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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Britain, by Washington Irving
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Little Britain
+
+Author: Washington Irving
+
+Release Date: April, 1997  [Etext #877]
+Posting Date: July 9, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE BRITAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Anthony J. Adam and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BRITAIN
+
+By Washington Irving
+
+
+     What I write is most true... I have a whole booke of cases
+     lying by me which if I should sette foorth, some grave
+     auntients (within the hearing of Bow bell) would be out of
+     charity with me.--NASHE.
+
+
+In the centre of the great city of London lies a small neighborhood,
+consisting of a cluster of narrow streets and courts, of very venerable
+and debilitated houses, which goes by the name of LITTLE BRITAIN. Christ
+Church School and St. Bartholomew's Hospital bound it on the west;
+Smithfield and Long Lane on the north; Aldersgate Street, like an arm
+of the sea, divides it from the eastern part of the city; whilst the
+yawning gulf of Bull-and-Mouth Street separates it from Butcher Lane,
+and the regions of Newgate. Over this little territory, thus bounded and
+designated, the great dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the intervening
+houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave Maria Lane, looks down
+with an air of motherly protection.
+
+This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in ancient times,
+the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As London increased, however,
+rank and fashion rolled off to the west, and trade, creeping on at their
+heels, took possession of their deserted abodes. For some time Little
+Britain became the great mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy
+and prolific race of booksellers; these also gradually deserted it, and,
+emigrating beyond the great strait of Newgate Street, settled down
+in Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard, where they continue to
+increase and multiply even at the present day.
+
+But though thus falling into decline, Little Britain still bears traces
+of its former splendor. There are several houses ready to tumble down,
+the fronts of which are magnificently enriched with old oaken carvings
+of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and fishes; and fruits and
+flowers which it would perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also,
+in Aldersgate Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and
+lordly family mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided
+into several tenements. Here may often be found the family of a petty
+tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing among the relics of
+antiquated finery, in great, rambling, time-stained apartments, with
+fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and enormous marble fireplaces. The
+lanes and courts also contain many smaller houses, not on so grand a
+scale, but, like your small ancient gentry, sturdily maintaining their
+claims to equal antiquity. These have their gable ends to the street;
+great bow-windows, with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings,
+and low arched door-ways.
+
+In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed several
+quiet years of existence, comfortably lodged in the second floor of
+one of the smallest but oldest edifices. My sitting-room is an old
+wainscoted chamber, with small panels, and set off with a miscellaneous
+array of furniture. I have a particular respect for three or four
+high-backed claw-footed chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which
+bear the marks of having seen better days, and have doubtless figured
+in some of the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to
+keep together, and to look down with sovereign contempt upon their
+leathern-bottomed neighbors: as I have seen decayed gentry carry a
+high head among the plebeian society with which they were reduced
+to associate. The whole front of my sitting-room is taken up with a
+bow-window, on the panes of which are recorded the names of previous
+occupants for many generations, mingled with scraps of very indifferent
+gentlemanlike poetry, written in characters which I can scarcely
+decipher, and which extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain
+who has long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an
+idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill regularly
+every week, I am looked upon as the only independent gentleman of
+the neighborhood; and, being curious to learn the internal state of a
+community so apparently shut up within itself, I have managed to work my
+way into all the concerns and secrets of the place.
+
+Little Britain may truly be called the heart's core of the city; the
+stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of London as it was in
+its better days, with its antiquated folks and fashions. Here flourish
+in great preservation many of the holiday games and customs of yore.
+The inhabitants most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday,
+hot-cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send
+love-letters on Valentine's Day, burn the pope on the fifth of November,
+and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at Christmas. Roast beef and
+plum pudding are also held in superstitious veneration, and port and
+sherry maintain their grounds as the only true English wines; all others
+being considered vile, outlandish beverages.
