, and whether the Queen really intended to claim admittance. In a like company in Glasgow I would have been left at the door, but every one was more attentive to me than another, on understanding I was the Mr Duffle of Blackwood's Magazine. The Captain insisted on my taking an early family dinner, saying they had changed their hour to accommodate the Doctor, and the Doctor likewise pressed me, so that I could not in decency refuse, having as I have mentioned, postponed all business till after the Coronation. In short, it is not to be told the kindness and discretion which I met with.

In the afternoon, the Doctor, Mrs Pringle, and me were sent out again in the carriage to see the preparations and the scaffolding, and it was just a miracle to hear the Doctor's wonderment at the same, and the hobbleshaw that was gathering around. As for Mrs Pringle, she was very audible on the waste and extravagance that was visible every where, and said, that although a pomp was befitting the occasion on the King's part, the pomposity of the scaffoldings was a crying sin of vanity and dissipation.

When we had satisfied ourselves, and I had pointed out to them the circumstantials which I had gathered the night before, they conveyed me to the

house of Mrs Damask, where I had my lodgment, and we bade one another good night; for although it was yet early, we agreed that it would be as well for us to take, if possible, an hour or two's rest, the better to withstand the fatigue and pressure of the next day; and accordingly, when I went up stairs, I told Mrs Damask of that in tent, and how I would like, if it could be done, that she would have the kettle boiling by times, for me to have a bite of breakfast by three o'clock in the morning, which she very readily promised to do, having other lodgers besides me that were to be up and out by that time.

Thus have I related at full length, to the best of my recollection, all the

preliminary and prefatory proceedings in which I was concerned about the Coronation; the ceremonies and solemnities of which I will now go on to tell, setting down nought that is not of a most strict veracity, having no de sign to impose upon the understanding of posterity, but only a sincere desire to make them, as well as the living generation, acquaint with the true incidents and character of that great proceeding, the like of which has not been in this country in our time, if it ever was in any other country at any time, to the end and purpose that the scene and acting thereof may have a perpetuity by being in the pages of my writings.

I HAD but an indifferent night's rest; for the anxiety that I suffered, lest I should oversleep myself, prevented me in a great degree from shutting my eyes. So I was up and stirring before" the skreigh o' day;" and I was in a manner out of the body at Mrs Damask, who had not the breakfast ready so soon as I had hoped she would. It was more than a whole quarter of an hour past three o'clock in the morning before I got it and was dress ed; and when I was dressed, I durst not almost look at myself in the look ing-glass, with my broidered garments of sky-blue, the sword, and the cockit hat, I was such a figure. Judge, then, what I felt when I thought on going out into the streets so like a phantasy of Queen Anne's court. Luckily, however, another gentleman in the house, who had likewise got a ticket and dress, was provided with a coach for the occasion, and he politely offered me a seat; so I reached the Hall of Westminster without any inordinate trouble or confusion.

Having been shewn the way to the gallery where I was to sit, I sat in a musing mood seeing the personages coming in, like a kirk filling. A murmuring was heard around, like the sough of rushing waters, and now and then the sound of an audible angry voice. As the dawn brightened, the Hall was lightened; and the broad patches of white, and red, and other

colours, that seemed like bales and webs of cloth in the galleries fornent me, gradually kithed into their proper shape of ladies and gentlemen.

I now took my old Magazine out of my pocket, and began to make comparisons; but for a time I was disturbed by ladies coming into the gallery, and sitting down beside me, talking much, and very highly pleased.

The performance of the day began by sixteen queer looking men, dressed into the shape of Barons, rehearsing how they were to carry a commodity over the King's head, called a canopy. It was really a sport to see in what manner they endeavoured to march, shouldering the sticks that upheld it, like bairns playing at soldiers. Among this batch of curiosities, there was pointed out to me a man of a slender habit of body; that was the great Mr Brougham, and a proud man, I trow, he was that day, stepping up and down the Hall, with a high head, and a crouse look, snuffing the wind with a pride and panoply just most extraordinar to behold.

