Little Britain | Page 4

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