+
+Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its
+inhabitants consider the wonders of the world: such as the great bell
+of St. Paul's, which sours all the beer when it tolls; the figures that
+strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock; the Monument; the lions in the
+Tower; and the wooden giants in Guildhall. They still believe in dreams
+and fortune-telling, and an old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth
+Street makes a tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods,
+and promising the girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered
+uncomfortable by comets and eclipses; and if a dog howls dolefully at
+night, it is looked upon as a sure sign of a death in the place. There
+are even many ghost stories current, particularly concerning the old
+mansion-houses; in several of which it is said strange sights are
+sometimes seen. Lords and ladies, the former in full bottomed wigs,
+hanging sleeves, and swords, the latter in lappets, stays, hoops and
+brocade, have been seen walking up and down the great waste chambers,
+on moonlight nights; and are supposed to be the shades of the ancient
+proprietors in their court-dresses.
+
+Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of the most
+important of the former is a tall, dry old gentleman, of the name
+of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecary's shop. He has a cadaverous
+countenance, full of cavities and projections; with a brown circle round
+each eye, like a pair of horned spectacles. He is much thought of by the
+old women, who consider him a kind of conjurer, because he has two of
+three stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop, and several snakes in
+bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and newspapers, and is much
+given to pore over alarming accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires,
+earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; which last phenomena he considers
+as signs of the times. He has always some dismal tale of the kind to
+deal out to his customers, with their doses; and thus at the same time
+puts both soul and body into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens
+and predictions; and has the prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother
+Shipton by heart. No man can make so much out of an eclipse, or even
+an unusually dark day; and he shook the tail of the last comet over the
+heads of his customers and disciples until they were nearly frightened
+out of their wits. He has lately got hold of a popular legend or
+prophecy, on which he has been unusually eloquent. There has been a
+saying current among the ancient sibyls, who treasure up these things,
+that when the grasshopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands with
+the dragon on the top of Bow Church Steeple, fearful events would take
+place. This strange conjunction, it seems, has as strangely come to
+pass. The same architect has been engaged lately on the repairs of the
+cupola of the Exchange, and the steeple of Bow church; and, fearful to
+relate, the dragon and the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jole, in
+the yard of his workshop.
+
+"Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, "may go star-gazing, and
+look for conjunctions in the heavens, but here is a conjunction on the
+earth, near at home, and under our own eyes, which surpasses all
+the signs and calculations of astrologers." Since these portentous
+weathercocks have thus laid their heads together, wonderful events had
+already occurred. The good old king, notwithstanding that he had lived
+eighty-two years, had all at once given up the ghost; another king had
+mounted the throne; a royal duke had died suddenly,--another, in France,
+had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in all parts of the
+kingdom; the bloody scenes at Manchester; the great plot of Cato Street;
+and above all, the queen had returned to England! All these sinister
+events are recounted by Mr. Skryme, with a mysterious look, and a dismal
+shake of the head; and being taken with his drugs, and associated in the
+minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, bottled serpents, and
+his own visage, which is a title-page of tribulation, they have spread
+great gloom through the minds of the people of Little Britain. They
+shake their heads whenever they go by Bow Church, and observe, that they
+never expected any good to come of taking down that steeple, which in
+old times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of Whittington
+and his Cat bears witness.
+
+The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheesemonger,
+who lives in a fragment of one of the old family mansions, and is as
+magnificently lodged as a round-bellied mite in the midst of one of his
+own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of no little standing and importance;
+and his renown extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto
+Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of state, having
+read the Sunday papers for the last half century, together with the
+"Gentleman's Magazine," Rapin's "History of England," and the "Naval
+Chronicle." His head is stored with invaluable maxims which have borne
+the test of time and use for centuries. It is his firm opinion that
+"it is a moral impossible," so long as England is true to herself, that
+anything can shake her; and he has much to say on the subject of the
+national debt, which, somehow or other, he proves to be a great national
+bulwark and blessing. He passed the greater part of his life in the
+purlieus of Little Britain, until of late years, when, having become
+rich, and grown into the dignity of a Sunday cane, he begins to take his
+pleasure and see the world. He has therefore made several excursions to
+Hampstead, Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has
+passed whole afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through a
+telescope, and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St. Bartholomew's.
+Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth Street but touches his hat as he
+passes; and he is considered quite a patron at the coach-office of the
+Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's churchyard. His family have been very
+urgent for him to make an expedition to Margate, but he has great doubts
+of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, and indeed thinks himself too
+advanced in life to undertake sea-voyages.
+
+Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and party
+spirit ran very high at one time in consequence of two rival "Burial
+Societies" being set up in the place. One held its meeting at the Swan
+and Horse Shoe, and was patronized by the cheesemonger; the other at the
+Cock and Crown, under the auspices of the apothecary; it is needless to
+say that the latter was the most flourishing. I have passed an evening
+or two at each, and have acquired much valuable information, as to
+the best mode of being buried, the comparative merits of churchyards,
+together with divers hints on the subject of patent-iron coffins. I have
+heard the question discussed in all its bearings as to the legality
+of prohibiting the latter on account of their durability. The feuds
+occasioned by these societies have happily died of late; but they were
+for a long time prevailing themes of controversy, the people of Little
+Britain being extremely solicitous of funereal honors and of lying
+comfortably in their graves.
+
+Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of quite a
+different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good-humor over
+the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week at a little old-fashioned
+house, kept by a jolly publican of the name of Wagstaff, and bearing for
+insignia a resplendent half-moon, with a most seductive bunch of grapes.
+The old edifice is covered with inscriptions to catch the eye of the
+thirsty wayfarer, such as "Truman, Hanbury, and Co.'s Entire," "Wine,
+Rum, and Brandy Vaults," "Old Tom, Rum and Compounds, etc." This indeed
+has been a temple of Bacchus and Momus from time immemorial. It ha
+always been in the family of the Wagstaffs, so that its history is
+tolerably preserved by the present landlord. It was much frequented by
+the gallants and cavalieros of the reign of Elizabeth, and was looked
+into now and then by the wits of Charles the Second's day. But what
+Wagstaff principally prides himself upon is, that Henry the Eighth, in
+one of his nocturnal rambles, broke the head of one of his ancestors
+with his famous walking-staff. This, however, is considered as a rather
+dubious and vainglorious boast of the landlord.
+
+The club which now holds its weekly sessions here goes by the name of
+"The Roaring Lads of Little Britain." They abound in old catches, glees,
+and choice stories, that are traditional in the place, and not to be met
+with in any other part of the metropolis. There is a madcap undertaker
+who is inimitable at a merry song; but the life of the club, and
+indeed the prime wit of Little Britain, is bully Wagstaff himself. His
+ancestors were all wags before him, and he has inherited with the inn
+a large stock of songs and jokes, which go with it from generation to
+generation as heirlooms. He is a dapper little fellow, with bandy legs
+and pot belly, a red face, with a moist, merry eye, and a little shock
+of gray hair behind. At the opening of every club night he is called
+in to sing his "Confession of Faith," which is the famous old drinking
+trowl from "Gammer Gurton's Needle." He sings it, to be sure, with many
+variations, as he received it from his father's lips; for it has been a
+standing favorite at the Half-Moon and Bunch of Grapes ever since it was
+written; nay, he affirms that his predecessors have often had the honor
+of singing it before the nobility and gentry at Christmas mummeries,
+when Little Britain was in all its glory.
+
+It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club night, the shouts of
+merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then the choral bursts of
+half a dozen discordant voices, which issue from this jovial mansion. At
+such times the street is lined with listeners, who enjoy a delight
+equal to that of gazing into a confectioner's window, or snuffing up the
+steams of a cookshop.
