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 inions 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.