Pensively and profoundly was I meditating, seated one evening upon a
stone bench in Guildhall, when, as the gathering gloom invested the
solemn faces of Gog and Magog, rendering them mysteriously dim and
indistinct, methought I saw them slowly shut their eyes, nod their
heads, fall asleep, and actually begin to snore. Never did I hear any
thing more sonorously grand and awful than that portentous inbreathing
of Gog and Magog, resounding through the Gothic vastness of Guildhall;
but, behold! how omnipotent is the dreaming imagination! I myself had
been dozing; the sound of my own nose, transferred by a metonymy of the
fancy to the nostrils of those wooden idols, had become, as it were, the
living apotheosis of a snore, which had subdued me by its sublimity.
Most fortunate was it that I awoke; for, on attentively inspecting the
faces of the figures, I saw them working and writhing with all the
contortions of the Pythoness or the Sibyl, labouring in the very throes
of inspiration, struggling with the advent of the prophetical afflatus.
At length their lips parted, when, in a low, solemn voice, that thrilled
through the dark, deserted, and silent hall, they poured forth
alternately the following vaticinal strain, each starting and trembling
as he concluded:--
"From Bank, Change, Mansion-house, Guildhall,
Throgmorton, and Threadneedle,
From London-stone, and London wall,
When City housewife's wheedle
To Brunswick, Russell, Bedford Squares,
And Portland-place, their spouses,
Anxious to give themselves great airs
Of fashion in great houses,
Then Gog shall start, and Magog shall
Tremble upon his pedestal."
"When merchant, banker, broker, shake
In Crockford's club their elbow,
And for St. James's clock forsake
The chiming of thy bell, Bow:
When Batson's, Garraway's, and John's,
At night show empty boxes,
While cits are playing dice with dons,
Or ogling opera doxies;
Then Gog shall start, and Magog shall
Tremble upon his pedestal."
"When city dames give routs and reels,
And ape high-titled prancers,
When City misses dance quadrilles,
Or waltz with whisker'd Lancers;
When City gold is quickly spent
In trinkets, feasts, and raiment,
And none suspend their merriment
Until they all stop payment,
Then Gog shall start, and Magog shall
Tremble upon his pedestal."
I was reflecting what dire calamities would fall upon the doomed City,
since the era of luxury, corruption, and desertion, thus denounced, had
now manifestly arrived, and Gog and Magog were actually starting and
trembling upon their pedestals, when the hall-keeper, shaking me by the
shoulder, exclaimed--"Come, Sir, you musn't be sleeping here all night!
Bundle out, if you please, for I am just going to shut the great
gates!"--_New Monthly Mag._
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