+
+There are two annual events which produce great stir and sensation in
+Little Britain; these are St. Bartholomew's Fair, and the Lord Mayor's
+Day. During the time of the fair, which is held in the adjoining regions
+of Smithfield, there is nothing going on but gossiping and gadding
+about. The late quiet streets of Little Britain are overrun with an
+irruption of strange figures and faces; every tavern is a scene of rout
+and revel. The fiddle and the song are heard from the tap-room, morning,
+noon, and night; and at each window may be seen some group of boon
+companions, with half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe in mouth, and
+tankard in hand, fondling, and prosing, and singing maudlin songs over
+their liquor. Even the sober decorum of private families, which I must
+say is rigidly kept up at other times among my neighbors, is no proof
+against this Saturnalia. There is no such thing as keeping maid-servants
+within doors. Their brains are absolutely set madding with Punch and
+the Puppet Show; the Flying Horses; Signior Polito; the Fire-Eater; the
+celebrated Mr. Paap; and the Irish Giant. The children, too, lavish all
+their holiday money in toys and gilt gingerbread, and fill the house
+with the Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, and penny whistles.
+
+But the Lord mayor's Day is the great anniversary. The Lord Mayor
+is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain as the greatest
+potentate upon earth; his gilt coach with six horses as the summit of
+human splendor; and his procession, with all the Sheriffs and Aldermen
+in his train, as the grandest of earthly pageants. How they exult in
+the idea that the King himself dare not enter the city without first
+knocking at the gate of Temple Bar, and asking permission of the Lord
+Mayor: for if he did, heaven and earth! there is no knowing what might
+be the consequence. The man in armor, who rides before the Lord mayor,
+and is the city champion, has orders to cut down everybody that offends
+against the dignity of the city; and then there is the little man with a
+velvet porringer on his head, who sits at the window of the state-coach,
+and holds the city sword, as long as a pike-staff--Odd's blood! If he
+once draws that sword, Majesty itself is not safe!
+
+Under the protection of this mighty potentate, therefore, the good
+people of Little Britain sleep in peace. Temple Bar is an effectual
+barrier against all interior foes; and as to foreign invasion, the Lord
+Mayor has but to throw himself into the Tower, call in the trainbands,
+and put the standing army of Beef-eaters under arms, and he may bid
+defiance to the world!
+
+Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own habits, and its own
+opinions, Little Britain has long flourished as a sound heart to this
+great fungous metropolis. I have pleased myself with considering it as
+a chosen spot, where the principles of sturdy John Bullism were garnered
+up, like seed corn, to renew the national character, when it had run
+to waste and degeneracy. I have rejoiced also in the general spirit of
+harmony that prevailed throughout it; for though there might now
+and then be a few clashes of opinion between the adherents of the
+cheesemonger and the apothecary, and an occasional feud between the
+burial societies, yet these were but transient clouds, and soon passed
+away. The neighbors met with good-will, parted with a shake of the hand,
+and never abused each other except behind their backs.
+
+I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing parties at which I
+have been present; where we played at All-fours, Pope-Joan,
+Tome-come-tickle-me, and other choice old games; and where we sometimes
+had a good old English country dance to the tune of Sir Roger de
+Coverley. Once a year, also, the neighbors would gather together, and
+go on a gypsy party to Epping Forest. It would have done any man's heart
+good to see the merriment that took place here as we banqueted on
+the grass under the trees. How we made the woods ring with bursts of
+laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff and the merry undertaker!
+After dinner, too, the young folks would play at blind-man's-buff and
+hide-and-seek; and it was amusing to see them tangled among the briers,
+and to hear a fine romping girl now and then squeak from among the
+bushes. The elder folks would gather round the cheesemonger and the
+apothecary to hear them talk politics; for they generally brought out a
+newspaper in their pockets, to pass away time in the country. They
+would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in argument; but
+their disputes were always adjusted by reference to a worthy old
+umbrella-maker, in a double chin, who, never exactly comprehending the
+subject, managed somehow or other to decide in favor of both parties.
+
+All empires, however, says some philosopher or historian, are doomed to
+changes and revolutions. Luxury and innovation creep in; factions arise;
+and families now and then spring up, whose ambition and intrigues
+throw the whole system into confusion. Thus in latter days has the
+tranquillity of Little Britain been grievously disturbed, and its golden
+simplicity of manners threatened with total subversion by the aspiring
+family of a retired butcher.
