heavy. The latter are called upon to survey manufacturing processes at the most untimely hours. Before going out each day the officer leaves a memorandum behind him, stating the places he intends to survey, and the order in which he will visit them, and he is obliged to record the hour and minute when he commences each survey. He is never sure that the Supervisor will not resurvey his work, and if errors are discovered they must be entered in the Supervisor's "diary." These diaries are transmitted to the chief office in London every two months, and no officer is promoted without a strict examination into them, in reference to his efficiency. The Surveying-General Examiner is a check upon the Supervisors, and is dispatched from the chief office to a certain district, without any previous intimation. When a supervisor's character is taken out for promotion, his books are examined for one year, and the books of all the officers under him for a quarter of a year; all the accounts are recast, and if in the books of the officers errors are discovered, the supervisor is quite as responsible as if they had taken place in his own books; and a certain degree of neglect on his part would retard his promotion. This inquiry is conducted by the country examiners; and when this has been done, the investigation is taken up by a surveying-general examiner, for the purpose of ascertaining the disposal of the supervisor's time: whether it has been judiciously employed or not; whether he has been too long employed on a duty which ought to have occupied a shorter period, &c. Two months are required for completing the investigation; and when the report is laid before the Board the name of the officer is not given. The clerks of the Diary office have all been distinguished for their ability as supervisors. No one is promoted unless, having served a certain fixed period in one grade, he petitions for advancement, but this involves the rigid examination just alluded to, which is technically termed "taking out a character." It is now doubted whether Mr. Pitt's plan for the periodical removal of officers from one district to another is attended with so much advantage to the service as has generally been supposed. A corrupt officer will endeavour to effect a collusion with the trader of another district, and the fraudulent trader will attempt to corrupt the new officer. Frequent removals also interfere with the comfort of families, and interrupt education. About 1100 officers change their residences each year.

Previous to 1768 the Excise Office was on the west side of Ironmonger Lane: it was formerly the mansion of Sir J. Frederick. In 1768 the trustees of the Gresham estates obtained an act to enable them to make over the ground whereon Gresham College stood to the Crown for a perpetual rent of 500l. per annum. "For this paltry consideration," says Mr. Burgon, in his Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham,' "was Gresham College annihilated; nay, the very site of it parted with for ever." He adds :-" Will it be believed that the City and the Mercer's Company further agreed to pay conjointly, out of their respective shares of the Gresham estate, 18007. to the Commissioners of his Majesty's Excise, towards the charge of pulling down the College and building an Excise Office." The dismantling of the College was begun on the 8th of August, 1768. The Excise Office is plain in design, but of most commanding aspect. The merits of this edifice are known far less extensively than many others of inferior character.

There are architects of the present day who state that for grandeur of mass and greatness of manner, combined with simplicity, it is not surpassed by any building in the metropolis. It consists of two ranges, one of stone, the other of brick, separated from each other by a large court, which, during the re-building of the Royal Exchange, has been temporarily used by the mercantile and shipping interests as an Exchange. The entrance to each structure is by a staircase in the centre, which leads by a long passage to the various apartments of the commissioners and clerks. The architect of the Excise Office was Mr. James Gandon.

It is with great institutions as with great men-if they would preserve their reputation unimpaired, they should never survive the loss of their distinguishing powers; or, we may rather say, the case of the institution is the worst, as being in every respect the most injurious of the two. The accidents of life die with the man, and are forgotten, leaving all that is truly worthy of remembrance alone to be remembered; but institutions unfortunately will not die except by a slow, lingering process that too often wears out alike our patience and our gratitude, and at the same time makes us confound right and wrong together, by teaching us, however unconsciously, to infer their past from their present unfitness. Saddening are the degradations to which they are subject through this unfortunate tenacity of life. Who, for instance, can read without regret of the once mighty fellowships of London, being told by authority that their "ruling bodies are in effect mere trustees for charitable purposes or chartered festivals,"

VOL. V.

I

and that the "freemen and liverymen, or commonalty, are persons entitled to participate in these charities, to partake of the feasts of the Company, and qualified to be promoted to the office of trustees; and in this light alone are the different orders of the Companies to be viewed"?* It may be true; but, rather than that such things should have been said, one cannot but heartily wish that the Companies had manfully perished in the breach when Charles II. opened his quo warranto battery against them, and, after destroying their independence, left them to sink into inglorious inactivity. But the Commissioners in the above passage refer only to the principal Companies, those which had grown so rich in the days of their prosperity as to have charities that now, in their decline, require management-funds that will support " chartered festivals;" but how is it with the others? Why, whilst some have disappeared altogether, the Musicians, alas! are "very poor, and in debt to their treasurer," and the Masons can only occasionally-and the occasions are very infrequent-have a dinner even on Lord Mayors' days? But the case that most touches our sympathies is that of the Pinmakers; there is a romance and a pathos about their position inexpressibly attractive and touching: "No returns relating to any bindings or admissions to the Company, whether in right of patrimony or otherwise, appear in the Chamberlain's books within the last forty years. It is supposed that one or two individuals belonging to the Company are yet living,"† bearing about with them, no doubt, in their mysterious obscurity, a high consciousness of the unsuspected dignities that have centered in their persons: but they are probably poor, as well as proud, and therefore doubly resentful of the neglect with which they have been treated: the very Commissioners said not a word more about them,— did not even propose a commission of discovery to restore them to the civic brotherhood; so they will die and make no sign,-the very skies looking as bright or as dull as usual, Cheapside in a state of perfect unconsciousness,— brother corporators dining, or talking of dining, at the very instant, haply, that the last of the "Pin-makers" is leaving the world.

