The Mahogany Tree
"Some years since" said Thackeray in a public speech, "'when I was younger', and used to frequent jolly assemblies, I 'wrote a Bacchanalian song to be chanted after dinner;' and a contemporary record has preserved a note of "the radiant gratification of his face whilst Horace Mayhew sang The Mahogany Tree, perhaps the finest and most soul-stirring of Thackeray's social songs."
In seeking a Souvenir of this Christmas season the ballad of "The Mahogany Tree" lends itself most felicitously to the present purpose which is to
"—wish you health, and love and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas-tide"
Putting aside for an hour the affairs of a work-a-day world, let us take our places around the convivial board, on the time-stained surface of which we may find infancy the initials of so many boon companions of other days cut deep.
It is pleasant to sport "round the stem of the jolly old tree" in congenial company, and to renew our youth at the bidding of this gracious Toast-master, the centennial of whose birth we shall celebrate presently; the anniversary of whose death was yester-e'en.