+
+The family of the Lambs had long been among the most thriving and
+popular in the neighborhood; the Miss Lambs were the belles of Little
+Britain, and everybody was pleased when Old Lamb had made money enough
+to shut up shop, and put his name on a brass plate on his door. In an
+evil hour, however, one of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being a lady
+in attendance on the Lady Mayoress, at her grand annual ball, on which
+occasion she wore three towering ostrich feathers on her head. The
+family never got over it; they were immediately smitten with a passion
+for high life; set up a one-horse carriage, put a bit of gold lace round
+the errand boy's hat, and have been the talk and detestation of the
+whole neighborhood ever since. They could no longer be induced to
+play at Pope-Joan or blindman's-buff; they could endure no dances but
+quadrilles, which nobody had ever heard of in Little Britain; and they
+took to reading novels, talking bad French, and playing upon the piano.
+Their brother, too, who had been articled to an attorney, set up for a
+dandy and a critic, characters hitherto unknown in these parts; and
+he confounded the worthy folks exceedingly by talking about Kean, the
+opera, and the "Edinburgh Review."
+
+What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which they
+neglected to invite any of their old neighbors; but they had a great
+deal of genteel company from Theobald's Road, Red-Lion Square, and other
+parts towards the west. There were several beaux of their brother's
+acquaintance from Gray's Inn Lane and Hatton Garden; and not less
+than three Aldermen's ladies with their daughters. This was not to be
+forgotten or forgiven. All Little Britain was in an uproar with the
+smacking of whips, the lashing of miserable horses, and the rattling and
+the jingling of hackney coaches. The gossips of the neighborhood might
+be seen popping their nightcaps out at every window, watching the crazy
+vehicles rumble by; and there was a knot of virulent old cronies, that
+kept a lookout from a house just opposite the retired butcher's, and
+scanned and criticised every one that knocked at the door.
+
+This dance was a cause of almost open war, and the whole neighborhood
+declared they would have nothing more to say to the Lambs. It is
+true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no engagements with her quality
+acquaintance, would give little humdrum tea-junketings to some of her
+old cronies, "quite," as she would say, "in a friendly way;" and it is
+equally true that her invitations were always accepted, in spite of all
+previous vows to the contrary. Nay, the good ladies would sit and be
+delighted with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would condescend to
+strum an Irish melody for them on the piano; and they would listen
+with wonderful interest to Mrs. Lamb's anecdotes of Alderman Plunket's
+family, of Portsokenward, and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich heiresses
+of Crutched-Friars; but then they relieved their consciences, and
+averted the reproaches of their confederates, by canvassing at the next
+gossiping convocation everything that had passed, and pulling the Lambs
+and their rout all to pieces.
+
+The only one of the family that could not be made fashionable was the
+retired butcher himself. Honest Lamb, in spite of the meekness of his
+name, was a rough, hearty old fellow, with the voice of a lion, a head
+of black hair like a shoe-brush, and a broad face mottled like his own
+beef. It was in vain that the daughters always spoke of him as "the old
+gentleman," addressed him as "papa," in tones of infinite softness,
+and endeavored to coax him into a dressing-gown and slippers, and other
+gentlemanly habits. Do what they might, there was no keeping down the
+butcher. His sturdy nature would break through all their glozings. He
+had a hearty vulgar good-humor that was irrepressible. His very jokes
+made his sensitive daughters shudder; and he persisted in wearing his
+blue cotton coat of a morning, dining at two o'clock, and having a "bit
+of sausage with his tea."
+
+He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity of his family. He
+found his old comrades gradually growing cold and civil to him; no
+longer laughing at his jokes; and now and then throwing out a fling at
+"some people," and a hint about "quality binding." This both nettled
+and perplexed the honest butcher; and his wife and daughters, with
+the consummate policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage of the
+circumstance, at length prevailed upon him to give up his afternoon's
+pipe and tankard at Wagstaff's; to sit after dinner by himself, and
+take his pint of port--a liquor he detested--and to nod in his chair in
+solitary and dismal gentility.