But now, forgetting awhile what the Companies are, let us see what they were three or four centuries ago.

It is the morning of the festival of Corpus Christi; and the Skinners are rapidly thronging into the hall, in their new suits or liveries, and falling into their places in the procession that is being formed. As they go forth, and pass along the principal streets, most imposing is the appearance they present. Scattered at intervals along the line are seen the lights of above a hundred waxen torches "costly garnished," and among the different bodies included in the procession are some two hundred clerks and priests, in surplices and copes, singing. After these come the Sheriffs' servants, then the clerks of the compters, the Sheriffs' chaplains, the Mayor's sergeants, the Common Council, the Mayor and Aldermen in their brilliant scarlet robes; and, lastly, the members of the Company which it is the business of the day to honour, the Skinners, male and female. The church of St. Lawrence, in the Poultry, is their destination, where they all advance up to the altar of Corpus Christi, and make their offerings, and then stay whilst mass is performed. From the church they return in the same state to the hall to dinner. Extensive are the preparations for so numerous a company. Besides the principal and the side-tables in the hall, there are tables laid out

*Corporation Commission, Second Report, Introduction, p. 20.

Report, p. 298.

in all the chief apartments of the building, for the use of the guests and their attendants: the officers of the Company occupying one, the maidens another, the players and the minstrels a third, and so on. Plate is glittering on every side; the choice hangings are exciting admiration; the materials for the pageant suspended from the roof attract many an inquiring glance; the fragrance of the precious Indian sandal-wood is filling the atmosphere, though not altogether to the exclusion of the still more precious exhalations which come stealing up to the nose and thence downward into the heart of the anxious epicures, who you may perceive looking on with a sort of uneasy, abstracted air, whilst the true business of the day-the election of the Masters and Wardens-is going on in the great parlour, whither all the Assistants (the executive of the Company) have retired: the said epicures know, if you do not, to how many accidents flesh is heir in the kitchen, how easily the exact point of perfection between too much and too little done may be missed in the roasted swans, or the exquisite flavour of the mortrewes degenerate into coarseness or insipidity, if the cook swerves but a hair's breadth from the true proportions of the materials. The guests now seat themselves, the ladies according to their rank at the different tables, but in the best places at each; the Lady-Mayoress with the Sheriffs' ladies sitting, of course, at the principal board, with the distinguished guests of the day; the noblemen and others, with the Priors of the great conventual establishments of London St. Mary Overies, St. Bartholomew, and Christ Church. Of the dinner itself what shall we say that can adequately describe its variety, prófusion, and costliness, or the skill with which it has been prepared? The boars' heads and the mighty barons of beef seem almost to require an apology for their introduction amidst the delicacies that surround them in the upper division of the table (the part above the stately salt cellar), where we see dishes of brawn, fat swans, congor and sea-hog, dishes of "great birds with little ones together," dishes of Leché Lombard, made of "pork pounded in a mortar with eggs, raisins, dates, sugar, salt, pepper, spices, milk of almonds, and red wine, the whole boiled in a bladder;" and we know not how many other dishes of similarly elaborate composition; whilst the "subtleties" so "marvellously cunning ywrought," tell in allegory the history of the Company, and of the Saviour as its patron, and reveal to us the artist-if not exactly the hero-as cook. After dinner, whilst the spice-bread, hippocras, and comfits go round, the election ceremonies take place. The Master and Wardens enter with garlands on their heads, preceded by the minstrels playing, and the beadle; then the garlands are taken off, and after a little show of trying whose heads among the Assistants the said garlands best fit, it is found, by a remarkable coincidence, that the persons previously chosen are the right wearers. The oath of office is then administered; beginning, in the case of the Wardens, with an injunction that they shall swear that they will well and truly occupy the office, that they shall arear' no new customs, nor bind the commonalty of the said craft to any new charges, nor yet discharge any duty to their hurt; and that they shall not lay down any of their good old customs, or acts written, without the assent of the said commonalty. With renewed ceremony a cup is next brought in, from which the old Master and old Wardens drink to the new Master and new Wardens, who finally assume their garlands, and are duly acknowledged by the fraternity.