(_With acknowledgments to Mr. G. R. Sims._)
Being a few Foretastes of the Great Feast to follow.
Peering backward into the gulf of time as I sit in my grandfather's
chair and listen to the tick of my grandfather's clock I see a smaller
but more picturesque London, in which I shot snipe in Battersea Fields,
and the hoot of the owl in the Green Park was not yet drowned by the
hoot of the motor-car--a London of chop-houses, peg-top trousers and
Dundreary whiskers....
I remember the Derby of Caractacus and the Oaks of Boadicea. Once more I
see "Eclipse first and the rest nowhere." I remember "OLD Q." and OLD
PARR, ARNOLD of Rugby and KEATE of Eton, CHARLES LAMB and General WOLFE,
CHARLES JAMES FOX and MRS. LEO HUNTER; the poets BURNS and TENNYSON, the
latter of whom gave me my name of "Dagonet."
I think back to a London of trim-built wherries and nankeen pantaloons,
when _The Times_ cost as much as a dozen oysters, which everyone then
ate. I remember backing myself in my humorous way to eat sixty "seconds"
in a minute and winning the bet.
I look back to the time when BETTY, the infant ROSCIUS, and GRIMALDI,
and NELL GWYNN and COLLEY CIBBER and ROBSON and FECHTER and PEG
WOFFINGTON were the chief luminaries of the histrionic firmament. I
remember the _débuts_ of CATALANI and MALIBRAN and PICCOLOMINI and
Broccolini and Giulio Perkins.
I remember the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the erection of
DRAYTON'S "Polyolbion," the removal of the Wembley Tower, and the fight
between BELCHER and the gas-man.
I often think of the battles of Waterloo and Blenheim and Culloden and
Preston Pans and Cannæ. I often think of next Sunday with a shudder.
I see COUNT D'ORSAY careering along Kensington Gore in his curricle;
Lord MACAULAY sauntering homeward to Campden Hill, and Lord GEORGE
SANGER driving home to East Finchley behind two spanking elephants.