By and bye, the nobles, and counsellors, and great officers, and their attendants, a vast crowd, all in their robes of state,—and a most gorgeous show they made,-came into the Hall, followed by the King himself, who entered with a marvellous fasherie, as I thought it, of formalities, and so he seemed, or I'm mistaken, to think

himself; for I could see he was now and then like to lose his temper at the stupidity of some of the attendants. But it's no new thing for kings to be ill-served; and our Majesty might by this time, I think, have been used to the misfortune, considering what sort of men his ministers are.

Shortly after the King had taken his place on the throne, the crown, and the other utensils of royalty, were brought, with a great palavering of priesthood and heraldry, and placed on the council-table before him, and when he had ordered the distribution thereof, the trumpets began to sound, and the whole procession to move off. His Majesty, when he reached the head of the stairs, was for a time at some doubt as to the manner of descending, till a noble in scarlet came and lent him his arm, for the which his Majesty was very thankful at the bottom. Meanwhile a most idolatrous chaunting and singing was heard, as the procession slided slowly down the Hall, and out at the door, and along the platform to the Abbey. Those who had places for the Abbey as well as the Hall then hurried out; and, while the King was absent, there was but little order or silence in the company, people talking and moving about.

I now began to weary, and to grudge at not having got a ticket to the Abbey likewise; but trusting to Doctor Pringle and the Mistress for an account of what was doing there, it behoved me to be content: so, with others, I stepped down from where I was sitting, and looked at the preparations for dressing the royal table, which had a world of pains bestowed on it-divers gentlemen measuring with foot-rules the length and the breadth thereof that was to be allowed for the dishes, no jooking the tithe of an inch in the placing of the very saltfits. But there was one thing I could not comprehend; which was a piece of an old looking glass, in a green painted frame, with four gilded babies, about the size of a bairn's doll, at the corners, placed flat in the middle. Surely, it was not for the intent to let the King see how he looked with the crown on his brows; and, if it was not for that purpose, I wonder what it was there for?-but truly it was a very poor commodity. In the mean time, golden vessels, flag

gons, and servers, and other dunkled and old-fashioned articles of the like metal, were placed in shelves on each side of the throne for a show, like the pewter plates, dripping pans, pot lids, and pint stoups in a change-house kitchen. Some thought it very grand ; but, for me, I thought of King Hezekiah shewing his treasures to the messengers of Berodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, King of Babylon ;-for the foreign ambassadors, whose names are worse to utter than even that of the son of Baladan, and to spell them is past the compass of my power, sat near to this grand bravado of ancient pageantry.

By this time I had got some insight into the art of seeing a Coronation, so that, after satisfying my curiosity with the internals of the Hall, I strayed out upon the platform, partly to get a mouthful of caller air, and partly to get a drink of porter, for the weather was very warm, and I was very dry, by reason of the same, with the help of a biscuit in my pocket. And while I was about the porter-job in one of the two public-houses before spoken of, a shout got up, that the procession was returning from the Abbey, and I got up and ran to get back to my seat in the Hall; but as the crowd was easy and well bred, before I reached the door I halted, and thought I might as well take a look of the procession, and compare it with our King Crispin's Coronation, which took place on the 12th of November, A.D. 1818; and the order of which I will state herein, with annotations, to the end and intent, that posterity, in reading this book, may have a clear notion of what it was; and the more especially that his Majesty's ministers,-I mean those of King George IV,-may have a proper pattern for the next ceremony of the kind-for it was most manifest to me, that the shoemakers' affair was a far finer show than the one that I had come so far afield to see. But this is not to be wondered at, considering how much more experience the craft have; they being in the practice of crowning and processing with King Crispin, according to law, every year; by which they have got a facility of hand for the business, as is seen in their way of doing the same; the form and order whereof follows.