+
+The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting along the streets in French
+bonnets, with unknown beaux; and talking and laughing so loud that it
+distressed the nerves of every good lady within hearing. They even
+went so far as to attempt patronage, and actually induced a French
+dancing-master to set up in the neighborhood; but the worthy folks of
+Little Britain took fire at it, and did so persecute the poor Gaul that
+he was fain to pack up fiddle and dancing-pumps, and decamp with such
+precipitation that he absolutely forgot to pay for his lodgings.
+
+I had flattered myself, at first, with the idea that all this fiery
+indignation on the part of the community was merely the overflowing of
+their zeal for good old English manners, and their horror of innovation;
+and I applauded the silent contempt they were so vociferous in
+expressing, for upstart pride, French fashions, and the Miss Lambs. But
+I grieve to say that I soon perceived the infection had taken hold;
+and that my neighbors, after condemning, were beginning to follow their
+example. I overheard my landlady importuning her husband to let their
+daughters have one quarter at French and music, and that they might take
+a few lessons in quadrille. I even saw, in the course of a few Sundays,
+no less than five French bonnets, precisely like those of the Miss
+Lambs, parading about Little Britain.
+
+I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die away; that
+the Lambs might move out of the neighborhood; might die, or might run
+away with attorneys' apprentices; and that quiet and simplicity might be
+again restored to the community. But unluckily a rival power arose. An
+opulent oilman died, and left a widow with a large jointure and a family
+of buxom daughters. The young ladies had long been repining in secret
+at the parsimony of a prudent father, which kept down all their elegant
+aspirings. Their ambition, being now no longer restrained, broke out
+into a blaze, and they openly took the field against the family of the
+butcher. It is true that the Lambs, having had the first start, had
+naturally an advantage of them in the fashionable career. They could
+speak a little bad French, play the piano, dance quadrilles, and had
+formed high acquaintances; but the Trotters were not to be distanced.
+When the Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats, the Miss
+Trotters mounted four, and of twice as fine colors. If the Lambs gave
+a dance, the Trotters were sure not to be behindhand: and though they
+might not boast of as good company, yet they had double the number, and
+were twice as merry.
+
+The whole community has at length divided itself into fashionable
+factions, under the banners of these two families. The old games of
+Pope-Joan and Tom-come-tickle-me are entirely discarded; there is no
+such thing as getting up an honest country dance; and on my attempting
+to kiss a young lady under the mistletoe last Christmas, I was
+indignantly repulsed; the Miss Lambs having pronounced it "shocking
+vulgar." Bitter rivalry has also broken out as to the most fashionable
+part of Little Britain; the Lambs standing up for the dignity of
+the Cross-Keys Square, and the Trotters for the vicinity of St.
+Bartholomew's.
+
+Thus is this little territory torn by factions and internal dissensions,
+like the great empire who name it bears; and what will be the result
+would puzzle the apothecary himself, with all his talent at prognostics,
+to determine; though I apprehend that it will terminate in the total
+downfall of genuine John Bullism.
+
+The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to me. Being a single
+man, and, as I observed before, rather an idle good-for-nothing
+personage, I have been considered the only gentleman by profession in
+the place. I stand therefore in high favor with both parties, and have
+to hear all their cabinet councils and mutual backbitings. As I am too
+civil not to agree with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed
+myself most horribly with both parties, by abusing their opponents.
+I might manage to reconcile this to my conscience, which is a truly
+accommodating one, but I cannot to my apprehension--if the Lambs and
+Trotters ever come to a reconciliation, and compare notes, I am ruined!
+
+I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in time, and am actually
+looking out for some other nest in this great city, where old English
+manners are still kept up; where French is neither eaten, drunk, danced,
+nor spoken; and where there are no fashionable families of retired
+tradesmen. This found, I will, like a veteran rat, hasten away before I
+have an old house about my ears; bid a long, though a sorrowful, adieu
+to my present abode, and leave the rival factions of the Lambs and the
+Trotters to divide the distracted empire of LITTLE BRITAIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Britain, by Washington Irving
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