and as you are a gentleman, what is the present price of a quart of home-brew'd at the Adam and Eve?

3 Mob. I don't know.
Heel. You lie, sirrah: an't it a groat?
3 Mob. I believe it may.

Heel. Oh, may be so. Now, neighbours, here's a pretty rascal; this same Mug, because, d'ye see, state affairs would not jog glibly without laying a farthing a quart upon ale; this scoundrel, not contented to take things in a medium way, has had the impudence to raise it a penny.

Mob. No Mug! no Mug!

Heel. So, I thought I should crack Mr. Mug. Come, proceed to the next, Simon.. Snuffle. The next upon the list is Peter Primmer, the schoolmaster.

Heel. Ay, neighbours, and a sufficient man: let me tell you, master Primmer is a man for my money; a man of learning, that can lay down the law: why, adzooks, he is wise enough to puzzle the parson; and then, how you have heard him oration at the Adam and Eve of a Saturday night, about Russia and Prussia. 'Ecod, George Gage, the exciseman, is nothing at all to un.

4 Mob. A Primmer.

Heel. Ay, if the folks above did but know him. Why, lads, he will make us all statesmen in time.

2 Mob. Indeed!

Heel. Why, he swears as how all the miscarriages are owing to the great people's not learning to read.

3 Mob. Indeed!

Heel. "For," says Peter, says he, "if they would but once submit to be learned by me, there is no knowing to what a pitch the nation might rise."

1 Mob. Ay, I wish they would. Sneak. Crispin, what, is Peter Primmer a candidate?

Heel. He is, master Sneak.

Sneak. Lord I know him, mun, as well

Sir J. And what's your objection?

Bruin. Why, I was never over fond of your May-games: besides corporations are too serious things; they are edgetools, sir Jacob.

Sir J. That they are frequently tools, I can readily grant: but I never heard much of their edge.

Afterwards we find the knight exclaiming

Sir J. Hey-day! What, is the election over already?

Enter Crispin, Heeltap, &e.

Heel. Where is master Sneak!
Sneak. Here, Crispin.

Heel. The ancient corporation of Garratt, in consideration of your great parts and abilities, and out of respect to their landlord, sir Jacob, have unanimously chosen you mayor.

Sneak. Me? huzza! Good lord, who vould have thought it? But how came master Primmer to lose it?

Heel. Why, Phil Fleam had told the electors, that master Primmer was an Irishman; and so they would none of them give their vote for a foreigner.

Sneak. So then I have it for certain. [Huzza!

This engraving is from another large unpublished drawing by Green, and is very curious. Being topographically correct, it represents the signs of the inns at Wandsworth as they then stood; the Spread Eagle carved on a pillar, and the Ram opposite painted and projecting. The opening, seen between the buildings on the Spread Eagle side, is the commencement of Garrett-lane, which runs from Wandsworth to Tooting, and includes the mock borough of Garrett.

This animated scene is full of character. The boat is drawn by horses, which could not be conspicuously represented here without omitting certain bipeds; it is in the act of turning up Garrett-lane. Its chief figure is "my lady Blase" dressed beyond the extreme, and into broad caricature of the fashion of the times. "I remember her very well," says Mrs. of Wandsworth, "and so I ought, for I had a good hand in the dressing of her. I helped to put together many a good pound

of wool to make her hair up. I suppose it was more than three feet high at least: and as for her stays, I also helped to make them, down in Anderson's barn: they were neither more nor less than a washing tub without the bottom, well covered, and bedizened outside to look like a stomacher. She was to be the lady of sir William Blase, one of the candidates, and, as she sat in his boat, she was one of the drollest creatures, for size and dress, that ever was seen. I was quite a girl at the time, and we made her as comical and as fine as possible."

In Green's drawing, here engraven in miniature, there is an excellent group, which from reduction the original has rendered almost too small to be noticed without thus pointing it out. It consists of a fellow, who appears more fond of his dog than of his own offspring; for, to give the animal as good a sight of lady Blase as he had himself, he seats him on his own shoulders, and is insensible to the entreaty of one of his children to occupy the dog's place. His wife, with another child by her side, carries a third with its arms thrust into the sleeves of her husband's coat, which the fellow has pulled off, and given her to take care of, without the least regard to its increase of her living burthen. Before them are dancing dogs, which have the steady regard of a "most thinking" personage in a large wig. Another wigged, or, rather, an over-wigged character, is the little crippled "dealer and chapman," who is in evident fear of a vociferous dog, which is encouraged to alarm him by a mischievous urchin. The one-legged veteran, with a crutch and a glass in his hand, seems mightily to enjoy the two horsemen of the mop and broom. We see that printed addresses were posted, by an elector giving his unmixed attention to one of them pasted on the Ram sign-post. The Pierrot-dressed character, with spectacles and a guitar, on an ass led by a woman, is full of life; and the celebrated "Sam House," the bald-headed publican of Westminster, with a pot in his hand, is here enjoying the burlesque of an election, almost as much, perhaps, as he did the real one in his own "city and liberties" the year before, when he distinguished himself, by his activity, in behalf of Mr. Fox, whose cause he always zealously supported by voice and fist.

