Mercer Chronicle

XV111 INTRODUCTION.
nificence, the expense and glory of one single virgin chariot,
of the Honourable Company of Mercers, far exceeding the
whole charge and grandeur of any common entertainment,
from other foundations on the like public occasion. But
this costly piece of state, so peculiarly your own, is in a high
manner owing to the generous veins that chiefly compose your
society — a society that prides itself in desert than crowds,
whilst with a peculiar caution rarely practised in any city
roofs but your own, you carefully avoid the miscellaneous
conflux of all manner of professions* that generally form the
other companies, and more honourably keep up the quality
of your members to their title, whilst the Mercer and merchant,
those most eminent figures in commerce and trade, make up
the chief body of your constitution.' He adds, ' The short
triumph of a day is, however, the least of your honour. You
have raised yourselves more lasting monuments, to aggrandize
the renown of the Mercers ; witness not only your several
foundations of charity, but of literature too. The famous school
of St. Paul's is a pile that sufficiently records your praise.
Nor does that magnificent nursery of infant students alone
resound your fame, a Mercer's chapel is a generous alma mater
even to the riper race of learned heads, viz., in those
numerous ecclesiastical donations, all in your own disposal,
that even piety and religion come supplicants to your gates,
whilst no less than the Church itself stands a debtor to your
bounty and patronage.' It has been noticed as a curious
singularity, that in the Mercers' Company there is scarcely a
single mercer at the present day. Their mercantile character
they still keep up, many of them being eminent merchants
as they were anciently, and perhaps this may account for
the fact of their having so many lord mayors of this
company." 14
* Might not this caution even now hold good 1 See also in this con-
nection " London was a noble city," &c, &c, p. 20. " Hist, of London,"
John Northouck, London, 1773. See also pp. 75 and 95 as to " commerce?
14 Herbert's History, pp. 240-1.