But let me not anticipate my own intentions, which are to portray, in a few sketches, the links that hold together the _first_ and _last_ of the most momentous periods and undertakings of our lives; to trace the dawn, progress, and decline of many of the best feelings and motives of our nature; to touch, with a pensive colouring, the contrasts they present; to stimulate honourable enterprises by the examples they furnish; and to amuse by the form in which the truths they supply are embodied. I shall begin with a subject not exactly falling within the legitimate scope of my design, but it will serve as an appropriate introduction, and I shall call it
Twelve friends, much about the same age, and fixed by their pursuits, their family connections, and other local interests, as permanent inhabitants of the metropolis, agreed, one day when they were drinking their wine at the Star and Garter at Richmond, to institute an annual dinner among themselves, under the following regulations: That they should dine alternately at each other's houses on the _first_ and _last_ day of the year; that the _first_ bottle of wine uncorked at the _first_ dinner, should be recorked and put away, to be drunk by him who should be the _last_ of their number; that they should never admit a new member; that, when one died, eleven should meet, and when another died, ten should meet, and so on; and that, when only one remained, he should, on those two days, dine by himself, and sit the usual hours at his solitary table; but the _first_ time he so dined alone, lest it should be the only one, he should then uncork the _first_ bottle, and, in the _first_ glass, drink to the memory of all who were gone.
There was something original and whimsical in the idea, and it was eagerly embraced. They were all in the prime of life, closely attached by reciprocal friendship, fond of social enjoyments, and looked forward to their future meetings with unalloyed anticipations of pleasure. The only thought, indeed, that could have darkened those anticipations was one not very likely to intrude itself at that moment, that of the hapless wight who was destined to uncork the _first_ bottle at his lonely repast.
It was high summer when this frolic compact was entered into; and as their pleasure-yacht skimmed along the dark bosom of the Thames, on their return to London, they talked of nothing but their _first_ and _last_ feasts of ensuing years. Their imaginations ran riot with a thousand gay predictions of festive merriment. They wantoned in conjectures of what changes time would operate; joked each other upon their appearance, when they should meet,--some hobbling upon crutches after a severe fit of the gout,--others poking about with purblind eyes, which even spectacles could hardly enable to distinguish the alderman's walk in a haunch of venison--some with portly round bellies and tidy little brown wigs, and others decently dressed out in a new suit of mourning for the death of a great-granddaughter or a great-great-grandson. Palsies, wrinkles, toothless gums, stiff hams, and poker knees, were bandied about in sallies of exuberant mirth, and appropriated, first to one and then to another, as a group of merry children would have distributed golden palaces, flying chariots, diamond tables, and chairs of solid pearl, under the fancied possession of a magician's wand, which could transform plain brick, and timber, and humble mahogany, into such costly treasures.