The last Westminster election, wherein Sam House engaged, was in 1784, when

on voting, and being asked his trade by the poll-clerk, he answered, “I am a publican and republican." This memorable contest is described by the well-known colonel Hanger. He says:

"The year I came to England the contested election for Westminster, (Fox, Hood, and Wray, candidates,) took place. The walking travellers, Spillard and Stewart; the Abyssinian Bruce, who feasted on steaks cut from the rump of a living ox; and various others, who, in their extensive travels, encountered wild beasts, serpents, and crocodiles; breakfasted and toasted muffins on the mouth of a Volcano; whom hunger compelled to banquet with joy on the leavings of a lion or tiger, or on the carcase of a dead alligator; who boast of smoking the pipe of peace with the little carpenter, and the mad dog; on having lived on terms of the strictest intimacy with the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Chuctaws, and with all the aws and ees of that immense continent, who from the more temperate shore of the Mississippi, have extended their course to the burning soil of India, and to the banks of the Ganges; from the frozen ocean to the banks of the more genial Po;-may boast their experience of the world, and their knowledge of human life: but no one, in my opinion, has seen real life, or can know it, unless he has taken an active part in a contested election for Westminster!

"In no school can a man be taught a better lesson of human life;-there can he view human nature in her basest attire; riot, murder, and drunkenness, are the order of the day, and bribery and perjury walk hand in hand :-for men who had no pretensions to vote, were to be found in the garden in as great plenty as turnips, and at a very moderate rate were induced to poll.

"A gentleman, to make himself of any considerable use to either party, must possess a number of engaging, familiar, and condescending qualities; he must help a porter up with his load, shake hands with a fisherman, pull his hat off to an oyster wench, kiss a ballad-singer, and be familiar with a beggar. If, in addition to these amiable qualities, he is a tolerable good boxer, can play a good stick, and in the evening drink a pailful of all sorts of liquors, in going the rounds to solicit voters at their various clubs, then, indeed, he is a most highly finished useful agent. In all the above accom

plishments and sciences, except drinking, which I never was fond of, I have the vanity to believe that I arrived nearer to perfection than any of my rivals. I should be ungrateful, indeed, if I did not testify my thanks to those gallant troops of high rank and distinguished fame-the knights of the strap, and the black diamond knights, (the Irish chairmen and coal heavers,) who displayed such bravery and attachment to our cause."*

This was the cause to which Sam House was attached; and, perhaps, there was not greater difference between the scenes described by Hanger, and those at Garrett, than between the same scenes, and more recent ones, on similar occasions in the same city.

What has hitherto been related concerning the Garrett election, in 1781, is in consequence of the editor having had recourse to the remarkable drawings from whence the present engravings have been made. From that circumstance he was strongly induced to inquire concerning it, and, as a faithful historian, he has recorded only what he is able to authenticate. A few facts relating to the elections between that period and a much later one, are so blended as to defy positive appropriation to particular dates, from want of accurate recollection in the persons relating them; they are, therefore, annexed, as general traits of the usual mode of conducting these burlesques.

At one of the Garrett elections, after 1781, there was a sir Christopher Dash'em started as candidate. "Old John Jones" says he was a waterman, that his real name was Christopher Beachham, (perhaps Beauchamp,) that he was a fellow of "exceeding humour" and ready wit, and, as an instance of it, that being carried before a magistrate for cutting fences and posts, the justice was informed that the delinquent was no other than the celebrated sir Christopher Dash'em.-" Oh," said the justice, "you are sir Christopher Dash'em, are you?"-" It's what they please to style me," observed sir Christopher.-"Oh! oh!" remarked the magistrate, "I have heard of your character a long while ago."-" Then, said sir Christopher, "I'll be greatly obliged to your worship to tell me where it is, for I lost it a long while ago."

Hanger's Life.

Sir Solomon Hiram, another Garrett candidate, was a shrewd, clever carpenter, of Battersea, named Thomas Solomon. It was his constant saying, that he "never bowed to wooden images," by which he meant rank without talent. He succeeded in his election. The motto on his carriages was "Gin gratis! Porter for nothing!"

Our living chronicler, "John Jones," says, that on the day of election, sir Solomon Hiram was "dressed like an old king, in a scarlet coat with gold lace, large sleeves with very large hanging cuffs; a wig such as George the Second wore, with large falling curls, and the tail in a silk bag: he held a roll of parchment in his hand, and looked for all the worldlike a king."

Nor must "old John Jones" himself be forgotten, for he rode as "master of the horse" at four elections in a marvellous proper dress. He was mounted on the largest dray horse that could be got, in the full regimentals of the Surrey yeomanry, grey, blue, and red: he had a cap on his head twenty-three inches high; and bore in his hand a sword seven feet long and four inches wide, like the sword of the "ancient and honourable Lumber Troop." His boots were up to his hips, and he wore wooden spurs thirteen inches long, with steel rowels three inches in diameter. The mane of his horse was plaited with ears of corn, denoting a plentiful harvest and the coming cheapness of bread; and he had two pages to lead his horse.

The "Garrett cavalry" or troop of "horse guards," of which "John Jones" was the commander, were forty boys of all ages and sizes, for whom flannel uniforms were purposely made, of the exact pattern of the Surrey yeomanry. They wore enormous cockades made of shavings, and were put a-straddle on horses of all sizes, and sorted thereto, as much as possible, by contraries. The smallest boys were on the largest horses, and the biggest boys on the least. It was their duty to join the candidates' procession, and with the "master of the horse" at their head, proceed to the hustings in order "to preserve the freedom of election."

At Richmond theatre, about thirty years ago, Foote's "Mayor of Garratt was performed for the benefit of Follett, a celebrated comedian and clown, and he